#old wtl content

[wtl-archive]

Finale Part Two. (Goodnight, My Beautiful.)

Read all the pages in order here.

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I don't actually hate this. I don't actually hate looking at this. Goddammit. I made something and I don't hate it. I still don't get to enjoy it though. Yep. This is fine.

I'll get to Cactus in a bit. Still not ready to talk about that.

Artist Credit: NugatorySheep

[alias-b]

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ all the fuckin stars in this galaxy coz you are legit one of my faaaav authors ever and WTL has been suuuuch a heartbreaking pleasure to read from start to finish and I'M SOOOO FUCKIN EXCITED TO READ ABOUT ANGEL AND BILLY! YOUR CHARACTERS SLAYYYYY ME AND YOU ARE A BRILLIANT AUTHOR WITH SKILLS OUTTA THIS WORLD⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ k hope you have an awesome dayyy😁❤

CRIES. WOWOW THERE ARE NO WORDS TO SHOW MY LOVE FOR THIS. It really made me smile!!!❤❤❤

UGHHGHGH OKAY DIRECTORS CUTS!!! HERE GOES. I’ll just talk about cut content and stuff!!

FOR WTL SINCE YOU MENTIONED THAT ONE: 

Three was not who she became originally. It just kept developing in that direction so I stopped ignoring it. :))

Camille almost went farther with Neil after that horrible breakup and mental break. Think Season 1 of Shameless.......

There were old drafts where Three and Randall lived and Regan died. Also Susan almost had a darker timeline/ending :(((

There were endings where either Camille or Billy or both of them died. There were also drafts of Billy’s flaying which would have gotten some of the party members, young and old, flayed. Including Camille, Max, Steve, etc. 

Camille’s bio dad almost lived!!! She almost ran away from Hawkins too thinking she brought too many problems. Team Hopper & Billy would have gone after her.

That’s all I can think of!!! I’m glad you enjoyed that story, it makes me so so so happy to see it loved after I’ve finished posting. Keeps the affection alive. THANKS SO MUCH ANON. My day is a lot brighter. :))) xoxoxo

[nugatorysheep]

Is there a place where we can read the full Heartbreak comic?

I assume you mean this one and as of right now, that is the full comic. ...Sort of. It's part of a much larger story/AU, Walk the Line, which you can read on Tapas.

I made that out-of-context comic as a way to refresh myself with the fandom and with SU's style after the old version of Walk the Line was discontinued. [You can read that archive at @wtl-archive - one of these days I might start posting the new one there but I'd have to get a lot of demand for it]

A few months later, I decided to give the AU another go, and it's been rebooted! All that being said, Heartbreak's chapter, or 'Line', will be the third, and I'm about halfway through the first chapter right now. If you're okay with waiting like a year and a half I'll be making his full chapter then, but you can see more content of him now on my Twitter and in my Discord server.

Be aware that if you enter my server or my Twitter you need to be cool with a lotta shit real quick or you need to get in the habit of blocking tags lol

[wtl-archive]

Anonymous asked: Beans

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beans.

Artist Credit: Dimonds456

[wtl-archive]

This isn't technically part of the original comic, but it's plot important enough that I'll include it anyway. Explanation of the timeline is below the cut. .

When Druid is young, he’s basically identical to any other young adult Steven, with the exception of his fluffy goatee. He remains the same biological age for over a hundred years, but since his immediate family isn’t aging much either, it’s not something he’s too worried about. Once he’s over 100, his facial hair varies from clean shaven, to stubble, to a goatee, to anything in between. He gets more piercings and, after the Withering starts, gains consistent eye bags. After 300 or so years, he stops bothering with shaving his facial hair at all and just lets his hair grow, both on his head and on his face. It grows very slowly though. Towards 350 is when he starts getting taller. (For context, when Druid is 20, he’s 6’ 8" - which to be fair, is very tall, but when WTL starts he’s 7’ 8"). It’s such a gradual increase in size that it takes decades for him to notice he’s grown at all. Unbeknownst to him, this is the first symptom of his corruption - his infection with the Withering. Per Connie’s request, he gets rid of any ring-style piercings on his body once the Withering has infected most of the gems; she gets worried that they’ll inevitably get snagged by a corrupted gem and they’ll pull off some of his skin with it. This is also when she starts wearing her hair in a braid. Around 420 years of age (yes haha funny number), Druid gets his first obvious sign of corruption; razor sharp teeth. He manages to hide them for a while, but it doesn’t take long for the lower canines to start sticking out of his mouth when it’s closed. Up until then, he had assumed he was immune to the Withering. His fears only grow once his ears become pink and pointed, and it’s what makes him start wearing the black shawl. His family and who remains of the gems all assure him that things will turn out okay, of course, and while this does little to ease his worries, he stops hiding his ears around them. Over the course of the next several centuries, as his corruption gets worse and his flare-ups become more dangerous to those around him, Druid starts using his diamond powers to help keep his corruption in check. By the time Connie dies, he’s doing it nearly all the time, to the point where its almost subconscious. He wears the shawl consistently now when he’s outside of Beach City, not to hide his corruption scars, but to give him some protection against the altered weather. Once his hair gets long enough, a simple hair band or piece of string won’t hold it together, so he opts to use his pink jacket instead. (It’s not like he’s actually worn it all that often anyway). He eventually stops repairing the star patterns on his shirts, and they slowly wear down to an X shape.

[wtl-archive]

Episode Three, Part Eight.

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Spinel pulling out her scythe is honestly the best part of this set of comics ngl

Artist Credit: Dimonds456 | artsycooky13 | NugatorySheep | hugthesquids

[wtl-archive]

Intermission XX - A Crack In Time

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While this is canon, it never got posted, hence the lack of a number. I finished the art for it well before it was planned to be shared, and it was meant to be Soda Lime's introduction into the AU, the Line Logbooks notwithstanding.

This takes place before WTL starts, and if fact, the entirely of WTL actually takes place before the Ask Soda Lime AU starts (which this character originates from). Besides Druid's intermissions, this is probably the furthest we ever get to see into the past in an intermission, at least out of the ones that actually got completed.

I'm not super happy with how Garnet looks here but I've always felt that way when it comes to drawing her. Love her to pieces I just can't seem to draw her right.

Artist Credit: NugatorySheep

[wtl-archive]

Det er mærkeligt. Jeg har gået over de nye logs i dag, og jeg fandt denne mærkelig besked: [ User Pink Diamond has logged on. ] Og det er fra Tiffany’s Coms Prism. Det er en række andre ting some denne “Pink Diamond” bruger har gjort sig, såsom at see igennem Tiff’s logs. Hmmm… der eksisterer ikke nogen Pink Diamond her, men jeg ved at der helt klart er nogen ude der. Jeg… Jeg håber bare at det ikke er ham. Der er mange andre det kunne være, siden der er adskillige timelines derude der har deres egen Pink Diamond eller hybrider. Men Tiffany ville ikke bare overrække sin Prism like that. Denne Coms Prism er muligvis kompromitteret. Jeg venter lige på om Tiffany logger på igen eller skrive tilbage just in case, men hvis ikke, så bliver jeg nødt til at blokere linjen til denne Line. 

Intermission 09 - Discontinuity

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Artist Credit: NugatorySheep (lines/colors) || hugthesquids (sketches/layout/colors)

Writer Credit: hugthesquids

✨Oh emm gee, it's the other bastard that's ruined my life! ✨

Mmm. But, before I go down that depression pit, let's cover the details of this part of the AU.

First things first, as mentioned in the previous tags, I do not speak Danish. I have the translations for all the entries, but to dig them up requires I go through pages and pages of pain and I've tortured myself enough by even uploading this archive. So, ya'll just gon' have to deal with Google Translate. It's not too bad with translating these but there's some jank for sure. For this log specifically though, you won't need to translate anything as it's just a word for word repeat of what Sven says above.

This intermission happens a few hours after Prime Steven and Connie read through the leftover logs in Intermission 01: Tiffany Stone's Log, as you can see by the user record in the first page, making it one of the few intermissions we planned to post that showed an event that happened earlier in the story then when the reader is seeing it. The other five being for Druid (Intermissions 02, 04, 05, and 06) or for Soda Lime (Intermission XXX - A Crack In Time). Don't worry, we'll get to Soda...

The nature of Druid's meant that most of his were always going to be set in the past, but for the most part, intermissions were usually meant to take place in-universe at around the same time followers of the blog would see them. All that being said, it was important that anyone reading would be able to understand when these events were taking place, and given that a lot people seemed to forget the first intermission existed (I guess reading is too hard...?) spelling it out clearly here was a must.

Secondly... I do really like how these pages turned out. There was some... rough patches getting them done. I got a little excited and basically steamrolled the creation of them after I was shown the sketches and it wasn't the first time I got too invested in something and just breezed through it, only to realize that I jumped the gun and didn't give much room for outside input. Hyperfixations are a helluva drug. In hindsight I should've slowed down. But... hiccups aside... I was proud of the art I helped create. I thought it was spectacular. Now I can't look at it without feeling dread. Hmmph. Anyway.

Lastly, the logs were initially posted around April Fools, with this log being posted on Sven's canonical birthday, April 7th. (I chose that date 'cause two of my friends were born on the 7th of April and April's birthstone is Diamond. Felt fitting). The idea was that the first post, being written in Danish and when translated seemed to be completely random and mundane, would be taken as an April Fool's joke by readers, only for this to be posted on the 7th and make it clear that no, it's not a joke and this is all Very Serious Business.

Thing is... Sven was not originally planned to appear this early on in the AU. Not that I have an issue with it, it was just something that got pushed to be sooner, mostly because, like Druid, Sven became a favorite of a lot of people in the WTL Discord server. Me included...

I know that for ages people exclusively associated me with Druid, but that's only because for the longest fucking time he was the only character I could post about publicly without spoiling the entire plot. But this bitch? This motherfucker right here? He's the other half of the equation. I assure you that for all of my obsessing over that old man, this coffee addicted teenager was sitting on the sidelines stalking my bitch ass like a fucking hawk.

I love this kid. I despise him. I want to give him the biggest hug and I want knock his brain out with a fucking hammer. I look at him and feel purest joy and the deepest regrets. For every part of me that adores him, another part wants to tear him to shreds.

I have a lot of Feelings about this child, alright?

I have a lot of Feelings about his co-creator too.

Maybe one day it won't bother me so much.

There's so much about Sven that just makes him feel obnoxiously important to me. Which, y'know, weird thing to say about an alternate universe version of a fictional character. I mean, for all intents and purposes Sven is like... a hop, skip and a jump away from being an OC. He's designed to be the polar opposite of his canon counterpart, but I think that's why I resonate with him so much...

Steven is a character I love, but he's not one I can fully relate to since his personality isn't much like mine. But Sven? He's the most similar to me out of the Core Six by far. At least, when *I* write him he is. (Even though most people seem to think I'm more like Druid... I think my online persona leans a little more towards him, but offline? Not so much).

As the AU progressed and ideas got added Sven kinda slipped away from me. If I realized how differently he was in my head vs how he was in everyone else's I don't think I would've let it go so far. Fact of the matter is... there's always been two versions of him and I was just too stupid to notice. And I got so frustrated with being told that I wasn't doing enough despite trying my best that I just decided it would be better if he wasn't my problem anymore. What was the point in stressing myself over something that was never mine to begin with?

I keep looking back and wondering what would've happened if I did things differently. If I never talked to X person, posted Y thing, asked Z question... If I went back in time, with the knowledge I have now, could I change the outcome?

I should've said no.

[wtl-archive]

Read all the pages in order here.

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Original Post

Artist Credit: Dimonds456

[wtl-archive]

Intermission 05: Dusk memory fraction.

Read all the pages in order here.

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Cannot believe I got away with this. This was so self indulgent it's not even funny. It's the one Intermission I made that's not giving out some kind of vital information. I really just said 'yeah lemme be cringe on main' and they just. let me do that. wild. Though having a bunch of connverse nerds on board was prolly helping a lot.

Artist Credit: NugatorySheep

[wtl-archive]

Intermission 04: Smile When You Say Goodbye

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Mmmmmmmm. I've got Feelings about this lemme tell ya... Von's a great character. I'm gonna miss them.

Artist Credit: NugatorySheep

[wtl-archive]

Intermission 03: Monster Line Epilogue

Read all the pages in order here.

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Artist Credit: NugatorySheep

Okay. We can finally talk about him. Because this? This is the last you're ever gonna see of him. (Which, to be fair, was the original intention.)

This was always planned. I know I've said that before, but I think it needs to be restated.

Before I had any idea how much I'd fall in love with these characters or their stories, before I had any idea of how I wanted anything organized, before I had any plans to keep Druid around after the first chapter, before I even had the explanation for what happened to Druid's timeline to have it be so bleak in the first place, I had this scene in my head. Its one of the only elements of his story that managed to stick throughout all the changes to the plot and all the additions to the story. This one bit stuck, and I actually managed to keep it close to how I initially envisioned it.

In the grand scheme of thing this isn't some revolutionary moment. I think that's why I managed to keep it at all, because in terms of getting Druid back into the story after chapter one it isn't absolutely mandatory, but it's not detrimental either. It has significance, but if it were never in the story to begin with the entire AU wouldn't fall apart. Besides the fact that it has Cactus' cameo, there's nothing objectively wrong with it. But this still means a lot to me, and it's not something I'm willing to just throw away.

When I first started scripting this AU, it was meant to be a series of snapshots in each of theses timelines. You get a glimpse of what the world is like, but there's plenty of room for people to fill in the gaps with their own interpretations about things. There's cliffhangers and unanswered questions that you're never supposed to get an answer for. You visit for a bit, get a snippet of the world's story, then you leave. Think the Twilight Zone, Black Mirror, or Love Death and Robots.

I like to joke a lot that I was going to kill Druid at the end of the first chapter, and while his death was pretty much an unavoidable ending for him even after I decided to make him a more permanent member of the cast, the original ending for him wasn't quite as simple as that. He would manage to capture White, and he would still get fully corrupted in the process, but that was it. We would never see him again, dead or alive. His final fate would be a mystery.

What we would see however, is where the bubble ended up: back at the temple, where the only sentient life that wasn't a gem monster was waiting. The oldest version of this was not a cactus Steven, just a generic plant Steven with a few other variants that were an array of different plants/veggies/fruits. And, now that all of the other Diamonds were caught, they would begin the process of healing the gems, starting with Pearl. Druid's timeline might be bleak, but this little moment gives a potential way out of the nightmare. Maybe there's still a chance for the gems to find a cure even if Druid can't.

You might think that's terrible storytelling, and that an ending should more satisfying than that. I'll agree to disagree. This story might be unorthodox, but it's not bad. There's things I wish I had done differently, but this isn't one of them.

So much of this AU's story got changed, deleted and shifted around. So much of it got taken out of my hands. That's to be expected of course given the nature of it, and I certainly wasn't expecting to be able to keep all of my original vision intact, that's just unrealistic. I said yes to a lot of things, some of which in hindsight probably shouldn't have. I tried my best to be accommodating at every possible turn. I tried, I did my best, and somehow it wasn't enough. Everyone thought that I didn't care. A year and half of work, but sure, I didn't care!

This first chapter was the one thing I could say was actually mine. Besides some things here and there, it was all me. Its the one territory that I owned, and it was the only thing I had left that I could say with any real confidence I did all on my own. This was me.

I'm saying all of this so you can understand why it bothered me so much when I was told to just delete it. There were so many things that I was okay throwing away prior to this. I removed a bunch of posts from the blog. I gave away two of my favorite characters. I relinquished control of so many things. This was the last thing that was MINE. This was ALL. I. HAD. LEFT. I was so tired of saying yes, or being pressured into doing what everyone else wanted to do. So for once in my worthless life, I said "no". I said no, and I wasn't going to give any other answer, Cappy and Liam be dammed.

Fact of the matter is, Cappy and Liam stopped being a problem for me the second they walked out the door, it was everyone else making it my problem that continued to make working on this AU a fucking nightmare. Cactus' overarching role in this AU was irrelevant the moment Cappy left, but this cameo was decided upon well before then and the original agreement was just this cameo and nothing more. All the stuff that was planned after that was just a bonus. This intermission was finished before he chose to leave. It still would've happened regardless of whether or not Cappy decided to expand Cactus to have his own timeline, and I refused to destroy the one thing I had left because of other people insisting Cappy keep being an issue for me despite him having fucked off months prior.

At the time I said no and left my answer at that. I didn't bother trying to pour out my heart and explain why this was so important to me because, well, every other time I tried to say no and explain why, it didn't matter. Any time my opinion was different, there was nothing I could say that would convince anyone to side with me. Despite being the supposed leader of this project, my voice was completely useless and I had no authority. Whenever I tried to set my foot down, I was the bad guy. It was always a fight and I always lost. This time there wasn't going to be a chance to fight, because I wasn't going to change my mind.

Just for once I wish I could get someone to take me seriously without having to be an asshole about it first.

[wtl-archive]

Intermission 01: Tiffany Stone’s Log. XXX.

Read all the pages in order here.

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File under: Characters I'm Mad Didn't Get An Appearance, And Were Actually Just Gonna Get Yeeted Into The Fucking Shadow Realm If This Story Kept Going Which Is Some Horseshit

I redesigned this character three fucking times and she never got to see the light of day regardless. And when I left the original blog she was going to outright get thrown away. I was definitely less salty about it then than I am now because there were about 20 other things I was far more upset about in comparison, but looking back I really wonder how tf she was planned to be written out and made irrelevant. Given that she's technically the first indication the readers would've gotten plot wise about the Mirror Line , the first character from it to get mentioned by name, and the first to make some kind of visual appearance (though not in this chapter), I just... it feels wrong.

A dumb thing to be upset about maybe, but it doesn't really matter now.

Fun fact: The reason this intermission was done so early, and why it's only text, is cause at the time I didn't have access to any drawing tools! I had to do this all with my mouse. Fun times.

Translation:

Retrieving archive of user “Tiffany Stone”.Please standby.

Archive Closed.Returning to Grand Suit Inbox.

Artist Credit: NugatorySheep

[wtl-archive]

Line Logbook Entry: Whitewashed Line.

In all my travels, this Line is, without a shadow of a doubt, the most terrifying. At first, I had no intention of recording the horrors that I had witnessed, but every time I close my eyes, my mind flashes back to the abysmal state of this Line.

After the shattering of Pink Diamond, rather than fire a Corrupting Light upon the Earth, White Diamond tried to use her ability to puppeteer Gems in an attempt to envelope every Gem in the universe into her warped idea of perfection. And while she succeeded in puppeteering every Gem in the universe, her mind has seemingly collapsed. As a result, every Gem throughout the entirety of the cosmos is a whitewashed husk of their former selves, mindlessly destroying anything and everything that is not one of them in a crude, violent approach to ridding all life of imperfection.

Rose, Pearl, Garnet: they are all empty shells of who they once were, slaughtering the very same humans they had rebelled against Homeworld to protect. The sight of it all was so violently tragic that I could not help but exit immediately, despite the Glass of Time not being fully charged. The consequence of this impulse is that the Glass is further damaged, but if I had stayed, I would have surely perished.

Read all the pages in order here.

Read all the Line Logbooks in order here.

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Writer Credit: MouseInABucket

[wtl-archive]

Line Logbook Entry: Extinction Line.

It is staggering the sheer number of Lines that Pearl is responsible for. Her love for Rose and the effect that Rose’s passing had on her seems to have led to such unpredictability in Pearl that the timeline is constantly branching as a result.

Take, for instance, the Extinction Line. Here, Pearl takes a young Steven Universe into space for a tour of the cosmos. What was supposed to be a lighthearted exploration of the wonders of the universe ends in tragedy as the duo returns to Earth, only to find that it has been completely annihilated, the other Crystal Gems (as well as the entire human race) wiped out of existence.

The mere fact that Pearl is still functional after such a degree of loss is unfathomable to me. How does any Gem manage to find a way to keep going after almost everyone they know and love destroyed in an instant?

Currently, the pair have been hopping from planet to planet, searching for a new residency; however, if this Pearl is anything like the Pearl from my own Line, the failure to protect the Earth that Rose had loved so deeply will eventually crush her. I do hope that, when that happens, Steven will have found other sentient life to connect with.

Steven and Pearl have asked me to stay in this Line with them. I feel immense sadness that I must leave them.

Read all the pages in order here.

Read all the Line Logbooks in order here.

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Writer Credit: MouseInABucket

[wtl-archive]

Line Logbook Entry: Liberator Line.

The more Lines I visit during my quest home, the more I have become convinced that who we are as individuals is fundamentally shaped by our experiences, more so than any innate “good” or “evil”. The most recent Line I have come in contact with only seems to further prove my point.

Shortly before the shattering of Pink Diamond, the Great Diamond Authority had begun collecting human specimens for a sick and twisted “zoo” from which they could observe and derive joy from their enslavement. Truly despicable. In this timeline, the ancestors of the modern day Mahaswaren family were among those taken.

Thousands of years later, in present day, one of their descendants, a young girl named C-12.75, escaped from the Human Zoo, using guerrilla tactics to wage violent warfare against Homeworld. And while I can understand and relate to rebellion against tyrannical forces, this Line’s Connie Mahaswaren has taken her violence several steps further than I ever would have, shattering Gems as they fell to their knees, begging for their lives.

This is not the Connie Mahaswaren from my Line, not the kind young girl who helped raise an infant Steven whilst the Crystal Gems went on missions and business was busy for Greg. This Connie Mahaswaren is someone else entirely. I would go so far as to say that this variant of Connie is evil.

Read all the pages in order here.

Read all the Line Logbooks in order here.

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Writer Credit: MouseInABucket