Meet the others
The Toy Machine
​
​
By day, the Toy Machine is a stage. Flo, Wilt, Holo and the Sitting Ducks wait inside, lit up and stacked high, hoping to be chosen.
Coins drop. Buttons flash. They are the prizes.
​
Above them hangs The Claw: silent, mechanical, watching.
The Claw, also known as Fate, decides who rises into the light… and who slips back into the pile.
​
By night, everything changes. When the arcade goes dark, they climb beneath the machine into the Deep Universe below: a hidden world under wires and metal.
​
There, they are more than prize toys. They can think, question, dream.
But even in the dark, The Claw remains. Cold. Unpredictable. In control.
Role: The unseen force deciding who is chosen, and who remains.
Symbolism: Chance. Control. The randomness of life.
The sitting ducks
The social antagonists: The sitting Ducks are the most ordinary prizes in the machine yet they're the ones The Claw always seems to choose?
Simple, multiple and replaceable, they drift through the pile with quiet confidence, but their constant wins wind up our forgotten trio.
Personality: Indifferent, ordinary, a little smug.
Symbolism: Unfair advantage and the frustration
of being overlooked.
The Spirits drift quietly through the machine, appearing when Flo. Holo, and Wilt need comfort or direction.
​
Gentle and mysterious, they share faint memories of the outside world: sunlight, shelves, bedrooms, and hands that cared.
They never give clear answers, only soft guidance, reminding the forgotten toys that being chosen isn't the only kind of happy ending.
Personality: Kind. wise, dreamlike.
Role: Emotional guides and messengers from beyond the machine.
Symbolism: Hope, memory, and the unknown future.