Test Drive Meme #18

[hadrielmods]

Welcome to Hadriel's test drive, and thank you again for your interest in the game! As always, our reserves page is here, and our applications page is here! Reserves open March 25th, and apps are open April 1st. Please remember that there is an app cap of 20 apps.

Two quick points here as well:

1. Any thread made in Hadriel's test drive will be accepted as the sole Action Log sample in the application.
2. All threads made in the test drive can be considered game canon, either through handwaving or through a shared mental experience while coming through the Door!

Test drives will be broken up into specific god mini-events, during which your characters can see how well they fare under the watchful eye of one of the gods. Choose wisely or just simply pick 'em all, and have fun!

F E A R

SCENARIO ONE: THE 'P' IS SILENT
[The Door brings in all that is chaotic and evil in the world. This may include you, may include the person next to you... and may include the monster behind you.

The only warning you get is the flapping of wings above you- leathery and noisy, not unlike a herd of bats, before you are descended upon by a creature with a long, sharp beak, beady eyes, and an appetite for blood. Unfortunately, you've come across a pterobuzzard from Stephen King's The Mist.

Despite the difficult to pronounce name, a pterobuzzards' job here is actually quite simple: to eat. With their large bodies, sharp claws, and savage beak, they can rip chunks of flesh from your body and feast on various entrails after you bleed to death. So that's... fun. Maybe you should run inside, where you could totally be safe, until you realize that one of them has the strength to shatter through a window.

Underground bunker, maybe?]

L O V E

SCENARIO TWO: VERY VERY EXTRAORDINARY
[Something is different about today. From the time you wake up, to the moment you look in the mirror, to the minute you greet your usually-annoying neighbor who you sort of hate. That difference is... love? Surely not- your cold, dead heart has been... well, cold and dead for an eternity!

And yet, you find yourself forgiving your own past mistakes, overcoming the obstacles that stand in the way between you and your acceptance of yourself and just... letting it be. You're a pretty cool person, you know, and you should appreciate yourself a little more! During this event, you're damn well going to, with some self love and acceptance.

Everyone else is on your Nice list as well, though- maybe you have a friend that you've been crushing on? That's dialed up to eleven, now. Or hey, that stranger has some cute shoes and you love them so much it hurts. All's fair in love and... love.

This is a mini-version of the beginning of our upcoming All you need is love event!]

T R A N Q U I L I T Y

SCENARIO THREE: CLASS IS IN SESSION
[Breathe in, breathe out.

It's a pretty simple concept, but now that you're supposed to be focusing on your breathing, it seems like the most complicated thing in the world. How does breathing help with concentration? Are you breathing the right way? What are you supposed to be thinking about? Do these yoga pants make your butt look cute?

There's too many things to think about and clearing your mind is hard, but the good news is that you're not the only one in Tranquility's yoga class who's having troubles. There's familiar squirming and fidgeting from the people around you who are probably lack just as much chill as you and are having difficulty finding their center.

Whatever that means.

Maybe the person next to you looks just as lost as you are, or maybe their side crane pose is really on point and you want to ask for tips. Either way, whispering is allowed as you contort yourself into human pretzels, so chatter away!]

Comments

[surgent]

That's because one man's center is not the same as another's. [ One, people vary in size (A joke? Yes, he does have a sense of humor). Two, they vary far more greatly in personality and ability; Sokolov found his center while he painted; Emily in rooftops above her city, and he, himself, was always 'centered'. The initial arrival to Hadriel did manage to throw him off balance but it's easy to right one's self when one is a (somewhat) all knowing deity from another world.

This man had an energy, a need to move, to climb, to explore. His energy sang, unable to be tempered by poses or deep-breathing. ]

He [ His dark eyes dance to their teacher, Tranquility, demonstrating a new pose and the points at which one should breathe in and breathe out before they return to Nate, glittering with amusement. ] is using this class as a way to calm you, to bring you serenity so that he can have more power.

[ He'd be more upset that Tranquility was being manipulative if it really affected him any but The Outsider is like a chill bean 1000% of the time, so yoga has basically just been a boring experience in boring. The people, all fidgety and bouncing and ready to do the next thing, were a far more fascinating subject. ]

[nonscriptum]

[It begs the question as to what a center is, in this particular scenario. Where one feels most at peace? When one doesn't have to think, and only acts on instinct? This stillness feels manufactured, at best a pale shadow of what he is supposed to experience, and the cognitive dissonance only makes Nate that much more restless. He is most like himself in the throes of discovery, which is why practical marine salvage was never all that fulfilling a job.

Nate isn't looking at their teacher. He stopped paying attention a while ago.]

I'm not convinced it's working.

[There is, without a doubt, an oppressive sensation - a little like having a stomachache, or the beginnings thereof - that feels like an induced calm, but he's been riled since he arrived and forced "serenity" comes across as pretty questionable.]

...I'm Nate, by the way. And I'm assuming the hovering is normal for you.

[surgent]

For a few, it is. [ He gestures off towards the front of the class where the more diligent and quiet or desperate for peace follow along with Tranquility's lesson as if it would actually bring them any sense of peace. The Outsider knows better. For many, this is not where peace is born.

At the introduction, the Outsider almost smiles. There's a faint uptick to his lips and he bows in mock introduction. ]

The Outsider. [ He wisps away so that he's uncomfortably close to Nate on his other side. ] And it's as normal as breathing is for you.

[nonscriptum]

[Nate swallows what would have been a mildly sarcastic are you the Insider when you're inside? and decides to demonstrate some maturity, given that he is a thirty-nine year old man with a questionable handle on his self-control. Said maturity is short-lived when the guy conspicuously disappears in front of him and subsequently reappears at Nate's right, almost pressed to his side and definitely invading the standard American bubble of personal space.

He has to double-take because there are limits to what an average human can and cannot expect in a subterranean yoga studio, and the Outsider sure did just teleport three feet.]

Okay, now you're just showing off.

[Nate would argue that he's taking all of this rather well for someone with little experience in the matter, even if it is a struggle of Herculean proportions to keep from snapping expletives at someone who thinks it's funny to pull a Houdini at the drop of a hat.]