Typing this out and putting it in the Doppletale tag before it leaves my brain:
(Lots of Doppletale!Sans lore beneath the cut! Also, it is a Horror au so please check the tags for the trigger warnings before reading too far!!!)
Pretender(Sans) used to work in the lab.
He was alive on the surface, and worked as a merchant of sorts. He hardly remembers it now due to the pain of the memories (trauma response) and all he's got is the memories of the Stars and the Sun and maybe soft green grass. Mostly, though, he remembers those foggy nights when a traveler would happen upon him and his little traveling cart of a shop. When he'd invite them in, sell them some supplies, judge them. Some left. Some didn't. Dinner was always ready for him, hunting was never a struggle.
Of course, when the attacks started, people didn't know he was one of them. Such a friendly face, how could he be one of those things? The things that killed and maimed and tricked? He surely couldn't be... but he was. He picked up shop and retreated into the mountain with a hesitant mob guiding him. One of the few monsters who was sent off with an uneasy farewell rather than screams and destruction.
He'd been one of the ones who had supplies when they were locked away. Asgore and Toriel asked him for help, and Sans wasn't about to deny anyone that help. He let his supplies be divided amongst the people, he turned his attention to a new passion with his shop decidedly out of business. Making this place livable.
Eventually he started helping a team of folks. They were trying to construct something. The CORE. The head scientist (as the team deemed him) was W.D. Gaster. Sans had heard of him, a doctor who would take the bodies of dead human patients to sell, but never had they met before now. They meshed well, as did the other monsters on the team. They were efficient, and skilled, and made the place livable. More monsters moved out, and started building. Some sense of normalcy was nice.
And Sans kept working. Gaster kept working. Even through the first fallen human. Through their death. Through a monster named Alphys joining the team. Through the many, many fallen humans that followed. Through the days when monsters started to starve and their worked turned from how to free their kind, to how to feed them.
Sans still remembers the days when Gaster would put his head in his hands and slump tiredly over his papers. When they'd have just the barest slivers of soul to study so that their people could eat. The nights when the hunger got too much for some and... accidents... started happening at the lab. He remembers when everyone agreed that Gaster needed rations the most, as their most brilliant mind, and how he took that as almost an insult. How the Lab grew more and more quiet, until one day it was just him and Alphys.
It was just the two of them for... a long time.
Long enough that Sans watched the other scientist's confidence slip. After each mistake or failed attempt she'd started to give up. Sans couldn't exactly do anything to stop her. He just stayed by her side until the hunger took over, and he had to abandon his work at the lab too because, well... the supplies had run dry. The tests were all negative. And even though they'd found an alternative to the starvation, one that Asgore had put into motion, it wasn't pretty. (<- Cannibalizing other monsters to make Monster Candy and other magic food.)
When he left the lab he moved into Snowdin. He gave up on his human disguise almost entirely. The only thing that kept him going was that, well, one day a monster came to his door on the verge of dusting. They knew that Sans was well-off somehow. That he'd been strong back in the day. And they dusted there, not even explaining why they'd left their little bundle of a young monster with him.
Sans had likely only not fallen down because of that kid. Papyrus was a baby with no name, and no one seemed to remember his parents in Snowdin. So, sans had named him. Raised him. He was no father, so Brother did just fine. Paps decided that he wanted to look like the man that Sans had pictures with around the house (Gaster) and so he did. His proportions were a bit too long, and he was a skeleton like Sans, but he was Papyrus. That was perfect.
And so Sans (Pretender) provided for them. He taught Paps. He talked to his mysterious friend through the door. He tried, and failed, to save the little human boy that reminded him so much of his old boss. He nearly gave up. And then another human soul came along. The very last who would move through the underground, at least if they had anything to say about it.
This Final Human met Pretender (Sans) with so much fear, but still met him. Through the power of a promise, a sheer stubborn will, and a judgement proven right, he watched this human traverse the underground. He harbored her for many months (years? It was easy to lose track of time) and it felt like treason. At first. A betrayal of his role as Judge. And yet each day grew easier. He stopped watching with rigid focus, trying not to let himself lash out, and instead started watching her with apprehension, fearing that every monster she passed might hurt her.
Sometimes, more often than he'd admit, an intrusive thought would slip through. A moment of weakness where his mind would conjure her gruesome death before his eyes, and a ripping pain of guilt in his chest. But he'd blink, and shake it off, and remember to breathe because she was still alive and okay. And every single day he'd be amazed at her audacity. Her commitment. And once he noticed, he'd again be afraid for her. Her soul forcing her to react, a thing he'd only ever seen years ago on the surface, a thing he'd forgotten about and had never cared to study.
To him, once upon a time, humans were nothing more than livestock. Clever livestock, sure, but to him sparing some had been little less than a farmer sparing his favorite cow from slaughter another day. This was different. Being so long without a soul who failed his judgement, he couldn't imagine thinking about things the way he once had. Which was bad. His people were starving. And yet the human's death wouldn't feed them all, and somehow she just kept convincing more and more people that she could help. That they didn't need to eat her. She was insane, and wonderful, and had changed his mind more easily than a hot knife through butter.
Whether that was his nature or her conviction, he didn't care to debate.
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Your cat designs are so weird and I mean that 100% positively, they're so fresh to look at :D
Thank you!!
I really really vibe with the fact that Warriors is hypothetically a series about generations of cats, and it frustrates me that they don't play with fighting styles passed from mentor to apprentice, nor noteworthy physical traits passed from parent to kit
So I think about anime more than realistic wildlife for the designs. I like to imagine that humans would see them very differently, because my humor is predictable and I've always found the "animal protagonists suddenly viewed by humans are realistic photographs with scribbled on markings" joke very funny.
I pulled two hands from the void and learned how to make art that appeals to me, specifically, so I try to make sure every design has a little bit of autism in it. If it doesn't make me want to rotate them in my mind, it needs to be revised.
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:( I'm so sad one of my fave artists is anti now I have been following them for awhile but now when I clicked on their acc it said proshippers dni...I always check for that before I follow so either they changed it or my fuckin reading inability fucked me over again. This sucks. >:( I can't remember if we were mutuals or not but honestly we could have been, I'm not sure. I just know I liked seeing them on my dashboard and their art made me very happy,,,,,,,
⬆️ This is me tripping and falling down the stairs of Tumblr socializing and receiving sadness
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FINALLY HES DEAD YES OOOOH THAT WAS SATISFYING AS HELL DUDE, I HOPE BROS ROTTING GOOD ABD TOASTY DOWN IN THE UNDERWERE 💀 ALSO AURORAS REDEMPTION? LOVE TO SEE IT!!
Yeah? I was worried it'd be a bit underwhelming. I considered a few ways he could die, and decided that having this prideful character's downfall be his own stupidity. Especially considering the fact that he considered himself smarter and generally superior to others, I thought it'd be funny if he died because of some stupid mistake he made.
Like yes, storm into the den of an angry, stressed out dragon-turtle while his mate is in the nest injured, all while holding what is basically a water gun in regards to effectiveness. Totally smart. When this guy ends up in the Underwhere, Dementio will be too busy laughing his butt off to do much else!
I also knew early on that I wanted Aurora to at least get a hit in. So that in his last moments he'd know that she wasn't being manipulated by him anymore. Also to give the Bros a sense of closure. She may not have stood up for them when they were kids, but she's grown a spine. She's stepped up to do what she promised to in the first place: to make things right.
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