Recollé Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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repeter2017-06-16 08:40 pm
recollecters) wrote in repeter2017-06-16 08:40 pm
Entry tags:
JUNE TDM
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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! |
no subject
"I wasn't trying to sneak up on you! And if I wanted to, stepping right in front of you so you'd run into me wouldn't be the way to do it!"
Yeah, he was pretty sure the tips of his ears were turning red, and he turned his head to the side to glare at the ground, completely flustered and not entirely sure why. He did really like the guy's laugh, though...and this was just stupid. He didn't even know him and he was pretty annoying, why was he even interested?
But then he connected what the guy had said earlier, and looked in the direction he'd waved to. "Yeah, I wouldn't go over there for awhile. People are being weird and pushy."
It was only fair to warn him, after all.
no subject
"Ahhh, so you admit you were trying to get me to run into you?" Fai asked, practically purring with amusement. "I'm really flattered Mister Ninja, but there were easier ways to get my attention! You could have just said hello! Or maybe offered to take me out for a drink, but I might need a name for that first~"
One of these days his flirting was going to get him into trouble. It probably wasn't fair to do this to Seto, even if Fai had no real intention of letting anything happen--if Mister Cute and Blushing was even interested, that was. The most that would happen would be a nice afternoon out for coffee, and Fai would come away with a new friend to harmlessly tease. He could deal with that.
"Mm?" Fai let his attention be pulled away from the taller man; cocking his head at an angle in curiosity, he took a couple of steps toward the commotion as if he could somehow get a better view that way. "Weird and pushy? What do you mean?"
sorry, just went with the recruiter guys because im uncreative
"What?! No I wasn't! It was an accident and you're the one who wasn't looking where he was going!"
But he'd still been run into, which obviously meant that he himself hadn't been paying as much attention as he should have been either.
"Name's Kurogane."
He muttered it with a hand on the back of his neck, still looking away because he simply couldn't understand why he was acting like such a moron. This was just an admittedly cute guy in drag who was pretty quick with his words, why was he anything but a nuisance?
But then the guy stepped toward the commotion, and Kurogane's hand shot out to - what? Grab his arm? He didn't know what the hell he was doing; the guy's decisions were his own and the fact that he cared at all was just strange. But he did. He didn't want this guy getting hurt, and the way those assholes had been pestering people it was a fairly valid fear.
"They're trying to get people jobs or something. I don't know, the whole thing is pretty annoying but they just sort of mob anyone in the area and try to get them to work for them. En masse, which is why there's so much commotion."
cw for a fear reaction and a vague memory of violence
The thought died on Fai's lips; afterward he wouldn't even remember what he'd been about to say. His attention was split between the ruckus nearby and the hunk just behind him, and with his head turned like this he didn't even see the hand reach out for him until it was on his arm.
Outwardly there wasn't much of a reaction, especially not considering how animated the blond could be. Fai paused, almost frozen. His eyes had gone wide, but he was already turned mostly away from Kurogane, and he gasped. Hardly a reaction at all, if one wasn't paying much attention. Inwardly he was back in the alley all those years ago with the man calling out his stage name and the blade of the knife flashing in the light of the streetlamps. His heart lurched and then hammered in his chest. A moment later when he regained control of his senses he could only pray that the other man hadn't noticed anything.
"Ah... a job fair?" he guessed, trying for the second time in less than ten minutes to regain his composure. His voice was shaking. He was shaking, a little.
<3
"Shit, I'm really sorry. I don't know why the hell I did that. Definitely wasn't something I intended on and I apologize."
One of the first lessons his father had ever taught him was about consent and that he shouldn't touch people unless they gave express permission, and that the only time this could be sidestepped was in a life or death situation. This wasn't one, and his years of martial arts training should have made that clear enough to have stopped this whole thing. But they hadn't, and he felt like a complete ass.
"They're just being really pushy, and I didn't want you getting mobbed for going over there. Doesn't excuse me grabbing you, though."
He totally expected the guy to just walk away, and he wouldn't have blamed him in the slightest.
oh no poor Kuro-pu :c
"What? No, please don't apologize! You didn't do anything wrong!" Fai turned back toward Kurogane, angling his head just for a second to let the sunglasses slide back over his eyes properly, and forced a sunny smile onto his face. His heart was still racing, the adrenaline still screaming through his system, but Fai had decades of practice at pretending everything was okay when it wasn't. He could surely bluff his way out of this with some guy who didn't even know him!
"See? I'm just fine. You didn't hurt my arm or anything, so please don't worry about it!" And like the hypocrite he was, he reached out and lightly laid his free hand on the other man's arm, in what was meant to be a reassuring gesture. "Besides, it's really sweet of you to think of protecting a stranger from something like that! I really appreciate it."
he'll live, he's just embarrassed xD
"Tch, your arm's not what I'm concerned about."
He'd barely touched it, after all. Unless the guy was that frail, and Kurogane really didn't think he was. Not at all. But he shrugged. It wasn't his business, and if the guy was that desperate to save his image he'd go along with it.
"If you say so. They just really annoyed me when I was over there. I don't really like being crowded."
But he didn't really mind the guy's hand on his arm...
"Um. You got a name?"
He couldn't just keep thinking of him as "that guy." That'd just be stupid.
no subject
"I do say so! I know you have your big tough guy image to maintain, but I can already tell you're sweet. But don't worry, I won't tell anyone. Your secret's safe with me!"
At least until the big guy came up in a conversation somehow. But that could be ages from now so that totally didn't count.
Fai faltered at the subject of his name, instead sipping at his almost forgotten drink as an excuse to stall while he considered the wisdom of giving it out. He was supposed to be protecting himself with the sunglasses. Giving out his name would be stupid and irresponsible, wouldn't it? If this guy, Kurogane, somehow remembered him--
No, that was really stupid. What were the chances this one single person out of the whole of the city would have not only visited the burlesque club over six years ago but would actually still remember him? By anything other than his stage name, which he wasn't giving out, ever? On the other hand, Fai's caution was in place for a reason. If anyone actually remembered him--
"Fai," he offered at last. Maybe it was just because Kurogane did come across as really sweet, but for some reason Fai trusted him. "My name is Fai. It's nice to meet you, Kurogane."
(And yeah, that hand was still on Kuro's arm, without him even really thinking about it.)
no subject
It wasn't terribly obvious, and the guy was doing a good job at hiding it, but Kurogane had always been good at reading people. Had needed to be, having grown up in martial arts. Finding tells was crucial, and for all his skill, this guy had more than one.
But he couldn't make himself walk away either. Was it the hand on his arm? He didn't think so. The guy - Fai - wasn't exerting any pressure and his hand was just resting on it, but for some reason it wasn't bad. Which was weird, since Kuro wasn't usually a fan of being touched, especially by people he didn't know.
He had to scoff at the teasing, but it was pretty obviously meant as a distraction so he went along with it anyway.
"I don't care about my image! What's with you and saying weird stuff?"
It came out as a grumble, but there was a trace of a rare smirk on his face.
"Good to meet you too."
no subject
"Sorry Mister Muscles, that's just the way I am! If you're going to be my friend you're going to have to get used to it. And you're going to have to agree to be my friend if you're going to take me out for lunch! I don't just let any cute guy off the streets barge his way into my life like that. Even if he's really cute like you~"
Fai polished off the last of his coffee and tossed the empty cup in the nearby wastebasket, then rested both hands on his hips, the shopping bag still hanging off one arm, to eye Kurogane critically.
"Hm. Unless you're not hungry yet, or you've already eaten. Then I suppose you could tag along while I do some more shopping. Although big tough guys like you don't usually like to shop...."
"Well, what's it going to be?"
(Sorry Kuro, you're getting railroaded here.)
no subject
"When did I offer to take you to lunch?! You come on pretty strong for a guy acting like he's being propositioned, just so you're aware."
But then he shook his head and sighed. There'd probably be more of a production if he just refused outright, and the guy was pretty cute...
"Yeah, sure. I'm not doing anything, let's go get some food then if you'll quiet down."
He made absolutely no comment about being called cute. Fai was pretty obviously used to pulling this with people and he didn't really buy into it, so it wasn't worth addressing anyway.
no subject
Since the hand on the bigger man's arm hadn't raised a fuss a minute ago, Fai sidled up and laced the arm not laden with his shopping bag through Kurogane's. "So, what are you in the mood for? American? French? Pizza? Oooh, we could get something to go and take it out to one of the parks for a picnic!" He tucked himself against Kurogane's side and beamed up at the taller man.
"What do you think? It's such a beautiful day!"
no subject
Yeah, he was pretty crabby about it all. The guy was cute but incredibly annoying. Why couldn't the attractive ones be decent people, for once in his life? He must have pissed some god or other off in a previous life.
"Yeah, I did. And I don't care what we eat, I'm not that big on food. Whatever sounds good to you is fine with me."
He had to shake his head at the string of suggestions, though."
"Not really bothered about where we eat, just pick something!"
no subject
"Alright Mister Grumpy, since it's up to me, let's have a picnic! Today is far too nice to waste on being indoors all day. We can stop by the deli on the next street over and get some things, and some cold drinks since it's so warm today! It's really lucky you didn't have anything else planned, isn't it? You would have missed out on all of this fun and not even known it!"
He's a whole head shorter and far less massive than Kurogane, but Fai nevertheless attempts to steer the big guy down the sidewalk, grinning contentedly behind his sunglasses.
"So, Kuro-cutie, tell me about yourself! If we're going to be friends I should know more than just your name, right?"