#8

[rank1]

[The recording flickers on to the ground, and the toes of red and white skater shoes, flanked by the tattered hems of a pair of jeans. The camera sways, the recorder's attention elsewhere, and there's a peek at a pair of sleek stiletto high heels on a woman's feet. Off-screen, Travis sniggers –– he just can't help it. When he speaks, he's thoroughly self-satisfied:]

Play nice, okay?

[When the camera is finally pulled up, it drags along a pair of long, stockinged legs until it's fixed on a beautiful young woman with long blonde hair. Rouged cheeks, long lashes, the whole package –– she pouts for the camera like a pro. She's wearing a blouse with bishop sleeves and what would normally be a pussybow collar, but it's worn open to the ribs, low enough to reveal the gore of her bra. (It might be a little familiar.)

She is flesh and blood and bone. No foam to be found here.]

What do you think of the ship so far, Sylvia? Sweet digs, right?

[Sylvia tosses her hair over her shoulder, rolling her eyes. When she speaks, it’s with a French accent and an attitude.]

It is a prison. I’ve seen worse. One of you had better be a trained manicurist!

[Travis scoffs and wheels the camera around so he's in the shot, too. He reaches an arm out to her. She checks her nails and sighs before stepping under Travis’s arm, wrapping her own around him and resting her head against his chest. She pouts, turning big doe eyes up at him.]

At least I have you, darling. You’ll protect me, right?

[Travis's eyes widen briefly, but he doubles down to declare:]

Of course, baby. Best ten tickets I ever spent.

[Yes, this is the most obnoxious video the network will ever have. Fortunately, it is over: the feed cuts off there. Just be glad Travis isn't into PDA.




And no, Travis has not become a VFX specialist. Sylvia, a flesh and blood human being who is totally not someone else, can be found with Travis around the ship. Maybe you'll catch them eating lunch together with food taken from the mess hall, with Travis waving down anyone who shows even a glimmer of interest to introduce his wife. Maybe you've stepped into the observatory and found them on a weird little "date", arguing about the multiverse –– Travis seems to approach the subject from a purely sci-fantasy approach, while Sylvia's take is more grounded in reality. Or you've just stepped into the gym, and here's Sylvia bored as Travis lifts increasingly heavy things in an attempt to impress her. Or just around!! You do you!! In-person meetings may happen before the network post because William is gonna come down on Travis' ass ASAP after this post.]

Comments

audio.

[goty]

[Ellie has read books about the internet. She's always wanted to try it, and once she's good to go on the Peregrine, she opened the network with excitement. What will she find, in a world where people can transmit anything, highlight their thoughts and broadcast them?]

[She finds whatever this is.]

...What the fuck?

video | travistouchdowncrownlessking

[shiftedshape]

[Sylvia takes Travis' device and sneers into it.]

A lady shouldn't curse. It's fucking rude.

video foreverrrr (and her un is @ellieee i forgot).

[goty]

Fuck you. [Is the instinctual response. She frowns.] Aren't you, like, cold?

[shiftedshape]

[Sylvia rolls her eyes, then flips her hair over her shoulder again.]

How could I be, when I'm this hot?

[rank1]

[Largely off-camera, Travis laughs.]

William & Loki – Storage Facility

[rank1]

The hum of the transport bots fulls the storage facility with white noise. Dozens of machines work on programmed paths, moving boxes here or there. Today that relative silence is punctuated by conversation. It drifts from end to end of the facility, carried on the back of a particular machine. Two people are riding it –– Travis Touchdown in a t-shirt that declares him to be WORLD FAMOUS, Sylvia seated on his spread-out jacket like Cleopatra on a palanquin. Travis reclines back on an elbow, legs outstretched, feet dangling off the edge of the transport in a way that is in no way compliant to Health & Safety. (Their entire presence is non-compliant.)

The weirdness of this situation is not lost on Travis. There's just always been two ways to handle it –– you lean away, pretend it isn't happening and go do something else, or you lean in and wring out whatever you can get.

Leaning into it has always been much more fun.

"Okay, so," he says to 'Sylvia'. "I don't give a shit about people losing their jobs because of self-checkout shit. Those kinds of jobs suck and don't pay shit anyway, so why shouldn't we give them to robots? But the self-checkout machines themselves fucking blow to use. 'Unrecognized item in bagging area.' So you remove it. Then it goes 'please place item in bagging area'. So you put it back! 'Unexpected item in the bagging area.' Then a human has to come over and fit that shit anyway! What the fuck's the point?"

[shiftedshape]

This conversation is absolutely inane and he hasn't the slightest idea how it started, and yet Loki's irritated enough that he keeps slipping into his own accent. Not that anyone's around, of course, but, well. He had been sort of enjoying the escapism of getting waited on. That's just starting to fade the more Travis speaks.

"I still say it's safer to leave robots out of it. If people can make them into murder machines, they can make them into theft machines just as easily." She smirks, leaning back on her hands as she decides to prod him a little. "Not that you have any money to steal, here. Or shopping to do."

[rank1]

Travis snorts.

"I don't have any money back home, either." And then, as if she really is Sylvia: "Don't worry, though. I'll go kill someone so you can get the new spring collection."

He still does not know any designer names.

"You think humanity would unite against a robot uprising, or would we struggle to set aside our differences?"

[shiftedshape]

Sylvia coos but somehow manage to make it sound sarcastic, "You always take such good care of me."

He should probably be discouraging, uh, killing people for money, but then again that isn't inherently a bad thing, right? Loki can't judge without context. He thinks. This is a moral question to ask the other wardens when he's wearing something less revealing.

"In my experience, humanity is always more concerned with itself than anything else." He likely wouldn't have gotten so far with New York if anyone other than SHIELD had any awareness of life beyond Midgard. "They'd probably put a little team together. One for each country, or something. Then those teams would probably end up fighting each other more than the robots."

a few hours before this post goes up? | Observatory

[smugreport]

[ Luckily for literally everyone on this ship Rhys has been too pre-occupied with other going-ons this past week and a half to pick another pointless fight with Travis. Unfortunately, his attention is back on him now as he passes the observatory, peers in, and sees that the freaky foam woman Travis has been sitting across from him during meals is uhhhh...she's moving? She's talking??? ]

What.

[ He doesn't make a B line for them when he walks into the Observatory proper, but he doesn't make his presence especially subtle either, sitting only a few seats a way and glancing back and forth between the two of them as he tries to puzzle out what's going on. And though there's no reason to think it'll start working now, after a second of that he boots up his echo eye to try and get a scan. ]

[rank1]

[Travis doesn't notice Rhys come in, but he does see Rhys sit close. He doesn't say shit about it, hardly looks Rhys' way, hardly even sits straighter. He just leans into his conversation with "Sylvia" more.]

Yeah, but how can you be sure it's multiple timelines rather than parallel universes? If there's parallel universes, then the start of the universes would be different, while the multi-timeline is more like different interpretations of the same starting point. And where do you put the starting point of the universe, you know? This is why I gave up on cape comics, they're all up in that shit.

[shiftedshape]

[Loki's so involved in this particular debate that he's not bothering to moderate his language in the slightest, which is, well. Maybe a little strange coming out in Sylvia's voice.]

You're assuming it has to be one or the other. Perhaps one parallel universe, starting from the same source, has multiple timelines, and those timelines can intersect with other universes', leading to further timelines...It would better explain how many versions of Earth there seem to be if it's both.

[smugreport]

[ The echo eye boots up, and as per usual it lacks the majority of information. REDACTED and ERRORS and ACCESS DENIED popping up all over the HUD. There is something unusual though, foam wife turned real lady keeps getting a strange static effect over her person, a glitch Rhys hadn't really encountered before. Not since...no his system was clean, this was unrelated to Jack.

He shakes his head hard, taps at his port the way you would a TV struggling to get signal, and tries again. ]

action;

[sanctus_dei]

[Just another day, right? Just another day whiling away time puttering around the Peregrine. Just another day of the same diet from the mess hall, which Theo is entering now, but stops dead as Travis and Sylvia are leaving with their own food.

He has no idea what to make of this.]

I-- What?

[That's the foam lady. Foam lady is now real lady. How is this happening.]

How many tickets did this cost?

action;

[rank1]

[Travis glances between Sylvia and Theo, as though not quite parsing the question. He has a tray of food balanced precariously in each hand, because he is a gentleman who will carry the lady's tray for her.]

Tickets? Dude, you can't buy people, that shit's illegal.

[shiftedshape]

How rude! Calling me a this.

[Sylvia glares, crossing her arms.]

I cost more tickets than you can afford, I'm sure.

[sanctus_dei]

[Theo was (mostly) joking with his ticket comment, but he's now just at a loss for words for a moment.]

... This is someone's idea of a sick joke, right? Bringing you here right after--

[He looks from Sylvia with that question, then to Travis.]

I wouldn't put it past the Admiralty to do this just cuz they thought they were being funny or something. [He doesn't like this one bit.]

video

[nineteenfortyfive]

[Claire doesn't use video, but she hits that option on accident as she leans in to examine what she sees, squinting. She leans back.]

... is that my bloody shirt?

[Give her a second.]

Wait. How the hell is she talking?

video

[rank1]

She's real! Meet my wife, Sylvia.

[Travis reaches around Sylvia and gives her a squeeze. Ostensibly this is to show that she doesn't just squish like foam, but it really does just look like he's groping his wife's tit on camera. Which are, for the record, also real.

No comment on shirt.]

[shiftedshape]

[These are Claire's clothes?!

Loki is so distracted by this that he doesn't even realize he's gaping. And so clearly not at the audacity of Travis grabbing him.

In fact, there's a solid beat before Sylvia reacts, turning to Travis and shoving him away.]

Pig! Get your hands off me.

[She turns an obviously false smile to the camera.] I am real! I'm really here but-- but maybe I'll be leaving soon.

[Before Claire figures this out, ideally.]

[nineteenfortyfive]

[This is absurd. She stares at the display, eyebrows rising higher when Sylvia speaks to her directly.]

Are... you aware your... husband bought you here, and you were made of foam?

[Every part of that question makes her want to scream. What is this. Can she get a Jamie]

observatory

[dealwiththe]

Generally speaking, I'd be inclined to agree with the lady.

[ Lucifer is just sort of smiling vaguely - impossible to say if he's surprised, or confused, or just accepting of the situation. Maybe he's trying to figure that out for himself. Maybe that's entirely the point of him busting up your weird date, Travis.

Or maybe he's just here to vaguely flirt with your wife. ]

observatory

[rank1]

[Travis leans away from his conversation with Sylvia to look at Lucifer, and his expression is carefully neutral –– sour by default, smug as far as having an audience goes.]

It doesn't always have to be what's possible, you know. Sometimes it's gotta be what's more fun to hear about.

[shiftedshape]

[Sylvia turns, looking surprised to see him despite having heard him come in several minutes ago. She preens a little.]

Thank you. What exists is exciting enough without adding obvious stupidity to it. I mean, how exactly does facial hair make someone the "evil" one?

[Not that it doesn't amuse him to think of Thor being the evil brother by default.]

[dealwiththe]

To be fair, everything probably exists somewhere. Even the really stupid stuff.

[ Case in point. But he digresses. Rubs absently at his perpetually-stubbled jaw. ]

It's about as silly as an evil twin with a different accent.