before resetting in 2018, snaps was different. he was incredibly cynical. his life had been torn apart by Joker, his Chara, who was more akin to UT’s Flowey. They’d reset over and over and over and over, just to mess with the game as much as possible.
( WARNING: IMAGE HEAVY POST! some gifs! )
This is them, and Snaps. When they’d first met, Snaps was a lot different. More sanslike, but also, more emotional, more feeling. The crown he has originally belonged to Chara.
Chara had become fascinated by the game--mostly because no matter how many times they reset, Snaps always seemed to have new dialogue and methods to mess around with them. Sometimes, SNaps would kill them as soon as they left the Ruins. Just to keep things fresh. This unfortunately made Chara reset more and more.
The fact that nobody else would seem to change, while Snaps was the only one who could see the difference... could realize resets and loads were happening... It made him bitter and cynical. Sometimes, he’d play with Chara... and they became “friends”, but the worst kind.
What’s the point in caring about NPCs anyway?
Eventually, he met people who did understand. He lived on the surface, and he messed around with people he shouldn’t have. Hurt people, deeply. Betrayed their trust and he realized that consequences mattered. He learned how to be friends with others, he learned that not everyone was uncaring. He could heal.
He could be loved. He could learn to love again.
And then Joker came back.
They came back to play all over again. And Snaps had to act like he was glad to see them--when really, he hit the lowest point of his depression. It all came rushing back to him, that he’d never be happy, that he’d be trapped. When Joker would LOAD the file, it affected only his timeline. He could be enjoying hanging out with friends, and suddenly, he’d be glitching out from a triple LOAD.
Joker would send horrific images like this just for shock value. Snaps’ friends, his lovers had to see it. There really was no escaping this. His optimism plummeted into the negatives, and he tried anything to escape--but Joker wouldn’t let him die, either.
Eventually, his best friend, Saffron, came up with some idea to trap Joker--
Even though SNaps had lost both of his partners with the way his trauma had affected him (he’d defaced one of his lovers’ entire home, and the other he chased away with his self destructive behavior), Saffron never gave up on him. They devised a plan together, to prevent Joker from resetting ever again.
Joker, seeing Snaps so sad, was convinced... that Snaps could be fixed. That he was broken by all of these irrelevant people. They could fix him by resetting everything and starting over.
But instead, Joker was the one who was trapped--Saffron and his Chara had found a way to mess with values, and remove Joker’s ability to flub the code-- no more resets and no more loads. Joker, realizing what was happening, activated one. last. reset.
Snaps reached out to Saffron, their hands nearly touching--
Snaps was gone, and Saffron lost his best friend.
By the time he came back... Snaps was different.
He wasn’t a masochist anymore, he wasn’t trying to get people hurt or fatally injured--he wasn’t making jokes that would give nightmares to cynical folks. He was much more excitable, much more friendly in his own reserved way. He was touch averse--he was asexual, too. The idea of getting into a romantic relationship full of touching, kissing, snuggling made his figurative skin crawl.
And he had absolutely zero idea who Saffron was, despite always being able to remember Resets before. Something was different, this time.
Saffron attempted to befriend this strange excitable ferret man, and Snaps... inexplicably, felt safe around him. He couldn’t figure out why... but he did. People know him, and he seems to shrug it off, but...
He still feels like he’s missing something, sometimes.
As for Joker?
[ ████ █████ ████ ████ ]
I like to think that Snaps changed because people believed in him. He had friends, who really really did care about him. He has friends now who love him, even if he’s the worst.
And even though parts of him want to give up, even now... he doesn’t want to lose what he worked so hard for, even if he doesn’t remember it.
