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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.
no subject
A warning, there, but he'd be able to read between those lines. Jack, somehow, always came back.
And she'd never even met Rhys to know how horribly true that would turn out to be.
But his question catches off guard. Blinking at him and - is she? And for the first time, not just in a long time, but ever, she realises that she is. "Yeah. Yeah, I am okay now. Things are hard, still, I'm not a siren anymore, but yeah. I'm... I'm happy now. I'm free now."
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"I am quite impressed! / No one deserves to kill him / as much as you do."
But if he shows up here, Zer0 calls dibs. Sorry, Angel.
"Freedom, even here, / it's so much more than you had. / I'm happy for you."
But damn this is starting to get all mushy feelsy and Zer0's not really about the mushy feelsy stuff, but eehhh. He'll make an exception just this once.
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Watching him and that realisation, when faced with such a distinct reminder of the life she had - it made it so much more real. So much more true. It was over now. All of it, it was over now.
And no small part of that was because of him. She pressed forward, then, the feeling surging up in her lungs as she wrapped around him. Her arms loose around his waist - so purposeful to make her seem not a threat as she pressed her face against his chest in a hug. "I know I said thank-you then. But I want to say it again. Without you... without what you did... My life was miserable and unhappy, but you were all the best parts of it. I have never regretted it, even for a second." that deep, deep breath. "Thank-you, friend."
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After a couple awkward seconds, he puts his arms around her and half hugs/half pats her on the back. This is quite possibly the first time he's both hugged and been hugged by someone, he's doing his best here.
"You are most welcome. / Crappy job, but glad to help. / Ugh, these emotions."
Expressing any emotion other than WOO MURDER isn't something that Zer0's great at, but he does flash a ";A;" from his visor. See, he can emotion too.
no subject
But, still, he's a vault hunter, and not even one like Brick who would give the careful hugs she had seen him give Lilith. So she starts to let him go.
Just not before she leans up to press a soft kiss on the side of his face mask, just to the side of that ';A;' that is left in the soft pink lipstick she had put on from the piles of stuff lying around here.
"Emotions are hard. I had to start all over again, now with new ones that weren't just 'I hate you so much Jack'".
no subject
But hey, at least he's not the only one trying to figure emotions out, here. That's not really comforting, but it's a... thing. It sure is a thing.
"Killing Goliaths / was easier than this stuff. / I will need practice."
And by practice he means he's going to avoid it as much as possible.
no subject
But with him let go, she goes over to pick at something on the counter. Hooking a bracelet covered in little skulls off the counter on the edge of her claw. Around her legs, her tail flicks back and forth, long fur there as thick as a broom, swishing around. Time to change topics. Defer to things that are easier to both of them, or at least familiar. "I've been here a month now, I think, but I've been to two other.. Dimensions? Let's go with that, so far. It's kind of like Pandora, sometimes, or at leas sanctuary, but the big difference I've met in everyone is that, they... Well. They really aren't into violence. I don't mean that in a like, people in sanctuary prefer you not to shoot them for no reason, or even like Dionysus' hippies only shoot stuff for sport sort of thing. I mean they really, really don't like it. They don't even like guns that much. I made a joke to someone I met about bandits eating faces and I think they almost threw up on my hooves before they begged me to stop talking. It's really weird."
no subject
But damn man, he is never going to get used to this monster Angel thing. It's better than her being stuck in a Hyperion torture tube, at least.
"The delicate sort. / That's fine, but it's so boring.; / I'm gonna go nuts."
Surely the agriculture level will have some kind of fucked up mutant bears to fight, but it's just not the same as being shot at.
no subject
The weird monster-ness just keeps going. Her hooves clipping as she bends over to dig around for something, and there is that way she doesn't need to bend like the way other people do, can just do it easily from the waist, almost in half as she balances. That odd contortion that seems to come comfortably to her.
"Even people who are assassins don't like to make jokes about mass slaughter. So just be careful how you talk to who, they get upset easily."
no subject
"It's no Pandora, / I'm familiar with planets / with less violence."
He's taken jobs all over the place, on all kinds of planets. If anyone can pretend to not just be a murder happy weirdo, it's Zer0.
no subject
But either way, she keeps digging around in a box. She trusts him, in so far of trusting Vault Hunters goes: he'll never lash out on someone unsuspecting that wasn't as violent as he was to begin with.
Maybe not to not steal every bit of money not tied down.
"That's it really then. But in the mean time, I know a couple of guys, Assassins, and a Bandit. They're with me, and they can be trusted and don't squirm on violence too badly. You need help or are in trouble? they'll back you."
no subject
God he hopes this place has guns.
"Sounds interesting. / Perhaps I'd like to meet them, / once I'm settled in."
Which, honestly, won't take long. It's not like he's got a ton of shit to unpack or anything.
no subject
She found comfort in killers, perhaps for the same reason they found comfort in her.
"I'll tell them about it. It'll be good you know? Sometimes I think they think I'm making Pandora up. Especially the bits about the guns."
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"Which bit about guns? / That they're legit everywhere, / even in skag turds?"
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But that being said, Angel choked on a burst of laughter. Maybe a first between them, but it isn't faked, she is trying so hard to keep some part of her composure but she gives up, ducking her head to hide the giggling behind her hands as she cupped her mouth. "I haven't even told them about that bit. It's hard enough for them to grasp that people love guns. I told them about Mercenary Day and they didn't get why everyone would celebrate guns being cheap. Nevermind asking for their own."
no subject
Her laugh is... nnniiice? Yeah, nice. He can't remember a single time that she'd ever done it before, not that they'd known each other for very long, but y'know. Everything had been horrible. He responds with a holographic :), which fades away after a few seconds.
"What a strange concept. / Who wouldn't love a cheap gun? / Unusual folks."
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"Little bit. We get along, but sometimes I go to say something and they'll just stare at me as if no one has ever fought in a circle of slaughter for fun before."
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"We could start our own, / with blackjack, and some hookers. / Y'know, that one meme."
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He lifts his hands to his chest and mimes squeezing a pair of big ol' honkers. It's all in the chest, Angel. You don't quite have the turbo-boobs that Moxxie does. Nobody has the turbo-boobs that Moxxie does.
no subject
She shudders. She didn't - okay, no, she did a lot of many terrible things. So many. A lifetimes worth. She deserves a lot of terrible things.
But not that, no child deserves to hear their dad talk about their sex life.
"Still, point taken. Even if it'd be worth it to piss of Jack, in like, memory."
no subject
Oooh that Moxxie. Zer0'd just tried to ignore the boning Jack commentary, but like. It's Moxxie. She never stops talking about boning.
"If that's what you wish. / Jack was the biggest douchebag, / do it to spite him."
Fuck it, man. Live your best life, Angel.
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Was.
Angel swallows. Taking a breath in and out. Easing that word, in how strange it feels in her chest. Did that mean what she thinks that means?
She licks her lips, quiet, terribly quiet.
"Is... Is Jack dead?"
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"Oh yeah, super dead. / We blew his ass to pieces, / Lilith finished him."
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There was no betrayal worse than that.
Angel swallows. Stuck like a data error streaming out the same broken code.
"That... that must be good, for you - and the other vault hunters. Lilith, Mordecai, Brick and Roland too? I know... they fought for so long, they must be really partying now, huh?"
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