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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!
why you always lyin.mp3
Finn meets Poe's stare, drawing up straight-backed and tense with the weight of it, and tells himself that this is another truth that would always have come out. He hadn't been in a position to watch it unravel back in their galaxy, after running into Kylo Ren, but there's little doubt that it would resurface somehow.
The First Order didn't corner the market on a person's decisions having consequences. The same as it didn't corner the market on lying. Some things are universal. ]
I did. I lied to all of you. And I'm sorry.
[ That much is true. He made his own decision about whether that betrayal of trust outweighed his own sense of necessity-- lying to Poe and the General, to a group of desperate people who never once stopped to wonder if they even could trust a word out of a former Stormtrooper's mouth.
He'd found that it didn't.
Finn moves to take a step forward. Second-guesses and stops the motion halfway through. But he doesn't look away. ]
Poe, I had to be on that base. I had to go back for Rey. No matter what.
y u do this finn
But Finn lied to the General.
If Poe were the kind of person to indulge in what ifs, he would run down a kneeb warren. What if Finn hadn't gotten the shields down? What if the Resistance had ended up losing their entire fleet, not half of it?
What if Starkiller had fired?
Those questions flash past and get dismissed just as quickly. If there's one thing that can be said of Poe, it's that he lives in the moment. Those things didn't happen. It turned out all right.
But. ]
We trusted you. I trusted you. Why didn't you just tell me the truth?
[ Poe cares too much too quickly. He'd never say so, he'd never even think so, but he does. Empathy is one of the things that makes him such a good commander. It's also part of what makes things like this feel so personal. Suralinda's voice snaps out of nowhere, "Grow up, Poe Dameron. There's a war on."
Poe shakes his head, like that can dislodge the thought. ]
You lied to the General.
[ You don't DO THAT, FINN!!! ]
1/2
(You always got caught. That's why he never really did it.) ]
I know I lied to the General! I was very aware that I was lying and that she's the General!
[ It's not much of a snap or a lashing out, really-- more along the lines of a vaguely-offended hiss, something that bubbles up over his edges before he can tamp it all the way down. ]
ok i mean i thought i'd take less time to type this second half my bad
The problem here is that people keep trusting him to be a person above running away, or telling a lie that could put the entire galaxy at risk. The actual problem, he corrects himself immediately, is that he's lied to everyone he's met since he first set foot on Jakku, and he somehow did it so well that they thought they could trust him to be above that. Maybe the problem is that for all the trust he got, he never found much of his own to give in return.
Finn swallows. Tries to hold onto a semblance of measured calm. ]
... it was my fault that Rey wound up there. It's my fault she got involved in any of this. I needed to go after her as soon as possible, and that intel gave me a way to do it.
[ This isn't defending an empathetic risk in a simulated objective. This isn't saying he's one of us and feeling broken for being the only one who thinks that it means something.
People in the real world understand it already. Poe understands it already. That Rey means something, people mean something.
Just as Finn understands that understanding isn't always gonna cut it, when hand-in-hand with the potential catastrophic failure he'd helped put into motion. He won't insult Poe by saying he was confident he and Solo could figure it out all along. He never thought it was completely impossible, but he didn't give it much thought at all, long-term.
He'd been thinking of Rey's smile, the way it felt to become part of something from the inside, the way she'd urged him to stay. How if he'd grown a spine instead of trying to run, maybe she wouldn't have been taken there at all. ]
Look, I'll tell the General to her face next time I see her, if you want. But Rey is my friend. I would've stolen a ship out from under you if I had to.
[ A classic favorite Star Wars movie. Episode VII: Everyone's Immediately Ride or Die. ]
stars in my eyes (also this thread is killing me thx)
[ He would so love for this to just be about the fact that Finn lied to General Organa. It would be so much simpler if Finn having to tell her the truth would be the only consequence. But it's more than that. If it gets out, if people find out that Finn lied, that he put them all at that kind of risk--
Poe isn't naive. Sure, there would be people who said all's well that ends well. But Poe can't see everyone in the Resistance letting Finn off the pike. To them he would be a traitor, maybe even a First Order spy. Oddy Muva didn't live long enough to get a trial. The narrative Suralinda fabricated turned him into a hero, and Poe knows how bitter some of his team still is about that.
Finn saved his life. An act of necessity, but until now Poe has seen it as an act of incredible courage. Courage, to escape the First Order. Courage to bring BB-8 back to D'Qar.
(You completed my mission. You're a good man, Finn.)
Poe closes his eyes and takes a long, slow breath.
He's still not sure how he feels. He still believes Finn is a good person. He also believes that Finn has no idea, no real idea what he's done. ] No. You can't tell her.
[ Then he takes the step that Finn didn't, bringing them within arm's reach. And punches Finn's shoulder lightly. ] You should have told me. You asked me for help. You used me, Finn, and you used the Resistance. My friends. My family. They all could have died, do you get that? People who mean as much to me as Rey does to you.
me too tbh. sometimes space friends means suffering.
He risked a movement, a team, Poe's known for years for one girl he just met. There's only one Rey, he's only ever found one Rey. And in a harried few minutes in a TIE fighter, he'd found more belonging and value with Poe than he did in years of cadet training. He found a name.
The Resistance is built on the one-of-a-kind, isn't it? How much difference is there between pulling the trigger on innocent people for the Order and sending them to a potential catastrophe based on a lie he made for himself and his own?
So in the same breath, Finn folds his hands behind his back, lifts his chin, and tells himself that if Poe gets upset enough to go for it, he'll let it happen.
It doesn't. Which doesn't relieve him much. ]
I understand.
[ Sometimes he cancels himself out, no matter where he's standing. Not enough of a Stormtrooper, not enough of the opposite. The only person who had him pegged from the start was Maz Kanata.
Finn shakes his head, slowly. ]
Those codes would've been changed the minute I left if I even had that clearance level. It always would've come down to me, Solo, and a blaster once we hit the right level. And I never planned to leave without doing what I promised, but I couldn't--
[ Couldn't risk telling someone. Enemy defector, explaining he lied about one of the fundamental pillars of a highly risky plan? Every military has protocol. Every military has a chain of command to report to, and penalties for failing to do so.
He was afraid, and he was impatient.
Finn cuts himself short. Looks away. ]
I don't have any excuses.
[ Just reasons. He has an arm's length list of reasons for things. ]
no subject
Excuses ain't shit] They're a waste of time.[ For a moment, Poe is surprised to hear how much he sounds like his father.
There are worse people to sound like.
He makes a soft, frustrated noise and slings an arm around Finn's shoulders, dragging the younger man over to be given an aggressive noogie. ]
Next time, say that. We would have taken the chance, Finn. I would've backed you up. You were our only shot, whether you'd been with sanitation or engineering. And in the Resistance we do not lie to each other. Got it? We're family. We protect each other. All of us, you and Rey included.
[ He lets Finn go. ] You saved my life.
[ Those four words can't fully convey what Poe means. Finn saved him. A Stormtrooper, someone Poe thought was sent to take out the trash, pulled him out of the stupor of failure and despair and gave him his life back. Someone who grew up with a designation, not a name, under the leadership of a monster capable of tearing minds apart--someone from a place like that proved to Poe in the most dramatic possible way that heroes come from everywhere. ] You saved my life.
[ A small, crooked smile. ] You're a good man. You have to learn to be an honest one. All right?
[ He knows that wouldn't be enough for everyone. He knows he's making a choice for the Resistance as a whole right now, keeping Finn's choice to himself. It doesn't feel good. But he's done more than a few things at this point that haven't felt good. He can live with this. He's not sure it's the right choice, but it's the one he's making. ]
no subject
Finn thinks about Slip for a second, in spite of everything. Just while he's getting noogied so aggressively that he's starting to suspect Poe plans on physically pushing words into his brain. Just while he has a moment where he can have the thought.
(Slip could have done better in a place like the Resistance. He could have done better anywhere else in the universe, where someone could look out for him without drawing unwanted attention.)
Then he catches the rest of the way up with what he's hearing, and the weight of it is... unexpected. With Rey, he had a chance to make things up to her properly-- lied, but came clean about it before the end. Left, but came back. Nothing was perfect, but it balanced out.
You're a good man.
That sits heaviest of all.
Finn's expression softens in a split-second, and he doesn't bother trying to smooth it back out. ]
... all right.
[ He'll find a way to make it right with Poe. As much as he can. If he ever can. Because he's pretty sure he doesn't deserve this. ]
It won't happen again. [ Finn reaches out this time without giving it much thought, catches hold of one of Poe's wrists. ] It won't.
[ And not just because this might be his post-lightsaber afterlife. No, Finn doesn't put stock into third chances. He'll do whatever he needs to do to make sure this second one doesn't crash and burn.
He can do this. ]
they can totally walk into one of poe's memories if you want ijs
[ And that's the first step, Poe thinks. Keep trusting his friend. He can hear Karé telling him to be more careful. He can see Jess glaring her disapproval, Snap trying to catch his eye to have a word. He ignores their subtle emotional presence.
He's not losing a friend he has the option to keep. ]
You hungry?
i was actually gonna ask if you'd be up for that! memory shares are my jam.
Yeah. Yeah, I am. [ This planet is crazy, and filled with crazy preoccupying people. He woke up in some random medical facility and had a day to get carried away worrying about it. And about the fact that he can't find news on anybody he knows, not that he's had many people to ask.
Still, at least now he's not alone. And now that he's not alone, he thinks about it, and now that he thinks about it, he's hungry. Finn just kinda... starts walking. In this world it's stay true to your second nature and pull your friend around while you ramble at them, or be the one pulled around. Obviously. ]
I don't know where anything is, but I can buy. The currency is called a Unit. Same principle as a standard Credit, but it only breaks down to Quarter-Units. Not too complicated, no other currencies floating around. You probably remember that from your orientation.
[ He doesn't know anything about the economy here yet, just like he doesn't know where the food is. He's throwing a lot on chance right now. It's a big city. Everyone eats. Everyone needs money. Finn shakes his head a little. ]
They'll keep a file on your bioscan results, too, you have to ask them to make it confidential. Did they tell you you have to request that?
[ Okay look. All he's saying is, it should be a legal requirement to tell everybody that their file is apparently accessible unless they request otherwise. It's a crappy move not to mention it. That's all he's saying.
And if they have to march right back into an orientation area to fill out the paperwork for Poe, potentially, so be it. ]
s a m e, do you wanna pick from the ones I listed down below or something else? Either's fine!
He pushes the thought aside when Finn poses his question. ] They did mention it.
[ They also mentioned the whole displacement thing, which Poe does not get, and informed them of that fact immediately. He has somewhere he needs to be, somewhere he needs to be, people who need him--nah, his being here? Mistake. But at least he's not flying solo. ] Don't worry, I'm good. What kind of food do you like?
[ Because Finn might be fine with paying but Poe wants to make sure Finn gets to choose where they go. ]
i'll pull one from the list! all the better 2 click the links and rub my hands together
Okay, fine, plus one responsibility point for the orientation assistants. Good. That helps ease up one of his list of vague Concerns about them.
He doesn't let Poe's question put a break in his stride or keep him from scanning their surroundings for a stall or a restaurant that looks interesting, but he does take a few seconds to think. First Order meals are the pinnacle of nutritional value, both filling and energy-fueling. That's about all there is to say. ]
Great question.
[ Sounds to him like he's gonna pick the first place he sees and wing it, which isn't necessarily bad. He angles in a slightly different direction, already on the trail. ]
So far, anything that doesn't taste like chalk.
ksdjfsf i wasn't the one who punched you
Instead of dwelling on the issue, Poe grins. ] Looks like we'll have to experiment. Hopefully you don't fall in love with anything we can't get at home.
[ Because they will be going home, ok, that's a given as far as Poe is concerned. ]
they split a jakku memory later and the big notes are "kylo sux" and "finn didnt punch poe"
Nice moon and all. Be nicer if they actually got to choose to come to it. Finn cracks a grin, finally releasing Poe from his mercifully not-a-death-grip grip. He's probably going to say something along the lines of "no promises". Like a cool guy.
But then the city goes and disappears, taking anything cool along with it. Credit where credit is due, it's impossible to miss when these memory issues come to call. Finn's starting to imagine that the air even feels different while it's happening-- a little lackluster buzz, like patrolling with the ship's engines thrumming beneath your feet. Overthinking is his specialty.
Buildings melt into jungle. Daylight shifts into deep red.
He comes to a dead stop almost immediately, relief that this memory isn't his warring with dread over not knowing what's happening as a result, but the central focus is already well within range.
"Did you ever get scared?" A young boy asks his father, suddenly. (gimme a boot in a PM if you'd like anything tweaked.) ]
no subject
Then he hears that kid's voice asking that question and the bottom drops out of the world.
"Was I ever scared?" Kes Dameron says. He's bigger than Poe, even as an adult, built heavier and taller, but they have the same nose. The same eyes. Poe grabs Finn's wrist this time, like if he holds the other man back, he can stop this memory from playing out. It's too personal. It's too personal, and he's suddenly dizzy with the wish that he hadn't seen Finn's memory, either.
But it's all around them. There's no city, just the ranch, the jungle, their family house in the distance with the faint glow of its Force tree in the gathering dark.
"When I was on the ground, back at Endor..."
And because he can't do anything else about it, because the only control he can exercise is giving himself away, Poe says,] That's my dad.
no subject
More restraint than anything, really, but still. Without giving it thought, Finn rotates his wrist as best he can, trying to angle his arm in a way that can let Poe know he'll have a hand to grab if he needs it. When Poe speaks, Finn is already turning away from the scene to look at him with what he considers to be a fair amount of sharp-edged concern.
"...I thought we had lost, and I mean eveything."
Hard to tune out.
It pretty much immediately turns into shock. He looks over again for a few seconds before catching himself. It's easy to see when he looks for it. ]
That's your dad?
[ Half question, half just repeating Poe, tone and all, because he's starting to think this is a little more... personal than some of what he's seen and unwittingly shared. There have been some doozies, but not from anyone he actually knows. ]
Do you want me to-?
[ He makes a vague gesture towards his own head with his free hand. He could... he could cover his ears, probably. That would block enough. It's a little late in the game, but this could be a four-minute memory or something, who can say? ]
no subject
Poe wants to hug him. He wants to be home, right now, on Yavin 4, so he can see that the haunting of loss has faded.
“You could just barely see the Death Star in the daytime.”
Poe forces himself to relax his grip on Finn. He can’t even manage a cavalier smile. Part of him wishes this was a memory of his mother, and part of him is very glad it’s not. He’s not sure what he would do if he saw her standing in front of them. ]
It’s... [ Not fine. It’s not fine. But Poe can’t stomach the hypocrisy of protecting himself when Finn didn’t get that option.]
no subject
"And I thought that your mother was looking down on me, right then. In the middle of whatever she was doing, whatever fight she was fighting, it was like I could feel her eyes on me."
Sadness is woven into every fiber of this moment. Maybe peaceful in some ways, from some angles, but standing close enough to see it catch the light, there's not much room for mistaking. ]
It's yours.
[ "I could feel how much she loved me, and how much she loved you."
There's no one else in this memory. No mother, no strangers in the background, not even a droid. Now there's Finn, hearing every word.
He doesn't want to leave fingerprints on it. ]
And I could be wrong, but I don't think this is the part where you and your father talk about how you fabricated the Death Star schematics from a guess.
[ Families, he may not know so well. But he likes to think he can read a metaphorical room. He is confident, in fact, that they've walked into a whole new tier of life experiences. ]
no subject
"So you were never scared?"
He forces himself to look away from father and son and at Finn's face, so out of place in this context. He can't keep the hunted look out of his eyes. ] If you've got any suggestions, I'm happy to listen.
[ "What're you afraid of now?"
It's too late, it's too late to matter. Poe's heart is breaking for his father all over again, the same way it does every time he remembers, but in the moment it's so much worse. He wants to apologize to the specter of Kes Dameron. He wants to say he's sorry he couldn't do more sooner, that he couldn't get the New Republic to do anything no matter how hard he tried and how far outside the strictures of the military he went to do it.
"That it was all for nothing."
The sounds of the jungle, Kes going back to work on the fence. Poe, small and curly-haired and somber and not quite sure yet what his father meant.
You'll figure it out, Poe doesn't say. Sooner or later, you'll get it.
Yavin 4 starts to dissolve. ]
i'm starting a change.org petition to hug poe
It only takes one second to go from wishing he could to wishing that he had, and oh.
Poe's father sounds like a smart man, is the first thing he thinks. Even his fears were smart.
Finn doesn't ask if Poe is okay. Not hard to suss the answer out on his own.
The Quarantine is swiftly dropping to the bottom of the list of planets (and by technicality, moons) he would even think about setting foot on again once they get home. It doesn't matter if it's a tech malfunction, this is not fair.
It's one thing for people like him. Most things he can remember happened with three or more people watching in plain view, anyway. Other cadets, instructors-- even telling Solo the truth, Chewie was standing right there with them. Most things he remembers, there are a dozen Stormtroopers somewhere in the system who remember the exact same thing from a foot to the left. For all that there are things Finn never wants to see replayed in full clarity, he still knows how to live in a world where the only real privacy is in thoughts or behind a helmet.
This memory was private. This is something that was just Poe's, until the Quarantine took a hack at it.
And there isn't anything they can do to make it stop happening. Split off from each other, maybe, but it won't stop strangers from getting the same show.
This would all be easier if there was someone or something out there that only needed to be blown up to put an end to it. He'd ship out in a heartbeat. Finn swallows. ]
I'm starting to think this moon has a problem with us.
this is fine he's fine it's all good
He runs a hand through his hair, looking sidelong at Finn. Slowly, it occurs to him to be grateful that it's Finn who saw this and not somebody else. Not one of his pilots, not one of their enemies--Force, what a man like Terex would do with something that personal, Poe doesn't want to know.
It also occurs to him to be grateful that Kylo Ren didn't torture him as badly as the monster could have.
As a rule, Poe doesn't really drink. A small amount, on occasion, sure. But not much and not often. He doesn't let his pilots drink either, not if they want to get behind a stick within twelve hours of doing so. He particularly doesn't drink when it feels like an easy choice to make, and boy, it would be an easy choice to make right now. ]
I hate to say it, but you might be right.
[ He looks at the spot ahead of them where he and his father had been standing. Now just a spot of road, crisscrossed by pedestrian traffic. What did it look like to everyone else on this street? Did Finn and Poe just stop walking, just freeze in place?
Poe rolls his shoulders, forcing himself to relax at least a little bit.
Walk. Pick a direction and walk.
A few seconds of silence, then: ]
I was nine. My mom died when I was eight--bloodburn.
[ He draws in a long breath, then lets it go. ] Anyway, it changed how I thought about things. I never thought about war as war, about if she or my dad were scared before, it was all just...
[ A wave of his hand. Games. He glances at Finn. ] I guess things were a little different for you.
no subject
Bloodburn. He wasn't lined up to be a pilot, but it's the kind of thing they'd get awareness lectures about once in a while. There are better ways to go. He can't imagine what that would be like for a kid to see happening in real life.
The context, in that vein, makes things make more sense. Not that it was hard to understand that conversation. It's-- helpful to understand what it all stemmed from. To have more pieces of the picture. Finn's grateful for that. For Poe being willing to offer that. ]
Yeah.
[ Then he mulls over what to say for a few seconds, himself. ]
They raised us for it. But they made it easy not to think about what we were really training to do. Best thing you can be is a Stormtrooper. Best side you can be on is the Supreme Leader's.
[ He shakes his head. Good riddance to that rhetoric, honestly. ]
no subject
He finds himself shaking his head along with Finn, sick with anger at the thought of those lies being fed to children. Children turned to letters and numbers, made anonymous and expendable. Rank after rank of human beings who never had a choice.
Never had a choice, but Finn still made one.
Poe slings an arm around Finn's shoulders. ]
We'll kick Snoke in the teeth and see if that changes the First Order's tune.
[ The devil-may-care attitude is back hi did you miss it. ]