December 2022 Test Drive Meme

[folkie]

DECEMBER 2022 TDM

INTRODUCTION

[ TDM Questions ★ Jump to Comments ★ Full Navigation ]
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]

UNGLUED

Content Warnings: being followed, potential violence.

what could've been lights

One minute you’re falling through the sky, and the next you’re sitting on a cold bench in the middle of the woods. It’s wintertime, but luckily you’re not surrounded by snowdrifts; a bitingly cold fog instead drifts between the trees. You don’t know it yet, but you’ve arrived at the edge of Exile.

The bench you’re on is in the center of a clearing that probably isn’t natural judging by the fact that around you are dozens of miniature buildings. These buildings may resemble places from your homeworld, or places as described or depicted in your favourite pieces of media. They are all just miniatures, but they are lit up and the glow from their tiny windows is warm.

At least, until you move from the bench. When you do the lights stutter several times before they go out for good, leaving you in darkness. But wait, not completely - there on one of the miniature streets is a small glowing orb about the size of a marble. Better than nothing?

Look around and you will be able to see more lights. These are other Star Children, either carrying their own small lights or waking up in their own miniature villages. You can find them either wandering in the fog, or maybe going full Godzilla on those poor buildings. However it happens, you will find someone else so that you are not alone.

But as you move towards this other Star Child you might not feel alone. To put it bluntly, it feels like someone (or something!) is watching you.

Once you’ve met up with someone, it’s probably safer to try and find your way out of the woods. The darkness presses in on every side of you, and the frigid fog is certainly not helping matters. You may well find yourself edging closer to your companion, or talking to them to try and fill the eerie silence.

Then, off to one side, there is light. Soft, diffused by the fog, there are two (or more) glowing circles floating high up. Even if at first you thought they were lamps, it quickly becomes evident that they are eyes. The moment you realise that, you are struck with an irrational terror and the urge to flee. This is extremely dangerous: the second you run the one light you do have will go out, plunging you into total darkness. You will definitely get lost, and could be injured very easily. The giant floating eyes will follow you no matter how quickly you run. If you can fly, you will find no matter how high you go you will not be able to break the treeline, and the eyes will continue to follow you.

There are weapons to be found sticking out of the frozen ground. These are unenchanted items, and you can pull them free with some effort if you choose to try and fight the creature following you. The creature will not actually engage - the eyes always stay just far enough away that you cannot see it clearly, and you certainly can’t hurt it. Your terror and confusion will only grow the more you try to fight, and it is possible you’ll hurt anyone who comes after you.

Your companion is the only thing that can keep you from bolting into the darkness. Their voice and/or touch can work to calm you down. You’ll still be frightened, but you will be able to think. (Of course, if you attack them with a sword or something, this might prove to be a little harder!)

weird but fucking beautiful

If you stay put with your companion you will see what has been following you: an enormous fog-coloured animal.

It may be a deer, an owl, a cat, a lizard or a fish. It may be something unique to your homeworld. Whatever it is, it is an animal that you have a personal connection to in some way. (This can be as profound as a vision of an animal guide you once had, or as mundane as ‘I did a report on this in third grade.’) This massive animal means you no harm and will even let you pet it.

Your new giant animal friend will lead you first to a chest inside which is an item for each of you from your home world. It will then lead you safely out of the forest before it returns back to the fog.

If you are injured and in need of aid, you will find that where your animal friend has taken you is also home to a collection of round, cheerful flying squirrels. These little guys will take one look at your injuries, squeak with concern, and then fetch you first aid supplies from holes in the trees. They are unconventional nurses, but undeniably helpful!

AO3

Content Warnings: potential NSFW scenarios in comments

what I once saw on a screen

As you acquaint yourself with this strange new world you’ve found yourself in, you will find that sometime, somehow, you’ve wound up with a red string tied around one of your fingers. Strange. Even stranger is that the string trails off into the distance, presumably tied to something else. Clearly the best course of action here is to follow that string to wherever it terminates. Alright, it might not actually be the best, but you will feel a growing compulsion to do just that.

The red string leads you through chilly streets, down icy roads, up over snowy hills. The weather is getting worse as you walk, but turning back doesn’t seem like an option; you really want to get to wherever the string is leading you.

Thankfully, right ahead of you is a tiny little shack of a cabin. You reach it just in time - the weather has become a full fledged winter storm!

Once inside you’ll notice two things: it’s extremely cold, and you are not alone.

Yes, there’s another Star Child in the cabin with you, and what’s more they also have a red string tied around their finger. And both of your strings connect... to a very small knitted blanket.

The cabin has no firewood and no fireplace to burn it in anyway. It has no furniture outside of a toilet and sink in a small attached bathroom. There is a small battery operated lantern, and the blanket. That’s it.

The blanket is just barely big enough to cover two people. If you want to stay warm it looks like you’ll have to get real close!

Of course, you don’t have to. But as with most things in Folkmore, there’s a bit of a catch: the more standoffish or unpleasant you are to the other Star Child trapped with you? The smaller the blanket gets. That’s right, it can shrink right down to the size of a washcloth if you’re not careful!

Conversely, getting close to someone by cuddling or even just by opening up and talking about yourselves will make the blanket grow. When you open up emotionally or physically you can wind up with a luxuriously warm and cozy blanket that you can wrap around yourselves with ease.

If you get very close to create some, er, body heat? Just try not to leave the blanket all crusty, okay?

Comments

[crowneddragon]

The simple introduction helps. These are all things Esteban already knew-- though he'd probably have gotten confused on which god Rezo served-- but he... appreciates it. Part of him still wants to back away. But Rezo was his friend, and Esteban had enjoyed spending time with the priest before, and there is loyalty as well, for this stranger, even by extension.

"Yeah." He's still a little quieter. But his energy is returning, bit by bit; the scratch of toes against the ground, the soft bounce of his leg as he glances up to the sky. The depth of his breath as he looks upon the moon, glowing faintly between the branches, gnarled dark fingers against an endless sky.

"Or... well, maybe not? We're lost an' there's a risk of gettin' turned 'round in the forest." He pauses for a breath, before adding "is the cold botherin' you? I got a spare cloak." Or, well, not so spare, but Esteban is not in danger. Not right away at least.

[redprayer]

There’s an uncomfortable quiet in the clearing, broken only by the sounds of Esteban’s fidgeting. Rezo himself stays still, outwardly composed as ever.

“My own is enough, thank you,” he says. The cold, beside, is almost pleasant; it’s been a very, very long time since he properly experienced cold. And really, if anything he needs gloves and a hat. If there are any hats that could fit around his horns.

(At the thought, he absently reaches up and runs his hand along one of his horns, one of the taller, curved ones at the crown of his head. These could get very inconvenient, he realizes.)

Anyway. The more pressing issue is the fact that they are, indeed, lost. Rezo hums as he considers the issue- Esteban is correct that they’re likely to get lost even further if they hare off into the woods, but Rezo doesn’t care for the idea of just sitting here, waiting for someone to find them.

“It’s highly unlikely that anyone would be looking for us, so there’s no telling how long we could be out here. I believe I’ll take my chances with the forest. I have my own abilities to deal with the dangers.” Namely, experience with traveling through the wilderness, and an impressive breadth of magical ability.

[crowneddragon]

"Yeah, but that's not what I meant-- it's just. We don't 'ven know where the nearest town is. Monsters don't scare me. Frostbite does." Not that Esteban knows much about frostbite, but he knows the cold can seep into bones and blood and freeze someone to death. Losing their precious energy before the dawn doesn't seem an entirely sound idea to him.

His toes tap the ground in his hesitation, but there is more than just his shuffling this time around. A low, steady patter of something approaching fast, like the scuttling of an insect. Esteban doesn't seem to hear it.

"I c'ld maybe try t' climb a tree an' see from up there, but they're humongous, an' I'll have trouble doin' it." He hesitates, knowing that the more sound idea would be to climb with all of his limbs, but he's not sure about the stranger wearing his friend's face. And then chides himself for it. Rezo hadn't reacted badly. Rezo wasn't his enemy.

"I c'n do it, but I'll need y' to hold onto stuff, okay?" It seems strange that Esteban doesn't hear the disquieting trampling; the many feet stumbling and tapping at the ground. It-- whatever it is, most definitely is coming closer.