pixieledmemes | Test Drive Meme #2

TDM #2 OVERFLOW

🦋 Expand for Test Drive #2 Prompts

TDM #2 - March/April 2025

🦋 Introduction

Welcome to the Pixie Led Test Drive Meme!

The prompts will always be game canon, provided both characters who participate in a thread are either already in the game, or get accepted in the next application round.

You do not need an invitation to join the Test Drive Meme, it's open for anyone!

Please indicate character name and canon in the subject line of your top-level. For current characters, you may also indicate your character's court.

For prospective players, Invites open on the 18th, Reserves on the 20th, and Applications on the 22nd. Thanks for checking us out and we hope you'll join us!

🦋 The Party

You wake up at a party.

You're not sure how, exactly, you got here. You may have just been walking in the woods or at a meeting for work or doing any other normal activity for you. But you know you weren't supposed to be at this party, you're fairly certain.

Anyone you ask about it will say the party is for you. You and the others also waking up and looking confused. Further questions will lead to the partygoers insisting you have something to eat. You're starving and others are eating the food without repercussion, so you figure there's no harm in a bite. You finish your portion.

It's a garden party at the crack of dawn, with the sun still in its early stages of climbing through the yonder, casting a good mix of pastel hues of blue, pink, and beige on everything. Heralding the first day of spring, the Ruler of the Spring Court has found it fitting to arrange this gathering where guests can feel the blades of grass touching their ankles, as well as the rich soil beneath their feet. Flowers of all kinds surround the party as if they were carefully curated. With spring as the "dawn of seasons," which marks a transition from winter's latency to the resurgence of life everywhere, the Ruler of the Dawn Court has also seen it fit to host aspects of this party during the one time of the year that dawn occurs the whole day. Tall candles and torches grace the outskirts of the garden party, providing warmth and an orange glow everywhere. Not one flame goes out even with the occasional wind, the Duchess always makes sure of this.

There are also freshly picked blossoms and branches with leaves on every table accenting the festive spread of food and drinks. This time, a lot of the food prepared for the Adopted guests are familiar to them with a little bit of a twist. Burgers might come in small packages and in toothpicks, while hotdogs in buns are also diminutive. Cookies look delectable but they have a flowery flavor to them, as if eating freshly picked daisies or daffodils. Fruits that may have been present in an Adopted's home, such as pineapples and watermelons, have seeds in odd places. Picking this selection of food is an attempt to be more welcoming and to appease the lovely guests the fae have invited.

As the party winds down and everyone's eaten, a tall, stately woman stands up and speaks. You feel her voice more than hear it.

I am the Lawspeaker of the Fae, elected by Seelie and Unseelie alike, and you are all, now, subjects of Faerie. You cannot leave this realm once you have eaten our food, and even if you could, there is no saying how much time has passed back where you're from. Your loved ones are likely dead, your problems have likely played out. We require assistance in various matters, and each of you has been chosen for your talent and skill. You will be adopted by one of the Seelie or Unseelie Courts based on your strengths and personality. Your Court will decide what to do with you from there.

As suddenly as she stood, she sits back down.

🦋 Chance at a Dance

A party is not complete without dancing, of course, and while during the last gathering held for the Adopted, different fae danced to music exclusively for them around a glowing tree, this time they are insisting their guests to join in.

This is a party for you, after all.

If the prodding of the different fae hosts won't convince you, perhaps the music will. They play easily recognizable tunes that their wonderful guests must have heard before. These melodies have certain unique effects to their mortal attendees, which are as follows:

Upbeat Music: You will believe that you and your dance partner have been friends forever and have known each other a long time.
Romantic Music: You will become amorous and flirtatious towards your dance partner.
Slow Music: You will develop some tension with your dance partner. It may be negative or sexual; completely up to you.
Quiet Music: You will assume your dance partner is a threat and try to fight them.

🦋 Flower Power

At the Spring King's behest, every Adopted should wear a flower corsage or boutonnière to the gathering. After all, this is to celebrate the coming of spring and what better way to do that than to honor everything in bloom.

The thing is, though, the King of Spring, while amorous and friendly, also has a penchant for playing with mortals' memories, if not also affect their desires and despairs.

So, mischievous as he is, he made sure to enchant the different flowers present in every corsage and boutonnière for the party with the effects below:

Rose: You will recall a horrific trauma
Carnation: You will see a vision of your future, whether it's good or bad
Orchid: You will remember a time you lost someone
Chrysanthemum: You will believe someone among the Adopted is your soulmate
Dahlia: You will believe you betrayed someone important to you, whether you actually did or not

It is perhaps a good thing that no one but the Adopted are allowed to see these visions and memories, but everyone who wears a corsage or boutonnière will be able to see each other's memories and visions when in close enough physical proximity to the vision-haver, for better or for worse.

🦋 GEIS

You feel a vibration in your pocket sometime after the Lawspeaker addresses everyone. When you search for the source, you will pull out your Leaf, the device the Fae use to stay in touch with each other. Anyone who's used a smart phone will easily recognize how it works.

Greetings, Adopted. This is your Lawspeaker.

Tell us all of a time you gave someone a gift. Perhaps a bouquet of flowers or a box of chocolates. Was it appreciated or not? A reward might await the most meaningful gift given.

ｎａｖｉｇａｔｉｏｎ

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Ashley barely catches herself in free-fall when this person who she has obviously known her entire life steps out of the way. She stumbles, before turning and shaking her head, laughing and a little baffled as she straightens. ]

What are you talking about? It's me, Ashley. Weird joke.

[ It had been standing right on the edge of the effect of the music, but upon dodging it's stepped further into danger. She... hadn't a second ago, but now she looks familiar to Murderbot. But not. It searches its memory and... no, it hasn't seen her before today.

Has it? ]

If you know me, who am I?

[ It's not an unfamiliar trick. Doctor Mensah had demanded its real name over their private connection before she would trust that it was there to rescue her. ]

Shit.

[ Something is compromising it. It can feel it. Insidious, just like Target Control's code bundles that Murderbot 2.0 had been able to tag but not delete nor quarantine. Its in there.

Its legs feel like they're wrong, but Murderbot stumbles forward anyway, trying to move away from the effect. ]

You're... Ashley. Yes.

[ Neural tissue is convinced they've known each other for forever, for longer than Murderbot has intact memories. The rest of its brain, however, rebels. This is like the reverse of Target Control's drones, hidden from cameras but just barely perceptible to organic eyes.

Something is so, so very wrong here. ]

[ The question of who it is throws Ashley for a moment and she does pull up short from reaching out again, furrowing her brow as the conflicting realities war for purchase in her mind.

But then, it confirms her name, and she looks up, her smile appearing again as the obvious reality that they've known each other forever reasserts itself. ]

Duh! Did you hit your head or something?

It would have to be a considerable impact to have the effect you are implying.

[ Doesn't she know that? Everyone who knows Murderbot knows what it is, these days. Except maybe for the people who only know it by an alias and think of it as 'that peculiar augmented human' they'd met once. Or however humans think of such things. ]

It has been one hundred and thirty hours since my last forced shutdown. That should not have any effect on me now.

[ And that one hadn't even been from an impact to the head! The one before it had been, though.

It's not sure which is better, to have a forced shutdown because of external head trauma, or to have one because of psychological trauma. Who even knew constructs could have that happen to them? It sure hadn't known that. ]

Something is wrong. It... wasn't wrong a few minutes ago.

[ It knows, because it just ran back its recording and Ashley had been tagged Potential Target Thirty Eight.

Only one variable has changed; it had moved. The music is a quarter decibel louder where it's standing now. ]

The music. We need to move away from the music.

Test Drive Meme #2 - Overflow

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