Synodiporia: TDM prompts (and hopefully threads)

[narva]

Please tell me in your subject line which character and which prompt you're replying to! And thanks a lot for helping me testdrive!

Please follow the [#number] links to get to the prompt in question.

Ragnar (oWoD / ghoul) ◈ reunite

Prompt #42 (Sarmatia)

To Ragnar, the strange part about this isn't the presence of vampires and werewolves. Both have been a part of his life almost since birth, in one way or the other. No, the really strange part is the kind of music, the way in which the music is presented, the state of dress of the attendees and what they call dancing in the crowd.

He's an old man from the 1900s turn of the centuries, okay, he's allowed to stand out like a sore thumb have a hard time blending in at first. Luckily it is dark and nobody really cares too much about everyone else around, so he has time enough to watch everyone and finally find a calm spot where he doesn't have to worry about someone stepping on Emil. Carrying the dog around isn't technically an issue for someone as supernaturally strong as him, but it does get him looks and he'd rather not get those. So he finally finds a spot from which the stage can't really be viewed. He's not strictly alone here, but the crowd is thinned enough to put Emil down. And ...well, if the people around him are mostly busy making out, getting high or ...refreshing themselves (seriously, he should get a sign that says 'sorry, I'm taken'), he doesn't mind too much.

That's normal. That's a lot less strange than what the young ones call music these days.

He sits down with a long sigh and pats his thigh to get Emil to come over and stop sniffing a passed out young woman nearby, addressing the dog when he speaks up, in a tone that is half complaint and half amusement: "You have to wonder why it needs to be so loud." Even for people with normal hearing, that should be twice the necessary amount of sound.


Prompt #38 (Created Telepathic Network Landscape)

He had almost forgotten about this. No, not forgotten, but pushed it aside, into a corner of his mind that he didn't visit anymore. Tucked it away neatly so he didn't have to look at it anymore, with many other memories that he would rather have erased from existence. Things that still gnawed away at his heart if he looked at them, even after all those time, even after all the things that he had done.

At the moment, the glass cube looks almost harmless - a group of people in a longhouse, the light shining on the scene apparently a fire somewhere to the side. The picture centres on four people in the middle, one of them a tall, bearded, somewhat older looking man with one eye hidden under an elaborate eyepatch. He looks off, inhuman, though with how tiny the figures are it is hard to tell why. Opposite of him stand a woman of perhaps forty, Ragnar and between them a man of about thirty who resembles the two people to his sides enough to likely be their son - or at least related to both, for those who pay attention to apparent age. Unlike the man and woman to his sides who seem to be grieving more than anything else, the man in the middle looks scared out of his mind.

Tuuli Virtanen (oWoD / werewolf) ◈ northernspirits

Prompt #41 (Bando)

For a while, Tuuli watches the dancing in fascination, but eventually, she drifts away from it. Food is one thing to look out for, but there is another kind of nourishment that she is much more interested in, and eventually, she comes across it.

Storytellers.

At a festival like this, she figured, there would have to be some, and she hadn't been mistaken. Over the course of the evening, she will drift from one to the next, sometimes getting a bit of food or drink on the way, listening and gathering. Not all the stories are new, or only new iterations of stories that she's heard before, but sometimes even those add a twist or are narrated especially beautifully. After an especially beautifully told tragedy, she stays where she listened for a while, sitting with a half eaten box of octopus balls in her lap in an almost meditative state as she lets what she just heard sink in properly. If someone remains next to her until she is done, she will look over at them and offer up the box with a rueful smile. "Do you want one? I fear they got cold, though."


Prompt #43 (Liminal Farmland)

There is one thing to be said about patchwork farmland, and that is that it is a lot softer than regular farmland. One local human or wolf, depending if you encounter her after or before a good nap, certainly seems to think so, having found a field of rapeseed that seems to be especially soft and comfy to lay down on and just relax for a while, lazily watching the going ons around her.

Tuuli raises her head just enough to signal attention and see the source of the sound when she hears someone approach, to check if they will come over to her or pass by.

Marja Virtanen (oWoD / mage) ◈ onecatmore

Prompt #37 (Junkworld)

"Just go down there and press the red button twice, then the green, and then both and the yellow one at the same time." She glares at the panel in front of her, which is, surprise, full of red buttons. And then to the other side of the small, but not small enough for one person to reach both walls at once, room, where the one big yellow button is located. "I should just smash you all and see what happens."

Okay, no. Self control. She breathes deeply and despite having enhanced the way her body deals with the air around almost gets a coughing fit. Whatever is in the air, working on making it go away will be really worth it, but... "For heaven's sake, why don't they even know how their own ship works!" The only tech that she can deal with is medical tech, and she's never had any interest in furthering her horizon there. But she doesn't normally work on a spaceship, either. This is like a Virtual Adept telling her to just ...okay, that's probably the problem. Thinking that the situation will be as obvious to her as it is to the person who gave her the instruction. Heavens. She knows why she prefers to work alone.


Prompt #3 (Moebius)

She can't remember anything, and that doesn't make her scared, it makes her furious. Not that that fury has any aim or outlet, so she just sits up on this deathbed she was placed on, quietly seething, and glares at those just waking up around her before relenting a bit and rubbing her head.

She needs to pull herself together. First steps first. Pull herself together and keep the fury alive, because if it goes away she knows that fear will replace it, and she can't be scared. Not if - not if what? There's a memory, almost at her fingertips, that she cannot access.

"What happened?"

The question is directed at nobody in particular, more at the world in general, and she doesn't really expect it to be answered either as she looks around.

Code source

Comments

If it's any consolation, he's appalled by it when he's back to himself.

[chalicejoker]

"They're blocking out the loudest noises, I still wanna hear the concert, groove a little, you know?" The idea of earplugs for dogs just makes him grin. "Hey, if someone was interested in watching the concert in fur, wouldn't be a bad idea..."

[reunite]

He raises an eyebrow at the guy and almost makes a comment along the lines of their own or someone else's? but he's better than that. There's also no reason to risk insulting someone by accident. He doesn't really know how werewolves work here, but at least back home he is very well aware that he's no match for one in a fair fight. Or a fair bar fight. Or something like that.

"Maybe they exist, then. I should ask around.

Hey, Emil. How about earplugs?" Emil looks up at being called but just whines in reply, clearly not very endeared to the idea. As little fun as this level of noise is, he would like to retain a little bit of dignity, thank you. "Well, doesn't look like he wants any.

So why can't they just make it more quiet if people are wearing earplugs to deal with it?"

[chalicejoker]

Joker laughs. "Eh, and deprive the people who can't hear as well of their fun? Seems kind of sad for them."

[reunite]

"I doubt that knocking it down some would deprive anyone of hearing it, unless they are deaf.

Why don't you sit? It's so uncomfortable when you just stand there."

He vaguely indicates a space next to him with his hand - it's as good as anywhere else around. At least he's fairly sure that nobody used that the area right around him is clean to sit on, which makes in premium quality around here.

[chalicejoker]

"Don't mind if I do." Joker plops down next to him. He's pretty at ease in all the chaos and grime of the concert. Being a warwolf gives a guy all sorts of confidence. "You're new around here, huh?"

[reunite]

"Yeah.

So all of this is kind of, too. We didn't have big concerts like this back home. Not enough people." He's jumping around truths a bit, here. Because it all depends on how you define back home, but if you take the place where he was born... going by modern standards, they might not even have qualified as a village. Seven families with slaves and livestock. It'd felt huge then.

[chalicejoker]

"Ah, yeah, that's kind of like where I grew up." Joker shakes his head. "That place was a real drag--it's good to get out to places with a bit of nightlife!"

[reunite]

"Oh? Where was that?" It's always good to learn a bit more about the general area that you've found yourself in and the people in it, and besides it makes for good small talk.

[chalicejoker]

"Just an orphanage in the middle of nowhere." Joker shrugs. "Nothing spectacular. I ran off when I was fifteen, haven't looked back." He makes a vague gesture at everything. "Things were way more groovy out in the wider world."

[reunite]

"...How so?" He at least thinks he knows what 'groovy' is supposed to mean. Probably. "I'd assume that there are plenty of ungroovy things out in the wider world, too."

[chalicejoker]

Joker cracks a grin at that use of "ungroovy." Yeah, they're on a similar level. "Oh, there are. But I'm way better at handling that sorta thing myself now, you dig?"

[reunite]

At least the meaning of the slang this guy uses is fairly easy to infer from context.

"Fair enough. We all get better at is at we age." Well, at least in years. "Even Emil does, ...I think, though I sometimes doubt it. Emil." The dog has started to sniff at Joker and growl quietly,

[chalicejoker]

"Even though some things are timeless." Joker just laughs at being growled at. "Wouldn't do that if I were you, pup, I've got teeth of my own."

[reunite]

Considering that part of what Emil had been bred for, originally, many centuries ago, had been tracking down or warning for werewolves (which he was never sent off to do, because other undead had ended up a bigger issue than werewolves at that point. Probably why Emil's still around), it's not really surprising that he takes offence with Joker's everything.

He calms down a bit when both men seem to so obviously be at ease and not about to go anywhere, and well, being ordered to stand back on top of that, but he keeps a wary eye on Joker as he returns to Ragnar's side.

"Yeah, I'd prefer if you could keep them out of him. Bites get infected so easily." ...Ragnar isn't actually this calm, as much as the words are said lightly, picking up Joker's cheerful attitude. But he's darn good at faking it.

[chalicejoker]

"Eh, I've had worse." He'd gotten mauled when he was turned, after all. Joker's grin widens for a brief moment--was that a flash of fang?--and he shifts his weight slightly. He's more perceptive than he lets on; he's picking up on a little tension there. If things get bad?

Well, he always did like a good fight.

[reunite]

"Yeah, but Emil is just a dog. A lot less body to fight an infection to go around."

He's not picking up on the reference to being bitten and turned; he doesn't know much about werewolves because, surprise, they tend to not tell vampires and their allies much about themselves, but through a long life and moving among humans in areas with a lot of werewolves and thus a lot of their kinfolk, he knows for sure that they're born that way.

And why would that one be different here? The vampires seem similar enough to what he's used to.

[chalicejoker]

"Eh, I'm not in the habit of biting dogs." Joker laughs.

[reunite]

"A wise decision. You never know who has rabies."

And he feels like this is hands down the weirdest conversation that he has had in a good, long while.

[chalicejoker]

"I've had my shots!" Is he being serious or not? It's hard to say. "It's all good."

[reunite]

"I'm glad to hear that."

He looks out over the field and then says, thoughtfully: "I still don't understand the policies here. Everyone seems to get along so well."

[chalicejoker]

"We've had a lot of time to figure things out," Joker says with a nod. "And it's still kind of a work in progress, but we're learning!"

[reunite]

"How did you start to figure it out, though?"

He comes from a world where the issues between vampires and werewolves are so very basic that short of everyone being brainwashed there's probably no hope in both populations getting along and not just tolerating each other as much as strictly, absolutely necessary.

[chalicejoker]

"Took a while." Joker shrugs. "It's not like I did it personally, y'know? "Lotta people spent a lot of time talking over stuff."

[reunite]

"..."

He just has to laugh now. Not about Hajime's words so much, as the imaginary of people having tried that back where he grew up.

...Yeah, no. It doesn't last long though and he finally just shakes his head. "I don't think that would have worked back home."

[chalicejoker]

"Well, these things take time!" Joker laughs. "Wouldn't have worked well if I'd been the only one doing the talking--I've always been more of a fighter, myself. But I try."