𓈒 Starry 𝓒꒱

Summer brought a fleeting happiness: Mugman passed his first year of medical school, and Cuphead continued a sweet relationship with Vanille, finding quite a bit of success with the piano at the casino. However, King Dice, consumed by envy and taking advantage of the Devil’s absence from business (or who knows why), demoted him to scrubbing and warehouse work to humiliate him in the shadows, making up an excuse for the public, enjoying his back on stage.

One day, Dice begins to make possessive advances toward Cuphead, which leads to a heated argument. The violence escalates until, in an obsessive outburst, Dice strikes Cuphead and breaks one of his eyes, causing a vision problem. Mugman no longer knows what to do. He treats Cuphead, but the brothers’ relationship is pushed to the limit because Cuphead refuses to tell him the truth, and Mugman, scared, needs confirmation of his suspicions.

Everything comes to a head one day when a police raid at the casino forces him to face reality. In the holding cell, after a harsh argument, Cuphead’s traumas and his secret job come to light, along with Mugman’s lie -he had spent most of his savings on his studies, leaving Cuphead trapped in his job-. Neither of them can even look at each other, caught between anger and disappointment.

When he finally returns home, shattered, Cuphead discovers that Elder Kettle has died without him being able to say goodbye. The brothers reconcile through their grief, burying their grandfather in the garden and reading his final letters. They soon realize they are not safe, as Dice’s henchmen are searching for Cuphead to kill him.

In the following days, Elder Kettle experiences a strange improvement that allows Cuphead to go to work without worry, only for him to suffer one final and dark act of abuse in Dice’s office. It ends with Cuphead biting a certain… part of Dice to escape, his mouth covered in blood as he leaves him behind. (Of course, that part wasn’t going to be shown explicitly.)

Quick note: I was considering whether to use this part in the future. It’s something I would decide on eventually. I know it’s intense, but I wanted to reach a point in the story where everything felt dark, sinister, and extremely tense. I wanted to see how far I could twist the situation and push Dice’s villainy to the extreme because… I simply love a story with some good misery.

Vanille, aware that the henchmen would come for them, decides to risk her life to hide them and join their escape, as she is unhappy with her life at home. The AU concluded with the three of them transformed into criminal fugitives, fleeing by car and stealing weapons and other things to survive in a Bonnie & Clyde style, escaping from a King Dice determined to kill them, while trying to leave behind the ruins of their old lives. And deep down, they begin to enjoy that life as outcast criminals.

Perhaps it’s an unrelenting tragedy, and that’s something I planned to improve as the AU developed, but this is what TLJ was truly going to be. It’s a shame, because the good part was getting closer and closer…

I’ll answer any questions you might have. Thank you :)

first off: pankie claims that he did not see/know about the proship content his partners were engaging with, and therefor he should not be held accountable. however, there's evidence showing that pankie was present + participated in these types of conversations with his partners.

pankie claims he separated from these two in september/october. i was skeptical of this because: pankie only started to PUBLICLY say this when a fight broke out in the proship servers/gcs they were in, and threats of exposing each other publicly became a reality.

this fight went on for months, and was detailed in a doc released by one of the members in the proship server/gc exposing pankie, ren/razz, and clowntainment, as well as pankie's complacency in the situation. the overall fight was over ren's gaslighting + manipulation

this fight took place in a proship environment, with only the secret proshippers in the server/gc being aware of it. however, it spread far enough that people outside of it started to notice weird things. multiple people would question pankie about it. this was pankie's response:

pankie was also approached by concerned friends who saw ren interacting with proship content such as zoophilia and pedophilia. in the response below you can see pankie claiming he had no idea. however he was confronted for previously dismissing ren's behavior and saying it wasn't his business

notice how pankie keeps claiming he has no idea about anything and he's not involved at all, as well as the dates that he made this claim. he even tries to claim that he has no idea what his friend is talking about but ALSO says it's personal and he shouldn't say anything.

pankie is doing everything to distance himself from his boyfriend's behavior, and doing everything to claim he has no idea what the "situation" is, and that he has no idea ren liked proship things. even though pankie was active in the proship servers/gc his partners were in

now for this next part of the thread im going to show you how pankie has handled situations like this in the past; where he was approached by victims who asked for his help regarding groomers in his server or friends who tried to tell him he was acting inappropriately.

a 13 year old in pankie's art server told pankie that their groomer/abuser was in the server, and requested that pankie take action. they provided evidence as well. however rather than remove the groomer, pankie suggested the victim leave instead, and warn their own friends.

because the groomer was 15, pankie didn't believe the grooming allegations the victim was telling him about. even though the 15 year old admitted to it themselves and all of their victims were around 11-12 years old or younger.

rather than removing the abuser/groomer, pankie suggested the idea of just closing down the chat in the server so that no one could talk. the groomer was allowed to stay, and pankie left the victim with no choice but to leave.

not only was the groomer allowed to stay and the victim was forced to leave, but the groomer reached out to the victim to try and address the doc they made about pankie and the situation, and even confirmed that they and pankie had gotten closer and became friends.

tumblr won't let me add more images, so i'm going reblog this with the second part.

however, pankie wouldn't take the situation seriously and would pretend to have changed but would "accidentally" say racial slurs again and joke about it. he'd even try to tell his then partner to say racial slurs too, despite them being white as well and uncomfortable with it

his ex stated that pankie's way of handling conflict was with "a lot of avoidance and making light of it to make it seem less serious." we can see he still does this in the below example, and we can see his avoidance when confronted about his partner's proship behavior as well.

pankie tried to claim that he had no idea that his boyfriends were into any of this. but i have also started to hear that pankie is now changing this to say that ren and clowntainment were the "masterminds" behind everything and pankie was uninvolved. this however is false.

in september, when the situation was coming out, i confronted clowntainment. he tried to deny knowing, but in doing so he revealed that pankie and ren originally excluded him and had a gc where they'd roleplay extreme/proship fetishes they wrent sure they could trust him with yet

WARNING FOR NSFW TEXT IN NEXT TWO SCREENSHOTS:

while clowntainment's claim that he had no idea about their proship behavior is completely false, since there are screenshots above from june/july proving otherwise, it does show that pankie + ren were already engaging in that kind of stuff without his influence

theres also word that pankie has tried to claim that clowntainment forced him into a relationship with ren, but this is false as well. he even disproves this himself in his own statement? pankie met ren first, dated him first, and then they invited clowntainment as their third

pankie also claims that he would never put children in harm or expose them to sexual content, and that he wishes people would tell him if he made a mistake. but when questioned for turning an nsfw fetish drawing "sfw" by editing the expression, pankie doubles down and defends himself.

what pankie conveniently left out is that this wasn't just a "suggestive drawing" turned sfw. it was an explicit drawing in a collection of nsfw macro/micro fetish drawings. pankie took the least explicit out of the bunch and edited it to share with their minor audience

(CENSORED NSFW BELOW)

i shouldn't have to explain it but taking nsfw fetish images and editing them to look innocent just so you can show it to your fanbase, which you KNOW consists of minors, is extremely predatory. it exposes unwilling and unknowing people (AND MINORS!!) who did not consent to engaging with fetish material.