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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!
Chyler Silva - Halo: Forward Unto Dawn
[ Chyler walks out of the medcenter like she's walking through a dream. It feels that way. The past two days felt unreal, at first promising, hopeful, then... Hope dissipating, dissolving as they told her where she was and why. Told her what she should believe of this place.
This is impossible, what's happening now. A hallucination, a vivid delirium carrying her on into death. Everything is too sharp, too real, the streets too loud, the old clothes they gave her too large and rough against her skin. She wants her uniform. She wants her Squad, her gun, her helmet. Tom.
She wants to stop flinching every time she hears an unfamiliar noise. Gunfire, screaming, the pulse of alien weapons, those sounds would make sense. At least those sounds would make sense.
She's listening for them even now, while she stands in a grocery store with a basket hanging from on hand and a round red fruit not unlike an apple gripped in the other. Something about the shine on the apple's skin caught her eye, like the slide of blood over metal, and she's transfixed. Listening, listening, and waiting for reality to come crashing back in. ]
ii. a flock of stargulls
[ There's a little bench in a little park near the communal housing building. Chyler likes it. It's out-of-the-way enough to be empty most of the time, a little retreat she can go to between her self-enforced training and routines.
Today she has company, and... she can't help it. She's enamored of them. They're all over the bench, the ground, and her--she's been feeding them for two days and apparently two days is enough time for the weird little flying creatures to deem her nonthreatening. One of them tugs at her hair and she makes a tiny, amused noise. ]
Stop that. You want food, it's right here. [ She holds up a handful of crumbs in her open palm. ] Go on.
v. network - un c.silva
Are there soldiers here? People who were soldiers, before this place?
@maverick
Haven't seen any squid, but that's nothing new.
pretend formatting is happening
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The UN doesn't have much of a presence here. As in none. We're a little out of jurisdiction, by a universe or two.
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Why wouldn’t they? [ There’s a familiar surge of defiance, the kind of thing she usually feels when she’s talking to Tom about the necessity of their war. ] I’m with the UNSC.
[ It’s not entirely true, not yet—never, now. She shoves that thought aside. ]
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But Riverview isn't just another country, or planet, it's another universe, and as far as anyone knows? They haven't signed up, and they're sure as hell not following the charter.
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[ Which now has a whole bunch of confusing feelings attached to it and It’s Terrible. ]
This universe or any other, I’m still loyal to United Nations Space Command and the UEG.
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Sometimes you have the home-team advantage and sometimes you don't. The difference between an amateur and a professional is knowing how to play both fields.
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She’s glad this is text. She’s glad there’s nothing in this to give emotion away. ]
There’s only ever been one side worth fighting for.
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wildcardé
so instead he stands back at a decent distance, still close enough to loom uncomfortably close just due to his height and sighs, because as much sympathy as he has for what he assumes was a little girl caught in a warzone, he really wants his goddamn apples. ]
Red Delicious? Terrible choice, they taste like shit, even here.
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She looks down at the apple, then up at him, for a moment bewildered by where she is and where she expects to be. ]
What?
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They serve them at chow because they're cheapest, so it was my advice to you.
[ he continues to talk as if nothing happened, not even bothering to turn his attention away from her and to the apple. it rolls awkwardly past him, a lonely forlorn apple. ]
I'd choose a different variety. Or at least, take it and move on.
[ :| ]
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he shouldn't care, but a quick gauge of age puts her too young to even be in ROTC. JROTC maybe. curiosity finally wins as he picks up his own handful of apples, not bothering to check for spots ]
élève-officier? [ he quickly corrects himself as he holds out a good apple for her, Fuji and spotless. distractions helped eased conversation. ]
ROTP? Your equivalent, whatever it is.
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Freshman cadet at Corbulo Academy of Military Science. [ Tentatively, because she's not positive, but she's pretty sure: ] Sir.
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[ he hasn't heard of the academy, which isn't surprising since the world is big, and now even bigger than he previously knew. the name sounded italian, but he didn't detect an accent. didn't matter, it wasn't any of his business.
it all made sense now. he can remember his first few days out of basic, how overwhelmed he'd felt, and how foreign and chaotic the civilian world was in his first week of leave. ]
Things make more sense after a while, once you stop expecting the world to be as orderly as service. Think of life prior to academy, pretend you're the same as you were back then.
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[ Er. She glances away from him, the only sign to indicate embarrassment. And then she takes a couple of steadying breaths as she forcibly reminds herself that service is orderly. It's a world of rules she knows, rules she understands, even if the twelve hours before she woke up here broke every one of them and then some.
How does conversation. How does explain 'before the academy life was chaos and preparing to be a soldier'. She bites the corners of her lips and just... nods instead. ]
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vi.
It's about the summation of how he spent his first day out of the hospital, actually. And what he learned from that experience, in spite of damn near everything about the day, was that the last thing he'd really needed was to be left alone to keep staring. People talked to him. People helped him. Little touchstones that helped realign him. Having learned that, he can't bring himself to walk away.
Finn moves to stand in front of her for a few long moments. Not too close. Just somewhere on the other side of the display stand. ]
They're sour. More than you'd think from looking. [ Though now that he thinks about it. ] Not sure if that means I just got bad ones last time.
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For a second she looks up at Finn like her inability to process an apple is the end of the world, and then her calm is back in place and she's a Normal Human feeling Normal Human Things. ]
Depends on the apple. I... don't know what these ones are, actually.
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Coming over, he thinks, was definitely the right call. Does he know how to help himself with whatever problems make him take on the same "shift it aside for later" priorities? No. At least he gets the feeling he knows what he's dealing with. ]
Don't worry. Neither do I.
[ A lot of his personal grocery store browsing comes down to seeing something and thinking maybe he'll like it. If he doesn't, either he'll eat it anyway or Rey or Poe might be interested enough to save him the trouble. ]
I'm Finn. Is it your first day out?
no subject
Yeah. Yes. It is. I was in medical for a few days, but this is my first day actually... here. In town, I mean.
[ A pause, then she remembers the other part of the whole socialization thing that isn't really relevant when you're a cadet and your name is stitched into everything you own. She offers him the apple-free hand with more confidence than she feels. ] Cadet Silva. Chyler, I mean, Chyler Silva.
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Probably would have guessed military by the posture, eventually. She looks like she could arguably be too young to be a cadet, to a lot of people, but he can't really... judge. He's seen younger. He used to be younger. Age doesn't have to mean anything. This is a lot more up the alley of rules he knows how to work within, though, for better or worse.
(She has a full name. Maybe one she's always had. That's good.) ]
Chyler Silva. Good to meet you. I know it's-- it can a lot to figure out on the first day. [ A pause, considering, and then with a shade of resignation: ] It's still a lot on a lot of days. If you want help with anything, I can help. I've been around for a while.
[ If you say "need," people start overthinking what need really means. They put it off. They think it's not so bad, they can afford to wait longer. "Want," at least to him, gets across that it's fine to act on something for wanting it. A choice. Not a possible necessity. ]
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Then again, normal is... She's going to give herself a headache if she starts thinking about what normal is any more. Her grip on the apple tightens in brief panic at that train of thought, the places it could lead, and she forces herself instead to focus on what he's saying now.
She puts the apple in her basket, just to have it out of her hand. ] I'm fine.
[ The drill sergeant in her mind snaps Clarify, Cadet! and she straightens up without realizing it. ] I'm handling it. I've moved colonies by myself before. It's not so different.
[ It's completely different. She went from her aunt and uncle on Mamore to Circinius IV and Corbulo, falling into the arms of rigid protocol and training like she was learning how to breathe. Still, she adds a soft-voiced: ] Thank you. It's kind of you to offer.
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[ There are plenty of things in life that no one can actually control or help with. Things like this, where he can, or can at least try, there are plenty of those too. Finn doesn't mind at all. He hesitates a little, thinks about the snap of her posture, the tone of her voice. ]
Everything was different for me. When I first got here. Too much going on.
[ He shrugs one shoulder. ]
It gets easier. There are lot of people in the same boat as you. Handling the same thing. Nobody has to handle it alone.
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She wants to say I am alone. She hasn't found anyone else from Hastati Squad. She's not the only one who died. (The faces of her squadmates, the faces of the hundreds she knows by sight and year and name.) But somehow, she's the only one who made it here. Was taken here. As far as she knows, this whole colony is made up of the dead. This place could have saved so many more and it hasn't. There's a tangle of hate in her heart for that reason, another fresh knot in lines that have been laid out straight and clean for so much of her life.
The same boat.
The same thing.
She starts to shake her head, but then there's nothing but gunfire in her ears and the near-magical glimmer of green and purple projectiles painting streaks through the air.
Somewhere, several rows over, someone yells to a child and she flinches, and she's back, in the grocery store with a kind stranger on a moon without bomb shelters.
She's fine. She's fine. ] It's... it's not enough, actually.
[ The admission makes her glance down, but training and practice forces her at once to orient on his face without looking him in the eye. ] There's too much time in the day. I don't know what to do with myself.
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