i feel like i haven’t covered this in particular but like… in a lot of my dusk/nosy verses he rly does have like… memory issues (lol head trauma…) so it’s very like… it contributes to why he feels so safe with the family once he’s used to it/accepted there, and why it terrifies him into an immediate spiral when he encounters an old friend or someone he used to know. sometimes there’s just huge blank spaces missing from his memory, a lot of the time pieces of memory will come back to him all at once, and it’s overwhelming. it scares him when he doesn’t immediately remember someone, and then when he does it’s very emotional. i do feel like in general though, in all verses, he has lesser issues of this kind as he gets older. just bc of his injuries from the house.
//kohane now is reset to canon memories and does not know she is dating anyone. You can choose what cures this or if it's cured at all!! Anyways have fun with this lol
The thing about Rumi as a means of grief processing is that she not only has to grieve the murder of her parents and the loss of her fiance, but, in a way, she has to mourn herself too. The loss of her identity, of her memories, of her control over her own life, of the lifestyle she had... After all, it’s safe to assume that the version of herself that’s in her head, the one who grew up in the countryside, had a vastly different education to the Rumi that grew up in the city and attended school with Takuto. She had a completely different job. She had a different upbringing with a different family in a different environment. Her worldview, her outlook on life, and her attitude towards the world must be completely different. She’s a whole new person, with new experiences, maybe even with a new personality and moral compass and goals and wants.
Regardless of how much the cognitive dissonance did or did not affect her, she definitely has to confront that contrast once she recovers her memories. In the moment it all comes back to her, Rumi is truly a blank slate -- she’s unable to return to either her life as Takuto’s fiancee or her life in the countryside, so... where do you go from there? What do you do when you discover that everything you thought you knew about your past was a lie, but you can’t return to your “real life” because you’ve been living the fake one for too long?
In a lot of ways, her struggles echo Sumire’s, except that, in her case, she isn’t trapped between her identity and her sister’s, but between two versions of herself. Her memories might’ve been a lie, but the Rumi that was shaped by them was just as real as the Rumi that Takuto knew... They are both just... her. But after she recovers her memories, she can’t be one or the other anymore -- the two parallels lives she’s been living have collapsed into one and now she has to start over from them.
It’s an interesting study on nature vs. nurture, if nothing else. But she would also have to mourn all the years she lost from her previous life while she was living the fabricated life -- the love of her life, the friends she lost contact with because she didn’t remember them, the education/jobs she might’ve missed out on when she suddenly up and left for the countryside, her home, her family... It forces her to reconsider who she is, to rediscover her sense of self now that both of her lives have fallen apart, to ask herself what life does she prefer, because she’s had the opportunity to see two different paths she could’ve taken in life... and then she’d have to mourn both of them anyways because she can’t go back anymore.
There are so many possibilities to explore... the identity crisis... the existential crisis... The potential is criminally underused.
Imagine if ghosts who have more trust in humans start having weird forgetful episodes.
Like they suddenly get dizzy, they get a numb, dead look in their eye. They look tired and lost and they tend to wander around aimlessly
Their senses feel like it’s fading, with vision blurring too much, ears ringing, every touch being too little and too much, and overall very overwhelming.
And sometimes, they forget they ever died. Which makes these episodes REALLY scary since you could trigger hostility again. It’s dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Most times, they’re looking for something, but they can’t properly communicate what exactly it is. Sometimes it can be a picture, an action, or a voice thst will snap them out of it and help them rest and calm down.
It happens with Lewis after a while. Arthur and Vivi tend to pick up on it quickly since the outwardly symptoms match Lewis’s anxiety-attack-crash symptoms, so they’re extra kind and gentle with him whenever he suddenly gets like that.
Arthur - just his luck- worries that he can be a trigger and will make it worse, so whenever he notices Lewis in that state, he runs to get Vivi and mystery to help Lewis.
In this state, Lewis seems more tired and confused than anything. He’s just as scared as they are. But he can’t really tell because his mind is scrambled.
So Vivi gently takes his hands and stays in his line of sight, helps him through the motions of brushing his teeth and cleaning his face, asking him if he’s craving something or what’s on his mind.
Lewis can’t remember, but he wants to go to bed, he’s really tired...
So Vivi nods, and helps him stumble to his bedroom. And lingering not too far behind is Arthur. He can’t help but watch and provide ‘back up’ for them, since he feels guilty over not doing anything to really help besides shoving it onto her.
That is, until Lewis gets the sudden urge to turn around. Spotting Arthur and gasping lightly, while his eyes clear up and he goes silent...
Before smiling, relieved.
“Th-there you are.. I was worried about you.. don’t scare me like that, Arthur...! Is- are you okay?”
Arthur isn’t sure how to respond, but he quickly comes up behind them, and helps Vivi put Lewis to bed, really grateful that he found what he was looking for
Caretaker finds Whumpee while they’re walking around and tries to greet them, only to find they have no memory of Caretaker or their life before going missing
Caretaker let out a quick sigh, shifting the grocery bags in their hands as they hurried through the busy shopping center. If that grocery store didn't carry the particular brand of spices that Caretaker loved, they wouldn't bother coming all the way out here to get their groceries.
As it was, they still grumbled and complained about it, but that hadn't stopped them from coming yet. They walked along the sidewalk, fighting against the throng of people.
Someone bumped into them, causing them to lose their grip on one of the bags. Muttering a curse, Caretaker stooped down to pick it back up, finding the stranger doing the same.
Caretaker glanced up, ready to apologize and thank them, when they froze, taking in the stranger. It took them a moment to remember how to speak, before they could croak, "Whumpee?"
The stranger blinked at them, still crouching on the sidewalk next to them. "Sorry," they said, a polite smile on their face. "Do I know you?"
Caretaker stared at them. "It- it's me, Caretaker!" they exclaimed. "Whumpee, where have you been? We've been so worried about you!"
Whumpee stood, handing them the last of the spilled items. "I'm sorry," they said more firmly. "You've mistaken me for someone else. I, um, I have to go."
Then they were all but sprinting down the sidewalk, as if to get as far away from Caretaker as quickly as they could. Caretaker was left staring after them, holding their cans.
So. Now what? You'd purchased a busted tooth off of a too-familiar stranger and arranged to have the DNA tested in private, compared against an older sample in your possession, and against a sample of some unimportant alternate with a similar enough genetic profile.
You'd wanted to know if it was some kind of fluke, you see... But now, Sollux seems to have integrated his too-real dreams into memory. He remembers things he shouldn't. He remembers YOU.
...That shouldn't change anything, and yet, it feels as though some amount of control over the situation has been wrested from your grasp. Ringleader has accompanied you to your destination, towering and steadfast as ever (as he is whenever the situation doesn't pertain to him personally). It's fine. You'd invited him yourself. Now he's here and you're here-
So. Now what?
It's as simple as dropping off the samples for comparison. Nobody really cares. What's one more amoral exchange of goods and services in this world? The troll in whose block you sat and waited, it makes no difference to him who is what or why you're here... It doesn't matter either, how you care to feel about this exchange. Maybe you're a little bit out of it. Maybe not. Ever since the Goldwave incident, you simply do not feel the same way you once did, about... a lot of things.
Ravenous curiosity, Ringleader had said.
And that's just fine.
You and your spade don't chitchat much while the information you came here for is compiled; it doesn't take very long to get these results once the actual exchange has been made, and you think perhaps that Ringleader understands and intuits your mood with all of the ease his great and varied experience warrants. Given what Sollux said... how he... remembers, as if he had lived it... It comes as very little surprise to receive news on the results of the test. Positive match. The arbitrary Captor, the control group, is very evidently not the same person. The other two samples - one from an old friend, one from the new - come back as a perfectly identical set, as though the Captor of old had simply been translated somewhere new, a shifting of tiles on a board.
He isn't just dreaming and remembering Solbee's lived memories, he literally is Solbee, impossible as that reality may be.
Oh I love this idea of twisting fluffy things into something horrible! I actually did a similar thing with a friend some time ago and it was great havfbsjfhd, soooooo actually I'm gonna give you something like what I had to work with, just to see where you'll take it!~
Morning cuddles. The sun just started rising over the horizon, soft light falling into the room where character A and B are huddled close together on the bed. A softly crackling fire in their fireplace from last night still keeps them warm, even after hours. Looking down at B, A can't help but smile as they snuggle further into their touch.
I hope this is something you can work with!
🔥~
It is something I can work with! :)
She woke up to the feeling of the warm sun on her face, rolling over and smiling at the sight of him curled up next to her again. He’d been a little distant ever since he’d been rescued, and she knew things wouldn’t be quite the same again, but having him back safe meant more to her than she could say. She reached over and gently ran a hand through his hair, pausing when she saw his eyebrow twitch. He opened his eyes, fear and confusion flashing across his face for the briefest of moments.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“No, s’okay.” he mumbled as he closed his eyes again. “I actually want to wake up when I’m here.” She smiled and resumed stroking his hair.
“I’m so happy you’re back safe,” she whispered.
“Yeah. Me too.” And he wasn’t lying. He might not remember anything from before he was taken, and he might not remember who she was, but he could at least try to make sure that she never found out that the person she’d loved was gone.
Because even though he didn’t know her, he could tell she cared about him, and he didn’t know if she could bear to find out he was never really coming back.
