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Recollé Mods ([personal profile] recollecters) wrote in [community profile] repeter2017-11-16 11:50 pm
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NOVEMBER TDM

TEST DRIVE
NOVEMBER TEST DRIVE
The city of Recollé...

What do you mean the city's behaving for once?

I.
The Mayor's growing desperate with Thanksgiving right around the corner as those gosh darn turkeys continue to elude him. The birds that escaped at the beginning of the month continue to wreak havoc over the city as they mingle with the crowds and lay their golden eggs in less than convenient places.

However, with the clock counting down to Turkey Day, the birds appear to be a little more aggressive. You may find yourself actively chased out of a shop or your classroom by one of these wild birds gobbling angrily all the way. Perhaps a bird is nesting in the middle of the sidewalk forcing you to take a new path. Or perhaps you've come across one of their golden eggs, but be careful! It doesn't take more than a gentle touch now for these eggs to explode, showering anyone nearby with surprises such as candy, shaving cream, mud, bugs, plastic cars, crayons or other small tokens.

Will you attempt to catch the birds to turn them into city hall for the $50 reward? Or are you too busy running around to avoid them?

II.
Even with the turkeys on rampage, that doesn't damper the holiday season. Citizens from all over the city are preparing for the festivities of the month. Over at Tribunal Terrace several members from various volunteer groups and the Community Center are organizing their small annual Thanksgiving day parade that kicks off the city's potluck dinner. Grocery stores are swamped with shoppers picking up last-minute supplies for their big meals and you may find yourself fighting for that last jar of gravy.

Over at the community theater, children prepare for their Thanksgiving pageant and it's a flurry of activity from costumes to rehearsals to last-minute stage preparation before the big day. There's plenty of work to be done whether you're acting in the pageant or working on-set. The theater will need as many volunteers as possible to pull this show off.

Granted, there are plenty of things to go wrong in the chaos. One of the parade floats begins to drift away from Tribunal Terrace and rolls down the street on its own leaving volunteers to chase after it and fight off an onslaught of turkeys. Lights blow out in the theater and some wiring and set pieces need to be repaired. And did that person's grocery cart of food just hit your car? Good luck.

Are you prepared for your celebrations and willing to help your fellow neighbor? Or are you a last-minute straggler left high and dry?

III.

Earlier in the month several stores had discounted prices on all things blue and it looks like the prices just keep dropping. With green fully restored to all items in the city, items such as clothing, art supplies and food change prices every hour, on the hour.

The city of Recollé knows a good bargain when it sees it and hundreds of people hit the streets to snatch up what stock they can. It's like Black Friday came early and after a while some stores can't even keep up with demand. Maybe you're among the crowd hunting for just the right shade of green for your holiday packages, or perhaps you're some poor sap who got called into work at 6am on your day off to deal with a swarm of customers. No matter who you are though, you will find yourself having to answer the age-old question: which color is better, green or blue?

IV.
The blue skies have only been back for a few weeks before the gray of winter rolls in again. The wind picks up a little and the ocean crashes against the shore down at Peach Beach. The city grows dark each day beginning at about 4:30pm and the temperature drops little by little.

It's on November 18th that residents will find that there's a bit of frost on their windows when they wake up that Saturday. Toward the early afternoon, the first snowfall of the season begins. It's nothing much, mostly flurries that swirl and dance through the air and cause a burst of excitement among people. Some residents may even remember it's very similar to the Founder's Day holiday.

Though this won't be the last time it snows in the city, there's something magical about the first sign of winter as fall exits. Get out there and build a tiny snowman or catch snowflakes on your tongue. At least the turkeys seem to retreat from the snow itself.

BONUS.
Over the course of the month residents will find that the spotty reception they've always had has grown even worse. Static rings out over the line and long-distance calls stop going through. Emails bounce back despite numerous attempts, and don't even think about getting clear audio or video through Skype. No matter how hard one tries, by November 30th it will become incredibly clear that all phone calls, texts, emails and video chats to people outside of the city have been shut down. The internet will continue to function as normal (browse and share those cat videos to your heart's content) and inner-city communication functions just fine. You can try calling your service provider...but who knows if you'll get through?

And last but not least in the world of inconveniences, in some instances your calls and emails may be rerouted to fellow Retrospec users. Sorry about that!

Welcome to the [community profile] 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, 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 November TDM directory is here, and your AU workshop is here! Our mod questions thread for this TDM is over here!

[personal profile] compendiem 2017-11-17 02:44 pm (UTC)(link)
The first question gets Jamie another shrug from him; who knows what's going on inside the turkeys' minds? Minato would have thought they'd escape out into the woods instead of lingering in the city streets, but logically, the city is where the food is. Not people, particularly, but vegetation and fruit and nuts and all sorts of crumbs and tasty morsels people leave scattered around all the time. He doubts they'll be able to round up all the turkeys soon, but at the very very least, it seems like the eggs they've been hatching are nonviable, so overpopulation will be a future problem, not a current one.

Minato glances up at the rear view mirror, spotting turkeys first and the Recolle Times building after. "Name's Arisato," he says after a pause, distracted, and then sits back in his seat once it's clear that less and less turkeys are moving with each subsequent honk of his horn. They're learning that the noise doesn't come with any real danger, and it's starting to faze them less each time.

"What district do you live in? I'm headed to work at Expressive, but if it's on the way, I can drop you off." If it's not, too bad. Jamie's going to Expressive with him, or walking the rest of the way. "Or at a bus stop or wherever."

[personal profile] phoenixchild 2017-11-17 02:52 pm (UTC)(link)
"Tisse," Jamie replied back, "I'm currently living in there with an old friend of mine from childhood, but I'm not sure if he's already at home or not. He works for the CSI division."

Jamie looked at his watch, it could still read the time even after him getting pecked on, although he didn't see the point of it, now with the turkey attacks. Unfortunately, he could still hear those sinister gobbling and, when he looked up at Arisato's car, he can see the raging turkeys trying to get to him.

"OH s-!" he yelled at him, "We better get the car out of here, or we'll be the turkeys' dinner!"

[personal profile] compendiem 2017-11-17 03:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Expressive is in Tisse, so it works out for the both of them. If they could get there...

"I'll probably get a snow plow early this year and just shove the birds aside," he mumbles, shoulders slumping as the turkeys start slamming their bodies against the sides of the car. Turkeys don't eat people, so he shouldn't have a reason to worry, but they do draw blood, so there's a very real worry.

Ugh.

Uggggggggghh.

"...You can drive, right? Switch seats with me for a bit?"

[personal profile] phoenixchild 2017-11-17 03:07 pm (UTC)(link)
"Are you kidding me?" Jamie felt his jaws dropped in horror, "I can't drive a car safely from point A to point B!"

Oh God, those numerous times of him failing the car driver's license and those cars damaged by his erratic maneuvers. And here is he, being asked by Arisato to take the driver seat.

"Motorcycles, I can handle it, but cars are my worst nightmare," he let it out, "Can you keep blowing the horn or do you want to risk getting out of the car and run for our lives?"

[personal profile] compendiem 2017-11-17 03:12 pm (UTC)(link)
He could keep blowing the horn, but who knows how effective that would be? He mulls over the possibilities for a moment, but there really are no great options left for them.

"I got a broom in the backseat I've been using to get from my car to the shop. Was going to ask you to drive while I swatted the turkeys away, but maybe you're up to it instead?" he asks. Just sort of... Lean out the window, sacrifice your hands and arms to turkey beaks, but the reach should be long enough to clear out a little space in front of the car so that it can actually move instead of just stalling here.

[personal profile] phoenixchild 2017-11-17 04:07 pm (UTC)(link)
Jamie took the broomstick, leaned towards the window, and opened it up to face the crazed turkeys. He wasn't too sure if this could be a good idea, but he has to do something.

"Hey, birdbrains, come and get me!" he scolded them, swatting the broom at the birds like crazy, he knew he might kill a couple of them while Minato is trying to get the car running again.

[personal profile] compendiem 2017-11-18 12:26 am (UTC)(link)
As long as he uses the bristles, they should be rough and scratchy enough to ward the birds away, Minato thinks, without necessarily killing them. It's bad enough trying to drive without running them over, but in this way— the turkeys parting in front of the car as Jamie brushes them over to the side— they're finally making headway, even as Minato has to take more detours than necessary to get around the more turkey-congested streets and find emptier but longer ways around.

He's a quiet driver for the most part, but he does smile a little when he sees this, murmuring mostly to himself since Jamie appears occupied with taunting the birds "...This is a lot easier with a partner. I'm kind of relieved."

[personal profile] phoenixchild 2017-11-18 05:05 am (UTC)(link)
"Are you okay over there?" Jamie asked Minato, while shooing off the turkeys, "Is the traffic that horrible"

The broomstick method works, but he wasn't sure how many of them would be still present in the city or, if people don't care enough, they could simply die off. Either way, that seems impossible to imagine.

"I'm doing alright so far, but, man, these turkeys are everywhere!"

[personal profile] compendiem 2017-11-18 10:11 pm (UTC)(link)
"I'm fine," Minato assures him, although the traffic continues to be terrible as long as there is even one turkey on the road. "Just trying not to run any of them over, or the bodies will cause trouble for the other drivers." Because as much of a pain as live turkeys are, dead turkeys can't get out of the way.

"Dunno why they'd crowd around the cars though. There's no food in here..." Or at least, he hasn't gone grocery shopping today with any bags in his trunk, but he does always smell faintly of coffee for working at a coffee shop. Turkeys shouldn't care. They don't drink coffee. "Maybe they're after people and cars because they're warm?"

[personal profile] phoenixchild 2017-11-19 01:50 am (UTC)(link)
"Oh.... Do they have cold feet now?" he asked Minato, as the traffic build-up gets far worse and the turkeys were starting to feel more crankier than ever.

Jamie sighed and took a deep heavy breath before he theorized on the turkeys' madness, "Suppose that they're attracted to the smell of food on people and decided to attack people upon realizing that we're not the food they're craving for?"

[personal profile] compendiem 2017-11-20 06:04 pm (UTC)(link)
"Maybe," is the unhelpful answer that Jamie receives. Minato, aside from working at one of the many coffee shops in town, also splits his time between there and the veterinarian clinic. But the animals he sees the most are cats and dogs, sometimes rabbits sometimes reptiles sometimes birds— but never a large bird such as a turkey— in the one and a half months since he'd started working there. But birds in general eat much the same thing, so he can guess at their diet.

"I'm imagining they eat berries and grains, things without much of a smell to them. People are much too big to hunt down..." He moves one of his hands from the steering wheel to rub at the back of his neck. "My other guess is probably a grudge. People've been going wild trying to catch them. Probably injured some of them. No wonder they're angry at us."

[personal profile] phoenixchild 2017-11-20 07:06 pm (UTC)(link)
"Oh... So most of the people here are not aware of the fact that those birds have feelings?" Jamie looked concerned, feeling like his jaws could drop at any moment.

He has been swatting the turkeys with the broomstick for a while, wondering why they're angry at the city. Perhaps, Minato was right: everyone's gone overboard with the turkey hunting that the turkeys themselves went on a berserk and started attacking the entire city. The Question now: how to convince them not to hurt everyone any further?

"Just don't run some of them over, or they'll get mad," Jamie reminded Minato to watch out if he forgot about it.

[personal profile] compendiem 2017-11-20 07:11 pm (UTC)(link)
He definitely doesn't forget about keeping an eye on the road in case any turkeys get too close, but mostly because it will damage his car just as much as it would hurt the turkeys. Besides— he tilts a head over at Jamie's broomstick.

"Brushing them aside like that might be enough to anger them," he says, though it was his idea in the first place. "It started with fear, though, I think. Suddenly turning up on foreign streets away from where they lived their entire lives. Being chased around from people who are trying to capture them. I can kind of empathize."

[personal profile] phoenixchild 2017-11-20 07:16 pm (UTC)(link)
"No kidding," Jamie gasped, "So should I stop whacking them with the broom or something?"

He was wondering if they were running of the time and plans to avoid these birds.

"Any ideas to calm them down?"

[personal profile] compendiem 2017-11-20 07:22 pm (UTC)(link)
Mostly, and honestly, they're just enduring the birds until they get to Tisse, then Minato can lock him inside the coffee shop and refuse to leave for the rest of the year. It's not a permanent solution by any means, but it'll get them through the day, and they're almost there anyways.

"That broom is the only thing keeping us going forward. Hang onto it," he says with a sign, pushing down on the gas pedal a little harder. "They'll probably calm down come nightfall, but it's not like we can schedule our lives around them. It's a huge city. There's people and noise everywhere. Hard for anything to be calm, really..."

So yeah. Yeah. No more ideas from him.

[personal profile] phoenixchild 2017-11-20 07:29 pm (UTC)(link)
"So, I just I need to whack them more so we can get out of this mess right away?" was the only thing that Jamie could imagine about.

He couldn't blame neither Minato nor himself for being surrounded by birds. He kept on shooing them with the broom longer to allow Minato to get them out of there.

[personal profile] compendiem 2017-11-20 07:33 pm (UTC)(link)
That's it, and Minato nods in agreement. At this point, it's either angering the birds and getting out alive, or... not getting out alive. And he likes being alive.

But eventually, out of sheer persistence, they do make it. He can't park properly surrounded by all the birds, so he just lets the car idle in the middle of the street, shuts off the engine, places a hand on the door handle to get out and...

They're still surrounded by birds. Very very angry birds that have only seemed to double in number and quadruple in anger since when he first picked Jamie up. On hindsight, maybe it would be a better idea to call for a sick day from work instead of stepping foot out of his car.

[personal profile] phoenixchild 2017-11-20 07:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Jamie had gotten some news upon arriving at Expressive in Tisse: the good news is that they arrived at Minato's workplace and he could stay there until the turkeys could go away, not to mention being able to get something to eat while waiting for help or Derek to find him there.

The bad news is that the birds have increased in number and in anger levels since fleeing out of the Recolle Times building, and they somehow managed to track down them to here. Some of the turkeys were even trying to peck on the windows like pickaxes hitting on the rocks.

Wondering of what's going to happen next, he turned to Minato and asked him one little question, "Plan B, do have you have Plan B right now?"

[personal profile] compendiem 2017-11-20 08:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Note to self: contact auto insurance to see whether coverage extends to turkey attacks.

At Jamie's question, though, Minato doesn't respond right away. He does have an idea, but it's a bad one: "We make a run for it."

[personal profile] phoenixchild 2017-11-20 08:02 pm (UTC)(link)
"Um... Okay, if you say so," Jamie sheepishly answered, "But I still have to shoo them on our way out, right?"

[personal profile] compendiem 2017-11-20 08:05 pm (UTC)(link)
He shakes his head, motioning towards the back seat where Jamie can throw the broom. "It'll slow you down. We'll get nipped at if we run, but it'll be faster."

Jamie did a lot in getting them here already; Minato isn't about to have him sacrifice himself just so he can get through the door unscathed.

[personal profile] phoenixchild 2017-11-20 08:10 pm (UTC)(link)
"Right," he took note of it, tossing the broom back to its original storage area in the back seat.

Both men quickly got out of the car and made a run for it, as the turkeys continued their chase after them. Not really a clever idea when being chased by crazed fowls, but he thought if they go all over the Tisse district, they could confuse the turkeys of their next location, stalling not if avoiding them altogether.
Edited 2017-11-22 19:45 (UTC)