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

[vitaelamorte]

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.

Comments

[fulllifeconsequences]

"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.

[punful]

"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.

[fulllifeconsequences]

...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."

[punful]

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?"

[fulllifeconsequences]

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."