IC INTRO #1

[cursedmods]

IC INTRO #1

A Blood Offering

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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

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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

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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

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All the same guidelines from the TDM still apply. You can continue your TDM threads here or start new ones! And of course, you can start making your own prompts in the log or network communities at your leisure.

Our first event will be going up in about a week!

Please do not add character tags to any posts just yet, we'll add them to this post manually.

Comments

[astrologics]

Peter hasn't exactly managed to relax either, though he's very good at pretending he is relaxing — or at least, he is most of the time. He edges more towards neurotic than not, but in a world-weary kind of sense moreso than the world is ending kind of sense.

—And space and the Guardians and just life in general tends to prove enough of a distraction that it rarely matters anyway.

He's not sure how much he really cares that Alec isn't really a vacation kind of guy, at least not this side of finishing his coffee, but he listens whilst Alec continues and talks about what he feels like he ought to be doing, and then—

The question takes him by surprise, but not as much as the emphasis that Alec places on those two words and Peter's expression shifts — eyes widening, eyebrows darting up towards his hairline (or more accurately, disappearing somewhere beneath the fringe that desperately either needs cutting, styling, or both). It's not surprise, per se, but it is a kind of shocked resignation that (re)occurs every time the decade is brought up and Peter remembers that the eighties weren't, like, twenty years, they were — almost, thank you very much — forty.

"Why, because you think I grew up in this era?" He asks, unsure if it's a general question or if the implication is: hey, Quill, you old. There's a breath of a pause that Peter holds before exhaling audibly and waving a hand dismissively. "I was born in '85." A beat. "I don't remember much of the eighties."

He doesn't and he didn't really watch much from the time — he'd been more interested in books and space and music, then his mother had been killed and the rest, as they say, is history. Still—

"Star Wars?" He suggests. "Alien. Aliens." Another momentary pause — there were tv shows and movies that he'd enjoyed watching because he had been a Young Boy with Crushes, but he's not sure how much tall, dark and deadpan here would enjoy them in the same capacity. "—Beetlejuice."

That's it, that's his list of suggestions: Who's The Boss? probably hasn't stood the test of time.

[flatly]

Alec is halfway to saying something vaguely diplomatic—he'd grunted out an affirmation about being new here, but that doesn't necessarily mean (unlike Alec) he hasn't seen any movies since arriving—except then Peter moves on. Alright then. He's just going to let the implied accusation of oldness hang out there unchallenged, sorry Peter.

And he wasn't sure what sorts of movie titles he was expecting, mostly because he has approximately zero exposure to any pop culture (let alone the pop culture of the decade before he was born), but Star Wars and Alien (and Aliens? Alec does not yet know the difference) and especially Beetlejuice all sound very strange. He squints for a moment, trying to decipher if Peter is messing with him or actually trying to answer the question.

He eventually settles on hoping that the guy is too exhausted to try pranking a stranger, at least until after he's finished that first cup. (And honestly, after Alec sees 1980's Harrison Ford for the first time, their reasons might not be so different after all.)

"Are they all... space related?" Live a little, Alec. It's good to think outside the urban fantasy box every now and again.

[astrologics]

"Beetlejuice is a—." A what? Weird isn't entirely a genre of movie. "—comedy?" A lingering pause punctuated by the briefest of explanations—

"Look, I haven't lived on Earth for, like, twenty years. I barely know how to use the internet, let alone what movies are good."

For the moment, he doesn't elaborate on what he means by that — sure, he's spoken to enough people here from enough places that he knows that not everyone's from somewhere and somewhen that cosmic life is the norm, but he's not inclined to over-explain in case Alec is. Besides, he thinks, there's not really that much else to it.

So he moves on quickly, a flicker of movement in the corner of his eyes catching his attention. It's just ("just") the waitress re-emerging from the mysterious 'out back', apparently remembering that part of her job description is to be present for customers. Her appearance prompts Peter to ignore the concept of personal space and lean across the table to grab the laminated menu stood somewhat forlornly between red salt and pepper shakers.

"The others are set in space." He adds belatedly, his attention firmly fixed on the monumentally uninspiring menu. Lots of beige, Peter notes, but food is food and much like the coffee, he imagines it'll come with the distinction of being edible and little else.

He leans back in his chair and waves at the waitress, shoots her a smile and asks for toast, please, and then returns his focus to Alec. "But is that really what you feel like you should be doing after a multiversal kidnapping?" Either this manages to be a total non-event for Alec, which — fair, or else he's exceptionally good at compartmentalising.