~This cereal's so bleak that if it was a movie, it'd be Danish

[zarla]

Blegh, it's been really hard to sleep well lately. Keep having nightmares and it feels really cold. It's hard to focus on anything to, even when things get done they don't feel like anything got done. It's frustrating.

At any rate, I thought about posting some Handplates pages, but then I remembered I haven't posted any sketchbook pages in a while and I've caught up to where I said there'd be spoilers the last time I left off, so why not do that! Not really a lot in here, maybe just ten pages or so, but a lot of groundwork that became relevant later.




And the spoiler last time was Asgore! Although at this point I was drawing him from memory and had no idea what he looked like. I planned on having Asgore adopt them after they escaped REALLY early, but I don't have to tell you how long it took to actually get to that point, haha. You can even see at the bottom some loose thumbnails for the one with the thing in the pet carrier (the third comic I'm pretty sure!), and some sketches where I wondered if I should put the brothers in jumpsuits (like in MST3k!) instead of hospital gowns. Glad I didn't go with that in the end.

At the top were some early speculative ideas about the brothers encountering beds for the first time and being puzzled by them, which sort of ended up happening in the comic but the language barrier made it a bit simpler in execution. One of the little jokes here I really wanted to do but just couldn't work around the language barrier is that Sans talks about the strange "boox" in the room and Asgore rushes in all DID SOMEONE SAY THEY WANTED A BEDTIME STORY, haha. Maybe I'll return to it though, there's still time.

Amusingly one of my notes here you can't really see here is "you people are all ENABLERS! anything that happens from this point on is on YOUR HEADS!!"



More brother and Asgore adventures. A lot of these concepts came back in some ways but they didn't end up playing out exactly like this. Still! Asgore asking them about their family, if they're children, where they came from and they just have no idea.
There are some sketches in the middle for what would eventually become Sans and Papyrus's conversation about goodness in darkness, but I couldn't quite figure out how to get to the point I wanted to make, so I was tussling with it. There's also a tiny sketch of when they went to see Asgore Santa, haha.

The middle thing with the riverperson was an idle idea that might come back later, I'm not sure. At the bottom is more speculative stuff that may play out differently when I get to that point, we'll see.



Now here's a page that may be of interest - here's where I figured out what I wanted Gaster to look like without the Lost Soul head. This page definitely goes from the bottom upwards, so start there and then go up, haha. At the time I was away from any computers and didn't have any references, so I didn't have the mystery man sprite to look at. So instead I just tried to combine Sans and Papyrus's heads into one blended head. He ended up looking more like Papyrus than Sans, but eh. I actually didn't decide on his dead eye on until later, so he has both eyes open for most of these. They were bigger back then!
At the top is more of that goodness in darkness convo as I struggled to work out how I wanted it to go, haha.
It also around this point that I figured out the "core" of Gaster, if that makes sense... what motivated him, primarily, and the ember that'd eventually become his internal life. I knew that if this idea was going to keep going I'd have to understand Gaster as a person and what he wanted and why, so this page I remember really pinning down what I wanted for him. You can't see it anywhere here though, I just remember doing it here, haha. Over time that spark would get fleshed out with more detail and backstory and nuance and such, but the core of him is still there.



Still fiddling with the goodness/darkness convo, it took a while to get that where I wanted it.
I remember very clearly working on this page while sitting with Nana during chemo... she asked me what I was drawing, or if my DS was out of batteries or something since I usually played games while waiting with her. But I just felt like drawing that day and working through some ideas, presumably to try not to think about anything else.
On the previous page was a note about Papyrus stealing the cube, from that little ficlet someone wrote, and here was where I decided I wanted to explore that idea and began to rough out the the comic where Gaster gives the cube to him. You can see the script in the margin there, and then the thumbnail next to it.
You can also see the sketches for the "damage output needs work" comic where Gaster's coat is way too short. Possibly more striking, you can see the "is that how you laugh?" bit from a MUCH more recent comic after they escape. Some of these things were planned so far in advance.
There's a scrapped bit of dialogue that I think I mentioned before, basically Gaster like "At least you hate me, that must make things easier for you." "I DON'T HATE YOU, I JUST WANT YOU TO MAKE BETTER CHOICES" "...You do make things so difficult" but I never ended up using it anywhere.
At the very bottom was a loose thing about Papyrus wondering about bone rattling, and Sans saying humans find it intimidating or scary, and Papyrus like WHY WOULD THEY DO THAT, THAT'S DUMB, BONE RATTLING IS VERY FRIENDLY! or something along those lines.



At the top is more speculation about Papyrus as final boss, mostly wondering about if he'd get emotional during the battle and possibly lose control of his blasters, so he'd be struggling not only to stop you but to stop his magic from killing you, which would be super exhausting no doubt. I think this might have even had him throwing you out of the way of his attack so hard that you die to match to Sans's fakeout but I forget the details of it now...
There's a note here to myself all "man blasters as manifestations of grief, not anger or fear D:"
Gaster gets his dead eye here, haha. Tried to figure out some way to indicate it was broken aside from him closing it and never could find anything.
Can see the All I want for Christmas is my brother not to get murdered line in there.
At the very bottom are thumbnails for the comic where they wake up in the tubes. Above are some little speculations about when they'd first meet, I liked picturing them as children but I realized later that it'd make more sense if they were full-grown. You can also see thumbnails for the one where Gaster rebuffs Papyrus's hug.



Top left is a very old idea I got very close to using at points but I just logistically could never make it make sense as more of the story solidified. Since I'll never use it, heck, here's the script for it.

BROTHER! BROTHER, ARE YOU ALRIGHT?
huh? yeah, i'm... i'm fine.
WHAT HAPPENED? WHAT DID HE DO? IS YOUR EYE WORKING?
nothing... well not nothing but- i don't really want to talk about it, okay... it's over, whatever.
WHAT ABOUT YOUR HAND???
oh... yeah, just two fingers, no big deal.
IT IS A BIG DEAL!!
it's not... it's not a big deal, bro. you shouldn't worry so much-
WHAT?!?! WHY SHOULDN'T I WORRY??? EVERY TIME YOU GO, I DON'T KNOW IF YOU'LL COME BACK!!
of course i'll come back, bro, come on.
HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW-
because he's not going to kill us. he's spent too much time and work on us by now, it'd be stupid to kill us. he likes to scare us with it but he won't actually do it.
YES HE WILL!
no he won't-
HE WILL!!
i just told you, he won't! it wouldn't make sense for him-
I KNOW HE WILL!! HE'S DONE IT BEFORE!!
...what are you talking about?
...DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO WDG-1 O THROUGH R?
BECAUSE I DO.
.......................what... what happened to A through N?
I DON'T KNOW.
I'M NOT THE FIRST ONE EITHER.

Which would be real chilling and creepy and stuff but the more I thought about it the more it didn't actually make any sense. How would Gaster get the soul fragment from each dead version in time? Where would he get the materials to keep making new ones? It just didn't add up. Still a creepy thought though.

Right next to that is Papyrus trying to grab Sans, this was another scrapped idea that was very early... I forget what ask brought it on, but basically Sans's powers started destabilizing and he began sort of slipping through dimensions, and Papyrus used blue magic to pull him back down and save him, thus getting Gaster interested in their capabilities for blue magic. But it introduced too many random variables and I got a better idea for blue magic later anyway, so it never happened.

There's a tiny bit of text near Papyrus kneeling that got used in the hug rebuff comic, describing how hard it was for them to walk. Sans and Gaster's giant wall of text convo got scrapped, mostly it was Gaster gloating to him about how he'd never be able to escape because he could use the plates to track them and there'd be no one outside who would help them. I was never really happy with how it was just a big wall of exposition, so later when I came up with the hide and seek idea to get across the plate tracking I was much happier.

Some little Sixbones doodles near the bottom with the hot dog, and a quick thing of Gaster smoking. I eventually did a slightly fancier version digitally.



At the top there is the start of the comic where they both glow green at the same time, though I didn't actually finish it here, and there are some more rough thumbnails for them meeting up with Santa Asgore.

The one of them holding hands and Alphys and Undyne kissing was for an idea that Pyra gave me actually, which was sort of like a competition monsters have for creating beautiful bullet patterns. Since bullet patterns are inspired by your emotions, love patterns are among some of the prettiest and fanciest. I wanted to do three basic shots - one with Toriel and the kid for parental love, one with Sans and Papyrus for fraternal love, and one with Alphys and Undyne for romantic love. Each display would sort of mix the magic elements of each monster in a way that showed how they complimented each other. Alphys and Undyne maybe creating a sort of shower of sparks and rain, something like that, while Sans and Papyrus would make a sort of tower grid of bones. The kid doesn't have magic, but they could help Toriel focus hers into a warm kind of fire embrace, things along those lines. I never got around to doing it though.

You can also see some loose bits at the bottom for Papyrus healing Sans as that idea started to come together, like Gaster being unable to heal, as well as the first glimpse of their little shadow versions. The basic concepts for that comic came together fairly quickly, but it took a while for me to rework the script to a point where I actually liked it.

The middle one was just a short exchange that never went anywhere. Basically "What are you doing here?" "waiting for death" "Aren't we all". I am puzzled by that bit of text by Gaster there though. I think it says something like "you're [something] to kill anyone, if you keep trying to reason with me, you're going to kill me" but I can't remember at all what this idea was about or what it's referencing. How weird.



Top left was for the Bridge comic, I quickly switched to digital for that though. The right corner has an odd exchange that I actually completely forgot about until now, though some bits of it came forward in other ways. I think it goes something like...
"HOW DID YOU FEEL WHEN WE WERE BORN?"
"You weren't "born", you were made. Children are born, you are things."
"BUT... EVEN WHEN WE WERE MADE, HOW DID YOU FEEL? WERE YOU HAPPY?"
"...You two survived, so it was a success."
"BUT, WERE YOU HAPPY? DID US SURVIVING MAKE YOU HAPPY?"
"...I didn't feel anything. I had work to do."
I can't actually read the right corner with this scan ugh but I think basically Papyrus is still pressing him to admit he felt happy about it.

The middle section is technically the first comic in what would become the dustjar series, though I never colored it or posted it. Essentially everyone telling Papyrus that Sans is going to die soon, although he already knows that, somewhere.

Those baby sketches DID get cleaned up though.



A quick sketch of that comic where Alphys finds the yaoi so I wouldn't forget it, though I did a digital version instead.
The rest of it was an idea I never actually got around to coloring, basically Sans jumping in front of Papyrus as a kid and taking a hit and nearly dying, but Papyrus managing to bring him back from the brink of death with the POWER OF HIS EMOTIONS
There's a tiny note on the left for Papyrus healing Gaster, that was an early idea that went through many iterations before it finally happened.



The rest of Papyrus saving Sans from the other page, and some loose plans for when Sans and Papyrus would become aware of each other and then meet up. Little details here got changed in the end.

Oh dang looking at this, this is sort of continuing the thought from before with Papyrus trying to get Gaster to admit he was happy after he made them. Gaster slips and refers to them as children, Papyrus desperately tries to tell him that they could be happy ALL the time if he'd just stop being evil for a few minutes, wouldn't it be better if they were friends and wasn't angry at them or mean to them, then Gaster thumps him on the wall all "You don't make me angry! I don't feel anything for you because you're not real!!" while he's clearly upset, haha. Then Gaster he rambles on for a while about how they're not real or people, they're just constructs designed to act like people (like video game characters aren't real and are just designed to act real, get it) and how he'll NEVER FEEL ANYTHING FOR THEM EVER EVER but this convo didn't really go anywhere or do anything, so here it stayed.



I did always like the punchline here for it though of "I THINK I'M REALLY MAKING PROGRESS WITH HIM!" "you always say that."

In the top left I tried to figure out the exact series of events that led Gaster to figuring out how to clone a SOUL, but in the end I figured that level of detail was unnecessary and would never really come up anywhere.
I don't really think this is much of a spoiler since it's already been prophesied to an extent, but eventually Sans and Papyrus will go back to the lab and take a look around, which is what the top doodles are mostly speculating about. You can also see Sans rattling himself dizzy, hehe.
There's a bit there in the middle of Sans sassing Gaster about giving Papyrus the cube, which came back later.

The bottom bits are mostly from when the goopmonster shows up.

And then the next page has some spoilers for something coming up... I dunno, soonish? But eh this seems like a good place to stop anyway, feel like I've been typing for a while.

I also posted this at dreamwidth with reluctant ambivalence. Comment here or there, don't matter to me!