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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His height doesn't impress her. She's too experienced for that, and she's taken down too many people larger than herself. That doesn't mean she's going to underestimate him; he is big, and he carries himself like someone with real strength and skill, not just bravado.

"Funny," she says, a little more of her accent creeping into the words. "Seems like I always got in more trouble drinking with friends."

It's a gamble whether he'll catch the message in there. Not everyone would. I'm not affiliated with other vampires right now, she means it to say. Or maybe, I'm not from around here. This isn't a hunt.

He might be a little surprised by her lack of response to his posturing, but Steve remains reserved. He is big and aware of it. He's used to others at least showing some kind of reaction to him, since his shifter nature is quickly apparent. But he doesn't try to scare her off. Instead, after considering her, his stern look seems to soften and he apparently decides that the foreign vampire isn't a threat.

"Maybe you need better friends. If you aren't going anywhere, I'll have the next one with you." He looks around them again, then back to Natasha with a quieter, questioning expression. A vampire on her own in the city doesn't have a group to rely on. It's a gesture of good will on Steve's part, since he's also alone.

"Steve Rogers." And really his accent is American rather than native London. She isn't the only one who isn't a born and bred local.

The city is big, metropolitan, countless people coming and going every day. It's still surprising.

His reaction rises to her expectations though, maybe even surpassing them, and that gets a smile out of her. She gestures to the place next to her. If they're going to do this, might as well get comfortable. And this way she won't have to look up so far.

"Romanoff. Natasha Romanoff." She sips her coffee briefly, letting a little of her curiosity creep into her expression. "I have to ask, do you make a habit of joining strange women like this, or am I just lucky?"

Steve looks curious too. Maybe that's why he approached her in the first place. She didn't quite fit in, even with the hodgepodge of people he's encountered in London. Somehow a vampire on her own still manages to be different.

"Actually, I thought you were expecting company and figured I'd stick around. See how things played out." In case a public fight broke out. Someone has to do damage control, so it might as well be the shifter. He doesn't really have his own group at the moment, but with wolves and other shifters' scents in the area, Steve expects that a vampire and her friends could easily end up rubbing fur the wrong way. And then, well, things changed.

"You haven't moved for the past twenty minutes. If you're not waiting for anyone, I guess I don't have to feel bad about butting in."

It's not hard to imagine why someone might stick around if he thought she was only going to be the first vampire to show up this evening. Interesting that he'd taken it on himself to keep an eye on things, but not hard to figure out. She had to wonder what that said about him.

"You're right. You don't have to feel bad." She shrugs as she says it, like it hadn't occurred to her that he might. "I wouldn't say I haven't moved, though. I did get a second cup."

Which wasn't what he meant, and she knew it. She was still deciding how she wanted to play that angle.

"So, Steve," she continues, changing the subject to buy time as much as anything else. "What brings you to London??

"My mistake. I must have been distracted at that point." What he says is true. The shifter had scoped out the area a bit himself once he realized there was a vampire hanging out. Steve always was the type to take the initiative into his own hands (or claws, as the case might be), and he was careful enough. But now that they are on relatively good terms, he's more relaxed.

"I came looking for an old friend. He's been having family trouble." Steve hesitates slightly as he says that, trying out the wording as he finds it. "I came to London to make sure he was all right." Steve might have been keeping an eye on the redhead, but he doesn't see any reason to lie to her. They already hide enough from everyone else. "What about you? You don't look like you're here on business."

When he joined her, Natasha had started considering ways this could play out. In the back of her mind, there was that quiet part of her weighing possibilities, doing the math, deciding the odds. Somehow, in her calculations, honesty hadn't factored in.

Maybe it should have, because she finds she believes him.

She found herself revising her estimation of him again.

"I just moved into the area," she answers his question carefully, also telling the truth, but guardedly. "I was looking for a fresh start. London seemed like a good place for it."

He isn't completely open, but Steve is more honest than maybe he should be. He just wants to give people a fair chance, even when the people he meets are vampires. But unlike some of the other shapeshifters, he doesn't think that all of them are bad. Natasha at least strikes him as someone more careful than dangerous.

Of course, it's easier to be confident when you are a relatively large shifter with strength behind him. His human form is big, a good reflection of the beast that he can turn into. He's used to just approaching challenges head on rather than sneaking around. When Steve looks at Natasha again after her answer, he seems to weigh her response as if it were any other. He even smiles a bit, nodding in agreement.

"It's a big city. And a nice place for the old ways to find something new. Maybe we have that in common."

"I thought you were here checking up on a friend?" she says it almost like she's teasing, but without any real bite. Why he's here is his business, and she doesn't intend to pry. That doesn't mean she's above testing the waters to hear more.

"You think you're going to have to keep an eye on him for a while, or...?"

She leaves the alternatives open ended.

"I am." Steve's smile turns just a little wry as he says that. "I'm going to stay as long as I'm needed. Things... are a little complicated for both of us."

Shifter politics can be tricky for those who don't exactly see eye-to-eye with the given order. But Steve is loyal, so he found himself in London, trying to make a way for himself in a new city with new rules. For his friends and, in part, for himself.

And then started talking to vampires, which he knows won't earn him any good will from his own kind. Things may have just gotten more complicated.

"But I plan on being in town. That isn't a problem is it?"

"Not on my end." She can't exactly speak for anyone else, but she's in no position to complain.

Watching him, she has to wonder what he is. Not a werewolf. She's already figured out that much. Family trouble probably means shapeshifters, but that doesn't tell her what he is. He's heard cats are common in London, but he's not from London himself...

Whatever he is, he's big.

"Believe me," she adds wryly, "I'm not looking for trouble." She has enough of it, and she's cynical enough to be sure she'll find more without asking for it.

"Were you expecting a problem?"

"Good enough for me." There might be a hint of humor in his voice, but it's hard to tell. Steve speaks so plainly that it sounds serious either way. He does notice the way Natasha is looking at him, and the question gets a knowing look.

"Maybe. It's late and there are a lot of people doing business in town. I wouldn't be surprised if a problem or two showed up. And I'm not friends with everyone in London either."

Steve has a bit of standing as a shapeshifter, but that is only with his own group. Here in England he's still finding his footing with them and with the other supernaturals that live in the area. He might stand a chance at upsetting the local wolf pack, moving in as a lone cat with only some personal ties to London. But territory issues haven't stopped Steve yet.

"But I don't want trouble if I can help it."

"Isn't that always the way?" she says with wry sympathy. Some people are good at finding trouble, or trouble is good at finding them. Steve strikes her as the type who might be a little of both.

"Well, good luck with that. I very much hope it works out for you." She adds then, as an after thought, "Both you and your friend."

Steve is definitely both, and he isn't all that great at hiding it. He's never been great at denying who he is, which is part of the problem. What he is requires a dual life and a bit of grace with the higher ranking shifters, but Steve has always been the type to speak his mind. Which makes arriving in a whole new city trickier. At least the supernatural types back home were used to him.

"You're not going to ask?" He sounds a little surprised himself that Natasha isn't going to press him for answers after he basically admitted to spying on her. She must at least have an idea of what he is by now, and vampires usually aren't fond of shapeshifters either, but aside from the very basics, she hasn't asked him for much. It's nice. Strange, but nice. "We'll work it out. There are some people who would like us to stop trying to make it work, but that's family." Sometimes they stick too close together even for him.

"I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious," she answers, not above leaving the door open for him to share if he wants. It's not a bad way to learn things about someone. Not ideal, not always a way to find out what you really wanted, but still good. It showed where their priorities were, seeing what they talked about, what they avoided.

"Maybe I'm trying not to pry?"

"You can pry if you want to. There's really not much to hide." Steve says that, but really any non-human has something worth hiding. There are a lot of people that don't want to see other supernatural powers in their area, and the family, Steve's own shifter group, is the old guard that still sees a lot to dislike in anyone who isn't them.

"My friend and I are trying something new. There are a lot of different people here in London, and with space being so close, we might as well try to be neighborly. Not everyone agrees with our decision. I'm here for support."

"That sounds like quite the situation, especially for an outsider." She says it conversationally, not disinterested but well aware that they're still in public. She knows better than to let her tone attract undue interest. "Okay, I'll bite. What do you and your friend have in mind? Being neighborly, I mean."

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Test Drive Meme: Feb/March 2016

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