fishesoutofwater | TEST DIVE #3

PREMISE & NAVIGATION ✦ RULES ✦ MOD CONTACT
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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 holds his hand out.

this is fucking official now ok, they need to shake on it and the deal will be done.

he can't even remember what this essay? test?? is even supposed to be about anymore, karkat is just consumed about this challenge. ]

No, Karkat. I'm not succumbing to any weakass handshakes. We're making this legitimate. We are giving it the gravitas it deserves.

[Dirk offers his fist out. You gotta bump it, Karkat.]

[ karkat stares at the offered fist mostly because

seriously what the fuck is with you striders and fist bumps?? ]

Fine. And with this, it is on like troll donkey kong. There is no take backsies here or at any point in our futures. Get fucked.

[ fist bump ]

[The pact is sealed.]

Don't take too long on that dissertation. It'd be ill-mannered to leave your defeat waiting.

Ha ha! That's a funny joke, since we are both well aware that the person who is going to lose this isn't me. You may be acting all confident, but I believe that you're intelligent enough to understand that you're really no match against me? I'm starting to think that you're going this far, even resorting to embarrassing yourself like this, just because you want to hang out with me so badly? You didn't have to do this to yourself to make that happen, man. I would have been your bro regardless but it is too late to back out now.

[Remember that thing about tonal variation, and not having it? Well. That didn't stop being a thing.]

Damn. You caught me.

Guess I'll just have to face the consequences of my elaborate machinations.

I am about seventy five percent sure that you're being insincere right now and I don't appreciate it.

[ at this rate he doesn't seem to appreciate dirk at all?? ]

So there's a twenty five percent probability that you do appreciate what I'm doing.

[Yeah Dirk's not worth appreciating let's be real.]

Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. I would not go that far. You are putting words into my squawk gaper now.

[ even though karkat did in fact more or less say that but.

look, dirk, karkat does not pay attention to at least half of what comes out of his mouth. ]

My bad. How far would you go?

[Why is Karkat even trying? Dirk doesn't know, but he is perfectly willing to stand here letting the ocean drip off of him watching Karkat fail at whatever it is.]

[ meanwhile karkat would argue over nonsense forever if other people let him. if he had a pen or something on him he'd be making up charts. ]

As far as it is needed to prove that you are wasting you're time with this conversation because I am the only one who is getting anything out of it, and that thing is victory. Yet for some reason you humans seem to enjoy tasting a drawn out defeat.

[He knows he should stop this but he... doesn't want to? This is hilarious. He has to see how far down the rabbithole one can go.]

I thought you just said that you didn't appreciate what I'm doing.

That would imply that you're not getting anything out of it. Certainly not victory.

If you're revising your earlier opinion, let me know. It's getting hard to keep up.

[ shit. see, this is what happens when you don't pay attention to your own argument.

karkat wonders how he can backpedal out of this, and instead of actually thinking out a clever response he is just going to blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. again. ]

It's not my fault that my mind has just so many fucking layers that someone like you, who apparently are unable to leap from all of my logical conclusions, cannot keep up. But I will try to slow down so you will be able to comprehend what's going on. It'll be an effort on my part to lower myself to your level, but I'm a nice guy like that.

Thanks, Vantas.

[He claps a (still-drying) hand on Karkat's shoulder.]

I appreciate it.

[Just give up, Karkles.]

What? No! Don't thank me! Do not appreciate it, whatever "it" is in this specific scenario that I have forgotten because there have been many scenarios we've discussed that "it" could be. I have been nothing but a an unending pain in your spinal crevice, and yet you continue to feed me false gratitude. Well I am onto you, Dirk Strider, and your ironic games. You may think you have beaten me but oh no. This battle is a long way from being over. Every time you think you can sit down and enjoy one of your disgusting orange beverages, I will be there to slap it out of your hand. Actually scratch that, before you even touch it I will have been there and shaken it vigorously so the drink will explode on your face once you open it. You have not gotten the best of me so no, I will no accept your thanks. Fuck your thanks sideways!

[ he says, dripping wet and beginning to sniffle because he should really change out of this dive suit. ]

I see you've been taking prank tips from the Harleyberts.

[Nice try, Karkat. Also:]

You should dry off before you compromise your immune system.

[He realizes this might set the contrarian off in the opposite direction. But Dirk isn't worried about that happening. He's pretty sure he has the speed and strength to get Karkat dried and changed himself.]

[ karkat just makes the Most Offended Face in the World at prank tips, because no? how dare dirk imply that karkat took tips from john (there are more harleyberts than just john, karkat) because that is a very firm No

but then dirk keeps talking, and karkat's perpetual frown just deepens ]

My immune system is just fine, thank you. I don't know about you humans, but trolls are able to withstand a lot more than what a lot of other species are able to. I won't get sick just because I was in the ocean for a few minutes.

TEST DIVE #3

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