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Entry tags:
August 2022 Test Drive Meme
AUGUST 2022 TDM
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Folkmore's monthly Test Drive Meme! Please feel free to test drive any and all characters regardless of your intent to apply or whether you have an invite or not.
All TDMs are game canon. You can choose to have your TDM thread be your introduction thread upon acceptance or start fresh. Each TDM will provide a scenario for how characters arrive in-game that particular month.
Playing TDMs will allow characters to immediately obtain canon items from homes especially weapons or other things they may have had on their person when they were pulled from their worlds! There will always be a prompt that provides some sort of "reward" to characters who complete certain tasks.
Current players are allowed to have in-game characters react to TDMs via the Network or make a log with the prompts. Current players are always encouraged to tag new people on the TDM!
TDM threads can be used for spoon spending at any time by characters accepted into the game.
Content Warnings: snakes, cultists, optional violence.
FALLING DOWN LIKE PIECES INTO PLACE
FALLING DOWN LIKE PIECES INTO PLACE
A breeze with the crisp smell of dying leaves caresses you awake. You sit up to find yourself in the middle of an apple orchard, rows spreading out in all directions. Mouth watering apples hang from the branches, and nobody will stop you from taking one. You can wander the orchard as long as you like, but eventually you will find yourself emerging into the front yard of a little farm. There’s a red barn with perfect white trim set far back, and to one side of the yard is a kiosk modeled to match the barn. This is staffed by a woman who sure looks a lot like the fox that brought you here.
On the side of the kiosk are advertised a few different items: pumpkin spice lattes, hot apple cider, cold alcoholic apple cider, and hot chocolate. The cider, you will be informed, is made on site. (But you have to be of legal age to be given that hard cider!)
There are two other things advertised: APPLE PICKING and a SCAVENGER HUNT.
“You need a buddy for those, though,” the woman running the kiosk will tell you. “Lucky for you there’s plenty of people you can pair up with.”
If you elect to try the scavenger hunt, you and your partner will be handed a piece of paper. On it reads the following:
TAKE A PICTURE OF THE FOLLOWING ON YOUR RELIC! :)
- YOU HOLDING HANDS WHILE YOU GO DOWN A PATH
- FEET WITH AUTUMN LEAVES
- SOMETHING YOU THINK IS TRULY BEAUTIFUL
- A GENUINE SMILE
“When you’re done, bring it back here and show me,” the woman instructs you. “You’ll get a prize if you do.”
It’s an easy enough list, right? Although you have to follow the instructions - you really DO have to find something you genuinely think is beautiful, and that smile can’t be forced! Those might require opening up to your partner a little bit!
If you succeed in the scavenger hunt, you will be gifted with an item from home.
Now, what if you decided to go apple picking?
You will be given a bucket. “Be careful to only pick apples from the trees in the rows,” the kiosk woman tells you with a secret smile. “You don’t want to bother the old trees off the path.”
Yeah. That sure sounds like a challenge, doesn’t it?
If you do stick to the orchard proper, you will be able to pick your fill of apples. All of them are crisp and sweet and delicious. But at some point you will see the other trees.
They’re both huge and old, standing on two sloping hills just past the orchard rows. One of them has apples red as blood, and the other apples gold as the sun. In the shade of these trees are weapons sticking half out of the earth, as if they were carelessly buried many years ago.
If you pick one of the red apples, you will find that you are suddenly besieged with huge snakes. They are as big as anacondas and an inky black that absorbs the light, with eyes the same red as the apples. They aren’t poisonous, but they bite and they crush, so you’ll have to fight them off at least long enough to run like hell!
If you pick the golden apples, a crowd of people will silently begin appearing from the orchard. They are all wearing animal masks… and they are all holding hand scythes. Uh oh. You’ll have to fight them off in order to escape! If you don’t manage that, well, in some places it’s traditional to have a big ol’ sacrificial bonfire…
All the weapons below the trees are non-enchanted items, but you may keep them.
Content Warnings: Optional themes of identity and school trauma.
IMAKEOVER MAKEOVER
SAVED BY THE BELL
IMAKEOVER MAKEOVER
Thirteen believes passionately in education. There are, after all, five academies in Folkmore all catering to different types of learning. While these academies are open year round, it becomes apparent if you walk through any of the districts housing shops that back to school is definitely a thing.
A new school year represents a chance to learn more about the world, and about yourself.
Also? It’s a great time for a makeover!
Yes, step into any of the shops selling clothing and accessories anywhere in Folkmore and you will find yourself passionately invested in helping another person discover who it is they want to look like! Do they want to look cool and aloof? Warm and approachable? Are they an e-boy or a cottagcore witch? Punk or prep? You two can figure it out together!
As you shop together you will find it easier and easier to open up to one another, sharing who it is you want to be.
You’ll also be able to score a sweet outfit. Nice.
SAVED BY THE BELL
Wander into any school in Folkmore and you will find a handmade poster instructing all new students and faculty to report to the auditorium. Normal enough, one supposes… but the moment you enter the room you will find reality swims all around you and all of a sudden you’re stuck in a school nightmare!
You know the kind. You’re late for class, no matter how fast you run. You’re in gym class, trying to climb that goddamn rope. You’re getting your books dumped. You’re naked and giving a book report.
These could be memories, but it’s just as likely that they aren’t - you and another person are just trapped in this cliche together. Whichever one of you is in the audience role could maybe help the other one out? Get them some pants or something? Yeah.
no subject
Yeah, maybe. That would be as good as anything if you ask me, long as it wasn't strawberry whatever.
[She sweeps an eye over the area again, noting:]
This looks sort of fall themed though so I'm going to guess it's more gingerbread and pumpkin pie. Or like those pumpkin roll things.
[All of which Helga will happily stuff in her gob. Back to the mission at hand though. There's tons of paths around and this is very much the place to come for those scenic fall pictures everyone seems to take for social media nowadays.]
Well the feet in leaves is real easy to do. How do you feel about a walk down one of these paths? Knock two things out at once.
[And this is where Helga offers out a hand to the other woman, her smile firm on her face. For as much as Helga looks like she could be a mega grouch the smile she gives is surprisingly warm and she looks a heck of a lot softer like that.]
no subject
You don't like strawberries?
[it's so beautiful, it makes Dezba nervous. like if she puts one foot out of line, it will return to the terrible pollution and desolation she was used to]
Those are good? I--haven't actually had anything like that before.
[and she feels foolish for having admitted such a thing, but back home, those were for the ones who could pay for it. Dezba couldn't]
That sounds fine with me?
[Dezba looks shy for a moment, then takes Helga's hand, smiling back] The paths look beautiful. [she says wistfully] Let's go?
no subject
[Hadn't had it? Huh, well, first time for everything.]
Have you had pumpkin before? ... Actually you know what, forget it, we'll find pumpkin pie and rolls somewhere after this. Somehow I doubt a place with talking foxes wouldn't have those.
[How did that make sense, you ask? Shut up, that's how. Or well, if you go on fairytale logic...
Anyhow they're strolling down one of the paths and Helga has to admit with a wistful smile to match Dezba's tone.]
Yeah, it really is, isn't it. Like something out of a poem sort of.
[As a shy kid or teenager she wouldn't have said as much of her thoughts out loud but things had changed since then. At least a little.]
no subject
[she's used to a steady diet of grits. no cheese, no ham, no red-eye gravy, just the grits. sometimes with butter, but usually plain]
No, I--[well. she can't argue with that logic?
it seems sensible enough to her? she feels a lot like Alice must have felt after tumbling into Wonderland.
an Alice who can kill a grown man in at least twenty-five ways, but still. she's strolling. she's seeing no threats. which in and of itself is weird]
T.S. Eliot? Or more Emily Dickinson?
[her own is Eliot, The Wasteland. she's hoping Helga says Dickinson. Tennyson would work, too]
no subject
Little of both. Some Robert Frost too. I mean you can't walk down a path like this without lapsing all into "two roads diverged in yellow wood" and all, yeah? Eliot's got a more modern sort of ring to him and Dickinson is kind of more plain spoken in the allusions she paints.
[She waves her free hand.]
But that's my opinion. What do you think of Eliot and Dickinson?
no subject
[there's a tone of absolute wonder in Dezba's voice, the notion of learning for the sake of learning absolutely foreign to her world and how she was raised]
...Eliot strikes too close to home. Dickinson allows an escape from it. But to be honest, I like prose the best.
no subject
[She seems to muse on the school thing a moment.]
I guess so. I mean most towns and that sort of thing have at least one, yeah? You hear some of the animals talking about them or something?
no subject
[she wants to learn. learning had been the privilege of the very rich for hundreds of years back home and Ajei was more focused on medicine]
Yes, there's--there's a school for magic? I'd like to go there.
no subject
Ahaha, it's not really anything special. I mean sure though, it's not like I'm writing it to hide it.
[Now Helga comes to a pause, adding:]
Hold on a second, let's see if we can get this feet in the leaves shot. Someone hasn't been raking out here.
[She snaps a shot with her relic after some work, then goes for the one of holding hands on a path too. May as well get them both at once, yes?]
Hey, school for magic sounds nice. I'm a little too old for Hogwarts anymore but guess some place here will do okay.
no subject
[which is why she's never tried writing poetry, she's afraid to give leash to the things she keeps hidden]
All right. Perhaps it's...on purpose? The leaves left in the path?
[she remembers seeing remnants of trees, but they were nothing like the ones here. here, even the trees losing their leaves just about pulse with life.
and, confused] Hogwarts?