thetube | Test Drive Meme: April-May 2017

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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) STRANGE TOWN. So this is London. You're in the underbelly of the city, the shadow of the Underground where the vampires and the ghosts and other strange creatures come out to play. Still, at least the Tube staff take it all in stride.

2) NO ONE CARES. You're out on the streets and you're in trouble. Maybe you don't have a bed for the night, maybe you're injured and in need of aid, maybe you just missed your train. But that's the thing about big cities: people walk past. They don't listen. They don't help. Will some kind soul take note of your plight?

3) DON'T BE WEIRD. You may not be quite an ordinary human, but that doesn't mean you can't do your shopping or order a coffee, right? No accidental magic, no letting your fangs show or whatever supernatural appendages you've got going on. Just act normal.

4) WEAR THE RIGHT CLOTHES. You're at a fancy event with black ties and finger food. Fund raising for some supernatural cause or other? Better look smart.

5) FIND A FRIENDLY FACE. Go to one of the local supernatural haunts and sit down for a well-earned drink with a friend. You earned it.

6) BURN IT UP. (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.

7) LOOK IN THE MIRROR. (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.

8) CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE. Anything goes.

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She's a teenager. Height jokes are bottom tier when it comes to being mean.

She's quiet as she accepts the drink that finally arrives, cupping it between both hands. "Sort of thought they would be more like, uh, loners. Not stickin' together." She cocks her head to the side. "Didn't think they were all that loyal to each other."

"Grudges?" Her eyebrows shoot up toward her hairline. No, of course no one had told her anything. Maybe she should have tried the smart thing and researched a little more before bullying her uncle into moving. And here she'd been so sure that London would be better than home. "Yeah. I think I'd like to hear what's goin' on. I don't want part in any trouble I ain't forced to be in."

She takes a step toward the door, stops and gestures for him to lead.

"Right?" He breathes out a quiet laugh against his cup as he continues to sip at it. The vampires here are just weird. They almost act like pack animals too. Or maybe they're all suckers for power, and that's why they're piled in to the same nest.

Probably that.

He takes her cue with a nod, making his way to the door. He even peeks out and makes sure her dog stalker has wandered off before leading the both of them outside. "This place ain't as bad as it was before but there's a lot of history and shit, and a lot of these fuckers won't die on their own, so yeah. Grudges." Ghoul's got no problem with giving her a brief history lesson, but first... "Who all'd you come here with? You really need to tell 'em all this too."

It's strange, but she doesn't know nearly enough about vampires to decide whether to be concerned about it or not. She just nods, filing it away as something to think about later.

She follows him outside, relieved that she doesn't have to go round two with the mutt. She takes a drink as he talks, frowning. It's not a lot to go on and she's about to ask what that history is, but first- "My uncle. He's used to this kinda shit, 'course I was gonna tell 'im."

The last thing she wants is for him to walk into the wrong territory and never be heard from again.

"Not as bad as before still sounds like there's somethin' bad happenin'." She gestures nonsensically with her coffee cup. "They got problems with some specific pack? Territory disputes? That always seems to cause shit. Is it just the blood suckers to worry 'bout?"

Just the two of them? Yikes. Ghoul's face scrunches up distastefully. Well, maybe they'll be okay if they keep their heads down.

"There's only really one pack around here. East End. Real old too, apparently." Simple enough start, right? Ghoul begins walking, because it'll be more difficult for them to be eavesdropped on if they're moving, making sure she's following along before continuing, "Alpha fuckin' hates vampires, and 'course nest territory is right next door to ours. We're kinda on a kill-on-sight order there, and they were makin' a competition out of skinnin' wolves not too long ago, so, y'know, I don't figure most of 'em are gonna be all that nice if you go out of bounds. Don't matter whether you're pack or not."

Sadly, no, it's not just them she'll have to worry about. One thing at a time, though.

"Is that who you're with?" That at least gives her a place to start looking. She'd come here to join the community and there being only one pack made it easy to choose what she was going to do.

"You're set up right next to each other? Fuck. No wonder ya'll are at each other's throats." She shakes her head, groaning. It was just her luck that her apparently only choice would mean walking into yet another mess. "Where's the nest? I don't wanna walk into that by mistake."

"And, uh, might not be, ya know, not part of the pack. If you're Alpha's willin' and all." She shrugs, watching the ground as they walk. She's not going to beg to be part of anything but she's not going to stay a lone wolf. Especially not when there was hostilities to worry about.

"Yep." To both of her questions, actually. "You don't know all the boroughs yet, do you?" Probably not. They're kind of tricky- there are still a few that he mixes up, even. "Well, basically- uh, anything from Islington to Newham, you wanna stay away from. They got more on the other side of the river, but if you stay above it you won't have trouble." She doesn't need anything in that area, anyway. Nothing but fae and Daybreak down there.

Ghoul glances over at her, grinning at how timid she looks all of a sudden. "She ain't gonna turn you away." Katherine's always looking to grow the pack. She'll probably be thrilled with the new addition(s), but... "You know there's safer places you could go too, yeah? There's a school on the other side of the city. Redbright?" He doesn't know if the name means anything to her yet, but hey. "It ain't a wolf pack, but it'd be your best bet if you wanna keep outta mess."

"Not really. But it can't be that hard to learn 'em." Rather, she can just keep being a lazy teenager and check the map on her phone. "But, right. Stick away from the river. That shouldn't be too hard. Is everything on the other side of it runnin' with vamps?"

"You guys just take in anyone who asks?" She tries, and fails, to cover the relief crossing her face at that. Traveling so far only to get turned away is the kind of embarrassment she doesn't know how to handle. "Not that I'd complain."

Girl makes a face at the mention of the school. It's not a terrible idea and running from trouble had been her modus operandi for a while now. But he'd already ruined the idea of it for her. "It's not a pack. I don't think it'd ever feel right. Could you imagine bein' without a pack, when you've already experienced one?"

The phone thing's a good idea. One he should really try for himself sometime. "Other side's mostly fae and witches. We ain't in too good with the fae right now, and witches are complicated." And complicated, of course, means they aren't to be trusted.

Ghoul makes a sound of agreement, chewing at the rim of his cup while he thinks. Redbright really would be the best place for her to be, but it's her choice in the end. Or. Well, her uncle's, he supposes. He sighs after a few seconds, shrugs, and mumbles, "I dunno. Ain't been in one until now." But she's got a point. It's hard to imagine living outside one again, and the thought alone makes him wrinkle his nose.

Yeah, he'd probably pick East End too if he were her.

"No one's ever in good with fae." Her knowledge of all things magic might be somewhat lacking, but even she knows how tricky fae can be. "How are the witches complicated?"

"Bitten?" Girl asks absently, sipping at her drink. This is far more in line with the kind of small talk she expected. What are you, how did it happen; the sort of conversations she'd been on the periphery of when she was younger. "How long? If ya wanna share."

"But now that you have been part of one, bet ya understand why I'm not keen to run off to somethin' else. No one else is ever gonna treat ya like pack will." She believes that firmly, if only because she has such little experience with anything else.

"The witches are..." Awful. Okay, no, that doesn't explain anything. He makes a face, trying to piece it together in his head in the simplest way first. "So, the boss-witch of that group brought fae binding back in to style. We're s'posed to be allies. They help us with vampires, we help them with fae. But they ain't very good allies so far." Not only does he find them untrustworthy (how can anyone trust a group that forces another to be their battery packs?), he thinks they're incredibly selfish. They've done a lot of taking and no giving. "You keep away from anything Daybreak. Especially Samantha and her little white spy-cat, hear me?"

He gives her a pretty stony look after that, because he is very serious about this, until he's sure she understands the importance of the situation. Then he sighs, his expression softening in to something dangerously close to sheepish. "Uh, yeah. It's been a little while, I guess." This is still weird for him to talk about, so of course, he works out that awkward feeling by looking down and beginning to tear pieces off of his hotcup lid. "Some years." He shrugs.

Thankfully he's only started shifting semi-recently, because he has no idea how he'd have kept that shit under control by himself. Probably would've ended up just as crazy as the lone motherfucker that bit him in the first place. Pack's definitely the way to go. "I think you guys'll like 'em."

"So they haven't done anythin' about the vampires?" She asks, frowning more at the face he's making than the information. Part of her bristles at the obvious command, but he's been here longer and knows a lot more of the situation than she does so she bites down on the snark. She nods. She doesn't want to go looking for trouble and she'll probably heed his word, stay far away from this Daybreak group. "And Samatha is what? Their leader?"

"I wouldn't call years a lil' while." She says lightly, watching the way he turns his attention way. She bites her lip and shrugs, awkward herself for bringing up something he clearly doesn't want to talk about. "You don't have to tell me anythin'. It's not a big deal. Just, uh, small talk."

She stares at him from the corner of her eye for a few moments, shaking her head. "My uncle's not, ya know." She gestures between the two of them. He's entirely human, she means. "So, just me unless you guys are okay with that. They were back home, but I'm not gonna assume."

He shakes his head. They haven't done much that he's seen, but he may be a very biased source. "Yeah, Samantha's the Daybreak leader. Mother of Witches is her fancy title, I think." Ghoul rolls his eyes at that one. Witches and their prissy titles...

He easily lets the topic of him being bitten slip away- it's not, like, horribly sad or traumatizing (even if it was pretty fucked up and not one of his favorite memories), but he just finds it uncomfortable to talk about himself at all. As if giving anything away is risky, although it's improbable that such little information would out him. And it's not like she's a threat anyway.

Still. Old habits. Who wants to hear about his boring life anyway? She's got a lot more interesting stuff going on, such as her uncle being... human? Ghoul gives her an odd look. "For real?" That's not at all what he expected. "Well, uh- it's worth a shot? I mean, there's other people in the pack that aren't wolves. Couple metas and shifters, so it might not be an issue." Surely it won't be, not if he's in the know as far as the supernatural goes- and besides, he's presumably her legal guardian. "He might not wanna be around during a full moon, but yeah, otherwise it'll probably be okay."

...Speaking of full moons, now that he's thinking about it... "The fuck do you do with yourself when you gotta turn?" He's mildly surprised her uncle hasn't been eaten up yet.

"Mother?" She repeats under her breath, a hint of laughter to it. It's an utterly ridiculous title. "I'll steer clear of 'er."

"Yeah, for real. We all got normal relatives, right?" Her lips twitch into a little grin. Well, maybe some from the bigger families don't but he'd just admitted he was bitten. "Don't think he'll be too bothered if they don't let 'im. He's used to stickin' to the fringes since he's been doin' it a long while. His lil' brother was like us." Her father, technically. "And he knew my mom and all their friends for ages. He knows to be out of the way when the moon's right."

She rolls her cup between her hands for a few moments. "I've only been, you know, for a few months. And we had a basement back in the States. Rope and stuff helps too." She's insisted on the extremes since activating the curse, terrified she might accidentally hurt him. It had worked so far, but she can't say she doesn't look forward to having someplace safer to go to.

Ghoul just smirks. True, his family is painfully boring and still ignorant of the supernatural, which is exactly how he likes it. It'd be pretty awkward for her to try and hide something like that- it's good that her uncle is familiar and comfortable with the idea. "Still, he's gotta meet us. He might not even like us or want you hangin' out with us," he says with a shrug.

And then, a moment later, "Dunno why he'd think somethin' like that, though. We're pretty fuckin' impressive." Yeeeaahhh right.

"I'm old enough to make my own friends," she grumbles. She doesn't need his permission to join up. She's only planning to ask about it because she's nice like that, not because it matters. Honest! "As long as you're not, like, committin' human sacrifices or somethin', he's not gonna care."

She laughs into her elbow, shaking her head. "And very humble, apparently."

Hmm. He hums noncommittally before saying, "Should be okay. They ain't human sacrifices." Nah, he's kidding.

Or is he kidding? That's an awfully straight face he has...

She jerks to look at him, squinting. It's of course a joke, she's never heard of any pack sacrificing anyone. But.

"That your idea of a joke? Wolves don't do that." Probably.

Ghoul looks at her, still with that straight-as-ever face, and raises an eyebrow. "I don't joke."

He does, however, lie his ass off. He jokes all the time, really- and after a few seconds of silence, he can't hold it anymore. He grins, briefly shoving his cup back in his face to muffle his stupid laugh. Yeah, he's definitely bullshitting. "Fine, know it all, maybe we don't." No human sacrifices or nonhuman sacrifices. Which is good to know, right?

"Y'want me to go ahead and show you where our place is? That way you can drop in whenever." He doesn't know Katherine's schedule, but she's bound to catch her sometime. Until then, it'd be a good opportunity to scout out the building and the packmembers inside it. "Just don't do nothin' to make me look bad." He does enough of that by himself.

She stares at him, slowing down and growing more confused as he keeps up the act. Her eyes start to widen, a sign she's starting to believe him before he breaks. Girl frowns, rolling her eyes and jogging to catch back up. "I knew it," she lies.

"Really? Yeah, if you're allowed to show if off or whatever." She couldn't pass up a chance at checking it out first, get a feel for the place. Her mind was already made up, but it couldn't hurt to get to meet the rest of the pack. "Don't worry, I'll be on my best behavior. I'm not gonna go pissin' on the walls or anythin'. I can play nice."

His quiet snickering makes it seem like he doesn't quite believe her on that one. In time, she'll learn better than to believe anything that comes out of his mouth.

He nods, leading her to the nearest tube station and choking back a snort of laughter at her promise of being on her best behavior. "Thank fuck for that." Acting like a wild animal and pissing everywhere is kind of Party's thing already. One of them is bad enough.

This'll be a good opportunity for him to point out a couple train lines- ones that are fine to take, ones to avoid at all costs, and ones that are sort-of-okay-under-specific-circumstances. He'll introduce her to some of the pack once they get there too, of course, and most of them are pretty mellow. They'll make a good impression, he figures.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Test Drive Meme: April-May 2017

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