#compasstale

[jolie-in-the-underground]

@tyranttortoise has been answering questions for Buc (and Cap’n!) over at the skelelodge blog and it gave me a major hankering to draw some fell pirates... So here’s Buc (from her Oceanfell au) and Rouge (from my Compasstale)!

Let’s be real, they’d definitely get a drink if they bumped into each other at the Crossroads. At least until Cap’n and Aréte came looking for them and they had to squeeze out the nearest pub window so they didn’t get busted totally soused on watch XD

[jolie-in-the-underground]

Ffff ya’ll thirsty kids went and made me want to share that new AU idea I had so...here we are *sweats*

It’s a sort of pirate AU that follows your time spent on ‘The Star Catcher‘, an air ship piloted by Captain Blue that collects magic from across the multiverse to keep the city of monsters afloat back in his own reality.

Together, you visit the Crossroads, a floating city in the furthest reaches of a strange sea that acts as an inter-reality hub ruled over by Sans and his brother Papyrus. Pay the tax and you can come and go from any reality you choose, though just what it is Sans is collecting all that magic for is an unknown, especially considering he already has Q, a primordial being of life and chaos bound to do his will...

So yeah, this is what I’ve been working on the last couple of days XD The Tale,Swap, Fell, swapfell, and machinatale bros will all features. @nighttimepixels Grim too, of course ;D

Each AU will have their own aesthetic as far as clothes and whatnot. Machinatale has heavy Thai influence, Tale bros are Georgian, Swap are medieval Russian, Fell is the sort of ‘traditional pirate’ english/french/spanish vibe, and Swapfell is Ottoman! I’ll let my sister tell you about Grim heh. Haven’t decided on an AU name for this yet... *squints*

Oh, did I mention that Blue has a sick-ass robot arm? Because he definitely does. The fic will be Reader/Blue, so I hope you guys wind up enjoying my more sort of mature take on him  ^__^

[jolie-in-the-underground]

Someone in one of my discord servers was mentioning how they were looking forward to my Compasstale Blue in my upcoming fic “The Voyage of the Starcatcher“ since he’s a legit adult (and looks like one) and I’m a total creep so I decided to draw him again just because of that XD (also i love my dear Sinij lookit his handsome happy face <3). It did, at least, give me the opportunity to draw him with the face scar I decided he simply had to have XD Considering his rough lifestyle, I figured it was inevitable that Captain Sinij would have a neat scar. He thinks it makes him look terribly dashing (because it does lets be real).

Did I mention that in compasstale, all the different AUs speak different languages? The language barrier in those first few chapters is gonna be hella fun annoying to write ahaha. On the other hand, excuses for him to have cute nicknames for Reader! ‘Zvyozdochka moya‘ means ‘my little star‘ ;) Likewise, ‘Sinij‘ means ‘Blue‘.

[jolie-in-the-underground]

A blue reader fic??? Sign me UUPPP

Yep! I’ve really been wanting to try my hands at one for awhile now because I am…very dissatisfied with the way the majority of the fandom represents poor Blue by always making him so childish. I really want to do a Black/Reader fic too at some point for similar reasons.

So yeah, you can expect the usual energy and kindheartedness from Captain Blue, as well as his penchant for giving people the benefit of the doubt, but he is very much an adult, and will be written as such for this fic.

[jolie-in-the-underground]

okay i have a question about the pirate au before my self-inserting mind gets carried away - since q and grim are essentially primordial gods in the au, do they have mortal followers? shrines? priests? maybe two seperate communities, in a way, or maybe just a culmination of two. aaaaaaa sorry i just- anything to do with gods and mythology and such is just so c o o l to me, and i wanna know more about ther roles in the au ;w;” you don’t have to answer if the answer has spoilers or something hah

I’ve been referring to them as gods, but they’re less gods and more anthropomorphic representations of natural forces that power the universe. Q embodies Life and Chaos, whereas Grim is Death and Order.

That being the case, no, they do not have specific followers or a religion, etc. In fact, most worlds have the usual span of religions (or lack thereof) with their own pantheons of gods that humans and monsters alike worship… it’s just that literally everyone is wrong X’D At the end of the day, it just comes down to those two, but neither of them desires worship, and they always find it amusing when one religion or another actually manages to get things pretty close to accurate.

Their mere presence in reality allows things to keep ticking on, each keeping the other in balance so the universe can complete it’s natural life cycle unimpeded. Q is prone to going out and about and stirring up change and all sorts of new things wherever he goes, because that’s literally his purpose, hah (though he does not advertise what/who he is). When unbound, Q is just as capable of remaining imperceptible to mortals as Grim is by nature, so that tends to be how he does most of his ‘work’. He’s accidentally directly inspired a few religions with his actions when he gets up to trouble while perceivable, but he never sticks around long. He tends to find mortal worship distasteful since, in his experience, it all comes down to killing other people in the name of some larger power based on their own belief in what is wrong or right at any given time, when he really does not give a fuck what mortals get up to, lol. Sometimes  he misses the old days when the only life was squirmy little things swarming around the ocean trying to figure which way is up or down, but then he remembers how boring that can get to watch XD

Grim cannot be perceived by the living (with a handful of exceptions), but performs the vital function of allowing mortal souls to pass from this life into the next. He doesn’t have to collect them personally for this to happen, since him just existing is enough for the process to keep operating normally, but when it comes to deaths at sea, or particularly large scale tragedies, he’ll make a personal call. He’s equally uncomfortable with outright worship, though is more tolerant of it than Q, especially when it comes to those on the verge of dying who are praying for peace, or a quick release from their pain.

[jolie-in-the-underground]

I love your "pirate" AU idea. I was wondering if others with ut au's can make their own sans designs for it. Not canon unless you make them of course, but for funsies

Oh, well I mean I’m hardly the first person to make an Undertale Pirate AU, lol, so go hog wild making your own pirate Sanses X’D

Honestly (and this is just a fun aside for people interested haha), not all of the boys are even pirates, lol. I mean the Fell bros definitely are, and I’m still debating on the Swapfell bros. The Tale, Swap, Machinatale, and skeletons grim boys are not, however. Sans is shady af cuz really what is he collecting so much magic for, the Swap bros are gainfully employed by their government (even if it’s a step down from where they used to be…) and Q…well, Q’s from the far side of the moon but he’s currently rooming (against his will) in an empty bottle of peach rum, sooo…

Yeah I need to come up with a proper au name to tag this with…