repeter | 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

I just got here, yeah. The housing department on campus screwed up my rooming assignment so I have been arguing with people all day with monsters apparently running around outside. Nobody said anything about retrospect though. [Yeah he's. Not getting it.] You've had this conversation with people a lot, haven't you?

Kinda! I'm used to it by now, at least.

[Is that good or bad?? It makes him a good resource, at least...]

A-ny-way! No one who's not on Retrospec would talk about it, 'cause you don't even know it exists unless you have it. Weird, right? Check your phone, you'll see what I mean.

That is basically implying that an app can have that much control on a person, which seems pretty weird? [He's digging out his phone though and unlocking the screen to look.] And also, I think I would know about something like oh my god what is this and why is it here.

[He's turning the phone to show Kashuu and he's just confused???] I didn't download this.

Bin-go! None of us do. Also it's not the app that does things so much as the company that runs it, I'm pretty sure... The app's still creepy, though. But it's basically just a sign that you're under their weird umbrella of influence or whatever now. ...Sorry 'bout it.

[Considering John could have probably just lived BLISSFULLY UNAWARE otherwise... He does sound marginally apologetic, but on the other hand, it may be for the best that he knows what's going on while monsters are roaming around.]

So what you're trying to tell me is that there's some malevolent company that's in charge of all of these monsters and sending out an app to make sure people like us notice these things. [...] I mean, on the one hand, that is actually sort of cool? Like something from a sci-fi movie. On the other hand, I definitely did not sign up for this and I cannot think of any villains I pissed off lately.

How long have you had it?

Eh, at least that kinda attitude means you'll probably be one of the last people to go nuts.

[UNLIKE HIMSELF because he's exhausted 24/7 and it's just getting Worse as time goes on.]

But I've had it since back in February when there was this Founder's day parade thing. As far as I know, we're the first people? But we might also not be considering I guess this stuff's been going on for ages or whatever.

[One trend that continues in all lives: Kiyomitsu Kashuu is not good at explaining things.]

I haven't decided if that's something to be proud of or not. [Please save Kashuu, oh my god.]

February was, like, months ago. Nobody has figured out how to stop this or anything? [He's eyeing some sort of flying monster from way in the distance.] If it has been going for ages it sort of sounds like maybe we're supposed to deal with it.

[Honestly yes please save Kashuu he's so old and tired and he needs a long nap.]

Nope. I mean, this is as bad as it's ever been... But those guys really keep their hand close, y'know? Totally "spooky secret shadow society" vibe. We're only supposed to deal with it 'cause getting worked up over everything all the time gives you a headache and makes it hard to sleep.

That sounds about right. And I guess it would be too easy to complain to their customer service department or whatever, so people are stuck doing it themselves. Any idea why the app itself won't delete?

Mmmhm. They don't interact with us directly pretty much at all, but I guess they still listen in to the stuff we say, even off the network. So, uh... keep that in mind.

[WELCOME TO THE DYSTOPIA, JOHN.]

But nah, I have nooo idea why. It'll show up even if you use other phones or computers but no one will see it if they don't already have the app.

So nothing is sacred and could be used against us at any time. Perfect. That is exactly why I moved here.

But that is still sort of impressive that it can follow you wherever. How many people even have this app? A lot?

Yeah, basically. [Somewhere, someone is flickering the lightswitch rapidly.]

Uh-- I'd say maybe like, a hundred of us? I don't think anyone's done a count yet... The network's pretty busy but you're way more likely to run into people who don't know what's going on.

[Sorry that Jim's an asshole, Recollé. The number catches John by surprise because if there's so many people and they still haven't figured it out...that's pretty bad.]

I guess I will have to browse the network and see who else is around. I'm staying with a friend right now and she hasn't said anything about a monster-app, so I am guessing she's not a part of it. But if it's just like social media how hard can it be?

[But okay. There's a shrug before he holds out a hand.] John, by the way. If we are both on this network thing, I guess I'll be seeing you around quite a bit.

[Jim is cackling somewhere in the distance, probably...

But wow how old fashioned is John, who does handshakes anymore outside of stuffy old business people!! It's kind of endearing though, so he'll give it a shake, laughing at his poor poor soul. "How hard can it be", oh John. Oh, John...]

Kiyomitsu. Nice to meet you! Y'know, even if the city's being blasted by monsters right now and all. I'm still in the middle of dealing with the cleaning up here, but I'll give you a run-down of things after I'm done, if you haven't gotten one by then.

[Look John is a good and polite boy and yeah okay he's a little old-fashioned but that happens when you're raised by your grandmother basically.]

I can't say it's not mildly entertaining even if it's also probably dangerous and bad for the city itself. That'd be great actually? I think I want to hear about everything that's happened in this place since I am obviously missing a lot of information. But clean-up duty is probably more important. [A shrug.] I'll be around all year. We have time.

Just hit me up after it's ll over then, okay? [WITH LUCK IT WON'T BE LONG he thinks but doesn't say, because he doesn't want to curse them...]

I should get back to work now. You gonna be fine out here?

[A wave of his hand.]

I'll be fine. I'll look you up when all of this is over. Thanks a lot for everything. [And then John became an NPC for two weeks but oops oh well.]

AUGUST TDM

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