spyruce

[spyruce]

Have you heard the tale of the queen of thieves?

[spyruce]

bro you're seizing the day too much you're gonna give yourself carpal diem

[spyruce]

maya! 🌟💫

[spyruce]

Why do you use It/Its pronouns...

i got tagged in elementary school and never recovered

[spyruce]

I first sketched a storyboard for this a few days ago and wanted to give it another go,,, maybe third time will be the charm

[spyruce]

Terrible phone doodle because when inspiration strikes you gotta do what you gotta do

[spyruce]

this is the equivalent of me leaving a newborn on the doorstep of a church and hoping someone will raise it for me all I have is scratchy drawings and a rough concept that I hope inspires someone

[spyruce]

Bonus:

[spyruce]

🍎🍎🍎🍎

[spyruce]

ew...

[spyruce]

[spyruce]

I'm at a crossroads between these two couples

[spyruce]

I was an OG Undertale fan in 2016 like in the trenches on Amino and I have never ever drawn sans before today

[spyruce]

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.

[spyruce]

people when toriel isn't the Perfect Mother Gentle Character Who Knows Exactly What Her Teenager Is Feeling and makes mistakes

toriel when she's a single mother who spends the entire day participating in her town's community life getting harassed by her ex or pushed to get back with him by her peers and ends up hanging out with the one guy treating her normally in their entire town, so she ditches church to spend some time with him and gets drunk for the first time in (likely) years

it's sad!! the end of chapter 4 is a really fucking sad scene, hilarious as it may be, because we know for a fact toriel's had to be the bigger person in her and asgore's rapport ever since they separated. as a character in hometown she's implicated in this extremely tangled web of social relations and painful drama going back years, that she needs something like this in her life. in a way, as the new guy in town completely unattached to its past, sans is a bit of a susie of her own. she needs this.

...and kris really, really doesn't.

[spyruce]

this is the dumbest thing ive ever boarded i think. anyways big shot behavior or something

[spyruce]

"Dont need instructions to rock"