Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
modblob) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
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
Poison doesn't resist the hug. She gasps softly in surprised, muted delight when he picks her up and she wraps her arms tightly around him while her heart hammers in her chest. He knows her. He knows her and her whole being sings with it while she buries her head into his neck and shuts her eyes.
"A few days," she murmurs back to him, leaning back enough to be able to see his face. "I didn't know if you were--" Her voice catches in her throat, her eyes suddenly shining, and she quickly tucks her head into his shoulder again.
no subject
And that's probably the sappiest phrase that's ever run through his head, but it's true.
"It's been almost six years for me. Well, technically it's only been about eight months because I was dead for most of that time. It's um. It's complicated."
no subject
"You're not dead anymore?"
The implications of that, too, sink in with a kind of selfish twinge. But she's happy, because no one should have to go on knowing that there's nothing for them back home other than no longer existing.
"How? After that long?"
no subject
"I-- I'm alive, yeah. It's... God, kind of a long story and I wasn't exactly around for it. Long story short I guess, this guy Tony that I knew figured out how to time travel, this other dude had some technology that made it all possible, so they took a group of people back in time to get some things that undid the whole uh, half the universe being dead thing. I don't even know how to begin explaining the science behind it."
no subject
"I don't think I'd understand if you tried," she tells him with a wry smile. It's an unusual thing, and a marker of her affection for him that she'll so openly admit to not being able to grasp a concept.
"It sounds like magic to me."
no subject
"The time travel was science, that bringing-us-back-to-life part might have been magic. I don't know, I don't actually care." he just cares that he's back and that Poison is here and he's going to smooch her on the forehead. and then Anderson's going to smack him in the forehead and stick a tentacle to it because he's cat.
no subject
"No, I don't suppose you would."
And then Anderson decides it's a good time to make himself known, because he is a cat and therefore a jerk, and Poison reaches up to carefully pluck the creature from her boyfriend's head.
"Oh, come on, let go of his forehead..."
no subject
Sure enough, the other two were circling and rubbing their ankles, making all kinds of dumb cat noises while Peter leaned over for Poison to try to pry Anderson off his forehead. Peter also wasn't planning on making this easy, because he, like the cats, is a dumb brat, and decides that wrapping his arms tighter around Poison right now is a good idea.
no subject
It isn't easy to prise an asshole cat with actual suckers on its legs from someone's head, especially when it doesn't want to move. What Peter decides to do just makes it all the more difficult but Poison doesn't quite have it in her to be annoyed by the development.
"I don't think this is going to work."
no subject
He's not sorry. But uuugh, he doesn't want to let her go. He eventually does though, giving her one last squeeze before letting go and sitting on the couch so she can get the goofy critter off his head.
no subject
"Do you... want to talk about it?"
no subject
"I uh, I'm not actually sure where to start. It feels like so much has happened. As soon as I was brought back I was stuck in another huge battle to save the universe. We won this time, so that was cool, but my mentor died during the whole thing, so it wasn't cool. Then like, even after that, even when I had some down time and I was able to get back to a normal life I just felt like I was constantly on edge."
no subject
"You can't just forget something like that happened," she tells him with a small frown. "It stays with you... even if you keep telling yourself that everything is fine."
no subject
"Yeah. yeah, I know. I just-- I guess I was hoping it would be easier this time, like, the more you lose people, the more of a tolerance you build to it. Something like that, but it almost feels like it just gets harder, it's more exhausting."
no subject
Poison sighs, and her extensive experience of losing people over the past few years isn't something she ever thought she'd have to draw on... or that she ever wanted to draw on. She takes one of Peter's hands and squeezes it.
"It doesn't get harder, but... it doesn't get easier, either. You think you'll get used to it, but you don't. It feels like it hurts more because it's a new loss every time, on top of the ones you were already moving on from."
no subject
"That... makes a lot of sense. If there is a way to move on, I haven't figured it out yet. Adding more on top of what was already there, I just feel like I'm being buried."
no subject
Instead of speaking, she wraps both arms around his middle and nudges the top of her head lightly up into the curve of his neck and shoulder.
"Don't worry about moving on too fast."
no subject
That's about the best he can do right now. He wraps his arms around her shoulders, resting his chin on top of her head, and for now he's perfectly content just holding her like this.
"Sorry to just... dump all of this on you."
no subject
She can think of a few times, and all of them recently, when he's been there for her while she's struggling through things. If she doesn't do the same for him...
Of course she'll do the same for him.
"So you can just talk, if you want to."
no subject
He gives her a little squeeze, they could just cuddle for the rest of the day and he'd be perfectly happy. he might maybe wanna change out of the superhero spandex eventually, but for now fuck it.
no subject
She'll get the rest of the story from him later, no doubt, when things feel like they're a little bit more normal and he's managed to sort things out in his head. She turns her face up slightly, just enough to bump the bridge of her nose against his jaw.
"You can put your head in my lap, if you like."
no subject
"you can just push me on the floor when you want me to get off." It's meant to be a joke, but he sounds a little too exhausted to make it convincing.
no subject
"We can talk more later, okay?"
no subject
"Yeah, that sounds good to me. Thanks."