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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.
not quite the catboy of dirk's dreams but :3
Unlike the others, this cat is lacking clothes — and ignores the scandalised looks from those with clothes — and walks on all fours. He's extremely cautious as he slinks his way through the festival, heading for somewhere a bit less crowded.
The thing is, K isn't entirely sure how he's ended up as a cat. He'd marveled at the little catfolk in their little clothes going about their business in their little festival, wondering how similar they might be to the cats his home universe once had, and then — it had just happened. His body contorted, reshaping itself into its current feline form via the Familiar abilities he isn't yet aware of. And he hasn't figured out how to change back.
This human is the first non-catfolk person he's encountered. Curious despite himself, he climbs onto the cat-sized chair opposite the human's, sitting and wrapping his tail around himself. And proceeds to stare, intently and without blinking.
Eventually he speaks, his tone wary, confused: ] You're not a cat.
[ So why is he? ]
still a catboy worth having omg
No shit.
(The cat sounds confused which can only really lead Dirk to one reasonable conclusion here.)
Are you normally not a cat? (There are far weirder things he has done than striking up an actual conversation with a cat. He has spoken to mutated salamanders or whatever the hell. He can handle this.
Although he has to physically resist the urge to coo over the cat. He might not be a cat guy, but this cat was pretty cute. A beat later and:)
Does this mean I can't pet you? (Yeah. That's what matters here.)
when ur so deeply touch starved and have never known physical affection before...
The suggestion is met with an uncomprehending stare.
The things he's experienced at the hands of humans don't bear mentioning. He's never been touched without violence before in his entire very short life... and a terribly lonely part of him can't help wondering what that might be like. To share a moment of connection with someone who isn't seeking to inflict pain, who might not despise him simply for existing.
Does not compute. Sounds fake. So fake the only conclusion he can draw is that it must be sarcasm, probably meant as an insult. That, at least, he knows how to process. And he's wary of upsetting humans, even one who may not be from the same universe as him, so his own sarcasm is kept in check. ]
Normally I'm an android. This— [ He tilts his head to indicate his cat body, whiskers twitching. ] —is a recent development. [ He leans forward slightly, peering more closely at the human. Now his little cat nose is faintly twitching, too; he's scenting the air, instinctively trying to find out more about his table companion. ] Were you also changed, or have you always been human?
who can even blame him...they both touch starved.
An android? Whoa.)
Seriously? (Probably one of the few things in existence that could get an emotion out of Dirk. His voice rises in positive intrigue. He shifts forward to sit on his knees. Not quite invading the cat's personal space, but getting a tiny bit closer than he had been before.)
What kinda android are we talkin' here? I love that kinda thing. Robots are my goddamn jam. (He reaches his hand out when the cat moves his head forward. He doesn't want to scare the cat away. He also isn't familiar enough with animals to know the full etiquette here. But also if he's usually an android...Hm.
He turns his hand over and offers the cat his palm in what he hoped to be an inviting, non-aggressive gesture? Man, being non-aggressive was so tough.)
I'm uh-. (Huhhhh.) This is pretty standard for me, yeah. I'm not what one would call a traditional human, but my genetic spread probably would qualify as that, yeah.
no subject
It takes a moment to think of how to describe himself to someone who might not be familiar with the Nexus line of androids. ]
A biorobotic android. Designed for combat and law enforcement, and programmed for obedience. I'm both owned and employed by the Los Angeles Police Department, where I'm from. [ His ears flatten sideways slightly as his eyes narrow in a mild look of feline distaste. ] A "skinjob", the pejorative humans coined because we're made to look like them. [ Them and not you because this particular human has already entered his own mental classification in K's mind, separate from the humans who are robot bigots. ] I could show you, but... I'm not sure how to regain my original form yet.
[ He isn't certain what's expected of him when he's offered a hand, not exactly knowing Animal Etiquette either, beyond some of the innate instincts that seem to come with the form. Which compel him to perform a cursory sniff check of the hand, peering between it and the human's face with a questioning look. Then, slowly, he reaches up with a paw and... places it... on the human's palm.
Nailed it.
Perfectly normal interaction right here. Is it a handshake? Are they holding hands? Who knows. ]
May I ask what makes you nontraditionally human?