test drive | 1

[unplug]

test drive

Welcome to the first test drive for Systemwide! We are excited to have you. All prospective players are welcome to tag in and test out their characters, be they unplugged or free born. We would like to offer a range of scenarios that can be expected during gameplay, which are also useable prompts for app samples, and of course, if something else about the setting strikes you, feel free to come up with your own!

Please put your character name and canon in your subject line, and indicate which prompt you are launching from.

simulation | maybe this is your first time. perhaps you've been here countless times. it's a room, as confined as a boxing ring, as expansive as a battle field, whatever you need it to be, whatever you're here to train for.

1.

Before you is a city of rooftops, empty of human life. This is a safe place, because while it may hurt you, at least it won't kill you. Perhaps you are practicing your influence over reality, leaping from rooftop to rooftop. Are you successful, or are you failing to free your mind? Perhaps you're helping someone else overcome their fear of heights.

And of course, an operator can always load up some Agent-like training programs to make it interesting.

2.

Congratulations, you know kung-fu, or maybe some other system of combat, like crazy parkour archery, cartwheeling with guns, or sword fighting on horse back. Perhaps you're trying out something even more fantastic, a magical skill or a superpower.

Show me. Or a friend.

mission | whether on board a ship or with your mind sunk deep into a Matrix, you will have to join the battle eventually. sometimes things go terribly wrong. what are you gonna do about it?

3.

Something's gone wrong with this extraction.

There's a lot of information to process. Your target's been extracted, and that's the good news -- your ship, in reality, is heading to their location now -- but the bad news is your team has been scattered. You could be anywhere within this Matrix, deep in the jungle, or lost on a subway train, or staggering out of the crashing waves of a night time beach, and the operator needs a minute to figure out your exact location before they can direct you to a port out of here, or send another operative to collect you.

All you have to do is stay alive for that long. Easy, right?

4.

You were warned of this. You've been prepared in endless simulations, with a dozen cautionary tales, training sessions with the EMP. Still, it's nothing like you imagined, when the operator shouts: "Sentinel closing in at seven o' clock. It's gaining."

And then the shriek of metal.

reality | as much as many Matrixes are designed to be a comfort, you have to face the real world sometime. or maybe this is the world you have only ever known.

5.

Annual celebrations are rare to come by, but the anniversary of Neo's Truce is one that always draws in the crowd. The event takes place in a massive cavern in Zion known as the Temple, and there is music, and there is dancing [a little NSFW].

Everyone is there.

Where are you?

6.

The wind on your face, up here on the desolate surface, tastes bitter, different to what it feels like in a simulated reality. It's freezing cold and always dark, but sometimes, you need a reminder about what it is you're fighting for. Or maybe you're seeing the wasteland of Earth for the first time.

Either way, you shouldn't be out here for too long. The machines might find you.

wildcard | choose your own adventure.

7.

Perhaps you're riding with the Dothraki, or sitting under the Sorting Hat for the first time. Maybe the pleather bodysuit is pinching under your armpits as the traffic of the 90's roars by, or the Nova Empire's sprawling city glitters, towering above you. Maybe you're showing someone around the place you called home for your entire fictional life.

Or perhaps it's nothing as fantastical as that: the Council meeting droned on for two hours, and you're just happy to be home, even if it's a tiny enclosure with rust-edged furniture. Maybe someone's coming over for lunch, and there are real greens in the protein slurry today; maybe you're about to ask to join a crew.

There are infinite worlds to explore, but try to remember that only one of them is real.

Comments

[servomotor]

[Tony doesn't waste time on mock airs of being put-upon.

He does actually think about that for a long moment.]

That usually doesn't go well for me. I nearly sent Pepper into anaphylactic shock, this one time.

still using this journal bc at least it has some usable icons oops

[paragon]

[ His eyes are wider on Bucky after he's moved closer, but it's— hope, if Bucky's able to recognize it, and a certain amount of looking him over while he has the chance, like he's trying to make up for a few weeks (months) of not being able to see for himself that Bucky's okay — but none of it is fear, no matter Bucky's warning. That's already as good as forgotten. ]

Used to. Everybody gets cold up here, though.

[ He doesn't know what he's looking for exactly. Some evidence that he really is okay, maybe, that Steve did the right thing. It delays his removal of Bucky's jacket, at least, one arm freed and the other holding the rest on him by an absent grip on the lapel, because god knows the width of his shoulder isn't doing the job. After a few moments he looks down at it, brow furrowed thoughtfully before he pushes his arm through the too-long sleeve and again shrugs it onto his shoulder. ]

Come down with me. Then I can give it back to you and neither of us has to be cold, Buck.

[ It's calculated, but in the way Steve calculates: clearly laid out, the sequence of events apparent and prioritized. ]

[onyourfeet]

[ Cage is not too awfully worried when Metzger approaches their caught smuggler-fish with a knife, even though he watches the path said knife takes, a wrinkle stamping subtly at his brow. Eyebrows raise when Metzger hooks a look back at him, blandly tolerant. ]

Sehr gut.

[ He's not doing extra crunches, Simon. ]

I think Mister Starlord would prefer to be a long term asset over a long term problem. Gentlemen, can we shake on it?

[antiochattitude]

He didn't need to elaborate; Maria knew how family names were a tricky thing. That was why she took so much pride in hers. It was proof that humans could live a normal life.

And here she would have deflected his compliment by wishing she had a handle, but after he'd so neatly made that kind of comment awkward, all she could do was smile and brush the loose strands of hair off her forehead. "Thanks... even if it did come because of my parents' handles."

[berk]

[The erstwhile wizard grimaces, a pang of something that isn't nausea hitting him square in the gut.] Bloody-- [he says.] No, mate. It's all right. I'm being a twat because. [Because.] Any rate, it isn't you.

I'm sorry. Do what you like. I'm Sirius, [he adds, because he realizes he probably still doesn't look incredibly friendly. Even before he went to Azkaban and wound up with weird metal Muggletech ports lodged all over his body-- even at his most handsome, he didn't generally look exactly friendly.]

garrett hawke :: dragon age

[forcemageure]

[ simulation ]

[ As any of his erstwhile companions could (and would, at great length) tell a person, back in Thedas...trix Hawke made a terrible mage. Not unskilled, or unpracticed, just utterly unwilling to concede the universal conceit that mages are in fact meant to be ranged combatants. They don't wade merrily into the fray and staff-clonk (or stab, on the odd occasion and depending on available pointiness) the attacking bandits, or skeletons, or giant skeletal bandit-spiders, whatever festive obstacle the Wounded Coast had in store that day. By he'd left Kirkwall scars roped and twined in warped burn patches and pale faded slashmarks, as varied as a warrior's.

That was fine. They made excellent fodder for stories, his favorite of which was the one about roving packs of carnivorous, vengeful nugs.*

In The Real World, capitals audible, he found his skin unmarked, blank as parchment except for of course the occasional grotesque metal insert or two. He's long enough past his extraction (about a month, he thinks) to refer to them as 'these bloody things' instead of saying nothing in the interest of not throwing up, which on the whole, if he may wildly understate, he prefers.

None of this has anything to do with anything, of course, except that it does go a long way toward explaining why getaway-style driving should never have been made available to Hawke as a training program. Maker help you if you're his passenger. Or instructor. Or anywhere near close to the same plane of simulated reality, for that matter. ]

[ reality ]

[ It's not until he's able to - for instance - walk, or chew, or lift anything heavier than a pencil, that Hawke catches his first glimpse of the surface. It won't be the last, or second or third, but this is the first, and it's enough to shut even his fantastically irrepressible mouth. For the moment, anyway. Now all his singular focus hews to the blackened remains of skyscrapers, their jagged tops broken teeth in a foul grey mouth. Such metropolitan structure isn't only ruined to him, but completely alien. It doesn't look like a city, or what's left of one, it looks--impossible. Like the Fade.

Then again he'd navigate even the Fade with more confidence than this. ]

Well! [ Typical Fantasy-Medieval accent, which is to say apparently British, vaguely upper-class and southern. Why? Because that is what the Fantasy-Medival accent is. Now. No more of this unbroken silence! That way lies ...Hawke doesn't know, poetic observation or feelings or something. ] I was never much for sunshine anyway. Too ...sunny. All warmth-providing and crop-nourishing and everything.

[dissent]

[ Anders dresses differently in reality, no feathers to make his narrow shoulders look bigger than they are or thick robes to swathe his beanpole body. He hasn't cut his hair in over a year, so at least that's the same, but the clothes he wears are dark and soft and formless, no flashy buckles or wink of an earring, nothing except the occasional peek of the plugs on his wrists, at the back of his neck. And his hands still feel empty without magic in them.

Already his chest aches, and it's nothing to do with the chill on the desolate surface. He's spent more time up here than he should have, and the sight no longer moves him like it did, though Hawke's reaction is almost like seeing it anew. Then again, Hawke could make even the repetitive tundra of the Wounded Coast seem interesting.

He snorts softly at the comment, not sure if it's meant for him. If Hawke even knows he's there. ]

I only just heard.

[ He's been busy, out on a different ship, no less a determined workaholic here than in the Matrix. But he'd scanned the list of physical therapy patients, newcomers, caught a name, asked questions — found himself directed here. And now his hands are empty and he's learned enough of the Matrix to wonder if Hawke will even know him, if Hawke will still—

He swallows, looking at the ground, tugs his long sleeves down over his empty hands to ward off the chill. Three years of aching has been nothing compared to the certainty that he'd never see this man again. ]

[servomotor]

Yes you did, [Tony says a bit TARTLY, about as tartishly as normal for him really.] You just didn't know what you were crashing into.

Anyway, I'm not really sure what they'd do to me if they found out about him. [Tony's arms are half-crossed, one elbow resting on the other, his free hand flitting and shifting and pointing around into the luminous darkness here JARVIS' code had once spun like a constellation around the black heart of the universe.] They have an interesting post-apocalyptic diesel-punk biopunk cyberpunkish but mostly techno something going on in this city. But they could get pretty medieval if they found out, so.

Unless you want to see your celebrity crush get hung, drawn, and quartered. [He raises his eyebrows optimistically. Often this is a look that gets him punched.]

[forcemageure]

[ Hawke actually spins on his heel, so unironically dramatic a gesture that until this second he thought such things only happened to the more hapless in Varric's more exaggerated renditions. But there he is, eyes widened, his own hands closing and opening reflexively. ]

Anders?

[ He'd like nothing better than to believe immediately, to let out the breath he's been holding for months, but--he has always reserved faith for the tangible, and if this is some dream-figment frankly he'd rather not wake up. Even though nothing about whatever version of Anders stands across from him projects details he'd invent; he matches the environment now, when in Kirkwall he'd always stood out, a bright blast shadow on charcoal black. Hawke, knowing what it was like to be professionally displaced, thought Anders never looked like he belonged anywhere. (Except with him.)

It occurs to him at this nebulous moment he's just ...staring; fortunately (or less so, uh) regardless of what his brain is doing his mouth only goes so long without treating the atmosphere to some delightful remark or other.

Case in point: ]

If you turn out to be a finely tuned hallucination I'll have a whole skeleton's worth of bones to pick with--someone. Anyone, if I'm honest. It turns out they lack much in the way of a complaint department around here.

[ His own voice sounds a lot less steady than he'd like it to. ]

[dissent]

[ Anders' jaw shifts, but he at least looks up, meets Hawke's gaze. Whatever other changes have been wrought by being wrenched out of a tube, his eyes haven't changed, and neither has the fire there, the way it sparks an answering flare in Anders. It would be comfortingly familiar if it didn't always feel so life shattering. ]

I'm not. Though I suppose a hallucination would say that, wouldn't they?

[ His eyes narrow slightly in thought, contemplating this. ]

I think you'll find everything is real here. Excessively real.

[ Seriously, there's. Too much reality. A delicate little nose-wrinkle. Has it been mentioned that he misses the magic? Because Maker, does he.

Probably he should move. Do something reassuring, like actually touch Hawke. But somehow that seems too much of an incursion right now, because he's not sure he'd be able to stop at just one brush of contact. He doesn't know if any of that would be welcome. If it will still be welcome once Hawke realizes how long Anders has been here and unplugged without him.

So instead he just stands there, intense and awkward (intensely awkward?) trying to will Hawke closer with the power of his mind. ]

[forcemageure]

[ Hawke laughs, a low reverberation that is immediately swallowed by the cold acidity of their surroundings. He's still rubbish at anything that resembles silence, and still too easily charmed by Anders' expressiveness. ]

Hallucinations of other people, sure. I don't think you'd know a comforting lie if it hit you in the face.

[ Not that this is instant acceptance, but ...it helps, and that means he actually does move closer. He knows exactly how far the radius of Anders' personal space extends, after all, having spent three years whittling it down with insouciant, incessant flirting, bouncing cheerfully off predictions of doom and disaster.

To be fair those had turned out to be distressingly accurate, but to be fairer, doom and disaster were basically Tuesday for Hawke. Ergo the intensity outweighs the awkwardness, at least for him, because he tends to barrel through awkwardness like references to a bulldozer that would mean nothing to the Mister Medievalissance here. He does run a hand back over his short-cropped hair, though, as if consciously pinpointing that rather than the blasted landscape as 'excessively real,' and for him it is. All accusations of narcissism aside (...although it wouldn't be remiss to call Hawke one), it's something he can touch. Small enough, close enough, to get his mind around without recoiling. Out there stands too much reality indeed. ]

It's not so bad!

[ This is also how he would refer to 'hemorrhaging internally,' so Anders can take that with an entire mine's with of salt. ]

I've got eyebrows now, things are looking up.

[ Something cracks after that, a fine fissure in the nonsense he wears like armor. Very few other people would recognize that for what it is, because Hawke would break his own arm before he'd display even that much vulnerability. ]

Can you--

[ He makes an aborted, helpless hand movement, then pushes up one of his sleeves (beige, tattered and oversized; he doesn't actually mind the clothes, they're just ...strange, like everything else), baring the scattering of invasive metal. ]

Don't tell me, show me.

[dissent]

[ Anders takes a step forward himself, out of the last of the shelter and into the whipping wind, which tangles itself in his hair and sneaks under the loose collar of his sweater-like shirt.

He's heard Hawke say a similar thing under different circumstances, and he'd obeyed then, too. He's always been better at following Hawke's flippant orders and unspoken charisma than— well, literally anybody else's. So he pushes his own sleeves up, even though it's cold and he hasn't gotten any better at remembering to eat, so his slim wrists immediately goosebump. But there's a plug there, shockingly stark against blond hair and scattered freckles. He's almost (almost) used to it. ]

I can take it off, if you want to do a thorough investigation.

[ Quiet, without the usual salacious timbre, like he's going through the motions. In his defense, it's been a long time. ]

[forcemageure]

[ For a moment that seems to hang suspended, frozen in the chill he feels only half as much as Anders (he's always been a furnace, a quality his brightly grim sense of humor immediately hit upon as making him a fantastic battery), Hawke's not sure if he's relieved or not. On one hand, of course he is, on the other--well...no. No, he's definitely relieved, enough that his stomach turns over. What he's not sure of is whether or not he ought to feel bad about that.

His eyes lid regardless, because despite catching Anders' subdued tone it would probably take something on the order of a machine showing up right now to flip the switch that would turn him entirely from salacious to serious himself. ]

As tempting as that is I'd never forgive myself if you froze, or were eaten or--whatever it is that happens out here.

[ The dead space around them catches his attention at that, the reminder that long trips to the surface don't exactly come highly recommended. Though for less time than it might; Anders has, all 'glowing' jokes aside, always been the brightest thing wherever Hawke is. ]

That's enough. [ He pulls in air, lets it out again. ] I believe you. Enough to save the thorough investigation for more inviting accommodations, anyway.

[ This is the point at which he reaches out with the aim of tugging Anders' sleeve back down; it's up to Anders whether or not he gets that far, of course but it's--it is what it is. Hawke missed him, and moreover he's used to being the one who reminds him that he still has a human body, a thing that requires rest and food and protection from the elements. ]

[hacker]

I'm not sure you still count as a celebrity.

[ Because that's obviously what she should be focusing on. A smug, lopsided smirk begins to tug at one corner of her mouth as she looks him over, arms folding across her chest to really size him up and consider that fact. It'd figure that by the time she met Tony Stark for real, he wouldn't even be a superhero anymore. No fancy suit of armor. No tell-tale glow in his chest.

She breezes straight past that existential question by prompting him for a perhaps even more uncomfortable one, ] Are you trusting me? Wow. Do they have gold stars here, or did those go the way of actual, solid food? [ She drops her hands to her sides, swinging her arms to clap them together. Beneath the cavalier teasing lies the obvious and deliberate attempt to pretend like she's not honestly giddy and honored. ] I feel like that's gotta earn you one on the behavior chart.

[dissent]

[ Anders lets him, shivering at the barest brush of Hawke's fingers against his skin — though not with cold. How could he feel the cold when the promise of a thorough investigation makes him feel so warm?

He clears his throat, trying to find his voice. Maker, but this is nothing like he imagined. ]

I have a room. You could— come find me, when you're done enjoying the scenery.

[ That's a parting line. It is. But he doesn't want to let Hawke out of his sight, so he doesn't move, feet still rooted to the ground, eyes still searching Hawke's face for something, some sort of tell. Without the beard he looks younger, more open, even if Hawke's expressiveness has always been a cover, honesty kept in the hesitations and the moments he thinks noone's looking.

Maybe what he's looking for is recrimination. ]

How much have they told you? About how it all... works. About the Matrix.

[forcemageure]

[ That is the kind of parting-line-that-isn't Hawke hasn't heard from Anders in what he thinks might be literal years, with its little kite tail of humor and uncertain lilt in the middle. Unusual, but not unwelcome, although his eyebrows do march toward his hairline, expression snagged somewhere between pleased and surprised. In the end it meets itself midway, highlighting why he grew a beard in the first place. Because without one he looks Carver's age. ]

When I'm done, he says, as if I was enjoying it before. Can I still say I enjoy watching you leave? Or have we passed that milestone?

[ His flirting remains ridiculous, and doubly so out here, on the pitted, pockmarked surface of a world so empty of life even echoes die quickly. Maybe he wasn't, per se, enjoying the scenery, but there is something mercilessly satisfying about it. Hawke always feels more sure of his feet when he knows where the bottom is, that flat place where things can't get any worse: he is, for all his hangman's humor, an optimist.

Regardless. Since Anders let him get close and isn't moving, he sees absolutely no reason not to exist in extremely close proximity. ]

You want the version I've heard, or the version I've understood? If you're pressed for time I can assure you one's much shorter than the other.

[dissent]

[ Anders' breath catches in his throat. Hawke flirting back shouldn't be a surprise, not with the years they lived together, but everything else so far has felt like starting over and this is no different. He's been tossed back to uncertainty and wanting, to effusive bubbles below his ribcage when Hawke is. Himself, basically.

Anders' hand is still palm up, Hawke's is still near, and he touches their fingers lightly together. No reason, this time, just hoping to impart some comfort in the face of a confusion he remembers well. ]

It's a lot to take in, I know.

[ He wouldn't know where to start. His job is to fix the IV, not talk people through understanding "virtual reality". The closest comparison he can think of is a Harrowing, and as far as he knows Hawke's only set foot in the Fade once, for Feynriel. Still, worth a shot, right? ]

It's like the Fade. Everyone had their own different dream they were stuck in. And there are other Anders still in there, dreaming other dreams.

[ Different, being the operative word there. It's all getting increasingly stuck in his throat, and this is both a terrible time and place to have this conversation, but his fingers are slowly sliding into a tangle with Hawke's, and he breathes through the vice around his chest to persevere. ]

And you know my luck. I thought if I went back for you — woke you up — I'd pick the wrong Hawke.

[repetitio]

There's a war going on.

[ that's the only thing she says in response to his words. whether she means that manners have no place in a war, or whether she means to imply that dock personnel is not needed in a war isn't immediately obvious, though the second interpretation would be blatantly stupid and while rita vrataski is many things, she isn't that. ]

[forcemageure]

[ Initially Hawke waves off 'it's a lot to take in,' an expansive gesture like shooing away smoke. That phrase has defined every major crest and plateau in his life; all that makes this time different is that he doesn't have to take it all in while running.

Still. When their fingers touch he pushes back, solidifying the gesture immediately, and his other hand, settling down from its tacit insistence that he is, of course, fine, lands just below Anders' shoulder with palm flat and fingers spread. Wrong side of the chest to hear the heartbeat, but that's all right. He can be comforted, he just doesn't want to discuss that it's happening. Ever.

At least he listens more or less quietly to the extension on the impossibly sprawling concept he's been processing a little at a time (relatively slow-going, considering electricity still sounds like someone's managed to jam lightning in tubes, but going nonetheless). Until Anders pauses, and Hawke tips his chin down as one eyebrow meanders the opposite direction, expression elaborate parody. ]

Anders, are you apologizing to me?

[ A thin, faint undercurrent of amusement buoys this; it's not--funny, precisely, but Hawke sounds 90% of the time like he's about to laugh at something. He lifts his hand from Anders' chest and rubs a longer piece of his wind-lifted blond hair between thumb and forefinger before it drops back again, one corner of his mouth tugging up like a marionette limb. It's far longer, and Anders far less agitated, that he would have expected given only a few months. ]

Don't. Or do if you like I suppose, but I don't need it. I-- [ He takes his hand back another moment, almost covering his mouth before he realizes he's about to pull it down over a beard that isn't there; this time when he curls his fingers into the soft, worn fabric of Anders' sweater...thing he stays there. Uncertainty only in his pauses, and the motions he doesn't make. ]

If I'm the right one [ he must be, no one could love Anders more or better than he can; they've been through too much ] the rest can take care of itself. If you want someone to shout at you you might have to have them extract Aveline.

[ An immediate wry grimace, usually mobile, articulate tongue stumbling over the unfamiliar 'extract,' the nebulous 'them.' ]

Please don't, actually. [ Something conflicted passes over his face, a shadow there and gone. ] She has a life, and she's already put it aside for me once. But...maybe you'd like to have the rest of this conversation somewhere slightly less awful?

[ Slightly. ]

i knew this icon would have its day

[retrofire]

Sh— [ —it. He cuts the thought off midway, keeping quiet as the cool edge of the knife trickles over his stomach. If his muscles weren't already tense from being strung up for so long, that would've done the trick.

Predictably, Peter has no idea what the hell Metzger's saying. And yet, somehow, this still isn't the least comfortable situation he's ever been in, so any signs of impending panic are kept to a minimum. His heartbeat ticks up a few paces and a more serious expression flickers over his face, just for one intake of breath. Then the tells are gone, eyebrows raising and features shifting back to appeasing and just shy of whimsical. Enthusiastically: ]

Yeah, exactly. What he said.

[ THANKS, CAGE. ]

[dissent]

[ Anders kisses him instead.

It's impulsive, and a little bit stupid, but Hawke's little touches don't feel like some new flirtation, he hasn't pulled back once, or shrugged off any licentiousness, or reclaimed his own personal space. His hand tightens around Hawke's fingers like a vice, and that's all the warning there is before he leans in.

There's a moment of hesitation right before he makes contact, even though the tilt of his head is obvious right now, long nose nearly brushed up against Hawke's beardless cheek. It's not borne of any lack of desire: he's never been of two minds about Hawke, right now literally less so than with any other kiss. He's just staving himself off for a fraction of a moment to give Hawke a chance to duck away, if he wants, with those split-second instincts honed by battle.

Then they're kissing, Anders' stubble-rough mouth hot compared to the cold of the air, yielding and desperate at the same time. It's much like the first time, years of pent up aching breaking through the dam and swallowing him in foolishness, Maker, Maker, Maker a litany in his head. He lifts his free hand, cup's Hawke's face. The texture is all wrong, but the taste of him, the press and feel of him — that's the same.

Hawke said not to apologize, so Anders keeps back the words, but they're on his lips all the same.

When he pulls back, the whole devastated world blinks back brightly into being, and after a moment where he just pants softly with his eyes wide, he ducks his head, gives a sheepish little chuckle. He's too old to be acting with romantic impetuousness more suited to Varric's books. ]

All right. Let's go back in.

[ Because if they stay out here and kiss some more they'll probably get themselves killed.

Not that it wouldn't be very worth it. ]

:)/ touch

[hellbrokeloose]

Wise decision.

I don’t abide long-term problems, [ Simon explains to Peter in helpful aside as he seats his knife back onto his belt. That’s the joke. ] Cut him down. [ Crank him down, whatever. Metzger gestures, half-hearted, to pullies and chains. Having gotten what he was after, he has all the markings of being on his way out, content to leave any actual shaking in Cage’s capable hands. ]

If he speaks German next time we string him up, we’ll know he’s a keeper, [ he says, and then pauses halfway past, turning back to reassess at a second thought. It’s a look Cage will have seen before: one that involves math. This many kilograms of Peter Quill vs this many kilograms of his First Mate, long drops vs sudden stops, etc.

He squares the rest of the way back around, a hand turned out in (unenthusiastic) allowance for the fact that not having to promote Seoraj is worth the extra ten minutes of his time. ]

I’ll supervise.

[onyourfeet]

[ He's not doing extra crunches, Simon.

But he is going to let Quill down, no particular sadistic desire to stretch the moment out any longer; an efficient step forward towards the chains and pulleys to grip onto one of the former two-handed, heaving it down in such a way that makes the structure from which Quill is hanging shudder alarmingly before drawing him horizontally in.

(Look, he lifts.) ]

If he manages to get strung up again, we'll know he's not.

[ Once Quill is out of danger, the next motion sends him on a quick, if still controlled drop onto the walkway, feet still tangled up in the chains, but easier to get out of now that gravity isn't a factor.

Cage steps back, letting the other man sort himself out. ]

It's been a pleasure doing business with you.

[ Cage sounds sincere, which is probably somehow worse than being straight up sassy. ]

[polyphemus]

Allergic to manners. Sounds like a prerequisite.

[ There's a pause, the sound of mentally navigating a subject like, you know, loved ones still ostensibly playing human better in a pod of goo. ]

So this is you.

[ex_spins462]

No.

[ It's straight-forward, at least, because what's the point in lying about it? She's spent too much of her life brainwashed to trust herself. There used to be ways to reassure herself that things were real, that she was herself, but she can't trust those anymore either. Not now that she knows that she wasn't. It's even hard for her to accept the new reality as reality, given the solipsistic possibility that she's just awoken into another dream niggles at her. ]

And don't ask me if I trust the Matrix. I wouldn't be here if I did.

[ She would have taken the blue pill and enjoyed blissful ignorance. ]