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

[He has been so careful with what he's allowed people to know of him, only to have it dashed in an instant by one who looks a ghost to his stillborn heart. He could say it was a woman's witchery that prised it out of him, but the truth is more dangerous yet: he told her freely.

He focuses on the instructor. A moment of calm. Days ago by his reckoning, Silver asked him about Thomas, and he had no answer.

In a lighter tone,]

I've heard that cars trump horses quite remarkably well.

[Their initial interaction had seemed so promising and in an instant she could feel the tension practically rolling off of him. Not through her powers, not through any boosted perception from experimentation. Just through normal, human observation.

He moves on, and Wanda can't say that she's surprised, and neither does she push the subject. As she lets him lead their dance, she also lets him lead their conversation onward.]

In some ways, yes. But it depends on what criteria they're being judged by. For speed, yes. I might say stamina if they were living creatures but they're not. They corner well enough as well, depending on who's made it. But horses have their own place still, and cars don't have the warmth and personality, or sense of companionship a horse would. [A small smile tugs at the corner of her lips.] And cars can't jump over obstacles or think for themselves.

[Thank god. Wanda's had her fill of artificial intelligence.]

[His tone is dry as tinder, undercut by wry amusement,]

Someone's never been bitten by a horse.

[But the insight she offered was graciously given. He won't thank her for it, but it's appreciated all the same.]

[She laughs at once, hand briefly squeezing his as she misses a step.]

No, I haven't, and I'm fine with that. You prefer ships as a mode of transportation, I assume?

[He hasn't said that he's a pirate but again, she's assuming that it's more likely than not that he is if he counts Nassau as a home.]

[He compensates for that missed step, sliding his foot backwards to offer her a little of his balance in turn. Dancing is not a difficult thing for a man who's spent half his life on a ship's deck. Storms or sunny weather, the ocean rolls.]

Personally, I find nothing clears the head like a good walk.

[He has always been a private man. He's given her enough of himself for now.]

[It seems whatever she's said to upset him is staying with him. No longer open, he doesn't take her question and expand upon it. Granted, Wanda's spoken little of herself so she can hardly fault him for it. Perhaps what's more impressive at the moment, however, is the way he accounts for her misstep so easily.]

It's true, there is something to be said for a good long walk. [For lack of transportation.] I enjoy them at night, when the city is quieter, stiller. My brother and I used to walk everywhere in Sokovia.

[Though that was for lack of their own car, and before Pietro died and Novi Grad was destroyed. She never thought she'd ever consider those years simpler, sweeter times.]

[He doesn't recognize the name, yet she knows Nassau. The face of the world has changed. The name sounds Muscovy, almost. Could be the same region. Could be a colony somewhere, he supposes. The New World will be the fiefdom of whoever has power enough to take her.

Perhaps what surprises him the most is that there is a place that exists where a woman can walk at night unnaccosted. A brother's company is no deterrent for those that would do her harm. He barely trusted London's wealthiest avenues - with good reason, as it turned out. As cities go, she had as much mind of her own as Nassau. The nature of men and women is immutable. There will always be theft, betrayal. No culture is devoid of it, no family free of it. Love and loyalty grant no immunity to dark impulse.

He doubts the future is some quiescent, gentle thing. After all, used to.]

I confess, I've not heard of Sokovia.

[Her eyes flick in his direction, clearly surprised to hear that. Sokovia may not be as well known as some other countries, simply a small part of the Soviet Bloc and considered more of a place that people travel through to get to bigger, better places, but it's still known. She's certain that it existed well past his time. Brows drawing together, she wets her lips with the tip of her tongue.]

That surprises me. [Perhaps it's the way he speaks in a way that in her time might seem more formal, but he seems like an intelligent man. At least in his eyes, and she suspects he might be well-educated.] It's between Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

[Wanda hates to reduce her country to a simple location, especially in light of how many regard it, but to wax poetic about it to a stranger as they dance seems like too much, uninvited. It's difficult not to think of Novi Grad as it once was, however, a city of history rotting and wearing away in time. A city of people working to survive day to day, to build their lives in a city whose richest aspects were its communities of people. Those brought together through shared experiences and surviving war after war.]

[The dance concludes, and he steps away from her in a fluid motion, gives her a short bow. The face of the known world has changed, but he regards it with curiosity rather than dislike or anything approaching fear. Information is power, and anything he now gleans of what the future of his world holds is an edge he has on anyone who might seek to stand against him.

He gestures her towards a long, low table in the back of the hall where refreshments are being served. Dancing results in thirsty people in every century, it seems.]

You know Nassau, so we're clearly from similar - if divergent - worlds. If I were to hazard a guess, these places are in eastern Europe?

[Wanda manages a small, shallow curtsy in response to his bow, deciding that even if she does it poorly she'll at least have tried the same as she did the dance. She half expects him to part ways now, having shared in small talk and little else, but instead he draws her attention to the refreshment table. She nods in acceptance of the wordless invitation, and joins him off to the side of the table.

She grabs a glass and the pitcher of water, before holding it up, offering it to him if he'd like the first glass.]

Yes, eastern Europe. South-west of Poland, if that helps at all. [They could look at a map later, if he'd like.] I'm used to some people from outside of Europe not being as familiar with it, but to think that it might not even exist in some realities is unsettling.

[Whether it's more or less unsettling than seeing it destroyed before her eyes is up for debate.]

Perhaps as much as hearing your Nassau called a former pirate haven. I'm sorry.

[The manners of his day would dictate the woman goes first in all polite settings, but she's offering and so he accepts and pours himself a glass. It's so startlingly crystal clear and cold, it's not something he's yet come around to. Water is not a favourite drink of pirates. A ship's stores of it were soon depleted, and were often foul besides. Beer and rum kept better on long journeys, and was less likely to kill you if some creature fell in and was pickled.

He rubs the rim of his glass, and takes a measured drink.]

Why would that merit an apology? Pirates are a rather unsavory, lawless lot. Most would be glad to be rid of them.

[He raises the glass in a slight gesture of cheers.]

And I do happen to know where Poland is, so I'm spared the further indignity of my ignorance.

[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.]

[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.

[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.

[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.]

[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.]

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