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

[ Kitty isn't, by her nature, particularly shy. Reserved, yeah, sometimes. Or - more accurate to say that she's someone who likes action a lot better than she likes words, for all that she's playing the part of a chatterbox here in Zion. But it rarely happens that she feels shy, that she shrinks back and considers her words before speaking and second-guesses herself before engaging with someone. Generally, she's of the opinion that people are people and nothing more than that - what's there to be scared of?

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.

[ Hannibal has, of course, an appreciation for anyone who chooses to work in the service of others, particularly in restaurants (should they be working to his meticulous standards only, of course.) While Hannibal prefers to prepare his own food, he does appreciate the effort a fellow aesthete has gone to in creating an establishment as fine as the Cafe Modak using only the limited resources available in this underground world. Hannibal appreciates ingenuity nearly as much as he appreciates quality.

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.

[ Maybe it's the cultured precision with which he speaks. Whoever Dr Fell was back in his Matrix, he was obviously someone of the upper classes. And how do you talk to the upper classes? Easy enough back home: with servile politeness masking fury and hatred, or sometimes not even bothering with the servile politeness, because every one of them was an exploiter and a parasite and a slaver, too. Here, though? Where she can't just shove him off into the category of hateful arsehole? And where she's definitely not going to treat him with the deference that was drilled into them back in school? She hasn't got any idea. Does she act respectful? Does she act casual and treat him like someone not of any fine breeding, oi mate pass the grub? Who on earth knows?

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." ]

[ Hannibal smiles at the sound of laughter, an ingrained response. Yama has a pleasant laugh. It is also, of course, pleasant to have his skills complimented in such a way, as innate hedonism means Hannibal is not immune to flattery given sincerely. All of this offsets the fact that they are now talking about the one thing he does not particularly like to talk about: that moment where his solipsistic belief in his influence over the world was forcibly fragmented.

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.

[ That catches Kitty's attention, no question about it. Chatting about good food and making small talk of that sort - she can do it, sure, but it's a little foreign to her. That topic of conversation adds a bit to her discomfort. And talking about extraction, too, she's got to be a little bit guarded, because there's no one in this room that she's been honest to about where she came from. They think that silly, sweet Lizzie grew up in a perfectly nice version of London with absolutely nothing strange about it whatsoever. But poverty, starvation - there's a topic she can engage with. There's a topic that she's helpless to stop herself from engaging with.

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. ]

test drive | 2

winks at

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hahahaha "shia lebeouf"

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