prismaticrap | ▶ TDM .001

Cybernetic dream, something like you've never seen

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"Michael Sembello - Automatic Man (original music video)" (Watch on YouTube)

▶ Lisa Frank's LSD Fun House
anytime, anywhere on the moon Iris | top

Everything is darkness except for dim lights sparkling in the distance, a faint gleam that greets you as you start to unfurl from your dormant state. 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. Throat parched and skin dry and aching, you grope your body in alarm to make sure your possessions are still in place. 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 only rewards you with 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.

A ⬤ As you traverse the near-barren landscape, you feel something sting your skin. It's small and subtle at first, then you finally catch sight of it: an elegant, crystalline mosquito buzzing around from the corner of your eye. However, a pest is still a pest. After a while, marks near your welts begin to form strange patterns on your skin, mimicking ancient runes. Each rune has with it a particular side-effect that may hinder you on your journey:
✾ The Mark of the Enchanter: Hallucinations, hallucinations galore. Your character will see everything and anything their imagination can conjure and will have difficulty separating reality from fiction.
₪ The Mark of the Destroyer: Limbs start to cease their function, causing you to stumble or try and get around one-handed. Other certain body parts may be affected as well. Look at the bright side: you can stop worrying about jiggle physics and hiding your fear boner.
⍢ The Mark of the Sinner: Your hunger, your thirst, your fatigue and your desire are at an all-time high. Your impulses are rabid and uncontrollable. Maybe you experience only one of those symptoms. Maybe you experience them all. All you know is that you want relief now.

These effects will eventually clear up with a bit of accidental or purposeful physical contact with another person, making you wonder if there was anything wrong with you at all.

B ⬤ Hunger starts to gnaw at you vigorously. Perhaps you consider hunting the moon's creatures to sate your hunger. That's when you see it: a thick, meaty, juicy meal on legs. ~~No, we're not talking about Alex Louis Armstrong~~. A wild silver-white pegasus runs across the purple landscape, its hair billowing in the wind as its hooves smack loudly against the ground. Try and shoot it, and you may find your efforts curtailed by its legendary rage. Eyes aglow and wings beating up a storm, this pegasus is no dainty horse. Two thousand pounds of pure muscle swoop down and charge at you, all blades and ammunition deflecting off its impenetrable skin. Taming appears impossible; it will buck anyone away and leave a sizable horn- or hoof-shaped hole in them for their efforts. Hunting it, however, should be easier. Relatively.

C ⬤ Or you may decide that you'd like to take a drink in the prismatic waters. A small pond can be found just a few miles away from where you first awoke, but gazing into it reflects what appears to be a window into your own world. You see the faces of loved ones or at least someone very close and familiar to you gathered around your prone body, shaking it frantically as though to try and rouse you, yet your image lies frozen and unresponsive, not even a whisper of life running through you. Did you die in your world? Is this your afterlife? The questions start to pile up along with the gnawing dread that you may never return home again.

▶ Camp Nowhere
anytime, anywhere on the moon iris | top

Time moves strangely when you're trapped on a moon with no sun to guide you. Hours feel like days, and days feel like weeks. Travelling has rendered you weak and tired. Luckily, a few crystal formations in the shape of a cavern may offer you a small place refuge as you decide to nap. You notice a few artifacts left over from previous explorers.

D ⬤ A comm unit abandoned within the cavern will display the former owner's idol obsession. As you tap the buttons indiscriminately, a holographic screen will appear, and you will see a fabulous recorded concert featuring three bubbly young ladies in animal print, singing to you about something called Cordis, a cat, and a bag of gems. Does this make any sense to you? Probably not, but the beat is catchy. You may even find yourself tapping a foot along to it. Don’t worry. We know it’s plastic love.

E ⬤ There's a small cooler-like container of preserved powdered food bags labeled with only the word “Edible” that can be safely consumed. Although the powder tastes as bland as you’d expect, it’s oddly filling, sating either hunger or thirst. But who will be the first — and the bravest — to try eating them?

F ⬤ A strange, pointed instrument is among the effects found in the cavern. It's silver, long, and thin with a curved end and a light. When you grip it with warm hands, it seems to vibrate enthusiastically and comes in three settings indicated by a frowny face, a neutral face, and a happy face. What could it mean exactly? No one knows, but you can fiddle with it to your heart's desire. Just don't ask yourself where it's been before. You don't want to know.

▶ Interstellar Action Force Assemble
prisma, iris | top

Over a day has passed when a group of people find you worse for wear. Some are full of uncertainty and fear while some are full of curiosity and excitement. They claim that they are scientists from the planet Prismatica here to investigate the sudden appearances of rainbow crystals in the skies. That means you and the others they’ve located within the area. You are all a surprising find to them, and they are quick to load everyone in their transport vehicles for examination and questioning.

You all may have your usual inquiries — Where are we? Who are you? What's going on? Why are the pegasi so ill-tempered? — and the Prismals are almost too eager to answer. They do have questions on their own, so it’s only fair to trade. They tell you about their world as they poke and prod you, trying to understand what you are and how you came into their land. If they’re not trembling in fear, some of them may ask you odd and invasive questions in return, such as what the rate at which your body achieves thermoregulation is, how long your refractory period is, and if you would be willing to submit various kinds of body fluids to them. It's up to whether you wish to comply or protest.

G ⬤ If you react violently, you will be restrained and nerfed with a specialized neurotransmitting gun that releases a numbing agent through the top of your spine. They came prepared, so have fun with that! In any case, conscious or not, you’ll be brought into one of the transport vehicles. If you choose to peacefully cooperate, you’ll be provided any necessary first aid and a refreshing drink to help you recuperate after the rough time you had for the past few days. Each transport vehicle has a few small rooms to rest in, but due to the limited space, you’ll have to snuggle up with someone else on that bunk bed. Unfortunately, the moonshine fruit the ship is also carrying in its cargo has an extremely sweet smell that’s been permeating through certain areas of the ventilation system… Taking a whiff of it may inebriate you for the rest of the trip.

H ⬤ It’s a bumpy ride as terrain vehicles draw over various crystal formations until you see a large dome-like structure up ahead. Within its confines lies the seat of the Prismatica's government, Prisma. It’s a bureaucratic wet dream: skyscrapers practically touch the upper surface of the dome, windows glimmer with a prismatic sheen as daylight hits them, and small ships can be seen flying to and from its spaceport. The scientists, members of the Lunar Scientia, usher you into their facilities for tests. Arrivals are likely to twitch, tremble, and panic as Lunar Scientia fellows take and broadcast every embarrassing, unfiltered detail about you — height, weight, age, strange odors, estimated frequency of sexual activity —- to one another. These scientists will ask you politely to undress, too, but understand if you don't want to. They're especially fascinated by the readings of pure Chroma inside you, whispering among one another excitedly about the possibility of the new arrivals being a new moon species. What should they call them? Moonborne? Moonblessed?

I ⬤ At long last, the questions and physical examinations are done. They’ve decided to call the arrivals as the Moonblessed. They’ll take you under their care until they understand more about you. You're allowed a very refreshing hot shower and a warm meal for your efforts. Don’t worry, the meal was imported from their planet. “Planet?” you might ask, but you won’t need to wonder for too long. The ships are preparing for their next destination: the nearby planet Prismatica, where you will be dwelling for the time being. You're free to explore the government center until then.

▶ Wildcard
Lunatia, Prismatica | top

It only takes a couple hours for the ships to reach their home planet. The ships drop the characters off at the city of Lunatia, where they will be given their communication devices and a plastic card they can present to certain landlords at any residential district for their subsidized (read: absolutely free) lodging. Officials at Prisma instructed the newcomers to await further instructions from the government, but you have a lot of time to kill before then. Why not explore in the meantime? Learn the ins and outs of the world, get a job, transform under the full moon, and discover the many mysteries of planet Prismatica!

TDM OVERFLOW can be found here!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh. Yeah, my dad's a mayor, so... Kinda got raised to be pretty formal when I'm meeting people. Force of habit, you know.

[Not gonna mention the princess thing. That's way too big a can of worms for someone who appears to be a totally normal girl.]

With people I know, I'm more of a hugger.

[Daughter of a mayor makes sense. She seems very diplomatic, Max thinks. Good with people.

...and, Max is, uh, a mostly normal girl, but Kairi doesn't need to know about her freaky time powers. She's not even sure she still has them. She hasn't tried using them since she got here.]

Hugs are good. I tend to do that with friends too.

[Her smile falters here, and she looks off to the side. Mentioning friends...]

I guess I'll have to get used to hugging new people for a while.

[Those time powers would have been so useful a time or two in her life Max, you don't even know.]

Yeah, well... think about it this way. After what we've all just been through? I get the feeling we could all use a few hugs.

[Her perhaps more than others, if she's to be completely honest.]

Besides... maybe we'll run into somebody you know from home.

[Her smile returns, a gentle pull upward at the corners of her lips.]

Yeah. I think I might even have a few to spare.

[That's sort of an offer, if a subtle one. Maybe too subtle.

At what Kairi says next though, Max drops her gaze to the ground, shifting her stance.]

Maybe... I'm not sure if this place is better or worse than where we were, though.

[It probably would have been too subtle, except that Kairi's basically been waiting for an opening like that, so she laughs and moves in.]

Yeah, me too.

[And wraps her arms around Max. Not too tight, it's just a warm, friendly hug, but she does try to be comforting with it. She figures Max could use that.

Really, they all could.]

Yeah... It's definitely not as good as my home, but we weren't all home before I got brought here.

[The hug helps. A lot. And Max returns it, even giving Kairi's shoulder a gentle, comforting squeeze as they pull out of the hug.

It's weird, but she could almost swear that physical contact like that felt better here than it did back home. Except maybe barring any contact with Chloe. It's hard to beat hugging your best friend or holding their hand though, right? Though she's... Trying hard not to think about her too much, which just makes her feel guilty because she'd done the same thing the last time they'd been separated. She'd pushed Chloe to the back of her mind, because it hurt less.

Her eyebrows raise at the "we" she uses, and once again Chloe is brought to the forefront of her mind.]

"We?" Do you mean you've seen people from home here?

[It definitely feels good to touch and hug people here, but for Kairi that's been something she adores for so long that she's not actually noticing much of a difference.

Of course she's also had the advantage of having other people to hug since she got here, which leads nicely into Max's question.]

Actually, yeah. Quite a few people, actually, including my two best friends.

[And oh was she relieved about that. But it also made her feel oddly guilty, and she hastened to try and reassure Max.]

But that just means it's more likely you'll run into your friends too... I think.

[Honestly she has no idea how that sort of thing works here.]

[She really isn't sure whether to feel relieved or not. At least if some of them were here, she could be sure they weren't in danger without her around. They could stick together.]

I'm glad, that you have people familiar to you. I haven't run across anything familiar yet. All of this is so... Weird. Like I've been dropped into a sci-fi movie.

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I've never seen anyplace like this.

[The closest she ever got was The World That Never Was, and that was more some kind of monochrome castle nonsense.]

But you're right, that makes having a friend or two along all the more important.

Me neither, though I haven't really been to a lot of places, so... But I've always thought it would be fun to travel somewhere far from home...

[She gives a bit of a smile.]

This might be pushing it a little.

I kinda figure travel's a lot more fun if you're doing it on purpose.

[Not that she has anywhere near as much experience with that as she'd like.]

I definitely get wanting to leave home, though. Heck, my boys and I built a raft to get off our island. Which, uh... looking back on it, probably not the greatest plan.

[Oh, that gets a bigger smile from her. It sounds awfully familiar.]

Yeah, probably not the safest. But we've all done potentially dumb things like that, I think. Did you guys ever pretend to be pirates?

Oh heck yeah, who hasn't?

[Though only Sora's actually gotten to be a pirate, the lucky bastard...]

[Oh, Chloe would be massively jealous of Sora for that, definitely. Playing pirate is fun, but Max was never quite as good as it as her best friend was. Probably why she was always the first mate and Chloe was the pirate.]

Good question. Maybe people who prefer ninjas? I've never really understood that debate, though. Both seem pretty cool to me.

I mean, they don't really work very well together, to be fair. How's a ninja supposed to hide on a pirate ship? Or a pirate supposed to sail and pillage during the night? That's just asking to get shipwrecked.

[Especially because most of the places pirates go there aren't exactly lighthouses...]

▶ TDM .001

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