repeter | OCTOBER TDM

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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

[ He hands the ring back over to Kara, pausing for a moment before he fully lets go. ]

...I play a little frisbee with the dogs.

[ senior dogs, who don't chase after the disk so much as they trot behind it and pick it up once it hits the ground, but getting it to fly in a straight line and stay within the yard without flying over the fence is something he's mastered. ]

Show me how you're throwing it?

Sure. Uh... here!

[Kara wings the disc with the force of... a teenage girl who has not regained super strength, so it doesn't actually damage anything when it flies way too far to the right and bounces off the top of a lemonade stall. The ring rolls back to her feet and she picks it up again.]

I didn't mean to do that either.

[ Oh boy. Okay. At least it came back without destroying anything, and Minato can start to guess where she could fix some things. First of all would be not flinging the ring as hard as she can. ]

The distance isn't that far for the ring toss, right? You can let it go slowly, and your timing will be better too.

Slowly? I thought you were supposed to throw strong or it'd just fall in front of you.

As long as it spins fast enough, the angular momentum will keep it stable, and the lift will keep it in the air...

[ Not super slow, but like... okay, he motions for her to hand him the ring so he can demonstrate instead of just spouting words. ]

Huh... [She hands it over and steps back.] So it's all that physics stuff. Sounds a little complicated.

[ The world is governed by physics, but Minato's more a biology person than a physics person, and not very good with words in either case, so it'll have to be demonstration. He also steps back, putting distance between him and Kara and stands facing her, wrist bent inwards where he holds the plastic ring, and snaps his wrist out instead of flinging his entire arm to let it fly, a smooth, straight path from his hand to Kara. ]

Whoa, whoa!

[Kara fumbles but catches it. She laughs nervously.]

So... like this!

[She tosses it back, still too strong but at least in his direction.]

[ Like that! She's a quick learner, which makes Minato smile to himself as he catches the ring by sandwiching it between the palms of his hands, and then sending it right back to her. Better get some practice in before the ring toss booth owner comes storming out wondering when she's going to bring it back. ]

[Kara catches it, laughs, and takes a few steps back before trying again.]

Hey, thanks! Sorry, I know you were looking at other things. I'm Kara! Kara Lee. I'm sort of new around here.

[ Playing toss between people is decidedly more enjoyable than with dogs who may or may not bring the toy back, so this is fine, and he doesn't mind it, even with everything else they could be doing.

He points at himself at some point between throwing and waiting to catch. ] Arisato. [ Just his last name, but it's what he's most used to, because he'd only moved to the country two years ago, and even after then, colleges only really cared about his last name on the top of papers. ]

And same here. I moved in earlier this month.

That's cool. I, uh, guess it's a popular place these days, huh?

[ Is it...? He can't really answer that without knowing his way around the city and all the supposed tourist attractions. There's a beach...? Woods in the backyard too. Lots of buildings. ]

I came here for school, so I don't really know. If I were accepted somewhere else, I probably would have gone somewhere else.

Oh! Uh, sorry. I... probably should've figured, huh. I mean, can't really make snap judgments like that or -- I should just stop talking.

It's not really something people guess... [ So he didn't really expect her to know, or anyone, really. Mostly he assumes people don't care about little details like that, so he doesn't see fit to mention them. ]

It's not something you need to apologize for either.

[sigh] Are you sure? I guess if you say so. I just moved here for -- uh, well, 'cause I had to. I mean, what am I saying, most kids move 'cause they have to, no one goes chasing a new job at fifteen or has an eighth-life crisis or something, huh?

[ That's... true. It's something he knows very well, how children are picked up and moved about and made to live wherever their caretaker so chooses, because they're still dependents. He rubs the back of his head, hair sticking up when his hands drops back down to his side. ]

You moved here because your parents wanted to? [ a guess ] I started high school when I was fourteen... I also moved to a new city then, to live by myself.

[Kara flinches. She gives a nervous laugh and looks away.]

Y-yeah! Something like that. Sort of. Wait, you were all by yourself? You mean like one of those private schools with dorms that takes all the foreign kids?

[ Minato doesn't respond right away, eyes following the side of Kara's face where she turns from him and wondering which part of his question could have caused that reaction. The fact that she moved here was already out in the open, so the only other two potentially offending words are "parents" and "wanted." Maybe it was a "needed to" instead, which in that case, he doesn't want to pry, choosing instead to shuffle his feet and look down at the ring in his hands. ]

I lived in the dorms, yes. But back in Japan, so almost everybody was domestic instead of foreign.

Whoa, that's a pretty far way to go from there to here. How was that? Going somewhere by yourself has to shake you up. Uh, I think.

[ All things considered, it probably should have. But he'd left by choice, believing he had no choice, and has always been fairly adaptable, so he simply shrugs in response, twirling the ring idly around on one finger. ]

It's fine... The only hard part is finding your way around. Driving around fixes that in about a month.

I guess so. It's a little hard making friends when you're new, though.

[ Minato isn't someone who goes around making friends very easily in the first place, neither seeking other out nor putting in the effort in keeping with people he's met, so there isn't much advice he can give her about that. ]

Friends... just happen, I think. I don't really know how to go about it either, so...

[ an awkward, unhelpful shrug ]

Really? But it seems you can just go up and talk to people like it's anything.

[ That makes Minato rub the back of his head out of embarrassment, because it wasn't always the case where he could strike up a conversation out of nowhere. Nearly getting blinded by a carnival ring was a good conversation starter, so he'd like to attribute it to that, and to luck. ]

I guess it's because you're easy to talk to... Most people would just say sorry, grab what they came here for, and leave, I think.

OCTOBER TDM

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