repeter | OCTOBER TDM

Entry tags:

! tdm

OCTOBER TDM

TEST DRIVE

OCTOBER TEST DRIVE
The city of Recollé...

When the crypt doors creak, and the tombstones quake, spooks come out for a singing wake. Happy haunts materialize and begin to vocalize...grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize...

Every year during the Halloween season, the city of Recollé comes to life with plenty of fall activities for everyone. There's something to do in every district if one were to take a look.

What will you do today?

I.
Family fun seems to be the theme today over in Tribunal Terrace. Several tables are set up and in a semi-circle near Recollé Square with stacks of pumpkins, carving tools, paint and anything else you may need to create your own jack o'lantern. Other stations are set up for face-painting and games to win mini-sized candy bars including a ring toss, bowling, and bobbing for apples. Be careful with the apples though. They like to wiggle and jiggle with their happy little faces staring up out of the water.

...so maybe apple-bobbing is for the brave at heart. Are you the artsy type to carve a beautiful pumpkin? Are you helping to run the games (or even cheating to get more candy)? It's time to relax and let your creativity flow.

II.
Pumpkin-carving not your speed? Never fear, horror is here. Over in Tisse there's plenty to do for those looking for a little more adventure. Several coffee shops have harvest specials made with pumpkin, maple, and pecan flavors. Over at Flix a monster movie marathon and costume contest are taking place (with a prize of two free passes for the best monster costumes.) But the highlight of this district is the annual haunted funhouse.

Anyone daring enough will find the usual spooks and scares in a haunted house, jump scares and fog machines galore. But...the house certainly didn't look so big from the outside. How did you possibly get shuffled straight to the center? No worries. This hall of mirrors will guide you out safely...if the walls closing in don't crush you first. It's a race against time as the halls narrow, and if you're one of the lucky ones you'll escape and exit through the main doors.

For those not quite so lucky, the walls will stop just inches from crushing you completely before the floor drops open and you find yourself on a slide, falling through the dark and tumbling into an underground room filled with plastic skeletons, rubber spiders and more. There must be a way out, right? Hopefully you aren't alone and you can navigate the lair with a friend or two.

III.

Meanwhile, the rest of the city's usual hustle and bustle continues. The shopping districts are busy, students wander the sidewalks after class, and that oddly-shaped ghost appears right in the middle of the crowd.

Wait, what? You could have sworn that ghost wasn't there before. Maybe you don't even believe in ghosts. You may blink a few times to clear your vision, but the faint outline of the ghost remains as a few more of them pop up around the city. They won't speak, but they will cause some trouble for anyone who gets too close whether it's by playing pranks on passerbys, stealing items and running away, sitting on a person and applying a gravitational force so they can't move or other crafty, sneaky tactics.

Are the ghosts messing with you? Or are you going to find a way to mess with the ghosts?

IV.
As the sun begins to set, a strange sort of fog rolls in. Several citizens of the city may not even think it's unusual and others seem to capitalize on the weather. The Churchhill Downs Stables are hosting their annual haunted hayrides through Recollé Woods as soon as the sun sets. There are plenty of carts and chocobos saddled up and ready to go.

Once passengers are seated the chocobos begin to trot forward into the woods as a pre-recorded ghost tour of the city takes place. The stories range from silly ones about two ghost children who like to play hide and seek in these woods to scarier ones about a jilted lover chasing her husband off a cliff at the edge of ocean. For the most part they're a bit cheesy and in good fun, but something about this haunted ride seems a bit...off. Peering into the fog you may see something strange that follows you, be it a monster or a shadow or an object. You may hear things whispering your name and you may see your greatest fear manifest right out of the fog and chase your cart through the woods. Even worse, it seems to follow you right out of the woods and back into the city. No matter where you run or where you hide, the fears from the fog will track you down and they change for every single person in the city.

Will you run or will you fight? You may wish to be careful since the creatures will fight back.

BONUS.
With only a few short weeks left until the end of October, Retrospec's Halloween Mode is in full swing and popping up on new users' devices. Retrospec users will find their application decked out in cheerful Halloween colors, and their userpics in a randomized (work safe) costume. However, there's always a trick to each treat and this time the seasonal mode can't be turned off for new users. Notifications chime with zombie groans, a rousing game of Candy Crush must be played and beaten before you can use your device again, and the new Trick or Treat function has a few upgrades. When a user enables this function, they will be met with the phrase "Trick or Treat?" Users who select "treat" will get one virtual candy! Yay! The catch though is that they will also find themselves in a costume representing that specific candy.

Should a user pick "trick", however, they will find all sorts of harmless but unpleasant things happening to them including but not limited to pranks, being splashed by vehicles driving through puddles of water, being unable to speak in anything but rhymes and other such things. None of these effects last over ten minutes, but the game will show up periodically over and over again and even giving you the option to play the game with others.

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 current players, TDM threads will not count toward your Trick or Treat freebie! Additionally, please remember that TDM threads can only be used for bonus points, not regains.

Please note: you will need a reserve to apply, and current characters must have full AC posted at the time of their reservation.

Your October 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

1) Pumpkins -

Now then, yes, just like that, you're doing wonderful.

[A tall thin woman sits among a group of children as they cut up their pumpkins. Her shock of white hair and her long nose seem appropriate for the season, but it's just the rat mask turned to the side of her head that is the whole of her costume right now. But despite her stern looks this teacher is a gentle soul, and she guides her charges through their crafting task with a gentle voice.]

If any of you are having trouble let me know. [She cuts slowly at her own pumpkin, long fingers wrapped delicately around her knife. She's in no rush to finish since she's not here for herself.

Anyone is welcome to join in, but any troublemakers will be met with a stern look first and foremost.]

2) Haunted House -

[Perhaps it's her own fault this happened, but she has no time to dwell on it. The hall of mirrors was unsettling somehow, for reasons she couldn't quite place. She's always looked a little odd, and she's made the most of it in her life, but surrounded by so many images of herself she couldn't quite shake the feeling that something was...

wrong?

She had been wondering if she truly saw herself with a tail in one of those reflections when she heard the walls shift. The thought was quickly forgotten and tossed aside as she began to run. She almost felt she could taste safety when the floor gave out, and though she leaped to save herself she wasn't sure it was enough. Would someone be there to catch her? Or perhaps would she find company in the pit below?]

4) Take Me For a Ride -

[Freya clutches her coat tighter as the cart trundles along the path. The chill of this fall snuck up on her this year and it feels all the sharper for it. At least the company she has with her helps to provide some heat but she still maintains about a foot of distance between herself and the other passenger. In fact she's been spending more time looking off into the woods as she listens to the stories than she has been talking to or even looking at her companion.

It's not until the end of a story of a woman discarding everything to follow a man only to learn he doesn't even know who she is that she finally speaks up.]

Hrmph. I've never liked such tales. Someone being such a fool for love...they only have themselves to blame.

[And then she hears it, a voice off in the distance calling her name, asking where she is. She turns violently, looking over her shoulder and back down the path as she tries to find the source.]

Togusa has grown very quiet while listening to the story, something akin to melancholy has settled onto his face. He was prepared for a horror story, but something more tragic has affected him deeper than he expected. A woman he doesn't know, but that he feels so deep a love for. But he knows Gentiana well, so why does he feel something for this story?

"I'd say it's the best thing to be a fool about. An old teacher of mine said we're all fools about something," Togusa comments lightly.

But then Freya is turning her head to listen. Togusa quiets, strains to hear what she is searching for. He lets a few moments pass before he asks, much softer, "Are you all right?"

"Hmmmm," she mutters uncertainly, her lip curling in a somewhat rodent like fashion as she scans the treeline. Nothing. Nothing but the chill wind.

"I'm fine. Just my imagination. I did not get much sleep last night." Her preparations for this event for the sake of her students meant a late night before and an early morning of. All worth it even if it did tire her out.

"Perhaps I should have just gone home and gone to bed early." She turned and looked back ahead, bundling up in her coat. "So what was your teacher a fool about?"

"This month will do it to you," Togusa admits with a smile. "Even I'm not immune to it, I've been jumping at everything that moves on my beat. Spooked a whole lot of stray cats."

Togusa's grin gets wider though. "Love." So matter-of-fact. "I didn't know he was such a romantic fool, but in his own words, that is precisely how he is. He's pretty overdramatic all the time, made his lectures interesting. But you can tell it's serious when he actually gets quiet. And he gets that smile on his face, you've seen the one."

"Hrmmm," Freya didn't mind cats so much, but strays never seemed to like her. The idea of a number of them in a panicked state left her with a touch of unease. At least she was able to put a finger on that feeling though.

And though perhaps it shouldn't have, Togusa's answer surprised her. His teacher's comment was a cynical one but she supposed romantic ideals could do that to a person. "Sounds like he had a fondness for the theater." She's silent a moment, glancing at the woods now. The quiet is the new thing leaving her uneasy. "I take it you two are no longer in touch?"

The quiet stillness is enough to get anyone's imagination filling in the gaps, the same problem that Togusa was describing before. And then, when the fog is generating things from that imagination, half the time? But it shouldn't, for Freya, right? She's not on the application.

The comment makes Togusa laugh. "The exact opposite, actually." So he'll fill the silence with noise, keep talking to set them both at ease. "We recently got back in touch, and now that I'm no longer his student, we've become quite good friends. I still think of him as a teacher, though, remembering the lessons I've learned from him."

Freya's attention again turns back to Togusa. She regards him for a moment and then smiles, though there's a bit of sadness in her eyes. "That's good. I've not kept up with as many people as I'd like, but I still have some friends I can turn to for help."

Her long fingers clutched at her coat, wringing the hem, "I've been in this city a few years now and I've yet to really make those connections here." She's not a homebody but making friends with random people isn't quite her thing either. That first interaction has always been a hurdle that she's found a bit easier to avoid. Or let others make the first move.

Togusa seems surprised, he looks at Freya with curiosity. "Why not?" It's a sensitive subject, but still one he is interested in. "Maybe I had it too easy when I came here. Got in with the Japanese students association at the University, you've got some people you know you've got something in common with."

"But even outside of that, the people here are friendlier and eager to help than you might expect. It really wasn't what I had expected, at first."

A noncommittal shrug is offered in reply. There's probably a good reason to do with her comfort around new people that could be parsed out, but in the moment it's just one of those little quirks of personal mentality that causes one to make a closed space around themselves. And by the time it's noticed it's become a comfortable nest.

But she gives it a try anyway, "I came here for the education program, but it was never my first choice." Sighing, she grips her coat a bit closer around her, eyes back to the forest again. "Now I'm looking to help young folk achieve things that I myself couldn't. It's a bit sad to think that I'll just be a footnote, a stepping stone to someone else's success. I know it's selfish to think that way...but it's one of those thoughts that creeps in around this time of year."

Togusa's eyebrows raise. There's more of Ardyn speaking through him when he speaks again, and he knows it, but he'll say it anyway. "But inspiring and shaping other people is what'll give you true immortality. Their success is your success, by nature. It's all right to take pride in it, rather than seeing it as yourself being surpassed."

"But there's a huge distance between a student and a confidant, someone you feel truly close to," Togusa has to agree. "There are other people who understand that same conflict, though. I can even think of a few."

Freya's smirk was a knowing one. It was a platitude she'd heard before and she had no argument to offer against it without tearing herself down in the process. It was right after all; if she enriched a student's life her life would have meaning even if her name faded to the background.

But perhaps she deserved to be selfish enough to want to be a bit more than just a fondly recalled inspiration. "Mmmm, I suppose that's true. I suppose maybe this old woman is just getting ahead of herself in putting herself out to pasture." She was only 29 but with her near white hair and her thin face she does at times seem older than she is.

And then that whisper from the woods came once more. She looks back down the path they'd traveled, scowling now instead of frightful. "Right...I KNOW I heard something this time."

-There weren't exactly no adults out there carving their own pumpkins, particularly teenagers who wanted to make something cute or put out a meme, but the 30 something crowd was mostly absent from the event, save for one particular man who was taking painstaking care and focus with his project. Until, of course, he nicked his thumb with the carving knife, letting out a rather loud curse...-

[Freya looks up from her own work at the outburst, a frown and furrowed brow already primed to be thrown at the offender, but then when she sees the cause behind it all she sets her anger aside just as quickly. Setting her known knife down she asks her students to wait a moment before walking over with a handkerchief held out in offering.]

Here. How bad is it? Shall I fetch the first aid kid?

It's fine, really. -Kasen placed his thumb between his lips while his free hand reached into one of the pouches on his apron pulling out a bandage. Of course readying it one handed was its own task...-

[Freya was about to argue with Kasen, not about to let him just blow off a cut to his finger like this. But then when he fetched out the bandage he had prepared she let off her own sigh of relief.]

Ah, I see. Here, let me help.

[She doesn't give him time to turn her down this time as she offers her aid in putting it on.]

Be sure to hold it upright for a bit.

-Did he really have any room to gripe about his dignity when he was carving a pumpkin among a crowd of mostly children? Oh the things he did for art... Sighing, he held up his hand for her.-

I assure you, I can do this sort of thing myself. -But he got the feeling she was the insisting type.-

[Being embarrassed about such things was a subjective point. One could choose to be, or one could have fun. Sometimes the kids are just used for cover for the adults to enjoy themselves. Freya was about halfway between those last two states.]

No harm in getting a little help, especially with a cut on your hand.

[She gently bandages it up, offering him an end of the bandage to hold onto himself if he so chooses.]

Even so, I'm sure there are younger artists who could use the help more than a grown man. -Kasen gave a small chuckle, shaking his head. He took the other end of the bandage, figuring why not.-

Perhaps. But most of them have been very careful not to hurt themselves. And thankfully none have yet.

[She smirks but gives him a stern gaze as she wraps the bandage around the cut nice and tight.]

I certainly hope you're not suggesting that their care has been negligent?

[She does however look back at the group and more properly levels that stern eye at one child who is fiddling around with the pumpkin carving knife. He puts it back flat on the table with a shade of panic in his eyes.]

Oh, no no, nothing of the sort, I assure you.

I'm just whining. Don't mind me. -Kasen sighed. So much for his dignity.-

[Mrs. Brisby volunteered, as well, though she isn't a teacher. She's just a little prone to empty nest syndrome, with her boys getting so independent! But she has a good demeanor, and she's just as helpful. And when there's a brief lull in the number of kids, she takes the time to scurry off and return with warm apple cider, offering a cup to Freya.]

Here, take a moment, dear.

[Freya smiles as she takes the warm cup. She's seen Mrs.Brisby about, especially at events like these, but she never really had the chance to talk to her properly before now.]

Thank you very much. It's great to see the children so happy about the holiday, but it's like having an entire day of classes in two hours.

I can only imagine. But these kids are all much more well behaved than my sons ever were.

[Freya nods, taking another sip and then setting it aside as she looks out over the gathering space. She crosses her arms in thought, wriggling her nose and lips in a tic she's had for as long as she can remember.]

I've been thinking of making a change far more frightening than anything here though. I've heard the high school needs a new gym coach.

[The scariest thing of all in this city: Teenagers.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

OCTOBER TDM

Freya Crescent | Final Fantasy IX

IV: WHYYY WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME

btw, help me find icons

Want a human pb before she transforms back?

Re: Want a human pb before she transforms back?

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

kasen s pumpkins

Re: kasen s pumpkins

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

1

Re: 1

no subject

no subject