January 2023 Test Drive Meme

[folkie]

JANUARY 2023 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]

beautiful sunshine ray

Content Warnings: mood altering substances.

hot chocolate

The weather across Folkmore is universally chill: Wintermute is frozen, Willow covered in snowdrifts, Epiphany a mess of slush, Cruel Summer dangerously cold at night, and Exile wrapped in a numbing fog. You wouldn't know it, but things are at least a little nicer than they have been - with the exception of Wintermute, you at least are not likely to freeze to death just by wandering around.

Or so you'll discover eventually. Right now? Well, you just got here! One minute you’re falling through the sky, and the next you’re in the middle of an ice fort. The walls are chiseled with care, rising up about seven feet high. Skinny windows are cut in the ice at regular intervals. There is no roof, and above you the sky is a cold, clear blue only marred by the occasional fluffy white cloud. Set inside the fort is a hot chocolate bar staffed entirely by white rabbits. They are the size of regular rabbits, but they don't seem to have any issue standing on their hind legs and using their little paws to pour drinks from large red cannisters into red paper cups.

By request, they will also drop a marshmallow into your cup. You have your choice of colours, and each one will have a different effect:


Pink: Causes you to feel bold and confident!
Blue: Grants you a mild sense of euphoria!
Yellow: Makes you feel quite flirty!
White: Nothing. It's a marshmallow.

winter games

Outside of the ice fort, you will find yourself among gently rolling hills covered in snow. It's perfect for packing... which you may very well find out when you're hit with a snowball. Who threw that? Who cares! The very instant you're struck you have the irresistible urge to get in on a no-holds-barred snowball fight! You might wind up throwing snowballs at other Star Children, or maybe you team up with another person to take out anyone else you see. Or maybe instead you see that there are toboggans and crazy carpets at the tops of some of these hills and you decide to take a ride with someone instead. There are snow angels and snowmen to make, too!

No matter what you decide to do, the moment you are hit with a snowball you just want to engage in light hearted fun and what some might call childish behaviour. You might be a little embarrassed later, but right now you're not concerned at all! And really, this is a great way to maybe make some new friends.

beautiful moonlight shine

Content Warnings: potential monster fights.

sing your life

Maybe you stay out having fun in the snow just a little too long, or maybe you've wandered to an entirely different part of Folkmore. However it happens, the sun has set and a brilliant sliver of moon has risen instead.

Folkmore is home to many Star Children, but it is also home to many spirits. As you move through the night, you realise that you can see some of these in your peripheral vision: pale, insubstantial things that inhabit the natural world. The idea might be creepy, but these spirits are all singing and the sound of it makes you feel safe. When you encounter another Star Child, you are happy to have them with you, happy to share this sense of comfort. You feel like you could walk forever under the new moon and have no harm ever befall you again.

...until it stops.

The sudden stillness falls like a blow, only to broken by the sound of an awful lot of snow hitting the ground - a loud thwump. When you turn to find he source of the noise, you will find one or more vaguely humanoid snow creatures ponderously headed your way!

You can fight them, of course. They are a little slow, but they are aggressive and have an annoying habit of reforming. You will notice that there are weapons hidden here and there - normal, unenchanted swords or guns or spears. You can find these and use them to smash the snow monsters apart until they stop trying to reform.

Or you may realise that these creatures only showed up when the other spirits stopped singing. What does that mean?

Weaponized karaoke!

When you sing, the monsters retreat. A duet will encourage them to do so even quicker. And when they are finally gone, you will find that they have left behind a sturdy wooden chest, inside of which is one item from home for each of you.

poetry in lights

In your travels at night, at some point you will find that you can see warm lights up ahead. Once you get close enough, you can see that the light comes from red lanterns hung everywhere. There are Star Children and even some spirits present, many of them moon gazing.

There is a kiosk set up, manned by black rabbits. If you have been injured in your fight with the snow monsters or some other way, they will patch you up with basic first aid at once.

The rabbits are also handing out sparklers. People are drawing shapes in the air with them, laughing and having a great time.

When a sparkler is put into your hand all you really want to do is trace words against the velvet night sky. What words? You are compelled to spell out something from the heart: it can be a deep hurt, or a secret hope. Something intensely personal that you may not otherwise share, now written in light visible to all.

Maybe you feel the urge to explain, or defend. Or maybe you want to ask someone else about their own words hanging there in the air like a neon sign.

What a way to get to know someone.

Comments

[priamell]

Bloody gloves might be nice and protective, but they're not that great for making snowballs. But the more she works the snow, the easier the process becomes. Which means maybe the gloves weren't her problem, but her general lack of experience making snowballs was.

"You've never had snow cream then I take it?"

Fortunately, Amy hasn't had as much experience with the bulk of the Warden forces. Having operated on such a shoe string for most of her career in their ranks. Most of the wardens she's dealt with have been ones of her own making and choosing. Following her style of Wardenhood rather than a more traditional one. And after she'd given up her post as Warden Commander she's just been... kind of wandering around the world. Living the wandering vigilante life. Helping people as she continues her quest to experience more of what Thedas has to offer.

"I suppose. If that's your idea of cool."

Shots fired then, figuratively as well as literally. The first of Amy's new ammunition leaving her hiding place with a graceful arc. Good thing she's taken a more active approach to being a mage, the Amy who'd lived in the tower could have never.

"Tsk, tsk, tsk, what a shame."

Sure, her first throw also misses, but it's still fun to taunt and tease anyway. Low hanging fruit in the heat of battle are always the first to get plucked.

[toomuchinfo]

Pfft, gloves! Gloves weren't for the hardcore! Or more accurately, Hawke forgot hers in her cottage and by the time she'd walked to the train station, she was too annoyed at herself to turn back.

"Well, yeah. Seb managed to smuggle me some after some shindig for the 'so you want to be prince of Starkhaven' crowd. It had chocolate in it. Chocolate!" Which wasn't as hard to come by in Starkhaven as it was other places, given its nearby Orlesian neighbors. She still couldn't wait to hear their reactions to a Fereldan becoming Princess-Regnant, though.

Hawke owed the Wardens, first for saving Carver's life, then for saving her own. She'd thought she was ready, face Corypheus and finish the damn job, but Stoud's desire to redeem the Wardens won. Which made it the how many times had she escaped certain death time yet again. She'd heard about Fereldan Wardens from Carver, though, she'd hounded him long enough for details. Had to make sure they were taking good care of her kid brother, after all! And yes, she absolutely had to call him her kid brother if only to make him squirm. In a family-friendly way!

"Sure is! Though, all of us kinda holler stuff to or at each other in battle! 'If we kill them, we get their stuff' is my favorite but the stakes aren't so high here! Bragging rights only!"

Which, let's face it, was Hawke's favorite kind. Okay, bragging rights and free booze. Those were her favorites. And Hawke was the annoying kind of big sister, the kind who as soon as the first snow fell, she'd creep out extra early and dump buckets full on Bethy and Carver. Leading to unrelenting chaos in the Hawke household for a couple of hours, but at least dad thought it was fucking hilarious.

"Okay, rethinking! Fishnet was not my smartest choice today! Oh, well, your turn! And she wound up to throw the next snowball, aiming for Amy's shoulder.

It's a blast! Almost as much fun winning was the fun she had along the way.

But mostly winning was fun, she wasn't gonna lie.