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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[ There's something to be said for having incurable wanderlust in a world where the people who defined his heart and home are not here, but he is. Where he's had to face some of his worst capacity again, and had to live with it, but doesn't know what to make of it, how to ask for forgiveness when things worked out and no one's there slapping him across the face because he screwed up again, and he didn't give it the proper weight, because he knows that were his most important people here, he'd have bungled the words again, tried to make it seem like it doesn't matter, that he's fine, because he doesn't need them to worry. Because he's impossible to kill, really, but it isn't impossible for him to die.

So he's learned a new appetite, another one where he cannot stay still, and today it has him wandering past the activities he'd give a try himself for both the company and the distraction, if he wasn't more distracted by the sight of the jinba who sits with this knitting club and creates their (his? hers? who cares, says one man repeatedly mistaken as a woman, because t doesn't really matter) massive blaze of gold that grows under their needles and with the deft movement of their fingertips weaving strands of gold together into something different and new. Like captured sunlight, and like the light that sparks in his green eyes as he and the massive raven (or crow, one never seems to find the traits to prove Murasame is rightfully one or the other) riding his shoulder.

He weaves between the knitters that he flashes smiles at as he says his pardons, until he's near this unfamiliar jinba, and he asks with Konoha there as a figure of such warmth in the back of his mind: ]

Pardon me, are you a jinba?

[ Not a centaur, but a jinba, one closer to Konoha than to the fiction he's heard about now as something that came out of a place called Greece in a time ancient to even the one he's from, compared to some people. ]

[ Mikuni appears to have made himself at home in the knitting circle. He's already making quite excellent progress. But then his fingers have always been nimble. Years of working the land and swinging a sword or nocking an arrow have paid off for little tasks like these, apparently. And really, it's for the best that he pick up nice, normal (and calm) hobbies such as this. Really, really for the best.

He figures the little gathering of nature around the knitting club is also just some kind of normal thing. It's not like jinba mix with other animals frequently or anything, but it makes more sense to him than them cozying up to humans. Some of the birds and insects do scatter though when someone appears to be weaving through the people in order to get to Mikuni himself.

The knitting pauses and he puts down his needles, mildly on guard from being approached so directly by an unknown human (or humanoid. Hard to tell in this place, apparently!). While he may be more or less okay with being in their presence, that doesn't mean he trusts them right off the bat. It doesn't mean he doesn't expect one day for some human to just go off the rails and try to capture or harm Mikuni or his jinba friends. His defense only drops slightly when the stranger speaks, blatantly wondering if he's in the presence of a jinba of all things.

Maybe jinba aren't as rare around these parts as Mikuni assumed ... ]

Yes, I am.

[ Shino goes from merely smiling to beaming, as if this is the best news he's heard today. It is, frankly, because he hasn't really listened to anyone's news today, but that's fine! Because there are people who are going to be happy, if they aren't already. ]

That's great! Miss Konoha, and her husband Gonta, they're both the only ones who've been here for a while. If you haven't already talked to them, I know she's been hoping for more of her people to end up here too!

[ Mountain or plains or whatever kinds of jinba there are out there, okay, he's not in the know. Still, he looks pretty darn happy for someone announcing that someone else is going to be excited by this. ]

I'm Inuzuka Shino. Please take cre of me.

[ Not... literally, but he bobs his head in a terribly impolite bow, hands up in a similar approximation. He earns one politeness point. Maybe. ]

[ Mikuni is looking at the man curiously, tilting his head until the names of his companions are mentioned. That makes more sense why this stranger seems to know about the jinba at least. He got the impression that jinba aren't really a thing around these parts. ]

Gonta has been my friend for many years.

[ Mikuni saved him from melting, basically. But he smiles a little. Konoha of course also has become important to him. ]

Are they really here? If they're the only other jinba...

[ Well that's sad. But also fortunate at the same time? And honestly, Mikuni probably doesn't know what human politeness all entails anyway, so the bow is just an extra treat maybe?? ]

My name is Mikuni.

[ Jinba are far less common than demons, which is true to his life experiences too, but something he understands is markedly weird for Konoha and Gonta. Hearing that this new guy knows Gonta is a relief, and a curiosity. How often do people end up with those they know being brought in? Why has he still not had anyone from home?

He shoves thoughts like those away, choosing to ignore them like any healthy individual who doesn't want to deal with unpleasantness. ]

Mikuni-san! They're going to be so happy to see you. [ And he beams, because Konoha is like an elder sister whose happiness makes him happy by extension. (He misses his sister, amoung other things. And it's familiar and nice to be bossed around by a sister who knows what she wants done.) ] As far as I know, that makes three jinba, though not... um, the only people with four legs and a human like upper body over their forelegs.

[ It's an awkward way to say there's other centaur-like people, just none who're really... horse. But the Prismals, at least, are all shapes and kinds, and during the moons people end up in all different forms. ]

They've got a farm in another part of the Groves here, I can always show you where to go if you want. [ His eyes drop back to the knitting, and he hesitates. ] When you're not busy?

[ Is knitting a stationary thing, is it a group activity, he paid no attention before right now. ]

[ It is certainly an oddity to see so few jinba in the area, and it's going to take some strong adjustments but for the most part Mikuni is the image of calmness, simply sitting there and knitting away at what seems to be a very long scarf. ]

Ah, so it's just the three of us after all. [ He nods, as he suspected there weren't any others, but it's a little disappointing all the same. He still offers a small smile to his present company. It would appear that he holds Konoha in high regard and, of course, Mikuni can't fault anyone for being fond of the young jinba. Her kindness and joy are infectious, and she's a hard and worthy worker as well.

Not to mention she's responsible for such a large portion of Gonta's happiness, and that's what Gonta deserves. ]

There are more beings like jinba here though? I did see that animal features are very common...

[ He'd yet to see any with a 'taur'-like appearance like his own though. Perhaps more beings like that will be easier to get used to than crowds among crowds of humans.

Ah, but knitting does seem to be fairly stationary. He looks down at his project as attention is brought to it. ]

I would like to see it, but I seemed to have gotten involved in this. It's good to keep my hands busy...

[ Shino likewise is looking at that very long scarf, or at least very long knit object. Considering his lack of real knowledge with the artform, to him, it's a kind of incomprehensible but pretty length of loose woven fabric that one day could be a very effective scarf that may also wrap the entirety of ones head.

Respectable, baffling, but far less interesting than meeting another jinba, considering how happy this makes Konoha, and how fascinated he remains meeting more and more non-humans without feeling like it's helping steal away his own concept of humanity. Small wins! ]

Yeah... I'd say I could give you directions, but I'm not great at explaining how to get much of anywhere.

[ When he's paying enough attention to know how to get to and from somewhere, it's kind of a gut instinct half unthought memory. Terribly nonsensical for anyone else. ]

We could try calling her, but I don't know if she has time to answer right now... she's usually so busy during the days. [ Gonta he doesn't think is up on his technology enough to answer either, and he's not any less busy than his wife. ] But right, people like the jinba? Yeah, I've seen a few. Human-like torsos and fish tails, human-like torsos and dog bodies, even a human-like torso and a deer?

[ This is his fated future. Bless that he surely won't know it's coming before he wakes up deer'taur'd and panicking over pants. ]

No one here who isn't from offworld is human, exactly... though that's how most of us think of the Prismals.

[ It will be the most luxurious and softest of scarves in the land. Or so Mikuni intends. Although the knitting process has come to a pause as they speak of his friends and companions from home. If Konoha and Gonta are here, there's a possibility that certain lost friends could also appear, isn't there? That interests Mikuni a lot.

But meeting up with the happy couple first is a good idea. ]

Oh, that's alright. Surely our paths will cross soon.

[ He'd make sure of it. And he isn't even sure yet how "calling" them would work either. He's much closer to Gonta when it comes to technology and human inventions. He doesn't know them, and he probably wouldn't trust them immediately either. ]

I see. I suppose that explains why not everyone has been surprised to see a jinba amongst them. That's ... for the best.

[ The last thing they need is a cornered jinba lashing out because he's scared or something. ]

I wonder how things would have changed if that was true for my world as well. Or, maybe more than jinba and humans exist and we've just been unaware this entire time.

[ Those kinds of questions that boil down to what ifs... Shino has his hands in his front pockets, rocking back a little on his heels as he considers this. ]

Konoha wondered about that too, and my guess is there's more out there that you don't see. Maybe not the demons and gods I'm used to... but you're from the same country I am, if a different time, and I guess a different world. We might have some similar creatures hiding out away from humanity.

[ He cants his head to the side, wondering if they might have matching mythologies in some sense... the stories are shared even if people believe they're just stories. If they have shared mythologies, maybe they also have shared creatures? Not that knowing Yuki Onna would help for the difficulties for less demonic peoples, but it'd be a possible indication. Maybe? He wishes he knew more, but it does make him... curious. ]

Do you have stories about Yukihime or Yashahime? Or maybe demons who look like jinba in form, even if they're not actually jinba.

[ Mikuni nods after a moment. ]

I have spent a great number of years hidden away in the mountains, so it's entirely possible there is far more than I have witnessed.

[ He smiles a bit. Though it's still confusing that they're from the same country and yet different worlds.

Mikuni has, at the very least, heard of demons. Before Matsukaze showed him otherwise, he had been convinced that he himself had turned into a monstrous demon who could not be saved. As for those specific ones ... ]

Demons do exist, but I am sure the jinba have given them different names.

Oh? I grew up in the mountains myself. Or hidden away the last five years, I guess...

[ Hidden away would be relative, but he's from a small village, and all things considered, he'd enjoyed when he'd been healthy enough to get lost in the forest. Enjoyed less the hurt he'd cause for his brother and sister when he'd lost track of time in those same woods after he'd become Murasame's sheath, not registering five days passing as any more than simply one.

He's been much better at keeping human track of time since, but it's odd, the ways Murasame's influence seeps in. Now, for actually being hidden away? Yes. He was being protected, even if he didn't know it until recently. ]

It makes sense they'd have different names. Even different parts of the country give different names to the same demons. Yukihime is a winter demon, and she has the most beautiful singing voice. Or she used to.

Only the last five?

[ how interesting! although he's maybe spent that amount of time out of the mountains. slightly less probably.

Mikuni doesn't typically take an interest in the stories of non-jinba, but that does pique his curiosity a little. He smiles though, tail swishing idly as he looks down at his knitting project. ]

Did something happen that she would not have a beautiful voice any longer? Well, I suppose there are a number of things that can come to pass. Even for a demon.

The thirteen before, my health didn't allow me to leave.

[ Then the last five, his home village was burned down, he was murdered, he accepted a demon into his body, and forced his adopted brother slash best friend to live along with his dog, ostensibly because his adopted sister was bawling and saying he couldn't leave.

You know, dramatic backstory things he honestly doesn't let himself think about much. His memories to this day are too hazy.

In the end, the "hiding away" was being kept out of the eyes of the Church, who wanted power more than it wanted anything else, and who knows. Those details annoy him, and all he knows now is Rio kept him out of view for as long as he could. To what ends... at this rate, he might never know. ]

Ah, she exchanged her voice to save a human life. [ he says, lifting his shoulders in a small shrug. ] It's sad thinking no one can hear her sing again, but it was her choice. That's the most important thing in the end... and she seems happy.

[ When he thinks about that, is that guy as functionally immortal as the rest of the guys he knows who are linked with demons? Huh.

Weird. Oh well. Not like he can ask right now. ]

Ah, so it's like that.

[ Mikuni nods as though he understands. His health was never really an issue (diet aside), but he can still understand that kind of confinement to a degree. All the demon stuff he might even sympathize with a little bit too, though his own experiences are more metaphorical.

Dramatic backstories are common for the jinba folk though so there is that. ]

If she's happy then I suppose she cannot be faulted for her choice. And she yet lives ...

[ He knows someone that made sacrifices for others and did not come out of it alive. He often found it silly but ... to each their own. ]

As does he, which she's happy about, so...

[ He lifts his hands and shows his empty palms. What more can one ask for beyond individuals living their understandings of love? Demons seem to feel everything more intensely, and spirits, ghosts, even the gods? None of them are an exception to that. Just less prone to certain kinds of lies than the humans who made them.

He brushes those thoughts away. ]

Thoughts for another place, I guess. Anyway, I don't want to keep you from your knitting, but I hope you meet up with Konoha and Gonta soon!

Then that's what matters.

[ He smiles a little, giving a nod. Doesn't really feel like it's his business to pry further. Though this fellow as been pleasant enough to talk to.

Glancing at the knitting project like he'd forgotten about it, he blinks. ]

Ah, yes. You're right. I must finish my task.

Thank you, though. For pointing me in their direction.

You're welcome!

[ Another bright smile, and a wave as he turns to head off. Someone's calling out to him, not by name but by young man, and while he flashes that person an apologetic grin, he hesitates before heading their way. It's a hard life, being half rude, and half minding all your elders properly. Gotta do what he's gotta do. ]

See you later, Mikuni!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

▶ TDM .009

wildcard for that elegant horse scarf okay

it's a wonderful scarf

extremely late tag

no worries!

<3

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hi this is five years late

asfd <3

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