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

▶ Arrival

[ Aliens? Traveling to other planets? None of that is exactly unusual where Tsukuyo comes from. What is unusual is everyone's attitude that this is a seemingly permanent situation that she has found herself in. She can't be trapped here - she has people that she needs to get back to.

Picking herself an apartment is pretty much the last thing on Tsukuyo's mind right now and she has little interest in joining any initial scrabble to pick out whatever the others are perceiving as the best units. She'll take whatever is left at the end of it all.

Standing in the hallway and smoking a pipe might be discouraged but it's been a day. She's definitely not addicted... It's just a stressful situation... ]

▶ Starlight, Star Bright, First Star I See Tonight

[ Well this isn't going to be awkward at all.

Tsukuyo had taken a star lantern, but with absolutely zero intention of actually approaching some stranger and asking for assistance in getting the damn thing lit.

She's lived in darkness before, she can definitely do it again. Yep... No problems here. Except anyone who approaches her in the darkness is currently running the rapidly increasing risk of being stabbed in several places. Disregarding the fact that she's a little depleted in the kunai department right now - she'll just need to be very accurate with her aim! ]

▶ Wildcard

[ Whatever you want! ]

_{[ Nothing like sulking about the shadows and being incredibly suspicious to put your protagonist title at a questionable state. Gintoki had either bypassed a lantern or given it to someone without one. Either way, he had the same thoughts and people in mind— he didn't need a lantern if a child or woman needed one. Needless to say, it would have been handy since he's doing his typical routine of jumping into the fray whenever danger was afoot.

The heightened amount of crime cause him to act on his vigilante ways. Tsukuyo may hear some commotion right around the corner— the familiar clamor of a bokken hitting the ground.

And then, well, a Prismal is shoved rght into Tsukuyo's path right before he scurries off. Maybe check down that even darker alley? And maybe keep yourself armed.

Permission to accidentally stab/kick/punch is granted if that is something she might opt to do. After all, it's their trademark when crossing paths. ]}

[ Tsukuyo hadn't exactly heeded the guidelines when they'd advised to come this way alone - dealing with criminals and undesirables isn't exactly something that's strange to her. Speaking of undesirables....

The commotion instantly has her on guard and poised for whatever the hell is around that corner, kunai drawn. The clamour of the bokken hitting the ground is definitely a familiar sound but given her current predicament she's not going to automatically associate that sound with the person she normally would.

The sudden appearance of the Prismal almost colliding with her is a surprise but- innocent or not- clearly he's the one running away from whoever or whatever is lurking down that alleyway. The star lantern is still floating uselessly at her side. Clearly she can't rely on her eyes in this scenario, just the sound of movement in the gloom. She listens, carefully... and then...

Yep, that's the sound of one of her kunai embedding itself in something fleshy! Just the one though, I mean, she didn't necessarily want to kill whatever despicable, shitty, potentially pervy lowlife might be lurking up ahead... ]

_{[ Gintoki should know better than to be just as suspicious as some of the people with ill intent that are lurking around here, but alas, he is here, fitting in the same category of wandering old man.

There's a faint light and he can see someone down the alley way. It's obviously a woman figure by the curve of her hips.. the curve of her-- wait, something about this figure seems familiar..!!

Gintoki squints, but before he can really react, a kunai gets him right in the head! Anyway, he's the main character, so if course it doesn't cause him harm. Just some hilarity. ]}

Kghgkghhh, J*net Jackson is that you..!?

_{[ WHY HER OF ALL PEOPLE?? Anyway, he does fall down flat with a thud. ]}

[ She clearly doesn't know it's him just yet as she moves closer. She'd seen the vague shape in the darkness of someone collapsing to the ground and that's good enough, although she's still on her guard and more than prepared to further stab/kick/stamp on whoever this creep is if he tries to get up again. ]

Ya think you can just skulk around in the shadows, ya lowlife? Obviously some kinda perv.

[ They have special treatment for people like that where she comes from...... ]

[ Hold the hell up.

She knows that damn voice. She immediately rushes closer to take a look. ]

...Gin-Gintoki? [ Well shit.

There's her kunai nicely embedded in his head and he's bleeding quite a bit and wow she feels kind of bad. ]

[ Except no she fucking doesn't because this happens all the time (and even if she did feel bad it only lasts a second ok) and he's talking complete shit already. ]

Idiot! [ Yanking the kunai out now! ]

What the hell are ya doin' down here stalkin' people in the dark?! And what would J*net Jackson be doin' attackin' some sicko in an alleyway?? She's busy workin' on a new album! [ Yes, it's still a sicko even though she now knows it's Gintoki. ]

_{[ It does hurt. But.. Gintoki really doesn't mind. Even with his head throbbing and bleeding, something about it seems.. dare he say.. nostalgic at this point.

God, he missed the useless violence like this.

He slowly sits up, cradling his own head and slowly peering up at Tsukuyo. It's just.. so good to see her. He's not one to admit it off the bat, but it's true. ]}

At least I'm not stabbing people in the dark.

_{[ Oh. Does he actually have a point? ]}

Edited 2020-03-21 16:07 (UTC)

[ And Tsukuyo's not going to admit that right now either, even though basically everyone knows that she's always happy to see him at this point... Anyway, for her, it hasn't been that long at all since she last saw him.

And yes he does have a point. ]

What d'ya expect being incredibly suspicious like that?

[ She sighs, not quite sure whether she should offer him something to staunch the bleeding somewhat. She can't even get the stupid lantern to work to see him better. ] What were you doin' down here?

_{[ His usual deadpan stare fixates on his face as he enjoys the view of her where he's at. No, he's not subtle at all, but it's fine. It's mostly cause he's surprised she's here.

Honestly. Gintoki can't help but feel his lips quirk upwards in a smile as he stands to his feet, hands brushing down his yukata to dust it off. ]}

I didn't expect a kunai of all things to be thrown at me. Nobody here does that. Aa, but I do remember someone back at my home who used to do it quite a bit. What are you? A mirage? Am I just seeing things?

_{[ Gintoki leans in slightly, absolutely messing with her. ]}

Could it possibly be? The assertive and confident blonde I remember?

Yamanaka Ino..!?

_{[ HE'S REALLY JUST MESSING WITH HER. ]}

[ OH SHE SEES YOU LOOKING BUD, HER FACE IS HERE.

And would a mirage do this-- Just kidding, no more violence, for now. Just so much staring at his theatrics. She knows he's messing, but sigh. ]

Don't confuse me with someone else so quickly. [ I mean you know, her eyes actually have pupils for a start. PLUS: ] Ya were just in Yoshiwara right before I got here.

Huh? Was I?

_{[ One of the more recent events he remembers.. well, he's rather not remember right now. ]}

I can't recall. Only lecherous men go to Yoshiwara. I don't know why you'd think I'd be there lately.

_{[ This joke is.. he's insinuating he isn't that. Look, Gin thinks his own jokes are funny. ]}

DJ Kaori.

[ REMEMBER. And let's just forget all the embarrassing shit she did leading up to that point. SPEAKING OF, is now a bad time to light up, because she's doing that. Because it's been more than 15 minutes since she last did. ~~Not addicted~~. ]

S'pose ya must have just lost your way when you keep showin' up there so often then.

Tsukuyo ▶ Gintama

someone told me a queen was on this tdm... but alas, it's just drunk terminator.. starlight prompt

oh is that a burned field on the horizon :I

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1/3 I think?? idk yet??

2/4 I LIED

3/4

DONE

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1/2

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Arrival

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