retrospec | 002. Text // Put these thoughts to rest, I'm standing my ground

Well, as the usual godforsaken holiday struggle continues, it's obvious that we've gotten a fair few new people signed on to the network, and the usual incoherent shrieking thrown at them. Seeing as that last bit tends to help exactly no one, here's a rough rundown of what you should know, given by someone who won't even claim to have a complete picture but knows enough to have a basic idea of what's going on:

Retrospec and You!

1. Everyone here is from another world. Yes, even if you were born and raised in this city. Perhaps especially if you were born and raised in this city. Some of us came from the same worlds as others, but none of us came from here, whether "here" is Recolle itself or a different country. If you think you're from this world, congratulations! You aren't.

2. Our original worlds were destroyed by something called "unreality." No one knows what unreality is. I've just spared you a headache. You're welcome.

3. We were brought here by Retrospec to do...something. I've no idea what we're expected to actually do, other than play out some sort of insipid "surely your heart and soul will remember" melodrama that will supposedly bring our worlds back into existence.

4. As long as one soul still exists from a destroyed world, it can be recreated somehow. Which is why we're important. An entire world's fate rests on your shoulders. No pressure! ♡

5. You will probably begin remembering things from your past life in that destroyed world, whatever that entailed. Some of the memories will probably be terrible. Some of them will not be. Whatever the terrible:not terrible ratio actually is for you doesn't matter because the terrible ones will definitely outweigh the not-terrible ones in terms of what you feel about them simply because human bias is like that. You'll also recall all the feelings you had at the moment that the memories in question were made, in case this wasn't confusing enough already. These memories bear no implications toward you as a person, despite what everyone else here tries to insist.

6. If you were a mass murdering psychopath in your past life, please try to remember that mass murder is bad? It's remarkably easy to not murder people. Most people go their entire lives without doing it! This statement brought to you by ADA Alexander Cumore, who approved this message. ♡

7. Sometimes you will receive items, weapons, or changes to your person from Retrospec. Or so I've been told. I've received none of these things and as such have no idea what they're talking about, but I'll take their word for it.

8. The sky has always been blue, the trees have always been green, and horses actually exist and aren't some sort of cryptid even if they are inherently awful, terrifying creatures. Also monsters aren't commonplace occurrences, and apparently the fog in October was worse than we all realized, though I couldn't tell you how.

Congratulations, you're now officially caught up on everything you need to know about all of this, at least for the time being. ♡

With that out of the way, however - does anyone know if caffiene and the like still work, even if we can't taste the products? I'm not looking forward to consuming anything with no taste whatsoever, but I'd like to know that at the very least I won't be absolutely suffering through for the duration.