I’ve lacked much motivation to write lately, to say nothing of drawing, but I remembered I made this back in June. I’d planned to release it shortly after ‘A One-Time Glitch and a District Reset’ but I forgot :P
I’ve been wanting to give Ladybug’s usually-patched eye a proper appearance in my art for a while. I was initially planning to have something ‘edgy’ or ‘deep’, but figured some casual slice of life would work just fine.
So here it is! The truth behind the patch. The visual glitch where her left eye used to be. Perfectly harmless, but a bit startling to look at, so Ladybug just wears the patch so others don’t have to see it.
Haha, it's me Cupcake again (LOL). I had a question that I forgot to ask. In your fanfiction(s), do ALL cogs have emotions, or was Chase a special case? I was just wondering to see how it lined up with my fanfics. XD
I think that Cogs do have some capacity for emotions, but it’s extremely limited. There are a lot of emotions that Cogs would consider ‘unnecessary’ or ‘detrimental’ to their business, but they require some level of emotion in order to relate to their customers or whatnot.
If we’re getting into specifics, negative emotions like anger and hatred are permitted, and even encouraged. Positive emotions, obviously, are off-limits. Cogs shouldn’t be permitted to love, and they definitely shouldn’t be seen as happy. They are capable of some enjoyment of certain jobs, but that is about as positive as a regular Cog would get. Though most interestingly, fear is another emotion that is considered unacceptable, as most Cogs are going to end up fighting Toons, and they can’t be afraid or else they might choose not to fight.
This is the glitch that allowed Chase to become who he is. Unlike most other Cogs fresh off the assembly line, his fear wasn’t properly limited. As he started to fight Toons, he started to fear Toons. That fear bred some level of hate, as well as some basic free thought, another aspect that is expressly discouraged. He became a little more adaptable than the average Cog, which led to his downfall.
After being beaten up by a few fellow Cogs, and subsequently being rescued and partially reprogrammed by a Toon, the combined ‘fear’ glitch, freedom of thought, and the realization that maybe the Toons weren’t the enemy he’d always considered them, all led to him finally siding with the Toons. It was all due to the circumstances aligning perfectly, and a teensy oversight in his programming that allowed him to feel fear in the first place.
Hi there! My toon's name is Cupcake, and I just wanted to say how wonderful your stories and characters ( especially Chase ) are. I love reading other's TTR fanfiction, but I've been particularly drawn to yours. It's funny but I've had my own turned-good Cog character since TTO, a Telemarketer named Mark. Where do you get the inspiration for your content?
Aww, thank you for the kind words, Cupcake! Telemarketers are just adorable little things. Funny you should mention it, because part of my inspiration came from Piranhartist on DeviantArt, who also has a Telemarketer character, Telle! Her Toontown stories were originally what drew me in, and even inspired me to create a Cog character of my own! But as she stopped drawing and writing Toontown stuff (except for commissions), I ended up looking around for other Toontown stories.
I eventually found and fell in love with the story A Toon in Cogs’ Clothing, which spanned three websites - fanfiction.net, DeviantArt, and Tumblr. The writing and art were beautiful and well done, if a bit dark and gritty. I incorporated several themes from that story into my own writing, and still look back at A Toon in Cogs’ Clothing fondly. Sadly, as it has been several years, the Tumblr and DeviantArt have long since been abandoned, and most of the posts deleted, but it was a fun ride while it lasted.
Beyond Toontown related artists, a great deal of my inspiration comes from various movies and television. Marvel movies, Disney movies, and even the multiple series of Star Trek all have excellent writing and visuals. The TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the anime Attack on Titan, and the movie I, Robot have also heavily influenced a lot of what I create. And if we’re specifically talking about writing style, I draw a lot of phrasing and structure from White Fang by Jack London. Call me old-fashioned, but I thoroughly enjoy the larger paragraphs and longwinded descriptions that writers from that era tended to use.
And of course, none of this would have been possible if Toontown Rewritten hadn’t come along to lift me back onto my feet after Toontown Online closed, so I owe a lot to them. They gave me my childhood back.
That just about covers everything. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my stories. I promise, I have plenty more on the way!
Here’s my entry for Community Day at ToonFest. Just a nice exchange of platonic affection and metaphor.
(If the image looks slightly fuzzy, you should be able to click for full resolution)
Edit: Just got back from the convention, and I am very happy with how well-received this comic was. Even if it didn’t hit first place, I’m glad this made runner-up. I had a great time this year, and I hope everyone else did, too!
It had been just another standard duel with a Cog. Ladybug had faced a few hundred by now, and her Gags were improving with time and effort. Though to the cat that was so fond of blowing those bots to smithereens, it seemed nothing less than a game. She reveled in the destruction she wrought, as her recent series of solo battles allowed her to really open up and unleash her abilities. She was quick, darting in and out, tossing pies and leaping out of range of the Cogs' quick-flung attacks to continue on, unscathed. She was built for speed and endurance, and ran all over Toontown that day in search of Cashbots for one of her tasks.
In her search, she had wound up looping through Toontown Central for a little bit, dispatching of several smaller Cogs without too much effort. With the nearly even distribution of all four Cog types, Cashbots weren't as easy to come by, but the quickness of their encounters always made up for the lost time. Her sharp eyes were keen for the slightest glimpse of a green suit, and as her task neared its completion, her little patience was swiftly wearing thin.
Ladybug's scanning gaze finally fell upon her next prey, and a twisted smile spread across her face. There was a level 3 Tightwad strolling down Punchline Place, and even walking toward her. It was the perfect target.
The feline darted to the side, scurrying along the sidewalk and side-eyeing the bot as she prepared to pass it by and get the drop on it. Instead, the Cog whirled to face her, sneering valiantly.
“I'm going to cut off your funding,” it barked robotically. The pink cat turned toward the Tightwad, mildly surprised but not discouraged. She'd had Cogs instigate fights with her in the past, though admittedly they had been doing so less and less as of late.
She smirked, holding up a whole fruit pie. It was a plain, mid-level Gag that often didn't get the credit it deserved. Before she'd earned her cream pies, she'd depended heavily on all throw Gags leading up to it. She still defaulted to the fruit pie, as she could only carry three cream pies on her at that point in time.
All else aside, the fruit pie was also powerful enough to destroy a level 3 Cog in one hit. The circumstances were just too perfect.
The Cog glared at her, optics narrowed in ire, while Ladybug wore a similar expression, only hers was punctuated with a feral grin. She was going to enjoy this.
The pink cat leapt at the robot, hurling the pie at its small head.
The robot hurriedly sprung to the side.
Blueberry filling splattered across the pavement.
Ladybug froze where she landed, incredulous. In spite all of her rigorous training, her usually impeccable aim, and her otherwise unmatched skill in battle…
She had missed.
The Tightwad advanced on her, scowling.
“My eyes are my strongest feature,” it bleeped, marching forward towards its target. Its lenses flashed as it prepared its attack.
Glower Power.
The attack was simple – a Cog literally ‘glared daggers’ at its target. The holographic projectiles did no lasting physical damage, and only served to steal away a Toon’s Laff. Ladybug was well aware of the drill by then, and simply braced herself.
A flurry of knives was jettisoned from the Cog's optics, sent flying straight towards Ladybug's face.
There was a twitch.
A stutter.
A glitch.
An otherworldly screech echoed across the street, coming from seemingly nowhere.
The world seemed to be suddenly spinning, the feline overwhelmed with a horrifying mixture of agony and loss. The daggers had vanished, but she was sureone of them had pierced, somehow... Her face was exploding, shuddering, glitching. Something was wrong.
She staggered backwards uncoordinatedly, quickly losing her balance and falling down onto the yellow cobblestones. She was wailing and flickering, half-blinded.
Her left eye wouldn't work. Why wouldn't her left eye work?
The entire left side of her face seemed to pixelate and deconstruct, zeros and ones crying out as they struggled desperately to account for what was happening. Untextured code bled freely from the left eye socket. In that instant, reality had utterly broken down. Wincing and crying senselessly, Ladybug slammed the palm of her hand against her left eye, her spiraling mind only able to conjure up a single clear thought, stop the bleeding. And somehow, this action did nothing to alleviate the situation.
The world around them was falling to pieces, The Grey encroaching from all sides.
The Cog watched in alarm for a minute, before hurriedly turning and unfolding a propeller from the top of its head, preparing for takeoff. The pink cat's ear swiveled toward the sound, and she turned her now one eye towards the robot that was about to escape. A weak scowl spread across her disintegrating features. She lifted herself onto shaky legs, her entire frame swaying unsteadily while her hand uselessly continued to cover her malfunctioning eye.
Screaming wordlessly, she charged at the fleeing Cog...
Just as the world abruptly reset in a flash.
XXX
Ladybug sluggishly awoke in her own bed, her mind fuzzy and head throbbing. Scratch that – her entire body was aching. She felt as though she’d been knocked out cold, and her body had been tossed about in a tumble dryer. But now that she was awake and feeling all of this, there was little chance of her somehow going back to sleep. In a daze, she reached absentmindedly toward her still-closed left eye, assuring herself it had only been a dream.
Her fingertips encountered something smooth and hard.
Her right eye snapped open, and she sat up with a start. She was soon squinting as she began to regard the room. Somehow, all the lights in her house had been left on. Come to think of it, when did she start sleeping in her clothes? No, this was definitely wrong.
Hands shaking clumsily, the feline felt over the strange object covering her eye. Gloved fingers curled under an edge, and she vigorously yanked whatever-it-was off of her face. An elastic strap flew up from behind her head, following after her hand, and as she stared at what she held, she furrowed her eyebrows in puzzlement. It was a black leather eyepatch. Nothing special. Certainly not at all like the one she'd seen in the Cattlelog, previously. That one had been bedazzled with little scarlet sequins around its edge, but this one was just a simple, plain black.
There was no way this was hers.
She was somehow seeing out of her left eye, again. If it had all been a dream, that wouldn’t have been too unusual, but… Clearly, it hadn’t been a dream.
What's happened to my eye?
Ladybug fumbled out of bed, shuffling out of her room, through the main room, and out the front door. She practically ran to the pond beside her house, bending over the stilled water to stare at her reflection. It took her a moment for her gaze to focus on her rippling, ethereal reflection. Her jaw fell in disbelief.
Reality had faltered.
In place of her left eye, which had previously been identical to her right, she was now greeted by a monstrous gaze. The white sclera was there, but that was where all similarities to her right eye ended. The iris was a rich, emerald green, flecked with sparkles that caught the light and shimmered. Forming a rim around the pupil, the green changed pigments, tinting slightly yellow to create a bright lime green color. And finally, the pupil. As she had first looked upon it with disgust and horror, its roundness had disappeared, contracting into a thin slit that startled her even more.
Tears blurred her vision.
She was at a complete loss as to how this could've happened. There was no way this could have been real... right? Surely, she was still dreaming, there was just no way...
But it wasn't a dream.
That was what her eye had become.
All because of a one-time glitch and a district reset.
It was down, among the tall office buildings, steeped in nighttime shadow and illuminated only by their glowing windows, that the remnants of a battlefield lay. A little trainyard, once filled with the comings and goings of its robotic residents and the constant, deafening screech of trains arriving and departing, was now left utterly silent. An expanse of carnage was all that remained. Those same trains, once carrying important supplies, now sat derailed and overturned, lying defeated along the tracks as far down the line as was visible. One upside-down train was peppered with numerous banana peels, while the engine car of another was crushed beyond any hope of repair by a massive ocean liner.
In lieu of the robots that had once patrolled throughout the facility, now ran the colorful bunch of Toons – Resistance Rangers. Soft laughter and the moving of boxes now dispelled the silence. The contents of the freight cars were being investigated by some, while others brought in crates and barrels of their own, setting up a small outpost right in the epicenter of what had previously been a calamitous battle. Boxes full of supplies were being thrown open and scooped out, Toons scurrying about to get everything ready for the second part of the operation. Then, at last, one final crate was cracked open, revealing a multitude of spray paint cans. The colorful creatures grinned at each other.
A smirk rested on the snout of the leader of the Toon Resistance, Lord Lowden Clear, as he watched the Toons that turned loose upon the boring, gray walls of Cashbot HQ. Even the Toons that had been doing other things stopped to join in the fun. Graffiti was soon scrawled everywhere. Lowden couldn’t withhold a chuckle at that. The janitorial staff would likely be struggling to scrub the bright colors from their walls long after the operation ended.
Ladybug’s only regret was that she had missed all of the fireworks.
Happy Crash Cashbot, everyone! I’ll see you all in the Cashbot Vault!
I wrote this story at the end of 2015/ beginning of 2016 for a winter media contest on Toonbook. I ended up winning first place, much to my surprise. Despite quite a few older writing quirks of mine and a number of characters I haven’t acknowledged in years, this remains one of my proudest published stories.
I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
My story, A ‘Rewritten’ Christmas, was made for a winter media contest on Toonbook, back at the very end of 2015 and the very beginning of 2016. The ever-expanding, ever-changing world of my story’s canon has been revised and rewritten several times over, while this old story has become a bit of a relic. Old ideas and plot points that never came to fruition are sprinkled throughout, as this was meant to be a holiday celebration that brought together all of my characters from that nebulous time of uncertainty and limited writing ability. Back then, I was still figuring out a lot, and looking back at one of my oldest stories, it shows quite a bit.
Be warned: spoilers lie ahead!
Still Canon:
Ladybug still loves hot chocolate, even with a layer of whipped cream over it.
Lily is still a total neat-freak.
Lily’s ability to materialize objects from out of thin air remains a part of her powers, but it’s also been dialed back a bit. To clarify, she can’t spontaneously create Gags, Jellybeans, or anything required to progress in the game, but she can summon simple objects and mechanisms (such as clothes, a notebook, or even a small camera) from elsewhere.
Chase’s fear of hypno-goggles is very briefly touched upon here, and remains a part of his character.
Chase is still very afraid of The Brrrgh, what with its close proximity to Lawbot HQ and all. Poor guy doesn’t have the best memories of that place.
Chase’s second Christmas present remains 100% canon, and it is still mentioned from time to time, even to this day. It even becomes a significant plot point in a later story arc.
Even if there aren’t any recent stories written about it, Ladybug and Chase still decorate the house together every year.
As Chase mentions, Cogs don’t celebrate the holidays as extravagantly as Toons do, but they do celebrate to some extent.
This story was what established certain shopkeepers forbidding Chase from entering their shops, a plot point that would be resurrected later.
Another plot point that would be elaborated on later is Ladybug’s resentment toward the rest of her family. After Ladybug’s mom died, her father remarried and Ladybug’s little sister almost completely forgot about their mom, since she was too young to really remember her. But Ladybug never moved on, and hated that fact that the rest of her family had.
The point in the story where Lily unites a bunch of kids to attack Ladybug and Chase actually lays the groundwork for a much later story arc…
No Longer Canon:
This story constantly makes a point to differentiate Toontown Online and Toontown Rewritten, while my more-recent stuff acknowledges that there is some level of difference, but it’s left intentionally vague. To be clear – the universe that my stories take place in is the game world, itself, but its inhabitants possess their own ‘reality filter’.
The version of Ladybug in this story is my original ‘darker-toned’ Ladybug. In the original draft of her story, she returned to Toontown Rewritten with amnesia, and slowly regained her memories over time. The original Ladybug also had a voice in her head (me) giving her advice and assistance directly. In addition, this Ladybug’s attitude was far darker and harsher, and I went to great lengths, at times, to express the burning hatred she felt towards the Cogs. While Ladybug nowadays retains some of that same fire, it’s a lot lighter than it used to be, even when it does turn dark.
Ladybug no longer wears shoes as far as the story is concerned.
This version of Lily is a bit sloppily-written, since she was the toughest character for me to figure out, overall, and my portrayal of her suffered because of it. It took me a year or two of practice to really develop an understanding of who she was and how she worked, the earliest points of which can be seen here, if only a little.
Lily isn’t so focused on bananas and peppermint candy anymore.
I’ve known Chase as a character from the start, but since this is an early portrayal of him, things are a teensy bit off. This story was really what helped me get his rhythm down in the first place.
There is a paragraph early on, detailing the various points at which Chase was killed and almost killed in The Brrrgh. These have changed a bit over time, and the point mentioned where he “lied to a higher-up” is no longer canon.
Chase doesn’t wear a scarf and jacket anymore. He’s built to withstand the cold weather around his HQ, after all.
One of Chase’s Christmas presents, the Toon-centric emblem to replace his Lawbot emblem, was ultimately scrapped later on. As much as I wanted to keep it, the direction the story went just inevitably left it behind.
Kit and Jaden Jinxbee are two characters that I’ve almost completely retired. In the original draft of the canon, long before the Christmas story, Kit was almost like how Lily is, today. She wore a dark cloak, snuck around a lot, and took care of Cogs in ‘unconventional’ ways. In the end, those traits fell to Lily while Kit was shelved.
Trixie’s name is dropped a total of twice in this story, but she is never actually seen. It is mentioned that she is in hiding, which is yet another remnant of the outdated canon. At this point, her character has been retired until such a time comes that I might be able to reintroduce her.
Snowtoons are mislabeled as ‘snowmen’.
Cold Callers are portrayed as being more susceptible to cold temperatures than they actually are, even as far as Toontown Rewritten’s canon goes.
The canon story is on its way! No more retcons and revisions. No more cringing at the past. Today, my story is... Rewritten!
I wrote this story at the end of 2015/ beginning of 2016 for a winter media contest on Toonbook. I ended up winning first place, much to my surprise. Despite quite a few older writing quirks of mine and a number of characters I haven’t acknowledged in years, this remains one of my proudest published stories.
I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Back in the day, Ladybug would constantly find herself rushing to the aid of Toons that the Cogs had nearly beaten. In Toontown, it’s a given that newer Toons will often attempt to bite off more than they can chew, so despite it thoroughly annoying her, she never stood idly by to let a Cog finish off a Toon that merely didn’t know any better. Such it was, that Ladybug would have never anticipated rushing to the aid of a Cog, and even then, she’d been too late to prevent most of the damage. Let’s just say that while curiosity may kill the cat, Ladybug has a regular habit of cheating death - in the end, she dragged that Cog back to her house, spent days fixing him up like new, and they’ve been close friends ever since.
Decided to give my characters their own theme songs last year, then spent hours upon hours of my time scouring the internet in search of the ‘perfect’ song for every last one of said characters. There are still some additional characters that I have to draw up and find theme songs for, but this covers everyone in my ‘#meet the characters’ tag thus far.
Ladybug’s theme, ‘Me Against the World’ is by Simple Plan
Lily’s theme, ‘Fly on the Wall’ is by Thousand Foot Krutch
Chase’s theme, ‘R0Mx Series III’ is by Em Harriss
Scooter’s theme, ‘Hey Brother’ is by Avicii
Blake’s theme, ‘Vampire Heart’ is by HIM
Sahara’s theme, ‘New Soul’ is by Yael Naim
Credit for the songs goes to their respective owners. I do not claim to own any of the songs used in the video.
I wrote this story at the end of 2015/ beginning of 2016 for a winter media contest on Toonbook. I ended up winning first place, much to my surprise. Despite quite a few older writing quirks of mine and a number of characters I haven’t acknowledged in years, this remains one of my proudest published stories.
I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
