#the most random delusions. hallucinations of voices and sometimes figures

[geothefafa]

growing up as a child with severe hallucinations was wild.. the whole time you're becoming a person and adjusting to reality and learning how the world works but you're thrown a secret curveball that no one else knows about or can warn you about because no one else can see it happening. and should you express any signs of genuine distress or confusion over something imaginary, it's called "over active imagination" or "imaginary friends" and its all cute to adults until theyre losing sleep at night because the kid is too scared to sleep alone- but even sleeping between mom and dad still doesnt feel safe because every night feels like a horror movie where only you can see the monsters that want you dead. but its not real! and you have to listen to mom and dad when they say that! but they dont get it! no one ever gets it! it doesnt go away when you close your eyes! the visions get horrific and grotesque even by adult standards but no one listens! just go back to bed it was just a nightmare :) but the truth was you never fall asleep first.

[yoonyia]

you know the worst part about having psychosis isn't the hallucinations itself but the vivid memory delusions you have

your brain will just come up with an event and be convinced it's real for years

and sometimes it does this fucked up thing by somehow making you remember remembering it?

like you recall thinking about this memory

because usually when I try and figure out if my memory is fake I try and remember if I ever thought about it before

it fucking sucks man

then later when you're not having an active bout of pyschosis you realize your brain was bullshitting but now you told like 3 people about it and it's just part of your identity now even if its super inconsequential

i like the hallucinations

the voices I believe to be rather pleasant and without the extra sensory input my brain would go inactive or fall asleep or just generally be underestimated or over stimulated constantly (sometimes hallucinations blocks out or distracts from a real sensory overload)

but the not being able to trust your own memory thing is so bad to deal with

AND SOMETIMES PEOPLE WILL CALL YOU A LIAR

CAUSE THEY KNOW THAT IM LYING

but I dont??? I can't tell?? I'm sorry if I get defensive and say I'm not lying because I really am not. In my brain it's real

my brain is a fucking liar

we have a bad work relationship

I hate her but what can we do

I need some people to understand that when people with pyschosis or schizophrenia seemingly lie about something or do random unexplainable things there's probably a reason

I sometimes jump or duck randomly because someone asked me to

but to most people I'm just going insane

SOMEONE TOLD ME TO DO IT MAN HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW IT WASENT REAL

anyways it's 3 21 and I'm tired I'm going to try and sleep

[hahanoiwont]

@bluerose2017 replied to this post: I feel that Frisk would get along so well with the more murder type sanses. Like Dust Sans from Dusttale, Nightmare, Killer, and Error. Frisk would understand their motives for being the bad guys.

Yes!!! oh boy, yes. ok ok let's go down a really self-indulgent path with this, alright? we're about to have good fun. which i will put under a cut bc it may get long. (EDIT: haha yeah it got long. multiverse shenanigans ahoy)

so let's say Frisk follows the path from Fall Into Grace. They go straight to Horrortale, and they stay there for a bit--sure, Ht!Sans starts out hostile, but the both of them slowly learn to trust each other. By inches, they try to come to understand each other. They both have in common that they were lurched from a deeply violent society into Regular Undertale (but spooky); they both clearly broadcast their trust issues, and therefore can work on them together. At the end of Horrortale, they're planning on sticking it out together on the Surface.

Then Frisk disappears. In Horrortale, their disappearance is while Sans is looking elsewhere--it's just like HT!Frisk's disappearance originally, except this time, they got everyone to the Surface first.

So now, Horror is having his triggers stomped on. Not a fan. He wonders at first if this is just what happens--maybe Frisk is meant to disappear, and HT!Frisk didn't mean to abandon the Underground to its fate. Maybe Frisk isn't a human at all, but some sort of apparition that appears periodically and vanishes just as quick. Maybe he's still starving and it's all a delusion his mind made for him as he's dying.

Or maybe Red crashes through, absolutely ready to shoot first and ask questions later. And suddenly Horror has his answers. Alternate universes. Obviously. Very stabby alternate universes.

Frisk, meanwhile, lands in Dusttale.

Dusttale, to my knowledge, is the AU where the human (whether it's Frisk, Chara, or the player is unclear to me) does genocide after genocide, resetting dozens or hundreds of times until not only does Sans remember, he also goes insane. Given the inevitability of all his friends dying, and how his low stats prevent him from fighting the human until they've killed enough people that his karma effect becomes useful, he decides he's going to kill everyone, gain the LV for it, and then kill the human as soon as they come around.

This is not a great situation for Frisk to be wandering into. Given that they're nearly identical (clothing aside) to their Dusttale counterpart, and Sans is insane anyway, they're not likely to see mercy in this world. Frisk walks in, sees that Sans is crazy, dies, walks in, sees that Sans is crazy, dies, walks in...

Eventually, a la WT!Swapfell, Frisk figures out the right ways to dodge as much as possible of the initial ambush; but they can survive for minutes at a time, if that. This Sans's stats are hopelessly inflated, and he doesn't play fair. It comes down to their DETERMINATION versus his, in a mirror of the same struggle that drove him crazy in the first place. This time, Sans is inevitably killing every monster, and Frisk is the one who can't save them. But, in a conflict of interests like this, Frisk is always going to win--they have an unfair advantage, straight out. They're simply more DETERMINED.

Eventually, Sans is stumbling bleakly through his genocide, disassociated to the point of hardly understanding what he's doing and why. He kills people because he kills people. He has a vague certainty that he's keeping them safe, but he doesn't understand how. He knows that he used to be different. He knows this is somehow Frisk's fault. But his ability to remember across RESETs is being buried under his inability to think straight under the massive trauma. He doesn't understand why he's killing his brother. He knows he doesn't want to. He knows that Frisk can probably tell him, but he also needs to kill Frisk very quickly, before they can gain EXP from...the piles of dust?...because there are no surviving monsters to kill.

He finally stops before killing Frisk and asks them why. Why are they making him do this over and over again? Why are they looking at him like that? Why is everyone dead? Why, when he's felt so numb for so long, does it still feel like it hurts?

Frisk has no idea why this Sans has killed everyone. Months have passed in increments of a day or less, as Sans swiftly and efficiently executes all of his neighbors. He's learned every place that people will go, and he shows up where the most people are congregated at a given point in time, leaving nothing but dust by the time Frisk gets through the Ruins. They've never gotten out in time to save a single monster. They're pretty sure Sans is possessed, or something, because this isn't something he would ever do (insert irony with Red's desire to kill literally everyone in Underfell).

When Sans doesn't kill them right out the gate, as it were, they begin to hope that whatever has been forcing him to do this has let go, or at least worn out enough that he's beginning to fight through it. They're not totally wrong--whatever is left of Sans is waking up, a little bit, as he leaves behind his scripted execution.

Frisk goes to Dust and tries to hold him, rocking back and forth like Red would do for them when they woke up out of a nightmare. He almost kills them for it, but what's the point? They'd just come back, and Dust would have to kill everyone one more time. He's tired. He lets them do what they want. It mostly makes him feel worse, but he doesn't stop them.

There's a strong parallel here to Going Big; Going Home. In that story, Red went into a deep depression spiral for months following his realization that he couldn't bring himself to kill every monster in existence even if it would save his brother; in this story, Dust has killed everyone already and no longer sees any point in much of anything, struggling to understand what has happened to him and why he did what he did. He wants to Fall Down quietly, but his newfound stats and his desire to survive until he's sure Frisk is dead won't let him. Also, Frisk is standing in his way.

Seeing as Dust is apparently going to be docile and passive for the time being, Frisk takes his hand and walks him through Snowdin.

They see a vision of a massacre.

Piles of dust, items lying around as if people just dropped dead in the middle of whatever they were doing. Doors are hanging open from where people went to greet their friendly neighborhood skeleton and ask what he was knocking for, only to die in seconds. The Underground was only somewhat prepared for a human to go through and get violent, and they weren't prepared at all for one of their own to kill them. Frisk sees every evidence of a very efficient, merciless slaughter. Dust is looking blankly at it all, like he can't quite put together what it means.

Frisk gets a strong feeling that they shouldn't visit their brothers' home.

Instead, they bring him to a cabin far removed from town, visible only from Glyde's ledge, and push him to sit in a wooden armchair. They pat his hand to tell him to stay there while they look through the cabin for dust. They don't find any. Dust could have told them they wouldn't, except that he's having trouble finding his voice right now. He waits where they put him until they give him the all clear.

He's supposed to watch the human. They're supposed to be doing something for him to watch them for. But the kid in front of him seems mostly interested in holding his hand and trying to smile for him. He sits in stasis, with his drive all run out but without anything else to turn to.

The first week is mostly silent. Frisk doesn't speak, and doesn't really communicate anything that Dust would need a response for. Dust chats with his hallucination of Papyrus sometimes, but since Frisk can't see him, the conversations end there.

On a given day, Frisk will set Dust up in the chair with a book that they've decided he'd like, sometimes with a blanket or a glass of milk to go with it, and they'll venture out to the Underground. Dust will shadow them from a distance as they investigate for survivors. There aren't any. They'll come home with some supplies and fill up the cupboards. Dust will already be there, right where they left him, with the book opened up to a random different page than before. If it's towards the end of the book, Frisk will decide that he liked it and try to find more books of that kind.

They'll go to the kitchen and try to put something together for dinner, and Dust will take all the cooking implements from them and actually make the thing they're trying at. He silently revokes their cooking privileges when they try to shatter a bottle of vinegar into a salad. Papyrus says he should have just eaten it. He also says that Dust is infecting Frisk with his horrible tastes in food, just like he's probably infecting them with the dust on his hands. How long until they're a killer like him? Dust tries to argue that they were the killer in the first place, but the words ironically die in his mouth. The truth is bitter, and he's not even sure what it is anymore.

After that, Frisk is allowed to taste test and get ingredients, and otherwise they're watching with their eyes and not their hands.

Once the food is eaten and cleaned up, Frisk will bring out something for the two of them to do together. Board games, card games, hangman, puzzles. Frisk always deals for two. Dust doesn't see a point in fighting them on it, which Frisk decides is a very hopeful sign. Sometimes he breaks the rules and just sort of moves one thing to another spot blindly, but he is moving!

Frisk usually wins these games on account of being the only one paying attention, but since they let him keep his illegal moves, he wins Sorry by sorta pushing his pawns into his safety zone on the fourth turn. After the game, Frisk always decides it's bedtime, gives Dust another book, and leads him to a bedroom, where they leave him to take it from there. Rinse and repeat the next morning.

The second week, Dust starts glancing at the titles of the books he's given, and maybe the summary if it seems interesting. He tells them not to bring him encyclopedias anymore. They bring him a dictionary instead. It takes him four minutes to decide whether killing them is an appropriate response.

(Verdict: no. It wouldn't make a difference, anyway.)

The third week, he walks with them on an outing. Frisk steers away from population centers and takes a back way through Waterfall to look at the lights. They sit there in silence--even Papyrus is quiet. The echo flowers have each had their messages replaced with a single, loud clap. Nobody says, "Why are you doing this? What--Sans, wait, wait--!"

The fourth week, Dust starts reading the books he's supposedly been reading all day during the night. It's weird to feel bored in the ashes of civilization. He tells Frisk short, single-sentence descriptions of the more interesting ones. They seem happy. Dust is pretty sure there's some sort of Stockholm syndrome going on here, but he's not sure which way it goes.

One universe over, Red and Horror are searching through a universe that seems like it's had some extradimensional interference, but it can't possibly be the one Frisk is in, because it's a dead Underground. As far as they can tell, there are no survivors. Still, they keep coming back to it--it's the only potential positive they've found. And even though the universe seems to be a dead end, things keep moving in it--a book vanished here, a cupboard rearranged there. It's like someone is very stealthily looting the place.

After seven weeks of quiet, routine days with quiet, routine ups and downs, Dust is taking charge of a few things. He tells Frisk what groceries to get, and decides what to make for meals. He's attempting his first joke in a long time when he dryly bans Monopoly forever, but somewhat to his surprise, Frisk listens. The Monopoly board doesn't come out again. He's not sure what to make of this--that the person who drove him crazy is the person who's trying to make him sane. Most of the time, he chooses to forget that there's anything but this. Two people exist in the world, and one of them is an unstoppable killer and the other is a patient, even-tempered pacifist. He can't even tell which one is which anymore. It's whatever.

Left to his own devices, Dust may have spent years or longer like that. The Underground may not have the resources to sustain all of its inhabitants without things like farmers or energy, but it's got plenty for two people. But Frisk writes a very short letter for him, saying, can we try again? Can you not kill Papyrus? I miss him and I want him to be alive.

Well, with an argument like that.

Dust doesn't really want to see a RESET. It feels like it isn't worth it, having everyone alive again just to watch them die. Even if Frisk doesn't kill them, who's to say Dust won't? Even if he doesn't kill them, who's to say that Frisk won't, either? Maybe the Underground will just cave in. Dust is sure he can't have that life again, surrounded by living people when even Frisk and his hallucinations seem like a crowd sometimes. He's pretty sure his LV stopped going down a few RESETs ago. He doesn't think he can be Sans again.

Eventually, he decides it doesn't really matter what he wants. Frisk will do whatever they want and there's nothing he can do to stop them.

After the RESET, Dust wakes up to his brother's voice, telling him it's time to start the day, and also his brother's ghost, already with him as always. He goes to the square just to see if he's gonna lose it and kill everyone, and now that he's looking, he notices the split-second flinches when people recognize him. Most of them don't even notice it in themselves, but they know he's something dangerous. He heads to the Ruins door and waits.

It's easier once Frisk comes out. No one in the Ruins is dead. Dust and Frisk both didn't kill them, this time around. If he sticks really close to Frisk, he can pretend everyone's apprehension is just for the human in their midst. After all, Frisk is just as much a killer as he is. It's not his fault his LV's stuck at 20.

Frisk has a tough time making friends. The people of the Underground seem to expect them to be some terrifying killer, and everyone seems to want to protect each other by killing Frisk. It doesn't help that Dust doesn't like people in his space much, and flashes his spooky-eye look at anyone who gets within about three feet of the two of them. They're not quite sure who he thinks he's protecting, but they trust him to have good reasons to do what he does.

The only time Dust leaves their side for any significant period is when they're with the real, alive Papyrus, who frets about his brother. Sans has gone missing, he explains, but no one will believe him because they've all seen him around. But he hasn't come home. People who don't come home are missing. So Sans is missing. He's certainly missing dinner, and Papyrus needs to get him to come home before he eats nothing but ketchup and grease for his meals. Frisk knows their own Papyrus well enough to see what he isn't saying--that Papyrus needs to get him to come home before anything bad can happen to him. That Sans disappearing when he seems so listless and blank can't be a good thing. That Papyrus is scared for his brother.

Dust can't stand to see his living brother. The idea puts him in a cold sweat. If Papyrus is living, then Papyrus can die. He prefers the phantom--cruel as he is, at least he'll never leave Dust alone. Dust can never hurt him and never kill him. Frisk can't even see him. As long as Dust is alive to see him, Papyrus's ghost is safe.

When Frisk breaks the Barrier, Dust disappears quickly afterwards. They find him standing alone a little farther down the cliffside, isolating himself; and they grab his hand again like they always do, to bring him back home. They're surprised when they fall out of the world--they almost forgot. They'd almost hoped it wouldn't happen.

Dust doesn't try to stop them. Just like always, he follows them through. He kind of hopes for oblivion, for an end to choices that he always makes into mistakes, but he's not so lucky. He wakes up to Frisk's frantic shaking in a patch of flowers far Underground. This is Underswap, and Dust is about to have a horrible day.

I think in this AU, I'm going to leave Killer's story--mostly because I don't know his backstory very well, just that he's Nightmare's right hand man and assorted other factoids. And since Nightmare isn't technically a Sans, just the embodiment of negative emotions, his universe wouldn't even be in the running for Frisk to land in--similarly, I am too charmed by Error's story to change it. So here's where I think this goes from here.

Nightmare arrives in Horrortale, intending to recruit Horror. The guy's life is miserable, there's no reason for him not to hop out of his universe to cause mayhem as long as it's better than starving. But the universe isn't the same anymore. Nightmare considers wrecking stuff in order to snack off of negative emotions, but Horror and Red are scanning the hell out of the universe, so Horror is able to pick up on a hole being punched in it and appear in a matter of minutes. He asks why Nightmare is here, and Nightmare says honestly that he was here to recruit him as part of a small team to complete certain missions, embodiment of negativity, eternal struggle in the multiverse between Nightmare and Dream, food and five-star lodging provided, etc. But it seems like he's got something going here, so...?

Nightmare is honestly fairly impressed that someone noticed him entering the universe so quickly, and he's hoping Horror may still be interested. It's too bad that Nightmare can't get Horror's lifelong trust and allegiance by rescuing him from a bad situation, but he's certain he can make it work. He only has one minion as of right now, that being Killer, and he'd like to have at least one more (if only so Killer will stop bothering him when he's trying to Plot Evilly. Also, Dream has two friends to Nightmare's one minion, and Nightmare can't be lagging behind, that's just unacceptable).

Horror may not need immediate rescue himself, but he sure knows someone who does. He asks a few careful questions about the multiverse--would i be able to visit other universes on my own? Yes. am i allowed to interfere with other universes? Encouraged, even. Especially where spreading misery is concerned. can i take someone out of a universe if they don't belong in it? What an oddly specific question. Nightmare is beginning to think he'll have a way to endear himself to Horror, after all.

Horror dismisses his questions as mostly being about the job he'll be doing--after all, if he's fighting people who travel between universes, of course he'd want to know if there are ways to track people across universes, or to tell if there's someone in a universe that doesn't belong there. Nightmare lets it pass without comment for the time being, but decides to keep an eye on the situation, to try to figure out what exactly Horror is looking for. If he's willing to leave his whole life behind and set himself up for a lifetime of fighting just for a chance to find it, then Nightmare has an easy way to earn his eternal loyalty. Muahaha.

Now of course, this is all for Evil reasons and not because Nightmare isn't sure how to make people like him if he doesn't provide some service or do some great favor for them. He certainly hasn't seen people love his brother for the happiness he provides, and said "I could do that >:( I could do Good Things for people and then they would Like Me and not hate me >:( and in fact I would do it while being Very Evil so I know they'll like me for me and not just because I'm, for example, a paragon of light and hope in the multiverse >>:( and then I would have better friends than Dream. and he will be super jealous. because i will have friends who like me. so there >>>:( this is what WINNING looks like, brother >:("

Now this would leave Red in the awkward position of being in the wrong universe and also missing in his own universe. I am not sure what I want to do with him here--he could come with Horror, and just sorta hang out as a Bad Sans. I know he's not normally one, but he comes from Edgy Universe so I could see it? But also, I know canonically Error steals from Red's chocolate supply, so I think it would be kind of hilarious if Error's been pissed bc his stock isn't being replenished, being as Red isn't around to buy more. And Nightmare could just. dump Red back in Underfell. Both as a favor to Error, to try to secure his loyalties at least a little, and as a show of how Powerful and Evil he is for his brand new recruit. Both options are tempting...I am undecided. But uh, something happens with Red. He is somewhere. Horror probably wouldn't just ditch him in Horrortale on his lonesome.

Now, Horror and Killer get along alright. Killer's got the sarcastic fast-talker charm, and Horror is getting used to being able to hold conversations at a normal speed again. And both of them get along with Nightmare. Killer is witty and challenging, and Horror is loyal and hardworking and (VERY important) knows how to cook great meals. No more mediocre fried rice. Scrambled eggs are no longer mysteriously watery. It is shocking how much home life improves with good food, and Horror is a big fan of having a seemingly endless pantry. His stipulation that a portion of everything gets sent home to Papyrus is a pain at first, but it's not so bad once it gets ingrained as a normal part of mealtimes. Sometimes his Papyrus visits, and that goes about as well as meeting family members of a dear friend for the first time can go. A bit awkward, but it settles into something positive.

The only weird thing is, with every new universe, Horror insists on making sure there's no one there who isn't native to that universe before havoc can begin. It's not a huge pain or anything, and it is a good move strategically, but it's a very specific request. Once it happens enough for Killer to get curious, it isn't long until the cat's out of the bag--a story of a sibling accidentally cast aside, a world that was cruel and unfair to them, a misunderstanding that made their brother think they were horrible and abandoned him to an awful fate when actually they'd done nothing wrong, and an endless journey that never seems to point home. And Horror was willing to put aside everything to try to bring them back--if not home, then at least to somewhere safe. To build new common ground together, after the old grounds went up in flames. To understand their side of it and see that they weren't wrong even if things looked kinda bad on their end, actually everything they did was completely justified, Dream--

Suffice to say that Nightmare is sympathetic. That is, he can see the strategic advantage to helping Horror find this sibling of his, and reunite them. Because then he'll have an endlessly loyal minion, and probably also an endlessly loyal minion-in-training. Obviously. He doesn't even believe in brotherly love, so obviously it's not out of some imagined desire to see his friend family underling scrape a happy ending out of what seems like an unrecoverable falling-out (complete with literal falling, in this case) with his sibling. It's just a matter of spending a tiny amount of effort searching for a months-old trace of a magical trail that's interrupted by not existing in some parts on account of time travel.

Killer iirc can't feel much of anything but hate, but he doesn't hate Horror, and it's not like he's forgotten what emotions are entirely. He does want the guy to be happy. They're kinda buds and Horror watches obscure competition shows at 3am with him when they both can't sleep. It'd be a little awkward to have a Frisk around, but at least it's not Chara. Most people he meets on a day-to-day basis are technically versions of him, anyway, and it's not like he can't differentiate them. He'd put up with it for Horror's sake. He'll only stab them if they're possessed, probably.

Thing is, when they do find Frisk (eventually Nightmare thinks to call in a favor from Error), Frisk is traveling universe to universe with some apathetic LV 20 Sans who is still trying to figure out when murder is and isn't the way he wants to solve his problems. Namely with other Sanses, since he has enough self-hatred that he can't imagine it's much of a loss. Thing is, he fcking hates it when Frisk time-travels, and it makes Frisk miserable, too, so he can't just murder every Sans who annoys him even slightly...but most Sanses don't take kindly to some LV 20 stranger wandering through...which means everything would just be easier if they were to go missing...not like more dust on his hands is gonna make a difference, right?

But no, Frisk always insists on going back to when the local Sans was alive, and it's just a waste of time and energy. So Dust mostly doesn't kill anyone who isn't a real jerk first. Mostly.

This is the scene that Nightmare & Co come upon when they finally catch up. They have to take a moment to regroup, because who even is this guy? He never leaves Frisk's side for long (local Sanses have a tendency to ambush and kill him for being a violent lunatic if they can get him alone, and then at least one party dies, and then time travel, etc.), he talks to thin air, he's generally Kinda Creepy.

Their initial thought is to try to get Frisk alone, but Dust in this time has noticed that they're being followed by a group of very suspicious characters, and tells Frisk to go on ahead while he lurks. It comes to a pretty devastating battle, between Dust's combat prowess and the gang's equally impressive abilities (Killer having done his own geno run, Nightmare having an impressive body count and also massive raw power on account of being kind of a demigod, and Horror himself being no slouch in combat). Frisk sits over in the next room like they're in the waiting room for a dentist's office, poking at echo flowers and waiting for their brother to be done with Mysterious Errands while ignoring three separate variations of Megalovania in the background.

Then Frisk figures, wait, there are a maximum of two Sanses...but three Megalovanias...that ain't right. Also, Dust said he wasn't gonna kill the local Sans this time. He didn't promise, but he said he would try, so he really shouldn't be sneaking off to pick fights. This is the conclusion Frisk comes to about six seconds before the wall is destroyed by stray blaster fire.

What they see through the wall is Dust, teleporting right out of combat to make sure they didn't get hurt or vaporized, and out of the rubble they can make out a goopy octopus Sans, a Target Sans (which makes other Sanses...walmart brand? food for thought), and a Sans that takes a second to place, because they really weren't expecting to see Horror here. And fighting Dust. Frisk is disappointed in him.

When the dust (magical and otherwise) settles, everyone ends up having a civilized conversation by the combined forces of Frisk and Nightmare. Killer and Dust were having fun, but not much was getting accomplished with massive property damage. It comes out that Nightmare's crew was coming by to get Frisk and rescue them from their endless tumble through the multiverse (which Error claims is giving him a headache anyway), and Frisk is very happy to agree to that part, and also to go live in a cool castle "for the time being." Allegedly, they will find somewhere else to stay soon, because Nightmare is not running a daycare for wayward interdimensional youth.

Frisk's condition is that Dust has to come with them, since he's been hopping through dimensions following them for so long now that they don't know what they'd do without him. Literally, every time the Barrier comes down, he waits for the hole in the world to open, takes a couple warm-up steps, and dives through after Frisk--he hasn't found a universe he could stand to stay in, yet. He hates the idea of living among people he remembers killing over and over again. At least if he follows Frisk around, he's with someone who seems to care about him for mystery reasons, and he might some day find an AU he'd be okay with. Maybe whichever one they settle with, if they find a way to stop falling. Which, it seems like they've got an opportunity here.

Nightmare is a-okay with gathering another unhinged duckling to take under his wing and occasionally let loose on unsuspecting universes (it's enrichment!!). He's seen that Dust is a great fighter, not too broken up about collateral, and having him around will make Frisk happy and therefore Horror will also be happy, therefore eternal loyalty, profit, etc.

(It has been a long time since Nightmare has been able to make someone he loves happy. It's been even longer since it's been so easy--what's one more mouth to feed? What's one more person who thinks Nightmare is capable of good without changing who he is?)

So Dust and Frisk end up moving in and Dust takes his place with the Bad Sanses.

Now there are a million things that could happen from here--well-meaning intervention from someone who discovers these psychopaths have kidnapped an innocent person for Clearly Nefarious Reasons, an intro scene between Frisk and Error (Error mentions that he's stolen their SOUL in uncountable universes and Frisk has no notable reaction to this, which really sucks the fun out of it for Error, so they end up watching trash TV together until Horror comes in to get Frisk for supper), Red's reunion with Frisk is gonna be great in any WT spinoff and especially in this, and general family sitcom shenanigans would be fantastic (can. can Dream babysit Frisk while everyone else is out. Nightmare absolutely forbids it bc Dream is a bad influence he doesn't like his people meeting Dream bc what if they like Dream more than they like Nightmare but what if it happens anyway. Ink wanders through while Error is babysitting and decides to Help, leading to an awkward day out with the Star Sanses, most of whom do not know Frisk at all. Ink forgets exactly who he's babysitting for and assumes they'll just come by and pick Frisk up eventually, which does happen, but there are a lot more accusations of kidnapping going around than is really necessary. Frisk and Blue are happy to see each other again at least).

Anyway this is,, a fantastic idea. rife with opportunity. I love it so much thank you for proposing it. wow,,

[twotruegentlemen-blog]

(Alright I’m gonna take a break from canon analysis of Alfendi to talk about my headcanoned past for him. Mainly because I know it’s going to come up at some point, and, well, I finally have a birth name for Al.

Three years after the events of Unwound Future, a young boy named Alfendi Galloway was born.

Rowena and Marius Galloway were thrilled when they took home their newborn son, who they named Alfendi. Rowena was a bit of an older woman, and she had frequent memory issues with information just learned, as well as difficulties focusing on tasks. Marius doted on her and assisted her as much as he could. The three lived in a little house in Baskerville, a town known for its cold temperatures and deep mines.

Alfendi was happy as he grew up, though his curious mind often got him into things his parents didn’t want him in, such as the cabinets, the dryer, and one time, the top of the fridge. His parents sought to stimulate his wandering mind as much as possible, and gifted him books for his birthday. Alfendi barely came out of his room after that, being so engrossed in the books.

Rowena’s memory problems began to get worse, and one day she told Marius that their friend Horacio stopped by that day to borrow their wheelbarrow. Marius told her that Horacio had been at work with him all day, and couldn’t have possibly stopped by when she said he did. These kinds of incidents continued, where Rowena talked about events that never happened.

Then she would hear voices. Sometimes she heard Alfendi calling for her, scared and alone. Other times she heard their neighbor Katrine singing outside.Yet, none of these events ever occurred. Rowena’s health got worse and worse, and as she grew sicker, the hallucinations were stronger... and more dangerous.

----

Six years after Alfendi was born, a bizarre string of disappearances occurred in their quiet town. Several families cried that their children were missing, and no one knew where they had last been. This caused the whole town to be on-edge, and the children were heavily restricted in their movements.

Alfendi didn’t like that. He didn’t like being trapped inside all day. So he often escaped out the window and hung out with the town’s orphaned children, who looked up to his bravado and intelligence, despite him being younger than most of them. It was then Alfendi learned the back streets of his town and committed them to memory.

It was also around this time where Marius disappeared. Rowena told Alfendi that he was on a trip, and that he’d be back soon.

Then the Beast arrived.

It was a hulking, black figure with a thousand arms and vicious teeth. It chased down kids at night, and any child that got caught was never seen again. The other kids could only assume that they got eaten. Alfendi suddenly became the other kids’ caretaker, as he would make sure that everyone was either safe inside their homes or in secret coves the orphans created before set, when the Beast would come looking for its next meal. Suddenly, the Beast became a living legend in Baskerville, and fear took over everyone’s minds.

Scotland Yard’s investigations turned up dry, and they didn’t take the towns’ cries of a Beast very seriously. Rowena took it upon herself to call someone, anyone who could solve this mystery; her search lead her to Professor Hershel Layton. Along with his former apprentice and now studying veterinarian Luke Triton and his renowned fencer and daughter Flora Reinhold, Layton traveled to Baskerville in order to solve the mystery behind the Beast and the missing children.

The trio soon met up with Alfendi Galloway and his little gang of street orphans and other families’ children. While the rest were scared, Alfendi put on a clear show of bravery and swore to protect them all, and that no one was going to become Beast-snacks. Of course, Layton could tell just how terrified Alfendi truly was, despite his maturity for his age.

After a lengthy investigation and multiple close calls with the Beast itself, Layton finally managed to deduce the its identity.

Rowena Galloway.

Rowena had severe, undiagnosed schizophrenia, and had been experiencing relatively harmless hallucinations and delusions for years. When the voices she heard started getting more powerful, they told her to do awful things, such as destroy property or steal from her neighbors. The worst one was when they told her to kill her husband and child. Rowena, on a terribly-strong night for the voices, went out and killed one of the other families’ children in order to satiate the urge and not kill her own child. It didn’t work; so she tried again, and again, and eventually resorting to chasing them while wrapped in a shredded blanket, which gave her the moniker of the Beast, with its thousand ‘arms’--just pieces of fabric in the wind. She was also responsible for Marius’ disappearance--hallucinating at the time and believing him to be a threat, Rowena accidentally killed him, and, in order to prevent suspicion on her and not scar Alfendi, dragged his body to the mines and threw him down. She later did the same with the other childrens’ bodies.

Rowena was involuntarily committed to a mental hospital in order to get treatment for her severe schizophrenia. The childrens’ bodies were collected, and were to be given a proper burial.

Alfendi’s father was dead, and his mother was taken away. The other kids were beginning to be wary around him because he was the son of the Beast. He was alone.

Until Layton and Flora conversed, and they asked Alfendi a question: “Do you want to come live with Mr. Layton?”

Having gotten close with Layton, Luke, and Flora over the course of their adventure and not wanting to be given to some other, random family, Alfendi accepted. Though he was rather slow to warm up and adapt to London life, after a few months, Alfendi started referring to himself not as Alfendi Galloway, but Alfendi Layton. Flora was his older sister, and Luke was his uncle. 

Of course, he still missed Rowena Galloway. He missed Mother. But Mother did something bad, something really scary. He didn’t want to see her, but he missed her. And he missed Father, too. But he knew Father--Marius Galloway--was never coming back. Layton was his new father then, right?

For Alfendi’s 7th birthday, Hershel Layton presented Alfendi with an official certificate of adoption. The name on it now read “Alfendi Layton.”

[diaryofasmallghost-blog]

Background

OK so quick update: Landed a cool job on a TV show that was out of town for a week. It was amazing and I made some great connections, but I also got into a car accident on the way there (my dumbass fault) and can’t afford my deductible to fix my car. At least it is just cosmetic, but I feel like such a ghetto bitch driving around with a jacked up car. Between that job and another random gig I did for the marketing company I freelance for I have at least enough $ for my bills the next month, but I’m still trying to get more work so I can contribute to rent and fix my car and other things. 

Now, a little background on what I went through in the last year and a half for some perspective:

I was living a pretty good life in Southern CA. I had a dog (still have her), lived in a house with cool roommate, was going to film school, working full time at a job I didn’t really like but wasn’t terrible. Also did some freelance stuff for a marketing company. I had dealt with depression before but never got any sort of treatment and was feeling pretty good at this time. My mom has been sick for a long time and had gotten to the point where I felt like I should move back home to help with her and the house and to be able to spend time with my mom and family. Both my younger sister and dad told me that she wasn’t doing well and they thought I should move back which I really took to heart (my dad apparently doesn’t remember this). Anyways, I quit my job and moved home. I figured out how to enroll in school over there quickly because I really wanted to stick with that. So I ended up having to get a loan for out of state tuition. I knew I wanted to move back to Southern CA at some point and was trying not to lose my CA residency while I was out of town, so I avoided getting a job over there but luckily I had enough work with the marketing company that works with movie studios to pay my bills while I was there. I was actually making a LOT of money and getting everyone I liked in school cool jobs too. 

The situation at my house was very tense. My mom has either very severe Parkinsons disease or Multiple System Atrophy depending on what doctor you ask, apparently “there’s no way to know for sure until autopsy”. The main difference is people with MSA survive 10 years tops. She’s had a brain surgery that just made her condition worse. At this point, she couldn’t speak clear enough for anyone to understand her and couldn’t walk among other serious problems. So I would try to keep the house clean, help with any errands, keep my mom company and be patient trying to understand her and have conversations with her. She actually cried and said that I was the only one who listened to her once. I understand it can be really frustrating to try to understand her at all and it is easier to just walk away, but I also know how it must be a million times more frustrating to my mom to not be able to communicate. 

My dad was having a really hard time with my mom being sick as well and not dealing with it well. He’s also had his health issues (brain tumor and 2 brains surgeries, not cancerous but in a dangerous spot). He retired to be there and take care of my mom. Now my dad is an amazing person and a great father, incredibly smart and funny and just all around awesome. But he was very frustrated and angry with the whole situation,understandably. He would snap at me, my mom, and sister, go around yelling and cussing at the top of his lungs, and was just generally very unpleasant to be around. It was to the point where sometimes I’d go sleep in my car for a few days at a time to avoid being around him. 

So anyways, after a few month of living there I guess the stress really got to me and triggered something dormant in my brain (says my psychiatrist). I remember it starting with me reading some books like the secret and think and grow rich by Napoleon Hill. It was about the law of attraction and thinking positive thoughts. So I tried to control every single thought I had and make them all positive. I started looking at what successful people had in common and put those things into practice as well. These were things like exercising, drinking water constantly, eating healthy,waking up early, volunteering for charities. I for some reason decided to re-launch a clothing line that I had had that went out of business and started working on a new business plan. Then suddenly I was having trouble sleeping. I tried everything including medication but no matter what I just could not sleep. As the sleepless days went on, I started to have constant racing thoughts. At first I thought I was just excited about the business and I had so many ideas, I started carrying a notebook and constantly writing my ideas. I would lay down every night trying to sleep, but have to jot something down every couple of minutes and never get any sleep. But I felt great!! I was “healthier” than ever in my mind. I had so much energy despite not sleeping for days. I cleaned and organized EVERYTHING. I went out to eat at places by myself and sat at the bar and made friends with whoever was sitting next to me (normally I’m pretty shy) and they would even pay for my meals sometimes. I felt super confident, which is something I’ve always struggled with. I was incredibly happy, I thought “is this what it’s like to not be depressed?” Then the constant racing thoughts became more and more delusional. I got really into the Illuminati and wanting to join them because I thought they were the most successful people. I also did a lot of research on how to win the lottery and thought the two were connected. I thought that my dad was in the illuminati because I saw him as very successful. I thought that in order to join the Illuminati, you had to know someone from the illuminati and that they would give you “tests” to pass, and if you pass them all then you’re in. I also thought it was VERY secret and that you weren’t supposed to know you were being tested or talk about it to ANYONE or else they would kill you or trick you into killing yourself. This is probably why no one noticed my mental illness for a little while, I was keeping all my crazy thoughts secret. Although I’m sure they noticed my weird behavior. So I thought that every stranger I saw was secretly a spy for the Illuminati and that I was constantly being watched and talked about, I thought my house and car were bugged and they were always listening. I had so many delusions I can’t even keep track of them all or list them all. I was completely detached from reality, had no idea what was real and what was in my mind. I remember thinking something was wrong with me because I didn’t know what was real but I didn’t know what. I thought maybe it was that my family and I were secretly vampires and my mom was sick from not drinking enough blood or getting enough sleep, because vampires don't NEED sleep but they're healthier if they do sleep ( I didn't sleep for 5 days straight). I sat my parents down and talked to them saying something was wrong with me, are we vampires, was I born a boy, did I have multiple personality disorder, are my thoughts my thoughts or am I actually hearing voices speaking to me, etc. They thought I was on drugs and I admitted I smoked weed to try to calm me down but this wasn’t like being high from weed, I smoked secretly for a year or so and could tell this wasn't from weed. Weed just made me sleepy and I just wanted some sleep. But anyways my dad is very against drugs and thought oh she’s just high and told me to go to sleep and I’d feel better in the morning. So in my mind, I took it as if he didn’t want to admit my illuminati theory was true and it must be real. I continued to have delusions for awhile in secret. I couldn’t leave the house unless I was wearing green to keep me safe from someone shooting me. I was trying to pass all these “tests” I made up in my mind. I texted my boss from the marketing company some very crazy stuff during this time as well. 

One day, I went to get lunch with my dad at my favorite pizza place. I became frustrated with trying to pass these tests and out of nowhere I just slammed my phone on the ground as hard as I could to prove I don’t care about money or material things. I threw my drink across the restaurant and walked into the kitchen, took off my shirt, and asked the worker if he thought I was crazy. I think I was really desperately reaching out for help in a way. The confused employee said “No, why would I think that?” and then my dad yelled at me to put my shirt on and dragged me out of there. He was yelling at me in the car and calling me stupid, asking if I realized what I had done. I was very confused and just answered “No??” I thought maybe I failed the test and now he had to kill me or something. He brought me to a psychiatrists office and I thought I was on the set of the Ellen show. I was hallucinating that all of the stuff on the walls was about me and my clothing line. I wandered around looking for the hair and makeup department until they told me to sit and wait for my private jet to take me to the Ellen show. They ended up telling my dad to take me to the hospital to make sure nothing was physically wrong with me. I still thought I was going through tests and that the hospital staff was in on it. They asked me to give a urine sample. One of the things going on in my head at the time was paying attention to signs, literal and figuratively, so I placed huge significance on any signs I saw. Well there was a sign in the bathroom that said something about throwing away the urine cups when you’re done in the red bin, so I thought I was supposed to pee in the cup and put it in the red bin. So I opened the door and theres like 4 nurses and my dad waiting for my urine sample. They asked for it and I told them I threw it in the red bin. So they made me do it again, and again I put it in the red bin. Then they got really mad at me and grabbed me and bent my wrist back really hard and dragged me to a room. I was laughing thinking it was ridiculous and asking why they were hurting me. Next they gave me a  shot in my leg of Ativan and I don’t remember anything after that until I woke up in a mental institution. I still had no clue what was going on or where I was. I thought that I was in Purgatory and had to figure out what I did wrong to get there and how to leave. In reality I could have left at any time by simply walking out the door as it was a voluntary place, I guess I agreed to go after all the drugs they gave me at the hospital. I did convince my dad to come get me after a few days even though looking back I shouldn’t have been able to leave that place yet. So anyways, thats how I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. At first I was still confused and didn’t believe my diagnosis, but I was seeing a therapist and a psychiatrist once a week and through some trial and error got on proper medication. I was still unstable for a couple of months and even had a suicide attempt and another incident that ended with me getting a 5150. That means that police officers decided I was a danger to myself or others and took me in the back of a squad car to a hospital where I was placed on an involuntary 3 day hold. I’ll probably write more about what happened but this is getting too long.

My parents ended up selling their house and going to stay in their other house for 6 months that was in another far away state shortly after all of this. So I decided to take that opportunity and move back to Southern CA (wasn’t easy!). I’ve now been here for a year and 2 weeks and haven’t really had any other mental issues besides some minor depression. I pretty much think about everything that happened to me every day though. I almost feel traumatized by it, but at the same time I just find it extremely fascinating. I’m kind of working on making a documentary about bipolar disorder right now too, which is cool because I’ve been meeting other people who have bipolar disorder and interviewing them about their experiences which are similar to mine. I would really like to be an advocate and help end the negative stigma surrounding mental illness. I want to help people who are going through what I went through.