entrancelogs | + FOURTH WALL EVENT: BEACH PARTY +

+ FOURTH WALL EVENT: BEACH PARTY +

Who: E V E R Y O N E
Where: The Beach!
When: Sept 5th to Sept 10th
Rating: G to PG-13 (please label higher ratings, thank you!)
Summary: Are the other parties a little too crowded and chaotic for you? Come and chill by the water! And don't forget to have a look at the Fourth Wall Master Post for event rules, puzzle clues, and more places to mingle!
The Story:

Beginning on September 5th, much of the shoreline will be taken over by a massive beach party! As with all good Wonderland parties, it will be run day and night, always mysteriously tidy and always with food that replenishes itself.

At various points along the beach, there will be wheel barrels full of candy and treats, and torches for people to claim as their own. There are also volleyball nets, and when darkness falls they will light up like Christmas trees for those who want to play well into the night.

There are many places set up to sit - some with tables, some with pillows and blankets, many with shade, and some even dug out in the sand. There is music playing, but the source is unclear.

However, there's one thing that the curious may find - a message in a bottle. It will regenerate within five minutes if taken, allowing as many curious truth-seekers to investigate as possible.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Their partner really is an open book sometimes. Chara suspects they aren't the only one who knows, if Frisk's going to have tells that obvious. Cradling their own arms means letting go of Chara's, so they step back, shove their own hands in their pocket where there's no chance of bandages peeking out or being held by Frisk.]

You see. It is normal.

[* For beings like us.

It's why Chara's long since given up on "it gets better." Why they can't get the way Frisk makes an inevitability out to be a big deal. Why what's always been acceptable has suddenly ceased to be. Why Asriel's death and Frisk's many trips through the Underground showed them that fighting back put them in the wrong, that not being content to be hurt was a selfish and LOVE-hungry mindset, and now Frisk suddenly proclaims something entirely different.]

How am I supposed to believe someone whose words and actions contradict each other?

[Can't say it's bad or it shouldn't happen if it's happened to them too, right? When both of them are almost always in bandages. When it's more or less a constant, and it always has been. A bruise somewhere clothing can conceal. A cut up your sleeve. A black eye that you blame on the playground, because your peers don't understand you either, and you have it coming then, too.]

...I wasn't trying, you know. I wasn't looking for fights. Not on purpose. It happened anyway.

[It always happens anyway. You walk on eggshells. Do your chores. Do a little extra, because maybe piles of dirty laundry will be what sets someone off. Come straight home from school because they accuse you of things if you stay too late, let them dress you however they want no matter how much it makes you want to peel your skin off. Only speak when spoken to, only spend your time on quiet hobbies like reading or drawing, always keep your eyes down and an apology ready.

It happens anyway.]

I'm not fragile. I'm not weak. I'm tough enough to shrug it off. Why have we suddenly decided not to shrug it off anymore, Frisk? You might as well be complaining that we shouldn't have to sleep because that's not pleasant. Or gravity shouldn't apply to us, because sometimes we fall down.

[Ha ha. Fall down. Real cute, aren't they?]

[They don't need the reminder, on top of everything, that this is just one more thing that Frisk is holding above their head. One more thing Chara is expected to know implicitly and simply go along with, because...why? Because they care about Frisk, and are therefore subject to their every whim? Because they are their humble servant, who will follow them to the utmost?

Yet another standard that Frisk holds everyone else to. That they refuse to enact on themself. It's okay if they get hurt in the processes of their own MERCY. That's just collateral. That's just inevitable. And if they end up with a few scratches, a few bruises, a few crescent-shaped marks on the skin of their arms - isn't that just inevitable too? Isn't that just them, cutting out the middle man? Making it so the world can hurt you all it wants, but you're the one in control of how you hurt and where.]

I know. I - I know. I should - get better. Be better. Listen to my own advice.

[They flex their hands, bruised muscles and swollen skin from the last time they flew off the handle. Slammed knuckles into Sans's wall until indentations began to form and the skin began to crack and bleed.]

I just don't...want this, for us. I don't want this to be something we're okay with anymore. You've been hurt enough. By the world, by me, by everyone.

I don't want you to have to be - to be used to it.

[There is safety in that expectation, though. There's safety, there's never being disappointed. There's just waiting for the other shoe to drop, a vicious, vindictive, sick gratification coupled with a rush of I knew you had it in you when it finally happens. When even the safest person, the most trustworthy friend, the one who says they'll never hurt you - when even they give in and give you what you deserve.]

[They have to wonder if Frisk knows how dangerous hope is. How letting the gates open even a little might let some sliver of hope get through, but it'll send reality and all its heartache crashing in like a flood. If they get how meaningless "I don't want" has always been to the world. If they get the weird panicky thrum of your fault your fault that crawls through their nervous system when someone actually confronts it, pushes back against the complete and utter lockdown of resignation. Like they're being manipulative, like they're doing something wrong, like speaking up is going to ruin something, is just going to make you get even more hurt down the road.

There's nothing to be gained here. Admitting you don't like it won't make it stop. If it's going to happen whether you whimper and flinch or laugh like you meant for it to happen all along, well...

What's the point, right?]

It was a nice respite while it lasted, at least.

[The Deep Roads, Asriel, the library, the narcissus leaves... those don't count as real hurting.
Don't kid yourself, don't be oversensitive, don't be dramatic. No real fights involved. No violence, not really. Just... stagnating at LV 8, like it could last forever.

Until they met LV 14. LV 13, with fire magic and people willing to train them to fight like a real warrior. Until they got a reminder what happens when you think you can let yourself be as weak as other people are, because you're not like other kids, Chara.

They press it down. Sweep it aside. ERASE.]

Let's look for a volleyball. Or wade in the ocean. Or see if there's any of that soda you like. Stock up on candy.

[A forceful and jarring change of subject, one with an air of finality. They're tired of talking about things they still don't believe can ever change.]

[It'd be nice if it were that easy. If they could just go and sweep things off the table and have them not bother you anymore. LOVE is a temptation, one they can ill afford to concede to craving, but it -

Well, if you hurt people first, you don't risk getting hurt. And LV 8 makes it easier, slightly easier, but they don't...even really believe that, they think. Not when things got through, hit the pair of them like a sack of bricks, even at LV 19. Requests for a glimmer of a friend, a bony hand extended in apparent friendship, in MERCY, and in one of those turns they'd hesitated and there'd been no seizing, no conflict occurring on one front that wasn't already tearing through another.

* Still has that sweater.

Picture frames, full of smiling faces. One smiling face, and another that was buried in flowers, but that they learned, based on the quiet whisper in their head, that everyone was, in fact, smiling.

* ...

Frisk smiles faintly, a cracked, strained, uneven thing that isn't entirely there. Tries not to let their gaze drop.]

Okay. [A break. A respite. Something to do besides argue. Something Chara can do besides get hurt, be dragged through the mud again and again.]

We can...do something fun, then. Just because.

[...They withdraw one of their hands from their pocket. Hold it out in silent invitation. One more part of the familiar lexicon, a language that they only built when Wonderland let them exist in their own bodies. An invitation to join by choice, not circumstance.

Still partners, even when love isn't enough to fix it. Still partners, even if they don't agree.

All that painful talk aside, they still... they still crave it. Still hunger for together, for the security of knowing where their Frisk is, knowing their Frisk is okay, knowing Wonderland isn't taking them away and expecting the world to be satisfied with a million tiny differences.]

We owe ourselves a little fun. The world certainly isn't going to just hand it to beings like us.

[Ha...ha. Yeah. They have to make their own fun, don't they. Have to break into people's rooms, play their video games, name their fish. Have to do what they can just to live with everything, to keep going day after day.

Chara extends a hand. Frisk takes it. Of course Frisk takes it. The solidity of touch, even if it means bandage scratches skin in a way that can only be uncomfortable. Because it's them, together, being us instead of a you or a me. Less painful as an us. Almost like they make one whole functional human together.

Ha-ha. As if.]

This is the kind of thinking that got us breaking into people's rooms, you know.

[But they say it with a faint smile, a knowing lift of their eyebrows. Some moments in those days had been difficult, but still. There had been fond memories. Dipper singing and whacking his clothes with a golf club, Asgore having them pull funny faces for a camera, Legion letting them stay in their room and play video games.

Scraping out fond moments amidst all the bad. That's the best they can hope for, isn't it?]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

+ FOURTH WALL EVENT: BEACH PARTY +

abuse allusion cw

following that up with a self-harm cw

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject