bakerstreet | amnesia meme

amnesia meme

THE AMNESIA MEME

Ah, amnesia. The old standby for soap operas, it usually involves a good knock on the head and a complete loss of memory. Ever wanted to do that to your character? Well, now's your chance.

1. Comment with your characters!
2. Others comment. Optionally, go to RNG and roll the scenario. (As to who gets knocked on the head, well, that's up to you!)
3. ???
4. PROFIT.

1. HEAD-ON COLLISION - ...whoops. It was an honest mistake, really! You didn't see that car/tree/post/person/whatever coming, but now you're stumbling out of the wreckage sans memory. Better ask for help.

2. WAIT, WHO ARE YOU? - Okay, so a while ago, you got into...something that caused you to lose your memory. Fortunately, you managed to get by and create a new identity for yourself. Unfortunately, someone new has just entered your life. Or should I say, someone who's a little too familiar...

3. RINSE AND REPEAT - Sigh. Really, this is just so inconvenient. You wake up everyday with no memory of who you are, and have to figure it out over the course of the day, only to fall asleep and have to do it all over again the next day. Good thing someone's there to help you out, right? And what's with all those post-its and notes?

4. THIS ROOM'S TOO WHITE - Welcome to the hospital. You've got an "Unknown" tag on your wrist, a healthy diet of bland hospital food, a steady trickle of doctors coming in to check up on you, and a TV, and nothing else. Looks like someone's coming to help you today, though! Here's to hoping they knew you before you lost your memory.

5. I'M SUPPOSED TO DO WHAT?! - Oh, crap. There's something only you can do right now--that is, the you who didn't lose your memory, anyway. Better figure out a way out of this mess and how to control your strange abilities before it's too late.

6. FIGHTING FOR THE WRONG SIDE - Uh, oh. Looks like your enemies decided to take advantage of your confused state and convinced you that you're on their side. Here's to hoping your allies can get you back to yourself before you cause some serious damage.

7. JUST TOO TRAUMATIC - You just saw something that's so traumatic you lost your memory because of it. Unfortunately, right now, you have to remember it, or else something really bad happens. Hope you don't regret remembering this!

8. I DON'T WANT THIS - You've been living a peaceful, ordinary life, for a while. And you'd rather it stay that way, because you're not sure if you'd want to remember what went before. Unfortunately, something's coming, and the key to stopping it lies in your memories.

9. NO SUCH THING - Maybe you were a wizard, or a werewolf, or an angel, or a demon, or something else entirely before, or maybe you just knew about the masquerade. Sadly, you've been knocked on the head and now believe yourself to be a perfectly ordinary person. Magic? That doesn't exist, right? Anything can be explained with science, after all! Right?

10. I'M WHO?! - And who the hell are you? Basically, this is the wild card option! Combine one of the above or make up a new one or whatever you want! Go wild!

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[Not even gonna pretend I'm not an absolute sucker for this trope. Good with either character being the amnesiac.]

[especially fond of the silly "character A is fucked up on anesthesia, forgets who their SO is and flirts with them anyway" trope but also good for angst]

[ finished the game, but please mind spoilers for others! ]

( It had been a relief to watch Lune and Sciel appear after losing them, even if the moments that followed had been decidedly less... friendly than the time before it all. The trust they'd built together taken and torn apart in the face of the truth, all the words he'd been unable to say in their quest to put an end to all of this.

And truthfully, Verso doesn't blame them for how they feel. For the desire for space and a moment to breathe away from him. He bows out gracefully from his spot around the fire and instead wanders the small area near their camp for some time before he finally finds a spot where he can see how the stars weigh heavy in the sky. Such a flawless replica of the real thing. This is as good a place as any to rest for the evening, at least. But he just as he turns to settle under a tree, he feels the world tilt sharply in surprise to see someone laying there in the grass. The expedition uniform is instantly recognizable, as is the missing golden band on his arm. And he recognizes Gustave immediately. Remembers seeing him lifeless and bloody after Renoir's lethal assault.

Only he's anything but here. There's healthy color to his skin, no signs of the damning move from Renoir. And even the metal arm they'd buried in the man's honor is there. Perfectly in tact. Perfectly alive as you can be in this world. Had... Maelle done this? Perhaps unintentionally?

There are questions, suddenly, ones he wants answers to, but just as there are questions, there's a thought however that he isn't sure if Maelle and the others would be mortified or elated to see Gustave here in front of them. Until he hears the sharp sound of an intake of breath and sees the way Gustave's chest rises. A sign of life. A second chance in the aftermath of Renoir's cruelty. To see the other man breathing helps him breathe himself, and he kneels quickly, hand hovering over him as he watches him stir. )

Careful. ( His voice is low, careful. And there's a moment of hesitation before he stretches his hand out, offering it to the prone man. Given how Gustave had met his end and now his sudden (and he thinks unintentional) resurrection, there's no telling what he may be thinking or feeling. And truthfully, Verso is under no delusions about his features. The scar across his face, the angles and planes of it born from his father and mother's own. Certainly, one might see the resemblance. )

Suffice to say you've seen better days, monsieur.

[ His head is awash with sound: waves crashing against rock, the lonesome whine of wind. He smells salt and copper. He takes a breath, and it dissipates, becomes something green and fresh, grass and damp earth, and the howl of the wind becomes the quiet susurrus of leaves in a gentle breeze. Careful.

His eyes snap open at the voice, blinking, and orient in the next second to the hand hovering over him, cautious: the man the voice belongs to. He's on his knee in the grass, watching him with impossibly clear pale eyes, and his voice is easy enough but the way he holds himself suggests he might leap back or to his feet in an instant, ready to defend.

He doesn't know how he recognizes that, only that he does.

His glance tracks over the scarred face, the glimmering streaks of white in waves of dark hair, and he frowns slightly before setting his hand – metal, fabricated – on the grass and slowly pushing himself up. His head swims. ]

Considering I've just woken up under a tree in the middle of nowhere, I'd say you're right.

[ Where... is he? He squints up at the sky, dusted thickly with stars past the leaves of the tree he's lying beneath, then frowns at the dark-haired man again. ]

Who are you?

( An expected question, all things considered. For all that Verso knows who Gustave is, he can't say the same in return. The other man had already met his fate by the time he'd intervened. )

Verso. ( His voice drops carefully as he says it, as does the offered had that remains untaken. He sets it instead on his knee, watches Gustave carefully as if he isn't quite sure what to expect. Considering the nature of this place, there's no telling what this might be. Whether it's a product of Maelle's wishes or someone else's, he isn't in a position to say. )

A friend of a friend.

( Those pale eyes watch Gustave for a moment long before he glances away, instead looking in the direction he'd come. In the direction of the camp where the others are still turning over the truth of the everything. There's no denying the others would be pleased to see Gustave, but given the current circumstances, perhaps it's best to give everyone a moment to ground themselves before reuniting them. Though he realizes the reunion may not be so simple. But more importantly— )

The camp is nearby. ( His gaze wanders back to Gustave, lips curved in a careful smile. ) The others are there. I'm sure they'll be glad to see you, once you're ready.

Verso.

[ The name means nothing to him; it's as unfamiliar as the face that's watching him so carefully here in the dark. He studies him a moment longer, still braced on his hand, then carefully shifts himself to lean his back against the tree he'd been under. One leg stretches out, testing, and the other bends to set the sole of his boot on the soft grass. He looks down at himself, running his hands over the fabric of the jacket and waistcoat he wears. It's all tailored expertly to his frame, comfortable and trim.

He doesn't recognize it, either.

Nearby, Verso is speaking, and he turns his attention back on the man, frowning slightly. Bemusement creeps across his face in stages: a flicker at the corner of his eyes turning into uncertainty; a press of his lips. ]

Others?

[ He glances around, as if he might see the people Verso's talking about, even as the man informs him that the camp is nearby, not here, and the others are there. ]

There are more of you?

[ have toyed with the idea that the longterm use and often overuse of shin's esp might have latent backlash in the form of a few things, including memory loss. this can take the form of complete or partial (losing memories past a certain point i.e. memories made after leaving assassin business so he still thinks he is one) or whatever. good with gen or shipping (m/m 20+) ]

( Fine with either side of the scenario. )

[ jim remembers, vividly, the look on spock's face as the bulkhead sealed between them. calm, quiet, with an infuriating warmth at the corners of his eyes. jim knows what his face wore. indignation, anger. maybe a little fear. he'd tried to override the controls but it was too late, and then everything had gone white.

which is perhaps why now, on this godforsaken planet, as jim looks down at spock, battered and fucked up but whole, he grits his teeth. pointless. it's so fucking pointless. all of it. and what's he supposed to do, just take his knocks—

—and then spock had opened his eyes and there wasn't a lick of recognition in them. jim knows psychic injury, knows physical brain injury, and he knows that kind of memory loss when he sees it. so, with an unknown emotion he doesn't want to think about curling tightly in his gut, he makes his decision. ]

Hey baby, [ he'd said, charming and soft and smooth, ] don't worry. I'm gonna help get you all fixed up. Promise.

[ a press of his fingers to spock's psipoints, just a little surge of thought, and he'd been out again.

which is when, with a sigh, jim hoists spock up over his shoulder and carries him all the way back to where he can call on the enterprise for an assist. get spock in medical, get him fixed up, get him started to get to who he's supposed to be.

jim'll be there when he wakes up. he makes sure of it. ]

[ There is only the greenish sky and the man standing above him, staring down at him. Only the ache of his body, an odd soreness in his head, the reflexive rise and fall of his chest and his heart beating in his ears. There is only that, and the brief touch of a familiar mind, and everything had gone blank again.

Had remained blank, until he finds himself opening his eyes to a sterile room with what he recognizes as medical equipment even if he cannot determine why.

There is nothing. Only the face of that man against that green sky. Only a name — not his own, and Jim, curling hot on his tongue. Nothing else, stretching back where he knows memory should be. Nothing.

He does not even realize he says it, searching for any hint of himself, of who he is, why this place is familiar. Just a soft breath of: ]

Jim.

[ especially interested in a flavor of 2/10 where kotone is no longer the Seal, but has no memories either, for drama's sake. shippy flavors a-okay, i welcome m/f and f/f! ]

[ooc: getting through season six, but. If nobody minds that I am behind and still catching up.]

[When the world was re-written in season 3, did Delores get herself a human life? Is she just human somehow, in that handwavey TUA fuckery way? Or is this an alternate timeline where she was always human? They’re all possibilities and I’m here for mucking around with all of them as I figure her out and explore things. (I think the suddenly a real girl option/variations thereof is my favourite, though.) Voicetesting.]

[Either role works.]

[ all those concussions are bound to have consequences eventually ]

(( Am down for accidental amnesia or mind wipe ))

[compelled.]

[ok idk but i need something with this...]

By the time they get to the Tower, they are all bruised, beaten, running on fumes. Since they got out of the vault - Antonia is trying to keep that walled off for now, sometimes just thinking about times she got lost gets her lost again - it hasn't been so bad. She's gotten confused a few times, needed talking around again, but out of the environment she had studied for her assignment, it does not get physical.

She can feel the tether starting to fray again when they get to the Tower. Antonia has watched fights here so many times or training footage he had purchased from Shield-Hydra. There are phantom figures in every corner, drawing her attention and making her fingers twitch. She keeps wrenching her attention back, desperate, repeating the objectives in her head, but then Valentina starts listing HER objectives out loud, and she almost slaps her hands over her ears.

It's hopelessly muddled by the time they get back down to ground level and start fracturing. The fighting barely registers for Antonia, against the conflict in her mind. She has something to do in this building. She is supposed to be hundreds of miles away. She is supposed to be doing something with these people, walking away. No. She is supposed to be doing something to one of these people. Where did that one go? No. She knew them. She knew some of them? They had traveled... why. They were supposed to do something in this building. She was supposed to do something for Valentina, who was up there, but they had left, and then they had left again. She was supposed to...

How long had she been standing here, that everyone else - who? - was out of sight? No. There was - someone, flickering back into sight, approaching out of site by normal means. No, she doesn't know her. Does she? Some homing instinct moves her feet, setting a pace to catch up with Ava before she vanishes, one way or another, loses her nerve before she makes a sound but doesn't stop following.

You're not a hero, Ava. You're not even a good person.

She knows. It still stings to hear anyway, after finally putting herself on the line for others than herself, for once.

For all the little good that it did, coming out all this way to just get thrown around. Reminded just how insignificant she is, really, something to dispose of.

Yelena's told everyone else off too, stormed away. Alexei's attempts to salvage the concept of their misfit group has fallen flat to arguing.

Ava has nowhere else to go, but she goes anyway. Tired, defeated, ready to retreat somewhere back into a world that doesn't need or want her.

She hears steps following her own, and spins ready to fling some insult back-

It's Antonia. And she lets herself soften, just a touch. "The mission is over, Antonia. You can... we can just. Go now. You don't have to follow me." Don't have to. Not can't. She's never really sure how to phrase things to the woman, so that they're not interpreted as attempts at ordering her around.

"No." She frowns, and shakes her head. The confusion is hitting painful levels - is that her name? It doesn't sound right - but that attempt to clear her head does nothing.

"No. We did not finish it. We were supposed to... do something. There was a we and we were here for - a reason. Weren't we? We have to go back. Someone wanted - there is something we are supposed to be doing, back there. We cannot abandon a mission unfinished, they will shoot us all."

"No, no," Ava shakes her head, heaving with exhaustion as the last couple days rush to catch up with her. But trying to maintain her usually short patience for the sake of the other woman. God, it feels so unfair, that she has moments like this where she can't track. And that it happens to fall during the worst times. The times where Ava herself feels at her worst, at her breaking point. Or maybe somehow this... this gives her something to focus on instead, something worth salvaging from the rubble.

"Nobody sent us on this mission, so there's nobody upset that we did not complete it." She holds her hand out for Antonia's, in tentative offer. "We lost, though," Ava confirms. "Bob is stronger than all of us, and Valentina has... convinced him we're the enemy. The way she had convinced us we were each other's enemies." A point they've had to go over with her a few times, when she slipped and had attacked Walker. But Walker isn't here now. Nor Bucky. No Alexei. No Yelena. Her heart aches, hates that she had let herself hope that together they had amounted to something.

"We have to get out of here, though. Lay low for a bit. Because Valentina will send him to finish the job." So she tries to coax Antonia to follow. It's a big city. Easy to get lost in.

There's some faint sense memory, of another hand reached out when she was even more lost than she was now, although, in this case, desperation alone would be enough to make Antonia take the offer in the hopes it will anchor her. At least it lets her hope she won't be left alone, even though she can't remember why the thought makes it feel like there is a heavy stone in her stomach.

"But... How can there be a mission if no one sent us on a mission?" It doesn't take much to coax her to follow, to be honest. It's a risk, and she knows it, but what else can she do when there are no other points of familiarity around?

"We're the job now? Is that why we all split up?"

"It was our own, that we decided as a group. And we failed," Ava explains, pulling Antonia along through the busy city street, into a back alley. She is clearly in a hurry, to get them somewhere gone and safe. But trying to be gentle about it. She's not sure Antonia has much of an expectation for gentle, and that's why it feels all the more important. She doesn't even know how injured Antonia is, underneath that costume. But it looked like she got hit pretty good.

"Valentina. We don't work for her anymore, alright? So we don't have to follow her orders. But she's ordering Bob now. To get rid of us. So. Yes, we split up." Because they all hate each other, blaming each other, are done with each other. She doesn't know how to fix any of it, isn't sure there's a point when they gave what they could and it wasn't enough. She doesn't like the feeling, but living with disappointment is familiar. She'll get over it. She'll survive. Until she doesn't.

"Here," she finally stops, locating a promising option.

Tugging her along becomes a pretty easy task, while she tries to figure out if she should listen to the half of her brain that is saying this must be some sort of trick or the half that says she can trust Ava. It does a lot to help the latter half win that Ava keeps explaining, in clear terms, and that gentleness amongst urgency does not hurt either. She hasn't had enough experience with it for it to be reassuring because it is familiar, but something in her recognizes it as a good thing. Then she has to parse the explanation itself, which keeps her equally busy. "... And we also decided that there were no consequences for failure? We are not supposed to... punish ourselves?"

Sounds fake, but okay. "This is a safe place?"

"I think the humiliation of failure is punishment enough, for now," Ava remarks tiredly. "Do you hurt? It looked like you got your ass beat pretty bad back there," she figures this isn't information that Antonia would share on her own, wouldn't dare limp along like a wounded animal.

She opens the door, and peeks inside before beckoning Antonia further in. "Safe enough. Looks abandoned. See the boarded up windows?" Which also likely means no power and no running water, but they'll have to make do for supplies later. If they even stay here long. For now Ava mostly just wants some place to lay down and recover. She hasn't rested since the vault, not fully.

Ouch. Humiliation of failure, indeed, the question landing (and in particular the statement that comes with it) like a continuation of that point. Antonia stiffens, tries to catalogue how exactly she had been telegraphing that currently. "Physical conditions remain within acceptable parameters."

That association aside - or perhaps because of it - she continues following Ava's directions, carrying herself more carefully and slowly now that she's been a bit called out, dares a comment, despite the internal misfiring signals. "That's good. No one can see in."

"We'll have to rest up. And that gives us time to tend to any injuries." Ava is uncertain what 'acceptable parameters' are for Antonia, but given the condition SHIELD used to send her out on active missions in, she's not overly optimistic it doesn't mean anything beyond 'not actively dying.'

She's not really sure how to approach any of this at all, when her only plan from here was to just... leave. Find some corner of the planet to fuck off to and hope it's far enough away. Antonia is... a complication in all that, isn't she. In that Ava really doesn't have it in her to abandon the woman, especially when she might forget and wander right back into the hands of their treacherous former employer.

"Yeah, we can check to see what supplies are here, and then maybe tonight..." she's not sure how much she's willing to risk quite yet, though. She leads the way up some stairs, and even though the dust is bothersome, it is a good sign that this place is mostly left alone.

There's something in the back of her mind that feels important and relevant, but as much as she fights to see the whole picture of it while she follows Ava, it won't come into focus. She gives it a frustrated try anyway, as if, if she just starts the sentence, maybe the rest of the words will come like magic, "He wasn't -" but of course it doesn't work, and she shakes her head, moves on.

"Do you have any injuries?"

"Who wasn't? Bob? He wasn't like himself," although she really has no idea what Antonia was trying to state. She figures if she fills it in with her own thought, maybe it'll help prompt something in response. She's still not quite used to Antonia's memory lapses, how to respond to them, but she's trying.

"Probably just some bruising. Honestly, Yelena's words were more-" hurtful. But. Ava bites her tongue, shakes her head. Doesn't matter.

She pushes open a door that creaks a bit louder than she'd prefer. If it were just her, she'd have phased through it instead, but... no, she can't allow herself to think of the other woman as a liability. "Oh good, there's a bed."

That doesn't quite nudge the rest of the original thought free, at least not at first, but it does hit on something that lives much deeper in her than the memory lapses can touch, and she grows very deeply sad, very quickly. "No, he wasn't. So we should not be angry with him."

It does work, though, after a few minutes, enabling her to catch the tail end of the thought. "He wasn't following us." Why that seems so important has slipped from her grasp now, but as trades go, she's made worse.

She gets another good couple moments of almost really there, her gaze a little less unfocused very briefly while she watches Ava shake her head. "Yes, they were. Widows are very skilled at knowing where to aim to wound even when they are not using a traditional weapon."

Only a nod, to the bed comment. One of them will need to be keeping watch, so that is sufficient.

"No," Ava agrees. "He wasn't. I think because Valentina wanted an audience. Said she called the press..." Ava frowns as she peers out one of the boarded up windows. Fuck. What if she plasters their faces all over the media, announces that they're at large.

Well, she's always been. Nothing new. "But I don't think Bob wanted any of this. Don't know why he was listening to her." Ava sits at the edge of the bed, finally giving her body a moment to rest. Her shoulders slump, and she rubs at her neck where the Sentry had her in a chokehold for so long.

"Do you think she meant it? That I'm a bad person." Because she had taken Ava calling her a bitch in return as evidence, as if she was the one telling everyone how awful they were for failing. She sighs out.

It takes her an embarrassingly long time to reply. Everything else Ava said, aside from the question, is utterly lost. Antonia has to focus all of her mental energy on figuring out what she thinks the answer is. She does recall at least chunks of Yelena's rant, that comes back - well, not easily, but it does come back.

What's more difficult is tracing further back, what else she knows about Yelena. So she's silent and still for a stretch, considering, and when she speaks, it's slow, may seem hesitant, but it's not uncertain.

"No. I think she was looking at us and talking to herself."

Edited 2025-07-21 00:37 (UTC)

"Yeah," Ava admits, as that realization drains a lot of the irritation out of her. Of course she wants to be defensive, still on the edge from being attacked and beaten down. With nothing she could do at all but run. And only because Bob... the Sentry, had allowed them that much.

She rubs at her bruised neck again, quiet for a long moment. "Not sure she'll even know how to contact us once she calms down and comes back around and wants to regroup." Which is quite different from how she felt a moment earlier, that she was ready to slink right back into hiding and never deal with any of them ever again.

"It still sucks." Antonia offers, after watching the change in Ava's body language. "You can still be mad about it." All the other emotions tended to be so exhausting - not that anger wasn't in the end, too, but at least at the beginning it provided some energy.

"Is that why we didn't go that far?"

She's quiet for a moment. And then sighs. "Truthfully, I was going to just... leave. All of this. Go back into hiding. Didn't seem worth dealing with in the moment."

[SHE WAS DONE DIRTY and I'm here to fix that. Extremely on the voicetesting side, please be gentle. Especially here for AUs and fix-its.]

[ a knife to the head and a tadpole will wreak havoc on one's memories. ]

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amnesia meme

Sōshirō Hoshina | Kaiju No. 8

Evan Buckley | 9-1-1

gustave | clair obscur: expedition 33

here we go!!

spoilers all the way down!

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shin | sakamoto days

Spock | Star Trek AOS | OTA

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Lady Nagant | BNHA

kotone shiomi | persona 3 portable

Izuku 'Deku' Midoriya l My Hero Academia

Delores (AU) | The Umbrella Academy

Logan | Fable 3 | OTA

stevie harrington | (63) stranger things

Dorian Storm | Critical Role | OTA

antonia | marvel cinematic universe | ota | spoilers inevitable, voicetesting

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spoilers

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Antonia Dreykov/Taskmaster | MCU

Asra (The Dark Urge) | Baldur's Gate 3 | OTA