⇨ POLARIS

[ringleaders]

Who: Everyone!
When: Days 102 - 109
Where: Polaris
What: With the Ringmaster kidnapped and the rest of the carnival imprisoned, characters find themselves at the mercy of a Winter Fae called the Mother of Invention.
Warnings: Graphic experimentation in places.

TRIALS & TRIBULATION↴ After a day of cleansing and processing, where all the belongings and attire of their old lives are stripped away and replaced with something newer and more form fitting, the former members of the carnival will find themselves let loose into the Farm for the first time. A sizable green area, filled with orchards growing inorganic looking fruits and field ready for tending, the Farm is where they will be spending their days for the forseeable future. Food and drink are no longer needed, and so every day is an endless cycle of work. Technicians are seen only when necessary, and when being taken from your place of work to your lonesome cells at night. Every day, there are new postings on the "Production Board", where various dire sound scientific trials ask for subjects. The majority won't be forced, at least not yet, but the system is at work to push its participants to the brink and force their hand. After all, volunteers make the best subjects. ► PRODUCTIVITY: As explained elsewhere, characters will be forced to compete to attain enough Productivity Point to be considered Satisfactory. There are literally not enough points to go around for everyone to attain this, which means that at least some people will be deemed "Below Expectations" by the end of the first four-day cycle. What this means has yet to be discovered, but the Technicians have grimly warned against it. Productivity involves many tasks, including orchard picking, tilling, planting, harvesting, watering, maintenance, and more. Any task you can think of that would take place on a plantation is applicable here. Beyond that, the Production Board awaits you, offering precious Productivity Points in exchange for your cooperation. How you become Satisfactory is up to you, but it's every person for themselves. Only one person can turn in the credit for harvesting or preparing fields, and while you can certainly try to help others by letting them take credit for your work, it's a sure fire way to fall behind the herd, especially if you are already in a low Classification. Fruits and fields will miraculously grow overnight, and will be ready for a new day when you are. You've been told not to eat anything you harvest, but right now you aren't hungry anyway. ► POLARIS BY NIGHT: During the night, you are left alone to your thoughts and maybe an annoying roommate. Solo or in pairs, the entire night will be spent in small sleep pods, as shown on the locations post. Is it possible to sneak out? It doesn't seem like it is, but who is to say? The real question is if you want to dare to try. There is one hour of rest before and after seven hours of darkness. Even if you don't usually have to sleep, you'll find yourself oddly weary and inclined to rest. Supernaturally, almost. ► PARTICIPATION: Sometimes participation in experimental trials is manditory, sometimes it isn't. You are free to handwave your character having been pulled aside for minor examinations, such as blood tests or aura scans. Each time, you will be pulled into a separate part of the station and analyzed by a Technician and heavily automated machinery. Anymore more complex than basic check-up level tests will be posted about in a section called "TRIALS" in the body of the post below.

Comments

[osteothropy]

Sans stares ahead, thinking earnestly about that question.

"I guess at the time it was because I'd been working lookout for Snowdin. That was kind of like a guard, so I got put on patrol. Kiwani took it really seriously, but compared to now, working security was nothin."

"My magic was strong enough that I could beat most people down just with basic bullet patterns." He shakes his head. "I spent most of my time slacking anyway. It was just like home."

His grin turns rueful.

"But then the real shit started and I ended up in charge... I didn't think anything could shake me after what I went through back home." He grips his lower arms. "Guess I was wrong."

[spaghettimonster]

Papyrus nods along to that explanation, because it makes sense in the same snowballing kind of way as anything else with the carnival getting terrible. It started out something small and manageable, and just got bigger and worse with time...

"At least you're not shaken alone," Papyrus begins to say, then frowns. "Is that reassuring? I don't think that's reassuring. Uhhh..."

For a couple seconds his fingers drum heavily on the bed.

"Anyway, you're not alone. In being here or being shaken. There's no shame in things being more than you expected, especially when they're so different from anything you had any reason to expect. I mean, who expects vampires??" He throws his hands in the air.

[osteothropy]

God, he doesn't even like hearing that word anymore. Just another way he's broken, it feels like with his ever-growing list of crippling fears.

"But she trusted me not to fuck this up," he says, looking at Papyrus, his eyes wide and somehow pleading. "If I can't even do that, then... then, I dunno."

He looks away again just as quickly.

"I just managed to convince everyone I could be good for something. If I can't do this, then..." Then he's useless all over again? He doesn't even know. He remembers talking about this, as his Light Side. His Light side seemed to at least be at peace with it to some degree, but he isn't now. "Just too messed up to do anything anymore."

[spaghettimonster]

"You," Papyrus says in a somewhat strangled voice, heated with worry, but he muffles himself and presses his head against the wall of the cell instead.

What had Sans said to him before, when seemingly saying things he'd want to hear in an attempt to reassure? Not the stuff about not being his brother, that was the other half and days later, but...

"You're allowed to exist, brother," he settles on, pitching his voice to make clear it's a quote. "Even if you messed up! Even if you're disappointed with yourself, or think you disappointed others! All that stuff is supposed to be extra, not... not the base of your self worth."

Papyrus sighs as he says it, because that's what Sans is saying, isn't he? That he's scrabbling to do something, to prove something to himself, that he refuses to believe without evidence. What's he doing, running into fights, when he's still such a scientist.

"Especially not when it's such difficult stuff. You don't hate me, or think less of me, for... messing up before, do you? Believe in everyone, we won't all be meaner to you than you are to yourself."

[osteothropy]

This feels familiar, like something he sort of understood while he was split, but only in one half. Papyrus quoting his Light half outright makes it even more impossible to just ignore, when it's a truth that came right from him, even if the other half of him is blocking it out.

"I guess we're all our own biggest critic, huh?" Sans says a bit weakly, kind of sheepish about just how much he manages to not practice what he preaches. Maybe that feeling of embarrassment is a good thing, for once. He talks so much shit when those darker parts of him take the wheel.

"I don't know why I do that," he says, a few moments later, with a sense of weariness instead of resistance. He knows Papyrus is right. It just feels like a bunch of toxic bullshit that leaks out of him every time he forgets to clench hard enough to stop it. "I know it's... hypocritical."

And it's not even a direct result of his depression, he thinks. It feels like something he's always done. He immediately starts thinking about how it's some innately flawed part of himself that he'll never be rid of, and the fact that he's doing it again even after Papyrus just mustered up the passion to call him out for it...

He puts his head into both sets of hands, like he's trying to rattle something out of his skull. It'd be so nice to just be able to reach in and rip whatever this is out of himself, but he doesn't know how.

"You're right," he says. "And I was right. When I wasn't so bogged down with all this crap."

[spaghettimonster]

"Of course I was right," Papyrus says with exaggerated primness. He glances at his brother to see how well the joke falls, as he continues, "I usually am, I know a lot and can be a great example for everyone."

That being said, they both know full well that Papyrus has been his own biggest critic through the last couple of weeks, meaning internally he has been for far longer than that, and he's not about to pretend otherwise. He drops his voice to something quieter, because this isn't a bombastic time.

"...It's not hard to notice that you think it on one level, but, maybe not all of them... Which isn't the same as hypocritical. You're aware of it, and unhappy about it."

Hypocrisy would be saying one thing, doing another, and thinking the difference is completely acceptable because reasons. And getting agitated and defensive about not explaining those reasons, even when asked.

"Maybe... it would help to do something else, to prove whatever this is to yourself? Not fighting, but..."

Should he outright suggest something, or is it better for Sans to have an idea himself? In hindsight, Papyrus pushed the sentry station job in the first place, and that hasn't worked out fantastically... It might be worth one second-guess before the usual cycle of trying things and trying new things upon failure.