etrayamemes | TDM 001

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!tdm

TDM 001

⏵ arrival⏴
Arrival goes as anticipated. Characters awaken in the pristine, new hospital, greeted by Aurora and potentially getting a rundown of what's happening depending on their approach to being dropped somewhere new. The door to their room opens, and new arrivals are left free to explore their new environment.

Or what exists of it anyway. Exiting the hospital will show that there isn't much of anything just yet. Generally, Echo can build new facilities before new arrivals awaken, but it appears that this time… well, it didn't happen. The apartment complex exists, standing just beside the hospital, and there are a few facilities that are half constructed, companion bots carrying around rebar and other necessary bits and pieces, but they're not quite ready. Oops. But maybe, just maybe, one of those half-built facilities is familiar - a childhood home, a favorite supermarket, the run-down garage they worked at as a youth, a grounded spaceship in the middle of one of the massive bridges connecting land over rivers.

The companion bots will offer quiet apologies if approached; they were expecting new arrivals to touch down, but not quite this early. They'll be ready soon! A few more days at most, they promise. In the meantime, do not stray too far from the hospital. While most of Etraya looks habitable, they have not finished verifying that it's safe for its new inhabitants.

The apartment building and hospital are safe, and the land directly around them is fine, but beyond that? Stay away. But hey, the hospital's cafeteria is fully stocked with cuisine from across the multiverse! Please feel free to settle in, choose an apartment, and get to know your new friends.

⏵ water you doing?⏴
Decide not to listen? Well, the companion bots had offered their warnings.

Etraya is a new establishment, one that received newcomers before it was ready. And as such, the land has not quite been prepared for their arrival. Wandering off the land the apartment building and hospital are settled on comes with very, very poor results. Take a step down into the river below, and you'll find yourself uncomfortably hot. Or cold. Or hot and cold, because whatever that 'water' is, it wasn't meant to be played in. The only way to resolve the temperature regulation issue, as Aurora informs, is finding a buddy to cuddle up with. Those who are lucky may have a nearby friend they're familiar with and don't mind leaning a shoulder against. Those that don't? Well. . . have fun having a very uncomfortable conversation with a stranger, asking them if it's alright if you lean into them or hold their hand for a bit. Any physical contact will do, as long as it's directly skin-to-skin.

Except that's not where the contact stops. Characters will find that, for the next several hours, they'll feel everything that their companion feels. Frustration, anger, amusement, homesickness that comes from being so far away from their families and friends - all those feelings? They're not your feelings, they're our feelings now.

No explanation is given for how the empathy bond and the temperature regulation are related, but it may have to do with how since they had decided not to listen, it was time to test how well they could cohabitate with their new friends.

⏵ bonding bingo ⏴

Maybe it feels a little too much like Obi-Wan had when receiving Leia's message, but all new arrivals are their universe's only hope. Except they're not the only ones arriving, and not the only ones who are trying to keep their worlds safe. Instead, they've arrived with several others who carry the same weight on their shoulders. And they aren't meant to go through this alone. The people they've arrived with are both their new companions and their competition. Both comrades to fight beside and enemies to battle against, depending on what the specific mission of the month is. But currently?

They're here to bond. It's important to get to know those who they'll be spending the next unspecified but lengthy amount of time with, isn't it? To that extent, Aurora's hologram waits just inside the hospital's front doors, offering bonding bingo cards to those willing to participate. It's not necessary, but she does specify that this is one way to get ahead: cooperation is important, especially given what they're going to face together. Bingo cards are three long and three across, and offer a multitude of activities you can do to check each box off.

Some examples include:

Learn someone's biggest secret

Get into a fight

Tell someone something that you've never admitted out loud to

Throw a drink on someone

Win a game of pool in the apartment building's recreation room

Cheat on a card game without getting caught

Hug a new friend

Get stabbed

Steal something important to someone

Pull off an elaborate prank on a stranger

⏵ matchmaker ⏴

When the earpiece is put on, a nice green HUD(head-up display) lights up in front of new arrivals. It asks them for their name, which is fairly standard for these.

Except it seems it wants them to put together a profile to help pair them off with other new arrivals. For some, this information may autofill with what Aurora was able to discern about them from watching them in their home worlds. But some lucky individuals may catch their profiles before they're posted live, and have the opportunity to edit out information included in fields, even if they're not able to clear it out entirely.

Welcome to Aurora's idea of matchmaking. Have fun getting paired off with a buddy or four, with your profiles exchanged between one another. Maybe they're the perfect match. Maybe this is a nightmare in the making.

⏵ OOC ⏴
Welcome to our first TDM! We're excited to have you here. For more information on character arrivals, click here. For any questions relating to the TDM please reply below. All other questions can be directed to the FAQ.

⏵FULL NAVIGATION⏴

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's still ongoing, I think.

[ His gaze lowers to his plate and he picks at his fries, as if looking for a certain type. Naturally he's going to eat all of them because he never wastes food, but for the moment it's a distraction from his deeper feelings. ]

I have not be home in a few years.

( without thinking too much about it, she reaches over and places her hand, smaller than his, on top of the one he's using to play with the fries, just touching her palm to his knuckles for a moment, then withdrawing again.

she feels with him. she lived away from paris and her brother for fifteen years, and while maybe it was a necessary distance - and maybe nothing much was gained from returning, not in relation to them, at least - it was also difficult and painful.

it's something she recognises. )

You'll get there. You'll get called home eventually. I believe that.

[ He freezes a bit at the human contact, a bit like it's foreign to him. Or the truth being that he's been without it far too long due to circumstances. But it need not be that way anymore, does it? The danger has passed.

It's difficult to think up a response because he definitely can't return home again if he values his life but that's also not something he wants to speak of right now. Another complication is he never lies, so he can't directly agree with her either. ]

Thank you.

[ That's close enough, he thinks. ]

In the meantime, we'll have to see what they want with us here.

( she accepts his response without probing further or questioning him, instead she leans back in her chair and looks around, at the interior of the restaurant, the food, the people, flesh and metal. he's right, that's their main concern.

what are they supposed to do here? luckily, she's an optimist by nature and will find a way in any of it. all of it. and she hopes her new friend here, joric, will keep her company along the way.

man wasn't made to be alone, after all. neither was woman. without each other, all they'd have would be their individual ghosts.

so, she says: )

Whatever it is, I hope there's more cake. Wouldn't that be the bee's knees.

Edited (phrasing) 2024-02-28 13:50 (UTC)

[ He hardly knows what to call himself. Definitely not an optimist. But not so completely in the other direction to be a pessimist either. He hopes warily, trusts in the gods, and puts forth his strength against obstacles. Perhaps that's just a realist. ]

Yes. I think. I'd want more cake, but I don't know what you mean by bee's knees.

[ Do bees even have knees? It's not like he's ever bothered to look. ]

Oh, it's just some nonsense we say to talk about something that's unbelievably great.

( she waves it off with a laugh. she, too, isn't even sure bees have knees, but isn't that the point? impossible things. amazing because they might not be at all.

with a purse of her lips, she looks at him again and cocks her head to the side a bit. )

Don't you have any funny expressions you use where you're from? Something silly?

Oh, I see.

[ By now he's polishing off the last of his meal and the chewing gives him time to thing of something. ]

"Like getting a mouse from an egg."

( her face splits in a wide smile, the expression sounding so funny to her ears and she loves it. she loves silly things like that! a mouse from an egg, what does it mean? no matter what, that's the most amusing way to express it!

she leans forward a little, eagerly. )

Does it mean something impossible? Or something very difficult? It sounds so cute!

Aye; it could be either.

[ At her reaction he can't help but smile a little in return. It almost feels unnatural. There had been a time when he smiled and laughed all the time, but for the last few years there had been no reason to do so. The muscles need to get used to it again. ]

I suspect that it will be common to hear phrases from others that make no sense to us.

I used to think the world was a vast place, some continents were so far away, they could as well have been different dimensions! But this is a whole other universe and there are more where it came from!

( if she sounds breathless, it's because she is - breathless from wonder. she used to think the dubois coffee plantations in abyssinia were another world, but this is further even than that. this is a melting pot of worlds!

imagine!

she leans on her elbows, resting her chin in the palm of her hand, looking over at him with slightly slouching shoulders and a dreamy expression. )

Someone should make a dictionary just over phrases common to people who aren't us.

( how she would like to illustrate such a book. )

I'm not even sure if my world has other continents. There might be, but no one has ever sailed there and back.

[ His continent is large enough for his tastes, with varying landscapes, cultures, and peoples.

His head tilts a bit like a curious dog. ]

What does dictionary mean?

( no one has sailed there and back, he says and for some reason it makes her stomach clench, remembering armand going away, travelling first by train, then by boat, then by letter because some distances can't be crossed any other way than in words.

which reminds her...

she smiles, small and soft and nods her head, the movement making her whole arm move a bit, sway like grass. man is like grass, the bible says. life is short.

she's here to save her home, but at what cost? )

It's a book full of words and the definitions of them. Someone would write "continent" and then define is as "a continuous expanse of land" - ( she deepens her voice a little bit as if she's pretending to read aloud from a book in front of her. ) - so people would know how to use the word or the phrase correctly!

Is the book a replacement for a teacher? Because I learned what words meant from the people around me; my mother and others. It's all passed down through word of mouth through the generations.

[ Who has need of books? Especially when paper is rare. Animal skins and wood have better uses that to write things down. ]

( she actually takes a moment to consider that in depth. she did learn to speak from her parents and from charles, but everything past a certain point, she knows only from books or teachers handing books over to her to be read. like it stopped being a family effort.

a hard swallow and she looks down. in some ways, of course, it did. stop.

she doesn't look up as she replies, )

Sometimes there are no generations or parents. Sometimes, ink on paper is all there's left of them. ( she thinks about her father's library. then, she thinks about charles. slowly, she looks back up. ) Were they good teachers, those who passed those things on to you?

[ He doesn't quite understand it all. Oh, his family is all gone in one way or another, but surely when family is gone others pick up the slack. Though he supposes other places aren't as tight-knit as a clan can be. ]

I suppose so. I'm not very smart, but I hardly find that to be anyone's fault. It's just what I am. But I know my runes and know basic numbers and such. What else do I need? Not much need for any of that when you're a soldier.

[ Not that he is one anymore, but the point still stands. He never apprenticed to learn a trade because he always knew he'd end up a soldier. ]

( she thinks about his question. what else do i need? for all the fine education sylvie has received throughout her life, she isn't sure any of it has prepared her for the real struggles and battles of life. and she is no soldier, she wasn't taught to fight, she's had to learn on her own. with her own methods, her own two hands.

carefully, she enquires, voice kept soft: )

What do you need, to be a soldier?

A strong body and constitution. The willingness to kill in order to defend your homeland, and a willingness to follow orders.

[ Nothing really beyond that. It's always been a bonus that he can make quick decisions on the battlefield and had a swiftness of foot that seemed at odds with his large frame. ]

( she takes those words in, swallowing heavily. at the back of her mind, she realises that charles was a soldier, if only for a little while before he became a fully-fledged businessman during the war.

she can vividly imagine him, being all those things, too.

trying for a small laugh, not one that mocks, but poking a little fun at herself, she says, )

I've got none of those things.

that's where she and joric differ, it seems. and where she will always differ from her brother. )

Mm, well that isn't a bad thing. After all, soldiers need people to protect.

[ And that's always been his philosophy: he protects those who can't protect themselves. ]

So you go on and do the things you're good at, and people like me will make sure you can keep doing so.

( she's quiet for a long time after that, looking at him without truly seeing him. then, after another moment, silent and vibrating, she reaches over with both hands, folding them over one of his. he has big hands, like charles has big hands. she is so very small in comparison to men like them. )

Thank you.

( that is all she says. but she's smiling, although it's a small, careful, slightly hesitant smile. apologetic. sorry for me, it means. sorry. )

[ He gives a vague shrug at first, not really thinking much of it. After all, he's not one to ask to be thanked. But then he considers and thinks it might mean something more to her so he gives a nod, lowering his eyes to their hands. ]

You're welcome.

( smile growing warmer, truer, once more, sylvie nods and draws back, her hands landing in her lap once more, folded neatly. you're welcome, he says. so maybe she really is.

looking off to the side, she thinks, she should get more cake. )

[ With the lull in conversation, he drains his soft drink to the bottom and crunches a piece of ice before setting the cup down. ]

Staying longer? I'm heading out. Better see if I missed anything.

The world can take care of itself a little while yet.

( she leans back in her seat, smiling at him. )

I might see if there are more sweets. ( a pause. ) Whatever you find out there, stay safe.

[ He nods briefly before pushing himself up with a hand braced on the table. It wobbles a little under the force of it, but he pays it no mind. ]

And you as well. I will likely see you again. Until then.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

TDM 001

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tw: implied colonialism.

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