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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...No tongue. Ew, now they're thinking of the logistics of skeleton monsters. Can he even open his mouth, or are his teeth, like, permanently clenched? How does he talk without a tongue or lips? This feels like learning to speak Froggit all over again: how does a single "ribbit" translate into two complete sentences?

Rule one of the Underground, honestly: it's easier if you don't think too hard about it.

Chara snorts, lets themselves slide down the wall until they're sitting. "Wow, that's worse than your jokes." And that's saying something!

Protip, Chara, don't think too hard about skeleton logistics, you'll only hurt your brain. Even Sans doesn't give it much of a passing thought.

He takes a seat against the wall across from Chara. Falling Down is easy, but sitting down is easier and infinitely more pleasant. Plus it's easier to get up again afterward.

"how do you talk to a fish? you drop it a line. oh my god."

It's kind of amazing how his mood goes from 0-60 in no time flat when he's presented with terrible jokes. He's not even eating the candy, he's just reading the wrappers.

"what did the goose say to the cab driver? i'm honking here. oh man. that's hilarious ...what's a goose?"

"Picture the bird who carries you across a disproportionately small gap, but bigger. Longer neck. Replace the helpful propensity for transportation with seething, unfathomable malice."

Seriously. Those things are vicious.

They answer without really thinking. It was once a normal part of life, halting a conversation with Asriel every other sentence to explain something about the surface. They'd get bored of it sometimes, impatient. Make things up. Claim horseradish is the result you get when Aaron does the dirty with a Vegetoid.

(They had to explain what "does the dirty" is after that. Never again.)

Huh. No wonder they took so easily to playing narrator. They've pretty much been doing * Checks their whole life, haven't they?

"...Wait, you're laughing when you don't even get it? It's not hilarious if it's flying entirely over your head!"

"oh. that's mildly terrifying."

The Bird Who Carries You is such a nice and helpful guy, though. What a shame. Sans wonders if maybe he actually should start researching birds. He missed out on probably a lot of good bird puns the other day with Frisk.

"i'm laughing cause of the reference. that one movie scene, right?" He puts on a New York accent, which basically isn't much change at all. "'eyyy i'm walkin' here.' that one."

New York City was another thing on his old, old list of stuff to check out once he got to the Surface. The movies and pictures always made it look really cool. Plus hotdogs.

He unwraps another Laffy Taffy. "what do you get if you cross a stereo and a refrigerator? very cool music. pffft. that's a good one, gotta remember that one. paps would like it."

No he wouldn't.

"No he wouldn't," Chara says.

They don't even know what movie he's trying to talk about. Either it's some old-person thing that was before their time, or it's some trendy thing that came along after their death. Wow, it's fun having an extremely narrow window of pop culture knowledge. What a pair, right? Each not getting exactly one half of the joke.

"It's not even a clever punchline at all. What about all the sweet jams? The leftover tune-a casserole. The... the saran rap. Wasted potential."

He doesn't even dignify that with a response or a reaction.

Though it's partially because he's genuinely impressed with those puns.

"wow, you are milking these puns for all their worth, huh? careful you don't run out of juice, kid. but you're right. that one coulda been butter."

"Shame child labour is blatantly illegal. I could put whoever writes these jokes out of a job." They'll boast if they want to. Wordplay like that takes skill. Or... it takes something, anyway.

"Not that I'm fishing for more jokes, though," they point out. "The last thing I want to do is egg you on."

Not fishing, they say. He chuckles to himself and pulls out another Laffy Taffy.

"what's smarter than a talking bird? a spelling bee. pfft. yeah, i think maybe you could do better."

Man, he could do this all night, Trickster be damned.

"Okay, why is it that you don't know what a goose is, but have no trouble with bees?" Or, for that matter, memeing all over innocent children with bee-related movie scripts.

They're starting to suspect they're going to be dragging this encounter out. They're saving that full-size Snickers for later (it's gonna stay in their inventory for at least three weeks), but they let themselves sample one of the inferior, fun-size bars. Collector's tax, Trickster guy.

"I can get why so many monsters don't know what a human looks like, and I don't expect monsterkind to be a perfect hivemind, but the complete lack of rhyme and reason behind what does filter down to the Underground really bugs me sometimes."

"bugs come through the barrier all the time." He shrugs. "you think a bee or a moth is gonna care about a weird magic wall? not many birds, though. definitely not geese. even when they do fly through, they can usually find their way back out."

Or they, well. Die somewhere in the darkness. But that's a bit morbid.

He's quiet for a second, debating whether to actually eat all this Laffy Taffy he's been unwrapping. It's delicious, but taffy is literally one of the worst things to try and eat without a tongue. Magic can only go so far. Also Wonderland likes to play fast and loose with what counts as monster food around here. One time Sans ended up with gum stuck to a cervical vertebra and it was completely horrible.

"also it just kinda depends what ends up coming down the rivers. we get books and movies, all kinds of stuff like that. but information on the surface is kinda sparse. it all gets tied up in what people want to believe, and then you never know what's fact and what's fantasy. like..."

He trails off, chuckling.

"for awhile, i thought popato chisps just grew that way. then i saw an actual picture of the plant and now i know better. potato chips, i mean. that's another thing, we got all this misspelled bags years and years ago. manufacturing error, i guess? so for awhile everyone was calling them popato chisps. some people still do."

Old-fashioned types, mostly.

"...I call them popato chisps," Chara mumbles, going a shade or two rosier. They knew better, but it... look, it was funny. And the True Lab, it wasn't exactly a cozy and welcoming place to be. Their words had faded to snatches and whispers concealed in parentheses. The Save Points had been as silent as New Home's, Chara... more swayed by the place, by the looming skeletal shape of the DT Extraction Machine, by the lurching, melting amalgamates... more swayed than they wanted to admit. Unable to find some encouraging thing or another filling Frisk with Determination.

They thought maybe it'd make Frisk laugh.

* What? You didn't do that?

"...Wait... then what did you think fries were made from? They're just fatter chisps, right?" Or maybe... it was monster food, right? Magical. Just made in the shape of something that looked good, without really knowing what it was actually made of? Would explain all the burgers and steaks and hot dogs that weren't really meat. No room for livestock, no crops to feed them. Just snails. So... sequins, glue, water sausages. Magic.

"good. it's funnier that way."

Popato chisps always ended up being even better than regular potato chips, somehow. Or maybe he really is just old-fashioned.

He chuckles. "heh, yeah, pretty much. i thought they grew on stalks. i mean, to be fair, i was a kid. eight or something. just didn't learn otherwise until way too late."

And if you have cooking magic or anything like that then you can just replicate any human food as monster food. At that point it doesn't matter what the original thing was made of, since that's not what you're really eating. Most of the time, anyway.

"I mean... I guess you're pretty much learning about things from a whole different world," Chara admits, shrugging and glancing off. The surface must have seemed that way to the monsters who couldn't even imagine it. What's a star? What's a rainbow? What's the moon? What's the ocean? What are clouds?

...Asriel got to see a sunset. Asriel got to see real stars. They'd always wanted to show him those things. Who knew it'd be... ha. He wasn't exactly feeling up to sitting back and admiring the scenery, right?

"It took me time to figure some things out about the Underground, too." The horrific discomfort of discovering that their new home's bathroom only had a bathtub and sink. The nervous suspicion they must be sick or something, because it's been two weeks and they haven't needed anything but the bathtub and sink. The look on their face because there was slug and mushroom casserole on their plate, but kids who waste food really get what's coming to them, don't they?

"It was months before I figured out that if you look cuter, monsters won't hit you as hard. I never even asked why they were hitting in the first place," they laugh. Didn't occur to them that being hit wasn't normal. Learned about history, learned what humans did to monsters, and thought they understood completely why strangers would say hello and pelt them with bullets.

"pretty much. and one you can never really visit. hafta just rely on pictures and tv and such."

And then it becomes hard to differentiate Surface reality from Surface fiction. There probably aren't several hundred-foot tall lizards stomping through cities, but do humans carry swords around? Do they have spaceships yet or flying cars? Sans used to think Star Trek was some kind of documentary.

"they really are like two totally different worlds, huh?"

Makes you wonder how they could ever truly be reunited.

He looks up at Chara at that last part, raising a brow ridge at the comment. He shoves the taffy back in the bag, deciding against eating it right now. Not worth the embarrassment.

"well, uh. cuter usually means younger. so you're not gonna throw full-strength bullets at a little kid. it's like, uh..." He casts around for a second for a good human comparison. "like...throwing a soft ball back and forth in a game of catch, i guess? instead of a hard ball. something like that. there's no perfect comparison for monster bullets."

But why didn't they ever ask, he wonders, but he's pretty sure he knows the answer.

"Intent is everything with monsters, right?" Everything made so much more sense once they understood. On their own, those bullets seemed to hit twice as hard. Wearing one of Asriel's shirts, wearing a formal Delta Rune robe to be officially introduced to the Underground as Chara Dreemurr, wearing a locket that pronounced them Best Friends Forever... they'd felt invincible. Like nothing could ever really hurt them. Like the Dreemurrs' love was a literal shield, a layer of warm armor bending bullets away.

But that's not what they say. Not out loud. Never out loud. Certainly not to someone who would use absolutely anything against them if it meant stopping the anomaly. They just eat their chocolate. "Wear a smile that's cute to look at, and monsters will hold back. They're fooled completely."

Aren't they, Sans?

* That grin of yours has gotten you pretty far, huh?

"...I liked monster funerals, too. Learning about them, I mean. It used to seem so much nicer. Living on in whatever's most important to you..."

Kind of lost its appeal when Alphys ended up using that against Asriel. Maybe scientists don't believe in essence. Maybe she just forgot, because she certainly doesn't seem to think much about anyone's pain but her own!

"I wondered why they never cremated me," Chara announces, light and conversational. Sort of realizes, a second too late, that maybe that's going right into Creepy And Not Funny territory. Who wants to make small talk about being dead and dumped in a basement? Probably not normal people.

"pretty much everything." Even for monsters, though, it ends up not being enough, or not being the whole story. Even with the best of intentions, a monster can still destroy. Sans is certainly familiar with it. And how many times did the human die because monsters failed to understand that?

He just kind of smirks faintly at the second part. Yeah. A smile goes a long way, but neither of them need to say that out loud. They both know all too well. Another thing they have in common. They wear a smile like armor. Like a shield.

"yeah...i guess it's nice." It's thoughtful, touching maybe, but he doesn't give all that much thought to any concept of a monster afterlife. Clearly something of the monster really does stick around--Asriel is proof of that--but dust can't really be conscious. Can't be more than what it is. It's not till Determination gets involved that things go topsy-turvy.

And isn't that a morbid topic of conversation, but he'd expect nothing less from Chara, and quite honestly he's used to it by now. One of their most civil conversations involved the merits of being dead, after all.

Maybe they're both kind of morbid.

"they probably didn't know what to do."

Asgore and Toriel had probably both seen dead human bodies before then, but not for a good thousand years or so. It's still jarring. All the myriad things that accompany human death, the physicality of it all. There's nothing quick and easy to it. It's messy. He can't help but think of how Dipper freaked and threw up when he saw Papyrus...

It's gotta be just about the same way, even for people like Asgore and Toriel. Sans doubts he himself ever gets used to the sight of a dead human child lying at his feet.

...Didn't know what to do.

He kept that empty coffin there, for all that time. They wonder if he knew. If he ever pried back the lid and found it empty. They wonder what went through her head, back when she lifted them from an uncomfortable resting place and fled the castle. She remembered human burial traditions. Put them into the soil. Planted flower seeds. Put them in the exact spot they had landed - the spot they had gone to die, ha ha.

That's not funny.

They think of pollen and sunshine, instead. Clear their thoughts. Breathe in. Smells like cinnamon and sawdust, though it doesn't really. Maybe that's just a memory.

"It's not that comfortable," they blurt, that horrible default smile back on their face. "Being stuck in a basement forever." He's not Alphys. That won't hit too close to home. "Funny, isn't it? Most parents can't wait for their kid to move out of their basement."

Stuck in a basement. That's probably a reference, maybe to the Amalgamates, but why bring them up with Sans? No, more likely it's...

He remembers something. Long time ago. Some of the kids made it all the way to Asgore, but some didn't. Some were taken out by the Guards before they got that far. The souls were kept locked up in some secret chamber in the castle, but the science division had relatively easy access to the souls. That had changed after...after stuff happened. Asgore must have suspected somehow, maybe some kind of residual feeling left over that the souls should be more carefully looked after.

But before that. A question. Sitting at his desk, frowning at the souls glowing warmly across the room.

What ends up happening to the kids?

And he had answered with a certain degree of carelessness, since the only utility a human had was in their soul. The humans would be interred at the castle. A way to honor their sacrifice or something.

One kid who would have been there already. Stuck in a basement. One empty coffin once Toriel got involved.

There's a joke here. An extremely morbid one. Real "dead baby" humor, which was never his style.

He wonders if Chara actually remembers, or if this is just more of that morbid humor.

"parents are weird."

They can be the most well-meaning people in the world. They can be the most ill-meaning people in the world. They can be the most meaningless people in the world. The problem is that when you're small, the world is small too.

He starts to get very slowly to his feet.

"well, kid. i sure needed that break, but we both got a lot of candy to collect, yeah?"

Edited 2016-07-21 00:16 (UTC)

Wow, he gets up like a grandpa. Wait, no, that's not quite right. Gerson's got a lot more pep than this guy does. Chara, though? Chara stays put. They've got fun-size candy bars to snack on. They're not afraid of the Trickster. They've got SAVEs. They're playing by his rules (they always play by someone else's rules), but they've gamed the system. Turned those rules right back on whats-his-face.

So they'll just hang out here a little longer. Not because they need to, but because they like the indolent defiance of loafing around and eating chocolate that should be going to that demanding sack of festive spirit. Because thinking about what a preteen rebel they are is so, so much easier than thinking about parents.

"Guess you'll have to summerwean yourself off slacking so much as long as there's a Trickster around," they remark, purely because they want to get the last laugh. Because it feels sort of like a win if they make the final pun, and Sans doesn't. "Just be careful out there. Remember that some doors have treats, but summer full of tricks."

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

which, tbh, is new

we're all proud of u

just doin my part to reduce my carbon footprint

don't you mean charabon

i cant think of a pun and im furious

i'm so sorry for your loss

i have Failed

goodbye

goosebye

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