Ahhh but man, a lot of people in the tags talking about how Sans has all of his happiness torn away from him and he’s just faking a smile everyday now that the timeline stuff has crushed him completely, but… I don’t think it’s quite like that?



(Haha lots of Sans rambling today…)



Like for sure, the guy is TIRED. But I think it’s less that he’s totally sad and frustrated all the time and more that he can’t really see past the immediate moment anymore? Like he can’t begin to think about the future, plan or hope for big things, bring himself to get invested in what happens next- because regardless of what he does it’s going to get reset. There’s no piece of time that he can care about except for the moment that he’s currently in, because it’s the only one he can be certain about.



But I don’t think his life is totally joyless? Like I think that Sans makes a lot of his own fun and genuinely enjoys being around people, especially his brother. It’s hard to be bored around Papyrus, and it’s probably really good for Sans to have someone with him that, without fail, makes the immediate moment exciting and interesting. Sans may have given up on himself, but I imagine he enjoys watching his brother chase his dream and lives a little bit through him. I think it’s one of the reasons why he sings his praises so much.



His life is definitely unfulfilling… but I think he’s able to find some moderate happiness through the little things and through other people. He strikes me as being more in a -survival mode- than being a puddle of misery. We see that he’s not completely apathetic. He does work multiple jobs, he pays for their house, he does stand up at a comedy club (which presumably isn’t something Pap forced him into, so he’s getting himself out of the house sometimes), he socializes and knows basically everyone in the underground, he reads car magazines for Pap’s sake for a future where he might be able to drive a car.

Sans strikes me as someone who’s naturally inclined to care, and care hard. (He’s Papyrus’s brother after all, I mean, there’s gotta be some of that in there) And maybe once upon a time, it was caring for his work, or for the future of the underground, or for himself. But since the resets, he’s been forced to find specific, safer outlets for that caring? Papyrus is his primary safe outlet that he can throw effort behind without it feeling worthless, and it’s some of the reason he never stops gushing about his brother. He forgets to take care of himself in the process, he’s only got so much energy to spend, but at least Pap is one area where he’s allowed to feel invested.

…Another thing people are mentioning in the tags is that they think that Sans might be able to get some of that old energy back after a True Pacifist run and the resets end. …But I don’t think that Groundhog Daying for that long is something you can just get over. It would take him a looooooooong, loooooong time before he even started to recover. Maybe not for years. And honestly I think that point would be the most difficult for him. Realizing that he ought to take care of himself, because tomorrow matters now, for the first time in ages. Tomorrow will exist.Tomorrow WILL exist. Having to tell himself that over and over but not being able to feel like it’s true. Feeling like he’s jinxed it and once he lets his guard down that’s when it’ll happen again.



I think, maybe, at a certain point when he’s sure that he’s “out” of the loops, he’d confess everything to his brother, and maybe Toriel. Show them his notes on the timelines. Explain his behavior. Explain his current paranoia. Finally ask for support now that he knows that there’s nothing anyone has to try to fix.



Then he’ll buy some proper shoes and clean up the sock pile. He’ll make his bed. He’ll try to get invested again. He’ll stop counting the days since the last reset. He’ll have bad days where he goes back to not wanting to get up in the morning. He’ll be wholly and completely happy. He’ll be terrified of his own happiness. He’ll keep trying.

It would be a very, very slow process, but he’d get better over time. I don’t think he could ever completely go back to being as much of a bundle of energy as he is in those pictures though. If he was ever like that to begin with.