test drive meme: november 2019

[modblob]

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. the truth hurts.

As though everything happening in the past month wasn't enough, there's been a minor explosion in one of the labs. No one hurt, if you don't count the hapless maintenance bot that caused the explosion in the first place.

But there are gases drifting through the laboratories, some of them making their way into the air vents, invisible to the purifiers in the system thanks to the explosion. And those gases are leaking into the air around Anchor, little pockets of danger waiting to be breathed in.

Those who breathe the gasses in might be the unluckiest Anchorites of all.

They're stuck telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth for the next five hours, give or take. Good luck with that!

b. retromedia.

Oblivious to what's going on inside Anchor, the shift rages outside, bringing shadows of things and places from other worlds, those things flickering into existence and out of it again.

The bad news is that the Whole Foods is gone.

The good news is the shift left something behind in its place.

A long, squat building, with cement walls painted over with stucco and punctuated by big windows. A flat roof with slanted sides, painted a deep blue. In bold yellow letters bolted to the roof, a sign:

BLOCKBUSTER
The sliding doors are broken, bouncing open and shut steadily, but the inside is clean and well-stocked with rack upon rack upon row upon row of VHS tapes, all of them neatly packaged in plastic boxes. Some of them have the movie covers on them, but most bear the Blockbuster logo and tiny labels running down the back, declaring the box's contents. There's a giant, somewhat busted up standee of Tim Allen as The Santa Clause, flickering holiday lights strung unevenly from the ceiling, and symbols of various seasonal holidays stuck up along the walls and windows.

Any movie you could possibly want lies within, or at least any movie you could possibly want that was released on Earth during or before 1994. And don’t worry if you can't find a VHS player in Anchor! There are whole shelves of VCRs tucked into one of the closets, apparently part of an aborted plan to rent out VCRs along with movies.

Poor Blockbuster. They were innovators. And now they're lost to the sands of the red shift.

c. sweet sweet self-care.

While sickness persists inside Anchor's walls, those in recovery seem to be getting better every day. And while the health bots have been working overtime, some of their processes have gotten a little borked up from all the work they've been doing.

Along with medical care, they're now administering lectures to their captive audiences about the value of diet and exercise, the importance of personal hygiene, and the healing properties of massage. Some of them are forcing massages on people just to prove their point, which, y'know, could be a lot worse. At least they're good at massages?

The spa bots are getting in on the action, nagging the healthy to come for relaxation and decontamination in one gloriously bubbly swoop. They've converted several of their spa pools into sweet-smelling antibacterial baths, so you can make extra-sure you got those visiting-a-sick-friend cooties off!

No, seriously, go with them. Before they drag you there and make you take a bath like an unruly two-year-old.

Believe them, it's worth it. If you complete a circuit of the spa, including the antibacterial baths and the fresh and zesty decontamination shower, you get a shiny sparkly holographic sticker that says "YOU ARE FREE OF DISEASE" in little cheerful bubble-letters. They designed them all by themselves, totally from scratch. Are you proud?

d. the network.

Need to get hold of someone, call for help, ask the city at large a question? Need to ask a friend which 1980s teen movie classic to watch at movie night? 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.

Navigation.

Comments

[redwinekindofgirl]

[Hah. She gets it.

A wry smile lingers on her face as she browses the selection of tapes. She picks one up, opens the case, touches the tape itself as if it's something that she barely remembers. Damn, it's been a long time since she saw an actual movie.

There are a couple that catch her eye, until she spots one that makes her expression light up.]

Ohhh, my god, Casper? We have to watch this.

[She holds up the VHS case, her eyes large and blue as she holds it in front of her chest and bounces on her heels.]

Let's watch this one. Pleeeeeeeeease.

[benhargreeves]

[ Ben's gaze quickly drops when Peter leans over and squeezes his wrist like that and says he's worth more than he thinks. It's... different, hearing that, knowing it's the complete and total truth. There's absolutely no question of that, now. Peter really means those words. He isn't trying to manipulate him, isn't putting on a more positive front despite interior reservations or disgust. He just... really thinks Ben is worth knowing.

It shouldn't hurt, someone saying something that nice to him, but it does. Ben isn't sure why. He just bites the inside of his cheek, managing a small nod. And when Peter makes that joke about not hitting on him, Ben laughs, the tension breaking. ]

Don't worry. I know you're not.

[ That moment of humorous relief might be brief, but it is just enough to get Ben out of his own head and listening properly as Peter gets around to answering the question. And what he says is... nothing entirely new. He'd known elements of this. That Peter has lost people. That he feels like he has something to make up for. That he carries a heavy burden.

But this fills in the gaps and missing details. That Peter had been alarmed by his powers at first. That he'd tried to actually totally blend in at first. His uncle being murdered. Blaming himself for not stopping it.

Ben is quiet for a while, just reaching over and setting a hand on Peter's shoulder as he wipes away those tears. When he does speak, his voice is quiet, soft. ]

It sounds like you blame yourself, for what happened to him. And that's... what's making you feel like you should be doing more, all the time, subconsciously, even though you're already trying your hardest. And I think it's really easy, getting into these patterns of thinking about yourself that are hard to break. 'Cause I get in them, too. About, like. Things. That happened at the Academy. Stuff that was done to my siblings and stuff that was done to me and stuff that I did on missions and training. A lot of it... I could have stopped. With my powers, it's hard to really argue that anybody forced me into anything. Physically, I could've stopped any of it, at any point.

[ Ben doesn't mean to say half of that - the words come out despite him and there's just no stopping it. Maybe having this conversation when they're both on truth gas was a terrible idea. Or... maybe he had needed that sort of a push, too. He drops his eyes to his hands, worrying at a stray thread on the cuff of his jacket. ]

But - do you see how, with your logic, that makes it all my fault? Even if I was, like. A kid, and scared, and just wanted to make my dad proud?

[ Ben shifts, intensely uncomfortable, the same way he is whenever his home life as a kid comes up. The one silver lining is, at least, perhaps this comparison will jar Peter enough that he might recognize the similarity. He might be more willing to forgive himself if he sees how terrible it would be to turn that same harshness on someone else. Ben knows how much easier it is, to forgive other people than yourself. ]

I've been trying really hard to convince myself it wasn't my fault. So... no. I don't think your uncle was your fault, either. You were a kid, and scared, and wanted to be normal. Just because it was physically possible, maybe, for you to have prevented that terrible thing from happening... it's not your fault, Peter. He died and that's awful and I'm so sorry, but. It wasn't because of you.

[benhargreeves]

It seems likely. You know how this place can be.

[ This is just the latest Thing in a long line of nanites and hallucinations and whatnot.

But Ben can't really worry about what is compelling that truthfulness right now because he's too focused on what he's just learned and how it changes the way he sees Ami and how she is dealing with talking about it. If she seemed uncomfortable for her own sake and wanted to avoid thinking about it or revealing anything to him, Ben would do whatever he could to change the subject or stop the conversation. That doesn't seem to be the case. ]

Ami, it isn't oversharing, I promise.
If anything the fact that I've got a messed-up past just means that I can totally handle it.
You don't have to worry about traumatizing me or grossing me out, no matter what. My threshold is crazy high.
So if you ever want to talk about stuff but you think it would freak people out to hear it
Under that wussy exterior I'm actually pretty un-freak-out-able by this point.

But that should be your decision so if you wanna stop talking about this now but you can't stop typing, just say the word and I'll put my phone down and you can delete the texts yourself later once this has passed.

[benhargreeves]

Are you kidding? You are way cool. You were so chill even when I was freaking out about you reading those dumb comics, and you're a total badass, and not just because of some dumb powers you were born with, but because you've trained and worked hard. So, yeah, you're nice and badass and hard-working? If that's not cool I don't know what is.

[ This really isn't going to stop being embarrassing, is it? Ben might have complimented him, otherwise, but he probably wouldn't have gone on a full-on fanboy rant. He can feel his face heating slightly. This really is his nightmare! His complete nightmare! He has no filter at all, no silence to hide behind, and it's the pits!

But he doesn't have too long to worry about that, because there are far more serious matters at hand. Genji says he doesn't want to be seen or pitied and Ben opens his mouth and his response just tumbles out. ]

I don't. You survived. That's better than I got.

[ Ben's eyes go round, and no, no, that was awful, why had he said that?! It's one thing to think it, but saying it is just. Totally unacceptable. Genji already knew he'd died but he sounds so heartless, now. ]

I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that.

[ He doesn't say it isn't true, because of course, it is. But at least he can honestly tell Genji saying that wasn't intentional. ]

[benhargreeves]

I can't believe you're underestimating me like this. You should know better.

[ Whether that's a reference to the difficult missions they'd been on together or to how often Allison would find Ben reading for hours on end in the mansion is anyone's guess. But he clears his throat and turns his eyes to the magazine, flipping through, glancing over the ads, mouth pursed a little. He will give her his commentary, but not until he has something to say.

At least, that's what he's planning on. But there is a faint trace of some... strange smell in the air? Ben wrinkles his nose, but it's not unpleasant. He just assumes it's from the magazine, one of those weird perfume ads with a test scene patch that just went off and a bit weird over the years.

Until he finds himself saying, looking at one of those ads in particular: ]

Is this supposed to be sexy? They just look super uncomfortable and awkward. And I have no clue why this is supposed to make me want to buy these shoes. Is this ad lame or am I just weird for not digging it?

[benhargreeves]

[ It doesn't faze Ben that much, that Arya has been to other strange worlds before this one. It's common enough, in this place. Klaus had been somewhere called Hadriel... and he knows that strange things happen in this place. Tricks, hallucinations. Substances with certain effects. A furrow forms between his brows, listening to Arya and he considers for a moment before shaking his head: ]

No, i haven't eaten since this morning, and I've lied to somebody since then so it can't be the food, but there are a lot of other ways we could've been drugged. It could be airborne.

[ Ben realizes how that might sound, that he might be giving wrong impressions about himself, and so he adds: ]

It wasn't a big lie. I told my sister I had slept well, but I didn't sleep well, I had an awful nightmare and woke up crying.

[ Wow, it just keeps on getting worse, doesn't it? He hadn't meant to go into quite that much detail.

But he can't worry that much about it because this kid is here, saying how easy it was to kill people, how many more people she wants to kill, and he thinks maybe this is different, in some ways, to the killing he'd done. It's... personal. Deliberate. Ben rubs at the back of his neck, feeling a crawling unease. But it is not at Arya, precisely. More at whatever sort of world had made her into this version of herself. ]

It... was never easy for me. It was always so painful, and disgusting, and I- I never wanted to, but I felt like I had no choice, and I felt sick after, every time.

[ His face is full of nothing but sympathy, though. Because surely, Arya had felt she had no choice, either, in one way or another. She'd been brought to this. Children don't just want to kill. ]

I've killed a lot more than seventeen people. I've killed a lot more than thirty people.

[ Just so that she understands he has even more blood on his hands than her, that he'd meant what he said about not judging. Quietly, voice full of sadness: ]

Why do you need a list?

[braidmage]

But that's stupid. I don't worship death. And you can't worship something without knowing it. That's just not how it works.

[ Arya's gods sound more like Onni and Lalli's and he makes a mental note to ask more about that, later. For now, though, he is trying to understand the rather complex concepts she's trying to explain.

He... doesn't entirely get it, until she says it makes being scared easier. Then it begins to click that she's not talking about some kind of literal magical transformation, some kind of cultural or spiritual practice he's unaware of. Instead, she's talking about... well, a kind of psychological response to stress, perhaps. Probably there's some fancy word for it and Tuuri would have known it, or Mikkel.

So he stops trying to understand the mystical mechanics of the thing and focuses instead on the fact that... this is something this person's been through. Trying so hard to give up being someone and being no one so they couldn't be terrorized or hurt. ]

Your world must be very frightening, for that to be necessary.

[braidmage]

[ Reynir, too, had smelled that strange scent on the air, but he quickly shrugged it off as his imagination and went back to work. It's early but it feels like he's been working for ages already. Helping out in the stables a little now that Kieran is... not available for that has meant that he's already tired by the time he gets to his crops, and today has been a particularly tiring exercise in pruning fruit trees.

Which is maybe contributing to why he greets Julie with a cheerful smile but says, truthfully: ]

Probably. Somebody's got to keep this place fed, no matter how boring this bullshit is.

[ Wow... he'd really said that, huh? Whew. ]

Hey, Julie. It's nice to see you.

[braidmage]

Into a mirror? Like, INSIDE it?!?!
Who is 'they' that was telling you this? You spoke to your gods?

[ Not everything is because of Odin, Reynir, chill. ]

Well now I'm a lot more interested in this than I was in dreams.
Are witches common in your world? Did you already have spellbooks?
Are there schools that help to train new witches?
Does everyone have to pass through a mirror to receive their powers?

[braidmage]

...Oh.

[ Normally his skin is thicker than this. Lalli has said much worse - plenty of times - and Reynir has shrugged it off, again and again. Calling him stupid, poking and prodding at him, taking out his temper on him. Reynir has accepted it, because Lalli is abrasive to everyone. But it had always seemed a little... more pronounced, towards him. And now that it's just the two of them and Onni trapped in this place, he had thought, for a while, it might be an opportunity to become closer. Become friends, properly.

Reynir has been trying to make that happen. Using the advantage of sharing a language to try to start conversations with Lalli, saying nice things to him when he can, offering olive branches whenever he sees the opportunity. But those efforts just keep crashing into a brick wall. And today... Reynir feels it, more than he usually does. ]

Is it really that bad being around me?

[ He definitely hadn't meant to say that out loud, though. No way. ]

[hersay]

[ allison blinks, glad that ben is providing commentary but also not expecting that much. go off, ben! ]

It is sexy! That's Christina Aguilera you're talking about! One of the greatest pop stars of our generation, second maybe only to Britney!! Of course it's sexy, wouldn't you want to wear the shoes that she wore? I wanted to BE her.

[ allison doesn't mean to type that much, but once she started, she couldn't stop. that's a little weird -- allison figures maybe she was just more excited about this than she initially thought? hopefully ben doesn't think that's weird and he just moves on, they've got so much to cover! he'll get to the table of contents soon, followed by the letter from the editor, which will give him an even better preview of the girly nonsense to come, plus way, way too much usage of the word "totes." ]

[benhargreeves]

[ Ben is also surprised by Allison's vehemence, but not that much. She's always been way more passionate about some things than him, and celebrities, glamorous things in general, the idea of fame and stardom... all of that was stuff he'd heard her get really excited about before, when they were younger. Always thinking about her career trajectory or the new trends or things like that. ]

I didn't say she was a bad singer... I just don't get it.

[ But he flips to the next page. Reads the letters from readers about a previous issue, which isn't all that rewarding since he didn't read it. More ads, more ads. A series of five pages in a row all trying to sell the exact same mascara. A page of recipes for fun, flirty summer cocktails. He finally got to a page full of confessions, reading each subsequent one with his eyebrows a little more raised, his hand coming up to cover his mouth as he smiled in shock. ]

These people are awful!

[ He got through a few more pages, some celebrity gossip, but he barely recognized most of the names, many many more ads. Eventually he flipped to a perfume ad that featured, well. One had to assume the woman in it was wearing the perfume it was advertising because she certainly wasn't wearing a lot else. There was also just a lot of... very crass and suggestive posing with the perfume bottle. Really unsubtle stuff.

Ben scoffed, but he didn't flip forward. ]

Seriously, this is- this is supposed to be, like- hot? I mean, that's what it's aiming for, right?

[ The question comes out a lot less like a sarcastic joke and a lot more like he's genuinely not quite sure than he'd meant it to. Maybe it's just the highly-posed, glossy, photoshopped look of all of it... but maybe it's not. Ben is looking at all these ads and he can tell they are meant to be provocative but he is just. So profoundly unprovoked.

It's not something he would have stopped to question, a short while ago. He would've just let his mind slide off the topic, avoid touching it and any vulnerability that was buried underneath. But he's... been having a think, of late. About some things. And so he is noticing things like not being all that captivated by what he sees on the page. ]

[benhargreeves]

[ Ben rolls his eyes, but honestly, it's kind of nice seeing Julie this happy and excited. Most of the time when Ben's seen her, she's been sort of stressed or uneasy. No way he could say no to that. ]

You realize Klaus added that one to the pile just to fuck with me, right?

[ But he drops the popcorn and holds out a hand to take the VHS from her. ]

Alright, alright. No reason not to I guess.

[ Ben heads over to the player that they have connected to the TV. This film will make for some easy joke fodder about ghosts at the very least. And considering that the cover makes it look like it's a kid's movie, the chances of anything coming up in it that might be genuinely upsetting to either one of them are limited, thank god. ]

For all I know it'll end up being the best movie ever.

[ He pops the thing in and it starts playing, halfway through a scene, and he quickly hits the pause. ]

Shit, somebody didn't rewind this? Seriously?

[ Ben hits the button to reverse the film back to the start, waving Julie towards the nest of pillows and blankets. ]

Make yourself comfy.

[justbeingknife]

Whoa, okay. One at a time, if ya please.

It might be better to say that I went through it. I came out the other side in some city I'd never been before, where they'd never heard of Earth. There was a coven that found us and explained what witches did, and they had the ones of us with magic learn how to use it their way.

As far as witches went, there were some that came through the mirror and some who were born there, in Aefenglom.

[braidmage]

So you became a witch after you traveled to another world from Earth. Like this one!

[ Reynir had come straight here from his own world but he has spoken to enough people here to know that he is in the minority, for that. ]

Why did they train you? Did you have a choice or was it compulsory?

[justbeingknife]

Well, it'd be pretty dangerous havin' a bunch of untrained witches around turning people into frogs every time they sneezed.

Plus, if we don't work off that magic, it accumulates. And then it starts to overflow, which is a whole other problem. The same goes for here, I have to keep usin' it.

I guess the same ain't true for you?

[arcadedragon]

[Fortunately the mask hides his grin because while he feels like he's a pretty badass cyborg ninja, no one has ever just straight up told him that. And that feels... pretty good honestly.]

Thank you. That's nice to hear, most are afraid of me.

[Which is understandable, since he usually doesn't meet people outside of when he's killing things. Which is not the best place to make friends.]

There are times I would have rather died.

[Yeah that's a great thing to say to the guy who was trapped as a ghost for years. Real considerate. Groaning he can't help but continue.]

I didn't mean to say that either. This is fine now, but it was very painful to begin with. It still hurts sometimes, but not every moment is agony as it once was. I thought that death would be kinder. But perhaps I was mistaken.

[Being in agony or being a ghost. Both sound terrible!]

[arcadedragon]

We did. But I wonder if we shouldn't be allowed to choose the future for others. Sometimes things are very clearly right and wrong, but more often they are shades of grey and difficult to distinguish.

It took me far too long to understand that.

[That's... okay that is not what he expected.]

For revenge?

[quarianmarine]

I'll say there's a problem. This damn thing doesn't know how to take 'no' for an answer.

[And, look, he's not so against the geth these days but he's also sure that a geth wouldn't start trying to take his suit off to make him bathe. He can't believe he would actually rather have a geth here than whatever this contraption is.]

I can't take off the suit. I need it to live. You got that, you dumb tin can?

[superposition]

[ A real charmer, this one. But hey, Qubit appreciates him volunteering intel about himself. An experienced scout who's resistant to ionizing radiation? That could come in very handy, assuming he can actually put his money where his mouth is. ]

[ He smiles wryly. ] Fair enough. In that case, allow me to show you around.

[ His tone suggests it is not an offer. Obviously, he's not letting a large, angry robot tramp around the station unsupervised right off the bat. He steps aside, though, and makes a sweeping "after you" gesture. ]

I'm Qubit, by the way. And you are...?

[itsnotaonesie]

"Talking to these guys is like talking to roombas, only with better vocabularies." Peter had managed to avoid being force-fed the syrup, mostly because he'd worked through most of that up until Qubit locked him out of the lab.

"But honestly, I feel that. I don't wanna have to dust and wash the windows on top of everything else I do."

[arcadedragon]

"I like the beeping vacuums a little better. These seem like poor human replicas. I want to shake them and make them snap out of it, even though I know that's not possible."

He's unsettled by robots that aren't really sentient.

"It seems that you and Qubit are dong most of the technological work. Is there anything I can assist with? I do not feel as if I am contributing anything." Being a walking nightlight isn't much.

[itsnotaonesie]

Some of the smaller rooms you wouldn't really fit in, but I'm sure we could rig something up for you.

[see look at him being all helpful, no ulterior motives here whatsoever.]

And are you like, already equipped with sensors or something that can give you some kind of radiation reading? I'd honestly be surprised if you weren't, but I figure it couldn't hurt to ask.

[enumerator]

[ arya frowns. she hopes this isn't airborne, because if this place's very air is poisonous, then there's probably nothing she can do, short of locking herself away until it wears off. she has half a mind to do that anyway, now that this stranger knows her secrets, now that he probably hates her.

but then ben says his secrets, and arya's eyes widen, filling with not disgust, but recognition. he wasn't kidding, when he said that he was like her. arya swallows and relaxes just a little, although she still grips that knife tightly -- now she knows that she'll need it, in case the worst happens. ]

Then you are a better person than me, even if you have killed more than thirty. It is better, probably, to feel sick than to feel nothing at all.

[ arya finally drops her gaze, looking down, ashamed. her voice is smaller, hollow and almost breaking. ]

I chose it. There was a war. They killed -- [ arya breathes sharply, struggling to say the next word ] -- killed my father, and mother, and brothers, and -- and they were hurting people...

[ arya bites down on her lip, hard, trying to get herself to stop, wanting so badly not to say this part, the part that makes her sound weak, like a stupid little girl. ]

And I was scared. The list is my prayer, to make it stop.

[ arya looks back up at ben, full of remorse. ]

I'm sorry. I did not want to say any of that, and I am sure you did not want to hear it. [ of course, arya can't just stop there. ] Why did you have to kill?

[enumerator]

[ reynir may have not intended his first message to be funny, but arya smiles anyway. usually, when she talks about the house of black and white, people always react with sadness, fear, or both. reynir, however, is also calling it like it is -- they're stupid, all those awful priests, and it's nice, in a way, to hear them get knocked down a peg. ]

You should tell them that.

(Do not truly tell them, or they will kill you faster than you can pray.)

It is frightening, sometimes.

[ arya can't lie. but she also doesn't want a texting-stranger to pity her, so she follows up with: ]

But it can be beautiful, too. I trained in Braavos, where the streets are made of water, and the city is guarded by a statue of a giant titan, and there are cats and taverns and merchants and so much life everywhere, if you know where to look.