[quote=@Tatterdemalion]
POTENTIAL 2

"How about the Incredible Nerd?" Suns blossom around him, sharp shards of flare forcing him to dart from foot to foot, grazing them so close he nearly singes the scarf. "Or you could call yourself Eraserhead; you've got that Lynchian vibe to you." Mandalas bloom, spitting lasers that trap him into firing corridors. "Rat Boy, with the skittering and mischief skills of a rat, not to mention the awful little hands, and the jumping ability of a boy!" He backflips over a pulsing shot and lands neatly, letting the follow-through zip perfectly between his arm and his body. "Prince Sparklepants, if you're looking for a new costume--"

And then he taps her forehead. Game over. Right in the space she left open for him. She grins, her eyes bright, and punches him in the arm.

"Or... how about Vault? It's got both the mad moves and the, you know, locker. Because you put things in both vaults and lockers? Don't laugh, you have no idea how hard it is to get a good and marketable name that hasn't already been snapped up, but I can get #Vault trending in 24 hours..."[/quote]

It takes a while for him to still his razor-crackling nerves for long enough to bow to you at the end of the fight, but he does. It's one of those little rituals of his that can be mocked in isolation but because he keeps them up without flinching or changing they come to seem increasingly important. This one says: I respect you deeply.

"I like it," he said after he gets his breath back under control. "But how are we going to make sure the vault stays locked? You strung along the world for years before you chose your OTP so you surely have some ideas about blue-balling people over my identity."

[quote=@Phoe]Her eyes are wet amber. Her mouth is the tiniest bit agape. Her heart beats the only emotion it can remember right now, that most people would call love. Errant, superhero, Corporate Champion, Agent of AEGIS, [i]Princess[/i] of AEGIS... her universe's one and only Euna Kim, stares at a girl attached to her prototype limbs. She watches the fingers squeeze oh-so-carefully. Her eyes blur as they trace down the arm, across the shoulder. Down the body. She notes every inch of Cinders' physique. It fills her. She realizes she's not breathing. She starts again.

She opens her mouth to say something, she's not sure what. Something simple, like 'thank you' or 'I'm glad it helped'. But she doesn't make it that far. A word chokes in her throat, and her lips twist themselves up into the kind of smile that's entirely too soft for the world it's living in. Her tears roll quietly down her cheeks. 

This is not a moment for words, after all. She wipes at her eyes with one finger, only for fresh love to trickle down in its place.[/quote]

Cinders looks at you. Then she looks away, and shoves the napkins over at you. "It's okay," she says gruffly. "I cry all the time too. It's okay to do that," barely hidden under the words, different ones: I did not know that was okay but if [i]you're[/i] doing it then it must be, and that's such a relief to know I might actually tear up a bit too. "I even cried at the scene where Ad- a drag- someone had lots of cats sitting on them. I mean, not the first time, the second time, with the context from later in the show - I mean even the title music gets me a bit these days -" okay, ruining the moment a little, Cinders.

[quote=@Balmas]Victor sits back and closes his eyes. Yikes. Yeah, Bode was right, and somehow this made it feel even more urgent that this be fixed. No, not fixed, fixed indicates broken, but... Hrm. Language unimportant, helping important. Quietly, he turns the screen towards Bode, and bends over the keyboard again.

[i]Is it not? Ferra won, didn't she? By your own logic, that makes her better and so she gets to do what she wants.[/i][/quote]

[i]She cheated I had a bigger gun she was only one person I had an army I had a hundred armies I was way better than her and she hit me anyway and that's not fair I should have won[/i]

Prometheus couldn't run the numbers in his box, but he'd compressed that entire relentless calculation and probability-crunching quantum foresight into a sense of grievance at some indistinct force that had done him wrong. That was what he'd chosen to preserve when he'd been reduced to a personal computer; not anything that would help him escape, but the angry impression that the universe didn't make sense in a way all his imperial intellect hadn't been able to figure out.