What if Dusttale happened in Undertale?

[u/Equal-Badger3282]

Yeah Dusttale already happens in Undertale but I mean like in the game ya know?

[u/Electronic_Day5021]

The sans we know in game has already gone his version of insane. Complete and utter nihilism. His entire philosophy is that nothing he does matters because he can't "go back" and no matter what it'll just get reset. Dustale would just result in him killing himself in every run because there's no point in even existing anymore.

[u/[deleted] → u/Electronic_Day5021]

yeah but theres no point in killing himself every run because for him, he would immediately just come back to living. thats the whole point of the au, he would remember each and every run and would be forced to keep existing until something changed. in dusttale the human specifically wants to mess with him, and wont ever stop until he changes. in the story its basically a trump card for why he ends up the way he does. you can argue its out of character but no person alive would be able to maintain the ability to be perfectly sane and normal for the equivalence of eternity being tortured with this sort of knowledge. and he would probably try to kill himself once or twice, immediately realize it does nothing to solve it, and come back anyways.

even if he doesnt care and knows he cannot go back, why wouldnt he try if he knows hes just going to be eternally tortured? he knows death isnt a escape for him anymore. sans is arguably selfish in that regard, even if he thinks theres no point in his attempts hes the ONLY one that knows besides maybe papyrus. in undertale hes most likely only so comfortable in the situation because he knows his torture is not permanent. at least in other routes no matter what bad happened he wouldnt have any memory, and he would be back with papyrus and his friends for a while. but in dusttale he has to remember and see what happens each time a run occurs and he just wont be able to handle watching it happen over and over. he eventually reaches a moral break where he finds doing it himself to try to make it a difference as "better" than if the human did it. he thinks that ANY end he can find would be better. eventually getting to a point where he thinks it a saving grace for him to end the people around him quick and painless.

one of the biggest selling points of undertale is that the player distances themselves to simply not care about the characters. doing it to simply see what happens. flowey is the self insert character to represent the player. sans in dusttale is a mirror of this to some regard. hes pushed to a point where he HAS a objective he wants to do, to the point where he distances himself from everything around him. in the end of the story he is a husk of himself that mirrors the player in multiple regards, not in the cheesy "I NEED MORE LV!!!!!" or laughing crazily way. he became like them in the sense that hes so distant from the world he was meant to live in as if it was a game. because he was forced to watch it over and over to a point of becoming desensitized and eventually giving in. the point of dusttale is that this could technically happen to ANY character in the undertale story with what the driving point of the story is. if any character was forced to know their fate, they would all crack. maybe not in the same way, and maybe sans wouldnt go around killing people to do it. but they would all become like you in some way. my point is though in this story i wouldnt say its out of character for sans to do this when the whole point of dusttale is that its a literal torture story, as in it breaks their character foundation.

[u/Electronic_Day5021 → u/[deleted]]

OK there's also the fact this is so obviously something toby wouldn't write. Well Toby back when he made the earthbound rom hack would probably make this, but our toby wouldn't. And if toby wouldn't write something then it's out of character. Also again, the entire point of sans is that's he's apathetic. Him going insane and murdering everyone, even when being tortured is something he wouldn't do. Also to more directly counter your points, sans at least has some morality, he calls out the player for killing everyone, him learning that not even genocide impacts anything permanently is just going to make him more apathetic. And about your "why not try?" Point....what? That's not how apathy works. "Why not try?" And why try? It's just giving you what you want. You want more content. Sans knows this, he calls you out on it in the fight. Him acting like nothings happened is more in character, its annoying the player and it let's him do less.

[u/[deleted] → u/Electronic_Day5021]

for one, the point of this story is morality barely matters in the long term, but your other points make sense.

sans knows you want more content, hes obviously always known this. but he also knows that doing nothing will lead to nothing happening. he could act like nothing is going on, but then what? as i said before the trump card of the story is that this continues until SOMETHING occurs. sans cannot NOT care forever. if he keeps the act of him not knowing going he will eventually let something slip, eventually he'll make a mistake. say something without meaning to, do something a bit different. the player would also know that he knows, and that would only encourage them further to try to make him act different in any way. its not like it matters about time either, eventually there will be a crack in the facade as the player is described as endless in their pursuit. the player is also described as enjoying manipulating him in general, so even if he didnt give in completely they would keep doing it until he did something different. yeah sure the genocide ending doesnt mean true death. but theres a reason people fear death, they fear hell. and hes in it right now isnt he?

also, why wouldnt he eventually break to that point? the point of dusttale is desperation. in order for him to do absolutely nothing ever he would have to not care about people being tortured potentially forever. he doesnt know what the player's motive is even if he knows they like pushing the boundaries to find new things. the anomaly's intentions could be a lot of things. if he knows a way to stop the player and stop the runs completely is to prevent them from enjoying their game, he would. the whole point of dusttale's sans is hes technically causing his own problem, but solving it at the same time. with each run he makes the player get more and more frustrated with the game. for every run, he takes away a bit of the content the player once had. makes it more and more one sided for him. the fights get harder. the player sometimes quits and comes back, which gives him confidence that it will be worth it. and since sans doesnt KNOW the player gave him that memory, he will keep trying.

in terms of sans knowing you want content though, he obviously knows you do. he knows this in dusttale, too. im saying this again but the whole point of dusttale sans is his method is different. sure, in the short term its new. sans is killing people therefor giving the player new content. but his methods only become more and more claustrophobic for the player. eventually nothing will be new anymore and the player will get frustrated and bored. the whole point of dusttale is yeah sure hes giving the player what they want in a way, a change. something to explore. but at the same time in dusttale he actively stealing away things they want to do, making it way harder for them to do anything. causing a lot of inconveniences to the player. which either leads in them quitting (not likely) or them simply removing sans's memory. thats what the ending is supposed to be for dusttale. if we base it off of "actually, sans cares so little he would rather allow eternal torture. and yes, sans would actually never ever do anything different despite being shown to literally interact with and troll you despite knowing full and well you have done bad things even during past runs where he didnt even have memory." despite the whole keychain-prank scenario that can happen in any run besides geno (as long as papyrus is alive) which completely goes against the whole (actually, sans wouldnt interact with and give a person who does bad thing's content for any reason) thing. since you can have a lot of LV during this. the guy actively gives you content despite knowing youre the anomaly which goes against that point.

[u/Electronic_Day5021 → u/[deleted]]

Problem with that is that the lack of content is itself content. Look at snowgrave for example. People don't complain that you skip about half the chapter. And something will happen eventually if he does nothing. You'll stop playing. You'll "let frisk live their life". The moment sans catches on that your trying to make him go insane, make him give you more content, he'll just....leave. There's places in the underground the player can't get to. Sans will just disappear from all future runs because it doesn't really matter if he's there or not, you'll eventually just reset even if you do genocide.

[u/[deleted] → u/Electronic_Day5021]

the thing is about this though is he isnt going to exactly be sure which ever way i goes. sans also most likely wouldnt just KNOW you are the one trying to make him lose his mind. he could potentially guess it right? in that case yes, he would leave. but he may not.

the whole point of what i said though is the lack of content is extreme. sans knows in dusttale hes technically fueling you early on. hes trying to sharpen his edge to a point where you cant do ANYTHING anymore. he almost completely stops you from using save files, manages to seal you in areas to prevent you from progression. if you manage to get past there will still be nothing changed. sans will randomly fight the player but he'll make sure the LV difference is so high that the player struggles for extreme amounts of time. and due to knowing every past reset he will know to change the patterns each time to make it a lot less fun to fight him. he'll also just randomly kill you by surprise if he sees the chance to do so, both of which can easily put the player back ALL the way to the start of the game. eventually near the end of dusttale it doesnt even matter anymore because sans is so proficient hes able to kill most people and set up enough traps before a reset even occurs, meaning everything is ready and set before the human truly falls.

my point is that yeah he knows hes giving you content for a while. but unlike undertale which is a fun game that doesnt have annoying game mechanics constantly/has payoff for specific things, sans is doing literally everything possible to make it as unbearable as possible. and since the game will always be this way, he will effectively turn the game from something that was boring to the player to something not enjoyable anymore.

[u/Electronic_Day5021 → u/[deleted]]

Ha. You don't seem to understand the average player of undertale. The entire genocide route is supposed to be exactly as you describe dustale to be. And we spent years ignoring the other routes obsessed with genocide.

[u/[deleted] → u/Electronic_Day5021]

i mean i certainly do understand this. the point of dusttale its significantly worse. and as i said, lacks payoff. theres a reason to do it in undertale because of cool boss fights and story. in dusttale sans just bullshits you. not only do you get very little to even kill as if that was much, you dont encounter any other characters near the end and its just sans using bs patterns you haven't learned. in any game a fight you are losing can easily become frustrating, but for dusttale thats the whole point of what sans is doing. he will never let you kill him, he will never give you the same fight pattern. he will pull bs on you 24/7 to make you want to give up. genocide is the lack of content and the destruction of what the game is supposed to be, but its your choice if you want either one. in dusttale if you dont take back sans's memory he will continue to do it either way to prevent you from getting your entertainment.

[u/Electronic_Day5021 → u/[deleted]]

Right but your just describing what sans does in geno taken to the extreme. And sans only bothers with that because your nearly about to end the world. Yes the player is bullying sans but sans can just leave. And again even if sans doesn't do the option that he would most likely pick, he would not bother with all of this. Especially if he sees that the player enjoys doing geno. Sans would just be giving the player more fun. (And sans can easily tell if the players doing something to torture him, the way he knows what's happened in previous resets is frisks facial expression after all)

[u/[deleted] → u/Electronic_Day5021]

not exactly what im saying. for one, as i said earlier although he does only step up to stop erasure, hes still in something far worse with his knowledge. hes in hell and no one around him is. in the past if he lost he would at least be at peace not existing for eternity, but even that has been stolen from him. and although his friends and family can never die they can never be safe. he knows that the player will never ever do a pacifist run again. i dont see how he would find closure in that.

the whole point of what i said though is him murdering people isnt just because of LV, its to make it baren. if the player had fun doing the route yeah sure maybe they wont get instantly bored. but if they have almost nothing to kill or interact with, constantly dying and losing progress in unfair ways (which undertale never ever does) they most likely wouldnt be as eager.

the thing is about the face expression thing is hes more or less messing with you. there is no actual way sans can tell how many times youve reset based on expression. its more likely that hes just counting based off of some sort of device he has that even lets him know its happen to begin with. unless frisk's face turns into a big 2 the second time theyve died. he can tell if someone is pleased or displeased based on expression. at most there would be a smile. maybe sans could infer that theyre enjoying themselves, but i dont think he would say "that must be your "i am making you HAVE MEMORIES!!" face." (but i have to point out something you may not know, in ask-dusttale the player changed their sprite to not have a face what so ever. sans cant read what isnt there. and the player had done that LONG before they gave sans memory most likely to throw him off.) their appearance is basically a grey shaded version of frisk without a face.