• This forum is strictly intended to be used by members of the VS Battles wiki. Please only register if you have an autoconfirmed account there, as otherwise your registration will be rejected. If you have already registered once, do not do so again, and contact Antvasima if you encounter any problems.

    For instructions regarding the exact procedure to sign up to this forum, please click here.
  • We need Patreon donations for this forum to have all of its running costs financially secured.

    Community members who help us out will receive badges that give them several different benefits, including the removal of all advertisements in this forum, but donations from non-members are also extremely appreciated.

    Please click here for further information, or here to directly visit our Patreon donations page.
  • Please click here for information about a large petition to help children in need.

Sans' Time Stop

Status
Not open for further replies.
James_Plays_4_Games said:
The dramatic spotlight caused the other characters to pause, but that was likely to have only been for visual effect as a literary technique to show that Sans was speaking about something important.
Click to expand...
I agree that the scene by itself is vague, that's why I focus in what can clear the ambiguity.
The sound being the same as Sans' teleportation sound doesn't mean much, since this is certainly not the only time different actions share the same sound
Click to expand...
Sans doesn't trigger the sound cue on any other context
, and the sound isn't uniquely specific to Sans using abilities.
Click to expand...
We are talking about Sans' abilities though.
The idea of Sans having the weakness of not being able to attack while time is stopped is an unreliable interference, since it stems from the idea of Sans having time stop in the first place which hasn't been confirmed via a statement or explicit demonstration.
Click to expand...
Sans being unable to attack while time is stopped is the conclusion drawn from gathering and accepting the evidence on favor of Sans being able to stop time. If you don't accept Sans being able to stop time then it literally doesn't matter.
Papyrus saying that Sans pranks people across time and space has to do with range or the scope of his pranks, not him having the ability to even affect space-time in any way.
Click to expand...
Me walking to the store is me walking through space and time.
That's not how I would describe it though.
It's not like Papyrus would have deep insight about Sans' scientific endeavors in the first place, so I don't think his statement is reliable enough to be so important.
Click to expand...
Space and time aren't hard concepts to grasp.
 
The most logic thing would just be that Sans plays with the 4th Wall by hiding the view like how he locks you by not ending his turn or how his bones attack you in the menus. They never mention Sans being able to stop time.
 
Potemkat said:
The most logic thing would just be that Sans plays with the 4th Wall by hiding the view like how he locks you by not ending his turn or how his bones attack you in the menus.
Click to expand...
I don't know how not taking an action and sneaking bones equate blinding the player.
They never mention Sans being able to stop time.
Click to expand...
Nobody mentions Sans teleporting.
 
Potemkat said:
We see Sans teleporting Frisk's soul a lot, and there's no doubt about it being teleportation.
Click to expand...
Ngl, the same argument could be made for time stop. Both are merely inferring what happens based on visual evidence, but he could be doing a bunch of other wacky shit instead of teleporting. We just assume it is because it's what we see at face value, same with time stop.

You're gonna need a bit more to discredit op than just saying it ain't time stop it's a 4th wall break.
Someone could just ask toby on Twitter tbh
 
Rodri_Dante said:
I agree that the scene by itself is vague, that's why I focus in what can clear the ambiguity.
Click to expand...
I was just introducing my stance in this part by the way.
Sans doesn't trigger the sound cue on any other context

We are talking about Sans' abilities though.
Click to expand...
We need to look at the bigger picture. The sound plays when Frisk's soul flickers visible and non-visible upon entering a battle. The sound plays when a character presses a button, or when ground breaks. I think a cut off version plays when switching an "X" to an "O" in the puzzles that have that. The sound plays when Frisk opens and closes a sliding drawer. The sound plays when Undyne knocks objects off of a counter, or when she places something. The sound plays and exact same darkness effect goes away when the lights are turned on in Alphy's lab upon first meeting her. The sound plays when the fuse of a hidden bomb is revealed, when a character moves certain switches, and when the upper lights appear at the beginning of the battle against Mettaton's true form. The sound plays along with the screen dimming and the same inconsequential "time stop" when Flowey, a character who lacks Sans' ability, revealed that he had tricked everyone during a dramatic event. Like you showed in the original post, Sans sometimes doesn't cause the sound when teleporting, because it only plays when the screen turns off then on as if a light switch was flickered. We can deduce that the sound is the game's "tap sound" or "switch sound", also frequently used for flickering to make it sound like someone is switching a light switch. This means that the sound that plays when Sans teleports is because of the screen becoming darkened then brightened, as if a light switch were flickered, not directly because of the act of teleporting. The same applies to when the screen darkened during Sans' conversation at Grillby's. If the sound were to indicate that time was stopped, that would actually be an inconsistency. With that in mind, the visual effect during the conversation at Grillby's doesn't seem like Sans' perspective when teleporting.
Sans being unable to attack while time is stopped is the conclusion drawn from gathering and accepting the evidence on favor of Sans being able to stop time. If you don't accept Sans being able to stop time then it literally doesn't matter.
Click to expand...
I was just mentioning what I mentioned in case you thought this conclusion could cover any counter-arguments against the idea of Sans being able to stop time.
Me walking to the store is me walking through space and time.
That's not how I would describe it though.
Click to expand...
Me neither, because most people aren't as dramatic as Papyrus. However, I'm not suggesting that this is what Papyrus meant. I'm conveying that even if we were to assume that Sans shared his research with Papyrus and Papyrus meant what he said literally, what he said only has to do with where and how Sans pranks people. A character doesn't need the ability to stop time in order to be able to prank people across space and time, so what Papyrus said doesn't support your idea. Sans, using nothing but his intelligence, can figure out that Frisk is a time traveler, and can use this knowledge for humorous purposes.
Space and time aren't hard concepts to grasp.
Click to expand...
I was referring to how Sans keeps his scientific endeavors a secret.
 
Potemkat said:
All are playing with 4th wall. What Sans do is just making the screen go black.
Click to expand...
Placing things under the same category doesn't make them equal. Blinding isn't either placing a bone somewhere not standing still.
James_Plays_4_Games said:
We need to look at the bigger picture. The sound plays when Frisk's soul flickers visible and non-visible upon entering a battle. The sound plays when a character presses a button, or when ground breaks. I think a cut off version plays when switching an "X" to an "O" in the puzzles that have that. The sound plays when Frisk opens and closes a sliding drawer. The sound plays when Undyne knocks objects off of a counter, or when she places something. The sound plays and exact same darkness effect goes away when the lights are turned on in Alphy's lab upon first meeting her. The sound plays when the fuse of a hidden bomb is revealed, when a character moves certain switches, and when the upper lights appear at the beginning of the battle against Mettaton's true form. The sound plays along with the screen dimming and the same inconsequential "time stop" when Flowey, a character who lacks Sans' ability, revealed that he had tricked everyone during a dramatic event.
Click to expand...
Yes, things that sound like other things exist. You can probably name a few examples from your real life experiences.
Like you showed in the original post, Sans sometimes doesn't cause the sound when teleporting
Click to expand...
All of them being the cases where his teleportation is portrayed in a completly different way
, because it only plays when the screen turns off then on as if a light switch was flickered. We can deduce that the sound is the game's "tap sound" or "switch sound", also frequently used for flickering to make it sound like someone is switching a light switch. This means that the sound that plays when Sans teleports is because of the screen becoming darkened then brightened, as if a light switch were flickered, not directly because of the act of teleporting.
Click to expand...
No? Games can repropouse sound effects for different things, a sound being used somewhere doesn't mean it can't be used elsewhere.
Johnny Test moment.
The same applies to when the screen darkened during Sans' conversation at Grillby's. If the sound were to indicate that time was stopped, that would actually be an inconsistency.
Click to expand...
???
With that in mind, the visual effect during the conversation at Grillby's doesn't seem like Sans' perspective when teleporting.
Click to expand...
Can you at the very least say stopping time in quotation marks instead of teleporting? Even if you don't accept it I need to know which of the two visually distinct ways Sans has been shown to teleport you mean.
Me neither, because most people aren't as dramatic as Papyrus. However, I'm not suggesting that this is what Papyrus meant. I'm conveying that even if we were to assume that Sans shared his research with Papyrus and Papyrus meant what he said literally, what he said only has to do with where and how Sans pranks people.
Click to expand...
How does Sans' research factor into this? We are talking about what he can do, to which the anomalies in the time space continuum are irrelevant
A character doesn't need the ability to stop time in order to be able to prank people across space and time, so what Papyrus said doesn't support your idea. Sans, using nothing but his intelligence, can figure out that Frisk is a time traveler, and can use this knowledge for humorous purposes.
Click to expand...
Why would Papyrus be refering to these kind of pranks when he follows up with "I hate it when he does that", meaning he's talking about pranks that Sans has (And therefore CAN) pull on him?
 
Rodri_Dante said:
Yes, things that sound like other things exist. You can probably name a few examples from your real life experiences.
Click to expand...
I know that. What I listed was, as I wrote, looking at the bigger picture, and afterward I explained why I did so. For this message, it's the third paragraph. When you answer, I recommend grouping this paragraph and the next two as one quote, because they all have to do with each other.
All of them being the cases where his teleportation is portrayed in a completly different way
Click to expand...
All of them are still cases where Sans teleports, but doesn't cause the screen's light to flicker, which is what causes the sound. Sans seems to be able to teleport by being out of view of the camera, and the screen flickering counts as that. Your idea is that its usage during the conversation at Grillby's adds the context of it being time stop and shows Sans' perspective, but me showing you how the game uses the sound overall and applying the logic of the similarities to Sans' relationship with the sound was showing you that event at Grillby's didn't actually add context. The case is actually that you missed context from elsewhere in the game.
No? Games can repropouse sound effects for different things, a sound being used somewhere doesn't mean it can't be used elsewhere.
Johnny Test moment.
Click to expand...
Video games can definitely repurpose sounds, but they're not completely random. There is a common vibe when it comes to the usage of this sound, and it shouldn't be ignored. Why should we only observe Sans when we're analyzing how the game repurposes a sound effect, when the game repurposes the sound effect many different other times in similar ways, which provides us with more context behind what the sound's overall purpose is?

What is a "Johnny Test moment"?
???
Click to expand...
The point here isn't supposed to be independent. I wrote that it's an inconsistency because of what I had explained in the sentences before it. I'd even describe it as a conclusion to what I had previously written. There wasn't much of a point in you quoting this part.
Can you at the very least say stopping time in quotation marks instead of teleporting? Even if you don't accept it I need to know which of the two visually distinct ways Sans has been shown to teleport you mean.
Click to expand...
I'm phrasing it based on how you phrased it. "[...] there's a scene where we seemingly see Sans' second form of teletransportation from his perspective."
How does Sans' research factor into this? We are talking about what he can do, to which the anomalies in the time space continuum are irrelevant
Click to expand...
It's about me giving Papyrus a lot of benefit of the doubt by assuming that he knows about how Sans gets involved with space and time, so that his statement about Sans pranking people across space and time has a non-hyperbolical context, so we can discuss it properly. The next part of the sentence elaborated about it, but you separated them into different quotes.
Why would Papyrus be refering to these kind of pranks when he follows up with "I hate it when he does that", meaning he's talking about pranks that Sans has (And therefore CAN) pull on him?
Click to expand...
Those pranks were just examples I gave of how Sans doesn't need to use supernatural abilities to prank people across space and time. Papyrus was indeed probably speaking from experience, but what he said didn't specifically refer to anything related to Sans supernaturally influencing space and time, just that his pranks involve those details.
 
James_Plays_4_Games said:
All of them are still cases where Sans teleports, but doesn't cause the screen's light to flicker, which is what causes the sound. Sans seems to be able to teleport by being out of view of the camera, and the screen flickering counts as that. Your idea is that its usage during the conversation at Grillby's adds the context of it being time stop and shows Sans' perspective, but me showing you how the game uses the sound overall and applying the logic of the similarities to Sans' relationship with the sound was showing you that event at Grillby's didn't actually add context. The case is actually that you missed context from elsewhere in the game.
Click to expand...
Sans teleportation doesn't need to happen off-screen to work, it just happens to happen off-screen more often than not.

That aside, here's the thing: What we can conclude from the uses of the sound cue is "The game uses a light switch-like sound for moments where the screen darkens or lights up and for several miscellaneous physical interactions. Therefore, we hear the sound cue in several moments related to Sans because the screen goes to dark and then lights up again"

That doesn't really mean anything for Sans except that his usage of the sound cue is probably not an in-universe sound that characters can hear when Sans does certain stuff.

Video games can definitely repurpose sounds, but they're not completely random. There is a common vibe when it comes to the usage of this sound, and it shouldn't be ignored. Why should we only observe Sans when we're analyzing how the game repurposes a sound effect, when the game repurposes the sound effect many different other times in similar ways, which provides us with more context behind what the sound's overall purpose is?
Click to expand...
Because the reason for the usage of the sound cue (In this context, because the screen is darkening and lighting up) doesn't mean or imply anything

The examples you provided have been both literal in-universe cases, but also non literal like entering a fight.

Sans' usage of the sound cue is only contradictory to the idea of him being able to stop time if you assume that this moment and this moment whose common denominator is Sans himself are different things
What is a "Johnny Test moment"?
Click to expand...
It's a joke.
Johnny Test's episodes are mocked for being filled with whip crack sound effects.
It's about me giving Papyrus a lot of benefit of the doubt by assuming that he knows about how Sans gets involved with space and time, so that his statement about Sans pranking people across space and time has a non-hyperbolical context, so we can discuss it properly.

Those pranks were just examples I gave of how Sans doesn't need to use supernatural abilities to prank people across space and time. Papyrus was indeed probably speaking from experience, but what he said didn't specifically refer to anything related to Sans supernaturally influencing space and time, just that his pranks involve those details.
Click to expand...
That's the thing. In this context, Papyrus can only be talking about something he experienced (Or has at least seen).

The space part of Sans' pranks is obvious, Sans teleports and that's not a fact he hiddes from others (No, I couldn't find a recording of this phone call without a cut in the middle. You will have to believe me when I tell you that Sans teleports from Snowdin to Hotland with both Papyrus and Undyne present. Dude just trust me).

The time part isn't explicitly specified, but if Sans has shown what appears to be time stop, several examples of what would look like teleportation from an outside perspective go out of their way to reuse several aesthetic aspects from that example while others don't, Sans doesn't bother to hide his abilities from Papyrus, and Papyrus is speaking from personal experience, then why can't the time part of the prank be time stop?
 
Rodri_Dante said:
Sans teleportation doesn't need to happen off-screen to work, it just happens to happen off-screen more often than not.

That aside, here's the thing: What we can conclude from the uses of the sound cue is "The game uses a light switch-like sound for moments where the screen darkens or lights up and for several miscellaneous physical interactions. Therefore, we hear the sound cue in several moments related to Sans because the screen goes to dark and then lights up again"

That doesn't really mean anything for Sans except that his usage of the sound cue is probably not an in-universe sound that characters can hear when Sans does certain stuff.
Click to expand...
I meant teleportation of himself.

The rest of what you wrote is how I think too, but my point is that if you got the impression that the sound signified that Sans used the same ability as when the screen flickers then he disappears or moves, then I find you incorrect. The sound isn't related to Sans using an ability, it's related to the lighting of the game, like you wrote. So, since the darkening event at Grillby's seemed to just be a literary technique, so was the stopping of time.
Because the reason for the usage of the sound cue (In this context, because the screen is darkening and lighting up) doesn't mean or imply anything

The examples you provided have been both literal in-universe cases, but also non literal like entering a fight.

Sans' usage of the sound cue is only contradictory to the idea of him being able to stop time if you assume that this moment and this moment whose common denominator is Sans himself are different things
Click to expand...
My answer to the previous section also applies to this one.
It's a joke.
Johnny Test's episodes are mocked for being filled with whip crack sound effects.
Click to expand...
Haha, I get it. It's like vine booms in meme edits. Though, if a series constantly uses the same sound effect for general character interactions, it's not the same as when a specific sound effect is generally used for specific actions in a different fictional work.
That's the thing. In this context, Papyrus can only be talking about something he experienced (Or has at least seen).

The space part of Sans' pranks is obvious, Sans teleports and that's not a fact he hiddes from others (No, I couldn't find a recording of this phone call without a cut in the middle. You will have to believe me when I tell you that Sans teleports from Snowdin to Hotland with both Papyrus and Undyne present. Dude just trust me).

The time part isn't explicitly specified, but if Sans has shown what appears to be time stop, several examples of what would look like teleportation from an outside perspective go out of their way to reuse several aesthetic aspects from that example while others don't, Sans doesn't bother to hide his abilities from Papyrus, and Papyrus is speaking from personal experience, then why can't the time part of the prank be time stop?
Click to expand...
In that case, there isn't a point in debating about this aspect, since it's only support to the idea that Sans stops time in the first place. The "time part" of pranking people across space and time doesn't necessarily mean that it's time stop. It could be, but we'll need to be focusing on the relevancy of the sound effect in order to determine that.

By the way, the evidence you linked was good enough. The footage glitched after I already understood what was going on. I didn't know that Sans did that, so good to know.
 
James_Plays_4_Games said:
So you mean that Papyrus has acknowledged the fact that Sans can teleport? I found out about that already, since someone else showed me.
Click to expand...
By the way, Sans also teleported in Undertale 5th Anniversary concert cut scene, he showed black screen and simply appears
 
James_Plays_4_Games said:
I see. I don't think that's canon but that's a neat fact that's probably in character of him.
Click to expand...
I don't know why it shouldn't be canon since Toby didn't said about it anything.

But, it would be fun to create Low 7-C Toriel key if we remember 1 very strange canon detail.
 
Originlima said:
I don't know why it shouldn't be canon since Toby didn't said about it anything.
Click to expand...
It's an animation that's not connected to the main story, which features the characters waiting for a legitimately real event. It seems faithful to Undertale, but it's not part of the continuity. Let's stop derailing the thread by discussing this. It doesn't add anything to the discussion about what the original post proposed.
 
James_Plays_4_Games said:
It's an animation that's not connected to the main story, which features the characters waiting for a legitimately real event. It seems faithful to Undertale,
Click to expand...
Totally wrong.
James_Plays_4_Games said:
Let's stop derailing the thread by discussing this. It doesn't add anything to the discussion about what the original post proposed.
Click to expand...
So, about this original post.

I think that "possible" could work, since it was noted a lot of times that Sans is connected with time or something, also Sans was capable or launching already open mouthed Blaster in front of us in some of teleports.
 
Originlima said:
So, about this original post.

I think that "possible" could work, since it was noted a lot of times that Sans is connected with time or something, also Sans was capable or launching already open mouthed Blaster in front of us in some of teleports.
Click to expand...
This doesn't support the idea of Sans having time stop though. We know that he researches about space-time and that he has more interesting supernatural abilities than most of the characters in Undertale, but that only means that it's feasible and within the scope of Undertale for Sans to have been designed to have the ability to stop time, not that there's anything about that information implying he does. Sans still needs evidence of having the ability to stop time in the first place, and the only reason people think there's evidence is because they looked too deeply into what is only the literary technique of making the visuals focus on a specific part of the screen.
 
I feel like theres enough proof to show what toby was trying to set up. A possibly or maybe even a likely is okay to me
 
Rodri_Dante said:
Is good to see all the agreement.
However, I don't want people reading the page after this to look at the arguments for Time stop at a surface level and immediatly try to remove it (I've seen people look only at the Grillby's cutscene and disagree with it because "it's probably just for dramatic effect").
Should there be a slightly long justification in the Powers and Abilities section, a note, or a link to this thread?
Click to expand...
What should we add for depth?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Magicomethkuon
  • Locked
About Sans Law Manipulation... (Potential downgrade.)
2 3
Replies
81
Views
4K
Dereck03
Dereck03
ShionAH
  • Locked
Sans Intelligence
6 7 8
Replies
316
Views
12K
Antvasima
Antvasima
JustANormalLemon
  • Locked
So... let's talk about Sans
2
Replies
48
Views
3K
DarkGrath
DarkGrath
MastaWhite
Undertale CRT
Replies
16
Views
1K
MastaWhite
MastaWhite
The_Yellow_Topaz
  • Locked
Sans Intelligence Downgrade
2 3 4
Replies
143
Views
7K
The_Yellow_Topaz
The_Yellow_Topaz
Back
Top