lostcarnival | ⇨ SHABONDAMASHII

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⇨ SHABONDAMASHII

Who: Everyone!
When: Day 92 - Day 99
Where: Shabondamashii Bathhouse
What: With the Silver Mirror claimed and the animals of Eden relocated, it's time for the carnival to kick back and enjoy an interdimensional bathhouse and the surrounding festival city. Meanwhile, the scattered shards of the Mirror have an unexpected effect.
Warnings: Dark/Light halves acting weird.

THE BIG CLEANSE↴

As the carnival recovers, the Ringmaster has brought it to the gates of a famous interdimensional bathhouse to rest. She won't be joining you for most of it, though she will be checking in frequently and available by radio. She's fixed a large portion of the Silver Mirror after it shattered, but it seems like pieces are missing. She doesn't want to rest until the missing shards are dealt with, and the Mirror itself is locked away safely.

► YOUR OTHER HALF: The shards missing from the Silver Mirror didn't just disappear - after breaking apart in Eden, fragments of the object embedded themselves in the spirits of those not already touched by its powers, and those that had been the most fae-touched. That means, your characters. The effect of this, explained in more detail on the plotting post, is that some characters will be splitting into two versions of themselves: the Light, and the Dark. This doesn't mean good and evil, of course, it's far more complicated than that.

Splits can start happening at any time after arriving in Shabon, and initially characters won't know how to rejoin with their twins. Later on, it will become apparent that they need to reconnect via the shard of the Mirror they share... of course, in order to rejoin, you have to have both halves, and not all twins will be as eager to go back to the way things were before. This plot point is optional.

► SPA DAY: When you're not engaging in metaphysical division, you are free to enjoy the many luxuries that Shabon offers. Things will mostly have an east-Asian bend, like what you would see in the movie Spirited Away, but as long as it doesn't affect the setting much, you can honestly have whatever spa-type services available that you want. Food is served both in restaurants and 'buffet' style. There are also well paid sex workers here, if that is your thing, but make sure to tip well.

► FESTIVAL TOWN: The city surrounding Shabondamashii is largely meant to catch the business of interdimensional tourists. There are frequent parades and other events held, and the architecture is very closely packed. It's easy to get lost if you leave the bathhouse, but it's definitely worth it if you like party. You can pick out a few outfits for yourself and some fun nick nacks, but nothing that would normally require mod approval.

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In the few minutes since the call, Papyrus seriously considers uninviting their brother over. There's not much point in calling for help about this, when there's no escaping these feelings or reconceptualizing his situation. At least... nothing he's tried, nothing he knows to try, none of his usual ways. Maybe there's more he doesn't know. There usually is.

He's sitting on the still-made bed, still considering canceling this whole thing, as Sans announces himself at the door. But that opening comment reassures him.

"Oh, yeah. You... probably know this better than me," he admits, subdued. There's a clattering as he starts gathering the bones of his hand back together, hiding them behind his leg to rearrange.

Sistina perks up as Sans enters and nods at him. She's right by the door, in a chair set so she can easily shoo away anyone else who might try to enter. "Reira said you, too...?"

Ah, so Sistina already knows. Sans shrugs a shoulder, giving Papyrus a quick glance over as he enters. Yeah, this sounds bad - but what can you expect when it seems like all of the bad stuff inside people is getting sucked out and corporealized?

"Yeah. The other guys is back in the hotel room. But don't worry about that," he says, coming over to the bed with his hands in his pockets. "You know what that looks like already."

He looks to Papyrus.

"What's your other side doing?" he asks.

They do know that look. It's no small part of why Papyrus now resembles it; he's put so much effort into not falling into the same choices or mistakes as Sans, but there's similarities that only get erased when they're forcibly separated into another body.

Papyrus hesitates at the mention of his other self, so Sistina answers from the doorway.

"He's... out, exploring the city."

"Blithely smiling," he adds with a huff and an increasingly sarcastic tone. "Making friends, trampling all over their feelings, hurting them by accident, but it's okay because he just keeps trying his best."

"...They're avoiding each other," she clarifies.

"That's what you're always wanting to do, isn't it?" he asks, sitting down on the bed near Papyrus but not right beside him. "Not the hurting people part, but... keeping this stuff separate. Avoiding the parts that you don't want to be true."

He considers it for a moment, and then goes on. "But some of that's more of a talk for the other guy, I guess. I think the difference between us is that you were always better at keeping those things distinct. Shooting for what you wanted things to be instead of what they actually were."

Sans rubs his shoulder. Even with so much shed from his mind, it's still a weighty thing to talk about.

"I've always admired that you could do that. It's not as ingenuine as it probably feels to you right now, either." He turns to look at Papyrus more closely. "But I think that kind of means that I've barely gotten the chance to know you at all, even through all that's happened. I mean you, you... the stuff without the other guy."

He smiles faintly.

"I know some of that is probably my fault. My other guy can be pretty loud, and you've seen him at his worst."

Edited 2018-09-04 02:41 (UTC)

As Sans comes over, Papyrus shifts his legs - to make a little more room, and also hide his fidgeting hands.

He snorts again at the mention of why he's like this, now that his usual faking it ways are collected in a separate body, but doesn't otherwise interrupt. Reira had mentioned Sans' split, into a 'sad' version and a 'sorta normal' version, but this... takes them aback. Sistina's dead quiet by the door, and Papyrus stares back at Sans, eyesockets already a little misty.

"Sans..."

He shakes his head, because regardless of what his brother's split did to him to bring this on, it's too much like he's absolving Papyrus, all undeserved.

"How can you say all that, when... What I did to you. That me doesn't respect anyone's feelings, just... his own idea of what's better. It's..." He remembers it feeling genuine, at times, a seed of genuine pulling fake things around and trying to change them. Now it hurts to see, because he can't share it, and it doesn't have any room for him.

"...But I'm worse."

Bones rattle as he bunches ungloved hands together.

"Even at your worst, you've never... attacked me. But I did. You know."

Sans wants to handle this reasonably, but he's innately biased. He knows Papyrus isn't perfect, but in his right mind, he's never been inclined to point blame in his direction. Maybe that's wishful thinking, but Papyrus has never actually done anything to make him think otherwise.

Not even when he killed him.

"I was pretty close sometimes," Sans says, after a few moments of thoughtful silence. "If you were the type to pick a fight like I am, who knows what coulda happened? But, you're my little bro. The instincts run pretty deep to keep you safe, even when I'm all screwed up otherwise."

Speaking of which, a few other memories come to mind.

"I remember, one of those times... in the Manor. I said a bunch of things to you that were a lot like what you're telling me now. The Prince's mind poison was making me try to throw all the blame at you. It's all I knew how to do at the time, but it wasn't fair. Normal me and that me both looked for what we want to see."

"I dunno if I'm even capable of giving a non-bias review of you, Papyrus... but I've seen more than enough real-life evidence of the good you can do to know that you're not as bad as you're making yourself out to be. Maybe I've also been hurt by you sometimes but didn't want to let you take the blame. I dunno."

"But... people do that, right? They get hurt and they hurt other people. And it's okay if you've done that before, bro. It's okay for you to mess up, or be sad, or be selfish. It's not the core of who you are. What's the phrase? The perfect is the enemy of the good."

He laughs, a bit helplessly.

"And I know that nothing I say here will make you feel much better. I've got no categorical proof, but I'm pretty sure I've felt like you do right now a few times before. But I guess my point is... you're allowed to exist."

Papyrus' face crumples as Sans talks, especially at that last reassurance. It's a mixed pained grimace of wanting to want to hear what his brother's saying... but the good reviews aren't sinking in to where he can believe them. Not even with the acknowledgements that his feelings are all skewed, that Sans gets it, and he hates it.

He remembers, vaguely, what peace with himself feels like. This isn't close.

"I don't want to," he protests, waving one hand around. "I don't want to be like this. The last time I was, I was a Harbinger, and I thought everyone would be better dead. It's..."

How can he explain? It sounds like Sans is giving him the reassurances Sans would want, which is... nice. Kindly intended. But... not helping his turmoil of emotions.

"Was that really all it was?" Sistina breaks in, to Sans. "Not wanting to hurt your little brother? He knew who you were, cared about you, but... Papyrus still went from talking to murder, just like that."

"Brother instincts only work one way," Papyrus suggests, then shakes his head again. "No, ignore me. I can't say anything without feeling stupid and rude, I can't even... think all of this, without wanting to panic. And you've felt all this and worse, why am I complaining to you?"

He pulls his knees up to his chest, buries his face between them behind an arm.

"Why did I even ask you here..."

Oof. This is hard. Sans wonders briefly if he'd be better at this if he still had his other half inside of him, but there's no way to be sure. He thinks he'd probably be taking it too personally, then. Making it into another personal failure instead of sticking to the point.

He's gotta give himself a break, he notes. Papyrus has never really let any of this stuff through, how could he know how to handle it right off the bat? Keep trying.

"But it won't be like this forever," Sans says, and he's sure of it somehow. "You won't be like this forever. I... I won't, either."

He'd be lying if he said that the idea of going back didn't scare him. He feels free from burden in a way he hasn't for as long as he can remember, and the last few days have been more emotionally peaceful than anything he felt like he could have aspired to before.

"So... forget trying to fix it, right now. Just... tell me stuff, okay? Have you been thinking about this a lot since Wismuth? I kind of didn't know you were... still so worried about that." He chuckles shallowly. "I think I was just handling it in terms of my own problems... how I didn't want to dwell on it so you wouldn't have to, either."

"I guess that was the wrong move, but... if we talk about it now, maybe we can do something about it when you're feeling less polarized."

"Like I've been saying," Sistina offers, "it can't hurt worse to talk it out."

"You don't need to say you told me so," Papyrus tells her, his voice muffled - but his irritation isn't covered by his arm and legs. He glances up at his brother, raising his head just enough to see over. "So... you think this will stop. We'll... go back to normal? With all that means..."

It's not exactly a relief, which makes it easier to want to believe in it. Maybe he isn't... stuck like this. Maybe he'll wake tomorrow one Papyrus again, with the whole range of what that means, remembering both of these experiences and feeling twice the idiot.

Thrice, with the daemon. Sistina's ruffled herself up in reply, irritated right back, but smug enough about it to go quiet and listen while they talk.

"I've thought about it," he finally confirms, resting his chin on his arm. "A lot. Not, um, enough about what it was for you..." That's a whole other tangent that he can take up, after his brother leaves, "but what it was, for me. What it meant, that I hurt you. It wasn't... like with the demon, or the nightmare. I was me. I felt like me. A few tiny compulsions, after a lot of... pressure, to think everything needed destroying."

There's a difference between compulsions and that pressure, after all. He hasn't really asked the other ex-harbingers about their experience in the void, but from the few conversations while they were all still affected... it sounded like they'd been pushed to it the same way.

"But I could choose to be nice about things. So I thought I was just... admitting things I deny, and ignore, to pretend everything's okay. Like I finally admitted they weren't, and I was doing my part." His loose hand fidgets some more with the joints of those fingers, but doesn't quite pop any of them off. "...I didn't feel like destroying everything, after Gongenzaka and Yuzu helped me, but. I remembered a lot of things that don't fit with how I try to act. And I still attacked you, very lethally, very quickly."

Sans feels some pity for Sistina, and Helvetica, too. After all, his own daemon is also babysitting his darker half at the moment, presumably holding him back from suddenly deciding to end it all. He's not sure what would happen, after that.

Sistina seems more emotionally vulnerable, though.

"Well... without the Void breathing down your neck, would you still wanna do that? Kill me?" It's a serious question, but Sans assumes he knows the answer. "If the answer is no, then... you still weren't in your right mind."

He falls quiet for a few moments, debating if he wants to ask something

"What... did that feel like, anyway? The pressure you're talking about. You said that it still felt like you, but... it seems like a far cry from anything you'd wanna do normally, right?"

After the original split, and the argument between the Papyruses that ended in them going pointedly separate ways... The other Papyrus decided Sistina should stick with this one. Not as a watch, that kind of idea didn't factor, but because their constant worrying and complaining were grating, and they deserved each other. He hadn't worded it that way, exactly. But close enough, for an unhappy and frustrated mind to read between the lines of the cheerful, indifferent smile.

Papyrus goes quiet for too long, through each of Sans' questions, curling in on himself harder as he thinks what the quiet must sound like.

"I know it wasn't my right mind. I want you to be happy, and well," though Sans so frequently hasn't been, "and alive. That's what I want. Killing you is horrible. Was horrible. I can't understate how much I hated it. It just... seemed better than the alternative."

Sistina shuffles around by the doorway, but doesn't interrupt, even when Papyrus trails off quietly for another minute.

"Like with our father."

He coughs a rough laugh, glances at Sans and away again.

"Just like that! Just... wanting him not to hurt. But I felt it for everybody. When the song caught me, and it wasn't your fault," and he flinches, he doesn't want Sans to think that, but he wants to say these things, there's no conversational path here that doesn't hurt, "I was in the Void. Nothing to see, nothing to touch. Nothing but me, and, I couldn't stop thinking about things. Everything about them. All of the things that hurt, that normally I brush off, ignore, or forget."

Kind of like now, but worse. Far worse, with those whispers pushing him to the Void's conclusion.

"That was the pressure. It kept me from hiding from this, and made the pain inescapable. Made it all feel inescapable, except through... That's all."

That's a lot to process. Somehow, he imagines it is probably worse in reality than Papyrus's words can imply. Thinking doesn't sound that bad, until it suddenly is. With some of the people it got to, it must have been bad.

"I know what you mean," he says, subdued. Sans didn't go as far as to wish away all of his emotions - just the crippling ones that have so often made him falter. Thinking about death seeming better, thinking about their dad... those things would make him feel pangs of sorrow no matter what form he's in. Yet, it's not enough to interfere, and that's what counts.

What he wanted most of all was to not be so fucked up, and he's genuinely gotten what he wanted, in some respects. He's free to be as pragmatic as he wants.

"I've felt like that before... but... more about just myself than anybody else. I feel like you know that, but I was never sure. I tried not to talk about it in front of you. Just... feeling like I'd be better off gone."

His extraneous eye sets close, leaving just the main ones half lidded with thought.

"But it's so easy to imagine writing off everybody and everything else at the same time, y'know? I don't think any of that makes you a bad person. That's just what it feels like, when you're in that place. When you don't feel like there's anything on the horizon that'll ever make the stuff you're going through right now okay, or worth it."

"At the time, I just kinda thought that maybe you were right to want that for me, for a minute. But... when I came out of that egg, I knew that I'd been wrong."

Some of the tension in Papyrus simmers down as Sans talks, going quiet and attentive. He never expected to bring these these things up to his brother, that Sans would really listen. Not just listen, but validate them, confirm them. No terrible jokes deflecting things, no making excuses and leaving... But it flares up again at that last admission.

"You were wrong, you shouldn't think like that!" Papyrus snaps in agreement, with so much uncensored heat he startles at himself and hesitates. It's easy to say let's just talk, but he's still scared he'll say the wrong thing, and the conversation will end. "I... Nobody should. Not you, not me, not anyone."

Though Papyrus is, to a degree. Not nearly as badly as before, or as badly as Sans. It's only a piece, mostly because it hurts to be like this. Scared with the reminder of what he did before, and setting him to imagining what things would have been like, if they'd both felt like this before. Maybe he can't help it, right now, split up with the happier half of him elsewhere. Not just for the faking it things, but the now-distant sense of really thinking he could be better, could be happier, could be great.

Though that kind of thing had felt a lot more real, before finding out what being king was like.

"...I knew you did. I wanted to make you stop thinking that way. You think the worst of yourself, most of the time. Maybe not right now," he says with a glance at his brother, because Sans seems pretty unhaunted by that sadness, even though they're talking about this, like this. "And... you treat yourself so badly that you get even worse! Which just confirms your bad thoughts. It's so stupid! You're not stupid, why did you keep acting like it? I hate it. I hate you, sometimes."

He sighs.

"And I hate feeling that. A whole bunch of well-intentioned hate."

Sans doesn't startle at Papyrus's outburst, but he does turn to look at the shadow of his brother more carefully. It's interesting to see how much of that frustrating is deep and sincere.

"It's easier to hate than it is to change, bro," Sans says, quietly. "I could't do what I needed to do, and the failure shook me. I started to hate myself, and then I hated myself for hating myself. But... when you don't feel like anything can change, the only way you can make up for what you've done wrong is to let yourself suffer for it. Cause you feel like it's what you deserve."

"But you didn't deserve that," he says, glancing over with a couple of his eyes, disconnected from the ones staring ahead. "If I fell completely, I'd be dragging you down with me. So, I just tried to mitigate things by having zero expectations. Y'know? Can't be disappointed if you never hoped for anything in the first place. And I didn't want anybody to hope I'd do anything useful, either, if I was just gunna let them down."

He falls silent for a few moments, making a connection he never had before.

"It's kinda like the next best thing to not existing. If I showed how bad I felt I'd be hurting people around me, so I just did a bunch of pointless bullshit and acted like nothing that happened actually mattered. Even if it did. But then I came here, and I ended up with all these responsibilities... I can't just be a non-entity anymore so I have to try to be something else."

"All these people count on me and if I'm not good enough to do it, then... I don't know. I end up wondering what the point in being anything is."

Edited 2018-09-06 18:52 (UTC)

Papyrus scowls at the soft reprimand about hate, and huffs an unnecessary breath for show, but otherwise listens. During the pause when Sans goes quiet a few minutes, Sistina goes, "oh," from the doorway. She moves to the edge of the bed and pecks at Papyrus' ankle a couple of times, and he leans over to pick her up - still scowling - with glances at his brother, as Sans continues talking. And they both take a minute to let Sans' words sink in before responding.

"You didn't hide it all that well," Papyrus eventually mutters. "I know you know I know. I knew enough to get mad at you, when you wouldn't tell me anything. Maybe you don't have to go from everything alone, to doing nothing because you don't believe in yourself, to everything alone again. That's kind of stupid too."

"It's kind of familiar," Sistina says. "Worrying if you'll fail people... Being something else for them... Not showing pain, even to a brother."

Papyrus hemms for a few seconds thought, then flicks a finger to his crown. She nods at him, and he crosses his arms, nearly all the finger joints reconnected. The one lying next to him isn't going anywhere. "...I guess. But, it's not the same. I wasn't trying very hard to keep existing, that was easy. I was trying to matter to anybody else. That's almost the very opposite! I never felt like this. Or I didn't let myself. Whatever."

"More than a little. Jokes, or talking yourself up... Is it really much different? Saying things don't matter because you don't, or because you hope to make them better...?"

Papyrus grumbles wordlessly, responding with an intensified scowl and nudging her off his lap. Then he looks away from them both, the very picture of a moody teenager.

Sistina takes it with ruffled feathers and hunched neck, then settles down between the brothers before looking up at Sans. "Sorry, Sans. I don't think... We didn't think about that part, of what you were doing. Or going through, now. We just... wanted to fix things."

Sans appreciates the mediating factor that Sistina offers - sometimes he thinks back to the world where they picked her and Helvetica up, and thinks that there couldn't have been a luckier pair of guys to have that opportunity. Both of them are so bad at this, and even now this is just happening by the aid of magic.

He wants to hold onto this, he thinks. Make a note for later. Maybe a combined version of himself will remember what it feels like.

"I don't really make a point of letting people know these things," he says, shrugging a shoulder. "Neither'a you are mind readers, right? I think a lot of this I am figuring out for the first time, now that I have a clear enough head to think about it."

He swallows, hesitating on saying something, before finally:

"I know that... how you are right now, none of this really counts. And me, I'm kind of cheating here, too. But... maybe we can take a rain check on this, and... y'know. Once we're all together, remember what we were going for, and do it for real."

If he can hold onto this clarity when he's one person again, he's consider it a real victory.

"You want to talk about this stuff, again?" Papyrus glances at them from the corner of his eyesocket, still turned away towards the door. "The ways we're... not so different?

It's hard to guess exactly what his brother means, in saying that none of it counts. There's at least two thirds of Papyrus and half of Sans, a majority of each of the brothers, isn't that enough? But maybe it's something more like, a drunken confession doesn't count, and neither does any more magical shift of inhibition or personality.

It's a moot point anyway, he and Sistina agree.

"That might take a while," she hedges. "The other Papyrus doesn't want... well, anything to do with all this. I'll have to... try to talk him around, convince him it's important."

"Who can blame him for that, nobody would want to feel like this."

There's other things Papyrus can blame or complain about his other self over, but not his hesitation to reconnect. Much less the soul-searching beyond it necessary to be one person again.

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⇨ SHABONDAMASHII

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sorry about the delay, i was overthinking it. i'll roll with it better to keep momentum up

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