INTROS + MONTHLIES

[trainmasters]

Who: Everyone
When: Day 51, evening
Where: the Aurora

[It's evening, and as the stars come out you get that text again:]

WELCOME NEW HEROES

[This round's newbies are waking up in their rooms, in the usual nondescript undies or team pyjamas.

Outside, the fog is gone. In its place is a pleasant evening, its beauty enhanced by tiny, softly-glowing flowers along the jungle paths. Unfortunately, should you peer closer toy may notice these flowers have blackened, curled leaves -- and the scent that wafts up when you step on them will either heighten or dull one of your senses.

But hey, why go in the jungle when you could eat questionable snacks in the lounge again? This time there are towers of round chocolates in varying colours, and sparkle blue and white snowflake decor on the walls and hanging from the ceiling. In typical Star Prince and Knights fashion there is a lot of glitter, and the chocolates definitely have a magical side-effect: in this case, transformation.

☆ Blue-wrapped chocolates cause your character to shift in age. They may get older or younger, and this transformation may be purely physical or may include mental shifting as well.

☆ Silver-wrapped chocolates cause your character to gain animal features -- anything from cat ears to fully becoming a cat is acceptable, and any animal real or mythical is game. It won't change you to a size that doesn't fit in the train, though.

☆ White-wrapped chocolates cause a transformation to a different physical sex.

☆ Black-wrapped chocolates cause you to take on the form of another person -- someone on the train or someone you remember from elsewhere. It won't turn you into anyone you don't personally know, however.

These effects wear off within a few hours, and you can combine more than one. Enjoy your icebreaker and make that fresh meat feel welcome!]

[[OOC NOTES: As the monthly prompt, the flowers will continue until next month's placements. If you have any questions, please ping the mods via the q&a. Thank you!]]

Comments

[voreaciously]

[Amane is listening with rapt interest. This adult already commands much of her respect on top of being an adult so she's here for it.]

A cocktail? Do rooster tails have special names?

[seriously, that is something she hasn't learned]

That does make sense. If you don't have tools, you have to be your own weapon and defense. That's what Mother says. She is teaching me that, too.

[she sounds a bit sad]

But I'm not very good, yet. She always wins.

[she always gets hurt too.]

[everythinghappens]

I mean, they do if you name them. I'm talking about mixed alcoholic drinks, though. They have fun names like Six Feet Under and ADIOS, MOTHERFUCKER!. We ran out so eventually we just started throwing in names of non-mixed alcohol.

[ but she tilts her head, listening, and then

headpat headpat ]

That just means you gotta be more creative. They say you dust yourself up and try again, but they are a pack of idiots with bad advice.

In my experience, the winning move is always to lay in the dirt and sucker punch 'em fifty to a hundred years later! Haha!

Don't do that. It takes way too long. Just give yourself cool laser eyes or something.

[voreaciously]

Oh! Adult drinks, okay. Those do sound cool but also bad? I can't say one of those...are they all like that?

[ommmmmg SHE IS GETTING HEADPATS

she hasn't had these since--

since...

whatever she was about to say or argue dies in her throat and she sort of...stops.]

[everythinghappens]

Some are just things like Sangria or the completely unimaginitve Rum and Coke.

[ um ]

Hey, you okay, kid?

[voreaciously]

Yes...yes, I'm fine.

[what were they talking about again?]

Fifty to a hundred years seems like a really long time...

[she isn't even double digits yet, she can't even wrap her head around that]

[everythinghappens]

Not when your lifespan is equal to the amount of time in which there exists at least one being capable of processing and understanding abstract concepts!

[voreaciously]

[...]

I still think it's a really long time...

[wait then]

How old are you, actually?

[everythinghappens]

...Hah. The one issue I never really solved was perfect memory maintenance. You live too long and fine details get distorted pretty bad. But let's work it out: Iteration one was around 40 when she started this project. Each iteration since has had an average operative time of 30 years. I'm number 23, possibly 24. Accounting for the ones that were temporary measures and decommissioned less than a year after conveyance, the lowest estimate of my age is...

Five hundred years, give or take.

[voreaciously]

That's so loooooooooooong!

[HOLY MOLY]

You're so old!

[everythinghappens]

Only in concept! In spirit I didn't age a day!

Okay, maybe I aged about 126,000 days, but the world ended when four and five were active and I didn't have much to do but lay in the dirt for a lot of the time between then and now, so I don't really count more than maybe three hundred years actually lived.

[voreaciously]

That's still so long... Why does each iteration only live until thirty, though? That's not very long.

[everythinghappens]

It's an average! It's that low because of the war, though. Well, a combination of that and functional immortality making self-preservation seem kind of pointless. But...well, it's hard to describe what a conceptual war is like, but you know how when someone gets shot or stabbed in a regular war the wound has a chance of getting infected if it's not treated properly?

When you're fighting with information and concepts and ideas, the wounds always get infected. You win by spreading faster than your enemy. And by removing the limbs that start to rot so they can't ever use you against yourself.

[voreaciously]

What sorts of concepts and ideas?

[but she's starting to understand why propagation is important]

Oh, and do you progress linearly or do you sometimes exist in more places than one at the same time?

[like concurrent iterations.]

[everythinghappens]

Our war was death versus life. Or I guess, despair versus hope. It turned into despair versus hope versus peace, mostly because I thought peace was kinda bullshit.

I'm mostly linear, but it's not super controllable. There's been instances where there's been more than one of me, but the most I remember is three at once. And the longest lasting simultaneous instances were four and five.

[voreaciously]

Does that ever...get confusing?

[she doesn't have like, the mental maturity to fully articulate it]

When there are so many of you but you're all you? Unless you're a hivemind.

[everythinghappens]

Nah. Other Dolls do the multiple bodies one consciousness thing, but I always just worked under the assumption other extant versions of me weren't really me. I mean, I wasn't experiencing what they were from their point of view, right? Four and Five treated each other like siblings, but only Six considered them to be herself. You can only prove things you've observed yourself, and it's only after the fact you observe yourself being in multiple places at once.

[voreaciously]

If you are not all connected then how do you know you are all really you? If it's only after, do you get everything done that you need to?

[Ahhhshe's trying to wrap her mind around this, properly.]

What about your memories?

[everythinghappens]

It's kinda rude to ask a lady about her existential crises, you know.

[voreaciously]

Existential crises?

[she knows the words individually but not together even if she asked about it. she doesn't realise it.]

I'm very sorry! I did not mean to be rude. [ahhh she's the worst] I'm sorry...

[everythinghappens]

[ headpat. ]

Being rude happens, don't get all torn up about it. I don't really care that much anyway, it was just funny you're being so curious about it.

[voreaciously]

Being rude is really, really awful, though!

[she doesn't feel like she deserves these headpats. :c]

It's very unladylike...

[everythinghappens]

Life's pretty unladylike, don't you think?

[voreaciously]

...No?

[everythinghappens]

Hah! Well, that's how it is. Being a lady is basically the lowest form of femininity. Even being a floozy's better, just look at me!

[voreaciously]

Is not!

[wow she is so affronted right now?]