Test Drive Meme: April/May 2016

[undergroundmods]

"The Jam - Going Underground" (Watch on YouTube)

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 and canon 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) GOING UNDERGROUND. For some people, London is an escape. A place to be anonymous. A place to be themselves. Or a place to hide. Steeped in ancient magic, it attracts supernatural types from all over the world. Of course, that doesn't mean its inhabitants are always friendly to newcomers.

2) CHOOSE YOUR LEADERS. The Night Council election campaign is in full swing and on 5th May the supernatural community votes for its leaders. Visit any supernatural haunt and you'll find people arguing about who to vote for – not to mention the volunteers handing out badges and flyers in an effort to win your support. Try to keep it civil, folks.

3) THE PUBLIC WANTS WHAT THE PUBLIC GETS. (29th April) The Night Council candidates gather in a town hall in Westminster to explain why the supernatural community should vote for them. Traditionally a noisy and raucous event, it's your last opportunity to heckle question the candidates before the election. There are four separate Q&As: first up are the candidates for Shapeshifter/Meta Human representative; then candidates for Witch Representative; then Vice President; then finally the candidates for President will take to the stage. They each make a short speech and then take questions from the audience. Or if you want, you could just turn up for a free meal: in the room next door there's a sandwich buffet plus tea, coffee and fruit juice, so it's a good opportunity to mingle.

4) FIRE FESTIVAL. (1st May) The fire festival of Beltane is a time of celebration for witches, marking the beginning of summer. Come along to the bonfire for music, food and drink, flower crowns and fertility rituals.

5) SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES. (1st May) Beltane is also a time when the barrier between the human world and the Other Realm is at its thinnest, making it easy to pass from one realm to the other by chance. You might even have an encounter with the mysterious and mischievous fae.

6) WHAT'S DONE CANNOT BE UNDONE. You've gone too far, done something you know you'll regret. Maybe you ran away, broke a promise, even committed a crime. Maybe you've been supernaturally transformed. Either way, there's no going back.

7) WHAT ANGEL WAKES ME FROM MY FLOWERY BED? Oh, sweet mortal. There's an enchantment on you that makes you suddenly, devastatingly attractive. Especially to more magical types.

8) CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE. Anything goes.

Comments

[outstandingbalance]

Judging from Natasha's accent, she hasn't been in town all that long herself.

"I'm sure you could get something to your taste if you want. But if you're not looking for anything in particular, I think I could find some wine if you don't mind taking it in a plastic cup?"

[freelife]

"I can hardly turn down wine." Evie's accent is a clipped, cool English one with older inflections.

"I haven't seen you around before." She may not have been back in town for long, but she liked to know who her fellow vampires were. There were only so many of them at any given time.

[outstandingbalance]

"I wouldn't have expected you to," Natasha agrees, shrugging one shoulder as though it's not a particularly interesting topic. "I haven't been in town long, and I don't know that we'd run in the same circles normally.

"But no reason not to see each other now?"

[freelife]

"No, I suppose not. I've only just got back into town myself." She'd been away on business.

"I'm Evie Frye. To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with?"

[outstandingbalance]

"Natasha Romanoff, a pleasure." Natasha smiles politely as she says it, reserved but not unwelcoming as she navigates them to the concessions.

"No need to be so formal. Unless that's just you?"

[freelife]

"That's just me," she says. She'd tried to be a little less formal, but all things considered, she is less-formal for her time period.

"Lovely to meet you, Natasha. And welcome to London. She's the best town you'll find on any map."

[outstandingbalance]

"She's been all right to me so far. But then, I guess we're still on our honeymoon," Natasha says lightly, breezing past any real comment on the city.

"I'm still adjusting, though."

She raises one hand, gesturing inclusively to the celebration around them.

"I've never been to one of these before."

[freelife]

Evie snorts a little laugh, liking her sense of humor already. "Give it time, she'll grow on you, or try to ruin your life. Generally both at the same time."

She takes a moment to survey the scene. "They're interesting, aren't they? I love that it's such a feminine celebration. It warms my heart, in truthfulness." She loved seeing women celebrated.

[outstandingbalance]

Natasha can't help but smile a little at that. "That describes most of the people I've been involved with," she says, somewhere between a joke and an admission.

Her eyes go to the other woman's as she talks about the celebration. "I don't think I thought of it that way until you mentioned it—you're not wrong though. It is very feminine in a way.

"More than just the flower crowns."

[freelife]

Evie chuckles. "You got that right," because it could be said for pretty much most everyone, she supposed.

"It's a celebration of fertility, and that's always feminine. Spring, itself, too. I have to appreciate that." She came from a time before Women's Suffrage, and had even walked alongside some of the Suffragettes. She'd lived in a man's world for so long that she had to learn to celebrate the feminine aspects of her life, and even embrace them.

Very useful, too, when you were trying to assassinate someone.

[outstandingbalance]

"Fertility," Natasha echos with a sip of her wine, forcing it down. "I half wondered if they'd welcome us," acknowledging their shared condition without fanfare "or if it'd be, oh, let's say counterproductive."

She shakes her head then with a small smile. "But no one's asked me to leave yet."

[freelife]

"There are other ways to leave a legacy." She isn't talking about siring anyone- she's never done that, and doesn't intend to, either. Neither she, nor Jacob had a choice in what happened to them, and she wouldn't impose that on anyone. This is a half-life, of sorts, stretched over the years and centuries.

"Perhaps they're too drunk to even notice we're here. I see no reason we should leave." They weren't hurting anyone.

[outstandingbalance]

Natasha hums. She has no doubt both of them would leave a legacy. Probably already had. Natasha wouldn't assume about the other woman necessarily, but Natasha's legacy so far was more blood than roses.

But that seemed like a way to bring down a conversation. She opts against it.

"I don't intend to go anywhere. As long as they're free drinks and dancing... whatever else witches do after dark."

[freelife]

As luck would have it, neither was Evie's. You didn't get to be a master assassin without spilling a good amount of blood, vampire or no.

"The same things we do, I wouldn't imagine. Perhaps more magic and significantly less feeding." She shrugs it off. "I'm more than happy with free drinks. Speaking of- shall we find some wine?"

[outstandingbalance]

Funny where vampire assassins run into one another, isn't it?

For Natasha's part, she's more than happy to accept the new topic. "It does seem like time for a drink," she agrees, slipping through the crowd with an easy manner, reserved but comfortable navigating without drawing attention to herself.

"Is it cliche to assume red?"

[freelife]

Seriously. But they do make for some of the best assassins. Even if Evie felt that she was still explaining that to the Assassins.

Evie follows Natasha through the crowd easily. There's no reason that the two women talking casually should attract any negative attention, but even so, she keeps her ears and eyes open just in case. She's always been good at getting through crowds.

"It's cliched, but for a very good reason." Evie feels herself easing into the conversation and setting a bit more. Perhaps tonight was a night to let her hair down, make a new friend, have fun. She could have fun, despite what her brother would say. "It's my favorite."

[outstandingbalance]

"Looks like we have similar tastes." She drawls the words, claiming glasses of wine and passing one of them over with a wry glance. She's not above making jokes about their situation. There are times when it really is absurd.

It wasn't a bad cover for nerves, either.

Then she adds with a disarming smile. "At least in wine and women."

[freelife]

"So we do." Evie takes the glass from her and raises it in a sort of toast.

"You know, I have to admit, your name sounds familiar."

[outstandingbalance]

Natasha raises her glass with Evie, mirroring the gesture.

Her expression shutters slightly at the comment, though. Natasha's name wasn't well known among most vampires; she wasn't old, or particularly powerful, she didn't curry influence.

She did have a reputation in other communities though.

Not many women did wet work. Fewer did it for fifty years... and only a select circle of people would know of it.

"That so?" she says over the rim of her cup. "I'm not sure where you'd know it from. I don't get out much."

[freelife]

And even fewer did it for over a hundred years.

But Evie's name wasn't well known, either. She kept to the shadows, you'd find references to her on documents that listed all of those knighted. Unlike her brother, she didn't need her name to be known by all.

"Understandable," she says, making another pass at their race. "I wonder where I could have heard it..."

[outstandingbalance]

"Spent much time in Eastern Europe?" Natasha asks, her tone casual, masking the real concern behind it. Evie really does know of her, has heard her name, that's something she needs to know. What she'll do with the information... that remains to be determined.

"I don't think I've been West of Berlin in... oh, ten years or so."

[freelife]

"I've mostly been in the Middle East, recently." What better place to search for more Pieces of Eden than in the cradle of civilization? "But before that, yes."

Of course she'd been in Eastern Europe during the Cold War, the World Wars. What better place for an Assassin than in the thick of it?

"You aren't related to the late Romanoffs, are you?" That, at least, should give her an idea.

[outstandingbalance]

"Oh, no," Natasha says, huffing a laugh. "I'm about the furthest you can get from that kind of lifestyle."

She's heard that kind of comment before. It had amused some of the older vampires, she thinks, to have that name on a brat turned killer, essentially trash picked up off the street and made useful.

But the middle east, but Eastern Europe before that.

"I have to say, sounds like you go exciting places."

Politically active places. It might not be a confirmation, but it supports Natasha's growing suspicion that this woman does know of her.

[freelife]

Hey, you never knew. Unless Natasha did know, and happened to secretly be Anastasia, but that was super farfetched and literally the plot to an animated film. So there you go.

"Unfortunately so- sometimes I'd rather take a break from it all. But what they say is true: no rest for the wicked." She takes a drink of her wine, realizing how cliched what she just did was. Perhaps that was even why she did it.

[outstandingbalance]

It might be a cliche because it's true, though. Natasha's expression falls somewhat at the words. She shakes her head a little, her suspicions louder in the back of her head.

The question remains how to deal with it.

For all that Natasha knows subtly, sometimes it's best to address a problem head on. At least then maybe you could take control of the situation.

"I wonder if we're in the same line of work. But it's been a while since I traveled like that."