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etrayamemes2024-02-23 01:16 pm
etrayamods) wrote in etrayamemes2024-02-23 01:16 pm
Entry tags:
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:
 ⏵ 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. 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. |
A — ARRIVAL.
so there he is, sitting on a bench just outside the hospital and smoking one of the cigarettes he'd found tucked inside the inner pocket of his jacket, when he hears a voice he'd know anywhere— ]
Yes, sir.
[ ramuh. rufus shinra, of all people. tseng stubs out his cigarette and tucks it back into the pack, then straightens up from his bench so he can turn and face rufus properly. he's dressed again, in his slacks and shirt, but has his jacket draped over his arm—he hadn't thought he was going to need to wear it, not immediately.
he doesn't quite salute, that's not what turks do, but every line of tseng's body indicates the way his attention catches on rufus and then hones in. ]
Are you all right? Not injured anywhere?
no subject
The fact that it's driven Tseng to remove his jacket and smoke, however privately, is a sort of guidepost in and of itself. A baseline measure of just how absurd this all is, really.]
Tseng.
[In another time and place, in the security of his own office (his father's former office, his now, his now), his intentions could be accomplished with a look and a tilt of his head. A luxury he'll miss before long, he already suspects.]
Surprisingly well, for having woken up in a hospital. And on what's allegedly a world still in the early stages of construction.
[The skepticism, you could cut it with a knife.]
no subject
[ tseng repeats it dryly, the tone of his voice mirroring that in rufus'. it's an absurd story to explain an absurd set of circumstances, but tseng also can't think of nor find anything to disprove it, not in all the exploring he's been doing since he awoke in his own hospital bed earlier today.
it's good to have rufus' assurances, but tseng still gives him a quick once-over as if to confirm that he's unharmed. everything looks fine, and he's not moving like someone with any sort of injury, so tseng doesn't challenge his assessment of his own state of being.
instead he just turns his gaze out toward what looks very much like construction of shinra headquarters. ]
What do you last remember?
[ immediately upon waking, tseng's memories had been hazy, like sights filtered through fine cotton; it's only now, after some time awake, that he's beginning to piece things back together. ]
no subject
[It's a brief observation that speaks volumes between the lines. Tseng of all people knows Rufus's attachment to Darkstar, how the only time he travels without his bonded guard animal is when Darkstar is too injured to stand at his side. There are implications to the fact that he'd woken up alone, and some are benign, and others suggest a fight that his loyal hound might have lost. No telling which it might be, not yet; not with how recently Darkstar had been injured in his battle with the so-called ex-SOLDIER on the company rooftop. Still, his security feels incomplete without the both of them present.
It's a curious question, though. What do you last remember is a question that comes with two immediate rationales. One is that Tseng is checking for memory loss as a result of trauma or tampering. The other is that he thinks there's some alternative reason that they might recall different things — an alternative that might seem impossible in reality but perhaps only implausible coming from an entity capable of reproducing his father's — his company's headquarters right there before their very eyes.]
You. Giving Heidigger a lesson in nomenclature.
[He's never answering to Mister Vice-President again, after all. Not ever again.]
no subject
I'll canvass the place again.
[ just in case. two sets of eyes are better than one, after all.
fortunately for tseng's need to rationalize his circumstances, rufus' answer more or less aligns with what he himself remembers—the tensest board meeting in shinra's history, he expects. heidegger, calling rufus mister vice-president; tseng, calling him mister president and having to stifle the urge to smirk in heidegger's face. he is, after all, technically tseng's boss.
or was. who knows, in a place like this. ]
I doubt he'll make the same mistake twice. [ tseng's lips twitch, just faintly. what an overinflated buffoon of a man. ] Although I can't say this is what I envisioned for an inauguration ceremony.
no subject
And yet they've learned to read each other, over their lengthy acquaintance. They know each other's tells, know how to interpret all the things left unspoken in the spaces left between what's actually said. That twitch of the lips on Tseng is as good as a laugh coming from anyone else, and the vigilant tension that Rufus has been carrying since his arrival lessens fractionally.]
Mm. We'll need a base of operations.
[If Darkstar were here, injured or otherwise, there's no chance in the world that she would have failed to find her master by now — or Tseng, for that matter, as a passable proxy to him. Still, it's worth the second look. If nothing else, it'll buy him some time to think through how the equation here has changed with the confirmation of Tseng's presence — because that rests on him now, thoroughly. His responsibility to call the shots; Tseng's duty to take them.]
And a guest list.
[That, too, carries implications. If the two of them have been abducted here, then it's worth it to know who else might've been roped in — for better or for worse.]
no subject
Yes, sir.
[ were this midgar, this would be the point at which tseng gets out his phone to make a series of calls, to tell a series of people to do a series of tasks that results in the outcome rufus wants.
but this isn't midgar, is it, and tseng doesn't even have a phone at his disposal. at least not one that will connect him to anything useful. it's been a while since tseng was a full time, boots-on-the-ground agent of the shinra company, but there's no time like the present to remember where he came from. ]
Have you toured the apartments yet? [ tseng had stuck his head in the lobby during his earlier exploration, but hadn't spent much time actually perusing the lodgings therein. ]