Sans/Sans
| Pairing | |
|---|---|
| Pairing: | Sans/Sans |
| Alternative name(s): | Sanscest |
| Gender category: | slash, selfcest |
| Fandom: | Undertale |
| Canonical?: | No |
| Prevalence: | |
| Archives: | |
| Other: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
Sans/Sans or Sanscest is the generic name for a large variety of selfcest ships focusing on Sans, a widely popular character from Undertale. In the game, Sans is the only non-playable character who is aware of his existence within the game, often breaking the fourth wall and showing awareness of game resets and the different timelines that exist within the universe. In the fandom, this idea led many fans to create alternate universe versions of Sans and other characters in Undertale. In a similar fashion to Oncest, a community grew around the concept of shipping Sans with these AU versions of himself, though some Sanscest involve just the canonical (often called "Classic") Sans shipped with himself.
As of November 2022, there are over 6,000 fics on Archive of Our Own tagged with Sans/Sans, over 200k stories come up for Sans x Sans on Wattpad, and the ship is also popular on Amino and Tumblr.
The tag page at AO3 lists over 300 variants of Sans/Sans, mostly smushnames of different Undertale AU combinations.
- CherryBerry is Underfell Sans/Underswap Sans
- Crink is Cross Sans/Ink Sans
- Dreamare is Dream Sans/Nightmare Sans
- Kustard is canon Sans/Underfell Sans
- Krème is Killer Sans/Dream Sans
- Rottencrop is Horrortale!Sans/Farmer Sans
Fan Commentary
The topic of Sanscest has been controversial ever since the boom in popularity around it, with many fans viewing the ships as a detracting factor from the enjoyment of the game itself. Other fans see it simply as a fun shipping community, kids having harmless fun, or just people finding Sans genuinely attractive (or a mix of all three). As a whole, shipping has always been a very controversial topic in the Undertale fandom, especially when it comes to ships with high rates of sexual content, and Sanscest is commonly brought up in these arguments.
undertale was such an incredible game, and in my opinion, dare i say almost perfect rpg and i’ll litterally never forgive that it got reduced to weird sans rule 34 and “haha sans undertale”
"man me and @kaible were just talking about this like literally this morning, it has a lot to do with a lot of these characters are coded as mentally ill to some capacity or defying conventional standards, which would make them appealing to someone who didn’t want to be judged harshly by them" ... "basically im all for people having whatever fun they want with fictional characters because at the end of the day its just people finding an outlet. although im gonna judge pedophilia and incest pretty damn harshly"
Creator Response
There has been no substantial response about Sanscest ships from Toby Fox, though he has reportedly shown general support for the alternate universes that fans create.[3]
Example Fanworks
Fanfic
- Karmic Retribution by Mercy_Run. The Sanscest fic with the highest kudos and hits as of November 2022, and a good example of the Underfell AU.
Fanvids
- Classic Sans x AU Sanses by Kilian Pullen. A popular YouTube video showcasing fan-art of many different Sans/Sans ships.