psychoanalyzing ticci toby's story
i've been obsessively rereading the original creepypasta, trying hard to properly characterize everybody in the story, make the story more linear, more detailed. i love kastoway's story, don't get me wrong, but we all know (especially like. 13 fucking years later) that it's obviously juvenile, and details from the original story hint at way more than it gives us.
this is where become #FriendWho'sTooWoke.
to me, the real story of Ticci Toby is a depiction of working-class struggles to the extreme. throughout the entire story, everybody- EVERYBODY is a victim of the system, or is implied to be.
first, let's mention the fact that toby is disabled. CIPA is wayyy more serious than any of our fanfictions really let on. according to wikipedia, "Approximately 20% of people with CIPA die of hyperthermia by age 3." LIKE? 20 FUCKING %? this is NOT just the "disease that makes him feel no pain" - no dude, he very well could have experienced seizures in infancy and childhood, probably in and out of doctors visits and er trips. he was a sick little boy. "Since people with this condition are unable to sweat, they are unable to properly regulate their body temperature. Those affected are unable to feel pain and temperature." bro can't even sweat!
which leads us to lyra, dear sweet lyra. do you know glass child syndrome? yes, that is her to a tee. the term was actually invented for her. glass child syndrome refers to when siblings of those with disabilities or higher needs often feeling overlooked by caretakers, deprioritized, or even being genuinely neglected. this would obviously come with a shitload of contradictory feelings towards toby. she loves him, he is her brother, she wants to protect him, but she could also hold real feelings of resentment.
connie. the main parent. the only caregiver. she would seemingly be the one to be taking toby to and from the doctor, making the decision to pull him out of public school and become his teacher, becoming his only silent cheerleader after lyra's death. i assume she would either be financially dependent on the dad (CANONICALLY HAS NO NAME), or she works very little part-time hours due to taking care of toby. maybe before the crash, she worked a little bit more - like night-shift. making sure lyra gets to school, husband goes to work, and teaching toby during the day. i think once he's a teen he has more freedom, or independence i guess, so she was able to pick up more hours. i'm sure that would've gone to shit after lyra's death.
i don't even wanna talk too much about the dad. i would assume he works like, 60-hr weeks, probably doesn't have a formal degree, and i bet his salary is like. >$43k/year still.
during my rewrite, i'm making sure to include details that kind of hint at the whole family struggling to make ends meet, make sure the medical bills get paid somehow, the kids watching and internalizing the stress, the strain and deterioration of the unit devolving into domestic/family violence and addiction, the grief of losing the one character that sympathizes the most with toby- and then the eldritch horror makes himself more apparent. the story turns, instead of focusing on whole family going under, we watch toby's mind deteriorate, his 'slender sickness' feelings still being mostly described by conventional mental illness, which isn't surprising given his... living conditions.
i've added a lot of headcanon material lowkey to the rewrite. just the flesh out the characters more, but everything is still canon-adjacent. like toby doesn't have green hair or whatever (though he should). i genuinely have like, 10 pages of notes and 12 pages so far of actual story.
i've also been reading a lot of. dialectical materialism theory. and the cogs are a-turnin'.
