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pixieledmemes2025-01-15 09:46 am
Test Drive Meme #1
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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.
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.
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
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.
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But you do force them into telling you truths they want to keep secret.
She is beginning to think the Spider was right. That this man is right. They are being tricked, and controlled. Maybe she will burn down a table, too. The claws retract, finally, but slowly - reluctantly, almost.
Rough guy? Yes.
Not the life of any party? Yes.
But that last one - she stares at him in flagrant, dubious disbelief. Art teacher? He teaches nothing, ever, but art even less. She's willing to bet he's seen even less art than her, and she's been in a lab her entire life until only weeks ago.
But it doesn't matter. This, she volunteers for free, without compulsion: )
He's dead.
( Just so that he knows. Maybe he will mourn, or maybe not, but at the very least, now someone else who knew him knows. Now she is not alone with the knowledge. She thought this would make her feel better. She isn't sure yet. )
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The information she offers for free, though, is what attracts his attention. And it's palpable in his bored expression. His brows shoot a bit in both slight surprise and acknowledgment. He's not surprised that he died, admittedly, it's that he actually died. Wasn't his powers regeneration or something, apart from the claws? That's honestly what gets to him. So naturally, John asks, ]
How did he die?
[ Because whatever or whoever killed him must be very powerful. Sorry, Laura, there's no grief here. ]
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Easier to lock it away somewhere behind a wall, now. She did her crying the day it happened. Now, she can almost convince herself she isn't feeling anything at all.
It isn't true, but each day that passes it gets a little easier to lie. )
The metal was poisoning him. He was already dying when we met.
( She doesn't know the real term for it, or any better way to explain it. She just remembers that he smelled like sickness from the moment she met him. )
He was weak. They made a copy of him that wasn't. A copy with no mind, and empty eyes. They sent it, with soldiers. With guns. He killed most of them first, but the copy was too strong for him to kill.
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He puts a pin on that for now, and focuses on Logan's fate. He just had his conversation with Erik who told him coexistence is key to everyone's survival. Well, whoop-the-fucking-do. ]
They? Lemme guess, [ He snorts in dark amusement. ] Humans?
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Si. I think so.
( But she hasn't put much thought into it. Her mind has been less humans against mutants, and more her friends against Transigen.
There is one thing she's curious about though, outside of Logan, outside of humans.
She studies him again, quiet, intent. Looking for something.
At length: )
Tomás controlled fires, too.
( Will this make the bored man react? )
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John fishes out his lighter again, squinting pointedly at her. ]
Didn't fuck some random chick, if that's what you're insinuating.
[ Might not be a good idea bringing up sex to a little girl, but John doesn't particularly care. ] So, I'm not related to this guy.
[ He huffs, looking to the side. ] Friend of yours?
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It puts a small, annoyed scowl on her face. )
This is not how we were made. No fucking.
( And why that, of all things, is what she's found to be the most insulting part of this conversation, she couldn't really articulate. It's on Tomás's behalf rather than her own, and it's illogical and irrational, but it just- is. The bored man shouldn't say such things, shouldn't be so dismissive of him. )
And yes. He is my friend. Nicer than you.
( So maybe probably they aren't related after all.
She chucks her candy wrapper at his feet, and turns to leave him alone with his stupid lighter. )
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He's about to leave it at that, because he doesn't know this kid well enough and he doesn't want to chase after someone, but he's curious and a rascal, so.
He calls out. ] How were you made, then?
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But it works. She stops a few places away, turning, assessing him again.
It isn't the candy that ultimately loosens her tongue. It's something else, for a friend that isn't even here, coupled with unresolved issues surrounding a man who never wanted to be a father. Misplaced frustration, sadness masked as anger because anger is easier and more familiar. )
From stolen blood. In a lab.
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Now why is that so familiar? It's easier to just burn things, turn whatever feelings or affection towards anything into ashes. Always have been how he operated, how he lived. It's often far easier to have people hate him. Why can't they just hate him?
Laura's answer visibly disturbs John, if it's even that palpable by how his brows furrow and his eyes pointedly squint towards nowhere in particular. His grip on his lighter tightens.
Experiments. That's what mutants are to these motherfuckers. He grits his teeth within closed lips. ]
So, they toyed with you and your friends? Treated you like weapons and shit?
[ There's an obvious underlying venom behind each word. Fucking humans. The flames lighting the candles on the nearby table grow larger. He's fuming. ]
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It's being separated from her friends. It's the fresh loss of Logan and everything she failed to find in him before he died, upset by everything else she did get to find, only to have it taken away. It's the compulsion of the candy making her do something she doesn't want to do even now, and the idea that she is getting controlled again, trapped again in a new prison, to be another puppet.
It's a lot of things at once, and she wouldn't mind if he burned down another table. It would feel cathartic, actually. She would watch and feel some slight, fleeting amount of satisfaction, she thinks.
He obviously already knows the answer to his question, so normally she would stay silent. Say nothing. But the candy pulls at her, and so she answers flatly, simply, dispassionately; )
Si. Weapons.
( Snikt; surgically coated metal claws flick out again - as if it further demonstrates a point she isn't bothering to articulate. )
Killers.
( And now, maybe if Tomás ever meets this man, he will be nice to him. Nicer than Logan was to her. Maybe he wasn't made with this man's blood, maybe the fire is a coincidence, she doesn't know, but just in case... Just in case, she wants things to be better for her friend. Maybe he will have something she can't.
Or maybe not.
She still wouldn't mind him burning another table. )
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John, though, stokes it, watches in anger. ]
How fucking dare they?
[ He has so much anger to spare. ] What makes those assholes think they can play with us? Experiment on us? We're not toys.
[ Is this the coexistence That Magneto wanted? These humans will stop at nothing to eradicate all of them, to control them, to treat them like nothing. It's abhorrent and John wants none of it. ]
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This man definitely burns hotter than Tomàs, she thinks. Or maybe he's just wilder, wildfire. Less strategically honed restraint, since he grew up being a person from the very start.
That's the part she's still trying to figure out how to do herself. Be a person. Maybe she should watch him. See if she can use what she sees to puzzle it out - or maybe learn from his mistakes, if the faeries show up with a strongly worded letter about all that arson.
She doesn't flinch away from the flames, doesn't interject, doesn't try to stop him. She just watches, and waits until his whole vibe goes down by half of a notch to finally ask over the cackle of flames: )
We're the same. Does this make us friends?
( This doesn't come out sounding like hope or innocence or anything so sweet. It's pragmatic and practical, almost - as pragmatic as a twelve year old can sound, anyway. She wants to know where they stand so she can adapt to it. Does she give protection in exchange for trust, or are they each on their own when some inevitable disaster finally strikes? )
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In the end, it's all futile, isn't it? What difference will this show of force even make when he's trapped here in Club Faerie?
But it's the most he can do for now. What he allows himself. It sucks to be thrusted to this world when he thought he'd finally make a dent on changing the world for the better for all of them mutants. Show Bobby and that pesky girlfriend of his that he's on the right side of history, only to meet a version of Magneto here who wants coexistence. Fuck that and fuck everything.
It takes a few more seconds before he hears Laura, the word friends striking a chord within him. He knows what the word is. Question is, does he still believe in it when he abandoned the only friends he even had?
Was Bobby a friend when he didn't take his side?
John studies Laura for a moment or two, the flames in front of him slowly dissipating as he does. He averts his gaze when he answers. ]
Guess so.
[ Then a small quirk of his lips, as the remaining flames gradually die down. He glances back at Laura. ] Not really good with it, though, fair warning.
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The point is that it's familiar. The point is that all of her friends were angry, even level-headed Rictor. Even sweet, timid Charlotte, who was often angry through her tears instead of her fists.
They're the same in genetics, and they're the same in this. So she accepts it, like she accepted it immediately in Logan — despite wanting to punch him in the face on more than one occasion.
She hasn't experienced the sensation of betrayal yet, and so she takes him at his word. What reason would there to be to lie, when he could just as easily say no in honesty? It doesn't really occur to her. Friendship in the lab was a sacred thing that wasn't taken for granted; hopefully this doesn't turn out to be a dark life lesson later on down the road. Hopefully somebody else pops this bubble one day, rather than him. Time will tell.
For now, she only shrugs. )
That's okay. I am.
( She doesn't know very much, but the things she does know, she knows very well. She'll teach him.
And so, in the interest of protecting, as is her role and responsibility in any given friendship: )
I think probably you should stop burning things down now. If they come and we have to kill them, they won't make us good food anymore.
( She has strong feelings about Good Dinner after growing up on hospital food and cardboard nutrition bars. Also, she's trying to do less of that. As a general rule. The killing thing. For... reasons. The unspoken laws of loyalty in Transigen-grown friendship dictate that if they attack him, she would have to anyway. )
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John's about to say something quippy when she admitted she's good at making friends, but what she says after is the very thing that catches his attention. ]
You realize the good food they have here have some weird effects, right?
[ Having experienced the wooden nose and wooden tail situation, John knows it's the reason why she can't stop herself from answering even if she wanted to stay silent. Probably those candies.
But he begins to leave the scene of his crime, anyway, glancing at Laura as his way of subtly beckoning her to follow. ]
Also the thing that's keeping us here. [ Or so they've been told. ]
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Besides, there are things still to learn.
Though, she does not like that he makes a good point about the food. It puts an unhappy, disgruntled little furrow into her brow. Yes, the candy did make her talk, but she'd mostly been referring to the dinner before it. Except that he's right, that was a trick, too.
What a deep betrayal. She's been so happy to eat real food, the joy hasn't worn off yet since leaving the facility. This is the first time it's been wielded against her. Big Lame, Pary Foul, Hate That Thanks.
He wins this round. The frown becomes an outright scowl, but she has no argument to return. Just a low, under-the-breath murmur of: )
Mierda.
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He can also tell she must have been starving prior to her arrival here if she trusted all that food right away. To be fair, he also trusted their food, whether that's magical or not is still debatable, but she has developed a liking to them than most.
It doesn't take for him to be a good detective to know that feeling of betrayal palpable in her expression.
So, while he's amused, he shrugs. ] I'm sure there are better food outside this party. We can explore later.
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Okay. Then the laughter is forgiven. This time. One day, she will not be so easy to appease. The argument will be glorious.
But there is one thing they haven't yet covered, one that seemed less important than everything else they talked about - until now, where it almost seems silly to finally ask: )
¿Cómo te llamas?
( If it seems like he doesn't understand after a second, she'll repeat it in English; what is your name? )
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Because there's kinship here, especially since Laura doesn't belong to any side of the Mutant Argument. John never really feels he truly belonged to those under Xavier's tutelage. He's too hot-headed, too reckless, too impatient. He never really worked well with teams, too.
So this is fine. At least, the girl isn't spouting stupid shit like Bobby. ]
Pyro. [ He answers matter-of-factly. John doesn't fit him anymore. It's what those geeks called him, what his abusive parents shouted when they want to punish him. In this new path he has taken, this is a more fitting name. With a cock of a brow, he regards her. ]
You?
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Pyro, he says, and she stares at him for a long, discerning moment.
Before she gives hers in return, she has to ask: )
Is this your real name, or the one they gave you?
( She has two names. She has not decided which is real and which was given, since one came from them and the other came from Gabriela much later. )
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[ John replies almost proudly, pocketing his lighter when he stops just at the outskirts of the party. He leans back on a particular tree, almost tempted to smoke something.
His gaze lands on the hustle and bustle of the party that's not too far from them, the sounds of it in the background. Here it's quieter, only the occasional rustling of leaves overhead whenever the wind blows a bit.
He glances at the party as if he's trying to see home. ]
The one they gave me is John. [ There's nonchalance in his tone, as if the name doesn't hold enough weight for him. ]
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Out here on the outskirts, the noises and smells are less constant, less for her to have to filter out. It's not that they're overwhelming, she was born with her mutation, she's used to it just like humans are used to their own normal senses, but... it's nice. To have peace, and distance. Nice to have space to breathe without an assault of sensory input information.
Nice enough that she feels okay with pressing her back to the tree, and slowly sliding down it until she's seated in the grass with her knees pressed against her chest. To watch. Him, the party. She can see both, from this angle. )
They called me 23. In the facility. We were numbers. ( Barked out maybe similar to the way Pyro's parents shouted 'John'; That's enough, 23! Stand down! ) But the nurse who helped me escape called me Laura. I give that to myself now instead.
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Numbers. That's all they are to these assholes. Not human. Just a value. A figure, nothing more.
He grips his lighter inside his pocket a bit tighter, fighting the urge to burn the tree behind them, to burn the grass, to burn this goddamn world. Being a mutant is the best thing in the world, but maybe the most painful, too. ]
Laura, huh? Cool name. [ He remarks, a little flat but not devoid of an underlying compliment, his gaze still on the gathering not far from them. ] Definitely better than just a fucking number.
[ A beat. ] Do you have a mutant name?
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Flatly: )
Laura is a mutant name.
( Because she's a mutant, and that's her name. Obviously. She's not so sure he actually thinks it's cool, but she also doesn't care what he thinks is cool.
Not yet, anyway. Revisit this if they become closer, maybe what he finds cool will begin to bear more weight eventually. )
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gently steering this 2 a wrap so i can hit u for newer things
good 😌