tw: child death talk for this whole post

[spirithacker]

retrospec memory stuff

if you remembered dying
does it ever stop being scary
because its scary right now and i dont know why anyone would want to remember this

or does anyone know how to forget stuff
ill pay you
or do your homework
or something

Comments

[cardcaptured]

[Oh jfc Shinji NOT YOU TOO]

The only way to forget the stuff Retrospec gives us is to be taken off the app. And to my knowledge, there's no way to voluntarily do that.

[Not about to mention that dying is another option, since thaaaaat's not the appropriate thing to tell a child who just remembered getting killed??]

... where are you right now? Is someone with you?

[spirithacker]

[Thanks for not telling the small child to die?]

that sucks

mays ship
sakuras here somewhere

[cardcaptured]

[YOU'RE..... WELCOME......]

Sakura? You know her? What's she doing over there?

[Because his Sakura also knows May, and he hasn't met Shinji's Sakura yet, SO....]

[spirithacker]

sakura tohsaka is my cousin
she lives here??

[cardcaptured]

... oh.

Sorry, I know someone else named Sakura, too, who's also friends with May, but her last name is different.

[Does May just attract girls named Sakura?? WHO KNOWS]

Have you talked to either of them about it? From my experience, sometimes the bad things get easier to cope with when you're able to get it off your chest.

[spirithacker]

i talked to my cousin
i dont think it helped

[It may have affected things that he remembered her killing him.]

[cardcaptured]

[YIKES]

Do you think talking to someone else who isn't family might help, then?

[spirithacker]

maybe
are you volunteering

[cardcaptured]

... I am.

Did you want to talk here, or in person?

[spirithacker]

here
i dont feel like going out

[cardcaptured]

I don't exactly blame you.

[After some consideration, he sets his reply to private, in case Shinji didn't want to broadcast the full details across the network.]

You can tell me as much or as little detail as you want about it. I don't want you thinking more than you're comfortable about.

[spirithacker]

[Good plan, because Shinji isn't thinking enough to make it private himself.]

i was stabbed
by somebody who looked like my cousin

[cardcaptured]

[After dealing with Mio's situation, he's gotten a little better at handling these delicate things. Not perfect, but it was a start.

... but also DOUBLE YIKES]

... ah. I can see why talking with her didn't really help things, then.

Do you think it was the AI you told me about before? The one who looked like your cousin but really wasn't?

[spirithacker]

no
they were different

maybe its another ai
my cousin wouldnt hurt me
ever

[cardcaptured]

It's possible. I don't know your cousin, so I can't say it with certainty, but

The people we were in those other lives aren't the people we are now. Who she was before may have done something terrible, but... if you know she'd never hurt you here and now, then you shouldn't doubt that.

[spirithacker]

i know she wouldnt

but im still scared of her
even tho i know theres nothing to be scared of

im supposed to be a big kid now

[cardcaptured]

Big kids and grown-ups get scared of things, too, you know. There's nothing wrong with feeling that way, especially after what you remembered.

But... you said you talked to her about it, right? I have a feeling she's probably just as worried over it as you are. No one wants to think about doing terrible things to those they care about in their past lives.

[spirithacker]

probably

am i supposed to make her feel better
i dont think i can

[cardcaptured]

[He gives that question some considerable thought for a moment, before settling upon an answer.]

... no. That would be kind of stupid, actually.

You don't have to tell her it was okay that her other self did that to you. That isn't fair to how you feel about it.

[spirithacker]

im still scared of her
but i dont want her to be sad

what am i supposed to do

[cardcaptured]

I don't know.

[And it hurts him to say it, since he doesn't like being at a loss for answers, especially not when someone's clearly hurting like Shinji is. But he's just a kid himself, and he's had the relative luck of not regaining anything half as bad as some of the other users here.]

I'm sorry. Retrospec doesn't like to make things easy.

[spirithacker]

[Xiaolang is the older one, he's supposed to know stuff. What do they teach you in middle school? Not how to deal with death.]

i want to forget everything

adults dont want me to help fix stuff anyway
so im just remembering this for nothing

[cardcaptured]

[Look, he's not entirely thrilled about this, either?? Especially since he's been trying so hard to been seen as someone mature, someone responsible... but at the end of the day, he's really just a boy who's out of his depth with all of this.]

They don't want you to help fix things? Do you mean the layers?

[He'd sort of get it if it was mission stuff, but the stuff for the layers was remarkably simple...]

[spirithacker]

and the missions
sakura got really upset in february

[Because he left to another city, where she couldn't follow, with none of his family to look after him and no idea what he would be doing.]

[cardcaptured]

I don't blame her. The other regions are filled with dangerous things, and if you're not absolutely careful, you could wind up getting hurt.

But the tasks Zee assigned us aren't that bad at all. What sort of things are they not letting you do?