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April-May 2025 Test Drive Meme
April-May 2025 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 a canon item from home, 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: Potential Monsters
With the onset of spring, even icy Wintermute is showing signs of new life. Dragons have been spotted in the mountains, the spirits will tell any Star Children who listen. Dragons have returned, and there's something very strange going on in a new tunnel that opened up on the slopes of the tallest peak… Just in time for new arrivals to shower down from the sky. Most of the newcomers land–smack!--in pillowy snow not far from the tunnel’s mouth, close enough to feel the warmer breezes that waft from it. It's as if the land itself is tendering an invitation for all to come and see a fantastical new sight.
And fantastical it is. Star Children who enter the tunnel quickly find themselves in a warm and breathing darkness that extends for a half-mile into mountain stone. The ceiling is low enough that very tall individuals might come perilously close to a bumped head, but otherwise the tunnel is wide and inviting, the floor smooth of all obstructions. Luminescent moss scrolls along the walls in patterns of sine waves and complex equations, leading on and on into the dark.
Then, abruptly, the tunnel opens into a cave so vast one might think they’ve stepped back outside, under a starry sky – except it's warmer by far than anywhere else in Wintermute and the stars overhead are arranged in oddly regular patterns. A thriving mathematical forest spreads out across the cavern’s floor, populated by strange and winsome spirits. There are decision trees with mysterious choices written at every branching, and outcomes glowing on each leaf. There are fractal flowers and vines with square roots. There are spirits shaped like Platonic solids and spirits whose proportions follow the golden ratio and spirits of every number or lemma or theorem one could imagine.
There are, also, dragons: large and little, colorful and drab, but every one of them friendly and every one of them deeply enthusiastic about mathematics. They have their own dragon convention centered in the heart of a great grove of perfectly symmetric trees. There they compare their hoards – of theorems, unsolvable problems, mathematical manuscripts, court mathematicians – and compete to make students of the arriving Star Children. Ever wanted to learn calculus from a giant fire-breathing lizard? Now you can! Or maybe you really can buy sixteen apples from one dragon and eat twelve before giving the remaining four to the one that posed the word problem in the first place – not normal behavior in the outside world, but in math it is.
Then there's the race course. An enterprising pair of dragons who gather differential equations (the short, fat one with a scarlet crest) and train-based word problems (the long skinny River Spirit) have set up a racing track in the sky, to show off practical uses for the math of time and distance. For the very low price of listening to a safety lecture, Star Children can run the course to their hearts’ content – using their own wings, or magic that turns THEM into dragons for the duration of the race. Racers will find any number of aerial obstacles, speed and altitude boosts, and strange but harmless phenomena to fly through as they compete with each other for copies of a cute (non-magical) dragon plush. His name is Euclid. He has a slide rule.
Like any self-respecting conference, this one also has MORE swag for the dedicated to collect. Star Children who stay to solve problems or listen to lectures might receive any manner of neat dragon-branded trinkets: Tiny solar calculators in dragon shapes, Penrose tile sets made of dragon scale, dice carved from shed horns. None of them are magical but they're awfully neat and might look so cool on a mantle or desk back home.
No more than once, when getting a reward for winning a race or picking up gewgaws from a dragon presenter, Star Children will receive a mysterious package of papery shed dragonskin. Inside is an item from home – one that might be far larger than its wrappings.
Star Children of a less mathematical bent might wander the forest instead to see the sights: A river with standing waves, a giant chess knight making a tour, strange attractors that draw in tiny spirits. And of course, at the furthest edges of the cavern, there are monsters – though whether these strange half-imaginary beasts mean to eat Star Children or make them suffer through algebra homework is up to the luck of the draw.
With the onset of spring, even icy Wintermute is showing signs of new life. Dragons have been spotted in the mountains, the spirits will tell any Star Children who listen. Dragons have returned, and there's something very strange going on in a new tunnel that opened up on the slopes of the tallest peak… Just in time for new arrivals to shower down from the sky. Most of the newcomers land–smack!--in pillowy snow not far from the tunnel’s mouth, close enough to feel the warmer breezes that waft from it. It's as if the land itself is tendering an invitation for all to come and see a fantastical new sight.
And fantastical it is. Star Children who enter the tunnel quickly find themselves in a warm and breathing darkness that extends for a half-mile into mountain stone. The ceiling is low enough that very tall individuals might come perilously close to a bumped head, but otherwise the tunnel is wide and inviting, the floor smooth of all obstructions. Luminescent moss scrolls along the walls in patterns of sine waves and complex equations, leading on and on into the dark.
Then, abruptly, the tunnel opens into a cave so vast one might think they’ve stepped back outside, under a starry sky – except it's warmer by far than anywhere else in Wintermute and the stars overhead are arranged in oddly regular patterns. A thriving mathematical forest spreads out across the cavern’s floor, populated by strange and winsome spirits. There are decision trees with mysterious choices written at every branching, and outcomes glowing on each leaf. There are fractal flowers and vines with square roots. There are spirits shaped like Platonic solids and spirits whose proportions follow the golden ratio and spirits of every number or lemma or theorem one could imagine.
There are, also, dragons: large and little, colorful and drab, but every one of them friendly and every one of them deeply enthusiastic about mathematics. They have their own dragon convention centered in the heart of a great grove of perfectly symmetric trees. There they compare their hoards – of theorems, unsolvable problems, mathematical manuscripts, court mathematicians – and compete to make students of the arriving Star Children. Ever wanted to learn calculus from a giant fire-breathing lizard? Now you can! Or maybe you really can buy sixteen apples from one dragon and eat twelve before giving the remaining four to the one that posed the word problem in the first place – not normal behavior in the outside world, but in math it is.
Then there's the race course. An enterprising pair of dragons who gather differential equations (the short, fat one with a scarlet crest) and train-based word problems (the long skinny River Spirit) have set up a racing track in the sky, to show off practical uses for the math of time and distance. For the very low price of listening to a safety lecture, Star Children can run the course to their hearts’ content – using their own wings, or magic that turns THEM into dragons for the duration of the race. Racers will find any number of aerial obstacles, speed and altitude boosts, and strange but harmless phenomena to fly through as they compete with each other for copies of a cute (non-magical) dragon plush. His name is Euclid. He has a slide rule.
Like any self-respecting conference, this one also has MORE swag for the dedicated to collect. Star Children who stay to solve problems or listen to lectures might receive any manner of neat dragon-branded trinkets: Tiny solar calculators in dragon shapes, Penrose tile sets made of dragon scale, dice carved from shed horns. None of them are magical but they're awfully neat and might look so cool on a mantle or desk back home.
No more than once, when getting a reward for winning a race or picking up gewgaws from a dragon presenter, Star Children will receive a mysterious package of papery shed dragonskin. Inside is an item from home – one that might be far larger than its wrappings.
Star Children of a less mathematical bent might wander the forest instead to see the sights: A river with standing waves, a giant chess knight making a tour, strange attractors that draw in tiny spirits. And of course, at the furthest edges of the cavern, there are monsters – though whether these strange half-imaginary beasts mean to eat Star Children or make them suffer through algebra homework is up to the luck of the draw.
- Wintermute now has a crazy math cavern!
- All the scenery, spirits, and monsters in it are based on different mathematical concepts and constructs – trees with square roots, three-dimensional-polygon spirits, and so on.
- The dragons have returned and they're holding a mathematical conference inside the math cavern.
- Star Children who stick around to listen to lectures and solve problems can get neat dragon conference trinkets.
- They can also have weirdly mathematical experiences right out of word problems: Buying seventeen cookies and eating eight, anyone?
- Or they can try the flying race course – either using their own wings or turning into a dragon.
- (Dragon transformation available only while participating in a race – sorry dragon fans.)
- There are also math monsters to fight – or get assigned homework by – around the edges of the cavern. Scary!
Content Warnings: Forced Participation, Forced Relocation, Other dangers of your choice
Not all of Wintermute’s changes are so light-hearted as a mathematical cavern.
It happens, suddenly, to Star Children new and old – there’s a moment like a too-long blink as they’re stepping through a door, or a moment of drowsy inattention in a class. A moment of dislocation, a hypnagogic jerk, and suddenly they’re in another place – maybe a strange one, or one that’s strangely familiar.
One group of Star Children, the choosers, will find themselves brought up to a mountain high up in Wintermute – so high it seems they can see all the world of Folkmore right before their eyes, wherever they turn. The air is cold and crisp and clean, and the mountaintop so near the sky you might catch the faintest strains of the Fox’s voice as she escorts new Star Children across it. Each pair (or more) of Star Children who find themselves on this strange mountain are given a little time to talk before a voice interrupts:
“Do you think the Trials are wrong?”
The voice is crisp as the air, androgynous and sourceless. It waits for Star Children to answer, then continues:
“Your responses are noted. Trials are necessary to provide opposition needed for growth.
“The following experiments are meant to reveal Star Child ethical preferences. Please make your choices quickly and explain your reasoning for each. Data recorded during your session will be used for improvement purposes.”
The “following experiments” are a series of binary choices, on the fates of different groups of victims. Victims might be Star Children or spirits or a combination of the two. The choices come in several flavors:
Choosers are presented with their choice, a crystal-clear vision of their victims, and a glowing timer in the air before their eyes. They have until the timer reaches zero to agree on which victims to afflict with a Trial – and if they cannot agree, or refuse to make a choice, their view goes ominously dark and the voice simply proceeds to the next experiment. (Did all the victims get it? Did none?) In choosing, they are permitted to watch their victims’ fates play out, and asked to explain why they chose as they did.
Victims get much less of an explanation of what’s happening to them. They simply appear in a location suitable for whatever Trial or doom is about to be inflicted on them. If they're going to be lost to Encantado’s enchantment, a gleaming facsimile of the river appears, not much bigger than a large room in dimensions. Slated to die in bed? They’ll be in a mock-up of their own room. Crushed by a trolley? They appear, pre-tied, on tracks that come from nothing and go to nothing, beneath a cloudless blue sky. “You have been chosen to participate in an important ethical experiment,” is all the voice says – and then they are left to their Trials, to succumb or fight as they will. Though there is a strong – but not irresistible – compulsion to simply give in…
While the experiments have all the trappings of a scientific exercise, Star Children who try might argue the experimenter into changing the experiment. Heroic Legends may ask to suffer a Trial in the place of the victims. Cruel Myths might suggest ways to make things worse. (Or vice versa.) Sound reasoning is more likely to get through than arguments from emotion, though there is sometimes merit to a winsome appeal.
Remarkably, Thoth herself is sometimes there with the choosers – a gleam of light off lenses in a shadow, a thin and thoughtful smile for a choice made or declined. “This isn't me,” is all she’ll explain, if asked.
“But it's fascinating, isn't it?”
Not all of Wintermute’s changes are so light-hearted as a mathematical cavern.
It happens, suddenly, to Star Children new and old – there’s a moment like a too-long blink as they’re stepping through a door, or a moment of drowsy inattention in a class. A moment of dislocation, a hypnagogic jerk, and suddenly they’re in another place – maybe a strange one, or one that’s strangely familiar.
One group of Star Children, the choosers, will find themselves brought up to a mountain high up in Wintermute – so high it seems they can see all the world of Folkmore right before their eyes, wherever they turn. The air is cold and crisp and clean, and the mountaintop so near the sky you might catch the faintest strains of the Fox’s voice as she escorts new Star Children across it. Each pair (or more) of Star Children who find themselves on this strange mountain are given a little time to talk before a voice interrupts:
“Do you think the Trials are wrong?”
The voice is crisp as the air, androgynous and sourceless. It waits for Star Children to answer, then continues:
“Your responses are noted. Trials are necessary to provide opposition needed for growth.
“The following experiments are meant to reveal Star Child ethical preferences. Please make your choices quickly and explain your reasoning for each. Data recorded during your session will be used for improvement purposes.”
The “following experiments” are a series of binary choices, on the fates of different groups of victims. Victims might be Star Children or spirits or a combination of the two. The choices come in several flavors:
- One large group of victims will suffer an inevitable Trial unless the Star Children agree to inflict the Trial on a smaller group.
- Star Children may choose between two different Trials to inflict upon the same group of victims.
- Or they may choose between two different groups of victims to inflict the same Trial upon.
- Sometimes, the above scenarios might be combined: different Trials for different victims, but all inevitable. Someone has to suffer.
Choosers are presented with their choice, a crystal-clear vision of their victims, and a glowing timer in the air before their eyes. They have until the timer reaches zero to agree on which victims to afflict with a Trial – and if they cannot agree, or refuse to make a choice, their view goes ominously dark and the voice simply proceeds to the next experiment. (Did all the victims get it? Did none?) In choosing, they are permitted to watch their victims’ fates play out, and asked to explain why they chose as they did.
Victims get much less of an explanation of what’s happening to them. They simply appear in a location suitable for whatever Trial or doom is about to be inflicted on them. If they're going to be lost to Encantado’s enchantment, a gleaming facsimile of the river appears, not much bigger than a large room in dimensions. Slated to die in bed? They’ll be in a mock-up of their own room. Crushed by a trolley? They appear, pre-tied, on tracks that come from nothing and go to nothing, beneath a cloudless blue sky. “You have been chosen to participate in an important ethical experiment,” is all the voice says – and then they are left to their Trials, to succumb or fight as they will. Though there is a strong – but not irresistible – compulsion to simply give in…
While the experiments have all the trappings of a scientific exercise, Star Children who try might argue the experimenter into changing the experiment. Heroic Legends may ask to suffer a Trial in the place of the victims. Cruel Myths might suggest ways to make things worse. (Or vice versa.) Sound reasoning is more likely to get through than arguments from emotion, though there is sometimes merit to a winsome appeal.
Remarkably, Thoth herself is sometimes there with the choosers – a gleam of light off lenses in a shadow, a thin and thoughtful smile for a choice made or declined. “This isn't me,” is all she’ll explain, if asked.
“But it's fascinating, isn't it?”
- Star Children are swept up suddenly to Wintermute to participate in a series of “ethical experiments” meant to make the Trials “better”.
- Star Children who are choosers get to pick, trolley-problem-style, which group of victims suffers a Trial.
- They have limited time to pick and must agree on what happens to their victims.
- Penalties for failure to agree or choose are left ominously mysterious.
- They are encouraged to explain their reasoning.
- The experimenter can be argued into inflicting a Trial on a chooser instead, making the Trials worse, or otherwise changing the parameters of the experiment to be kinder/crueler.
- Star Children who are victims get random Trials inflicted on them. Fun!
- Star Children may be picked multiple times as choosers or victims. They can be picked for a different experimental role each time.
- Inflicted Trials may range from actually fun to merely embarrassing to horrifyingly fatal. A list of options pulled from past Trials and weather events is available here:
1. Hunted as prey by an inescapable power that will trap and kill you if it finds you.
2. Fighting a monster.
3. Involuntary memshare.
4. Environmental death: drowning, burning, sucked into a black hole.
5. Must tell painful/uncomfortable truths to others. The closer the relationship, the more dire the revealed truth.
6. Tied to train tracks.
7. Followed by mood weather. - Players are encouraged to work with each other as choosers and victims – while the mysterious experimenter will not condone or enable communication between choosers and their victims, it's also not disabling the Relics or any other form of long-distance communication… Or you might just want to have fun inflicting woe on your close CR. No judgment!
Doreen Green - Squirrel Girl - Marvel Rivals | Familiar
[Doreen should likely be confused, alarmed, even frightened by falling from the sky. Even with her brief conversation with the fox as confirmation, dropping into snow out of nowhere should be a lot.
Instead she's laughing. She spreads her arms wide in the snow, starting to make a snow angel. The woman most definitely has a giant busy squirrel tail of her own.]
Soooo, you wanna see a snow squirrel? Bet I can make one easy peasy lemoney squeezy!
[She rolls over to get up, trying to add a tail shape to her snow squirrel with her own tail.
It does not look that great, but damn if Squirrel Girl aint trying. Doreen is having a great time regardless. Such is the way of being the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.]
GET MATH'D
[Doreen has glazed over about twenty minutes into a lecture. She appreciates the dragons enthusiasm, but she can't keep up.
She leans over to the person sitting next to her, whispering a bit too loudly.]
Wanna skip this joint? Cause I'm all mathed out. Rather be back in the snow relaxing and throwing snowballs.
[Doreen isn't against math, but she can't keep up a consistent math front like this.]
arrival
Um.
Sure?
[ Of all the reactions he's seen to being plopped here, this is not a common one. ]
Want me to join you?
no subject
I suppose you can make a snow guy if you want, since you're lacking in the tail department, but, just as cool!
no subject
[ He smiles and shifts into a dragon easily, blue and icy-looking, with a star-shaped pattern of scales on his chest that look very much like someone else's star. ]
Will this do, do you think?
no subject
Heck yeah, it will! You can do snow dragons! [Would it be rude to assume this dragon guy is a cap fan by the star? Questions for her to ponder.]
no subject
He whips his tail around, too, trying to make a shape that looks like hers. ]
Is it looking like a squirrel yet?
dreamwidth ate my tag back wtf
Doreen pumps her fist, cheering him on.]
Ooooh mah gosh- yes! You're nailing it, star dragon guy!!!
aw :(
I still like yours.
get math'd
She turns her head when she hears the squirrel-like girl speak. First she blinks once in surprise, or maybe to just snap herself out of the near-nap she found herself doozing off in, but then her jaw drops a little bit. ]
I thought you'd never ask. [ She whispers back. A little more properly, rather than the too loud whispering Doreen is asking. ] You don't think those dragons are going to attack us for it though, do you?
no subject
If we wanna be slick, we could ask for a bathroom pass and never come back. Depends on what we're feeling.
no subject
Have you ever fought a dragon before?
[ Because right now she truly can't tell if that's an empty bluff on the other girl's part or not. Hey, people come from all sorts of worlds. As far as Minako knows, maybe Doreen really did fight a dragon by herself! ]
get math'd
Are you a child? [ There's a trace of humor threading through his gravel voice, though his expression remains tight, unreadable. ]
no subject
I just know we need some excitement around here. Maybe a demonstration of math via physics and snowball throwing? Obviously a hands-on lesson is way better.
no subject
He exhales slowly, as if debating whether to entertain the moment or dismiss it entirely, then rises to his feet. ]
Lead the way. [ He gestures with his left hand. He's curious. He wants to see just what a squirrel girl is capable of. ]
I realized I could do something EXTREMELY silly
Nothing seems to happen for a moment, beyond the two of them being stared at. Doreen is just grinning.
Then the squirrels descend. Any hibernation is forgone to crash down on the dragons and such. There is panic and confusion on all parts. Ok, no the squirrels are having a good time.
The math explanations will continue, leaving every other top level and thread blessedly unaffected.
Doreen gives two thumbs up at the disaster she's unleashed.]
Thanks guys! You're all lifesavers!
[She turns back to Cranky Guy, smiling.] C'mon, let's bust outta here!
[She just starts quickly walking, not waiting.]
holy shit amazing perfection no notes
He falls into step behind her without hesitation. ] How did you manage that? [ No pretense in his tone. He wants the answer. She's not marked by the Outsider, that much he’s certain of that. So what, then? Another god’s influence? Or something entirely her own? ]
no subject
She keeps walking, trying to find a way out of Math Town before the squirrels get bored of their current task.]
Get Math'd
"Perhaps there might be something more exciting within this cavern," V suggests, as leaving the place entirely would exhaust him. He took a break in the tunnel on his way in. Snowballs might be fun but a waste of his limited energy. "We might even find something mathematical exciting, more than words in the air."
no subject
"Maybe we can kick some tail in there, if its needed anyway." She starts to walk off, assuming V will follow her. Woe to anyone unlucky enough to get caught in Doreen's orbit.
no subject
People will have trouble reaching her ass through her tail, so kick some tail might be correct. V hesitates a moment, takes a bit longer to stand, and trails after her with a single nod to the instructor. Very good, but there's literally anything else going on with this girl.
"It's been surprisingly peaceful," V comments. That might be the natural state for most people but not his life.