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.

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As soon as they're both naked, Yanyou climbs into the water with an eagerness that suggests he's only barely repressing the urge to cannonball into the bath. Water is his natural element, and he can certainly show off if it comes to that, but he tries not to show off his higher-level powers if he can avoid it. He's traveled among humans for millennia and he finds it draws less attention if he pretends to be an ordinary human or a skilled cultivator. Nothing more.

Though he does like showing off.

Sliding into Gu Yun's lap, Yanyou straddles him without shame. Cupping a hand on either side of his jaw, he tilts his lover's head up and claims a kiss. Confident and playful, he slides his tongue out almost immediately, licking across Gu Yun's lips to request access.

Gu Yun likes to do things step by step: when the moon rises in the sky and the clouds drift by, with spring breezes fragrant with night flowers, everything is in its proper time and place. Chatting amiably in the tub, sharing a massage, entwining their hands and then their bodies, slowly and deliberately enjoying each exquisite course of this grand banquet, this is how he'd planned to spend the afternoon.

Even if he were called and had to leave abruptly in the middle, won't that just whet their appetite for later?

Since arriving here, however, he's become very well acquainted with people (in particular, one person) who prefer to wolf everything down at once. Well, even though he's now used to it, that doesn't mean he won't stiffen when he's grabbed like that, or set his jaw in response to that eager tongue.

....and then the moonlacing sets in, setting fire to his senses. His lips relax, and he melts into the kiss, lifting his arms to embrace the man and pull him close.

Some time later, when he comes up for air, his mind is mostly scrambled, as moonlacing affects him deeply. Still, with someone new to this place, he feels compelled to gasp, "Moonlacing... it's powerful. Makes you do things you might not otherwise." At that moment, Yanyou's neck seems utterly irresistible, so he tilts his head to kiss it while also murmuring, "Consider if this is something you'd do, without this... sensation."

Yanyou notices the tension, and he's about to stop when suddenly Gu Yun pulls him close and returns the kiss. Happy to be kissing a beautiful man, Yanyou kisses him deeply, slow and languid but also completely shameless.

When the kiss breaks, he grins, nuzzling gently at his partner as Gu Yun kisses his neck. But the words concern him a little and he blinks, studying Gu Yun more carefully. "Kiss a beautiful man in a bath? Yes. Absolutely. Eagerly." The moonlacing is very nice, but it does nothing to increase Yanyou's eagerness. He has plenty of that all on his own. "Would you... not? Did I pressure you?"

Yanyou's aware that he's shameless and demanding, constantly pushing the boundaries of what he's allowed, but the comfort of his partners matters deeply to him.

He chuckles gently, reaching up to touch Yanyou's cheek with his dripping wet hand. Typically his fingers are as cold as iron, but now they've been warmed by the water, and even steam faintly in the air.

"Back home I am running about from dawn to night, no time to kiss people, must sleep in my armor, truly impossible to laze in a bath. Here, in a place like this, naturally I will play."

He retracts his hand, reaching down to massage the man's waist. Yanyou's eagerness and frankness are a good sign, he thinks. Gu Yun recalls his first experience in Lunatia with some degree of regret: under the influence of moonlacing, his partner had been quick to embrace him physically, but in the end the man had a too-sentimental heart, longing for an emotional connection that was, in the end, impossible. From what little he can glean of the man, Yanyou doesn't seem that type. Still, to make sure, Gu Yun adds, "Whatever sweet things you wish to hear, I will say them."

Sweet nothings, fleeting like an afternoon.

Yanyou certainly isn't that type. He dreads emotional connection and severs it whenever he can. He wants nothing serious in his life, only pleasure and freedom. An afternoon like this is ideal. A new acquaintance, a new experience, shared pleasure.

"I don't need to hear sweet things. Fun is better. Tell me what crosses your mind, or what whims you have, or how very, very handsome you find me."

Yanyou leans forward to tug at Gu Yun's earlobe, tongue flicking wickedly across the skin. He kisses down from there, nipping lightly at his shoulder. "Whatever wicked things you wish to do with me or to me, I welcome them."

That's more like it. After that particular gentleman went public on the network with his regrets, Gu Yun has been more careful to sound out prospective partners in this way.

"Ha...haha!" He's speechless for a moment, under the attentions of that cunning tongue, lips parting and his chuckles coming in short gasps. But after a moment, he masters himself, murmuring breathlessly, "Mm, such a peerless beauty..." Sliding his hands from the man's waist to his ass, gently massaging, he adds, "I'd compare you to the moon, but silverly beams of moonlight are cold and cannot be clasped to the heart..."

Changing his tone, he adds with a grin, "Is that good enough for flattery? Oh — as for wicked things, I'll save those for my enemies. Tell me what your whims are."

"I am cold, too, but you have done such a good job of warming me up." Yanyou rocks his hips into the touch, grinning with pleasure at the flattery and teasing.

Resting his arms on Gu Yun's shoulders, Yanyou considers him with a relaxed smile as he ponders things he might want to do here and now. "I have many, many whims, and I always like trying new things." His capacity for transformation certainly opens up options, and he's been around for centuries so he has absolutely tried an alarming array of things. "But the old classics are very good, too. Simple pleasures never lose their charm." Even when you're a 4000 year old kinky snake immortal.

"Would you be interested in pinning me down?" Yanyou grins. He loves a bit of manhandling.

His peach-blossom eyes narrow, ever so slightly. Part of him suspects a feint. Hadn't Chang Geng whispered, let me serve you, before overturning his boat in the pond? Certainly this man has behaved without any reservations whatever, which means he's either excessively naive and trusting, or he has great confidence in his own strength. Judging from his own experience, Gu Yun suspects the latter. That trick he'd seen, where Yanyou had vanished the lamp into his sleeve: he'd done that thoughtlessly. What else is he capable of, particularly with a nice infusion of chroma?

All of these thoughts take place in a breath of time, and he swiftly answers, "As for that, it's no problem." He reaches up, to gather Yanyou's hair, wet from water and steam, in his hand and pull it gently backwards, to expose the man's throat. He leans in, to press a lingering kiss against Yanyou's pulse point, murmuring, "Tell me what you like about that? Being pinned down, I mean."

Yanyou makes a soft keening noise as his head is tipped back like that, gentle but commanding, and his cock gives an interested throb. He yields easily, making a rumbling sound of pleasure at the back of his throat at that kiss, and tips his head a little further to give Gu Yun the best possible access.

"What's not to like?" he murmurs, pleasantly dazed at these lovely little displays of dominance. The question flits against a submerged sense of panic in him. He hates self-reflection, and having to answer a question like that risks making him look a little too closely at traits that he tries very desperately to pretend like he doesn't have. "Being handled by strong, handsome men is fun."

Gu Yun kisses his way around Yanyou's neck, ending at the hollow between the man's collarbones. "No fear of mishandling?" he asks, releasing the dark hair in his grip. "Or is that part of the fun?"

Gu Yun is certainly well aware that some people like this sort of thing. A life, he supposes, that is devoid of real danger makes the prospect of it exciting. Thus it's not so surprising that this Yanyou, this young master type, his body devoid of any scars, would be delighted by this.

If his own country finds its way towards a lasting peace, he wonders, will this sort of play become more popular?

With these thoughts in his mind, he looks up, takes a breath, and draws Yanyou into a deep kiss once more, arms wound about the man's shoulders — and then leans over abruptly, pushing the both of them underwater. You want a little scare, he'll give you one.

"No fear of mishandling," Yanyou confirms. Unless he has sharply miscalculated, Gu Yun is no immortal. Even if he is, Yanyou has been mishandled by immortals before. He generally tries to stay on the good side of any immortal so that they don't have much inclination to torment him, but these things are all fleeting. He doubts Gu Yun could do anything to him that he would find frightening, since he can at any moment turn into pure energy and fly away in a cloud of green wisps.

He doesn't even tense as he's suddenly dipped underwater. He makes a rumbling noise in his throat, bubbles escaping from him, and returns the deep, heated kiss.

He is a water immortal by nature. Though his human form has no gills, he can go a decade without a breath. Kissing underwater is a delight to him, and he enjoys it for as long as he can, knowing that the human will eventually need to breathe again.

He'd expected some struggling, after which he'd have released the man at once. That Yanyou doesn't struggle at all is confusing at first, and then distinctly troubling. He is, in truth, a stranger to the man; such blind trust makes no sense at all. If that trust comes from confidence in his own abilities, that kind of thinking is potentially dangerous in a place like Prismatica, where people come from all sorts of different places, with different powers. Worse than that, however, is the possibility that...

Gu Yun himself has spent most of his life in the northwestern desert of the central plains, eating golden sand. He has no particular affinity for water or talent for holding his breath, so after a while, he reaches one arm beneath the man's knees, and another behind his back, and stands up, lifting them both above the surface of the water. Gu Yun's loose hair is in disarray, one wet lock stuck diagonally across his face, and the rest scattered across his shoulders and chest.

"If mishandling is what you want," he says, once he's caught his breath, "then you've found the wrong person."

The possibility that concerns Gu Yun is that this man isn't looking for a little scare; it's that he might actually want to be actually hurt. That kind of masochism, he is familiar with as a concept, but it disturbs him deeply. A person under his care ought to be protected.

Yanyou is happy to be picked up, looping his arms around Gu Yun's neck and beaming. But for some reason his partner seems flustered, perhaps even unhappy. Blinking in confusion, Yanyou tips his head to one side. "Mishandling can be fun," he agrees. Yanyou has lived for thousands of years. He has tried every vice the world contains, and has enjoyed most of them, though his tastes in that matter are somewhat mild and focused around a specific person (not that Yanyou would ever admit to having such a fixation, including to himself). "But pleasure is much nicer."

It simply fails to occur to him that being ducked under the water might have been meant to spook him. Yanyou is usually pretty good at remembering to ensure that his human companions can breathe, but he's not so good at being undercover as he'd like to think, and he forgets that humans might notice his ease with being submerged. "This kind of handling is perfect. So strong!"

Now Gu Yun has the unpleasant sensation that this man is simply saying whatever he thinks the other wants to hear. This kind of ready, shameless agreeability and flattery: Yanyou sounds like a slave or a courtesan—or a minister sitting like a spider in the middle of court politics, pulling on strings in the shadows, but always presenting a smiling face in public.

...

Or... perhaps he's just overthinking things. Managing to ruin a springtime afternoon with bad memories of a faraway home, isn't that something worthy of mockery? He smiles to himself and to Yanyou, and sets the man sitting upright on the wooden planked border of the hot spring. Still standing in the water, Gu Yun reaches for one of Yanyou's feet, and bends to press lazy kisses to the inside of the man's ankle and lower leg.

"You said you were a traveling musician," he asks, in the tone of voice one might use to make small talk. "Tell me about some of the places you've been."

His new friend seems so lost in thought! Yanyou doesn't understand it. He's swapping from one thing to another so quickly, like he's trying to find the right approach but that Yanyou's responses are wrong each time. It is puzzling, but Yanyou doesn't like to dwell on such things. Best to just assume everyone has good intentions and to move on without worrying too much!

"I have traveled for many years," he says cheerfully, starting to talk about the region he was in before coming to Prisma. He's an engaging storyteller, talking about countryside and inns, food eaten, people flirted with, some trouble he got into by flirting with the wrong innkeeper's daughter. He can go on for hours if allowed, providing cheerful nonsense to fill the silence.

As Gu Yun kisses, Yanyou leans back to watch him, eyes warm with approval. He doesn't touch or interfere, but his eyes communicate his pleasure quite clearly.

As he listens and kisses, Gu Yun wonders: perhaps the man really does come from a peaceful place, where all he has to fear is the fallout from his various pecadilloes. A life lived solely for the sake of amusement, how pleasant that seems. Or else... is this carefree persona something that's been carefully crafted, on purpose to disarm and distract?

But the more he kisses his way up the man's inner thigh, the less that seems to matter, as the moonlacing effect threads its way through his lips and his skin and his mind, numbing it and also setting it on fire. Soon enough, with a little sigh of pleasure, he looks up, meeting Yanyou's eyes. He parts his lips, about to take the man's cock into his mouth....

"Mm, enticing an officer of the law, there's a penalty for that," he says smoothly, drawing away just then and leaping up out of the tub, streaming steaming water. He leans over, plucking something out of his clothes, and then turns to lift up Yanyou, on purpose to heave the man over his shoulder. Well, hadn't his new friend wanted to get pinned down? And doesn't Gu Yun have exactly the equipment for that, in the form of standard-issue, regulation pink furry handcuffs?

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▶ TDM .013

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