~But we already know, because of that long long song you wrote
Posted the penultimate page of Handplates today! By my estimates, the next page will be the last one... it'll probably be long, but I feel like breaking it in half would kind of ruin the build to it, and if it's the last one it should be as long as it needs to be, really.
When I think about it ending I get kind of emotional, haha. Well, on one hand it doesn't really feel like it's going to end. The cycle in my head of "page posted -> relax time -> time to start the next one" has been going on non-stop for over seven years now... that's not just going to stop cold turkey once the final page is posted. Even now, after posting the next to last one, my brain is still one the same cycle as it always has been. Got about a week of free time! Then it's time to start up the next one! As it always has been and always will be! I'm sure when I do post the next one that feeling is just going to come up again and again for a while. I do have Defrag at least which is on a similar internal schedule, so in that sense I can switch over to that and still have that same schedule going, but it's not going to be exactly the same really...
On the other hand, when I think about it ending it makes me sad. It always makes me sad when things end! When I was a kid, I used to read those shlocky horror books for kids, like Fear Street and Goosebumps and the like. I remember one where I was so invested in the mystery, and yet so sad at the thought of it ending and knowing what would happen, that I deliberately never finished the book. I wanted to keep it alive forever in that way. It's hard for me to let things go... I think it's probably hard for everyone. Part of me doesn't want to let Handplates go... it's just been there for so long, it means so much to me, I don't want to say goodbye to it. Which is what happens during Asriel's battle in Undertale really... he dissolves into tears, saying that he doesn't want to say goodbye and he just wants to do the same thing over and over and over. So in a way, it's thematically appropriate for Handplates to be the same. Sometimes you just have to let go... sometimes you have to admit there's nothing else and it's time to say goodbye, even though it's so hard.
Thinking about all this has gotten me thinking about when I started Handplates as well. It was during a pretty rough period in my life... I was off of several family deaths, and Nana was currently sick at the time. I remember doodling the first page while I was waiting in the DMV with her to sort out some paperwork. When Nana got sick, I was the one who took her to the doctor, who talked with them and arranged appointments, who kept an eye on her medication, who brought her food or anything she asked for, who sat with her for hours while she went through chemo. I was terrified to go to sleep at night because I was sure I'd wake up to her dead. I felt exhausted and overwhelmed, dead inside a lot of the time because I just didn't know how else to deal with the stress. I just shut off and went through it all like a robot, just trying to survive.
It was in that period that Handplates started, something I never intended to become such a huge and regular story. But once that cycle started, it just kept going. I'd spend time during chemo working out script ideas or laying out thumbnails, trying to figure out future plotpoints and mesh it with the game info itself. I'd spend time during long drives to and from hospitals writing out dialogue, analyzing characters, planning things far in advance. It was something I could focus on that wasn't real life or all the pain and fear of it all. It was something I could rely on that didn't terrify me like the thought of her death or a world without her.
It was an anchor in a tumultous sea of isolation and numbness. When everything else felt impossible, there'd always be a new Handplates to do. It was a schedule that didn't change, something that was always there. No matter what happened, there'd always be a Handplates page to do. Even after she died, still I did the pages. I did the pages while I tried to process the grief. I did the pages while struggling with current events. The longest gap was when I hurt my arm, and I hurt my arm DOING a page!
That's kind of what the current page is about, although I assume the symbolism of it is pretty clear, haha. Well I hope it is anyway. But anyway, Handplates has just always been a thing it feels like. And the thought of it ending fills me with a lot of different emotions... the most obvious of which being sadness. I'm sure sometime in the future I'll be able to look back on it all with happiness and pride that I accomplished all of that, that I did something I didn't think or know I was capable of, but right now it just hurts to have to say goodbye. In a way right now it feels like its own kind of grief.
So many people have expressed how much Handplates has meant to them, and how it's been a fixture in their lives as well. How they were young and it followed them through their adolescence, kids who were reading it through high school into college, some as young as ten! And now they're almost eighteen! That gives some perspective into just how long it's been going on... they always said that as you get older time gets less distinct and the years don't mean as much, and that's more obvious to me now. It doesn't feel like Handplates has been going on that long to me... at the same time it feels like it's always been there.
I look back on all the pages somehow and wonder how I did all of that, sometimes it doesn't feel like I was the one who made all those things. I never thought it'd be possible for me to make something like that so consistently for so long. As the cliche goes, I was more determined than I thought. And it WAS determination that drove me a lot of the time... I was determined not to let it die like a lot of my other projects. I'm sure I've mentioned here a few times that I was NOT going to quit now that I'd come so far. I was going to see it through to the end! And in the end... that's what I did. I mean, assuming I don't ditch the next page but I'm not going to do that, haha.
I feel like I was a different person back when I started it... I'm in a better place now I think, I'm healthier in a lot of ways, I've grown a lot. I don't know how much of that is due to Handplates, but I think it kept me afloat. I met so many of my closest friends because of Handplates now, I met so many people. And so many people made so many amazing things because of it. So many people read it, enough so that I can't really think about the number without freaking out. It's still hard for me to believe that something I made got this much attention.
I think in part that's why it feels so hard to let go, so hard to say goodbye... that worry that maybe that was all that people wanted from me, and once Handplates is over, they'll leave. I've always had a fear of abandonment, although I've been working on it so it's not as bad as it has been. But it does make me wonder who will stay and who will go once it's done. I wonder if this is the high point, so to speak, and it'll all just be downhill from here. Although, I thought that before I started Handplates too, and it blew up way beyond my wildest dreams. Who knows if that'll happen again? I can't predict it, haha.
I don't know, it just fills me with a lot of emotions! I've been reading the comments on the latest page and they make me want to cry a bit and I can't pin down for one reason... touched by all these people who were touched by this story, who have faith in me and my work, who wish me luck or are amazed that it's come this far, who also don't want to say goodbye. It doesn't feel real! A lot of it doesn't feel real, but I know that it is. I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that a project thats been running for so long, that I've spent so much time and effort on, should have this kind of effect on me now that it's ending. I've been on the other side of this equation so many times... I've always been sad when a show or comic I liked ended, I always wanted it to go on forever. I mean in a sense, that's what fandom really is. I've never been the one who's ending something for someone else. A lot of someone elses...
I hope the ending will satisfy everyone... that I won't botch it right now at the finish line, haha. It's still the same ending I've pictured for ages. In a way it's impressive that I've stuck so closely to what I pictured, even if there were detours along the way. There are things in it that I wish I'd done better, or things I'd redraw or fiddle with now looking back on it, but it is what it is. A sort of time capsule of a period in my life.
There's a shot of my desk in the page, and on it are all the little things in it that showed up in Handplates in some way. Well, the Pikmin and the snake helix statue didn't, I just felt like those shelves were a bit empty and wanted to put something there, haha. But everything else showed up in one way or another... a Metroid on Gaster's mug, the ladies on TV, the Gavinners poster in Alphy's house, the Starcon2 starmap in the brothers house, the Astrology book written by the astrologer in QFG2, King Graham in a crowd shot, Space Pony posters in different places, the Mr. Saturn tanktop, the Rabite from Secret of Mana where the Boy showed up in Gaster's flashback... I should really add a Slime there for the Dragon Warrior guy too, I might do that later. All these little cameos showed up because I had a gap and needed to fill it. I need to put something on this mug, this wall is empty and needs something on it, what could they be watching on tv... and I filled those gaps with things I liked that interested me, personally. In a way, they're sort of like my fingerprints. A collection of little things that are "me", in a way that wouldn't be the same for anyone else.
Me drawing the first comic is a very obvious connection that I'm the one who wrote the story, but those little fingerprints are their own kind of evidence too. The things that didn't appear directly would be my hat (my poor hat, I never did find it again ;_;) and the picture of me and Nana on the back wall. I do have that picture by my computer! I have another one of her above my computer too, but I thought one would be enough. It's really only a fraction of the toys on my desk, I have SO many, but I didn't want it to get too cluttered. Handplates reminds me a lot of Nana though, so I thought it felt right to have her there. And that one stack of CDs on the far right, I use that to prop up my tablet when I'm not using it, haha.
Undertale is a game about games... Handplates is a comic about a fancomic about a game, in a sense. Or as the tagline's said for years... a story about suffering, mostly. Mostly. But not completely. I thought for a while that once I was done, I'd change it to "a story about suffering, but also about family" but I think I'll leave it as it is. I think that sums it up better.
Ahhh it's still so much to think about... it's hard to believe it'll end, and soon...
dreamwidth post
When I think about it ending I get kind of emotional, haha. Well, on one hand it doesn't really feel like it's going to end. The cycle in my head of "page posted -> relax time -> time to start the next one" has been going on non-stop for over seven years now... that's not just going to stop cold turkey once the final page is posted. Even now, after posting the next to last one, my brain is still one the same cycle as it always has been. Got about a week of free time! Then it's time to start up the next one! As it always has been and always will be! I'm sure when I do post the next one that feeling is just going to come up again and again for a while. I do have Defrag at least which is on a similar internal schedule, so in that sense I can switch over to that and still have that same schedule going, but it's not going to be exactly the same really...
On the other hand, when I think about it ending it makes me sad. It always makes me sad when things end! When I was a kid, I used to read those shlocky horror books for kids, like Fear Street and Goosebumps and the like. I remember one where I was so invested in the mystery, and yet so sad at the thought of it ending and knowing what would happen, that I deliberately never finished the book. I wanted to keep it alive forever in that way. It's hard for me to let things go... I think it's probably hard for everyone. Part of me doesn't want to let Handplates go... it's just been there for so long, it means so much to me, I don't want to say goodbye to it. Which is what happens during Asriel's battle in Undertale really... he dissolves into tears, saying that he doesn't want to say goodbye and he just wants to do the same thing over and over and over. So in a way, it's thematically appropriate for Handplates to be the same. Sometimes you just have to let go... sometimes you have to admit there's nothing else and it's time to say goodbye, even though it's so hard.
Thinking about all this has gotten me thinking about when I started Handplates as well. It was during a pretty rough period in my life... I was off of several family deaths, and Nana was currently sick at the time. I remember doodling the first page while I was waiting in the DMV with her to sort out some paperwork. When Nana got sick, I was the one who took her to the doctor, who talked with them and arranged appointments, who kept an eye on her medication, who brought her food or anything she asked for, who sat with her for hours while she went through chemo. I was terrified to go to sleep at night because I was sure I'd wake up to her dead. I felt exhausted and overwhelmed, dead inside a lot of the time because I just didn't know how else to deal with the stress. I just shut off and went through it all like a robot, just trying to survive.
It was in that period that Handplates started, something I never intended to become such a huge and regular story. But once that cycle started, it just kept going. I'd spend time during chemo working out script ideas or laying out thumbnails, trying to figure out future plotpoints and mesh it with the game info itself. I'd spend time during long drives to and from hospitals writing out dialogue, analyzing characters, planning things far in advance. It was something I could focus on that wasn't real life or all the pain and fear of it all. It was something I could rely on that didn't terrify me like the thought of her death or a world without her.
It was an anchor in a tumultous sea of isolation and numbness. When everything else felt impossible, there'd always be a new Handplates to do. It was a schedule that didn't change, something that was always there. No matter what happened, there'd always be a Handplates page to do. Even after she died, still I did the pages. I did the pages while I tried to process the grief. I did the pages while struggling with current events. The longest gap was when I hurt my arm, and I hurt my arm DOING a page!
That's kind of what the current page is about, although I assume the symbolism of it is pretty clear, haha. Well I hope it is anyway. But anyway, Handplates has just always been a thing it feels like. And the thought of it ending fills me with a lot of different emotions... the most obvious of which being sadness. I'm sure sometime in the future I'll be able to look back on it all with happiness and pride that I accomplished all of that, that I did something I didn't think or know I was capable of, but right now it just hurts to have to say goodbye. In a way right now it feels like its own kind of grief.
So many people have expressed how much Handplates has meant to them, and how it's been a fixture in their lives as well. How they were young and it followed them through their adolescence, kids who were reading it through high school into college, some as young as ten! And now they're almost eighteen! That gives some perspective into just how long it's been going on... they always said that as you get older time gets less distinct and the years don't mean as much, and that's more obvious to me now. It doesn't feel like Handplates has been going on that long to me... at the same time it feels like it's always been there.
I look back on all the pages somehow and wonder how I did all of that, sometimes it doesn't feel like I was the one who made all those things. I never thought it'd be possible for me to make something like that so consistently for so long. As the cliche goes, I was more determined than I thought. And it WAS determination that drove me a lot of the time... I was determined not to let it die like a lot of my other projects. I'm sure I've mentioned here a few times that I was NOT going to quit now that I'd come so far. I was going to see it through to the end! And in the end... that's what I did. I mean, assuming I don't ditch the next page but I'm not going to do that, haha.
I feel like I was a different person back when I started it... I'm in a better place now I think, I'm healthier in a lot of ways, I've grown a lot. I don't know how much of that is due to Handplates, but I think it kept me afloat. I met so many of my closest friends because of Handplates now, I met so many people. And so many people made so many amazing things because of it. So many people read it, enough so that I can't really think about the number without freaking out. It's still hard for me to believe that something I made got this much attention.
I think in part that's why it feels so hard to let go, so hard to say goodbye... that worry that maybe that was all that people wanted from me, and once Handplates is over, they'll leave. I've always had a fear of abandonment, although I've been working on it so it's not as bad as it has been. But it does make me wonder who will stay and who will go once it's done. I wonder if this is the high point, so to speak, and it'll all just be downhill from here. Although, I thought that before I started Handplates too, and it blew up way beyond my wildest dreams. Who knows if that'll happen again? I can't predict it, haha.
I don't know, it just fills me with a lot of emotions! I've been reading the comments on the latest page and they make me want to cry a bit and I can't pin down for one reason... touched by all these people who were touched by this story, who have faith in me and my work, who wish me luck or are amazed that it's come this far, who also don't want to say goodbye. It doesn't feel real! A lot of it doesn't feel real, but I know that it is. I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that a project thats been running for so long, that I've spent so much time and effort on, should have this kind of effect on me now that it's ending. I've been on the other side of this equation so many times... I've always been sad when a show or comic I liked ended, I always wanted it to go on forever. I mean in a sense, that's what fandom really is. I've never been the one who's ending something for someone else. A lot of someone elses...
I hope the ending will satisfy everyone... that I won't botch it right now at the finish line, haha. It's still the same ending I've pictured for ages. In a way it's impressive that I've stuck so closely to what I pictured, even if there were detours along the way. There are things in it that I wish I'd done better, or things I'd redraw or fiddle with now looking back on it, but it is what it is. A sort of time capsule of a period in my life.
There's a shot of my desk in the page, and on it are all the little things in it that showed up in Handplates in some way. Well, the Pikmin and the snake helix statue didn't, I just felt like those shelves were a bit empty and wanted to put something there, haha. But everything else showed up in one way or another... a Metroid on Gaster's mug, the ladies on TV, the Gavinners poster in Alphy's house, the Starcon2 starmap in the brothers house, the Astrology book written by the astrologer in QFG2, King Graham in a crowd shot, Space Pony posters in different places, the Mr. Saturn tanktop, the Rabite from Secret of Mana where the Boy showed up in Gaster's flashback... I should really add a Slime there for the Dragon Warrior guy too, I might do that later. All these little cameos showed up because I had a gap and needed to fill it. I need to put something on this mug, this wall is empty and needs something on it, what could they be watching on tv... and I filled those gaps with things I liked that interested me, personally. In a way, they're sort of like my fingerprints. A collection of little things that are "me", in a way that wouldn't be the same for anyone else.
Me drawing the first comic is a very obvious connection that I'm the one who wrote the story, but those little fingerprints are their own kind of evidence too. The things that didn't appear directly would be my hat (my poor hat, I never did find it again ;_;) and the picture of me and Nana on the back wall. I do have that picture by my computer! I have another one of her above my computer too, but I thought one would be enough. It's really only a fraction of the toys on my desk, I have SO many, but I didn't want it to get too cluttered. Handplates reminds me a lot of Nana though, so I thought it felt right to have her there. And that one stack of CDs on the far right, I use that to prop up my tablet when I'm not using it, haha.
Undertale is a game about games... Handplates is a comic about a fancomic about a game, in a sense. Or as the tagline's said for years... a story about suffering, mostly. Mostly. But not completely. I thought for a while that once I was done, I'd change it to "a story about suffering, but also about family" but I think I'll leave it as it is. I think that sums it up better.
Ahhh it's still so much to think about... it's hard to believe it'll end, and soon...
dreamwidth post