Oook, That Makes A Lot Of Sense. I'm Glad You Actually Take The Sheer Scale Of The Multiverse Into Account,

you know those cheeky shorts with ominous words on the back that tumblr loves?

good day/evening/morning/night :x) i have more questions, as always.

so, to start off, do monsters need to brush their teeth? in the carrd it says monster food is typically made by sending mana into plants and then preparing them as usual; so, cooking and baking, and i assume using spices and sugar. also importantly, plants tend to have more carbs than meat, and sugar and carbs are both great for bacteria to start producing an unnecessary amount of acid that attacks the enamel. so, question is, does magic somehow offset that, or what?

that was all actually asked to lead up to this True question... do the pantheon members brush their teeth? are the teeth of one of them more clean than the others'? anyone with cavities or very yellow teeth?

also, i would love to know if any of them have any fucked up teeth going on. abaddon has an underbite, but do we got any rotated teeth, cramming, additional teeth, missing teeth, chipped teeth, etc.? also also... does nightmare even... have... teeth...?

this is probably the most specific question i've gotten yet, and to be honest, it's been kind of fascinatingly difficult to answer. (/pos xD)

my first thought in response to this was "well, do monsters sweat?" and we know that they do — i remember seeing plenty of monsters sweat in the original game, including sans in the genocide route — but on second thought i realized that didn't actually tell us anything about whether or not bacteria affects a monster. and i don't think we actually have much canon info about that, but going by TAU's established rules about how monsters are constructed — essentially just a handful of ash suspended by a bunch of energy and willpower — i think the answer is "it affects them, but not as much as a human." humans, essentially being bags of raw meat, have to basically be moving or bathing nonstop their whole lives to prevent bacteria from ruining their day, but monsters simply don't have much for bacteria to want.

likewise, magic food doesn't typically have a shitload of physical matter to it, either. plants became the popular option because 1: they're easy and fast to make more of and 2: they hold onto their existing matter better than animals do when loaded with mana. that isn't to say that animals have no mana or that plants are immune to matter loss; just more resistant to it due to the rigidity of their cells. monster food is said to never spoil, and that would be why; the mana converts perfectly (and almost immediately) into energy, and there's just barely enough physical matter left over to replace any lost dust. that's not a lot of material for bacteria to detect, let alone do shit with.

so TLDR; i think hygiene is still important for monsters, but... less intensive, let's say. they have to worry more about literal muck and grime than bacteria, usually, unless they regularly do something that gets more bacteria-friendly messes on their clothes. it's difficult for a monster to get stinky unless it's actively rubbing stinky shit on itself. i don't think most monsters would have any need to brush their teeth unless they were eating human food, but even in that case, any existing bacteria would be targeting the food and not the monster — brushing would mostly be to clean anything stuck between the teeth.

TLDR #2: most of the pantheon members probably don't brush their teeth, no. in fact, i think cross and horror are the only monsters who regularly bathe — cross as a comfort thing and horror because his body genuinely needs the maintenance, being, yanno... more meaty. killer keeps himself clean but mostly through spot-cleaning, and dust should clean himself a lot more than he does, but yanno. depression.

(cross definitely also brushes, but yeah, he doesn't technically need to. and whether or not abaddon technically needs to bathe post-Accident is kind of... nebulous... but they'd feel gross if they stopped, so, yanno.)

given that context, i think the condition of most of the pantheon members' teeth are... surprisingly decent, all things considered? the worst that come to mind are horror's teeth; they're not built quite like human teeth, but wear and tear have thinned them and stained them a bit — you can see that in his model, it almost looks like he has "gums", coincidentally in places that would be more difficult to clean. that's just staining. and abaddon does have a little bit of an underbite, yeah, but their teeth should realistically be much worse than they are — they used to be very crooked (enough that it gave them a nasty lisp, and coincidentally made it difficult enough to clean that they ended up with a bunch of cavities), but their parents were very image-obsessed, so baby abaddon ended up with braces (and the corresponding dietary restrictions) for like 3 whole years. that was such an unpleasant experience for them that they got kind of obsessive about oral hygiene after, so as to avoid any further trips to a dentist/orthodontist.

honestly, this is all kind of funny for me to realize? IRL, i'm a big fan of crooked teeth; generally speaking i think they're a lot more charming than hollywood cookie-cutter pearly-whites, and i prefer natural looks in general. but the "worst" that abaddon has got going on (besides the gap between their front teeth, which returned despite their best efforts) is a bit of yellowing due to all the tea they drink — but it's not super noticeable because, again, abaddon is canonically kind of hygiene-obsessed. and even then, teeth (and bones in general) are kind of naturally yellowish, so. ?? who even notices that??

as for nightmare, though — i'm actually glad you asked!

for nightmare's 3D model, there's a specific effect i want to emulate. i saw this for the first time while watching a playthrough of Valle Verde:

when i saw this effect, i absolutely fell in love with it for nightmare.

this is yet another thing i'll have to learn more about textures for before i can accomplish it, though; i still want nightmare's default "smile" to be changeable (and to disappear completely when needed), which is why he's currently muppeting it up in all his WIPS xD

when he's done, the seam where his mouth opens should be invisible, with a smile (or other expressions) just painted on. as for whether or not he has teeth, well... it depends on if he needs them, i guess!

i just wanted to quickly say — things are still pretty tight right now with my bf's little brother staying with him, so while i wouldn't necessarily say i'm in an emergency, if you can afford to toss a couple of dollars my way for groceries/toiletries it would be a huge help qwq

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i really appreciate all the support so far, not just with money but with my ventures into 3D on the side; it's been really keeping me going!

i accidently deleted my long ask... [dead.]

i'll try again. short version: does cross deal with gender-related dysphoria? considering he grew up being forced into a certain role, which is atypical for monsters, and the fact that it was once mentioned (as an offhand comment meant as an example) in a post about monster gender expression that cross may have to lean harder into masculine representation if he wants to be gendered correctly at first sight... well, i imagine it means a lot to him to have something that was denied to him for so long, and i figure those two are correlated.

i also get the feeling he's an overall rigid guy, reflected in the way his ocd manifests, so i imagine that might very well be part a of it, as well. does he not allow himself certain things out of fear he'll be misgendered? is he overall comfortable with himself? does he ever feel like he has to overcompensate?

i tip my hat. have a nice day!

short answer: YES, jesus christ, cross has a LOT of dysphoria xD

(unrelated but i am SO flattered that you remembered that detail!)

you're right on the money though, yeah. one of cross' biggest obsessions is his self-image, and a lot of that stems from dysphoria because his dad (the source of most of this) was very much the "woman belong in the kitchen supporting real men (me)" type. the funny thing is that cross' overcompensation might not always register to us because it's all based on his understandings of human culture, which in turn comes from his father's understandings of it — it's very much a game of chinese telephone, where things have been translated nearly into meaninglessness based only on second-hand observation. that is to say: most humans would only see a monster mimicking "human culture" with info clearly from movies and books, and since monsters are naturally extremely social, that isn't really seen as weird.

the most immediate (and comical) example that comes to mind: when it comes to alcohol, cross will ONLY drink beer.

does he LIKE beer? no; he thinks it tastes like rotten bread. he only drinks it because humans (specifically the kind of english-speaking cultures his father took inspiration from) say it's masculine, and he doesn't want cute guys and gals at the bar to see him drinking some fruity cocktail and come talking to him like he's a woman. he also doesn't tell anyone he bakes, to such an extent that it takes multiple years of knowing him (or a really, really bad sleep schedule) to finally catch him doing it. he used to wear a headscarf as a kid (because his dad insisted and he was too young to realize why), and he actually DID like how that looked on him, but the second he realized it made people see him Wrong he burned it and never touched another one.

(the second, admittedly sadder example: cross is bisexual, but he never dates anyone, and only ever flirts with women. he's heard and seen that humans see gay men as lesser feminine, and he's not secure enough in his own self image to risk it. god FUCKING forbid anyone finds out he wants to bottom; he would literally rather die.)

this is actually one of the many reasons that tension develops between him and abaddon; abaddon threatens everything he knows in (many) more ways than one, but the fact that they're an extremely secure trans guy on top of that is just spit on his fucking ice cream.

here's a question i've had before: how does monster aging work in mtau?

for example, horror is 58 yrs old if i remember correctly, does that make him relatively old or is their lifespan usually longer than humans'? (i imagine average lifespans also differ between boss monsters and the rest)

TAU horror is 54, but close!

i'm pretty sure i've talked about monster aging before but i can't remember where the post is — TLDR; a monster's llfespan depends on how much mana it generates, which typically correlates (at least roughly) to its size. it also isn't a straight graph of "more magic = more life", because mana slowly wears down a monster's leylines similarly to how oxygen slowly "burns" our cells; there's a sweet spot in the middle where you can have enough mana to live a long time but not enough to burn your body and SOUL alive from the inside.

(and you're correct: most boss monsters normally sit somewhere around this sweet spot, hence their longevity irrespective of size. :>)

how quickly an overabundance of mana can kill you also depends on the type of body you have, which is why it's important to consider the "race" of monster. ghosts and skeletons, for example, don't have a lot of physical matter even by monster standards, which means that even though their leylines play a more important role in their bodies they're also more resistant to those leylines getting worn down. this corresponds to the idea of "undead" monsters living a very long time.

(...that said, the point where a monster reaches "maturity" also depends on the type of monster. generally speaking, more humanoid monsters will reach maturity rouuuughly the same time as a human — maybe a bit older or younger. this is, again, more to do with the size of the monster than the shape; if a monster was humanoid but also the size of a cup they'd probably reach maturity in just a few weeks. but most humanoid monsters in undertale are also humanoid in size, so... let's take that as a hesitant norm across most universes.)

anyway, with that out of the way, and given the context that all of the pantheon members (obviously save abaddon and nightmare) are boss monsters (lots of mana) AND skeletons (not a lot of physical matter to burn), this means that their lifespans are naturally going to be very, very long. like, at least a couple thousand years a piece. (which seems overbalanced until you remember that skeletons are typically pretty rare in their home universes; seeing more than 3-5 in one spot would normally be very strange, multiversal shenanigans aside.) HORROR, however, comes from an anomalous universe where monsters are made of flesh and blood instead of dust, which means that he does have a lot of matter — and that unfortunately means that he is going to have one of the shortest lifespans on the team besides dust himself, who already suffers heavy leyline damage from the condition he has that causes his body to overproduce mana.

all that to say: horror is still pretty young by skeleton standards, but he'll probably only live a couple hundred years (if he's lucky) as opposed to the more typical few thousand. that's not to say that he's a child, either, of course — all of the skeletons are well past the age of maturity, and in that way "their" 54 isn't really different from 54 in a human — but he's not quite on his deathbed yet, so no need to worry.

so i'd say horror (specifically) is like... late 20's, in human years?

I’ve discovered my new favorite gimmick account on twitter lmao

I forgot abt this account :D but just thought I’d share some sketches on my baby Cresent

i really like what you're doing with your own characters and general utmv interpertations. you seem to be having a lot of fun; it's inspiring. also, i love your designs for the kids + how you draw skeletons, it's awesome :x) my favorite is goth. (i'm a tall goth believer)

I thought it would be funny to force Tourist to be a babysitter as punishment for his ✨prank crimes against the multiverse✨, so I found the offspring wiki (yes, that is a thing) and decided which children he’s stuck with. I did take some liberties with some designs, like combining Palette’s first and updated design (just because I felt like it) and giving Goth Doc Martens. And made PJ a leash kid.

For personal amusement, Tourist refuses to use their names so:

Palette is Captain Hat

Goth is Emo

Crescent is Croissant

Paperjam is Pajamas (original,he knows)

And Blueprint is Bluey because you’ll never guess how much Bluey he’s watched.

Only Palette actually likes his nickname, but that’s because his is actually cool.

IT STILL HIS BDAY BECAUSE I SAID SO

*i say as they drag me into an asylum

Art collab ft CripoJC (twitter

This is Jim Sinclair, at the time going by Toby. They are a neuter, asexual and intersex enban, and a seminal autism activist. They have been an educator on transneutral nonbinary identity, non-binary transition, the anti binarist position and intersex issues for decades. This is an interview with them from the 1980s, talking about their experience as a non-binary/genderqueer person at a time where the community was just coming together.

"In a 1997 introduction to the Intersex Society of North America, Sinclair wrote, "I remain openly and proudly neuter, both physically and socially."

Nonbinary people have always existed, and will always exist. Happy Trans History Week! 💛🤍💜🖤

and thus, the fifth and final image in the gaster backlog has arrived. i'll still be posting old stuff i dredge up from time to time, and some of it will definitely be gaster, but that's all the curated ones for now!