repeter | AUGUST TDM

Entry tags:

! tdm

AUGUST TDM

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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[What the hell indeed. Tatsuo is just baffled by the whole telepathic thing going on right now, and kind of wishes he could get connected to someone... he knows? Or someone who could tell him what's going on? He keeps getting random strangers or people on their first day with the app... Not that he won't talk to them, because while he likes his groupmates well enough, he's been stuck with the same eleven people for two weeks and a new voice is very welcome, even if it's just in his head.]

Hello, you have reached Tatsuo Kihara. He is currently away from Recolle at the moment, but if you would like to leave your name, phone number, and a brief message, he will try to get back to you as soon as he is no longer in a damn jungle.

[Sorry Cloud, he's started getting snarky. Still, his mental voice is pretty cheerful, for a guy who slogged through a jungle for a week and then got stuck in a haunted/monster infested temple.]

[Ikuo, that sarcasm is not doing his confused state any favors. By instinct, Cloud has somehow managed to right his motorcycle on the sidewalk, tapping the kickstand with the toe of his boot so that it stays upright. He then places a hand against a nearby building, leaning into it, a little disoriented by the voice in his head and the adrenaline still coursing through his veins after the fall, which could have been much worse.]

Wh-

[What the actual hell. Okay, maybe he did hit his head. Or maybe something’s snapped and he’s officially lost his marbles. Either way, his focus needs something to anchor to, and he at least manages a reply through his thoughts.]

Okay, voice in my head. Get the hell out.

[Sorry but he doesn't know what's going on?!]

[Ah, possibly a newbie? Tatsuo doesn't recognize the voice, so he decides to refrain from teasing any further. Well... mostly.]

Hey man, you were in my head first. And the name is 'Tatsuo' not 'voice in my head.' What's your name?

[It's okay. Tatsuo doesn't really understand what's going on either. He's just rolling with it because it's better than fighting a skeleton horde again.]

[Definitely a newbie. This should be obvious by how his confusion does not wane, whereas someone who had been at the mercy of Retrospec for a while would probably just accept this with resignation.

It’s enough for him to just answer the question, without really thinking about it.]

Cloud.

Just- what exactly’s going on? Why are you in my head?

[Well, this is a first, explaining the whole Retrospec situation over telepathy.]

It's kind of a long explanation. Check your phone. I bet you have a new app on there, bright blue icon, called Retrospec.

My phone…

[He utters it with actual words, realizing he doesn’t feel the weight of the object pressing in his pocket. Looking out, he sees it — lying in the middle of the road. Great.]

Hold on, I have to get it out of the street.

[Okay, so he’s having conversations with voices in his head, sure, that’s a thing. Let him go get his cell in the middle of the road too.]

Out of the street? You weren't crossing when... wait, I'm going to shut up while you get it.

[And with some effort Tatsuo tries not to think anything at Cloud, not wanting to distract the guy while he retrieves his phone.]

[Thankfully there aren't many cars right now, so retrieving it from the middle of the intersection isn't as difficult as it might initially sound. A moment later, he's picking it up and frowning at the large crack across the screen.

He wanders back to the sidewalk, next to his motorcycle.]

I was on the way home when I saw a list of names in my head. It stopped on one... yours, I think.

Then I crashed my bike.

[Tatsuo thumps a hand against the stone floor he's sitting on. This is a special level of intrusive for Retrospec to use. While he's glad for the extra communication, he doesn't want it to be at the expense of people's safety.]

Damn. Cloud, I am so sorry. Not that I did anything, 'cause I'm stuck out here, but are you okay? Is your bike okay?

We'll both survive. Just some cosmetic damage.

[For him and his bike.]

You said you're in a jungle?

[-he asks as he unlocks his phone.]

[Okay, good. He would feel really bad if Cloud had gotten seriously hurt, even if he'd had nothing to do with the list popping up.]

Yeah, few weeks ago there was the whole monster invasion at the convention center. Then come the 3rd some of us got... transported to this jungle. There's twelve of us out here. Right now we're poking around this temple or tomb, looking for some sort of puzzle pieces.

[Tatsuo knows it sounds out there. It IS out there. But this is his life right now.]

What?

[Sorry, but that really seems like the only real logical response to this entire situation.]

So the monsters... they really aren't a normal occurrence. Not like how everyone's saying.

[He has no idea what to think about being transported to a jungle. That still doesn't make sense to him.]

[It is a perfectly valid response that Tatsuo understands well.]

No, they're not. Before the convention, there weren't any monsters in the city at all. Then something went haywire and BOOM monster invasion. Wait... are the monsters still in the city?

[Because Cloud said 'aren't,' in the present tense.]

I...

[The convention? He remembers hearing about that, but at the time he thought nothing of it. Shouldn't he have at least questioned the news about monsters pouring out of the building and attacking the city?

Just what the hell was going on?]

Yeah. There are. Apparently I was on clean-up duty earlier today. A lot of buildings are still a mess.

[Tatsuo sighs and rubs his face with his hands. Whelp, guess he can't expect much help from the guys back home if they're still dealing with all the monsters.]

Damn. Almost three weeks of monsters. Then things are probably stretched thin there.

Three weeks?

[He sounds disbelieving, but at the same time, he's willing to believe nearly anything at this point.]

I just woke up today and realized everything was messed up. Have I really been... thinking that three weeks worth of monsters has been normal?

[Boy does Tatsuo know how you feel Cloud.]

Three weeks of monsters, chocobos, the sky being grey, and a couple other things. I know how you feel though. I felt the same way back in May when I first got the app.

[Of course... that was before the whole blue/green and monster thing. Tatsuo really feels for all the people getting the app after him. They have more contradictions to deal with at once that he did.]

But how can just an app change everything?

[He mentions chocobos, and the loss of certain colors, and- God, it's like having his eyes opened when he didn't know he had them shut.]

That breaks all kind of laws of physics. Of how the universe even works.

We don't know. At the moment we really only have a strong correlation between having the app and being able to notice the discrepancies. We haven't been able to prove causation yet.

[Cloud hits on the main reason Tatsuo is so bothered by the whole situation. It's like the universe is splitting at the seams.]

Yeah. Pretty much. Sometimes the effects are short term and sometimes they persist. And so far there's really nothing we've been able to do about it.

[And that's not even touching on the memories!]

There has to be a cause.

[A stubborn response, directed at the situation itself. He's sure he doesn't need to tell the other this, but he needs to "say" it himself.]

Things like this don't just happen for no reason. What about the company itself? Retrospec?

We've been looking into them, with limited success. They're capable of some fairly sophisticated surveillance, so it's been difficult to mount any sort of investigation of them without them knowing about it.

[Tatsuo can't help but sound a little frustrated at how hard it has been to make any headway on Retrospec.]

Still, we can't expect them to be easy to crack, considering how complicated everything connected to them is.

Who's "we"?

[The way it's phrased, it sounds like something in an official capacity.]

Are you a cop or something?

[Why.... why do people always seem to think he's an actual cop? ~~maybe because he works with them all the time and was one in a past life? but that's beside the point~~]

First question. 'We' is a lot of people on the app. Anyone interested in investigating Retrospec and the weird stuff happening in the city.

Second question. No, but I work with them. I'm a crime scene investigator for the crime lab.

[To be honest, it's close enough in Cloud's mind. Seems to belong in the "cop" category, at least.]

(And are all these people investigating Retrospec also looking for you?)

[You know, in a jungle somewhere.]

(Is there anything I can do to help?)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

AUGUST TDM

iii

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject