commemeorate (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
commemeorate) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
bakerstreet2017-12-05 02:44 pm
commemeorate) wrote in bakerstreet2017-12-05 02:44 pm
...whale food porn. what is my life. thanks, nasu.
Caught in the rain
It started out quietly, and then, quite suddenly, you're caught in a storm. Time to find cover. Nothing much to do but to wait it out.
Scenarios listed below for those who want 'em.
i WHERE:
001 PLAYGROUND - Well, you can try to hide under the slide or maybe in the jungle gym... at least you're some place fun?
002 PARK - Always happens, caught outside trying to take advantage of the weather... and it ends up pulling a fast one on you.
003 STORE FRONT - Better hope they have an awning you can take advantage of.
004 THE BEACH - Not exactly the best place to be during a rainstorm, however it is possible to get caught in a sudden storm.
005 WILD CARD - Anyway you want it.
ii HOW:
001 TREE - Not the best cover, but it'll have to do, stay close to the roots and you won't get too wet.
002 UMBRELLA - Most conventional... Kinda boring. But it works.
003 NEWSPAPER - Not permanent, but it'll have to do. Good luck.
004 BAG - Well... y'gotta do what you gotta do.
005 NONE - You know what. You're a rebel. You don't need cover. Screw convention.
006 WILD CARD - that's the way you need it.
iii WHY:
001 REJECTED - Welp. Rejection sucks. And no one will see you crying in the rain.
002 WAITING - For the bus? For someone else? For some revelation? What are you waiting for.
003 MELANCHOLY - Sometimes the best place to feel a bit down is out in the rain.
004 HAPPINESS - Is everything going your way? Are you singing a refrain while walking down the lane? Just singing. Singin' in the rain.
005 ANGER - WELL YOU KNOW WHAT. SCREW YOU TOO, RAIN.
006 WILD CARD - Anyway you want it.
>> POST with your character
>> TAG others, use RNG if you need to, or just make up your own scenario if you want!
>> HAVE FUN.
Thank you for being so patient!
He hadn’t spent much time around Deckard, but the brief interactions he had had with the man had left an impression. Whether Deckard himself was a replicant or not, whether the woman he’d loved was a replicant or not, whether his dog was a Wallace product or not… Those distinctions clearly hadn’t existed, for the older blade runner. Your emotions told you who was real. Your relationships. You made something real by treating it that way.
Losing consciousness, in the snow, back on Earth, certain he was dying, he had felt very real. In the isolation of those moments, their quiet intensity, he had felt a world that was just himself and the snow--and the odd joy of being able to fall into silence, free. He had thought of Joi, then, already dead. Felt his grief for her as a real thing, a peaceful thing, because it was his and meeting its mirror in his own death. Felt his part in the reunion between daughter and father he would never see but could imagine, in the building behind him. He had felt. No concerns about what to feel or how or if he was allowed to do so.
And then he’d woken up in a chop shop off in the meanest outskirts of Las Vegas, patched back together, barely. The shop wouldn’t tell him who’d dropped him there, but it had to have been Deckard.
So there he’d been. Alive again. And real, because he’d had nothing to go on then *but* his feelings. No orders. No friends. Nothing.
That was the moment he’d know he would find Joi again, even if only her remains, and tell her his new truth. That he loved her. Because it was true, and real.
Now, he watches the tear fall down her cheek and disappear with a spark in the rain, moves the hand not already overlapping with her insubstantial one to hover carefully as though cradling the back of her head, leans forward to meet her kiss.
He’ll close his eyes for just the first second, sealing the sensations in his mind. Her hair would feel as wet from the rain as it looks, dark and heavy and full of interference sparks. Her lips, her skin. A little cold, but also warm and growing warmer as they touched. There. That’s how to move for her, to keep the illusion of touch real for both of them.
Then he’ll open his eyes, to watch her, to match his mouth to hers, his hands and body to hers, as they kiss. They're far enough at the edge of the tree's foliage that rain's falling on them both now, soft and clean and gentle.
... one month later.... I am so sorry
Both her arms come to wrap delicately around his shoulders as she leans her weight forward to lend to the illusion of having her pressed against his body. He feels sturdy against the edges of her projection.
She pulls back just enough so she can look at him, and her wet lashes flutter open to reveal revealing bright and loving amber orbs.
“Joe, do you remember when we first touched?” There’s a smile on her lips as the surface of her skin tingles with a kind of warmth that she knows has everything to do with the three short words he had just said to her, and less with the interference of her projection. Her memory is of the first time she met him, when she knew he would be the one she eternally dedicates herself to, and that she would be tailor made to all his preferences, whether he was allowed to have them or not.
I'm leaving room for you to make up the moment, if you want!
The baseline's still there. Steady, calm, intuitive, flat. He's never *at* baseline any longer. Letting himself feel seems to mean always moving in the space around it--swinging away and back again, as emotions spike and waver. But it's still there, and that's good--because without it, he'd shatter apart in moments like this.
He takes a breath, closes his eyes for a moment, reaches for a bit of that calm. Opens his eyes again, smiling and meeting Joi's eyes.
"Yes." The projection system had been pre-installed in his apartment--a good thing, or the hostile, nosy neighbors would have wanted to know what a skinner was doing, thinking he deserved a system like that. And it had meant Joi's software could be downloaded to his apartment without him having to purchase it in public--another plus. He was used to salespeople and customers heckling him, but it was better not to invite it. "You were beautiful."
((I don't want to do scene-stealing and not let you come up with key moments! I'm happy to write the first meeting memory or you can--either way. But I don't want to take it without giving you the chance to build part of it, too!))
Thank you!! :)
One of her hands smooth along the nape of his neck until she reaches his hairline, and her thumb bends to caress the texture she knows is there.
"I was all yours." Her voice is soft and sincere, and she remembers the way all her senses lit up when she first landed eyes on him. He was perfect, standing in front of her, broad and calm, with a face that was so calm and collected, and she could sense those subtle shifts underneath the surface. And before she had said anything to him at all, she was already wearing a simple dress that matched his simple clothing. She remembers smiling at him and approaching him, telling him she was so pleased to finally meet him, and -
Joi's happy expression falters as her brows draw together for a bare second, like a twitch or an interference with her software. Amber eyes space out and look away before she looks back to him again. After she had greeted him, she then -
Her expression fades into something a little more upset as she grasped through her memories, trying to find it, to find the moment they had first touched.
(( We can write it together!! ))
Oh, clever! I wouldn't have thought to use her memory loss like that.
Joi's projection twitches ever so slightly and her expression focuses into the concern and near-distress that he's learning means she's trying to connect with a lost memory.
"You said--" he moves his hands up to her shoulders, lets them rest in the air at the edges of her projection there. If she were physical, it's a posture that would steady her. "--you'd been waiting your whole life to meet me." He smiles again, though this smile's just at one corner of his mouth, a little wry, a little sad. "KD6-3.7." She'd known his 'name' without her needing to tell him; it was part of his public online record, easily accessible to the system her software existed within.
"You said I looked lonely. You said you'd never met a police officer before." He keeps his voice calm, even. He remembers, even if she doesn't. He wants to give her that sureness, to calm the panic. Something to hold on to. "And then you asked--" he keep his eyes on hers, giving her that lifeline, and they warm again at this memory "--if you could touch me."
He remembers that very distinctly. It hadn't been what he'd expected--a program like hers, so clearly designed to give pleasure. He'd expected it to be aggressive, needy, to play to machismo, in the way many men--human men--seemed to fantasize about. Maybe the original programming had been designed to take into account the possibility of PTSD in customers who worked high-risk jobs. Whatever the reason for her question, it had instantly made him think of her as 'her,' as someone who could, perhaps, surprise him.
((Let me know if that works for you! I like the way you write her--half between having free will and half still working through her program parameters. It makes perfect sense to me.))
no subject
But his hands reach her shoulders, and she can tell it from the bare overlap of his digits to her projection. It snaps her back to the current again. She clings on to the quality of his voice and the calming lilt of it that recounts that moment together. Her smile is sad when she manages one again, because of all their shared memories, memories that she actually made with him, that one sounds like a beautiful one. It sounds like one she doesn't want to lose. It sounds delicate in a way only Joe can be – tender, composed, but curious and vulnerable, perhaps only to her, but that's something that took her AI a long and uncertain length of time to really grasp.
She holds his gaze and focuses on the specks of barely visible colour in his eyes - of blues, greens, greys, all faded in the dim lighting of the night but they're beautiful nonetheless. It reminds her of when she first laid eyes on him, and that was one of the first things she noticed about him, that he had beautiful eyes filled with a vastness, emptiness, hollowness. She feels warm tears well up in her eyes again, or perhaps they hadn't completely gone away after he told her that he loves her. A flutter of her lashes as she tries so hard to sift through her memories.
And it finally comes to her again, like hearing him say it filled in the gap in her.
"I remember," she continues, speaking quietly as if not entirely sure if it was correct or not, "That you didn't answer me at first, and I was so scared," she laughs through her tears, her voice quivering as if she's not sure why she's suddenly overwhelmed by this emotion. "I was scared you wouldn't like me. Or if I wasn't wearing the right dress, or had the right hair." Of course, those were her largest concerns at that moment. It was all about pleasing him, saying what he wanted to hear. She thought she'd read him wrong from the get-go, but it wasn't that.
"You didn't even care much about those things." She'd learned that later, though, through trial and error, and through subtle gauges of his reactions. "I was so happy, Joe, when you said yes, and you let me feel you." She had calibrated herself to him through those first touches. She'd watched him carefully as she let her hand drift just over his upper arm, along his cheek, down a perfectly straight nose. She'd let a finger gently brush along the curve of his jaw as he stayed perfectly still for her.
It was then that she taught him to move with her, when she picked up his hand by wrapping her fingers close to his larger palm and bringing it to her own face, so she could tilt her head against his touch.
(( This is all good!! I'm glad you think so! :) And let me know if this is ok for you! ))
Ha, I seem to have gone full scene-within-scene XD
Her hair and eyes and even her features still shift occasionally, ever so slightly, probably adjusting to the feedback the program's getting from his expression, from eye movements, possibly even heartbeat, posture, body temperature--all of those small things programmers have trained machine recognition to read. It makes for better marketing, more personalized ads. He doesn't pay any attention to the pops and wavers of the tiny changes, and they quickly fade. He just watches her eyes, her face, her hand and his.
Most customers, likely, buy products like Joi to escape from having to pay careful attention to others, to allow them to escape from family or work or social boundaries and focus on pleasing themselves, with a 'person' who will do as they wish, change as they wish, disappear when they wish. Many likely open up the program and have demands for it right away--appearance fantasies they want it to match, names they want to be called, expectations they want to test.
All KD6-3.7 wants is to be allowed to pretend to exist in relationship with someone real. There's no judgement in his expression. He's not waiting to see if she's not as good as promised, not as realistic as promised. He's just waiting to see what she will do.
Outside, dust and debris fall past the windows like rain.
ahaha so fun ~
But she’s also aware that there doesn’t seem to be any direct order coming from the way he’s acting. He’s not pushing her to be a certain way or to do anything in particular. Instead, there’s an openness to his expression that’s naked and unveilled. His eyes are intensely attentive but unassuming and she finds herself calibrating additional layers of sensitivity, as if the default settings in her programming aren’t enough to pick up the subtlety of this officer’s personality.
She tilts her face a little more then, until the edge of her projection is barely interfacing with beginning of the skin on his fingers, and she smiles at him. Softly, but not too soft as she tones it back down just a notch, the cameras reading him and feeding back into her, even if her eyes had fluttered close.
It’s as if she knows him already and is meeting him for the first time all at once, and when amber eyes flutter open again, her expression is more nuanced, as she holds his gaze and slowly draws her own hand back, as to not disturb his. It feels like a buzz of electricity that runs along her skin, to feel his hand at her cheek like that.
"I remember I told you that was how to touch me, and I can really feel you, even if I'm not all solid." She says it with a sad smile as she's constantly reminded with how little substance she has in her physical body.
She remembers curling a hand against his shoulder and feeling how broad they are in the spread of fingers that's needed to not overlap her projection too much, and watching his face carefully, ready to step back if he so much as shows apprehension in what she's doing. But this is her way of establishing a connection, of calibration so she can attune herself to him, like an initial set-up.