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

[burninglight]

[Too many. Enough to make his head hurt. The rage briefly overtook all other emotions, and Ardyn drew the sword at his belt to point at his brother-]

[...only to blink at the weapon in his hand as if he didn't recognize it to begin with.]

[founderinglight]

[...Yeah that one's. New. And also weird that Ardyn would go for a sword worn at his belt - that he would even wear one like a normal person - rather than going for the Armiger.

Izunia just looks down at it with a faint expression of 'that's a thing.']

...I don't think the roses suit you.

[burninglight]

Sh...shut up. I don't want to hear a single word of criticism from you of all people.

[founderinglight]

Well it's that or point out that you have an entire fucking Armiger full of weapons and you still went for the stupid mall toy, which I know that you sharpened by hand both because they broadcasted you doing it and because I've sold no less than four of the exact same stupid replica sword, but here we are!

[He's tired and cranky.]

[burninglight]

[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?

[founderinglight]

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?!

[burninglight]

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.

[founderinglight]

[Izunia lets the dagger go to run his hand through his hair - the fact that it's Ardyn's own adopted gesture does not, for once, even cross his mind.]

Hells, at least mine hasn't... done anything like that, in any of the ones I remember.

[And then a thought, brief and terrifying, strikes him - ]

Are you still...?

[The glimpse of panic in his face should finish that question nicely.]

[burninglight]

...I'm...it depends. Sometimes I'm not, and other times I am. It's...lessened, in one case. I don't know what I am right now.

[founderinglight]

[A small, slow exhale, that of someone who is making an effort to keep calm.]

You're my ridiculous spiteful brother, as always.

[burninglight]

[...Slowly, hesitantly, he lowered the sword--keeping it tightly grasped in his hand just in case he changed his mind.]

I'm not your brother anymore. Or if I am, it's in so few realities that it's ceased to matter.

[founderinglight]

Don't be stupid. You were always my brother. That's...

[When did his hands start shaking?

He stops, inhales, exhales slowly again.]

That's the weight I was unable to bear. The red-hot truth that I couldn't handle lest it burn straight through me. You were always my brother.

[burninglight]

You've long since lost any right to call me your family, Izunia. I don't care what manner of weight rested upon your shoulders, for it was nothing placed beside what you put upon mine.

[founderinglight]

You don't get to choose that. Spurn me in your own heart all you wish, but you do not get to decide mine.

[It's sudden and vehement and his only lifeline to his tenuous hold on reality.]

[burninglight]

I should think I get to make even one choice not dictated by you or the gods, and you will not take that from me.

I deserve my hatred. I deserve to say 'I am Lucis Caelum no longer' if that is what I should wish.

[founderinglight]

...And from that I won't stop you.

[There's a difference, to him.]

Who you have been and who you choose to be from this or any other moment forward will not make my love for you disappear.

[burninglight]

Oh, so we're calling that 'love', now? Your ability to redefine terms to fit your own narrative remains astounding, Your Majesty.

[founderinglight]

Yes, Ardyn, doing my utmost to hurt the thing that took you away from me was love, blindly mistaken as it was. And you know damn well you would do the same to Xander for so much as laying a hand on Church so I'll not hear a fucking word otherwise from you.

[Hello yes they broadcast that part.]

[burninglight]

Don't you dare act as if those are the same situation. If I were to tear Xander's arms off like the insect he is, I'd not be doing the same to the person I claim to protect in the process.

[founderinglight]

Why is it so impossible to get into your thick skull that I didn't think that was you?!

[Is that a yell or a sob, Izunia.]

[burninglight]

Because I don't care! I don't care what you thought, what you wanted to do, or anything you believed you were doing out of your blind and stupid affection!

I care about what you did to me, Izunia!

[founderinglight]

Whether you care or not doesn't mean that it doesn't matter!

[The desperation in his voice... seems to surprise even Izunia. He actually stops, one hand fisted in the ends of his scarf.]

...I wish we knew how to do anything other than fight over this, over and over again.