Blog / Adventures In Lurning

It's time to lurn...and have a good time!

Hello! The teacher crew is here to answer all your CREATIVE questions! We'd LOVE to! So long as they don't waste our TIME. But you wouldn't DREAM of doing that, would you? We do it all DIGITALLY!

HEALTHY sfw questions only, please.

[the opinions expressed by amoral talking objects to not necessarily reflect those of the AIL moderator]

A blog based on the acclaimed web series Don't Hug Me I'm Scared. It's basically a fan-made slice of life ask blog featuring the various "teachers" from the series, putting them in a MUCH less sinister light. AND yet, everyone still feels like they're in character.

Though it used to just feature Tony, Sketchpad, Roy, and the 3 students, the cast has increased DRASTICALLY. And that's not even counting the Original Characters.

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Let's Get Creative!

• Accidental Murder: Most student deaths via teacher, although they only die inside the machine.
  • Red Guy probably didn't mean to delete every inhabitant of the Fabricated World besides the teachers, the students, most of the Love Cult and Laptop when he pulled the plug. But hey, they're just computer files.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: None of the teachers are outright evil except for Shrignold, and even he's a troubled Knight Templar whose attempts to recruit for his cult are more irritating than anything.
• Adaptation Expansion: Apparently, Tony was a gift for Red Guy. Blue is his color, after all.
  • Also, Shrignold apparently went mad and, despite having a loving girlfriend, abandoned her for his new "god". Also, he wasn't called Shrignold to begin with.
• Aerith and Bob: Characters without canon names are assumed to literally be named for what they are, leading to a fairly even mix of object names and object surnames, to say nothing of the butterfly. The original characters continue the trend, i.e. Phonograph and Coby the Computer.
• Affably Evil: Roy.
• The Alcoholic: Lamp. He's even seen with a martini glass from time to time.
  • Upon seeing how Sketchbook's song REALLY ends, he's as shocked as the teachers, dripping his drink onto the floor.
• Ambiguous Gender: Sketchbook. Her/His gender is simply "Paper". Though the title of "she" and "he" can be utilized a lot. For simplicity's sake, we'll go with "she".
  • To her, "it" is rather wrong.
• Amicable Exes: Tony and Penelope. They only broke up because they both agreed that love is a waste of time. Doesn't stop them from being good pals when they reconnect. Tony even gives her a heads-up when Shrignold tries to get them back together.
  • Sketchbook and Calendar. Sketchbook was even invited to Calendar's wedding.
• Anti-Villain: Roy.
• Art Evolution: The earlier versions of Tony and Sketchbook resembled their appearances of the web series more closely before making the gradual shift into a Signature Style. The backgrounds also grew more polished, and eventually the art made a sudden shift from black and white to full color with occasional uncolored sketches.
• Artifact Title: Although the blog was eventually retitled "Adventures in Lurning" to accommodate the teachers after 2, the URL is still "sketchbook-and-tony-adventures."
• Artificial Intelligence: All the teachers and everyone in the Fabricated World, minus the students and Roy.
• Art Shift: Lampshaded when the art goes to full color.
• Ascended Extra: Shrignold is this in-universe. He was just another artificial animal created as window dressing for the Fabricated World, but Roy was impressed by his affinity for brainwashing and made him a teacher.
• Attending Your Own Funeral: Upon being revived by Roy, Colin accidentally crashes his own memorial service.
  I'm a COMPUTER!
• Audience Surrogate:
  • As the only known talking object unaffiliated with the Teachers, Laptop occasionally serves this purpose, as when she gives Sketchbook an opening to explain the nature of the Teachers' Lounge.
  • Tori is the only one who doesn't know who May is. It turns out she missed the meeting.
• Author Avatar: The humanoid girl puppet seen in the Phonograph arc.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Tony and Sketchbook, especially after the Kickstarter Arc.
• Back from the Dead: Colin, and Phonograph, very briefly.
• Bad Boss: Turns out Roy has zero qualms about "deleting" teachers who fail too many times.
• Benevolent Boss: Roy, all things considered. He didn't mean for that mess of an incident during the final canonical episode and he speaks professionally with the teachers via text.
  • That said, he did put the students through Hell for business reasons (and tough love for his son) and he plans on doing that again.
  • Subverted heavily by the "Colin's dead" arc: see "Bad Boss" above.
• Berserk Button: Don't suggest to Sketchbook and Tony (respectively) that creativity and time are worthless. In fact, when Shrignold said that creativity had no place in love, Sketchbook seemed fine...until she snapped a pen with her bare hands. Also, Tony's rhyming scheme is not to be questioned.
  • Shrignold, don't steal Tony's lines.
  • Also, more recognizably, touching Colin is a good way to land you in the hospital. Lamb Chop didn't realize this and he was ALREADY on Colin's list for what he (possibly) did to Duck Guy...
  • "IT'S NOT A CULT!!!" says Shrignold.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Colin ripped the bone off Meat Man's head and broke Refrigerator, all because the former touched him. The latter hadn't done anything and presumably was just unlucky enough to be in the vicinity.
• Big, Thin, Short Trio: The three "students" from the source material are only the latest class; the teachers have gone through multiple "classes" of three students each.
• Bizarre Alien Sexes: Sketchbook's gender was originally stated to be "paper" (taking a 2014 tweet from DHMIS co-creator Joe Pelling at its word). More recently, Canon Discontinuity has been applied to make it more a case of Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous.
• Blackand Grey Morality: Roy, and by extension the teachers, genuinely want what's best for the students. Too bad "what's best" for them in his eyes is for them to be depraved of independent thought through torturous lessons. And while he's patient with failure to an extent, he's not above letting Colin die for being obsolete once he crashes (he only relented because Sketchbook was in him at the moment, and he liked her), or outright deleting Phonograph once he kills one student too many. Needless to say, Roy's got an interesting definition of right and wrong.
• Blatant Lies: According to Colin (and rightfully so, given how Tony was acting), the phrase "I'm Fine" is the favored lie of all.
• Blood-Splattered Warrior: Colin after taking out Meat Man.
• Break the Cutie: Sketchbook averts this after getting tortured by the Money Man. Just annoyed that he keeps using her paper to write notes.
  • Happens for real when Duck Guy is killed in the canonical 5th episode. She is blamed by the asker for starting something like this, which causes her break down.
• Brick Joke: The phrase "You have made a very powerful enemy today." dates all the way back to the start of the blog. It happens when Tony calls creativity a waste of time. Later, when Colin demonstrates his superiority over Tony...
• Butt-Monkey: Yellow Guy. As per the norm.
  • It's implied that one of the students in every "class" is this, with Red Bird (the recolored Duck Guy seen at the end of 6) filling the role for June 20th.
• The Cameo: The TARDIS.
  • The Portal Gun.
  • Howdy, Grady and Frank from the The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Puppets" are currently in a storage closet in the Teachers' Lounge.
• Celibate Hero: About 75% of the teachers are somewhere on the aromantic spectrum and all of them are asexual (much to Shrignold’s frustration). Most of the teachers that are in a romantic relationship are Original Characters.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Started as a series of one-off gags involving Tony and Sketchbook but began to respond to the canon in real time starting with the Kickstarter videos, increasing the amount of characters and storylines and gradually developing an elaborate lore inspired by, though separate from, the web series.
  • Cerebus Rollercoaster: Occasionally, something very dark will happen. Usually, it's in conjunction with the canon.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Shrignold, out of all the Teachers. Heck, Tony suggests he lives there very late in the series.
• Commonality Connection: Tony, Laptop, Gilbert and Red Guy bond over mutual hatred of Colin. We also find out that Tony and Penny dated in the past for pretty much no other reason than that they both loved time.
• Cosplay: Evidently, Steven Universe is very popular to them.
  • Although, Tony dressed up as the Fourth Doctor.
  • Roy even dresses up like Opal.
• Crapsaccharine World: The teachers may be nicer and the tone may be lighter, but the setting itself manages to be worse than the one in the source material. It's entirely populated by sapient computer programs who by and large don't know that their lives and the world they inhabit are an elaborately constructed hologram designed to deceive three "students" at a time. The Teachers have to deal with all of this plus the risk of deletion if they fail in their sole purpose, even if they don't want to participate. And none of them can leave; as computer programs, they can only exist inside the machine. In the event of a crash, they have to retire to a Pocket Dimension or they'll be deleted forever.
• Crisis of Faith: Anytime a romance proves too...complicated for Shrignold, he'll go right into this. It's actually kind of pathetic.
• Cult: Shrignold's cult takes center stage a few times. Apparently, their form of punishment is putting the offender(s) in a "Punishment Box". It's not much inside, but they're kept in there for 10 hours sometimes.
• Cult Defector: Spinach Can and Bread Boy.
• The Cynic: Tony. Although he got better, more or less.
  • Gilbert, to an extent.
  • Phonograph after being brought Back from the Dead.
• Cynicism Catalyst: For Phonograph it was being deleted by Roy.
• Dem Bones: Apparently, the Skeleton War is mandatory.
• Description Cut: After Tony, accompanied by Penny, convinces Roy to fix Colin, Penny says she's sure everyone had complete faith in them. Cut to Lamp kicking off Colin's memorial service on the assumption that they failed.
• Didn't Think This Through: Tony's plan to fix Colin doesn't go past the part where he finds their boss's computer. Like Red Guy in the canon 6th episode, he and Penny resort to pressing buttons at random.
• Dissonant Serenity: Played for comedy at several points, usually by the Teachers.
• Distaff Counterpart: Indigo Lady, Blue Jay Woman and Yellow Girl (aka "Speshal One") to Red Guy, Duck Guy and Yellow Guy, respectively.
• Drinking the Kool-Aid: When the Love Cult members kidnap Sketchbook and Tony for help, Tony wants to know if Shrignold has finally "started handing out the weird tasting grape drink."
• The Eeyore: Tori the Tape Player, a former teacher who was fired after one day on the job for being too depressing and can generally be seen moping around in the Teachers' Lounge.
• Eldritch Abomination: Could be a joke, but if this post is accurate...
• Epiphanic Prison: Several students escaped via glitter head explosion because they caught on to the fact that the Fabricated World made no sense.
• Existential Horror: All the teachers are more or less coping with the fact that they were created for the sole purpose of brainwashing students and the world they live in is a lie. Some of them didn't even know this to begin with.
• Everybody Hates Mathematics: The only known math teacher so far was Coby, and even she was a computer teacher pulling double duty. Since her replacement, Colin, is terrible at math and no new math teacher has been forthcoming, the rest of the teachers have concluded that math must not be that important.
• Everyone Has Standards: Everyone generally agrees what happened with Sketchbook during her teachings was unpleasant, including she. It's one the reasons Tony was hesitant to become friends with her.
  • Also, what happened when the Healthy Band came along...
  • Amoral though the teacher crew may be, Shrignold's intrusive and controlling nature crosses the line for all of them, including (eventually) Healthy Band members Spinach Can and Bread Boy, who do an extremely brief stint in the cult after the failure of the Health lesson.
• Family of Choice: Red Guy and Duck Guy technically have custody of Yellow Guy (at least in the Fabricated World), although Roy is a regular visitor. Shrignold describes his followers as this, but everyone else has another word for it.
• Foul Flower: Dandy the Dandelion.
• Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: Has retained its nature as an ask blog even after taking on the features of a webcomic. It can only access current inhabitants of the Lie World, however.
• The Friend Nobody Likes:
  • They only keep Shrignold around because they have a hard enough time getting him out.
  • Also, the Healthy Band, though this has died down, more or less.
  • To an even lesser extent, Yellow Guy, although that's only in the opinion of the teachers.
  • Red Guy, Tony, Laptop, Shrignold, and especially Gilbert HATE Colin for their own reasons.
• Furry Reminder: Shrignold gets hit with this occasionally. He's frail as his species and just as delectable to the birds.
• Genki Girl: Sketchbook is quite cheerful, even after being kidnapped by the Money Man and subjected to torture with the students.
  • Indigo Lady, in contrast to Red Guy.
• Giving Up on Logic: Phonograph by the "Colin's Dead" arc. Finding yourself alive after being deleted will do that to you.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: The student trio see the teachers as extra housemates and aren't a bit fazed by their presence despite the trauma they endured during the lessons, eating meals and celebrating holidays with them. Tony refers to the students as his friends, and he even ends up bonding with Red Guy over their mutual dislike of Colin.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: Tony during the Kickstarter Arc. He's all alone with Roy, who isn't a big help in rescuing the students and sketchbook. He suffers a mild variant of this trope as the days pass on.
• Got Me Doing It: Tony's response to an asker pointing out that he has no business holding the Creativity Explosion against Sketchbook considering that he made the puppets rot:
  Tony: Whoa there, friend! You might need to slow down! Ugh, great...now I'm saying it...
• Green-Eyed Epiphany: Tony has a rather sad one when he's forced to talk to Sketchbook about how he's been feeling since Colin seemed to be taking away attention from him. As Tony starts breaking down, it turns into a Heartwarming moment.
• Greater Scope Villian: According to the penultimate post, which was essentially a quick and easy way for the moderator to end the blog at last, Roy's mom is the true mastermind.
• "Groundhog Day" Loop: Although events vary and everyone retains their memories, every day is June 19th. The teachers nonetheless celebrate holidays as if time were moving normally (Halloween, for instance, is referred to as "the 31st 19th of 10th June"). It turns out that time progresses at Roy's will to accommodate different classes; the protagonists of the web series were the "Class of June 19th."
• Hates Being Touched: Tony, at first. However, the more severe case is Colin, of course.
• Heroic BSoD: At one point Colin literally bluescreens after trying to remember the ending of his song and remains "dead" until Roy reboots him. In the same arc, Spinach Can is deeply shaken up after being the only teacher to encounter a Back from the Dead Phonograph only to watch him get deleted again.
• Hey, That's My Line!: Tony is not cool with Shrignold's appropriation of "Look, a computer!"
• Hidden Depths: Red Guy is surprisingly good at Cards Against Humanity.
  Tony: He is the most twisted guy I know...
  • Roy gets out a bunch, actually. Not counting his TRUE role in the series.
  • Tony's really good at stop-motion (he DID pull of that Victorian skit in his debut, after all) and knitting. The last one, though...
  • Sketchbook is dealing with a lot.
• Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Yellow Guy was abandoned at a park by his mother when he was four, and his dad lost custody after leaving him at his friend's house for a sleepover and not coming back for five days.
• Hostile Show Takeover: Shrignold has attempted at least once to get into the Ask Box in order to flood the area with romance questions. Tony's reaction was quite something.
  • Heck, it even led to a Space Whale Aesop.
• Human Sacrifice: Tony barely stops Sketchbook from taking out Bread Boy in an effort to revive Duck Guy, though he himself later admits that he considered sacrificing Shrignold to "the computer gods" in order to save Colin and thereby Sketchbook.
• Hypocrite: Until he met Flower, Shrignold had no "special one" to speak of, despite preaching all about that stuff.
  Tony: Turns out flying around talking about love kings that need to be fed gravel doesn't get you a girlfriend!
• Inadvertent Entrance Cue: Saying the word "time" can summon Tony (and Penny) at long range.
• Individuality Is Illegal: The Teachers are under orders to discourage independent thought, and encouraging it has consequences. This was bad news for Phonograph, who implies that it wasn't like this before Roy took the reins.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Shrignold hasn't made one successful match, not even for himself. Interestingly, he's only this by his own standards, as Roy considers him the best of the teachers due to his great track record of brainwashing students.
• Inn Between the Worlds: The Teachers' Lounge.
• Innocently Insensitive: Colin, all in all. He may act like an insufferable genius time and time again, but all he wants to do is hang out.
• Inside a Computer System: The setting, per the source material. There's even a few visitable computer systems inside that system in the form of Colin's and Laptop's "Digital Worlds."
• Insistent Terminology: It's not a cult, it's a family!
• Interspecies Romance: Mostly averted. As pointed out by Sketchpad, those of the same brand (Paper and Paper, Clocks and Clocks) are more likely to get together. However, Polybius and Sewing Machine are happily married.
• Ironic Echo: "Make it stop!!"
• Irrational Hatred: Gilbert's intense grudge against Colin for interrupting his lesson was not cooled one degree by the revelation that he was sent by mistake and hadn't known what was happening.
• It's Always Spring: It's been June for a very long time. In fact, the "year" started at January 1st and made an incredibly slow progress toward this point; June 19th lasted five years, although precise day lengths vary.
• Jade-Colored Glasses: Phonograph actually believed in his teaching mission and encouraged his students to think for themselves, which led to his downfall. After being revived he's a lot more cynical.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Tony, as revealed later.
  • Roy, despite being creepy as Hell AND the master of the teachers, loves his son dearly. He even stopped Money Man's killing of the students and Sketchbook by starting a fundraiser, earning the money needed to free them.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Shrignold. He breaks down after his many failures and shows some kindness to Tony and Sketchbook when they talk him down, but it was all a ploy to get into their good graces and ensure his eventual success down the line.
• Killed Off for Real: All the extras save Laptop and a few cult members after Red Guy unplugged the machine.
• Knocking on Heathens' Door: Shrignold is introduced to the blog when he and a few cult members show up at the puppets' house. Red Guy blandly slams the door in their faces.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Part of the damage control after the teachers lose a student.
• Laser-Guided Karma: As soon as Tony gives the Money Man his ransom, Tony decks the bastard with the suitcase. He got what he wanted, but was it worth the angry clock?
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • You ever feel like the world has written itself into a corner?
  • When May is introduced:
    Tori: Did Roy bring the calendar to life?
    May: No! I'm an AI detached from any singular body and can freely move about this world using any inanimate object I please as a vessel to observe you all more efficiently for Roy! I just find the calendar convenient. There's one in every room.
    Lamp: That's some good exposition for anyone who might have forgotten there, May.
    May: And I see you weren't here for the meeting going over who I am, Tori. I will be sure to put that on your record.
• Lighter and Softer: In fact, murder is condemned by the teacher community. Doesn't stop them from acting like their usual selves.
• Living Prop: In-universe, every inhabitant of the Fabricated World that isn't a student, a teacher, or Roy.
• Long-Runner Tech Marches On: Justified in-universe by the slow passage of time in the Fabricated World and the fact that in the event of teacher death Roy would rather substitute a more advanced teacher than revive an older, less-successful model.
• The Matchmaker: Shrignold is relentless.
• Missing Mom: Yellow Guy hasn't seen his mom since he was 4. Apparently, it was a case of parental abandonment at the park.
  What have we told you about answering questions, friend?
• Monster Roommate: The object teachers, to the puppets.
• Mood Whiplash: Gilbert's song takes a detour.
• Mundane Afterlife: In the alternate ending to the Kickstarter Arc, the puppets, Sketchbook and Tony (who ran out of batteries) are Killed Off for Real and find out that the afterlife looks exactly like their house. Then life continues as normal.
• Murder the Hypotenuse: Red Guy was willing to SMASH Colin to help Tony with his jealousy-induced problems. Considering what happened to Red Guy in Colin's debut, there's some merit.
• My Greatest Failure: Sketchbook considers the Creativity Explosion to be this. And for good reason.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: During the Kickstarter arc, Tony repeatedly refers to the abducted parties as his friends "and also Sketchbook." The events of the arc are what "kickstart" his change in attitude.
  • The teachers are talking objects "and Shrignold."
• Mysterious Employer: The teachers are familiar with Roy but have no idea that he's their boss.
• Nails on a Blackboard: Sure enough, a sentient blackboard does this to HIMSELF when Tony corrects him on the fact that staying positive won't really change anything.
• Never My Fault: Tony, for all levels in kindness he earns, still refuses to take the heat for making the students rot during his debut. He states that it's just how time works.
  "Also, Yellow Guy knows what he did..."
• New Media Are Evil: Tony HATES digital clocks. And for good reason, as it turns out. He might be worrying about becoming obsolete.
• No Hugging, No Kissing: Enforced to the point where even Tony's mild crush on Laptop was eventually discarded in favor of no romantic interactions between the leads. The only teacher to have a love interest is Shrignold, who likes one of the flowers in his cult.
• Noodle Incident: Apparently, Tony and the Big Ben (yes, THAT Big Ben) had a falling out.
  "You know what you did, Benjamin!"
  • He also claims a bad history with Yellow Guy (though that one may be entirely one-sided) and Grady from the The Amazing World of Gumball episode "The Puppets" (directed by the creators of DHMIS), who "really knew how to grate on [his] nerves."
  • Yellow Guy and the Red Triangle were friends and are no longer.
  • We see the beginning of Sketchbook's lesson with the June 20th students, but after that we're only given the aftermath of the lesson. Whatever they did left a rather big mess, and Sketchbook ends it with the same "let's all agree to never be creative ever again" line from the first video. Judging by the reactions from the other teachers, it was a spectacle to behold.
• The Not-Love Interest: Sketchbook, to Tony. In fact, most of the significant relationships among the teachers are played like this, including Tony/Laptop, Tony/Penny, Sketchbook/Colin and Phonograph/Coby.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Shrignold. We may not see his efforts convince anyone onscreen until he briefly recruits Spinach Can and Bread Boy only to have them escape, but his cult consists of many former students, and Roy considers him the most effective of the Teachers. We also find out that he keeps the cult on a low-protein diet so that they won't have the energy to resist him.
• Not Quite Dead: Students who die in the Fabricated World reappear in reality, as Red Guy did in the series, and he and Duck Guy are far from the only students to go through the same thing. This also applies to teachers deleted by Roy; their files are in the trash can on his desktop and he hasn't emptied it yet.
• Obliviously Evil: The teachers, more or less. Phonograph got deleted for becoming aware of this and refusing to play the game.
• O.C. Stand-in: Gilbert and Laptop. Also, the three characters depicted at the end of DHMIS 6, who might or might not have been intended as the original three students with a Palette Swap. Here, they're a new set of students with distinct personalities.
• Odd Friendship: Tony considers Roy his best friend. Even Sketchbook was only a close second for quite some time. It was already pretty bizarre before Roy turned out to be his boss and the controller of the machine. He's also friends with the three students and finds a particular unlikely ally in Red Guy when his jealousy of Colin gets the better of him.
• Oh, Crap, There Are Fanfics of Us!: Tony and Sketchbook react as well as you might expect.
  • They were prepared for next time.
• Only Sane Man: Phonograph. And Red Guy, naturally.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: And it's all downhill for Tony's mean attitude towards Sketchbook.
• Personality Swap: Happens at one point.
  • The next time was...a bit backwards.
• Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous: Sketchbook.
• Perspective Flip: Don't Hug Me I'm Scared from the perspective of the teachers.
• Pet the Dog: Shrignold, one of the more antagonistic teachers of the series, has one when he first loses faith in Malco-I mean himself. He doesn't lay the blame on Tony and Sketchbook for not getting together. From a huge cultist like him, that says much.
  • Although, he later reveals he was just getting on their good graces. Nevertheless, he stops shipping the two of them...and decides to look for other special ones that might have more luck in his plans.
  • In spite of everything, Roy's love for his son appears to be genuine, and he comes off as quite the Reasonable Authority Figure when he writes to the teachers at the end of the "Zappening" arc, forgiving various failings, admitting to his own errors, and even congratulating two of his employees on their anniversary.
    • He also gets another one in the Colin's Dead arc. Although he didn't really care much for Colin and planned on replacing him, he revived him on Tony's begging because Sketchbook, who Tony had grown attached too and was showing great promise, had gone inside him to try and fix him and would get deleted as well, proving he does care about the teachers to a certain extent.
• Pocket Dimension: Colin and Laptop's Digital Worlds, the world the students and teachers inhabit as a whole, and the Teachers' Lounge, which is in the same dimension as Roy's control panel.
• Police Are Useless: They stopped taking the student's calls after they spoke of their outlandish situations. It comes to bite Tony in the ass when he tries to call them to stop the Money Man.
  • Could be a case of arbitrary skepticism, due to the world they live in.
• Poor Communication Kills: Sketchbook and Tony suffer from this after Sketchbook fails to recognize Tony's jealousy over her friendship with Colin. This goes on until Red Guy of all people gets fed up with it and brings it to a forcible close.
• Posthumous Character: Former teachers Phonograph, Coby, Dandy and Dillian.
• Pun: The setting of the web series is here known as the "Fabricated World"; it's made of felt and it's all an elaborate deception.
• Quirky Household: Each of the teachers (save Shrignold) casually joins the puppet's household after being introduced in their canon episode. As of the 6th episode and the ending of the "Colin's Dead" arc, the puppets have escaped the machine, but Tony, Sketchbook, Gilbert and Colin have moved into their own house in the Fabricated World.
• Reality Bleed: Red Guy continued to appear after the events of 4, but after the canon 5th episode revealed that his encounter with Colin had sent him to another reality, Tony explained that he suffered from this for a while before vanishing altogether.
  Sketchbook: We don't know [where Red Guy went]. He sort of disappeared!
  Tony: Right after ranting about how he was having "visions" of some "other realm" and how those visions were "getting longer and longer as time went on" and how he "thought he was going to get stuck in this other realm forever."
• Real Life Writes the Plot: The Kickstarter Arc, which even had an alternate ending in case the web series failed to get funding.
• Really 700 Years Old: Tony TRIES to pull off this tropes, stating he's "old as time itself". Sketchbook undermines this.
• Reference Overdosed: The examples listed under Shout-Out are just scratching the surface.
• Religion of Evil: The Cult of Malcolm is not too evil, but it still can get into this. Just look at Duck Guy, as he tries to use religion as a means to escape the madness.
• Rejected Apology: Colin may not have been responsible for interrupting the geography lesson, but Gilbert does not forget.
• Ridiculously Human Robot: And not just the teachers; the Fabricated World has been programmed down to Animate Inanimate Objects, animals and insects, all of whom are fully sapient and have no idea that they aren't "real" unless they're told. Shrignold was already leading a cult before he found out!
• Serious Business: A typical trip to Starbucks.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: Inverted and before they truly became pals.
  • Later, Tony has to remind Shrignold CONSTANTLY to stop pestering him and everyone else about romance.
• Ship Tease: Averted with Tony and Sketchbook. The former thinks love is a waste of time, while the other is of the gender known as Paper. This frustrates Shrignold to no end. Not that their interactions fan the flames.
  • However, this does happen between Tony and Laptop and Penelope (an old flame, even!).
  • Also, Sketchpad and Colin (failed for the aforementioned reason), Indigo Lady and Red Guy, Shrignold and Flower, Spinach Can and Bread Boy, and Gilbert and Laptop. Shrignold is quite pleased by this.
• Shipper on Deck: Shrignold is a very aggressive and cultish version of this. He gets worse as time goes on and his attempts keep getting rebuffed.

• Shoo Out the New Guy: Shortly after DHMIS 5, Colin rained hell on Meat Man and Refrigerator, who left the premises indefinitely. After the end of 6, they reappeared in the Teachers' Lounge with the rest of the cast, but remained minor players.
• Shout-Out: To Wander Over Yonder.
  • And Frozen.
  • After the harrowing Kickstarter Arc, Team Fortress 2.
  • When Shrignold is having his first breakdown, he references Toy Story.
  • YOU ARE TEARING ME APART, TONY!
  • Another goes to Avenue Q. Dammit, Roy.
  • Tony's reaction to Help #3:
    I don't know what I expected.
  • Red Guy, Tony, Gilbert and Laptop avenge themselves for various wrongs by putting Colin's keyboard in Jello.
  • A couple to Gravity Falls, including Sketchbook bedazzling her face.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: Tony and Penny only dated for two weeks, but apparently managed to be pretty damn annoying during that time.
• Silly Rabbit, Romance Is for Kids!: It took Tony and Penny two weeks of dating to mutually declare romance a waste of time and break up on friendly terms.
• Shower of Angst: Tony's reaction to explicit fanfiction about him and Sketchbook.
• The Speechless: Roy, as in canon, doesn't talk out loud as part of his menacing persona. He does text and write letters a lot though, especially to his employees. His writing style is very business professional.
• Social Media Before Reason: Tony tweets a selfie of himself and Roy driving off to pay the ransom for their abducted housemates.
• Space Whale Aesop:
  Sketchbook: The moral of this story is: Don't force people who are not interested into romantic situations! Or an angry clock will come after you!
• Stepford Smiler: Sketchbook. In fact, all the teachers, especially when going through the initial bout of Existential Horror that their situation entails. The Healthy Band are too new to be over it yet.
  "They look happy, but you can tell they're suffering."
• Stylistic Suck: TONE THE TALIGN CLOK?????????
• Tear Off Your Face: Tony does this Sketchbook early in the series when she plays the "Got Your Nose" trick on him.
• Terrible Artist: Tony. Not that Sketchbook minds.
• Thank the Maker: The teachers tend to invoke Becky Sloan and Joseph Pelling.
• Think Happy Thoughts: Sketchbook's coping mechanism.
• Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo: A mild variant is used when Red Guy decides to finally get away from the madness. His appearance and the energetic nature of one place there he visits may contribute to the following line.
  Somehow this isn't much better.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Tony when he and Shrignold first meet.
• This Is Unforgivable!: Gilbert the Globe is still bitter at Colin for stealing his song, despite it being an accident. Laptop is also a bit incensed by Colin's need to be superior to her.
  • It's a primary source of friendship between Tony, Gilbert, Laptop, and Red Guy (and possible ship tease for Gilbert and Laptop).
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: The Teachers live by this and are VERY offended if you break that rule. Especially if the victims are those they hold dear.
• Time Master: True to form, Tony insists that he is not this, and that the Yellow Guy had it coming anyway. Strangely, he really does appear to be "only a clock" under non-teaching circumstances.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Tony. From tolerating Sketchbook and company to realizing her being there made things fun and worthwhile. He comes full circle when he gets jealous over Colin spending more time around her than he.
• Too Much Information: Why Yellow Guy is forbidden from answering questions.
• True Companions: The students (obviously) and, eventually, the Teachers...to a few degrees.
• Uncoffee: Shrignold drinks dandelion coffee. What Tony is constantly swigging from that mug is up for debate.
• Un-person: When students die, their housemates' memories are selectively wiped and the teachers destroy evidence of their existence. The teachers are also forbidden to speak of Phonograph, although they still keep his pictures around.
• Vague Age: Across the board. The mod provides some (very) rough estimates here and here.
• Viking Funeral: Duck Guy is given this after this death. Then, the others go for pizza afterwards.
• Villainous Breakdown: Shrignold gets worse and worse as his shipping attempts go down the drain. He looks increasingly deranged until he suffers the odd BSOD once in a while. It takes his cultists to bring him out of his funks.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Tony and Sketchbook. More prominent early on.
• The Voiceless: Bread Boy and Fridge don't seem to talk outside of their song. Though Bread Boy did get one line.
  Bread Boy: Who the hell is Roy?
• Webcomic Time: Lampshaded:
  Sketchbook: Wow, what a crazy year this has been!
  Tony: Sketchbook, it's only been a day.
  [Eye Take from Sketchbook]
• Wham Episode: The Kickstarter Arc. It starts to weigh heavily on Tony as time goes on.
  • OUR KING.
  • The already-whammy-in-canon events of DHMIS 5 peak with this line:
    Tony: I can't believe this...This is the fifth set of students this has happened to...
    Laptop: Wait, WHAT?
    Tony: Nothing. I didn't say anything.
  • The "Zappening" arc that coincides with the 6th and last canon episode.
  • Things really start going to hell after Colin’s death.
• What Does This Button Do?: Tony and Penny trying to figure out Roy's computer. They don't fix Colin, but they do manage to accidentally revive Phonograph.
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Of the non-romantic sort. During the Kickstarter Arc, when the students and Sketchbook are kidnapped by the Money Man, Tony is left fuming over why he's so concerned about Sketchbook, whom he previously just tolerated. See for yourself.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Why Roy has no problem deleting the occasional teacher.
• Who Would Be Stupid Enough?: Lamp is confused by the idea that someone would ship him with Spinach Can, whom he barely knows. Seems he doesn't know Shrignold very well either.
• Wings Do Nothing: Duck Guy learned this way too late.
• You Have Failed Me: Roy's reaction to teachers who screw up.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: While Roy won't delete teachers except for a grave offense, an underwhelming teacher who dies will be replaced instead of rebooted, as seen with Coby. Colin nearly suffered the same fate, but since Sketchbook was trapped in his digital world and would have died with him, Roy rebooted him.
• You Mean "Xmas": What did you expect from Shrignold?
• Your Door Was Open: Shrignold doesn't live at the house, but you could be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Roy is also pretty free with the place, as Tony discovers when the students and Sketchbook are kidnapped and there's no one to kick him out.
• Your Head A-Splode: The fate of students who question their reality.