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

[discolouredwings]

[She hates everything.

Like how she has to tilt her head slightly to look at him properly. Still frowning, her lips pursed.]

It is you... You've grown. [This was the worst. If it was a dream, she never wanted to dream again. If it wasn't... Then that explained why the small cuts ached so much. But it left so many more questions.

She turned her head. Looking back to the cats, watching one dressed as a little waiter scampering about. Dodging around the dancers.] Can you see them too?

[Because there were three possibilities here, and Natsuhi liked none of them.]

[checkmater]

[You've grown. ...Ah. So she didn't remember his return. Wherever this place was, it could take people from different points in time, too. Maybe that was for the best in some regards, honestly.]

Ihihi. Yup. I sprouted up like a weed. [He beams, then then she glanced to the cats--asked if he could see them too--and he nodded.] Yep. They're kinda cute, right? Bit weird they're all dressed up, but hey. 's not hurting anything.

[discolouredwings]

[Oh... Well, that narrowed it down. Maybe. Okay, not really. But she breathed in, holding the breath for a moment, trying to keep calm. It was either an odd dream where the only person she knew was a nephew she'd not seen in years.

Or it was real. At this point she wasn't sure what was worse.]

I suppose... [They talk good. She was the life of the party... Because she didn't say anything else for a good minute.] Have you been keeping well?

[Keeping it causal, while she dies inside.]

[checkmater]

[Oh, Aunt Natsuhi, bless your heart.

Battler lets her comprehend the situation - she probably needs a bit to take it all in. This isn't a Natsuhi who has experienced any of Rokkenjima's horrors to their fullest extent - she probably thinks this is all a dream or a hallucination, perhaps one of her infamous migraines just up and knocked her out for a bit. Poor woman.

But Battler keeps his cool.] Mostly so. I mean, it's been weird, since I just got back into contact with everyone...but I'm adjusting pretty well, I think. Even if I'm not sure where we are and I spent the first half of this morning getting pricked by thorns.

[He's felt so much worse pain by this point and that's why the fact that some of him is still covered in thorns is basically an afterthought.]

[discolouredwings]

[Natsuhi gave him a small nod. It'd have been poor if he'd know where they were and she didn't. Though she might have accepted that, just this once.]

You were on the boat then. [Had he fallen overboard and washed up? No, that didn't explain her. And there'd been no water where she'd woken up. She sighed, her brow furrowing. Maybe it was best not to think about it.]

Did anything happen to you? When you were going through the thorns? [Because she was pretty sure she'd turned into a bear at one point. And now there were dancing cats...]

[checkmater]

I was, yes. We were just about to get to Rokkenjima...then I whited out. And now I'm here. [That's a lie. That's a complete lie. But he wasn't going to be able to tell her the truth.]

Ahhh....a little bit? Like, I started to feel really desperate. Like I had to find someone. I wasn't sure who, but someone. Eventually I did and I got out and now I'm here, but...it was a bit much, in terms of feelings. [He'd luckily avoided turning into a bear somehow...]

[discolouredwings]

[She's been walking around the mansion, making sure all was in order. That the servants were doing what they should be and Eva wouldn't find anything to complain about(She still would, it was Eva. She'd find fault with Natsuhi breathing, but Natsuhi could hope.)

Natsuhi didn't say that though, she just gave a little hum of acknowledgment.

She'd felt the same. So much so that something had slipped as she'd been weaving her way through the brambles. The thorns jabbing at her until she'd fallen on all fours and barreled her way through. Natsuhi hadn't even realised what had changed until she'd tried to stand and looked at what had been her hands.

But she couldn't talk about that. Even with the dancing cats, it sounded ridiculous. She still wasn't entirely convinced it was real, even if the pain indicated it was.]

Have you seen the others? [She was such a conversationalist.]

[checkmater]

[He had the strangest feeling that Aunt Natsuhi had been through a bit more weirdneess than he had - not that she was obligated to tell him, but he was...curious. At her next question, Battler slowly shakes his head.]

Unfortunately, no. I've met some decent other people, but as far as people from back home...you're the first. We might be the only ones here in that regard.

[Which was good and bad. If they were able to come from different time periods...he couldn't ever promise that the rest of his family would exert the tact that he did. They weren't aware of the meta-circumstances. And that's not even getting into if someone like Beatrice were to turn up...

...She'd probably find the whole thing hilarious. Who knows what she'd do for her own amusement...it was odd to miss that as much as he did, he thought.]

But from what I've gathered from people talking around, the purpose here, I think...is for us us to improve ourselves in some regard. And then we can go home. I'm not sure how.

[He realized all too late that imposing this will onto Aunt Natsuhi would probably make her and the orchestrator of this foes (one-sided. one-sided foes) on principle alone.]

[discolouredwings]

[Natsuhi didn't want to speak of it aloud. It was as if doing so would make it happen again. Once had been more than enough.

She'd seen other humans walking about, as odd as that sentence was. Could see them now, but she'd not approached. She technically hadn't approached Battler, too busy worrying and staring at the cats that filled the area.

For a moment, Natsuhi remained silent. Her eyes closed in thought.]

I heard that we are here to reach our full potential... [Not that she was sure what that meant. For Battler maybe, he was young. But she was beyond growing at her age.

It still didn't feel real. Hadn't sunk in that she was truly trapped here. ] We don't have time for this...