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etrayamemes2025-05-30 09:20 am
etrayamods) wrote in etrayamemes2025-05-30 09:20 am
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TDM 008
content warnings for this TDM include: gambling references, mild horror themes and suggestive content  ⏵ arrival⏴ Arrival does not happen as Aurora usually plans for it. Newcomers generally find themselves waking up within the hospital, are given a brief overview of their situation, and sent on their way. Now? They wake up immersed in a game within The Gold Saucer. But it doesn't quite feel like a game: whether it's snowy mountains, riding a chocobo as you listened to the wind quickly pass by your ears, or in the middle of a battle with a beast, it feels utterly real. It's only after the game concludes - either by winning or losing - that you find yourself back in the main game area. A bot, dressed as personnel in this lavish playground, approaches each arrival with an earpiece allowing them to communicate with those in their same situation. It also serves to inform them of their goal: collect enough gold saucer points (or GP) by playing the games to acquire a card fashioned to their own likeness from the game counter. Then, they must trade it for someone else's. Seems simple enough, right? Hopefully the cards aren't too expensive...  ⏵ the gold saucer ⏴ The Gold Saucer is an ode to the very idea of fun. It’s huge, labyrinthine, colorful, and lively. Everywhere you look, there’s something to do. At the same time, it’s also impossible to tell what time it is. There are no windows to the outside, there are no clocks. This place is beyond such a thing. There are games everywhere you look, ranging from the pseudo-gambling to sports to pixelated video games in cabinets. Yet no matter which boxing game, pinball machine, or skeeball machine you look at, the same creatures and themes arrive. Cactuars, chocobos, the fiercest Behemoth, the cuddliest Moogle… For those from the realms of Final Fantasy, this will feel natural- homey even. Everyone else will simply understand that there is a fairly strong central theme here about magic, machines, and monsters. It’s hard to tell how long you spend here, and it seems to sit outside of the very concept of time. Still, there are many restaurants, lounges, and vending machines. There are shops and costume rentals. There are even little pharmacies with headache remedies if the partying gets out of hand. And when you grow tired, there is a hotel- though it is made up like a haunted house, you can count on getting some semi-restful sleep.  ⏵ playtime ⏴ At first, stepping through to play any of these games may make participants wonder if they have been teleported somewhere else entirely. But on closer inspection, all the skies above are merely well-constructed interiors with painted ceilings. After all, it always seems to be daytime during these games. Snowboarding - Race to the bottom of the mountain, but avoid obstacles and complete as many tricks as possible! Chocobo Racing- Race on Chocobo-back around a treacherous outdoors race track which can either be taking place in a desert, a swampy forest, or upon an island beach. Work in tandem with your rented bird and against your competition by throwing hazards in their way or utilizing buffs garnered on the track. Different colored birds will yield different advantages. Yellow - Good All Rounder Red - Fast, but hard to steer Blue - Slower, but very easy to steer. Much easier to pick up items from them. Green- Resilient against traps and sabotage Colosseum Battle- Face off against the fiercest beasts around. Pair up with friends or rivals to Collaborate or Compete to do the most damage and deliver the final blow. These battles are synced to the comparative power of the one entering the competition. We wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt unnecessarily, after all. And indeed, no one will get seriously, gruesomely, or permanently injured in these battles. Those without fighting capabilities can rent weapons outfitted Materia to assist them in their trial. These will allow anyone to cast spells, though not guarantee any better wielding of weapons. There are a hundred rounds, starting with fairly simple Spriggans, ranging all the way up to blood-thirsty Behemoths to challenge even the most battle-hardened hero. Leap of Faith- Players are presented with an obstacle course that stretches a hundred feet into the air upon floating platforms and islands. Both are held aloft by magical crystals. Powers are entirely nerfed, though falling and hitting the ground is strangely painless. Those who collect the most silver and gold statuettes of cactuars placed at random throughout the course will be awarded proportionate GP; though there is a bonus for those that reach the very top first. Triple Triad- Everywhere you look, people are playing this game on little 3 by 3 boards, or any surface with enough space. You will be given a loaner deck to play with. Are you clever enough to defeat your fellows. Fashion Report- Theobold, familiar to some, stands by himself in a little booth with a dressing room and an incredibly expansive walk-in closet. He is a robot of distinguished fashion and strong opinions on those fashions. Do you dare subject yourself to his scrutiny? Come prepare in his wondrous closets to make the best outfit for the chance to win a prize. Please submit your fashion here! There are Arcade Machines and activities galore. If you can think of it, it’s probably there- Just with that Final Fantasy pastiche on it, of course.  ⏵ the beehive lounge ⏴ There are other places to eat at the Gold Saucer, but the vending machines and cafés all pale in comparison to the dinners at the Beehive. For all the rave reviews, there is a dress code at the Beehive, and this is literal. If you step inside and are not currently wearing a dress, you will be ushered into a sideroom and appropriately made over. However, this is only for those trying to go in through the normal doors. Around the side there happens to be an employee entrance, manned by a bot. He will only allow those in who seem like they intend to work— and therefore must be wearing at least one piece of the Bunnysuit Collection to trick the guard. Once you are made over or have snuck in, you are free to relax inside with drinks, dine on a fine meal, watch the dancers, or participate yourself if you feel brave enough. Why would anyone ever dance here? Well, that’s simple. It pays really well. So if you’re sick of games, or terrible at them— you can always come dance for a shift. Though, don't get any unseemly ideas about freeing yourself of your clothing, this isn't that kind of establishment!  ⏵ haunted house ⏴ When you grow too weary or drunk from a day of games, you may be directed to somewhere a little quieter to sleep. Up the elevator, and through the doors reveals a modest walk through some woods until a quaint, victorian hotel appears. It is always nighttime here, and the stars and moon twinkle above. The receptionist, a bot in a rather bedraggled-looking chocobo mascot costume checks you in and shows you to your room. You can sleep here, especially if you can tolerate the hokey haunted decorations strung up around the place. Though sometimes, late at night, there will come a vigorous thumping on the door to startle sleeping patrons awake- Only for the culprit to vanish and be impossible to locate.  ⏵ ticket counter ⏴ The prize counter is manned by a bot and has a sign posted overhead. Most prizes will be handed over inside an appropriately sized wrapped box, as the contents are a mystery.
This TDM may be treated as a mini-Mission. Time will not pass inside of it in relation to the world outside - meaning, this can be happening at any time between late May into early July! This Gold Saucer is a bit of a mix between that of FF7's and FF14's, but it also has some things that neither have as well. Any inaccuracies are entirely intentional, aimed to make this rest within a space of uncanny valley for those who are familiar. While otherwise being a bit of a chaotic fantastical funhouse for everyone else! If there is something unlisted, chances are it will exist if it is in either of the other versions of the Gold Saucer. 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 to our mod queries comment! |
no subject
For that matter, I'm also a fighter who avoids trying to get messed up while making sure everyone else doesn't get messed up. I don't want to see you hurt anymore than you want to see me hurt, right?
( Will this logic fly. She tries to remember if it would have with her, and she thinks so? Then again, as a teenager, she'd been on the path to joining the Hunter's Association, not already a self-proclaimed fighter in any codified sense. )
And it's not a split skull I'm worried about — concussions are worse long term, and you can get one of those no matter how hard your head is.
( As... someone... has told her before. Alex reflects that this says something about her own stubbornness, but decides now isn't the time or place for extended reflection, and lets the thought float away on the wind. )
How about we compromise? You at least take the goggles?
( Logic: he's already stated his innate belief in the hardness of his head, but protecting the eyes could mean lessened chances of injury through heightened visibility. Right? Somewhere in the multiverse, Zayne is sighing with great depth of feeling right now. )
no subject
That person is not Gorgug, and also: he hates explaining anything. What does Gorgug know will happen to his head or any part of his body, really? So when Alex offers back the goggles, he looks at them not with any particular expression (curious, at most) and then takes them. ]
Okay. [ No complaint here! Instead, he reflects on something that they did say, and with a nod, says, ] My friend, he's a fighter too, and my head's really hard, but he learned the best way to make people focus on him in a fight. You've got to be a good dodger.
[ Or so he hopes Alex is, if either of them are the same. Then again, does that make any sense to them? Regardless, Gorgug puts the goggles back on over his eyes.
He's a good boy! ]
no subject
... which is definitely too large...
... and laughs internally, mostly at herself. )
Yeah, dodging attacks coming in, physical or otherwise, does help. Both in drawing and avoiding focus, if you have someone else helping with distractions.
( Alex glances toward the smoother path down the mountainside, lifting her chin... and tightening the chin strap, because the helmet just sort of slides backward. At least with the strap tight, it stays more in place. )
Ready to try earning your points?
( She's going to have to strap her other foot to the board, isn't she. )
no subject
But with that, Gorgug doublechecks the straps on his own board, as if Alex needed any more reminder of the task ahead. He wouldn't have been able to share his board, at least, by the large size of his foot.
He gives himself a little wobble on the board. As you do. ]
Yeah. [ Wobble wobble. An intentional wobble! ] Do I look cool?
[ Looking cool is so important. ]
no subject
Very cool. Want to take the lead?
( She rocks on her own board, sending it forward in short little slides across the snow. Okay. Okay! Maybe this won't be so bad? )
no subject
[ Said, like he's quoting something from a show--but it's all teen bravado, and once they finally make their descent to send their boards sliding, there's a beep from somewhere that takes note of their crossing the starting line. The sound of the snow is loud, though maybe less so for Alex. Gorgug's got the eye coverage, and does he know how to snowboard? Has he ever done it before?
No, he just came here to fuck around and see how much of a cool guy he could look like (before he knew about the chocobo-yellow snow wear he had to wear). But the immediate way forward for the head is simple, clear, except for a few balloons floating in place. Are they rewards? Should they be collected or ignored?
Well, Gorgug moves out of the way of one, but does try to bat an arm to grab it anyway. It's a balloon hanging around! He wants to grab it for fun! Alas, it doesn't work...
Alex, are you going to ignore the balloons, and focus solely on keeping aboard the board? It's not in view, but soon enough will be in a split in the road..! ]
ree do you care if i go absolutely absurd
She makes it over the lip before the downhill! Balanced, sure, she's got that. Then she shifts her weight, only it's not the way that works for snowboarding, so her arms pinwheel and she pulls her board around hard on accident, sending her falling back and landing on her rear with a umph. One of the balloons is over her head now. It bobs there, tauntingly. )
This is why I'd take lessons if I was doing this by choice!
( She mutters up at the balloon. The balloon is unaffected, until she bops it with her head getting back up and batting it out of the way. Then it releases a singing sort of short little ditty, and the equivalent of a sparkler being lit hovers in the air behind where they've already been.
That road split arrives as Alex comes again to the realisation that she is not properly prepared for snowboard navigation, especially as she picks up speed hitting a hidden mogul and bends her knees as she gains air, shot down one side of the split in the road by the nature of her angled hit. )
Woah!
( The bent knees and her general sense of balance help her stick the landing, but she entirely misses the balloons floating over this section, because... she... ducked under them to stick her landing.
... Alas. )
as long as it involves falling obstacles from above. and maybe cactaur popping out from the ground
Like Gorgug, amazing anime that he is, has his singular balloon (that made its own fizzle and popping noise) that he hasn't bothered to let go of, even though it's providing him no benefits. The path they've both taken curves--not sharply, and it's a small bend that sends them back onto a straight line with a soft slope that gives them momentum without increasing their speed massively.
This will surely be how everything will stay for the duration of the snowboarding game.
Unfortunately, that doesn't mean their obstacles are small balloons that may or may not be a positive(?). Trees come in, and the sight of them gets a "Oh, shit" under Gorgug's breath. He's trying to listen out for Alex, snaps his head to look back quickly, but there's the panic that comes from trees! pine cone trees! in their path that has him hoping that neither of them end up colliding, potentially, when he angles his board to change trajectory to peel off from the side his ride has so far kept him on to come into the middle...
But there's the thing, when you're sliding beautifully and caring only about angling yourself away from a tree and not considering everything else: it's very easy to bash up against the tree that you're boarding towards directly on your right. Gorgug skids without control and flips, taking a few tumbles before he lands on his back.
please don't run over him, Alex.... and don't worry about him... h-he'll get up! The games only allow damage to your dignity! ]
y e s
Still, she hasn't turned into a snowball with a board that goes rolling down the mountain, so while she does manage to keep with the turn, she's less capable of evading the balloon... that pops over her head, sending what looks like glitter or birdseed flying everywhere. There's a system chime alert for it, but with nothing else immediately happening, she focuses on the whole go forward, avoid falling if possible momentum she has going on.
Those trees, for example. She might not be in super speed mode, but she has to consider: threading the needle through these things. It takes enough of her concentration from where she is behind Gorgug that she doesn't see him take a tumble, or hear him sqawk as he falls...
... Possibly because he didn't actually squawk at all. That thought flies out of her head as she narrowly leans her body away from where he's finally landed, skirting just by him... and getting a load of snow falling down on her head as the surrounding trees try to lighten their loads. Pine needs, man. They just be like that sometimes. )
Woah! Are you okay?!
( She calls back, already past him, when that squawk comes even louder. A massive thud disturbs multiple trees and sends snow falling from all those in radius, leaving clumpy piles around the well at the tree's bases. It's also behind Gorgug that the creature which just fell from the sky slowly straightens to its full height: a big blue chocobo, wearing massive snowshoes on its feet.
It warbles the song of its people, scrapes one massive foot and snowshoe against the snow with a thump-crunch-ssscccch sort of sound, flapping its largely ceremonial winds and preparing to run after Alex, the moving target.
Hopefully not running over Gorgug in the process. )
An ostrich?!
( Do those even come in blue? And are their beaks supposed to be that big!? She lifts her arms and waves to hopefully keep its attention away from Gorgug, nearly upsetting herself into another tumbling in the process.
It also means she doesn't catch sight of the sign right outside this cluster of trees: Cactaur Moguls. By the time she's looking forward, she's already entered the moguls, arms now flailing for balance as she hunkers down and hits a mogul head on. She goes flying off it, only to leave behind an exposed rounded green something, that starts to shake itself off and rise from the snows.
Just as dozens of nearby moguls do, leaving safe avenues through the mogul field, but also slowly filling it with cactaurs. Who shimmy and jump jerkily from "leg" to "leg," preparing to start shooting their needles. )
i love this new companion. or foe
...has absolutely been run over. Not even while still on the ground, but as he's attempting to get up, which means his head? Makes a great prop to hop off on top of, if only to allow the ostrich (totally an ostrich) to gain a small distance forward. Gorgug's face gets smacked right back in the snow as a result, but at least the snow is soft?
Gorgug doesn't even know what's happened, except that he's got a horrid sting of cold to his face again, slow to come up the second time as he whines the song of his people: ] Owwwwww. Who did that?
[ He's talking to himself, seeing as the blue butt and Alex are off in the distance...
But Gorgug will get up, hurrying more than he actually wants to, if only for Alex's benefit. And that might be a good benefit once he gets going again, more difficult than doing so at the start but not impossible. He saw the direction they went in (or, well, the bird), and moves with the expectation that he won't actually see Alex, or that she'll be farther ahead of him.
What he doesn't expect: a field of moving plants, and one Alex on the go, noticeable by her yellow helmet. The blue chococo is farther ahead, but not moving out of sight; it seems it's started picking a fight with one of the cactaur, who made the wrong move to piss it off. It's far enough for Gorgug not to care when there are more pressing individuals--like the ones that are bouncing with more activity in his proximity, threatening to get in his path.]
Oh no oh no oh no, [ comes the dulcet tones of Gorgug, singing another song of his people. He weaves, this time not crashing or tumbling, but a few stray needles manage to pinch into his snow gear around his lower legs. It might be fortunate to be tall and fast in this scenario, but the hoppity plants are also unpredictable in their movements. This sucks!! Why is everything happening so much!
Alex, you'll want to be careful as well. But if you want to do another cool jump, there's an incoming ramp that would be totally rad to use to fly over the heads of cactaurs that have bundled too close together ahead! And there's even another handy dandy balloon there, too. Isn't it so attractive?
The blue ostrich will not get jealous of your cool moves, either. ]
compfoenian
( Alex does not stick her landing so much as skid across the snow, bounce off her butt when falling on it, tumble forward, roll half on another mogul and taking out the rising cactuar with her board, then ending up back upright on her board from her effort to tuck and roll.
Her speed has decreased enough that the needles shot from irate cactuars are not falling short, but are in fact falling around her, and deflected in a few cases by the overlarge helmet. It's also the helmet that'd made her unable to see as her board lines up with the jump, and she throws her arms out to the side and tries to rise, jerking her head back hard enough to finally see...
Right as she picks up enough speed to have a lame, plausible, jump. )
Why is there a jump here?!
( She calls out, even as she pulls her knees up and grabs onto her board, helping her coast over the heads of a dozen cactuars... and slam the end of her board down in a life through them. )
I don't know if I should be saying sorry!
( She says after a thump and grunt of landing, veering a hard right as she tries to keep her balance and not fall again. It cuts her across the rest of the moguls, needles shooting after her from a few of the cactuars she'd smacked with her board. In a moment, the big flat turn and dip down the mountain at the end of the cactuar moguls swallows her whole, Alex dipping beyond its extremely immediate horizon.
Gorgug may hear the blue chocobo after succeeding in its cactuar vengeance, turning its sights back to the field and large and leaping toward another cactuar with a raptor-screech of an irate chicken. The cactuar goes flying overhead, smashing into the snow on the far side of Gorgug in the process.
The blue chocobo continues to go wild, frustrated at this frozen environment and all the annoying plants or fast-moving people who are not leaving it feeling moisturized and in its lane. It leaps and flaps virtually useless wings as it bowls through cactuars, feathers somehow shielding it from the majority of the worst impact any needles could make. )