riverviewooc | riverview: test drive meme

Entry tags:

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

Nor would I expect you to.

[Silence holds as much answer as anything. The way someone moves. If they favour an old injury. Who their eyes flick to in a crisis. Words are not the only way to give something up.]

What is it exactly you do in your time that gives you a favourable impression of a career in piracy?

[She could easily counter at this point that he's hardly been forthcoming about what he does in his point in time, though he's said enough to make her feel comfortable making a guess. Still, the answer is one that she feels comfortable giving. It's only the phrasing that she takes care with, knowing it would be a lot for him to take in if she were to answer bluntly and in depth.]

Before I arrived here I was part of a team of people tasked with protecting the people of Earth against extraordinary threats, regardless of political borders.

[He can take it to mean that she's no longer part of the team since arriving here, taken away from Earth as she is, but the team has splintered, and Wanda knows that when she returns she'll be held against her will.

She flashes him a quick smile.]

I doubt any of them would support a career change.

[Clint might joke with her about it at least, knowing she'd never seriously make such a drastic shift.]

[Such a thing is unfathomable in his time. He takes his time to mull her words over, trying to discern some sense in the saying of them. Piracy operates beyond political borders, to be sure, but they are not 'tasked' with the antagonistic relationship they have with the nations of Britain, Spain and the Orient.

He rubs his fingers idly against his beard. A reflexive gesture, thoughtful without being gauche about it.]

I think the hardest thing to swallow of all you've said of the future is that a woman would be permitted to do this uncontested. What you describe sounds like a military company.

[Understanding a little of the time that he's from and the view of women many men had, Wanda can't take offense at his response. Especially considering that he doesn't seem to find the notion distasteful so much as...remarkable, perhaps? If he had scoffed at the notion of her talking about becoming a pirate based on her gender, she might not have told him at all, but their conversation gave her cause to trust she could be more or less honest with him without major repercussions.]

There are some among us who started as soldiers, and others who did not. All of us have a particular set of skills that makes us valuable to our operations. [She shrugs lightly.] And circumstances caused our paths to cross. I would not have been recruited if the situation had been different. One of the founding members is female, however, and many of our allies, intelligent and educated people from a variety of backgrounds and professions, are as as well. None of whom would have accepted discrimination based on their gender.

[There is a sharp, visceral moment of wondering at what Miranda could have become in a world like that. She did not have a pirate's heart, but would that she have accrued any power for herself in other avenues, she would have been fucking formidable. The speech she gave their Judas proved it, and he'd never seen that side of her before. The one that mirrored his own dark heart. She'd hidden it, as society dictated. He mistook her quiet for complacency too many times. If only he'd known.

He drops his hands, and rubs at the knuckles of his right hand like a man massaging an old wound.]

Sound progress. I'm glad to have heard it made.

[And there it is again. That sense that she's somehow touched upon something that means far more to him than he's letting on. Is it his body language that gives her that sense or is she picking up something more? The temptation to delve into his mind and riffle through his memories is strong, but she finds that she enjoys his company enough to not want to betray what fragile trust there may be between initial acquaintances. Oh, and of course she can't forget the ethics involved as well, but it says something about her character as well that the primary reason she doesn't invade his privacy is first because of her regard for him.]

I think you'll find you can experience it first hand in this reality. There seems to be similar equality enjoyed here as well. For instance, I've heard the head of the perimeter guard is a woman.

There was a woman in charge of commerce in Nassau for a great many years. From the time she was a girl. It's not unheard of, but it is-- unorthodox.

[And Eleanor was a special case in many respects. If she'd been a man, Flint may have had to kill her outright. She was damn dangerous enough as she was.]

[It doesn't surprise her to hear this, it falls in line with what she knows of his time.]

I've heard there were several notable female pirates as well. Someone once told me there was a woman in China in the 1700's who was quite formidable...and there was another, I'm not sure if she was after your time or not. Does the name Anne Bonny sound familiar to you?

[Not that Wanda knows much about Anne Bonny but for female pirates she's quite famous. A name that's more familiar to Wanda than the woman's history.]

[Odd to think of the names of he and all his ilk as something consigned to history. Time is inexorable, and he's never been one of those proud men who thinks himself invincible. Flint has always known he'd die at the point of a sword, or a hangman's noose. And yet.

Anne. He makes a soft, faint little heh.]

You're still trying to discern whether or not I'm a pirate, then?

[Her tenacity is charming. He finds himself not especially minding her careful line of inquiry. She's not an especially skilled manipulator, but she's subtle about it, which is an intricacy of the craft most lack at the outset of their attempt.]

[In all honesty she'd been sincerely attempting to try and remember whether Anne Bonny was from before, during, or after his time. Like so many others she tends to think of time in periods of ten, twenty-five, or even fifty years. The early 1700's. The late 1700's. So on and so forth.

But perhaps, subconsciously, she's also been trying to make her questions have double purpose. To acquire the answers as they are and use his knowledge or ignorance as puzzle pieces to give her a better picture of the man standing next to her. Wanda cracks a smile.]

Actually I feel certain that I already know. I think what I'm trying to see is if I can get you to admit it one way or the other.

[Since he's proving to be especially wily.]

Mm. Then my duty henceforth lies solely in keeping you guessing.

[He pushes himself away from the pillar, and gives her a short, courtly bow.]

Another dance, miss?

[She laughs at once, entertained by the twists and turns of their interaction and the fact that he won't give in easily. Better still, it feels good to laugh. There aren't many things that have prompted a reaction like that since Pietro's death.]

I'd love one.

[She makes another passable attempt at a curtsy and steps forward to join him, more readily than their first dance. Expression alight with mirth, she finds herself far more focused on continuing their conversation than worrying about how well she dances. He's already proven himself capable of making up for any of her missteps.]

If you intend to keep me guessing perhaps you ought to tell me something of the other side of the coin. There are quite a few established cities and farms in the Caribbean in your time, aren't there? Law-abiding people who oppose piracy?

In the Caribbean and in the southern Americas, yes. Nueva España. Piracy is a scourge upon law-abiding colonists, to be certain.

[Havana, Cartagena, Kingston. Port Royal never truly recovered from the earthquake that shook her foundations to the core, and as such it's skeletal remains have largely succumbed to piracy, but 'civilization', as Rogers would put it, persists in bleak places.]

Nueva España.

[She repeats after him, rolling the name around on her tongue as he pulls them into another dance.]

Do the colonists stand by their decision to resettle their lives in the Caribbean and southern Americas, or regret it in light of the piracy they're forced to deal with?

Mm. Only the rich came to the New World expecting it would be easy. Piracy is an inevitable part of life for settlers. And for the most part, those that raise no arms against the pirates are left unharmed by them.

[He does not delude himself by thinking it steeped in nobility. He razed the Carolinas personally, torch in hand. Innocents died beneath his boot. That it was retaliation made no difference. He lives with it.

But the truth is, civilians are more likely to be sympathetic to a lawless, Godless man than to the governors that squeeze the lifeblood from their purses and call it taxation. Fat merchants, wealthy landowners suffer more for piracy than a peasant. If that were to ever change such that every farmer became keen on taking up arms against them, piracy would come to a swifter end than most know and understand. Men will risk their lives for money, but they will not stand as steadfast as someone fighting for their life. Common folk are rarely more than one workday away from starvation.]

So among the colonists and pirates, at least, there's something of an understanding between them.

[Perhaps not a rule book they both adhere to, but unspoken agreements. Because if what he says is correct, most pirates were all men driven to the lifestyle by the wealthy. They'd have no reason to unduly harm the very people who labor for the rich.]

Between all of the laboring and piracy, can I ask where it was you learned to dance?

[His hands are too rough that he could describe himself believably as any manner of high-class man. It's a miracle he has no blood or dirt beneath his nails even now.]

London.

[Miranda. He'd had no cause for it as a social nicety or lubricant. But she and Thomas both loved it, and he learned because he loved them. He always thought of it as frivolous, though it helped improve his adroitness in combat a considerable amount.]

[London. An answer, but certainly nothing he seems willing to expand upon. Nodding, accepts it at face value. It falls in line with what she believes she knows about him, at least distantly, though it hardly confirms her current theory.

If anything, the fact that he doesn't say more makes her wonder just who did teach him, and in what circumstances. He's a man who once danced in London and now lives in Nassau among pirates. Those rough hands speak of harder work than he likely had in London.]

You dance well. [For whatever it's worth.] I haven't had as easy a time of it with other partners earlier today. Is there a secret to your skill or did it just come from practice?

[He doesn't think her the sort to needle someone out of malcontent. It does not call his defenses to arms, but he is still endlessly wary of questions. So he spins her gently away from him and follows the instructor's suit to pull her back in. He keeps a greater distance between them - dance instruction does not trump eighteenth century propriety - and is mindful of where he puts his hands to a greater extent than some men might be.]

I had excellent teachers.

[It's a neutral answer, but if she cares to pay attention there's an old ache beneath the words, born of searing sentiment. He does not speak needlessly of Thomas and Miranda. They are both secrets he's kept for different reasons. Thomas-- because discussing him was too raw a matter, and Miranda because Mrs. Barlow and Mrs. Hamilton were two separate entities, as Flint and McGraw became. But in this place, where so much is unknown to him, where this woman's grasp of history extends to knowing vaguely of an Anne Bonny, there seems to harm in this mild reference. After all, he has given her no reason to believe its veracity.]

[It's a neutral answer he gives her, yes, but it's also a short one. She believes that she's treading carefully enough around a man not given to open up easily, a quality she she appreciates as she's not the sort to do so herself. However despite her efforts she seems to have ventured somewhere that isn't safe territory after all. As Flint spins her out, she finds herself looking at the half-finished glass of rakia, wondering if she might have been better off finishing it.

She twirls back in again with ease, but the conversation feels as though it's faltering and Wanda's uncertainty regarding what topics may be safe to bring up leads her to remain quiet.

So instead she takes the opportunity to focus on the dancing, the placement of her feet and their hands, the way he moves them around the dance floor. If nothing else she'll come out of this encounter knowing how to dance better than she did before they met.]

[The silence is settling, and he's oddly grateful for it. He lets himself focus on the physicality instead. Dancing is so different than crossing blades with someone, and he hasn't done it in so long it's like exercising a muscle long dormant. Walking again after a long period of convalescence.

At the conclusion of this set, with the music winding down in the background he gives her another courtly bow as he steps away.]

Thank you for the evening, Wanda. That was-- ['lovely' is too strong a word, but his mouth quirks up at the corner as he settles finally on,] engrossing.

[It seems that she made the right choice, not pressing to continue the conversation. Wanda wouldn't say the silence was uncomfortable, but she found herself all too aware of it as they danced.

As such, she's not surprised when he steps away and speaks only to say goodbye. Returning his last bow with another curtsy, perhaps more careful than the last, she nods.] Yes, it was. Thank you for the dances, James. Enjoy the rest of your evening.

[With only one last speculative look, she turns away and exits the dance floor, and after a moment's consideration, the room.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

riverview: test drive meme

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject