#experiment 1006

[hiwelcometothemonstersancturary]

THE PROTOTYPE/EXPERIMENT 1006/ELLIOT LUDWIG IN THE SAVE EVERYONE AU! Wow, that was... A lot, I gotta say.

Some notes that didn't make the cut:

Angel started referring to him as "Elliot" around one year and a half post-rescue;

Elliot doesn't mind being referred to as the Prototype/"Proto", but prefers to NOT be called "Experiment 1006";

He starts out having a lot more reds in his color palette, the opposite of Angel's green clothes and eyes, and slowly shifts back to his favorite color: Navy Blue!

His post-rescue-but-not-yet-clothed form looks lacking on purpose, as it's an in-between stage where he's just very emotionally vulnerable and confused and with no idea on who or what he should be now;

He doesn't like leaving the farm, but those who have followed the news know he exists, just like all the other toys. Farm visitors sometimes forget he looks like a legit monster instead of a cartoony toy like the others, though;

A family man at heart, yes, but ALSO an inventor. He makes prosthetics for all the toys that want one;

He's actually afraid of losing his wedding ring because there's a slight chance his hand may fall off. He can put it back together, no biggie, but finding a tiny ring is hard!

[sirensea14]

The Hour of Joy❌

The Hour of SLAY✅💅💅💅💅💅✨✨

Round 1💅💅

Idea: Huggy and boxy are drag queens (huggy is monroe inspired XD), 1006 be ariana grande, MLL a gambler and catnap's a pole dancer😆 oh fuck this is a load of bullshit.... (Catnap's hanging on a pole offscreen btw....) Huggy monroe's right hand is so broken :(((

Round 2💅💅

Bron the goth queen💅💅💅 (even tho his makeup isnt black lol)

Round 3💅💅💅

(note: these are their bigger bodies version, not the ruined mini critter ones lol)

This meme was on tiktok but it only featured Huggy in a red dress. Now i drew all of them as slayable monsters💅💅💅✨

Provide your own bleach, i already used them all for my eyes and brain

[kakyogay]

⚠️ploppy playbime chaper 3 spoiler and gore warnig ⚠️

the line goes so hard!!!!!1

(stupid dog getting me really into this stuid game and breaking my rain world streak grrr grrrr >:[ /pos)

pics without text under cut <3

[rt-closetcryptic]

Silly old sketches from last year

[nickietoonistbonbon]

[... The prototype saved us ...]

[iidgm]

the prototype seeing theo turned into catnap for the first time

[lassieposting]

Absolutely obsessed with the ecosystem and interpersonal political implications going on in Poppy Playtime right now, like.

What we have in the Playtime Co factory is a society made up of creatures who were all, at one point, human. And while it's stated that the experiments have varying levels of intelligence and ability to recall their former lives, we know that a lot of them, if not all of them, retained at least some of their humanity post-transformation. For example:

Most of the experiments are angry, resentful and vengeful towards Playtime Co - they understand they have been wronged, and they are capable of holding grudges.

Poppy and the Prototype seem to have the same end goals (putting a stop to the experiments and saving the innocents being used in them), but diametrically opposing views on how to go about achieving them (the Prototype is a gritty realist who knows no war was ever won without bloodshed and is willing to cause collateral damage in the name of his cause, where Poppy is far more idealistic, moderate and morally opposed to/upset by the deaths of the Playtime Co employees). This dispute has escalated far enough that the Prototype apparently shut Poppy away before the Hour of Joy could begin, and Poppy now wants the Prototype dead for what she sees as a crime equal in atrocity to Playtime Co's - they are able to understand ideologies, have ideological disagreements, and strategise against each other.

Huggy Wuggy, who seems to be only slightly more intelligent than a predatory animal, can still write, and uses the ability to try to guide fleeing prey in the wrong direction - that suggests he uses the vents to hunt on a regular basis, and he's clever enough to use basic deception.

On the subject of Huggy Wuggy, when he escapes the facility, his first instinct is to go home.

There are also numerous examples of the experiments being able to form and maintain social bonds, and work together:

Mommy Long-Legs is described as "nurturing" and "motherly" towards the other experiments, as well as the children. She's placed in the Game Station precisely because her desire to protect and care for the children outweighs her hatred for her captors: she won't act aggressively in front of them.

DogDay says that he's "the last of the Smiling Critters", implying that the Playcare originally had a full complement of Bigger Bodies Critters and that they were all able to coexist peacefully.

Kissy Missy and Poppy clearly have a friendship, with Poppy willing to charge into unknown danger to help her friend.

Miss Delight originally calls the other teachers her sisters, and she's horrified and grief-stricken by her own actions when she turns on them.

Miss Delight and CatNap form a non-aggression pact that seems to include some kind of respect for territorial boundaries, as Ollie claims that CatNap usually avoids the school. That's Miss Delight's turf, and he clearly respects her space, even though it technically falls inside his own territory.

The Prototype - who's usually kept in isolation and under surveillance precisely because he's known to be violent - was on multiple occasions set loose in a room with at least CatNap (and potentially other experiments) without bloodshed. He's even confirmed to have patiently tolerated CatNap lowkey imprinting on him and following him around like a duckling.

The Prototype also opts to save Theo Grambell's life, knowing damn well that to do so means sacrificing his shot at freedom. There is no reason for him to do this other than caring for Theo.

Again, DogDay is the last of the Smiling Critters. Despite the fact that there would have been six of them, and one of CatNap. Working together, they should have been able to overpower him easily, and the fact that they couldn't makes me think that either a) there was a big confrontation in which CatNap either arrived with or was able to call out for backup or b) CatNap became an infinitely more capable strategist and picked them off quietly one at a time, using skills he'd have to have learned from someone.

Anyway. My point here: these were originally people, with all the associated moral hangups and emotional messiness, and they retained a lot of their humanity post-transformation. And they were on the same side, to begin with. During the Hour of Joy, they all turn on the workers together.

But after that? The complete breakdown of that unity and those complex social relations into an essentially animal ecosystem, and the psychological impact on the surviving experiments, fascinates me.

By the time the game starts, the experiments have run out of food, and they've begun turning on each other out of desperation. The Bigger Bodies monsters, previously social and cooperative, have been forced into direct competition for food, and as a result they've largely become solitary apex predators with fiercely-defended territories, where they can pick off smaller, weaker experiments at will. There's some evidence of cooperation and coexistence between predators - Bunzo Bunny and the Mini-Huggies survive ten years in Mommy Long-Legs' territory, possibly filling the scavenger niche and surviving off her leftovers, and Miss Delight is tolerated in CatNap's - but the small toys we see scattered bloodily all across the factory (and the small Bunzo we see picked off by CatNap as it tries to cross a room) show that there's a whole category of experiments whose lives would've become all about hiding, and sneaking, and being where the Bigger Bodies critters aren't. The predators, driven to the edge of starvation, have had to surrender a lot of the human values and morals they had before. The prey have essentially become rodents - they're in danger every second they're not safely hidden away somewhere.

And yet!

The way they've reacted to their trauma is still so human.

Like. Take the difference between CatNap and Mommy Long-Legs.

Mommy and CatNap - Marie and Theo - have a very similar start in life. Both were children when they were experimented on and transferred into their mascot bodies. Both were orphans, and both are described as not fitting in or being particularly happy in the Playcare - Marie was bullied, and Theo is described as "odd" and "antisocial with other children".

But post-transformation, it seems Marie was largely left to, essentially, raise herself. We know that she was aggressively hostile towards staff, and gentle and nurturing towards orphans and other experiments, but we have no suggestion that anyone was caring or parental towards her. Like most of the experiments, she has a digestive tract and would have needed to eat, so she must have had a "keeper" of some kind, but she doesn't seem to have had any attachment to anyone who could serve as a parental substitute and guide her into adulthood.

When we meet her as Mommy Long-Legs, she would be a young adult - she's grown up in her mascot body. But even acknowledging that she's been driven mad by fear and isolation, her emotional development shows several damage markers you'd expect from a child so utterly deprived of love and care and guidance. She's emotionally unstable and prone to throwing extreme tantrums over small and arbitrary inciting factors, like "cheating" at a rigged game - there's very limited ability or desire to moderate or regulate her emotions. She's erratic, has poor impulse control, and when she's angry she lashes out violently at whoever is most convenient - like Bunzo - even though it's someone else - the player - that she's actually mad at. She does try to hide her disappointment at our continued existence behind her bubblegum Mommy persona, but she never quite learned to convincingly mask her emotions the way adults can. Nor has she mastered the art of making and executing a plan - when she attacks, it's all aggression - the single-minded grab-and-smash of an angry, thwarted child. Even Huggy, limited though his intelligence is, stalks the player and tries to chase them into a kill zone. But Mommy relies solely on her stretch ability - automatic, instinctive - and her sheer rage to make her the GameStation's apex predator. Left to raise herself, she never learned a lot of adult skills or survival strategies, and it's become a fatal flaw - she knows her territory, she knows where there would be machinery to look out for, but she's so single-mindedly focused on punishing the player that she completely overlooks her own safety.

Contrast: CatNap.

CatNap is also a young adult when we meet him, and if he'd also been left alone to raise himself, he'd probably have a lot of the same developmental stunting. But he doesn't, and that's interesting.

Now, let's take a very quick detour to look at the behaviour we've seen, not from CatNap, but from the Prototype. We know he's fiercely intelligent, calculating, and a tactical thinker with a talent for using his environment and anything in it (up to and including the player - he makes use of Mommy after we kill her, even though he's the facility's super predator and could easily have done it himself) to his advantage. We know he's stealthy - from how close to us he is at the close of each chapter, he's likely been tailing us from the moment we entered the factory, keeping his distance and watching us to see what we'll do and how he can make use of our actions. Some of his behaviours are strongly reminiscent of a soldier in action - I have a theory here that whoever became the Prototype had, at some point in his previous life, been a military man.

And now look at CatNap. Who has he become?

An intelligent, calculating stealth predator who uses his environment and any weaponizable thing he can get his claws on to take out his prey with minimal risk to himself. He's capable of adult logic and reasoning skills - i.e. the teachers will get hungry and harm the surviving children, so locking them in the school to fight to the death removes all but one threat, who can then be negotiated with once the children have been moved to safety. He's able to form and maintain alliances and agreements. He's even able to identify that the player is either a) not a threat to him or b) proving useful to the Prototype, and overlook his own hunger to offer them mercy: leave Playcare, or I'm coming for you.

In other words, he's grown up a lot like the Prototype.

And there's a reason for that! We know from the interdepartmental report on CatNap that for some reason, after his transformation procedure, he was allowed to socialise with the Prototype - an experiment who's considered so dangerous usually kept on lockdown in isolation under constant surveillance. And the report notes that CatNap "follows [the Prototype] around like a lost puppy" and that the Prototype "doesn't seem to mind".

Which, on its own, could just mean that the Prototype recognised Theo for what he was - a traumatized, hurting, confused little boy - and, aware that CatNap was not a threat, opted for tolerance over violence. But when you consider CatNap's history with the Prototype, I don't think that's it. Theo befriended the Prototype, or vice versa, long before Theo ever became CatNap. He was mortally injured trying to help the Prototype escape, and the Prototype gave up that shot at freedom to get Theo medical attention. They are close, and the fact that CatNap, a decade later, has assumed so many of the Prototype's traits and skills implies that they remained close for a good long while after the Hour of Joy.

Theo, aged 7, is clinging to the one person he feels safe with and protected by after a major trauma. If he follows the Prototype everywhere, he won't be left alone with the scientists. If he's not left alone with the scientists, they can't hurt him anymore. And the Prototype lets him, reinforcing the idea that you're safe with me. It's not unlikely that he feels responsible for CatNap's fate - if he hadn't taken Theo to the Playtime counselors for medical attention, the boy would have peacefully died, and wouldn't be living a nightmare - and he's stepped up to parent CatNap.

And you can see echoes of that ongoing bond in how CatNap behaves a decade later. Who taught him to hunt? The Prototype. Who taught him strategy and tactical thinking? The Prototype. Who gave him the survival skills he needed to make his way to the top of the food chain and stay there? The Prototype.

Unlike Marie, Theo had someone to protect him. Someone to play with and care for him. Someone to hunt for and feed him once the bodies began to run out, at least until he was fully capable of catching, killing and pulling apart his own prey. Someone to socialise with. And he's better adjusted - for a given value of "better adjusted", because like, nobody in this factory is even remotely okay - as a result.

And that's still so human. Despite the absolute horror-show feral animal situation they're all living in.

Just? idk man i have a lot of feelings

[tropicallaserbeams]

I’m not really what you’d call a fan of Poppy Playtime, but Chapter 3 has me in a chokehold.

Like, there’s a seven year old child who was either abandoned by his parents or lost them, experiencing trauma at such a young age, only to be experimented on and isolated and traumatized further at the place he was supposed to go to be safe. And his only friend is a metal monster, full or wires and possibly meat. Just horrifying. But it’s the only friend this kid has. And this monster loves him.

This monster loves him enough that, when this child is mortally wounded during their joint escape attempt, he saves his life and brings him to the doctors, instead of taking the opportunity to get away from the torture he, himself had been enduring. The Prototype could have left Theodore behind but decided to save him anyway. Because he did care about him.

And The Prototype has to sit by while his best friend is twisted and turned into a monster, just like him. And has to sit by while Theodore recovers in an underground prison, only allowed out to use his new red smoke to cause the other children terror in their sleep. It must have felt so hopeless for both of them until the hour of joy, where they could, in their pain and rage, finally stop the horror being inflicted on them and on the children and other experiments. Sure, some of the staff were innocent for sure, but to them it mattered more that the suffering finally ended.

Together, for an entire decade, they protect each other after that. Of course Catnap sees The Prototype as a god. He’s the only good he’s ever had in the world.

And then, when the main character injures Catnap and he’s on the verge of death again, the Prototype has to make the choice to save him once again. Only this time there’s no doctor to make him a new body. He has to join the Prototype’s instead. They probably both thought that day would come eventually, but the pain they probably both felt, when that skeletal, metal hand ripped through Catnap’s brain, must have been heart breaking.

I just have so much emotional brainrot about the two of them and I’m inconsolable.

[valentinbelleyh505]

!⚠️! Poppy Playtime 3 Spoilers !⚠️!

WTH HAPPEND TO YOU HUGGY?! 😨

.

.

.

.

.

BRO i was hopping that the woman be pretty, not look so scary like this 😭

.

.

.

.

.

Bro these mini Critters are so cute than scary 🥹🥹🥹

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Bro WTH this scene:

Reminds me of this:

[mizie-izie]

Ok but real talk, do you guys think catnap was genuinely offering himself to the prototype, or was he expecting the prototype to safe him just to end up being betrayed

Cause at least to me it looks like he was offering himself, with that stance and all that, and not just that he probably knew he was at his limit and was expecting the prototype to take him

But then again he could be expecting the prototype to save him again, just like what happened when he was still a child

[hiwelcometothemonstersancturary]

Is Catnap ecstatic about Proto’s true identity? Does he brag to the other toys that he was closest to him first and that still makes him the only child, despite all their existences being indirectly responsible because of Elliot?

I don't think the toys put the blame on Elliot for the experiments that happened; Poppy was the only one whose body was directly made with his help, and she consented to the process. Everyone else was forced into what they are now, and Elliot wasn't there to stop. They know Sawyer purposefully tricked him into becoming the Prototype because otherwise there would be no Bigger Bodies Initiative as we know it. HOWEVER.

Catnap/Theo 100÷ brags about him being the closest to Elliot lmao. He and Poppy argue about who's closest a LOT, mostly in a non-serious way. Poppy likes to tease him, he likes to annoy her, they're the siblings ever. Whenever the group wants to talk to Proto about something, Theo appears out of nowhere just to go "this is my cue". Poppy argues that she has been with Elliot the longest (she was in her 20s when she became the doll! More time than Theo!), so this should be HER cue as well.

The other toys are more annoyed at their silly arguments than anything, esp Dogday. "Prototype is your dad, parents don't have preferences – look at our mom! – now please STOP", then cue to both Theo and Poppy going "Proto 100÷ plays favorites". AND HE DOES.

[littleluminaryzzz]

Freedom

- .... . / .... --- ..- .-. / --- ..-. / .--- --- -.-- / .. ... / .- - / .... .- -. -..

[numba1missdelightlover]

massive poppy playtime art dump.

(adds a million tags)

[the-friendliest-freak]

A Walten Files reference? In my Poppy Playtime comic? It’s more likely than you think.

[clobertina]

I think MOB entertainment is very shady and I don’t like them… But I can’t help it lol. I like their game and Catnap.

[dimonds456]

POPPY THEORY

Okay, so you know how Elliot Ludwig is constantly talking about how his favorite thing in the world is children's smiles? Like he goes on about it, and it's even in his introductory tape to PlayCare?

.....Why are the Smiling Critters called the Smiling Critters?

I mean yeah, no duh, they have massive fucking smiles, but in-universe, why did Playtime Co. make these things? Was it in Elliot's memory?

If that's the case, then that strengthens the idea that Elliot Ludwig is the Prototype, and makes CatNap and even more tragic character.

Think about it. If Elliot really is the Prototype, then it would be a slap in the fucking face for him to find out that they just released a line of toys called "The Smiling Critters" when he KNOWS about the Bigger Bodies Initiative. And, in his efforts to stay true to himself and help one of the kids escape with himself, he gets him NEARLY KILLED, TORTURED, AND TURNED INTO A BIGGER BODY. On top of that, one that is constantly smiling.

Wouldn't that be fucked up or what.

That, and the opening cartoon. I've seen a couple people point out now that the cartoon could be a depiction of what the children were going through during the Hour of Joy, which strengthens the idea of the Smiling Critters being directly linked to smiling children as an ironic nod to Elliot Ludwig, and just a slap in the fucking face for him.

Man.