THYME FOR A NEW WORLD (open)

[spaghettimonster]

Who: Papyrus and you!
When: through Iuneril
Where: Primarily around Haven, at Runetchers, and the various brothels (during class time), but he can be found throughout the city
What: Catch-all for June quests (a job and the flirting classes) and miscellaneous wildcard prompts
Warnings: None likely, will update as needed

💀 PROFESSIONAL ARTISTE
Artistically customizing his world has been as easy for Papyrus as breathing, but it's never been his bread and butter before. Everything from convincingly painting that one stone overhang to look like a wooden bridge, to customizing some of his clothing to be even cooler, he's done it.

And now, against all expectations, there's a high-demand job that requires something so simple as the ability to draw clean, consistent lines.

"I can't believe they're paying us to come in and do this every day... Won't they have enough scrolls, someday??"


💀 FLIRTING: BECAUSE... THAT'S HOW ADULT HUMANS INTERACT?
Now, Papyrus knows what a brothel is. He's read a classical novel or three, and seen some innuendo in human movies. But! Like so many things, the skills they offer can be used in other avenues of life.

It only takes days in this surface world for the sheer number of humans in this world to overwhelm him, a little bit. There's so many, and while they aren't killing anyone, there are a lot of tensions between monsters and humans... And some give him personally a wide berth, probably due to his resemblance to an ambulatory cadaver.

He can't blame them, he expects he'd feel uncomfortable talking to a dust cloud.

But thankfully a new friend (!) pointed that out and gave him an idea: the key to getting along with all these strangers, monster to human, is in reassuring them with a friendly demeanor. He's tried his own C00L DUDE energy, and that's worked for some, but not all. The comforting guidance of acting like a mom, likewise, worked with some - but left others even more eager to walk away.

So now it's time to learn a new approach. An... adultier approach, full of 'subtle' winks, welcoming tones of voice, and maybe even... lascivious words. After all, his original human friend - child though they were - had gone about the underground flirting with people, clearly in imitation of the adults they knew. Best of all, the coaching also goes into reading things about others' expressions, which will surely help him in figuring out what demeanor to bring to the table with strangers.

"Hi," says the skeleton, sitting nearby in the class. He leans in a little, like the instructor demonstrated earlier. "I love your hair, I wish I had hair like that."


💀 ECHOES FROM THE CAVE
After the spelunking adventure went... not exactly as advertised, slightly more danger than the anticipated none, Papyrus finds himself back in Aefenglom a changed skeleton. Not physically, aside from the still-healing spider punctures... but emotionally.

It's easy to chalk down as lingering nerves from a near-death experience, but he can't seem to tolerate being alone as easily. Long hours when Sans is asleep or out , and not available for chattering with, pass even more slowly and uncomfortably... and skimming back through the entire archive of these watches only passes so much time.

More than loneliness, it feels so much more comfortable being around people. Like, Papyrus carefully doesn't think to himself, being part of a group - a pack - is reassuring some new instinct.

"Hi! What are you doing?"

All time of day or night, he goes up to random strangers, greeting them in search for friendly sorts to (unofficially) hang out with.


💀 WILDCARD
((There's plenty of other possible reasons for characters to interact; if you've got one in mind, send me a quick PM here or on plurk for me to confirm, or just toss it up here - I'll respond if I'm down for it))

Comments

Flirting.

[tinyfood]

Entrapta, who has been recording this entire lesson so far on her watch for later cross-referencing, looks kind of surprised at the compliment, although not particularly by the fact that it's coming from a skeleton. These things happen.

"Oh! Uhh, thanks! D'you want some?"

guess who isn't canon familiar but just read entrapta's info page - it was a beautiful dream

[spaghettimonster]

They do, and this skeleton happens to be caught off balance by her reply.

"Some... hair?"

Her hair is colorful, which made that flirtatious opening seem really fitting, but the reply isn't at all one he'd expected. Is she offering him a few strands of it to admire, like some fairy tale thing?

"I've dreamed of long hair of my own for ages... But, there aren't any highways here, so it might not be the same thing."

[tinyfood]

"Sure, I have loads back home. You don't have any skin, right? You could probably just stick it on, or..."

She pauses, and blinks, curious. "... Huh. What's a... high way?"

[spaghettimonster]

Papyrus is a little hesitant about that idea. Because, alright, he's a skeleton, but he does feel a little bit. Glue sticking hair to his bones... How sticky. And itchy.

"It's... a really high road?" He isn't completely sure either, but at least with this uncertainty he has a guess. "That's what I dream of! A way to travel high above the other roads, with scenic vistas soaring by..."

[tinyfood]

Entrapta peers at him. What he's describing is kind of interesting, but... "What's that got to do with hair?"

[spaghettimonster]

"Oh, simple. Hair is for waving in the air as you drive!" Papyrus helpfully explains, inasmuch as it can be called an explanation. "Or waving in the wind as you do other things... But I like the highway commercials best."

[tinyfood]

"Oh!" Her expression brightens in understanding. "The, the hard to define satisfaction of something trailing behind you at high velocity! Yes! My hair was real good for that when it was longer!"

[spaghettimonster]

"Yes, exactly!" He's triumphant in having expressed that hard to define satisfaction in only one attempt. "A cape is the closest I've come to it... But, why is your hair shorter??"

[tinyfood]

"Oh, I had to cut it off because I guess this place made it not magic any more? I used to be able to move it around," she moves her arms around, sort of by way of a demonstration, "and it was really useful, but after I came here it just got in the way."

[spaghettimonster]

Well, that was a short-lived triumph. Papyrus blinks, double takes at her hair, and recoils a step back. "Part of your body... stopped working?? Does it hurt?"

[tinyfood]

"Oh," she snorts, "no! There aren't any nerve endings in there. It was just–"

She pauses, looks at him, and tilts her head. Then she leans forward, steepling her fingers. "Say, do you experience pain?"

[spaghettimonster]

And that was a short-lived alarm, with how nonchalantly she dismisses it. Not only didn't it injure her, but it was so negligible to her that she drops it for a whole other question. Talk about reassuring?

His smile fixes in place as he considers it. "...Sometimes," Papyrus concludes, after more thought than the question should require. "Aches, and big sharp discomforts, and things like that. But, thankfully, I've never experienced heartbreak, and I hear that's the worst of all."

[tinyfood]

"Mmmm, I don't know if it's the worst of all," says Entrapta, considering, "but it's definitely worse than any of the physical pain I've experienced. But! I was asking because: I want to know if you have nerves! My hair was just animated by magic, what's your deal?"

[spaghettimonster]

"Uh, mostly I have bones," Papyrus says, too-slowly, in case it's not obvious. "And, I guess I'm animated by magic, too... I am magic, mostly. Or I was."

The witches' theories about how a monster made of magic could become a monster who doesn't have magic... they went a little over his head. He's more the practical sort than the theoretical with magic, and counting on his brother's studies to figure out how the magic here works. Hopefully, before a regrettably hairy destiny catches up to him.

[tinyfood]

"Oooh," says Entrapta. She leans forward, intrigued. "You mean you're not magic anymore? Like you lost abilities when you came here?" She rummages in one of her many pockets for a notebook, rifling through it to the appropriate page, whatever that might be, as she talks.

[spaghettimonster]

"Yeah, loads of them!" Papyrus presses a hand to his forehead like he's going to swoon theatrically, but otherwise stays standing steady. "None of my magic's worked at all... And, they tested me, and said I don't have any? I can't fathom it."

Beyond the exaggerated tone, he's latching onto her analysis as though it's from sympathy. It's disorienting, going without something he's had all his life.

[tinyfood]

She nods, interested, scribbling something down in her notebook. "Huh, so... What kind of magic did you have before?"

i can't get over her faces in that thread with steven, her going :D? to his D: about gem formation

[spaghettimonster]

Okay, what she's doing there is taking notes, which is not very much the same as sympathy. But that's fine! It's paying attention, which is close enough.

"Oh, you know! Bones..." He thinks for a moment how best to describe it, but comes up blank, because he doesn't know which parts she would know and wouldn't know. Simple it is. "Blue magic, more bones... Uh, healing, and laser skulls. The usual!"

ITS FINE ITS FOR SCIENCE

[tinyfood]

Entrapta tilts her head.

"Bones...? What does that mean, exactly?"

i mean if it's for science

[spaghettimonster]

"It means what it sounds like!"

Papyrus spreads his arms as to say look, I'm a skeleton, then thinks better of it. Instead, he reaches down to the bag next to his seat, rummages around, and pulls out a long white bone.

"Like these! They'd fly around under will as easy as breathing..."

He bounces it through the air, demonstrating how they might have moved under his control, with a couple of whooshing sound effects as someone might make with a toy plane.

[tinyfood]

"Oh!" She leans forwards to touch the bone. She will take it if he lets her. "So kind of like my hair, except you're made of bones so it's bones? I mean," she snorts, "not that I'm not partially made of bones, but, y'know..."

[spaghettimonster]

"Yeah, so I gather..."

Papyrus lets her take it to examine, but he's keeping watch where that bone goes. They're a very limited supply these days, and some vague and mild canine instinct has him wanting to keep them around. Maybe hide them under a couch cushion...?

"It seems the same to me! A magic part of us just... stopped."

[tinyfood]

"Right! And that seems to have happened to other people, too, even if some of them get it back later..." Entrapta trails off as she turns the bone over in her gloved hands, fascinated. "Huh... Biology isn't my primary field of expertise, but I can't quite work out which part of the body this comes from."

[spaghettimonster]

"Uh, let me take a look..." Papyrus leans in, tilting around her shoulder to double check. "I think... That one was a bit experimental. I just make them, they're not anybody's real bones, so I can do all sorts of things to them!"

Like make a skateboard with sunglasses, if he really pushed their shapes. Or, he could before. This is going to take some getting used to. He shakes off the slight melancholic thought and reasserts his volume.

"It's half tibia, half humerus! The better to be almost symmetrical."

[tinyfood]

"Oh, neat, so you can just make whatever shape you want like that? Or does it have to be based on real bones?" She flips through her notebook, and her shoulders sag a little. "Geez, so many people here have such fascinating abilities, it would be so much more rewarding to study them first hand..."