voice

[rathercommon]

[ Kitty's voice is cheerful, girlish, and energetic. She hasn't been around lately: the effects of getting out the warning about the invasion of Olympus had intense physical effects on her, and a long period of unconsciousness has been followed by a period of working hard to recover from that physical weakness. So this post's chipperness is partially motivated by the fact that Kitty's persona/alias Lizzie is just a chipper person, and it's partially motivated by the fact that Kitty wants to prove to herself that she's recovered and in good health and spirits. So...Honestly, that energy is frankly bordering on manic. ]

Hullo, Zion! Or at least the network-users of Zion. It's Lizzie again.

A few things. The first of these things, I think, is going to make some of you quite happy. I expect a lot of you remember the restaurant I work at - Cafe Modak - it's the one with the best food in the whole city, so you might have heard of it. If you pay attention to those sorts of things. Anyway, Chef and Mrs Dutt - that's our owner - are putting together a little celebration dinner, for the people who helped defend Olympus. And also when I say little celebration dinner, I actually mean that it's going to basically be a feast. Everyone's invited, but people who helped out get to eat free. So if you've got any dishes to request, just request them here, and I'll pass it along to the two of them.

Anyway, the second thing is that we really don't all know each other so well, do we? I mean, we do all use this, but I hardly know any of your names. Or anything about you. So we ought to play one of those silly games like they make you do, to get comfortable with the people around you. So...How about we play a few rounds of two truths and a lie? If you all know that game. Or you could do a little introduction speech. Or just talk about your favorite sims, if you do sims.

[ Translation: let me pick your brains and figure out what sorts of people you are. ]

Comments

voice

[rathercommon]

[ Oh - Kate. One of her favorites. Kitty's voice goes from peppy-perky talking-to-people-she-doesn't-know mode into something a little bit quieter, a little bit calmer - the friendly voice you use for talking to someone you already like and don't have to pretend any enthusiasm for. ]

Oh, I'd say the Matrix counts. After all, even if what you did didn't have any real, physical effect, you still decided to do it. So even if the things you did in the Matrix didn't have any effect upon the world, you were changed and shaped by your decisions, right?

[ So: ]

Anyway, I think... [ Hm. ] I think you didn't drop out of college.

[alsohawkeye]

By your decisions, sure, [ Kate agrees easily, the thoughtful note in her tone a little muted, a little indulgent, like this is a conversation she's had before more than once but not one she minds having again, at least with Lizzie, who she likes and who also seems to agree with her which is always nice. ] But like you and Jack were discussing for a second there-- if one of us said we'd eaten shellfish, would it be a lie? That's a slightly different question.

Anyway. [ Does Lizzie's home world have gameshows? Because Kate makes a buzzer noise, errnt! and there's a faint swish of fabric and hair as she shakes her head. ]

I dropped out after a semester. But I'm pleased it seems unlikely.

[rathercommon]

Really?

[ That's really surprising. Kate seems so determined - that she wouldn't follow something through...Maybe college isn't worth much? Kitty has only the vaguest notion of what college actually entails - she's talked with enough people to know that in a lot of Matrixes, people go there to just study more, that it's not like her world where it's just for theoretical magicians and barristers - but it seems like a very large number of extracts that she's talked to have been college-educated.

So, because she's quite curious about what would make Kate change her path: ]

Why'd you leave? If I can ask.

[alsohawkeye]

It wasn't the best use of my time.

[ Kate doesn't hesitate, no shame and the sense she's had some time already to sort out the best way to explain this. ]

I realized that I already knew what I wanted to do with my life and it wasn't something college could help me with, so it was a waste to spend all those hours sitting in lectures instead of getting on with it. I can always get a degree later if I need one for some reason. Or could've if I hadn't been unplugged.

[rathercommon]

[ And that is an answer that, of course, begs the next question: ]

Well - what is it you wanted to do?

[alsohawkeye]

[ Kate's smile is small, a little lopsided, a little wry. More than a little proud, too. ]

I was a superhero.

[rathercommon]

[ The problem with being a liar is, of course, that you have to keep track of your lies. And it's hard as hell to keep track of what Lizzie would know from her home world (versus what her other personas would know, versus what Kitty herself knows). Lizzie, the story goes, is from a world with technology roughly on-par with what the Real calls the Victorian era: fancy skirts with bustles, corsets, no cars, no aeroplanes, no magic. Lizzie exclaimed multiple times over the oddness of wearing pants. So the question is: did they have superheroes in that era?

And also: what on earth is a superhero?

She takes a bit of a risk and gives voice to her question, curiosity winning out over caution. Which...she also feels bad over sort of undercutting something that Kate is quite clearly proud of. ]

Erm - what's that?

[alsohawkeye]

[ Kate laughs, a soft huff of a chuckle. She's not offended; experience thus far has shown her to be pretty thick-skinned so that should be no surprise. ]

It's-- what it sounds like? In my world, there were criminals that normal law enforcement couldn't handle. Because they had powers, or protection, or money, or because they were spread too thin or just because the people they were attacking weren't important enough to bother helping. So people like my friends and I helped them.

[rathercommon]

So...

[ Um. ]

So like some sort of...paramilitary force?

[alsohawkeye]

Nnnnot exactly, no. That sounds bigger and more organized than it was. I mean, there are groups that are more formal, I worked for the government as a sort of freelancer, and was part of the main group, which was sometimes-- its exact status is kind of difficult to explain. It's official, but kind of independent? But mostly it was more-- it was more like vigilantes, really. I guess if you want to get technical about it.

[rathercommon]

So you...hunted down people the government considered criminals.

[ There's a very ambiguous note in her voice there, to go along with that unconsciously anarchistic turn of phrase - not criminals, but who the government considered criminals. It's all a little bit too un-Lizzie, a little bit too Kitty. It's not disapproving - it'd take a lot more than that to make Kitty disapprove of Kate, Who Showed Her Dinosaurs - but it's wary. ]

[alsohawkeye]

[ Kate's still not really on alert with Lizzie, not suspicious enough to be looking for hints. But she still picks up on something there, some uncertainty about how that's phrased and said. She doesn't read too much into it, but there's some awareness there that contributes to the length of her answer. ]

No, I stopped people who were trying to hurt other people. Occasionally that meant following up government tips about criminal organizations, taking out their hideouts, taking away weapons they were developing, freeing people they'd kidnapped, stuff like that. Mostly it was trying to keep my neighborhoods safe. Stopping organized crime, street thugs terrorizing people. Fighting off guys trying to take over the world. The usual.

[rathercommon]

Yeah.

[ She knows she shouldn't be saying this. Lizzie Does Not Care about issues like poverty and crime and terrorism and government oppression. Lizzie has not broken any laws. Lizzie has never attended a protest. She has never lobbed a bomb, never broken into any weapons storehouses, never graffitied slogans under bridges and on razor wire-topped fences. The worst thing she ever did was nicking a few quid from her parents one time. That's it. And who knows who might be listening in? Who knows.

But even so: ]

So it was people you really did believe were wicked. Not just who they said was wicked.

[alsohawkeye]

[ No one is listening because literally no one gives a shit about your world sorry kid. Kate wouldn't believe Lizzie didn't care at all about those things anyway, even if she did manage to play it here. Nobody tearfully requests somewhere they're good to their people because they don't give a shit about Issues. But anyway. ]

Yes. Blind loyalty isn't my thing, Lizzie. These were bad people.

the shadow knows

[rathercommon]

[ She hesitates again. How did she know? That's a question - because there are perfectly decent people, kind people, who hated her and everything she did...

What, like your parents? asks a little voice, and she shuts down that line of thinking entirely and focuses on just having a bloody conversation. Naturally. As Lizzie. ]

Huh. So - what made you super?

her name is the evil that lurks in the heart of man?

[alsohawkeye]

What, I don't seem super to you?

ye....es. Eva for short

[rathercommon]

Oh!

[ She gives a little giggle. ]

But, erm, really.

It is kind of a mouthful

[alsohawkeye]

[ Kidding, kidding. ]

I didn't actually have powers myself. I'm an archer.

and 'man' is a terrible nickname

[rathercommon]

And here's the part where I reveal that this was all just a terribly clever plan to get you to reveal what your lie actually was.

[ But - ]

Does powers mean, like, magic, then?

[alsohawkeye]

So clever it only took ten times as long as just asking. I walked right into your devious trap.

Sometimes magic. Mostly more specific things. Shapeshifting, telekinesis, the ability to kick open portals to other worlds, super-strength. People had all different kinds of powers.

[rathercommon]

[ That's....certainly...a lot of things they can't do where she's from. ]

And - they worked for the government?

[alsohawkeye]

Some of them. There were a bunch of different teams at different times. Some government, some independent, plenty of powered villains, some aliens, lots of people just doing their own thing. We had a little of everything, really.

[rathercommon]

Oh.

[ She thinks about that a moment, then finally confesses: ]

That's all really weird. We haven't got anything at all like that where I'm from. Either...powers or...people...just going after criminals just because. [ Thank goodness. ] They're a bit keener on just...making a living and keeping their heads down, you know.

[alsohawkeye]

[ Kate laughs, briefly. ]

So are most people in my world. We're not called 'super'heroes because just everyone does it. It's actually very few people, but when that's your life you don't spend much time with anybody else anymore.

[rathercommon]

Can I ask why? Why you do it.