001

[anguinous]

Laurent Duvere 11/02 near ENPRISE

I'm writing this under the assumption that Retrospec can see everything written here and will simply remove it if they would prefer it not be made public. That said, I've been doing some research into Recollé and Retrospec in an effort to make sense of everything. I'm sure you've seen the latest update, souls dissipating and worlds being destroyed are beyond things I can come to explain. Smaller scale things, however, I can try. While I cannot promise complete sense, I've drawn some interesting conclusions. Now, Recollé was founded by four families: the Vanderweele, Spinnato, Mahoney, and Cavendish families. Two of those family names still exist among Retrospec staff today, that I know of: Mahoney and Cavendish. I've long been of the opinion that Retrospec is in no way profitable as a social media company. The company doesn't float on the stock market, doesn't serve advertisements on its pages or phone app and rents a particularly large building. I've never seen it do anything with sponsorship. In fact I can see no way they're a functional company, which is interesting since they seem to have interns. I can only presume they take investment to fund their actual project, which we’ll get to. I haven't been able to find anything constructive on Mahoney or Cavendish, presumably, because they're still involved in Retrospec. However, I did find something on Phillip Spinnato. It seems he was born in 1898, married and had three children -- only one of whom had a long enough line to marry himself. Robert Spinnato had twins with his wife Pearl, however he and the children appear to all die around 1966. Pearl's fate is unknown. Closely related is the information I dug up on the Vanderweele's. Clarence Vanderweele's father, it seems, was married four times and Clarence had a large number of half siblings. Clarence himself was married twice -- now here's the interesting part. The last connection he has, no official marriage, was 1960 to a woman named Agatha. Agatha, it seems, was given the death penalty for her hand in the murder of the Spinnato children. After that, most of the rest of the family died out too -- although Clarence himself has no final death date. Now here's where we start putting things together. All of these founding families were a part of both building Recollé and a project, this project to save worlds that are -- so it is said -- being destroyed. What is destroying them is never particularly mentioned, but what I have found is something curious. It seems their aim involved preserving and regrowing things from 'seeds' brought back by rescue teams. How you seed a world I'm not strictly sure, but I have a sinking feeling I can guess and it involves memories. This city, Recollé, was the safe haven for this project. Or I suppose it was intended to be. Now, Retrospec itself, it seems, far from being a social media organisation has the mission to -- and this is genuine -- 'monitor the stability of the breaking universe,' to save worlds being destroyed by whatever is destroying them and regrow populations. So our current friends, interns and technicians alike, are continuing that trend. Or attempting to. However, I think something went wrong in all of this. Something to do with Vanderweele. Whatever prompted this mass murder I can't be sure, but it seems there was a suggestion Clarence might have been involved in it along with Agatha as he was ejected from the organisation. Where Agatha was executed it seems he was taken somewhere for indeterminate sentencing after prioritising his own life in some way. Why would that be, though? Did this simply set the project back, or did it destabilise it in some way? Did Clarence do something other than having a hand in murdering these children? Why Phillip and his children at all, did they disagree on something more fundamental? The other question, of course, is what is destroying these worlds in the first place. All these 'unreality' problems we're told of, are they related to that, to something caused by this murderous upset, or simply to our friends in Retrospec tweaking dials somewhere? If you can answer any of these questions do let me know.

Comments

[storytelleroftime]

I can’t say that I know everything but... during the month of August, I got to meet Phillip Spinnato. He said that the Founders did have one thing that was a major dispute among them. I speculated this might have to do with Vanderweele but this just confirms that. And this also answers your question of if they disagreed on something fundamental.

[anguinous]

I admit, while I have heard that people encountered them to some degree it still unsettles me. Although the confirmation is useful. I assume he did not mention what they disagreed on?

[storytelleroftime]

Nope. Just said there was a single thing. He also didn’t clarify if it was just between him and Vanderweele. If not, then...

Maybe Spinnato was just the only one Vanderweele got to.

[anguinous]

It's entirely possible. Without a clear motive it's difficult to judge. Perhaps Spinnato was simply the loudest to disagree. Perhaps a deciding vote? Whatever it was, clearly Vanderweele felt strongly about it.

[prometheanflame]

Some praise is warranted for your brilliant plan.
This is amazing.

Though it does bring many more questions and worrying possibilities. The Founding Families had some personal attachment to Retrospec - while the project was being built. What records did you find of the children and these events? Newspapers? Diaries?

Is the murder the reason why all records of the families have essentially been erased from history?

[anguinous]

It was most family records I was going through, actually, in the museum archives. Family trees, local history. I didn't particularly recognise most of the names but I'm happy to share the whole of it if you'd be interested. Obviously I couldn't remove the original documents so mostly everything is in note format.

[prometheanflame]

I'd like a copy in case I run into anything at work.

It does feel a bit...strange to discuss painful family details where the descendants of the Founders can read it.

[stagemagic]

What a fascinating story of interpersonal drama and grand scale attempts to save the universe.

I can't say I can answer your questions, but if I can ask one of my own? What sources did you consult to get this information? The story about the founders personal fallouts I'm sure can be found in old newspaper microfilms, or history books written about Recollé, but that yarn you're spinning about the world saving project is a different matter.

[anguinous]

There's several different sources here at play.

Some are archival family histories, from the Recollé history museum. I spent a good while trying to make sense of things in their reading archives, until I was quite certain my eyes would fail. Some of this is based on staff posts on Retrospec, which you can read for yourself. Some of it is based on my traversing the woods in the middle of the night, entirely unwilling thanks to the ridiculous fog, and finding an old Retrospec building. It had a few old mission statements in it and equally old spiders.

[stagemagic]

All but one of those sounds easy enough to read up on myself.

I don't suppose you'd have easy to follow directions to give to anyone that might want to find this old Retrospec building with its impressively ancient spiders?

[chessking]

... on an initial glance through, that sure is a lot of text and sounds like the plot of some clichéd soap opera.

maybe I'll have more thoughts when I read it in more depth and cross-check with what I already know, hang on.

[ he'll be more helpful in a bit, oops. ]

[anguinous]

[ Honestly, Lelouch, you could have just replied when you'd read it. ]

I'll be sure to write to Retrospec and ask they supply less contrived family histories for their staff in the future.

[chessking]

[ I feel like I need to constantly apologise for how difficult Lelouch is on the internet, tbh. ]

or you know, to provide a sparknotes version you could just copy and paste, because I'm pretty sure some other people besides me would appreciate it.

but yeah okay the connections between this Agatha person and the Spinnato massacre is interesting, especially since Clarence has no confirmed death date, and I'm going to assume that there's some bullshit time and space shenanigans in place here - I think there was something about space-time technicians being referenced somewhere if you backtrack far enough

so what if vanderweele's still alive and kind of fucking with everything and that's what's causing the shit that happened last month and everything beforehand

[liberal_arts]

Exploring the Spinnato manor back at the end of summer was a grisly affair I'd rather not repeat, but Agatha and Clarence certainly did horrid things to that family. I can't really begin to explain why, though, as I wasn't paying that close attention. But perhaps some of the people that were with me can.

[anguinous]

It wasn't simply just a murder, then?

[liberal_arts]

No murder is ever 'simply' a murder. Motivations can change a lot about how we perceive an act of violence, of any kind.

[evidentiary]

At the very least it seems to be in keeping with what else has been learned. While I have no real idea, I think perhaps this "unreality" has something to do with the worlds being destroyed....

At least, it has seemed fairly destructive from what we've witnessed.

[anguinous]

I don't know enough about magic or reality to guess how the two might interact, although destroying a world is a big event. I can understand that whatever is causing that may have a ripple of consequence elsewhere.

[evidentiary]

It may be that the "unreality" is the result of whatever destroyed the worlds.

[scarlet_devil]

According to a pile of maps my group found in a treasure chest during the August unreality nonsense, Recollé itself was once bigger and there was other cities like it at one time.

We found a note in a bottle with a conversation between unknown persons on it. Something about Retrospec 'going off track' as it was put. It was mentioned the people working at Recollé's 'facility' are new and the hope they can stabilise this 'world.' I don't know if any of that's real.

[anguinous]

Off track? That's interesting. That may be related to the disagreement Vanderweele had with Spinnato.

[scarlet_devil]

Perhaps. It's curious that there were more cities like Recollé. Something must have happened to them, that might be related to this disagreement.

[ It must had been one hell of a disagreement... ]

[usurpers]

you need more than a thanks for putting this together.

how did you get to these conclusions?

[anguinous]

Several different sources. Which bit are you most interested in? Most of the family information is based on records in the Recollé history information. Anything higher concept is drawn off that, mixed with things Retrospec have claimed themselves in their posts or older documents.

[usurpers]

so it's legitimate. that's all i really wanted to know.

it's hard to pinpoint one thing in particular when everything ties into each other somehow. they're all important. the biggest point is probably their purpose in all of this and where we fall in that.