riverviewooc | riverview: may test drive meme

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riverview: may test drive meme

riverview 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 June 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 for 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

prompt i: search & rescue

Following rumors about a magical healing spring deep in the jungle, a group of intrepid explorers ventured out to verify whether it existed or not. After finding the spring inside an ancient temple overrun with tree roots and flora, they brought samples back and discovered that the spring did, in fact, have healing properties. Just like the rumors said.

Until the authorities decided what to do with this information, no actions were to be taken, nor information revealed to the public at large. Unfortunately, the news leaked and spread to the alternative science communities as well as the top minds at Gramarye Magic Research. With interest piqued, several more unauthorized expeditions set out beyond the fence in search of the spring. And once the information leaked beyond these scientists and scholars? Everyday citizens also launched their own excursions into the jungle, many bringing ailing family members or friends along for the ride.

This month the mission is to deploy teams of skilled citizens into the jungle to rescue some of the less fortunate, unsuccessful parties. Some of these people will be trapped or set upon by monsters, unable to move forward to the spring or back to the safety of the city. Others have simply run out of supplies and need the teams to restock them so they can continue their trek. And some groups have managed to reach the spring and collect their own samples of the spring water, only to find themselves struggling to return to the city before the samples lose efficacy. Feel free to create your own party to rescue, and get a team together to do so!

prompt ii: death from above

Normally, living inside the Inhabited City is a pretty safe bet. You can go day to day without running into a monster or risking any kind of danger requiring a fight. Generally, the tall, laser-fenced walls keep out anything particularly dangerous.

The problem with walls? They only go so high.

While usually assault from airborne monsters isn't a problem that's on the map, there's a few weeks during late spring where a swarm of flying monsters not unlike feathery pterodactyls are migrating back to another part of the moon. They're only in the area for a couple of weeks, but during that time, residents can expect occasional attacks by swooping monsters if they should see easy prey. Usually, a good sturdy dark-colored umbrella is enough to keep them from seeing a potential victim or meal, but sometimes the attacks still happen. So the Perimeter Guard sends extra details, calling in all the reserves, to patrol the city and keep an eye out for citizens in distress. There's also a general call for anyone who's experienced at fighting to help protect their fellow citizens. Whether your character is being attacked or protecting someone else, be prepared - these monsters are quick and have very sharp teeth.

prompt iii: homesick bazaar

Over the past couple of weeks, the portal has seemed really fixated on food. Almost every time the portal changes location, new bundles of food are near the entrance, ripe for the Perimeter Guard Orientation Team to pick up and drag through. As a result, the Orientation Team has set up a free bazaar outside City Hall. The Bazaar lasts from the 20th until the 31st of May, and is completely free, featuring tables and booths laden with food taken from the other side of the portal. Many of these foods will be familiar to characters in the City, whether it's that special brand they're totally addicted to or a plate of grandma's family recipe.

Everything at the Bazaar is totally free, and anyone joining in on the feast is encouraged to share (read: gently not allowed to leave until they do) and to tell stories about the origin of the foods from their own home. It's a multidimensional foodie's paradise!

prompt iv: prijata pregaming

Prijata is a holiday in Riverview celebrating platonic love - essentially, it's a celebration of friendship, geared at showing appreciation for existing friends and finding new ones. While I won't spoil the rest of the prompts for the introductory mingle, one of the main staples of Prijata is gift giving, and the Government of Riverview gets into the spirit of it by giving small gifts to everyone who's arrived since the last Prijata.

This prompt can be used to give a quick idea of what your character is into so other characters or players can suggest gifts to be given them (or to give them) if they are accepted! More information can be found in the Prijata Pregaming modpost.

prompt v: friendr/network

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.

Code to post your character's bio is in the textbox below, or you can just do a text version of the information in the app. An example of how it looks can be found here.

<center><blockquote style="width: 220px; margin: 0; padding: 0px; background-image: url('http://i42.tinypic.com/2uf53s4.jpg'); font-size: 12px; font-family: verdana; border-radius: 20px; text-align: center;"><div style="padding: 10px 0 0 0; text-align: center;font-size: 25px; font-weight: 900; font-style: italic; color: #528887; text-shadow: -2px 2px 2px rgba(150, 150, 150, 1);">F<span style="font-size: 16px;">RIENDR</span></div>
<center><img src="ICON URL HERE" style="border-radius: 50%; width: 70px; height: 70px; box-shadow:-3px 3px 2px 0px rgba(82, 136, 135, .75);"></center>
<center><div style="width: 210px; background-color: #528887; color: #fff; padding: 5px; font-size: 14px;">Name of Character</div></center>
<center><div style="width: 210px; background-color: #528887; color: #fff; padding: 5px; font-size: 11px; text-align: left;"><b><small>AGE:</small></b> ##
<b><small>INTERESTED IN:</small></b> Male/Female/Any
<b><small>SEEKING:</small></b> Type(s) of Relationship(s)
<b><small>ABOUT ME:</small></b> Blurb goes here, can be as long or short as you wish.</div></center><br>
</blockquote></center>

Many thanks to

mistojen for coding this especially for Riverview!

prompt vi: wildcard

Choose your own adventure and do something else in the setting!

navigation
[river market image is by Tyler Edlin]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's not the norm, it's the law. The only order there is in Mega-City One. If the Hall of Justice can't depend on Judges to enforce it, we're worse than useless, we're undermining it.

I understand their reasoning, but if I'm entitled to dispense justice, I'm dispensing my own.

There can be a difference, sometimes a very wide difference, between the idea of the law and the idea of justice.

Is that where you moved away from the expectations of Mega-City One?

Essentially? Yes.

I'm not going to execute a victim even if they should be sentenced as an accomplice.

It is a fine line.

[ A very fine line. ]

Do you worry about the objectivity of your own assessment? By stepping away from the order of law, even in the name of exacting righteous justice, you risk acting God-like.

Not really. We're as close to gods as there is in the city, and I trust myself more than anyone else.

I'm psychic.

I'm sorry, you're what?

I'm a mutant. I read minds.

[ Well.

Damn.

This conversation had been going so well. She was interesting and the topics were ones that Will found engaging, as well as useful to his own circumstances. He'd been enjoying her dry sense of humor, and her directness.

She reminded him of a bit of a mixture of Alana Bloom and Beverly Katz.

But that was a deal breaker. He had barely tolerated people messing around in his head before Hannibal got in there and pieced the shattered landscape back into a mural of his own making. This didn't even begin to touch on what was going on in his head these days.

'it looks black in the moonlight'.

The pause between texts was longer this time as he had to breath through an initial attack of panic at the thought of his mind being read. Having to take the time to reason with himself; that if she had already been in his mind, it was doubtful she'd still be conversing with him.

Proximity, maybe? He wasn't taking the chance. Still, he forced himself to take a few deep breaths and calm down before he responded. ]

That must make throwing you a surprise party, difficult.

[ She definitely needs proximity. And... she's expecting this sort of long-delayed response, thinks wryly to herself that some things don't change anywhere. There's a twinge of bitterness to it that she keeps well-buried. At least no one here is going to put up no muties graffiti tags anywhere. Or so she assumes. ]

Not exactly. I don't go around dipping my fingers into peoples' heads. If you're not a perp, the most I get is surface thoughts, and even that I usually keep turned off.

Would you want to hear what people are thinking all the time?

Edited 2017-05-21 20:04 (UTC)

[ He wouldn't deny her that bitterness, he could even empathize with it; even as he was doing the very thing that others had. He was used to being looked at as the freak, the creepy little shadow in the corner with the disquieting talent of speaking in the voice of the monsters.

Hell, he was bitter and defensive. It often had him at odds with Zeller, Price even Jack and was part of what had made him vulnerable to Hannibal's brand of understanding.

He wasn't being fair here, a fact he recognized but was not in a place to fix. ]

I'm going to assume that's a rhetorical question. [ Because while he could offer an answer, of sorts, he recognized that he could never truly know what it was to hear the thoughts his imagination pieced together. ]

How do you know the thoughts you've picked up are genuine? Even in our own heads, our interpretations cannot be the raw truth. They're contaminated with our experiences.

[ It's fine. Anderson's dealt with far worse. She doesn't even flinch in the face of slurs these days. And among other mutants, she's still the outcast, the outlier-- she's too psychic, stronger than anyone else; she's too well put together, where other mutants have extra limbs or none at all, some profound physical deformity. She's a too-powerful human-masquerading chameleon and she knows it.

Without being a Judge, she really wouldn't have anything at all. ]

Good question, but I don't use it for things that finely-tuned. Mostly it's to check if someone's about to shoot me, or if they're guilty or not. Even so, I can't always tell. If I'm even 99% sure, that last 1% means I bring them in for a more typical interrogation.

[ Again, he weighs his response before typing it out on the device. The words 'guilty or not' is a concept he could debate but he's not sure if now is the time. ]

Additional weight to what many would consider an unbearable burden.

What do you do to retain yourself?

[ Usually the crimes Anderson's looking into are not things that lend themselves to philosophical debate. The last man she'd interrogated mentally had skinned someone alive on his gang head's orders, and that was the first charge she found him on. It saves her a lot of moral dilemma, that the criminals she tries are almost always cut and dry. ]

It's what I am. There's no point crying about it.

[ She's not saying that sound like a hardass; she's just practical. Her life hasn't exactly encouraged feeling sorry for herself. ]

Retain myself? Nothing. I go into their heads, they don't come into mine. [ Proving she's read enough minds to know how people work, she adds: ] Is that something you deal with? Metaphorically speaking.

[ His own experiences were never quite as cut and dry. The serial killer he hunted on the grounds of skinning people, had turned out to be a normal man changed by a physical disease and the reality of knowing he was dying. His 'victims' had rap sheets full of their own horrors against innocents.

How do you judge what was justice in that instance? ]

I wasn't clear. I meant what do you do to comfort yourself? What do you do to replenish your own internal stores of calm?

[ He'd read her latter question. He just had that subject shelved. ]

Edited 2017-05-21 20:39 (UTC)

[ You just make a choice, and live with it. That's the only way Anderson knows how. She does what she thinks she can live with more easily. It's not that it never plagues her, but she can't afford to show weakness. ]

Oh. You have no idea how funny it is to ask a Judge that. [ In fact, she's smiling slightly in amusement, watching her screen. She hadn't even considered that interpretation. And part of being an ethical mind-reader is she's used to not probing innocent people when they evade her questions, so she doesn't. ]

We're pretty infamous for being implacable bastards. If we lost our calm we'd be dead. I don't know. You just can't flinch. You can't let it touch you.

Once they find out I'm psychic they always picture me as their victim, anyway.

You're over thinking it.

[ Will typed, his own lips twitching with a sad sort of humor. Mostly directed at himself, as evidenced in his next text. ]

Of course, it doesn't help that I'm being awkward with my language.

What do you like to do for fun?

[ Oh no, that's even worse. Judges having fun, uh-huh. This is the weirdest part of being here, hands down-- not the alternate worlds bullshit, but other people treating her as human, past her profession and being a mutant. She's never going to get used to it.

She stifles a cough-laugh into her fist before typing back. ] I don't, generally. But I was thinking of picking up reading while I'm here.

And maybe teaching some lost FBI consultants how to handle a gun. If I haven't scared them off.

[ Her latter text makes him wince. He doesn't want to have to admit that she's unfortunately sent him running for the metaphorical hills, but at the same time he can feel an icy stroke along his spine at the thought of his mind being read.

Even his surface thoughts.

There is no way that would end well; for either of them. ]

Reading can be relaxing. A wonderful opportunity to escape to worlds you might have never imagined.

I enjoy fishing, and collecting strays.

[ Right, okay. Skittish it is. She can deal. He's actually still talking to her, which is points in Anderson's incredibly low standards for other people. If they aren't a violent criminal and they aren't actively insulting her, she's good.

Part of the problem with making herself so untouchable to her work is that now she doesn't care even when she probably should. ]

Any book suggestions? [ Let's just say censorship is likely to be a thing back home. And-- right, fishing. Large bodies of water are clean here, and have things living in them. That's about all the opening up she's ready to do for now, though, so she doesn't say what she's thinking. Instead: ] Peaceful, non-violent occupations. I could get behind that.

[ The 'violent criminal' part of that sentence was where the shades of grey got messy in this equation. Best for both of them to shelve it for now. ]

Depends. What would you like to read about? [ Maybe he should have investigate the local library (was there a library?) before making this offer. Oh well. ]

The fish might disagree with you there. People back home would term them more as solitary pursuits. I am something of a loner back home.

[ Oh, boy. She is plenty ruthless about dispensing justice, but she's not actually a Judge here and she's conscientious of that fact. Push comes to shove, she'll do what she has to, but she vastly prefers following local laws. Also, she hates sentencing people she knows, which is part of the reason she rarely 'knows' anyone.

But that's something she can't hide behind here. ]

Not sure. Anything but crime novels. Something with the wilderness? [ That's not really a genre, but she's completely unused to all the greenery still. ]

Fish aren't in my jurisdiction. And there's nothing wrong with being a loner, [ says someone who is by necessity also a loner. ]

[ Of course she couldn't hear it but now he was chuckling out loud in response to her answer. ]

Don't like taking work home with you? I'm teasing, I don't like reading crime novels or even suspense novels either.

[ Got enough of that in the office. ]

If you don't take offense to the idea of reading books intended for a younger audience Jim Kjelgaard's books are a good start.

[ Nature and dogs, how could you go wrong! ]

I'd just keep trying to determine their list of crimes in my head. I'm already going to have to learn all the laws here to reorient myself.

[ She has a wry smile as she types. Probably other people don't read the actual laws of a place they're living and instead follow common sense, but as someone who's used to enforcing them, Anderson is a little uncomfortable not knowing how far off her own moral compass is from this place's north. ]

I don't mind. What are they about?

I usually start judging the investigative team on how long it takes them to work out the evidence.

[ What? Sometimes he was a real brat. ]

Dogs, their partnership with people, and the wilderness. My favorites were A nose for trouble and Trailing trouble. They're about a bloodhound.

[ To the surprise of no one. ]

Edited 2017-05-21 21:51 (UTC)

[ She snorts, about as close as she typically gets to laughter. ]

Because you set the standard?

And I'm starting to think you should more strongly consider your dog training idea.

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