Test Drive Meme #2

[changelinged]

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.

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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.

🦋 Link to Overflow Post



ｎａｖｉｇａｔｉｏｎ

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Comments

GEIS: @AngelA

[hevenly]

[ Angela knows what Christmas is. She even has celebrated it herself, in the memory of a year-that-never-was. But it is this response's first half which garners her attention more than the second, though she must ask to clarify: ]

What did your fellows do to earn this reward?

[inseine]

A job well done. Such things as taking initiative on the beat, putting in enough work to merit a recommendation for a promotion, making shrewd advances in tricky cases. Police work is often thankless but necessary, and even small gestures in return for exceptional effort were appreciated.

[He does regret not expressing his appreciation for a few of his finest subordinates more loudly. But that is all given up, now that the Fae have snatched him off and away. He imagines Rivette and his other officers are long since expired by now...]

[hevenly]

[ Angela is familiar with the police. They often stopped her in Central Park and told her she wasn't allowed to be carrying a sword around in public. ]

You command these men, then? They answer to you?

[inseine]

[A loooooooong pause.]

I did.

I do not anymore.

[hevenly]

[ Hm. ]

I suppose none of us are to do the things we once did anymore. If our hosts are to be believed.

[inseine]

Do you not believe them?

I confess that under ordinary circumstances, this would be nothing more than a fantastic dream to me. One all too outlandish for my imagination, but an impossible dream nonetheless.

[hevenly]

I believe that their intentions are as they say.

I have not yet decided to accept their terms as stated, however.

bc I forgot there are usernames: @Javert bc he's boring at first

[inseine]

You would deny them! That is brazen of you. I fail to see where we were granted a choice.

pas encore pasunpolicier...

[hevenly]

Choices are not granted. But they can almost always be taken by force, if need be.

coming soon to a Leaf near you

[inseine]

[HA.]

Something strikes me that you will not get you very far. If the tales about Faerie folk are true, you may be wiser to proceed cautiously.

[hevenly]

I have heard the stories of the fae. Stories so old many of them have been long forgotten by even the gods.

They do not scare me.

[inseine]

No, I doubt they would. They are only faerie stories, after all!

But fear or not, the stories ought to give you pause on whether it is smart. Don't act brashly without knowing what consequences you are up against. Or at least, make an effort to get yourself an audience with one of our new rulers and test the waters.

[hevenly]

Moments before awakening here, I was fighting one of the ancient, forgotten fae of Svartalfheim. I am not one to seek parley with a ruler. I leave that to my more diplomatic siblings.

[ Fortunately for her, one such sibling is here, but Loki doesn't seem inclined to challenge their hosts, unfortunately. ]

[inseine]

Svartalfheim, never heard of such a place. And had you spoken to me about some battle with the fae a fortnight ago, I would have called you mad.

Do as you will. I only mean to speak to good reason and sense. You need not listen.

[... But he absolutely will think this person to be rash as hell.]

[hevenly]

[ Spoilers: he has the correct read on her. ]

Of what realm do you hail? I understand that the universe is vast, and not all are aware of every realm.

[inseine]

I do not understand your question. I am lately of Paris, France, whatever 'realm' that is.

[hevenly]

Earth, then. I have heard of Paris, though I have never been. My beloved spoke of it as a place of beauty and rich history.

[inseine]

I suppose that is true for men of means.

[hevenly]

If that is not your experience, would you tell me of your Paris? So that I may hear the truth of it?

[inseine]

Are you sure? Very well.

At the moment, it is filthy, stinking place, seething with insurgents. Certainly, there were spots of some exceptional beauty and artistry. I found the Jardin des Plantes and its menagerie serviceably fetching, for an afternoon walk. But where I was stationed, I was far more accustomed to the cretin prowling the shadows than the finer gentlemen.

It was tolerable enough for my purposes, and a far better home than any miserable provincial town. It suit a fellow like me.

[hevenly]

I have seen places that fit such description. It certainly paints a different picture than the Paris of the stories my beloved told.

Such a filthy, stinking, insurgent-filled place does not sound, however, like one that would suit an officer of the law. Unless you speak of it in terms of having plenty of work at hand to imprison these insurgents.

[inseine]

The latter. Big cities were breeding grounds for the work. It is a dull and doleful place to choose the provincial town over the capital. I was never left lacking for projects to tackle.

[hevenly]

Then, you and I are of a like mind. Neither of us enjoys sitting idle.

It is a shame, then, that that seems to be what is expected of us, here.

[inseine]

Is that so? That was not the impression I gathered. We are to be useful for some purposes, though I cannot fathom what the Fae folk could need from people like us.

[hevenly]

"Useful for some purpose" does not necessarily imply the purpose which people like you and I are naturally inclined to fulfill. Although I do struggle to think what other purpose they may think me suited for.