#*around my head like jumping beans teehee

[jojo-schmo]

More Schmojo!! And I decided to name her dark matter friend living in her bubble rod, “Beauregard.” >:3

Plus some doodles I thought of during work, and a lighthearted poke at myself lol.

[gabriel-xander]

Don't Forget

[Sans x Female!Reader]

43: Undertale? More like… Yappingtale (Got 'Em)

♪────✿⁠(⁠✧◕⁠ᴗ⁠◕✧⁠)✿⁠────♪

You coo at Childe, your new ginger cat, waving a toy in the air to play with him. Childe was jumping for the toy like a crackhead, but that’s just typical orange cat behavior.

It’s a nice Tuesday morning, chilling in the workshop with the two cats and your bone-friend. You’re sitting on your bean bag while Sans was doing something on the DJ machine. Today is the day you and Sans agreed to talk about all that’s happened lately.

You were responsible and made a small list to remember what you need to talk about. You don’t want to forget and complicate things later on.

Also, you totally named the black cat Morax because you’re fucking hilarious like that. You thought of Zhongli instead, but Morax was a little less cringey for a cat.

The skele-bros didn’t get it, but they agreed since their suggestions were met with hisses.

You are the ultimate pussy magnet.

Sans sighs and moves away from the DJ machine. The other bean bag chair is across from yours but is currently occupied by a sleeping Morax.

Sans looks at you, “[y/n].”

“Yeesss?”

“your cat stole my seat.”

“Hmm?” You look up, “Awe, but he looks so peaceful! Childe.”

Childe perks in attention, watching attentively of the toy you’re setting down.

“Childe, go play with Morax.”

Childe slow blinks at you, “wahh.”

So true.

You don’t know if it’s because he got bored with you no longer playing, or because he actually understood you, but the orange cat moves to the other bean bag.

He watches Morax intensely, lowering himself down and wiggling his butt. Oh, dang he’s getting ready to pounce!

Childe jumps elegantly onto Morax, waking him up from his peaceful nap. Morax’s ears go into airplane mode, meowing angrily at the other. He chases the orange cat off the chair, chasing him around the lab.

They’re not hissing or using claws though, so it must be another form of their playing.

Sans sits down, scooting closer to you, “they must’ve been friends for a long time, huh?”

“Righhht. Friends…” You recognize their behavior towards each other in downtime, and it’s not as casual as you first thought, “Historians will definitely call them best friends.”

Sans snorts, “what does that even mean?”

You shake your head, pulling out the torn paper from your pocket, “Nothing, nothing. I’m glad we didn’t separate them.”

“what you got there?”

“Oh, I made a list of things I needed to talk to you about. I figured we might as well use today to get it over with.”

Things to Talk About (in order of importance)

-Toriel Visit -Swap-Paps’ gifts -Really tired after using the mini-dj -Cameras around the Underground -Gaster said hello the other day -Also Gaster is on my soul (teehee?)

It’s… a lengthy list, but the first three shouldn’t take too long to go over. This is going to stress the hell out of poor Sans.

…Oh, well. RIP Bozo, part of your job is to stress out your mans. That’s why only Kōrenki could handle you before, now you can add Sans to the roster. Let’s fucking go!

“how responsible of you,” Sans crosses his arms and leans into the bag, “alright, i’m ready. what’s first?”

“I told Toriel I’d visit her for a week, remember? Since we’re back early, I might as well go tomorrow. I miss her a lot, and I wanna see her.”

Sans throws his head back, “ah, that’s right. uh, i mean… we just finished unpacking yesterday, but we can get your stuff ready later. still want me to drop you off there?”

You smile, “Yeah, I’d like that. And… maybe it’s time to meet Toriel?”

“um… yeah. i think so.” Sans blushes and looks at the cats, “please don’t take this the wrong way, but… maybe we keep our relationship a secret from her?”

You feel your face heat up. “Yeahhh, she’s like a mom to me, and I was never the type to tell my parents about my love life. How do you feel about it, though? Weren’t you two close?”

His blush dies at the question. He forgot you know more about this stuff because you’re like him. Still… His feelings for Toriel haven’t been romantic in nature for a while. As for how she feels about him… He isn’t sure he knows.

“Hey, it’s okay. You don’t gotta talk about it,” You sit up straighter, softening your voice, “To be blunt, it’s not really any of her business regardless. So, it’s best to just act like we’re only friends around her.”

Sans nods, grateful for your save, “yeah, thanks. it’s just not–i’m not-”

“-You don’t have to explain. This isn’t exactly easy to navigate. But you’re still meeting her, right?”

“yeah, i can at least do that,” The skeleton sighs deeply, “okay, next on the list?”

“Oh, right,” You look at your paper, “Oh, right!”

You dig out the box you’ve preemptively put in your pocket earlier. You present the orange box to the other, not reaching it further since you, admittedly, don’t want him reading the letter. It’s too private, and you don’t feel comfortable with him seeing it.

“oh, yeah. i saw that,” Sans leans forward, “but what’s in it?”

You hesitate, “It was–a gift from the other Papyrus. The other Sans drew me a little doodle, and Papyrus wrote me some DIY skin care products you can make with the glow stones.”

“he gave you something?” Sans’ grin falters, “i told you he liked you.”

You deadpan, “Dude.”

“sorry, sorry. so… he gave that to you before he left? when did he–was it when he gave you a hug?”

You cross your arms, not impressed with his tone.

He holds his hands up in surrender, “okay, i get it. so… what? what about it?”

“I was wondering if I could keep it here in the lab,” You point to one of the drawers, “I’m not planning on bringing souvenirs from every Au we visit, but it feels better if I keep it here.”

He shrugs, “sure, i don’t mind it. they’re all open so just put it where you want.”

“Thanks, baby boy!”

Sans blushes and rolls his eye-lights but says nothing else. Time for the next thing on the list.

“Uhm, so…”

Your eyes land on Childe and Morax. They’re napping now on top of each other, Morax's little mouth looks like it could be turned up in a smile.

You love cat.

“You may or may not have been right to be worried about me,” You wring your hands together and straighten your back. “I feel good now! But I did get really dizzy when we came back using the mini-DJ. And I napped for five fucking hours.”

“i’m glad you brought that up, actually. that was something i wanted to talk to you about,” Sans crosses his arms, furrowing his bone-brows, “it was fine using my shortcuts the first handful of times, but the stress of magic is slowly piling up on you. and then using the dj was a big heap of magic at once. the second time around wasn’t as bad because you experienced it before, but it was really close.”

“I was fine when you were using the shortcuts the other day, though. The day we came back.”

“that might be because compared to the dj, the magic usage for shortcuts is nothing.” Sans narrows his eye sockets, “i don’t get it though. the human kid never showed signs of being affected by my shortcut magic. logically speaking, as an adult who’s much stronger, you should be fine from it as well.”

Yeahhh…

‘IF ONLY. THERE WAS SOMEONE OUT THERE. WHO CAN TELL ME. WHAT THIS COULD POSSIBLY MEAN…!!’

…

‘GASTER.’

“Alright. Alright. Stop yelling.” The tired voice groans in your head, as if you woke him up, “What is it? You will have to repeat it for me.”

You purposely make a face like you’re thinking so Sans doesn’t think you’re hearing the Voices™ even though you literally are.

‘Sans and I are talking about why I’m being affected by magic lately. Specifically, the magic that comes from his shortcuts and the DJ. He said the human kid from before was never affected by it, so why am I different?’

“Oh, is that all?”

‘’Oh, Is ThAt AlL-’ Fuck you mean by that?’

“I was expecting Sans to-”

“uh, [y/n]? you okay?” Sans calls in concern.

“Shh, Sans,” You make a “calm down” motion with your hands, “I’m talking to the Voices™.”

He smiles sweetly, “oh, okay.”

“…”

“wait, what?”

“As I was saying,” Gaster continues without a care in the world, “I was expecting Sans to have figured it out already. Perhaps he has forgotten your origins already. You do behave as though this is originally your world, so I suppose I can cut him some slack.”

‘My origins? Does where I come from really matter?’

“Of course it does. It is also the explanation of why you are unable to Save or Reset despite your Soul.”

…

???

“Sorry,” Gaster clears his throat, “I paused for dramatic effect.”

…You outwardly sigh. Sans gives you another concerned look.

“As you should know, humans were known to have magic a long, long time ago. After all, it was the seven HUMAN mages that had summoned the barrier in the first place. Over time, the amount of humans who have magic dwindled significantly, but it never truly disappeared. Even now, humans cannot use magic, but it is still within their biology. Only slightly.”

You nod along to Gaster, listening intently to his tale.

Sans is worried for your mental health, but he’s not about to say anything. So what if you’re mentally ill? It just adds to the experience. Still, he’s getting a bit… bored.

Using his magic, he takes the cat toy that you had put down a while ago. He might as well entertain the kitties while he waits.

“That being said, you are not from this world. You are from a world without an ounce of magic. The reason why that child was unaffected by Sans’ shortcut magic, and why they can Save and Reset is because they have magic.”

“Though, it’s definitely not the same amount of magic or power that us monsters possess. But that very small, very minute amount is enough for these purposes.”

‘…So… I’m affected by it because I have no magic in me. But I am getting used to it.’

“Yes, that is correct.”

‘And you’re saying if I did have magic, I could’ve been able to Save and Reset?’

“Yes. After all, your Determination is much greater than anyone I’ve seen before. Even compared to that child.”

Huh… You don’t know what to do with that information. Is that why your Soul is gold? Because it’s just straight up Determination? Is that something you should unpack later?

“If that is all,” Gaster sighs in a tired (old man) manner, “I will be going now.”

‘Oh, okay. Thank you, by the way.’

… Nothing. He was gone as soon as he announced it.

Fucker.

Sans has been playing with Childe the whole time, Morax is still sleeping like an old man. You wonder how old these cats are, Childe is clearly the younger one with all that energy he has.

“Sans,” You beam, “I finished speaking to the Voices™.”

“…” Sans gives you a once over, “you’re talking about gaster, right?”

“How’d you know?”

“…” He sighs, “you freaked me out at first. i still can’t get over that you’re just–that you can just talk to him.”

You look at your list, “Funny you say that! That’s actually the last two things I wanted to mention! We’ll be skipping number four, though…”

“pfft. will you feel better if we put a pin in this to talk about number four?”

You nod.

“shoot. i can be patient.”

It is absolutely killing him inside, but he’ll do it for you.

“Remember how you were saying that we couldn’t risk monsters seeing me? Snowdin has been chill about it (“heh-heh, nice.”) but we can’t risk any more than that.”

“yeah, and i still think so.”

“Right. But… The cameras.”

“…the…” Sans blinks, “cameras…”

You nod, “The cameras.”

Sans drags his hands down his face, groaning and sinking deep in his bean bag.

Yeah, he definitely fucked up.

He is cooked.

You are cooked.

You are fucking cooked.

“So, anyway,” You crumble up the paper, “Back to Gaster!”

“we cannot just skip over that. i can’t believe i forgot about the damn cameras,” Sans whines, “they’ve been so useless to me before you came along, that i just completely forgot they were there.”

“I mean, I’ve been here for a few months and we haven’t gotten any surprise visits from Undyne or King Asgore.”

He shakes his head, “no, i still don’t like it. i’ll do something about it, don’t worry.”

Uhmm… You ain’t sure you like the sound of that…

“You’re not gonna, like… go ape shit, are you?”

“you’ve mistaken me for someone who has the energy to go that far,” Sans waves a dismissive hand.

“If you say so,” You shift on your bean bag, getting more comfortable, “But if I see you on the news, I’ll go out of my way to clear your name. Don’t worry, I gotchu.”

You’ll just ask about it when you get back. If Sans is serious about standing on business, he should be done with it by then.

“now that that's out of the way, we can finally talk about gaster.”

He closes his eyes for just a few seconds. When he opens them again, he snaps his fingers to summon–oh, it’s the soul-fragment.

It looks the same as ever to you, if there's a difference to it then you don’t notice it. You only saw it for a short time back in UnderSwap, and it’s been with Sans ever since.

“only you can see it, right?” Sans asks.

“Yeah,” You make an upside down heart with your thumbs and index fingers, “It’s like this, but it has hard edges to it instead. It’s white with a weird, purple-black aura glow around it.”

“you said you’d tell me why that is,” Sans’ smile becomes weaker, “i think i can guess why, but i’d rather hear it from you.”

“I will, but you can’t freak out, okay? I only just found out on the day we came back, but I wanted to wait until now because I didn’t wanna stress you out.”

Sans simply nods, gesturing for you to keep talking.

You take a deep breath. “So… Gaster is kind of… with me…”

Sans snorts, “yeah. i figured since you were just talking to him in your head.”

“Right, but…”

“but…?”

“He’s not possessing my Soul or my body or anything, but he’s just kinda…” You scrunch up your face, shoulders hunching up and you force yourself to say it. “He’s like, on my Soul? He’s just riding along and chilling.”

Sans blinks and suddenly his left eye is glowing the same yellow and cyan. His eye frantically searches around your body, though staying in the general area of your chest where your soul would be. You don’t feel like he’s peeping at your soul, but his intense gaze makes you fidget nonetheless.

The skeleton monster sighs and closes his eyes, “i can only sense your soul, nothing else…”

So that’s what he was looking for.

“Gaster did tell me that it was just a really small piece of him, so maybe that’s why you can’t see him or sense him? You couldn’t use your Blue magic thingy on the fragment before because it wasn’t tangible enough, remember?”

“yeah, i know. i was just… hoping.” Sans sits up again and looks at you. his eye-sockets back to normal, “i gotta be honest with you, [y/n]. i don’t like the idea of gaster free-riding in your head like that. you don’t feel dread or scared?”

You are NOT correcting him on that. You think he might lose it even further if you tell him what you mean.

You shake your head, “The only reason I had a chance to capture Temmie was because Gaster was helping me. Seeing the fragment, knowing where exactly it was, how Temmie was using it, and everything I know about it was because of Gaster.”

You continue, “I spoke to him again the day we came back, but it was only him explaining all this to me. He’s still here with me, but at the same time, I can’t really feel him anymore.”

Which is true. You know it in your heart and soul that Gaster is still lingering, but you get the sneaking suspicion that he’s not going to answer you if you try calling out to him again. He sounded really exhausted earlier, it must’ve taken a lot just to tell you that little information.

Gaster said he was stronger because the fragment is back in this Universe, but it’s clearly not as much as you thought originally. Not as much as he originally thought, either.

You suppose you’ll dream about him again if he really needs to talk to you.

“i gotta think about all this…” Sans mutters.

“Of course, take your time.”

That’s why you two chose a day to talk about all this, after all. Thinking it over is part of that process.

In the meantime, you start to play with Childe again. He’s such a crackhead, you love him. Morax also moved to sleep closer to you and Sans. He was in that mid-car crash position, but that’s how you know he’s sleeping good. You wish you could sleep like a cat.

Oh, to be a liquid.

Sans’ quiet sigh brings your attention back to him. Childe meows at you when you stop looking at him, but he quickly gets over it to bother Morax instead.

“okay… i don’t like it, [y/n]. i really don’t. i don’t know what he’s thinking, but…” Sans leans forward, his smile almost gone, “you have to promise me you’re not feeling in danger.”

You smile with as much reassurance as you could muster, “I promise, Sans.”

“and you have to promise me that you’ll tell me if you think you are.”

“I promise, Sans.”

Sans nods, backing away just a bit, “i hate making promises, [y/n]. but if you can keep those promises to me, then i promise you that i’ll take care of it the moment you need me to. no matter what.”

Making promises to him though, with someone like Sans, it feels heavy.

You know what promises mean to him, and how much they’re worth to him. It, admittedly, has your face heating up. He made you promise him something, and in return he made you a promise, too.

Shit has your heart aflutter, Goddamn.

“I understand, Sans. I’ll keep those promises to you. Right now, I really do feel fine.” You reassure him again.

There is a very small tinge of pink on his cheek bones. His smile widens yet softens, leaning back in the bean bag. He looks over to the DJ machine and gestures to it lazily.

“smoothly onto other things,” Sans winces, “the dj. it’s–kind of out of commission.”

You smile nervously, “What, like it’s broken?”

“no, no. nothing like that. only that it might take a month or so to work again.”

“How come?” You laugh, “Is Gaster being a little shit again?”

“nah, he’s chillin’, but it’s a matter of magic. the amount of magic energy it needs to make these jumps are insane. maybe in three to four weeks, it’ll have enough magic energy to work again, and we’ll be on our way to the next au or at.”

“On that topic, do you know what the next Au will be?”

“hm, no. it doesn’t work like that. maybe in the final week, like how it was last time.”

“Okay, so from a month from now. I’ll be better prepared to call off work this time, haha!”

Is it corny if Sans finds genuine happiness from your laughter? Maybe. He should probably keep that to himself.

“more alternate universes and alternate timeline’s mean more fragments. more fragments mean i gotta find a better place to store these things,” Sans looks in the general direction of Gaster’s fragment.

“i think i know what to do with this one for now, but eventually i will need to make a chamber that will be enough to stabilize the fragments when they’re together. you’ve written it down in that little notebook of yours, right? a monster is almost all magic, but that magic can be pretty fickle and fragile in vulnerable moments like this.”

You nod, “Mhm, mhm. Like in those science movies where the test subjects are in those big tubes with weird liquid in them!”

“pfft!”

“…”

“…oh, no you’re serious.”

“What do you mean ‘oh no’!?”

“i mean, yes and no. visually, yes, you can think of it like that. but the functionality is different, and the same logic applies to those movies.”

Sans looks off into space as he yapps, “in this case, it’s less that we’re growing and nurturing something, but rather we’re keeping something maintained and preserved. something to gather the surrounding particles too so that every little speck of gaster will be brought back. it’s going to be a stabilizer, to hold the fragments and keep it together. when gaster gets stronger to materialize himself more and more-”

The Comic falters and chuckles. You look a bit lost and he was already trying to go out of his way not to use big words.

“sorry, nerd stuff. t-l-d-r, it’s like those science movies.”

You pout, feeling a little dumb that you can’t keep up. You shouldn’t feel bad though, this is not your area of expertise, it’s Sans’.

“I don’t know shit about any of this stuff, but if you think we need it, then I think so too,” You hold up a thumbs up, smiling meekly, “I wish I could help you, but, you know.”

He shakes his head and waves a dismissive hand, “don’t worry ‘bout it, babe. this is where i get to shine and be the star for once.”

“That’s true, I really admire this side of you. I’ve always liked a man with a big…”

“…”

“…”

Sans blushes.

“Sense of intellect.”

“that felt kind of flat.”

“I was gonna say brain but you’ve got a hollow skull.”

He laughs, so kudos to you. Look at you with your hella rizz.

“Anywayyy,” You look at the fragment, “What did you wanna do with it?”

“hm, a simple container will be fine for now, but i don’t have anything like that here…”

“…Dr. Alphys should have some in the True Lab, right?”

He narrows his eyes, “how do you…” Oh… OH! “oh, right. you know. uh, yeah. i guess she does, huh?” Sans stands up with some struggle, “i’ll be back, then.”

You snort, “You’re just gonna steal it?”

“well, yeah. that place doesn’t have cameras so i’ll be fine. just an in n’ out mission. i’ll only take one so she doesn’t notice a thing.”

“Be safe, bone boy.”

Sans winks at you while offering a solute. Next moment, he blinks out of existence, the soul-fragment left behind. It’s a jarring experience to see that from an outside perspective-

“MRAH!!”

Childe jumps up on all fours, tail puffy with airplane ears as he stares where Sans just was. Morax was still lying down, but he was also looking where Sans used to be.

You start snickering when Childe does that little scaredy cat shimmy, his back all arched while walking on his little toe beans.

Bro is skimpering and skittering. You love cats.

“Pspspsp,” You tap your fingers together, “C’mere Childe, c’mereee! Pspsps!”

“wahh.”

Childe starts hopping towards you, his body language relaxing but now he’s in a very playful mood.

Oh, here he comes! Here comes the boy!

Giggling like a little bitch, you start waving your hands at the cat, playing with him because he’s just a baby.

“We should cut your nails, baby,” You mention to Childe.

But Childe does not respond, because Childe is a cat.

Shame.

There’s a strange static in the air, then BOOM! In an anticlimactic fashion, Sans appears again in the workshop with something in his hands.

He looks kind of frantic and–is he sweating? What the hell happened?

“Are you okay?” You stand up to get close to him, “You were only gone for less than a minute.”

“yeah, yeah. i uh, i…” Sans holds up the container, “got the thing.”

“Sans, what happened?”

“you remember those uh… those experiments alphys did?”

Ooh…

“You ran into one?” You grimace.

“shortcut right in front of it.”

“…That’s a lil’ funny.”

“jumped right out of my fucking bones. nearly scared me half to death.”

“You okay, though?”

“yeah, yeah. i’m good.” Sans looks at the glass in his hands, “alphys had a lot of empty ones, i really doubt she’ll notice it’s gone.”

It’s the same glass vase you’ve seen many times before. The one used to keep the human souls inside.

The human souls of children.

Seeing it slaps you with guilt. You should find time to go to Waterfalls to find the Dusty Tutu and Ballerina Shoes.

“How do you feel about this?” You take the jar from him, “This is all to bring Gaster back, but how do you feel?”

Sans doesn’t answer you at first. Instead he uses magic to blindly grab the fragment he left behind. He pulls the fragment towards you two, bringing it close so you can put it in the container.

“i don’t know,” Sans whispers finally, “no… that’s not true. i’m confused, but… i feel nervous? happy? doubtful… hesitant. excited. i’m feeling a lot of things,” He shakes his head, “this changes a lot, y’know? and what am i gonna tell paps?”

“Maybeee we should tell him? Let him know what we’re actually doing going to all these Au’s.”

“yeah… better late than never… but…”

You don’t want to overstep here. Papyrus is your little pookie, but he’s still Sans’ brother first. Whatever else happens, you don’t have a right to interfere.

If Sans wants to wait a little longer to tell his brother, there’s nothing you can do but respect his wishes.

You know if the roles were reversed, you wouldn’t appreciate Sans telling your siblings something you weren’t ready to share yet. The difference is that Papyrus is a grown man, but the principle still stands.

Sans helps you with putting the fragment into the container. You don’t feel any different now that it’s confined, so that means Gaster isn’t closed off from you. You didn’t think it would work that way, but you can’t be too careful about these things 

You move it and put it on the counter where the rolled up blueprint is at.

Since you’re here, you might as well find a drawer to put your box in. Maybe you can put your notebook in here too, the one you use to write your observations and learn about the monsters.

“So,” Biting the inside of your cheek, you think how you should word this. “When we got to UnderSwap, it didn’t look out of the ordinary at first. But then Gaster confirmed that we showed up during a time where I haven’t shown up yet. But he more or less confirmed that the UnderSwap version of me will show up there eventually.”

You turn around and lean on the counter, “We didn’t think time travel was involved, but it very much is. One day, we might show up in an Au when I’m already there.”

Sans groans, hiding his face, “i can’t believe the old man told you–is telling us not to worry about it. then again,” Sans rubs the side of his cheek, “that papyrus said he doesn’t remember resets, so maybe that’s why. because there isn’t a real risk to seeing you when it’ll all be reset anyway…”

“How come you’re the only one who remembers? Are you the only one who remembers?”

He shrugs his shoulders, sitting down on your bean bag since that was closer.

“i dunno. i didn’t always remember. but somewhere along the line, i was starting to. i stopped questioning how since in the end, it doesn’t matter why. the fact is, i can remember resets, nothing can change that now.”

Well, you suppose that’s true. But what if only a “Sans” can remember? Swap-Papyrus couldn’t remember even though he has the Sans role and personality, but you never once considered if Swap-Sans could remember.

You doubt it, but it’s not like you asked him, and he never hinted if that were the case, either.

Anyway, this only raises a very important question.

“Sooo…” You clasp your hands together in front of yourself, “If we meet another me, are you gonna smooch her?”

“what!?”

“Well, ‘cause if you like me in every Universe, I am 100% positive that if I also liked you in every Universe, too.”

Sans waves it off, “maybe, but you’re the only human i want. just like how you said i’m the only bone boy you want… right?”

You smile softly, “That’s true. It’s just you, Sans.”

Sans blushes, but that’s to be expected by now, “same here.”

“…I wouldn’t be mad if you wanted to smooch another me, though,” You continue casually, “Like, as long as I can watch. I’m not vanilla, in case you didn’t notice.”

His face explodes in red, “what?! you–are you say–why would you-”

“-Oh, my God.” You throw your hands up and roll your eyes, “I’m sorry. Never mind, Mr. Vanilla.”

Sans sinks into the bean bag, his jacket bunching up to hide the lower half of his face. You let the silence fall, not genuinely bothered by his reaction.

You know Sans gets flustered when you come on strong, you were only teasing him.

You end up putting your boxed gift in the very last drawer since that one was empty.

The others were filled with the photo album, a badge, and crumbled blueprints.

The badge was pretty interesting, actually. The front held the symbol of the Delta Rune with:

SANS

Research Assistant

When you flip it over to the back, you see a fine-print. “Royal Scientist 🕈︎👎︎ ☝︎♋︎⬧︎⧫︎♏︎❒︎’s Personal Research Assistant.”

You could ask Sans about the WingDings, but you don’t need to. Ever since that dream, you’ve been able to understand WingDings. It appears that you’re capable of reading it, too. Does that mean you could write it?

Hm, something to test out later.

The photo album peaks your interest, too. You refuse to look through it without permission, and you can tell now isn’t the best time to ask about it.

The crumpled blueprints look all similar and somehow glitchy. They must belong to Gaster, but it’s incomprehensible despite your understanding of WingDings.

“um… [y/n].”

After two minutes, Sans is ready to talk again.

You close all the drawers and turn around, giving him your full attention. He’s not looking at you, but that’s okay. There’s a strong blush on his face still, he looks so cute.

“i’m not… i’m not really interested in that stuff,” Sans admits weakly, “‘m not saying it’s completely off the table, by the way. just that before, i never had a desire for it. and when i did use to–when i used to like someone that way in the past, i never felt the need for it either.”

Ohh, that’s why he went all quiet. Sans was trying to think of a way to gently let you down. From how he’s phrasing it though, he made it sound like you shouldn’t give up hope.

With genuine curiosity, you ask, “And now?”

Sans gives you an obvious once over then looks away. His blush only grows.

“i don’t think i’m ready for that any time soon, but… you know… i wouldn’t have had such a strong reaction from just your kisses if it was a turn-off for me.”

‘FUCKING SCORE!!’

Look, as much as a degenerate you are, sex truly isn’t everything for you when it comes to a relationship. You have no problem if you two are never intimate, and if it becomes an issue later down the line, that’s something to work out later. But now, there is no need.

You won’t dare rush Sans or make him feel like he owes you anything, you are fine with what you have now.

“We don’t gotta worry about that, Sans,” You say earnestly, “For now, kissing is still fine?”

Sans nods, relieved to the bone. It seems he didn’t have to worry so much, of course he didn’t. You never gave him reason before to think you’d blow up in his face about something, so it wouldn’t be different this time.

You bend over and start petting the ginger cat. “What about you Childe? Are you and Morax date-mates?”

Childe only meows at you and gives your murder mittens. His nails are long, but he’s not during it to hurt you. In fact, he might be trying to get you to play with him. AGAIN.

Jeez, this cat has a lot of energy…

Sans snorts, “those cats only like you, by the way.”

“No way.”

“yes way. morax was sleeping on my ribs and kept putting his little face against my nose. i think he was trying to suffocate me.”

“Aww, he likes you!”

“no way.”

“Yes way! Trust. If a cat really hates you, they let you know.”

Sans side eyes Childe, who is now letting you pet his tummy.

You’re playing a dangerous game doing that. Sans has little to no experience with cats, but even he knows not to pet a cat's stomach.

That’s proof right there! Literally proof that you’re the fucking favorite! Sans can’t blame them cats either, but still.

Shit is brutal out here for a skeleton.

Tags:

@adriixboo

@lemonboy011

@fetusbaconegg

@fluffyart5000

[thisisevenharderthannamingablog]

6.21/22 The Final Battle

Well, here we are. I can’t title this “the final write-up” because I still have to go back and finish six episodes in S2, but we’re certainly getting close.

My feelings about this show are large and complicated. My feelings about this finale are of overwhelming disappointment. Read on for large quantities of salt, like we’re talking “Visitors Guide to Hallstatt” here, maybe put on a helmet.

In the Enchanted Forest: Some but not all of the Storybrooke residents are returned to the Enchanted Forest castle, while others remain in the LWM. (???) They can watch events in Storybrooke through a mirror. Zelena arrives from Oz via magic hat (???) to let them know that there is another problem: the realms are disappearing. Additional refugees arrive, including Aladdin and Jasmine.

Regina is determined to find a magical solution, and poofs everyone to her own castle. Hook is just as determined not to wait on her efforts, and sneaks off on his own. Charming follows him to the beanstalk, which he plans to climb in order to look for a magic bean to get back to Emma. They essay the quest together, find a bean, and exit pursued by a random dragon (???).

Meanwhile, the other Regina shows up back at the castle, having abandoned the Wish World with Robin due to her being wanted for regicide there, and joins the effort.

In the other world, Emma burns the book. As the Enchanted Forest comes apart, the beanstalk sways. Hook falls off, and Charming rides the falling stalk down to the ground. Snow realizes that her husband is missing. She and Jasmine go to find him. They find Hook (unhurt somehow), and Snow stays to look for Charming while the other two take the bean back to the castle. She finds him, thinks he’s dead, and kisses him, which wakes him up somehow IDK.

The bean has already begun to wither, and Regina’s magic is insufficiently speedy to revive it in time to use it (??). Her evil half buys them time (??), sacrificing herself to hold back the oncoming destruction. Everyone else takes cover in the castle.

The erosion of the realms stops when there is only a small patch of Enchanted Forest remaining.

In the LWM:: Henry wakes up on the rooftop alone, and quickly finds that Storybrooke has been re-cursed. Fiona is his mother (???) , and Emma has been in an asylum for the past two years, ever since Henry ate that apple tart and poisoned himself in an effort to prove that magic was real. Neither the storybook nor the symbols that he wrote while in an Author trance are convincing. Fiona shows up to reinforce the fake reality in which they dwell and attempt to convince Emma to destroy the storybook as a final act of healing. 

Fiona pays a visit to the pawnshop to visit Gold and Gideon and make sure their new story is in place -- that Belle ran off and abandoned them, and Fiona looks after them as best she can.

Meanwhile, Henry breaks Emma out, hoping to jog her memories with a trip to the site of her recent wedding. She does have flashes, but considers this part of her ongoing problem with reality. Henry determines to steal Emma’s car keys so they can leave town, but Fiona catches him and pushes down some stairs, breaking his arm. She uses this incident to convince Emma that the storybook needs to go, for Henry’s sake.

The worlds’ disintegration accelerates as the book burns.

Rumple asks Fiona to “reopen the investigation into Belle’s disappearance.” She offers him some hilariously bad Photoshops of Belle off seeing the world, blissfully alone.

Emma leaves for Boston (where, in the single least likely occurrence of the entire episode, her apartment is still there -- it’s not even dusty). She finds a version of the storybook that Henry made for her (when did he do that?).

Henry goes to Gold, who admits that he still has his memories because he did not entirely trust his mother, but also that he has no interest in being helpful; he just wants to find Belle. Henry borrows a mirror and a sword and goes down to the beach. He announces to anyone who might be watching via mirror that he’s going to fight the Black Fairy himself. 

He’s all ready to do so when Emma shows up -- she came back! Even though she doesn’t remember anything, she read his story and she believes him.

Rumple concocts a potion and locates Belle, only to find that she’s agoraphobic in her new, cursed life. Fiona comes to the shop looking for her wand and reminds us that she has Gideon’s heart and can command him, because that will be important later. She uses the wand to translate the symbols Henry wrote in his trance, which are about the Final Battle. Rumple returns and confronts his mother, who promises to lift the curse from Belle and Gideon just a soon as she’s done with this fight.

Oh, and she’ll also have ultimate power by then, could even bring people back to life, if that was a thing he was interested in. He could have everything! But, no deal. He takes the wand. Fiona has one last trick, however; it’s still Gideon who’s going to kill Emma, carrying out Fiona’s final command to his heart, because “Darkness can’t snuff out the Light… only light can snuff out light.”

(What the everloving fuck? This plus that final line in the storybook is why it took my poor li’l English major ass a solid month to get around to rewatching this thematic dumpster fire.)

Anyway, Rumple goes ahead and kills her, with 20 minutes left to go in the episode.

(Wait, I thought killing people -- even bad people! -- was supposed to be BAD. Wasn’t that like half of S4.)

But this time it’s okay, I guess, because the curse breaks, and everyone gets their memories back. (So Snow and Charming could have just killed Regina’s no-magic ass in their flashback a few episodes ago and broken the curse themselves instead of letting Emma go through hell to save them. Good to know.) Everyone comes back from the Enchanted Forest as the sun sets. Gideon finds his sword, and Emma.

Belle finds Rumple, and on Henry’s direction, the two of them head to the mines in search of Gideon’s heart while Emma locks Gideon in the mayor’s office. Belle - and I can’t believe I am going to fucking type these words, give me a second - TWISTS HER ANKLE AND CAN’T GO ON because it’s not like her husband is the FUCKING DARK ONE AND COULD HEAL HER IN LESS TIME THAN IT TOOK TO TELL HIM TO GO ON WITHOUT HER.

But oh no, they had to give Rumple a tete a tete with his Enchanted Forest self telling him to just give it up, let the Final Battle go on, take all the power for himself teehee! This could have been a neat moment if it had been, oh, I dunno, built up in any way at all in the entire preceding season instead of just flung at us out of nowhere. Rumple decides to do the Right Thing, but his attempt to command Gideon to stop has no effect, because of… something the Black Fairy did, apparently.

Meanwhile up above, Gideon finds them again (natch). Regina gives a Hope Speech™. Emma fights Gideon but refuses to kill him, so he stabs her. There’s a lot of light. Emma appears to be dead until Henry kisses her.

For reasons I don’t understand at all, Gideon becomes an infant again. The storybook is finished. The Enchanted Forest is back where it was - Evil Queen included, and it looks like she and Robin are expecting. Snow and Charming get a farmhouse and a dog. Emma and Hook drive off in the bug to fight crime together. Regina gets to be queen of Storybrooke. Everyone gathers at Granny’s for a weird-ass homage to Da Vinci’s Last Supper.

(I have blocked every gifset that includes that scene that crosses my dash, because what the actual fuck.)

In sum, happy beginnings all around.

Also: In some wrapper scenes after an unspecified time jump, we meet a plucky young girl named Lucy and her fairy godmother, Tiger Lily. Lucy has a storybook and a sword and says she’s Henry’s daughter. Henry (now an adult and living in Seattle in our fade-out) has no memory of her. A grave new threat has overcome the Enchanted Forest and their family.

I didn’t pay much attention to these, as I am not planning to watch the season.

Parallels: This episode consisted of (depressingly) little else but direct callbacks to other episodes -- which is not nearly as effective as parallelism, unfortunately.

Fiona = Regina, obviously

The now-magicless Zelena travels by magic hat (1.17); apparently in his years off-screen, Jefferson made a new one

Emma’s pullup scene is a reference to Terminator 2 (another sequel, see earlier this season)

Operation Cuckoo’s Nest is a twofer, as the entire “operation” business is now several layers deep in self-reference. Unfortunately.

Killian and Charming climb the beanstalk from 2.06

Her Handsome Hero makes an appearance in 6.21 and then again in 6.22, when Rumple uses it to find Belle.

Fiona giving Belle an agoraphobic personality is reasonably close to Regina having locked her up

Snow kissing Charming awake was a callback to, well, rather a lot of their scenes since the S6 curse.

Fiona’s final plan as she explained it to Rumple - no more laws of magic, bringing people back to life, making them love - was lifted wholly from the OUaTiW spinoff, where it made a hell of a lot more sense.

We got one last reference to the price of magic, although it’s hard to see any rhyme or reason to how that’s applied these days.

Henry kissing Emma reverses the S1 finale.

Six seasons’ worth of material, magic items, and emotion to draw from, and this random grab-bag is what they came up with.

On a cheerier note, Lucy means “light” which I feel is appropriate for Snow White’s great-granddaughter and the granddaughter of a Savior.

Wardrobe Department:

There was nothing new or interesting here.

In Hindsight: The villains on this show have gone steadily downhill in capability for the past few years. Regina enjoyed most of a decade as the tyrant of the Enchanted Forest, and 28 more years with Storybrooke in her iron grip before Emma broke the curse for which Regina had murdered her own father.

Rumple was the Dark One, holder of unmatched power, for centuries, came thisclose to living forever in a world specially designed for his happiness (S4).

Pan had absolute power in Neverland for centuries. Cora held sway in Wonderland for years, and got the better of Rumplestiltskin once (very nearly twice). Zelena ruled Oz for something like forty years, if my timeline is anywhere near correct.

Fiona lost her wand ten seconds after turning evil, and was defeated by a fairy who regularly gets herself nearly-dead and doesn’t even show up in the town’s magical ranking these days. She was imprisoned for centuries, sulking and plotting in the Dark Realm, before she made it to Storybrooke, where she spent a week romping around, finally cast her curse, her great work of villainy -- and it got broken and she got killed THE NEXT DAY.

What a loser.

I did a rare thing for me and asked Adam on Twitter what was up with this episode, given that most of it was clearly written for Regina, not the Black Fairy. I did not get an answer, and I suppose we’ll never know what caused this change in direction -- maybe it was as simple as the fact that JMo was leaving and Lana was staying next season, and they didn’t want to end the show. It seems inarguable to me, however, that this change was made, because absolutely nothing about Fiona’s actions makes sense in light of her character.

Fiona’s Dark Curse was (retconned to have been) intended to protect her son (Rumple) by taking all of the Enchanted Forest children to the Land Without Magic. Her later actions were fixated on Gideon as substitute for Rumple. The Dark Curse as enacted in the finale didn’t appear to have anything in particular to do with Rumple or with Gideon. They were both supposed to be cursed and oblivious, so how would that have been a happy ending for Fiona? Was she going to spend eternity watching their family from outside? Storybrooke under her curse had plenty of magic, too, ignoring what was supposed to have been the entire original point.

The new Dark Curse did end up having a lot to do with Emma, with whom Fiona had no relationship at all beyond the inescapably lame “you’re a Savior so I have to kill you” thing. It separated her from her family and drove a new wedge between her and Henry. Fiona had no reason at all to be interested in Henry -- but in this new world she adopted him? -- or in any of Emma’s family for their own sake -- but she made sure to send specifically them away, and no one else? She has literally never interacted with any of these characters, and it makes no sense that she would care about their whereabouts.

(And why for the love of Pete was Henry immune to the curse? I don’t think they ever addressed that. He wasn’t under the first one because he was brought to town later on, but there’s no obvious reason why he should have kept his real memories this time around.)

(While I’m at it, how in hell did she still have Gideon’s heart? She and Rumple were supposed to have been allies as of a couple episodes ago; there’s no way he would have made any deal without securing that.)

None of what Fiona did makes sense for the Black Fairy, but it would have been very much in keeping with Regina’s past actions. (Yes, even down to harming Henry. This is a woman who killed the thing she loved the most.) Even Fiona’s costuming was identical to Regina’s look in S1.

I’m too irritated by it to even really discuss Regina and Rumple’s ending for this season. Suffice to say that they got everything they ever wanted -- twice over in Regina’s case -- and I will never stop being bitter about it. What was even going on with Rumple here? Is being the Dark One irrelevant now? Because if he’s been 100% able to make good decisions this entire time, curse or no curse, and just couldn’t be arsed until this very moment, that blows up another enormous piece of show mythology.

Moving on before my blood pressure kills me.

In my opinion, most of this finale’s mess comes from chickening out with Regina. The rest of it falls out as a consequence of that decision. Having slotted the Black Fairy in for her at the last moment, having decided to make this a metaphorical battle and not a literal one, they had the problem of what do with all of the other characters. I suspect the decision went like “leaving them in Storybrooke would mean re-establishing their cursed identities for viewers who haven’t seen them in five seasons, and it would mean creating all new curse identities for some of them, so let’s just send them off to the EF and, um, they can do absolutely nothing useful there.” The Captain Charming scene was cute as far as it went, but it was also useless, and that dialog was flat-out terrible.

That entire half of the finale was pointless. Literally nothing was accomplished there that had any effect. In order to make all that nothing look like a very urgent something, the writers came up with this “Emma’s lack of belief will destroy all the lands” hack at what was obviously the last possible moment, and I say that because it is in DIRECT CONTRADICTION of the ENTIRE PREMISE OF THE SHOW.

We literally spent all of S1 and onward having it explained that what we think of as stories have objective existence in other worlds, that these people and these realms are real, with their own long and complicated history independent of our own; we only know of them because of the storybooks. Now all of the sudden they only exist if one particular person believes in them? What about the first 28 years of Emma’s life, when she didn’t believe in anything? What about the worlds she’s never been to, never interacted with? Stuff that happened before she was born? The history of the Authors, Mr Disney included? All of those other storybooks from the last hack job of a season finale?

The idea that the final battle is an internal one is fine in itself, but then what makes it final? Why was the Black Fairy involved at all? Why has it been six years and we’re still talking about whether Emma Swan believes in magic? Shouldn’t the “final” battle revolve around everything that has happened to her SINCE that moment, not take us back to just before it happened? What narrative purpose does isolating her from everyone except Henry - again! - serve?

It wasn’t even really a battle; the curse didn’t capitalize on any weakness in Emma’s character.  We just rewound the tape to the S1 finale so she could make the exact same decision she made then -- to leave -- and then convince herself to come back sans apple tart-induced trauma? Was that supposed to be the big pivotal thing, that she came back on her own? Because that was pretty fucking drastically underplayed, and also pretty far from definitive. Emma could get her memories wiped tomorrow (and given this show, probably will), and we’d do the same thing all over again. The fact that they didn’t even feel a need to show her moment of deciding to act on screen says everything, I think.

And then we have the concluding fight, which defies explanation. One thing this show has generally done a good job with is parallelism, but here of all places it fell flat. Everything about the “climax” felt perfunctory at best. They introduced the vision of the fight with Gideon in 6.01, therefore they had to revisit it in the finale, even if it made no particular sense to do so (nothing about Gideon has made sense). This fight happened because a dead character who had no established reason for doing anything she did gave a pointless character an order that didn’t make any sense in the first place; Emma had to “die” purely because the writers said she would six months ago. As an action and as a scene, it accomplished nothing.

Having previously established that the sword was a real sword that would cut people, they hand-waved that and gave it a magical effect instead, allowing Emma to be struck down and then wakened by TLK. The TLK with Henry at the end of S1 was one of the most hard-fought-for scenes I have personally ever seen in any medium, with an entire season of loving development leading up to it; this one felt like a distant echo through a mile of aluminum ducting. Henry has barely even been in this season, hasn’t had a good episode for his character since 6.08. His relationship with Emma in particular has been on the back burner since “The Other Shoe.” The two of them didn’t even get a good spotlight in this episode what with all of the side action in the Enchanted Forest and with Rumple and so on. That kiss didn’t bring anything new to the story.

And so here we are, if not at the end of the story, at least at the end of a significant chapter.

Adam and Eddy wrote some of my all-time favorite episodes of this show, back in the day. At this point, I have to say that while they might make solid staff writers, they have no business running a show. They don’t care about consistency from one season or sometimes even one episode to the next, their creative toolbox appears limited in scope, their writing is self-indulgent, and they’re apparently not willing to follow through -- of their own accord -- on events that should have significant in-character consequences. The result is a finale that very nearly systematically trashes every piece of moral and magical world-building that was still standing after six seasons -- and which I feel comfortably certain will be ignored when the show goes into S7. 

All of that said, I do want to end this on a positive note. I have over the past few years very much enjoyed the story of Emma Swan, the ugly duckling who thought she would never have a family, the lost princess who gave up on love, the hardass with her box of sentimental treasures -- the mother, daughter, sheriff, swordswoman, sorceress, leader, lover, and all of the other jackets she’s worn across the years, leather and otherwise, in the end a fully realized woman with a whole heart and a happy future ahead of her. That’s a story I will never get tired of, and for that I offer my gratitude.

To all of you reading this, I would like to say thank you as well, for the many hours of diverting conversation, for the moving and hilarious commentary, and for the friendships that have grown up from this unexpected ground. May your supplies of fic never run dry.