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

[bossyboiler]

It's okay that he doesn't mention Jaskier being young and not from Penance. It is something that she will discover for herself... eventually.

She smells the food before she sees it. It causes her mouth to water. It has been so long since she's had pizza. Without thinking about what it means, Kate sits down at the head of the table. It might mean something more, on a subconscious level, but right now she just wants to be close to him.

"Thank you for spoiling me." She smiles at him before reaching out to take a slice of the pizza. She makes a face when the lifts a slice up due to the hot, molten nature of the cheese but it's soon on her plate. "I mean it, I really am starting to feel better." The shower had helped immensely, the night sky had further helped her. She takes a bite of the pizza and has to close her eyes. "This is so good," she says after chewing and swallowing.

She's about to go in for a second bite when she becomes aware of something that Tech had just said to her. "What crazy initiation bullshit?" What had she gotten herself into when she had followed the Fox?

Kate listens. Is she going to head out immediately? She will probably wait a day or two before going out to explore. She will probably sleep for a long while. However, it will be better to stay where it's safe until she is more sure of things. "Are you sure, Tech? I don't want to be a bother."

[twatter]

"Oh, I just mean the whole landing in a strange land and usually having to fight your way to safety. I had something similar happen when I first arrived. They dropped me in the middle of a maze and until you found someone, it got colder and colder. It seems like when you first get here, you go through the worst sort of stuff. And then after that, it's easy enough to avoid it. Maybe I'm just cursing myself by speaking it, but...I'd say as of right now, I've managed to avoid the worst shit. Not like hell..."

Tech fidgets a bit. Hell had a way of sweeping him into horrible situations and there was no avoiding it at points. Kate knows the struggle. And not simply surrounding the Hellburbia thing, though that was arguably viewed as one of the worst things hell had done across the board. Removing their free will, so to speak. But honestly? Hellburbia had been strangely comforting -- it offered Tech something he otherwise would never have known. A family.

"There's so much I wanna ask about the people in Penance. But I don't know if I should. Maybe it's better not to know how everyone's doing there. It might make me feel guilty for leaving them behind. Because I didn't think...I just followed the fox. And I'd hoped more would..."

Kate did. Kate is one person from there who escaped and arguably one of the people who mattered most. It's his mother. She's no longer being tortured. She's free and can have pizza and live a normal life in a place that resembles a normal world. But how wonderful would it be if their entire family was here? And the Jaskier he had known? And others? Maybe the fox could go and grab them at some point, with the exception of Jaskier. Because two Jaskier's likely couldn't occupy the same space.

"Ava...isn't here. I thought maybe this was where she had gone when she left, but. I guess there's somewhere else people go when they leave hell. Home, maybe? Or heaven? I don't know. She wouldn't be out of place in heaven. She was pretty much like an angel already..."