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Entry tags:
December 2023 & January 2024 Test Drive Meme
December 2023 - January 2024 TDM
Introduction
Overflow TDM post found here
[ TDM Questions ★ Jump to Comments ★ Full Navigation ]
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.
🦊 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.
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.
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.
🦊 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.
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 freereal 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.
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
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.
🦊 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.
no subject
Can't even call it irony given what's on his paper, because they got dumped in here for detention on purpose. Also he doesn't know enough about what irony is to be definitive.
It's just not fair. It's not fair that the clock started ticking again the second Casey said something about that, so there's really not a choice.
Stupid trials.
Raph hesitates for a second before stepping over to drop down next to Casey. How to... proceed. ]
If it helps, I never blamed you. [ Had to save that guilt for himself, mostly, for "you're one to talk, big brother," and the horrific cold squeeze of what did I do, what did I teach him? that he's never gonna forget. But-- past that. Past that. He can-- he doesn't wanna make this about him, but maybe--
If it might help, and if there's no choice but to talk about it anyway. ]
I know how it feels to have to make a call like that, y'know?
no subject
You do...?
[He hasn't heard this story before.]
no subject
Just gotta do. Words. ]
We had to cut 'n run when the Shredder hit the old lair. Everything was comin' down. He took out our weapons, we didn't have ninpo figured out yet, we lost Gram-Gram. [ Maybe he should feel lucky that that's not his detention crime, because he doesn't think he has it in him to cover that part of the guilt spectrum. ] There wasn't any time to think. We just-- we weren't ready.
[ 0 to apocalypse in like twenty seconds. ]
So I told everyone we had to move out. Packed the guys into the turtle tank. But, uh. Pop and Draxum didn't come with. They told me to go, and they'd buy time for us to get away. And I listened. I didn't wanna do it, but... I did it anyway.
[ But, his little brothers in the tank, and April and all of New York unaccounted for, and the fact that if they'd stayed and tried to fight it all would've been over, right there, and it was his dad telling him to do something. Lots of buts, lots of ands. They don't make it feel any better. ]
Everything workin' out later doesn't really change how it sits, huh?
[ How could he hold that against this kid? It's not fair that he was even in that situation. It's a whole mess. ]
no subject
Raph, though... Raph had done it, too? Left their dad and Draxum behind, let them hold back the enemy even if it might've cost their lives... to save everyone?
Somehow he tears his gaze away, staring instead down at the hands in his lap, and blinks rapidly. He's not alone-]
No... no, it doesn't. A-and it's harder to say no when you don't have another solution, when there's no time to think it through. When it's someone you're used to obeying to who gives the order. I... it was your dad...
[It was my-]
no subject
(Leo would be a good one. He thinks. One day. If Leo wants that kinda thing. Probably was one, past-tense, in the other future? Raph doesn't get paid enough to fully understand all this timeline stuff, and he doesn't like thinking about most of it.) ]
Wish you didn't get it. Kinda glad you get it. I dunno. [ One of those weird things a person doesn't get unless they have to do it themselves. He doesn't really want his brothers to hit that point. Hopes they didn't, in that weird ADI place.
They shouldn't have to. If he already knows he can make that call for them-- he'll do it again if he has to. But he can't say that stuff out loud, he can't... think too hard about the fact that he's thought about it. Had to follow through on it. That if it's between his brothers and his dad, he knows where he'd land. If he thinks about that too hard, he gets mad that he had to think about it at all, and he gets mad that Pop and Draxum left them to it when he had no idea what he was supposed to do.
Except it's not fair to get mad because he gets it, and it's not fair to get mad when he's the guy who shipped Leo off in his escape pod while he stayed behind. It's not fair to get mad at Leo for making that call, for asking Casey to make that call.
It's not fair to get mad just because he's scared of the inevitable next time something like that happens, it's not fair to get mad just because he's tired of learning to ride a bike by slamming into walls instead of getting training wheels.
It doesn't feel fair that it doesn't feel fair.
Raph crumples his detention slip up just for something to do with his hands. ]
I'm sorry, too. [ Principal off-screen somewhere like "jeez kids can you lighten up a little," and the answer is no. This is now the guilt library. He's sorry. He regrets it. That's easy. ] But whatever it's worth, I don't... I don't think it actually makes us the worst people in the world.
[ Just, you know. Makes us feel like we are for the rest of our lives, a little bit.
If they were totally fine with it, then maybe there'd be some bad-person ground to stand on. In his opinion. ]
no subject
I don't think so, either. [Intent matters, Rue had said. Or was it context? Does either option make it better?] It doesn't make us very heroic, though.
[He is really, really starting to hate that word. But he knows it means a lot to Raphael, too. (Meant a lot? He doesn't know where anyone stands on the word right now. It's a nebulous concept. They heroically saved the world. He heroically condemned the most important person to him in the entire world to death.)
...Somehow doesn't have the same ring.]
no subject
At least Casey gets that. That's gotta count for something. ]
Yeah, I don't think that one's in the handbook. [ As much of one as there is, or ever was. As much as it seems like there are a lot of different ideas going around about what it's supposed to be about. ] Speakin' as a turtle that's been on both sides, it's not much of a hero move to stay behind, either.
[ In his experience, at least. When it's family. It's just-- desperate. It's all the same stuff. Loving them and being scared and not having time or options. A different kind of mess. ]
no subject
[Casey looks down at his hands. To stay and die (or risk death, almost as bad even when it works out), to run and hope that next time will be better, that the sacrifice will have been worth it. It's one thing when it's someone else's call, when they choose and you just have to deal with it. It's another thing when you have to be active in that final step. To close a door. On a turtle tank, on a prison dimension. Honouring their sacrifice, obeying an order. Or maybe it was just a convenient excuse to make everything seem nice and neat. Better than reality. Done because they had to, because wishing doesn't give anyone a better choice.
He thinks of Donatello's.. threat? Promise? I'll remove you from the equation. He thinks of Rue's rationale. It's because of love. Not everyone is going to agree what the right answer is. Whether he's guilty. Not everyone is going to understand.
Raph, though... Raph understands.]
...Can I... tell you something? It's about the future. My- my Raph.
no subject
Talking is weird like that, he guesses.
He's not giving the credit to anyone but himself and Casey for that, though. Screw this detention racket for real. ]
Yeah, 'course you can. [ Unlocked lore. Relevant to this topic lore? Likely.
He's gotta figure out a non-weird sounding way to tell Casey he can talk about the rest of his fam whenever, if he wants. Good, bad, sad, whatever. So get that wording grinding in the brain processes. ]
no subject
This one feels important, though. If he can say it.]
When I was little, back home, there was an attack on our base. The Krang found us. Sensei got hurt protecting me, and... Master Raphael stayed behind to fight the Krang, so sensei could get me somewhere safe. It's thanks to him that I'm even alive now. Problem is, I forgot about it all until recently, for some reason... [The reason is trauma, CJ.] A-anyway, I can't thank him anymore. Can I say I'm grateful for you? Because it's just- part of who you are? Is that weird?
no subject
Raph would've judged future him for doing anything else, which maybe makes him a big hypocrite considering his complicated feelings on the whole Hamato legacy of loss and duty and sacrifice and all. It's just. A weird relief. Knowing the other him didn't grow out of it, never stopped understanding the right priorities. Never stopped looking out for their family.
How little was little? How many times did Casey go through that exact situation while the world got run over? All the more reason to try to look out for him as the Raph on deck. ]
Not too weird. Probably normal levels of weird for this family. [ Try not to sound deeply emotionally moved. Fail, because you are Raph. ] Guess you don't need me to tell you future me loved you, huh?
[ Loves??? Will love??? The jury is out.
He's a puncher, not a rocket scientist. ]
no subject
N... no. I knew. Everyone took care of me... people don't do that if they don't, um. [Love. A lot, actually. Especially in the apocalypse where everything has a much steeper price than normal. Kids you don't want are easy to throw away when the whole surface world can swallow them right up in a second.
It wasn't just leftover obligation from his mom. He wasn't "Cass's kid". He was theirs.]
...I-I'm glad you're here.
[In detention, in this lousy beat-up library? In Folkmore, so they can get to know each other for real? In general, as in not dead, not Krang-ified, not a robot, or anything but himself?
The list is long and all apply. He's so glad.]
no subject
It doesn't fix anything, but it's generally good to know that Casey knows that. That he brought it with him. ]
Right back atcha. You're a good kid.