Error Sans and his haphephobia.
More so, how people take his haphephobia and twist it WAY out of proportion.
This will be a long post. Feel free to skip over this.
HAPHEPHOBIA ; What is it?
Haphephobia is fairly rare, and often triggered by things such as abuse / sexual abuse or because of unidentifiable reasons. Error's, as we can assume, is caused by his glitching and just a fear of sudden touch in general. (Keep that 'sudden' part in mind.)
Haphephobia, as mentioned in the screenshot, is different to hypersensitivity. Haphephobia doesn't cause a person any pain, it causes emotional distress at the thought of being touched. This can vary from person to person- Everyone experiences phobias in different ways.
DOES ERROR HAVE HAPHEPHOBIA? ; Or is it a fandom headcanon?
Yes. Error canonically has haphephobia, as stated by LoverOfPiggies.
WHY IS IT RELEVANT? ; Can I just ignore it?
NO. You can't just ignore a serious phobia. It's a part of Error, you can't pick and choose when it comes to his character. I know, I know, "It gets in the way of my art!" "It gets in the way of my fics!", but you can WORK AROUND IT. Deal with it. BUT, as I'll get into, it doesn't completely ruin your fics that apparently NEEEEEEED Error to touch someone.
SO HOW CAN I 'REMOVE' IT? ; Is it just there forever? Do I have to use it?
Yes and no. Haphephobia is actually treatable, as is most EVERY phobia. It's silly to think otherwise. I've seen a couple of very sweet fics where Error (with proper support) learns to get over the phobia and become able to touch people with ease. This is the.. Uh, chaotic neutral route? Considering you are, in a sense, removing his haphephobia, but acknowledging it's there and it's life-altering in some cases. In art this is a lot harder, since you'd need tons and tons of comic pages to cover him learning to ease off the fear just to draw a piece of Classicerror or Retroglitch fanart.
HOW TO CORRECTLY PORTRAY ; Error's haphephobia.
This is only relevant to ERROR. Haphephobia differs from person to person, monster to monster :3
Can he touch people? ; ... Yes.
Error partaking in a handshake, from Season One of Ask Error by LoverOfPiggies !! :3
Some key points occur in the moments leading up to this scene and the scene itself.
An ask or two before, an anon asked to hug Error. Error happily declines, because he "would mess it up". Not because he's terrified of being touched, because he's scared of messing it up. Pathetic wet cat behaviour.
In the scene above, we see Error initiate and enjoy a handshake! In fact, for the next couple asks, he doesn't even take his had away from "Paragon"- He simply holds their hand absently. UNTIL someone points out that their handshake has crossed over into hand-holding, and anons start "shipping" the two, THAT'S when Error becomes pissed and rips his hand away. So clearly, he's fine with touch to some extent, mostly when politely asked to be touched or initiating touch of his own will.
This is when the haphephobia comes into play. (Actually, this event happens before the shipping stuff, as seen from Error still holding "Paragon"s hand.)
The anon hugs Error WITHOUT warning, WITHOUT consent, at random. THIS is what sets Error's haphophobia off, THIS is what makes him really pissed.
As seen, Error starts shaking and the errors around his body become more erratic. His eyesockets go blank, he freezes, he goes into "freeze mode" before going straight to "fight mode".
So, from this we can gather, Error can initiate touch and doesn't mind consentual touch at most times.
He does have moments where he isn't fine with touch, which is okay! I'm the same, with my autism and sensory issues! He's valid in not wanting to be touched, and as long as he expresses discomfort and fellow monsters are undertanding, everything's fine.
Error's haphephobia does not flare up from the smallest handshake or a side hug. He can touch other monsters, he just doesn't want to sometimes! And people touching him out of the blue, he isn't fine with that, which makes sense!! Who does want random contact out of NO WHERE? No one !! (I don't think..)
Error lags when he's touched! ; Actually, Error is never shown to 'lag'. It's a fun headcanon, though! ^_^
Error bluescreens ; This is just another headcanon, which is fun to fiddle with, but not canon!
Error can crash and reboot like an old computer ; Yes, actually! In Season Two of Ask Error, he does reboot after a considerable amount of stress (?).
Anyways, thanks for listening to the yapper! Uh, feel free to correct me on anything if I got somethings wrong!! ^_^ Love you all!! Mwah mwah mwah!!/p
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