repeter | 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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Is it really? Well, there's one way of finding out, I suppose.

[Luckily, he's given her a lot of letters to work with in his long Scrabble word, so she surveys her tiles a bit before borrowing one of his Os to finish off an eight-letter word: E N F A D A D.

There's really no way of telling whether this game will accept "enfadado" as a valid play. But at this point, she's honestly more curious in trying out the experiment than she is is potentially missing a move for the attempt.]

[The moment she suggests a test, he hops back to solid ground and holds his breath. He didn't want to go down with the ship if this didn't work, but...it would be nice if it did.

When Carmen doesn't go hurdling into the depths like he had many times before, mostly because I say so and I get what I want, he starts shuffling through the tiles. Long words, long words... Well, there are plenty of long words, but he suddenly has trouble recalling any of them until he studies Carmen and the tiles she'd used. N is a good kickoff point, and would stretch their bridge faster since it was on the end. P U N A I N E is played off of it, and though he had been confident while adding the tiles, he goes back to looking uneasy as soon as he's finished. Maybe it accepted hers but not his for some unfair reason.

No, that would be needlessly cruel.]

...Used to American game sites.

[He never gets to use his ridiculous language except to try and discourage people from talking to him.]

Mm. Americans do tend to have the monopoly on a lot of things, don't they?

[She regards her tiles a minute, thinking.]

What language is that in? I have a guess, but that's mostly been by process of elimination, not recognition.

[Dumb Americans, thinks the boy who had been griping about xenophobia. Mmm, yeah.]

Finnish.

[His reply is hardly more than a mumble, and rather than looking at her, he's trying to calculate the number of tiles they'll need to cover the distance. Why did this gaping hole cutting him off from his home have to be so big?]

Punainen. Red. The color.

[three guesses as to why and the first two don't count]

What language would you have guessed?

Something Scandinavian. It didn't strike me as having Latin roots, which ruled out several possibilities, and then of the remainder, your accent ruled out several others.

[She shrugs slightly.]

So. Would I be wrong in assuming that Finnish is your first language?

No.

[If he hadn't been fed up with falling already and had his accent become a touchy subject when he was a kid, he'd probably be...far more receptive to this conversation. As it is, Carmen will just have to deal with his sharp, choppy sentences.]

Not Scandinavian, though. [Technically. Just Nordic.] Finland isn't part of it.

[And anyone studying the languages would sure be able to tell that Finland is the oddball over there. The others were much, much closer and had overlap. Not that...he knows the difference between them or could say any particular word.]

Did you run out of words?

Oh, no. That's one thing I've never had a shortage of, believe me.

[And he's given her a U to start a word with, so let's try B I Qu I T O U S.

There is a trend here and it is that she is going to use Qu and X as much as humanly possible.]

When did you move here from Finland?

[god why is this woman so EXTRA

It's definitely not a long word, but he slams down I E T after her horrible Qu. He can do it, too, lady!!]

...I was eight. Why?

Curiosity. You've been in this town much longer than I have.

[Speaking of which, she can use that T to make E M P O R A L.]

Mrmph.

[Okay, okay... Going back to view all his options and not at all to sulk.]

...You look okay about a big stupid hole in the city.

Or I'm hiding my astonishment very well. Really, it could be either one, couldn't it?

[But she's not going to give him shit about not taking a turn, UNLIKE SOME PEOPLE. She has patience.]

In any case, I don't see how carrying on or making a scene is helpful or productive.

[He makes a small noise of concession, but he's...not sure he buys that. He's a bit too judgmental.]

That's true. But it's still annoying.

[Okay, he's got the letters he needs, now. Off the L, he writes A K K A K A K K U. Finnish is a mysterious and beautiful language.]

You haven't fallen yet, have you?

I haven't yet, no. Though I suppose I might.

[If she's afraid of falling, she's giving no indication of it at the moment.]

Have you?

Because I seem so fresh-faced and eager about this game?

[Of course he's fallen...]

I don't even go to this part of the stupid city ever...

Sarcasm doesn't become you. And neither does sulking.

[As she tosses out (K) I N T S U K U R O I.]

Not in university yet, then, I take it?

[WELL IT'S A GOOD THING HE ISN'T TRYING TO FLIRT THEN, ISN'T IT ugh, people... Whatever, he'll just...put U L K off of that S. He's a little distracted this time.]

I'm not planning on going to university.

[heathen child]

From lack of interest, or lack of resources?

[One of these is highly relevant to her interests. The other is also relevant to her interests, but in the sense that she will be inclined to aggro a guy about it until she gets her way.]

[mumble grumble humble grumble that sounds closer to "interest" than "resources". There was a bit of a pause there, though, and he doesn't seem entirely committed to that answer.]

I'm sorry, I don't think I quite heard you.

[KINDERGARTEN TEACHER VOICE.]

[LONG-SUFFERING SIGH and more grumbling for a little bit.]

Interest. Happy?

JUNE TDM

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