Third Time's the Charm

Sans Comic TV did a dub!

I really love 's Handplates AU, as you might have guessed. And apparently, anytime I’m faced with a really angsty scenario, I have to immediately double-down on it. Or perhaps in this case, triple-down? Ahuhuhuhhu~

But yeah, this is an idea I’ve been mulling over for a while: Sans and Papyrus escape Doctor Gaster’s clutches somehow and end up in the loving care of Toriel. Meanwhile, Gaster decides to create a third skeleton so he can continue his work. But this time he does it “right”, without any of that pesky free will or sentience. Years later, the skelebros discover their unfortunate third brother and angst angst angst. This would most likely occur during the scenario I presented in that other comic, where Sans and Papyrus leave the Ruins and accompany the human across the Underground, buuuut the human isn’t actually in this scene because I wanted to focus on the brothers. Maybe the kid stepped out for a minute to get some popato chisps, I don’t know. 

This hasn’t really been explicitly addressed in the Handplates series, but the impression I get is that while in the lab, Sans and Papyrus only actually know how to speak “wingdings” and it's not until after they escape that they learn English (or whatever). (EDIT: Haha I am vindicated.) So Papyrus tries to speak to Subject 3 in wingdings at first. Of course, as they find out, speaking to 3 in any language isn’t going to be very effective.

I wanted to make 3 look a little creepy, and when I finished his face I realized he kinda looked like a Redead from Ocarina of Time…so that works! His handplate doesn’t have a letter because I figure he’s never spoken before, so Gaster doesn’t actually know what his font is (which suits Gaster just fine, much easier to think of him as a thing!)

WHY did I decide that Sans and Papyrus should both be barefoot for this comic. PUT ON SOME SHOES YOU DAMN HIPPIES. Skeleton feet are weird and hard to draw.

Don’t get confused here: in the game, monster souls are upside-down hearts. Zarla prefers to draw them as regular hearts, but I chose to draw them like how they are in the game.

Okay so don’t think too hard about the specific series of events that lead up to this moment, I sure didn’t. The bros arrived, there was a confrontation and probably a scuffle, and here we are. For various reasons, Gaster doesn’t have a whole lot of fight in him. He’s dealing with a lot of complicated feelings. Gaster this is an intervention, no more clones. And no more torture either, we’re cutting you off. I feel like at this point even Gaster is like “no offense but what the fuck am I doing” but he’s not about to admit it. 

I gave Gaster a cane because I wanted to imply that Gaster used one of his feet to make Subject 3, since Gaster’s feet are like his hands in that they’re fused bone. Much easier to hide than holes in hands, which is fortunate for him because I don’t think anyone’s going to buy that he “accidentally” punched a hole in his body a THIRD time. I realized that the cane should have a hook handle so that Gaster could comfortably rest his hole-hand on it, and then I was like “oh my god, I should give him a blaster top cane” so here we are. It’s very cheesy and probably OOC but you know, sometimes you have to follow your heart. Maybe it was a gift from Asgore, he’d HAVE to use it then, right?

"In many ways, Subject 3 is a marked improvement over the both of you. There's like 90% less crying, my productivity is higher than ever!"

When I was young I played a game called Tales of Symphonia and without spoiling too much, one of the characters ends up completely stripped of their humanity, leaving nothing but a mindless living doll that only reacts to protect itself from threats. When the character’s friends try to talk to them, another character says “You’re wasting your time. Not only did they lose their memory, but they have lost the soul to listen to your words. Now they’re only a puppet standing before death’s door.” That stuck with me, obviously, and was my thought process behind Subject 3. I just kept thinking, in a scenario where Gaster is forced to start the experiments from scrap and put himself through all that physical and emotional pain again, how far would he go to make sure there would be no risk of attachment this time?

Papyrus glows his eyes orange ("his" color) to comfort himself, following Zarla’s fanon regarding skeletons and eye-glowing. I thought having 3 glow his eyes in response would be a good way to show that there might actually be a thinking, feeling person inside that skull, since eye-glowing is a way for skeletons to communicate that goes beyond words. I picked pink as his color cause I thought it looked cute.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Sans smiling for real at the end there. His brother is so cool. That last panel of Gaster cracks me up - COME ON BUDDY DON'T SULK, JOIN THE EYE-GLOWING PARTY 8D

This whole premise is a bit on the heavy side so I tried to end it on a hopeful note because deep down I'm a big sap. Gaster is sent to Gay Baby Jail for the rest of his natural life and Sans and Papyrus take their little bro in and everyone gets cake and therapy okay!? ;_;