TDM 007: ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? (Sorry, No Refunds)

[erkumods]

TDM 007: ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?

00. Arrival This time, you come out of the water, the Nameless Island's own inherent energy drawing people in. It's like being suspended between realities and abruptly pushed from behind through a rift in dimensions. It may make you sick, or that might be the motion of the ocean, lifting you to the surface 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. Feel free to explore the Island, though there isn’t much to see. Most of the buildings are abandoned and in dire need of repair, and beyond the city lingers a thick fog that obscures much of the wilderness from view. Wander too far into this fog, and you will find yourself mysteriously looping back to where you began, your memories of what you were doing and how you got there erased. With that in mind, it may be wise to stake your claim on a rundown apartment, a tent on the beach, or a bed in the “comfortable” new barracks. Your inventory will be found a day later, wrapped up haphazardly and delivered to each person's makeshift home. ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● I. Entertainment District Old and new arrivals alike have likely been enjoying(?) the Island’s one day of sunshine per week - and so have the robots! The energy they are able to harness from the sun has increased their productivity exponentially, and a colorful multi-level entertainment district has sprung up to surround a few of the city’s familiar locations. Here you will find the forge, the clothing shop, the Full Moon(ty) Theater, as well as a freshly upgraded Ticket to Ride: an all-purpose arcade where tickets won from skeeball and Whack-a-Woody can be exchanged for sexy, colorful prizes! Admission is free, and the robots especially encourage islanders to check out the following arcade additions: Lurid Laser Tag: Slip into a full-body laser tag suit and arm yourself with a robot-provided laser gun before you go into this spooky and maze-like laser tag arena, which has been designed in the fashion of an abandoned, post-apocalyptic city overrun with creeping, squirming, and sometimes grabbing plants (which may look and feel very familiar to the earliest residents of the Nameless Island). Avoid these obstacles and try to spot the enemy before they spot you! The laser guns issued by the ‘bots have three graduated settings, chosen by the shooter, to alert you when you are hit: 1. vibration, 2. sweet caress, and 3. deep massage. Any part of your laser tag suit may activate, depending on where you are hit. Islanders may choose to play 1-on-1 with a friend, or can be randomly assigned to an opponent or team. VR Rooms: Pull on a shiny new headset and enjoy an immersive virtual reality experience like none other available on the Island thus far! The technology is still somewhat limited, however, in that the rooms can only replicate settings and environments from the current users’ memories. Whether you’re looking to train your battle skills on your old stomping grounds or simply want to share the experience of your favorite hometown noodle shop with a friend, these new VR rooms will literally open up new worlds of entertainment to you. VR Rooms can be enjoyed alone or in pairs, and they are fully private. GundamPods: A scaled-down version of the newly installed mobile suit simulation cockpits which can be accessed in the hangar at the outskirts of the city, these side-by-side pods allow users to recreate the experience of piloting any mobile suit that has been brought onto the island, in PVP format. Scant and form-fitting clothing is recommended for the most seamlessly realistic piloting experience, as this allows the technology to interface with your sensory system. Wear a bikini and you’ll feel it right down to the G’s! ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● II. Sexscape Room Looking for the latest opportunity to earn credits? Look no further! The robots are researching the problem-solving capabilities of organic lifeforms, and they are seeking the Islanders’ help. The offered reward is very generous, and the ‘bots say the time commitment is no more than two hours. No manual labor required! Participants will only be given a puzzle to solve within that time limit. Those who agree will be led to a spacious, if dark, room... but not alone. When the lights turn on, two volunteers find themselves trapped together in an escape room! Written clues lead participants through a series of steps to find the trick that will unlock the doors that hold them captive. However, what kind of room they find themselves in is entirely luck of the draw. Some rooms are perfectly normal, with almost absurdly easy puzzles to solve - a tip of a bookcase or a key hidden beneath a pillow might just be the ticket out. Others may be outrageously difficult, with clues taking the form of cryptic riddles and assigned tasks requiring partnership and teamwork to complete. What kind of tasks, you may ask? Well, for some rooms it’s fairly obvious what volunteers are expected to do in order to earn their escape. That riding crop says it all, does it not? Those who fail to solve the escape room within two hours will be released without incident, the promised credits loaded to their devices. Islanders who successfully escape the room will be additionally rewarded with a goody bag of cute and colorful BDSM gear! ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● III. Speed Dating at the Limp Noodle So many renovations have occurred thanks to the efforts of those on the Island and the robots have decided a grand opening of the new Limp Noodle Shop! This robot-run shop has three small tables and a long counter for serving customers. It caters to various noodle foods and soups from any world and their menu changes regularly, but Wednesday is All You Can Eat Ramen Day. Try the Special Spicy Fishcakes to get a free drink, but they might make your noodle anything but limp and you'll need some help to calm it down. Effects can last up to three hours. But that’s not all. To promote the grand opening of the Limp Noodle the robots have added more seating and opened up the week for Swap Meet Speed Dating. That’s right, speed dating. Anyone who takes part in the 10 minute rounds of looking for your next Auspicious Act partner will receive all-you-can-eat snacks. Couples who hit it off will receive a free meal at a small two-seat table in a more secluded area. Questions are provided on note cards with a fine print reminder: “Eye contact supports sexual intrigue, please maintain at all times.” ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● N A V I G A T I O N

Comments

[ziliujin]

[ Watching the other man eat is honestly an entertainment in itself; just where is it all going, he wonders. Ming Yi eats but he takes no pleasure in it, if judging purely on his expressionless, cold face. He eats and eats as if he has to, as if he has some kind of wordless hunger gnawing at his guts. It's interesting.

Gu Yun nibbles on a wing, and pushes the plate toward the other with his free hand. ]

I guess that's one thing we have in common, then.

[ Watching the fried pastry disappear down the other's mouth, Gu Yun finally asks, curiosity getting the better of him. ]

Should I order more?

[tangyuan]

[ Ming Yi looks at him wordlessly, powdered sugar still sticking to his lips and chin, as if searching him...

And then, with the plate moved forward, his attention is seemingly right back on the food, taking the offered plate and letting it replace the last one. There's a nice little pile of empty plates building on Ming Yi's side.

Wiping his face with the side of his finger, he takes a chicken wing and then answers: ]

Order whatever you'd like.

[ And, he bites. ]

[ziliujin]

[ How fun is it to make a new 'friend', really? One who eats and eats until one could worry about the state of his stomach, and the other who barely finishes the single chicken wing - though Gu Yun picks it clean as if habit. ]

Isn't there anything you want to eat, though?

[ He leans forward, his weight on the elbow slung carelessly across the fast-emptying table. He looks lazy, he looks messy, but Gu Yun keeps on looking. His gaze is curious, as if he is seeing an animal he's never seen before. ]

But not vegetables. I hate them.

[tangyuan]

[ Even with Ming Yi's literally insatiable appetite, it isn't as though his companion hasn't had the option of eating himself. He's simply chosen to continue feeding him instead. No-one really enjoys watching people eat, and usually, his eating deters lingering eyes rather than encourages them. Except this person's.

Ming Yi's eyes narrow the more he looks, but he still stares right back as he eats. He can look all he wants, and Ming Yi can eat while he talks. ]

...

[ No vegetables.

Ming Yi sighs. This is a grown man. ]

Fish, then.

[ Truthfully, he doesn't care what they eat, but choosing is faster than deferring again. ]

[ziliujin]

[ Gu Yun wouldn't necessarily call it enjoying, per se; he just finds it interesting, like keeping a pet tiger and watching it feed. The more he looks the more he is convinced that this man sitting across him is not entirely human. Call it a hunch, call it whatever you like, but Gu Yun is intrigued none the less.

Who are you, he wants to ask, wants to crawl across the table and pull at his pale skin and animal eyes until it falls away and all there is left is who this man truly is. What are you? ]

Good!

[ He is more used to eating meat, but fish is the next best thing. He waves at a robot and tries his best to make it understand that they want more food, but fish, fish, and after a surprisingly short amount of time new dishes appear on the table. ]

Eat, eat!

[tangyuan]

[ Ming Yi has spent numerous banquets as the sole guest who was actually eating, yet either because there's no other distractions happening or because Ming Yi doubts this person is a god with no need to eat, he can feel the imbalance here. ]

Are you not hungry?

[ Though he still picks up one of the bite-sized pieces of food, which seems to be some sort of thin-sliced fish over a tiny piece of bread. ]

[ziliujin]

[ Are you not hungry, he asks, even as he is unhesitatingly reaching for the new food that arrives on their table. Gu Yun's gaze shines behind the monocle; Ming Yi continues to be impassive, emotionless, almost mechanically shoving food in his mouth as if he is possessed by a hungry ghost.

Even though he has observed the other man for a time, Gu Yun cannot figure him out. That's why he looks, food forgotten, his elbows folded on the table as he quite openly stares at the other man. It could be taken as a flirty ogling to others, but it is the sort of bright, genuine curiosity heavy with expectations.

And it is interesting, that he has asked. Even under that blank face and blank eyes, he must still be thinking and feeling, to an extent, for him to ask. It makes Gu Yun smile, to perhaps think this man is bothered by it. ]

Are you?

[ There is no pinched, hungry look in Ming Yi's eyes. His face does not look emancipated, if hard pressed Gu Yun may admit that he isn't on the ugly side. But this whole time, he had gone on eating.

Gu Yun lowers his gaze away from his face to stare at where the other's black robe is wrapped about him, at his belly, as if he should swell up and burst. ]

[tangyuan]

[ Ming Yi continues to hold his gaze as he eats, as he has this entire time. As he has for every person he's sat across from. The others had all been equally hungry, whether they had other hopes for this encounter or not (if Ming Yi cared to notice at all), but this was different. To sit across from someone who barely ate a bite.

At the question, though, he can only scoff through his nose. He takes a second bread-and-fish bite as he answers. ]

A little.

[ And watching Gu Yun's eyes, he also catches the way they drift down, and Ming Yi's own eyes narrow. His waist is tightly wrapped with overlapping black belts (powdered sugar still notwithstanding), but there's nothing about him that says he should be able to shovel food into his mouth as if it's a competition. He's neither particularly thin nor muscular; his build is entirely average. There's truly nothing remarkable about him.

But it's around this point, with Gu Yun eyeing him, that Ming Yi quietly questions if the person across from him is one of the people whose sole goal here is to walk out with someone else, and he's just being less forward about it. ]

[ziliujin]

[ Black robes. Crisscrossed belts. A snowfall of sugar down the front.

Hm. So no change, then.

Somehow, Gu Yun has to admit that he feels keenly disappointed. He was half expecting something like those shadow puppet stories, where they teach you a lesson about eating too much. What was it.... turning into a pig? A cow? Well, it doesn't matter anyway what the story was. People can't actually turn into a cow, nor can they blow up into a balloon and float in the sky.

Conclusion thus reached, Gu Yun raises his eyes once more, to find Ming Yi watching him. The stare is unrecognisable, unreadable, in the way you cannot tell what animals are thinking, but Gu Yun still meets it, for a moment his expression blank.

Then he smiles again, all in a span of a blink of an eye.

The other man looks normal, as far as one could see. And maybe that's what piques his curiosity. The remarkable ordinariness of this man who could singlehandedly put away food for a small army. ]

Well, you better get to it then.

Our ten minute is nearly up.

[ As he says, Gu Yun tilts his chin towards the robots walking back and forth behind the table. ]

[tangyuan]

[ So, still not eating. (While Ming Yi goes ahead and does just that.)

Considering what the food has been like outside of this instance, it seems like an incredibly unwise choice.

That's Gu Yun's problem, though, not Ming Yi's. Even if this ten minute meeting is almost over, he has no concerns. ]

Don't worry. I can take the plate with me.

[ But he still takes a fourth fish crostini-esque snack. ]