dualislogs | they show you how to swim

they show you how to swim

WHO: All Dualizens, old and new
WHAT: Your regularly scheduled NAPs event for the month
WHERE: Dualis Oasis
WHEN: Nov. 7-10
WARNINGS: Please use these if applicable!

Look at all of these bright, shining new faces! There’s even a few less bright, less shining faces - maybe even a few folks without 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?!

The weather outside may be taking a turn toward chilly, but you can still get your swim on during this month’s NAPs, held at the Dualis Oasis, an indoor temperature-controlled aquatic amusement park with giant slides, swimming pools, and lazy winding float rivers. Appropriate swimming gear is required for entry to this part of the park, but there are a number of shops just outside that will gladly sell you swimwear and accessories.

For those of you who wish to avoid a humid environment or just hate fun, a dehumidified lounge and restaurant offer quieter, dryer spaces for chatting and snacking. The actual speed-friending itself is in progress here, but you’re welcome to stick around and continue conversations with your new friends.

So c’mon, what are you waiting for? Just dive right in for fun and friendship - the water’s fine, fine, fine, just like everything else in this fair city. But hey, remember to play safe. No running!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Uh... Why did you punch it? Why would you kick it? It's clearly for, like, pool volleyball or something?"

Zack swims over to the ball, working to get it back. IT took him a while to liberate that from some unruly teens dammit.

Pool volleyball, what???

"Volleywhat?" Tidus won't stop the guy from getting it—it's his ball, and it's not like he knows what to do with it, if kicking and punching is off the menu. There's been some balls being thrown about, but it's all seemed so...tame.

And useless, when a blitzball can do everything.

Blitzballs are probably good for other things. But this? Zack gets himself stable in the water and taps the ball into the air, smacking it toward Tidus.

"Like that. You return it. You try and get it to be missed by the other person but within the boundaries of the play area. It's a ton of fun."

Tidus is a good catch, so despite his surprise at the ball cooperating with Zack, he grabs it in both hands. Examines it like it's the first time he's seen it. His world is getting blown.

So no punching, but tapping. Of course Tidus wants to try it out, so he gives the ball a couple of bounces in hand before smacking it as he saw Zack do. It's a clumsy attempt though, his serving talents better suited to punching, and so the ball just about meets the water by the time it reaches Zack's vicinity.

"The ball is light. Hit it too hard and it won't behave how you want. Proper volleyball and beach volley ball use something denser, and those you can punch, but you probably don't want to seeing as you have to hit it up and over the net."

He smiles as Tidus tries to return the ball and he loves it. The moment is perfect. And yeah, it's fun to see it not make it. Zack smiles, though. Because this is the best he could ever imagine. Him, teaching someone a game. Who would have thought it?

"Better. Try it again."

With a flick of his hand the ball's up in the air and Zack baps the ball toward the blonde.

Has anything so embarrassing happened to him in recent memory than this? Him, Tidus, the Blitzball Ace, rising star player of Zanarand Abes: unable to play a ball water game efficiently!

His face is beyond sheepish when the ball meets the water more than the guy. Dumbfounded, a little upset— a little more than anyone should feel about making a bad shot. It doesn't matter if he doesn't know how to work with the ball. Reason isn't the point!

But he's ready when the guy pipes up, signalling that he's going to shoot again. Catching is the one thing he can get right, and Tidus even meets the ball than wait for it to come to him.

"If we were back where I'm from," Tidus says, giving the ball another test in his hands: it's weight, how it bounces again in one hand, "I'd be paying you off so you didn't tell anyone about this!"

He gives it a higher bounce into the air this time, and smacks! —and it travels better this time without angling for the water, heading for Zack!

"I'm not going to tell anyone anyway," Zack dismisses. "Listen, you want to angle it up, so that it goes further. If you hit it straight ahead, it's just going to go down, okay?"

And Tidus does, clearly having come to that conclusion himself. So he hits it back, smiling, easily batting it right back across without catching. Nice.

It's fun enough, though after a few more baps between them, the stubborn streak is waning in Tidus, at least for the time being. The game's straightforward, but the mobility is different from blitzball, his arm and throw stiffer than he likes the feel of. So when it comes to him after a while, Tidus takes it in both of his hands first, then decides on which to hold it in as he swims over to the other guy. Just close enough so he can better hear and talk without shouting over everyone else so hard.

"Okay, it's fine," he'll concede (though blitzball will always be cooler!), "but I think it's going to take more than a day for me to get used it. Unless you're trying to find people to build up a team here."

A joke, and one he pushes the ball across the water's surface over to Zack to take.

"You wouldn't be bad. I think you were having fun teaching me!"

"A team? It's just something people do for fun when there is water and a beach ball."

But he does take the ball and grins at the man. But he was definitely having fun with the whole thing. So yeah, fun teaching was really something he definitely had there.

"Maybe I'm liking winning here."

Oh. Oh. Excuse me what were those words. It's possible to read them and figure out the exact moment Tidus's competition flared right the fuck back up.

"No one should be smug about doing a little better than a guy's first go at a game." Not quite yet adjusted to this new game? Interest waning? Throw that out of the window—Tidus is eyeing that ball, a new itch in his fingers. He says the first thing that comes to mind:

"I can take you out."

Famous last words.

"I'm happily in a relationship, so I'll pass. But if you really want to work on your skills in the water, I suppose I can teach you a thing or two about looking cool," Zack grins, an edge of laughter in his voice.

There is nothing that quite matches the joy he has at hanging out with someone like this kid. Tons of spirit, tons of joy. That's his kind of person. SOLDIER hadn't had too many of them.

The relationship take gets an eyeroll, less than impressed, but far from what's most pressing in what the guy has to say. Him? Show Tidus about being cool in water?

Tidus sinks under the blue, body and all, the initial kick of a feet disturbing the water perhaps felt by Zack until he seems to disappear. But he's quick about resurfacing again, a fair distance than where he'd been before. Up, and ready for action!

"Show me something other than you batting around a ball, and then I'll listen!"

Come on, show him some real throwing skills to match that mouth.

Really? Zack laughs and rolls his shoulders. Come on man, he can do this. He takes the ball up and throws it high into the air. Likely higher than a normal person could do. Where Tidus has training, Zack has pure strength. He waits for it to come down just enough then hits it forward and up, sending the whole thing sailing on a very serious arc, off to the right. Swim, Tidus, swim.

A little later, that might be impressive, once Tidus considers the force and power necessary to pull that off. Right then? It looks like what someone could do with a blitzball, and you couldn't have given Tidus a better offer with the tools they have.

The blitz ace's grin is the last thing on his face before he dives, calculating the ball's projected drop zone, how fast he'll need to swim to get there all the while swimming. And he'll need to be fast: passing the volleyball to and fro gave him a good idea of its weight, and so it's his training that'll need to work for him here.

The ball is beginning to show the end of its curve downward when a splash emerges, a wall of water kicking up before the body in it can properly be made out, using his body itself to catch it, but an arm wrapping around it before both he and the ball disappear back inside. There's a bob, like something—or a someone—might come back up as a person is usually one to do in those situations.

But there's nothing—not until the ball comes out sharply with a splash, going up, but falling back down into the water to be knocked back out a second time, and a third. It's a test, before Tidus is sure enough to send it upwards a good height (nothing close to Zack's, but still a feat) to then have a foot come out to meet it, sending it flying in Zack's location.

and what a good thing that Zack isn't quite your average human.

Damn good thing that Zack wasn't the average human. His reflexes were sharp, so he had more than enough to account for how fast the thing was coming. So it was that he was close enough to knock the thing up in the air, getting it to bounce just enough for him to set himself under the ball and give it just a bit of a bounce. Just enough for it to barely cross over into what Zack had decided was Tidus's side of the game. First rule, make the opponent use more energy than you do.

It's really not as cool if Zack doesn't make it fly, but that's not going to stop Tidus going for the ball, the attempts to eat at his stamina for the time fairly appreciated, all the things considered: the guy loves to move, and he wasn't getting this with some basic back and forth.

He goes for the ball with his entire body, ready to catch it with arms and his chest when it comes down, flipping off his back and be straightening in the water. Deliberates their close proximity now, how to approach: gives its a bounce into the air and—

it hits the water before his hand readying can do anything.

Oops. Look, blitzballs aren't this heavy, alright. How ever Zack may want to acknowledge that, the second time will go off better, with the ball aimed in the same off-course Zack had provided Tidus with, a hefty speed to it again.

Oh yeah, well, Zack's snickering. Quite a bit. Because come on, that was absolutely funny, the way he floundered like that. Pretty sure Tidus would chuckle if he was in a reversed position. Laughter, after all, is the joy of life.

He happily reaches up to his the thing back and barely misses it, just fingertips short. Oh well, sometimes they all make mistakes. Which in this case means him splashing off through the water to retrieve the thing.

"Good job!"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

they show you how to swim

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