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

« « « arrival

[Cassandra didn't understand half the things that Aurora explained when she first woke up. Too many of the words didn't even sound real -- Barbara or Stephanie would have been able to tell her if they were or not, but they weren't there.

Instead, she was hurried along until she finally came to an open area where there were similar people offering apologies and suggestions for other things to do or places to see. For a long time, she just stands staring at the bots with an uncertain look upon her face.

Later, she can be found in the cafeteria with a tray piled up with more food than one teenaged girl should be able to eat. It won't be a problem, though.]

« « «bonding bingo

[Every so often a problem comes up that Cassandra, unfortunately, can't fight her way out of. Being handed a piece of paper with a bunch of words on it, none of which she can read, happens to be one of them.

This is one of those times when she could just ask for help. Or she can hand the card off to someone else to deal with.]

Here.

« « «matchmaking

Cassandra Cain (18)

Small silent ninja who can kill you.
Is actually a cinnamon roll who will only kick your ass.
Don't bother texting her, as she can't read.

[ Krouse accepts the card the girl hands him without thinking about it. It's a newer reflex, automatically taking anything he's offered.

It doesn't help him have any idea of what she wants. He looks down at the card, which turns out to be a bingo card like the one he's tucked away for dealing with later, and then back up at her, faint confusion colouring his expression. ]

...do you want me to hold this for you?

[With the card out of her hands, and no longer her concern, Cass starts to walk off until he talks to her. Fine, she will answer.]

No.

[She realizes that may not be enough of an explanation. Other people didn't always understand like she wished they did.]

You keep it. I give to you.

[ The first question that comes to mind is don't you want it?, which is a stupid question. If she wanted it, she wouldn't be giving it away.

It's a question adjacent to why don't you want it?, which has more substance, except there's something definitive about her rejection that also makes that seem a little stupid.

So Krouse opts for a third, also stupid, question. ]

Why did you take it if you didn't want it?

[She was once told there are no stupid questions. If she doesn't know something, how else is she to learn other than to ask? The problem in this case, isn't so much the question as it is the answer.]

Wanted to see. [She makes a face, nose crinkled up in annoyance.] Is all words.

[ Something isn't connecting for him. Krouse knows it's not, but not what it is, and the discrepancy is like the gap of a missing tooth. He can't help but probe the socket. ]

Were you expecting it to be something else?

Didn't know. Maybe picture.

[How else is she supposed to learn about things? But she had a better reason for seeing what the strange lady was giving out.]

Maybe not safe for others. Had to check.

[ The motivation makes sense. It stands to reason that they'd pick out people who cared about others like that for a mission like this. Krousr nods, even though that nagging sense of something isn't quite gone.

(Why a picture?) ]

I guess some of these aren't great.

[ Stabbing, fighting, theft. Hard to see how those will help them bond. ]

No?

[She missed something. No, she forgot. Words can harm people also.]

What are they.

[ There it is. The piece he needed to make it click. She can't read whatever's on the card. His first guess would be a language barrier, but the reason isn't really important.

It's been a while since he felt sympathy for someone else. He's not sure that's exactly what he feels now. He just thinks it can't be easy having to deal with that on top of the rest of this. ]

It's a bingo card. [ He explains. ] It's a game. You're supposed to do the things in the squares until you can cross off enough to make a line across the card. Some of them are things like winning a pool game, but there's some on here like stealing something important from somebody else. Getting stabbed. Getting into a fight.

[ He hesitates, glancing down at the card, then back up to her. Faint resignation sets into his expression. ]

I could read them off for you, if you want. Maybe - fuck. I don't know. Draw pictures on the corner so you know which is which? Then you could still do it.

Edited 2024-02-26 01:53 (UTC)

( cassandra holds out her card to him, and damian looks down to it, then looks over to her with a look that yells no loud enough he's relatively certain he can skip right over offering the response out loud. instead, he's taking a step back and away from the offering. )

Ask someone else.

[It's not the response she expected. The unsaid part is just as loud, and even easier for her to understand than the verbal words. Does he know something she doesn't? ]

Is dangerous?

[It's just paper with words.]

No.

( just a piece of paper with words. cass' observation isn't incorrect. )

It's an annoyance.

TDM 001

Cassandra Cain | DC Comics

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