meteorman | (no subject)

Humans are social creatures by nature. We seek companionship not only in other humans but in beings of other species and even inanimate objects, when they can be easily ascribed human characteristics. We are hard-wired to seek out and form emotional bonds. That doesn't mean we are all good at it. I never was. And I think the me in the universe where I got everything I ever wanted probably never will be, because he wouldn't think he'd need to be.

[Ford maybe, just a little, has some serious disdain for the man he used to be.]

A choice isn't always a clear matter of right and wrong; it is ultimately only a branching of paths. Somewhere out there there is a world where you didn't make the 'right' call. And that you has likely made different choices and cultivated different regrets and learned different lessons. Ultimately what matters is that you learn and move forward. Not all knowledge is pleasant, but stagnation is universally abhorrent.

And I have found it is easier to move forward when you are not alone.

We're only human, right? Isn't that how the saying goes? If it helps anything -- I feel like you've done fine here, so far.

[Look, Ford he's seen bad with people. Granted it was in the form of teenagers but still.]

[But -- can he really say the choice he'd made, way back then, hadn't been clear? He'd known for certain, if his friend went out there, went out under those lights, he'd die. That was the last clear, "do or don't" moment he could remember. Short of leaving Earth entirely.]

[Nothing else felt like a this or that.]

Sometimes it is that clear. Even if it's just in the end. After... a lot's happened. A lot's changed. If it was the wrong choice, I really would have been alone.

[He wouldn't have the team. He wouldn't have the person he cares about -- he might not even be here. Who knows if he'd even be alive. If anyone would be.]

[Ford's inability to People was definitely at its worst as a teenager. That's also part of the human condition, he thinks. It's just it was compounded by being predisposed to being bad at it mixed with crippling confidence issues, making him even worse than his peers.

Boy howdy is he glad he's not a teenager anymore.]

I've only done well here because of the incredible kindness and patience of the people I've met. And the fact that many of them don't meet me in person, the first time.

[Short 'gear conversations tend to go way less badly, he's found. It's harder to put your foot in your mouth. He'll, he's only given one person an existential crisis so far!

And over the 'gear it's way harder for people to see his hands.]

And the fact that none of my wanted posters seem to have made it to this part of the universe. My mistakes haven't followed me to the degree that they could have.

[Teenagers just don't people very well as a whole. Send them to space or into Ford's Mess and it just gets worse. He'd know. Sometimes he still feels like a teenager, for heaven's sake.]

I remember meeting you. You were having trouble with your starter. I didn't have a problem with you then. Still don't now.

[Look, Shiro's memory is generally terrible, but he remembers there was a stick involved. Or bushes. Something like that.]

Wanted man too huh? Probably Not because you broke out of prison?

My boy, I have broken out of more prisons than I can remember. There are quite a few universes I'm no longer welcome in for precisely that reason.

That isn't the only reason but it did significantly lengthen the list, particularly because I had to keep doing it.

Okay I'm kind of impressed. A little concerned, but impressed. I've just Got the one and I don't even know how that happened.

When one has a mission to fulfill one can justify doing a lot of illegal things.

[Ford isn't exactly going to say he's killed people, but he has absolutely killed people.]

When you are up against one of the most feared and powerful beings in the whole multiverse and he puts out a bounty on your head it becomes acceptable to do whatever you can to get a leg up. Do you know how easy I would have been to kill if I'd stayed in one place long enough to serve a prison sentence?

Also between you and me all prison escapes are like that. No matter how much of a plan you think you have it always comes down to being inside one moment and outside the next with no idea how you got from point A to point B.

Or things that are just illegal under what you're fighting against.

[Yeah funny story about the killing people thing there buddy. You don't get called Arena Champion by making friends, sadly.]

Prisoners make good targets for a lot of things. Not just murder. I... know what you mean there. But I try not to think about it too hard. You don't remember anything? Just suddenly you're out?

More like every carefully-laid plan is almost guaranteed to get thrown off the rails near-immediately. It's one long string of improvisation in my experience.

Really that's all survival is in general.

But you have to remember... parts of it, right? Or else how do you adapt? If you can't remember what happened?

[honey]

I didn't mean it quite so literally. I do not actually enter a zen-like prison-escaping fugue state that I am afterwards incapable of remembering.

[LOOK is it so much to ask for a fellow memory loss buddy]

Oh Sorry I just assumed ...

[Friend if you want memory loss you better talk to Fiddleford. He's the old man from Gravity Falls who knows all about that.]

No, no, I understand. I should have specified. There are beings for whom such a state is natural in times of stress.

There are plenty of stretches of time I don't remember but those are easily explained by mind-altering substances or severe physical trauma caused by injury or alien sickness. Upside: I now have one hell of an immune system.

[No that's okay, this is actually enlightening regardless.]

Physical trauma That causes memory loss? Just for some people, or... can that happen to anyone?

[Hi guess who has yet to connect the dots to his brain trauma.]

It depends on the location and severity of the trauma, but yes it can. Either because the recovery process is particularly draining and you spend most of it in a barely-coherent haze, or because the brain is directly injured, or both.

What

[Okay, this whole thing was prompted by candy. By Emotions. But ... this is different. This is Not Talked About. Not with anyone but maybe Jean. Once.]

What about losing a limb?

I would say that losing a limb could certainly be traumatic enough, particularly if the recovery period was difficult.

Are you asking about your arm?

Maybe that's what happened yeah I am. I don't know anything about it. Just One day it was there.

Was this during your period of incarceration? Or unrelated? I ask only because the particular circumstances surrounding an injury are just as important as the injury itself.

[He barely lost any time when he got his head cut open and a metal plate put in because he was safe and well-taken-care-of, despite still being kind of out of it for a week or so. Suddenly waking up in alien prison with a metal arm you didn't have before is very, very different.]

During. After the ar |

[He can do this. He can do this. It's over. It's done. The dreams won't come -- Haunter has it covered.]

After the arena. I don't remember what happened there, either. Not really. Nothing is clear. This is Honestly the best idea I've had about what happened. Why I'm like this.

[MmmmmMMMMMM. Boy. This conversation sure does keep straying into dangerous territory and the more times it happens the closer Ford feels like he's getting to putting his foot in his mouth. The longer he goes without doing it the more sure he is that he will.

Oh well. Here we go.]

This is not my area of study, you understand. I may have twelve doctorate degrees but none of them are in psychology or neuroscience.

[Maybe he'd be less of a fucking mess if one of them was. Who knows.]

But it is not unusual for severe trauma to damage the brain's ability to reliably form memories, particularly memories related to the traumatic event. It is a defense mechanism. Whatever you don't remember, it was likely unpleasant.

Edited 2018-03-04 09:33 (UTC)

[It probably says something about Shiro's Life (TM), that this is the best advice he's gotten on the subject of trauma and memory loss. But, as such, he's not about to be picky about it.]

You sound like my old commander when you say things like that.

[The doctorate parts.]

Yeah. That. Sounds like it tracks. Is there any way you know of to... get them back again?

Short of purposefully putting yourself in similar situations in hopes of bringing back the traumatic memories by association? No. And I wouldn't recommend that. It isn't pleasant.

[Trust him, he did it recently on accident and it fucking sucked.]

[Admittedly, that isn't what he wanted to hear. Because there are so many questions...]

I believe you. I think it happened a few times. But thank you. No one's ever explained it like that before.

I suppose I should amend that there may be ways I am unaware of. Memory has never been an issue for me. I remember the hell I've been through very clearly.

[And thank god, because there are a lot of reasons Ford would find the loss of his memory to be horrifying. His mind for a very long time was all he had. If that started going... Well, just take him out back and shoot him, why don't you.

Still, the fact remains that he's Ford, and he tends not to sugarcoat shit even when the answer he gives isn't a good one. He tells the truth, even if the truth kind of sucks. That's what being overly-concerned with the facts gets you.]

Out of curiosity, were those times accidental? And how much did you recall?