interstellar5555 | ☆TRACK X: PLAY ALONG

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☆TRACK X: PLAY ALONG

Who: Everyone!
What: Vista City amps up for Pride and Virgo's WORLD TOUR with HYPE WEEK.
When: May 1st - May 5th 2055
Where: Various places in Vista City
Warnings: Could be anything.

“Try to make it look like it's all somehow getting better,
'Cause I know how to play it pretty good against the measure.
Everyone started out a little insane,
But we learn pretty quick how to fake it for the game.”

☆PLAY ALONG

Hype Week is less an official label event, and more something that the media has created in response to a particularly odd situation. Pride and Virgo appear to be functioning in unison - launching separate world tours on practically the same date, launching vast quantities of new material and media events, and making a point of never mentioning or acknowledging the actions of the other. Could this be some kind of collaborative event? A viral marketing campaign? No one is really sure, but the local economy is happy to capitalize on it in order to make it as big of a city-wide ordeal as possible.

For musicians, this means all kinds of event that they have to attend and cooperate with - everything from photo shoots, to signing, to music video premiers. For rescuers, this means one last opportunity to track down those still trapped before they are whisked away on a world spanning journey. Events that will be happening:

► NEW SINGLES: Hot new singles are getting released by bands all over the place. While actual concerts and performances are not actually happening much during the hype period, each band is probably releasing at least one new single and hyping it all to hell with one song performances here and there on TV and the like. You can have fun defining that single for your band, or leave it ambiguous! Up to you.

► PANELS AND INTERVIEWS: Musicians will get carted all over to various talk shows and public question panel events - a lot of questions will be asked about the World Tour and its specifics, of which the musicians themselves seem to know very little. This goes for the veterans as much as it does the fledglings.

► MUSIC VIDEO PREMIERS: In which a bunch of fancy music people go to fancy theaters and watch all the new music videos for the new singles, and then write articles about this. This is also something you are welcome to create specifics for.

► SIGNINGS AND PUBLIC APPEARANCES: While many of the veterans and doing things like autobiographical books signings and what not, the newer musicians are more likely to just be signing millions of World Tour specific posters and CD releases. Its quite likely that they are going to be totally run down after all these appearances and preparations - try to stay awake at the table!

► WORLD TOUR PREMIER: This will be covered in a second log a few days from now. For now, the musicians are just being prepped for a music festival to end all music festivals, that will start May 5th and cover the entire weekend. They've been practicing rigorously all month - they'll have to hope they have the stamina to make it to the actual performance.

All the while, Gold and Silver have been mysteriously absent. Silver has been here and there, handing out supplies and necessary tech, but guidance for rescuers has been minimal. Gold hasn't been seen at all.

Part way into the week, at least, Shep will return with a new batch of rescuers, just in time for the premier! New musicians and band combinations will slowly be announced over this week as well, with some of them being saved for the premier festival itself. That is, any OOC changes made to bands and last minute new members are going to get announced like they are big exciting unveilings, because spin doctoring is what the labels do!

☆SINGULARITY

Everyone hearing the new singles will be able to tell that they seem especially ear wormy - extra hip, extra catchy, like the best examples of each bands radio popularity. Rescuers in particular, though, will notice something sort of strange about them. It's more than just song being catchy. People who are not musicians themselves will find themselves being unnaturally charmed by them, as if each time they hear these singles they are being slowly brainwashed into becoming more and more fixated on the artists performing.

Of course, this can be stopped by just not listening to them for a few days, but it's hard to avoid when pretty much every public location has been playing these singles non stop. Along with this effect, there are some particulars:

► PREDATOR DREAMS: The Pride band Predator is the same as the others, in that it has a particularly intrusive single that's just been introduced. There is one difference. It may take a while to notice, but it can be noted that one starts to feel somewhat tired and dazed after listening to it repeatedly, like they are somehow drained. The single is called The Spaces In Between and it is somewhat unusual that Cass, the member who usually primarily focuses on instrumentals and back up singing, is now performing lead.

If your character hears this song several times, they may suffer some weird DREAMS - especially if they received a dose of Gold's magic powder in the Better To Pretend event. If you'd like to receive a dream, please write "DREAM PLEASE" in your subject line, along with a written section describing an instance of your character having regular dreams that I can manipulate. Anywhere else and I might miss it.

► ESCAPED MUSICIANS: Musicians that have escaped and are now in hiding will find themselves particularly mentally manipulated by the singles released by their home label. They will find their minds unusually filled with thoughts of returning to their labels, as well as increased paranoia about being caught. Any remaining programming will be particularly triggered and brought to the surface. They'll be able to push it down with self control and assistance from other characters, but the thoughts will become more invasive the more they listen to it.

“'Cause everybody's so scared,
We don't wanna go there. 
We don't wanna make a move,
We got all our lives to lose.
Screaming in the dark while we just play our part out.

I play along, 
Like I don't know what's going on.”

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His eyes start to water the moment he hears those words. Fix all this. He can't bear it. He already knows that he can't fix it. He knows that he can't fix himself, or anyone else.

His arms tighten around his knees as he finally chokes out a sob. Tears run all over again, faintly luminescent with magical aura. It's uncontrolled, but not shameless.

"I can't..." The sound of his voice is broken and miserable, and barely comes out as words. "I can't help him. I can't."

Finally, it comes out. As Papyrus was already certain, the reason Sans got so angry at J, taking out his fear and frustration on their friend... was because that was how he was already treating himself. Like Sans was a filled cup of water, finally overflowing. Which wasn't the worst way to deal with unhappy emotions! Because now they all knew something was wrong, and could do something to fix it. Better than him keeping it a locked away secret, poisoning himself into feeling lonelier and lonelier.

Papyrus reaches over to rub his brother's back, risking breaching his personal space now that feelings are flooding out. "It's not just you here! It's all of us. Maybe somebody else can think of something, that you've overlooked! It's just too early to feel hopeless, Sans."

It's a nice sentiment, in theory. Hell, maybe someone else can fix it. That's what he's always counted on, right? That if he sits back, maybe someone else will step up and do the many things that he can't.

But he can't rectify it with himself. He can't hold on to hope when he didn't have any to begin with. (But he had, though, another part of him argues. He'd had hope, which was why he'd taken the risk in the first place, which was why he'd put himself on the line to get Greg and the others out - once, and then again. It had been such a bright few moments when he actually felt like he was living, and it was taken from him so quickly-)

He sags against Papyrus's hand, obviously not objecting to that part, at least. He wants that comfort. He just wishes that he could feel like any part of him was worth the energy.

"I don't think you get it, bro." His voice is very small.

Mostly because he doesn't think he's ever given Papyrus the chance to understand. He doesn't like the idea of what would happen if he did. It's a miracle enough that he's somehow helped allow Papyrus to be the person he is now, and even that Sans can't bring himself to internalize.

It's like the fight is just draining out of him. Papyrus shifts over a little more, briefly hugging Sans one-armed, before rubbing at his back again. With any luck, it helps.

"Don't I? It seems you are sad, and scared for your friend, and even more scared... that it all seems impossible." He huffs an indignant breath. "I know what that's like!"

A couple months of hardly any real news about Sans' condition. Only that bad dream, and the brief meeting at the Fairy Trial... Oh, Papyrus knows what it's like to worry for someone, with no concrete idea how to help them. Carefully not thinking about it, and focusing on hope for the future, was his single biggest thing keeping him going through it.

...Especially since, if it were anyone else captured, Papyrus would have been running to Sans for advice and help. Not having that perspective... Not having the security of his older brother guarding his back... Well, it's been stressful.

Sans flinches at Papyrus's earnesty, though he doesn't pull away from that hug. This feels strangely impossible to deal with, at the moment. His head is still dizzy with anxiety and confusion, and Papyrus is being honest with him in a way that feels unusual somehow, even though he can't remember enough details to know why. He feels like there's something wrong, that he's causing this to happen.

Papyrus shouldn't ever have to do this. It isn't fair. Yet, at the same time, he feels the guilt at having lied to him about so many things. How is it possible that his only family in the world doesn't know about... any of it?

How does Papyrus being honest with him make him feel even more impossibly alone?

"There are so many things I didn't tell you," he says quietly, the guilt settling like a weight on his shoulders. He covers his face with his hands. "I-I can't... how can I?"

He's half talking to himself, feeling somehow disassociated from the situation, as if it isn't actually real.

"You don't tell anyone anything! That's just how you are," Papyrus huffs, the annoyance of it so old and worn out that he hardly feels it anymore. "For years and years! Maybe forever."

His hand circles slow as he considers what Sans has said so far. Feeling helpless... Keeping secrets... Hiding his face, after admitting having secrets... Not an evasive joke or outright denial to be heard.

This isn't the first time that Sans' reaction was very different than Papyrus' expectations, burying his head in his hands like that. And it's not the first time he's wondered how much of it is Sans, and how much of it is what the music labels did to him. But it is the first time that Papyrus lets himself wonder... will Sans stay this way?

He continues the circular motion and adds, "If you expect me to feel shocked, or betrayed, by whatever secrets you're rediscovering... think again! I am not surprised that you have secrets."

For a moment he wonders if he's doing something wrong - if all of this that he's doing here is wrong. Maybe he's just too out of his mind to know it? Papyrus's near indifference to whether or not Sans tells him the truth feel simultaneously appropriate and awful. So much of his life in this place has been based around secrets - keeping them safe from the labels and sharing what you can with a select group of others - that it's hard to believe that it was ever intended to be the natural way of things. He didn't talk to anyone about his problems before meeting people like Greg and Rarity... but surely that was because he hadn't really had any friends and not because he was just like that, forever?

Except... maybe he was. Maybe he is? He doesn't remember how he learned to keep it inside of himself. He doesn't remember how to be okay with feeling so alone and so trapped. Maybe it never was okay. But he was resigned to it, because of everything that happened.

His confusion and anxiety over the topic has become thick all over again. He feels like he can't move, except now it's on a emotionally and intellectual level. He doesn't want to hurt Papyrus. There's nothing he wants to do less.

He chokes on his breath, his shoulder shaking tensely with a fresh sob of dismay. It takes him a little while before he can talk, his face still hidden.

"Are... are you happy with that?" he asks, his voice strained and disorientated. "Is it what you wanted?"

"Of course not!" It bursts out too quickly to think through, and he winces after the fact.

How could anyone want the secrets, and evasions, and jokes used as deflections as much as anything else? How could he enjoy hearing jokes with little humor behind them, like Sans is always running from something in his head? Or the feeling that he needed to scold and nag, to push his brother into doing things, because left to his own devices... what would Sans do? Hang out in the bar all day? There were words for people who did that, and none of them were complimentary.

Papyrus takes a deep breath that does not turn into a sob. One of them needs to stay strong here, and it's sure not going to be Sans right now. As concerned and watchful as Rarity has been, she doesn't have the context for a lot of this stuff, so her sitting out so far was just as well. People not having the context, but acting anyway, was what started the whole fight.

"I--I mean... I can't change you for you. Try as I might!" Even a sock led to a lengthy exchange of demands and feigned confusion. By now, Papyrus knows better than to hope for much on the big things. "Getting mad about it would just make me feel worse."

Sans looks up from the shelter of his knees, his eyes wide and pained, confusion and hopelessness from two different worlds intermingling. He never wanted it to be like this. He just...couldn't do it anymore. He failed. In the aftermath, it hadn't felt like he could pick himself up again.

Why try to get better when someone else could undo it all at any moment? Why try to do anything at all? But, he thinks, an realization slowly dawning on him - it isn't like that here. Everything has been so final.

What if this is his last chance ever?

"I couldn't... I couldn't tell you 'cause there wasn't any point. You never remembered, and... I just..." he says, slowly shaking his head, and then seems to give up, sinking at the shoulders. "I'm sorry, bro. I'm so sorry."

"Because... I never remembered? What? No. The music labels never..." Papyrus trails off, realizing Sans might not be talking about the obvious kind of forgetfulness. That he might mean something else.

Something like... a childhood with an awful lot of gaps in it.

The strange surprise as Sans fell apart, these last several years. After he'd done such a good job raising Papyrus, it was like he just gave up, once Papyrus was adequately self-sufficient. But that didn't make sense, did it?

He takes a deep breath, and extends an offer. "If, if something's upsetting you, right now I mean, then. There's a point to tell me. If you can. I promise, I'll do my very best to remember!" Maybe hearing that will help, as so little of this conversation has seemed to.

Papyrus gave Sans more credit for everything than he had ever deserved. Maybe he was a good enough brother back before... pretty much everything. He doesn't even really remember anymore, between the wearing of years and the pointed amnesia that's come in between. Sans has a lot of memory gaps about that time as well, but at least he's always known what was missing. Who was missing.

The words stick in his throat for a few painful moments before he can finally spit them out, with a feeling like something snapping.

"Everyone forgot him... like I forgot you, here. Everyone except me. I was the only one who knew what happened but nobody else even knew the difference. He was just... gone, and I couldn't get him back."

"I tried," he explains a moment later, a heavy weight of resignation in his voice. He'd tried and he'd failed. "Doesn't sound like something I'd do, right? But I really did."

"I forgot a person? Who disappeared from back home...?"

Well, if that's what Sans thinks, then that put everything that's just happened in a new light. Bad enough that Sans' friend Greg had essentially disappeared, filled with somebody else's 'music.' And bad, too, that Sans still seemed to struggle to remember what he himself was like, all those moments when his behavior just wasn't like Papyrus expected; like storming in and accusing J of not trying enough. But if it's all so horribly familiar for him, then no wonder Sans is upset.

"I must confess, that is hard to believe. Much harder than, say, that you tried to save a friend." He gestures a hand towards Rarity; after all, she's sitting right there. Proof that Sans would go to the trouble of helping people. And even if she weren't there... Somebody as great as Papyrus, as much as he wouldn't want to just admit it, was as great as he was precisely because he had the support of people who cared about him.

Oh, he still would have been great without the help, that was just who he was; naturally amazing. But there were times when life's difficulties were easier to surpass with help. And Sans was the only consistent presence through his life (right?), so obviously he was the one to credit for all the help Papyrus needed through the years. (Right...?)

...Maybe not. Papyrus shivers, and leans forward a little to hug at Sans again. "B-but! I'm not saying that I don't believe you! I'm just confirming what you already know---that I don't remember who you are talking about!"

"Papyrus, don't," he shudders out, pushing his brother away. He's filled with self blame, both real and manufactured by the mental punishment he's been through. He was wholly convinced at the time that his every effort had been worthless at the time, all self respect chiseled away by the things they were doing to his head. If Stella hadn't been there to heal him... he doesn't know if he'd even be able to stand upright anymore.

Some part of him still doesn't understand how he didn't just fall down ages ago.

"It was... I was there. I don't know what we were doing but I couldn't fix it." He clutches at his head, his bones rattling with tension as he tries to shield himself from the offer of comfort he doesn't think he deserves. "He was our dad, Papyrus."

He stills and stares.

Somehow, even though Lapis is still in another room, Papyrus feels as though she's here and submerging him in a water attack... or maybe it's like he just jumped in the river by Snowdin. A wet, cold rushes all over him, and he brushes a hand to wipe at his forehead to find that a frankly gross amount of sweat is trickling down his skull and spine.

"Our d-d..." It's strangely difficult to finish the word, to let himself realize how awfully right that word sounds in Sans' voice. But he, the great Papyrus, won't let a little gnawing fear get in the way of answering. "We had a father? And we lost him? And everyone forgot him? And... oh my god."

He covers his mouth with his hands, trying not to breathe too quickly or loudly. This is a horrifying story. Seeing Sans unable to remember or recognize him, strangely changed and cold from the lost memories... The way Frisk was the only other person to know what his brother was supposed to be like... Those things had been hard and horrible, but Papyrus had had Frisk's company, and the friendship and support of other rescuers. But Sans...

"Have you been all alone, in remembering him, all this time?" Shock, and anger, and the most painful empathy. "Sans! Nobody should have to go through that alone!"

Edited 2016-05-31 00:00 (UTC)

It totally catches Sans off guard, how that's the facet of the situation that Papyrus zeroes in on. It's obviously painful for him, yeah - even with only half formed memories, it's almost been enough to plunge him into misery. But... who cares about that? He's not the one who disappeared, is he? He's the one that never used the knowledge he had to fix anything.

He was the only one who could do anything to save him and he didn't.

He shouldn't be surprised by Papyrus's compassion, but he is. Mostly just because he keeps feeling like the focus shouldn't be on him. Like it shouldn't ever be, and how just staying in the background and doing his thing had been so much easier.

"It... happened years ago," he answers, uneasily. "Things only got more complicated, I just... things are more messed up than they seemed like, and nobody else needed to know about that. You didn't need to. And even when I told you about it... I don't think it ever stuck."

Edited 2016-05-31 20:06 (UTC)

Years ago, Papyrus just manages to keep from wailing, by burying his mouth with his gloves. Sans thinks he's been keeping things like this to himself for years.

Whether it's true true, or fake memories dissolving and confusing him true... It doesn't really matter. The important thing is that his brother feels they're true, and he's being hurt by them. And that's terrible.

If it weren't for his mouth already being covered, he might have burst out at the idea the he didn't need to know how messed things were. And it's for the best that he didn't, because that last thing Sans says...

"I... don't remember you saying anything like this, before... Ever," he slowly replies.

Carefully not saying that, of the two of them, one of them has a clear and present history of memory problems. He's not saying Sans is wrong, but he'd sure prefer to think that Sans is wrong.

"How could I have forgotten all of this? Without, you know... evil music magicians?"

"I can remember that I used to do a lot of work with timeline theories," he says carefully, after a moment of silence. He thinks he knows the answer to this part, at least, but he doesn't really relish explaining it. "Eventually we noticed that our was in what you'd call a loop."

He meets Papyrus's eyes for a moment, but can't hold it much longer than that. He looks down, tracing pictures on the floor as if they are intended to help illustrate the idea.

"The why is complicated. Point is, certain triggers have been making things repeat back to the start whenever certain... qualifications hadn't been met. It'd been doing that for a long time. A lot of the time I think we'd just get a bit of deja vu from the thing, but over time I started remembering things."

He doesn't go into detail on that. He feels like the implications are as clear as he wants them to be. He puts a hand to his face, exhaling harshly as the reality of what he just admitted to settles in. He's never explained this to anybody that didn't already know, before.

"Just kinda starts making things feels pointless, y'know?"

Papyrus watches the shapes Sans traces during the truncated explanation, rather than watch the side of his brother's head. He doesn't know what Sans means, not really. It doesn't occur to him that widespread death and destruction or personal tragedies might have been involved. Not back in the underground, where people were made of magic and compassion, and it was rare you heard of anything as bad as serious bullying. And yet, and yet.

"That should all sound crazy, but... it doesn't," he admits. "You were here for months before me. They said, on the ship, something about time distortions? I didn't pay them much mind! But now I know, weird time things can happen! And..."

Reading the same books over and over, living his life in a very regimented and scheduled way... that was one thing. But there were still surprises, as frustrating as they could be. Still new things that came into his life. If it felt like nothing was a surprise, if everything was just what he already expected... That would be enough to make almost anybody as apathetic as his brother.

"I do remember you stopped... being serious about anything." It had hurt, and he'd worried, wondering if Sans had changed or if he'd always been that way. Maybe, now, he was getting the answer. "You quit your job, and lazed around the house. At least until I told you to join me in the sentries! And you made bad food and worse jokes, but... you didn't seem to want anything anymore."

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☆TRACK X: PLAY ALONG

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lemme start getting back in the IS groove by working through my backlog

YEARS LATER

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