erkumods: (Default)
erku mods ([personal profile] erkumods) wrote in [community profile] ercookies2020-08-18 06:03 am
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TDM 004: WASHED ASHORE

TDM 004: WASHED ASHORE


Arrival



This time, you come out of the water. While the Augur reboots, the Nameless Island's own inherent energy draws people in. It's like being suspended between realities and walking through a rift in dimensions. It may make you sick, or that might be the motion of the ocean, lifting you and carrying you to shore.

Waterlogged and covered in sand, new arrivals will be greeted by robots who welcome them with towels and bracelet devices. The A5 card is already loaded up. Inventory will be found a day later, wrapped up haphazardly and delivered to each person's makeshift home.



I. Feel the friendship!



Recent arrivals and visitors to the beach may notice a sudden influx of hundreds of bright red crustaceans crawling (and coupling) across the sand. It's crab mating season, as it turns out, it's a regular invasion! To keep the beach a pleasant place to gather for the island's inhabitants, the robots are offering credits to especially enterprising crab-catchers. Grab a bucket and get to work! Be sure to watch out for their pinch, mind you. Their little claws are tiny, but that doesn’t mean they don’t hurt.

Surprisingly, there is another effect that even the robots don't anticipate: islanders who are pinched by the crabs find themselves feeling instantly buddy-buddy with the next person they spot. Did you just become best friends?! Get pinched one too many times, however, and those feelings may sour into a crabby mood, indeed.

If you are feeling particularly vengeful (or just hungry), the little crabs do make for delicious gumbo. Once cooked, they have no side effects whatsoever.



II. Phallus Phestival



Although the Augur is offline and supplies are scarce, the robots of Erku are still eager to make their run-down little island a welcoming place for the new arrivals. To that end, they have arranged a three day festival to boost morale and promote the generation of plenty of Eros energy to assist in the restoration of the damaged and decayed parts of the city. The robots claim that this celebration was once a cornerstone of the long-lost civilization of the island. By the dawn of the first day, every island resident will find at their doorstep (or tent flap, mobile suit, etc) the traditional costume of the ancient islanders to wear to the festival. It appears to be... a giant sheet? There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the sometimes garish colors and patterns of the fabric, but at least the robots have uploaded instructions on how to wear it to your bracelet device.

Attendees will find food (mostly crab-flavored), confections, and household necessities in rather suggestive shapes, as well as goods you might find handy to complete your A5 squares: sex toys, pervertibles, sexy maid outfits, and the like. While islanders are welcome to set up shop on the festival grounds and sell (or charge) whatever they like, all items from the robots are offered up for free to those who wear their traditional island garb!



III. Fireside Adventures



Each night of the festival is wrapped up in style with an enormous bonfire on the beach, where drinks, fruity cocktails, and lively music appropriate for dancing is all provided at no cost by the robots. Even if you’re not usually much of a dancer, the longer you stand by the fire and allow it to warm your limbs, the more you feel like moving! Not only that, but everyone is looking quite beautiful by the firelight, are they not?

If you’ve grown tired - or if dancing just isn’t your thing - you might prefer to sit back and swap stories on one of the many driftwood log benches the robots have prepared for seating. Or, maybe you’d prefer to rough it for the night in one of the beachside canvas tents. Better claim one quick, though, or be prepared to share… there’s only one sleeping bag!


N A V I G A T I O N



philanthropy: (repelling any potential friend)

\o/

[personal profile] philanthropy 2020-08-20 04:16 am (UTC)(link)
[ Maruki's only regret* is that he never had a chance to well and truly tease apart all the many complex layers that make up Goro Akechi -- his problems, his worries, his desires. He's like a millefeuille of pain.

But, uh, clearly he's got things under control at the moment, or whatever might pass for control coming from a bundle of seething anger who's seemingly been hard at work roasting a half-dozen or more crabs right in the shell.

*[citation needed] ]


Akechi-kun...

[ Which is more than Maruki can say for himself at the moment, eyes wide and lips parting in uncertainty and confusion and a little bit of hope when the sight of him really sinks in. Because, Maruki...

He'd failed, hadn't he? He was so sure.

The crabs smell amazing, to be honest, and Maruki's stomach chooses that moment to growl loudly enough to ruin any gravity the moment might've had. ]


—a-ah, well. Um. How -- how have you been?

[ A lot better now, by the look of him. ]
corvidant: (12)

[personal profile] corvidant 2020-08-20 02:39 pm (UTC)(link)
[ By his turn, Akechi doesn't give much of a damn about Maruki's regrets, or quite frankly, about Maruki at all. The others might have fallen for his good intentions and his compassionate act, but to Akechi, that's all it had ever been: an act. Nothing more than self-righteous bullshit to further his own personal agenda. And Akechi...

Well. Akechi would have been content with disappearing as easily as he had slipped back into existence, the poof of smoke right out of a magician's hat which both casts and ends an illusion. For once, he would have been in control of his own fate, rather than a puppet in someone else's hands, and yet--

I have been, is what Akechi wants to answer. He has, and continues to be, when for all purposes and intents, he should not. Just a faded memory, at most. But what he says instead is: ]


Much better than them. [ A motion of head towards the crab slaughter in his wake, a surprising amount of calm in his voice that just reeks of cynicism. ] If you were going to try and save them, I'm afraid you're a little too late.

[ Shido once saw them as rats, so it makes sense Maruki had, too, at some point, just experimental lab animals to test his powers on. There was no true salvation at the end of his goals, only a god-like complex inherited from a fallen deity. ]
philanthropy: (but in the end i still pretend)

[personal profile] philanthropy 2020-08-21 02:27 am (UTC)(link)
Iiii... can't particularly say that I was trying, but, uh... I'm... glad to hear you're doing well, anyway. [ An awkward beat. ] Hmm.

[ He found Akechi close enough to a set of tents arranged in a half-moon around a small cooking fire, it's no wonder he'd assumed there was actual food on somewhere. He peers down ruefully at a bright red crispy critter plopped in the sand a couple feet in front of him. There's a whole like, shallow pail that's gone untouched right nearby and everything, leaning up against one of the tent supports. ]

I'm sorry to say it doesn't look like our difficulties stopped when we left home.

[ Slowly, like he's trying not to aggravate a rabid animal, Maruki bends down and begins delicately shaking the sand off of the roasted crabs in the immediate vicinity and then laying them into the bucket. ]

I hope you don't mind; I was told recently that it can be hard to find food that isn't... w-well, you know.

[ He peers up and over at Akechi from his place down on one knee sunk into the sand, white toga fluttering in the sea breeze. In a way, it isn't all that dissimilar from the last time they saw each other.

Then he's silent for a spell, momentarily bereft of any fight at all. ]
corvidant: (9)

[personal profile] corvidant 2020-08-21 04:11 am (UTC)(link)
[ Our difficulties didn't stop when we left home, the man says, and Akechi wants to answer that with more than a pointed roll of eyes. There isn't anything about his life that hasn't been difficult, that he hasn't had to fight tooth and claw for, scraps of what others could so easily indulge in-- acknowledgement, a name, affection. But Maruki never saw him as more than a tool to granting a wish, and Akechi doesn't feel particularly inclined to share more than he has to.

Well. Nothing that isn't already out in the open, at least-- which the roasted crabs surely are. ]


I have no particular reason to let you starve to death, if it can be helped.

[ It's... not much of an olive branch, but at least murder boy isn't actively trying to kill him? Out of all his grudges, Maruki is definitely not the bigger one. ]

That kind of attitude is not going to do you any favors in a place like this, though. You might have to use your actual words.

[ Honestly, isn't Maruki supposed to be the adult here? What's with all the embarrassed act over the topic of dubiously consensual underage sexual practices? Akechi surely has done worse in his relatively short life. ]
philanthropy: (but in the end i still pretend)

smashes through the gd window

[personal profile] philanthropy 2020-08-29 02:41 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, it's not just for me.

[ Maruki probably seems like a fool sometimes, it's true, but he's not blind to Akechi-kun's disdain. Not even a little -- in fact, it's the second most obvious thing about him, as far as Maruki's concerned, next to how very much he wishes to belong to something more than himself.

Or someone, maybe.

Maruki knows what that feels like. It's... a painful position to be in, sometimes.

His shoulders slacken a bit, momentarily abandoning his foraging efforts to just sort of kneel in the sand near the flagging fire, fine stones gritting into his bare knees. ]


I won't say I'm not worried for my own sake, but I've heard that unadulterated food can be tough to come by. I'd prefer people at least have a choice... if it's possible.
corvidant: (10)

yeehaw!!

[personal profile] corvidant 2020-08-29 03:42 am (UTC)(link)
[ That... actually gives Akechi pause. And not in the good way. ]

You would prefer people at least have a choice?

[ It pours from gritted teeth, his look narrow as he finally turns to face Maruki in full, so sharp that he might bleed if he dares step within striking range. ]

I suppose that only applies to realities you have no control over, no? Somehow, I don't think you draw the line at sexual favors.

[ He could even make a "happy ending" joke here, if it wouldn't make him puke. ]
philanthropy: (my secret social mission)

youre bluescreening him akechi

[personal profile] philanthropy 2020-08-29 06:29 am (UTC)(link)
[ Suddenly Maruki has the look of someone whose wound has been ripped open. It might be something for Akechi to savor. His gaze snaps up, wide and wild and pained, so surprised that he almost forgets for the moment that he's actually wrong about this. ]

That's not the same thing! People deserve a chance to feel happiness, and even if it's meant to do a little bit of good, to be forced into serving another purpose like this is...

[ Almost. It seems after a second as if Maruki is looking more through Akechi than at him. His voice is thin, nearly defeated. ]

Even if it might be for the best, even for many other people, to be forced into serving another purpose -- and know it...
corvidant: (5)

that's his job!

[personal profile] corvidant 2020-09-01 03:00 am (UTC)(link)
[ If Akechi cared about Maruki at all to even revel in his pain, that look might have been something to savor, yes; as it stands, though, he just thinks the man is pathetic. Not even deserving of a brutal yet quick ending like the countless shadows he has battled in the Metaverse; he is lesser than them.

He doesn't get the dignity of a swift death; he has to grovel for mercy. ]


That is where you draw the line, then? [ His scowl deepens, his tone taking on a lower rumble. ] At knowing? As if being a part of the blissfully ignorant masses with no sense of agency would have been any better?

[ It wouldn't. And Akechi wouldn't be ignorant, either; he'd be stubborn enough to see through the illusion, he's sure of it. ]