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test drive | 2
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.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.
Please put your character name and canon in your subject line, and indicate which prompt you are launching from.
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.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.
wildcard | choose your own adventure.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.
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.
dr "roman fell" | nbc's hannibal | contains no S3 spoilers
I.
[ Hannibal Lecter always knew that God had a sense of humor, but he lacked strict confirmation until six years ago, when the truth of the Matrix was revealed to him. That humanity could be harvested like crops to feed their own invention was not the great joke, of course, nor was the absurdity of clinging to a hard truth like a mollusk clings to the bottom of the boat rather than accepting a life of dreams. It was — his own role, his own truth, the humiliation of the sight of thousands of pods like the kernels of a cob of corn and his own abject crawling from the muck.
Perhaps the unremarkable life that followed could be considered a sign of a man whom, confronted with his own mortality, resolved to turn to the next blank page, a new leaf over, as it were. Certainly Doctor Roman Fell demonstrated no interest in Zionite politics or the Zion Defense Grid, the two clear ladders of ambition set before the newly unplugged. He read diligently, and exercised his frail body, spoke to others mostly of language and the arts, and visited the catacombs. Then one day he left for Etham, claiming a desire to devote himself spiritually.
There are limited places in this new world, everything huddled together, and Hannibal visited each outpost in turn, spending a small measure of time learning the culture, making contacts, collecting resources. If perhaps he carried less prosaic goods in his briefcases than simply his clothes, surely there was no harm in a little personal purchasing, to be redistributed as "gifts" to friends. Smuggling was the practice of Irkalian pirates, not polite middle-aged gentlemen in a fading three-piece suit.
It is only today that he has stepped off a hovercraft back into Zion, churned along with the other refugees from the ravaged outpost of Olympus, where the roof of the church has finally fallen on its worshippers. Despite his best efforts, being swept up in the conflict has left him slightly less presentable than he would like, and there is blood under his nails that he desires to wash off as soon as possible. It is with relief that he is waved through processing, so much easier without papers and passports and fingerprints to concern oneself with, and soon he is knocking on the door of an aquaintance he once made, or at least, the door of where they used to live, years ago. ]
II.
Good evening, Zion.
I have decided to offer my psychiatric services in private practice. Within the Matrix I was highly qualified and maintained a select list of regular patients who visited my offices: here, I will offer home visits until my own space can be established and furnished. There will be no bias between those who have or have not been unplugged from the Matrix, however my counseling focuses on overcoming psychological distress — should your interest in therapy stem from a desire to adapt more adequately to the loss of your previous life, I advise you first try the clinicians of the Zion Defense Grid who specialize in assisting the newly extracted. My rates are negotiable.
My sincerest apologies that my first opportunity to utilize the network so kindly provided for us has resulted only in advertisement. If you would prefer a more personal dialogue, I am also interested in discussion of the recent appearance of the Oracle, and her prediction of the strife we are still, as a community, attempting to recover from. Do you believe the issuance of a warning before an attack it represents further schism between the machines? Did anyone speak with her directly?
Finally, I am looking to hire a temporary guide. I have never in the past spent much time in Zion, and would appreciate someone with better knowledge of its levels and functions to show me around.
My sincerest thanks,
Doctor R. Fell.
ok here you go
It still hasn't made it an easy transition. But with all the focus on the refugees, the casualties being brought in, she can at least slide away for a little while, away from attention. She'd moved to a room as soon as she was physically able to, unwilling to take up a clinic bed when there were more needy still trickling in through the docks. She's still shaky, clumsy and weak, spends a lot of time resting - not that her new lodgings allows that much. The knock on the door isn't the first, but she bites down on any irritation as it interrupts her second cycle of exercises.
She calls through a coming! as she sets the small weights down and makes her way slowly to the door, a slight sheen of sweat on her skin, dark eyes large with only a short fuzz of hair, no fall to frame her features.]
I'm sorry. [She says on not recognising the man, an apologetic smile at the corners of her mouth.] You're probably looking for someone else, aren't you?
no subject
Ah. Yes. My apologies for any intrusion. To my knowledge, this is the home of a woman who calls herself "Parvati"?
[ His knowledge is dated, therefore no longer accurate, but he is holding out hope that large young woman is simply in his position, of needing to stay with an aquaintance. ]
winks at
For some reason, though, she's shy in the presence of Dr Fell. The doctor is apparently an acquaintance of Chef's - someone whom Chef, who's ridiculously stuck-up about his tastes, considers to have an even more discerning palate than his own. And Chef's got such an ego - So Chef invited Dr Fell to come and cook a meal for the staff of the restaurant. And of course Lizzie, who was wounded in the line of duty while going and spreading Cafe Modak's commerce, who's been treated like something of a hero in spite of her infuriating clumsiness ever since she's returned to work, gets seated right across from him and gets served, if not first, then at least fourth.
Why is she tongue-tied in his presence? She guesses it's just how...composed he acts. She's never met anyone who seemed as sure of himself as Dr Fell seems of himself. There's something about that sheer calm that's sort of hard to deal with, especially given how awkward she feels - fumbling with her soup-spoon, struggling to maneuver around her teacup. It makes her so intensely self-conscious.
So it's with an extra dose of awkwardness that she says to him, forcing polite conversation - ]
This is really, really lovely. This, erm - This food. [ Clumsily, she tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and, with a self-conscious little smile: ] You've actually managed to make the meat taste like actual meat.
no subject
The opportunity to cook for others is as scarce now as some of his favored ingredients, but this is after all a time for celebration: for the survivors, and more personally for his own return to Zion. But especially for young Lizzie, who he is told was responsible for the timely arrival of outside help.
His attention is on her peripherally even before she addresses him. While his primary senses are bound up in appreciation of the food, even more flavorsome is taking in the appreciation of others. ]
Seitan is impressively deceptive, is it not?
[ The meal started with tiny, hand made "tofurkey" meatballs in a clear broth — "I find meatballs superior to sausages in a world where there are no adequate casings," Hannibal imparts to Chef — and is now at the main course: a finely sliced, almost julienne mushroom-seaweed salad; nut-stuffed bitter melon; and the centerpiece, the dish that Kitty is complimenting, a rack of hand-crafted seitan "pork ribs" that have been heavily marinated in soy and chili, slow roasted, and sliced from the makeshift "bones" at the table to fall easily onto the crispy fried noodles, pickled bamboo and lotus chips, then topped with a squeeze of lime. It's an abundant combination of imported delicacies and reimaginings of the fake protein, fungus and roots that make up the bulk of a Zion diet. ]
I find that even though my brain knows the truth, that this pork did not come from pig, my mouth is content to be lied to.
[ He taps a fork against his lips, smiling slightly at her through the tines. ]
To be otherwise would quite spoil the enjoyment.
hahahaha "shia lebeouf"
Her response is maybe not as polite as it ought to be, but...Honestly, who bloody knows how polite they ought to be in these sorts of circumstances. Better to be honest, she thinks. Or more satisfying. Mindless politeness is probably safer. ]
Yeah, well. I think if our mouths were the ones choosing for us, everyone would be stuck back in their Matrixes, wouldn't they. So it's good that our brains are in charge.
[ She picks up a lotus chip, savory with the juices of the not-pork, and nibbles on it. It's ridiculously good. Even this much is ridiculously good. ]
Or - for the most part. That's true for us. I guess there are people who didn't really make the decision with their brains.
[ Yana, one of the other waitresses, laughs - "Or maybe the problem was that they got to try food like this, and we didn't, so we didn't know what we were missing out on." ]
no subject
The crew that extracted Hannibal Lecter has long since disbanded, but he is quite familiar with each of their names and faces and where they currently reside and the risk of accident in their daily lives.
But the narrative digresses, given Hannibal's quiet amusement at the whole gathering does not flicker as he watches Kitty eat, and talk. ]
Our mouths can be just as satisfied in reality as within the Matrix, it simply takes more work on our own parts. Many people from many worlds are used to food simply appearing before them.
[ He's talking about fast food chains and not magic, of course. Still, there's a hint of scorn in his tone. ]
Or they go hungry because there is not enough. I have never seen anyone in Zion starving, though I will admit to having been absent from the city.
no subject
Chef is making a noise of intense satisfaction at what Dr Fell has said. The owners of Cafe Modak have a deep commitment to demonstrating exactly that - that life outside the Matrix can be just as bright and vibrant as life within it. He's nodding with satisfaction, and drawing breath to say something self-congratulatory, but before he can Kitty jumps in with a question that's maybe rude. That's definitely rude, honestly. Well - everyone can deal with it. ]
Then you did see people starving in your own Matrix?
[ Because it's surprising. Because he's so posh. Because he seems like someone who's driven past the people going hungry in a chauffeured car. ]
ii.
should i find you ? or will you find me ?