▶ TDM .001

[prismods]

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!

Comments

[topgun_textiles]

He gulped and planted his hands on his knees. Seated as if a man contemplating many wisdoms at a freaky silvery coastline, he waited to see if he'd turn into something weird, vomit and die, or start seeing weird shit.

The seconds ticked by. Minutes. But as he casually eyed the landscape that stretched for miles, all looking as identical as the rest, the realization sank in that nothing happened.

He'd been silent for 20 minutes. "Stomach feels good. Thoughts feel good. It shows us weird shit but it tastes like regular old water. Not like crisp fresh water, just... water."

He squinted. "So I have a weird theory, and it's gonna sound dumb, but... d'you, uh, have other special powers or somethin' you never told anybody about?"

[pishirogane]

They were there for quite some time, Naoto observing Kanji quietly, keeping an eye out for any sudden changes be it physical or behavioral. But time ticked on; seconds to minutes, counting on to about maybe twenty minutes if she were to check her watch.

At some point, she had sat down, still keeping an eye on him. Naoto cocked her head at his answer, frowning. "Strange..."

But everything about him was right. Except for that question. "Not at all... why?"

[topgun_textiles]

Of course she'd ask why, adding to the madness. But there was no denying the connection between what she did and how he felt.

"Uhh, well... I had these marks on my skin, right? They got bigger n' bigger, and then my legs started givin' out. I felt like I was getting heavier the more I walked. I didn't feel up for dyin' of exhaustion out in the purple crystal desert place, so I started lookin' for some sign of life. Then I found you."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "My body felt... worse. But when ya touched me, it was like..."

Kanji closed his eyes, to keep from staring but also to try and visualize in his mind what he'd tell next.

"Y'know when you're cold, but ya take a big gulp of tea or soup and ya feel it move down to your belly? Kinda like that. This warm feeling moved from your hands and up my arms, down my body, my legs. The heavy, numb feeling went away when the warm feeling reached 'em. It was like when the others would used a healing power from their Persona, but... nicer?"

He paused, and wondered if he could do it, too. Without thinking, he reached out and took her hands, entwining their fingers. That warm feeling came back almost immediately.

"Like- like that! You feel it?"

[pishirogane]

As Kanji detailed, Naoto was quiet and fully attentive. He mentioned marks on his skin, and she could make out a few - and now that he pointed them out, they did look different than when he first arrived.

What he described, she easily understood. Though, how she had done any of that from touch alone was... she doesn't know; she didn't understand how she had done it. Maybe she hadn't felt it as strongly because she hadn't required the heal, but now that he was touching her, her eyes grew. From the way he held her hands, to the way the warmth spread, it made her gasp.

"I... What on earth?"

Her entwined fingers squeezed, holding on as she memorized the sensation and just... stared. It was incredibly warm; much warmer than contacts before. Why was that?

[topgun_textiles]

"So it ain't just me," he whispered, unsure of why. He studied their hands, feeling small bruises and abrasions from any spills among shards of crystal in his travels here begin to warm and mend, cuts neatly knitting closed.

She'd touched his sleeves, and that was incredible. But this was bare skin contact, dusty hands meeting palms soaked by the strange pond. He felt his stomach twist into a knot, his heart was pounding and, strangely enough, he felt like he could bench-press a car. Not that there were any cars here, anyway...

His mind ran with possibilities. Holding hands was always like this in the stories, but he knew it wasn't real. Yet, here, it was exactly that and more. What... what would a hug be like?

...What was kissing like out here?

No, dumbass. Cut that shit out. Kanji shook his head to knock off the mild stupor.

"A-anyway, the water's safe. You should drink some, and... maybe we should find shelter. Or climb one of the big crystals to see if there's a town or somethin' nearby." His throat was dry and it showed. But... what was happening? What was this strange charge running through their hands?

[pishirogane]

Naoto continued staring, but the warmth never seemed to leave. She wondered if this was how all physical contact was going to be from now on... and if this was from hand holding, what would happen with other gestures? It might become necessary for her to observe a couple - well, if they came across any other living beings or persons here.

... Was if it was only the two of them here?

Blinking when he shook his head, she took his words in and nodded. "Right... You should probably drink some more too. Unless you happen to have a bottle, there's no guarantee we'll come across another source soon."

[topgun_textiles]

He nodded in agreement. May as well drink the fill but keep tabs on this spot in case they were here for god knows how long and needed to fight dehydration. Hunger was a slow thing, but people could only go for days without water.

So reluctantly, he let go. Yet it seemed that, even in this landscape of purple and holo, the colors seemed to mute a little and that warm feeling in his core stop rising. It simply felt... even, bobbing like a cork.

"No bottles. But we can remember this spot just in case." Hopefully. He thought he was prints in the dust. If animals lived here, food, water and something more hopeful maybe lay in the wings.

Now he -really- wished he'd done some kind of survival club or something. Shit. he knew how to make a fire, but-

He moved for the water, unaware of the mild sheen of fresh-made glass lingering where his shoes had pressed.

[pishirogane]

Without his touch, it suddenly seemed much colder. She hadn't even noticed the temperature around her before, and while it wasn't cold by any means, it was cooler than before. Another thing that would have to be considered once they found shelter - neither of them knew how cold it might get in this place.

"We should designate a marker; make it more noticeable from a distance if we happen to lose track." There wasn't much here, but they could always try making something before moving on. If only the compass on her phone worked, but it seemed to be having some technical issues - she likely needed to repair it.

Sighing, she knelt down at the water's edge. Though hesitant still, she did cup some water and begin to drink.

[topgun_textiles]

"Right." He brushed his wet hands off on his jeans, having had his fill. He'd at least heard somewhere not to gorge on water or make yourself sick. But to leave a marker... how would they do that?

He fetched the shard of crystal he'd used as a walking stick, then had an idea. How about a flag...?

Kanji would normally be hesitant, because he'd miss his cute handkerchief, printed with little Sanrio characters. But life and safety was more important, so he began to tie it at one end, and headed for a nearby dune to see if he could plant it.

"I claim this dune and pond in the name of Chococat, I guess!"

[pishirogane]

Drinking a little more, Naoto raised her head at the sound of a stake being thrust into the ground - in this case, Kanji's crystal walking stick being stabbed into the ground. She took a double take, noticing the handkerchief and the little cat character printed on it.

"Kanji-kun, do you want to leave that here? I have a handkerchief you can use instead."

She wasn't one for cute mascot characters, but he was. He had to love that handkerchief, and he'd probably be upset if anything were to happen.