TEST DRIVE MEME: THE SELF TITLED ALBUM

[interdimanagers]

☆WELCOME TO INTERSTELLAR

And welcome to our first TDM! We've got two types of prompts to use this time around: the first takes place while your character is in the process of being captured, and the second is during their first brainwashed rockstar tour. The former is designed to be considered 100% game canon if you make it in officially, while the later is more speculative and will only work if you get lucky during label and band selection.

☆THE TALENT SEARCH

These prompts are design to be kept as game canon after acceptance, and can be used as the official story of how your character was captured. Importantly, the kidnappers entering 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 captured multiple ways, or going in more than one direction, before the timeline settled on a final path. Or at least, they'll remember this until their memories are wiped shortly afterwards, but that's okay! That's what memory regains are for. Read this page for more specifics on this situation. Any powers the characters have will be weakened and prone to malfunction to the point of uselessness.



►A1) THE SEARCH: It always starts out this way, doesn't it? At some point in your life, you were just doing your thing, wherever you call home. Then, all at once, it's like you've been torn from your dimension by the roots. Time and space displace, and it's like you've been shifted one layer of reality to the left - like some kind of subspace where you can see your reality through it, like a rainbow surrealist image of your home. Even if you can see this ghost image of where you were, you can't interact with it meaningfully. Any friends or family are somewhere else. As you begin to wander, without any other options, you'll find that the scenery gradually shifts to ghost images of other places, other worlds. If you wander long enough, you'll even find other people, lost just like you are. But you probably won't have much time - you've been brought here for a reason, after all.

►A2) THE HUNT: It could happen almost immediately, or it could happen hours later - but, at some point, your dimensional kidnappers start to do their sweep. Space Men in black body suits and gas masks pursue you on foot and in small spaceships, trying to sweep you and the other displaced up like fish in a net. Their guns contain a weird pink gas that will knock out most with only a single breath - and for those more enduring, they have the heavy artillery, like electrical nets and guns. The fallen will be sealed up into stasis pods for transport and loaded onto the ships, which seem like the only way to get out of this place by choice. This is where it ends, but are you going to put up a fight?

☆THE MAGIC TOUR BUS

By default, these prompt aren't considered canon, but if after you are accepted and sorted they can be tweaked into working for you, it'll be totally okay to keep them as a part of your rockstar's personal history. They take place after being kidnapped and brainwashed, on your character's first tour under their new label. As it turns out, it seems like brainwashing aliens isn't the only thing the abductees have to worry about.



►B1) PLAY IT STRAIGHT: It's just another day on the tour bus, in between long stretches of highway. How do you fill your time? Do you practice your instrument, or do you take full advantage of the open bar? Do you sulk and try go to bed early? Do you yell at your bandmates for ruining the toilet? Do you troll people on Twitter? Tours being what they are, everyone is probably at least a little bit tired or cranky. Just don't do anything that will get the Manager on your ass, because that's always more trouble than it's worth.

►B2) THAT'S NORMAL: The Managers aren't here, as far as you can tell, leaving you in a moment of relative relaxation. Something about those guys just make you uneasy, and they're always shoving you around and making you do things you don't really want to. However, these moments of peace don't last long, because it stars to become increasingly apparent that your tour bus might be...haunted? Whether its the bus turning on without a driver and without a key, wine glasses falling off tables, or guitar static sounding like frantic whispering, things are starting to get weird. Yet, at the same time, something in your subconscious is strongly suggesting that you should ignore it, and that everything is normal and fine...

►B3) THEN WHO WAS GUITAR?: These weird experiences eventually culminate in a kind of phantom music bleeding in from the air around you. The source is impossible to discern but it's somehow...familiar? Like something that played at an important moment in your life, even if the event itself just won't come to mind. What's weirder, is that everyone seems to hear something different. It gets to you in a way that your programming doesn't like - but how do you react? Reluctantly take it in, or throw a fit until it stops?

☆HELPFUL INFO

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► Reserves close on SEPTEMBER 25th at 12:01AM EDT
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Comments

[nibelungvalesti]

Oh, you poor, naive boy. To call what she had with anyone a 'friendship' truly stretched the levels of belief. Right now, she was the most open she'd been in -- ages, really.

"If such a request would strain our relationships, then they are doomed anyway."

[yuruse]

[His fangirls? Sometimes he forgets he has those. After all, he's just the bass player, not the lead vocalist, and they normally go out as a group. So when he's on his own and he's singled out it surprises him.

It shouldn't at all, but it does.

He sighs as though this whole matter is putting him out.] Yeah, sure. Just let me change.

[Weasel is probably the only one who'd walk off the bus with less make-up than he had while on it - at least while going incognito. A moment to wipe off the eyeliner and lipstick then take his contacts out and put on glasses and he looks practically like a completely different person.]

I'm sure anyone hanging around has been shooed off by now.

[nibelungvalesti]

"It is like that. That is how I began, actually. What I do is the next step from that..."

How to describe it. How to explain it. Meril bowed her head as she considered. The words she'd used in that blog post had been elaborate and fanciful, capturing nothing of how it truly felt in favor of making it sound sublime and mystical.

"When you are playing," she said, slowly choosing each word, "you do not think about what your fingers are doing. It is like that. You stop thinking about what you are doing, whatever it is, and simply do it. Without a bridge between thought and action. Live in that moment, with no difference between your mind and your body, or your body and the world around it."

[youngerandwiser]

He's not that naive! He just thought other people were a lot better and making friends and being open about themselves than he was. It was odd, that the two of them were so alike.

"I suppose so. I just know I'm not the most likable member of our group. It happens when you take on the role of leader."

[nibelungvalesti]

"That may be what they are listening to, but it is not what they are thinking about." The role of gratuitous fanservice was one she accepted as inevitable. She couldn't even begin to get worked up about that simple reality.

[nibelungvalesti]

[Very few people could lure the ghost of a smile out of Meril, or coax a rich note of amusement into her voice. Mai should be very proud.]

If we got rid of the outfits, they probably would not give us new ones. Ticket sales would increase, I suppose.

[nibelungvalesti]

"If you cared about being liked more than you cared about your music and your principles, you would be a very different person."

Was that a compliment, however roundabout? Actually, from her standpoint it wasn't roundabout at all. Meril valued principle, and he hadn't compromised his. Irritating as that could be.

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

Oh hey, thanks. One thing Jecht never seemed to mind, or think about, was the threat of backwash.

"Water polo," he said after he took a gulp. He had no idea what he was talking about, but he kept imagining a guy kicking a ball into a net while underwater, so it had to be water polo. What else had water involved?

[sublimelymagnificentblitz]

That'd sure explain why we can barely hear it and it sounds all ragged. Hey ghost! [Jecht turns to bellow at a point a few feet off to one side.] Get with the times, get some wireless speakers or somethin'!

[yuruse]

Well, if you don't support your fans, you won't have many. And without fans we're out of a job.

[He doesn't realize things are more complicated than that, of course, but in a typical rock star situation this would ring true.

It doesn't help that coming from him this sounds more than a little hypocritical, given that he doesn't even acknowledge his fans half the time.]

[twoscompany]

"Must be some very intense water polo." Garnet also gulped some water down. "I've never seen anyone so enthused."

[yuruse]

It's certainly a trap, but at least Itachi isn't the one who's designed it. They're both equally stuck in it, and the ninja's frustration is quickly mounting as he realizes that there really is just nowhere to hide in sight. Maybe if they keep running they'll find somewhere, but in this environment it doesn't seem likely. Yet that's the only option they have. If they stop, they'll be caught. They might be caught regardless.

He stands, and is already moving to drag Jamie up with him. "Let's go." There are more dark figures closing in on them, and quickly.

[mildwildchild]

Jamie is ready to scramble to his feet as soon as Itachi moves, but ends up halfway dragged by his mysterious benefactor anyway. He catches a glimpse of the masked men as he does so, and the panic flares up again in full force.

"Where?" he squeaks, tensed to run in whatever direction he's told. It still doesn't look like there's anywhere to run to; maybe the best they can hope for is maintaining enough of a lead on the hunters to stay out of range of their weapons. And maybe then the guys will get discouraged and give up! Right?

Right?

[yuruse]

[What a question to ask.]

Of course I wonder. Wonderment is necessary for leading an individual down the road of enlightenment. Giving up on one's curiosity and living in a world where everything is taken for granted will leave them forever entrapped in earthly mediocrity.

[Weasel pauses in his tirade, taking in Garnet's expression.]

...Or did you mean something more specific?

[zhiend]

[ That was very direct of him. She presses the pause button and pulls off the headphones, before putting the player in a hoodie pocket.

When she comes over to him, she points to the space beside him. ]

Still got your things all over the place or can I just sit down?

[yuruse]

There's very little that will right now.

[Surrender could open up some options, or it might not. Running might eventually lead them to a way out, or it might not. Either way they're at a disadvantage.]

Though you may be right. At least they're not using deadly force.

b1

[zhiend]

I never said I thought you were asleep.

[ Her eyes might not work, but her ears still does. Finding the edge of the curb, she used his shoulder as support when she sat down beside him, and put the plastic bag between her feet. ]

Having fun hanging out?

[yuruse]

[It's an expected move, and he doesn't hold it against her. There's little else either of them could do at this point anyway, and from the looks of things running is merely delaying the inevitable.

The sleeve over his arm doesn't do enough to protect him from the gas, and holding his breath only allows him a few seconds extra time. They converge on him quickly, but they'll be on her not long after.]

[yuruse]

The answer to Jamie's question is anywhere, but Itachi can't get himself to say that. A flying device like that could easily catch back up to them no matter which way they went, but he isn't sure surrendering is a better option.

The situation is rather hopeless, unfortunately. "This way." He leads the kid running off in one direction despite this. He isn't yet ready to turn himself over.

b1

[dishevelment]

It's peaceful, [He decided after taking a moment to briefly set her to-go bag closer to their place on the curb.]

You'll want to be careful with that, they're very hungry tonight.

[gunslingerqueen]

[While Yosuke poses the very hard-hitting, relevant questions Nariko goes ahead and flips one of the tables over. If she was in her normal state breaking off a table leg would be as simple as writing her name down, but now she's a little doubtful. And, of course, it's right as she's resolved to try that Yosuke says they're outside.

She drops down too.] Shit! [That was, what, five, ten minutes maybe? This fuckers seemed pretty damn quick.] Okay, we really need a plan here, something is going to be better than absolutely nothing.

[If they got up here and started spraying that gas they were done for. But, then again, she hadn't seen anything else that could be used for a weapon, and they didn't have a lot of time to look around, either.] Look, we have to try and take them out, somehow.

[This whole sitting around and being irritated deal was already tiring.]

[yellowcopycat]

Kise nodded, smiling broadly before beginning to strum on his guitar.

"Oooh oooh oo-oo-oo-oh ooh-oo-oo
Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high,
There's a land that I dreamed of
Once in a lullaby"

The smile softened as he sung. He really did love this song.

[dishevelment]

That's how it looks right now, but we can't be sure. Who can say what happens after their prisoners get into custody?

[He shrugged, seemingly nonchalant, though the observant would note the dark look of caution in his gaze.]

Honestly, I've never seen tactics quite like this, or any Magic Tools similar to what they're using. They seem to be long range, but they're trying to exhaust and pin us in for an easier target.

[Honestly, all this running made him wonder if they were no better than livestock in their hunters' eyes.]

[yellowcopycat]

"I guess that's true," Ryouta said after giving Wild Eagle the middle finger. "People aren't so tough offline." Though Ryouta wasn't in it for the money. He was in it for the art. For making people happy with the music he produced. "It's nice when they like it though."

He continued to scroll through the tweets, smiling when he saw some really nice ones.

[gunslingerqueen]

[She's quiet for an extra moment but an elated, almost bashful smile finds its way onto her lips, pulls them up and up, until she feels stupid and covers her face.]

Thank you. [It's incredibly difficult to feel anything but empowered by that tone, and the implied support.] I guess I can give it a try, and you can let me know what you think later, if you want!

[And she really will get to it, there's absolutely nothing hollow about the promise. But:] What about you, though? Is there something particular you believe in?