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StephOBrien — Echoes of Better Days
#undertale #undertale_papyrus #undertalefanart #undertale_sans #undertale_undyne #undertale_alphys #undertale_just_cause #undertale_game
Published: 2017-04-20 02:20:15 +0000 UTC; Views: 559; Favourites: 18; Downloads: 5
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Description
When the present completely falls apart, at least you have a past that you probably won't get to remember.These are a few panels from page 10 of my ongoing webcomic, Just Cause . I drew the entire bottom right one with a mouse, and I am proud of this fact.
Update: A few people have expressed confusion about what's going on in this set of pictures, so I'll do what I should have done when I first uploaded it and explain:
These are some of Sans' memories of his past interactions with other monsters. In the upper left panel, he's helping Papyrus create his pretend sentry station. In the upper right, he's joking with Toriel. In the lower left one, Undyne caught him napping on the job and he's waking up to her yelling, and in the lower right, he's teleporting a bag of dog food into Alphys' lab. I suspect he knows that the dogs' parents are still in there - whether he knows they're amalgamated into one being or not, I don't know - but it's implied in the game that he gave her the dog food, so I went with that.
He went through each of these interactions repeatedly during the course of Flowey's time loops, before Frisk fell into the Underground. He doesn't actually remember each repetition - only the most recent one - but he knew during the events that he'd probably experienced them before and would most likely do them again, with each repetition being just as pointless as the last. It makes it kind of hard for him to give it his all, but he keeps on going, working multiple jobs, and pretending things are OK nonetheless.
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Comments: 23
Hiya, I’m with Project Comment and first of all, you did that with a mouse?! Impressive. I remember way back when I used to draw with a mouse and it sucked. I commend your fortitude. Secondly, I’ve never played Undertale and I haven’t read you comic so this whole comment will be on your art only, ok?
Ok. Let’s do this. The colours are nice and bold, so is the linework. It’s very cartoony but in a good way and the whole image is very neat. Nice crisp lines, neat colouring work. Good job. You’ve said that these were an excerpt of panels in a comic you’d drawn so I did click over to look at it, because I couldn’t figure out how these four panels made sense. I get it now, that page 10 is a lot larger than this and these are only some panels from that page. It was a little confusing 
So just looking at this image you can’t tell what’s going on. I can tell that you’re good at what you do, that your linework and colouring is spot on, but not what is actually happening in the images themselves. It took away from it a little bit, but that could just be me not knowing enough about this whole thing so don’t take that too personally.
I like the panel shapes themselves, I haven’t seen many comic’s break out of the ‘square box’ format and it is quite eye catching the way the panel lines curve and are odd shapes rather than uniform ones. It does make it a little confusing as to what order the panels go in, but it is less so in the actual comic.
The only panel I have a slight issue with is the one where the ‘dog food’ appears. I can sort of tell it’s ‘appearing’ but I think the detail around it could have been done a little better. Maybe put in a ‘pop’ sound effect or something to make it more obvious what is happening? Perhaps making the background a different colour so that the action lines that are around the bag stand out a little bit more? They do blend in a little with the light green.
Either wall, all in all, your drawing is well done. Your images are clear and easy to parse, but the excerpt was a little confusing for someone who doesn’t know anything about your comic. I still found the image enjoyable though.
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Thank you very much for the compliments and suggestions! Sorry for the confusion - I really should have given a fuller explanation when I first uploaded this. *Adds an explanation to the description* Hopefully that will prevent future readers from being confused.
I do make a point of varying my panels' size and, where applicable, their shape, to give my comics more visual interest, and I'm glad to hear that paid off. 
You make a good point about the appearing dog food. I wasn't sure how to portray the fact that it's popping into existence; people who are familiar with Undertale know that Sans can teleport things, and I chose the action lines' colors based on the colors his eyes glow, but a sound effect and maybe a bit of transparency in the dog food bag might have made it clearer. The background needed to be light green because that's the color of the room where the dog food is found, but I can see how Sans' eyeglow colors wouldn't really stand out against it. I have very good eyesight when it comes to color (or maybe I'm just very used to looking for small differences in color due to being an artist), and sometimes I forget that not everyone sees or notices color differences as much as I do, so thanks for reminding me.
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Nice drawing I don't really get it though so maybe explain it to me a little?
Besides that I really love how you made this scene out like it could've happened it the game great job!
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Thank you very much!
These are some of Sans' memories of interactions he's had with other monsters in the past. He suspects that he's probably had each of these interactions repeatedly in the course of the time loops, each repetition as pointless as the last, but he makes himself keep doing them anyway.
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Sounds kinda empty, I mean is he torturing himself.
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Yeah, it does feel pretty hopeless and exhausting to him. But he pretends his growing lethargy and apathy are just laziness, and he keeps playing pranks, making jokes, and concealing the truth of the time loops, because he'd rather let his friends live in blissful ignorance than make them live with the same truth that left him in this state.
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What about when Frisk set the time stream right.
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If Frisk does a pacifist run and does not reset it, then he can finally start hoping for an actual future again. But that depends on Frisk not following in Flowey's footsteps and perpetuating the time loops.
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Well which would you do?
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Admittedly, I've played the pacifist route multiple times, so I haven't exactly been helping. >_< One of these days, I need to complete a final pacifist run and then leave the monsters in peace. Someday. I mean, I know they're just computer programs, but still.
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Hello, I'm from ProjectComment .
A few panels from page 10, sounds inviting. They do look nice by the way. There’s a lot of detail going on, it takes the reader time to go through and examine/admire it all. I rather like how these four panels are cleverly done, with a curve border separating the four of them. I’m assuming there’s no dialogue going on here, or if there is one, it’s going to be saved for the final comic. The coloring on this is rather nice, especially the last one which has some color zapped into it unlike the other panels which are rather dark. I’m guessing they’re all outdoors, and one is indoors, right?
There are some areas that could be fixed. The borders are thick and visible, but they blend in a little too well with the backgrounds of the panels. Maybe try using a color that contrasts from the panels, like white or something bright to show separation between them. Most comics use white, but you can try another type of color if you wish. Some shading would be nice. Sans looks like he’s hiding on something in panel two, but everything looks flat there. Adding some shading will help show some better depth in a few of these parts. It also helps to use a darker contrasting color than the color you're using to make things bright.
Overall, from what you’ve shown, it looks to be a very interesting turn of events going on. Especially in the first panel, which makes me wonder what’s going on there. The last one is a gem out of the four, and probably my favorite. It looks so well done, and I rather like the glowing effect on that image in there that they're looking at. Their expressions are well done, and it overall looks cheery and fits well into the world you're trying to represent here.
Great job and keep up the good work. 
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Thank you very much for the well-thought-out compliments and feedback! The first thing I have to say in response is, I love your avatar. And I kind of love the typo I made when I started writing that - "The first thing I have to saw in response..."
There is no dialogue in these panels; they're just flashbacks Sans is having as he thinks of the things he's probably done dozens of times before, and will likely do dozens of times again, with no memory of having done them.
Two of the panels are outdoors in Snowdin and Waterfall, one is half outdoors half indoors at the door between Snowdin and the Ruins, and the fourth is indoors, in the main floor of Alphys' lab.
Good point about the borders - I should have maybe given them different-colored edges. The picture is shaded, but maybe I made the shading too light to be easily seen on some devices, and on closer inspection, it looks like I did neglect to shade the pillar on the Ruins' door - I need to be more careful about that in the future. Thanks for pointing it out. If you don't mind me asking, what kind of device are you using to view this, so I can know what kinds of screens my shading isn't showing up on?
In the first panel, Sans and Papyrus are making Papyrus' pretend sentry station. Papyrus is writing the sign, and Sans is cutting out the window.
If you'd like to get more context for what's happening in these panels, please feel free to check out the comic from which they came.
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Ah now I see the type lol. XD That is neat.
Oh okay, I thought that would be the case here. I'm using a laptop envy that's displaying my work right now. I'm not sure the colors are set right, but I can't really tell without a device or something on hand.
Ah I see, thanks for the link, will check that out then.
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You're welcome. I hope you enjoy the comic.
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Sounds good. And will do.
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Really nice, I love it, right now I feel regret for the genocide route, even when I didn't do it, and I watched it on youtube, and probably I got criticized by a flower because of that, with the talk about the ones who only see it and they are not able to do it on their own, I have to admit, that really made me laugh, but I have to say right now, this drawing really represent sans as a friend with everyone, so, I feel good to have done the pacifist route and not being able to do the genocide after that.
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I got criticized by the flower, too. I was watching over my sister's shoulder at the time, and she knew what was coming, so she was silently begging me to keep watching until he got to that part, haha. She then proceeded to revel in the look on my face.
As Sans says in the end of the Pacifist route, it does seem like he knows almost everyone. I wouldn't be surprised if he was deliberately trying to get to know as many people as possible, and to cheer up all of them, in hopes of figuring out which one was responsible for the time loops and making them happy enough that they'd stop.
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It's a really interesting idea, and what I can't understand and that is something that bugs me is what makes sans to be able to remember what happened at the previous timelines, since that power seems to be something that he is tho only one that has that, maybe our character does too, but is never revealed, and in any case, it would be stupid to go back in time because you will make the same mistake over and over that forced you to reset at first. What I was saying is that maybe they should have explained better sans' powers, since they made him godlike or something because Deus ex machina, and maybe they should explain it, I don't know, with something like, because of an incident while gaster was creating the core, there were some mistakes, and being exposed to something that shouldn't be there made him had those powers, yeah, I'm being to much of a cliche right now, but, just an example to say that they should have grounded deeper in the characters, since the characters are something really important if you want to do a videogame so emotional like undertale is. I like the game, but that's something I thing they could have done better, but after seeing that part of the fandom was so toxic that made the author of this game to stop it and not doing an update that he was planning, I think it would be mean by my side to be that hard with the game, but I have to say that it would have been great if they had made it good
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I don't think Sans actually REMEMBERS past timelines; I think he just knows they exist because monster scientists' reports on the state of the time-space continuum told him so. Because of that knowledge, he pays attention to hunches and moments of deja vu (which several other monsters have, but they tend to rationalize them or dismiss them instead of recognizing them for the echoes of past timelines that they are), and he uses them to make educated guesses about the events of previous timelines.
As for the matter of delving deeper into the characters, I'm torn. Part of me wants to know more about them, but part of me likes the creative freedom that that ambiguity gives. I suspect that part of the reason why there's such a vast wealth of fan content for Undertale is because, while Toby gave us a lot of details about the characters, he also left a lot up to speculation and interpretation, which encourages fan theories and attempts to fill in the gaps. In some cases, he seems to have gone out of his way to leave things up to the players' interpretation and headcanon, so I think it was a deliberate design choice rather than an oversight.
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I don't know, but I have the feeling that game is not complete, because if you remember, if you choose frisk as your name you start a difficult run, but only till the end of the ruins, and I think there it would be something more, but now you say it, maybe it's something good the fact that they have done it so ambiguous, since thanks to that, there are a lot of alternative universes based on the fan's ideas, so, maybe it was a good shot, but it will still bug me
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Yeah, there are definitely upsides and downsides to that approach.
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