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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]

I am awful at pacman.
But yes.
Thomas the Gangster Engine did sooth my rage.

[appraiser]

it's a learning curve, i'd imagine
(disclaimer: if i ever disappear for hours in the middle of this conversation, i am probably struggling through pac man)
but positive reinforcement in the form of Gangster Engine does its job! keeps everybody coming back

[notyourutopian]

They're going to have to give me a steady stream of Thomas to make up for this.
George 'Mr Ducking Conductor' should start narrating my texts.

Oh come on. IT'S A NAME NOT A SWEAR

[appraiser]

lol who is George?
i think the last time i watched anything with talking trains, i was five

[notyourutopian]

George Carlin.
My dad loves him so I've seen most of his stuff.
He's a really aggressive, sweary stand up comedian.

Who also happened to be Mr. Conductor on Thomas the Tank Engine.

[appraiser]

oh! maybe i'll look into it
a comedian as a conductor might get me to watch the show again
you must really love Thomas the Tank Engine

[notyourutopian]

My little sister watched it a lot.
And I just thought it was funny that he was this angry swearing guy on a kids show.

[appraiser]

lol angry swearing guys can like trains too
it'd be fun to be a conductor of a well loved children's show

[notyourutopian]

I don't think I'd have the patience for it.

I guess it would depend on what they pay, really.

[appraiser]

what would the salary have to be for you to throw away your current career goals and apply?

[notyourutopian]

Hmmmmmmm

A hundred thousand dollars.
An episode.

[appraiser]

that's
pretty steep

but if you work hard at acting, i'm sure there will be producers clamoring to have you sign up for that much
did you sign up for the Romeo and Juliet play?

[notyourutopian]

Nah.
I just already have big dreams.

You'd have to pay me a ton to give them up.

[appraiser]

how many hundred thousand?
i want to hear about your dreams

[notyourutopian]

Just multiply it by however many episodes there.

I'm going to college for mechanical engineering and journalism next year.

[appraiser]

oh! so you're continuing your passion with the newspaper club!
how is that going, by the way? it feels like there's a lot of news to report these past few months
for a select part of the campus, i guess
everybody else thinks everything is just how it is

[notyourutopian]

We tried including some articles about it but everyone thought we were just writing fiction.
So we went back to just reporting the normal news.
Kind of sucks but

What can you do.

[appraiser]

aww, i hoped an opinion from the other side might shine some light into it
say, for example, you interview another student who believed you were writing fiction
and ask what they think about select other students suddenly talking about horses or faceless fruit
whether it's a prank or an inside joke or what have you

[notyourutopian]

It's hard to frame that in a way that doesn't make it seem...
Obvious maybe?

Like, when you show them retrospec, it's not that they don't get it.
It's that they don't care.
Or that's how it felt to me.

[appraiser]

sometimes you have to be obvious and direct
Retrospec as a phone app isn't altogether unusual, i can admit that
it's just the little ties into the strange-- matching symbols on the beads on Founder's Day, and that video that changed people's perceptions of the fruit
Retrospec having a hand in hallucinomemories and unexpected packages? i'm not so sure. sometimes it feels like a scapegoat to blame all our strange experience on

[notyourutopian]

Yeah, I tried some of that. I still have some of the beads.
But it was like...they didn't care.
Like even if it seemed like they should.
They didn't.

It didn't make any sense.

[appraiser]

well, it's not like you can force people to care, can you...
even the ones that should?
like IT? information systems technicians around school, who'd probably get a lot of questions about phones and laptops improperly working

[notyourutopian]

That's not what I mean, exactly.

It's like, you know how you have a friend who loves, like...a certain kind of tv show?
And they get all excited when you show them a new one?
I have friends who love weird internet conspiracy junk.
And yet when I show them this
They just don't care.

[appraiser]

maybe... they already know about it? maybe they're a part of it? not to cast suspicious, but it may be a reason why some people refuse to acknowledge it

[notyourutopian]

If they've got random high school kids in on it, we're all doomed.