jackin | test drive

test drive

Welcome to our bimonthly Systemwide test drive. Please feel free to use this venue to test out any prospective character you may have, whether they're unplugged or free born. Comment below responding to one of our scenarios, or invent your own, and make sure to tag around. Note that any test drive tag can be used as an in game sample for application. Reserves are open, and applications will open on April 25.

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

the matrix | the air feels real, but you know it's not because you have been told as much. due to the fractures of the matrix, you could be standing in a landscape familiar to you, or one that's intensely alien. this could be your first time, or your thousandth time. this could be the real deal, or just a simulation. either way, all you are experiencing now is coding.

This is a familiar battle to you, with familiar demons. An extraction mission gone arwy, or simple spying and recon -- either way, Agents -- either of the suit and tie kind, or something more monstrous -- have detected your presence, and you're going to have to fend them off while looking for an escape route (in the form of a pay phone, or an invisible backdoor of your imagination). But this time, you're among friends in the form of your crew.

Alternatively, you're out of your depth, in an alien landscape, but you're better, faster, stronger than you've ever been before. Or at least, maybe someone on your team knows what they're doing. Either way, you are advised to run.

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.

A new recruit has opened their eyes. What was your involvement? Perhaps you're simply staying out of the way, and you're seeing the expanses of the human field towers for the first horrifying time since you were blind and helpless yourself. Perhaps you're acting as guardian angel, holding the unconscious quarry's hand, or tending to their medical charts.

Perhaps you're the new recruit, feeling the metal floor of the hovercraft beneath your feet, stepping out to explore this new world while still aching muscles protest from all this new strain. You almost don't believe that this has happened, but nothing has ever felt so real before now.

wildcard | choose your own adventure.

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 you're just practicing in the simulation stations.

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. Perhaps you're participating in key events, whether it's something to celebrate, or something sad.

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

reality
[ Teatime pushed the grayish slop around with a spoon, expression tinged with contemplative displeasure. He could appreciate it in its utilitarian simplicity, but the taste could only be described in simile-- without a doubt, the slop tasted like sadness. Some part of him recoiled with the knowledge that he was beginning to understand poetry. Reality was a harsh thing indeed. ]

---
matrix: simulation
[ Eyes mostly closed, Teatime swayed slightly from side to side, settling into the body that felt more real, more natural than the weak shell he'd left in the real world. Dressed stylishly in layers of black, hair coiffed, he once more looked the part of an esteemed member of the Assassin's Guild.

His eyes snapped open abruptly, one inky black and the other little more than a pinhole of a pupil. A smile lit his boyish face, but there was a cold-blooded wrongness to it. ]

So, what happens to someone who dies in a simulation?

[ To Grey, on the other hand, this was a marked improvement on what he was used to eating. Or at least it was a decent alternative. Even the spoon was a novelty. Grey wondered if front-enders used to eat with spoon. It felt fancy and very unnecessary. He could picture Mason eating with a spoon, if Mason even existed. So this. Grey could easily get used to this.

He gripped the spoon with his fist, and was halfway through his portion when he noticed a man nearby wasn't eating. Grey frowned. Maybe he was sick? That's what it usually- that's what it used to mean when someone wouldn't eat. It was none of Grey's business, he knew that. Most things weren't.

So he turned back to his bowl with every intention of finishing his meal. Too bad he forgot about the spoon. Accidentally knocking it with his arm, it flung through the air as Grey cringed and watched helplessly. Yeah. So unnecessary. ]

[ Teatime's free hand shot up to snatch the utensil from midair-- but this was not the reality he was used to. His reflexes were slower, his muscles less toned, and he lacked the scrying stone that made it so that he didn't have to look to see. His fingertips bumped metal and the spoon bounced upward enthusiastically. He was rewarded with a small shower of food-mush over his wrist and sleeve. His lip curled in disgust.

The second attempt-- this time with his dominant hand, and his eyes tracking properly-- was successful. He contemplated the scuffed spoon briefly before turning his gaze on its owner, calculating. It wouldn't do to jam the utensil into the boy's eye, so he sifted through other possibilities until something more socially acceptable popped up. ]

Dropped this. [ He chirped with a smile. He offered the spoon handle-first as though he were passing a knife. ]

test drive | 2

Jonathan Teatime | The Hogfather (Discworld)

reality!

no subject