entrancelogs | + FOURTH WALL EVENT: FOREST PARTY +

Entry tags:

+ FOURTH WALL EVENT: FOREST PARTY +

Who: E V E R Y O N E
Where: The Forest!
When: Sept 7th to Sept 10th
Rating: G to PG-13 (please label higher ratings, thank you!)
Summary: Could it be that you (GASP!) don't want to be here? Do you maybe want to make like a tree and... leaf? Then how about you do the next best thing, and come to the woods to party! 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 7th, colourful ribbons will hang from several trees by the forest. Whoever follows their path will be guided deeper, right to the scene of a forest party.

Wooden benches, swings in all shapes and sizes, tree trunks, and other arrangements give plenty of opportunities to sit together. Tree houses and tents provide shelter, and come nightfall the festivities will light up for you.

Campfires provide additional light and warmth and a great place for ghost stories. Camping coolers store more than smores, and all around you nature twists and turns to give you room to dance to the music, to wander in the quiet, and to simply have a good time!

(...Are you the curiously perceptive, or the perceptively curious sort? If so, then you might also notice the small bird sitting on a branch nearby.)

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It could be that the rules are bending in favor of all the visitors. That is, if Wonderland even has "rules". [still, just to be safe he's going to watch someone else drink first]

Guess it doesn't matter. I won't be sticking around.

Right? They had to make sure you thought this place was cool. [she gesticulates with her popsicle, slinging melted bits of it everywhere in the process. eh, the cherry flavoring might stain, but it'll look like cool bloodstains to an untrained eye. Wendy can vibe that.]

Wonderland wouldn't be able to bear the weight of a hip teenager's disappointment.

[Rebekah has been to many a mysterious party in her time, hell, she's even helped through quite a few. The ones Wonderland has been having the past few days have been unusual even by what she was used to. At the throne party she had met Elena's mirror self -- and glimpsed her own as well while she fought with her brother.

it's been an interesting few days, to say the least.]

Nor did I. But I have found the past few days have offered a lot of things I didn't expect.

[Perhaps she should apologize for storming off like she did in the library the last time they spoke, but she finds herself unable to find the words to do so. ]

i uh....

oh but....

it's um.....
my understanding that you could get hurt when you fall and, um, i don't think getting hurt is.... fun?

i mean, i'm incorporeal so i'm not.... totally sure....?

but i was human last month for a bit....
and getting hurt....
wasn't fun for me, at least.....

[the ghost scoffs without smiling]

look, i won't tell them alright?

[that's a lie, but they'll say whatever they have to if it'll make this one say it.]

i mean, i wouldn't blame you, honestly.... my real is really clingy, you know?

[No, it doesn't occur to most of them. It doesn't occur to monsters to hate humans. Monsters are taught that humans are the enemy, but hate just doesn't really come naturally to them. And Frisk is proof that even monsters who do manage it can change their minds. Absurdly easily, even.]

[He's heard this sort of thing before. From Frisk, he thinks, maybe also from Chara as well.]

...we're not naive, either.

[He braces his elbow against a branch and props his chin on his hand.]

we're not perfect. we're people. just because we're not good at bitterness doesn't mean we don't do some pretty bad things sometimes. we decided that the death of seven random human beings was acceptable if it meant freedom.

[He shrugs.]

can't really think of a entire species as innocent.

[He pauses, staring vaguely toward the ground.]

...doesn't matter, since we're not from the same world but, uh, for what it's worth...don't think i'd personally mind if you went to the wishing room now and then. wishes are for everyone.

I suppose one can't think of an entire species as evil, can they?

[The words are laced with an undercurrent of sarcasm that, if detected, makes it all too obvious what Chara's attitude regarding humanity is. Some things, it seems, must remain constants across all universes.

Some things refuse to change, no matter how they try.]

I doubt anyone would contest it. I am a monster in all but name, at this point.

But I take issue with it, and that is enough.

[He won't convince them. He knows he won't. Seems some things about Chara are always going to be the same.]

[So he shrugs.]

fair enough, kid.

You're just as prone to giving up no matter what version you are, I see.

[They don't sound particularly judgmental. Just a weary observation. Hadn't taken much more than a firm reprimand and a fiery outburst from Mom to get him to let them go, but let them go he did. And he never did ask for their SOUL back again, did he.]

[ well this is refreshing, commendable in its intelligence and bravery even; klaus has met so few people who knew him during his first stint in this magical place. for some reason or another, they seem to avoid him.

his fingers take victor's firmly, his continued amusement and intrigue plain. ]

Once? Well it's a pity I only have the pleasure once, Mr. [ lol or is it doctor ] Frankenstein.

[It's enough for James to smile a little in return, though he's watching him carefully. Not out of suspicion exactly, but trying to put his face to a few dozen descriptions in those books. This isn't someone he went to school with, so maybe he's in Harry's generation?]

Oh? And yet, you can't be in Ravenclaw, the way you talk about it. Which house are you in?

[Mettaton raises an eyebrow.]

If you're trying to bait me into saying that I don't like my cousin, it's not going to work. There's nothing to trick from me. I love them.

[He can't help a small look of pity towards this Mirror.]

I'm assuming my mirror isn't the kindest to you if this is your impression of me.

That is a relief. [She sighs, allowing herself to smile a little.] I don't feel so bad enjoying the party, in that case.

Actually, I'd just been leaving the party. [Somewhat unsuccessfully, she acknowledges, since she seemed to be stuck in this world and its unfamiliar forest regardless of her presence at the party she'd received the invitation for.] But if you like, I can take you back to it.

[She nods understanding, but looks at him somewhat apologetically.]

I'm afraid I've confused the issue even more for you, in that case -- I was heading away from the party.

[She wrings her hands in the silence, shifts her weight from foot to foot, swallows her nervousness in her throat and tries to concentrate on something, anything until the words come. Until he speaks again, and... and...

Something odd surges in her chest, grips her SOUL, threatens to claw it's way out of her throat. She's angry. God, for a few moments, there's nothing left but how absolutely pissed she is. He shows up here, he asks about her, he pretends to be detached and still engages, like he cares about everything she and Sans have been through, like he wants to help, and then says... just forget about it? As if she hasn't been trying to forget for years? As if she hasn't spent every moment fighting her own mind, as he gets dragged out of subconscious again and again? As if he can just... tell her that and it's over?

She swallows, hard, choking down all of it. She never knew what to say to him. Could never stand up to him. Just... crumpled. Always. Still does.]

You,, y-you know it's not that simple. It never was. You c-can't just... what happened, wasn't c-clean, or finessed.

We're not... I mean, S-Sans and I, we're not hanging on to everything for, f-for sentimentality, you know. But you can't just say... s-stop caring. About everything.

[If he'd known it would take this little to bring out that unyielding edge...no. No, it did not take very little at all, did it. It was the sum of every part, the pieces of himself that were scattered and that she still clings to, the residuum of his existence that still sticks like offal to the roof of the world. Perhaps it is something one cannot easily shake.

It is not as though Sans ever succeeded, now, did he.

Some aspect of him twitches, rippling like a pebble cast in water, and the hands rearrange themselves - hands, endlessly carding through the air, through manifold possibilities, seeing each outcome laid out before him and snapping onward to the next.]

I AM CODE, DOCTOR. I AM DISCARDED, DISUSED, AND DISASSEMBLED. I AM CAPABLE OF ASSUMING FORM HERE BECAUSE I ENDURE IN YOUR MIND. YOUR MIND, AND THE MIND OF YOUR COLLEAGUE.

[One of those hands, those too-pale and too-bleached hands with the holes in the palms with too many bony-fingered fellows, points at her, a wordless, cold indictment.]

WHAT IS IT ABOUT ME THAT EVERYONE IN THIS POCKET WORLD FINDS SO GODDAMNED INTERESTING?

[She makes sure to give him a high-five when he gets up, retracting the rope bridge and lazily falling down on one of the nearby chairs. God, it really is him. This is so weird.]

Obviously. Not every day you end up in a magical forest with unlimited food and cool treehouses. Gotta make the most of it.

[She's... she's gotta ask, though.]

So, like... what happened to you?

Tch, obviously. I'd break this place with sheer apathy.

[She doesn't even care about the popsicle bits. Hell, she hardly even notices. Stains are the name of the game when you live like she does.]

You look like you're fittin' in fine, here, though.

nice to know we all have that in common, i guess.

[It's something.]

Just like it's nice to know I have being a human in common across all alternatives, hm?

[They stand up, and end up on the wood paneling comprising the treehouse deck in a fluid slide of motion that shouldn't be possible, spatially speaking.]

[She swallows, hard, as her resolve melts and she feels like he's gripping her very SOUL. She could never stand up to him. Not when it mattered. That was part of her downfall with him, too. She could never say something right when the cards were on the table. When all the chips were known. And still, she stayed uncertain. Afraid.]

You know how kids are. C-Curious. You've probably m-met them, or heard about them, or something.

[Because there's no way Chara didn't find their way to him, or he wasn't sensed, or... she doesn't know. She can't understand why he's here. How he's here. How they interact with him.]

Everyone w-wants to know the truth.

[A moment, of deliberation. A second of backbone.]

You did, t-too.

[He has watched them. He has watched them trespass upon places they were not invited, picking apart the way the world was constructed the same way one would flesh off a dead thing's bones.

Bones. He hates himself for the pun, and then he amends his earlier query; he does not hate himself. The concept of "hate" is so far removed from what he can feel in this state that it may as well not exist, and his "self" is even more so, for even if "hate" can exist in isolation, in a vacuum, as a concept, his "self" does not, and never did.

Another reduction. Iterative and bit-rate and trimming down all the unnecessary aspects, those wastes of thought and wastes of nonexistent code, until they are nothing like he. Until they exist not even as a template, as a phantom string of code.

She defends them, and then she fires his own interrogation back at him, and he runs an involuntary algorithm that is a waste and he does not acknowledge its nature, he runs that one into the same reductive process until it is scratched out and empty and g o n e.]

YES. [He does not refute the claim, but the tone of the words is glacial.] AND HOW DO YOU THINK THAT ENDED UP?

[He seems to swell in size and grow larger, grow more all-encompassing, enfolding the surrounding space she occupies until the whole world is dark along with her, enveloping her, his face stretched wide and his grin cracked and a black, black, black emptiness flowing from every orifice.]

}

static void Main(string[] args)
{
const string filename = "spr_g_follower_3.png";
const string audio = "mus_st_him.ogg";
const string text = "* It makes sense why ASGORE took so long to hire a new Royal Scientist.";
const string text = "* After all, the old one.. Dr. Gaster.";
const string text = "* What an act to follow!";
const string text = "* They say he created the CORE.";
const string text = "* However, his life... Was cut short.";
const string text = "* One day, he fell into his creation, and...";

const string text = "ENTRY NUMBER SEVENTEEN";
const string text = "DARK DARKER YET DARKER";
const string text = "THE DARKNESS KEEPS GROWING";
const string text = "THE SHADOWS CUTTING DEEPER";
const string text = "PHOTON READINGS NEGATIVE";
const string text = "THIS NEXT EXPERIMENT";
const string text = "SEEMS";
const string text = "VERY";
const string text = "INTERESTING";
const string text = "WHAT DO YOU TWO THINK?";

const string text = "* Will Alphys end up the same way?";

}

[She knows she's trespassed where she shouldn't before it even comes, a chill running over her SOUL, wondering why she felt the need to fight him on this, why she thinks she's helping anything, why she thinks she could talk to him like that, and, and, and--

She doesn't know what's happening, anymore. She gets nothing but a single step back before she's engulfed, gripping her hands on her coat and trying to concentrate on exactly that feeling with her eyes squeezed shut, because oh god what has she done what has she done what has she done. She can feel what can only be described as darkness going over her ridges, around her shoulders, in between the cracks in her fingers, like it's leaking in her eyes and flooding her brain and she can't keep it out can't keep it out can't k e e p i t
o
u
t

Alphys can feel the code like physical words, like something to hold onto, swimming through her existence. Where everything she is and was and will be in a thousand timelines and possibilities and every choice she has ever made coincides. It makes sense. It doesn't make sense. It exists simultaneously and not and she can't take it. Feels formless and drifting and somewhere else. The only thing that keeps her grounded, the only reason she can tell at all that she's still whole and existing somewhere is the feeling of her eyes squeezing out tears, of them falling down her cheeks to something, to something that must exist but she can't contextualize past that.

She can't speak. Doesn't feel like she even has a mouth. But she still squeaks out a pleading prayer.]

g, please, s-stop, stop, I don't, I can't, I d-don't want to-- please, please, please, stop, stop, stop--

[There are hands, too many of them, reaching across infinite possibilities and potentialities and she is shaking, trembling, folded in upon herself as she tries to make sense of the things that are spilling through the air, things vocalized that should not be allowed to be vocalized, but he exists and he is here when he should be, and therefore the world's very fabric can be torn asunder.

An inappropriate analogy, perhaps. Spacetime is not like a sheet that can be punched through at will. But neither should he be here in the first place, so this, all of this, it is simply as it is. Liminal. Temporary. Easily dissected and picked apart.

His mouth opens wider. Wider. Wider. More words should rush from within, render her inert so he may slide quietly out of her mind as easily as he entered it, stripping her brain of every conscious thought related to this encounter. The brain frequently diverts to explain away its own trauma. Will struggle to form memories where none exist, to corroborate a nonsensical, nonexistent story. Will not possess insight to the injury there, the raw hole burned through it where memories of impossible things once resided.

She protests. That is inconsequential. It is -

g.

* Oh my g-god, G.
* DO NOT CALL ME THAT.
* Sans calls you that.
* SANS IS AN INCREDIBLY IMPUDENT, IRRITATING PERSON WHO DOES NOT UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF LIMITS.
* I h-hope you don't mean that in the set theory -
* NO, ALPHYS. I DID NOT. AND DO NOT THINK THAT YOU ARE ANY BETTER.
* Yeah, b-but you love us anyway.
* ...

The silence is blistering. He can practically feel the way her toes curl in on themselves, the gears in her head grinding to a halt as her brain catches up with what her mouth just said.

* D-Dr. -
* DO NOT WORRY ABOUT IT, ALPHYS.

Things begin to run back. The inky blackness enfolding her slides wetly away, increment by increment, but time is a meaningless thing where he is concerned and so it does not matter.]

THAT WAS UNNECESSARY.

[Cruel, he nearly says. Nearly. But he does not say it.

There is no edge of apology to the words as he says them. Perhaps the barest shade of what could be construed as resignation, were that not so far removed from his sphere of being that such a thing would not be possible.]

EVEN FOR ONE SUCH AS ME. THAT WAS A NEEDLESS EXPENDITURE OF RESOURCES.

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+ FOURTH WALL EVENT: FOREST PARTY +

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ALL ABOOOOARD

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chinhands all day loooong

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GASTER TURN DOWN

THE GOOP MAN TURNS DOWN FOR NO ONE