prismaticrap | ▶ TDM .013

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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.

▶ Welcome to the Jungle
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.

▶ Let’s Do the Time Warp Now
Lunatia | top

Time is relative, but the days do seem shorter — or longer — than usual. A minute passes like an hour. An hour passes like a minute. Everything appears to be moving along as normal, but the numbers and hands on clocks flicker and spin with an unusual and worrying slowness or quickness. Eventually you notice that the darkness of the night barely lasts long enough for you to fall asleep while the sun seems to glare down upon you for an eternity. The temporal shifts disorient your body, which now grows lethargic from being overworked and underslept. Soon, the temporal abnormalities reach a critical point…

B Due to the temporal distortions, Prismals and Moonblessed new and old feel their bodies sporadically transform in the strangest of ways. Your joints ache like they’ve carried a lifetime’s weight of misfortune and regret. Your voice turns high-pitched like a certain pair has yet to drop. You turn into a confused infant in one moment and the seasoned fighter you always wanted to be in the next. Your memories also shuffle around along with your apparent age, leaving you confused and unsettled. The transformations can occur and last for as long as the 11th, when everything turns back to normal without incident. That time your baby self peed in your pants? Never happened. Until then, moonlacing seems to stabilize the weird abnormalities.

▶ Starlight, Star Bright, First Star I See Tonight
Lunatia | top

The city’s landscape is not spared by the erratic flow of time. Buildings and streets continuously flicker between the beautiful and vibrant paradise it has become to the ruins of glory days long past. Your eyes may struggle to adjust as you try and convince yourself of what is real and what is not. High rise towers one moment will become wreckage the next, filled with technological debris and the echoing cries of the terrified, and the mighty wingspan of an unknown creature continues to hovers in the distance. The illusion will only last but a minute before you’re back in the present, going about your daily business. However, your trip from the future and back is far from over.

Soon, breaking news reports will inform the city about the sudden vanishing of certain celestial bodies in the sky. Though the moons remain where they should, the nights grow longer and darker as the stars in the sky start disappearing one by one until only the sun remains, eclipsed by some mysterious force. Lunar Scientia has already sent capable teams to investigate the abnormalities, so they ask the public to be patient as they wait for the reports. Until then, they have issued safety guidelines and measures to effectively light the city. The Caelus Tower appears to burn brighter than ever.

C For these dark hours, Lunar Scientia releases their latest Chroma-powered technology for Moonblessed use: star lanterns. When a star lantern is held by two Moonblessed, it absorbs newly generated Chroma from them, enabling it to light up the missing stars in the sky as you travel from place to place. The light’s color and intensity will depend on you and your partner’s bond, the spectrum ranging from a violet of hatred to a red full of love. Indifference, however, will not light the lantern at all. It also comes with a float function so that it can be released into the atmosphere without needing to carry it everywhere. Since the technology is limited in stock, Moonblessed may only have one star lantern in their possession.

One of the issued guidelines is to never walk through dark alleys alone even with the lanterns, as the crime rate has increased lately due to those taking advantage of the chaos. This is especially rampant in Level 3, at the mouth of the Lightless.

▶ Oh, They Just Can’t Wait to be King
Outside Lunatia, Port Sylvel | top

On the ides of the third month, an emergency broadcast appears from Captain Natela:

Captain Natela

Greetings, Prismals and Moonblessed.

It is with a heavy heart that I announce that Port Sylvel has been completely crystallized. The Moon Knights are currently recruiting willing explorers and scientists to investigate the cause. Investigations are still pending, but the outlook is grim. The only survivors were among the few we carried out of the city last month. The rest perished from the crystallization.

Our heart goes out to those affected by this plight. There is no cause for panic. There is no sign that the crystallization is spreading beyond Port Sylvel. We Moon Knights stand with the people of Prismatica, as we have done for centuries. We are not mere defenders of a city but protectors of a planet. We endeavor to find the cause of this tragedy and bring peace and justice to the lives it claimed. Until then, we ask for your cooperation. Stay calm and press onward.

Those who volunteer to participate in the expedition will be rewarded for their efforts. They will be assisted by experts from the Lunar Scientia as well as the bear Prismal and Moon Knight Fahrouk, who looks worse for wear after hearing the news.

Officer Fahrouk

Oh, Moonblessed. It's you. Yeah, Hala is doing good. Won the spelling bee! I think she might make the nationals. ... I… I don't think I ever told you. Port Sylvel was our hometown. My wife is buried there. We’d go there every spring. Hala loved picking the flowers there. Did you know that different flowers grow in Port Sylvel compared to Lunatia? Haaaah...

Moonblessed! I know you think I'm not cool enough to hang out with you, and all I do is ask for your help, but please let me go with you! Please… This is something I have to do as a soldier, a husband, and a father.

… What? You always thought I was cool?

Finding strength and resolve after the participants tell him he's supposed to assist them on their mission anyway, Fahrouk distributes LIFE suits to the participants as he briefs them on what they're about to do. He and the participating Moonblessed will then be transported via a large transport vessel.

Port Sylvel is hardly recognizable. What was once an idyllic coastal town is now a site of tragic beauty — crystal formations encase buildings and Prismals like jagged glass coffins, as if preserving life in its final moments. Readings from life detectors tell you that everyone in the crystal has passed on, but you and your fellow Moonblessed think you can still hear their cries of distress carried along by the wind, warning you about the Prideful King.

D Gigantic crystal lions flank the passage of the port city, their wings spread open and blue flames pouring forth from their mouths. You hear rumbling guttural noises, and if you approach them, their roars will escalate to warn you about proceeding any further. Beware: a single bite from these lions can easily tear through the LIFE suit and cause your body to crystallize quickly unless someone rushes in to moonlace with you to halt the effect. These lions are unlike the beasts you’ve fought before: their otherworldly strength is overwhelming, and nothing seems to wear them down. Destroying them seems pointless, as they quickly regenerate the minute they are obliterated.

Eventually, transmissions from the LIFE suits announce an order for escape. Buildings collapse and shatter in your wake, and the ground quakes violently as something awakens in the far distance...

▶ questions

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

WHO CAN POST? ▶ Test drive memes are for new characters only. Existing players may not post starter threads in the test drime meme. 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.!

IS THIS CANON? ▶ 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.

ANNIVERSARY ▶ Happy first anniversary, Prismatica! Thank you to all of you who have been with us since the beginning. We appreciate it immensely! Remember that we always welcome input and suggestions from players. This event is a little out of the ordinary because of our anniversary celebration.

OPT IN AND OUT ▶ For current players, please do not be alarmed! As always, you do not have to be affected as there are safe areas across Lunatia that remain as is.

AGING UP AND DOWN ▶ You have free reign over how long and how many times your character will be affected. If a character doesn’t have a canon appearance from the past or future, you are welcome to provide one of your own from imagination and use your own PB. You are allowed to speculate on how they’ll look, act, their potential future, and so on. All of these will be temporary to this event. The intensity of the effect is also up to you: whether it will only affect appearance alone and retain their current memories.

IMPORTANT ▶ As a reminder, writing sexual content with characters below 15 years old is a violation of the game's rules and potentially Dreamwidth’s ToS. Players caught doing this will be banned from the game.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

⁑ LET’S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN

[ In place of the statuesque Re-L Mayer that Lunatia may be used to, there is now a younger version in her place. Her pale, cherubic face lacks that very distinct blue eye shadow, but she’s dressed in a make-shift black dress, altered presumably by a very beleaguered Iggy who is typically close behind his now very young and spirited charge. ]

a. [ Next up for notice is that this young Re-L is emotive. She laughs in teasing glee as Iggy chases after her, stressed as he shouts after her. Re-L seems to take this all as a great game, however, dodging in to the new little spaces she can fit between and through, laughing with glee as that curtain of dark hair flies behind her.

Eventually she’ll make a wrong turn and come in crashing to another person, whether it’s their back or legs or… who knows what.

Familiar with her or not, this small Re-L is still authoritative as ever, chirping out an affronted : ]

Watch where you’re going! You’re in my way!

b. [ … Or in another scenario, Re-L’s managed to lose Iggy somewhere in the crowd, her hands crossed to clasp behind her back as she observes a food stand and the people around it. Her eyes are wise, and catch everyone as they pass her by. In a way, she’s waiting for the most opportune prey that she might be able to convince to do something for her, as there’s something that’s caught her eye.

Once she decides on someone she’ll walk up to them, very casual, hands still clasped behind her back to offer a cheery greeting. ] Hello.

[ Her head tips slightly, dark hair following the movement of her head. ] I need your help with something.

c. [ In the spirit of echoing things that have come to pass, Re-L is just as attentive toward interesting pieces of clothing as she is in shining baubles. A bit like a magpie interested in its next bit to collect, Re-L will approach strangers as confidently as ever, though with a shining interest and mischief behind blue eyes as she moves to touch or grab at jewelry or clothing she finds particularly interesting, stating in wonderment. ]

This is very pretty…

Is it a treasure?

⁂ OH THEY JUST CAN’T WAIT TO BE KING

[ Re-L, at her regular height and all, if of course willing to volunteer to go and explore the newly crystallized Port Sylvel. Inside her LIFE suit, Re-L observes the newly crystallized town, occasionally reaching out as if to see if things were as sharp as they appeared, or to see if the state of the crystal may begin to change.

Of course it does not, and soon she’s left to frown as she takes in the frozen Prismals around her, murmuring more to herself than anyone else with a sense of almost dread. ]

This is like Ophelia, almost. Is something… collecting Prismals, maybe?

[ It doesn’t seem likely, but the moans and screams on the wind remind her a bit too keenly of deserted domes and everything left behind in them. Steel can groan and cry in a way that sounds strangely human, and it raises the hair on the back of her neck.

She turns then to the nearest person : ]

Let’s keep moving.

✦ OBLIGATORY WILD CARD

[ Because of course! Want to play anything with Re-L that I haven't’ prompted here? Hell yeah, let’s do it. Just hit me up with a prompt, or touch base with me here or on plurk at goblinrex! ]

[The crowds are overwhelming. For all the time he has spent out of the reach of society, to be plunged back into it is a cold shock. More than that, he is not recognized by a single individual, though this is due in part to the change in his clothing - there is no branded mark around his brow, nor red-and-black cloak around his shoulders. Enough to leave Itachi with a crawling sense of unease. As if he's somehow more visible this way than before.

The child finds him staring at the food stand blankly, and when she speaks to him, Itachi turns his chin down. For a moment he is certain she means one of other dozen strangers on the street.

When was the last time a child had so fearlessly approached him?]

... Hello. [Look, what else is he supposed to say.] Are you lost?

[ This child is a particular brand of both fearless and expectant - though, to be fair, she'd been raised in a kind of privilege that would be difficult to even explain to those who hadn't experienced it. At the moment, though, she doesn't really understand how this whole food thing works, and she's purposefully lost Iggy, so she's got to procure food somehow...

Which of course means approaching a man that most people wouldn't, because, well... why not? ]

No. [ She absolutely is, but that's not the point. ] I'm right where I need to be to get some food.

But... I don't know how to get it. So I need you to.

[ So she's decided to demand it from a taller person, basically. ]

[Just food, then? Itachi doesn't seem fazed by the strange request. And despite the oddity of a child unattended, he seems to take the answer in stride. Something in her bold determination is a little nostalgic, though he faces the food vendor instead of traveling down that track of thought.

Well, he was considering a meal for himself. He hasn't eaten in several hours. But the decision of what to choose evades him, as well as one other problem.]

Do you have a way to purchase this?

[Itachi can't recall the last time he'd confronted such a small concern as money. Surely this world used currency unlike his own, and he suspects it must have to do with the 'chroma' he's heard mentioned often... but he has yet to go through with any sort of transaction.

Or is she expecting he steal the food? He looks down again to the young girl, expectant.]

No.. [ She looks almost insulted at the question, honestly, as if he should've just fallen over himself to get her something to eat instead of inquiring if she had money. Of course, money was a thing in her world, but it had never been an issue she'd had to worry about. Of course, she does have Chroma but doesn't remember how to use it.

Station alone provided currency if you will. Suddenly, she regrets losing Iggy on purpose. He would know the answer. ]

You don't know how it works?

I don't.

[However, he has some suspicions. Perhaps if they observe the strangers on the street around them long enough, it'll become more clear.]

Is there no one else who can give you food?

[Itachi would make a horrible parent, he can't handle providing for himself, let alone a child.]

Iggy's around here.. somewhere... [ Probably in a bit of a robo panic at the fact that he can't find Re-L. This version of her doesn't really seem fussed to know she's causing her companion a great deal of stress trying to escape him so she can have her way with things at the moment.

She makes a little flick of her hand as if dismissing it, though. ]

But he'll suggest something else and I want this.

[Iggy. A guardian? And by context, it sounds as though she's either evaded or lost him elsewhere, thus taking charge of her own wants.

An interesting (if demanding) child. Itachi looks her over carefully, then returns his attention to the food stand, where an orderly line snakes around the sidewalk. He frowns.]

Wait over there.

[Pointing, Itachi indicates a spot further off out of the crowd.]

[ Demanding sort of begins to cover it, at least. She frowns as he tells her to wait over there, reaching to tuck a piece of dark hair behind her ear as she does so, as if this is preparing her to set her points in place. ]

Why can't I go with you? [ Well.. it's a good question, right? ] If I sit over there alone it's more likely Iggy will find me.

[ For now, she can blend in behind people that are taller than her. ]

[The lack of obedience isn't ideal, and Itachi finds himself looking down at her, momentarily at a loss. There's no denying the leaden weight of nostalgia in his gut now - that this is a song and dance he'd once performed many times as an older sibling, though perhaps the girl's personality is not wholly comparable to his younger brother.

Still.

He lets out a thin breath, then turns.] Fine. At least stay out of sight. [Resolve buckling... a thought occurs to him.] What do you want?

[Better not to go to any effort until she's chosen.]

[ Good. Re-L's pleased that he gives way to her wants so easily at least, humming as she rocks a little on her toes. Occasionally she scopes out the area near them, keeping her eyes peeled for Iggy, presumably, but so far she's not caught sight of the large autoreiv who's lingering somewhere around here.

Her latest scope of the area done, Re-L instead turns back to Itachi to state, rather matt-of-fact in her tone. ]

I've never had a hamburger so I'll take one of those.

[Itachi assesses the options available to them on the street, sight fallen at last on a vendor to the far end, conveniently one of the busiest. He chooses not to respond, though it isn't because he hasn't heard or taken her request in mind. Rather, Itachi needs his concentration for what he intends to do next.

Stealing or theft was never a necessary component of the Akatsuki, yet as a terrorist organization living on the fringes of society, it was not always possible to acquire their needs and resources through conventional (or legal) means. At the time he'd had little say in these decisions; he was not its leader, nor did he have any control how the organization was run. Morality can become skewed in the suffering light of criminality.

And beyond that, the vendor in question hardly endures for lack of business.

Itachi's eyes are bright red as he stands there, unmoving, seemingly unacting. Then a flash of black appears overhead: a large, winged crow flaps into view, and at lightning speed, snatches one of the wrapped hamburgers from the display before wheeling back up into the sky. It's a bizarre sight that leaves a few on the street wondering if they had imagined it.

He starts walking down the street, away from the food stand, gesturing for the girl to follow him. A moment later the bird lands on his shoulder with the paper-wrapped hamburger tucked neatly into its beak. This he takes, then offers down to her. Super casual.]

Edited 2020-03-10 19:13 (UTC)

[ Re-L watches with intent every little thing that this new, mysterious man is doing. Some may have been too threatened to approach, but a little girl who has known no fear and hardly the rod wouldn't blink an eye about it. And.. well... a girl guarded by a seven-foot robot with a personality that does not match his bulk would lead anyone to not blink an eye about approaching anyone. ]

Are you just going to stan- [ Re-L stops mid-sentence as the crow appears, little brows rising in surprise and wonder as she watches it. For a girl who's only ever seen butterflies in the form of holograms, this is all brand new and so wonderful she can barely contain herself.

It even inspires a burst of a laugh as the bird takes off, amused that the bird might be taking something for itself more than anything else. Though that childish wonder disappears into a frown as he turns and gestures for her to follow. She follows, but angrily. ]

You said you were going to get some food! Not watch a bird! [ A bird she wanted to see, okay, but that's not the point right now. Until that bird lands on his shoulder, and soon she's silenced by the wrapped food being deposited into her hands. She's silent for all of a few moments. ]

... What is that bird?

Re-L Mayer | Ergo Proxy

time warp, b.

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Time Warp- B

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