what did the skeleton say to the other skeleton

[skelepun]

Who: Sans & YOU
When: From the 16th on.
Where: All around the ship.
What: Catch-all log for May!! Some post-void shenanigans, some general around the ship shenanigans, fun for everybody!
Warnings: Will add if any come up! Probably some talk of mass murder, though.





( All prompts below! Please either PM me or PP me on plurk (safelybeds) if you'd like to hash out a custom starter!)

OTA (MEDBAY)
Sans tries to sneak out of the medbay after Magic Overload.

OTA (CRYOBAY)
Who wants to tell bad jokes and hang out around a bunch of kinda dead people?

OTA (TRAINING ROOM)
Magic burnout sucks. Let's talk about powers and why they're the worst.

OTA (CLASSROOMS)
Who wants to learn chemistry from the world's most tired man?

Comments

[warandpeace]

Miller softly "oofs" behind him. Then there was a clatter. By the time Sans turned, Mama has grabbed said newly formed bone and is attempting to trot away with it. Miller? Making no effort to stop her.

He grunts and hefts the laundry basket he's been lugging around (complete with a half folded sheet over it to discourage the brood inside from escaping) over to the console. If anything he was getting a hell of a workout.

"No problem," casually said. "Didn't hurt. So what are you going for in here?"

He checked into the training room whenever he was awake. He didn't mind people using it when he wasn't around- in fact, he felt people should try to improve themselves whenever the motivation struck. Though whenever he could be around, he was ready to turn things into more of a challenge. As far as he could get away with.

Looked like Sans was already having trouble, though.

[skelepun]

Right, this guy. The dude who liked puns. He worked here, didn't he? Probably should've seen that coming.

"Heh, I dunno man, just blowing off some steam." Sort of. Not really. But Sans sells the sentiment well enough. "Sorry about the bone, bee-tee-dubs. Didn't think I'd have any company this late."

[warandpeace]

"It's fine. I get bored when I'm out. I have to take the dogs by the vet's office anyway." Where he kenneled them at night, so not to disturb his roommates.

He looked over the settings he had available and manifest a junkyard, filled with random, rusted, unfortunate vehicles. Glass. Easy to crunch metal. Whichever.

"Here. Vent away. Not a bad place to do it. And don't worry, Mama's not complaining."

In fact she looked up from her new bone and wagged her tail once.

[skelepun]

"We've got a vet?"

Huh. Who knew. Maybe he should take Ratchet in for a check up. Unfortunately, before he can make that ill-advised joke, the settings switch. Sans nearly forgot they could do that.

"... Oh. Yeah. That's right." Him? Uncomfortable? Nah. "Why don't you go ahead and show me how it's done, pal. I'm all vented out."

[warandpeace]

"Eggsy. Apparently been learning and got the job."

He walked over to Sans' side, hands in his pockets. "Well, practice makes perfect." Relentless, unyielding practice. At least in Miller's experience. "Been having any problems?" Because from the sound of that, it seemed like it.

As they were talking, though, Mama dropped her bone and looked off into the distance, at the false assortment of illusory cars. Then she went to sit beside of her puppies, all of which settled down to be quiet. Miller didn't really seem to notice. His attention was all on Sans.

[skelepun]

"Just a little homesick." It's not a lie. He was home. It made him sick. "Nothing watching a master at work, though."

He nodded for Miller to get to it, hoping it might curb the man's laser focus on him. The dogs were cute -- another unfortunate reminder of home -- and Sans would've settled for talking about their potty training progress over this.

"What're their names?" He asked, eyelights overbright. "They're cute."

[warandpeace]

"Well, they do call me Master Miller because I'm a trainer. So. Let's train."

But he did look over his shoulder at the dogs. "Their owners will name them. This dog. That dog. Pale dog. The round one. The mean one. Just names like that is what they have now."

They were indeed inventive, though Mama had taken the most defensive posture yet, and finally Miller seemed to note it.

So he turned and looked off into the artificially generated distance. There was a human-shaped figure, staggering. Just a barely visible sillouette, hidden in darkened shadows.

But then it took three quick steps behind cover, as if a film-reel had been sped up.

Miller set his jaw to the side, and didn't move. "Hold on." He needed to shut down the program for a bit. Just to be sure.

[skelepun]

"Can't blame you there. The one back home we just call annoying."

Still, clearly Miller isn't down for kicking back and discussing his puppies. The sight of a jerking, violently gyrating being through the mist put a swift end to that dream.

"What the heck is that?" He asks, still staring at it while following Miller's don't move instructions. He had no idea how the simulator work, but conjuring up real creatures seems... ethically complicated.

[warandpeace]

Sprites, yeah. Beings that were basically target practice, with repeated dialog and no real intelligence. Something good to practice a fistfight on, or enemies to avoid in stealth sequences.

No more than your average video game.

But Miller had definitely not put something like that in there. He was selfish sometimes, and wouldn't have been able to tolerate those... those things. Even seeing it made his arm ache. "Remember those things I told you about when we first met? ...Must have been a trick of the light."

But when he turned the program off, there was nothing. Just the blank room. Absolutely no one.

Mama was staring up at the ceiling, but stopped and looked directly at Sans and made some sort of husky warble that could have passed for a bark if she was any sort of normal dog.

[skelepun]

"Ah... right." Sans chuckles, canting his skull to the side. "I guess I thought I'd see more resemblance between us."

The stuttering had some parallels, though, he had to give 'em that.

"Can that just happen? Creatures loading into a simulation without being asked--"

The bark interrupts him, and Sans looks down at the dog with a bemused cast to his perpetual rictus. "She likes bones, huh?"

[warandpeace]

"It's meant to produce obstacles while functioning. Change it up every time, because dealing with the same scenario each time is too easy. It has a specific set of parameters, fit to whatever possible distractions you can use.

"Example, if you're doing an infiltration exercise, you'll get guards in different places each time. If you're doing a magical fight, it will switch up your opponents attacks or even your opponent type.

"But I never put in the specific details for it to make one of those." He said it honestly.

But he tried to calm himself. His heart still pounding in his ears but... it was a fluke, right? Had to be. They shouldn't be here. Maybe it was something ridiculous, like the time the Training Sim made a vampire dazzled by heaving manchest. Yeah. Something like that. He had to be overreacting.

"She just likes to chew. Not good at fetch, really. Mostly she wants to stay by someone. I think wherever she came from, her person didn't pay much attention to her."

[skelepun]

"That, uh. Seems like a pretty big problem?" There's a cast to Sans' perpetual lazy grin that gives away a note of concern. Technology, especially supernatural technology as this most assuredly would have to be, going haywire was always a red flag for deeper problems on the physical level. He didn't have to be an engineer to understand that. Still, any concern that shows through is negated quickly with a hasty wink/shrug combo. "Or maybe it's just overheating."

Sans doesn't trust himself to conjure anything too big -- no femur's on the menu today, sorry Mama -- but he manages a humerus. It's sizable enough to send a cord of clear relief through Sans before extending it towards the dog.

"That's a shame. She's a real sweetheart." Straightening up again, he scritches behind her ears. "There were loads of dogs around my hometown. You couldn't not pay attention to 'em. Especially the ones that cheat at cards."

[warandpeace]

"Oh believe me, I'm going to have it looked into." It didn't bode well with his recently spiked paranoia. He tried instead to focus on the fact that he just made a bone out of thin air.

Mama took that one, but went over to coax her pups into a tiny game of tug.

"Have you been having trouble doing that?" Miller asked of the magic. Making anything out of thin air was still a sort of boggling experience. He'd have to wait to furrow his brow about the dogs and cards and cheating because he was still watching how that happened.

"Well, I'm here to help. So..." If Sans wanted something, here he was. Ready and willing.

[skelepun]

"Heh..."

The laugh isn't evasive on its own, but when coupled with the shrug and lack of eye contact, it certainly contributed to a larger picture. A yes, I'm having a lot of trouble actually without needing to say the words.

"Let's say I've never been the best at using my magic to begin with. I don't work out much." He slapped his (theoretically impossible) belly, grinning wider. "Dunno if you could tell."

[warandpeace]

"I'll be honest, I actually couldn't tell. I don't know what the standards of fitness are for monsters.

"And the best you can do is the smaller bones right now? How do you normally use them?" If he was going to attempt to help, he might as well take it from the top; figuring out how all this worked.

...Where the hell did this man hide his belly anyway?

[skelepun]

It's magic, Miller. Just body roll with it.

"Uh..." Sans looks askance, as if unsure how exactly to answer that question, or perhaps just amused over being asked period. "Pretty much the same. I don't train much. My brother, he can pull out any bone you name in a second, I kinda just..."

He makes a gesture, hoping to conjure a femur -- his mainstay -- only to release a shower of sparks instead.

"Damnit." Another laugh, with a touch of self deprecation. "Well, anyway, it was supposed to look like a femur. I kinda just... make 'em bigger or smaller as needed."

[warandpeace]

He nods at that. "And how do you use them for attacks?"

The question is accompanied by him going to the console again, and rather than a full setting he conjures up round floating colorful orbs, about the size of basketballs that linger at various heights and distances from him. Generic targets for Sans to use.

Better than an explanation is a demonstration.

[skelepun]

"Aw jeez."

Sans's voice sounds as tired as his eyes, watching the targets bob in the air. Practicing his magic was never something Sans spent much time on. It's arguably one of the defining parts of being a monster, but he always found plenty of ways to express himself outside just his magic. And then, after a while, he learned to appreciate not expressing himself at all.

"It's, uh, hard to explain. Been a while since I talked about this stuff, heh."

He takes a breath, sizing up one of the targets.

"You've got your ATK and your DEF." The terms are dropped casually -- they are practical definitions in his world. "Your ATK influences your external magic, bones and all that. Your DEF influences your internal magic and how well you're sticking together. In a fight, it basically means how resistant you are to getting your ass beat... outside a fight, DEF kinda doesn't come up. HP's more important."

The physiology lesson is more than a little halfassed, but it's a better alternative to actually trying to summon something. Sans is putting that off as long as possible, if he's honest.

[warandpeace]

"Alright. Well, come over here to the console with me, and we'll work out how this can be a challenge. It can help out the other monsters, too."

He motioned him over, and pointed at the screen.

"Currently right now, there are grades applied to performance. How do other species stack up in ATK and DEF compared to yours?"

He was wanting some real help here. While Sans hid his depression in apathy, Miller hid his in constant work and distraction. If he never stopped putting forth the effort, he'd never remember he was unwanted and a disappointment. That he would always end up alone.

A sad conflict of two sides of a similar coin.

[skelepun]

An unfortunate reality, isn't it?

Still, Sans joins Miller at the console, looking equal parts apprehensive and interested.

"Well, uh... humans are stronger. A lot stronger." He pauses, unsure of how in depth to go. That was an eternal conflict with monsterkind, just how much of their weakness to allow in public knowledge. The ease with which a human could destroy them was... well. Moving on.

"I guess that's the nice way of putting it."