cursedcontent | TEST DRIVE MEME #1

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

a blood offering.

a. [ Someone's first impulse after awakening in a locked room following what might be the weirdest Foreboding Portent of Things to Come™ would probably be something proactive: break the door down, call for help, look for a window to pry loose. You know, common sense stuff people usually do when they're thrust into a new and frightening situation.

Those people aren't Ash Williams, and the situation, while definitely new, is hardly any more frightening than the last twenty-four(ish) hours he's spent fighting for his life in a cabin that may or may not be alive — sorta. He uneasily watches the other person in the room as they sleep, standing with his back pressed against the wall as far away from their bed as possible. Just a- a precaution, that's all. After the night he's had, a surprise attack from a friendly face wouldn't be left-field at all. The less of those he has from here on out, the better.

At least, he hopes it's a friendly face. Hard to see all of it given how much they've cocooned themselves up in the tacky comforter, but he doesn't see any blood or slips of decaying flesh, so he's just going to assume the best and hope they stay asleep, at least until he gets out of here. After that, who knows? Ash ain't about to tell them how to live their best life, especially if they might not even be alive to begin with.

But when the shape on the bed begins to stir, it seems like the choice is out of his hands. Ash's pulse spikes when the stranger sits up, and he's already slowly edging toward the door by the time they turn their head to him, holding both hands up in... an apology, a gesture of peace, surrender? Hell if he knows, whichever one'll keep them from killing him quicker. ]

Hey, uh— look, before you say anything, can you please — please just hear me out first? I don't have anything to do with this, I swear. I woke up here, same as you. [ He frowns, brow creasing in confusion as his eyes skirt around the room. ] I think?

[ If this really is a hallucination, it's a pretty weird one even by evil soul-sucking cabin standards. ]

b. [ And once the initial wackiness of that first conversation passes and you've both calmed down, it's time to get the hell out of here. No more beating around the bush, no more whining, no more waiting to be rescued — now is the time to buckle down and get serious.

Or you could start trashing the place, that works too.

The nightstand cracks in Ash's hands when he brings it down on the doorknob. Initially the goal had been to simply break the lock, but at some point it evolves into just trying to put a dent in the fucking thing. Sweat beads at his temples as he picks the stand up and tries again, grunting as he all but chucks it at the door, only for it nearly fall to pieces when it hits the ground, landing on the remains of the drawer that had popped out of it somewhere between the second and third attempts. ]

Huh, thought for sure it'd work that time.

[ It didn't work the first five times. ]

Let's tryyyyy... [ He snaps his fingers as he looks around the room for their next victim, eyes landing on the boxy television set sitting in the corner. ] Let's try the TV next.

roller rink.

[ Skating, good music, free stuff — it's like someone took Ash's favorite things and organized a whole party around them. If the circumstances were different, he'd be thrilled, but the sensible part of his brain that's still gripped in fight-or-flight mode and isn't likely to change anytime soon tells him it's too good to be true. He's been to enough of these kinds of events back home to know that there's always a catch. Nobody just gives away Walkmans for free, unless you sign up to buy a timeshare or it's through one of those Publisher's Clearing House sweepstakes or something.

Or if you're a half-decent skater, evidently, which the majority of the people here... aren't. Honestly, that surprises Ash more than the fact that, by all appearances, this just seems like a run-of-the-mill roller rink. Last time he checked, it's 1981 — who doesn't know how to skate? ]

First time?

[ Ash carefully weaves around the skating couples in his way until he gets to the person he saw go down on the floor, coming to a smooth stop beside them. He holds his hand out to help them back up on their feet. ]

Here, hold on to my arm— yeah, like that.

[ Something tells Ash to turn on the charm. The little puff-up of his chest and the way his sympathetic smile turns into a crooked grin are his ways of telling the stranger they're in good hands as he leads by example, skating in a semi-circle around them. ]

See? It ain't so bad once y'get used to it. Just gotta keep moving, that's a—

[ Only to lose his balance when another skater zooms past him, causing him to fumble and fall flat on his face with a crash. ]

( Ash's canon point is post-The Evil Dead and somewhere during the first half of Evil Dead II before his hand gets possessed (guess what his curse is going to be). Have an idea for another scene? Drop me a PM and we'll discuss it! )

Edited 2022-08-21 18:42 (UTC)

[Like ice skating her butt! She thought the wheels would work like the blades they'd had for their shoes in the winter, but she'd thought wrong, apparently, sending an already very bruised girl to the floor, skirts spread out around her. She takes a moment to consider her position, sighs, and starts to try to push herself up again. It doesn't work.

Not until a man comes up next to her, and offers a hand.] That obvious, yeah?

[She looks at him, frowning just slightly. He's incredibly handsome, and she likes the way he smiles. About Bill's age, she wouldn't wonder, with a surprising amount of grace. She likes his smile. She takes his hand, hoisting herself up on to two feet.]

Yeah, I suppose you've just got to- [And he's down for the count. Nancy gives a small noise of surprise and now it's her turn to reach down toward him.] Here, let's get you up and you can keep telling me how easy it is.

[ Ash is lucky that the person slotted cozily into the other bed is Jonathan, because in the grand scheme of things he's not the most reactive guy on the planet. at the very least, he's not liable to hit first and ask questions second.

Jonathan has bedhead for the entire conversation. someone help him. part of him wants to go back to bed after the man - Ash - explains too quickly that this isn't his fault, that the door appears to be locked from the outside... it's all a little sketchy, but he looks too freaked out, Jonathan thinks, to be lying about it. if he'd been the one to wake up first, he'd probably feel the same way.

of course, then shit starts to get a little wild ... or, Ash starts to get a little wild, and it stirs something in Jonathan, too. if they're stuck in here, they'd might as well live out all their wildest rockstar fantasies. ]

You're sure the door's not just stuck? Did you try calling the front desk?

[ if the question is a little condescending, Jonathan really doesn't mean for it to be. it's just his voice! and: ]

You're bleeding a little.

[ too bad neither of them has bothered to ... read the piece of paper that was on the nightstand. it'd fluttered under the bed when Ash had lofted the nightstand into his arms; a little corner of it is sticking out, not that Jonathan noticed. his attention is half on Ash's blood, half on the TV, which he's quite interested in breaking. ]

TEST DRIVE MEME #1

ashley williams (evil dead)

roller rink

blood offering a/b/(o)