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narabea06 · 7 months

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* Peaks head around corner *

Gimme Toby HCs?

Hmmmmm I think I can do that- *pulls out giant book of headcanons* They should be under T, I believe-

Toby Headcanons Part 2!!

Here's part 1 if you want to read more of my Toby headcanons to understand my AU a bit more

TW: Implied Su!c!dal Ideation, Alcohol

Him and Nina are best friends, and have been since highschool. His disappearance was the first among the friend group before Clockwork's, and was what pushed Nina to isolate herself. They are both reunited now, and Toby believes it's his fault Nina ended up wrongfully joining Jeff, but Nina keeps telling them that it isn't.

Halloween is actually his favorite holiday.

Back when he was a proxy, him, Cody, and Clockwork were all very close. Cody often would tease Toby for having a soft spot for Clockwork, like a little brother would. Like an older brother would, Toby would hide Cody's shit as payback.

When Clockwork first met Toby, she instinctively attacked him until the other proxies ran over and told her to stop. Toby was petty about this for months until Clockwork apologized.

Toby hates himself, and has been trying to cope with that since he was 12. He doesn't believe he deserves a happy ending or good friends, or a loving partner, or a good brother and sister, but he has somewhat come to accept that he can't bear the lose everything that he has left right now, and does not want to give up what little he actually is happy about in his life for once.

He only say a few things still from when he was a kid, one of them being Lyra's old lanyard she used to hang from her belt. He now wears around his neck constantly, and hangs his apartment keys on it. Sometimes he even jingles it as a stim.

Toby hates the smell and taste of alcohol, and will actively leave a room if someone is drinking it in the same room as him.

They aren't too big on being called nicknames besides Toby, and the only two he is actually fine with are "babe" and "cinnamon", and only Clockwork is allowed to call him those.

Toby tends to bite at his nails a lot and often does not even realize when to stop since he can't feel it.

His love language is acts of service and words of affirmation.

He's the kind of person to give you an awkward thumbs up and just say "that's cool" if you came out to him.

Slenderman was actually considered an urban legend in their town, like like Bloody Mary and Sirenhead, so when Toby told people that he was seeing Slenderman everywhere, nobody believed him, other than some conspiracy theorists.

He is actually rather short (5'2"), especially in comparison to the other proxies. The only proxy who was shorter than him was Cody, and Cody is three years younger.

Toby is an Atheist.

Toby was never really a great traditional artist, but does find painting relaxing, and sometimes will paint as a form of art therapy. He even has a small portfolio full of random art pieces that make sense to nobody else but him, and he's okay with that, so those paintings weren't for anyone but him.

Cody will sometimes randomly take pictures with Toby when they least expect it using one of Skully's old cameras, or with Toby just in the background, mostly because Toby hates being in photos and will sometimes purposefully hide their face from the camera, or will take the camera beforee Cody cab take the picture.

They do not know how to tie a knot, and therefore doesn't know how to tie sneakers, even as an adult, and now they feel too embarrassed to ask for somebody to show them.

Breakfast food in general is a small comfort for them since Connie would often make him and Lyra breakfast for dinner on the nights she saw they were particularly down. Toby tries his best to recreate Connie's cooking, but keeps not making it right, and ends up having to throw it away because his food sensory issues physically won't let him eat it if it's not exactly the way she used to make it.

He doesn't have a phone, though he has been working towards getting one, but is scared that Slender will somehow track him through it or something.

He listens to cavetown.

Toby can hold his breath for a surprisingly long time, and almost even joined the swim team in highschool.

He was terrified of cats as a kid, and refused to get one or be near one. Toby has been trying to work on his fear though now that he's an adult, and even sometimes leaves food outside his window for the stray cats in the neighborhood.

Toby steals dice from every board game he plays just so he can have a tiny dice bag in his backpack to make little click-clack noises when he shakes it.

He read Percy Jackson in middle school, and sometimes studies Greek mythology.

#creepypasta #ticci toby #toby rogers #ticciwork #nina the killer #jeff the killer #x virus #lyra rogers #connie rogers #creepypasta headcanon

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foggystorywriter · 11 months

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Shadows of Deception

The city of Eldoria bustled with life and ambition. Towering spires stretched towards the sky, casting long shadows over cobblestone streets teeming with merchants, nobles, and common folk alike. But beneath the gleaming facade, a sinister game of power and manipulation unfolded.

Our group of adventurers, comprised of Rylan the charismatic bard, Lyra the shrewd rogue, and Garrick the wise druid, found themselves unwittingly entangled in the web of a high-stakes political intrigue that threatened to plunge the city into chaos.

It began with a simple task assigned by the local magistrate: uncover the truth behind the sudden increase in taxes that burdened the citizens. As they delved into the investigation, they discovered a trail of corruption that led straight to the door of Lord Balthazar, a prominent noble known for his extravagant lifestyle and questionable practices.

Their journey took them through clandestine meetings in shadowed alleys, elegant balls masked in false smiles, and the secret depths of the city's underbelly. Each step forward unveiled another layer of deception, revealing a plot that reached far beyond mere greed and taxation.

To navigate the intricate maze of deceit, Rylan employed his silver-tongued wit, effortlessly weaving tales and charming the city's elite. His words became a weapon, a key to unlock secrets hidden in the hearts of influential figures.

Lyra, skilled in stealth and subterfuge, slipped through the shadows, her nimble fingers extracting secrets and evidence from unsuspecting targets. She gathered whispered rumors and concealed documents, piecing together the puzzle of the noble's dark agenda.

Garrick, with his deep connection to nature, sought counsel from the spirits of the city. He whispered to the wind and listened to the rustling leaves, seeking guidance in his pursuit of justice. Nature revealed the hidden truths that eluded mortal eyes, aiding their quest to expose the corrupt noble's machinations.

As the trio delved deeper, the stakes escalated. Friends turned foes, alliances crumbled, and danger lurked around every corner. But their determination remained unyielding. They couldn't allow the city to fall victim to the tyrannical grip of Lord Balthazar.

Finally, the pivotal moment arrived—a grand gala hosted by Lord Balthazar himself. The adventurers infiltrated the event, masked by glamour and subterfuge, mingling with the noble elite. Underneath the chandeliers' radiant glow, they unveiled the damning evidence against the corrupt lord.

With each revelation, whispers of discontent spread like wildfire through the guests, sowing seeds of doubt and rebellion. The city's fate hung in the balance as the nobles questioned their loyalties, torn between self-interest and the well-being of the people.

A fervent uprising erupted, the citizens taking to the streets, demanding justice and an end to corruption. The city guards, caught between duty and the growing tide of discontent, faced a decision that would shape the future of Eldoria.

In the midst of chaos, Rylan, Lyra, and Garrick stood at the heart of the uprising, their quest for truth reaching its climactic moment. They confronted Lord Balthazar, his deceit laid bare before the people he had oppressed.

In the end, the corrupt noble was toppled from his ivory tower, his grip on power shattered. Eldoria rejoiced, its citizens tasting the sweet liberation that comes from the exposure of lies and the restoration of justice.

The adventurers, weary but proud, witnessed the transformation they had wrought. They had become catalysts for change, guiding the city toward a brighter future.

Their names became legend, whispered through the streets, as the heroes who unraveled the conspiracy that had threatened to consume the city. And in the aftermath of their triumph, the trio stood together, reflecting on their arduous journey. The streets were no longer filled with fear and oppression but with hope and possibility.

The citizens of Eldoria gathered around them, their voices united in gratitude and admiration. Rylan, Lyra, and Garrick had become symbols of justice, their actions forever etched in the city's history.

As they basked in the adoration, they knew their work was far from over. Eldoria needed new leadership, one that would prioritize the welfare of its people and restore trust in the governing systems. The adventurers, once strangers brought together by fate, now forged an unbreakable bond of friendship and a shared purpose.

With their combined skills, they began to rebuild the city, collaborating with the remaining officials who had not succumbed to corruption. They implemented reforms, established fair taxation, and ensured that the voices of the people were heard.

Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. Eldoria blossomed under their care, reclaiming its former glory and becoming a beacon of hope in the realm. The city's resurgence sparked inspiration in neighboring regions, prompting positive change beyond its walls.

Rylan's songs echoed through the streets, celebrating the triumph over corruption and reminding the citizens of their resilience. Lyra's skills as a spy and investigator were put to use in rebuilding the city's intelligence network, ensuring that corruption would never again take root. Garrick's deep connection with nature brought about a newfound harmony, as he revitalized the city's parks and gardens, symbolizing the rejuvenation of Eldoria itself.

But the adventurers knew that their work was not limited to a single city. The world was vast, filled with its own shadows and injustices. They had witnessed the impact they could make when united against corruption, and they vowed to continue their quest for justice, bringing light to the darkest corners of the realm.

Eldoria, forever indebted to their heroism, bid them farewell as they embarked on their next adventure. The citizens waved them off, their faces radiant with gratitude and hope.

And so, Rylan, Lyra, and Garrick ventured forth, leaving behind a city reborn, eager to face whatever challenges lay ahead. They were bound not just by their shared purpose but by the unbreakable bond formed through their trials. Together, they would continue to shine a light on the shadows of deception, and bring about a better world—one act of heroism at a time.

#fantasy #adventure #political intrigue #corruption #justice #unity #rebuilding #short story #Eldoria

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marginalgloss · 4 years

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a dream of north

I don’t recall exactly when I first read Northern Lights by Philip Pullman. It must have been in the late 1990s, since I’m fairly sure it was after the release of the sequel, but definitely before The Amber Spyglass came out. (I was very excited for that one.) I would guess I was no more than twelve or thirteen. It seems a little odd now to think that initially these were promoted as books for young people. My edition was published by Point, the Scholastic imprint best known for pulpy teen horror fiction; in a bookshop today you are more likely to find a new edition of one of Pullman’s novels dressed up in handsome pastel colours, with a more ‘artisanal’ cover style. Which is fine, and well-deserved. But my copy is the same one I read more than twenty years ago; I know this because it is missing the top-right corner of the last thirty pages or so, having once been lovingly chewed by a late lamented family dog.

Northern Lights is not a long book, and in many ways it feels like a quick sketch of a fast-moving story, one which is touches lightly on the world in which it depicts. By the standards of genre fantasy or science fiction, there isn’t a lot of detail here. We follow Lyra, a young girl growing up in an alternate Oxford — it might be some time in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, by our standards. Through a combination of accident and concealed design, Lyra is drawn into a conspiracy that involves two aspects: an expedition to the distant arctic in search of a mysterious particle called ‘Dust’, and a conspiracy to kidnap children and transport them to this same far northern region. What follows is an adventure in pursuit of Lord Asriel, a man Lyra believes to be her uncle, while alternately monitored and pursued by a sinister rich woman called Mrs Coulter. This race to the frozen North forms pretty much all of the main body of the book.

For the most part it rolls along at a storytelling pace: one thing happens, then the next, then the next. It really does have the rhythm of a story one might tell out loud to children, over many bedtimes. (Consider the frequent asides about what Lyra must eat, and where she sleeps — so often a chapter will end with her curling up to sleep in some sheltered corner of a forsaken place.) It doesn’t come across as overly considered. With a few exceptions, the book doesn’t often slow down to explain itself. If a reader were so inclined I’m sure it would be possible to poke holes all kinds of holes in the plot. Even by the end of the novel I didn’t feel entirely sure what Dust was, nor did I really understand what the antagonists were trying to do with it. Are they trying to destroy it, or to control it? And some of it seems whimsical, in the best possible sense. Want a Texan cowboy with his own gas-powered balloon and a talking bear for a best friend? Why not? It’s fun. It may be whimsical but that isn’t to suggest it’s frivolous; the author’s imagination comes from a place of experience, from deep reading. It’s a world that fascinates, even as it seems to resist scrutiny.

Something else which surprised me on returning to this book was the near absence of any explicit references to organised religion. There are mentions of something called the Magisterium, but it’s far from clear what their role is in the story, while a passing mention of ‘Pope John Calvin’ seems like a sort of gentle joke for older readers. This seems significant because at a certain point after the final book in this series was released, public discussion of Philip Pullman’s work became centred around his attitude to organised religion. By then a new populist atheism was having a kind of resurgence — people were talking about ‘the New Humanism’ or ‘New Atheism’ as if it were something to be excited about. Pullman would be loosely associated with this movement, insofar as his books could be championed by people who might proactively define themselves as atheists.

But to the best of my knowledge, his statements on these matters have been altogether more measured, and less definitive. I’m curious now to revisit the later novels and consider the extent to which they really have much to do with atheism at all. It’s been a while, but it always seemed to me that the atheist reading was worth unpicking from the anti-religious impulse in these novels. There is a certain amount of what you might call ‘fantasy spectacle through hard science’ in Northern Lights — the many-worlds theory, the vague invocations of particle physics, all of which was so excitedly summarised by the New Atheism as the ‘wonder’ of the universe — and yet I’m not sure the novels are altogether so content to settle on a purely materialistic view of reality.

The big idea of Northern Lights is in the daemons. They are a beautiful idea, and the book’s story could easily be read as one long pursuit of this idea. What if every person was born with an animal companion which represented — no, which actually was — an indivisible part of their being? As if we all had another organ of personality, like a second brain or a second ‘heart’, linked to our bodies by an invisible thread. The notion has the genius quality of immediate appeal to all ages. Children (and many adults) love the idea of a permanent animal companion, while older readers may appreciate the associated philosophical concepts: the shadow self, or psychological anima; or just the little angel/devil on our shoulder.

Perhaps the existence of the daemons a kind of heresy, as much as it implies that each person’s soul (for want of a better word) belongs essentially to themselves. There are no refunds, and a daemon is not subject to exchange; a daemon is not the property of some other high power, gifted at birth and reclaimed at death; they might not even be properly said to belong to their ‘owner’, any more than their person-companion belongs to them. Still, in spiritual terms this might be characterised as a problem of accounting rather than of blasphemy. There is a lovely image presented early on of the crypts under one of the Oxford colleges, where great people are buried alongside precious tokens depicting the forms of their daemons. Even in death they belong to one another, though the account into which they have been deposited remains a mystery.

After the reader is introduced to the associated rituals and taboos, it is the pain of separation from one’s daemon that becomes a sort of leitmotif in this book. All this is expressed incredibly well — the sense of separation anxiety is perhaps the most memorable aspect of the whole story. It is unpleasant for one’s daemon to be handled by another person, and it is literal agony to be separated from it by more than a very short distance, and so when the reader discovers that children are being severed from their daemons it seems like an uniquely agonising kind of cruelty.

The allegories for this ‘cut’ are more explicit than I remember. At times it is directly compared to castration or genital mutilation. Lobotomy might be another comparison. The procedure seems to have a uniquely devastating effect on children — it seems that adults have undergone it without such dramatic effects — but as with much in this book, that much is never explained. Again, it’s unclear why the procedure is happening at all. Nobody seems to be gaining anything by it. It is like one of those pointless bleak cruelties we find in Roald Dahl. It’s something to do with Dust, we’re told, and it is dependent on the unique relationship that children have with their daemons before they reach puberty. But that it is hard to rationalise is, I think, part of the point.

Hanging over it all is the horror of institutionalised abuse. It is the kind of abuse that needs no justification, any more than senseless vivisection does. It is merely the pulling apart of a thing to see how it works – for the cutter, the gratuity is its own reward. Perhaps in so far as we can find any meaning in it, it’s in the idea that growing up needn’t involve a sort of deliberate caustic severing of whatever it was that made us childlike in the first place. We may not need to put away childish things, and we certainly don’t need them to be torn from us. Perhaps growing up should be less like a departure from ourselves and more like a process of reification, in which something that was latent all along only becomes settled and manifest with the passing of time.

#books #philip pullman #northern lights

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