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

[skelebro]

[Papyrus. Always Papyrus. He's the fulcrum, he's the obvious weakness they always dive for. Wedge one into his SOUL and just go and dig. Heard that one a few too many times for it to hold the kinda weight it might've once.

He tilts his skull to one side and appraises them, coldly.]

Sure. Chara is dead and gone. Y'know who's also dead and gone?

Yeah. Yours truly.

[He taps a phalanx over his sternum, just above where his SOUL is housed. Why's he care? Well, he could say a lotta things. A lotta things and a lotta phrases that begin with creatures like you but...nah. Why bother? Why go there?

He's made that mistake one too many times.]

Lots of people are dead. Lots of us - hell, maybe all of us - died making mistake after mistake after mistake.

[They've all got sins crawling on their backs. That's the one thing they've got in common, huh?]

And if this place is our second chance? Heh, then maybe this is my one opportunity to not screw things up.

I'll take it.

[somuchlove]

I know. Resetting that battle over and over got old after awhile.

[The thing about it was there was nothing new. Sans's attacks, dialog and asking for whoever may be listening got old. His surprise and disgust at them resetting got old.

It's a reoccurring theme, isn't it?]

This place...Hadriel. A second chance for all of you. Even though at the end of the day, you are all dust and bones. Well, I'm not here to judge.

[That's not Chara's job, right?]

I just hope at the end of it all you understand what it's like to being told you can't escape consequences and then being told to never come back. What it's like to be Determined but to not want it.

[These things just don't go away. It stays, like a child choosing to walk out and face dragons instead of answering his questions.

Like far away, a child chooses to find a Rabbit Hole and two children that no longer exist.

Sins are not the only things that crawl down your back.]

[skelebro]

[They ain't here to judge, huh? That's funny. That's real funny, coming from someone who's done nothing but judge him since they showed up and ran into him.

He keeps choosing to meet their gaze. He keeps choosing to hold it. He chooses - he chooses. He chooses to give them a second chance. 'Cause Frisk asked him. 'Cause Chara hesitated. 'Cause they stood there with a knife held over him and yet - didn't go through with it.

'Cause they threw water balloons at each other, just for kicks.

'Cause they've got a pretty nice smile, when they mean it, when it ain't the kind of carefully-cultivated, false thing that he's learned to slap on his features a long, long time ago.

'Cause they know how to deliver a joke with a killer punchline.

'Cause there are moments - little moments, but moments - that they stop being the demon, the murderer, the kid who ripped through the Underground at LV 20 and stopped for nobody, not for Papyrus, not for Undyne, not even for the skeleton who actually got off his tailbone and tried to give a damn for once - and they start being a kid.

He chooses.]

You think I need that reminder?

[He's screwed that one up too, and he knows it. Words that've been burned into his skull with how many times he must've said 'em. Words about kids not knowing when to QUIT, how if you're really friends, you won't come back, how you're the type of person who won't EVER be happy.]

Kid. I know.

And that's why I'm sayin' right here and right now that enough is enough.

[Once upon a time.

Once upon a time, someone hurt someone else, who hurt someone else, who hurt someone else. And once upon a time, a kid put their foot down. A kid said no more. A kid said enough.

A kid said this suffering stops with me.]

I might not be the right guy to end it. But it ends.

And if it ends with me, then it ends with me.

[somuchlove]

[Once upon a time that story could have been a real page turner. A child who remained Underground, never came up with a plan and found only love.

Yeah, a real page turner.

But we've run out of miles and pretty words. It all comes down to this question before they're finally done with him. Before they could ERASE that finally connect with Asriel and then themselves because Chara knows there's no way they could survive that final action.

Chara chooses as well. They chose to die.

* It refused.]

And if they choose to walk down this path? That's all it seems to come down to. If one percent of being bad is enough to condemn Frisk and Chara, then what will you do if they run out of world to walk?

[Because it can end with Sans, sure. But it could also End. And if he sets them up with love...

Well, he already has his warning.]

[skelebro]

We'll cross that bridge if we get to it.

[And he can't...say. He can't say if he'll ever cross it, if he'll ever have to make that choice. 'Cause back in the Underground, the possibilities - they were an inevitability. Everyone would die and everyone would live. Some would die and some would live. It was just a matter of which bases were being covered at any given time.

That's kinda incredible, in its own way.

He can't predict a single thing that'll happen here.

Isn't that fascinating?]

And yeah, you heard me just fine, kiddo. Not "when." If.

You ain't an inevitability. Not here.

[And you know what?

Neither is he.]

[somuchlove]

[The double smiles again and for a minute it almost looks genuine...if one didn't look to hard. And Sans was all about looking too hard at things he shouldn't. Maybe if he hadn't spent his time absorbed in wondering when the next Reset was going to happen then he would have caught on sooner.

But then again, maybe not.

It's just an "If".]

Then I hope you find what you can call a happy ending. As for me...I have things to do and people to meet. If I see you in the near future, I'll be sure to say hello again.

[One way or another, Sans will have to greet whatever future happens. The 'good' Chara, the bad or worse one. That much is certain.

They turn to walk away, their body crumpling back into that hunched over form that once walked out of the Ruins, covered in dust.]

[skelebro]

[If he just twitched his fingerbones and -

He could. He could, but he don't. And the worst part is...they're holding him to his word. And no matter how much they'll doubt it and call bullshit, if they weren't certain that some part of him meant it, they wouldn't be turning their back on him right now.

And that's the thing.

They're right.

The second they turn away, he don't trust himself to stay there a second longer, so he doesn't. He nips away and starts off across the city. He had to get to know an awful lotta people, and now? Now he's gotta make sure that they're not all about to pay the price for knowing him.

Victory feels hollow.


This is why he hates promises.


But then, it always does.]