002 - TM (TW- Death Mention)

[lingeringwill]

Terra Mason 06/11/17 near Recollé University

blue and green no longer exist outside of a few select cases. somehow, retrospec had the power to do that, along with everything else what don't they have the power to do? i wonder what else they've done that we may have just not noticed... the other day, someone got me thinking about patterns, and i started to realize something... let me conduct a bit of a morbid social experiment, okay? but in the interest of fairness, i'll go first when i was little my mother died. it was fast and sudden--a case of severe pneumonia. she was taken so fast. thief in the night, yeah? the first thing i can remember in my entire life is the look in my dad's eyes as he tried explaining it to me. i was too young to understand at the time...but even as i got older, i still didnt. how can she get that sick, out of nowhere? and just die. i know there's tons of rational reasons for it, but it doesn't sit well, it never has. i realize that this sounds like im refusing to accept the truth but...i can't help wondering. the pneumonia was like a switch. she just died. the universe didn't find her fit to exist anymore or maybe something else i think its obvious what im getting at so, show of hands, everyone. who has one or more dead parents? and if you know i already know the answer to that question...i'm sorry for bringing this back up. really.

Comments

[destiny_key]

sometimes people just die
and theres nothing you can do about it
theres no universe thing
theres no pattern
moms and dads get sick and die and it sucks but thats it

[His dad is dead, and he doesn't want to talk about it. The fact that he died from being sick too doesn't help.]

[lingeringwill]

there is a pattern though

dont you think its weird how many people on here have lost parents on retrospec?

like, a ridiculous amount?

myself included, mind you

[complementing]

both parents from a car crash just so you have a record

[lingeringwill]

yeah, i know, thanks minako

we don't need to talk about it any more than that

[matchbreaker]

What is *wrong* with you, boy?

How does this seem even remotely okay to you?

[lingeringwill]

why isnt it okay?

its an honest question relevant to our situation

i know its grim.

im not happy to be telling everyone that my mom is dead and i still can't deal with it

[uncagedbird]

I... don't like what you're implying. I'm afraid I must disagree.
My father had a place in this universe, as did your mother. But... life is also transient. If the earth had been just a little different, none of us would be here at all. Life is fragile and accidental and... difficult to explain. That's what makes life so precious.

Please don't give the people behind this any more power than they already have.

[lingeringwill]

i get what youre saying, honestly i do

i just...if there is something to it

i can't ignore that

[feistytrader]

It definitely sounds like you're refusing to accept the truth.

[lingeringwill]

whatever

are your parents dead or not

[seeker]

a dead parent tally, awesome. great. that's exactly what we need right now

it's a *monumentally bad idea* to publicly continue down this line of thought

[lingeringwill]

fair enough

if you could tick a box for me though, i'd appreciate it, alli

[b0mbshell]

[He hates admitting this. Hates it with a passion. But the fact is it's relevant, and something that he's been thinking about himself.]

My father's dead.

My mother
There's something wrong with her. Something happened to her brain, early onset demensia. She doesn't remember me half the time. The other half she only remembers me as a kid.

Imagine all these people getting fake memories, and she can't even have her real ones. [So he hates Retrospec for wasting that ability (as far as he can tell, that's what they're doing).]

But I think the one guy is right. Death just happens. These people can only be considered guilty by inaction.

[lingeringwill]

i'm sorry to hear that. honestly. i'm not talking about this for kicks or anything.

that's really, truly awful.

I don't know. it just seems

like too big of a coincidence

[long_live_the_queen]

I've never really thought about it

both of them ditched me when I was small

they might be dead, they might not

[...Schrödinger's dead parents??]

[lingeringwill]

i would say its more of column a than column b

sorry to hear that, though
although it sounds more like a good riddance type of relationship

[vendettastool]

Mine are in Korea.

What are you trying to figure out by this kind of question?

[lingeringwill]

there's a suspicious amount of retrospec users that have deceased parents

I think it's worth looking into

[longwei2go]

show of hands

if you ask me thats the most insensitive part about this

[lingeringwill]

sorry if my choice in words isn't the best

if you don't want to answer, that's okay, I'm not forcing you

[truedetective]

Two.

[lingeringwill]

im sorry to hear that, dude.

Trust me I'm not getting any kicks out of this

I was hoping you'd respond to this, though

[rebellions]

holy shit and people say i'm inconsiderate
if you still don't get it then idk what to tell you
people just die
it's simple like that
and no i have no clue what the eff you're getting at
is that some kinda conspiracy theory
you think retrospec murdered our parents or some shit

[lingeringwill]

its a pretty personal question, but i really think that's the only inconsiderate thing about it, and these are tough times, so i think it calls for tough questions, too

im not thrilled to publicly talk about my mom's death, you know

i think its pertinent information that retrospec seems to prefer targeting people with dead parents

[roseblooms]

Doesn't a survey like this somewhat fall prey to confirmation bias?

I see where your theory is going, but it sounds as though you've already formed a conclusion and are simply going to use the "show of hands" here to confirm what you've already decided. But the statistic you're pursuing is meaningless unless you can also show that there are a disproportionate number of people who've said yes, as compared to a representative sample of the overall population.

[lingeringwill]

youre using a lot of big words

im just legitimately curious and think it would be good information for people smarter than i

[botamochi]

[ ohhhhh man. ]

was this really a good idea?

[lingeringwill]

absolutely the worst idea ive ever had, as you can see

[judgementkazzy]

I see what you're doing and why you're asking but...
Well, it's not like the people whose parents are alive are going to respond to this much, either.
I think if you'd asked about people's parents in a general sense you might have gotten better answers.
If we start thinking Retrospec had a hand in everything that's gone wrong in our lives then what's the goal there?

[lingeringwill]

you know

you're probably right. im just an enormous fucking jerk, oops
i guess i felt like i had to because of my own situation
but that was pretty dumb, and now the whole town thinks im a pretty awful person probably

im more concerned with narrowing down why they choose the people they do, and what we have to do with any of this in the first place.
i really wonder how much power they've had over this city, and for how long


thanks for not beating me into the ground like everyone else lmao

[fashionable_yapping]

Nina Écarlate Both of my parent's alive, you idiot.
Nina Écarlate Like, with all this crazy crap happening, I get your urge to make conspiracy theories.
Nina Écarlate Really, I do.
Nina Écarlate But they're already doing plenty in the open. They haven't been making a secret of it.
Nina Écarlate Sorry to hear about your mother, though.

[commandertoolbelt]

dude what the hell
who does this

i mean
it sucks that you lost your mom
but who asks a bunch of total strangers something like that

[gnasher]

are you alright?

[belligerentwarrior]

tip: never start anything with "social experiment." you're setting yourself up.

but you've gotten more than enough hell from everyone else so i'll spare you

chalk up two healthy parents living out in viea village. only asking for the dead ones gets you half the picture, yeah?

[manolia]

I'd normally say you all are giving Retrospec too much personal information, but considering they seem to know everything anyway, it doesn't matter much whether we confirm their knowledge or not.

Honestly, my father could be dead in a ditch, and could have been at any point of my childhood; I'll never know. My mother is alive. [This is one of the only good things he has to say about his mother.] As we all grow older, and I'm pretty old, the thought of losing parents becomes less an abstract horror and more a "when."

It's something you would have had to confront sometime, be it when you were 14 or 40. If Retrospec were killing them off, it'd be a surprise to me.

[manufactured]

Another one that believes that Retrospec is manufacturing everything about us, then. It seems a popular theory, though one that I'm disinterested in entertaining.

But very well - to humor your question, I've no idea about my mother, given that I don't recall anything about her. My father could be dead in some back alley for all I care. If you choose to believe that their circumstances were created by Retrospec, I would like to hear any proof that isn't strictly coincidental.

[wordcarvings]

This seems very morbid, in my opinion. What you might imply, even more so.

But I suppose I can tell you that my mother died when I was 20, from tuberculosis.