#Ripper and Anne | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nathantheauthor · 7 months ago

Text

"𝙃𝙖𝙩𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙩 𝙞𝙣 𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙙, 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙄 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙡𝙚𝙛𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙄 𝙖𝙢. 𝙚𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙚, 𝙗𝙪𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙙𝙖𝙧𝙠𝙣𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙩𝙚𝙡𝙡𝙨 𝙢𝙚 𝙄'𝙡𝙡 𝙗𝙚 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙚."

Toby by Madame Macabre.

Y'all were desperate for him, he won by a massive majority vote... So I present my take on Ticci Toby, as well as some of his relationships and what he's doing now, and fair warning, it's HEFTY. I do have to lay out a couple things before we actually get into his rewrite, because they are important for his character in the long run, especially to understand his story and themes.

The first of these articles that I have to lay out first is the concept and existence of Ripper Inc, as that is where he is currently aligned. The concept of Ripper Inc is the closest thing to the Creepypasta Family you will get in this universe, I found family and sort of reformation program for serial killers and monsters, pointing their homicidal tendencies and destructive capabilities towards those more deserving. Jack Revver (oc), the living skeleton behind it, has also turned it into a safe haven and protection for those hunted by or once influenced by cosmic entities such as Slenderman, Zalgo or even The Rake and HABIT. it's essentially giving characters that would have been better people under any other circumstance that chance to be better. Pastas who hunt pastas in a way. It also makes them celebrities, but I'm not going to get into that aspect as I'll see the faction itself for its own blog post.

The other main thing we need to get out of the way is that this variant of Toby was very much made out of spite for what the fandom did to him, and has also since become spite towards his creator. This doesn't mean his original origin is very much intact, but there are several changes that neither would have expected or planned out, in fact I don't even call him "Ticci Toby" at all, he's just... Toby. And I'll get into that and why later on in this post. But I present a more faithful reimagining of Toby Rogers.

Now! Let's actually get into it, and I want to start with something that does affect his design a little bit, and that is his equipment!

My Toby comes strapped with dual holsters and two sheathes, as well as two ammo belts wrapped around him. The reason for this being while he's still sports his iconic hatchets that reside within the dual sheets, the holsters and the ammo belts contains flare gun and a sig sauer P365, as well as their ammo.

Kind of the reason for the guns is because I always felt it a little bit weird that proxies mostly were given only melee weapons, especially in a world where any house you can break into you can just get shot. So, of course, Toby adapted and got the Sig Sauer, the flare gun was something he picked up afterwards, which out of universe is a reference to the burning of his house, but in universe it is a tool for hunts and just... Yeah, he won't hesitate to shoot somebody with it. Does he prefer melee? Yes, but he knows he's always going to be able to get close.

I've kind of made Toby into the asshole with a heart of gold archetype, he's a tsundere. Toby is rude, brutally honest, snarky and has sassy, but somewhat dry sense of humor. He's prone to depressive episodes, he's an overall conflicted person, one that's not even sure that he deserves redemption. I'm writing him that's how I see the natural progression of the original Kastaway Toby as a person.

I should also note that Toby does in fact have a small list of powers, as these are the baseline abilities I gave every single proxy. Toby has Captain America levels of strength, speed, agility and durability, as well as a healing factor that allows him to heal from minor wounds in a matter of 10 minutes and substantial damage in a couple hours.

One of the key distinctions between him and a lot of variants is the fact that when we first see him he's already been a proxy for years, he's in his mid 20s now, hell, he was already legally an adult by the time he was proxified, he was 19 during the events TICCI TOBY. I wanted to be more accurate to his source material for his age, as he's constantly getting shoved into the younger brother type role among a lot proxy interpretations, but he's not THAT young, he's at least a grumpy middle child.

Toby by the time we meet him is not a good person, but he can't be described as truly evil either, he's a victim of the world's darker side, from the cruelty of children to manipulators, a lot of his life was decided for him. But that doesn't excuse the things he's done, cuz ultimately, doing the things he's done are still, maybe out of necessity, but that doesn't make it any better.

Toby absolutely hates being referred to as Ticci Toby, the reason for this comes from the fact that this has been a name used throughout his life growing up to demean and mock his tourettes, to break him down, it's a nickname synonymous with bullying. This is something I've always kind of disliked the fandom form, using the story title as his code name instead of giving him a new one, so for this rewrite... During his team as a proxy, well, they call him "Matchbook". A permanent reminder the scorching fire he left his old home in, and a nod to the end result of a lot of his missions. However, nowadays he merely goes by "Toby", wanting to distance himself from his past and start anew.

Now, I'm sure this is what you're waiting for, the actual meat of his character, how I've completely restructured and rewritten his years as a proxy and what comes after. And we'll close out the thread with a lot of his relationships with those around him.

Toby's early time is a proxy was very much constant work, hit jobs, information scrubbing, stalking, and even stealing from police stations. A mind controlled pawn willing to do any odd job, he had nothing but orders left. It wouldn't be until after the first month that he would be brought to the "mansion", a dilapidated manner on the outside, but the interior was absolutely pristine, and it seemed to stretch on forever. In fact, it did, but other oddities were present as well, such as a door quite literally growing a name plate for him, or the living doll and undead nurse running around. Not that he could really feel anything towards it all other than cold and difference, that was the blessing of this situation, it was no longer just the physical pain that he didn't feel, but matters of the heart either for a time.

Of course emotional numbness didn't stay forever, and some of those around him began to become like family, a clawed entrance guard, a stoic tunnel dweller, a crimson artist, a fallen cop and even a missing soldier, they were the first things he's had to emotional connections since he vanished that night. He finally and fully settled into his life, knowing there was no way back for him and nor did his slender sickness riddled mind want to go back, he was a proxy to the end, a puppet on strings dancing to the static beat.

And it would be that way for the majority of his time as a proxy, mission after mission, and time spent with the few proxies he had gotten close to. Eventually it culminated into what would be his final day as a proxy for a long while. Thinking that Toby's ties had been completely broken, and that his missing memories we're finally and fully lost. During the final year as a proxy Toby was given a single mission, to hunt down and kill a woman who'd been close to figuring out his identity, an ultimately he did track her, and with pistol drawn... He found himself unable to fire, because what stood before him was his mother and everything came flooding back.

It was after this moment that Toby went on the run, taking his mother with him, and for months they were constantly moving, trying to throw off any of their would be hunters. A miracle fell into they're laps, as he saw her for the first time, Jane Phoenix. With the two of them brought before the skeleton, Jack Revver, their days of being hunted was over, as well Toby did not have the context for it at the time, deals were pulled to guarantee his safety.

The trio together, Toby Rogers, Jack Revver and Jane Phoenix, formed the organization known as Ripper Inc, Hired guns that handle contracts that I wanted Dead or alive, jobs that are usually considered suicide missions. It was because of a public incident regarding them that the world found out about the existence of monsters, but the veil of secrecy around the paranormal and supernatural have been truly shattered.

And this was his life for a while, he became a celebrity, he was free from the reign of the Slender Man, and most importantly, he'd found family and saved his mother. But nothing good lasts, and ultimately, in the same year, there would come again that shattered him once more. Didn't always been a hot shot, for all the months you've known her, but he never expected her to chase down Jeffrey Forester by herself, and there were three things that happened that night. Jane with ultimately be slain by the very man who made her what she is, a grieving Revver would be cited carrying her body through the streets in a vain attempt to get her help... And Toby returned to the proxies, he sought emotional numbness once more. How could he not? She was 19, she was the very age that he started at. A twisted mirror of sorts.

So yeah, that's all like pre-story open, that's all set before 2017. So this is where we first meet him, this is where we first pick up. In September of 2017, Jack Revver tracked him down once more, pulling him out alongside Heather Marshall, and with the choice to take one more. See unbeknownst to Toby, a truce had been formed, an agreement reached for reasons that only a couple years later he would find out.

There was a new found family, made of three familiar faces and a new one, he he hadn't ever met Bethany (Nina) before, but it heard about what Forester did to her family once they reach the offices, he felt... A sort of responsibility. Years have passed since then, and we're currently in the year of 2025. He has found a new family fully, been able to spend time with his mother, befriended other people like him, and even been on talk shows. Toby's.... Living a future he could have never seen. Often times he's still not even sure if it's deserved, he's killed countless, burned and destroyed homes and lives, but he's basically living the high life now.

He's in a high position the boot, as a founding member and one of the highest ranking members of Ripper Inc, and he almost gets the feeling, he's going to be the next head. Revver always told him of bright future, and often times Toby gets the impression that Revver is talking like he's going to die.

So, yeah, that's kind of where we are and where we leave him for now, so let's get into character relationships and dive into what his relationships were with his fellow proxies and the Ripper Inc family.

Proxy relationships:

Slenderman is probably one of the people he hates the most, if not his most hated. He is his a manipulator and abuser, the creature that's quite possibly the one who orchestrated his entire life to be as miserable as it has been. His freedom from the creatures control is something he's never going to give up again.

One of his most iconic dynamics, we'll dive into how he feels about Masky. He hates him. Toby and Tim often fight, Toby often pointing out the hypocrisy and arrogance in Tim's words, and Tim is often quick to point out Toby's lack of teamwork and rude attitude. Toby considers Tim to be a self-righteous and self-serving bastard. He hopes they never cross paths in a professional line of work again.

Hoodie is also rather hated Toby, and a good portion of this is due to the fact that hoodie does not care about people, he's begun to only focus on the mission. His indifference frustrates and worries Toby, making it so he'd deny in mission that he has to work with him.

His dynamic with Kate is probably one of the most healthy he has amongst the proxies, having formed a sort of sibling dynamic over the years. And even now, they're rather close, meeting up at the tunnels Kate spends most of her time every now and then. She's often one of the people Toby invites to the Christmas parties and ALWAYS shows up for his birthdays.

Toby and Own Allastar happy weather unique dynamic, much like Kate, he feels a sibling role, however he was the first to encourage Toby to pursue his hobbies outside of the missions, that a weapon wasn't the only thing he had to be. He was probably one of the most true friends Toby had ever had, and still is. The Red Artist's artistic depiction of Toby hangs within his bedroom.

Toby has very mixed feelings about Cody, this boy was made to replace him, he had been indoctrinated during Toby's months away. Ultimately, he believes X-Virus to be a good kid deep down, but can't bring himself to look the boy in the eye. He can't stand looking at his reflection, it makes him sick to his stomach.

His dynamic with Nightmare Ally is certainly a strange one, well they aren't on negative terms, he wouldn't consider them friends either, even if she still does occasionally help him, it's more of work acquaintances. And Toby is rather thankful she's one of the ones that often shows up as aid thanks to the truce.

His relationship with Ashlie is. . . Unique. They were briefly an item, he can safely say he's dated the boss's daughter. Although, the relationship died due to the lack of expression and communication on her side.

His relationship with Gregory Blaine is probably one of his most important, he was the small injections of morality back into Toby throughout his years as a proxy. Archive was, and is an essential part of Toby's foundations for the present. The former cop wasn't like the rest of the proxies, is frog's vacation wasn't made out of a choice to save the woman he loved. . . Toby respects that, maybe even envies it.

Probably the most surprising one, was Eric Watson, a former soldier who served in the Middle East after events of 9/11. Wildcard as they called him, was the very man that taught Toby how to shoot. The friendship they've shared is one Toby never could have predicted, and in recent years. . . He's lost contact, he's unsure where he went.

Tooru Jirou is someone Toby has VERY conflicted feelings towards, they get along well, and he does feel sympathy for her situation. . . But at the same time you can't exactly deny but it's all her own fault, play stupid games and you win stupid prizes. Adrenaline is definitely living with her stupid prize, whether she wants to or not. Regardless, they do often work closely together, she's even convinced him to appear on her streams.

Ripper Inc relationships:

Jack Revver is sort of the father Toby never had, a source of guidance and often the first to help him pick himself back up. Revver has shown Toby levels of kindness he's rarely seen outside select people, an unmatched sense of generosity and patience towards him. They'd start Ripper Inc together with Jane Phoenix, and it's made the two's bond unbreakable.

Toby's friendship with Jane Phoenix was like that of siblings, they bickered and fought, but deep down they always cared for the other. He still feels a sense of responsibility for what happened to her, despite knowing it wasn't his fault.

Bethany Gent (Nina Hopkins) is another he has found himself quite close with, as if using his sense of guilt and responsibility over what happened to Jane as a building block to protect Nina despite everything. She's a victim, just like him, and just like Jane was. Nina is one of the few people that can get him to go out shopping, acting as a sort of little sister dragging her older brother around. He'll never admit that it's kinda fun, he'd rather die first.

He's known Heather since their days as proxies, she'd served as a secondary motherly figure, somebody he could always depend on, one of the few cornerstones. Even now, he's still close with her, often going on missions together. Their bond has become inseparable. Rouge is one of his closest friends.

Liu Woods is, well, they get along alright, but he can't exactly really tell how he actually feels about the man, they haven't exactly going out of their way to befriend each other. Their relationship is strictly professional.

Nurse Ann used to greatly scare Toby, her methods we're far from humane or rational, but nowadays, he's doing quite close to the undead nurse, Annabelle Mia being his most trusted medical professional. They bonded over a shared distaste for Tim.

Jane and Mary Richardson have quickly become some of his closest friends, the two serving as elder sisters to him, with Mary often checking up on his mother for him while he's on a mission, and Jane serving as his personal trainer in hand to and combat. He's forever grateful to have met the married couple, they've had a positive impact on his life.

Eyeless Jack. . . Frankly scares him, such an unpredictable individual and one he could never spot unless he made his presence known. Sure, he'd trust EJ with field medical work, but just how literally talked and how hard it was to tell he was there in the first place. . . It just rather makes Toby uncomfortable.

His relationship with Korbyn JumpingEagle is one with a lot bumps, as initially she didn't truly understand his personality and who he was, and instead would opt to nag him and hit him with her trademark sass. Of course, overtime is they've become friends, given a couple near death experiences, it tends to bond people. They both pulled a better understanding of each other nowadays, even occasionally joking with each other.

Sally Williams and Lazari Swan are like the annoying youngest siblings to him, much like corbin, they were under the protection of Revver... And he's often found himself begrudgingly joining their tea parties or playing pretend with them. He for some reason just can't bring himself to be as mean as usual with them.

His relationship with scarecrow can best be summoned up as enemies to friends, they did try to kill each other in their first encounter. Once the circumstances had changed, they bonded rather quickly over there shared trauma with cosmic horrors, he with Slender, and her with Zalgo. They work rather well on the battlefield together as well.

Zero frankly weirds him out, the tulpa's bizarre antics almost never make sense to him and he's begun to learn not to question it. They get along all right, but he can't help getting the feeling that somebody's always crying for help when he looks at her.

Sadako is probably one of the weirdest dynamics he's had, I mean, there's not really much proper planning you can do around a media ghost who can now just travel anywhere she wants to the internet. They are in fact friends, but it does tend to lead to awkward moments and comedic situations half the times she appears. But alas, there's nothing to do, if she's the information relay.

Samantha Revver has shown that much like her husband, she quickly took on a parental role, and even became quick friends with his actual mother. The vampire has been nothing but kind to him, even going as far as to teach him how to cough to help him be even further self-sufficient.

Jana Revver has shown as well, that kindness. She's playfully picked on and teeth toby, but at the end of the day they act like siblings, she acts like an elder sister and almost reminds him of. . . Lyra. The entire Revver family has been like a second family to him. He wouldn't trade their bond for anything.

Jeffrey Hodek is somebody that Toby can't help but pay, before joining up with the group he was just a washed up and retired killer I wanted to live a normal life, but of course, as Toby knows well. . . Normal isn't an option for people anymore. They've got a rather friendly relationship, but ultimately they don't talk too much. Hodek is much more likely to hide up in his room and rewatch shows and movies the 80s and 90s.

Clockwork is... Natalie Oulette is an individual that greatly concerns him with her behavior, and yet... He finds himself strangely wrong to her, and ultimately they have gotten together. More than once. They're dysfunctional, sure, but they're actively working to find a way to make it work. If any song would describe their dynamic, it'd Your Stupid Face by Kaden MacKay.

Wow, this took so much longer than I thought it would but welcome to the end of the Toby information! Hope ya like this ramble!

40 notes · View notes

thepastisalreadywritten · 1 year ago

Text

By Parissa DJangi

August 18, 2023

Some say he was a surgeon. Others, a deranged madman — or perhaps a butcher, prince, artist, or specter.

The murderer known to history as Jack the Ripper terrorized London 135 years ago this fall.

In the subsequent century, he has been everything to everyone, a dark shadow on which we pin our fears and attitudes.

But to five women, Jack the Ripper was not a legendary phantom or a character from a detective novel — he was the person who horrifically ended their lives.

“Jack the Ripper was a real person who killed real people,” reiterates historian Hallie Rubenhold, whose book, The Five, chronicles the lives of his victims. “He wasn’t a legend.”

Who were these women? They had names: Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly.

They also had hopes, loved ones, friends, and, in some cases, children.

Their lives, each one unique, tell the story of 19th-century London, a city that pushed them to its margins and paid more attention to them dead than alive.

Terror in Whitechapel

Their stories did not all begin in London, but they ended there, in and around the crowded corner of the metropolis known as Whitechapel, a district in London’s East End.

“Probably there is no such spectacle in the whole world as that of this immense, neglected, forgotten great city of East London,” Walter Bessant wrote in his novel All Sorts and Conditions of Men in 1882.

“It is even neglected by its own citizens, who had never yet perceived their abandoned condition.”

The “abandoned” citizens of Whitechapel included some of the city’s poorest residents.

Immigrants, transient laborers, families, single women, thieves — they all crushed together in overflowing tenements, slums, and workhouses.

According to historian Judith Walkowitz:

“By the 1880s, Whitechapel had come to epitomize the social ills of ‘Outcast London,’ a place where sin and poverty comingled in the Victorian imagination, shocking the middle classes."

Whitechapel transformed into a scene of horror when the lifeless, mutilated body of Polly Nichols was discovered on a dark street in the early morning hours of August 31, 1888.

She became the first of Jack the Ripper’s five canonical victims, the core group of women whose murders appeared to be related and occurred over a short span of time.

Over the next month, three more murdered women would be found on the streets of the East End.

They had been killed in a similar way: their throats slashed, and, in most cases, their abdomens disemboweled.

Some victims’ organs had been removed. The fifth murder occurred on November 9, when the Ripper butchered Mary Jane Kelly with such barbarity that she was nearly unrecognizable.

This so-called “Autumn of Terror” pushed Whitechapel and the entire city into a panic, and the serial killer’s mysterious identity only heightened the drama.

The press sensationalized the astonishingly grisly murders — and the lives of the murdered women.

Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine, and Mary Jane

Though forever linked by the manner of their death, the five women murdered by Jack the Ripper shared something else in common:

They were among London’s most vulnerable residents, living on the margins of Victorian society.

They eked out a life in the East End, drifting in and out of workhouses, piecing together casual jobs, and pawning their few possessions to afford a bed for a night in a lodging house.

If they could not scrape together the coins, they simply slept on the street.

“Nobody cared about who these women were at all,” Rubenhold says. “Their lives were incredibly precarious.”

Polly Nichols knew precarity well. Born in 1845, she fulfilled the Victorian ideal of proper womanhood when she became a wife at the age of 18.

But after bearing five children, she ultimately left her husband under suspicions of his infidelity.

Alcohol became both a crutch and curse for her in the final years of her life.

Alcohol also hastened Annie Chapman’s estrangement from what was considered a respectable life.

Annie Chapman was born in 1840 and spent most of her life in London and Berkshire.

With her marriage to John Chapman, a coachman, in 1869, Annie positioned herself in the top tier of the working class.

But her taste for alcohol and the loss of her children unraveled her family life, and Annie ended up in the East End.

Swedish-born Elizabeth Stride was an immigrant, like thousands of others who lived in the East End.

Born in 1843, she came to England when she was 22. In London, Stride reinvented herself time and time again, becoming a wife and coffeehouse owner.

Catherine Eddowes, who was born in Wolverhampton in 1842 and moved to London as a child, lost both of her parents by the time she was 15.

She spent most of her adulthood with one man, who fathered her children. Before her murder, she had just returned to London after picking hops in Kent, a popular summer ritual for working-class Londoners.

At 25, Mary Jane Kelly was the youngest, and most mysterious, of the Ripper’s victims.

Kelly reportedly claimed she came from Ireland and Wales before settling in London.

She had a small luxury that the others did not: She rented a room with a bed. It would become the scene of her murder.

Yet the longstanding belief that all of these women were sex workers is a myth, as Rubenhold demonstrates in The Five.

Only two of the women — Stride and Kelly — were known to have engaged in sex work during their lives.

The fact that all of them have been labeled sex workers highlights how Victorians saw poor, unhoused women.

“They have been systematically ‘othered’ from society,” Rubenhold says,"even though this is how the majority lived.”

These women were human beings with a strong sense of personhood. According to biographer Robert Hume, their friends and neighbors described them as “industrious,” “jolly,” and “very clean.”

They lived, they loved, they existed — until, very suddenly on a dark night in 1888, they did not.

A long shadow

The discovery of Annie Chapman’s body on September 8 heightened panic in London, since her wounds echoed the shocking brutality of Polly Nichols’ murder days earlier.

Investigators realized that the same killer had likely committed both crimes — and he was still on the loose. Who would he strike next?

In late September, London’s Central News Office received a red-inked letter that claimed to be from the murderer. It was signed “Jack the Ripper.”

Papers across the city took the name and ran with it. Press coverage of the Whitechapel Murders crescendoed to a fever pitch.

Newspapers danced the line between fact and fiction, breathlessly recounting every gruesome detail of the crimes and speculating with wild abandon about the killer’s identity.

Today, that impulse endures, and armchair detectives and professional investigators alike have proposed an endless parade of suspects, including artist Walter Sickert, writer Lewis Carroll, sailor Carl Feigenbaum, and Aaron Kosminski, an East End barber.

"The continued fascination with unmasking the murderer perpetuates this idea that Jack the Ripper is a game,” Rubenhold says.

She sees parallels between the gamification of the Whitechapel Murders and the modern-day obsession with true crime.

“When we approach true crime, most of the time we approach as if it was legend, as if it wasn’t real, as if it didn’t happen to real people.”

“These crimes still happen today, and we are still not interested in the victims,” Rubenhold laments.

The Whitechapel Murders remain unsolved after 135 years, and Rubenhold believes that will never change:

“We’re not going to find anything that categorically tells us who Jack the Ripper is.”

Instead, the murders tell us about the values of the 19th century — and the 21st.