wethecrack | Meme, Myself, And I

Meme, Myself, And I

THE ME AND ME MEME

Through all the different worlds and jamjars the residents of the Meadous have been in, there is one thing consistent among the inhabitants: they have, during their time active in the jamjars, been changed. Maybe some have only really felt the effects of physical aging, but more than likely emotional and mental changes have come with it too. Considering that, how would they react if they got to meet themselves before those changes took place? What would others think of theses younger versions, yet to have to deal with the chaos of other worlds?

Here's where you got to find out.

Inexplicably, your muse is greeted one day by a younger version of themselves. This could be right from the beginning of their canon, or right before they were pulled into their first game. Regardless, it's a version of themselves that hasn't entered a jamjar yet, and that they have not seen for a long, long time. Who knows how that 'reunion' will go.

Post a toplevel of your character interacting with their younger self. Post around to others toplevels, either with both versions of your character or just one. Your character has gone through some big changes. Guess the character, and others, get to see how big.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

“No, screw that,” Pokey says, grabbing the kid’s arm in a huff. “You pick up another rock, and I promise you won’t like where it ends up.”

The child – himself, twelve years old again – struggles get his arm out of the teenager’s grasp. “Wow, you really are stupid,” the child-Pokey spits back, frowning as hard as he can at his future shadow. The child, physically, isn’t all that different from Pokey. Shorter, sure. Even a bit heavier perhaps, hair somehow even shaggier than the teen’s. The attitude, however… “Who’s so stupid they get that upset at someone throwing a rock at a dumb duck.”

“Okay, even if the duck is stupid, don’t just throw something at it,” Pokey tries to get the words out through gritted teeth. He knew he was bad; this shouldn’t be a surprise. Having to deal with himself like this, though, was still something he hadn’t planned to ever bother with. Had hoped that he wouldn’t. But here he is, playing babysitter to a younger, meaner version of himself. “They didn’t even do anything to you, genius.”

“They were ugly and worthless,” the younger Pokey says, sticking his tongue out. “Could’ve blinded me with how dumb it looks.” Then the boy goes silent, just frowning mightily up at the older Pokey. Then the younger Pokey does the only thing he thinks to do: he bites his captor’s arm. Hard.

Pokey yells more in surprise then in pain as he lets his younger self go, the tween happily running away with the intent to disappear. “Ha! I win again, you stoop! I always win!” The boy makes an “L” shape in the air with his hand as he continues to run away.

“Jesus,” is all the older Pokey can think to say, watching his younger self escape, disgust etched on his face.

After confirming that it's safe for them to touch, Eliza has been leading her own younger self around the place for a bit. Although younger Eliza has hid behind her older self a few times when spotting one of the trolls, or even just stared suspiciously at them, Pokey seems normal enough. Although the younger kid running away...

"Um," says older Eliza. "Is that your younger brother? Or..."

"Hi," says younger Eliza. "I'm Eliza too!"

"It's me," Pokey hisses the words through his teeth as he watches his younger self run away. He seems to be satisfied at the moment with just letting young him go. Let him get his ass beat somehow. Pokey sure doesn't care.

He does look at the smaller version of Eliza by the girl's side. He tries to smile, still struck a bit from the run in with himself. "Hey, I'm Pokey," he says. "You got your Pokemon yet, like older you here?"

"He doesn't act like you at all," notes the older Eliza, although she doesn't move to chase after the younger Pokey.

The younger one shakes her head. "I'm planning on it soon, though!" she exclaims. "But I want it to be a surprise. I want to hear more about being a magical girl anyways."

Older Eliza looks just the tiniest bit awkward at that declaration. From her younger self's enthusiasm, it seems she doesn't know the full story of what happened then.

Edited 2017-09-23 10:51 (UTC)

Pokey still doesn't move after his younger self either. Fine. Let the little bastard get lost and in trouble. The kid probably deserves it.

Pokey looks over at the two Eliza's though at the younger's exclamation. Raises an eyebrow a little bit at the reaction that the older Eliza gives to it. He thinks Eliza had mentioned the magical girl thing to him a bit before. He's still not sure he totally gets it, but it doesn't fully look like something the older wants to tell her younger self about. He knows some of it, but not all of it, himself. Not his place to until Eliza decides she's comfortable enough to talk about it.

"...That's pretty cool, but sometimes the best things are leaving surprises surprises, right?" And not having to worry about the worst parts of the future. "It can be best not to know everything."

Goodbye small Pokey. Be free as the wind.

Eliza looks quite grateful that Pokey isn't implying more about what exactly went down, although her younger self looks a bit thoughtful at that. "Yeah, I guess!" she says. "But it was really nice to know that we'd end up making so many friends! And getting a real wizard as a teacher! But it's nice to meet you personally too, Pokey!"

Older Eliza chuckles at that.

The younger self makes the grand mistake of bumping into Lili, who scowls a little. She casually throws back a warning, "Hey- watch it!" Only when she actually looks at the kid stomping away does she whip around in surprise. She glances back at the Pokey she knows then the twelve year old.

"Hollld on." She psychicly picks the boy up, a psi-hand manifesting to heft him up as she walks towards Pokey. "Is this- are you making clones or is this just a twin I was unaware of?"

Pokey the younger just sticks his tongue out and pulls down on one of his eyelids as he tries to get past Lili. He doesn't get far, of course, before he gets pulled up by the psychic hand, immediately trying to grab at it.

The older Pokey, meanwhile, just runs a hand down his face. "Trust me - if I had a choice with this 'clone', he wouldn't be here. He just. Showed up."

"Let me go, freak!" the younger Pokey shouts, still grappling with the psychic hand. "You'll regret this! You don't know how important I am!"

"Apparently fate wants to torture you." Lili deadpans cutting a glance back to the struggling child. He'll quickly discover trying to escape the psychic hand isn't going to be all that easy. Any purchase he finds when grabbing at the psychic projection is slim to none.

"Do you know what we're going to do about this?" It goes from Pokey's problem to their problem within a moment, the psychic involving herself readily. "Cause I'm pretty sure tiny you here is gonna be a problem."

"Tch, always has," Pokey replies, hunching his shoulders a bit as he glares at his young doppelganger. The smaller him sneers back, sticking his tongue out at the older Pokey.

"My plan is to get him in a cage and bury him about twenty feet under," Pokey says bluntly. "Unless you have any objections I think this plan is pretty perfect. ...Or you could talk to the jellyfish about taking him away."

"We're not burying tiny you in the ground. I'm fairly sure that would count as murder." Lili is looking at the technicalities opposed to the moral side of things. She reaches out without hesitation to touch Pokey's arm lightly, even with the weird situation she's not shy about having contact with her sort of boyfriend. He's obviously not happy about the whole thing.

"We should ask Zephyr what is going on for one, maybe- I dunno it's a wish gone wrong?"

"Is it really murder if its me?" Pokey asks, gaze switching from the small him that's hanging in the air. He lets his own arm slide through Lili's touch until he's holding her hand in his. It's appreciated, even more than usual, and he's hardly going to say no to a chance to be closer to Lili.

He huffs a little. As much as he wants to kind of abandon mini him to his own devices and possible ass beatings, Lili has a point. "It's a start at least. Thankfully there's just one of him right now, so hopefully there won't suddenly be more of him."

"So, is she, what?" the little Pokey has stopped struggling, settling for just hanging there and frowning nastily at the two teens. "She your secretary or maid or something?"

"No, you little jerk," Pokey spits back at his doppelganger again. "She's, you know," he trails off for a moment, trying to think how to explain this. "She's my girlfriend, kind of sorta. Look. It's an adult thing, you wouldn't get it."

"What," little Pokey says, annoyed. "You just have one?"

"Yes," Pokey rasps back, almost sighing in annoyance. "Just one."

Screw it. Going back to his plan of burying the kid sounds better and better as he thinks about it.

Her fingers naturally thread with his own. "It's be a weird murder-suicide thing. Lets not give Zephyr that moral issue to deal with." Lili is more concerned with her Pokey and Zephyr's well being to some extent.

The child's words only earn an unimpressed side eye from the red head. "You know, I'm trying to keep him from burying you in the ground. Don't push it. Not to mention I could make your head pop if I wanted to."

"...Right," Pokey's says that quick, simply. He hadn't thought of that when he was saying it. He didn't want to have to put Zephyr through addressing it. Hell. He sure didn't want to put Lili through it either. He squeezes her hand a little as he feels her fingers thread with his. "Not exactly something anyone should have to worry about."

Still, he can't help his growing frown when he hears his younger self blow a raspberry at the two of them. Fuck's sake.

"I don't need your help," the young Pokey crosses his arms, frowning at Lili. "All I need is me. Maybe if you weren't stupid you'd just let me go since there's no point keeping me here."

"We'll figure it out." Lili is still comfortable enough to casually insert herself into the situation.

"So far your 'all I need is me' approach is kind of left you hanging." The unintentional pun on her part goes over her head as she looks to the Pokey she knows. "Depending on what you have at your place, we could lock him in a closet or something?"

"That's not a bad idea," Pokey responds, thinking it over. "Could just tie him to a tree in the front yard too. If I have to suffer him, so should everyone else is my thought. Just don't want him to hurt anyone."

"You can't just tie me to a tree, you jerk," the younger Pokey whines. Being belligerent hasn't gotten him anywhere. Clearly it's time to try and play a pity game. "Like, you can get arrested for that!"

"Pretty sure I'm not going to here, junior," Pokey says, pokerfaced. "Why don't you think there are other kids here? It's because they're all forced to be tied to trees."

The little Pokey pauses for a moment, stunned. Then smiles. "Cool," the kid says, "Like a sacrifice?"

"...You're going to just ruin any kind of joke I try to tell around you, aren't you?" The older Pokey says, exhausted.

Eliza's younger self is only a year or so younger than her at the most, but she's got a loneliness in her eyes that the older one has long since lost. Not to mention she's just a bit more jumpy at the obvious nonhumans among their number. Still, she's eager to hear more about their adventures, and right now the two of them are sitting on the playground, talking.

"Wow," says the younger Eliza. "So...so people don't laugh at you? Or leave you out?"

The older one shakes her head with a smile. "No, they don't. We even have a magic teacher now!" She hasn't told her younger self the truth about their abilities yet, still unsure how to broach that subject.

"Really?" asks younger Eliza, her eyes sparkling in delight. "Tell me more about her! Or him!"

Older Eliza laughs at the excitement. "Well, his name's Ienzo. Ienzo Wooster. And he lives right next door to my house..."

"You're fucking with me," Ammond accuses. The wiggler - ok, not such a wiggler, but she's not yet eight sweeps old and from where Waspfire stands the skinny kid certainly seems impossibly young - glares suspiciously at her older self.

"Honest, I'm not," the older version laughs, holding up both hands in a placating gesture; she can't help noticing with some amusement the way her younger self's eyes linger, fascinated, on the biopsionic implants in both of her wrists. It's very much the same as how she does a very poor job of pretending she's not staring at the blue and green studs in Waspfire's ears, really.

The younger troll folds her arms over her chest - and Waspfire can't help but be a little annoyed at the confirmation that no, her dominance glands have not significantly increased in size in the past couple of sweeps, as petty as that observation might be right now - and scowls. "Ok, but even if I accept the weird chronology shit - which I don't - you've got to be like colinear to me or something? We can't be the literal same person. You ain't got my horn slice. There's no way that buffs out in two and a half sweeps, dude, it's still way down in the orange for me."

"Yeah, well, there's a good explanation for that," Waspfire says. There is absolutely not a good explanation for that, not by any metric that her younger double will accept, and she knows this as soon as the words are out of her mouth, but hey. Too late to walk it back now. She waits for the inevitable demand -

"Oh, yeah, sure, no, hit me with it."

"I died."

"What the fuck."

"And then the Imperial Helmsman's descendant kissed me and I woke up on the moon."

Ammond blinks. "You're not even trying now."

"Honest truth, kiddo. Honest truth."

Edited 2017-09-22 09:04 (UTC)

"Oh, good. So I'm not the only one dealing with this today."

Despite this statement, Ienzo appears entirely alone as he approaches, drawing himself up near Waspfire's side. He's not standing close to her by most standards, but anyone familiar with either of them would recognize the ease of being in such close proximity as somehow significant.

"I suspect you're having an easier time of things than I am, though. It's a pleasure to meet you, Ammond," he says, nodding politely to the younger of the two and doing his level best to keep the amused grin off his face. That, he feels, would not be particularly likely to put his moirail's past self at ease.

"Dang, did you lose track of yours already?" Waspfire asks. And yes, to anyone familiar with her mannerisms - like, say, herself - the way that she doesn't even try to step out of grabbing distance a little is fairly telling. Close friends at the very least, and Ammond's savvy enough to note that the blue enamel of Waspfire's earrings is very close in color to the hornless alien's eyes.

Maybe this older version of herself - or this ancestor of hers, or whatever the fuck is going on with the Psymagus, whatever - is both bolder and sappier than Ammond is, but she knows she wouldn't dress that far upspectrum for a platonic friend.

"Uh. Yeah. Hi," she says, to her weird doppelganger's weird alien highblood quadrantmate, and wonders where her life took this very weird turn.

"Yes, well, as it turns out I was exactly as good at obscuring myself as I thought I was at the time," he admits, sheepishly. "If either of you notice any spatial disturbances nearby, please let me know. I doubt he's figured out how to shield himself from psionic detection yet." Which he feels comfortable saying out loud because just knowing there's another sense he needs to account for won't do him much good. It took Ienzo ages to work out how to anticipate and circumvent the sort of telekinetic 'sonar' Ammond sometimes uses.

With that out of the way, though, he nods to the younger Ammond in greeting. "In any case, it's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Ienzo."

Ammond looks from her double to the human and back again. "Soooo, you and the Psymagus...?" she begins, with a kind of uncertain gesture, pointing one from one to the other.

Waspfire sighs, and psionically swats the younger troll's hand. "Ienzo's my moirail," she says, throwing an apologetic look at the mage in question. She'd forgotten how little brain-to-mouth filter she'd had as an adolescent. Of course, now that she's thinking about what she was like as a subadult... she addresses Ienzo himself now. "I'll keep a feel out for him, dude, I promise. How young is he?"

Ienzo just waves off Waspfire's concern, smiling. It's not like he didn't know to expect this from Ammond, after all. "That I am," he says. "And I wasn't able to get him to tell me what the last thing he remembered was, but he's somewhere around the age I was when I entered Sburb."

He pauses, then adds for Ammond's benefit, "Between two and three sweeps younger, and humans seem to mature similarly to trolls, at least when it comes to the very end of adolescence."

Edited (numbers????) 2017-09-24 03:46 (UTC)

Ienzo has the grand misfortune to find himself accompanied this day by Zexion, his Nobody and self of something like five years ago, or possibly six, if one counts the year he spent dead and insensate. The differences between the two of them are pronounced - even aside from the black cloak Zexion wears in contrast to Ienzo's white labcoat, Zexion is shorter by two inches and at just barely eighteen years old is still in the midst of the awkward and gawky stage of his adolescence. His hair is longer and wilder, too, covering more of his face without even the token effort Ienzo generally puts into keeping it neat, and his skin is noticeably paler.

They do share matching scowls, though.

"You should know as well as anybody that I don't need supervision," Zexion hisses, drawing himself up to his full height and doing his best to look imposing and serious. It's a gesture that might have worked on anyone else, but as it is Ienzo just feels a deep pang of secondhand embarrassment and cringes accordingly. This only serves to incense Zexion further.

"I know better than anyone else that you do, actually," he says, sweeping his bangs out of his eyes self-consciously. "If you do something stupid it's going to reflect poorly on both of us, and I've spent too much time growing out of being you to just let you run off and inflict yourself on everyone else."

Edited 2017-09-22 09:30 (UTC)

"Oh, there he is!" calls a voice. Coming towards Ienzo and Zexion from the side are two similar-looking black-haired girls, one only a little younger than the other but with much more nervousness on her face.

"R-really? He looks like one of those villains, though!" asks the younger one, trying to whisper but obviously not that capable of keeping quiet. She's moved slightly so that her older self is now standing between her and the silver-haired duo.

"Huh? He does-oh, that must be his younger self!" Eliza waves at the pair. "Hi Ienzo! Hi Smaller Ienzo!" She pats her younger self on the shoulder reassuringly. "Don't worry, I'm sure they're fine!"

There's something deeply surreal about being called 'Smaller Ienzo' to Zexion, given that his last memory of having been Ienzo was at eight years old, and the brief moment of existential confusion he experiences gives Ienzo the time he needs to cut in and introduce everyone before he can make any snide remarks.

"Good morning," he says, nodding in greeting, and though his tone is polite he hurries to keep talking so as not to give his Nobody an opening. "Eliza, this is Zexion. Zexion, this is Eliza. She's my apprentice."

He puffs up slightly as he says this, clearly pleased with himself, though Zexion appears unconvinced.

"Your apprentice," he says, eyeing the deep red scarf Ienzo wears draped over his shoulders skeptically.

"Yes," says Ienzo. "I've been tutoring her in illusions. In any case, I assume you must also be Eliza? This seems to be something of a pattern today."

"Oh," says older Eliza, nodding. "Good morning, Zexion!" Her younger counterpart says nothing, just waving.

When Ienzo mentions that she's his apprentice, she preens a bit as well. "Yeah!" she says excitedly, waving a hand and changing the color of the grass beneath her feet to concentric rainbow rings, before allowing them to fade.

Her younger self boggles a bit at this, but quickly nods at the question. "Yeah...I haven't started my journey yet, though. So all this is still new to me!"

That gets both Ienzo and Zexion's attention, and they both watch Eliza's display intently, Ienzo appraising and Zexion hawklike in his intensity.

"She's using a different form of magic from any I've seen," says Zexion, turning to his older counterpart, and Ienzo nods.

"She's from a different universe," he explains. "Outside of the collective to which all the Connected Worlds belong."

That said, he turns back to Eliza.

"You said it was a psychic ability, didn't you? Would you mind telling him what you told me, about your powers and Pokemon with similar? I'm sure she wouldn't mind hearing it as well." Given how confused and upset she'd seemed about it all before they'd worked it out together, and all.

Eliza puts a hand on her younger self's shoulder, as a form of reassurance. "Trust me, you'll understand once I've explained it," she whispers before coming a bit closer.

"So, most Psychic-type Pokemon can do stuff like telekinesis and telepathy, and a few can do illusions as well. It seems to be pretty natural for them, since even really young ones can do it. Humans with those abilities...seem much rarer, though. I basically discovered my ability when I...imagined seeing something happen, and actually made it appear to happen."

"...appear?" asks the younger Eliza softly. "Then the spoon..." Her older self pats her shoulder some more.

"It wasn't quite what we thought, but people appreciate it all the same."

"You're... so tall."

Lili has to sigh a little at her younger self's comment. She wilts slightly in frustration. "Yes. I'm glad you noticed. I didn't think you could see anything down there." Sarcasm comes before Lili can really contain it. She knows it's not fair to the little girl in front of her, but this is just too weird.

Unsurprisingly the ten year old scowls at that, she stomps her foot. "You don't have to be a jerk! I was just- surprised!"

"Surprise, you'll be tall soon." Lili wiggles her fingers a little at her younger self, "By the time you're 13 you're going to be hit by puberty and there is no going back."

"You're... so weird."

"So are you."

Having left his mini me at home - or more accurately, having tied the younger Pokey to the base with one of those kid leashes - Pokey was going around to see if anyone else had run into this problem. Looks like someone else has, of course. Looks like Lili's got some tiny trouble of her own.

"She's right, you know," Pokey says, smirking at his Lili. "Weird is a pretty perfect word to describe you."

Lili gives Pokey a long look. It's enough for the small girl to peer at him, unintentionally mirroring her older self. Hope Pokey likes the withering stare of two Zanotto's. "Who is that?"

"Pokey, tiny me, Pokey." She offered as dry introductions. "Happy?"

The ten year old placed a hand on her hip frowning at the eighteen year old version. of herself "Um, no. Where are we?!"

Lili sighed, at worst her younger self was annoying but not too much trouble. "The Meadous."

Sorry Lili. Lilis. Pokey just kind of snickers at it, still smirking. "Hey kid," he says, nodding a little towards the little Lili. "I'm a friend of future you here."

It is a noticeable change from the shit Pokey had to put up with from his tiny tot version of himself. He isn't surprised, although he is still thankful that no one seems to be a bigger troublemaker than himself. So far.

"It's a safe enough place. You probably won't be here to long until you go home."

Hopefully. He sure hopes these mini mes aren't going to be a constant feature of the Meadous.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Meme, Myself, And I

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject