October & November 2023 Test Drive Meme

[folkie]

October - November 2023 TDM

Introduction

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This Test Drive meme is open to all.
Welcome to Folkmore's bimonthly 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 also allowed to have in-game characters post to the TDM so long as they mark their top levels ‘Current Character.’

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]

Candy Man . ★

Content Warnings: Potential nonconsensual physical changes

Tides doesn’t have a farmer’s market. However, it does have a regular artists’ fair. Spirits—and Star Children—can set up stalls to offer art they have already made or to make it right before people. On the spot commissions! It’s a great way to see a wide spread of the art available in Tides, on rare occasions even Jewelia’s own.

Within the artists’ fair is a makers’ square where everyone is invited to join an artist in learning to make some kind of art. It might be painting and wine. Lithography. Embroidery. You name it. Seriously, feel free to put a suggestion in the box of what Star Children would be interested in. The artists leading the space don’t all teach at Jewelia Academy. This could be the only chance to learn from them!

This time it’s making salt water taffy. Spirit Children can learn how to complete the process from start to finish with a bit of an arm workout. If they aren’t interested in or cannot handle the arm workout pulling the taffy, they can help a spirit wherever they’re interested. There is any flavor Spirit Children can imagine to flavor their taffy, even ones only found in their home worlds. Share a little culture!

Star Children may keep up to half of the taffy they make, but the rest will be offered to everyone coming through the makers’ square in the artists’ fair. Perhaps it’ll encourage other Star Children to make their own! Star Children, whether they make taffy or simply take free samples, will find that eating taffy can have an effect on them.

Eating taffy made by Legends will give Star Children color changing eyes that give away their mood, just like Legends. Eating taffy made by Myths will give Star Children horns, claws, or a tail that grows larger when they react more logically and less emotionally. Eating taffy made by Familiars will give Star Children animal features. These effects last from one-six hours.

Eating taffy made by Spirits has no effect at all!

🦊 Star Children can attend an artists’ fair and make salt water taffy.
🦊 Eating salt water taffy made by Star Children will give temporary features of that kind of Star Child.
🦊 Eating salt water taffy made by Spirits has no effect.

Creative Block Castles . ★

Content Warnings: Pocket universe, dungeon castle crawl, forced relocation

One of the many food carts in Tides serves homemade ice cream. The fox spirit serving it promises that it will provide a jolt of inspiration—even to Star Children who cannot eat. Even holding a cone or cup of the ice cream can jolt someone’s imagination, the fox says. It’s free as part of the welcome to Tides, but no one has to accept it, not even to hold. The fox spirit won’t cajole anyone, and Star Children can go along their way.

At least a few hours later, long enough to have forgotten the offer or to get frustrated by the lack of promised inspiration, Star Children fall down down down into a painted, sculpted, sidewalk chalked, or otherwise artistically bent world. They are as artistically made as the rest of the world around them. They match it, as do their one to three companions who arrive with them. They may be friends or strangers. They are compatriots in this strange world.

Whether starting deep in the bowels or high in a tower, this artistic world is that of a castle. A unique castle to each Star Child host. Elements of its design, decor, and mechanisms tie back to a creative endeavor of the host. For the castle is a direct manifestation of whatever project the Star Child host experiences creative block around, whether that’s art or science or anything else. It’s baked into the design. Not only that, the castle is under attack! Dragons or monsters or knights, oh my! Whatever attacks, the very creative idea may crumble if it doesn’t get solved.

Star Children who ate the ice cream will have an easier time shoring up defenses, buying time to think, and even experiencing a breakthrough moment of inspiration. Any companions who ate the ice cream will have an easier time helping the host. Regardless, the only way out is a breakthrough or to see the idea fall to uninspired ruin. Which will it be?

When a group breaks through, they return to Tides with up to four nearly identical dollhouse castles. A miniature doll of one party member will be in each dollhouse. The doll will also have a miniature version of an item from home. Take it from one’s doll, and it becomes lifesize. It may even be a magical item or weapon.

🦊 Star Children will be offered homemade ice cream by a fox spirit.
🦊 Star Children will be transported into an artistic world set within a castle under attack.
🦊 1-3 other Star Children will join the host.
🦊 Escape by breaking through the host’s creative block.
🦊 Star Children whose groups break through will receive a personal item from home. It may even be a magical item or weapon.

Comments

[apuckalypse]

Oh! Of course, least I can do. [He'd have done that for free, but for candy, absolutely.

With a gesture, he starts leading the way towards one of the local establishments with a place to wash up, and... just steals one of the garbage cans, thanks Hob. No one seems to mind though, on account of it being full of nasty taffy.]

Are you new here?

[He's pretty sure he would have noticed a giant bear man around town, but maybe he's just unobservant.]

[knickpnack]

[Grateful, Hob follows the little man away from the stall and the poor trash-can-less candy maker.]

Entirely. I was roused from my slumber, in some sense of the word, by a kindly Fox who deposited me... here. For what reasons, I am still unclear.

[She had explained some stuff, granted, but a lot of it went over his head because he'd been sprouting wings at the time. He supposes he'll have plenty of time to mull it over in the time to come.]

And you? Have you been in this place long?

[apuckalypse]

[Casey nods along. Yeah, sounds about the same. Though what's different is how charitable this guy is, talking about Thirteen. Most people are kind of angry about it, but this is refreshing. Casey hadn't exactly hated it either.]

Not too long. Maybe 3 months? [Time has truly flown by.] It's not a bad place, once you get used to it. The best place I've ever lived.

[knickpnack]

[To be fair, Hob has spent near his entire life following orders, doing what those in positions of power over him tells him to do, even if he disagrees. Making choices for himself is a...fairly recent development. The Fox certainly hadn't seemed malicious. Surely, they must've had a reason for bringing them all here.]

Truly? Then I trust this place must be splendid, to earn such a ringing endorsement. [His tone is so frank and blunt, it's like he has no other modes but Utterly Sincere. He even nods resolutely to himself, pleased with the knowledge that his new young friend considers this place Not So Bad.]

Where did you come from? Forgive my impertinence, I have only ever met a human being once before...curiously, also in a realm outside of their natural habitat.

[apuckalypse]

[The 'ringing endorsement' feels unearned - it's just that his world is garbage so it's the lowest possible bar - but he doesn't correct. Folkmore is a pretty great place overall.]

Ah, that's... [Complicated? Well, not really. The answer itself is simple, just depends on if this guy requires clarification.] Do you know about Earth? I'm from a version of it. But people get brought here from all different worlds.

[knickpnack]

I am vaguely familiar with this "Earth". I believe it is one of many worlds within the Prime Material Plane. So, humans would be Earthlings, in a sense?

[Hob is far from a planar scholar, but he does know some things. Wouldn't do to be a military strategist without at least familiarizing himself with potential points of interplanar invasion!]

You say you are from one version of Earth. How many others are there?

[apuckalypse]

I... guess they would be, yeah.

[He has honestly never thought about what to call himself. There hadn't been enough of a society for it to matter before.]

I can only speak for the ones I know about, but there's at least five or six. And Two different timelines.

[knickpnack]

Timelines?

[Oh, now we're getting silly with it. Hob can understand five or six versions of the same world existing at once, but once alternate timelines get involved, he's out!] So, you have experienced them all? Forgive my impudence, but I am fascinated by alternate modes of dimensional travel. Will you tell me of the worlds you have seen?

[apuckalypse]

Well... I've only been to one Earth, but two different timelines of it. I was born in one where Earth was, um. Destroyed. and then I was sent through a time gateway to the past. Me being there created a new timeline where the world was saved.

[Better to rattle it all off quickly to avoid the emotional impact of everything that entails, because it is a lot and this poor guy is a stranger. He's trying to get better about that. So if his tone is a little forced-neutral, sorry Hob.]

Other than that, there's several other versions of Earth where different things happened. I didn't see them personally, but other people here came from those Earths. If... that makes any sense.

[knickpnack]

[No apologies necessary. Hob probably couldn't tell one tone from the other even if he tried. He still listens carefully, nodding at the appropriate times, filing away all this fascinating new information in appropriate boxes.]

I see, I see. It does indeed make sense. If people such as I can be brought to this world from planes beyond your knowing, then the existence of multiple Earths beyond the knowing of other Earthlings must be just as possible. I thank you for your thourough explanation.

[A beat passes.] So, you are a hero to your people. For saving your Earth.

[apuckalypse]

[Impossible not to wince at that very bold statement. Casey hesitates for a moment, swallowing hard.]

I didn't save it... I didn't do anything heroic. All I did was bring a warning to the ones who did.

[He just... passed the problem along. Sure he helped, but he didn't save anyone, nevermind the whole Earth. He closed a door. Anyone can close a door. And he never wants to be called a hero for that.]

[knickpnack]

[... interesting. He's heard the same timid, hesitant, deflectant wording from countless young soldiers through his lifetime of service. Hob may be largely useless in social situations, but this... this, he is intimately familiar with.

Accepting valor when it feels unearned is as pervasively difficult for earthling humans as it is for goblins, it would seem.]

Would they have known to save the Earth, if not for your warning? Did your arrival and aid not give them what they needed to alter the course of history?

[apuckalypse]

[The soldier comparison is apt. He's several months removed from it, and it wasn't a formal army by any means, but he understands the chain of command, how to fight, how to move, how to follow the orders he's given even if they're not what he wants to do. And not all orders are the work of heroes.

Casey chews on those questions for a moment, still leading them onward. He gets the intent, but it's a hard thing to accept from someone who wasn't there. He's not sure he'd accept it from anyone.]

Do you think that's enough to call someone a hero? Passing along a message?

[knickpnack]

Yes. [The answer comes after a mere moment's passing, as if this was something he'd already decided upon.

Hob doesn't know this young man, nor does this young man know him. They cannot know the struggles of the other, the horrors they each have bore witness to, or indeed carried out by their own hands. But Hob does know some things.]

Heroism is not just one static thing, fixed and decided upon by someone given authority outside and beyond ourselves. What is heroic to some may appear cowardly or cruel to others. Some may consider you a hero, when you yourself feel anything but. [He seems to speak from bitter experience.] Because you passed along this message, people who never otherwise got the chance to now get to go on living. In the end, that is what matters.

[apuckalypse]

[Another stretch of quiet. Logically, Casey can't find a flaw in the argument. It's true that his arrival saved lives. It's true that giving the turtles his warning meant they had a head start in halting the invasion. It's true that there are millions, billions of lives that still exist on Earth now that would otherwise have been snuffed out, over the course of two decades, as they had in his timeline. Factually he's not wrong. Those were indeed a side effect of something he did.

...It just. It feels wrong, to call it heroic, or himself a hero. That day had ended with tragedy as much as triumph. Or at least they were close enough that the wound lingered, and it's something he can't forget.]

What if... while trying to do something good, you end up doing something terrible? Shouldn't one cancel out the other?