recolle | FEBRUARY EVENT LOG

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"What?" Ryoga asked, looking up as a convertible zoomed past less than a meter away. "You too, buddy!" he yelled as the car blared its horn.

He continued weaving his way stubbornly through traffic, like that one crazy dude in a movie who tries chasing an old lady ghost who disappears after a truck goes by. In this case, however, not one but two trucks honked at him as he reached the median.

Oh good lord.

She quickens her pace to the edge of the sidewalk so she can more accurately yell at him.

"Get out of the road, dumbass!"

"I am out of the road!" shouted Ryoga, which was technically correct -- the best kind of correct. As he did so, the crossing light turned green for his side of the street, leaving him free to cross, should he so choose. However, a small crowd of schoolchildren was now coming towards him from the other side.

What a bother! They were stepping all over his string!

"Well, when you get back on it, don't walk in front of a car!"

At the sight of school children, Vella groans and drags a hand down her face. If this weirdo was really chasing string, this was the last thing he needed right now. Dude already proved himself to be spacey, who knows how he'd react to getting his obsession trampelled over.

"Hey kids, make sure to avoid weird strangers!"

The children were now skirting around both yelling strangers, some not paying attention and some looking vaguely discombobulated. As far as they'd been told, they were supposed to avoid any strangers.

One got himself tangled in the string and fell over; Ryoga picked him up by the shirt back like a kitten and set him back down on the street, whereupon he skittered off to join the others. Fantastic. Now a blob of it was caught in the street tree. Well, it wasn't as though it needed to be perfectly straight, anyway; he just needed to find where the end of it was. He looked up at the tree and scowled. If he was careful, it should probably be sturdy enough to climb, though hopefully that wouldn't be necessary.

Oh for the love of- she races to the median as the light turns yellow, attempting to shake one of the strings off of her leg and only succeeding in getting another loop around her arm.

"Please tell me you aren't gonna break a branch and then your head."

Well, at least the kids seem to have moved along quietly.

"Look, are you going to help, or just make a bunch of smart remarks?" Ryoga tugged experimentally on the branch to see if it would bend enough to let the string slip off. Nooooot yeeeet....

"This is important. I can't leave it to anyone else."

"I'm very found of smart remarks, I'll have you know."

She crosses her arms. "Well what is it then? Ask for help or not leave it to anyone else?"

"Rrgh, fine. Just stay there and don't tangle it up any more." Rackum frackum stupid tree. Taking one end of the string caaarefully in hand, he kited out a little ways along the median, until with a sudden sweep of the wrist, he managed to disengage it from the branch.

"There. No one said anything about this part."

Whatta maroon.

She'll just observe this whole mess as she gets to work untangling herself. Honestly, its stuck on her legs, her arms, she's pretty sure its in her hair a little too.

"Following the string like that one Greek myth then?"

"What? No." Was that the maze thing? It was probably the maze thing.

"Hey, don't pull it. You're tangling my end more!" Weren't girls supposed to be graceful or some junk. First of all how dare she.

"This is just one thing after another."

"I'm certainly not staying tangled up in this mess." Excuse you, she's grace coming out the whazzo.

"Always another difficulty."

He continued tracing along the end as he spoke, at least until he came to a logical point to conclude that --

"...you're not just tangled in it, you're tied to it." Was this some kind of mistake? A practical joke? Did he need to double-check his work?

Huh? She glances back at him in confusion.

"Yeah, there's many ways to refer to the same thing. They're called synonyms."

"No, your finger, it... forget it." Why would this girl know the significance of the string, anyway?

Answer: she would not. And Ryoga was under no obligation to tell her. He could just pretend this entire ordeal never happened, and that would fix everything A++.

Don't run away from love Ryouga.

"You know, when people say things like never mind or forget it, it just makes people more curious."

She doesn't actually care, but it might annoy him.

"W-well, it's completely unfounded!" he said. Maybe annoyed wasn't quite the right descriptor here, but something was certainly flustering him. He grabbed large handfuls of the string, collecting it from a nearby overgrown shrub.

"Look, do you have a pocketknife or something?"

With a quick flick, her glinting blade pops out, matching a giant grin.

"Just my eight by five by one inch stainless steel folding knife!"

What. That was really fast! Like, suspiciously fast! Was this girl a delinquent? A knife hobbyist? Would she soon be telling Ponyboy to stay gold?

Nevertheless, she had the tool for the problem at hand. "Then please help cut through this string. It'll be way faster than trying to untangle all of this."

Ponyboy is a wimp who needs to toughen up.

"Hey, any way to help out or use a knife sounds like a good way to spend my time either way."

With that somewhat unsettling competent, she moves to get to work on the string.

FEBRUARY EVENT LOG

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