retrospec | [text] i could say i'm sorry but i'm not (except i am. i really, really am.)

I've finally got this song together, but I'm still stumped on the title. I'm putting the lyrics in here for anyone who's got any ideas. Consider this an open call for song title suggestions.

Lyrics:
You punched a hole in my heart, and now
I'm an empty vessel, waiting for the music to fill the blank spaces.
What am I supposed to do now?
Nothing left but to forget all the sneering faces

I feel like a forgotten bag of chips abandoned on the streets, my soul shattered and scattering to the winds like potato leaves.
I’d break the whole world if I could
Just to make sure no one ever has to grieves
Again, and I'd break the whole world but I don't think that I should

The emptiness inside of me is hardening like cement
And now there's nothing that can fit through the cracks and spaces
Nothing left but to watch the spiraling descent
Nothing left but to remember all the sneering faces

I feel like a forgotten bag of chips abandoned on the streets, my soul shattered and scattering to the winds like potato leaves.
I’d break the whole world if I could
Just to make sure no one ever has to grieves
Again, and I'd break the whole world but I don't think that I should

[fade out]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You know who has a speculated average of twenty suicides a day?
The military.
Also, veteran healthcare, despite being usually free, is worse than regular healthcare which is already bad.

Not to slam your choices, but the grass isn't greener on any side.
So just go talk to Professor Inconnue.

[ god, civilians sometimes... ]

You think I don't know that?

Cripes, I know the military isn't a walk in the park, it's not the easy way out. But if you play your cards right, you can come out the other side way better off than if you stayed a civilian.

And even then, it's not something you go into for the benefits. It's something you go into to do your duty as a citizen and protect your country. Everything else is secondary.

[ somewhere, an american flag is waving patriotically. ]

[🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿]

I'm not disagreeing with you.

It's just the military isn't that nice to its people and they're the ones volunteering to protect us.

If by "isn't that nice" you mean "sends soldiers out into the battlefield where they can die", then yeah, they're not all that nice.

But unless you're stupid, you know that when you sign up for it. And they provide you and your family with everything you could need in exchange. Unless you're looking to live it up Beverly Hills style, then you're on your own.

[ Also, the military has been pretty nice to him, but that's because his dad's been an officer for most of James's life and therefore they all have access to the higher quality resources. Check your officer privilege, James. ]

That isn't the not nice I'm talking about.
Both the military and the education system need an overhaul, among other things.
You get comfortability and convenience handed to you, but not for free.
Even as a family member, you're still affected by the mistreatment and pressure of military service.
You think the payout of--what, like losing an arm or something--is fair? Abuse? PTSD? Agoraphobia? Irrational episodes of anger? Depression? Alcoholism?

What about the Draft?

Saying you fought bravely for your country is a lot different than saying your country shoved you on the front lines to fight a war it started by throwing around their national weight.

The military is a sham. Not necessarily because of the soldiers but because of how it functions as an organization.

[ James is quickly finding that the real cure to his hot temper is to talk to people purely over social media. It's hard to punch people when they're probably halfway across the city. He can only rely on his words now.

His dad should've put him on an Internet diet and it would've kept him out of fights way better than the counselors and the boot camps. ]

Okay, one, you can't use the draft as a point. We haven't had a draft since the 70s, no one's getting drafted anymore.

And two, are you even reading what I'm saying? When did I say anyone got anything for free? It's the military, you know what you're signing yourself up for. How many times do I have to say it? You know that you might get injured, or killed, or traumatized, and that it's gonna affect you and your family members, that's something you accept when you choose to do it, because, in case you forgot which you probably did by now, we haven't had a draft in 40 years!

You don't even know what it's really like, do you? Try being an army brat for 16 years and then you can tell me all about how the military works.

We haven't had a draft YET.
You can't discount a military draft with current modern politics.

[Even if Tim is too stubborn to give up an analytical argument, he does pause to wonder how they went from shitty song titles to bickering about the state of education and the military. God.

On his end, he sighs.]

That doesn't help your initial cause, you know.
Are you pretending to possibly shuck a college education for the sake of "family legacy"?
Just because your family was in the military doesn't mean you have to be, too.

[ it's like a youtube comment chain. It starts out talking about how cute that dog was at 0:43, and then right below it, the most recent comment about how communists have been the cancer killing America from the inside out for the past 80 years. ]

Holy crap, man, I never even said I was going to the army for sure. I was just saying it's an option before you started yelling about how it's the worst thing ever.

I don't know what I'm doing yet, I've still got like another whole year to figure it out.

Do what you're passionate about is all I can say.

I guess you have to decide whether you want to sing first or be on the front line first and MAYBE sing after.

[ oh my god this is like every conversation he has with his dad or the other majors on base. set him free from this horrible discussion, he doesn't want to have to do all this damn introspection. ]

Yeah, yeah, I'm working on finding my passion and deciding my future, etc etc etc

If you're so wise and all-knowing about the future, what are you gonna do?

Obtain a piece of flimsy paper that undermines what I can actually do by shoving it beneath the label "CompSci" so I can apply for a job at Retrospec and destroy them from within for their embarrassing excuse for an application.

All right, you know what, that's a pretty solid plan.

How long's that gonna take, though? You think Retrospec is gonna stick around long enough for it?

I'm hoping they don't, but at the rate things are going, we're going to be eighty telling grandkids what it was like when their pranks first started.

Maybe another company will come along with a similar and better product, and then they'll become obsolete. Like Recolspace.

How is that better? Then we'll just have two companies messing with our heads.

I said similar and BETTER product. Which, you know, hopefully doesn't involve an app or building that screws everyone over.

You say that as if the 'product' isn't a load of bull by default. There's a million social media apps out there, the only thing this one brings to the table is the creepy hallucinations and weird changes that no one else remembers.

[text] i could say i'm sorry but i'm not (except i am. i really, really am.)

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bucky, later: you're the fucker who basically lit the flag on fire in front of me

meanwhile, me frantically googling every detail on the army that i possibly can

me every single day i continue to play a bat

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