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interstellar4042016-02-22 01:12 pm
interdimanagers) wrote in interstellar4042016-02-22 01:12 pm
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☆RESCUER TEST DRIVE: SOMETHING ABOUT US
☆WELCOME RESCUERS
Welcome to Interstellar's second RESCUER TDM! A part of the Interstellar plot that first opened a couple months ago, this TDM cover the second round of recruitment for those approached by the lone space pilot Shep to join him on a mission to the planet Terra to rescue those held captive by Pride Records and Virgo Entertainment. Rescuers will not suffer any memory loss and will enter the game as they are, in contrast to the memory loss/force humanization of the musician half. Powers will be nerfed to a certain degree upon entering the game fully, but during recruitment they will remain at full power.☆A DREAM ABOUT YOUThese prompts are designed to be game canon, for both rescuers and musicians both new and already in game. For those in game, they will start occurring around New Years in the form of dreams. The dreams will be very clear while happening, but after waking, they will swiftly fade away into something barely remembered. For rescuers, these dreams will occur very shortly before they are approached by Shep or other already recruited rebels to join the rescue squad and go save the people being held captive in Vista City. Rescuers will remember these dreams as clearly as something that actually happened in real life.
Both of these prompts take place in the dreamscape, ostensibly, and the surrounding will appear as whatever fits those taking part in a scene. It can shift and change as a thread goes along, as well, and may resemble things from a captive's home, the game setting, or anything else appropriate. Rescuers that are already in game can also end up in this dreamscape, and can run into both new musicians and new rescue team recruits.
►A1) FOR THE CAPTURED: The kidnapped musicians of Vista City will dream of being themselves - in a way more true than they have been for months now. They'll dream of themselves as they're meant to be, in physical form and manner of dress, and their personality will align more easily with their true nature, even as the confusing influences of their programming nag at their mind. It could alarm them, or it could feel somehow natural. Either way, their memories will still be gone, except for what they've recovered - but they feel somehow much closer to reach, like they may break through if only given the chance to dig just about deeper. They may dream of home, they may dream of Vista, but either way...when the morning comes, their memories of this experience will be all but wiped away. Including the memories of the strangers that promised that they would find them and take them home.
►A2) FOR THE RESCUERS: The dream is the first sign of something being wrong. You'll find yourself somewhere else - either a scene from your home, or someone else's, or an alien world you've never seen. In this dream, you'll find a person. Perhaps it's someone you recognize, someone you love dearly, but that doesn't remember you. Maybe it's a stranger, lost, confused, and desperate for help. Either way, you find yourself reaching out to them - but outside of this dream, you are helpless to save them. The dream will fade but stay with you in your memory, and may be a key component in you choosing to believe and join the other rescuers when they come to your door. Something has been taken, and you will take it back.☆MAKE THESE DREAMS COME TRUEThese prompts are design to be kept as game canon after acceptance, and can be used as the official story of how your character entered the game. Importantly, the technology used to enter your timeline causes massive time distortions, which means that the outcome of this scenario will stagger and replay itself multiple times before settling on an outcome. This means that after the fact, you character may remember being encountered multiple ways, or going in more than one direction, before the timeline settled on a final path.
►B1) JUST SAY YES: Soon after these dreams, rescuers will find themselves in a strange situation. Time will abruptly stop for every part of the world except for them, and fade into a ghostly vision of its former self - just in time for them to be approached by some mysterious strangers. Whether your rescuer chooses to run, fight, or talk, eventually they'll be told the truth - people of the multiverse have been captured and taken to a universe far away to be harvested for their souls...in the form of forcing them to becoming rock stars. You heard it here first, folks.
The people recruiting you will mostly be other player rescuers that have already been recruited (regardless of whether or not that's been threaded out - you can assume your guy got recruited by someone if you want to recruit OTHER people.) The pilot and owner of the space ship doing this appears to be a blue man named Shep. He's the guy that's apparently in charge of this whole thing, but he's so busy with the dimension hopping that he's kind of hard to find and talk to. He presumably recruited some of the first members personally, but things have been sort of getting more complicated since then.
►B2) INTERSTELLAR DISCO: After you've agreed to come for whatever reason - to save you lover, friend, some guy, whatever - you're be taken upon the guitar shaped spaceship to wait out the tide of the temporal distortions picking you up has caused. It's a long journey back to Vista City, and you've got plenty of new comrades to get to know. This mission could take a while, so you better get comfy. You're in for the long haul now.
NOTE: If you want to see the interior of the spaceship (or if you want to see Shep dance) watch the music video posted up top. It's going to be a fair bit bigger in Interstellar to accommodate the big crew, but the essence is there.☆HELPFUL INFO► Follow the mod plurk for updates:interstellar5555
► Check out the game NAVIGATION
► Check out the MUSICIAN TDM
► Ask the mods some QUESTIONS
► Reserves open on February 27th at 12:01AM EDT
► Applications open on March 4th at 12:01AM EDT
no subject
"Who's keeping you here? I haven't seen anybody else since I... mysteriously found myself here?" Come to think of it, he has no idea how he got here. There's no signs of other people around, not even an elevator to explain how they got down here. But if there's a way in, there's a way out.
If nothing else, Sans really should be able to use his secret 'shortcuts' to get himself out. If he already tried that, and failed, then...
He shakes his head, nowhere near ready to give up on getting somewhere else. Instead, he risks stepping closer to Sans, and reaches a hand to beckon him over. "Come on, stop breaking things, and let's do something productive. Like look for an exit!"
no subject
"And who the hell are you, exactly?" It comes out sharp and impatient. There's a sick feeling in his gut (?) at the sight of him, and he doesn't like it. The way it connects to the rest of this place, to this feeling in his head, is aggravating. His left eye flickers blue, and then gold, his grin more a bearing of teeth than a smile.
no subject
"Your brother?!?" Increasingly concerned brother, at that. That snarl, that light, it's like Sans is having a waking nightmare. He's walking around, doing things and talking, but reacting to things in a completely nonsensical way. "I'm not your keeper, but I do try to look out for you!"
no subject
"I don't got a brother, pal," he says, like it's some kind of joke. "Don't you think I'd remember that?"
Except he's forgotten so much, already. But how could he have something like that and not remember it, in the rare moments coming back to him? How could something like that remain concealed? What about this laboratory makes him scared of the idea?
no subject
"Of course I would!" Indignant, like they've had too many conversations about what Papyrus does and doesn't think already. "If this is some new joke routine, I have to tell you, it's not funny! At all! You should stick to puns."
If that doesn't say how unfunny this conversation is, nothing will. Sans' overuse of bad puns has been a thorn in Papyrus' side for years. Better that than this.
no subject
"I stopped tryin' to be funny about this a while ago," he growls, and turns back to the counter, taking in the arcane miscellanea. And this is his whole problem, isn't it? Everything had been a joke. It's always been a joke. But it feels like something is tearing down his psychological from the inside - ripping out some pieces and sewing in others. He doesn't know when the exact moment was. Probably somewhere around the point he realized that everything, ever, had been a lie.
There's been no help for it. There's no laughing it off. His staunch dedication to ambivalence stopped working the same moment he decided it was worth acting on his situation. Knowing he has power, knowing that some people's life and death could depend on his actions...all it's left is anger and despair. Like the process of mourning has started anew.
Day to day, he's held up okay - at least on the inside. But in the realm of this dream, it's like his interior struggle has been laid bare.
"So, you don't know what this place is, huh?" he asks, after a moment. "I think I might be starting to."
no subject
Papyrus mutters, "when did you stop being funny about serious things...?" but doesn't raise his voice enough to make it a point. Sans just looking at things is an improvement over breaking them. Better to take this whole situation step by step.
There's something spooky, and empty, and heavy about these hallways. Something hard to pin down, that he really doesn't like. It's clear that his brother doesn't like this place either, with that tantrum and accusation that some mysterious 'they' is keeping him trapped here. Maybe it's that spooky weight that's ruining Sans' mood, making him pretend Papyrus doesn't mean anything to him.
"You do? That's good! Knowing where we are... is the first step to knowing how to leave!" He brightens a little at Sans' last comment. Trying to figure this out is worse than Junior Jumble. How can you solve a puzzle when you don't know what the pieces look like, and you don't know where to look for them? This is the kind of thing he counts on Sans to guide him through.
no subject
Eventually, he hops up and sits on the counter, tired of pacing around, and messily knocks a few things out of the way as he does so. He's asleep, but he is still so damn tired.
"Hey, I got a question for ya," he says, still only partially seeming to acknowledge Papyrus's presence. "Do you figure it's possible to remember forgetting something?"
no subject
Papyrus lets out a long, slow sigh as his brother gets settled. Why would he tell Papyrus where they are, when he can just make up a new conversation topic and keep being in a place he doesn't like? Honestly. This kind of nonsense is part of why it's so important that Sans have somebody looking out for him.
"Of course that's possible," he responds. It's not even in question. "Like the password to my voicemail! Or the ending of a story. When I know something should be there, but I just can't seem to remember the thing itself."
no subject
If he's going to be not smashing things this is what you get in return.
Though...Papyrus's answer seems to jog something in his mind - it gets him thinking. Asking questions like this has been a long time habit, and for a reason. Sometimes what you need to hear is the obvious answer. An obvious answer to something that's somehow been eluding you.
He taps his finger against his teeth, in increasingly deep contemplating.
"What about when that absence isn't there? What if you forget you ever had a phone? Or what if the fake end of the story makes about as much sense? Sometimes...you forget things were ever different."
that username is so fitting
As far as Papyrus was concerned, anybody who stepped into Sans' bedroom would know better than to really think he was okay. Who could live in that horrible mess? The state of his bed, with those rumpled sheets. The dirty socks. The complete lack of knick knacks from his hobbies. Nothing in there could possibly bring Sans joy, surely.
"That sounds... scary. I don't know if I want to imagine it! But, since you're insisting on thinking about it... I'll do my best."
Papyrus steps over the broken things on the floor, leaning against the counter a couple of feet from his brother's perch, and plays along a little longer.
"Hmmm. If I forgot I ever had a phone... I would probably find myself having unexpected difficulties! And wonder what was wrong with me, that I was having so much trouble with easy things. But with the story... If the fake one makes sense too, then it's just a new story!"
he's been having a bad time
Both of those concepts kind of make him want to laugh, in a dark kind of way. Unexpected difficulties, indeed. The story, though...is that really all it is? That makes it sound like he should just cope with the fact that he doesn't remember, that they made everything different on him. If he hadn't started remembering anything else, then it'd just be a new story. Who cares what went on before.
Except it isn't working like that. The start of the story is haunting him, and the ending is looking increasingly grim. It would have been easier if he just kept this all to himself. He's already tired of it, and he knew this is exactly what would happen the moment he started.
"What'd you say your name was?" he asks, his voice just above a mumbles. He looks over at Papyrus wearily, the lights of his eyes dull in their sockets. Part of him, deep down, feels like it wants to try - but the journey is increasingly difficult, and his stamina has always been low.
He was never cut out for this. Not what happened in these spooky labs, and not what's happening in the waking world either. He should just quit while he's ahead.
that he has. caring about people hurts
"You're putting such dedication into keeping up this story of yours! Fortunately for you, I, the great Papyrus, have enough patience to put up with it!" He looks over at Sans and adds, in a stage whisper, "You did catch it that time, right? 'Papyrus?' I can say it a few more times if you like."
He means it, too. It's not like he's in a rush to go do anything else, he might as well go with whatever Sans is doing. This probably isn't just a story. Something's wrong, and Sans is playing games to hide what it is under a completely bizarre cover story.
Why he couldn't just stick to not saying anything is beyond Papyrus. Maybe it's practice. Telling untrue, painful things, to prepare him for saying true painful things.
no subject
Papyrus's actual presence, though, it making that really difficult. This realization comes to him with the same feeling as a headache.
Sans casts the other skeleton a glance that looks genuinely frightened. Suddenly, the guy's presence feels totally overwhelming. He can't deal with this. He can't handle this being true, or with the gravity of what he's forgotten. Abruptly, he teleports to the other side of the room, accidentally knocking some more shit over in his surprise. Crash.
no subject
At the crashing sounds, his head around, and he sees Sans staggering over some more of the fallen objects. "Sans! What was that??? Are you..." Wait, no. He stops halfway through that question, as it's obvious that Sans isn't all right. Instead Papyrus pushes away from the counter, walking across the room towards his brother.
"...Is there anything I can do to help? You're starting to scare me." If the answer is something like 'go away,' he'll need to politely refuse. Leaving his brother completely alone here seems like a bad idea. But... if they could get back home, or to Grillby's, or something, he'd be willing to let someone else keep an eye out on Sans.
no subject
He gives Papyrus a cornered looked as he approaches, his alarm showing plainly for a couple of moments - right before a sharp gasp goes through him, that quickly devolves into helpless, bordering on hysterical laughter.
"Just now I'm scaring you?" he manages, in total disbelief. God, what is normal for him, then? Is it really this? "Talk about a low bar for entry!"
no subject
"Well, no, not just now!" Utter exasperation. What an absurd question. "But now it's bad enough that I can't just let you pretend it's nothing. You can't even aim your secret teleportation right! You might end up in a wall."
And that's what normal for Sans; pretending all is well, especially when it's not. So if he wants somebody to tell him what normal for Sans the Skeleton is, he's just gonna need to wait for those memories.
no subject
That would be the consistent, wouldn't it? Keeping it all on the down low. Sometimes it isn't clear how much of himself is made up, at this point. What aspects of his personality are real? What are his motivations for the ones that hold true? There's so many ways in which he still doesn't know himself, and it's maddening.
"I don't know what this is," he manages, finally. "But I'm not the guy you know anymore. I'm not even in the same place. Hate to break it to ya, pal, but I'm gone."
And it's no surprise to him at all, that if he does really have a family, he's somehow managed to abandon them.
no subject
If he's honest with himself, this all does seem rather unreal. The strange place they're in. The way that he still can't remember how he got in here. His brother's open, whiplashing mood. "...You are pretending, right? You couldn't forget me in a few hours."
He saw Sans just this morning, before they went off to do their own things in the city. There haven't been any problems with the humans; Frisk's a great ambassador, letting the whole surface world know that monsters are friends. Even if there were, Sans is plenty capable of taking care of himself in that sort of way.
no subject
He really shouldn't be shunning someone he has every reason to believe is his actual family, but he can't get his head around it. He can't imagine how this 'Papyrus' fits into his life, or how anyone is supposed to deal with loving someone like him.
"It's not a fucking joke," he snaps, and then suddenly stops - the weight of some not fully understood error settling heavily on his shoulders. He didn't just say that. Since when would he say something like that to Papyrus?
Except...he doesn't know who Papyrus is.
welly well well. now that i'm not focused on helping my fellow appers get their threads big enough..
Papyrus flinched a little at that, hurt for a split second... But no. Sans is the one hurting, here. There's no way he would talk like that if he wasn't so out of sorts that he couldn't cover it up. One of them needs to be the bigger skeleton, here.
"No, it really isn't," Papyrus agrees, slowly and solemnly. He straightens a little harder, and does his best to look heroic and reassuring. "I can see how much pain you're in from forgetting me! I knew I was a big part of keeping you together, but I never suspected it was this much. Don't worry, Sans! I'll help you find your missing memories. Then I can wake up, and this will just be a bad dream."
no subject
On a deeper level than he can truly understand, he's knows he's not supposed to do that. He knows that it's more trouble than it's worth. His anger is temporarily weight down by the fact that he doesn't know whether he's more frustrated or ashamed.
Though to a stranger it sounds like idle boasting, Sans can't possibly know how right Papyrus is about that assumption.
"Nothing I'm waking up to is any better," he says, after a moment, pressing a hand over his left socket. His voice is softer, weakening down to something exhausted after that flareup of temper has passed. "I think they really did a number of me...an' there wasn't a lot there to start with."
He looks up and around the room again with a haunted expression.
no subject
If they pay enough attention, or know the person well enough, they might see some of the truth of the matter. Bad jokes are a better disguise, all told. Not that Sans can help it, in this dreamscape.
"Hmmm. I... think you misunderstood something," Papyrus slowly corrects. "I am real! This is my dream. Not yours. So... I'll wake up. And you'll be back to normal?"
That is how bad dreams work, isn't it? One person dreams, their mind making up weird stories, and then they wake up. And everything fades. There's no reason why he would be sharing a dream with a strangely temporally displaced Sans with amnesia problems. And even less reason why Sans would really have forgotten Papyrus in the space of a day.
no subject
He's not sure whether he is eager to go or not. Some part of him instinctively knows that all of this is going to fade away when he does, and the thought fills him with a deep and pervasive feeling of anxiety. He slowly shakes his head.
"I don't think it works that way, kid," he says, hollowly."Not this time."
Whatever 'Papyrus' ends up doing...Sans knows exactly what he'll be waking up to, and it sure as hell isn't normal.