boondoggler @sans-boondoggler - Tumblr Blog

So just to let folks know what's going on

So first of all: let me tell everybody how things went with the new glasses.

Briefly: they're brilliant. The new varifocals work way better than earlier versions of them have routinely done. (This is apparently secondary to the way my eyes continue to change shape as I get older. It continues to make me snicker that I'm getting Iess nearsighted as I age. "So," I said to my Eye Lady, "if I can manage to live to, like, a hundred and twenty-five, I'll be twenty-twenty?" She gave me sort of a cockeyed look. "Well... you'll still be astigmatic. As for the rest of it, let's see how things go...") The reading glasses are no good for the computer: they’re genuinely just for reading. ...But this is okay, because the varifocals work fine for computer work. So THAT whole business has turned out more than satisfactorily... and thanks once more, from the bottom of my heart, to all those who helped out. ❤️

And get this. I went out to lunch after picking the new glasses up, and in the middle of lunch found myself paper-outlining a paranormal police procedural trilogy. (headclutch) So that went well. ...And no, I can't tell anybody anything about the plotting on these: it's too soon. But this looks like something of a change of writing voice (and thematic material) for me: darker than usual, maybe a touch grittier. We'll see how this group of works sets itself up as work gets going. (Other works further along in progress are in front of these right now, but that's fine. Giving things time to mature is never a problem.)

Anyway: typically enough, some other unexpected health junk that had been behaving itself during the spring then started kicking up cranky in June and over the last couple of weeks. (eyeroll) I don't want to get into more detail than necessary about this, but it's an outgrowth of the internal problems that have made me give up long-distance travel. It's required a goodish outlay of cash, and has resulted in me falling behind on my rent.

My landlord is being really easygoing about this, but nonetheless I'd very much like to get caught up on this before it gets any worse. (As being behind this way, I'm finding, is increasingly interfering with my work... especially as that's now become so much easier to get to grips with due to the new glasses.)

So it seems to me that this is a good time to repeat the Summer Reading Sale over at Ebooks Direct!

I imagine lots of people here know the drill. Everything's cheap, and the ebook bundles are all being held at their lowest price points for the duration (meaning specifically the "All The Wizardry" bundle, the Middle Kingdoms series bundle, the LGBTQ Pride collection, and the Feline Wizardry bundle—Even our "Give Me Everything You've Got" collection, which is the whole ebook store in one package, has had a bit knocked off.

So could I get folks to reblog this post so that people who might not have caught one of these sales before can do so now if they want to? Please & thank you!

And additionally: for those who're already up to the gunwales in ebooks and don't need any more, but still want to help out with the rent situation—if you'd like instead to drop something into my Ko-Fi, it'd be very welcome. And if you feel like doing this, I thank you very much in advance! 🙂

Support Diane Duane

...So that's the news from Lake Wobegon for the moment. ...Now to slip outside and give the potted plants a potful or so of water as an evening drink. They've been suffering from the (unusual-for-us) local heat wave, there's a wildfire watch on (leading to a ban on selling portable BBQs), and we're also having a ban on watering things with a hose at the moment. (sigh) One thing after another...

Anyway, thanks again, folks.

dajo42

i quit cold turkey

quit what?

cold turkey

yeah but what did you quit

im telling you, i quit cold turkey

alcohol?

no i quit cold turkey

i wasnt offering, im trying to figure out what you quit

and im telling you i quit cold turkey

wait. you quit cold turkey?

yes i quit cold turkey

like the meat?

no i dont like it thats why i quit it

cold turkey?

no im gradually weaning myself off it

theinternetarchive

PSA

the internet archive is getting sued for a bajillion dollars. you can voice your support for the archive and its services on change.org here or below.

Defend the Internet Archive

the actual internet archive staff are pushing for signatures, so i figured i would support. + definitely reblog if you feel so inclined.

bunjywunjy

occasionally I am struck dumb by the sublime beauty of the world in the small moments, you know?

egg

wraether

i drew it

monstrousregiment2-deactivated2

hey I hope you dont mind I also painted your egg

kiunlo

i also painted the egg hope that's ok

yellow-cat

i heard we were painting egg?

rhube

I love how this shows how real artists drawing a thing aren't just representing the thing, but showing you what THEY found beautiful in it.

geodethecrow

hope I'm not too late to paint egg! watercolors :)

pipsqueaks-human-errors

i too have drawn the egg

sketchyelvenasss

kamil-a

heres my egg

queen-susans-revenge

Love every single one of these eggs. No yeah of course it's still okay to write your vampire story or whatever, even if a thousand people have done it before you. Your art will still be uniquely yours and people will find something fresh in your perspective. Paint your egg.

I see. So because you personally don't believe in canon AUs, you're going to completely screw over everyone who actually does. You're going to stick up a massive middle finger to anyone who actually cares about canon SwapFell being more than just a single sentence. Do you understand how selfish and cruel that decision is?

Additionally, calling anyone who likes canon AUs "wrong" is an incredibly childish mindset. You're an adult, I thought you'd be able to understand that we have different perspectives and that there is no "right" or "wrong" answer. But no. Anyone who has a different opinion from you is automatically incorrect in your world.

One more thing. The canon AU community is not a tiny community by any means. The Canon Archive alone has 360 members:

And I guarantee you, the moment I tell the server that the canon version of SwapFell is a single sentence, and there's nothing any of us can do to change that, they're all going to be horrified, upset, and pissed off, all because of your decision.

I know it's just a stupid joke to you, but there are so many people who care about canon SwapFell and want what's best for it. There are people who would be ecstatic and overjoyed if they heard that canon SwapFell was coming back to life again. And when they read what you've written me, it's going to be a massive gut punch to all of them.

Listen. You obviously don't care in the slightest about owning SwapFell. You don't even believe in AU ownership. It means nothing to you. But it means everything to myself, and my friends, and my favorite community. So why not just give it away? It would literally be as simple as saying "fine, do whatever you want with swapfell." I'm not asking for much, I'm just asking for a single sentence. I know you don't know us personally, but this is an opportunity to make a massive positive difference to an entire community of people. And again, you literally lose nothing from doing this.

Why would you ever want to turn down making hundreds of people happy for free?

But maybe nothing I've said has had any effect on you at all. Maybe you'll continue to hoard SwapFell, and insult us, and make fun of us, and tell us that liking canon AUs is stupid and wrong. That's your decision to make. But you'll be remembered by all of us as that one arrogant asshole who refused to give SwapFell away because they have a superiority complex. So if you want that to be your legacy, then go ahead. But don't say I didn't warn you.

i'm sorry, but this is funny as heck. you're tellin' me that i gotta say some magic words to let you do what you wanna do. you're warnin' me somethin' bad is gonna happen if i don't. that's wild, dude.

now i ain't calling it a joke, but lemme tell ya, you're not making a case for joining in here, buddy.

i love undertale au's. they're golden, beautiful fan creations that reflect all the care and true love people have for this amazing world. hey, i shared my whole notion with you. that's what i did with it. i ran through all kinds of universes in my time, too. s'all behind me now.

right now you're choosin' LOVE and not love. you're lookin' at this monster with your knife out. you're convincin' yourself i'm somethin' i ain't.

put it away and listen. the way we think is different. we gotta live in this world together, and truth be told, i'm glad there's folks in the world like you.

there's nothin' stupid about wanting things to be a way. even if there was, i don't think there's any shame in doin' stupid stuff, if you ain't hurting anyone.

now, i only can own the characters and story i made. my whole thing was to make what i made, and i did. if you wanna take that idea, expand on it, run with it, i can give it to you. i'm not gonna be able to do anything with it now. i ain't got the time.

you obviously got your own ideas 'bout what a swap underfell looks like. truth be told, i called that guy fellswap_sans because me and someone who was a buddy of mine at the time created different versions of it. he actually called himself swapfell_sans and i was fellswap_sans. that's all lost to time. he deleted his accounts on the regular, and i ain't kept in touch. someone else got that username when he abandoned it. that's the internet for you. we had different ideas, and i can't remember his. regardless, we both did our own thing, and that was how i did swap underfell, and you tellin' me that 'fell swap' is different and means it ain't 'swap fell' ain't related to what i'm sayin' in the slightest. if you agree i got domain over 'swap fell' then guess what, that's it.

so yeah, that was my swap underfell. way more than just a sentence or two. that's where my idea went. you wanna put that in your archive or whatever as official, go ahead. if you want to make up your own thing, go ahead. if you wanna use someone else's, go ahead. i got no control over whatever you do.

it's startin' to sound like you wanna use this whole thing to control, harass, and bully folks into agreein' on your take as right. the one true canon. that's not love and creation anymore, bud. that's LOVE and destruction. i ain't nuthin' special, but even if i was, i can't agree to that. it's not not right. folks should be allowed to make what they like and think what they like with this stuff, without folks comin' in and sayin' "that's not canon" and harassing them.

you convince me you're doin' somethin' different from that, somethin' helpful and good for the fandom, and i'll try to help you. right now, it ain't lookin' good.

otherwise, good luck out there on the surface. remember all we got is each other. choose mercy, even on folks who are monsters.

#ask #blackmushroomalgaeonionbread #undertale #underswap #underfell #swapfell #fellswap

Okay, I can see I'm doing a really bad job at explaining this, so let me try again one last time:

FellSwap is Underfell Swapped, and Underswap Underfell (or SwapFell) is Underswap Felled. They're combinations of the same two AUs, but they're separate and lead to different results.

You were the first person to write character info under the name "Underswap Underfell," which technically means that you're the creator of SwapFell, which also makes you its owner. (I know you changed the AU's name to FellSwap later on, but that still doesn't change the fact that you created SwapFell regardless.) AU ownership logic dictates that whoever is the original creator of an AU gets ownership of it.

(And just in case you're wondering, your tweets are indeed older than KH's SwapFell which was considered canon before.)

I know that you're not very familiar with AU naming logic and AU ownership logic, but that's how it works within the modern-day Undertale AU community.

I messaged you because I didn't want the canon version of SwapFell to remain a one-sentence long Sans description forever. I wanted to get ownership from you and expand upon the project and make it better than ever before. I wanted to excite and make happy the other SwapFell fans like myself. I appreciate that you gave me your FellSwap take, but I never really asked for it or wanted it. I only wanted ownership of Underswap Underfell, A.K.A. canon SwapFell.

Anyway, I hope that this explains the whole misunderstanding. I'm sorry for being overly vague about what I actually wanted from you. I tried to be as clear as possible with this message. Please let me know what you think and if you would be willing to give me SwapFell. Thank you.

first of all, the only reason i'm keeping on answering these is because i think it is funny as heck. like. i dunno what is happening in your world that you think you have to come to some sans on the internet to somehow legitimize somethin' bout alternate universes.

it's wild to me. i understand the words you are saying, but lemme tell ya, we are living in different realities.

like imagine you were sitting around at a bus stop or something, and some random dude comes up to you and is like, "hey, i know you. i saw you on the playground once, and you were talking about black mushroom algae onion bread. i want to canonize the idea of black mushroom algae onion bread. can i have that idea?"

and you're like, "yeah, here's my recipe, not sure you'll like it--"

but dude is like "no no. i specifically want the idea of black mushroom algae onion bread because as far as i can tell, there's no record of it except the fact that you said it that one time on the playground. so can i have it?"

and you try to explain, "uh, dude, you can't really copyright an idea like that. i don't own it. recipe copyright barely works, much less for anything else. anyone can make black mushroom algae onion bread if they want."

and he's like "so can i have the idea?"

listen, what you're asking for isn't something anyone can own or give. better folks than me worked that out a long time ago, and i don't wanna live in a world where it's otherwise. if this or any fandom invented some rule bout "the first dude who talks about this on the internet is the person you gotta talk to about it and get permission from before you do your thing or else we'll destroy you" then they're wrong and i ain't participating.

you can keep askin', tho. if you think ol sans ain't up for dodgin' and dunkin' on the notion, i guess you don't know much 'bout me.

#blackmushroomalgaeonionbread

Hey, I just read your response! Believe me, I am extremely happy about the response you gave me, but there is something that I need to clear up. You see, before you started calling it FellSwap, you made a couple tweets about "Underswap Underfell" Sans, which would technically be a different thing from FellSwap. So, I actually wanted to ask for ownership of your Underswap Underfell, not your FellSwap. I know that sounds weird, but I would really appreciate it if it was Underswap Underfell specifically. Thank you! (Also, I apologize for calling you by your player name, I did not know that it was supposed to be private information.)

bruh that fellswap thing was literally my take on the idea. that's it. there's nothing else. you can do whatever you want bruh. there's no rules on this stuff. people are gonna love it or hate it.

none of it is legally binding on anything 'cuz it's all fan spins on an existing property. no one can really "own" the whole thing. i just mashed two ideas together and came up with my own thing, which was like immediately crushed by with what other people came up with in the unending churn that is this damn fandom.

so yeah, again, like i said, you're asking for something i don't have to give, bruh. go. fly. be free.

#ask #undertale #underswap #fellswap

[ID: Okay, now that I got the dumb question out of the way, I have a more serious question for [redacted].

I noticed that you're the very first person to have combined Underswap and Underfell into one AU: (https://x.com/undertale_sans/status/691321811267559424) I wanted to ask if I could own Underswap Underfell and turn it into a complete project? I'm a very big fan of this AU combination and I want to expand upon it as much as possible.]

had to go about this way to redact names to protect the guilty.

it's me. i'm the guilty.

(art by cboardblues and kumalegs, drawn as gifts)

anyway, if you want to know more about my take on it, you can see some of the rp I did here: https://x.com/fellswap_sans/

my conception for fellswap was that "smiley" here was literally the weakest monster. no magic to speak of and only 1HP. his brother, conversely, got all of the durability of the original papyrus and all the wacky powers of the original sans.

"smiley" sans wears a fake, manic smile with a tooth missing, and hides his true feelings behind this facade, while manipulating everyone around him "for the good of the underground." in RP, i indicated this with a backwards-facing smiling text emoji. (: If something actually made him happy, I would use :).

this version also gets all of the science knowledge of the original sans. he's obsessed with "determination" and had his undyne (mad scientist) experiment and create different versions and delivery systems. he is a chemist himself, and uses traps and gadgets to deliver poisons and potions, and if you are a very unlucky monster, rarefied determination.

despite being technically the weakest monster, the entire underground is terrified of him. he's the captain of the royal guard, and he holds undyne hostage to keep his alphys in line as his second-in-command.

his asgore is the first line of defense in the underground against any invading humans. he's promised his king that he will stop any human who tries to reach the surface if they somehow defeat him.

the souls of the six other fallen humans are cared for by toriel, who mourns the deaths and the actions of her husband. it is she who will usher humans to the surface in loving arms if they so wish, or care for them for all eternity... or so she says.

if i were to draw a comparison, underfell might be like the klingons. a world of fierceness, honor, duty, and rough partying. this fellswap in that case would be like the romulans, filled with power struggles and double-crossing.

chara comes into this world and it feels all too familiar. they have to navigate the delicate social situation and try to be friends, even as this annoying little dog (who used to be monster kid) keeps following them around and barking like it wants to give them advice.

anyway, there's been a million takes since then. i dunno exactly what you're asking for, but i'm not sure i have the license to give it to you if you're gonna do your own thing, too. that's up to you. i don't got no skin in that game.

if you want this /specific/ fellswap concept and design? yeah, i own that. so sure. love to see what you do with it. have at, bro.

for @hyperfixationabomination

#sans #fellswap #smiley #undertale #underfell #underswap #ask

Sans, how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Very important question.

zot

good news for your mom

anneofgreengaybles

every time you see a headline like this

I want you to remember these ones

anneofgreengaybles

And these ones

leebrontide

Don’t let anybody tell you that nobody is doing anything. Don’t let anybody tell you that we are helpless and hopeless.

thefloatingstone

Sometimes I think about how ruthlessly @staff get treated on here and I'm like "I wish I could send an ask just saying 'I appreciate you guys keeping the wheels on this hellsite so much ty 💖' but they have all their asks turned off due to said ruthless treatment, and then I start wondering if they ever see all the posts people make about how much they love this site and I just hope they know. I just really hope they know

theskeletongames

How to Greet a New Pal 11

(Part 11)

First

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10-1

Part 10-2

Part 12

The warden of the warden is calling...

DO NOT POST THIS INSTAGRAM, OR ANYWHERE ELSE! YOU DO NOT EVER HAVE PERMISSION!

Dubbing must ask permission, specifically if you monetize. Give this a like if you enjoyed it, and feel free to comment on what you think might happen next. That would really help me out!

asciidot

midiport

here's your dish soap and sidewalk debris that will be $10,000

sans-boondoggler

yup. dirt.

sreegs

As the staff post about ad-free tumblr continues to get thousands of notes telling staff to fuck off in the tags, I wanna remind you that this website's days are numbered. Tumblr is still unprofitable and by some modern-day miracle none of its acquiring companies pulled the plug on this money pit. But it will happen if it continues its trajectory.

Whether you like it or not, Tumblr needs to make money off you somehow in order to stay up. It either serves ads or asks for money to use it. This has been a paradigm on the web longer than many of you have been alive. It's Tumblr's job to make money right now because it's well past its grace period of being a black hole for cash. This has actually always been Tumblr's job, since it is a corporation, but that's capitalism for ya.

If you want Tumblr to be here for free and you want to continue to use it, you do yourself a disservice by opposing any changes Tumblr makes in order to pay for its costs. When this site finally goes belly-up then you're gonna be Tumblr-less until whatever startup takes its place and the cycle repeats itself.

If you think it should just ask for donations Wikipedia-style, remember that if and when that happens, there will be users repeating the same tired bullshit about giving Tumblr any money.

sreegs

just a reminder in case you missed it directly from the current CEO of Tumblr:

animeengineer

Y’all, “optionally pay the site to remove ads” is currently the least assholish way a site like this can pay for development and upkeep. Nobody’s becoming a billionaire running this place.

And $5/mo. is relatively cheap. Streaming services are all in the $20 ballpark and raise rates every year or two, and their rates aren’t opt-in. Even Humble Bundle wants $12/mo. for their subscription service.

sans-boondoggler

Tumblr users: How is this website free?

Tumblr staff: Good point.

Tumblr users: ...no wait!