#and how i could rework it with the Bounty of the Elements thing.....

[ink-of-a-thousand-currents]

Me: Okay time to sleep

Brain: Hey hey hey you remember that RP you ran for a little while forever ago. Remember your story idea and lore ideas and and and

Me: GOD DAMMIT

[jayne-hecate-writer]

The Mandalorian... In Lego form

What can I add to the praise about the Disney Plus series, The Mandalorian, that has not already been said?

Yes, it is really very good, I was captivated within the first minute and was heart broken during the third episode, entitled The Sin, when the Mandalorian handed over the child to the Imperial officer, played so beautifully by Werner Herzog. Of them all, it is probably episodes three and four that are my favourites, showing the more gentle side to the character. But let us be honest, when choosing favourite episodes of this series, we the viewer have been rather spoilt because there is not a dud among them. Not even the sixth episode, which was a heist story and could easily have been done rather badly, but wasn’t and even included a fabulously dry Dave Filoni cameo as a New Republic pilot. No, not a single missed beat, bad line or failed joke throughout series one.

This is not to say that it does not have its cold brutal moments though, the Quarren being bisected in the first episode was utterly shocking, you even hear his legs heit the floor! Encasing the good natured Mythol in carbonite was really mean. Yet, they saved the humour of child abuse right up until the end and the speeder scouts indifference in violently handling the child. These moments of suffering are balanced so perfectly with real heart and leave a lump in the throat, even when dealing with an assassin droid walking into a lava flow. Terminator eat your heart out!

So, it must be time to combine some of the biggest loves of my rather childish, adult life into one hobby, namely my love of Star Wars and my love of Lego. With every new franchise released under the Star Wars banner, Lego get good dibs on making tie in sets. With the release of the Mandalorian, the Lego sets have been exceptional and if you have not yet seen them, you should go and have a look at the Brickset page.

The first set, number 75254 or AT-ST Raider is a glorious reworking of the beloved Imperial walker, as seen during the Battle of Endor, but here it comes with loose wiring and scratched paint. The colours are indicative of rust, repainting of old worn out parts and some battle damage, all achieved with coloured bricks and several stickers. The effect is really very pleasing and the walker stands at just over twenty five centimetres tall. All that it is missing is the red glow in the cocpit. The minfigs that come with this set just wonderful. Cara Dune, played so effortlessly well by Gina Carono in the show, is a really lovely minifig, although having a globally available minifig of your character must be exciting even for a movie star. Along with the walker come two raider pilots and then even Mando himself, in his dirty and mismatched armour, which is a little odd. By this point in the show, when he meets and briefly fights with Cara Dune, he already has his new Beskar cuirass of armour, complete in shining silver. So one has to ask why he is presented to us in the older colours of his armour that was destroyed by the Mudhorn in the second episode? Over all though, 75254 is a lovely set, even with the annoyance of having to apply stickers (which is a topic that takes on the additional needs of disability issues for me and my manky old lady fingers), rather than using printed pieces.

Set 75267, the Mandalorian Battle Pack is simple, cheap and rather pretty. This is a basic set with four minifigs, all in various colours of Mandalorian armour which may be different clans, with a small gun emplacement and speeder bike. The warriors are split equally male and female, but I have no idea which is which, due to the lack of lipstick, floral tops and flowing long hair, the usual key indicators used by Lego to show the gender split (stories of my subverting this by placing  the ‘male’ bodies with the ‘female’ heads, are very likely true!). Removing the helmets reveals an unprinted black head, which is slightly disturbing, but this is something that Lego had done for several years now.

The big set of this theme for 2020 has to be the fabulous ship used by the Mandalorian, the beautifully named Mandalorian Bounty Hunter Transport Ship… Oops yeah, it seems that somebody fucked up. Set number 75292, Razor Crest has in some cases been renamed following claims of trademark usage by another company, who just happen to make Lego compatible sets and some may claim have been guilty of cloning Lego sets without license. Oh dear.

I pre-ordered my set a good three months prior to release and thank the heavens that I did, because it was hopelessly delayed and finally cancelled three days after release and so I had to deal with Lego directly... during a pandemic outbreak... when every anguished parent with a Star Wars addicted child was no doubt screaming for their Mandalorian set too. Lego were hellishly busy and no doubt there were many like me, disappointed Amazon customers scrabbling to find the sets they had ordered weeks before. How many of those adults with debit cards were buying the toy for themselves though, remains a closely guarded industry secret.

When the set arrived, I was impressed by the actual size of the box which was huge and which my cat now uses for a bed! This was just the outer packaging used by Lego to ship the set, but the actual set box was still quite large and also beautifully printed, if surprisingly heavy.

Building the model was fun, even if there is a fair amount of repetition due to the chirality of the ship and the usual struggles with yet more bloody stickers! The engine nacelles are probably the least screen accurate feature, given the rough tooth like arrangement on the front intakes bares little resemblence to the smooth circular versions on the screen rendered ship. This is a tiny little complaint about an otherwise awesome model though. (I am just going to pause here for a moment. Are they really air intakes? Given that this is a spacecraft and it can travel at ‘light-speed’, why does it have these large open front intakes that resemble the compressor fan of a jet engine? Actually, that is a stream of thought that can only lead to sadness, especially with the roar of said engine as it flies across screen, supposedly in space, you know space. The place where NO ONE can hear you scream! But can hear if you miss a gear on your spaceship!)

Minfigs with this set are thoroughly cool, with our classic Mando himself, Din Djarin. He does of course have the child with him and the fidure of the child is adorable. This set also includes Greef Karga, a Scout Trooper and IG11… Um. Once again, this is a potentially confused set. Is this from the first episode or the last two? I don’t recall seeing the Scout troopers in the first episode so much, but they are present and a large part of the finale. Mando does of course have some serious issues with droids, having been orphaned during the Clone Wars, by a B2 Super Battle Droid (Speaking of droids and the Clone Wars, this does explain to me why when Luke and Obi Wan visit Mos Eisley, the cantina owner tells Luke that the droids are not welcome. It was a glaringly obvious issue that I never gave thought to, of course people would mistrust droids, the Clone Wars were a political tool used by a member of the elite, to secure their own power while creating political turmoil in which they could thrive and in which many thousands of innocent people lost their lives. I wonder if this was written to parallel real life, not that we have many examples of this in the real world), which is shown in heart breaking visceral detail during the several flashbacks we see. Again, this is just another element in this series that goes to such great depth to give the characters real heart. Anyway, back to my point, a part of his redemption was Mando coming to accept and even trust a droid, which he does with IG11, despite it being Mando himself who terminated the IG unit to begin with. So with a Scout trooper, IG11 and Greef Karga, would it be fair to say that with the child in hand, Mando should be in his silver Beskar armour? It would appear not and thus Mando is still in his dirty, rusted and damaged armour with this set. At some point they simply must release a set with him in shiny new Beskar, but maybe that will come with the release of Series two.

Over all, the sets released in this theme for 2020 have all been excellent and to an adult child like myself, well worthy of collecting, building and displaying… Because these are not  toys! They are valuable collectors pieces, future antiques and actually rather pretty. Which leads me onto my next section, how to display the models while making them look like something interesting and not just a pile of bricks. I had a space that you could have called a bookshelf, not a great space for books if I am honest, being slightly awkward and on top of my Lego desk. So I decided to fill this space with a Lego Diorama that measures one hundred and six studs wide and twenty four studs deep. It was a crap bookcase and my Lego books kept falling over or worse, falling off altogether to land on whatever I was working on at the time. The gloss painted finish proved to be be sticky, which damaged a couple of my instructions booklets and well, these are the issues you get when you design and build your own furniture, out of scrap wood and offcuts. Yes, the furniture is a bit mismatched in my office, but I made nearly all of it. Maybe one day I will do a show and tell.

The display started as a simple thing, a couple of enclosed boxes in which I could build a pair of scenes. My first scene was the Rebel Alliance looking at a hologram of the Death Star, while planning an attack on the technological terror. It is half based on Episode four with a dash of episode six. I added flickering lights and a large Death Star shell from the planets sets and stood back to admire my work. It was… OK-ish and sat like that for several months as I planned the next box and then what was to go above it.

With the release of the Mandalorian, I knew that the remaining box had to be the Covert, with the Armourer and her forge. I also knew that with the Razor Crest, I wanted some kind of scene above the covert to place both the ship and the AT-ST together, which while technically mixing a couple of episodes set on different worlds, could be seen in the soul of the show, rather than an accurate depiction of the Mandalorian itself. With the addition of some more lights it was all going so well and then I had to re-home Vader's castle, a task of Sisyphean proportions. 

Humour aside, I need a larger office. With my Solo, Rebels, Rogue One, Clone Wars, New Hope and final trilogy themes to my Star Wars Lego display, plus the collection of Technic lego so large it required specialist furniture to be built, I have run out of room. Vader’s castle is thankfully taller than it is wide and it fitted onto the shelf fairly well. It also took lighting effects really nicely and I was pleased with the results, in particular, the glowing hologram of the Emperor that appears in miniature in front of Vader's desk. However, it now looks like I have a nice castle, built on the edge of a run down city slum, with the sewers taken over by rogue blacksmiths and a group of noisy political activists. If any of you can spot the social commentary in here, well done you. Poor old Vader however can barely get any sleep, no wonder his mouse droid keeps leaping off the model and onto my carpet, it wants to escape for some peace!

So now that the office shelves are filled, what should I do next? Well actually, there are some things on the Razor Crest that I am not happy with, aspects that need some work to make it look a little better. First to go is that hideous hole in the top. Yes, it allows you to claw the pod out, but for display, rather than play, the hole is unacceptable. I made my own Moff Gideon (Using Winstone from Ghostbusters for the head and an Imperial Pilot body) and equipped him with a Darksabre. I added a pair of speeder bikes too, one for the scout that came with the Razor Crest and one for a scout that I added later.

I dread to think how much I have spent on this project, there is easily three hundred pounds in sets on my shelf alone, consisting of three large ships, one walker and a castle. There are also the various minifigs I bought from else where, such as the Rebel Alliance leadership and spare Mandalorian warriors. There are all of the lights, the wire and the switches, which cost about twenty pounds. It all adds up rather quickly and luckily for me, most of the Lego consists of bricks that I have collected over the years and a lot of those bricks were second hand.

Was it worth it? Yes it was. Not only was it a lot of fun to plan and build, but as a disabled person, it is nice to have a hobby that I can still manage and do fairly well. It is nothing like climbing a mountain, or wild camping with my mountain bike, but it stopped me going insane with boredom, especially during lockdown. Who knows what I can do next, but it is nice to be back on the technic and building actual gear boxes again.

[mercurialsmile]

okay so i’m not writing new billdip stuff anymore ofc and my stance hasnt changed bUT i just remembered this GREAT AU I made YEARS ago that I r r liked but never did anything with??

I’m not r that caught up on the GF EU stuff sadly but the AU was focused on time travel and the future!Dippers. Mainly “Farther in the Future!Dipper.” 

Okay so like. The premise of the AU was based on the Farther in the Future!Dipper who was pretty creepy sounding in the book he was featured in. Idk if anyone remembers the art that came out from that but it was some GOOD SHIT and I was INSPIRED

SO the AU is basically that Young Adult Dipper got caught up in some severe time travel. How, I never really figured out completely. I wanted him to fuck up something big in a big way and getting stuck far into the future, perhaps even in Time Jail for a while? The point is, he is a bounty hunter and a cat bugler. The beginnings are super fuzzy and I never really thought them out. However, by now, Dipper has hardened up due to this and ends up making a deal with a severely weakened Bill Cipher, who was defeated by the Time Baby sometime in the past. Bill Cipher needs someone to collect certain McGuffins to power up some device that will help him regain his powers and get him to full power to defeat Time Baby and take over the world. Cool, right? Idk. I thought it was.

Anyways, Farther in the Future!Dipper makes the deal, gets broke out of prison or whatever whatever, and travels thru time to get these McGuffins. However, he ends up running into his past self multiple times... which is dangerous. If he fucks up the past too much, then he may destroy his own existence. Think Back to the Future, I guess. 

Anyways, in this AU Dipper ends up worshipping Bill like a god bc he is fully blown crazy ngl. Bill is... using him, esp as a puppet, but is entertained and enjoys his company. It wasn’t supposed to be a super shippy AU... Bill isn’t a human, doesn’t even really have a true human form, and thus there would be no s/mu/t or anything like that. Their bond was to be.... a wholly weird one that only makes sense to one another. 

Tbh? I still love this AU and this idea. Although, what I REALLY like about it is the idea to write from the bad guy’s side about time travel while also combining heavy sci-fi elements with fantasy. 

I will prob never write this as an AU although I wanted to in the past. However, stripping it down and reworking it into an original story may be pretty fun? 

If I did, I would change a lot tho since I have new and better ideas than the original AU. The Future Main Character would probably not remember his past and I would cut the idea that he broke out of jail himself to become a criminal. Instead, he’s arrested for stealing a time device to travel back in time to learn about his past. He’s thrown in jail where he is hardened up. He thinks he will die, but ends up having visions from some divine being... or perhaps the being will be a demon? Not sure yet. Either way, said being breaks him out, and he ends up making a deal with the being for doing so. In being able to hunt the McGuffins, he will also be able to find the secrets to his past and family.... and will probably end up being torn between the being and his lost family or smth smth like that? 

Yeah, ik there are a TON of gaps but I think it could be interesting? Also, I actually don’t know if I’ll write the MC as a male, female, or perhaps even non-binary? Idk. Same with the being, if I am being honest. 

Thing is, I am already working on a TON of shit that I don’t need more. On the other hand.... characters and stuff like this is fun to make and I have no control over myself. Oops.

I’m also nervous doing so bc I don’t want ppl to be like “well you get all ur ideas from AUs they’re not original and blah blah blah” 

Idk, man, idk. It’s kinda true but also, I have plenty of stories and characters I have crafted/am crafting that aren’t og from some unwritten ff idea but what do I know ya know?? 

[acradaunt]

Wanted to gab about Monster Hunter World for a while. It's probably going to be really rambly and sound overly negative, but hey. I tend to be like that. Super negative. It's easier to pinpoint and hammer on a weakness than a strong point.

I guess let's start at the very, very beginning. While it doesn't bother me even slightly, the concept of Capcom pouring all this money and focus onto Monster Hunter, but then not even remotely trying any sort of lip-syncing for the very first cutscene was... jarring. I don't really get complaints about it being too hand-holdy, though. You're fighting Jagras by the third quest and maybe an hour and ten minutes, compared to like three for Jaggi/Jaggi/Maccao in the previous games. Yeah, that first hour is like 105% cutscenes and scripted as heck, but that's them trying to be 'cinematic'. It's not great, but it's better than kicking you back and forth between town and the plains level for ten missions of gather honey/bones/ore/Aptonoth. NPCs tend to feel kind of like completely worthless human beings, but that's just a global videogame issue. Of course nobody else could actually show up and fight something. I guess not showing up at all is better than the Huntsman/Field Leader/Ace Cadet getting bodied time and again.

While yeah, no loading zones are nice, and most of maps are absolutely stellar (though Forest has that confounding middle floors region and Coral Highlands has waaay too many huge pointless regions), I think weapon and quality of life changes are what matters the most. While I think I prefer Gen's (Guild style for both) SnS (World's feels a touch too spammy, and the backleap suuuucks now; Gen's SnS required some finesse) and Greatsword (in spite of the fact that MHWorld's GS is designed around my 'stay in there' playstyle and not running away like everyone else does), almost every other weapon feels at its best. I've found love for Dual Blades, Gunlance, Bowguns, the Bow itself, and even slightly the Katana in this one. Still hate Insect Glaive, but at least they fixed the bugs. I like the LBG and Dual Blades enough to break them into regular usage. Hammer is just so pure and powerful that it kinda makes the Greatsword's damage feel woefully inept. Lance is amazing with guard being worth a damn and being more mobile than ever. Switch Axe makes actual use of both switching and axing. All shields are good. Blocking Nergigante's dive with a SnS shield like it's no huge deal is glorious and refreshing, because that would NEVER have flown before.

Seeing the weapon tree is great, even if what's on the tree is a bit barren. Like, really, I'm not even gonna whine about the boring weapon designs; why are old designs like the Rathian Switch Axe and Dual Blades missing? Poor things don't even GET poison without Awakening. Lots of weapons have huge holes without Awakening. The clear winner is armour skills. It's just so simple and intuitive, it's honestly baffling they didn't do this ages ago. My only quibbles are that you might possibly get TOO many skills now. You're packing more goods than an endgame G-Rank character in 4U. Also, sometimes some Alpha pieces feel exceptionally dumb. Like, is anyone ever going to take the version with, like, freaking Entomologist on it over a free socket? I do think I'd have preferred seeing more Set Skills to scale things down slightly so you had to get a few subpar pieces to get a better, prominent skill, but hey. Set Skills only needing typically 3 makes them a lot more palatable to me.

I might be in the minority here, but I like the switching of decorations and charms. Getting that one good charm completely changed your armour sets, and the 5000 others you got until then were wholly worthless. With decorations, you can equip multiple at a time, sometimes nearly a dozen. You can actually get lots of use out of 'okay' ones. The weekly gold tickets for free gems is really fair. And kinda necessary for upgrading charms. A couple skills really stand out, which I guess isn't anything new. Health Boost went from wholly worthless to the single best skill, allowing for 200 HP, Fire Res stops fire's constant burn damage and near global usage (especially with Bazel and Rathalos' interruptions), and Stun Res is more useful than ever, with Stun taking thrice as long to recover from. I'm sure the 'metagame' is still herp derp handicraft and crit boost or whatever, but I prefer not dying. Ever. I can run all that stuff handily and still get a pricier skill like Elemental Crit or some serious Guard points and not look like complete clownshoes, so that's always a huge plus. Oh, however. Female armour design is at its all-time low. One of the plusses of switching primary genders every game is that I dodged that bullet. Course, in Gen, I knew going in that I wanted Tigrex for Hearing and Eating, so I could use the name Amber quite fittingly. Two armour styles helps sometimes, but. Just. Stop. Making. Everything. Be metal thighhighs and have random-ass patches of bare skin.

A lot of the new monsters are mostly just rehashes. Which is... reasonable, really. There's only so many moves and so many ways to do stuff. Legiana is a less threatening ice Rathalos. Anjanath is a more aggressive, less burly Deviljho. Even Paolumu is Kecha Wacha with a few low-grade Kush attacks. Bazelgeuse  certainly stands out among the crowd, because his moves are wholly unique, and he's actually a threatening party-crasher, unlike Deviljho. The fact he's mostly about area of effect makes him incredibly dangerous (and/or helpful) when you're preoccupied, but when the focus is on him, he crumples surprisingly easily. I think most people have a love/hate relationship with him and the 3-monsters in the field. It does spice things up, but it also sometimes turns into an absolute fustercluck.

What's less thrilling is the near universal amount presence of fire. It's one thing that ALL the old guys are fire (minus Diablos, Kushala, and Kirin), but the fact that several of the new monsters (Anjanath, Bazelgeuse, Xeno'jiiva) are fire too is just pouring gasoline on the, well, fire. Kirin, Paolumu, and Vaal Hazak are the only three weak to it, I think, while each weapon gets two-four trees for fire. The free DLC doesn't change matters, with both Lunastra and maybe Alatreon doing fire too. I don't actually remember if Alatreon can light you up. For the other elements, Thunder and Ice get two (plus Oroshi, later). Water has just Jyuratodus and nobody even does Dragonblight. This means if you want elemental weapons, you'll be killing a shitton of Jyuratodus, Tobi-Kodachi, and Legiana. It also makes Fire Res probably the second best general-purpose skill, but I've already been there.

One thing I really did like is how HR just opened up pretty completely. It was fun seeing if you could immediately tackle Rathain or whoever to get some solid HR armour right away. The only shortcoming was the sad, sad excuse at 'oh no, monsters are invading other envir-- Anjie and Pukei are the in desert. That's it. It would've been a nice change of pace to see different guys different places, not to mention it could better use certain otherwise barren rooms and cause 'party chambers' to sometimes be more or less dangerous. Because I've never once fought Dodogama without in the main crystal room without it being a four-way. Lavasioth won't go there, but the three others are mighty fond of the room, too. On this thought, why the hell doesn't Nergigante show in the desert? They had his AI working there for the beta, and you first find traces of him in the swamp. :|

Investigations, Expeditions, and Bounties are all nice enough ideas, but I really think it would've worked better if they reworked how they functioned. Expeditions are kinda... pointless? Other than stupid gather-y bullshit like the ultra-rare endemic life and tempered tracks only show up there. Bounties are an alright way to guide your hand to specific quests, but it's flow breaking early on, and once you don't need armour spheres, you can just forget all about it. Investigations giving bonus rewards with stricter demands is genuinely nice, although there's always the issue of running a quest dry before you have enough Jyuratodus Fins or whatever. I'd more prefer these be like sliders that you can play with to set it to be as hard and rewarding as you can handle, but hey. I'll take it any day over 4U's Guild Quests.

It's kinda a half-baked idea, but I could sort of see a revision of these ideas into one bigger thing. Like, you'd choose a set of three or so investigations at once (like bounties), and when you go to a viable locale, those goals slot themselves in. If it's 30 minutes for Rathian and 50 for Barroth, she'll leave at 30 minutes and Barroth will stay for 50. Or once room opens and Diablos shows, Diablos' timer starts. I'm not sure how death would work. Take ten minutes away? It's not perfect, but it would flow a lot better than having to reload the same map twice every ten minutes when something dies.

Tempereds are just the stupidest attempt at harder monsters yet. Frenzy wasn't great either, as they gave nothing better compared to their normal counterpart, but at least there was a mechanic beyond 'hits harder'. And I seriously think half the G-Rank monsters don't have non-frenzied quests, so it's not much of an option. Hyper was never explained at all, but its heads above the other two. Specific stronger attacks with weaker weak points. Further, with Hypers, you still needed to fight the appropriate monster to get their parts (with some more variety for semi-generic parts like Hyper Horns). With Tempereds, your goal isn't to get parts, but horrifically rare drops, so there's no reason to do anybody but the easiest guy of that tier. You gain nothing more from fighting Radobaan versus Jagras. While I can live with never getting those amazing decorations, streamstones and augmenting are just awful to be linked to luck. Yeah, it's post-postgame, but that junk alone makes me feel I'd rather see a new game that refines World's new ideas rather than it get a G-Rank expansion. Generations was content to have the end be the end, not involving any roulette crap. ...Double Cross might've done some wacky random-luck bullshit. I don't know, come to think of it.

I feel like I had other, nicer, things to say, but this is already waay too damn long and sounds bit too bitter, so I think I'll just stop. Oh yeah, and needing a subscription to play online sucks, so I haven't even attempted to enter or use an SOS out of curiosity. But from what I hear about it only having two scales, one for one player, and one for four, is really stupid. It reeaallly favours single player, which, hey, is working for me, but might've missed the point of the series. See? I can't even end this without sounding negative. :|

[dragonasheswrites-blog]

The Heaven We Didn’t Choose, Chapter 16: In Which Monsters Celebrate

...A holiday that is actually rather tame, given the circumstances.

First: Chapter 1: In Which a Child Makes a Friend

Previous: Chapter 15: In Which Sans is Hired

Next: Chapter 17: In Which Alphys is Terrible

Click here for the story overview.

Sans stared at the items in his hands.  Why he’d ever thought this was a good idea was beyond him.

It had started off so simply.  In the Underground, clothing either had to be made by hand or repurposed from whatever fell into the old dump in Waterfall.  It had been Sans’s job to clothe himself and his brother, and he’d been...decent at it.  They were hardly fashionable (Papyrus had started dressing himself as soon as he was physically able, and wound up looking like a goth Halloween decoration) but they had adequate protection against attacks and the elements.

So.  Soon after Papyrus declared himself Boss and began enforcing his rule with more violence than Sans had been comfortable with, he’d found a door.  It was stupid - he couldn’t open it, and without some idea of what lay beyond he really couldn’t teleport to the other side - but he’d liked the door.  It represented something new, something different.  Something to hope for.  An escape.

Kinda like the barrier, now that he thought about it.

And yeah, okay, he may have told a few shitty jokes to himself out there, just for the sake of hearing his own voice, but it wasn’t like he’d expected anyone to talk back to him.

And yet, someone had.  Tori - though he hadn’t known she was Toriel, Queen of Monsters at the time - was funny.  Depressed as hell, and more than a little morbid, but when she put her mind to it she was hilarious.  For someone who hadn’t heard a decent joke in years, even from his own mouth, she was a small miracle.

They bonded over dumb jokes and self-loathing, even if they would never have admitted to either.  Maybe it was their sincere love of bad jokes, or maybe it was because there was a very solid door between them, but they became...allies, of a sort.

As allies, they exchanged stories and experiences.  Sans heard all about life in the Ruins (the most boring place in the Underground) and Tori heard about Snowdin (a very close second).  Once they realized that their respective lives were awfully dull, they moved on to something a little more practical: survival tips.

Like her daughter, Tori had an impressive fashion sense...and was very aware of the fact that Sans did not.  She was hardly subtle about it.  When he’d described the clothes he and his brother wore, she immediately offered her collection of knitting and crocheting patterns for him to choose from.  Yarn made from spun fiber was fairly common in the Underground, thanks in part to Muffet and her wild bands of spider mercenaries, so he agreed. He was never sure how she got them outside the door - there was never evidence of any evidence that it opened in any way - but from time to time he would find carefully copied patterns waiting for him at his spot.

He’d gotten pretty good at crocheting, actually, before everything went to hell in a handbasket.

Sans would’ve been content to live his life that way: avoiding Boss, swapping dumb jokes with Tori, slacking off work and bugging Grillby.  A few cases as the Judge here and there, a few run-ins with Muffet, maybe a trip over to MTT’s arena if he needed to blow off some steam; everything was pretty good.

Then Alphys - mad scientist that she was - tried to come up with ‘the ultimate weapon’ and accidentally brought a certain prince back to life as a weepy, over-sensitive flower with horrifying powers, and Sans’s life had gone to shit.

Which led, more or less directly, to a skeleton sitting at his sentry post one evening in the middle of December with a bunch of soft brown yarn and a crochet hook he barely remembered how to use.

He had pulled and reworked the little disk he was trying to make several times already, but it still looked lumpy and misshapen to his eye sockets.  With a sigh, he pulled the trailing end of the yarn to unravel his stitches - again - and grabbed the pattern out of his inventory.

What he was trying to make was a hat and mittens.  Simple, right?  He’d made much more complicated things Underground.  Hell, he’d made Boss’s first few undershirts for his Royal Guard uniform; the Guard had armor aplenty, but hadn’t been equipped to deal with someone as...skinny as Boss.  Some sort of padding to protect bone from harsh metal - and to keep the large armor on at all - was necessary, but trying to crochet around bones without a reliable pattern was awful.

He’d gone through a lot of yarn on those undershirts, more than he could’ve afforded at the time if he’d been inclined to pay.  That was probably when Muffet had started that bounty on his head.

The point being, he should have been able to pick crocheting right back up.  It was easy.  Once upon a time he’d practically been able to do it in his sleep.  He probably had done it in his sleep at least once.

But no matter how he twisted and looped and tucked and wrapped, everything kept coming out lopsided.  The urge to tear the wimpy human yarn apart was growing stronger.  Hmph.  Muffet was one of the monsters who hadn’t elected to move to the Surface - she was ruling her extended family-slash-crime syndicate from a roomy cave on the border between Waterfall and Hotland, last he’d heard - but maybe he could armor up and pay her a visit?

Nah.  He didn’t have the guts to go back to the Underground so soon after his confrontation with Asgore.

(Heh!)

He dutifully made a new loop and started crocheting a few stitches.  He wanted to give up, but...sentry duty was terribly boring after dark.  He adjusted his lantern so he could see better, then carefully connected his row together so it formed a small circle.

Well.  That try didn’t look half bad, actually.  Maybe he was actually getting somewhere.  He made a few chain stitches and started on the second row.

It took him a few more false starts, but he managed to create what looked like a small skullcap by the time one of the heavy-armored guards who hailed from Hotland stomped up to his post, leaving steaming footsteps in the snow.

“...,” said the guard.  “... ….”

Sans narrowed his eye sockets at the guard.  “Whatever, pal.  You here to take over?”

“....”

“Ooookay.”  He barely remembered to snatch his project and slip it into his inventory before leaving his sentry post and heading back into town.

‘Christmas present in progress,’ his inventory called it.  He felt his skull turning colors.  How...embarrassing.  Accurate, but embarrassing.  Why did magic have to work on intent, anyways?

Okay, so he’d decided to make Frisk a Christmas gift.  She was human; Christmas was a human holiday.  If only she was a monster...but no.

Monsters were so much easier to deal with, sometimes.  Their winter holiday - Takersfaire - was traditionally a time when everyone put out the crap they didn’t want in booths, and folks snuck around and stole what they liked from other booths.  It kept them sharp, especially on the Surface where stealing was generally discouraged.

And sure, humans sometimes celebrated Takersfaire (even if they were too nice about it; most wouldn’t even take a half-hearted swing at a monster caught stealing from their booths) but he didn’t know if Frisk was one of them.  He’d never seen her steal anything while watching his and Boss’s booth, but then again that was the point.

So...Christmas gift it was.

He felt stupid.  He and Frisk were barely kind-of friends.  But...he’d been cleaning out his closet, looking for a place to hide his new sock collection, and he’d come across his folder of crochet patterns.  There was a pattern for a neat hat with matching mittens that he’d never gotten a chance to try, and on a whim he’d picked up some yarn while he was getting socks and gloves for his uniform.

Frisk just happened to be the only human adult he really knew; that was it.  And the mittens, at least, were clearly designed for a human; he wasn’t sure how Tori had gotten ahold of the pattern, now that he thought about it.  They were far too small for her and far too big for a skeleton, at least without serious modification.

He was going to justify it by making a matching set for Attie, but Christmas was only two weeks away.  With the way his crochet skills were going he doubted he’d be able to finish anything.

Sans shuffled into his apartment (Boss was gone again) and flopped onto his couch.  He didn’t know where this motivation to make things was coming from.  Maybe it was because he’d taken to secretly working out between jobs sometimes; Undyne had been getting on his case, and he’d noticed shifts in his magic from the exertion.  It was almost like he was...getting more energy, or something.

Mostly, it made him twitchy.

He sighed and took the ‘Christmas present in progress’ out of his inventory.  Might as well do something useful.

That was his routine over the next week or so.  He got up, went to his jobs, worked out (but not too much; he had a reputation to uphold) and slowly made progress on Frisk’s present.  He was getting better at stitching; by the time he finished up the mittens, he was no longer pulling out rows for uneven stitches.  He did have to redo a good portion of the left mitten because he’d gotten stressed out and pulled the stitches too tight, but that was just because he was a neurotic mess.

He was sitting in his sentry station one evening having just finished tying off the second mitten when he got a text from Undyne.

Capn Undie 4:52 PM SO You ARE coming to Takersfaire in New Home, RIGHT???

Shit.  Right.  Takersfaire was that evening.  He knew he’d told Boss he wasn’t going, so he was probably working...right?  He checked his inventory.  The crumpled piece of scrap paper he’d written his work schedule on was one of five items labeled ‘Piece of junk,’ so it took him a bit to find it.

You 5:03 PM Uh u have me working a double shift 2nite

Capn Undie 5:12 PM CRAP I DO

You 5:15 PM Yeah bcuz the dogi r still out Puppies need food n stuff Who knew

Capn Undie 5:20 PM BUT THEN WHO WILL WATCH YOUR BOOTH???

You 5:22 PM Boss…?

Capn Undie 5:25 PM NO HE’S TOO HARD ON THE KIDS YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO DUST KIDS ON TAKERSFAIRE

You 5:30 PM Wait he dusted a kid? When was this?

Capn Undie 5:34 PM Nah, I got him in time BUT HE ALMOST DID

You 5:39 PM I dont know what u want me to do about it

Capn Undie 5:43 PM I WANT YOU TO Wait Oh.  Nevermind.

You 5:48 PM So am I working or what Hello Undyne? Hello?

He leaned back in his seat, propping his feet up against his sentry post.  Weird.  What was that about?

Sans hadn’t actively participated in Takersfaire since he was a babybones, but he did usually watch his and Boss’s booth.  He hated it.  Strong monsters sometimes used Takersfaire as a time to show off: the fancier the booth, the more confident its owner was that he’d be able to hold onto all his items.  It ran a little contrary to the spirit of things, but traditions were weird.

Because Boss was Boss, the skeleton brothers’ booth was always one of the most elaborate in the Kingdom of Monsters.   Also because Boss was Boss, most of the items were bones.  There were a few real goodies as well - electronics that Sans fixed up, plates of whatever Boss’s favorite dish was, envelopes of money, etc. - but mostly it was bones.  Bone attacks, at that, just to make things a little less fair.   Touching them wasn’t exactly what most folks would call safe.  And yet, Sans was expected to guard it.  And stay awake while doing so.

It worried Sans that Boss had taken the news that he was on duty during Takersfaire so well.  A calm Boss always had something up his sleeve.  He had no idea what it could be, though.

About an hour later, Sans was woken up from his usual nap by his text alert.

Capn Undie 6:55 PM *1 picture message received PUT YOUR EYE SOCKETS ON THIS

The picture was Undyne in full armor, posing dramatically, her helmet was tucked under one arm and the other around the shoulders of a human woman.  The woman was wearing a beaked mask of dramatic red and orange feathers that matched the hues of her long, flowing dress.  Sans couldn’t place the outfit's reference (some sort of bird??), but after a careful examination he was stunned to recognize the woman as Frisk.

He was so distracted that he almost missed Attie by Frisk’s side, which would have been a tragedy.  Her face was painted in an obvious facsimile of a skull, and she was wearing a hooded onesie with the pattern of a skeleton printed on it.  He considered being mildly offended (humans and their obsession with naked skeletons were a source of constant confusion for him) but Attie had put a pink skirt on over top.

You 7:04 PM Wow I dont recognize those monsters Who r they?

Capn Undie 7:10 PM *3 picture messages received

The first two pictures were both of a twirling Attie.  Behind her was a booth decorated in ribbons and strands of beads, a large Delta Rune symbol on the front.  The ambassador and her daughter had brought what looked like chocolate cookies in cheerful baggies, as well as some small toys and colorful pieces of clothing.  There was nothing particularly expensive, but the items were personal and useful...especially to those who still lived in the Underground.

The final picture was of Frisk.  She was looking at something off to her left, her head turned to expose the gentle curves of her neck and shoulders.  One hand was raised, lifting the mask just enough to reveal her face.  She was smiling, the same way she always smiled at Attie.

On the table behind her, one of the bags of cookies was missing.

Sans put his head down on the counter of his station, trying to control his trembling arms.   This was the woman he’d killed - sometimes slowly and painfully - dozens of times.  Maybe hundreds of times.  His memories of previous timelines had always been a little fuzzy; he didn’t know, really, how much pain he’d caused her.

And yet…

Don’t.  Don’t even think it.  It’s pointless.  It will only bring heartbreak.

...and yet...some part of him seemed to gravitate towards her.  She wasn’t just the young woman who broke the barrier, or the Kingdom of Monsters’ primary ambassador, or even Attie’s mother.  She wasn’t just someone he’d had an on-and-off passive-aggressive feud with for the past eight years.

She was someone who cared enough to advocate on his behalf.  He had no doubt that she was the one who had sicced Undyne on him.  Undyne rarely cared for anyone but herself (unless caffeine was involved), and yet she’d gone out of her way to help him on multiple occasions.  She’d befriended him.

He owed Frisk a lot.

Staying out of her life so he wouldn’t drag her down seemed like a small price to pay for all she’d done for his sorry ass, but…

“Attie misses you.”

...was that really the best option?  He really didn’t know what was “best” anymore.  He was beginning to doubt that Boss knew what was best, and the past ten years of his life had revolved around the fact that Boss always knew what was best.  The obvious course of action would be to talk to Frisk or someone close to her, but his soul clenched at the thought.

It was a fear of rejection, he realized.  If Undyne or Tori or someone else who knew Frisk well told him to stay away from her, he would have no reason to wonder.  He would have no reason to hope.  It was...more frightening than he wanted to admit.

Capn Undie 7:58 PM OI BONEHEAD!!!! ARE YOU ASLEEP???

You 8:05 PM Nah They look cool Thanks for the pics

Capn Undie 8:07 PM YEAH!!!  They clean up nice, don’t they? Hey, Attie wants to stop by your station after this.

You 8:10 PM You wanna let a kid go tramping down the mountain in the dark and the cold? Also it just started snowing Again

Capn Undie 8:19 PM Fishsticks Frisk got pulled into a meeting Maybe another time BUT I’m gonna take LOTS more pictures So many pictures it’s gonna BLOW YOUR PHONE UP But I’m NOT gonna send them to you YET I HAVE A PLAN GO VISIT ALPHYS SOON I PUT UP WITH HER FOR AN HOUR AND I WON’T LET IT GO TO WASTE

You 8:31 PM Fine

Sans groaned.  He’d been putting off going to see Alphys as long as possible (her broken surveillance equipment was still burning a hole in his inventory), but it looked like his luck had run out.  He really did need to see her records, and if Undyne was willing to consult the Royal Scientist about something...well.  It was probably important.

Everyone knew Undyne and Alphys had hated each other for years, ever since that little incident where Alphys had ‘accidentally’ added something experimental to the captain’s tea during a meeting, and Undyne had responded by trying to get the scientist fired.  Neither had ever forgiven the other, though Alphys remained disturbingly obsessed in that odd way she tended to fixate.

Regardless, Sans had a pretty good idea of what Alphys was messing with, and he didn’t blame Undyne for her reaction.  It was one of the reasons he avoided Alphys in general.  If she was trying to dose people with what he thought she was using…

He put his head back onto the sentry station counter.  Dozing through the rest of his shift seemed like a great option.  He almost managed it, too, but a distant bark from Lesser Dog at the next station over woke him up about half an hour before the end of their shift.

Teleporting over, he evaluated the situation.  There was an abundance of dog tracks in the thin layer of snow, but Lesser Dog was...completely fine??

“Heya, LD.  Heard your alert.  What’s up?”

*Lesser Dog is fine!  And not hiding anyone!*

“Uh-huh.  Do I need to get Undyne?”

*No!*

“‘Cause you know she’ll be upset if she has to leave her party to deal with something out here.”

*Lesser Dog is not hiding anyone!*

“LD…”

A shifting under Lesser Dog’s station revealed two white pointed ears and a small black nose against the backdrop of snow.  The nose twitched, then retreated.

Lesser Dog tried - and failed - to look like he hadn’t noticed.

“And who was that?

The sentry gave a huff and woofed something Sans didn’t catch.  A sleek grey female dog and a white puppy wiggled out from under the wooden counter, ears pulled back and tails low.

It took him a moment to recognize Lesser Dog’s mate and pup.  The puppy had been born not long before Frisk fell into the Underground, and was - if Sans recalled correctly - the only survivor from his litter.  He didn’t know how long dog monsters took to grow up, but the pup was still in stripes.  So...longer than actual dogs, then.

“Celebratin’ Takersfaire, then?”

*Yes,* the female woofed.  *Darker Dog was a bad girl for bringing Tiny Dog up here.  Sorry.  Please do not report Lesser Dog to fish-captain.*

The sadistic part of Sans wanted to, just because it was funny watching the dogs squirm.  Besides, he knew Undyne wouldn’t be too hard on them; she needed every available sentry, she didn’t believe in dusting kids, and it wouldn’t make sense to punish Darker Dog when the other two were off the hook.

“Eh, don’t worry about it.  You helpin’ your dad keep an eye out for humans, pup?”

Tiny Dog yipped excitedly.  He clearly shared none of his parents’ concerns about consequences.

“As long as everyone’s safe.  Hey, let me know if you run into any trouble, ‘kay, LD?”

Lesser Dog woofed his surprised agreement and gave his mate a fond lick on the mouth.  Sans immediately retreated back to his own station; the dogs were notoriously shameless when it came to PDA, and he did not need to see that.

He’d just sat down and settled in when his phone buzzed again.  He unlocked it, expecting to see more pictures from Undyne, but was instead greeted by the harsh and imposing features of his younger brother.

Boss 1:44 AM IN YOUR ABSENCE, I HAVE SUCCESSFULLY DEFENDED OUR BOOTH!! *1 picture message received

Boss had decorated the booth himself over the past week, entirely without Sans’s help (for once).  It was black and appeared to be covered in tiny white painted bones of various kinds.  Whatever Boss’s flaws, he had a good eye for style...and a lot of patience with things that held his attention.

An elaborate bone display was set up on and around the booth.  A few plates of something (lasagna, maybe) were barely visible through the latticework, but he couldn’t quite make it out.

You 1:48 AM Nice boss

Boss 1:54 AM I WILL HAVE NONE OF YOUR SLANDER!!! I AM NOT A NICE MONSTER!! I AM CRUEL AND FEARED BY ALL, HUMAN AND MONSTER!! THE GREAT AND TERRIBLE PAPYRUS, SCOURGE OF THE UNDERGROUND!! AND ALSO THE SURFACE!!

You 1:59 AM Right of course

Boss 2:01 AM NATURALLY, I AM CORRECT!!

“I’m here to take over for ya,” said a gruff voice.

Sans pocketed his phone and looked up.  “Heya, Doggo.”

Doggo tensed when he stopped moving.  “What?  Hello?  Ya still here?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Grrrrr.  Get out of here, bone bag.”

Sans smirked and walked back towards the barrier.  As soon as he was clear, he teleported straight home.  He didn’t care if Boss punished him for it; two six-hour shifts back to back were exhausting enough without having to walk an hour back into town.

He fell asleep to dreams of a little skeleton girl in a pink dress who kept burying him in leaf piles, and asking him why he was crying on such a happy day.