Joshua Donovan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
damncompass) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ways_back_room2013-11-14 10:13 am
damncompass) wrote in ways_back_room2013-11-14 10:13 am
Entry tags:
Daily Entertainment: Memory Fail Edition!
OH CRAP IT IS THURSDAY.
Thus, I bring you the emergency holy !@#$ I forgot edition:
Memory! How's your character's memory? Are there comparisons with steel traps or elephants? Maybe it's closer to Swiss Cheese.
Are there some things that are easier to remember than others for your character?
Thus, I bring you the emergency holy !@#$ I forgot edition:
Memory! How's your character's memory? Are there comparisons with steel traps or elephants? Maybe it's closer to Swiss Cheese.
Are there some things that are easier to remember than others for your character?
no subject
No, really. Okay, he doesn't remember what happened when he was very young, but from less than six months onwards, he has perfect recall of everything.
no subject
no subject
Jess has a good memory but it's from training and not natural. Same with Andrea.
All others seem to be average, though Quinlan's has been purposefully erased in the past.
Then there's Thalia. Like all demigods of her canon, she has ADHD so her memory isn't the best, unless the subject involved has something to do with Greece and the Gods.
no subject
An canonical example of his highly selective memory: After suffering a severe alcohol blackout, he was able to remember that he saw his cousin in his ex-girlfriend's apartment (Tommy had barged in, stinking drunk before passing out), but could not for the life of him remember what happened to his daughter who'd gone missing after they'd gone out drinking together. Jfc.
no subject
Okay, so she's not up to this point in-Bar yet, but in Carol's most recent canon she kind of fried her brain and almost died doing something stupidly noble and heroic and now she has literally no memories of her life before that. (And because this is comics this is not the first time this has happened to Carol.)
... and I've just realized that means she's going to show up at Milliways sometimes and have no idea where she is... again.
no subject
Yrael: Has an extremely good memory of the past two hundred years or so. Beyond that, details get a little fuzzy - names, relations, when specific things happened... Most likely, he wasn't paying attention. Further beyond that, into the thousand or two thousand year range, things get even fuzzier, mostly due to his imprisonment and the limitations that put upon him. Of the Beginning, he remembers the shape of events and the lingering feelings about what happened, but none of the particulars. No words that were said, only what he still feels about it.
Zelgadiss: Has a very good memory, and a large well of remembered knowledge to draw from. He probably has the best memory of the group he travels with, and is most likely to pick up on particulars of new experiences to be recalled later.
no subject
Trowa has an extremely good memory, despite being one of my few who comes from a world where most people presumably outsource some things to the Google-equivalent. Steel trap with a combination lock, here. His memory is not literally perfect, because he's a human being, but he makes a deliberate attempt to keep organized and very complete mental files, and not to depend on external files of any sort to replace them. His early childhood is kind of a blur, though, because that's how brains usually work and Trowa's early childhood had a good bit of trauma in it too.
Clare doesn't remember most of her childhood, which is a combination of normal forgetting and blocking out memories due to trauma. (Not just the traumatic memories -- she really pretty much doesn't remember the happy times before them either.) After that, I'd say she doesn't have a notably bad memory, but neither is it something she's cultivated. Not Swiss cheese, but maybe havarti.
River... is complicated! For a change. She has an excellent memory, except when she doesn't; it's mostly very, very precise and detailed, but things get mixed up or temporarily misplaced sometimes, and there are some blank spots. She'll tell you that she remembers everything, and it's mostly true, but not totally so.
Regan is another in the good-within-normal-limits camp. She's trained herself to be specifically good with names and faces and appointments.
Thor... man. I am still working out how exactly I want to play that with Asgardian memory. On the whole, I would say his memory is good but not perfect. (And he's another one who's very good with names and faces, and in his case also titles.)
no subject
*looks at the Winter Soldier*
*quietly collapses in fit of horrified laughter*
JUST A FEW, yes!
no subject
*Assigned randomly by him, so a great deal will be dredged up later (eg. his greeting, "What needs done?", to Kate Barlow about the wake was the last way he greeted Urquhart).
no subject
There are somethings she would like to forget, and not just for philosophical/IAMNOTAHYPOCRITE reasons.
if Evil Chicken has a good memory, he doesn't take advantage of it.
Fairy Fixit likely has a good memory for technical stuff, protocols, hardware, etc. She is never shown consulting a manual. Also fannish stuff.
no subject
(Sorry, couldn't resist.)
no subject
Charles works at his memory since his mind is an organized place because that's what keeps him sane and together. Also he's a scholar so having a good memory is part of what he needs to succeed.
Sameth also has a good memory but its attuned to Charter Marks and creating more than words. That's why he sometimes isn't a good prince, he's spent his time focusing on making and understanding the Charter. I also suspect that the Charter has a way of creating memories in the bloodline somehow.
Moist works at his memory because he needs to keep track of his characters and cons.
Demeter is a goddess and while she does have a good memory, its focused on places and people. She remembers people through their connections to their lands.
Tumnus is a historian and while his own memory isn't amazing, its good, he's still bothered by how he lost all the time he spent as a statue.
no subject
Comic book scientists are HERE TO HELP, aren't they just.
no subject
no subject
[WARNING: Link goes to TV Tropes. I am not responsible for you losing the rest of your afternoon productivity. You have been warned.]
no subject
Splinter remembers everything, even if his mun doesn't.
Ida is a computer.
The Loompas take copious notes.
Bumi can be scatter brained unless he's focused, kind of like his dad.
no subject
Asami and Leslie probably have the "best" memories in terms of recalling information, but in very different ways. Asami's memory strengths tend to be focused in motor skills and a very strong visual memory and capability for spatial recognition. She's not so strong with things like episodic memory, emotional association, or even to some degree semantic memory - she's not bad with recalling abstract concepts, but is much better when there's some logical path she can visualize than just, say, rote memorization.
Leslie, on the other hand, has the best episodic and emotional memory. She can easily recall all sorts of stories from her life, and makes her friends celebrate zillions of different holidays for things like "first time we ate waffles together" or "that time we watched this movie." And always remembers to get everyone amazing gifts for their real and made up holidays (unless you're Jerry), and easily recalls all sorts of personal details about others. She's more of a mess logistically, however, as she has nothing like the visual memory Asami does, and will often forget things like where she left something or what she walked into a room for. She'll often keep herself on track by writing notes and schedules for herself and keeping them conveniently posted.
Hiccup is sort of similar to Asami, but not as visually precise as she is, and with more inclination toward emotional association. For instance, he needs his sketchbook more than she would.
Katara and Manny are both pretty average in terms of memory, though Katara is more affected by traumatic emotional memories (having... had them). But they're also both rather practical thinkers who tend to mentally prioritize important tasks and learned skills, as over episodic or emotional memories. (So, e.g., Katara takes a while to recognize that Aang has feelings for her because hadn't really mentally filed away all the obvious indicators of it - she had other mental priorities.)
Marceline and Elle have both had their memories tampered with, though Marceline's instance was comparatively mild. One memory was destroyed, and Finn returned it to her, albeit in a slightly degraded form. Other than that, her ability to remember isn't really enhanced by her vampiric or demonic sides, though she has a lot more memories, and remembers things others don't, due to her age and the length of her ability to experience things. Music tends to be a way for her to mentally weave together, and hold onto, her experiences.
Elle... would have memory capabilities typical for a human if it hadn't been interfered with. As it is, her memory was repeatedly tampered with for years, which caused physical damage (on part with what would have resulted from physical abuse) to her brain. Prior to being healed, she was a little more absent-minded and had some difficulty with direct memory encoding. Post being healed, her memory is much better, but the way she experiences memory is atypical. This is because her experience is not a linear progression, but instead a series of mindsets that were abruptly cut off. Like she was at Point A, moved on to Point B, and then was suddenly at Point A again. She doesn't remember these things happening sequentially - it's much more like sharing a space with many different people, and trying to reconcile an identity among them. She remembers very well what happened to them, but this is filtered through their own experiences, which can be... emotionally exhausting for her. But in terms of how it works, her memory does tend to favor recalling sensory perception, whereas semantic memory is something she has to work at.
no subject
Modern!Natasha's memory...wellllllll, generally speaking, it's still very good but within the ranges of normal. Usually. Details include: having Mad Scientists fuck round with her biographical memory something terrible, trying to wipe things out and implant false memories, so things before that restoration are pretty damn patchy. The after-effects include a tendency towards migraines, and the occasional meltdown when her brain and memory freak out.
She still has issues with the whole ballet thing. Thanks, Red Room!
no subject
Whenever that is.
*pats the two Soviet spies very carefully*
no subject
The Bruces are both mega-smart, though in the case of Banner I suspect this did used to mean he'd sometimes forget to eat and sleep when he was working.
Gene pretends he's an idiot, and does forget things like birthdays and anniversaries, but can remember practically every scumbag he's put away, ever. And what for, and their family members, and how long they got in jail, etc.
Javert remembers everything pertaining to police work, and seeing as he has nothing in life beyond that it pretty much equates to him remembering everything. Except how hot stoves can be. His memory is less perfect in Milliways because his psyche is basically Swiss cheese at this point.
Valjean probably has the weirdest memory issues. He's a smart guy, but emotion and trauma fuck him up when recalling things from his past. His whole nineteen years in prison were unreal to him while he was enduring them, and are possibly more real now that they're in the past and the physical agony is dimmed in the memory. Also, his hatred and rage at the world has gone since he left the galleys, so when he remembers it's with a whole new perspective. Memory is weird for him in that sense. On a practical, day-to-day level, he's fine. He's really smart, and always thinking. He doesn't neglect details, so not many things slip his mind. Apart from the need for self-preservation. He's good at forgetting that.
no subject
Simon had an eidetic memory chip surgically inserted between the hemispheres of his brain when he was 27, which gave him perfect recall of everything he experienced, until the chip decayed due to sabotage about 35 years later.
He has some short-term memory loss as a result of losing the chip, and he both exaggerates the memory loss for security purposes (protecting himself and the people he cares about from old enemies) and tries to cover up his actual memory lapses (because it's hard to be a formerly "perfect" perfectionist).