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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Her own grip is the same. Her hands are rough and calloused, more than a normal fifteen year old anyway. There's dirt and blood beneath her fingernails.]

Dunno. You don't really know me yet. Might change your mind later.

[I mean. She is the crazy weird forest hermit who's carrying a gun she was fully prepared to shoot you with. That's at least a little scary.]

[ She can turn a rifle on him and he wouldn't be extremely bothered. It would show. Somehow, he thinks that would impede any trust process more than anything she does.

If he did change his mind, she'd know. ]

You do have a gun, and I'm not armed. Stranger danger.

[ He smiles faintly. ]

Edited 2017-03-05 10:17 (UTC)

[David didn't look like he was armed either. It's hard, trying to learn how to trust her instincts again. But he gets a cockeyed little smile.]

What, your mom teach you that one?

She has a lot of good advice.

[ He will never shy away from admitting he takes it. ]

[Has. It warms her. Sure, he's an adult and all, way older than her (practically ancient but not yet 'was around for the dinosaurs' as Joel is) but she likes that, the present tense. Implies that she's still out there somewhere, and mothers are a matter of wonderment to Ellie. More people deserve to have them.]

Yeah. I bet.

[She tucks her hands back into her pockets, both of them now. Hand off the gun. Still on the knife.]

Well, you probably scared off all the game within a mile with the way you were stomping through the forest, so-- you were heading to the ruins?

I was.

[ He smiles more widely and adjusts his backpack, moving forward a few steps in the direction he wants to go in. ]

I'll be seeing you around?

[ After all, she's 'hunting'. ]

[Joel would let him walk away. Hell, Joel wouldn't be having this conversation. She can almost hear him cautioning her against it. Trusting this guy, a total stranger who's just as tall and dark as David was. It just makes her more defiant. He's not going to ruin every man she ever meets for her.

Maybe he can take care of himself, maybe he can't. Maybe he'll hurt her, maybe he won't. Who knows. But she's tired of all the death around her. She wants to build something better. She wants to be trusting. Maybe that means taking more risks. Her life isn't valuable anymore. There is no cure. She's just like everyone else - expendable. Weird, how that thought actually makes her feel better. Her dying doesn't fuck over humanity.]

You're the guy that's heading to a creepy abandoned city full of monsters completely unarmed. If you think I'm letting you go alone you're nuts. C'mon, lead the way.

[ She thinks of protecting him. Clark can't help it: he smiles a little. ]

I've been outdoors before, I'll manage.

You'll manage better with company.

[She's Firm on this. Now that she's decided it, put her mind to it, she's not going back.]

Besides, I've got tripwires set up all over the place. You really don't want to run into one of them.

[She's aware that just makes her sound more crazy, but. Well. It's true.]

All right.

[ Better that no one sees the outcome of that. It's no skin off his neck having her walk behind him. Clark can react faster than any attacker out here.

He heads straight, holding up errant fronds, clearing the undergrowth for her to walk more easily. ]

[She doesn't need him to clear the underbrush out of the way but it's... sweet, she figures. Like he thinks she needs it, or maybe that's something else his mom taught him. She puts up with it for now, but when they come to the first of her lines she skirts around in front of him and bends down to disarm it. There aren't really as many as she'd said, she's neither that reckless nor that wasteful with her resources, she just wanted to make sure she had a clear way to run if she encountered something she couldn't fight.

She winds the wire into a little spool and tucks the can of shrapnel into her backpack. She uses her body to block what she's doing. People don't like it when you point out you know how to make bombs with a bit of sugar.]

So where're you from?

[ He'd almost walked into it. If he were a betting man, of all the people here, Ellie would be the first person to find out the truth about him.

She's careful not to let him see, so he looks away. ]

Kansas. It's in the United States, on Earth.

[ No one left to mourn Krypton but him, and it's a place he knows only pieces about. If Jor-El's AI had survived the attack, and the Kryptonian ship had been his instead of being confiscated by the government and given to LexCorp, he might have something more to say on the subject. ]

[With faint exasperation,]

I know what Kansas is.

[She falls back into step behind him. Quiet for a moment. Then,]

What year is it?

[ Teenagers. ]

2013.

[She doesn't stumble. Stumbling gets you dead if you aren't careful, but her foot comes down heavier than she'd meant it to. Something snaps beneath her shoe. 2013. That's--

-- Shit. No way of knowing whether he's from her world or not. If the Infection is coming. If it's already happening in pockets across the US. She rubs at her arm over the sleeve where the bite suddenly itches beneath it.]

What day?

[Fuck. September, right? That late? She knows it was fall, must have dozed off during a dozen droning lessons, but she's pretty sure it was fall, because most of the casualties happened that first winter. People starved or froze because they had no idea how to survive in a world where everything wasn't automated and processed, and civilization all but fell apart until the zones were established. She should have paid more attention to history.]

[ She doesn't stumble. The press of her foot is notably different. Stopping to look at her might say he noticed. He doesn't want to freak her out. Clark keeps walking. ]

It's almost fall. Why do you ask?

[Why should it fall to her to ruin somebody's day? Sorry, pal, everyone you loved might be dead in a few weeks. Sorry, your world turns to shit. Sorry, it's rough but hey, at least no one dies of old age anymore.

She doesn't want to put that on anyone's shoulders. It might not even happen. There's no saying it will. Even if it were, and she could tell him now, what difference does he make? How many lives could he save?

How many.

Her fingers close over the bite, she squeezes the skin bloodless. Does she get decide that her desire not to be pitied, or looked down on, or coddled is greater than letting someone save their family? She takes a breath.]

Look, it's. It might not even happen, okay? But in my world... where I'm from, let's just say 2013 was kinda a bad year. For everybody. Starting sometime in September.

[ She recognised Kansas, and by extension the United States. The man going by Simon had been from 2015, New York. They have the same wariness, but willingness to help when things got bad. They might be from the same place. She hasn't volunteered where she's from.

A lot can happen in two years. Humanity was almost wiped out by the last survivors of Krypton in under a few hours. ]

Can I ask what happened?

[Her default reaction is to be flippant about it. Gallows humour, again. But doing that doesn't exactly underscore how serious she is when she's talking to a stranger that wasn't there, hasn't lived it. Doesn't understand that humour is one of precious few ways to cope. She takes a deep breath like she's about ready to carve out some part of herself.]

Plague. Turns people into-- [what's the pop culture word? She knows she's read it somewhere. Zombles?] -- something kinda like zombies I guess.

[She says it firmly. Matter of fact. She hopes that it's a tone that says I don't want your pity.]

[ Clark looks back at her, nodding to acknowledge the truth of her words. Earth has met aliens. Zombies aren't that far apart, honestly. ]

Do you know where and how it started? How much time we might have?

[She doesn't know whether to feel sick or relieved that he seems to believe her. She was expecting to be told she's just a kid. That it could never happen.

She eases her fingers away from her sleeve.]

Plague isn't really the right word. It's... more like a fungal infection. Cordyceps. I think it came from tainted food or something. From somewhere in South America.

[She never really cared about learning the nitty gritty.]

[ They could have been told that to keep the real source quiet. LexCorp, Star Labs, Wayne R&D? Clark tallies it. ]

Thank you for warning me.

( I hope you app! I love her )

Yeah, it's-- yeah. No problem. I mean... it might not even happen. I know how all this multiverse stuff works.

[She's still a bit shaken at being so easily believed, so she just sort of ducks her head and focuses on softening her already silent steps behind him.]

(ooc; awh, thank you! i fell asleep mid-tag last night but i did manage to slide my app in and it was accepted this morning so if you would like to make this canon we totally can? c:)

[ She doesn't seem the type to be dishonest on purpose. Losing her world, and trying to make sure he doesn't lose the one he has left. It's a very deep wound, and he knows how it feels on one's shoulders.

No point dwelling, so he keeps walking, now in complete silence. ]

( yes, I'd love to c: )

[It's comfortable. Ellie's learned to wear silence like a second skin.

But eventually her curiosity makes itself known and as she's stepping over a fallen log,]

What's it like? Kansas. In 2013.

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