repeter | JUNE TDM

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JUNE TDM

TEST DRIVE

JUNE TEST DRIVE
The city of Recollé. The kids are out for the summer and the weather's just fine. The sun's shining brightly, not a cloud in the clear gray sky. Everything seems at peace and citizens are out and about, smiling to one another and enjoying each other's company.

Oh, and this thing (complete with cardboard cut-out) has currently taken the place of the founders' statues in Recollé Square. But that's probably not a big deal.

What will you do today?

I.
What is this thing? Why is this thing here? For those of you in Tribunal Terrace today you may wish to investigate the five-foot-tall spinning wheel. How did it even get here? And where did the statues of the founders go? Even if you cannot answer those questions, it's hard to ignore the urge to give it a spin.

Check out those colors go 'round and 'round. Depending on what number you land on, you will find a notification pop up on your phone with a short list of…words. Are these supposed to be qualifications? Weird. That was a waste of time.

However, the moment you walk away you will find yourself accosted by various recruiters wherever you go, congratulating you on your impressive resumé and leading you to an office in Chata. Their offices have been equipped with tabletop-sized spinning wheels much like the one in Recollé Square that will spin 'round and 'round, determining the position you qualify for. Are you ready to show how these traits make you the perfect applicant? It looks like you have time to consult with your fellow candidates before your turn comes.

Or perhaps you've managed to resist spinning that wheel. The recruiters absolutely love your willpower and determination and want you to join their team! For those who can resist, they will still find themselves whisked away by recruiters to the same office and thrown straight into training to prepare for interviewing their neighbors. Recruiters will set up pairs of interviewers and applicants, leaving them alone to ask the hard-hitting questions and pick the most qualified candidate. Do your best and beat out the rest! It's your time to shine.

II.
Just because school is out for the summer doesn't mean Apparassage is quiet. Students and faculty alike are bustling about already preparing for the next school year. Campus tours of Recollé University run every two hours, and there are open house tours of the local elementary, middle and high school. Perhaps you're a future student exploring the campus and getting to know your future classmates. Maybe you're faculty or a student guide wrangling the kids and keeping them in line. Or you just might be one of the unfortunate ones who have found yourself with six weeks of summer school.

However, no matter where you find yourself in this district things get a little tricky when you're ready to leave for the day. The sidewalks outside of the buildings have all disintegrated, revealing a large void leading to nowhere beneath your feet. Without a clear path it seems impossible to escape, but stacked at the entrances of every doorway are large tiles with the letters of the alphabet carefully printed on them. When you look across the devoid path, you may notice you have a partner in a similar position with their own stack of letters.

Get ready to expand your vocabulary. Building a bridge of connecting words may be your only chance of getting home before sunset. Strangely, as the letters are laid out they seem to suspend mid-air enough to hold your weight as you make your way carefully across this pit. Balance and precision are key in this game. The stack floats along behind you as you cross the void, letters seemingly adding to the pile to provide more materials to build.

But like all games, there can be only one winner. Those who clear their letters first will arrive outside of the district safely, free now to come and go as they please. For those who do not clear their stack in time, you might have luck jumping from word to word to cross the finish line. Try as you might, if this is the method you follow, the moment you land on the winning word to leave the district the letters will glitch out, sending you plummeting into the void and landing on a long slope down to the bottom. Upon landing, you will see a series of chutes and ladders one can use to climb back up. Some ladders lead back to Apparassage. Some lead straight into Tisse, and some even lead to unexpected places. Where will you end up? The journey is up to you now.

III.
The days are longer, the nights are shorter, the sun is shining and it's noticeably warmer. Isn't it a perfect time for a summer potluck? The citizens of Recollé seem to think so and have all gathered today in Hollingberry Field with friends and loved ones to share food and fun. Kids chase after each other in friendly games of tag and hide-and-seek while other attendants mingle with one another, piling plates of food and sharing with their neighbor.

Why, even Mayor Mayer is out today for this summer kickoff with his lovely red Chocobo, Seabiscuit.

As the evening begins to wind down, however, there's a startled cry from the Mayor as he realizes someone has kidnapped his beloved pet from right under his nose. Was it you? How about you? Everyone has become a suspect and it's up to you to solve whodunnit. The Mayor provides everyone with a pen and a pad of paper divided into three sections for a suspect, a method, and a location. Grab a friend (or even a group of strangers) and get ready to interrogate each other to crack this case.

(With a little looking, however, it's easy to see that Seabiscuit's merely wandered down the hill away from the park. But maybe it's better not to tell the Mayor. He seems very adamant about this game.)

For anyone who manages to solve the case, the Mayor will be immensely grateful and reward you with a valuable prize! Congratulations! However, for anyone who fails to solve the puzzle, or even anyone found guilty of this heinous crime, by order of the Mayor you will be subjected to jail time for a full half an hour. (The Mayor can't stay too mad at his citizens. He loves them all.)

IV.
A nice, leisurely stroll through the entertainment district of Tisse seems to be in order. Summer sales are aplenty and now's the perfect time to shop 'til you drop. On the other hand, that doesn't seem to be the only thing dropping in Tisse. Do you hear that? Perhaps it is easy to ignore the sounds of stone crashing to the ground. Construction isn't unusual in this district. You think maybe you passed an ongoing demolition on your way inside a shop. But the crash happens again, and again, and again, a loud string of booms growing closer and closer.

Are those buildings tipping into one another? Or is it your imagination? You may not have time to answer while the string of events is put into motion. A crane swings overhead, knocking into a well-placed boulder that begins to roll down the street. Cranes, pulleys and wires move in sync as the ball rolls right toward you. Will you run? Will you collide right into the next set of traps? You may recall learning about this type of experiment once upon a time, coming to realize the elaborately planned Rube Goldberg machine spans the entirety of the city.

Maybe you're one of the lucky ones and you find a safe shop to dive into to escape. Or perhaps your sole focus is to run and get as far as you can, failing to notice that the large boulder herds you right to the end of the district and into a caged-in area. Make yourself comfortable. Someone from the outside will have to free you. But hey, maybe you aren't alone in this trap. Misery loves company, doesn't it?

BONUS.
The Retrospec app is at it again, just as useless as it's always been. After downloading to your device and allowing you to upload a profile picture, the app seems to take over your phone. Any time you open your phone to use it, a splash screen appears prompting you to pick one of the brightly colored wedges (or one of the two grayed out ones.)

It's time to exercise your brain and buff your trivia stats. Answering a question from your selected category will allow you to use your phone once again, but if you get it wrong? Retrospec will encourage you not to give up and try again.

...or, you know, you could ask someone to help figure out the answer. Hey, that person looks like they're bursting with knowledge! Perhaps it's best to see if they can help you stop this madness.

As usual, any attempt to get the company to reply are futile. Once a question has been answered correctly, phones will return to their usual functionality until the next time it settles into idle mode.

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!

Your June TDM directory is here, and your AU workshop is here!

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[ He gets there just in time, Mafuyu lugging herself up too after she gets a good enough grip on Kuramochi's hand and the ground. She mumbles something that might be a thanks, but her head's turned up towards the window she'd leaped from, a wary two seconds passing before she can be sure no one is going to follow her (as if they would, out the window and not through the door proper...) ]

I'm safe... Okay! I gotta go, so— uwahh!! [ She jumps back, nearly falling down the exact same chasm because she hadn't expected it to be so wide or go on for so long. She throws herself back onto the ground, looking left and right. ]

Are we trapped? No- [ another glance at the school building, no no no ] Maybe I can make it if I jump for it?!

I could have done with actually getting to do my shopping, yeah.

[She sounds pretty dry, despite the fact this is kind of terrifying. But, she'll look around the store they're in, and shrug.] ...And would've picked a slightly better date location.

[HIKARU BUILDINGS ARE FALLING OVER COULD YOU NOT--]

[ Wow, this is awkward ]

Um, you were sleeping in an alley...

[ Who the hell does that if they're not homeless-- Oh, right ]

And you haven't had anything to drink.

[ --So that takes "sad and drinking by oneself" out of the running for possibilities. ]

Too many feathers to bother with. Preparing the meat would be a nightmare.

[no mention of actually how you might get put in a real jail for it.]

I'd rather buy chicken and pretend it was chocobo.

But I just said that I can't get you any beer--

--I can pretend to?

[ He reaches behind himself and mimes taking out a beer stein, and then mimes a tap, stares it down to minimize the foam, and then finally mimes cutting off the top layer of foam and handing it to her ]

Do you think that I'm supposed to recognize that you're a troll and ask for help, or that I'm supposed to think you're just a traveler at my tavern?

[ oh swell, establishing good associations already!! ]

Well, it's not like riflin' through a library isn't a pain or anythin'. [ ...] Plus, while it might be worth a shot tryin' to use their public computers— I just bet there'd be a trivia question there for you, too. [ pretty much like a virus, yeah.

and indeed, upon checking his phone to attempt to access wikipedia, retrospec prompts for the answer to a trivia question. ... the likes of which gets john to furrow his eyebrows in annoyance. he tilts his screen so that gerald might be able to read his new prompt:

The second video ever played on MTV was by what female artist?

???? he hasn't a clue. ]

[Ok, she might have overreacted, especially after seeing what these guys considered a "prison" in this scenario. Definetly beats the cells she'd seen in the past.

Sighing, she nods ]

Sorry if I snapped a little, I was just caught off guard by all of this. [She's had bad experiences with getting arrested before. All of which she has regrets about.]

I didn't really pay much attention to them earlier, though I guess we should start questioning people now. Someone must have seem something happening. [She kind of doubts that anyone would really miss someone hijacking a chocobo of that prominence...much less with a forklift of all things.]

[It was odd. It seemed that this was all some sort of a game...maybe even one the mayor came up with on the spot when the chocobo was gone. Actually, thats kind of impressive now that she considers it.]

Edited 2017-06-19 22:26 (UTC)

[Awkward joke indeed, but Yukiko smiles and looks through her own letters.]

Why don't you trade me a C for my N?

[that way they can stop wobbling high up here like this.]

Yeah. Archaeology and Folklore.

[She squints a bit at Katherine, considering.] I don't think I recall your name, though?

[Hikaru doesn't comment on having saved her life--it's not something she is really thinking about. Wouldn't anyone have done that?]

Theeeere ya go. [She pat-pats him on the back (which is more like a slap-slap), and takes the pretend beer. Play along! It would be nice if it was a real beer, though.]

[(The kid's got good beer-pouring technique for being... however old that he can't drink here.)]

Uhh... Iunno! [She says, pausing in drinking her invisible beer.] Are you a troll racist?

[Build your character, Emil!! The power of imagination is yours.]

[Honestly, Hikaru would be surprised how many times someone's thrown Kath under the bus. Having some rather questionable friends growing up didn't exactly help that.

She thinks over what the girl tells her for a minute, before nodding and giving a small smile. Yeah, she definitely finds that familiar. She recalls one of the foreign students from Japan studying that, a Ms.-] Hikaru Mibu, I believe? Either way, I'm Katherine Takada, one of your Student Guidance Counsellors. We've probably bumped into each other before.

Dunno. Boss 'em around a lot?

[ accepting this bigass head of lettuce, john places it back into his bag. the vegetables are pretty useless right now in their entirety, so their container gets placed temporarily on a shelf as he glances about the place. ]

Well, most of 'em don't need refrigerated, so! [ a shrug. ] If we're really stuck here that long, then we got somethin' to eat.

[The sidewalks might have been crumbling away into the abyss and the Square might have been overtaken by an obnoxious wheel and even more obnoxious job interviewers, but Lucy still had to work. The warehouse was offering increasingly irritating hours, so here she was at a cafe in the afternoon, drinking coffee in an attempt to wake herself up before the evening shift. And sulk at a table off to the side. She was very good at sulking.

The door behind her slammed open, and Lucy bolted upright and stumbled away from the table, turning. What was that sound?that?

...she knew that face. The voice was different, older, but—that arm. There was only one. Just like Lucy remembered.]

What.

[Still processing. Give her a moment.]

[His eyes slide over to Shou like he's doing a thorough assessment of whether or not he deserves to learn his name or not. Bossy and rude.]

...Lalli.

...A lot of homeless people are alcoholics.

[That point kind of backfires, in his opinion... But he was indeed sleeping in an alley, which he has to admit is strange (to himself, at least -- this guy doesn't need that sort of validation).]

I was running and I sat down to rest.

["sat down" he was definitely at least half-asleep]

I guess if it comes to that, they've probably got like, a grill or something?

[I mean this is basically like an 8-12 or whatever, they've got hot dogs and pizza and shit, too.]

But hopefully not! I'd like to get out of here before society collapses and we're forced to form tribes. I'd make a terrible raider.

Oh? So it's a date now? I had been meaning to take you up on that offer, but you didn't need to resort to these drastic measures for it.

[He smiles, despite the situation being now both a little awkward and still a bit terrifying.]

Regardless, we do have little else to do but talk.

[Oh, the bouncy castle didn't look that bad. Ah, but Chloe was perfectly happy to play along with this silly game. When tapped on the shoulder, she turned around, her form clad in a near floor-length cloak of green, looking at her with only her eyes and purple hair really visible over the hood. Her smile was mostly obscured as a result, the girl's accent coming through lightly with rolled r's and silent h's.]

Ah, of course miss. How may I assist you?

Oh! Yes! [She gets a little red. That's a name she should remember, and pay attention to. How is she going to do what her father told her to do if she can't keep track of her guidance counselors?]

I remember now! Ahaha, sorry about that...

[If he knew she was sort of his neighbor, he might have guessed that, since Finland had similar laws and his grandma had done a lot to remind him of it when she decided he was being too much of a useless, spoiled lump of an American. Hurray for being out of country long enough that he's exempt.]

...No?

[He's guessing no. Going with a no, here. Probably no.]

Oh, this is a bit too drastic, even for me. I was just thinking something like 'studying' at a nice coffee shop, or something like that.

[She does smile back though, clearly flustered. Boy! Cute boy!!!]

It's true...I'm glad I finished my papers before today, at least.

[Katherine grabs the top of a nearby chair and manages to pull herself up, her breathing stabilizing. Dammit, this was her day before the weekend, she didn't need to deal with this crap. All she wanted to do now was go home, feed her dog and probably give him a walk, then flop on the couch with a cold drink of some sort to calm down. And sulk. She was pretty good at sulking.

A resounding "What." brought her back to the present, and, taking in her surroundings, she realized just where she was. Taking on an apologetic look, she turned to face whoever she had startled.]

I'm sorry if I startled you, but I had to get away from that boulder, and I saw the door-

Edited 2017-06-30 05:40 (UTC)

[...He's pretty sure stores don't work that way, but honestly that's fine... He casts a look around to make sure no employee is going to come running towards them with torches and pitchforks, then follows after her to poke around for his own exit. Most places had doors, he's pretty sure? In case of fire?

Anyway, he's still Bothered.]

Do you always just grab whatever strangers you want?

[ oh good hotdogs and pizza > w/e the heck john has ]

[ thankfully, he does not vocalize the vision of this store becoming akin to lord of the flies. let's hope this place never falls that far... anyway— ]

Aw, I wouldn't sell yourself so short! [ there's a jocular tone here. ] You were pretty quick out there, y'know? They wouldn't know what hit 'em.

Well, he supposed that of all people who could have run into him, a cute girl wasn't the worst that could have happened.

And then he looked a little more closely at the person gaping up at him over those ridiculous sunglasses, and had to hold back a laugh. He had absolutely nothing at all against dressing in drag. It wasn't his thing by far, but this guy could easily pass for a woman and he found himself hoping that no one had ever given him trouble for it. Then he wondered why the hell he cared.

"Tch. Didn't anyone ever tell you it's rude to stare? I know I'm taller than average but I don't think I'm to absolute novelty status or anything."

Still nothing, for a moment, and he found himself getting a little worried. He hadn't thought the impact had been hard enough to do any damage, but maybe the guy had twisted his neck weirdly and given himself whiplash or something?

"Hey. You're not hurt, are you?"

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