![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
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 |
no subject
[Hopefully that all makes sense, because then the robot shows up. Marco is dutifully fitted for a bracelet and offered a towel, which he uses to try and tame his hair. It doesn't take long for him to get lost as the robot talks about the bracelet, though, and he's deeply grateful when Duo interrupts it. The robot wanders off, and Marco turns to Duo.]
I didn't understand any of that.
no subject
he laughs after marco says he didn't retain any of it, but he steps in closer to tap his bracelet. ]
It's probably gonna take you messing around with it a little to really understand it. But, here's a few of the basic functions.
[ he shows him what he thinks is most important; the map and how to pull it up, where his A5 card is, where the network is, and how to send a message to someone using his voice ; has him try to send one to duo until it comes through. ]
There's some other stuff but, eh, those are probably the most important ones to start out with. Now, uh, the awkward stuff.
[ he taps marco's bracelet until the A5 card is back up. ]
That Eros energy stuff they mentioned? It is basically like magic. It restores the land - we couldn't even get down to the beach until recently, for example. And the way you generate that is by having sex. And the way you get better supplies is by having sex the way that little card wants you to try.
no subject
[Theeeeeen Duo mentions the A5 card, and Marco does the facial equivalent of a blue screen of death.]
You what now?
no subject
at least this time he gives him a sympathetic look, but it probably doesn't help that he raises his hands to stick two of his fingers through a hole his other hand is making. ]
You gotta have sex. Sexual intercourse? The horizontal mambo?
[ stop him or he's gonna keep going. ]
no subject
Yeah, yeah, okay, I get it!
[Geesh! People are really shameless around here!]
But... I'm not married?
no subject
[ duo genuinely has a confused look on his face as he lowers his hands. after a moment, though, his eyes go wide, and he forgets himself to be polite, snapping his fingers. ]
Oh - is it like, be married or you're gonna die if you have sex where you're from?
no subject
[Not that you'll die, exactly, and certain places probably have more lax attitudes, but Jinae isn't exactly a cultural hotspot, and Marco has been told from a very young age that he needs to get married before he does that. And it just goes without question that he'll be doing that with a girl, no ifs, ands, or buts.]
So are there matchmakers around or something?
no subject
[ he shrugs a little bit, as if apologizing for something that's outside his cultural norm. he at least doesn't sound flippant about it, instead trying to share the fact firmly but gently. ]
The closest thing we get are those cards, but's more like people pair up to do some squares, then split off. It's like dating, but getting to the sex parts a lot faster than normal.
[ he pulls up his own card and points at one - which in this case, for risk of easing marco into it, is hands, fingers, and then points to something similar (cough free space cough) on his card. ]
For instance, we both have this one, so I might suggest we do something together to fill it.
no subject
[Marco had been listening quietly, trying to gather everything he could from Duo, but this is too much. His eyes go wide, his cheeks pale, and he takes a step backwards.]
But we're both men.
no subject
Yeah, and?
[ he wants go go, if that's a problem you're gonna have a lot of problems, but given the outfit, the lack of technology, the idea of sex after marriage - maybe he's just never thought about it. ]
You're not gonna go to hell or whatever they've told you back home.
no subject
[Marco's head is spinning. That's not the reaction he expected, not at all; he was expecting something more along the lines of agreement, acknowledgement that yes, that is not something they should do, that is Very Bad and not recommended by society! Sure, some places practice it--usually places without a lot of resources, where additional mouths to feed would be a severe problem--but Jinae was never hurting for food, and having a family was just the thing people did.]
[Yeah, and?]
I'm not worried about going to hell!
[Look, buddy, he was on the front lines at Trost, he knows what hell looks like, and he's not a member of the Wall Cults anyway. Marco's too busy worrying about survival to think about what's going to happen to him after he dies.]
But... but doesn't everyone talk if you're... if you're like that?
no subject
he doesn't think they're allowed to - for whatever societal reason he's got going on. he folds his arms and shakes his head. ]
No, not at all. I'm, uh, interested in both guys and girls. No one gives me a hard time about it. There are guys here that are only into guys, and girls here that are only into girls.
... No one cares who you're interested in, or who you might be having sex with. It's a pretty silly thing to judge someone over, right?
[ he offers a little smile. ]
no subject
[This is too much for Marco, too many revelations all at once. He takes a staggering step backwards, his hands going up to either side of his head, and then plops back down onto the sand. He manages to keep his balance and not topple over, and crosses his arms on his knees to rest his head on them.]
I... I didn't even know that was an option...
[You can like both girls AND guys? Mind. BLOWN.]
no subject
Yep. [ he pops the p obnoxiously. ] It's like having the best of both worlds.
[ even if he's... only slept with two people. it was the quality that counted! ]