redmarsshit | 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Navigation.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Jacob hesitates. Its only for a moment as Victorian sensibilities fill his head, and then he gets over himself. Yes her tail is only just above a very shapely bottom, yes she really isn't wearing very much at all right now, but she's also uncomfortable with her tail caught up in that fabric and he can clearly see she can't get herself free. Connor would think he was ridiculous if he tried to voice his uncertainty, and so what? He's literally just undressed with her in the room.

He moves closer, surveying the problem and not her backside, honest, and with one hand gently begins to shift the fabric of her dress away from her tail. And then, with the other hand, he carefully, gently, takes hold of her tail to untuck it.

"You know, I don't think any other woman I know has this problem." He says conversationally, "Then again, I don't think any of the men I know have this problem either. And Charles doesn't much go in for clothes when he has a tail. But who is going to tell a werewolf he's not properly dressed?"

There is no helping it really - tails as it turned out, were terrible sensitive, sends her all squirmy and trying not to giggle madly as he touches to try and help her get free. The way it makes her foot stamp the ground and her main shake with a breath of a giggle she tries to swallow.

"That's because Charles gets to turn all the way back, I get stuck with an extra appendage."

A appendage that had no self respect, honestly. Caught in Jacob's palm it flicked back and forth eagerly in her contentment of being touched it all.

"What's wrong?" He asks, as she squirms and giggles, wriggling around like an eel out of water. He's not certain what's got into her, but then it becomes clear. "Hang on, are you ticklish?"

He hadn't actually ever wondered what having a tail felt like. Hers seemed to almost act independently to her, as if it had a will of it's own. It certainly seems that way now, as it twitches in his hand. But it's whisps are so soft, he doesn't let go. Just absently brings his other hand to it, stroking over the soft fluff at the end.

And then, absently, strokes it over the back of her neck.

If it were anyone else, she'd have snatched their hand off like lightning for touch her throat at all There was nowhere more sensitive, more terrifying, to have anyone near.

But she knew Jacob, and she trusted Jacob -

And this is what she gets for that trust!

"Oi!" It'd be a lot more convincing if she wasn't shrieking with laughter. Shivering and shaking herself fully as her foot stomped on the ground. Pushing him off to snatch back the end of her tail to curl it around her body and hang onto the soft hairs where they could be protected. "Tails are sensitivie!"

Her laughter is the sweetest music, it really is, and as she turns and twists and her tail slips from his fingers, his hands move around her to steady her, to keep her from knocking into the many displays and shelves.

"Yes, I can see that." He replies, grinning like a devil, and moving to flick the little tufts of hair that escape out the top of her closed fist. He can't resist, that squeal when he tickled her was somehow addictive. And her tail surprisingly soft.

"But is it just the tail? Or are you just ticklish?" He asks, fingers dancing over her skin, avoiding the patches of fur he knows aren't ticklish.

She is in fact ticklish - just about everywhere. The fur at least offered some protection. But half-dressed and trying to hold her tail, it's pretty much impossible to avoid him.

"Stop, stop! Jacob!" She squirms trying to hold it together as he keeps playing his hands here and there. Pushing at him as best they can. Digging her elbows against him as she leans her head against his shoulders. "Of course I'm ticklish! Stop!"

He pauses, just for a second, so she can gasp for breath before starting again, across sensitive glowing skin, soft as down, laughing as she does. They're idiots, really, and perhaps this moment of idiocy reveals just how young they are.

Or how much he likes to touch her.

"What's the magic word? Can't stop till I hear the magic word, space princess."

She's half doubled over trying to escape him by the time she decides, right that's it. Gasping for breath, held up only because he's tickling her, squealing and laughing and going pink in the face from the effort of even trying to breathe she's just that damn ticklish.

But enough of that. He has had quite enough fun at her poor, innocent expense.

So Angel picks him up.

One arm around his waist the second he gets free and hauls him like a sack of potatoes over her shoulder.

"Ha!"

The strangled noise of surprise and horror is an... interesting one. Not one that usually emerges from Jacob's mouth.

But when was the last time he got bodily lifted from the floor by someone shorter than him? Maybe once, by Evie. But not for years. Not since he hit sixteen, certainly.

"Angel! Put me down!"

It was definitely a first. Never heard him do that before as she keeps giggling like a mad thing. Though it's not as easy as it looks when she saw bandits and vault hunters hauling each other around. More bulky, kind of squirmy. Oof.

"Aww, come on Jacob! Now don't you have to say the magic word?"

"Bloody well put me down!"

There's a note of panic in his voice, and he squirms in her hold. But not too much in case she decides to drop him on his backside.

How can he get himself out of this? He could kick her, but that isn't what he wants to do, what Angel deserves. She's not a Blighter.

"Please!"

Angel's giggling keeps up - but panic being what it is, she puts him down: nicely, even. Back onto his feet safe and sound without being dropped. Her tail flicking merrily as her laughter bubbles out of her, forgetful that her dress is half falling off her, only kind of covered up, but she's beaming with light out of her many markings, all lit up with her happiness.

"That's what you get for tickling innocent people with their own tail!"

Edited 2020-04-23 06:27 (UTC)

He steadies himself, his heartbeat slowing back to its usual rhythmic thud, and straightens his unfamiliar bandit clothes. He's not sure they can actually be straightened or neatened up in anyway, but he tries to regardless. It's something for his hands to do.

"You, innocent?" He snorts, looking up at her. "Pull the other one, it's got bells on."

test drive meme: january 2020

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject