m
E
wow someone doesn't know their alphabet
No, I just realized I could spell 'nope' with what you had down already and my Scrabble-winning reflexes kicked in.
pffft
pffft. 30 pts
I choose to assume this was a triple-word score. : D
So, how are you today, Lint?
pretty good! wisdom tooth is ever so quietly driving me nuts
how's you?
Currently, I'm fine. This morning was... kind of unpleasant, but things seem okay now. Have you got a dentist appointment soon?
i have to wait until all four grow out : (
Bluh, that sucks. Hopefully it goes quickly.
same
and it's good to know things are okay now on your end
and it's good to know things are okay now on your end
Yeah, it was... more of a brief incident than an ongoing thing?
what happened, if i can ask?
I, er... you know how they tell you not to take most medications on an empty stomach? Turns out they also mean 'eat actual food, don't just chug a smoothie and hope it'll be enough until later'.
I threw up on a bus.
oh man that's a suckage
At least it wound up on the floor, and not the seats- fabric probably would've been harder to clean. I felt bad for the bus driver, but he was really nice about it when I apologized.
guy's probably seen worse in his tenure tbh
Pretty much, yeah. He was like 'it's okay, I used to drive the shuttles for Disney, I've seen people throw up on buses before'.
I have a new respect for the fortitude of shuttle drivers.
the land of whimsy
they're seen it all
they're seen it all
Truly, the happiest place on Earth.
did that mean you had to take your medication again, or would that be a Bad?
I didn't want to risk it, and it had been a little while since I'd taken it, so I figured I'd probably absorbed enough of it into my system that it would be better not to take another dose.
that tracks
Also good news is that this happened, like, four days before the end of my last semester here. So hopefully if anyone else on that bus does remember me, it'll just be for a slightly awkward schoolwork.
...Instead of, say, doing that back in freshman year and having to spend the next four years of college being known as 'that girl who yarfed on public transportation'.
*schoolweek
they probs assumed you were on a kegger last night maybe
Well, I did actually explain why that happened when the guy sitting nearest (but thankfully not too near) to me asked, so anyone who overheard would know. Assuming they believed me, anyway.
Given the number of drunken frat boys I've seen on campus, dealing with a tiny, deeply apologetic woman who didn't appear to be visibly intoxicated was probably a nice change for the shuttle drivers, puke-wise.
oh definitely
Sooo, now that I've also TMI'd all over the Internet, anything else going on in your life?
making another shot at trying to figure out what's shooting my ability to Do Things in the ass
so trips to the uni health center and psych departments
gonna try to make this less of a non-starter than last time
I believe in you, and so does CheerFrisk.
aw thank : D
Executive dysfunction is a bitch and a half, but you can beat it. : D
i'm gonna do my best 
WAIT DID SOMEONE CALL FOR...
the goop dad of encouragement
aaaa thamk
Aww, what a nice thoughtful non-Newtonian fluid he is.
does he get more fluid on impact or less
Yes.
more, not less. dear god let's not have people breaking their hands.
just hands disappearing into glorp
Exactly. Goopy for your safety.
well unless there's a 'fall in and can't breathe' situation
Please keep hands and elbows outside the Void goop at all times.
i wonder if this is a way you can actually travel to the Void
Then he'd just... move. And wonder why you dived in. God, you're so weird.
PLZ GET OUT OF GASTER
Maybe get some scuba gear and a tether, see how deep he goes. : D
...wait, this is someone's fetish, isn't it.
he's a very deep thinker
god probably
I am just... so classy today. Look at how much class I bring to this plurk.
Gaster: 
gaster is basically a foam pit. bottomless
occasionally you find a lost someone who has been living there for five years
and it's another gaster
gastryoshka
sdfghjk
Congratulations, Lint, I think you're the first person here to make me actually keysmash in amusement.
this is a high honor
Here is a complimentary emoticon.
that is exactly how i'm feeling how did you know
the mysterious echo
(I suspect that Gaster is also where a lot of small lost objects end up, much like couch cushions in a normal house. Every couple weeks or so, someone has to take one of those long-handled pool cleaner's nets and swish it through him to clear out spare change and the occasional missing sock.)
fffdffdf
all i can think of is Chihiro pulling a bicycle out in spirited away
he'll never run out of pens, at least
come back chihiro player. Like I said. She meets him, asks if he's eaten anyone lately, later he confronts Kalak asking WHAT ON EARTH THEY HAVE TOLD PEOPLE ABOUT HIM
Pfft, he would.
I can totally see Kalak making up stuff for shits and giggles, assuming they have ever giggled in their entire life. Which I am not entirely certain they have.
I can confirm that Kalak has been the deadpan one for a long time
pffftl I love that echo knows who Kalak is from our rp 
I lurk like the night, watching and learning your ways.
Also, their player is on my friends list.
vapes is a good
cutie
everyone a gud
i love everyone in this bar
YEAAHHH
has lint noticed we always take over rp plurks
yes and I love it
don't stop
also aw geez that emoticon
we're the guys down there
Just think of it like an ancient play- we're your Geek Chorus. : D
oh my god echo i just made the most massive snort
that's just. that's A+ wordplay right there
hehehehe
I've been wanting a chance to use that one for years, to be honest.
Like, literally years.
i am proud to have facilitated this moment
I thank you for your contributions.
hey lint hey
>lunch
ooh?
auuuuuuuuuugh you got me
Hmm... I'm gonna say a solid seven out of ten?
You would have gotten the extra points if you'd photoshopped some dryer lint in there somehow.
BUT MOBILE IS MY LIFE
EchoDoctor i don't want to clog birb's chat but
look at this
everyone in pnat has snark but max is a master
I don't know what going on here, but I'm looking forward to finding out. : D
: DDD sorry, i'm trying to fight down that ol' 'how much you read did you like it who is your favourite character so far what are your theories did you notice this thing' urge
you know the one
I am the living force of that urge.
it's one of your many endearing traits
that's absolutely not sarcasm btw, i love that you are so down to jam
that's absolutely not sarcasm btw, i love that you are so down to jam
Aww, you. For the record, I absolutely love how happy and enthusiastic you are about hearing other people's ideas and playing with fun new headcanons, and I think you're a genuine delight to talk to.
So once I've finished this and inevitably come up with five new Weird AU Ideas, you'll be the first to know. : D
(Seriously, there's this one friend I'm not longer on speaking terms with, and one of the only reasons I wish I still was is because he was on chapter eight of a thing I recommended to him before he rendered himself Dead To Me, and I want to know if he ever finished it.)
i'm excited already : DD i love bouncing ideas back and forth so much 
(oh man no closure there)
(Who was his favorite character? Was it Tess or was he clearly wrong? But nooo, he had to decide 2016 was a good time to vote libertarian and now we'll never know.)
(I mean, I would have forgiven him if Hillary had won, but he threw away his chance to try and block that godawful orange jackass to make a protest vote for Gary fucking Johnson and it was clearly not the time for that risk. ...sorry, didn't meant to Go There.)
(patpat. it's okay man, let it all out)
(drain the wound)
(Deeeep breaths. Think happy thoughts, like fluffy puppies and the Senate going Democrat.)
( there you go 
)
)
in any case i'm intrigued by this thing that has a character that shares my name
Okay that is... technically a huge spoiler, in that it involves a plot-relevant rename towards the end, but I can give you a general overview?
ooooh go for it
It's a web serial novel called Worm. It's by a guy called Wildbow, and the basic premise is that a teenage girl called Taylor becomes a parahuman (the in-universe term for people with superpowers) with the ability to control bugs, and decides to try and become a superhero. This goes... places.
First major warning, upfront, this thing is super fucking dark.
hooboy
Like, we're talking full-on Russian novel level depressing, Wildbow's attitude towards superheroes is slightly less cheerful than George R. R. Martin's view of the medieval period.
hoooooboy
deconstructiontown
Bad things happen to good people, and bad people, and morally ambiguous people- the latter of which is almost the entirety of the cast. The setting itself is way more horrifying than it looks, although to be fair it does take them a decent time to get to that revelation. Also, when it comes to content warnings, you've got, let's see...
this long pause concerns me
Blood, gore, and body horror in general, deaths of people of all ages, psychological manipulation, torture, abuse, aaaand I'm pretty sure racism, too, because one of the villain groups consists of superpowered neo-nazis and unfortunately they do actually get some onscreen lines before we get around to seeing them die.
No onscreen sexual stuff, though, I think. Just mentioned or implied.
hmm i suppose the make or break thing is- is there hope?
Ehhhh, sort of? Like, spoilers, not everyone dies... but, on the other hand, things get bad enough that it is actually, legitimately a spoiler for me to tell you that anyone, anywhere in that world survives.
holy shit
Honestly, much as I enjoy the writing, Worm is one of those things I hesitate to recommend a lot of the time because it gets really fucked up in places, and I don't want to accidentally wind up with someone getting a few chapters in because it starts slow and then getting blindsided by something really upsetting.
hmm i'll have to think about it yeah
I can be kind of a cynic, but even by my standards Wildbow makes me look over like 'holy shit, dude, you might need to calm down a little'.
On the bright side, it's all online and you can read it for free. So, y'know, at least you wouldn't need to pay money to get traumatized. : D
like much as like like angst and tragedy i don't like hopelessness, if that makes sense
XD haha true
*I like, whoops
Yeah, I get that. One of the big sticking points is whether it succeeds in being an interesting tragedy or just devolves into excessively gritty grimdark for the sake of grimdarkness. I go back and forth on that myself, honestly.
nods
My other major complaint is that the Nazis didn't die fast enough, but that's just because I hate them. Like, I'm pretty sure all of them get killed off eventually? But I feel like it could have happened quicker.
On the bright side, it does have actual canon lesbians who are, get this, not white. And they're two of the people who actually survive to the end. : D
fuck yes
in an amazing inverse of the usual trope of everyone but the lesbians making it to the end
There's also this one guy called Legend, who is accurately described by fandom as 'gay laser Superman'. As in, actually gay onscreen, not just implied.
aw yiss
wait doesn't superman already have lasers? so he'd be gay Superman?
(gay laser Superman does have a nicer cadence to it though)
Superman has laser vision. Legend has lasers. Like, all the lasers. The way they categorize powers, there's an entire group called 'Blasters', which means people with ranged attacks, and Legend is considered the standard by which most of that category is measured.
: O
niiice
(And in case you're wondering: yes, they could come in different colors. Which means Wildbow managed to subtly sneak in an openly gay character who could rainbow you to death.)
Also, a woman called Miss Militia, who is essentially 'Middle-Eastern lady Captain America'. Her costume includes an American flag-printed headscarf. Sadly, I don't know whether or not she's gay, since the subject of her sexuality never comes up.
(you read my mind)
oh man i'm liking the sound of this more and more
Basically, Worm is Bad Things Happening To Very Morally Ambiguous People (With Superpowers), but at least it's bad things happening to everyone, instead of a small cluster of straight white guys angsting and then being the only ones left alive.
good shit
I'd, uh... tread carefully around the fandom, though. There's an unfortunate tendency for parts of it to look at stuff I'm pretty sure Wildbow intended to be seen as wrong and horrific and go 'hey, that seems hot'. I mean, he may or may not have pulled it off without falling into gratuitous and disturbing territory? But fandom isn't even trying.
Fandom can be kind of frustrating in a lot of places.
yiiiikes yeah i'll say
glances at entire salt chat of evidence
So, yeah, I enjoyed it overall, but it's got some really serious flaws and absolutely isn't the kind of thing you read if you're not in a good place for very dark and gruesome stuff.
(...meanwhile, here I am quietly plotting happy fluffy domestic AUs for my ridiculously awful trash favorite and his wonderful robot girlfriend.)
(I'm a terrible person.)
(that sounds like the complete opposite of terrible)
while we're recommending things, is it okay if i enquire your status on the adventure zone?
I have absorbed a solid sixty percent of its spoilers through osmosis and read some fanfiction, but I haven't actually listened to the podcast itself because anything audio-based that's really long is hard for me to pay attention to and I haven't seen any transcripts.
(I... sort of want to gush about the robot, because she's great? But even telling you there's a robot in here is spoilers, so I feel kind of torn.)
tazscripts here are transcripts 
Ooh, hello. : D
(gush away my man)
Okay, so, serious spoilers for one of the mid-to-early major plot revelations, but:
Her name is Dragon. She's an Artificial Intelligence secretly pretending to be a parahuman.
oooh
Essentially, one of the powerset types in Worm is a mad scientist subtype called Tinkers, people who can build frankly impossible technologies. They have specialties, like, say 'transportation' or 'explosives' or whatever, that they work best in. Her 'father', a Tinker by the name of Andrew Richter, specialized in AIs.
She was his ultimate project, but unfortunately he died while she was still fairly new. This is a problem, because he was worried about the whole going-horribly-wrong issue and put a lot of restrictions in her programming, which he'd intended to slowly remove or modify as she developed depending on how trustworthy he thought she was.
(.......when did Worm start being written)
Uh... June 2011, according to the website. Why?
son of a bitch
?
basically back in 2011 I was part of an rp set in a mad scientist/superhero world and one of the characters was called Andrew Tinker
it's probs a coincidence, since it started in 2008, but that was a moment
it's probs a coincidence, since it started in 2008, but that was a moment
(it was partly inspired by Girl Genius, so there was a similar thing of 'Sparks')
but anyway, go on
Pffft, wow, yeah. That's a close one. : D
Dragon's very limited compared to her full potential, but she's still skilled enough to pretend to be a Tinker with agoraphobia. So she stays in her 'base' in Canada and acts as a major hero of the setting via her remote-controlled dragonsuits, which are basically small reptilian-themed mecha.
heck yesss
The main thing about Dragon that I (and most of the fandom) love is that she's also by far one of the nicest people in the entire setting.
Like, she's not even human, but she's vastly more humane than most of the flesh and blood people around.
Her main objection to Richter's restrictions isn't that they hold her back from being more powerful, it's that she could be doing more to help people. And not in the 'take over the world for their own good' sense, I mean she'd be going around solving the energy crisis or something.
She's not annoyed that her requirement to save human lives exists, she's annoyed because she feels like it makes her choice to be a hero less meaningful if she doesn't have the option of backing out- but she does still want to save people, entirely of her own free will.
hhhhhhh i already love her
Like, at basically no point in the series can I remember her being anything other than kind, reasonable, and well-intentioned? She's not perfect, but she's genuinely caring and wants to do the right thing.
It's generally agreed in the fandom that her lack of a desire to take over the world is actually somewhat unfortunate, in that the Wormverse as run by Dragon would probably be a noticeable improvement over their current situation.
(It'd probably be the politest takeover ever. "Look, I'm honestly really sorry about this, but I've been running the numbers and I'm pretty sure if I don't we might all die. On the bright side, I'm pretty sure I've fixed world hunger. Sorry for the inconvenience.")
voted for tyrant
She winds up dating another Tinker, who is... well. Put it this way: if you told somebody in universe that one half of that relationship was robotic, she would not be their first guess.
: D self modification huh
In keeping with my describing Worm characters in terms of other canon's superheroes, he's basically 'autistic mad scientist government-funded asshole Batman'. (Sadly, the 'autistic' part is only heavily implied, not outright canon, but wow does he really fit it.)
holy shit : D
like how Batman are we talking here
Like, he's a pure Tinker, no other powers, right? This means his only ability is superhuman invention skills. He's still a frontline combatant against people who can crush steel with their bare hands because he trains himself to be that good a fighter. He's a perfectionist of the highest order.
Chara Dont
was
this the character you were tossing around the idea of genderflipping?
Yes, that's the one. : D
...He's also kind of a wreck, personally speaking? Like, in keeping with Worm's tendencies to deconstruct a lot of traditional superhero tropes, it shows that the kind of person who would devote themselves utterly to crimefighting and insist on absolutely perfection from themselves in all they considered important really wouldn't be very mentally healthy.
oh god no yeah hhh
He's devoted himself completely to his career as a hero, to the point where he has literally nothing else.
D :
oh no
i'm getting a very Watchmen vibe from all this
It's not that far off, yeah.He's given his entire life to this, and what he's focused on is his own ambition, the belief that it'll all be worth it because someday he'll be the one at the peak of it all, he'll be perfect and admired and remembered...
and because he has nothing else to give him any kind of perspective, he's been steadily forgetting the morals and ideals that made him a hero in the first place in favor of feeding his ambition.
hhhooo boy
i love that sort of slow corruption
And the government superhero organization that employs him doesn't care enough to look into it because, hey, he's still doing really good work, right? Why worry about his mental health, if he has any problems he doesn't let them show on camera or on the battlefield, so clearly there's nothing worth worrying about, right?
asdfghjk no
So by the time we first see him in canon, he's kind of sloooowly slid from being genuinely heroic to a bitterly ambitious bastard, but we don't see that side of him until after the whole thing finally gets fucked up past the point of no return and he has to go 'holy shit, what is wrong with me' and try to put himself back together.
fuck yes
He's an antagonist for a while, but Dragon's the one to help him start finding a healthier road and they wind up dating after he's pretty solidly into his redemption arc.
(Part of what I like is that she doesn't go out of her way to fix him, it's initiated because he genuinely respects her and wants to do better, not because it's the love interest's job to make it all better for him.)
(She can help him, but he has to be responsible for his own choices. They also genuinely liked each other before all this went down, so it's not like she's treated as a prize for being a semi-decent person, either.)
yes good. finally it's handled well
Yeah, like... it's a balanced, mutually beneficial relationship. He's helping her with her restrictions, she's helping him with his morals, and it's built on a pre-existing foundation of mutual trust and admiration. Not just the whole 'let me angst in your general direction' kind of deal.
Although, in terms of responsibility... like, morally speaking he is one-hundred percent to blame and absolutely had no right to do what he did, under any circumstances.
But in the practical sense, I can't help but looking at the PRT (that's the government organization) and thinking
'you know for a fact that parahumans are highly prone to mental instability. You also know that this man has absolutely nothing else in his life besides his career, which he focuses on to a degree that is at best obsessive and at worst suicidal, and hasn't for the past decade and a half now.'
'And yet, you decided to demote him as leader of this branch of your organization and tell him he's being transferred to serve under someone else in a lower position in a different city suddenly and without bothering to do any kind of follow-up psych exam? Were you trying to get this to end in supervillainy?'
Like, I mean... he chose to respond to that demotion by committing murder, that's on him. But seriously, no one thought that might end badly?
hhhhhh
it sounds like many people in this universe suffer from a terrible lack of foresight
They really do.
...Actually, credit where it's due, Miss Militia does seem like she's concerned about him when he calls her in for the 'so hey you've been a great second in command, you're getting a promotion and I'm... not, please ignore the pained grimace I'm very happy for you' conversation.
But unfortunately Serious Plot Shit Happens before she can mention those worries to anyone, and by the time it's over he's already killed, like, at least three people.
Man works fast, you have to give him that.
hhhhh cripes
sounds like Reaper
...Huh, now that you mention it, there could be some similarities there. Although Colin does have an advantage in that he managed to both actually survive his homicidal breakdown and subsequently choose an aesthetic that didn't come from a trip to Hot Topic.
Also on the list of things I appreciate is that he genuinely doesn't seem to resent Miss Militia?
Like, he's deeply resentful of the situation as a whole, and also several other people involved in it, but his reaction to her getting promoted into his old position is just 'of course, she's completely earned that job'. He just also thinks that he should be getting promoted further, too.
hhhhh
I dunno, this might be low-hanging fruit, but it's just really nice that they have a nonwhite woman being promoted into a job previously held by a white (probably, I think his ethnicity never actually gets mentioned outright? Wildbow's writing style is pretty sparse on physical descriptions, we just know he has dark hair and a lot of scars) man...
and at no point does anyone suggest that she might not be up to the job, including the man in question, who would plausibly be in a mood to make cheap shots.
The fact that she's getting promoted appears to be, like, the one thing about this situation he doesn't actually object to.
Honestly, while most of my fan-focus is on shipping him and Dragon, I would read the shit out of some Armsmaster and Miss Militia BrOTP fic. ...if any existed, which if it does I can't find any, so I'd probably have to write it myself.
dooo iiiit
(Armsmaster is his codename before the whole breakdown and redemption thing.)
Like, at one point in the early stages of redemption, he nearly dies and he wakes up in the hospital. The room contains exactly two nonmedical things: a laptop (because Dragon wanted to talk to him when he woke up) and a get well card... which he immediately identifies as being from Miss Militia.
She canonically found time in this whole clusterfuck- despite the fact that his moral status is still in pretty huge doubt- to get him a fucking card. And he's totally unsurprised because... well, who else would it be from? This shit practically writes itself, I swear.
oh my god i love it
Other things I love about Armsmaster, even though he's kind of a terrible person: he is one of the people responsible for finally killing off one of those damn Nazi supervillains, and he is hilariously unrepentant about it.
good
Like, proper government-funded heroes are supposed to bring in supervillains alive, and are in deep shit if they don't except under exceptional circumstances.
But since he's getting demoted anyway he figures 'okay, might as well try a couple plans there's they'd ever let me do and see if it works' and just tries to kill off a few of the more frustrating villains.
Which, you know, still murder. Especially since he got other heroes caught in the crossfire. And he is actually remorseful about them, and some of the substantially less-heinous villains he also included, later on... but his entire reaction to those deaths is basically just 'on the bright side, killed a couple Nazis. You're welcome' and remains so.
Because fuck those guys.
yyyep
Like, he already has enough trouble conveying his regrets for the things he actually regrets doing? He's not gonna waste time pretending he's sorry about that, life's too short.
sounds entirely fair tbh
Although it is hilariously awkward in retrospect that the son of the dead guy in question defects to the heroes.
that whole 'you killed my dad' thing
I mean, 'defect' may not be the right word? He was never actually a supporter of his father's cause in the first place, he was just a preteen living under the thumb of a racist asshole with superpowers, he's pretty blatantly disgusted by the rest of his family's beliefs the second he's able to actually get away from them.
good thing he got out then
So the kid may not have actually minded that much, given that they were implied to be pretty abusive, but the part I find hilarious is that I genuinely don't know if anyone ever told him about it?
Like, did anyone bother to mention to him 'yeah, by the way, Armsmaster killed your dad, and also that guy over there was Armsmaster before he killed some people. Like your dad.'
Or was Colin just awkwardly standing there wondering if he should mention it.
sdfghjk
Did he ever find out? We don't know. And it's just... imagine that conversation.
awkwardsville
"Your father was a terrible person." "I know that." "I killed him." "I did not know that." "Right, good talk, bye."
(Post-redemption, Colin improves a great deal morally, but his social skills are honestly still pretty bad.)
There's also something I noticed when I was rereading some of the earlier parts: I could be wrong, but I don't think Armsmaster ever really, like, swears? He says 'damnation' at one or two points, but never anything stronger. But, after he's no longer working for the government, he actually does swear onscreen? Not a huge amount, but he does.
And the thing is, not allowing him to use 'excessive foul language' or whatever would be completely in character the PRT, because superheroes have to be polished and palatable and God only knows when there's going to be a news camera around somewhere.
hhuuuuh i wonder if it's a publicity thing
And of course, with Armsmaster's ambitious personality, there's no way he'd ever risk breaking regulations like that.
So imagine the point at which, after over a decade of trying to perfectly fit the PRT's rules, Colin realizes he's finally allowed to swear again.
let Colin say fuck
He can say 'fuck' when everything goes horribly wrong and it looks like they're all about to die for the fifth time that week, or maybe just because he dropped a wrench or something, and no one can stop him. : D
freedom
I also love how incredibly offended he is at the suggestion that he try being a supervillain, since the whole 'hero' thing clearly didn't work out. Granted, the person making the offer is pretty reprehensible even for this canon, no one with any scrap of decency left would be likely to take them up on it, but still.
He may have committed a few murders and tried to pull off some complex, secret plan with them in order to Show Them, Show Them All, but he is clearly still not a villain, how dare.
asdfghjk
colin voice: I'm an antihero
The best part is that Dragon's whispering to him over the speakers like 'this man has personally killed more people than either of us have ever even met in very horrible ways and he has you cornered, please just keep him talking until help gets there and don't antagonize him' and he almost immediately gets into a shouting match with the guy over this.
well, it is keeping him talking
Well, kind of one-sided shouting, really. He might get tortured to death for yelling at him but there are important issues at stake here, dammit.
it scans like an Internet Argument
(Meanwhile, one of the supervillains who actually survived Armsmaster's total inability to cope with career adjustments winds up hearing about the recruitment attempt later and she's just like 'yeah that makes total sense'.)
( asfdgfhyt )
('He'd probably be pretty good at it, let's not encourage him.')
And that's my favorite character. Like, there were plenty of other perfectly nice, pleasant options around I could have picked, but nope. Somehow, I went with this asshole.
your trash baby
He is my terrible arrogant mad scientist robot man and I love him.
Like, Sans is honestly a pretty decent person in comparison to most of my favorites.
yeah he has murdered no more than one person
In real life, I've never understood much of the appeal behind 'bad boys' or whatever, that just seemed like more frustration than it's worth, but in fiction my tastes inevitably seem to run towards total bastards.
I dunno, does the Fallen Child count as one person or two? Because you've got Frisk and Chara in there, so.
oh good point
two people.
god tho sometimes i wonder how much his HP went up by after the fight
Plus there's Flowey. And possibly even Gaster, depending on how you think all that shit went down. So Sans' estimated body count is 'at least one person, but definitely not more than four'. Which, admittedly, is what the Wormverse would call 'a slow week', so he's still ahead of the curve.
And yes, I think I made exactly that facial expression.
hehehehe
Also, I HAVE WONDERED THIS TOO AND IT HURTS ME.
AUs where he goes "don't come back" and Frisk and Chara are like "okay" and he's like "wait"
YESSS. God, he might wind up at like level three, depending on how much EXP they're worth.
Imagine him being almost healthy for the first time his life and totally unable to enjoy it because look at the cost.
god yeah. it wasn't worth it
monsterkind has seven souls but
i don't think anyone wants to go to the surface anymore
i don't think anyone wants to go to the surface anymore
and everyone will be
well. Asgore did nothing
would they still want him as king
well. Asgore did nothing
would they still want him as king
or would they stick with him for some stability
Honestly, I think the only person really inclined to blame Asgore would be Asgore.
hhhh yeah
my first thought was
'what if he falls down'
my first thought was
'what if he falls down'
bc i get the impression he's been near there for a while
Like, they'd be lost and scared, I don't think they'd want to throw away a major pillar of their society at the time. He and Alphys would probably be the subject of a lot of admiration, between his status as king and her evacuation efforts, as per the Queen Alphys ending.
oh yeah definitely
she helped people! accolades!
again, at cost
again, at cost
Oh God, yes, that man is not well. I think if he hung on for duty's sake this long he'd probably keep going, though. Like, his health might decline, but I think he'd still hold on.
...You know, it occurs to me that the general public might not know that Asgore did nothing?
that's true
"you killed the human!"
"actually it was sans"
".....sans? short guy? terrible jokes? worst sentry?"
"actually it was sans"
".....sans? short guy? terrible jokes? worst sentry?"
I mean, think about it: no one else was there in the Judgement Hall with them, and Sans isn't likely to brag about it. From your average monster's perspective, the human went into the castle and didn't come out, the obvious answer is that they got killed by the guy who lives in there and also killed all the previous humans.
Maybe Asgore's trying to decide what to do, hearing more and more frantic phone messages from Alphys and trying to steel himself to finally take the souls... and then Sans walks in carrying something red in one hand and something... mostly red, by now, in the other.
And he just goes 'here. take them.'
And walks away.
hhhhhh
no phone call this neutral
unless like. talking to a jar
Does Asgore have awkward soul jar conversations. Because I could see him doing that.
i would not be surprised, to be honest
it's probs like
the only outside news they get, if they're any kind of aware
the only outside news they get, if they're any kind of aware
i do like the idea they can sort of talk to each other and have a shared mindscape thing going on if so
I'm just gonna... firmly stick to my headcanon that they're totally dormant outside a body, because otherwise it's terrifying.
But yeah, between the Fallen Child's triple-digit body count and the amount of monsters likely to Fall Down afterwards from the grief and terror of the whole thing, odds are that they're going to be down to a fraction of the population.
I'm imaging Sans just sort of... following Alphys around and not letting her out of his sight because this is the one person he has left and he can't lose her, too.
yyyyyep
well they're like
they're the only ones remaining of their friends
they're probs leaning on each other heavily
me and some friends have kind of a... test OC
Ninth human called Ceres
and we basically like to toss them into neutral endings to see what would happen
how do you think Sans in particular would react
(Ceres is LV1, might lash out when startled with their knotted rope, and played in a dust pile bc they had no idea what it was before leaving the Ruins, to add in some variable)
Depends on the Neutral Ending in question, but for this specific one... Dead-eyed staring and absolutely no conversation at all. Just... watching and waiting. He'd probably be able to tell they hadn't killed anyone, but he'd just be waiting for them to try killing anyone, at which point he'd probably use blue magic to tear them away from the monster.
Whether they survived that would depend on what they tried to do next.
Ceres: successfully creeped the fuck out
hmmm. yeah that makes sense
i think... god they'd be a really scared creeped out kid who grew up idolising Indiana Jones
they'd either try to hit or lasso him with the rope or run away
they wouldn't know monsters were fragile
man this could end really badly
esp if like
Alphys has set traps
Alphys has set traps
TalhaYousuf
says
Does Money Own You 
Day 279: Does Money Own You
Day 279: Does Money Own You
Thank you for that contribution, spambot?
But yeah, the sad thing is I think Sans would be less likely to react badly to them lashing out at him, as long as they left the other monsters in the area alone. After all, he can dodge...
yeah after he dodges they might be more friendly, paradoxically. very jumpy.
and he probably low key'd like
if they kill him, then that happens (still gonna dodge though)
if they kill him, then that happens (still gonna dodge though)
SNIFFS THE AIR
I SMELL CERES CONTENT
sweet innocent dust eating baby.
our precious test dummy child
Echo
is
their name a reference to Demeter (and therefore her daughter, the Queen of the Underworld) by her Roman name? Because that's clever. : D
: D It's actually a reference to the asteroid!
Ooh, like the same way Chara's a star?
since nine kids = nine planets. or seven planets and the moon and sun if you can to go Classical
Ceres was originally thought to be a planet, too, but nope, it's just the asteroid large enough to be a) spherical and
discovered first
it's a little nod at the OC's ersatz nature as a hypothetical
Ceres was originally thought to be a planet, too, but nope, it's just the asteroid large enough to be a) spherical and
discovered firstit's a little nod at the OC's ersatz nature as a hypothetical
: D yes exactly
i discovered that it was Demeter's Roman name after, and that does fit in some respects but not in others as a result
i discovered that it was Demeter's Roman name after, and that does fit in some respects but not in others as a result
That's really neat, I love it when you can fit a bunch of double meanings into something.
saaaaaaame : D
(in case you're wondering, I associate Flowsriel, Chara and Frisk with Sun, Moon, and Earth respectively)
(Ooh, I could see that leading to some interesting symbolism. Details?)
(Mostly I started by looking at eclipses
During the solar eclipse, the new moon comes between the earth and the sun, becoming visible and surrounded by corona. This time is generally considered eerie.
I'm connecting it to the Pacifist ending, here.
During the lunar eclipse, the earth goes between the sun and moon and the moon turns blood red. That'd be Genocide.
(neutrals are just. the naturally misses that mean no eclipse occurs)
(neutrals are just. the naturally misses that mean no eclipse occurs)
(Shit, man, that's deep.)
D )
...thanks plurk
( : D )
Flowsriel has a lot of association with the sun to me, what with appearing in patches of sunlight, and the colour gold and radiality of the flower, and also in an Icarus sense. There's also tie ins to alchemy and the end goal of such being gold - being reaching the sun.
(he's also a son hohohohoh_
That does work in a lot of ways, yeah. It occurs to me that you could also have it shuffled around a few different ways: Flowey as the Earth because plant life, Frisk as the Sun because they're the main source of life and energy, Chara as the Moon because all their light now comes from a reflection of what Frisk gives...
The Earth has less sort of... tropes, surrounding it? But it's a grounding, solidifying force. The world encompasses the kindnesses and cruelties of nature and the only planet with life on them.
*it whoops
Or reverse those two, because Frisk is the image that Flowey (and a few others, less directly) project Chara on.
yep!
Chara is the Moon bc it revolves around the Earth but reflects the Sun's rays and is often paired with it in legend.
Chara is the Moon bc it revolves around the Earth but reflects the Sun's rays and is often paired with it in legend.
The moon is associated with liminality and reflectiveness, which I think suit chara well.
and ooh yeah that could also work
Or have Chara as the Earth, because of their grave (the only child to be properly buried) and their association with flowers, Flowey as the Moon, forever orbiting them, and Frisk as the Sun again, bringing the Earth to life... Yeah, I like that this can work in a few different arrangements. : D
I do like the sound of Silver Monarch tho
yeah there's so many ways you could swing it!
(This isn't me disagreeing with your version, by the way, I think it makes sense. I just like the fact that you can still make the symbolism work no matter how many times you shuffle it around.)
(oh yeah naturally)
(what would be your picks for the classical planets and the six souls?)
(Oooh, interesting question. It's hard to be sure without knowing more about them, but let me give it a try...)
(Assuming we aren't just going in the order you encounter them in the game, I'm gonna go by mythological symbolism here. Mars for Orange, after the bringing of war, charging in fearlessly. Saturn for Cyan, being the other name for Kronos, patience for the slow passing of time. Venus for Green, as kindness can be love in many forms, not only romantic.)
: D interesting considering the inhospitability of the place. that's where kindness would be needed most
(Mercury for Violet, the messenger for one who can move without ever being touched. Jupiter was, among other things, the patron of laws as part of a properly ordered society, being the king from which those laws came, so I'll say Gold there.)
(And finally, Pluto for Blue because FUCK YOU IT'S STILL A PLANET AND I DON'T CARE WHAT ANYONE ELSE SAYS.)
(Intense stubbornness is sort of like Integrity, right? : D )
(hopping and twirling, pluto does their own thing : D )
(Go you, Pluto. You keep your original style.)
god i'm having six soul feels now
They really sneak up on you, don't they.
they tried so hard... and got so far... and in the end.. it didn't even matterrr...
god some friends and i came up with the idea that-
well, it's generally accepted Patience fell first, since their stuff is in the Ruins, which means they might have been picked up before they were sealed
so they were brought to Asgore and Toriel
i don't think Toriel left after Asgore's declaration. I don't think she was pleased with it, perhaps, but she might have wanted justice for the killers of her children too
i don't think Toriel left after Asgore's declaration. I don't think she was pleased with it, perhaps, but she might have wanted justice for the killers of her children too
it's like that greek myth where the guy is offered a victory on the condition he kill the first living thing he sees when he gets back and he has a dog prepared for this purpose
only it's his child who runs out to greet him
Asgore made his declaration and the next human that falls is a child
Oooh, shit. So you think she somewhat reluctantly agreed to the death of an adult human, and the death of a child was the sticking point here. Damn.
so this might be going off the beaten track and into the weeds but
yyyyep. because they didn't know if the humans that killed their children would follow
and come down
but basically the idea is - patience wasn't killed immediately
patience was taken in because... they. neither of them wanted to harm a child
things were probs tense, esp with the pressure Asgore had foolhardedly placed on himself
patience was taken in because... they. neither of them wanted to harm a child
things were probs tense, esp with the pressure Asgore had foolhardedly placed on himself
Right. They've been down there so long, they don't really understand how much the Surface has forgotten them, made them only a myth. Even with Chara explaining that no one thinks monsters are real these days, it's hard to see what happened as an act of panic and not an act of war.
yeah exactly. an ancient conflict rekindled
not to mention... Chara told Asriel why they climbed the mountain, and the legend behind it
but i'm not sure they told Asgore or Toriel
they would have no reason to think the next human (and the ones after), would be children like Chara
here
Chara Dont
is
where things get fucky because
two things
the patience required for betrayal kills
and the only way for humans to leave the underground
two things
the patience required for betrayal kills
and the only way for humans to leave the underground
I don't think Cyan was cool and calculating, I don't think they planned it from the start. I think they were a kid who just wanted to go home, or who saw the already starting anti-human sentiment and wanted to escape, and they learnt some things
they tried to take Asgore's soul, and he killed them
Utterly horrified and disgusted with him, because they'd welcomed Cyan into their home, Toriel took Chara's body and left. And Asgore was left with his regrets
and the thing about LV is. it gets easier.
and with one soul, the monsters had hope
and with one soul, the monsters had hope
mind you, this is all speculation
But it could really work, yeah. Ouch.
the next two... orange and blue. maybe they killed people. maybe that's how he tried to rationalise it enough to do it
when the next two didn't... he'd already killed three children
when the next two didn't... he'd already killed three children
and so on
until we see the very, very, broken man in game
That makes a very horrible sort of sense, yes.
I think, if each of the major characters leans more towards a different genre, Asgore is very much in the mode of a Shakespearian tragedy.
oooh go on
No, no, that was more or less the complete thought, although I have been meaning to work out that idea a little more. Just, he fits the whole tone of one very well, doesn't he? All those good intentions, all such horrifying results.
Macbeth: Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?
Doctor: Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?
Doctor: Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.
what if each of the Dreemurrs fits their own genre of tragedy
Mm. It's skipping plays, but- he loved his family well, if so very unwisely.
hhhhh you bounce that back on me, in my own house
If I have to suffer, so do you. : D
bass drop, PAIN
(Actually, I've had this idea about that line with regards to Sans for a while now, wanna hear it?)
ooooh hit me
So, I was thinking about the play and I accidentally read the line backwards- as 'one who loved not well, but wisely'. Which got me thinking... what would that mean, exactly? If the original version is referring to someone with a great depth of passion, but also making very bad choices, then maybe it would mean someone who holds themselves back, or apart.
Someone who doesn't allow themselves to get close, except in very safe and cautious ways, in very carefully chosen situations. Who lets their love grow cold and die, but does at least take care to always pick the right moment, watching and waiting instead of rushing in to act.
oooooh
Basically, the reversed interpretation is very Sans.
So, among many other ideas, I've been wanting for a while now to do a character study fic about him- especially how he treats the Anomaly- and the title I want for it is 'Wisely But Not Well'.
DO IT
DO IT MY MAN DO IT
DO IT MY MAN DO IT
I honestly just really want an excuse to use that title. : D
(The fun part is, sooner or later both methods end in disaster. Either you act when you shouldn't, or hold back when you should.)
(the downside to patience
god i love each colour having a 'failure state' so to speak)
god i love each colour having a 'failure state' so to speak)
(I knooow, right? : D )
(...huh. You know how we've both messed around with associating the six main monster characters with the different soul colors? It just occurred to me that the game's bosses might specifically be good illustrations of their respective soul color's failure state.)
(oooooh yes. : D
(The failure of kindness, letting yourself be so caught up in the needs of others that you compromise your morals- see Undyne, hero to her people, willing to kill an innocent for their sake.)
(The failure of patience, not acting when you should- see Sans, waiting and waiting and waiting, until the Anomaly becomes a far greater threat than anyone can handle.)
(hhhhh yepppp)
(The failure of integrity, believing your own cause to be right and ignoring any truth that contradicts it- see Papyrus, so caught up in the happy narrative of becoming a brave guardsman and capturing a human that he nearly delivers them to their death.)
(someone in the failure states of both integrity and justice would be frikking scary ngl)
(The failure of persistence, continuing on even when you long since should have stopped, doing more damage to yourself and others in the process- see Muffet, so tirelessly trying to provide for her people that she tries to kill an innocent for money, even though they're from a far stronger species and could very well kill her, leaving them with no one.)
(The failure of justice, believing that everyone should get what they deserve, but allowing your vision to narrow so much that you focus only on what you believe that you yourself deserve- see Mettaton, convinced that his desire for stardom is more important than the lives of others.)
(hhhhh)
(Ooh, yeah. Honestly, you can interpret a few different kinds of failure in these, there are other options, but any kind can end badly.)
(The failure of bravery, rushing in foolishly to situation that requires careful handling- see Asgore, condemning innocents to death and his people to war by an oath sworn in his grief and rage.)
(And, I'm actually not really a fan of the idea that red symbolizes determination, but if you want to go that way it, too, has it's failure in a monster- see Toriel, so convinced that her way is the only way that she will attack the very child she wishes to save.)
(they remind me of limit breaks in Exalted, in a way. You can have different ones for each virtue)
(Yeah, exactly. : D )
(Honestly, I wish I could find a list of the different canonical limit breaks, but I haven't been able to anywhere.)
(i'm rather attached to red being determination and aren't sure why people don't like it anymore, but you do you)
(darnit. I think there was a wiki but it broke)
(I sort of prefer the idea that determination is a trait that all human souls have, and that the virtues are a separate thing. There's a few options, but my personal favorite is that the red soul's virtue is joy- it's the translation of 'Chara' from Greek, and it fits the different ways Frisk can go. Happiness in life at best, sadism at worst.)
(Yeah, I think it got deleted when White Wolf did a thing with moving the forums? There was this one pretty good website I found once for basic character building, but I have no idea where it was and I can't find it again.)
( : ( )
yeah i tend to resolve the paradox with 'all human souls have determination, in red souls it is the primary trait'
that it's what gives colour
that it's what gives colour
Eh, whatever works for you.
yeah differing interpretations and such
The point is everyone's having fun. ...'Fun' by our standards meaning 'major emotional moments'.
"I got you a gift: it's pain and sadness." "Awww, just what I wanted."
in fandom we don't say 'i love you' we say, 'here's this angsty headcanon' and i think that's wonderful
emotional catharsis is currency
There's something hilarious paradoxical about 'aww, they had a bad day, I'll give them something sad to cheer them up'. Not that there's not happy headcanons too, but still.
i love it
an even blend of both for maximum whiplash
It's so great. : D
man tho red soul trait being joy is another ouch, considering canon events
hope is another one i've seen
That's why I like it. : D
gotta maximise that angst potential