FREAKSHOW VS. CARNIVAL - Concept work!

Freakshow AU by @hootbon

kofi✨ || context📍

Norman Lindsay - The Audience, 1926

Now that pit babe is over, going back to rewatch the show and seeing babe push Charlie around 'cause Way can't keep his fucking hands to himself and is continuously manipulating him (the hypnotism thing becomes too obvious with every rewatch ngl) , especially that scene where Babe comes home drunk and distressed, pushing Charlie away saying "you are only a sex partner", this with the scene of Way asking who Charlie was and him saying the same but with the "What a person like me can be?" breaks my heart to fragments. I have mentioned before how Babe is loud in pain and silent in love exactly how Charlie is the damn opposite. So, babe's pain is very prevalent but Charlie's is so subtle. Charlie saying that he can't tell who he and jeff are but they are definitely not fucking is like an open reminder that he desperately was trying to protect two people, his brother and his lover. He looked like a kicked puppy everytime Babe pushed him away, he looked so broken and then the next moment he is smiling. UGHHHH. I cry thinking about how Charlie believed for years he doesn't deserve love 'cause he is way too basic, he is replaceable and someone who can never be anyone's priority. On top of that he takes away people's powers, something not under his control, making him "threatening", thus unlovable. No wonder Charlie didn't expect Babe to mourn his death to the extent he did. Charlie knew Babe would be sad, but "sad" is an understatement to what babe went through during their seperation and how desperately babe denied the death. Charlie never once imagined this to be to that extent. So jeff confirming that Babe was "as sad as" Charlie was, was a direct punch to his face. He was not happy, he was devastated that he hurt babe. There are so many moments where we can see another side to Charlie. His insecurities. In ep 7 when Babe denies Charlie giving up his life and they hug, Charlie has such a gentle look on his face:

He looks so relaxed, a "oh he loves me".

Seeing Charlie being so happy during the reunion made me so so glad they found each other 'cause Babe loves him beyond every boundary, every restriction loving Charlie has been posed. No one ever really loved and cared about Charlie so much. Charlie has to be someone so important to babe for him to enter his abuser's home, working with his assaulter to take down his abuser 'cause how dare he hurt Charlie, his beloved (such a wild sentence my god). No one ever has done 1% of what Babe did for Charlie. Not only this but all the times Babe pushing Charlie away from the face of danger 'cause Charlie's life matters, to him more than anyone.

What actually makes me so happy about CharlieBabe's ending is that, we came around a full circle. Charlie thought he is worthless and the only thing he can offer is care, affection, protection and most importantly love. But in our world, how many people actually care about that? How many will appreciate your love? People even in real life think, love is cringe or something that leads to nothing. Whereas Babe created his "Pit Babe" reputation 'cause that helped him gain attention and love, albeit false and mostly sugar coated but atleast he got cheers and he was so damn scared of those cheers dying down 'cause he was so so starved of affection that loosing his first place meant his life would come to an end. At the end, he ended up really not caring about either his powers or his first place. He only cared about one person, Charlie. Charlie who loved him and loved him like no other. Babe knows no one can love him like Charlie can, like Charlie does. His love is insane in all ways, extremely transparent and only for him to see through. Charlie's ability to love him to the extent he does, the way he does, always left him surprised. He didn't voice it out, but you could see how he always looked so amazed that someone like Charlie, someone so genuine and selfless can love him, that he ever really doubted him. All of which makes his grief and the "I am sorry I always talked bad to you" during ep 10 more painful. He didn't get the chance to let him know how much he meant to him, he thought he made Charlie think the love and protectiveness is one sided. So Babe saying "I love you like I have never loved before, Understood?" Is so damn beautiful, 'cause we finally see Babe telling Charlie, in bold fonts, that he has never experienced love like the love he has for Charlie. Romantic or Platonic, the love he has for his beloved is the most and Charlie is not just his no. 1 lover, he is his sole lover and no.1 in general. The entire journey of Charlie, going from " what a person like me can be?" TO Babe's only priority, his "phi babe" 's only lover and the audience's beloved Charlie is just way too much for my heart.

so you've probably seen the news that riverdale ended with the main 4 in an actual, canonical, poly relationship

and that's amazing for a bunch of reasons, including the fact that the number of canon poly relationships on tv are miniscule and also it brings the number of canonically straight main cast members down to 1. Ethel is legitimately the show's token straight representation. love that for her

but to get the full impact of that news, you really also need to know that in order for the polycule to form:

Jughead's transdimensional angel girlfriend has to destroy multiple other timelines to create a new stable timeline for the polycule to live in. timelines destroyed include the one where jughead is immortal and trapped forever in a bunker underneath riverdale, and one where tony and fangs's magical timetravelling gay baby is fighting an evil wizard for control of a train full of evil ghosts

Jughead's magical transdimensional angel girlfriend then returns to the newly created main timeline, and restores the main cast's memories of all the other timelines, which she does by forcing them to watch the show riverdale. That is not a joke or a metaphor she even goes to the trouble to bring a colour tv back to the 1950s so they can watch in colour, except for Clay and Julian, because they did not exist in any of the previous timelines and they're sad about it and refuse to watch a show they're not in.

(Well, Julian technically did exist in the original timeline, but only as a ghost possessing a haunted doll, which doesn't really count)

(Also for some reason as well as the main cast, she makes dilton doily watch it, despite his only contributions to the show being a) dying as a human sacrifice in the og timeline, b) trying to blow up the planet and then dying because of it in the rivervale timeline, and c) gay kevin telling people he has the biggest dick in the 1950s tlmeline, and honestly, I feel like it would be kinder to just not show him any of that)

(ethel does not get to watch riverdale, because she did the only sensible thing any riverdale character has ever done and fucked off to a normal town to have an actual life, because as well as being the token straight character, she's also the token sane one)

After watching Riverdale, all of the main cast except Jughead and Betty decide it sucks and they hate it, and ask tabby to rewipe their memories and only give them the cute bits and not all the serial killers and shit, because the writers have run out of time for subtle metaphors and they weren't sure the audience had fully grasped that the entirely last season of the show is a weird metacommentary on the criticisms people have of the show riverdale so they're just straight up going to have archie andrews look straight to camera and say that the show should have been more like the comics

also I have no idea how only showing them the happy bits works, because that removes 90% of the entire plot so I assume they just have a bunch of completely out of context sex scenes and meals at the diner and nothing else. possibly also some musical numbers, idk if I'd count those as happy memories personally

Betty and Jug chose to keep their memories of the Gargoyle King and Betty's 2 long-lost secret gay serial killer brothers because they're edgy (and also because the writers are annoyed at all the people who say the show should be more like the comics, so they have the smartest characters say they liked the actually and everyone else is being a wimp about all the serial killers, because again, we have run out of time for subtlety)

Having had his memories restored, Jug's like "oh hi tabitha, my secret transdimensional angel girlfriend, I haven't seen you for months, I've really missed you. I'm so glad you're you're back. i love you so much"

And she responds by telling him that she'd chosen to write herself out of the timeline when she fixed in, and she has to return to the great big diner in the sky (not a joke, heaven is a diner in the riverdale universe and, it is heavily implied, also in our universe, so that's something to look forward to), so she freezes time halfway through kissing him and just nopes out of time and space. which is also how I would handle all break ups if I had angel powers tbh

since jug is now single, and all 4 of them just got multiple timeline's worth of fucking one another mainlined straight into their brains, the main 4 decide to all start dating

(they are probably inspired to do this in part by betty's sister, who in the new timeline is a burlesque performer who's stage name is Polly Amorous)

As far as I can tell from the last episode, they tell gay kevin about this and literally no one else, for reasons known only to themselves

also genuinely can't tell if this was the writers wanting a poly relationship for them, or if they just couldn't be bothered with the internet slap fights that would have followed them picking individual monogomous ships to be endgame

they also, hilariously, refuse to say that archie and jug are dating, I assume due to network restrictions, despite archie being canonically bi at this point, so betty's just like 'well sometimes I go to veronica's and we fuck, and the boys do... something we're not going to talk about'

the final episode of the show is a flash forward where as a now old betty is dying, jughead's ghost shows her memories of their teens, in which it's reveal that she has just straight up forgotten about being in a poly relationship

literally she looks at her teen self and is like "wow, I seem weirdly close to veroica jughead and archie" and Jug's ghost has to be like "because we were dating. how do you not remember that we were dating? what the hell? did I mean nothing to you?!"

also old betty specifically seeks out reggie and is like "hey you know how me and you dated, and you and veronica were together for years in multiple timelines, and you archie keep declaring your undying love for one another and nearly fucking, well we're all dating and we specifically decided not to invite you, sucks to be you" and walks away and I have no idea why she did it. justice for reggie

anyway RIP to the greatest television show ever made, it was so gay and so deranged and so meta, and there really will never be anything quite like it again

Are the eyes we see in your "Outside" post Caine's eyes and, on a related note, what would he do to someone he caught trying to run away?

You guys like murking these guys so he doesn’t have to do anything

Some more colored digital doodles:

Hope y'all like it. It took me 2 days to finish.

Also happy February! 😁✨

Transparent and white background undercut:

Edit: I almost forgot to mention this. Last night before I finished this I cropped the finished bits

Then I started to wonder, what if these four are like hanging out and on their own little adventures and such. Wouldn't it be interesting?

Like how it's probably gonna be similar to that one Camp Camp episode where Nikki, Nerris and Dolf we're doing their own thing. That's what I was considering during dinner. Hhh ok I'm done. Thanks for reading! :3

I Thought This Was a Vacation

These nine

Audience: A five headed doll. Not much to say about them but drawing separate expressions for each head was fun!

Nerd: He's always fun to draw, especially without his glasses!

Red Herring: Okay, I know fish DON'T sleep, but hey; do PLUSH fish sleep?

Alpha: I can't draw him, to save my life :<

Screamer: Her tuft of hair is fun to draw

Sheriff: Yes, I made the Law-Enforcement-Loves-Doughnuts joke...twice

Believer: I love this Dorito-shaped doll

Jester: Fun reminder that Jester's hat thingies have bones!

Lovers: They're just...in love

a lot of people are saying that we are actually bad guys in genloss in some way, because we watched even though all of this was happening and we want more of this etc and it might be just me being really tired, and also naive and idk, but i think we did our best. like it was still bad, but we did our best to first keep him alive, then when we realized that keeping him alive and well was not an option, we tried to break the fucking system to help them somehow, and then when they themselves made their choice, we let him have it. because all of this was out of their control and they deserved to have at least this. we did good. we still failed, but we couldn't have done better.

"The Audience" by H. James Hoff (1991)

The Audience's findings #1

Lives are weird aren't they? How every single person has such a unique experience. Every single one! Here's an example of a life, completely different from everyone else's! Like everyone else, this kid is made up of stardust, which is cool but I think we’re going a little bit too far in the past now. Little bit of a fast forward: late 2000's, this kid is born somewhere in the Dutch Province Noord Holland. Born in a hospital, their family consists of their mum, dad and older sister. Their parents are a little on the older side, but the kid doesn’t care cause that means their parents have more life experience, and thus more stories to tell. Who doesn't love listening to stories? Their parents are kind, and caring, and just overall amazing figures to look up to in life. The kid has been raised to be kind and understanding, and patient, they are as much as they can. Always going out of their way to always say "hello", "thank you" and "have good day!!" the employees of the stores, restaurants and other companies they visit. A lot of people don't, the lack of gratitude in the people who don't bothers them deeply.

They want to make clear to employees that they are valued, always! This might be because the kid is a bit of an outsider. in kindergarten, primary and secondary school, they were (and still are) being made to feel like there's something wrong with them. Their classmates exclude them and make fun of the kid (behind their back of course, cause bullies are cowards) and they don’t want anyone else to feel that way. Thats why they always value everyone, try to see the best in everyone and give everyone a chance (even when they really, REALLY shouldn’t).

When they are very little, the kiddo spoke quite late, they barely said any words at all, but when they started to talk it was full sentences, right away (and ho boy with a lotta sass too). The first sentence was "MOMMY, ME WANNA WATCH TV, NOW!". Their mum prioritized doing the laundry over putting on the tv right away, and the little one did NOT like that. But that’s something the kid does more often, not starting something until they fully understand it. Probably the autism. In primary school they were really smart, but had trouble actually performing well in class, especially with maths. They always finished the schoolwork late, if at all. They tried to do it, but it was hard to concentrate. They even had to stay in to finish the work while the rest of the class got recess, that made them kid feel even worse. The first year of high school they also often didn’t finish homework (again they had trouble concentrating) but now they got away with it because of covid. In the summer holiday after the now teenager found out they had autism and ADHD They god medication, and since then they’ve been thriving. Exceptional report cards. Last year they only had eights and nines (outside of PE) on their report cards, in other words, straight A student. They are especially good in and, to their surprise, math. They are always 1 or 2 lessons ahead of the schedule. They are also exceptionally good at English, being allowed to do an accelerated course that allows them to finish English a year earlier then their peers. It probably helps that their parents raised them on English tv since they were a toddler. Not to mention that they have English relatives and that their mom is an English teacher who lived in England for a year.

The kid is also very openly queer. They had the luck of parents telling them since they were like 7 that if they ever found out they weren't straight, they could tell their parents and their parents would accept them. The family was also never an issue since they had a grandma in a sapphic relationship (had because the granny's partner died about a month or so ago) and a cousin a gay relationship so they knew the family would be accepting.

Watcher's Ghost Files is the modern day "Waiting for Godot".

i need lovejoy to become mainstream btw if only so that regular ass people go to shows and i wont be surrounded by mcyt fans.

I just watched the play All My Sons, and if you’ve never heard of it then that’s fine, I didn’t before my school was putting it on, but oh my gosh. I can’t even fully articulate how that play made me feel. Like, I’m pretty sure I should be crying but I think my brain is overloaded with the everything that that was. I don’t regret going, but I could not watch it again for fear of triggering a deep depressive mood and even now it’s maybe a little stretching it. I went into it knowing that it was going to be A Lot, I mean, they put a content warning in the program, and I had heard from other people how intense it was, but I still wasn’t prepared. I’m gonna go have a milkshake and maybe process everything for a bit.

based on a convo i had about an rp im doing

we were both like 'SO normal about hal lmao' and so i whipped this up for the bit

Here have some old ass fan art that I've never posted until now.

I'm pretty sure I posted the Christmas one before but just in case it's here.

I also drew these on my Chromebook when I had it for school last year so there's that. That's why they mostly go together. That's why I'm posting only these in one post while I will post other old fan art in a separate post.

I was gonna post ten at a time but for these I will only post 8.

But I will post 10 next time.

Sorry if you didn't ask for these, but I'm posting them anyways.

Also it's Fandom Friday! Yay! (An old weekly posting routine promise I sort of forgotten until now)

Howdya do and come inside

Take a look around, got nothing to hide

Got plenty of rooms, if you're looking to spend the night

Just one thing, if you decide to stay

We're gonna try to kill you in different ways

That's the kind of thing we do in a Murder Hotel

Here's your keys and there's your room

Your murder will be starting soon

There's good reason to be afraid

Don't forget to tip your maid

So, fun facts

I CANNOT draw Alpha to save my life

This is my first time drawing a TMP ghost/skeleton thingy

This is ALSO my first time drawing the Audience Doll

@booloocrew-blog