#@piplicious | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

knightinink · 1 year ago

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🔥So, Why Dip?☕

Well, I’ll tell ‘ya. Get your blankets & warm drinks, & get ready for a fireside chat with me about why I absolutely, positively, love Dip.

🔥 ☕

Their characters are so interesting to me, because on the surface, they seem like night & day; complete opposites that would never get along with one another. Digging a little deeper into their character, however, reveals that there’s more to them than initially meets the eye.

-Damien Thorn is the angry son of Satan. On the surface, he’s loud, disruptive, & prone to violence. He stands up on tables & desks, throws things & people around with his demonic abilities, & sets things on fire, among many other inferred powers that he inherited from his father.

-Phillip “Pip” Pirrup is an orphaned English boy who came to the little town of South Park from England. On the surface, he’s a very happy-go-lucky kid, always willing to put others before himself, seeming to not have a mean bone in his body (except for maybe during the dodgeball games).

These characters seem like they have nothing in common & would never be seen together, but they go a lot deeper than that, & they are more similar than one might think.

-Damien Thorn is the son of Satan, someone who’s constantly on the move, & thus his son must follow. Because of this, Damien never gets the chance to make & keep friends, resulting in him being a very lonely kid. Someone in Satan’s position has a lot of responsibility; being the ruler of Hell is a very taxing job, & is one that keeps him very busy. When Satan’s not drowning in work, he’s off with his new boyfriend doing who knows what. Between work & his romantic endeavors, Satan has very little time for Damien, resulting in his kid not being payed much attention by the only family member he has, & the only other person he’s really known. Parental involvement is very important for a kid Damien’s age (8yrs), & because he’s not getting it, he acts out to get attention. This has worked for him at home, so he figures it’ll work when he goes to a new school, & behaves in a chaotic manner as mentioned above. He acts this way because he knows that it works to get him the attention he wants (but what he wants is positive attention, & his acting out doesn’t get him that, but at this point he’s desperate & takes what he can get).

-Phillip “Pip” Pirrup was orphaned at a young age, left with only his eldest sister of more than 20yrs to look after him, alongside her husband Joe Gargery. Pip’s sister resents his existence, & makes sure to remind him of this daily, & is verbally, physically, & emotionally abusive towards him. Pip doesn’t seem bothered much by this however, but perhaps maybe he just deals with it by keeping a smile on his face & looking on the bright side of things. Joe is the complete opposite of his wife: none-too bright, but is very caring & emotionally aware, & looks out for Pip whenever he can. Everyone in this little town on the marshes seems to despise Pip as well, (including his short-lived love interest & girlfriend Estella); everyone but Joe, who is a trusted friend to Pip (as well as a father figure for him). Perhaps Joe is why Pip keeps smiling. Throughout the many misfortunes that happen to Pip while living in England, he always keeps his chin up, & he seems to keep this attitude when he comes over to the states. Unfortunately, everyone here despises him as well, or is weirded out by him, as he does not follow “normal” South Park customs at all. He dresses different & talks funny, so he is often resultingly singled-out among his peers & bullied by them (& some of the adults as well!). Learning that he is an orphan only fuels the fire, as he has no parental-figure with him to protect him, thus everyone can pick on him with practically no consequences.

Bottom line, both Pip & Damien are lonely kids who have no friends, no one they can relate to, no stable parental presence, & who seek out attention by acting out or becoming a punching bag.

-When they first meet, Pip tries reaching out to Damien, being a hand he can grab onto being the new kid in town & the new student in class. Pip knows what that’s like & no one ever really came to him to help him feel welcome, so when he has the opportunity to do just that, he takes it. Damien, not really knowing how to interact much with kids his own age, isn’t very friendly towards Pip, but he lets the blond stick around, as he would rather not be alone. Pip gets on his nerves with his cheeriness & optimism, but not enough for the demon to drive him away. This continues on for a few days & they seem to be growing just a little bit closer, but Damien still doesn’t know how to handle any feelings other than anger, so that’s what he barricades himself with. The demon does notice however, that the other boys at school seem a lot more popular than Pip, & his desire to be given attention overrides any other desire he has, resulting in The Dip Firework Incident Of ‘98. The Betrayal.

-As Damien is walking with the other boys to go watch the boxing match between his father & Jesus, the wailing sirens of an ambulance rushing by makes him feel a tightness in his chest, in a way he can’t describe. He doesn’t want to look wimpy in front of his new friends though, so he pushes that feeling down. He doesn’t recognize it nor does he know what it is, but he would later piece together that what he was feeling was regret, remorse, & guilt.

-When Satan wins the match & goes back down to Hell, Damien must go with him & leave all of his new friends. As soon as he left the vicinity however, he could just overhear them saying how they felt bad for him, but he was still some weirdo-freaky kid, & they were relieved someone so dangerous was finally leaving & things could go back to normal. Feeling betrayed himself, those feelings from earlier come back, & he doesn’t know what, but something within him is telling him to go find the little British boy & apologize to him, remembering some faint memory of his father once telling him to “treat others how you would want to be treated”, & all Damien wanted right now was to feel better from the betrayal of the other boys, slowly realizing the blond must be feeling the same way. He deserves an apology, at the very least. (this fic details where their relationship is when Damien goes back down to Hell with his father) (tldr; they’re good, Damien felt bad & apologized & Pip forgave him)

-Fast-forwarding to when Pip gets killed by Mecha Streisand-

-To make things more angsty because I always love that, I think Pip would be sent up to Heaven first, adorned with new wings & a halo, & would be awaiting all day among a huge crowd of people to be checked in at the pearly gates. Once it’s finally his turn, however, he is denied entry, & he is crestfallen; he thought he had always been such a good boy while he was alive, he was sure of it! But they point out his count of murder (Miss Havisham), arson (The Satis House), & worst of all, befriending the son of the devil. Before he can get a word in, they rip his wings & halo away from him & -quite literally- kick him out of Heaven & down into Hell. He lands there, wounded, & Satan is immediately notified of a newly arrived Fallen into Hell, & brings Damien along with him (pt3 of this fic!).

-While Pip’s on the mend, he & Damien spend a lot of time together, & by the time he’s completely healed, the two have become inseparable.

-They finally, finally have someone who will give them the time of day, & be interested in what they have to say!

-As I’ve talked about here a couple times before, my favorite way to characterize Damien is that he puts up an angry, mean front to protect himself from getting hurt, because deep down inside, he’s a very insecure little kid with no one else like him that he can relate to, & he’s very afraid of what could happen if others were to see this side of him; who he really is. He’s often very unsure of himself, seeing who his father is & all the responsibility he’ll have to take on one day. He’s scared of doing the wrong thing, & ending up alone for his entire life, one way or another. While spending time with Pip though, those angry walls start to break down over time, & they eventually fall completely to Pip only, showing him who the real Damien Thorn is. & Pip accepts him completely. With time, Pip also helps Damien to better understand his emotions, & Damien is eternally grateful to him, feeling the best he ever has about himself.

-Pip would also finally have someone he feels completely safe with, & isn’t someone who’s going to use him like everyone else had. He didn’t come out from the firework incident unscathed, but after Damien is genuinely remorseful & apologetic, Pip forgives him & Damien helps him heal with that aspect of himself. I feel that Pip also puts walls up to protect himself, but in a different way. Pip’s an emotional kid, always has been. He puts others before himself constantly, & all the torment he goes through strains him. He’s someone who cries when he’s alone, & bottles up his emotions to please others. & he cries a lot. Damien is the first one to see him cry in a long time, & despite not really knowing how to act as a shoulder to cry on, he would do his best to help Pip feel better. Damien also teaches Pip how to stand up for himself, or at the very least, to not just take what others do to him laying down.

-They get to see who the other really is; see them vulnerable, at their best & at their worst. They instill a sense of confidence & self-love in each other. They are the first to understand each other, having someone who just gets you in a way that no one has ever achieved before. They finally have found someone who they can just be themselves around, without fear of judgement or ridicule, & their relationship continues to grow each & every day they spend together.

-Bonus Married-Couple Dip!-

-They are able to have wordless conversations by this point, communicating through looks & actions when it works better than words. One thing I really like to focus on is Pip’s burn scars, & how he & Damien navigate them together.

-Pip has :Good days (where he’ll wear one of Damien’s tank tops) :Okay days (maybe a t-shirt or a long-sleeve) :Bad days (long-sleeve, jacket) :& Very bad days (he’s left crying at his appearance, swaddled up in the biggest most covering coat he has with fancy gloves on & a hat).

I detailed this a lot in this fic of mine, how Damien tries his best to make Pip feel better about himself, as his burn scars are something he still gets very insecure about. Damien will always love him unconditionally, though, & he reminds Pip of this every day.

-End Of The Bonus Content-

& that’s why I love Dip, there’s just so much to them that I love. They’re outcasts who stick together through thick-n-thin, someone who holds the other up when they’re down, & someone who they care so so much about. They’ve found more than friendship between them.

They’ve found family.