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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.
no subject
But something about this situation feels.. different. Maybe it's since she's still so unsure about everything. Maybe it's something about that feeling in her chest, that desperation to find someone that seems to quiet now. (Was she looking for him? But she doesn't even know him - it's all so confusing.)
Whatever it is about this situation, it makes her blush and look away when he touches her like that - though she doesn't seem to resist or even reject the touch. ]
W-What are you going around and saying sappy stuff like that for.. [ She mumbles.
Honestly, there's a good chance the girl is just embarrassed. ]
no subject
[ It's true. He had been anxious until someone else showed up. She was really helping whether it was intentional or not. Sunny drops his hands and coils his fingers in on his hands. Yeesh. He's not really a touchy person. It's been a long time since he's been around so many people, though, he doesn't really know how to act. ]
I have fears too.
[ They just all are tied into one key trauma of his, so some of them are kind of irrational when he talks about them openly.. which he never does. ]
no subject
It doesn't fully make her relax, since she's still flustered in the first place, but it at least lowers Asahi's guard the tiniest bit. ]
.. of course, everyone does.
[ Anyone who's a regular human being and not a psychopath, she thinks. ]
Who could listen to everything that weird fox told us and not feel anything at all about it? This entire situation.. It's so strange and uncomfortable.
no subject
not a psychopath, right..]Isn't that what life is, though? An assortment of strange and uncomfortable interactions and circumstances.
[ For him, at least. ]
There is no danger.. for now.
[ Despite appearing rather stony faced, he's a pretty paranoid guy. There is no place for him to run and hide and recluse, so he has no option but to interact with people. ]
The fox didn't bother me.
[ ... ]
Is that weird?
no subject
[ There's not an ounce of malice in Asahi's voice as she says it though. She's not saying it on purpose to hurt him, after all. It's just that this girl is so darn honest as a policy that she can't help but say it here when he's asking it so directly.
It's just a near-objective truth to Asahi, after all. ]
I mean.. being taken away by some sort of fox spirit like that all of a sudden.. Isn't that bothersome? Did you want to get away from everything you knew to a strange place like this?
[ Because she here was assuming that it was involuntary on everyone's part - but maybe she was wrong about that.
The thought makes her frown, still very much bothered by the entire situation herself. ]
no subject
That's a complicated question. Sunny settles his hand on his opposite arm, apprehensive to answer honestly. ]
...
[ Honestly, it's a dream come true to be somewhere else further from the reality he knew. But, he would miss people. Maybe. He had gone four years without talking to them and it's only recently he started opening back up again. The fact that he's not answer Asahi speaks for itself: he's glad to be here but he's nervous she's going to judge him for it. ]
no subject
That silence is - ironically enough - saying a lot, isn't it. Asahi never has trouble reading into stuff. If anything, she does it a little bit too much. But it also means that she very much knows what his silence here is implying, and it makes her briefly grow quiet too as she contemplates the very idea of someone preferring to be dragged away from their world by some weird foxnapper.
It's a lot. ]
.. how crappy must the place you come from have been that you find this better? [ That's got to be the cause, she thinks. Asahi can't imagine any other reason someone would be okay with this.
She frowns, still trying to imagine it. It's hard.
At least she's not focusing on how weird he is, so.. hey! That's a point for Sunny right there. ]
Sheesh..
no subject
All of that took so much effort, though, and it hurt. The manifestation of his negative thoughts even had a name-- a form that had taken shape. His alter ego would take him over inevitably if he stayed like how he was.. but it was so easy to run away.
So easy to lie and avoid the truth.
Sunny feels his eyes narrow harshly at her. This is why he prefers to recluse. Naturally, he's always been introverted and all of the friends he had made was thanks to the support from his sister.
If only she could really see what a hopeless person he was now. Sunny hates he relied on her so much. ]
... Must be nice to miss home.
[ That's all he can think about saying. ]
I guess I miss my bed.
[ AND THAT'S IT. ]
no subject
But Asahi sure is thinking about something else one could miss. She mostly misses the familiarity, the feeling of not being somewhere you've been dragged to by a talking fox and where you can't trust anything-- but there's something a little more universal too, she thinks. ]
Are you saying you wouldn't miss your friends?
[ Granted, maybe Sunny doesn't.. have any? It wouldn't be too surprising, since Asahi spent a good chunk of her younger years without friends too because of her Iris.
But Asahi chooses to assume he must have some. Most people do. ]
no subject
But.. he had only spent one day with Kel before arriving here. He missed his friends, but also, he didn’t. He could play pretend and imagine them, so in a way, they were always with him. Being here shouldn’t make a difference. ]
I’ll be okay.
[ … ]
You probably have a lot of friends you will miss.
no subject
[ Especially since Asahi has absolutely no idea how many people Sunny would imagine while saying that sort of thing. Sure, her friend group nowadays consists of six people including herself, but she didn't have friends for the longest time, and then only one for another while..
Hence why she sounds a little reluctant as she says that part. ]
But even if there was just one friend waiting for me back home, I'd want to go back to them. [ Now that is something she sounds more sure about. ] Leaving them behind like this..
[ Even though that fox did say there was some sort of clone of them that would keep on living in their world-- ]
It doesn't feel right. It feels.. irresponsible.
[ Maybe he'll understand that, she thinks. After all, he didn't say he has no friends. Sunny must have someone waiting for him back home as well. ]
It makes me feel terrible.
cw: depression
[ Not often did he let one of the copious phrases of self deprecation leave his lips, but it always felt so good when he could say it out loud for someone to hear. To actually hear his voice say something like that.
It's true, Sunny missed his friends, but he hadn't seen them in four years.. and at the way his negative thoughts were consuming him, he knew he would inevitably not see them again if things kept going the way they were going.
There hope for him yet, though. Because he had been brought to his new world and forced to interact with people. It was uncomfortable, but at the same time, none of them were tied to his trauma and friends back home, so it made it easier to talk to them. ]
I believe this place has hope for me.
[ Sunny says that, but he also knows it's going to be rough. He knows how stubborn and unwilling he can be to help himself, but so far, the change of scenery and interactions with others has been positive and mostly easy for him to deal with. ]
Maybe you can find hope for you too in some way.
no subject
[ She quiets down after that though, like the girl just wanted to make sure to fire that protest out there. Just to have said it, before listening to all the other stuff Sunny has to say. She's still frowning a little bit though - which could be since she's still thinking on that 'horrible person' remark on his part.
.. she decides to drop it for now though. It's his own problem, saying that kind of stuff so casually about himself - and without even lying about it. Asahi can see he means it, after all.
It's easier to focus on the last part of what he says. ]
My hope.. is getting out of here. And going back home. I'll find a way. [ Not that she can see one right now, but she's not going to rest until she finds it. She wants to go home so bad. Every single moment she spends here so far just drives her further into that desire. ] .. it's fine if you want to stay. Or anyone else.
[ Asahi can't say she understands it, but still. ]
But I have to go home, no matter what.