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

Yeah, and you seem to be doing such a great d'ast job of it, ( he mutters, roughly pushing the duvet away and disentangling himself. he's dressed in exactly what he fell asleep in: a long-sleeved black t-shirt that's rumpled and crinkled from several straight days of wear, cargo pants, and muted grey socks that were presumably at one point white.

in spite of the really good night's (question mark) sleep he's just had, he's dishevelled in the way that only someone who's Going Through Some Shit might be — his hair, curling softly at the ends, desperately needs a cut and his facial hair is in the midst of being undecided if it's just stubble or if peter's, like, in the process of growing an actual beard.

he runs a hand through his hair, brushing it away from his eyes and pointedly, deliberately turning his attention away from rodney. he's definitely not part of the guardians, definitely wasn't amongst the group he and groot had picked up at the outskirts of space. flarking great.

peter reads the letter whilst rodney waits.

peter reads the letter and finds he can't concentrate, finds he can't stop himself from glancing at rodney's foot every other word, because the tapping is like nails on a chalkboard and peter wonders whether it's deliberate or if this is just how he is.

(is it more or less annoying than groot and his goddamn sawdust? peter's not sure, it's definitely close.) )

Unless your plan is 'annoy Quill until he flarking murders me', because you are doing a great job of that one.

( it's uttered with a little less venom and a whole lot more 'I am too tired for this right now' that signifies, at least, that he's not even remotely serious about doing anything to rodney. )

[Rodney frowns, taking in Peter's general appearance. For a moment he wonders; the black T and the cargo pants aren't unfamiliar and he searches his memory for the military personnel on base. But there are so many people on Atlantis and he definitely doesn't bother memorizing all their faces. Especially not of the grunts that he files away under people who prevent me from getting shot.

And now he's reading the letter which is so fifteen minutes ago. Rodney tilts his head back, staring at the ceiling, his hand making an impatient, circular gesture along with the tapping. Come on, come on, come on.]

Unknown entity called the Mayor has us trapped in this room, probably a simulation, maybe traveled through space and time, door doesn't open until we Rorschach our erythrocytes on it.

[There, does that speed things up?

Except then Peter mentions murder and that stops him short. His mouth opens, closes.]

You could but seeing as I am your best bet at figuring out what is actually going on here, that would be incredibly stupid and short-sighted.

[There's a pause, a hesitation as his eyes dart over at him again. He knows that tone and not-actually-serious-threat from his team and he thinks he'll be fine but...]

So don't. Murder me. It's very counter-productive.

( peter makes a noise that's part scoff, part exhale, part sigh — he's positive that rodney is not, in fact, his best bet of figuring out what's going on here, but it's fine. rodney can have his ego if that's what it's going to take to get him through this. )

Uh-huh, ( he murmurs disinterestedly. quill doesn't seem to have rung any bells with rodney which — it's not exactly a blow to peter, per se, but he's not sure if he's relieved or disappointed. he's pleased he doesn't have to go through the 'no, please don't call me star-lord, that's not where I am in my life right now' conversation for, like, the fiftieth time this month, but there's a certain comfort and ease that comes with at least being recognised.

he drops the letter down on his bed, turning on his heels to face the door. he wants to try the door, but based on rodney's attitude and general everythingness, peter's pretty sure he'll just make himself look like an idiot. so he doesn't. he stands there and he considers his options, and he wonders if he's as old as he feels right now.

he glances back towards rodney. )

—Look, ( he says after a moment, irritation all but dissipating. ) I'm, like, definitely not as hungover as I should be right now, but that doesn't mean— ( he waves a hand at the motel room, then at rodney. ) I don't kinda want to just crawl back into that bed and go back to sleep and hopefully wake back up on my ship, so if you could just ( he motions with his hands as if to say, 'just be smaller and quieter in literally every respect', ), that'd be really great. Thank you.

( a beat. ) If you want to try the blood thing, fine, whatever, I've been through weirder. I mean, it's not like you're going to be offering yourself up, right?

[Right. More hungover than murdery. That's good, that's comforting. And the guy - Quill - seems engaged now, interested in their situation and how to go from here and that placates Rodney somewhat. Only his eyes narrow slightly and he tilts his head as he listens.]

What? [He mirrors the hand gesture obtusely.] What, what is that? What does that mean? And yes, I want to try the blood thing. Obviously?

[Still, he looks mildly insulted at the (absolutely apt) insinuation.]

I would? I could. I mean, I would be absolutely capable of performing the act myself but these hands? [Holding them up with a slight wiggle.] Might be needed the moment we leave this room and its potential containment field. So from a purely survivalist perspective, it makes a lot more sense for you to-- wait, did you say ship?

[His brain leaps back to several strings of information that his brain has been sort of sifting through in the background during all... that.]

Are you from the Daedalus? You guys aren't due for another week.

( peter's brow furrows and knits together in scepticism as rodney questions what his decidedly not vague, thank you very much, but okay maybe a little bit hand gesture meant. ) Cool it? ( he suggests, intonation edging towards questioning, but it's less a question to rodney and more a question of rodney. "how did you not get that?" it says. the response overlaps with rodney's own continued ramblings about how he'd totally definitely do the blood thing if only his hands weren't super special and important; and peter's not sure if rodney actually heard him, really, genuinely cares about the response or if he just likes to hear the sound of his own voice.

peter knows, oh, he knows he shouldn't judge, but the more rodney speaks, the more the despair that peter feels deepens. he's not going to make assumptions as to what rodney's like in a fight, but he feels with bone-deep certainty that if they get out of this room and encounter less-than-friendly faces, there's not a chance in hell that peter's going to let this guy talk and ruin everything for them.

the letter said about a handprint's worth of blood, but it didn't say it had to come from a hand, so peter starts rolling up his sleeves — both, because if this makes a mess, these are the only clothes peter has for the time being, and he's quite fond of them, you know? they've served him well and they're really comfortable.

he opens his mouth to either reply to rodney's deluge of words or to sigh, it's not quite clear. peter's attention is fixated on his sleeves as his mind wanders through his options: maybe he could just pretend to die and rodney could go on without him once they get the door open. he'd finally get some peace and flarking quiet in his life.

that'd be nice.

but as soon as rodney questions ship, peter's focus snaps back to him, fingers remaining folded around the sleeve of his shirt mid-roll. then rodney says daedalus and he scoffs, gaze immediately softening. dismissively, he says— )

Who'd name their ship after Icarus's son? ( not a guy who named their ship after winona, evidently. ) No, ( he adds, with barely a breath of a pause. ) My ship's the Ryder.

And if it helps, I was trying to take a trip to Knowhere. ( pronounced exactly as it sounds, which is to say: there's no indication that peter's not saying 'nowhere'. ) But apparently it's taken a vacation from floating around at the edge of the galaxy, ( he adds, lips pressing together momentarily. that whole situation was really weird, probably weirder than this and probably linked to the whole — thanos deal, which peter missed because groot decided it wasn't important enough.

—mmm, not thinking about that. nope. ) which is kinda annoying. ( beat. ) Do you have a knife?

TEST DRIVE MEME #1

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