The Age Up/Down Meme

[kingshaming]

Look, most of our characters have lots of backstory to take advantage of, or headcanons for their future. This is the place to use it!

Prompts

1) People are suddenly shifting ages on the good ship Teremity! It's probably space waves and will fix itself in a day or two, so enjoy reliving your mispent youth.

2) You were always this age! Nothing bad is happening and you all already know each other and it's all cute af. A fluff option.

3) You are this age... and going through your round (or a remixed version) of your Airlocked season. Not for the REALLY young age downs!

Comments

[misanthropicprinciple]

[As soon as he sees his new pal is A-okay, Junpei grins, hops back, then takes his own running leap into the water.]

Banzaaaaaiii!

[He tucks himself small and cannonballs into the water a foot next to Church, making as much of a splash as possible with his elementary-school body. When he surfaces, he whips his head around to shake water out of it like a dog, laughing like a madman.]

Okay! How fast do you think you can swim? Bet you can't catch me!

[motherfucking_ghost]

Jesus, kid, I'm just getting my footing in water. No, I can't catch you. Unless you can't swim? Then it's anyones game. I can...vaguely splash around.

[splish splash he's not taking a bath] Pool water in the nose is not a fun experience.

[misanthropicprinciple]

You gotta...

[He makes breaststroke motions with his arms, though down here in the jump zone he's not actually tall enough to do it above the water, then frontcrawl-kicks his way towards the side of the pool.]

And then your legs go like this. See?

[motherfucking_ghost]

[why you gotta make me look up swimming my bro i never learned how either]

It's a physics puzzle is what it is. Balancing motion and buoyancy. [Them wings sure do still help though. It's kinda more like a weird doggy paddle, but he eventually splashes his way on over to the side of the pool and hefts himself up, sitting with his feet in the water.]

Y'know, supposedly it's a sort of innate thing babies know? Probably from literally forming in a watery environment. Not that I'm saying throw babies in water, but that's a thing some people do, and it turns out pretty okay.

...So I suck more than a baby, is what I'm saying.

[misanthropicprinciple]

I mean, I knew that.

[Ohh, savage burn from the elementary school division. Junpei frowns skeptically as he thinks about the rest of it, though, holding onto the side while he continues kicking in place.]

If babies already know how to swim, then why do we have to learn again in P.E. class? Seems like kind of a stupid thing to forget if we gotta pick it up all over again later.

[motherfucking_ghost]

Lizardbrain knows shit that the forebrain doesn't. Babies act on instinct. And like, when you're in a bind? You can do it too. It'll be flailing and awkward, but you'll fight to keep your head above water. Forebrain needs to learn the fine tuning. To know where to put your arms and how to kick your legs and start doing all the fancy stuff professionals can do. Do it enough, and it becomes second nature, but it's not instinct.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Huh.

[Junpei stops splashing for a while to think about that, just holding onto the side and bobbing, then nods.]

Yeah, that makes sense. Like writing and riding a bike and learning different languages. I'm pretty good at English, but I gotta think about it sometimes. But Japanese I never have to think about ever.

[He splashes Alpha's feet.]

Doesn't that mean you have to practice to get good at this, too? Get back in here.

[motherfucking_ghost]

You're killing me, kiddo. When am I gonna need to know how to swim? [HE SAYS IN A MURDERGAME WHICH IS FOR MURDER] Okay okay okay, but I'm keeping the floaties on. I'm not too manly for them.

[misanthropicprinciple]

Fine! Come on, I'll teach you how to do it. I'm a great swimmer.

[He bobs underwater and comes up again, shaking his hair out of his face once more.]

If you hold onto the wall like this you can practice kicking and you won't sink.