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quaranmeme2017-12-18 08:58 pm
riverview: december 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 13 Character Slots available.
● Reserves are Open. Applications will be open from January 1st until January 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.
● 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
Going into the last week of December, the city experiences an abrupt and unexpected dump of snow - several feet of it, in fact. Usually, it wouldn't be a big deal, since most people and most exploration teams could just hole up and ride out the storm and snowdrifts. And that's what most of the city is doing.
Unfortunately, this is the week that some of the Perimeter Guard Cadets have decided to go on their Winter Expedition - a sort of camping trip slash exploration expedition into the Abandoned City just outside the walls of the Inner City. While the goal wasn't to get too far away from the walls, with the snow starting up in force, the groups of Cadets have gotten turned around in the inclement weather and are stuck outside the walls, unable to return to the safety of the Inner City.
A general call has gone out to anyone willing to brave the snow and storm to rescue groups of Cadets between the ages of 12 and 17 who are trapped outside the walls in their camps.
During the last half of December, residents might start noticing the appearance of cute, trilling little birds with soulful eyes (very mild spoilers for the most recent Star Wars movie in the link) throughout the Quarantine. Perched on tree branches or the corners of awnings and eaves, they will keep multiplying in number until December 20th, when a positive swarm of them will come through the portal.
Welcome to the Quarantine, Porgs!
These little lovable birds (spoiler-free image) will be settling in to roost just about anywhere you can think of. Outside your window, inside your kitchen on top of your fridge, under your bed, or anywhere else. Whether residents consider them a nuisance or a potential new pet, they're bound to cause a stir. The Porgs will be out and about in the city until the end of December, when most of them will find their way back through the portal to whichever world they came from, though a little colony of them will remain in the City from now on. Porgs will be added along with domestic foxes and Pokémon as creatures that can be found or caught in the city as pets without the use of AP!
Some residents may remember that back in September, a love-drunk and confusion-spell-addled newlywed mage from Gramarye Magic Research let loose some pretty little fairy lights that trapped people in the city in little invisible bubbles until they kissed (and any kind of kiss would do). Well, the same slightly-less-newlywed but no less romantically-inclined mage happens to really, really enjoy the winter season, and thinks it's totally romantic. That particular sentiment is pretty common in the Quarantine - while Hygge is the celebration of familial love, the residents of the Quarantine all agree that that family often includes partners and lovers. Besides that, the folklore of mistletoe as being representative of love and friendship is something that the Quarantine has in common with the universes many residents inhabit.
So, as the last week and a half of December rolls around, residents around the Quarantine will see the result of the resident romantic trying to share a bit of Hygge love - small, glowing sprigs of mistletoe will be floating around the Quarantine, ready to trap people up and make them share a bit of affection. But how does it work?
Two or more characters walking under one of these glowing, floating sprigs will get stuck for one hour, trapped inside an invisible enclosure with an approximate three foot radius. The only options are to either wait out the hour, or to kiss! Characters will know they're meant to kiss, because part of the magic spell is the sudden and intense knowledge that they should kiss in order to break free. There is no compulsion to kiss, just the knowledge that that's how to get free. This time, instead of any kind of kiss working, there will be different types of kisses that will work to release the trapped residents depending on the color of mistleglow:
GREEN: FOREHEAD ● BLUE: HAND ● VIOLET: BUTTERFLY
Trapped residents will not know what kind of kiss will work for each color and may have to experiment before finding the right one.
Remember those Hygge Cabins that the City set up all along the banks of the river? Little cabins with enough space for a small kitchen, a table to eat at, and a lounge area in front of a fireplace, meant to be shared in celebration of familial love and found family during Hygge? Well, the sudden onslaught of snow that trapped the Cadets outside the city are also serving to isolate people who are in and around the cabins.
With the river nearby, the heightened humidity in the area of the beaches where the cabins are set up, the snowfall is even heavier than it is throughout the rest of the city. Anyone who's down by the water will find themselves quickly driven out of the open and into one of these cabins, whether it's inhabited or not! Whether these weather refugees are sharing a cabin by choice, after having a lovely dinner together, or unwillingly, in the form of an intruder on someone else's holiday or by being driven into the same cabin with a stranger, they're going to be snowed in for a while!
Whether your character is 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!
no subject
Combine that with Arthur wanting to keep his distance from... those lines, it's a conflicting mixture of pride, resistance, and fear keeping him where he is. But he's never been a person of inaction. If a job needed doing, he was the one to step forward and do it. This was no different.
And emotions tied to the other man and what was once between them doesn't mean anything here.
He moves foward, finally in the space he needs to be in and grabs Eames by the jaw with one hand. He presses their lips together and then pulls away, looking up at the plant.
The red light dims and Arthur steps further way, letting the other man go. ]
Red means mouth.
no subject
But it's all too easily acknowledged without words. He feels it every morning he wakes up alone, every time he comes back to an empty flat or hotel room, and even in every time he checks his phone to no lingering messages. He knows, even if he won't voice it. But the goading allows him to push the words away.
It would be simpler if this really had pushed the man away. If this goading actually pushed them across the line they've teetered on for days beyond real counting.
Yet, it does the opposite. Suddenly, there's Arthur in his space, right there, barely a breath's length away. Arthur, in forgiving warmth, smelling vaguely of apple trees, and very, very real.
And to Eames, in that moment where Arthur's grabbing him and pressing into him, what was once between them means everything.
But it's a too-short moment, killed all too quickly and with surgical precision as Arthur pulls away with little reluctance, and all Eames is left with is the ghost of a few seconds playing in his mind on repeat and the faintly lingering scent of spice.
Fuck.
Pragmatically, it seems Arthur is right: he can move now without the barrier between him and the rest of the world, and he can reach out now, but none of that lessens the urge to reach out, drag the man back to close that gap again, and tell that voyeuristic elephant to piss right off.
He doesn't. ]
Well, I'm thrilled to have been some assistance.
[ And yet, all the while, all he can think is: wait, that's it? ]
no subject
But still. He takes another step back, the softness in his expression (and the memories to come with it) pulled back into something neutral even closed off. ]
I assisted you. Try paying attention to where you're going, yeah?
[ He's turning to walk on, keeping an eye upward. Yet, true to form, he has to correct the other man before he plans to leave. ]
no subject
Fine, an exchange of assistance. You have to admit, you are amassing a bit of a catalog, Arthur.
[ If asked, he'll say he simply has nothing better to do (not exactly untrue). But he has better--or at least bigger--reasons for doing so.
He can't let this go. ]
no subject
"A bit of a catalog"? Really?
no subject
He swallows it. And scoffs with a performative roll of his eyes. ]
Am I wrong?
no subject
Do you really think I enjoy being put in that kind of position?
[ A beat, ]
Better yet: why do you even care?
HUFF
But the follow-up gives him no time to voice that, not when that question sucker punches him in the gut and winds him right as he tries it. There's a ghost of a hurt expression in that shock. It's quickly swallowed too and buried and pushed away, but in that first immediate moment, it's more apparent than Eames ever really is intentionally honest. ]
Of course. Why would I care about the one person here I know? You're right, that's ridiculous.
[ He clenches his teeth in that subtle, angry way that results only from words he's biting down on, chewing, killing before they ever arise to make him regret it. In this he pauses bodily too: reining in his words is hard enough, it requires a deal of overall restraint. Let it go.
And so he does, letting Arthur continue unimpeded while finally turning away himself. ] Goodnight, Arthur.
HUFF HUFF
And then instantly regrets it in the same moment. Fuck. His jaw clenches and he stars Eames down, the words not coming out until the other man has already turned away. ]
I doubt you'll be at a disadvantage in the social aspect.
[ Which was his dickish way of saying: You'll meet new people. You always do. Because if Eames was good at anything, it was being sociable. Charming and chatting people up, like he has for as long as Arthur has known him. Sometimes he was envious of that ability. Here? He was more than happy to go his own way and be left alone. ]