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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!
no subject
[ Michael's eyes don't stray to the man's hand, heavy on his shoulder, and close to his throat. He's not going to acknowledge the threat. Even as his heart rattles against his ribs like a bird in a cage, his face remains impassive. His cool smile matches the steel in his eyes.
Ever since his arrival Michael's been herded, lectured and assigned. He needs to reclaim his agency, if only to prove to himself, and the world, that he still has any.
Michael takes a step forward, fingers curling in towards his palms. He's scared, of this place, of what it means to be here, of everyone around him, but so is this man. If he wasn't, he wouldn't be so dangerous. ]
Call it a hunch, but I think out of everyone here, you and I are two of a kind. Neither of us came here to dance.
no subject
That's a very broad assumption to make of someone you've only just met.
no subject
[ Michael steps out of his way, calling his bluff. The dance floor is all his. His eyes linger on the other man's face before falling away. He rolls his sleeves back down, and folds his arms over his chest. ]
Plenty of appropriate partners to choose from, now that you know how.
no subject
The assumption to which I was referring was us being similar.
[He'll cop to the fact he isn't interested in dancing. Not here, not with these people. Strangers, all. Listening to their idle chatter better serves his purpose.]
no subject
[ He laughs. Softly, and with a smile. Michael knows how to take a punch.
Just because he'd shared a little truth doesn't mean he's owed any. If anything, he'd done it for himself. Because he doesn't want to lie anymore, even if he should. If he were brave enough, strong enough, he would tell the truth to anyone who would listen. He's being selfish, right now, inflicting himself on this person, and if he's really taking a hard look in the mirror, for the last four years.
How long can you live in another man's shoes before they become your own? Robbing a bank, going to prison, planning an escape, none of it had been as simple as getting a tattoo and pulling on a pair of striped pajamas.
Michael has blood on his hands, his hands. He tries not to look at them often. Michael lies to a lot of people, but no one as often as himself.
His eyes scan the room, lingering on the exits. Three of them. All within equal distance from where they stand. Michael should take any one of them and go.
He doesn't, because this is the closest he's come to a real conversation since his arrival, and he's lonely and hurting. His assumption, right or wrong, had been that this man was lonely and hurting too. ]
You just looked like you were waiting for something.
no subject
As to sympathy-- well, he has never been a creature of that habit. He feels none of it here. But there is a possibility that this boy is trying less to rattle him specifically, and that he is himself rattled and can intuit enough to recognize that there are, in fact, similarities. Certainly they are both rough men. He would posit, also intelligent. But this boy seems a wreck of himself, at odds with everything he is, a cacophony of contradictions. James is too fucking old to think that such a presentation could exist without intent to manipulate, but every good lie has a truth to it, laid into its bones.
James does not like being picked apart. Silver does the same, and God help him, but Silver is one of the most dangerous men he knows. He is not afraid of making enemies, but to hold those who pose the greatest hazard to you close is the greater wisdom. His eyes narrow, calculating.
His name? Why, he very nearly says Flint.]
James.
[His tone hasn't changed. It's still distant and dispassionate. It's neither an olive branch nor an albatross, but it's plain enough.]
no subject
[ Michael extends his hand a second time. His fingers are long and slender, freshly callused, knuckles scarless.
Michael isn't a fighter. He's barely a survivor. The success of his plan, and of his own survival, had always relied on the muscle of his accomplices. It's something that's never sat right with him, even as he wrung the blood, sweat, and tears out of them. Right down to the very last drop.
Before he'd made a name for himself as one of America's Most Wanted, before Fox River, before anyone had died in his arms, or as a direct result of his actions, Michael's only real mark on the world had been through his architecture, from behind the safety of his desk. Living his life logistically. Schematically. Efficiently. Following the blueprint he had created for himself, according to the needs of society, and his place within it
And then he had lit those blueprints on fire, and thrown them out the window, into the water, where the FBI wouldn't find them, and life became something more than a concept.
It became something that could be taken from him.
He doesn't expect James to take his hand, but he wants him to. Life was in the little things, words, touches, scents. All the sensations, and moments, you didn't realize were privileges until they were gone. ]
Nice to meet you.
no subject
He takes the man's hand regardless. It costs him nothing of any currency he concerns himself with. Nothing of the soul surrendered.
His own hands are hard, calloused and scarred, the backs of them peppered with freckles where he's taken the sun, and the strength behind the shake is something that speaks to leashed violence just behind the restraint. It says: this is not a man tamed.]
Quite.
[His tone is dry. In all, pleasantries aside, it really does remain to be seen, doesn't it?]
They've refreshments.
[He nods towards the table. It's not exactly an offer, more a variable avenue of discussion.]
no subject
Michael feels everything. Every scar, every callus, every thickened joint, and battle-hardened bone. James' hands say more about him than anything he's said aloud.
They remind him of his brothers hands. Big, and strong, adept at hurting, and surprisingly capable of holding. Michael misses him. The corner of his mouth quirks. If Lincoln is gone, there's no point to any of it. If he allows himself to stop, and think about the possibility of having lost him, of losing, it might kill him.
He breathes in through his nose. Forces the thought back into the small, dark cell at the back of his mind where he keeps his fear, anxiety and regret under lock and key.
His grip is soft. Yielding. Allowing James to make as much, or as little, of the motion as he pleases. Michael's strength has never been one of force, or assertion. The warmth of his hand, and the suggestion of his fingertips, have their own hold. ]
What's your poison? Personally, I'm all about cake. Chocolate cake, specifically. The darker, the better.
no subject
Now, what the fuck is chocolate? His jaw ticks off to one side. The word cake is identifiable, certainly, though what he has in mind when he thinks of it is drastically different to the manner in which it's evolved over the centuries. Flint has no tolerance for sugar, and the fact that everything seems to be all but saturated in it has lead to his diet in Quarantine being rather sparse and mostly meat and vegetables. The size of a modern chicken is damn near startling by comparison. Bread, however, and all associated forms of it have proven too far outside his realm of taste for him to even attempt it now.]
Whiskey. Generally.
no subject
[ Michael has a complicated relationship with hard liquor. Drinking makes the noise go away. Dulls the sharp edges. Turns down the lights. After a couple shots of tequila, the world becomes a softer, kinder place, where he isn't under constant sensory assault.
After watching his brother lose himself at the bottom of a bottle, Michael isn't about to make the same mistake.
He picks his way across the room to the refreshment table, sliding between the dancing couples with a casual, effortless grace. A byproduct of constant, tireless awareness. Michael doesn't wait for James to survey the refreshments. There's a lot to look at, and it's been a while since he's had the luxury of picking his next meal, never mind taken the time to actually taste it.
He loads up on a couple tarts, some chocolate covered pretzels, and of course, the biggest slice of cake at the table. He's long past being ashamed. ]
No whiskey, but there's punch.
no subject
He has the grace, certainly, to slip through the crowds, to seamlessly enmesh elegance with courtesy and leave still waters in his wake, but he doesn't. People melt out of his way. His walk is not, strictly speaking, a prowl, but darkness nips at his heels anyway. For all that he has troubled himself to set Flint aside, certain things forged to truth by absolute necessity cannot be sloughed off like some ruin of burnt skin.
No whiskey, and the punch is too sweet. He takes water instead, though he does eye the considerable amount of what he can only describe as candy that is piled high on his plate. How uncouth.]
I believe I'll refrain.
no subject
Then when you get out, when you're finally past the bars, and on your two feet, nothing is the same.
He closes his eyes, licks the filling away from his lips, and finishes the rest in a second bite. Michael doesn't want to believe prison changed him. In his mind, he'd never truly been a prisoner. Just a man doing the right thing in the wrong place.
Michael slips the other tart into his pocket. Quickly, discreetly, like the thief he won't admit to being. ]
My brother always said to 'get while the getting's good', Who knows how long this will last.