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riverviewooc2017-02-19 07:56 pm
riverview: test drive meme
Welcome to Riverview's first test drive meme! Feel free to dip your toes in on the test drive meme to try out your character in the setting, play out a mission, and get samples for your application at the same time!
● Reserves are currently OPEN.
● Applications open on March 1st.
● All threads on the test drive meme can count as game canon once the game is up and running.
● TDM threads do not count for Activity Check, but they do count for Activity Bonus Points.
Feel free to use the prompts below or create your own scenario. The setting is built to be flexible, so feel free to make things up as you go.
information resources
premise ● arrival ● setting ● ask a question ● navigation
If the sky has seemed a little more yellow-green than usual for the past couple of days, there's a reason for that. Meteorologists have been warning of a particularly nasty storm blowing in from the direction of the Delta in the Southwestern part of the Abandoned City.
The Quarantine is about to be hit by a nasty typhoon, and there's a lot to be done. Whether you're helping sandbag the banks of the river, which is bound to be swollen by the storm and flooding, weatherproofing your building, or just huddling indoors for warmth and helping reassure your friends, family, or partner that everything will be okay, it's time to take action!
There's been a lot of talk around the Quarantine about the various predators and monsters outside the fence, and how they've been getting steadily more active, crowding the fences, trying to leap over them, seemingly driven by some kind of mania. There have even been increasing instances of predators that normally mind their own business attacking the fences wholesale, slamming into it over and over as if they're trying to find a weakness.
The good news? The fences have been holding. So far.
The bad news? They won't be holding for much longer.
The Perimeter Guard is in a bad way, and it's all hands on deck. They've also sent out a few of the Perimeter Guard Cadets to post up flyers around the city asking for temporary help in fighting off the beasts. So pick up whatever weapon you're best with, hop onto a truck transport, and head on over to the fences to help drive off the monsters and keep the Quarantine safe.
With a storm rolling in that's going to keep everyone indoors, that might cause power outages, and is just frankly pretty scary, a lot of the clubs, restaurants, and hotels are doing special events to keep everyone's brains occupied and flooded with endorphins.
There are flyers around the city advertising various couples activities: speed dating, dance classes, overnight pool parties, and all-expenses-paid lovers' nights in.
The catch? The great deals only count if you're a twosome. So if you don't have someone to love, hit up speed dating in the indoor courtyard of Riverview's largest mall, or grab the first person you see and take the opportunity.
After a day or two of storm activity, things are definitely not getting better: the rain is torrential, the monsters are attacking with increased energy and decreased rest times, and the distractions are starting to wear thin. Power outages happen off and on, a very rare situation in Riverview Quarantine.
The government has put out an all-points-bulletin imploring anyone with an exploratory spirit to help.
From what government science techs can tell, the storm isn't natural - after all, even the meteorologists were saying that the pressure systems seemed extremely strange. They've managed to narrow the cause to an area in the delta where the storm seems to be originating from, and are broadcasting the general location so anyone with the guts can head out into the storm and try to find the source of it.
Any characters who decide to penetrate the jungle in search of the source will find a device in the shape of a pyramid, with glowing blue edges about a day's walk into the Abandoned City. The pyramid is a malfunctioning weather control device that is causing wild pressure fluctuations and causing the storm as well as making the animals in the jungle aggressive and erratic. Characters can destroy or deactivate the device to end the storm.
This mission can be threaded out however you would like, in groups however large you would like, and more than one team can accomplish the goal.
Whether you're looking for help with a mission or just want to get to know your fellow new arrivals, your character can make a post to the network.
Or you can choose your own adventure and do something else in the setting!
Letha Regis | oc
Were it maybe a year earlier Letha would be out in the storm, singing gaily for gods she didn't believe in to do their worst. But she is an adult now, a pregnant one at that, and she has the sense not to put her child in danger for sport. While not a conventionally sociable person, Letha has holed herself up in the corner of a public building, and is shivering on the floor with her hands wrapped protectively over her belly. This is her way of seeing if there's anyone around kind enough to lend her a hand.. she doubts she'd get that much from hiding in her room alone.
prompt iii: hold your lover close
She'd followed the crowd out of curiosity, but she feels distinctly out of place in this crowd. Everyone is celebrating some joyous version of love that she's never seen people talk about, and here she is, a meek little woman in maternity garb from two centuries ago, trying not to feel too bitter about how nice everything was. Aristeo would have loved to go dancing with her... if they were the sort of dances the farmhands had that were loud and lasted into the night, not the sour affairs their family hosted that stopped at exactly ten. It feels so very wrong to be here without him while his child is inside of her... but despite herself she keeps glancing around, wondering if someone will ask her to dance.
i (aka: us folks from old timey england gotta stick together)
This is nothing more than practicality. God help him, he's been... nearby for the delivery of children, and is fully aware that early labour can be brought about by a mother's distress. The last thing this place needs is an outbreak of that nature and so, unbidden, he brings her a blanket. Something warm and plaid, worn at the edges which he drapes about her shoulders without preamble. Poor girl may be a halfwit, and not know any better than to sit meekly and suffer.
He sits down beside her, his distance away entirely licit, companionable without at all encroaching upon her space. One knee is drawn up, he laces his hands atop it. He's still damp from the storm himself, but a sailor he and not one troubled by the elements.
When he speaks his tone is gentle, the way one might calm a skittish horse,]
When was the last time you had something to eat?
no subject
I'm not.. quite sure.
[Probably months. She hadn't thought to seek out any food yet since she came here. She hadn't needed food in the afterlife, but she doesn't think it polite to bring that up to strangers.
Her stomach rumbles as she starts to think about it, and her face turns red at the noise.]
no subject
It's his private expectation that not everyone brought here will weather well the transition or the shock of their arrival. Perhaps it is memory of Abigail Ashe on a tenebrous flagstone floor that impels him to stay, where a man more wholly ironclad might simply abandon her to her fate.
So he raises an eyebrow faintly before smoothing the pads of his fingers against his moustache and after a moment, he stands.]
Right then. Sit tight.
[He doesn't wait for her reply, just sets off in source of food. In short order he returns with a bowl of some rich, dark stew and a breadroll. By some miracle he's also found some species of tea, which is the first thing to be pushed into her hands.]
Drink slowly.
no subject
I don't suppose you have any sugar on hand...
[She doesn't expect anything to come from the comment, but either way the tea is gone after a few seconds. She hadn't noticed her thirst and hunger before, but now with food in front of her it takes over nearly fast enough to spook herself. The cup falls from her hands as she takes the bread and stew, and her ladylike manner disappears in favor of devouring them with a fair bit of savage noises. It's... quite clear how long it's been since she ate, now.]
no subject
Not quite sure infuckingdeed.]
I'll remember next time.
[Oh, but his tone is dry.]
no subject
Sorry... I don't know what came over me.
[She lets out a small burp and covers her mouth, gently placing the bowl on the floor beside her and pulling a kerchief from a hidden pocket in her dress to wipe her mouth.]
Thank you for the food. I don't know how I can repay you.
no subject
[At least she no longer looks to be quite so miserable. He resumes his former position sitting beside her, his back to the wall.]
My name is James.
no subject
My name is Letha. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. James.
[She's quiet for a moment, before taking a proper look at him. He actually looks to be from an older time than her, surprisingly. And he smells like sea salt.]
Are you a sailor? Or... were you?
no subject
[He knew a man once, that insisted on such a lack of ceremony. Goddamnit, Thomas, he thinks to himself, as if it's fucking catching. He reinvented himself once: a monster made, not born. The idea of being a better thing without having earned the grace of it is abhorrent and yet quite possibly necessary.]
Is a man any less the thing he does away from it? I have sailed, yes. I think you're the first to have caught on so fast. What year is it by your reckoning?
no subject
[The question of the year makes her wrinkle her nose, as she thinks it over.]
I don't know how long it's been since I checked a calendar... but last I knew, it was 1853. I think this world is older than mine, though... no one dresses in a manner I recognize.
no subject
Most I've met here are from the 2000s, thereabouts.
no subject
That is quite far in the future... it explains the flowy fabrics, I suppose. And what about you? I imagine in that time they wouldn't have need for sailors.
[Partly because she hasn't really spoken to that many of them, and assumes they all live natively on the moon.]
no subject
[Things always need to be built. He needs to not sit idle. It is an agreeable marriage of instances while he learns the future's mores.]
no subject
[Simple, but pleasant. Most of them are peasants from the lower end of Thornwell.]
I'm a housewife back in my world, but I suppose I'll have to fall back on some other skill. [She thinks for a moment before looking back at him.] Do you think anyone here would have a use for communing with the dead?
no subject
James catches himself before any look of untoward alarm gives away his surprise. It is relegated only to a slight flex of his fingers and a look of absolutely unwavering interest upon her.]
I'm not certain 'simple housewife' and 'communing with the dead' are two things I've before heard in such close conjunction with one another.
no subject
[Normally she'd be preening the crow-skull hairpin she's always wearing, but it's been quiet since she ended up in this reality. Apparently, the crow's spirit is stuck back in her old world.]
no subject
And what does it entail, exactly?
no subject
[She can tell he's uncomfortable, but there's no point in backing out now. She's not ashamed at all of her trade - in fact, she's never felt any need for anything but pride in it. She is among the best in her family, and it's clear how much more comfortable she becomes when death is the topic.]
no subject
He strokes his beard, rubs his knuckles against the bristles of it.]
Can you raise them?
no subject
[It's too bad she doesn't have anything to give an example with - but she gets the sense he might be too spooked by such a sight to keep speaking to her.]
My husband was quite good at it as well... I plan to raise my child as one as well, should nothing get in the way.
no subject
He's the son of a carpenter, who was the son of a fisherman. He knows something of being raised to a trade.]
Seems a grim line of work. But I imagine you can bring-- closure to a lot of people.
[It's a skill he could most certainly use to his advantage back home in Nassau, if such a thing were true to the fabric of the world there.]
no subject
Some of the best people I know were dead long before I was born. I might not have met them if I weren't raised the way I was.
[Of course, a lot of the people whose company she values don't exactly value hers. After all, when servants die in Thornwell it doesn't end their service.]