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etrayamemes2025-03-28 09:16 am
etrayamods) wrote in etrayamemes2025-03-28 09:16 am
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TDM 007
content warnings for this TDM include: violence, potential death, body horror, physical transformation, loss of senses, loss of autonomy  ⏵ arrival⏴ Arrival does not happen as Aurora usually plans for it. New characters are introduced to the AI, then informed of a mission that they are required to participate in before they can return to their home base of Etraya. A world called Aphaia is falling apart, and while there is nothing they can do to resolve this broken world, they can participate in the Gamerunner's Stratagem. Their mission is simple: step through the glowing purple portal that Aurora creates once they've had time to listen to her, and survive until a similar portal reopens in front of them, allowing them to return to Etraya. The Gamerunner's Stratagem is something they have been working on building for quite some time. She informs all newcomers that they will not be present on this world that long: their exit will appear to them exactly when it's meant to, allowing them to meet the others who have been recruited to save their worlds. She provides each and every arrival with an earpiece, allowing them to communicate with the other Etrayans. Aurora suggests taking a bag full of supplies along with them, which she will fill with a few generic items as well as any specific items they may need: synthetic blood for vampires, protein bars for those who may burn through calories faster, medication for anyone who requires it.  ⏵ aphaia ⏴ Aphaia is a neon-lit, chaotic planet. Cameras are everywhere, every action and inaction is judged by the 'audience'. Towering holograms advertise upcoming events while flashing leader boards track the most "popular" players. Contestants are thrown into challenges, many of which are games of skill, survival, and deception all to keep the viewers entertained. Not participating is an option! However, avoiding playing along and not putting on a show will quickly cause participants' score to go down, and scores that reach zero? Well. Unfortunately, there are only so many resources left on Aphaia. Their wildlife has died off, their planet is falling apart, and most others in this galaxy were either destroyed from the inside out, or warring planets trying to gain control of remaining resources destroyed them to avoid others getting involved. Their natural resources are depleted, and only those who manage to keep their scores up are given the luxury of having any supplies. As soon as one steps foot on Aphaia, as soon as they breathe, they intake nanotechnology which tracks their oxygen consumption, their food, everything they do or need. As soon as their scores reach zero? They disappear. There one moment, and completely gone the next. Their communicators go offline, and while everything they were carrying will be left behind, no one will be able to find them. They are simply--gone, erased from existence. This is a death and counts as a death as outlined in the game FAQ! Please keep this in mind. "Points" that go towards their total score will be assigned to contestants from the moment they drop down on planet. This will be visible using the HUD on their earpiece, and will be randomized at the beginning. For the sake of the TDM, we ask that no one be assigned Paragon initially, but you're free to use other ranks! The possible rankings are: 100: PARAGON 99-80: LUMINARY 79-70: CHAMPION 69-50: CONTENDER 49-30: UNDERLING 30-0: SHADE Ranks may change daily, or even hourly depending on the kind of situation one has found themselves in. Are they having a very public break up in which it comes out that they wronged their ex? They may go from a Champion to a Shade before they can even blink. Did they save a defenseless reporter from the big bad villain of the week? They may find themselves quickly elevated up to Luminary and given all the benefits that comes with being upper class. The world is their oyster, they only need to figure out how they'd like to utilize it! Aphaia is broken up into four districts. The Colosseum is a dynamic battle arena where combatants fight for entertainment, with shifting environments controlled by the audience. Victories earn points, while losses depend on performance. The Symposium is a lavish social hub for top contestants, where alliances and betrayals are made under the audience’s watchful eye. The Agora is the public center of Aphaia, where contestants engage with the audience through polls, interviews, and challenges to maintain popularity. It also houses the contestants in high-rise apartments. And Backalleys provide hidden spaces with intentional blind spots for secret dealings, though the Gamerunner is always aware of what happens there.  ⏵ st★rlight soirée ⏴ Something special is happening in the Colosseum. Lights flicker as the arena shifts, rearranging itself into a grand, glittering ballroom - if a ballroom had stadium seating, paparazzi drones, and an ever-changing floor plan designed to disorient those within it. Silver chandeliers pulse with artificial starlight, their glow refracted through the crystalline floors. Music swells, but it sounds - unnatural. It thrums through your veins, setting your blood alight with the urge to dance. Why is the ballroom designed as if intentionally put together to throw off one's balance? Well, it's time for the Panopticon Prom, of course! The Panopticon Prom isn't just an adventure in dancing and impressing your most recent crush. It's a test of endurance, cunning, grace, and charm. The floor beneath your feet moves as if it has a mind of it's own, shifting to the beat like a living creature all of it's own. It tilts, undulates, even vanishing in sections to keep dancers on edge. After all, it's difficult to keep up one's pace if they're falling through a hole in the floor to the foam pit below. Drones zip through the air, catching every stumble, every misstep, and every attempt to throw off others on the dance floor. This is a competition, after all; and what fun is a dance battle without having the freedom to thwart someone else on their road to victory? The rules are simple:
 ⏵ casino royale ⏴ Out in the Agora, another popular quarterly event is being set up! The Casino Royale has been destroyed countless times, but it seems as if the Gamerunner just can't let it go - every time it gets knocked down, it gets rebuilt. There is one rule. One must take a turn at the revolving wheel just inside the door as their entry fee, and whatever the wheel lands on, they must maintain until they exit the building for the night. Sometimes, this is easier: an effect they have no control over and cannot undo even if they wanted to. Sometimes, this is more difficult: an assigned task they must complete. Failure to abide by the wheel once means receiving a penalty. Twice? Certain death if caught by any employee. The wheel's effects are as follows:
The casino is alive with the hum of conversation, the clink of glasses, and the steady whirl of the roulette wheels. Golden chandeliers cast a warm glow over velvet-lined tables, where fortunes are made and lost with the flick of a wrist. But something feels. . . off. The dealers never blink. The cards never seem random. And the house always wins - always. Maybe it's just paranoia, or maybe this casino is something more than just a den of chance. Tonight, you're not here just to play; you're here on a mission. You've arrived dressed to kill, blending into the sea of bodies filling the casino's floors. But you're not here to win points or boost your social standing - you're here to win intel. Somewhere in this casino is a single flash drive containing information on just how Aphaia maintains their system. The only problem? The House knows someone is coming for it. After all, they're well-aware of the game: whoever retrieves the flash drive will obtain information on how to flip the script, to change the rules of the game to fit their wants and needs, rather than following the current Gamerunner. After all, this is the Gamerunner's Stratagem that Aurora has sent them out on! Many apply for 'employment' within the Casino Royale in hopes of getting insider information on where the flash drive is hidden and what it looks like. However, it seems that even the employees have no clue where it has been hidden. This is an extension of our Aphaia Mission! We have included enough information in this post that catching up to current in game logs isn't necessary to play with it, but you are welcome to use any part of the Aphaia setting in your prompts as you'd like. Current players are also welcome to bring the events from this TDM into their in-game threads. This mission can happen outside of time as needed! Incoming characters will find themselves introduced to Aphaia as they arrive. Current characters may find Aurora calling on them to visit Aphaia after the current mission for the Gamerunner's Stratagem. Characters already in game are welcome to post to the TDM, too! Please mark them as current characters in your header. Threads can be kept as game canon as long as both characters get into the game! Please direct all questions relating to this log to our mod queries comment! All other questions can be directed to our FAQ. |
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[she is frowning, eyebrows furrowed at him. it wasn't unusual for James to simply forget things. it was what happened a lot.]
Don't you remember being here before? Lying to me?
[Maria had tried to keep her anger over James leveled but having her memories played back at her not even once but twice, thinking about what James had done to her, and how he had withheld information from her; it made her feel infuriated at what he'd done.]
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( although they were still dancing, bodies moving mindlessly to the beats of the dancefloor around them, james couldn't help but feel a nervousness rise up in his stomach. if there was any doubt in his mind left that this was his maria, it was far from him now—
this is the same woman who got angry at him [for what felt like so many times, over and over again]. he swallowed down a small amount of saliva that had begun to pool around his mouth and he thought carefully about how to answer her.
after all, he had seen her true self, the monster that so sought to rise up and punish him for what he had done. )
Maria if this is some kind of joke, I'm not getting it. I wouldn't lie about this, nothing here....is familiar to me at all.
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and it was just like James to forget.]
We came here together. Or at least, we showed up here at the same time. You remembered our last meeting, I didn't remember the whole thing, and you lied to me. [her hand squeezes his, starting to feel her anger rise.] You didn't tell me what I turned into. I just remembered it myself.
And then others saw it. People who care about me saw it. [she huffs a laugh, eyes rolling.] You're probably surprised people care about me. Well. I am, too.
cw: suicide mentions
because to him, if she didn't kill him then and there he was going to die that day regardless. now though, sucked into a world he didn't remember or recognize, all he could do in this moment was continue dancing as his heart began to race. with each palpitation, and each word from her, he could hear only the anger dripping from her lips and his own heartbeat.
finally when she said those last words, all he could do was look at her with a dark expression. )
I uh....probably figured it was best I didn't tell you what happened. I'm not sure that I even fully understand it.
( he knew it and why it happened, but he lacked the true perspicacity to reflect upon it in a mature way. )
As for that I.....I don't know what to say. You're not even suppose to be here, you aren't even real. If people care about you and see you, then that should mean something right?
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his excuse for what he had done previously makes her already irritated look darken more, and she sighs, this time dancing them away from an obstacle that comes up. not that he deserves her help but damn it, they have a show to put on. an audience to entertain. at the very least, she'll care about her life. he's certainly not going to care about hers.
other people here had told her she was real, no matter what her origins were. other people cared which just seemed impossible of James to do.]
I'm not supposed to be here? You were taken away before me, you know. Maybe you manifested me but [she leans in close, hands on his shoulders so she can whisper in his ear] I'm here now. I'm not letting you ruin this for me. [she pulls back, still glaring at him.] People have told me they'll work to make me able to stay here. Make sure I'm safe. Funny how kindness works, doesn't it?
[she's just getting irritated and she sighs, looking away. it doesn't matter how she feels about this, about him; James won't care. she knows that about him. James will never care about her.] I don't know why I tried to stop Heather from hating you. Not that I think it did much good. She can't stand you.
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( her words spiraled around his mind, each one more vicious than the last but the one thing that truly stood out about this entire conversation was that this woman? girl? heather? hated him. 'who the hell is heather?', he thought and for the first time in the longest he was genuinely starting to become frustrated by this. what could he do to fix this? to run from it and avoid it like he always had?
he wasn't sure what to do, but maria so close to him, whispering those cruel words [in his mind], all he could do was stand paralyzed in fear. he had seen what she had become and the way that tendril lashed out from her and choked him until he could barely think straight. the best thing to do he decided was to simply step a bit further back, holding his hands up in defense. )
Maria I....everything about that world, that town is complicated. I didn't intend....( for her to come to life, to become a manifestation of his suppressed desires. ) for things to end up the way they did. I was going through a lot, I lost my wife....my life the way it was. I just...I was doing the best that I could. ( yet when given the chance to help maria, to unify in the sorrow they both were left with, he ran from it. just like he wanted to do now before she spewed more vile words towards him. )
cutting in...
James, wasn't it? The man who had created her be accident and had killed her after failed attempts to convince him to stay with her. He remembered keenly the sound of her soft cries of his name before he put his foot on her and ended her life while trapped in that monstrous form. She had died unloved, uncared for and basically alone.
When she glared and he threw his hands up, that was enough for him. Despite being a big man, Vander eased through the twirling, swaying dance pairs to come up on both of their sides. He plastered a charming smile on his lips, but his gray eyes were flinty and cold as he closed the distance and was upon them with a glance to Maria before his gaze turned on James.]
May I cut in and take this gent for a waltz, hmm? You don't mind, do you?
[He moved to put a hand on James' shoulder to prevent the man from slipping away or perhaps collapsing to the floor as he moved to slide in between them so he could take James for a little run along the dance floor.]
James, isn't it? Aren't you just a crumpling little thing? Don't worry, I won't let you fall.
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and yet there he stands, excusing himself. Maria cannot deny James hadn't gone through a lot. Mary becoming sick, being fated to die; that is a cruel fate for a man to undergo. but what about her? Maria had certainly never asked to be manifested either, to only have James, to have to be rejected and discarded constantly; not to mention what Mary went through and how these are feelings Maria has inside of her as well.
all because of James. she feels her rage bubbling up, her eyes shining with barely contained wrath when Vander steps in. admittedly, Maria hadn't noticed Vander was nearby. her focus was entirely on James. there is a brief moment of concern for James because Vander had made it clear to her how he felt about James when she'd finally opened up...but that fades just as quickly as it had come to her. for once, someone comes to her rescue, wants to help her, and she opens her arms in a show of allowance. happiness and affection replace the anger she'd felt.]
Have him. I don't think he wanted to dance with me anyway. [she walks towards where Vander had been, wanting to see how this goes.]
cw: murder/suicide mentions, sh2 spoilers
after coming to a realization that most of what he saw in the town came from his own mind and feelings towards things, it was only natural that he also kill off what he felt he no longer needed. he didn't need the red pyramid head thing to punish him anymore as he came to head with the things he had done — so he watched as the two killed themselves off. he no longer needed a woman to comfort him and represent all of his suppressed desires and needs, so naturally he....
he did what he had to do to free himself from that town and the endless array of guilt and emotions he felt. james could have never imagined a world where this woman was sentient and had independent though and wasn't simply just a manifestation or a parrot of his own mind. so to see her here in this world, dancing and claiming people cared about her made him feel something strange. not enough to realize the error of his ways but enough to get the gears in his head turning. before he could say anything else or think of how to remedy the situation, maria was pulled from his grasp and immediately he felt that strong grip on his shoulder, forcing him into place.
he hated confrontations and certainly didn't want to risk his life again [now that it seemed like maria wasn't in any mood to defend him], so all he could do was look off to the side as he watched maria begin to pull away, speaking to him. )
Maria who is this—
( 'person', but before he could answer, he was already being whisked away into some kind of strange and hostile dance. )
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[Vander called that back to Maria as if James wasn't even here in front of him, like the other man had a faint existence at the periphery of their comments to each other even as he stepped into the spot that Maria had once inhabited in front of him.
Then he transferred the full scope of his attention on James and his smile remained warm and inviting as he made a point to grab for James' other hand for his own so they could begin this exciting little waltz. Could they fight? Sure. Would they? Maybe. Vander had limited interest in clobbering James into the dance floor, and he would not be the first one to throw any kind of punches or shoves. He'd be firm with his grip though, limiting easy escape.]
Name's Vander. Thanks for asking.
[Vander actually knew how to dance, and he was happy to take charge of it, sweeping James off as if the other man was his belle for this particular number.] Hand on my hip, doll. It makes this easier. [He twirled them with the beat of the music, carving up the dance floor and forcing people to give way to this particular space that they were occupying. Like most things in his life, Vander was an expert at taking up space and keeping it.]
Maria's told me a little about you, but I like to make my own assessments of people. How's your day going, James? Having fun?
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it made him acutely aware of what was happening. he may have been selfish, distant at times but it didn't take a genius to see what maria had done, the bond she formed with this man before him, and how the bitterness from that last battle they had was still seeping into the way she spoke about james.
he can't say he's too surprised— what he's more surprised about is her being real at all. )
Vander, are you....threatening me?
( that's the first thing he finally said as they twirled and while he refused to put his hand on the other's hip, he did move along without much resistance. anything else he asked or said was ignored and set to the side by james. for now. )
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Besides, he wasn't a bad dancer. He would contend he was a rather good man knowing where his feet were and James was just tugged along without much in the way of resistance. Maybe the man was more of a wet noodle?
He snorted in amusement as he twirled them on the dance floor.] Is asking how a bloke's day going usually a threat where you're from? And don't worry, if I was threatening you, there would be no misconception about it. No, I actually am asking how you're doing.
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( he had a tendency to shy away from confrontation like this, avoiding it outright but there was something about this entire situation that made him feel bold enough to try and hold his own ground down. despite that though, with a rather annoyed expression in his eyes, he finally did answer. )
It's not going to well if you want the truth. I just arrived here with no recollection of ever being here and apparently someone named 'Heather' hates me. How's your day going?
( showing the most emotion he has in a long time, he let out a frustrated sigh. he could probably stop this dance at this point, but something about that grip kept him frozen in place. )
no subject
It wasn’t that he took pleasure in James’ discomfort and obvious skittishness, but he was certain that Maria was at least having a good time watching from the distance. And he figured it was his sheer size as he had layered on muscle since he arrived and he had six inches on James and that was even if he was shrimping his shoulders.
He nodded his head at the answer, drinking it in without judgment.]
Heather, huh? Yeah she and Maria are close, so that’s understandable. Of course, to be fair, you did stomp on Maria to kill her so… I suppose that might instill some bad blood across the board.
[He was actually surprised that James reciprocated the question. Most people that he ran into wouldn’t, especially in a situation like this. Well, well, Mr. Sutherland…]
I can’t complain about my day. I’m just here to enjoy myself and now I’ve willingly joined a dance competition, which is unexpected. This place, I swear, it puts us in all manner of situations.
*coughs* James 'Kiefer' Sutherland
then came that little reveal.
it left him in shock for a moment, feet halting to whatever rhythm was being played, and immediately the device in his ear counted off his point reduction. he had already on the lower end of the scoreboard and with this he was facing near disappearance. it was enough to finally stir him into some kind of action―
he violently pulled away from the other, taking a step back as all those painful memories began to flood into his mind. he couldn't quite admit it to maria, and he certainly couldn't admit it to himself, but here he was for the first time, finally revealing his feelings. )
She's a figment of my imagination in our world, she was never real. I don't know how the hell this place made her real and made her have emotions but you weren't there. She was just parroting what I felt deep inside....what I wanted.
I realized...( he realizes he sounds cruel, because clearly maria had come to be well liked here but- ) I didn't need her anymore to comfort me from the truth. We've both been....doing that forever it seemed and in a way I put her out of her misery.
So enjoy yourself.....dance with her and do whatever you want. I think I should go.
no subject
Yet, his expression closed and became decidedly less friendly when James decided to go on a little tantrum tirade. It was true that he wasn't there, but he had spent time with Maria here and she was as real and with the full breadth of emotions of any person that he had ever known.]
She is real, and she is here and living a life in this place which was denied to her wherever she came from. And if that's what you do to your imagination figments, I would hate to see what you're capable of to those around you.
[He suddenly snapped a hand out to try to catch James by the throat, wanting to use his size to his advantage to make a point. If he could, he'd lift the man off the ground and bring him closer.]
However, that's my friend you're talking about putting down, and I don't like that regardless of your ideas of justifying it. Now, I think you're going to apologize to the lady. Do you think you can agree to that, friend?