Plus Ultra

anyway, this took a lot of work, it’s a bit rough around the edges and isn’t perfect by any means but it’s mine and i’m glad i’m putting it out into the world. hope you all enjoy it. or not, it’s okay. i won’t judge.

toriel’s leitmotif is fallen down. heartache is in both their battle themes because they’re both still grieving the fallout of losing their children and their marriage. (many people think toriel has moved on in deltarune but i disagree there) i swear, no matter how much time passes, you can always count on a new band of youngsters to miss the entire point about the media they consume. (i sound like an old man typing this)

vs. gentle criminal outfit deku is finally ready!

sans but make him a nonchalant dreadhead

sans while on his shift as a sentry in snowdin: ladies, i’m tryna do my work today… haha leave me alone type shift… hahahaha

alphys: shake yo dreads!!!

asgore and toriel (deltarune) finally have a genuine heart to heart where they acknowledge their screw-ups, both with each other and the way they raised kris and asriel. instead of closing the door on them rekindling their relationship ever, they put forth talks towards counseling to see if the relationship is salvageable but not before toriel expresses asgore that she requires space to think and reevaluate things, especially after he would constantly violate her boundaries and force interactions with her in public spaces. asgore acknowledges his desperation toward rekindling their lost love and bringing the family back together was causing him to act uncharacteristically and unintentionally pushed toriel away even further but toriel also acknowledges that she should have just been straight with him and laid down the law on her boundaries sooner. (especially because asgore isn’t always the best at reading certain situations, thanks to his inate optimism and often oafish tendencies)

if they’re able to rekindle their marriage, the two promise to communicate better, be better parents to kris and asriel and they use the past as a way to build a better future for themselves and their family. (i include the holidays in this because they’re basically the extended family in my eyes)

i’ve seen people assume a LOT in regards to deltarune asgore and toriel from the very little crumbs of context we’ve gotten through the light world sections of each chapter (and chapter 3’s dark world since it was in the dreemurr residence) like the idea that toriel has “moved on” or that she’s the more adjusted parent when chapter 4 has already started to dismantle this perception. both asgore and toriel are not dealing with the fallout of their divorce very well but it only seems like people see asgore’s side, given his blatantly desperate attempts to engage with toriel. ik we shouldn’t rely too heavily on undertale’s context for deltarune but given the overlap many of the characters have between games, toriel’s history of communication issues in undertale seems to be a part of her character flaws in deltarune. as i mentioned in the last ramblings post, when her belief system is challenged or breached, she closes herself off, even if part of her wants to understand the other person’s side, as we saw previously with frisk wanting to leave the ruins and eventually go back to the surface and likely asgore, given their amicable terms post-pacifist ending. if i may revisit undertale again, toriel needed to be more willing to extend an olive branch to asgore, as he was the person she shared her pain with. (the pain of losing both of their children in one night) what asgore did was wrong and frankly shortsighted but to an extent, so was toriel leaving the capital for their old home in the ruins and leaving the kingdom in turmoil, especially when she was categorized as being the true brains behind the throne. toriel, while not obligated to stay with a man who betrayed her so heavily, still had a responsibility as queen to lead her people. but at the same time, asgore only made that bullheaded decision out of grief and righteous anger toward the killing of their children. while revenge wouldn’t bring their children back, asgore’s kneejerk reaction toward this traumatic event was not completely unfounded.

i feel like i’m in the minority that understands the big issue with toriel and asgore isn’t compatibility; in fact, i’d wager they’re made for each other. (they’re both self sacrificial people to a fault but also put on brave faces for the people they love in times of hardship)

their main hurdle is communication. you see this in both undertale and deltarune. in undertale specifically, whenever someone goes against toriel’s wishes or violates her belief system, she shuts herself off and becomes distant from them. she did this to frisk when they wanted to leave the ruins (and presumably the humans before them), told them to never come back and refused to even answer her phone after frisk left the ruins. to a more extreme degree, she also did this to asgore when he made his heat of the moment declaration of war on humanity. instead of staying at the capital to talk asgore down, deal with the turmoil of losing both of her children in one night and helping free the monsters in the underground, she took chara’s body and fled to the ruins in disgust. asgore, on the other hand, has been dealt a bad hand in life due to having to balance doing morally dubious things for the greater good of the people around him despite it being against his kind and usually pacifistic nature. whatever he did in deltarune likely led to the nail in the coffin in their marriage due to asgore being unable to explain whatever happened to toriel in a way that would get her to listen to him and given how reluctant toriel is to properly communicate (hence why they likely had arguments that kris, likely asriel and tenna witnessed), this tracks for an eventual divorce. i’d argue toriel hanging out with sans isn’t so much as her “moving on” for good as it is her running away from her problems and looking for relief from the family burden and sans provides said relief. (he’s comic sans after all *ba dum ts*) he doesn’t really help her address the underlying issues in her life or help her grow as an individual, he basically enables her worse tendencies, hence the jitterbug scene.

i just want deltarune asgore and toriel to have a genuine heart to heart where they acknowledge their screw-ups and strive to be better parents to kris and asriel going forward. the true pacifist ending in undertale was just a crumb of what that could look like, i need the full cake to be in deltarune this time around. i don’t even care if they don’t get back together, i just want them to h e a l . (buuuuuuut if they do get back together and are even more insufferably cute than how their undertale counterparts were pre-divorce, you won’t get any complaints out of me wink wink)

i’m just kinda over the “haha asgore is divorced!” jokes (and the running over dess jokes are wearing kind of thin too) and i just want asgore to have more to him outside of his royal fuck-ups (in one universe anyway) and how he’s “doomed to be divorced” in every universe. let him be a kindly groundskeeper or florist that is often pranked by the kids around town and is aware of them but plays along anyway to make them happy. let him see other people if things with toriel are finito. (personally rooting for alphys in this universe since they’re anime/comic buddies and since local reindeer monster man rudy is dying but then again, i also ship alphyne and certain shippers would likely have toby’s head if he went the other way) let him being terrible with names be one of his main gags again. heck, maybe he can even become sans’ drinking buddy despite sans seeing toriel now. (no sour grapes, just asgore making sans promise to take good care of her) i just want better for mr. dad guy/former chief fluffybuns. (and no, i do NOT want him to get snowgraved in chapter 5, fuck that theory)