entrancelogs | + Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright!

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+ Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright! | OPEN +

Who: EVERYONE (if they want to live)
Where: EVERYWHERE (inside the mansion, knocking on doors)
When: 6/24 - 6/27
Rating: PG-13?
Summary: The Summerween Trickster has made his decree - Trick or treat...or die! This is a mingle log for Trick-or-Treating!
The Story:

On the morning of the 24th, everyone will find that the mansion was inexplicably decorated for Halloween...sort of. The idea behind the decorations is mostly the same, except that every jack-o-lantern is made out of a watermelon instead of a pumpkin. No, this is SUMMERWEEN.

For the first day it will be harmless enough, just a change in décor and a little spooky summer fun. However, by the second day there will be sightings of the Summerween Trickster, a creepy fellow made entirely out of unpopular loser candy, and he is not happy. In the entrance hall, there will be a giant jack-o-melon container with a counter and a count-down clock ticking away to the end of the event.

Your job, Wonderland, is to trick-or-treat for your lives. You have until the end of the event to deliver one million pieces of candy to the jack-o-melon before the end of the event, to appease the Summerween Trickster.

What was that? You'll just sit this out and wait for the event to end? I wouldn't do that if I were you. You see, the Summerween Trickster could be lurking around any corner. If he catches someone not fully embracing the spirit of Summerween (refusing to trick or treat, not wearing a costume, etc), they will not survive the experience. The Trickster will kill them and swallow them whole, making them part of his horrible loser candy body.

More details about trick or treating can be found here. This is a mingle post for trick-or-treating, if you'd rather use this than make a post! [Brackets] or prose are both welcome.

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There's something genuinely kind of wonderful about pissing someone off so much. It takes barely any effort, after all. Sans doesn't usually go out of his way to piss people off, partially because he doesn't really have to go very far out of his way. Plus he generally prefers being nice to people. But Alex has decided to hate Sans, and has been an all-around jerk the past few months.

All this because Sans reminded Alex of something from home, huh?

He shrugs again. "not too big a fan of running. sounds a lot like exercise."

"Well, then you can't dodge forever." Any sympathy he might've once felt for the guy has all but evaporated. Sans is just too damn mysterious for his own good, which puts him, oh yeah - right at the top of Alex's list of suspects for people who might be reporting to the Queen on the sly. He fits the profile perfectly: been here for some time, knows everybody, externally looks harmless, but there's gotta be more to him than he lets on.

Alex folds his arms, forgetting for a moment that a man in a shitty dollar-store skeleton costume is probably the least intimidating thing on the planet. Whatever, though. Whatever.

"Whatever your deal is, I'm gonna figure it out."

*Keep attacking.

"heh."

A thought comes to his head: what if it had been anyone other than Frisk that had fallen into the Underground? What if it had been Alex? Alex tossed into a world of weird monsters, Alex given the power to Reset. It hadn't really occurred to him to think of things that way before. It could have been anyone--any of the people here. Someone like Alex.

There's probably no point in wondering how things would have gone, but still. It's a thought experiment if nothing else. Alex, jumpy and paranoid as he is, probably would have started killing monsters right away, just out of self-defense or fear. Understandable, really--one of those reasons that still isn't a good reason. Sans is sure Frisk and Chara did that at least once.

But after that? After the first Reset? With his curiosity and driving questions and desperate need for answers he doesn't really need?

Sans wonders.

"so you keep saying." He says it breezily, lost in thought. "guess there's no point continuing to try and convince you there's really nothing special going on with me. it's too bad. being friends with you was pretty okay."

Edited 2016-07-01 03:29 (UTC)

Pretty okay. That gets a moment of something from Alex, a flicker of an emotion approaching confusion. Did they ever count as friends, really? He'd like Sans well enough, hadn't particularly imagined that feeling would be reciprocated in any great fashion, but he'd never gone out of his way. Neither had Sans, he's reasonably certain. But then, he doubts Sans goes out of his way for anything.

So it doesn't matter. It shouldn't matter, so therefore it...doesn't. Yeah. There we go. Simple, and to the point. Alex scowls.

"We weren't friends." Saying it somehow feels worse, and he can't have that. That's not how he is. He cuts out the extraneous things, like excising tumors, and moves on. "I'm pretty sure friends give a damn when things start going wrong."

Nah. Using that word wasn't going to work. It never really does. Ah well. It really is too bad. Sans always prefers having friends to anything else, and for all that he hides literally everything from people, he always does make friends pretty easily. The thing is that as far as he's concerned, you can be friends with someone even if never tell them anything and can't fully trust them. Hanging out and being nice to each other is all that counts.

It's the most low-effort kind of friendship. Like Alex says, the real deal requires a lot more work.

"guess not. but, uh, you're gonna have to be more specific about things going wrong. a lot's gone wrong the past few months, yanno?"

"I won't get into that whole deal with the kid," he says, reluctantly, glowering at the patch of wall to his left. "You could've handled it better. So could I. But that's not even the beginning."

Oh, but he's been holding onto this for a long time. He starts ticking the offenses off on his fingers.

"You talk up shit about 'timelines'. You never give me a straight answer. For anything, no matter what the fuck it is. You don't tell me or anyone else shit about whatever you know even when I ask. So that's your problem, fine. You got your own issues. I get that. But then?"

He feels a tad ridiculous spouting this frustrating, escalating diatribe in a skeleton costume of all things, but he's been bottling this up for too long. Too damn long. He advances, the muscles in his neck hard and taut.

"Then you don't do jack, with a side of fucking squat when that knife-wielding maniac goes after Max. Your best advice when I ask how I can help her? Hide her. Like that changed a thing. You're lucky they had a goddamn change of heart! And then, 'cause I had the audacity to go after a kid that gladly murdered one of your weird monster buddies, you just jump to the fucking conclusion that I'm suddenly some kinda murderer. Like that's, that's just second nature for me."

Well, in some cases it is. But that's beside the point. Sans wouldn't know that. Would he?

"You're shady, and you act like you got this moral high ground. But you haven't got a fucking leg to stand on."

The real downside to this costume--and okay, there's a lot of downsides--but the worst downside is definitely that it doesn't have pockets. Nowhere to stuff his hands. Sucks.

He stays quiet while Alex goes off, staring into the middle distance near Alex's chest, and doesn't move when Alex advances. His expression doesn't change, still just his usual placid smile.

Timelines and secrets and inaction and laziness and hypocrisy. So, the usual stuff. And it sorta brings it back around. Friendship is hard work, a two way street, and Sans so rarely puts in the effort. Half the time he wonders how much longer it's going to be before everyone, here and back home, wises up and realizes that Sans isn't worth the effort either.

"okay."

That's it, then.

Edited 2016-07-01 05:48 (UTC)

Okay. Okay?! That's it? That's all he's got to say for his sorry fucking self. Okay. Okay! OKAY.

Alex makes a strange barking sound, almost like a laugh, but it chokes itself halfway through and doesn't sound anywhere near amused. It's just disbelief, startled and hopeless, something approaching laughter simply because there's nothing else he feels he can default to.

"Okay?" He's not even fucking looking at him. He can't even look Alex in the eye while he says what he has to say. "Okay?"

He has to stifle the awful urge to draw back a fist and just - just crack one right over the guy's cheekbone, or whatever the hell passes for it. Grab him by the shoulders, shake him until he rattles. Something, anything, to engender some kind of reaction from him.

"Does this not bother you," he hisses, taking considerable and visible effort to smooth his tone and lower his volume, "that you almost got Max killed? That you got one of your friends killed? Probably more if that timebomb of a kid goes off again?"

There's a point where pissing someone off vaults over the line between amusing and concerning, and this definitely just jumped that line. But Sans still doesn't move, though his eyelights flick up to Alex's face. The guy now officially looks like he wants to punch something, preferably Sans's face and, well. Sans is pretty sure that punching solid bone is about equivalent to punching a wall in terms of how much damage you'll do to yourself. Maybe that's the only reason Alex is holding back. The truly hilarious thing is that Sans would probably be dead before Alex was done shaking his hand out.

Probably. That 1 HP is a tenacious little guy.

Still. Sans has to appreciate that Alex is holding himself back. Can't be easy, considering how volatile he's been.

Does this not bother you. Heh. That you almost got your friend killed. That you got your friends killed. That you got your brother killed. That you sat around and stared at the ceiling while an entire species was wiped off the map. Heh. Why don't you ever do anything, Sans? Don't you know what happens when guys like you take it easy?

"max. it's funny you mention that."

That was when he figured it out. That it wasn't black and white, that Chara was only one half of an anomaly. That was when he decided to call a truce, even if Chara wouldn't really agree to it.

"i thought chara would kill her. they had no reason not to. except that max cried and apologized and asked chara not to. and chara just...didn't. they got this strange look on their face and they didn't."

He pauses thoughtfully. The anomaly was always unpredictable, and at the time, Sans was still so stuck on the script that he just chalked it up to that unpredictability. That the anomaly had just decided this was going to be a neutral timeline, where not everyone had to die.

But it keeps happening. Chara keeps having moments, opportunities to backslide, and they have stumbled and threatened and had their issues, but at almost every opportunity they actually...

Keep trying. Could have taken their revenge on Alphys, but they didn't. Had plenty of chances to go after Sans, but they didn't. Almost lost it in the tunnels, but even Frisk dying wasn't enough to push them over the edge. LV 8 but they're still trying. Despite it all. Despite everything Wonderland keeps throwing at them.

Maybe even the worst person really can change. Maybe that was the whole point. Maybe that was what Sans saw in the look on Chara's face when they Spared Max.

"you have..." His eyelights meet Alex's gaze finally, and the light is cold. "...absolutely no idea how far that kid has come. no idea. they're not a timebomb. they're not a demon or a psycho or whatever else you said. they're a kid. a messed up one, but still a kid. the rules are different here. they deserved a second chance as much as anyone else."

He takes a step back and gathers up his bags of candy. He's ready to be done with this.

"so, you know. you can say whatever you want about me, because i actually don't care. but i think it might be better for everyone if you just left that kid alone. though--you didn't take that advice the first time around, did you?"

"You were watching."

He's not even surprised anymore. No, nope, he's just icily, coldly furious that Sans is just the type to sit there and watch shit happen without doing something about it. Calling for help. Intervening in literally any sense. But no. He preferred to, what, watch and wait and see if something interesting would happen? Like it's a stimulating thought experiment. Like people's lives are little fun toys he gets to bang into each other and see what happens.

The sheer. Nerve.

"Yeah, okay," snaps Alex, eyes narrowing. "Notice how I haven't bothered them once since that little debacle. Every time we've run into each other? It's been chance, or they've come to me. So maybe they are just a kid. Maybe they're just real messed up." He can relate, albeit...distantly. And never in a way he'd admit to himself. "Not that you care, no. You can blab on about second chances all you want. All I see is that the murderer gets more chances than the guy who just wanted to keep a friend safe."

Did he go about it the wrong way? Yes, now that he's had time to consider it at a reasonable length. Should've just scared them off, chased them away. They did something to get the drop on him, but he's not sure what. Still can't figure that out. Can't get his head on straight.

"of course i was watching."

The plan was to intervene if it looked like Chara was going to go for the kill, but then again, Sans knows himself fairly well. He honestly doesn't know whether he would have bothered. Even at that point he knew that the rules in Wonderland were different. No script, and he could act at any time, could just decide to act instead of waiting till the very end, for whatever combination of reasons why he always waits. At the time he was going to be the one to handle Chara, because he always eventually is.

He would have moved. To save Max. After Max was dead. After Wonderland itself had gone empty. Eventually.

He stares at Alex. "okay. what kind of chance do you want, then? cause, you know, it's not like i've written you off yet. i don't think anyone has. you didn't kill chara or max. mostly you're just paranoid and kind of a jerk. so i'm not sure what kind of chance you're expecting. i'm...i don't know what you're trying to get here. you're dressed as a skeleton, arguing with an actual skeleton dressed as an anime character. it's june but it's halloween for some reason. what's the point? what do you want from me?"

The bridge is shaking and Alex isn't holding onto it, and neither is Sans - couldn't be assed, he'd assume. Being his friend was pretty okay, Sans says, like they ever were friends, like anyone would - like Alex has friends that don't turn on him at a moment's notice. Like he's capable of that.

"I want you to be straight with me," says Alex shortly. "If you don't want to get into your personal shit, fine. But if that kid goes off the rails, if shit from your world starts getting dragged in here, and you don't give us squat do deal with it? That's gonna be on you."

It's exhausting, maintaining this level of anger and frustration toward someone who's pretty much an immovable object, just stands there smiling and taking it. There's absolutely no satisfaction in it. There's nothing. No one could possibly be that lazy. Could they?

Sans stares at Alex for a few moments longer, then shrugs.

"alright."

As if he hasn't considered the possibility--hell, the eventuality--that an Underground-themed event will happen here. One of these days everyone's going to turn into monsters, or Wonderland will outright change into the Underground, something ridiculous like that.

"i mean, i figure explaining events is common courtesy."

And in the past he almost certainly would have lied or not said anything if an event came up--maybe just let one of the others explain things. But it turns out that not owning up to events or explaining their dangers ends up getting a lot of people killed. After everything that happened in the tunnels, it's just not worth the risk.

"Yeah, so's watching someone's back when they go to face a known killer. But you've already shown you got no problem with skipping out on that, so I figured I'd remind you."

Still haven't smoothed over after that, has he? Yeah, no, he's definitely not fond of most of the people here, but innocent people, people like Max who did nothing but end up at the wrong place at the wrong time in regards to Chara, don't deserve to suffer for his mistakes. Or Sans's negligence.

"Next time they go off the deep end," he says, his tone heavy, "that's on you. 'Cause obviously I'm not enough to stop them."

He's being a dick. He's fully aware of the fact, and he's beyond caring. He shoots Sans one last look, laden with confusion, suspicion, disgust, then shakes his head as he turns away. He's done here. Sans has been done here for a long time. Any longer talking to him and they're just gonna end up going in circles, like always, and he's real damn sick of that.

"max was brave. she's a good person."

She knew what to say. She somehow instinctively knew how to get Chara to stop, at a stage when Chara was still capable of stopping.

Alex turns away and Sans lets him. He laughs quietly to himself. "Enough to stop them." Yeah, considering Chara is still only LV 8, and considering they'd only have four more tries, Sans really is the best bet. The only one who could stop Chara. It might even actually matter here.

He's pretty sure that Alex has gone past mere suspicion and dislike straight into outright hating Sans. That's fine. That's fair. Sans is constantly surprised that more people don't hate him. He supposes that thanks to the Resets, people never quite see Sans at his worst.

"see you around."

Has to get the last word in, after all.

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+ Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright! | OPEN +

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