#the title is based off a steven universe episode in case anyone thought they saw a reference there

[papytonpropaganda]

Skeleton Friend

Prompt: Undyne and Papyrus bonding (early friendship) Words: 2339 Requested by @metaltarsus!

“Sweetheart, we need to get going over to Dr. Gaster’s house now, or I’m going to be late,” Undyne’s mother urged.

Undyne reluctantly pulled on her coat as her mother locked up the house. They started walking toward the direction of Snowdin.

“I hate going over there,” the little fish monster whined. “Sans can’t ever play because of his HP problem. And he’s super weird anyway. And Dr. Gaster is always scolding me for touching his stuff.”

“Then perhaps you shouldn’t touch his stuff,” admonished her mother gently.

Dr. Gaster opened the door when they arrived. His smile was genuine, but stern. “Hello, Pisca. Undyne’s going to be here for the whole afternoon, is that correct?”

Undyne’s mother nodded. “It is. Have a nice day, honey. I’ll be back around six o’clock, alright?” she said, giving her daughter a kiss. Undyne promptly wiped it off and pouted. “I’m afraid she’s in a bit of a bad mood. Hopefully she won’t give you any trouble. And thanks again, G. This is a huge help.”

“Think nothing of it. Come on in, Undyne.”

After her mother had left, Undyne went into the kitchen, expecting to see Sans at the table eating something, like he usually was. “Where’s Sans?” she asked when she found the room to be empty.

“Oh, he’s been having special tutoring sessions with one of my colleagues. Turns out he’s very interested in scientific matters,” Gaster said proudly. “So I’m afraid he isn’t here right now. But his little brother Papyrus is up in the room right in front of the stairs.”

“Papyrus?”

“Oh, right—you won’t have met him. He’s been going to his own child enrichment program, but it was canceled for today. I’m sure he’d love you to play with him.”

Undyne scampered upstairs, curious as to what this little brother of Sans’ was like. The door to the room was cracked, so she pushed it open silently to see the back of a tiny little skeleton who was fiddling with something in front of him. Undyne turned back to Gaster, who was watching at the bottom of the stairs. “He’s practically a baby!” she protested indignantly. “I can’t play with a baby!”

Gaster smiled. “He’s four years old. You’re eight. That isn’t that much of an age difference. He and Sans play with each other just fine, so I’m sure you can play just fine with him too,” he told her. “He’s far more active than Sans is, he doesn’t have the same problems.”

Undyne huffed. “Okay, fine.” She trudged back up the stairs.

“Wait, wait.” Gaster followed her up. “I really ought to be there when you introduce yourself, he can get very anxious around strangers. Papyrus, could you come here, please?”

The little skeleton dropped whatever he was playing with and ran over, slowing down when he saw Undyne. Then he ducked silently behind his father’s legs.

“Come now, Papyrus, don’t be shy. This is Undyne. She plays with your brother sometimes when you’re at lessons, and today she’s going to play with you.”

Papyrus peeked out, then gestured for Gaster to lean down so he could whisper in his ear.

Gaster listened intently. “Of course she can, but you have to play with her first.”

Papyrus bounced excitedly and came out from behind his father. He shyly took Undyne’s hand.

“You two have fun now. I’ll be in the basement working on my projects. Don’t touch anything other than Papyrus’s toys.”

After he had gone, Undyne shook off Papyrus’s hand. “Hey, stinko. If we’re gonna play, then we do what I say, okay?”

Papyrus said nothing, only took her hand again and led her into his room. This totally confused Undyne; normally when she told people to do something, they just did it. But Papyrus didn’t even act like he heard her.

The little skeleton climbed up on a bed shaped like a racecar and bounced on it, smiling broadly at Undyne. She glanced over the bed and gave him a weird sort of smile back. “That’s, uh… yours, right?”

Once again, Papyrus didn’t reply. He jumped off the bed instead and ran over to a bookshelf, pulling one of the books out. He held it up close to Undyne’s face

She took it from him and read the title. “‘Peek-A-Boo with Fluffy Bunny’? What, do you want me to read to you? ‘Cause I’m not doing that.”

To her shock, Papyrus pulled her down onto the floor with a force far stronger than she would have expected from a tiny four-year-old and plopped himself down onto her lap.

“Um…” Undyne had no idea how to respond to that. “You got friendly real fast… guess I’ll have to read to you, then.”

Papyrus snuggled back into her chest and stared at the book, waiting.

The book was short and boring to Undyne—it was a very young child’s book, after all—but she could help but feel a little warm and fuzzy when she got to the end and Papyrus started clapping happily.

“Okay… what should we do now?” Undyne asked.

Papyrus stood, took her hand again, and led her over to the toy he had been playing with earlier—a twenty-five-piece puzzle with large foam pieces. Some of the pieces were stuck together wrong.

“You want me to help you with this?”

Papyrus picked up a piece and attached it to another piece that didn’t fit.

Undyne was becoming irritated with the skeleton’s constant silence. “Hey, do you ever, like, say anything?”

Papyrus said nothing.

Undyne took the puzzles pieces from him. “Come on, say something. I saw you whisper to your dad earlier. Say something simple, like… my name! Say ‘Undyne.’ Come on, say it.”

Papyrus lunged for his puzzles pieces, making a weird huffing noise when Undyne held them out of his reach. “Say ‘Undyne’ and I’ll give them back to you.”

Papyrus began to whimper. His mouth moved wordlessly, then he collapsed on the floor and covered his head with his hands, crying silently.

“Oh—oh, geez—” Undyne put the pieces down and patted his head in a panic. “I’m sorry! You don’t have to say my name! Here, here’s your pieces back!”

The skeleton sat back up, still sniffling, and began to fit the pieces in the wrong way again.

Undyne sighed. “Those pieces don’t go together. That one goes over here,” she instructed bossily, taking the piece from him again and putting it in its proper place.

Papyrus stood, his face screwed, and started stomping his feet and balling his fists in an entirely silent tantrum.

“Okay, okay! Fine! Put it where you want, I don’t care!” cried Undyne, practically throwing the piece back at him.

Immediately Papyrus was back to his normal, happy self. Undyne sat back and watched as he put the puzzle together his own way. Eventually he gathered up a few in his hands and gave them to her, pointing to where he wanted each one to go. Undyne, confused but not wanting to risk another tantrum, complied.

When they were finished, Undyne stood back, expecting a mess of colors and shapes. What she found instead was that Papyrus had arranged the puzzle pieces according to color so that they made a rainbow. “Wow,” she finally said in awe. “I didn’t know you were smart enough to do that.”

Papyrus beamed at her.

Then the distinct sounds of a stomach growling echoed throughout the room, and Papyrus clapped his hands over his belly.

“Oh, you must be hungry.” Undyne smiled. “Well, we can’t have that! Let’s go get something to eat!”

Papyrus flapped his hands excitedly.

Going down the stairs with Papyrus took a while—he insisted on holding her hand and putting both feet on each step—but eventually they were in the kitchen.

“So what do you want?” asked Undyne.

Papyrus reached under a counter and pulled out a box of pasta.

Undyne stared at the label. “Spaghetti? You want spaghetti? But that’s dinner food, and it’s only three o’clock!” she said.

The skeleton only shook the box at her.

“Okay, fine. I think I know how to do it, I’ve watched my mom make it before.” She started searching through cabinets for a pot. “Okay, I’ve got to fill this up with water,” she told Papyrus, pulling one out from under the sink. “And then it’s gotta get real hot. So you can’t touch it or you’ll get hurt.”

Papyrus just watched in fascination.

Undyne had to pull up a stool so she could reach the faucet to fill the pot. As it turned out, a pot of water was much heavier than she expected. “Put that box down and help me!” she exclaimed as her arms shook, trying to keep the pot from dropping.

Papyrus set the box down carefully and toddled over, bracing his hands on the bottom of the pot as Undyne lowered it. But it was still very heavy, and they eventually had to set it down on the floor.

Undyne wiped her forehead. “Whew! I don’t know how Mom does it. Guess we gotta rest for a minute before we put it up on the stove.” She pushed the stool over in front of the oven. Then she looked at the box of spaghetti in curiosity. “Hey, do you think the noodles would cook faster if we just put them in now?” she wondered.

Papyrus picked up the box and held it out to her questioningly.

Undyne opened the box and shook the noodles. “Do you want to put them in?”

Papyrus took the box back and put the whole thing straight into the pot.

“No, silly!” Undyne laughed. “Take the noodles out first!”

Papyrus pulled the box out of the water and turned it upside down, promptly spilling dried spaghetti all over the floor.

Undyne sighed. “Well, you got at least half the box in there… I think. It’s enough for us to eat, anyway.” She placed her hands around the handle. “Okay, ready to help again?”

The skeleton child did his best to hold up his end of the pot, but it was entirely too heavy, and he dropped it as the two monsters tried to get up on the stool. Undyne dropped her end as well, sending the pot crashing to the floor, spilling water all over Papyrus and making the kitchen tiles a mess of water and broken noodles.

“Papyrus! Are you okay?” Undyne cried, partially because she was scared of getting in trouble, and partially because she was genuinely worried about Papyrus.

Papyrus let out a loud, high-pitched laugh, the first thing Undyne had actually heard out of his mouth all day. The skeleton picked up the now-empty pot and put it over his head, his giggles echoing in the space.

The front door opened. “What’s going on in here?” Gaster demanded, striding right into the kitchen. “I heard a crash—oh.”

“Hi, Dr. Gaster,” said Undyne sheepishly. “We got hungry.”

“Then why didn’t you ask me to get you something?” he replied angrily. “You could have gotten hurt.” He stared at his son sitting on the floor, soaking wet, still giggling underneath the pot. Gaster squatted down and lifted the pot just enough so he could see Papyrus’s eye sockets. The child laughed delightedly again and covered his father’s eyes with his hands and suddenly took them away, his own little game of peek-a-boo.

Gaster couldn’t stay angry. It was rare that Papyrus made any sound in front of strangers, but he was comfortable enough to laugh in front of Undyne—he must really be having fun with her.

“Alright, you two. Go back up to Papyrus’s room. I’ll clean up down here and then come up to help Papyrus change clothes, and then we can come back down and have some carrots. And then I think it’d be best if you played outside.”

Papyrus hopped up excitedly—he loved to play outside!

Once everyone was cleaned up and fed, Gaster led them outside and showed them where the basement door was. “I’ll be in here if you need me—I’ll keep the door open so I can hear you. But you are not to go into the woods, understand?”

Undyne nodded, and Papyrus bounced a few times on his feet.

“Good. Have fun.”

And have fun, they did. Undyne got to see just how rambunctious Papyrus could be; he bounced around everywhere, zoomed around corners, and threw snowballs that really hurt sometimes. Undyne didn’t have to be so careful around him like she had to be with Sans.

She was really having a good time.

Such a good time, in fact, that when her mother came, she was bitterly disappointed and begged to stay longer. But Pisca insisted on going home to get dinner ready.

“Thank you again, G. This was such a huge help,” Pisca said to Gaster. “And I hope Undyne was good to you,” she added to Papyrus, who was currently being held in his father’s arms.

Papyrus unhooked his legs from around Gaster’s waist and wiggled around until Gaster put him down. The little skeleton faced Undyne, glancing at her mother uncertainly before huffing and opening his mouth. “Thank you for being my friend,” he said, pronouncing each word slowly and precisely.

Undyne stared up at Gaster, who smiled.

“He doesn’t usually talk to people unless he’s comfortable around them. So count yourself lucky, Undyne. He likes you. Although that probably means he’ll talk your ear off now,” he said, rubbing his son’s skull affectionately.

Undyne laughed. “That’s okay with me, as long as he can talk about cool stuff.”

Papyrus suddenly threw himself into Undyne’s arms. Undyne, though taken aback at first, hugged him back.

Papyrus was such a weird kid, but also a really cool little dude in his own way.

And she couldn’t wait to play with him again.

As Undyne and her mother walked away, she asked, “Hey, Mom?”

“Yes, dear?”

“When can I go over again?”

[matt-eldritch]

Mortal Kombat Akademy

In between my work on the 31 Days of Original Characters challenge, I've begun to revisit my plans for the big Mortal Kombat story I'd wanted to do for awhile; Mortal Kombat Akademy. I've done a lot of character busts with backstory info and I did a sort of "season one" plots but this is something I'm not really satisfied with anymore. I'm gonna spend the new year trying to readjust and rework the overall story and characters to something more workable. Here's a few odds and ends of what I've planned so far;

Story Outline

Shaolin Monks, Lui Kang and Kung Lao, are recruited into the Mortal Kombat Akademy, the secret fighting school located on the island paradise of international crimelord, Shang Tsung. But those who step foot on the island are subjected to terrors beyond comprehension once they learn the true purpose of the school; a training ground for the soldiers of an interdimensional tyrant who conquers by use of a fighting tournaments ordained by the gods themselves. But one of the gods, Raiden, is willing to give Earth a fighting chance by training as many chosen Earthlings as he can so they may finally defeat the forces of evil in the Mortal Kombat tournament.

Kinda bare bones but for plot synopsis go, it helps me sort of make a launching pad for the ideas. Like my original idea, the story is still primarily about Lui Kang and Kung Lao going to the school and meeting/befriending the typical heroes of the Mortal Kombat world, Raiden being their mentor and Shang Tsung being the big bad to overcome.

But the story ideas I had just don’t really cut it for me now. I feel as though I was sort of putting the cart before the horse by putting so much time making elaborate details instead of snowballing one idea to make a big bright idea. I’ve made some titles for them;

Start the Semester!

Tour the Akademy!

Prepare for the First Exams!

Bond Like Your Lives Depend On It!

Learn the Fatalities!

Wills and Testaments!

Survive the Detetionrealm!

Survive the First Round of Exams!

Survive the Second Round of Exams!

Survive the Last Round of Exams!

Party Your Asses Off!

Mortal Kombat Akademy V. The DC Universe: Dawn of Pain!

To give some context to them, I had a storyarc planned; Early on, Raiden would want the Earthrealm class (the class would have Kang, Lao, Johnny, Sonya, Jax, Stryker and Nightwolf) to be friends and allies in order to survive the matches and save the world. Easier said than done when so many personalities were clashing together. And once they learn about fatalities, the class goes through some mental anguish over having to kill or be killed, Kang being the only one vowing to never kill anyone, to the disbelief of everyone else. Things start looking up once the class starts to trust and respect one another and become stronger fighters.

But Kano, on the behalf of Goro’s Class (Mileena, Kitana, Jade, Baraka, Sheeva, Skarlet, Reptile, Tanya and Kano himself) frames Sonya and Johnny for a crime, leading to Professor Quan Chi to exile them to the “Detention Realm” where his goons, Drahmin and Moloch, deal out the punishments. My idea for them that they’d be bumbling and dim so Johnny and Sonya could escape them, bonding while trying to make it to the final exams. Everyone but Kang and Lao have been defeated and since Sonya and Johnny were late, it’d all be up to them to beat Goro. Once Goro beast Lao half to death, Kang faces his fears and manages to defeat Goro without killing him, but not without making him suffer for all the pain he’s caused.

The class’ reward for passing the exams is an-all expense paid vacation to Edenia, which is basically a hellhole built to Shao Kahn’s pleasure. Here, Kang and Kitana get some alone time to romantically connect to one another during the celebratory feast hosted by Kitana and Mileena’s parents, Shao Kahn and Sindel. But really, the feast is for the Kahns to asses the threat that Raiden’s students hold to their long term plans. And finally, the DCU story is just a fun breather where I have the mid-1990s versions of their heroes (Superman with a mullet, Batman Forever styled Batman and the two Wonder Women, Artemis and Diana, for example).

And after rereading what I had for plots, I noticed how little the Lin Keui featured into the stories since I designed a lot of them for the series. Should try to fix that somehow.

Overall Art Style

As I stated in previous MKA concept art, I based the art style on the look of Steven Universe. I still intend for the project to be written fanfiction, but I do wish to have some elements of it to be drawn by myself. Not a full adaptation but maybe a full page illustration of each chapter, along with the general character/environment sketches, or like the ending credits of The Mandalorian series.

But back to the art style, I wish to change it. I can’t really go further on the style of Steven Universe if this story is going to be about such heavy violence and gore. It wouldn’t really look right, might cross over into unintentional hilarity or into the uncanny valley. I’m looking at something like the artist One, the man behind One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100 whose style is really unique, fast, sketchy and frenetic, all attributes I think will work well. I also love the anime aesthetic of the 1990s so that’s definitely a goal to achieve since I’m setting the story in 1995.

Story Ideas To Keep

* Koins: My idea for an in-canon reason for the koins you win in matches (at least in Mks 9-11, IDK how far back they go) to unlock Krypt stuff will be used as a way for the students to buy things like food, clothing and resurrections due to being killed by another student’s fatalities since its primarily a learning facility instead of a battlefield. Though if you’re broke, you’re not gonna be saved. Koins, like in the games, will be given for performing a fatality and a moral choice comes up when you think “do I do good and be paid less, or do something terrible but get more chances of being resurrected if I die?”

*Profiles: I’ve got to do some rewrites for the characters. Nothing too too major since I do like a lot of what I wrote, but its more to streamline it to fit in the new direction I’m doing. Like, having Sonya, Jax and Stryker being Hall Monitors, I don’t think something like that is gonna be part of my story since I’m trying to take it a tad more seriously. The idea of Detention Realm and having Dharmin and Moloch as lovable henchmen is still canon, as far as I’m concerned. Think the two mice henchmen from the film “Flushed Away”. And on a final note, the newly retconned origin for Sindel...that shit isn’t gonna be part of my story.

Overall, whatever backstories that’ll be changed will likely be on a case by case basis. No telling who or what will be changed right now, but I’ve now thought of some parts to start with.

Diversity and Inclusion

This one is probably gonna be one of the hardest to accomplish since I really want to make the series really diverse with body types, genders and sexuality, race, neurodiversity, that type of subject matter. Inclusion is really important to me, and I’m scared how I might screw it up like how Disney, JK Rowling, SNL, Simpsons, Big Mouth, Voltron so many more screw it all up since they all serve the needs of the capitalist, neoliberal status quo over the voices of the marginalised.

And with that, brings up some more challenges. Will I make so many diverse original characters that they take time away from the canon characters? Should I make more canon MK characters differently diverse?

I'm also planning on having the characters display prejudices and bigotries but I'm scared I'll go in too much of "Bright" territory, if you know what I mean.

Tackling Mature Content

I mean, it goes without saying that the series is going to be full of violence and gore since that’s basically in the DNA of Mortal Kombat in the first place. But there’s much more serious topics I want to try to write. Like the effects of abuse, queer rights, the above themes about diversity and inclusion, the seemingly never ending war and the ideas of the long defeat. Of course, my chapters will be marked with as clear as possible content warnings, those are important.

A Shared Universe

A month ago, I watched a video about Midway trying to recreate the success of Mortal Kombat into other fighting games. The video, “Remember when Midway tried to copy Mortal Kombat?” talked about three would-be franchises of Midway fighting games; Mace: The Dark Age, War Gods and Bio FREAKS. After watching the video and reading about the games, I think it’d be good for lore if they were integrated into my story. Mace and War Gods could be used as part of the backstory of the series. Like the idea of the Earthrealm Kombatants being the descendants of the characters of Mace and War Gods, maybe Raiden was involved with the later, I’m not sure. Bio FREAKS could be latter used if I go into a time travel story. Maybe a mix of the game and the story/characters of Mortal Kombat X. As for Midway’s other successful but overlooked franchise, Killer Instinct, that is probably going to be the most recurring element in the shared universe. UltraTech, the main villains of the series would be the people behind such things as Kano’s cyborg eye, the Lin Keui’s Cyber Initiative and being the rulers of Neo-Amerika in the Bio FREAKS timeline. I also wrote in the profiles of Nightwolf and Sub-Zero that the Killer Instinct universe is linked to my story (one of his divorced parents is dating one of the parents of KI’s Black Eagle and Thunder while Glacius was an alien that helped give Cryomancers their powers).

And on a side note, there is another Midway MK clone called Primal Rage, which I swear I had one of the toys based on it and saw a parody of it on an episode of Dexter’s Laboratory. Its pretty gruesome, its a bunch of savage Kaiju in a post-apocalyptic earth that resembles the stone age. Probably an alternate timeline/dimension if I use it in my series. Who knows, maybe elements of the worlds of Street Fighter and or God of War could make an appearance...

Writing the Damned Thing

Probably the absolute hardest part of this entire thing. I struggle with actually keeping attention to writing since I’m primarily a visual artist and it feels terrible to not even follow through on any idea I have and it just kinda sits and collects dust in my brain. If its sketching and rendering, I can do it. If its writing shit down, I just have executive dysfunction when it comes to it. I never know where to start writing it, how to continue writing it, how to finish it or how to put it all together cohesively.

I can’t do this without at least writing the complete first season, if I do it on a semi-regular basis, nothing is going to be done. Even like, less than a week of non-recurring writing is like a poison to me. I don’t know how, but if I make room for an hour or two of writing a day every day might help me get more prepared for longer writing.

In Conclusion

When will the first chapter be done? I don’t know. When will I start writing? Hopefully as soon as I can. I can try to post updates or work in progresses, but that’s still a pipe dream, in my honest opinion. But I want to make progress in 2020, I need to make a difference and to actually make this coming year worthwhile.