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TDM 008: A WALK IN THE THEME PARK
| TDM 008: A WALK IN THE THEME PARK |
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. SIX FLAGELLANTS Welcome, one and all, to a thrilling new location! Robots have worked tirelessly to build, from the ground up, what can only be recognizable as an amusement park. You are just in time for the grand opening of Six Flagellants: Great Advagtures! The Ferris Wheel routinely stops when lovebirds reach the top, waiting for a kiss - or something more daring! - before it starts up again. Robots warn of the scary Haunted House: a dark building with wall-to-wall creeps, and hot and cold running chills. Flickering ghosts roam the halls, and you may find an eerily realistic Headless Horseman -- who bids you, "Come closer. Give me head," while pointing to yours. Hey, get your mind out of the... Nevermind. The Carousel is a two-story affair. Nude figures with familiar faces lounge about, waiting to be ridden, and closer inspection proves that they have the faces of your fellow islanders. Hop on your favorite person and take them for a spin! There are even Bumper Cars, which have the interesting effect of making one feel more aroused with every bump and impact. (It's randomized each time, so don't try to guess based on car color!) What should be a similar ride, the Teacups, has the robots' madness written all over it instead. They have misunderstood the gentle spin-cycles for dangerous, dizzying loop-the-loops across a wide track. Some would swear that the ride has a supernatural invocation for fear. Others are simply man enough to admit they're afraid. Lastly, the Tunnel of Love is not what you expect. Although flavored lube and guides to cunnilingus are on each fleshy-log-shaped boat, the motion of the ocean is quite soothing, and there's a pleasant floral scent in the air that causes a light intoxication. Don't forget to try the food! Similar to the Street Kiosks, there's a ton of faire food: cotton candy, corn dogs, and the like. Mascot outfits are available and those who wear them will be rewarded generously with credits. II. LIKE A FIREWORK The next morning, you receive a message on your device: You are cordially invited to a celebration of skinship at the House of Worship. Please do not dress for the occasion. If asked about it, the robots will confirm that is not a specific holiday, but a simple joyous event. If you pry, they may even say that the Old Ones often made merry and partook in the pleasures of the flesh - and so too should you. For an hour, there will be food and drink - alcoholic and aphrodisiac. Then, at the designated time, once the sun has gone down, clothes will be shed and a revelry begun. As fireworks explode overhead, the different colors send the naked senses reeling:
A group shower will be provided after the festivities wind down. III. MISTLETOE Many cherub dragons can be found gathering together in the Greenhouse, working together to finish the cultivation of a new plant. They spend an exhaustive night decorating the island with the new greenery, which can soon be identified as mistletoe. You may think it's sweet of them, but don't get caught underneath one of these sprigs! Standing under the dragon's mistletoe will cause sensory deprivation - and of course, the only way to regain what was lost is to indulge in an Auspicious Act. (You may choose whichever sense you like, or even choose to be figurative, such as "the sense of reason" or "a sense of purpose.") N A V I G A T I O N |
Ashi | Samurai Jack
[B] SIX FLAGELLANTS;
[C] LIKE A FIREWORK;
[D] WILDCARD;
Like a Firework
Furthermore as a Kryptonian, Kara is unused to being so enraptured by something as simple as fireworks, but here she was, standing on the ground and staring up at them with a kind of reverence. Red lights, primarily, seemed to catch her attention, and the popping sensation sounded practically thunderous in her ears as the show continued. Her attention was caught by a voice nearby, a woman's voice, clearly under the same spell.]
...I'd like to hear that one.
no subject
Her eyes were still trained up on the fireworks but her form relaxes some at the sound of another voice.]
When the Earth was covered in darkness a little magical boy named "Sun" and his sister named "Moon" rode a phoenix up into the darkness. They shot enchanted arrows that exploded and filled the dark sky with an infinity of stars.
[She pauses there as a smile rises up on her lips. It's hard to tell whether the idea of the story enthralls her more or the sight of the fireworks above.]
When I heard that story the first time I imagined something like this. Colors of all sorts bursting forth into the sky.
[Red bursts across the sky and something melancholic and lonely stirs in Ashi's chest. It duels with the surprising amount of happiness and fondness she feels in the moment.]
I never imagined them to be so... moving though.
no subject
It's a beautiful story.
[The bursts of red across the sky are every bit as entrancing to her as they might have been during a Nova Day festival in Argo City, when she'd been much younger. That lonely melancholy feeling settles inside her as well, a sensation that she's all too familiar with.]
On my world, we have a similar story. About how Rao, the Sun God, grew lonely and breathed life into the universe.
[She shuffles a little closer, finally tearing her gaze away from the sky to look down at her companion, managing a smile of her own.]
Would you like to hear that?
no subject
Before she had never thought of bodily closeness with another person to be comforting. No, it was the opposite; weakness, a thing to be reviled. When had she started regarding closeness as something desirable, something to be sought after and even pined for?
With Jack, of course. And yet here she was, near shoulder to shoulder (as much as height difference allowed) with someone else and finding comfort in that. She really had changed so much, hadn't she. Would he be proud of her if he could see her now?
Her smile grows some as she looks back to the other woman.]
I'd like that, yes.
this is long, sorry!
Here, though, with this person...she feels maybe she can offer up some sense of the wonder she felt hearing these tales. Her smile widens fondly, head dipping in acknowledgement.]
On Krypton, long ago, there was only Rao. The Sun God, our creator. He was a bright, shining beacon in the sky, and it was through him that my people came into being. His light warmed the world so we could live, melted the ice to give us water, let the plants grow so we could eat, and when we looked up at the sky, there was only him.
[She speaks in a slow, almost reverent voice, pitched low so that it's clear she's speaking for the woman alone. Kara doesn't think of herself as a particularly great storyteller, but she's trying.]
Rao was kind. He didn't think of himself, but rather of us, his creations. Until one day, when a woman called out into the sky and asked if he was lonely. Only then did Rao realize that he was alone, and he grew lonely.
Left with his loneliness, Rao cried for the first time, bringing rain to Krypton. But, as is the way of gods, Rao calmed himself, and persisted. Only sometimes did his tears fall, when the burden of loneliness grew too great. But, his people didn't abandon him, didn't forget all he had done for them. They used their wisdom to craft a fleet of ships to sail beyond Krypton, voyaging into the blackness to seek other places in the void. When they found other worlds, they beseeched their gods to shine brighter, or lit beacons to rekindle ones that had grown weak.
[She looks back up at the sky, smiling at the peppering balls of fire drifting up there.]
And so one day Rao found himself not alone, but surrounded by the lights of stars all across the sky, a gift from his people, and a reminder that he wasn't alone.
you're all good, friend. here, have words in return.
Particularly to the idea of a Sun God. The little boy Sun had been easy to imagine but a God was something else entirely. When she thought of "God" there was still some innate tendency to think of Aku no matter how much she hated him. It had been as natural as breathing for so long but Aku was all darkness, nothing brilliant like the idea of the Sun itself.
Light, warmth, ice melting into pools and rivers. She remembers peering through that crack in the wall, the first time she had seen such a brilliant flood of light that didn't come from torches. The forest that laid below it, the water that wound through that and all laying beneath the warmth of the sunlight she could only see but not feel.
She takes in a deep breath and holds it momentarily at the idea of a lonely god. Or maybe the idea of loneliness in general? It was a new concept for her still and yet it wasn't, not at all. She was probably a great deal like Rao in that sense, not knowing her own loneliness until someone else offered her their hand and made her aware of it's existence buried deep within herself.
In the end she only turns the breath loose once Kara talks about the light of the stars being the lights of all those people reflected from the darkness to show Rao he wasn't alone. Her smile grows bright, what melancholy that lay in her heart over the thought of what she was pulled from easing a little.]
It's sort of a hopeful story, isn't it.
[Her tone is soft, warmth and fondness reflected in it.]
To think that even in those moments you feel most alone that there are others thinking of you.
[Maybe that's what really helps her the most. She'd like to think as much as she's standing here thinking of him that he might be thinking of her as well. No, she knows he would be because that was simply the sort of person Jack was, right?]
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Kal...Clark...barely counted, given the strain between them, and that left her alone in the void. But, there were people thinking of her, she knew that much. Maxima, Siobhan, and Kon at least. And that makes it a little easier to bear.]
It is a hopeful story, yes. We can all use the reminder that we aren't alone, sometimes. Especially in a place like this.
[Her smile, still melancholy and distant, diverts back to the other woman, now.]
I'm Kara.
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[Introductions were new to her still as well. At times her own name still felt a little foreign on her tongue when spoke aloud but right now it felt natural and easy.
She pauses a moment, reflecting on that reminder and basking in it a second or so longer before she speaks again.]
This place is definitely... interesting.
[There's faint, smirking humor in her tone there. She's not sure she's even started figuring things out, beyond her usual amount of flexibility. Aku's future was filled with assorted things as much as this time is but here is so much more -- she's not sure what to call it. Barren? Emotionally charged?]
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[Kara, amused, dipped her head and chuckled a dry, reedy little laugh. Interesting was a word for it, yes. It was the opposite of what one would expect when kidnapped to a mysterious planet, that was certainly true.]
It's something, alright. A whole planet that runs on sexual gratification is so outlandish that it sounds like some sort of nonsense they tell tourists. And yet, the robots here seem very committed to the idea.
[Honestly, it feels like a humongous scam told by some pleasure resort, more than anything else.]
Kinda makes me wonder if they actually have found a way to harness that energy.
[Her issue with it isn't so much that she's expected to participate in those kinds of things, but that she and others are seemingly brought here against their will. The act itself is fine, since Kryptonian society was fairly free with sexuality.]
no subject
That's what this is all about then.
[She supposed the nudity and the figures on the one machine -- the carousel? -- made more sense now.]
I don't know much about the technology here but I can't say it would surprise me. I've seen far worse things being used against people.
[Because as far as she understands it sexuality isn't a bad thing. Then again she equally knows extremely little of the particulars, so much so that the card given on that one app just intrigues her more than anything.]
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[She's not really thought too hard about it just yet. It has frustrated her that she can't exactly fly off, like she'd hoped. Something about the island's surroundings has kept her hemmed in, and she'd admittedly spent most of her brief time here trying to keep her frustration under control.
Hand on her hip, she regards Ashi with a bit more of an appraising look than before. The red light's effects on her she has yet to notice, really, but as she stands here conversing she does feel a bit of a draw towards the other.],/small>
There's nothing wrong with anything they're asking, as long as it's consensual, yeah. [She cocks her head, calling up her card on the little device.] Some of this stuff might even be fun, honestly.