recombine | Recent Entries

thoughtscape | waterscape | munscape PREMISE RULES FAQ TAKEN LOCATIONS MOD CONTACT RESERVES APPLICATIONS DROP

CANON
Character Name (AU/OC/ETC) [

placeholder]

THE LION KING
Scar (OU) [

teethandambitions]

UNINHABITED PLANET SURVIVE
Kaoru (OU) [

lonewolfcub]

Here, PM this account, or

waterscapemods. Anon enabled, comments are screened. Go nuts.

Drops are closed. :| no leaving.

...But if you really must:

Applications are currently OPEN.

Applications:

INFO
Character Name:
Canon:
AU/OC/something else special we should know?:
Reserve: If you reserved the character, link it here.
Player Contact: We need some way to contact you, and perhaps something to call you. Doesn't have to be anything identifying; 'PM THIS JOURNAL' and '[CHARACTERNAME]-MUN' are a perfectly okay answer. You can also toss Plurk or AIM or email in here if you repost this app on your journal and you want people to be able to reach you.

Character World: Briefly summarize (or link) your character's home world and how things work there. Bonus points for stuff that might spill out into the waterscape.
Personality: Ensure this includes strengths and weaknesses. What motivates your character, how do they interact with others? What are their hopes/dreams/fears/worries? What makes them awesome? What makes them terrible?
History: Feel free to link a wiki!
How will your character be altered?: Are they a mermaid, or a shark, or an octopus person, or something stranger? Webbed appendages? Additional appendages? Feel free to get creative, provide links to images, whatever you like.
Abilities/Powers/Alterations thereof:
Your character is now a space mermaid! So, are they bringing in powers from canon? Are they bringing in slightly altered powers? What are their abilities/how do they work? Include mundane abilities and any important physical weaknesses here, too.

Why do you want to apply with this character?
Why this one? How do you think they'll fit in? Any plans? If the character is an AU, explain why you'd like the AU rather than the canon version. Pretty much: quickly explain to us why you're apping!

SAMPLES
Threads:Please provide at least two links to threads involving your character. First person, third person, whatever. Try dear_mun, bakerstreet, or grabbing an RP buddy to do something with if you're stuck. Contact the mods if you'd like us to set up some threads for you to meet this!
We reserve the right to say "this tells us nothing about your portrayal, please give us more", so try to make sure it's a thread that actually shows something about them.

Think Fast!:
Pick one of the following things. It has just happened to your character, what do they do? (A few sentences tops of the character's thoughts to themselves. You may elaborate on the prompt a little first if you like.)
1) You realize you put on a piece of clothing incorrectly this morning!
2) Someone has just played a mean trick on you!
3) You just found something really valuable laying around!
4) Uhoh, you're caught in the rain!
5) Someone cancels plans with you that you were really looking forward to!
6) Someone you don't like very much has just asked you out!
7) Surprise, you have the day off!
8) Somebody just did you a huge favor and saved you a lot of trouble!
9) There is a really annoying sound coming from somewhere and you can't stand it anymore!
10) You've lost something really important, oh no!

AU/OC SUPPLEMENT
What's up with this AU or OC?
Here, give us the elevator pitch. Succinctness is key: what's different about the AU? What's the OC's concept? Be elaborate, be in-depth, but don't give us pages of tl;dr. Just tell us what we need to know to judge if this character should be in the game, and maybe the quick things that canonmates will want to know.

If we don't feel adequately informed, we'll ask you for a revision.

App Text:

Applications are not screened.
Applications must be posted in comment(s) to this entry. No linking, no emailing, no PMing apps. The app is very simple, so we want all players to be able to see it!

You may, of course, keep a copy of the app in your journal for reference, we just want the whole thing copy/pasted over here for us to look at.

Reserves are OPEN. Each reserve lasts for one week. Since applications are not open yet, reserves will last until one week after applications open, which will be Saturday, July 14th so first reserves will expire Saturday, July 21st.

CURRENT RESERVES

Hunter x Hunter
[Killua Zoldyck] [OU] [

speedoflightning] - July 21

The Lion King
[Scar] [OU] [

teethandambitions] - July 21

THE ARK

Essentially, the Ark is a ginormous cylinder filled with ocean. It spins on its axis to produce some rotational gravity, meaning that "down", to those within, is always towards the ship's hull.

This means that if there is any atmosphere within, it must be along the center of the cylinder, because the water all sticks to the ship's hull due to the rotational gravity.

Here's an illustration of the "main tank" of the ship, which is the part we care about:

View of the tank's side, and the tank's end.

With me so far? Now let's go on to:

THE WATERSCAPE

The interior of the cylinder, of course, is full of ocean. All characters emerge from Port 3, elaborated on below. Port 3 is in Zone 3, which can be discovered by telepathically accessing the ship's systems. The whole cylinder is divided into ten zones, one after another.

Like so.

Other zones will be elaborated upon as they are explored.

ZONE 3

Let's call this roughly equivalent to the Atlantic Ocean, northern hemisphere.

The water: Salt water, full of minerals, occasionally dirty, home to billions of microscopic creatures and a fair amount of pretty gross seaweed.

The temperature: 60-70ish degrees Fahrenheit.

The landscape: Due to the rotational gravity, "down" is the ship's hull. So the ship's hull, in this case, becomes the ocean floor. This ocean floor is covered with billions of tons of silt, rock, sand, etc., and thus makes a landscape of its own. It looks like a pretty ordinary ocean floor, complete with the occasional crevasse, volcano, mountain, sandy plain, etc.

Wait, you ask, but doesn't that mean that most of this ship is just empty ocean? Isn't that boring?

Luckily, the creators of the ship thought of this! As such, they have graciously provided landscape to break up the monotony of endless, infinite ocean. Thanks, dudes.

So, remember those games of Connect 4 that you used to play?

Yeah, check out those happy people. Okay, so, now imagine that grid jammed into the ocean floor instead of a cute plastic stand.

Basically: it's a whole bunch of circular-shaped holes through a solid sheet, right? Now imagine that grid, only enormous. We're talking each circle has the diameter of a half-mile, and that you're a tiny mermaid swimming through one of these circles. The grid seems like it stretches on into infinity above and below you. It's fucking huge.

Every couple of miles, there's another one of these grids. They rise up at regular intervals from the ocean floor, stretching up - presumably to the far side of the cylinder.

Which is, in fact, exactly what they do: these grids aren't just there for landscape. They're there to make sure the cylinder doesn't collapse under pressures from outside the ship. Because who knows what might happen to the laws of physics when the universe is ending.

So: Huge metal grids running parallel to one another. The grids also glow in apparently random patches, just enough to provide light in the darkened water.

PORT 3

Port 3 is where all characters enter the game. Essentially, it's a length of piping sticking out of the "ocean floor", shaped like the end of a trumpet. Characters come tumbling out of it in their brand new forms (along with a 'burp' of air bubbles that float up and away), opening their eyes to find a long, sandy ocean floor stretching out in every direction and the clear circles of the grid stretching up into the distance.

If characters attempt to crawl back inside Port 3, they find that the pipe twists and turns and eventually gets too small to pass.

Surrounding the trumpet-pipe of Port 3 are several other pipes that periodically expel bits of coherent matter (anything touched, created or changed by sentient hands) and non-sentient organisms (sea plants, sea animals, various altered creatures). These pipes are blocked by a series of grids that will not let anything into them.

THE CURRENT(S?)

Not far from Port 3 there is a powerful column of water that, to all appearances, seems to travel further up the cylinder.

Where will it carry you? Do more exist? Does it have a purpose, or is it some necessary accident of having an ocean ship?

Who knows, it is a mystery.

Yesterday, the multiverse ended.

All of it.

The universes collided. Reality got mixed up. The entirety of existence fractured and splintered and vanished. Who knows what the hell happened: maybe God died. Maybe some atomic scientist truly, deeply fucked up. Maybe it's just been that long since the Big Bang.

But, really, it doesn't matter. All that's left is blackness, emptiness, spotted with pockets and bits of the universes, kind of like the crumbs after a devoured pastry. It's not vacuum, it's not air. It's just nothing.

And through this nothingness flies a ship.

She has no name. She is simply an Ark, here to collect those crumbs and maybe, just maybe, find a way out of the blankness. She's here to see if any bits of the old universes can survive and become part of the new.

So she extends a massive ramscoop, slurping up all the bits of matter frozen in time and thawing them in her tanks. The genetic form of any living tissue is assessed and recombined to make them suitable for life inside her, and then she expels that tissue into the Waterscape.

What's the Waterscape, you ask?

Well, you see, the Ark is enormous. The size of 3ish Earths, if you want a specific figure on how enormous she is. And the creators of the Ark didn't want to have to balance a terribly complex ecology. As such, they made the entire interior of the ship into water. The ship is a vast, vast ocean, oxygenated and based on algae.

Welcome to your new underwater world.

Welcome to Waterscape.

GAMEPLAY

[ Note: Read the premise before you read this. ]

So my character is swept up by the ramscoop, taken, and genetically re-programmed to live in a watery environment.

What. The. Fuck.

That's basically it. The reprogramming has an element of randomization to it: it can be as simple as adding gills, or webbing between the fingers. It can be as complex as transfiguring legs into a tail, or arms into fins. It can change their skin into scales.

Essentially, this transformation can be anything you want: either your character can remain much the same, only able to swim and breathe water 24/7, or your character can turn into a mermaid, or your character can turn into a vaguely humanoid shark.

What's this I hear about telepathy?

All characters are given the ability to telepathically communicate with one another. This works over vast distances, and once you touch one mind, you'll always be able to identify them.

Telepathy is basically your voice in somebody else's head, and can even convey especially strong emotions. Characters can tune in and out of telepathy as they wish, so think of it as organic radio chatter in your head.

Is telepathy only for communication and identification?

Yes. It cannot be used to locate anyone else, nor can it be used to change memories or mind-control, unless your character already has that power in canon. More on that in the app FAQ below.

What other creatures are around in this watery environment?

Any living matter can be recombined and turned loose in the Ark. So you might have literal seahorses. Schools of trout. Strange, tentacled alien beings. Whatever you want.

The only sentient creatures in the waterscape, however, are player characters.

How do they eat/drink?

You can have your character feed on algae and microscopic creatures constantly a la baleen whales, graze on undersea plantlife, or they can be a predator and catch fish/octopi/etc.

As for hydration: their gills should keep them constantly hydrated. Their bodies are designed for it.

What's the landscape like?

For this, check out the locations page, which has a more detailed description.

Is there any sort of economy? Culture? Government?

Only if you guys make one.

Can we interact with the ship's technology at all?

Yes, in fact, you can. Along the hull of the ship, near where the recombiners spit you out, there are a few panels. They give some basic information about the ship's purpose (pretty much what you get from the premise), as well as dubious maps of the ship's interior.

The panels respond to psychic prompting, not physical interaction.

These interfaces also identify the pipes that spit characters out into the waterscape as 'Port 3'. All player characters do come from Port 3. Does this mean there are ports 1 and 2, where other living creatures emerge? Perhaps.

They also provide the option to 'combine'.

What does that mean?

It means that your characters can have a baby. The ship's processors are even able to handle male/male or female/female recombinations. The ship does encourage reproduction, so as to swell the tiny remaining population of the universe; as such, the graphics in the 'combine' interface are very friendly and inviting.

This will be further elaborated if any characters ever actually attempt it.

Is all the territory in the ship exactly the same?

Again: This will be elaborated if/when characters explore. Odds are you're going to find some strange places, if you swim far enough!

How will my character get clothing/possessions/whoozits and whatsits galore?

The ship combs through all the matter she picks up, picks out anything 'orderly' (read: made or influenced by sentient hands) and expels it into the water. Sometimes with a helpful plastic coating to avoid damaging it. It's just about as random as you might think: windowpanes! Office chairs! Unidentifiable bits of rusty machines! Romance novels!

If you want anything specific from your character's world, please request it from the mods.

Is there any light underwater?

Light comes from the grid, which seems to be luminescent in regular patches. Light-emitting panels seem to show up every so far, lighting and dimming in a sort of day night cycle.

Can my character swim to the ocean surface?

As far as your character knows, there isn't one. However: air bubbles always seem to travel in the same direction. Your character can follow that and see what they find.

Who made this ship and how is it surviving the end of the universes?

Join the game, investigate the metaplot and find out.

LOGISTICS

What can I apply?

Didn't you read the rules? We take literally any application, ever. If you write it, we will read it.

Of course, that's no guarantee we'll let it in.

Are there app cycles?

Nope. Apps are always open. Reserves last one week. There are no extensions.

What about my character's powers?

You can either discard them, modify them, or keep them. Make a pitch for it in the application, and we will consider. Just keep in mind that we might not let in things that are too godmodey.

Do you take multiple versions of a single character?

Yes. Up to three of them, but only one can be canon!

What if my character dies?

Then the ship spits out the same genetic-recombined version of them that originally swam into game. Yes, they lose all of their game memories. Tough cookies.

What happens when a character is dropped?

They die and the ship doesn't spit them out. Regrettably, sometimes there are computer errors and genetic recombination from scratch is unsuccessful, or perhaps they were pushed so far down the queue that they won't show up again.

That or they swam off into the waterscape to parts unknown, which is a good excuse if you ever decide to reapply.

Can we canon update?

In a sense. You can bring in your character fresh from a new canon point, losing their memories of the game in the process.

What are your rules on mature/potentially triggery content?

Warn for it, cut entries, and if you think it's extreme enough lock it to the comm. Exercise good judgement and ensure your playing partners are comfortable before doing anything drastic. Other than that, unless it veers into out of character territory or drastically interferes with another player's experience we don't mind.

Can I make plot?

Always. Use the OOC comm to rally people to your cause! Just know that any major setting upheavals might need mod approval, but as long as you're sticking with the general weird space seabed deal it's probably cool.

Do I need mermaid icons?

You can if you want, but everyone here has an imagination. Feel free to use ordinary icons and just imagine that they're now greenish or have webbed hands or something. Less work for everyone involved.

Who are the mods?

There's only one mod, making liberal use of the royal "we" for the moment.
Her name is Zita. You can find her at

zita or

waterscapemods

Waterscape was originally created by another person, but they handed it off.

How do I contact someone if I don't know who they are?

Private message the mod account, hit up our contact post (linked in Navigation), or hit up our plurk (linked on the contact post, and up there^). We'll see it and get ahold of the player, come hell or high water.

But seriously guys, leave contact notes for other players.

I have more questions.

Ask in the comments.

1. By joining this game, you promise to follow the rules, deal with the moderators, and play nice. Furthermore, you should be prepared for the moderators to change the game's circumstances and create perhaps unexpected events. You should also be prepared to get canonmates, AU canonmates and more. If you engage in bullying, godmoding, wank, metagaming, dickery or OOC behavior, you will be removed from the game after one warning.

2. If you have a problem with another player, an aspect of the game, or some niggling issue that's hurting your fun, take it to the mods. There is a mod plurk,

waterscapemods, but it will not be following anyone. We will only monitor what's said on our plurks and on the mod contact page or in our PM inbox, and there's no guarantee we'll have any clue that something's wrong unless someone tells us.
This is a game about psychic mermaids, but we're not psychic!

3. By modding this game, we promise to do our best to make this game a fun place to be. We promise to take action on issues brought to our attention. We promise not to be biased, unfair, overly stringent, or mean. We promise to get mod tasks done within a couple of days, to answer questions, and to be available. To the end of being unbiased, no one knows who the hell we are. Not even our best friends. Everyone will get absolutely equal treatment, unless they violate rule #1. If they violate rule #1, we promise that we will remove them from the game and then get on with our lives.

tl;dr: This game exists for collective fun, and we promise to always choose what we believe is best for the collective and the fun.

4. Gameplay is as follows.

Telepathic encounters, transmissions or conversations without physical proximity should be in the community

thoughtscape. This is the equivalent of a first-person or actionspam community in another game, and doesn't account for face-to-face interaction. This comm's all in your head!

Logs, or third-person encounters where characters are in physical proximity and interacting with one another, should go in the community

waterscape. You can write in prose or actionspam, but prose is preferred.

Out-of-character communication should go in the community

munscape.

5. We accept applications for any damn thing you can think up. Normal characters, characters with memories from other games, AU characters, crossover AU characters, OCs, fandom OCs, fandom AU OCs: you name it, we will take an app for it. Of course, if we think you're just ridiculous (in a bad way) we'll decline the app.

6. We have no official How's My Driving meme. We recommend that you put an anon-enabled HMD on your character's journal, but if you don't, we're not going to mess with you. If you need to give another character crit and they don't have one, go through the mods. We're happy to strip off names and identifying information and pass it on.

7. Activity check is once a month. It requires a link to a post that you have made or a thread of 5+ comments. The comments/post must be made within the past month.

8. If you don't like this game and the way it's run, there are many, many other games out there. Please, find one that makes you happy. We will not tolerate people coming into this game and attempting to change it to what they would like it to be. Take it or leave it as-is.

9. We do not require any identifying information from our players. If you want to identify yourselves, that's fine. As such, there are no character limits, there is no player contact list, and you can do what you like with your own journal. We do, however, recommend that you leave a preferred means of contact somewhere obvious on the journal's profile. Whether that's an email address, a plurk, instruction to just PM the journal, that's up to you.

10. Be courteous to others. If dealing with any potentially triggery stuff (self harm, abuse, suicide, etc.) or ~~solving the Mermaid Problem~~ writing smut, cut the entry and warn for it. Do your best to make sure you're not springing this on somebody uncomfortable with it, if it comes up.