FEBRUARY EVENT LOG

[recollecters]

EVENT

FOUNDER'S DAY It's finally here. This is the day the city has been waiting for. It's a day like no other when every resident of Recollé can be found buzzing with energy and excitement. Shops open early. The Recollé High School and University marching bands begin to play, and over in Tribunal Terrace Mayor Mayer strides up to the microphone atop his beloved giant chicken, Seabiscuit. --wait, giant chicken? You're sure the Mayor has something important to say, but all you can do is focus on the fact that Seabiscuit didn't have bright red feathers the day before. The rest of the Mayor's speech may not get through to you, but it's his last sentence that makes everything official. "Welcome to Founder's Day! Let's do our part and celebrate the city that we love." I. All of the hard work from the days prior has paid off. The weather is slightly brisk with no chance of snowfall until well into the evening and businesses are booming. Shopkeepers and employees working today will have their hands full taking orders from customers and keeping up with demands. Maybe that 50% off deal on wool-knit scarves wasn't such a great idea. On the other hand, residents that aren't working today will find the streets pleasantly busy. Chata has plenty of sidewalk sales to peruse. Music and the scent of cinnamon-sweet coffee will surely lure some people to the businesses in Tisse. School is closed for the day but an open campus tour runs a few times a day at the university, and the Founder's Day play is performed once in the morning and once in the evening at the Atrium. Are you enjoying a day with your friends? Or are you stuck behind a register wishing you were? Wherever you may be, the spirit of Founder's Day is all around you. II. At noon sharp, the bands strikes up again as crowds gather around Tribunal Terrace. Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for the main attraction! That's right, it's time for the annual Founder's Day Parade featuring the city's newly elected royalty: King Kurt Wagner, Queen Maya Aimoto, Prince Ryoji Mochizuki, Princess Rose Strider, Duke Viktor Nikiforov, and Duchess Arlene Sinclair. The marching bands play with gusto as they stride through the streets, the Recollé High and Recollé University cheerleaders right behind them. Beautiful floats follow in their wake, all decorated with flowers and depicting the historical events of the city. One thing that's different this year, however, is the addition of beads from the King and Queen's float at the end of the parade. The Recollé Royalty's float-helpers sit on the edge of the float tossing colored strands of beads and candy to the audience below. Most residents may not notice, but the beads seem to be shaped like a new logo some residents are quickly becoming familiar with. Residents will find that wearing the beads will produce some interesting results though. Are you on a romantic date? Your beads might slowly turn red with passion. Are you nervous about one of those floats suddenly veering off and rolling down the hill? Your beads might turn pitch black. No matter what district you're in after the parade these beads will respond to your current mood, and even if you take them off they seem to mysteriously turn back up in your pocket. If you take them off and try to get rid of them often enough, they might just appear around your neck, and you won't be able to remove them for the rest of the day. Then again, this doesn't seem to be a rule so much as a pattern. Perhaps you'll be lucky enough to ditch the beads to your pocket instead of having them prominently displayed no matter how many times you do away with them. Talk about wearing your heart on your sleeve. What's up with that? The beads may not be everyone's first priority. After all, once the parade's said and done someone has to be on clean-up duty. Will you volunteer? III. Later, back at Tribunal Terrace, residents who passed by a large metal truck earlier in the week will quickly see what all of the fuss was about as Mayor Mayer walks Seabiscuit down the street, monitoring over a small, gated pen for Chocobo-back rides. You know the Mayor used to own a horse. Seabiscuit has always been a beautiful Palamino with a shimmering coat. Asking most of the other residents, however, will earn you a concerned look. Recollé has always been home to Chocobos. What's a horse? Nearby there's a petting zoo that has been set up by the same company. Thankfully, those animals look familiar. Goats, sheep, bunnies and other small animals reside in the petting zoo. Are you the type to feed them? Or are you stuck on pooper-scooper duty? Gross. The Chocobos themselves seem friendly enough, though the little ones are prone to nipping at hair and fingers. Are you brave enough to get closer to take a better look at these mysterious creatures? Do try to be careful...especially since some of them are prone to running away and relocating themselves in other parts of the city. Seems like even the Chocobos want the Founder's Day special from Expressive. IV. Mayor Mayer, as good and true as he is, isn't one of the most careful people in the city of Recollé. It would make sense to keep Seabiscuit away from the city's pride and joy, the world's largest ball of red string. If you've been in Recollé for any length of time, you'll immediately recognize the ball. Large enough to see from any district, the ball has been wound and displayed near City Hall for years. Too bad Seabiscuit isn't one for tradition and this creature does startle easily. It's hard to say what caused the poor thing to become so scared that it kicked the ball right off of its pedestal, but once it starts rolling there's no stopping it. The red ball of string picks up pace, rolling down the streets and unraveling to tangle up anyone in its path. The string winds its way around the city and all districts, seemingly pulling people in and tying them up with at least one other person. It seems that the only way to undo this mayhem is to find your other half and work together to unravel yourselves. BONUS. You don't remember that building in Tisse being there. Was it there before? Perhaps it was empty in the days prior to Founder's Day, but today a small neon sign illuminates the front of the building with the name of its current business. Retrospec. Huh. Isn't that the name of that app that installed itself on your mobile device? As you've noticed by now, all aspects of the app are available to use. But there's still something ominous about that building. If you're brave enough to go inside, you'll find… …nothing. The building appears to be empty save for a few chairs in a waiting room-type area and a large fake potted plant in the corner. There appears to be several doors and even an elevator, but it seems no matter how hard you try you can't access any of those. What a waste of time. (And why isn't there a staircase?) There's really no point in staying here when the festival's outside waiting for you. When you try to open the front door to exit though it appears to have locked behind you. Are you alone? Hopefully you aren't alone, that would be quite dreadful. Of course, you can try a few things to break out. You can try ramming down the door for example. That won't work, but you may certainly try. Though the city is full of creative people with undoubtedly interesting methods of breaking free, residents locked inside Retrospec will find that the only way to open the door is by using the Retrospec app to post a status update, comment to someone else's status, or post a picture from their Founder's Day adventures. Is there a right or wrong way to do this? That's for you to find out. Time to get creative and maybe make a few new friends! Welcome to recolle's February event! As a reminder, all characters will be begin in-game AU'd as Recollé residents. As with our TDM, 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 and be as creative as you'd like. As a note, the effects from the beads in the second prompt can last throughout the month if you would like, but will fade as soon as February is over. Additionally, you may post Retrospec updates in your top-levels on this log for the bonus prompt if you wish to keep everything in one place. As another note, by participating in this log in a thread with five or more comments from you, you are eligible for one free memory regain! This means you can claim a memory without a trigger required. Please see our monthly plotting post for more details. Any questions you have regarding this event may be directed to the mod comment here.

Comments

iii

[true_noir]

[When he said that, the response that came from nearby was laughter, light and tinkling. A person who was definitely on the shorter side was standing just behind and to his left. They took a step in, brushing up close because of the crowd's press and reached out to pat the creature on its beak, less nervous. It caused a 'wark' sound to gurgle out of the big yellow chicken's mouth before she pulled back and looked at him.

Normally, she wasn't this vulgar, but that was a perfect description, and it made her laugh. When she spoke, it was with a distinctively french accent, the h's barely existing and the r's trilled out.]

Finally, someone has put this into words for me. I was thinking ostrich, but no. Its neck is too long, no? Have you ever seen one before?

[alienates]

[ he hadn't expected anyone to overhear him, so he looks surprised for a moment before stuffing his hands into his hoodie's pockets. nope, he definitely was not trying to pet the weird animal. no one saw anything. ]

No idea what it is. I thought they were supposed to be doing horse rides, not... [ whatever the fuck this is. ]

[true_noir]

[The hoodie routine was sort of cute. She really needed to pick one of those up for the cold herself. But she wasn't someone who got embarrassed easily, so there was no shame in reaching out, offering the thing some of the feed that the little vending machines these petting spots inevitably had offered.

His questions solicited a shrug. She hadn't even thought about 'horses' just yet, more because these obviously were some sort of import from elsewhere. That was the only logical explanation.]

They must have decided on something more exotic. The kids certainly seem to like them.

[alienates]

[ he just frowns at that. mostly because if they had to bring in some fancy animal from elsewhere, how much did that cost?? karkat is too young to be a taxpayer but he if he were one then like... he'd be annoyed... he is annoyed on behalf of his future taxpayer self?? ]

I'm shocked they didn't advertise them to get more people out here. Unless it was meant to be a surprise?

[true_noir]

[She hadn't started paying taxes yet. Maybe she'd be singing a new tune, come April 15, when she had her first tax day as an American citizen, but for the moment she was a little too embroiled in the oddity of it, and the fascinating, exotic and seemingly harmless big birds in front of her.

Yeah, that honeymoon would last just long enough for one of them to 'wark' and get loose.]

It feels like the sort of thing that you might surprise people with. They will be speaking of this for months, no? If the mayor wishes to be re-elected, making people happy would probably help. I would applaud his cunning, if I were so inclined.

But come, you should pet one. The beak is very smooth. Would you like a bit of the feed?

[alienates]

[ now that she has actually brought up the topic of petting the thing, he falters. on one hand, he doesn't want to get bitten? but on the other, he doesn't want to look afraid when she has no issues with it. ]

... Sure. They don't have rabies, do they?

[true_noir]

I'm pretty sure they don't, and certainly not the ones that they have children riding.

[Her voice had a light laugh to it and she shook her head. It felt a little silly, but she also knew that she could be a bit fearless about random opportunities like this. Life was much better if you grabbed it by the horns, after all. It was more of an adventure.]

And if it does, perhaps you could do the American tradition and sue the mayor?

[alienates]

[ okay the last comment makes him snort, and he looks less annoyed now and more amused. ]

Not the way I imagined getting rich, but I'll take it.

[ he will... go to get some feed though... ]

[true_noir]

[She snickered as he said that and nodded. In the meantime, while the bird was finishing off the food from her hand, Chloe would keep it busy by scratching the back of its beak, so that it wasn't running off anytime soon, as she watched for Karkat to return.

Huh, that was funny, she needed to remember to introduce herself when he came back.]

[alienates]

[ he comes back a little later, still not looking completely comfortable since he isn't entirely sure if he will leave this encounter with all ten fingers and two hands. and yet, here he is.

he stares at the chocobo for a moment before... reaching out... his hand filled with feed??? oh god ]

[true_noir]

[Thankfully, the experience was a bit like a horse or goat eating out of one's hand, if the horse or goat had a beak instead of a snout to nuzzle with. So, he wasn't going to lose a hand in the process, not even a finger joint.

'Wark!']

Hehe, I think that this one likes you, though that is probably the food. It would like anyone with food. I apologize for not introducing myself earlier. I am Chloe.

[alienates]

[ oh right. introductions. ]

Karkat. [ jesus this is weird. karkat has not fed many horses or goats so like ??? wow ]

These things are still fucking odd though.

[true_noir]

[She smiled and allowed herself a little laughter as she saw him feeding the bird. She leaned against the railing, looking at the creature and marveling. It was a strange looking thing certainly.]

Very unusual, but that doesn't make them bad. It will certainly make this event memorable, will it not?

[alienates]

I guess. Are we the only fucking ones who didn't know these things even existed though?

[ since people walking by don't seem that surprised at them. karkat will feel dumb if chocobos were common knowledge and he just somehow lived his life without hearing about them wtf? ]

[true_noir]

[she looked around at the others who were there. Nobody seemed surprised in the slightest and were behaving like they were simply another attraction to 'oooh' and 'ahh' over. Her lips twisted in a little frown and she crossed her arms.]

It would seem we are the only ones here, at least. Perhaps we missed some announcement? I wonder where he imported them from, Africa? Perhaps Borneo?

[alienates]

[ it's odd, but karkat has not thought to actually ask anyone else about it, so for now he just shrugs. ]

Do they specialize in giant birds there?

[true_noir]

Nope, hence I know very little of our friend here. I'm a florist actually. So, if you have any questions about Valentine's arrangements, I can point you in a very good direction.

Birds? Not so much, no.

[alienates]

[ ... he looks sightly embarrassed at the mention of valentine's. ]

Well, I don't need any info on that first part.

[true_noir]

[She laughed softly, smiling at him with a kind of imperturbable air of someone who seemed used to it. After all, there were so many people who hated the holiday, and yet she loved it for some reason. The idea of finding people the person that they were meant to be, like finding the strings of fate.]</small. Now now, don't get that look on your face. It is not such a bad thing, no? But perhaps we can find out more about the birds if you would rather? I am sure someone must know.

[alienates]

[ he doesn't even hate it, it's just hard to get excited about a romantic holiday when you are forever single. otherwise he would probably be all about valentine's day honestly, even if he doesn't seem the type. ]

We can go ask some of the people petting them?

[ he gestures at a small group. ]

[true_noir]

[She nodded.]

Yes, why don't we do just that.

[She walked in the direction of the group and began asking questions, ones that she phrased very carefully as she quickly got a few odd looks. She kept an eye on Karkat while she did so, but was getting increasingly frustrated by the answers, for one very clear reason.

...everyone had heard of these things, for ages, and they thought it was at best quaint and weird that she hadn't. She could at least say that she used to live on a tiny vineyard in the middle of nowhere, but it was a frustrating talk. About five or ten minutes later, she caught sight of him and motioned away from the crowds, heading somewhere they could speak, away from the stares.]

Please do not tell me that your talks were as ... fruitless as mine.

[alienates]

[ the look on his face should confirm it. he's annoyed and also... clearly very confused, because what the fuck. ]

I asked if they knew why they decided to go with these things instead of horses, and get this. They didn't fucking know what a horse was.

[true_noir]

...
...
...

This feels like an elaborate prank, but why would it be at our expense? Far too random, since you and I have only just met. [Wait, wait, no. She knew a boy scout once. He had mentioned something. She tapped her lips, thinking, thinking.]

It is like the hunting of a snipe, almost?

[alienates]

You're going to have to elaborate there.

[ he has no idea what a snipe is. karkat was not a boy scout. ]

[true_noir]

Ah, I apologize. Someone I knew in school once mentioned it. It is a foolish game they play with children when out hiking. They tell them to find an imaginary bird, or a thing that does not exist. People go from camp to camp, searching for this thing.

It is a strange prank.