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.

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[ now there's an amusing mental image ]

such as?

You telling me where you are?

( "bruh." )

Or else I'm telling you right now that any hint of caffeine withdrawal, and I'm finding the closest d'ast thing I can in this place and drinking it.

( sike! he'll be doing that anyway. )

i see how it is
fine, i'll make it easy for you

[ and so she sends a room number, whatever it is ]

if your stomach lining get eaten away, i'm not sure how much i can do for you

( that was easy, and despite the fact that peter's not currently suffering from anything remotely approaching caffeine withdrawal, there's a not unsizeable part of him that considers making the journey down the hall anyway.

(what? he likes company.) )

That's a very generous assumption of my living standards to date.

Edited 2022-08-23 19:58 (UTC)

[ true story: she likes company, too. ]

i'd say don't tell me
but now i'm actually curious

I'm just saying, I didn't get to where I am today through clean living.

( it's all relative, but objectively speaking, he definitely eats like shit — macros? what are those?, drinks too much, gets nowhere near enough sleep, and is damn near allergic to anything that resembles routine.

he will occasionally drink a protein shake though, so like, success?

BUT ANYWAY, surprise!

it takes peter all of five minutes to decide he's bored and tired of being alone in his motel room. the 80s were amazing the first time round, but that was mostly because he'd been a kid, and ever since leaving earth, he's looked back on the era with rose-tinted glasses.

and that was mostly because he'd had his mom.

and whilst this may not be earth, not in any true sense (jury's still out on that), it's close enough to feel weird. close enough for peter to take a trip to the mall and feel remarkably out-of-place, that despite everything, despite earth being home, it's not home.

and he hates it.

he hates, too, not having anyone to talk to. no-one he can just hit up with a phone call (no, wait, not a phone call, because anything he has that resembles charm immediately dissipates whenever he speaks into a phone), but the point remains.

(and he'd got the impression that matt murdock hadn't exactly been thrilled to hear his voice.)

so he walks one way down the hallways of the motel before realising, abruptly, he'd gone the wrong flarking way, and heads back the way he'd come. he checks the room number he'd been given, looks at the brass number decorating the door, and knocks. )

[ christine's no saint herself, which she debates telling him, but —she's having fun with this conversation, even if it's shooting the shit more than anything else at least on her end. banter, if you will.

it's a solid distraction and she isn't actually worried his stomach lining will dissolve in the next ten minutes from drinking shitty motel coffee. ]

so you won't be sharing recipes for kale smoothies with me? that's disappointing

[ are kale smoothies a thing? she vaguely remembers they were a thing at some point; she'd read about them in an old journal, but she can't for the life of her remember what period the text was from, and now she no longer has access to it.

maybe she should see if she can get her hands on medical journals here, make this a research stay with a focus on archeological medicine. that could be something. but before she's considered the thought more seriously, there's a knock on the door.

she assumes it'll be her current conversation partner, but assumptions aren't certainty and so her gaze is alert when she opens the door. not mistrustful, just —ready. ]

Hi.

( peter's as equally unworried about his stomach lining as she is — he figures that if he's managed to survive this long on a diet that is classed predominately as "questionable", he thinks he'll be okay.

and realistically speaking, he should be dead by now anyway, so it's a moot point. but for the grace of a guy with a powerful goatee and a penchant for alliteration.

she answers the door and he's not sure if she's quite what he was expecting. he thinks that she is, for as much as appearances mean anything: a careful, poised appearance that manages to align with almost every military personnel he's had the (mis)fortune of meeting.

he's less dishevelled than he had been when he'd first woken up, although his shirt and his pants are both clearly well-worn and well-loved, and his hair, whilst still in need of a cut, has been brushed.

hashtag winning. )

Oh my god, ( he says by way of greeting. no 'hi', no 'hello, this is peter quill', no 'what was this about my stomach lining?' ) The last time I was on Earth, they'd decided kale was trendy. Something about the Hulk and green and smashing? ( a beat. ) I guess Popeye and spinach aren't cool anymore.

( this will be very embarrassing, he thinks, if this isn't ms. uss enterprise-chapel. )

[ she's no longer in uniform, having exchanged the white jumpsuit for something that'll blend in a bit better and she's not technically starfleet personnel —a civilian exchange from the stanford epigenetics programme helping with starfleet's desire to observe non-spacefaring worlds without interfering or risk of discovery. "making disguises", la'an had called christine's research. it's a gross oversimplification, but it's not, at its core, inaccurate.

(she's not technically starfleet personnel, but if it acts like a starfleet officer, talks like a starfleet officer and is treated like a starfleet officer, it really isn't much more than a technicality.)

he launches into a bit of a rant about kale and christine relaxes almost immediately, readiness dissipating for something more mischievous, if no less keen-eyed. ]

You lost me at Hulk.

( peter's never been one to care much about fashion. if he had, he'd have opted to spend his gift card on something a little more fashionable, but he figures that 'utilitarian' is good enough. )

Big green guy. Strong. Good at punching things. ( he answers, blue eyes looking past her, just for a second, into the room behind her. it's as brown and beige as his — or at least, the walls and carpet are — and he thinks that he can't remember his childhood being as overwhelmingly bland as this place is. )

I don't think any of the Avengers have, uh, copyrighting against their trademark.

[ utilitarian is probably good enough and half of christine's gift card had gone to practicalities such as medical equipment (so outdated), but —she likes looking good, likes wearing something that feels like her, and so half of it had gone to that, too.

he peers into the room and christine's stepping back, waving him into the room —and propping the door open with the trash can, if he enters. she's not really looking for a repeat of being locked in here with anyone and having to give blood again. ]

Haven't heard of these Avengers, either. Which could just be that it's been a couple centuries. [ or it could be something with multiple universes. spock would have a theory; christine's doing guesswork at best. ]

( she says that she might not have heard of the avengers because it's been a couple of centuries and peter concedes that might be the reason, but he isn't about to hedge any bets on it. he's never been their biggest fan for a number of being-dragged-into-shit-he'd-rather-not reasons but his life would (probably) be a bit more difficult if, like, carol wasn't around. either way — the avengers and related parties have been involved in enough high profile earth- and space-drama that peter thinks it's unlikely chapel wouldn't have heard of them.

unless she just really hates history which — fair.

he hums a noise of vague agreement and offers her a wry grin and a shrug, a mix of 'who knows' and 'who cares'.

he casts a cursory glance around the room as he steps inside — it's much the same as the one he'd woken up in, only with one bed instead of two and that's about the extent of the differences, he thinks — beyond, of course, any personal touches by virtue of habitation.

he leans against the sideboard-come-bedside table. )

How's that going, by the way? The several centuries adrift thing. ( a beat, then— ) This is pretty much when I grew up.

( in more than one way — it's hard not to definitively divide your life after cataclysmic events like 'mother being murdered' and 'leaving earth and going to space'. aka quill: the before and after. )

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TEST DRIVE MEME #1

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honestly i'm canon blind so i'm just going off icons here

i don't know the comics so i'm 50% canonblind in return

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and then work murdered me oops

i feel that deeply tbh