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

[domestic]

( She's still caught up in it — weak-kneed and balance compromised, a pricking of something sharp, stinging her eyes. It's unfair, it's so unfair. If that's her future, if that's what comes of all the work she's been putting into testing the dimension cannon, if she does it all just to see him die-

For a moment, just a fleeting moment, she's tempted to give up. Just one.

And then it's gone again, and she's digging stubborn heels into the grass, fixing her jaw, determined. He's going to regenerate. He has to. He can't just die and yeah, so she'll miss the one with the teeth and the hair, but it's still him, just like he's the same man as the one with big ears and a leather jacket. The next one, whatever he looks like, will still be him too. Forever means forever, she'll stay with him regardless of the wrapping paper, she doesn't care-

Rose?

She freezes, stone still.

And then turns, slowly, toward the sound of the voice. Her eyes are wet, gleaming with unshed tears. Still a stubborn, insouciant set to her shoulders, to her back teeth where they grind together. It only just begins to bleed out when the face matches the voice.

Her lips part and then, stupidly, her head whips around to look in the direction of where a bolt might be coming from, if that hallucination were to take place in the fae realm rather than on an empty street. )

I-

( But there's nothing; her wild alarm is unfounded, there's only him, and the pounding of her heart that's just as much from fear as it is from other things. )

Are you real?

( Or is this a hallucination too? Blindly, unthinkingly, she makes to reach out a hand. To touch. To check. Except she pauses mid-step, hand still outstretched, afraid the answer isn't going to be one she wants to learn so suddenly. )

[thetenthstorm]

[He makes a winded little laugh, cracked and worn at the edges, almost like he's out of breath. The itch to keep running is there, under his skin, but he can't run from her. Not again. Not when she shouldn't be here either, she's supposed to be home--her new home--with a being that's him but not him--

(And, well, his metacrisis might honestly be a bit more on the level than he is currently, but he's never admitting that out loud.)

It's the dimension cannon and the way she reaches out, overlaying too many memories, that has his laugh turn more real. More light. More him.

He doesn't say anything. He just reaches out with both arms and pulls her into a bone-crushing hug as his answer.]

[domestic]

( The laugh, that first breathless one, isn't an answer. The slightly more manic one, that feels real, and it pulls a twist in her expression, a tentatively blooming smile, watery and pained and uncertain, so full of everything, too much. Far too much.

They move at the same time, because they always do.

Her arms around his neck as his collide around her waist, and she's hanging on in a familiar embrace that she can feel through every bit of her, from the tips of her hair to the soles of her feet, like coming home. Like coming home, even though this is the wrong dimension and the wrong time and the wrong everything else, it's right. It's so right. )

Oh my god, ( She manages thickly against the wrinkles in the shoulder of his suit jacket, her voice breaking on pitchy syllables. ) Oh my god, I did it. It worked, I found you, I did it-

[thetenthstorm]

[There's loads of problems that come with her statement because it means she really is out of time, in the wrong place.

He should at least tell her that much.

He really, really should

Predictably, he doesn't. He doesn't need to even deflect.

It won't matter. She'll see through the cracks, eventually. When he's least expecting it, too.

(He wonders if she's seen Donna yet. Another thing he doesn't say. It just leads to more things he doesn't want to talk about.)

But it's always easy, talking to her. Like riding a bike--probably, maybe. He's been alone for so long, but this is so very, very easy, and his voice is warm and bright.] Brilliant, Rose Tyler. Absolutely brilliant. You can do anything. Impossible odds with a fae party of all things? But no, lookit you. Here.

[domestic]

( Her fingertips dig into his shoulders; her head ducks to press her face into the cloth, buried against his neck, eyes squeezing shut just for a moment. The tears that prick at her eyes this time are a different brand, a different breed. Happy, overwhelmed with it, utterly overcome because a part of her wasn't sure-

A part of her thought she couldn't. A part of her kept expecting to fail, no matter how many times she stubbornly squashed the thought and plowed ahead with brute force and determination, some small voice in the back of her mind always whispered that it wouldn't work out. She'd just miss him every time, the dimension cannon would break, she'd slip into the void, anything, anything could go wrong. Anything could lead to a disaster and she'd never, ever see him again.

But they're here. They're here, after all this time. Now that she's got him, she doesn't want to let go — what if he slips away again? What if that vision comes true, that bolt from nowhere, exterminate? What if she blinks and he disappears, what if, what if, what if-

Eventually she's got to peel herself away. Got to look at him properly, got to see him for real. His face, that face, that one she's so fond of. She reels away only inches, so she can peer up — and place a hand against his cheek. Smiling softly, aching like an open wound, looking for differences with a little knit of concern furrowed into her brow. Her eyes flicker from one of his to the other and back again, searching.

Finding... something that deepens the furrow just a little, but she doesn't ask just yet. Not- not just yet. She will, but first- )

But how's this possible? I wasn't aiming for this place, I dunno how- how are you here, too? And where's the TARDIS?

( In all her wandering of the party, she'd seen no evidence of a big blue box. Surely they can't have intercepted him the way they intercepted other ordinary people? )

[thetenthstorm]

You weren't aiming for here and neither was I but--[He could hide the chips in his armor well enough from her for a spell, just keep putting it off, all the problems, mistakes.

He hasn't let her go yet either though, and there's a twitch in his hands, a full-body exhaustive shudder, when she asks about the TARDIS.

What a gaping wound, that. A missing limb. He doesn't even try to hide that pain behind a masked smile. There would be no point.] She's not here. I don't--I don't remember what happened, before I woke up.

[domestic]

( This-- this feels familiar. This feels right. They could never have an uneventful reunion, could thay? It was always going to be in the middle of a crisis, in the middle of the end of the world, in the middle of something like a loss or an invasion or a kidnapping or something. Part of her would've loved that, if it were more like one of their regular, lighter adventures, but...

It doesn't feel light. Not the way he looks, not his body language, not the answer that follows. The Doctor without the TARDIS is just wrong; the Doctor losing memories is nearly as bad. There are pieces she's missing, she knows, she's just not clever enough to ascertain what they are yet.

Her hand drops away from his cheek, but it doesn't go far. It just drifts down, from shoulder to bicep, where it hangs on — they're of the same mind, maybe. About not letting go yet. Not so soon. )

You don't- Doctor, I just saw... when I touched that flower, just now when I put it on, I saw something. I saw you dying. Was it that? Could it have been-

( My fault? Could it be he doesn't remember because they pulled him as he was regenerating? )

[thetenthstorm]

No. No, no, no, Rose-- [If anything, it was his fault. Planet was being overrun by daleks and there he went, ran out into the street. But it was Rose, and he had to. He looks her hard in the eyes, not blinking. Insistent.] It wasn't your fault. And I was fine! [He springs up, like an elastic, and waves his hand at her. Yes, that hand.] The hand! You remember the hand! [Well, okay, not this hand, but she should follow his logic.

He uses that hand to scratch at his head.] Just a graze. Not enough for a full regeneration. I just used what I needed to patch myself up and siphoned the rest off into my hand. Thanks for that, Jack. [And then that hand went caused him a multitude of problems.

Nevermind that.

He pockets both his hands.] You found me then and you found me now. Not sure what that means, Rose. [It's probably not his fault. Probably. He didn't mess with things that badly.] But we were fine then, and we're going to be fine now.

[domestic]

( Was fine — oh. Oh. So that means-

What she saw was true, then. She made it back to her world, found him, watched him fall — only, if it's the past for him, and the future for her, how is this happening right now? Where on the their timeline does it fall? Wouldn't she remember this when she went running to him later on? Wouldn't she know?

But we were fine then, and we're going to be fine now.

She relaxes, just a bit. An incremental softening in her features, in her shoulders, in the grip she's got on his biceps. Relaxes her thoughts, too. Maybe he's right. Maybe it all works out, maybe it already has. Maybe this is it, working out, right now.

Oh, god, it's him, though. They're back, they're really back, she made it back, and-

A beat. )

Doctor?

( She casts her eyes quickly about, and then back to him, to whisper an incredulous: )

Faeries.

( What the hell, right??

And maybe she sounds just a touch excited, because-

Her and the Doctor, together, in a new and unexpected place where things have gone off and they're insane and there are actual bloody faeries and it's just so much like it's supposed to be that she nearly breaks down all over again. )

[thetenthstorm]

[He has to believe it because otherwise he's just dooming her alongside him.

But maybe, just maybe, for a little while, they can just breathe. The Doctor and Rose Tyler. It's not a fix to how he's teetering on the precipice of Something. Still, the grin that splits across his face is effused with light, not a mask, not hiding anything beneath. Just real, just him, balanced carefully between insanity and adventure and matching beats with Rose in the way he answers, brows raised, repeating.] Faeries.

[He turns, then, back to the table of flowers because no, sorry, this regeneration isn't about sticking things to his lapels, even though flowers are supposed to be there instead of vegetables. He stands side by side with her, shoulders touching, and takes in the party.] Kidnapped by faeries, that's a new one, you know. 'This party's for you.' [He bites his tongue, amused, glancing at her again.] We've got ourselves a party.

[domestic]

( He echoes it back, and all at once, she really properly believes that everything's alright. That grin spreads across her face, and it's equal parts delight and relief, like a great weight's been lifted off and replaced with giddiness. God, it's been so long, it's been ages. It's been sleepless nights and Mickey and Jackie begging her to stop, and rest, and be careful, and it's been throwing herself into Torchwood beyond all logic and reason and human capacity, burning herself out for this, all for this, and it's finally worked. Finally paid off, finally done.

It's them again. She can't contain the bubble of faintly hysterical laughter that escapes her fatigued, incredulous lips. A reunion and faeries. )

Rubbish party. ( She observes, just a bit touched in the head herself, hoarse and on the absolute brink of going 'round the entire bend twice and twice again. ) They haven't even got crackers or tiny hats. What kind of party hasn't got hats? Not to mention the kidnappings.

[thetenthstorm]

The banana cake I had was decent, if you take in account that depending on the time period humans have genetically modified bananas anyway to taste and look a certain way. [Yes, he did eat something here. Winning, truly. So really it means he can't currently go anywhere.

(He gives the briefest glance to her dimension cannon. Wonders if it still works.)] So! For likely not being actual-banana cream cake--not bad. [He digresses.] We'll file a complaint for their lack of crackers or tiny hats for next time. [If they're here for the next time. If she's still here tomorrow.

He offers her his arm.] I think I've still got some moves. [For dancing.]