[b]Eli:[/b]

Eli - Oh. It’s [i]Eli[/i] now, he-him. It’s subtle but not? The braids and the robes are the same, sure, he loves the plait way too much to mess with it. But before he had his shoulders back and his hands turned forwards a little, and just that posturing made everything femme coded. Now his shoulders roll forwards, and he hunches forwards a bit more in a more overt goblin mode. His feet spread a bit further apart - before they were tighter together to give a girlier roll of the hips, now he rocks side to side as he chews his fingernails. 

It’s like the flip of one of Monk’s faces, a gear that needed to change to better access the kind of thought he needed. 

“I’d be careful who you say that to.” He cautions, rather than warns. “Like, Junta’s going to take it fine, and 3V’s a lib herself but we all love her anyway. We all have our flaws. Pope would take your side on it. But, like, York? York’d be real fucking mad about it. And… I don’t know about me, yet. Libs built Aevum, but Libs broke it too, you know? Like, we were so close to real FALGSC and then they turned the capitalism faucet back on, on purpose.” Eli grimaces. “I’m not nearly smart enough to have a real opinion though.”

He chews at his thumbnail. “You’re right about the body stuff though. I think there’s tons of people who want what you want, but this is just the closest they’ve got to get. You’ve got to fit the fantasies around a dayjob, right?” He winces at that. Eli’s a gigworker who gets stolen valor feelings complaining about ‘real work’. “It’s basically what Mark Fisher said. He was uh, he was a guy who basically invented hauntology and like, good vaporwave music? He wrote some theory stuff, and he said the strength of capitalism is in its ability to consume the counter-culture and render it culture, to profit from every attempt to criticize it, and by absorbing it render it inert. And you can already see that in what you’re saying, in how just having to function in the world like this makes this stuff normie?” He scratches the back of his neck and bites at another fingernail. 

“Winning just looks like losing to me, I guess, but losing looks worse. No [i]real [/i]folphons until we destroy capitalism, just the shadow on Plato’s cave wall of them.” A fox-dolphin-dragon. He sounds miserable about this, genuinely heartbroken, and he sounds like he’s trying to be sarcastic about it but failing. “This is the point of writing though, right? Like, what you’re doing. I get way too into this stuff, honestly. If I could be anywhere else but here-” He gestures first at the entire world and then, secondly, at his physical body, “You’d never see me again. Writing’s just, writing’s the closest I can get to hacking my brain and being there. VR hasn’t got shit on that, games haven’t got shit on that, it’s just like you said with the bodies right? It’s just the body stuff. Worldbuilding and RP hits different. It like…” 

He barks a laugh. “Ha! God, it’s stupid, but I worked it out. I need other people to make the fantasies real. It doesn’t work for me if I make stuff like this myself, but when you tell me you’re doing it, then it’s real because it feels like you’re telling me a true thing. Other people agree it’s true, and they make it real by playing along with you, right? Like even in MMOs where you’re not roleplaying, other people’s character backstories is one thing, but the story of the guild you play with [i]is[/i] right? Like, that one dude who never played with leg armor just so his character was always barefoot, just because, he’s a real character in a way none of the game characters are. I want that but like…” Eli struggles. “That’s how you make real dragongirls. Not with the body. With people who commit to the bit harder than you could have made up, because if it’s something you couldn’t make up, then it [i]has[/i] to be real.”

He looks apologetic, suddenly, realizing how long he’s held the mic and looks at Green with panicked eyes for her input, to absolve him of hogging all the air between them. He can’t even work out the question he’s supposed to ask her this time. 

[b]Knightly:[/b]

Knightly [i]grins[/i] at Black’s words. “That’s just it. They don’t have security here, for everything they do they have to bring someone in. They’re not going to be able to respond that fast to an ambush, and they’re already on my case. So why not just… Act? If we have the initiative, we have the advantage!” 

Imagine if Red were here right now, though. 

“I can’t sit in on the meeting, I can’t give Mycroft an excuse to fire me right now - the associate director can only give me so much cover. Same problem helping you bug their offices, as much as I would kill to be there to turn some things over, myself. I really want to be more useful to you here, though. Where can I be useful?” 

He’s twitching - this is his beat, his case, his home turf, and it’s torturing him that it forces his hands to be tied in a way that yours simply aren’t. He’s not blind, he can see that. But telling him he’s already done enough? That’d do some serious psychic damage to the guy.

The brave Sir Knightly doesn’t just [i]want[/i] to be helpful here, he [i]needs [/i]it like he needs air. If you can’t find a way to include him in the opp in a meaningful way, he’s going to end up causing problems trying to be the one to solve them. 

It’s not a gloryhound thing, there’s no arrogance to it. It’s just one of the first things they teach you in journalism school; If you ever find a real hero in the world, be prepared they’ll probably be completely insane in some way. It’s selection criteria. 

[b]Thrones:[/b]

Good news! No restrictions, no security. If you can get there, you can get there. And your experience in piloting is enough to navigate this journey yourself, if you so wish. 

The problem is that a private ship is prohibitively expensive. We’re talking the difference between buying a seat on a discount airliner and chartering a private plane for the week. This is money you can get, but not money you have. 

So, the question is this; Steal the money? Steal a ship outright (being very careful not to get it flagged as stolen or the navy will get your fucking ass)? Or call in a connection on someone you can borrow one from?