What’s this? An update to the Just Cause fanfic? After all these months?!

Yeah, I figured it was about time I buckled down and got this thing edited before I sidetracked onto yet another series of side projects. Especially given that this is where Timeline 1 Frisk finally meets Sans, and begins my favorite relationship in this whole story!

Let's see what they think of each other when they first meet.

Go here to read chapter 9.

I ended up skimming over some of the Skelebro/Frisk puzzle interactions, because this fic is already 129,515 words long, and that’s with some parts just OUTLINED, not written. If I write every scene in full detail, we’ll never see the end of this. >_<

But going light on some scenes means I have more room and time to dive deep into the ones that really matter, like a warrior-scientist getting his first look at a child who might be a space-time anomaly. :)

The next chapter is 7,475 words long right now and needs to be edited, but when it's done you'll get to see Papyrus' boss fight and Sans taking Frisk to Grillby's.

For those who have stuck with me through this long hiatus, thanks - I hope the chapter is worth the wait!

I thought it was about time I got another chapter of the fanfic version of Just Cause finished, so here it is!

In this chapter, Frisk finds Toriel's house, and is forced to make a heartbreaking choice.

Go here to read the new chapter.

Start reading the fanfic from the beginning.

Read the webcomic version of Just Cause.

​​I’ve held off on this for a while, because (1). it was a lot of text to reformat for the finicky web, and (2.) THERE ARE ALWAYS MORE THINGS TO TWEAK AND EDIT, AAAAH!

Despite those reservations, I decided it was finally time to let people see the fruits of my efforts.

I am happy to announce that the first 7 chapters of the written version of my Undertale webcomic, Just Cause, are now available on this website and Archive Of Our Own!

If you want to help me create new chapters of Just Cause faster, both the written and comic versions, please consider supporting me on Patreon so I can spend more time on writing and art.

In the meantime, enjoy the fanfic!

It's been just over a week since Avengers: Endgame hit the theaters, and the ending definitely stuck with me.

I've been thinking about it a lot over the past few days - in particular, I've been stewing over the fact that two characters in particular could have had a canon-compatible happy ending, but didn't.

This post contains HUGE spoilers for Endgame, so if you're avoiding those, please bookmark this post and come back to it after you've watched the movie.

Are you spoiler-proofed? OK. Here we go.

The heroic sacrifices of Tony and Natasha were poignant and necessary to the Avengers' victory, but for the two of them to STAY dead was not.

If anything, their continued state of deadness was LESS probable than their resurrection, because if I thought of a canon-compatible way to save them before the movie even ended, Bruce Banner can, too.

If you're still sad about their deaths, and you'd rather mentally live in a world where they're still alive, here's a short fanfic I recently wrote, in which Bruce did what he SHOULD have done in the movie.

If you aren't interested in the fanfic, and just want the fan theory:

As long as the Infinity Stones are present and intact, they maintain a stable flow of time, and removing a person or item from the past doesn't seem to change how that person/thing affected the timeline after they were removed.

Because of this, through the power of quantum time travel, Past Gamora was able to reenter the timeline after the point where she was sacrificed to the Soul Stone, without causing her to be absent in the years between her removal from the timeline and her return in Endgame.

Thanos, too, was retrieved from the past without disrupting the sequence of events in the primary timeline. Even after the Stones were destroyed, the disappearance of his past self didn't stop him from having been present in his retirement home when the Avengers arrived.

That being the case, if versions of Tony and Natasha were removed from the timeline before the Stones were destroyed and brought to the present, their actions after their removal would have been preserved.

Nat would still get the Soul Stone for Clint, and Tony would still destroy Thanos' army, but both characters would still be alive.

There would still be a cost. Heroic sacrifices don't come for free.

These past versions of the fallen heroes would be missing at least five years' worth of memories - which, in Tony's case, includes ALL his memories of his daughter. He would have to rebuild his relationship with her from scratch.

They would both forget all the time they'd spent bonding with people after the Decimation, the new friendships Nat had formed, and the years Tony and Pepper had spent as husband and wife.

But there would still be hope. They'd still be alive.

And all the people who loved them, in their universe and ours... all the trauma and PTSD survivors who saw themselves in Tony, and needed that representation of their pain to have a happy ending... all the people who found solace in the idea of Irondad... could live in a world that's that much brighter.

What did you think of the end of Endgame and this fan theory?

Do you think it was a fitting end to Natasha and Tony's stories, or do you wish it had gone differently?

Do you agree with my theory, or did you see a hole in it?

I look forward to reading your comments.

Can't wait to see what will happen in the next page of Just Cause? If you want to get a sneak peek, become a Patron on Patreon to get early access to the written version of page 42!

If you enjoyed the previous pages of Just Cause and can’t wait to see what happens next, you can get a sneak peek at the written version of the next two pages by pledging $1/month or more on my Patreon. :)
 
Patrons also get exclusive access to works in progress, and they’re the first to see completed pages.
 
If you haven’t started reading the comic yet, I recommend that you start at the very beginning - a very good place to start. :P

For those of you who've been reading my Undertale webcomic, Just Cause, or who are thinking of getting into it in the near future, I have some exciting news:

I've gotten enough of the prose version written that I think I've filled in most or all of the possible plot holes, so starting in May, I plan to start releasing parts of the fanfiction to patrons pledging $3 and up on my Patreon.

That means after each comic update, my patrons will get to see a sneak peek of the next scene, weeks before the corresponding comic page comes out.

The whole prose version of the story will be released to the general public once it's complete. I'd do it earlier, but this tale's gotten so intricate that I want to get the whole thing written before I set it loose on the open web, just in case there's still something I've missed.

I've also decided to make the work-in-progress previews of the comic available to ALL my patrons, not just the $10 tier and up.

​I wanted to make my most popular story more accessible to people with tighter budgets, so hopefully this helps.

I've seen a few people doing open collaborations, and I thought it would be fun to do one of my own.
​
For those who don't know, and open collab is where one artist creates part of a picture - usually the lineart - and invites others to do the rest and share the results. This could include color, shading, backgrounds, or all of the above.

I deliberately left the face off of this one, because I like how ambiguous the pose is. Is Mettaton jumping? Fighting? Posing for the camera? Inviting a dance partner to come join him? Sleeping? Dead? You decide!

If you choose to participate, please:

1. Add your name or URL to the credits on the image

2. Don't remove my URL from the credits

3. Send me a link to the completed picture, so I can show your work to my watchers and followers!

If you want to have the color, background and lineart in separate layers, you can use the .psd file I've attached below.

I look forward to seeing what you create. :)

Page 8 of my Undertale fan comic, Just Cause, is finally here! Whew, that one took a while; between the length, multiple poses I've never drawn before, the complex shading, and those freaking Last Corridor pillars, it took quite a few hours of drawing. But now it’s here for you to enjoy. :)

As you no doubt noticed, I ended up ditching the "greyscale battle box" look; I tinkered with it a bit, and concluded that the comic looked way better in full color.

I think I'm also going to change the way I draw Frisk's hair. I've been gradually migrating from cel shading to soft shading with the rest of the comic, and I'm finding that it both looks better and is more fun to draw.

There's also the fact that cel shading requires cleaner lines, and thus more precision, and thus more time to draw. Yup. Soft shading is starting to look pretty good.

Also, a quick note for observant Undertale fans: yup, I'm aware that there's a save point in the Last Corridor. And there's a good, spoilery reason why Frisk isn't using it yet, much like there's a reason why they're using the dagger instead of the much more sensible frying pan, and why they found a dagger instead of the murder route's standard knife.

Welp, time to make the script for the next chapter, and hope it doesn't turn out quite as long as this one.

To get early access to completed art, stories and videos, and to get exclusive access to a special gallery of sketches, works in progress, and exclusive artwork, please consider supporting me on Patreon!
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Criteria #1: Is it necessary for the characters' development?

Some of the scenes - and, more importantly, the protagonist's reactions to the events in them - are necessary for the reader to understand how the tragic situation in Timeline 4 came to be.

They develop the characters' personalities and relationships, and they reveal why the human made the decisions they made and how they felt when they were making them.

Even though some of these scenes are partly reenactments of things that happen in the game, the internal reactions add a new layer to them, and lay the foundation for the less strictly canonical events that occur in later timelines.

Speaking of new layers...

Criteria #2: Can you add a fresh twist or insight?

Even if a scene isn't absolutely vital to a character arc, it can be worth including if you can add something new and interesting to it.

Is there a funny addition you want to slip into the dialogue? An intriguing internal reaction, or inner monologue that gives new meaning to the words that were spoken out loud?

If you can add an extra element to the scene, that new ingredient can make it fresh and interesting even for the people who have consumed the source material several times.

In fact, that strategy can even make the scene MORE appealing to that particular crowd. If someone loves a story enough to go through it repeatedly, they probably love it enough that any fresh insight or deeper exploration will be welcome, as long as it's done well.

Personally, I've kept a lot of the canonical dialogue intact, but I've also taken a fair bit of license to let Frisk have reactions that Undertale's silent protagonist doesn't canonically have, and to let the other characters react to it the way I think they would.

This helps to keep the plot on track, while adding something new instead of simply reiterating what's already been said.

Criteria #3: Does it make later scenes more poignant?

Just Cause contains a number of running themes, catchphrases, and callbacks to earlier scenes, as well as bits of dialogue later in the story that reference earlier conversations and interactions.

Sometimes, a scene early in the story, while added partly for its own sake, has its greatest value in the way it sets things up for a later scene to be five times more poignant than it would be on its own.

I don't know about you, but personally, I love it when a story can take a line or element from earlier in the tale and work it into a later scene, in a way that adds new meaning, continuity, or a sense that this running joke or catchphrase is one of the strings that ties a character's personality or relationships together.

What if the scene needs to be included or addressed, but you don't feel like writing the whole thing?

Sometimes, there are scenes that are necessary to move the plot from Point A to Point B, but you just don't feel like thoroughly retreading that ground.

Maybe you have nothing new to add, or maybe that scene simply isn't interesting enough to warrant inclusion.

In that case, one tactic I sometimes use is to have a character reflect on it later, possibly while walking or getting distracted from an activity they ought to be focusing on.

This allows me to delve further into the character's reaction to the event, without having to bog down the narrative with a blow-by-blow description of a scene that didn't deserve to stay in the final draft.

Have you encountered this question in your writing?

While fanfiction does present this challenge more frequently than most other stories, it's not the only place where this dilemma rears its head. Every fiction writer must sometimes face the question of whether or not to include a scene, and I hope this article made the decision easier for you.

And now, it's your turn to share your thoughts!

What methods or criteria do you use to decide which scenes to include?

Are there any types of scenes that definitely should or should NOT be kept in stories?

​I look forward to reading your comments!