#au where the pale emitter gives kim amnesia

[spilledkaleidoscope]

this pale emitter au is what ive been saying for MONTHS . i personally LOVE to think that any impacts the Pale can have on someone's mind is solely down to how strong they are mentally at any given moment when directly being in/in proximity of the Aberration

AND THAT LEADS ME TO THE OTHER EFFECTS . predominately the impacts of The Pale and how it can (not split minds, BUT) can create distinct, singular thoughts and amplifying different parts of PERSONALITIES. Harry Du Bois does your thought cabinet project seem more alive since the bender?

Kitsuragi's stress-induced-pale-aberration could be directly from the weight of finishing this case, the intense feeling if doom before the tribunal, having to look after this amnesiac man child, the Pissing Competition between 41st and the 57th, the 2mm hole's direct aftermath and the fear of expansion.

There are unlimited different ideas that could be thrown around . i LOVE the weakened mind theory .

YOU KNOW

this makes me think about WHY Harry is actually less susceptible to the pale emitter (barring the scenario where you go in without Kim). Maybe there is just less life to get scrambled? Maybe the stress gets divided across the skills? Interesting to think about.

It's also interesting that Harry senses it earlier (which is for gameplay reasons BUT STILL) but is still affected less.

A thing I was considering when writing A Cracked Foundation is the idea of a mind that is more set in it's way being more likely to take damage from pale interference. Less flexibility to deal with the effects, more structure to destroy

[spilledkaleidoscope]

I am still not normal about the pale emitter amnesia au

everyone’s been talking about it from Harry’s POV but I am fascinated with the effects that would have on Kim, beyond the initial confrontation. I think a big part of his character in canon is how well-defined his sense of self is— it’s where he gets his “cool” from. Sometimes his identity is at odds with the world, and he’s very careful about what parts of himself he shows to others, but at his core Kim is someone who very much Knows who he is…

which is why it’s so fascinating to think about who he becomes when all that knowledge is stripped away in an instant. I think because he doesn’t have anything in his past that he’s actively trying to forget, he would struggle a lot more with the amnesia than Harry does— kind of in an “oh God, I used to be a fully realized person and all of that is just… gone, wtf do I do now” sort of way— and I’m still trying to figure out how the hell he’d recover from something like that.

(this of course does not even address the effects that, in turn, would have on Harry— how unmooring it would be for him to lose the person who has been his anchor, when he himself still knows so little about the world. Thinking about him telling Kim info but it’s all stuff pre-amnesia Kim told him & taking morale damage)

anyways there’s not really a question in here I’m just Having Thoughts & wanted to share

YEYEYE im also rotating the whole thing in my head! It's interesting that you specifically mention the way this may impact Kim's personality - that's actually sth I went into a bit for the (abandoned) swap AU fic I dabbled with a while back. Kim essentially being influenced by 1. Having a constant state of stress at not understanding a lot of what's happening around him (and how he's Supposed to act) and 2. Rebuilding himself on the information he can gather - even though it may be wrong. It resulted in a way more brash, angry Kim who refused to cooperate with most people and operated on the assumption that anyone might be a threat to him.

In this scenario too... I would think that his fear/discomfort around the Pale sits so deep that when he learns what happened to him it would be a lot more disturbing than Harry learning how he got into that situation.