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Toffee Sketch Dump
🕑 Added 2024-07-14 18:56:23 +0000 UTCA bunch of sketches exploring Toffee’s early adulthood. For context, this is all happening when Toff is in his early twenties, while Topher dis in his late teens. I’ll keep my notes brief and let the drawings speak for themselves.
1.) Merry and tiny tater tot Toffee, back before Merry’s church became a megachurch and their world was still small and simple. Merry always made sure to sit with Toffee before bed to either read to or chat with his very best boy~
2.) Toffee’s sensitivity and thoughtfulness were cute features in a child, but Merry’s less pleased to see them in his now-adult son. Particularly now that Merry has remarried and has a new child to raise-he simply doesn’t have time for Toffee anymore. No time for his mushy feelings, nor his pathetic need for attention, and especially not his struggles as a gay youth.
3.) Toffee and Topher have not always had such a loving relationship. :/ I’ve also had to do a small retcon here- Topher doesn’t come out as trans til years later, when he’s in college. I’m doubtful that Topher, a sheltered teen living in an early 2000s religious conservative community would be able to express or even fully understand that he’s transgender- and even if he did, he’d know intrinsically it’s not safe to tell anyone. Not yet.
4.) Merry’s choice to all but abandon his family didn’t do great things for his relationship with Topher
5.) Merry decides to foist the arduous task of turning Toffee into a real man onto his colleague and church subordinate, Donavan
6.) god Don talks so MUCH I hope this panel is intelligible. :( Don is an (unlicensed) family and marriage counselor, and proceeds to do some counseling. Toffee hasn’t felt like somebody is “on his side” in a long time….
7.) uh-oh
Comments
Lopoddity
The next Toffee sketch dump will be exploring Don's relationship with Don. ;3 Don is definitely not evil, but I can't say he really had Toffee's best interests at heart. Maybe he did in the beginning, maybe a little. But that quickly takes a backseat to what Don wants out of the relationship.
mirarevias
I've just been going back through this post, and I'm so curious about what Toff and Don's relationship ended up being like as a whole, and possibly at the end? Yeah, sure, it sounds like it may have been its own possible version of toxic, but Don doesn't seem to be cut exactly from the same cloth as Merry. (Now obviously he can be deceiving and just presenting Toff with a hard truth while also being supportive to gain his trust, but I like to think he wasn't all bad, and did want to help him.) I wonder what their relationship looks like as Toffee gets older, especially after he establishes his own church.
Saba Saeidi
you know, its unfortunate that Don turns out to be such a sleaze, cuz he's actually giving real good advice. He's actually being so for real with Toffee and validating in a way he's never had before and NEEDS, and in a way that matters. I lot of the time you see guidance counsellors or any kind of none psychiatric support be pretty......mid about their support. A lot of the times you get wishy wahsy inspirational waffling that means nothing and is just meant to make you feel like you're being understood without actually understanding your problems, but the way Don really cuts to the root of Toffees problems so well tells me that he's genuinely good at his job, at least sometimes and its both sad and comforting to see. I can believe he was a genuine help to some people and even Toffee for a time. It genuinely touched me that he is emotionally intelligent enough to realise that Toffee needs his dad even as an adult and that its okay for him to need him, but also acknowledge hat his friend of 20 years is a piece of shit. Which Toffee, unfortunately, doesn't realise says a lot about Don for sticking by him for so long. Im really invested in this dynamic, hope to see more! I wonder if he ever had any lukewarm talks with Merry, trying to non-committedly steer him away from committing to Maple after it all comes out, or maybe he had a clue it was going on before did and he tried to gently guide him back only to be dismissed. his dynamics are super interesting! also, im curious what kind of voices you imagine for Merry and Don ! Especially Merry with his hyped gospel radio talk !
Lopoddity
I have not! Toffee's full name is Tobias Toffington Meadowsweet. Growing up everybody called him Toby, save for Merry, who liked to call him Tobias to either make his son feel important (or belittled). People who are especially close to him, however, tend to use "Toffee" instead, a cute nickname originally cooked up by Topher when they were kids. Maple, Topher, and Eleanor call him Toffee, so Toffee prefers this one. Later on, when he leaves the community, he also leaves "Tobias/Toby" behind, because he no longer identifies with his younger, miserable self. Toby would've done anything to live up to his father's expectations. Toffee is his own man.
Haselwoelfchen
Suddenly feeling very protective of Toffee. Sometimes you just cant stop crying and the world taught you thats a bad thing :( btw did you ever talk about Toffee using the name Toffee instead of Toby? Sorry if I missed it.
Lopoddity
Oh Don isn't bending anything...in fact, Don is probably bisexual. Not openly, of course. But Don is unique among the other characters, because he never internalized any shame or disgust at his own sexuality. Don doesn't really feel shame at ALL, about anything, he is extremely overindulgent and loves all manner of food, booze, and sex. But Don DOES understand that he cannot act on his attraction to men, not if he wants to maintain any shred of power or appeal in his religious conservative environment. So Don stuffs it down, way deep down, and it doesn't bother him much because hey, he loves the ladies! No need to...complicate things. Don really didn't set out to target Toffee. All he meant to do was counsel him, maybe half-ass a friendship with him, train him up to be a real man and a fellow counselor, and of course, at Merry's behest, iron out all that gay shit. Don isn't a conversion therapist, but he does teach his clients to "pray the gay away", or at least to walk it back to being a shameful secret practiced only in private, Don doesn't really care HOW you handle it, so long as you handle it. He has no true moral objection to queerness, but does think people should conform to what the church says. He doesn't think it's wrong for Toffee to be gay, but he does think that Toffee will be bullied and ostracized and miserable for it, so the kid oughta suck it up and be a real man already. Don is the first person Toffee meets that has no immediate kneejerk negative response to him being gay. It's....almost accepting? Well not really, but close enough for Toffee, who is suffocating in his isolation and self-loathing. Toffee can....talk about it to Don, and Don doesn't sneer or laugh or demand he go beg the Almighty's forgiveness. Nope, Don tells Toffee that he's hardly the first person in the community to ever struggle with these feelings. And that with time and prayer, Toffee can overcome these sinful urges, he can hope to someday marry a woman and have kids and take over the church from his overjoyed and proud father. But, y'know....in the meantime, there's not a lot of harm in Toffee giving in and experimenting a little, in private, every now and then. It's sorta like sneaking a cookie before dinner, not all that terrible for you, really. Not if anybody finds out. And Don says, that if Toffee would like to, maybe it'd be a hoot to do a little private experimenting....together.
Scyllarus
I know Don isn't a licensed therapist but still, romantic relations with a patient is something they drill into you to *not* do. The therapy dynamic is so sacred to me I'm gonna shake this man like a chew toy. Obviously it's a topic that's important to explore (excited to see if Don here gets a foil in the cast) but: WHEN I CATCH YOU, DONAVAN. WHEN. I. CATCH. YOU. The last sketch implies that Don is..."bending" his preferences with Toffee. What made him decide that his friend's son is a reasonable target? Was it simply that Toffee was probably fawning over him as the only "supportive" adult in his life? Or were there other reasons? Also, I assume their relationship remained a secret...I'm curious what eventually ended it.
Lopoddity
Don is not actually being all that nice here (already inadvertedly prepping Toffee to be manipulated with his "hey don't tell your dad about what we talk about" line), but Toffee's so love-starved from Merry he's willing to accept tablescraps. Anyway, a fun fact about Don is that someday, years in the future, Toffee will confide in his mother what happened between Donavan and himself. And even though all that time has passed, Eleanor will stroll into Merry's church, grab a nearby wooden chair, and smash it over Don's back. :)
knickknacks
MAN that first doodle hurts. gosh. seeing that affection between them and knowing what is to come and what a scumbag Merry is going to show himself to be.. ow. Me on panel 6: oh some actually nice words from Dom :) things Toffee probably really needs to hear. oh,,, Me on panel 7, remembering what else happens: >:( The fact that Don was Toff's COUNSELOR? adds a whooooole extra dimension of ick!! my god. agh
