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redmarsshit2020-01-20 09:11 pm
modblob) wrote in redmarsshit2020-01-20 09:11 pm
Entry tags:
test drive meme: january 2020
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.
▶ 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. nuclear fallout boy.
There is a mid-90s strip mall forming outside of Anchor.
Which is to say that there is now a Hot Topic next to the Blockbuster, and a little canopied sidewalk connecting the two. The difference between them is that the Hot Topic has an airlock entry and is safe from the radiation outside.
It's also not decked out for any Earth holidays, but it is fully stocked. Just not stocked with things that an Earth-based shopper would recognize as their "typical" fare. There are band t-shirts, with extreme fonts and symbols, but said fonts are almost cuneiform and the symbols are references that no one who wasn't living on Mars-15 in 1994 will get. The joke t-shirts are much the same, with cartoon characters, visual puns, memes, and designs that are, well, out of this world. There are bizarre earrings in standing cases, body decorations that might not quite fit a human, temporary tattoos, and random junk that cool fifteen-year-olds would snap up if it existed on Mars. (Use your imaginations, Anchorites.)
One thing you won't find in this store is advanced technology that serves any actual purpose. Sure, there are thumb-sized fart machines and little wall-mounted projectors that can decorate ceilings with preprogrammed holographic scenery (mostly starscapes). But none of it is any more useful than the keychain of that fat hipster cat with butterfly wings and bug eyes hanging from one of the displays. The cash register, which is the most futuristic thing in the place, is smashed to bits. Gotta get those Mars credits somewhere else.
Which is to say that there is now a Hot Topic next to the Blockbuster, and a little canopied sidewalk connecting the two. The difference between them is that the Hot Topic has an airlock entry and is safe from the radiation outside.
It's also not decked out for any Earth holidays, but it is fully stocked. Just not stocked with things that an Earth-based shopper would recognize as their "typical" fare. There are band t-shirts, with extreme fonts and symbols, but said fonts are almost cuneiform and the symbols are references that no one who wasn't living on Mars-15 in 1994 will get. The joke t-shirts are much the same, with cartoon characters, visual puns, memes, and designs that are, well, out of this world. There are bizarre earrings in standing cases, body decorations that might not quite fit a human, temporary tattoos, and random junk that cool fifteen-year-olds would snap up if it existed on Mars. (Use your imaginations, Anchorites.)
One thing you won't find in this store is advanced technology that serves any actual purpose. Sure, there are thumb-sized fart machines and little wall-mounted projectors that can decorate ceilings with preprogrammed holographic scenery (mostly starscapes). But none of it is any more useful than the keychain of that fat hipster cat with butterfly wings and bug eyes hanging from one of the displays. The cash register, which is the most futuristic thing in the place, is smashed to bits. Gotta get those Mars credits somewhere else.
b. looking kinda familiar.
There are little creatures scuttling through Anchor again, though these ones... well, they really are creatures more than they can be called animals. They're little blue-gray blobs of tissue, growing as they roll around until they finally split in two, both pieces then going their own way. Even though they don't have legs, the little blobs are fast, and many of them have no interest in interacting with the people of Anchor, and disappear into the ether never to be seen again.
Some of them, however, will single people out and start following them. The longer that little blob follows, the closer it gets, the more it takes the shape of an animal that represents the follow-ee's innermost soul or personality. The part of themselves that they hide away. As it begins to take shape, the person it follows will start to hear a tiny voice, at first just muffled sounds that could be coming from anywhere, but as the creature's form clarifies, the mumbling turns into actual speech. Clumsy, at first, almost like babytalk, but soon the little creature following its chosen Anchorite will be able to speak with its chosen person in full sentences. No one else can hear the little creature talk - only the one it decided to follow.
Keep the little bugger (or big bugger, if your innermost soul is an elephant or something) around for a week, and it will settle into its chosen shape, bonding to you for as long as you're alive. It can speak, listen, and understand, but you're the only one who can hear its voice. If this whole animal companion stalker situation isn't up your alley, though, and you're not feeling the connection, the little critter will slouch off to its own blobby existence.
Some of them, however, will single people out and start following them. The longer that little blob follows, the closer it gets, the more it takes the shape of an animal that represents the follow-ee's innermost soul or personality. The part of themselves that they hide away. As it begins to take shape, the person it follows will start to hear a tiny voice, at first just muffled sounds that could be coming from anywhere, but as the creature's form clarifies, the mumbling turns into actual speech. Clumsy, at first, almost like babytalk, but soon the little creature following its chosen Anchorite will be able to speak with its chosen person in full sentences. No one else can hear the little creature talk - only the one it decided to follow.
Keep the little bugger (or big bugger, if your innermost soul is an elephant or something) around for a week, and it will settle into its chosen shape, bonding to you for as long as you're alive. It can speak, listen, and understand, but you're the only one who can hear its voice. If this whole animal companion stalker situation isn't up your alley, though, and you're not feeling the connection, the little critter will slouch off to its own blobby existence.
c. creatures from the black locked room.
There's been a lot of exploration happening in that flooded area that Joe warned you all about. A lot of rooms opened, a lot of rooms explored and/or destroyed (thanks, Jacob et al. srsly). It's a lot of noise in a somewhat confined space. And something in one of the rooms is stirring...and done with being locked away.
Midday on the 20th of the month, the sounds of metal shrieking as it is twisted out of shape burble up out of the flooded halls. Thumping, rumbling, and eerie hooting noises are all muffled by the water at first.
There's only one at first, sloshing up out of the water and looking perfectly dry. Well... it looks like nothing, actually. A deep blackness that can hypnotize if it's stared at for too long. Long, dark claws that shine with a silvery edge. The vicious teeth in its shapeless head glow a pale blue-green.
Then another comes to the top of the stairs, and another.
They're perplexed at first by the webbing Peter Parker left to block off the hall, but a few experimental pokes with a claw shows that the stuff gives under their talons with only a little bit of effort. The three creatures slice their way free and move as a pack through the lower levels of Anchor, prepared to mob whoever they come across and tear them to shreds.
There's a problem when it comes to straight-up fighting these things, though: when physically attacked, they simply bounce back, when pieces are hacked off with a blade, each piece becomes a new, identical monster. The only way to beat them is with energy and other alternate fighting styles - magic, lasers, energy projectiles, etc.
Some people might be lucky enough not to run into them. Good luck to the rest.
Midday on the 20th of the month, the sounds of metal shrieking as it is twisted out of shape burble up out of the flooded halls. Thumping, rumbling, and eerie hooting noises are all muffled by the water at first.
There's only one at first, sloshing up out of the water and looking perfectly dry. Well... it looks like nothing, actually. A deep blackness that can hypnotize if it's stared at for too long. Long, dark claws that shine with a silvery edge. The vicious teeth in its shapeless head glow a pale blue-green.
Then another comes to the top of the stairs, and another.
They're perplexed at first by the webbing Peter Parker left to block off the hall, but a few experimental pokes with a claw shows that the stuff gives under their talons with only a little bit of effort. The three creatures slice their way free and move as a pack through the lower levels of Anchor, prepared to mob whoever they come across and tear them to shreds.
There's a problem when it comes to straight-up fighting these things, though: when physically attacked, they simply bounce back, when pieces are hacked off with a blade, each piece becomes a new, identical monster. The only way to beat them is with energy and other alternate fighting styles - magic, lasers, energy projectiles, etc.
Some people might be lucky enough not to run into them. Good luck to the rest.
d. the network.
Need to get hold of someone, call for help, ask the city at large a question? Need to ask a friend to back you up to take out the toothy voids? 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.
Whatever the reason, the network is going strong, so feel free to include a post to it in your top-levels.
Cassandra de Rolo | Critical Role + CRAU
Even with her time in the City... this is like nothing Cassandra has ever seen before. It’s fascinating, really. Also utterly strange. But she can’t help but explore. It reminds her a little of Rome, in an odd way. The jokes and humour that don’t quite make one hundred percent sense because she’s not from that world. That time. That culture.
So she looks through the clothing racks, at the crop tops and jeans and flannels and spandex in eye-scorching colours. “Was this in fashion ANYwhere?” she muses aloud in amusement. “I find that very hard to believe.” And yet she’s still tempted to get something to wear.
b. looking kinda familiar.
The odd little blob... creature that has been trundling along after her for a while doesn’t seem to be losing interest in her. It’s harmless, or it seems to be, and as odd as it is Cassandra doesn’t really mind. Although it’s starting... to change shape. No longer quite so... blobby, it’s shifting into something larger, something more animal shaped, with four legs and wings.
And she’s hearing a voice. That she’s assuming is from her blob-shaped companion. Or else she’s losing her mind a little. (Which, she’s not sure it would be so delayed; if she was going to lose her mind at all it would have happened years ago, she thinks.) It’s mostly nonsense, at first, but the longer it follows her the more coherent it becomes.
“Are you sure you want to follow me?” she asks it one day. “I doubt I’m the best company.”
c. creatures from the black locked room.
Cassandra can’t help but stare in horror and curiosity at the pitch black things with eerily glowing teeth. They’re like nothing she’s seen before, and she’s seen a lot, at this point. Vampires, Strix, fauns, Titans themselves, Cthulhu rising out of the lake... and yet these... creatures... are like none of them.
For one, none of them had been so strangely hypnotic if you stared at them for too long. She quickly figured out how to keep her eyes on them without looking at them dead on. And for two they didn’t split into two separate creatures when you cut at them with a blade.
Oh. Fuck.
e. wildcard.
C
Sooo using bladed weapons on these guys is a bad idea, good to know. Anyway, that voice would be coming from the dude who just landed behind her. Where did he come from? I dunno, up, he has a bad habit of just dropping into places, literally.
"Maybe let's not hang around with the demon dogs anymore, yeah?"
no subject
She’s not particularly keen on fighting something she’s not seen before that she cannot actually harm. “That sounds like a very good idea.” Then she’s reaching out and with a flick of her wrist the ground is rising sharply upward, creating a wall around the demon dogs. It won’t stop them, but it will slow them down a little. “Time to go.”
no subject
"That was awesome! Uh-- yeah, maybe we should go up a level, it'll take them a while to get to us that way."
C
That is until she tries to cut the beast and it just makes another, smaller beast. It was surprising enough, and close enough to him, that he reacts. He takes a
rockstale muffin out of his mailbag and thows it at the smaller creature. The intent is to distract it, but instead he nails it in the head and just brings attention to himself.Oops.
a.
See, Annie? Is having fun. This entire store is absolutely absurd. And yet, there are clothes. New clothes. Clothes with dashes of colour and pattern and utterly ridiculousness, unlike the grey clothes she arrived in and whatever Cho's been nice enough to pass over.
Currently, the small woman is peering at the racks of glittery nail polish, delight clear in her impish face.
Long time no C
Unfortunately, he's getting blamed anyway.
Which means he has to fight them, and be seen to be fighting them, lest people think he intended for this to happen.
That's why he's there now, having forsaken the blade because of its hydra-like effects, and switched to the gun, Bark, that Angel made him back in the City. The bullets slow the creatures down, but that's it. The bolts of lightning? That's far more effective.
He's just fried another, the stench of it unlike anything he's ever smelt before. But that's when he sees movement on the level below, more of those alien eyes and someone- a young woman- illuminated by the green glow.
The movement is immediate: a hand on the metal rail that should prevent people from doing what he's about to do, and he's launching himself over the barrier, lightning blast aimed at one of the creatures before it can lunge forward.
B
The voice comes from nearby, and it should be familiar enough. As should the smiling face it belongs to, a great deal less melancholy than she might have remembered it being the last time she'd seen him. Of course, a great deal of time had passed, or maybe none at all. The way these universes worked, he didn't pretend to understand.
But he did know when he was happy to see a friend. And Cassandra certainly counted as that, far and away.