insertmeathere | It's Meme Friday!

And now for a meme made just for the meatship! It's the adventures of:

Thank you Shae for the picture!

+ Post with your character

+ Your tagging partner goes to the Randomizer page and enters 1 - 4 on the True Random Number Generator.

+ Get a number!

+ Each number causes a special effect:

1 - Sex Swap! Surprise, you're suddenly the opposite sex of what you were before. Is your partner too (that depends on them)? If your character has neither, either ignore this one, or feel free to give them one now. Double the surprise!

2 - Soul Swap! Oh no! Looks like something malfunctioned on the ship and now you and your tagging partner have switched bodies. Will you try to fix it? ...Will one of you take advantage of it?

3 - Memory Swap! It appears you and your poor friend were stuck in a malfunction caused by Stacy and she has accidentally given each of you each other's precious memories. Not all of them mind you, but really important ones, especially the type you wouldn't want share around. What do you do now? How will this affect your relationship?

4 - Animal Swap! Oh fiddlesticks. Something went terribly wrong in the sensoriums and you've been turned into an animal. What is it? How does your partner react? Are you turned into an animal too? Can you fix this problem or will you be stuck like this...even when you step out?

+ Tag out all the terrible things that happen

+Profit!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Zouichi's memories begin as those of a small child, the eldest of about twenty, in a world that constists endless, rolling hills covered with golden grasses. Sometimes, this world changes, always according to the needs of the children's education -- a pristine beach, a crowded, confusing city, a pitted and desolate moonscape, a home. Through it all, a young human woman is there to look after them, guide them, teach the essential nature of humanity to children who will never be human. She does so, to the best of her ability.

When he awakens into the real world for the first time, it is within one of two black, towering skyscrapers, surrounded by a city made of countless levels of concrete and steel. There are few real forests left in the world, few animals that have adapted to the urbanization that has stripped away their habitat. A mission to Mars has turned disastrous, seeding the Earth with an incredibly infectious, almost inevitably fatal disease that transforms its victims into living corpses. Humanity is dying. Zouichi is immune to this illness; he has been designed to be so. He is the first to be released out into this new world of death and decay, and he is given his first mission.

From that point on, his life is spent pursuing objectives. If a human or ex-human is classified as enemy, he dispatches them efficiently and without remorse; it is something at which he excels. He has annihilated battalions without batting an eye, destroyed heavily shielded fortresses, vanquished monsters, but he is still unable to save a single human woman when she needs him the most.

When she becomes one of the monsters he is charged to destroy, he snaps her neck cleanly; it takes a fraction of a second. He holds her body for a long, silent moment before he lets go.

Then he returns to the mission.]

Zouichi reels back slightly as the memories hit him. "You..." he begins, but he's not even sure what he wanted to say in the first place. He wants to take a step forward, to -- but no. He forces himself to remain absolutely still.

Ildraniath is standing silently, a pair of fingers touching her temple, pressing into the skin and bone beneath. Her eyes are closed, but from the way her jaw is set, it's clear she's trying to sort through the rush.

"...how... bleak."

It seems appropriate. She doesn't see him stutter-step toward her.

He straightens, recovering. "...You're telling me. In fact, I think I just went through a couple hundred years of bleak."

"I... didn't mean to intrude on your memories, obviously."

"It wasn't your fault," Ildraniath replies coolly. She's trying to maintain her composure.

"...I... am not sure how to react."

The human life seems so unstructured, so chaotic. It's hard for her to process it.

He ignores her struggle, because it seems like the right thing to do.

"I don't blame you. My life was... very different from yours." Zouichi smiles a little, ruefully. "Although I guess in some ways it was rather similar."

"I... didn't know you used to be so many other people. Or that you had to protect yourself from that... god. I just assumed..." he shrugged a little, helplessly.

"That is our way," she replies, still maintaining her facade. She doesn't have any other choice. And really, there's no point in lying. He can probably remember just as easily as she can.

"...that it was a superstition? No, She Who Thirsts is quite real. And... yes. I was many 'people', so to speak. But it is hard to describe in words."

A pause. "The Earth of your universe - do you think you have any hope?"

She's used to those hopeless scenarios.

"No, not that it was a superstition. I just... you were so young at the time. I hadn't realized all that had to happen as a natural consequence of She Who Thirsts." He's silent for a long moment.

"It doesn't matter if there's any hope," he says, and now he sounds quite grim. Determined. It's a side that he rarely shows, because so few people ask him about it. "If there is a way to save it, I will. If there isn't, then I'll still have fought to the last to grasp that future."

"You're determined - good. Better then hopelessness."

She knows this from experience.

He laughs a little; the sound is more one of disbelief than bitterness. "You know what? You're the first person to ever say that to me."

"Really? Perhaps the humans of your world are less resilient then I give them credit for."

Sorry, Zou. She's going to be backhandedly complimenting you at the expense of the human race.

"No, that's... not what I meant. I never had much contact with the humans of my world, but I think they'd almost all agree that I should continue trying to save their world. At all costs." Even and especially at the cost of his own life.

"The people I've met here, they're the ones who have been trying to convince me to do otherwise. Because now that my Earth is gone, I'm 'free to think for myself'. Make my own decisions."

He shakes his head.

Ildraniath frowns - and frowns deeply. There's anger in her voice. The typically poised Eldar's voice is a snap, "Free to think for yourself? Have they no sense of duty? Do they think you an unthinking automaton? Or does it simply not enter into their idealistic, idiotic little minds that you may actually believe in something?"

He's genuinely surprised by her anger -- but maybe it makes sense, if she relates his mission to her own calling.

"I believe the general consensus is that my world was doomed anyway, and therefore I am lucky that it was destroyed." He shrugs. "And that as an artificial being, I must also be naive and in need of people to tell me I have free will of my own."

"Typical - they believe they know better then the one they are ostensibly rying to help. No matter what the subject is."

Ildraniath flicks her wrist in that little dismissive gesture that she tends to use when irritated.

"Ignore them. They are not worth your time."

He shrugs again. "It's their way of trying to help. I'm here, and the people of my Earth aren't. It's easy to devalue someone you don't know in favor of someone you do. At least, that's the impression I get."

"So what about you? What do you think the ultimate fate of the Eldar will be?"

"...I would hope we will last. I do not think our empire of old will ever return. But we will survive. I will say that is a question I cannot answer - even I can't trace fate that far ahead. I'm not that skilled."

She smiles tightly.

Zouichi is silent for a long moment. "Then let's hope it's a good future," he says, at last. "You've sacrificed too much for it not to be."

It's Meme Friday!

sorry for the tl;dr

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