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madreen_rua) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
bakerstreet2018-02-19 06:36 pm
madreen_rua) wrote in bakerstreet2018-02-19 06:36 pm
Entry tags:
Hey, can you tell me what year it is?
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!
Credit:
jading
no subject
Then Sazed makes his belated appearance, another boost to his annoyance. He makes a shooing motion and doesn't even quite look over. Usually he's more aloof and unconcerned than actually mean where the big dude is concerned, or how would he keep the guy on the hook, but he's not at his best.]
Congrats, fucko, if this were an actual emergency I'd be suuuuper dead by now. Bug off.
[Then he turns a cool gimlet eye on Lup again. Being above it all is comfortable, but the weirdness just keeps escalating.]
Wouldn't know, don't have one. Why is this whole... thing... still happening now?
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That taken care of, she looks back at Taako. There's not much she's getting from detect magic. Fuck. It'll still be a few minutes before she can find the highest level of curses, but this isn't promising.
Taako's still giving her a nasty look. Fucking cheesedicks!]
Once upon a fucking time, [Lup finally goes with.] You knew who I was, because I'm your sister, but now you don't know! Do you remember anything about the IPRE? About going to fucking space and flying around with Barry and Davenport and everyone?
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Are you making those noises with your mouth or are you possessed by the spirit of a fantasy walkie talkie?
[Much more of this and he'll see if he can hire a cleric or a druid for an exorcism.]
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--ch'dre-gre Fischer. [She still wants to cry, but her mood keeps swinging around, because that's what having a dumb fucking brain is about.]
No, I'm not supposed to be making those noises! Um, okay, I'm going to start talking, and you tell me when there's static. There's magic affecting... Mm... You're... Curse. It's a curse. [That's a lie, so it'll get through the censors, right? Sort of?] On you. On me? You were cursed to forget. I was cursed to be forgotten. You forgot something important...
no subject
With that thought, he realizes he's in this weirdness for the long haul, if only out of morbid curiosity. To hear her out once she stops cursing, Taako drops back into the stool she originally scared him out of. He affects a pose of what he thinks is great indifference, chin in hand, legs crossed with one toe pointed. Taako actually relaxed is basically made of warm jello--he'd sprawl catlike over any surface in any direction, and it wasn't rare to find him with his head hanging upside-down off a sofa and his legs up over the back, perfectly asleep.
It wasn't rare when he had people on his side and a space he felt secure in. This stiff, performative nonsense wouldn't fool anyone who knows him. The fact that he fools himself says a lot.]
You were pretty good for a little bit there and then we hit interference at the end. Sounds like you got some weird curse action going there, spooky. Probably want, like, a... good? Good's the word I want. Good wizard. I conjure fondant to impress rubes.
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[Unless Taako wants to turn into a lich, but that doesn't seem like a good idea. Especially if he doesn't know who she or anyone is.
Lup watches him for a long moment, completely unimpressed with his fake relaxing.]
I was wondering about that, though. [Lup doesn't sound judgemental, just... doubtful. They have a cooking skill set, but she and Taako went into magic studies to get the fuck away from their old life. Cooking and doing cool shit with that is one thing, but how does he not feel like he's back in the caravans they hopped as children? And why's it so boring in here?
Lup's not calm, but she starts channeling the anxious energy into spells to repair the mirror, and embellish the frame with some gemstones she knew Taako liked - or facsimiles of them. Lup isn't that good at transmutation. The frame is the same wood and the gemstones are probably, on the molecular level, some horrible sin against everything holy, but they look pretty. Taako's the one who could actually turn stone into food that's safe to eat, for example.]
Okay, I'm still freaked the fuck out, but this is fixable. What--whatever happens, Taako, I'm not going to hurt you. Sorry for freaking the fuck out, but, um. I've been trapped for about a decade, and everything is... really different from when I left.
Lup waves her hand and the rest of the crew, in their uniforms, pops up as miniature illusions. Three humans, a dwarf, and a gnome.]
Do you know any of these people, Taako? Do you know where they live?
no subject
The mirror is a nice gesture, though he immediately eyes it with something less like appreciation and more like appraisal. Without anyone to share the spoils, the acquisitiveness born of a rough childhood has metasized into simple, pure greed. Not that he doesn't find a certain joy in his magpie tendencies, but stuff for the sake of stuff wasn't such a bad habit with him before.
He turns back to her for the illusion more than the unhelpful speech, glancing over the illusions without any response. He's looking, he's even interested, but he doesn't care about any of the faces he's seeing. Certainly there are a few connections he's not being allowed to make, but none of them means a thing to him.]
Nnnnnnope. These, like, your curse buddies?
no subject
[Lup sighs and looks around the room, a clear air of dislike for it. Eugh. Boring.]
...So. This is a weird question, but how'd you get here, Taako? And before you come up with any bullshit, your grandpa's name was Tostada, your aunt's name was... [Lup lists off the family, hoping he can even hear them.
She wonders, can Fischer make fake memories? Maybe in his brain, she died when he was still young.
If they were before any of whatever the fuck happened to him, Lup thinks he could put the pieces together pretty fucking quick, or at least suspect that he's somehow connected to the crew. But he doesn't seem to get it - honestly, beyond the gleam of greed, his eyes are... dull. There's not much ticking back there, and it makes her nervous.]
no subject
It's not impossible. But it's weird, and makes him nervy again. So does even thinking about the farm, his grandfather, hit aunt, those scraps of contentment that belong to someone else's life. Sure, she's the reason he can cook, but he doesn't dwell on the rare good memory any more than the others. It's all over and done with. He tries to sound bored as he answers.]
Show's been on the road for, ah, wanna say... eight years? Eightish. I follow the gigs.
no subject
(There are bad parts of that, because only talking to someone who went through the situation means that the worse behaviors they both have - as much as Lup tries not to be she's pretty into theft - get validated and approved by the other, and all the shitty coping mechanisms were there, but that wasn't a problem until Lup got trapped in an umbrella and Taako got void fish'd, apparently.)
But Lup's not that introspective.
It's a little pathetic watching Taako try and pretend not to give a shit. As she "settles" on the bed, propping her chin on her hands, she realizes she's too stiff, too. She's always been more jittery than Taako, having the pressing need to move around, bouncing her leg or fiddling with something - Taako's hair or Barry's robe or really anything in reach. The rare time's she's actually still and relaxed (usually when she's stoned), she curls up. She folds her legs underneath her, finds a corner or shoves herself between people or under them, because it's comforting. The pressure and weight keeps her grounded.
The idea now, though, makes her skin crawl.
They've both changed over eight years, maybe.
Taako's older than her now, body-wise. They always rewound to the same point before, but he's gotten older. Eight years doesn't mean the same thing to an elf as it does to a human, but considering how much she went over her own memories in her head, she knows every detail. There's a different set to his mouth, not wrinkles but like he's been wearing a different expression for years and years. His hair is a different color than he used to keep it, but then again, they had a lot of room for experimenting. Maybe she's just looking for things to be concerned about, but eight years feels too long.]
Yeah? How about right before then? What were you doing before you joined up with the gigs?
no subject
Eh, y'know, restaurant work, mostly in the kitchen but gotta get a sense of the industry.
[He did work grills while they were studying. No getting through university with their complete lack of resources without that second job. It's the only bridge his brain's been able to make between an inditinct past and a vivid now.]
no subject
...Okay. That's... Hm. Weird question, but in New Elfington, did you ever have a sibling? Maybe a, [Ugh.] brother of some kind who died?
[Lup's trying to see if she can find any reference to her at all, or if it's all just gone.]
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That'd be a Taako with his brain more or less intact. Now, though, the question slams hard against the defenses he's built up. The gaping chasm left by Lup has left everything around it teetering and fragile, and his mind has to reject the idea to stay on course. The question isn't just weird, it's upsetting. And he couldn't explain why.]
Pfft, like the world could handle twice the Taako. Cosmic implosion from the greatness.
[He's still acting, but he's switched from overcompensating with boredom to overcompensating with wit and vivacity, and made the switch so fast he should have whiplash. He talks too fast and his tones are more shrill than usual. Suddenly too restless for the stool, he hops up and paces to the window, pretending to just be gazing out into nothingness but really checking for Sazed. He may not put a lot of faith in the big dipwad, but he'll take what stability he can get.]
In which being trapped for an extra four years might have been a blessing for Lup
[She doesn't have the emotional energy to try and hide the dismal tone.
Lup watches Taako pace around, and realizes she needs to stop pressing him. He's pretty obviously not fucking okay with the questions, and she feels bad. But she's used to her brother. Someone who can meet her, knows what she's getting at and can challenge her if she's too much. Usually it's the other way around, but Taako's done it for her a few times.
She wants to keep digging, though. She wants to pry her fingers into Taako's brain until she can find something left over, something he's conscious of that says he wasn't alone.
Lup's not sure she likes this Taako, from TV. Most of that feeling is coming from her anger with the situation, but she doesn't like his vapidness. Yeah, they're both selfish assholes, but with each other they could be something more. With the crew they were something more.
As Taako turns away, she lowers her hands. They're shaking, and while she's not crackling in the same way, she feels like she's hanging onto this form by a thread.
The kind thing to do would be to leave him. Let him go back to his TV life while she tries to figure out what happened to everyone. He'll even be the easiest to track down, compared to everyone else. Lup doesn't want to leave her brother, though. She doesn't want to be alone again, and she honestly wants a hug or at least a magic hug, and she wants her family - her real family, the ones she traveled with for a century.
Lup looks at Taako's braided hair. She doesn't think she can explain anything or do anything that'll help. They;d tried casting dispel magic in the highest level they could, but it hadn't done much. A demon or god might be able to help, but that's not really a sure thing - Lup's seen gods be consumed by the Hunger, just like everything else. They aren't all powerful.
She just has to find the Voidfish. Easier said than done.
Sazed is finishing stacking the last of the chairs. He doesn't seem to see Taako.]
no subject
Sazed is in yelling distance, and the fact makes him feel vaguely, distantly better. All he knows, more than he'd admit he cares about.
A few more heartbeats go by while he pushes past the way the Voidfish's power is making his mind thrum with the effort of rejecting itself. Whatever. Who gives a shit.]
Is this, y'know, going anywhere?
[He speaks and then he turns, and this indifference isn't feigned. He's got too many Taako problems to have room for anyone else.]
I mean, I'm barely a wizard. You need an adventure done, there are people who do that. Try Craigslist.
[That's his best theory, that this is a quest being pitched. He'd be a shitty adventurer.]