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

► Follow the mod plurk for updates: interstellar5555
► Check out the game NAVIGATION
► We are still looking for some mod help, so if you are interested let us know!
► Reserves close on SEPTEMBER 25th at 12:01AM EDT
► Applications open on SEPTEMBER 24th at 12:01AM EDT

Comments

[turbocharging]

He rolled up his own sleeve, mimicking the flex. Imagine your typical skinny teenager arm with no biceps to speak of. Now imagine it attached to a skinny teenager body.

"Uh... like this?"

It was a sad state of affairs. He seemed to realize this, and had the grace to look slightly embarrassed. Then again, it wasn't like you needed tons of muscle to work a synth.

[warrior_princess]

Plourr shook her head, keeping a comment behind her teeth. If she'd been with - who had that been? an old band? she has to veer away from that thought and know that with some people she can say anything, no matter how harsh, and it won't cause a ripple. A smart pop princess had to be more diplomatic teasing strangers, particularly kid strangers.

So instead she said, "All right, you can't. How long ago 'd your voice break?"

[youngerandwiser]

"I... will take that as a compliment. I never thought being so strict would help any group band together."

But she does have a point. It's like his leading the rest of the group, helping them focus and realize their true potential. He guides them, teaches them... But he's not a teacher. He's just a rock star.

He sometimes feels his own music interfering. Though he enjoys the inspiration he gets from the faint piano music, he hates the way it circles his heart and squeezes it, making him feel pain about a family he's almost certain he never had. His parents were normal, and he knows he was an only child...

"Hmm... if you say so, I'll trust you. Maybe you can cast a spell and make sure it succeeds."

[i_am_not_cute]

[She doesn't think so either, and yet that's what you're supposed to do when you're lost, right? But if they can't even make outside calls, then it's likely no one would be able to find them here right now.]

If only we had a compass. Then we could at least tell what direction is north.

[Does their PDA have a function like that?]

[i_am_not_cute]

[Now Pao-Lin's getting really defensive.]

I just have to eat a lot, okay? I fainted from hunger once on stage and my manager yelled at me!

[panspermia]

H, ha... no worries, I'm slow already.

[With the world so warped, it's hard to make sense of where they are even with a clear head. It's less about finding a wall, and more about finding something solid. Everything has that weird, ethereal quality to it, insubstantial and shifting.

There's not time to quibble, though. There are ships everywhere, and he can hear more shots of gas nearby.] Here--over here! [He ducks them behind the image of a big statue's head, amidst otherworldly rubble. It's not exactly a solid wall, but it'll have to do. Now that they're down, he's not sure he'll be able to get up again.]

[zhiend]

Actually, you only made clear that you [ she pokes him lightly in the arm with a finger, ] don't think there are any ghosts. I think that if ghosts exists, that might be amusing.

[ You only live once, but who is there to say that there is nothing after death? It couldn't be proved, one way or the other. ]

b1

[zhiend]

Oh, I don't? That's great.

[ She gave him a calm smile. ] It's alright, perhaps next time.

[zhiend]

She knows how it feels to be hung over, she likes to drink too, but it was his own fault for drinking so much in the first place. She huffed in amusement, and shook her head to herself. "I can't let you do that, and I'll just be sent back here if I say that, anyway. Get up, have some water or something."

b1

[dishevelment]

[He had wanted to bring one over for Sala to hold, so that she could enjoy their fluffy little friends while they ate their dinner. Koumei smiled in return, though he knew that she didn't see it-- she was plenty able to understand the world without needing to see.]

Perhaps. We'll need to work on being more welcoming, won't we?

[magic_to_do]

[Oh crap they've been spotted! Trucy reels back in shock as the gun is aimed in their direction.]

Th-those are not cops!

[Trucy is pretty sure of that. She's seen angry police officers, lazy police officers, even incompetent police officers, but even they don't just point guns at civilians. She's so wrapped up in that, she doesn't even notice Ivan pulling out a weapon.]

Ivan! W-we have to run!

[But it may be too late for that. Now the other masked man has seen them too, and is also raising his gun. They take aim, ready to fire.]

\o/

[magic_to_do]

When he doesn't attack her, she relaxes slightly. Maybe he's not as scary as he looks. There's still a nervous quaver in her voice though.

"Wh-who are you? You're not... with those guys..."

She means the masked men. But it's not really a question. Instinct is telling her that he's not an enemy. Trucy has good instincts.

[magic_to_do]

Hmm...

[She's giving his question some very serious thought. She'd been in the middle of a show when she suddenly found herself here. And... she actually had been making herself disappear.]

Well... if it was just me here, I'd say I was a much better magician than I thought. But you're here too, so maybe it's a dream?

[Because a dream would involve more people than a disappearing act? Yeah, that makes sense.]

[killerbeep]

Bee shakes his head adamantly, shooting a glare in the direction he had last seen them and letting out a quiet, angry whirr.

He turns to Trucy again, tapping at the emblem stamped into the metal at his waist. "I'm Bumblebee. I'm an Autobot-- a friend." Of course, he's run into enough humans by now to realize that she'll probably only hear his words as whirrs and beeps. But it's kind of hard to get out of the habit of trying to just talk to people.

[magic_to_do]

Sadly, Trucy doesn't speak robot. But she gets his meaning well enough and she hesitantly smiles.

"I thought so. You don't seem like a bad guy at all."

But the bad guys are out there. And it's probably only a matter of time before they're found.

"Um, I don't really know where we are or how we get back home but... I think we're going to be in trouble if we just stay here."

Trucy had been crouching there for a while, and it has long since occurred to her that even if she can stay out of sight, she'll never get out of here if she just stays hidden.

[killerbeep]

He nods in agreement, then looks around again, the wing-like doors on his back flicking slightly as he thinks. After a few seconds, he points out another rock formation nearby. It's not much, but at least they can keep moving, and maybe find something eventually.

[giglio_madonna]

There's no arguing on Luce's end. She just crosses her arms and leans against the wall, staring the curtains herself.

"It's wind chimes," she says rather suddenly. "I keep hearing windchimes, no matter where I move in the bus."

[magic_to_do]

Trucy follows his gaze to the other rock. It's a risk, but it doesn't seem too far away. She nods firmly.

"Good idea. Maybe we'll be able to see something useful from there."

She looks back up at Bumblebee thoughtfully. It's probably not a good idea for both of them to just run out there. If they go one at a time, then even if they're spotted, at least the masked men will only catch one of them.

"I'll go first. If I make it safely, you follow."

[killerbeep]

Bee blinks, his eyes whirring briefly shut like a camera's shutter as they refocus. Then his eyebrows drop down and he shakes his head insistently with a disapproving trill. He points insistently at himself, then toward the rock formation.

If one of them is going to act as a guinea pig, it's not going to be this tiny human. Not if he has anything to say about it.

[dropthethrone]

[Mikoto blinks.

It's one of those hard blinks, the kind that you think will wake you up out of a daze. He already thinks this isn't real and then...

Maybe this is really Hell. Ghosts coming to haunt me.

That face isn't one he's seen in years. Not even in his mind's eye, he tries to put it out when he can. The regret is too far steeped to not let it linger, though.]

Totsuka.

[His voice is... not entirely sure, honestly.]

[magic_to_do]

"You want to go first? Are you sure?"

It's pretty dangerous, and he's a lot bigger than she is. There's a higher chance he'll be spotted. And she hates to think that anyone would put themselves in danger for her sake. He seems pretty determined though. Trucy gives the distance to the next rock another look, then nods.

"Okay. But be careful."

[goateeocracy]

[He looks down at the spot on his arm that she poked like it's some sort of personal insult. Why do people disagree with him? Their lives would be easier if they didn't.]

It's not amusing, it's a nuisance. And it's not a matter of opinion. Ghosts don't exist.

[youngerandwiser]

"I have plenty of desires driving me. It just happens that one of them is... keeping the people I care about happy."

'Safe' actually comes to mind before 'happy', but he feels like that would be a strange thing to say right now. He does notice her nervous tic, however, and he tries to give her a sympathetic smile.

"You don't need to feel bad, Meril-san. I'm not upset with you."

[nibelungvalesti]

"They are too deep for wind chimes." Meril assumed they were speaking of the same things. "But perhaps you hear them differently than I do. We already know we have different ears for different tones."

[nibelungvalesti]

"I am upset with myself for misreading you." She held herself to a high standard, which meant holding herself to her own judgment when she failed to uphold that standard. Kind words wouldn't change that.

"We seem beyond happiness at this point, in any case."