prismaticrap | ▶ TDM .009

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You awaken amidst the darkness with only a faint light to greet you. Your body is hemmed in by shards of crystals, gently sparkling and possibly pricking your skin. The surrounding landscape is dyed in the pinks and purples of the dusk filled with crystals protruding from the ground, some as large as a skyscraper. Even the few shy moon creatures you find in the wild have strange crystal growths on their hides. This is far from home— perhaps a dream? You pinch your skin and slap your cheeks, yet nothing seems to do the trick. Searching for answers yields nothing but an endless expanse of purple dust as far as the eye can see. You have four options: one, panic; two, soil yourself; three, admire it all then soil yourself; or four, go into survival mode. Eventually, you’ll realize that you’re not alone.

After a day or two of living off the crystal wilderness, a group of people find you worse for wear. They are the gallant Moon Knights from the planet of Prismatica. After the strange phenomenon during the past months when scientists observed the sudden appearance of rainbow crystals in the sky, the government has been feverishly combing through the moon for more Moonblessed to be rescued. You’ll eventually be brought into Iris’s moon government center.

You all may have your usual inquiries — Where are we? Who are you? What's going on? Why did I inhale all those permanent markers in the third grade? — and the Prismals are almost too eager to answer. They tell you about their world and about the first appearance of the Moonblessed as the medical staff give you an examination to make sure you’re not carrying any viruses or biological hazards. If you react violently, you may be restrained and nerfed with a specialized neurotransmitting gun that releases a numbing agent through the top of your spine. Once the examinations are over, you’re informed that you will be provided accommodations on their planet during your stay.

While waiting for transport to be prepared, you may freely roam around the government center. Eventually you’re called back from exploring, escorted to the docks, and led onto a large transport vessel that makes frequent trips back and forth between the moons and the planet. Faces onboard vary from both old and new Moonblessed as well as the local Prismals. The next destination: Prismatica.

▶ Whip It Good
Iris Moon, Government Center (Arrival) and Planet Prismatica, City of Lunatia | top

Welcome to Prismatica’s hub, Lunatia, the city of your dreams! A bustling metropolis lush with bright lights, vibrant colors, luxuriant plant life, and all the conveniences of technology absent from your own world… It seems like paradise to all the uninitiated. After a quick tour of the city, new arrivals can find themselves getting cozy in their new homes.

A Settle in your new home at Level 2 to find new roommates and say hello to your neighbors! City officials will give you directions to the designated districts across Level 2 and instruct you to pick out a unit. Each apartment complex has a different aesthetic, some may look cozy, some stylish, and some bizarre. The free accommodations have a basic living space that can only fit two or three people at most in one unit.

Starter Chromaspace furnishings are provided which can be controlled with the touch of a built-in panel. Examples are color-changing curtains, transforming sofa beds, cabinets turning into tables, etc. Customizing your apartment or moving out will have to wait until you earn more chroma. Until then, why don’t you check out your new neighborhood or explore the city levels? Maybe your new roommates or neighbors can give you a “hand” with allowance for dinner.

B At the Crystarium Moonports is a new family restaurant called Grapplebears, here to serve your favorite dishes from all around the galaxy at affordable prices! The menu ranges from the atomically hot and spicy Chamakshalan curry rice, delectable dragonsaur steak served with mashed space-tatoes, to the sweet and creamy Lunatian milkshakes that bring all the boys to the yard, all prepared by their handsome and huggable bear crew.

As you might have noticed, the restaurant staff is a ragtag group with members from planets unknown to both Prismals and Moonblessed. The waiters and waitresses in particular are tall, muscular, leather-clad bears who take your order by whipping you with a special riding crop that compels you to bark out your order — but only if you ask to be, of course! They might induce you to reveal other unrelated interests so make sure you’re not thinking about anything embarrassing!

If you chat up the staff or customers, you learn more about the restaurant’s origins. The bears say their planets* were also wiped by the Calamity hundreds of years ago, and life for them has been difficult for them since then…

*Further information about these planets is unavailable at this time.

▶ Night of the Living Dummy
City of Lunatia | top

The last vestiges of Geistnacht have officially passed and the first chilly autumn breeze ushers in the new season. The city is awash in giant piles of browning leaves that decorate every walkway.

A To deal with the mass collection of fallen leaves, many buildings across the city have been retrofitted with a new disposal system to help clean up. A sprawling network of automated vacuum tubes around the city will efficiently suck all those pesky leaves right up. While children love playing inside and using them to “teleport” around Lunatia, they have also been known to spontaneously suck up anyone who’s not too careful. You may find yourself falling on some hapless bystander on their afternoon walk, or crammed in a tube with your new neighbors. Lunar Scientia officials warn everyone to be careful of where you walk, else you might need to crawl your way to sweet freedom.

B A pop-up shop in Level 1 is attracting much of the locals' attention, run by a peddler who speaks in a low, elongated hiss and wears a hood over his face. He assures you that his face is of no consequence. What is more important is his selection of wares! In contrast to his cloaked, enigmatic appearance, his travel cart is a Barbie pink explosion of frills, hearts, glitter. He will tell all visitors he comes from the Valley of the Crimson Serpents, which Prismals and older Moonblessed arrivals find odd. Wasn’t the Sanguis moon uninhabitable?

Among the peddler’s wares are adorable, wide-eyed and heavily perfumed dolls in all sorts of clothes a child dreaming of rainbows and tea parties could ever ask for. Hug and squeeze a doll, and you will be greeted by a pre-recorded voice telling you how they’re your bestest friend ever. It’s like they were made for lovin’ you! But if you look away for one moment, you can almost swear you hear a snake’s hiss, its long tongue licking the shell of your ear… The next time you see the doll, its body will be in a slightly different position or location. Is it… following you? Fortunately, a minimal amount of moonlacing will make it leave you alone. You can wait it out too, but why would you?

Destroy a doll and it will later reappear wherever you are when you least expect it, good as new, but leaking from their porcelain heads is a strange pink, glitter-covered liquid. The peddler calls it the “love juice” giving the doll an extra dose of affection for you.

▶ Bird is the Word
Level 2, Greatmoon Groves | top

As autumn paints Lunatia with its golden hues, pumpkin decorations and desserts are now in vogue. This is thanks to Chroma-infused pumpkin seeds, which allow them to rapidly grow in all sorts of sizes, shapes, and colors. The Moonblessed are invited to visit one of the largest pumpkin patches in the city housed within the Greatmoon Groves, where they can enjoy the sight of oversized, colorful neon and sparkling semi-phallic pumpkins, expertly carved to greet you with their buck-toothed smiles.

A The pumpkin patch is full of toddler-sized creatures called hugbugs. When they are not tending to the pumpkins, they follow the Moonblessed around, requesting hugs and treats in exchange for their obedience.

Reward them and they will do simple errands for you and give you compliments. They will also be your personal hype men, talking up your strengths, talents, and physical assets to all those special someones you’re trying to impress. Once you earn their trust, they will be your friends for life!

Ignore them, hurt them, or bully them, and they will cry and place a curse upon you, reducing your self-esteem to nothing and magically forcing you to cry along with them. The effects of the curse may last for up to a week if you’re not careful! But how could you do such a thing? The hugbugs are sensitive and want somebody to love.

B If you manage to survive your encounter with the hugbugs, you are welcome to join in on the Prismal knitting group and enjoy creating your own fanciful scarf made of Galadrian thread, which is known for its bright, golden sheen and aromatic properties. Give it to a friend or wear it yourself, and you will notice a strange ability to attract animals and insects of all kinds. Live out your Disney Princess fantasy! Or a Hitchcockian nightmare. It’s all a matter of perspective as a whole flock of honking birds comes bounding towards you.

▶ Questions
If you have any questions regarding this test drive meme, please ask them in the Questions thread below.

▶ As a reminder, test drive memes are for new characters only. However, current players are more than welcome to use these prompts for their own posts in the IC communities, personal inboxes, catch-all posts, etc.!
▶ As our test drive memes are game canon, feel free to keep any threads that happen here as canon for your character should they be accepted.

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[ She sees him on the streets. Not now, but often. Tall, muscular, shoulders straight, and the sunglasses. Always the sunglasses. She sees him at night, sometimes, but she'll never admit to it. In the darkness when she tries to will herself to sleep, red will glow from the edges of her periphery. Like dust filling her lungs, her mouth feels dry as a desert. Rough, too. Like a hand around her neck, not skirting her shoulder blades or ghosting the small of her back.

There, but not. There but... he was.

It's easy to mistake him from a distance, from behind. But this was different. More direct, more visible, more wrong. Does this mean Chris failed? Does it mean she failed? Or maybe they're both dead. She'll take that one even if it means she'll be stuck in this damned hellhole with the last person in the universe she wanted to be here.

People told her to stop being so pessimistic, but how can you when you're luck is... well, this? Joke's on her, apparently. She watches for a good long while and doesn't particularly care what he's up to but if it's something he wants it's something she doesn't want him to have. So she approaches cool and casual -- hair dyed back to her natural brunette and dressed like she might be about to hit the gym versus prepared for hand-to-hand combat, but what can you do? She's still not expecting her eyes to be dissecting the situation as they should. Trick of the light, surely. ]

Wesker.

[ Less casual. Sharper. Like knife pressed to skin. ]

[His demeanor isn't casual, but then, it never really is - there's always something about him that's a bit too sharp, too wary for that, something keeping his guard up and his focus strong. Maybe he's always been like that, maybe something gripped him once and never let him go. It hardly matters, and he hardly cares.

He does her the courtesy of straightening up properly. Of turning to face her, of actually giving her his attention instead of behaving as though he hasn't noticed her. If she proves herself not worth the decorum, then, well. There will be time enough for that.

It's hard to discern behind the lenses of those dark glasses, but he does take in - the attire, the hair. The color of the latter, specifically. Interesting.]

If you're seeking something besides my attention, now is hardly the time or place.

[There's no ambiguity to it - there's no insinuation of the interest or baser desires that seem to soak this place to its core - but it's an answer as much as it is a question; if there are matters to be settled (and there are always matters to be settled, always with you people and your general inability to know what's good for you) then they aren't going to be settled here. At least not violently, he's not interested in that in front of God and everyone quite yet.]

[ Mechanical, almost. He moves with purpose, more so than she does and she considers herself the sort that moves in a way that allows her to not be bothered or interrupted; "busy" movement, she supposes. But everything he does seems to have intent and point, even when it's so fast she can't even comprehend it. Even before he changed, even before his speed was above and beyond what she could ever possibly be. Even with the serum pumped into her heart, she couldn't match what he did.

Another reason to exercise caution.

He talks to her like she's running low on P30 and allowed some semblance of her own personality but still under his thumb. It makes her grit her teeth and it shows with a tic on her cheek. She wants to just go for his throat, but he'll catch her before she does. Talking has never been her favorite activity -- perhaps why they'd gotten along back in STARS -- and anything she wanted to know she already knew or he'd never tell her. Maybe some of those things he didn't know himself. She wants to be derisive and cold but instead she parts her legs minutely and gets into a not-quite fighting stance. ]

You don't get to tell me what to do. [ It's a low warning, eyes intense and burning into his. ] No games. Step aside and fight me.

[ She's trying not to come off as self-righteous, but she's quick to be blinded by anger. She had been that day he'd betrayed him so long ago, too. She wants to crush him. ]

Some things never change, do they.

[It's rhetorical, the sort of thought handed out by one who isn't often blinded by sentiment of any kind but likewise isn't often used to being disrespected.]

While I acknowledge that you never do listen very well, you should know well enough that I'm hardly one for charitable acts; I would suggest you take it while it's still on the table.

[ No, they don't. If anything the worst issues about Jill's personality only intensified after STARS. She can be all the more stubborn. For a long time she felt some sense of nostalgia and the memories contradicted the way she should feel, but the respect she held for him fizzled out the moment he turned on them -- or, at least when she became aware of it. He could pistolwhip her all he wanted, she'd never stay down. ]

Ha, you've gotta be joking. When have I ever ran away with my tail between my legs? [ It pisses her off, lights a fire in her. It burns away any of the doubt she'd held even if he's just toying with her. He's not in the mood and nearly four years as his right-hand had taught her that nearly all he did was treated like a game because everyone was so beneath him. But what would it make her if she just turned around. ] What? Knowing that you're going to fail back home turn you into a coward?

[He tips his head slightly at that; the noise it gets out of him is soft but no less derisive for it.]

And if you fight me now...? What, precisely, do you think you'll be getting back?

[The provocation is a bit more openly shameless than he'd like, normally, but no one has ever said he can't be a petty man when he wants to be. Usually, as in all things, there's a time and a place and such things should be bitten back as best as possible (discipline and unity and power, and hadn't that all been useless in the end), but for now... He's still disoriented here, off his game but making the best of it, and if that means condescending so hard it gets the point across then damn it, might as well.]

[ It's not a "win" for a battle, but the little victories add up when the odds are stacked insurmountably high and against you. She's learned to take what she can get and any crack in that perfectly manicured exterior of his is worth taking. ]

Well, might come out of it with a few bucks.

[ It doesn't have to have good intent, she thinks, so long as it's consensual? She's not sure. Training and sparring had done enough and if she could get something else for her troubles, who is she to complain?

Jill is, at least, usually immune to any of his bullshit. Chris was better at quipping and fighting back, but she was more about actions. And Chris wasn't here, so there was no one to protect -- and to her knowledge, if she were to misstep and be injured, she'd heal up in no time. Even from death. But that also meant if she managed to fell him, he'd come back, too.

It would be funny if it didn't feel like home in a way. Back and forth, her hatred searing. She's not sure if it can ever truly end. ]

That all you've got? Or has failure set in so deep that you won't fight back?

[ She mentally calls him a coward again. ]

[Well, shit, why didn't you say so.

He has the very basic idea of moonlacing down - it isn't difficult to understand, horrifically awkward but hardly rocket science - but the nuances of it are still a little beyond him; if we're counting beating the everloving hell out of each other as consensual touch... Well, that is a brand new game, isn't it.

To say nothing of probably the best reason to throw down that he's heard so far, but. Details.

Anyway.]

You keep bringing up failure as though it's going to irritate me - please tell me you haven't decided to go and become so predictable on me, I want this to at least be somewhat enjoyable.

Or has that notion been something you're clinging to - something you need to be true, perhaps? I suppose it would render our dear friend's efforts all in vain if I've succeeded, wouldn't it.

[You know damn well who he's referring to, Jill.]

[ Jill hasn't indulged in it much. It's supposedly addictive and feels wonderful, but moonlacing doesn't interest her the same way she's scarce with physical affection as a whole. It's all selective and intimate for her, even if it's not inherently sexual in nature. ]

I don't owe you creativity. [ YOU SACK OF DOG EXCREMENT. There's the faintest tic in her left eye when she grinds her teeth (she hates herself for it because she knows he'll see it) and she almost laughs. ] Too afraid to say his name? Worried Chris will show up if you do and you'll have to run away like you always do?

Not to kick the metaphorical hornets' nest, dear heart, but I do believe you're the one waiting for permission before you put all of that unearned overconfidence to good use...?

[The pet name is one that hasn't seen use in years, not since the mansion, though it's not one that comes with any sort of difficulty behind it. It is what it is, and what it is happens to be "out there in front of God and everyone," and he's content to move on from it easily enough.

That said, though, you can call him a coward all you want, his ego can handle it; it barely registers. That said, if he truly wants to deck someone, he just decks them.]

Do you really want me to play with you that badly? Because I'll gladly destroy you, if that's what this is coming down to. My interest is currently elsewhere, but I can spare some time if it means you'll actually learn to take a hint.

[ It's a fair point, but she treats it like it isn't. He makes her sight turn crimson, dark as spilled blood. ]

Can't stop yourself from talking can you? Shut up and fight.

[ He knows just the spot to hit, what digs in the sharpest. Minimal effort, maximum payoff. She was adept at small wounding in terms of a fight, but Wesker is a beast of a different nature. Nemesis was easier to take down than him. ]

Haven't managed it in the past ten years, have you? But like I said, shut up and fight.

[ Her stance shifts and she rushes on him with speed not like his own but certainly greater than any normal human's. She's not sure if it's different than before or stronger, if anything is leftover from P30 when it dispels itself or if the virus in her will do more than make her immune. If only she could manage the same way.

Jill feigns a kick because it's what she's known for, low enough in her movement that she might seem to go for a legsweep but instead goes for an elbow smash, aiming for his lower stomach.

What a fun afternoon in public. ]

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▶ TDM .009

II for maximum awkward I guess!!

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