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folkmore mod ([personal profile] folkie) wrote in [community profile] folkooc2023-12-13 12:11 am
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December 2023 & January 2024 Test Drive Meme

December 2023 - January 2024 TDM
Introduction

Overflow TDM post found here


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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 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 OnePrompt Two]

Thirteen Knows What You Did Last Summer .
Content Warnings: School Detention, Time Not Passing, Forced Reflection/Confession, Potential Violence

Welcome to detention. Star Children, whether they're new arrivals to Folkmore or old hands, find themselves sitting at two person desks in a library. Perhaps there's only two Star Children, perhaps up to four or five. Regardless, each Star Child has a slip of paper in their hands which spells out why they are in detention, a secret detention slip no one else can read. Which, whew, because the reason any Star Child is in detention is for something they've never been punished for, something they might reasonably have thought they got away with, something they know was wrong.

The door to the library opens, and Kuma Lisa enters. She explains that Star Children will be in detention for four hours, and by the end of detention, they will need to reflect on what they did and express contrition. The headmistress gives no further guidance before leaving and closing the doors behind her.

Four hours is a notable chunk of time, but it's not so long, is it? Surely it's possible to wait it out without making good on the assignment… Or perhaps it's enough to write about it in one of the notebooks on the table in front of each student, without explaining it to another soul. Star Children are welcome to try whatever they want. However, they may notice an oddity with the clock. Namely, no matter how many times the second hand ticks around a circle to mark a whole minute, the minute and hour hands don't progress. It's the same minute over and over and over—

Detention is four hours, but how long four hours takes is entirely up to the Star Children in detention. Read every book in the library. Throw a dance party. Get high. Pull weapons out of the books. All matter of non-magical weapons. Nothing immediately happens upon pulling those weapons—no monsters to make detention less boring. Unless people make progress reflecting on their transgression, communicating about it with another Star Child, and showing penitence for it, time won't pass. Reality warps to stay in the same minute, minute after minute, hour after hour.

What's it going to be? Never ending detention or personal accountability?

However long it takes, it only takes four hours in the realm of Folkmore.

A word of warning to those who grabbed weapons, they will be attacked on their way home after detention. They will be attacked by creatures out of storybooks. Star Children will need to know the literary weaknesses of these creatures, good luck, or the help of someone else coming along who does know their weaknesses. At least there's some excitement in the day after four long long hours.

🦊 Star Children, new and old, in groups of 2-5 are in detention for something they did wrong & haven't been punished for.
🦊 Kuma Lisa explains detention lasts four hours, and people have to express regret for what they did by the end.
🦊 Time doesn't pass unless Star Children make progress toward that assignment.
🦊 It always takes four hours in Folkmore time.
🦊 Star Children who draw weapons from books during detention will be attacked on their way home.

To Prank or to be Pranked .
Content Warnings: Theft, Glitter Bombs, Minor Power Nerfing

There's a problem with the nonexistent mail delivery system in Folkmore. Gifts are being delivered to residents' addresses—their correct addresses, even if they live in the woods—but those recipients, written on a fat cream label, cannot pick them up, teleport them, or otherwise move them under their own power. These gifts sit in garish and contrasting colors that make certain to draw attention to themselves. Hello, here they are.

Anyone else can pick these packages up, from the person next door to a stranger walking by. There's so many gifts around it's easy to pick one up, remove the label, and go on one's way. Few people are home all the time, and even if they are, what are they going to do? Pick it up themselves? Ha! It's free real estate. Star Children with abilities to see inside the packages can see something they want badly within as extra motivation to go for it.

When Star Children open their ill gotten gains, these packages explode in a glitter bomb that coats everyone within a ten foot radius. This glitter is impossible to wash out, magic away, or otherwise remove for twenty-four hours. Walk, swim, fly, or otherwise go about with glittery evidence of the crime committed.

Almost always. If it were guaranteed, where would the fun be in that?

The rare fortunate criminal or the original recipient, helped by another Star Child, will receive an item from home. This may even be a weapon or magical item. Those who receive an item will stop receiving gifts on their doorstep, whether they stole the gift or received it from a package addressed to them. They can keep stealing other people's gifts, but they will only receive a glitter bomb from then on.

Mischievous Star Children can even prank each other by changing the label and redelivering packages to someone else. Should that person get help to bring the gift inside, it still isn't their gift, not really, so it too will explode in glitter.

🦊 Gifts appear outside Star Children's residences, even those without residences.
🦊 Recipients cannot pick up the gift but any other Star Child can.
🦊 Almost all stolen gifts explode in a glitter bomb that leaves glitter for 24 hours.
🦊 Star Children can receive an item from home, even a weapon or magical item.
🦊 Star Children can prank each other by changing the labels/moving the packages.

therewerefifty: (surrender)

[personal profile] therewerefifty 2024-01-03 01:41 pm (UTC)(link)
[Ah, all this silence is deafening.

Still, Makie lets it draw out enough. At least until she gains some level of composure again, lifting her head to glance up at the high ceiling of this place.

And then continues.]


He wanted me to go and find my mother and apologise, and bring her home. He didn't know she was already dead. He wanted me to take her a comb. I...

[Stared at him, sickly and pathetic and half-mad, and couldn't bring herself to end his life. She was expecting pride and angry mockery, not...this.]

I told him I would take his message to her. And I left.

I think he lay down and died the moment I walked away. When I finally came to my senses and returned... it was too late.
revengeisalie: (coming for you)

[personal profile] revengeisalie 2024-01-03 04:59 pm (UTC)(link)
Ah, but... I think I would've done the same. [ That's the first thing coming to Rin's mind, hearing Makie's tale. ] I mean, I couldn't even kill my enemy when he was sick, so...

[ Suddenly, she lets out a snort of a laugh; more out of nervousness than true mirth. ] I just remembered another thing -- I, uhm, don't know if this is gonna make it better or worse -- but y'know, back at Lake Suwa? When you were fighting those Shingyoto-ryu guys? You seemed pretty busy doing that, so maybe you didn't see, but we were both just kind of cowering on the ground, he and I, and watching you. And tetanus, it's also called lockjaw, cause it stiffens your muscles so much you can't talk eventually -- but suddenly, I heard him speak for the first time in days. It sounded like a huge effort. And he said something like "see what I can never be". As he said that, he was so clearly looking at you. You know, that kind of scary intense focus he could sometimes have? That's the kind of look he had.

[ All of that, Rin kind of said in rush, so she has to take a deep breath when she's done, and then looks away while rubbing her neck awkwardly. ]

A-anyway, I don't know why I'm telling you this, but... that's what happened back there.
therewerefifty: (phew)

[personal profile] therewerefifty 2024-01-04 10:57 am (UTC)(link)
[That's both endearing and mortifying, and Makie isn't sure how to take it, not at all. She does understand Rin is trying, and it's rather clear that her vendetta against Kagehisa does not extend to Makie.

For that, she should be thankful. But on the other hand...]


Do you know, we met as children? Kagehisa was the only person I met who neither feared nor abhorred my skill. He was in awe. It was... nice, after so long.

He was the only student I ever took on. He fights so well because I taught him.

[On the other hand, Rin should know all the facts. Kagehisa is deadly because Makie made him so.]
revengeisalie: (speechless)

[personal profile] revengeisalie 2024-01-04 11:44 am (UTC)(link)
You? You taught him? [ Rin blurts it out; because yes, she is surprised. For all she's been disregarding the rules of formal society, a man letting a woman teach him swordsmanship is not something that's really heard of. And then a man like Anotsu Kagehisa... !

Then again, allowing women in your very official sword school was also not really heard of. Makie, Doa. Rin thinks of Hyakurin, then, too. Of Mugai-ryu and Rokki-dan, neither of which had really been a sword school, but rather Habaki Kagimura's personal henchmen (-women) picked from criminals.

If you thought about it for a moment, Anotsu and Habaki had similar ways of going about things. ]


Ah, but... he did have that elegant sort of fighting style, didn't he? His axe describing those circles, not by brute force, but by using the axe's own movement. Not like Manji-san at all.

[ Rin had admired those movements once, right up until she'd seen the face of the kenshi who'd made them. ]

Of course, he never matched you.
Edited 2024-01-04 11:44 (UTC)
therewerefifty: (um.  what?  'kay...)

[personal profile] therewerefifty 2024-01-04 01:35 pm (UTC)(link)
[The disbelief earns a tired smile.] He is not strong as many swordsmen are, but he is graceful. There are all manner of ways you can learn to wield a weapon with deadly efficiency.

He didn't, did he...? He told me he would one day. But some things are... never to be.

[Despite that, she still smiles. It's melancholy, sure. But it's Makie.]
revengeisalie: (Doing it wrong.)

[personal profile] revengeisalie 2024-01-04 01:51 pm (UTC)(link)
[ What a strange pair the two of them made. Rin wonders at the melancholy smiles, at the emotions she's seen Makie go through during their conversation in this place. The few times she's met Makie before, it had been difficult to get a read on her. A quiet woman who keeps to herself for someone so strong. Or perhaps because? Does a strong kenshi need to keep a lid on their emotions? Rin has never been particularly good at that. Manji had always made fun of her for it, commented on all the times she cried.

But then she remembers Doa, who'd always been led by her impulses, and her impulses were deadly more times than not. And Manji, for all he acted tough, was motivated by the loss of his sister. If he scorned emotion as much as he claimed, he'd never have stayed at her side as long as he did; and it was this soft side, as much as his protection, that drew her to him.

Different ways to wield a weapon, indeed.

It also suddenly occurs to Rin that Makie keeps speaking of Anotsu in the present tense. Namu, she's really been insensitive, hasn't she? She clasps her hands to her cheeks and blushes. ]


So, uhm... what do we do now?
therewerefifty: (thinking)

[personal profile] therewerefifty 2024-01-04 02:14 pm (UTC)(link)
[It's hard to sink in that he's dead. She knows, but...

Well.

Makie hums at the question, flicks her piece of paper out to unfold it again, looking down.]


In this room? Or... otherwise?

[How do we move on from here? Pick your question: short or long term.]
revengeisalie: Rin with an awkward face (Well uhm.)

[personal profile] revengeisalie 2024-01-04 02:25 pm (UTC)(link)
Uhm... both?

[ Wow, how dare you make her pick! ]

Though, uhm... I suppose this room comes first.

[ Rin tucks a strand of her behind her ear. ]

We have certainly spoken at length about our regrets, have we not?

therewerefifty: (I look kinda adorable here)

[personal profile] therewerefifty 2024-01-05 10:28 am (UTC)(link)
We have.

[She feels a bit better about hers, actually. Not that she's suddenly absolved, but... talking to Rin, who has experienced the same sort of hesitation, who understands...

She glances up at the clock and realises with a start that time has gone past. Nearly four hours of it.]


I think we may be allowed to leave.

For afterward...

[Despite Rin's rant about Kagehisa not that long ago, her own attitude toward the girl hasn't changed. Makie bows her head.] I hold no ill will toward you, Rin. It... may be good, to have someone as out of place as I am, here.

[Translation: we historical hot messes should probably stick together. Even if loosely.]
revengeisalie: (But I am no stranger to melancholy.)

[personal profile] revengeisalie 2024-01-05 06:55 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Rin feels that things are still tense between them, and they're likely to be so for a while. But she's glad for Makie's offer; it would be good to not be all alone in this place. And she's never held a grudge against Makie.

She bows back and offers a hesitant smile. ]


I would like that, Makie-san.