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Let's talk about Toriel.

Toriel is a grown woman, a mother of two. She teaches kindergarten at the local school, and volunteers at the local church as part of the choir. She is recently divorced. Her oldest child has recently gone off to college, and her youngest is:

Adopted from a young age

A different species

Known for pulling pranks and otherwise causing trouble, sometimes to great expense (e.g. bath bombs in the toilet)

Despite this, Toriel loves her youngest child as though they were her biological child. She checked out a "how to care for humans" book many, many times over the course of parenting Kris. She drives them to school each day, makes sure they're fed and cared for, and is clearly invested in their social life given how excited she is to learn that they've made a friend. As a newly single mother, she's doing her best.

But let's talk about her being newly single, shall we? She recently divorced her husband, Asgore. Unfortunately, Asgore has not accepted this. Toriel is being stalked by her ex-husband; he keeps giving her unwanted bouquets of flowers, and showing up wherever she goes. He even lampshades this, as though it's funny, when he pops out from hiding in the bushes near the church, after knowing that she would be there. Every time he does this, Toriel responds with obvious discomfort and anxiety, and makes an excuse to get away as quickly as she can. Asgore's behavior seems goofy and "well-meaning," but he is clearly ignoring his ex-wife's boundaries and actively disrupting her living her life by showing up where he knows she'll be, uninvited and unwanted.

So Toriel is recently divorced, with one child off to college, and another child who is clearly not doing well (despite Toriel's best efforts) still at home. She is being stalked by her ex-husband, but in such a way that it comes across as "friendly" or "kind" to everyone else, meaning she can't really make a big fuss about it or she'll look like the bad guy.

Then a new guy moves to town. He's friendly, he's funny, and they hit it off immediately. And unlike everyone else in town, this is a friend that doesn't have a connection to Asgore. (Rudy was Asgore's friend first, after all; it's not as if Toriel can really open up to him about how much his best friend is really putting the ass in Asgore.) This is someone that she can open up to, someone that she can confide in, someone that she can let a little loose with. Because she can't let loose at school, around the children; she can't let loose at church, in front of the wider community; but with a friend, in her own home?

And Sans is non-judgmental. Sans likes her jokes. As mentioned, Sans doesn't know Asgore, so he's not going to be inclined to brush off Toriel's concerns or discomfort because "well he just really loves you" or "he's just being kind." (Not to mention, Asgore also trauma dumped to Sans a bit, making Sans visibly uncomfortable as well, so Sans might even be more inclined to hear Toriel's side.) Sans knows about responsibility, given that this version of Papyrus seems to have issues of his own, and therefore perhaps Sans can relate with Toriel on how it is taking care of someone when you love them, but you don't exactly know how best to help them. Finally, Toriel has someone in her corner, someone who can understand, who she can have fun with.

Toriel isn't one of the main characters, and she's a grown woman and a mother (figure) at that, so I feel like it's easy to dismiss her side of things. Was it great that she was drunk when Kris came home, or that she and Sans continued partying even after Kris tried going to bed? No. But Toriel is a person, a whole entire person with a life outside of being Kris' mother. She's allowed to not always be on her best behavior, and she's allowed to make and spend time with a new friend when she, too, is pretty isolated as a result of her divorce and clearly stressed with the fact that Asgore is stalking her. ("Trying to win her back" is not, it turns out, an excuse for stalker behavior.) Toriel even tells Kris that the house feels lonely now that it's just the two of them, meaning that she, too, has been plagued with loneliness just like the main cast, and that Sans is, perhaps, her Susie.

Toriel is not an awful, uncaring mother because she got a little silly drunk with the first friend that is truly hers since her divorce. She's just a person. And she's allowed to be a person.

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SILVER???

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Page 72 of my Miraculous Mentor AU comic A Matter of Trust! In which we return to the present and Felix's reason for telling this story... 📖☕

Index | Start | Prev | Next (coming soon!)

Weekly updates each Sunday! You can also read ahead early on Patreon, and/or buy me a Ko-fi if you'd like to support my work! 💖

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and bless the daughter but fuck the family

it lingers for your whole life - katie maria/the sun is also a star - nicola yoon/the lost girls: a poetry collection on girlhood, grief, and growing up - lyra wren/crush - richard siken/unknown/on earth we're briefly gorgeous - ocean vuong/ @emmajadepaige/stick season - noah kahan/promises of gold - josé olivarez/matilda - harry styles/susan smith - wych elm/tangerine - nolune/#6 - aroara/right now - gracie abrams/love & a loaded gun - emily rose cole/someday I'll love - ocean vuong/ @parentless-suggestions/unknown/the burning - venetta octavia/you can love him but you can't keep him - @pencap/a poem from the adult daughter to the narcissistic mother: not your fault, not mine, just is - katherine fabrizio/courtney love prays to oregon - clementine von radics

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2/2

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toby fox at it again with absolute cinema

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the year is 2019

please look at these screenshots in the order I have arranged them

the more I go back through Undertale, with what little knowledge we have about DeltaRune

the more convinced I am that Sans is not, in fact, from the world of Undertale

it may be likely that Gaster is “the man who speaks in hands”

but “the man who came from the other world”

is even more suspicious

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EDIT:

SON OF A-

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he did it again

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select annotations from red, white & royal blue by casey mcquiston / "is there anything more painful than knowing your sibling?" from dcvina-claires /clair obscur: expedition 33 / the archive of alternate endings by lindsey danger / ghost of by diana khoi nguyen

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i cried

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* how can she be so kind...?

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Can you tell who my favorite character is

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toby fox at it again with absolute cinema

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The remorseful player

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kris misses being the sole owner of a bed (azzy's bed is currently Occupied)

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together they form one (1) brain cell

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love them