folkooc | February 2023 Test Drive Meme

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*tdm

February 2023 Test Drive Meme

FEBRUARY 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]

SPRING BREAKS LOOSE

Content Warnings: extreme weather

the time is near

The earth is awakening.

You are aware of this fact before consciousness truly returns. One minute you were a falling star but as your body reforms you can sense the freshness of spring just around the corner. In your minds eye you can see circling birds in the sky, feel the first warm breeze of the season, and hear icicles melting into crystal puddles.

But something isn't right.

The moment you are truly awake you find yourself in what could generously be described as a shack built in the snowy wasteland of Wintermute. You and another Star Child are at least being kept warm by an electric heater, but there really isn't much in the way of amenities otherwise. More disturbingly, the entire shack has a deeply oppressive aura to it, encouraging the pair of you to leave as soon as you can.

But where can you possibly go?

Stepping outside reveals the answer, as parked not far from the shed is a dogsled, complete with warm winter gear to protect you from the cold.

The dogs themselves are the real marvels; not flesh and blood, the sled dogs are in fact automatons. The winter sun reflects off of their silver and copper bodies and the steady tick of their inner workings breaks the chilly silence. Each dog has a key sticking out of its back, turning slowly.

The oppressive sense you felt in the shack continues to grow. Your thoughts begin to turn negative: sad, paranoid, fearful. It is quite unbearable... until your eye falls on a delicate splash of purple against the snow.

Close to the dogsled, a single crocus pokes out of the ground.

The very sight of it calms you down. Picking it will make you feel happy, and you will find yourself blurting out the first pleasant memory that comes to mind.

The robodogs bark, delighted, encouraging you to climb aboard the sled and look for more of those flowers!

Every crocus you collect will make you feel positive emotions and the urge to share good personal moments with your companion. The more you find, the happier you will be... and you might get quite close to a total stranger as a result as well!

in from the snow

While you are out and about, you'll want to keep an eye on your team of dogs - they can and will lose power after a point. Your job as a good dog driver is to keep them wound up! Yes, you'll have to stop and physically wind the dogs back up when they lose steam.

You are likely to discover weapons jutting up from the snow. These are all unenchanted items, basic swords, guns, shields, etc., but the second you pull them from the snow the weather will take a turn for the worse. You may even be subject to a sudden avalanche! Hopefully you got the dogs wound up enough that they can get you out of there without any damage!

Eventually the dogs will choose to take you to Akhlut Station in Wintermute where you can catch the train somewhere a little warmer.

BUT SO DOES FEAR

Content Warnings: Fungus, spores, live burial, mental confusion and hallucinations.

putting roots in my dreamland

Willow is definitely warmer than Wintermute. The tail end of winter means that while much of the farmland is still blanketed in snow, the more wooded areas have large clear patches beneath the conifers. The ground here is damp and rich smelling. Poking out of the soil are tiny white mushrooms. These fungi glisten wetly, strangely compelling in their little rings of earth. You just want to take a closer look... maybe have a seat under the conifers and listen to the snow melt...

The mushrooms enchant anyone who gets close to them into simply staying put. They cloud the mind, leaving you in a dimly pleasant haze, while your body sinks slowly into the earth. The longer you stay, the more you sink - maybe a passerby can come and pull you out! If you don't wind up suffocated by dirt you will find that your head clears on its own once night falls. You will probably still need a hand pulling yourself out of the ground, but at least now you know what's going on.

The woods at night are not still - there are mice and owls and the usual nocturnal critters. There is also something else, something that moves slowly beneath the trees checking the mushroom traps. About eight feet tall, this lanky creature resembles a human skeleton held together by muscles and tendons of moss and fungus. Its head is a huge mushroom cap, underneath from which glitter a pair of bright blue eyes. If it finds any unfortunates stuck in the traps without anyone to help them, it will push their heads beneath the soil and hold them there until they die.

The sight of this creature inspires feelings of disorientation and hopelessness. These feelings are lessened when you are in close physical proximity with another Star Child, so it is to your advantage to stick together. The mushroom creature's objective remains the same: to feed the living earth with your body.

The creature is not particularly tough - its flesh is soft and gives way easily. You can defeat it easily with weapons or even your fists provided you can get close enough without succumbing to the disorientation and hopeless feelings. Oh, and you may not want to hit it on the head...

The mushroom cap, when struck, showers spores everywhere. These spores burn if they land on your skin, and if they get in your eyes they cause vivid hallucinations of ghostly figures reaching for you, trying to immobilize you. These hallucinations are so real that it is likely you will act as if they are real, standing still as if you are restrained.

If you defeat the mushroom creature, it will dissolve into the ground and leave in its place a wooden chest. Inside each of you will find some canon clothes and/or an item from your homeworlds.

coast is clear

Not far from the forest treeline, a bonfire burns merrily in the center of a circle of light green tents. The tents are kept warm by portable heaters, with some containing food and drink, and others offering small packs of seeds as gifts. These seeds are for common earth flowers and vegetables. One of the tents provides first aid supplies, in case you got roughed up fighting a giant mushroom or something.

The tents are staffed by squirrels and chipmunks. Just plain old ordinary squirrels and chipmunks. They don't speak - only chitter and occasionally screech - but they will help as best as their tiny paws allow.

This is a good time to recover, and also to talk to any other Star Children you may see.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Aw man. [ Dante stops fighting - for now - but refuses to be pushed away, resting his chin on Alastor's shoulder and peering at the book. ] It would have been nice after that nightmare, too.

He huffs, but stops trying to shove Dante away when he stops trying to reach for the book. He's not going to bring it back into his lap, though. He's not that gullible. Nor is he going to admit that it's kind of nice to have someone lean on him like this...not when that someone is Dante.

"Sorry, private's private. I can tell you some of what I've bee up to, though, if you're that curious."

"Storytime? That'd be great!" Dante loves hearing stories of other people's antics and what they get up to. He hardly ever gets a chance to hear them, but when he does, it's a special treat.

"Let's see, where to start..."

He 'hrms', and his tail flicks against Dante's leg. He still doesn't try to push him off, as though he's just ignoring the fact that he's being used as a pillow.

"I guess at the beginning of the real antics. I mentioned I joined a group called Jadow in hopes of getting a rematch against a local hero, right? Well, unlucky for me, someone beat me to the punch and tossed Captain Blue to the cutting room floor before that could happen. Then he reached through a portal to the real world to snag a woman who was watching the movie with her boyfriend. He had one of the lower ranking members of Jadow collect her but the guy isn't exactly the brightest bulb in the box, to put it lightly. He didn't notice when the boyfriend managed to slip in before the portal closed."

So many unfamiliar terms! Dante can follow along, though - he's good at inferring meaning from context. "Let me guess, he kicked their asses?"

He loves a good ass kicking story. In the meantime, Dante sneaks an arm around Alastor's waist, ready to be rebuffed but hoping not to be.

"Eventually. Not right away, though. Even after he inherited Captain Blue's powers he was kind of...well, our old nickname for him back then was Stumblebutt Joe. He was pathetic."

He glances down at that arm and gives it a light swat, more a token protest than anything. What it would do to his pride as a demon if he admitted he kind of likes being hugged...

"The potential was there, though. After he lucked into beating the lower ranking officers, I thought I was mopping the floor with him...until he found a way to turn parts of the environment to his advantage, and actually managed to put a crack in my visor."

"Stumblebutt Joe." Dante snorts. He's going to have to remember that one, if he ever actually does meet that guy. In the meantime, he ignores the swat, and settles his arm in place.

"A crack in your visor, huh?"

The last time someone had hugged him, it had been when Rachel's emotions were going haywire. It hadn't exactly been a gentle show of affection, and she was strong enough that a bear hug from her actually registered to him as uncomfortably tight. This is different, the kind of calm affection he's secretly craved. Emphasis on secretly, as he makes a disgruntled noise to emulate disapproval.

"Yeah, landed a pretty solid kick to my face. Not enough to really hurt me, but it did show promise. I decided to let him go that time, see where things went. In the meantime, I decided to talk to the girl, see what she could tell me about him as a person. I was pretty surprised by her, too. When I told her I worked with Jadow, the first thing she said to me was to ask if I could 'work with Jadow' to get her out of there."

"The ballsy sort, huh?" Or maybe just snarky. Either way, Dante kinda liked this girl already. "What next?"

Despite the noise of disapproval, he keeps his arm exactly where it is. If anything, he might tighten the embrace a little in response to the noise. He's gotta prove that this is fine to like! He can feel the waves of 'tsun' coming off of Alastor.

He squirms a little, as though trying to pull free of the hug. It's still more performative than genuine, as he isn't putting close to his full strength into it. Not to mention the fact that he could easily teleport away if he wanted to. It does, however, accidentally bring his diary closer to his lap.

"Well...obviously that was out of the question. Even if I'd brought it up, there was no way I'd have been able to convince our leader to let her go. We did have a nice chat, though...even if I couldn't for the life of me understand what she saw in Joe. She had all kinds of complaints about how oblivious and impulsive he is, just doing whatever he wants in the moment. Honestly, I was starting to doubt if he had the mindset to be a hero, until I went to talk to him directly. Somehow, that impulsivity led to him asking me to deliver the exact thing Silvia had asked for to brighten up her room."

Dante is distracted from the diary by all the squirming, but he'll notice it soon enough. And then... then he'll surely try to grab it again. He can't miss his chance, right?

But for now, he's also distracted from the story by the squirming. So he tightens his grip a little more, and raises his face from Alastor's shoulder, just enough to lean in close to his ear. "Hey," he says, low and gruffly, "Stop squirming."

"Stop hugging! Do I look like the kind of guy who wants to be cuddled?"

To make his point, he puts on his best sour expression.

"Yes."

Dante says this firmly, but also with a laugh.

He lets out a quiet growl of frustration, or perhaps embarrassment from the violet creeping into his cheeks.

"Since when did devils start looking like teddy bears?"

"Since you promised to be there for me."

And that had meant a lot. He really wants to get that point across.

The squirming stops, though he still doesn't look directly at Dante.

"Yeah, well...you did get me out of that literal Hellhole I was trapped in, so...you know."

He is grateful for that, even if he'd been upset by how much he was ignored afterward.

Dante doesn't blame him for being upset! He simply hadn't thought about how much care and attention a devil arm might need. He's going to change his ways towards that if he gets back home, that's for sure.

"I know one way you can reward me for that."

A beat, two beats, before he tries to grab the diary out of Alastor's lap.

"Ack-hey!"

He tries to whisk it away a split second too late the book slipping out of his lax grip on it.

"Give it back!"

"Nope!"

Dante is quick to stand up and flee to the other side of the tent. He then flips it open to try to see anything.

The diary opens to a page written in ancient Greek, with a few lines partially scratched out.

Alastor is just as quick to stand up and give chase, taking to the air and lunging at Dante in a flying tackle.

"That's mine!"

"Hey, this is pretty intere - oof!"

Dante doesn't see it coming, with how busy he's reading. One of his 'little magic tricks' is being able to translate any language into one he can read. But unfortunately it takes some concentration, which means he's left defenseless.

But that doesn't mean he won't fight back once he's been tackled to the ground. He squirms a lot, trying to get away and keep ahold of the diary at the same time.

Alastor is reaching directly for the diary, trying to grab it out of Dante's hands. But he knows if he focuses entirely on that, Dante will just squirm free and make another break for it, so he's stuck reaching for it while keeping one hand on Dante's back.

"It's not some novel, you know!"

So he's a little trapped. Dante's not ready to give up hold of the diary yet, but it's getting mighty hard to keep it in his hands. "What's the point of writing things down if nobody reads it?" He's always wondered.

He leans over Alastor a little, raising the book up to try to open it again. It's a gamble that leaves him in danger of it being grabbed, but maybe he'll see more before he loses it.

It flips to the previous page, also written in Greek. Alastor takes a gamble of his own, briefly moving his hand from Dante's back to instead try to shove his face into the ground.

"It's for getting my thoughts into order. My private thoughts!"

Dante gets about halfway through it, but just when it's getting good, he gets shoved down. Ack!

"Hey - okay - okay - I'll give it back!"

He waves the book around in Alastor's general direction.

Edited 2023-03-26 18:05 (UTC)

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