repeter | JUNE TDM

Entry tags:

! tdm

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!

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Don't even start. [ yeah, mary catches onto that little joke no problem, her cheeks almost immediately going pink. her tone's threatening, though decidedly less angry than it was a few minutes ago: apparently some things haven't changed all that much from high school. listen, she's not gay, okay!!!!

but! needling and mary-so-far-in-the-closet-she's-friends-with-Tumnus aside, she did actually miss her friend. the comment about protection makes her mouth quirk up a little bit, folding her arms across her chest. ] And what are you, some kind of knight in shining armor? How cool. [ a little teasing of her own. ]

[The imagery isn't enough to really affect him. Ardyn has a bit of a morbid curiosity that lingers within him as well, and honestly, this is not surprising at all to hear Pitou say.

A hand back on the bars now, leaning in.]

Good thing they can't feel it anymore when you do, hm? Still, your enthusiasm is almost enough to disturb even the dead.

Not today... but I know a few more cute girls to introduce you to. [Oh, that smile was getting cheeky when someone's cheeks turned pink. She leaned in to whisper in her ear. 'It is national coming out month, isn't it? Would I be a good friend if I didn't at least try and drag you out once?' And she winked before leaning back.

She laughed at the other comment and, before she realized it was out of her lips, a statement came to her.]

I'm the True Noir, Mary. You don't need to worry. I'll leap out of the shadows to protect you from whoever comes along. [And her face went fucking pale as a sheet, eyes wide. Shit, she'd just said it... she'd just said it... no, no, it was just a slip up. She was just joking. She wasn't serious.

Damnit, she had to be careful about those memories.]

[Wait, he recognizes that voice. He looks up to see Anya, dropping the tiles in his hand, trying his hardest not to show how nervous he is as he waves back.]

Hi Anya! How did you get up there?

[Kuramochi is trying not to show how afraid he is that she's on a floating tile! Can she even see the ground? He's used to Anya's fearless ways, but this is making him look for a tile that he can fly up to go get her. He doesn't want her to fall! It's not like he wouldn't run and catch her, still he wants her to be okay!]

[ Laurent's eyes light up in realisation and he taps on his phone quickly. ]

You're right, I suppose I didn't think of it as a sock pattern.

[ Just a generic, terrible one.

His phone unlocks. Perfect. ]

There. My phone keeps giving me trivia questions. I don't think I've installed anything but it seems oddly childlike for ransomware.

Edited (Spacing) 2017-06-20 17:54 (UTC)

Actually I kinda want to avoid that meeting.

[ He doesn't want to deal with the other people at the meeting, especially since this was going to be one of those meetings in which he tries to sound like he knew what he was doing when he was slowly feeling like he has no clue about this business. It didn't help that he was getting more and more hallucimemories from a jungle place. ]

But I don't think I can. Financial quarterly meeting or something, right?

Игра!

[That's her immediate answer, a happy chirp as she points back to the bridge of tiles that she'd taken to get where she is - before she realizes that that doesn't actually mean much to Mochi. She'd only just recently started to speak Russian fluently, after all. Retrospec works in mysterious ways....

But then she's shaking her head and immediately translating for him:]

Game! Anya played like asked.... but I do not have any more tiles? [So she looks at her empty hands in mild confusion before looking back over to him and - oh no. Her eyes light up.]

Mm, Mochi, Anya has a идея... Idea...!

Not the Mayor, as far as I know. And it's just a general "they" right now, though this isn't the first time I've been involved in something that really should be in a goddamn Looney Tunes cartoon. Shocker, I know.

[ Though David's pretty sure that Tifa's going to be giving him endless shit if he gets too into the details of that particular incident, so he won't elaborate for the moment. ]

Same. Though this is definitely a change from what I usually deal with.

[ Mafuyu has zero doubt that Kuramochi is way smarter than her, but the logic behind using tiles to make a word to get across doesn't make sense. It's true that the gap is too wide for jumping across, even with a running start, but words? No??

Mafuyu vetoes the idea, picking up some of the tiles, but instead of laying them out to form words, she starts stacking them one on top of another. ]

I dunno how that's supposed to work, but I do know I can jump further from up high. Help me build a tower.

Ah, I do hope that won't bruise...

[ Now that would make sunbathing a bit... awkward, now wouldn't it? Though, in Émilie's case she generally avoids sunbathing since UV can do a number on her skin. ]

[ And who just runs towards the boulder? None other than Émilie Écarlate, heiress to the Écarlate fortune... who proceeds to stop the boulder that should have squashed her with her bare hands.

Yes, that just happened. ]

[ Hooray! Ryoji lights up at the English, universal language as it is and one that he should have tried off the bat. He's always tried connecting to people in their native languages, so having it turned around for somebody accommodate him instead is a pleasant surprised. ]

Is that how you say "I'm resting"? Tarvitsetko apua?

[ In terribly pronounced Finnish, Ryoji butchering the language in thanks. ]

[ If Fuuka has ideas, it would be best to say them, because Ryoji is unhurried, laying out all their letters and taking his sweet time in mulling over them, shifting them here and there and jumbling both their stacks together; sorry, they'll have to be partners now.

He's got a tricky Q he's been trying to get rid of, though, and seeing the K in Fuuka's stack has him brightening up. He takes those two letters, along with her A and T and some of his own, and lays out ]

Ta-da! "Kumquat!" It's a fruit!

You questioned their effectiveness. I consider that an insult.

[Keito spends a few minutes pondering how he could possibly mess up "nearsightedness" into a less passive aggressive word, fails, and spells out "galumph" instead.]

Obviously. I know what I'm doing and despite your earlier blunder it seems you do too. Maybe we lucked out after all.

[He does settle with knocking the n in nearsightedness a bit less straight. Whoops.]

Thank you for your gracious concession.

[is she joking? her tone makes it unclear.]

I'll be sure to let you know if any mistreatment happens so you can be first in line to enact vengeance on my behalf.

You have eyes don't you? Does it look like we're any closer?

[they're not.] We need to make longer words.

[He can't believe this. He's so offended on behalf of the English language.]

It's ear-AKE!! It becomes a hard c! How are you in America without knowing how to read?!

[ shou just lounges on seabiscuit's back, ruffling the chocobo's head feathers. remarkably chill, for a villain. ]

Oh no, you found me! What're you gonna do about it, huh? [ the bird just cocks its head at them both. save him from the child on its back...! ]

[Keito shows him by placing 'aggravating' off of ecstasy's 'a'. Then he gestures at it as if unveiling some magnificent piece of art.]

I feel the same, by the way.

[ It's a park that had broken their fall, thick grey grass Ryoji had never thought he'd be so happy to see and spit out of his mouth as he pulls himself up, shaking his head and stopping immediately because it just makes things hurt all the more. ]

What was- what...?

[ He looks up. Chutes and ladders. And then over at Akira, who is staring at him with searching eyes and Ryoji immediately feels his stomach clench under that stare: guilt. Suspicion. That look people give him when they think he might be hiding something from them, and it's the worst when they are friends. ]

...Ah, your glasses. [ He breaks off that thought and takes a step back, looking around for them. ] How well can you see without them?

[ mary's shoulders hunch right up when chloe leans in to whisper in her ear like that, flush going from light to scarlet, and she opens her mouth to respond, shuts it and glowers at her instead. it's the "you're crazy but okay" look that mary has perfected since high school. she definitely didn't miss that!!!!

but. lucky for her, if mary notices something wrong with chloe after she says that, she doesn't say anything about it. there's definitely a look of recognition on her face, but mary saves it easily, pressing her lips together. ] Sounds like you've been reading too many comic books.

[ she'll ask...but probably later, especially with that look of panic on her face. mary's always been incredibly observant and smart, and chloe's probably aware.
for now, she'll give chloe a free pass. ] If you keep trying to mess with me you can stay in the shadows.

[Well, they were on the same page with that. With a long yawn he puts down, "gaping" on the 'g'.]

Can't we just go home?

[It took a moment for her to recover, and she gave her friend a grateful look. Seriously? She'd fill her in on all the crazy, scary things she'd seen in her hallucinations if she wanted in. She didn't keep it from Emilie, from many others. She wouldn't keep it from her, but it was already a lot to handle.

She managed a laugh and shook her head.] I've met a few comic fans lately, what can I say? [She gave her a little grin and shoo her head.] But teasing is what friends are for, no? Come, let us try to ignore all of this unpleasantness. If we sneak off, we can skip the whole investigation, yes? Maybe get ice cream?

[Sprinkles were still normal! ...well, not the green ones, but who was counting?]

Sorry, you say something? [Regardless if it's a declaration or growled under Malik's breath, Adam heard it because what the hell is this guy's hearing. He's just going to be an ass about it, and match antagonism for antagonism, especially since Malik was so gosh darn rude.]

[Judging by the expression on his face, this particular oaf is not having as easy a time.]

I'd rather just be able to use my phone, honestly.

What the hell is the point of knowing the real name of chicken pox...

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 54 of 100

JUNE TDM

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

IV /superman theme plays

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

Bonus