+ ENTRANCEWAY TEST DRIVE MEME +

[vitaelamorte]

HAS THIS EVER HAPPENED TO YOU?!

Your mind is a car, a car in the vastness of the universe, slowly going down the road which connects thought upon thought and you glance at your hands as they grasp the steering wheel, wondering if you are fit to master the curves of creativity, to weather the rocky roads of prose, to order a cool glass of beer at the roadhouse of inspiration no wait a second you can't order a beer you're driving you're test driving your mind car drunk what have you done WHAT HAVE YOU DONE THIS IS THE MIND POLICE SLOW DOWN AND PULL OVER IMMEDIATELY YOU ARE UNDER ARREST I SAID SLOW DOWN THIS IS--

ENTRANCEWAY
TEST DRIVE MEME

►► Take a brand new muse out for a drive, bring an old voice and try Wonderland's setting and population on for size. See how that Mirror personality fits your character! Post a top level comment, tag into other people's starters, enjoy yourself!

►► Any scenario goes! Thread out your character's arrival, have them act like a long-established resident, let our past events inspire your scene, or write up literally any Wonderland-based scenario you feel like playing with!

►► If you want to take it a step further, check out our NAVIGATION for all the game info you'll need, and our INPUT & INQUIRIES page for any missing pieces. If that's got you convinced, the pages for RESERVES and APPLICATIONS are right there for you!

►► Please only note that any threads made as part of the test drive meme are not game canon, and cannot be used for the activity check OR as samples for any future applications. Thank you for understanding!

AND THAT IS ALL, GET SETTLED IN AND HAVE FUN!

Comments

[mucked]

You were kidnapped by a house?

[ peggy plays a little dumb. and why shouldn't she? sometimes, it's the best way to nose out a bit more information. regardless, it's a strange way to string together a sentence. either this house isn't a house at all, or else she says house in the way another person might say institute.

besides, this avenue is far more interesting than entertaining any chatter about missing people. that's a topic peggy doesn't much want to entertain. ]

[hackedhistory]

[Oh, that does sound a bit weird doesn't.]

More like I was kidnapped by the people who lived in the house. But the house is a little sentient?

[So it's complicated.]

[mucked]

[ the house is...sentient. a pursing in her expression suggests that peggy believes that for about, oh, point-none seconds. but it's a knee-jerk response and as soon as all her experience of the unbelievable (courtesy of wonderland) comes coursing back to tide-level, her doubt settles into a cautious curiosity.

invested, now, she takes a seat across the table. ]

I'm sorry to hear it.

[ -- about the kidnapping, that is. this woman isn't the first who has told her tale like this, of being kidnapped from a state of already-kidnapped. ]

[hackedhistory]

[She gives a small shrug in return.]

Technically they saved my life, even if it was also technically kidnapping. I've decided to forgive them for it.

[Also because TIME TRAVEL but she can't just spit that at people.]

[mucked]

It's all sounding quite -- [ well, might as well use her word, ] -- technical.

[ there's a story there. peggy is certain of it. sentient houses, lives saved, magical food replication. she would be surprised if she hadn't already spent seven months knocking her head against the miracles and horrors wonderland offered in equal measure. ]

What, was saving your life merely some unintended consequence? Some lucky break?

[hackedhistory]

No, I think that was their actual intention. Me sticking around after they let me go was more of a lucky break.

[She smirks a bit.]

It's a bit of a weird crew, but they're good people.

[mucked]

[ -- peggy smiles. it's a funny kind of indulgence, but at least she feels no guilt or hindrance when discussing these fellows. ]

So it seems to go with crew and compatriots alike. [ she finishes off her marmite toast and a flick of her fingers, reaching for a napkin. a touch of lipstick comes off on the pristine white. ] I carried on with a group during the war who were all of them bizarre and insufferable. But like you said: good people.

[hackedhistory]

[She laughs a bit at that.]

Yeah. That sounds about right.

[She pauses before extending a hand.]

I'm Zari.

[mucked]

Peggy.

[ a first name for a first name. the last one didn't matter much, here, except within certain circles. she leans forward to take zari's hand and offers a good and firm handshake. warm, but business-like. ]

I'd say it's a pleasure but -- as you've no doubt already surmised, there's very little pleasant about this place.

[ very little is better than nothing at all, however. ]

[hackedhistory]

I've gathered that it's an adventure if nothing else.

[She's definitely not amused though.]

I'm not sure how this place hasn't imploded with all these temporal anomalies in one place.

[mucked]

[ oh, now, that sounds like marginally familiar talk. peggy's smirk twitches into place. she's juggled a great deal of this talk -- and an existential crisis or two. she lets her head bob into a nod while she considers the word and swallows another mouthful of tea. ]

I imagine we're all temporal anomalies of one kind or another. [ some more so than others. ] But I've found Earth's 21st century to be among the most well-represented. The rest of us must appear rather dusty by comparison.

[hackedhistory]

Oh really?

[She frowns, her head tipping to the side for a moment.]

How early in Earth's 21st century?

[mucked]

-- I'm from the 20th, actually. [ a point she's not at all afraid to share. ] 1947. To be precise.

[hackedhistory]

[Her eyes widen for a moment, because wow. That's ... pre-so many things. But eventually she just nods it off because Peggy did mention that timey-wimey was a thing.]

I'm from 2042.

[mucked]

Good God.

[ alright, it's not the furthest along she's heard of. but it's damn far enough, isn't it? in fact, that's nearly-- ]

That's nearly a full century. [ her cheeks puff with a sigh. ] And are you like all the rest? Quick to explain how very much the world has improved?

[ -- never mind that it mightn't even be the same world. ]

[hackedhistory]

[And that makes her laugh bitterly, and she shakes her head.]

No. My time very much sucks actually. An organization named ARGUS took military control over the US and basically ... eliminated a lot of freedoms that people had taken for granted in the name of public safety - up to and including freedom of religion.

[mucked]

[ that sounds -- wrong. peggy doesn't know that world or that time but she can feel the whiplash in her spine all the same. as much as she complains about the propaganda, she certainly bought into some of it. what steve stood for, and the ideals of 'lady liberty' and her spirit.

so to hear this, now? she's troubled. ]

What on earth precipitated madness like that?

[ another war? and she can't help but hear argus but think about a different greek word: hydra. ]

[hackedhistory]

A particle accelerator exploded in 2013 and created metahumans - people with abilities. Most of them are fine, but some of them are dangerous in a big way so people got scared. And when people get scared, they're willing to sacrifice whatever it takes to not feel that way anymore.

[Or at least that's the theory because the show hasn't actually told us yet, and possibly never will! So I'm just gonna wing it.]

[mucked]

[ oh, alright, now -- metahumans is a thing she's heard tell of before. not a lot, perhaps, but the word has come up before in other conversations. almost exclusively with people from one particular world -- but that doesn't mean anything, in the end. ]

It becomes a rather slippery slope. [ peggy has seen her fair share of what happens when individuality is sacrificed upon the altar of national security. ] I'm terribly sorry. I can't speak for your world, of course, but I at least know we tried to stamp that sort of thing out.

[ and yet hydra rises again. ]

[hackedhistory]

[She nods.]

It wasn't really one thing that did it, though. It was a whole lot of dominoes over decades, and I'm sure the people that let ARGUS take over in the first place thought they were doing the right thing. It's just that you can't always see how things will end when you give something that much power.

[mucked]

-- There is a similar story in my world.

[ peggy presses her lips together. it's entirely possible that she shouldn't be telling any of this, of course. but it seems like such a moot point to keep it to herself, now. as secrets go, this one is hardly kept as confidential as it should be. ]

Similar but not identical. All I know about it is what I've learned here because the worst of it won't come to a head for some decades. But it involves some of the worst monsters in the history books managing to seize control, over time, of a vast array of international assets. All because no one was holding the right agencies to the right standards.

[ her agency. to her standards. ]

[hackedhistory]

[Zari shakes her head a bit, but it's clear that she understands.]

I think it's the same thing that happens everywhere. People get power and then they get complacent. The wrong people get put in charge, and they're willing to do whatever it takes to keep that power.

[mucked]

...I suppose it's a question of whether we can ever really know how to sort the wrong people from the right ones.

[ because a lot of people here seem to think she's the right woman for the job, but peggy's not so certain. she wasn't certain even before she learned about shield's fate. ]

And that's rather tricky to accomplish.

[hackedhistory]

It is. But ... in my opinion, most of the time people do the best they can with what they have. You can try to have as much information as you can, but in the end, you have to hope for the best.

[She shrugs as she grabs another piece of pie.]

But who knows, you know? Maybe there's a solution we just haven't figured out yet.

[mucked]

...That's a terribly optimistic perspective for someone who comes from such pessimistic circumstances.

[ and it's not a criticism. if anything, it's praise. lightly offered, maybe, but praise all the same. ]