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[recollecters]

Greetings, Users. Our system may be experiencing some residual glitches from a recent network malfunction. Our technical team is working on getting these issues under control. Please direct any concerns in the meantime to the HR department at humanresources@retrospec.com. Our staff has furthermore noticed a significant increase in tags and trends for #aprilfools and #pranks. Keep on your toes and be certain to tag your best tricks for Retrospec™! 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. Any emails sent to the HR department will be returned with a failure to send notification, and will furthermore automatically be posted to the Retrospec network. Oops? Characters who have been in game for one month will find they can now change their profile pictures. Glitches will be in effect until the 15th and may include: -Usernames changing to a cat, dog, or bird pun. -The Retrospec application being changed into a neon color + animal theme of some variety. -Notifications going off at random and being unable to be turned off. -Various "special effects" crossing the screens when people comment. -Users having to beat a level of pac-man to access the application, and then being made to beat a new level every hour to keep using the application. -Thomas the Tank Engine memes being sent to users every hour for some reason. -Profile pictures being replaced by pictures of rabbits and easter eggs. -New creepy pasta stories appearing upon log-in, to be forwarded to someone before the app can continue to be used -Parental lock and auto-correct on cursing (i.e. fuck -> duck) -A parade of pixel Chocobos or dancing fruit scrolling across the screen after each comment posted

Comments

[notyourutopian]

Eleanor Lamb That's adorable.
Eleanor Lamb Also do you just go to 'they will disappear me' as your expectation every time?

[standalonehuman]

Hitori Togusa Excuse me. You. Started this. But no, since haha, I'm not the only person not remembering things.
Hitori Togusa So I'm no more valuable or invaluable to these guys than anybody else.

Just pretend I got her username right earlier

[notyourutopian]

Elliecat I accept zero responsibility and apologize for nothing.
Elliecat Well you're a police officer right? That has to be worth something.

[standalonehuman]

Hitori Togusa Take Fynn, he's prettier.
Hitori Togusa That part, at least, seems to just by chance. Random sampling of the population. Our characteristics, so far, are pretty close to the makeup of Recolle all over.

[notyourutopian]

Elliecat I don't think I know him.
Elliecat Do we make a nice bell curve of society?

Let it be known: I ran this on the first wave of apps.

[standalonehuman]

Hitori Togusa Mean age is right about on target, but the spread is thinner. We don't have a lot of the very old or very young. Which, you know, is good.
Hitori Togusa Anything else I'd run would depend on what information people put on the site.
Hitori Togusa And, well, it'd be creepy.

Ahem: NEEEEEERD.

[notyourutopian]

Elliecat I've only seen two little kids I think.
Elliecat And nobody that old. Just like. Oldish. Thirties.
Elliecat Yeah maybe don't stalk everybody. Or don't admit you're doing it anyway.

[standalonehuman]

Hitori Togusa It started as a way to see if any of the Department heads were on here?
Hitori Togusa But then Retrospec hasn't been providing a user list, so, I've been trying to keep up with the names.
Hitori Togusa It got harder with March, I know I'm off.

[notyourutopian]

Elliecat Harder how?

[standalonehuman]

Hitori Togusa There wasn't a way to separate out who is a new user versus an old one, and there's a lot more content now.
Hitori Togusa I can't just keep an eye on a few groupings of posts and take a count.
Hitori Togusa Also, at least one person I can verify has left. He moved out of the city, and his profile isn't on the site anymore.

[notyourutopian]

Elliecat Hm.
Elliecat Why would soemone moving remove them from the network...
Elliecat It's not like the internet is localized.

[standalonehuman]

Hitori Togusa Oh. There's a thought. But maybe their network is. You've noticed the app can bypass the internet entirely?

[notyourutopian]

Elliecat Yes, but it also uses the internet when it can.
Elliecat I think.

[standalonehuman]

Hitori Togusa I'm going to have to get back to you on that one.

[notyourutopian]

Elliecat Who left, anyway?

[standalonehuman]

Hitori Togusa Officer Amicia. He got a transfer to a different city, had to relocate for personal reasons.
Hitori Togusa I keep forgetting he's gone. I worked with him for a long time.

[notyourutopian]

Elliecat Hm. I didn't talk to him.
Elliecat I have noticed a few people aren't on here lately though.Elliecat I figured they were just ignoring it.</font

[standalonehuman]

Hitori Togusa If anyone has figured out how to successfully ignore this thing, I wish they would un-ignore it long enough to tell us how they did it.
Hitori Togusa The actual answer might be 'stay off the Internet entirely' but I can't exactly do that.
Hitori Togusa My job needs a way to contact me at all times.

[notyourutopian]

Elliecat What if the secret is to not tell anyone how you did it, or it doesn't work.
Elliecat Like the greek mythology story where the guy can have everything he wants as long as he doesn't look at it to make sure it's there.
Elliecat Nobody can live without the internet anymore.

[standalonehuman]

Hitori Togusa Least not in the city, not doing what we do.
Hitori Togusa It's almost like you're disconnected from something everybody else is a part of if you try to opt out.
Hitori Togusa Lots of Japanese tales that glorify the hermit life, I've never quite bought into the idea. They're the ones missing out.

[notyourutopian]

Elliecat I don't think that's just limited to us.
Elliecat Everyone needs their phones anymore, all the time. For everything.
Elliecat Being a hermit soudns really boring.

[standalonehuman]

Hitori Togusa Right. The net has become an odd but shared part of the human experience.
Hitori Togusa The idea that you can release all attachments and find yourself by cutting off from everyone else is falling by the wayside. There's value in unplugging, but none of us can get away with it for long.

[notyourutopian]

Elliecat Well, that and where everyone plays their phone games and reads their spam.
Elliecat I don't really get the value of unplugging thing.
Elliecat What do I gain exactly?

[standalonehuman]

Hitori Togusa It's in the learning of who you are in the absence of everyone else. The philosophy goes that the self can become better realized without the viewpoints of everyone else.
Hitori Togusa The ways that society and culture shape your world view and shape the world's view of you, it can get very overwhelming, and it's easy to get caught up in the information around you, instead of getting to know the self. Things get simpler when you're narrowing your perspective.
Hitori Togusa Which is all great and wonderful on paper. Paints a pretty picture of sitting underneath the lotus tree.
Hitori Togusa But the absence of other people also lets you fall into self-delusion if you are in isolation too long. It takes a strong spirit to be able to hold the mirror up to themselves and see something accurate. The theory is that with the absence of others, the picture is more accurate. I think those thinkers are cutting short the viewpoints of others. There is value in what others see, there is self-knowledge to be learned in how you interact with other people.
Hitori Togusa Now, I'm definitely NOT saying that someone else's perspective is necessarily a true one. But to not take into account another source of potentially valuable information? To cut yourself off and not even let it in? That's the mistake that leads to self-delusion.

[notyourutopian]

Elliecat It also all sounds really lonely.
Elliecat I'm not saying there isn't some merit to self-examination but.
Elliecat That seriously just sounds lonely.