riverviewooc | riverview: test drive meme

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meme: test drive

riverview: test drive meme

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

prompt i: batten down the hatches

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!

prompt ii: monster madness

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.

prompt iii: hold your lover close

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.

prompt iv: solution

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.

prompt v: wildcard/network

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!

navigation

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"Knowledge is power," Jason smiles. It's the one thing that's been hammered into him by everyone. Bruce, Alfred, Talia, Ducra - everyone who has ever trained him or done anything. Scout your location, know your exits, know your hidden places, know as much as you can. Granted, more often than not, Jason is liable to fly by the seat of his pants, but this time, there's a storm, and there are way more lives at stake than just Jason's.

Besides, he's already died once.

"Yeah, the goggles would...definitely help." A lot of things would definitely help. Back home, he has safe houses, access to unlimited resources. Here he's a little more adrift. Considering his roots - his parents' lives, having been on the streets fending for himself - you'd think he would be more comfortable with roughing it but - Damn. At some point, I became way too comfortable.

"I mean, on the bright side, we're not...exactly in a horror movie." That wasn't what this was, right? A horror movie? Jason doesn't think so. Granted, if it is, he's fairly certain that he can handle it. He walks through the doorway, flicking his own flashlight on. The twin pools of light illuminate the stark room ahead of them, barely furnished. Light sweeps over the walls, and the ground. "I'm crazy for assuming there might be a hidden passage here or something that leads to a storm cellar, right?"

Okay, the laughter, Jason hadn't expected. Nor had he expected the smile going from whatever it had been to something...far uglier. Not Jokeresque, but ugly enough that it bothered Jason more than just a little bit.

"Yeah, no kidding," Jason replied. "I've put enough people down to know that myself, thanks." Granted, the reason he'd returned was...he didn't know. One day, he was dead. Another day, he was clawing his way out of the grave to find that he had been replaced.

"Ready for...the reasons behind your damage? Or the monsters that aren't the ones that you're internalizing right now?"

[Wanda pours for herself after him, glad for the cold water. Crisp. Clean. For all that they're rebuilding here, she's glad that some things are easy to come by here. There's no scrounging for pennies to buy bottled water, no doing odd jobs in restaurants to drink from pitchers herself. No worrying that Pietro will find himself in jail for stealing what they need. Granted, she hasn't had to worry about such things since Hydra, Ultron, and the Avengers, but some memories linger long after they've passed.]

Ignorance seems an unfair thing to fault a person for when they can't educate themselves about the political borders of countries they've never heard of three hundred years in the future. [Especially a country which apparently doesn't exist in his reality at all.] You must be more knowledge about pirates than I am, however. Are they all actually as bad as you've implied?

[As a former terrorist herself, as someone capable of dipping into the minds of others, she finds it hard to paint everyone with the same brush.]

If Jason could have possibly brought more stuff with him, he absolutely would have. As it was, he was hoping that whatever they were going to face...he had enough. Not that he wasn't trained to be a weapon himself - he'd been trained to be both a hero and an assassin - but that didn't necessarily come in handy against monsters.

Whatever kind they may be.

He raises an eyebrow when the man speaks. There's something very calm, very sure about him. It reminds him a little bit of Bruce, but without that dark edge that he tended to have around him.

"We always have to, right? No matter the circumstances or the odds?" He offers his hand to the other man. "Jason."

[He puts his back to a column, and leans faintly against it. Enough to give the illusion that he's relying on it for balance without actually doing so. Flint is not - is never - a man that relaxes.]

I have my opinions, though I'd be wary of relaying them as irrefutable fact. Man is too subjective for that.

"I told you the reasons. I hope you shoot faster than you think." Ronan reached into one of his pockets. He felt the shape of the pill with his fingers.

He should have popped it in his mouth already. Brought something back. But the pill itself conjured too many memories-- his own fault. He should have thought of something that didn't remind him of Kavinsky and his brother shoved into the trunk of a white Mitsubishi. But then, he'd had the chance to dream a creature already. Instead he just made a damn sleeping pill.

The "damage" that he'd never said but every action shouted, was that he simply didn't trust. Don't tell anyone, his father said.

So he removed his hand from his pocket. It was there if he needed it. If that time came, he'd take the chance.

Chainsaw ruffled her feathers and shoved his head at his ear. Ronan stood. He paused, waiting to hear something but knowing his friend wasn't here to say it.

"Fuck you, Gansey," he muttered. Then, "excelsior."

Chainsaw flew away before Ronan moved.

Robots and aliens. [Jason grins at her.] Okay, sounds like you've seen some crazy things too. That helps me understand this a little more. [He indicates the area around himself and Wanda, and then Wanda herself.] Why you'd sign up for the monster-fighting thing, I mean. It's not the sort of thing that just anyone would sign up for.

Granted, I feel like this is really all that they have to work with. For now, I mean. [Who knew if more people would arrive or not.]

I'm Jason, by the way.

[Wanda doesn't follow him to the column but she turns, adjusting to face him still as they talk. He's proving to be cagey which makes her all the more curious about him, but pushing too hard seems like exactly the thing that will press him to clam up more.]

And I think man and life are too complex to box them up into categories of good and bad, and it's a saying in my time that history is written by the victors. [Which ultimately, the pirates are not. Not with regards to Nassau.] But I'm still interested in the impressions of a man who may know better.

Clementine.

[She doesn't so much as blink at his mention of hot wiring a car. After all, she knows how to do it herself. There are abandoned cars everywhere in her world but keys are hard to come by. None of the undead are going to care anymore, not even when they're being crunched under the wheels. Being able to make use of these vehicles is an important skill to have, and Jane had taught her enough to get by. She doesn't outright offer this information since she doesn't know the man well enough.

She's a bit small, so a large truck might be more difficult for her to handle anyway.]

I can direct you once you get it moving.

Jason took a step back at the word, hand on his gun again. It was a reflexive action, he couldn't help it. "You a magic guy?" Jason asked. Not that he had anything against magic. It was partially what had revived him, partially what had given him his memories back, and partially what had helped train him to become the man he was today.

But he wasn't expecting it.

"Chainsaw's what, your familiar? Not that I mind. I'm just trying to figure things out here."

[He crosses one arm across his chest, cups his elbow and takes another slow, considering drink.]

Most folk will do honest work if you let them. If they're paid decently and respected. If they feel that they can eke out a living not just for survival's sake but for the betterment of their life and loved ones. I've not seen a man turn to piracy that wasn't driven to it by some mistreatment. But it doesn't make them good men. It makes them dangerous.

[When he thinks of a consummate pirate, his first thoughts are not for Teach, not for Hornigold, not for any of the old guard. He thinks of Vane. A hard man, merciless, yet with a strange sense of honour twisted up and disfigured like the wrecks in Nassau's bay. Vane lived without compromise. It's something Flint can respect well enough, though he'd have tore out the man's throat given half a chance. Still, his reputation among the Bahamas was well earned.]

[For some reason people started looking to her to do things despite her age in her world. It had to do with more than just the fact that she was small enough to make it into places most of the adults couldn't. Maybe it was easier to handle mistakes if you could blame them on a child that didn't know any better. She'd never been a leader, but she'd been reliable.

Couldn't keep them all alive, though.]

They might be drawn to the noise of my gun but I can't get in much closer. [If they were anything like walkers they would be. She still doesn't know much about how they think. She's used to the actions of her enemies being more instinctual.] I hope your aim is good. [She's sure it is. People didn't use bows for stuff like this unless they could handle them. All the same, they wouldn't want to hit the rest of their "team". She's well aware that, if anything, there would be more concern over her own aim.]

One eyebrow went up at that reaction. Ronan wasn't sure if it was from fear or amusement. He didn't question what his body did and why. "My boyfriend's the magician," he said wryly, tongue in cheek.

But Ronan never lies.

"It's Latin. 'Onward and upward.' So what, is magic a thing where you come from?"

The forced slouch to his shoulders and casual but tight way Ronan spoke sent a message he didn't intend. The Ronan before hadn't been an act. The act began in the pause it took from 'Onward and upward' to asking about magic. Some, perhaps most, people wouldn't notice it. But even inside his realm of dreams, Ronan was no master of deception.

[It's as distant a statement he can make, she thinks. She can taste the honesty of what he says, feel that he believes it, but he still doesn't take a firm stance for or against the pirates which perhaps only confirms her own statement that a person and the circumstances of their life cannot be so easily categorized and labeled.

But for all that he tries to speak of people at large, he manages to say a great deal that resonates with Wanda. After all, she can at least admit to herself that she's spent most of her life wondering what would have happened if her family's apartment hadn't been shelled. Would she and Pietro have had better lives? Would their parents have been able to support them even as they were older, despite the hardships that sometimes came with living in Novi Grad? One thing is for certain. She never would have let Pietro convince her to submit to the experiments of Hydra if it weren't for their desperate circumstances and the state of the war that raged in the streets.

Instead, the twins had both been pushed to take desperate risks, and for a time made villains of themselves in hopes of bettering the lives of their people.]

Desperation can change a person more than they ever would have thought possible. Especially if they think the risks are worth it... [For the greater good. For their loved ones. For whatever drove them to do terrible things in the first place.]

[Before Thomas, he did not think true empathy existed. That a man could put himself in the shoes of another and truly imagine, truly feel what it would be like to live his life as if it were one's own. To have all the sympathies, live with all the sins. Thomas was ahead of his time in so many ways, a man of vision. He believed in a brighter future than what the world could bestow.

The fact of the matter is, few have that skill. Most people cannot imagine a thing they have not lived. So when she speaks of desperation the clearest, simplest answer is that she herself has had some cause to know its rigors.

What sympathy he had once upon a time died years ago, now. What husk has he to replace a heart? But he does understand.]

Were yours? [A faint nod. This is not a question succored by kindness.] Worth it.

[She closes her eyes, a fraction of a second longer than it would take to blink. Four words posed as a question, and even now Wanda knows that she can't answer it with a simple yes or no. Stalling, she raises her glass to her lips again, drinks even as they quirk up at the corners. But it's not a smile, and certainly not in her eyes.]

For what we hoped to accomplish, what we wanted to change, no. [She'd lost Pietro and the only place she'd ever called home in a single day. It's impossible for her to forget how Novi Grad looked after. Gutted. It looked the way she felt, and even now Wanda still walks around feeling as if she's living with a hole punched through her chest.] Some good came of it, serving the greater good, but the cost is always so high. Too high, personally.

[She's lost her family, her city, and even the last scraps of innocence she didn't know she still possessed. Not until being the pawn of Hydra and Ultron stripped them away. Trying to do the good thing has taken everything from her, and not just once, and before she was pulled through the portal she'd found herself at rock bottom once more on the hard ground of the airport. A rogue Avenger, an "enemy" of the lawful governments of the world.

And whatever her motives, Flint was right. To others, it didn't make her a good person. Just dangerous.]

[He unfolds from his position and reaches his glass out to clink his glass lightly against hers.]

I'll drink to that.

[After all, Thomas wanted to change the world for the better. It is petty, cruel, gutless men that can't handle the thought. When you have power, the last thing you want to do is give it up.

Flint pursues the path he does because he knows he could. He has no taste for power. It holds no especial sway over him, it does not inform his decisions and it neither stays his hand nor causes it to strike. The only thing to motivate him, that which drives him to action and calls him to arms, is memory. So he sips at his water and settles back against the pillar as if it were the mast on a shipdeck and he but seeking a moment's respite from the sea.]

[Wanda presses her glass against his in cheers, a slight, somber gesture, and offers a traditional response in Sokovian. It's quiet by comparison of the music playing around them, and Wanda drinks soon after. The water tastes like nothing, however. Crisp but flat on her tongue in light of where their conversation has wandered.

Something stronger seems better for a toast like this, and Wanda has no driving need to step back onto the dance floor right away. For a man who's proven to be so careful with regards to talking about himself, she almost hates reaching for the bottle of what seems to be something like rakia. It shows how deeply she's affected. Still, she does it, pouring a finger's worth into a short glass. Once more, she offers him the bottle with a questioning look.]

[Three things can loosen a man's tongue perilously. Women, alcohol and torture. Flint considers himself largely immune to the former, too reserved about the middling choice and entirely too stubborn on the subject of the latter to surrender anything against his will.

But a pirate's tolerance for alcohol far exceeds what he's seen in the modern day. His veins at this point may as well be equal parts rum and seawater, comparatively speaking. He nods, drains the last of his water and holds his glass for her to pour. Once she's finished, he lifts it to his mouth for a surreptitious sniff.]

Rakinja?

[He even manages the proper accent, it seems a seamless thing. He's not about to start speaking in the tongues of the Bulgarian Empire, but no man can call himself a pirate captain without having taken prizes and prisoners from ships of every nation, nor culled crew from the same.]

[Wanda's not out to loosen his tongue at this point. If he manages to open up more by her not trying, she'll likely notice. At the moment, however, her attention is focused on pouring, on breathing in that almost familiar scent as well. The rakia that she and Pietro tried a couple times before had been gifted by a neighborhood friend, a bartender who had slid a couple glasses their way when his boss wasn't looking. It had been cheaper, something she notices right off. Already this seems richer. better.

She's glad that James recognizes it. One less thing to try and explain.] Yes. They call it rakia in Sokovia.

[She presses her glass forward, clinks the edge against his.]

Here's to hoping that we don't come to regret the costs of risks we take here.

Regret requires investment. I doubt many of us will come to see this place as being worthy of it. I imagine we have lives to return to that merit more concern.

[The alcohol is strong, and of a higher grade than what he's used to. A princely thing. Thomas' father kept an extensive wine collection on the Hamilton estate and as Thomas and Miranda wore down his reservations he found himself sampling them at length. They were of a similar quality to this. Whoever runs this distillery takes pride in their work.

-- But it's incredibly fucking fruity.]

[It's definitely fucking fruity, but it's also strong which is what was Wanda's priority. Toasting with water had seemed weak and wrong, and at least with this it feels like the toast has more weight.]

Of course we do, but no one can predict when we'll be able to return to them.

[She gestures to the rest of the room, the people dancing, stumbling, laughing, having a much lighter experience than she and James. Who may or may not be a pirate.]

So instead we can dance, and we can fight to protect the city's borders, and build a city that isn't our own. Claim it for ourselves if we like and rebuild our lives here.

[They certainly seem to be encouraging it, the way they arrange so many events that throw people together.]

[In a mild tone,]

Are you certain you aren't a pirate, with an attitude like that?

[It certainly is... a familiar sentiment.]

[At this, she finally cracks another smile. Takes a small sip from her glass.]

If one can be a pirate without a ship? It's possible. You haven't heard me claim a side, after all.

[And in the end, it's all a matter of perspective when it comes to Wanda. She's a bad person, a law breaker and a threat to international security to some. A strong, powerful Avenger on the side of good to others.

To a rare few, she's Wanda, but that matters to very few people in the world, it seems.]

Tell your beast to attack our enemies, you idiot, it's going to draw the attention of every other monster around!

[ For almost getting called bitch, Sylvie isn't inclined to acquiesce to any of Ronan's demands. ]

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riverview: test drive meme

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