thetube | Test Drive Meme: August 2015

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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.)

For prospective players: Thinking about bringing a character to the game? Feel free to comment to our Potential CR Planning meme for OOC planning and discussion.

Here are some prompts to inspire you:

1) BABY COME BACK. Is there someone you miss? Maybe you've come to visit for the first time in months. Maybe you'll even stay.

2) FULL MOON. (29th August) Uh oh, it's that time of the month. Werewolves, have you been feeling more aggressive lately? A little short of temper? Better start preparing for your monthly transformation and hope that you don't get interrupted. And then there's the morning after, which feels like a massive hangover. Wait, where are your clothes?

3) CARNIVAL. (30th-31st August) It's the August bank holiday weekend and that can only mean one thing: the Notting Hill Carnival! With the sun high in the sky, enjoy the parade, the music and of course the food. Jerk chicken, anyone?

4) SPECIAL EFFECTS. There's nothing like a touch of subtle magic to add to the occasion. Dress up and show off. Mind you, there could be other supernatural types around who see straight through your tricks.

5) PARTY ALL NIGHT. It's not over when the sun goes down. Get yourself to one of the bars or after-parties and keep on partying. Just don't drink too much. You know it makes it harder to control your powers... and your urges.

6) BRAWL. The police work hard to keep London's gangs away from Carnival. When you have supernatural gangs to contend with, their job gets a whole lot harder. Drunk and disorderly or simply looking for an excuse to cause trouble, encounters between rival factions can soon become hostile. Now are you here to cause a fight or to stop it?

7) NIGHT IN JAIL. Oops. What did you do? And who's that with you?

8) CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE. Anything goes.

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John Childermass is nothing if not his own person, for all that he is Norrell's on paper. While he would never outright refuse the man, not so long as the idea weren't entirely ridiculous, he'd made it known that to go out for a set of rare books on this particular day in this particular downpour was a fool's errand. But Norrell had wrung his hands at him and insisted that they would not be on hold for him forever and if someone else were to have their hands on them well, then...!! No doubt Norrell had three copies of the damned thing already, Childermass had grumbled to himself, but he set out in the rain regardless. The last thing he needs on his conscience is to cause the man a conniption.

[SPECIAL EFFECTS]
There are times when Childermass loves the city. When he loves the bustle around him, the sounds, the smells, the people. And there are times when he could do without it. This would be one of those latter times. Taking a deep breath, before gathering himself into the shadows. Literally into the shadows. Becoming one. In such a way, he can traverse the city in his own way. Without being hassled, harranged, or hit on. Or such is the idea.

Just because he's invisible to the everyday man doesn't mean he's invisible to everyone. As he is soon made all too aware of...

[BRAWL]
Childermass had only intended to stop by a bar to have a drink on the way home. Unfortunately for him, he had happened to choose this bar, of all places. And while Childermass himself had a comfortable seat in a corner, away from the main portion of the house, he could not help but feel that the longer he sat there, the more uncomfortable the atmosphere of the place. And the more he listened in, the more that he understood he had accidentally walked into a war between two factions. Neither of them the one he belonged to himself, thankfully. The last thing he needed to do was to wind up forced into the middle of something like that. Unfortunately, that didn't spare him from this.

After a glass is thrown and nearly hits Childermass himself, dousing the man himself in a healthy splashing of lager, he decides that enough is enough. Raising from his seat, he places his hands on the table in front of him and addresses the direction it came from. "You'd better think long and hard about what you want your next step to be," he growls out, in his own rough, northern sort of fashion, as he wipes alcohol out of his eyes and glares across the room. (At least, he thinks to himself, though god he must be spending too much time around Norrell for such a thought to come to him, it hasn't gotten on the book.) "I would not want you to regret your decisions..."

[NIGHT IN JAIL]
Childermass sighs as he leans back against the wall behind him in the jail cell, reaching up to press a hand against his nose. There's a cut across it, but at least it's stopped bleeding, and it doesn't seem to be broken. A fine mess he's gotten himself into. And for what? Because he'd found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and had let his mouth get the better of him. Let the entire bar get the better of him, by the feel of it. Eventually, someone will come to bail him out, whether it's Davey or, god forbid, Norrell himself. Eventually the police will listen and understand that it wasn't his fault, that he hadn't even thrown a punch in any of it, he'd not even resisted arrest beyond pointing out that they shouldn't be arresting him in the first place. Eventually they would let him go, he was sure of it.

But eventually wasn't now. And the night is looking to be a long one. Shutting his eyes, he tips his head back to rest against the wall as well and sighs again. Heavily. A long night indeed.

[ANYTHING GOES]
Don't see anything you like here? Want something else with Childermass? Either create your own thread here or PM this account so that we can work something out! :)

Norrell sits with the tense, uneasy air of someone in the peak of discomfort. He seems quite sure that simply by being in a police station he might catch some sort of plague from a criminal, be assaulted or worse -- be assumed to be one!

Yet here he is, uncomfortably fidgeting and waiting for Childermass to be set free. To think! Him, of all people, reduced to this! To mixing with criminals and law enforcement! To having to pay --

He hopes nobody recognises him, and that the story can be covered up, for surely such a tale would bring him into disrepute! That, above all things, cannot happen -- for Gilbert Norrell has one goal. To be recognised as the finest practical magician in London.

Well. In truth, he has a great many goals. To stamp out the problem of the Seelie and Unseelie court, eradicate and call into question the teaching of any such summoning spells for one of their kind -- but all of these smaller victories are to the same point! All of them building blocks to his greater purpose!

It is a very great purpose for a very small and nervous man.

In the corner of the station his eyes catch upon Childermass being lead through and he immediately looks away and pretends to read a nearby flier advertising neighbourhood watch sessions.

Edited (changed my mind to waiting area) 2015-09-11 22:43 (UTC)

Childermass spots the tight set of Norrell's shoulders and the way that his gaze is deliberately on anything but his own approaching person. He understands how this looks. He had at least tried to clean himself up, although it's difficult to get blood out of a shirt once the stain has set, and though they allowed him to tend to his nosebleed, the police were less than concerned about the state of his appearance. Gilbert Norrell, on the other hand, is anything but.

At least, he notes to himself as he crosses the rest of the distance, he is pretending to look interested in something he might actually be interested in, if he were actually reading the thing. He shifts to cross his arms across his chest, sitting into his hip as he stands over the uncomfortable little man in the chair before him.

"Of all the household to be sent to my aid," Childermass says, speaking up to address Norrell personally, "I had not expected the honor of your presence, sir." Is he being facetious? Perhaps. It's been a long day, and Norrell doesn't need to have said anything for Childermass to understand his disapproval.

"You have caused me," Norrell begins, not even looking up from his flier, "great inconvenience. I had to get Davey to drive me. The rain is intolerable, and the traffic is worse still. You know I do not like London, Childermass, the houses are small and everything is expensive."

He looks up finally, indignation quickly being coloured by uncertainty at the sight of him.The blood on his shirt, the sate of his face. It will not do.

"What were you doing getting yourself into a brawl? People will talk. There will be questions asked."

Childermass shrugs in response to this onslaught. He knows it is better to let Norrell rant and rave than it is to interrupt. If you interrupt him in the middle of it, he will find some other way of going about doing so. That is not to say that he won't continue, even you have let his ranting run its course, however.

"I'm certain they will. And once the questions are asked, anyone is free to answer with the truth, sir. Which is to say that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And when I stepped in to aid in calling the fighting to an end, got a knock or two myself for my troubles. Have you ever known me to be getting into pub fights?" He raises an inquiring eyebrow at the other man. Norrell knows very well that he is not, after all. No matter what his hysterics might lead him to believe otherwise.

When has he known him to be getting into pub fights?

The answer is that Norrell hadn't even considered Childermass might go to pubs, in truth. Childermass is his manservant, his assistant, and beyond that -- well, Norrell has no idea what he does with his time and no particular interest. The very idea that he does have a life beyond Norrell and his magic peculiarly wrong-foots him for a moment before he recovers and stands to dust himself down.

"I have a great many things to do and you have wasted my time, made me come out here, called my associations into question in doing so. Were you drunk?" he inquires, as if this might explain things. That is what people do in pubs, he thinks, get themselves drunk and rowdy.

Childermass is growing tired of being reprimanded for a thing which he has already explained was not his fault. Moreover -- yes, he might have inconvenienced Norrell in the fact that the man had come all this way over to bail him out, but it hadn't needed to be him. He could have sent anyone in his house. Childermass knows what the man thinks of such places, he knows what his opinion is on traveling in general. Either he made the journey because somewhere, in that shrivelled little heart of his, he cares what happens to him in some regard. Or because if he did he may have that much more reason to compain at him for all of this. Childermass cannot honestly say which is more likely. Perhaps both, in a way.

He sighs to himself, and continues, feeling as though they have had this conversation before, "And have you ever known me to be drunk in the performance of my duties?" He shoots the small man an intimidating look to accompany his icy words, before he draws back, knowing that he can toe the line of putting Norrell in his place but must (generally) refrain from crossing it.

"I stopped for some food on the way back. Got caught up in someone else's fight. It is as I told you, sir. No more, no less." His head is really starting to ache. They cared about whether or not he was going to bleed to death in that cell, not whether or not it would hurt while he did so.

"You might have been drinking while you stopped," Norrell points out, clearly stuck on this point. "That is what people do in such places. Drink, and fight. Get into trouble." His face scrunches on each word, as if the very utterance of it is greatly distasteful, before glancing sideways at Childermass. Studying him and seeming to compose himself, if in an uneasy sort of fashion. As if the slight reprimand has wrongfooted him once more and he is unsure how to respond.

"We will have to find you something to change into," he declares finally, "Or a jacket to better hide that -- I will not be seen with a man covered in blood, it will bring people to stare."

Childermass makes note of the fact that Norrell is fussing about his clothes and what people will think about him and how that might affect Norrell's reputation -- rather than the fact that there is a rather definite bruise forming across his face and it's clear that the blood is his for that matter. But he can hardly be surprised. Such fussing has Norrell written all over it. And why should he concern himself with his own personal wellbeing, he supposes. He's a drunk, inconvenient servant, in the other man's estimations. Never mind the decades of service he's given him.

Childermass makes an exasperated noise. "Yes, well," he says, "forgive me for not warning you so that you might bring a change for me. I will remind you that I was incarcerated until just now. Sir." He takes a deep breath, to calm himself as much as to try and ease the headache forming as well.

"I imagine that they will be bringing my jacket along. With the rest of my things that were taken away from me earlier. Your book, for instance. Or have you forgotten the nature of my business in the first place, in such excitement." He raises a wry eyebrow at the other man, although the minute swelling in his face is starting to take away from the usual effect of the expression.

The book.

Norrell's eyes dart back to him, having drifted to study people who might be watching them, and immediately he is on the offensive.

"You have it? You let them take it? Well, you must get it back! What if they have damaged it? What if they think to read it? No, no you must retrieve it immediately! That is the only copy left! I cannot have it damaged or -- or stained in some way! What if they have dropped it, opened it too wide, damaged the spine? Held it with dirty hands?!"

Childermass rolls his eyes slightly. The book, the damned book. He's lucky he didn't lose it in the fight, or worse. Lucky that the lager had been spilled on him and not on the book itself. Best not tell Norrell about that part. He takes another calming breath -- he feels as though he will be doing a great many of these to come, both now and on the ride home -- before he speaks up to continue.

"It was safe in the packaging, last I left it. Same as it was when I retrieved it for you. Unless they needed to check it for contraband, I doubt that they've done anything to it at all. And we shall get it back soon. As you shall see." The last was said a bit more forceful than the rest of his placatory words, but Childermass really is intending to calm the other man down, not stir him up further.

His lips thin unhappily, and Norrell is clearly biting down on the urge to complain further -- yet as a blessing for all present he rises above such desires.

"Well when is soon. Are they fetching these things now? I cannot stay here much longer. I have things to do. People depend on me, Childermass, you know that. I cannot be passing the time sitting idly be while the metropolitan police contrive to keep us waiting. It will not do."

Childermass cannot help the quirk of his mouth that appears at Norrell's fussing. "I have no doubt that they are taking their time to vex you, sir, but they will arrive in time. As you will see. In the meanwhile, will you tell me what pressing engagement you may have, so that I may better apologize for keeping you."

He knows very well that Norrell likely as not has absolutely nothing on his agenda and is just itching to get out of there and back to the safety of hearth and home, as it were. Perhaps he is calling him out on it on purpose because he is tired. Perhaps it is simply within his nature. He really would rather that Norrell have sent Lucas instead. At least then he might have had some sympathy for his present situation and his aching head, instead of...well. This.

At the question of what, exactly, his pressing engagement might be Norrell draws himself up a little. Regards Childermass with a mixture of frustration and irritation as he decides how to answer.

He has no pressing engagement to speak of, as the man suspects, yet to Norrell every minute of his day is important.

"I have research to be doing," he declares, "and as you well know I have a great many articles to get through and approve."

Norrell does not, in truth, have to approve these articles. He offered to to, and then insisted. His 'corrections' may well be copious and of great irritation to the poor authors who hoped for a little more neutrality.

Childermass does not speak up to question whether or not Norrell would be doing such a thing right now, at this hour, if he were not here, rescuing him from prison. He knows better than that. For one, Norrell probably would be locked up in his study, doing exactly that. And for another, he knows how to read the other man's defense when he sees it, and he can certainly tell that Norrell is being defensive now. He lets out a tired sigh, before allowing himself to sink down into one of the waiting room chairs.

"I do know," he concedes. "I am sorry that I cannot do anything to hurry them for you. Not this time. They may very well put me back in that cell if I try." And then where will you be, he wonders to himself. He sits back, leaning his head against the wall to look at the other man carefully, to take in the measure of him, before he repeats again, "Why are you here, sir? Why did you not send Lucas, or another in your stead, so that you might have continued your research uninterrupted, in that case?"

Norrell draws himself up a little at that, scowls at the question Childermass addresses to him.

"The book, of course! I wanted to be sure you had not lost it or had it taken with all this fuss. There will have to be payments made, too, favours asked to keep this quiet. You are costing me money now, too. It will be taken out of your wages."

He lofts an eyebrow at Childermass meaningfully, looks away into the station. Gilbert Norrell is beginning to quickly tire of waiting. It is a clear sign of incompetence, to him, ignorance. To keep him waiting so long. If this were a Night Council issue...! Well, it would be dealt with much more swiftly and with respect!

Childermass lets out something of a snort at the other man's response. Of course he should answer like that. Of course he would. Childermass lets his eyes fall shut. His head really does hurt. He had wondered if his nose might have been broken, although supposes that there was no harm done there, if it had. He's starting to wonder if he might be mildly concussed at that. Ah, well. More's the pity, he supposes at that as well.

"Ah, the book," he says, turning away from the other man and sinking down further in his chair. He is not quite certain whether he believes him in whole, but it is the only thing that Norrell had mentioned that Childermass would actually have pinned Norrell for putting the effort forth for. He really didn't like making appearances like this, after all.

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Test Drive Meme: August 2015

John Childermass | Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell | Midnight Witch

A MENACE BEING BAILED OUT

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