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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
[ A low, uncertain growl. Flynn's tail lashes as he walks. This is all feeling so strange but literally who is he to judge he is currently a lion and as such, a bit out of his depth. Maybe this is normal for lions. Lions probably eat horses. ]
The thing you're leading me to is a horse? Is this horse also formerly a person?
no subject
[ paw points! ]
Y’see . . . There’s some old scrub out there who thinks his horse ain’t good enough for keepin’ no more. Story goes somethin’ like— [ a flippant wave of his tail, ] Horse comes ta’ me for help, I trick ya’ into playin’ dead, the horse take ya’ back to the scrub, then the scrub eats ya’ and welcomes the horse back.
What if . . . You just eat the scrub, y’know? I helped the horse and the lion. Everyone wins.
[ …………………… this sounds evil ]
1 / 2
2 / 2
Flynn stops dead in his lion-tracks, growling low in protest. ]
I'm not going to eat a person! That's off the table, no matter what shape I'm in—if that's how the story ends, then I'll stay a lion forever.
[ You picked the wrong lion with a hero complex for evil schemes, bud, although now that Flynn's gotten his protest out— ]
You said you had to trick me into playing dead? How would that help?
no subject
‘Cause you’re supposed t’get eaten. [ oh, if he could rub his temples . . . and maybe in a cartoony fox way, it happens. ]
Dude— it’s a story. It ain’t real. I’m tryna get use outta here! What’re you doin’?
no subject
[ Flynn snaps, half a roar. ]
Surely this story doesn't end with the lion having to eat someone. Let's help the horse without that!
no subject
atsumu’s tail thrashes. that was his best plan! now they have to turn to second place. he has second place. it’s only first loser. ]
How? Scare the scrub out of his house so the horse could rule?
[ he says it incredulously, but . . . ]
no subject
[ That hadn't occurred to Flynn at all actually but it sounds like a plan that doesn't involve eating anyone and... well, if this scrub is a human, particularly a defenseless one, a couple of predators should be able to scare him out nicely. Just for a little while. Until they turn back. ]
As long as the horse has a place to stay, right? That's the issue here. So, yes. We'll do that, and no one will get eaten, and then ideally I will be a person again. Lead the way.
no subject
[ because, judging from that it . . . actually might work? and, who knew— maybe it would be the same for him. maybe he'd get his human body back after surviving a trial. the fox speeds through high wheat fields and prances occasionally for the lion to see him. it's only when they're near the farmer's house and the picket fence that he signals to hang low and whistles for the horse to come out of hiding.
the horse is a souless npc, but it's trying very hard to seem especially sad and in-character. ]
I'm gonna open the doors, front and back. You do your thing. [ but the fox points! ] If this don't work, we do it the first way.
no subject
[ Crucially, not quite the same as "yes, little fox, I will definitely follow your original plan to the letter if this harebrained scheme doesn't work out" but Flynn is... well, he's nowhere near as good as Yuri at winging things and he really is incredibly hungry but he is not going to eat a person so they're just going to have to figure something out, aren't they!
...he'd better try his best to be terrifying. Flynn usually accomplishes that through excessive manners and a deep, intimidating understanding of noble social norms he isn't expected to know, but, well. He has teeth and claws now, doesn't he? ]
When the time is right, send the horse in after me. I'll act like it's frightened me away.
[ Flynn looks at the fox one last time, nods sharply, and... crouches down into the hay. A healthy little breeze rustles the top of the wheat. Silence reigns except for the clink of silverware from inside the little house and some low grumbling. Flynn waits a moment longer, for the air to really still, and then digs his paws into the soft earth and springs from the field with the mightiest roar he can manage. Might as well just charge for that flimsy-looking front door, right? ]
no subject
[ oh, that looked . . . fantastic. the fox is watching and feeling a little bit of entertainment! oh, man! he almost forgot to send the horse! he might even wait just a few extra moments to make it feel dangerous.
before it can get messy(er), the white horse gallops in, rears its forelegs at the lion and whinnies. back off, lion! ]
no subject
...he really never was the best actor. Flynn stares at it for a solid several seconds, trying to figure out how a lion might act scared. Wolves and dogs whimper, cats hiss, but all he can seem to do is... trill? It's not a very cowardly sound, so instead Flynn swipes at the air in a half-hearted attempt to fight back, turns tail, and bolts back toward the little fox. ]
we can start wraping up soon if that's good!
Whould ya' look at that— It worked.
[ the storybook world is starting to break apart, right before their eyes. flynn might even begin to return to his regular state, while the fox— even though he's ecstatic to see and waiting for it to happen to him with closed eyes . . .
he's still a fox. ]
that's perfect!
Huh. Flynn picks himself up, dusting off his knees. ]
...thank you for helping me.
[ Maybe he's... like the little cats? ]
♡!
I DID EVERYTHING YOU WANTED YA' STUPID FOX WITCH—!!