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]

...

Human beings don't have purposes. The only thing we can do with life's shit is dig a single shred of meaning out of it before we die. I just hope you learn that before you fuck yourself over.

[scourgingstars]

You're wrong. I am one who was given a purpose by the gods, and I intend to see it through. [He brought his right hand close to his chest, again curled loosely into a fist.]

I am what the people of Lucis-...no, what all the people of Eos need of me, long before I am a human. I am Ardyn Lucis Caelum, king of light that will bring dawn to a world where no one has to live in fear of the darkness and daemons. No matter what happens to me, no matter what it costs, I will not allow myself to give in.

[misanthropicprinciple]

...Then I guess it's already too late. You're just like her.

I'll see myself out.

[scourgingstars]

...




Why do you care so much?

[misanthropicprinciple]

[He stops with his hand on the doorknob for a long time before finally glancing over his shoulder.]

Because the world doesn't need another jackass wasting his whole life chasing happy endings that aren't there.

[scourgingstars]

And what of the people who still live because of me? Are their happy endings worth nothing?

How is-...how could anyone call a life wasted if it were to be spent saving others?

[misanthropicprinciple]

So that's how you measure the worth of your life? By the number of people you save? Doesn't matter who they are, what they do, how they spend the years you give them?

[scourgingstars]

I would suffer through anything to give them an opportunity at life, to live as they see fit--it is not for me to argue whether one afflicted person is more or less deserving of a cure than another. My happiness is that of my people. Their gratitude and relief when an incurable scourge simply disappears and takes their pain along with it is...more gratifying than I can ever describe.

I don't...understand how one could see this path as wrong.

[misanthropicprinciple]

It's admirable in theory, maybe, but that's not how it works. Only your happiness can be your happiness. Giving it all to someone else... that's not a life at all.

[He turns to face Ardyn again, then puts a hand to his chin.]

Let me put it to you this way. Would you want anyone else to live the way you do?

[scourgingstars]

...

[The look on his face was enough of an answer on its own.]

That doesn't...matter. I was always going to be the only one living this way. And even were I not, someone would have to. The plague will never disappear without a king to banish it.

[misanthropicprinciple]

So maybe it never does. Maybe people find a way to cope with it, struggle to find ways to live in a harsh, unforgiving world. The lives they end up having, the ways they connect despite all that suffering--are you saying living like that is worth less?

[scourgingstars]

I'm saying they don't have to.

[misanthropicprinciple]

And I'm saying you don't have to. Is it that hard to understand? I spent forty-five years of my life on someone else and it meant nothing, and only by chance did I find something in the last ten years that was worth living for.

[scourgingstars]

Of course it is hard to understand--impossible, in fact! I can not comprehend why standing by and doing nothing while my people suffer is preferable to using my power to save them!