lostcarnival | ⇨ THE MATRIX

Who: EVERYONE!
When: S1:D22 - S1:D??
Where: Visiting the Matrix.
What: The carnival arrives at its next location, as outlined here. This is a general mingling log for convenience purposes, but players are welcome to make as many other logs for this purpose as desired.
Warnings: Could be a lot of things.

THE MATRIX↴

"What IS the Matrix? The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it."

► INSIDE: On the inside, it all seems so normal. Beyond what you know of the reality you've stepped in, every bit of this place feels just as real as it did back in the carnival. If you were to forget where you'd just come from, would you know any different? The simulation of Chicago is identical to how it would have been in the early days of the new millenia, to anyone who comes from a similar Earth. Humans bustle around you, oblivious to the world outside of the Matrix that they were born into. One bright side to it all is that this hyper realism means the coffee tastes just as good as it does in real life. Anything you could do in real Chicago you can do here - and perhaps even more.

► WHITE ROOM: But before that, you were here. The White Room is a loading program, intended to port objects and people into the Matrix. You arrive as a reconstruction of your true physical form, but common sense suggests that for some of you, entering the mundane world looking like yourself isn't the best idea. It's in this empty world that you will be able to load in whatever physical objects you are, and change the way you present your own body to the system. Changes can be little, or big, but whatever you do, the body has to be able to function according to Earth's physical laws. Don't forget, if you die here, you die in the carnival too.

► DEJA VU: It doesn't matter what you're doing, but at some point you'll notice it - something around you has repeated itself, like a line on a skipping record. Maybe it's the same person bumping into you twice in a row, or the same cab driver yelling at you to get out of the way. It's like reality has rewound and repeated itself, and after the fact you have no proof of it happening beyond the memory of what you saw. You don't know what it means, but something about it is chilling. It may be a good time to find a buddy.

► THE ONE: It won't necessarily come naturally, but in a moment of need you may find yourself bending the world of the Matrix through sheer belief and force of need. How you bend it will always stay without the rules of the universe, at least for now, but when it comes to enhancing your own physical characteristics, just about anything is possible. It will not be easily reproducible, not now, but it could be your first view into the window of what's possible.

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He sticks his hand out for a shake, smiling down at the newbie.

"Sora! I'm the Psiioniic." he announces. He hadn't even thought about picking some weird human name to use, but even if he had he wouldn't use it to introduce himself to another carnival member.

"I don't normally look like this, maybe you've seen me around. I've got four horns and glowing spots."

"Nice to meet you," Sora replies, shaking the offered hand. Maybe the maniacal laughter had just been a fluke? Either way, Psiioniic seems to be acting more normal now, if very friendly.

"Uh. Sorry, I haven't seen you. But I've only been here like three days, so I guess we just haven't run into each other yet," he grins. "I just look like this, usually."

The Psionic waves off the apology. The Carnival was pretty big, and Psi had been, well, distracted, to say the least.

"Are you a human then?" It was so hard to tell sometimes, especially with the entirety of the multiverse out there for them to explore. "That makes it easy to blend in places like this, though I guess I'm not doing a terrible job either."

He smirks, as though amused by his self-serving flattery.

"Well, I certainly thought you were human by looking at you."

Except for the laughing. That was a little creepy.

"I guess that's just the trick of this place, though. You can look like however you want. I'm human though, yeah," Sora finally adds.

He nods, it was like a trick.

"There's lots of places like this where we end up having to change how we look." But still, he's never really disliked it as much as he does here. Humans were so numerous, here and in other universes, looking like one felt a bit like rejecting who he was. Maybe it was because trolls liked so similar to humans when you got down to it. Psi looked much more human than Zecora in her true form, afterall.

Still, he knew such thinking was ridiculous. He wasn't making any kind of statement in looking human, besides the statement of not wanting to get caught and trapped in some human jail cell.

"Though stick around with us long enough and you might end up looking a little less human than you'd like."

Sora nods along. He knows all about changing what you looked like based on where you were. Again, his mind goes back to being a merman. Or a literal lion cub.

As for what he was going to look like a few months down the line, that was something he thought about considerably less. It was interesting to think about, but in the long run he mostly just hoped he stayed relatively human-shaped. Having wings might be cool, though.

"Yeah, someone told me about that already," Sora answers finally, ruffling his hair nervously. "I think I'll be okay, if nothing too extreme happens."

At Sora's nervous reaction Psi's smile softens. He was new once too, after all.

"What qualifies as extreme?" he asks, knowing the answer could be very different depending on the person. Some people might have found Psi's changes extreme, but most of them didn't bother him in the slightest.

"Oh, I dunno," he starts slowly, his mind going over all the things that could happen. "Terra's got, like, goat legs or something, but I don't think I'd like anything like that. I guess... anything that changes me too much?"

That's kind of a lame answer and he knows it, but Sora's never really been great at explaining himself. He just doesn't want to lose himself here.

It really is a lame answer. It's not very specific at all, or informative. At first Psi just isn't sure what to say. Then again, when anything could happen it was difficult to think of worst or even best-case scenarios.

"Well, you're changing all the time anyway, aren't you? If you're young you grow, if you're old you shrink. Stuff like that is changing you all the time but it doesn't mean you're not you."

"I guess that's true. I never thought about it like that."

After all, he's very different than he was a year ago, or even a month ago. When he'd had a growth spurt, he'd gotten so much taller he didn't know what to do with himself, but he was still Sora on the inside.

"You're right. I guess I should just take whatever comes, huh?"

Psi smiles, it's rare to find someone so accepting of advice. It's kind of nice, and he takes a moment to reassess the young man in front of him. He seemed cheerful, confident, maybe not the brightest but far from a brute. He'd probably do really well at the carnival, which only makes Psi smile wider. They needed new people who actually wanted to be here, not the sort that would run away and get themselves in trouble which was the most common newbie behavior.

"Something like that... So,what'd you do to get stuck here, Sora?"

"Me? Oh, uh, I didn't really get 'stuck' here, exactly..." Sora replies slowly, scratching at the back of his head. "I signed the contract on my own."

He scuffs at the sidewalk with his foot, sheepish. It seems like there's more unwilling people here than there are willing ones, and here he is of his own free will.

Edited (i cant fuckin spell) 2017-01-05 21:28 (UTC)

Psi nods, he understands that kind of reaction. It's a bit strange coming into something aware of the circumstances when everyone else has basically been tricked.

"I did that too, the second time." Because like most people, his first year and a day hadn't really been voluntary. "What did you get out of it?"

"Oh, well, it's... complicated," he starts. Hell, he doesn't even know if it makes sense to most people. If you'd asked him two years ago about how his life had turned out, he definitely would've been confused.

But Psi seems smart, so maybe he'd get it, if he explained it right?

"Basically, I... have this friend. But his heart is... kinda stuck inside of mine? So I wished that he could be his own person, instead of just part of me."

He hopes that explanation doesn't make him sound as crazy as he thinks it does.

⇨ THE MATRIX

making a great first impression here.

i'm not sure what i was expecting, but i don't think it was a good first impression.

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