Roletale Sans & Paps
Now the struggle of who to swap firstā¦. the pressure is crazy. Hmmmm. HMMMMmMmmm. Letās start with the obvious characters you think of in UnderSwap: Sans and Papyrus.
(I donāt know how Iām formatting these or whatever so donāt expect structure that makes complete sense haha. Also i got too lazy to capitalise their names or spell out Papyrusās full name all the time so iāll just call him paps)
Main differences to UnderSwap
Normal US
In normal underswap, papyrus becomes the chill laid back one and sans becomes the obsessive one that wants to be a member of the royal guard. Sans chases down papyrus a lot for slacking off but itās papyrus whoās actually more observant and ends up looking after him. Paps drinks mustard where sans drank ketchup. And for some reason they made sans like tacos. Iām guessing itās the AU equivalent of pasta for pap? Sans is considered one of the most adorable versions of himself within the multiverse: hyperactive and demonstrating beliefs and understanding similar to a child in some cases, though has been shown to be capable of being more serious in other instances like Errortale.
(askError!Sans, my one true loveā¦ will your hiatus ever end??? Errorās ORIGINAL universe-destroying emotionally complex character (not that fan art inkxerror fluff and smut) has imprinted on me for life ;_; Atleast i have Fatal!Error plot to sustain me)
From what I understand of the webcomics, papyrus becomes the one to watch out for in a genocide run, having their own megalovania sequence in the judgement hall. Papyrus is also considered to be the one with a science background. Whether or not he is aware of the timelines isnāt something the webcomics Iāve seen dwell into. Judgement hall would usually imply that he is the character with some awareness of the implications of determination. On the other hand though, itās swap sans that ends up in multiverse shenanigans more frequently than paps.
Because of how these characters were swapped, itās like inserting a papyrus straight into sans body and a sans straight into papyrus. Which is pretty impressive. But not the goal of my AU. I want sans to still be sans an paps to still be paps in their own way.
RT
Take puns as a simple example, sans will still love puns and paps will still hate themā¦ you know what? Sentence form of this will take ages. How about I just make this a list of things Iām keeping from UT?
Sans:
likes puns
likes science (this is canon to undertale. Papyrus says so in one of his calls)
cares for his brother deeply
has an awareness of at least the scientific implications and likeliness of resets
wonāt fight you unless you give them no other choice because they realise the futility of trying
one day stopped being a scientist probably due to either losing WD or learning about resets
knows an old lady from the other side of a door who shares puns
Paps:
likes making spaghetti
hates puns
will always respond to your calls
fights you in Snowdin
will believe in you when no one else will. Has a a lot of faith in people and trusts that you can do better. To a faultā¦ = )
is capable of being a royal guard but doesnāt have the value set for it (because of previous point)
How, you may ask, can I make this a swap universe when so many things are the not swapped? Well thatās the fun part.
Backstories etc.
Sans
It wouldnāt be swap if sans didnāt aspire to be in the royal guardā¦ and be slightly pathetic at it despite all of his highly motivated efforts. But i have a solution.
What if before the CORE, sans was a scientist who loved puns but didnāt really have any friends and was always focussed on his work? (Remember papyrus didnāt have friends before in UT either so itās reasonable to impose this scenario on him. Puns arenāt always popular with crowds afterall) He worked with Gaster and then after theā¦ incident, sans had vague recollections of WD and studied determination in an effort to figure out why he canāt remember him properly. With a certain someone playing around with time, this study leads to the reports that show timelines starting and stopping until suddenly, everything just ends.
This comes as a huge blow to him. But not in the way it does in UT, where he finds it harder and harder to care about things because of how powerless he is. Quite the opposite, he starts to realise that if his life doesnāt matter he wants to spend it doing what he wants to do rather than what heās good at, because thereās no point anyway. He wants friends. He knows paps used to be a royal guard and heās popular so sans makes it his lifelong dream to become a member of the royal guard and receive a little love and recognition, to bathe in a shower of kisses every morning etc. etc.
Kinda tragic really considering how good he was at science and how terrible he is at his duties. I mean, he only has 1 HP and 1 AT. This is the main reason they havenāt let him in the guard yet, because if he entered a fight heād just die.
With motivations like that, you can sorta see how a normal sans might show papyrus behaviour, right? No need to just swap the personality entirely.
I will concede to say that in this universe sans has passion for making the puzzles (a normally papyrus trait that i really shouldnāt be adding but it just simplifies things). He tends to make them overly complicated and convoluted in reference to his science background but he always misses the obvious point in their design.
Papyrus
Did you notice I said pap used to be royal guard? Yep. This is one of those Iām-tweaking-with-the-plot-in-a-big-way things. So papyrus in US has a bit more of a level head than UT. Which is sorta hard to bring out in our normal loveable skeleton.Ā
Letās say that in this universe he somehow became a royal guard without the struggle he faces in UT. In fact, letās say that he became a royal guard a long time ago. His vigour and commitment made him a good candidate and they hired him a thought. So, without having to be desperate about getting peopleās approval like in UT, he found he didnāt need to try so hard to make friends which actually made him more popular and likeable.Ā
He was a capable royal guard really. I mean, Undyne admits in UT itself that heās actually pretty strong. But what stops him from fulfilling his duties is exactly what Undyne notices in him with UT, heās too morally good for the job.
*queue the weird screen wobble of a backstory*
Iām not sure on the details but in my head, papyrus learns his fault in a serious way. Maybe facing one of the past humans or another monster (I might use this loose end to tie up some other plot point later..).Ā
Anyway, at some point in the past he confronts an assailant one on one. He knows what he must do: kill them. Heās been in FIGHTs before of course, dealt damage and captured badguys, but heās never actually turned a living thing into dust. Facing his enemy, he faces a moral conflict at the core of his being. Papyrus canāt kill. Because despite everything, no matter how heinous the crime or horrible the person, he canāt help himself from believing in the potential of others. From hoping that people can do a little better. And as long as he thinks like this he knows he will never be able to rob someone from an opportunity to improve themselves. To give them that chance at change. There, facing this villain just waiting for him to strike, he realises that he will never be able to be a true royal guard.
They stand for what feels like hours but may as well be just moments of real time in a standstill waiting for papyrus to FIGHT, or atleast even ACT. Finally, papyrus relents and shows mercy, giving into his true nature. Itās at this point that Alphys arrives and intervenes, fighting and capturing the assailant. But papyrus has already learnt a lesson about himself that cannot be forgotten.
Despondent, realising what this means for his job, papyrus begins to care less and less about his work. A stigma grows around him. The guard who wonāt FIGHT. The laziest member of the force. Itās around this time he starts frequenting Grillbyās. He eventually quits the guard entirely and embraces what people assume he is. Laziness becomes his escape from the blame he places on himself for all the things he HAD done as a guard and the one thing he couldnāt that fateful day.
Years pass and his time in the guard is all but forgotten. Paps is popular, easy-going and doesnāt care to do much of anything. That is until the one thing he does care about intervenes.
Sans and papyrus always had a strong relationship while younger. Paps is one of the only ones who stuck by sans through his awkward scientist days. Before, sans hadnāt cared much for gossip or other people in general and didnāt really bother to learn about why pap left the guard. What he did know was that somehow being on the guard had left him popular all this time later (which motivated his need to be in the royal guard like I said). Because he was concerned about how lazy paps was getting, he encouraged paps to join him as a sentry.Ā
Itās an offer papyrus couldnāt refuse, knowing how vulnerable sans truly was. Someone needed to keep an eye on him. And really, the dynamic works both ways with sans being there to stop paps from giving up on life entirely some days just by being his perky self.
Dynamic
Thereās still that adorable by-play between the bros.
Sans gets frustrated at papyrus for being lazy.
Papyrus silently cringes at the puns sans makes (but he doesnāt react to it like he does in UT)
Despite being the laziest monster in the underground sans still considers him āthe coolestā
Papyrus somehow always manages to have access to spaghetti 24/7 which drives sans crazy. Sans refuses to eat the spaghetti because of how ridiculous it is. This is supposed to replace the pun thing in UT. I keep thinking of a twist on something in the game: āPapyrus! You need to stop making spaghetti all the time! Itās getting out of hand!ā ācome on bro, your stomach is grumbling just looking at it.ā āI know and i hate it!āĀ
Instead of a hotdog stand, papyrus has a full-on spaghetti kitchen concealed in his sentry station.
Sans is the one that has all the extra sentry jobs around the underground though that he impossibly manages. Most people donāt question it because heās always putting 110% into everything he does (but how can he possibly be in so many places at once i wonder... *audible wink* )
Papyrus will give Frisk their phone number and answer their calls whenever for each room but Iāll explain how and why that works in another post (Iāve let this one drag long enough)
To be continued i guess?
Ok... Thatās not EVERYTHING. But thatās the basics. I still want to go into how frisk encountering the skelebros would work (like i mentioned with the phone calls), the whole lady behind the door thing (but iāll probably cover that in the Asgore/Toriel swap), who you fight in the blizzard exiting snowdin, who you date in a true pacifist route and how the whole genocide drama would run down. Not to mention i still need to elaborate on the separate friendships they have with alphys, undyne, hapstablook etc. but iāll them bring up with their own swaps rather than this one because the skeletons are too integrated with everything and everyone to explain it all here.
