May 2022 Test Drive Meme

[folkie]

MAY 2022 TDM

INTRODUCTION

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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.

[ Prompt One ★ Prompt Two]

A PLACE IN THIS WORLD

Content Warnings: Possible insanity via cuts by thorns. Temporary nullification of abilities.

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?

ENCHANTED

Content Warnings: Optional selective amensia and/or altered sense of self, possible monster/creature violence, temporary enchantments, forced relocations.

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.

Comments

Out of the Woods

[xploud]

Hah?

[Katsuki blinks down at the little furball shaking and growling up at him with a look of sheer puzzlement. Okay, so talking animals isn't the oddity here - his Principal is one, literally - but it's the fact that this little baby fox is the only talking animal here, other than the other fuck off Fox that apparently is the reason he's even here to begin with. His face begins to sour as he crouches down to squat in from of this little cotton swab.]

The fuck makes you think I'm here to da-- [Wait a minute. If this is the only other talking animal, another fox...hm. Narrowing his eyes, Katsuki is going to attempt to grab the poor thing by its scruff and haul it up.] ...You in cahoots with that other one, eh? Fuzzy?

[foxsets]

[ fuzzy!! but before atsumu could really say anything he is getting lifted, lifted. lifted by some hotshot high schooler! the scruff of him doesn’t hurt (it’s actually loose, like cats, or dogs— gross!!), but atsumu does fox scream at the blond sharply before batting at him with paws and words: ]

She made me like this! If anyones gonna get a first swing at that fox, it’s me!! And put me down!!

[ bakugou’s arm better be out of his reach properly! he’s trying desperately to scratch him! 😔 ]

[xploud]

[Oh lord, that is the weirdest noise Katsuki has ever heard, and by that alone he keeps the little monster far from his face. It's no Present Mic, but it's startling and really unsettling nonetheless. But oh, what's this? The other fox mad this one like this? So, that must mean...]

You're another person. Hah, that shitty fox really is a goddamn spirit. [Kitsune gets grumbled softly, even if Katsuki is loathe to believe is those old myths and foktales from history. He does indeed drop the fox like a sack of flour before standing and dusts off his blazer. Ew, shedding...] The fuck did you do to piss it off so much?

[foxsets]

[ luckily, he's not too far off the ground, and— what do you know, fox legs are nimble and springy! they catch the ground under him and he quickly shuffles back a few steps. huff. at least he, you know, let him go.

if atsumu could stand on his hind legs and cross his arms, he would, but his limbs don't quite comply halfway through such a natural gesture. another low leveled arg, before he simply sits the way foxes do. ]

I didn't . . . Dress like a furry mascot, or nothin'. [ no. he didn't. absolutely not. ] Think it just gets off on tricking people. "Fullest potential" my ass.

[ fullest potential his furry ass, now! and no one else seems to be like him (except one other lady, but she wasn't exactly mad about it). ]

[xploud]

[Man, it's weird as hell trying to watch a fox imitate a person. The cats around here do the same thing, but their anatomy weirdly seems to work, or they've evolved in a way that it does. It's almost like they're sentient in their own way, after all. Speaking of, said cats definitely are coming around to try and paw or sniff at this new creature. Some up from, but most of them, ah...well.

You know where they're sticking their noses. Good thing Atsumu is sitting?]

You're a shit liar, Mr. Mascot. [He chuckles, darkly. A mascot, huh? Ouch...that's a low blow to anyone's pride.] That shitty throwrug tell you how to fix it?

[Cuz if this is a "test" sort of thing, then there has to be a thing he has to prove, right? Katsuki got the same spiel before he woke up, barely paying attention and thinking it some kind of hazy fever dream - he was in a fight before this, after all... If they know the how and what, they can figure out how to fix it. And Katsuki can file the info away in case that damn kitsune wants to fuck with him, too.]

[foxsets]

'Tch—

[ atsumu's jaw locks in place and he could feel his teeth grind. it was a joke, he tells himself, it was a joke it was a joke it was a joke and NO ONE was ready to get it! it wasn't as if someone forced him into it! he just . . . tried too hard to get attention.

is that the moral of this story? ]

No, she just put up all that false adver—HEY! [ CAT! no! don't! smell him there! don't touch him! atsumu swats at the inquisitive felines and quickly protects his rump from any more sniffs, pawing and purring. by katsuki's shoe. ] What am I supposed to do about a damn joke?! I can't have no fun no more? That's a real life lesson.

[xploud]

[Katsuki is cackling. He might have felt a little bad for this guy if 1. he knew him*, 2. it were a worse/uglier animal, 3. it happened to him as well. But seeing as how Atsumu hits none of those prerequisites, the saucy blond is just snickering down at the poor creature and having the time of his life. What a jackass.

But he will at least shoo the cats away with his boot after a moment or two - mostly because the fox is also crowding him, too...and he doesn't want fur all over his pants. And look...look, Katsuki will even try to help this guy out...or try to. Mishaps with quirks usually have a time limit, and Katsuki's no miracle-worker. He's also not Aizawa, who can usually cancel the effects of most quirks like this via his Erasure.]

Pfftt--eh heh heh! Maybe get better jokes. [AHEM.] Naa...fine, fine...since you can't help yourself. Anything that other fucking fleabag said before it changed you? Usually spirits like that leave riddles to help you figure out their shit.

[foxsets]

[ that. that he knew there was no way to come back, because he did kind of suck at jokes. aran always did those (which weren't actually jokes). he has nothing to say there, only dipping his head and glaring at the cats. he'll only step away from this dude's boots when he feels safe to leave his rump unattended. ]

She said something like . . . "Find yourself". [ his rolls his eyes, and exaggerates a huff. ] So I'm just all supposed to run 'round trynna be me? Like I don't already do that?

[ not enough, clearly. ]

M' I supposed to see Mufasa in the sky now?

[xploud]

Tch...of course. [The literal worst bullshit riddle crap that any spirit-folk thing can tell someone. Worst and vaguest, because that could mean a plethora of different shit completely and helps with nothing. It's barely even a hint.] If that's what you think, wouldn't you have turned back by now? There's more to it than that. You overcome yourself. Be the better version of you.

['Victory over oneself'...that's literally what his name means. Katsuki. He knows that struggle better than fucking anyone. As for finding the answer? Well, fucker, you're up shit creek, because even he hasn't found that absolute victory yet. And he's orked hard to grow himself - it took months and he's...not even close. Not even fucking close to where he wants to be, what he wants to do, to become.]

...Who? [Yeah, Katsuki wasn't a Disney kid.]