#which is a coincidence because i only got that started bc i thought *i* might've had some kinda adhd-adjacent brain fuckery

[trolleytracksmoved]

Hey so, did you have any theories about the Chairman's identity before TTO went offline?

I had two, mutually exclusive, theories:

He's Pete (from the Mickey Mouse Cartoons).

He's a supercomputer.

(Sorry about the flood of Asks, it's been a while since I've been able to talk about Toontown to someone who's actually a fan of Toontown.)

i don't mind! ^^ it makes me really happy seeing others interested in the game as well. i don't know if it's just a problem on my end, but the toontag is usually pretty quiet, so any toontown related asks are welcomed.

as for your question... i can't exactly say i have theories on his *identity* because we were technically already shown who he was early on in the game's lifespan. in the early days of tto, there was a short animated video that played while waiting for the game to install that shows us backstory on how cogs were created. i can't link the video bc i'm on mobile but the gist of what happens is that scrooge visits gyro's lab one night and finds one if his inventions which is a giant robot (the chairman), messes around with the wiring which causes it to go haywire, and, after witnessing the robot create cogs gets captured. if you search up "Toontown Online - 2003 Installer Video" on youtube, you can watch it for yourself.

at some point, disney got rid of the installer video. i can't tell you when they did or a definitive reason why, bc googling yields no results and i would've been way too young to remember anyways, but it's a piece of toontown's lore that's pretty unknown.

i believe the reasons why they MIGHT'VE taken down the video is... a) the chairman had a redesign. kind of flimsy reasoning but.. before i knew about the installer video's existence, i thought the big head you see when you walk into the sellbot factory was a statue of the chairman bc the head mesh wasn't found anywhere. taking down the video to avoid confusion in the sudden design change would make sense but it'd also be incredibly early since sellbot hq was released the same year tto was created (7 months apart!). i know that early draft sellbot hq was different than the one we know now, (re: it was harder, there was going to be an arm factory, a leg factory, etc. you would lose a suit part if you lost a vp battle iirc) but i have no idea if that og design was actually in-game for a period of time before it went through a redesign later. regardless, it's something!

b) they decided to save the chairman reveal for the second game in the works. did you know there were plans for a 2nd toontown game? well now you do! only issue with this theory is the plans for a 2nd game weren't until '10. bossbot hq was released in '08 and is the only other time the chairman was mentioned. unless it was foreshadowing, why wait an extra 2 years? why not get rid of the line? additionally, 7 years to get rid of the video seems too long esp considering it's not as well known but that's just me. ahg, i wish google or the wiki said when the installer video was taken down. it makes things easier 😞

c) due to budget constraints, they decided to completely drop the ball in developing toontown's story. pretty self-explanatory. at some point, the business model toontown was running on became ineffective and they weren't raking as much money as before. i believe it was during '09 where things started going downhill bc there was a worsening hacker issue and club penguin was getting more memberships while toontown was getting less. an unfortunate coincidence if true, bc bossbot hq was only released for a year that time.

so yeah! these are my thoughts. i'm sorry if you were expecting a different, shorter answer. when you mentioned the chairman it reminded me of that video and it spiraled into this chaotic mess of a timeline. i hope it was a good read nonetheless? characterization-wise i do view chairman as a supercomputer or AI of sorts that got corrupted due to crossed wires and became progressively worse as time went on but i feel that's less of a theory and more of a headcanon, hence why i put this in the end.

[inexplicably-spookified]

oh yeah i feel like rambling about usagi so here's a collection of fun facts from over the years

takes after her father physically (most notably in terms of ear shape) but has a more stocky, shorter build like her mother

grew up in a small, isolated village built by a group of refugees who had nowhere to go after the war - there's only a handful of members, and most of them are younger, having been taken in as orphans during/post-war

since she was raised by her father, she gets a lot of her personality from him, and a lot of her traits are a result of a slightly sheltered, biased upbringing - not being able to read human writing, a mistrust of humans/human-made creations, etc. however, her hatred of robots, while certainly encouraged by her father, stems from her experiences during the war as a young child

if she were a human she'd most likely have super short hair but i draw her human form with long hair to mimic her ears. also she would teach crossfit and constantly attempt to convince her friends to sign up, not for the money but because she's just super enthusiastic about it

the kind of person who will try and strike up a conversation with random strangers - she's quite social, to the point where she'll talk to anyone, even humans, if she's stuck with one and bored enough

her favourite food is dried dandelion roots (she likes to chew on them), her favourite colour is (unsurprisingly) green, and she has a mild fear of wide open spaces

she got her scar at a young age doing something stupid but i haven't decided what yet and i think it's funnier to keep it a mystery. if asked about it, she makes up some wildly different and untrue story each time.

despite her social nature she likes to wander around by herself, though she'll always stop by her village and makes an effort to catch up and check in with her various friends