COLLAPSE THE WAVE MEME

[rampantfantasy]

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!

Comments

Prompto Argentum | OTA | Airlocked, The Far Shore, PhanRift, Arimoi, Fate/ AU

[photoshooter]

[Honestly, it's hard to tell just how many different stories have just been crammed into Prompto. He's about the same size and shape he always was, twenty years old and slender with his stupid birdboy hair and slim-fitting black clothing.

On the other hand, he appears to be halfway changing into this handsome fellow, going dark and insubstantial while a few strands of him glow from within. Magically, he doesn't ping as daemonic, at least. He might, however, ping as at least half ghost.

Whatever he is, he's curled up on the ground, whimpering a little, arms wrapped around his head like that'll help him contain everything he remembers, somehow.]

[missleadingquestions]

[Ghosts are about the most familiar thing to our witchy zora ghost-channeling super-hero-fan breadmaker('s assistant), so upon seeing strings of ghosty material rather than flashes of bright blonde hair, Maya makes her way over. As much as she's dealing with, though, it's always others that need attention first, and she follows the same story all of her other lifetimes have.]

Are you okay?

[She asks, from a partial distance, not too close but not too far, pushing hair out of her face to further take in the sight before her. He looks super familiar, and super unfamiliar all at once.]

[photoshooter]

[He starts and uncurls just a bit, blue--very blue, glowing blue--eyes peeking out from between shadow fingers.]

I...

[His voice comes out faint--not just because he's weak, but like it has to come from far away. He blinks rapidly, closes his somewhat-glowing eyes, and shakes his head. When he tries again, this time the voice doesn't come from anywhere, far away or not. It's in her head.]

I think this is easier.

[He sounds shaky, but it doesn't seem to take as much effort as forcing air to vibrate with his semi-incorporeal body.]

...Maya...?

[He remembers her, and more than half of him has never met her at all.]

[missleadingquestions]

Prompto!

[Maya replies reflexively, kneeling down in front of Prompto to take better care, and puts her hands together in half-surprise and half-enthusiasm.]

I know you! Jeez, good thing I'm still good with names.

[And then, with less hesitation, she reaches out to touch his arm. It's weird, because she knows-and-doesn't-know him, but a good part of her brain tells her he's one of her friends, at the very least. And really, that's all she needs.]

I can't believe you just spook-talked me!

[photoshooter]

[His arm is sort of there? Sort of not. She touches something, but it has a lot less mass than an arm really should have. Prompto shivers, scoots back, and rearranges himself into a sitting position.]

Haha, Iiiii guess most of me can't believe that, either? [He looks down at his hands.] This is really, really weird. How much do you... Is this happening to you, too?

[Prompto makes a meaningless gesture over his face and head.]

All the... everything?

[missleadingquestions]

[Maya pulls her hand back when Prompto shivers, fingers curling in before she puts her hands in her lap.]

You mean the really-weird-video-game-past-lives-thing. Right?

[That's how it registers to her, anyway.]

Does it feel like you don't actually know me, either?

[photoshooter]

I definitely don't. Um, in some places. Does that make any sense?

[He holds his head in his hands and breathes out, the wispy edges of his bandanna and his hair waving like slow candle flame.]

I... I met you in Insomnia, we had a whole adventure together. But I also met you somewhere else, and I'd never met you anywhere on Eos at all, it was just me and Noct and the guys? It seems like most of the time it was just me and Noct and the guys, but then sometimes the guys weren't there, only I met them later, and... and this is soooo messed UP!

[Prompto laughs helplessly, borderline hysterical.]

What about you, do you remember not-remembering me?

[missleadingquestions]

[Maya, for the most part, seems focused. All the while though, it might be evident in the flashing of her eyes and sudden flickers of a frown; it's super disconcerting to have someone talking in her head! She adjusts as quick as she can, focusing on Prompto to push the feeling of his voice back to him, to imagine that it is coming physically from him like a speaker instead of ringing inside her ears.

...She also tries not to be distracted by how anime he looks all half-ghost like that. If that was a video game, she'd totally play it. (She's coping, okay.)]

I do! I mean, I remember remembering you, too. I met you in Insomnia too! But if I'm being honest, there's a lot of places I feel like I don't remember you at all.

[She pushes her hair behind her ear and purses her lips in a bit of a pout, because in her mind that almost sounds a little meaner than she intended.]

But you mean, there was a time when you'd been from Eos, and you met me somewhere else? I wasn't from Eos either, right? And there were like, really weird cultists?

[you're one to talk]

[photoshooter]

Yeah! And a bunch of other people got kidnapped, and--oh, man, I hope they're okay. Some of them were just kids.

[You're one to talk. Prompto sighs, sort of relieved. They've got those two in common, then.]

I don't think I met you any other time. Just those two--Insomnia, and that other world where they locked us up. But there's a lot of other stuff that doesn't fit.

[missleadingquestions]

Oh! Good. So you don't know me there, either.

[Now she feels a little less bad.]

There's tons of places I never met you, like, I was stuck in this weird city with a big red gem for years!

[photoshooter]

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.

don't worry gramps is here

[founderinglight]

[Hey Prompto you're doing just fine.

You know who else is doing just fine?

Izunia (or Caster if you'd still prefer to call him that), who recognizes your shape and is starting to carefully approach, ignoring the memories too thick in his head (nothing new, there!) -

Until he sees what you're... sort of turning into and then there's just the sound of a 6'5 man hitting the floor with his ass first and trying not to hyperventilate okay this isn't working]

EVERYTHING IS DAIJOUKAY

[photoshooter]

[The noise startles Prompto and he scrambles back with a stifled whimper until he sees who it is and freezes. And then he sees who it isn't, unfreezes a little, and says, tremulously, in a faint whisper-voice:]

Cas... um... I...Izunia? That's you, right?

[Please be Izunia please don't be Ardyn please be Izunia dear Shiva please]

[founderinglight]

[The voice at least is the same. That much is. It's okay, it's the same. If he just keeps his eyes closed...

There's furious nodding, briefly, before Izunia pushes his face into his hands and starts trying to control his breathing.

On what may or may not be the bright side, there does still seem to be some fragment of their contract in play, if the red marks on Prompto's arm are anything to go by.]

[photoshooter]

[Those look much more alarming on his skin when he's halfway... whatever he is, than they did on his skin when he was all the way what he's supposed to be. Human. Or... not, as the case may be, sometimes. Prompto gulps and changes the way he's holding himself, going from scared and defensive to sitting cross-legged, aping calm, making himself small and innocuous and not a threat.

It's easier, it would be easier, to speak psychically--or magically, or whatever--but Prompto doesn't think that's a good idea right now.]

It's okay. I won't hurt you. I, I'm not a daemon.

[That much he can say with confidence.]

I-I might be a ghost? Um... I got summoned like you did, too, I'm an Archer, but I'm also... [He trails off, then gulps and shakes his head.] W-well, whatever I am, I'm still me. Just me.

[founderinglight]

From personal experience, ghosts don't usually look like that.

[As long as he keeps his hands over his face, breathing's... easier. Snarky deflecting comments are also easier, because oh hey his political background is very nearly a constant. The only thing that's more certain is, of course, Ardyn.

Breathe, Izunia, breathe.]

...I know you're not. But it doesn't make it any easier to look at. I haven't been able to so much as look at tar in any quantity since...

[Since the thing they don't talk about because they don't talk about Ardyn!]

[photoshooter]

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?

[founderinglight]

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.]

[photoshooter]

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.]

[founderinglight]

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?

[andthenyoudie]

[...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.

[photoshooter]

[Oh, thank Shiva, she picked one where he's from Eos, where his story's easy to follow. He blinks, shivering at the reduction of pain and confusion, and then looks up with his blue-glowing eyes, less dark and roiling but still somehow not quite substantial.

He's all right. That feels right, that it's a statement. Statements are even better than commands, they're just facts. Like photos. Photographic evidence can be doctored or misinterpreted, but it's not usually wrong.

Prompto waits a moment for her name to slide into his forebrain, but it doesn't come. It's not like she's someone he's met and forgotten, but rather... she's familiar the way warmth is familiar, something that doesn't always have a name.

Weird.]

Um, thanks. [He tries pushing himself up and finds that it's a thing he can do without too much struggle, so he sits up.] Hi. Hello. ...I don't... know you, do I?

[andthenyoudie]

You do. You don't recognize me, but you know me.

[She could elaborate on that little half-riddling turn of phrase, but she doesn't. She just keeps her hand on his forehead a little longer, until she's certain that he's anchored in the one timeline she's sifted out enough that the others are more just whispers and echoes than warring competing memories, and then she draws her hand back and folds her arms over her knees.]

I haven't always been very nice to you. And I think you knew that, too. I can't say I'm sorry, exactly — but it wasn't personal, at least. It just is what it is.

[She watches him carefully, through green eyes that shift and glimmer with flashes of gold — through irises whose colors somehow don't seem to hold still, always shifting minutely like tricks of the light.]

I'll tell you who I am, if you do something for me in return.

[photoshooter]

Huh?

[He wasn't quite paying full attention, watching those eyes. They're so pretty, and the gold isn't dead like other golds he's seen, doesn't make him think of wolves or daemons but rather sunlight. Sunlight through high, thick leaves, like the Lucian forests outside Insomnia's walls.]

Oh, it's okay. I'm used to girls not being nice to me, so it's not a big deal. ...Uhhhh, that sounded a lot worse when I said it out loud.

[Maybe he does know her. He's always stupid around girls, but that--it's almost like he does know her, or knows she knows him--like she already knows how stupid he is, so he doesn't have to wind himself up so tightly to try not to be.]

What do you want me to do?

[He doesn't even need a reward.]

[andthenyoudie]

[It's funny, really, because in a way he's doing it already. It's cute how he seems to find her distracting; that's a thought that makes her smile, too, because it means that deep down, there's a part of him that's resonating with her, reacting to her presence.

It means there's a part of Prompto Argentum that loves life. That's always a nice thing to see in people. Especially in the people who've had it as hard as he has.]

You just have to be yourself, that's all. I don't mean "be yourself", like what people say when they really mean "be yourself, but only the best parts, and still try to be sort of what the other person wants anyway". I mean yourself, completely, and don't worry about who I am, or what it means.

[She thinks a minute, and then adds: ]

That means you can get mad at me or hate me, if that's what you really feel. When you find out what I am.

["What". Not "who". That's curious, isn't it.]