bonestrouslingbones

[bonestrouslingbones]

so there's a point where fluff is rapidly spiraling into full angst mode right, constantly either drunk & high off his ass or in a bad state of withdrawal, in the beginning stages of hobbling together a shitty band just on the off chance it might get him any cash to afford his next fix, and generally he just believes nobody else could possibly understand what he's dealing with

and then edge finds him totally-not-squatting in his house, convinces him to stop and chat for a minute instead of immediately running off again, and this conversation happens

fluff: ...i mean, hey, i can get you some if you wanna give it a shot. Edge: No thank you. My job needs at least one cook to stay sober, or we may never get any food out the door again. fluff (joking): c'monn, y'never know how you like it 'til you try, n' the first time always hits the best Edge: Well to be frank, there aren't very many things that would be the "first time." I just never really liked that stuff. fluff: hehe yeah i get it, i'm just messing-- fluff: fluff: fluff: huh Edge: What? fluff: what do you mean. what the hell does that mean Edge: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I got a lot of LV spikes back when I joined the royal guard and needed help managing them. I tried a lot of different things. That's all. fluff: didnt you join the guard when you were 16 fluff: this is hard shit dude were you fucking doing this when you were 16 Edge: No, no... at least, not consistently. Maybe only three or four times. I was better with downers. fluff: dude Edge: I mostly stuck to weed and a few different pills. But being high on the job made it a lot harder to stay alert, and most things stopped working when I gained more LV anyway, so I gave it up after a couple years. fluff: no this isn't real you're shitting me right now. you are literally just fucking with me Edge: Though, there was that one thing that always worked pretty well... We were only meant to use it to sedate LOVE-drunks, but a lot of guards kept their own stashes for personal use. I can't remember the name, but it was... some kind of tranquilizer for horse monsters, I think? fluff: fluff: edge. fluff: do you mean fucking ketamine.

[bonestrouslingbones]

if anybody has any questions about future events or worldbuilding or lore or anything since i'm allowed to give spoilers now feel free to ask btw :3 obviously i love rambling whenever i get the chance lmao

[bonestrouslingbones]

he did not mean to say that out loud!!!!!

[bonestrouslingbones]

too many semi serious lore posts here. sludge has TWO ✌ dicks. one of em's blue and the other one's black. the blue one's normal but the black one's a tentacle. but then also sometimes the blue dick can turn into a blue pussy (the tentacle does not do this). and then also sometimes both dicks fuse into a fuckhuge black and blue megadick. i hope that cleared things up (no one was asking)

[bonestrouslingbones]

all that dramatic shit and then when everybody gathers up for the Big Final Fight and go find sludge it's literally just at a beach wearing a really bright hawaiian shirt that does not fit and drinking a martini like a jello shot

[bonestrouslingbones]

i still rlly love the whole way sludge comes To Be tbh its soo fucked upp <33333

because like. the way all this works is that the more miserable russ becomes, and the harder it is for him to keep going, the weaker his soul gets. if it gets weak enough, the gaps between the soul shards spread wider and wider, allowing the void to leak into them and gain a bit of influence over him.

that's what's happening when he or ebony leak void goo, btw-- it's filling the gaps, but it's too eager and his soul is still strong enough to stop it from getting a solid "grip," causing it to overflow through his face and outer joints of his limbs. yucky..........

so if the soul shards spread far enough apart, ie dying or falling down, the void becomes the only thing preventing his soul from dissipating altogether as it's weak enough to fully take hold. this leaves him entirely under its control while also stopping him from turning to dust or "officially" dying, trapped in a hazy barely-conscious state while his very being is used as a vessel.

and obviously russ's whole deal is already pretty miserable, but it all really starts to pick up after he's suddenly completely alone in the multiverse again for the first time in a year or so. none of the guys are around to keep him company anymore, and yeah he's feeling pretty fucking miserable about it

rest of the insane LONG rambling lore dump under the cut lol

first, edge at least is left behind by choice-- they'd made it back to his universe and were surprised how much it had changed in the year since his suicide attempt. edge decided to stay to help with the progress, as well as a little bit because he was starting to understand that russ's constant dismissal of his issues and insistent forgiveness was becoming unhealthy for everybody. it's a pretty emotional farewell, but it feels like the right choice. russ also gets to test out a fancy new magic-controlled prosthetic arm that alphys had been working on, and she even lets him keep it. wait did i ever mention that russ is gonna lose an arm

after that, it's just russ, fluff, and stretch. and it's pretty chill, albeit maybe a little awkward now that they've lost a whole fourth of the usual group dynamic they've all been so used to for so long. but nothing crazy happens for a while.

and then they get back to stretch's universe. it's not even a question whether or not stretch plans to stay, moreso a case of wondering how long it'll be until it's time to say goodbye.

but on their first night there, right before they go to sleep and fluff says it'll be weird going around with just the two of them, russ sees karma. and he hasn't seen karma in months.

so he waits for fluff to fall asleep and creeps out to snowdin, where he would usually go to talk to him when he saw him more regularly.

what he doesn't know is that gaster has kept karma in the void ever since ebony's very first death, preventing him from leaving or having any form of stimulation other than gaster's own occasional thoughts and feelings pulsing through his occupied soul. this is the first time he's been let out in god knows how many months, and he is not going to go back.

russ goes out there assuming he'll get to talk to a friend he hasn't seen a hint of in a long time, and he's met with a desperate madman who will stop at nothing to either kill him or die trying, with no actual preference either way. russ knows the only thing that can actually hurt karma is gaster blasters, but he holds off on using them for a good while, still trying to get through to karma by talking.

eventually karma has him pinned, his prosthetic arm is broken and if he doesn't act fast he could easily lose his real arm too, and he has no choice but to blast him. right before he fires, karma smiles at him, and after he fires, he's completely gone.

and russ thinks he's killed him.

obviously he panics, rushes to stretch's old house and thinks about writing out a note to fluff because he has no idea how the hell he's meant to explain to his face that he's just murdered his brother, and stops halfway through the first sentence to curl up into a ball on the floor and shut his eyes as everything becomes way way way too much and he can't breathe and all he can think about is that he wants to go home.

and when he opens his eyes, he isn't in snowdin anymore.

(in the morning, fluff and stretch go looking for russ because he's randomly disappeared and stretch wants to show fluff around anyway. he decides to show fluff his old house, where they find a note on the living room floor covered in blue-tinted tear stains and extremely shaky handwriting that reads "FLUFF, I AM SO SO SORRY" and nothing else. stretch doesn't believe it and decides to keep looking for russ, or at least any other clues for what might have happened. fluff leaves and spends the rest of the day in the castle's wine cellar.)

so anyway, russ gets to deal with the guilt of thinking he's just murdered not only his own friend but his other friend's brother, and also the fact that he immediately abandoned that very same friend in an unfamiliar, struggling universe, with a naturally suspicious and very tight-knit community, without so much as saying goodbye or even telling him what happened

so he's got all that, on top of dealing with the fact that he doesn't know how long it's been since he's left his home, and his family back home is becoming blurrier and blurrier as every day passes, and sometimes he comes across universes he's been to before and they tell him it's been two or three years since his first visit, and he misses edge, and he misses fluff and stretch, and he wonders how long it took for him to be pronounced dead after he went missing in his home, and he wonders if there's anybody looking for him, or if anyone has forgotten him, and he's long stopped keeping count of how many universes he's been to but he might as well keep some cigarettes on him anyway just for the relief of either the pain or the actual nicotine, and hell who cares if he eats anything, he's going for a new record and every time he manages to move his feet he gets a new personal best, and he doesn't even bother introducing himself or meeting other versions of him anymore because what's the point, it's not his friends and it's not his home so he doesn't have any reason to reach out, because, come on, does any of this even matter at all anymore? did it ever? what if he just got himself into a surface world and hopped onto a moving train and let it take him wherever the hell it pleases and accepted anything that happens after that point and fell asleep there and woke up and found out he world hopped in his sleep so fuck that plan actually, damn it all to hell

ahem

eventually he decides to sleep In A House. he hasn't slept in three days and hasn't eaten for even longer, so he's pretty out of it when he gets to another surface world, picks any random house-looking-house, and knocks on the door.

ebony opens it.

and the last time he saw ebony, he was having the mental breakdown of a lifetime and very nearly tricking russ into locking them both inside of a supersized bomb and blowing up his own house right before having a horrifying and painful transformation into a creature that was never supposed to exist in a panicked effort to force gaster to abort taking control of his dying body

and russ is so goddamn tired and sick of everything he kinda just. sighs. and he says whatever you want to do, go ahead and do it. i won't stop you.

so, ebony gets him some food. russ eats it without any struggle or hesitation. he doesn't pay attention to what it is, because he doesn't care. ebony then sets him up on the couch, and he falls asleep easily.

and when russ wakes up the next morning he is very, very confused.

and the two of them have a shockingly civil chat. ebony apologizes for everything he's done, and says that since they'd last met he'd been working very hard to escape gaster's power over him, gross void goo be damned. it's only then that russ finally notices ebony isn't covering his face at all, or his hands and brand new tail either. the black stains are still there, but they're smaller than they were before. maybe even a bit fainter. he's been reaching out to his family, getting professional help for his trauma and accepting support even when it feels wrong, and he's been healing.

meanwhile, russ's gloves have turned just as black as ebony's were when they first met.

ebony says he still isn't able to take russ home, because trying to put his universe's coordinates into his machine will just blow his old house up again, but he still wants to help him out another way if russ will let him. and of course, russ is well enough in the Fuckin Whatever mindset to agree.

so they both get into the machine, with russ still kind of expecting to explode, and they safely travel from the basement of ebony's old house to a toolshed in another universe. ebony explains that it's because the house's basement is already occupied with its own machine, so the shed is the nearest alternative "spawnpoint."

anyway, it's edge's place.

(when russ realizes, he looks back at the shed, but ebony's disappeared. russ just assumes he's gone back home, and he's technically not wrong, but only because a reset had just pulled him back through the multiverse right at that moment. his machine was left behind in edge's shed.)

obviously they have a very happy reunion, and edge is doing great. the shadows under his eyes aren't as dark as they were before, he carries himself more confidently, and mettaton's been helping him learn guitar. he hasn't decided on what he wants to do as a new career yet, since he'll certainly not be rejoining the guard, but he's been getting guilt-money from undyne for a little while, so he's got some time yet to think about it. he's even been attending one of the underground's new therapy programs, happy to see it gradually find its footing even as certified counselors are still a bit hard to come across.

russ can't bring himself to leave for at least a month or so, maybe even a little longer. at some point he's able to get alphys to repair his prosthetic and even upgrade it a little to match the newer ones she's built since they last met. he starts wearing some newer clothes that edge insists on buying him, since he's already rebuilding his own wardrobe and doesn't have many clothes to spare as a result. and it's unwise, but him and edge share edge's bed, since it helps russ sleep a lot better. (edge has gotten a new bed, too; it's king sized and edge's bigass dog still hogs most of it.) and yeah, they maybe sleep together in the other sense a couple times, too.

russ also helps edge begin renovating his brother's old room into something with better memories attached, the two of them making a mess by splashing the walls with literally every color of paint they had at the hardware store. edge decides it'll make a good craft room once all the fumes air out.

but the time comes where russ decides he has to go. the longer he stays put and enjoying his time with edge, the more his guilt creeps up to him and gets him in a chokehold. he's out here chumming it up with his not-boyfriend while his family back home thinks he's dead, and while fluff and stretch thinks he abandoned them, and while karma will never get to go home at all.

and, of course, in his typical avoidant fashion, he doesn't tell edge he's about to leave until he wakes up in the middle of the night to see russ guiltily changing out of his nice new clothes right back into his old, weathered armor.

and edge just. looks at him for a moment.

and then edge takes a duffel bag out of his closet and starts packing things into it. russ asks him what he's doing, and he says he's coming with him.

and russ. does not get it.

edge is home, he's happy, he's helping rebuild his community and moving forward in his life. he came back after a long time of being presumed dead and people were happy to see him again, no matter how it was before he left. why would he ever leave that behind? especially for something as awful and hellish and miserable as traveling the multiverse?

and edge tries to explain to him that it would be different this time, he's learned a lot about himself and about self control, and he knows what the multiverse is capable of throwing at him. he says as much as some experiences hurt when traveling with russ, he didn't think it was all hellish or miserable. in fact, he enjoyed a lot of it. he says that he's glad about how much his home has progressed, but sometimes it gets so boring. even though he probably shouldn't, he's found himself missing the excitement of worldhopping multiple times since saying goodbye to everyone. not to mention, the state russ was in when he first arrived at edge's door was extremely worrying, and edge just isn't about to let him do that to himself again.

but russ hardly listens to any of his points, tunnel-visioning on edge missing the excitement, and does not appreciate the sentiment at all. he starts ranting about all the shit he's had running through his mind day by day for years, not stopping when he's been having fun, not even getting a little quieter whenever he sleeps, making sure to go allllllll the way down the list. it only took edge a year to get back to his home, to his family, and only a few months to readjust and make amends, and he just wanted to throw it all away because he was bored. meanwhile russ doesn't know how long it's taken him to get back home yet, because he still hasn't gotten there. he can't remember the voice of his own twin brother, who he grew up with and lived with for his entire life. he can't remember the faces of his family because they've all blended together and he doesn't know what makes them distinct, what makes them his, if there's anything at all.

and edge tries to stop him and calm him down, but he can't. he can feel liquid running down his face and he can see it staining edge's carpet black but now that he's started he just can't stop everything from coming out

because soon he's wondering, why is it that his universe is the only one that seems to have been blocked off from everything else? why wasn't ebony able to go to it without the machine exploding, and why was russ able to go to every universe twice over, but he couldn't get to his own even once? was there even a universe to go back to? what if it was just gone, this entire time?

and then russ falls to his knees and his prosthetic arm goes limp because there isn't enough magic left in his body to power it, all while he realizes:

he will never go back home.

and he falls.

the rest doesn't happen right away. edge has enough time to lay him down in bed and call alphys over to start begging her to tell him he's just overstrained his soul again and he's just gonna sleep for a while, but he'll wake up. he will wake up.

gaster doesn't take karma out of the void until alphys and undyne are able to get edge to leave the room. first, all karma knows is that he feels strangely giddy, extremely excited, but soon he recognizes that it's gaster's excitement he's feeling. it morphs a bit more into his own, though, when he sees russ's body.

he's not happy to see his friend fall down, mind you-- he's happy that he's going to be free.

gaster tells him to hold onto russ and take him back to "the beginning." karma doesn't understand what that means, but when he puts his hand onto russ's shoulder, they both teleport to the Core. which Core, he doesn't know, but he knows gaster is at his most "existent" here, at least outside of his grey room.

and then, finally, the void takes hold of russ's fallen soul. and it's different from the way it took control of karma-- russ loses any of the pigment from his clothes and bones as they fuse together and turn into that stark black and white, but he still stays planted in reality. karma can feel the cold pressure on his own soul slowly leak away, making him feel increasingly heavy and weak as he comes back to "life."

when Sludge finishes forming, karma can barely stand on his own two feet. he just stares at them for a minute, still very used to sharing gaster's emotions and going along with its own excitement while having to fight for his own thoughts to breach the surface at all.

then, Sludge asks him if he really liked them so much that he'd rather stay with them instead of bringing his brother back home. it takes him a minute to remember what they're talking about, and then he's gone. the void doesn't control his soul anymore, but it's still shattered, so he'll still be able to worldhop with full command until he eventually either heals too much or dies.

meanwhile, Sludge is left on their own to do as they please with their brand new, fully-existent body. You can imagine they're quite pleased with it.

(later, they go to mock a king, and thank him for helping them so effectively. the king says he wishes russ hadn't just given up after lasting as long as he did, though he understands how close it got for himself to be in the same position. he wishes him luck in regaining the hope and strength to fight back some day. they shut him up by reminding him that his daddy's there, too.)

[bonestrouslingbones]

could NOT wait for more ppl to rb that last post to add my tags this is literally just canon

[bonestrouslingbones]

has anyone figured out how to be a real person yet

[bonestrouslingbones]

great guesses everybody there was one Slightly in the direction of Literally Just Half Of His Name so i shall tell you

russ's brother's name is. s

thats not a cutoff joke his nickname is literally just s. like. the letter s

well technically the full thing is ss but that's just a mouthful

actually hey if anybody can possibly even get in the ballpark of guessing the nickname for russ's brother i'll finally actually reveal it

hints: it is NOT "classic", "vanilla", or anything else in that vein. it's not fruit themed at all. it's not color themed at all either. it IS slightly similar to how russ's nickname works, if you apply a little sans-laziness and squint. good luck <3

[bonestrouslingbones]

fluff is funny because with how weird he is about any kind of affection in general, you'd really think he'd be against PDA and avoid it whenever he can

and the thing is, he generally does prefer to keep a low profile and not draw attention to himself most of the time

but he is also a jealous motherfucker

which is all to say there's a scene where he takes ebony out to a club /karaoke bar thing because ebony started getting a bit mopey about being the king of monsters instead of At The Club (which is just simply annoying to be around and definitely not something fluff felt even remotely bad about or want to help with at all whatsoever no he would neverrr)

and ebony wears a very flattering outfit so people keep buying him drinks which is already making fluff's eye twitch a little but It's Free Drinks So Whatever

and then ebony's wasted ass gets up on stage and starts singing all the sluttiest songs in the catalogue and fluff is becoming incredibly aware of the crowd watching him and he's just going Hey. Hey. Hey. HEY. HEY.

and so when ebony leaves the stage fluff is of course going to tongue kiss him RIGHT fucking there and also he does not take his arm off of ebony's waist for like the entire rest of the night

[bonestrouslingbones]

actually hey if anybody can possibly even get in the ballpark of guessing the nickname for russ's brother i'll finally actually reveal it

hints: it is NOT "classic", "vanilla", or anything else in that vein. it's not fruit themed at all. it's not color themed at all either. it IS slightly similar to how russ's nickname works, if you apply a little sans-laziness and squint. good luck <3

[bonestrouslingbones]

oh btw the secret third shipbait for karma is him and russ’s brother. it doesn’t go literally anywhere beyond there being like a vague chance of them becoming roommates with benefits at some point but karma finds him very weirdly calming to be around when he’s overwhelmed so like the ship is still kinda there if you squint and tilt ur head

and i kinda love it bc russ would have NO place to speak on it whatsoever and he 100000% knows that so he’s just stuck at war between being genuinely happy that they can get along but also like Dude That’s My Fucking Brother????????????

[bonestrouslingbones]

fluff: (pinning ebony down & climbing on top)

ebony: 😳😨😳

fluff: wait what. the fuck was that face for

ebony: OH NOTHING I MEAN ITS JUST

ebony: THE LAST TIME WE WERE IN THIS POSITION YOU. UM

ebony: ALMOST BEAT ME TO DEATH.

fluff: oh. damn. huh i guess you’re right

fluff:

fluff: hey so by the way why did i feel your dick twitch when you said that

[bonestrouslingbones]

i won't ramble about em like all the other shit but here are some super extra secret pages that i either scrapped or just never fully finished :>

(obligatory mention that i have not tested any of these for mobile compatibility and never really intended for them to work on mobile in the first place so if they suck on mobile shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh)

on ebony's blog:

https://c00ldude01.tumblr.com/daddy (scrapped) (don't be weird about the daddy thing please)

New Home Medical Services (technically unfinished- i made two custom logos for these shits too)

Royal Guard Investigations Department (part 2 of ^ that)

on the atbb blog:

ERR-408 (this has been public and super easily accessible for literally so long but not a single person found it it's genuinely kind of insane) (easier version of a puzzle)

https://ask-the-bone-boys.tumblr.com/type-only-fifth-answer-here (fucked up and EVIL version of a puzzle that leads to the exact same result but in a significantly more annoying way) (using google and noting patterns is HIGHLY encouraged if anybody wants to try it lmao) (i had an irl friend playtest it and they Did manage to figure it out easier than they probably would have if i'd had them do the err-408 one so idk it might not be that fucked up and evil it's up to you)

i briefly thought about linking the page where both of those puzzles lead but actually . i dont wanna i think you either get there by blood or NOT AT ALL

[bonestrouslingbones]

ebony blog speedrun (its not a speedrun its very long)

this conversation is between ebony and karma. obviously karma's responses aren't recorded, because karma doesn't exist.

some context: at this point in the story, karma and russ had already had plenty of confrontations and then come to an understanding that they're both pretty fucked, but russ promised to do everything he could to find a way to help karma. after a while of them being friends, gaster uses his control over karma's soul to prevent him from going to the same spaces as russ anymore. he's only able to leave the void if he's going to the same area that ebony's at.

russ and ebony are the only ones who are able to see and interact with karma (outside of the core), and karma is the only one who can see and interact with gaster (outside of the core). gaster can speak through karma and control everything he does, but they usually just let him be as long as he delivers the messages they tell him to.

anyway, ebony pities karma a lot (but is also insanely creeped the fuck out by him, obviously) and tries to help him get his thoughts back in order every now and then. ebony thinks that russ either forgot about karma the second he wasn't able to see him consistently anymore, or just doesn't actually care, and he's disgusted with russ for that as he continues to see karma's mental state degrade significantly over time. russ is the only thing standing in the way of both ebony's freedom and karma's.

this part is referencing karma's preferred method of trying to take down russ at first-- directly trying to beat the shit out of him. ebony can see that that clearly didn't work, so he plans to go a different direction by targeting russ's friends, instead. russ has an obligation to stay attached to the rest of the group, since he's the reason they've left their home. he's especially attached to edge, since they're actually dating at that point.

this is the secret cinnamon bark easter egg i was talking about the other day lol, it's literally just fluff's ask tag

he needs new gloves because the black ones he's currently wearing used to be the same red ones from his battle body photo. he was wearing his battle body when he first started vomiting up the void goo, and it stained the entire outfit. he tried to replace his gloves for a little while, but he only re-stained every new pair he tried (think similarly to how russ stained the fingers of his own gloves black, but up nearly the entire forearm instead :> ). eventually, ebony gave up, deciding to just dye the first pair completely black and try to style a simpler outfit around it.

he hates having to dress so conservatively. he hates wearing such a plain, professional outfit after he'd just gotten control over what kind of clothes he gets to wear. but, twenty turtleneck sweaters in the same shade of beige are a lot easier to replace than the fancier things he likes, and they cover up much more than the skimpier things he loves, so he kinda just has to deal with it. the only part of his main outfit that isn't something his father would have dressed him in is the huge scarf, and that's the one thing that helps him hang onto himself just a bit longer.

this isn't ebony wishing he could forget resets. there's never been any resets yet at this point. this is him wondering why everyone got to forget his father, except for him :D

yeah this part is basically the equivalent of gaster strangling him. he's not actually being strangled, but gaster is in full control of how much void goo is in ebony's "throat," and in this scene is forcing him to choke on it and try to cough/puke it out until he's begging to breathe again

cuz the thing is, ebony's father is horrific and evil, but gaster isn't only ebony's father, yknow?? and gaster is obsessed with having a good story, and can't resist when it has the opportunity to make that story do what it wants. if it has to torture the characters just to slightly ease the boredom of nonexistence, it's more than willing

so, this is ebony being tortured by gaster, not just for doubting its will, but also for pure entertainment.

y'all can't imagine how many fucking times he's had to replace the rug on his floor. he only still keeps one there because it's easier to replace than the carpet itself.

he's in a horrible mood after all this bullshit so he ends up taking some of it out on karma. logically he knows karma has even less control over anything than he does, but he's still a bit resentful of the role that karma plays. he can't cuss his dad out, so this is the next best thing.

the reason ebony couldn't get any info about stretch from underswap is because the surviving monsters in that underground are all so tight-knit that ebony's usual cover of "ohh i'm just a cousin doing a little project about my family 😊" nearly got his ass BEAT. everybody there knows stretch doesn't have any cousins. undyne definitely knows he doesn't have any cousins. she chased ebony the fuck out of there and he's trying so hard not to be petty about it when writing that description of her but god you can tell

i hope you all know he was kicking his feet writing these things about fluff before he remembered "crude sense of humor" and "enjoys baking" are not actually necessarry to note as potential vulnerabilities to manipulate

also, the reason fluff is the only one who's specifically nonviable is because karma made ebony promise not to hurt him. if not for that promise, ebony likely still wouldn't do as much to him as the others because of his bias, but he'd still be willing to target him if it seemed useful enough.

logically, edge's threat level should be high. but ebony's background, traumatic as it was, still left him with a good bit of arrogance about his own strength. and he is stronger than edge, but not nearly as much as he thinks.

also, yeah- edge's magic used to be blue when he was younger, but changed to red as he grew and gained more LV. isn't that neat?

ebony knows that LV can be addictive in edge's universe, especially for royal guards, and he knows that edge specifically has an issue with it as someone who was a royal guard for a very long time, and eventually the former guard captain.

ebony's noting here that edge has very little regard for his personal wellbeing, is highly protective of his friends while also constantly comparing them to his own failures, has a difficult time admitting fault, and will almost never ask anyone for help, even his friends. he's an extremely strong, extremely brutal fighter, and not difficult to bait into a frenzy. he's much stronger than russ, but submits to him like a guard dog.

these are all traits that ebony can manipulate the fuck out of, and by god does he:

basically: ebony has just found a for-profit fight club! fauxfell is a weird AU in that it's still a -fell world so i can get away with putting insane shit in it, but the faux part has allowed me to still make it "friendly" enough where this can almost feel a little out of place. ebony himself is horrified and disgusted by it, but he can't do shit about that.

either way, his plan is to lure edge out to see it, knowing edge will likely be hesitant at first but won't be able to resist getting in the ring. ebony will enter edge as his fighter, and edge gets that high he's been missing from gaining EXP. they'll keep doing this nightly, making edge increasingly unstable from sleep deprivation, EXP gain, and increasingly withdrawal symptoms, until something finally snaps and he attacks his friends. he doesn't plan to lay a finger on anyone himself; he's going to destroy their entire group from the inside out.

there are also a shit ton of other things on both this blog AND atbb's blog that i never got to share publicly that i might get to a bit later. i like explaining all my overly intricate lore hehehehehe

[bonestrouslingbones]

pointing out more details just becauseeeee

he gets very weirdly cagey every time russ's name is mentioned. he wants that guy's head on a stick im gonna be real

nobody ever caught onto this, but as the event progressed i made the shadows under his eyes get progressively darker. first image is from week 1, second is week four post-blog leakage, and the last one is from the last post before i went on hiatus </3

the next stage would've been a weird one where he's wearing makeup to cover it up, and then he would've accidentally rubbed it off with his finger at some point since he's always touching his face. after that, he would've given up on the makeup entirely for the askers and it then would've been revealed that the shadows had gotten wayyy worse than they were before:

dude is tired.

also, after this point, i started using ebony's coughing as a cue that something important had been hit on. the in-world idea is kinda that, because it's an actually important thing that he wasn't expecting you to get, it made him breathe in a bit too sharply, in turn triggering the cough as he then choked on the void goo in his mouth 👍

very short compilation of things that made him cough herrree:

he was genuinely considering this

nobody pointed out his expression here, which i was a litttle bit sad about at the time because he does Not want to be doing this. He thinks what he's going to do is just as reprehensible as it would be from everyone else's perspective, but it doesn't matter what he feels about it. he doesn't have any choice in it.

this is referring to how trying to go to russ's universe for information like he did for all the others makes the machine go 💥kaboom💥

[bonestrouslingbones]

does fluff starting a situationship with ebony put strain on whatever passes for fluff and stretch's friendship or is stretch's reaction more of a "yeah you Would do that 🙄"

oh god thats a whole situation in and of itself. at that point stretch and fluff are closer friends because fluff had ended up living in stretch's universe for a while because russ left him behind there dont worry about it but stretch's reaction ends up being a mix of "i thought u were a little better than this but i dont rlly know why" and "dude. dude. fucking come on man"

fluff keeps it a secret from everybody for the first several months. he's acting shady and people can tell that part obviously but they just think he's got a mysterious new boyfriend that he doesn't wanna introduce because he doesn't wanna figure out how to explain that most of his friends are literally himself from different universes

but the thing is. stretch has a strong sense of smell. and i shouldn't have to tell y'all that ebony wears cologne for you to know that he definitely wears cologne. so when fluff shows up every now and then reeking of the exact smell that gives stretch flashbacks, he gets. maybe a little bit concerned. and at some point he even pulls fluff aside and asks "dude is. is everything okay."

(the rest under the cut bc god wont let me shut up)

of course fluff's only response to this is to brush him off (and then later help ebony pick out a new cologne) so he's just left with this background feeling of worry floating around in his head for a bit. when they finally do find out stretch doesn't even feel all that betrayed, just kinda. disappointed.

he does stop talking to fluff for a while, but morbidly funny enough he actually ends up connecting a bit with ebony! he's got the papyrus disease of forgiving people for shit they should not be forgiven for, whether he likes it or not lmao

he already feels a lot of pity for ebony anyway, since throughout most of the time he was holding stretch captive, he was having constant flashbacks, complete with panicky dissociation and clear desperation to appeal to his father. not to mention, the last time stretch saw him was when he was writhing in pain and actively dying from the results of the botched transformation experiment. there isn't really much "justice" left to be served after something like that.

at some point ebony has to deal with a human falling for the first time since becoming king, and stretch uses his experience as his underground's prince to help him work out what to do, barrier-wise. its this point, when he talks to ebony without fluff around, and without the the threat of gaster constantly hanging over ebony's head, that he comes to realize just how long he's been drowning. so, he decides to leave the door open for more help with kingdom stuff later on, if he ever needs it.

they never really become friends or anything, obviously-- ebony mostly leaves him alone, if only because he knows damn well stretch will try to be his therapist if he lets him and he doesn't want to hurt him any more than he already has, but there's still that little bit of newfound solidarity between them. so that's a nice development.

but stretch keeps a healthy distance from fluff for a long while, especially when he really starts spiraling. he was on the receiving end of a lot of fluff's lashing out when they were living together, which already strained their friendship a bit, but it got better after everybody wasn't in such a rough situation.

after finding out how frequently and severely fluff had been lying to his face though, even after making up they only really hang out in group settings. it's really hard for him to be able to trust him again.