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quaranmeme2017-06-19 09:05 pm
riverview: june test drive meme
riverview test drive memeWelcome to Riverview's 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 July 1st.
● Providing all parties are amenable, threads on the test drive meme can count as game canon, as the plot in the prompts presented is game canon.
● TDM threads do not count for Activity Check, but they do count for Activity Bonus Points, so long as all characters involved are accepted into the game.
● Threading on the TDM is intended for prospective new characters, so top-levels should only be posted by players of these characters. Since the events in the TDM are considered game canon, characters currently in the game are free to use the TDM prompts for logs and posts on the regular communities.
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
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Whether you've just arrived in the city or you've been here a while, and you have a sensitivity to the spiritual, magical, multidimensional, or anything else outside the realm of everyday normal, you've probably noticed a distinct uptick in weird feelings, strange nightmares, or daymares - hallucinations of scary things that are lurking just behind you.
You're not the only one who's noticed it.
There are rumors going around that the psychological and spiritual disturbances are due to the emergence or re-emergence of a deity. Some people say that it's something new that's come through the portal with the sharp increase in new arrivals recently, and others say it's simply an ancient spiritual presence or some ancient incorporeal monster that's been somehow awakened. Gramarye, the top-tier magic research center in Riverview Quarantine, has been studying anyone who's felt this presence, and have recently confirmed that whatever it is, it's being fed by all the extra energies and prayers and thoughts as the city's population increases. The one thing everyone agrees on is that, if the expanding community is feeding the entity, then the entity has got to go! Teams are being assembled across the city to travel into the Abandoned City or the forests outside the walls and look for anything like an abandoned temple that can be destroyed or that contains a relic that can be broken or pacified by a ritual. You're looking for something that will solve the problem, or for other evidence of a way to solve it. The mission might be dangerous, though - there are the usual dangers of venturing out into the wilds, but this time, characters may also face booby traps, spectral or physical guardians, and if the entity itself gets awoken? Someone will have to kill it.
The mission is open to multiple teams, multiple deities can be named (both made up or from characters' various canons), and there can be multiple outcomes. If you complete the mission in a TDM thread, and all characters involved are apped and accepted, you can submit the completed mission thread to the exploration page once you are in the game!
The problems the city is having this month are not just ethereal - there's something a little more scientific stirring up trouble. Recently, a large research company in the Quarantine has been trying to develop a monster repellent to provide to explorers who are traveling outside the walls, in hopes of protecting them from attacks. Unfortunately, the containment unit used to store the repellent - which is still in its experimental stages, not even yet tested on animals, let alone people - completely failed, leaking the experimental repellent into the environment around the facility. This facility is close enough to the wall that the repellent has permeated the groundwater and soil in the area and leeched underneath the fences.
Even more unfortunately, the repellent seems to currently have an almost opposite effect on monsters than its intended purpose. It's attracted the attention of a large colony of carnivorous plants that has thrived just outside the wall for decades, living by attacking fellow monsters that are dumb enough to try the fence in that area. Now, instead of going for other monsters, the plants are drawn to the failed repellent and are climbing the walls in search of the source, craving more of it. Residents have been asked to both help clean up the tainted soil by the wall and to fight the carnivorous plants in that area.
The carnivorous plants are in the form of vines ranging from the thickness of a pinkie finger to nearly half a foot thick, that grow incredibly fast, writhing together to form thicker tendrils. The leaves are about a foot wide at their largest and have stingers around the edge that cause a painful rash, and the flowers are large and red or orange, capable of spitting thick globs of acid that can cause burns ranging from very serious (red) to moderate or mild (orange or yellow-orange). They can be defeated especially well with fire, extremely strong pesticides, and edged weapons - vines do not grow back once they've been cut.
The carnivorous plants aren't the only ones feeling the effects of the spilled experimental repellent. Recently, an intrepid team went on a mission after hearing rumors of a type of monster outside the walls that might be able to be tamed and used as valiant steeds. The team was successful and the possible steeds, which turned out to be Chocobos!
So far, the Chocobos have been comfortably in training, learning how to wear saddles and carry people, but once they get a whiff of the repellent in the air, or gotten a taste of it in their water, they kind of go a little off the wall. Or, over the fence, as the case may be. Highly energized and unwilling to listen, Chocobos who have been exposed to the repellent will get free of their pens and start stampeding around the city. Citizens, it's time to team up to tame the wild Chocobos! Let the wark games begin!
The local wildlife aren't the only ones affected by the experimental repellent spill. While at first they didn't think it had any effect on sentients, they're having to start reevaluating that particular theory, because residents are definitely feeling it. Whether they're inhaling it in a gust of wind that smells disturbingly of ozone, or sipping a glass filled from a tap in the area of the spill and tasting something like chlorine, it's getting into residents' systems.
Once ingested or inhaled, the repellent can have two effects on an affected character: an overaffectionate mood, or an anti-social mood. The effects can vary in type, swinging from affectionate to cranky and back again at the drop of a hat, and they can also vary in intensity and manifestation - it all depends on body chemistry, both within an affected character, and in the interactions between two characters. So whether or not your characters liked or disliked each other beforehand, maybe their chemistries are very compatible or not compatible at all, and feelings might be a little...out of the ordinary.
Affectionate moods can range anywhere from a casual 'I love you man' to romantic or even carnal ideation; anti-social ones can range from being nervous around crowds or other people to being outright aggressive with other people. The repellent does not remove inhibitions and characters are able to control themselves. Emotions might be heightened, but these effects should not be used to facilitate things that would normally be completely out of character. Please put content warnings in subject lines.
Whether your character is posting up a silly word game to distract people from the dangerous mission going on, trying to get hold of a friend, or putting out feelers for people to go out into the fray with, the network is going strong.
Alternately, an offer for a free app is popping up on new arrivals' devices - Friendr is a friend-finder and/or dating app. If characters choose to install it, they will fill out a short bio and parameters for what they're looking for, upload a snap of themselves, and then proceed to browse for matches. This is a typical swipe-left-or-right type app.
Friendr base code is by photosynthesis.
The code in the textbox is for the default color scheme, but the Friendr app has a wide variety of themes, so feel free to customize with colors and patterns as you see fit, but do not remove the credit line out of respect for the creator of the code.
Choose your own adventure and do something else in the setting!
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Slayer.
[Simply stated, a formal greeting as he sat himself down across from her. The waitress came over and slid a beer and whiskey in front of him before setting an ashtray in the center of the table. She looked expectantly at Buffy.]
Oh, I'm sure the Slayer here would like something frufru. Likely served in a pineapple.
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She looks much the same as he probably remembers too. Her usual white shirt, jeans, boots, blonde hair neatly styled. But she's older now, and her expression shows a deepset weariness, if he cares to notice. ]
Bourbon, please. Not in a pineapple. [ It's said with a small, polite smile to the waitress before turning her attention to the vampire across from her. ] Come here a lot?
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[A sip of his whiskey before he leaned back in his chair, butting out his smoke and watching her. She was the same, but different. She wasn't looking at him like he was used to. Like he was that bit of something nasty she couldn't get off her boot.]
You know how this place works, yeah? Nabs you from wherever you are if you feel out of sorts. Like you don't belong. The locals all think you're coming here voluntarily. I hear there's a fuss if there's a mistake.
[Spike didn't sound like he was of the fussing variety at the moment. He might not have signed up to be here, but here wasn't so bad. Synthetic blood, real blood, people that knew what he was and didn't come after him with that righteous indignation that he dared to be. Here wasn't so bad. Until now.]
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[ She just nodded, because it made sense, of course. He'd been a vampire who couldn't hurt humans. It was the most out of sorts you could get in their world. Her drink arrived and she gave the waitress another smile before taking a sip and letting the alcohol burn down her throat. ]
It wasn't a mistake for me.
[ Would he even care? She was trying to simply make conversation, almost like how she would with the Scoobies, but something in the looks he was giving her made her think he really was expecting her to suddenly attack him out of nowhere. ]
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And then she'd showed up. Giving him a look like he was supposed to feel sorry for her. Her and her perfect human life with her stupid soldier boy and friends... God, he hated the lot of them. Her especially.
There was a reason for that, one he'd been on the cusp of figuring out, but that pesky portal had put that on hold. For now.]
Buffy, feeling out of sorts? Oh, perish the thought. What the bloody hell do you have to feel lost over?
[He didn't know. Didn't know about Joyce, who he'd actually liked. Didn't know about them, which was going to take a bit to deal with. And yes, he was expecting her to kick his chair out from the table and try to end him then and there.]
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She crushed the automatic retort that rose in her throat, the old habit to give as good as she got with him not one she wanted to fall back into. She kept her voice calm, steady, just wanting to talk with him because... who else did she have? ]
There's a lot you don't know about, that happened after you... left, I guess? [ How did that work, exactly? If he was from before her, but she remembered him from after that point. She'd have to ask someone. ] I don't know how it works, but for me it's been years since what you remember, and a lot's changed, Spike.
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[He looked down at his whiskey, thinking of the fact that she was telling him something contrary to what he knew. The liquid was swallowed, the glass set down, and the beer picked up instead. He was feeling uncomfortably nervous for some reason, fidgeting and picking out his pack from his pocket to set on his table with his lighter.]
Guess I went back if time moved on. So, go on then. Tell me how you killed me. Get your jollies off doing it?
...
It was you, wasn't it? Don't tell me I got dusted by one of the Scoobies. I can't live that down.
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There wasn't any point in lying to him. There are some things she'd rather he not know, but if he asked, she'd tell him. She just hoped that he didn't use any of this against her, because it would be clear if he paid attention that this wasn't an easy thing for her to talk about. His death still hurt, even with him sitting right in front of her. ]
I didn't kill you, Spike. I didn't want you to die. You-- [ She looked off to the side, her eyes finding the waitress for a moment, then a coffee pot, a plate left on the counter. Anything that wasn't him. ] You sacrificed yourself to save the world. You were a hero.
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[He was waiting for the laugh, for the kick of pointed shoes against his leg under the table. For that sneer to come on her face that he was so used to seeing her have, especially when he was talking. He kept waiting for the punchline and he finally took notice of the look that was on her face. Pain. Grief. Something he sure as bloody hell never though to see when she was talking to him. About him.]
You sure this wasn't some weird alternate dimension? Because that, Slayer, does not sound like me.
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No, I guess it doesn't. Not this you, anyway. But you did. If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't have survived.
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Are you crying? Are those tears? Over... me?
[Someone slap him with a fish in the face, because he had to be on some kind of reality show, didn't he? This couldn't be real.]
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You were a friend, Spike. A partner. You stood by me when no one else did. Losing you... It hurt.
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[Still, there was a part way deep down, way down there inside him that didn't like seeing her upset. Which sort of bothered him because he didn't care. Right? Grumbling, he reached for the pack he'd pulled out and lit a fresh cigarette, watching her suspiciously over the plume of smoke.]
Alright then, Slayer. Fill me in. How did I go from wanting to wring your neck to saving the bloody world, eh?
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[ How weird was it that she'd actually missed the smell of those cigarettes. It had been weeks since she'd had that smoke wrapped around her, and she'd miss it almost as much as the feeling of being wrapped in his arms. That wasn't something she was going to tell him, though. Nope. ]
But I guess if you want to go back to the beginning, it started when you started fighting with us instead of against us. When you figured out the chip didn't stop you from hurting demons.
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[Not that he'd admit he'd mucked that up a bit. The elation of finding out he hadn't been completely neutered had just been too much of a high to really process everything else going on.]
Fat lot of good that did me. Helping you lot gave me a black mark. You know what happens to a good vampire? They become a punching bag for everything else.
Or they wind up in LA pretending they're more important than they are.
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You did complain about that for a while. But you helped keep Dawn safe, and my mom, and that made me trust you. Sort of. That much, at least.
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[That sounded too... nice. Blowing out a stream of smoke, he leaned back and took a sip of beer.]
I'd still eat both of them in a heartbeat.
[There. He was still the big bad, after all.]
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My mom died two years ago.
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[He didn't say sorry, but the fact that he didn't press it, didn't make another quip about it was an apology in its own way. He took another drag, eyes dropping away from hers as he fiddled with the peeling edge of the label on his beer bottle.]
I hope it was quick.
[That was the best sort of death he could wish on someone. Something quick, painless, something that let them drift off to sleep quietly. And he had liked Joyce. Vampire or not, she'd always been weirdly nice to him.]
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It was a brain aneurysm. They said she probably didn't feel any pain.
[ Two years and it still hurt just as much as it had then. She still missed her mother more than she'd missed anything or anyone. She watched Spike's fingers as they worked at the bottle's label, and took another sip of her drink. ]
I was the one who found her. I had to pick up Dawn at school; she didn't believe me when I told her. [ A deep breath, because it was time to move on with the story. ] A few months later, I died too.
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He found a little smile tugging at the corner of his mouth before he noticed it, clearing his throat and taking another drag. Then she went and said that and he felt a nudge. A trigger of a memory from the last week or so of missing time he'd had here. 'She's dead. Buffy's dead', and the accompanying pain from that.
Why the hell would her being dead hurt? He hated her.
Didn't he?]
Guess it didn't stick the second time either. Maybe you're part cat. You. Angel. Death doesn't seem to be as permanent as it used to be.
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She shifted uncomfortably in her seat at his words, that old pain rising up to the surface. The betrayal she'd felt then was overshadowed by the much more recent indiscretion by her friends, but she still remembered it.
Heaven. ]
It was supposed to be. I was gone for months. At peace. For one hundred and forty-seven days. [ There was a tiny smile then, directed at him with a fondness she knew he wouldn't understand. ] You kept count. And you looked after Dawn while I was gone. I've always been grateful for that.
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That's what he did, after all. Right?
...
Right?]
How the bloody hell did you wind up in Heaven and then b-- no, wait, better questions; why was I watching the little bit and why did I give a damn how many days you'd been gone? You didn't go try to get your mum back, did you?
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No, I didn't. [ Simply said, because she didn't have the energy to be offended at the question. The next part was in the same tone, a statement of facts that he could take or leave. ] You were watching Dawn and counting the days because you were in love with me.
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I was what? Don't tell me the witch did another spell...
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