uhmani | TDM #7

If the main hub and its features don't appeal to you, that's perfectly fine. This is the perfect time to configure your Digitized Technical Friend or your DTF status. A DTF is similar to a dæmon from His Dark Materials in that it is connected to and a reflection of a character's soul. These DTFs take shape accordingly and are projections similar to the NPCs. Think of them as your own personal Clippy except less annoying. Hopefully.

Once that's set-up, there are other locations of the main hub to investigate! You can visit the training grounds, music lounge, library, and onsen. Also, feel free to leave an offering for the resident deity of sleep (Hypnos) at his shrine! You can even visit The Peacekeeper themselves on the second floor. They're always happy to have visitors! They're also conveniently where you might place a complaint about that status of the main hub and its amenities. Even if you do complain, The Peacekeeper will encourage others to set off and find their own place to live out in the simulation.

Granted, the housing market in the afterlife isn't exactly robust. It doesn't help that every place you find has a leaky roof or broken window. No, unfortunately that will need to be fixed the peaceful way. If you'd like more lighting or even cozier clothes, simulation inhabitants are reminded that 'peaceful interactions' are very important!

It might be a good idea to stick close to someone you know, for now, since even the smallest amounts of intimacy might see subtle changes occurring where they're staying. Perhaps that broken window is now fixed, the grime and dust seem a little less, or the floor doesn't creak quite as loud.

Larger changes, however, will only come after demonstrating the more powerful peaceful interactions. If you want new hardwood floors or a fresh coat of paint on the walls, you're going to have to demonstrate how well you 'get along' with others against them first.

A FOUL WIND BLOWS

For the last couple of weeks, The Peaceekeeper has been relatively quiet save for the mandatory greeting of newcomers. In fact, it doesn't even make the usual announcement that it has before to alert inhabitants of the sudden shift in weather. Blue skies and sunshine gradually begin to darken over. The wind picks up to a frightening gale that will see people likely needing to strap things down and fasten their shutters tight.

However, it's not anything physical that inhabitants will likely end up losing. The forceful rain, wind, and ensuing storm will instead strip away their inhibitions if they're unlucky enough to be caught in it.

What was holding you back, anyway? It's hard to remember or seems so suddenly trivial. It's not an issue anymore. that's for sure! Whether this is about something intimate, secrets kept, or things you know you shouldn't say for any number of reasons don't matter. Self-consciousness and doubt feel like a thing of the past and you're free to chase whatever whims you want!

Hopefully, you won't regret it when the effects wear off in a few day's time.

CLEAN-UP CREW

Although not everyone may be in the mood to buckle down and get to work after the storm blows through, the mess it leaves behind is literal as well as metaphorical. Time to get cleaning! The Peacekeeper has graciously provided a whole host of tools to assist inhabitants in clearing the debris littering the beach and floating in the ocean, including...

Inflatable Rafts

Skimmer Nets

Brushes

GET LAID

Liquid-Air Impulse Device

JUST KEEP SWIMMING

All your hard work hasn't gone unnoticed!

The mermaids that live beneath the waves of Taasunni Beach are extremely grateful that the inhabitants have taken the time and effort to clean up their home. To show their gratitude, they've decided to let everyone experience the beauty of the once-again pristine ocean for themselves!

Upon request, one of the mermaids lounging in the shallows will kiss inhabitants to fill them with magic. This gift will transform them into merfolk themselves for about 6 hours, allowing them to breathe underwater, swim swiftly, and explore or play in the depths to their hearts' content.

Those who indulge in this, especially repeatedly, may find themselves feeling unusually buoyant and free--as though a weight has lifted from their shoulders, and their troubles are simply washing away on the tide.

SEXY STAMP CARD

If you're wondering about these 'peaceful interactions' that keep being mentioned or what the kinks of the month are for... Here's your answer! Upon arrival, all characters will receive a digital copy of their very own sexy stamp card.

Sexy Stamp Card

Issued by: The Peacekeeper

1 2 3 4 ♡

6 7 8 9 ♡

❤

<div style="width:100%;padding:10px 10px 0;font-family:garamond, georgia, serif;font-size:20px;font-style:italic;letter-spacing:2px;text-align:left;">Sexy Stamp Card</div>
<div style="width:100%;padding:0 10px 10px;">Issued by: The Peacekeeper</div>

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<div style="max-width:300px;width:100%;margin:-10px auto 0;text-align:right;font-size:10px;"><a title="code credit!" href="http://10billionghosts.dreamwidth.org" style="text-decoration:none;color:#eee;">❤</a></div>

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Completing peaceful interactions (i.e. kinks) will reward characters with stamps that they can turn in for re-gains and many other things! While the example one here is the standard issued card by The Peacekeeper, players are more than welcome to customize it how they see fit. Have fun with it! NOTES

★ The effects of all the influences can, as always, be as heavy or light as you'd like! It can be chalked up to differences in resistance, non-humanity or not, etc. etc.

★ Please thank Love Bug Infy for helping out with this TDM!

★ Make sure to dunk your questions/feedback in the thread below!

★ The locations page is undergoing a revamp! While originally I wanted to have it done in time for this test drive meme, that didn't quite happen. But it is coming soon, I promise!

★ Due to moderator error meaning we are over the player limit already and repeated requests, the player cap has been increased to 50. We are currently at 47/50 slots taken! Anyone wishing to claim a character must have an invite and follow the proper rules in place to be accepted into the community.

★ Also in light of that announcement and since I totally forgot the monthly meme due to being sick... Why not check out the ATP/EMP Meme now up? See who others want to try out, enable your friends! Fun all around!

NAVIGATION

F.A.Q. ★ RULES ★ CHARACTER CLAIM ★ LOCATIONS ★ MAIN NAVIGATION

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Bahamutt? Ha, I love the name." With the okay from the owner Squall goes to pet the massive dog, practically being engulfed in all it's fur. His face is partially hidden as he's up to his nose in fur as he pets it. It's probably the best experience he's had while here. Actually is is. He loves this right now. He goes for the ears and then at it's neck, or what he can reach of it's neck with all the fluff. He's giving all the good scratches he can.

"Oh aren't you the cutest."

Sure Squall has a lion obsession, it's practically all over his body in someway from his own mane to the necklace of one he keeps around his neck but he is actually a dog lover at heart. Lions are more his personal fursona. If he showed off his own DTF it'd be very obvious but he doesn't plan to do that anytime soon.

Finally he pulls away, a bit hairier and with a small smile on his face, despite how incredibly happy he is right now. His true joy is seen in his eyes with the slight sparkle in them. "I've never seen a dog this massive before. How do you get anything done with them around? I don't think I'd be able to focus."

"Thanks; it came from an unexpected source." He'd just been terrorizing Genesis with a litany of terrible pun names, really, when Sephiroth had suddenly suggested something out of the blue. Personally, Angeal is glad for it.

It's a sign that Sephiroth is getting to experience more things like a regular person instead of being trapped as a lab rat, a figurehead, or a tool. And there are few more beautiful simple pleasures than that of making a pun and seeing the entire room die from it.

Or sometimes just Genesis die from it.

Either way.

Bahamutt deals with having a whole face stuffed into their fur with patience, still just silently wagging their tail back and forth and occasionally indgulging the scritches by leaning their head into Squall's hand. "We usually do the same things together," Angeal says in the meanwhile, over his shoulder. "So that's often enough for me. And our place got bigger, so that's all the easier to do. Bahamutt is a pretty obliging dog."

At least when it comes to Angeal, which is maybe a little bit of cheating, but he's not complaining.

"Sometimes the best names are always like that." He wouldn't really know though as the most clever he came up with in regards to names is going by Leon instead of Squall here and that was just part of his last name. Though he was starting to get used to the moniker the more he heard it. He still wasn't really ready to have many know his actual name, it was something he had started when his world first fell to the darkness and now knowing it might have fallen once more he didn't want to hear the name of a man who had failed in his duty to protect others.

No use thinking of his failures now, he doesn't even have his gunblade with him at the moment. Maybe eventually but until then he can at least use magic when he needs to.

Anyway there is still a dog next to him and dogs make him happy.

"You got really lucky to have a dog. I mean, I like my DTF well enough but it's not a dog." Griever is of course a lion...thing. Squall doesn't exactly know what it is but it looks cool at least and can fly.

He does eventually leave the dog with one more pat on it's head before looking up at Angeal. Man this is a big guy. "I'm Leon by the way. I don't think I caught your name yet."

Ah, DTF problems. "If I knew how they made the choice to show up as they do, I'd help you out, but it seems beyond a lot of us," Angeal replies, taking a step back to survey his work. Doing alright so far..

"And it's Angeal Hewley." He glances over his shoulder as he hefts the brush to rest along the other. "You just got here, right? Not exactly the best timing, but I guess it's better than the worst." Because their worst, so far, involved a near death experience for most of them, and a definite death experience for a few others.

"It's alright, I do still enjoy mine, just a big fan of dogs as well." He grabs at his necklace, knowing Griever is in there somehow but shrugs and finally goes to pick his own brush back up.

"Yeah not too long ago I arrived. It's been a little bit of a wild ride but I don't mind it much." That does get his curiosity peaked though. This really hasn't been that bad but to thing it's been bad? He wonders what else he doesn't know about this world. "What's the worst it's been?"

With pettings obligingly given and now over with, Bahamutt hefts up the brush he's holding in his own jaws again to get right back to work. Definitely a far smarter dog than would be found anywhere else, really, which Angeal supposes makes sense.

"Ha. I've only been here a short amount of time..." Angeal braces the brush against the ground, leaning against it just slightly. "But.... being hypnotized against our will to get stuck in some sort of other dimension festival, where the ending was a meteor shower impacting the area, and a bunch of monsters getting pissed when the rest of us tried to get out alive...?"

He frown, head tilting to the side. "Enough to make someone wonder just what else can happen here."

"I hope I misheard that. Did you say hypnotized against your will?" The rest of that doesn't sound any better especially with how he finishes his tale, hinting that many might have perished in the attack. They were told that they were dead here, was that not the case? What happened here if you did die? There were many questions he wants to ask and many things he is uncomfortable about knowing this. Sure, this place has seemed nice but that is beyond messed up.

"Enough to wonder how anyone is okay staying here...is there anything that can be done? That's....do we know how many people didn't make it?" He's joining Angeal with the frowns, arms crossed over his chest.

"I don't misspeak," Angeal says plainly, before letting out a slow breath of frustration. He'd rolled with the punches back then, because what else could he do with a reconnaissance didn't show anything helpful, but he still doesn't like the idea of it all.

"We were all compelled into going over there with our own two feet, no fighting it. Even afterwards, I couldn't tell you what the point was - why the Peacekeeper didn't stop it all if it's in charge of all of this to begin with, why we were wanted in the first place, what the point was."

And with how limited everything is? How they all have to work on just rebuilding things? Well, Angeal isn't entirely sure how soon they'll get answers to those questions.

At least he can offer some good news. "At any rate, death doesn't seem to stick... So anyone who fell back there was brought back here, as far as I can tell." His lips curl slightly. "...But that sort of thing isn't an experience you can just ignore."

The mental scars remain, and that's not even talking about going through the experience of dying in the first place.

Angeal understands that much.

That's a lot to take in. Here he was not having the best time but enjoying it a little only because Cloud was here and he got to see him again, even if he didn't remember him. He hadn't really been paying as much attention to the coming and goings of others, some leader he was. Distracted by an old fling only to find out this world was awful.

"Still...to relive death even if it isn't permanent...." He shakes his head, his shaggy mane of hazelnut brown hair moving with him and only getting a bit messier. He runs a gloved hand through his bangs, pushing them out of his face temporarily.

"I can't imagine....And there is nothing that can be done? At all? I mean the Peacekeeper is like a super computer right? I've dealt with one of those before. Maybe I can talk to it or...do something." He feels helpless and useless in how blind he's been to the real situation. Sure not everything looked good here but he never thought it would be something like this.

"I have no idea, honestly." Angeal's frown only grows deeper. "I did a quick survey of the land when I first got here, but I can't tell if anything is out of the ordinary based on just that. The most likely place to find answers seems as though it would be the place where the Peacekeeper is held... or at least represented."

Which is another thing he's wondering about. If this is all a simulation, why have so many floors and the like barred...? It's all too strange and, while he's glad to be with Genesis and Sephiroth, Zack, Lazard, all of that...

It's enough to leave him suspicious.

"But if you have any sort of familiarity with a computer like that, you're more than welcome to see what you can do. It'd be something."

"I admit I'm more a button smashing kind of guy. The real tech wiz was Cid. I picked up some things living with him for as long as I did, and being around those mad chipmunk geniuses Chip and Dale helped too." Is he going to explain any of what he just said? Not at all. Just go with the flow Angeal.

Feeling a slight headache coming on he tries to think of what he could possibly do against another super computer AI like Tron. At least Trom was kind and they had Sora for help, this time he was alone and keybladeless. He didn't know exactly what to do.

"Maybe if you have time we can try some surveillance again and I can get an idea of what I'm working with. Don't wanna go against a super computer blind." He rubbed the scar on his face a bit, looking Angeal over. "Though I have to ask...did you do this as a stealth mission? You're....well kinda huge." His face flushed and he looked away, instantly regretting what he said. "I just...I don't mean anything bad by that I've just never seen someone as big as you, not human anyway."

Well, those are certainly some words that were just said there, in a completely normal tone of voice. Angeal raises an eyebrow, but doesn't say anything about it. He's already in Fuck City, and has plenty of animals that talk and make teasing comments about Genesis's anything because talking cats are probably obligated towards that...

The situation is already weird enough as it is. He guesses there's no point in lingering on that kind of nonsense.

For now... He snorts a bit at the commentary, amused even for how embarrassed Squall is. Or maybe amused exactly because of Squall's reaction. "I'm human," he says, because if he says it enough, maybe that'll be true enough for him, and Genesis, and Sephiroth. At the very least, he's trying not to let the alternative linger around them... for Genesis and Sephiroth's sake more than anything else. "I'm just lucky on genetics, probably from my ma's side, and the rest is training."

And, you know, mako probably, and child experiments, but... Let's not talk about that with strangers.

"Training in stealth was one of those as well... and that doesn't always have to look like dressing up all in black, and picking a lock, or something." He tilts his head to the side. "Reconnaissance can look like a lot of different things."

"Well yeah you are human, you don't look anything else. You got some really good genetics. I'm almost jealous, I train a lot and this is as big as I can get. I just meant the only ones I've ever seen taller than you were...well...I'm still not sure what Pete is exactly." He clearly has no idea what he's talking about and means it well enough but until he's told otherwise he'd probably make comments like this for Angeal or the rest of the SOLDIERS.

He barely smiles back, not out of rudeness it's just his face. "Oh I mean I'm familiar with stealth I just was never good at it myself. I would be interested in planning some reconnaissance with you though. Maybe after we leave this beach?" There is a shrug since he doesn't want to get his hopes up but this man has been nice and given him a lot of information. He does think a team up could be beneficial.

"I mean...if you aren't busy of course." Fighting a super computer is the opposite of what they are all brought here for and he doesn't want to take time away from this guy having fun. He's been distracted himself with a certain blond anyway.

Edited ({I wasn't done typing}) 2022-09-07 20:17 (UTC)

As long as they just stay away from little trigger words like that... Well, Angeal tries not to think about that too much. This guy obviously is just well meaning and being complimentary.

Probably? Angeal has no idea who this Pete guy is.

With the way that Squall is going a little off tangent like that, he suspects he doesn't know either. Best to give him an out by staying on track himself. "I'm just cleaning up what I can as a favor to the mermaids here," Angeal says, shrugging, "and I've been doing this for a while. Just let me finish up this wall with Bahamutt, and I can help give you a tour of the place as well. Or at least the start of one." It's a pretty big simulation they're in. "Where have you been so far?"

"Oh right the mermaids...Yeah I saw like one or two of them I don't think I'd want to be stuck in the ocean. I've been trying to avoid getting wet as much as I can...even though o far I've been unsuccessful." He took up the sponge once more and started to clean with it again, wanting to finish his area.

The idea of a tour wasn't a bad one. He'd tried to get a tour of the place when he was first but each time something happened where he never got a full tour. Maybe this time he would succeed. "Fine with me. I'll finish up mine too. I've been to the tavern and the training center. I did explore a little on my own as well but just in the open areas to see what I could. I think I saw chocobos which....well I didn't expect to see them here."

"You're doing clean up duty at a beach," Angeal quips, hefting up the brush again with a chuckle. "Getting wet is kind of unavoidable." Although speaking of which... He nods his head to Bahamutt, and the dog silently gets back to work too. "I will say that the mermaids aren't too bad. Scary, sure, but amiable enough. We have a decent trade going on, and I teach them sign language a bit."

Normal things to do with deep sea horrors with giant gaping needle mouths in their stomachs.

"There's a lot more than just the city, honestly... and I've found it necessary to go out of it more often than not. Gotta keep a regular forage schedule going for all the mouths I have to feed. Makes me feel like a bird with a recently hatched nest."

"Yeah I know but I've been careful and honestly I don't have any other clothes right now anyway so..." He shrugged and continued with his work, only pausing at the mermaid comment. Boy this Angeal guy had a really unique life.

"Don't know how many mouths you have but if you ever need another pair of hands I don't mind cooking." He looked over to him, putting his brush down. "I'm sure you can carry more than me but I don't mind foraging either. Back on my home world we had to rebuild from the ground up, kinda like this place. Everyone had to pull their own weight and then some. I guess you can say I was the leader of it all...even if I didn't go by the title." His face went a little red as he remembered Yuffie arguing with him over it not too long ago. "I just...like to be useful."

No clothes, yeah. Honestly, Angeal knows that he would have had to prepare for that kind of thing himself, if he hadn't been so lucky to have people that loved him already here, and with an old home that still had so many of his things in it... his wardrobe included, for all that Lazard keeps stealing his shirts.

Well, it's not like he can really afford to let anyone take anything of his own with that in mind, but - "If you do get wet, you can borrow something of mine, so long as you give it back," Angeal says. His size, it ought to at least fit this kid.

"Anyway, we can put you to work easily enough. If we get a decent haul, I can even treat you to a bit of dinner as well, although you'll have to deal with every other mess that I live with."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

TDM #7

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