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June-July 2024 Test Drive Meme
June-July 2024 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 and work like "mini-events". For new players and characters, you can choose to have your TDM thread be your introduction thread upon acceptance or start fresh. Current players are also allowed to have in-game characters post to the TDM so long as they mark their top levels ‘Current Character.’
TDM threads can be used for spoon spending at any time by characters accepted into the game.
Playing and interacting with the 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.
🦊 New Star Children meet the Fox still in their worlds, and she brings them into the new realm of Folkmore. As you follow her, your body begins to change and new characteristics emerge. These may stay for a while, or perhaps they will hide away after. And during all of this, the Fox explains to you where you will be going: to Folkmore.
and then... you fall like a shooting star, falling to the land in a burst of starlight.
🦊 Experienced Star Children are already familiar with this time of the month. There are shooting stars all across the sky, and some fall to the land, which means the Fox has brought new arrivals. These newly arrived Star Children will face some tests, but Thirteen wants the more seasoned residents to participate as well.
Perhaps you follow the falling stars on your own, or perhaps the Fox simply teleports you there, but it appears you too will be part of this.
Content Warnings: Ghosts, Potential Violence, Potential Death
Summer has hit. It's hot, and nowhere is it hotter than Cruel Summer. Naturally, new Star Children arrive in Cruel Summer with no indication of which direction to go to escape, unless they're so lucky as to arrive near the Selkie River. The water provides a break, and a selkie skin will protect Star Children from the heat. Though beware the cruelty of leaving a selkie without their skin. Along with the heat, Star Children can hear whispers and the echoes of screams throughout Cruel Summer. There's no obvious source of the noises. Not the normal creatures. Not anything anyone can see.
Whether new or old Star Child, anyone lost, overheated, in need of a rest, or anything else will find a friendly spirit will find them in the sands, rock, or shores of Cruel Summer. They'll guide the way toward the huts found in Cruel Summer. These huts have changed; the huts are bigger and grow together, making them one interconnected twisting winding empty town. No one appears to live there. The wooden town is in disrepair, varying from building to building. Even so, they are cool inside, a welcome break from the summer heat.
No matter how one entered, even through the swinging doors to the saloon, that exit disappears behind Star Children. There's no turning back. The only way out is to explore the way through the buildings. This fact continues to be true building to building as exits continue to vanish. The abandoned town isn't as empty as it first seems. As Star Children explore the branching paths through the wooden structures, they see ghosts of spirits going through the paces of their lives. They're familiar to these spaces and interact with missing objects that sometimes shimmer in spirit energy.
Spirit Children may interrupt these routines to try to talk with the ghosts. Some ghostly spirits are friendly. They may interact with Star Children as though they're someone else, someone the spirits used to know. Others, like the bartender, may treat them like a new customer. Other ghosts are determined to stick to their routines and, should Star Children continue to interrupt, will attack those who disturb them.
These spirits may kill Star Children when they attack. Normal weapons won't hurt them. There are revolvers, shotguns, iron pokers, hunting knives, and other plain weapons around to grab in self-defense. Salt bullets and iron will dispel ghosts. These weapons may be grabbed at any time. However, doing so attracts the creatures in Cruel Summer. A blood red worm spitting yellow acid may break through the floor to eat or spray Star Children. An enormous coyote may leap through the window. Whether attracted by the use of weapons or passing by, any dangerous creature found in Cruel Summer seems agitated when they come near these structures and will attack them and anyone inside. They will focus especially on anyone with a stolen selkie skin.
Should Star Children die, whether to ghosts or creatures, they will not immediately return to life.Do not pass go. Instead they will haunt the ghost town for one week in the room where they were killed. Other Star Children may recognize them and work to snap them out of their routines. Yet nothing will free the Star Children's spirits before the week is through. At the end of the week, they'll come to, alive, in their bodies in the room they died in. Best get through and out of the ghost town before dying again!
A constant through these scenes are the spirits' spoons, visible somewhere in each scene. The ghost spoons are whole. Once free of the ghost town, Star Children may choose to travel to the Shattered Spoon Shrine in Never Fade to search for the broken fragments of any of these spoons. They are in such small pieces, however, that no Star Child may feed them enough Lore alone to bring the spirit back. Two or more Star Children may spend time in the Shrine creating and feeding Lore toward the spoons to heal them. It just may be enough to bring someone back.
Summer has hit. It's hot, and nowhere is it hotter than Cruel Summer. Naturally, new Star Children arrive in Cruel Summer with no indication of which direction to go to escape, unless they're so lucky as to arrive near the Selkie River. The water provides a break, and a selkie skin will protect Star Children from the heat. Though beware the cruelty of leaving a selkie without their skin. Along with the heat, Star Children can hear whispers and the echoes of screams throughout Cruel Summer. There's no obvious source of the noises. Not the normal creatures. Not anything anyone can see.
Whether new or old Star Child, anyone lost, overheated, in need of a rest, or anything else will find a friendly spirit will find them in the sands, rock, or shores of Cruel Summer. They'll guide the way toward the huts found in Cruel Summer. These huts have changed; the huts are bigger and grow together, making them one interconnected twisting winding empty town. No one appears to live there. The wooden town is in disrepair, varying from building to building. Even so, they are cool inside, a welcome break from the summer heat.
No matter how one entered, even through the swinging doors to the saloon, that exit disappears behind Star Children. There's no turning back. The only way out is to explore the way through the buildings. This fact continues to be true building to building as exits continue to vanish. The abandoned town isn't as empty as it first seems. As Star Children explore the branching paths through the wooden structures, they see ghosts of spirits going through the paces of their lives. They're familiar to these spaces and interact with missing objects that sometimes shimmer in spirit energy.
Spirit Children may interrupt these routines to try to talk with the ghosts. Some ghostly spirits are friendly. They may interact with Star Children as though they're someone else, someone the spirits used to know. Others, like the bartender, may treat them like a new customer. Other ghosts are determined to stick to their routines and, should Star Children continue to interrupt, will attack those who disturb them.
These spirits may kill Star Children when they attack. Normal weapons won't hurt them. There are revolvers, shotguns, iron pokers, hunting knives, and other plain weapons around to grab in self-defense. Salt bullets and iron will dispel ghosts. These weapons may be grabbed at any time. However, doing so attracts the creatures in Cruel Summer. A blood red worm spitting yellow acid may break through the floor to eat or spray Star Children. An enormous coyote may leap through the window. Whether attracted by the use of weapons or passing by, any dangerous creature found in Cruel Summer seems agitated when they come near these structures and will attack them and anyone inside. They will focus especially on anyone with a stolen selkie skin.
Should Star Children die, whether to ghosts or creatures, they will not immediately return to life.
A constant through these scenes are the spirits' spoons, visible somewhere in each scene. The ghost spoons are whole. Once free of the ghost town, Star Children may choose to travel to the Shattered Spoon Shrine in Never Fade to search for the broken fragments of any of these spoons. They are in such small pieces, however, that no Star Child may feed them enough Lore alone to bring the spirit back. Two or more Star Children may spend time in the Shrine creating and feeding Lore toward the spoons to heal them. It just may be enough to bring someone back.
- Whispers, echoes of screams, etc become common throughout Cruel Summer
- Huts become bigger, interconnected, growing together. Anyone lost, overheated, in need of something in Cruel Summer gets a friendly spirit redirecting them to these buildings
- Buildings will still be in some state of disrepair, but like a whole twisting winding town
- Insides are a cool respite
supernatural ghost spirit air conditioning - Only way out is through, no turning back, as the exits disappear behind you
- Many are friendly, but some are not. One can attempt to talk to them, but how interactive they are varies
- Occasionally other creatures from Cruel Summer may burst in and attack
- If a Star Child dies, rather than return to life immediately, they stay a ghost for about a week, part of the tour
Content Warnings: Fire, Coerced Confessions
Fire! Fire across the realm! For the second half of June, wildfire burns everywhere. While it doesn’t hurt Star Children, it can reduce everything else to ash: homes, businesses, gardens, spirits. The local spirits will be in a panic and beg Star Children for help from small ice mice in Wintermute to fennec foxes in Cruel Summer. How can Star Children help? Confessions. Anything the person they are with doesn’t know. The more earnest and meaningful the better.
When wildfire erupts and spreads, Star Children may stand in or in front of an area they want to protect and confess something to another Star Child who happens to be nearby. Their neighbor? Their partner? A stranger lost in a new land? These confessions simply need to be something the other person doesn’t know to protect structures and spirits. Memories related to the confession will show in the fire. The fire will fuel these memories until they run out of energy, dying down to embers. At least in that place at that time.
Should something start to burn before someone confesses, multiple confessions are necessary to catch the wildfire’s attention and distract it from the fuel source it is feeding on. Two or more Star Children will need to make confessions whose memories are shared in the flames. Water powers can also help quell the flames, but confessions are necessary in the end.
Once July hits, the wildfires are mostly gone, only sparking up here and there on occasion. In their stead are embers. They spark in the air like fireflies and fly around Folkmore, attracted to Star Children. These embers land on Star Children and make them glow. There’s no pain. In fact, the embers provide sparks of insight into memories, situations, and other emotional dilemmas that Star Children haven’t previously understood. Talking the issue over with another Star Children provides further emotional clarity.
Spirits are welcoming to both embers and Star Children. Confessionshelp Folkmore grow as well. Gardens bloom in beautiful displays. Crops grow healthy and joyful. It’s even possible to hear humming from some of the vegetables and fruits. The land grows with the Star Children. Anyone who lacks a green thumb can work their way around that with confessions! Save that dying plant and grow those tomatoes.
One time that a Star Child confesses, either to wildfire or to embers, they will find a jeweled box shaped like a flame. The peak of the flame comes off to reveal the insides. Within, there is an item from home. It may even be a weapon or magical item. Larger more meaningful confessions are more likely to receive weapons. These items may even be larger than should fit in the box or its entrance. Whether the box should only hold a single ring or fill the palm of one’s hand, these items fit. Star Children also can keep the jeweled box, and this one item from home can be stored within the box. Other items too large to fit the box will not enter it. Only the one from the box.
Fire! Fire across the realm! For the second half of June, wildfire burns everywhere. While it doesn’t hurt Star Children, it can reduce everything else to ash: homes, businesses, gardens, spirits. The local spirits will be in a panic and beg Star Children for help from small ice mice in Wintermute to fennec foxes in Cruel Summer. How can Star Children help? Confessions. Anything the person they are with doesn’t know. The more earnest and meaningful the better.
When wildfire erupts and spreads, Star Children may stand in or in front of an area they want to protect and confess something to another Star Child who happens to be nearby. Their neighbor? Their partner? A stranger lost in a new land? These confessions simply need to be something the other person doesn’t know to protect structures and spirits. Memories related to the confession will show in the fire. The fire will fuel these memories until they run out of energy, dying down to embers. At least in that place at that time.
Should something start to burn before someone confesses, multiple confessions are necessary to catch the wildfire’s attention and distract it from the fuel source it is feeding on. Two or more Star Children will need to make confessions whose memories are shared in the flames. Water powers can also help quell the flames, but confessions are necessary in the end.
Once July hits, the wildfires are mostly gone, only sparking up here and there on occasion. In their stead are embers. They spark in the air like fireflies and fly around Folkmore, attracted to Star Children. These embers land on Star Children and make them glow. There’s no pain. In fact, the embers provide sparks of insight into memories, situations, and other emotional dilemmas that Star Children haven’t previously understood. Talking the issue over with another Star Children provides further emotional clarity.
Spirits are welcoming to both embers and Star Children. Confessions
One time that a Star Child confesses, either to wildfire or to embers, they will find a jeweled box shaped like a flame. The peak of the flame comes off to reveal the insides. Within, there is an item from home. It may even be a weapon or magical item. Larger more meaningful confessions are more likely to receive weapons. These items may even be larger than should fit in the box or its entrance. Whether the box should only hold a single ring or fill the palm of one’s hand, these items fit. Star Children also can keep the jeweled box, and this one item from home can be stored within the box. Other items too large to fit the box will not enter it. Only the one from the box.
- Last two weeks of June, wildfire burns across Folkmore. After that, they are rare.
- Confessions can protect or rescue buildings, land areas, and spirits.
- Come July, embers spark across Folkmore like fireflies. They provide insight for Star Children. Talking helps.
- Confessions help the land grow.
- Confessions reveal a jeweled box containing an item from home.
no subject
[She's happy to let him go first, if only to be a little difficult. That and she want's to make certain it's a reciprocal effort, which given his very intentional efforts to hide his identity, Rogue has doubts that they'll happen.
Though she does note the flying doesn't throw him.]
Gentlemen first.
cw parental death/gun violence, you know the one, grief
My parents were shot in front of me when I was seven.
[An alley, an armed robber, a mother and a father and their son, glowing lights of a theater marquee in the background. The mustached man tries to step in front -- he's killed first. Then, the woman in pearls lunges forward, tries to grab the gun, to fight -- and she's killed, too, shot in the throat, and the attacker runs. Just the kid's left, as the life drains out of the two adults.
Bruce Wayne has discussed the night Thomas and Martha Wayne were shot more times than he can count. He can talk about it any number of ways, with any number of people: it's old, familiar territory, worn smooth. This isn't the hard part.
And because of that, it's also not what's going to kill the flames. What kills them is emotion -- not giving facts, but confessing. Something with weight. It, unlike money, is a currency that actually means something, and it's infinitely harder to part with.]
I lied my way through therapy. I figured out what they were looking for, what they wanted to hear, and I told them. I got really good at it.
[The flames show a small, serious boy of ten, sitting on a leather couch, speaking with a therapist. He breaks into a smile, kicks his feet, talks animatedly -- and it looks for all the world like it's real, but it's not.]
I probably shouldn't have. Maybe I'd be different, if I'd let them help me. But I didn't want to be helped. I didn't want to stop feeling the loss, because if I did -- it would have felt like they were further away from me.
[The fire settles on a mausoleum -- not in a graveyard, clearly on private property -- lonely, isolated.]
Well. That was uncomfortable. Your turn.
no subject
There's empathy for him, to lose his parents so young. She lost hers too, but in a much different and long winded fashion.]
Hindsight tends to be a real bitch. [Rogue comments, tone genuine and somewhat softer now that he's shared something with her.] And children find ways to avoid dealin' with feelin' trauma.
[She--and most mutants--know that better than most.]
Ah ain't a normal human. Ah'm a mutant, the next step in evolution. [Gosh how many times has she heard or said something like this?] Most of us have abilities, an' they tend to manifest early an'/or in times of stress.
[There's a hesitation. She doesn't want to talk about Cody, or present herself as the murder she feels like still. While she had watched his memory in the flames, Rogue pointedly ignores the vision of teenager her in the woods with a boy her age.
She relives it enough herself.]
Ah put the first boy ah kissed in a coma. Mah mutation manifested, and ah drained him of his life force before either of us knew what was happenin'.
[He later died when Bella Donna, her ex-boyfriend's ex-wife, used him to try and kill her. That's an entirely different story she's not certain she wants to tell.]
You never stop feelin' the losses. Though ah'm sure you know that by now.
no subject
These mutations. They're all different?
[He's not feeling quite combative enough to add, or do you all drain life force with your mouth? He could, if he had a reason to, but there's no immediate call to piss her off.]
I'd have thought yours was flying.
no subject
More or less. Depends on the genetics.
[There's a wry smirk at his statement. There's a saying about assuming she could note, but instead she just appears pleased.]
Good. Wouldn't want to show all mah cards right up front neither.
[Or rather, she wouldn't want to tell all her secrets.]
no subject
[He can think of one person who might fit this description, and in that moment decides, very deliberately, to never bring up Waylon Jones and what happened with him to this woman.]
Thanks for the assist. These fires are a problem.
[Not for them -- not for Star Children. It's almost too pointedly emphasized: the danger isn't to them, the ones duplicated (if you believe it) and pulled from their worlds to be Legends, Myths, Familiars, but to the usually-invulnerable public. His body language isn't giving away all that much, but there's simmering anger over that, underneath the deliberate, careful focus.]
no subject
[She motions to him and more specifically his whole get up.]
Who are you hidin' from out here? You got yourself a secret identity too?
[That one singular word's meant as a bread crumb of sorts. Only one person here, perhaps two, know her real name. Everyone else knows her as Rogue. It's refreshing, even if she feels a bit guilty about it when it comes to her closer people here.]
The really are. Guess the fox didn't get enough confessions to sate her appetite earlier. [The pleasantry in her voice erodes back somewhat, her jaw tightening.]
You're up on the confessional.
no subject
But he doesn't answer the question, or offer critique. She's right about the fires -- they're creeping back up from where they'd burned low, and Bruce doesn't miss that the mutant is blaming the fox, understands that this is coercion to force secrets out. His opinion of her goes up a tick or two, even as he sighs in frustration.]
Son of a bitch. All right.
[He draws a breath, lets it out. What's he willing to disclose? Nothing to do with Dick, not on purpose, he won't use him to feed the fox.
Fine. Fine, if it brings the fires down, and doesn't show his current, real face, or Batman--]
The inspiration for all this, [he says,] the mask, the disguise -- was Zorro.
[The fires go back to showing the theater, the boy -- walking through the big art-deco doors under the marquee, one hand in each of his parents'. They're obviously wealthy, from their clothes and jewelry and the way they're looked at, spoken to, whispered about by the other theatergoers, the staff. It's clues Bruce can't help betraying -- the mutant might be able to place the year from the movie posters besides The Mask of Zorro, might recognize Thomas and Martha Wayne if they show up in another vision, another damned forced revelation from the fox, but for now, she's from a completely different world, and won't know.
A calculated risk, to bring the fire down. It might also incidentally answer her other question, about who he's hiding from: in his world, with all that wealth and all that tragedy, his story was broadcast everywhere, his life followed by the press. His face is one people from his world know.]
no subject
Speaking of family, she's tempted to make a comment regarding her darling mother fitting that curse's description, but contains herself.
Her eyebrow lifts at his next confession, and she nods thoughtfully while taking in the disguise more keenly before her attention shifts to the fires. This one's endearing. It's also informative. She's not from money, so when she put her first kiss into a coma, the incident wasn't splashed all over the news.]
It's cute. [And while there's a tease in her tone, it's also a genuine sentiment. A way to keep a positive memory of his family with him.] And relatively tame compared to most of the ones back home.
[Unsurprisingly, it adds to the story she's not explicitly telling, that she's from a world of heroes in costumes.]
Ah don't always follow orders. Ah can be... Difficult. [She's specifically thinking of when Captain America demanded she give him the telepathic portion of Charles Xavier's brain.
They're in a hospital, and she's in a sort of uniform perhaps. Difficult to tell in the flames. He's definitely in one.
It's a tense conversation, and in the end, he asks for the small box that Rogue has in hand. Tells her not to make things difficult. Gives her an order. One she completely disregards in favor of flying topside through the ceiling.
The Rogue standing next to the fire watches the scene curiously, surprised that's the memory that's shown.]
But ah try and do the right thing. That box contained the last remains of a powerful telepath and the closest thing to a father ah had. He deserved a proper goodbye.
[The flames show just that happening, but the final send off is by fire, thanks to another man in the sky with her. It goes without her saying the dangers of such a remnant staying in the hands of anyone.]
no subject
Whoever that was -- he looks like someone Bruce has seen in Tony's memories, but not quite, the shield's different -- he'd wanted to keep the remains.
Bruce doesn't really trust people representing the American government with the remains of superbeings. They tend to be...buyable.]
From where I'm standing, that's exactly what you did.
Leaving something like that in the hands of the government never leads to anything good.
[Apparently this counts as a confession! Because suddenly, an enormous, spiny, ugly humanoid monster with red lightning sparking around it is smashing its way through buildings, a man with laser-eyes and a woman with a glowing golden lasso zipping around it, trying -- and failing -- to subdue it.]
Family should decide first what happens to the remains, superpowered or not. And, if they don't choose like you did, the body should be -- protected.
[An indistinct figure moves through near-total darkness -- it's very good at not being seen, and even in the fires, it's not much more than movement -- hands, gloved, and maybe a cape. Only the outlines against the sky hint where he is: a graveyard, surrounded by what's probably a corn or wheat field. He's boring holes in the ground at intervals, placing devices deep in the soil -- sensors of varying kinds, meant to send him an alarm if anything or anyone tampers with the grave site.
God. Bruce is skimming very, very close to giving away who he is, but he can't, he can't stand not saying -- ]
It was the least I could do for him.