fishesoutofwater | TEST DIVE #3

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test dive

TEST DIVE #3

PREMISE & NAVIGATION ✦ RULES ✦ MOD CONTACT
TAKEN ✦ RESERVES ✦ APPLICATIONS ✦ HIATUS & DROPS
FAQ ✦ BASE ✦ BIOMES ✦ URSULA ✦ URSULA CONTACT

TEST DIVE MEME

Reserves open on the 17th
Applications open on the 24th
Check out our ATP/Enable Me meme!

NOTE REGARDING THIS APPLICATION CYCLE

For information about the animals and locations, be sure to check out the BIOME and BASE pages! Note that TDM threads can be used for game canon and several prompts are based on crew contributions to the base that are being worked on this month!

A: There’s a Storm on the Horizon
A brainstorm. On advice about the ingenuity of multi person parties, and from admitted lack of understanding of many needs of organics, URSULA has selected you and a partner (or partners) to go to one of the observatories with food, beds, and recording devices to have a jam session for ideas about missions.

You are not to leave the room until you have some good ones. So get cracking! Start suggesting to one another what the base needs to do.

Or get horribly, horribly sidetracked and possibly a little crazy at being locked up together with the ocean staring at you. Judging.

B: The Abysmal Sea
You’re stranded.

One of the planet’s troublesome signal-interfering pulses has just made your communication devices 100% nonfunctional. No matter how you try to call URSULA for help, she isn’t able to respond. The database strapped to your wrist is just a useless chunk of metal now, leaving you without a useful library of knowledge to survive off. If you were driving any underwater vehicle prior to this point, it’s broken down. And unless you’re a mechanic, it’ll be pretty hard to get it jumpstarted again.

Don’t fret! The communication systems always come online eventually, so if you stay put, it’ll boot back up and give you directions straight back to base so you can finally get home. But can you really afford to stay put? The sunlight’s slowly streaming out of the sky, leaving the waters darker and darker with each passing second. Soon, you won’t be able to see five feet in front of you, and the only warning you’ll get of any approaching threat is through sound, if they even make any.

You have a few choices: take a daring risk and try swimming back to base, but on the off-chance you don’t remember the directions correctly from before you were cut off, you’re going to get even more lost, in the darkness of the night no less. Or, you could huddle in, with any friends if they were unfortunate enough to be with you, and start focusing on getting warm. Because spending the night out here in the vast oceans with the entire world against you is becoming a very, very real possibility.

C: Test Drive Test Dives
The Robotics section of the laboratory needs your help! Whether you were a poor sap who got dragged into it or love working on robots, this is your time to shine!

A few suits need testing to get the kinks out of them. And you know, figure out how they work in general. So be a dear and get in one so the others can watch you flail around and discover how it works.

If you're not into being a crash test dummy, you can help do repair work, analyze blueprints of various underwater vehicles, bring in scrap metal to work with or maybe just try painting the Seamoth neon pink.

D: Camping Trip
Floater Island is the only real land around so even if it's a longer trip, it's nice to volunteer for an overnight mission there sometimes. Who doesn't want to camp out under the stars when you've been living under the sea this whole time? Attempt to make s'mores out of plants and that chocolate bar you have left! Play with Birdogs! Go for a swim in the lake! Try very hard to get some sort of emotional response from a Light Frog!

Well, sure, you're here on a mission but it's okay to goof off and enjoy yourselves with some campfire stories and freshly cooked Chomper kebobs sometimes. Just grab a few samples from the abandoned farm at least so it looks like you actually worked.

E: THE AURORA
Quiet except for the creaks and rumbles as the ship settles and shifts, the sound of Reapers screaming in the distance every so often, the Aurora is a creepy place to visit for a mission. The remains of those crew members not buried, and the belongings of many others, still litter the ship's halls. It might be nice to remove any skeletons you find.

Of course, their misfortune is your opportunity to catch up on some reading, browse whatever video games they left, get medical supplies and enjoy the comforts they no longer need.

But is it possible the Aurora is haunted? Surely not. Except sometimes you might hear voices from far away. It might just be the people you came on board with, unless they're with you. Or it might be a Cave Crawler knocking over some recording device. You're not too scared to check, right?

F: Farmville
Time to tend to the crops! That's right, the underwater farm needs your help. Some trees and plants rest on the seabed under protective covers that allow them to grow their leaves and fruits while the roots firmly keep them in the sand. Harvest some apples, more apples, oranges, strawberries and other delicious produce that sounds much, much better than a regular diet of fish.

And once you've helped get a basket full of crops for the base, it's time to cook them! But what are you going to make? Apple stuffed fish? Orange stuffed fish? Nah, get creative with what you have! Everyone is counting on you for dinner!

BASED ON CODE BY TESSISAMESS AND SUPERSUITS

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ karkat definitely was not actually expecting dirk to go for it? whether it's a sincere gesture or he's just fucking around, it takes karkat by enough surprise that he just gapes silently for five seconds.

and then he immediately starts talking again, because there's really not much that can actually keep him quiet. ]

Try sounding... chipper. Upbeat. Like Dave's mom.

[ he goes for one of the more ridiculous options because he doesn't actually expect dirk to do this. ]

[Hm. Trying to sound like Roxy. Yeah, that's going to be rough. He's pretty sure he can't do this without sounding creepy as fuck, but he'll try.]

Okay. But I'm not taking responsibility for the results.

[Dirk puts a hand over his mouth as he thinks about this. Think like Roxy. Think like Roxy. God, he couldn't even do this when high on Trickster juju.

Dirk clears his throat and drops his hand so he can give Karkat a big thumbs up to go with his cheery voice.] Thanks so much for helping me out on this, Karkles! You're the best!

[The cheery voice sucks. He manages to pitch his voice higher (joy expresses itself on a higher frequency and more rapidly than a neutral tone, he remembers reading that once) but he doesn't have the proper rise and fall throughout to make it sound natural.

Also, he didn't smile.]

Edited 2016-06-15 21:38 (UTC)

[ well that was

extremely

uncomfortable.

karkat isn't entirely sure what the worst part was? the peppy, yet somehow still robotic voice? dirk's lack of expression while demonstrating this voice? he really does not know what he expected to accomplish with this exercise. ]

Holy fuck, you sound like you're two seconds away from violently stabbing me to death then baking my remains into sugary snacks.

[Dirk immediately drops any attempt to take this further. Back to neutral tone, thank god.]

Yeah, I can see where you get that. I was aiming for Roxy, but I think it ended up as a faulty mutant hybrid between my attitude and how the others sounded when they went Trickster. [Honestly, Trickster mode still freaks him the fuck out. The others got scary.

The shades angle towards Karkat. Dear, sensible neutrality dictates all aspects of his expression.]

Don't worry too much. Baking is generally Jane's domain.

Alright great, I'll try to avoid her murdering me then and turning me into an apple pie.

[ he is relieved that dirk returns to his normal tone though. karkat decides to never complain about it again (that's a lie) (he definitely will). ]

What was up with the whole Tricker thing anyway? You guys mentioned it before but none of us dealt with that in our sessions.

[Learn your lesson, Karkat. That was the point of that entire insane exercise. (One of the points.)]

From what I understand, some aliens involved in our session, similar to how you were with Dave's, gave a couple of my friends some lollipop jujus that got everyone the most aggressive version of sugar high imaginable. Now that I've talked to Roxy about Calliope, I'm beginning to understand it has something to do with Cherubim culture. [Which he'd like to know more about. He should ask Calliope about it whenever he sees her again? it seems really interesting.] It makes sense it would never get into your sessions, since human and troll cultures don't seem to have any equivalents.

Edited 2016-06-15 22:02 (UTC)

[ karkat grimaces at the description. he still doesn't entirely get what happened there, but trying to imagine what the beta group would be like after taking something like that is. not a fun thing to do. especially the trolls, since wow, they were already pretty fucked up to begin with. ]

Calliope is the green one that all the girls keep holding hands with, right?

[ seriously they're all up in calliope's space. karkat wonders what quadrants they'd fit in and

ok no. no more shipping charts. NO. ]

That was one less thing we had to worry about, thank fuck.

That's the name Roxy told me belongs with that particular person in our haphazard assemblage four different session's players, yes. [God why is their entire adventure so bullshit. Even by this game's standards.]

As a word of warning, if you see a lollipop swirling red and green, you probably shouldn't let anyone lick it.

[The idea of a Trickster troll sounds particularly unpleasant. Dirk doesn't ever want to see it happen.

He shoves over a pile of chips for Karkat to captachalogue. It's generally been easier to sort things by kind, given their space limitations.]

I mean, that already sounds suspicious as fuck even without context. I already don't trust most of what you humans call food.

[ although... what are the chances of something like that appearing here, anyway? they're just surrounded by water. and more water. karkat assumes that if anyone finds a lollipop just laying around here, it probably wouldn't really taste that great even if it didn't have weird powers attached? ]

Ok but back on the topic of your whole tone thing. What about when you get mad? Does your voice changes? Do you get mad? Is this within your emotional range?

[No, not going back to this? Goddammit, Karkat. But, no, okay. Don't close off like a clam, Dirk. One, sea puns are overrated. Two, you really need to work on being open with people. You've had lots of practice with the family. Try extending it.]

It's within my emotional range. I'm pretty confident I have the full spectrum of emotions available to average human beings. [He has distinct memories of getting very, very angry, and he's pretty sure the rest of his emotions.] I don't want to bog you down with the intricacies of human childhood development theory, but the basic idea is that if we don't socialize early, we can never really learn.

I don't know if the trolls operate similarly. The Condesce never handed humanity a guidebook to what aspects of her culture she was trying to impose on ours. [Which is why he's still really iffy on the concept of a subjuggulator. Because no one ever told him how legit that is.]

[ it is pretty legit.

the way humans are raised is still kind of baffling to karkat, although admittedly most of his knowledge comes specifically from john's life since. john is the one karkat primarily stalked when the trolls were researching the kids after discovering them. from what he does understand, though, he really does not see humanity adapting very well to how troll society works. it's way too much of a culture clash. ]

Yeah no, trolls aren't that big on the whole socializing thing. I mean, obviously we do it but. [ admittedly karkat would not call most trolls' relationships with each other healthy? they're all kind of dicks. ] Our lusii aren't really that concerned about setting up play dates with the other wrigglers.

That fits with what I understood of their effect on Earth. The lusii she tried to import didn't do well with human children. All her best efforts at genetic tinkering couldn't set up the symbiosis she was aiming for.

[Hm, he thinks he will put these metals together in the pile with the quartz. Then he can group them together based on their use to maximize sylladex space.]

It'll be interesting to see how you guys choose to reforge your culture with the wigglers Kanaya is presumably going to be coaxing out of the Matriorb. [However that happens? He only knows so much.]

[ karkat snorts at that because the empress failing spectacularly at something is hilarious. it's even more hilarious now that she's dead and can't like, murder karkat for laughing at her or something.

he finishes captchaloguing everything dirk told him to, so he's just going to wait for the next pile to be done. ]

Jegus, I don't even know what the fuck we're going to do about that. Kanaya has this crazy idea that I'm going to be the one to figure that out? You might as well start placing your bets now for when I invariably cause the next extinction of my species.

[Oh the failures Dirk could tell you about, Karkat. The terrible, horrifying failures.]

Huh, I just imagined her and Rose raising them all as little tentacle-loving sesquipedalian-mad fashionistas. [It seemed like the reasonable next step. But apparently not?]

I don't know. From what Dave has told me, you have a pretty appropriately critical perspective on your species. I can't say that guarantees the wisest choice of custodian for a culture reborn, but I think it puts you in a much better person than someone who would blindly accept all aspects of their society.

[Also, Karkat, here, take this pile. Thanks.]

[ that all sounds fake. but ok.

karkat takes this pile too, although he's beginning to wonder why it's taking dirk so long to sort through this shit? what type of sylladex does he even have? ]

Oh no, trust me, she and Rose are definitely going to make sure they're all as creepy as possible. I'm pretty certain Kanaya is going to just chainsaw anyone who gets to close to them. They just think that I have to steer us all in the right direction of how we want our species to develop.

[ lmao yeah no, karkat can't do that. he's trying to pretend that is a responsibility that does not exist until he has to actually acknowledge it. he cannot do this and it is time for a subject change. ]

Also what else has Dave said about me? You keep mentioning this but you keep giving me vague details.

[Well, good to know his guesses are right. Troll species, you have a weird future ahead.

Also stop judging his sylladex? he's suffering a lot here. It's hard and no one understands.]

I understand where you're coming from. But as a counterpoint, I'm going to ask you if you can actually give specifics about most things Dave brings up in passing to you.

[ ... point. but that's because most of dave's references fly over karkat's head? or whenever he tries to talk about stuff, he leaves out like. half of the needed context, if not all of it. it's a miracle anyone can have a conversation with dave strider.

which, you know, backs up dirk's argument so karkat doesn't actually want to say any of that. ]

Uh obviously? I'm just not going to tell you anything because you won't tell me.

[ nailed it. ]

Okay. So we're sworn to mutual secrecy on the Dave Strider's speech content front.

[And there we go, that's the last pile. He grabs a few for his own sylladex and leaves the rest to Karkat.]

We can leave now, if you want.

Ugh fine it's not like I really wanted to know what he was saying about me anyway.

[ even though karkat has already asked like, twice, so that's convincing.

he captchalogues to final items, and it's a good thing he more or less stopped using his sylladex as much after ending up on the meteor (what was with the trolls and just dumping everything into treasure chests???) because he definitely has more room than dirk. although. getting all of this out will later may be a problem, hm. ]

Fuck yes, let's go. This was the worst field trip destination ever.

Sorry. I'll send the drones to scan for Troll Disneyworld next time.

[Or Troll Disneyland. He's about to move and then pauses.]

The fastest route out of here is flying. Are you up for that?

[ what the fuck is a disney world

he's about to say as much, but then dirk mentions flying and karkat just groans. god, he hates being god tier carried. it is such bullshit that he can't fly just because he never got around to dying on a rocky bed somewhere. ]

Sure, I love being carried around like a useless princess who keeps getting kidnapped the second you set her down. It's my favorite thing to do, so let's buckle up and do this, Strider.

[Well. Dirk was going to give Karkat a piggyback ride. Between Loki and Dave, Dirk has gotten very good at them.

But Karkat is like his own one-man misery generator? Dirk shouldn't find this so funny given his own experiences with misery-generation but he makes a quick calculation and

yeah he's pretty sure Dave will not object to trolling Karkat, he is actually pretty sure he can make some extrapolations about Dave and Karkat's hang time. So.]

Sounds good to me.

[Are you ready to be swept off your goddamned feet, Karkat? Because the Strider is a particularly obnoxious brand of human and this one is going for it.]

Edited (i know how to make a past tense ok!!) 2016-06-16 17:30 (UTC)

[ karkat's life would be... so much easier if he learned how to stop talking... alas. today is not the day that happens.

karkat actually yelps when dirk picks him up and he is going to deny ever making that sound until the day he dies. he crosses his arms in front of his chest because this is stupid even though he's the one who gave dirk the idea. not that he knows that but. ]

I am starting to believe that your family was put in this universe specifically to mock me.

[ says the guy who. technically created their universe. ]

I can't speak for Paradox Space's intentions, so I can neither confirm or deny that possibility. I'll just have to do my best to live up to this potential life purpose.

[You fucked up when you made humanity, Karkat. You fucked up harder than you know.

Also Dirk is easily just zooming through the various damaged shafts and hallways. He has by now basically memorized the best route out of here, so he's doing the whole route almost totally on reflex, with just a fraction of his attention devoted to staying alert for new variables.]

Wait no you don't have to do that? Make a new life purpose. Pull a Rose and go off the rails and make your own destiny. Aren't you guys all about that shit?

[ pls he can only be princess carried so many times before he throws a tantrum? again. he's definitely thrown tantrums over this before already but do we really need another one. ]

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