Some prompts for an Entanglement character

[little_lost_dragon]

1. A-lung sits in the cafeteria, poking the chunk of foodbrick in front of him with a chopstick. "This is definitely not food," he says after some prodding of the substance before him. "I'm not sure I'd even call it a food-like substance."

2. In an out-of-the-way corner of the JunkStation, the thud of a person falling flat on their face is heard, followed by profanity in a variety of languages. "What is wrong with people here?" A-lung mutters, getting up off the ground and rubbing his elbow. "Stupid too-high gravity. How's a guy supposed to run here?" Although the gravity's not that high, really...

3. Somewhere where computers are frequently used, A-lung is staring at a terminal in a mixture of disbelief and frustration. "Why won't you let me connect? I don't have a wired connection, and if I did I sure as hell wouldn't plug into you. I know you've got wireless connectivity, so let me connect, you piece of junk!"

Edit: Physical description for A-lung - he appears to be of Asian ancestry, standing about 160 cm high (5'2" for those using imperial measurements) and looking skinny for his size. He generally has his clothing set as a shirt and hooded jacket and baggy slacks, although this can be changed quickly. The observant may notice what looks like a tattoo of a dragon peeking out around his neck or wrists from time to time as it moves.

Comments

[1]

[lest_ye_become]

"You should have timed your visit better," a slender, short girl says, looking like she's in her early teens and wearing old, beat-up clothes. She's got a bowl of something that looks like ice cream, though it's shimmering faintly through different colors under the cafeteria's lights. "If you spend some time on it, you can figure out the schedule the primary synthesizer runs on. Match up your visits and you don't have to deal with the bricks."

Re: [1]

[little_lost_dragon]

"I haven't really had the time to look into that since I got here," A-lung confesses. "Also, the computer networks here have my muse hiding in the back of my head and sobbing quietly, so that makes things more difficult too." He gestures to her bowl of opalescent ice cream. "Is it supposed to be doing that?"

[lest_ye_become]

The word 'muse' makes the girl squint a little. "Yes," she says firmly, and then adds, "probably." Her tone and expression don't admit that it's even a correction—she'd be a great poker player. "It's climbing-the-Himalayas flavor," she adds, as if that's supposed to make sense of it.

[little_lost_dragon]

A-lung licks the foodbrick off of his chopsticks with a face. "See, that's the sort of name that marketing people love - it sounds all cool and enticing without telling you a darn thing," he says. "Although the metaphor might not be the best, honestly - climbing the Himalayas was supposed to be tough and arduous, a trial of endurance and will, right?"

He glances at the ice cream, then grins across at the girl. "You should let me test it for you, save you the risk of eating something terrible."

[lest_ye_become]

"No, I mean, it's climbing-the-Himalayas flavor," Roxie says. She gets up and shuffles over to the cafeteria line to get another battered spoon. (She's got an oddly stiff and self-restrained way of walking...) She digs a scoop out of the ice cream with the spoon and hands it to her conversational partner.

The ice cream tastes very, very distinctly of the act of climbing up the Himalayas. It's almost a bit exhausting to eat.

[little_lost_dragon]

A-lung looks at the spoon and back at the ice cream with an odd look after he takes his bite. "That was quite possibly the strangest flavor I've come across," he says. "Which is really saying something."

He spins the spoon idly around his fingers. "Anyway! I should probably introduce myself, seeing as I've eaten your very strange ice cream and all. I'm A-lung, nice to meet you." He flashes his grin again, a broad smile radiating a mischevious warmth.

[lest_ye_become]

"I'm Roxie. I built the machinery that produced it," she says, glancing down at the bowl she still holds and then back up at A-lung. "The important parts," she adds.

[little_lost_dragon]

"Glad to know there are people with technical skills around here," A-lung says, his grin softening into a more natural smile. "If the physical stuff is half as bad as the network mess, it must take some real gung fu to get anything to work at all, much less come up with something new."

[lest_ye_become]

"Being the only genuinely skilled thaumotechnician in this place makes it easier," Roxie says noncommittally. "I doubt the 'Director of Magical Affairs' here could tell a reticulating essence-flow spine from a secondary resonance tension ratchet. A display of practical competence was enough to get me anything I needed to put it together."

[little_lost_dragon]

"Well, of course not. He's management - it's his job to handle the people who handle the stuff," A-lung replies. "In my experience, letting anyone with the title of 'Director' actually do any real work tends to lead to disaster anyway."

So as we eat, Unlimited Food Porn. Er, I mean 1.

[reforgedsoul]

And someone only slighter taller but much younger, in a royal blue trenchcoat that contrasts with his bright red-brown hair, slides a small plate with something towards you. It appears to be some kind of snack food, deep-fried wheat dumplings on a stick, studded with seafood.

"Such is the nature of things on the station," he says. "I am working on the food situation, but it's slow going."

Re: So as we eat, Unlimited Food Porn. Er, I mean 1.

[little_lost_dragon]

A-lung looks at the dumplings on a stick, picking it up and sniffing the dumplings before snarfing one off the stick and swallowing it in one gulp. Once his mouth is empty, he grins up at the young man. "Hello, new best friend who brings me real honest--to-goodness food! Name's A-lung, exceptionally pleased to meet you."

Re: So as we eat, Unlimited Food Porn. Er, I mean 1.

[reforgedsoul]

"You may call me the Servant, Saber," he says, with a very slight bow. "Between myself and the farmer who calls herself Horo, we have a lot of work to do getting 'honest to god food' on the tables of the Resistance."

He's appraising the newcomer, who's manner strikes him as a little too chummy to be entirely genuine. Do you come off as a fighter, A-Lung?

Re: So as we eat, Unlimited Food Porn. Er, I mean 1.

[little_lost_dragon]

A-lung comes across as someone who could handle himself in a fight, certainly - the warrior watching as A-lung wolfs down another dumpling may note the pistol concealed up one sleeve, rigged with some sort of quickdraw apparatus - but he doesn't feel like someone for whom fighting comes naturally.

"Excellent. I approve of anything that leads to the removal of this..." he pokes the brickstuff again, "...food substitute from the regular diet of anyone."

2

[hotshot_momma]

Anna Lin responds in Mandarin, not that you'd know it with that fish lodged in your ear. It's all perceived as your mother tongue, whatever that might be.

"It's Earth standard: nine point eight meters per second squared," she says, not even looking up from her copy of On the Nature of the Fade and it's Denizens, courtesy of Anders. "I take it you're not used to life in that gravity well? There are half and micro-grav living quarters closer to the core."

Re: 2

[little_lost_dragon]

"Guess I'm more of a redneck than I realized," A-lung replies in distinctly Cantonese-accented Mandarin, brushing himself off. "Even 0.5G feels high. But seriously. How does anyone do any serious freerunning here?" He leaps for the ceiling, failing to make it within a foot of the bulkhead. "I can't even jump ten feet here!"

Re: 2

[hotshot_momma]

"Consider it endurance training," Anna says, with a grin that probably comes off a bit crueler than she intended. "We're going to be doing a lot of our work in a gravity well, so if you're not used to it you'd better learn - and if you can't hack it, better to know that now so you know better than to go down to whatever planet we need to cajole and trip over your own mass."

Re: 2

[little_lost_dragon]

"I can handle myself in 'standard' gravity just fine, thank you," A-lung says. Taking a couple of steps back from a wall, he hurls himself towards it, executing a passable wallflip (although he does stumble on the landing). "It's just crap not being able to clear a lousy ten-foot wall without scrambling, is all."