...Thank you, Sans. [He offers this before Sans goes, unwittingly while the knife confiscation happens. Even if he's not feeling it, even if it's a formality and obligatory ritual phrase, he offers it again - making eye contact and everything to show the extra sincerity of it. It can't have been easy for sans to offer. That's important.
He's... less grateful, later on. It takes a while to notice, between wrapping up another set of uploads, switching to a new soundtrack, and deciding to finish the task. The cracks in his temples had healed in a rush, but incompletely, and the itching that plagued him for months had become throbbing in a way he'd recognized from some of his earlier transformations - bone dissolving, and giving way. The idea of scraping into his skull might have upset him ordinarily, but now it seemed the sensible thing to do - a preventative measure, before the budding circuitry could start breaking through it. So it's not a pleasant surprise, when he goes to continue, and the knife he'd concluded was the right size was missing.
No sign of it on the floor, nor sign he'd swept it anywhere else - the dust pile was unsmudged, nearly identical to before. It takes some investigating before catching the signs that the differences are from something pinching the pile, and presumably the knife. Only one likely culprit. He debates pounding on his brother's bedroom door to ask for it back, but if Sans was so sneaky in taking it, he'd probably deny having done so - and, possible, had some reason in doing so. Perhaps... wanting Papyrus to be back to normal, before making any more permanent modifications to his limited bone. It's the kind of thing he can imagine himself wanting.
...Ideally, he won't come to regret speeding the process up. But he can at least recognize that he might, and so make a point of gathering the dust into a bin to add to the rest he's collected. And wait until morning, at least, to let the annoyance over the missing knife be part of what Sans feels in him. A nice smokescreen negative feeling, to put up over his lingering unease at the whole idea. If remote emotion sensing works that way. If people don't notice, it at least suggests that all Sans is doing is sensing, and not manipulating... That's something.
A couple more projects fill the night, including another search through his programming for a self diagnostic that measures things like emotions. Plenty of things for identifying shorts, notifying him of damage, even something for - like Sans had started offering - compressing the various things saved. Nothing that gets into the relatively vague properties of emotions. Relatively vague, because the uploaded memories from post-transformation do have various forms of metadata describing emotions, cues that add up to experiencing it something like he had before. The most recent memories he backed up, from clothes shopping early in the switch, are even more packed with opinions and constantly shifting emotions. The older memories... differently formatted, with only the occasional tag. Maybe a diagnostic tool will start to form, now that he's aware of the need for one. Maybe Doctor Kassabian has one, or advice on writing one. But... As uncomfortable as revealing this stuff to Sans might be, far worse to open up that much to anyone else. No. Breakfast, and seeing what comes of it.
He's in the kitchen before dawn, working on a more complicated recipe than 'boil water, add to oatmeal.' Pancakes, but with the smallest size batteries in place of other additions. It's an oddly savory flavor combination, but a novelty that might be interesting for Sans to feel. More smokescreen options. If it works.]
narration essay to help me ground the future mood, then time skip
He's... less grateful, later on. It takes a while to notice, between wrapping up another set of uploads, switching to a new soundtrack, and deciding to finish the task. The cracks in his temples had healed in a rush, but incompletely, and the itching that plagued him for months had become throbbing in a way he'd recognized from some of his earlier transformations - bone dissolving, and giving way. The idea of scraping into his skull might have upset him ordinarily, but now it seemed the sensible thing to do - a preventative measure, before the budding circuitry could start breaking through it. So it's not a pleasant surprise, when he goes to continue, and the knife he'd concluded was the right size was missing.
No sign of it on the floor, nor sign he'd swept it anywhere else - the dust pile was unsmudged, nearly identical to before. It takes some investigating before catching the signs that the differences are from something pinching the pile, and presumably the knife. Only one likely culprit. He debates pounding on his brother's bedroom door to ask for it back, but if Sans was so sneaky in taking it, he'd probably deny having done so - and, possible, had some reason in doing so. Perhaps... wanting Papyrus to be back to normal, before making any more permanent modifications to his limited bone. It's the kind of thing he can imagine himself wanting.
...Ideally, he won't come to regret speeding the process up. But he can at least recognize that he might, and so make a point of gathering the dust into a bin to add to the rest he's collected. And wait until morning, at least, to let the annoyance over the missing knife be part of what Sans feels in him. A nice smokescreen negative feeling, to put up over his lingering unease at the whole idea. If remote emotion sensing works that way. If people don't notice, it at least suggests that all Sans is doing is sensing, and not manipulating... That's something.
A couple more projects fill the night, including another search through his programming for a self diagnostic that measures things like emotions. Plenty of things for identifying shorts, notifying him of damage, even something for - like Sans had started offering - compressing the various things saved. Nothing that gets into the relatively vague properties of emotions. Relatively vague, because the uploaded memories from post-transformation do have various forms of metadata describing emotions, cues that add up to experiencing it something like he had before. The most recent memories he backed up, from clothes shopping early in the switch, are even more packed with opinions and constantly shifting emotions. The older memories... differently formatted, with only the occasional tag. Maybe a diagnostic tool will start to form, now that he's aware of the need for one. Maybe Doctor Kassabian has one, or advice on writing one. But... As uncomfortable as revealing this stuff to Sans might be, far worse to open up that much to anyone else. No. Breakfast, and seeing what comes of it.
He's in the kitchen before dawn, working on a more complicated recipe than 'boil water, add to oatmeal.' Pancakes, but with the smallest size batteries in place of other additions. It's an oddly savory flavor combination, but a novelty that might be interesting for Sans to feel. More smokescreen options. If it works.]