Sans (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ribticklers) wrote2022-11-09 04:38 pm
ribticklers) wrote2022-11-09 04:38 pm
LV Permissions
What's EXP? It's an acronym. It stands for 'execution points.' A way of quantifying the pain you have inflicted on others. When you kill someone, your EXP increases. When you have enough EXP, your LOVE increases. LOVE, too, is an acronym. It stands for 'Level of Violence.' A way of measuring someone's capacity to hurt. The more you kill, the easier it becomes to distance yourself. The more you distance yourself, the less you will hurt. The more easily you can bring yourself to hurt others.
Sans has the ability to see the LV (LOVE) and EXP of others. The canon explanation is above; for cross-canon purposes, here's a more general explanation:
LV ranges from 1 to 20. There is no such thing as level 0; all sentient creatures have the capacity to hurt. Someone who has never killed, with the lowest possible willingness to harm others, will have LV1 EXP0. Each LV takes more EXP than the last to reach; one murder, if it was painful enough, can cause someone to rise from LV1 to LV2, but you have to kill countless people to reach LV20. So--LV20. This is someone who kills just because they can. Not for money, power, some goal--because they can, and because they can, they have to. Just to see what happens. An LV20 character would have no qualms about killing anyone at any time, being completely distant from everything and everyone. LV20 is extremely rare, and basically constitutes a universe-ending threat.
As for the LV in between, it may be useful to reference Sans's judgments given to the player character at different levels. In general, the more easily a character can justify killing and not feel badly about it, the higher their LV. While a character who has murdered and feels terrible about it will have an LV above 1, it will be lower than the one who doesn't feel bad. The point is in how much the character has distanced themselves.
Willingness to hurt and willingness to fight are different things; sparring is different, after all, and sparing your opponent also spares you the EXP and LV. EXP and LV quantify permanent damage done to others, and the willingness to inflict permanent damage.
EXP is typically earned through murder. If you think your character should have EXP even if they haven't murdered someone, though, that's fine! It would have to be a level of inflicted pain roughly equivalent, but a lot of canons have a lot of terrible situations to get into. If your character melted someone's brain but left them technically alive, for example, you could give them EXP for that. It's up to you!
If your character is possessed and puppets their body to kill someone, then the person doing the possessing gains the LV. If your character is possessed and the possessing character just talks the character they possessed into killing others, then the person being possessed gains LV.
Sans can only see your character's LV with player permission. If you don't want him to see it, that's fine! He'll just see a weird blank spot where the numbers should be and chalk it up to the location interfering with his abilities. Sans is also very passive and unlikely to actually do much about your LV beyond avoiding/being suspicious of/watching you if you have a high LV/if your LV is actively increasing. Even then, he's going to just be passive aggressive and intimidating about it rather than actually try confrontation, if he even does that. Not his circus, not his monkeys, you know? Still, I totally get if you don't want to deal with it at all! Be free, do as you please. This is opt-in, so I assume Sans can't see someone's LV until I get an explicit reply saying it's okay. (But a reply saying for sure you don't want it would be great, too, so I can keep track better!)
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