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Pixie Led Mods ([personal profile] changelinged) wrote in [community profile] pixieledmemes2025-03-21 08:39 am
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Test Drive Meme #2 - Overflow

TDM #2 OVERFLOW


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🦋 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




valle: (071)

[personal profile] valle 2025-04-19 05:01 am (UTC)(link)
For as long as she travelled with him — all those days, all those miles — she'd only said it out loud at the end, when he was dying. Only when she was sure it was over, when the grief was constricting her to the point of losing all filter, did she call him by any title. It had always been Charles putting words to it; she's your daughter, Logan. She never had to be the one to voice it, and it had been a relief.

But now, here he is. Here they are. He's alive — not back from the dead, but probably not dead yet. From before, like the way Charles is from before, and Erik is from before. But to her, it feels like a man come back to life, resurrected straight out of her most miserable moments to put her on the spot. To make her finally say it to him in a way that isn't just the shaky, barely-audible whisper of daddy over his ruined and broken body.

Her throat feels thick. Her nerves feel sparking, fearful, too frenetic. He still has a hold of her arm, and his hand is much bigger than her wrist, more calloused, warm, very there — very there. It wasn't so long ago that they made her replay the memory, and now he's here, and her eyes feel uncomfortably, embarrassingly wet all of a sudden and she doesn't know why. She was fine, until he asked this of her.

"Eres mi padre," she whispers, though he'll be able to hear it regardless, that's just the way they work. It doesn't matter that he doesn't speak Spanish — the way Fae magic works translates it for him anyway. He'll understand what the words mean, even if he doesn't know them.

She just- can't say it in English. It's hard, because he knows English, and she can't hide behind it like she can hide behind Spanish.

You are my father.

She prepares herself for anger, for a furious rejection, by trying to reel her arm out of his hand — just in case. Defensively. If he's going to yell at her, she doesn't want him to touch her while he does.
logansmiddleclaw: <lj user="citadel_icons"> (3)

[personal profile] logansmiddleclaw 2025-04-19 06:23 am (UTC)(link)
There it was. The confirmation of something he didn't know, but had started to feel the moment her claws came out.

And though the magic in the air, one he's unaware of, translates her whispered words, he hadn't needed it. Padre . Of course he understood that word. Whether it was a lingering word from the mindless chatter on his radio, or on a staticy TV hanging in a rundown bar, well that he didn't know.

Her father. That's what he was.

Yes, he's angry. The anger erupts in his chest, burning at him from the inside and flowing through his veins, but he's not angry at her. He's angry at the universe. At fate. At whatever had decided to bestow this child with the curse of sharing his genes, and most of all to sharing his pain.

When she begins to pull her arm away, he uncurls his fingers from her wrist and let's his hand fall to the ground, feeling the damp grass below him. It's his anchor in this moment of emotional and mental turbulence. Not only is he on foreign land, stolen from his time, but he's now faced with a child that claims to be his. That is his.

What was he supposed to do? What was he supposed to say? He was barely a good friend to those he cared about, and now he was supposed to figure out...what it meant to be a father? Surely — scratch that — hopefully, the kid had no delusions about that. He was too tainted to bring any good to a child's life.

The silence seemed to stretch on for hours, when in reality it'd been no longer than a minute. Finally he opens his mouth to speak, his eyes bearing into hers. "I'm sorry for this load of shit luck handed to you. And that includes me being your..." A rougher quality has seeped into his tone of voice with his throat having gone dry, but his volume remains low.

valle: (090)

[personal profile] valle 2025-04-19 09:55 am (UTC)(link)
It isn't as bad as she was afraid of. It isn't a fairy tale fantasy either, which is okay — she likes things that are true, that are real. Not bullshit, which it would've been if he'd done something like they'd do on television she's seen in motel rooms. No embracing her, declaring love or loyalty or promising her anything. That wouldn't be real, and it wouldn't be him.

But he isn't shouting at her, or blaming her for this. The way he collapses in on himself a little, even, makes her almost regret pulling her arm away from him. She has the impulse she's had a few times before, with him — the thought to reach out and curl a hand around his wrist in an echo, a mirror — but she doesn't. Not yet. Because this one is different, and because he only just met her.

She blinks, and manages to fight off the dampness in her eyes. Staving off those threatening tears until they're nearly gone, good enough to pretend like they weren't there in the first place.

"It's okay," she says, gentle but pragmatic. Soft and detached and calm, a lilting series of factual statements follow: "It isn't your fault. You don't have to do anything. I'm fine on my own. I know you're a good man, still. Even if you aren't a very nice one, usually. No soy una niña pequeña. Entiendo."

He doesn't need to step up. To play pretend. To look after her. To act like a father, when he never asked to be one. When he didn't want this, when nobody asked him before making her. She understands, and she can manage on her own. There is no running from Transigen here, nothing she needs protected from — and she isn't even entirely alone like she'd been back home. She has Erik now, and John.

No delusions. She expects nothing from him, no matter if the howling in her chest suggests otherwise. Her head knows better.
logansmiddleclaw: (pensive)

[personal profile] logansmiddleclaw 2025-04-22 12:46 am (UTC)(link)
Logan doesn't fail to notice the glassiness in her gaze, but just as quick as it appeared, it's gone with a few blinks of her eyes. His jaw is clenching again, because this young girl in front of him was the one softly assuring him, and staying calm despite the fact she was just a kid, who had been handed things not even an adult should deal with. And as many times as he could repeat that to himself in his mind, it kept hitting him like a bucket of ice water over and over.

There's another pause after her words, where he let's them linger in the air perhaps a beat too long as he tries to sum up courage to answer her.

Even if you aren't a very nice one.

No soy una niña pequeña.

He knows he's not a nice man. He's never been. But he could be. He could be better. Besides hadn't he told Rogue he was done running? That meant he was done running from all the difficult things — from the fear that came with building and maintaining bonds and relationships. It meant he was done running from the mindset that he was nothing but a magnet of pain and misery. Even if the kid standing in front of him was some sort of reminder of that.

There's a glimpse of something in his eyes — maybe guilt, maybe regret, maybe just the weight of a hundred bad years pressing down on one moment too real to run from. And yet, his gaze doesn’t quite meet hers. It drifts just past, like looking directly at her might crack him open more. "You shouldn't have to say all that like you're makin' me feel better. You shouldn't have to understand."

His posture softens a bit as his knee digs into the tender earth beneath him, and yet there's a sort of awkwardness in his movements. Something not usually tied to Logan, but it's like he's forgotten how to let his guard down completely. "But I know what you're sayin', I do. You've had to grow up faster than anyone should." Another beat. Then his eyes flick back to hers, steady and sharp like they always get when the bullshit peels away.

"I don't know how to do this." he admits, despite her assurance that he didn't need to do anything. "And I sure as hell don’t know how to be what you need." He's not pushing her away. He's admitting his own inadequacies. As much as he had been closed off, not wanting her to have any delusions as to what he could be, he's not heartless nor that callous to turn his back on her. At least he's not that worn yet.

"But just 'cause you can do it alone… doesn't mean you should have to. I learned that the hard way, kid." But he doesn’t promise anything. Not love. Not a fairytale. Not a movie.
Edited 2025-04-22 00:46 (UTC)
valle: (111)

[personal profile] valle 2025-04-22 01:09 am (UTC)(link)
The longer he talks, the more the seed of a sense of wonderment begins to grow inside her. This version of him, this younger, healthier one... he's saying things she could not imagine the older version saying. Maybe by the time she met him, he had already lived too long and lost too much. Gotten too hurt, too many times. Maybe that curse he mentioned, that she thinks he passed on to her, too — maybe it took too much from him. This one still seems sad, but that sadness hasn't turned as bitter.

He is, she thinks, much more like the man from her comic books. The one she read about, whose likeness she used to build an image in her mind of what he might be like. Before she met him, back when it was just her and Gabriela going from motel to motel, she would pick up these comics for Laura and let her quietly read them, over and over and over again, imagining.

She imagined he would be an asshole. She imagined he would be mean and angry and violent — but that would be okay, because she is mean and angry and violent, and it only meant that they would have something in common. That they're the same. She imagined that, with enough time, she could trick him into liking her. Then, maybe after that, she could trick him into keeping her.

And then she met that final, dying version of Logan and even her relatively grounded fantasies came crashing furiously down. She resented him for it, just a little — and then he died for her, and now her feelings about her father are all over the place. A chaotic mess of grief and gratitude, yearning and anger, frustration and bitterness, disliking him and loving him. Just when she thought they couldn't get more complicated, here he comes acting a little like the man she hoped he would be.

She's wary.

She could be wrong.

He could still disappoint her. But- he isn't rejecting her outright, and frankly, that's the only way she can think of for her to feel disappointed by him anymore.

"I don't need you to be anything," the answer is simple. She doesn't need him at all. Does she want him? Well- that's complicated, and she doesn't want to think about that. She opens her mouth; closes it again and debates — but he already knows the biggest truth. She may as well say what she was gong to, it's not like she's going to bother hiding the rest. "You're different. I'm from later. Your future, when you're older. I only knew you for days, but you were angrier then."

A beat.

"You told me... bad shit happens to the people I care about. You gave me claws... but you gave me that, too. I think probably if you're close to me, you'll die. Maybe you shouldn't be."

Die again.
It feels only fair to warn him.
She worries about this for Erik, too. Worries about it constantly.
And then the thought begins to form in the back of her mind, the worry — how will this change things with Erik?
logansmiddleclaw: <lj user="citadel_icons"> (1)

[personal profile] logansmiddleclaw 2025-04-24 06:30 am (UTC)(link)
Logan remains silent, listening to everything she needs to say, and part of it confirms what he had assumed. She was from his future. Of course he doesn't know the details nor how it happened, but that doesn't matter yet. What matters is the fact that he's a father, to a small girl who'd been through hell. Or something close to it, he imagines.

The silence between them remains, but it's not empty. It's heavy with everything she just said and everything she didn’t. He’s been where she is — torn between hope and wariness, between wanting someone and fearing the pain they could bring. So, he doesn't rush. And finally, he speaks, and despite his voice remaining low, it still feels like he's talking too loud. "…You got my eyes." He huffs a short breath through his nose, not quite a laugh but more like something that hurts a little on the way out. "I don't mean the color. I mean that look. Like every good thing's on borrowed time."

But she's too young to have that look, and yet again it seemed like the universe, or whatever cosmic powers out there didn't care about her age. Perhaps it was a curse after all. His DNA. He just feels that guilt once more. And beyond the guilt, he feels regret. Not the loud, dramatic kind, but the quiet sort that sinks into his bones and stays, weighing down on him. Hearing about who he becomes — angrier — it's not a surprise.

Just a confirmation of what he already fears.

He shifts, weight rolling forward slightly on his knee, like he might say more but stops himself for a moment. He doesn’t want to crowd her. She's still watching him like he might disappear if she blinks too long.

"That sounds like somethin' I'd say. Bad shit does happen to people I care about. Even now, but — " He finally stands, his posture a little stiff. "— listen, kid. I've been where you are. I've pushed people away. Told myself I was better off alone. Hell, I even made it true a few times. But it didn't make me feel better. It just made me more empty. More alone. More angry.."

He pauses. It's odd, tapping into this type of quiet honesty. One less driven by harsh reality checks, and more by sympathy. He's not sure how to categorize the feeling but he wants this young girl to understand that despite the hand she was dealt, she deserved to live and seek out happiness. Maybe it was too late for him to find his happily ever after, but she still had time for something like that.

"You're alive, and yeah, that means bad shit happens sometimes. But you're not the the reason for it. People die because of the choices they make, or the ones life forces on 'em. Not because you care about 'em."
valle: (05)

[personal profile] valle 2025-04-25 03:34 am (UTC)(link)
It's strange, the way it feels to hear you got my eyes. It's an ache, a punch to the chest, in a way that hurts but that isn't necessarily bad. It's a rending, wrenching sort of good, and it makes her eyes prick all over again — frustrating, annoying, no matter how hard she stubbornly fights it down she can't entirely quell the tide of emotion that keeps threatening to overtake her.

Weapon or no, the reality is this: she is twelve years old, and she is seeing the dead father she's daydreamed about right in front of her, telling her kind things. There is no world where she's immune to this feeling, just like she wasn't immune to the grief of watching him die.

He stands; her eyes track up, up, up. He's not the tallest, but she feels especially small when he stands at full height.

She doesn't necessarily know if she believes people don't die just because she cares about them — not when there's a dedicated force of paramilitary operatives explicitly tracking down the people who have met her. But they aren't here, at least not yet. She can, maybe, let her guard down. Let herself believe it's okay to have things. It has been months, and both John and Erik are still alive. Charles is alive again. Logan is alive again. Maybe things are changing.

She doesn't know; she isn't sure what to make of this turn of events, or of this version of him. What they are to each other. What she might mean to him. What he might expect from her, what she should expect from him. It's too many questions to ask at once, so instead she just settles on:

"What now?"

Where do they go from here? They can't keep standing in the middle of a party, but she's not sure if he expects her to turn and walk away. Do they talk, or leave, or- what do they do?
logansmiddleclaw: <lj user="citadel_icons"> (4)

[personal profile] logansmiddleclaw 2025-04-27 07:37 am (UTC)(link)
There's an internal battle happening within him the longer he stares at the small human standing in front of him. Part of him is telling him to run, that anything he has to offer won't be enough for the kid, even if she doesn't expect anything from him. It's hypocritical, having just tried to assure her that she didn't bring bad things to people she cared for. Because he felt like he did. And the other part was telling him that running wasn't going to help. He said it himself. It only made him angrier — more alone.

If he had learned anything in Japan, it was that life was fragile, even for the man who could survive it all. That life could still have meaning, despite the proverbial albatross around his neck.

He looks down at her, expression unreadable for a moment as he measures the weight of her simple question. Then something in his face softens. He knows there's too many questions in the air. There's also too many things left unsaid — uncertainties, fears, and warring emotions. After all, she came from him. However that may have happened.

"What now?" He echoes, "Hell if I know. But we don’t gotta have it all figured out tonight. We can start with something small. Like your name for example. Then, I can walk ya back to wherever you're stayin'."



valle: (013)

wrapping!

[personal profile] valle 2025-04-27 09:16 am (UTC)(link)
Something small. Like her name — as though that is a small thing. It was given to her very recently by a woman who is dead, and she's been grappling with the concept of what John calls a mutant name — another one that she won't have until someone gives it to her.

"Laura," is what she ultimately settles on, because this is the simplest and the truest. And then she nods her head toward the castle; it's a little bit of a walk, but she's staying in the tower of Dawn Court. It would be good, probably, for him to know which one that is. Although... maybe he'll be able to smell her the way she can smell other people. Maybe he'd have been able to find her anyway.

In either case, it's not really about the finding her. It's about the walk, and they go together quietly... and perhaps a little awkwardly.