Trixie (left) and Nikita (right)
The Testimony of Trixie Glimmer Smith
is a short Visual Novel released in late 2018, following slacking college student Trixie through a week of school-disrupting horror. It all starts when top student Nikita calls in a favor for helping her last semester. She wants her to track down a certain playbook only rumored to exist...The King in Yellow.
This story is the second installment in the "Bluehills County Stories" series, following the Point-and-Click Adventure Game Parsnip, and features cameos from multiple characters of that game including Parsnip himself. This story is followed by Three Lesbians in a Barrow, where Trixie and Nikita are trapped overnight in a tomb with Nikita's one-sided nemesis Tabithia Knight, and then by Three Lesbians in a Winter Special, where the three celebrate Snowmas. Spin-offs include Trixie creating self-insert fanfiction, a revised version of a book found in Barrow, and a collection of short stories of events in Bluehills' history.
Tropes for Testimony or both novels:
- Academic Alpha Bitch: Nikita, and her student president campaign posters have a distinctly fascistic bent.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Nikita's list of demands upon becoming class president range from the strict but reasonable to the fascist, and end with a demand that they repair a vending machine so she can get her favorite candy bars.
- Artistic License – Medicine: Trixie wears her oestrogen patches on her ear. The art book mentions that's probably not safe, but they're the only place she doesn't have fur and she's too lazy to shave her thigh.
- Big Eater: Trixie has a serious sweet tooth and a tendency to blow through snacks fast.
- Cast Full of Gay: Gregg lampshades this, mentioning that it seems hard to find someone who isn't some sort of queer in this town.
- Framing Device: The story is presented as being Trixie's extenuating circumstances statement of case as for why she needs extra time to complete her assignment.
- The Ghost: Tabby is mentioned several times in The Testimony of Trixie Glimmer Smith as Nikita's opposition for student president, but never appears in that game. The Magnificent Magpie is similarly never seen despite being referred to frequently.
- Kill It with Fire: Trixie's solution to the Meat Golem Gregg summons. And Nikita, should Trixie fail to talk her down.
- Multiple Endings: Putting aside minor variations like who you hung out with or what items you grabbed, there's two major ones. One where Trixie talks Nikita down, successfully stopping her ritual and convincing her that she isn't the heir of Carcosa, and one where Trixie fails, gets stabbed, and throws a gas canister into the basement, killing Nikita in a fiery explosion. The latter's epilogue has Trixie in such a deteriorated mental state that she's writing her testimony on the walls of her dorm and has begun obsessing over The King In Yellow. It's also possible to get a mix of both where Trixie succeeds and Nikita lives, but Trixie is still obsessed with the cursed play.
- No Canon for the Wicked:
- The world obviously didn't end, and most of Parsnip's cast are still alive, so one of the better endings is presumably canon.
- In Three Lesbians in a Barrow Nikita vehemently shuts down any attempt by Trixie to talk about what happened "that summer", but given they're both reasonably functional one can assume there was a good ending.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Two figures mentioned are obviously based on H.P. Lovecraft, and riff off of his infamous bigotry. P.H. Lubbkruft was the founder of Bluebell University and had something against carnivores, while P.H. Lovelace, the author the The Eyes in the Dark, held a grudge against postal workers.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Almost literally with the cardboard boxes Trixie and Gregg wear on their heads. Surprisingly it works on everyone, except for Parsnip.
- Police Are Useless: The police immediately stopped searching for the Squirrel family after LeRose guessed based on nothing that they'd just gone on a cruise, and left all the boxes of evidence outside. If Trixie reports finding their skulls the police reply that they don't have the budget to investigate it.
- Played With later on. Once Nikita reveals her intention to sit upon Carcosa's broken throne and runs off with a weapon, Trixie can decide whether or not she should call the police. Declining has her guess they won't bother and it's up to Trixie do fix things. Electing to do so has her call the police (and insult them a little), only for them to whisper cryptically and mention Carcosa, leading Trixie to believe Nikita compromised them... Only for her to get a message later from a pizza place called Copp's, who are blacklisting her for prank calling them.
- Sanity Slippage: Trixie’s already tenuous grasp on reality starts to fade as she interacts with the book. There’s no visible measurement of her sanity, just the effects on the interface.
- To say nothing of The Magnificent Magpie and Nikita, after they read The King In Yellow. The latter becomes visibly disturbed and goes from wanting to write a report on The King In Yellow to wanting to open a portal to Carcosa so she can become its ruler, while the former lost their mind entirely.
- Shear Menace: Nikita grabs Trixie's crazy scissors in her maddened state and uses them to threaten Trixie into backing down. She gets to use them in the bad endings.
- Show Within a Show: Cyber Drak-Cool-Yas from Mars, a cartoon Trixie loves that was "pretty rubbish" according to the art book, and The Eyes in the Dark, a short story by P.H. Lovelace. The former is the focus of Rat and Bat, while the latter makes in appearance in Three Lesbians in a Barrow and has a revised version linked above.
- Talking the Monster to Death: In the better endings, Trixie uses this and any important items she picked up along the way to convince Nikita she isn't actually the heir to Carcosa.
- The Slacker: Why Trixie owed Nikita a favor in the first place, she has a tendency to spend hours watching sheep meme videos or writing saucy fanfiction instead of doing schoolwork. While Bell mentions that her new manager has made it harder for her to slack off on the job since Parsnip.
- Take That!: Their world's version of Brexit is apparently happening for such a petty reason as the EU-equivalent's mascot sheep biting the Prime Minister's son.
- Timed Mission: Near the final third of the game, Trixie goes to the library and has six hours to read books and arm herself with knowledge on how to stop Nikita's ritual. Some books are more useful than others, and they all take varying amounts of time to get through. It's also possible for Trixie to suffer a lapse in sanity and waste an hour in catatonia.
- Unreliable Narrator: Taking a page from the original The King in Yellow, Trixie's hazy mental state means what she sees isn't always what's happening in reality, and multiple playthroughs are required to get a clear picture of what's really happening. One notable example of this would be Nikita grabbing Trixie's crazy scissors and brandishing them as a weapon, which Trixie can either see them as they are, or mistakenly believe Nikita grabbed a knife.
- World of Funny Animals: All of the characters are anthropomorphic animals of some stripe, with the only non-sapient animals seen being the sheep used as livestock.
Tropes exclusively for Barrow:
- Apocalyptic Log: Rosie Sleet's notes, detailing her going to Fogsbane Barrow after contracting Blood Rot, getting injured, meeting Everrot Timedust, and eventually perishing.
- Ascended Extra: After being The Ghost in Testimony, Tabby is the protagonist this time around.
- Bottle Episode: Three Lesbians in a Barrow is set in two rooms.
- Cutting Off the Branches: A line in Three Lesbians in a Winter Special mentions Nikita beating an immortal warlock to death, meaning the ending where Tabby attempts to perform the banishing ritual and fails is presumably canon.
- The Ghost: Despite being the antagonist of this game who either comes close to or outright makes contact with one of the main characters, we never see Everrot Timedust, nor do we get a description of him. The only details given are that he was a fox and that he never recovered from Delloin Defteye slicing his face in half.
- Goth Girls Know Magic: Zig-zagged; Tabby dresses in black and is a witch, though the only spell she casts is the banishing ritual for Everrot, which doesn't necessarily work.
- Multiple Endings: Three distinct ones this time. One where Tabby successfully performs the ritual to seal Everrot Timedust, one where she fails and Nikita beats him to death, and one where they clear the debris keeping Nikita trapped inside and all manage to run away in time.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Everrot Timedust, and his tomb, Rot Prison.
- Timed Mission: Expanding on a one-time mini-game from The Testimony, there are several moments where Tabby is given a lot of things to read or do but only so much time to divide between them.
- Title Drop: Tabby suggests that her, Trixie, and Nikita’s situation would make A Good Name for a Rock Band. Trixie mentions that she’s actually bisexual, and Nikita insists she’s an academic... with lesbian characteristics.
