August 2022 Test Drive Meme

[folkie]

AUGUST 2022 TDM

INTRODUCTION

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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.

[ Prompt One ★ Prompt Two]

Summer Is Over

Content Warnings: snakes, cultists, optional violence.

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.

Plaid Shirt Days and Nights

Content Warnings: Optional themes of identity and school trauma.

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.

Comments

ogino chihiro | spirited away | legend

[onethousen]

apples to apples

"We really shouldn't do that." She stands with her basket full of apples, staring at someone standing in the older trees, with the red apples and the golden apples weighing down the branches overhead. Tawny wings peek over her shoulders, tucked up against her back. "If you were thinking about picking any, I mean. Miss Fox said we shouldn't, so there must be a reason why."

She may have finally made her way back from the Spirit World with her parents in tow, only to still not get to her new school, falling here, but the detours have taught her some things.

Namely, greed is its own undoing, and even if she hasn't seen herds of pigs penned up anywhere she's been here so far? That doesn't mean there isn't something like it. Being cautious when she can, being bold when she must, isn't that part of figuring out what living here means?

"You can have some of these apples if you want?" Offering up her basket, and a smile.

school nightmares?

Here she is, in school slippers, holding a piece of paper with a room assignment on it, backpack on, and a mounting sense of distress. It's been a kindness that she can understand what everyone here says, hadn't had trouble with reading signs, only to now...

Find she can't read what classroom she's assigned to?!

"Excuse me!" She dips into a bow when running across anyone visibly older than her age, or looks head on if someone seems closer to ten, eleven. Behind her, her wings flaring a touch in distress. "Can you tell me what this says?"

Holding out the paper with the written room assignment on it, while the hallway they're in starts to stretch longer and longer, no matter how far they walk in it. Looking at the paper, there's nothing sensible on it. To all appearances, it's a squiggling doodle.

school

[xiaoxiaojiu]

Shen Jiu is pretty lost here himself - is this what schools are supposed to be like? It's not like he's ever actually been in one before...it's kind of a relief when this girl expresses that she's lost herself, but then he squints at the paper she's holding out and...he can't be that illiterate, can he?

"Who cares what it says? What's more important is getting outta this rotten place." Have you seen this hallway? He makes to take the paper and toss it, though if he fails at that he'll start walking anyway.

[onethousen]

She gapes at him for a moment while the paper is tossed away, lifting her hands and darting forward to try and catch it. All the doors here open on hinges, none of them proper sliding doors at all, making it all the more surreal for her in the moment.

"Hey, don't throw this away! Then I'll never find where I need to go!"

Why it sticks as being so important is beyond her for a moment, leading to her frowning. This boy is a few years older than her, that much she can guess at, but that's about the extent of anything she can guess. He wears his hair long? Interesting, she guesses. He doesn't look Japanese...

Goodness, she's so glad they all can understand each other when speaking!

"What do you mean, get out of here? Have you been stuck for a while?" Her eyes widen, then narrow, studying the hall that... definitely stretches way further than it did when she first started looking for her room. Oh, no. Magic.

[xiaoxiaojiu]

"If you can't read it anyway then how's it gonna help you get there, stupid!" He gives her an irritated look before turning his attention to the hallway, but with how long it's become, he genuinely can't tell which way he'd come from, or if going back that way would even work at this point...

The question of languages doesn't so much as cross his mind, considering he didn't know other languages existed to begin with. "I've been here for over a shichen by now (this is an exaggeration), if I'm gonna be that late for their stupid classes then I might as well just leave. Come on, we're getting outta here."

He picks a random direction and starts walking at what could probably be called powerwalk speed, only pausing to look back at the girl again. "You coming or not?"

[onethousen]

"Huh?" She squints at him, but she gets the idea he's talking about time and it makes about as much sense as listening to the bath house employees talk about time. Only he's not giving her answers, he's saying he's skipping out on school?

He's what?!

Her hands come up to clutch at each other in front of her stomach, Chihiro swallowing down the discomfort of the idea. This isn't home, and she's not doing anything illegal or to be frowned upon, not in a whole different world. She knows that logically, but it still feels wrong. Wrong, but not worse than the inability to read a slip of paper and the hall growing longer by the minute.

"Coming!" she says instead, turning around and running after the boy, slowing down once she catches up. When he continues walking, she'll half trot to match stride. "There aren't any windows in this hall, are there?"

Doors line either side, and lights hang overhead. Indeed, it doesn't seem like the exit is easily visible, one way or another, and each door has a squiggling written line identifying it, and no number.

[xiaoxiaojiu]

Shen Jiu doesn't know what she's thinking, and also doesn't feel wrong in the slightest about his current course of action. He does what he wants! Especially in this strange new world with a suspicious lack of authority figures (at least the type he's familiar with).

But he's also a lonely kid, and can't help relaxing slightly when she finally catches up. "Does it look like there's windows?" Don't answer that, it was rhetorical. "We're probably gonna have to try these rooms and see if one of them has a window. Like....that one." He points to a random door a little ways down the hall, with a potentially promising(?) squiggle on it.

[onethousen]

"You're taller," she says immediately, narrowing her eyes a touch. "Maybe you see something I don't."

When it comes to checking the rooms behind the doors, she sighs, then turns to one closer to them.

"If we start sooner, we might get out sooner." She reaches for the handle of the door, one that swings inward, and pushes, sweeping into the room.

The room filled with miscellaneous musical instruments, splayed across the ground.

[xiaoxiaojiu]

"If there was a window I was tall enough to see that you couldn't, it'd probably be too high for either of us to reach anyway." He'd narrow his eyes back at her, but he was starting to head for that door he'd pointed at.

When his new companion opens a different door entirely he makes an irritated face but turns back around again, huffing as he follows her in.

"...Are these supposed to be instruments? They look weird." And why are there so many of them? Is music school a thing too?

[onethousen]

She looks back at him over her shoulder, brows lifting.

"I dunno, but that one... I think that's a trumpet? I saw it on television before. That," she adds, seeing another familiar form in the mess, "Is a violin. They're really pretty sounding."

A pair of clackers sprawl near their feet, perhaps more familiar for various reasons. Chihiro sets herself to winding through the assembled instruments for the windows, following the veritable warren pathway that appears as she goes. It's a little short for her companion, but wide enough for another slip-of-a-kid to come passing through.

[xiaoxiaojiu]

What's a trumpet...what is that thing...it looks like an overly fancy version of one of those horns they blow at wedding processions, maybe? Not that he's ever seen one up close...though that still makes it more familiar than the violin, which is Completely unfamiliar.

He kicks the clackers away as he walks past, causing a slightly louder clattering noise as it tumbles into a nearby pile of brass instruments. "Can you play any of these things?" There's a hint of genuine curiosity in his offhand question as he follows her down the path, ducking slightly to get into the instrumentunnel.

apples to apples

[mactirebeag]

In the back of her mind, Mebh does remember that they're not supposed to pick apples from the trees that aren't on the path. But she's never seen so many apple trees in one place, so it's hard for her to resist picking as many as she can so she can stuff herself with them later.

"Aww!" Mebh blows a raspberry to indicate her disappointment, but she hops down from the tree anyway, her eyes on Chihiro's basket of apples. She was having fun climbing that tree, but these apples don't look so bad.

"Sure if there aren't loads of these here..."

[onethousen]

Chihiro hesitates for a moment, then walks forward, her apple basket still held out to the other girl.

"There's so many more than I think any of us can use or even pick all at once... I guess they manage?" She glances beyond Mebh to the tree she'd been climbing, swallowing. For a moment she frowns, then she shakes her head, offering the other girl a smile instead.

"There being a whole lot of them doesn't mean they're free to take. I don't know what it's like here, but in the other place I was, everything had a cost."

Less imposed by environment, more imposed by the spiritual beings whose influence the world was largely under. Spirit world, fox world, normal earth world she really wants to make it back to again, they all have their own logics. At least back home, the worst side effect to stealing is getting caught.

[mactirebeag]

"Well, where I'm from, if you see somethin' tasty on a tree, you just take it."

Throughout Mebh's short life, she's typically gotten food by either hunting for it or taking it when some oblivious townie isn't looking. She's never had to deal with things like money, due to living away from regular human civilization.

On the topic of tasty things, Mebh doesn't hesitate to take an apple from Chihiro's basket and noisily bite into it. It helps that her teeth are visibly sharper than a regular human's.

"An-bhlasta! The first bite's always the best."

[onethousen]

"That wouldn't work well in the spirit world... Be careful about that here, too, okay?"

Genuine concern, having seen what happened to those who took without asking, simply because something was there. The Fox's world acts more like the spirit world than it does the human one, meaning she doesn't doubt there are both hidden and stated dangers that one needs to be prepared to handle.

The sharper teeth merit a blink, Chihiro opening her mouth for a question, than catching herself.

"My name is Ogino Chihiro. You can call me Chihiro, if you want." A smile follows after, easier, keeping the basket in easy reach in case apple one turns into apple two.

[mactirebeag]

"Alright, so."

Mebh says that, but it's a little more dismissive than should be warranted. Mebh has heard quite a few stories about spirits and the daoine sidhe while growing up, but she's not too concerned about them. After all, in her time, there are people who are still just as superstitious about her own kind as they would be about the fair folk.

"Chihiro?" That's an odd-sounding name to her, so she tests it out first. "I'm Mebh. Mebh Óg MacTíre."

[onethousen]

Chihiro pauses, knowing before she tries that she's not going to manage this girl's name perfectly. Still, she tries, ending up close with, "Maeyv? It's nice to meet you, I'll be in your care." Another pause, and she shakes her head. "I don't mean that literally, though I'm glad for any help we can give each other while we're here..."

Setting her shoulders back a touch, she smiles. In the end, whatever does come up here is simply going to be handled, as best as they can. If they can help each other, that's better than trying to handle everything alone, isn't it?

"If you're still hungry, we could look for what else there is to eat that doesn't have the Fox warning us away. Or try more apples." She glances down into her basket, feeling like it's getting heavier all the time. "These ones are pretty good, right?"

school!

[princessfreyja]

The girl's voice is a mercy, even though she sounds distressed. Kurt doesn't recognize the stretching, winding school hallways they find themself in, nor have they been able to find any teachers or students or custodians who can tell them what's going on. Not to mention they're way too old for the sailor-style middle school uniform they're inexplicably wearing, long pleated skirt and all.

At least they can help a scared child and get some answers at the same time, right? That's what they're thinking, anyway, before realizing that the piece of paper doesn't actually say anything. Even though their knowledge of Japanese script is humiliatingly basic, it does nothing for them now. It's just scribbles.

"Oh, fuu-udgesicles," they trail off, glancing down at her, not wanting to be the jerk who cusses in front of a little girl. Kurt sweats. "Umm... I'm really sorry, sweetie, I can't, um... read cursive..." Clenching the note in their hand, they glance down the ever-stretching hallway, feeling their stomach drop. They can't in good conscience leave a little girl on her own. So they hold out a hand for her to take, trying to offer an encouraging smile full of braces. "How about we go find an adult together, okay?"

[onethousen]

Finding an adult doesn't sound like a solution, particularly, but she wishes it did, and so she reaches out for the stranger's hand after a tentative moment of looking between their hand, their face, and then the paper with its unreadable squiggle.

Then she holds out her hand so her fingers brush against her new friend's hand, before firmly taking hold.

"Mm," she says, nodding once, "Or anyone who understands the note."

Cursive doesn't mean anything to her, but it sounds like a form of writing, and either way, both of them are ignorant to the number it contained.

"Or why this school's acting... weird."

In fact, even looking now, was the hall getting longer?