dualisooc | TDM 002. WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE.

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TDM 002. WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE.

» 01. I LIKE TO PARTY AND BY PARTY I MEAN NAPS.

Look at all of these bright, shining new faces! There’s even a few less bright, less shining faces, but hey, this city welcomes all types. Chances are, if you’ve just arrived, you're seeing some pretty crazy things, unless you're used to an eye-blinding amount of neon, robots, weird-ass technology, magic, and an omnipresent police force...and hey, if you are, congrats, you're gonna settle in juuuuust fine. But for the rest of you, the Head knows this has gotta be pretty overwhelming, right?

Well, since your quaint individual processing units are probably having a hard time, why not link up with another one? By which the Head means...

Hello, new citizens of Dualis,
and welcome to your monthly Network Adjacency Protocol~!

NAPs are a monthly community networking event similar to the Earth concept of speed dating! Two citizens (new arrivals and old hands alike) are placed at a table together with a handy cue card of queries to help break the proverbial ice. Ask queries and receive results, or ignore the card and yeet yourself straight into a brand new friendship! But don't be too shy, you've only got ten minutes together, and if you just sit in silence for the whole ten, the Network Admins are likely to come supervise and try to repair the uplink through a mild shock to the ol' central nervous system. You might find yourself saying all sorts of unintended facts about yourself if that happens...probably better to just make friends, right? Who doesn’t like friends?!

This month’s event is held at the brand new RoCocoa Cat Cafe, a sparkly new establishment that caters to children and the young at heart with iced and hot cocoa drinks of all kinds, delicious pastries, age-appropriate live music, and of course many friendly kitties who love to lounge in laps. The cats are of all shapes, sizes, and colors, including some who may look a little different from what you expect, or may look like an ordinary cat but are actually anything but ordinary underneath that adorable fur coat. All cats in the cafe are adoptable, of course, for those who meet a new furry friend and just can’t bear to go home without them!

So pull up a chair, get to know your new neighbors, and enjoy a sugary treat or two with the resident furbabies. You might just meet your new two- or four-legged best friend!

» 02. TO TAG OR NOT TO TAG, THAT IS THE QUESTION.

Welcome, one and all, to a long-running time-honored Dualis tradition: the annual city-wide Dualis Marker Tag Competition! For this entire month, all participants who accept the challenge will be given a marker and set free to tag any other participant in the city by making a mark on their skin, while attempting to avoid being tagged themselves. Careful, though - the ink marks last a very long time, so you’ll have to wait until the competition concludes to wash everything off.

Markers come in all colors, even fluorescent, glitter, and glow-in-the-dark, and you can use however many markers your inner child’s heart desires. These markers will leave marks even on people who have chosen not to play, but you can easily purchase an armband, headband, or similar accessory that says NONPARTICIPANT if you so desire. Marking nonparticipants is considered extremely bad form and wins you no prizes, but "misfires" do still happen sometimes. It’s usually considered polite to offer a mistaken nonparticipant that you’ve marked a small reparation, like coffee or a more adult beverage.

Safe zones do exist! Any establishment can put out a sign that marks it as such - signs in shop windows, chalkboards outside bars, and the like; many do this, just to keep the general chaos and injury/property damage liability down. Tenants of private residences typically agree that their spaces are also safe zones, but that's up to y’all to hash out.

Have fun! And maybe try not to put anyone’s eye out, yeah?

» 03. TRICK OR TREAT, TRICK OR TREAT, THE BITTER AND THE SWEET ...

Looks like the Head’s been clued in to the quaint alien custom known as trick-or-treating. Is today Halloween? Who cares! You get free candy! Free candy for you, free candy for you, everybody gets free candy!

And rather than make citizens work for that free candy by traipsing around in costumes, the Head’s decided to cut everyone a little break and just have bowls of wrapped sugary delights placed strategically throughout the city. You never know where you’ll find them, or what types of candies the bowls will contain - chocolates, of course, and jellybeans and hard candies of every flavor you can think of, and treats you’ve probably never seen before now. Ooh, is that a snoobloo-flavored truffle? Only one way to find out! Eat it.

The treats are not poisoned or otherwise dangerous, but some do have a trick up their wrappers. Candies may cause temporary side effects: minor appearance changes, enhancing or reducing senses, sudden mild development of extranormal abilities, or loss of control over abilities you already possess. Some sweets are just regular treats and produce no effect except maybe cavities, if you don’t brush your teeth. Effects will remain until another candy is consumed that either induces a different effect or nulls the current effect and simply tastes nice. Enjoy!

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“Lady, I don’t know why it’s that way. I just loosely follow it to keep from making other ladies uncomfortable.” South shrugs, it’s all a bit silly but she’s not looking to make any women feel off or threatened or whatever.

“...Listen, if you want me to literally carry you, I easily can and totally will.” She says, warns(?), grinning widely and enthusiastically.

No use discussing it further, then, and Tannis drops the subject entirely by not answering. Maybe someone else knows, she'll have to make a note to follow up her own, admittedly vague, curiosity.

She actually sounds excited when she does speak. She even manatees to look it a little, too.

"Well, be about it then, my knight in shining armor."

Oh no, she’s not just pretty she’s goddamn adorable, too. Okay. Easy now, South, easy.

“Keep calling me pet names like that and I forget what I’m doing here..” She warns, but it’s the only kind of warning she gives, moving to try hauling the other woman up bridal style in her arms, “Guess that’s make you Princess? Princess Marker- no! Princess Notepad!”

"Oh my." Her tone grows somewhat flustered as she clings to the woman. Not because she wasn't expecting to be picked up, no, but--

"I never thought of trying out 'Princess' before. 'Lead Researcher,' or 'Savior of Mankind,' or 'Destroyer of Mankind,' but 'princess?'" There's a short pause whole she thinks about, well what she thinks about that.

"Odd... But I suppose I could come to like it."

South does pause a second at the 'oh my', making sure things were still alright and she isn't pushing boundaries. Maybe she's being too cautious with consent, if that's even possible, but she knows how uncomfortable shit is if someone is doing something like this without full permission. Better safe than making this chick uncomfortable.

"Really? Can't say I'd have guessed 'Destroyer' would be associated with in, except maybe 'Destroyer of Hearts' at worst." She replies as she lugs her out, more than a little giddy and beaming with pride- she's got quite the catch here, look at her go!

"Also, don't worry about any marker wielding dumbasses now," She starts once they're out in the open and 'dangers' of being in the tag-zones, "It's a knights job to keep their Princess safe after all. Unless they want a busted nose, no one will bring another marker near you while I have you."

"You flatter me. But I am a scientist, after all, and they're are any number of excitingly vicious little beasts I could unleash on the galaxy to see what happens. Though I suppose now too many other people are tolerable enough to me that I'll have to forgo wanton galactic destruction for the advancement of human knowledge. Ah, well." And Lilith would disapprove. If she were here to disapprove.

"Ah, the very best protection. I could have used that before." Long before the markers, but she doesn't say that. There are definitely better times to discuss her past and all the atrocities in it. And that's definitely not while being carried down the street.

“You know,” She starts in a quiet, hushed tone like it’s going to be a secret, ,”You still could unleash some crazy beasts on just,like, bad people. Fuckholes who hurt kids, for example. Do any world a favor with that, be a hero-princess-scientist.”

It absolutely makes sense and is an entirely ethical thing to do.

“Well, until I get my hands on a time machine, we’ll just have to make it up now.” And maybe in the future. If things keep going like they are, there’s a a solid chance she’ll be on her every beck and call. She’s pretty as hell, as superficial as that is, but amusing so far too. It’ll take more than a short first meeting to know how things will go, but it’s looking good for it right now.

"If I did that, half the population would be gone anyway, so why bother?" At least the Pandoran population. Where every other person was a bandit and everyone else was a vigilante. Ah, home.

Other places are supposedly different, but, well, she's been to other places and the differences aren't really that noticeable. Except maybe one is a swamp full of bandits instead of a desert.

"How intriguing! Perhaps I'll have to try and build one."

Yeah, that's going to get a highly arched eyebrow from her. Half the population? Fucking shit, where's this chick even from? Sure, okay, back home there's some slummy awful planets that would probably have a solid half of the population in the "bad guy" group. Then there's the planets the Innies have corrupted... And if they're counting more than human-inhabited planets, it's a whole other story- But still. The entire universe's population as a whole would only lose a small fraction to any bad guy eating beasts.

She has many, many questions cropping up in her thoughts, now. But they're going to wait, she is both trying to impress this lady, and get in her pants. That can of worms can hold off for another time.

So she focuses on the time machine talk instead, laughing slightly and looking at her face again with a fond little smile, "If you do, lemme know, Time Princess."

"I imagine if I do it will be difficult to miss. There's bound to be an explosion or two. Perhaps some deadly gas being released, or a crater or two. Ah, what fun!" So she has a strange idea of what constitutes "fun," but she also doesn't really care what other people think. She'll have to find a place to rebuild a lab anyway, might as well use it to make something explode testing something entirely theoretical.

Hey, if the explosions and shit don't come with her getting fucked up or killed? It could be fun, who doesn't like blowing shit up?

South shakes her head just slightly and gives an amused smile, looking down at the woman before a curious noise escapes her, "I can kinda get the explosions, but why would deadly gases even be involved at all?"

"One can never be too thorough. We must be prepared for anything. There's no telling what such a monumental task as time travel will entail." And no telling what she'd have to go through--or get distracted by--along the way. There are any number of things that could leak radiation or poison or microorganisms into the air. All of which sounds delightfully intriguing.

"So what I'm hearing is you gotta find a hazmat suit as step one." Gasses just puffing up and shit, might be a good idea to have plenty of PPE on hand before even getting started.

South has been taking her sweet, sweet time in getting them back to the dorms and her room, but she finally starts inside the building. She's not really planning to put her down until it's on a bed, doors be damned. She'll manage to get it open when she gets there, it's fine.

"That would be preferable." Not finding one may not stop her, though. She'll just have to see what's available. Or not available. Whichever. Besides, studying the effects could be interesting...

"I'll see if I can locate somewhere isolated from the rest of the population. I might be able to minimize damage." Might. Not exactly a definitive guarantee.

"Princess, you gotta be more worried about damage to yourself with some of this." South huffs out, but does give a smile with her soft chiding.

Not that someone should always put their own safety above anyone else's or anything, she's risked her own ass to save people she cares about or that are helpless and need a soldier as a meat shield between them and bad guys. But some self preservation isn't a bad thing.

South pauses as she reaches her door, taking a moment or two of careful shifting until she can worm a hand out and open it. Sure, she could've asked for help, or even set the girl down on her own feet- but she's stubborn and even if it's not something really to show off, she's not going to be outdone by a door and gravity!

"Nonsense, if there's going to be damage it's far better that it's only to me and no one else." There was a time when she wouldn't have cared, but Roland and Lilith had been persuasive. And she definitely wouldn't want to draw attention to herself and her experiments.

How very impressive, she'd opened the door on her own! And that isn't even a sarcastic, thought, she is thoroughly impressed. And maybe a little excited, which is a huge shock to her. She's never excited for anything that isn't ancient technology and alien races. Odd.

“I’m not saying to be careless and risk hurting other people, just remember you’re people, too.” South insists in a rarely used soft tone, cracking another grin as she lightly knocks the door shut with one foot.

The room is about as much the same as any of them, some of her stuff is a little cluttered on her side. At least it’s not trash or old food or anything gross, just some clothes she hasn’t got around to putting away yet. And hey! Her bed is made! Mostly. It’s not perfectly flat or anything, but the pillows in the proper place and the blankets are draped neatly enough. If she knew she’d be having company, maybe she would’ve gone full out boot camp level of bed making. But oh well, she’s just glad she didn’t leave the pillow hanging half off the side and the blankets balled up in the floor...

As general as ever, like she might break the woman if she’s not careful, she finally lets her down, placing her butt first on the blankets. She straitens back up, hands in her hips as she looks down with any smile pulling at one side of her lips.

“Now this is a great sight to see.” A pretty lady in her bed? Oh fuck yes, it’s about goddamn time-! “Still good for this?” She can’t help checking in again, she just wants to give a chance to bail just to be safe.

"Ridiculous, most safety protocols interfere with the advancement of scientific progress." Too many rules to follow that impeded experimentation. Ethics are so very inconvenient. But at least for the moment she'd halted any particularly dangerous experiments. At least, dangerous to others. She could make her own damn decisions about her own damn self.

At last, a bed. And yet another question that Tannis resists rolling her eyes at. Really, she'd already said yes and now here they are, deciding again. Be polite, Patricia. Like, you know, normal human beings.

"Yes, yes, I haven't changed my mind." She's still a little bit shy about removing her jacket, though, uncertain what the reaction to her tattoos will be. "Believe me, you couldn't catch me if I didn't want to be here."

It is entirely not her fault, alright, she just picked up some pretty chick in a cafe with minimal to no effort. While she'd insist she's not surprised with her pick-up skills, she mildly is in this case and just wants them both on the same page and such. Definitely a nice thing, not a pain in the ass thing, probably.

As far as tattoos go though, South is obviously very much a fan given how much of her skin is covered in ink. Her own jacket is off and tossed to a corner without a single thought, giving peek to said tattoos and various scars already visible even with her tank top still on.

"Well, I'm pretty sure I could still catch you if I tried- but hey, just say so if you do change your mind." She's at least pretty well done double checking after saying that, though. She's gotten consent and will listen for any change of mind, it's on the other woman now.

South doesn't wait too much after that, tempted to just hop in the bed and start pawing at her- but she resists a bit, leaning enough to press her knees against the bed, getting just close enough to reach her hand up in an attempt to curl fingers against her chin.

Instead of refuting that claim, Tannis just doesn't respond to it. Maybe the woman could catch her, but that's really not the point. She can recognize that at least. But she doesn't try to move away either, so that's a plus. She'd not expected to find an encounter like this within moments of arriving, but, well. She'll definitely take what she can get.

She can definitely appreciate moving (somewhat) slowly, it'll give the both of them time to figure each other out. And Tannis more time to come to terms with revealing her Siren tattoos. The woman had said that she didn't mind but, well. There's a difference in saying that and then actually seeing them.

"How comforting. But I do appreciate it."

South...isn't one for really hanging back or going slow, not with anything really. Hell, one branch of the UNSC she was in had them in pods, launched out of a ship, speeding feet first through a planet's atmosphere to a raging battle below. It's more or less how she handles anything, jump into the fire and hope for the best.

But she can't help moving at a leisurely pace right now. Maybe it was because she'd told her roomie to fuck off until she gives the all clear. So there's no rushing around before he returns, and if she takes her time she can be an ass and make him wait all day. Maybe she's been lonely, pushing everyone away since she's gotten here, isolating herself so much. Maybe it's a lot of reasons, but she's not considering any of that right now. Nope, just shoving that away for ~~never~~ another time- she's busy right now. Busy inching closer, pressing heavier into the bed, taking her sweet sweet time admiring the woman's face, unworried about tearing off clothes or getting more skin.

Though it probably doesn't help any mood or whatever's going on when she starts to snicker a bit, rubbing a thumb lightly over a colored mark, "Everyone really fucked you up out there, starting to look like a rainbow tiger or something with all these stripes."

Tannis rolls her eyes hearing that. Of course she's a mess, why wouldn't she be? Apparently the place is populated with children. With markers. And glitter. And god knows what else.

"Lovely. That's just exactly what I needed, being an unwilling canvas for dubious 'art.'" It was probably going to take hours to wash off which means even more wasted time...what a terrible cycle to be caught in. Because people couldn't be bothered to keep their pens in their pockets where they belong in public.

"It's cute." She insists after mentally fumbling a second for the right word and coming up short. It's endearing, charming, adorable- not the woman's idea, but South thinks it's cute.

She leans in a little more to get a closer look, at first, then leans in a little more, stopping just short of catching her lips. She definitely wants to just dive on in, but she's going to be...polite? Let her close the breath of space she's left between them.

"Cute." She definitely doesn't like the sound of that, but there's nothing she can do about it, either. And if it gets her what she wants, she can at least deal with it. She's not totally hopeless. Most of the time.

Okay some of the time.

And they're being coy again, but there's only so much of that she can take before she moves the last breath of space and presses her lips against the other woman's. Fine, she'll take charge, then.

South would insist it's not being coy, she's teasing more than anything, and savoring the moment. Between first trying to find a way out of here, then not trusting people much if at all, she hasn't gotten to fool around with anyone since she was back home. She's not gonna rush through the whole thing and have it be over so soon.

The contact is met with both an approving hum and a hand moving to touch the side of her face. At least she doesn't seem as concerned with reconfirming consent or being too slow while savoring it all, eagerly and enthusiastically kissing her back. She holds the contact as she crawls up more into the bed, careful not to drop a knee into any limbs and quite possibly trying to work up between the other's legs.

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TDM 002. WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE.

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