[Don't Touch That Dial] [network] [locked on principle]

[wheyoftheadept]

[nb: if you are not trapped in the hell town, you can't see this, per mods]

[Saturday's image, when you open the video feed, is faintly green-tinted. This lends a yellowy look to the bright-red stripes on her short-sleeved shirt. She's also wearing jeans overalls, with shorts that end above the knee. It looks like a ten year old's outfit - because it is]

Hi. Hello? Is anyone else out there? I'm with three of us - besides me there's Loken, Kerrigan, and, uh, Guts.

[The camera pans over to the meanst sonuvabitch-looking three-legged junkyard dog you ever saw. Its eyes are unnervingly human.]

Guts is. Not quite himself at the moment. He's still in there, just - did anything like this happen to anyone else? If there is anyone else? Something more then this place dressin' us up funny an' trynna make us read off a script.

And does anyone remember how we got here?

Comments

[Video]

[bringinghopewithme]

[Crikey, and he thought he was the worst off. At least his accent keeps him recognizable.]

Give Guts my condolences.

Dan's here too. We're searching town. I ran into Stacia and Kenzie at the school but no one else yet. You all safe for the moment?

Re: [Video]

[wheyoftheadept]

[Even with the accent, it takes Saturday a confused, squinting second to clock him]

Bunny? Criminy. Yeah, we're safe enough - place has us playing happy families, but it's just us, so as long as no one sees us being ourselves outside the house we don't get screamed at. What about you and the others?

[garmr]

[out comes one very irritated borf]

[video]

[tr1xx]

[ Cammie blinks a little. Okay, Toothless becoming a dog is one thing—he's a dragon, dragons didn't exist in old sitcoms—but this place turned a person into a dog too? That's... sure something. ]

Me, Robbie and Hiccup have been grouped up, and Toothless got the dog treatment too. Also, somehow it got rid of my accent? I'm Scottish, not this generic American shoot. This is all kinds of weird.

None of us remember how we got here and Robbie woke up thinking he actually belonged here, which was really freaky. Had to snap him out of it.

Re: [video]

[wherenoonegoes]

I also found Brainy at the autoshop this place thinks I own. He's been turned human.

[Video]

[pain_train]

I'm... in a house. And the angry laughing people want me to make a pie.

I don't know how to make pie or anything else.

I also don't know how we got here. I just. Woke up here. Um. Oh, and North is also at this house with me? He's my fake husband or something?

Re: [Video]

[wheyoftheadept]

Okay. Can you find a crust and a filling? Anything'll do. Preheat your oven to 350 and let me know what you find.

[Saturday has already been screamed at. She's not about to let that happen to anyone else]

It's really important to do what they think you should do, as long as they can see you.

Re: [Video]

[credit_not_blame]

Hey, so, I apologize in advance if I start giving you sass.

[Ugh, swear-filter, why.]

It's the script this place is foisting on me, nothing personal.

[paganpoetry]

[Rowena, dressed in a much more matronly outfit than she'd be caught dead in otherwise, shows up on the screen, raising her eyebrows and curling her fingers under her chin as she takes in these new people, sizes up the contents of Saturday's missive.

When she speaks, something about it sounds off, like the phrasing she's choosing belongs to a dialect different than the American accent she's speaking in.]

Oh my, did someone turn a strapping young man into a wee pooch?

[Were it not for whatever strange curse, enchantment, or - ugh - technology that's dampening her power, Rowena might suggest that she could transform him back, if there were something in it for her. But that bargaining chip isn't up her sleeve anymore, and it fills her with a whole new rush of annoyance.]

I was in bed at the Waldorf and then I was here. The only thing I've noticed is that I woke up able to practice the art of a remarkably good American accent.

[video]

[bringinghopewithme]

They let me keep mine. Reckon there's only room for one funny foreigner in this town. Who are you?

[Bunny is immediately suspicious of anyone claiming to have been brought here from somewhere other than the Rig. Of course, there's no real reason this place can't be plucking people from other places.]

[wheyoftheadept]

[An series of expressions crosses Saturday's face. Well, yes, Guts is strapping, technically physically young, and a man, but... eh, whatever]

Yeah, apparently. An' it wants me to be a kid? Who gets on people's nerves a lot, I guess.

You mean you weren't on the rig?

[kingofneworleans]

[The face is...mostly recognizable. Remy's always had a fairly sharp face, after all, and that hasn't changed, even in black and white. If anything, it might be a bit more noticeable.]

[It might take folks a moment to realize why he looks so WRONG, though. Until they realize that his eyes are...normal. Sclera that are white and irises that are likely a dark color. Probably brown, given the color of his hair.]

[Of course, then he opens his mouth and the wrongness intensifies. At least Saturday has heard him without the accent before.]

Here. Rogue is as well. Entirely without powers, though. And a few other changes in my case.

[wheyoftheadept]

[God, he sounds so weird when he's not talking through a mouthful of marbles]

Same. Lost my magic and I can't even cuss about it. At least neither of you are four-legged?

How're you doing mentally? Any uh, in character moments?

video

[credit_not_blame]

No idea how we got here, no idea what's going on, but fun fact: my pockets are spontaneously generating gum and half-smoked packs of cigarettes.

[Stacia looks cute as always, but more in a "50s bad girl" way than usual.]

Whatever's messed with Guts and Bunny is also messing with me and Kenzie: we can't shift at all.

Re: video

[wheyoftheadept]

Yeah. Everyone who's got anything seems to have lost it, even the ones who're like, it's literally genetic. Seems like Brainy's turned human, too? An' Bunny.

video

[googledox]

Ah, so I'm not the only one. Disgusting habit, inhaling addictive carcinogens. For fun.

video

[kingofneworleans]

At this point, I'm pretty sure it's messed with everybody. Beyond even what we're somewhat used to from the Rig.

[And Remy? Looks kind of resigned to that fact that the moment. Because he's looking and SOUNDING very different.]

Might be useful to keep hold of those cigarettes if you can. Bartering is always a possibility. Once we get back.

Time for the share circle!

[googledox]

Before we were forced back to our "homes" for the evening and everything effectively went to, I searched through some of main street but nothing odd could be found in the shops.

So 1) has anyone found anything useful?

2) Is anyone currently caught outside? I had to take refuge from the monsters in the garage of Hiccup's "character" but there are vehicles here.

[ooc: This subthread can be used to share clues from the night's searches and for everyone to analyze them. There will be a second subthread set up for "what do we do now?" after they're shared, and then an ic poll on a final vote.]

[kingofneworleans]

[There's actually some color behind Remy. He's pulled this up in the mall, after all, while they're still doing some searching.]

Hiccup, Jennifer and I headed to the mall, seeing as it's something of an anachronism here. Inside, everything points to this place being called Clarksdale. And there's still color here, which I'm guessing is why it's boarded up. It seems to be resistant to what's happening here.

More than that, though. We found a survivor. A kid who has been living here, using the mall as a buffer. She's part of a group of people who were brought here by a bunch of soldiers and scientists. And that people either succumb to what we're going through or they get...changed.

[freakenstein]

[In the darkened black and white library, there's only the glow of the tablet and the blank projection behind him to light up the mussy-haired teen.]

Rowena and I got into the library and can confirm this place used to be Clarksdale New Jersey. We had a similar occurrence of certain objects being in color. But everything we found that was like that was something that had some specific significance. It's like they're glitching. Everything else here seems to be in black and white, like the rest of the town.

And we may have found a lead on a person of interest of sorts. Joshua Nichols. There was an article about him winning an award for a High School Film Festival. And he talked about wanting to get into writing sitcoms. Right around before the war hit.

[tr1xx]

Probably not as pressin' as the stuff about the kid, but yeah, this place was definitely another town entirely before whatever the heck happened here happened. All the records here in the school say Clarksdale, too, and we had a whole room glitch out and reveal what's going on underneath this sitcom stuff.

[ The look on her face tells you all you need to know about how she found that particular experience. ]

And it's bad. Like, "giant chunk of reality scooped out of the middle of the room and the poor nurse who was in it" bad. The monochrome paint job's covering up a whole load of war damage, looks like.

Re: Time for the share circle!

[credit_not_blame]

Can you describe the monsters? Size, shape, speed, obvious physical weaponry?

edited because i thought that was the SCP logo and we were doing a crossover

[wheyoftheadept]

[Saturday is crouched on a wide tree branch, still outside, speaking in a low voice.]

Still outside, but I'm fine. Hopin' to catch on of these critters despawning or follow it home.

Me an' Wrath found something interesting in the warehouse. Cargo containers packed full of Stuff, an' the leftovers from whoever was watching this place. Some kind of lab or observation post, maybe both. Looked like they left in a hurry, too. Right now, my money's on Jorg having made this, maybe before the bombs, but definitely on purpose. Found a mind, exposed it to Stuff. Watched what happened. They had something hooked up to the genny that pushed out the distortion, brought back the real.

There was a live feed - I think it was live, anyway, didn't act like a loop - on someone or something really big, part of what they were monitoring, maybe? I think whatever it is, it might be the "Anomoulous Entity" thrippity-fwee or whatever the memo called it - hang on, I took it with me -

[A bit of darkness and the sound of rustling as she tucks the comm under one arm to get something out of her pocket and spread it on the tree branch. It is, in fact, a memo.]

Research Site Alpha

Request for early closure of the Project: denied.

Project: Desilu has been deemed an essential project due to potential to find an alternate form of ███ production. Early results show too much promise to shut the project down.

Continue acquisition of D-class subjects from wastelands and placement of subjects in reality overwrite scenario. Upon mental adjustment to reality overwrite, continue reporting on their perceptual influence on un-reified matter upon introduction to reality overwrite zone. Collect results of any reified matter for analysis. Monitor Anomalous Entity JRG-034 for any changes in behavior or changes in reality overwrite potential.

Close project, terminate subjects' volunteer terms, destroy evidence, and evacuate only in case of breach of reality overwrite field.

The Plan

[googledox]

To sum up:

The information everyone has uncovered seems to suggest that an Anomalous Entity - possibly this Joshua Nichols - was created or altered into its current form by this world's apocalyptic war. Perhaps due to exposure to the Stuff or close proximity to one of the bombs exploding.

The entity is exuding a field of reality alteration over the town of Clarksdale, NJ, a town affected by bombing during the Go-Away war. This field is making this area resemble archaic visual media, and has the capability to alter the minds of anyone within the town's confines. Only a few areas like the mall are free of this reality alteration, with other areas sometimes intermittently reverting back.

It looks as if Jorgmund had a project within the town's confines where they kidnapped and exposed Wastelanders to the reality alteration field - and un-reified matter - for some nefarious purpose. But the personnel responsible for the project may have become victims to the reality alteration and mind control themselves.

It's very much in keeping with Jorgmund's usual methodology that, despite the extreme risk, we were perhaps sent into the reality alteration zone, possibly to see what personnel and data from the project might be recovered. But we've fallen victim to the reality alteration ourselves, which may be why we can't remember how we got here.

Now that we have some insight on this town and our situation we need to determine our course of action.

[note: Discuss the actual plan below. Players can have characters suggest the next course of action and the mods will put up a poll, meant to be answered ICly, 3/30/21 @ 4PM PST/7PM EST/11:00PM GMT to pick the final outcome of the plot.]

[kingofneworleans]

So. Do we get out of Dodge with the information that we have or do we try to save the town and get everybody out of here that we can?

I know where I fall on the line, as far as that goes. My conscience would play on me something awful if we left this place the way it is.