#maybe not the amnesia

[majima-smoocher]

Can't wait to play pirate in paradise

like you have no IDEAAAAAA

[corkinavoid]

DPxDC The Invisible Bat

I've been listening to Alone Again by Weathers on repeat lately, so this post is inspired by it.

Rumor on the street says there is a new Bat in the flock. Yet, there is no proof - no one has seen them, no one has heard them, no one knows if that's true or not.

But, the thing is, every once in a while, a fight with one of the Bats is... harder than expected. A second hit, heavier than the first one, is delivered to the same place Batman's fist landed. Another bullet comes from a different direction than where Red Hood was standing. A cold edge of a blade is pressed to the neck just seconds before Robin's katana does the same.

Over the next few weeks, the rumor grows. Until, one day, someone calls it Invisible Bat, and the name sticks. The unnamed presence that follows the vigilantes gets its recognition.

Meanwhile, the Bats have no idea to who or what is following them. All they've been able to learn about it so far is that the Invisible Bat doesn't like the attention, registers as a vague cold spot in thermovision, and escapes without a trace every time they acknowledge it.

A month of fruitless attempts to either capture on camera or befriend the Invisible Bat later, Damian suddenly stops in his tracks in the middle of the Cave, like he's just seen a ghost. Then, he leaves to find Tim in a rush.

Two days after that, Nightwing finally catches their new team member on film. The old camera he borrowed from Tim on Damian’s insistence shows a picture of a boy with white hair, wearing what looks like a hoodie and jeans, with eyes bright and green, like Lazarus Waters.

------------

Is this Al Ghul Twins? Is this 'Danny escaped GIW and now helps the local vigilantes'? Is this some sort of amnesia prompt, where Danny only remembers his Protection Obsession? Is this de-aged prompt? Who knows.

I only wanted the irony of Gothamites calling Danny the 'Invisible Bat' while his first alias was 'Inviso-Bill'.

[shaylai]

That's not who he is anymore, Macaque.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

[RHETORIC - Legendary 14]: Convince Kim you are in a timeloop.

(ISAT side of the swap)

[starry-bi-sky]

Stuck in the middle of a forest made of

Flesh and bones and they're all scared of

A lost little boy who has lost his heart

Fear's not enough, they have to

Tear him apart —-------

There are two things Daniel Fenton knows that his family knows as well: 

He’s adopted.

He can’t remember anything else before that.  

‘Adoption’ is a loose term, implying that they went through the official legal processes and troubles of adopting a child into their home willingly, and with the full intention of doing so going into it. That is not what happened. What happened is that Jasmine Fenton found a half-dead child, in strange clothing, in the middle of the woods at her Aunt Alicia’s cabin, and then she went and got her parents. 

What happened is that a twelve year old Danny woke up in the same cabin, wearing clothes much too big on him that didn’t belong to him, and with very little memory of before that moment. He wakes up like a spring being set loose, sitting up so fast he scares the daylights out of Jasmine Fenton sitting next to him. He wakes up, reaching for his sleeve for something that isn’t there, and when it isn’t his mind stutters, like he’s tripped at the top of a steep hill. 

When they ask him for his name, he tells them, clearing muddled thoughts from his mind; Danny. He’s twelve.

(He thinks that’s his name, at least. It sounds right; it feels right. If he thinks really hard about it, he thinks he can remember someone calling him that, utter adoration in their voice. So it must be his name.) 

The Jasmine girl convinces her parents to take him home with them, and they give him the spare guest room upstairs. He has nothing to fill it with.

It’s… a strange experience, to go to a ‘new’ home when he doesn’t even remember his old one. 

The official adoption process… happens. He can’t say it’s easy, or difficult. He’s oblivious for the most of it, Jasmine intends on helping him settle in and Danny can’t say he enjoys the smothering. He learns that he is stubbornly self-independent, that’s one new thing he knows about himself. 

His adoption papers say ‘Daniel J. Fenton’. Danny remembers staring at the name ‘Daniel’ for a long, long moment, something curdling sour in his sternum. His name is Danny, that he knows. But it’s not Daniel. But he doesn’t know any other way of saying it, so he keeps his complaints to himself.

(Jack Fenton boisterously claps his hand on Danny’s shoulder and jerks him around, grinning wide as he welcomes him into the Fenton Family. Danny’s mind blanches at the touch on his shoulder, an instinct snapping like the maw of a snake, telling him to cut off the man’s fingers for daring to touch him.) 

(He keeps the thought to himself, tension rising up his shoulders the longer Jack Fenton’s heavy hand stays on him.) 

They found Danny in the summer. It’s a perfect coincidence, Maddie Fenton says before she goes back into her lab with Jack Fenton. She says it’s enough time to allow Danny to adjust; that they’ll enroll him into the school year in the fall. Then she stuffs a canister of ectoplasm onto the top shelf, and disappears like the ghosts she studies back down the stairs.  

(There’s something eerily familiar about the ectoplasm sitting in the fridge, something unsettlingly so. Danny knows what that stuff is, but he doesn’t know where. When the house is empty, he takes a can from the fridge and inspects it.)

Jazz wants him to leave the house. Danny doesn’t want to step foot outside of the FentonWorks building until he has something that quells the feeling of vulnerability he gets whenever he does. He tried to once, and he felt exposed. Unsafe. 

He turned back around and went inside.

—-------

Where do we go

When the river's running slow

Where do we run

When the cats kill one by one

—------

One day, when the house is empty — or, as empty as it can be; the Fenton parents down in the lab, and jazz out with friends. Danny is making a sandwich, and he caves into the urge to flip the knife in his hands between his fingers. A childish impulse, but one he falls for nonetheless. It comes to him easily, like second nature, in fact. The slip of the blade between his fingers is seamless, flowing with an ease like water running down the wall.  

He’s almost startled by it; his body holds memories that his mind does not. Muscles that know which way to move and twist, limbs that know how to hold and how to throw. He continues twirling it, fascinated, as if he were a scientist discovering a new species of animal. 

It’s not for a handful of minutes when a new thought hits him; an impulsive thought that pops in the back of his mind like a firecracker; Danny moves without thinking. 

He turns, and throws the knife. The pull of his shoulder, the flick of his elbow, is familiar like a hug. He knows when to let go, and the blade flies through the air in impressive speed, embedding itself into the wall with a hearty, loud thunk. Sinking into the drywall like butter. 

Danny stares at it in shock, he feels relieved — about what? — before he feels the guilt. He scrambles across the kitchen to pull it out, heart racing in his chest at being caught, and prays no one notices the hole it left behind. 

(He runs up the stairs before anyone can find him, food forgotten, and hides the knife beneath his mattress like a guilty murder weapon.)

After that, he leaves the house more. It’s more out of fear of being caught than the desire to leave. But Danny is quickly learning that among all things, he is someone who was dangerous, before he lost his memory. Even with his mind in fractures, he is still dangerous. 

He’s not sure how to feel about that — he thinks he should be scared. He feels a little proud, instead.

—------

Hazel beneath our claws

While we wait for cerulean to cry

Unsettled ticks run through time

Enough for the hunt to go awry

—-----

There’s another thing he learns about himself. That he knows about since he woke up. He knows that he left someone behind. He doesn’t know who, but he knows they must have been close; he’s always looking down and finding himself surprised when the only shadow he sees is his own. 

He thinks that he must have sung to them a lot; he finds himself humming familiar melodies when he’s lost in thought. Lullabies lingering at the tip of his tongue, an instinct to turn and sing them to someone beside him. He can’t remember the lyrics, but his mouth does, it tries to get him to say them when he’s not thinking. He can’t. 

Danny’s found himself humming under his breath more times than he can count, trying to recall whatever it is his mind is trying to claw forward. 

(“That’s a pretty song, Danny.” Jazz tells him at breakfast one day, Danny screws his mouth shut. He hadn’t realized he was humming. “What is it?”) 

(Something mean and possessive rears its head on instinct, uncoiling like a snake from its ball. His shoulders hunch defensively, he bites his cheek to prevent himself from baring his teeth. He doesn’t know what song it is, but it’s not for her. “I don’t know.”)  

He misses his person. Dearly. He knows, the longer he is without them, that they must have been close. Otherwise, he wouldn’t feel like he’s missing a chunk from himself. He wouldn’t be turning to someone who's not there; reaching for a hand that’s missing, birdsong on his tongue, a story to tell. 

A dream haunts him one night. Warm and familiar, he’s holding onto someone smaller than him, they’re tucked into his side like a puzzle piece. He’s humming one of his songs that is always playing in the back of his mind, an unfinished tale of a harpy and a hare. Danny can’t remember their face, not all of it. He remembers green eyes, hair dark like his own, skin brown like his. 

He loves them more than anything else in the world, a fact he knows down to his soul. He loves them so much it fills his heart with sunlight. Danny squeezes them tight, nuzzling into their hair; he makes them laugh. Then, he proudly boasts something. That when he takes something of their father’s, that his person — a sibling? That feels right — will be… the word fades from Danny’s mind before he can make sense of it. 

His person hugs him tight, his… brother? And their mother — a woman whose face he can’t remember either, but who he loves like a limb nonetheless — appears, smiling. Her hands reach for them both, voice calling them, ‘her sons’. There’s ticking in the distance, it sounds like the fastening of chains.

Danny wakes up cold, tears streaming down his face. The details of the dream already fading from his mind like the cold pull of a corpse.   

—-------

Harpy hare

Where have you buried all your children?

Tell me so I say

—-------

When school starts that Fall, Danny joins the sixth grade class, and quickly learns more things about himself. One of those things being that he’s smarter than the rest of his grade, whatever education he had before, it was better than the one he’s getting now. 

Everyone knows he’s adopted right off the bat. He tells them when the teacher forces himself to introduce himself, but it’s not like they needed him to tell them for them to know; he never existed in their little world before now, and the Fentons are pale as they come. Danny is not.

He befriends Sam Manson and Tucker Foley; they ask him about the scars fading up and down his arms, they ask him about the scar carved diagonal across his face.

Danny, as politely as he can, tells them he doesn’t remember. He thought kindness would come second nature to him, his dream burned into his mind where he hugged his brother so sweetly. Apparently, his sweetness is only second nature to people he considers his own. 

(It becomes even more apparent when Dash Baxter tries to bully him later that day, and Danny ruffles like an eagle threatened. His mind whispers, hissy and agitated, sinking like a shadow at his shoulder, several different ways Danny could kill him for talking to him like that, and fifteen more ways he could cripple him.)

(Danny ignores those thoughts, up until Dash Baxter tries to grab him. Then he breaks his nose on the wood of his desk. It’s easy how quickly the rest of his grade sinks him down to the status of social pariah.)

(At least Sam and Tucker still talk to him after that. When Danny goes to the principal’s office later, he wisely doesn’t mention the worse things he could’ve done than break Dash Baxter’s nose.)  

—--------------

It clicks and it clatters in corners and borders

And they will never

Hear me here listen to croons and a calling

I'll tell them all the

Story, the sun, and the swallow, her sorrow

Singing me the tale of the Harpy and the Hare

—-------

More dreams come, of course they do. Each one halfway to forgotten whenever he wakes up, ticking faint in his ears. He is many different ages. He is young, shorter than a table. He is older, holding onto his little brother. He is singing in almost every single one. He is singing to his brother. 

Danny can barely remember the lyrics, he’s begun leaving a journal by his bedside so that it’s the first thing he can write down when he wakes up. He’s a storyteller, he learns. He feels like a historian, trying to piece together a culture long dead and forgotten. 

His most vivid dream-like memory is not a happy one, and for once he’s almost relieved he barely recalls it. He is somewhere that isn’t home, but his mother and brother are there. He is dressed in black, blades keen in his hands. 

They are atop a moving train. They are fleeing something. His brother is struggling to keep up, he is small, and young. It’s beautifully sunny, they are somewhere green and lovely. 

It is a fast dream. 

His brother stumbles on something, and Danny, fast as a whip, snatches him by the back of his shirt and hoists him up to his feet before he can fall. “Watch your feet, habibi.” He murmurs low, a hand on his back. It’s hard to hear, there is wind in their ears.

His brother, face obscured in all but his eyes, which are green as emeralds, nods. 

The dream blurs, but Danny falls behind. His foot catches on air — impossible, it should’ve been, at least. He never trips. — and he lands against the roof with a thud and a grunt. His mother and brother stop, and turn for him. 

The train hits a turn before Danny can get up, and he shouldn’t have, something pulls on him, he swears, but he slips. He can’t find the purchase to pull himself up, cold fear hits him as his nails scrape against the metal. 

His mother and brother’s horrified faces are the last thing he sees before he disappears off the side of the train. 

(The ticking is at its loudest when he wakes up, pounding against his inner skull. He only manages to write down ‘train fall’ in his journal, before he’s flipping over to press his head into his pillow to get the pain to stop.) 

—---  

She can't keep them all safe

They will die and be afraid

Mother, tell me so I say

(Mother, tell me so I say)

—-------

When Danny is fourteen he is still humming songs he can’t remember, his mind still in a broken puzzle. But his room is now decorated with stars and plants in every corner. He has a guitar he keeps in the corner of his room, and he plays the lullabies in his head on the strings over and over again. 

The ectoplasm in the fridge still unsettles him, still reminds him of a past he can’t recall. The knife beneath his mattress has returned to the kitchen — he doesn’t need it. He found a box in the attic last year, it had his name on it, and inside he found familiar, strange clothes, and more weapons than he thought was possible to carry on one person. 

(Even without knowing that the Fentons prefer guns to blades, Danny knows, instinctively, that they were his weapons. He was — was? Is — a dangerous person. He takes the box down to his room to sort through. The weapons all fit into his callused hands almost perfectly — the grooves worn to fit his palm. They’re just a little small.) 

(He tentatively takes a small blade with him to school one day, and feels much more comfortable with it sheathed beneath his shirt. He’s kept it on him ever since, like he’s reunited a lost limb to himself.)   

Danny doesn’t have a name for his person, his little brother, nor does he have a name for his beloved mother. He’s haunted by dreams every few weeks, many of them repeating. He’s ingrained the words he can remember to memory, and the ones he doesn’t, he writes down in his journal. His little brother; Danny calls him a bird, he can’t figure out what kind. His little bird of some kind; when Danny takes something from their father — what, he can’t remember what — then his little brother will be a little bird. 

(He doesn’t have a name for his brother, yet, but he’s calling his birdie in his head. It’s better than nothing.)

—------

Seeker, do you ever come to wonder

If what you're looking for is within where you hold

Will you leave a trail for them to follow a path

You'll soon forget

Home

—---------

When he’s fourteen, Danny dies. It does nothing to fix his fractured memories, much to his consternation. It just confirms something he already knows; that he was someone dangerous, and that he still is. 

When the shock of death has worn off, Danny inspects his ghost in the metal reflection of the closest table. It’s blurry, hard to see, but shock green eyes pierce back at him, green like the portal. Lazarus, Danny’s mind whispers, and he blinks rapidly.

‘Lazarus,’ he mouths to himself. It’s familiar. Sam shows him with her phone what he looks like, joking that he looks like an assassin. Danny doesn’t think she’s that too far off. 

He doesn’t tell her that. He tucks the thought away with the rest of his secrets, and fiddles with the hood gathering at his neck, attached to a cape with torn edges swinging down to his ankles. He pulls it over his shock white hair. It shadows over his face impossibly so, until all you can see are his green-green eyes peering out like a wolf hiding in the brush.

He ends up calling himself Phantom. 

(Maybe now he can start putting lyrics to his lullabies; his memories may not have returned, locked away with the sound of a clock, but the dead can talk. One of them may just have answers.) 

----------

Home is where we are

Home is where you are

Home is where I am

-----------------

Dedicated to @gascansposts for being the one who introduced me to the band Yaelokre, and thus being the whole reason I was inspired to write this in the first place >:] Those lyrics at the line breaks are all from their album Hayfields.

[heartfulselkie]

Kaleidoscope AU

Kwami Swap Amnesia AU

While Marinette isn't so keen on chasing down Akumas with Alya for the Crimson Blog, there are some perks to the role that make it worthwhile

[hydrachea]

Explorers of Sky is a good game.

[1495-gauge]

there's that fucked up three-eyed thing that lives in the woods. whose turn is it to chase it off again??

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

Halloween prompts year 2 day 17

A supervillian had captured a supernatural creature in some kind of device, the entity in question looked like a white haired teen from what they could see of him in the glass sphere he was enclosed in.

The villian was monologing about how they would use the creatures sacred powers to resurrect some evil gods or whatever when the heros intervened knocking him away and accidentally started the machine.

The teen screamed as electricity flowed through his body. Tim ran to him searching for a way to turn off the machine when his hand touched the outside of the sphere.

Unbeknownst to the heros, the machine required a piece of whoever was dead to revive them, it could be hair, blood, bone or even...a memory

That was how Tim, as Robin (or Red Robin whoever you prefer) found himself holding not his mom or dad or anyone you might have expected.

No.

He was holding someone he never thought he'd see again. Someone who didn't even think she was real. Someone who was marveling at her new body made of flesh and blood

Annie.

[somerandomdudelmao]

Do you have any plans for after the future boys meet the current boys, or is that shaping up to be the end of the series?

I'm improvising, so I actually have no idea when the end of this comic will be:l

I have some vague concepts and ideas though. But no plan haha

[humming-fly]

Inktober Day 2 - On Wednesdays we Descend

Been playing some collaborative Amnesia the past few months and the sessions are hitting especially well this time of the year~

[methoughtsphantom]

Does this count as kidnapping???

A clockwork apprentice Danny that has to fake Jason’s death because he accidentally meddled in the event leading up to it and now he has to act fast because he literally can hear Batman’s running steps catching up to him so in spectacular fashion Danny panics, goes “shit shit shit” and puts Jason in the ghost version of a coma but like expert level pumps him up with so much ectoplasm the kid legit dies for a hot minute there.

…It makes Batman think his kid really is dead like he is supposed to so not all is bad, the timeline is back on track.

It’s just that now Danny can’t leave Jason to be be buried in the ground like he was meant to be originally, instead he waits until no one is looking to snatch the kid up and take him with him to the infinite realms.

Jason is legit convinced he was kidnapped.

Jason: who are you and why did you kidnap me???

Danny: what— kid I didn’t kidnapped you, I saved you

Jason: likely story

Danny: really kid I’m not kidding this is not a kidnapping

Jason: well then can I go home

Danny:

Danny: no

Jason: fucking figures

…

Danny: in my defense when I found you you were already kidnapped

Jason: so? kidnapping me from my kidnappers doesn’t make u better

Danny:

Danny: well it makes me the better kidnapper

[length-of-edward]

REALLY, Phoenix?? That’s coming from YOU of all people?

[amethystina]

So my brain is at it again...

And this time it wanted to inform me that it would be very interesting with an amnesia fic where Ga On loses his memories but can still detect emotions related to those memories. Just imagine the possibilities.

Quick disclaimer: I'm sure there are several amnesia fics in the fandom already — maybe even one exactly like this — but I haven't read them so I'm just going to tell you all about it anyway because, to me, it's a new idea xD

Anyhow.

Imagine him waking up at the hospital, sometime during the later half of the drama (maybe he got shot instead of Soo Hyun and complications led to him getting memory loss — idk, let's handwave it for the sake of the scenario), and he's met by Soo Hyun and Professor Min. And while Ga On can't say what their names are, he can tell that he knows them. He can't access the memories but he feels the affection and the trust and accepts that they must have been a part of his life previously. And, understandably, they become the rocks he clings to because everything is new and confusing. He can still remember how to do basic things — he could probably even drive if they put him inside a car — but not who he is.

And Soo Hyun and Professor Min are going to have a rough time explaining some of it, no doubt.

Like, imagine the pain when Ga On asks where his parents are and even before Soo Hyun or Professor Min say anything, Ga On feels a rush of grief and anger. Because he doesn't remember them dying, but his body remembers the anguish of that tragedy all the same.

Some things are more humourous, though. Like: "... why is my face plastered all over the city? Am I famous?" Ga On would be so confused because the emotions he feels as he sees billboards with his own face aren't necessarily good ones. He mostly feels embarrassed and self-conscious. But he is kind of proud when he hears that he's a judge. It must mean he's smart.

Anyhow. The real fun part begins when Soo Hyun brings Ga On back to his apartment and Ga On is like: "Yeah, this is familiar." But he can also tell that, no, it's not right. It's not home. It feels cold and stale, as if he's not really living there anymore. And he doesn't understand why. Because, according to Soo Hyun, he's been doing so since he was a kid. But Ga On just shrugs his confusion off because, all things considered, he trusts Soo Hyun more than his own memory.

Also, imagine when he asks Soo Hyun if he has a girlfriend and she looks stunned, then awkward, then shy, and starts giving some mumbled response that no, he doesn't — at least not that she knows of. And Ga On has an "oh" moment because her behaviour makes it very clear that she'd want to be that girlfriend. But then he'd get confused because what he feels when he looks at her is a lot of warmth and love, sure, but not that kind of love.

Because this Ga On doesn't have years of memories to confuse him and muddle their relationship — he just feels the emotions. And, from his currently pretty objective point of view, it doesn't seem like romantic love.

He may love Yoon Soo Hyun very much, but he's not in love with her.

He doesn't tell her that, of course, because that would be rude, but he definitely makes a mental note to be careful with how he acts around her because he doesn't want to accidentally lead her on.

And it continues like that, with Ga On trying to navigate the world with nothing but emotions to go on. Which, obviously, will sometimes become very overwhelming for him, but he's stubborn so he'd still try and, of course, do his best to recover his memories. And some start to trickle in eventually, but it mostly old ones that are very deeply ingrained in his psyche.

Eventually, Professor Min decides to bring Ga On to the Supreme Court. Not to make him go back to work or anything — that would probably be disastrous considering the state Ga On is in — but to see if any of it can jog Ga On's memory. And sure, Ga On can tell that he's been in his office before and he can tell that he's met Jin Joo before — he feels both intimidated and bewildered by her — but nothing really stands out. All of it is just like ghostly silhouettes of a former life he knows he must have had but can't see clearly.

And then he meets Yo Han.

Just sees him from afar at first — Yo Han isn't even looking in Ga On's direction — but the familiarity still hits Ga On like a freight train. That is someone he knows as instinctively as he knew Soo Hyun and Professor Min. And before Ga On can really think things through, he just walks up to Yo Han because, clearly, this man is important. Ga On can tell that this man is important because his heart starts racing, his breaths go shallow, and he's suddenly overwhelmed by such a myriad of confusing and conflicting emotions he can't even sort them out. Some are negative — even outright alarming — but there's also joy and fondness and longing.

Which just makes him even more confused when Professor Min catches up and explains that this is Ga On's boss. And said boss looks at Ga On with what he first thinks is bland indifference. But the longer he stands there — and listens to Professor Min tersely explaining what they're doing there to Yo Han with half an ear — Ga On realises that, no, that's not indifference. There's something underneath it — a spark of something else he can't name but can definitely tell means something. And he desperately wants to know what that something is. He wants to scratch at it until he can peel away the layer of indifference hiding it from sight.

He needs to know.

But then, not long after that thought has crossed his mind, Ga On is reminded of the fact that this is, apparently, his boss. His male boss. And Ga On really shouldn't be feeling any of the things he's feeling. But, at the same time, he can't just ignore it. Because this is what a connection should feel like.

He might not have a girlfriend but, clearly, he has someone he's in love with.

And that's a little daunting, not to mention disorienting. Because Yo Han doesn't look approachable at all, and there is also a lot of frustration and anger mixed in with the much happier emotions when Ga On looks at Yo Han. There's just so much. And Ga On is confused because he can't really see himself falling in love with the man in front of him. Yo Han doesn't look like a very kind man.

And then, suddenly, Ga On realises that he has no idea if Yo Han knows that Ga On is in love with him. Maybe they're even a couple? It sure seems like they could be considering the attachment Ga On feels. He gets impulses to be physical in a way he hasn't with anyone else he's met thus far. He felt comfort hugging Soo Hyun, sure, but this is something else entirely. This is a need burning inside of him, urging him to draw closer to Yo Han.

He kind of wants to kiss Yo Han, right there in the corridors of the Supreme Court.

But Ga On can't be sure because Yo Han isn't exactly easy to read and aside from that spark of something when he looks at Ga On, Yo Han is impenetrable. And, if they were a couple, wouldn't Yo Han have insisted on finding Ga On earlier? Even if they have some sort of secret relationship that Soo Hyun clearly isn't aware of? Shouldn't Yo Han look more worried?

So maybe they're not together? And Ga On is just hopelessly in love with his boss? A boss who, judging by the way he looks at Ga On, might not even like Ga On.

Whichever it might be, Ga On realises he has to find out. His old memories are already trickling in, slowly but surely, but they're all of Soo Hyun and Ga On's parents and stuff that happened ages ago. And Ga On wants to know more about his life now. He wants to know more about Yo Han.

And he desperately needs to know if his feelings are reciprocated.

Even if it will definitely break his heart if he finds out that they're not.

...

SO YEAH.

It would be quite fun, wouldn't it? If I can find a way to make the story relatively short, I might just write it. Because I'm really intrigued by the concept of Ga On still having the emotions attached to the memories, but not the memories themselves. So he'll remember being both frustrated by and attracted to Yo Han. But without all the memories and years of influence from Professor Min and Soo Hyun fresh in mind, he wouldn't understand the negative emotions as much, nor put as much weight on them.

And it would be interesting to see how that would change their dynamic.

Because some of Ga On's behaviour would still be the same — he'd still be stubborn, righteous, a bit awkward etc. — but he'd also be freer. And a lot freer to act.

So that would be interesting, I think?

And now my brain will hopefully let go of this story and let me focus on other things for a while

[oneluckydragon]

"What do you remember of being human, Echo?" The question is out of the blue and unexpected. But Sora offers a patient smile and tilts her head in curiosity, just enough that one of her ears flops over. It's endearing, if anything.

But Echo wishes she hadn't asked.

"Not much. Distinct memories are cloudy." A tired tone says softly, a pained recollection in her eyes and an acrid haze in her soul that endures, endures, and endures, "But I remember the discomfort more than anything. My body always did feel wrong back then. Misshapen. Condensed. Like it was too small for everything buried underneath, and that ache went so deeply some days that it would make my skin crawl. I hated that part the most."

At that, Sora's expression falls. She looks inexplicably sad, as if she'd hoped for a different response, a gentler one despite knowing the harsh truth about the dark future and the struggles Echo must have suffered. "But you had Grovyle, right? I'm sure he took care of you."

"He did, Sora, of course he did." A sigh, a flick of an ear and claws clenched tightly into the churned earth pressed under her paws. "I doubt I deserved his attention, though. I was too busy being angry at the world to give any care back."

In my lore, Echo does not look fully human during their time in the dark future. Since they were Darkrai before becoming human, and as a result of Palkia's reckless shattering of the Dimensional Portal which distorted both time and space, Echo's transformation was broken and accidental. They ended up looking pretty messed up and definitely (not) human. A lot of their characteristics as Darkrai carried over but rather morphed into something else.

And Grovyle, growing up in a world where humans have been extinct for longer than any living pokémon has been alive, has no concept of what a "true" human looks like. The only thing he knows is descriptions of humans from glyphs and texts in old ruins. Thus, he mistakes Echo for an actual human. And Echo, not knowing what a human looks like themselves due to amnesia, accepts this identification with nothing better to use.

[y-rhywbeth2]

Withers tells Durge they shouldn't get their memories back because it would drive them insane.

Pretty sure from context that Larian intends that to mean it as in they wouldn't be able to cope with the guilt (even though it's entirely possible to still be an evil jackass at this point), but I'm just looking at Durge's backstory - both the canon components and the headcanon - and going 'yep.'

Loss of identity is traumatic, but probably not as traumatic as knowing all that *gestures at the backstory snippets* intimately instead of knowing of it in abstract.