etrayamemes | 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

Me? You sure you want to trust my assessment of a place for either of us to live? I lucked out because I wasn't driven nuts by the billboard in the last place that would probably have you breaking it from a window.

[Not just because a place needed a woman's touch, but because he'd grown up sharing his quarters; in the orphanage, in college with Foggy. He was fine with sharing. He was also fine with the bare minimum. It appealed to the Catholic in him. Less was more.]

If you have something you're comfortable with, I can find something close by.

[ You probably haven't seen where she's lived for awhile, Matt, so you don't know that she's pretty fine with anything as long as there's a place to pass out.

That's all she needs. ]

I don't know what I'm comfortable with because I didn't think I'd have to go house hunting in some weird fucking city that I didn't expect to be in last night.

[ So, he might have a leg up on her at least with the places to stay. ]

I'd sleep on a bench if I had to.

Please don't sleep on a bench. Then I'd have to sleep out here to make sure no one pisses you off and winds up getting punched across the city. As your lawyer, and hopefully your friend, how about we go and find something less bench-like and more... Jess-like.

[He was still glad she couldn't see him, because she'd be able to see the sympathy that was visible on his open-book face. Jess was prickly, and she had every right to be. It hurt him to know that. And he wanted to fix it, to help.]

I'm not asking you to move in with me Jess. Let's just go find something where we can have our backs to the wall until we can figure out what all of this really is going to boil down to.

I wouldn't move in with you even if you said please and gave me those puppy eyes you think you don't have.

[ But, she has to admit that he's probably right that they should stay close. He knows her, she knows him, and there's a familiarity there in a place that's put her on a her back foot that she likes.

She would never say this to him but she can at least trust him and she knows he'd have her best interest at heart.

The stupid idiot. ]

Fine, I'll come to you. Just don't go wandering off and getting lost in this place.

I don't have puppy eyes...

[Hey, he was a grown man. He had grown man eyes. Nothing puppy about him. (someone was in denial)]

Yes, ma'am.

[Good thing she couldn't see the smile her ordering him around caused.]

You absolutely do you and you know it but you'll never admit it.

[ Because then he couldn't get away with the shit that he did. Grumbling to herself, she starts walking towards where he'd said he was. ]

At least you know when to listen.

Nuns are better at teaching how to respect women than anyone else can be.

[Not that he'd had any problem with respecting women beforehand- his father had made sure he'd known all about how to treat a lady before he'd left. Matt had just gone and twisted it into his own version.

Not to mention that tweaking Jessica's temper was a way for him to ride that edge of danger that he lived for.]

I bet.

[ Not that she'd ever been in the presence of a nun long enough to learn that. Probably smart to keep her away from religious figures.

Matt notwitstanding. He was an idiot but she had...a something for him. ]

You can respect me all you want but you're still a moron.

I respect that you think that, and I'm not going to argue that.

[Because hey, it was her opinion, and he was pretty sure she didn't actually think he was a moron. Maybe only when he stole her scarf.]

So, you planning on coming to save me from myself?

I can only walk so fast.

[ She's coming, she's coming. ]

Don't rush me, Lawyer Boy. I'll turn around and go another way and let some other bleeding heart find you.

The possibility of what might happen would haunt you. Then you'd come find me anyway and tell me all about how I ruined your life.

[He was grinning as he said it. Jess's acerbic nature rubbed him exactly the right way. She was a taste of home, and no matter what happened here, she was clearly going to be something he could brace against. She'd keep him honest.]

[ Ugh.

She doesn't reply to him. Instead, she waits till she can actually see his stupid ass and comes to stand in front of him. ]

Surprised some other woman didn't come by and pick you up. You look like some puppy that's lost in the rain. Except there's no rain.

[He gives her his trademark smile, all cheek and teeth as he beams at her.]

It's good to see you too. Well, hear you.

Yeah, yeah.

[ Stop smiling. It's annoying. ]

Come on, let's go before I change my mind and push you into a river or something.

TDM 001

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject