thetube | Test Drive Meme: December 2016/January 2017

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MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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) STAY ANOTHER DAY. Maybe it's just for the holidays, but if you've come to London to reconnect with friends and family, now is the time to make the most of it. And it turns out, someone is pretty keen for you to stick around. Your loved ones? Or perhaps you've been noticed by one of London's supernatural factions. Don't go just yet, friend. The city may need you.

2) CHRISTMAS DAY / BOXING DAY. (25th-26th December) Whatever you think of Christmas, it's everywhere in London. Christmas songs on the radio, Christmas lights in the streets, carol singers, and presents under the tree. Of course, in the supernatural world, the presents may just have a magical twist. What's that strange little gift from an unknown sender...?

3) NEW YEAR'S EVE FIREWORKS. (31st December) The New Year's Eve fireworks display is always spectacular. Count down to midnight with Big Ben, then watch the spectacle along with the crowds. Or you could stay at home and watch it on TV.

4) STRANDED. Your flight got cancelled. A storm delayed your train home. The hotel made a mistake with your booking and now you have nowhere to stay. Whatever the reason, you're stuck in London with nowhere to go and it is cold. Depending on where you've ended up, it might be dangerous as well. Are your kind welcome here?

5) DRINK YOUR SORROWS AWAY. Look, it's winter, it's dark, not everyone is having a good time. Might as well buy a drink... and another... and another...

6) NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION. Goodbye 2016, hello 2017. New year, new you. You've decided to make a change, maybe for yourself, maybe for the entire supernatural community. How are you getting on?

7) CALL A TRUCE. The holidays are a time of peace. Maybe just this once you can have a drink with an enemy and put aside any bad blood.

8) CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE. Anything goes.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Nancy is not a vampire. But she wakes up every day in a vampire's bed, works with vampires, is fed on by vampires, and generally smells like a vampire. So Ghoul's reaction could very easily be forgiven.

If he hadn't sneezed all over her.

Nancy makes a face, wincing. "Bloody 'ell," she mutters, her Cockney accent getting the best of her. "Cover your nose next time, will you? Learn some manners, yeah?"

Aww, shit.

The distasteful look on the woman's face is almost perfectly mirrored by his own. Or, well, it would be if it weren't for his hands covering the lower half of it. See, he did cover up! Just... a little too late, that's all. His eyes crinkle up briefly from a cringe, his voice muffled as he offers a surprisingly sincere, "M'sorry." After a quick sniffle, he slowly lowers his hands again. Now that he's expecting the smell, he can handle it a little better. Still kind of tickles his sinuses, but he's prepared this time. Another sneeze won't sneak up on him.

Maybe.

"Ugh- sorry," he repeats with a frown. Now he feels all awkward and like he has to explain shit like no, he's not some creepy American who makes a hobby out of sneezing all over strangers. "Sometimes people like you kinda reek, I wasn't ready."

Oh, that clears things right up.

People like her?

His words do little to calm her, as Nancy fixes him with a look that her brothers would probably call her 'mum look'. Basically, she wasn't happy.

"And what exactly do you mean by that?" She rounds on him, glad the train is empty save the two of them. But that doesn't stop the pages of an abandoned paper from rustling down at the end of the carriage.

This girl's tiny and not even a wolf. She has no authority over him at all, but even so, Ghoul finds himself shrinking back. He's not looking for a fight, this time. Figures he'd find one when it's the last thing on his mind. "What?" A quick look around the car provides him no sanctuary or advice. He's not so sure he's comfortable with there being no witnesses around when she decides to go berserker on him.

On the plus side, though, it seems like they'll be able to carry on their awkward conversation in peace. "I don't really mean it in a bad way, it's just. You know," he begins, waving a hand about vaguely after he turns to face her again. Doing so stirs up the air between them in just the right way, and he pauses.

Suddenly, he's looking very puzzled. She's not a vampire. She only smells like one. More than one, actually, now that he's paying attention.

Ghoul's mouth opens and closes a time or two uselessly, like a fish out of water, as he considers how to proceed. Does she even know that her social circle is saturated with vampires? "Uh... Nevermind, maybe you don't know?"

Nancy's never one to back down from a fight. Even when she's outnumbered, or clearly going to lose. She's always been a fighter, despite her tiny stature.

"No, I don't know," she challenges, assuming of course he's referring to the fact that she was a prostitute. The goal was to get him to say it, so she could properly curse his ass into next year.

But he pauses, and she has to, too, and the way he's looking at her... For the first time, she really pays attention to him. He's a wolf. Of course.

"I know," she says, but her proverbial haunches are still up. If he's going to lambast her for being with a vampire, he's got another thing coming.

Ghoul squints at her, evidently still feeling a little skeptical as to whether or not they're both on the same page. Only one way to find out. "So, you know about your friends and their, uh... habits?" Yes. Their habits. Of the biting variety. Great way to put it.

He's only just now realizing how difficult it is to keep this sort of shit vague enough to be safe, just in case it turns out that she doesn't know what she thinks she knows.

Nancy raises her eyebrow at him. Yeah, habits. Sure.

"Very," she tells him, and there's a moment when something around Nancy's neck changes, the makeup seemingly fading completely, leaving her with a decent puncture wound on her neck.

But just like that, it's gone, once more concealed by her use of magic and makeup.

Plus, that removes any need to keep things vague. If he gets it, he gets it.

"Of course, I know about some of my friends' furry habits, as well."

He almost misses it. Maybe it could be mistaken as a passing shadow or an odd shift of her hair, but- something briefly looks like a bite mark on her neck. And it for sure ain't from wolf teeth. It's gone again quickly enough for him to flash her a questioning look before the relief of knowing they're definitely on the same wavelength overwhelms him, and he sags from the release of tension. Thank fuck for that. He hates dancing around these sorts of topics.

Now that he knows what he's working with (sort of), he feels comfortable enough to plop down in to one of the nearby seats with a groan. "Don't call 'em furry-anything. Like, please, for real. There's a whole 'nother scene that's already claimed the 'furry' thing, and it's just..." He shakes his head, face screwing up like he's tasted something bitter. "It's bad." He should know. He made that mistake before, back when he was still using the internet as his go-to method of figuring out what was what.

Never, ever again.

He quickly changes the subject, perhaps to an equally poor one, as he gestures towards his own neck with a wriggle of his fingers. "That thing's kinda gnarly. It supposed to look like that?"

Nancy resists the urge to roll her eyes.

"My ex was one of you," she explains. "I know better." Though, truthfully, Bill had no idea how to internet, she was pretty sure. He'd been a ludite, when it came to any sort of modern technology. "But it's the easiest way to say it in public, I've found." She gives him an almost apologetic smile. Almost.

Her expression darkens for a moment. "It's old," she lies. It had healed better than the claw marks she had on her body. "But it's clean."

Ghoul nods, glancing down at his lap while he plays with a string hanging off the hem of his jacket. It still sounds weird, hearing that. The one of you thing. Maybe he should be used to it by now. Whatever.

When he looks back up at her again, he tilts his head. It didn't look all that old to him, but who is he to argue? Not like he's been bitten by a vampire before. She's in a better place to judge than he is. "That's good," he comments, and then delicately continues on. "They treat you okay, then?" He generally doesn't pry in to peoples' personal lives, but this area is a touchy matter for him. She's most likely fine- she's not visibly torn up or weak, she hasn't been turned, and she's not being flanked by creepy thugs. All signs point to her being in a situation she's happy with and in control of, but he won't be able to sleep tonight unless he asks.

She doesn't have to lie, when she tells him, "They do." Cooper has been nothing but a saint to her for the past 6 or so months, even before that. He's a good boyfriend, one of the best she's ever had, and most of the vampires she worked with regularly now were good to her.

Having a place to work in Canary Warf certainly helped. As well as her slightly dwindling vampire clientele. No one wanted to upset the Marquess of Hackney by hurting his girlfriend, prostitute or not.

"My boyfriend's brilliant. I can't complain."

"Yeah?" Ghoul grins as if it's the best news he's heard all day.

He is glad, truthfully. He hasn't seen the aftermath of a vampire's cruelty very often or even to its full extent, but there's been enough for him to make up his mind regarding what he Will and Will Not tolerate. If there are decent vampires around, maybe things won't be so bad here.

Step one in making that maybe happen is making sure he's not hunted down for spraying spit all over somebody's girlfriend. "Since they're so nice'n all, there's no reason to tell 'em I accidentally sneezed on you then. Don't wanna bother 'em. Right?"

There are quite a few decent vampires around here, and she'd be happy to introduce them.

"Yeah," she agrees, and looks down at her clothing. Any smile was swallowed up by a deep frown.

"You're lucky I can fix it quick," she said, and thankful that they were alone in the car, waves her hand over the gross bits of her clothing. Her face screws up in concentration, her eyes shut and brow furrowed; but once she passes her hand across said clothing, it slowly begins to clean.

When she's done, she leans back against the window and exhales.

Ghoul's grin falters at her statement. He's about to question her, but before he can, she goes right on ahead and shows him.

And he's just god damn tickled by it. Magic is one of those things that will probably never get old, no matter how many times he sees it. "Aw, shit, look at you! You could run every dry cleaner in the city out of business like that." She should absolutely do it, Ghoul wouldn't even charge her for the idea.

Well. Not much, anyway. Only something like 40%.

Then again, maybe she shouldn't. Something about the way she leans and breathes has him asking, "You okay?"

Nancy blushes, even as she keeps her head against the glass. "Oh, no, I could never," she said, trying to wave the idea away. She had a job. It just wasn't that great. Or legal.

Or something the Night Council thought she was practicing anymore.

"I'm fine," she says. "Just not a spell I'm used to." Healing she could do. Cleaning was something else entirely.

His face scrunches up disagreeably when Nancy insists she couldn't possibly. What a shame. Ghoul could commit to a project like that in a heartbeat, and really, it's a blessing that he wasn't born a witch. There's not enough money on the planet to keep up with him.

As things are now, his knowledge of magic is a bit spotty. He's easily boggled by the different forms and limitations of it, and all those lines in the sand start getting even more muddled when things like fae are thrown in to the mix. After a moment of half-squinting at her thoughtfully, something in his mind clicks in to place. "That neck thing was you, right?" Not vampire magic after all, huh. Vampire magic... now that he thinks about it, that sounds pretty stupid. "What all can you do?"

Nancy nods again. "yeah- I'm a witch." Which she figures is a suitable explanation for what she can and can't do, rather than giving him a whole list.

Except he seemed to want one.

"I can do a lot of things. Some just take more preparation than others. And some things take more energy." Like after she had worked to rig the election against Norrell, she'd passed out for some time, sleeping it off.

Makes sense. Spellcasting seems to be more trouble than what it's worth sometimes, what with the preparation and sometimes having to make it a group activity. Probably why the witches he knows tend to stick to potions and item crafting.

Ghoul breathes out a short clip of a laugh, shaking his head as he reflects on what he's learned. "A witch who spends most of her time around vampires." He assumes, anyway. That's certainly what it smells like. "You're weird, y'know." Judging by the smile on his face, though, weird isn't a bad thing.

Nancy furrows her brow just a bit. He thought this was weird? Unfortunately, it's a reminder of what's happened in the last few months. So many of her friends exiled, never to return to London.

But she laughs it off, pushing a lock of ginger hair behind her ears.

"I suppose I am. Well, welcome to London. Most of us are."

He shrugs, evidently not put off in the least. "Good. I like weird."

Then, as the train approaches one of its numerous stops, Ghoul's face falls. He leans to the side, looking first past her at the doors, then through one of the windows with a pensive expression. After a few seconds of silence, he notes, "Fuck, this is the wrong train." Welp.

Despite the cars still being in motion, he pops up, out of his seat. What a winning impression to make. "Guess you oughta teach me a navigation spell some time."

Nancy laughs, but it's kindly.

"I could, but it wouldn't work for you." Magic users only, basically. "Where're you trying to get to? I'll sort you out." She knew the tube extremely well.

"Yeah..." The corner of his mouth quirks up in to a tiny, almost-awkward smile. "Still, figure it can't hurt. Pretty much need all the fuckin' help I can get, most of the time." Then again, knowing his luck, trying to use magic without actually possessing the required skill would likely piss off some unheard-of ancient god of magic, and then he'd really be done for.

Maybe instead of a spell, what he needs is a lucky's rabbit's foot. A real one.

He hesitates when answering her question- part of him doesn't even want to know how badly he's messed this one up, but ultimately he clears his throat and mumbles, "Blackhorse Road?"

To Nancy's credit, she at least tries to hide her giggle.

"Oh, no- it's not that bad. I promise- look, you just got on in the wrong direction, no big deal. Here, what you do is get off at-" and she starts to give directions for a few moments before she pauses. "Let me just write it down for you, yeah?"

And like that, she's looking in her purse for something to write on.

He appreciates the effort, even if he can't hide the momentary wrinkle of his nose.

Well, it's fine. Just about anything is fixable. This seems to be a multi-step process, so when she suggests writing it down, he even surprises himself with a grateful laugh. "Yeah, definitely." Ghoul sets about patting down his pockets as well. Usually he'd have a bunch of receipts or a napkin or something stashed away, but he's coming up empty now.

He's nothing if not resourceful, though. "Uh, here, this is probably gonna be easiest-" He tugs his sleeves up a couple inches, leaving his hands fully exposed. After dragging his palms in a quick swipe across the fabric of his jeans, he moves closer to her, arms outstretched and palms facing up, ready for her to write on. They're the only portions of his hands and arms that are significantly blank enough to write any sort of information on. All the rest is covered up by way too many tattoos, because Ghoul clearly makes responsible choices in life.

"Already had most of my shots'n everything, swear it."

Nancy makes a bit of a face, and shakes her head.

"No- hold up." She's got a piece of paper, the back of a receipt for something she'd actually bothered to purchase. Nancy doesn't pull out a pen, however. She takes her finger and starts to write out the direction, ink appearing as her finger moves on to the next letter.

It doesn't take long, but she's handing the receipt back to him.

"This should give you a better idea."

Test Drive Meme: December 2016/January 2017

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