Event Log: Dead Ringers

[hadrielmods]

Who: Everyone participating in the event!
What: The event log for the Dead Ringers event!
Where: All around the city
When: January 16th-January 25th
Warnings: Evil doubles, so we can assume manipulation, violence, murder, and maybe some nasty words

Everything seems normal on the morning of the 16th - actually, everything seems normal about the city for the entirety of this event. Nothing is strange, nothing is obviously wrong. Well, except that the population has mysteriously doubled, and the new residents each look exactly like one of the old residents. So weird! Definitely not ominous at all.

At least until your new double gets down to business. After all, their only goal is to ruin your life, and that can take any form. Smashing your favorite coffee cup? Telling your worst enemy they're right? Kissing someone else in front of your girlfriend? Brutally murdering you and then hiding your body in a closet so they can more effectively destroy your life? The possibilities are truly endless, and the only way to protect yourself is to kill your double first. They're not really open to negotiation, after all - but they sure might pretend to be in order to trick you.

So watch your back, and try to make sure that really is your best friend and not an evil clone masquerading as them. Boy, that would be awkward. If you can stick it out until January 25th, good for you! But if you didn't manage to and your double survives until the end - well, just as a final 'fuck you', there's a chance you'll come back to life and remember every awful thing your double did. Hey, at least that'll make it easier to fix, right?

► This log covers January 16th-January 25th.
► Feel free to make your own logs, as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If your evil clone happens to take you out, please let us know here, and remember that you will not revive until the event is over.

Comments

[youplayedyourself]

[It's okay, Frisk. Your best friend is holding on. Your best friend is holding onto you nice and tight.

And he's NEVER letting you go.]

A funny experiment, that one. Alphys didn't even realize just how far her research into souls really went! Answering all these big, philosophical questions in one fell swoop!

"A monster's essence lives on in the things their dust lands on, but what does that really mean?"

"A monster's SOUL is made of love and compassion. What would a monster be if it no longer had those things?"

"What happens when something without a SOUL gains the will to live?"

See, once upon a time, the prince and the fallen monarch staggered back home from the surface, covered in the sticky little seeds of those golden flowers the monarch loved so much. Those two souls went to dust, and it fell all over those seeds. One of them sprouted into a lovely, lonely golden flower.

A golden flower that a scientist then pumped full of determination.

You can put the pieces together, Chara, can't you? Even after all these years, I know you'd recognize me.

[And for a moment, his smile is painfully real. Sad, soft, full of gentle affection for the wrong child, the wrong name, the wrong identity. Then -

It distorts. Starts to melt, like determined monsters on their last legs do. Becomes lopsided, distorted. Like it was when a certain flower taunted a human for killing Toriel. Like it was when a certain flower molded his face into a skeletal parody of Asgore's dying expression.

The disguise cracks around his face, but around those tightly-gripping paws, too. They start to melt, to run. Like a thin coat of paint over... over a mass of thorny vines, vines that coil around Frisk's hands, that snare and cling and let their thorns bite down greedily.]

It's me, your best friend!

* FLOWEY the FLOWER!

1/2

[save_theworld]

[Have you ever felt safe?

No matter how much the world continues shattering around you; the bad, the worse. The arguments, the sleepless nights. The dust on your hands and a counter that just kept getting higher, until you belatedly realized that it was never going to help. Curb your frustrations and your fears, start again. Start again. Start again.

Start again, until you can't. Until that choice is taken from you, and you're left to deal with the consequences of thousands of bad decisions. Face down a face that's looked at your own copious times, laid you to rest in a golden hall under a blanket of bones. Kill your darlings, take the blame. Stay quiet as blood drips down to the ground (your blood. It's your blood) because you know you chose wrong. Let them tell you how selfish you are.

Make a home that you can never really have. Make friends who you don't really deserve. It's not all that great; in many ways, it's terrible.




But at least, you think, at least, there's one thing you're safe from.

And then you're not.]

[save_theworld]

[I'm not Chara.

I'm not Chara.



I don't believe you.

Soft fur melts into sharp points that dig into their flesh, and Frisk flinches, just the once. Just the once; an involuntary action that breaks a cycle of simply standing, frozen into place- but just for a moment. Their eyes are the only other thing that moves. The only thing that opens. The only part of them that shows signs of fear; pupils that turn to pinpricks.]

That's-

That's not true.



[It sounds weak, even to them. It sounds small, even to them.]

It's not true.

[youplayedyourself]

Boy! You really ARE an idiot, aren't you?

[He's laughing now. A harsh, grating sound. The familiar goosebump-raising giggle that scrapes over their skin like a razor.]

You won't even acknowledge what's right in front of your face!

[The melting abomination pulls itself together again, pastes that stupid simpering snout back into place. That's what Frisk really wants to see, right? That's the only part that counts.]

You can tell deep down, can't you, Chara? You know I'm not REALLY capable of loving anything. You know I don't really care. You saw it in the way I ignored how you bled. I never even asked if you were okay. You saw it in the way I just assumed who you were. You're Chara, aren't you? You're the friend I always wished I had, aren't you? You'd NEVER mess up. And if you do, I won't like you anymore.

You know anyone who's really your friend wouldn't treat you like that.

You know that someone who thinks he's Chara's best friend wouldn't go and tell you that they're not the greatest person. That the plan was their fault. That they would have just started a war. You know he doesn't really want to know why you climbed that mountain. He just wants to tell you Chara wasn't a good person, because their reason was an unhappy one.

What about your reason, huh? What do you think I assume about you?

snap is clearly a genius in every way

[save_theworld]

[His face comes back, but it's too late now. It's too late; doesn't look right anymore. Doesn't sit with the words he's speaking; doesn't fit the all too familiar laugh, the sting in their palms.

You can tell deep down, can't you, Chara?

That's not their name. He knows that. He knows that isn't their name. He knows they don't know anything about that; never, ever heard him say a bad word, not against them. Not against their Partner; never against Chara. He loves them.

Doesn't he? He loves them.

What does he think, when he tells them he knows they walked up the mountain. When he asks them why.]

Let go.

[They don't like this game anymore. They never, ever liked this game. It wasn't fun the first time. It's still not fun now. Their hands, still up until now, move. Pull back, always just that little bit too late.

Should've pulled away. Should've known. Just wanted love.

You never earned any love, but you earned LOVE. Does that make sense?]