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redmarsshit2019-05-13 07:52 pm
modblob) wrote in redmarsshit2019-05-13 07:52 pm
redshift: tdm #1.
Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.
Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.
a. virtual reality.
You’ve been in too long and you know it. You’ve been in too long and you know it. You’ve been in too long--
The day is bright, the air is clear, and Anchor is in the middle of a festival.
"Isn’t this wonderful?" A passerby beams at you, and you have to admit, it is. You're not tired or in pain. Your clothes are clean and you feel refreshed, maybe for the first time in a long time.
In the plaza at the bottom of the city, spilling over into the park it surrounds, are people celebrating the new arrivals. Fireworks crackle to life above the park’s trees, sending little thunderclaps of sound echoing upward along with the cheerful music being played by a band on the plaza.
On the upper levels, in the entertainment district, the shops and restaurants are all operating in full swing, offering free samples, free drinks, and free merchandise. There are coupons galore being handed out, everything from a discounted 45-minute session at one of Anchor's three spas to a solo hour in the VR environmental simulation chamber.
The agricultural centers have contests for the biggest and best quality plants, baked goods, wines, and animals. On every level there are exhibitions of that district's specialties.
"Isn’t this wonderful?" A passerby beams at you, and you stop a moment to watch them pass. You could swear you've seen them somewhere before.
Trying to talk to the people around you only seems to get limited, cheerful responses. If you watch, they don't go far, walking back and forth to the same points along the breezeway or turning into businesses and out of sight before they walk by you again with a friendly greeting and some bit of rote dialog. The songs start to repeat. The food and drinks all taste the same. The fireworks never stop.
By the time you've noticed all of this, you've noticed something else, too. There are others like you here. People, god let them be real. They stick out once you look for them, because like you, they’re the only ones not constantly smiling.
The day is bright, the air is clear, and Anchor is in the middle of a festival.
"Isn’t this wonderful?" A passerby beams at you, and you have to admit, it is. You're not tired or in pain. Your clothes are clean and you feel refreshed, maybe for the first time in a long time.
In the plaza at the bottom of the city, spilling over into the park it surrounds, are people celebrating the new arrivals. Fireworks crackle to life above the park’s trees, sending little thunderclaps of sound echoing upward along with the cheerful music being played by a band on the plaza.
On the upper levels, in the entertainment district, the shops and restaurants are all operating in full swing, offering free samples, free drinks, and free merchandise. There are coupons galore being handed out, everything from a discounted 45-minute session at one of Anchor's three spas to a solo hour in the VR environmental simulation chamber.
The agricultural centers have contests for the biggest and best quality plants, baked goods, wines, and animals. On every level there are exhibitions of that district's specialties.
"Isn’t this wonderful?" A passerby beams at you, and you stop a moment to watch them pass. You could swear you've seen them somewhere before.
Trying to talk to the people around you only seems to get limited, cheerful responses. If you watch, they don't go far, walking back and forth to the same points along the breezeway or turning into businesses and out of sight before they walk by you again with a friendly greeting and some bit of rote dialog. The songs start to repeat. The food and drinks all taste the same. The fireworks never stop.
By the time you've noticed all of this, you've noticed something else, too. There are others like you here. People, god let them be real. They stick out once you look for them, because like you, they’re the only ones not constantly smiling.
b. lockdown.
You've finally escaped VR hell, and maybe you’re exploring the agricultural levels of the colony. Maybe you're preparing to explore the surface, or you're trying to program different songs into the music bots in one of the empty restaurants, or you're poking around one of the nonfunctional spas. Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, it’s interrupted.
The lights blink out, then turn on again, the bright red emergency bulbs washing everything with eerie light as the bulkhead doors come slamming down all across the colony. Something or someone has triggered the lockdown procedure. Wherever you were exploring, you're now sealed in. For an unknown length of time. With whoever or whatever else is in there with you. Welcome to Anchor.
The lights blink out, then turn on again, the bright red emergency bulbs washing everything with eerie light as the bulkhead doors come slamming down all across the colony. Something or someone has triggered the lockdown procedure. Wherever you were exploring, you're now sealed in. For an unknown length of time. With whoever or whatever else is in there with you. Welcome to Anchor.
c. the red shift.
You've had it, or you just want to know what's out there. Either way, you're geared up (or not) and ready to get the hell out of Anchor. Unfortunately, the planet is far less hospitable than the abandoned colony behind you. In Anchor there are systems in place to keep out the dust, the toxins, and the radiation. Out here there's nothing but rough terrain and red-orange sand. A drive in any direction will reveal nothing but mounds of red dirt and crumbling hills - and the occasional broken down vehicles and cracked helmets.
On the way back, you get your first taste of what the Anchored call the red shift.
Named for the colors that envelope individuals caught in the phenomenon, it surges up around you like a rising tide.
The world becomes distorted, warped, impossible to navigate. Hallucinations overpower you, both visual and auditory. Disorientation follows. We hope you went out in protective gear after all, because we'd hate to see you cooked alive by radiation so soon after arrival.
Even those wearing full protective gear aren't safe, however. The red shifts carry pieces of other universes, places and objects familiar or strange. Monsters you thought you'd never see again, or never wanted to see in the first place. If you're lucky, these bits of other places will disappear before they can hurt you (one way or another). If you're not, they might just stick around.
d. home away from home.
You've had a long, miserable day. Time to unwind at one of the few functioning entertainment facilities — the creatively named "Rusty Chain" bar. Its (unfriendly) robot bartender can only make you a tequila sunrise, and might get testy if you climb behind the bar, but it's worth getting a few synthesized Maraschino cherries thrown at you to try some of the other synthetic booze back there. There's a lot of it. Maybe you want to play bartender yourself for a while. Why not?Someone else's favorite mediocre songs from another universe play from the broken music bots on repeat. There's a pool table with holographic balls that flash different colors after being hit by a laser-tipped cue, and a bizarre, violent interpretation of foosball that's closer to foos-battle. Each player controls their team via old-style arcade controls, attacking and defending each other. The goal is to get a holographic bomb into the other players base.
There are also darts. Which are just regular darts. Sometimes you don’t mess with tradition.
aziraphale | good omens (tv)
[ Lockdown finds him in one of the many gardens in Anchor's levels. Aziraphale was a professional gardener for a few years there, after all, technically, which he thinks means he might be able to put himself to good use somehow.
It would be nice, he thinks, to find some relatively inconspicuous ways to put himself to use. He's a long-standing creature of habit thrown well beyond the usual boundaries of his habits, and this seems to be a great deal more in his wheelhouse than most of the other needs to fill in this strange city.
There's a lot of ground to cover. He hasn't even made his way to the agriculture levels proper yet, in fact, where he might be able to try to sort out some overgrown areas in the nurseries and small forests, with enough time and creative application. No, he's just very carefully trying to take care of some particularly stubborn weeds without getting his clothes dirty, and then suddenly there are a bunch of red lights and slamming bulkhead doors, and it's all just alarming and inconvenient.
Angels do not squeak in alarm or startle so badly that they accidentally yank a weed out and send it flying behind them, roots and all, of course. Anyone who thinks that this man was that thoroughly startled is clearly mistaken.
Still, when he figures out he's not alone, he tries to keep his best friendly face up. Not the best of poker faces re: being put out about this "trapped for an indeterminate amount of time" business, but at least making it fairly obvious that the person or people he's trapped with are not the problem that he has with said business. He tries his best to settle his proverbially-ruffled feathers. ]
Well! Unexpected. All the-- very unexpected. Goodness. [ He gestures upwards towards the nearest emergency bulbs like it wasn't already obvious what he was talking about. ] Does this happen often? Do you know?
[ It doesn't seem like anyone's hurt, so that's a plus. Aziraphale nearly wipes his hands on his pants, but manages to remember not to at the last moment. He settles for clasping them in front of himself. He will just. Wait until he can wash his hands. He supposes. Not much choice in the matter.
Awfully inconvenient. He might have had somewhere to be or someone to meet soon. Really. ]
d. home away from home.
[ Aziraphale, all prim posture and neatly-pressed tartan, all poorly-concealed dithering and anxious energy, finds that he rather sticks out against a backdrop like this one.
His fashion sense still hasn't aged out of the early 1900s, of course, so he has in theory been sticking out for the past several decades or so in this regard. As he considers tartan bowties and waistcoats to be especially stylish, it's not something he's ever given much mind before.
It's also not something that people on Earth ever gave much mind. Possibly simply because he wears this getup with the confidence and unthinking ease of a man who considers it very fitting and stylish. Possibly because the look just really suits the energy that he puts out there. And more than anything, because they all have their own lives and problems to be getting on with, which are much more immediately pressing to them than what some random person on a park bench happened to be wearing.
Funny old world and all.
In any case, even now that he's sort-of-noticing how much he clashes with the aesthetic of this particular bar, he doesn't actually feel nervous or self conscious about that in particular. (Nervous about almost everything else about this situation, for sure, but not so much fashion.)
Everyone rather sticks out, after all. None of them are from here. There's something to be said for that.
Aziraphale plays the observer more than anything while he's here. He takes up a nice stool by the bar with his tequila sunrise. And from his stool he people-watches, in the way of someone who very much likes people but who spends most of his time closed up in a bookshop that he deliberately tries to keep customer-free.
There are a lot of very serious, pressing issues he has to try to figure out and fix right now.
He winds up bending down to examine the music bots with a vested interest, looking unimpressed with any and all of what they have to offer.
He winds up cheering people on at pool and foosball with the enthusiasm of someone who, in 6,000+ years, has never learned all that much about either of the games and still can't be super bothered to commit to learning about them now.
He winds up sitting down next to people and making conversation, all friendly greetings and gentle questions about the sort of day they've been having, where they come from, anything of the like.
(And if someone very kind happens to make a nearly impossibly tricky shot or land a dart on the bulls-eye once in a while, happens to get the opening they need to grab something from behind the bar without getting pelted by fruit, well.
He's still honor-bound to try to put a measure of good into the world, isn't he? Something still doesn't feel right about his powers, something he can't put his finger on, but he feels just a bit more at ease for being able to do what he can.)
Aziraphale has, in some specific regards, never necessarily been all that good about keeping on task. ]
(i have a post for permissions and certain opt-outs here! i am also fine with wildcarding other prompts!)
b!
She's not a gardener, but doing nothing has been sending her absolutely loco.]
Haven't been here long enough to tell, sorry.
[Her tone is matter-of-fact, but not unkind. Shepard tries not to be unkind when she can help it.]
But I'm not that surprised, given the state of this place. The planet, how this shelter was built.
no subject
She seems friendly enough. Which, given the circumstances, is as much as anyone could hope to ask for. ]
Oh, yes, it is all very... fortified, isn't it? Robust. I'm sure it's a feat of engineering. As sure as I can be. I've never been an engineer. [ But! Where are his manners! ] I do hope you're all right? Not claustrophobic?