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Mods ([personal profile] modblob) wrote in [community profile] redmarsshit2019-11-21 09:50 pm
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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.



izzetthough: (pic#13410830)

[personal profile] izzetthough 2019-12-17 11:00 pm (UTC)(link)
One hand extends, without Ral even glancing up. "One second."

He's still taking the little machine into consideration. What it might be running on, where the processor might be. It might be worth taking one of these things apart, just to check. It wasn't as if he couldn't just put it back together again, right? Who knew what sort of tech this place might have up its sleeve.

All in the interests of engineering a way out, of course, but sometimes his curiosity does get the better of him.
superposition: ((what are we talking about?))

[personal profile] superposition 2019-12-17 11:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Wh- Qubit's brow wrinkles. Don't "one second" him, he's kind of a big deal! He steps closer, folding his arms and leaning in to see what's so interesting. The bot isn't doing anything unusual, though, just happily replacing some worn-out components of the power junction, like it's programmed to.

"Mm-hm. Routine maintenance. Fascinating," he says sarcastically.
izzetthough: (pic#13443851)

[personal profile] izzetthough 2019-12-18 12:21 am (UTC)(link)
"Fascinating," Ral mimics, in an intonation that is less exact than it is mocking, before finally glancing up to squint at Qubit. "Real helpful. New guy, learning curve, alright? Why don't you just...loom imperiously somewhere else, okay buddy?"

And he lifts his hand again, this time in a shooing gesture, before returning his attention to the bot. This time, he actively reaches out to poke at something. "Could find a screwdriver...that'd be handy right about now. They never let you pack, first. All that equipment, gone. Such a waste."
superposition: ((i told you so))

[personal profile] superposition 2019-12-18 01:41 am (UTC)(link)
Oh. Okay. That's how he's going to be? Waltzing in, poking around like he owns the place, and now shooing him like a cat that got underfoot? That's not going to fly with him, sorry.

Qubit shoots the stranger a tight-lipped smile, eyebrows raised. "Yeah, that is a shame, isn't it?" He roots around in his coat pocket, setting the handful of tools he's carrying clinking metallically against each other, and produces a long screwdriver - which he proceeds to turn over in his hand a few times, examining it with great (feigned) interest. What an awful shame! If only somebody had a screwdriver!

"Oh, well," he says with a flippant shrug, still holding the screwdriver. "Good luck with that. I'll just head back to the lab."
izzetthough: (pic#13410854)

[personal profile] izzetthough 2019-12-18 01:49 am (UTC)(link)
It's the 'clink' that catches his ear, and he perks like a wolf that's caught scent. Only to see the guy very deliberately dangling the screwdriver within line of sight.

Oh. So that's how it is.

Drawing in a very deep breath, Ral crooks an eyebrow up at the other man. Alright, alright, you've made your point.

"I'm not apologizing." But he does have his undivided attention now. After all, he'd just said the magic word. Somewhere in this dump, there's an actual lab. And Ral needs to know where.
superposition: (Through hell and high tide)

[personal profile] superposition 2019-12-24 05:30 pm (UTC)(link)
Qubit smiles smugly. That got his attention, did it?

"Of course not," he says. If their roles were reversed, he wouldn't apologize either. He gestures at the robot with his screwdriver. "I'd rather you leave the maintenance bots alone for now, at least. They've got a long backlog to work through. You want to take something apart, you can have your pick of the ones in the spa - those are a public menace."

By which he means they keep trying to fuck with his hair. For that, they will not be forgiven.