undyingcourt | Test Drive Meme

Entry tags:

Test Drive Meme - New Blood

DEC TEST DRIVE MEME

Welcome to the Undying Court Test Drive Meme! This post will allow players to test drive their AU characters in the setting, as well as meet fresh faces or even connect with those they have preexisting CR with. As with anything involved in the setting, this post will likely contain: violence, enthrallment, torture, and sexual content.

Regarding continuity, all TDM threads can be taken as in-game canon if desired. Please keep in mind that the game proper will begin in mid December, in the Winter Season, so Students/Novices should create their prompts under the assumption that the TDM takes place during the season prior to the one they will be apping as. This means that students planning to app as first season novices will be visiting Castle Courtsheart prior to their Beginning. In other words, if you plan to app a student as a second season, the TDM will take place during their first, and so on.

Feel free to brush up on the Premise, Vampire Powers, and head over to the FAQ/Game Info page if you have any questions!

Make sure you are aware of the Rules when posting your top-level. (Content warnings are always welcome!)
Please format your Top-level in this format: Character Name (AU Name if different) | Canon | Teacher/Student | Court
As a reminder, a Test Drive sample is required in order to app.
If you have any questions specific to the TDM, ask them in the Questions thread below!

Top-Level Directory:

Chat with NPC: Revar
Ace Attorney - Apollo Justice (Student)
Alice in the Country of Hearts - Alice Liddell (Student)
Attack On Titan - Erwin Smith (Teacher)
Baldur's Gate 3 - Astarion (Teacher)
Baldur's Gate 3 - Halsin (Teacher)
Baldur's Gate 3 - Raphael (Teacher)
Batman - Bruce Wayne (Teacher)
Bridgerton (Netflix) - Anthony Bridgerton (Student)
Castlevania - Soma Cruz (Student)
Castlevania: Nocturne - Maria Renard (Student)
Cosmo Warrior Zero - Harlock (Student)
Critical Role - Percy DeRolo (Teacher)
Daria - Daria Morgendorffer (Teacher)
Devil Summoner - Raidou Kuzunoha XIV (Student)
Dragon Age - Fenris (Teacher)
D&D: Honor Amongst Thieves - Edgin Darvis (Teacher)
D&D: Honor Amongst Thieves - Xenk Yendar (Teacher)
Ensemble STars!! - Mayoi Ayase (Student)
Fate/Zero - Kariya Matou (Kariya Makiri) (Student)
FE: Three Houses - Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd (Student)
FE: Three Houses - Hilda Goneril (Student)
FE: Three Houses - Lorenz Hellman Gloucester (Student)
FE: Three Houses - Marianne von Edmund (Student)
FE: Three Houses - Sylvain Gautier (Student)
Final Fantasy XIV - Estinien Varlineau (Teacher)
Frozen - Prince Hans (Student)
Genshin Impact - Diluc Ragnvindr (Teacher)
Genshin Impact - Tighnari (Teacher)
Hanna Is Not A Boy's Name - Conrad Achenleck (Teacher)
Hannibal (NBC) - Will Graham (Teacher)
Jujutsu Kaisen - Gojo Satoru (Teacher)
Jujutsu Kaisen - Toji Zen'in (Teacher)
Lucifer (Netflix) - Lucifer Morningstar (Teacher)
MCU - Loki Laufeyson (Teacher)
Original - Aurinn Laurentius (Student)
Original - Bellatrix Bakhar (Student)
Original - Christine Delacroix (Teacher)
Original - Hanako 'Rosalina' Nurumi (Teacher)
Original - Jisu (Eden Woods) (Student)
Original - Karma D'Auvergn (Teacher)
Our Flag Means Death - Edward Teach (Teacher)
Our Flag Means Death - Izzy Hands (Student)
Persona 3 Portable - Kotone Shiomi (Student)
Persona 5 R - Goro Akechi (Student)
Persona 5 - Haru Okumura (Student)
Persona 5 - Ren Amamiya (Student)
Pride and Prejudice - Elizabeth Bennet (Student)
Return to Labrynth - Sarah Williams (Teacher)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs - Snow White (Student)
Stargate: Atlantis - John Sheppard (Teacher)
Star Trek: AOS - James T. Kirk (Student)
Star Wars - Darth Vader (Teacher)
Star Wars: Jedi Fallen Order - Trilla Suduri (Student)
The Adventure Zone: Balance - Kravitz (Teacher)
The Adventure Zone: Balance - Lydia (Teacher)
The Adventure Zone: Graduation - Fitzroy Maplecourt (Student)

NEW ARRIVALS

New arrivals will be starting their first season in the winter, but they're welcomed to the castle early, under the watchful eyes of the Silver Court. Upon arrival, they will be shown to a room by a human whose eyes glow softly from within, with vacant smiles. Thralls. There, the human thralls will draw them a bath and bring them new clothes to wear to their first meeting. These are rich, expensive things made of high quality fabric. Whether it's a silk dress and a heavy velvet cowl, or a fine pants and a vest made from a brocade, the servants will provide. The new initiate's old clothes will be burned after, in a symbol of the life they are leaving behind. If they are hungry, they will be provided food. If they need anything at all, they need only ask their new servants.

Later that night they are taken to a grand hall, with high arched ceilings and candles burning in chandeliers. There are figures painted overhead, beautiful and entwined. Some have their eyes are colored to match the courts, others are gracefully placed in their death, with blood dripping from necks and wrists.

Balconies line the hall behind a forest of pillars, and vampires all watch as the group walk through (some more hungrily than others).

"Welcome to your first undying season, initiates," a pale, silver-haired vampire calls. They have silver eyes are clad in silver robes, but command the attention of everyone in attendance. They have a beauty that seems neither male nor female. They are standing at the center of a wide semi-circle of other vampires, "As the Silver Court's acting voice at this end of the Autumn season, allow me to introduce you to the Houses that will be your new homes."

The vampire, Revar, gives the newcomers an overview of all of the courts—Blue, Red, Gold, Silver, and Black—and then invites those already claimed by their Courts to join the vampires who will be their Makers.

Revar offers the Foundlings who are left a gentle, knowing smile, and then allows them to be chosen. They are like the last sheep left at the auction, and the vampires who take them may not be the enthused about it. Nevertheless, Revar waits patiently until all have found a maker.

Now that they are paired up it is expected—indeed, required—that the initiate drink from their maker. That is their Beginning. Only once they have truly begun can they can be considered novices.

AUTUMN NOX

Silver Court is in season and for the Autumn Nox it holds a large symposium, inviting all the best vampire minds from around lands nearby and far. The whole castle is abuzz with new activity. The stables are packed full of horses, carriages litter the grounds, but somehow the castle has enough rooms to house all the new arrivals.

Novices will find that some of these vampires have not seen a human-novice in a very, very long time. These vampires might see the human-novices more like specimens, curious about their every move. They won't bite, but novices may find themselves observed as they wander the castle and its grounds.

The symposium itself is open to anyone at the castle. Scholars can present on any topic at all. Novices will find that these range from the incredibly mundane (you've always wanted to attend a history of bottom-feeding river fish, haven't you?) to the truly fascinating (new insights into how vampire hearts work) to the downright strange (the symposium has a range of lectures very close to dawn about the sharing of vampire...fluids). Seasoned novices with their own Autumn classes to attend are expected to keep up with their studies, but some teachers may let them out of a session to attend the lectures and workshops of the symposium.

The Silver Court vampires are incredibly busy between running the symposium and trying to help the new novices get settled in. They may need some volunteers to lend a hand with setting up rooms or helping scholars find their way around. In fact, volunteers might find themselves leading scholars down to the second kitchen for a bite to eat, a strong reminder that even these demure learners are still monsters who must drink blood.

PUMPKINS-GONE-WILD

The symposium isn't all that the autumn season brings. The Silver Court’s talents are on display in other ways—sometimes not in ways another had particularly hoped. An overly zealous youngblood in the Silver Court tried to grow a few extra pumpkins for the occasion and ended up with a few too many! The pumpkin vines break out of the green house and start sprouting pumpkins everywhere. These are no ordinary pumpkins, they will sprout and grow and become fully formed in the course of a night. Better keep an eye out for those vines or else your room might become full of pumpkins! Luckily, the pumpkins aren’t rotting any time soon (they’ll last until winter, or so the Silver Court vampires are saying), but it can be pretty inconvenient for them to grow everywhere. Start cutting those vines to pieces, and hope they don’t try to entangle you in the process.

LIBRARY CLEAN-UP

Meanwhile, with all the scholars in town are making a mess of the library, much to the Silver Court vampire’s dismay. Books are being checked out and not checked back in, passed around from scholar to scholar. You might find those lost books just about anywhere. Who was reading in a tree? Anyone who collects the books and returns them to the library is sure to get a little bit of favor with the librarians, and it’s never a bad thing to have a bit of an in with a Court. If you’re worried about failing Silver Court, it’s time to get searching! Although how you’re going to convince a 300 year old vampire that time is not fake and that deadlines are real (and in fact were two days ago) is anyone’s guess.

UNETHICAL EXPRIMENTS

[CW: Torture, experiments]

Those who venture towards the basement might hear something a little different than normal. The thralls who spend their time down there are normally quiet, commanded to keep silent and pleasant for the vampires they serve. But with the arrival of the new scholars comes disquieting, inhuman screams from the darker reaches of the basement. Novices trying to catch a glimpse will be chased away, but teachers might be invited to watch as these vampires experiment on one another, all in the name of science. What’s a little torture, when you’re undying?

Thanks for joining us for our first TDM! For any questions regarding the TDM prompts, please comment in the thread below. For general game questions, please check the FAQ/Game Info. Remember that the game proper will begin mid December, in the Winter Season, so Students/Novices should create their prompts under the assumption that the TDM takes place during the season prior to the one they will be apping as.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Now be fair! Sometimes he socializes.

...

Okay, no not really, but when it came to keeping order in the library Will felt that was a worthy enough cause to speak up. It didn't hurt that Fenris was a fellow teacher and a fellow member of the Black Court, someone Will was familiar with; in so much as he was familiar with anyone.

He didn't move from where he sat, a large history tome laid open on his lap. Fenris was gifted a couple owlish blinks from behind wire rimmed glasses before Will marked his place with a finger and closed the book.

"You know I'm not a good judge," he said in his soft-spoken way. "More than two people feels like a crowd to me. But I suppose you're right. Ranging from wide-eyed innocents, to self aggrandized peacocks. Already had to shoo a couple in the direction of the Silver Court."

Fenris hated the act of betting on the students, who would make it and who would become thralls... he hated it more because for his courses it was more about who would make it or who would die. While there was a pleasure in killing, he held none for killing students.

"As have I.." one girl he thinks he mildly traumatized by being blunt about what the black court does after she got mad when he told her not to take his courses. "I believe I will have to harsher than normal to properly turn them away."

For first seasons he usually throws them to the wolves literally with nothing to survive with and wish them luck.. it being winter that will be harsher than normal. Still, was it enough to deter them?

He leans against a support beam. "At least not many got black court makers, we need mostly worry about those thinking of taking our courses alongside others."

"They're young," Will said quietly, running his finger along the embossed leather that made up the cover of the book in his lap. "The more they hear 'no' the more they believe they 'must'. Your way of showing them enough of what it will mean to follow the Black Course curriculum, while still giving them the chance to survive, always seems more effective than my flat 'no'."

Will wasn't interested in killing students. He certainly wasn't interested in having them in his course, and then end up dead because they over estimated their abilities. He just didn't have the tact or tolerance to sit with them, hold their hands and lead them through the growing process of realization that they weren't cut out for Black Court.

"I've been developing a first season course that might help them come to the realization on their own." Did he say that aloud? Might have been one of those instances where he'd just been thinking and hadn't yet meant to share. If anyone knows how Will gets, Fenris probably has the most experience. Regardless. Time to change the subject.

"Which one of us took novices?"

Fenris just wishes he didn't have to stain his blade with the blood of students to get them to listen, but no, they just had to think they could handle black court courses. Just had to go in and nearly die at his blade. Often even die at his blade when they are older when he had to take them serious.

Why were so many interested in risking their lives to learn how to take the life of another?

What Will says next catches his attention as he looks up at the other vampire with pitch black eyes. It gets a curious raised eyebrow before the man changes the subject to something Fenris was less interested in. Luckily for Will, Fenris wasn't terribly interested in pressing issues when someone seems disinterested in talking about them.

He lists a couple vampires in the Black Court that he saw take students before moving on to the students themselves. "Akechi has potential.. So does Shadowheart from what I could get off the surface of her mind. How far they will actually get is another matter entirely."

It was in this way that Will and Fenris differed. Once his (Will's) blade came out, the youngblood was in his element, and he had no reservations about using the weapon. Be it to torture, teach, maim, or kill, Will was an artist with the Dread Blade. Bodies, be they human, novice, thrall, mature vampire were his canvas and he delighted in the work.

It was after the blade was put away, the monster tucked back into the recesses of his psyche, that Will would struggle with conflicting emotions.

He looks at Fenris with a blank stare. Names? Fenris was expecting Will to know names, let alone place them with faces??? It was questionable if Will even recognized the names of the Black Court Makers. He did; at least a couple, but the students?

His brows furrow for a moment as he makes a genuine effort to try and recall if he even heard names being bandied about. Nope. Drawing a blank.

"Any you were interested in taking?"

If he raises his blade against those that deserved it, Fenris took pleasure in killing... often slow and torturous like a cat playing with a mouse, but the students didn't deserve it. They weren't psychotic vampires that took a vicious turn, that needed to be put down for the sake of them all.

But that's what made Fenris one of the softer members of the Black Court, cold and deadly, but he wanted to push the students away, not kill them.

He was used to talking to Bruce sometimes who knew more names than even Fenris. He sometimes forgets that Will can't recall names even when he tries. It was probably only from years of interaction that he even remembers Fenris'.

"Not for a blood claim.. but I am considering taking Akechi into my mentorship.. he's got a darkness in him that is concerning," he levels Will with a look that speaks that the other vampire should understand.

The monster always remembered names. When Will tapped into that cold, ruthless, cunning and allowed the strength of his eidetic memory to stretch its claws he didn't forget a detail. He didn't want that part of himself aimed towards any student; thus he purposefully ignored and forgot as much as possible.

The repeated name, combined with the mention of darkness, causes the still waters to ripple; a fish to jump on the line. Will shivers a little and sighs softly even as he nods.

"I know who you mean," he admits as it comes to him. Vivid images, vivid reads of the novice who had snuck into his lecture and asked his questions. Will lifts one hand and digs the heel of his palm against his eye, as if to try to scrub the memory out.

"He came to my lecture on manipulation. Was asking about the best methods to use against different courts; red in particular. A firm and steady hand may be necessary for that one." Odds words, but Fenris knows him well enough to be able to interpret his meaning. Akechi did have a darkness, and it was the sort that was concerning, because it was intelligent darkness.

"Velvet smiles and subtle knives; catch him, before he comes into himself."

Fenris doesn't like to see Will like this, it usually meant whatever monster lurked in the man was stirring. He remembers the young days of being a Vampire when Will was still out there with his maker causing chaos. Remembers the older black court members talking about taking them out, but they decided it too late he remembers--

Will's words knock him from that memory as he listens. Of course the boy was asking about manipulation.. but why red in particular. What could be motivating the boy. It was something important, but what was questionable at the best of times.

"He knows his velvet smiles don't work on me, I see his darkness because he barely hides it from me, he tries to cut me with his knives. Perhaps because he thinks it gives him an edge.." It doesn't. If anything, it makes Fenris consider putting him down before he has a chance to 'come into himself' as Will puts it.

Though he did not have the depth of skill that was afforded a member of the Blue Court, Will did put a little effort into one bit of masking. He kept his eyes close to their original color back when he was human; a blue/green hazel. Except, even when he'd been human his eyes had also had the capacity to slip into a gun metal grey, which was closer to the black they had become when he'd first been turned.

Fellow vampires, like Fenris, who knew Will and knew of his history, might recognize that when his eyes slid to grey, the monster was cruising just beneath the surface. Usually it only happened when he was down in the Basement 'experimenting', but in the dim light of the library, on the subject of a potential Black novice like Akechi they were drifting towards grey.

"If you truly mean to take him on," Will was still soft-spoken, but his words weren't bitten off the way they got when he was in the basement. "Don't let him inventory everything that doesn't work. Like any child seeking the attention of their parent, he will get more and more creative until he can force a response. Provide him anchors, a genuine sense of belonging ... he might be salvageable."

Will wasn't the only one to mask his eye color, it was a strangely human thing to do, but Fenris was not one to judge. His own mask was that of black tattoos all over his body and longer hair. Not that he was maintaining his mask not, his hair shoulder length and his skin bare of anything but wispy scars.

But he keeps track of the color of Will's eyes, sees the grey and finds his shoulders stiffening some. He knew the monster was there, it lurked, but Will still seemed to be at the forefront. Perhaps they would talk about the cookbook he still held instead.

"Bruce seems to think I have already taken to mentoring him, though I would not say I have gone that far yet... but you prove a good point. I will give him responses then.. perhaps even praise. He has what it takes, but I do not know what pushes him so hard," part of him wishes he was better at mind reading than he is, but gold court was always his weakest one. Xenk did not make it easier.

"I agree with Bruce," Will said and in the next blink the grey of his eyes began to soften towards blue. He also looked away, back down at where his fingers traced patterns on the cover of the book in his lap. "You've been starting to feel the urge for a novice. Seems as if this boy is in the right place, at the right time; for both of you."

Will was not what anyone would term traditionally friendly with his fellow youngbloods. But Fenris was someone he appreciated spending time with, even if it was to discuss the novices and foundlings to determine who needed to be discouraged from the Black Court and how best to go about it. It might not have seemed as if Will was paying enough attention to develop an opinion like the one he just shared, but there it was all the same.

"He needs to be pushed, Fenris. If you don't push him, he'll develop ways to push himself, and you'll be playing catch up. He's going to test you, because he's going to expect to be abandoned. The more you push him the more you help him prove his worth. Prove to him that you're always there, no matter the stakes, the more secure he'll become. Right now he's dangerously insecure."

Fenris huffs broodily at how Will agrees with Bruce. Of course he does, because Fenris has already basically taken the boy under his wing though he is loathe to admit it. Connection means a collar, means a weakness, means softness.. all things he doesn't want but already has. Not just with Akechi but with-- He shields his mind from the thought, not wanting anyone to peek in and see something they were not meant to.

"Perhaps I have, though I wish otherwise. He would do better under someone who knows best how to handle his case," which wasn't Fenris. He barely knew how to handle his own demons let alone someone else's. But Will gives him advice and he takes it to heart. It seems the boy is already being pushed onto him regardless.

"Do not worry about my ability to push him, if he is to become one of mine, then I will go more harshly on him than any other -- Whether I am capable of being the security he will crave... I cannot say, but little sways me from what I set out to do," he was stubborn in his view points, his goals, his wants, he knew how to play long games and wait out all others.

Afterall, he knew better than to take revenge before he was a mature vampire with enough influence.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Test Drive Meme - New Blood

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