Thán (
hohnkai) wrote in
thisavrou_log2017-01-03 09:25 pm
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Entry tags:
- *event,
- agents of shield: daisy johnson,
- all about j: j,
- danger days killjoys: the girl,
- dogs bullets & carnage: badou nails,
- dogs bullets & carnage: nill,
- dragon age: anders,
- dragon age: fenris (crau),
- dragon age: varric tethras,
- guilty gear: venom,
- marvel 616: laura kinney,
- mcu: bucky barnes (crau),
- mcu: stephen strange,
- mcu: wanda maximoff,
- metal gear: kazuhira miller,
- metal gear: solid snake,
- metal gear: venom snake,
- mushishi: ginko,
- overwatch: angela "mercy" ziegler,
- overwatch: jesse mccree,
- overwatch: mei-ling zhou,
- overwatch: reinhardt wilhelm,
- overwatch: soldier 76,
- star wars: rey,
- the raven cycle: adam parrish,
- the raven cycle: ronan lynch,
- tron: rinzler (crau),
- tron: yori (crau),
- uncharted: harry flynn,
- undertale: chara dreemurr,
- x-men movies: james "logan" howlet,
- x-men movies: kurt wagner,
- x-men movies: peter maximoff
january event log
Who: Everyone
When: January 3rd and on
Where: The Midway Hub.
What: The crew finally make it to the center of the Hub.
Warnings: Mentions of dead bodies, death, and violence. Please label your content!
When: January 3rd and on
Where: The Midway Hub.
What: The crew finally make it to the center of the Hub.
Warnings: Mentions of dead bodies, death, and violence. Please label your content!
E V E N T L O G |
"Let them in, and take them out."
|
no subject
He'd told Asriel as much, so if it just so happens that his hand slips one day...then whoops! He doesn't care.
"I know this might be difficult to grasp, so I'll make sure to use small words for you, honey. You both look similar. And for a reason I just don't get, they are attached to you. So I figured I'd ask just in case."
Every single word out of his mouth is dripping in icy scorn. But he's made the goal up, might as well see it through.
"If you don't know, then just say so."
no subject
What a sad state of affairs. He presumes to play a game, but the Game has changed. They do not engage with NPCs, nor do they care for what commentary they may despise. Plot Devices are simply that - Devices. Tools.
You're quite mouthy, little tool.
"It's rude to make assumptions," says Chara. "I'm sure you've heard what they say about what happens when you assume."
no subject
"Oh, have I hurt your feelings, then? What a shame."
He sounds so torn up. Really! Don't you believe him?
"Forgive me another assumption in thinking that you're yet again wasting my time. I'll take my leave--"
...Or so he would love to say, anyway. Except that there's a niggling in the back of his mind that tells him before he jumps ship from Hellbeast's Shitty Ride, that he ought to make good on what he'd wanted to do for a while now.
Which surprisingly, doesn't involve stomping on their head. He swears.
"--after you give me just a bit more of your time. Certainly you're up to that level of challenge."
Smartass.
no subject
Either way, he seems wholly uninterested in pursuing conversation, a fact which suits Chara quite well; they are equally disinterested in engaging further than is necessary. And here they had been wondering when he would come running back with a finger upraised in self-righteous outrage, ready and willing to make his claims of yet another thing he must understand far better and clearer than they.
"And would you be terribly likely to listen, should I refuse?" Chara tilts their head, just a fraction, their smile less of a challenge than it is one of knowing. He has not given them a choice in the matter, even if he has presented the illusion of one. A typical tactic of those older than them.
no subject
Surprisingly, Mettaton concedes. Not because he intends to leave without saying his part--in that, the child had caught him with his hands red--but because he's curious as to what they'd do if he had given them a choice in the matter, like he seems to be doing now.
Maybe it would go over well if he wasn't patronizing...for, you know. Half a minute, right?
no subject
He is something of a peacock, or a pretty sparkler - flashy, and full of a pomp that cannot atone for a lack of substance.
Chara straightens, hands folded neatly behind their back. They look much nicer now that the flowers have fallen away, don't you think?
"You are a miserable liar," they announce flatly, "and I believe I have my opinions regarding hypocrites quite clear."
no subject
"Fair enough." Not really, it isn't. But again. He's trying to avoid escalating. "I had intended to message you instead of speak to you face to face, but seeing as we've crossed paths, I wanted to ask you something.
Despite your apparent distaste for "hypocrites," is there any chance of us reaching some sort of...middle ground? I know you do not care for me, and nor do I care for you. Even less do you seem to care for my 'hypocritical' opinions on family, and I concede this point for now.
It's just that I'm not interested in placing too much strain on Asriel by being at ends with you entirely. Not if I can help it."
For all that he fluffed his words up, what he wants is actually pretty clear.
A truce. Not that he expects Chara to go for it, but a token effort was the best he could offer.
cw for allusions to child abuse
Done his research, has he? Or perhaps he simply possesses the same talents that all adults do - that of learning in what ways a child may be ground beneath the heel, and how to best to exert one's influence over them. Behave, Chara. Behave for the adults. It does no good to threaten them, everyone has just learned that so quickly, have they not? It does no good at all, to threaten someone who knows and anticipates the strike, the windback of a fist or a leather strap. No, that will not do at all.
It works better, far better, to strike at the heart of matters instead.
And he knows their heart, it seems. He knows who Asriel he is - whether he learned it through the crown prince of the Underground himself or through other means is utterly inconsequential.
Chara's smile - widens. Inexorably, it widens.
"You are no better at extorting than you are at lying," says Chara. "But congratulations, Mettaton."
Their smile is a glued-on, pink-cheeked crescent, sweeter than arsenic.
"No one else has gone from indifference to disgust in so short a time."
You've broken a record, Mettaton. Be proud.
no subject
Ah...well that's not entirely true. His bit of self-interest is remaining friends with Asriel. However, it's only the secondary priority in all of this. Funny how people can change, isn't it Chara? Oh, right. They don't believe in that, do they?
"If I wanted to extort, then I assure you; I can most certainly extort," he says coldly. "But I'm not. I'm tired of arguing and trying to please everyone, including myself, and managing to succeed in none of that. If I can't make myself happy, then at least I tried to make someone else happy.
And for the record, your opinion on me is worth less to nothing at this point. So if you intend to guilt me, then you haven't succeeded. Not this time."
Mettaton can't bring himself to be angry at the outcome. He saw it coming. Chara had too big a chip on their shoulder, that's all.
"Thank you for your time."
He had something much more caustic to say, but he is TRYING to keep it civil.
no subject
Anger is a funny thing. It has accompanied them for years, for the long and interminable stretches of time in which they slept in the soil, far from peaceful, and yet - its displays are in the pull of their lips into a bright smile, the cold and unyielding spark to their crimson gaze.
Their smile is ruthless, and once again - they are not done with you yet, Mettaton. A step forward, then, to punctuate their point.
"Does Asriel know that his well-being is little more than a token to be bartered?" says Chara, their tone falsely conversational. "And yet you claim to place value on your - friendship with him."
They're not fond of repeating themself, Mettaton, so you will have to come to your own conclusions. But they have made their opinion regarding hypocrites quite clear.
no subject
"See, here's the thing, sweetie. I talked to Asriel. Like a normal person would, maybe that's something you aren't used to anymore," he said, and this time he couldn't keep the venom out of his tone. "I told him that I was having a problem with you, and I also told him that if it would make him feel better, I could try to give you another chance despite all of the nasty little things that dribble past your lips. Because here's a surprise--he doesn't like the idea of me avoiding him just because you and I don't get along. That would hurt his feelings more, and I have the presence of mind to realize that.
So you see, I'm not using him to bargain. I'm working with him to try and settle because I care about him and he cares about you. You know, actual friendship? The give-and-take thing? If anyone is a bargaining chip here, it's you. Sorry you didn't get it right, darling. It happens."
no subject
So how long, Mettaton, until the inconvenience of being Asriel's friend overtakes your alleged affection for him? How long until every avenue is destroyed, every pathway burned to ash, the ashes buried beneath a statue that chimes so long as it is not getting wet?
"I have seen what you do to the things you claim you care about." There is a yellow brightness wrapped about their SOUL, or what remains of it, to match the gleaming red. "Alphys. Your dear, sweet cousin. They are to be used up and discarded when you are done with them; when the cost surpasses the benefit."
And when he does attempt to mend those bridges? It is always, always too little, far too late. Alphys disappears, and she does something cowardly. And Mettaton can consume himself in his grief and regret all he likes.
Grief and regret does nothing to bring anyone back.
They have learned that lesson all too well.
no subject
He wouldn't let those words hurt! Not when he had been working so hard to try and make amends. Maybe it didn't come immediately to fruition, and maybe he was wasting his time. But better to waste it than to give up.
"I know what I did. I know, alright? I understand that I was not...the best to Alphys. Or to Blooky. Definitely not to Asriel. I realize that I have made mistakes..."
And most of all, he realizes that everything that Chara is saying is true, save for one thing.
"But what I also know is that it is never too late to put in the effort if someone is still there to talk to. There is nothing wrong with making a mistake and apologizing!!"
He says it vehemently, trying to ignore the shade of yellow outlining their SOUL. Alphys...he had never gotten the chance to express to her how sorry he was while she was here, and that hurt immensely. It almost overshadowed the fact that he'd been making amends back home already, before he came through the Ingress. Why, he'd even been doing some shopping for her--how could he ever trust her to eat anything but instant noodles and junk food?
That wasn't done out of a desire to throw their friendship away. It was...good. He had to be good, somewhere inside.
He had to believe that, because if he didn't, then why would Asriel want him as a friend now? Over and over, they'd had the discussion.
"If I gave up trying, I'd turn into a sad, pitiful monster with no regrets and all the regrets, hiding behind a wall of lights and sequins and telling myself I was doing everything right even if I knew that wasn't true." Oh, he remembers what he saw. He remembers how high his EXP climbed then, culling the miscreants who didn't submit to their king. Mettaton doesn't need Chara to guilt him there. "I don't want that for myself, so no matter what you say, I will continue doing what I do, and remembering all the mistakes--not to agonize! But to fix it!"
1/??
End scene.
The longer he goes on, the more obvious it becomes that he continues to do things, say such things, for his own benefit. He convinces no one else but himself. There is nothing wrong with making a mistake, he says, and then apologizing, he says. There is nothing wrong with making a simple little error, is there? Of course not! Errors can be corrected. Errors can be corrected. Errors can be ERASED.
For all his flaws, they would never have thought naivete to be among them. And yet - what a blissfully optimistic stance for one such as him to take. Burdened by his guilt, weighed with a flare of justice that strikes true, and still he insists - can people not change? Can people not fix their errors? Can people not apologize, and move on?
What a dreadful, familiar tune.
It, uh, doesn't have to be that way.
Does it?
no subject
"Nothing wrong with making a mistake," Chara says, pulling out the words venomously. "In that case, sir, perhaps I should explain, provided you are so set on this belief."
A slight twist of their wrist, an adjustment of the blade at the side, and the Real Knife catches the light, glinting a scarlet to match their eyes.
"What shall I say? I just tripped and fell onto monster after monster, reducing them to dust? I mistakenly ate a flower, tore apart the kingdom, rent it asunder, and facilitated the death of the crown prince of the Underground - and everyone's hopes and dreams on top of it?"
There is nothing wrong with making a mistake.
Is there.
no subject
That's a joke, Mettaton. Get it?
Because we're all just adrift, directionless, sliding about in anti-gravity. Or perhaps we were simply there always, and simply came to our senses.
Our senses. Another joke.
"There is nothing wrong with making mistakes and then - fixing them."
no subject
We take the timeline we've torn beyond the recognition of it. We take every miserable life and grind it away. We turn the blade upon ourselves. We cut, deep - deeper.
Always deeper.
The world turns on. A child eats a flower and tears apart a kingdom. Another child falls, and then another. Count the SOULs, the only vital parts worth mentioning, nameless but for their tools and their virtues that may as well be their labels, drained of all other defining traits. All else is to be discarded, left at the wayside - dusty artifacts of those who traversed the same pathways and then failed, inevitably. Who gave up, or perhaps were simply not the anomaly that could have altered the course of fate. Who lacked the resolve, the will to do so.
* Determination.
no subject
God - but they hope so.
"Seeing as you are quite the expert on the subject," Chara continues. "Tell me. How might I fix those mistakes of mine? How might I salvage the world I callously broke, irreversibly? A simple apology, do you think? Will that suffice? Or shall I take it a step further - a peck on the cheek and a bouquet of flowers?"
The irony there appeals to them.
"Or perhaps that would be in poor taste."
no subject
How do you atone for an existence formed into a spear - defined solely by those you have hurt?
Tell me.
TELL ME.
and done
In the face of -
Oh. Perhaps that is simply too far removed a joke to make. Ah, well. They found it charming, in its own right. But we can't have everything.
"If you insist that we can atone for our sins," says Chara, with the clear and projected disbelief in such a philosophy, particularly coming from him, evident in the arch of an eyebrow, "then tell me this."
Riddle me this, Mettaton, if you can.
"What gives you the right to judge you for mine?"
1/?
Those threads feel tangible as they snake around him, and he can't be flippant about it anymore.
Because they are talking about murder, and judgment, and who should be judging who.
But most of all, they're talking about the endless expanse of timelines to which Mettaton had become privy so recently that it still stung like a poisoned blade directly through his SOUL. Why did they have to make it sound so awful? Why did they need to make it so terrible, to where he couldn't even figure out why he wanted to forgive Frisk, if he couldn't bother caring whether to forgive Chara.
What answer did they want from him? What did they want from him?! Even if he gave them a truthful answer, Chara would find a way to twist it, tie it 'round his neck and tighten it like a noose and hang him over the expanse of knowledge he had never wanted, but couldn't look away from.
no subject
He'd said that he wouldn't let them get to him, but that had been a lie. The more deeply they delved into the conversation, the less Mettaton could play pretend like he did with almost everything else in his life.
His eye affixes to their knife. Their shining weapon and its strange circular patterns. What a weird knife. Perfect for a weird little kid.
"Chara, I don't like you. I may never like you. But there are so few of us here, do you truly believe it worth our time to be on opposite ends of the board? I'm not an expert in anything, least of all any of your experiences..."
He glances down, his fingers tightening around his own neck. What was it about anymore, was it to ground himself? That's why he did this, to remind himself he wasn't on the Outpost, and to remind himself that he'll never, ever be forced to kill, kill, and kill again, even when it's someone he cares about.
For a moment, he considers using that as a point of understanding.
and finished
That's...true. He has to keep that in mind as he looks back up.
"However, it is because I cannot judge you that I choose to extend my sympathy, much as I'd rather not. I can say I'm doing this for Asriel all I want, and I am. I know you will not believe me, but I am because I want to have a friend who I do not ruin my experiences with. I won't forget Alphys, or Blooky, and what I did to them. That's why I am trying not to make the same mistake.
It's not just for them though. Any of them.
I'm also doing it because I wan to try and understand. So really...you are the one who is judging me. Not the other way around."
They are the hypocrite.
no subject
Burn the pages. Seal the book. Slam the blade down, through and through, cleaving through every feeble word of protest. Does he presume that he is the first to try this trick on them? That he is the first to lure them in with words and promises, the first adult to extend a hand? They always start off like this. They start with smiles, with insistences that they'll do better, really, they will, and if you LOVE them, you'll let them try again.
If you love them, you'll let them try again.
If you love them, you'll accept the way it stings, across the back of your knees or along the edges of your scalp, against the shoulder blades and around your throat, black spots and purple ones too, a veritable rainbow of them.
They know how it works by now. They know what it really means. It's different when you do it, Chara. You're the anomaly, the one who just won't sit still and behave. An adult's punishment is a child's cruelty, judgment solely to be executed upon them, never by them. It's perfectly well and reasonable for a grown-up to treat you the way you deserve.
An object. A humble servant. A fixture.
What else is new?
"Perhaps I am simply cutting to the chase." Their eyes flatten, as though they have grown disinterested with the conversation. "You honestly think you are the first to pull this stunt with me?"
Gosh, maybe the humans are the REAL monsters here. Maybe Chara is the REAL hypocrite! Makes you think, doesn't it? Both sides are just really, really hurting, aren't they?
"Your sympathy is far from sympathetic." He is, as they have said before - a miserable liar. "I very much doubt it can be enunciated as such, when you are simply seeking to use it as leverage. A friendship of convenience hardly counts as such, does it?"
Or perhaps they're simply making another mistake. Is it time to turn this one into a learning experience, or are they meant to give it a few days to marinate before they take it out again, turning it over and over in their hands in their search for a new perspective?
no subject
Call it what you will. The truth is, I've many other things to worry about than picking a fight with you."
Chara could think he was a liar all they wanted, but the tone of Mettaton's voice was tired. Downright exhausted. He's felt so heavy for months, and this whole back-and-forth, as well as their first one, was just...additional strain. He didn't want it. He wanted peace.
"I don't want leverage. I don't want to control either you or anyone else. I just want to live the rest of my life in this hell out as easily as I can."
He doesn't have aspirations here. His only aspiration is to exist. No shows. No stagelights, no fans.
He just wants to live day to day, avoid killing anymore people and learn how to feel more than anger, fear, and anxiety. All of which lead to him questioning who he is.
That's his problem though. His burden. He would never tell Chara. For what? Extra fuel against him? God help him if they ever found out about the Caducans, the slavery, Papyrus...and the killings. Even he has limits.
Drawing a long, tired breath, he glances at Chara with that same tired look in his eye.
"If you don't want to be friends, let's at least be civil with each other. I know I need to work on that too, and for that I apologize. Just think it over, I implore you."
And with that, he turns away, intending to make his way through the ichor comprising the ground and find the way to the next floor. He's sure Chara's response will be as scathing as it ever was. That was just how they were.
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