thetube | Test Drive Meme: Feb/March 2016

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Welcome to the Underground test drive meme! This is where you can try out the AU version of your character, start some potential CR and get a feel for the world of the game. Choose your character's species, read up on the available factions and you're ready to go. Put your character's name in your subject line when you post, tag out, and have fun!

Note to current players: Activity in this meme counts as game canon! So you can use it for activity check. If you end up playing anything that you can't or don't want to use as game canon, it's fine to ignore it. (In that case you shouldn't submit it for activity check.)

Here are some prompts to inspire you:

1) COMMON PEOPLE. What do normal Londoners do every day anyway? Sometimes you just want to blend in with everyone else. Make friends with humans. Talk about the weather. Go on, try it.

2) PENTHOUSE SUITE. But wait. Maybe you want to see how the other half live. The elite of the elite. You've been lucky enough to be asked to a meeting, or a luncheon, or a date. Find out what the most powerful people in London are really like.

3) GET OUT YOU FILTH. Supernatural prejudice is a regrettable fact of life in London. It doesn't matter what you are, there's someone out there who hates you because of it. They'll shun you, heckle you, even hunt you down and kill you. Of course, you're probably not immune to a few prejudices yourself.

4) SPEED DATING. Oh god. Why did you sign up to this. You should have known it was a bad idea when someone mentioned it was supernatural speed dating. Help.

5) THE REAL UNDERGROUND. Down in the darkest corners of the Tube, there are supernatural vagrants of all kinds, especially vampires. That friendly busker may well be a fae. That girl waiting for the next train is a ghost. Once you've seen it, you can't escape from it.

6) IN THE SUPERMARKET. On the other hand, you never know what you might find just walking around your local supermarket. You haven't forgotten how to do normal things like groceries, right?

7) A CURSED EXISTENCE. Maybe you literally are cursed. Maybe you just feel like it sometimes. There are things you can't do, weaknesses that normal humans aren't subject to, but they make everyday life in London that little bit more difficult. Try not to get too mad about it.

8) CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE. Anything goes.

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[Daryl, dressed in clean enough (though still ripped at the knees) jeans, work boots, a dark flannel with the sleeves cut off, and leather vest, gave the woman an incredulous stare. She was leaning forward and whispering like she was trying to make a joke and break the ice, but the words coming out of her mouth were pretty much gibberish to him.

Daryl himself was leaning back slightly out of instinct, not liking people getting so close to him, even if it was just across the table. He was also having a hard time keeping eye contact, his gaze flicking between her face and pretty much anything else he could look at. Points in his favor, though, he was trying to keep them on her, and not the other way around.]

...I don't know. It sounds like bullshit, whatever it is.

[In all fairness, Evelyn very much intended for it to be an arresting statement: whether its results were an extension of intellectual rapport or a prompt for a confused rejoinder depended solely on the person across the table. He leaned back and she almost felt guilty for pressing. Almost.]

Well, you're not wrong.

[She informed him, waving a hand. The mysteriously frayed man over the drinks looked this way and that, pointedly working to maintain eye contact while simultaneously giving the impression that he preferred not to do so. Shifty. Something animal about him.]

But you're the first person to say so. I'm Evelyn.

[Her admittance earned her a snort and a slight upturn to his lips that disappeared almost immediately. But it was certain found her words amusing. He still didn't relax enough to stop leaning back, but his head settled in a tilt to the side where his hair could fall over his eyes and he could look up at her from under the safety of that curtain.

Only a little less cagey.]

Daryl.

[His chin dipped slightly in a nod as the fingers of one hand started to pick at the frayed edges of one of those holes in his jeans.]

Guessin' you've been talking to a bunch of pricks about as full of it as a septic tank.

That's one way of putting it,

[she said through a smile. In the parlance of the times she might hazard to call the assortment of unsavoury types "a parade of assholes," but that made it all sound much jollier than it really was. None of them were there because they enjoyed rooms full of strangers with the time and wherewithal to kill you.

Elbow on the table, she rested her chin in one hand and found it very charming that he deferred with such quiet politesse.]

Let me guess. Someone strong-armed you into coming.

No.

[Said with another snort and enough defensiveness to make it clear that even if someone hadn't strong-armed him in the strictest sense, he had been talked into it. Somehow. And he was definitely regretting it.]

I signed myself up for it.

[A bit of petulance may have creeped into his voice at that even as it got quieter with each word until the last was muffled by this thumb finding his way to his mouth so he could start chewing on it.]

Didn't think there'd be so many people.

[If he signed himself up for it, he must have known that attendance would be immense - the underground population here is a great deal more expansive than one might assume. Evelyn grins.]

Not having second thoughts, are you?

[He really is.]

I've been out of the country, I thought it prudent to meet people.

[Daryl could be pretty damn obtuse sometimes.

He decided to not answer the question and focus, instead on her other statement. That seemed less likely to put him in an awkward spot. More awkward spot.]

Where you been?

Egypt.

[There is a reason she provided the conversational out - it doesn't seem as though Daryl is the forthcoming sort unless comfortable, which he most certainly is not. He also appears to prefer uncomplicated answers, and so she obliges.]

For work. I'm an archaeologist.

What, like Indiana Jones?

[his eyebrows shot up, just visible under the fall of his bangs as she caught his genuine interest. Sadly, the movies were about as close. As Daryl came to knowing a lick about most anything people would consider worldly.]

Something like that.

[Evelyn grins, and intends to gently correct the misconception. The common idea of what an archaeologist is and does tends to be chalked up to "extreme sports while evading natives and wielding ancient relics," all of which is grossly inaccurate.

Mostly there's a great deal of maths, and staring at pottery sherds, and drawing said pottery sherds in excruciating detail.]

Less cause for heavy ordinance, however. Can you picture me with a bullwhip?

[Daryl squinted at her, mouth turning slightly down before he shook his head.]

Nah. Gun and a hat, maybe.

[While delivered with just a bit of a deadpan tone, his lips had twisted back up in a small smile at his attempt to joke.]

[It wasn't an off assessment, but the hat was mostly for shade - her skin was very pale, you understand, and freckled easily - and the gun was a safety precaution. Egypt wasn't a friendly place to foreigners, even if they were of mixed ancestry. Even if it was partly like coming home.

Evelyn returned the smile and while it wasn't sympathetic, there was a tacit understanding wallowing in her words.]

You look at though you're at home with the idea of heavy ordinance.

[He gave a light shake of his head, lips twisting back down as his eyes dropped.]

Handguns ain't that heavy. Prefer my crossbow and knives. But crossbow hunting's illegal here so I can only really do target shooting with it. Haven't gotten a gun for hunting yet. Nothing I really like. All of 'em are too loud. Prefer stalking and killing my prey in silence.

[As cats do.]

[A hunter at heart with a proclivity for quiet, deadly strikes: either he was a contract killer dragged into this world as a Meta-Human, or he was something else entirely. Since the moment he sat down across from her he had quite pointedly resembled a cornered animal and the telltale prickle at her nape would have suggested something just as out of the ordinary as she.]

I bet you do.

[His unease, which appeared to manifest itself as shiftiness, now seemed more along the lines of a firm vigilance. She rested her chin in one hand and pursed her lips in thought, carefully clambering out on a limb. Evelyn's smile could almost be misconstrued as teasing.]

So what kind of predator are you?

[Daryl's eyes shot up to hers. He was used to keeping quiet on what he was in public. But this wasn't exactly public in the traditional sense. It was a venue for people like him to meet others like him. Shifter or not.

His instinct to go quiet on the matter, hold his tongue, was hard to shake, however. And his defensiveness over the possibility of being 'found out' because he accidentally gave too much away had him meeting and holding her gaze in a challenge. Wanting to force her to back down and stop questioning him so directly. It was a reaction he couldn't quite prevent, but one that he got under control a moment later when he remembered she wasn't actually a threat. That he should expect people to ask how he fit into the whole supernatural community.

Daryl forced his eyes to break contact and sucked in a deep breath, attempting to relax again.]

Bobcat.

[He kept the answer short because it was already hard enough to admit it outloud like that. Most of Hillingdon House didn't even know what kind of cat he turned into, only that he'd sometimes shift his eyes to get a better look at something and they could tell he was of the feline persuasion.]

[It could have been metaphorical, but he doesn't seem the "wax poetic" type and she's happy enough that an educated guess hit the nail on the head. Certainly makes their tête-á-tête easier, even though he's attempting - in vain - to clutch his cards so close to his vest.

Not easily intimidated Evelyn stares back, lofting a single eyebrow and waiting patiently while he wrestles with his conscience about sharing. There are benefits to having a witch's blood, because she can certainly tell when someone is normal.

She tips her head to one side contemplatively.]

I can see that. Adaptable creatures, aren't they?

[Daryl gave a nod, suddenly finding his fingernails to be quite fascinating as his eyes settled on them and the nail of his thumb that was cleaning out the dirt on the rest.]

Yeah. They get by.

[He got by.]

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Test Drive Meme: Feb/March 2016

4 - Like the others, there is no way I can resist an opening like that

EXCELLENTE ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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I'm so sorry for the delay, graduate thesis things are happening for me ;;

I hope they're going well

They're.......going. :'D

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