allthisshitisweird | Work Proximity Associates Meme

Work Proximity Associates Meme

This is a meme for getting quick and dirty CR with characters you might not normally tag, because for the most part everyone lives or works in the same place and would be interacting during the daily grind in ways we might not think about or have time to fully RP. It isn't designed or intended to make characters become best friends—though if that happens, cool!—but to give people entry points for future CR development, or at least IC awareness of who a few other characters are, even if it's just "that lady who glared at me for ten minutes without talking."

INSTRUCTIONS

SIGN UP. Go HERE by the end of the day on August 28 and sign up (comments are screened) with a character and list of opt-outs. Depending on how many people participate, I'll give everyone up to three randomly chosen matches to tag.
WAIT. I might need a day or two to get everyone matched up correctly and hand out those matches. Once that's done, I'll unlock this post to allow comments and post the scenarios list.

TOP LEVEL. Post a top-level here so people can tag you. You aren’t required to have signed up for matches to participate, but you are required to tag at least one other person if you post a top-level comment, or I’ll find and destroy you.
PICK A SCENARIO. For each character pair, roll for (or deliberately choose) one of the provided scenarios. Or make up your own. It's all cool man.
TAG YOUR MATCHES. You can actionspam an actual conversation/thread, or you can just chat out OOC how things would go between the characters and what (if anything) they would learn about each other over the course of their time together.
TAG WHOEVER ELSE YOU WANT. It's your life.

SCENARIOS

THE GALLOWS

FERRY. Your characters are stuck on the ferry together, alone, for the 10-15 minutes it takes to reach the other side. Possible complications include a drunk ferryman, a drunk singing ferryman, bad weather, capsized boat, and lost paddles.
HEAVY LIFTING. Your characters have been tasked with moving a large, heavy, and ungainly piece of equipment in a large wooden crate up to the seventh floor of the Central Tower. Magic isn't cheating, but it will still take more than one person to guide it up the staircases without anything breaking. And it is entirely possible that, once they get it up there, they'll be told it was actually meant to go to the basement of the Templar Tower.
DINING HALL. They're either awfully early for breakfast or awfully late for dinner, making them the only two people in the fairly sizable dining hall, and the staff insists they sit together at a little table in the corner so the rest of the tables and room can be readied or cleaned in the meantime.
GARDENS. The herb garden has been invaded by caterpillars. They are adorable and fuzzy, but they have to die. Or be picked off the leaves gently and transported out of the Gallows. Or, if butterflies and pickles sound fun, they could be moved to one of the Gallows’ smaller decorative green spaces and enticed to stay there, away from the medicinal herbs, by planting dill and fennel, their favorites. Their fate is in your characters’ hands.
LIBRARY. Not every book in the Gallows' library belongs there. A sizable number are on loan—from Skyhold, from the universities of Orlais or Markham—and sometimes they have to be sent back where they came from. Your characters have been tasked with finding a text called Qunari Irrigation Techniques: What We Think We've Learned From Staring At Par Vollen From A Long Way Away somewhere among the thousands of books on the shelves.
TRAINING GROUNDS. Maybe your characters are sparring! Maybe one character is practicing and the other is nearly getting their head chopped off trying to walk past because neither of them are paying attention! Maybe a gust of wind has blown someone's important research into the path of someone else's archery practice!
GRIFFONS. One of the griffons has taken something important—armor, a sack of supplies, whatever else—and is playing smug keepaway on the walls and rooftops. Good luck.

KIRKWALL
STABLES. Besides the griffons and everyone's dogs and cats, the Inquisition's domesticated animals are largely kept in stables located safely on the docks—no horse likes a row boat—inside the old Qunari Compound. So go exercise some animals. Or heckle them. Or sleep in the loft because you missed the last ferry.
LOWTOWN. Kirkwall is a large city, and the bulk of its people live in Lowtown. That’s where you’ll find the loud, busy market stalls, the taverns, the street performers and scammers. It is where you won’t find Gareth—not the Templar, not the archivist mage, another Gareth, young and recently missing from his guard posting—but it is where he was last seen, flirting with a woman selling fruit, so your characters have been asked to scour the area for any sign of him.
DARKTOWN. What are your characters even doing down here? It’s dark. It smells weird. And at the moment, one of them is likely being mugged, and the other is likely lost.
HIGHTOWN MARKETS. Getting past the guards in the residential areas of Hightown might require looking like you belong there, but the market square will take anyone who has money to spend—which currently includes your two characters, equipped with a purse of coins and a list of purchases to make on the Inquisition's behalf.
CHANTRY GARDEN. Keeping a place looking this tranquil (ha ha, sorry Anders) takes work. It isn’t strictly the Inquisition’s job to do it, but nonetheless, after a strong summer storm rattles the topiary and scatters debris around the garden, a couple of people—your characters—are dispatched to put things back in order. Please do not reshape the topiaries into anything obscene.

ELSEWHERE
THE WOUNDED COAST. Not everything grows easily in the Gallows gardens, but there are reports of Amrita Vein scattered around the winding, sandy shores beyond Kirkwall (beach day!) and Ghoul’s Beard growing in the craggy caves of the Wounded Coast (giant spider day!), and your characters have been rewarded/punished with the task of collecting some.
PLANASCENE FOREST. Spooked by something in the woods, one of the Inquisition’s suppliers bolted on horseback and left behind his cart of goods. The Inquisition cannot PAY him ENOUGH to go back into that CURSED FOREST ALONE to retrieve them. Fortunately, the Inquisition doesn’t have to pay your characters anything extra at all to go do it for him.
VINMARK MOUNTAINS. Somebody’s fickle mount—be it horse, hart, dracolisk, or nuggalope—got loose and is really enjoying Mount’s Day Off in the mountains, while your characters get to enjoy Riders’ Day In Pursuit. Unless they don’t. How much do they care about that beast, really.

WILDCARD

Do whatever you want, whether it's completely new or an altered take on one of the prompts.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's obvious why Newt was sent to try to coax the wayward mount back into the fold. From what Cosima's gathered, charming animals is sort of his deal, and he seems decently well qualified, what with the magic and the experience with animal handling.

Cosima, on the other hand, likes animals fine, but wouldn't say she has a particular knack with them. (She also does not have a particular knack with mountains, for what it's worth.) When she gives it some thought, she suspects her main function in being assigned to the mission may be to make observations like "We should stop and eat something" or "I think it's getting dark" if necessary.

Even if she's unsure how helpful she'll be, she is genuinely curious. She likes hearing people talk about things that interest them. "Have you ever dealt with a dracolisk before? I've seen them from a distance, but not up close."

"I haven't gotten the chance to yet, no," Newt says. From the way he's all but beaming, it should be clear to Cosima how very excited he is to have the chance to do so. "But they are wonderful creatures, aren't they? They're like dragons but also horses!"

He is, in fact, bouncing with excitement as he speaks.

"I've heard the one we're looking for is a beauty, too," he says reverently. Actually, from what he recalls, the person assigning them this task said the opposite but, to Newt, all creatures are beautiful.

"They said this one was a bit skittish, yes?"

"Yeah, she's apparently not letting anyone get very close to her. Also she does pretty well on sheer rock faces, so there's that." Why. "Maybe she'll have gotten enough exercise to calm down a little by the time we get there."

"Oh, right," Newt says, suddenly recalling the bit about sheer rock faces. Well, no matter. He's faced worse. And at least the weather is currently fairly decent, should they need to scale sheer rock faces.

"There might be other ways of reaching her, too," Newt points out. "If not quite direct."

"But I brought treats, so, hopefully, sheer bribery works," he adds, smiling. He is not entirely worried about whatever difficulties and/or dangers they might yet face.

"I'm totally in favor of bribery where animals are concerned," Cosima says, returning his smile. "What's the weirdest bribe you've ever given a creature you were coaxing?"

"Me too," Newt agrees with a smile, "generally the easiest way to get animals to cooperate." He'd researched a bit as to what dracolisks prefer to eat and gathered enough of it to hopefully ensure success.

That doesn't necessarily mean the 'treats' smell all that great, though.

"Hopefully the strong scent proves enticing for the dracolisk," he says. He's rather used to unpleasant odors, given his line of work.

[ hello! 4 or 7, maybe? ]

[I would love 7! Would you like me to start? Do you have any preferences?]

[ if you don't mind, that'd be great! no particular preferences, whatever sounds good to you ]

[Not at all! Let me know if this works or if you'd like me to change anything!]

Truthfully, Newt is having a difficult time trying to pretend to be annoyed with the plucky griffon who nabbed a sack of fairly important armor. The creature, magnificent with its glorious wings and fierce features, seems to be enjoying the way it is currently making himself and his companion give chase throughout Kirkwall.

More specifically, across the rooftops and walls of Kirkwall.

"Cheeky bugger, isn't he?" Newt asks, unable to keep himself from grinning.

Freddie isn't pretending at all, perfectly happy to be clambering about the rooftop after the griffon and seemingly unconcerned about whether they're actually successful.

"He is! Usually this sort of theft is his sister LWM's game," she says, "But it seems to be catching." Ahead, Chawcey has flapped up onto a chimney and is shaking the sack until it clanks loudly. "Good thing it's not our armor."

That she isn't pretending endears her all the more to Newt. As he notices her own delight, he gives up entirely on his own guise of pretending he isn't so.

"Can't blame him for wanting to try it for himself," he says with a grin. He can't help but laugh at the sight of the griffon shaking the bag of armor with all the enthusiasm of a cat on catnip. As Newt scrambles towards that particular chimney, it probably could be said that he could be putting more effort into chasing the creature.

"I have to say, I don't think I'd mind, even if it were," he admits. "It's good for them to have their fun." This particular griffon reminds him very much of a particularly sassy Hippogriff on his mother's farm, so he might be a bit biased.

"They're delightful creatures, aren't they?" Freddie agrees, halting her pursuit as Chawcey bounds ahead, a couple heavy flaps of his wings sufficient to let him hop across to a chimney on the next roof over.

For leans against the slope of the gabled roof, watching the griffon once again entertain himself with his new noisemaker. "Though you'd think by now people would know better than to leave things lying about. I suppose they must have thought this too heavy, but of course the larger griffons can carry two riders at once. Have you tried?"

"They are," Newt agrees. "They are truly wonderful. We have them back home, too, but I must admit, I've never encountered any with as much personality as these ones." Getting to chase after one now reminds Newt a bit of home, in fact.

"You would think so but I also think people underestimate how creative creatures like these griffons can get," he says, thinking, of course, of his Niffler and his tendency to find coins and other shiny objects in even the least likely of places.

"No, I haven't," he admits ruefully. "I keep wanting to, though. I keep imagining it must be wonderful to have that chance."

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aventuriere - 2018-10-01 00:14 (UTC) - Expand

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somethingwild - 2018-10-02 10:44 (UTC) - Expand

Could be we say we found him, but he was drunk.

[Gareth. Darras squints at the intersection ahead of them. He's keeping a slow ambling pace, in no particular hurry to make good on this assignment. If his companion has been at all keen on quickening their progress, Darras has kept up, but will always drag their speed back down again.]

It'd be believed of all the Gareth's I've known. Or dead. And then we can, y'know-- [He shrugs, innocent.] Go our separate ways for the afternoon, and leave the Inquisition none the wiser. What d'you say, eh?

[Newt tilts his head, considering. It's a solid plan, really. After all, the Inquisition seems to have an infinite supply of Gareths; would they really be all the wiser?]

I'd say chances are he'd be drunk even if we did actually find him.

[He's in no particular hurry himself, keeping time with Darras' pace.]

Perhaps we should give it one more block. Just in case.

[And then they can say they tried?]

Oh, aye. That sounds prudent and fair and all.

[So they're in agreement, and both disinterested in working very hard for the Inquisition. On this, at least. If "interest in helping the Inquisition" were a measurement, on his best days, Darras would only rate himself about a twenty against a hundred.

But getting credit for a walk that gets him closer to where he really wants to be, he can abide with that.]

Did you get the description they gave of him? Missing an ear. I've known men missing ears before, it's not exactly the most easy to spot. Hides under the hair or the hat too easily, y'know. So if we do overlook him, won't exactly be our fault, will it.

No one can reprimand us for lack of trying, at least.

[Or, well, maybe they still could, but they're putting in the effort of trying, at least! That has to count for something. A very small something, perhaps, but something all the same.]

Missing an ear, long, messy hair. May or may not have brown eyes and a beard.

He could be one of a thousand men in this part of the city.

Resa is not, technically, being mugged. There is certainly an attempt being made, but that’s all that could really be said about it.

They had started out quite confident in themselves, and their choice in mark. And who could blame them, really? Unarmed, clearly unused to labor or fighting, and wearing several pieces of rather loud (and very gaudy) jewelry, Resa seemed too good of a target to be true. Unfortunately for them, she is, in fact, too good to be true. Such is life.

They do their best, of course. Materialize from the shadows, wave weapons about, demand money. The whole usual song and dance. Resa hears them out with a polite, patient smile, and then puts her hands up. Look at how unthreatening she is. Nothing to worry about, here.

"Hey, you guys," She starts off, still smiling. "You don’t want to mug me, do you? I don’t think you do, not really." It’s not a particularly convincing argument she’s slinging out here, but oddly enough, it seems to be working. Seeing their hesitation, Resa plunges on, her tone one of gentle chiding, as though this were all a simple mistake. "Aren’t we friends? I would say so. Wouldn’t you?"

For now, the would-be muggers are still there, still holding their motley weapons, but the aggression seems to have fizzled out. Instead, they focus on contemplating her words. Maybe they are friends. She certainly seems friendly.

Newt tends to avoid Darktown in the same way he avoids Hightown; he knows there's no place for him there unless he's looking for a specific kind of trouble in the form of either getting mugged or some kind of stabbing attempt.

And yet he somehow manages to wind up in Darktown all the same, having taken a wrong turn somewhere back between Lowtown and the Docks.

He's at a distance when he spots Resa; it's rather hard to miss her, especially in Darktown. Judging by her company, she seems to be in trouble, and Newt is quick to make his way over to her.

But by the time he gets there, the motley group seems suddenly unsure of themselves. Resa seems to be saying something about them all being friends.

"Mates, I think you've taken a wrong turn," he steps in, hoping he can further convince them to head elsewhere. "One of your other friends was waiting for you back by the sewers. Something about rare golden armor and lost treasure?"

There is a great surge of relief when Newt steps forward to help, though Resa is careful to not let it show on her face. That would give away the game (if trying to dissuade someone from shanking you can be a game). Resa may have, possibly, been able to handle it on her own, but two is better than one, and Newt brings something incredibly important to the table, something that she can’t—lying.

So she’s happy to let him do the whole lying bit, nodding along with him. “That sounds like something I think you should look into, don’t you? Just think about what you could do with golden armor. Wouldn’t that be great?” She flashes a quick smile at Newt, letting a sliver of that relief show. “After all, he seems pretty reliable, doesn’t he?”

Apparently, he does seem pretty reliable, at least at the moment. The group flashes the two rifters uncertain looks, but turn, muttering to each other as they begin to wander off.

Resa doesn’t waste any time. As soon as their backs are turned, she grabs Newt by the sleeve. “We really need to get out of here before it wears off, and they change their mind.”

Newt flashes the assembled group the same sort of smile he used to use when lying outright to his professors at Hogwarts; the same smile that lets people assume that of course he's trustworthy; what reason does he have to lie, anyway?

"I also saw some Carta dwarves eyeing that same passageway, so you may want to hurry," he adds, just to add credence to the tale. "Or all of the best bits might be gone."

Soon, they've turned their backs, and quickened their pace, after that little flourish of Newt's. He follows her quickly, eager to be out of here himself.

But what she says catches his attention, and he observes her as they flee.

"When what wears off, exactly?" He can't help but ask.

That whole lying ability would be really handy right about now. Resa decides to strategically not answer right away, and instead focuses on trying to figure out just where she took a wrong turn to get here. There are elevators around here, right? This place was so gross. Why did people even choose to live here?

"Well, they're going to wise up to the jig pretty soon, yeah? Stupidity that bad doesn't usually last forever." Which isn't quite an answer, but it'll have to do, because, still gripping his sleeve, she drags him in another direction, pointing.

"I think I see an elevator over there. Did you get lost, too? This never happened when my phone worked, but at this rate, I'd just take a decent map. But all the maps around here are so expensive, because they haven't figured out how to mass produce them yet. I can not wait until they hit the industrial revolution."

Newt notices that she doesn't answer but he doesn't press, either. He's more concerned with getting out of this particular area above anything else, at the moment. Not to mention, seeing the people living out in tents, mired in squalor, makes him wish he could do more for them. But he also doesn't want to get stabbed in the back, either.

"One can hope," Newt says, glancing around for a way out himself. "But usually one isn't that lucky, you're right."

"I think I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere," Newt agrees. "Sorry, did you say your phone helped you avoid getting lost?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Work Proximity Associates Meme

Newt Scamander

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9!!! but happy to adjust if needed or rewrite lmk

This is delightful, thank you!

great & sorry it took me an actual age to return here!

No worries!

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