♥ November Intro Mingle Log

[hugtopiamods]

November Intro Mingle Log
Welcome to Hugtopia, and to the city of Havenwell. This mingle is meant for new arrivals to get settled and meet the other inhabitants. New characters should be the only top-levels but everyone is free to tag around and make new friends. Who knows, you may find that Perfect Hug in here. You can use the prompts here, or create a wildcard of your own.

ICly, this takes place from the 2nd to around the 10th, with a proper event coming soon after applications are processed. The prompts below are optional, but are a way to get you started if you wish. To help you create your own prompts, please take a look through our Settings and FAQ. Click on each prompt's title to see the text.

If you have any questions, feel free to direct them to the FAQ or to the Mod Question thread below.

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❥ PROMPT I: Awakening

When you awaken, you're in the last outfit you remember wearing, (up to) three of your belongings laid nearby or your animal friend curled up by you, waking as you do. A stone slab is not the most comfortable place to sleep, but once you're awake, a humanoid-looking robot comes into the room and explains that you're in Havenwell, then leads you out of the room and into the main portion of the temple where a welcoming committee of similarly humanoid-looking robots hand over a clear smartphone-sized tablet, some starting funds, and explain their dilemma. Then they release you into Havenwell to pick your new home from free housing in the city and give you the chance to settle. It might be a bit disorienting, but thankfully there seem to be a lot of robots and even some non-robots around. Maybe ask them for help? Strike up a friendly conversation, get to know your neighbours! It seems as if you may be here for the long haul.

❥ PROMPT II: Buddy System

With all the changes and the fear of a secondary attack lingering, the natives are a lot more protective of their newest arrivals. When new characters begin to appear at the temples, they receive the welcome speech, get their communicators and the simple map of the city, and a warning to stay away from the walls. Then they get taken to the front of the temple by a helpful robotic priest. Rather than turn the newcomers loose right away, they pull someone seemingly at random off the street and push the two people together with a cheerful, "It's dangerous to go alone, so please show our newest resident around. Please be buddies!" They wait until they're certain the pair is going to be moving off together before going back inside.

They try to place a new arrival with one of those who previously arrived, but who can keep track of all that, right? Characters may find themselves thrown together with an actual veteran or with another new arrival who only came here a day or even just an hour before them! Good luck helping each other out, offworlders, and don't lose your buddy!

❥ PROMPT III: Virtual Research

After the attack, every part of the city is on repair duty and the means the Entertainment District as well. As new arrivals wander the city, they might be called into one of the numerous Virtual Reality cafes. These cafes vary in layout, but most have areas for the natives to plug directly into the machines and other areas which have older looking virtual reality helmets that allow flesh bodied people experience the games. For those who need assistance with their sensory inputs, basic options like audio descriptions of visual scenes, enhanced audio and descriptive speech, closed captions, and crude mobility chairs are available. A handful of cafes have other options like direct visual or audio cortex stimulation to simulate vision or hearing, or suspension tanks to allow simulated movement, but these are currently unavailable due to damage.

All of these facilities are, unfortunately, under repair. The direct plug-in systems are easier for the robot natives to fix because they can do the most important part of it - testing - by themselves. But for the helmets and other interface systems, they need your help. Naturally, they'll pay you for the work, but they need the offworlders to play the available games and record any areas where they find glitches. Playing with a partner increases your chances of finding and fixing any issues, so feel free to log in for free for once and test any of the following games:

• Big Bass Fishing
The beautiful lake has blue-green waters surrounded by forest and rocky, reedy shores. You and your companion are on a small single-motor fishing boat and you have fishing gear - two poles in the water. As the game starts up a read-out announces the objective: Catch the largest fish before the time limit ends. What's the time limit? ...Well, that's your first glitch because it reads as static. Might as well start fishing though, right? It doesn't take long to catch a few regular sized fish, nothing too exciting, and then? You get the big one - it bows your fishing rod nearly in half as you reel it up. The fish leaps into the air and you realize this is your next glitch because the fish hangs there - the size of a minivan - and yells, "BIG. BASS. FISHING. ATTACK." The fish slaps its fins and tails at the boat and now you and your fishing companion better fight this fish or you'll end up in the lake or worse.


• A (un)Familiar Experience
Jump into the life of the temple familiars and see life from their perspective! Choose the temple, any temple is fine, and be transformed into a fledgling rainbow dragon, a purple mouse, a white raven, or a blue feline. You're free to move about the virtual confines of the temples and, in fact, you can even interact with other familiars in their temples - who may be other players in this game. Play, climb, try to get your fledgling wings to fly, tumble about with the other mice, enjoy your simple life as an animal! --or you would if you weren't an insane size. Rather than being a small mouse, you're the size of a horse. That fledgling rainbow dragon? About the size of a fly. The building sizes are off, too - one might have door that's 30 feet tall, but a ceiling that's only 12. Everything else seems fine, but those sizes? Well, you better figure out how to get around that.


• Robot Crossing
Logging in with another character will net you a little farm and a variety of games to choose from:
1. Pick and harvest as many Aellyn vegetables and fruits as you can before the timer runs out! The more you pick, the better your score. Work together with your partner to clear the field in any way you can. Strangely, once you finish clearing a tree or a field row of their bounty, they seem to magically refill when you turn your back. Strangely, when the timer runs out? It flashes 00:00 and the game...doesn't? Stop? In fact, the fruits and vegetables just keep multiplying and multiplying and if you don't hurry up you might just get buried in them all!
   
2. With a partner, use the giant slingshot to launch comically large fruits into a garden patch of other colored fruits. Match a line of 3 or more similarly shaped fruits to clear it from the field. The more fruits you can clear, the higher your score - aka welcome to Fruit Crush. Stack lines of 6 or more to get shining clear diamond fruits that clear the entire row and snag yourself some bonus points. Or they should, but whenever you clear away a matching set, the fruits explode, sending fruit bits and juice everywhere - most notably on you and your partner. Still, the game is going on and it looks like it won't stop until you finish, so good thing it's all a computer game, right? Sure feels real though - reeeeeeally sticky.
   
3. You and your partner(s) are given a magical golden pumpkin and it's your job to grow it into the largest pumpkin possible. Why? There's a county fair of course and the largest pumpkin wins! But how do you grow this pumpkin? Well, for whatever reason? This pumpkin is already the size of a grizzly bear and it just won't stop growing! You and your partner better find a way to stop it from growing out of control or you might get (virtually) crushed! You could do a song and dance routine together to touch the pumpkin's soul to teach it moderation or calm its insane vegetable puberty. You could hold hands and share stories and entertain the pumpkin until it feels satisfied that it's grown enough. You could just hack and slash at it in an attempt to reduce its unwieldy bulk. The possibilities are endless and so is the pumpkin's growth, so you better hurry!

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Comments

[this_loser]

[What ... makes a home?

He actually has to stop and think about that. It was easy to say Eos was his home - that was the world he'd come from. Insomnia was his home - it's where he grew up. But his house had never felt like a home. It was usually empty and cold. He'd felt more at home in Noct's apartment. The Fleet had been home for two years, though he'd moved from one ship to another a couple times. The common theme had been the people he wanted to be with.]

I guess... Home is where you feel safest. It's where you feel comfortable and loved.

[iustaegis]

[ She watches his expression; he's thinking, he's... nostalgic, perhaps, lost in some memories of yore. Of course a question like that would evoke a thoughtful expression like that, and on someone so youthful at that! (She worries for a split second if she had inquired too much-- that asking after his "homes" may have drudged up terrible memories instead.)

But this tells her that his answer, above all else, is nothing but reliable. Safe, comfortable, loved. Three criteria....that fascinate her. Three criteria that she's never had. She looks upon him as if he were a scholar. ]

...Do... you feel safe here? [ It's a funny thing to follow up with, she supposes, what with the recent attack. ] Or is it more so by the people you are with?

[this_loser]

[Another answer he had to think about. If she'd come here sooner, his answer might have been different. Now?]

Not ... not really. We've learned some things about this place that are worrying.

[There's a but...]

But there are people who are very important to me, so, I do feel safer with them.

[iustaegis]

[ Safest, comfortable, and loved. She will remember these things that are the foundation of a home. ] I've heard... that there was a frightening attack on the city. [ And she had seen the break in the wall, too, so. Kinda obvious.

Her hands, still holding his, sway gently back and forth. Next, is a question of comfort and love. ] Those people here with whom you feel safest... do you love them?

[this_loser]

[Normally, he would feel more uncomfortable about holding hands like this with a stranger. But he finds he doesn't mind too terribly much. Maybe the void Kaname's disappearance had left behind made him crave any kind of kind gesture.

He doesn't have to think long about the question. Smiles a little as he does.]

I ... Yeah. I do.

[iustaegis]

[ Again: safe, comfortable, and loved. He has all of these things here. Ergo: ]

...Then.... then--- ah, [ As she says this, her smile widens in excitement. In her earnestness, her hands holds his more tightly. ] that must mean you have something of a home here, too.

[ He had seemed so lost just moments before, but it seems that there is a little more energy in him now. Such a somber expression doesn't suit one with such wild hair. The color reminds her of tall wheat rolling along the hills; it reminds her of its harvest, of people gathering around for a bountiful season, community, friendship, and what must be home for others. ]

I hope your family only grows.

[this_loser]

[That gets a laugh out of him.]

Yeah. I guess you're right.

[Home is where the heart is, right? Since Insomnia fell, that had been wherever his friends were.]

Thanks, uh... Sorry. I don't think I got your name.

[iustaegis]

Oh...! My name is Pyra.

[ How happy she appears to say it, too, her hands swinging his lightly. It's as if this-- hand-holding, saying her name to others, everything-- is delightedly new to her. ]

And you?

[this_loser]

[He's ... kinda getting that. It's refreshing, in a way. Not everyone arrived in good humor.]

Prompto.

So, uh, do you need help finding anything?

1/2

[iustaegis]

[ A finger drums lightly over his knuckles as she appears to think. Does she need help with finding anything?

Food? No. Clothes? Also no regrettably, because she is a fashion disaster. A townhouse? Also no, since she's someone to live with already. ]

[iustaegis]

[ She can only think of one other thing at the moment: ]

A hat store!

[ Because she saw this guy wear this cowboy hat and now she wants one.... ]

[this_loser]

Y-you want a hat?

[That's not at all what he was expecting. He takes back one of his hands to scratch at the back of his head.]

Uh... Okay! Sure. I can show to the city center. There's a bunch of shops there.

[iustaegis]

[ She makes a pleased sound, tugging encouraging at his hands to lead. ]

The one I have in mind is... medium sized, slightly wide-brimmed, that curls upward along its edges. [ She lifts her hands above her head, motioning out its shape. ] Do you know the kind?

[ Better question, do robots wear hats, would there be a hat store at all..?

EVEN BETTER QUESTION, can she please have a hat better than a bowboy hat. ]

[this_loser]

Uh, maybe?

[He's trying to visualize it. Could be a 10-gallon hat. Bard hat? Sun hat, possibly?

There was probably a hat shop - or at least a clothing shop that also sold hats. If not, there were tailors.]

Only way to find one is to look.

[iustaegis]

[ With a gentle tug at his hand, she motions to lead. ]

Then, shall we?