AUGUST TDM

[recollecters]

TEST DRIVE

AUGUST TEST DRIVE The city of Recollé. ...yeah. Yeah, it's just sort of a mess... What will you do today? I. What the hell happened here? Perhaps you're new to the city, or perhaps you've finally started to notice just how bad the damage is to the beloved city of Recollé. The convention center is still crumbled in pieces and several local shops have boarded up windows and doors to prepare for reconstruction. Vendors on the street try to urge residents to purchase monster insurance for all of their home and vehicle needs. But the moment you step outside, you'll find yourself greeted by a member of the Recollé Restoration Committee as they thrust a hardhat into your hands and eagerly chatter about your new assignment. Whether you find yourself in Tisse and assigned to haul pieces of stone around or you're placed over in Apprassage to pour cement, you'll find you aren't alone in these tasks. It's nice to meet your coworkers, isn't it? II. But really, what caused all of this? This is completely insane and while some of you may be willing to help rebuild the city, others might wish to solve the mystery. Poking around the various districts, NPCs will explain that monster attacks "sometimes just happen" which seems pretty strange in and of itself. Monsters shouldn't "just happen", should they? And where are these alleged monsters anyway? Careful what you wish for, though. Exploring too much and straying off-task will lead to finding some things you may not want. These creatures will immediately hone in on new Retrospec users and begin to chase them, though they won't outright attack. While the smaller ones may be destroyed with a bit of effort, it might be wise to either cut your losses or find someone with a bit more experience to take on the larger creatures. Don't worry; there's bound to be someone to help. III. By now, you may have heard the rumors from some of your fellow Retrospec users that several members of the network have disappeared. You may even hear the rumors that those members are lost in "unreality" and that the city itself is a bit...unstable. But they're just rumors, right? Everything seems fine as you go about your day (monsters notwithstanding.) However, any time you pass from one district to another suddenly a list of names scrolls past your line of vision . As the list comes to a halt and lands on one name, you may recognize it as a friend or a stranger. If you're lucky, you may get a holographic video connecting you to someone still in the city. If you're even luckier, you may find someone speaking up inside your head due to a telepathic connection. Go ahead and say hi. You just might get some answers from those who have been lost and those you haven't met yet. IV. As the night begins to set upon the city, a warm sleepy feeling rolls through. Whatever you're doing, it's hard to fight off the urge to curl up under a shaded tree and take a nap. After some time it's nearly impossible to ignore any longer and no matter where you are, you'll instantly fall asleep. Strangely, even The place that you wake up, however, may look very familiar to you. You've seen this place before. In fact, you've lived through this very scene before. Maybe it's the little league game you scored your first home run, or maybe it's your high school prom. These are your memories played back to you, and glancing back you may find that again you aren't alone. Any Retrospec user has the ability to pass through these pockets of time and can stumble right into your memories. The memory pockets can appear no matter where a person is, and they'll be able to view and interact with the memories they see. Take a walk through your childhood neighborhood. Sit through the nightmare of your college entrance exams. These memories are yours as you've lived them. However, try not to change anything about the past. Memories can be quite tricky if meddled with too much. BONUS. While the makers of Retrospec are a bit scattered and busy at the moment, it seems as though they have failsafes to keep their systems up and running. The latest update push operates on its own and begins to download to your device. Your profile remains the same as always (your name and your photo), but it appears you won't have access to it until you apply one of the brand new filters to your picture. Seems easy, right? Maybe you should have given this a second thought. As soon as the filter's applied to your photo, you might find that people are stopping and staring at you as you go about your day. They may or may not comment, but what's evident is that something's going on that you're unaware of. A quick glance in your phone's camera, a storefront window or a mirror will reveal all. That fun filter's now applied itself to your face with no hope of coming off for a while. Have fun! Welcome to the recolle test drive meme! All characters will be begin in-game AU'd as Recollé residents. You may use any of the above prompts for ideas or make up your own depicting your Recollé AU! Prompts do not have to be set in the districts listed above. You can review our list of locations for what's available. Please note that TDM threads can be used as samples, can be kept as game canon, and can also be used for bonus points for future item regains. Share a few minor details of your AU, tag around, and have fun! For continuity's sake, for the first time we will be stating that the TDM is dated IC 8/17! This is all in one day. Potential applicants/characters on the TDM will revert back to NPC status on 8/18 and will not remember the events of the TDM until the mod-posted Retrospec post goes up 9/1. Members of Group 2, since the TDM can be considered game-canon, prompts III and IV are open for you to tag around to new players while stuck in your locations outside of the city! For Prompt III, members of Group 2 may telepathically connect to someone even if there's a video option, but their faces and surroundings will be obscured! Other members of the game + potential applicants may use video if they wish. For Prompt IV, please remember these are memories from your AU and not your canon! Should characters deviate from these "memories" too much, they will find themselves thrown back to the beginning of the memory to start over! And finally, the filters provided in the bonus are just examples and you can swap in any others you want. Your August TDM directory is here, and your AU workshop is here! Our mod questions thread for this TDM is over here!

Comments

Lumina (Luna Takada) | Final Fantay 13

[chaoticwhimsy]

I - Can you press gang a thirteen year old?

[Luna huffed and crossed her arms, staring up at the constantly-smiling man who was trying to hand her a hard hat and a basket full of what looked like sandwiches.]

I told you, I'm not helping anyone with anything, I don't care how broken the city is! You can't force me to do it, I don't even think I'm even allowed to do it, and even if I were I'm not going to waste a whole day handing gullible volunteers your...

[She leaned up a bit to peer into the basket, and wrinkled her nose.]

...Ham sandwiches?

[And she dropped back onto her heels.]

Yeah. Definitely not being your ham delivery girl.

[He did not seem like he'd be taking no for an answer, though. Someone come rescue her before she kicks him in the shins or something?]

II - Wait. Floating mouths. Seriously?

[Luna's curious explorations as to the 'monsters' everyone was talking about had led her around the wrong corner, it seemed, and now she came running right back out of it, being chased by two creepy floating, giggling mouth things.]

[She was clearly pretty fast, ducking between people as if this wasn't her first time bolting away from someone who didn't want her to leave, but the monsters were definitely gaining on her. Help?]

IV - Some things are better left forgotten.

[Luna wasn't a stranger to napping, really. She was pretty good at finding an out of the way corner to curl up when she should've been in class or dealing with her foster parents or really anywhere. But it typically didn't come on quite this fast, and she barely had time to sit down on a bench before she was out...]

[And waking up curled up on the grass outside of a small, slightly run-down single family home in the suburbs of Recollé. It's late afternoon, the sun just starting to disappear behind the trees, and a woman is standing in the driveway next to an idling dark green sedan.]

[Luna stood up slowly, staring at the scene, her fingers curling into tiny fists. She remembered this...but...]

[The front door to the house suddenly bursts open, and another Luna, perhaps two years younger, comes storming out, dragging a black trashbag along behind her.]

Fine. Whatever. GOODBYE!

[The younger Luna shouted, and the older Luna winced at each word. Damn it...]

Wildcard

[Luna is out and about most of the time. Fellow schoolmate? Someone she knows? Someone she doesn't know? Hit me up or throw something here I'll make it work.]

For Lucy

[chaoticwhimsy]

[Luna was finally heading back towards home, stepping off the bus, when the names appeared, floating words flashing in front of her eyes, enough to make her dizzy for a second, missing a step and stumbling off the bus to catch herself on a sign post. Well, that was embarrassing..]

[But as she steadied herself, the names didn't disappear, one after the other they flew by until it froze on one.]

[Lucy Takada.]

[It floated there, and suddenly there was a face and a voice and a history in her head. Her sister. Half-sister, really. Lucy...but...]

[And then, instead of just a name, there was a voice. In her head...]

...Lucy?

[She said the word and thought the word at the same time.]

[long_live_the_queen]

[At first, Lucy's thoughts were angry ones. They usually were. Angry, loud, and unrelated; whatever kind of transmission this was, it seemed to have caught her in the middle of something.]

-ar, if you fuck this up I'll throw you off the—what?!

[Who was saying her name now—

And then Lucy screeched to a halt. Metaphorically. She wasn't present enough for it to be literal.

That wasn't a voice she had heard in...forever. Not just a voice that she shouldn't be hearing, a voice in her mind, bouncing around her skull like a radio signal.]

Luna?

[It might have taken her a moment to realize the voice was there, but not to recall the name that went with it.]

[chaoticwhimsy]

[And the Lucy voice in her head answered back. Because that wasn't completely insane, right? Maybe she really had tripped when she got off the bus and hit her head and now she was hallucinating.]

[Well, there were worse things to hallucinate than her sister. Probably. Maybe?]

[It was complicated.]

[Finally though, she answered.]

Yes. It's me. [A thoughtful pause.] I guess I've gone crazy if I'm hearing you in my head.

[long_live_the_queen]

...what.

[Lucy, polite as always.]

Shit, wait—

[The mind-voice lapses into silence for a moment. When it returns, Lucy sounds...well, still disgruntled, but not as angry.]

Now what's happening?

[chaoticwhimsy]

Mm. I got off the bus and suddenly your name was floating in the air in front of me. When I looked at it, there you were.

[She says this like it is completely insane, because it is completely insane.]

Where are you...?

[long_live_the_queen]

Great. More app features.

[That time there was a little less inflection and more of an echo, sounding less like her actual voice. A little.

The next time she "speaks" Lucy's voice sounds the same as usual.]

Space, apparently.

[This is not helping the "probably insane" explanation.]

iv

[appraiser]

[ Ryoji walks along the lawn in wide-eyed wonder. He looks lost, as if walking through a dream, but this place is much, much, much more preferable than where he was before— his clothes are stiff with water, dirt caking the fabric from the knee down, and he looks like he hasn't slept in days... but there's a smile on his face, just before the younger Luna shouts and he startles, still for a moment, and then jogging forth to intercept her. ]

What is it? What happened...? Goodbyes shouldn't be like that...

[ Idealistic. For Ryoji, he only knows happy goodbyes, with the promise of being back soon. ]

[chaoticwhimsy]

Stop.

[This from the older Luna, when she sees Ryoji walking past towards...what. Her past self? Was that what this was? She had to be dreaming...]

[It didn't matter either way, since past Luna went right on past Ryuji and over to the woman and the car.]

Okay let's just go, come on.

[The woman's expression was sad, and she smiled almost apologetically.]

I need to go talk to them. You're welcome to wait in the car.

[Younger-Luna huffed and rolled her eyes, then yanked the door to the car open and threw her bag inside. Over at the house, a couple in their early thirties had come outside.]

[appraiser]

[ Ryoji stops in his tracks immediately when the word leaves Luna's mouth. He swings his head around to look at her, surprised, then confused, then a bit fearful, because their voices are so similar, their faces... It can't be?

He approaches the older Luna, brows drawn and voice low, a whisper. ]

Is this a memory? I shouldn't be here.

[chaoticwhimsy]

[Luna wasn't sure what it was either. But he shouldn't have been there. Neither should she. Not anymore.]

This was three years ago.

[She said, her voice quiet, her gaze on the couple on the porch.]

Me leaving one of my foster homes.

[appraiser]

Three years...? It can't—

[ But it can. Time travel. Ryoji knows one other person who could do it, but who could only turn back time for an hour. He'd told Ryoji not to mess up timelines, and that meant not interfering with whatever is going on here, Luna leaving her home, as much as he wants to stop it from happening and find a way to "fix" it. ]

...is it really alright to leave it like this? What if things were different?

[chaoticwhimsy]

What?

[She doesn't even seem to process what he's saying for a few seconds. Because this was a dream, right? She'd fallen asleep, and was having a shitty dream. It wasn't even the first time she'd had this dream, though it was certainly the first time she'd seen anyone else there.]

We can't...no, it can't be changed. It's just a dream. [She rolled her eyes.] It goes the same way every time. Everything's fine, then they tell me they're having a baby, then the next day they tell me they can't let me stay because of that, then I get mad, then I leave.

[All of this is said as if the punctuation were somehow bolded. Quick, intense declarations.]

It doesn't change.

II

[standalonehuman]

This might not be her first choice in who to come to the rescue, but Officer Togusa is the guy that happens to be standing here. He recognizes Luna, briefly, but there's no time for that. "Over here!"

What the hell are those things? Togusa holds out one hand, and a bubble shimmers to life around himself and Luna, a telekinetic shield to keep the- disembodied heads? at bay? He is staring at them in confusion and mild disgust. "Are- are you all right?" Focus. Keep the shield up.

[chaoticwhimsy]

Oh great, a cop. A cop who knew her, that was even worse. But she wasn't exactly in a situation where she could complain about any help, and her path shifted, taking her to and past him as the floating ball head things came racing after her.

"I'm being chased by those things, how do you think I am?"

Her answer was immediate, and snarky, and 'you idiot' and she probably should've felt bad, but she was now distracted by the...bubble thing? And reached out to touch it.

"...Are you doing that?"

IV

[belligerentwarrior]

What's this?

[Comes a mildly surprised voice. Freya watches the scene unfolding before her, then glances over at Luna.]

[Fuck you, swamp. Fuck you, probably-lead-painted old mansion.] Great. Now I'm hallucinating.

[chaoticwhimsy]

[Luna didn't know what it was, honestly. Well, it was a dream, but why would she dream about the past and then stick Freya in it? Why would she dream about Freya at all?]

I guess we both are.

[She answered, her gaze on the house. The younger her was stalking over to the car.]

Come on, let's go.

[Young Luna said, and the woman standing by the car shook her head.]

I have to talk to them first. You can wait in the car if you like.

[Younger Luna rolled her eyes and then yanked the door open to throw her bag into the back seat.]

[belligerentwarrior]

Seems kinda mundane for a hallucination. 'specially about someone else.

[Freya watches the stalking and slamming of doors, quiet for a moment.]

How old were you?

[chaoticwhimsy]

Oh well, I'd hate to think my memories were boring.

[Said with the fakest sincerity ever, as Luna took a few steps closer to the scene. The woman from the car had walked over to the porch and was speaking quietly to the couple standing there.]

I had just turned ten a couple weeks before then, I think. [She hesitated.]

They're having a baby.

[belligerentwarrior]

[Freya watched quietly for a moment, mulling it over. She wasn't terribly familiar with how the whole foster system worked, or... why they'd bother kicking Luna out? Unless it was a money issue, but the house looked nice enough, she supposed.]

Pretty shitty birthday present. [She wasn't quite sure what to say. She and Lucy had only touched on Lucy's history recently, and briefly enough. Freya had a hard time these understanding experiences so wildly different from everything she'd ever known.]

i

[crudest]

[Another someone hassling Luna, another day where Baren automatically steps in without even missing a beat - ]

Oh! You found my lil sis - thanks sir! I'll take it from here.

[and hopefully... avoid any bruised shins]

[chaoticwhimsy]

[Luna huffed as Baren stepped in, but she knew the game well enough to play along.]

It's not like I was lost. I got bored because you were late.

[She rolled her eyes as if she were so put-upon, then looked over at the man who was seemed like he might still be thinking about convincing her.]

I gotta go, you'll have to shanghai someone else.

[crudest]

You're still so deep in the rebellious stage, what am I gonna do with you?

[DEEP TROUBLED BIG BROTHER SIGH(tm).

Regardless he's gonna switch his attention over to the man and offers a grin that borders on menacing.]

You're not the type of guy that'd trouble a young girl, right? Better luck next time, pal.

[And with a hand at Luna's back, Baren moves to guide her off before a scuffle is started for fun.]

[chaoticwhimsy]

[The guy looked like he honestly might try again, but then Luna was being led off, and a few moments later they were out of sight and she immediately turned to peer up at him, hands on her hips.]

'Rebellious stage?' [She looked somewhere between amused and annoyed.] Was that really the best you could do?

[crudest]

[Baren, meanwhile, just looks amused.]

It's hard to do better than the truth sometimes, Nana.

[Is "Luna" not close enough to a nickname for you already, Baren. To be fair, he probably sometimes calls her Moonchild when he's annoyed.]