#doelumpus

—Scoutmaster Lumpus never did see his parents again after they stopped talking in 1988, (17 years from 2005, see episode: “Parents Day.”) When he got engaged to Jane, she insisted he be the bigger man and call them to invite them to their wedding. When he tried, he couldn’t reach them. After some digging, he found out they had both already passed away. It hit him hard and he almost called the wedding off.

—Edward’s millionaire dad, Antonio, is homophobic. After Fancypants came out, he kicked him out of the house and forbid any of his sons from talking to him. (Fancypants has a ton of money of his own and landed on his feet, but that’s neither here nor there for this.) This was very difficult for Edward, because Fance was the only stepbrother he liked. It meant too that he had one less ally in the Platypus Mansion versus his other stepbrothers when they bullied him. When Edward comes to grips with being gay himself, he nearly has a nervous breakdown at the thought of being disowned himself, and at a much younger age than Fancypants.

—Philip was born of an affair between Antonio and a woman besides his first wife Regina, and before Antonio met Susan. This broke Antonio and Regina’s marriage. Philip’s mother then refuses to have anything to do with Philip, so Antonio gets full custody. Cheesly and Alpine haaaaated Philip for this and basically acted like he was an intruder to the family. Only when Susan came into the picture and Edward was born did Philip become accepted by them, and that was only because they were now unified against Edward. Horrible.

—When Samson’s a young adult, there’s a few years where he moves into an apartment. To afford it, he needs to take in two roommates who eventually stop helping him with payments and reveal themselves to be manipulative slobs. Only with the help of Lazlo, Dave and Ping Pong is he able to do something about it.

—Patsy took Lazlo coming out as gay harder than she’ll ever admit.

—Before Jane Doe was promoted to Denmother, she served as Denmother’s Assistant to a perfectionist, verbally abusive old crone, Denmother Carson. (I’ve posted about her before, if you search my stuff.) Carson made her life miiiiserable and there were many times Jane wanted to up and quit.

—Nurse Leslie didn’t want to go into the medical field, but his family, the Sharkiros, have a longstanding tradition of it and essentially forced him.

(Ah crap. I ran out of tags. Never mind, we persevere!)

—Ms. Mucus is divorced.

—Gordon the bear has an anxiety problem.

—There was a time where, before he worked at Camp Kidney, Chef McMuesli wasn’t just a voluntary nomad but legitimately homeless and broke.

—99% of the time Clam doesn’t mind being judged for his unusual speech pattern and appearance, but 1% of the time (when it’s by Scoutmaster Lumpus or some other authority figure,) he does.

—I can’t explain it but there’s something about Scoutmaster Wesley and the way he talks and treats his genius scout (see episode: “Prodigious Clamus”) that just screams he has a history of cruelty and selfishness far beyond that one instance.

—Lazlo and the Loons’ parents were all very accepting and encouraging in regards to their orientations, so you can imagine how much they felt for Edward who was in a much worse situation.

—Edward, as a young adult, eventually writes off his father, Cheesly, Alpine and Philip, while still being close with Susan and Fancypants. Antonio makes it hard for Edward to interact with Susan for some time out of sheer spite.

—Lumpus in 2007 was (at least) 63, so I headcanon he was born in July of 1944. Don’t feel like that means he’s dying soon in the present day, though. This is a cartoon.

—The “C.” in “Algonquin C. Lumpus” stands for “Crawford.” His family is from Crawford County, Wisconsin. It was his father’s idea. Lumpus doesn’t like it (and he sure doesn’t like his father in my HC) so he always just says its initial.

—Lumpus neeever wanted to be a Scoutmaster. His father, a former Scoutmaster and actually the last Scoutmaster at Camp Kidney before him, made him become one. Lumpus seems to love boats and fishing, so I think his dream job would’ve been a sailor or a fisherman. At camp, he’s thus only allowed a taste of each. (Becoming a Scoutmaster seems also to require graduating from the Tomato Scouts, which Lumpus did and hated, and I feel really helped mess him up.)

—Being a Scoutmaster seems to have been the only job he’s ever had, which makes the “cut out for the real world” jokes in “Handy Helper” even funnier. He’s spent his entire life at camp, at Camp Kidney, one way or another, and the minute he tries to step out he’s crushed. A living purgatory. Scoutmaster Sisyphus.

—In the flashback to (roughly) 2000 in “Slugfest,” Lumpus is actually shown to be cordial and competent. This I think was no mere retcon: Lumpus was doing well when left to his own devices, but Slinkman’s arrival enables him to become his current lazy, grouchy, sociopathic self. (Slinkman knows.) This character shift is probably my favorite headcanon for him out of all of mine. I made a fanfiction about it which you can find on AO3, called “Summer of ‘00.” A younger version of Edward’s brother Philip is there too.

—Talking of the Platypus Brothers, Scoutmaster Lumpus haaaated them during their own times at camp. (“O Brother, Who Art Thou” straight up is noncanon to me, okay? It’s a completely different ballgame than what I see happened.) They were the biggest troublemakers he ever dealt with. That appears in “Summer of ‘00” too. And that’s part of the reason he gives Edward virtually no acknowledgement and always gets his name/species wrong. “Pollywog,” indeed.

—Lumpus and Jane met in, I wanna say 1994, when she first took over at Acorn Flats from the last Denmother. Lumpus didn’t care for her much at first and bought into the Beans-Squirrels rivalry, a la his coldness towards her in “Gone Fishing (sort of).” Jane in the same episode, for her part, seems to have treated him as a nice neighbor she has no idea dislikes her, so I’ll say that was her dynamic to him too. (Jane’s just incredibly friendly and personable in general. It’s very rare you see her openly dislike someone.) By the beginning of the show’s events in Summer 2005, they’re both feeling older and worrying about being alone, and Lumpus’ usual crush on her kicks in. Jane is oblivious and takes more time to psyche herself into liking him too. (“Wedding Bell Blues” is also not canon to me. Geesh.)

—Lumpus and Jane marry in the Summer of 2008, but don’t live together until a few years later.

—In my HC, a “class” of scouts runs for five years, ages 10 to 15. So, our usual troop of Lazlo and the gang attend camp from 2005-10 and then leave. At first Lumpus was jubilant that the Troop of 2005-10 left, but he then goes through twoish years of being a shutin. (And that’s very unfair to Slinkman and Jane, but when has Algonquin C. Lumpus cared about fairness?) When he comes back out ahead of his retirement, he briefly falls back in love with the concept of camp. Then, once retired, he realizes he’s been in a state of retirement already, being lazy, and nothing changed. You can read about this in my fic on AO3, “Bean There, Done That.”

—Jane, who I see as younger than Lumpus, retires too at some point and joins him to live in the Scoutmaster’s Cabin full-time. (Lumpus has no money to live elsewhere and the Bean Scouts of America Organization pitied him.) Slinkman, the current Scoutmaster, is also there. Once living together day by day, their marriage becomes a genuine one rather than a loneliness crutch. (And Lumpus learns that being with Jane means accepting her random singing, obsession with poodles, and her habit of being on the phone in the bathtub. You can read about that in my AO3 fic, “Call Center.”)