#seirin talks

When I say I tend so stay close to what's mostly seen as canon, I mean the artist that created the AU or greatly influenced this specific AU (ex: underfella, kkhoppang, popcornpr1nce, etc).

No, I've never watched Xtale, and am actually very much out of touch with most AUs. Especially OUTcodes (?) and recent AUs. It was recommended to me many times but I'm having trouble finding the motivation to just sit down and watch it. No doubt it's a cool story though...Maybe I'll force a friend to watch it with me for support or try to stream it myself ahah....

Also, the amount of Asks related to Cross/Dust/Killer was (and still is) insane. You must really love these guys. Alas, they won't join the TMS crew.

No joke, I really looked up the wiki and just slowly gave up reading it. Ffrom what I gather though, Cross is this quiet, slightly agressive, very much timeline related skeleton? Not sure if being a fellow royal guard will appeal to Mel if he's set on wrecking havoc in this timeline or hers.

The machine! Often mentioned, never seen so far. It's one of the many creations of the Doctor, and like every single machine he , it's a unique piece of technology, with very few blueprints left. Hence why Alphys and the gang are having such a hard time working on it. It's like trying to fix, with modern tools, a machine that, for some reason, looks like it belongs 50years in the future.

Also, yes, it's supposed to "show" the "way". As in, it knows "where something is, and can lead/connect it to somewhere else

Had to look up condiments/sauce lists for this one. There're so many of them. The more you know... My personnal favorites are Algerian and BBQ sauce!

Requests might come back someday but for now, nope.

Namedrop and more details: Sweet enjoys knitting, Black does a lot of reading+loves a good ride (bike), Red and Papyrus like DIY stuff and fixing mechanics, Stretch games a lot + enjoys drawing woth music on, Blue is a sport fanatic, Edge likes fashion and shopping

:)

Not a happy ending. But it shouldn't be viewed as a sad one either.

The comic is divided into 3 arcs, each separated by an interlude. The first runs from part 1 to 8, with 201 pages total (wow!). In it, you are introduced to Mel, a young skeleton with a rather unclear past, who accidentally arrives in a a foreign timeline, along with other well known skeletons. Nowadays we call that an isekai haha. Throughout the arc, she proves to be a cautious Monster, quiet and somewhat withdrawn compared to the other skeletons we come across, notably Rus, Blue and Axe, who each got their own sequences.

Still, Mel in the last few scenes is starting to show more initiative, and the interlude will make this even more obvious. We can expect her to open up a lot more during the next Arc, about her past, motives, goals and thoughts.

Everyone has their own way of dealing with the situation and what to do next. Some are serious and pragmatic, like Black, others optimistic, like Blue, and others, like Papyrus, find themselves completely backed into a corner, forced to do their best to fix whatever needs to be.

I could go on at length about what's in store for us in the interlude, but given that it's due for release sometime in 2024, I'm going to talk about the general story line instead.

Although we follow Mel (who is foreign to what's going on in this universe prior to her arrival), the other characters and events suggest that strange phenomena are taking place in Ebott. Crossing timelines, earthquakes, mysterious apparitions in the forest, something is afoot and the situation seems to be at a turning point when Mellow gets here.

A special case, however, is Axe, whom Mel meets in the forest as she investigates Mt. Ebott. The two have diametrically opposed views of their current condition. One wants to return to her world by any means necessary, regardless of the advantages of a peaceful world. The other, not so much. Both refuse to expose their past, but a sense of familiarity drives them to try to convince the other to stay or go. These are two stark positions to reconcile, and while we can expect Blue and the other skeletons to have their own views on the subject too, Mel and Axe are strangely "committed" in this interraction and resort to violence, spurred on by a unknown substance that causes Axe to momentarily lose control.

Mel is wounded, Axe unconscious, and the status quo disrupted. Other consequences follow this confrontation, and several questions are raised: Is Axe telling the truth when he accuses Blue of having already given up on going home and fixing the machine ? What is this mysterious entity Axe came across a few days earlier? The earthquake? What was that substance that made Axe go berserk? And what made him stop? Can Mel be trusted? And many others.

Because, as I'm sure many of you have come to realize, Mel has proven to be a rather unreliable narrator (or at least character since you don't follow her actual POV). Blatantly lying or omitting facts to others and readers alike, it's hard to know her next move and whether she's genuinely forgotten important infos (for it's well established at this stage that she has hazy memories and that they continue to deteriorate. The same applies to her health).

In the same way, each part of TMS so far has raised more questions than it has answered, but I can confidently say that the road is paved for Arc 2 to answer and put in perspective most of them, ahah.

Ah, this is also the moment when I can announce that ALL skeletons will be featured in the Interlude.

I'd also like to point out a few narrative changes for Act 2! The central characters, in particular. Original cast characters such as Undyne, Metatton and a veiled character will be more formally introduced, but we'll also meet up with characters we've already bumped into, but in a much more concrete way, such as Frisk and Alphys. I can't wait for you to get to know them! You can also expect more pov changes, more elipses and so on. Things are moving fast.

Tbh with you, as an animation student, it's been one of my dreams since 2020 to do one of TMS's sequences in animatic or full anim, or even a trailer for the comic! But as a solo team, it's just unreasonable and I know it. But the parasite ----. Don't get me wrong, I could, but it would take me months and it's just not realistic when 80% of my time has to go into professionnal work that goes into my portefolio or adult stuff. I can't affort to invest time in solo-ing it or to recruit and lead a team over one side project of mine ( ´ ▿ ` ) So we'll most likely stick to classic pages.

But that begs the question. When is it due?

As said before, the first Arc lasted 4 years and I'm entering my last (and most crucial) year of college. I still don't know if I'll have time to get much of it done in 2025, but on the other hand, I'd like to strike while the iron's hot lest TMS be discontinued after a 1-year hiatus and my entry into the working world. Student loan, life and all.

There are still plenty of things I'd like to bring to this project, and I now have the skills to actually carry them out, but on the other hand, the time involved has also increased exponentially.

But the same goes for collabs, community events, side stories, asks, edits, dubs, testing other platforms, regular animatics. Love all of that. Really. But I never have the time to because, man, I'd love to actually finish TMS someday ahah. It all comes back to the age-old problem of “lots of ideas, little time”, and it's so frustrating but, it's a choice I have to stick to, so bear with me as I vent my frustration. Just for tonight (´ ∀ `, *)

So, yes. Act 2. Next year? Probably? It's a long interlude, so you'll get smth in the meantime, but it's likely to decide the future of TMS and whether Act 2 sees the light of day as I imagine it or if...well, something else replaces it.

bringing back this doodle cuz it seems fiting lol

Anyway, I also wanted to thank you for your engagement with Part 8!

I don't know how other comic artists experience it, but for me it's a very isolated work, and as much as I love working alone, I enjoy the interaction with readers most of all.

Seeing people losing their mind over a serious scene, or chuckling at a dumb gag, or just simping over the characters and art. It's just great, and very rewarding.

Likewise, I have a blast answering questions about the TMS universe, reading tags and receiving memes, witnessing people go increasingly mad with messages full of indecipherable screams and hearts. Makes me giggle and kick my feet everytime and I can't wait to drop the next lore bomb or funny scene bwahahah

Sounds like a farewell message. It's not lol. Just making sure they get the love they deserve.

And while we're on the subject, I'd like to say a special word of thanks to the legions of rebloggers who make it their business to spread the word about TMS. You sweet, lovely, candy scented folks. And to my dear mutuals - with whom I interact objectively so little - who have no idea how a single message or note from them drives me bonkers. Thanks for dropping by.

And of course to my super Patreons who support me despite the sparse updates, but to whom I'm more than grateful. Love you all.

And that's about it? Congratulation for reading this and making it this far! You were there!

Be well, and see you next time.

Seirin-

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The format will be a little different from the Asks I usually answer (I'm thinking of a video BUT we'll see how it goes), and that's the fun part. I encourage new and old readers to participate, you might even get a lil' surprise!

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