cursedcontent | TEST DRIVE MEME #1

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TEST DRIVE MEME #1

A Blood Offering

You wake up cozy in bed at the Saturn Motel. As you observe the room you may realize that it looks a little dated. Or, perhaps from your point of view the lamp and TV are wildly futuristic. Or, like Goldilocks, it may seem just right: close to the world you just left behind. Either way, you just had a very strange dream (see the arrival scenario) and now you're here. And you're not alone: there's a bed next to yours and someone else is waking up just like you are.

You can chat for a while if you like, but if you try to leave you'll find the door is firmly locked and no amount of kicking, punching, or hitting it with an object will do you any good. Instead, there's a letter on the nightstand which reads:

"Good morning and welcome to your new home!

You may be wondering why you're trapped in this room. Fear not, the door will open easily if you offer a bit of blood. More than a few drops but not enough to be a serious wound. A handprint's worth will do, let's say, and it only needs to come from one of you.

I'll let you sort that out yourselves. See you on the other side.

Sincerely,
The Mayor"

And indeed, a handprint's worth of blood pressed against the door will unlock it and let you out into the world. Do you volunteer your own blood? Do you take it from the other person by force? It's up to you! But there's no food in here, so you better figure it out eventually.

Roller Rink

As a celebration of your new lives here (and an apology for the whole blood offering thing - they were just testing something out, really) the Mayor has invited everyone to the Crazy Eight Roller Rink for a private, after-hours party.

Attendance isn't mandatory, but it is heavily encouraged so that you can meet your fellow Cursed and know who's in on the whole secret. It'll help you down the line at some point if your Curse gets out of control and you need someone to wrangle you.

As a reward, everyone who shows up and completes at least one lap around the roller rink (you must be wearing skates, but you can crawl the lap if you can't get the hang of them) will receive a free walkman with a mystery tape inside. The color, style, and mystery tape your character gets are up to you.

Mallrats

Everyone loves the mall! Right? Right! And this group of newcomers is lucky enough to be here for the White Pines Mall Grand Opening celebration! Feel free to walk around the mall and partake in sales galore, check out the attractions, or just get to know the layout of the place.

The Mayor has given everyone a gift card for $100 that can be used anywhere in the mall as long as they attend the Grand Opening.

They also strongly suggest that you familiarize yourself with the mall and its layout, just in case you ever get stuck there for a while and have to compete with others for food and resources. But that probably won't happen.

Extra Info

The test drive meme and the IC intro log will have the same prompts, and threads between two accepted characters can count as game canon.

The first prompt is flexible: technically you're supposed to be with one other person, but if you want to do larger groups that's fine.

Rooms at the Saturn Motel initially contain two beds for the prompt, but upon leaving and returning characters will find that they all have their own rooms with one bed. If you want a roommate, someone better be ready to sleep on the floor or snuggle up! The room doesn't have to look exactly like the reference image as long as it's not too fancy and suitably dated.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I. BLOOD OFFERING

[If she didn’t know better, she’d think she were back in Westview. But that thought leaves as soon as it comes, and Wanda sits upright and turns to stare at the other person in the room with equal parts apprehension and suspicion.

This isn't the dream she just had. This is real. But dreams can't always be trusted, nor can something that seems so real, like the dated duvet under her hands.]

Who are you?

[Something feels terribly wrong beyond that vivid dream and the words said to her within it.]

II. ROLLER RINK

Careful.

[Maybe you look unsteady on your feet, or maybe you simply came too close to Wanda, but it’s a light warning as she keeps a hand on the side of the rink.]

III. MALL RATS

[Wanda takes her time walking around the mall, keeping to herself for the most part, but she does actually need to buy herself some clothes given she seems to be unable to magic them herself. So, it’s at Ruby’s where she pauses and decides to step in.

Find her with a pair of jeans and a jacket draped over her arm, or lingering at a clothing rack to examine a shirt. Plain, simple clothes. A far cry from the black and red suit she has on currently.

She sort of looks like she should be shopping at Oblivion, but no.

Eventually, she’ll make her purchases and circle the carousel, watching to see if anyone gets on.]

[Nell got distracted on her own course to the shirts by spying some rather comfy looking jeans. So those joined the red cable sweater as she wanders up to the other side of the same rack. Catching really just a glimpse of the other woman, she pauses with a sort of bemused smile on her face. (After all, it had been around Halloween that she'd wandered back to Hill House.)]

I don't think I've seen that look before. It's very detailed. [Her tone is appreciative, for sure. Nell is still wearing her mother's "nightgown" of a dress, hair down to hide the faint bruising around the neck.]

[Wanda glances down at herself, as if she wasn't aware. Even so, it still strikes her as unrecognizable, in some strange way. She doesn't remember when the red began to tarnish into black.]

It doesn't really fit in with the aesthetic.

[She gives a vague motion to the store, to the patterns and cuts that are very dated, as far as Wanda's concerned.]

[She smiles and glances over her shoulder at the very nostalgic and dated decor.] You know, it does feel a bit like a time capsule here.

[She looks back at the other woman.] But I guess that means at least we'll have decent pockets. [Somewhere to put this silly "cell" phone and the Walkman.] It's either that or fanny packs.

[Time capsule, magic, another world. Maybe the specifics don't matter anymore.]

Kind of them to give us the money for it.

[She shifts her haul to show off the cut on her hand, fresh cut down her palm. It's no longer bleeding, but it's there.]

As kind of them to make us use our blood to open a door.

[So, Wanda's not actually all that taken with the so-called hospitality, but without her magic there's not much she can do.]

[It's all new to her. The House...well, it was its own kind of madness to be sure. Its own reality.] Had to get some kind of payment out of us, I suppose. [Her own cut is down at the base of her palm in the meaty bits, mostly because she's nothing more than skin and bones on a good day. Currently bandaged with a strip of her dress, she's not really attached to it anymore at the moment.]

They could have just kept us locked up if they really wanted. [She picks up a black shirt.] Though... I guess, we're not allowed much further than town limits so it's just a bigger cell with enrichment. [Have to keep them occupied while they try to fix the Curses.]

[The Hex and this place are sharing too many similarities.]

We're here to play a part.

[Always.]

( peter's sleeping habits are capital-p poor. he has no routine to speak of, having a tendency to let circumstances dictate where and when he ought to sleep. on the plus — quote-unquote, it's a mixed fortune — side, when he does sleep, he can and will sleep through anything, regardless of where he is. )

'Mdead. ( is his answer, an "I'm dead" that's muffled and enunciated all as one. he doesn't both moving his head away from the pillow or even pulling the duvet away from his face to attempt to reply properly. instead, he pulls the blanket tighter, attempts to further cocoon himself from the outside world.

at first.

the ensuing pause lingers as the question slowly, slowly registers with peter. who are you she'd asked, and he doesn't know who she is, either. there's no 'she' on his ship, not anymore, not after gamora had decided to go completely flarking nutso and—

—whatever.

he cracks open one eye, then the second. the finer details of the room don't sink in at first, just the bed opposite his. the multitudes of browns that don't exist on the ryder and a particularly garish bedspread that tugs at peter's memories and makes him think, quite suddenly, of home. )

Shit. ( is what he manages as he sits up, quite abruptly, and his gaze settles — finally — on wanda. )

[Dead isn't completely out of the question. While she doesn't think her afterlife would be like some 80's hotel she can't even say that for certain, because she's due for some punishment, isn't she? It's not her era of preference.]

Are you hurt?

[He doesn't look it. She's not. She feels amazingly refreshed, actually, and stands up to peek her head into the bathroom without waiting for a response, though her footsteps falter when she catches sight of herself in the mirror. Black and red and not an image she enjoys, so she ignores it, because she's far more concerned with how she came to be here with this man.]

No.

( it's uttered with the forceful resignation of someone that perhaps thinks they should be. or at least, peter doesn't think he should be hurt, per se, but he definitely shouldn't feel as good as he does.

he hasn't slept that well in — oof, ever. waking is usually a multi step process: despair, bargaining, acceptance, coffee, and maybe a tylenol or two. then more coffee.

that is to say: peter quill is not a morning person.

he moves to stand, running a hand through his hair — blonde and dishevelled, the ends falling back into his eyes as soon as he drops his arm back to his side.

he glances towards the bathroom as she makes her way towards it. there's something vaguely familiar about her, but he can't put his finger on what. he'll circle back round to it later, he thinks, attention shifting away from her and to the letter that's been left in the room. )

Peter Quill. ( he answers, finally and belatedly, a frown knitting his eyebrows together as he reads. )

[Later probably comes much sooner than anticipated. Wanda pauses in her steps back to the bed he woke up in, eyes settling on this stranger again. Not that the Peter Quill she knows of is anything less of a stranger. There would be more of an outward reaction if she hadn't just dipped her fingers into the multiverse.]

Do they call you Starlord?

[She asks for clarification, because there could be other people with that name, of course. And maybe he does fill that spot in his corner of the universe. Maybe he doesn't go by Starlord. There's room for countless variations.

Ultimately, it doesn't really matter.

Wanda frowns, watching his expression as he reads. And maybe to see his reaction when she introduces herself.]

My name is Wanda Maximoff.

( he doesn't look particularly surprised when she asks if he's called star-lord, but the corners of his lips quirk slightly and the response is an immediate, dismissive— ) Sometimes. ( a beat. ) I prefer Peter.

( over the years, he's had a love-hate relationship with the name slash title slash pseudonym, peter's not really sure what to call it. on good days, when things have gone to plan and he has a crew and a team and they haven't imploded due to his poor decisions and apparent inability to listen and take the right action? yeah, sure, star-lord is great.

the rest of the time? when it serves as a poor reminder of everything he regrets and misses and is trying to ineffectively run away from? it's less great.

then she says her name is wanda and he looks at her — really looks at her. she's not the wanda he's familiar with, he's almost certain of that, and she's definitely not the wanda he'd encountered in the cancerverse, either.

there could be worse people to be stuck in this room with, he thinks. he holds the letter out to her. ) I'd say it's nice to meet you, but we've already met. ( beat. ) Kinda, anyway, I guess. ( a breath of a pause because one, he's dealt with weirder and two, they've — apparently — got more important things to deal with. ) Have you read this?

Edited 2022-08-21 08:09 (UTC)

[For all that seems to be lacking and leaving her with a distinct sense of unease, there's still the urge to ask. What's she like? But it doesn't matter. She gains nothing from knowing whether other Wandas are living happily ever after or living a life more similar to her own.

She gives him a faint smile before taking the letter. Reads it once, twice.]

Blood?

[She thinks not. Wanda sets the note down with a soft exhale and decides to simply go and try the door. It was next on her to-do list, anyway.

Naturally, it doesn't budge when she tries the handle. Go figure.]

( like wanda, peter's gut response is to doubt the letter, to think that there's another way out of the room than what it's saying they need to do. more than that, even, there's a sizeable part of him that thinks this is still a dream — it wouldn't be the weirdest dream he's ever had in his life, and it would explain a whole lot more than the "dream" he'd had before waking.

while she tries the door, peter circles the room, running his hands over the TV, the radio and the phone before trying each one in turn. for the first, there's nothing but static and the radio refuses to pick up a single station, whilst the phone is — dead. just dead.

he drops the handset with a noticeable lack of care before turning back towards wanda. she's managed a whole lot of nothing with the door and he eyes her quizzically. )

Can't you— ( he waves his hands vaguely. she has powers, doesn't she? ) —You know?

[Wanda's slow to believe what she's told by people she doesn't know, but anything is within the real of possibility. She knows that much, now. The noise from the television and radio almost disturbs her more than the letter.

But maybe the most disturbing thing is that she can't do anything more than what she just did. Try the door.]

I should. But I can't.

[She splays out her hands before her, and there's nothing. No red glow. No destruction of the door. It's like something just beyond reach, in a shelf just beyond the extension of her fingertips.]

I don't know if it's this place or if something was done to me.

[There are plenty of ways to stop magic in its tracks, but you'd think that maybe being some prophesized bringer of ruin would grant her a pass. No exceptions, apparently.]

Either way, my magic isn't working.

[She looks to the door again. It must have a magic to it, then, and it doesn't want them to cheat.]

( his gaze rests on her when she says that she doesn't know if it's the place or if it's her. he doesn't know her — any her — well enough to offer words of comfort or support, or even conjecture on which it could be.

there's a part of him that thinks that if they'd done something to her, then they'd have been able to do something about the curse. it's not, then, that he thinks it's the former, that it's the place, it's just a little something-something to keep in mind regarding how much of the truth they've been given.

he doesn't have powers to miss, but he has noticed the distinct lack of his helmet and his element gun. either-or would have been a great boon with the door, so of course he doesn't have either.

he steps in front of the door, looking it over from the hinges to the handle to the lock and the couple-ish of centimetres gap between the door and the frame. it's not the first time he's been imprisoned somewhere and he's positive it won't be the last, and he's seen way more secure-looking cells than a cheap motel door.

which really doesn't help with the 'leaving' part of the equation. )

You notice the letter doesn't actually tell us why we're in here? ( he half-asks, half-comments. "you may be wondering", it says, and d'ast right he is, before it goes on to talk about blood and do precisely zero explaining of the why. ) You're not squeamish are you? ( an actual question this time, rather than commentary.

whilst he's not, strictly speaking, happy about the escape method proposed in the letter, peter's (in)voluntarily provided a hell of a lot more blood than the equivalent of a handprint before, on more occasions than he can count; and as far as he's concerned, it's not a question as to who'll provide the blood. )

wanda maximoff | mcu

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