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.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[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.

[She's not sure when she returns to herself. When she can start feeling her own limbs again, her own skin, the grass on the floor. She's shaking, completely through her body, tremors rocking her chest and expanding to the tips of her tail, her fingers, her head. One hand is clenched in the ground, just something to put a barrier between her skin and her claws. The other is raggedly pressed into her coat, enough to form holes. Grasping for her SOUL. Like she needs to keep it there or she'll fall to pieces on the spot. Not convinced she won't. But as she tries to make sense of what happened, remembers bits of what she said, process what he's saying, it's--

it's *Mercy. She begged. He stopped.

Her voice shakes like her body, as if clean, sharp words couldn't find their way out of her trembling throat.]

I-- y-you--

... You s-stopped. You remembered. S-Something.

[She's not sure of anything, but there's feelings and impressions and it's just like it's always been, only tenfold. She always did remember feelings well. She'll remember what darkness feels like, now.]

NO.

[He can offer no significant recourse. No argument with any true weight. But he can offer the cold word, thrown with all of his distaste for an action that should not have been taken but cannot be...

He had forgotten.

He had forgotten what it felt like, to have his actions hold a sort of permanence. For them to not be easily ERASED, wiped from existence. Even his slate was not cleaned very well, was it? Cleaning a slate always leaves a shadow of what was written before, a patina of shaded chalk dust clinging to the backdrop of matte black-green.]

THERE WAS NOTHING TO LEFT SAY. WHAT I HAVE SAID THUS FAR IS SUFFICIENT.

[It is not. Clearly it is not, for she is still here, still talking to him, and he could have pressed onward but he did not and no matter how he interrogates his processes and runs queries and executes algorithm after empty algorithm, his own motivations remain...unclear to him.

Why.

Why.

Sentiment?

No. He does not endure sentiment. He loathes sentiment.

What, then? What, then?]

[Everything gets remembered, in little ways. In muscle memory of something in the lab, in the way a coat feels brushing against your ankles, in dreams and nightmares and waking up in a cold sweat to something you don't even have time to write down before it's gone. She wants to snark back at him, mutter something about how those weren't words, g, she stops instead, because her body still feels like she's barely holding together.]

... T-Thank you, for, uhm. Knowing when to call it quits, t-then.

[This time. Or something.

Reminds her of the last time she and Sans talked about this sort of deal. Never knew when to quit. Except for now, maybe, for some reason. It's good enough for her.]

"THANK YOU."

[The quotes may as well be audible, his tone landing heavily in the category of outright scorn.]

YOU ARE TOO WELL GUIDED BY SENTIMENT, DOCTOR. IT WILL BE YOUR DOWNFALL.

[In many ways, it is. He has seen the exact arc of the parabola her body falls in when it drops from the top of the waterfall overlooking the edge of the world (a nonsensical phrase, as the world has no true edge no matter how one looked at it or defined it), and he has seen the paths in which she did so earlier on, the paths in which she did so only after suffering incontrovertible loss, the paths in which she only did so in theory, never in practice.

* Will Alphys end up the same way?

A useless question.

In many ways, she already has.]

[She knows this. This is one thing he never had to tell her, because all her life she'd held on to sentiment. Isn't that what monsters do? Become lead by intent and purpose to interpret gestures of kindness and compassion? She has always been a creature of feeling, since she was a child. There's no getting around this. There's no saving her from herself on this one. If she wanted to escape those feelings, she'd have to be...

Erased, she thinks. Is this what happened to him? If he stopped by sentiment- if he heard her calling out and stopped- was he trying to escape this, as well?

"It will be your downfall". Was it, in a way, already his?

She pulls herself, shakily, from the floor. Realizes she's trying to smile. Maybe she and Sans have more in common than she even realizes now.]

I'll... k-keep it in mind.

[It means nothing. They both know this. But what else is she supposed to say, after that? What else can she do but try to hold it together?]

GOOD.

[She will keep it in mind, will she? Yes, of this he is quite certain. He has not exercised restraint, and he has not - been as callously objective as was his goal.

He has already remained too long and he has said none of what was intentional. What can he possibly blame this on, other than some kind of rudimentary mimicry of sentiment, that which he does not possess because there is no room for such things in what is, in essence, a neglected scrap of forgotten code. The proverbial "ghost in the machine," as it were, pitifully inaccurate as such a statement is. Ghosts exist in machines all the time. There is nothing particularly special about it. He has met one already, or will meet one, or is meeting one in simultaneity to this encounter - for an antilinear being such as himself, such semantics and positions in time do not particularly matter.

He could say more.

He does not.

He has, evidently, inflicted enough damage on the fragile state of her mind. The lines of her shoulders and the shape of her mouth and the instability of her frame reek of her poorly-repressed anxiety and uncertainty. Still always questioning her place in this world, even now. Even once she has without question earned it.

He turns away, starts to slip back, though several of his hands linger to spell out words, slow and deliberate.]

YOU GIVE YOURSELF TOO LITTLE CREDIT.

MY BRILLIANCE WAS NOT IRREPLACEABLE, AS WE CAN ALL SEE VERY WELL.

YOURS IS.

[She barely looks at him, catching the words out of desperate curiosity, even if it only leaves her more wanting. Why does he do this? Swear he has no sentiment, no affection, no worry for her, and the simultaneously try to build her up, tear her down, mess with her emotions in a continuous motion? How is she supposed to interpret this? Does this make sense to him, or is he just continuing to lie to himself about how much 'sentiment' he really has?

She wants to contradict him. Start another argument, doesn't even know what she's reaching for. Maybe she's still trying to save him. Without realizing, she reaches out, towards his form, towards his coat, feels that fabric through her fingers even though she never touched it. Draws her hand back. Enough.]

Good l-luck. Out there.

[If she's going to be sentimental, she's going to be damn so.]

[He almost delivers a scathing indictment to her about the nature of luck and the plain absence of such things in the computational void to which he has abandoned himself and continues to leave himself without hope for retrieval, because hope is a silly prospect for a forgotten scientist that never truly existed in the first place.

Luck is not a constant, nor is it a predictable variable. There are few truly unpredictable events in the universe, and he has not even the luxury of pseudorandomness in his empty blackness but it is -

Irrelevant.

Irrelevant.

Irrelevant.

He does not address her further. He has nothing left to say.
He has nothing he knows how to say.
He bleeds into the nothing from where he came and all at once, he was never there.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

+ FOURTH WALL EVENT: FOREST PARTY +

no subject

GASTER TURN DOWN

THE GOOP MAN TURNS DOWN FOR NO ONE

MAYBE HE SHOULD, THOUGH, CONSIDERING

IT'S NOT A PHASE IT'S WHO HE IS

THEN MAYBE HE SHOULD BE LESS HIMSELF

I MEAN MISSION FUCKING ACCOMPLISHED

THEN MAYBE LESS OF WHATEVER THE FUCK THIS IS, TOO

YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO GODDAMN DO

FUCK U YES I CAN

no subject