June 2023 Test Drive Meme

[folkie]

June 2023 TDM

Introduction

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This Test Drive meme is open to all.
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 and work like "mini-events". For new players and characters, you can choose to have your TDM thread be your introduction thread upon acceptance or start fresh. Current players are allowed to have in-game characters react to TDMs via the Network or make a Log with the prompts they want to participate in.

TDM threads can be used for spoon spending at any time by characters accepted into the game.

Playing and interacting with the 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 always encouraged to tag new people on the TDM!


🦊 New Star Children meet the Fox still in their worlds, and she brings them into the new realm of Folkmore. As you follow her, your body begins to change and new characteristics emerge. These may stay for a while, or perhaps they will hide away after. And during all of this, the Fox explains to you where you will be going: to Folkmore.

and then... you fall like a shooting star, falling to the land in a burst of starlight.


🦊 Experienced Star Children are already familiar with this time of the month. There are shooting stars all across the sky, and some fall to the land, which means the Fox has brought new arrivals. These newly arrived Star Children will face some tests, but Thirteen wants the more seasoned residents to participate as well.

Perhaps you follow the falling stars on your own, or perhaps the Fox simply teleports you there, but it appears you too will be part of this.

[ Prompt One ★ Prompt Two ]

Right Where You Left Me . ★

Content Warnings: Alternate Universe, Memory alteration/altered sense of self, Exhibition

If This Was a Movie

You forget everything the fox told you on your way over. You forget your own history. You remember a completely new one, one that matches whatever story you're now in. It could be a story from your world—a folk tale, a novel, a movie, a telenovella—or one you've never heard of. Whatever it is, this is your life now. Your memories match as though you've lived here your whole life. The tone may match your world, or it may drastically differ.

And you're not alone.

Whatever scene you're in features at least one other Star Child in the same situation you are. They might also be a new arrival, or they may be someone Thirteen has plucked up out of Folkmore and brought here to join you. Whether you've known each other your whole previous life or never met before, you know each other as the people in the story—whatever relationship that is. You don't remember being placed here. It's your life! It always has been.

The two (or more) of you pick up at whatever point in the story it is. Perhaps it'll go the same way as the original story. Perhaps not. You still are you—memories redacted—after all. This story is yours to write together!

The outfits, the setting, the NPCs (played by Spirits going along with things), etc. all perfectly match the story and adapt with you as you create your own retelling.

Big Red Button

As it turns out, you aren't only in an entertainment, you are an entertainment. Across Folkmore, large screens showing these stories appear: in every school, in public squares, before a large meadow, in the middle of the desert, you name it. It's also streaming on everyone's relics. Everyone has the chance to see your story play out.

That's not all, Star Children are your key out of the story and into Folkmore itself. Along with these screens, there are big red buttons. Digitally, a big red button appears on people's relics when they watch these stories. It's pretty simple. Someone presses the big red button and you're free! The reason doesn't matter—boredom, pity, recognition, the irresistibility of buttons. These are the only way out, so when you get out is completely up to your fellow Star Children.

Once the button is pushed, an invisible wall between your story and Folkmore falls away. With it, you regain all your memories from home and from the walk to Folkmore with the fox. All you have to do is step out of the story and into the school of Baba Yaga. The school of magic. Thirteen isn't there personally, but you may feel her spirit around you. Baba Yaga—Thirteen—is the school itself.

A small chest is also there as soon as you leave the story containing an item from your homeworld. This may even be a weapon or magical item.

Small bat spirits have a couple stations set up within the school near where Star Children exit their stories. If you're injured or need to rest, they are ready to help treat you or provide you as many pillows and blankets as you wish. If you're hungry or thirsty, the other station has food and drink for all. Steaming tea, freshly baked bread, and all sorts of warm comforting foods. You'd be forgiven for thinking it might be autumn. They want you to be at your best when you leave Baba Yaga and enter the rest of Folkmore via Exile.

No Body, No Crime . ★

Content Warnings: Optional mind/body split, Possible invasion of privacy, Possible monster/creature violence

Eyes Open

When you leave Baba Yaga, you're somewhere in Exile. Not even the Spirits or experienced Star Children can tell you where exactly you are. The school walks around on its chicken legs. Unless someone leaves at the same time as you, you'll start in different places. You'll have to find your own way out.

If you have been exiled before, you'll have an easier time navigating the land. It'll help guide you toward where you want to go. If you have never been exiled before, you'll have a harder time navigating this section of Folkmore. The trees may try to push you back. Perhaps nothing happens, exactly, but the aura is one that doesn't want you. Regardless, there's enough fog that it's difficult to see where you're going. Attention certainly seems to be on you. Are the trees watching? Is the water listening? Those are simply stories Spirits share to scare new Star Children isn't it?

Suddenly, you may appear to be in another part of Folkmore! It could be anywhere. It could be a public area, a business, someone's home… Wherever it is, if you try to touch something, you realize you cannot. Instead you pass right through solid objects. You cannot open a door, but you can walk right through it. You may surprise someone with your sudden appearance, or perhaps you reach out to people you see for help. Perhaps you simply explore this new area where you were.

Take all the time you want. Hopefully nothing bad is happening back with your body still in Exile… On second thought, perhaps you don't want to spend too long away from your body. You can use your own skills or get help returning to your body or find yourself suddenly back in it. Time to take stock and maybe find your way back to the rest of Folkmore body included.

Cowboy Like Me

On your way through Exile, you may come across weapons sticking out of the ground. Swords, axes, shields, bows, guns… All manner of non-magical weapons. They're simply there, scattered here and there, free for the taking. It looks like someone had a bad time trying to get out of Exile. Whoever the weapons belonged to, they don't need them now.

A word of warning to those who grab the weapons, as soon as you do, one of the dangerous creatures in Exile will find you. These creatures don't only have sharp claws or fangs, poison or sharp senses, they are intelligent. You'll need not only the weapon(s) you grabbed but your wits to defeat them or the luck of someone else coming along to help you out.

Comments

[unapprovedtrash]

He sighs in relief once Obi-Wan picks up. He was already on his way to the Catbus station, ready to hop a ride on it strait up there if he got no response.

Cal almost wants to curse the Fox out because seriously Ma'am. How much are you going to make one guy go through in a single day?

"That... that was your first trial," he explains, trying to keep his voice in a calming neutral tone. No sense freaking him out more, "Just, deep breaths. In and out. What you experienced wasn't real. I'm sure it felt it, but it was an illusion you were wrapped into by the Fox."

[hasmuchtolearn]

See this is his life, Cal. Endless suffering. From now and for all time. Maybe the fox wants to see how far she can push him or something. Who knows.

“That was a trial?” He sounds a bit surprised and indignant. In his view that was no trial, that was torture. Granted the whole thing hadn’t been bad, but it had certainly ended badly. It didn’t help that the person who died shared a name with someone he knew.

Still he continued to take slow, deep breaths, trying to center himself yet again. One thing he knows for sure though, if this is what he can expect from this place, he won’t be having a good time.

“How do I get out of here?”

[unapprovedtrash]

Endless Suffering. It's the Jedi Experience TM.

"Yeah, that was a trial. They're not all like that, and some of them aren't terrible," he can see though if that statement is hard to believe, seeing how THAT one was a particularly intense one. He'd been drawn into this one a while back but faired better then most. His training in psychometry made it easier for him to shake of the disorientation of experiencing history and memories that weren't his own.

"I'll tell you how to get out of there but... first you should probably look around. The Fox tends to reward people who come out the other side of a trial. Might be a box or chest. It's worth looking, at least you didn't have to go through all that for nothing."

[hasmuchtolearn]

He is definitely skeptical. Also a bit bitter at the thought of being rewarded for that. Feelings he had to let go of because that was definitely not going to help him here. Instead he decided to take Cal's advice and look around now that his emotions had somewhat settled.

A box then manages to catch his eye. Taking his relic he goes over to the chest and carefully opens it. Half expecting something terrible to come out of it too. Instead his eyes widen as he sees the glint of metal and a familiar shape. Then he pauses.

"Wait... this isn't mine," he says half to himself.

Taking the lightsaber out of the box, his throat tightens as he realizes just who's it is. The last lightsaber he'd had his hands on.

"This is Qui-Gon's."

[unapprovedtrash]

He can't see Obi-Wan's reaction, but he can hear it in his voice. He thinks back to his own master, dying in an escape pod with him and pressing his broken saber hilt into his too small child hands before succumbing to his wounds. In his loneliest and darkest days it was one of the few bits of hope and courage he could cling to.

"Then... a piece of your Master is here with you. He'll continue to guide you through the darkness," he speaks quietly his fingers circling around his own saber's hilt. He's long since repaired it, crammed it full of a ridiculous amount of modifications, but pieces of Jaro Tapal's shattered staff still make up parts of it. There is not a day that goes by that he doesn't hold it and reflect on his Master, or silently ask for his advice.

[hasmuchtolearn]

There's silence for a moment as he holds the lightsaber respectfully, processing the emotion that welled up in him again. Okay... so this... might have been kinda worth it. He didn't have Cal's abilities, but he could still feel his master's calm presence exuding from the weapon. It brought him comfort, especially with the thought that yes... his master would be with him. He wasn't truly alone.

Back home he would have taken it back to the temple for it to be archived with all the other lightsabers from Jedi who had passed into the Force. But here, he could hold it close. Jedi were not supposed to have attachments, but this was deeply personal, he couldn't quite help it. Obi-Wan has always been a bit sentimental.

"I suppose we can do that sparring after all," he says, trying to lift the mood. Clipping the lightsaber to his belt he stood up and looked around. "Where am I?"

[unapprovedtrash]

Cal would argue that attachments aren't bad. They make you stronger, they tether you to your morals and identity, they're a net to keep you from falling. But he was of the same opinion s Jedi Doctrine until recently, very recently, so he wouldn't really be able to fault him for that either.

"Anytime you want. Don't even have to warn me first, I love a surprise," he laughs softly, glad it sounds like Obi-Wan's managed to gather himself up as best he can given the circumstances.

"If you're like everyone else who came out of that trial you're in a place called Baba Yaga in Exile," a real spooky place, Cal's not too fond of it. It's not frightening exactly, but it can give you the heebie jeebies, "I'm not sure your pinpoint location but if you ask anyone where the Catbus station is you can take that back to practically anywhere in Folkmore if you want to leave."

[hasmuchtolearn]

Obi-Wan was definitely still very much rooted in traditional Jedi teachings, and had no plans of straying from that. He loved the Order and everything about it, including the rules. He had purposely rebelled against his master by being a strict follower of the rules. It had been an odd balance between them that often tipped into disagreements.

Cal manages to get a little chuckle out of Obi-Wan. “I’ll keep that in mind.” Surprising Cal with impromptu sparring could be fun.

Taking in the information though, Obi-Wan nods to himself as he begins to wander. “I think I’ll do that. This place feels… strange.” He can’t quite put his finger on it but it almost felt like this building had a presence, or was even alive. “Again, thank you, Cal.”