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:

Moonlacing does not require direct skin contact.
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. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ 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.) ]

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