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[recollecters]

Welcome to Retrospec™, the last social media network you will ever need. You are one of the few selected to test this exciting new platform based on our cutting-edge algorithms. Less than two hundred invitations have gone out, and membership is not currently open to the public. However, we hope you will come to see how useful Retrospec™ is, given time. We have for your use a variety of features such as text, voice, video, and image posts. We encourage you to explore our many options. Anyway, now that the copypaste part is out of the way! Jim here, requesting you guys make your secret meetings a little more exciting. It's not like you're not trying with the whole "let's meet off the network!" dealio, but I have some serious concerns. For one thing, no secret handshakes or phrases? Not even dramatic meeting locations? The trying rating is about half a star if that. And I'm almost bored to tears with the whole back and forth about what's going on. Not bored enough to give you a cheat sheet, but still. I can't get myself taken off surveillance duty, so at least try to make it a little more exciting! You guys might like this wikihow. Later! Jim Halloway Research & Development Retrspec Incorporated 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. Usernames are the character's full real AU names, not aliases or chosen nicknames or usernames, and seemed to have filled themselves in; nothing characters do can change or obscure their names currently. Characters who have been in game for more than one month will find they can change their profile pictures; newcomers are locked into their first choice. At various points throughout the day users will be sent images of themselves from behind, regardless of where they are. There doesn't seem to be any way to catch whoever might be taking and sending these, however, especially since being alone in a room doesn't seem to be a deterrent.

Comments

[sotenbori]

[they're living their best lives god]

[Janet bites her lip, trying to decide if she wants to ask or not. There is a war inside of her: ask the question, afraid that he might give the wrong answer or say to hell with it and marry this man she knows she loves so dearly.

But she can't not ask. She's bound by duty.]

Janet: My father was, as you know, a renowned cartographer. On his deathbed, his final wish was that I marry a map who can read and appreciate the kind of work he did.

[Janet knows that's not quite true - her father had, in no uncertain terms, told her that men who couldn't read maps were useless and couldn't be trusted. Fucking plottwist, right?]

Janet: So I have to ask, for my father's sake -- do you know how to read a map, Jim?

[daemonized]

[Jim pauses. This alone is telling, and he feels his stomach sink.]

JIM: I...

[What was he to say? He couldn't lie to Janet, his one and only, the love of his life. But he knew his honest answer would be disagreeable, even in the face of undying romance. He chooses honesty, regardless.]

JIM: I... I can't. Maps confuse me, Janet. Far too often I have to rely on a wikiHow, and even then the cardinal directions are too complex for me to comprehend. Which one is north? Which is east? Not to mention NORTHEAST? Damnable, useless concepts!

[His voice rises in almost desperation.]

JIM: But surely you can overlook this for the sake of our love!

[sotenbori]

[Janet's face falls. She feels the weight of her father's last words to her hanging in the air heavily. The video with the fruit had been so beautiful, so meticulously made. Surely her father was wrong, and Jim's lack of ability to read maps wasn't a comment on his character. What kind of useless man could make such a heartfelt gift? What kind of useless man would spend hours making hers such a beautiful video?

It's all too much. This time, Janet really does cry. But they're tears of sadness instead of tears of happiness. The more that Jim says about North and Northeast, the heavier she feels her father's disappointment, as if he were here in the room with them, frowning down on Jim and his beautiful smiling fruit video.]

Janet: I want to Jim, I do. You know I love you.

[daemonized]

[Her tears are almost too much for Jim to bear. His heart feels on the verge of shattering into a million tiny pieces, to be laid fractured at his feet. He wants to console her, he wants to make the longest fruit video in the world to reaffirm her confidence in him, but her words steal all hope from him.

Jim takes a step forward, his fingers reaching to grasp at her hands.]

JIM: Don't do this to me, Janet. I... I may not be able to read a map, but I'm not a heartless heathen of a man! We can be happy together.

[He pauses.]

JIM: Is this because of what your father said about me?

[sotenbori]

[Janet pulls away from him, shaking her head.]

Janet: Don't bring my father into this, Jim! You know how much he meant to me.

[daemonized]

[Jim is too emotional to stop the resentment that rises from within him.]

JIM: Your father never liked me, and you know it. And now, despite everything we've been through, you're going to let his bias come between our happiness? He's dead, Janet! Stop allowing him to control your life from even beyond the grave.

[sotenbori]

[Janet gasps and tries to slap Jim. What the fuck, Jim? You can't just talk about someone's dead dad like that.]

Janet: How could you, Jim? You know he will always matter to me, and if you can't understand that -- If you can't see why maps matter to me so much -- then maybe you don't really know me at all.

[daemonized]

[Jim is a man who can't read a map properly. You can't expect for him to be thoughtful all the time.

The slap connects, stinging his cheek. He looks surprised, but this is quickly replaced with an angry frown.]

JIM: No. /You/ need to stop clinging to the past, Janet. A man isn't defined by his propensity to read a map. My surveillance skills more than make up for this one failing.

[He hesitates again.]

JIM: Did our many years together mean nothing to you? Was it all a farce? Think of our night in Paris together. [ardyn stahp] You didn't mention cartography once that evening. Can't we return to those simpler times?

[sotenbori]

[Janet does think of their night in Paris together The thrill of having gone abroad with this man, who she loved so much. They'd bought champagne and drank it in bed and then, I mean, they didn't just lie there and giggle all night. They probably fucked. It was probably good. I assume? Good enough that Jim thought he could propose to Janet. Good for you, Jim.

She's so taken by that charming & steamy memory, it takes her a moment to respond. Maybe he's right, she tells herself. Maybe she could put all of that aside. She loved Jim. But she also loved her father.]

Janet: Maybe if you took the time to learn...it isn't that hard, learning how to read a map.

[Janet feels bad about the slap. She reaches over to gently caress the side of Jim's face. Even though she's got dainty lady-hands and it probably didn't even hurt. She doesn't know that. Jim looked hurt. Maybe he's just weak shit.]

Janet: And then we could be together after that. Take some time off of harassing those stupid people and study some maps. For me, Jim? Please?

[daemonized]

[They probably did, but it isn't always about sex. Maybe Jim felt a real connection with Janet that night, having absolutely nothing to do with coitus. It's quite difficult to know; Jim is often overconfident when he shouldn't be.

Still, it's a connection he feels with Janice now, despite their harsh exchange mere seconds ago.]

JIM: I can try. For your sake.

[His own hand reaches up to gently clasp hers. Janice may as well have hit his very soul when she lashed out at him, but the wound seems to be mending now.]

JIM: But... maybe just a little surveillance? Retrospec expects so much of me these days.

1/2

[sotenbori]

Janet: Yes, I understand. I'm sorry you have to deal with so much from them. You'll get a promotion soon, I'm sure. Thank you, for agreeing to learn how to read maps. We'll get married after that.

[sotenbori]

Hey, I think we did a pretty good job for our first time. We aren't so bad at this.

[daemonized]

Not terrible at all. I daresay it's a delight for others to read, as well.

[no???]

And now we know that Janet did indeed say yes. How romantic. Though one wonders what trials and tribulations they might still yet face.

[sotenbori]

[ continued here ]

[twelfthspark]

define "delight"

[the lack of interruptions from the peanut gallery up until now is both a travesty, and a testament to just how hard it was to look away from that... whatever that was.]

[daemonized]

Thrilling entertainment. The sort of drama that keeps you at the edge of your seat, clamoring for more.

I hope this is not a prelude to criticism, Arlene.

[twelfthspark]

And what if it is, professor? 😜

[daemonized]

Then my heart will be broken, of course. You know how sensitive of a soul I am.

[twelfthspark]

Do I? I always heard lawyers had to trade in their heart when they finished law school.

[daemonized]

Oh, some do. But some prefer to keep their hearts, or whatever is left of them, after all is said and done.

I was one of those rare souls, you see.

[sotenbori]

Hey, if you can't appreciate fucking art.

[twelfthspark]

I'd put it somewhere between "campus improv club" and "that guy who literally got a blank canvas into a museum" on the art scale. Figure out for yourself if that's appreciation~

[sotenbori]

Hey, blank canvas in a museum guy is a genius. Like dude who sold trash as art for a shitton of money.

parks here because I'm lazy and don't have a toplevel to move to

[twelfthspark]

Sure, it's slick salesmanship and I can respect that but is it *art*?

i gotchu

[sotenbori]

[ continued here ]