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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It's hard to miss she's that pale, but it's not like plenty of humans aren't pale either. There could be any number of reasons for it. Back in his late teens it might have been the conclusion he jumped to, young and overeager to be part of a world he'd never known existed, but now he knows better. At least when it comes to indicators as subtle as that.

He winces when he looks away from him. Maybe she isn't lonely, maybe she just likes observing. When she looks back again he's not sure if he should look back at his screen or not. Except that just leads to him looking for too long to be able to do that without being awkward.

"Sorry," he settles on, ending up feeling just as awkward in the end as if he'd just gone back to his reading. "I just... I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

Natasha clears her throat when he speaks up. "I think that should be my line. I didn't mean to stare. I wasn't thinking about what it would be like being watched."

For the most part, no one has commented on it before him. Only a few men who'd thought that had a chance flirting. That had been different, though.

"Did bother you?"

"No." Which isn't entirely accurate. It had been unnerving. It's probably pretty clear he's just saying that too, so he shrugs with a tight smile. "I mean, kind of, but then I figured it's not like I've never people watched when I get bored. It's not like you were trying to be creepy."

It's not until after the words leave his mouth he realizes he's pretty much saying he'd thought that. Crap.

"But I was being creepy," Natasha says, more rueful than insulted. She's not used to being awkward. She's also not used to worrying what mortals think of her. She's still not entirely sure what she wants their reaction to be.

"I deserve that. So if I was being creepy, why did you smile?"

"It wasn't just me you were looking out. I guessed that meant you probably weren't singling me out to stab me as soon as I step out on the street," he jokes, grin a little more genuine now he apparently hasn't offended her.

"No, no stabbing. Cross my heart." There's a pang of something she doesn't want to consider as she answers, but she shrugs it off without interrogating the feeling to closely. Better to focus on the conversation. More productive. "I was wondering what you were reading."

"Oh. Wired." His eyes flick back to the screen to read back the title of the article he currently has open. "Foolish humans blindly follow robot guides into danger."

It had sounded funny when he clicked it. Now he's a little worried what she might think of it, though at the very least this tab only makes him look nerdy rather than outright weird.

"It's about a study on whether people would follow emergency guide robots even if they were making obvious mistakes like going into rooms without exits or anything. Turns out most of them would."

Yeah. He definitely sounds like a nerd.

"Robots? Really." The look she gives him doesn't say that he's a nerd, but it is skeptical. And maybe a little unsurprised by the results. Sometimes mortals don't have the strongest sense of self-preservation. "Why did they ask people to follow robots in the first place?"

"What, you don't think robots can be programmed for that?" He's a little surprised by the skepticism. Robots are getting pretty advanced. Maybe there's something he's missing.

"It was a study. They wanted to see if people would utilize them, like if they lived in a high rise that caught fire."

"Programmed to mislead people, you mean?" The things he's talking about aren't part of the world she's been part of for decades. She understands technology insofar as it's useful to her. She doesn't struggle with computers or mobile phones, as tools. But he's talking about things that were purely fiction when she was human, and outside her experience since then. But the fact that the study seems disingenuous does stand out to her, and the fact that people are so trusting regardless.

She shakes her head a little, though. "I suppose it's not something I think about much."

"Well, I meant to help people in emergencies, but I guess that too." He shrugs. "It just seemed like you didn't quite believe it."

Although if they don't interest her, that's not so strange. It's not like it's a mainstream application for them.

"Maybe I don't." She mirrors his shrug, softening her response. "Not because it's not interesting. I think.... maybe at this point it just makes me feel old."

He gives her an odd look at that along with an awkward laugh. "Well, you don't look any older than I am, so I hope not."

"Are you really going to tell me you don't look at everything that's happened in the last twenty five or thirty years and feel old sometimes?" She says it, and it seems reasonable enough to her. "I wouldn't say I usually feel old, but you're talking about robots."

It is reasonable. He likes to pretend otherwise though. Just like he likes to pretend he doesn't have one or two grays in among the rest of his hair. He can't agree with her about robots though.

"Realizing my favorite movie as a kid is nearly thirty makes me feel old," he tells her. "Robots make me feel younger. So many developments have happened in such a short period of time, and there's going to be way more of them. I only feel old when I look back."

When he puts it like that, she does feel old. It's a hazard of her kind. "I think I could be jealous of that attitude. It'll be interesting to see what people come up with next, where this is all going..."

But she remembered the news on the radio when Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space, and she was already a vampire when the Americans won the race to the moon. She spent most of her life in a communist nation, but the Soviet Union had fallen a quarter of a century ago. She'd seen too much not to think that, interesting as the ages to come would be, all of those innovations were only going to become more past.

"But it never makes me feel younger."

It occurs to her that she's probably letting too much slip, but she hasn't had much company lately, so she talks.

It's not as though he's likely to believe she's immortal anyway. People see what they want.

That's an attitude he recognizes. The familiarity hits him with a harder pang than it should should. It's probably a coincidence, but he's heard those words before. That tone. The same look in her eyes. He's never understood it.

"You remind me of someone," he admits, wistful for all his talk of looking forward only moments prior. "He had forever, but you wouldn't know it from the way he talked. It was like the opposite."

"Forever, huh?" She doesn't sound skeptical of that. Her voice is level, almost too disinterested, but her gaze is anything but. She's paying attention. Maybe looking for something.

She knows that kind of look too.

He doesn't expect that to get a reaction. Forever isn't such an unusual turn of phrase. He's never had to avoid it to keep away suspicion. The only people who might pick up on it... he's looking a little more carefully now, scrutinizing her, a little more aware of her pale skin.

"Forever," he confirms, straight faced. Maybe he should try and pass it off as a joke. Instead he remains serious, a hand drifting up to the faded scars on his neck only half subconsciously. Though the movement's instinctive there's a curiosity in his eyes as he runs his thumb over old bite marks. Is she? Would she recognize them for what they are? Part of him would like to hope, but out of all the supernatural creatures he's encountered it's vampires he's most wary of.

The way he touches his neck confirms it. It couldn't have been recent, or she'd have smelled another vampire on him. But that was in keeping with how he talked about the relationship, someone who he used to know.

She frowns a little as he responds.

"Sounds like he was someone you knew well," she says, guardedly.

He's not sure. He suspects, but maybe he's looking for things that aren't there. It makes him guarded too. He doesn't know her or her intentions.

"I did," he confirms. "But it was a long time ago. I couldn't tell you where he is now."

A lie. He'd been important to him once and Oliver's more than capable of finding information on pretty much anyone if he wants. Even bits and pieces on the most technologically challenged people can be found if you know where to look, and Oliver does. He doesn't need them to have a Facebook account. It's creepy, but sometimes curiosity gets the better of him.

She meets his eyes steadily, her expression very serious.

"You might not believe it, but you're probably better off. You seem like a good guy." Where by good, she means normal. Very, very normal. "It can be very hard to stay that way around that kind of person."

Edited 2016-03-06 01:25 (UTC)

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Test Drive Meme: Feb/March 2016

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