Ranting with the Sanses

The Underswap case

Swap : Why does it sound like someone was killed ?

Killer : I can solve this.

He smiles holding his knife.

Kathleen : Put this down. And, no, it's more a talk about the situation of the Underswap personality swap and the situation with Blue later.

Blue : What ?

Kathleen : What I mean is that I think it's unfortunate that people didn't respect what PopcornPrince wanted to do with Underswap.

Blue : What do you mean ?

Kathleen : Basically, Underswap was originally intended to have the swapped inhabitants being more of a fusion of the characters they used to be and the one they took the role of. So, for example, Carrot would keep some of Papyrus's core trait and have some of Sans, and vice-versa.

Ink : Oh, I see. Yeah, most Creators actually just deal with it like putting Papyrus in Sans body and vice-versa, most of the time. Not all, but this seems to be a pretty visible part, at least. Hence the popularity of "Blueberry" over "Swap".

Everyone stares at him.

Kathleen : I will bother to explain that part later... Anyway, yeah, this is the thing. But, I think the way PopcornPrince intended it was more like this. Most of the important characters of the game, we gave a name to their role of the story. Like, "the caretaker of the ruins", "the judge", the ambitious one", "the head of the royal guard", "the royal scientist", "the star of the Underground" or "the ruler of the monsters" for example. Respectively : Toriel, Sans, Papyrus, Undyne, Alphys, Mettaton and Asgore. Basically, split the characters in two entities : their narative role in the story on one side, and them as a person, with their personality on the other.

Jill : Let's put it in practice with the brothers ! Sans is Papyrus's brother, the judge, he is visibly popular in the underground (or at least Snowdin), he is aware of the reset and load, he likes puns and pranks, he made a promise to Toriel to protect the human, he is lazy, he has a connection to Gaster, he is associated with hot-dog (though whether he likes them is another matter).

Kathleen : Meanwhile with Papyrus : He is Sans's brother, the ambitious one, he is seeking out friendship, he is the reason the pacifist run can even happen in the first place, he makes even more puns than Sans (he says around 40 different puns through the game, if you actually calls him), he is trying to become part of the royal guard, but is rejected because he is too kind for this type of job, he is associated with spagethis (though this isn't his favorite food), he is actually pretty smart in his own right, he is impatient, he is the only one who doesn't kill you, no matter what and is pretty good with his hands.

Classic : I mean, we all know that my bro is great, so why mentionning it ?

Kathleen : Because you then need to decide. What among those few example I listed are trait of the ambitious one and what are trait of Papyrus. Same for Sans.

Jill : The most likely split is the following. The judge is define by te following : They are the character who is aware of the player's ability to manipulate time. They made a promise to the Caretaker of the Ruins. They are family of the Ambitious one, being basically their "more popular older sibling", they had a connection to the Previous Royal Scientist. Those cannot be taken away from the judge. However, they don't need to be lazy, they don't need to like puns, they can be associated to another type of food. Which mean those can be considered "Sans's attribute" rather than "Judge's attribute". Which means that Blue for instance could have it. Or any other version of Sans who isn't the Judge. But, they don't need or shouldn't have the ability related to being the Judge, because it would hindred the narrative role they have been given.

Kathleen : Meanwhile, the Ambitious one would be define like this : They are the "commonly accepted younger sibling of the Judge", have barely any friends, the one who actually leads the player on the path of the Pacifist ending. They are trying to become popular by becoming a member of the royal guard. But for a certain reason, they can't seem to make it even though they are powerful enough for it. They are most likely doomed to keep the puzzle association, since this is the best narrative way to have the obstacle in Snowdin happening. All other traits I mentioned of Papyrus before meanwhile, would be his personality that can stay even without being the "ambitious one".

Jill : Which means that if you put it on Blue, for instance. That means Blue is the one leading Chara to the Pacifist end. He trains to joins the royal guard, in hope for popularity and even more friendship, but because of his low HP, the Head of the royal guard deems it a too dangerous work for him and cannot bring herself to let him join. He likes puns and pranks, love his brother, pretty crafty with his hands.

Kathleen : This is what is closer of canon Swap. Notice I didn't put the part about Blue being younger than Carrot, because the version of Blue the most likely to be the older brother, like Cobalt is, would be a Swap as close as possible of the canon one. Because the age of the Characters do not appear to have swapped, so it doesn't seem unlikely to think Blue could still be the oldest. But, he didn't have any interest into science, unlike Carrot, so he didn't partake in any of Gaster's experiment.

Jill : If Gaster is the one who lead them in Underswap in the first place... I wouldn't be surprised if we found out he was swapped with the riverperson for example... Though, in the original Underswap, only the brother had swapped. The rest of the fandom expended on it.

All : Oh.

Kathleen : Anyway, this is done, I guess. So, let's move onto the next part. There is in the fandom three different archetypes when this come from Underswap Sans. Those are, from the oldest to the youngest : Swap, Blueberry and Yanberry. Swap was explained. It's a version of Underswap Sans as close as possible of the original idea from PopcornPrince. Blueberry is basically, people taking the fanon version of Papyrus and shoving him inside of Sans's body. And Yanberry, is an evolution, if I dare to say, of Blueberry, who is in love with someone, but in the yandere obsessive kind of love. In itself, it could be interesting to have a story where those three all exist. After all, The fandom tends to forget it, but most AUs have more than one timeline, so there can be timeline of Underswap where Blue is the older sibling and timeline where he is the younger one with no issue. Especially with swap world like this, this is no issue. It just will change some possibly minor thing in the characters's interactions with each other.

Jill whispers to the audience.

Jill : To be honest, Kathleen is planning herself a story where you will see all the three type of Blue at the same type. This is one of the reason she mentionned it.