#''oh arent these headcanons a bit too fucked up?'' haha no this is don't hug me i'm scared
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oh yeah, one more thing or my last hurrah of my dhmis fixation! i thought i might share all my hc lore notes for the main important characters. its not entirely done, i got through like half the research i wanted to do for radley and quentin and got in pretty much none of the reasearch i wanted to do for gilbert BUT the broad strokes are there. and i thought id finally give you all some context for the weird insanity i always drew of those three boys
CW for violence, racism, homophobia, murder and attempted suicide
also heads up for canon divergence
basics
the most important year is 1955
that's the year the guys were brought into The Puppet Purgatory or whatever you wanna classify it as (P.P. For short)
the characters leave the P.P. in 1983
time flows like shit there, it's a mess and everything is pretty much runs on the express goal of Fucking With You
the puppet aesthetic of the P.P is a manifestation of Leslie's own childlike and simplistic view of the world, if someone else had created it, it would've looked completely different (for example if Quentin somehow did it it'd be styled like a film noir, and Gilbert would've turned it into a nature documentary)
yellow guy: Gilbert Ratcliff
born in 1934
21 in 1955
27 in 1983 (age was frozen for almost the entire time he was in P.P.)
grew up as a member of a secluded community, similar to Mormons, called The Community
The Comunity is a small village hidden within Ashtown Forest, containing roughly 800 members
he's always been a very smart and curious boy, despite The Community's best efforts to keep him just within what they permit their people to know
his curiosity was only ever encouraged by his closest childhood friend, Leslie, who also loved learning new things and exploring the world
surprisingly however, Leslie became furious with him when he said he wanted to leave The Community and move somewhere outside of their woodland town
he left anyways and found his footing working for a diner in southern London, where the owner didn't care that he didn't even graduate high school (“well you don't need an education to serve food”)
this diner was visited often by a local college student named Radley, who would often have dinner there or just stay somewhere without a colour bar
Gilbert and Radley talked about all sorts of things whenever there was a lull in business, with Gilbert's curiosity usually driving the conversation
however, one day he was ambushed by Leslie who missed him too much and wanted to take him back with her to The Community, and keep him from leaving again through an old occult ritual
this is also why he's kept young and clueless via empty batteries all the time, Leslie does not want him to leave her ever again, she wants to keep the Gilbert who couldn't see the funny side, was always so curious and sweet but who doesn't actually break the rules
red guy: Radley Gayle
born in 1932
23 in 1955
48 when he escapes The Puppet Purgatory in 1983 (age got frozen for a few years)
came to Britain from a British colony in Jamaica to go to college
dreams of creating a kids T.V show that could teach black children about the world around them (emboldened by television act of 1954)
member of the West African Students' Union (WASU)
acquainted with Gilbert before they were sent to P.P, witnessed his murder and had to be killed as well so there'd be no witnesses
somewhere in the middle between dhmis times and 1955, Radley makes his way up to Leslie's room and gets a bit too confrontational about escaping the P.P for her liking
she rips off his lips as punishment
the wound does not go away, as it happened outside of the lessons of the P.P, not to mention caused directly by the person in charge of the Funny House
he grows a beard to cover it up
duck: Quentin Corben (Indian last name Chabra was only by his family in private)
born in 1930
25 in 1955
53 in 1983 (only one who aged normally throughout their entire stay in the P.P.)
his mother and father were both Indians who lived in Britain due to work (His mother having been a domestic servant and his father a lascar)
they all wanted to fit into Britain as much as possible to minimize the discrimination they'd face, this meant that Quentin had next to no connection with his Indian heritage beyond knowing a bit of Punjabi
his father had to help with the military boats during WW2, dying when one of them was bombed
after this, Quentin's mother quickly married a white British man, half out of love but mostly out of fear that she would be discriminated against more intensely if she wasn't married, perhaps even lose her home
maybe they had a couple of kids to, leading to Quentin having a half-sibling or two idk
after that, the expectation for them to “mold into whiteness” became more intense, the step-father not really doing anything to lessen it
Quentin didn't really care, he had other things to worry about
like being gay and closeted
he used to spend a lot of nights and weekends at gay bars
sometimes performed songs there, he was quite popular with the other queers
one night a group of cops who recently found out about this secret gay bar storm the place
Quentin, still wearing a fruity as hell outfit, escapes and runs home, unfortunately he gets caught in the garage by his step-father
his family interrogate him, figure out he's a homosexual and all hell breaks lose
Quentin is beaten thoroughly by his step-father and has a bible shoved in his face
in an outburst of rage at his family's betrayal of him, Quentin sets the bible on fire, his mother promptly drops it and as another sign of his newfound disownment of his family, Quentin kicks over a gasoline canister
he turns and exits through the back door of the garage he came in through. his family however is not so lucky. The flames spread to the banister and the roof of the garage, the house's big garage gate would be the family's only exit but the door has been severely busted for many months and its inability to open becomes their doom as the roof collapses and they all die
Quentin, now horrified that he just killed his entire family and got away with it, runs away. He spends a few weeks being homeless but eventually decides to spend his last money on a rope, go into the nearby forests and hang himself to atone for his sins
while he struggles to tie the noose, (because I need that boy to be pathetic <3) he is found by Leslie, who is dragging two bags of corpses behind her to her home in The Community
long conversation short, because Quentin wants to atone for his sins either way, and because Leslie takes pity on his inability to do so much as to tie a noose, they agree to let her stab him and make him another part of the ritual
and so this stranger from nowhere is sent to the P.P.
Leslie (last name pending) (or maybe they just don't have last names in The Community)
22 in 1955
50 in 1983 (allthough doing the ritual made her body age faster due to how draining it is on the body)
always a jolly soul, Leslie was nice and encouraging to everyone she knew in The Community, though her favourite friend of all time was Gilbert
she didn't really care that he left The Community, but she was utterly heartbroken that he would ever leave HER
shortly after his departure, she finds an old ritual of The Community, to send someone into a special dimension dedicated to atoning for wrongdoings and learning new values
determined to carry through this ritual, she sets out to find Gilbert
it takes her nearly a year to find him, but when she finally does, she kills him quickly and tries to leave right away but unfortunately she's caught in the act by Radley who probably forgot something in the diner or smth
she makes quick work of him as well and decides to take him along, since she's stalked Gilbert for a few weeks and knows that Gilbert and Radley are already well acquainted
she figures taking him along to the atonement dimension couldn't hurt too much, picks up Quentin along the way too
The ritual includes removing all organs from the sacrificed and to tie them to your own body. In the P.P. Dimension this manifests as Leslie's stitches in her face
she keeps all three of them with her and overall mostly just sticks to encouraging good behaviour and punishing bad behaviour as she sees fit
the teachers and lessons she sends the main trio are unfortunately kind of absolute trash because they are entirely based on her sheltered perspective as a member of The Community, but they do not turn violent within the first few years. It's just misinformation at first
Gilbert is mentally frozen in age quickly once Leslie modifies him to run on batteries (and consistently keeps him on low power so his mind cannot grasp at the world around him to try and ruin her fun)
Radley, who tried to lash out against the Puppet Purgatory a few times but failed and then became depressed, gets frozen in age for a little while where it seems like he won't do anything anymore, but it turns out that freezing his body's growth did not do the same to his mind and he went back to pushing against Leslie's control after a few years.
This distresses Leslie greatly mostly because if Radley could figure some things out despite being frozen, there's a good chance Gilbert will as well. Once she realised this she started regularly wiping the trio's memories of previous adventures.
Quentin dies the most because he actually did something fucked up in his life to “warrant” the P.P.'s torture (that being killing his family). This isn't Leslie's intention, its just the nature of this place acting on its own
since keeing up the connection to the P.P. dimension is kiling her, Leslie finally lets the three boys go in 1983
still unsure if she dies afterwards or tries to sort of "patch things up" (or at least apologize)
Bonus: Roy
a puppet character simply created to play the role of Gilbert's father
gained too much sentience after many years within the P.P and began actually seeing himself as Gilbert's father
as such, he found himself continuously emboldened by the 'father knows best' attitude built into his core character and eventually gained the power to take over the Puppet Purgatory Dimension
gaining sentience over the nature of his reality caused his body to get all gangly and fucked up and long, he looked more like a normal old guy before
his newfound control over the P.P. Caused the June 19th loop, a father's day on which he tried to teach his son all the lessons he ought to truly know
the teachers he created, however are far more hostile and malicious, leading to the fucked up lessons in the yt-shorts
the first ones, sketchbook and Tony, also ended up corrupting their versions of the main three into the big boys and bigger boys, which Roy was forced to take of once Leslie took control again
while some things such as the oil spill on Gilbert's clown painting or Tony the clock's screeching were planned, the really insane moments were unintentional consequences of Roy's clumsiness when running the P.P
he was just a figment from within with too much sentience after all, he didn't REALLY know how any of it should work
the unplugging at the end of Dreams is part of his willing relinquishment of his powers over the universe
despite being a bit of a fucked up cruel man, he recognized that his mingling has gone too far, and not really taught anyone anything valuable, except to be scared all the damn time
hence why the main trio was so hostile in the TV-series, they're all super on edge and they'd rather scare off the teachers than actually learn anything new now
that's also why Roy didn't really do anything in the TV-series, he's sticking to the background “as he ought to” (in Leslie's words)
as another bonus, have some pics of the three boys right before and a while after the puppet purgatory dimension (i was quoting "quiet mullet boy" to myself for weeks after making the second pic)
#hc au gilbert#hc au quentin#hc au radley#writing#''oh arent these headcanons a bit too fucked up?'' haha no this is don't hug me i'm scared#for once my fucked up headcanons actually work for the media theyre for
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