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redshiftlogs2019-09-04 09:06 pm
modblob) wrote in redshiftlogs2019-09-04 09:06 pm
Entry tags:
- !mod post: intro mingle,
- dragon age: cole,
- irredeemable: qubit,
- mcu: loki,
- mcu: peter parker,
- original: carlisle longinmouth,
- original: rey,
- poison: poison,
- red dead redemption: kieran duffy,
- samurai jack: scaramouche,
- ssss: onni hotakainen,
- ssss: reynir arnason,
- umbrella academy: ben hargreeves,
- umbrella academy: klaus hargreeves,
- warm bodies: julie grigio
september 2019. welcome to the void.
Who: Everyone in Anchor.
What: Third Introductory Mingle
When: The Month of September 2019
Where: Around and outside the city.
Warnings: Please add any warnings in the subject lines.
What: Third Introductory Mingle
When: The Month of September 2019
Where: Around and outside the city.
Warnings: Please add any warnings in the subject lines.
Redshift: Welcome to the v͖͕̺̲̘̱̜͎o̴̦̣̠̦̘̹͞i̯̖d̛̪̬͈̱̦̝͍̕.
Click here to read what characters will experience when arriving in Anchor.
a. turrets.
That power surge kicked off some sh... stuff, all right. It took a while for the systems to cycle back on, but two new areas of Anchor are now accessible and usable. One of them is nice and relaxing and safe, and we'll get to that one in a minute. The other one, addressed first, is not very nice and not very relaxing and definitely not safe.
The internal defense systems on the upper levels have come to life, and have targeted anyone within their range as a hostile entity. Get ready to run the gauntlet if you want to turn them off - you'll have to dodge lasers, bullets, and aggressive defense bots (that can be rewired and/or rebooted to assist characters instead of trying to murder them). The reward? Getting to the heavily protected (think many many murderbots and lasers) security control room. If you can make it, you'll be able to reboot the internal defenses, turning off the aggressive targeting and having access for the first time to surveillance of almost all of Anchor. Those areas your characters didn't know were there? Revealed. Those dense patches of jungle-like growth in the agricultural center? You've got a spotlight into their heart.
Though, huh, not all the cameras seem to be working. What's with those screens that show up from time to time that are nothing but static?
Oh well, doesn't really matter, does it?
The internal defense systems on the upper levels have come to life, and have targeted anyone within their range as a hostile entity. Get ready to run the gauntlet if you want to turn them off - you'll have to dodge lasers, bullets, and aggressive defense bots (that can be rewired and/or rebooted to assist characters instead of trying to murder them). The reward? Getting to the heavily protected (think many many murderbots and lasers) security control room. If you can make it, you'll be able to reboot the internal defenses, turning off the aggressive targeting and having access for the first time to surveillance of almost all of Anchor. Those areas your characters didn't know were there? Revealed. Those dense patches of jungle-like growth in the agricultural center? You've got a spotlight into their heart.
Though, huh, not all the cameras seem to be working. What's with those screens that show up from time to time that are nothing but static?
Oh well, doesn't really matter, does it?
b. hot springs episode.
One of the areas adjacent to the bar and intimacy lounge has been sputtering on and off ever since the power surge. One evening, with a loud crack and a humming sound that slowly dissipates, the lights come on and water starts flowing down the artificial waterfall into the fountain out front. The spa is back online!
The lobby is inviting and zen, with holographic walls that depict scenic locations (some of them very unlike Earth), with fountains splashing delicately on either side of the door. The attendants are slightly malfunctioning bots, but the most harm they'll do is bring you six towels when you ask for one, or a bucket of massage oil to work on those knots in your back with.
There are three areas in the spa, each of them fully-outfitted with towels, robes of all sizes, fuzzy slippers, the works. One has all the amenities of a Turkish bath, right down to the fantastically arched roofs and mosaics of Istanbul. One is designed not unlike a Japanese hot spring, though the spring is heated artificially rather than naturally. The springs are large enough to be communal in some areas and small enough to be private in others, varying in depth from deep enough to swim on one end and shallow enough to sit on the bottom on the other. All hot springs have a stone shelf around the edges where those who don't want to swim can sit. The last area is more Western, with steam rooms, saunas, massage tables, and mud baths for the adventurous.
One thing all of these areas have in common: the settings on virtually everything can be adjusted to taste. Not in the traditional way, either. The steams and waters can be tweaked to be soporific, can serve as muscle relaxants, can ease anxiety, and can even bolster moods. None of these effects are involuntary, and none of them are brought on by drugs - it's more an advanced mix of pheromones and harmless compounds that can affect a single person or a given pool or room. Also, the baths and hot springs have adjustable bubble settings. The water colors can change, some of them even allowing characters to dye their hair the color that's been selected for the tub without staining their skin. Bubbles of all kinds can rise up out of the water, from the foamy comfort of childhood bubble baths to hovering golden bubbles that chime when you pop them. Characters can choose from a variety of bath salts, scents, and oils - the spas were designed not just for relaxation, but for pure and simple fun.
The lobby is inviting and zen, with holographic walls that depict scenic locations (some of them very unlike Earth), with fountains splashing delicately on either side of the door. The attendants are slightly malfunctioning bots, but the most harm they'll do is bring you six towels when you ask for one, or a bucket of massage oil to work on those knots in your back with.
There are three areas in the spa, each of them fully-outfitted with towels, robes of all sizes, fuzzy slippers, the works. One has all the amenities of a Turkish bath, right down to the fantastically arched roofs and mosaics of Istanbul. One is designed not unlike a Japanese hot spring, though the spring is heated artificially rather than naturally. The springs are large enough to be communal in some areas and small enough to be private in others, varying in depth from deep enough to swim on one end and shallow enough to sit on the bottom on the other. All hot springs have a stone shelf around the edges where those who don't want to swim can sit. The last area is more Western, with steam rooms, saunas, massage tables, and mud baths for the adventurous.
One thing all of these areas have in common: the settings on virtually everything can be adjusted to taste. Not in the traditional way, either. The steams and waters can be tweaked to be soporific, can serve as muscle relaxants, can ease anxiety, and can even bolster moods. None of these effects are involuntary, and none of them are brought on by drugs - it's more an advanced mix of pheromones and harmless compounds that can affect a single person or a given pool or room. Also, the baths and hot springs have adjustable bubble settings. The water colors can change, some of them even allowing characters to dye their hair the color that's been selected for the tub without staining their skin. Bubbles of all kinds can rise up out of the water, from the foamy comfort of childhood bubble baths to hovering golden bubbles that chime when you pop them. Characters can choose from a variety of bath salts, scents, and oils - the spas were designed not just for relaxation, but for pure and simple fun.
c. joe's dirt.
So you've survived the security malfunction. You've washed off the dirt and anxiety at the spa. But the newly reactivated security stations throughout Anchor have revealed something odd. There's a blip in the power systems in one area of the agricultural level, like something is siphoning off power from the main lines. Tracking down the source in the deep tangle of underbrush won't be easy, and there may be a few mutated, fanged, clawed cattle that maneuver shockingly well between the trees, but eventually you'll come to a breach in Anchor's wall. At first it just looks like a crack, but it's large enough to squeeze through and there's the darkness of an open space behind it. A tunnel, leading down into the earth outside, well below surface level and thus largely safe.
Wires run along the roof and floor, though the tunnel itself is dark. Walk long enough and you'll come to a wider space, open enough for two or three people to move around comfortably at the same time. It's still dark, lit only by screens that show the same security feeds that are available at the stations throughout the city. And others. Angles on the surface that show Anchor from a distance, and other visuals that don't show Anchor at all, trained instead on massive structures or formations or lakes out on the surface somewhere. But there's something more disturbing: there are cameras set to record some people's rooms. And the only rooms that are shown are occupied.
Someone has been here, recently enough to track where new people have moved in.
On the floor in one corner, there's a crumpled photograph of a man some might recognize as Creepy Joe, happy and whole, with a little girl sitting on his shoulder. It looks like it's been stamped into the dirt.
Wires run along the roof and floor, though the tunnel itself is dark. Walk long enough and you'll come to a wider space, open enough for two or three people to move around comfortably at the same time. It's still dark, lit only by screens that show the same security feeds that are available at the stations throughout the city. And others. Angles on the surface that show Anchor from a distance, and other visuals that don't show Anchor at all, trained instead on massive structures or formations or lakes out on the surface somewhere. But there's something more disturbing: there are cameras set to record some people's rooms. And the only rooms that are shown are occupied.
Someone has been here, recently enough to track where new people have moved in.
On the floor in one corner, there's a crumpled photograph of a man some might recognize as Creepy Joe, happy and whole, with a little girl sitting on his shoulder. It looks like it's been stamped into the dirt.
Oh noooooo
"Wh- why do you ask?" he inquires immediately, not even the barest hint of recognition crossing his face -- what of his face is visible.
ohnooooooooooooooooooooooo
"What--... happened to you? Was it the curse? Was it--"
Oh.
But, wait.
She'd taken two steps forwards on her own recognition, but then she sees it. The lack of it in his own eyes. It slips into her chest like something familiar but no less painful for it. Something dull-sharp and cold that slides against a space that holds the memories of a friend and somehow stains them. Her expression flickers.
She knows this routine.
"... You don't know who I am."
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That's his fault, too. He feels a stab of guilt in his chest; his hand twitches as he fights the urge to place it on his talisman under his coat, as though that'd help suppress what traces of pain linger beneath it. He instead slides further against the wall, futilely trying to put more distance between them.
"I do not," he admits. "You are not the first to recognize me, but- but I am not who you met. I've never been here, and I- I did not ask for this. Whatever I did, I- I'm sorry."
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She feels vulnerable, perhaps understandably so, given she's standing there barefoot wearing a bathing suit and a towel... But more of it comes from that sensation of being stripped back yet again, those raw nerves bruised again, that awful sinking sensation of knowing she holds one side of a friendship and the other side is gone.
Poison holds her breath for a moment, then lets out a long, soft sigh and shakes her head.
"And none of us asked for this. Spirits--" But, at least--! "I can prove I knew you before. If you'll let me show you?"
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He thinks for a moment that he can hear his own heartbeat, thundering loudly to warn of an impending storm, but he knows that must just be the tremors of his own energy writhing within him, riled by his nerves. The last person he met to recognize him didn't have what he would call undeniable proof that they had met before, and perhaps this young woman won't, either. Does he truly want to know?
A part of him does, no matter how much he would like to say otherwise. There is already so much missing, so much he cannot remember, and he cannot make things right if he keeps running. Much like Bear Den, there are only so many places to hide from the people who know him. There is nowhere to hide from himself.
At least she insisted he didn't do anything, nothing wrong by his own choices or inaction. That is... promising. He remains against the wall, but some of the tension eases from his frame as he speaks, his voice resonating with uncertainty. "All right. If you can prove it, then show me."
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And she turns on her heel without another word, hurrying back the way she came. Poison didn't walk in here wearing what she found him in, and she moves swiftly back to where she left her clothes and her things before she changed. When she joins him again, she's more fully attired in trousers, shoes, and a shirt just a little too long in the sleeves. Her hair is tied back, and she's carrying a small satchel.
She can prove that she knows who he is. Just as she could prove that she knew Glacius when she found him in Hadriel. As she could prove that she knew so many people.
Poison pulls a small sketchbook out of her bag, and flicks through a few pages before turning it around. On the pages, interspersed with sketches of flowers and leafy plants, are a few drawings of Carlisle himself.
"Here. This is you. Isn't it?"
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And as she shows him the sketchbook, he feels tension lacing through him once more, gripping through his atrophied muscles, tightening around his animated bones. His eyes widen, their glow vibrant as he reaches for the book, his hands shaking.
That is him.
Further down the page, he recognizes a garden -- not his garden, but one undeniably designed after it. The rows are in the same places, and the plants -- there's glassweed on one side, coilers and fanged ivy hanging off by themselves so as not to tangle together, paw plants reaching for the sun with their curved claws. And in the center of it is another drawing of him, his eyes focused on pruning the leaves before him as he so often did when in meditation. His eyes are tired, but not devoid of life; his fingers have skin, dirt etched beneath his nails. He has a nose.
He was alive. She didn't meet him after he became a monster. But she knew about his curse -- how much more does she know? What did he tell her? How is it he was alive, but doesn't remember?
His voice is strained as he manages one word. "How?"
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He's--
He's a revenant, just as he always said he would become, but this isn't the monster that Poison had expected to see based on the things he had told her about his condition. When he speaks, her eyes dart up to his and she hesitates, briefly catching her lower lip between her teeth.
"I was somewhere else, before here. A place called Hadriel. You were there, too. A... younger you, I suppose." Younger. Living. It's semantics. "We were friends. I liked to watch you gardening. I think you liked me too, or you didn't mind having me around, at least." Her attention lowers to the page he's on, where a sketch of him kneeling with a small, hairless animal the size of a small dog is prominent. "... I'm Poison, by the way. My name is Poison."
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There's that name again. Pieces start clicking into place bit by bit: he met both Pratt and her (Poison, that's her name) in this town he no longer remembers. It crosses his mind for the first time that Hadriel, perhaps, was another world itself, much like this one -- but that doesn't answer the question of why he forgot it, and they didn't. Did his death have something to do with it? Or was it the madness said to be brought on by the weight of living when one wasn't supposed to?
He continues to scrutinize the drawings before him. He was indeed younger, fuller. He's even smiling in one as he pets some kind of strange, hairless animal.
"What's the rabbit I'm with?" he asks, trying to give himself time to parse out all this information, both what she's given him and what's forming in his head. He glances her way, and can't help but notice the look she's giving him -- it's a sad look, one that says she knows something more, but isn't certain she wants to bring it to light just yet. Given his own apprehension, he cannot blame her for that.
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"I know... this has to be a lot to take in."
But... ah, even if he doesn't remember her at all, she's glad to be able to prove that she knew him. It isn't a luxury she's always had.
"Do you need a minute?"
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It's still uncomfortable, but it's acceptable, for now. He was elsewhere; he was happy. He was alive. He fails to remember it, and he doesn't know why.
And look at him now.
His bitterness burns in his chest, so acidic that he can feel it; his fingers tighten on the sketchbook, and he hands it back, so sure he'll crumple the pages if he grips it any tighter. It's a good thing he did, as the floor beneath him discolors, its strength sapped from it as he crosses his arms.
"It... is a lot to take in," he admits. "Worst is that I cannot recall any of this. Not you, not the city." He grips at his sleeve, fighting his nerves, his teeth grinding. "I purposely lived a hollow life in repentance for my continued existence. Is this why the people of Bear Den suffered? Did I truly have so much, only to lose it all, and not even remember I had it in the first place?"
His voices grates, harsher as the glow in his eyes intensifies; the discoloration beneath him spreads further as he struggles with his temper, his entire frame trembling. He already lost his family, his home, and himself. Finding out there was potentially more breaks him. "What else can be taken from me?!"
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Quiet, low-voiced, like a warning. Poison steps neatly back from the growing stain of rot on the floor and watches it carefully to make sure it doesn't touch her. She holds her sketchbook tight against her chest and she knows she's seen this before - she's seen his control of his powers slip before - but it didn't look like this.
"You need to calm down." Oh, she knows she's taking a risk in saying that. That he could easily lash out at her, but... better at her, she thinks, than some unsuspecting person walking around the corner and startling him while he's mid-fury.
"Please."
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His hands shake violently, his fingers curling in upon themselves, his gloves pulled taut against his skeletal digits. "And now, I'm trapped here in some other world where I can't possibly do anyone any good at all, only to find out I just forgot the few accomplishments I had that I didn't ruin! What else can I possibly lose at this point besides my temper?!"
The corrosion intensifies beneath him, the room as cold as death despite the steaming baths and inviting atmosphere. For an instant, the air is completely still, save for the ragged breaths of a dead man trying to breathe. Something catches in his throat, his agitation making the subsequent coughing fit worse. He brings a hand to his mask as though to cover his mouth, refusing to remove the garment despite his discomfort.
At least his ire abates for now, the spread of decay ceasing as he wheezes.
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The silence that falls around the sound of him trying to breathe is somehow worse than the shouting. Poison knows what to do about shouting, but not about this.
"What makes you think you can't do good here?" Oh, she could set him off again, but it seems a question worth asking. "I don't think that's true."
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A part of him desperately fights against his temper; he's not the Blight Heir. He may have been -- no, was, as reluctant as he is to accept it -- but he isn't anymore. He can do better, can't he?
The other part of him sees no point, especially if chances are he'll just forget it all again, losing himself to the Revenant he ultimately is. He is damned, and so should be those around him. Why should he be the only one to suffer? Why should he be alone in his remorse and his anger?
That latter part is definitely the way a Revenant thinks, but he struggles to bury it, to regain his composure -- and what vestiges of humanity he has left.
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"I know what you are and I know who you are, I know that you believe you're a failure and an abomination. That you always thought that." Her voice trembles subtly, but her shoulders are straight and her chin is tipped up.
"And I'll tell you again what I've told you before. It isn't a sin to exist. There's always hope, Carlisle, and no one has shown me that more than you have. More than I know you can if you just let yourself."
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Her determination is simultaneously emboldening and alarming; Carlisle, still as much of a coward as when she knew him, buckles beneath the pressure, truly afraid -- afraid of what he might have done just now in his fury, afraid of who he is and isn't, afraid of her and what truths she might bring to light if he doesn't listen. She knows him, knows about his curse... seems to know about his Revenant state, as well. What else does she know? What else could she possess that gives her such conviction, allowing her to challenge an aberration like himself?
For as much as he denies the truth, he does want to know, and more importantly, he wants to be more than what he is. That much has always been certain about him. He doesn't want to be the Blight Heir, doesn't want to cause further harm to those around him, no matter how much his very nature as an undead pushes him toward such behavior. He has done enough of that already, and a tantrum will not help him make amends. What he wants right now is to be able to repay what kindness and patience he has been shown, however undeserving of it he feels. She has more faith in him than he does, and there must be a reason for that, one he will never learn if he loses himself again.
And that all counts for something. It counts for a lot.
Carlisle steps from the corroded spot he's been standing in, backing himself into the wall as he coughs again, his bitterness fading. Among his ragged breaths is an apology, one quiet, but sincere.
"I am sorry, Poison. I am sorry you had such hope for me, and that I nearly let you down, if I have not already."
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That, of course, does not mean he is not frightening... but he isn't doing enough to make her turn tail and run.
When he calms, steps away from the spot he's already damaged, she makes a tentative approach again and while she doesn't touch him (recalling how he could be so against being touched and no doubt being like this has only exacerbated the aversion) she leans against the wall next to him and huffs out a sigh.
"You didn't. You're just angry, and scared, and that's fine. I get scared and angry too sometimes."
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He doesn't want to consider that. That's not him. That's not who he wants to be.
"Was I this scared and angry before? Did I have any reason to be?"
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Poison is very good at bluffing.
"Not this much, but you were. You were scared about what you were going to become. What it would do to the people you cared about. And... angry that you had that much to lose. That people had accepted you even though you were kind of hard to get along with, and you were still cursed, and it was still going to happen." Not one to mince her words. She's sure that Carlisle knows he's difficult to befriend, in any case.
"But--" And here she pauses, pressing her lips together. "You didn't say anything about still knowing who you were when it happened."
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He blurts that out before he can bite it back, decide whether or not it's something he should say to this near-stranger he once knew. The rest of what she said was so painfully on the nose for what he does remember -- that he was scared of what would happen, that he was worried about what would happen to the people he knew, that he was angry about the inevitable -- that it pushed his immediate response out of him, as though she'd finally been wrong about something.
She wasn't, of course; she was just as ignorant as he had once been. He'd been right to be scared, right to be worried, right to be angry. Not knowing he would rise as an undead meant he'd foolishly assumed all would be better after his passing; his concern for his people led him to seclude himself away in his estate, where it would be too late by the time his corpse was found. His anger was likely what helped keep him animated now, as vile energies tended to fester in all undead. It all built to an unfortunate finale that was the end of his home, despite his best efforts.
His response is out there now, and so he explains himself better, wringing his hands together. "I didn't know who I was when it happened. I wasn't alive. I wasn't aware. I do not even know how- how long I was gone."
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"I'm so sorry." He never wanted sympathy, either, but she can't help the words that come out of her mouth. She's close enough to touch him if she reached out, but she keeps her arms wrapped around the sketchbook tucked against her chest and keeps her eyes down and fixed on the patch of darkened floor where he had been standing.
"It must just be like a long nightmare."
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"At least I may wake from a nightmare," he laments, his hands going from wringing one another to picking at a wrinkle in his sleeve. Even in death, he caters to all the same nervous habits he had before. "This is the waking world now, and it is all I have."
Realizing he's going to pick a hole in his clothes and that, given how he needs those layers to successfully hide what he is, he really shouldn't do that, he drops his hands to his sides as he gives Poison a sideways glance. "Thank you for your proof, Miss Poison. For having cared enough to have proof of my existence and our meeting."
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"I still care," she says, albeit carefully. The idea that he might be afraid, now, of how much she might know and what she might say to others is one that has already crossed her mind.
"If you don't want me to say anything to anyone... I won't."
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And so, he shakes his head, shame etching into his visible features. "I am afraid of what they'd think. I am already afraid of what I think. I- I lived a life judged. I need time to find my place here. To find what purpose I have left."
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cw: suicidal ideation
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