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quaranmeme2017-10-20 08:26 pm
riverview: october 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!
● There are currently 31 Character Slots available.
● Applications are open but the application and reserve cycle will resume with apps closing on November 7th.
● 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, and may continue while applicants are waiting on the queue (including spanning multiple TDMs).
● 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
premise ● arrival ● setting ● ask a question ● calendar ● navigation
Over the course of the past couple months, something has been changing in the Abandoned City, the part of the Quarantine that was abandoned over a decade ago after the great Epidemic that decimated the population of the sprawling city. It hasn't been independent or spontaneous either - Quarantine resident Ava Orlova has been practicing with her energy production powers outside the city in a way that has had some interesting side effects.
With burst after burst of glowing blue energy surging through a spur of one of the abandoned and neglected transit train lines, something has started stirring. The line was connected to a long-dormant hydro-electric power relay station located near on the river just before it connects to the waterfalls (see the crudely-drawn map here), and with all that power being pumped through the train line and ending up in the station, the backup generators have wheezed to life.
What does this mean for Quarantine residents?
Providing the station can be secured and brought back to full power, it means that the overall electrical grid in the city will be much more reliable, the fences will be more secure, and new methods to try to direct the portal to send mistaken arrivals home can be explored. Most importantly, the part of the Abandoned City surrounding the newly-activated power station will be much easier to tame and inhabit. The possibility of expansion is very important for the Quarantine - with new arrivals coming through the portal almost constantly, overpopulation has been a bit of a concern of late.
With all of this at stake, the Perimeter Guard and the Government of Riverview are teaming up to make sure that this new area gets explored, secured, and made useful in as short a time as possible. Anyone with even an inkling of desire to explore will see ads, fliers, or Perimeter Guard Cadets talking up the exploration mission out to the new power relay station. Head over to the Perimeter Guard Headquarters to receive a free package of exploration equipment courtesy of the Government of Riverview (complete with comfortable camouflage jumpsuit, tactical belts, and a lightweight pack with a survival kit including food, water, first aid, flares, and other similar supplies) and be issued a weapon to follow the train line out to the power station and ensure the route is safe.
It isn't just the route to the power station that needs to be cleared - with all the activity and the thrum of energy and light at the station, a swarm of interested monsters and creatures has come toward the area. The exploration team and any techs interested in helping to get the station fully operational will need protection, and the station itself will need to be cleared of all threats and secured so the engineers, electricians, and technical geniuses can safely work on establishing a power grid in the area.
Join in the fray, and back up your fellow explorers to get the area safe, secure, and able to be used!
Almost any type of monster is possible, including monsters featured in previous Test Drives, monsters that players make up on the fly, and even monsters from individual character canons that could have conceivably come through the portal. The fight, however, is totally worth it. Once this area is cleared out, there's going to be a lot more space to move around and a few interesting new locations...
During the 10th month of every year on the moon, due to a complex series of chemical, electromagnetic, and magical forces that no one has ever exactly distinguished or completely understands, the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead are weakened almost to the point of nonexistence. During this time, residents of the moon are able to see and interact with the dead - ghosts, manifesting in ways that run the gamut from being a strange sense of being watched or being visible or audible all the way to more corporeal spirits that can affect the world around them. The barriers are weaker in some parts of the city than they are in others, with some areas experiencing little to no ghost activity, while others are so populated with these ghosts that residents can barely go a few feet without running into one. The ghosts are generally the unsettled dead, people who died violently, or who were lost, seeking a place to call home, and their behavior is as varied as it was while they were alive. Some ghosts are angry and vengeful, some are simply lonely and lost.
While some people tend to interact with the ghosts only a little and as necessary, others avoid them as completely as possible, and yet others actively seek out souls who are suffering and try to ease that so they can stop coming back year after year. There are other people who have found that ghosts from their home worlds have come through with them, following them through the portal when they arrived, even if they did not die on the moon...
Whether facing death or making peace with those who have died, this is a time to reflect.
A Few OOC Guidelines:
● Characters may see or interact with ghosts from the Quarantine's past. These people will be as varied as the NPCs, from a multitude of different worlds, and characters are welcome to either engage or avoid, as players wish.
● Most Quarantine-based ghosts will have died in either the Great War with the neighboring reality or in the Pandemic that wiped out the population of the Abandoned City years ago.
● Characters may also see or interact with ghosts from their own or other characters' canons, providing the character in question is dead in canon and is not currently being played in the game.
● Canon-based ghosts should not be simply transplanted into the game as they were in canon - they are ghosts, and therefore 'not quite right,' and should not be used as an excuse to NPC a canonmate for a month. These ghosts are there to be used as plot devices to open up new avenues of CR, to create angst, to help a character make peace with their past, or other similar reasons.
● Ghosts should not be complete corporeal physical presences indistinguishable from living people, but barring this, how strongly the ghosts manifest and how much they can interact with the world around them is up to player discretion. Ghosts shouldn't be present the whole month straight, but can disappear and reappear at random times.
Since October 9th, the residents of the Quarantine have been having a stranger-than-usual experience that's been drawing them closer together (or pushing them apart). The machinery in control of the process that's used for canon updates has gone haywire and is releasing nanites that usually function to restructure characters' bodies to match the updated information. The nanites are doing something different, though - they're sharing memories between characters.
Memories can be shared in several forms:
● First Person: This is experiencing another person's memory as if it's your own, seeing through that person's eyes in all its detail. This option wouldn't clearly expose the identity of the person whose memory is being viewed unless the memory includes that information specifically.
● Dreamscape: Mostly happening during dreams or with shared flashes during the day, this is watching the memory as if it were a three-dimensional movie, during which you can meet and talk with the person whose memory is being viewed.
● Network: These are memories shared through the network by accident, either as audio/video uploads or text-based descriptions transcribed to the network. These would be posted with the ID of the person whose memory is being shared.
● It is up to individual player preference how much feelings can be used in the memory, but knowing the other character's thoughts is not permitted.
● All memories must be from your character's canonpoint or earlier.
Whether your character is accidentally sharing a memory, posting up a silly word game, 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.
Use the wildcard prompt to choose your own adventure and do whatever else you like in the setting!
Caleb Danvers / The Covenant
Caleb has noticed those from beyond the veil, as it were, wandering around and being either avoided or engaged with by the populace at large. He figures either this happens often or ghosts are such a part of the cosmology here that it doesn't matter if it's once a decade or once a week; ghosts are understood to exist here on this moon.
In a certain way, it's comforting. Kind of. To know that there's this "supernatural" side to life in this strange new place. It might mean that someday he doesn't have to hide that he's a witch. Won't have to hide what makes him himself. Doesn't mean he's about to rush into that reveal anytime soon, but if Chase is around...
Caleb sighs, moving past unfamiliar ghosts and giving each one a slight nod, the upturned corner of his lips. A nice, polite gesture of greeting, but nothing too involved. He walks with his hands in the pockets of his suit pants, jacket unbuttoned and tie lost to the transition of arrival. He ended up here because he felt lost and alone, he thinks with some guilt; if he'd just been grateful, happy over how things had resolved, instead of worrying about what was going to happen now that he'd apparently sent Chase some...where, in a portal of fire, now that his father had died, now that his mother probably wouldn't bother sticking around the mortal coil much longer, now that Sarah had almost been killed and exposed to magic, now that...
Now that...
Another sigh. It's concave thinking, spiraling down and into a nothingness that is too familiar to be comfortable. Instead he stops walking, scanning the ghosts and people for a familiar face.
He finds one, in a spectre of a man, face gaunt and hollow, aged appearance placing him at age 80, at the very least.
Caleb kneels down near the side of the chair the old man sits in, oxygen tubes rattling with each intake of breath.
"Hello, father."
v: friendr
» Seeking: friendships
» Preferences: open
» Interests: competitive swimming, U.S. history, astronomy
» Bio: I got here on my birthday, for whatever that says about me. I know a few things about a lot of subjects. Not a fan when people lie for fun.
vi. wildcard!
[ Come at me boos. ]
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And isn't that exactly what got her here in the first place?
She places her hands gently on either side of her face--and then smacks herself. "No. Stop. Bad."
A pause to get her bearings, and there's a familiar sight: Caleb. Caleb... and his dad. (The words "crusty," "gooey," and "nightmare," all insert themselves before the word dad, and Sarah feels promptly ashamed of herself.)
She hesitates, then: "Caleb?"
It shouldn't be comforting that he's here. It isn't comforting that he's here. But it is, but it isn't, but of course he's here, because every strange thing in her life seems to have Caleb at its center.
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Here. On a strange moon, in a strange reality, an impossible distance away from anything familiar. William Danvers III is now a ghost, literally instead of figuratively, and Caleb is solo.
Until a familiar voice calls his name and he drags his eyes up from where they'd settled on the ground.
"Sarah?" Joy and confusion and guilt all flicker across his features before they settle on something best described as a wary sort of pleasure at seeing her, a desire for better circumstances. He stands, moving away from his father's specter and holding his hands out towards Sarah.
One of them probably needs a hug, right?
"Are you okay?"
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Sarah shifts to rest her cheek against his chest. "You're here too."
There's condolences in her tone.
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Caleb never imagined that he would be glad to smell fruit-scented shampoo but here he is, uncomplaining and definitely keeping his arms around her.
He can still see his father's ghost out of the corner of his eye, wheezing and judging, but Caleb turns away.
There's nothing he can do about that, is there?
"Yeah." It's quiet, but he clears his throat after a moment. "Survivor's guilt, I guess?"
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A lot. Her whole everything is A Lot right now. But maybe it could A slightly easier Lot with someone who knows everything here.
(Lol too bad about that whole Chase also existing thing.)She steels herself, drawing back from Caleb just enough that she can look past him at his father. Deep breath. Faltering smile.
"Hello, Mr. Danvers." Maybe he can do more than make crackly breathing sounds now that he's. Y'know. Dead.
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None of this was her fault. She was only involved because she was close to Caleb and because Chase was a dick. She didn't make any poor decisions - unless being close to him is a poor decision.
Jury's still debating that one. "We'll sort it out."
Being here, Chase, all of it. Hope springs eternal, or somesuch. More on that theme: when Sarah leans away to speak to his father, Caleb turns his head to see what the response will be, and frowns at the ghost draws a breath.
"I suppose she's pretty enough," his father's voice crackles and whines. "You couldn't have chosen a girl with some money?"
"Father..." Caleb's voice is tight with unexpressed anger. "Don't."
"Hmph. If you're having a girl, it'll be useless."
Caleb's grip on Sarah's jacket tightens, somewhat. "Okay we don't need to listen to this."
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iii
Anyway, Chase could do without the ghosts, not because they're creepy or anything, but because... well, they were cool at first, but now they're just boring and won't go away. The novelty's gone! And they're all so grouchy or pissed off or sad, and he's so over it. He just tries to ignore them now, unless a ghost actually manages to pique his interest. What's weird, though, is that there's one he's started seeing over and over again, a bloody lady who looks kind of familiar, though he can't quite place her at first. Talking doesn't help, since all she does is cry without saying a word.
It... actually takes him way more run-ins than he'd care to admit before he realizes where he's seen her: in a handful of polaroids kept in a shoebox, somewhere in his bedroom back in New Hampshire. A shoebox he hadn't even opened in, what, five years? He hadn't even taken it with him to Spenser.
She's his mom. His birth mom, the one who died when he was too young to even remember her. She'd been something of an afterthought to him for so long that he'd practically forgotten her face.
Well. This just got a hell of a lot more awkward. GOOD THING HE SPOTS ANOTHER FAMILIAR FACE SOON ENOUGH. Caleb Danvers, tragically still alive, and the best distraction a homicidal witch could hope for.
"Spending some quality time with the crypt keeper, huh?" Pause for effect. "Oh. Wait. That's dear old dad..." He grins. "My bad."
That's right, Caleb. Take it in. Chase Collins is alive, well, and smug-slash-obnoxious as ever. Just ignore the ghost lady following him.
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It probably still will, now.
Setting that, and Chase's terrible manners aside, Caleb does not ignore the ghost woman behind him, because she's sobbing. A lot. And keeps making this gesture in Chase's direction that reminds Caleb of someone that wants to hold someone else and isn't sure they can and that's a little...distressing.
"I'm sure yours was in roughly the same boat." You can't make him feel bad about other people's choices, Chase, he feels bad enough about his own. But since it was still rude as fuck, Caleb has zero problems ignoring Chase's smirking face in favor of trying to sort out why the woman behind him is crying.
"Hi, I'm Caleb. Are you Chase's sister?"
He didn't read anything about a sister but the girl? Woman? Looks to be roughly their age, maybe a few years older, so Caleb is making wild guesses in the dark. That one hits a mark, though not the intended one; the ghost he's addressing bursts into a fresh round of tears, prompting Caleb to look at Chase with concern.
And raised eyebrows.
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Even in death, he can't be bothered to give a damn about his son. Which is fine, because mother dearest here is making Chase uncomfortable enough. Especially when Caleb assumes she's his sister, because it just reminds him of how young she was. Hell, it now hits him that he's the same age now that she was when he was born.
So he keeps his attention on Caleb, opting to ignore both of the ghosts. "Not a sister. I'm an only child." And that's all he's going to say, so you can put those eyebrows down, Caleb.
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"So this is...your mom." Okay, that's...upsetting. Like really upsetting, and Caleb's first thought is to wonder if she'd be happier if Chase, like..., hugged her, or something, and he's half a second from suggesting it when he remembers this is Chase he's talking to, and he probably wouldn't hug anyone.
Much less his dead mother. "Oh," is what he settles on, expression twisting into sympathetic unhappiness. She's still crying, and Caleb doesn't want to be rude but he also has no idea what to say to her. 'Sorry about your son. At least he's alive' doesn't seem like the best idea.
Speaking of: "Did you have to go to the hospital here?"
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...
Well, he assumes she is, anyway. Truth be told, he hasn't even tried to touch her. It's too weird. The thought makes his skin crawl. But he shrugs, feigning indifference because what else can he do? Get all emotional about a woman who died when he was 2? She's even more of a stranger than his old man was.
"Yeah, that's mom." Said with a huff, like she's so embarrassing. "I told her to stop getting blood everywhere, but does she listen? Noooo..."
Not that her ghost-blood does anything. It just fades away whenever she does. Also, it's beside the point, because it's probably pretty obvious that he's forcing the whole careless asshole thing even more than usual. Defense mechanisms, ahoy.
"Nah. Don't worry: turns out you can walk off getting thrown into a flaming portal to nowhere."
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Is just that." He leans into Chase's space, keeping his eyebrows raise before he lowers them to glower at him. "Bullshit."
Leaning back, Caleb rolls his eyes. "You can be sad or weirded out or whatever." He folds his arms across his chest and shakes his head. "The only one judging is you, for the record."
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friendr
I love history, but I'm rubbish with American history. maybe you could teach me something?
also, happy birthday! 🎉🎈
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Sure! What kind of history do you love? Like, from where, I guess is what I mean.
Thank you. It's been a weird one, for sure.
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I'll say. if you're not used to space travel, finding yourself on the moon of another planet is one mad birthday present.
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Does that mean you're used to space travel?
[ None of this is the weirdest thing about today, but explaining that would mean explaining Chase, and...no. ]
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The traveling in space, I mean.
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Friendr
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How are you doing? How are you feeling?
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we should find some way to celebrate your birthday though, caleb.
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Uh. I don't...
I can't remember the last time I had a birthday party, so I'd rather it not be like. A big thing?
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you, me and sarah. or like the others if they're here.
not chase.
he feels so called out right now
Okay. What do you need me to do?
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