test drive | 2

[unplug]

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.

Comments

[rhyfelgri]

( enfys is inclined to say 'yes' and then roll over (or try to) and go back to sleep, but that way probably only lies more forceful bothering. which she'll avoid, thanks, when she's in no position to actually prevent it. the dryness that lingers in her rough, unused voice maybe speaks to the impulse she suppressed, anyway, )

Your name is Alex.

( she is familiar with coming around to people testing her cognition, anyway. or she thought she was. )

[intercourse]

Good.

[ Gold star. Said with the passivity of a nurse making a checklist, something she's done far too many times before. She finally eases off the pressure on the woman's shoulder, but she doesn't back away from the table. ]

And your name?

[rhyfelgri]

( there's a twitch, like if she were in better shape she'd be rolling her shoulder in a circle now it's free, but it doesn't quite get that far. she exhales, shifting her head against the pillow underneath it - the bareness of it is bizarre, after so many years wearing it so long. she's more conscious of it than she'd ever imagined she'd be, feels more vulnerable.

the flicker of irritation across her face - unused muscles unaccustomed to guarding expressions - has more to do with that vulnerability than the question. )

Enfys. E-N-F-Y-S. Llewelyn. Born July 26th, 1975. My favourite colour is red and I like long--

( a brief coughing fit interrupts. )

--walks on the beach.

[intercourse]

[ Ah, humor. That's good. ]

Good luck finding one of those.

[ She leans away for a moment, retrieving something off a nearby tray. When she next speaks, it's accompanied by the touch of her hand sliding around to the back of Enfys's neck — like one would cradle a baby, basically. ]

Sit forward, slowly. Drink this.

[ This being the small cup of water she's got in her other hand, which she'll offer up as soon as Enfys seems to have her bearings enough to take it. ]

[rhyfelgri]

( reality doesn't have much to recommend it, so far. nor does consciousness, or sitting up, but since all three of these things are happening to her - enfys does her best, gamely trying to be an active participant in the sitting up process. she's not thrilled about it.

or about how much thought has to go into getting her hands to respond to her - or the fact she has to use both, when she lifts them up to the cup. this is actually bullshit, she reflects, and-- well, it won't always be. it's the same body, if...not exactly the same, as it turns out, so this is temporary. this is just the first part.

she just has to get through this part, is all. )

I'm guessing they don't pay you enough.

( she doesn't imagine everyone's as cooperative. )