Test Drive 01

[cognitivus]

ɢᴇᴛ ᴄʟᴜsᴛᴇʀᴇᴅ

A Sense8 AU Sandbox

IN THE BEGINNING

It doesn't happen all at once — the world does not reorient itself and thrust upon you seven other cluster mates. No, it happens in stages. Snatches at a time. Moments, sometimes individually, sometimes in sets of two or three. Maybe you're reading a book, and you notice someone sitting beside you on the couch. Maybe you're surfing, and suddenly there's a second person on the board. Maybe you see them in passing, or maybe you both stand there, face to face, equally confused, wondering how you can both speak the same language when one of you is from Middle Earth and the other is clearly in Tokyo.

There's time to talk. Time to figure it out.

Unless, of course, there isn't. It's entirely possible that your first meeting is not during a calm, cozy, collected moment. Maybe you call on one of your sensates during a time of need. A fight, a chase scene, a moment of public speaking in the spotlight. A time when you're truly out of your depth, and you need someone with a particular, complimentary set of skills that can step in on your behalf.

It's time.

warnings : violence, psychological horror

GETTING STARTED

WELCOME TO THE CLUSTER!


On this TDM, don't worry too much about your official cluster pairing. This is for either workshopping different combinations, or different characters. If, in the end, you find you really like a certain combination, simply be sure to ask to be in the same cluster as the folks you've threaded with! For now, worry instead about playing out first meetings. It could look a little something like this:

Tag in with your character name & canon.

Set a scene by providing a variety of moments other characters can witness and jump into.

If you're going to tag into the same prompt someone else has already tagged into, consider making it a group thread; the premise eof this sandbox revolves highly around multi-person interactions. Don't be shy! These are your cluster mates, after all.

Or, if you're feeling especially daring and dramatic (and let's face it, we all are):

Set up a scene from an impactful moment around your intended canonpoint.

AU it to your heart's content. Maybe things go exactly the same as they did in canon, or maybe with a sensate cluster influencing things, it begins the path that deviates things wildly from the canon we all know and love. It's entirely up to you!

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NETWORK USAGE

Communication via text is still very possible!

Through the magic of the powers of the human mind, that group text across universes still totally exists. Maybe it appears as an actual text chain to you, or maybe it's freshly dried ink on that magical scroll that keeps writing itself the more messages are exchanged.

Whatever the case, your mind retains the communications written down by your cluster, and all correspondences to one another are visible — unless otherwise stated to be private, of course. Create a prompt on your top level with some inbox action, and do a little lowkey texting!

Be sure to specify if a thread is private, otherwise you may have a handful of other folks chiming in with their opinion on your back-and-forth exchange at any time!

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ANYTHING ELSE

Check out the info page for details, or post to the enable me please meme with information about characters you're considering bringing in! If you have any additional questions, feel free to ask me below, or on plurk!

Comments

[brandingproblem]

Clint gets yanked back to reality--his reality--with a quietly mumbled "Sorry, sir", and decides to take this moment to breathe. And figure this out. He's in the middle of something. Okay. He cannot, in fact, just stop here and decide to stay in a dog-filled world for as long as he wants.

His hands flex on the cart handle. Dares to look, for just a moment, for Will. "I should finish here," he informs softly. Once he's back where they're staying at, once he's back inside and with Frank...hell, once he's packed the groceries up in the van and is behind the wheel, that's when he can be more himself again.

He can't do that here. Can't do that now. And...it's strange. How he doesn't know this guy, but he suddenly can't imagine being without this shadow. Like something's slotted into place that he never knew was missing. So is it weird to feel kind of ashamed, like he doesn't want Will to see him in this technically rightful place? Has he gotten so used to being allowed more freedoms with Frank that sometimes realizing that's special treatment is gutting?

Can't allow himself more dog time until he's done being public-facing, at the very least.

[cognitivus]

It's not an uncommon thing, for Will to understand things he'd rather not understand. For him to see things the way other people see them — he's reluctant to say that he sees them as they are, because such a statement implies a level of objectivity that simply isn't fair or accurate. The way he views Clint is not the same as the way the man who shoulder checked him views Clint, which is not the way Clint views himself, and none of them are wrong just as none of them are right. The truth lies somewhere in a more complicated gray area. The truth is in the eye of the beholder. The truth is... he can't stand around in this grocery store all day.

The truth is, he feels ashamed and self-conscious, and lesser. The truth is, he needs something bolstering, and he's not getting that. Humans call things self-confidence and self-worth like they're entirely internal concepts. Like the world and the people around them don't feed into those things. It's simply not true.

He reaches over and, very gently, wraps a hand around Clint's wrist. Light. Reassuring. Just to gently squeeze something comforting into the skin there — and it's incredible what the human mind can do, the way it can convince itself it feels something. For all Clint's perceived reality knows, he really has just been touched. The right signals in his brain fire, the right nerve endings light up. It feels real.

"For what it's worth... I think you're handling this better than most people could," And then, just as lightly, he lets go and steps back. "I'll be- you know. Around."

That last bit is a little wry — you know where to find me.

And then he's gone from the store, gone from Clint's vision. But never very far away.