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!

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[She doesn't put them on at first, trying to get a better look at them from the glow of his phone's light as he scrolls through his podcasts. If these are nice headphones, she wants to know the brand, the specs-- everything about them! Obviously the lack of light makes that difficult, though, and so she pulls out her own phone, turning up the brightness of her phone.]

There we go. Oh, these are really good! I'm surprised other people still like this style, it seems like everyone likes those wireless headphone sets instead nowadays.

[She keeps the left side and hands him back the right side before leaning over to see what he's looking over.]

A lecture on liver enzymes? No wonder you fell asleep...does listening to lullabies not work for you?

[ Minato squints against the sudden brightness of another phone screen, turning his eyes down to his own phone before he can ruin his night vision against the glare; light suppresses melatonin and now neither of them would be able to sleep no matter how boring enzymes are. ]

I would lose them without wires.

[ Headsets in general are bulky too, but while earbuds have the merit of being shareable, he takes the right half in his hand for barely a second before passing it right back to Minako. ]

The sound is different if you only have one. Haven't heard a lullaby since I was a child, anyways.

I love lullabies. Mostly I like humming them, since they don't help me sleep. They seem to help my dog though, he likes it when I sing to him before bed.

[As she turns the light back off, she starts humming one of her favorites from Japan, tucking the other earphone into her ear and awaiting a liver enzyme lecture, apparently.]

[ The lecture doesn't come. Minato sits back, phone clasped in his hands, with no inclination to interrupt Minako's humming with the voice of his droning, monotonous professor. Lucky dog, he thinks as his eyes slide shut for a moment, in the strange warmth and familiarity of the melody, but he opens them again because he would surely fall asleep otherwise, and because...

He blinks up at the ceiling, wondering if he's heard it before, a long, long time ago if he's so certain he hasn't been sung to sleep in years. Not well enough to know the words, but with Minako's ears covered, he stares out into the darkness, listening a while longer, and then starts humming along, letting the melody come back to him instead of drawing it out of his mind by conscious thought. ]

[She hums through the first two verses and most of her childhood, honestly, sinking into memories of plugging in the nightlight, checking closets for ghosts, hugging her stuffed alpaca plush good night. Squirming into bed and tugging on the blankets for her fair share. Clutching her brother's hand even if he complained she was too warm. But that way they could share dreams, she was sure.

When the lecture doesn't come, she pulls off one of the earphones, wondering if she'd lulled her companion to sleep. If she had, she could talk with the staff members, ask them to carefully move him somewhere better to rest...but no, he's humming with her. And she's absolutely delighted. How long has it been since she's been able to hear it from someone else? Would it be ruining the atmosphere if she started singing along? She really wants to right now, and anybody passing by will probably think it's creepy anyways, which means she's not really disturbing them...

Fear of the dark long forgotten, she takes in a breath and starts singing, soft and sweet.]

Yurikago no tsuna wo
Kinezumi ga yusuru
Nenneko, nenneko
Nenne, Minako.

[ There are the lyrics, and his gaze softens in remembrance of bunched up bed sheets and his chosen side of the bed, safe and warm with the wall on one side, his sister on the other, mumbling "neko"s half asleep and never being able to make it through the entire song because he would always fall asleep first.

As if he were a preschooler again, Minato adds the "neko"s in this time too, the only words he knows for sure, but that's as far as he gets before— that's undoubtedly a name, not part of the song- why?- and he stops singing immediately, mouth dry and throat closed up.

He wants to say "sorry." Or "bye." Or anything that would give him the excuse to get up and leave, breath held as if that would put a pause on his hammering heart as well, but Minako holds his earphones in her hands, keeps him tethered there, and he-

can't move. can't speak. can't dare raise his hopes because he'd already given up on all three of these things; he can't. ]

[Hearing him stop, she does as well, blinking in the darkness, and then flushing in embarrassment.]

Ah, I'm sorry! My bad. My mom would always add in my name in the later verses. Something about hearing her sing it helped me sleep, I guess. She said I took forever compared to my brother.

[ The floor is suddenly very interesting, his gaze locked onto gaps in between the tiles as he lowers his head and presses his face against his knees, arms wrapped around his legs to hold on tight. There's no way he can look at Minako, but there's also no doubt that he's talking to her when he mumbles into his knees. ]

...That's because you would help sing him to sleep, and he could never stay awake long enough to do it for you in return.

How do you--?

[Her voice is stuck in her throat, clogged by all of the emotion that comes rushing forward and hits her with the force of a truck. She knows how. With such a familiar answer like that, there's only one person in the world he could be. But it's almost unbelievable. After all the wondering and worrying and praying and hoping, to literally fall at his feet in the most random of places is...it's like a very strange dream.

Tears start welling up in her eyes, the memories of their childhood from just now adding to her sudden desperation. She wants to see him so badly. She wants the staff to turn on all the lights in the funhouse, so she can look at her brother properly after so many years apart.

And she has so many questions. But for now, the only one she really needs answered? Is this.]

'Natto? Is it really you?

[ How could he not? Know, or remember, what it was like when once upon a time, he didn't wake every morning in the stillness and silence the overwhelming him even now, breath held as he turns to Minako, hunched over and made small, with the smallest of nods that he isn't even sure she would catch in the darkness.

How could he not have recognized her immediately? She was always the brighter of the two of them, as he remembers, somebody with a self-assurance he could never hope to achieve, or even pretend well enough to fool anybody. Chatty and easy to talk to, who would fill his silences and take meaning from them instead of assuming reluctance, somebody who looked... happier. more confident. open. who would talk of her brother with such fondness while he sits here feeling as if he hadn't grown at all in comparison, still the little seven-year-old boy who'd sat with his face buried in his arms so that the last memory his sister would have of him wouldn't be of tears that wouldn't stop. He couldn't hide it very well back then, but he's perfected it now, emotions made to manifest in ways invisible to the eye, a hammering heart and held breath, his gaze steady as it meets hers, because at the very, very least, he owes her that much. ]

Yeah. It's me.

Edited 2017-10-25 11:41 (UTC)

[One of those fake flashes of lightning goes off, and in that instance she can see him for the first time in years, real and right in front of her, instead of just beyond her reach in daydreams and memories. She almost misses it, because her eyes are so full of tears, but it's undeniably him. There's no more baby fat in his cheeks, his hair grown out. An even steeper downward curve to his lips than there ever was before. But it's her brother. It's Minato.

When everything is plunged into darkness a moment later, she surges forward, throwing her arms around his neck and holding fast. Her tears continue slipping down her cheeks until she's crying in earnest, her laughter and sobbing intermingling as years of loneliness and heartbreak color the sweetness of her joy and relief.

Her search is over. She's found him again, and a piece of her heart along with it.]

You idiot. I've missed you so much--!

[ The held breath escapes him in a rush of arms over his shoulders, a body hot against him and shaking with tears, and Minato stiffens, frozen in place like a cornered, wounded animal with nowhere to run— he hates that his first instinct is to stay still and wait for things to pass, as if by not interacting with the world, things will move on without him and he can catch up at his own pace. The thought that Minako might not have moved on has never crossed his mind, especially after telling his grandparents that he's fine on his own, and believing they'll just accept it. He didn't really give them a choice.

Idiot, he can accept, but what is there to miss, when they haven't been a part of each other's lives in too many years...? There's a lot he doesn't know about her, the Minako before him different than the little girl in his memories, and the same should be for her, of him.

He feels like he should say something. Or cry. Or something. React. Give some indication that he missed her as well, sorry for letting the letters pile up on his desk, and later, his grandparents' mailbox with no forwarding address to get to him. First he forces himself to breathe, next, to lower his shoulders and raise his arms to... hug? How to hug. How to comfort? He hasn't hugged anybody in years upon years, is sort of trapped within Minako's grip, so here's his awkward canon arm pat; he's trying. ]

[If anything it makes her cry even harder, despite how minimal the gesture is, and really, anything he does is likely to get the same reaction for the next few hours. Everything about him is a blessed novelty right now, and having missed him for so long, she's greedy for anything, any reaction or expressed thought that will reveal more of who he's become to her.

Because him changing was inevitable, but Minako wants to embrace those differences, and quickly, so that she can be a better sister than before. When knowing nothing allowed him to slip away.

But this isn't the place to do it. They can't keep sitting huddled in this corner of a haunted funhouse. Minako tries to rein in her tears, pulling back and scrubbing furiously at her eyes. A watery laugh leaves her.]

I k-know you wanna sleep, but can it wait a bit? C-Can we go outside to talk?

[ If anything, he's become less and less, hands still and then dropped to his side when he figures he's only making Minako's crying worse, not knowing what to do when his younger self would have taken her hand or patted her back or pulled her close into a hug or all sorts of things he doesn't have the right to do for not being at her side for almost fourteen years now. So acutely aware that he's the one who decided to pull himself out of everybody's lives, he doesn't understand why he would be on the receiving end of a hug, why Minako gives him sadness and laughter instead of an angry lecture for slighting her and their family, a worry that have been running through his mind for years without being able to justify either side.

Numbly, he nods, taking the earbuds back and letting the wires drape over either shoulder before getting to his feet, knees stiff and coughing into the crook of his arm after drawing the breath needed to stand with some effort.

Outside is... following the traffic, towards the left, and so he steps out of the little nook and back into the flow of the crowd, hands safe in his pockets and assuming Minako would follow, or be swept out by the current of people eventually either way. ]

[Minako does indeed follow, putting up with getting pushed around by the crowd for about ten feet before she clutches the back of Minato's jacket, bunching the fabric in her palm. She's found him and she's not going to lose him again just because of the crowd.

Once they find a quiet spot away from the crowd, she releases her hold, looking up-- and then, with a startled blink, lets out a laugh. She raises her hand above her head to where the top of his is. In the brighter moonlight of the night surrounding him, she can see him much more clearly, and here is one difference that she at least knows how to deal with very well.]

You got tall!

[ Minato blinks in surprise at the gap between the top of her head and the bottom of her palm. It wasn't obvious, when they were both sitting down and him between a terrible slouch and all the way on his side, but there is a whole two inches of space right there, physical, tangible, real evidence that he's grown, when it felt like all his life he'd been looking up to Minako, trying to catch up to her, even when she was no longer there.

...He's holding his breath again, he realizes, frozen when Minako had raised her hand in front of his face, in the same way some dogs do when their vision is momentarily blocked by the same hand that goes to pet them. Relax. Breathe. Stand up a little straighter to lord that two inch height difference over her. ]

Of course. Boys generally grow taller than girls. Puberty lasts longer, so I had more time.

[ It's! science!! He is very determined not to make this heartfelt, so that gross Minako tears can be the highlight of the evening instead. ]

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OCTOBER TDM

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