ercookies | TDM 004: WASHED ASHORE

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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!

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N A V I G A T I O N

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Those are a lot of words and Garma is going to need to find a notebook so he can make himself a chart of ominous and unsettling things Angelo has mentioned about the future. It's kind of wild to think that Char is being credited with the independence movement as if his family was just nothing?? And that's the next question he will dread asking - if it's Neo Zeon, what happened to Zeon...?

And yet he doesn't ask just yet, because something in his mind feels like it is simply resetting at the last words. For a little over 24 hours now, he has despised Char Aznable with all his being. For a much longer time he considered him his closest friend. The emotions that the news of his probable passing inspire are complex and he doesn't want to try identifying them. ]

... is that so? Well, it's something. Not the karmic justice I had hoped for, but it's fine.

[ It's fine. This is all fine. ]

Edited 2020-08-18 21:30 (UTC)

... what kind of karmic justice were you hoping for, Garma Zabi?

[ asking for a friend. ]

[ God, don't ask him this. It hasn't even been two days. Unlike some people, Garma isn't a natural at revenge schemes and has been saying this mostly because it makes him feel like he's in control to say it.

So let's continue just winging it. ]

Well. He could have gotten summarily executed for... for murdering me.

[ That's exactly why he was so shocked to find out Char is dead, yes. Because this was totally what he expected. ]

[ well, sorry not sorry, but -- ]

Before Char Aznable was declared MIA he was known as the Supreme Leader of Neo-Zeon.

You're kidding me.

[ NO! JUST NO! YOU'RE MESSING WITH HIM!!! ]

I am not.

I am proud of serving my Captain. I have no reason to lie.

[ NEENER NEENER ]

[ Haha, wow. Can he get a chair please?? Can he just... take a seat for a moment?? The only thing nearby that looks decent to sit down on is that horrid coffin though and Garma decides he'll just have to live with how weak his knees feel. ]

Lt. Sauper. W-what happened to Zeon? Why are the Zabi no longer in power? Answer concisely and without embellishment.

[ don't you wanna .... go back inside the coffin????

angelo looks at him with something approximating pity, but that's immediately replaced with the general haughtiness he subsists on. ]

For what purpose, sir?

You are already dead. None of these things concern you.

[ That's right. He is dead. No matter what it is that he hears now, it won't matter. There is nothing Garma can do. He's lived his whole life feeling crushed by the responsibility that comes with being a Zabi and now all that is gone - and yet he can't breathe. He's been tossed into a vacuum and nothing about him is going to be of consequence, not ever again.

Dead and gone, never to see his loved ones again, and yet... and yet... ]

... I need to know. I need to hear it. I'm... I am a Zabi. That is my family we're talking about. I have a right to know!

I suppose you do.

[ likely it's the fact that he's a zabi that's making angelo stubborn about it; family, though -- yes, he can understand that. he'll make an exception for such things.

so he sits beside him and tells him the story, or at least what angelo's familiar with under the auspices of neo-zeon in his time. the good news is that because he works for a man who does not like having any embellishments, angelo's story is more or less as accurate as it gets given the circumstances and the people he works for; the person he serves. in fact, angelo spends a lot more time talking about his captain, but that's just how it is.

by the time he gets to his year, angelo stops short of revealing they incident with Laplace's box. he doesn't state what full frontal is. only that they have stolen the Sinanju Stein. the rest of it, his captain will have plans for. but he does mention, briefly, mineva zabi. even if his face sours at the mention of her name. ]

[ It's a lot and before long, it's starting to feel fitting that he's seated on his own coffin. Garma listens fairly quietly with only a few clarification questions in between. He's been pale before but Angelo can definitely witness him going a few shades lighter until he's basically white as a sheet. His lip is shaking, but to his credit, he doesn't cry. Not yet, not here, not in front of a soldier, no matter how strange the situation may be.

He was the beginning of the end. Maybe it was merciful that he was the first to die, though it doesn't feel like it. His whole world, everyone he has ever loved, they all collapse into ashes after him until there is nothing left but tales and rumors.

Garma is silent for a long while after. There are many thoughts in his head, but they're fragments, unfinished little pieces of emotions that seem too large to fit into his frail body. ]

... my big brother Dozle... he was so excited when the baby was born. He was... he was going to do anything for Mineva and now--

[ And now he's dead. He's dead, dead, dead, and he'll never see her grow up and neither will Garma nor anyone and it's just... too much. He buries his face in his hands. ]

[ angelo is ill-equipped to comfort anyone, and so he lets garma be sad without much consequences. after all, he's just lost everyone. at least there's still one zabi remaining and she's the best of their lot, for all that angelo dislikes her considering how she contests his captain; but that is all garma has.

angelo at least was content with the circumstances of his life with the captain. despite how people perceive frontal with his duplicitous nature, to angelo, he needn't worry about that considering his absolute faith with him.

at least he's no longer in any danger here. maybe there are benefits in being kidnapped into this world. ]

.... there are Gundam pilots here, who may not at all share our ideologies. [ one can say that they wouldn't share angelo's ideologies given his fanaticism, really. but. ]

I get being sad in the face of this tragedy, but do be mindful.

[ Maybe it's for the best that there is no comfort being offered. Garma hears Kycilia's voice in his head, telling him to keep his head up and never ever display weakness to disgrace the house. That is even more important now that he's one of the last, isn't it? So it's for the best that Angelo is not reaching out a helping hand. It reminds Garma that he has to stand strong, especially now that he is all alone. And he will. He owes it to them all, doesn't he?

Time for a deep breath and to run a hand through his hair. ]

Gundam pilots, plural? Quite a fascinating world we've been brought to. I can't say I delight in the idea of having to fight more than one of that wretched thing... but it doesn't seem there is much to fight over here, to start with.

There isn't.

That being said, it is best to be careful. In the years that have passed, that Gundam pilots are not to be trusted have remained constant.

[ one can argue that it's the same for neo-zeon pilots, too, but who cares about that.

angelo stands up and dusts the sand from his uniform. ]

Visuals will complete your education about the future. Follow me. [ as for his property -- ] Surely no-one is desperate enough to steal your coffin and your hideous portrait.

Not everyone is a vandal like you, yes.

[ He would hope. Garma is notably not arguing that the portrait is hideous, but that's because it's kind of hard to defend something that commemorates the worst event of your life - its end.

So he will follow along indeed, glancing back only for a second. ]

I've no idea what you're talking about.

[ sir???? please.

anyway they go walking to the hangar. whatever questions garma has, will be quietly answered by angelo in his terse manner. anything related to his captain literally gets him talking, so garma will learn quickly.

the hangar is huge and certainly looking more like a civilian hangar than any that they're familiar with. angelo's rozen zulu stands out with its bright purple. they have to make their way up and over it through scaffolding because there's no zero gravity here, so .... have fun with all the stairs, it's over twenty metres tall. ]

[ It's a little painful to watch this dedication to a man who puts himself in direct succession to Char Aznable, but that's... a topic for another day or maybe never, because it also requires Garma to do some self-reflection and he is absolutely unwilling to do that right now.

That mobile suit though... It's fantastic. Garma is not nearly as into mobile suit development as a lot of others and he doesn't understand it nearly as well, but it doesn't take a lot to see that technology has come a long way since what he now knows is referred to as the One Year War. ]

Incredible... This is a far cry from our Zaku...

[ Stairs feel like nothing much because he is busy staring. ]

Correct, but it was developed from a Zaku. The Rozen Zulu's purpose, however, is to support the Captain in battle.

As such, its armaments are rather specific.

[ he uses 'specific' in place of 'limited'; it's not that the rozen doesn't have them at all, it's just that it was developed with the unicorn in mind.

angelo opens up the hatch manually. ]

Watch your step.

[ It's called Rozen Zulu...? It's deep purple and it has petal -shapes and high heels? Is this allowed? No rather... was this always allowed? Why did they ever limit themselves to thinking Char's custom Zaku was the height of mobile suit fashion?? What a a joke!! And here Garma has limited himself to paint his own customs in orange and called it a day... ]

It's beautiful...

[ Garma sounds almost reverent as he looks into the cockpit which... honestly also looks more comfortable than the old versions. ]

Mobile Suit advancement is really an unstoppable force... It's strange that I can remember a time when they didn't even exist yet.

I've seen the records.

[ so, yes, he's familiar with old-style neo zeon designs. that being said, most of them are rather ugly, though angelo has a fondness for their organic shapes because that's at least better than dealing with the surgical clarity of the unicorn. ]

That being said, the advancement isn't only for us. If you can see this mobile suit as the height of progress, then imagine our enemies moving faster than they should be. [ the ever-present danger of the federation, never stopping, as always.

angelo settles himself nicely in the seat as he draws up his screen, scanning through the models and ships that he has to further substantiate the history he's told him. he starts with his captain's geara doga kai. ]

This is what the Captain was piloting, before we took the Sinanju Stein. The mass-produced model is already fearsome in his hands; I can barely muster an attack against him.

[ he brings up the pilot. with reverence in his voice -- ] My Captain.

[ and there he was, full frontal, in all his blond and masked glory. angelo misses him so much, reveres his face as he shows it to garma. ] Of course, it was also painted red.

[ It's uncanny. Different in clothes, hairstyle, even body type... and yet he recognizes that jawline, every inch of face that he can see. How many hours has he spent staring at Char, committing every piece of him to memory with greedy eyes? It's him and yet it isn't him and Garma just doesn't understand how this topsy-turvy world came to be in which his Char is missing and this person exists. It's a future he has no part him and he's catching a glimpse of it against every law of the universe. It's a forbidden sight he's laying his eyes on, and it makes him feel uneasy.

Garma goes silent for a long moment, simply staring at the screen with his eyes wide open. ]

... the second coming. I...

[ He swallows hard. ]

I see why they call him that.

He is quite striking.

[ this he agrees with.

he wishes he can tell garma that char did not have an easy time, in the end. he's not familiar with the circumstances of full frontal entirely, but he's certain that he did not come to being without a cost attached to it; char had certainly paid the price, the extent of it was just unknown. it isn't something that angelo would divulge easily, either.

angelo continues the lesson. ]

The Sinanju Stein would be later on converted for the Captain's Sinanju. It should come as no surprise that this is for a Newtype pilot's use.

Our enemy is the Gundam. As it has been for you.

[ and he brings up that horrid white beast. ]

I will be honest, my Captain has a hard time defeating it as well. He has attempted -- and I will say without much success, though not without effort on his part -- [ angelo says this anger. ] to make the pilot understand us, and know our politics before fighting us entirely.

That has failed. We now continue to be hunted by this monster, and are defied by the Federation at every turn.

[ same story as before. ] This specific monster hunts Newtypes.

In the future, we are still feared and hated. [ this time, when he says 'we', it is not something that garma can lay claim to -- it's the disdain a newtype has against everyone else. ] The Captain works hard to change the tide to our favour, but it is a slow process and he is but one person.

Right now, we are fortunate that the Gundam pilots here present aren't from my world. That doesn't mean they're no less dangerous for it. Who knows what their worlds could bring and what dangerous mobile suits they have.

[ Newtype theory had been such a vague and ill-defined thing to Garma until literally yesterday. A philosophy of the late Zeon Zum Deikun that not even all of the Zeon top brass fully believed in... Garma had never paid too much attention to it. For him the war was about independence and, maybe even more than that, simply about pleasing his family.

But that's something he is certainly not going to admit to Angelo, a self-proclaimed Newytpe. He's just going to work with the information he is given. It's a little hard to still feel like the superior officer, though, with how much knowledge Angelo has ahead of him... ah... well. ]

Of course. Alive or dead, our world or any other, my loyalty lies with Zeon. That is part of my honor as a Zabi.

[ Not that Angelo seems like he cares much for that. It will need to be corrected. ]

Are there other Zeon here?

[ angelo says nothing to that. he's earnest in the way mineva zabi had been earnest, but .... that's not exactly the best thing for his captain, either. ]

To my knowledge, it is just us.

[ That's not exactly promising to hear. Garma would have vastly preferred finding a different Zeon soldier as his guide, one who actually puts some respect to his family name. And yet beggars can't be choosers. Angelo it is.

Garma stays silent for a moment, closing his eyes to really take in his current situation. ]

Alright. You have my thanks for updating me on the state of our world, Lt. Sauper, even if the news are largely grievous to me. This world is... rather obscene and not exactly helpful to our causes, but as Zeon we should Band together nevertheless.

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