lazybox | COLLAPSE THE WAVE MEME

COLLAPSE THE WAVE MEME

Collapse the Waveform Meme

A meme for characters CRAU'd to heck and back.

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How many times now have you used that journal? How many places have you played that character?

How many friends, lovers, families have they found?

Well, here's some headache-inducing news: Ultimately, they're all the same person.

And now, the wave form has collapsed, and they actually are the same person. All of those memories, plus any new abilities and scars, smashing down into a single soul, a single incarnation.

On the bright side, at least whatever universe this is, you're not alone in it. On the less bright side, good luck navigating your relationships now.

Any CRAU character can respond to this meme, though of course, it's more interesting for characters who have been to at least two games. Meet your old friends, your new friends... Your friends' friends? Whatever. Consider noting down not only what games your characters have been to, but if you're open to three-people threads, for extra juggling-of-memories fun!

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Years?! Holy crap, that sucks! I don't... I don't think I've been anywhere except for Insomnia for that long.

[He thinks about it, then shakes his head.]

No, wait. The other dead guys--they said we were, I don't know, lost or in a coma or something for two years. But it didn't feel like that to me, it felt more like a few weeks all together... aw, man. I'm not making a lot of sense. This doesn't make a lot of sense.

Yeah. O-okay, I understand.

[He remembers, vaguely, how scared he was when the changes started happening, how much he tried to put them out of his mind until there was no denying them anymore. He bites his lip for a while.]

...I can go find a sheet?

[ Yuuri doesn't look like she's changed much. Not at first.

Oh, she's dressed different but nothing that looks too outlandish for Yuuri. But then you take a closer look and some off details pop out. Her eyes, usually a warm, deep olive are brighter now -- gold, with just the slightest sheen of green to them. Her hair's loose, with none of her usually accessories. But going by the look on her face as she stands there, cradling her head in her hands like she's trying to ward off a migraine, there's been more crammed into her head than is apparent.

There's so much of it, a whole knotty mess of timelines and histories. Some that start off in Megurigaoka, some that don't. Some that end in Megurigaoka or some far off world, or a tacky mall in the middle of space. Sometimes she's a little younger, sometimes she's a little older -- there's no constants. Not even her name.

She's Yuuri Wakasa, Kotori, Clarita Lucis Caelum, Thorn -- all of them at once and trying to sort through them is just too much. ]

[As much as it doesn't make sense, something he says forces a gasp from Maya.]

You died, too! I mean, not with me, but you died too?!

[Ardyn scowled, Armiger flickering to life around him-]

[...and failing, coming in sparks of sputtering magenta with a brief outline of the Blade of the Mystic as the only clear discernible shape.]

You were saying?

Cliches about spooky spirits aside, I'll be fine.

[He'll just keep his eyes closed for a while because that's not a totally irrational way to have a conversation. It's cool. He piggybacked on blind Ignis for a while he can handle himself unless there's fighting, which, it's Prompto. Prompto is probably not going to fight him.

His breathing's evening out, at least.]

[The hand in Asch's--wearing the same fingerless gloves as ever--was perhaps a little less warm than the average human should have been, but not so far gone as to be a walking corpse just yet.]

Yeah?

[He lifts his head to look at her with concern, and then he has to take stock of his answer and clarifies:]

I... three times, I think. Once because, I don't know, I was in some kind of legend about Noct? And then I came back as... Iggy brought me back to fight for him. And then another time I died and I was older but I came back as a ghost and worked for... for Lucina. She was a goddess and I was her shinki.

And then there was another time I met Lucina, but it was a show, and first we had to execute her when it wasn't her fault, and then I--I got killed protecting Lady Lunafreya.

Maybe it's not for you, maybe it's for me. I don't like looking like this, either.

[He draws his legs up and wraps his arms around them, curling into a li'l ball of darkness.]

[ There's not a lot of things Yuuri feels comfortable calling constants, with how much is packed into her head. But Ardyn's a common enough reoccurance that she feels a jump of relief in her chest when she spots him. And then almost immediately, her heart sinks when she registers that in none of the histories she remembers them having together has that ever happened to

(?which name is the right one again?)

him. ]

What-- [ IT IS MOST DEFINITELY NOT FINE ] What happened to your eye?!

[No constants, but... some constants.

When he sees the girl, his immediate impulse is concern, to call her name - but it dies on his lips, because which name. Yuuri, the spirited violent girl who he made (and failed to keep) a promise to, who survived so much; Clarita, the girl his brother made, the radiant little light in the one world where they are all, for the moment, happy.

It doesn't matter, does it? Either way, she's his brother's daughter and he loves her. And that, more than anything, comes out in Izunia's voice - a little hesitant, a little strained, but gentle and concerned.]

Are you alright?

[Don't ask questions you know the answers to, Izunia. Nobody here on this meme is alright.]

[Maya watches Prompto move while he 'talks', nodding as she takes in the information. She doesn't recognise Lucina's name, but she does pinpoint the word 'execute'.

She hesitates, a blank silence permeating the waves between them, before she looks as though she's almost reading off something in her head.]

...Does the phrase 'killing game' mean anything to you?

[Her attention returns to him once she's done reading the name off the back cover of a memory.]

I take it you can't -

[Hell, there was something there for a minute. Come back, stray thought. Come baaack.]

...focus on one of the more normal ones and shift it that way?

Huh? Yu--no, Clari-?

[...what was this girl's name again? The sentiment behind it was more or less the same, he was certain--but some of the details felt conflicted or nearly lost.]

...I'm alright. I-...there was something I had to fix.

[...Oh. Well, isn't this an interesting state of events.

People's lives, you see, are a little bit like threads. Well...sort of. They're actually nothing like threads at all, to be honest, but human conception doesn't really have a good analogy to allow them to perceive the state of life as we know it the way that Life does, so sometimes you just have to take what you can get. One life, one thread, with a definite beginning and an ultimate end. Life, a little bit like a sunbeam, with a point of origin and then a ray moving ever forward, mostly in a straight line, but sometimes being bent and refracted and diffused and stratified into rainbows when put through a prism. Life, like a trickle of water, with an origin and a downhill cascade, seeking out the path of least resistance and weaving its way around obstacles as it goes, never quite in a straight line, but always in approximately the same direction.

This...is not the way that life is supposed to be. This is a fifty-car pileup of forward motion-s, a Gordian knot of threads. This is a snarl of choices, conflicts, decisions, all smashed together into an impossible tangle, and the sight of it makes her feel uneasy. It also makes her want to reach out and pull it apart, somehow, which theoretically she could do, but —

Well. Maybe she should. The obvious pain he's in is breaking her heart, and so she wanders over carefully, crouching down with her knees together and her balance perched on the tips of her toes, and reaches out to touch his forehead with her fingertips.

It's not quite to the point of pulling all his timelines apart. But she can impose order on him, a little — give one a little bit more primacy than most. It's less comfort than she could offer, maybe, but of course, nobody ever said that Life was kind.]

You're all right.

[It's not soothing, and not really a question. It simply is.]

Hello. Hi. You're all right, now.

That's...

[And now Izunia is, briefly, scared, because he just as quickly grabs for his own Armiger -

Which fades in normally and lets him pull first the greatsword in question, then his rapier, then one of the paired daggers Ignis normally uses out just the way it should.]

What happened to yours?!

...You can do that?

[To be fair, he's been hyperfocusing on this one distressing thread of existence. It's really upsetting, okay.

He thinks about it, then tries to hold onto what seems to be the core of who he is, or at least the most oft-repeated story: Eos. Sunlight. So much fun, even when they almost die. Noct.

Noct, Noct, Noct.

Like that, he solidifies. Mostly. Prompto's still a little faint overall, but he's person-colored again, not a shade. Not a ghost. Mostly.]

[Yeah, like he really cares - from the amount of Scourge in Ardyn, that's about what he expected.

(It's also the temperature of the Soma one version of him is used to kissing, but don't think about kissing and dad in the same sentence.)

He squeezes the hand, instead.]

Okay?

[ Whichever one she is -- Yuuri, Clarita -- draws in a slow breath and then hisses it out between her teeth. Almost immediately upon hearing his voice, two directly opposing reactions bounce off each other in her head and it's almost enough to make her wince. Clarita wants to brighten and rush to him and make sure he's alright. Yuuri wants to shrink back, hiss at him like a stray cat and demand to know what he wants.

All and all, it's doing nothing for her steadily growing headache.

She squints at him, her eyes a little cloudy, like it's taking all her effort just to focus. ]

Which... which one are you?

[ Izunia, she's fairly sure this one is Izunia. But it's so hard to think anything at all that she can't even be completely sure which brother it is she's addressing. ]

[The golden-colored tentacles coming out of his sides are new. So is the collar with violet liquid flowing through its tubing, but the tentacles are way more fun? The Persona's fun too but kind of a pain to have out when he's not actively using it.

The best cure for a headache is trying out all the fun things he can do with this combination of abilities.

Right now that means figuring how far he can stretch these tentacles. One might wave hello at you.]

A guess, based on something I was talking about with Goro once at the Station.

[Assuming Prompto, like, remembers the station, but if he didn't wouldn't he only know the name Caster?

Ugh, this is too complicated, he needs diagrams.]

Any luck?

I-

[Which was it? Was it the pseudo-magitek bracer fused to his arm, hidden under his sleeve? Or was it the fading of the Crystal's light with the twisted fulfillment of the prophecy and survival of the Chosen? Or the tempering of abilities from that damnable god and his miserable tome?]

[In his hand, the thin blade wavered just slightly.]

I don't...know.

It's not alright!

[ That indignance, anger born of worry, comes in stereo both from Clarita and Yuuri and the fact that at least part of her is thinking and feeling in unison now makes the dull pounding in her head start to settle down some. ]

I don't... th--this didn't happen in anything that I remember. Was it something that happened after I--?

[ The question hangs but she doesn't really need to finish it. If they both remember InterGal 7 then both of them know what she means. ]

...Blue scarf, my dear, I think you'd know that well enough by now.

[One constant. That, at least, can be relied on.]

Unless you mean 'are you the uncle who mistook me for an assistant or the one I threw a sword at,' in which case the answer is 'both, and then some' evidently.

[Unless one of those things doesn't mean something to her in which case... Forget he said that.

Slowly, he offers her a hand, letting her take it as she will, even if what he really wants is to pull her close and make the world a little more okay and solid for her the same way he would for his own children.]

I'm...alright.

[At least, as close to it as he was getting.]

There's--...I think someone's liable to be looking for me, right now. [But he wasn't sure who--if they would have impossibly vivid green eyes, or one sightless one.]

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COLLAPSE THE WAVE MEME

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