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
► Applications open on SEPTEMBER 24th at 12:01AM EDT

Comments

[dishevelment]

[Gun? You mean that weird-ass weapon they have, of the likes that he had never seen before?]

We either fight, run ourselves to exhaustion and face possible death, or surrender and maybe survive long enough to get some information.

[His tone was even, as if he were talking about something as unimportant as the weather.]

Which one do you choose?

[punchesyu]

[He considers this for a moment. But only for a moment.]

Ooooor we could get the hell out of here and make sure they don't catch us to find out the bad news! I dunno about you bro, but I don't have my weapons on me, and I suck in a fist fight! And like hell am I surrendering!

[dishevelment]

[Oh, dear. This boy was going to be useless.]

Then we're both defenseless, and I've seen no avenues to escape. Running is exactly what they want us to do, you know-- it's easier to catch an exhausted target than one that still has some fight left in them.

[punchesyu]

So you seriously want to fight back?

[He reconsiders. This guy hadn't found any way of escaping? And he makes a point. Yosuke turns and looks in the direction of where he knew their assailants were coming from.]

Alright...I guess this is it. Ready when you are.

[He doesn't like it, but he'll try. It might be the only way, he thinks, as they close on them, the gas guns pointed and ready.]

[dishevelment]

Frankly, I'd rather survive.

[And that was his final reply on that front, ambiguous though it was. The possibility of their hunters having access to Clairvoyance Magic, or an analogous skill, was a legitimate danger in his mind; though he was confident that the hunters weren't using lethal force, he didn't particularly wish to have all of his country's military secrets revealed to parties that he couldn't entirely comprehend. Those strange fog weapons were beyond his recognition-- the most he could guess was that they were some kind of Magic Tool...but why would they use something so advanced on parties that were clearly going to end up as war prisoners.]

There's a patch of trees over there, [he said, lifting a heavily sleeved arm and gesturing to the foliage that was showing through a break in the fog.] We might have a better vantage point up in a higher place; let's hurry.

[punchesyu]

Right.

[He turns, and starts to run as fast as he can. Yosuke is surprisingly fast for a boy who has no supernatural powers at all at his disposal at the moment, or much muscle mass to speak of. He ducks into the little patch, trying to keep most of his scrawny body hidden while thanking everything that his school uniform was black. He'd be able to hide better this way, at least.]

[He whispers to Koumei, watching the men pursue others and scan the area for anyone else they could capture. There are buildings, which seem to waver in and out of existence near them. He has no idea why they're there though...]

So what's the plan? Are we gunna take the secret agent route and sneak up on them one by one?

[dishevelment]

[The young man earns an incredibly bemused look in reply to his question.]

...What are you talking about? We're just trying to get a better look at the terrain.

[Huffing and puffing from the run, Koumen rubbed the back of his head with a hand while he gazed up at the strange, boxy buildings in the distance. Physical combat like this was far from his specialty, as was evidenced by his even more scrawny frame hidden underneath his many layers of clothes.]

We can't make a plan unless we know what we're dealing with.

[punchesyu]

You know, like from the movies? ...Never mind. [He ditches the idea, studying the area a little more closely.]

Dude, I don't know, there's tons of them! Even if we did manage to take a few out, we'd get totally swarmed! But man, we can't give into these creeps... [He really doesn't know what to do. He'd love to fight back. He'll try. But it just seems so hopeless.]

[dishevelment]

[Movies? He's not even heard of that phrase-- not that he has any time to ponder it in the present. Clumsily hoisting himself upwards into the tree branches, with unsteady footing and some degree of flailing, he managed to push the thick tangles of his ponytail out of the way so he could get a look at their hunters.]

...If only I hadn't dropped my Metal Vessel, [he muttered, furrowing his brows in frustration while he observed the scene. Had he not been whisked away in the moments following that attack on his person, he may have been able to do something about this problem. But, as it stood, their options were precious few.]

Have you ever seen weapons like that before? [he asked after a moment, casting a curious look down at Yosuke.] The only things I can compare them too are rare tools that wouldn't be wasted in scenarios like this.

[punchesyu]

Woah, dude! [He just climbing the tree, no big deal, while Yosuke stays on the ground watching him.]

Yeah, they look like some weird kind of guns. But not the kind that shoot bullets, you see how there's tubes attached to them and the container on their backs? They look like flamethrowers or something!

Oh man!!!!

We're gunna get burnt to a crisp-!

[dishevelment]

[He didn't know what a 'bullet' was either-- this was going to pose problems with future attempts to gather intel, he was starting to realize.]

...Are you an idiot?

[Koumei asked, staring at the young man with eyes that understood far more than he was letting on.]

There's no scorch marks or signs of fire-- you won't be incinerated, but get up here if you want a chance at living.

[punchesyu]

[He takes much resentment at that, looking for a way to climb the tree. Jumping, he grabs a hold of a branch and has a little difficulty trying to scale it, but manages.]

Hey, every time I've ever seen those things they've always been flamethrowers and no one ever survives. You don't even know what a secret agent is! Don't go giving me any crap!

[He finds himself next to this strangely clad man soon enough, gazing downwards.]

And now what are we supposed to do?

[dishevelment]

[If Yosuke were observant, he'd notice the classically-styled attire that Koumei preferred, and that such words were meaningless to Koumei.

Unfortunately, Yosuke wasn't that observant.]

I've never heard of a 'secret agent' or a 'flamethrower' in my life, [he commented mildly, peering through the foliage at their surrounding while he idly chatted with his odd partner.] But you can enlighten me more about what they mean later. For now, we wait.

[punchesyu]

[He thinks that Koumei is trolling him for a minute, but he also didn't understand why he was wearing the garb that he had on at the moment. He just figured he had a reason for the robes.]

Whatever. [He tries to keep his balance, sighing at the numbers of men looking for stragglers.] Wait for what? For them all to leave? I don't know about you bro, I didn't find a way out of this place yet. I don't even know how to get back to Inaba. It was like it was there in front of me, but when I reached out for it or tried to get closer, it just pulled farther away.

[dishevelment]

[Almost absently, Koumei pressed a hand against his ribcage at Yosuke's words.]

...I need to return to a different battlefield, [he replied, sounding distracted.] I need to make sure that our armies win-- although I suspect that I wouldn't be standing if I weren't here with you right now.

[Honestly, he actually commended their enemy's tactics. There were few better ways to ensure victory than by attacking the enemy general and tactician with lethal intent.]

But that has no bearing right now. You're correct; we wait for an opening. Unarmed as we are, neither of us stand a chance against their weapons.