Test Drive Meme 013

[voidtreckermods]

Welcome to our Test Drive Meme! Here is the place to see how your character might fit the setting, grab some samples and start having fun!

1. Post with your character. I’ve written out some prompts but feel free to make up your own, you have a whole train to play with!

2. Assume they have been around long enough for threads to jump right into the action!

3. Have much fun!

Happy testing!

Training Gym

Fight club have finally gotten a gym to train in. Train carriages make strange gyms, long narrow spaces. But this has mats, balance beams, climbing apparatus. Pads and training dummies for punching. It also has large blocks that look a little like what you might find in a children's play centre but can be used to make obstacle courses or provide cover in training exercises.

Set up a course, practice fighting or try and learn how to throw a punch! There are plenty who will help, people who take training super seriously and let's face it, people who want to ambush others from behind oversized foam blocks.

Games

For those for whom fighting is not an idea of fun, or those wanting more relaxation, the games carriage has a whole collection of different games. Board games, card games, dice games. There are many games about trains but they aren't the only type.

There are low tables in the carriage to set a game up on and plenty of beanbags and cushions to sit on. Grab a game, grab a friend or a complete stranger and get playing!

Water Maze

The latest mission has taken the voidtreckers to an underwater maze. They have been given wet suits, helmets and breathing apparatus- lightweight boxes that strap to their back, connect to their helmet and filter air from the water. A powerful and dangerous artifact has been stolen and the race is on to get it back before it is used for ill.

Team One

Plenty of monsters and foes have been sent to try and retrieve the item. Giant crabs, strange eels. Even people with fish tails and the ability to breathe underwater. All are dangerous foes and fighting underwater is difficult.

But team one are the vanguard, keeping the monster levels low to allow team two to push on through the maze.

Team Two

Hopefully team one will deal with the monsters, but the odd one might sneak through. Team two's main job is to solve the maze, because the thief is in the centre in order to perform his ritual.

It's a race against time, the maze is made of coral and walls of seaweed that are impossible to cut through. Solving it requires a quick mind and some determined swimming.

Team Three

For those not wishing to brave the water, or those whose skills lie more in helping others. The island where the artefact was stolen from needs help. The temple was ransacked and some of the islanders were injured. Help them fix their homes, put the temple back to rights, tend to the injured.

Cleaning the temple is a big job, but hopefully by the time the artefact has been retrieved it will be able to be restored to it's rightful place.

Comments

Jean-Claude | Anita Blake & Undergrounds CRAU

[baisant]

a. Dining Carriage
[Jean-Claude sits at end of one of the tables, a glass of wine delicately perched on the table in front of him. He may be dressed in the ridiculously sensible hiking boots and cargo trousers of his team's color, but he is also attired in a shirt which seems to be straight out of a harlequin romance novel. Jean-Claude himself seems to be straight out of a harlequin romance novel, for that matter. Right from his long, black curls to his almost luminously pale skin. And his eyes, which are perhaps the most peculiar shade of deep, midnight blue.

He reaches forward, playing with the stem of the wine glass, although it may be noted he does not drink from it. He does not eat. He is watching, listening, and sitting perhaps a little too still to be considered the regular human he is trying to pass himself off to be.]

b. Dressing
[Jean-Claude has been doing a lot of exploring since he has found himself on the train, and inevitably keeps finding himself back in this car. Drawn to it perhaps because out of all the areas, here above the rest of them he feels the most at home.

He wonders what that must say about himself. Sitting at one of the padded stools, in front of the vanity, he smiles in the mirror, and the resulting expression is both beautiful and perhaps a little macabre. Dressed in his old lace shirt, his black curls spilling down his shoulders, the scent of jasmine and dust in the air, alone with the spiders and their webs. Or -- perhaps not quite alone.]

Bonjour, mon ami.

[He glances up at the space behind him in the mirror, only his eyes moving as a figure approaches from behind.]

c. Wildcard
If you'd like to thread something else with Jean-Claude, shoot me a PM and let's work something out!

Also ooc note, he is a vampire and thus he will only be "awake" during whatever might be considered evening and night-time.

A

[dredefulchilde]

Joscelin Fitzthomas, formally the Little Prince and onetime Islington powerbroker, wears his new humanity well. His skin, though still very fair, has lost its deathly pallor, and a profusion of freckles have spouted across the bridge of his nose and on his newly-rosy cheeks. His blue eyes, once so hard, are somewhat hidden behind his new glasses and untidy hair. He’s even grown since Jean-Claude saw him last: a whole two centimeters that feel much more important than they really are. He’s even lost a baby tooth or two.

But the boy forgets all of that when he sees a familiar face at dinner.

“Jean-Claude!” The boy rushes towards the vampire, forgetting—for a moment—that he very much counts as food now—and throws his arms around his very, very old friend. The old Joscelin wouldn’t have done that; he was too prickly, too conscious of the ridiculousness of his tiny body. But things have changed.

And Jean-Claude won’t hurt him, right?

[baisant]

Jean-Claude tenses for a half a second before raising his arms to brace around the back of the small body that has just thrown itself into his arms. He recognizes Joscelin, of course he recognizes Joscelin, they have known each other for centuries. And yet...

Two centimetres of height may not be all that much in the grand scheme of things, but it is enough. It is enough when Jean-Claude has known Joscelin for so long as the height he used to be. As the pallor that he used to be. But more than anything, above all else, what stands out the most to Jean-Claude is Joscelin's heartbeat.

"Mon petit," he says, very softly. "What has happened to you?"

[dredefulchilde]

“My friend,” Joscelin says, somewhat squished against Jean-Claude’s chest. “My old friend.”

If it had been anyone else from home, Joscelin would have fled in terror. He knows he can’t return as he is now. The vampire Joscelin had may enemies and few friends. The human Joscelin is utterly powerless and has no defenses.

He pulls away a little, and his smile shows the missing baby teeth and half grown adult teeth trying to replace them.

“I died, Jean-Claude. My heart was destroyed and I turned to ash. Then I came to a few days later and I was human. I can’t explain it.”

[baisant]

Jean-Claude looks up at the smile, at the missing teeth, at Joscelin's boyish charm, his freckles, at the way he is all but brimming with life, and he feels in that moment that if he were a more sentimental sort, he might in fact weep for him. Weep for the loss of what they shared together. For the knowledge that mortality makes him soft, vulnerable. That he will lose him to it someday. But that may be for the best. Joscelin was never given a choice in the matter, after all. No opportunity to grow into the man he might have been. And now...?

Shifting his hands to rest on his shoulders, and then moving up to rest one on his cheek, Joscelin's cheek warm against Jean-Claude's own cool skin. His deep blue eyes searching into Joscelin's own, and for the first time he has to curb his own abilities against his own friend, lest he glamour him against his will.

"How?" he asks, searching his face. "Who did this to you, mon ami?"

[dredefulchilde]

Joscelin sees no need to lie. They’ve known each other for so long; there’s no one in any universe who understands him like Jean-Claude does.

“The train travels, you know. To different worlds, and we’re expected to clean up their messes. A friend of mine—Romeo; I’ll introduce you later—and I startled a saboteur, who reacted as one might expect. I died protecting Romeo. That should have been the end of me, but it wasn’t. The train brought me back. I can’t explain why.”

He looks into Jean-Claude’s eyes, looking younger and more vulnerable than he ever did in Islington (at least in the last century). “I can’t explain it, old friend, but I believe that whatever happened to me broke the curse. Normally we cannot revive even as ghosts because we do not have souls, but...I seem to have acquired one.”

[baisant]

Jean-Claude caresses his friend's face for a moment longer, before letting his hands fall to Joscelin's shoulders. Sacrificing himself for a friend. And waking up to find himself reborn. It's really quite poetic, if he allows himself to consider the fact.

Speaking of poetic. He flicks the former vampire a soft smile, tilting his head to the side as he replies.

"So you say, mon ami," he says, but there are those who would argue otherwise. Vampires may be dead, and their morals might be somewhat lacking, but such things have nothing to do with their lack of a soul. Corruption, perhaps. A vampire is just another form of undead, after all. A better version, if you ask Jean-Claude.

He squeezes the boy's shoulder, his expression gentling. Perhaps this is a rather public area to be having such a conversation, but then again, their words are very vague, for anyone who might be listening in. And these are important things that must be said.

"I am happy for you," he says, softly. Understanding that this is ultimately what Joscelin would have wanted. He had never asked to become a child vampire. And now he has been given his life back to him. A curse, he had said, and yes. He supposes a curse is how it must have been, for him.

[dredefulchilde]

"Are you?" Joss gives his friend a sad look. "It won't be the same. We vampires are not in the business of accepting change too readily. Or at least I wasn't. Before this."

He sits next to Jean-Claude on the bench, ignoring his own food for now.

"Much has changed, you know. Beyond the obvious. But first, tell me. How has it been in London since I left? What news? Does Islington still hold its expanded territory?"

[baisant]

"No," Jean-Claude replies, with a shake of his head, turning back to his glass of wine. "It will not."

Joscelin will grow and change. Move on, perhaps. Without him? He cannot say for certain. But he has been given the choice, and Jean-Claude knows that it is the right one. Just as he knows he would rather die himself, as much as he has his own reasons to despise his own vampiric existence.

The question startles him somewhat. Since he left? Jean-Claude raises his eyebrows in question towards the -- young boy, he will need to think of him as such now, for he is not a vampire now, not anymore.

"Forgive me, mon ami," he replies. "I met with you not but two weeks ago. I am not certain I knew that you had gone. The last I saw you..." He pauses, before smiling softly and continuing, "You were reprimanding me for 'moping', as I believe you phrased it, mon petit."

[dredefulchilde]

Joscelin’s eyes go wide behind their glasses. “Two weeks ago?” He echoes incredulously. “My dear friend, that simply cannot be. I have been on this godforsaken train at least six months, and for a year before that I wasn’t even in the same version of earth as our shared reality.”

He can’t even remember what he and Jean-Claude had spoken about, the last time he’d seen him.

“Time...I’m told that it works rather differently here. Some people are good friends from the same place, and yet they come from different times with different memories. There’s a man—Tony Stark; it’s hard to miss him as he’s the self proclaimed leader here—who comes from a time five years after some of his friends from his world, but somewhat earlier than others.”

[baisant]

It says something of Jean-Claude's character that he does not exactly seem surprised by this revelation. It says something about the change in Joscelin as well. They have known each other for quite some time now, and he has never known the other to willingly embrace him before. All previous contact between the pair of them has been initiated by Jean-Claude himself, and reluctantly returned by Joscelin in kind.

Truth be told, Jean-Claude is perhaps surprised to find out that it has only been that long. Though he supposes that it would change a person, fairly drastically, to find themselves born again, in a manner of speaking.

"And might I ask myself how long it has been since..." he trails off, uncertain how exactly he might phrase it. Since he died? But he had done that once before. "Since you have been resurrected, as it were?"

[dredefulchilde]

Joscelin frowns. “About eight weeks, or thereabouts. Odd; it feels much longer than that.” In some way, his vampirism almost feels like another time entirely. It’s strange, having two sets of memories in his skull. “I hadn’t realized anything was amiss until I tried to drink blood and was unable to. It repulsed me.”

[baisant]

Jean-Claude lets out a breath of air through his nose.

"Really, mon petit," he says, somewhat nonplussed. "I would have thought that this would have been more than something of a hint."

Reaching out, Jean-Claude places a large, cool hand against Joscelin's chest. Over his warm, beating heart.

"I can hear it beating even from here," he observes, with a wry twist of his lips.

[dredefulchilde]

Joscelin frowns. “I challenge you to get yourself killed, wake up in a bloody carry on suitcase, and then find yourself surrounded by people who keep telling you you’re dead. Investigating my newfound pulse hadn’t quite occurred to me until that exact moment. I was too focused on my miraculous resurrection for that.”

It’s quite adorable, the way he pouts.

[baisant]

It is indeed, and Jean-Claude hopes that Joscelin will forgive him for the smile it evokes from him in return. It really is good to see a familiar face in such a place as this.

"I will not take you up on such a thing, mon ami," Jean-Claude replies, "for I hope to never find myself in such a circumstance. Killed, stuffed in a valise, or any of the above. But..."

Jean-Claude trails off, tapping his fingers against his glass of wine. A ruse for all others in the room save Joscelin himself. "I do find myself in something of a predicament in other ways." Namely: those of nutrtition.

B

[iamnotgod]

[In contrast to Jean-Claude, Webmind looks quite plain - an emergent consciousness stuffed into a robot, yes, but there is no macabre beauty to his looks.

He also is seemingly just passing through, but the vampire catches his attention with both his calm placement in a place that had previously seen viciousness, and, of course, the greeting.]

Bonjour to you as well, Jean-Claude. Experimenting today, or-

[As some humans might put it:] 'Taking in the atmosphere'?

[baisant]

[Jean-Claude is relatively new here, and if it is not common knowledge what has happened here, then he probably does not know any of the history of this car. But he can feel that something happened here. There are usually reasons that people keep their distances from spaces.

He turns gracefully in his seat to tilt his head at the newcomer and offer him a pleasant smile.]

Something of the sort. This place certainly does have quite the atmosphere, at that.

[iamnotgod]

Most of it courtesy of our local Spider.

[Leaving off the 'Unnamed' part that was listed on the Roster; it felt somewhat ironic to refer to someone by their not having a name.]

... And some mostly-forgotten fight; the mirrors in here have been broken longer than I have been aboard this train. I should hope they did not come that way when the Voidtrecker Express first began acquiring passengers.

sorry, somehow i marked this as read, that's my bad!

[baisant]

[Jean-Claude cocks his head to the side, the expression both coquettish and inquisitive at once.]

You will forgive me, mon ami. I have not been here long myself. Is there a history that I have missed, in coming to this place?

[Should he not be in this train car, for some reason? It is only that, as something of a dark creature himself, it seemed to call out to him. A macabre and melodramatic sort of thought, but then again that is Jean-Claude written all over.]

s'okay; thank you for coming back to this, though! ^^

[iamnotgod]

It is likely we are all missing history for this train, sad to say. Only a small portion of the passengers here have been here since the beginning, and even they do not know where the train is from.

[So there's nothing stopping Jean-Claude from being here; there were simply lots of mysteries afoot!]

Not everyone is as quick to volunteer information as we'd like, however.

[Including themselves.]