You're not alone, I love Beaks too. I think it's possible to love a character, and still understand they're a terrible person. Or bird.
Hah well it was jokes on my habit of, well *gestures at the blog title*
Tho with Beaks it’s not even that I like him, I think he’s interesting and has potential for some intersting plots. He’s a conman. It’s interesting and one could get into to what extent the other billionaire ducks fortunes are also a conjob.
((here’s the first lil’ bit of my gimmicky as hell story))
You stitch yourself together, over and over again.
You force your wounds closed, to stop from falling to pieces.
You conceal your scars, to hide all your mistakes.
You cling desperately to yourself, to remember you still exist.
You wonder if you are no longer broken, now that stitches keep you together and whole.
You decide that you are mended, that you are healed.
You pull and tear at the seams, and you fall apart.
You stitch yourself together, over and over again.
—
You take a walk through the cold winter night. Streetlights illuminate your snow-laid path. Your boots crunch against the thick whiteness of the sidewalk, as the wind bites at the uncovered parts of your face. You continue walking through the cold winter night.
You remember writing the note. You remember leaving it under your pillow. You remember staring out the window, contemplating the decision you’ve made. You remember leaving the house, with the intent of never returning.
What else do you remember?
Your hands are empty. Your jacket is thin. Your eyes are watery, and your face is numb. Your boots are worn. Your scarf is scratchy. Your ears are red, and your lips are dry.
You continue forwards, unsure and uncertain, but determined nonetheless.
Determined to do what?
You can’t remember.
Not exactly.
You don’t want to remember.
You stop thinking about it.
You pass by house after house, reflecting upon all the individuals living their own lives; lives you will never truly be able to grasp.
The only life you will ever be able to understand is your own, and, even then, there is no certainty.
The only certainty is death. And certainty is the best thing you could ever hope to have in life.
There is reassurance in accepting this fact. There is reassurance in relishing in the meaningless of life, and running away from your worries and cares.
Oh.
Is that what you’re doing?
Is it cowardly or brave?
Is it strength or weakness?
Or do you believe that the meaningless of it all renders it pointless?
You come across a bus stop, the kind with a structure that protects the empty seats from the elements. You enter, surrounding yourself with the glass walls. Taking a seat, you find that your eyes are heavy. Yawning, you shuffle into a more comfortable position.
You stare out the glass as heavy snow slowly piles up, higher and higher. The world around you is slowly becoming covered in white
Your eyes shut. Your body slumps. You offer your body the rest it needs.
Is that what happened?
——
((welp yo ho this was an edgefest lmao!!! idk where else i can post..like. original writing stuff? so it’ll just go here i guess haha
ANYWAYS this is shaping up to be a relatively short story, maybe barely 4000 words or so? it’ll probably be sorta on and off, if only because inspiration for a story this gimmicky comes and goes really easily
so it’s a good thing this is so garbage there couldn’t possibly be anyone who’s seriously and genuinely looking forward to more!!))
I have an au i've been referring to as 'Magus' or 'Layered Reality' in my notes, idk what the story will actually be called but i've been brainrotting over it particularly hard recently so i'm gonna talk about it
Namely because Blue is a little FREAK and I love him :3
So I love soulmate aus, and I love Yanderes, but you know what we need more of? MUTUAL YANDERES so you know this shit is gonna get wild when the entire premise is combining all three. Be aware, most are gonna be low-key about their obsession or it's only going to show up later on so some of the characters may seem like normal well adjusted individuals... they are not
Y/n, or 'Magus' as they're know to the wider public, is a prominent masked public figure that showed up out of the blue and broke the barrier. And then Kept showing up randomly when the underground seemingly re-filled with monsters with a new barrier in place. They're like a volunteer firefighter, but for the royal guard. They aren't officially hired or anything, but they most often work directly with a team of guards or are often called in as backup by others if Magus is in the area and able to help. Technically the only calls Magus has to answer/missions they have to attend are any having to do with the barriers.
See, in this world a cluster of universes collided, the effect being imperceptible as the humans of said universes were all the same and fused into one person. The difference lied underground, where because they're so different the universes couldn't merge seamlessly like they did up top and so, thanks to the barrier keeping the underground isolated, the undergrounds became isolated instances layered on top of each other. With the breaking of the barrier and emptying of the underground the mountain destabilizes and the next layer of the universe fills its place to rectify this now that the space is open.
This mean that Magus, being the fusion of all the versions of themself, is soulmates with ALL of the skeleton brothers. Now, soulmates are kind of a forgotten art in this world, it's a type of magic and most humans, having forgotten magic, don't know they exist. Most monsters don't pay much mind to it either since it's more nebulous than media makes it out to be. Your souls draw you together to meet, no matter what a meeting Will happen as that is destiny, but what happens after depends on if the individuals can hold onto that connection or even notice it in the first place. People who specialize in soulmate magic are like fortune tellers, they can't tell you specifics but they Can tell you what kind of mark your destined will leave on you or what their mark on you says if it's a word/name/sentence.
Magus has a special connection to soulmate magic, being naturally attuned to it as they see their soulmates in dreams (I have the same soulmate system set up in other works), it's actually how they learn magic and Become a mage in a modern post-magic world. Rus (sf!papyrus) teaches them via dreams because he's also a dreamer and the connection lets them talk! That is until they grow up and become teenagers and suddenly Rus cuts Magus off, creating a literal wall between them whenever they meet in dreams so they can't speak. Magus believes this is because they've become a mage and that he hates them for it. That's not why, but it's what they assume. And they hold that assumption for Years.
I could go more into Magus' story and why they become a Yandere, but the crux of it is that they are so starved for love and so single-mindedly focused on protecting their soulmates and being with them someday that morality kind of falls to the wayside. They think the only way they can show their love for the time being is by ensuring their soulmates are safe and happy from the shadows. They are a protective and doting yandere, what their love says goes. Of course, they can keep it cool and are very good at acting like they are perfectly normal to the point nobody suspects they so much as care about the skeletons, much less favor them over others.
Bringing Magus' job back up, they mainly work for the Underfell branch of the guard. Their direct partner is Fell Undyne, who is very obviously trying to kill them or at least get them hurt. The animosity between the fell monsters and Magus is especially obvious, as lots are still pretty iffy with humans and of course would hate mages especially. Why does Magus work with them then? Because it's safer working with obvious threats then one of the other branches filled with people who may try to get their guard down before leaving them for dead. They know to keep on their toes and won't slip up. Of course, not all fell monsters are assholes or hate Magus just for being a mage, just like not all tale monsters are nice. So there are some people Magus is chill with. The one they trust the most in their group? Red (uf!sans)
This dude is too busy and tired with his own shit to care. This friendship actually comes about in the strangest of ways thanks to a forgotten closet office. It's a small office that was obviously a closet before being renovated, nobody uses it so it's the Perfect secret nap spot. There's a beanbag chair in there and everything! Neither knew the other used the office until Red teleported to the beanbag and landed right on top of a napping Magus. They agreed to keep quiet about it and share the office. (Either that or it's Red's office but he almost never uses it so Magus had no idea it was his office until he dropped in on them)
Edge (uf!paps) is also chill, he doesn't care so long as you prove yourself and don't get in his way. Magus simps for has a deep respect for him as coworkers, though they don't work with him often as he's not on their team, they do see each other in the office. (It's not all action, someone has to write those field reports!)
Now onto Blue(us!sans)- yanberry will forever be ingrained into my heart and mind so you cannot tell me he wouldn't be BATSHIT as a yandere. This man craves blood. So anyways, Blue believes in soulmates- having the type where when you lock eyes you can see colors. He's been Red-Green colorblind all his life until meeting Magus, his fascination with blood kind of stemming from it. From the moment his eye's met Magus' he was hooked and is Always trying to call them whenever his team needs backup. He is a Magus supporter, if Magus has no fans assume he is dead. Everyone close to him knows him as the #1 Magus Fan and he is tied for the most devoted to finding out who Magus is. This man has a whole conspiracy board covered with colored string and news snippets about them as well as blurry pictures and whatever he can find related to them. It's his shrine in disguise except there is no disguise but he insists everything on it is imperative to his research.
When they do work together Blue and Magus are Absolutely. Fucking. Terrifying. This is not an exaggeration, this is an action drama aside from the romance and they mow through people like it's nothing. There is a specific joint move in my head where Magus traps a person in a barrier box with a floating lid and Blue runs up, jumps, and slams his giant hammer on the lid and it crushes the victim like a fucking hydraulic press- like a fucked up game of whack-a-mole. Magus is chill as ever and Blue is smiling and cheerful like always as they high-five a job well done. They look at the others like 'What? Did some get on us?' I swear Blue is normal around other people, he's actually really good at pretending to be normal, it's just that sometimes you're in the middle of a shootout and a brawl and the place is covered in red and the adrenaline gets to you and your crush is Right There so Of Course you gotta impress them! Y'know? The fells are terrified and also respect it. Blues own team? He might be sent home and put on probation with a psych evaluation pending.
Then there's Black (sf!sans). He's the one tied with Blue in trying to discover Magus' identity. He was originally ordered to follow Magus in secret and find out where they live as well as their true motive to helping the monsters, this of course led nowhere as Magus has multiple failsafes and waypoints to teleport between to get home that prevent them from being followed. But now it's become a game, a challenge, even after the order drops Black continues to follow Magus at every opportunity, even enlisting Rus' help to follow them for him and report back anything interesting (which is everything, he wants to know Everything.) Magus is, of course, Aware of this as they've recognized the siren's call of their soulmate's souls. Even if they don't know exactly whose it is until they meet face to face and memorize the signature, they at least know a soulmate is around and following them.
And that's the true purpose of this au, i thought it'd be hilarious if the skeletons were being creeps in the shadows and MC already knows. They can tell when the guys are around and following them, can sense their magic on anything they let them borrow, can sense the residual trace of their magic on the table they left their missing pencil on. Magus Knows, and finds this development and behavior absolutely Adorable. They hold all the cards and have just as much power and sway as the skeletons, but the skeletons don't know that Magus is stalking them back. There are things the skeletons put together or know that Magus doesn't, but in this regard Magus is the mastermind.
Not everyone falls for Magus though, some fall for the sweet human Y/n that they met at volunteer events. Y/n is very active in the community and is a staple for all the charity projects whenever a new mountain is opened. Since Ebott isn't stable the monsters have to move out fast before the next underground takes it's place, but often don't have anywhere to go yet so the community comes together to provide things like blankets, food, and other resources for the first couple nights camping out. Of course, over time the monster government has learned and prepares housing in advance but sometimes it isn't enough quite yet or it takes a couple days to get everyone moved in. Some may just take the opportunity to camp under the stars for once. Either way, Y/n has been at every one and quite a few skeles have fallen for them after meeting. In fact, most of them have! It's only Blue and Black that have fallen solely for their Magus persona, Red is in the middle as he fell for Y/n but also has been getting closer to Magus. He is fully ready to chat up both before realizing they're the same person. He only partially laments the loss of two hot partners but, according to him "they're sexy enough i can let it slide" lol
Magus' daily life as Y/n is where we see the skeletons trying to cozy up and flirt their way into their life the most as well as most of the yandere behavior as Y/n has Sans, Stretch(us!paps), and Red all actively stalking them. Papyrus too to a lesser degree as he knows Y/n as Undyne and Alphys' human friend that he always seems to just miss whenever he goes over. There is more story to that but this is already long and I haven't even gotten to all of the aus in play because for one time only- we've got dusttale in this bitch
Dust? Oh no dear reader- Magus fucking hates him and he feels the same! At first. No no, in this story his dead brother is one of THE main characters :3c I call him Phantom. See, Magus has 4 main types if magic they specialize in. Soulmate and Healing magic is what they're naturally attuned to, but Barrier magic is what they've studied the most. And when they learned The Barrier required the power of 7 human souls to break, they thought to themself 'you know what type of magic is perfect for acquiring human souls? Necromancy.' So they learned the basics of necromancy to gather the necessary soul power to break the barrier from the outside. But summoning the undead kind of leaves your soul open to possession if you aren't careful, wandering spirits may latch onto it as a source of energy to feed off of. Can you guess who latched onto Magus' soul? They later worked out a genuine pact and contract where Phantom could be called upon whenever and would also get more access to magic in exchange. But yeah, i meant it when I said soulmates are destined to meet no matter what, not even Death can prevent your fated meeting.
Phantom is very smug that he's already soul married to Magus before the others even got a date. He's The Worst, I love him with all my heart and soul. He is bonkers from the isolation of death and doesn't want to share with the living because they're alive and he's insecure. Only he puts this on Magus like 'hey you should totally die and join me as a ghost so the others can't have you :3' and Magus just sighs and grounds him from cuddles for the day. If Magus is in a life threatening situation he is completely chill about it because 'oh hey ghost time! =D' and then he'll pout when they make it out alive. Magus has to remind him there's no guarantee they'd be a ghost and that both of them would basically up and dissapear if it happened. He's a little delusional that it'll work out perfectly and they'll be ghosts together in the afterlife without all the struggling to stay together to not fade away he'd gone through before 6-6 =_='' he has redeeming qualities I swear. To be clear though, Dust seeing his brother's ghost is a hallucination and manifestation of his grief as in canon. Because Magus is a necromancer i thought it'd be interesting if he's just Also an actual ghost at play in the story. So like, Dust will be looking off into space talking with his brother and Y/n will be across the room with Phantom at her side and looking between them because they can't Say anything, but Magus being a necromancer reaffirmed that ghosts are real so people believe Dust that his brother's ghost is haunting him. It's a whole thing. Dust please get therapy. Magus doesn't like him because he killed his brother, yes they're taking sides in this, that's their husband. Don't expect much from dust, he's gonna get sidelined hard if I actually write this, I just wanted his brother lol. He'd rather die than date a human mage anyways after all he went through which is fair.
The introduction of the Horror bros is where things start really kicking off (though i have like 5 different concept timelines, this is the main one) it's when Blue first meets Magus and falls head over heels seeing them covered in blood and dust, it's when Black sees part of Magus' face and decides to put their mask back on rather than taking a closer peak and a picture- as Magus is unconscious and he feels he hasn't earned it. He didn't do anything, he just showed up. It was too easy. He wanted them to show him. It's when the horror bros show up obviously, and Chef (ht!paps) Immediately leaves his mark And sees under the mask so he's leagues ahead of the others right off the bat. Bones (ht!sans) is a little behind him in the uptake, i'm not sure he's realized they're also his soulmate too yet- they just seem kind of familiar in a way he can't place but he's glad his bro is happy. It's also when Magus and Phantom either first meet or create their pact. I need to refresh my memory but lots of things come together and start falling apart when the horrorbros come into play :3
Eventually they'll all live together in concerning unorthodox harmony but for now there are secrets and drama to be had!
Given the frequency with which I’ve been seeing certain words misused, and the effects that’s been having on me, it seems like now is the time to dive into the past and explain a fair number of things. I don’t expect this to be immediately understandable, if only because explaining it requires me to touch on a few different things that could probably each use their own essay. If you have any questions about this, don’t hesitate to ask. I’m always happy to clarify things.
Due to the length of this essay, the bulk of it is under the cut.
For most of this to make sense, I first need to talk a little bit about the nature of time. Most people assume time to be a linear sequence, with causes preceding their effects. For the most part, that assumption is functional, especially when you’re talking about events solely within this iteration of reality. Here (and now), time moves inexorably forward, with events separated by some distance, both spatial and temporal. When you start getting into other iterations of reality, however, the idea of linear time begins to work less and less.
To provide an example: There seems to be a general consensus within the community that there was a period where angels were incredibly common. I’ve personally taken to referring to it as the High Angelic Age, because I’m a fan of Excessive Capitalization. However, the consensus also seems to be that the High Angelic Age happened previous to the current iteration of reality, where angels seem to be entirely a matter of myth. From what I’ve gathered, however, there is no reason to believe one came before the other. In some ways, the two eras are simultaneous; in other ways, the two eras are disconnected. Rather than thinking of them as parts of a single timeline, it’s better to think of them as different layers of reality, with travel between them being difficult, but not impossible.
(A small aside: When I say travel between layers is possible, I mean in a general cosmic sense. A “soul”, for want of a better term, can transition from the layer that contains the High Angelic Age to the layer containing this mortal reality, and vice versa, but trying to move a physical body between the two seems impossible. I’m still working to figure out the exact reasons why there’s such a difference.)
Now that we’ve established that putting things on a timeline isn’t an accurate way to describe things, I can begin explaining what the Beginning is, and how we can have a Beginning when time isn’t a useful benchmark.
All around us, there is Reality, that which is. (I’ll be using capital “Reality” throughout this essay to refer to the metaphysical concept of everything. I know it looks pretentious as hell, but I need a way to refer to the concept specifically without being this long winded every time.) Everyone is familiar with Reality, because without Reality, we don’t exist, because we are a part of Reality. No Reality, no us, no anything. While most people focus on Reality and how we fit into it, there is also another aspect to things that gets glossed over.
In most creation myths I’m aware of, the universe begins with a vast nothingness, a void from which Reality comes to be. I remember this vast nothingness, and I remember when Reality came to be. Mind you, I don’t claim to be any kind of creator, or god, or anything of the sort. I wasn’t alone back then, and while I may have had a hand in assembling things, none of us were anything close to being divine. We just were, or rather, we were not. By having Reality, we were able to Be, in the grand metaphysical sense. It’s a complex topic, but one which I’m sure has been covered by others before.
I know that great void of nothingness as Outside, again because I’m a fan of Excessive Capitalization, and because it creates the implication of Realty being “inside”, which helps other things make sense down the line.
So we have two primary concepts: Reality, and Outside. Reality is everything that is, Outside is the metaphysical state of non-existence. Outside isn’t a place, and you can’t even say it just is, because it isn’t. Hopefully that makes sense. At some point, Reality came into being, and everything follows from there.
That first moment, when Reality happened, is what I know as the first Dawn, a term chosen because of its long-standing symbolism to a variety of individuals. I was there during the first Dawn, and I have vague memories of what it was like. I remember at least some of the groups we divided ourselves into, and some of the conflicts that arose between those groups. At least one of those conflicts I know is still very much ongoing, and it’s something that affects both me and my wife regularly. At some point during that Dawn, a decision was made to make Reality again. The first Dawn may have been brought to an end, or it may have been left intact. That part I don’t really remember at this point, though I have a good idea why I don’t remember.
That rebuilding of Reality is the second Dawn. My memories get significantly blurrier regarding the second Dawn, and afterwards there are large gaps in my recollection of things. Skipping through all of that, I remember that there have been at least 11 Dawns, including this current iteration of Reality, the one with humanity, the internet, and the Tumblr that this essay is being posted to. One of those previous Dawns, likely the one just previous to this one or the one before that, was the High Angelic Age.
Now, the idea of each Dawn occurring separately might create the idea that there’s a timeline to be made between each Dawn, with one ending and the next one beginning. That’s not the case, though. The better imagery is to say that each Dawn is a separate layer of Reality, occurring at least somewhat simultaneously. This makes more sense when you remember that Reality exists within that formless void. Outside, nothing exists, and that includes the concept of time. Even if we assume that each iteration of Reality, each Dawn, was destroyed in full before the next was created, there is no time to pass between them. Because there is no time, then all things must be simultaneous from Outside. If things were anything but simultaneous, then time must exist Outside, and then it wouldn’t be Outside, it would be a particularly empty version of Reality. Possibly confusing, I know, but we’re getting into things that I’m still recalling and piecing together here, so I’m still working on fully comprehending the scope of this.
The reason I decided to talk about all of this (as long as it is), is because of a certain phrase the angel community has been clinging to for over a year now: “In Fire, and Ash, and Steel, We Endure.” I understand why it’s become so important to the community, especially as far as it relates to the Fall and the war that resulted from it. The problem is, the saying goes back significantly further than the High Angelic Age. More precisely, the concepts that the saying represents go back further, given that language doesn’t really translate between Dawns. It goes back to the first Dawn, and the conflict that arose between two specific groups of the era. I was among one of those groups in that Dawn, and the saying is about how we carried forward no matter what came about in that conflict. No matter how destroyed we were, no matter how much suffering we were put through, we carried on knowing that we would never stop, because the conflict was, at its root, about the very nature of Reality and the way things should be. At this point, I’m not sure who is currently winning in this war, if anyone can be said to be winning, but we’re still fighting.
And that’s why it pains me to see the saying misused and misrepresented. Saying “In fire, in ash, in steel” implies that the three are distinct and separate, when they represent a single concept together, one that is very difficult to express in any other way without getting incredibly verbose. Those words have meaning, and they have power, and that meaning and that power should be recognized. Know what those words represent, as well as what they say.
“We watch, and we see. We see, and we know. We know, and we understand. And through understanding, we Become.” May the light of the divine guide and protect.
