80+x Operations - Blog Posts

*GASPS*

also here's a little hint for who i plan to work on next uwu

oook, that makes a lot of sense. i'm glad you actually take the sheer scale of the multiverse into account, that's something i don't see nearly enough of. as well as the logistics of keeping up with it and even comprehending its existence. (i mean, they're UNIVERSES out there. universes. imagine learning your entire UNIVERSE, not just the fricking planet you're on, but the very thing you call existence, is only one of countless realities. and then learning that travel between those realities is possible and there's a war waging between some god-like beings out there. i'd have trouble coming to terms that).

each of them having their favourite au to visit is strangely endearing. makes thrm feel more tangible to know they've got their hobbies and pasttimes.

grandpa continues to impress, as always. i wonder if people think he's passed of old age when he ghosts them (i take bullying the baddies very seriously.)

[loud laughter in the background]

[waves.] how does horror sleeping around, and cross flirting with people work for them, if they are notorious for being part of The Multiverse's Most Hated, Nightmare's Pantheon? i imagine they can still find some aus here and there in which the inhabitants either don't know or don't care about that kind of thing, but "sleeping around" in horror's case implies that it's a rather frequent thing, and we know he's more of a one-night kinda guy. unless?

you're exactly right — not every AU knows (or cares) about outcode affairs, no matter how high-stakes and immediately concerning those affairs might be. not that they're necessarily choosing not to care, either; it's just that an incode trying to keep up to date with the multiverse's affairs (on top of their own world's, mind you!) would probably be driven insane pretty quickly. it takes a strong type of person to become an outcode in the first place, because that's something normal people are not built to do or even to comprehend.

that said, for recreational purposes and even shopping, the pantheon definitely try to stick to AUs that are off the "beaten path", if only for convenience and security. the multiverse is so big and ever-evolving that it's almost impossible to map (error, ink, reaper and nightmare are probably some of the only entities in TAU able to keep track of it with any degree of accuracy, and nightmare mostly through manual effort), but areas of TAU that are more "high traffic" are more likely to have people who know and care who they are, and more likely to have ties to dream. dream will of course then try to stop them from ever entering that AU again, which depending on what they did there, could be a huge pain in the ass. (as intended, of course; it's still a war.)

naturally, very few those "low traffic" AUs are actually going to be open to interdimensional travel, but there's still plenty of choices among them where a weird scary monster can blend into a crowd, so they're not bereft of choices. and among those choices i think each of the pantheon members have their favorites to go back to, even if only for specific places — killer's world with his favorite beach, horror's with his favorite bar, cross with his favorite taco stand, dust with his favorite convenience store, etc. etc. it'd be mostly up to them to keep a catalogue of which AU had which thing they liked so they could later return to it, but as long as they don't cause enough ruckus that dream catches wind of it, they're pretty much free to do whatever.

(also you're correct again: axe is definitely a one-night-stand kind of guy. he might save your number in his phone if you're a particularly mind-blowing fuck and easy to talk to, but the second things start getting too emotionally involved he's gone like a fart in the wind xD)

i accidently deleted my long ask... [dead.]

i'll try again. short version: does cross deal with gender-related dysphoria? considering he grew up being forced into a certain role, which is atypical for monsters, and the fact that it was once mentioned (as an offhand comment meant as an example) in a post about monster gender expression that cross may have to lean harder into masculine representation if he wants to be gendered correctly at first sight... well, i imagine it means a lot to him to have something that was denied to him for so long, and i figure those two are correlated.

i also get the feeling he's an overall rigid guy, reflected in the way his ocd manifests, so i imagine that might very well be part a of it, as well. does he not allow himself certain things out of fear he'll be misgendered? is he overall comfortable with himself? does he ever feel like he has to overcompensate?

i tip my hat. have a nice day!

short answer: YES, jesus christ, cross has a LOT of dysphoria xD

(unrelated but i am SO flattered that you remembered that detail!)

you're right on the money though, yeah. one of cross' biggest obsessions is his self-image, and a lot of that stems from dysphoria because his dad (the source of most of this) was very much the "woman belong in the kitchen supporting real men (me)" type. the funny thing is that cross' overcompensation might not always register to us because it's all based on his understandings of human culture, which in turn comes from his father's understandings of it — it's very much a game of chinese telephone, where things have been translated nearly into meaninglessness based only on second-hand observation. that is to say: most humans would only see a monster mimicking "human culture" with info clearly from movies and books, and since monsters are naturally extremely social, that isn't really seen as weird.

the most immediate (and comical) example that comes to mind: when it comes to alcohol, cross will ONLY drink beer.

does he LIKE beer? no; he thinks it tastes like rotten bread. he only drinks it because humans (specifically the kind of english-speaking cultures his father took inspiration from) say it's masculine, and he doesn't want cute guys and gals at the bar to see him drinking some fruity cocktail and come talking to him like he's a woman. he also doesn't tell anyone he bakes, to such an extent that it takes multiple years of knowing him (or a really, really bad sleep schedule) to finally catch him doing it. he used to wear a headscarf as a kid (because his dad insisted and he was too young to realize why), and he actually DID like how that looked on him, but the second he realized it made people see him Wrong he burned it and never touched another one.

(the second, admittedly sadder example: cross is bisexual, but he never dates anyone, and only ever flirts with women. he's heard and seen that humans see gay men as lesser feminine, and he's not secure enough in his own self image to risk it. god FUCKING forbid anyone finds out he wants to bottom; he would literally rather die.)

this is actually one of the many reasons that tension develops between him and abaddon; abaddon threatens everything he knows in (many) more ways than one, but the fact that they're an extremely secure trans guy on top of that is just spit on his fucking ice cream.

i've followed back :x) this is also motivating me, lol. a lot. really. in fact, i'm ripping my shirt off and yelling at the top of my lungs as i power up.

i'm very busy as of now, so there may not be anything for a while... but, if you ever wanna chat, feel free to message me. pleasure to make your mutual! also, honored to be the first ask.

hello. i saw your tags which byrdblood reblogged. this feels so silly, oh my god.

i hope this isn't too forward, i just wanted to say that i'm working on my own multiverse interpertation and noticed we had a similar ideas with the research logs. they do say great minds think alike. i think our approaches are a little different (i can't tell since i have nothing to compare to yet, but i'm focused on specific things), but what you said sounds really cool. that's actually the point of this ask. all i wanted to say is, i would also be interested in seeing you realise your ideas, whenever that would happen. research logs are delicious.

that's all. have a nice day. :x)

AHHH THANK YOU SO MUCH! This is really motivating to hear and I'm glad you think it's cool :')

It's also neat to hear that I'm not the only one going down the research logs route! just followed you and i can't wait to see what you've got in store! i'd love to hear more, but if you want to keep some stuff secret, that's ok too. i love a good mystery :)

here's a question i've had before: how does monster aging work in mtau?

for example, horror is 58 yrs old if i remember correctly, does that make him relatively old or is their lifespan usually longer than humans'? (i imagine average lifespans also differ between boss monsters and the rest)

TAU horror is 54, but close!

i'm pretty sure i've talked about monster aging before but i can't remember where the post is — TLDR; a monster's llfespan depends on how much mana it generates, which typically correlates (at least roughly) to its size. it also isn't a straight graph of "more magic = more life", because mana slowly wears down a monster's leylines similarly to how oxygen slowly "burns" our cells; there's a sweet spot in the middle where you can have enough mana to live a long time but not enough to burn your body and SOUL alive from the inside.

(and you're correct: most boss monsters normally sit somewhere around this sweet spot, hence their longevity irrespective of size. :>)

how quickly an overabundance of mana can kill you also depends on the type of body you have, which is why it's important to consider the "race" of monster. ghosts and skeletons, for example, don't have a lot of physical matter even by monster standards, which means that even though their leylines play a more important role in their bodies they're also more resistant to those leylines getting worn down. this corresponds to the idea of "undead" monsters living a very long time.

(...that said, the point where a monster reaches "maturity" also depends on the type of monster. generally speaking, more humanoid monsters will reach maturity rouuuughly the same time as a human — maybe a bit older or younger. this is, again, more to do with the size of the monster than the shape; if a monster was humanoid but also the size of a cup they'd probably reach maturity in just a few weeks. but most humanoid monsters in undertale are also humanoid in size, so... let's take that as a hesitant norm across most universes.)

anyway, with that out of the way, and given the context that all of the pantheon members (obviously save abaddon and nightmare) are boss monsters (lots of mana) AND skeletons (not a lot of physical matter to burn), this means that their lifespans are naturally going to be very, very long. like, at least a couple thousand years a piece. (which seems overbalanced until you remember that skeletons are typically pretty rare in their home universes; seeing more than 3-5 in one spot would normally be very strange, multiversal shenanigans aside.) HORROR, however, comes from an anomalous universe where monsters are made of flesh and blood instead of dust, which means that he does have a lot of matter — and that unfortunately means that he is going to have one of the shortest lifespans on the team besides dust himself, who already suffers heavy leyline damage from the condition he has that causes his body to overproduce mana.

all that to say: horror is still pretty young by skeleton standards, but he'll probably only live a couple hundred years (if he's lucky) as opposed to the more typical few thousand. that's not to say that he's a child, either, of course — all of the skeletons are well past the age of maturity, and in that way "their" 54 isn't really different from 54 in a human — but he's not quite on his deathbed yet, so no need to worry.

so i'd say horror (specifically) is like... late 20's, in human years?