⇨ New Location: THE SUMMERLANDS

[ringleaders]

PREPARATION↴ This time, there is no preparation. When the Severing was broken, the Ringmaster immediately returned everyone to the carnival, no matter their earthly location - only to then drag the carnival's realm all the way to the Summerlands right after. As the workers arrive, they will have been scattered around the carnival grounds, back in their original bodies - including their old faerie changes, of course, plus perhaps a few new ones. Bodies and memories will return to what they were before Portland, and while the life they lived there will stay with them as memories, they will only now be left to fully contemplate what they just experienced. SETTING↴ The Summerlands are an idyllic realm of glorious mountain-top cities and vast fields of flowers and grass. It is inhabited almost entirely by the Summer Fae, a faction of the Summer Court which broken ties with their Arcadia homeland a long time ago. Veterans that have been with the carnival since the vampire's first attack will remember staying here for a couple months while everyone was recovering. The fae here will remember those workers as well, with an accuracy that is sometimes eerie. There is plenty to do in the Summer Fae's city - though there is far more space than there is people, given that there are only a few hundred fae present here. There is no shortage of good food, music, and dancing - with plenty of other amenities like waterfall-side pools and gardens filled with small miracles. All workers will be offered rooms they can stay in within the city if they prefer, but they are also welcome to stay within the carnival grounds if that makes them more comfortable. There is magical wildlife of various sorts, but none of it is particularly aggressive beyond basic predatory tendencies. The days and nights and both of pleasant temperature and weather. It's only major downside is that the peaceful and unchanging nature of civilization can come across as unsettling to those unaccustomed. Once you have been welcomed here, it's like you never left. PATRONS↴ ► SUMMER FAE: Many carnival members have likely been given an unflattering view of Summer Court fae, given their actions back in Portland. However, despite the fae here being very similar in magical ability and physical form, they possess none of the maliciousness or aggression that their kindred have elsewhere. Their behaviour towards visitors is polite, if reserved, and will only be more courteous the more kindness you show towards them in return. A good deed receives a good deed in return, it seems - though it seems likely that the same would go for ill deeds, as well. Fae are predominantly humanoid, with supernaturally beautiful (if oddly samey) features and a variety of skin colours and superficial physical distinctions. The structure is always similar, though the colours and style vary wildly. Some have plants for hair, some have horns, some have small amounts of feathers or scales, placed in aesthetically pleasing manners. One major distinction is that about two thirds of the population have wings of various kinds, while the other third does not. Apparently this is a racial divide, among True Fae. In the Summer and Winter Courts, fae with wings are generally less powerful and considered of a lower class, working as servant to the higher caste. They also tend to be much smaller in body, appearing in forms as small as a cat all the way to a particularly short human. The Summer Fae will explain that these castes are not enforced within the Summerlands, but any further explanation will require some investigation. All True Fae go by titles rather than given names. However, some of these titles will shorten to things that sound like names. DANGERS↴ ► SUSPICIOUSLY... NOTHING?: The Summer Fae themselves may seem like enough of a threat, after what some witnessed in Portland. However, here, they seem to be perfectly civil, and claim no affiliation with the Summer Court you've just become familiar with. It's hard not to feel like there must be some kind of catch, or hidden ruse, but... maybe this place is actually as safe as it claims to be. REWARDS↴ Any specific rewards will be earned though exploration and NPC interactions. There are no huge mysteries lurking here, but it's possible to score some info about the carnival's metaplot if you ask the right questions. There may also be some random item opportunities, depending on how things go. CHANGES↴ No changes, at the moment. Wasn't getting retconned into a totally different person enough for one month? Beyond that, this is a PLOTTING POST, which means you can use it to make plans! The game chat is also a great place to discuss plots, so we welcome you to pop on in if you haven't already! A mingle log will be posted tomorrow.

Comments

⇨ QUESTIONS

[ringleaders]

You can ask questions, too!

[otoko]

For anyone in need of significant medical attention, is it safe to assume those guys appeared relatively near the ah. Medical services?

Obviously physical got reversed since Bodies, but this is more for the guys that got their souls stabbed. (Or is someone going to have to find them and drag them to a bed-)

[stillwinningthehardway]

Are people physically injured though? I'm not sure what to assume one way or the other.

[whattaprick]

For the gardens, are we free to make up what a 'small miracle' constitutes, within reason? (I'm thinking donut trees and coffee fountains, gardens that rain rose petals forever, that kind of thing)

(Other questions are being moved over to investigation!)

TAAKO

[tacosgay]

Taako is going to be resting and recovering from the ritual, and Portland in general; he's gonna be VERY reluctant to get up to any real shenanigans for a bit, honestly. I feel like this is gonna be a good time to actually talk to him and get to know him a little better, if you want to! He'll be spending a lot of time in his trailer resting when he's not working, or practicing his magic to kind of get back in the hang of using it, since it HAS been a month since he's even had access to his staff, which he's also extremely happy to have regained.

He's going to wake up back home with two new changes, with a third coming whenever I feel like it: small horns, retained sort of from his demon form, and his freckles are now bioluminescent and glow lavender. The third change is sparkly blood, and I'll bring that in whenever I see a good opportunity, basically, given the nature of it.

The following plans are spoilery for his canon-- if you're not up to date on The Adventure Zone and are avoiding spoilers, you shouldn't read any further!

Other than that, he's going to be slowly regaining some of his memories that the voidfish erased-- bits and pieces of his time in the IPRE, and of having known his teammates before he thought he'd met them the first time, as well as his being a "red robe" at one point. He's gonna be REALLY CONFUSED by this, and they'll be physically painful for him, but he might not talk about this much out loud unless he gets particularly distressed by them, or your character notices him experiencing this and directly asks what's going on. (Even then, he'll probably try to dodge it, though.)

Blue

[diamondsare]

Blue is going to be trying, and failing, to forget. With happiness once more snatched from her without her ability to do anything about it, Blue has a lot to come to terms with and no real coping mechanisms, which means she's going to be doing a lot of wandering around place to place being Sad. She'll act otherwise of course when other people are around, so it's a perfectly good time to say hello or what have you.

She's also going to be on the lookout for a silver sword and a locket, which means she'll probably be politely making a pest of herself to anyfae who looks like they might be of the crafterly sort.

.. I dunno what to put on plotting posts. 8(

Re: Blue

[flashover]

Mom :C

[kingsroads]

So I really liked Strange & Blue's thread on her intro log and definitely want to do more with them! He...uh, will be coping mostly with alcohol and so much denial so there's potential there for these adults just having no idea how to cope with things.

[whattaprick]

It's cute that Blue remembers Lambert asked her to look for that, being as he's totally forgotten he ever asked for it. Given that they didn't have a lot of reason to interact with each other during the event, I think Summerlands is a great place to pick them up chatting at each other again, and possibly avoiding their problems.

FOSTER

[control_freak]

There's a whole thing about his post event here, but the short version is that Foster will be taking his return to being himself very hard, and simultaneously struggling to navigate his new sense of reality, and how to deal with people around it.

This is actually a GOOD thing.

He's a little bit of a clearer communicator now, and he's noticeably less quick to set fire to a situation as a first response, but he's also trying to figure himself out. So he'll be trying to kind of recover/reform a sense of (non) identity. Unfortunately his actual (lack of) identity sucks. It sucks so hard, guys. But changing is? Worse???

Character development is hard.

Maybe now is a good time to start... getting back into magic?

That's definitely not avoiding the issue(s)

[hippocarnival]

Once Yuya figures out "who's the bear" from Portland he'll want to find Foster just to talk. He left off on kind of a worrying note there.

Rita Mordio

[anti_nonsense]

Like a lot of people, Rita will be a bit of a wreck right after coming back. She's going to be upset about having temporarily lost her identity and very nearly getting trapped in another world and this is way more than she signed up for!!! Fae suck, and Rita's mad at everything.

THINGS RITA WILL BE UP TO:

• Blowing off steam! Rita's frustrated as hell and will probably just want to go blow some things up with her magic to make herself feel better. Maybe she'll spend some time with those training dummies she built in the new training area.
• Maybe even brooding and being kind of homesick but if you ask about it she's gonna tsun so hard at you.
• Hugging her cat??? She hasn't seen him in so long :c
• Getting some new changes, including minor things like more fae marks and some feathers, but shortly after she'll get her rare change: a pair of feathered wings! Which... she might not use much, because she's actually scared of heights. Oops. I'll also hopefully be purchasing some new fire magic for her to play around with!
• She might try to get back into doing magic research, which will be helped by her new third eye ability!

OTHER THINGS I'M INTERESTED IN DOING WITH PEOPLE:

• Reconnecting with people she met, or got closer to, through the AU! This will be awkward as hell for her because she's not sure if those relationships are even real, but they give her feelings anyway. :c
• Blowing off steam together?? Does your character want to blow things up with Rita? Do they have something that can be safely blown up by her? Let's hang out.
• Is your character magic, or do they have magic possessions? Rita will want to analyze that!!
• Rita's gonna be pretty unpleasant with these Summer fae. Sympathize with her? Tell her to chill out and stop being so rude?
• Anything!!! I'm always happy to plot and get her out meeting new people and doing new things.

[whattaprick]

Let's go blow stuff up, Rita! We already discussed this briefly on plurk but I definitely would like to do some alchemy+throwing bombs at shit shenanigans.

Yuya Sakaki

[hippocarnival]

Yuya is going to be on a slow recovery after having his soul directly injured. He'll be super out of it for a day or two and then bedridden in his trailer for at least a week... but he's gonna get sick of that after like, an hour tbh. He can only tolerate playing phone games for so long.

Things Yuya will be doing:

- Multiple escape attempts while he should be bedridden. He'll desperately want to be stretching his legs because he doesn't take to sitting around very well, but given his health state he won't say no to people helping him get around. Attempts to get him back in bed will result in whining but ultimately he's too ill to get very far on his own anyway. Or fight back.

- Checking on his fellow Carnvy members! Mostly he'll be looking for people he was interacting with in Portland, but if he spots anyone he'll want to see how they're fairing and talk or just help them take their mind off things.

- Side-eyeing the Summerlands but checking them out anyway. Once he sees how different they are he'll probably be a lot more open to these particular Summer Fae.

- Although the fake history will largely be fading it's still gonna wig Yuya out that their presence altered other people's/their memories because he uh. Has way too close experience with that. :') He'll be putting on a smile and keeping those thoughts to himself but if other people want to talk to him about how the AU affected them he's going to be all ears. Also having to watch everyone get tossed around while he couldn't help in the final event opened some too raw wounds.

- He probably is gonna be forced to sit the performances out for health issues so it'll be a good time for him to watch everyone else instead.

- Idk other things, HIT ME UP WITH IDEAS YO. Yuya's prolly going to be more making CR than having any personal plot going.

GINKO

[dontpokethat]

Like a lot of people, Ginko is gonna have some serious trouble coming to terms with what just happened, particularly as relates to things like suddenly having been FRIENDS with Foster of all people, and also the whole. Kissing Psi and then living with him for a significant period of time thing. That's going to be hard to process.

As usual, he's going to handle this by... throwing himself into work and ignoring his emotional problems as much as possible. Ginko will mostly be in the menagerie, checking up on all the animals he hadn't seen in a while (with Miu with him, back to being a spewpa instead of a guinea pig), but may also be found around the medical tent, since he's going to want to start being more active about helping Zecora with medical stuff.

He'll also be hanging around the Summerlands some! Having been here with the carnival before, he knows not to expect these fae to try to kidnap him or anything, probably. He... may still be a little nervous around them, and when it comes down to it he will still be sleeping in his trailer and not staying outside the carnival grounds for very long at a time.

Ginko will be pretty open to talking about what happened in Portland if people approach him, but he's unlikely to approach anyone about it himself unless he sees a specific reason for it.

EDIT now that the post is up, also the first thing he's gonna do is going to have to be rounding up the menagerie animals, which. he SURE WOULD appreciate help with 8'I

MIKO NAKADAI

[pullingamiko]

Boy there sure is a lot of "not acknowledging or addressing what happened" going around, huh. Miko will of course be adding to it because feelings are complicated and stupid and she'd rather just not think about them thanks.

That said, she will probably actually be approaching people she knew in Portland, just... under the pretense of having a totally separate reason for approaching them. Other than that, she'll be running around making a nuisance of herself as usual.

She'll be exploring the Summerlands some, but honestly the same-ness of it all will kinda creep her out. However, she didn't have as direct of Bad Experiences with summer fae as some people did, so she may not be too bothered by the residents themselves.

[whattaprick]

WHAT IF... they stumbled into some totally ridiculous garden thing.

CHILDERMASS

[atouts]

refusing to speak to any of you ever again

I mean—

THINGS JOHN CHILDERMASS WILL BE UP TO:

- He's finally evolving his Growlithe from Alola, Baker, into an Arcanine, so there will be a massive fluffy fire dog running around the carnival now.

- Since he picked up Faerie Aspect (Winter Court) from Portland, the Summer Fae are... going to be giving him a massive side-eye. Not being rude or anything, but it's enough that Childermass will spend his time in the Summerlands exploring out of sight (via shadows) or out away from the city itself. He will also be finding the pleasant summery temperature to be slightly bothersome. Maybe he should stop wearing like five goddamn layers, who knows...

- At the carnival, he'll be spending a lot of time sulking and smoking on the far side of the lake, assuming wrongly that few people will bother trekking that far to pester him. Seeing as a huge bright orange dog will be with him, it won't exactly difficult to spot where he is.

- Job upgrade, more on that to come IC.

- Messing around with more magic? Working a few bugs out of a shadow prison spell? Just magic stuff. Always magic stuff.

- Change-wise, his rare change isn't actively visible. His blood has been replaced by "shadows", which is just an edgy way of saying he bleeds black mist now. He'll also be keeping fae marks, but they're basically just that the scars left behind by the Count's ritual will glow around faerie magic, as fae marks do.

So he'll be around, both in the carnival proper and out in the Summerlands. In spite of being a huge avoidant sulk, he's not actually that difficult to drag along for whatever else anyone might be up to.

[hippocarnival]

Childermass is on Yuya's list of 'people to make sure aren't dead' since least he saw him he was strung up to be bled dry. How are u recovering after nearly being sacrificed, buddy.

Jonathan Strange

[kingsroads]

Dear everybody, sorry I got brainwashed, xoxo Jonathan Strange. He's a bit knocked around as well so logically that just means keeping going and pretending he's okay and fine and everything's back to normal before crashing for like, an entire day.

THINGS STRANGE'LL BE UP TO:
- so much denial. Strange is going to push through all of this and pretend like he's fine! No problem! He is coping 100% well despite the fact that he's a bit of a wreck when he's by himself. This denial means that he'll be spending a lot of time hanging out in the Summerlands and will probably accept their offer of a room there because actual beds.
- Strange is getting a couple of changes! first, his 'mirrored covering that covers up wounds' will appear over thorn scratches he has all over his wrists. Secondly, he's getting a cool smoke form which'll be pretty amazing until Strange realizes he needs to relearn how to move when his legs are in the cool smoke form.
- midway through Summerlands/after everybody's moderately less traumatized, Strange'll put up a big ol'network post with some lovely exposition he learned about the fae before he, uh, got tortured

OTHER THINGS I'M INTERESTED IN DOING:
- awkward reconnection with people from Portland that'll probably end up with Strange getting punched again. Also! Hello eventual newbies, Strange is gonna befriend you so hard because newbies weren't here for Portland.
- stupid drunk decisions. :) What do you mean alcohol's a terrible coping method, Strange is having a great time. alternatively, stupid drunk decisions that lead to drunk conversations and issues unloading and just general kvetching.
- joining Rita in the 'let's be creepy and nosy about people's magic' club.

[otoko]

So Carly might not have fucked up quite as royally as Strange but she IS largely unaware of how royally Strange fucked up while his AU self, so EY MAYBE SOME AWKWARD RECONNECTIONS IN THE FORM OF...CARLY...TRYING TO SAY SORRY INSTEAD?

'sorry about blowing you off that one time i guess you got brainwashed aft- why do you have that face'

I'd offer getting nosy about her magic but I cannot guarantee she'll be up to even remotely displaying it for the week before ByeByeDemonBird lmao

Tamaki

[puddingemote]

Tamaki is actually super happy to be back from Portland because a, he's not dead, b, remembering actually having friends and a life purpose and a family member is like really exciting you guys.

He'll probably have a new change or two when I get around to deciding what I want. Also possibly new magic when I also get around to that (probably tonight).

THINGS I'M INTERESTED IN:
- reconnecting with people over portland memories; he'll probably be especially interested in talking to Yuya, Lambert, and Doll but he will gladly talk to anyone! (he might also try to avoid former angels for a bit because wow that was Embarrassing but also he's still not sure how he feels about that...)
- post ghost shenanigans especially if I buy the thing I'm thinking about lol...
- NEWBIES HI NEWBIES
- the adults can drown their worries in alcohol but Tamaki wants food
- newly awakened spiritual leanings???? idk man. Tamaki's gonna become some weird earth spirit hippie

[whattaprick]

In some bizarre sense, Lambert's probably going to think Tamaki was more useful as a ghost ... sneaking powers, man.

He's going to be starving after he wakes up, so maybe running into the cookhouse would make sense to start and we can see where it goes from there? Witness him nearly burn down the kitchen, etc.

STEVEN UNIVERSE

[starseedling]

STEVEN IS BACK with new rose petal wings and horrifying memories of trauma and abuse from his fake fae mom. Thankfully, memories of his real life have brought him back to his more regular personality as opposed to being a scattered mess of anxiety all the time, but he's going to be going back home to Beach City for a bit with most of the SU cast, and thus receiving a canon update. Unfortunately, the stuff that happened during his canon update turned out to be BULLSHIT, and also he's one of the only people from most of his friends that is actually returning from their vacation in a prompt manner. (Due to OOC drops.)

He's also going to have a new Deadly Spell in the form of plant manipulation, and a Summer Court Faerie Aspect, meaning he will read like one one of the fae they're visiting. As such, they are going to be particularly comfortable with and fond of him, so that's nice I guess.

THINGS STEVEN IS DOING:
► BECOMING A GOTH: After his canon update and finding himself left without Pearl, Amethyst, Lars, and most importantly, his dad Greg, Steven is going to be suffering with the feeling that his life is just doomed to mom-related angst no matter what universe he's in. He's expressing that feeling of existential despair by melodramatically becoming a REAL GOTH despite the fact that it doesn't suit him at all. Mostly it means he's going to be wearing a lot of black and experimenting with fashion, while also aggressively trying to confront his negative emotions by acting like they are expected and normal. They aren't. This is going to be a mess. Also, funny.
► PLANT MAGIC: Steven is a plant master now, thanks to his fae powers, and can spawn, manipulate, and cause plants to grow at an incredibly rapid pace. It's going to be good opportunity to see what he can do with that.
► SHIPPING: Steven noticed Lambert and Childermass's gay love, and now he desperately wants them to be happy together.
► MUSICAL JAM PARTY?: Steven is going to try to force people to get together and maybe do songs about their feelings. Or something.
► CRYING

THING I WANT TO DO:
► DEEPEN EXISTING CR: I'd like to take Steven's relative loneliness re: his missing cast members as an opportunity to deepen his CR with other characters - especially cross canon CR. I've already talked to some people, but there's a lot of characters he's going to be trying to get close to for various reasons.
► RELAX: Wow that event went on for a while! I'm just excited to get to thread and focus on my own RP more easily now.
► AFTER SCHOOL SPECIAL: Steven gunna try smoking a tobacco please stop him he is out of control.

[whattaprick]

Lambert's not ready to deepen this relationship, Steven, STEVEN stOP

[stillwinningthehardway]

SCOUT: is fine, thanks, and in a physical and mental state suitable to helping other people. What? Feeling guilty about forgetting about everyone she cares about and grieving anew? Sure, sure, but she can handle it. She's always this busy, too. Especially with so much of the repair department getting out of Dodge.

Last time she was in the Summerlands it was just for a day or so and then her contract was complete, but she will hike around some and realize it is frustratingly low on important distracting things. Also she's gone from a really long fluffy flag-tail to a somewhat shorter armor-scaled finned tail that's more like her feet.

She can stop someone's bleeding, neutralize toxins, and kill pain so there'll probably be some of that first. Of course the issue with making an injured person stop hurting is then they can decide to walk around and do things that would hurt them more, but that won't occur to her at first.

JULIEN: is less visibly fine and more willing to show he's shaken. His plans to hide the two bodies thing are kind of dust since he's got to support himself and has lingering identity issues. But he is Julien and not Iuliael, and strikingly more normal than that poor broken angel despite one of his bodies being a giant bird.

...you think the Summer Fae will help him find a new boat?

[spaghettimonster]

What if!! He built a boat. There's bound to be somebody around with carpentry skills, and he could put any manner of personal touches on it.

[whattaprick]

Given how embarrassingly dramatic his involvement at the tail end of the event was, and considering what a goober AU him turned out to be, Lambert is of course joining the 'let's just not talk about this' train. His most notable physical change is that he now has more lines of runes etched into his chest and upper arms, now in a fetching pale yellow to suit the transcendent experience he's been through.

Lambert will spend the first couple of days of their stop -- once he drags himself into his trailer, anyway -- sleeping off the exhaustion and heavily self-medicating with shitty witcher potions. He will be mostly unavailable during this time, and attempts to bother him will lead to people confronted with him looking as fucked up as this guy because witchers don't heal pretty. He'll be back to normal as soon as his body's worked out the toxin, this is fine!

Once he's up and about (way earlier than he should be, but fuck physical limitations and following health advice, amirite) he can be found a few different places.

♞ GITTING GUD; given there aren't any enemies to fight here and he spent most of Portland horrifically out of practice, he'll often be at the training yard just trying to work through sword forms, if not up to actual sparring yet.
♞ EXPLORING; now reunited with his Mudsdale, Pig, he will be exploring the Summerlands on horseback, as well as wandering around the cities in general.
♞ RECUPERATING; hey did you know it takes a lot of energy to heal from as fucked up an experience as that??? because it sure does! when he isn't unreasonably pushing himself, lambert's going to be stuffing his face and power napping meditating all over the damn place because he can't be assed to drag himself back to his trailer all the time. so it'll probably be easy to run into him apparently having narcoleptic fits in random areas.

At some point in this mess all Pig's frolicking with her Pokemon pal Baker is gonna result in AN EGG and Lambert's going to get to be a Pokemon grandparent, much to his dismay at the flouting of basic concepts of biology. Why are Pokemon so weird, goddamn.

[otoko]

this is gon's account but hey lambert wanna question a bird

Sora

[destiny_key]

Sora is... Well, physically he's fine, anyway. He's getting a lion tail for his big change (also animal noises because lol), and he didn't get injured or anything during the final battle (thanks Joker). Mostly, he's just exhausted.

Mentally, however, he's very... drained. He's still kinda putting up a front of EVERYTHING IS FINE I'M FINE, but it's very visibly wavering and easy to crack. The stress of having a bunch of shit rushing into his head during the AU, and then having his real life slammed back into him, added to the not-that-great headspace he was in prior to the event, mean that he's very out of it right now. It might take him a few days to realize he's not dreaming.

Once he's managed to make himself look more alive, he'll be out and about as usual, but maybe with less gusto than usual. You'll probably catch him zoning out if there's a lull.

THINGS I WANT TO DO

~ BIRTHDAY: Sora is... not actually sure how old he is, at this point. He's aware of about how old he's supposed to be, obviously, but as to "have I actually had my birthday yet?", he has no idea. So, at some point this month, he's going to declare the fact that he thinks he might be sixteen now. Party shenanigans are up for planning!

~ ANTI FORM: Sora's not in a good place this month, as much as he might deny it. Actually, denying it is really not good for him, because he's basically repressing all his negative emotions in an attempt to not upset anyone else. Probably towards the end of their time in Summerlands, those negative emotions are gonna finally come back and bite him on the ass.

I haven't actually figured out what's going to trigger it, but Sora's gonna hit critical mass and transform into his Anti Form. He's basically a tame heartless. He's very bestial in this form, but he won't attack anyone he sees as allies unless they attack first. Actually, he'll probably be pretty docile, since he's in this form outside of a fight. He will, however, start running around and knocking shit over and being a general nuisance.

The two ways to get him out of this are to either talk him down, or just wait for the timer to run out. He'll transform back to normal on his own after a few hours. Also, if you're close enough CR, hugging might work. After it's over, he'll probably just want to sleep, but any sort of physical affection would be welcomed.

I'm still kinda ironing out the details, so please hit me up if you have feedback or if you just want in on this~

~ GENERAL CR SHIT: He's gonna want to talk to EVERYONE this month, but that's pretty par for the course. Mostly, he wants to make sure everyone's okay.

Re: Sora

[flashover]

HELL YEAH. TIME FOR CAKE!

Also heck yeah, antiform. Why is he so cute in that formmmm

PAPYRUS

[spaghettimonster]

Papyrus is... probably mostly uninjured, physically-speaking. There's a yet-to-be-backtagged thread where he might have gotten a tiny bit possessed and an angel might have laid some smackdown, but he's at least a few days of recovery in.

He's rockier than ever, with crystals protruding along his spine and joints. Thanks to his demonic affiliation, those crystal growths added a hook to his tail.

Emotionally speaking, he's been better. The pleasant demeanor he usually strives for, the way he's always trying to put a positive spin on things and smile about it, that's a little bit askew. He's more distractable, and contemplative, than usual.


Things Papyrus is up to:

☠ CLEANING, it's like this place have been abandoned for a month.

☠ TRAINING WITH COOLBONE, who has evolved into an Alolan-style Marowak! They'll probably do most of this training in a nearby flower field, where he has no official responsibility for cleaning it up.

☠ WRESTLING WITH PERSISTENT MEMORIES, between the various nonsense that went down during this last month, that incident Sans got him talking about, and... the strange familiarity of his human version's dad, complete with the now-recognizable feeling of retconned memories. Maybe he'll even talk to his brother about that. Maybe. Or he might just talk to himself about it as he walks up and down mountains, at an easily eavesdroppable volume.

☠ GETTING TO KNOW PEOPLE, newbies and people he hasn't gotten to know so far alike. Listening to other peoples' issues is a great way to get perspective! And also not dwell on the questions he's still stuck on.

☠ MAKING TROUBLE™ by going to the Ringmaster to champion for the cinder spirits and their potential to be better people. And chatting about it with others, accidentally reminding people that she too is a fae with extremely controlled slaves, for all that she doesn't give them that treatment until they cross major major lines.

[sunflowerfields]

Hinawa totally disappeared for Portland because I dropped the ball, so she's going to wake up with absolutely no memory of the last month. SOMETHING happened, that much she can tell, since all of you are being dodgy about it and also the ringmaster exploded? She can't leave you guys alone for five minutes, I swear. >:(

Obviously, a lot of people are in a bad way, so she's going to be doing her best to mother everyone. This includes lots and lots of COOKING!! And just being there in case you want to talk to someone who won't bring up anything embarrassing you may have done in Portland.

Other than that she's going to enjoy this incredibly peaceful and monster-free place. It's much more her speed than the Celebration was (and hopefully no vampires either)!