#Timeline of Events: Genocide Edition

[nando161mando]

Timeline of Events: Genocide Edition

[orbital-inclination]

Moltendreams - Error Sans Alias - Static Pronouns: he/him, they/them Personality: Petty, holds a mean grudge, Big Tsundere, Complete Shut-in, Quick Tempered and Moody, fanatic with his interests, externally aggressive when in actuality he is quite shy. An absolute troll. His favorite passtime is messing with others. Paradoxically touch starved and suffers from haphephobia. Reckless with his own well being.

This variant of Error is capable of both love and compassion, he just hides it under a grumpy exterior and several layers of denial and self-destructive dogma. Other Notes:

Reluctant to harm Papyrus directly, though Static can't articulate why, and will generally avoid encounters Papyrus in any given AU.

Had a good relationship with his dad/W.D Gaster, actually.

Relates to "pest" pets; rats, mice, snakes, spiders, beetles, he loves them all.

Would have a pet rat of his own if he wasn't afraid of it shocking itself by chewing on his wires.

His favorite kind of chocolate is mixed with a hazelnut filling.

Views Frisk as a younger sibling.

Into Parkour.

-More Info undercut! -

Abilities: Static uses wire instead of string. Wire and summoned attacks can and do hold an electric charge. His presence alone messes with electronic devices. Residents of a particular AU may get a few minutes or seconds of warning as sweaters get staticy, computer screens glitch out, and anything with a battery spontaneously dies or gets super charged. By creating a circle of alternating RED and CYAN bones, Static creates a sort of reverse faraday cage. While Static can produce electricity, he can't directly control the voltage. He can only hope to direct it. The voltage of a charge is directly influenced by his emotional state. If you touch him, you will find his clothes zappy with static. Do NOT attempt to fight him in humid or watery environments for, hopefully, obvious reasons.

About: Static originates from a pre-Pacifist timeline that was followed by a looping Genocide Route. Through repetitive iterations, and an escalating instability in the timeline, the monsters of the underground began to recall events they didn't witness and memories they shouldn't recall.

Working together, Static, at that point still Sans, and Alphys were able to pin point the root cause of their timeline's instability. They made a plan to save the underground and separate Frisk from the Anomaly but when it came time to execute their plan something went catastrophically wrong. As a result Sans was torn from reality, and caught in the space in-between. Eventually, he escaped but not unscathed. Static has vague conflicting memories of his past, and to this day, questions if any of it was real. He can't find his original AU and secretly fears it may have been the first world he destroyed. He is still looking for it.

Outcode Politics: Static views all outcodes the same way he views every iteration of the original timeline that even slightly deviates: as glitches to be terminated. Bugs in the code he needs to hammer out before it all goes to hell. Static believes that by destroying deviating timelines and AUs, he is preserving the stability of the original. He is “saving’’ it from corruption by trimming the branches back. Despite his position as the self proclaimed Destroyer, Static is not above biases and making exceptions. 

Static includes himself on his long list of glitches in the code to be terminated. Static has a different view on the Spirits of Creation that Fable/Ink does. (Spirits of Creation are the in-universe term and stand-in for the creator of an AU). He calls them eldritch parasites. Abominations that should be avoided at all costs. And absolutely should not be encouraged or interacted with. Though he won't admit it out loud, Static is terrified of them. OG Error @.LoverofPiggies/CrayonQueen) Moltendreams @.me Edit: he has been named! Edit 2: revised his profile a bit

[susartwork]

Underwizard alternative timelines:

Like 90% of these are angst timelines and the other 10% are self indulgent ones, sorry not sorry

Pacifist (the original one)

Future (the original but post barrier)

Genocide

Neutrals I don't think we need a list of all of them, do we?

UWU Infection Never add a U to UW. This is a post barrier timeline where a UwU virus spreads terrorizing Ebott's Town. Frisk, as the monster's ambassador, will have a lot of work to do to ensure everyone's safety from the cute virus.

REDress Previously known as the "Amalgamate" timeline, now it was completely rewritten. The families of the amalgamates took revenge on Sans and Alphys, injecting them too with Determination, melting them into amalgams as well...

War Rewind Flowey and Sans mess with the resets, mistakenly send themselves back to the time of the war between humans and monsters. Flowey dies, but Sans, adopting baby Chara to save them from their fate, allows Asriel to survive in the future and become king. Now all humans who fall underground will be treated as friends. This timeline was fairly inspired by Timetale! And also by my chats with @ask-dcf :3

Hopeless Timeline Flowey grows bored, and decides to torture Sans with Save Files and Resets to see how far that would go. The story then starts to take interesting turns as I RP it. This timeline is somewhat important so here's the latest ref sheets: [Hopeless UW!Sans] [Hopeless UW!Frisk] [Hopeless UW!Dwerby] Here's a chrono link to read right from the start! But pls note this.

Underground's Insanity Previously known as the "Hopeless Queen Alphys Timeline" (the name was too long). The genocide (?) version of the Hopeless Timeline. It begins as a Queen Alphys ending, to then take a Horrortale-like turn, with some angsty Salphys who has to face Frisk, the strongest hunter wizard to ever exist.

Playbackwizard Playbacktale x Underwizard Too spoilery to UW's story talk about it now 👀

Helioswizard Heliostale x Underwizard

Something Magical Something New (Killer!Sans) x Underwizard

"What if...? OC" My UTMV outcodes swap backstory with the UW crew: Basic - UW!Sans | Alphysis - UW!Alphys | Clone - UW!Frisk | Quasar - UW!Papyrus & Flowey | Kyria - UW!Undyne

° FANMADE ALTERNATIVE TIMELINES ♡ °

Disbelief UW!Papyrus Disbelief Papyrus x Underwizard

Horrorwizard Horrortale x Underwizard

Axewizard Axetale x Underwizard

Dustwizard Dusttale x Underwizard

All of these above were made by @alittlegreenghost!

Underwizard alternative versions:

Wizardfell Underwizard x Underfell (planned remake)

Wizardswap Underwizard x Underswap (planned remake)

Overbeast All the events of Underwizard but reversed...? Hunter wizards -> beasts (aka monsters with human souls)

UnderWoZArD The crappy version of Underẁ̶̙i̴͈̚z̸̼̾-̴̢̄-̷̨͗ ̶̹̂A̴̺͂L̵̥̽L̶̗͆ ̸̛̟H̶̝͛Ä̶͔Ḭ̷͗Ļ̸͝ ̵̛͈W̴̭̚O̴̺̍Z̷̺͝ ̷͕̊T̷̋͜Ḧ̵̨́Ẻ̷̠ ̶͉͑E̸͎͛M̸̮̕P̷͈̍Ḙ̷̎R̵̲̆Ŏ̴̯R̴͇̆

Inversowizard Inversotale x Underwizard

Tartaroswizard Tartarostale x Underwizard

Wizardchess Underwizard x Chesstale Frisk and Flowey are stuck in a endless chess battle to decide the fate of the underground.

Zombieverse A mix of many AUs characters, such as Underwizard, living in a zombie apocalypse

A L I V E x Underwizard Idk what to call it. It's basically the UW crew but with the backstory of the ALIVE crew. Sorta. ALIVE's story is difficult to apply to UW.

Wizardnovela Underwizard x Undernovela

° FANMADE ALTERNATIVE VERSIONS ♡ °

Planet Flash - by @yanair25 Fusion of a series whose name I forgot (sorry) and many other AUs, such as Underwizard

Hopeless UW!Sans x LN (Bucket) - @axmoth Hopeless in Little Nightmares

UW!Aine x LN (Breach) - @parniathedevil Aine in Little Nightmares

XWizard - by @parniathedevil Xtale x Underwizard

Edit: I have deleted some timelines/versions from this masterpost because I don't find them interesting or important.

[thebeastofthesnow]

[ UT OC Blog!

Ran by&follows back as @asktheevilgeniusesson

Both pfp&bg art made by @crescent-the-lazy-wolfbones <3 ]

“So. I’m finally here. After some convincing from my boyfriend( @thetiredlazybones ) i decided it’d be worthwhile to check this whole internet thing out.. it cant be that bad, right? According to him everyone else is here. So, why not have some fun.

Hello, I’m Everest, a Displacer monster. I’m about.. uh..i wanna say afew centuries, maybe millennia’s, old? I honestly lost track of my age myself. But i am an adult, obviously. I’m sure sans has told you all alot about me already, yeah? Well ill let you find the rest out yourself.”

// Rules and info under the cut!

RULES:

1. Nsft asks are allowed but dont be too wild about it, keep in mind both mun and muse are taken in happy relationships, but everest is very aware of what sex and all that stuff is but he might be alittle shy about it. Just behave yourselves.

2. I will not tolerate any harassment ooc. Everest is not and has never been a ‘sans fangirl’ type of character. He was made as a ut oc based off my nonfandom sona because me and my boyfriend weren’t too happy with the sansby ship in private roleplays, do nit harass me or anyone else i interact with over small things and please keep in mind everest is aware there are other vers of classic. He will be protective of his own, not other variants that arent his.

3. This is a roleplay and ask blog, so when in roleplay threads, please do not godmod, powerplay, etc. i will drop threads if i alert you of possible godmodding/powerplaying and you refuse to play fair after the headsup. (I know it may be hard in the ut rpc since monsters have magic but lets just try and be rational) ALSO. please do not reblog my roleplay threads! Its ANNOYING when it happens and im waiting for my rp partners response!

4. Harassment of the character is allowed and fine, you are allowed to go and harass everest and do whatever you’d like to see him break or react, but i will not tolerate joking about his trauma in a way that disrespects real people. If you are disrespecting real trauma in the askbox of a chara ter i will block you, short and simple.

INFO&ABOUT EVEREST:

Everest is a Boss Monster in this lil au. He stands at 7ft in length and is semi powerful but was never an endgame boss. Midgame boss moreso. His fight would take place before papyrus’.

Everests magic is akin to floweys. Plant style magic, he can use his magic to summon vines, venus flytrap/chomper plants, etc etc anything plantlike to use in combat, (think last phase SSC from UTTPR ) but his secondary attacks are his claws, tails and teeth.

Everest is aware of the timelines and aus. But he is alot less.. well, normal about it. And does not trust the ‘bad sanses’ one bit. But he is aware of who and what they all are. Aswell as the genocide routes. But he isnt one of the aware, he was made aware by his sans after some.. unfortunate events. A reset would wipe all his memories of this.

Everest and his sans are currently in the middle of a Surface paci-run, they’ve been on the surface for awhile now. But everest used to live in snowdin with the skelebros.

Appearance (fur edits made by my boyfriend, actual base made by https://www.deviantart.com/samalamb-bases/gallery ! )

LORE:

Everest is a hybrid. A mix of human and monster and was born during the war that caused monsters to be sealed. His mother was a human and his father was a cat-breed monster. His extra limbs were caused by the hybrid genes mixing together. But hes more monster-dominant in traits, but under his fur if you were to shave it all he’d have human skin underneath. (Not pink skin like animals. Actual human flesh and skin.), everest was old enough during the barrier sealing to witness his mother die for conspiring to have him. Ever since then he lived in a cave in snowdin with his father. Then an accident happened and his father dusted. Leaving him to live on his own as a teenager for the rest of his life. But that same time is when he met sans. Ever since then, the two would grow closer and closer. Despite every reset, sans would still chase his affections and love no matter how many times it was erased and trashed. Everest was always happy to follow his chasing. He always believes the universe meant for them to love one another.

DISCLAIMER:

Everest has his own AU versions of himself, HOWEVER, i will not be adding them as muses unless A: alot of people ask, or B: my boyfriend makes other sans au blogs! And ofcourse i will check if i am allowed to add/talk about the said au variant and if the creator of that au isnt comfortable with it? Thats fine!

[monochromatictoad]

@kachimera The explanation was running on too long, so I made a post instead, lol.

So Agharta is a reference to Agartha, linked is a Wikipedia article that goes into a bit more detail on that version.

Agharta was a civilization that lived within the woods with the Old Gods, ex. Pan and Agreus, and they were considered exceptional in magic and medicines and knowledge, capable of amazing feats. They had magical crystals to summon a demoness (100% reference to Lilith) that they had chained up within the pocket realm; they were capable of living thousands of years, if not longer; they had masterly crafted titans that ran from their magics and protected the city, they had a multi-layered city, living within the Earth itself. It was a thing of legend.

However, when the Lords of Shadow (or specifically, Cornell) came into power, Agharta was one of the first places attacked. Every fallen Aghartan, became just another beast within Cornell's army, either as a Warg or Lycan, quickly decimating the civilization. The Titans were destroyed (leaving technically only too standing, but Gabriel, with the help of Zobek for one, and Claudia for the other, destroyed). Now, somehow by the year 1556, the Brotherhood of Light came forth and found more, altering and bastardizing them to fit their goals instead. Dracul completely destroys those too.

There are only two canonical survivors of this genocide. Claudia and her guardian, the Black Knight. Claudia is a mute, bodily teenage girl, who speaks telepathically to Gabriel throughout the time she and Gabriel share. Her guardian was created by her Father (I have a theory on who this is) and protected infant Claudia from the Lycans. He feeds off the dark creatures that make the ruins their new homes. I believe he was made from the soul of an Aghartan prisoner, who was being punished for his crimes, but I need to get to that part in the game to verify that.

Now, there was a theory I saw on the Wiki, that stated that the Gorgon Sisters were also survivors from Agharta, but there's nothing in game to support this.

I have a theory on Claudia's father though.

My theory, is that LoS!Rinaldo is Claudia's father. Reasons? The VK, made by Rinaldo, has three upgrades here, there are quite a few upgrades for the Holy Water, Silver Knives, and Fairies up here, in Brotherhood of Light Chests. I believe that the Life, Light, and Dark medallions were also some of Rinaldo's creations. It wouldn't be too far out of the Ballpark to say that Rinaldo was Claudia's father, and that he made the Black Knight. However, we know very little about Rinaldo, except that he was last seen within the Land of the Dead, close to Baba Yaga's hut, forever lost in his own mind.

Now, the Toymaker could also very much be an Aghartan too, considering he was one of Rinaldo's Students, and was very skilled!

The timeline gets kinda fuzzy with this, and I'm quite frankly still trying to put the timeline of pre-LoS1 events together.

Edit: I'm almost certain that the architecture and statues make the city heavily influenced by Ancient Egyptian and South American Indigenous (I can't place a specific group, I'm sorry) cities.

[really-burnt-toast]

I NEED INFO ABT YOUR COLT AU

I'll take any chance to talk about three times :D

I hope my notes are readable bc I just quickly put them in a timeline BUT here is all I have planned rn!

Three Times is an AU that follows the game closely, but is riddled with personal head canons, stories I come up with and my own interpretation of game events and what the future could look like.

The name comes from the first post I made of the AU - showing the three main changes my Lamb, Mellia, goes through in order to become a god. Technically, it's four changes - but I'm not counting the gaining of wings, as that change was something that came from the crown directly and not godhood in general.

The most content I have on the AU right now is designs and future happenings.

"bad days" aka. Sozo's side story happens before and after the redemptions of the Bishops, as his story is interlocked with Shamura's redemption. Currently it is planned that he'll help with their memory problems. All the bishops will have their person/event that starts their redemption. For Leshy, it's himself (and followers ig) - Heket is through Forneus and other followers - Kallamar's is Shamura (the main characters of "sibling moments" (coming eventually)) - Shamura's is Sozo - Narinder's is Mellia, the Lamb.

"Three times" and "Meanwhile" (the posts, not au) are the incidents from the Lamb and Narinder that dictate what route they'll go down in the story. For the Lamb it's getting used to godhood and planning on rehabilitating the Bishops and for Narinder it starts his healing journey.

Narinder - after coming into the cult - suffers from severe Catatonia. The normal cures don't work and it isn't until "Meanwhile" that he starts to actually improve. Up until his siblings were revived, he was bed bound (suspected to suffer partial paralysis) and suffering from severe pains (some of them being chronic like joint pain). This might be the most severe diversion in what I've seen others do. He never really has an aggressive phase, just a phase where he is excessively avoidant.

Like the Lamb having a perpetual limp, Narinder's pain (since it's chronic) doesn't go away.

I don't want to say too much else because we are getting into spoilers - but a big part Ill also add, as seen in the notes, is that Shamura IS A HORRIBLE PERSON.

Well, technically morally gray...

Shamura has reasons for all their behavior, yet before opening up to their siblings and especially before their brain got scrambled - they made some very cruel choices. Some of their current choices are still horrible (Kidnapping and sacrificing the kittens and starting a Genocide)... But as a former Warlord - they weren't really the most sunshine and rainbows person...

A big part is I wanna find a proper explanation to their actions and why they even deserve redemption.

Edit: The Goat is a side story included in this, but technically they aren't a fully canon part of the story. It's like additional material you can read.

That was all I'm going to share for now o7

Might add more as I finish up the story.

[servantofdeathblog]

❯❯❯❯❯❯─BLOG TRAVEL GUIDE──➤

For anything regarding art related for Servant of Death, use the tag #my art to browse through everything I made for the AU!

Main Arcs ˋ°•*⁀➷

Blog posts regarding to the main canon of SoD.

Present Day

No posts made yet!

???

No zine comic made yet!

Childhood

No zine comic made yet!

Letterbox ˋ°•*⁀➷

Can be found under #crow delivery 💌!!

Asks from my inbox placed and linked in story order for SoD! Unless it's a general lore post (N/A) or a silly post (Silly) !!

Childhood // First meeting

Childhood // Skeleton kid's sewing hobby

Childhood // The Sacrifice

N/A // Geno and Reaper's relationship with touch.

Present // Clingy Reaper

N/A // Geno's eye (design timeline.)

Present // Geno and Reaper's responsibilities + Gaster + Setting

Present // Geno and Reaper's "professional" relationship

Present // Grimm's Visit

Silly // Reaper's hearts

Art References ˋ°•*⁀➷

Character Design posts and notes!

Genocide the Royal Butler

The Dark Prince Reaper

The Ghost Prince Grimm

Skeleton Kid (Geno) and Bird Kid (Reaper) Childhood designs

Servants

Special mentions! ˋ°•*⁀➷

Fanart + Fanfics

Can be found under the #fanart and #fanfic tag respectfully!!

and OMG TYY IM SO HONORED THAT YOU GUYS WERE INSPIRED BY MY SILLY LITTLE ROYAL GAYS 😭😭😭

Discord

I have a Discord if you want to chat with others about these silly skeletons! Or chat on random stuff too lol Sneak peaks my sneak in... who knows ???

❯❯❯❯❯❯─TO BE CONTINUED──➤

EDIT: I didn't think this needs to be said but anything regarding Palestine and other unfortunate events that needs fund-raising PLEASE REFER TO MY MAIN ART BLOG @goldetrash

This is a sideblog and i wish to keep relevancy in all posts.

Thank you !!

Welcome to the Official Servant of Death SIDE BLOGGG!!

What is it about???

SoD is my Afterdeath Royalty AU where Reaper is a prince of the underworld, and Geno is his faithful butler; however the twist is that-- Geno is prophesised to one day destroy the world, at present he is now under the ward of Prince Reaper, who promised to kill him for that one day. But until then, Geno will play as his young highness' capable overpowered personal servant and strongest confidant

QnA ???

Q1: Can I send a question about the AU ?? A: Yes !! Q2: Can I make fanart?? A: YESSS !!! just tag me and tag it #Servant of Death AU!! I want to see 👉👈 Q3: I got writing bunnies... can I use your AU as Inspiration🥺? A: Of course you can jajajaja

BASIC DNI CRITERIA !!!

> Homophobic, Transphobic, Xenophobic, Islamophobic, etc. > Misogynistic > Racist, Sexist, Ableist, Discrimination, etc. > Invalidates A Person's Pronouns / Gender / Identity > Pedophile, Sexualizes Minors, Jokes About R×pe, etc. > Hates/slander on shipping sans x sans (what are you doing here) Supports, participates, tolerates, or justify any of the above !!

We want to keep a positive and safe environment ty 🫶

[cassolotl]

What’s happening?

Or, a disjointed stream of unprocessed consciousness relating to the apparent Titanic:iceberg intersection that is Elon Musk’s Twitter.

Or, my Twitter timeline, 2008-2022.

~

On 27th October 2022 Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion USD, and fired everyone at the top that same day.

The social networks I used all the way back then (just over a month ago), in approximate order of time spent: Twitter, Tumblr, the Fediverse [Mastodon edition], Reddit. (I find Instagram and Facebook totally unusable, and I’m too sensory-avoidant for TikTok.)

I originally learned about Twitter from my friend Bash, back when no one knew what it was. She and her circle of nerdfriends affectionately called it the Hivemind or something like that, and I have a vague memory of her sending and receiving tweets via SMS on a Nokia with a monochrome screen that might have been Snake-compatible. It was a bit confusing and intimidating, so it took me a while to consider joining up.

I created my Twitter account on 8th November 2008. That’s 14 years ago. That’s 39%-of-my-life ago. I was 22, and now I’m 36. My Twitter account is old enough to have a Twitter account.

A couple of times I’ve been swarmed by TERFs or similar, and I’ve considered ditching Twitter, but then hardened up and shut parts of myself off from the internet, and carried on. I once got as far as making a second account that was more anonymous and I started to delete all my tweets with some automated process, but I changed my mind because my account was old and I was attached to it. I had posted some significant stuff on that account and I didn’t want to let it go. It felt important to keep it up as a resource, and when the TERFs got bored I decided to return and carry on tweeting. That was around 2016, when my account was 8 years old and I was 30 years old.

When I look back on it, I think the thing that really tipped the balance for me was the Explore tab. (Twitter was very open about wanting to become the main source of news and current events for core users and as many casual users as possible, and it succeeded via the Explore tab.) I used Twitter on a laptop for a while but I was late to smartphones, and then even after I got one I managed to avoid Explore for a while, and then somehow I went from being a person who knits and reads books on trains to being a person who scrolls Twitter on trains. And then a person who scrolls Twitter off trains. It’s insidious in such a way that I still can’t describe how or why it has that effect.

Part of it was the way opening the app was like opening a flower with a thousand petals, and each petal is a person who’s not like me and I could get an insight into what excites and interests them, and a lot of those people are nothing like me. I’ve gone through some traumatic experiences in my life and I’m more socially closed-off as a result, but at heart I always have been and still am quite a sociable person, and I find other people very interesting. The ability for me as an isolated and sociable introvert to reach what felt like everyone in the world on this tiny rectangle was just so powerful and irresistible. When I was younger I would read books and feel that whole universe in my head, and Twitter was the same kind of thing but the stories were very small and in literally infinite amounts, and I always knew exactly where to find them.

Before the Explore tab, Twitter would occupy a managable proportion of my attention. Slowly-slowly, via the Explore tab, Twitter started to become an unpleasant place for me to be. I would go through cycles of unfollowing almost everyone and then starting over from maybe 10 or so core people, gradually building up again, and then unfollowing almost everyone, and it never quite fixed it for me. That glorious infinite variety of humanity would always come with the compulsory consumption of information about politics (in the UK and the US and elsewhere), wars, flooding, famine, genocide, absurdly rich celebrities with no perceptible career/achievements?? And then I became aware of the online counterparts of the subcultures I move in AFK, and their petty squabbles that no one AFK knew or cared about. And then Twitter became big enough that the petty online squabbles started to influence events AFK as well.

Somehow the world is now everything I don’t want, and I’m aware of US politics and I don’t want to be, and I’m aware of UK Conservative MPs and their ridiculous sniping about nothing in particular while the things that are most important to me fall apart and I don’t want to be, and I knit less and I don’t read books at all and I always feel like I’m not doing enough to be the change I want to see and for some reason I keep looking at it. There was a time when I didn’t know the name of the US president, and when I primarily used the internet to watch sci-fi/fantasy TV shows to knit by.

When Trump got voted into the White House I saw the future unroll in front of me, and it turned out pretty much as I expected, only worse. (I would not have expected a crowd of costumed, rifle-bearing militia to storm the White House incited by the outgoing president, though in hindsight perhaps I should have.) When I heard the first report of coronavirus in the UK I knew that all human experience as we all knew it was about to be turned upside down very fast and for a long time, and in hindsight I think it actually turned out a little bit better than I was expecting. (I have been very fortunate that none of my friends or family have died of the coronavirus.) On 27th October when I heard that Elon Musk had bought Twitter I knew that Twitter was all but over, and when a few hours later I heard he’d fired the entire board of directors I knew it would happen very fast.

At that point I drew a line in the sand for myself. Musk had already said that if he bought Twitter he would bring back Donald Trump’s account, and I decided that if he did that I would leave Twitter. Twitter with Donald Trump had been nigh unbearable, I had tolerated that creeping toxicity for years, and Trump getting suspended was a huge relief, so I knew that I couldn’t kid myself into thinking that a Twitter that reinstates Trump could possibly be a place that wants me in it. I’m not going back to that.

About two weeks after Musk bought Twitter, I noticed that my Home timeline was no longer my carefully curated 70% individuals I cared about and 30% interesting organisations. Without fanfare it had shifted to maybe 5 or so individuals I cared about tweeting infrequently, and perhaps 90% organisations behaving as if nothing had changed at all. At the same time, Musk was tweeting about how engagement and tweet impressions on Twitter were the highest they had ever been, and he stands by it now. I can’t tell if he’s bluffing or if he genuinely believes what he’s saying.

On 18th November, Musk reinstated Andrew Tate’s account. His level of misogyny is off-the-scale and probably criminal. It’s the type and intensity of shameless misogyny that incites murder and domestic abuse, and it’s absurd that this isn’t hyperbole. I could understand Trump getting reinstated because he’s a politician and Twitter has historically given politicians a bit more leeway, but this guy? My feelings were visceral in nature.

On 20th November Trump’s account was reinstated, and I stopped tweeting, liking and reblogging. Four days ago I uninstalled Twitter from my phone, and about two days ago I logged out of Twitter on my laptop.

It’s been a little over a month since Musk bought Twitter, and:

Musk has fired over half of Twitter’s employees internationally, many of them illegally, some of them publicly via Twitter.

Those he didn’t fire, he gave an ultimatum: opt in to a truly awful employment experience (”extremely hardcore”) or be let go. Most did not opt in.

He’s converted a bunch of offices in Twitter HQ to bedrooms for the Extremely Hardcore workers who don’t have time to go home to sleep. (This is under investigation because it might be illegal.)

There’s a skeleton staff of abuse prevention employees, making the platform very unsafe for the most vulnerable people on and off Twitter, including kids.

Musk has been giving anti-fascist accounts permanent suspensions without strikes, based on the casual recommendations of big name fascists. (Also he’s Twitter-friends with Nazis.)

He’s also reinstated many thousands of hateful and bigoted people’s accounts, and revoked the covid misinformation policy.

Twitter is breaking - gracefully, thanks to the epic amount of work that many engineers have put into such a huge infrastructure - and features are being removed.

Advertisers are abandoning Twitter in a big way, partly because of the vast swathes of hate and partly because the advertising system is unmanned and broken.

There are so many more disastrous things. So many.

Again: it has only been a bit over a month.

I don’t know if you can tell, because I feel kind of numb about all of this and can’t really read my own tone, but I’m writing this with a kind of dumbfounded horror. $44 billion (billion! 44 of those!) is an amount of money I don’t think I will ever be able to conceptualise, and he bought Twitter with it, and he has tanked it so fast and so hard that I struggle to describe it. Never has so much money been spent on driving something into worthlessness so quickly. I’ve seen several articles speculating that Musk must be destroying Twitter deliberately for reasons unclear. I’ve seen more articles just straight-up saying he’s an incompetent idiot. Can he see the effect he’s having, or is he oblivious? How can he be oblivious? It’s just absolutely boggling?!?

So that’s what’s happening to Twitter. What’s happening to me is, I’m a person whose connection to the wider world has essentially been removed, though thankfully that removal has been predictable to me and somewhat within my control. A very negative but important and long-established pillar of my life is gone. It was negative so I should be glad it’s gone, but also now I am more isolated and that’s bad...? I feel unmoored and frayed, and a bit like I have to remake myself.

I often feel a bit silly about how much it’s affecting me, especially since I didn’t even particularly like Twitter when all this started kicking off. But through its own design it had become my main connection to events happening outside of my personal bubble, in a wider context it was big and influential enough that it could affect politics and facilitate major news stories, and on a smaller scale it was the main emotional connection to some friends who are important to me and who didn’t post in any of my other places online. I’m not sure I would call this process grief exactly, but it feels like a techtonic shift and I really don’t know what to make of it. I’ve been trying to write about it for weeks now and I still don’t feel like I’m doing a very good job of it. Somehow I still have a long way to go on it, and a lot of that is because I don’t understand why I still have a long way to go on it.

Who is going to kick me in the chest when I wake up in the morning now?

[nientedenada]

Ysgramor and the G-Word

Originally posted on /r/teslore. 

The charge of genocide gets thrown around a lot in TES lore discussions. It's claimed that Ysgramor and co. genocided the snow Elves, but then it's argued back that the Snow Elves genocided the folks at Saarthal. And then the Dwemer genocided the Snow Elves, and while we're at it, did the Direnni genocide the Nords, and what about the Ayleids genociding the men-of-Ge, and the Alessians genociding the Ayleids and  . . . ok you got the idea.

It's pretty pointless, to be honest, particularly with the lack of actual contemporary sources on most of these conflicts. Add that to an inconsistent definition of genocide held by the debaters, and I just start groaning every time I see such a thread.

HOWEVER, there is a false equivalence made in equalling the cultural memory of Ysgramor and the Companions to any of these other events, and that's what I'm posting about today.

The perspective I think is missing from a lot of these threads is this: The destruction of the snow-elves in Nord lore was an intentional genocide carried to completion.

This isn't a debate in which each side tells their own story that gets them off the hook. The charge of genocide against Ysgramor and the Companions generally isn't made by elves or other critics. In fact, the one ancient Snow Elf we talk to about the subject, Gelebor, frames it as a series of territory wars.

Now, personally, I don't believe Songs of the Return is necessarily historical fact, or meant to be taken as historical fact. Ysgramor's command to go forth and kill all the elves is the legend's framework, with everyone doing it for "Ysgramor, Harbinger of us all". The real life guy's vision was probably more on the local scene, with all these adventurers doing their own thing. Like real-life Vikings, really.

Even the Pocket Guide to the Empire, First Edition, which takes a lot of Ysgramor's myth at face value, says

It may be that the exploits of the near-mythical Ysgramor conflate the reigns of several early Nord Kings, as the Elves were not finally driven from the present boundaries of Skyrim until the reign of King Harald, the thirteenth of Ysgramor's line, at the dawn of recorded history.

The timeline and circumstances of the Snow Elves' fall in real life is debatable but the point of Songs of the Return and all the other tales the Nords tell about Ysgramor is that this is how they see him. They praise him in terms that to an outsider are pretty shocking. After the Saarthal incident, they don't make any excuse for why Ysgramor and company are wiping out the elves and beasts of Tamriel. It's just a thing you'd do, because they're all evil liars; before you even meet them, you know that.  

The key moment in Songs of the Return is Ysgramor's exhortation to kill all the elves after the retaking of Saarthal. (Vol.7)

As the reverberations echoed out and drowned to silence, all looked to Ysgramor, who bore the blessed Wuuthrad, for his next commandment. With his lungs that bellow forth the fury of humanity, he bade them to continue their march, that the devious Mer might know the terror they had brought on themselves with their trickery.

"Go forth," he roared. "Into the belly of this new land. Drive the wretched from their palaces of idleness." Oblige them to squalor and foil, that they would see their betrayals as the all-sin against our kind. Give no quarter. Show no kindness. For they would not give nor show you the same."

So off the different captains go, each following their own course to drive the Snow-Elves out of Skyrim.  But as they continue into the rest of Tamriel (and Volume 24 is basically a murder tour of Tamriel), Songs of the Return many times attributes their deeds to Ysgramor's direction.

Volume 49:

With the Circle of Captains' decree that each ship's crew should go forth of its own accord, making its own legend, the crew of the Fallowfire rejoiced. They yearned to bring the fear of Men to new lands of the Mer that had not yet been put to the sword. They took to heart their Lord Ysgramor's words to "Give no quarter. Show no kindness."

and

South they traveled, seeking lands untrammeled by others of Ysgramor's crews. South and south they went, sowing the blood vengeance demanded by Ysgramor. No Mer escaped their axes once seen, no settlement remained unburnt in their path. Truly the Fallowfires brought their lord's wrath to bear upon the treacherous Elves.

and in Morrowind, killing peace-professing elves.

Volume 56:

It was in one of the uncounted years after the retaking of Saarthal that the crew of the Chrion was declaring their fortunes in the eastern lands near the Red Mountain. They were encamped, surrounded by bodies of murderous elves who had attempted to make believe they held peace in their hearts. The shrewd Rhorlak was the Chrion's captain, though, and would show no quarter to the liars of the southlands, as had been commanded by his lord Ysgramor, harbinger of us all.

These are just in the volumes we can read. The text "The Onus of the Oghma" quotes Ysgramor from a volume we don't have.

"Then, though I did feel a great ire against the perfidious Elves, and desired nothing more than to hie me hence to Jylkurfyk and take ship back to Tamriel, where I could try the edge of Wuuthrad against their all-too-many necks, yet I had beheld during my captivity that the wily Elves possessed much learning and knowledge, though they put it to ends both vile and dishonorable. And I bethought me that to defeat the Elves and scour them from the land, it would be well if Men also did wield such wisdoms. Therefore I strung Long-Launcher with the Woeful Bowstring and sought the marshes of the east, where dwelt Faldrosta the great Snow-Goose. And I slew her with a hawk-fletched dart, and plucked of her a great quill, which I used to write down my speech as I had seen the Elves do. And I vowed that henceforth all Men would record their ideas and thoughts, just as Shor carved a record of his victory over Sneggh into the side of Shivering Glacier. And in this way would the best ways of killing Elves be preserved."

That cultural memory has permeated even the games modern Nord children play. Young Assur in Winterhold:

Eirid and I are playing Hunt the Elf. It's my job to find the Elf, and kill it dead."

The Pocket Guide to the Empire, Volume I, provides a historical example of the Nord's traditional animus against elves.

Khosey, in his 'Tamrilean Tractates,' transcribes a firsthand account of the "discovery" of the Bretons by a Nordic hunting party. The Bretons, in ten generations of Elven intermingling and slavery, had become scarcely recognizable as humans. Indeed, the hunting party attacked them thinking they were some new strain of Aldmeri, halting their slaughter only when one of the oldest began to wail for his life, a shrieking plea that was spoken in broken Nordic.

The Nords are very, very clear that they regard Ysgramor as the destroyer of all and any elves  (and maybe beasts too) just because they're elves and can't be trusted. I don't think there is any equivalent on the elves side, an elf culture hero who is just out to kill all the men. Maybe the Thalmor can rise to the occasion and provide one, but it hasn't happened yet!

tl;dr summary: Ysgramor may or may not have committed genocide, but his descendants boast that he did. It's not, as often argued in lore circles, a charge by Ysgramor's critics, but a boast by his fans.

ETA: Well, this is embarrassing. I forgot to quote another important bit of Songs of the Return, though I sort of referenced it, mentioning that the hatred of elves extended to beastfolk. Here it is: The time that Ysgramor's command was applied to killing the Argonians.

[When the time came for] breaking of camp, not all crews took southwards across the rolling lands. Some turned with quick eyes back to their ships, for their hearts were bounded to the waves as sure as they were bounded to each other [as allied Companions]. One such crew was that of the Krilot Lok, sinewy long folk from the [eastern] edge of Atmora. Their ruddy skin matched the dawn and it was often said that morning herself learned [her glorious colors from] the first faces to meet her at the break of day. The great Kyne lifted their souls and their winds, propelling them westwards with the new lands of Tamriel ever beckoning to the south. In time, these perpetual wanderers came upon sights fearsome and terrible. Entire kingdoms of men beyond their recognition, skin charred like overcooked meat. Elves [even more devious than the northern betrayers] disgraced their horizons, until they learned the sheltered ways between. Great deserts the likes of which were never known in the homeland, peopled by beasts that spoke like men, with the [savagery?] of elves. Many a notable and well-sung Companion met his end at the spears of the legged snakes of the southern marsh. Among the brave crew of the Krilot Lok were of Roeth and Breff the Elder, the great Shield-Brothers (who often swapped spears), and [their] war-wives, Britte and Greyf (the fair child), Shield-Sisters in their own right who could bring [the face of terror?] across the ice-chilled seas. Together these four stared into the abyss of trees that formed the foul-smelling homeland of the snake-men. And as they were blessed Atmorans who feared no shore of Tamriel, they ventured forth to seek out their glories in the most dangerous of these new lands. Onward they flew, ravaging the swamplands, beating a trail between themselves and their ship such that they would never lose sight of the shore. In the far-off day when at last Roeth would fall, when Britte screamed her famed war-cry so that all the marshes were emptied, this trail would fill once more with the treacherous snake men. So began the [burning?] march of these great captains of us all.

Thanks /u/spacest007 for bringing up the passage.

Further discussion in thread:

In the comments of the post, some people objected that there are various elf villains in the series who could be seen as heroes in their societies. Mankar Camoran, Mannimarco, Umaril etc.

My replies: We know none of the folk on that list are regarded well in elven lands. Every elven source about them is negative.

There's the possibility there is a hero among the elves who is known for murdering humans, but we've yet to see one.

Lorewise, Ysgramor, though, is the clearest example of complete elf-hatred. Pelinal at least scared even his companions with his crazy murder rampages, and Tiber Septim's anti-elvenness was opportunistic and changeable; he even had at least one elf general, Symmachus, and could make peace with the Tribunal.

and

Everyone in Tamriel complains that the other side oppressed and murdered theirs. The story of Ysgramor is something completely different, a proclamation of triumphant guilt. It might not even be true, but it's an honoured narrative.

On the historical Ysgramor:

I purposefully avoided speculation about the historical Ysgramor in this post, but my personal feeling is it's likely that he was a warrior involved in brutal territorial wars against the snow elves during the proto-Nord expansion into Skyrim. He probably hated his enemies, the snow elves, and atrocities would have occurred during those wars.

But Ysgramor as the man with the plan to purge all Tamriel of elves, who put it into action within a generation, is probably an exaggeration, to say the least.

The worst aspect of the historical killing of the Snow Elves seems to me to be towards the end, long after Ysgramor, as documented in some of those Snow Elf documents when they decided to flee to the Dwemer.

[lordbloodysoul]

Name:

Karma Doorman

Title:

"Dept Collector of Justice" - "Prosecutor of Consequences" - "Old Man Consequences"

Nicknames:

The Tall Doorman (Papyrus)

G. D. or Guardian/Big G. (the Human Children)

Old Timer, Pal, Buddy or "Karmamel" (Sans)

Old Freckle (Undyne)

Age:

[REDACTED]

Height / Weight:

6 feet 8 inches (or 2.11m) / 87 kg (112kg with entire attire)

Soul Type

"Collective Soul"

// - A Collective Soul shows trades of all known Soul Types and is shielded by a thin membrane of Void. It looks like a blank Soul with a black outline, that has a small pitch dot in its center from which a vibration rolls across the surface of the Soul. Those waves appear in different colors and strokes. To those who are very sensible to Soul Energy, the vibration will sound like an endless army of different voices breathing simultaneously in sync. The rhythm changes wit Karma's state of mind. It has an aroma/flavour that could be described as "a bittersweet taste of Salt and Iron". The feeling it would induces is more reminiscent of Guilt and Foreboding. Like standing before a King with an Executioner looming right behind you. - //

STATS:

LV

[REDACTED] //Next to it often flashes the following message: "I can see ALL your SINS..."//

HP

[REDACTED] // Their HP is so high that even a Critical from the LvL 19 Human affects it as if they would jut do 1 HP damage //

ATTACK

[REDACTED] //Next to it often flashes the following message: "I make the RULES."//

DEFENSE

[REDACTED] //Next to it often flashes the following message: "Your DEPT will be PAID"//

Doorman-Tier:

Tier S - Class S

History:

Karma Doorman is the original "Blueprint" of their kind within the Undertale Universe. Their Soul was a blank, purified Vessel with trades of both Human and Monster Soul. Within it, their creator stored the power of every willing being of the Old Dark's Court, forging a Soul of immense potential. Made from pieces of countless Entities and the Life-Blood of their Creator, this Doorman was chained to the purpose of "SAVING THEM", but left with a free will to decide on how to accomplish that Goal.

Karma's first appearance within the Undertale Multiverse was due to the waking call of UT Sans's Will to struggle against the Genocide Route's Outcome, which gave their existence a physical Form. Before that, they were just a spiritual presence and afterthought, mostly. A Dread looming above the Sinners, Cheaters and Fools of the World.

[!!!SPOILERS WARNING!!! - for those who wish to Read the FanFiction or wait till I get around to making the Comic, since the LITERATURE SUBMIT on DA doesn't allow much creative Freedom, so I have to do a lot of Re-Spacing and Editing on those Parts. This Section will spoil some of the Plot in exchange for Character Build - If you don't want that spoiled, please proceed to the APPEARANCE Section - !!!SPOILER WARNING!!!]

Karma's awakening shook the original Universe of Undertale at its Core, as they proceeded to exterminate the Genocide Timeline by removing the [ERASE] and [RESET]option from the Human Child and blocking the [QUIT] option. Their DETERMINATION exceeded any existent being in this Original Timeline.

After ridding themselves of Chara, Flowey and purifying Frisk's Soul, they continued [REWRITING]the Timeline, forcing Toriel to stay with Asgore and bringing comfort to his broken heart. They dragged Gaster and his Lab Assistants back from the Void and made Sans forget about the RESETS, weakening themself severely in the process.

Karma intervened in many upcoming Events, including saving the original six children, choosing to live with them in the RUINS, due to the absence of Toriel, and kept them save there. They properly locked the Gate towards Snowdin and became Sans's Knock-Knock Pal, as he recovered his strength, while waiting for time to unfold on its own. They dragged a Criminal into the Underground, who would serve as a trigger for Undyne's role in the future as head of the Royal Guards, as well as providing Gaster with a Soul for his research. When Gaster's experiment was about to end in failure, they leaped in and saved the staff, but Sans got struck and began remembering everything again, including his first encounter with Karma.

The Doorman left him that way, on behalf of his own wishes, closing the Rift towards the Void, straining their Soul towards its limits. When Frisk arrived, they were the one waiting for them, accompanied by the other six children. Together, they left the RUINS and began their journey through the Underground in order to reach the True Ending and the last option that would hinder their Safeguard over the Timeline. [TRUE RESET]

Appearance:

Karma Doorman looks like a tall, thin elf, clad in black robes and armor. Their cloak, which always rests on their shoulders, splits into multiple tendrils, which can move freely as separate limbs from the rest of their body. These tentacle-like arms are connected to his back, sprouting straight from a fissure across his spine. Their hair is charcoal black and slightly grayish in color, long flowing and smooth as silk. The eyes are red and always surrounded by a reddish blush, which runs along their pale cheeks.

When his expression and demeanor change, the eye-white turns blackish and their thin lips stretch into a wide, haunting grin. Often accompanied by streams of rusty, reddish liquid welling from underneath the eyes. This happens mostly in situations that call for them to use lots of Energy and Magic. It is due to the affects his tremendously powerful Soul has on their vessel body. The reddish liquid is not blood, but liquid-form Determinationseeping through their entire body. When reaching their limits, Karma often ends up with ripped skin or deep gashing wounds all over, which they have to let heal on their own.

Personality:

Karma was created by the remaining Will and Hope of Sans from across all RESETS, which shaped part of their personality. They are very intelligent and resourceful, with a developing love for puns and witty commentary. Karma sees his job as part of a Game, partially, but takes every step they make with utmost seriousness. They often hide the seriousness of their intentions to seem as less of a threat than they actually are, which paint them often in the lights of a sadistic psycho, rather than a helpful ally.

Karma is very kind, when not chasing after Sinners and Cheaters. As a manifestation of Consequences, their actions are justified in the eye of fate, however the Doorman has their doubts about it, acting to the best of their conscious, trying to find the best way to deal with every situation.

They are a selfless Soul, ready to give everything and more in order to see their goal achieved, which is the happiness of all deserving of it.

The Entity judges all on a fair standpoint, giving anyone the benefit of the doubt if it is present within their actions. Which is why they sowed pity and understanding towards Sans more than to Flowey, Frisk and Chara.

Karma is a follower of the principle of "Mutual Consent". They never force their way, feelings or the likes upon others (unless they need to judge that person for being a dirty Sinner, Cheater or the likes). Knowing that everything in life comes with consequences, they rather stay on a neutral ground till they’re sure of the others intentions.

Likes:

Puns and Humor (by that extend Sans)

Cooking

Baking

helping people

singing - ( he loves humming this Song here)

Children

hunting Sinners and Cheaters

napping

Dislikes:

Sinners and Cheater of all kinds

Mettaton (to some extend, since he finds the Robot quite obnoxious)

too spicy food

Capitalism (they've been trying to kill it off for since they've gained consciousness)

Gender- and Race Labeling (which is why they refer to themself as a "they" and won't accept anyone miss-gender them whatsoever)

Capabilities:

Due to their DETERMINATION, Karma is capable of blocking Tricksters, Sinners and Cheaters from abusing Fortune or, in the case of the Fallen Children and Flowey, the power of RESET. They can exterminate these Options and force their prey to face Consequences, without a backdoor to escape out off. The Entity can also alter the flow of time and space to previous states and interact with Checkpoints (which they mostly destroy instantly). They can reanimate people, by simply restoring their last intact living position. While restoring entire Landscapes and areas, they have to focus their manipulative power into a comfortable shape, which mostly appears as a Ring following near the ground, walls and ceiling behind them.

When they first appeared in the Universe of Undertale, Karma was only visible to a selective few. Mostly those aware of the RESETS. While traveling backwards through the Underground with Sans, they created Rifts within the fabric of the World to quickly advance. Similar in Sans's use of shortcuts only on a basic sense, as these Rifts interconnect on a completely different plain of thought. Like a Road along the weave of Space-Time itself.

Their strength comes not only from their Soul, however. Karma’s power forms from the Will of Justice and Vengeance lingering within the World they inhabit. Since their body was formed by Sans’s recollected strife to stop the fallen child from their murderous rampage, their power connected to it. As such, his memory became vital to their strength, but to ensure their goal was fully achieved, Karma decided to REWRITE him, even at the cost of a fair extend of their own power.

Karma's attack abilities range from direct hands-on Battle to them using their tendrils as extended limbs for range combat. They can use various magics, too.

Since their DETERMINATION is so high, Karma is capable of changing the RULES of Combat. They do so to 'playfully' dispose of their targets.

In such occasions, they like to play "JUDGMENT HELL", a game where he provides their foes with the means to battle them properly. Giving them armor, weapons and item to use. They also stag a persons SIN to their STATS, exceeding the limitations of the Universe’s limitations. Within the game they play the PROSECUTOR, who protects a JUDGE from the ACCUSED. While the ACCUSED try to kill or persuade the JUDGE it is the PROSECUTOR's job to keep the JUDGE save and eliminate the ACCUSED. When an ACCUSED perishes, they will be respawned with a penalty to their STATS. When the HP reaches 1, the next strike will indefinitely kill the ACCUSED. They will be erased with the severity of their sins burning their bodies and souls out of current existence. The PROSECUTOR can't act on their own, besides shielding the JUDGE. The JUDGE has full reign over their actions and decides if a person is worth of MERCY or not.

The Doorman is capable of all Magic Abilities. During Combat, Karma uses mostly White, Black and Red Attacks, although they like changing their Style up on the fly sometimes. Fighting them is quite the bad idea, due to them not acting upon the RULE of attacks having to always be in the same repeating patterns. Each of Karma's attacks is acting like a Critical Strike or Instant Kill Move, which makes the experience that much more frustrating. They also can slay foes straight outside of an open FIGHT.

For more casual activities, Karma uses their power of levitation for transport or just simply sitting in a floating position. They multi-task via their tendrils a lot, often preferring them over their own arms and hands. They can use healing magic to quickly close wounds, set bones or just giving a soothing warmth to distressed people. They usually, however, don't use that much magic overall. Only if it is absolutely required or helpful in aiding their goal or people in need.

Karma possesses the special ability of "REWRITE", which allows him to change any aspect of a Location, Item. Person or Rule. With this ability, they can change the flow of the world to befit their purpose. A REWRITE can only be undone by them or an outer-worldly Impact of similar Determination Power, which is rare.

Due to their massive STATS, which broke the readable Range of the World by a margin, attempting to destroy them via Battle is basically pointless. Bargaining with them will be seen as an insult, which often results in harsher punishment, while accepting ones fate is probably the smartest option.

Karma's destructive power can be placed easily above the power of most living beings in the Undertale Multiverse, however, he would struggle against other Doormen of their own respective Tier.

Relations:

Karma, throughout their journey will befriend many Monsters.

Sans will become their first friend among many, as they take the Role of Toriel after the REWRITE. Papyrus they meet briefly in his early childhood, but won't become a friend to the till later. They will bond with Undyne over a match of strength and perseverance.

The human children, as they fall one by one into the Underground, will end up being raised by them. They refer to them as their Guardian or Big G. for short. Karma collects them and ensures their safety while staying in the RUINS, up until Frisk appears. The children take a shine to them, as they cared for them, teaching them to accept monsters as part of their lives.

POTENTIAL SPOILER:

Similar to Sans growing an affection towards Toriel during the outplay of the Original Timeline, in the REWRITE he grows quite fond of them as they do of him.

In the Canon of the series, the two agree on a relationship based on both of their loss at what to do or expect from the newfound freedom they fought for. The human children encourage their romantic interest in one another, much to Karma's displeasure, as they are completely estranged to the whole romance business. Going even so far as to stopping Frisk multiple times, during their adventure, from flirting with every Monster they encounter.

Trivia:

Karma has no recollection of anything prior to their awakening to sentience. For all they've known, they were always a part of Undertale.

However, Sans and Papyrus both commented on "having seen their eyes somewhere before" and that this was not something good they've remembered.

It spun a bit of curiosity around their mind, which always leaves a bad aftertaste behind.

--------------

[jaxsteamblog]

Prompt Request Gone Wrong: Worldbuilding Edition

So @sparkle-bunny suggested Zuko (drunkenly) confessing to Prince Amaqjuaq (an OC from my Katara’s Courtship series) about how much he loves Katara. UNFORTUNATELY, I felt the need to build context around their conversation and ended up with an entirely different scene. I’m going to re-write it, to specifically do the conversation from Zuko’s POV but it wouldn’t quite make sense without the surrounding story.

I’m going to put plot stuff under the cut and a link to the scenes I’ve written, with a follow up from Zuko’s POV.

If you are not caught up with Katara’s Courtship, there will be spoilers.

At the end of Book 2, Katara announces that she knows Malina is pregnant. Hakoda and Malina marry after she gives birth to Iluak. He is then Katara’s (and Sokka’s obv) half-brother and he is a Waterbender.

From the events in Books 2 & (sorta) 3, we see that Amaqjuaq has a serious connection to Katara. In Books 4 (being written currently) and 5 (coming in the future) we’re going to see what this connection means to him and Katara.

We’ll also see how anxious this makes Zuko.

In the timeline, this bit that I’m going to post comes FOUR YEARS AFTER Book 7. S-E-V-E-N. 

I’m currently writing Book 4 remember. So a LOT happens between that and this interaction. If things feel a bit disjointed, it’s because I had to remove a TON of spoilers for the series. 

To put it in more perspective, Balanced: Part 2 takes place in 107 AG (after genocide, AKA 107 years after Aang was trapped in the iceberg and thus 7 years after the events in the show.)

This bit takes place in 124 AG.

Aang’s three children are born by this point, Toph has had Lin. Zuko and Katara have been married for only four years. 

I cannot stress enough the fact that so much has happened before we get to this.

The other thing I want to stress is that the main series is told mostly from Katara’s POV. The changing narrators in Balanced: Part 1 was a choice I had to make since I had to write Xianji’s actions while Katara was on the other side of the world. 

Zuko is the focus, if not the POV, for the mini books, but those are mostly to act as filler to explore the world, missing scenes, and other characters.

This means that things are happening outside of Katara’s scope, and might also be happening contrary to what she thinks.

Katara, before this bit, would tell you that she’s distant with Iluak, but it’s not bad.

Iluak has a different perspective on things. 

He acts as a representative for other things that Katara has missed. Like how others see her and her relationships. Including Zuko.

Zuko has also gone through some shit by this point. Spoilers for everyone, but “Katara’s Courtship” is just the first arc of the series and only contains the first four books.

Want a teaser?

Book 5 is a bridge book. It’s working title is “Harmony” and it breaks open the world. All of the stuff that’s been building toward Katara’s destiny is connected in this book, but that means everything changes.

Book 6 is called “Diaspora” and spans over four years. It’s angsty and brutal.

A mini book comes after. It’s cute and will hopefully make up for Book 6.

Book 7 is called “Splinter.” I will have to apologize a lot for that one.

Those three make up the “Katara’s Destiny” arc.

TWENTY-ONE YEARS after Book 7 is Book 8.

Book 8 is called “Birthrite” and is going to be massive. I fear it. It’s the “Katara’s Legacy” arc in one freaking book (please god don’t let it become multiple books like Balanced) and is one last story before the world gets ready for Korra.

Am I going to rewrite Korra? Fuck no. But I will probably write stuff like this post (WHERE I SCREW UP LU TEN’S FRIGGIN NAME) or others that reference the differences. 

Anyway, back to the original point. (This is why I have 8 books instead of 1, because I can’t keep my brain from wandering off.)

Zutara is my OTP, plain and simple. However, when you’re that devoted to one person, your other relationships are going to suffer. 

Katara has a lot of blind spots, and this piece I’ve written highlights two of them.

Here is a Dropbox link to the story

[kob131]

https://sssn-neptune-vasilias.tumblr.com/post/621768990478450688/sssn-neptune-vasilias-remember-when-the-white#

Remember how the night Adam revealed to Blake he was a genocidal maniac back when they’d first met 5 years ago takes place the night before the train heist of the first Black Trailer, which is AFTER the caravan event depicted in the second Black Trailer?

‘Second Black trailer’ There’s no such thing. That’s the Adam Character Short.

Also there’s a clear contradiction in your words there. You say that the night Adam showcased his true colors was when they first met five years ago...and yet somehow takes place right before the train heist which is far more separated from that reveal....AND the Character short as Ghira was still the leader of the White Fang.

Gee, almost like you’re just spouting bullshit.

Remember how these two events literally do NOT make sense in the canon timeline as they exist? 

Mostly because you’re spouting bullshit.

Remember how we, the audience, don’t find out Adam is genocidal until 3.11, which takes place AFTER 3.7 where we learn Adam was forcibly recruited to Cinder’s cause at gunpoint after vehemently refusing to join them and allowing them to leave his camp unharmed?

Also remember that canonically before being ‘forcibly recurited’, he tried to blow up a train car full of innocents and during the first talk he SPECFICIALLY denied Cinder because she was human AKA he’d be willing to kill his men if she were a Fanuas?

Adam must either be the most wishywashy person of all time on his opinion on genocide, or that aspect of his character must’ve been written into being at the last fucking minute. 

Not when you consider all the facts but hey, being truthful and listening to reality was never your strong suit.

Who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Maybe he only feels like genocide on Tuesdays ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Or you’re a political hack whose making up and editing out stuff to support your narrative while preaching to an echo chamber. Funny how you make zero direct quotes or link to scenes in your posts, almost like you have to rely on the vagueness your posts provide to have your points survive even the bare minimum of scrutiny.

But who cares because hur dur, RT bad.

[agentravensong]

Two UnderTale announcements today!

1. An interview with the people behind UnderTale Live!

Here are the highlights:

"The show is structured such that audiences vote at “critical junctures,” allowing them to spare or fight characters and ultimately arrive at one of the game’s three signature endings: neutral (kill some, spare some), pacifist (kill no one), or genocide (kill everyone)."

"...Undertale Live (while faithfully following the events and choices in the game) is nevertheless a new experience, and it may be possible to jump timelines, get a better ending*, unlock secret encores... who knows?”

*A “better ending” in this “new experience”... you mean, better than the canon pacifist ending?

"While only the Chicago premiere show has been announced, Visconti said that there’ll be many more, with dates in May and a proper North American summer 2020 tour already planned. The show will change over time, too. 'We’ll keep evolving the show based on fan input following each show, incorporating new story segments, encores, and arrangements of unreleased tracks,' said Visconti. 

This will likely include tracks from Undertale’s sequel, Deltarune, which despite a lengthy demo that came out last year, is not out yet, has no release date, and may never come out. 'We want this to be a show that cares as much about the fans as they care about Undertale,' said Visconti. 'And fans can continue to expect some aces up our sleeve as excitement builds for the upcoming release of the game’s long-awaited followup, Deltarune.'"

2. New UnderTale merch on fangamer!

There’s a lot of cool stuff here, but the one thing I want to point out is that the cross stitch kit includes the first-ever appearance of Asriel in official UnderTale merch! Previously Toby was said to keep Asriel from being featured in merch because his existence, in particular his appearance, is technically a big spoiler. But if the spoiler ban has been lifted for Asriel... what could be next? Official Chara merch? Sign me up for that! ...Then again, maybe not if this statement from him still holds:

EDIT: So I originally put in the tags that this might also mean we’d get to see Frisk name in merch and... other places... but that was before I saw this preview image for the stationary set:

So that answers that.

[scifimagpie]

Game of ZZZs: How Long Stories Ruin Everything

I've been putting this one off because I was kind of busy writing an 18-part series deep-dive involving journalism and undercover work, but since Lindsay Ellis has released her video essay conclusion, I have finally put my thoughts in order.

So, today we're going to talk about something contentious. I have no issue with books being long, or shows being long, or movies being long - but at the same time, I do. And yes, I know some people adore epic scale stories for their own sake.  Not everything needs to be a thousand-page-long ten-book series with three spinoffs and prequels. Oh, sure, market forces and advertising play a role in this, but creators still participate in it.

But sometimes a story isn't long because it needs to be, it's long because the writer thinks it HAS to be. From my personal experience as a reader and writer, and especially as an editor, I've come to some conclusions about how stories are artificially extended. And in a world of global warming and climate change, shouldn't we be fighting waste everywhere, on every level?

Now, a certain show ended its eighth season not long ago; Big Bang Theory came to a whimper of a close after ten seasons, and Veep - which I only heard about towards its grand finale, alas - has also finished up a seven-season run. 

I'm not saying all of these shows participated in various errors. I'm saying pretty much every show, book, and movie series will partake in them eventually. So how do we do better than the bad ones, and how do we echo or even improve on the good ones? We can't fight what we don't know about, so let's get into it.

Spacing

Everything happens, but not right away. No, the important events are distanced from each other, to the point where there are long stretches of dead zones or deserts of nonsense in between them. I'm not talking about character interactions as nonsense here, but unfortunately, a lot of authors seem to think that they count, and that human drama isn't interesting enough to be a climax. Older fantasy works--cough, cough, Wheel of Time--can be particularly bad about this. The problem with spacing out events and using human drama between the big McGuffin/army-driven fights is that readers get frustrated by the human drama rather than finding it rewarding. Or worse, they find the army and McGuffiny-crap a distraction from the human stuff.

Padding

I know about this issue from the inside. Bad Things that Happen to Girls started off as a book called Foreverland, and then was untitled for a while before getting its current name. It went through two full rewrites before arriving at its current published form. When I wrote it at first, I thought it absolutely had to be a long novel, with lots of details about the girls' lives and a slow-burn breakdown, then an extended road trip in the middle and a bunch of scenes about their experiences in university.

I didn't realise I was padding it, but when I experimented with radically decreasing the timeline of events, I had a revelation. I didn't need years and paragraphs on paragraphs chronicling their lived experiences, full of pointless dialogue and meandering descriptions. All I had to do were give little samples and important moments, and that would get the idea across. Sometimes a flash reveals more than a long exposure shot, to put it in cinematic terms.

Cramming

EVERYTHING MUST HAPPEN AND IT MUST HAPPEN NOW AND HERE ARE TEN NEW CHARACTERS AND A NEW SUBPLOT AND HOLY CRAP WE MUST MAKE UP FOR WRAPPING UP TOO MANY THREADS AT THE END OF THE LAST SEASON OOPS.

The caps lock here was entirely necessary and appropriate, because with cramming, the story often feels like it's shouting at you. (Probably in German.)

The biggest problem with cramming, too, is that it requires glossing over things. If readers get interested by a small detail, they might end up screaming, "wait, go back!" long after the author's moved to another topic, or three other topics. Finding the balance between this and padding can be tricky, but the best solution I can offer is "external perspective." Get someone to read over your work, and when they lose attention, that's time to cut. It's a trick I often use with editing manuscripts - the minute my attention wavers, I mark it, just in case.

Crashing

this tends to happen to shows that have lived past their expiry date. Supernatural is a fine example of this. This is where "shark-jumping" tends to come into play; characters do things that go against their nature and development for the sake of jump-starting a narrative or adding some excitement.

Oh, the shark-jump. That's worth a mini-section of its own. Honestly, most shows either end or jump the shark in order to keep going. There's no such thing as a perfect writer or a perfect story; mostly because these things are subjective, but partly because keeping all the balls in the air for a story is just plain hard. 

Endless escalation 

Science fiction authors are prone to this, and so are epic fantasy authors. In an effort to keep reader interest, stakes rise and rise and rise, and then lose sight of the human scale of things. The problem is that stories are made of people, and if you forget about the people, you don't have a story anymore.

As with Cramming, this can lead to glossing over interesting bits as well. The full impact of a big change or shift isn't always felt if we rush to the next big, shiny thing. In real life, though, long-reaching consequences of events can have ripples for decades or even centuries. The Magna Carta was a big deal when it was signed; the effects of the Spanish Inquisitions, the Crusades, the unification of China (which happened more than once), the Viking cultural expansions, and the colonization of North America (by which I mean the land-theft and genocide of Indigenous peoples) are all still talked about to this day. 

Bad things that happen to characters need room to resonate. PTSD and trauma are not only interesting, they're natural, and even when people mostly recover from them, they leave a lasting impact. Let your characters get wrecked by something. Have characters reference things that have happened. Let characters get fatigued, collapse, and have to fix themselves. It'll not only demonstrate the actual impact of your events, it'll keep you from having to throw together another big, shiny thing to make the story more exciting (looking at you, Avengers series and mainstream comics). 

So, what tends to actually cause these writing techniques behind the scenes? 

Burnout or boredom

One of the most difficult and important factors - one which arguably contributed to the absolute mess that was the GoT finale - is just getting tired of your own damn story. When this happens, authors and creators will end up trying to revamp something with weird new twists partly to keep themselves interested, might engineer an awkward left turn to justify a foreshadowed plot element, or might just do a half-hearted wrap-up of the previous plot elements.

Here's the thing - audiences don't always consume stories at the same rate as authors write them. Many times, readers or viewers will stumble on a work and binge it in a relatively short time, so what took years for the writer will take months, at most, for the consumer. This can make tonal clashes very jarring. 

In other cases, an author will abandon a series due to writer's block or life events - a sin of which I, cough, am guilty - and then try to pick it up later. This will still impact the story, often negatively. Maybe one has just gotten well and thoroughly tired of the subject matter, or it's been done to death in the popular sphere. It doesn't really matter - either way, authors are subject to the world around them, and sometimes, the only way to deal with burnout or boredom is rotating to another project. That's fine - the only issue comes when the first project is completely abandoned, and languishes, unfinished. 

Societal changes and personal development 

I'm combining these two because the world around us affects us, and sometimes, we even affect the world. If you'd told me that Donald Trump and Boris Johnson were going to rise to power during my lifetime, I wouldn't've believed you. To many, it sounded like a bad dream. Well, here we are, and the long night has not yet come to an end. Using art to cope with dark times and critique them is a long-celebrated human trend, and there's no reason to stop now. Sure, we might fear our work aging poorly - but stories that try to be timeless always age anyhow, and an earnest time capsule often lasts longer, because it can tap into the problems of an era (which echo forward, as discussed in the section above).

If you'd told me that I'd be able to deal with my family issues in a more satisfactory way, I might have believed you - but realising the impact of that on my writing both as a Game Master and an author is another matter. However, the additional perspective and maturity of healing has, rather than distancing me from characters' struggles, provided additional objectivity and even empathy. Fixing ourselves and healing doesn't "take away our artistic magic" - far from it. If anything, getting over issues unlocks the ability to deal with them in fiction much more effectively. 

Disillusionment and insecurity

These are nasty brain demons, all right - perhaps one has taken a look at the broad span of one's work, compared it to one's goals, and feels they are just - well, left wanting. Every creator struggles with this at some point, whether crafting a story for a D&D party or for hundreds of readers or thousands of viewers. The only way to deal with it is with external perspective and turning to objective sources of both external critique and validation. 

After all, we tell ourselves things that may or may not be true all the time, and measuring them against the perceptions of the audience can drastically correct things. Your readers might just be happy to see the characters get married - never mind that it took you five years to write about them getting together. And even if they don't like something specific or complain about it or nitpick - hey, they're coming back. You compelled them. Even if the readers, say, abandon their fandom and proclaim it a trashfire - they're still paying for or giving your story attention and money. And ultimately, from a marketing perspective attention is always neutral or positive - even if that attention is controversial - because it increases profits. 

How do we even begin to fix all this? 

But.  All hope is not lost.

By acknowledging burnout, boredom, disillusionment, insecurity, personal development, and societal change - the factors which often lead to writing shortcuts detailed in the previous section - we can compensate for the natural creative struggles by accepting and anticipating them. 

Try to write books in a series in a continuous stretch when possible, making it harder to lose track of the tone or style or character journeys. Plot things out, and get yourself a hands-on editor and/or extremely trustworthy beta-readers. And forgive yourself for screwing up - then get back to writing. At least, that's what I'm doing! 

***

Michelle Browne is a sci fi/fantasy writer and editor. She lives in Lethbridge, AB with her partner-in-crime and Max the cat. Her days revolve around freelance editing, knitting, jewelry, and learning too much. She is currently working on other people's manuscripts, the next books in her series, and drinking as much tea as humanly possible.

Find her all over the internet: * OG Blog * Mailing list * Magpie Editing * 

* Amazon * Medium * Twitter * Instagram * Facebook * Tumblr * Paypal.me * Ko-fi

[leiascully]

Fic:  Between A Rock And A Hard Place (Part 5/5)

Timeline: Season 10 (replaces My Struggle in the All The Choices We’ve Made ‘verse - Visitor + Resident + etc.) Rating: PG Characters:  Mulder, Scully, Tad O’Malley, Sveta (established MSR) Content warning:  canon-typical body horror (mentions of abduction, forced pregnancy, etc.) A/N:  I’m collecting all the related stories that go with Visitor/Resident under the title “All The Choices We’ve Made”, because it felt right at the time.  This story is an alternate My Struggle that reflects M&S’ growth/change in the ATCWM ‘verse. I’m weaving canon dialogue into the stories in an attempt to keep the reframing plausibly in line with canon.  

Part One  |  Part Two  |  Part Three  |  Part Four  |   AO3

It's not a surprise the next day when they emerge from the Hoover Building, where they've been supervising the setup of all of the new computers, to see Tad O'Malley's gleaming black limo.  The door opens.  They get in.  

"Glad we caught you, agents," O'Malley says with a grin.  

"We're not hard to track down," Mulder says.  

"It's the chip in my neck," Scully says dryly, and Mulder isn't sure he's ever heard her joke about it before.  But maybe she's spitting into the wind too, reminded of how whoever is behind all this has tampered with her at a molecular level.  He admits it is easy to direct (or misdirect) that frustration at Tad O'Malley.  

"Hi," Sveta says, waving at them from across the car.  O'Malley hasn't brought out the champagne this time, but she's clutching a bottle of Perrier.  

Mulder leans back against the leather seat.  The car certainly is plush.  The perks of selling out, he imagines.  

"I didn't think you'd come, Agent Scully," O'Malley says.  "After all, your work is so important.  So I took the liberty of coming to you."  He opens a small fridge concealed under the seat.  "Perrier?"

"Thank you," Scully says, accepting a bottle.  "What are you doing here, Mr. O'Malley?"

"Exposing a global conspiracy that's crushing the soul of America," O'Malley declares.  "Agent Mulder knows what I'm talking about."

"You're ready to make a move?" Mulder asks.

"The Truth Squad with Tad O'Malley with a world exclusive," O'Malley tells him.  "The story to end all stories."  

"Why don't you give us a preview?" Scully says, settling into her seat.  

O'Malley leaned forward.  "We begin with a war.  The Civil War.  The United States splits in two.  A new government forms.  They mint their own currency.  They make their own laws."

"They perpetuate the enslavement and genocide of millions of people," Scully murmurs.  

"That enslavement creates the haves and the have-nots.  And the halves begin to believe, to truly believe, that they are above the law.  That they can meddle with the fates and lives of people they start to consider subhuman: black, white, Native American, and everyone else.  An experimental program to create a better person through a variety of methods, including surgical intervention and selective breeding."

Sveta shivers.  Scully looks at her compassionately.  She reaches for Sveta's hand.  

O'Malley doesn't seem to notice their discomfort.  "The shadow government continues to exist after the war.  The genetic engineering of a superior human continues in the shadows of the shadow.  And they have other secrets."

"It all sounds like a ghost story," Scully says in that even voice that immediately sends Mulder into full alert.  "Designed to scare children."

"Children should be afraid," O'Malley tells her.  

"Everyone should," Mulder says, and he sees the shiver in her eyelid that means she's trying not to roll her eyes at him.  "It's a conspiracy bigger and more secret than the Manhattan Project, with tentacles reaching back into the very roots of America."

"The metaphor is mixed," Scully says.

"All the more apt," Mulder tells her.  "The Civil War set the stage and World War I gave us access to new technologies, but it wasn't until victories in Europe and Japan that the drama really ratcheted up for the rest of the world."

"Political and economic conditions became perfect for execution of the larger plan," O'Malley declared.  "The success of the program in the former Confederate states had spread to the re-United States.  Agents of the conspiracy, swearing their allegiance to President Grant, had infiltrated the highest levels of government.  World War I and World War II had weakened the European powers that might have held the US in check.  As it was, they were delighted to accept the offer of help from the United States, and if it came with a price, they were happy to pay it.  Their scientists began working with our scientists.  The project stretched those insidious tentacles to grasp the entire globe."

Mulder grins.  This is his wheelhouse.  Even as much as he's been jerked around and lost his faith, it's still exhilarating to put together the pieces of the puzzle he worked at for half his life.  "Paper Clip.  Experiments in the aftermath of the atomic bombings.  The crash at Roswell leading to cannibalized alien technology and cannibalized alien corpses, all resources that furthered the project."

O'Malley breaks in.  "The bomb was the latest threat of extinction, but not the first.  The energy of the explosions acted as transducers, creating wormholes that drew in alien ships just like the one that crashed at Roswell, ships that ran using electro-gravitic propulsion.  Sacrificing those alien lives with their extraterrestrial biology and their advanced technology delayed our self-immolation on the altar of democracy."

"World leaders signed secret memos directing scientific stuff of alien technology and biochemistry," Mulder puts in.  "All in the name of furthering the project, creating a new species that could survive alien invasion or whatever else might wipe us out.  Classified studies were done at military installations, extracting alien tissue.  S4, Groom Lake, Wright Patterson, and Dulce: all part of a network of black sites where tests were conducted using advanced alien technology recovered from the ships."  He glances at Sveta.  She has one hand over her mouth.  "Tests including human hybridization through gene editing and forced implantation of the resulting embryos in unsuspecting human subjects."  He swallows and tries not to look at Scully, but can't help meeting her eyes.  "Embryos with extraterrestrial DNA."  

Sveta gasps.  "Why do such a thing and lie about it?  Our own government?"

"Aliens aside," Scully says, "the American government has conducted experiments on unsuspecting populations as a matter of policy.  The Tuskegee Syphilis Study lasted for years beyond the point where they could have cured the patients.  The scientists in charge chose not to inform their subjects because they were African-American.  They let them die horrible, preventable deaths, claiming it was all in the name of science.  Genetic material was extracted from a sample of a tumor taken from a black woman named Henrietta Lacks and used without her consent or her family's.  Other people have been sterilized against their will, or stolen from their families.  I doubt we'll ever understand the full extent of the violence done to the indigenous peoples of the Americas."  She exhales loudly.  "While I cannot substantiate all of Agent Mulder's claims, I have found evidence of anomalous genetic material being implanted or otherwise introduced into the DNA of numerous subjects, including myself.  And you."

"What are they trying to do?" Sveta asks.

"That's the missing piece," Mulder tells her.  "We've learned so much, but some part of this eludes us."

"But it's not hard to imagine," O'Malley breaks in.  "A government hiding, no, hoarding alien technology for seventy years, at the potential expense of all human life and the future of the planet.  A government inside the government, secretly preparing for more than a hundred years for the long-awaited event."

"The takeover of America," Mulder says, feeling sick to his stomach.

"And then the world itself," O'Malley says with an almost religious fervor.  "By any means necessary, however violent or cruel.  Severe drought brought on by weather wars conducted secretly using aerial contaminants distributed via chemtrails and high-altitude electromagnetic waves.  Perpetual war waged overseas, a drain on our resources and our energy engineered by politicians to create problem-reaction-solution scenarios to distract, enrage, and enslave American citizens at home with tools like the Patriot Act, the National Defense Authorization Act, and pure old-fashioned jingoism, abridging the Constitution and its promised freedoms in the name of national security.  Every dissident, every minority: a terrorist in situ.  Vietnam, but this time they're doing it right."

"Militarize the police forces," Mulder says slowly.  "Martial law.  FEMA building prison camps.  Mercenaries fighting under our flag, but not under our orders."

"The corporate takeover of food and agriculture," O'Malley says smugly.  "It's already begun.  Monsanto.  Dicamba.  They've got pharmaceuticals and healthcare in their pocket too.  An insurrection of men and women with clandestine agendas to dull, sicken, terrify, and control a populace already consumed by consumerism."

Mulder leans over to Scully.  "I didn't really like Wall-E," he whispers.  She shakes her head at him.

"A government that taps your phone, collects your data, and monitors your whereabouts with impunity," O'Malley says with a flourish.  "A government preparing to use that data against you when it strikes and the final takeover begins."

Mulder nods slowly.  There is a seed of truth in O'Malley's conspiracy-addled rant.  He's been seeking it long enough to know it when he sees it.  The nation is poised on a precipice.  All the rest of it is lies, smoke and mirrors, a way to turn the paranoid and the credulous into easy money.  But somewhere, under eighty mattress-thick layers of right-wing garbage, is a pea-sized truth, and he's the princess shifting uncomfortably.  

"The takeover of America?" Scully asks.

O'Malley leans forward.  "By a well-oiled and well-armed multinational group of elites that will cull, kill, and subjugate."

"Happening as we sit here in this car," Scully says.

"It's happening all around us," O'Malley tells her.

"It's been happening for years," Mulder murmurs.  "The other shoe waiting to drop."

"It'll probably start on a Friday," O'Malley says.  "The banks will announce a security action necessitating that their computers go offline all weekend."

"Digital money will disappear," he says.

Sveta looks startled.  "They can just steal your money?"  Scully squeezes her hand.

"While the banks are vulnerable,  they'll detonate strategic electromagnetic pulse bombs to knock out major grids.  Traffic lights, security systems, everything: gone.  Hospitals will be on backup generators indefinitely.  It will seem like an attack on America by terrorists or Russia."

"Or a simulated alien invasion featuring alien replica vehicles already in use," Mulder murmurs.  

"An alien invasion of the U.S.?" Scully says.

"The Russians tried it in '47," Mulder reminds her.  "Or they took credit for it, anyway."

"They'll take more than credit this time," O'Malley says.  "This goes worldwide.  Everything that has happened for the past seventy years has been engineered by this global conspiracy, these shadow players.  The structures they've built are designed to crumble, tearing America apart at the seams.  They'll build a new world on the ruins of our current one.  It will happen soon, and it will happen fast."  

Scully shakes her head.  "You can't say these things," she tells O'Malley.

"I'm gonna say them tomorrow," O'Malley says with an almost religious fervor in his voice.  

Scully frowns.  "It's fearmongering, isolationist techno-paranoia so bogus and dangerous and stupid that it borders on treason.  Saying these things would be incredibly irresponsible."  

"I hate to say this, Scully, but if this is true, it would be irresponsible not to say it," Mulder says reluctantly.  

"If it's the truth," Sveta says, "you have to say it."  

"It's not the truth," Scully says.

O'Malley grins that smarmy grin.  "Agent Scully, with all due respect, I don't think you know what the truth is."

"The only thing I don't know is where you're taking us," Scully says, ice in her voice.  "Except on a wild goose chase."

"It's lunchtime," O'Malley says.  "I thought you might want something to eat."  

It's clear from the look Scully gives him that there is a long, long list of people she would rather have lunch with before she deigned to have lunch with Tad O'Malley.  In fact, it might be approaching seven billion people long.  

"I think what Agent Scully is trying to convey is that we've got to decline your invitation," Mulder says.

"You believe me," O'Malley says to Mulder with certainty.

Mulder looks at Scully.  She looks back at him, her eyes tight just at the corners.  "I might have, back in the day.  My doctor says paranoia is bad for me."  

O'Malley sits back, disappointed.  Scully's shoulders loosen.  She glances at him and there's something between approval and gratitude in her eyes.  He smiles at her.  

There's a pinging noise.  Scully checks her email on her phone.  Her brow creases.  She scrolls through something, then flicks back to the top and reads through it again.  "This is strange."

"What?"  Mulder leans over.  

"Sveta, the lab retested your samples.  A new tech was running the machines, and a number of test results were compromised.  In fact, they retested your samples twice to be sure.  Your DNA shows no anomalies."  Scully looks up.  "Whatever's been done to you, it had nothing to do with this project."

"Nothing?" Sveta and O'Malley ask at the same time.

"That can't be right," O'Malley says.  "Retest her."  

"I don't want to be tested again," Sveta says.  

"You're my evidence," O'Malley tells her angrily.  "You have to."

"She doesn't have to do anything," Scully tells him.  "She's under our protection now."

"We'll see about that," O'Malley says.  He presses a button.  The driver pulls over.  He opens the door.  "Goodbye, agents.  Goodbye, Sveta."

"What will you do?" Sveta asks him as she climbs out of the car.  

"I'll do what I do," O'Malley says.  "I'll tell the truth."

The car door slams shut.

Truth Squad with Tad O'Malley the next day is a runaway hit: high ratings, viral content, memes, gifs, and a media uproar.  "I promised you the truth today, but that truth has come under assault," O'Malley says, looking into the camera, and they roll footage of Sveta confessing to reporters, accusing him of telling lies.

"I am so sorry if I misled anyone," she says tearfully, wringing her hands in front of her.

"They get her?" Mulder asks.

"She should be safe," Scully tells him.  "They'll work on relocating her."

"Material witness?" Mulder asks.  "That's a bit of a stretch."

"It won't be by the time all of this is over," Scully says grimly.  "I went to the hospital to collect the samples and had our labs run them again."

"And?" Mulder says.

"Sveta and I share a lot," Scully says.  "Including anomalous genetic material."

"O'Malley must be furious," Mulder says, propping his hands on his hips as he thinks.

"Rumor is they're going to pull the plug," Scully says.  "No more truth, no more Squad."

"To his followers, that'll feel like a sign," Mulder says.  "A shot fired across their bows."

Scully shrugs.  "Damned if you do, damned if you don't.  Either we embolden a liar, or we enrage his base."    

"Politics have never been our strong suit," Mulder says.  "You know, there's something called the Venus Syndrome."

"The plant, the planet, or something else I'm afraid to ask about?" Scully asks.

"The planet," Mulder says.  "It's a runaway global warming scenario that leads us to the brink of the Sixth Extinction.  Those with the means will prepare to move off the planet into space, which will have already been weaponized against the poor, huddled masses of humanity that haven't been exterminated by the über-violent fascist elites.  If you believe in that kind of thing."

"Honestly, these days it sounds almost plausible," Scully tells him, leaning on one of the desks.  Whoever has funded the untimely revival of the X-Files has been generous: they have two normal desks and four standing desks scattered around the office.  It's much too flexible a workspace for two people.  

Their phones go off almost in unison.  They both reach for them.

"Skinner," Scully says.

"Skinner," Mulder confirms.  He reads the message:  Situation critical.  Need to see you both ASAP.  

They look at each other.  

"Scully, are you ready for this?" Mulder asks.

"I don't know there's a choice," she says, but she sounds fierce and proud.

There are wheels turning somewhere.  He can almost hear the gears of the world grinding.  They won't get caught in the teeth this time, won't get torn apart.  Whoever is behind everything they've been through will be exposed, finally and totally, brought to light.  They'll have to open the wound to clean it out, but that's all right.  They've finally learned how to heal.  He opens the door for her and they stride toward the elevator together.

[time-scar-webcomic]

Hey I read somewhere on your blog that you believe that Sans doesn't remember the resets and just figures out that it happens. Since I'm on the side of Sans remembering resets can you show me what evidence or argument you have for your opinion. I want to find out which is more likely to be cannon (cause I don't think Toby said anything about that).

EDIT: I wrote this about a week ago and thought I’d completely lost it. But I managed to find it today so I’m posting it now. I’m not bothering to re-read it however. So this was written a week ago so my mood was probably in a different place than it is right now (aka more combative and aggressive). Anyway here ya go. Hopefully I wasn’t THAT big a jerk here;

I haven’t finished my Pacifist run through yet so I don’t know if he says anything in that playthrough, but considering most of the direct contact you have with Sans is in the Genocide run through it may not matter (Please don’t correct me if I’m wrong. I’ll get to Pacifist when I’m ready myself)

At the end of Genocide, (If you’ve played the game before obviously) Sans reveals a lot of info about how much he knows regarding the resets, and it’s very telling as to HOW he got the information.

When he confronts the human in the Hall of Judgement at the end, it’s because he’s reached the conclusion that the human will not stop and nothing can change that based on him just watching the Genocide run from a distance. He’s also come to the conclusion that the human is impossible to stop, THIS he mentions based not on what he remembers, but by what he’s discovered himself.

He mentions talks a lot about “our Reports” and stuff. (forgive me if my exact wording isn’t correct) as well as “their analysis”. He mentions how “they” have been monitoring the situation and have “noticed a lot of flux in the timespace continuum” and how timelines keep changing and altering, and through analysis “they’ve” come to the conclusion that he human is the one responsible for the changes in events, always in the human’s favour.

(That seems like a very strange question to ask if he knew for a fact, isn’t it?)

If Sans simply remembered the timelines and knew the human could reset things then why the hell would he need data and analysis to know all that?

He has residual memories, but then so does everyone else. He mentions that “He can’t help but feel that we were once friends”. He mentions this not as a memory, but as a lingering feeling (much like Toriel remembers which kind of pie you like although she’s not sure HOW she remembers or even knows that). Sans has a feeling that there was perhaps a friendship between the human and himself, but he cannot really remember it. Which is PART of the reason the whole thing has him so despondent. He realised that a reset doesn’t just take away what could have been a happy ending; it doesn’t even have the decency to let you REMEMBER the happy ending.

So he uses that residual memory as a weapon to literally backstab you. It’s another ploy to cut you down because at this point Sans is pulling out every trick he has the longer you’re able to keep up with him because he’s just fucking done with you. Later on if you KEEP coming back and fighting him he says “if we ever WERE friends, don’t come back.”

People seem to forget that Sans is a LIAR. He lies throughout most of the game. And a LOT of the things he does are deliberate ploys to misdirect or hide the truth. Most of the time it’s not malicious, most of the time it’s legit just a survival strategy, sometimes it’s just to be a bit of a jerk because Sans is a practical joker by nature, but if you start becoming a problem in a genocide run, he doesn’t magically start telling the truth all the time. He only starts mentioning a memory of being friends with the human after he starts sweating and getting tired in the fight. He realises you’re not as easy to put down. and only THEN does he even bother mentioning the possibility of being friends before. It’s another ploy using what little info he has. Even Sans’ info says he’s “the easiest enemy” which is an obvious lie. People forget that Sans is all about misdirection and blatant lying in various degrees which is part of the reason his fight is insanely frustrating. He keeps telling you things about his attacks or what’s about to do which are either misleading or just outright untrue.

So Sans has residual memories, but that doesn’t mean he remembers anything with clarity. He’s no different from the other monsters. He just happens to be insanely smart, and he’s extremely scientifically minded. I’m not sure who the “They” are that he talks about. My first instinct would be he’s talking about Alphys but he never mentions her by name so I’m unsure about that one.

But again, the point is, why the hell would Sans talk about reports and data to “figure out what’s going on” if he remembered and could just say “oh shit! The human’s resetting to get the odds in their favour!” you don’t need all this science hoo-ha for THAT! If Sans remembers the resets and decided he needed to do a bunch of science to figure out what’s going on… he’d be kinda stupid wouldn’t he? And Sans has shown through VARIOUS other situations in the game that he is ANYTHING but stupid.

People mistake Sans’ deductive reasoning for “oh he remembers!” and for the life of me I cannot understand why. If people actually listened to what he says instead of memeing about bad times maybe this wouldn’t be such a problem. But honestly, if you’re somebody who actually played Genocide (unlike me who watched it on youtube I guess) I can kinda understand missing some of this, since you’re so stressed out by the fight and trying to survive you may not be absorbing Sans’ conversation. (Much like I had people tell me they actually completely missed Papyrus leaving the Royal Guard when he calls you in Waterfall because the person playing is so busy trying to survive Undyne’s attacks that that little bit of info often goes unnoticed)

Why would Sans be such a special snowflake to remember things when literally NOBODY ELSE (besides Flowey but he’s a special case) remembers anything but residual stuff? It just doesn’t make sense.

Long story short; Sans is smart and figured it out using the tools he had available to him. He didn’t need a “special circumstance” (ie memory) to get the answers. He had exactly the same info as everyone else, but was intelligent (and distrusting) enough to look into the situation a little deeper since he had the resources to do so.

I had to watch a little of this fight for these screenshots and I hate watching this fight more than anything in the world so I hope you’re happy)