fulllifeconsequences

Doubt Sans had any part in it. Like I said, he was taken by surprise when I mentioned them. He could have been bluffing, I suppose, but why would he tell her how to make them if he doesn't tell anyone anything?

I think she's got secrets. Well, more secrets than the usual ones.

I know I told Sans I wouldn't spread this to anyone else, but... if she knows something, I'm going to find out.

SHE OWES ME.

She owes you.

We had a little talk. A long time ago. About how much she wronged the flower. The one mistake she didn't own up to. About everything the flower did for monsterkind, about how much the flower suffered living without emotion or connections.

I did not mention any names. I did not state who the flower used to be. But if she's uncooperative... I would gladly remind her.

I didn't know, she says. I thought it was a nice gesture I was doing. Excuses. Excuses!

How does a scientist, the Royal Scientist, not know how magic works? How was she not aware of something so textbook that young monsters learn about it early on?

And now you're saying she's keeping even more secrets. This is RIVETING.

Even I learned the tradition. When a monster dies, you sprinkle their dust on the things they loved most. That way, their essence lives on in those things.

Perhaps she forgot what it's like to lose someone. What it's like when anyone but her is in pain.

[Those old videotapes, and the things contained within? Not worth thinking about. Forgot 'em. Easy to make Frisk feel sorry for her, with her mentions of doing something cowardly, but she doesn't have it in her to care in the least about people who really do that cowardly something.

"You drove the flower to want to erase himself from existence," Chara tells her, and it's still all about her. Chara's just being a scary meanie to poor, tragic Alphys! Who cares how the flower felt, right?]

If she has no sympathy to spare for you. If she only cares that a mistake like you hurts her feelings, makes her look bad. Then I see no reason to afford her any. Do you, Asriel?

What does it say when you start seeing a monster that killed you repeatedly over and over with more sympathy than one that's just groveling for their life?

From what you've told me, you're going to be both of those, aren't you?

[...That's not funny. That feels more like punching themselves in the gut. Probably punching Asriel in the gut, too. You've gone too far, Chara. As always.]

...this is different.

You're different.

Ha. No wonder I took so well to wholesale and pointless murder. I've had tons of practice killing the mood.

[Get it? Funny, right? It's back to being funny? You don't have to be scared anymore, right?

...Let's change the subject.]

It occurs to me that even if Gaster erased himself... the DT Extraction blueprints, the lab, the CORE, a broken machine in Sans' back room... those all stayed behind, wholly untouched.

[It's not something he wants to talk about right now. Not something he wants to... remember. He's trying not to be terrified of Chara.

But they make it hard, sometimes.]

So why is it that everyone... forgot about him? Falling into the CORE fragmented him and a few others. But are they 'others', or extensions of him?

Bad memories, perhaps?

Bad Memory.

[Threw it away. ...But it came back. Hurts you, weighs your pockets down, won't leave. Only useful when you're on the brink of snapping into bright red fragments.

* Lorem ipsum dolcet.]

...It doesn't make sense for more than one monster to have fallen into the CORE. That... was an accident, wasn't it? He fell by mistake. There are too many grey monsters to imagine they all toppled in with him, surely.

I'm holding a piece of him right here.

I think only Sans knows for sure. But he won't talk. Maybe this Gaster just doesn't want people to talk.

...

Sometimes when you remove something vital, the remaining data can't compensate for it. Maybe they're just corrupt.

The value cannot be committed unless a SAVE has occurred.

Edited 2016-07-09 21:49 (UTC)

I wonder... is it any sort of rewrite that has that effect? Perhaps Floweytale left a few jagged edges behind too. Or... would have, if the time line had not been reset.

But perhaps the alteration the CORE made was sloppier than something a sentient hand would do?

You're the only one who can say if my own rewrite was fixed. All the monsters went free, but... I don't know what happens after that. I waited, and then I was here.

But this one doesn't make any sense. They say he fell into the CORE, but monsters don't get 'split up' when they die. They just die.

The CORE powers the entire Underground, doesn't it? So what's so unique about it that it would do something that extreme?

In that case, I can't give you an answer, either. I didn't make it out. I only made it as far as my grave.

[Poetic for it to end where it began, maybe. Feels a little happier if they just call it poetic.]

It's pure speculation on my part, but the DT Extraction Machine came from his blueprints, correct? They could be two entirely unrelated projects, but it's also possible there's a link between DT and the CORE.

...Funny that we never asked how it worked. It... wasn't there until monsters moved the capital to New Home, was it?

[They can't remember. They should know - they lived this - but they can't. Goes as hazy as a name they have to constantly remind themselves rhymes with blaster, or they forget it entirely.]

The amalgamates are the only monsters aside from myself who have anything to do with Determination, and they can't die. I have to wonder - was Gaster Determined? Is that why he broke up instead? Is that why he's still alive and it's causing all this... weirdness?

A lot surrounding this is just weird in itself. Because I only really remember the CORE after... you know. Everything happened.

Edited 2016-07-10 03:16 (UTC)

[It's weird.

They start to type, spurred on by a flickering thought: a brief image of a distorted smiling face, half-melted. Or... cracked? Streaks of blackness like the ink that pours out of Chara at their most inhuman moments.

They barely get anywhere, though, before the thought perishes. Scatters like dust. Dissipates out of their mind utterly. What were they just... no, they don't even know anyone who... a white face? Are they just thinking of Flowey?

No use. Whatever it is, it's gone.]

He does seem

I forgot how I was going to end that sentence.

This is vexing. It wouldn't even need to be such a mystery in the first place if the most useless adults in town would just be honest. Can't believe the big song and dance Sans puts up about judgment and trying to be better, when he goes ahead and keeps doing the same bullhonkey.

Frisk was honest about their power. I've been upfront about everything but... you. The flower. You, and...

[Don't say it. Don't ever mention the plan.]

"Do as I say, not as I do." Just like a grown-up, isn't it?

Why is it that they still remember? A lot of monsters, even you, even Frisk, seem to have trouble keeping any thoughts about him on the surface. I'm honestly struggling myself, but I think I just saw more than what I really should have.

What is it about this guy that makes everything all jumbled up?

['This guy'. He can't even recall the name, for the moment.]

You said... he fell into the CORE.

[Can't forget that. Even if they forget the name, the hands, the drawing of three people, the horse barn? Means to an end. Not going to pretend they can SAVE anyone, let alone him. Just wanted to know how to ERASE themselves the way he did.

Leave it to Asriel to always know the right thing to say. To offer them exactly what they need. To provide them with a method to let go, to let Frisk live their life, to make sure that happy ending sticks.]

That must be different from any other fall. Maybe he wasn't dust.

[Was he a monster at all?]

If we assume a link between the CORE and DT Extraction... maybe Determination shifts the bones of the world around. Plucks molecules out, inserts values. Maybe Determination can ERASE a monster from existence.

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