redmarsshit | test drive meme: november 2019

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!test drive

test drive meme: november 2019

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.

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She goes, the little touch all that's needed to make her come close. To lead her to press her ear against his chest and take his heart in like that first drunken step. Guided then like now, easily falling into him. What he offered her, comfort without restraint.

"I don't want to be safe, I want to be free."

When she presses her ear against him, he lifts his other hand to put it on her head, curling his fingers to gently rub them gently against her scalp.

"I know."

He's not sure he can help her much with that, as much as he'd like to. And as much as he could tell her that she is free, that no one here will lock her up or force her to do anything, that she has every right to deny anyone anything, it won't free her from the scars or the memories. Even when everything has passed, they still linger.

"I know you know." she rubs her cheek against his chest. "I think that's why I never run, even when I want to."

It was a simple thing, really. But it was everything. The only thing she ever wanted. Now or always.

"I know you know what it means to me. Why I'll always come back, I think, no matter what. You're my first choice, in everything, because you understand, and it's not that no one else matters to me, its just that... They're not you, they'll never be like you."

He's not certain he's all that special, truth be told. Surely there must be other people out there who are very much like him, who hope for the same things as him, and hopefully they are more than there are people like Washington and Lee. But he understands the sentiment and feeling behind it.

Truly, he can only hope that he'll find someone he can love as much as he loves Angel, since he cannot keep her beyond these strange places. But there may be something in the idea that everyone has something that is unique about them, because he does wonder if there is anyone out there quite like Angel.

"I can say the same to you."

She leans up and kiss him softly. Just a peck that she holds, eyes drifting shut and inhaling deeply of him, drinking him in.

"Maybe. Sometimes I want everyone to see you like I see you." then there is a sigh. "But sometimes, I want to eat out the throats of anyone that isn't Jacob or Charles looking at you like I do. It's very confusing."

The puff of breath he exhales carries with it a sound not far from laughter, as he lifts his chin enough to return the peck, but to her nose rather than her lips.

"Perhaps you should stick to punching them, if you really must do something."

Her nose wrinkles as it tickles, so briefly in her skin, shaking her head with the feeling. He always made her laugh so easily, so freely. He made her happy, even when they weren't talking about anything important at all.

"True. Hunting and killing us satisfying but... the tendons get stuck in my teeth afterwards."

The way her nose wrinkles makes him smile widely as he straightens back up, his hands settling on the small of her back.

"I'm sure that is very difficult for you."

She sighs mournfully. "It is. Not to mention the bits of concrete that I think I've had wedged in one of my hooves for weeks."

He chuckles quietly, but that does make him a little concerned. She may just be joking, but if so, it likely comes from experience. He hadn't considered it.

"Do you have things wedged in your hooves? I could look at them."

"Uhm," there is a pause, pressing up on her hooves. Feeling by pressure to tell. "Yes? I can't really see them myself underneath so I can't really..."

He takes a step away from her, and reaches for her hand.

"Come on. I believe I know where we may find tools for that."

She threads her fingers through his and begins to trot that half step faster she needs to, to keep up with him. "How do you know about hooves?"

Turning his head over his shoulder, he raises an eyebrow. Perhaps there's no reason she would have assumed as much from what he told her of home. He supposes she wouldn't quite know what a farm back in his time was like.

It's always a little strange to be reminded of how different their lives were.

"The homestead has plenty of horses."

"The horses that are bigger than ponies." repeating their previous lessons about animals, so far as she remembers it. It seems like it should be important, given Pandora. But maybe it didn't? Either way.

"It won't hurt will it? It's, uhm, it's soft in the middle bits."

His lips twitch upwards slightly at that. Most of them bigger than ponies, yes. The fact that she's held onto that and wanted to remind herself is ... cute.

"It should not hurt. I'll be careful."

It could be very important to remember. Or it's something he had told her about his world, and she cradled those deeply. Kept every bit she could, for just in case.

"I'll try not to squirm too hard." Mumbled. Suppose if there was someone she was going to poked and prodded at and not mind, it would be by Connor. "I kind of miss the manuals Ryslig had. There was pamphlets about everything? 'What to do now that you've grown horns', 'Fleas in your fur and how to treat them', 'how to talk through accidentally eating your friends, family and loved ones because of the fog'."

He huffs quietly in amusement.

"That is quite kind of the fog god. Or perhaps they were written by others who had already lived through it?"

She shakes her head firmly with that, settling into a pace beside him with their hands held together, swinging it as he leads her along.

"Definitely, definitely not her. She didn't give a damn about us, not really. She just wanted us to worship her. It was other people, mostly. We all got turned, so we were all in it together."

As soon as she starts swinging, he swings his hand along with her.

"I suppose that makes more sense."

Angel hasn't told him all that much about the fog god, but from what little he's been told, she didn't seem like the most helpful type.

"Sometimes? It was kind of weird. So, there was a city, plus lots of towns. The people there - the fog God was their God too, and they worshipped her so that meant we were like... Her chosen or something. Saints? I don't know religion really well."

She shrugs, gone over that before that most aspects of religion goes over her head.

"So sometimes they'd uhm, offer themselves up to be eaten? It was uh..." uncomfortable. Yes she was used to some crazy things, but it was different when there was a obsessed person in a manic loving way begging you to eat them.

Uhh ...

It's not that that doesn't make sense, but he can imagine it's very disturbing. To be turned into a monster who craves human flesh when, to him, that seems to go against everything human beings are, and to then have people willingly offer themselves to you ... That has to be very strange, to put it mildly.

"You don't need to tell me more."

She shakes her head. "It's okay. I know it's all kind of a lot to hear as well. I'm sorry, I try not to overwhelm you with it."

By pieces, it always has to be. He knows the worst parts, after all. But it was seldom the whole truth. Not from her. She didn't even mean it not to be, wanted to tell him, everything, always. For the first time in her life, she wanted to tell someone anything and wasn't afraid. Just like they held hands, to slot all these pieces of herself, against all the pieces of him.

It came down to the same thing, some of those pieces were ugly.

"But, anyway, I'm always telling you about me. What about where you're from? Do the homesteaders have that? Not that I mean, there is flesh-eating monsters and a cruel God or anything, but - " what did he have, his people have?

He frowns slightly, trying for a second or two to work out what she means if it isn't flesh-eating monsters and a cruel God. What else had they been talking about?

"I am not certain I follow."

"Right, uh" she unravels her sentences back, he's not in your head, Angel. A little clear of her throat - "Belief. That's what I meant. Obviously Pandora doesn't have much in the way of religion, in such much as they worship Marcus as a Saint who brings guns, but..."

She doubted that counts.

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mustact - 2020-03-20 15:51 (UTC) - Expand

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