♥ 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

[carbungle]

[Her questions tend to lean more on the intense side (at least, intense when it comes to his usual arms-length comfort zone), so she can hopefully forgive him for hesitating. The distracted look in her eyes is what makes him finally answer, however, as he's not certain what exactly that means.]

What's up?

[iustaegis]

[ From her profile, she glances sidelong at him. ]

What do you find beautiful?

[ This question is spoken softly, accompanied by a measuring, curious light in her eyes. It is time to find out if he and that man are truly alike. ]

[carbungle]

Beautiful...?

[Definitely didn't expect that question. His brows furrow, puzzling over it; his answer does not come immediately. He's seen a lot of beautiful things in his travels, but it's not often he sits down to name them. How to answer? Maybe something specific?]

...I remember... one of the first nights in Galdin Quay, this little beach resort we stopped at, we had to camp out because we didn't have the money for a hotel. Gladio woke me up at the crack of dawn so we could train. And don't get me wrong, I hate mornings, but... something about the sun on the beach really got me. I didn't get to see that kind of stuff back home. The city and the barrier always messed with the light, if you could even see it between all the skyscrapers.

[More than that- it'd been the last day he'd woken up satisfied, happy, genuinely without care aside from the whimsies of the day. The morning that followed they gotten the news about home, about the treaty, about his father. That was the day his easygoing roadtrip towards an arranged marriage had shifted instead to a journey of fate, gods, war, revenge. He woke a prince and by nightfall was titled a king, something he hadn't wanted and wasn't ready for. Peace became such a rare commodity, the nights became longer, and eventually even he, who hates mornings, could wake up and find the sun still rising, the last of the daemons descending back into the earth. He'd see the sky, and he'd remember that day again. The last day he'd been free.

He closes his eyes for a long moment, trying to hold on to that feeling, and when he opens them again his expression is softer, nostalgic and longing.]

There, though? The whole ocean looked like it was on fire. It was so cool.

[And it was beautiful. It was the most beautiful sunrise he'd ever seen.]

1/3

[iustaegis]

[ She listens attentively, his tone and expression captivating alone: he  appears peaceful, content, lost in the past. He describes a memory, a time passed, and the nostalgic cadence with which he speaks gives away longing. A wish to return to that time? No, a wish to have a memory like that once more: sitting upon the shores with those for whom he cares, sharing a moment of tranquility together. 

He thinks of not just any sunrise, but the light of one that curls over the horizon and sets water ablaze with soft peaches, washes of oranges, and deep, soulful reds. It is a fire, only one that burns a memory into hearts so privileged to witness. She can just imagine it: the surface of the ocean glimmering like a stretch of beaded satin as the earth gracefully turns upon its axis in the same slow dance it has done for eons. He describes a sunrise which would challenge even the most masterful of painters to render, for mere depictions of peace never capture the serenity of the moment...

...

 For one, the world. For the other, the sunrise.   

Neither of them seem to take its slow, daily raising for granted. They are both doing their part to ensure the next day follows. 

Somnus, for the world.  Noctis, for that sunrise. For both combined, it seems, the future: that the light might continue to shine upon the world. 

Her lips part  as a slow breath escapes her, thoughtful and humbled all at once. There are many things she can say in return here, but something far more important catches her attention instead:  ] 

[iustaegis]

Your smile... [ She peers closely, brow lightly knit, lips pursed quietly as she speaks slowly. ] Just now, I mean. 

[ Then, she eases away a margin, just enough that the levelness of her gaze reins in with the new distance. ] 

It was... different. 

[ Different-- for a multitude of reasons: for describing the past, for bringing up a pleasant memory, for seeming so peaceful in that moment-- it's as if he's taken piece of the past with him to the present, reminding him of what he holds as precious. He has these memories he cherishes with those he loves... ]

[iustaegis]

[ And different from the expressions he's shown in this single conversation, different in the sense that that smile seems almost foreign upon his lips. It softens his features considerably, it makes him look younger-- as if... he is meant to have that smile.

A moment passes, another follows, and then her expression melts into a smile of her own. ]

...It was lovely. 

[carbungle]

[His smile is gone immediately - the price of pointing such things out, with him - replaced by a mildly startled look, as if he's been caught in the act of doing something untoward, or at least uncharacteristic. It's not like he doesn't smile much, it's just that today's been... a lot. Hell this week has been a lot. And the conversation they've been sharing is not at all what he'd expected from the moment she sat down with him.

It takes him a few seconds to shake it off, but when he does, his expression is a neutral mask, difficult to decipher, and he shakes his head.]

Wrong.

[He lifts a hand, as if calling for attention.]

It was beautiful.

[The way he says it is his attempt to sound "cool", calm and collected, but she, observant as she is, might catch the subtle weave of playfulness in his tone.]

1/3!! again!

[iustaegis]

[ --Oh. Indeed, the smile is gone in a flash.

And then, he's... ]

[iustaegis]

[ He's joking. He's joking and it's corny but it's also funny. Light dances in her eyes before the giggle even comes out between her lips.

Fine, she'll play. ]

[iustaegis]

[ Her look is clever. ]

How about "radiant", mm?

[carbungle]

That just makes it sound like I'm the sun, now.

[Which is a little bit too silly.]

[iustaegis]

[ This boy— ]

Dazzling, then?

[ With her free hand, she mimics the gesture of ~coolness~ he had done just moments before; unlike him, though, it’s accompanied by a laugh. ]

[carbungle]

[Okay, she wins. He's grinning at that.]

That's a good one, too.

[iustaegis]

[ Fingerguns.

...Okay no fingerguns, since she's still holding his hand, but she is giving him a playful smile with her laughter. ]

Beautiful, radiant, dazzling. Don't let it get to your head, now.

[carbungle]

Hey, have a little faith. I won't.

[He absolutely will and already has.]

[iustaegis]

[ It’s the truth, she thinks. ]

Mm, good. I don’t think your wild hair could contain any more ego.

[carbungle]

[wow!! fired, you are fired.]

What, does it look weird?

[And suddenly he is very concerned about the state of that hair, reaching up to fuss with it and fix any out-of-place locks. This is him, Pyra. Your new beautiful, radiant, dazzling lightbringer hero. An aesthetic snob and still very much a young guy barely out of high school.]

1/2

[iustaegis]

[ ...........She watches him as he fusses with his hair, pleased that her jest is bringing out this side of him. But then—




Hol’ the fuck up. ]

[iustaegis]

You mean to say— you style it that way on purpose?

[carbungle]

What? I do!

[OH NO IT DOES LOOK WEIRD DOESN'T IT]

[iustaegis]

[ Color her surprised—

She can’t say she’s ever seen hair styled quite like it. ]

I... I wouldn’t have guessed! [ For once in their conversation, her eyes leave his youthful face to lift to his mane. ]

You make it look, ah, effortless!

[ Like he ~woke up like dis.~ ] As if the... wind tossed your hair itself.

[carbungle]

[Wow did she say his hair couldn't contain more ego? Because she is testing that.]

Oh... you think? [His fussing eases off a bit, tugging on one of the locks hanging past his ear.] Definitely not effortless. It's harder here- the robots don't sell much in the way of hair care. I kinda have to put the work in, though. It looks boring when it's down.

[Filed under: reason # 2 why he hates when it rains.]

[iustaegis]

[ "Effortless" is just low-key saying that he has bed-head Now that she looks at it? Yeah-- yeah, it does appear as if he puts a good amount of thought into the style. She leans in a bit to inspect more closely. ]

Do many people from your world wear their hair like this?

[ Maybe it's popular in his home world! ]

[carbungle]

Uh... I guess it's become a pretty popular style in Insomnia, sure. I've been doing it since I was a lot younger than this, so I didn't pay that much attention to what everyone else was doing.

[His hair kind of flips up naturally when it's short and dry, so he just rolled with it. and it's not like it became popular because it was the crown prince's signature style, nooo

Since she's leaning in so close, though, he can't quite help lifting a hand to give her little front curl a playful flick.]

And you're one to talk about hairstyles! Yours is pretty fancy too, isn't it?

1/3

[iustaegis]

[ She blinks as his finger flicks at the curl of her bangs; he's the first to have ever done so. ]