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OCTOBER + NOVEMBER TDM.
● ● ● T D M . 0 4
… What are you willing to do to erase your regret from existence?
These are the words that ring in your ears, as a slowly growing red glow surrounds you in this dreamspace, filling you with an acute sense of dread — and whatever it is that you’ve just agreed to might have changed everything forever.
It is this sense of dream that startles you awake, and as it fades, and your heart begins to slow into something resembling your normal tempo, you'll notice something you should have picked up on immediately: you are not in your bed.
1.0 White walls, clinical yet clean, sparsely-furnished rooms. You may wake in one of three rooms: a room with only one bed, a room with two beds, or a room with four beds. Those waking up in rooms with more than one bed notice that they are not alone. Perhaps the other occupants of the room are still sleeping, dreaming the same dream as you just did, or a regular one after returning to the station just barely a week ago … or perhaps you wake up to the other person in the room watching you.
What you do is entirely up to you: yelping in surprise when you wake to someone staring at you is always an option. Or maybe you’ll try to sneak away before anyone notices you...
2.0 Those with life-threatening injuries will find themselves waking up in the infirmary, in a regular hospital bed. Most of their injuries have been treated, and any lingering illnesses or conditions will have designated medicine bottles on the table next to the bed.
White curtains surround the bed on both sides, providing an illusion of privacy. But is that a rustling sound you hear? A set of footsteps? Perhaps you’re not the only one in need of some medical attention.
In fact if you’re very badly off, you might want to hold out hope for some company - you can’t stay in the infirmary forever. You'll have to make your way through the hallways of the station to the living quarters, and claim a room and a bed there.
Once upright, you might notice something in your ear: an earpiece that, when you become aware of it, quickly runs you through the instructions for how to use the network, a recorded message by a female voice that explains exactly why you’re here… and leaves you with a map of the station.
So what else is there to do but to explore, right? Best get to know your way around your new home.
3.0 When trying to decide where you go, you might find your way to the armory, where you can make attempts to work the machine and create a weapon for yourself — maybe replace the one that didn’t come with you to the station ... or maybe you decide to prepare something for the future. Any recently-returned team members will surely recommend having a functional weapon with you.
And speaking of weapons: why not put them to the test and head over to the training room, where the entire purpose of this space is to provide you with opportunities to spar and train to your heart’s content!
4.0 After you’ve exhausted yourself from training, your stomach will prompt you for something to eat. For that you should head to the kitchens and the mess hall, which is equipped with all the basic appliances you might need, along with some more unusual ones (including an ... interesting-looking waffle maker and popcorn machine), as well as ingredients for most generic Earth-based dishes. For some reason, there are also some bags of now-cold popcorn left abandoned over the counters.
5.0 A welcome reprieve to the cold, dark space that surrounds you can be found in the sunlight room. A skillful illusion builds up around anyone who steps inside the room: you can hear the trilling of birds, feel a light breeze caress your skin as you walk through a grass field. The illusion has been programmed to reflect the seasons — the leaves in the trees are currently bright with all the colours of autumn: orange and red and yellow; and the air is crisp and clean. If you follow the path, you'll be led to a bridge rising over a sparkling, babbling brook, a few fallen leaves floating on the water and falling around you like very bright raindrops.
Here, it's easy to forget (for a moment, anyway) that you are in space at all. Maybe that gives you comfort, or maybe it just makes you miss the real thing all that much more.
6.0 If you’d rather choose tinkering with objects over wandering through nature, the lab is guaranteed to provide you with some entertainment. Glass vials and jars of chemicals sit on shelves in a surprisingly beautiful display of colour on one side of the room, while the other side of the room contains stacks of boxes filled with assorted equipment: cords, bolts, panels, buttons, gears, gadgets, gizmos, and thingamabobs. The downside is that the parts available seem to have no apparent method to their sorting. So get digging and you may just find exactly what you need to make what you’ve always wanted to!
7.0 Some time after your arrival, the earpiece alerts you to a new message. If it’s items you’re lacking, you may just be in luck.
Indeed, the platform located near the personal quarters is still whirring with power, and new items form neat piles on top of it. There are clothes, shoes, dishware, skincare, books ... and in one pile, a varied collection of what seems to be Halloween decorations and costumes. So, sort through the piles and grab what you want before someone else does! (But don't forget: sharing is caring.)
Whether you’re a quick study and you’ve become settled into life on the station, or you want to get the full lay of the land (in a manner of speaking) first, if you decide to explore the hall past the control room, you’ll eventually come across the simulation room. It’s been equipped with a new simulation to show you the drill where the missions are concerned, so step in and see what it has in store for you!
8.0 The moment the doors slide shut behind you, the space goes dark and then quickly lights up again, but instead of the blank empty walls you initially walked into, you’re surrounded by colour and lights, the sound of music and chatter, and the smells of deep-fried foods and overly sweet beverages. Someone calls, ‘Step right up, step right up!’ while another voice from somewhere starts to cheer as an electrical sound of a buzzer goes off, announcing its winner for prizes.
It seems that you’ve entered the Carnival simulation, so come on in and have a little fun.
There are booths spread out across these simulated grounds, each one offering food, drink or games. As you wander past you’ll notice that there is a touch of macabre to everything — the colours are black and orange and violet and red, the drinks offered have strange names, some you recognize like ‘Witch’s Brew’ and ‘Eye of Newt’, and some you might not, like ‘Viole(n)t Breeze’ and ‘Undead Essence’. It’s as though all of the things strange and wonderful find themselves spread across the entire universe to unite here.
Once you’ve had your fill of food and games, you can make your way past the little market area to a brightly glittering ferris wheel with carts rotating in a cycle, enticing you to try it out. Or if you’d rather be spooked, there is a hokey little ‘haunted mansion’ to your left that won’t take more than a handful of minutes to move through. Creatures and ghosts will pop out at you when you least expect it, their masked faces exaggerated with paint and some fairly realistic prosthetics to get the adrenaline pumping. Take a friend with you, or go it alone — just try to keep your cool through it all.
9.0 Eventually, once you’ve had your fill of the festivities, you may notice a wooden sign pointing you past the haunted mansion. Pressed on it is a round mark, and you remember that this is simulating a mission — you’re not here to just have fun, but to try and retrieve a simulated orb.
As you follow the path, you’ll find the hustle and bustle of the carnival growing quieter. All around you, there is nothing but woods — and hold on, where did all that mist come from? It surrounds you slowly, the ground seeming slightly damp as you keep walking… and arrive at a graveyard.
So the orb… it’s there, hidden in one of the graves? There’s nothing else to do but to start walking and looking at the gravestones — but when you do, you’ll be shocked to find some of the names are terribly, terribly familiar.
They might be names of your loved ones, people who were still in perfect health back home; and yet here those stones bear their names, along with an epitaph that brings tears to your eyes. And if you move closer… you may experience a flash of colour and light, and a memory suddenly plays out in front of you: the death of your loved one, whoever that may be.
Or perhaps the name you see on a gravestone is something else even more familiar to you: your own. But ... how, right? Reluctantly, your heart pounding, you approach with tentative steps, and yes — the name does not change. It's yours right there ... and it's your own death that you witness when the grave’s spell binds you.
● ● ●
N O T E: The deaths witnessed are intended to be non-canon deaths, so feel free to go wild inventing them -- this also goes for characters who are canonically dead. These are “alternate universe deaths”, not canon.
Additionally, there are three personal tasks provided to each character as they enter the simulation. In-game, each character will be given one task. For the purposes of the test drive, we’re leaving it to players to pick a task for their character and run with it.
A Find the grave of a teammate and witness their death.
B Team up with a fellow Orber win in one of the Carnival games.
C Scare a teammate in the haunted house.
F Y I
• This TDM covers both October and November, so there will be no new TDM for November.
• TDM threads can be used as samples for apps. In fact, we encourage it!
• Reserves are currently open!
• Apps open October 27 and will remain open until November 30.
• For any questions regarding TDM, please direct them here. For questions about the game, please refer to the FAQ.
FOR SOME FUN:
Have a clue for your upcoming mission:
“I’m going to bed, where I may die.”
*Captain* Jack Harkness | Doctor Who/Torchwood
Jack Harkness has woken up in so many unexpected places by now that it's a little more surprising when he is in the same place as the last time. Who knows the reasons why, there's thousands of them, although the most popular ones involve someone pretty and/or some alien situation he's gotten on the wrong side of. He went to bed on Gwen and Rhys' couch after spending awhile charming Anwen with stories she couldn't understand yet, but she still squealed and seemed impressed all the while. He didn't know what was next, his time with the newest Doctor as confusing as it was thrilling.
Waking up this way might not be new, but the dread is. Over the many, many years, Jack's just stopped really feeling things as strongly as he used to, but this was almost fresh. Unsettling, for sure, but after sitting up and stretching, he manages to calm his nerves almost immediately. Well, here he is again. Everything seems to be in working order at least and he stands up, planning walking out and figuring out answers right away, but he pauses when he realizes someone else was in the room.
He turns in a rustle of a unique looking coat and flashes a smile. "Hi, Captain Jack Harkness. You wouldn't happen to know where we are, would you?"
3.0 Time To Get Lubed (Armed) up
Jack explores the ship with a little faster of a gait than his usual, the only sign that he's not as calm on the inside as he appears. He's not worried so far, no one's tried to kill him yet and there's no alarm bells or anything, but that could change in a pinch. It's a nice ship, he'll give it that, he has peeked his head into several rooms now and thought it looked like a nice vacation spot, all things considered. But he didn't ask for a vacation, thanks.
In case someone does come around with a blaster, he did just deal with Daleks after all and his nerves are raw about it, he finds the armory. Or he thinks it might be, although there are no weapons shown off. Jack is used to strange technology so pokes at the controls and his eyes widen. "No way." Yes way. After putting in some information, a Mark IV Webley Revolver drops down onto the pedestal.
Jack stares at it, mouth open. "Oh my god, come to daddy." He picks it up and turns it this way and that. Yep. It looks exactly like the one he used to have. Putting it into one of his pockets, he immediately looks at the machine again. "Where have you been all my life?"
8.0 Step Right Up
Jack settles into life on the ship extremely well because he is by necessity adaptable, but he is looking for something a little more exciting to do than meet new people. Which is fun, for him it's always fun, but standing still is not his way. He ends up in the simulation room and is duly impressed when the world around him changes into something very vivid and real feeling, taking in the sounds and smells of a Carnival.
In his exciting life, sometimes the average human thing really gets him into it, and a Carnival seems pretty fun. He treats everything as real as it feels, grabbing some popcorn and what smells like an excellent drink, double fisting drinks at one point as he walks around trying out games. Wherever he goes, Jack chats cheerfully with anyone who is there, whether it's someone from the ship or maybe fabricated by this entire thing. Flirting almost always ends up happening with a playful wink, and he shows off by playing a game while chugging a drink at the same time.
Always the attention seeker.
Eventually he goes to the Ferris wheel because why not and maybe someone is getting on at the same time. Jack flashes a smile and gestures. "By all means, we can share." He also ends up in the haunted house although never seems to jump when they attempt to scare him, walking around instead with popcorn, but around in case anyone is feeling scared instead.
[Wildcard]
[ooc: find him wandering the ship or eating or really doing anything, Jack is extroverted and likes people. Feel free to pm or message waftingcurtains on plurk for ideas.]
3.0
At his excitement she glances up his way, sighing sadly at his success. Leave it to her to have the rotten luck working the grumpy old cow of a fabricator.
"Dunno where it's been," she pipes up, flashing him a lopsided grin as she nudges her wooden chair with the toe of her boot. "But I think it hates me. I wanted something made of wood, and it gave me an entire chair."
Which is just rude, really. She's incredibly pouty and put out about it. But he's so into whatever it is he's just made that the chair is abandoned and she goes over to his side, hand outstretched like she's asking him to show off his new toy.
"You, though. What'd you make that has you so excited?"
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"It's a Mark IV Webley Revolver, most actively used during World War II on a planet called Earth. I know it's not the shinest one out there, but I do love the classics." If it was his own gun he would not be so quick to share, but that's because it is personal for him. This was just made in a replicator; amazing, but holding no sentimental attachment.
He doesn't assume that she is from Earth because it is a big wide universe out there with many alien planets, and he rubs elbows (and other things) enough with them not to go straight just because she looks like a human. "I'm good at machines, what were you hoping to make? I could give you a hand. Both of them." God save him from pretty girls with pretty pouts. No, don't save him, he loves them.
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But given the fact there's just something about him she likes, she hopes that maybe he'll take the time to teach her how to fire this specific one. "I'm from London," she informs him, eyebrow arching as she glances up his way. "And I was hoping to suggest you use those hands of yours to help me learn how to fire this properly."
He doesn't have to be told she's in the process of learning. She's well aware that fact stands out like the dimple that's currently on her face as she grins up at him, hoping to charm him into saying yes.
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"Then this pistol is a part of your heritage, it was used as the standard British Service Revolver for a time. So you should definitely learn how to use it." Jack's taught many people how to use firearms over his long life so it takes no real charm to get him to do it, although her dimple certainly doesn't hurt. He has known plenty of women to wear dress and leather jackets and be intimidating as hell, he learned a long time ago not to underestimate anyone, even if they look absolutely adorable. Especially then.
"We'd best go to the training room if we're going to fire anything. I don't know how bulletproof these walls are." Jack memorized most of the layout of this ship in one single walk around, he's good at getting layouts and especially know where all the exits are. He's had to run out of a lot of ships at this point. He gestures for her to follow, his jacket whooshing as he turns, as per usual.
"I'm Captain Jack Harkness, by the way. I'm from the 51st Century in Earth terms."
1.0;
As the Doctor walks down the hall, he keeps his stern blue eyes looking onto the next wing where the labs are located. He needs to consult with his previous iteration about something innocuous but, in his head, it is about as important as doing maintenance on the TARDIS. The Doctor continues walking down until he hears the booming, charismatic voice of a certain captain. A captain who the Doctor has not seen for quite a while.
He stops in place. A slight grin furling on his face.
The Doctor turns around while his hand adjusts the cuff of his navy jacket.
"Never struck took you as the type to ask questions first. Is this a new routine for you?"
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"Oh I'm not ever one type, I'm all the types." The man is not entirely wrong though, Jack does tend to be a run first ask questions later, search the area, find out all the secrets and details he can, but maybe he's gotten lazier in his old age. Or he knows the benefit in having temporary allies when he's kidnapped somewhere new. Or he's changeable and never has a strict routine, he does everything by instinct as he goes. It's kept him around this long.
"And what kind of type are you?" he asks with a twinkle in his eye. He feels like he knows, he really does have a sixth sense, but that's because he's always looking for the Doctor, one way or another.
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“Me?” The Doctor takes a few steps closer to Jack. “Just an idiot who likes to travel from time to time.”
He stops in place and raises his eyebrows in acknowledgement.
“Good to see you again, Jack.”
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It being Jack, he immediately closes the space between them and wraps the Doctor into a hug whether he likes it or not. A big hearty one too. He may look slightly older than the last time he saw him, it's very hard to tell with Jack since he ages so slowly, but there was a wrinkle or two around his eyes that have a hundred years or so of backstory.
No matter how many versions he meets of the Doctor, he always feels like being in his/her/their presence is a relief, a comfort. Jack may outlive everyone around him, but he always manages to run into his favorite alien sooner or later.
"Okay so quick time check." He would keep hugging him if he could. "You wouldn't happen to have been a pretty blonde woman before this would you?"
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He doesn't, however, expect what Jack has to say next.
His eyes look on owlishly at Jack.
“…I’m blonded again?” Partially a joke, but being a woman? Finally! And here he thought he peaked at regenerating into a Scotsman. Still not ginger, but he’ll gladly take the small win in the regeneration lottery.
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"Wow, really got the silver fox thing down, don't you? I like it." He thought the same thing when he saw Graham, who turned out to be a companion like him, but not a bad kisser considering he didn't know what was going on. The Doctor could look like anything and be attractive, and Jack has yet to be proven wrong on that.
"Oh yeah, blonde, young, female. Sexy, like usual." He winks to the Doctor, clapping him on the shoulder. "Three cute new companions chasing after her. Some things never do change."
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“Let’s file that one under the Spoilers category,” he says in a non-judgmental tone. He then pivots and turns in the initial direction he was walking.
“Less blondes, more how I remind you of a silvery dog mammal.”
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He immediately falls into step with the Doctor, like no time has passed at all, that bright smile not even close to waning. In fact there's a twinkle in his eye considering he's opening himself up to more flirtation, or at least that's what Jack is hearing and when has he ever not taken advantage?
"Silver fox, meaning you look older but just as hot. I'd say you have Daddy vibes but I feel like you're going to give me that look if I do." The Jack, why are you gross look, which unsurprisingly, also works for him.
(no subject)
Wildcard;
She can't help wondering if he knows what happened after that last meeting, after Darillium, if he ever knew. They say he became the wisest being who ever lived. Would he have left her there, as the Doctor had, if he'd known?
River decides not to give that thought time to fester. Her smile is bright as she steps into view. "Well if it isn't my second favorite husband."
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"I would be hurt if I didn't wish he was my first husband too." Jack crosses the space between the two of them in just a few strides and sweeps her into his arms, into an embrace. It's been a long time and he honestly doesn't know what part of the timeline either of them is at this point, it really lacks meaning to him these days, but it doesn't matter. It's River Song and that's enough.
"You have no idea how much I've missed you." He says into her hair, allowing himself to be sentimental just this once (lies, he's often sentimental).
no subject
"He's here, you know?" Even as she pulls back, she doesn't release him completely, her arms still loosely circling his hips. "Twice over."
There's a flash of something sad that leaves her expression just as quickly. "I'd ask where we are today, but it doesn't really matter." Then she chuckles. "You know we're married at least."
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"Honestly, sweetheart, I don't even know what date it is or how old I am now. You know how it is." Jack travels the galaxy and sometimes through time and it's pointless to try and figure out the whens at this point. He does mostly know the wheres, until now. Vaguely. "But I'm glad we both remember the marriage because what a shame to be out of sync again." Not that it would be new.
He keeps his arms around her too and gives her a once-over. "Hey, is one of them a blonde woman? I just met that version and I want to have her baby."
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Her eyes light up at his question. "I have a wife now? How exciting! I'm sorry I've missed it."
She doesn't give him much time to dwell on what exactly she means by that.
"No. No blondes, I'm afraid. The baby face, with the bowtie and the love of hats" The last is said very pointedly, as though she has something against the hats. "And the taller, cross Scottish one."
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"Hats, huh? Well, that doesn't really surprise me, there was a version of him who wore all these bright colors, I felt like we were going to a circus." Jack met the Sixth version of the Doctor a long while back, although he erased his memories of Jack during that time. Jack is often doomed to remember things that other people never will, but it is what it is.
"Scottish, that's a new one too. I just spent nineteen years getting her out of prison. It wasn't my favorite prison experience, there were no good reading materials." Jack has had probably way too many prison experiences at this point. He gets in trouble. It's what he does.
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Lucky for her, she has two of her favorite faces about. And now Jack, as well. It does make it rather harder to complain about her after afterlife.
"Yes, he and I got well-acquainted. He had his moments." He probably recognizes that tone of voice, the one that suggests there are times she thinks she'd still very much like to shoot him. "But he was much easier to get along with than his next face. The short Scottish one."
Then the rest of what he's said catches up to her. "Nineteen years." She may not know the particular version of her husband, but she knows the Doctor. And she knows prison, by any number of descriptions. "Sweetie, why didn't you come and find me? You could have looked me up. Maybe we could have gotten her out sooner."
Never mind the fact she'd been long-dead in The Library for...possibly centuries.
no subject
He's not in any way surprised she has met the other versions of the Doctor, that is basically the way they are. Time travelers, wandering in and out of everyone's lives in different centuries, different planets. It's how they met too.
"I have no idea where you are right now, sweetheart. I would've sent back a message but I haven't heard from you in a while." Listen, is there a part of him that already suspects it's because she's gone? Absolutely. Jack has lost everyone he's ever loved at this point outside of the Doctor, possibly the reason he holds onto that (wo)man as hard as he does. Otherwise he has to drown in the reality of immortality. But since they're out of time and place, it doesn't mean she's gone. She's right here, for example.
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1.0 —
The point is — because there is a point to this, really! — sometimes the Doctor will be going about his business (today, for instance, he's just snooping in one of the spare rooms for something he thinks he's lost, completely ignoring the unconscious form occupying one of the beds, even after said form has risen) and happen upon a stranger he hasn't yet seen around the station.
It's that particular swagger and cadence of the voice that he recognizes first. Captain Jack Harkness, he says, and — oh. Oh, there's a name he hasn't heard in such a while. It takes a little pinging and ponging in and amongst his possibly fabled twenty-seven brains before vivid memories of a handsome man with a bright smile and a long coat quickly surface and the Doctor's mouth twists into a grin of recognition.
"Captain Jack!" There's an excited flapping of hands, the name feeling familiarly unfamiliar on his tongue, but his hearts are beating with the swell of someone who loves a good reunion. "Captain Jack. Jack Harkness. As I live and breath, eh? And just look at you! Just the same as I remember —"
no subject
So when he gets addressed by the young man, Jack takes a moment to look him up and down, and assure himself that he would remember someone this attractive. And there are a limited amount of people who would talk to him like that, so it's only a second or two before he beams from ear to ear. "Oh Doctor, my Doctor. I'd know you anywhere." Well, except for that time recently where he thought Graham was him, but to be fair it'd been a long while.
Jack adds this to one of the faces to know and he wastes no time in crossing the space to tug the Doctor into an enthusiastic hug. He never stops loving this person, no matter the years, no matter the faces, it's all the same. He has no idea yet where on the timeline this one is, before the woman? After? Who knows.
"Look at you, this face is adorable." Jack mostly looks the same as before, he has a few extra wrinkles after a few hundred years, but nothing drastic.
no subject
"Oh, stop."
Except, you know, don't. The Doctor has always had a fairly sizable ego, but some happen to be a little more vain than others — and this regeneration in particular loves a good compliment.
"You don't look so bad yourself. How long has it been then, eh? Since I had the long coat and the sandshoes?"
apologies for the wait
"How can I stop, I love the floppy hair, it really suits you." He seems lighter, considering Jack's original Doctors were in a darker place. He hopes it means this one has had an easier time. Who knows, they'll have to figure it out all over again. He's always excited for the stories.
A compliment from the Doctor is a hundred compliments from anyone else so he beams under it. "Oh who even knows at this point." Jack waves a hand nonchalantly, although they both know there really is nothing nonchalant about his eternal existence. "Probably a few hundred years. I just ran into another one of you, we had a good time."
Hundreds of years for Jack doesn't mean hundreds for the Doctor, Jack really is an out of time type of person. It was never where he thought he'd be when he was part of the Time Agency all those years ago, but he's always been adaptable. "How long have you been here?"