![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
riverview: april test drive meme

Welcome to Riverview's 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 May 1st.
● Providing all parties are amenable, threads on the test drive meme can count as game canon, as the plot in the prompts presented is game canon.
● TDM threads do not count for Activity Check, but they do count for Activity Bonus Points, so long as all characters involved are accepted into the game.
● Threading on the TDM is intended for prospective new characters, so top-levels should only be posted by players of these characters. Since the events in the TDM are considered game canon, characters currently in the game are free to use the TDM prompts logs and posts on the regular communities.
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 ● calendar ● navigation

Recently, a team of skilled explorers went out into the jungle to the Northwest of the city to follow up on several sightings of a giant lizardlike behemoth that's been skulking around outside the walls, a creature whose level of aggression (and therefore how dangerous it might be) was unknown. The team, while not exactly as stealthy as they were supposed to be, did manage to find the creature, which they found to have about the intelligence and temperament of a very, very, very large dog. And whom they named Liam.
Having established that the behemoth (which is around the size of a blue whale, snakelike in shape, but with four legs, brown striated scales, large claws and teeth, bad breath, and an affinity for face-licking) is not an intentional danger to the city, the authorities could not rule out the idea that it might cause accidental damage to the city, walls, or crops around the city. As a result, research has been done and a new mission has been drafted and recruited for - baiting the behemoth. The objective of this large-scale mission is for many small, quick-moving teams to take behemoth bait deep into the jungle for the purpose of luring the massive but mostly-harmless creature away from the city and hopefully to a new, less-inhabited feeding area. There is room for many different teams, and all of them should be heading deep into the jungle heading directly away from the city, going Northwest. The authorities in question have come up with a wide variety of food and pheromone scented lures that range from mild to truly stinky, so which type your team gets is up to you.
Each lure is small enough to fit in a cage-shaped canister that can be carried like a backpack by one person with average strength, and each lure-carrier will need to be accompanied by at least one or two fighters. Why, when the behemoth is peaceful? Well....
The behemoth might not be aggressive, but unfortunately it's picked up some unwelcome companions. After last month's near-disaster where a colony of lizardlike monsters had taken up residence in tunnels under the city, wreaking havoc in the power grid, and were subsequently either killed or flushed out of the underground, some of the local fauna has been bumped down the food chain.
The fauna in question is a very large pack of mammalian six-limbed creatures that usually live in the trees and hunt oversized insects in the underbrush. When the lizards escaped the underground into the surrounding jungle, and drastically reduced the population of the insects the mammals usually feed on, the predators became parasites, attacking the only thing left that is more docile than the insects they usually feed on - the behemoth. These creatures are quick-moving, well-camouflaged in the jungle with mottled brown-and-green fur, and sport massive teeth and long tongues that allow them to stick to whatever surface they land on.
Hungry as they are, they will make no distinction between the behemoth's juicy hide and the lure-carrying teams that are trying to help it. Hopefully, their ranks can be thinned enough that the behemoth survives the trip to its new home.

Not everyone is cut out for missions into the jungle or cleaning up angry predatory parasite monsters, but that doesn't mean that staying home means being safe from the weird things that come out of the portal. In the early morning of April 20th, drawn by the warmth of the rising sun, a massive swarm of rainbow-colored fireflies emerges from the portal into the quarantine. Unlike regular fireflies, though, they are bright enough to glow even during the day, and these bugs have bite! While generally harmless aside from stinging a little, the bite of the rainbow fireflies causes certain kinds of emotional response to become heightened, depending on the color of the firefly in question. While scientists have never run into these bugs before and have no idea how it works, they can cause this effect in any kind of sentient creature that is capable of emotion, including androids and characters that are usually unaffected by substances. The effects on emotions are as follows:
● RED: Lust/Anger ● ORANGE: Honesty/Openness ● YELLOW: Fear/Anxiety |
● GREEN: Jealousy/Envy ● BLUE: Sadness/Grief ● VIOLET: Love/Affection |
When a character is bitten, the effects on their emotions can last anywhere from an hour to a week, depending on the character's psychology and resistance to certain emotions - for example, if a character has a hard time dealing with their grief, the effect of a blue firefly may last longer than other colors. How the characters manifest the heightened emotional response or sensitivity is up to the individual player, as different body chemistry or other circumstances might change how characters are affected. Red firefly bites have a 50/50 chance of affecting a character with lust or anger, though characters who have not reached sexual maturity (underage characters) won't get get the lust effect.
Firefly effects can be easily avoided simply by avoiding the fireflies. It won't take long for some of the geniuses in the Quarantine to start making and distributing firefly repellent, and characters can expect sales of mosquito tents to skyrocket.
These alien fireflies have a lifespan of around a month, and they are unable to procreate outside their native environment, which means the last of them will be dying off around May 20th.
CLARIFICATION: In response to a player question, the effects of the fireflies CAN layer, so they can be affected by more than one at the same time. Red fireflies with the lust effect don't make characters incapable of controlling themselves, just heighten feelings of arousal/desire.
Whether your character is posting up a silly word game to distract people from the dangerous mission going on, trying to get hold of a friend, or putting out feelers for people to go out into the fray with, the network is going strong.
Alternately, an offer for a free app is popping up on new arrivals' devices - Friendr is a friend-finder and/or dating app. If characters choose to install it, they will fill out a short bio and parameters for what they're looking for, upload a snap of themselves, and then proceed to browse for matches. This is a typical swipe-left-or-right type app.
Many thanks to
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Choose your own adventure and do something else in the setting!
no subject
[ And Steve just can't help but answer with his usual stubborn retorts. ]
no subject
no subject
[ Well, he can't actually say Loki is wrong. He has to ask. ]
no subject
This may come as a shock, but I did not emerge from the womb ready to create chaos. I have tried. I have dabbled. I have committed. No more.
no subject
[ And Steve's own voice returns to something more stern and challenging, like he's rebelling against Loki's answer somehow. ]
You still have the ability to change. Everyone does. No one said it was easy or that everyone is going to accept that change right away, but that shouldn't keep anyone from being better.
no subject
But what have you done to change?
no subject
no subject
no subject
I'm here talking to you, aren't I?
[Sarcasm being his initial reaction to a question that hits so close to home. But it doesn't mean he can avoid the question.]
The uniform doesn't have anything to do with it. But taking up the mantle made me better, because I wouldn't have learned that there was something better without it.
I let go of things I thought I needed.
no subject
Have you now? Or is that something you tell yourself in the dark when no one can see?
All you've given me are words, Captain. You're a man of action. Demonstrate your resolve.
no subject
You come and meet me in the dark; see what I say then.
I don't take orders from you.]
Call me Steve.
[He doesn't sound happy at all to say that.]
no subject
Is that truly what you want?
no subject
That is my name. I guess it only makes sense for you to use it.
no subject
[ He draws it out sweetly, with a hint of deviance to it. ]
Very little of this makes sense.
no subject
Flinching is just going to give Loki more satisfaction. But he does twitch, unable to stop that.]
You're milking this. You said you wanted me to demonstrate trust. Well, here it is.
no subject
[ And Loki prefers the long game. ]
no subject
Fine. [The word comes out tight.] I'm not complaining. Just don't push it.
no subject
I will use the honour sparingly.
no subject
I appreciate that.
[Which means he may not jump immediately to action the next time they meet. He hasn't decided that much yet, but Steve does try to be as fair as everyone expects him to be. He has to live up to that legend, even when it goes against his better judgment.]
no subject
[ Everything is on thin ice. Loki knows Steve will be waiting for it to crack. And Loki hasn't won himself any favors.
Ah, well. It was fun. And that's not always easily accomplished with an Avenger. ]
no subject
[It might not be as giving as it could be, but Steve is still offering some cooperation, since for the moment Loki outwardly appears to have a sound point. He'll be waiting, but at least he's just waiting.
He disconnects, but he gives the barest of nods before he does so.]