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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!
no subject
In one sense, Jason was, undoubtedly, correct. In another sense, he was also, undoubtedly, incorrect.
"Just shoot the damn guns. Why bitch about it to me when there's fuck all my bird can do about it."
The wording was precise because Jason wasn't one of the people who was going to be privileged or burdened with the knowledge of what Ronan was. Because...
"I'll save your ass but that doesn't mean I want to be your friend, gramps."
He might have liked the snark coming from Jason if it were intended as banter or a taunt, but his nerves were raw. He did have friends. He had a-- fuck, it was both weird and thrilling to even think the word-- boyfriend. But they weren't here and without them, Ronan was unmoored.
no subject
Maybe a little self-consciously, he runs a hand through his short, raven-black hair. There had been a white streak there when Jason had clawed his way out of his grave after being brought back to life, but the Lazarus Pit had done away with it - along with his all of his scars and everything else. In some ways, he'd become a blank slate. In others, he'd been saddled with way too much history. "I'm like twenty-two," he adds with a frown. Even Damian hadn't called him gramps, and Damian was the demon brat that hell had spat out.
Possibly literally, given his name.
"Don't worry, son. I don't do too well with friends anyway." Except for maybe a handful of people. Roy. Kori. Artemis and Bizarro, kind of. Sometimes Dick and Babs.
He looks out the window of the truck to see them approaching the fence, and he sets his mouth in a grim line. "Looks like we're almost there." His eyes tick back to Ronan. "You ready for this?"
no subject
Like a tire iron.
Ronan didn't take his eyes off Jason.
"If you're on the verge of a midlife crisis, don't call me 'kid,'" Ronan said once Jason had finished going through his internal age crisis. If he were his brother, he would have topped that one off with a "dur." As he was Ronan, and a great deal less of a cream puff, it went unspoken.
no subject
The truck stopped moving and people started getting up and hopping off. Jason waited for the crush to get past him before getting up himself, his hands gently brushing over the handles of his guns. Security blanket and all that. Though, really, he'd do anything to have his red helmet back with him. Or even a domino mask. Without them, he felt oddly naked going into a fight.
"The hell is your damage anyway?"
no subject
The smile never left Ronan's face but it turned ugly, the curve of it sinister and crude. He leaned back.
"Not everyone who dies comes back," he said as though that was the only explanation to it.
It wasn't. But it was close.
"You ready?"
no subject
"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?"
no subject
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.
no subject
But he wasn't expecting it.
"Chainsaw's what, your familiar? Not that I mind. I'm just trying to figure things out here."
no subject
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.
no subject
"Your boyfriend," he said, going back around to it. "He didn't get pulled into here, did he?"
no subject
What would it be like in a world where magic was well known and widely believed in, anyway? Would it be more dangerous for him or less?
Don't tell anyone.
He'd broken that promise before. Ronan wasn't going to break it again now, not with Jason bringing Adam up again. Served Ronan right for leaving the door wide open.
"He's in Henrietta," Ronan said in a voice that was not as flat and dull as he'd hoped it to be.
Ronan didn't want to think about what Adam was doing without him. If he was on his own or if Gansey and Blue had come back to be with Adam and look for Ronan. If Matthew and Opal were still--
"Kerah!" Chainsaw's raven voice broke into his thoughts and landed on his shoulder.
Ronan jumped down to the ground.
"If I pass out, make sure monsters don't eat me before I wake up and save your ass."
no subject
Jason didn't start when Chainsaw returned, but he did eye the bird warily. Truth be told, he had no idea what to make of the bird.
"Pass out? You have any health issues I need to know about or an EPI pen I have to jam into your thigh or something?"
no subject
He didn't know Gotham, but he could tell from Jason's accent that it was in New York. Ronan's was harder to place, as Henrietta was closer to Appalachia and carried a hint of a North Carolina accent on top of it. To complicate things, he attended a private school where the students and faculty attempted a more refined Virginian accent.
The corner of his mouth twitched at the epi pen comment, coming so fast after asking after Adam. Gansey never carried his on his person no matter how many Ronan threw at him. He could use more of Jason's concern instead of a cavalier attitude.
Jason didn't mean to conjure that memory, but it was hard not to hold the stream of reminders against him.
Time for the answer to the second question. "No. This is a fight. One good punch and..." He closed his hand and then spread his fingers out to mimic an explosion of some kind, presumably neurons. "Out."
no subject
They approached the fence that the monsters had allegedly been beating up on. It was in a terrible shape. The perimeter guards had clearly done their best, but they also apparently trained for something this crazy. There were no monsters in sight, but that didn't mean they weren't there.
Also doesn't mean they aren't invisible, but let's hope that's not the case. Someone would have brought it up, right?
"Don't worry, though. I have your back as much as you have mine."
no subject
Ronan didn't know how else to respond to Jason. People didn't trust him, not the first time they met him, not even the hundredth time. But he didn't sound sarcastic.
"I got it," was what he settled on.
Ronan tapped his raven's leg. She stayed put.
"Chainsaw, shoo."
She cawed right in his ear.
That bird, his friends would say, was so out of his head. He rolled his eyes and went to get this over with.