#blue shitposting

Here are some things Sans doesn’t do

1. Sans does not remember previous timelines. He infers shit about them from your behavior because he is a brilliant time scientist who knows you’re doing time loops.

2. Sans does not want to date Toriel. She is an old lady and he is, in the developer’s own words, “too lazy to do anything with anyone.” Their dynamic is textbook “intergenerational friendship,” and that’s awesome. 

3. Sans does not weep copiously all day. Sans is a “sad clown.” He responds to sad shit by making bad jokes and otherwise overcompensating with silliness. Not everyone needs to emote the same way, and the actual game didn’t need to make him bawl his spooky eye out to convey that he’s depressed and hopeless.

4. Did I mention Sans doesn’t remember previous timelines because he doesn’t remember the god damned previous timelines

5. No, remembering Gaster is not the same thing as remembering previous timelines, Gaster was erased, not reset

First, there are plenty of indirect hints in his dialogue. Note that when he makes accurate (or less accurate) guesses about previous timelines, he pretty much always indicates that he’s basing them on clues from your behavior. He also requires you to deliver codewords from his previous selves to prove your time-travel capability when he’s pulling his elaborate time-and-space prank on you--you don’t need an intermediary to deliver information from yourself if you just remember it.

Second, his actions make no sense if he remembers. For instance, in his boss fight you’ve thoroughly convinced him that you’re irredeemable, that you’ll never stop consuming timelines, that he fucked up really badly by letting you get this far...If he remembered that, he would attack you on sight in your next loop, without waiting for you to butcher his and everyone else’s loved ones. It would make zero sense for him to walk up and shake your hand like nothing ever happened.

But forget all that. There are at least three lines, straight from the man himself, that outright tell us that he doesn’t get to keep his memories:

1. [if monsterkind gets to the surface,] “we’ll just end up right back here, without any memory of it.” Emphasis mine.

2. [after you get dunked on and come back for another round] “did i getcha?” He has to ask because he doesn’t remember dunking on you.

3.  [in the same post-dunking dialogue] “don’t tell the other sans-es, okay?” 

So of course it’s absolutely wonderful that Steven got to wear makeup and a skirt and it wasn’t played for laughs, and I won’t comment on it further because I don’t have anything to say that hasn’t been said, but there’s another aspect of that scene that I think is also great and important!

There’s this common cliche in works aimed at kids/teens that wearing “feminine” clothes or heavy makeup is shallow, vapid, etc. Like not wearing that stuff is supposed to be a point of pride, like makeup and skirts are incompatible with being smart or nerdy or sporty. I’ve often seen it as a counterpoint to the “wear makeup and be beautiful always” shit, but that just exchanges shaming one aesthetic for shaming another.

What I love about this episode is that--without being hamfisted about it--they showed both that you don’t need to wear that stuff if it’s not your style and that you can totally wear it if it is. Sadie was miserable and looked ridiculous in that outfit and makeup, but it wasn’t because of the outfit itself, it was because she wasn’t comfortable in it. Having her reject the getup, but then showing Steven happily rocking it seconds later, was such a beautifully subtle and effective way to show that there is 0 shame in displaying your own aesthetic, no matter what it is.