my brain usually becomes blank when it comes to wating to share hcs and all that but i feel to ramble a bit about thorn ring friendpins :] (ft. some help of oomf's big brain)
i think battat and friend started as investigation partners, where friend would give battat "clues" (whether they were misleading or not) while battat was busy connecting the dots. as time passed, battat's curiosity shifted from mike to friend, therefore his questions were now targeted at the eldritch horror itself. such interest led friend to acknowledge how little to nothing it knows about its own existence, like, who created it and why exactly it was created, it only knows it was created with the purpose of servitude. this led friend to question about its own identity, something battat can empathize with, since he basically has some internal identity crisis between his own persona and mike.
friend knows the concept of feelings, but its uncapable of understanding it or feeling them, but upon sharing something in common with someone for the first time, it "felt" understood, and boy, what a great "feeling" it is.
feeling so good that, it grew more attached to battat, not wanting to lose him under any circumstance.
to assure their bond, it snatched the thorn ring that was hidden in tenna's office (i hc that spamton gave it to tenna before but tenna never used it and just put it away), and shows it to battat. friend says its part of the deal they had, something that will ensure their friendship, but battat isnt so confident about wearing it. friend mentions that tenna had it in his office, and perhaps was planning to give it to mike someday (LIAAARRR), so battat is like "well, mike would've worn it for tenna, wouldnt he?" and so he places the ring on his finger.
nobody know what happens when a darkner wears the thorn ring, let alone if the source (like, the vessel with the soul) is just a concept beyond understanding. at first battat feels weird, really weird, until he seemed... fine. thing is, a side effect is that, if one wears the thorn ring for too long, red vines will grow around the victim's body, draining their energy and eventually killing them. this led battat to become more pale as the vines were draining him, but he was dedicated to weakly proclaim how much he loved his friend.
at first, friend seemed to be happy about having battat all to itself, finally having someone to have a literal bond with, but eventually, it realized that battat became nothing but a shell, if he already had no identity of his own, let alone he will get one if he became a reflection of friend's abstract concept of identity if that makes sense
battat knows about the vines growing around him, and it feels like a numbing pain, but after all, he sees it as friend's love wrapping him up so he doesnt seem to mind
(ok mucho texto for now but hav fun reading:^))
oh i got an ask i wonder what it's about and who its frHIT DIGITAL ARTIST KOGGLYUFFS???????????????????????????????
this is fire thank you so much...... and your thornring friendpins stuff makes a lot more sense now with this context (even though I don't really know if this was established before u drew those but it seems like it)
this has so many things i love seeing in friendpins works at the same time it feels like a trap. friend feeling for the first time. them relating to eachother like they relate to no one else. identity crisis together. battat losing themself,classic. manipulative asshole friend that's not really trying to be malicious but still hurts people (read:battat) in its favor. This is my favorite ask ever actually. Absolute tv time. i don't even have anything to add Thank you I love your thornring friendpins
