thetube | Test Drive Meme: August-September 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 potential players: Looking for an OOC space to brainstorm your AU? Head over to our permanent character workshop post to ask for feedback and share ideas.

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) WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE. Welcome to London! It's time to introduce yourself to your faction, to your fellow supernatural citizens, would-be friends, potential enemies... Will people quake with fear or awe when you enter the room? Or are you some nobody trying to make a name for yourself? Either way, gotta start networking.

2) THE RACE IS ON. The competition within your faction is even worse than the competition outside. That guy over there has turned sucking up to your boss into an art form. What about the woman who works out at 5am every morning and can probably punch through a wall? If you want to climb the ladder, you'd better start working harder.

3) THE WRONG DIRECTION. It's a big city and it's easy to get lost. Normally that's not such a big deal, but this time you've taken a wrong turn and ended up in hostile territory. If you're spotted by the wrong person, you could be in for a seriously bad time. Is there anyone around who can help?

4) NEVER LOSE CONTROL. You had one drink... or two... Maybe it's almost the full moon, or maybe there's some magic in the air messing with your hormones, but you're this close to going all out with your fangs or your claws or your magic. You need to get out of here, fast.

5) SWING IT, SHAKE IT. You've got a disco ball, a killer outfit and music so loud you can feel it pumping through the dance floor. Show the humans how it's done.

6) KARAOKE. It's karaoke night in one of London's favourite supernatural bars and that tone-deaf werewolf is hogging the mike again.

7) RUN AROUND. It seemed simple, right? One errand to run, just one. And yet the world seems to be conspiring against you. Your alarm didn't go off, you missed the bus or train, you got caught in traffic, someone spilled their drink on your brand new leather jacket, you tripped over and literally fell headfirst into a dumpster... Oh, God. Could this day get any worse?

8) CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE. Anything goes.

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"Very much older, I should think." Joscelin shrugs, affecting an attitude of indifference, but he always likes it when his true age is appreciated. "I was born on the Feast of the Epiphany in 1337. My father was a priest and a monk, later a bishop. Rather bad at all three, given all the bastards he had; I was the youngest of at least seven. I was to follow him into the Church, had I lived." He still likes churches, despite his complete dismissal of his religious childhood. They're peaceful.

When she mentions the guillotine he grins delightedly. "They're fantastic inventions, though. I made a little trip to Paris during the Reign of Terror just to see heads get chopped. And there were so many desperate nobles trying to get turned by vampires, thinking it would save them. An excellent party."

Eponine tries to smile, but it's tight, brief. It's more of a grimace than anything, really. She understands little of what Joscelin tells her: something to do with the church. Eponine knows nothing about the church: her parents hadn't bothered when she was little, and by the time she was older, she had no shoes. She wasn't allowed in unless she borrowed her father's - and he leant them only when he wanted her to beg money.
"So you are holier than thou? Ha - then I must mind my manners, such as what I have. My Pa had an inn when I were little, but we move to Paris, and it is how it is, ain't it?" She shrugs.

His grin catches her attention, and though her face remains expressionless, a flicker of familiarity makes her remember Montparnasse.
"I weren't alive then. I were born just after, but my Pa, he fought in a battle there. To me, no, I do not like the guillotine. Guillotine or hanging though? I do not know if I should want to hang. I always thought it might be my end, or that I should freeze or starve. Perhaps the guillotine is at least quick."

She doesn't suppose she'll ever find out now though either. Now, death will be through a stake to her heart. She hopes it's as quick as a beheading.

Joss smirks. "Hardly." She's an odd creature, this Eponine. He's not quite sure she's all there, really, and he makes a mental note to hide anything valuable before he lets her into his flat. Anything he can't replace.

"If they did hang you it's not like it would do anything," Joscelin points out distractedly, summoning an Uber. They'd attract less attention on the Tube but that will take too long and Eponine desperately needs a shower. "Not unless the hangman got the numbers wrong and the noose took your head off. You'd just swing for a bit until someone cut you down and a little more blood would put you right as rain. Speaking of which, here's our lift. Do try to be a good girl and not eat our driver, hmm? I'm not tall enough to reach the pedals and I doubt you've got a driving license."

"No, I meant alive. Before, you know? I have seen such executions. Women like me, we are stripped and beaten in prison, if we are to die. If we are not, stripped and beaten, yes, but not tied to the stake outside. That is cruel, I think. Some are hanged, but I think if you have a bit of money for the privilege, or someone to make a fuss. Me, no one would care. No one would know, so they did as they liked, you know?"
She's not looking for sympathy: she speaks quite casually.

Still, she stops when she realises that Joscelin probably isn't interested at all, in the fate of beggar girls and prostitutes in French prisons two hundred years ago. Her eyes narrow as she recognises the patronising condescension in his voice, and she scowls.

"I am not stupid, you know? I know how to behave with humans."

"Do you?" Joscelin is not convinced. She had, after all, just tried to eat a random pedestrian.

When they arrive at his flat he leads her straight into the bathroom. There's nothing worth stealing in there, really. "Bathe first, then blood," he orders. She seems to respond well to that; like a kicked dog. "There are clean towels and a dressing gown on the rack next to the toilet. You're not so much bigger than me; it should fit. Bring out your clothes when you're done and I'll wash them." That should give him time to hide his most valuable valuables. If some of the smaller trinkets go missing it'll be no great loss, but there are a few items that he'd really rather not have to go hunting through pawn shops for.

The car ride is excitement enough for Eponine not to think about hunger. It's rare she's been in a car, and she can't help running her hands over the seats and fiddling with the window roller-down gadget.

Once back at the flat, she lets out a sigh. "How do you have a place? Do the authorities not come looking?" The amount of social service officials she has had to run from over the years is ridiculous. She's on the brink of adult-hood: how is a child managing to evade the nosy old crows?

She can't help the quick glances, noting things of value - or what she thinks is value - as she makes her way to the bathroom. She doesn't think she's particularly dirty - she has definitely been dirtier - but she does as she's told anyway. The shower's nice, warm, and she spends her time just sat under it, letting it was away the grime as she tries to untangle her hair with the shampoo and a brush she swiped on her way in.

It's around half an hour or more before she emerges, wet hair dripping blackly in her face, and her stinking clothes clutched in her hands. She's dressed though - sort of. Rather than the ripped jeans, she wears a tatty black skirt, fish nets, her old boots and a leather jacket zipped up.

"It's a nice place, here. That shower was the best I ever had. It never runs out of water, does it? Always, hot, and getting warmer. I could live under such a stream. We had a shower too, when we had a proper room, but it doesn't run as fast, or if someone uses the toilet. I think perhaps it's broke, but a shower is a shower, and it makes me clean."

If Joss looks into the bathroom, he might find his brush, minus quite a lot of bristles, and with a lot of black hair stuck in it, dumped in the bin under a lot of toilet roll. Nothing else is missing, just a bar of soap. But everyone takes the hotel amenities, right?

She goes across to the bedroom door, opens it, and pokes her head in, before going in completely.

"Now this is a nice room." She sits on the edge of the bed. "So comfortable."

Joscelin winces when Eponine touches a particularly fragile ornament on her way into the bathroom. "Money," he says honestly. "That and the fact that none of this is in my name. Jean-Claude's name is on the mortgage; I just paid for it. And I can produce any number of appropriate adults if child services come 'round. Please don't touch that."

She's in the shower long enough for Joscelin to wonder if she's drowned herself but she emerges eventually, dripping water all over his floors. And he expects her to follow him into the kitchen but instead she makes a beeline for his bedroom and sits right down on the duvet. He's definitely regretting bringing her here. If she steals anything important he'll kill her and not feel at all bad about it.

"I thought you were hungry," he says flatly.

"I am, but..." But the luxury in this flat is so overwhelming. She can't sit still: she wanders over to his furniture, opens his drawers, brushes her fingers over his trinkets. Imagine having so much stuff. She has what she stands up in, and what she carries in her half empty rucksack. She's never had much, but she longs for everything.

"And you have books!" She runs her finger over a spine. "I can read, you know? My mama taught me, and I practice. I had a library card in Paris. It is how I learn English. I don't have a book here."
Her hand tightens over the book: she debates taking it, but where would she hide it?

After a time, she emerges from the room, and goes to find the kitchen. She's taken a small paper weight from the desk, something more to remember such a glorious place, and to satisfy her desire to have something of her own, than anything else. The gadgets in the kitchen are beyond her imagination. She recognises the sink and the fridge and that's about it.

"You are lucky, you know? Never have I seen so much things just everywhere. Never have I seen such rooms. We had a flat, Montparnasse and I, but all in one room, a bed and a chair, and the kitchen together, and a bathroom in the corridor to share. It is okay, but not so nice as this. But then, you have money, and me? Well, 'Parnasse takes what I have, but we spend it too."

She eyes the fridge expectantly.

Christ. It's like she's an especially stupid toddler. Her hands are everywhere, touching everything. She'd even opened his chest and rifled through his shirts before moving to the bookcase. "Well done, you can read. So can millions of other people. Now...do you mind?" She's an invader, in his space. Destroying the order of things that he so carefully maintains.

Joss's fingers are itchy. It would be so easy to just slide a stake between her ribs and be done with it. Why is he even bothering?

But he doesn't do that. Instead he shepherds her to the kitchen and pulls out a blood bag. Most of it gets emptied into a mug--he hates microwaved blood, personally, but he doubts she'll be too picky--and the rest goes into a rocks glass with a couple of fingers of whiskey from the bar cart near the entry. He doesn't offer her any. She hasn't earned it.

Edited 2017-09-03 05:52 (UTC)

Eponine itches to snatch the mug from Joss. She half starts to get up to grab it, but she can already sense that he's cross with her, so she sits again. But the smell is magnetic, hypnotising almost. It's warm and metallic and so, so appetising. She shifts a little, sitting on her hands and wrapping her feet around the chair legs.

"Monsieur - please." It's almost too much for her to contain herself. "It has been days since I have eaten. I didn't ask you to bring me here, and to tease is cruel. Please."

"That's not true. You had blood not two hours ago. Be patient."

The microwave dings and out comes the blood. Joscelin plunks it down in front of her resignedly. He already knows it won't be enough; she'll drink him out of house and home.

He takes a long pull of his blood cocktail, savoring the burn. Alcohol still doesn't quite have the desired effect, given his centuries of vampirism, but it's a comforting vice.

It was worth a try. Her belly rumbles.

Hot blood is a new concept - well, microwaved hot blood anyway. It's thicker, congealed, but Eponine doesn't really care. As soon as it's in front of her, she gulps down the blood, and uses her fingers to scrape the rest of it out.

She knows she looks like a gannet, and when she's eventually done, when every last speck of blood has been consumed, she looks guiltily at Joss.

"Here -" She reaches into the pocket of her leather jacket, and pulls out a few crumpled twenty pound notes.

"For the shower and the blood and that. Thank you."

Joscelin shoves the money back at her.

"Do I look like I need your money? This isn't a restaurant or a hotel. It's near dawn; you can sleep the day on the sofa until nightfall, then you can make your way to Jean-Claude. After that, I want you gone. I don't want to hear about you attacking humans or I will find you and I will kill you. Do you understand?"

She rolls her eyes but she nods. She has no intentions of keeping her promise, but if it shuts up his pious pretentious, she'll nod at it.

Gathering up her money and her old rucksack, she goes to wander into the living room and slump on the sofa. She doesn't even mean to, but it's the comfiest thing she's ever sat on, and full and satisfied for the first time in forever, she falls fast asleep.

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Test Drive Meme: August-September 2017

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