prismaticrap | ▶ TDM OVERFLOW .001

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▶ TDM OVERFLOW .001

Cybernetic dream, something like you've never seen

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▶ Lisa Frank's LSD Fun House
anytime, anywhere on the moon Iris | top

Everything is darkness except for dim lights sparkling in the distance, a faint gleam that greets you as you start to unfurl from your dormant state. 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. Throat parched and skin dry and aching, you grope your body in alarm to make sure your possessions are still in place. 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 only rewards you with 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.

A ⬤ As you traverse the near-barren landscape, you feel something sting your skin. It's small and subtle at first, then you finally catch sight of it: an elegant, crystalline mosquito buzzing around from the corner of your eye. However, a pest is still a pest. After a while, marks near your welts begin to form strange patterns on your skin, mimicking ancient runes. Each rune has with it a particular side-effect that may hinder you on your journey:
✾ The Mark of the Enchanter: Hallucinations, hallucinations galore. Your character will see everything and anything their imagination can conjure and will have difficulty separating reality from fiction.
₪ The Mark of the Destroyer: Limbs start to cease their function, causing you to stumble or try and get around one-handed. Other certain body parts may be affected as well. Look at the bright side: you can stop worrying about jiggle physics and hiding your fear boner.
⍢ The Mark of the Sinner: Your hunger, your thirst, your fatigue and your desire are at an all-time high. Your impulses are rabid and uncontrollable. Maybe you experience only one of those symptoms. Maybe you experience them all. All you know is that you want relief now.

These effects will eventually clear up with a bit of accidental or purposeful physical contact with another person, making you wonder if there was anything wrong with you at all.

B ⬤ Hunger starts to gnaw at you vigorously. Perhaps you consider hunting the moon's creatures to sate your hunger. That's when you see it: a thick, meaty, juicy meal on legs. ~~No, we're not talking about Alex Louis Armstrong~~. A wild silver-white pegasus runs across the purple landscape, its hair billowing in the wind as its hooves smack loudly against the ground. Try and shoot it, and you may find your efforts curtailed by its legendary rage. Eyes aglow and wings beating up a storm, this pegasus is no dainty horse. Two thousand pounds of pure muscle swoop down and charge at you, all blades and ammunition deflecting off its impenetrable skin. Taming appears impossible; it will buck anyone away and leave a sizable horn- or hoof-shaped hole in them for their efforts. Hunting it, however, should be easier. Relatively.

C ⬤ Or you may decide that you'd like to take a drink in the prismatic waters. A small pond can be found just a few miles away from where you first awoke, but gazing into it reflects what appears to be a window into your own world. You see the faces of loved ones or at least someone very close and familiar to you gathered around your prone body, shaking it frantically as though to try and rouse you, yet your image lies frozen and unresponsive, not even a whisper of life running through you. Did you die in your world? Is this your afterlife? The questions start to pile up along with the gnawing dread that you may never return home again.

▶ Camp Nowhere
anytime, anywhere on the moon iris | top

Time moves strangely when you're trapped on a moon with no sun to guide you. Hours feel like days, and days feel like weeks. Travelling has rendered you weak and tired. Luckily, a few crystal formations in the shape of a cavern may offer you a small place refuge as you decide to nap. You notice a few artifacts left over from previous explorers.

D ⬤ A comm unit abandoned within the cavern will display the former owner's idol obsession. As you tap the buttons indiscriminately, a holographic screen will appear, and you will see a fabulous recorded concert featuring three bubbly young ladies in animal print, singing to you about something called Cordis, a cat, and a bag of gems. Does this make any sense to you? Probably not, but the beat is catchy. You may even find yourself tapping a foot along to it. Don’t worry. We know it’s plastic love.

E ⬤ There's a small cooler-like container of preserved powdered food bags labeled with only the word “Edible” that can be safely consumed. Although the powder tastes as bland as you’d expect, it’s oddly filling, sating either hunger or thirst. But who will be the first — and the bravest — to try eating them?

F ⬤ A strange, pointed instrument is among the effects found in the cavern. It's silver, long, and thin with a curved end and a light. When you grip it with warm hands, it seems to vibrate enthusiastically and comes in three settings indicated by a frowny face, a neutral face, and a happy face. What could it mean exactly? No one knows, but you can fiddle with it to your heart's desire. Just don't ask yourself where it's been before. You don't want to know.

▶ Interstellar Action Force Assemble
prisma, iris | top

Over a day has passed when a group of people find you worse for wear. Some are full of uncertainty and fear while some are full of curiosity and excitement. They claim that they are scientists from the planet Prismatica here to investigate the sudden appearances of rainbow crystals in the skies. That means you and the others they’ve located within the area. You are all a surprising find to them, and they are quick to load everyone in their transport vehicles for examination and questioning.

You all may have your usual inquiries — Where are we? Who are you? What's going on? Why are the pegasi so ill-tempered? — and the Prismals are almost too eager to answer. They do have questions on their own, so it’s only fair to trade. They tell you about their world as they poke and prod you, trying to understand what you are and how you came into their land. If they’re not trembling in fear, some of them may ask you odd and invasive questions in return, such as what the rate at which your body achieves thermoregulation is, how long your refractory period is, and if you would be willing to submit various kinds of body fluids to them. It's up to whether you wish to comply or protest.

G ⬤ If you react violently, you will be restrained and nerfed with a specialized neurotransmitting gun that releases a numbing agent through the top of your spine. They came prepared, so have fun with that! In any case, conscious or not, you’ll be brought into one of the transport vehicles. If you choose to peacefully cooperate, you’ll be provided any necessary first aid and a refreshing drink to help you recuperate after the rough time you had for the past few days. Each transport vehicle has a few small rooms to rest in, but due to the limited space, you’ll have to snuggle up with someone else on that bunk bed. Unfortunately, the moonshine fruit the ship is also carrying in its cargo has an extremely sweet smell that’s been permeating through certain areas of the ventilation system… Taking a whiff of it may inebriate you for the rest of the trip.

H ⬤ It’s a bumpy ride as terrain vehicles draw over various crystal formations until you see a large dome-like structure up ahead. Within its confines lies the seat of the Prismatica's government, Prisma. It’s a bureaucratic wet dream: skyscrapers practically touch the upper surface of the dome, windows glimmer with a prismatic sheen as daylight hits them, and small ships can be seen flying to and from its spaceport. The scientists, members of the Lunar Scientia, usher you into their facilities for tests. Arrivals are likely to twitch, tremble, and panic as Lunar Scientia fellows take and broadcast every embarrassing, unfiltered detail about you — height, weight, age, strange odors, estimated frequency of sexual activity —- to one another. These scientists will ask you politely to undress, too, but understand if you don't want to. They're especially fascinated by the readings of pure Chroma inside you, whispering among one another excitedly about the possibility of the new arrivals being a new moon species. What should they call them? Moonborne? Moonblessed?

I ⬤ At long last, the questions and physical examinations are done. They’ve decided to call the arrivals as the Moonblessed. They’ll take you under their care until they understand more about you. You're allowed a very refreshing hot shower and a warm meal for your efforts. Don’t worry, the meal was imported from their planet. “Planet?” you might ask, but you won’t need to wonder for too long. The ships are preparing for their next destination: the nearby planet Prismatica, where you will be dwelling for the time being. You're free to explore the government center until then.

▶ Wildcard
Lunatia, Prismatica | top

It only takes a couple hours for the ships to reach their home planet. The ships drop the characters off at the city of Lunatia, where they will be given their communication devices and a plastic card they can present to certain landlords at any residential district for their subsidized (read: absolutely free) lodging. Officials at Prisma instructed the newcomers to await further instructions from the government, but you have a lot of time to kill before then. Why not explore in the meantime? Learn the ins and outs of the world, get a job, transform under the full moon, and explore the many mysteries of planet Prismatica!

This is this TDM's overflow. Feel free to move your threads from there and continue tagging!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Hey, you never know - Taako's an amazing chef, maybe I can make it work.

[Or not. Maybe if he put it into a chutney or a tomato based sauce? Topping? Mix it all together with some spicy peppers, give it a kick?

He's still scribbling away as Temple carries him, engrossed now in his notes.]

So, describe to me the general taste profile if you can. I was thinking spicy, but that can go a lot of ways.

Yeah, spicy.

I’m not sure how to describe it beyond that, though.

[It has been a long, long time since the last time he ate a taco. Years.]

[Damn. Taako screws his face up, biting his bottom lip as he starts writing more notes in the margins around his spells and the original stories listed in the book. He's going to have to experiment with different flavor profiles until he gets the right one.

And that?

Means he needs a guinea pig.]

Well, then you're just volunteered yourself to try them out as I create them. No complaining allowed though. It's an honor to be the first to try a Taako original.

[Temple smiles at him. That’s a really nice offer. And he can definitely avoid complaining about his taco attempts.]

[Unless Taako is the worst cook to ever exist in the known universe, of course.]

Don’t worry, they’ll be no complaining from me.

[Oh, he's a bang-up cook, but he also only sleeps 4 hours a night. Temple might come to regret agreeing to the no complaining rule after the third or fourth time Taako demands he come over at 3AM to taste test a new batch.]

Deal and sealed then, my dude. No take backsies.

[Honestly, Temple will just be grateful for someone who is so willing to feed him.]

[Temple smiles at him.]

Yep.

And thank you, by the way. For this.

For what? Allowing you the privilege of hauling me across this crystal wasteland? Yeah, no probs. I hate walking anyway.

[He knows what Temple means, but he slips the book into his bag again and rests back in Temple's arms. It's more comfortable like this and he can continue to pretend like his limbs are aching and numb this way.

Even if all that furious writing he did earlier probably blew his cover.

Meh whatever.]

So what's this "Red and Blues" thing you mentioned earlier? You some kind of color-coordinator?

[Temple doesn’t care that Taako’s faking it. Taako is hot and holding him in his arms feels surprisingly good. And though he doesn’t know it yet, carrying Taako is a pretty great Chroma money-making lifehack.]

Colour coordinator?

No. That would’ve been much more peaceful.

[He sighs.]

I was a soldier, tricked into fighting a fake war for Project Freelancer. The Reds and Blues were teams. I was a Blue.

[The past tense is because he doesn’t regard himself as a Blue. Instead, he sees himself as a Blue and Red, and his team - the Blue team and the Red team from his Gulch, combined - as the Blues and Reds.]

[It is a clunky team name but hey, what can you do?]

Well, that's some shit.

[He can't really say much else? It sounds shitty, being tricked into fighting a fake war. Wars in general were total shitshows, but a fake one? Even worse. People died for no reason then, just some power posturing that amounts to nothing.]

So these two teams - were they enemies or something? Because you said earlier, you're the leader of both teams?

[Temple nods.]

Yeah, they used to be enemies. They’re not anymore, though.

Before, back when Blue and Red were enemies, I led the Blue team and Surge was my equivalent on Red team.

But when we discovered that the war was fake, I became the leader of both teams and we decided to get revenge on the people who had set up this false conflict.

Project Freelancer.

Rah rah, fight the power, huh? So why'd they set up a fake war anyway? Seems like a real shit thing to do. Was it some kind of proxy war?

[He grins.]

Yeah.

Rah, rah, fight the power.

[And then, his grin turns into a frown as he considers how to answer Taako’s question.]

They set up the real war because humanity was having a real one against some genocidal aliens. In that war, the entire human race could have been exterminated, if we lost.

So secret government projects were created to fight the war.

One of them was Project Freelancer. It worked with AI, supersoldiers and armour enhancements.

And to test those armour enhancements and to train the AI-equipped supersoldiers, Freelancer set up war games between groups of soldiers that weren’t capable of fighting in the real war.

Then they sent Freelancers down into those war games so they could practice their skills and experiment with their enhancements.

Eventually, that was supposed to culminate in the Freelancers fighting the aliens and winning the war but before they could, another project did.

And so, it was all for nothing.

[Angrily:]

Biff’s death was for nothing.

Edited (added some brackets) 2019-03-11 05:51 (UTC)

[So apparently only humans existed in his world and? They were in a battle against killer aliens. He has no idea what an AI was, but armour and soldiers? He understood that. He also understood that sending superpowered people into the middle of people unawares was a shit thing to do.

And he understands Temple's anger, even if it seems to come up suddenly. Whoever this "Biff" was (he could make fun of the name, but he gets the feeling he'd regret that), he had been important to Temple. And his death has left a nasty scar on him.]

Oof...that's....rough, bud. I'm sorry to hear that.

[Temple sighs.]

Yeah. Yeah. It is rough.

[Taako is so correct about that Temple doesn’t know what else to say.]

[And Temple is glad that Taako sympathizes with him, that Taako has at least a bit of sense of how much it hurts.]

[He may not understand it completely but right now, the amount Taako does get it is enough for Temple.]

[Oookay, so new thing learned for Taako. Don't talk about Temple's past and his time with the fake war and whatever that Project Freelancer is. The last thing he wants to do is get the guy carrying him around angry and risk getting dropped in the dirt.

Time to talk about other things then.]

So - quick change of topic, let's go for something less full of death, huh? You wanna, uh... uh...? Let's go with hobbies instead, huh? Whatcha do for funsies?

[And whiplash! That is quite the topic change and he is not quite sure what to do or say.]

... uh, I like Shakespeare. And B movies.

[Fantastic choice, Temple. Two things an elf would most likely not be familiar with.]

[And he knows that. But he can’t just switch agilely from talking about Freelancer to talking about fun. It would be nice for him if he could but nope, it just isn’t that easy.]

[Not after that whole spillage of emotion that just happened.]

Oh fuck yes - B movie scrolls are the best.

[Shakespeare? Not so much. But shitty movies - well, enchanted moving scrolls? - that's something Taako can groove to easily enough.]

There's so many of them. I love it when they try to be all serious and just- [He snickers -right on their faces, kaboom, best worst story ever.

[B movie... scrolls?]

[Temple can’t help but be confused by that last part. But he understands the rest.]

Exactly!

They’re just so absurd and campy!

I mean, who even thinks of things like Sharknados or Santa Claus meeting the Martians or invasions of badly CGIed aliens who just so happen to look like genitalia? Or any of those premises, really?

[He laughs.]

It’s amazing.

[He purses his lips.]

Though now that I think about, this a bit of a B movie premise itself. I mean, come on - strangers suddenly wake up together on an acid trippy alien planet and then hallucinate stuff and see Pegasi and... just yeah... total B movie right there!

[He doesn't know what Martians are or what CGI means?? But fuck can he laugh at it anyway. He's glad to know that the Santa Claus Meets X genre was alive and well in all realities.

Even when Temple stops laughing, Taako doesn't because he's right: this place is patently ridiculous. It's stupid and crazy and campy as hell, but here they are. Taako getting carried across this wasteland by some ex- or current soldier, talking about campy movies, no longer suffering from some weird crystal mosquito induced numbness.]

Hey, if Taako's in it, you can be certain it's not gonna be no "B" movie. I'm at least an A-lister.

[Temple grins at him. Talking with Taako about B movies is really fun, and he’s really glad they got on the subject.]

I bet you’d have all the fangirls as well.

I'd gladly take the fans - regardless of gender.

[Taako smiles and raises an eyebrow.]

Unless you think I couldn't appeal to both demographics?

[Temple laughs.]

You could definitely appeal to both demographics.

[He was certainly appealing to Temple’s demographic.]

[You know what? Fuck pretending.

He grins and reaches up, patting Temple's cheek.]

Well, aren't you a sweet one.

[He pauses for a moment and then leans in a little closer.]

I'm guessing I appeal to your particular brand of celebrity crush, or am I reading this wrong.

[Temple blushes. Taako is right on the money there.]

... yes. Yes, you do.

[He supposes there’s no real use denying it when they seem to be the only two people around, and there’s no guarantee they’ll get off this planet, and Taako seems interested too, if Temple is reading him correctly.]

[He doesn’t know where he wants to go from here, though. Meeting a hot elf and having the elf express interest in him and being asked by the elf if he likes him is a scenario he’d never anticipated happening, especially since nothing even vaguely like this had happened for him with any human men where he was from.]

[So, basically, this is entirely new territory for him and he has no idea what will happen.]

[But he’s open to finding out.]

[Oh man, that's rich. With a sharp laugh, Taako leans away and gives Temple a wink.]

You know, it'd figure I'd have to get kidnapped to some weird-ass moon world to end this dry spell. Fuck, and I thought going on a pseudo-date with the Grim Reaper was crazy.

[Not that he's complaining, but how insane is his life that this is how he ends his dry spell? With not one, but two potential dates in as many weeks.]

You know what? If we figure out what's going on and we're not, I dunno, suddenly dying by the end of all this, why don't you ask me out proper and we'll see where it goes. Because, no offense intended, bubelah, but crystal wasteland isn't exactly my go-to aphrodisiac.

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