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Mods ([personal profile] modblob) wrote in [community profile] redmarsshit2019-10-24 11:41 pm

redshift: tdm #5

Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.

▶ Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.

▶ All TDM threads can be considered game canon, and current players are welcome to either top-level on the TDM so prospective players can tag them, or use the prompts for logs or network posts on the communities. All threads on the TDM can be used for Activity Check.

a. don't be a sap.

Good morning, October 25th! Whether you're a confused new arrival or a current resident, you probably had some plans for today, right? Grab breakfast, visit a friend, pick some fruit, explore a new part of the massive city.

Well. Too bad. Because, as every single bot in the city will be telling you the moment you show your face, it's GOOP FESTIVAL DAY! What? You've never heard of it? Preposterous, everyone knows about the Goop Festival, it's one of the most anticipated holidays in Anchor! Haven't you been preparing for this for a week now?

The Goop Festival is a harvest celebration, in particular, a celebration of the sap-producing trees that grow wild in the Park, thick around the edges of the south side of the lake. The bots have been hard at work setting up the festival grounds in the shade of the trees in the balmy fall temperatures. There are spiles tapped into trees with buckets placed underneath that are already half-full of a thick, viscous, amber-colored sap. The bots have also set up troughs of shaved ice with long sticks nearby, with which they will demonstrate for excited residents (you are excited, right?) how to cool the sap in the ice and wrap it around the stick to make it a sort of taffy candy. That's not the only sweet surprise waiting, either.

A long table set up in the grass is loaded down with all sorts of delicious sap-related goodies, ranging from cupcakes with thick globs of sap-flavored frosting to sap-flavored jerky to sap sugar candies, and just about anything else you can imagine. There are a wide variety of offerings that would taste good coated, flavored, or glazed with the sap, which tastes sort of like a caramelized toffee. Another table is laid out that has row upon row of cups, each half-full of the sap, heated lightly to a thinner consistency and served similarly to hot chocolate - at least, if hot chocolate gave you a floaty, happy, hazy sort of feeling. Everything made with this sap does, actually, with the cups of pure sap having a stronger effect and items with less sap content having barely any effect at all.

Does this not sound like your cup of weird tree sap? Too bad. This is the GOOP FESTIVAL, and everything is shut down for this lovely paid vacation day. Spa? Locked down. Kitchens? Locked. Bar? Nope, totally shut down and the server bots are all down at the park. VR Gaming? Too bad, the computers are all shut down. Even roaming the halls and trying to stay out of the way won't help much...be prepared to be dragged down to the park to participate in this mandatory festival! Isn't it exciting?


b. familiar ground.

Every year in Anchor near the end of October, there's a very strange interaction between the protective dome over the city and seasonal radiation surges that happen in the wastelands. Some complicated combination of refraction and reflection means that for the last few days of the month, residents will experience some of the more benign effects of the red shift inside the city.

Did we say benign? Because while there may not be any dangerous radiation to melt your skin off, there are some mind-bending dangers. Characters experiencing the shift will find the world becomes distorted, warped, impossible to navigate; they are enveloped in auditory and visual hallucinations, and can become so disoriented that they can't even recognize people they've known for years. And characters will find that the citywide shift brings in slivers of other universes, little slices of places characters have never seen before...or places so familiar they make the heart beat hard with joy or fear.

And just like in the wastelands, the things that show up in these shifts are all too real. Characters may find themselves walking through a door into a scene straight from home, or from someone else's home. Whether it's a favorite place to share with a new friend, or the nightmare landscape you almost died in, complete with the monster that almost killed you, be careful. Everything you experience here is real, and if you die in the shift, you die for real.

Of course, the city has its own safety measures in place - residents experiencing the hallucinations and appearances of items and places from other worlds may find themselves locked down in the room they're in, trapped with the otherworldly effects of the shift.


c. the virus.

A few weeks ago, people in Anchor started getting a case of the sniffles. While some of the earliest cases might be clearing up, there are still a few people suffering, or people freshly infected by those who were sick earlier, including some of the new arrivals who may not even be feeling it yet.

Which may make the cause of some unexpected 'glitches' around the city a little unclear. Residents who are feeling the effects of the illness, or who are infected but not showing symptoms yet (or anymore) will find that their access to certain parts of the city are restricted. Suddenly, automatic doors aren't opening for them, as if they were ghosts, particularly when they try to access anything that may facilitate transmission of the virus. Suddenly, only some of the residents of the city will find they can't get into half of the MedBay, or the spa, the kitchens, the VR or games rooms, the bar...anywhere people gather or eat or sit close together.

Residents may put together that it's related to the illness some of them have been experiencing over the past few weeks, but it might take a while, since these safety and security measures are affecting people who are showing no symptoms yet. Be prepared for a few days of paranoia while seemingly perfectly healthy people are locked out of common areas. What does the computer know that residents don't? Are these people security risks? Is it a system glitch? What could be going on?


c. the network.

Need to get hold of someone, call for help, ask the city at large a question? Need to warn a friend not to leave their apartment unless they want to be forcibly press-ganged into the Goop Festival? Maybe you need to hold your sat phone up to whatever crazy thing you're seeing and send out a recording to double-check if your eyes are deceiving you and what you're looking at is real?

Whatever the reason, the network is going strong, so feel free to include a post to it in your top-levels.


Mod Note: The "familiar ground" prompt will be active between October 29th and October 31st; "the virus" prompt will be active until the next introductory mingle, which will be kicking off the second part of the illness plot.


theweakhavepurpose: (Passive)

[personal profile] theweakhavepurpose 2020-01-08 05:31 am (UTC)(link)
"I'll explain it another time." He smirks, realizing that Carlisle might not even remember this in a few hours. At least he seems to be getting some much needed time not being a ball of stress.

"I think you're getting ahead of yourself, first see how long this lasts and if there's any side effects before you start doing all kinds of stuff with it." Pratt is starting to feel like a Deputy again here, being the voice of reason talking someone down from doing stupid things. "Can you sleep? Or would that be more like knocking yourself unconscious?"
abheirrant: (❧ i lost myself)

[personal profile] abheirrant 2020-01-08 08:15 am (UTC)(link)
"The latter, probably," Carlisle replies. "I mean not to get ahead of myself, but- but do you know how long it's been since I slept? Do you know how maddening it is to be awake all the time, constantly having to listen to your own thoughts, turning over every idea and notion a thousand times more than they ought to until they're just- they're just twisted and terrifying, even if the idea hadn't been frightening to begin with?"

That likely does explain some of the stress he's under, especially when that's all on top of his being-an-undead problem.
theweakhavepurpose: (You are not strong enough)

[personal profile] theweakhavepurpose 2020-01-09 03:13 am (UTC)(link)
"Not really no. I've been kept awake for days but eventually people just pass out. After they start hallucinating that is." There's some real gnarly stuff that happens when people can't sleep, things he'd never wanted to know and was now far too familiar with.

"That sounds like torture. But see what happens with this first before you knock yourself out." And Pratt can figure out what they should do if it turns out Carlisle sleepwalks.
abheirrant: (❧ he hesitated,as usual)

[personal profile] abheirrant 2020-01-09 03:40 am (UTC)(link)
"Right," Carlisle says with a nod, trusting Pratt's judgment. "Right right, you're right. I'll do that. I just- cisth, it's been weeks. I'm getting ahead of myself, but the prospect is undeniably exciting." So exciting that even if he could sleep, he probably wouldn't.

He eases into a seat on the bed, his fingers tightening on the comforter as he tries to keep himself steady. "In good news, I feel good. Not as good as I could, but I believe I can work on the enchantment. If- if I could make a magic rock, I can do this, can't I? If you would help me?"
theweakhavepurpose: (Considering)

[personal profile] theweakhavepurpose 2020-01-11 04:34 am (UTC)(link)
Exciting is good! That's an emotion and Carlisle hasn't had many of those other than panic and self-loathing so this is definitely a good step in the right direction.

"Hey it's a start though right? You're setting your baseline so you know how to adjust it next time." He feels a little odd about his, like he's talking someone through their first dose of heroin. It sort of goes against everything in his police training. But he's not home, and these are extraordinary circumstances. Not to mention Carlisle is technically dead so he's probably not bound by the Montana Penal Code anyway.

"Definitely. I think you got this. But you should enjoy it while it's happening, not think about the future. That's kinda the whole point of getting high. Being in the moment."
abheirrant: (❧ he tried (& failed) to hide his mirth)

[personal profile] abheirrant 2020-01-11 08:24 am (UTC)(link)
Being in the moment -- Carlisle actually has to reflect on that for a second, reeling in his excitement as he does. He's generally viewed the lightheaded relaxation of his brews from home as an escape, but one with purpose: it eased his mind long enough that he could think clearly, used in moderation rather than excess. Perhaps he should try the opposite and see how freeing that is.

But another day. For now, he's content to just try to enjoy this, and not think about the future and how terrible it could be.

"Thank you, Deputy. Bring your rock next time, and we'll see if we can't make some adjustments."