fulllifeconsequences

[They can feel another SAVE being pressed into existence, and they don't know if it's a relief or if they're terrified it's a mistake. There's no going back to before this happened, no erasing these effects completely. Is that okay? Is that really okay, or is... is Frisk just doomed?

Why did they... why did they even have to be like this? Why didn't they learn from their mistakes? They love Frisk, so they trick Frisk into giving them things. Make Frisk start an encounter, make them fight even if they don't want to. They take something that's supposed to be comforting and happy and turn it into a weapon.

They give Asgore a pie. They tell Asriel he can be like Hyperdeath for real, can be strong, can free everyone, can be a hero. They tell Frisk "thank you" and fill their head with nonsense scenarios about being like a real Dreemurr, not a parasite, truly one of them - and for what? Look what happened.

* Look what you've done.

They know. They always knew. They're dangerous, poisonous, take everything pure and kind that's given to them and twist it into something awful and horrible and just break things beyond repair. Why did they even hope-

Big kids don't cry. Chara never says "I'm sorry," because "sorry" is never, ever good enough. They can't undo this, can't right this, can't make it okay - that power was never theirs. So what... what do they do with this feeling? How do they...

Chara smiles brightly.]

Well! I'm never doing that again!

[Can't even think of a joke, of a punchline to showcase the fact that they don't care, they're not taking this seriously, they'll all laugh about it later instead of regretting it for the entire rest of their unnatural, unwanted unlife! So they just dust their hands off, shrug.]

You're certain you're unhurt? Perhaps you'd better get into bed. Rest a while, even just for two minutes. That's enough to make sure your HP is where it should be, is it not? Better safe than sorry; you've only got four more deaths before they start to really count, right?

Chara. I'm okay.

[Frisk says the words gently, and as if that's what their body had been waiting for, there's a rush as the feeling returns to their SOUL and the rest of them, the reality that grounds them and roots them firmly back into the way they know existence should feel. No longer just outside their body or a few inches to the left of it. There, present. Real.

Frisk steps forward, one hand half-raised, their brow furrowing with concern.

Chara, they know, isn't okay. They'll find a way to twist this around into blaming themselves, they know it. They know it because it's precisely what Frisk would do.]

It's okay. It's fine. It didn't work, but that doesn't mean - I mean, that's because maybe we didn't know how to work it.

[Trying a SPELL option that until recently didn't technically exist, and without any real basis to what spell they were casting. Of course it didn't go right. It wouldn't have. Right?]

...are you okay?

[Are they okay? What a stupid question. They're not the one getting hurt, paying prices, sacrificing. They're the one who takes. Sucks the life right out of everyone willing to trust them, just like leeches do! They just - they laugh, incredulously.]

My HP's the same as it's always been! You're not deflecting this onto me, Frisk.

[It's not about them.

They made the mistake, they inflicted hurt, so they're the one who has to do something about it. Maybe - maybe what's-his face... Zacharie? Maybe he can take it back somehow. Refund the orb, revoke the magic now that Chara's proven they definitely can't be trusted with it.]

Just... just a little rest? Perhaps a snack. More bandages. Maybe I could manage a healing spell!

[There it is! Found a joke! The kind of awful, scary punchline that makes people wince, that makes them pretend not to hear those hilarious lines about a kid who slept in the soil. You know, they almost broke Frisk, almost... almost Gastered them, almost did something so incomprehensible and awful that surely nothing on earth could fix it if Frisk didn't have the power to fix themselves! But it's no big deal! Everyone's laughing! Like it's just a big game, right? Who even cares!]

I feel all right, Chara, it's fine.

[Maybe not one hundred percent okay, but that's - that's all right too. They did kind of break both their menus, a little bit. The world doesn't it like it when they drive at its formation with chisels and stakes, it seems like.

They smile. It's a little weak, but it's there, small and hopeful.]

I think just...just that we need to learn how to use stuff like this, a little bit. It's like getting, getting whiplash, you know? Like overextending yourself and getting burned for it.

[Is this all right? Are they making sense? Are they just saying words to fill the void with something so intent on being comforting that it's, in essence, comfortless? That seems to be something they do frequently. Way too frequently.]

...Trash Chara didn't have any problems using it.

[The only person it seemed to hurt was Chara themself, and that's always been acceptable. Was it just because they intended to use it to harm? They were trying to be a weapon, like they're supposed to be? Maybe if they had wanted to hurt Frisk, it...

...Maybe this happened because they did want to hurt Frisk, on some level so deeply-buried even they don't know about it?]

Magic is supposed to be... it's how monsters express themselves. A representation of who they are and what's inside of them. A manifestation of the very culmination of their being - of their SOUL.

[The hollow straw-grasping Frisk is doing seems to slide right off of them. They know what false sympathy is like, know what token comfort sounds like. It's just... annoying, right? It's just pity. It's - it proves that Chara is making this about them, is being a manipulative little parasite, because Frisk was the one who got hurt and they feel like they have to say something to make Chara feel better!

They try to joke again. To shove the whole thing away, dismiss it with a laugh.]

Go figure the only thing that'd come out of my SOUL is broken!

[You can laugh now, Frisk. It's funny. It's a joke. A broken SOUL makes broken magic! A broken person can only express themselves in broken ways!]

They're not trash, and neither are you. And they did have problems. I told you it hurt them - it took off some of their HP and everything!

[They're working themselves up to something, they know it. They can see this conversation turning into a slow build, treacherous and maybe unstoppable. And they have to head it off. Frisk moves closer, their expression even and gentle and patient.]

I'm okay now. It worked, there's no problems.

You're not broken, Chara.

[It will never be as simple as just saying it. They've got a whole mess of people standing behind them saying the same things, and it's never sunk in. Maybe it never will.

But if there's the slightest chance that someday they'll believe it, Frisk is willing to devote everything they are to making sure of that - and even if they aren't, they're liable to commit themselves to that road just the same.]

Or if you are, then I'm broken too. I couldn't even SAVE myself, Chara. You know how I got it to work?

[Their tone adopts a fierce edge, eyes hard and uncompromising.]

I had to pretend I was SAVING you instead.

[There's a weird, squirmy panic digging its nails into them, because they don't - they don't know how to answer this. Each time Frisk tells them something nice, it's a twinge of guilt, because see? They are making this all about them! They're manipulating Frisk so victim has to comfort - has to comfort the one who hurt them! They'd be proving everyone who called them heartless and inhuman and horrible right if they weren't upset, but they're proving everyone who called them attention-starved and manipulative right because they are upset.

Already know they can't apologize. "I'm sorry" and "I didn't mean to" are just excuses you make to try and weasel out of punishment, insincere worm that you are. Just saying "sorry" isn't good enough. You have to really show how sorry you are, Chara, give them what they want. Can't say "I was so scared I'd hurt you," because that's more manipulation. That has to be a lie, because if you really loved them, you'd never have hurt them. Can't - big kids don't cry.

So they keep trying to just brush it off, to shove it out of sight with giggles and their mean, unfunny jokes, but it keeps not working because Frisk won't let it be tucked away out of view, and... and laughing it off isn't getting anywhere at all, but they don't know what to do.]

All this time, and you're still blurring the lines this badly? There's nothing here you could use to SAVE anything. I'm unSAVEable, am I not? In fact, I'm the reason you needed to be SAVED in the first place! Bet that was sure the kind of memory that fixed you right up, huh?

That's not what I meant, Chara.

[It's horrible and tight and uncontrolled, everything about this. Like they're on the edge of panic, of hysterics. Laughing, laughing, laughing, as if that will make it easier to bear. It had flown off the rails so horribly. And Frisk had - had facilitated this, hadn't they? Tried to do something nice for someone they loved, and what happens? It backfires. It hits you hard, and Chara finds a way to make it their own fault instead of Frisk's, Frisk who gave them the Orb in the first place.

It can't be just all this, can it? They have to learn. They have to. Learn real, proper magic, like a Dreemurr, like they're supposed to.]

I know you didn't mean to. I know you didn't. I know you'd never hurt me on purpose. Not now.

[Not like they already have, ha ha. Maybe that's the wrong thing to say. It probably is. Frisk never has the right thing to say. And there they go again, making things about them! How selfish of you, Frisk! This was never about you!]

I just mean that - that I couldn't... [What do they say? What do they do that won't make this about them when it's nothing to do with them?] I'm not the one worth SAVING here, Chara. You are. I don't care what just happened. It's okay. I'm okay. We're both okay.

...You're just... you're doing it again. You try to be nice to someone, and they hurt you, and all you do is keep saying it's okay, it's fine, it doesn't matter.

[Chara's no better than Papyrus, than Mettaton, than Toriel, than Asgore, than... than anyone. Frisk gets hurt and acts like it doesn't affect them at all, the fact the people who are supposed to be safe went and harmed them. Just brushes it off like Undyne's making a joke about how everyone tried to kill Frisk. Oh, it's cool! They aren't the one worth SAVING!]

Stop it. We're not okay. Not if you're saying you're not worth... what did you even think I was worried about? That I'd - I'd have to make an excuse to keep from getting in trouble or something?!

[Of course that'd be all Chara cared about, right? Chara just laughs it off, looks to cover their own neck, doesn't care about anyone. After all, Frisk has to tack a "not now" onto the end of their stupid fake bullhonkey, because Chara has hurt them on purpose! Literally the first thing Chara did in Wonderland was hurt Frisk on purpose! Chara just hurt Frisk now, and that's the reason this is all like this, right?

Frisk can try to trot out their false "I'd never doubt you, Chara," but it won't work. Not when they know how that turned out when Asriel said it. They're smarter than that now. They're not taken in so easily. Not when that kind of belief only gets people hurt!]

That's not what I mean at all! You stop it!

[They actually stomp their foot, grinding their heel into the rug out of escalating frustration.]

I know you hurt me. And I know you didn't mean to. And I know you're sorry for doing it. And I forgive you! I don't - you know that's not the same, that's not the same as what we talked about at all!

[Their arms cross across their chest, bottom lip jutting outward in a defiant pout, brow scrunching down in their imminent frustration. Like Chara is anything, anything at all like the people who left them there, who left them there and told them they'd be right back, who knew how to pinch hard enough so their skin went almost black, and called it love. Like Chara is anything like that. Maybe those people deserve none of their time, none of their thoughts of patience or forgiveness. But that's because they've devoted nothing to Frisk in turn.]

What? Am I not allowed to forgive you? Because you're the exception to the rule? You're not. You don't get to decide who I forgive or why I do. I just do. And you're forgiven. So there.

[And, for good measure, before they can muzzle the impulse, Frisk sticks out their tongue.]

I don't - I don't want you to forgive me!

[They don't even understand why they're just getting more and more upset about this! They could understand this horror and trepidation on the surface, where they knew they'd get punished when they made someone unhappy, but they can't even start to comprehend why it snowballs on itself like this when they're confronted with the complete utter extreme.]

I could have ruined you. I could have done to you what I did to...

[Do they even have to finish that sentence? A pie with buttercups instead of cups of butter. An empty, dusty photo frame and a box of shoes. A flower who stays behind as the Underground goes empty. The kind of corrupting touch that does worse than just killing. That ruins irreparably, that reduces them to a state that can barely be called living anymore.]

You can't be okay with that. What if you didn't come back? What if you came back broken?

[An empty flower, faking cheer and compassion. Doing everything to solve everyone's problems perfectly, and finding out that it does nothing to fix the hollow, shattered feeling inside of you. A few trembling, broken fragments of SOUL, walking around Wonderland and masquerading as a whole person.]

What if I hurt you again?

But you haven't. You didn't. And I know you didn't mean to. I'm not going to punish you for something you could have done. Something you didn't even want to do!

[That's what Chara's so good at. What they've always been good at. Punishing themselves, endlessly hurting themselves for perceived injustices. For imagined slights. For making people love them, and forgive them, because no one could possibly see something worth loving and forgiving in a demon, could they? Destroying those bridges so no one else can.

Because no one will love them the way they are. Right?

* Is your flesh as rotten as you?

Frisk almost says something else. Something about how things that are broken cannot possibly get more broken, as if there is a metric for the level of broken that is acceptable - they emerged this way, they know they did, and there's no taking that back. No making it better, or more bearable.

Their tone softens, gently.]

It's okay. It's okay. You don't have to ask like you're those - those people that did those things, who - who did those things to me. You're nothing like them.

[They can feel their SOUL again. Red, warm, and whole. Uncorrupted, they thing. The same as it always was. SAVED, perhaps.]

You're like me.

[Can you feel it beating, partner?]

[In potentia is enough, isn't it? There's a saying, one said by some dead genius or another. Something about how repeating the same actions and expecting a different result is... it's crazy, right? Crazy. Frisk reaches out to somebody, and they end up getting hurt. Have to say "it's okay" like it didn't ache, because it was an accident, they're really a nice person once you look past the hitting, they surely only have your best interests at heart. Chara dares to imagine they can be near people, can be human, can be loved, and they only end up damaging the people who matter to them. Can't be anything but a weapon. Poison. A weed, sprouting where it isn't wanted, messing up the beauty of anywhere it dares to grow. Like one exists to kill, and one exists to be killed.

Even without a Reset, there's no moving forward. There's no changing fate.

Why did this happen?

They sit back down on their bed. Sink into it heavily. They just... they just feel devoid. They feel every inch like their broken SOUL. Incomplete, not right, in pieces. Straining without closure. Disjointed shards trying to reach out, but... but not enough of them exists to achieve a secure, comforting gestalt.]

I'm nothing like you.

[Similar fashion choices, and that's it. Ha ha, isn't that right, Asriel?]

It's... funny, is it not? I cannot seem to have anything unless I take away from you.

[They weren't the one who carried the Locket and Knife to Wonderland, but they're the one who wears them. Frisk had to go and offer half their room to a walking consequence. Frisk can never call Toriel "mom" again, because Chara steals away the love Frisk deserves, forces them to play scapegoat for all the horrible violent will that Chara was responsible for.]

I'm just like monsters, but not in the way I want to be.

[They'll never be made of love and compassion. It was stupid to get their hopes up about magic that could communicate, could warm but never burn.

They're Toriel's shrill, betrayed giggles, the manic agony as she crows that they really are no different from them.]

I expect you to pay the price for my happiness.

Chara, you're the only person like me.

[You're the only person who understands me.

Maybe...maybe that's not what they should have said. They didn't mean to strike that fresh parallel there, that thing that ached and still aches to think about. But it's - they know it's true. They know it is, it is because Chara is the person who walked with them for every step of the way, who shared their SOUL and their every experience. Their partner. Their SOULmate. The person that is, that always will be, the last and first and most important relationship in their life.

The most important person in their life.

Someone they never could and would let go of.]

You came first. Everything I have I owe to you. I just happened to come along at the right time.

[They shrug, tiredly. The rest writes itself, does it not? A child in a striped shirt, the latest in a long string of them, replacements for children Toriel lost, reflections of the hope Asgore saw in the first human's eyes - the hope that cuts Frisk deeper and deeper than anything, because that hope must have dimmed like a dying star somewhere down the road, and they still don't know at what exact point it did so.]

You're not forcing this onto me, Chara. You're not making me love you. You - you have to know that. I need you to know that. 'Cause I know you're not always perfect, just like I'm not either, and I don't care. You wouldn't be the same person if you were perfect. You wouldn't be you, and you're - you're who I wanna be with, remember?

[We made a promise. Clasped hands. Said we'd never go back.]

That doesn't change. It never did.

[Some bitter, dark part of them wants to laugh that Frisk would even think to tell them that. That Frisk would understand. No normal, unbroken person they ever met had a thought like that occur to them - the haunting paranoia that they're so manipulative and awful that they must somehow be conning people into caring, must be forcing them to do something they'd never want to do if they were in their right mind.

Really are two peas in a pod, aren't they?]

It's not being perfect I'm worried about.

[That's a lie.

The surface taught them what happened when they made mistakes. Even the smallest slip-up brought on catastrophic punishment, yelling and mockery and pinches and slaps in places where nobody would see welts or red marks. The Underground taught them they were supposed to be the future of humans and monsters, the angel that had seen the surface, their only hope - they had to be as perfect as Asriel thought they were, and when they failed to be that... well, look what happened, right? Even in the perfectly happy ending, where every problem came to a tidy conclusion, there was nobody saying "I forgive you, Chara."

...Even Frisk didn't get spared from that. Their every action was judged. They only deserved to be happy when they didn't make a single mistake. Didn't fight back at all. Didn't avoid the people who'd hurt them, because that wouldn't be very friendly of them, would it? They got their praise at the end, but it was only "you're so good," only "you're a softhearted weenie," never an "I forgive you" for them either.

Ha. Is it any wonder neither of them knows the first thing about how to react rationally when they make mistakes?]

It's... you got hurt.

[They don't know how to say it, how to find the right words for it. That they don't care about intentions or accidents, they care that they're just perpetuating this pattern where the people who love Frisk end up hitting them.]

It's not - I'm not saying "I'm sorry," because that doesn't even mean anything.

[They're so sorry it hurts, but the word is never enough. They hate "sorry."]

It's not "it won't ever happen again," because... what if it does, right? No matter how much I... you know, don't want to hurt someone -

["Love" is no easier to say, especially not at a time like this.]

- I don't know for sure I won't hurt you. Maybe I will. Maybe I'll say something stupid or I'll get mad and awful or it'll be another accident, but maybe it'll happen again. It's...

[What is it? They don't have a script to pull from for something like this.]

I wish you hadn't been hurt. You didn't deserve that at all. You were just trying to be nice to me.

I know. I know. It's okay, Chara. I'm okay. It worked out, and we're both okay.

[But the words are just a formless, hopeless litany, as pointless and endlessly spiraling as a circle. Useless in stemming the flow of whatever self-blame Chara must be heaping upon themself - and Frisk knows they've got to be, because Frisk would be doing the same in their place, they know without question.

They do all they can do, all they ever do, and stand there patiently, and smile.]

I've hurt you too. I've broken promises, I've, I've done terrible things to you. You've always...you've still stayed with me. Still my best friend, my family.

[Despite everything, right?

Despite everything.

And they do mean everything.

They've broken promises. They've thrown Chara's words back in their face. They've taken things from them, taken away a family, taken away an object that was theirs and that proved that they existed, treated it like garbage. They've hurt them. They've deliberately taken every vulnerability Chara has displayed, every moment in which they've expressed guilt or pain or regret, and knotted it into a ball to fling into their face with all the energy and disgust they can muster.

But still.

There are promises they've broken, and promises they've kept.]

Why's it okay when I hurt you, but not the other way around, Chara?

[The words are soft and even and patient, as if Frisk doesn't already know the answer. As if they don't already know what Chara must be thinking in response, what they're about to say.]

You can't compare us like that.

[Frisk already knows the answer.]

When I get hurt, it's karmic justice. When you get hurt, it's martyrdom.

[Chara hurts people. It's fair. It's what their actions earned them.

It's the answer Frisk knows: Chara deserves it.]

I've got a whole lifetime more of crimes to answer for than you do, Frisk.

[For all the timelines they followed, Frisk sure never ruined their sibling's life, sentenced six more children to death, made their parents stop loving each other! No, Frisk hasn't done anything bad that Chara didn't have a hand in.]

I'm the one with LOVE.

[Not LV1, 0 EXP, 0 ATK, 0 DEF. Not going out of their way to be harmless, giving up whatever they have on them to prove to other people that they're not a threat at all.]

I'm...

[Your humble servant.]

Not bothered by you hurting me at all. You're about as vicious as a flea! You, what, might call me a name? You couldn't even offend that lizard kid. I've got thicker skin than anyone knows what to do with. HP to spare. I'm almost halfway to bulletproof!

It's not okay when you get hurt, Chara! If it's not okay when I get hurt, it's not okay when you get hurt either!

[Their frown is thunderous, as pointed as their insistence. They almost grind their foot into the rug, arms folded firmly across their chest.]

We talked about this, didn't we? About...about getting hurt. About how we don't have to act like it's okay. How we don't have to say it's fine, and, and - doesn't that matter? I don't just mean it for me, Chara, I mean it for you too.

[Allowed to be angry. Allowed to say something other than "I forgive you." Allowed to protest, to push back, to not be reduced to suffering for someone else's pain and someone else's ending and someone else's guilt.

Because Chara can claim it doesn't hurt them all they like. They can claim that they're bulletproof, they can claim that it doesn't ache like a spear to the SOUL, but they know better, don't they?
Your humble servant. Your humble servant!
It still hurts, and it's worse when every hurt feels like a betrayal. Is one.]

You don't deserve it, Chara. If I don't, then you don't.

[It's what they've learned, isn't it? They're partners. Partners.]

I know I've hurt you. You don't have to pretend I haven't!

[Why is Frisk even talking about when Chara gets hurt? Absolutely nothing happened to hurt Chara. This was supposed to be about Frisk. Now it's just... it keeps circling back to this. The victim trying to comfort the bully, like that makes any sense at all. And Frisk says they're not being forced into it, not being manipulated, but... trying to admit you're in any pain at all just shouts over the people who are really hurt, huh? Still looking for attention, Chara. You're the exact same creature you were on the surface.

They don't want Frisk to talk about this anymore. It's nauseating. Trying to soothe someone who's completely fine, who doesn't want an empty roll of it's-okays and pitying pats on the head so they don't have to think about one more person they trust harming them.

So they ERASE it. Shove it away. Pull out some snail facts. Something close enough to seem relevant, but not actually talking about them at all.]

Back in the middle ages, I heard people believed in mortification of the flesh in a very literal sense. Flagellants, they called themselves.

[A fact from a dusty old book, too advanced for a kid their age - but they always were so grown up, and age is just a number, isn't it?]

God will forgive you for your sins, but you must suffer to reduce the punishment that sin carries with it. So they'd journey around from town to town, reciting psalms and whipping themselves until they bled. They touted suffering as a pious act. Something that made them closer to Christ, I guess. Like the way he suffered was an example he set for everyone.

[A recitation that feels like standing in a golden hallway, listening to distant bells and staring up at stained glass.]

[It's an abrupt shift of subject matter, and one that leaves Frisk feeling...disquieted, they suppose is the term. They shift there on the spot, weight moving from foot to foot as a multitude of emotions shutters across their ordinarily blank features.

It's a strange and discomfiting sensation. They'd been brought to services like that, a few times. Not like anyone they knew on the surface was especially religious, but they got the feeling that it was something that was done because it was simply what people did on big holidays, like Christmas or Easter. There was stained glass, and there were the colored shapes cast against the floors and walls that Frisk liked to watch, letting their eyes glaze over as they stopped listening to the Important Man at the front orate at length about the importance of suffering and martyrdom and dying for people's sins. It always seemed to be the same speech every time they heard it. Maybe it was. Maybe it was written on the inside of his hand - only it had to be too long for that to be the case. They'd been too young to receive the communion of flesh and blood - bread and wine, they knew it was meant to be, really, but all the adults seemed so bent on pretending otherwise that it just felt rude not to play along too.

Too young, the priest had said, smiling at the small, squat child with their arms crossed obediently over their chest as the adults instructed. Too young to receive these holy gifts of flesh and blood that would help cleanse you of your natural sin.

Too young, they all said, as if Frisk didn't know the real reason, that they were simply too impure for something as sacred as that to touch their corrupted flesh. Where does a thing like you get off, pretending that you deserve salvation? You haven't even really suffered. You are a mistake and you were born of a mistake, and something born of sin can only yield more sin.

Remember that, unclean thing.]

I think it's stupid, [Frisk announces flatly, after a moment. And then they pause, almost imperceptibly, practically ritual at this point, awaiting the inevitable bolt of righteous anger to strike down their blasphemous words.

It doesn't come. But it never came before, so they hadn't really expected it to.]

I mean...we suffered, didn't we? We kept getting hurt. By monsters, by humans, by each other, by - by ourselves. I don't feel any...any better for it. Any purer.

[The last word they almost spit out like a curse. Pure. As if a thing like them -

Well.

They've never been able to scrub themselves clean, have they?]

Then how come... good things only happened when you suffered for other people?

[The barrier only came down when Frisk refused to fight back, didn't allow themselves to be afraid of or unhappy with the people who had harmed them. Became their best friends, solved their problems.

The barrier only came down because Asriel suffered for humanity's sins. Smiled and did nothing as he was beat to death by strangers. Endured countless loops of numbness, isolation, ennui. Sacrificed the ability to feel, to love, the right to be loved, all to undo the punishment humanity inflicted onto them all. Had nothing left, in the end, but an endless future of emptiness, all alone in a hollow mountain.]

Asriel suffered, and he's an angel.

[Chara suffered, and they're a demon, because there came a point where they decided they didn't want to suffer in silence anymore.

Why did the world teach them this, if it's not... how it's supposed to be?

Why did the body laid on a halo of golden flowers just look filthy and blistered and awful, not radiant or holy? Isn't that how saints are made? By sacrificing themselves for the greater good? Wasn't all that agony the least bit redemptive?

...If you kill yourself, you don't go to heaven, do you?]

Hell isn't supposed to be pleasant. Purgatory isn't supposed to be restful. You're not really repenting unless it's hard and painful, right?

Is that where we are? Hell, or limbo, or whatever in between?

[Maybe it was a certain kind of death, their electing to remain here, in Wonderland, to never return to the Underground. They cannot simply slide their smiling face into a photograph and accept it as truth, accept themselves as belonging to a family that would be safer without their presence staining the glass.

What constitutes good suffering and bad? Why does Asriel suffer beautifully, and why is that okay? He's - it's not, though, is it? It can't be.

Kill or be killed.

Don't kill, and don't be killed.

Is that really all there is? If you kill you're bad, and if you don't kill, you're good. If you suffer for everyone else's problems, this is acceptable. This is allowed. If you lash out, strike back, even by accident, you should be smited down like the evil and dirty and wrong thing that you are.]

We're not going back there. We already said we weren't.

[The words are even and simple, a statement of fact, a fundamental aspect of their world and their universe.]

So it doesn't have to be like that anymore. Maybe we're still learning, but...but I don't want it. I don't want you to feel like you have to suffer to be okay.

This was never even about me suffering, Frisk. It was about you suffering.

[Does it even make any sense at all to be getting annoyed with being comforted? Is annoyance what they even feel? It's something frustrated and unsettled, they think. They don't want to talk about themself. It's not about poor Chara and their precious little problems. Nothing that happened here tonight involved Chara getting hurt.]

I just... Frisk, are we really sure that it's not like that here, too? Even if it's a different world, I've still got LOVE. Even if it's Wonderland, I still... I make things go wrong.

[Buttercups instead of cups of butter. A plan Asriel tried to stop far too late. A stream of raw brokenness pouring from their outstretched hand. Not small mistakes, not inconsequential. Things that feel calamitous, ruinous, unnatural and awful and demonic.]

I mean, science tells us that if repeated experiments yield the same conclusion, that's sufficient evidence that a theory is valid. How am I supposed to believe something when the facts certainly seem to suggest that I just contaminate whatever I get my hands on, right?

Chara, I don't...care about that. I don't care if you think you're not worth SAVING, that you're not worth loving. You know I'm not going to change my mind.

[Determination vs. Determination. And we all know how this game ends, don't we?

It's useless, Chara. You're never getting rid of them. Even with all the LOVE in the world, you will always be their partner, their SOULmate, the one person they will always value above all others.]

It's...easier to blame yourself. I know it is. It's easier, because you get to have control over it.

[And you can tell yourself that you're the one who can control the change that happens. You're the one with the special power, so it's your responsibility to do the right thing. To fix everything. To change things. To change fate.]

You get to make it all your fault, and then you know who to hurt.

Someone's got to take responsibility, haven't they?

[Isn't that the grown-up thing to do? To own your wretched decisions, instead of trying to push the blame onto someone else? You get told again and again that what happens is your fault, your fault, why are you like this, you horrible brat? You're not worthy of being included with the wife and child someone wants to see again. You're not exactly the greatest person. You're not even human, you're just pretending to be one. You're not welcome, kids like you should be burning in hell, you're the one standing in the way of everyone's hopes and dreams.

How long is it going to take, they wonder, until they think the way Frisk wants them to think? Until they can tune all of that out.

How long until they even progress to the "you sort of know it's not your fault but tell yourself it is" stage that Frisk seems to be suggesting now? It does feel like their fault. Of course it does. Nobody made them accept something that could be as dangerous as magic. Nobody forced them to coerce Frisk into starting an encounter. They could have waited. Could have considered the potential to do magic satisfactory enough and never try to experiment. Could have answered in a way that would make Frisk feel better, instead of twisting this into a drawn-out, frustrating exercise in trying to fix someone who doesn't even want to be comforted right now. Nobody's going to come out of this feeling accomplished.

They try to think of more snail facts, more diversions. Nothing comes to mind.

So they just... sigh. Hollowed out, defeated, devoid.]

I just wanted fire magic. Not... not this. I thought maybe if other Charas had earned it somehow, maybe I could earn it too. What are the other Charas doing that I'm not? Why am I the only one who messed it up?

* IC Inbox

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cw self-harm in a religious context?? how do i tag this

cw more self-harm references

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