A lot of common Undertale-related debates revolve around the morality of a character.
But among these, the one about Sans' reaction to Papyrus' death somewhat stands out. Both because of how widespread it is, but also because of the way two opposite yet equally inaccurate interpretations of it repeatedly seem to clash against one another.
So let's take a look at how Sans actually behaves in Undertale after his brother is killed :
First, we can observe a number of changes in his behavior, showcasing that he is not unaffected by it.
To start with an obvious one, the fact that nearly all of Sans' other casual appearances during that playthrough will be gone, Sans just... doesn't show up.
No pranks with telescopes, no stacking 29 hotdogs on your head.
While one flavor text with Shyren mentions that he is still 'watching over us' in some form even then due to his promise, he is evidently not as thrilled about this as usual.
But his lack of enthusiasm when it comes to watching over Frisk isn't the only thing that changes.
For instance, there is a present for Papyrus under the tree in Snowdin. However, as soon as Papyrus is killed and Sans vanishes, the present disappears along with him. Implying that Sans has retrieved the gift that his brother will not be able to open anymore.
He also appears to not have gone to Grillby's after our passage in Snowdin this time around. Something that's apparently quite unusual for him as it is part of his routine for that time of day.
And of course, in some iterations of his judgement scene in neutral routes :
...Needless to say that claiming Sans is totally unaffected by the death of his brother is inaccurate. While we do not see much of it, it is fairly solidly implied that Sans does grief his brother at least in his own way. And he does hold it against us to an extent.
However, that isn't all there is to it.
Sans' knowledge of RESETs does play a role in the way he handles the situation. Just not quite in the way it is often portrayed.
First, Sans may be aware of resets, but he does not remember them. This means that for a given Sans, the loss of his brother still feels permanent for that particular timeline iteration's Sans.
Knowing his brother will probably be alive again in another timeline eventually doesn't mean his loss in this one isn't real. Even if it does happen, he will not be there to see it. At least not this version of him.
However, Sans does still have a couple tricks up his sleeve, that maybe, if things work out, could spare of that fate the other Sans'es.
I showed this line earlier on :
However, this line isn't just Sans showing us his feelings about our actions. Instead, it is a part of a much more tricky strategy Sans begins engaging in after Papyrus is killed :
Psychological warfare.
The anomaly has reset this world many times before, and in neutral routes, he is left with the impression that it will likely do so again. This thought had previously been a demotivating one for Sans as he explained in genocide.
This was the case whilst Sans lived a semi-regular life under the constant threat of everything being undone on the snap of a finger.
However, now that what Sans incorrectly believes to be the anomaly has revealed itself and killed his brother, the situation has actually somewhat changed.
A reset, while it would wipe out his memories, would still bring his brother back to a different Sans. Papyrus' death doesn't have to be truly permanent. Because of this, Sans now wants the anomaly to reset. Not to keep doing it forever, but at least just one more time, to make sure that this timeline won't be the one that'll end up sticking around for good.
He also has a secondary motive :
While he is at it, he might also try to get the anomaly to changes its ways. Of course, Sans knows he's not a time traveller, not a god, but just a guy who is probably not capable of forcing a being such as the anomaly to change.
That being said, maybe, just maybe, he could help in giving it a little push to make it decide to want to change on its own.
To incite a RESET to happen, Sans has one main strategy : Making the anomaly regret its actions.
Sans believes that the anomaly keeps on RESETing the world because it is unable to find fulfillment, and that it keeps consuming timelines out of a desire to find happiness one way or another.
Thus, Sans aims to make the anomaly feel like this timeline can't be what they were looking for. Ensuring that, for the anomaly's quest for happiness to continue, they will have no choice but to reset this timeline as well.
That is the reason why Sans asks us this question :
The question was very carefully chosen on his part.
It both serves to confirm the anomaly's identity, but also more importantly, no matter what they answer, it allows him to either point out that the anomaly's actions did not match with their own morals, or forces them into making a selfish confession which he can then use to make them feel like they've done the wrong thing.
In either case, Sans is able to present his brother's death as an event that would only bring the anomaly further unhappiness. And thus, might get the anomaly to reach by itself the conclusion that the only way for it to find happiness now would be to RESET this world once more and avoiding killing Papyrus again in the future. A pretty good outcome for Sans.
This is what he refers to as taking it the 'easy way' to deal with an aggressive anomaly in a few routes. (as opposed to the 'hard way' he mentions halfway through his genocide dialogue).
In the neutral endings in which Papyrus was slain, Sans once again attempts a similar strategy. Although the awareness that a RESET still hasn't taken place even after quite some time passed since the anomaly was last seen in the underground & his last attempt at it is likely quite worrying to him.
This leads him to be a little more blunt than last time when it comes to the ways he tries to make the anomaly feel like this timeline isn't the one. Although his approach method remains broadly the same.
Though these lines are still rather noteworthy :
Given Sans wants the anomaly to go back, they might sound odd to hear at first.
It turns out that the more brutal we have been throughout the run, the less optimistic Sans' approach to dealing with the anomaly becomes during the phone call.
Here, Sans might be trying to play on another bleaker aspect of his psychological profiling of the anomaly : The consideration that they may view the world as a kind of game to explore, in which if they 'can', then they 'have to'.
By saying it is not welcome down here, he is also saying that it won't be able to keep exploring the possibilities of this world unless it makes them all forget everything.
In another of the neutral endings where both Toriel and Papyrus are killed, Sans seems to begin to doubt wether the anomaly can really be redeemed after all.
This all ultimately culminates in the leaderless endings.
In this one, Sans acknowledges that this is likely not our first time hearing him saying those kinds of things over the phone.
And that his 'strategy' seems to have failed to push it towards the right path.
In this route, Sans appears to have reached a similar conclusion as in the genocide one, that his hope of a redeemable anomaly merely looking for happiness may have been just naive/wishful thinking on his part after all.
In sum, Sans' awareness of the RESETs does not prevent him from missing his brother if Papyrus is killed. However, it allows him to weaponise his own grief using the psychological profile he has made of the anomaly in order to attempt to push it to RESET. Although he knows his own memories would be wiped out if he is successful, it would ensure Papyrus' death isn't permanent. Depending on the run, he also still harbors a dwindling hope that the anomaly itself could be steered towards a better path.
He mostly just needs to convince them to RESET one way or another though.
Past that point, it'll be up to the other Sans'es.
cuestion of the day if dreamtale has two sanses wount make sense to have two paparyus as well ? ( as fas as i know i only seen one in that and they barely interact )
While they're somewhat Sans-adjacent, Dream and Nightmare are not Sanses. According to Dreamtale's original lore, Nim, the guardian of the Tree of Feelings, created Dream and Nightmare as two sentient balls of energy and then used Underswap Sans as a blueprint to give them bodies to inhabit.
So Dream and Nightmare are basically energy sprites piloting skeleton bodies. Kinda.
That said, it's never been confirmed whether the universe where the Tree of Feelings (or its stump) resides has/had its own versions of UT characters, Sans included.
Hi!! Does Undyne know Wingdings in this AU? Like what kind of relationship do they have? Or did they not know each other at all?
Also! Does Wingdings consider Alphys as a friend? Or like is he just very professional about it and sees everyone as colleagues? And like does he feel sad if he doesn’t have friends? Cause i know the current Papyrus feels very upset (I think) because he doesn’t have as many friends as Sans or something like that
1- Does Wingdings know Undyne?
Nope! They don't know each other
2-Does Wingdings consider Alphys a friend?
Uh... he's not quite there yet..... but let's give him some time....
3- Is he sad that he doesn't have any friends?
He has friends!!! Like!!!! Sans!!! And!!! Himself!!!
Okay, but seriously, he's not sad about it because he gave up with that a long time ago
It's not something he cares about so it doesn't make him sad, he's not lonely! Sans is there! That's probably enough! Maybe!
Papyrus DOES care a lot about relationships and connections with other people, but he has no experience, he's trying really hard though!!
The fact that he had no clear idea of what he wanted or why he wanted it wasn't helping him either
And yeah it must have felt bad that no matter how hard he tried he just seemed to fail where his brother succeeded without trying
But don't worry! Right now in the post pacifist timeline he's been doing quite good! There's still progress to be made but he's friends with Undyne and frisk, he's been getting to know Asgore, Toriel and many other people, he's still training with Alphys, he's met new people in the surface and he's been hanging out with Flowey much more!
I'm sorry to spring that on you all, and I'm sorry for any spelling mistakes I might have, I've been thinking about making this post for a while but I realise I can't exactly word anything serious well when my personality usually consists of :3. But this IS serious, and I need your help
You might've noticed that I haven't been able to post for a few days or so, I've injurrd my arm due to overuse and strain, and I won't be able to use it for a while, typing this right now as o am is hurting me more but I needed to make this announcement one way or another.
I need to get to work the second I believe it's healed. But I can't go to the doctor, I can't afford that, I've got bigger things to worry about. I'm here to ask for your help, I'm currently hoping to help my mom pay for the bills, and this is the only way I know how to do it.
I'll be opening commissions, unfortunately only the usual sketch stuff that I do, and unfortunately it WILL be delayed until I can move my arm afain
8$ per character
15$ full colored per character
payment method is PAYPAL
Please DM me if you want to comm
Please help only if you CAN, if not, reblogs are GREATLY appreciated. Again, I'm sorry for the inconveniences and delay, once I get my arm healed I'll work on these IMMEDIATELY, if not, I'll work on them even with the conditions I'm in If I have to.
okay. im gonna go off memory. so if i get anything wrong someone correct me.
- Error’s glasses have been around since Aftertale! Geno got them from Alphys with the wrong prescription. Because Geno is.. well, himself, he decided that the shitty prescription was “good enough” and rolled with it.
- Error is nearsighted. In the askerror comic Swap paps is seen standing far away. He is blurry. The closer he got to Error, the clearer his image became
- Error’s REAL name is Gaylord Scooter Brighton (im not making this up)
- Contrary to popular belief, Error can feel guilt. Guilt is hinted at in CQ’s summary of what could’ve been (a completed Error comic much like Aftertale).
- Error Papyrus and Error Undyne are canonical characters within his story. I, however, don’t enjoy them as much as I enjoy Error himself, so they’re irrelevant to me
- Errors are literally some sort of species. Error isn’t the only one (Circuit, Proferror, the ones mentioned above, Blueberror). My memory might be failing me but I remember hearing that an Error’s “last thought” before becoming corrupted is very important. Why? I forgot. Is this actually true? I forgot, but i cant be bothered to check
- Error IS suicidal. After destroying all fhe AUs, he will kill himself. In addition, Error would kill himself if he ever became mentally sane enough to understand how hypocritical he is.
- Error has a sensitivity to Papyrus. He doesn’t like being asked about him, or “his brother.” In addition, he struggles to kill them, shown in the AskError comic as well. Geno’s still in there and it’s sooo so amazing to think about
- Error’s very insecure. Although the idea of him being this slay girlypop feather boa wearing king is amazing, he could never. I remember seeing a comic where he indirectly says he dislikes himself. Which makes sense— his narcissistic characteristics definitely stem from insecurity. “i feel like i’m the worst so i’ll act like im the best” mentality (we genuinely relate too much to this).
- Error canonically has five blue tongues
- Error’s glitches temporarily blind him at random. Yes, it happens when he is agitated or upset, but it also comes and goes as it pleases.
- Error’s glitches are painful. Crashes are painful. The scene of him first pulling strings from his sockets was likely EXTREMELY agonizing (i’m pretty sure he said it hurt himself while showing it all to blue).
- Error’s portals do seem to have some sort of replay ability. After all, how else could he have shown Blue what happened to himself?
- He’s very lonely. He wants friends. Living friends.
- CQ stated that Error is INTENTIONALLY made to make no sense. His character doesn’t make sense to you? Good! That’s the point! He’s an enigma that doesn’t even understand himself.
- Error can see and read code as if he were looking at a computer screen. He likes picking through the code of an AU before he destroys it
- Error loves Outertale and Undernovela. He will never finish his little job.
CROW DTIYS | I think I’m like super late to the party on this lol but I wanted to finish this before I start studying like hell ,:) first time drawing in this perspective and I don’t know how to draw shoe so here sock 🧦
I always find stuff depicting Error teaming up Nightmare and his gang inherently funny for a really dumb headcanon reason.
Imagine, for a moment, that swap has just joined the star sanses as their third member. He still has a lot to learn about the multiverse as a whole, but so far he’s handling it well, all things considered! Ink and Dream are helping him train, teaching him all the little things they’ve learnt over their years to get the upper hand, all that jazz.
Then it happens.
Nightmare is fucking with an AU and they have to go deal with it. Ink and Dream reassure him it’ll be fine, that if things do start to look dicey, they can swoop in and give him a little help, but they think he’ll handle it perfectly well on his own!
In a scenario where Error is helping Nightmare, Ink immediately shoots off to go fight Error instead of staying to help Swap and Dream follows soon after to face off with Nightmare.
This makes sense to Swap, those two duos have been fighting for years and match each other in strength, so obviously it’s a good idea for him to not be the one to fight them.
Swap turns to face his opponent, confident in his own strength and ready to prove why he has why it takes to be a member of the Star Sanses!!!!
Horror, Killer, Dust and Cross all stare at him, weapons drawn.
In an instant Swap’s priorities switch from ‘Defeat the enemy and prove myself’ to ‘Don’t die, don’t die, don’t die, DON’T DIE’
Ink and/or Dream have to come to his rescue pretty quick once they realize maybe a 4v1 against seasoned murderers wasn’t as manageable as they thought and save him from getting torn to shreds.
That day, he learns two things.
1) Nightmare has a lot more lackeys then he thought
And
2) Maybe don’t trust his teammates (immortal, demi-gods, hundreds of years old, magically gifted) to judge how much he (mortal, regular skeleton of a regular age and magic) can actually handle whilst they go fight their equally powerful counterparts……
(IMPORTANT NOTE: this post is a kind of re-do of this one , which i submitted to @papyrus-onlyblogokay 's blog and it was the first time i wrote a big post in my life . then when they post it , i got surprised because i forgot it and my way of writing was trash XD so because i was an idiot i also forgot to thank them for submitting it T^T I'm only re-doing it because of my way of explaining , not because it's submitted on your blog ! THANK YOU SO MUCH !!!)
what was i going to say .. YES .
a lot of people was wondering why papyrus SPEAKS LIKE THIS , and till now they didn't know why , and some of them say it's because of his "energetic nature" , few others say " because he's autistic" (and i agree that he's an autistic) .. but seems that no one digged that deep to find out the reason ..
EXPECT FOR ME HAHAHAHHAHA !!!!
so I'm going to tell you why papyrus (and some other monsters) speak in UPPERCASE ! LET'S GO!!
firstly , when someone speaks in all UPPERCASE ,it means they're load . but (especially in Undertale) why would make a person to speak load ?
because papyrus never speaks normally , I'll first analys the "others" so we know what is UPPERCASE (or speaking loadly) used for ? or what it means?
1. METTATON (the popular example) :
we all know that metteton always speaks in UPPERCASE until he transforms to metteton ex .
and the time he was in his box form , he was going along with alphys' plan . and even acts he's hurt when you attack him . he's ACTing . he's not showing you his real self .
and after he's mettaton ex , and after we know his acts are all a part of alphys' plan , he just .. speaks normally .
2.MIGOSP (an example that I'm sure no one knew XD):
"wtf who's that?" migosp is a cool monster we meet in ruins . when he speaks in UPPERCASE ?
basically , when there's other monsters around him ..
why i said he's " cool" ? he's just like the others ! he acts like a true enemy ! he attacks us!
then , when he's alone :
he speaks normally .. expect his text is shaking .
nothing like alone time ! finally I'm my self !! just look how he transformed from an enemy to a friend ! he even doesn't attack you , only dancing !
it seems that he acts friendly with you only when he's alone , maybe because he's afraid of doing so in front of others so they don't judge him for that. (you know , you're a human , and it's hard to be friends with you )
you know ? this monster reminds me a lot of papyrus .. especially when the narrator talks about him " it seems evil , but it's just with the wrong crowd" ...
so what does speaking load mean ?
means ACTING . or even LYING. and the person in front of you isn't being themselves . just like how metteton and migosp have shown us .
and those monsters ( mettaton and migosp) only spoke loud at some point , then had a chance to be themselves and spoke normally ....
does that mean ...
... Papyrus never showed his true self THE WHOLE GAME??
(I'm not surprised actually)
papyrus never stops speaking loud . HE ALWAYS TALKS LIKE THIS .
he .. never showed us who he's truly..
fuck you , papyrus ...
STOP BEING MYSTERIOUS !!!!! WHAT DID YOU LEAVE FOR YOUR BROTHER ??????!!! WHAT DID YOU EVEN LEAVE FOR THE WORD "MYSTERY" ????!!!
* i imagined this with gaster's voice *
BONUS :
Speaking in lowercase
so we finally know what speaking loadly means (and it's not a really good meaning)
but , what does speaking quietly (lowercase) mean then??
we know that sans speaks always like this , but like papyrus , we need another monster who spoke like sans once ..
alphys
in her determination experiment , she was quite anxious and afraid ,and when things went worse , she started speaking in lowercase . and when things went a little bit better , she spoke normally .
so , what does speaking in lowercase mean?
it means the person in front of you is anxious , and pessimistic . and is afraid of the future .
( and whether the text was uppercase or lowercase , it's not a "skelebros only " thing to do . )
and here we have ...
sans . who always speaks like this .
so .. is he THE WHOLE GAME , anxious and pessimistic ?
yes .
he is ..
"but ! in pacifist he shou-"
let me tell you something .. about the skelebros first .
if you noticed , they have shared points here :
sans is anxious ( according to speaking in lowercase) and papyrus is also anxious ( his battle theme is named after anxiety)
papyrus never showed his true self ( according to speaking in uppercase , and many evidences) and sans , um , well , at least he showed us that he has two sides .
( i LOVE their dynamic hduucownxballwozbznqlzo)
and probably nothing changed in their way of speaking in pacifist because sans may still afraid that you'll reset and is anxious , and papyrus won't show you his true face even here . (and papyrus only has shaking text more in pacifist )
also , i wanted to analyze gaster's lines depending on lower or upper case (because you know , he did speak like that ) but I don't think I'm the best person to do it .. maybe the best one would be @skellfamily or @papyrus-onlyblogokay or @paps-supporter :/
Ah! Amazing theory! 💙Even better now that you tinkered with it!
Im ngl im kind of getting icecap vibes from migosp 👀
Icecap is all cocky and confident untill you take of his cap, where he reveal his inner thoughts about himself (WHICH HOLY SHIT- IS REALLY DEPRESSING...FOR ME)
Mabye.. We just gotta.. Take off papyrus 'cap' like we did with migosps 'crowd'
Napstablook also speaks in lower caps, and they're very pessimistic and nervous at all times. They also do speak their mind and outright tell you how they feel. So this theory does hold water. :O
might be a controversial/unpopular opinion but i headcanon that any classic variant of sans has some sort of superiority complex going on. maybe not exactly that, but they're some flavor of self-righteous, i guess?
OKAY LISTEN. i'm not saying sans is a bad guy or anything (i love him very much i swear). canon sans is written really well in the sense that he's intentionally very vague and mysterious so we can speculate a lot on his past and intentions throughout the story. idk, maybe my reading is completely off but sans appears to me as a lovable asshole, especially to someone who is a child (frisk). he likes playing around with frisk - yeah it's harmless but still his advice tends to be vague, especially when it comes to battle tips lmao. just imagine in-universe how terrible his advice comes off to a child.
and like, the restaurant scene. sans is intentionally acting all blithe about letting a child die on his watch, under a promise - like i know it's supposed to be a funny off-hand comment to the player, but in-universe again he addresses this to a child. it's just- lmao this guy has some problems for sure.
i think being self-righteous is just tied to his role as a judge as well. he's always 'right' in his judgement, because that's what he is. i think it's just interesting to explore that particular aspect of sans' personality, that he acts in what he thinks is right, and he's always right, isn't he? maybe that's why i tend to enjoy undertale stories where sans somewhat assumes the role of the antagonist - it creates some fantastic dynamic with people around him who it seems like he never really connects well.
~ crowshipping anon
Crow!! Yayy!!
And I honestly kinda vibe with this interpretation honestly. I haven’t completely finished playing all the Undertale games myself (curse my lack of motivation 😭), but I watched a few playthroughs here and there, and it seems like something that could make sense.
Especially when he’s given such an important position like a being a Judge, his opinions and judgements are likely taken seriously by Asgore.
And the thing is, you can also make an argument for this with our most popular classic variants; the Murder Time Trio. Murder justifies what he does as being better that he does it instead of the human, justifies it with that he will eventually stop the human.
Really, he may even argue that his current actions don’t really even go against his job as the Judge; he has judged that the human must be stopped, and he has to do it because he’s the only one who can. I’ve even seen some ideas going around that maybe he views himself as the Angel from the Prophecy, having judged that the Underground will be free by death.
Horror is the entire reason his Underground started eating humans, and he is also the reason that the Core is damaged beyond repair. He didn’t want to sacrifice himself for the Underground, and he survived the event that took his eye, yet he still judged that Undyne and Alphys had to pay for their betrayal—and in doing so he decided that the rest of the Underground would be doomed to starvation or eating people.
He decided to trick Horror Papyrus into eating human meat even though Papyrus very clearly did not want to, and Horror doesn’t seem all too guilty about it—even as Papyrus goes out of his way to prevent Horror from eating humans at his own request.
I’ve even seen around by bigger Horror/Horrortale fans than me that Horror’s reasons for starving himself may not even be entirely selfless—such as for a moral reason or wanting others to have more food than him. But rather because he views it as beneath him and he won’t go “that low.” How canon that is, im not sure, but it’s interesting.
Then meanwhile there’s Killer. He sneers at Swap and threatens to kill him if he ever attempts to compare himself to Killer again, he holds the beliefs and mindsets of his human that were taught to him very closely and looks down on anyone who views things differently with contempt—especially if they attempt to “force” him to view things differently.
Things like mercy or kindness or hesitation are seen as weakness and things to take advantage of in his mind. Even himself is not free from this nihilistic, fatalistic, violence and apathetic driven worldview—-looking down on himself in Stage 1.
He will go out of his way to prove himself and his views right, even if that means doing exactly what Chara did and coercing/provoking someone into killing, attacking, hurting, etc, either themselves, others, or even him.
This is exactly what he was supposed to be, and it’s pointless to try and change or hope for anything more than what he or anyone else deserves. He probably finds Murder’s attempts to justify his genocides absolutely ridiculous. And Horror to be absolutely hypocritical. (Which is why Color’s specific way of approaching Stage 2, wanting to show him a better life—something new—rather than trying to change or fix him, worked so well.)
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