Cassidy Doodle World - Tumblr Posts

The Ethylene Creator

Fandom: Doodle World (Roblox)

Words: 964

Characters: Cassidy

@flashfictionfridayofficial

Cassidy walked out of Graphite Lodge’s Help Center, holding a card in her hands and rereading the peculiar assignment she had accepted. Whoever left the request hadn’t provided a name, but it was fairly straightforward: a house hadn’t been attended to in weeks by its owner. Check in to make sure everything was alright, and report to the mayor–her father–if it wasn’t, for a handy cash prize. It did raise the question of who involved her father in this without daring to be upfront about it, but she wasn’t one to stray from an opportunity to try and make the world better.

She knocked once on the wooden door to the house, and was greeted by a dimly lit room as it creaked open. “Hello? This place is lived in, right? People have been worrying…” There wasn’t a response.

Cassidy shrugged it off rather apprehensively, stepping upstairs. There was no sign of life, the whole attic was cluttered with boxes and various statuettes on end tables. She recognized them as all being shaped in the image of Louis: a Doodle some speculated was a god taking the form of an inflatable balloon cat one might get at the circus. Evidently whoever lives (lived?) here was a believer in that theory.

She took a mini flashlight from her pocket and flipped it, shining the thin beam of light across the deserted room. Was it her, or were the chiseled gazes of the Louis idols following the light? Maybe it was for the best that no one else was here…

The light landed on an open book, pages slightly yellowed and covered in near-illegible scrawl. Cassidy toed around the boxes and picked up the book, glancing across the page. Evidently it was a diary of sorts, but most of what was written had been scratched out.

— - — - LOVE LOUIS – —---- WAR -- - - - —- —- LOVE —- - - LOVE LOUIS – —-- - — WILL THE —-- — - LOUIS - — LOVE LOUIS — - - - – - - – - - – —-- LOVE - - - - – - DOODLE – - - - – - - - LOUIS LOVE – - - – - - - LOVE – - - - — WE - WIN – – – - – LOVE LOUIS – – - SOMNIERE, — - — —--- - LOVE LOUIS

She turned the page, and it was more of the same. This couldn’t have had anything to do with Alice, could it? That girl was always fond of Louis… but she wasn’t like this, no.

Cassidy took the diary, and underneath it were some scraps of paper, some legible and others not, that looked like they were relaying some sort of key to a puzzle. She hesitated. There was the innate sense that she wasn’t alone in this horror house, but nothing had happened to suggest she would regret her snooping. And, in the end, what was a bit more evidence for whatever ended up coming from this request?

She took the key and went back downstairs.

There was the sense she hadn’t checked everywhere there was to look, though. So she went out to the backyard, the place children throughout Graphite Lodge were told not to go. And, as she could have guessed, there was no sign of anyone alive. But someone had been there recently, she could see footprints that had yet to be cleared away by a gust of wind heading down into what Cassidy always assumed was a priest hole. She wasn’t one to believe much in supernatural religious figures, but it lined up with what she had seen in the house, so… she went down into the hole anyway.

The hole led to a hallway with a stone floor and a wooden door standing ajar at the end. As Cassidy approached it, she saw a torn up version of the key she had found in the house laying on the ground in front of it.

Well. That made her job easier. Cassidy was almost disappointed, she rather liked decoding puzzles. Almost.

She stepped into the room and saw drawing-boards with bright blue threads hooked on pins stabbed into the boards. A hundred different scenarios, all written down in marker and tightly interwoven for scenarios Cassidy would never have dreamed were possible, doodles of keys–the kind you’d use to unlock something–crammed where they could fit. Project Ethylene G, a scenario with the second coming of the Blankists stood out, and the main point was highlighted in red ink:

[SEEK PLAYER’S ALLEGIANCE]

[SEEK PLAYER’S ALLEGIANCE]

[SEEK PLAYER’S ALLEGIANCE]

Cassidy looked across the boards. Each and every possible scenario had this in common. Did they know? They couldn’t know. They were on the other side of the island collecting the keys for DoodleCo— the keys. They have the keys.

She heard a sound from the back of the room and jumped, turning to get as far away from there as possible. She didn’t even realize that the pieces of the key she had found fluttered out behind her, forming a trail as they drifted to the ground. Her heartbeat thudded in her ears, and she scrambled up the ladder to escape the priest-hole. Clambering over the fence, she staggered to the ground and pulled the diary out from under her arm.

Whatever was in this journal, someone didn’t want people reading it. The only clue was Louis. And yet what she’d found pointed to a war. It didn’t add up.

She had to find them. They could be anywhere now, but she’d be damned if she didn’t at least try. She headed through the gate from Graphite Lodge to the Crossroads and rushed down to Junjie’s Subway, clinging to the diary for dear life, hoping she didn’t look too shaken when she spoke to Junjie.

This wasn’t the kind of adventure she had always imagined when she was young, fantasizing of all the things she could accomplish for her father and her town. But it was undeniably more important, albeit a risk so absurd she could hardly believe it.

And yet she was as ready as she felt she could be to take that risk.

Realizing it now... if you look at all the dads of the main cast. They are pretty bad fathers. And if you look at the side characters' dads then they're actually really good dads. Don't believe me? Lemme list them off. First, we have Quincy and Charles. Then Portia and Riffraff. And then if count Teneson as like... a stand in since Portia and Quincy's dads aren't there but even then, he's not that great. Then there's Suzie and her dad (along with her mom) who made her go taste more drugs that went horribly wrong. Player doesn't even have their dad there. TJ is the exception, not the rule. Let's look at the side character's and their dads. We have Cassidy and her dad, the mayor. Who decided to take up mukbang to help with money. Then there's Alice and her dad. Who joined the Louis fanclub and clearly loves his daughter. And then we have Anna and Desmond. Who's willing to do anything for his daughter. Clearly the main cast is cursed with bad fathers for some reason.

I need some more Player Appreciation around here. It makes me sad that there's barely any fics with Player hanging out with their friends. Writers always make an excuse for Player not being there, when likely all they want is to hang out with their friends without the constant threat of something over their shoulder. In fact, there are multiple fics that make other characters take on the help center requests instead. It makes me believe that the fandom doesn't like Player despite the fact out of all the characters, we quite literally see their actions and how it affects others. Yet writers choose to ignore them. So many people's lives have been just changed for the better or even just made a bit brighter all due to Player's actions. > Take Alice, her current arc is that she's learning to stand up for herself, even taking up battling and sticking by her love of ice types even when ice is considered a weak type. > Even take Wayfarer Jack, he finally found purpose in battling Player and just giving him something to do. > Or even take Cassidy, who found a friend in Player even predicting they would take her request. Even the main cast has different views on Player! > Quincy views Player as one of their close friends, being there when he was having trust issues. Quincy speaks up about being back-up and is upset when Player faces Tinsley, likely because he feels useless, not being able to take that weight off their shoulders. > Suzie of course is best friends with Player, no questions asked. She hypes them up and keeps bringing them back into the conversation and never leaves them out of it. Suzie wants her own doodle after the Oasis likely due to seeing Player do everything for her. > Tj right now, might be going through a villain arc, but he considers Player his friend, he's just disappointed in himself that he can't stand next to them or even beat them once. Player is such a sweetheart and a saint. Doing so much. Yet barely being recognized for it.