LOADING...

[recollecters]

Welcome back, users. Looks like we were able to bring you back online and tracked again...here's hoping the layers are settled now, but the readings are off the chart. We're doing our best to stabilize the city for December while we track some of the magical sources we're picking up. It may take us some time though, so please bear with us! We may be working through the holidays, too, if this keeps up. But it's okay. You opened the doors and new routes for us to check. Stay positive, users. December is a special time of the year. What's your favorite holiday tradition? You'd be surprised how thoughts shape things here. Please take care. Joanne Wiseman Technician 2nd class Retrspec Incorporated Characters' display names are the same as whatever they chose last month and are permanently locked in! Newbies may pick a new name for their first use on Retrospec, but whatever they pick will also become permanent. Please feel free to use this post as a network mingle. Every toplevel can be considered a new post, and threadjacking is permitted. No NPC response will be given. As a friendly reminder, you may also claim one of this month's freebie by submitting a thread from this mod post. This thread must be 10 comments from you and submitted before AC closes.

Comments

[keystaff]

New routes? Does this mean there are new areas for us to explore again? I think the main thing that...confused me last month was seeing my parents. My mother. Though I think with her it was more like a memory than a spirit or ghost. Or something like that. I'm not really sure. But I was using a new card. Record? I think it was.

But ah, I suppose this time of year, my holiday favourite thing is probably choosing everyone's presents! And seeing people enjoy them after when they open them. The smell of the gingerbread! I hope you don't have to work through the holidays themselves and you get some time with your families too, Joanne-san.

[spirithacker]

sry we didnt see your real ghost mom

[keystaff]

No, it's okay. I still kind of got to see her? So. It's alright. If she does have a spirit around, it's probably back in Japan, right?

[spirithacker]

probably
but it wouldve been nice to talk 2 her

[keystaff]

I did. A little, in that memory. Though it was more like she was warning me.

[spirithacker]

thats not rly nice
more scary

[keystaff]

I'm still not quite sure what she meant. I mean, I can guess, but. Maybe it will make sense once I remember more.

[spirithacker]

isnt a warning u dont understand super unhelpful
thats retrospec staff stuff

[keystaff]

She said something about anything more than this being too much? I'm not sure. But maybe it had to do with my using Record at the time? To see the past.

private

[cardcaptured]

[Note to self: plan Christmas shopping and gingerbread dates with Sakura ASAP

... although that's probably not the most pressing matter here, honestly--]

Are you okay? The stuff with the ghosts and your mother... do you want to talk about it?

private

[keystaff]

It was....I was back at her place? Where she grew up, her room. I used this new card - 'Record', to see the past, to see her. I saw bits and pieces of her growing up, but then she was older and told me 'anything more and there's no turning back'. Though I'm not sure what she meant. Because it was me seeing the past?

[cardcaptured]

[It takes him a moment or so to realize she wasn't talking about something the ghosts had done, but a memory instead. He knew next to nothing about the previous Sakura's life, or her family, so he couldn't provide very much insight on that, but--]

If I didn't know any better, I'd say it was a dream, but you said you were using a card to see all of this...

Maybe it was a warning about using your powers? Maybe seeing that much of the past would exhaust you or hurt your magic, somehow. Although if you were seeing the past, she wouldn't have been able to see you...

[keystaff]

That's what I was confused about. That she talked to me like that. When I thought it was just memories, the past. Seeing her when she was younger. But at that point she was older, and she warned me just before I passed out.

[It's complicated? Confusing. The same as when she saw 'Nadeshiko' in the woods with the fog last year in October. And she still isn't sure on what was going on there. That it was actually Illusion.]

[cardcaptured]

You passed out?!

[SORRY SAKURA, the rest of this mystery is very compelling, but as your worrywart boyfriend, that's the info he's going to latch onto first. Granted, given how cagey he was about passing out in that one memory of his, maybe this was karma, but HE'S STILL CONCERNED....]

Was it because you used too much of your power? Do you think the card did that to you??

[keystaff]

I think so? I'm not sure on why but it's probably trying too much in wanting to see her? I guess.

[Or something like that. She's not sure. Probably there might be some limits at least, on what she can handle with Record. Which might explain it. At least, she assumes it's something to do with her messing with time, with trying too much. Which was probably what her mother had meant with that warning of hers?]

[cardcaptured]

[Unseen on his end of the screen, he bites at his lip, puzzling things over in his head. He didn't know how their abilities worked in that other world, or their limitations... though no doubt 'Syaoran' did. Still, to think Sakura would go to such lengths, just to see her mother again...]

... your mother was probably trying to look out for you with that warning. I don't think she'd want her daughter to push herself that hard in order to see her again. Even if it was just things from her past.

[Though it still baffles him how her mother even showed up in the first place, unless her magic involved summoning ghosts, somehow--]

You said there was a new card in your memory, though? Do you think it might have been the one that was involved with... the other thing you saw your mother in?

[Because the mention of a new card doesn't necessarily click with a new set to him-- it could just be another Clow Card she hadn't gotten back.]

[keystaff]

But using the magic, that's probably the only chance I have. I mean, outside of photos and stories of her from others. And that's not the same. I wish I did remember more about her myself.

You mean me seeing her at the lake? Remembering falling from the cliff? I'm not sure.

[Record seemed to deal more with time, memories. She's not sure if she could say the same for that other one time. But probably, Sakura wasn't aware necessarily on how much it would drain her, to use Record then as it was.]

un; May "Satsuki "Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson" Hojo" Sfondi

[me_matey]

ur parents as in ur birth parents?

whoa

[keystaff]

Yes. I don't mean Fai-san and Iwai-san. Not with this, at least.

[me_matey]

shit

[ several minutes late ]r is it dumb that im almost like

jealous?

[keystaff]

You're jealous?

[me_matey]

i never knew my birth parents

don't know their names. don't know what they look like. have no concept in my head of who they are.

[keystaff]

Oh. I at least hear about my mother, and see photos of her around the house. And my dad only passed away last year. There's no way to check, your birth records or something?

[me_matey]

theres nothin to check. there's no birth certificate or anything. i was probably delivered in some back alley off-the-books clinic or somethin

[keystaff]

Oh. I guess there's no way to find out then? Not...officially at least.