your nexus series has so easily become one of my top favorite aus of all time. i cannot even put into words how immediately charmed i was when i first stumbled upon it. the art is so memorable, the characterization is amazing, the interactions, the storytelling, the world building, the exposition... it's all so impossibly good. i adore it. i can tell that there was so much love and effort that was put into making this. it brings me so much happiness every time i go back to read it
from the looks of it, it will probably take a long while to finish, but i sincerely hope you will be able to share with us the entirety of the story you have envisioned!
as for the question: is it possible for you to show us the old 2016 version scans?? that would be very neat to see. or, if not that, old drawings that wouldn't get posted otherwise?
Sure, I'd love to!
So the thing about the old version is that it was basically just an alt of xmas party au that spooled out into a horror movie and then a meandering adventure/drama. I ran out of steam pretty fast at that point because I didn't have any kind of plan and was falling out of love with characters that I realized I barely understood.
I even had my own edgy Sans oc who probably doesn't need to see the light of day beyond this post. There was just nothing special to him other than having gooey Akira powers and barely winning a drinking contest against Reaper.
(You sure are, bro. Didn't even make it into the reboot.)
The pages themselves are on the whole really messy and, uh, cringe, so I'll just show you some best bits.
However, around 2018 I did try to clean up what I had drawn with the intent to post it at some point. I went in and inked/colored everything digitally and edited some of the dialogue. It was super labor-intensive, though, and I quickly ran out of steam on that too. The reality was just that I was polishing something that felt less and less precious over time.
What I ended up doing was cramming half of it into part one of new Nexus as Sci's group's backstory (with some big edits) and letting the rest fall to the wind, just kind of skipping over the whole part that was giving me trouble. Which I really think turned out nicely.
That being said, there are some moments I'm still really fond of from the original, some of which I've copied into the new version, visually or conceptually:
some of which I'd love to find a way to slip in somewhere later:
and some of which will never make it in but lives on in my heart forever, (mostly from the parts where everyone was losing it under the influence of the bad ink):
Anyway. Thank you so much for your appreciative and enthusiastic words. I'm so happy this thing that continues to live and grow in my mind for years and years is really doing something for the people who are kind enough to read it. I'll do everything in my power to see it through to the end.
