▶ TDM .003

[prismods]

Fear is never boring

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"The Raisins : Fear Is Never Boring" (Watch on YouTube)

▶ Tales from the Crypt
Moon Iris | top

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. Even the few shy moon creatures you find in the wild have strange crystal growths on their hides. This is far from home— perhaps a dream? You pinch your skin and slap your cheeks, yet nothing seems to do the trick. Searching for answers yields nothing but an endless expanse of purple dust as far as the eye can see. You have four options: one, panic; two, soil yourself; three, admire it all then soil yourself; or four, go into survival mode. Eventually, you’ll realize that you’re not alone.

After a day or two of living off the crystal wilderness, a group of people find you worse for wear. They are the gallant Moon Knights from the planet of Prismatica. After the strange phenomenon 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? Why did I eat those fifty cent street truck tacos last night? — 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.

While waiting for transport to be prepared, you may freely roam around the government center. Alternatively, you can ask the staff about the moon base. They suggest that you visit one of their excavation sites nearby: an enormous hole known as the Glory. The scientists have been excavating this site carefully for years, searching for a legendary ancient tomb sleeping within. They’re accepting volunteers if anyone is inclined to aid in their efforts. Perhaps the Moonblessed have the knowledge they need to make it a success!

A ⬤ A chroma-powered lift made of magically fortified crystal is used to access the lower grounds. Be careful not to fall off! On the way down, some translucent caterpillars and crystals light your way. Be quiet and keep an eye out for Queen Bowie beetles: these glowing neon bugs are attracted to music, and a single note will send them flying into your clothes and hair. Putting the beetles under pressure is not advised, as they will explode and send their sticky insides flying throughout the airspace, potentially stinging your eyes. This will make moving around in dark, cramped spaces all the more difficult! Thankfully, they get bored if no one tries to sing for one whole minute.

B ⬤ Scientists, engineers, miners, and archeologists are at the unearthed antechambers, hard at work. They will assign you to different tasks: recording observations and taking down notes, digging with advanced excavation tools, or collecting fragile relics with metal and crystal detectors. The Moonblessed may also assist with solving riddles the ancients left in the tomb’s doors, chests and walls. Solving them may lead to either treasure rooms or trap walls that close in on unsuspecting grave robbers. Others, well...

Golden jellyfish statues line the walls, encrusted with glistening jewels all over, some worse for wear. Tall pillars have numerous ancient runes which the Prismals are struggling to decipher. Soon, an eerie whisper reaches your mind: “Wander no further. A curse awaits all who enter our kingdom. Disturb not those who slumber in the deep.” True enough, the floor from this point onward appears to be blue sand combed in the pattern of ocean waves... Are you brave enough to continue drilling through?

C ⬤ If that is not enough to send you scrambling out with moist underwear, perhaps the seismic jolt to the ground will. A slimy substance begins to ooze out the tomb’s cracks, glowing lilac like the Iris moon... The Prismals are quick to usher everyone out before the shaking gets worse. As the lift may be too dangerous, climbing equipment will be provided. Watch out for falling debris or collapsing rocks while assisting each other out of cramped passages and up the walls to safety. Try not to get stuck in the slime!

This little adventure might leaving you wondering what or who exactly lies deeper inside, but the Prismals are just as clueless as you are. Cave-ins happen from time to time, but this might have been the strongest one recorded on this site.

Eventually you’re called to the docks and led onto a large transport vessel. Destination: Prismatica.




▶ Those Kicks were Fast as Lightning
Higher Lunatia, Level 1 | 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.

With the end of Harvest Boon, the city is calm once more. The streets of Level 1 and 2 are now sparkling clean as always, but Level 3 is still in the process of cleaning up. There are confetti and deflated balloons strewn all over the streets, but Swiffy bots are on the scene, sweeping up whatever waste they can get their hands on. Sometimes, they might even play tug-of-war with you for it. At one of the train stations, a Prismal doomsayer screams about the apocalypse returning. Passersby shrug at the conspiracy theory and move on.

A ⬤ In response to the unexpected rough events during Harvest Boon, the Moon Knights decided to hold free-for-all self-defense seminars at a large park near Lunatia Square. The live demonstrations include proper monster-wrangling procedures and how to efficiently keep a rogue moonheld (read: transformed under the moon) Prismal away. Participants are encouraged to learn and interact with each other to learn various safety practices and techniques. The training visors provided enhance the seminar experience, changing whoever your eyes focus on into a cerberus or other rogue moonheld Prismal on the visor’s display. Don’t use the visors for too long, or you’ll be seeing everyone as a cerberus well after you take the visors off! Fortunately, the effects only last for an hour. Energy drinks and free snacks are available to any worn-out Prismal or Moonblessed.

B ⬤ Virtual lunar conditions are also available via multiplayer VR pods in Lunar Scientia headquarters, simulating the Moonblessed/moonheld experience under full moons. Mental exercises and magic practice sessions are accessible in the virtual spaces, allowing people to test out their magical abilities and transformations. Simulation participants can either train by themselves, with a partner, or through a tutorial of instruction-based movements. However, the program is still in beta. You may experience errors or bugs like lagging, NPCs phasing into things they shouldn’t, weird physics, or body glitches.

▶ Meas Trees are the Bee’s Knees
Middle Lunatia, Level 2 | top

The rows of Meas trees planted this Harvest Boon are blossoming beautifully into view, painting the fields in Level 2 with colors of spring. Meas tree saplings each have a small sign next to them, displaying their owners’ written wish if they chose to disclose it. Interestingly, the color and aroma of each flower depends on the owners; fiery personalities might have red or orange flowers, those born in a coastal town might have flowers that smell like the sea near their hometown, and so on. Maybe you’ll encounter a familiar aroma if you’re lucky enough.

The Moonblessed who were most active with moonlacing the past few weeks have the largest trees, nearly rivaling the oldest Meas trees around. The older trees planted by Prismals over time can be seen in the next field, standing majestically with their swaying branches and flying petals.

A ⬤ Picnic grounds for flower viewings can be found near the fields. There are plenty of stalls selling homemade bruschettas, crostinis, sandwiches, wines, cheeses, and other enjoyable finger food. Notably, some wines may give you an insatiable desire to whisper things in someone’s ear. Sweet nothings, death threats, your secret kinks—no matter the words, you’ll want to kill someone softly with them.

B ⬤ The Swiffy bots that are assigned to the parks and gardens in Level 2 help keep things spick and span, but they’re due for maintenance and may attempt to sweep off any unfortunate picnics with their high-powered vacuums or leaf blowers. As they zoom across the paths, they chirrup about not treading on the grass and take off with picnic blankets, table cloths, and people’s clothes. Any nearby maintenance staff (who are all desperately trying to chase the bots) yell that a conk on the head will immobilize them. Once the malfunctioning bots are stopped, the staff approach to wheel them away while apologising profusely for the mayhem.

▶ Questions

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

Comments

[the_ghost]

Small and irresistible and kleptomaniacal. Yeah, that plan sounds like you. [She was using that! She hasn't exhausted the possibility that at some point being drunk will start to feel nice. Now they'll never know.

She sighs and smiles at Pluto's name, but not in a very happy way.]

If they played by her rules, they wouldn't stand a chance. That's the catch though, isn't it. The way Pluto fights isn't really fighting, even more than the rest of us. It's like she wants to help everyone, including the people like me who don't know what's good for them. I don't know if she's got the sheer, childish spite to keep up the other kind of battle for long. Not on her own.

[As opposed to LT and Saturn, who have enough of it between them to run an army.]

[spacemutant]

[ The night is still young, though. And Saturn also doesn't mind sharing… with the right person. ]

Listen, LT, theft and attraction are two different things. I only take stuff that's obviously made for me, and that's my prerogative. Otherwise, I can't really control what ends up in my orbit.

[ Not that she won't take advantage of it. Luna-Terra is also free to call bullshit. Anyway, the subject of Pluto is sobering, why did she bring it up. Maybe because it feels wrong in an abstract way that the two of them are here without her. ]

It's stupid, isn't it. She tries harder than all of them combined. Spite and Pluto don't mix, and if that's what she needs, then it's totally unfair.

[the_ghost]

Right. If people don't want to get swept up in your antics, all they have to do is nail themselves to the floor. It's not your fault everyone's so irresponsible.

[Turnabout is fair play and also they're way past the "indirect kissing" stage, both in whatever they have that passes for adulthood and whatever they have that passes for a relationship, so Luna-Terra pulls Saturn's hand--the one holding the glass--toward her face to steal a swig back.]

At least she should still have Mars, not that that brings down their sentimentality quotient. But of course it's unfair, that's the point. We spent twelve years reinventing war from the ground up, while Earth just kept practicing the basics, like killing all of your enemies really fast because you hate them.

[spacemutant]

Now you get it. It's all on them for drifting near me in the first place.

[ Saturn feels a tingle at the tip of her fingers when Luna-Terra's hand ends up over hers, and she doesn't resist, clearly because the wine would spill if she did. Once LT's grip loosens, though, she pulls the glass back towards her own lips – first tracing the rim with her tongue for good measure. Mmm, tastes like self-loathing. ]

It's a worthless point, and her sentimentality is better than anything Earth has. By so much. If the Existential Threat actually lived up to its name, you know they would have built statues of her everywhere, and memorials at some point. They'd celebrate Pluto Day. We get sent into space as their guinea pigs, we create something awesome in spite of their shit, then they get scared and want to trash it all like raging toddlers. They suck.

[ This feels like preaching to choir, but Saturn is plenty tipsy now, so blame it on that. She indulges in another deep sip. ]

At least I can try to enjoy myself while we're stuck here. I'm more worried about you.

[the_ghost]

No, I don't think toddlers feel that kind of fear. Only adults are immature enough to invent their own worst enemies.

[Like Boring Adult Villain Luna-Terra, who has one in her head at all times. No wonder she can't pick a side. Every faction's wrongness becomes more glaringly obvious the moment a disaster like her agrees with them. Memorial Foundation just feels the most comfortable because it's the most pessimistic. And because she doesn't feel quite as responsible for things with Mom Dad Europa telling her what to do.]

It's really weird how much you're like her and completely different at the same time. [WELL THIS IS OUT OF NOWHERE--okay it came from that expression of concern, but she stewed on it for a minute to get here.] You're a cocky, belligerent, evil little brat, but you care the same way Pluto does. It's so obnoxious.

[Nothing she just said had anything even approaching the tone of an insult, naturally.]

[spacemutant]

[ Yes. Let the spite flow free. ]

Their imaginations suck, too. What can you expect from people who take gravity for granted.

[ When you boil it down, Saturn's allegiances are straightforward: she looks out for Saturn and the people she cares about. In no particular order, more or less. The trick to keeping things fun is to be predictably unpredictable in her execution. And allowing herself to be a bitch when she feels like it. Trying to be a good girl only benefited Iapetus, which means she was never good anyway.

Being compared to other people can be annoying, but she can't complain in this case. ]

Normally I wouldn't have said that out loud, but you're drunk and talking all about dying and misery, so what am I supposed to do. I guess I can be like Pluto and try really hard to get you to feel better about yourself, then not get anywhere because of your fucking impenetrable complex.

Or I should say the complex that you pretend is fucking impenetrable. Which is why I still want to try.

[ Also stated with no malice, only affection. Obviously she's never been a fly on the wall during an interaction between Pluto and LT, but she's confident in her guesswork regarding their relationship dynamics. ]

[the_ghost]

If it makes you feel any better, she wouldn't get embarrassed about praise and overcompensate by pretending to be mean, so you're not that far gone.

[The sheer hypocrisy of calling someone else on their emotional dishonesty should really set her hair on fire or something, but the laws of physics, in this universe anyway, have no sense of drama.

In any case, Saturn's starting to have some luck. They're practically off the subject of space politics, and even the subject of Pluto has drifted away from the fact that it's been two days and Luna-Terra misses her so bad it feels like being stabbed. Not that she's seen her on a daily basis since leaving Cradle's Graces anyway, but she misses just the knowledge that Pluto is out there somewhere, not galaxies away. The assurance of her. The fact that she doesn't know whether it's the lack of Earth's gravity that's felt so strange since coming here, or the lack of Pluto's and Krun Macula's.

She's not lost in thoughts like those at all.

Anyway...]

If you want to talk about penetrating me, that's gonna have to wait. Too drunk. And too many people around.

[There are many wonderful things about space, but if there's one Luna-Terra may have taken for granted, it was the ease of getting some privacy. It was almost impossible to take your ship-self anywhere that wasn't private, by virtue of the pure, quiet, beautiful desolation of barely-colonized planets.]

[spacemutant]

So much better. I love receiving reciprocal consolation from the smartest idiot I know. Let me sit here and bask in it for a sec.

[ On the subject of smart idiots, and also missing people, being without Mercury has Saturn feeling more than a little incomplete. That and her disappearance probably has him freaking out, which might at least be funny if she was there to see it, but obviously she, uh, isn't. Still, if there's one thing that Saturn has over Luna-Terra, it's the ability to distract herself.

And you know she's distracted when she makes a double entendre without even meaning to. She nearly spits out some wine mid-sip, then half-coughs, half-laughs into her arm afterwards. ]

The one time in my life I'm not thinking about lewds and you bring up lewds. And then I'm not allowed to talk about it? What if the subject isn't penetration but, like, the tender touch of sensitive orifices.

[ Mercifully, she is keeping her voice low. ]

[the_ghost]

[Really, it was foolish for both of them to have an extended conversation about their feelings when they could just be horny and stupid instead. The lack of ship selves to have a decent fight as foreplay is inconvenient, but that's never been strictly necessary. Not everybody Luna-Terra has a history with matches her best-slash-worst traits like Saturn does.]

That depends. Can you talk with your words and not your hands?

[The intoxication is the main issue, but either way she's just decided she's going to keep riling Saturn up tonight, then find a room tomorrow. For the privacy, but also because Saturn is more fun when she's frustrated.

The worst kind of shameless bottom is one who's figured out how to annoy you into topping harder.]

[spacemutant]

[ It also feels inconvenient for Saturn to be without her Ship-Self, and for a plethora of reasons. Though, to be fair, a lot of those reasons are at least horny-adjacent.

Well, whatever. As loathe as she is to offer any indication that LT's tactic is working as intended, there it is, her sad kitten face. Except there's a glint in her eye that also suggests a cunning plan to catch (and play with) a fat, juicy mouse at a later time. It's less like admitting defeat and more a petulant acknowledgement of greater potential.

It's still frustrating because she likes to get what she wants on her own time, thanks. Conflicting circumstances be damned. ]

Whatever you're imagining I might say, the point is to give it to you better than that. It's the moment when you run out of cold, hard analysis and protection. The cage shatters. Maybe if I break it to pieces enough times you'll get too fed up with having to weld it back together.

[the_ghost]

If your plan is to be more stubborn than me, we're gonna be at this for a while. But I guess that has its appeal, too, assuming you don't get fed up first.

[Saturn isn't the first girl to think she can bring down Luna-Terra's defenses permanently, which LT probably shouldn't act smug about considering how many of those girls hate her guts now. But Saturn's not as naive as someone like Halimede, so she stands a better chance than most. LT doesn't mind being read like a book when it saves her the trouble of being a decent communicator. It helps that Saturn is just as easy to see through, too.]

But are you sure smashing is how you want to go about getting into that cage? It's not exactly the path of least resistance.

[spacemutant]

Don't you dare sell that appeal short.

[ This is part of the process of finding greater potential, apparently. Saturn is as stubborn as she is thirsty, and that's typically bad news for anyone involved. She'll always have the motivation to adjust to suit her needs. ]

If I was worried about dealing with resistance, I'd be out trying to screw some other girl. Let's drop the cage thing and pretend I'm going after your Ship-Self again. You let that thing bleed all over the solar system. That's part of your defense. Taunting everyone that it can't be healed, that you don't want it healed, that it doesn't matter if it's healed.

That suits me so well. If I'm good and tenacious enough to find a way to patch up that wound, then I win. If I keep trying and trying and can never figure out a cure, then I still win. Because I still love that you're a nasty, bloody bitch, and I wouldn't rather be doing anything else.

[the_ghost]

...That's the worst sweet talking I've ever heard.

[It was really good sweet talk, actually. So sweet that the very dumbest part of Luna-Terra wants to get mad about it. It's her wound, it's her scar, you can't just tell her it's okay--

But she's just about mature enough not to blindly lash out at people she cares about, for being kind to her. At least not this easily.]

I won't ask for a promise, but I hope you're sure. Take it from me, it's easy to get fed up with... all of this.

[spacemutant]

You're the worst person I've ever sweet-talked.

[ Boom, got her. Saturn finishes off the wine, then scoots her chair closer to Luna-Terra's. Then she just. Drapes the back of her body all over LT, easing into a nice resting angle. ]

But yeah, OK. Just try to make me regret it. I wouldn't have it any other way.

[ Snuggling now. ]

If we're not going to fuck then I'm gonna embarrass you like this instead. Sorry not sorry.

[the_ghost]

Trying to embarrass me is a pretty weak play. I'm already used to ignoring my reputation.

[So she fires back, wrapping her arms around Saturn and pulling her into an even more intimate, if still basicaly chaste, position, where they can rest their heads together. Demonstrating that she's strong enough to move Saturn around like a pillow is an innocent side-effect.

Maybe they've blurred the lines between love and fighting so much that this is just another new way to fight. Maybe that makes them both stupid, but being stupid in the same way isn't the worst basis for a relationship.

She's also too stupid to say "thank you." Out loud, anyway.]

[spacemutant]

[ Saturn enjoys being moved around like a pillow. You know, when it's her desire. Which it happens to be in this case. God, though, anybody who isn't into big girls is a fucking idiot. Like an actual intolerable idiot, not the type of idiot that LT is, because she is a very sexy and infinitely tolerable idiot. ]

Damn, you're right. I've just made the worst decision. Help.

[ This is almost as good as sex. Maybe. Saturn shifts subtly so that she can kiss Luna-Terra's neck, then she proceeds to pretend like she just didn't. Like a sneaky kiss phantom. It's an unspoken "you're welcome." ]

Mhm. You're definitely the worst.