anonymous text post

[peerlesscucumber]

Chroma, Moonlacing, and You

a breakdown by Anonymous for the Moonblessed
Congratulations! You're now on the planet Prismatica, in the city of Lunatia, population: Prismals and Moonblessed. (That's you!) What do you want to know about Chroma, Moonlacing, and your survival in this place?

What is Chroma?

To recap what the Lunar Scientia should have said when you were processed, Chroma is a form of energy that we, the Moonblessed, generate. In Prismatica's history, Chroma was also produced through various means on world, but since the Calamity, Prismatica has only been processing energy crystals for demichroma to keep things working. Demichroma is both a less powerful form of energy and the standard currency throughout Lunatia, and is what any person working in the city will be paid in. Weird enough yet? It gets weirder.

Why should I care about Chroma?

You should care because if your body's Chroma levels fall too low, you'll begin crystalising. You need direct infusions of Chroma to reverse the process, and the only way of getting that Chroma is through moonlacing.

If your body loses all Chroma, you will completely crystalise and die. This should be difficult. Should be! If you're feeling horrible, take at least one hand held out to you so you don't get to this point. See What happens when we die? for more information.

What the fuck?! Why do I lose Chroma?

Chroma is a form of energy. It seems like it may be linked with your life energy here on Prismatica. Living your life means burning energy, and now you don't only use the energy of food or whatever the fuck usually keeps you functioning, but also use Chroma in order to stay functional on this world.

You lose Chroma because you burn it up like any other energy source by existing. Which is why you need to moonlace for more Chroma to stay active and healthy.

Be warned, Moonblessed! You can burn through Chroma faster by doing any of the following:

• participating in any non-moonlacing related physical activities that take a lot of normal energy;
• using any special or advanced abilities you may have (magic, superpowers, energy manipulation, psychic abilities, any and everything, even whatever you're thinking about now, probably);
• or being under the influence of outside forces. Are you influenced by the Cordis moon? Sorry, Moonblessed, but you may find your Chroma consumption goes up whenever your moon's in phase! Have you been drugged with Glow? Welcome to your new energy vampire urges!

It's fucked, we know.

Then what is Moonlacing?

When one Moonblessed and another Moonblessed come into physical contact, they generate Chroma. Think of it as a reaction that naturally occurs when two Moonblessed come into contact and maintain that contact, though it does not appear to work well or at all in instances of senseless violence or force. Sparring is a different matter, but punching someone for no reason or choking them for Chroma if they're not into breath-play and haven't given consent is not going to work.

Moonlacing is the name for this process of Chroma generation between two Moonblessed. No one knows what the fuck is up with it, only that it happens, and can be measured for how much Chroma-energy is generated at a time. Chroma is weird, because you need it to live, and yet it also is credited as "energy" you've added to Prismatica... and since energy is money here, it's money you've earned.

Now, Chroma that you naturally lose seems like it's absorbed by the world around us, or by some technology the Prismals in Lunar Scientia use, or maybe both or something else, which is how it's out there getting measured by Lunatia. Chroma you consume directly to use any abilities you have does not get released out into the world, but still appears to be counted as currency "earned" at time of moonlacing. This Anon doesn't understand it either. Financial records are visible and yet still mysterious.

How do you Moonlace?

Any way you can imagine that isn't rejected by one or more people involved. Two things of importance to note:

1. Moonlacing does not require direct skin contact.
2. Moonlacing will always feel good, but that does not mean all moonlacing will feel arousing. (Arousing can be of any associated emotion, okay! Any emotion! Any emotion!)

Addendum: While moonlacing is necessary, we advise you only moonlace with people you find tolerable. We advise against forcing yourself to moonlace with people you can't stand.

Forms of moonlacing contact can include, but are not limited to:

• Napping on or in physical contact with someone. (Also ideal when you have a full animal moonphase form.)
• Clasping a shoulder or upper arm.
• Holding hands.
• Brushing each other's hair.
• Shoulder massages.
• Wrestling.
• Supporting your drunk friend home. Or at least out of the bar.
• Carrying someone.
• Hugging.
• Cuddling.
• Snuggling. (Is there a difference between this and cuddling? This Anon just does not know.)
• Leaning shoulder to shoulder.
• Kissing foreheads, cheeks, hands, anywhere really.
• Everything remotely sexual does too. I'm not making that list for you. Sexy Anons out there can make that list for you!

The take away point is this: moonlacing is necessary to keep your chroma levels high enough so that you don't crystalise and die. So don't be a fool: moonlace. Survive. Those who want to go home under their own choice are only going to have that chance if they don't kill themselves along the way.

Can Moonlacing help heal?

For those who participated in recent tournament events, the answer appears to point toward "yes." However, it should be noted that increasingly more intimate levels of moonlacing were better at helping bodies recover quickly: kissing provided more than hands held over wounds, but massaging helped muscle aches, embraces helped generate enough Chroma for people's natural abilities to take control, and so on.

Short of something incredibly ill advised with someone suffering fatal injuries, moonlacing is not enough to save you when you're already dying. Talk to Prismals, and they'll tell you even in their general knowledge, "healing" was for minor injuries. It's what all those kisses exchanged before people swaggered out onto the arena were about, and all the hugs from Daddy Dearest before we went down. Moonblessed seem to be able to heal more than minor injuries with enough moonlacing, but it is not! Enough! To prevent you from dying if you've lost all your chroma already. Understood?! Don't go testing this out!

What happens when we die?

When you die, either because you used all your Chroma or because you managed to kill yourself or get yourself killed... your corpse is encased in crystal. Just your corpse. You're movable by anyone who can manipulate the crystal sculpture you've turned into, and as this Anon has been assured, the Prismals will take care of the crystal body if your friends don't want to.

But wait! There's more! Like everything else here, it gets weirder. After enough chroma has slowly seeped back into your body... you resurrect. Not entirely okay, but at least you're not fucking dead because you fucking died.

Prismals find nothing weird about this. Crystalising when you die is normal here. The not normal part is coming back out of the crystal, which if you remember waking up on the moon? Sounds like the same fucking process.

What happens when we disappear?

Great question. No idea. Does anyone have an answer from Lunar Scientia about this?

---

This is "as accurate as it can be right now," which means if you have information to add, comment for Anon to update. If you have questions, ask and this Anon or any of the other people reading can speak up and try to answer.

A question for anyone who knows: is there any noted increase in overall moonlacing if more than two people are involved in an act of moonlacing?

[ What follows is an audio version of this post with a big, green play arrow for anyone who doesn't read; it will narrate this post and replies in a voice oddly similar to Samuel L. Jackson. ]

Comments

[bailian]

I'm not trying to avoid your questions.

[ The one thing Binghe hates most of all is others assuming the worst of him. It's a practice Shen Qingqiu practically elevated into art, blaming him for every slight that came his way and all the wrongs that befell him at the hands of others. The times that Luo Binghe had harmed his shizun were always direct, he'd delivered those things in person as they stood face to face, owning them in the stead of stabbing him in the back from the shadows. ]

I just don't understand why you care so much about what I was thinking.

[ His frustration is evident, but it doesn't quite peak into rage. It never has, however much he's felt... jerked around by this person he cannot see, or hear or touch, who seems more like the illusion of a person than anything tangible. Smoke and mirrors that lead him on, speaking in taunts and occasional jabs, and then brief moments of kindness. It's enough to make his head spin until he can only cast out honest replies when he really ought to be more guarded. ]

I don't know. [ His helpless shrug is audible in words if not the motion itself. ] Some words, I suppose.

[ He doesn't have to outwardly admit he'd been putting on an act and going with the flow of this person's incentives to express it. Still, he hadn't considered what this person wanted, or what precisely he was supposed to do, beyond knowing nothing said or promised would come to fruition. His only knee-jerk reaction, built from dealing with so many who tried these maneuvers with every intention of getting what they wanted from him in exchange for his own goals, was to string them along with all the words they wanted to hear. Only to cut them off long before they ever got whatever piece of him they were after- his body, his heart, or something else.

He had an idea there was something more to this person's invitation. The workings of Prismatica nearly ensure that, weaving that edge of desire and something a little sexual into even the most innocent interactions, like a viper lying in wait the instant it sees an opening. But Luo Binghe hasn't any experience in these things, from talking to someone like this to acting on it. He has nothing to work off from in those terms to know when someone is luring him in with a salacious invitation or just asking for a favor. And this world only muddles the waters even more, when Binghe has grown all but paranoid that no kindness or affection is without its strings or the one-sided want for more from him. ]

It's the same way you spoke about being touched. It's better to expect that someone wants more from you and be prepared than feel surprised.

[ That last question has him suddenly putting his guard up, refusing to offer up a name that flutters around in his head, as though the more he tries to repress such an admittance the more urgently he feels compelled to. ]

The person I spoke of earlier. [ Discreetly, but still mentioned in the want to touch them. ] They're watching your message.

[ The whole of Prsimatica could be, if one wants to get technical. So Luo Binghe believes he's not giving away too much. Just enough to make it clear he had a valid reason to lock this down outside any expectations on where this conversation may lead. ]

welcome to a minor gay panic

[peerlesscucumber]

[ Ah... perhaps it was the ease of things in a modern era where death wasn't an immediate fear (at least not often), where one could express concern or curiosity in avenues that didn't mean endangering one's life, family, or existence. Caring about strangers could be allowed, because there was so little cost to it, wasn't there?

But he knows why he's asking, he knows that for him, it's because Luo Binghe isn't a stranger, but one who is so familiar, gone somewhat strange. Someone he's alternately mad at, sad over, conflicted about, and nervous with, all while still, ridiculously, wanting to protect him. Which is stupid! He's already failed that spectacularly several times in his life, and here his track record isn't looking much better!

And why is it anyway that this whole conversation is back to making him... sad, of all things? Or not sad, maybe, but... aching?

Maybe he was just too tired. Maybe he was coming down with a cold. Maybe. ]

I want to understand. Or I care to understand. Since we've both done a good job about assuming we know what it is the other person wants, or what they're talking about.

What you say is true, but if anything this Anon says has worth, please value yourself higher. Information is valuable, but you're clearly intelligent. You don't need to cater to someone else in ways you don't enjoy in order to find out the things that matter to you.

[ The stuff about assumptions is worth reflecting on for his sake, because on his end, it's even more confusing. Just as... well. He scrolls through all the responses to his post, cataloguing them one by one. Luo Binghe's person that he wanted to touch, that's what he means by the person he spoke of earlier. The one hidden behind a private screen, so that they don't know. Who of the ones with a recogniseable name have replied?

How familiar is Binghe with technology to know any of those who wrote in text, instead of spoke with a voice? He's guessing, based on Binghe's own choice response, that while the reading is easy enough, the relationships of usernames may not be untuitive. It's essentially a layer of self-chosen names applied for a specific social purpose, and Binghe was from a world and time where even courtesy names weren't common outside of certain social situations, like the generational names given to the leaders of a sect by their masters prior to when they take over in leading roles. Shen Qingqiu becoming Shen Qingqiu, and not Shen... Jiu? If he's basing this on suppositions from some of the things Yue Qingyuan has said over the years.

The problem, when he looks over replies, is that there aer a handful of people who fit that description. Himself, Luo Binghe, Sesshomaru, Inuyasha, and a woman he had not previously met. One who had also asked why he hid his identity. Based on how she looke, she... potentially wasn't human, and was also the only woman to respond in such a way, but she just...

How was she unique compared to the many lovely ladies from their world? She wasn't! At a glance, she simply wasn't! And it's just as ridiculous imagining Luo Binghe with Sesshomaru (who reminds Shen Qingqiu so much of Liu Qingge in certain aspects of his arrogance), because it seemed far more likely they'd butt heads, and also, Sesshomaru was male! Pretty, yes, but a man, and not as beautiful as Luo Binghe! Also something of a purist! The idea of the same with Inuyasha has Shen Qingqiu frowning: personality wise, he doesn't see how they'd mesh like that, and again, he's a man! A younger man! Older, actually, but his mentality and presentation was more teenaged than teenage Luo Binghe had been!

Besides, isn't Luo Binghe straight? Then it has to be that woman, or—

Shen Qingqiu frowns, because he really is too curious, and he's arguing himself into a corner that leaves him with two improbable options: the lovely, but not as lovely as certain ladies (human and demon) back home person who'd questioned his anonymity, and... himself. He wants to dismiss the possibility, is ready to, but makes himself pause and pull back and replay the messages Luo Binghe's sent.

Fact: Luo Binghe claims to have kept this Shizun's body in pristine condition for the last five years.

Fact: Luo Binghe had been begging in dreams for Shen Qingqiu to wake up. It hadn't seemed to be a ploy to get Shen Qingqiu to reveal himself. Luo Binghe's responses were a little too raw in his eyes to be the kind of perfected lies he believes Luo Binghe must be good at by now.

Fact: Luo Binghe had tracked Shen Qingqiu down in the Obscuria Resort casino, and had been, in retrospect, rather handsy. Without the cutting edge of violence that Shen Qingqiu had been fearing was only waiting in the wings. Luo Binghe had run away (?) instead of retreated strategically (?) when Shen Qingqiu had been suffering his fire-smoke coughing fit.

Fact: He himself had initiated trying to save Luo Binghe's dying flame of a life by kissing him on that rooftop, because he'd hoped that moonlacing would help stop his death-seeking disciple from finding his end... but it'd been Luo Binghe who'd wasted energy on lifting an arm and pulling Shen Qingqiu further down and meeting his lips with his own demanding, desperate kisses, and for the first time he's allowing himself to remember and wonder (not without a lacing of pain that makes him grimace, a memory of blood on his tongue and down his throat) if that desperate had not been out of sudden re-discovered will to live.

Fact: Shen Qingqiu is wondering if he's been making a few more assumptions than he should, but also, he's making an assumption now if he's so stupid to believe Luo Binghe could, in any reality, be implicating that he wants him.

Fact: Because if he did, then Shen Qingqiu... had bent the protagonist.

Supposition: Holy fuck, had he bent Luo Binghe?!

Wait, wait, no, that's nowhere near enough evidence, there's—the lack of any closeness with the women who were supposed to be his wives? The various incidents of Shen Qingqiu finding himself unexpectedly in the maiden's role in so many of those situations where he shouldn't have been involved at all? Luo Binghe's inability to process his grief over Shen Qingqiu?

But how the hell does that make sense! Even if that was true, even if Luo Binghe meant anything of the kind, then why the hell had he tried so hard to die? What was this, craving every part of your body against them. Inside them?! What was this denying what he, his father, had said about never truly hating Luo Binghe?! ]

The person you desire?

[ He brain shies away from anything like emotion, because that feels like the next impossible thing. The Heartbreak points from his fall were of trust for a mentor having betrayed him, proving a hypocrite in the moment where it'd mattered most. Chasing him down in Jinlan City, asking why he ran, why he laughed and smiled with everyone else, forcing his blood down Shen Qingqiu's throat—that was all the anger he'd expected, all the hurt, and all the wish to harm. Wasn't it? His torture by blood after escaping from the metal whip torture of another of Binghe's disregarded future wives, the small scenario pusher that followed, Binghe's anger when Shen Qingqiu had allowed his borrowed robe to slide off him—anger at his refusal? At not bending to Luo Binghe's whims?

Or was it, perhaps, something else? Just what! The hell! Is going! On! You can't tell him he's been missing something that obvious this whole damn time, can you?! Luo Binghe was supposed to hate him! Supposed to want him dead for all the wrongs he'd visited down on him over his teen years! For the things that the original goods had already done by the time Shen Yuan transmigrated, and for the things Shen Qingqiu had done after, either playing against the knowledge of Luo Binghe's in-world invincibility, or playing out under the immense stress of the System's dictations.

There's no mention of this. None! You can't say he switched genres from—from a Stallion Novel to Boy's Love! He could be taking all of this wildly out of context! Assumptions are assumptions! What's that English phrase? "When you assume it makes an ass out of u and me?" ]

[bailian]

[ To say he desires Shen Qingqiu is like making a claim that the sky is blue. Yes, it often is. But that's such a paltry, measly little example of what complexities the heavens are capable of revealing, from blood tinted rises of a sun which blooms fiery reds and yellows out onto the blanket of space surrounding it to the eerie cloak of night where lovers and fiends both feel some animal urge to prowl about. What he feels for Shen Qingqiu is no less intricately nuanced. Unrequited things that make Luo Binghe willing to tear apart the heavens or pull stars from the sky, if such feats would promise him just a taste of Shen Qingqiu's affection. He'd do it all for only a kind word or tender touch, both potent enough to nearly bring him to his knees. There are more numerous hungry, possessive urges than he can count. The need to know what the arch of his sweat-soaked back looks like from behind, or the sound of that level voice pitching upwards around sharp inhales of air and exhalations made vocal and full of feeling. And at the crux of it all resides the eternal, endless, ocean-deep ache that carves itself through the center of Luo Binghe every moment they're apart. It's a longing for something, anything, even if only the sight of him to lift away the crushing weight of his absence. ]

Someone I can't be without.

[ There's only one scenario where either of them being sent home wouldn't spell a tragic end to Luo Binghe's life, forcing him to survive the emptiness of being denied Shen Qingqiu's existence with all the endless agony of having his heart pried from his chest. That involves the two of them returning to their world together, and the unlikely event that whatever power which exists on Prismatica, strong enough to revive those who'd died in their home world, will endure after leaving.

But what promises do they have that whatever chroma-based resurrection that Shen Qingqiu experienced, that reconnected his soul to an empty body Luo Binghe had felt drained of life, would maintain itself when separated from this world and its power? Who can say Luo Binghe's own experience of cheating death would last either? The worst-case scenario was that their renewed lives will dissipate into the void once they've gone, with nothing waiting for them beyond Prismatica but a death more permanent than those before. ]

This is the only place I'll ever be able to see them. Which is why I absolutely cannot leave, as long as I'm still capable of drawing breath.

[ Thinking his words to be vague enough, Binghe structures a reply that potentially could refer to anyone. Any person from another world is naturally one he'd be unable to see again, should either find themselves transported back from where they came. It isn't as though he could follow this fictional lover to a different place or time, could he?

Except he hasn't the slightest clue that Shen Qingqiu expertly took the barest slivers of hints, extrapolated the facts from those, and already ruled out all other options beyond himself. A show of logical brilliance that Luo Binghe had taken note of during the beginnings of this conversation, yet one he now fails to realize has already been used to see right through him. ]

And if I cannot find the answers myself, or not quickly enough? Is it worth the risk of letting these things slip away and possibly losing them forever?

[ It's not to his advantage, airing his desperation so flagrantly to someone who holds an advantage over him as the most capable person he's met among the Moonblessed to find the answers he needs. But Binghe cannot bring himself to care when he feels the walls pressing down all around him at just the notion of such a future, hanging over his head at all times like a guillotine, meant to sever the thin red thread that's joined them yet again against all conceivable odds. ]

[peerlesscucumber]

[ You cannot protect someone else from grief. You cannot protect even yourself, and when his chest constricts now, when his heart itches, when his mouth goes dry, he doesn't know if he wants to laugh helplessly at all of this, or cry.

There's no ground left to stand on by the banks of this river of denial, and he's been in that river too often the last three weeks, denying something else related to this man. His death, the utter inability he, Shen Qingqiu, had in accepting it, how the fear that it might happen had instantly morphed into the terror of it already being in process.

He really should talk to Luo Binghe about being careful with Anonymous. Not because he's too specific; Shen Qingqiu has an advantage most would lack, that most would be unable to logic through. But because if Binghe feels this much, if he's this desperate, then there's a danger in what people will do to manipulate him, and he clearly doesn't want Shen Qingqiu to know the lengths to which he's willing to go.

It's too much. It's so backward from what he'd thought was true, Shen Qingqiu is left sitting there, fingers curling into his fists, muttering a single curse under his breath.

Then his face drops down into suddenly opened hands, heels of his palms pressed against his eyes, and he tries to make it make sense. Tries to sort out the extensive, tangled web of his own feelings, and doesn't know what to make of it. Only knows on some level this scares him, but in a different way than his usual fears. In a way that speaks to him about what the last three weeks have been like, what a lifetime here (long or short) would be like with that weight resting heavy on his chest, making it hard to breathe.

There is a part of him that had wanted to survive on their shared world, had wanted to thrive, to keep an eye on Luo Binghe's progress from the fringes. To witness the world Luo Binghe would bring into existence, and see how it all played out. Luo Binghe was always going to be alive. In every scenario, the only way Shen Qingqiu has imagined him is as a living, breathing, powerful monolith of a man, and this place has broken that image with a ruthlessness that shows how little Shen Qingqiu ever really had in his control.

He wants to doubt who Luo Binghe is talking about. He wants to believe he hasn't been wrong.

Shen Qingqiu is a practical enough man, time to time, perhaps almost too practical. But not practical enough in the face of his own emotions, as unspoken as they are, and not the kind to deny something he's starting to realise.

Luo Binghe does not hate him, though he has every right to, and reasonably should, really. He won't name what it is, only that his disciple, this fair faced familiar stranger, says he does not want to return home, that he does not want to leave this bizarre landscape, that he cannot leave if he's breathing (why did you fucking kill yourself, Luo Binghe, why) like some kind of dogs blood confession and it all points toward—

Toward the kind of thing he can't name if it's not given a name for him.

When he can drag his hands away from his face, when he can look down at that small screen and not want to laugh or cry, when his hands don't shake when he reaches out for it again, he can write a response. ]

No, it's not worth the risk. Have you asked this person to help? This kind of fear, do you think it's one you're suffering alone? Does this person understand what drives you, that you'd approach a stranger and hope that they have information to help lead to an answer that saves you both?

Many of us have our regrets and our griefs. With the time you have now... don't let it pass unremarked, too afraid of what might come after. Don't fight a battle on your own when you could be fighting it side by side with the one you say you can't be without.

[ And maybe it isn't him, somehow, for some reason, and Luo Binghe will embrace whatever it is he's found here, in his chance at a life without the weight of his heritage and the injustices of his world. Or maybe it is him, this Shen Qingqiu, and—and he'll figure it out then. Even as his heart stutters, too heavy, in his chest, and his stomach clenches and relaxes in alternating shivers of confusion and distress, there's one thing Shen Qingqiu does know, past the bleating objections of but he can't be bent, I'm not even bent, am I?

He's always cared about Luo Binghe, and he always will. Even if he wants to wring his pretty neck for dying on him, even if he'd love to shake it into Binghe's soul how it's not acceptable to do this, to die like this, to return to that state of lifelessness at any moment, it's because he cares.

Yet part of Luo Binghe probably believes Shen Qingqiu doesn't care at all, and that hurt, different from the earlier ones, all but steals his breath away.

(So does remembering all of Binghe's provocative claims earlier, delineating the difference between moonlacing's hollow desire compared to his own genuine desire, but he knows why that is, and also does not need or want to think about that. It's too much while he's still reeling with Binghe's return to life and to the series of revelations he's just had.) ]