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Entry tags:
May 2022 Test Drive Meme
MAY 2022 TDM
INTRODUCTION
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.
Content Warnings: Possible insanity via cuts by thorns. Temporary nullification of abilities.
DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS
OUT OF THE WOODS
DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS
The world comes into focus in one sharp, overwhelming rush. You are laying on the ground surrounded by staggering walls of flowers of all types and colors. Their sweet scent fills the air and the sky above is clear, blue, beautiful, and endless. It would be easy to be lulled into a quiet nap in such a peaceful place. You can even hear a soft, disembodied voice singing songs from some unknown place all around you. After some time, this siren song creates an intense yearning that will eventually bring you to your feet and pull you forward. You are filled with the urge to find someone important. You may know who or you might just have some aimless, faceless person at the forefront of your mind.
All you know is that when you finally find them, you'll know. Is it love? Is it a friend you have always needed? The perfect enemy? Only time will tell, but for now, you must find them. The flower maze is dense and for now, it doesn't seem like flying out and above them is an option. If you try, you just wind up vaulted back into the maze. Nope! This trial is about using other means of exploration. Maybe you can destroy the flowers, but you will find that this flower field is apparently endless. If you get cut by thorns along the way, you will become increasingly hectic about finding this mystery person. Some have been thrown into insane desperation just looking for their People among the flowers.
But once you finally find them, you're both filled with relief and the flowers around you blossom wider. You can then treat the flower maze like a solvable puzzle and get your way out of it. However, some people spend a bit more time in the maze since once you do find your person or people, you will be stricken with the urge to talk to them, to "open up" about your yearning to find them...even if you've never met them before!
OUT OF THE WOODS
Just outside of the flower maze is a little festival set up just on the edge of Willow and partway into Epiphany! Little stalls of food and drinks have been set up - and we mean little! The good folk who set up these stalls are magical cats standing upright and wearing clothes like little people! All the stalls are cat-sized and so are the dishes and food - which means most of the people walking through will likely be quite a bit bigger! That's okay, the cat folk seem happy to serve you bigger or multiple helpings of their yummy soups and bread. None of them seem able to really communicate with the new arrivals, but that's okay, their cute meows are fun to listen to anyway.
The music is a bit more pronounced here and a handful of cat couples are dancing around. Don't be surprised if they encourage you to join in the dancing! Maybe you didn't actually find someone in the flower maze - if not, the cat folk will encourage you to dance with another new arrival to get to know them! Because apparently dancing with someone you don't know is a good formal introduction? Ah well. Sometimes it's just the idea that counts.
There will also be some supplies to help patch people up who have gotten a lot of cuts from the flower maze. Some of the bouts of insanity are probably still going a bit hectic, so you might want to lay down in the recovery area until you feel a bit more stable. Talking to people apparently helps with the stability, so maybe strike up a conversation with a fellow newbie?
Content Warnings: Optional selective amensia and/or altered sense of self, possible monster/creature violence, temporary enchantments, forced relocations.
LONG STORY SHORT
DAYLIGHT
LONG STORY SHORT
You're in a very unusual, specific outfit and in a place you might have seen once or twice in a storybook or in the imagination of your childhood. For some, you might pick up on what's happening immediately. For others, you might be so immersed in the role that you don't realize it - but you're featuring in a classic fairy tale. Maybe it's Sleeping Beauty or Little Red Riding Hood or Tale of the White Snake or The Mirror of Matsuyama. Either way, you're the main character or the main antagonist and it looks like you're going to have to play out the story with whoever you're stuck with!
The other person in the trial can either match up to the other side of the story or just arrive as themselves and have to play along. Trying to just abandon the trial is quite literally impossible! You're stuck in the weird woods or high tower and trying to "leave" just results in you going in repeated cycles until you wind up where you started. You have a role to fill and you might as well get used to playing roles in Folkmore! It's time to understand how these trials work. What lesson are you supposed to take away?
If you're grumbling about it or are left confused, don't worry! Thirteen will appear to those struggling and explain the situation: "You need to play out the story! C'mon. Everyone knows this story...Right? Well, whatever, it's obvious! If you play your part, I promise I'll give you something you want." Can you really trust a fox though? Especially the fox who brought you here? She laughs before you can really pester her for more information and vanishes in a burst of red dust. Foxes really are mischievous, aren't they...At least most fairy tales are incredibly short, basic, and straightforward so most people should be able to figure it out!
In theory.
DAYLIGHT
At least the Fox wasn't lying. When you complete the task of the story, the fairy tale world will melt into one of the settings in Folkmore and you will be brought back into the current reality. You will be left in the weird clothes, but fear not! A mystery trunk has appeared in front of you and whoever you completed the trial with. Inside the trunk, you will find some of your canon clothes and a few canon items. Nearby, there will be some weapons sticking out of the ground: basic swords, guns, shields, etc. These items might not be enchanted, but at least you have something to work with!
Better yet, you don't necessarily have to complete the Long Story Short prompt to find these trunks either! They seem to be dotted around Folkmore and you might find them just by virtue of exploration! The trunks seem to mysteriously know who is opening them so you won't find someone else's stuff by accident, but you might have to fight over who gets the sword in the stone...
A word of caution to those who grab the weapons...You will immediately be tested on how good you are with them. As soon as you have pulled them out of the ground, the ground will begin trembling and a serpent-like creature will form out of the ground. If you're in Wintermute, you have a sizeable icy creature to deal with. If you're in Cruel Summer, meet the fire-breathing snakey nightmare that's going to try and roast you alive. Don't think Epiphany or Willow will have gentler creatures! They might be covered in moss or flowers but they will hit just as hard. You have to defeat the angry creature - or try running for your life. They are relatively easy to beat and people without powers can manage if they are highly skilled or...really lucky...Or if someone far more capable finds them! Good luck. As a pro-tip, maybe don't pull weird swords out of the ground in the future.
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But then, thankfully, she finally seems to realise what his wheezing is actually forming words, and that's enough to make her give him some more space. Don't get it wrong, she's still definitely holding him in her arms, but at least he should be able to actually inhale some oxygen now.
But rather than saying something like 'oh, sorry' or 'my bad' like a normal person, Asahi is still way too much under the influence of whatever has come over her to really pay attention to that. Instead she frowns, her expression twisting into a pout, until she's just saying: ]
Aren't you happy to see me too?
[ You're breaking her heart, random stranger.
.. or rather, random strange fox. ]
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oh, boy. girl. she’s making his heart want to burst just as much as the flower walls blooming around them. ]
C—‘Course I am! I just—! I didn’t wanna die yet! [ and now that his breathing has settled, ] Not before . . . I talked to ya’ some . . .
[ wow
he’s never been held before 😳 ]
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Aww, look at you! [ She moves her head a little closer, gently nuzzling her cheek against the fox's head. ] Aren't you the most adorable little thing?
[ .. apparently that's why he's getting this treatment, huh. Allowed to hack all over her, allowed to be held by her.. Because Asahi doesn't even think for a moment that this could be a human boy.
Instead she's just assuming she met an adorable little fox. ]
I mean, the talking is kind of weird, but you're cute, so it's okay!
[ These standards. ]
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contrary to popular belief, this is all— very strange! and he doesn't feel like he should be comfortable up here, and in any other case, he wouldn't. it was freaky and kind of perverted on his part. but the melody, the scent of blooms, and the relaxed aura just having found her brings . . . ]
Ah . . . Haha . . . Ahhm, look, I'm real happy I found ya', really, but, um . . . I can walk. On the ground. Really.
[ his heart is going to explode. he should just accept this, but. it's so weird. it's too weird, even for him! ]
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[ Asahi pauses. It's like everything about her freezes for a moment - but then she starts to move again, slowly lowering herself to the ground until she's sitting on her knees, and then releasing the fox onto the ground as well.
Usually she might have been more offended about this. Asahi is never a particularly subtle person, after all. She's loud and blunt - but there's something about this fox, something that makes her feel so close to it, that's making her be softer in this moment.
To a point where she almost seems genuinely hurt. If he bothers to look over at her, he might see her eyes getting weirdly shiny, like she's about to cry. Apparently this weird bond this place has created between them for the moment is just that intense.. ]
I'm.. sorry. If I made you uncomfortable. I just.. I don't know, I have a weird sort of feeling. Like I just want to be near you.
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atsumu’s world crumbles. he didn’t have to care. he shouldn’t really care. but, for her? he does care, so much that he feels like the absolute worst person in the world to have harmed her feelings. ]
H-hey, ah, no, don’t— [ internally panicking. don’t cry. please don’t cry!! he can’t help it—! his little paws touch her knees and he leans up! ] M’sorry! M’real sorry, I just—! I wanna be with you and tell ya’ all these things but what if it’s too weird—?! Is it weird?!
[ his poor little ears hang back and fold sadly. ]
I just don’t wanna be that weirdo for ya’, ‘cuz you’re . . . I feel like you’re . . . great.
[ he’d be so red right now if his skin was showing, so instead: floofy fox. ]
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Especially when you add in the sappy way they speak. It's something that would usually fluster Asahi to no end, but right now.. she finds herself weirdly liking it. She's not even sure why, she only knows that her heart flutters with every single word this fox speaks. ]
How is it weird..?
[ .. more like how isn't it weird, but it's not like Asahi can realise as much while her brain is still being messed with. ]
I was complimenting you too just now, right? If we just like each other that much, then.. why hold it back? Let's just be honest about it. [ That, at much, is the policy Asahi does generally try to live by. Even outside of what's going on here. ] I'm just.. just glad that you're here with me, you know? Being dragged here and everything else-- it was so scary. But now you're here, it feels okay.
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[ the tempting validation—!! augh, he can’t help it. not when he’s living Your Name or something, his heart is about to burst in two! when you’re hardwired on volleyball for so long, it’s hard to make connections outside of the team! his bushy tail . . . is doing the swishy swish. ]
So we can totally hug! [ incoming—! because now he’s the one jumping into her arms! ] You can hold me all day if ya’ wanna, ‘kay?! I’ll do whatever you want!
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Asahi, however, doesn't think there's anything wrong with this situation. Nothing whatsoever. It's just a cute fox who seems to be adorably kind to her jumping into her arms - if anything, it feels like she's living the Disney princess dream life out here. Not exactly something she ever envisioned for herself with how much others just saw her as a tomboy at this point, but deep down?
It's pretty appealing.
It's why she hugs the fox to her chest without hesitation, making sure to hold it so it won't fall. ]
All day? That's a dangerous thing to say, you know? [ She laughs - in a way that sounds only content, really. She's more than okay with this situation, and holding this fox close feels soothing, kind of like holding a plush toy.. ] I might have to take you up on that one and never let go again!
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I for real meant I wouldn’t mind! [ his dialect is melodic and curtly sweet, ] M’ Atsumu. Call me Atsumu. Just turned 20 and I love fatty tuna—!
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[ Her voice trails off, leaving her humming for a moment like she's playfully thinking. Maybe Asahi should feel a little weird about a fox with such an ordinary name, rather than anything magical or whimsical.. or maybe she should feel weird about such a cute fox being twenty years old.
But her brain is shoving aside all of that for now. It's the magic of the rose-coloured vision, really. All Asahi can see is an adorable fox which is just hers now, and all these other silly details really don't matter.
They can't ruin it! Nothing can!
(Famous last words.) ]
In that case we might have to see if we can find some! After all, you're being such a cute and good little fox, you deserve to have all the fatty tuna you can eat..!
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[ he can just—! hop up in her arms! atsumu bounces and wiggles and throws his paws up with a grin, the giddy happiness in him escalating, climbing— he's atsumu and he's a dork and he loves fatty tuna!
in a harmless, magical puff, the fox is gone. what hovers there in its place, in asahi's arms is . . . a grown-ass young man, with no clothes, a golden blond wave of hair very identical to the fox that once was . . . and with his arms in the air.
in about .5 seconds, asahi will feel the gravity of 80kg of bare, athletic muscle. ]
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And yet.
And yet.
This apparently was not on the list. Asahi did not expect the cute fox in her arms to suddenly change into a person - let alone a guy. Let alone a naked guy.
The first step to this disaster is that she obviously cannot carry the weight of a teenage guy, which means that she's immediately pulling her arms and body away from this disaster, causing Atsumu to cruelly drop to the floor.
And Asahi? Well, aside from that instinctive reaction of pulling away, she's just standing there.
And staring. In absolute horror. ]
W.. W-Wha...
[ She's still trying to come to terms with this, hold on a second. It's like her brain just bluescreened her. ]
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he was bigger.
in atsumu’s shock, he can only see the hands he brings to his face. hands. real hands! his hands! hands he puts on his face and runs through his hair and—! oh, he whoops with delight, and scrambled to his feet. ]
Ahhh—! Yes! I did it! Hah! Look, I did it!
[ he does the unthinkable: he throws his arms out in victory. he only realizes too late that it’s kind of fresh and windy around— ah.
oh no. ]
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His little elephant seal blowing freely in the wind.
There is only one possible response to this, of course. It's a response Asahi doesn't even have to think about, considering it often activates over way smaller offences than this one. But when there's suddenly a naked guy in front of her, a naked guy who made her think he was a cuddly little soulmate fox buddy for her, who she allowed to rest against her bosom...
Asahi can only do one thing.
She pulls back her fist, somehow managing to charge towards him despite there hardly being any distance between the two of them in the first place, and decks him straight in the jaw. ]
YOU PERVERT!
[ Asahi may be an ordinary teenage girl whose legend powers haven't fully kicked in yet, but somehow the punch manages to be unexpectedly strong all the same.
Sorry, Atsumu..... ]
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and takes a direct hit right across the jaw that quite easily, just knocked him the hell out for a few seconds. his world spins. he feels dizzy. he hears her yelling above him and then in a snap, his ears are blasted with the worst words atsumu could ever hear about himself. pervert. ]
I—! W-wait—! [ despite everything. his cheek burns, his jaw doesn’t feel right, he’s pretty sure he bit his tongue with the amount of iron he tastes in his mouth. his eyes swell with the shine of tears and— in an ashamed poof, the boy speeds out of there as a fox all over again, wailing: ]
I didn’t mean to!!
[ he’s too embarrassed to stick around. she saw his bits. she saw the miyas…………… and she thinks he’s a perv!! he’s going to find a hole to bury himself in and cry about it. ]