14547/Engaged and Disengaged

Engaged and Disengaged
Date of Scene:	29 March 2023
Location:	Main Room - Titan's Tower
Synopsis:	Terry has exciting news. Jinx is wallowing in self pity and taking it out on a computer game. Together they fight cri... no, definitely not that.
Cast of Characters:	Jinx, Terry O'Neil

---

Jinx has posed:
'Sitting' on the couch like any good bisexual means sprawling in awkward ways. In this case Jinx is upside down. Her legs are dangling over the back and she has the game controller in her hand. Her face is flushed from al the blood rushing to it and her pink hair is dangling, touching the floor.

"Are you... Are you really still in the broom closet? Standing around doing nothing? Why?" Comes the sound of a British man's voice from the big tv screen hooked up to the console. The image is of a broom closet; some supplies; not much else. Jinx just keeps pressing forward against the storage space.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"The broom closet?"

That's Terry's voice. Yep, piping clear across the room. The Cheshire cat ambles in with a spring in his step and a grin that is entirely too wide, even for his usual standards. "We've got a witch living in secret here? Whatcha playin'?"

He leans against the back of the couch. "... okay, I've never seen anyone play a game upside-down... not even Robin, and he's a bat!"

Jinx has posed:
"He's Batwing now..." Jinx says as she looks at Terry being all upside down. No, right side up. She's the one that's upside down. She blinks at him as the audio systems pipe up again. That same British male voice, "It was Baffling that Stanley was still in the broom closet. He wasn't even doing anything at least if there was something to interact with he'd be justified in some way - as it is, he's literally just standing there doing sweet F.A-"

Jinx scoffs at the giant tv screen and the boring closet imagery. "Rude of you to assume my gender," she pipes back in her own British accent. She points the controller at the tv and says, "It's the Stanley Parable 2." She peers at Terry, "Why are you so happy looking today?"

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Wait, a sequel is out? How old is it? Man, this is what I get for not paying attention..." the cat shakes his head, and then decides to plop down on the couch next to Jinx.

By that, of course, we mean upside-down. It's the only way that he can experience the game that Jinx is playing as seen from her perspectie. "Hey, this is kind of like being in Uffish's laboratory in Wonderland! Except there aren't enough random machine parts. And animated shadows, of cours-"

Oh,right, she asked a question. "You mean I'm not usually happy? I thought I was a pretty cheerful fellow, myself. A model of exemplary discipline compared to most cats, you know? I seldom ever scratch, and nary a hairball to ever be seen. Or heard..."

Jinx has posed:
Jinx twirls her hands in front of her up in the air with controller still in one. "Yeah you are but you're extra chipper today. Usually you look like you're trawling for mischief. Now you just seem - content?"

"Offer me some explanation here, I'm genuinely confused" Narrates the computer game, "You do realise there's no choice or anything in here right? if I'd said Stanley walked in to the broom closet and he/she would have had a reason for exploring it to find out but it didn't even occur to me because literally this closet is of absolutely no significance to the story what so ever..."

Jinx grins a moment as the computer game berates her for a pointless choice. "Yeah but this is like a metaphor for my life right now innit." She sighs and waves a hand at the screen. "Stuck in a Tower with enemies, hiding from out there where my ex's are now my enemies. Can't even do nothing about it because they're all hiding."

She turns her red faced head to look at Terry, "Yeah I mean this isn't even the new content in the game it's just all the stuff from the first game. You have to go further to get to the new stuff."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Oh man, that sucks, you have to go through all of it again to get to the new stuff? That's like forcing you to eat Aunt Tilly's cold leftovers from her potato salad WITH RAISINS IN IT before you can have dessert!" He shakes his head, "Choice in most games is an illusion because dev teams can only afford to spend so much dev time into predicting all the different things a player can choose while still creating a cohesive environment," he gestures to the screen, upside-down as it is (for he is right side up, surely, as Jinx herself is), "And most game devs don't have the technology to create emergent storytelling from a realistically-crafted world model. And most modern machines don't have the computational power to run those games even if they did. You need, like, a danger room-level computer! So you are given the illusion of choice as an IOU for the day that technology catches up enough to deliver on that vision."

He glances at Jinx, pursing his lips. "But sometimes insignificant choices are significant for the person making them solely because of what they mean to /them/, you know? In a topsy-turvey world, you sometimes have to look things from a different angle to find an approach you never thought of before."

He glances back at the screen, "Something can be entirely different depending on how you turn it around, right?"

Jinx has posed:
"What the fuck.. did you join me on the couch to give me a life lesson or a hallmark movie speech or something? I thought you were meant to be one of the cool ones." She scoffs at Terry indignantly and looks back at the computer screen and steadfastly refuses to move on from the broom closet.

The computer game narrator continues, "May be to you this is somehow it's own branching path. May be when you talk to your friends they will say How did you get the Broom Closet ending? The Broom Closet ending was my favourite. I hope your friends find this concerning."

Jinx gives the screen a dead stare and huffs, sitting up right. "Well that just got very personal didn't it. Way to get called out be a computer game with limited world models, limited computation power, and limited access to a danger room." She cocks an eyebrow as she demonstrates she's not -that- upset with Terry eulogising her lament.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry grins, "You do know the thing about cats and expectations, right?" He stares at the screen as it decides to cast shade on Jinx's decision. One eyebrow goes up - or does it go down? "... are we sure Batwing didn't have something to do with this game? That /almost/ sounds like him. It's decidedly /spooky/ because that means ther are other people out there who think like him, and I don't know if I am prepared for a world model like /that/."

"Way to set me up, game. Way to set me up." He rests his hands on his knees. "I mean, being trapped in a tower with enemies does sound like a bummer. On the other hand, Caitlin makes the best food ever, so it all balances out in the cosmic equation. And if you think I'm exaggerating, I just need to mention her cupcakes. Her /cupcakes/, Jinx. They are delicious. They are /moist/. They are delicious. I will die for those cupcakes..." He frowns. "... now I want cupcakes, damnit, and Gar polished off the last pair an hour. And that's /after/ eating stew at Harl's when we went to tell her the big news. He's like a bottomless pit-"

Jinx has posed:
"Oh so that's it." Jinx tosses the controller from one hand to the other. "You've got some big news and that's why you're all happy go lucky giving speeches to the captive villain audience. I get it now..." She eyes him and considers for a moment. She snaps her fingers, "You're pregnant. Congratulations."

The computer hasn't said anything more. She blinks a moment and then moves the controller sticks a bit but nothing happens. "It crashed?!" She grrowls at the screen, "Just my bloody luck." She tosses the controller on to the empty seat and sits up cross legged and pouty.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"I mean, that could be it, but I'm not angry enough to have kittens. Quite the opposite, really." He stays upside-down for a few moments before he rights himself up. "Do you really think of me as an enemy? I dare say I haven't given you any reason to want to mash my face in..." he ponders this and scratches his chin. "Alright, admittedly being extremely cheerful might be cause for some to want to grab a grapefruit and shove it in my face as hard as I could stand it... like, say, Raven, for example. But that hardly begets enmity and mostly just antipathy..."

He glances at the screen and shakes his head at it, "Bad QA, guys. Bad QA. But at least it's better than the poor people who bought a game called Temple of Elemental Evil back in the oughts. I read this listicle about worst game bugs ever, and it sounds like that one launched with the worst bug ever. If you uninstalled it, it deleted the system folder of Windows... whatever version it was. Like, that's absolute chaotic evil right there." He gives Jinx a conspiratorial look. "... I mean, that's something I'd put there /on purpose/ for anyone who decided to uninstall any game /I/ made without making it all the way to the end..."

Jinx has posed:
Jinx is vexxed by his question. She twists her lips to the side and then shuffles over to face him on the couch. "Okay- then.. let's test you and see what kind of person you are." She lifts up a finger. "Imagine if you will that I could tell you right now, without a shadow of a doubt, that there's a bank that handles mob money exclusively. It's used in human trafficing, bribes, assassinations, and just generally to get richer for those people."

"Now, if you tried to take this bank down you'd be seen as a villain in the eyes of the state because it's a registered, legitimate business and it's also part of the banking network - which means the secret service is duty bound to hunt you down and throw you in jail, no matter how illegal their activities."

"And yet when the dust settles and they dig in to this bank, they find all their transactions are seemingly legitimate. No crimes going on - and when you start trying to prove it you find all the paper trails have disappeared --- and now? now you're just some villain on the run from the law and -other- heroes are now gunning for you."

She waggles an eyebrow, "You try to convince them you were trying to do the right thing - save lives, and all that. But they don't care. You're a felon and they draw a line in the and. A -real- hero would turn themselves in right? Right? But you've got -enemies- now. You go to jail and the mob will have you killed."
She finger gun shoots at Terry's head and then leans back against the couch. "So. Who are you. What's your play. Do you let the evil keep going or do you become the villain trying to stop it."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Well, before I ended up sprouting fur an a family connection to imaginary creatures, I used to be one of those people who would go and listen to someone's story and try to suss out what was true, what was false, what was the difference, and if there was any way to find out."

He glances at the screen, and then back at Jinx. "I suppose that in a situation like that, knowing what I know about it, I'd have to go with what my conscience dictated. Even if it meant going against the law. Just because something's legal, doesn't mean it's right, and there are whole bunches of things that are illegal that aren't wrong here and all over the world."

Jinx has posed:
Jinx studies him a moment, then reaches out and taps his nose tip, "Boop. You passed. You're no longer my enemy." She streetches out on the couch and asks, "Okay so you're not preggers. What's your big exciting news?" She eyes him side long now that they're officially not enemies - but she is ready - OH so ready - to defend her nose from boop attacks.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry touches his nose, and then wiggles it. He frowns, touches it again-

And a HONK noise comes out of it, like a bona fide old-timey car horn. "Ah, much better. I must have had some congestion-"

Now he looks at Jinx and grins. He removes one of the gloves he wears- good for climbing and parkouring, and to keep your hands from getting skinned while doing such things- and shows the answer: a simple ring on his finger.

"... Gar proposed to me!" he says in a quiet, but very excited, whisper. "Yesterday night."

Jinx has posed:
Jinx's eyes widen in concern at the honk noise and then looks down at his ring. A simple ring with great meaning. "Good for you - no diamonds. The diamond industry is manufactured and should be rejected by all generations to come." She twitches her lips a little.

Gar is hardly her favourite person in this tower. He's not her -least- favourite. No, that's Hank. Hank is gunna get his. But Gar gets under her skin. Fair, she gets under his skin too. They've not talked since their last argument.

"Welp. So that's a thing then." She frowns a moment, "Hey I thought you were like a thrupple with the birdman." She knows his name is Kian. She actually likes Kian.

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"Oh, I don't care for diamonds. They have their uses in manufacturing because of their durability, I guess, but I never saw the draw to them as valuables. And the diamond industry- yes, it can go suck donkey balls." He shrugs, "I'm easy. Gar could have easily given me a lollipop ring and I'd be over the moon, the significance is what matters... okay, maybe not a lollipop ring, they're sticky and it'd stick to my fur."

He grins and leans back against the couch, "Oh, Kian? Yes, we are. I suspect that soon he will also express his desire to ratify his commitment... when the time comes, we will probably do it on his world where such unions are everyday. And, well, you know, his parents are there and all." He scratches the back of his neck.

"I didn't quite use to think like that... but Kian comes from a race of telepaths where everybody is pretty much aware of how they feel about others. Jealousy isn't that common of a thing over there, and relationships can be more... expansive, I guess. When everybody presumed I was dead, Kian and Gar got close... when I came back, I had the reaction you would /expect/ from someone raised in this society. But then... well. Mind-melding with two other people can sort of make you see things from a different angle. Makes you more secure, I guess, knowing exactly how someone feels about you."

He glances at Jinx. "... you ever been to Wonderland, Jinx?"

Jinx has posed:
Jinx raises up her hands in question, "Dude. How would I ever go in to a children's story book world?" She blinks at him and shakes her head. "-Why- would I ever go in to a children's story book world?" She then lifts up a finger since she's on a roll, "--Who-- would I ever go in to a children's story book world?"

She smirks at him and says, "But really. What? Are you telling me that place is real? I just figured Lewis Carroll was on some spectacular shroom trips when he wrote those books."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
"... oh, Jinx-" The cat smiles, "... it's real. All of it. Dodgson didn't make it up... he merely copied down what a certain little Alice Liddel told him about the time she fell through..."

He holds up his hands at chest height, a space the size of an apple between his hands, "A rabbit hole."

And just like that, an aperture in spacetime opens up between his hands. It is tiny at first, but he expands his hands a little more so that the Rabbit Hole expands to the size of a watermelon. Through it, colorful trees can be seen along a paved path... strange fruits grow on their branches, like little red crustaceans pending from stems connected to the wood, their little pincers clicking and clacking in the air. The point of view lifts from the path lined with crab-apple trees to encompass the impressive profile of a red, gold and black castle with heart-shaped windows and turrets that look like upside-down hearts ending in points with blood-red tips.

"I am /the/ Cheshire Cat, Jinx. It's not just a title I gave myself. And Wonderland is just as real as I am." He grins and reaches into the Rabbit hole and plucks a crab-apple from a passing branch, and brings it into the room. He holds it by the stem, to avoid the flailing pincers. "See?"

Jinx has posed:
Jinx stares a little. She knew about his portal holes but not about wonderland. She watches with fascination at this revelation and feels all the more enlightened by it. "Hm. Could be real handy getting out of a tight spot."

She tilts her head and then frames with her fingers to Terry. "Cheshire Cat is a thing that's passed on from one person to another? What's the criteria - did you drink a milkshake upside down or something and bam, you're not the cat?"

"And I suppose next you'll be telling me Narnia and Fillory are real too." She smirks a bit. "I mean. May be they are in the infinite multiverse of magic."

Terry O'Neil has posed:
Terry tosses the crab-apple back through the hole, since preparing it for eating is often a very laborious task, and closes the portal. Unbeknownst to him, the crab-apple will end up accidentally freeing others from their branches and will end up leading a gang that will waylay travelers on the road for seed money. Everyone will agree that they are some real bad apples.

"Family. My father was the original one. He came up here looking for Alice... didn't /quite/ grasp how time runs up here, y'see. Fell in love with mom. Then I was born, and..." he pauses, and frowns. "Well. He stopped existing. There can /only/ be one Cheshire Cat at any one time, you see, and he was /all/ Cheshire. As for Narnia and Fillory and Neverland..." he shrugs, "Who can tell? There are more things between heaven and earth, etcetera... you know, when the ultimate fate of Wonderland was to be decided, there were two creatures here that Troia addressed as Oneiros and Mania... one of them presided over something that is called The Dreaming- the world formed up of Dreams, of which Wonderland /used/ to be part of until... well, it's a long story, Wonderland is now its own realm. But from what I gathered... there are many other places like Wonderland. I mean..."

He gives Jinx a wink, "Stick around long enough and we might just find out, y'know? Say... I'm hungry. I'm gonna make me a sammich, you want anything?" he says, standing up and stretching.

"Also, I'm surprised Harley hasn't told you about Wonderland, to be honest," he says, as he starts making his way to the kitchen area, "... she overthrew the Queen of Hearts and was Queen of the Monarchy of Hearts for a little while, you know."

He grins, padding to the kitchen. If he knows Jinx, that's a story she will most likely want to hear...