test drive meme: november 2019

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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

[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!]

[benhargreeves]

Yeah, no way. I'm only scared of you in that I really want him to like me, why are my social skills so shitty? kind of way.

[ Ben's face is red with embarrassment because he sounds like a dumb teenager, and sure, there are reasons for that. Even when he was alive he was too busy going on missions and training and generally hating his life and himself to really practice this stuff. But even so? Mortifying.

And it only gets worse. ]

Most people have a bad sense of what they ought to be afraid of, anyway. They look at anybody who's different or anything they don't understand and they assume that's what evil is. That's why they called me a monster and my father a benevolent man even though-

[ But before that train can derail any further, Ben forces his hands over his mouth, muffling whatever evidence was going to pour out about all the reasons those epithets ought to have been switched. He waits until Genji has explained his experiences, how he'd wished for death, before he dares to uncover his mouth again. When he does, however, the words that come out are kinder than before. ]

I don't know. I can't make that comparison. I haven't been through what you went through, and you haven't been through what I went through. It wasn't agony, being a ghost. I didn't feel any pain. I didn't feel anything. It was just. Hollow. And hopeless. And unchanging. And very, very lonely. But - you probably were, too...?

[ Ben doesn't know if Genji had had friends and family around supporting him through whatever injuries had landed him in his current state, but even if he did, that didn't stop it being a singular and lonely experience. ]

[arcadedragon]

I suppose that is good as I have few friends and would not know how to go about making new ones. The armor is not a good first impression for people I would like to get to know. It actually used to be even worse.

[He knows where Ben is going with that, having read the comics he can presume some unkind things that were said and he winces in sympathy behind the armor. His own father had said many unpleasant things about Genji. Yet another thing they have in common.]

I was completely alone. My armor was different, to accommodate for all the medical procedures that needed to be done and there were these tubes that connected into my spine. I had to be plugged into a machine every evening for hours. My teammates went out drinking or to their quarters, and I was in the medical bay. I did not even have a private room.

More a science experiment than a person. Creating a living weapon.

[All of this feels both awkward, but also sort of a relief to be telling someone. Especially someone who probably isn't going to judge him.]

I seem significantly less cool once you know I had to be plugged in like a cell phone.

[benhargreeves]

People who would let your armor get in the way of talking to you and getting to know you don't sound like people worth knowing in the first place, if you ask me.

[ Ben's voice is passionate, full of conviction. This isn't just the truth drug compelling him: this is something he would say aloud no matter what. There are so many people Ben has met at the Anchor and become friends with, but it has been possible in part because they are all strange in their own way, displaced and different. The people here... have been through things. Ben's sure he isn't the only one to have noticed. So, really, learning all this about Genji... well, it isn't a complete surprise. Ben listens to Genji speaking, offering no interruptions until he is finished.

Then, Ben doesn't just think it, but actually says aloud: ]

Damn. We've really have got a lot in common. You're talking to Number Six, remember? So I - know how it feels to be treated like a science experiment and not a person. I'm more used to that than- I mean I thought for years all kids just got covered in electrodes and hooked up to stuff before they went to bed, and had cameras in their rooms, and-

[ This time, instead of forcing himself to be silent, Ben simply thinks very hard about another truth he would rather be saying, tries to redirect that flow of unfiltered speech into an alternative channel: ]

And no, Genji. You don't seem any less cool because you managed to survive all of that and came out the other side of it. I'm sorry your teammates didn't realize how badly they were treating you, or maybe they did and they were just dicks I don't know, but the point is none of that changes what I said before. If anything, you seem even more badass, now.

[arcadedragon]

[He gives a shrug, what Ben says makes sense - but it's hard to not fall into a spiral of self loathing if everyone is either scared or pitying upon seeing him. Which he's well aware that Ben is familiar with.]

We do indeed. Everything seems normal after a while, until you realize it is not. Of course it's normal to be in pain and sleep on a medical bed and have no personal possessions. That is simply how things are. Until I had enough and left and suddenly everything was different. I didn't know it could be better until it was. And then I had so many things to unlearn - I had slid backwards for years.

It was far more difficult to become a person again than I expected. And I didn't have all this machinery to blame, it was my own mindset that was wrong. Not my body.

You are very kind despite all you have been through. I wish I could be as such. You have not let what has happened to you dampen your spirit.

[It's weirdly inspirational and he wants to be more like him.]

[benhargreeves]

[ Ben listens to Genji, face grave, eyes intent. He nods solemnly when Genji talks about not knowing things could be better until he was elsewhere. He does again, when Genji talks about backsliding, interjecting with a quick, quiet: ]

I still do that some days.

[ He's tried to internalize the good things that have happened in the Anchor, and everything he'd seen of Earth as a ghost outside of his father's mansion. Most days, he can, but there are bad days, too. Days when he hates himself for acting like he was hard-done-by, for feeling sorry for himself when he's a disgusting monster that shouldn't exist. There are still mornings he wakes up hating himself so much it's hard to move - moments, every now and then, when he misses his father.

Then, because it's true and he's not sure Genji has heard it, or heard it enough. ]

Your machinery doesn't make you any less of a person. Not even a fraction of a fraction of a percent. And anyway you were always a person even when your mindset was telling you otherwise. You were always a person and you always had worth, and nothing you could possibly tell me would convince me otherwise.

[ When Genji says such nice things about him, Ben feels his face growing hot, and he drops his gaze, flattered and shy and guilty, as well. Because he's not sure he deserves that praise. Which is clear when he corrects: ]

You're kind, too, you know, Genji. You gave me back those comics and you didn't ask me questions I didn't want to answer or run away from me. And- you're wrong about me. I can be very, very damp some days. Just because you haven't seen me like that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. A lot of my spirit is still recovering, slowly. I don't think it'll ever be completely healed. But I am trying.

[arcadedragon]

[He stands there, utterly silent, in shock. You were always a person. No one had ever told him that before. McCree had made a token effort to cheer him up, but he'd always assumed that the man only wanted a drinking buddy and since Genji only had about 60% of himself left, he was more of a lightweight than he'd been and the cowboy could drink him under the table. ]

I...

[It's taking him a while to find his voice again. His voice, even though it's coming from a synthetic voicebox, even though it had been mechanically recreated. He may be compelled to tell the truth, but even he doesn't know what that is right now.]

Thank you. I ... No one has ever told me that before. That I was still a person, even though I'm only partially human now.

[He can actually feel himself blinking back tears and once again he's thankful for the mask, even if it is going to make things blurry soon. ]

No one is perfect all the time. But you are trying to forge your way forward. As am I. It's all we can do given the circumstances. I am very glad to have met you. I don't know what's happening or why we're saying these things, but I'm thankful for it.

[benhargreeves]

[ Ben can tell the words hit deep, for Genji. Which is interesting, in a way, since he can't see Genji's face at all, or hear his tone of voice until he speaks next. But he picks it up nonetheless. It's something about the quality of the silence between them and how very, very still Genji goes once Ben says what he does. That silence stretches, and Ben is a little concerned that maybe he sounded over the top, or accidentally patronizing...

And then Genji is thanking him and saying no one had told him that before, and Ben knows it was the right thing to do. ]

You are a person. [ There is a hard, unwavering conviction in Ben's voice as he repeats the words. ] You're a person I'd really like to get to know better. And - being wholly human ain't all it's cracked up to be, anyway. So what if you're only partially human? I mean, I might only be partially human for all I know. There are a lot of good humans, but there are a hell of a lot of bad ones, too.

[ Ben makes a mental note to himself to do whatever he can in the future, to make sure other people in this place are treating Genji like a person, not a thing, and to show (so it's not just words) that he thinks of Genji as no less and ultimately no different than any of his fully-human friends. ]

I'm thankful, too. Even though I'm still kinda embarrassed for sounding like an awestruck fanboy, earlier.

[arcadedragon]

We are both not at our best right now.

[Ben sounds a little fanboying, Genji sounds like he might fall apart because someone said he's a person. This went well for them, but it could have gone a whole lot worse.]

I think I am going to go hide in my room until this wears off and I say more embarrassing things. Especially to strangers. This would make a poor first impression.

[Or a great one, who knows. At this point his mind is racing from everything that's just been said, and he needs some time to process it without blurting out everything he thinks.]

[benhargreeves]

Oh, that's a really really good idea. I'm going to steal that idea.

[ Ben shoves a few very thick books into his arms, clearly grabbing some reading material for his self-imposed quarantine until this whatever wears off. He opens his mouth to say something more to Genji but then hesitates, because he realizes he doesn't know what will come out. And yeah, Genji's got the right idea, here. He should just shut up before things get worse.

So he just gives a small smile and a nod to Genji for his goodbye, waits for Genji to leave before following after, checking the halls to make sure they are empty as he beelines it back to the privacy of his room. But he's going to keep thinking about what was said, here. A lot. ]