repeter | OCTOBER TDM

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! 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

"Hmmm..."

{She knows a little trick to this. Be vague enough that whatever you say could encapsulate a good deal of possibilities, and guess with something that you think is likely or fascinating. So she says,]

"You're running away from something, aren't you? Or perhaps, you're hiding from something. Your past mistakes, say?"

[--That was...

Mattie glanced at the woman, green eyes widening in surprise for a second before she quickly leaned forward, brows arched in her blustering derison.]

Are you a writer or a fortune-teller-- which is it, Mayvin? And how do you even know about that? It's not even in any records!

[Just rumors, even if in this case they were completely true.]

"I have my ways of knowing things. Of course, I don't really care either way about your past. Unless of course, you want someone to talk to about it."

[Her guess was spot on, it seemed. Now just to see where following this took her.]

Like I'm telling you anything!

[She leaned back against the hay bales with a huff, not even bothering to make eye contact with this woman.]

Besides, you probably know everything you wanna know about Mattie Camlann already. It's not like my life's a secret or anything.

"Oh? What parts of your life are public? Your family situation, for instance?"

[Coaxing out info, one snide comment at a time.]

I already said I'm not talking~

[Although surely Maggie could put the pieces together. She did somewhat resemble a certain business man, after all...]

[And indeed she was. Camlann did ring familiar as a name, it was true, and she could see something of a resemblance. She didn't remember where she had heard Camlann though, but she remembered who from, and the somewhat annoyed, somewhat wistful emotions surrounding that name. Maybe's she's related to, him. But, how could that be? Well, she had to press it, just to see if she could find something to confirm her suspicions.]

"Hmmm. You have problems with your father, right?"

[Her gaze grew cold at these words, and she regarded Maggie with a more critical eye. 'Mayvin' was a name that carried a lot of baggage in her life, but she had tried to keep an open mind for the sake of reasoning that it was possible for another to have the same surname and not be connected to the source of the baggage-- but, to be so spot on in her assessment of Mattie on just their first encounter, perhaps she had been too lenient in her judgement.

Almost idly, she picked a piece of straw from her hair and twisted it in her fingers.]

It would take someone in a similar situation to know that, [She said cooly. Then:] 'Mayvin's' a fairly auspicious name in these parts. I'm surprised to see anyone with that name on a hayride in the downtown.

[So it was true, then. Her father hadn't just ruined her life but another person's as well. Even though she spoke in her more jovial tone her smirk seemed to fade at Mattie's words. But of course, she wasn't going to fully let her guard down just yet. Even... if this was her half-sister she was in all likelihood dealing with.]

"Well, what can I say? Mayvin's parenting skills, or lack thereof, have taken me to some rather odd places."

[She heaved a sigh when her suspicion was practically confirmed-- that yet another person's life had been ruined by that man, and there was more of a reason to try to find a way to get dirt on him and bring him down.... somehow.

It was a fool's errand, she knew. Her mother no longer cared, and she doubted this person... her probable half sister, it seemed, did either.]

Tell me about it. His parenting skills, or lack thereof, have taken me odd places too.

"Yeah. ...But it doesn't matter. It's both good and bad to know these things. Bad, ebcause it means we had to deal with an emotionally negletful and abusive man... but good, in that at least we're not alone in that fact. Isn't that right, sis?"

[The last word slips out unintentionally and she catches herself, beginning to blush a little. What was she even doing with herself anymore?]

"...Wait you are a girl, right?"

Huh?

[The cavalier acceptance of their apparent connection took her more by surprise than the question, and Mattie stared dumbfounded at the young woman for a moment before chuckling under her breath.

Making a show of it, she over-acted the gestures of pulling open her collar and glancing down her shirt to double check.]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Last I heard, 'Matilda' was a girl's name too... sis?

--God, what's Mom gonna say now? I don't think she'd want me hanging around one of that man's brats, even if he screwed them over, too!

"Brat?"[Oh right, her new appearance. Thanks Retrospec.] "Well... don't worry about it. What your mom doesn't know won't hurt her."

[Cavelier acceptance of things was Maggie's greatest strength. She was, after all, a writer. Not just one, but someone who had in the past few months played insane bingo, went through a magical dungeon quest, become a 14 year old, and got a magic spirit familiar. A secret half sister wasn't the hardest thing to accept.]

"Although, let's just agree this is really weird."

[Mattie, meanwhile.... had stolen chocobos and returned them to the police department dressed as lions. She was a strange one all on her own.]

If this isn't weird, then I don't know what is!

"Yeah, really. But what is normal and what is weird... that line is getting blurred more and more these days, isn't it?"

[She smiles a little at Mattie, letting her mask return itself.]

Yeah... no joke on that one.

[Mattie sighed, and shook her head.]

I sometimes wonder how weird it's gonna get. Mom made me promise to stay outta trouble after the last time...

"Well, that trouble may end up coming to you. But if that happens... then there's really nothing you can do to avoid it. Sometimes, the only way around an obstacle is through it."

[Like with the fog this month, or the monsters in August.]

That's what I keep telling people!

But.... things have gotten to a point where I need to keep a low profile. Mom's doing good for herself at the DA's office, and I don't wanna mess that up for her.

[Because, even though she makes a lot of bad choices, at the end of the day she really does love her mom and she would do anything to make things right for her family.]

"Right. Unlike me, you still have family worth protecting. You should hold onto that, then."

[God knows it was something Maggie herself had never gotten, so... she was at least glad Mattie had that. Still, the DA's office? So her mother was in law, huh? Really raised some questions as to why someone like that would ever end up going for that man but, she'd gotten her sense back eventually, it seemed. And the heart itself wasn't a very logical thing anyways,s o she could sympathize with the woman.]

[It was only after the misbegotten affair that led to her existence that Mattie's mother became interested in working in Law-- not as an attorney but as a paralegal. It was a decent job that wasn't dissimilar from the secretarial work she had been doing for Mayvin before that affair, and the pay was good enough to sustain them without needing to rely overly much on the money given to them by that man.]

But...aren't you too young to be talking like that? [Mattie asked.] You said you're a playwrite, but you look way, way too young!

"It's complicated."

[She doesn't know if Mattie is on the app or not, so it's best she not get into it until she has some proof.]

"But what can I say? I don't have any family I know outside of our dad, besides you of course. And you are well aware of how he is. So I guess, it makes more sense to say I have one family member worth protecting!"

[She says that mainly just to tease Mattie a little, but there is a hint of sincerity there.]

Hey-- keep it up and you'll make me blush!

[Which she already was, in her flustered embarrassment at being on the receiving end of such a cheesy declaration.]

Besides, I'm the one whose supposed to be making corny statements like that, not you.

"Please. I'm just messing with you. If I was actually being sincere I wouldn't have worded it that cheesily. Although if you must know, I suppose the sentiment might be there."

[Translation, she cares Mattie but god don't call her on her fuckery. She laughs a little at her reaction.]

"Now, if you want to make a cheesy declaration then, go right on ahead. I won't stop you."

No way! Not when you stole my thunder like that!

[Cheesy was never any good when it was someone else's idea, after all.]

"Alright, fair enough."

[She wasn't going to press her too far. Yet. She still had some more info she wanted but, that could wait.]

"But I stole your thunder? So, you wanted to make some cheesy statement like that?"

OCTOBER TDM

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