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

Well, the name's kind of cute!

[Give her a break, she needs to find some positive in this insanity. She shakes her head, smacking it. She focuses and... nope. The chocobo is still there.]

Noooooooo I'm pretty sure we're... not... both just seeing the same thing... Two people can't both go that specifically crazy, right?!

No... no, no they can't! This isn't how mass hysteria works!

[She turns towards Maya, hands shaking as she comes dangerously close to dropping her phone.]

Maya! I can't find anything... Google doesn't know what a horse is!

Um, if we're hysterical, can we actually be sure...?!

[Still, Rachel is freaking out. Maya is freaking out. Both of these girls are about to completely freak out without anyone to really stop them.]

Why is Google so useless all of a sudden?! That's the weirdest thing of all!

Maya, I don't think that's the problem. It's not that Google is wrong, it's-

[Rachel's voice cuts off. There's a low rumbling noise that's filling the air, along with people shouting. Rachel's head turns and-

Oh. That sure is a big ball of string coming right towards them and Rachel can do little more than gape.]

Oh come on...

[Look, Google being wrong is a VERY SERIOUS ISSUE to her and something to be highly concerned about--

Oh wait. She hears that rumbling. Her head turns as well. Her eyes nearly bug out, and Rachel will suddenly find Maya grabbing her hand and attempting to drag her along.]

Okay, everything's a little too real for me right now, RUN!

[Rachel lets out a yelp as she's basically dragged along. Unfortunately, Rachel is not physically coordinated at all, and ends up basically stumbling...

... and getting caught by a portion of the unraveling sting flying out and snagging her by her ankle. She goes tumbling forward, crashing into Mayu behind, dragging a bit of said string with her as she does.]

[Maya as it so happens is very physically coordinated, but unfortunately that doesn't help much when dragging someone along that isn't. As Rachel stumbles and gets caught, slamming into her, it sends Maya careening as well. She hits the ground in a heap and before she knows it, flailing and screaming aside, she's all tangled up and stuck on the ground.

...well, there are worse ways this could have ended up, she dimly realizes.

She's alive! But...]

I'm stuck...!

[After crashing into Maya from behind, Rachel ends up faceplanting into the ground behind her. She lets out a groan and tries to pick herself up, her forehead, knees, and palms stinging... and finds herself pulling at the string that's now tangled around her and the string connected to Maya.]

U-Ugh... so am I...

Today was going to be a good day...

[Maya struggles and squirms, tugging on her own strings, and only finding herself bound tighter by the effort. She wants to flail but quickly realizes that's a bad idea, so instead she sniffles.]

You and me both...! Today started so good!

[She pouts and just sort of sinks to the ground.] I think that chicken tried to kill us...!

[Rachel lets out a sharp cry as Maya tugs on her rope... they're all bound together, and tugging on it ends up yanking on some of her hair.]

St-stop! We're... we're never gonna get out of it at this rate. Here, I have something for this...

[She grabbed around for her fallen messenger bag, and began to cycle through it.]

There's a letter opener in here somewhere...

[Maya lets out a little yelp and just ... freezes. She settles back and looks a little remorseful.]

Ah, sorry, sorry! I was just trying to see if I could get us free!

[She follows Rachel's hands, and blinks a little bit.] Do you think that's enough to cut this...?!

I-It's fine. Just... let me see what I can do here...

[She frowned, and started to scrape away at the string.]

I don't know if it'll be enough, but it's the only thing we ha-

[She cut through string, causing it to whip out, slapping her in the face.]

... Well that's one.

[As the strong snaps out, Maya winces once it hits her in the face.]

Ummm... maybe we should find a different way to do this...

[Lest you hurt yourself, Rachel.]

Maybe... [Rachel sighed, and put her letter opener away.]

Maybe... Maybe if we unwind it bit my bit?

[As if to illustrate, she holds up the end of the part she just cut, unwinding it from around her own shoulders.]

Um, yeah, something like that.

[Maya reaches out and begins to tug at the string tangling up Rachel, finding it somehow a lot easier than her own.] Just. Look at it like a big puzzle!

Y-yeah... it's almost like uncoiling all the wires and cables around a TV or a computer...

[Rachel continues, and indeed, they start making some progress. After a while though, Rachel sighs.]

I'm sorry, Maya. If I'd have been faster, or more observant...

[At seeing Rachel's concern, Maya laughs (it's forced, but convincing) and waves a hand, even as they're still all tangled up.]

Nah, don't worry about that! After all, we were both real surprised, right?

... I guess we were.

[Rachel smiles back, even if both are kind of forcing it. At least they care about making each other feel better...]

Let's get ourselves out of this, then.

FEBRUARY EVENT LOG

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