( TDM | #4 )

[spellbindmods]

IMPORTANT: The weekly update post will go up later than usual tonight to give time for any other barrier quest responses to come in. Nothing major will be affecting how old players respond to newbies on this post, so tag away! Threads here do count for September bonus AC for old players.

TDMs can be used for anyone interested in the game and/or testing out a new muse.

Test Drive samples are encouraged to be used for your application sample, though they are NOT a requirement.

Feel free to use one prompt, multiple prompts or make up your own!

These threads can be considered game canon upon game opening if you so choose.

Telepathy and magic can be used at any point in time on the TDM, from Prompt A to your wildcard prompt. A specific prompt exists, however, that makes sure all characters have an equal chance to use this mechanic within the TDM. You're encouraged to have characters use telepathy and their magic accidentally or even purposefully on any TDM prompt.

If you aren't set on your character's power yet or want to try out a few, you're still able to use the test drive. Maybe your character is a late bloomer and hasn't fully unlocked their intuitive drive yet. In the case of multiple powers, only prompts that contain the power you choose for your application will count as potential game canon threads.

While only one character can be apped or reserved during a cycle, feel free to post with more than one character if you like! This is for those who are uncertain of their first choice or who would like to try out different characters within the setting.

IMPORTANT: This world is low-frequency. No canon powers or abilities are allowed! Also check out the setting information for more info about what the hub island looks like and what can be found there.

You blink and that's all it takes. At first the picture doesn't come in clear, like you're waiting for a screen to fully load -- more aptly, it's like you're waiting for a camera to focus so you can find image clarity. Before you happened to rapidly close your eyes and open them, your life was normal...well, normal for you, anyway. Fighting an alien, making a quesadilla, dying. And then that blurry picture suddenly takes over. There's a lot to take in here -- you feel weird, your surroundings are weird. Everything is just weird. For starters, there's that new piece of jewelry inserted in the space above your chest. That certainly wasn't there before you opened your eyes. A ▢ Your character's first experience here will be waking up in a forest. Specifically, located here. It's up to them to traverse and try to figure out where they are, whether they make it to the beach or the main house area. If this new little signet catches their interest, fiddling with it will result in a bit of a neural vibration in everyone else with telepathy. Nothing painful; it's actually quite pleasant. But if they do decide to play with this new jewelry, they're likely to find some seasoned telepaths (aka old coven members) in their brain space, wondering that's up. A2 ▢ Alternatively, new coven members are notorious for being bad at telepathy from the jump. Their panicked reation to this journey or confused mental state may send out some network messages that maybe they didn't realize they were sending out. Or, maybe what's pushing them over the edge are all the other voices already doing exactly that in their brain. B ▢ Unlike the previous coven members who found themselves on the hub, new recruits won't find as many supplies randomly in the forest they're suddenly in. However, like old coven members, they will come across some wild boars that aren't too happy to see the humans have returned to their stomping ground. Your character may also come across a boar with babies in tow, which means that they're even more likely to be aggressive. If your character has useful magic within them somewhere, now may be a good time to discover how to use it...? C ▢ Whether you've braved a boar encounter or avoided one entirely, there's a lot to do and see in the forest, as well as other areas of the hub! Well, "do" is debatable. But! Coven members before them have discovered some pretty nifty locations that can be stumbled upon, from a phallic fertility shrine to tree homes and passageways.

If you eventually make it out of the forest and aren't devoured by a boar, you'll eventually come upon your new base camp. Someone (Genette) will be there with your introductory letter and a brief description of magic you now have. If you didn't discover it earlier...surprise! One thing of comfort might be that you aren't alone in this journey. There are other coven members here, fresh back from a journey to another world. If your character wants to get the lay of the land or understand what's going on a little better, they may want to hit up some of these folk for information. There's a large, gold, floating caravan hanging around next to a bonfire, and there's a back gate open that reveals something of a space pocket containing lots of different things. Luckily for new characters, the Palai from the previous world didn't want them to go hungry...which also means they'll be inundated with shrimp to eat. Hopefully they like shellfish! D ▢ Many of the old bloods in the coven can be found hanging around this area. Of course, a few of them have gone off on their own to do whatever it is they do, but since they just got back this is a good place to hang out if a new character wants to see a familiar face, ask questions or steal someone's belongings. You never know! E ▢ This will also be the place where they're given their first provisions. In a woven knapsack, they'll find a bag of cooked shrimp, a set of clothes (you pick the style) that may not fit, a toothbrush, and three other random objects -- dealer's choice! It's very likely that your character got something useful in there, but it's also likely you got something that your character would never use in a million years, or that doesn't fit. Time to start trading! F ▢ Finally, there's always the chance for your character to explore the big mansion next to the beach area. Actually, they may be asked to lend a hand. Everyone is tasked with unloading supplies from the caravan to the front foyer of the mansion, and there are quite a few trips to be mad. Or, alternatively, your character can slack off and play in the game room that they have. How good is your character at pool?

If you're much more of a loner and don't want to follow the flow of things, there are of course other locations that you should probably check out. Travel to your heart's content and find something new...but there are two other points of interest you may want to discover. G ▢ There's that bathhouse that's nearby, for starters. Your character won't encounter any snapping crabs, like last time, though the water for some reason isn't as hot as it once was. Whatever was previously heating the bathhouse seems to have died out, so there aren't any steamy, comfortable pools to take a dip in. There are, however, acrid waters with pond scum floating on the surface. The showers also spew out a greenish liquid, so any hope your character had at having a relaxing bath is gone. However, the lack of heat and many closed off rooms can make for some nice alone time. H ▢ Your character may want to claim a beach house while they're at it. Some characters have disappeared from the coven over time, and some of these few may have left their belongings before departing. This makes it hard to tell what huts are free and which need to be cleared out. Might as well play roulette and see if you picked one that doesn't have an owner or not. (For the sake of the prompt, you might want to choose the former, just saying). I ▢ Wildcard prompt. Go nuts and utilize your own creativity within the setting. This can mean striking out on your own or utilizing a certain location in a different way. The world is your oyster!

GAME NAVIGATION

Comments

[witchhooded]

[ oh! ] There were not any strange troll parents on my island, that is pretty weird. [ really makes you think..... ]

That's not very long at all, you will hardly learn any survival skills like that! Good thing you've got Jake to show you around!!

[splinten]

Likely due to the Condesce moving on to our universe before she introduced them to yours. My understanding is that the lusii present were products of her experiments to revive the troll race.

[AND THEN. JADE TALKS MORE. AND DIRK.... FLUSTERS? FOR SOME REASON??? He gets all awkward and stiff and maybe slightly red???]

I know, uh, some survival skills on my own, for the ocean. [He is Not a useless suitor to her grandson. Wait, fuck, he's not Jake's suitor. FUCK. Strider, be fucking cool, dammit.] It's true that Jake has superior skills when we're on the land. I haven't had the opportunity to ask him to teach me much but we're sharing a hut so that helps— [FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK DON'T SAY YOU'VE MOVED IN WITH HER GRANDSON SHE'LL THINK YOU'RE BEING INAPPROPRIATE] Uh, you could join us. If you wanted. It's not like it's not like we need the privacy or anything. I mean that it isn't just an us-thing. Or it is, but it's because we're not used to people.

[FUCK!]

Two teachers would be cool and I know he misses you so you'd be welcome.

Yeah.

[Nice Save.]

[witchhooded]

[ so... what went down that put them on her island to begin with? jade wonders, and thinks to ask, but dirk...

... well, he's dirk. #gaypanic surges through his body and jade watches wordlessly, smiling, as he cycles through what looks like maybe a modicum of what he's actually thinking. once he finishes, she shrugs.

see, the gag is dirk thinks that jade thinks they're being inappropriate, but jade could legitimately not care less, because jade was raised by a dog in a jungle, and this does not involve her.

what i'm saying is the #gaypanic was unnecessary and dirk tormented himself. ]

I don't think Dave or Rose or John lived near the ocean, jeeeeez. It sounds like you guys got really rough conditions... Sorry about that! As for the hut thing, I don't mind either way but I think you should talk to Jake about that first? I do not really know what I could teach you, but I am also a lot more capable than I look, so you don't need to open your home up to me or anything like that, you know!

[splinten]

[fucking harleybert smiles]

Houston sunk, along with the rest of the planet.

[YEAH. CLARIFYING THAT. AWESOME. They're cool. He's cool.]

You grew up on an island of your own. Do you have any survival skills relative to that?

[he doesn't want to talk about his panic. please let him go home to gay baby jail]

[witchhooded]

Lots of stuff! I had to learn how to repair things on my own and Grandpa left his blueprints lying around [ this is one of those times she talks like he is Not Dead, because dirk may not be aware that grandpa was gone by the time jade could like, actually register an account on a forum. ] so I learned how to build loads of gadgets, too! And I am pretty spiffy with a rifle, in my opinion. Plus, I know how to grow things really well!! I only ate things I grew.

[ ... ]

Although I do like eating meat these days!!!

[ the dog ears twitch.

jade is a slave to her own doggie desires ]

[splinten]

[A pause.]

We can try to make you boar jerky.

[witchhooded]

[ !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SO THAT'S WHY JAKE LIKES HIM!!! ]

That's great, thanks!

[ okay, that's dealt with. ] Soooo, the world basically ended before your session then? Or, um, did people learn how to live in the water...

[ ...is dirk a mermaid. jade pushes her glasses up, holding them in place. he did say jake has more experience with land survival than him... ]

[splinten]

[Yes. Jake only likes him for his boar jerky.]

It's a little more complicated than that. Jake and Jane's meteors were sent to the same year in Earth's history as the meteors of players from your sessions. Me and Roxy's meteors, however, were arrived four hundred years after that. Our kernelsprites never prototyped, so the stalemate never broke and Skaia remained in its stagnant form. As a result, there was no Reckoning, and the eight meteors for us and our guardians were the only ones sent.

Unfortunately, the Condesce had made the switch from your universe to ours before then and had already begun to sow the seeds for her takeover of humanity. A series of simultaneously absurd and horrific events, orchestrated by her battery fork, led to the collapse of human civilization. She then took over and wiped out humanity through cullings, genetic experimentation, and her flooding of the planet in an effort to recreate Alternia. It was that post-apocalyptic waterworld that Roxy and I arrived in, with not a human or even Kevin Costner in sight.

[witchhooded]

[ wow, that's... a lot. it's pretty alarming, too. jade's expression softens, slowly falling into a frown. that's a lot, and it gets worse as it goes. they were supposed to restart and hop over to a fresh session, one that had a chance of winning, but it almost sounds like the game is trying to stack everything against all of them yet again. at the same time, she's following and digesting, taking in his explanation. she can see how this would all go down, and now that she looks back at their session - it's almost hard to see how it would be winnable. something in her thinks it's possible though; there had to be a way to go against it and win. not just for themselves, but cullings, and genetic mutation... she went as far as flooding the planet, destroying humanity...

and dirk and roxy survived, somehow, even if it was years after the fact. jade always thought that dave and rose were the coolest ones out of them; always there when you need them. they pull through no matter what. maybe that was the best place for them to be; who knows what happened to jake by the time dirk was able to talk to him?

she's assuming time shenanigans were involved there, because they always are. ]

Got it! One question.

Who is Kevin Costner?

[splinten]

[Seriously]

Someone Jake will force you to experience at first opportunity.

[witchhooded]

[ 100% seriously ]

Ohh, so a movie guy! He is like Nick Cage, then, but maybe John did not like him as much. Jake told me about movies he liked too! He said something about Weekend At Burnie's before!

[ of course that's the one she remembers. ]

The last thing I remember is being knocked out, but what about you? It sounds like there were a lot of time shenanigans for your session if the meteors were separated like that. Are you a time player?

[splinten]

[Jfc]

Yes. He likes that one.

[Dirk hates Jake's movie taste, or rather his total lack of taste, so much.

Not talking about the KNOCKED OUT thing,]

Heart. We didn't have a Time or Space player, which was another way we were doomed to failure. [Thanks, Sburbama.] Instead, our planets prophesied the arrival of four Heroes from outside our session who would allow us to win the game. [He doesn't think he has to say who that is!

He doesn't want to say that they failed.]

Most of our temporal fuckery was engaged in through the means left available to all players by the game, and through the assistance of a alien third party. She hooked us up for Pesterchum, and we did the rest through Sendificators, Transportalizers, the Medium's existence outside of regular time, and the time capsule on the Frog Temple.

[WHICH WAS THE NINTH METEOR THAT HIT THEIR PLANET AND I FORGOT ABOUT IT shut up pretend he didn't]

[witchhooded]

[ when put so bluntly that truly is a tool assisted speed run?? ]

That is a very large amount of things to keep straight! I am glad you did though, we probably would not have been able to do anything without you. I guess it is because of you that I get to meet Jake finally, in a way! Even though you didn't bring me here, hehe.

[splinten]

[Thank fuck for the AR. Like, also fuck the AR, because Dirk hasn't met a version of himself he didn't hate, but thank fuck.

Oh. Alternate Jake's Grandma, Hero and Genius, is giving him credit he doesn't deserve. He must avoid this.]

More credit goes to the inherent unavoidability of everything in Paradox Space happening exactly how it was going to happen. [Free Will is a joke.

But. And while monotonous, this is sincere:]

It's good that you two can finally meet. He deserves it, and all indications are that you do too.

[witchhooded]

[ you know... jade sort of agrees. things that are meant to happen will happen. free will is a joke, but at the same time, it's something she thinks is real.

mostly she wants to say something nice because she's grateful and he is gonna learn to take a fuckin' compliment. ] It is true that things are certain to happen, but sometimes they need help happening. That is sort of what I did. It had to happen, so I did it! [ reasons jade threw her body in with becsprite........ homestuck ]

...Thanks. We talked through letters but it was not the same, so I'm glad that we can cross that bridge now!

[splinten]

[He will not take a fucking compliment.

Or argue about free will today. Maybe another day.]

Yeah. For what it's worth, it's an honour to meet you.

[witchhooded]

[ huh.

jade's not sure she can say the same for dirk, she'll admit. she's not sure how comfortable she was with dave's bro, and even when she thought about picking up his apartment for him, she felt an aversion to bro's puppets. ]

Umm, why is that? I am just me!

[ jade doesn't think she's particularly remarkable. ]

[splinten]

[That's because Bro fucking sucks. Like Dirk! In Dirk's opinion, anyway, and not that he's informed about Bro, but he has his suspicions by this point.]

The iteration of you that appeared in our universe was someone I greatly admired and respected. When I learned about the relationship between our universe and yours, and that there was a version of her that had gone through experiences similar to ours, I became really interested in seeing who this version of you was. Jake always spoke highly of his penpal, and I know what he got up together, so I knew you were as much of a genius on your side of the Scratch as on ours.

[witchhooded]

[ damn. that's a lot at once, and jade's not sure if she did the right thing asking. dirk doesn't seem to mind giving up information and she appreciates that, thinks it's great and finds him easy to talk to, but.

hopefully she didn't coax it out of him? hmm. ]

That's... really nice of you to say, thanks! There isn't much to me, but I am interested in that me, too. She was Jake's grandma, right?? Hehe, I bet I was a pretty cool old biddy! [ the addition of old here isn't necessary but jade also doesn't know how biddy is used these days so you know ] Iiiii don't know what I did but if it made you respect, I guess it was pretty much exactly what I was supposed to do?

[ this is just how you talk in homestuck ]

[splinten]

[Jade please.]

Jake's Grandma founded Skaianet, a company that competed with and helped fight against the Condesce's many-tentacled Crockercorp. She is very likely the first of the resistance fighters who took up the cause against the Batterwitch's tyranny.

[witchhooded]

[ ... those are some really big shoes to fill? oh my god. she's going to disappoint jake. is this what anxiety is ]

To be honest, it had to be someone, right? So I guess I can see why she would do that. [ so in other words jade is saying she would start a rebellion. cool ] I hope I don't disappoint you! I am only sixteen.

[ she's only sixteen ]

[splinten]

[don't bring in 1D you aren't francy]

Like I said, I don't expect you to be her, any more than I'm whoever I was on your side of the Scratch. It's more what Jake said about you based on your letters that confirmed you'd be a really cool person to know.

[witchhooded]

[ that's... a good point. she's kind of surprised by how not...bro dirk is. at least, from what she heard of bro from dave and his weird puppet stuff. ]

Well, you are very cool to know too, Mr. Strider! You know stuff about me but I do not know much about you aside from how very capable and cool you are.

[splinten]

Do you... want to know something?

[witchhooded]

Yes! We are friends now, right?

[ he's stuck here forever. there's just no going back anymore. ] You already know I can build stuff, what about you?