Test Drive Meme #1

[changelinged]

TDM #1 - January/February 2025

🦋 Introduction

Welcome to the Pixie Led Test Drive Meme!

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🦋 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 seems to be a holiday party of some sort, if the large, candle-decorated pine tree in the middle of the tables is any indication. While the party appears to be outside, the temperature is mild and pleasant within the gates and hedges sectioning the party off from the rest of the garden. Stars twinkle overhead, a full moon hanging in the sky, as fluffy flakes of oddly not-cold snow drift to the ground. Some of the hosts dance in a circle around the pine tree, moving their hands around in odd patterns as their feet move; it seems to make the tree glow. The mood seems to be festive, with everyone smiling brightly. Their chipper voices sometimes crescendo louder than the soft chamber music that's being performed in the corner; their laughter rings out like little bells now and then as people get settled.

There are candles and sprigs of pine on every table accenting the festive spread of food and drinks. There are cookies, olives and cheese and crackers, various sliced meats, cranberries and oranges, chocolate coins, fried potatoes of every shape and style, warmed cider and mulled wine, and every other type of food you might be craving.

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.

🦋 A Great Miracle Happened There

In front of you sits a spinning top with symbols you don't recognize on each of its four sides. Next to it is a pile of chocolate coins. Someone nearby helpfully explains that you'll need a second player to bet against, but they at least are willing to take a second to explain the rules.

Each round, each player puts a coin into the pot. Then they take turns spinning the top, taking an action depending on the symbol that is landed on. The wind chime means you do nothing. The coin means you take everything in the pot. The sword means you take half of everything in the pot (half plus one if there is an odd number). The hand means you put a piece of your winnings back in the pot. When one person owns every chocolate coin and the other person is left with nothing, they have won the game.

Perhaps you should try and flag someone down to play a game to figure out what's going on around here. After all, half of the party guests look about as confused as you do, and it might be a nice idea to start getting to know the other people here.

🦋 Eat Me

Tucked away in a corner sits the dessert table. Each cake, cookie, and pastry has signs next to them:

Warning: Do Not Eat

But everything else you've had tonight doesn't seem to have an effect, so what's the harm in a little sweet treat? You dig in, and then, without your knowledge, something changes about you. What those changes are, exactly, is dependent on the desserts you've eaten. Luckily the effect is only temporary; some only last a matter of minutes, some last hours, but either way as soon as you leave the party, you'll be cured.

Types of Desserts

• Cakes: You will believe you've lived in the Fae Realm your whole life and belong there
• Cookies: You will shrink down to about two inches tall
• Pies: You will forget someone important to you
• Candies: You will no longer be able to tell any lies
• Custards: You will grow a tail, antennae, wings, or any combination thereof

🦋 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 received a gift. It could be one you enjoyed or one you did not. Perhaps a particularly amusing story will be rewarded.

ｎａｖｉｇａｔｉｏｎ

code

Comments

peter parker 🕷 marvel cinematic universe

[interwebs]

THE PARTY

[ Is this a hallucination? Did the stress of the upcoming finals successfully did him in? Is he dead? No, that can't be right. Does the idea of an afterlife look like this? Most likely not. But Peter's curious, so when none of his questions were answered while he's trying to ask anyone including this fae who looks like a tower of just water. With a face. Yeah, that's pretty Uncanny Valley. Peter just tries some of the crackers in defeat. No harm, right? Until the Miss Lawspeaker Lady told everyone why they're here and what eating the food entailed. No fucking way.

Okay, let's pivot. It can't be All That Bad. So Peter rushes to a nearby fae - this time, someone who has an owl for a head - and tries to plead his case. ]

Hey, um. Excuse me. Sorry but I really need to go home? I have finals tomorrow and this subject is really - [ The fae leaves even before Peter can finish, so he tries his luck with another person. This time, an Adopted. Feel free to run into him. ]

EAT ME

[ Feeling pretty exhausted from running into random people and trying to find a way out, Peter sighs when he arrives by the dessert table. Everything looks so tempting, but the Do Not Eat signs are obviously a deterrent. So he ignores them until his stomach grumbles.

Okay, but clearly Do Not Eat means do not eat right? Because what if he eats one and then he turns into something else. Like that fae who's just a wall of water. So Peter ignores the desserts again, until his stomach grumbles once more.

Maybe the signs are just there because the fae are just being stingy. It's possible. They've been stingy with answers thus far, so why not food too? With that in mind, Peter tries one of the cakes. So far, so good. Typical chocolate cake.

Perhaps everything's fine. He's probably just overreacting about this whole thing. Why is he even overreacting when he clearly belongs here, anyway, right? These are his people. Like that fae who's just a wall of water. ]

GEIS

@ parker

hello, miss lawspeaker lady. i have a super important test coming up tomorrow and i really REALLY need to take it or else i'll fail. i know you said our problems would've likely played out and we really don't know that for sure so maybe

you can kindly take us home? all of us? i think that'd be the best gift you can give us right now.

OOC

[ peter's from post No Way Home, so he'll work under the assumption that everyone in his own universe has forgotten about him because of That Spell. i can match prose but i'm usually better and faster using brackets. y'all can reach me at justinify if you wanna plot stuff or just chat! ]

eat me

[ironypoisoned]

[ No. No no no. Nonononononononono.

Peter cannot be here. ...Where ever the hell here was, exactly. But Tony beat Thanos and is pretty sure that killed him, so it didn't exactly bode well if Peter was here with him. ]

Kid? [ Please say psyche. ]

[interwebs]

[ That voice. He can't be mistaken, even when it's been so long. ]

Mister Stark?

[ Peter's eyes go wide as he takes in Tony's form. It's almost as if no time has passed. In his shock, he doesn't notice how he's approaching closer. The stress of finding himself here, not knowing how to go back when he has finals damn it, the way no one back home remembers who he is and he can't say anything to keep them safe, and the image of his dead colleague and friend and mentor figure in front of him, all taking its toll like a wave crashing to shore.

And maybe he's also going to attempt to crash into Tony. Kind of. ] You're here, I - [ Is he actually dead now too??? ]

[ironypoisoned]

[ Okay another hug, sure. Tony's down. He wraps his good arm around Peter's back. ]

Yeah, I'm here. [ A beat. ] What are, uh. What're you doing here though? [ Child, if you are dead, Tony is killing you. ]

the party

[nightmarescenario]

[ooc: i'm too lazy to code, so going prose]

He sees the young man babbling at the not-quite-human hosts, stumbling around for a way out of the party. Personally, he finds the whole scene exhausting - another blubbering kid. Is this one going to throw a motorbike at him too? Call him 'mean'?

If he were the other Tony, he would tug the kid aside and get him out of the way of the strange hosts, maybe try to offer comfort. But he is not that Tony. He is the guy who, as soon as the kid catches his eye, he turns and walks the other way.

gotcha!

[interwebs]

As soon as Peter catches his eye, though, he rushes to him because he could've sworn he looks very familiar. Like, very, very familiar. Thank god for his Spidey agility that he's quick to close the distance between them. When he finally catches up, he squints, staring at this man he feels familiar but, can't quite place who he is, even if he has an idea who it might actually be.

"Um, excuse me, sir? Are you..." He pauses a bit. "You look very much like someone I know. Mister Stark. Tony Stark, actually. I could be wrong, though."

[nightmarescenario]

Tony can feel the young man following him, but he doesn't stop walking away. He's pretty sure he knows who this kid is - he's got a feeling.

Finally, once the kid catches up, he does stop, peering down at those eager brown eyes over his shoulder. "I should hope so. I am Tony Stark," he says, not even making any attempts at all to be humble about it. "And who might you be?" Let's see if his assumption was correct.

the party!

[spylike]

What's the subject?

[ Is the voice that perks up behind him, after the fae leaves. Genuinely curious. Almost cheerful, maybe.

Jessica is, at this stage of her superhero career (ha! career), kind of used to some interdimensional things. And, practically a lifetime ago in England, she knew about magic. It's fine, these things happen.

Jessica is also very post-freak out. A lifetime of both HYDRA and SHIELD spy training has enabled her the unique feat of taking all of her freak and letting it not out, but in, holding onto it very tightly, until she rages out and smashes something to bits with her spider-ish fists, which is a personal thing. And not a professional, trained-spy-failure thing. That thing is frowned on at most parties, and most probably especially here, at a magical fae party.

But right now, she's calm. This is magic. What she needs first is the lay of the land, and there's no other way to get it than being here, talking to people who look just as lost as she felt thirty minutes ago.

Also, she's in a bright red and yellow supersuit. Her cowl still on, the black and white parts around her mask bordering her eyes. ]

[interwebs]

[ Oh, wow, seeing her in her full suit immediately takes Peter back to his. The way she's also so calm and composed about everything is a nice wall to lean into, and definitely a breath of fresh air.

It's not as if Peter hasn't experienced magic before and portals and multiverses, having had that Whole Thing with Doctor Strange, but this is a whole other thing entirely. Fae stuff isn't in his alley.

So, with a polite smile, he answers her. ] Thermodynamics. [ He gestures for her suit. ] You, uh - a superhero?

[spylike]

[ Her face (mask!) does a series of complicated expressions at "thermodynamics". Brainwashed teen HYDRA spy school did not teach her much about thermodynamics, except how to make small talk about it, because spies did that, sometimes. Mostly, her expression looks kind of sympathetic. Like, wow, thermodynamics. At school. That does sound hard and also sucks.

Her face (mask!) looks noticeably less complicated about the word "superhero". ]

Most of the time.

[ Jessica offers, truthfully. A lot of people don't know who Spider-Woman is compared to a) Captain Marvel and b) Thor, so it's, like, objectively fine, that the teen does not say something like WOW SPIDER-WOMAN YOU ARE SHORTER THAN THE FORUMS SUGGEST YOU MIGHT BE. ]

Sometimes I'm an Avenger?

[ It comes out like a question, in case that rings any bells. ]

the party

[umas_second]

[The kid looked frantic, but Harry wasn't the type to help out a stranger. He barely helped out friends. The Isle taught you to watch out for yourself first and he hadn't been free of it for very long. Still, all that running around looked exhausting and got on his nerves. Eventually he stepped into the path of the guy and caught him as he tried to rush past.]


Whoa whoa! Hey, slow down!

[interwebs]

[ Immediately stopped by this stranger, Peter sheepishly smiles. ]

Sorry I'm just trying to find some answers, or a way home. [ Then he points at Harry. ] You also one of the people who got dragged here?

[umas_second]

[Much better. Harry smiled at the guy but didn’t drop his hand, he wasn’t sure the kid wouldn’t just rabbit again, but did loosen his fingers.]


Can’t tell you how to get home, but I might have answers to questions. Ask away.


[He'd spent his life making deals and while information was always valuable, he didn’t really have much. Still, “fake it till you make it” was a rule to live by. Harry was being incredibly generous by his own standards in not even mentioning a cost for picking his brain. Maybe he felt a little sorry for the guy, a new emotion for him.]

GEIS

[slowmotionbuscrash]

imrightbehindyou

Hey let me know if the whole nice and understanding plan works before you go.

[interwebs]

[ There's a bit of a delay in his reply. ]

didn't really work on my end, sorry

[slowmotionbuscrash]

Why are you apologizing? You tried. They're jerks.

geis; un: loki

[meforsaken]

hello this is miss lawspeaker lady's secretary, i have delivered your message and she says you are free to go

[interwebs]

[ Squints at that username... so hard. ]

yeah like i'm falling for that

shouldn't be surprised you're here too [ Fae royalty, whole new realm. Seems like Loki's whole thing. ]

[meforsaken]

perhaps i've done well enough to impress her and gained this position!

peter parker, i take it?

@wild.flower

[hasitsthorns]

[ Oh. Oh, sweetie. That's adorable. ]

I feel like
a lot of schools give passes for extenuating circumstances, right?
and like
if anything is
'I got whisked to another dimension thanks to the Fae' kind of is one

[interwebs]

i guess

this is just super bad timing and i wish it just didn't happen
i'm still not 100% convinced i'm not hallucinating from all the stress of studying

[hasitsthorns]

I mean
if it makes you feel any better
I thought this was at first just a really wild hallucination too

not entirely unconvinced it isn't, but y'know
it is kind of crazy

also, is school supposed to be that stressful?

eat me

[makesascene]

[Well, this guy went from tension Leo could see from a mile away to extremely relaxed in a questionable speed.

The turtle drifts over, likely seeming like any of the fae present. He most certainly is not human. If he was dressed in fae refinery, he could bullshit his way through.

Right now though, he's more curious about what that cake did to Anxiety-Man here.]

So, how was the cake? Feel any different?

[interwebs]

[ Yes, Anxiety-Man is now Relaxed-Man as Peter's worries begin to flutter away once the cake hits. It opened a bit of clarity to him that he's sure he wasn't going to see earlier. It's like getting hit on the head. But nicer.

So, when he sees Leo, he blinks a little and smiles, unbothered that the other guy's a turtle. ]

I, uh. Actually feel great, thanks for asking. [ His smile widens. ] Are you new here in our realm?

[makesascene]

[Oh Relaxed-Man, we really in it now.]

Wow, you don't recognize me? [He presses a palm against his plastron plates in mock hurt.] We talked a ton the last party that was thrown, and you don't remember little ole me?

I'd be hurt, if you weren't such a social butterfly.