#know where to start

[cathalbravecog]

long ramble, haven't had one of these in a while! if you read this, have fun. it's headcanons/thoughts on some stuff. i don't talk about my thoughts on story stuff publicly much anymore especially because 1) i'm shy 2) trust issues 3) bad rsd 4) i forgot the last point

i was writing for oNCE yesterday (some headcanon stuff, for myself, won't be posting that unless i change the wording of some of it to make more sense because i ramble a lot and it's a mess. like i am doing right now. also that turned into being mostly about hr in the end because i am ill. now hopefully this motivation will get me to write my mary and archie stuff.)

and when i went to bed i was thinking about some stuff in toontown, mostly the cogs - and how things work. these are things i ponder on very often and have talked about with my friends many time, throwing ideas back and forth and my headcanons for how things work.

though, there's one thing i really wonder about, and that's where cogs come from in ttcc exactly. in 'that' way though of course to keep things on the same rating as the game is i won't discuss anything explicit so don't worry. (besides they're robots and also are sexless to me, anything related to gender is purely cosmetic to them. you are usually assigned a certain expression when built though, but can change that later on. that's how i explain trans cogs.)

i think about how there are canonical families and children, and that they have "built" dates and places where they've been built. it's obvious as they're robots, they're not born they're built and made.

it's a bit difficult to explore with the limited info we have, which is kind of both an hassle to work with, but also beautiful because you can let your creativity go and make up your own headcanons, without things being set in too much canon. it's also difficult due to how different the suit culture is to us humans and also what we see from the toons which is by nature more familiar to us.

we also do not know much about suitopia, or other possible places where cogs live.

(i, personally, imagine suitopia as essentially a big country where most if not all cogs live. it has it's own regions, cities... all that. where as c.o.g.s. inc has built itself to be essentially it's own small country/community, if that makes sense. though cogs don't always only mention suitopia, at least once 'the whole world' is used. this is irrelevant tho so i won't discuss that but it's still a 'core' headcanon i have - as other things i may hc rely on this personal interpretation / headcanon.

but be aware i do not know everything is canon and can discuss things outside my realm of HCs and interpretations, but if i go deeper into like, let's say, analyzing a cog and imagining their backstory, instantly assume i'm using all these things. sorry for the side ramble, i want to make things clear for possible future reference.)

i wish it will be expanded upon slightly in the future, even a slightest crumb of what it's like out there and i can have a field day with it. i do enjoy the vagueness tho, again, as i've said we do not need to have all the information out there and it's not necessary to the main stories that are being told but MAN my brain itches for MORE. i demand EXPLANATIONS. and so i make up my own lol and i love that i can do that /gen (there's some stuff i do have an issue with that it was not explained better, but again, fixed that with hcs. talking abt atticus but im not getting into that rn)

there also may be things i am missing - i have known of ttcc's existence since it's early days, but i wasn't there for it and missed being there in person for any lore until i started playing for real in early 2023 and became a part of the community. like, there ARE things i have missed AND small details i am missing. that's one criticism i have about some info being more difficult to access now, but the main stuff is on the wiki an all luckily.

anyways that ramble out of the way... how the heck are cogs made? there's a few ways, that seem contradictory in some ways at first but i just see it as different methods.

we know cogs can change their appearances (their shell) and be "upgraded". we know cogs can even choose to be just their skelecogs (Atticus) and i suppose every other skelecog we see.) we know cogs have families and have their own kids. (cathal and bobby jr come to mind, and also belle's own kids and grandkids. not to mention, we have siblings too - thomas and robert. and their whole family drama DOES involve their unseen parents.) we know many cogs, mostly the managers, come into the company as their are - but also new parts are built, at least for the employee cogs in sellbot hq. (recently re-read the dialogue which confirmed this - literally as you're building your sellbot suit.)

we know cogs are more than just some working machines and do have deeper lives and desires and even relationships, though all instances of a parent/child relationship in ttcc have only one parent. makes sense after all they don't reproduce sexually to put it that way, again they're built and they're robots.)

it's easy to conclude, that, cogs are just built. which is true. but it just makes me wonder. we know they age. we have at least 1 cog who is a literal child, and bobby, in human years at least, looks no older than like, 8 years old. (we also don't know how cogs age. we also know cog's don't die like that, due to the whole deal with atticus. i will talk about this one day i have so many thoughts on it)

we know they grow up and even have schools - they're not programmed with everything. they earn experience as they live life and even have?? education systems? like they're more like people than we thought. (ttcc does make cogs more easily sympathized with and gives us INDIVIDUAL cogs and not just... 'The Cogs'. cogs are the focus of ttcc so of course they're developed more and are more 'human' despite being machines.)

so clearly, there's cogs like bobby. who are built young and eventually grow up. we have not seen a cog growing up yet, at least i don't think. but i wonder how that works. through cartoon logic, do they just grow up? their skelecog and perhaps their shell, too? or do they periodically get upgraded to be larger - wouldn't it make sense to built a cog as, well, an adult already? to program all these things? there may be more limits to this than we think, but also just... cultural things possibly.

the only cog CHILD (not just the child of someone - cathal's an adult. also, redd mention, but redd's adopted so he doesn't count) we ever see is bobby and, he is the child of robert, who is known to be very short. we don't know if bobby's going to grow up, or if this height is what he's just going to be like. we have one image where he's way smaller than robert, and other, more recent ones, where they're a similar heights. is that just art inconsistency due to the nature of all the (amazing) artwork being, well, volounteer work and that not everything is (or has to be) perfect? or did bobby really grow up. i'm talking about the wallet picture and the comics featuring bobby, by the way.

though, as things are, i'm sort of assuming that bobby's going to grow up or be upgraded in some way to "grow up"? i don't think we need an clear explanation for that, and in a universe like this 'cartoon logic' would be enough, but it's still something to think about.

like...how do cogs go about having kids, anyways? all instances we see are visually similar as well. cathal has the same gear for his neck as allan's body does, and they have the same head lightbulbs and wires. bobby jr and robert are both furniture.

i've always assumed that it's like in robots (the movie, that i havent watched in years which would be helpful for all this, probably.) if you decide to have a child just for the experience of raising a child, to have a legacy, or due to a bond with a partner - you literally just build one. perhaps not in the same way as in the movie - in here it definitely requires more paperwork and blueprints. but again, it's interesting to think about! hey company i want a CHILD. i look like this build them like me thanks here's some blueprints. (this also explains the amount of single parents. though belle has to have been married/is married as her honorific is listed as mrs. hey fun fact, non native english speaker here. i didnt know 'mrs' means a lady is married until like this year. i've been on this earth for 19 years.)

like the concept of family is possibly just more social there than anything. duh... can't exactly have the same oil and wires inside of you as Robots .

anyways, so that explains kids... but what about the others? some cogs don't have any families mentioned but it's not hard to assume they come from families with parents and siblings as well. what about the employee cogs? who are quite literally very disposable in a way?

we do have to take into account that after all, employee cogs we see just on and about on the streets are mostly a game mechanic, and there are some individual cogs who ARE cogs who would typically be employees cogs. (jennifer comes to mind first, she's a micromanager but also a secretary and counts as a manager. same goes for judy and so forth.)

and y'know, the game won't have a personality and backstory for each random flunky on the streets you fight. but with often they get destroyed and repaired and that there's just... so many of them! of the same model and appearance... makes you think. is that why they were made? are they truly more robotic than the others, more devoid of 'humanity'? or were they different cogs, perhaps more lower class, who's appearances were changed entirely to fit into more easily fixable and replaceable shell forms? something that's less expensive for the company and for them? i swear i am missing some details on this, but that's for me to re read the wiki and cogs ink for on my own later. (i need to have full info n everything and if i dont bring up that i know one small detail i will explode bc someone will bring it up and make me feel dumb and that's the rsd part and it's often physically painful!)

very hard to tell, i'm sort of content with my thoughts on how cogs have kids, but i hope we ever get a bit more clarity on employee cogs - though it is a bit problematic as these are the guys you beat up on the daily who don't have individual personalities.

like i'm just rambling as i go here man, it was gonna be cohesive but i'm just spitting thoughts here now. like, we have 3 seperate skelecog types - all cogs come with a skelecog like we have a skeleton so that also comes into play. it can be adjusted in ways, most notably the head and also in size. though we do have a 4 arm cog. jason please i love you /p we need more jason content. it's wacky, it's tacky - it's toontown!

fun stuff to think about but i just deep fried my brain. tdlr i guess.

how cogs made. how cogs have kids. how cogs work in general. very swag very cool. guzma cathal spades spamtongender goes on 1568854 different tangents while saying they wont aka your swagesty your adhd symptoms are showing

that's it fellas enjoy 2k words of incomprehensible rambles that i am happy to finally get out! you see the way i explain things is precisely why i almost never do it publicly and i need practice shortening things.

[swan2swan]

Whoever conceived and animated this moment, I hope they're doing well and thriving. This is S-rank romance stuff here.

[hinamie]

newest issue of first years fashion just dropped

[hamstersnamedmarinette]

Italian microaggressions

[rains-inky-mind]

You know those "if this gets 50k notes I'll xyz"? I don't believe in those. Because I could say something crazy like: if this gets 20k notes, I'll write my next book. And then it'll get zero notes. I do not believe.

[keferon]

Don’t mind me I just like to see him go bananas about cartoonish Autobot rules

Maaan…..if Prowl was in tfp he would spontaneously combust at least once a day

[prlssprfctn]

Desperately need petty Alfred, whose form of bullying Bruce for something is, like, moving all furniture in the cave on one inch. Just one. A barely noticeable difference, and yet, it is m a d d e n i n g.

Bruce, blindly trying to reach for the pen as he realises that they are slightly, slightly lefter than usual: (Slow processing)

Bruce, raising his head to the celling, desperate : ...What did I do this time?!

Jason, who was adopted recently, confused: Is he... talking to God?

Dick, snorting: Something like this.

Dick: So, there is a thing... When Alfred is mad—

Many years later, Bruce and Tim return to the Batcave and realise that all stuff there is moved on one inch. Bruce is confused, because he is very, very sure that he didn't fuck up anything recently. Meanwhile, Alfred is just glad that his newly brought back alive grandson found a very healthy way to punish his father for not killing Joker.

[awriterinthenight]

a moment of silence for all the fics that were masterpieces but you'll never find them again

[moonilit]

This is basically their teen dynamic lol

[chloesimaginationthings]

"They call it the MANGLE" - FNAF 2 phone guy

[paxopalotls]

The fanfictions are infecting me with brainrot oh my god have some au doodles before I explode

[solacebean]

Woe, Nightgoober be upon ye

[artbymesa]

Playing Mass Effect for the first time in 2025 and This is basically what Shepard did, right

Am I missing something

[yourlocalsurrealism]

DP X DC PROMT: CONSCIENCE

Vlad has done it. It took ages, but he has finally convinced Danny to come with him to one of the Wayne's galas, the ones that Danny has been resisting for years.

Danny is reluctant, of course, and agrees only if he can bring Dani with him.

Once there, Danny is bored. Dani is also bored. They are irresponsible teenagers who have no sense of self control and Jazz isn't here so they have no real adult supervision (Vlad doesn't count).

In a move typical of the irresponsible, impulsive teenagers they are, the two decide to play truth or dare, but with the champagne that is everywhere at this event.

Neither of them had ever had even the slightest bit of alcohol, so their tolerance is shitty. It takes them a very short amount of time to get rather tipsy, and after a particularly funny answer to a truth, Danny laughs so hard he loses control of his tangibility and slips throught the floor and several layers of rock, into a free fall, and then broke his nose by dumping his body, face down on a cold rock floor.

Danny stands up and comes face to face with a teenager. In red Robin's outfit. They just kinda look at each other for a second, then Tim just goes " fucking great I'm hallucinating now" and ignores him. Danny is tipsy and he decides fuck it. Let's stick around. See what happens. Let's just pretend to be a hallucination that appears when this guy gets too sleep-deprived.

He keeps this up for several months (it's a nice reprieve from Amity and it's chaos), but is careful to always turn invisible when the rest of the bats come around.

Meanwhile, Tim just believes that he's finally lost it, because now his conscience is manifesting itself and giving him advice. And the thing is, it's like. Good. Advice.

Danny tells him to sit everyone down and force them to talk shit out, so Tim does, because he believes Danny to be an extension of himself and so far his instincts are usually right.

Danny is slowly but surely falling in love with this messy fucked up vigilante.

One day in patrol, Tim is about to be seriously injured, so Danny steps in. There's a whole conversation about how Danny isn't actually Tim's conscience, but Tim, who has gotten to consider him basically his friend, impulse-asks him out so he doesn't leave. Danny is thrilled. Tim is trying to tell him the truth, but then he falls in love too and the end they live happily ever after.

[millionsknives]

YAYYY YIPPEE WAHOO・ﾟ:*☆ヽ(＾▽＾)人(⌒◡⌒ )ﾉ☆*:・ﾟ

[sugugori]

Jason Todd who does not play about his ex at all. Your break up was mutual, too many arguments, not enough communication. Though you still loved each other, you both knew it was for the best. At least for now, because he always knew he’d come back to you eventually. And while you two weren’t exactly on speaking terms, maybe a slight nod if you crossed paths in public (his heart tore open every time), he never misses a chance to watch you from afar. Everyday, if he can. He just needs to make sure you’re safe, he needs that. Doesn’t matter if you’re apart for 6 months or 2 years, that man is never moving on- it’s kind of pathetic. You’re the only person that matters to him, after all- it’s you or nothing.

Exes does not always mean the love is gone, it’s still very much there. In fact, the love is so strong it sits heavy on his chest and crushes his ribs each night he spends away from you. He wants what’s best for you, but he prays that it won’t be much longer until you’re back in his arms.

After a while though, he starts to get a bit impatient. Dropping hints that you two have been apart for far too long, and he’s ready to try again. Every run in you have in public, there he is with this long speech of how he’s healing and working on himself. He wants you back, bad. And yeah, he agreed to the break up but he didn’t really mean it. Wouldn’t be surprised if he showed up to your place distressed, after months of dancing around each other, begging for you to just come back home.

And don’t get me wrong, yes he has actually been working on himself- more than you know. Part of it is because he realizes he’s in desperate need of some good healing. But for the most part, it’s you. It’s always you, always going to be. His sole purpose of anything has always circled back to you. So, he fixes his attitude just enough, eats 3 square meals a day, tries real hard to say what’s on his mind. Because he realizes he can’t rush this if he hasn’t made any progress. But along the way, he also sort of realizes.. why can’t you two grow together?

Reblogs are appreciated! ⋆. 𐙚 ˚