HELP_ Is On The Way @help---isontheway - Tumblr Blog

Welcome

...I don't really have anything else to put here. Updates may be inconsistent, I plan to primarily post to the YouTube channel rather than here

Asks are allowed, but please don't be creepy or anything

Offers to help with this project are welcome. Fanart is even more welcome

I’ve been interested in how you characterize Gaster. Is he truly benevolent and wants to help or does he have his own goals and motives? Does he view the Vessel as expendable and easily replaced or valuable or like his child? Give us a peek into his mind pretty please

The way I write and characterize Gaster is mainly inspired by how he acts in Deltarune (assuming the voice that speaks to the player is Gaster) and a relatively old Undertale comic called Handplates. I suggest checking that comic out for yourself (even if some of the headcanons it's based on have aged a bit), but to summarize it, it's meant to be an origin story for Sans and Papyrus. Gaster there created them (think like, homunculi, but skeletons). From my memory, I think he was trying to work towards a way to break the barrier with soul power. Gaster was presumed to be evil by the fandom back then, and Handplates Gaster wasn't really an exception to this, but the way he was written was really interesting to me. He was cruel towards his sons/creations, but didn't hate them. Most of the time he was completely detached and only thinking about the data and experiments, but there were other moments where he genuinely treated them like his sons. He wasn't a good person but I don't think he was trying to be evil, if that makes sense.

I think that subconsciously influenced how I write Gaster in this series, on top of Deltarune's depiction of him. Here, he's benevolent but can be clinical and detached, though he's not intentionally cruel. He mostly just doesn't understand others' emotions, I imagine he was like that before falling into his creation but being scattered across space and time makes you more literally and figuratively detached. He takes more of an observational role here like he does in Deltarune, but is a bit more hands-on (pun not intended). There's a video that gives a bit of insight into Gaster's personality in this series, but I don't want to give it away. All I'll say about finding said video is that it's related to the latest episode that's currently out (I'm sure some commenters have posted about it already if you don't feel like combing through the video itself).

As for his thoughts on the Vessel, he's hopeful about them, not in the same way that a parent would think of their child but it could be compared to that in a sense. The vessels aren't exactly intended to have minds and wills of their own, so the few that do (like the one chosen for this series) are always special to Gaster. He finds some sort of value in all of them though, mostly because of how they're personalized by their creators. It's a shame to him that in most timelines, they go unused, even if the results of those timelines are interesting in and of themselves.

Question super unrelated to the Help_Tale retake,, Have you seen what they've been doing With Gaster lately??

First there was Pirate Gaster,

Second Gaster turned into Gru,

Third Gaster became Eggman,

Fourth Gaster is in ancient Egypt he became a Pharaoh in a few Days..

I've only heard about the pirate one but I may just not be brainrotted enough.

Probably a hacked account or something but it's funnier to imagine that this person's immediate reaction to seeing this project was to attempt an exorcism via youtube comment

Hi there! I really really admire this project and the unique take on the HELP_tale concept… it was always my favorite AU back when I was really deep into the undertale multiverse thing. Your project really inspired me, so I wanted to ask… how exactly do you make these videos? Do you just make the sprite art and animations and compile them in an editor, or is there an actual amount of game programming involved?

Glad you're enjoying the series! As for how it's made, I've gotten this question a few times so I'll list out what I use.

Sprites - Aseprite

Text - Demirramon's textbox tool (I may switch to SoupTaels' one for the next episode)

Text sounds - floralQuaFloral's textbox soundifier tool

Music - FL Studio (there's a few archives online for the samples, VSTs and soundfonts Toby Fox uses. I also use a lot of FLP recreations by Storm Studios as bases for the OST and credit them on the OST upload of that track when I do).

Overworld animations - RPG Maker MV (A lot of people are surprised about this one but I use it for the backgrounds, overworld NPCs, and player movement. A lot of what you see is done in RPG Maker, though not all of it is exactly playable. I don't really have to worry much about playtesting or collisions since I'm just using it to record so I tend to not bother with those. There's programming involved but not necessarily coding).

Video editor - VSDC (there's definitely better editors out there but it just happens to be the program I'm used to. Battles are almost entirely made in VSDC, sometimes I'll use RPG Maker to record the soul movement animations. I'll also use this to add additional overworld animations if I can't properly do them in RPG Maker).

Hope this helps!

Hihihi I decided to draw Vessel bringing Friend to Noelle

(alongside Gaster and dess doodles.. 👀)

Love these a lot (also it's funny to see Friend interacting with Noelle since a lot of my personal speculation about Friend ties into Noelle's Cat Petterz blog posts).

I'm gonna be completely honest, I don't know why pirate Gaster has been a thing lately, but I enjoy the absurdity of it. Maybe I'll draw Vessel in a pirate hat at some point to play along with it

So I just saw Yuletide and wanted to ask a few things. 1) Is the reason Sans installed the elevator that there were actually hundreds of Sanses and they all agreed to cover that up? 2) Is the Knight planned to appear in this? (Asking because I have a mental image of the Knight 1v1ing HELP_Undyne or whatever IT's called, contributing to HELP_Papyrus' decision to block Waterfall off.) 3) Is Snowdin the only bastion of (functioning) civilization left in the Underground, or are there others?

Nope, I mostly had that because I thought the idea of Sans going out of his way to make a whole elevator just so he can be lazy and avoid dealing with potential humans was funny and pretty fitting for him. It also goes to show his level of isolation though. Another note I have about this though, a sort of "rule" I have for writing this take on HELP_tale is that multiple versions of one character cannot exist in the same timeline (without becoming horribly fused together and corrupted at least). I tried to imply this in NOSTALGIA by having one soul be left behind after Sans' separation. This isn't supposed to be Altertale/Tale's End/Storyswap Sans either, it's literally Undertale Sans but forced into the role of Toriel with no changes to his personality other than ones that would be caused by him being in a different context (like with him being isolated and not being around Papyrus) or small changes to the timeline. This take on HELP_tale as a whole is based on interpretations of characters compounding into one entity, rather than all the AU versions of that character. I wanted to clarify that since I got a comment asking what AU Sans here was from recently and didn't really have a proper answer.

I may have a reference to the Knight at some point but they will not appear and have no real relevance to the story. I just sort of don't think that would fit well.

Taking Toby's statement of "the underground is as big as you want it to be" to heart and assuming that there's plenty of areas we just don't explore in the main game of Undertale, I imagine there's some surviving groups of monsters or whole towns other than just Snowdin. They're few and far between, though. In the current iteration of the timeline there aren't many, but that can change with resets and continued separation of entities.

Was inspired by @urlocalmultifandom's fanart and decided to draw Vessel meeting Friend

Along with my interpretation of Friend's design

Not canon but I might as well share these regardless

i really like the vessel,, they're so adorable 🥹

THANK YOUUU, I love your fanart so much. Also them hanging out with Friend is adorable (I like the headcanon that Friend is just like, Gaster's weird evil cat that can talk for some reason. I also like how Vessel looks mildly uncomfortable with them being there despite having no facial expression).

Yo, So papalmate right So the residents obviously know ITS exist, and from previous posts you made it seem like ITS absorb other monsters. So gotta clarify some things. First. Why did you decide to make Noelle mayor? (not that im complaining i love that confused sprite) Second. Is papalgamate stuck in the ground??? he seems to be smack dab in the middle of the town and no one seems to bat an eye that hes there. last. How do the ITS work as a whole? Seemingly some monsters arent ITS but some are. Other posts said they aborb other monsters, so can ITS absorb other ITS??? THERES SO MUCH TO ASK ABOUT anyways i loved that episode

I made Noelle the mayor because I thought the dynamic there would be interesting, someone entirely unqualified for the job of being the mayor and having an immense amount of pressure put on her due to things happening that are outside of her control. I also felt like it would make some amount of sense for Carol to put that on her daughter, she always struck me as someone who has expectations that her children can't possibly live up to. I also wanted to give another nod to Deltarune, and I believe there was dialogue in Snowdin in the original Undertale that mentioned there not being a mayor, so I decided to have one to drive home the degree to which the timeline has changed.

Yes, he's basically rooted to the ground. People know he's there and don't want to acknowledge it. They pretend it's normal and just accept the fact that leaving the town in that direction is impossible or at least ill-advised. From their perspective, he's always been there. He's like a scarecrow. One with cracking bones and gnashing teeth, one that smells like rot and sometimes laughs and sometimes screams and sometimes does nothing but stare. But, effectively, a scarecrow.

The entities (that's now I refer to them, because ITs feels a bit clunkier to say at least in my opinion) aren't completely understood. When a "major" entity is separated, the area that entity is relevant to also becomes less corrupted. This is why separating Sanstrosity made Snowdin accessible and, at least at first glance, relatively stable. The corruption caused by the separation of entities, as well as the separation itself, only takes affect after resetting. Entities can absorb monsters in a sense, but this isn't only physical like with the amalgamates for example. Once you're part of one, people start to forget you. Maybe you never existed. Maybe it was always like this. As for one entity absorbing another, technically this could be possible under specific circumstances. They would both have to be relatively stable, as the absorption process would make them much more unstable, but one would need to be significantly stronger than the other.

I hope this clears some things up, I didn't want to give too much away as I'd like some of these to be explained in the series. Also, I'm glad you enjoyed the episode.

I rlly like the retake, so I drew Vessel and Noelle :)

OH MY GOD THEY'RE SO CUTE. Thank you for this art, I love it so much (especially how squished Vessel looks).

The vessel talks. I know before you answered they have like, a layer of skin on their face. Is everything they say muffled?

I imagine that when they "speak" they either write it down or, if that's not possible, the person they're speaking to just hears a really soft voice talking just loud enough to be audible and not coming from any clear direction. They'd only communicate in that way if there's literally no other option, usually it's just hand motions, nods, etc.

I shouldn't need to say this, but please do not send asks or post comments spoiling Deltarune chapter 5. I'm still playing it and can't really reply to them without potentially spoiling the chapter for other people. Just thought I should mention this.

yooo i just watched the most recent episode and i love your take on sans and noelle's roles in the story!

I make music as a hobby (i've been doing stuff for 8 years on and off at this point) and as someone who also saw the OG help_tale as a kid, i've been subbed since IN RUIN came out

and i have been inspired to work on a song for the sewer section that was foreshadowed at the end of YULETIDE

i've sent a work-in-progress of it, whether or not it gets used after it's finished is up to you but i hope you like it! take as much time as you need to work on this, and I hope you're doing well!

Visit Original Link

OH I LOVE THIS SO MUCH. It's not one-to-one but it reminds me a little bit of the original Mines theme from The Binding Of Isaac Antibirth, not sure why honestly, maybe it's just a similar vibe. I already have a sewers theme made that I'm going to use but this is really good, and honestly I feel like it'd be a waste if I didn't use it. If you continue working on this track and would be okay with me using a finished version on a later area, that would be great. I know it'd come a lot later but I think this could be perfect for part of corrupted Hotland. If you'd like to message me so we can discuss it a bit more that'd be appreciated

Just wanna contribute to the adoration for the new episode.

I love that freed Snowdin feels safe but still struggling, both in a real "The Rest Of The World Is Still Unstable" sense and the "Same But Different" attitude/behavior of the townsfolk. Not dangerous, but just changed enough to help establish that this isn't the Undertale we know and a damn well earned breath of fresh air after the horror (and sadness) of the Ruins.

Thank you, as mentioned I was kind of nervous about how people would react to this video being less focused on horror but it seems to have gone over well and I'm glad I still managed to make it feel a bit wrong and uncomfortable despite being a break from the nightmares (don't worry though, there will be more nightmares, there is no escape)

Question. Can we get MORE characters with the 'noelle face'? I crave it. I fiend for it. The dots. The expression.

I'd definitely like to add some more faces like that later on when it makes sense/is applicable. Until then, here's Doggo doing the Noelle face (even though he doesn't have talk sprites)

Hi just wanted to say I really liked the latest episode! It felt uncomfortable in a really weird, subtle way that I'm not sure how to put in words. I like how you can feel how everyone in snowdin are really struggling to hold it together and survive. I also liked how you managed to include Noelle without it feeling forced at all. My favorite part though has gotta be the Vessel immediately going "Hell no." when they see the tree get up and skidaddle away lol. I look forward to seeing where else this adventure might go :)

Thank youuu, and yeah I'm really happy with how uncomfortable and wrong the town feels. Like when I was originally making the video I was a little annoyed that Snowdin felt a bit empty and like, not lively enough, but I realized that there obviously being something wrong actually works to its benefit

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