#toh colli

[noperopesaredope]

My F*cked Up Collector Backstory AU (Pt. 1)

So, recently I made a post mentioning that I kinda made a small AU type concept for an alternate Collector backstory. A backstory that I described as “kinda really fucked up, even for me”. It seems that a few people are interested, and I believe that it would be fun to at least just put out there for my fellow Collector angst lovers. Maybe even my general angst lovers. Possibly a few Hunter angst lovers? Who knows.

Probably just gonna call this the “Servitude Collector AU”. Might make other types of posts related to it. Might make a few OCs. It kinda relies/thrives on OCs. The OCs won’t quite be the focus of the AU, but they will be important to it.

Anyways, I didn’t quite properly write this out in the form of a proper, straightforward description. Instead, I thought of what is more of a half written one-shot in which I torment Luz and King by making them incredibly uncomfortable as Colly just kinda casually trauma-dumps on them a bit because Colly doesn’t realize how deeply disturbing the topic is.

This is the first part of that thing:

So the Collector now lives in the Owl House with the Owl Fam (might also just live with Camila, but hangs out sometimes in the Demon Realm), and is slowly becoming a functioning member of society. He’s actually relatively chill once you get to know him, just a bit bratty and way too powerful for his age. He also has a habit of saying some…questionable remarks. This is a particularly noteworthy incident.

So Luz, Colly, and King are all chilling in the house, each doing their own thing in the living room. Luz mentions that she needs to go in a few minutes.

Colly, who is eating a sandwich, pauses and asks, “wait, which friend is that one again?”

Luz: “You know, Hunter. The tall, blonde guy? Friend of mine? Doesn’t seem to like you? Used to be the Golden Guard? You probably know him.”

Then Colly casually drops this one-liner: “Oh, right, Belos’ pet.”

The other two people in the room freeze at this, and Luz slowly turns to him to make what is approximately this facial expression:

King, who knows exactly what’s going on here, quickly says: “Collector, buddy, we talked about this.”

The Collector scoffs. “Oh here we go again. I already told you, like, a bajillion times: 1) it’s a cultural thing, 2) it wasn’t that bad, and 3) it wasn’t slavery,” he says before crossing his arms.

Luz is now deeply alarmed, but King and Colly are completely lost in their own little argument at this point.

King: “Based on the way you described it before, it sounds exactly like slavery.”

Colly: “Just because we were considered property, and had little personal rights, and were domestic servants, and could face cruel and unusual punishments for disobedience, and had no property of our own, and were under the threat of execution if we tried to escape, and…okay, that does sound exactly like slavery when I say all that out loud, but I promise you that it isn’t. Besides, it wasn’t all that bad. I mean, I turned out great.”

Luz, quietly, to herself: “Ah, yes, great, well, that’s one way to say it.”

Colly: “Besides, we had some rights. We couldn’t be executed without permission from the king, we were allowed to have guards (we couldn’t really hire our own or ask for them, but we could have them), and it was illegal to punish any of us in ways that would give long lasting physical scars and/or injuries (though, in a society full of magic, that doesn’t mean much).”

King: “Besides the guards, that is less than the bare minimum.”

Colly: “Well since only the royals could have pets, we all lived with pretty well off people, and they would typically treat us pretty well if we behaved. We got nice food, comfortable living spaces, fancy clothes, all that nice stuff. We also never had to do any hard labor unless it involved magic, so I’d say we lived in luxury. Unless your person wasn’t very nice. Then it became a lot more complicated.”

Luz, finally deciding to speak up: “Um, I just have a small question to ask.”

Both turn to her, remembering that she’s present, and Colly gestures for her to continue.

Luz: “Yeah, so, what are you two…talking about? Like, what even is a ‘pet’ in this context?”

Colly gets clearly excited to explain, and immediately begins infodumping.

Colly: “Okay, so, in my species, we have your typical caste system-”

Luz: “Wait, caste system?!”

Colly, annoyed at being interrupted: “Yeah, you know, caste system. Do humans not know what that is?”

Luz: “No, we do…lemme just go grab something real quick.”

She runs out of the room really quickly and scrambles back in with a journal and pencil in hand. The journal is labeled “‘Discussion’ Topics to Have With the Collector”, which is essentially Luz/Camila’s shared journal that basically functions as Colly’s therapy folder, but in journal form. Everyone in our squad has their own “‘Discussion’ Topics” journal (“‘Discussion’ Topics to Have With Luz”, “‘Discussion’ Topics to Have With Hunter”, etc). I would just like to let that be known.

Luz sits back down and opens the journal, ready to start writing.

Luz: “Okay, I’m ready. Go!”

The next part occurs with more visual storytelling stuff.

Colly: “So, ours is, from top to bottom: Monarchs, Nobles, Potential Nobles (which are powerful families that might become nobles), Starkeepers, Planet Organizers, Grand Military, Space Jumpers, Researchers, Librarians, Scholars, Assistant Librarians, Guards, Commoners, and Servants, though nobody is really born a servant. 

If a child is born a commoner, but has unusually high magical potential, then they will typically be taken by the Royal Magic Tracking Agency and sent to the nearest Starkeeper, who will perform a few tests before announcing that a new ‘Servant’ is available. They will label how powerful the child is, therefore determining what type of servant they will be, and hold an auction of sorts overseen by the monarchs. Only nobles and the monarchs can get servants, and nobles are typically only allowed to have one of each type of servant. Monarchs can have a couple, but they are very picky, and only have a few at most, especially considering the number of assassinations some of the servants have planned on each other.

There are a few types of servants: There’s Planners, who do things like keeping track of your records and organizing your schedule and reminding you of important things you need to do and writing things down for you and stuff. There’s Bodyguards, who are your personal protectors at your side at all times. There’s Caretakers, who do things like clean the home and make food and set things out for parties and occasionally act as waiters and stuff. There’s also a few other ones that I don’t really remember. 

And then there’s Pets! Pets are basically there to entertain. You can dress them up to make them look pretty, have them stand around as decorations at parties, do entertainment stuff like singing and dancing and cool tricks, and even play games and stuff! I’d say that Pets are the best, since we don’t have as many responsibilities as the others, besides playing with kids sometimes, if the nobles have any. We’re also often some of the most powerful.

The complicated thing about us Pets is that we have a weird place in the caste system. We’re often considered more important than Commoners and even Guards, and some of us can tell them what to do (depending on the situation), but we aren’t really considered ‘people.’ We’re kind of like really expensive objects. Like, we’re important and powerful people often find us to be more important than not powerful people, and we get taken care of and treated as valuable, but if anyone said that the object should have rights, everyone would laugh. I mean, sure it’s valuable, but it’s not a person. And if someone had to choose between either saving, say, a Commoner, or saving a Pet, everyone would save the Commoner.

And that’s how Pets are viewed. We’re valued, but we don’t really have any kind of bodily autonomy…but hey! It’s better than being a caretaker! Those guys are seriously overlooked and neglected. It’s honestly kinda sad. But I can’t really say anything about that. My Lady was really mad last time…”

Colly spaces out for a second, and Luz stops writing as she and King both look at each other, concerned.

~~~~

So, this got a lot longer than initially planned. I’m just split this up into multiple posts. I’ll add their links to this once I’m done with them.

Anyways, hope ya’ll find it interesting!

[maryheart22]

Finished an old drawing of Luz and her immortal sibs ^^

[sunnyirry]

drew collie in that one artstyle cus i can :3

[angstyhikka]

Collector Collie and Niko

Our babies :,3

[pespillo]

"dont mess around or else ! else ... ill uhm.. didnt think this through"

[goblinsatchel]

Pip brainrot. The gremlins

[levshany]

how do I put this. Even those who actually track our blogs and are interested in our Aus can get a little confused about what's going on here. but I'll try to explain anyway

we already mentioned the crossover between Anarchists and Tandem and even DRAWED them once, back when Tandem was in development (and by the way, this crossover is canonical for both AUs). Now this story has been continued >:D

Here's some context: It so happened that the Colibri wanted to see what alternative timelines looked like and ran into the king and the jester. Phil was delighted with Colibri and wanted to flirt with them. Jester Collie was categorically against it. so he immediately possessed Phill and tried to fight Tandem. he didn’t succeed because his fusion with Phil is extremely unstable. and here we are

Initially, @angstyhikka and I just drew these three pages, but then @lasymit supported the idea and made a drabble which she allowed me to add to the post :3

------------------------------------

"Let go, bitch! I'm not done with you yet!"

The savage creature desperately squirmed in Philip’s hands. It grabbed onto him, trying to either break free or, on the contrary, rush closer, glaring furiously and baring its shark teeth.

He held the clumsy, collapsing fusion at arm's length and looked at it with slight disgust. His tandem with the Collector was a strange but harmonious union. And what was writhing in front of them right now was the direct antipode of the word harmony.

“Well, I am,” he said distantly.

And with his other hand he grabbed the one sitting inside the demon’s body. Under the flesh soaked in titan blood, he felt a soft essence, like rubber or hot wax. The Collector from this universe felt completely different to the touch.

He stretched them, pulling them away from each other, disentangling them from each other. Paradoxically, bodies that should repel each other by the nature of their forces, like unipolar magnets, clung to each other very stubbornly. But Philip was still stronger with the power of the Collector in his hands, power which he clearly used better than the local... king of demons...

“Ouuuuch ouuuuch,” a boy in the robes of a jester, painted in red and black, shrank on the ground, wrapping his arms around his own chest.

He was not at all like his Collector. Philip had never seen his friend's material body before. But he knew he looked different. For some reason he knew this for sure.

"Who pulls a guy out like that!? Fuck!!", the now-green demon yelled nearby. And he clutched his head painfully.

What Idiots. They vomited three times while chasing him. Philip did them a favor by stopping this outrage.

Now these two were lying helplessly at his feet, groaning and gasping, trying to catch their breath and come to their senses. Now they are separated.

"What were you trying to achieve?" His question was almost rhetorical.

"It wasn’t me, it was all him!" like a child, pointing a sharp, protruding finger towards the Collector, the demon yelled. "I didn’t want to fight at all!"—here he gazed up at Philip with some strange look and batted his eyelashes expressively—"I wanted something else– something more interesting."

"Ohh fuck off, Maggie! You traitor!" came the shout from the red Collector. Philip silently decided to call him the Jester and the demon, by analogy, the King. Philip had already guessed his name. But he couldn’t bring himself to call this savage by that name. Not even in his mind. 

He ignored the King's vague attempts to take a tempting pose while still lying on the ground and grinding his teeth from the headache. He turned to the Jester.

"So you're in charge?"

Judging by King's behavior, it would indeed be reckless to put him in charge. But, having always been the decision-maker when paired with the Collector, by right of being the adult, Philip is accustomed to his friend almost never taking the leading role unless circumstances require it. Like a couple of years ago...

“Nuh-uh,” the Jester raised himself up on his elbow and rubbed his chest, inhaling deeply, greedily. "We're bros! Equal rights and stuff."

And he twirled his funny yellow gloved hand in the air.

Something in the Jester’s words pricked Philip. He didn't fully understand what exactly.. Until the King said, in a dramatic whisper:

"I no longer have a brother. You’re dead to me!"

And Philip stood there, trying to remember that the air was not hard, dense lumps, that it did not clog in the throat and did not press in the chest with a dull phantom pain. Meanwhile these two idiots, after a couple moments of aggressive looks, laughed out loud.

“Yes, I would strangle such a brother,” the King squeezed out, wheezing and squinting through laughter, “with my own-"

And he bent over, swallowing the end of the sentence with a cough as the toe of a boot hit him in the stomach.

"Philip! Philip... They've had enough... He doesn't know what he's talking about."

Philip's cheek twitched.

"Ouch... bro, save me!" the King squeaked hoarsely.

And this completely infuriated Philip. He swung his foot again, this time at the face. But he was met by an elastic wall. And the ground under Colibri’s feet, along with all the space, suddenly curved.

If it weren't for years with the Collector in his head, he wouldn't have realized what happened. But now he clearly saw how a couple of dimensions were distorted, folding space into a loop. He suddenly found himself not between the King and the Jester, but at a considerable distance. And these two were already close together. The boy helped his “brother” get up from the ground; King was now leaning on Jester’s shoulders, clutching his stomach. Perhaps Philip miscalculated his strength a little. This happens sometimes... Especially when it comes to emotions.

“Hey! Hitting people who are down is against the rules,” the Jester frowned. "Give us a timeout!"

Philip felt his jaw tighten. How the nodules rolled across his face. But the flaring rage, as it often happened to him, went away as easily as it filled the air in his chest, leaving reddish streaks before his eyes and pulsating power in his fingertips.

“Get out of the way,” he let his hands glow slightly.

"Ohhhh, what about a last kiss, star boy?" the King whined, clinging to the Jester and trying to straighten up next to him, as if hoping to reach Philip from a distance of ten steps and still get the coveted—

A kiss? Seriously, what the hell? Philip directed a confused, irritated look that bore all these unspoken questions at the Jester. He awkwardly shrugged his sharp shoulders, caught in the King’s grip.

"Don’t be mad... Philip, right? Don't be mad at him, Philip. His Majesty has a reason to be an idiot. And he didn’t mean it out of malice about the ‘brother’ thing.”

Philip looked at the Jester more carefully. The collector in his head was silent. But Philip sensed something from him. Philip also noticed the King’s uncomprehending expression.

“What’s wrong with ‘brother’?” The King sounded surprised.

And then Philip understood. And his face froze.

Yes... yes, what need is there to remember such things? He himself tried to forget for a long time... If he succeeded, would he be the same now as the king in front of him?

Looking at this wretched shell of a “King” who’d forgotten everything important about himself and the loyal “Jester” still standing steadily at his side, the Collector in Philip’s head began to sob. They both, it seems, had the same thought. It’s scary to look at the reflection of a future that never happened.

The jester smiled at him guiltily- at both of them. And then he confidently and widely showed about fifty teeth to his King.

"People don’t like such familiarity, you fool! You can’t just kiss someone the first time you meet."

"But it's okay to fight them when you first meet?" Philip was indignant...

Yes, it's Philip. He cannot refuse to call this man by his own name. Philip himself could one day become such a “king.”

------------------------------------

also @kenku97 helped us with translation and added this comment, I gotta show it to you ;v;

"I thought “The collector in his head sobbed” needed more context for people who aren’t as tightly wrapped up in these AUs as we all are. To understand why Collie’s crying, you need to point out how Tandem Collie sees himself in the Jester. They’re both caring for a Philip who is forgetting himself and the people closest to him. Jester is living out Tandem Collie’s worst fear: what will happen when Philip can’t remember anything anymore? What will become of their friendship? And it’s bittersweet because the King and the Jester are still friends, even though the Jester basically had to start over from the beginning. Jester Collie is quietly carrying all of those memories inside his heart of a friend who has basically disappeared while still learning about and loving the brand new person his friend has become. It’s so sweet and so sad.😭"

that's pretty much all for now It’s hard to return to drawing after the holidays. and this is not even a new art you see, but last year’s. therefore this comic cannot be considered the first work of this year sadly

[curseofhyperfixation]

"Look what we'll become"

[qcoded]

I miss her :(

[dstabilize]

doodlesss

[regular-gnome]

since witt is so little, can he be scooped up?

Lady Artery

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[noperopesaredope]

Me: *Sees headcanons for the Collector’s backstory*

Me: “Okay but what if I could make it even more fucked up.”

3 hours later

Me: *Staring off into space with doc filled with a detailed explaination of a potential backstory for an OC based on the Collector in my arms*

Me: “...........”

Me: “I may or may not be a sadist.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

So I did something a little fucked up-

I may or may not have made a version of the Collector in which they are mostly the same (particularly in terms of their more canon traumas), but their backstory is also a bit like Spinel’s, but with a bit more dehumanization and a lot more direct abuse. It gets really messed up and disturbing in very specific ways, particularly when it’s slowly revealed to both the audience and the characters just how deeply traumatized this kid is.

I low key wanna make an AU or something for this concept, because I definitely don’t think it’s Colli’s actual canonical backstory, but wouldn’t it be fucked up if it was? Whadda ya think, should I make another post talking about my messed up idea?

[princerevelucide]

sure he has no practical need for one but collector still deserves his own little palisman friend

[sunnyirry]

revisiting my witch king design!!!

[angstyhikka]

Love the fact that we can actually do this meme with our aus now my brain explodes from serotoninnnnnn

[jaz-stories]

I've been looking at future toh designs and noticed a bit of a pattern regarding The Collector ashdjkl