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

[ Minato has to pull the earbuds out of his ears when Yukimi first speaks to him; between that, eyes unfocused and mind wandering as he walks down the street, his attention was inevitably elsewhere the entire time and he wouldn't have noticed any keychain— or banana peel, or dog poop, or anything more unfortunate to have stepped in— until he trips right over it.

He shakes his head no, he hasn't seen anything of the sort, but offers his help in looking. As in, he assumes the worst case scenario, waits for a red light before stepping off the curb onto the street, and kneels down in front of the gutter. If Yukimi hasn't found it despite looking everything, then down here...? ]

[Call him a grouchy jerk, whatever. He'll huff and puff about whatever he pleases; he'll act inconvenienced to stupidly save face. But this kid, quiet, spacey, is out in the damn street, ready to dig around in the damn gutter, and Yukimi's blood pressure sky rockets. He thinks, I'm gonna have a heart attack. He thinks, I'm gonna have a fuckin' aneurysm. He thinks, Brats are gonna be the death of me.

He moves like a cat catching a bird out of the air: a neat little slip, and his hand has grabbed onto the back of this boy's shirt. He yanks like the very jaws of life, trying to heft him back onto the sidewalk.]

The street is not for going into! [His voice is pinched. Minato may as well be in preschool.] You don't just go out there! We have the sidewalk for a reason! Jesus, do you know how dirty that crap down there is? You wanna get splattered all in there, too? [The frazzle, by the way, has led to him dropping his envelopes. They've landed scattered, just around his feet. He doesn't pick them up yet; he's not done.] Ahhhh, geeze, you wanna die before you're twenty? You gotta pay attention! To everything!

[His hand is fluttering around Minato's person, meanwhile. Since dragging him up onto the sidewalk, Yukimi hasn't quite laid his hand back on him, but he'll still hover around his shoulders, or near his hair, as if checking for injuries that couldn't have possibly happened that quickly.]

You dumbass. You okay?

[ In the short time all of that happened, Minato doesn't even get the chance to look down the gutter, let alone get run over by a car or even wet his shoes before he finds himself staring up at Yukimi as if he were the one recklessly throwing himself into traffic.

He opens his mouth, about to comment that he's already lived past twenty and it's been a good enough run, but then closes it, because that's not the important thing, is it? His eyes travel over to somewhere above Yukimi's left shoulder, waiting out the lecture— it's been years since anybody's lectured him, or cared to, anyways— and then down towards the gutter again as if contemplating giving it another look. (He is) ]

Your keychain might've fallen down there.

[ "And I will throw my life away for that possibility," apparently. Streets aren't that dangerous. ]

[Yukimi, grand at moving goalposts and for some reason carrying himself like a fifty-year-old man in general, has convinced himself that the closer he gets to thirty, the younger "close to twenty" is. As far as he's concerned, this young man is a kid, and an unruly one, and there's nothing Yukimi hates more than unruly kids.

Or... maybe nothing more he cares about... than unruly kids?

No, no, they just piss him off. His grimace here shows as much.]

If it's in the gutter, now it belongs in the gutter. You sayin' that's where you're headed, too?

[Yukimi is, perhaps, melodramatic in the way he lectures people (kids) (anyone under 25?), going in hard from the moment he starts. He's more high-strung than he appears, it seems...]

Don't freakin' do crap like that. Stay on the sidewalk. Jesus.

[ Yeah, the gutter is where he's headed— or would be, if he could get away from under Yukimi's disapproving scowl, but Minato recognizes when saying so would just make things worse, so his hands find the safety of his pockets, waits Yukimi out, and gives a nod: a single dip of the head, a silent promise, but one nevertheless.

Still, ]

The keychain is important, though?

[ Does it, for example, have keys attached to it? Those are sort of important, and if not him, then some city worker might be able to set up traffic cones and dig it out in safety. ]

[City workers don't need traffic cones; they're generally, like, thirty-five, meaning Yukimi is content to let them live their lives, for the most part. Or whatever. By the way, he knows an avoidance of lectures when he sees one. He avoided stuff like that in probably every way possible for a very long time, and still brings up his old skill set when it suits him. One might call his endeavors hypocritical, given his former delinquent lifestyle eventually giving way to outright self-destructive behavior, and given his messy way of living now, but never mind that. Yukimi is on a mission, and that mission is this: yell at youths.

Well, really that mission is more along the lines of being the sort of adult he needed when he was between the ages of six and twenty-three. But there's an incredible clumsiness to his approach—unsurprising, given his ingrained temper mixed with inexperience.

He draws out the silence between them until he's mellow enough to be casual.]

I like the keychain. It's cute.

[Now he's stooping, to retrieve his fallen envelopes.]

There's a whole line of 'em, you get 'em from gashapons. The black one is kinda rare. When I finally got it, I switched out the sleeping tabby for it.

[ If he likes it, then it's important. While Yukimi bends to pick up his envelopes, Minato turns his eyes up at the nearest street signs, the buildings, what store they're standing in front of so that he can commit the location to memory and come back later to resume his search, away from Yukimi's critical eyes. Finding it would be one thing, but finding Yukimi again would be an even more difficult feat... a problem he'll ponder over later, shifting his weight between one foot to the other as he looks down upon the envelopes. ]

Gashapons are popular back home. Did you get the keychain here?

[ If he can't find Yukimi's old keychain, maybe he'll just try his luck and get a new one. Maybe one for himself too. ]

There's a...

[Once Yukimi gets hold of the last of the envelopes, he straightens out of his stoop, and replaces his paperwork to their rightful grip: upper right arm pinned against his torso. The sleeve of his jacket is knotted, like it always is, so the envelopes are held securely when he's not flailing around like an overzealous stress case.]

There's a family store, tucked away real small somewhere. Little family, little store. They came over, [from Japan, he means,] I think within the last four years or something. Good people. Anyway, they've got a few of the real deal over there, and the vinyl cats are, like... my favorite... didn't expect to see 'em...

[He's trailing off, a little distracted, even as he's watching Minato. His eyes aren't exactly uncritical yet.]

It ain't a big deal. You know what? A ghost stole it. When shit like that happens, sometimes you just gotta call it a day. Ghosts are formidable. Don't forget that.

[Jury's out on whether he's serious.]

[ He'll have to look it up later, not holding his breath that a little family store has a website he could search up on Google, but the mention of ghosts gives Yukimi a more obvious look at what he's thinking: nothing good, because his brow furrows and the corners of his lips turn down. ]

Ghosts...

[ "aren't real," first at foremost, but that's not the problem he has with them. The dead should stay dead. He'd wished the opposite of this, once upon a time, but enough years have passed that he's grown up and accepted certain things, chasing ghosts not one of them. ]

...have no need for material goods. Those won't help them make peace and move on.

[That look into Minato's face, into whatever he's got going on behind such quiet eyes, settles Yukimi into something somber. He is capable of that, you know. He is capable of sinking his shoulders out of tension, his eyebrows out of indignation, and his sighs into something reminiscent of patience. He scrubs his hand through the top of his hair, and that sigh—the almost patient one—leaves him like so much air from a too-hot head.]

Material goods ain't gonna help me make peace and move on, either. What about you?

Yeah.

[ It's a lie. Mostly, he just wants his days to pass with little trouble, to be able to go home at the end of the day, head hitting the pillow and falling right to sleep, too exhausted to dream. Wake up. Rinse. Repeat. ]

Giving up on something lost... that's hard to move on from. Finding the keychain would give me peace.

[ If he sounds fixated on that, it's on purpose, turning the question back over to Yukimi's initial problem, no matter how many times it's waved off. ]

Yeah? Huh... [It's drawn out, and thoughtful for it. Yukimi tips back his head, squinting toward the sky, continuing to ruffle his own hair. There's nothing urgent to it. He just scratches his head, scuffs one of his shoes against the sidewalk, and then heaves out another one of those sighs. No wonder he acts like an old man; his sighs are exhausted in the ways of the aged.]

'Kay, 'kay, okay, okay, okay. We're gonna look a little longer. If we've looked all we can look, that's that, and then it's time to move on no matter what. But if we can say we did our best, I'll be content.

[But, immediately, with a look of sharp suspicion:]

Stay on the freakin'... inside of the sidewalk. For my sake.

[He rolls his shoulders, as if steeling himself for labor, and then he's toeing around the sidewalk.]

Okay.

[ This is something he can readily agree to, doing their best under the time limit of until sundown maybe, and he doesn't waste time. Hands in his pockets, ears plugged back up with his earbuds, eyes straight up with his head tilted back, Minato searches the sky for something while he leaves the streets to Yukimi to comb through.

True to his word, he stays on the sidewalk. In fact, he doesn't leave his spot on the sidewalk at all. ]

[Yukimi shuffles around with a bit of muttering, just the sort of gripes he's always slipping out, and a couple of minutes pass before he looks over his shoulder and sees Minato still in place. My freakin' blood pressure, he thinks, but it's impotent, and he just goes back to looking.

The keychain hasn't fallen underneath the edge of the wire-cased trash can, and it doesn't seem to have bounced off into any of the scarce city foliage. Investigating the nearby bus stop yields no results, either. It's not on the sidewalk in plain sight, and when Yukimi grudgingly skims the toe of his shoe through a section of the gutter, the keychain still doesn't show up. He lets Minato idle where he is while looking, but after a point...

He's shuffling back up to Minato, giving a lazy, uncouth sniff, rubbing at his own face with his hand.]

Hey. Hey. [Now he gestures at his own ears, because he's not quite rude enough to yank earbuds away from a stranger.] C'mon. You all set? Ready to go? Let's pack it up.

[ The sky is empty. Nothing above the rooftops, the telephone lines, thinning branches where leaves are just starting to turn gold and fall to the ground, but not keychain when the wind comes and turns them over. In the short time Yukimi had done his share of the legwork, Minato turns his head from the sky to the gaps in between buildings, mumbling under his breath along to whatever he's listening to until Yukimi comes back and blocks his view.

Only one earbud gets pulled out, wire left to hang over his chest, but still, he doesn't move. ]

Do you know if the crows in this city migrate, or remain resident?

[Yukimi is grimacing, frustrated by this (because it's worrisome?), but he has an immediate answer:]

It's both. Parts of the population go, and parts of the population stay, depending on their roles and circumstances. It's called being "partially migratory".

[He snaps his fingers.]

Earbuds out when someone's talking to you.

[ He can listen through one ear though... Nevertheless, the other earbud gets pulled out and dropped over the other side of his chest, voices filtering through the speakers too soft to be discernible above a monotonous hum. The answer is pretty much what he expected, so he can't decide whether he should be troubled or content with it, maybe hoping that the city life is good enough for the birds that they choose to stay year round. It would make things easier. ]

...I moved to an apartment near here earlier in the month. I feed the crows, and sometimes they bring trinkets. [ Hence zoning out and looking at the sky for so long, although a part of him was really actually hoping to see a ghost. ] They have better eyes than me. I was hoping they'd be around to find it.

[It's a respect thing, as far as Yukimi's concerned. Earbuds out - both of them - pay attention to me. I'm talking to you. I'm right in front of you. One of the lines at his brow relaxes into approval when Minato acquiesces. So, this kid (kid!!! insists Yukimi's brain; god knows he wasn't an adult during his first few years of having his own apartment) is living on his own, or at least away from parents, and Yukimi has his suspicions about how well Minato takes care of himself.]

Look, kid, if a crow brings you that little cat, the miracle is such that you can go ahead and keep it. I'm just lettin' you know right now, it'd be classified as fate at that point.

[He shifts his shoulders again, adjusting all his posture, and pushes out a little puff of air.]

You need a coffee?

[He's asking less for the sake of the coffee itself, and more because he wants to gauge the answer to it.]

[ As long as he didn't wear them in class, that's about all the respect anybody ever needed from him, and after entering college, professors stopped caring about that either. So it feels a bit strange, too open without a murmur in his ears at all times, especially living on his own with entire days going by without needing to speak if he so chooses. Sometimes he goes to the balcony and speaks to the crows, just to hear a person's voice. He'll do that later tonight when he gets back at the apartment and see if fate is on his side this time, but he only shrugs his acceptance of Yukimi's offer, unlikely as it is to turn true.

As for coffee, he eventually mumbles his answer: ]

Perpetually.

[ It's basically his diet at this point. Minato glances at the watch strapped on his wrist, tilting his head to see instead of taking his hand out of his pocket, as if it were too heavy to lift. Two more hours until he needs to be somewhere, but coffee is in line with that too. ]

Do you like the coffee at Expressive?

[ It's not the nearest coffee place to where they are now, but Minato wouldn't know that anyways, unfamiliar with the city. ]

[Bingo. Yukimi kind of had a feeling the coffee answer would turn out like that, but it doesn't feel good to have it confirmed. He puffs out his cheeks, looking petulant for it, and then sighs. Again. He feels like he's constantly sighing, and it's going to suck the actual soul out of him, one of these days...]

It ain't bad. [Not really his... scene? But he's had his instances of going there with a laptop, settling in, and drafting some sort of article. He may have brought papers to grade, too, on a couple of occasions, just to unsettle local teenagers. Whatever.] You usually grab a sandwich or something to go with your coffee?

[That's the next step: how hungry is this guy, typically? There are a few mental boxes Yukimi would like to be able to tick. Sleep and food are the first of them.]

[ It's the younger crowd that usually goes to Expressive, so Minato strategically avoids the morning rush and comes in during the afternoons, sometimes evenings when he has nothing better to do, though never for meals. ]

No. I work shifts there, so coffee is the easiest to get through the hours. I sleep through the meal break.

[ So rest assured, he does get sleep sometimes! Full of caffeine that does very little for him anymore, such is how high his tolerance has grown that high over the years. The many, many years. ]

[Yukimi's instinct is to drag his hand down his face and mutter something like heaven help me, why. He restrains the urge, since he knows it does no good, and sometimes will just make things worse. The lecture brewing in the back of his mouth, about nutrition and how irresponsibility will bite you in the long run, and time management, and whatever other aggravated miscellany—none of that will help, either.

Instead:]

You bring something you can eat with a spoon, you can just pop some into your mouth whenever you go in back for something. Like, picking up a carton 'a fried rice or whatever on the way to work. Right? Hey, you like lemonade?

[ Minato knows these things in the back of his mind, but the effort required to act upon them is too much and he cares too little at this point in his life, just wanting to get settled into a routine, even if the routine ends up like this.

But he sees Yukimi trying, and he could stand to try a little too. ]

Not really, if it's sweet, but lemon in water is okay. I could probably bring soup in a thermos or something...

[ Still a liquid diet, but slightly healthier than straight coffee, so that's the best enough compromise he can muster. ]

[Yukimi stares, and it lasts for a good couple moments. His mouth puckers a bit, in that thoughtful way of someone who's cycling through considerations. When he seems to settle on a thought, he taps his own temple with his index finger, and then points that finger at Minato.]

Lemon cider. With honey. It won't make it too sweet. Manuka honey. Shit's expensive but there are a couple places you can get it for a good price, and it'll last you a while even if you just get a jar. Anyway, here— [He's gesturing with his right shoulder, his empty sleeve—] Take these a sec. [The manila envelopes, he means. If successful, he'll be reaching into the inside of his coat for a little flip notebook and a ballpoint pen.]

[ Sounds expensive and fancy, not really worth the cost if all he needs is sustenance to get through the day, maybe a multivitamin in the morning if he remembers to take it, to provide everything his body needs to keep "healthy."

He's probably using that definition loosely.

He reaches out to take the envelopes though, because he can do that without committing to a healthier diet, turning them over in his hands as he stares down at them. The temptation to open them is very real and very strong, but as long as he flips them idly, mechanically, he can head the urge off, tapping his feet restlessly instead. ]

OCTOBER TDM

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