~I've prepared some longwinded remarks for the occasion
Ugh the last couple days have been mostly depressing. I still haven't found my wallet, and getting a new ID and license and cards and stuff sucks to begin with, but mostly I'm upset about all the things I had in it I can't replace. The wallet itself is really old, it was this old plastic Pochacco wallet that they don't make anymore (it looked like this), and I know I'll probably never find another one cause I already looked for a replacement a while back since it was falling apart. I had all these old San Rio stickerbooks in it from all the way back in middle school, and pictures from that Silent Hill maze I went to with Teka that I can't replace, and rupees from my trip to India, and a Bidoof drawing Kurumi did, and it's like man I may never see any of those things again, they're just all gone. Gone gone gone. Every time I think about it I just feel terrible. I can get a new license or whatever but I can't replace that stuff. I'm usually so careful with my wallet too. I keep hoping that maybe I'll find it somewhere in the house or something and no one actually took it, but I can't make myself believe I'll see it again.
I also poked at my Tumblr theme for a while today to try and figure out why the images in a photoset cut off on the bottom to no avail. I just want pictures to display at 540px without getting cut off on the bottom! Is that so much to ask? Ugh.
Anyway, I should probably do an art post, I can't even keep up with these regularly anymore. Can't do like anything anymore. At any rate, it's all Undertale stuff, general spoiler warning applies! Some handplates stuff, mostly silly things I think.
I just always picture Sans falling out of a tree behind you during that opening sequence, haha. SORT OF UNDERCUTS THE MENACE
Papyrus's font has the tiniest numbers in the world for some reason.
Someone was wondering where Papyrus learned thank you and sorry from way back when when he stole the cube and I remembered wondering about that very thing myself, and now that childhood learning period offered a perfect opportunity for an explanation! Score.
Papyrus was totally about to stick that screwdriver in Sans's eye, but he's stuck his hand in there before to no effect so it probably wouldn't have hurt him. THAT'S NOT A GOOD HABIT THOUGH PAPYRUS
I'm really fond of the "can i have a hug" "no" exchange, this isn't even the first time it's shown up, haha. Christ that comic is old.
Started experimenting with leaving Gaster's font pixelated as well to match the brothers, might as well be consistent. I love the Spanish translation for this, free vocab lesson!
On a more serious Handplates note, you remember before when Papyrus got his eyes all wonked up right
DUN DUN DUN it doesn't seem like this should be a big reveal to me, their future vision was established in the very second Handplates comic I did! It's a very old plotpoint, haha. But I guess at this point it hasn't been spelled out necessarily that what Sans is seeing right now is the future. Specifically, this future! Those are the same outfits from that comic, haha. I haven't officially tied that into the timeline yet since it's so far ahead and also it's in a neutral side-run, but it IS Handplates related. But you guys should already know that, I talked about it in the original entry, haha. Some people connected the dots, but some still seem very puzzled about what it means. Well, when this plot thread picks up again it should become clearer.
Basically, Gaster was trying to ramp up Sans's eyeglow to see if he could isolate the healing part of it like he said, then overloaded it and broke it. In the process though he noticed some really weird feedback/data that implied, how to explain this... this is so dumb, but you know that one Mario 64 video about parallel universes and a half A press? The lasering is a bit like this, where they overload so much with magic that their vision shifts over a PU to a point in the future. Something like that, anyway. The cool part about magic being part of all this evil science is that you can use it to fill in any gaps, haha. How did Gaster get that feedback or tell that something extra-dimensional was going on or figure out it'd be eye related? MAGIC SENSORS. THEY DON'T NEED TO MAKE SCIENTIFIC SENSE. MAGIC.
Anyway he noticed the feedback and got curious, so after some adjusting he decided to overload Papyrus similarly to see if he could get the same feedback from him, which he did. So he knows the two of them are going to start seeing some things, though they have to heal first. This would be the first thing that Sans has seen, now that his body's kind of stabilized/adjusted to it. You could've warned them about this Gaster but you'd rather be cryptic, you jerk. Well he wouldn't want to influence their impressions of what they saw.
Sans is worrying about what exactly Gaster did to Papyrus, since from what Papyrus is talking about, Gaster obviously did something permanent and probably bad to him. But what? He's not sure, but he doesn't trust Gaster at all, so it MUST be bad. Papyrus is unconcerned about that part.
Sans starting to figure out that Gaster did something to their eyes, but he doesn't quite know what just yet. Papyrus is tired so he doesn't really remember this super clearly later. SURELY HE CAN KEEP A SECRET RIGHT
I was thinking about this one line in Toriel's place, let's see...
and it's like man you could totally sleep in there, haha. I think it came up while talking with Bardic. |D Anyway a lot of people were like OMG WHY ISN'T HE BURNING despite me explaining the line about magic fire but eh, what are you gonna do.
I actually wondered if the kid would be overreacting but a lot of people were like OMG THEY'RE GOING TO BE SO TRAUMATIZED so maybe I'm more used to the idea of magic fire than I thought, haha.
bitty tiny doodle for an ask cluster, woop
Someone wondered about what an Underswap Sixbones would look like, and as usual whenever someone asks about what [thing] would be like in Underswap my thought is "the same", but then on further thought their different outfits would change the makeup of it a bit, so it'd have a more solid torso than the original. Apart from that though they'd probably behave the same and came about in a similar way.
A lot of people were really upset about US!Sans being in this thing, like way more than anyone was about canon Papyrus it seems like. I guess the constant infantalization of US!Sans makes people more protective of him, which seems a little unfair to me. But eh, what can you do.
People also wanted like US!Sans as the top one that Papyrus melted into but Sans is too short for that, it doesn't work when you reverse them that way. Papyrus's feet would be dragging all the time!
On a Sixbones related note, the two of them probably interacted a bit with the other amalgams. They're so lonely down there.
Someone was all OH HEY LOOK PEOPLE SLEEPING ON EACH OTHER AGAIN WHAT A SURPRISE and I was like YES WHAT OF IT HERE HAVE SOME MORE
my priorities in order
Someone else was all Sans is like a cat! about the fireplace one, so more catlike behavior, haha. Papyrus is singing along to Bonetrousle, as one does. The Hungarian translation even tried to match the tune as well! Heehee.
There are those skullsocks again, haha.
on a darker note
about as hopeful as this series has gotten i guess? it's a little weird.
there was an additional thought to this that i forgot about in my sketchbook that went "OH, OF COURSE I KNOW I'M GOING TO DIE. HOW ELSE WOULD I SEE SANS AGAIN?"
a lot of people want him to let go of the jar or get rid of it, like that would be the symbol that he's over it and better now and won't be sad anymore. like the general media portrayal of grief like this would go that way, that the jar would have to go for him to get over it. but i want him to keep it. it could just be the place i'm in about it all though.
BACK TO HANDPLATES
This was a very short script originally, but then I added in all these pauses and it made this longer than I thought it would get. I like it though, usually there's text crammed everywhere so it was nice to have one with some blank space. Come to think of it, I think I have the original sketch for this idea somewhere, let's see...
The dialogue much the same but all the staging and stuff gets way more dramatic in the final version, haha.
This is probably the most civil Sans and Gaster have been to each other in this so far, it's a bit strange. A few people wondered about how willing Gaster was to answer his question and chat with him. I think really on some level he just enjoys teaching them stuff, and his question presented a nice challenge to explain. How could he resist the paper metaphor when it occurred to him?
The other version of the Gaster's line was something like, "With your condition, I can't afford to take chances." but I thought I should make it more clear he's talking about his HP to prevent confusion.
Sans was going to ask about his HP but really couldn't find the right words for it, so he just settled on asking why he was small. Though the weakness is also implied. Gaster's lucky he actually ripped it unevenly, otherwise his clever metaphor wouldn't work at all.
A lot of people interpreted this as Gaster having ripped the two of them apart from one thing to begin with, like they were originally one whole, which was a bit more literal than I was going for. What he's referring to is his own soul - he tore off two pieces from it to make the two of them, and one of the pieces was bigger than the other. Ripping up your soul isn't an exact science, as he says, haha. But it's interesting how this got interpreted, since he's not super specific about it. |D HE JUST LOVES BEING CRYPTIC SO MUCH.
At the end he's ushering Sans along since he's all staring at the paper so intently, and if Sans stopped he was going to use blue magic to push him forward, since he doesn't like touching them and all. But since he wasn't using it at the time, his hand and Sans's heart aren't glowing. People really read that as him putting a hand around his shoulders or as a very affectionate gesture though, which I thought was kind of sweet, haha. People really want to believe the best of Gaster. Well, some people anyway.
Someone brought up Gendou and Eva and WELP
So there are skeleton enemies in Stardew Valley and they really reminded me of Papyrus so I SAT DOWN AND MADE SOME SPRITE EDITS BECAUSE WHAT IS MY LIFE
This was a surprisingly involved process, actually, the pixel sizes in Stardew are sort of all over the place. I tried to match things as closely as I could though. The text boxes were a big pain since there was no clean rip for them and they have a subtle gradient on them which was a pain to replicate. Also the background for the portraits was hard to find as well, so I had to kind of fill in the blanks. There's a lot more detail to this game then you might think, the tiny dropshadows on the fonts, the passing of time, the animated dialogue box icon.
Here are some clearer shots of the sprites themselves at various resolutions. The tiniest sprites are at their actual size as they would be in the game, though the game's resolution as I said blows them up enormously. It meant I had VERY little room to really fudge with these sprites too much, like I couldn't really make Sans much shorter than Papyrus since he already had tiny stublegs as a bitty sprite as is.
I really think Sans's sprite came out well and is actually kind of cute, considering how very little space I had to do his smile in, but a few people thought he looked creepy. :o Papyrus's sprite is mostly the same as the original skeleton sprite, with just a few little changes here and there, but Sans is mostly original. Though they both use the same palette as the original skeletons, for their bones at least.
Sans would be easy to make new portraits for, you'd just have to fiddle with his eyes. Papyrus is a bit trickier, again there isn't a lot of space to change his features. I think I did a good job of nailing the style though, haha.
I was talking to Seagoon about the Stardew Valley skeletons, let's see
Me: i hope they fed the poor things!
Me: were they released afterwards?? i need to know!
Seagoon: i bet they were killed for their loot!
Me: nooooo
Me: poor skellies :<
And that turned into speculation about monster loot and how they carry it and why they have it. AND HERE WE ARE. I really do wonder why like, Slimes and Bats are carrying ancient scrolls and swords.
Technically the main character monsters like Toriel or Papyrus don't actually drop gold but whatever, they do now. I meant it as a joke but Sans having a teleport ring would actually explain a lot.
Someone wondered why Sans dissed anime here AND I ACTUALLY HAVE A REASON FOR THAT okay so there's this one call you can get with Papyrus and Undyne where Papyrus disaparages anime and says it's for babies, then says he's never actually watched any. Which means he must have gotten the idea that anime = babies from someone else, right? And he has pretty much no friends at the beginning of the game so he wouldn't have heard it from them, so who's the most likely culprit? Sans. |D I just think that's hilarious.
Sans would totally carry adventure game loot in his bag, haha. It was fun seeing how many of these people could identify! The rubies Sans carries are actually also a reference to the glowy firegem you could give the skull in Quest for Glory but honestly no one would have ever gotten that unless I told you.
He can't fit you in a loot bag, Papyrus.
Meanwhile, over in handplates
So remember those idle doodles about the skeletons having tails, someone wondered how Gaster would react if the brothers grabbed his tail, like would he freak out or whatever and no he'd just be boring about it. They're just babies, after all, and even if they weren't reacting is just going to encourage them to do it more. CAN'T SHOW ANY EMOTION AROUND THEM BEEP BOOP
so what was Sans doing with that coat, I wondered
I colored this whole thing just for Sans under the coat, haha. rarr rarrr
I briefly wondered why they'd know the word for tickle but WHATEVER IT'S CUTE SHUT UP
I tried to babytalk up the sentence and I just went to 30 Rock. IT JUST SEEMED TO FIT THE SITUATION
Some people got really broken up about poor Sans getting the coat taken away, more so than I expected, haha. I subsequently learned the Hungarian and Spanish words for sob though.
You're so bad at this Gaster. IS THERE A SOLUTION THAT DOESN'T INVOLVE ME TOUCHING THEM OR BEING IN THE SAME ROOM
IF I JUST LEAVE THEM IN A LOCKED ROOM UNTIL THEY STOP CRYING THAT WON'T GIVE THEM ISSUES RIGHT
I like Asgore just D: at the thought of a crying baby, what a big softie.
this is such a stupid joke KID LIKE A GOAT KID, GET IT actually it works on three levels, a goat kid, the human kid, and "kid"ding around
I was trying to think of a name for a fake candybar and I'd recently told Jaz about a German translation of a comic and how it used Glubschaugen for googly eyes and she was like CALL IT GLUBSCHAUGEN AND MAKE THE LOGO HAVE GOOGLY EYES and so I did
Papyrus amazed at all the clean and wrapped food since he's so used to picking food out of the garbage back home.
On a more serious note, back to Handplates
As I mentioned Sans and Gaster aren't usually very civil to each other, haha. Mostly Sans likes sassing him to see if he can get a rise out of him. If he can get Gaster upset, he wins! It's one of the very few ways he can feel like he has some kind of control over something in his life. :< Gaster knows he's doing this and usually doesn't play along, but sometimes he gets baited into it anyway. The color cube gave Sans a really good angle this time. You should've known this would come back to haunt you, Gaster! As a side note it was weird to return back to an old plot thread after all this time. Slowly it all comes together, piece by piece.
A few wondered where Sans learned the word for sadist. I figure it was on one of the vocab lists he gave them, Gaster was free associating one night in a dark mood and for SOME REASON it came to mind, haha. Some people took Sans's comment about killing babies surprisingly literally though. He's just being sarcastic, Gaster hasn't killed any babies. That we know of.
When I looked at the chair from the Papyrus one, I realized that it fit him almost perfectly, which means it'd be too big for Sans. SO HE'LL JUST HAVE TO SIT ON A BOOK INSTEAD. A book about skeletons that Gaster actually wrote, haha. Sans just going along with it, no point in running really. Where would he even go?
From certain angles the neck strap looks odd but I hoped the other shots clarified what was going on there, haha. Even with the book he's still a bit short.
I thought the NERV logo would be appropriate for Gaster this time. So many mugs, so little time. I remember mentioning back in the day that Gaster's flinch was hard to make out, and a lot of people didn't notice it! Not until Sans pointed it out here, haha. Gaster drinking coffee over his computer like a dork, he soaks up the spill with his coat in a rush to not have it do any damage.
OH RIGHT so the original line I had in this was, "so then he said he asked you when i'd be coming back, and when you didn't know, he got all broken up about it." and then I thought, where would Sans have learned that phrase? I just couldn't picture Gaster saying that around them, or writing it in a vocab sheet. It fits with current Sans's speech patterns, but I just couldn't figure out any reasonable way he would know it at this point. In the end I ended up changing it to "real upset" but I feel like it lost a little bit in the process. Well these are the compromises you make.
It was really freaking hard to get the right kind of expression on Sans's face with that permanent smile. Even the fact he can't open his mouth made it hard at times. I always think "oh Sans'll be easier than Papyrus, his head isn't split into two pieces" BUT NO THEY ARE BOTH HARD IN THEIR OWN WAYS
Someone asked about how Sans eats if he can't open his mouth. I picture him eating like a mouthless Pokemon in Pokemon Amie, actually.
One of these days you're going to get smacked for doing things like this, Sans. Papyrus has a Zelda bag since I have my Majora's Mask bag and all so why not and people were really really delighted by it. I really lazed out on Sans's Duskull scarf here, bleh
True story: everytime I see a cupcake some voice in my head always goes "sweet cuppin cakes", that's just never going to leave me
The Hungarian translation changed it to nyam, how cute is that
THE RETURN OF BLANKET SANS they never had much of a childhood before, why not have one now
Toriel and the kid making cookies, haha. THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME, NO NEED TO PAY ANY MIND so much screaming in this house
Someone wondered if Gaster smoked around the brothers and what they thought, and I think he actually only smokes when he's alone, like it's his "me" time so to speak, but this image was hilarious and I couldn't resist. He's a liiiittle defensive about it! He knows it's bad for him but he can't stop. Incidentally I really want it TO be bad for him but I'm not sure why smoking would be bad for a magic skeleton, what with them not having lungs. I'm sure there's some technobabble-y explanation for it I can use at some point should it come up.
Seagoon actually came up with I have DONE THE SCIENCE which is my favorite part of this, haha. Gaster they don't even know what it is, calm down.
Continuing that thought. You're grounded, Gaster >:(
You'd think people would notice the smoke on him more often, haha. ALL THE MORE REASON TO SHUT YOURSELF AWAY FROM EVERYONE
shows up 20 minutes late with starbucks, not for anyone else just for him
just a happy zar
Poor Sixbones, it's not its fault it looks like that! They didn't ask for this. But Undyne will look out for them, anyway. Someone has to, right?
A lot of people were worried they were trying to eat Undyne or absorb her and nah, they're just flopping on her and are sort of melty, they can't help it. Unless she's like been injected with determination and near death she's safe around them, haha.
blorp is my favorite part of this, and someone did a dub of this and the noise they do for the blorp is adorable
I actually had this doodle lying around for a while like eh whatever since it was just an idle thought, but then someone specifically asked about this exact scenario so it was a good excuse to clean it up a little. As always Gaster's boring about this kind of stuff, he so rarely reacts to anything, but he can't help but shudder when someone touches the holes. It's not a great feeling. I bet he wouldn't even like things going through them, probably feels super weird.
I was at the store and I saw these dates and then this joke popped into my head and I laughed out loud to myself about it more than it deserved. ME AND SANS ARE VERY ALIKE
I actually don't know if they make peppered dates, maybe that's why this took so long to put together. I briefly wondered how Sans could spend days on this joke and then i went BECAUSE IT'S A FUNNY THING FOR HIM TO SAY, SHUT UP and left it at that
Been trying to do this page of Gaster doodles for ages and they all suck but I liked this one
It seemed unfair to have a blanket Sans with no blanket Papyrus SO THE SAGA CONTINUES
Sans lets Papyrus get him because I mean, who wouldn't let Papyrus catch them in this game, I can't even imagine
Getting red and sweaty after tickling is normal but I knew people would read too much into it AND I WAS RIGHT but it was very small amount, I'd like to think in part because I clearly said as such. Gotta head this stuff off at the pass.
You can faintly see the dots of the screws for the handplates here, but it's so minor and small you don't have to read it as part of it if you don't want to, haha.
What I think is super great is that the French and Spanish translations both changed "mile away" to "kilometer away". WE'RE NOT DOING YOUR WEIRD IMPERIAL SYSTEM, AMERICA
So I was reading these He-man cartoon reviews and there was this one episode where Skeletor made a bunch of mini-duplicates of himself and
I love the one just IN a plate of spaghetti, haha.
A few people wondered why Sans was chubby in Handplates, since it wasn't like he'd be eating more than Papyrus, most like. The answer is MAGICAL SKELETON CLOTHING AURAS OF COURSE
I like imagining Papyrus barking out WHY demanding an answer more than asking a question, haha. Gaster wearing his rare white shirt for once. This also vaguely addresses some who wondered how Gaster dressed them and all. I imagine he had to do it for a while until they figured out how to tie a knot on their own.
The EXCITING FOLLOW-UP TO THE PREVIOUS BOOBTOUCHING SAGA
Alphys you got no game. I'm such a dork that I actually thought that Alphys combining oyasumi with itadakimasu would be a totally obvious joke and then when a lot of people were like ??? I realized OH RIGHT THAT'S... NOT ACCESSIBLE AT ALL IF YOU DON'T KNOW ANY JAPANESE, WAY TO GO
Well the spirit of it seemed to come across anyway. Some were like, why is Alphys speaking fangirl Japanese and it's like, come on. If anyone in the entire world was going to do that it'd be Alphys. Let's be real here.
And one more serious handplates comic, wooo
Papyrus learned how to heal, so Sans has to learn how too, right? His experience wasn't quite as uplifting as Papyrus's though. His ability to heal is always going to be limited by his 1 HP, he's just never going to be as good at it as Papyrus is. Realizing your own limitations like that for the first time is hard, particularly since this is probably the first time Sans has really ever tried at anything. To still fall short will haunt you.
(And the moral is: never try)
Papyrus had to be pretty roughed up to get across how serious the situation is, but being a skeleton really makes that kind of hard. No blood or bruising or cuts or anything like that. It mostly comes down to cracks here and there. So I WENT TO TOWN
He has a splint on one arm as well. Normally Gaster would bandage all these cracks up, but not this time. He wanted Sans to see them. He has to see if Sans can heal too, right? Basically I figure he took a bunch of resilience tests he'd normally put Papyrus through over a long period of time and did them all at once to bring him down to a critical state. Not bad enough to risk him dying, but bad enough to alarm the brothers pretty badly.
Sans less than confident in his abilities since he's always been the weak one who can't do anything. SOMEHOW IT MAKES HIM A LITTLE UNSURE OF HIMSELF. Also because Gaster never explained healing to EITHER OF THEM WHICH PROBABLY WOULD HAVE HELPED A LOT. But no he'd rather throw them into the deep end and see how well they swim, it's much more fun that way.
When Papyrus's eyes white out he's glowing white, it's not because I forgot to fill them in, haha. Ugh I could NOT get the panel with him flopped over to look right the back of his head is the WORST ANGLE TO DRAW HIM FROM AND UGH, UUUUUUUUUUUGHHHH
this whole comic took what felt like ages to get everything looking right, a struggle throughout
Both Sans's single eye in the first panel and him wispy glowing really make it obvious how much that other eye of his is messed up. A few people thought maybe that was what made it so hard for him to heal, but nah, it's his HP.
Another shadowplay! Another visual metaphor for what's going on, since it's all really a subjective intermingling of emotions and magic that's really hard to describe or portray visually. So instead, little shadow versions, haha.
You can faintly see an aura around Sans while he's trying to heal him, it's very small compared to the huge one Papyrus called up. He tried his best, it's just... not very much! But honestly, he healed most of the cracks, that's really pretty good, all things considered.
Poor Papyrus really genuinely doesn't want Sans to feel bad about it and he really does think he did a really good job, but it's just not enough for Sans. He really thought that if he tried his hardest at something and really put in everything he had, he could do it. He could fully heal him, like Papyrus did for him. But nope, he just can't. This sort of haunts him. Later he tries to act like it doesn't bother him, or at least pretends it doesn't, mostly because Papyrus gets all wound up when he gets upset about it, but still, on some level it haunts him.
alright that's enough, i've been typing for ages
I also posted this at dreamwidth with reluctant ambivalence. Comment here or there, don't matter to me!
I also poked at my Tumblr theme for a while today to try and figure out why the images in a photoset cut off on the bottom to no avail. I just want pictures to display at 540px without getting cut off on the bottom! Is that so much to ask? Ugh.
Anyway, I should probably do an art post, I can't even keep up with these regularly anymore. Can't do like anything anymore. At any rate, it's all Undertale stuff, general spoiler warning applies! Some handplates stuff, mostly silly things I think.
I just always picture Sans falling out of a tree behind you during that opening sequence, haha. SORT OF UNDERCUTS THE MENACE
Papyrus's font has the tiniest numbers in the world for some reason.
Someone was wondering where Papyrus learned thank you and sorry from way back when when he stole the cube and I remembered wondering about that very thing myself, and now that childhood learning period offered a perfect opportunity for an explanation! Score.
Papyrus was totally about to stick that screwdriver in Sans's eye, but he's stuck his hand in there before to no effect so it probably wouldn't have hurt him. THAT'S NOT A GOOD HABIT THOUGH PAPYRUS
I'm really fond of the "can i have a hug" "no" exchange, this isn't even the first time it's shown up, haha. Christ that comic is old.
Started experimenting with leaving Gaster's font pixelated as well to match the brothers, might as well be consistent. I love the Spanish translation for this, free vocab lesson!
On a more serious Handplates note, you remember before when Papyrus got his eyes all wonked up right
DUN DUN DUN it doesn't seem like this should be a big reveal to me, their future vision was established in the very second Handplates comic I did! It's a very old plotpoint, haha. But I guess at this point it hasn't been spelled out necessarily that what Sans is seeing right now is the future. Specifically, this future! Those are the same outfits from that comic, haha. I haven't officially tied that into the timeline yet since it's so far ahead and also it's in a neutral side-run, but it IS Handplates related. But you guys should already know that, I talked about it in the original entry, haha. Some people connected the dots, but some still seem very puzzled about what it means. Well, when this plot thread picks up again it should become clearer.
Basically, Gaster was trying to ramp up Sans's eyeglow to see if he could isolate the healing part of it like he said, then overloaded it and broke it. In the process though he noticed some really weird feedback/data that implied, how to explain this... this is so dumb, but you know that one Mario 64 video about parallel universes and a half A press? The lasering is a bit like this, where they overload so much with magic that their vision shifts over a PU to a point in the future. Something like that, anyway. The cool part about magic being part of all this evil science is that you can use it to fill in any gaps, haha. How did Gaster get that feedback or tell that something extra-dimensional was going on or figure out it'd be eye related? MAGIC SENSORS. THEY DON'T NEED TO MAKE SCIENTIFIC SENSE. MAGIC.
Anyway he noticed the feedback and got curious, so after some adjusting he decided to overload Papyrus similarly to see if he could get the same feedback from him, which he did. So he knows the two of them are going to start seeing some things, though they have to heal first. This would be the first thing that Sans has seen, now that his body's kind of stabilized/adjusted to it. You could've warned them about this Gaster but you'd rather be cryptic, you jerk. Well he wouldn't want to influence their impressions of what they saw.
Sans is worrying about what exactly Gaster did to Papyrus, since from what Papyrus is talking about, Gaster obviously did something permanent and probably bad to him. But what? He's not sure, but he doesn't trust Gaster at all, so it MUST be bad. Papyrus is unconcerned about that part.
Sans starting to figure out that Gaster did something to their eyes, but he doesn't quite know what just yet. Papyrus is tired so he doesn't really remember this super clearly later. SURELY HE CAN KEEP A SECRET RIGHT
I was thinking about this one line in Toriel's place, let's see...
and it's like man you could totally sleep in there, haha. I think it came up while talking with Bardic. |D Anyway a lot of people were like OMG WHY ISN'T HE BURNING despite me explaining the line about magic fire but eh, what are you gonna do.
I actually wondered if the kid would be overreacting but a lot of people were like OMG THEY'RE GOING TO BE SO TRAUMATIZED so maybe I'm more used to the idea of magic fire than I thought, haha.
bitty tiny doodle for an ask cluster, woop
Someone wondered about what an Underswap Sixbones would look like, and as usual whenever someone asks about what [thing] would be like in Underswap my thought is "the same", but then on further thought their different outfits would change the makeup of it a bit, so it'd have a more solid torso than the original. Apart from that though they'd probably behave the same and came about in a similar way.
A lot of people were really upset about US!Sans being in this thing, like way more than anyone was about canon Papyrus it seems like. I guess the constant infantalization of US!Sans makes people more protective of him, which seems a little unfair to me. But eh, what can you do.
People also wanted like US!Sans as the top one that Papyrus melted into but Sans is too short for that, it doesn't work when you reverse them that way. Papyrus's feet would be dragging all the time!
On a Sixbones related note, the two of them probably interacted a bit with the other amalgams. They're so lonely down there.
Someone was all OH HEY LOOK PEOPLE SLEEPING ON EACH OTHER AGAIN WHAT A SURPRISE and I was like YES WHAT OF IT HERE HAVE SOME MORE
my priorities in order
Someone else was all Sans is like a cat! about the fireplace one, so more catlike behavior, haha. Papyrus is singing along to Bonetrousle, as one does. The Hungarian translation even tried to match the tune as well! Heehee.
There are those skullsocks again, haha.
on a darker note
about as hopeful as this series has gotten i guess? it's a little weird.
there was an additional thought to this that i forgot about in my sketchbook that went "OH, OF COURSE I KNOW I'M GOING TO DIE. HOW ELSE WOULD I SEE SANS AGAIN?"
a lot of people want him to let go of the jar or get rid of it, like that would be the symbol that he's over it and better now and won't be sad anymore. like the general media portrayal of grief like this would go that way, that the jar would have to go for him to get over it. but i want him to keep it. it could just be the place i'm in about it all though.
BACK TO HANDPLATES
This was a very short script originally, but then I added in all these pauses and it made this longer than I thought it would get. I like it though, usually there's text crammed everywhere so it was nice to have one with some blank space. Come to think of it, I think I have the original sketch for this idea somewhere, let's see...
The dialogue much the same but all the staging and stuff gets way more dramatic in the final version, haha.
This is probably the most civil Sans and Gaster have been to each other in this so far, it's a bit strange. A few people wondered about how willing Gaster was to answer his question and chat with him. I think really on some level he just enjoys teaching them stuff, and his question presented a nice challenge to explain. How could he resist the paper metaphor when it occurred to him?
The other version of the Gaster's line was something like, "With your condition, I can't afford to take chances." but I thought I should make it more clear he's talking about his HP to prevent confusion.
Sans was going to ask about his HP but really couldn't find the right words for it, so he just settled on asking why he was small. Though the weakness is also implied. Gaster's lucky he actually ripped it unevenly, otherwise his clever metaphor wouldn't work at all.
A lot of people interpreted this as Gaster having ripped the two of them apart from one thing to begin with, like they were originally one whole, which was a bit more literal than I was going for. What he's referring to is his own soul - he tore off two pieces from it to make the two of them, and one of the pieces was bigger than the other. Ripping up your soul isn't an exact science, as he says, haha. But it's interesting how this got interpreted, since he's not super specific about it. |D HE JUST LOVES BEING CRYPTIC SO MUCH.
At the end he's ushering Sans along since he's all staring at the paper so intently, and if Sans stopped he was going to use blue magic to push him forward, since he doesn't like touching them and all. But since he wasn't using it at the time, his hand and Sans's heart aren't glowing. People really read that as him putting a hand around his shoulders or as a very affectionate gesture though, which I thought was kind of sweet, haha. People really want to believe the best of Gaster. Well, some people anyway.
Someone brought up Gendou and Eva and WELP
So there are skeleton enemies in Stardew Valley and they really reminded me of Papyrus so I SAT DOWN AND MADE SOME SPRITE EDITS BECAUSE WHAT IS MY LIFE
This was a surprisingly involved process, actually, the pixel sizes in Stardew are sort of all over the place. I tried to match things as closely as I could though. The text boxes were a big pain since there was no clean rip for them and they have a subtle gradient on them which was a pain to replicate. Also the background for the portraits was hard to find as well, so I had to kind of fill in the blanks. There's a lot more detail to this game then you might think, the tiny dropshadows on the fonts, the passing of time, the animated dialogue box icon.
Here are some clearer shots of the sprites themselves at various resolutions. The tiniest sprites are at their actual size as they would be in the game, though the game's resolution as I said blows them up enormously. It meant I had VERY little room to really fudge with these sprites too much, like I couldn't really make Sans much shorter than Papyrus since he already had tiny stublegs as a bitty sprite as is.
I really think Sans's sprite came out well and is actually kind of cute, considering how very little space I had to do his smile in, but a few people thought he looked creepy. :o Papyrus's sprite is mostly the same as the original skeleton sprite, with just a few little changes here and there, but Sans is mostly original. Though they both use the same palette as the original skeletons, for their bones at least.
Sans would be easy to make new portraits for, you'd just have to fiddle with his eyes. Papyrus is a bit trickier, again there isn't a lot of space to change his features. I think I did a good job of nailing the style though, haha.
I was talking to Seagoon about the Stardew Valley skeletons, let's see
Me: i hope they fed the poor things!
Me: were they released afterwards?? i need to know!
Seagoon: i bet they were killed for their loot!
Me: nooooo
Me: poor skellies :<
And that turned into speculation about monster loot and how they carry it and why they have it. AND HERE WE ARE. I really do wonder why like, Slimes and Bats are carrying ancient scrolls and swords.
Technically the main character monsters like Toriel or Papyrus don't actually drop gold but whatever, they do now. I meant it as a joke but Sans having a teleport ring would actually explain a lot.
Someone wondered why Sans dissed anime here AND I ACTUALLY HAVE A REASON FOR THAT okay so there's this one call you can get with Papyrus and Undyne where Papyrus disaparages anime and says it's for babies, then says he's never actually watched any. Which means he must have gotten the idea that anime = babies from someone else, right? And he has pretty much no friends at the beginning of the game so he wouldn't have heard it from them, so who's the most likely culprit? Sans. |D I just think that's hilarious.
Sans would totally carry adventure game loot in his bag, haha. It was fun seeing how many of these people could identify! The rubies Sans carries are actually also a reference to the glowy firegem you could give the skull in Quest for Glory but honestly no one would have ever gotten that unless I told you.
He can't fit you in a loot bag, Papyrus.
Meanwhile, over in handplates
So remember those idle doodles about the skeletons having tails, someone wondered how Gaster would react if the brothers grabbed his tail, like would he freak out or whatever and no he'd just be boring about it. They're just babies, after all, and even if they weren't reacting is just going to encourage them to do it more. CAN'T SHOW ANY EMOTION AROUND THEM BEEP BOOP
so what was Sans doing with that coat, I wondered
I colored this whole thing just for Sans under the coat, haha. rarr rarrr
I briefly wondered why they'd know the word for tickle but WHATEVER IT'S CUTE SHUT UP
I tried to babytalk up the sentence and I just went to 30 Rock. IT JUST SEEMED TO FIT THE SITUATION
Some people got really broken up about poor Sans getting the coat taken away, more so than I expected, haha. I subsequently learned the Hungarian and Spanish words for sob though.
You're so bad at this Gaster. IS THERE A SOLUTION THAT DOESN'T INVOLVE ME TOUCHING THEM OR BEING IN THE SAME ROOM
IF I JUST LEAVE THEM IN A LOCKED ROOM UNTIL THEY STOP CRYING THAT WON'T GIVE THEM ISSUES RIGHT
I like Asgore just D: at the thought of a crying baby, what a big softie.
this is such a stupid joke KID LIKE A GOAT KID, GET IT actually it works on three levels, a goat kid, the human kid, and "kid"ding around
I was trying to think of a name for a fake candybar and I'd recently told Jaz about a German translation of a comic and how it used Glubschaugen for googly eyes and she was like CALL IT GLUBSCHAUGEN AND MAKE THE LOGO HAVE GOOGLY EYES and so I did
Papyrus amazed at all the clean and wrapped food since he's so used to picking food out of the garbage back home.
On a more serious note, back to Handplates
As I mentioned Sans and Gaster aren't usually very civil to each other, haha. Mostly Sans likes sassing him to see if he can get a rise out of him. If he can get Gaster upset, he wins! It's one of the very few ways he can feel like he has some kind of control over something in his life. :< Gaster knows he's doing this and usually doesn't play along, but sometimes he gets baited into it anyway. The color cube gave Sans a really good angle this time. You should've known this would come back to haunt you, Gaster! As a side note it was weird to return back to an old plot thread after all this time. Slowly it all comes together, piece by piece.
A few wondered where Sans learned the word for sadist. I figure it was on one of the vocab lists he gave them, Gaster was free associating one night in a dark mood and for SOME REASON it came to mind, haha. Some people took Sans's comment about killing babies surprisingly literally though. He's just being sarcastic, Gaster hasn't killed any babies. That we know of.
When I looked at the chair from the Papyrus one, I realized that it fit him almost perfectly, which means it'd be too big for Sans. SO HE'LL JUST HAVE TO SIT ON A BOOK INSTEAD. A book about skeletons that Gaster actually wrote, haha. Sans just going along with it, no point in running really. Where would he even go?
From certain angles the neck strap looks odd but I hoped the other shots clarified what was going on there, haha. Even with the book he's still a bit short.
I thought the NERV logo would be appropriate for Gaster this time. So many mugs, so little time. I remember mentioning back in the day that Gaster's flinch was hard to make out, and a lot of people didn't notice it! Not until Sans pointed it out here, haha. Gaster drinking coffee over his computer like a dork, he soaks up the spill with his coat in a rush to not have it do any damage.
OH RIGHT so the original line I had in this was, "so then he said he asked you when i'd be coming back, and when you didn't know, he got all broken up about it." and then I thought, where would Sans have learned that phrase? I just couldn't picture Gaster saying that around them, or writing it in a vocab sheet. It fits with current Sans's speech patterns, but I just couldn't figure out any reasonable way he would know it at this point. In the end I ended up changing it to "real upset" but I feel like it lost a little bit in the process. Well these are the compromises you make.
It was really freaking hard to get the right kind of expression on Sans's face with that permanent smile. Even the fact he can't open his mouth made it hard at times. I always think "oh Sans'll be easier than Papyrus, his head isn't split into two pieces" BUT NO THEY ARE BOTH HARD IN THEIR OWN WAYS
Someone asked about how Sans eats if he can't open his mouth. I picture him eating like a mouthless Pokemon in Pokemon Amie, actually.
One of these days you're going to get smacked for doing things like this, Sans. Papyrus has a Zelda bag since I have my Majora's Mask bag and all so why not and people were really really delighted by it. I really lazed out on Sans's Duskull scarf here, bleh
True story: everytime I see a cupcake some voice in my head always goes "sweet cuppin cakes", that's just never going to leave me
The Hungarian translation changed it to nyam, how cute is that
THE RETURN OF BLANKET SANS they never had much of a childhood before, why not have one now
Toriel and the kid making cookies, haha. THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME, NO NEED TO PAY ANY MIND so much screaming in this house
Someone wondered if Gaster smoked around the brothers and what they thought, and I think he actually only smokes when he's alone, like it's his "me" time so to speak, but this image was hilarious and I couldn't resist. He's a liiiittle defensive about it! He knows it's bad for him but he can't stop. Incidentally I really want it TO be bad for him but I'm not sure why smoking would be bad for a magic skeleton, what with them not having lungs. I'm sure there's some technobabble-y explanation for it I can use at some point should it come up.
Seagoon actually came up with I have DONE THE SCIENCE which is my favorite part of this, haha. Gaster they don't even know what it is, calm down.
Continuing that thought. You're grounded, Gaster >:(
You'd think people would notice the smoke on him more often, haha. ALL THE MORE REASON TO SHUT YOURSELF AWAY FROM EVERYONE
shows up 20 minutes late with starbucks, not for anyone else just for him
just a happy zar
Poor Sixbones, it's not its fault it looks like that! They didn't ask for this. But Undyne will look out for them, anyway. Someone has to, right?
A lot of people were worried they were trying to eat Undyne or absorb her and nah, they're just flopping on her and are sort of melty, they can't help it. Unless she's like been injected with determination and near death she's safe around them, haha.
blorp is my favorite part of this, and someone did a dub of this and the noise they do for the blorp is adorable
I actually had this doodle lying around for a while like eh whatever since it was just an idle thought, but then someone specifically asked about this exact scenario so it was a good excuse to clean it up a little. As always Gaster's boring about this kind of stuff, he so rarely reacts to anything, but he can't help but shudder when someone touches the holes. It's not a great feeling. I bet he wouldn't even like things going through them, probably feels super weird.
I was at the store and I saw these dates and then this joke popped into my head and I laughed out loud to myself about it more than it deserved. ME AND SANS ARE VERY ALIKE
I actually don't know if they make peppered dates, maybe that's why this took so long to put together. I briefly wondered how Sans could spend days on this joke and then i went BECAUSE IT'S A FUNNY THING FOR HIM TO SAY, SHUT UP and left it at that
Been trying to do this page of Gaster doodles for ages and they all suck but I liked this one
It seemed unfair to have a blanket Sans with no blanket Papyrus SO THE SAGA CONTINUES
Sans lets Papyrus get him because I mean, who wouldn't let Papyrus catch them in this game, I can't even imagine
Getting red and sweaty after tickling is normal but I knew people would read too much into it AND I WAS RIGHT but it was very small amount, I'd like to think in part because I clearly said as such. Gotta head this stuff off at the pass.
You can faintly see the dots of the screws for the handplates here, but it's so minor and small you don't have to read it as part of it if you don't want to, haha.
What I think is super great is that the French and Spanish translations both changed "mile away" to "kilometer away". WE'RE NOT DOING YOUR WEIRD IMPERIAL SYSTEM, AMERICA
So I was reading these He-man cartoon reviews and there was this one episode where Skeletor made a bunch of mini-duplicates of himself and
I love the one just IN a plate of spaghetti, haha.
A few people wondered why Sans was chubby in Handplates, since it wasn't like he'd be eating more than Papyrus, most like. The answer is MAGICAL SKELETON CLOTHING AURAS OF COURSE
I like imagining Papyrus barking out WHY demanding an answer more than asking a question, haha. Gaster wearing his rare white shirt for once. This also vaguely addresses some who wondered how Gaster dressed them and all. I imagine he had to do it for a while until they figured out how to tie a knot on their own.
The EXCITING FOLLOW-UP TO THE PREVIOUS BOOBTOUCHING SAGA
Alphys you got no game. I'm such a dork that I actually thought that Alphys combining oyasumi with itadakimasu would be a totally obvious joke and then when a lot of people were like ??? I realized OH RIGHT THAT'S... NOT ACCESSIBLE AT ALL IF YOU DON'T KNOW ANY JAPANESE, WAY TO GO
Well the spirit of it seemed to come across anyway. Some were like, why is Alphys speaking fangirl Japanese and it's like, come on. If anyone in the entire world was going to do that it'd be Alphys. Let's be real here.
And one more serious handplates comic, wooo
Papyrus learned how to heal, so Sans has to learn how too, right? His experience wasn't quite as uplifting as Papyrus's though. His ability to heal is always going to be limited by his 1 HP, he's just never going to be as good at it as Papyrus is. Realizing your own limitations like that for the first time is hard, particularly since this is probably the first time Sans has really ever tried at anything. To still fall short will haunt you.
(And the moral is: never try)
Papyrus had to be pretty roughed up to get across how serious the situation is, but being a skeleton really makes that kind of hard. No blood or bruising or cuts or anything like that. It mostly comes down to cracks here and there. So I WENT TO TOWN
He has a splint on one arm as well. Normally Gaster would bandage all these cracks up, but not this time. He wanted Sans to see them. He has to see if Sans can heal too, right? Basically I figure he took a bunch of resilience tests he'd normally put Papyrus through over a long period of time and did them all at once to bring him down to a critical state. Not bad enough to risk him dying, but bad enough to alarm the brothers pretty badly.
Sans less than confident in his abilities since he's always been the weak one who can't do anything. SOMEHOW IT MAKES HIM A LITTLE UNSURE OF HIMSELF. Also because Gaster never explained healing to EITHER OF THEM WHICH PROBABLY WOULD HAVE HELPED A LOT. But no he'd rather throw them into the deep end and see how well they swim, it's much more fun that way.
When Papyrus's eyes white out he's glowing white, it's not because I forgot to fill them in, haha. Ugh I could NOT get the panel with him flopped over to look right the back of his head is the WORST ANGLE TO DRAW HIM FROM AND UGH, UUUUUUUUUUUGHHHH
this whole comic took what felt like ages to get everything looking right, a struggle throughout
Both Sans's single eye in the first panel and him wispy glowing really make it obvious how much that other eye of his is messed up. A few people thought maybe that was what made it so hard for him to heal, but nah, it's his HP.
Another shadowplay! Another visual metaphor for what's going on, since it's all really a subjective intermingling of emotions and magic that's really hard to describe or portray visually. So instead, little shadow versions, haha.
You can faintly see an aura around Sans while he's trying to heal him, it's very small compared to the huge one Papyrus called up. He tried his best, it's just... not very much! But honestly, he healed most of the cracks, that's really pretty good, all things considered.
Poor Papyrus really genuinely doesn't want Sans to feel bad about it and he really does think he did a really good job, but it's just not enough for Sans. He really thought that if he tried his hardest at something and really put in everything he had, he could do it. He could fully heal him, like Papyrus did for him. But nope, he just can't. This sort of haunts him. Later he tries to act like it doesn't bother him, or at least pretends it doesn't, mostly because Papyrus gets all wound up when he gets upset about it, but still, on some level it haunts him.
alright that's enough, i've been typing for ages
I also posted this at dreamwidth with reluctant ambivalence. Comment here or there, don't matter to me!