John Beaumann

I hate my bitch ex-wife (new year's day update: it's because I killed children and she shot me in the head)

"I don't remember a whole lot. Being shot in the head will do that to you.  The only thing that left me with more than just a fleeting impression was my ex-wife. I wish I remembered anything else. My friends, my family, hell, even just my favorite book. It hurts a lot sometimes, knowing I'm missing crucial parts of what made me myself, but I guess you tend to remember the person that tried to kill you."

(fuck this isn't a happy memory but i like this too much so i'll keep it)

John is terrified of losing people. He is slow to trust or get close because he doesn't want to go through the pain of forgetting once more. Of course it's unlikely he forgets again since it's not like his ex-wife will track him down with a bullet reserved especially for his noggin, but more realistically he doesn't want to have to go through the pain of losing people when he DOES have memories of them. It was painful for him knowing that he had forgotten everyone dear to him, imagine how painful it would be for him to both have lost a person as well as having memories of them. He consciously avoids thinking about it at all costs, despite the fact that he worries about it often. When he does latch on to someone emotionally, he latches on HARD. Once that switch happens in his mind, he becomes fiercely loyal and protective of whoever it is out of the fear of their death. This is also why he behaves so protectively towards families, and more specifically children, as well. He doesn't want anyone in said family to experience the same pain he worries so much about.

"The one happy memory I CAN think of is waking up. It was on a small cot, in the village I was deployed at and left for dead in. Amazingly, the village wasn't completely ravaged. I had been nursed back to health by one small family. It was just a father and his daughter. I don't remember how, but my intervention saved his daughter. I became very close with them as they helped me back to life. When I look back on my happiest memory, I look back on the time I spent with those people. The first people whose lives I can remember making a difference in."

i know i haven't been PLAYING him that way but i cannot think of a way to do so in normal circumstances

i just want to mention that because it's like his one memory, he based his entire (new) personality and ideologies around the fact that he saved some kids once and that his wife was a bitch, and to be told that it was all a lie and he was what he despised most this whole time? awful

he doesn't believe it fully, but there's this nagging feeling in his head that tells him he's lying to himself.