THE HUMAN WORLD

Atlas Park


royalty-free photograph of portland, oregon sourced from unsplash.com for visualization purposes

Atlas Park is a city located in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. It doesn't have a strong cultural identity, but several major computing and software companies are centered in the city, and it boasts a fairly strong economy and a growing music scene despite its relative obscurity and middling size.
It was settled on the shores of the Harper River, which divides the city north-south, with the downtown district immediately on the southern side.
Its suburban sprawl is greatly contained; much of the city is quite compactly laid out.

There are several universities and two-year community colleges in the city. The most important is Northwest State University.

Public Locations

The Lotus Café

The Lotus Café has a reputation for being either completely packed or totally dead, and it's a crapshoot which you'll get on any given day. Its proximity to the university district more than its actual quality makes it a popular hangout, but their muffins are pretty kickass. At any rate, they serve better coffee than the fast food chains, so you do what you gotta do.

Atlas Park City Park

The somewhat-confusingly named Atlas Park City Park is located in the west quadrant. One of the only oases of natural land in a rapidly-developing area, it -- or at least parts of it -- are heavily wooded and very green. Rumors abound that the park is haunted; there's very little evidence for this.

Northwest State

The foremost college of Atlas Park, NWSU has a strong foundation in the arts and the liberal arts, which gives it a remarkable reputation for many of its students being artsy types (read: hipsters). Their football team, known as the NWSU Griffins, are notoriously sub-par (read: completely terrible). I'm sure this reputation has nothing to do with them being a school full of hipsters.
Currently attended by Natalie (English), Peter (History), Ryan (English), Jen (Journalism), and Eli (Computer Science).

Mountainside College

One of several two-year community colleges in Atlas Park. It's very well-regarded; many of its degree-holders transfer to Northwest State to round off after getting their general courses done on the cheap, but its technical courses are also remarkably well-regarded.
Formerly attended by Xander (Automotive Mechanic), currently attended by Meghan (Photography).

Characters' Homes

Natalie's Family's Apartment

Natalie's family owns a small aparment building, and they live on the top floor. They are the only apartment with roof access, making said roof a frequent relaxation spot for her. They live just west of the university district on the south side of Atlas Park. With five people and one digimon, even though it's a three-bedroom it can feel a little cramped if anyone comes over to visit while the rest of the family is around. Generally very clean and very... home-y.

Xander's Apartment

Xander hates the term 'bachelor pad', but it's appropriate. Basically a studio on the northeast side of Atlas Park, he has one main room, a small kitchen tucked to the side of said room, and a bathroom. His futon is both his couch and his bed. Can be unkempt, but Xander hates ants more than he hates almost anything on the rest of the planet, so it's generally not a dump so much as it's just not organized. He long ago gave up on getting his deposit back.

Peter & Ian's Flat

Part of an over-and-under duplex in the University District in the southeast, Peter and his roommate Ian live in the basement apartment. Not a terrible lot of natural light, their windows are crammed up at the very top of the room at ground level. Kind of gloomy atmosphere not helped by Peter's collection of preserved dead things. Basically every inch of it reads "college students live here"-- and the water pressure is a crapshoot, too.

Meghan's Family's House

The spitting image of upper-middle-class suburban two-story home in Northeast Atlas Park. Spacious backyard? Check. Garage? Check. Kind of ridiculously wasteful inefficient use of space in the living room? Check and check. It's a nice place, and immaculately clean, almost to the point of creepiness. Heck, they even have a tree in the backyard. Meghan's actually kind of self-conscious about it.

Sam's Father's House

A very narrow townhouse smack in the middle of northern Atlas Park. Generally, the first thing everyone says when they walk in is "it's dark in here", because the curtains are almost always closed. Sam's room is on the third floor, at the top of all those flights of stairs-- never let it be said he did't get his exercise as a shut-in. Kind of tends towards the messy, because Sam's father is only around infrequently and Sam himself tends to sequester himself upstairs.