prismaticrap | ▶ TDM .011

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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. After an hour or two of wandering through the crystal wilderness, a group of people find you worse for wear. They are the gallant Moon Knights from the planet of Prismatica. Because of the strange phenomena 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? — 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. You will then be escorted to the docks, and led onto a large transport vessel that makes frequent trips back and forth between the Iris moon and the planet. Faces onboard vary from both old and new Moonblessed as well as the local Prismals.

The next destination: Prismatica.

▶ There and Back Again
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 As a Remooning gift from the Lunar Scientia Headquarters, the dedicated team from the Amphoria Room has released their latest perfected technology: Amphoria Pods. These VR Pods, which can fit up to four people at a time, have been set up in the gaming hub within Level 1’s PrismaPlace. They allow users to upload sceneries of their world in order to create a realistic holographic landscape of their homes that others can access and play around with, granting everyone the means to relive past memories with their loved ones as well as interact with the bestiary of other worlds. The pods also use the same technology that enhanced the popular virtual game, League Match Action Online (LmaO), which means you’re liable to feel the chill of cold environments, the burning heat from boiling water, the hard slap of your ex-lover, or the biting sting of a stray wasp. All who use the Amphoria Pods for the first time this year will also receive a small amount of Chroma in case things get too real.

▶ God Save Us from the Queen
Level 1, PrismaPlace and Level 2, Greatmoon Groves | top

The first month of the year is packed with two of the most important winter events this season: Queen Elara’s birthday and the League Match Action Online (LmaO) PVP semi-finals. It just so happens that the Queen of Lunatia is also a huge LmaO fan. Coincidence? Definitely not! LmaO players and royal family fans alike can meet her at PrismaPlace, where she will be appearing in cosplay of her favorite hero, Ah-Kari, while holding a body pillow of Commander GareBear. You, too, can get an autograph or selfie with the birthday girl if you’re willing to fall in line! Her bodyguards will also be in LmaO cosplay, keeping the crowd under control during the long wait.

Queen Elara

Good day to you all! This may come as a surprise to our guests the Moonblessed, but I am a normal person despite my exalted position. Please do not think of me today as Queen Elara. Instead... my name is Ah-Kari, sorceress of the crystal! With my soul fan blades, through the darkness, I shall slice all who dare hurt my commander in twain!

But when she is not meeting and greeting...

Queen Elara

My comrades, we're going to make history today. We're going for a new record. Perhaps the highest kill counts or the fastest clear for this map — it matters not. We’ve practiced day and night for this tournament, so let us show everyone that we’re not to be taken lightly! Also, the livestream is going in the royal archive, so make your successors proud!!

... she will be furiously grinding her character and training her skills in LmaO in the hopes of qualifying for the finals. Spectators will see her bring her own team full of hapless palace attendants who are there to either serve as her practice match partners or provide support to the one-woman army that is Queen Elara.

PrismaPlace is packed with giant crowds, many of them also in cosplay. While the semi-finals are taking place, new and old LmaO players alike can participate in the game’s current campaign: players who form teams get an improved chance of spawning unique monsters as well as winning rare items and skins in those prized lootboxes! Teams can also try to clear the event’s story together, featuring an aerial battle fought on griffin-back, which is heavily inspired by the popular Lunatian epic, The Battle of Abraxas, a colorful and complex story about the conflict between two families fighting over the fictional land of griffins, Abraxas.

A Progression in the event requires acquiring a griffin mount and getting it ready for battle. You can lure a wild one to yourself with a special veggie pie on a fishing pole. Should the griffin reject the lure, your character will be caught in a wind gaol and can only break out with the help of other players. Should you succeed, raising the griffin is a tedious task that involves players training alongside their respective griffins, running laps with them, taking them to hunt monsters, and feeding them properly. Depending on their diet, the food you give them will affect the color of its plumage and their battle stats.

Or you can skip the hard work and simply moonlace with your teammates through all the progression bars and required materials to save time. Once finished, you’ll be able to battle one another through the thunderous aerial domain of Abraxas. Clearing the event will net you an event-exclusive skin inspired by the royal family’s shining celestial robes and a weapon skin of a body pillow with your favorite character, so do your best!

B In celebration of Queen Elara’s birthday, the office of the royal household is hosting a modest tea party in the Greatmoon Groves. Swiffy bots that are normally programmed to remind visitors to keep the groves clean are now playing a birthday jingle on repeat. For people who prefer to be away from the blinding neon lights and the thumping techno music of PrismaPlace, this is the ideal escape. Unlimited tea and cookies are being served!

The tea is a soft-colored lilac concoction made from Ehrysian tea leaves that are known to cause a huge spike of alertness and is popular to Moon Knights and office workers with long night shifts as well as gamers for those all-night grinding sessions. The assorted cookies have either Ah-Kari or Commander GareBear printed on them. In case it isn't obvious yet, both are the birthday girl’s favorite LmaO characters.

Any Moonblessed looking for extra income is welcome to be royal attendants for the day; the hours are paid by Demichroma. They must be properly dressed up as maids or butlers (outfits provided by the royal household) as they serve tables.

▶ Say Cheese
Level 3, Caihong | top

Meanwhile, Caihong is in the midst of Remooning festivities in celebration of the new year, and merriment usually lasts a fortnight, filled with fireworks in the sky. Upon entering the district, beautiful Prismals with rat ears and tails greet you with a Happy Remooning and eagerly tug you along to join in.

Those welcomed will receive a pack of multi-colored sparklers, mooncakes topped with cheese, and a glowing drink called Champagne Supernova, poured in a thin glass in your hand. If you are over eighteen, the rat Prismals will ask if you prefer your drink with a kick. If you say yes, then they will add flavorful ice that causes extreme intoxication and might leave you to be susceptible to all levels of suggestion. Saying no (or if you’re under 18) will simply leave it as a sweet drink.

A One of the party games being played by the locals is called Lucky Tail, which is basically pinning the tail on the holographic rat stand-in — with a twist, it must be played with a partner! Another participant will blindfold you, spin you around, then push you forward. The stand-in is located at the end of unsteady elevated platforms forming a maze, filled to the brim with distracting objects underneath. They’re long, they’re thick, and they’re vibrating furiously in an attempt to knock you off the platforms.

Your partner must guide you by voice to successfully navigate through the maze! The game is rigged with various mechanisms, so stepping on specific platforms will activate a number of traps against you or your partner: machines that may tickle, drop colorful slime, or cause the platform to repetitively spin, and who knows what else?

Should you manage to get through the obstacle course and pin the tail successfully, you and your partner will win copious amounts of Demichroma, courtesy of Buwan from Buwan’s Stop.

B Another attraction is a fun magic glamour booth known for its face or body swap features. The booth staff, clad in their festive rat paraphernalia, will encourage you and your friends to take aesthetic shots using an illusion generator. The effects last an hour. Photographed images can be instantly uploaded and shared in Prismagram. New year, new you! Why not take the chance to celebrate this momentous occasion in a unique fashion? It’s all in good humor.

There are two buttons to press: (A) CUSTOM or (B) RANDOM. Pressing A will allow participants to customize their desired effects. Pressing B will cause the illusion magic to randomly rearrange participants in questionable positions, new outfits (or lack thereof), and you may even come out of the booth looking like your best friend or your worst rival. The possibilities are endless!

▶ 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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IA: Arrival
[To say that Apollo has taken his arrival poorly is... Well. An understatement. But as a god who is typically the one doing the kidnapping as opposed to the victim he's less than pleased. He isn't even sure how such a thing could have been possible, especially since something seems to be keeping him from just. Leaving.

That shouldn't even be plausible for anyone outside of two people, and yet those words can't leave his lips. And perhaps that is what's most concerning and difficult to accept.

Presently the god of the Sun is skulking around the city proper, floating a few inches of the ground even though the action that usually takes such little effort seems to be actually draining him. He's hopelessly lost but is far too proud to admit it- although between his copious amounts of gold jewelry, lose-fitting white clothes, and unnecessary amounts of hair he sticks out like a sore thumb.

He's in the midst of fuming when he bumps into someone, instantly rounding on the poor stranger like they just insulted his sister.]

Watch it!

IB: Rooming
[By some miracle (or good samaritan) the redhead does finally manage to find his way to the apartments. But where one problem ends another begins, because Apollo has absolutely no idea how to figure out where his room is, let alone how to actually get inside. Thanks to his pride he's already running low on whatever Chroma he had upon arrival and the concept of electronics and things like "touchpads" are completely foreign, more or less stranding him in the halls of the building.

After much pacing, rattling doors, and attempting to just will them open he settles for stomping a foot, voice rising in frustration for whoever happens to be unlucky enough to be around.]

UGH! This place is the worst!

II: God Save Us from the Queen
[The Groves are, if nothing else, something of welcome sight. Despite all the unfamiliar trappings of the world the bit of nature is more akin to the garden or the forests he used to spend time with Artemis in.

But of course this place seems bent on making everything as irritating as possible, because some attendants seem to be under the impression that Apollo wants to help out with the serving. Anyone nearby will be treated to raised voices, with one in particular full of unabashed disdain.]

What do I look like?! I might be stuck here for now but do you honestly think I'll run around at your beck and call like some insect? Don't make me laugh!

[And with that he tries to whirl around and stomp off dramatically... Only to run directly into a Swiffy Bot and topple over with an "oomf!". Graceful.]

III: Say Cheese
[Of course Apollo is vaguely familiar with the concept of human festivals, but they're not something he's ever given a moment's consideration. In his eyes they're nothing more than a noisy collection of humans gathered into a smaller space than usual; ants collecting around something interesting one found and then led all the others to.

Given this avoidance he has no idea whether this... Whatever-it-is is anything like what humans back home do and really he doesn't care. When he's handed the treats and sparklers he just looks at them boredly, only sparing a moment to sniff at the Champagne Supernova before promptly trying to shove all of it at whoever happens to be walking nearby.]

You take this.

III: Wildcard
(ooc: If there's anything else you'd like feel free to make a starter or hmu through PM or at

trickeryesque. In Prompt III feel free to try and drag him into any of the festival games, but good luck.)

[ There's a ruckus outside, and it's making it hard for him to focus on the show he's watching, so Josuke's finding it a bit annoying. That's why he heads out to investigate what's going on. Just as he had expected, there's someone making a scene outside a closed apartment. Josuke hasn't seen them around before, and it's also around that time of the month, so it's easy to assume that they are new in town. ]

Stomping your foot's not going to do anything, that's for sure. Did you get locked out?

[Apollo rounds on the source of the other voice, hands still clenched at his sides and expression set in a sullen frown. Despite doing his best to look intimidating it doesn't exactly carry the same weight when he's not able to float or come in with his usual grandiose entrance. Instead he just looks like a pouting prettyboy.]

No, I never got in in the first place.

[ Yeah, nope, there's nothing intimidating to him about a pretty boy in jewellery. All Josuke sees now is a guy who's probably new to Lunatia and might need some support. ]

You probably never dealt with tech like this before, huh? [ Going from what Apollo is wearing, anyway. ] You're dressed like one of those ancient Greek people or whatever. [ Not that Josuke knows anything about his history or mythology. All he knows, he's seen on television. ] Here, I'll get that for you.

[ It was a learning curve for him as well, because he's used to keys and locks, but after living here for close to 4 months Josuke's getting the hang of using technology. He presses a few buttons and the door slides open on its own. ]

[If there's one thing that makes Apollo more frustrated it's not being taken seriously, and that's precisely what he takes Josuke's responses as. His lips purse into an icy glare that carries much less weight when he presently... Can't muster the power to just smite someone.

Not that he would necessarily waste the effort on a human like this, but it's still nice to have the option.]

"Ancient Greek people"?? You should have more respect when talking to a god, you know!

[After all he's used to people more or less just knowing who he is. But it doesn't help that he doesn't exactly have the grandiose entrance that he usually does when traveling. Any more arguing on that topic will have to wait for a moment though, his attention caught by the way the other opens the door as he tries to follow what he did.]

... So it's electricity?

A god? For real? [ If he were hearing this back home, he would assume Apollo were suffering from delusions of grandeur. His time here has widened his scope of thinking, however. Nowadays, when someone says they are something, he's likely to just believe it, because it's probably the truth. Lunatia pulls in all sorts of people. While he dos feel a little sorry for offending Apollo with his casual way of speech, it's not by very much. He's not inclined to regard people very formally or with much revere unless they specifically tell him he should be talking to them in a certain way. ]

And ... Yeah. It's just electricity and computer-stuff. You'll be fine if you remember which button to press.

Yes, for real. I couldn't lie about that even if I wanted to.

[Apollo is certainly a lot of bad things; manipulative, petty, immature, cruek... But he isn't a liar, if only because he physically can't. But even if he could he still wouldn't lie about who he is simply because he has absolutely no interest in being lumped in with humans.

But he's already more or less moving on from the panel for now, his attention drawn to the interior as he makes a face of clear disgust.]

... How ugly.

[ The interior just looks like how the inside of a new flat should. Is it the most stunning thing in the world? Not at all. However, it is functional and - much more importantly - completely rent-free - so it's nothing to complain about in Josuke's opinion. ]

You're a tough customer, huh? It's not much, but it's pretty alright for a free apartment. Everyone starts out like this. [ Josuke himself is still living in the free accommodations. While he would love to live somewhere fancy and spacious, he's living paycheck to paycheck right now, so not having to pay rent on top of it all helps. ] Anyway, there's a way you can make it a little nicer.

[ Using a Totally Globular, that is. He would be happy to show Apollo if he's interested. ]

[As someone accustomed to spending most of his time in a world comprised completely of flower petals this is definitely a step down. Of course there's also the fact that losing the ability to instantly teleport himself wherever he wants to be at any given moment is definitely making Apollo's mood extra sour. But he's never really been a fan of much humans have built and this place just seems so... Plain.]

I'm not a "tough customer", I just happen to have standards.

[Someone's giving a lot of sass despite not even knowing the first thing about paying bills.]

... What way is that?

There's a gadget for that. Gimme a sec, I'll show you.

[ Josuke disappears into the hallway, popping back into his room and taking out his Totally Globular. It's a round orb with galaxy-like colours swirling around inside it. Now, he returns back to Apollo's apartment and sets the gadget down. With a press of the button, the entire room changes in scenery. What was previously a plain-looking room now looks like the galaxy (default setting), with stars glimmering and comets passing by. ]

It's cool, huh? You can change it to pretty much anything, and if you press one of the buttons it makes people float too!

[ he's here just enjoying his tea while he's about to head out, pockets stuffed full of cookies with faces on them which he doesn't really get, but they taste good, when then there's this loud guy complaining about insects and... huh.

running into one of the bots ubiquitous around the area even when it's not set up as a massive serving grounds, he's curious about the guy now sprawled out on the ground. as someone imbued with his own godly demonic energy, thanks to the demon hosted within and manifested as a crow crunching on a cookie while perched on his shoulder, he's a little concerned with that spill. ]

You didn't get hurt, did you?

[ if so... he can offer him a cookie and directions to the first aid tents set up mostly to handle indigestion and minor tea burns... ]

[Apollo is already grumbling and getting back to his feet when Shino approaches, sulking in clear frustration. So much for maintaining his pride.

He makes a show of dusting himself dramatically and rearranging his clothes and jewelry just so before he fixes the young man with the full weight of his gaze. It does admittedly improve his mood a little to see that the stranger who approached him was attractive, that fact soothing his grumpiness even temporarily. But of course that still doesn't stop the redhead from huffing in exasperation and planting crossing his arms haughtily.]

I'm fine.

[Physically, at least.]

But the idiots around here need to not leave their... Decorations out.

The bots are kind of a hazard, it's true. You can try lodging a complaint with the Moon Knights.

[ The Swiffy bot that'd been Apollo's undoing has since spun itself around, then all but shaken itself off, getting back to its current version of important duties. Shino glances after it, then shrugs. What can you do? Get fined for fighting them? The guy ran into the bot, it's not the smartest creature that roams around this place.

He also doesn't bother mentioning he's an initiate... novice... whatever they call them with said Moon Knights, but hey, who needs to know? ]

Were you heading out of the groves? There's a moon festival of some kind down in Caihong, if you were looking for something with less tea and hovering menaces.

[ He's missing the free cookies, but Shino doubts very much that he cares about that after his failed flounce. Or maybe he does! ]

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▶ TDM .011

Apollo | Olympos

rooming

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god save us

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