Your Journey has been long, come sit by the Fire.

It has been years, decades, perhaps even centuries. Your character has seen life, death, love and loss. Nations built up, and cultures destroyed. Wars started, ended, and reborn. Vendettas coming to fruition or forgotten entirely.
The Days are growing quieter, the youth no longer in their bones. They've grown old and grey, the wrinkles of age telling countless stories on their skin as they enter their golden years.

What would become of your character after living a long life? Do they get their happily ever after? Do they retire into a field they enjoy? Did they get the chance to be part of a family? Perhaps its not so simple.

As a thought experiment, tell us what is your pictured outcome for your character once all is said and done?

Tag a friend to see their story too




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............i'm not spoiling

 

To be honest, my ideal end for Xander wouldn't be some robust self sacrifice. I want him to go out with a bang, sure, but not some grand display of selflessness and bravery. I'm not sure exactly what that would entail, but I'll figure it out when it comes to it. I just hope he has a long tenure on the server before then.

I FORGOT TO TAG SOMEONE!!!!
@SilverGallium how does caleb end or something idk

 

I'll get this train going.

For one of my main characters, Septimus, Its hard for me to envision him living to a ripe old age. His schemes and arrogance will always get the better of him, inevitably to his demise.

But lets picture an Ideal world where this isn't the case. Its been another several decades, and his long life is starting to catch up with him as he enters is 280s. The throne of La'Megoth has switched rulers twice since his reign as archemperor, and never came to conquer it himself despite his youthful ambitions. No longer protected by his late 'brother's mania, and with a life long sought to be ended by old opponents, Septimus retires into the bogs, living alone. His house is deep in the wilderness, maintained only by his works. His body still skinny and frail, only moreso than before. He's allowed whiskers to grow on his face, shaped like that of Zuh'Ko's in his honor and memory.
He's long since advanced his studies in the dark arts, and has become quite apt. A series of bookshelves decorate the walls of many rooms, and the kitchen is full of ingredients, some for cooking, others for brewing. He's abandoned the wealthy attire, living in comfortable, if falling apart rags, but it matters little when living alone. Most of his days now spent reading old tomes and living off the land, hunting and gathering as needed, and staying off the nexus that has become tyrannically monitored thanks in part to his own faulty schemes. Brooms, spoons, dusters and the like float about cleaning for him as he rests in his favourite chair and listening to the wind rustle through the trees.
He never got to settle down, have an heir, find true love. He never had the time, at least so he thought, and it pains him as the years carry on that his legacy ends with him, and full of hatred by many, and love from only a few, but he chooses to push such thoughts out of his mind. The nomads who wander the bogs will be visiting soon, they love his special jams and jellies, and love trading the trinkets he's made from rock bone and gems alike, and the joy the young have when they see his face and call him 'uncle' is more than enough.

Of course, every once in a while someone is brave enough to venture the bogs, and every once in a while, those few come find him.

​

@zecon125 How Does the tale of Lesslyn come to a close?

 

I'll do this as... let's call it a writing exercise. We'll assume each of my characters are still alive at the time of the stories - they all have the potential to be, if nothing kills them first. Note that I'm not really a writer - just an attempt, here, to do something more than just describe things. We'll do first Aria, then Ry, then finally Dox - an anthology short story, more than anything...

= Aria - Corrupted =

"Time. Time comes for us all... even machines."

Aria Durasteel... an aging intelligence. Hundreds of years prior, she came into being - forced into her machine existence. Yet... she never could quite shake the feeling that machinery wasn't... for her. Eventually... she rejected that machinery. Became a metanoid - a true, organic Avian, with a machine for a mind... but it couldn't last. As her fresh body aged... she returned to the cold machinery she once loathed. The embrace of durasteel trappings was... bittersweet, for her. She'd once rejected it as something forced upon her... yet, she wished to live, no? Prolong her lifespan? There was no other option but to return.

Her apartment? Long gone. Aria has taken up residence on a moderately large starship - suitably large for herself. Aria is as Aria does... her starship artificial intelligence is a duplicate of herself... or, was. Several days prior to this... the ship intelligence degraded to the point of self-destruction. The ship is now mindless and manually controlled... a harbinger of what's to come.

Her child... an emergence program, designed by her, long ago... so long ago, in her mind... she's had so much time in life, it was only natural she'd want a child. She gave the child stimulus based on what she wanted for herself in the end - aspects of life she wished she'd had growing up, rather than... not growing up naturally at all. Her life was chaos made orderly - she wants this child's life to be a proper balance. She addresses her child, by the name of Valentina - named for someone she knew long ago - when she speaks.

"I do not have long. My mind is... breaking. Memories, lost. Cognition, slipping. I cannot carry on."

"Mother?"

"I refuse to allow myself to become... some... regressed larva. I cannot - I will not. Leave... shut the door. Return in... a day. Salvage my machinery, or... use it for a funeral. I... love you."

"...I love you too, mother."

Valentina stepped out of the room, allowing her mother to destroy herself from within - suicide is how Aria's life ends... to prevent senility.

= Ry - Infected =

From some far corner of some small colony... the smells of rotting meat permeate the immediate area around the quarters. There, an old Deadbeat woman has lived for decades... warding off the young and ordering in food, occasionally coming out to sell her latest contraptions or talk to the doctors for some mysterious medical purposes. As of late... she has not been seen. As the smell begins to spread and alert people around... the colonists begin to wonder... what could have happened to the old purple crone?

As the colonists pry open the door to the woman's quarters... the smell bares itself in full. One of the investigation team has to run and vomit - the others are left with sicknesses in their stomach, and a deep feeling of dread. They step inside, peering around... there, they find... darkness... scrap metal... and a strange sight indeed. There is... a sac of meat, attached to the ceiling... and a pile of rotting flesh, on the ground. The rot is... not any humanoid... but some... amorphous thing, rotting away on the floor. Perhaps it ate her? Perhaps... it is her?

The search party seal the room off for later cleanup - and ask with the doctors. Shifter. She'd been going senile as of recently - mind too warped to properly hold or create a functional form... and she'd starved as a result. By the time she was found... she was long dead. A corpse, rotting on her floor. Starvation and senility is the end of Ry's life.

= Dox - Isolated =

As she gazes out from her porch on Keidus... she thinks back, on the chaos of her life. How... so many problems seem... so small, now. So... distant. Councilor... mercenary... Calyth... all so long ago. Those years were... fun. Since then... she's lived in isolation. Some of her friends rejected her for her Atlas allegiance, so long ago... others rejected her when she quit, to focus on her child... that was... the one mistake she regrets. Joining Atlas... was a mistake, in her mind. Her body is all machine, but... lately, her brain has begun to deteriorate once more. The old symptoms of her youth are returning... affectionately referred to as "goldfish brain" back then, they've returned full force, if not worse than prior.

Councilor...? What is a Councilor? You're speaking nonsense, I never did anything of the sort. What's a Renaize? Rehi? Naru? What are you talking about? My memory can't be that bad--... Oh. I've... forgotten that much, have I...? My... my life's... gone from my memory, is it...? Most of it...? Who are you...? I... I can try... memories or not, you're... still my people, no? Whether... whether I can remember it or not.

Dox's life... also ends with senility... if in its own, more tragic way. There's nothing left of her but her morals, to the end... and eventually, her brain dies off on its own.

 

Flare: Memoryless indefinently..

He's succumbing to time and his memories failing at a rapid pace, as it seems...
As of late, he's been forgetting things-- Big things, Little things, Inbetween things-- Everything nearly.
No more memories of loss and pain, but also no more of happiness or love or any of the things that used to shine on his life and make it like sunshine and a life worth living to him in his heart of hearts.

If Flare knew how far he'd fallen from being one of the most memoried novakids out there, he'd probably be in tears but, fortunately he has no idea that he's lost.. anything, really. Just a whole lot of new people out there that seem to know his name, and have times between them that he doesn't recall being a part of..

He doesn't recognize his beloved daughters. He doesn't recognize his friends.

Where he ends up, I don't feel like saying yet but.. at the end, he doesn't speak anymore.
What had been quite the chatterbox and talkative fellow becomes a silent guardian.

 

I saw this topic and was considering joining in, but I never did because I couldn't think of what to say. Not like, in a mean way, but because for a variety of reasons - "what this character wants to/may do is a spoiler/secret" or "their fate is so open to outside influences that I couldn't in good faith make an accurate prediction" or something else - I couldn't tell you what my characters would end up doing when they get old.

Caleb is maybe the only one, but there's nothing particularly interesting at all about what he would want (or what I would expect to end up happening to him on his current path); live long enough to at least see his grandchildren, make sure that they and his children and his wives all live the rest of their lives safe and happy, keep R&G's successful and its/his employees well-taken-care-of, without the company overexpanding and/or losing sight of its purpose, why he and Robin founded it to begin with... and so on. Yadda yadda. Boring, I know, but I don't want to spoil anyone whose possibilities in old age, whether they know of them or not, are actually interesting, since I'd rather they be witnessed when the time comes instead.

 

I haven't really thought ahead with my character's end goals tbh, but I do have a few ideas of what would ideally happen
Lyssa: gets married to Mikhail Kostis and ends up starting a family. Her child ultimately grows up, and goes off to college to study. Lyssa herself continues working with the House of the Eclipse until she is too frail to continue her duties a knight. Once this happens, she moves to a ranch, spending the rest of her years farming and raising farm animals.
Spectra: I'm not really sure about her end goal tbh, but I've been meaning to kill her off. Perhaps she sacrifices herself, dying so that others may live, while atoning for all her previous sins. Or perhaps the opposite happens. Perhaps she succumbs to her inner demons, falling into crime and temptation, thus dying not as a hero or a martyr, but as a despicable villain.
Steelchain: After years of trying to atone for his crimes, he becomes too old and frail to continue fighting, let alone living in the more dangerous parts of the Fringe. Once this happens, he meets the same fate as Lyssa: he takes another pilgrimage to the Undercrypt. This time, however, he doesn't emerge from it. Once the journey is complete, he stays behind in Erebus, settling down in a local village, finally home and happy after all these years.

 

i forgot to tag someone @Caucasian Asian
tell us the finish of hog BIGSLEY

 

Had Lange not prematurely died, he would’ve continued his retirement, watching his daughter grow up and assisting where he can.

Rose on the other hand, will still be plagued with mental issues, PTSD, and likely will have retired somewhere in her 80s, after watching her two girls grow up and go on to have successful lives. The girls she raised will have taken her in, and the tables will have turned. They would be taking care of her, until she eventually dies from corruption or old age, the same as her father.

 

hog BIGSLEY will most likely die in a blaze of glory, taking out as many Atlas or Haven soldiers as he possibly can after terrorizing a major city or monument. His name will be written in history books across the galaxy as the most notorious terrorist since the ICIF. He wants nothing but to bring freedom to all--no laws to hold them down and no people to oppress them. He is the hog.

 

No matter what plays out for Tolkin, he dies. Alone. Whether through his AI simply degrading until there isn't anything left of the original man himself, or a barstool to the core, he doesn't get any sort of happy ending. Nobody remembers him fondly, for in his old age, his bitterness and toxicity towards others leads to the last people who had feelings for him turning those feelings from care, to disdain. A parasite cannot live on it's own.

 

Pictured ends, meaning how we want things to go... I kinda just want Mir to get a happy ending, even if that sounds boring. With all the stuff the fringe has put him through, he deserves a bit of a break doesn't he? I'd imagine that, assuming the various perils that face him daily don't wind up killing him dead, he'd probably design something really noteworthy in the field of wearable gadgets. Something designed to save lives, rather than take them. How well something like that would sell in the fringe, well that's debatable. He'd probably wind up retiring at some point, spending his golden years with his husband.

Demetrius, Demetrius dies, there's no way around that. He's not just a mercenary, he's a bit of a stupid mercenary. He literally eats bullets as a snack, and chases people who are armed with explosives as some fun pastimes. Demetrius Galvan dies his final death on a mission, there's no way around that. But he probably dies happy, because he likes to fight, and he likes to shoot.

Purple Palm... This is my newest character, and I haven't actually had the time to think of how I want him to go. He's even more braindead than Demetrius, but he could actually go in some pretty interesting directions due to his newfound affliction. I guess, at the end of the day, Purple Palm probably forgets what it ever meant to be an avian, becoming a rather unsightly flesh creature. To be fair, he was only really an avian for a single day, a flash clone doomed to die had it not been for some intervention. However, due to the fact that he'd probably embrace being a flesh monstrosity, without knowing how much people hate flesh monsters, he probably dies at the end of it all, burnt to a crisp by someone he was just trying to make friends with.

@Skid Tell us how you want Testament's story to end.

 

As of right now I only have a character in GC. Technically had two, but the first I made upon coming back kinda grew bland for me so I just scrapped them. I do have another character currently but they're already retired, so there's no need to talk about them. Whoever knew them already knows what happened to them, probably.


So - because of this, I will be coming up with two different types of endings for Naru: a less realistic but probably happier one, and several more realistic ones, which can go from bad to bittersweet. They do say reality is painful a lot of the time, right?


Unrealistic Ending

In this ending, which I have dubbed the happy ending, Naru lives out his full life, alongside Dox, his lover, after he deals with his brother, Harel. Due to the many years he's spent in the Fringe, he's grown more and more accustomed to technology, to the point where his naturalistic ideals expired over the years, instead replaced with a similar fear to Dox's; the fear of impending death. Of course - if it wasn't for her, he wouldn't have cared in the slightest about his own death. Yet, with the time they've spent together, it was easy for the Rantori to deduce just how much his wife's mind would deteriorate upon his departure. Thus, he begins replacing his unusable bodyparts with cybernetics as they start failing, to the point where he ends up with a fully synthetic body, just like her.

Together, they live up until their cognitive functions decay almost completely, and they aren't able to think rationally - the only thing they're able to remember and recognize is one another. They're seen as a couple of weird, demented fox-people, with one too many stories to tell once upon a time, probably. Their Novakid child continued on their legacy and told many about their actions, and the things they did in life.

Ultimately death is a sad thing, something that doesn't really allow for something actually 'happy'. However, I do believe this is pretty much the best ending for him, since at least he dies alongside the person he loves, and gets to spend as much time with her and his child as biologically possible.


Realistic Ending(s)

Right so... the 'bad' ones. To be fair, there's a lot of realistic endings for Naru that are bad. As I said, reality can be cruel most of the time, especially in a place like the Fringe, where getting shot for calling someone an idiot over the Nexus is... probably too common.

One of the realistic endings I thought for him is that he eventually gets killed by his brother, later down the line, probably due to his inability to be an asshole towards his own family, despite all he's done to him. However, this is unlikely, especially now that everyone's aware of his presence after having failed to kill him the first time. However, I do think it'd probably be the worst and most anti-climactic ending.

Another possible ending, could be him breaking up with Dox, due to... well, unknown reasons. Again, unlikely, due to how bonded they currently are, but we all know how love works - despite how magical it may seem at the start, with a lot of cases it tends to end up withering away as the years pass, and eventually those who shared feelings for one another wind up together out of necessity, more than anything else.

This is what I imagine could happen to Dox and Naru; over the years their love simply becomes a thing of the past and, after a bad argument, or whatever it is that can break up a relationship, they decide to part ways. Eventually Naru returns to Kamdor, to live in his old, abandoned, and unmaintained household. There, he lives alone for the rest of his days, practicing and mastering his psionics, to the point where he dedicates his entire life to them. With his life coming to a close, so does the tale of Clan Sera, with no descendants to keep the bloodline going. This is probably the second worst ending, in my opinion, because although he doesn't really get killed, he still lives a sad, hollow life, which could be considered pretty damn close to dying. There is nothing to say about him, and no one remembers him and all the things he's done, only those he's affected directly - and even then, the bad memories he's left lingering on their minds with his eventual return to his homeworld will cause them to forget about the good things, most likely.

Now, for the ending I think would be the most realistic one, and in my opinion the least bad of these three.

This one's in fact pretty close to the unrealistic one, which is funny, because it really shows how much a simple change of mind can... well, change things overall. Naru and Dox live out their life happily - they have a child, they all find a stable job and a safe place to live in. Everything is good. They're all happy. Is that truly so, however?

One thing they never took into consideration during their years was how harsh Naru's early life had been. His body had taken a lot of punishment, more than Dox could really imagine. And those old wounds never closed fully, despite seemingly never having affected him. Due to this, and his refusal to get any cybernetics that would increase his lifespan, his life gets cut short, his body eventually giving out from all the wounds it had gone through in the past. Instead of living what he could've lived without any cybernetics - in this case, around 140 or so, maybe more if he got lucky - he ends up dying at around age 70-80, leaving behind those who loved him perhaps too early. Both Dox and his child outlive him by far, and he ends up being forgotten by his own wife due to her eventual dementia. There is nothing left of him but a vague memory of the good old days in his descendant's mind, many centuries down the line.

Now, why do I think this is the best out of these three? Well, you see - yes, it's sad. But at the same time, they got to live a happy life - for the duration of Naru's life, that is. I think it's pretty much as bittersweet as it gets, because even as the sun sets for Naru, he knows he's left behind some good memories for those he loved, and made them happy countless times.

He finally returns to his family, content and satisfied, having lived out his life in a way he liked. There is no more pain, no more sadness, no more anger. And eventually, he is joined by Dox. Together, they live in the afterlife for all of eternity, in a place where everyone can be happy.





(( @Yuma so tell us, how does the tale of the sad lizard boy come to an end? ))

 

I have an ending for one of my characters, it's pretty simple.
In a museum, somewhere, there's a painting.
And just below it says...
​

 

Let's see....
As of now I have three paths for him to go, being speculation.

The "Good" ending

After watching Reaize grow and become stable, the wandering curiosity of the little lizard starts to grow. It manifests first in little ways, more devout reading and learning giving him informal education. But, it eventually culminates in him learning more about Nas and the homeworld of his species. Reading can only get him so far with his stunted learning, so instead he decides to take a more physical approach. What he finds on his home planet is horrifying, immoral genetic creators running rampant and using the population to their needs. He struggles to call Nas a home for himself, with such deep roots in things that have played devil on him since first breath. Ki'a does not only find such practices harmful or traumatic, but he also feels disconnected from the rest of his species by the mutations that continue to spring up from his body. So, his eyes turn once again heavens-ward, where he starts a journey. Planets are set foot on by clawed feet, explored and nurtured by clawed hands. His wanderlust is never satisfied, and eventually he goes too far, taken by an unknown force that no-one has found before.

The "Bad" ending

The lizard lies in a hospital bed, pale and weakened. His abused body finally starting to give in to itself. Mutations can't always be good, the last one he receives further breaking the strained processes. With a handful of friends nearby, he struggles to prop himself up, scared eyes looking to a horned Fenerox in particular. You can't learn from a book on whats beyond life, uncertainty and fear flush his face as tries to look to her for an answer. But... there is none, only the little comfort her presence can give. He dies young in a hospital, the place he fought so hard to break free from.

The "True" ending

The deepest seeds of self doubt and loathing were there from the start, being made for one purpose and then given all of the options left him feeling confused on what he was. He finds purpose in one thing. Continuing the life of the one who gave it to him. A bullet to the chest, fatal near instant giving him a few seconds to look over the situation. The cursed bullet in him wasn't meant for the lizard, it was meant for Dox. The assailant is dead, several bites to their arms and neck, dripping with purple fluid. But they had a gun, a gun that in their last moments sought to take the one person's life when she wasn't guarding. Ki'a stops this, putting himself in front of her before she can react the same. He doesn't hesitate, never does.

These are how I think he will go, any combination of these. Was a fun little exercise!

 

I feel I'm semi-responsible of this thread existing in a convoluted way, so might as well throw my hat into the ring...

The universe is over, or it might as well be. After The Calamity, whole civilizations fell. Centuries worth of advancement and prosperity turned to dust in the Blackout. Whole planets have gone dark. The hyper-lanes have closed, and the barriers between the worlds are sown firmly shut. There aren't systems, not like their used to be, only holdouts. Scattered colonies screaming out into an inky darkness for anything, a blip of activity in any direction. Some find one, most don't. To call it a new Dark Age would be inaccurate, because that argues there is a future with historians giving things titles. Nobody looks forward to the future if there isn't anything left to fight for.

And in an unimportant corner, orbiting a star you've probably never heard-of, in a place you'll never go. There is a man who clings to what is left, of a universe that's been left behind...

Once upon a time his library would have been called impressive, they have may have even called it grand. Now they wouldn't call it anything. Other than maybe a waste of firewood. Regardless, it is vast. Shelves upon shelves of books, written in languages long since forgotten by the passing of time. An at it's heart a vast cylindrical tank stands, towering as high as the bookshelves that curved around it. And contained within this great tank, the last aggregation of manatees in the universe. The art of cloning has long since been lost, these animals will never exist again. They will be the last of their kind in all in history. Not unlike the books that surround them.

And if this station is to be the last library, then it must have a curator. A grey haired man, with a short beard and one eye. A pitiable lonely creature, their only company the aquatic mammals they've elected themself to be the protector of. Perhaps they saw kinship in them, after all they're the last of their kind too. And lost deep somewhere in these books that this sad thing hoards, there is a name written that was once his. A name that like the manatees has been extinguished from every other corner of the galaxy. And that name is Archer.

It's fucking @Cheffy hours! Get in on this!

 

I've never really thought of a real "Ending" for my character, Lithui, because I don't think I'll ever get to anywhere near what one could call an ending, but if that possibility does come into existence, somehow, I think it would most likely be along the lines of this:

Nothing much changes in Lithui's life over the years. She continues travelling through the worlds she can acces via the telepads of The Fringe, hopping from planet to planet from time to time, exploring its nature and wonders, and she continues making friends and maybe some unwanted enemies along the way. Her life would probably be filled with joy and excitement, but a shadow might loom over her forever, because whatever she does or tries, one thing might never change for her. That being that she might never meet someone like herself, another "Lithui-Creature", meaning that she might never have semblance to someone similar to her in her life, nor would she find out about her origins and what happened in the past to her. But she would continue on, trying to focus on the more fun things in life like the ones mentioned above.

Ultimately I think there are multiple endings for her, either she lives and eventually dies among friends, probably one day falling asleep and never waking up again, as her body grew tired over the years and fails to support her. She might wander of into nature on one of the many planets she explored, dying alone and for herself in the places of her origin, hoping that there might be something after life, at best something that might fulfil her dream of meeting someone like herself. Maybe, just maybe she dies along the way, either through the hands of another person or through a misadventure, since there are still many dangerous things that can be found in nature.

Personally I'd like her to experience the first ending, or even better one where she somehow manages to find someone similar to her, since that would make for a happy and peaceful ending, not filled with a sad, but a happy look on the past and her life. Dying in the mids of her friends she made along the way, not fearful of what might come, or not come.