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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Finn turns on a dime, whipping around at the sound of his name. He knows it was just in his head, that it hadn't been real, but-

But she looks very real. ] Rey!

[ He starts running, too, fully intending on colliding with her in a desperate hug. He hadn't seen her since the Falcon, since Crait. He hadn't seen her in over a year. All of the stress and loneliness and weight on his shoulders seemed to-... Maybe not lift, but it felt lighter. That was enough. ]

[ Rey isn't stopping until he stops so she absolutely flings herself into his arms, wrapping her own around him. It's been so long since she's seen him, had only had a little bit of time to catch up before she'd woken up in this place. Her heart sings to be reunited with her first real friend. ]

I can't believe you're here! Really actually here!

I can't believe you're here!

[ He could probably cry, to be totally honest. The breath stuttering in his lungs certainly implies as much.

Even though he's continuing the conversation, he hasn't let go yet. ] How long have you been in this place? What do you remember last from back home?

[ She's somewhere between tears and laughter she's so happy at the moment, and makes no move to let go. It's been too long, and she had missed him terribly. ]

Nearly seven months. Last thing I remember was us escaping Crait on the Falcon.

[ That feels like a lifetime ago to her, now. Things had changed here, in many ways she'd changed. She turns her head to the side a little, her chin resting against his shoulder. ]

You?

[ It honestly takes him a second. There were some... timeline changes that happened back home, a direct cause of his own actions, but he thinks he had managed to fix it all. So, if he had- ]

Crait. The Falcon. [ Around the same moment, then. More or less. ]

That was a year ago for me. I've been... around. [ Finn doesn't really pull away but he does tilt his head and kind of mimics her. ] This place is new, though... I still can't believe you're here. I feel like all of this is one big elaborate dream.

A year?

[ She does actually pull away from him enough to look at his face, her brow scrunched up as she studies him, as if she can read the year lost there. She shakes her head slightly, unsure. ]

Were you in another place like this? I know Lunatia isn't the only city here but I would have sensed you if you were anywhere on this planet.

[ He shakes his head, smiling for a brief second before it vanishes again. ] I wasn't on this planet.

[ Even though Finn pulls away a little, his hands stay at Rey's elbows, not wanting to lose contact. She might disappear if he let go. ]

I guess you can say it was like this. Kind of a long story, but there wasn't so much- [ Ah. And at this, he does let go, hands hovering a little over her skin. ] -mandatory touching. It was quieter, too.

[ She hasn't let go of him either, her hands gripping his shoulders because she is partly afraid if she lets go he'll disappear like mist. It's been so long since she saw anyone from their galaxy that had always been a friendly face.

Her brow furrowed as she considered what he was telling her, perplexed by the idea of other places out there in the universe that randomly steal people from their homes. ]

Hopefully we'll have time to catch each other up, now. I've missed you.

[ And there's something else lifting in his chest, a feeling that makes him give a small smile but one more heartfelt than he's felt in a long time. ]

I missed you, too. [ More than she could know. More than he could possibly describe.

But the last thing he wanted to talk about right now was his missing year. So Finn huffed a laugh and held on to her arms again. ] Okay. Seven months... I want to know everything. Is anyone else from home here?

[ It's odd, that she's happy to hear she was missed by someone. It's not an emotion she's entirely familiar with, someone else missing her. She's used to a hollow pining deep in her chest, the longing to know what happened to her family, but this is warmer.

She smiles at his question, though that creates an odd lurch in her stomach on its own. A lot has definitely happened in seven months. Nodding her head she shifts so she can wrap one of her arms around his, to lead him down the road so they aren't standing in the middle of everything. ]

We should go back to my apartment, it's quieter there. There are other people from home here... Hux and Kylo Ren. There's also a Chiss named Zohvin, though he isn't from the same time as we are.

[ Isn't from the same time... Yeah, he's familiar with that. Finn grimaces when she mentions Kylo and Hux, a protective nature coming over him that he probably shouldn't pursue. She'd been here for seven months. Rey knew the situation better than he did. ]

I'm sorry I wasn't here sooner. [ But that held way too much meaning, so he skipped over it. ] Any of them caused you problems? And Zohvin, what time is he from?

A long time ago, I think? Height of the Old Republic.

[ She answers that because that's the easiest question to answer. ]

Hux has... tried. Kylo was difficult to deal with at first but we've... sort of reached an understanding.

[ And she'll elaborate on that slowly because she doesn't want to give Finn a heart attack. ]

[ His heart sinks at the answer despite knowing full well that there could be no relation between him and-... and Maul. The "Height of the Old Republic" lasted a long time, and he still believed that Maul really had arrived in Vaikuntha from a short time after the Empire rose to power.

Despite logic, his dread is still there and makes him quiet for a second. He'll just have to talk to him later for himself, get a read on him.

Eventually: ] Good. I mean, I know you can more than handle yourself. It's just... being alone with those two walking around couldn't have been fun.

Hux I only ran into recently. Kylo's been here as long as I have. He's been... less terrible than you might think.

[ Yes this is clearly the right way to approach telling your ex-stormtrooper friend that you've been fraternizing with the enemy. ]

[ His brow furrowed before he raised an eyebrow at her. ] That's possible?

[ To be fair, he didn't know Kylo Ren, not really. He did feel like he was in more of a position to understand him, though.

But understanding and tolerating were two totally different things. THAT SAID- ] I guess that's... a good thing. It's definitely not a bad thing. [ Unless he was trying to trick her, but Finn didn't peg him for the long con type. ]

It's possible.

[ She sighs, before nodding her head along with what he's saying, chewing on her bottom lip as she does. ]

He was tortured most of his time with the First Order. Snoke... Snoke has been in his mind since he was a child. He made some bad choices, but he's coming to terms with them. Trying to be better. At least a little.

[ Hm. Finn grimaces a little and looks away but doesn't unhook their arms. ]

That doesn't change the things he's done.

[ Torturing Poe, killing Han, hurting him. Maybe it was true, and Kylo really was trying to be better.

So was Finn. That didn't change the things he'd done either... And that thought more than anything proved that he needed to tell her. Preferably sooner rather than later.

How do you start that kind of conversation, though? ... Maybe later was best. This wasn't about him, anyway. ]

It doesn't.

[ Rey agrees, fully believing that. Nothing in their past could change, no matter how much they might want it to. She presses her lips together, tilting her head to the side as she looks over at Finn. ]

But the Resistance has given second chances to worse people.

[ Have they?

Actually... those old stories about Vader come to mind. ]

Some people don't deserve them. [ He looks to her, eyes hard and lips thin. But... he just as quickly looks away. ] If you think he does, though... I'm not one to question it. I trust your judgment, Rey.

[ Didn't trust Kylo, though, but he figured that wouldn't be expected. Or at least hoped it wasn't. ]

[ Just the simple fact that he trusts her judgement is heartwarming to her, because she'd been worried. If she'd had to pick between Ben or Finn, she didn't think she possibly could. Leaning in so she can give him half a hug she smiles. ]

That means so much to me. You don't need to like him, he's an ass when he wants to be. I just needed you to know. He and I... Spend a lot of time together.

[ Finn didn't plan on liking him. The only reason he didn't want to confront him about the past was because of Rey and those seven months. A lot can change a person in an hour. Who is he to claim that Kylo's the same monster Finn always believed him to be?

But old habits were going to die very, very hard.

He twisted away from that line of thought by latching on to her last sentence, his eyes darting back to Rey again. ]

... How much time?

[ Despite himself, he was already kind of expecting this ever since Kylo was brought up. Hearing it was going to be a totally different thing, but... he could hold himself together. Sure.

He trusted Rey. ]

[ She can't fight the color that rises to her face, not ashamed but somehow embarrassed. Defining what she and Ben were, exactly, was a task not easily accomplished in simple terms, but that's exactly what she needs to boil it down to. ]

We're dating. For about a month now.

[ Finn stops walking.

He'd been... more or less expecting it. Really, he expected to just go all the way around the subject without ever actually getting a clear definition. That would have been better.

He wants to bring up Solo, be cruel and just say exactly what's on his mind, but he wasn't the only one that took his death hard. Rey has to remember it, too. She has to. He trusts her. People change. He trusts her.

People change... Or is Kylo not the one that changed? ]

Dating. [ Blunt, sharp, and he lets it hang there for a beat. ] I have no idea what you expect me to say.

[ Rey pulls up short when Finn stops, and she turns to look at him, chewing on the inside of her lip. She hadn't known what to expect, what kind of reaction he might have to that news. She didn't think it'd be good, she never expected him to understand without a lot of time. But she also needed him to know upfront, because she'd promised Ben she would never be ashamed of their relationship.

And she's not. That emboldens her a little, her shoulders squaring as she shakes her head. ]

I don't know. I just needed you to hear it from me, so you didn't hear it from someone else.

[ Well, at least that makes sense.

But this isn't really about Solo or Poe or any sort of desire for revenge. It's not about the war or even himself. It's about his experiences and how he'd trusted the wrong people again and again and again. He can't let that happen to Rey. She can't go through the things he had.

That was why he went through them, so Rey and Poe and all of his loved ones didn't have to.

Even though his trust in Kylo Ren is beyond the realm of nonexistent, Finn already knows he's not the best judge of character. He's not Rey, he can't feel the Force, he couldn't have been certain of anything from the start.

So, just from that alone, he has to trust her. Seven months, after all. ]

... Does he make you happy?

8D!!!

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finn slowly discovering reylo is my everything

oh my God you're the Finn I've been waiting for my whole life

just pls know he'd somehow be less angry if taken straight from canon lol

i could see this but this is also good yes

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