Chapter Text
Pebbles leaned over to poke his head from behind the pipe, watching the scuffle.
It seemed like whoever this particular scavenger was, they were quite skilled, dodging all attacks.
The fight was fast, it was dirty, it made bursts of dust fly in the air as explosions sounded, air filled with static. Everything was a blur of movement, almost impossible to process.
Neither of them were able to defeat the other, which was… Concerning.
Especially considering that Artificer has been doing this for a long, long time.
Did she get slower as she got older, or did the scavengers train their warriors better?
Eventually, Artificer slowed down a bit, a wave of sparks flooding out of her mouth like a waterfall, whole body filled with static, and that was enough for the electrical spear to nick her in the neck, a wave of shocks immediately making her drop to the ground.
F***-
The scavenger brought up another spear, but Pebbles was faster, hand rising as if on instinct.
He wasn’t even sure if he could use his laser without constant energy supply, but he didn’t have the time to think about this as his forearm clicked open with a hiss.
The masked scavenger looked over at him just in time to almost dodge, losing an ear in the process. A moment later and they would be dead. Before his puppet became responsive again, a spear moving toward him glanced harmlessly off his shell, leaving a tear in his cloak. for good measure he supposed. When did that other tear get there..?
Focus.
Artificer was standing up, and starting to move quickly on all fours in anticipation of incoming projectiles. Mint was grabbing his wrist and trying in vain to drag him back to the safety of cover. Pebbles was just sitting up. Too slow to do anything.
Useless
He shut off his cooling fans temporarily. He needed the energy for more important things right now.
His first shot had knocked out one of only six batteries, but he had fluid to top that up with in his tanks. He surely had at least two more before he started losing functionality, and his citizen was still in danger. The ruffian in question lept toward him, changing direction combustively midair to swing toward the assailant, tackling them to the ground.
What exactly happened next was out of sight, but a loud explosion blew Artificer off the platform and through the air, landing by the wall next to him.
He needed to take another shot. Unfortunately, the scavenger was much more wary of him now and as soon as he pointed his arm at them ducked behind the eave of their vantage, only their golden ribbons betraying that they were still waiting.
…
That was enough. Five Pebbles aimed and fired at the part of the wall which should in theory match which where the enemy was hiding. Immediately, his vision blacked out, leaving the only things in his perception an inescapable ringing in his hearing systems, which he hoped weren’t damaged, and several alerts about low power and critical overheating. He allowed the fans to turn themselves on, if only so his skin would stop crawling.
When his sight returned, the scavenger was on the same level as them, and was missing their left leg from the ankle down. So he aimed too low. His hearing was still shot, but he could see Artificer to his right, on all fours, growling with the most menace he had ever seen in her. Was she defending him?
He winced suddenly when a red light pointed itself in his eye, and finished shutting down when a king vulture spear slid itself through the space it used to occupy.
When he rebooted, the only sense still operating properly was hearing. He could imagine why, given the location of his translation circuits. Thinking about any other input only returned pain and cold. It was a miracle his backpack was still attached. He could still hear though, and that he did. The wind was too loud, and a rhythmic flapping noise accompanied it. He was still being carried. Or was, until the wind noises suddenly picked up, the flapping noises got farther away all too quickly, and he landed at terminal velocity on a metal spike, through his backpack, lined directly with his core. 1
It all came flooding back.
Crashing, rushing, flooding, roaring, it all came fricking back to you. 6
Of course you died. You were a blinded idiot for ever thinking you wouldn’t! Iterator puppets are made for thinking and being talked to, not fighting scavengers!
And after it all, You were Cold again!
Those memories you deleted were back again!
You were back again! Your puppet attached to your structure, your robe in perfect condition, your eye still intact.
And if scans were to be believed under all the warnings informing you of neuron overload, you had the rot. Again.
Iterators weren’t supposed to experience the cycle!
Iterators weren’t supposed to die!
..
The red lights still glared into you, judging, watching, waiting, but you didn’t care anymore.
…
Okay you did care. You cared that it was cold. Your puppet was cold, your chamber cold- your–
Artificer was diving into your chamber and lunging to comfort you. You shouldn’t need comforting.
You were unfortunately aware that you did though, and… you didn’t turn it down, leaning into the contact as your face was ‘cleaned’ by a sticky saliva.
Once your systems stabilized again, and the alarms sounding inside your chamber petered out, the ruffian took a step back, arms still resting on your shoulders, to look at you.
You could see a certain concern in their eyes as they 7 looked at you. You supposed they must have come here after wandering through your structure and seeing everything suddenly start crashing
Even at this point, they knew enough about you to correctly identify that something being wrong with your structure meant something was wrong with you and cared enough to rush over and help you calm down.
If you ever recognized that in the original timeline it probably would have disgusted you.
…
Artificer was chittering at you again. Checking system clocks… it really was about the same time you went back to before. Around a hundred cycles till the first rarefaction cell would get taken. Your citizen wouldn’t know sign language anymore.
You.. wondered if instead of teaching them sign language you could just learn to decipher what they’re saying. You’ve thought about it before, and… this seems as an opportunity as any.
Though all of that comes later. First, you need to cure yourself of the rot.
again.
…
You wonder if there’s anything you could do to make the process faster?
Looking through your records… you got the material for the children on the first cycle, and sent your citizen out to get spore puffs as well, but then wasted thirty cycles designing them. You can skip that now.
“Ruffian.” 8 you say. Her 9 ears relax a mote upon you addressing her. “If it would not inconvenience you, I would like you to begin gathering spore puffs, and bring them to… my chamber.” you’ll elaborate on the genetic bay later.
A large part of you expected her to sign a response. Something to the effect of asking why you were being so polite, or what you needed them for.
Instead she skittered curiously, sniffed you a couple times, sneezed on you, and hesitantly used an explosion to launch themselves out of the chamber. You miss being able to talk with her.
So. if you recall correctly, last time you lured a band of lost scavengers into one of the genetic modification areas to use for material, that should work fine again this time. If you had any moral qualms with this before, they were gone. While you got started, you looked through your database for records of ancients repeating days and what they did to cope with it. So records say, they forewent food and water and meditated in a heavily guarded temple until the end of the cycle.
…you’d rather not do any more thinking about the great problem.
The scavengers done being harvested, you busy yourself beginning construction of the slugcats. You really are saving a tremendous amount of time by not needing to design the blueprint again. 10
…
A… thought occurred to you. It would be nearly two hundred cycles till Moon would be reactivated, only the last fifteen of which hunter and the slag clearing neuron would be within your complex allowing you to speed things up in any way.
You had previously dismissed the construction of slag keys of your own as too expensive, but… 175 cycles is a long time. And you don’t exactly know how NSH 11 was able to make them either, so…
If you called him, you could get his blueprint, and maybe save Moon earlier.
It was worth trying. You just needed to introduce yourself to nsh. Again. He would be mad at you again, but… the longer you had no one to talk to the more you started to feel phantom cold again, and so before you had a chance to talk yourself out of it, you turned on your communications array. You hid the signal though so that hopefully other people wouldn’t be able to tell you were online.
You pressed the button to send a call to him, and… didn’t think about it. Just… talk to him. If you’re in a call with him, and you talk to him, the situation will resolve itself. All you need to do is sit and watch. And… say something when the conversation requires it.
…
A window of the iterator, no significant harassment appeared in front of you. They were facing the other way.
You are the Iterator No Significant Harassment 13
You were just drafting the designs for a replacement messenger, 14 when you got a call notification. The call, so it claimed, was hailing from “five pebbles”
The signal was hidden, of course, and there were no signs of the jerk actually being online. This could be coming from anyone. Well… not anyone. No one in your local group would be mean spirited enough to try and “shock you” with something like this, so it was some iterator who heard what happened to moon, heard a rumor that you were close, and decided to pull a prank on you.
You really shouldn’t have, you had better things to be doing, but against your better judgement you accepted the call. If only to watch the fool humiliate themselves trying to pretend to be five pebbles.
You glanced aside from the call window to dismiss what you had been working on, and looked back to see who appeared to be five pebbles. Hm. “I don’t know who you think you are, but your delivery needs work. You should have started trying to get under my skin as soon as the call would have connected, that would’ve worked much better.”
Your adversary twitched their eye, 15 and leaned forward as if about to speak, but you didn’t give them the chance. “Was your goal just to upset me with the sight of them? That’s fairly short sighted of you if you can’t even build up the courage to speak.” not your best work, but given the way their eyelids slid down into a furrowed crescent, it worked nonetheless. This was too easy. You’d let them return fire for a moment.
Their fists clenched, as they stood up from- (why were they sitting on the floor?) “I called because I wanted to help Moon, and I believed that you would be able to help me do so. If you aren’t going to then I can leave.” that… was his voice too.
None of this was impossible to fake, not even slightly, but this has reached the point where someone couldn’t do this effortlessly . Someone either committed time and energy to doing this with their cycles, (though you were one to talk) or five pebbles wanted you to believe that he was capable of feeling remorse. “Why are you on the floor?” whether this was five pebbles or not, this was something you were genuinely stuck on.
His eyelids narrowed into slits, and leaned ever so slightly forwards. “How about a deal ? I’ll tell you something, and you tell me something. Will that be good enough for you?”
Would it? There’s nothing keeping him from lying to you. Still… “What made you decide to call me now, and not any time in the 800 cycles before?”
His posture corrected itself. “Didn’t I already say? I wanted to help Moon, and-” “Yes I got that, why do you want to help Moon? What changed?”
He just stared.
“...”
“I’m sorry, for what it’s worth.”
“Apologize to Moon.”
He winced to that, and was silent for a moment. You saw him raise his hand to his interface, and the call ended.
What was that?
That was a disaster.
Of course sig wasn’t having any of that. You didn’t heal his messenger, you didn’t show him your cell, lift the ban on overseers. talk to any of the others. You didn’t even muss up your cloak and have a panic attack on the floor!
All you did was show up out of nowhere and demand things from him.
… 16
You decide to stop thinking about it.
You… look over the blueprints for the maintenance module. It was, in part, what got you killed last time. If going out once was foolish, going out twice, well…
You still like having options. Starting the module constructing doesn’t mean you’re going to use it. You just… can.
And with that, you’re out of ideas to pass the time.
Maybe you should start analyzing the slugcat footage. 17
Frustration. Spore puffs were slow to gather.
Confusion. Why did he need spore puffs anyway?
Memories.
Resolve. He seemed hurt.
If this is what he needed, you weren’t going to fail again.
Anticipation. Scavengers were heard nearby.
Your spore puffs were set down, and you prepared to pounce.
Conflict.
Disappointment. Too easy.
By the time Artificer returned and you directed them to the modification bay for growing more spore puffs, you had successfully proved…
Everything you already know. Slapping one’s tail on the ground indicates anger or frustration, sneezing indicates… something. They do seem to have distinct facial expressions, which you’ve mostly been able to parse. But they clearly must have much more advanced language than this if they can communicate names to each other. You just need to figure out how.
The ruffian returned to your chamber.
“Thank you, Artificer. That will be all for now.” You resumed the antigravity, but your citizen made an alarmed noise and clearly made an effort to remain in your chamber. You returned them to the floor and watched as they stared at you in what you could best parse to be baffled confusion. “What is it? Did something happen?” you realized that it was silly of you to ask. They couldn’t respond right now. They made skittering noises anyway and pointed at themselves.
Wait… did you call them Artificer out loud just now? 18
Oh, frick. You couldn’t really play that off as a coincidence could you?
Out of the corner of your puppet’s vision, you saw them signing, “How name?” but when you turned to look their hands were at their sides, and they had never been lifted. They didn’t know sign language.
…
Well that’s just wonderful. You quietly decide to ignore whatever that was, and attempt to lift Artificer out of your chamber again. They go along reluctantly this time. Hopefully they would just forget you knew their name, and you wouldn’t forget and use it again until they find a way to tell you. Void knows you weren’t explaining extracycular knowledge to this beast who, at this point, is likely still denying the cycle exists.
You needed something else to think about. Your eyes, slowly, inevitably, drifted towards the communication interface. It had been more than three dozen cycles since you last called sig, but they hadn’t bombarded you with messages like they would in the other timeline. They were acting as if you had never left isolation.
A quick check at the logs of the main group chat confirmed that as recent as three cycles ago someone mentioned you being absent. Nsh hadn’t told anyone.
A large part of yourself is simply… curious what would happen if you continue talking to him. You’ll probably get the blueprints eventually, at the very least.
You started thinking about the snow again. You slammed your fist down on the call button, ignoring how it pathetically flew through the holographic display. Leaning back against the wall of your chamber, you realized he was probably going to ask why you were on the floor again. You didn’t really care.
You, The Iterator No Significant Harassment, 19 had just finished starting the growth of your new messenger, where you received a second call from five pebbles.
The first call had been… concerning. You weren’t sure how else to describe it. He clearly wanted you to believe that he wanted to help Moon, but he wasn’t acting like it. He was acting like he had another project, and for whatever reason that he almost seemed embarrassed to say, he needed your help for it. The confusing thing is that he didn’t ask for your help with anything in particular, for you to do anything particular… he just asked for you to help.
Some part of you wondered if he was okay all alone in his can. Another part of you said you didn’t care.
You answered the call. 20
Five pebbles looked worse than he did earlier. He was on the floor, leaning against the wall of his chamber as if a depleted pneumatic vessel. 21 You permit him the first word.
He tilted his head back, closing his eyes and raising his shoulders as if breathing in, before straightening his posture and staring directly at you. “If I lift the overseer ban outside of my chamber, will you help me?” What? That-
No. that doesn’t- that doesn’t make any sense. Why would he do that? UNPROMPTED no less! You remember how the pictures looked before. They must be so much worse now… why would he want you to look at that? Why does he need your trust this badly? “And If I do this, I want you to help me. Remember that this is for Moon’s sake.”
“ Pebbles , you're scaring me. What happened?”
“Nothing has happened, I simply-” “No. F#ck that. Something has happened, because the five pebbles I know wouldn’t do this at all, for any reason. I don’t know what happened, and I don’t know why you’re talking to me about it instead of suns, but I can tell that something is wrong. I-”
“...I don’t want to, because I still blame you for what happened, but I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, and the way you’re acting I’m scared that you’re going to do something drastic.”
He stared directly at you for a moment, in tense silence. The window closed and you were told that the call ended.
F*ck.
…
You opened a message window with chasing wind.23
It had been 10 cycles since your last altercation with Sig. in that time you had attempted to recreate his advances in neuron technology on your own, and found… well you had found nothing to be honest. Maybe it was just because you were too cautious to connect any experimental or potentially unstable neurons to your system, but it was quickly becoming apparent why it took nsh nearly a thousand cycles after moon’s collapse to have all this ready to be sent out. You didn’t have that sort of time, especially if you already have someone who solved the darn problem if they would just tell you-
You spin a circle of pearls above your palm for a moment to help with the nerves. It almost helped.
Of course, all of that went out the proverbial window when you were informed of a call from Wind. You had been ignoring messages from them for the last eight cycles now, and while there was by no means anything stopping you from doing the same with the call now being offered in front of you, you could play dumb about a few measly messages. A call like this couldn’t really be ignored without a more… direct message being sent. And you did still need NSH.
You reluctantly picked up, and looked into the projection. Wind’s ever present tired, knowing, almost-glare looked back in response. You were… not particularly looking forward to this.
When No Significant Harassment contacted you, you at first wanted to dismiss it as some practical joke of sorts. But from what you understood of No Significant Harassment,24 that was not the tone they used when they were joking. And as they had said you would find, upon messaging Five Pebbles you simply failed to receive a response instead of encountering a connection error as you had with your past attempts. Unfortunately, he responded neither upon asking if he required help, someone to confide in, nor any parallel line of questioning. You found yourself regretting your failure to successfully spoof seniority privileges to assume the new senior responsibilities in Looks To The Moon’s absence, but what was done was done. If anything you should be glad that such a thing is impossible, so as to prevent its use for unsavory means. Thankfully, Five Pebbles did respond when you finally resorted to calling him as No Significant Harassment had suggested. For whatever reason, this seemed to be the way Five Pebbles was most comfortable communicating at the moment. Or at least, it was the method to which Five Pebbles was most responsive. Five Pebbles appeared before you, and as No Significant Harassment had said, they looked tired, as if they had seen things only the Void should, and they lingered by the bottom of their chamber as if experiencing a malfunction.27 Something in their gaze didn’t trust you. It was no matter. You waited for Five Pebbles to provide the first words, and then you would continue.
“...”
But Five Pebbles remained silent, instead simply slowly narrowing his gaze. Your move.28 “It has come to my attention that you are not well.” You watch as his fist clenches.
“I am fine. If anyone has told you otherwise, they are mistaken and have betrayed my confidence.” You expected as such.
Still, you are glad that No Significant Harassment informed you. They did the right thing. “You are likely not aware, but I have been performing Therapeutic Counseling services for Unparalleled Innocence29 and Seven Red Suns. I could perform the same for you. I believe you would benefit.”
Seemingly, these words struck a nerve. “I don’t need you to fix me. I asked No Significant Harassment for help because I needed it. I have no business with you.” Despite this, he continued to remain on the call. “We’re still speaking because I don’t trust you not to make it my problem if I ignore you.” He said, seemingly successfully reading your next question.
“I would never do anything to hurt you.”
“I believe that you wouldn’t do so intentionally.”
“What did I do to make you not trust me?” The orbit of pearls behind Five Pebbles accelerated visibly.
“Why would I need to trust you?” His eyes narrowed into slits, clearly mirroring yours. You sighed. You had hoped to not get so confrontational here, but it couldn’t be helped.
You fully opened your eyes. “Because if left to your own devices, I fear you will become a danger to yourself and others, and I cannot allow that.”
A hint of static crept into his voice. “Could you be any more specific?” Five pebbles condescendingly tilted his head about 10 degrees to the side.
“I worry that you will make another attempt at ascension if allowed to.”
“And the truth comes out. Why do you care? Aren’t we supposed to be trying to learn to ascend anyway?”
“So you admit it?”
“I didn’t say that.”
…
“The ancients wanted us to guide others to ascension, and never go ourselves. I… would not say from what I know of you that you give what the ancients thought much merit. In fact, if I am not mistaken, you gave yourself the rot in an attempt to ascend, did you not?”
A gaze cannot kill, but Five Pebbles had apparently forgotten as such as he was clearly trying. He was, however, interrupted when small noises were heard from behind the window, and the lights on the chamber walls reacted as if introducing a visitor. His gaze also betrayed something was up, as he kept darting between the window and the presumed intruder. Who..? “Is there someone there, Five Pebbles?” He was too distracted to respond, instead waving his hand as if to dismiss the guest upwards. Given the shift in how his umbilical cable rested, he was using gravity to do so. Was it a beast of some kind? The lighting shouldn’t have reacted like that if so. His attempt to dismiss it failed, as an explosion was heard, and the small red thing landed on the floor next to him, a citizen ID drone trailing precisely behind it. It chittered meaninglessly, looking between him and the window.
Five Pebbles sighed, looking defeated, Before looking up at you. Really, looking at you. “Don’t take this the wrong way.” He said. The line disconnected a moment later.
You suppose it was too hasty to assume he was ready to speak to you directly. You will be more prepared next time.30
Artificer was looking at you. You wonder if they understood that you were talking with someone just now. You wonder exactly how much they understand at all
That’s foolish of course. You’ve spoken to them directly. You’re aware that they’re at least as intelligent as any of the ancients that made you.e
But staring into their round, empty, silent eye. You can’t help but think of them as
…
Well, as a beast. On the floor of your chamber.
And you hate yourself for thinking that.
She settled on your lap. You so badly want to talk to her. You wonder if it was a mistake not starting teaching her the language this time, you’ve gone nowhere without it. You-
Wait. what are you thinking? Of course you can still talk to her. She just can’t talk back . But… you can communicate. Without teaching her anything you can probably manage yes and no, and you might be able to work with that. Why try to decode it like some dead language when you have a native speaker right in front of you?
“Little ruffian.” She looks up at you.
“Can I ask you something?”31
1. I knew for this fic that i wanted him to die to diverge from canon, but wasn’t sure exactly where. I chose here because its one of the points where he’s in the most danger,a (aside from maybe when he got specifically targeted by the scavenger rebellion, though that’s later in the story than i would like) it is mostly from a scavenger, which could create drama later, It’s the first time he went out, so he gets to beat himself up about that, (and later imagine the timeline he left behind) and perhaps most of all, its before that echo encounter, meaning i don’t have to worry about pebsi trying to fit the cryptic messaging about purpose into his new timeline.2 return
2. If it's not already clear these footnotes are like 90% me rambling about author’s thoughts and commentary, feel absolutely free to completely ignore them
“Ignore these if you want to maintain the illusion that i’m an inerrant perfect creative” etc. etc.3 return full return
3. More on this paragraph though. to be clear, I really hate justification alignment. It's like whoever designed it did so to annoy me specifically. But… that's something I can use. If something is hard to read or structurally disrupts your thought processes just with how the words are on the page, then I can use that.
So for those of you in the audience who don’t struggle to read newspaper justification: the intent is that the text here is asymmetrical and chaotic so as to be intentionally disruptive and convey pebsi’s current state of mind.4 return full return
4. Oh, and four thousand words after writing this section, I’m just now realizing that i had read the diagram wrong. Had the spear gone straight in through his eyesocket to the back of the skull, it would not hit his translation module. His translation module is at the top of the skull, as opposed to the back as i had thought here. In fact, the module at the back is the hearing module! The one thing that i said was left working!
It really is true… undertale fans can’t read…5 return full return
5. Even further future me here, i found while reading a comment for btts that apparently the author says pebbles was not entirely correct in his theory that he experienced the cycle. It sounded like he wasn’t entirely wrong, but the author drew specific attention to the fact that creatures only loop back a cycle, which uh
Isn’t what pebbles did
Anyway despite this i’mma continue on as i was.
Man this footnote chain is getting long… why’d i decide I wasn’t allowed to put any footnotes earlier in the fic than this point its just making them all bottle up here return full return
a. UGhhhhh... i really hate to make a branching footnote chain this early but AS I WAS PORTING THE FIC TO AO3 I realized that this line is out of date now. 36 was the newest chapter when i started.
this is also really annoying because when i started porting to ao3 i had, by near complete coincidence, funny number 69 number of footnotes and the fact that i'm adding notes DURING THE PORT means it's not likely gonna be any round number anymoreb return full return
b. update: for the sake of clarity post-script footnotes have been marked with letters intead of numbers.
why does this make the fic feel more HoL? I only got like halfway through house of leaves but from what i remember it was just numbers
yet every fic i have made has somehow felt more house of leaves than the last fic
maybe it's all in my head.
but the fact that i can't figure out whether or not the house of leaves references are just me gaslighting myself
is a pretty solid house of leaves reference return full return
6. I’m sorry if the change to second person is jarring, but while i can read third person perspective just fine if i’m writing third person perspective i can’t hear the character’s voice and it throws me the heck off. Second or first comes so much easier to me. return
7. In btts, arti is she/her. In the dating sim, she/her. Canon Artificer has no spoken pronouns. But i’ve always headcanoned all slugcats as they/them, so that’s what i’m most comfortable thinking and writing them as. This is my fanfiction at the end of the day. return
8. Coloured text may be an odd choice for an all-prose work like this, but it feels clear. And while it shouldn’t be used as a crutch for the sake of colorblind friendliness, it *is* nice to not always have to indicate speakers return
9. she/they maybe idk. She feels more right for the character today then it did on the day i wrote the prior footnote. Idk gender is weird and i’m like 80% that anything descended from ancient tech would reproduce asexually anyway so its not like the concept is necessarily even fully applicable return
10. There was a line from moon which strongly implied that the memories from the past life seemed “compressed” somehow, as if they didn’t carry over in full detail, but in lieu of complicating the events of my story by worrying about that detail i’ve chosen to interpret moon’s comment as observing the memories taken with faulty and damaged optics and mistaking it for compression. return
11. Okay i’ll admit the colored names is a little silly. Depending on your circle this either evokes an image of a kids’ picture book or an “i remember you’re genocides” meme, and… neither of those are the tone i want with this fic. So… idk try to ignore it if it's not ur jam, i might drop it in later chapters given the amount of effort needed. It just was something I decided to do based on a whim. 12 return
12. When I wrote the prior footnote it was sitting on the first highlighted name in the fic, I only went back and highlighted pebbles moon and artificer later, but choose to leave this footnote here though it became mostly redundant. return full return
13. this isn’t a homestuck reference i swear return
14. You know I actually had to make a spreadsheet for this? From starting the blueprints to birthing mint and emerald takes pebbles around 120 cycles. 40 cycles later, hunter arrives in farm arrays. When nsh gets the design for the maintenance module, he says to moon “see you in 20 cycles!” so… from starting the blueprint to arriving in farm arrays should be around 140 cycles, which we’ll add 20 to for “the slugcat finishing growing to adulthood.” In theory Hunter should be growing faster than usual, which is what causes the mistake that leads to hunter’s rot, but I don't want nsh to be too early in his plans at this point in the story, so i’m dismissing that thought. return
15. Feels weird calling the camera an eye but it would feel weirder awkwardly calling it an ‘optical receptor’ or some such and btts calls them eyes plenty so its fine return
16. Were this line a textbox in a more dynamic medium, the text would be shaking.c return
c. Technically i'm pretty sure this is within the capabilities of ao3 now that i think about it but heck if i'm coding that return full return
17. Slugcat pov time. Wish me luck. return
18. That and you thanked them directly return
19. still not a homestuck reference return
20. This sounds super dramatic but has absolutely no reason to. Not sure exactly how to rephrase this best return
21. Deflated balloon. 6/10 joke.22 return
22. On second thought, 4/10. What did i think i was cookingd return full return
d. lowering this to a 2 now. totally kills the surrounding mood.
At this point i should probably just delete the line, but this chain of footnotes almost redeems it, and there is a limit to how many edits i'm willing to make this late in the process return full return
23. Oh yeah btw- chasing wind is what i’m going to be referring to them as in this fic. To be clear: I Am Not Familiar with the wind lore, in canon or in btts. As far as i’m aware, they have very little in canon. If this is deadnaming them, please inform me and I will try to correct this error. But as far as i could tell, it was about 50/50 which name is used, in canon or not, and i think it would be a lot easier for me to stick for one name for them, especially since i don’t fully understand why they had two return
24. I decided to always use full names in chasing wind narration, and avoid usage of contractions.25 This isn’t how they narrated from the original author, but I like distinguishing narrators with things like this and it seemed fitting for a well spoken, calculated and direct person like wind. I also chose to avoid newlines except when the speaker changes. I swear it annoys me so much when authors forget to break lines on speaker changes…26 return
25. Bug me in the comments if i let a contraction slip in by accident return full return
26. After writing the prior footnote, I realized that I had already used two speakers earlier in the work, and probably needed to explain myself. I have done it exactly once, and it was an intentional decision to maintain the pacing of the story. NSH cutting off Five Pebbles like that wouldn’t have had quite the same impact with a paragraph break, but despite this fact if I wasn’t using colored text to indicate the change in speaker I would have broken the paragraph anyway. It was a decision, and not one I made carelessly. return full return
27. Five pebbles got that golden freddy posture return
28. I wonder why I’ve been spending so much time dwelling on the combative nature of exchanges like this in this story? I don’t believe I’ve dwelt much upon it literarily before, and I worry that it grows to the point where it could simply become a flaw. For everyone to be thinking this way probably makes it look like all the characters have the same personality. It makes me worry about exactly how separate they really are in my mind. It’ll probably be fine. I’ll just… keep an eye on that. return
29. No this isn’t a reference to my other fic, i just still think its a cool effect return
30. Did you know that writing is hard? I know- crazy concept, it seems so simple. Jokes aside… i dunno. I have thoughts but i feel they would be best put in the real talk with wind. I had to end this one abruptly because… it was too early in the story I guess? I meant wind to call later, but they just called now instead and it threw off all my plans. It was also heck to write because I kept wanting pebbles to say things that referenced the conversation he had with wind after getting back from the trip, but he didn’t have that conversation with wind, because he never got back from the trip. That’s a problem for me though. That conversation is what I want to work off of for the dynamic between pebbles and wind, and so i guess this conversation sort of… emulated that one? I don’t know. The emotional impact isn’t going to hit the same if wind is written wrong, so i need to focus on that. return
e. passing remarks i've picked up from the writer on discord have strongly implied that this isn't true. then again, it wasn't entirely clear.
the vibe i got was 'less intelligent than a human, more intelligent than a squirrel, maybe equivalent to an octopus'
which if you don't know octopif means 'sum total intelligence perhaps comparable to a human but specialized in *completely* different directions. it's perhaps foolish to even compare the intelligence of an octopus to a human, as they are just on a different spectrum.
but whatever type of intelligence octopi have, they sure have a lot of it return
f. not calling them octopuses return full return
31. btw, I’ve read “Unfeeling Feelings” now (the original author’s AU of this where pebbles gets stabbed through the eye by a scavenger and gives up on life and all that fun stuff and I’d like to say that any and all parallels the first scene had were a complete coincidence. I’ve only just read it after finishing chapter one, so if I continue to have similar ideas now you can make fun of me for stealing and taking inspiration and all that stuff. But chapter one was clean. return