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

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.

I'm from a small town. Everyone knows everyone else, works hard, and pulls together.

[ Smallville had been his next stop after Metropolis. The community had already raised two-thirds of the money to rebuild. A little help from Superman didn't hurt.

He pauses to brush away the last few fronds, so she can stand next to him and look over the city. ]

It's not a place people stop in if they were heading somewhere else.

[The thing is, all of that could just as easily apply to Boston. Small zone, everybody knows everybody. They work hard because there's no choice, it's that or you starve.

But there's something soft about how he says it. Boston was her city but it was never her home. She never had one of those, not any physical place. It was something she could grasp at when she was with Riley, and later with Joel. But this... this is more like listening to Henry talk about Harleys.

She steps up beside him and glances out across the ruins as the dying light withdraws its burnt fingers like a living thing being dragged away. She shivers.]

It sounds nice. I'd've stopped there.

[ He smiles down at her. She'd be welcome at his house. His mother has a soft spot for strays. ]

I have a shelter just over there, and it has enough space for two. You can stay if you like.

[She shrugs.]

Sure. I'll shoot you if you pull any bullshit, though. Just fair warning.

[She's not one to hesitate. Not ever again.]

[ Clark smiles and nods.

The shelter itself can hold off wind and rain, has a narrow entrance. Inside it's wide enough for a fire. It's cosy inside, and Clark takes his spot closest to the forest, as their first line of defence. Ellie has clear shots from her end.

Clark's had time to scrounge up blankets to make it seem homelier. He busies himself with a stack of firewood. ]

So where are you from, Ellie? Do you know the year?

[She tucks herself into a corner with her back to cold stone and watches as he starts a fire. It doesn't even occur to her that it might be strange that he knows how. Some life skills are just... necessary, to her. Knowing how to hunt, to trap, to kill. She can rationalize a time when they weren't integral to survivor but she can't really imagine it.

She sets her rifle beside her, careful not to point it an anything but the ground or the sky, and draws up her knees.]

I'm kinda from all over. [Boston doesn't own any piece of her heart, but that doesn't mean she wants to talk about it to a near stranger.] And it's June, 2034.

[ She's twenty years ahead, a world paralysed by this plague she's mentioned. This place must be like an alien planet, another feeling he's familiar with.

Once a fire's going, Clark takes out some homemade skewers, and a bowl they can use to heat the soup in his backpack. He spreads it out between them. ]

Here, help yourself. I have enough for a few days.

[She... has Issues taking food from other people, and she's not hungry enough that she really needs to eat. It's only been around ten hours since she had anything substantive but she's been snacking on and off throughout the day on some of the local edible flora.

She considers it. Then she tucks her hands into her hoodie pocket and comes out with a kerchief wrapped around some a decent amount of blueberries.]

You're planning on being out here that long by yourself? Do you hate people or something?

[ He smiles. ]

I grew up on a farm. The most I saw of other people were at school or when we went to town for supplies. I've moved to a big city, but I'm not that used to it. Sometimes, it's just nice to be somewhere quiet, don't you think?

[ Where there's only her and not an overwhelming number of sounds to keep track of. Clark lives two lives now, and he's seeing the lengths people are willing to go to when they want to know about Superman. It's not going to stop. ]

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