#phew just in time

[jq37]

Twice Upon a Time - Neverafter Eps 4+5

Once Upon a Time and Down Came the Rain

Hey Y’all!

Happy New Year!

As I noted in a post about a week ago, I was home for the holidays with very little access to wifi so I missed a week–a very lore heavy and trippy week–and I am butting up against the drop of a new episode so, as promised at the start of this batch of recaps, I’m gonna do my best to catch us up without burning myself out and hopefully we’ll be back to normal recaps next episode.

So, first up, let’s quickly run through what everyone went through during their resurrections in episode 4: Once Upon a Time.

Pinocchio has perhaps the most harrowing time. After a quick chat with his ghost cricket conscience (bc in the OG tale, he straight up murders him, as one does) he is summoned by his very disappointed “mother”. When he sees her, there is a crack of light in the doorway from where he stole the doorknob but he caves and tells her that he found her house and gives her all the loot he took (knob, photo, knife). He’s really worried about his dad and even MORE worried when the stepmother uses Geppetto's blood to give him more power so maybe he’ll do better protecting Roz this time around (she seems to be on a diff plane with Gepetto, making Gepetto her only source of blood). Pinocchio is now a little more fucked up and he has a crow familiar that he’s not very fond of. Then he’s sent back to life but not *his* life. His stepmother throws him into a different version of the Neverafter (a darker one, which is the running theme of these resurrections) and he fully takes the place of the Pinocchio in this world. Yikes!

Puss in Boots gets a very meta sequence where he meets up with two other tricksters–Fox and Rabbit. They seem to be, in a very literal sense, the archetypal trickers you see in stories like Brer Rabbit or the Fox in Pinocchio (and it’s implied that in other versions of Pinocchio–Puss or really “Cat” is also the cat that leads Pinocchio astray with the Fox). At one point the Rabbit says “We have to work together for the rest of storytelling,” which is super meta. The Fox thinks he’s gotten a little too deep in his attachments to the people he’s messing with (which is maybe proven a bit true when he shows he’s still protective over Tomas) while the Rabbit seems a bit more on his side. Before he’s sent back, he gets some new gear (including wolf tooth daggers called “The Fangs of Isengrim”) and also sees a giant spider web which screams Anansi to me (especially now that I’ve seen ep 5 and know how many cultures Brennan is pulling from here).

Roz gets my fave sequence in which she meets Cinderella (Lou Voice: Another secret Black woman?) who gives this wild info dump. Basically, she says that because of the nature of the Neverafter, princesses tend to have special abilities–most relevant here, the ability to live more “once upon a times” than other people. Cindy and Snow have been looking for Roz for a while and it’s been hard because she spends 100 years of her story asleep and it’s hard to find a window to get to her. Cindy says that the Neverafter began when the Times of Shadow did and the powers that be don’t necessarily like this crossover thing that’s happening. She says that as she died over and over she began to become aware of her past lives and she realized that someone–namely the fairies–had been bending events so that things would always go a certain way. For instance, her mother would always die. So, she’s team free will. Roz is a little naive to all this talk, still hoping for a prince and a happily ever after (with Cindy very endearingly trying to be patient with her) when Roz (with a nat 20 Insight) starts getting flashes of her past lives–good and bad–and it all starts to click with her. Cindy tells her that she should meet up back with her friends. She says that witches can be helpful but she thinks in the end they’ll side with the fairies. She also tells her to look for a dancing mute girl near a beach (the Little Mermaid I’m sure) if she can. Oh and she also warns Roz that there are MANY Once Upon a Times but not UNLIMITED ones and they’re running out. She leaves Roz with some encouraging words about love being real even if their lives have been manipulated and then Roz wakes up covered in briars again. But, this time, she’s way more skilled because she got 7 fairy gifts in this version instead of 3 and she busts her way out via a combo of brute strength and calling swarms of animals to do her bidding. 

Red awakens in a nice sunny forest with the Wolf and we learn that apparently, the Wolf told her to kill him before she got her curse, which is interesting. Anyway, the Wolf seems to be just like, an honestly kind of chill representation of The End. Like, he’s not killing you cause he hates you. He’s killing you cause It’s Your Time. He takes Red to a crossroads and to one path is a story where the woodsman comes and kills the wolf and it’s happier for her (though, she’d still be her in her current state it seems) and to the other path is an even more fucked up version of the story. It’s very Red Pill, Blue Bill. She asks to speak with her Grandma to help decide and the wolf leaves and her Grandma appears. With her Grandma there, she attempts to make a break for it, but when her Grandma starts down the darker path, Red notices her ears are a bit too long and suspects she’s being manipulated by the wolf. This doesn’t seem to quite be the case though. It’s like her Grandma just also has a bit of wolf in her. Or maybe they’re kind of the same person? It’s very trippy. Anyway, her Grandma tells her that her real friends will see the wolf in her and still love her and that she’s not a monster. Red chooses the darker path, of course, and finds herself at the edge of the cliff with a forest below. The Wolf is there again and begins violently dying–he has to die for Red’s story to start (a more violent version of the story btw, where she kills the woodsman which is not great for her psyche lemme tell you). Before he dies, he helps buff Red a bit and also says that there is something/one else connected to him in this version of the story (implied to be the 3 Little Pigs because Red hears snorting and also the Wolf is getting burned, like he does at the end of that story). Red demands answers from whoever is doing this and she wakes up in Pottingham in a stronger version of her body.

Gerrard wakes up floating in water with the shard still stuck in chest cause the narrative hates him. He is found by Turquina (aka the Fairy with the Turquoise hair, aka the fairy that brought Pinocchio to life). He fails horribly to pull it out (Nat 1) and Turq tells him to be careful, treating him with lots of princely deference. She is very helpful on the surface but seems to demonstrate what Cindy was saying about fairies being very manipulative of their narratives. She’s all, “It’s a good thing you were frogged the FIRST time but the SECOND time it shouldn’t have happened, that’s off script and we need to get it right”. Ger is basically on board–except for when she mentions changing Elody back. Then he’s like, “The problem isn’t Elody, the problem is everything else.” Also, when he offhandedly mentions Tim’s book, she seems a bit too eager to know more and he tries to cover it up. Anyway, Turq says the fairies are working really hard to put things right and she needs his shard but she can’t actually touch it so she needs him to take it out then leave it in a moonlit glade and a fairy will come pick it up. Also, she needs to bring him back to life but he’ll come back kinda more fucked up. But that’s OK! she says. It just needs to get worse before it gets better. Turq also says that they need to be careful because Roz may have been in contact with some troublemakers (aka Cindy and co). She says that if Ger helps her with this, the fairies will make helping him and Elody their top priority. He then wakes up in a darker world in a more froglike body with memories of Elody on a totally bloodied horse on the battlefield and knowledge that in this version of the story, instead of kissing him to turn him back to prince, Elody threw his froggy body against a wall. Fairy tales are wild y’all. And the shard is STILL in him because, again, the narrative hates him.

Finally, we come to Tim who is riding on the back of a kind golden goose. She’s strikingly similar to the gander, but…you know..not horrific. She tells him that he’s kind of like her brother and the yin to her yang. She can’t be where he is and visa versa. Good things follow her and bad things follow him. Tim still has his book as everyone else had their key items. The Goose tells him a bunch of info including that some fairies, all witches, and some princesses know what’s going on here. And I’m gonna break out the bullets here just so we can finish off these flashbacks:

The Goose says that the people in the book are happy but it’s not like a permanent solution. 

In the world they’re going to, Jack isn’t his son. It is also the version where Jack does the beanstalk and giant killing thing. 

The book is connected to the Goose and has more power than he can imagine.

Things can be brought out of the book.

Jack has way more stories than most people.

(Question: If Tim had no Jack in this version, I wonder what his first wish was.)

Once their conversation is done, Tim is dropped into his new story. He sees an illustration in his book of 8 fairies, and he knows all his friends are in this world.

Oh, and we never learn about what the red gems are about! Hate that! 

And that’s the quick and dirty rundown of this ep. An important thing I wanna make clear in case it wasn’t. Every character except for Pinocchio is now running around with two sets of memories. Their past life and their new one. Got it? Cool. So now we can jump into episode 5: Down Came the Rain.

This is mostly a setup ep, so we’re gonna do bullet points again.

Everyone meets up in their new forms at a tavern called The Cock and Toad. 

Roz is now followed around by a bunch of woodland creatures in a cloak as her body guard. 

Red’s breath is a lot more big and bad now (she took 2 levels of druid because, as I always say, Emily NEEDS spell slots or she will DIE). 

When Ger comes in, Red takes out the shard with a Nat 20.

Oh, also, everyone is level 3 now!

Everyone kind of catches each other up about what they saw in their visions more or less. Ger is a little cagey about Turq telling him to give her the shard but he’s too sweaty to hide his lie by omission for long and everyone is like nah we gotta put the shard in the book.

When Pinnochio describes the fairy that visited him when he had to lie–the shadowy one–Roz realizes it sounds a lot like the fairy who cursed her. Fairy overlap! I knew it!

Also there is a talking and very sad dish here w/ relationship drama (as in The Dish Ran Away With The Spoon) because this is Brennan and he can’t resist making something very silly very serious. 

Tim gets the Dish to tell him his whole sob story in a corner of the bar and he disappears into the book in motes of golden light. In his book, the words “The Dish Ran Away With the Spoon” appear. Tim also feels like he’s reached the limit of what he can do with the book without giving it the shard. 

At the same time, Pib is outside. One of the items he got from the tricksters is a spider ring that can lead him to any spider. It leads him outside to the Itsy Bitsy Spider. When he helps the little guy out, the spider tells him about a spider queen in the heart of the Lullaby Lands who is martialing her forces and cooking up some kind of dark spell that might be causing the lousy weather. She also seems connected to the gander. Also, he mentions she has magical artifacts (which seems significant considering their quest).

(There’s a mention of Hamelin which means the Pied Piper is liable to make an appearance). 

Speaking of artifacts, everyone gathers in the barn near the tavern to get some privacy to put the shard in the book. 

Roz finds some bear scat in the barn and it’s implied it might be from one of the Goldilocks bears. 

The cow that jumped over the moon is also in this barn because sure. 

Tim puts the shard into the book and the whole Cinderella story appears. Strangely, after the traditional end of the story, there are a couple of blank pages and then a picture of the shard. It’s like something more happened in the story that the book isn’t showing the text for but is showing the image (presumably where she stabs her fairy god mom). It’s also weird because it’s like the safe book is censoring the gruesome true end of the story but the carving of toes and stuff is still fully in there. 

OK, so remember when they were told that once the book had the first thing it needed, they’d have allies? Well here we are at a VERY cool plot twist.

Tim hears scratching in the book like someone else is writing in it and sees the writing of someone who is trapped in a cave and seems to have their own book which they are trying to use to communicate. 

Tim is able to write back to them and realizes that it’s Scheherazade from 1001 Nights!

If you’ve never heard of her, Scher is part of the frame story of the Arabic fairy tale collection 1001 Nights. She basically tells these stories to a king night after night to keep from being killed and at the end they get married. This story collection is where famous Arabic stories like Sinbad and Aladdin come from. I was SO pumped to get to this revelation because it’s so fun and meta. 

Anyway, back to the actual story. 

They exchange names and Scher (who doesn’t recognize Tim and vice versa) says she is trapped in a cave with some friends who include Sinbad (great fighter, annoying companion). They were supposed to meet a guardian who isn’t there. She seems to be in a similar situation to Tim where she’s in a world where things have gone wrong and she recently realized things about the true nature of the world. 

But when Tim asks where she is, plot twist #2! She doesn’t know what the Neverafter is. She’s in a land called The Endless Nights. 

This is ALSO super cool! Ever After to Neverfter and 1001 Nights to Endless Nights? Gosh, Brennan is really doing the coolest things with this narrative this season. This is really healing all my Once Upon a Time trauma AND my multiverse burnout at the same time.

Scher and Tim send each other images of what they look like (Tim’s is super buff because of Ally shenanigans) and Scher is like cool, we can send each other magic. She also sends a pic of the guardian that was supposed to be at the cave and it’s like a stone spider glyph. Pib is like, “Oh, hey I might have some info here,” and fills them in on his spider side quest.

Scher says she’d really appreciate the help and will help them as well once she’s out of the cave. She even mentions wishes and I love me a genie in the mix. Oh and she mentions there’s a dude named Aesop who also might have a book! (Aesop as in Aesop’s fables. Think Tortoise and the Hare and City Mouse/Country Mouse).

Before they head back, Tim (aided by Roz’s Speak with Animals) gets the cow’s life story and he goes into the book. Still no picture but the words “the cow jumped over the moon” appear in the appropriate spot. 

En route, Red gets some Goodberries for everyone. Smart move since they’re heading towards a fight. Each is one HP.

Point of Order–Jubilee doesn’t exist in this version of the Neverafter which is concerning to me. Is the map just gonna keep getting smaller each time they die/fail or is it replaced with something else? Also, even though Jubilee doesn’t exist here, Cole (and Senator the ram) are still in the book.

They reach a crossroads and realize that they’re going to Tuffeton. (Tuffeton as in “Little miss Muffet she sat on her tuffet, eating her curds eating and whey Along came a spider who sat down beside her And frightened miss Muffet away.”)

Crow scouts ahead and sees a grim village with this huge hill. And at the base of the hill is a mine entrance with cobwebs.

Note: Via Cole in the book, Tim can always have Lesser Restoration Prepped. He does so when Pib is the only one to fail a Con check from traveling in the rain and Brennan says it prevents him from getting a red gem (but it wouldn’t have helped after the fact)

They follow Pib’s ring to the center of the mine.

As they’re traveling in the dark, Ylfa inadvertently mentally connects to the mind of a tusked boar. She feels fire and asks if he killed the Big Bad Wolf. The board says, “Friend.” A tear runs down his cheek. He says, “I am trying to–” then she loses the connection. Hmmmm.

This is a little out of order but Tim messages Scher again and she says that (1) the spider guardian she mentioned is someone she was supposed to talk to not fight so I’m wondering if actually is the same spider they’re presumably going to have to fight or maybe more of a good guy spider like Anansi or maybe a spider I’ve never heard of because I’m not as familiar with 1001 Nights. She also says that (2) in the cave she’s in there was a tapestry of a princess with a golden mace which sounds like Elody. That’s interesting because it sounds like multiverse bleedthrough. 

They find a massive spider web in this mine but between Pib’s feline grace and roguish tricks, Red being shapeshifted into a spider, Crow being shapeshifted into a spider, and everyone else being very very careful, they are able to navigate to the center without getting caught! They have the advantage going into the next fight! Let’s hope they can keep it this time because it seems like every time they die, things are gonna get much worse. 

[livvy-art]

i wish i could caption this with "and now for something completely siffrint" but the last thing i posted was. also siffrin.

[buttercupshands]

I started drawing this next day after I finished Act 6

13 or so days and it's finished!

Main things are traditional and Loop's body was edited digitally after

Unedited it looks like this

I've been torn on how to do Loop's body for the entirety of lining, also

A bit sad the main lines are visible only as a wip, most of this thing is literally just a ton of sharp lines

I think it's also my first day of drawing, Loop is just a sketch here (feat. my leg)

I even finished the beans before it so they were a moral support, because if you let me things like this take a year

[synchodai]

I get this impression that House of the Dragon doesn't get that "named" heirs aren't really the norm in Westeros. If it were that easy for someone to just give everything to their favorite child, Randall Tarly wouldn't have needed to force Sam to go to the Wall and Tywin could have simply chosen Cersei over Tyrion as heir of Casterly Rock.

If we look at the history Westeros borrows from, the concept of "naming" heirs wasn't really a thing in medieval England. Landed gentry didn't have direct say over the order of succession until the Statute of Wills in 1540. Before then, land and subsequent titles could only be inherited through agnatic primogeniture.

Agnatic primogeniture prioritized the living, eldest, trueborn son. Claims can only be passed on patrilineally. This means that a grandaughter can inherit a claim of her grandfather's titles through her father, but a grandson cannot be given the same through his mother. However, if his mother finally does have land and titles under her own name (not under her father's), only then does her son and other children enter the line of succession.

The reason it was like this was because it kept land and titles under one family. Daughters are less preferred because when they are married, they become part of their husband's family — meaning that any titles they receive will be inherited through a new line. This wouldn't be an ideal situation because it gives two families claims to the titles. The more claimants there are, the more unstable the hold the owner has.

In other words, agnatic primogeniture was practiced for stability. Because back in the day, titles weren't just property or land. They came with governorship over a people, so a stable and predictable transfer of titles was necessary to avoid civil conflicts and questions of legitimacy.

A landed lord or lady wasn't given the right to designate heirs for a few reasons:

Most of them were vassals who oversaw the land in the name of someone higher up. It technically isn't even theirs to give away (see: feudal land tenure).

The wishes of a human being are less predictable than having a determined line of succession based on birth order. What if he becomes incapable of declaring an heir either through illness or disability? What if he's captured and a bad actor forces him to name this person heir under threat of violence?

People died unexpectedly all time. This was before germ theory and modern medicine — child mortality was extremely high. With no refrigeration technology, a single poor harvest could mean dying from starvation. Bandits, cutthroats, and raiders were a constant threat. They could not afford to rely on a person choosing a different heir every time the old heir drops dead, because the landed lord/lady could die just as suddenly.

Even 21st century families stab each other in the back over who gets grandma's house — so imagine having an uncertain line of succession in the middle ages over a life-defining lordship and without a modern-day court system to mediate.

Going back to HotD, whenever Targaryens did go against the established line of succession, they could only have done it by consolidating the support of their vassals. Only royalty seemed to have the power to bend agnatic primogeniture, but even then they were beholden to it.

When Jaehaerys I ascended the throne over Aerea, it was mainly because there were those who saw Maegor the Cruel's act of disinheriting Jaehaerys as null and void. This restored Jaehaerys place in the line of succession above Aerea.

And when Rhaenys was passed over for Baelon, Jaehaerys had to convene his lords and offer compelling reasons as to why — her young age, her lack of an heir, her Velaryon last name, etc. It wasn't a given that just because she was a woman that she was ineligible. If he was doing it purely out of misogyny, he still had to legally justify his misogyny in order to strip away her rights.

Even after consolidating support, the book mentions Jaehaerys I and Viserys I's respective hold on the crown was still weakened. Even though their claims were backed by reasons cosigned by a powerful majority, they still had to ensure the security of their rule through other means. There were people who doubted their right to rule, and those people had to be placated with gifts (by Viserys) or intimidated into submission (by Jaehaerys).

So we come to Viserys I who never gave his vassals a reason why Rhaenyra should supercede his three sons other than, "I said so." Had he convened with his lords and maybe made the argument that a first marriage takes precendence over a second one, then maybe he could have set a new precedent and gathered support.

But no, he didn't. He relied on the power of his own words and the lords' personal oaths — oaths that he didn't exactly plan how he would enforce posthumously.

And the Realm did not choose to adopt a different succession law after Jaehaerys's designation of Baelon in 92 AC or the Council of Harrenhal choosing Viserys on 101 AC. If those two events did change anything, it was that now women were exempt from the line of succession for the crown and only the crown. It did not set the precedence that monarchs could freely choose heirs. It did not upend the whole system; it only made a tweak, as most lawful policy-changes do, by carving out at an exception. It was a committee, not a revolution.

Before and after the Dance, no other monarch, lord, or lady "declared" an heir that went against agnatic primogeniture, save for Dornish who have cognatic (equal-gender) primogeniture instead. Ramsay had to get rid of Roose Bolton's living trueborn son AND be legitimized by the crown in order to be recognized as heir (only a crowned monarch can legitimize baseborn children which is another world-building pillar a lot of people miss). Randall basically had to force Sam to abdicate because he wanted his younger brother to inherit instead. And of course, Tywin despite his intense hatred of Tyrion is forced to acknowledge him as his heir.

The rigidity of the line of succession is a major and constant source of conflict in the series, so it baffles me that people really thought that characters could just freely choose their heirs. That's why we have a civil war. It wasn't a misunderstanding. It's the expected consequences of someone carelessly going against a foundational tenent of the society they inhabit.

[seafoamsol]

The best years of my life...

... what I wouldn't give to have them back.

I had the great pleasure of working with @spiderscribe on a DeadCeptor work for the @tf-bigbang, which you can (and should!) read [ HERE ]!

Details and artist commentary under the cut!

Okay, first off, I just wanna say, thank you so much to @spiderscribe for picking up my very loose scribble and taking the jump. She's an absolute champ, and I IMPLORE you to read her writing. She did a knockout job on the fic, and guaranteed, these two pieces wouldn't have been so elaborate without her. If you're a fan of deadceptor, parallels, lovers to enemies to apocalyptic teammates to ???s, I'm sure you'll find that and more in there.

[ HERE ] is the link to that, if you missed it the first time around.

The background for the supermarket was a MASSIVE undertaking. I ended up blurring it in the final to keep the dream-like quality, but there is a lot happening there! Most of the time I spent on the background was (jokingly) complaining though.

Anyone who works retail will know the agony of customer-misplaced stock. The little canisters of energon additives seem like prime candidates to be placed willy-nilly.

The little warning sign... My favorite soda, apple sidra, has a carcinogen warning, so I'm familiar with it. It was slightly surprising to me that those warnings are not countrywide, despite the fact that they very clearly say "California Proposition 65", and well. Not something else, like "Federal" or whatever.

The bags of nuts and bolts below, I asked several people what flavor they would be, and I suppose I failed in my job, because I wanted the purple to be the "regular" flavor, and the green to be the "sour". But grape and lemon-lime work as well!

The tub is full of rust-sticks. I have no idea if that came across. My friends kept calling the individually wrapped ones slim jims, which I mean, I guess!

The car batteries... My idea was that they were similar to shots, in a way? So that's how I ended up with a battery with enough terminals to rival an international airport. It's also sunset-coloured, because, I don't know, that's what Party Flavor is to me.

Okay. The second illustration. This one was a headache, mostly due to my own lack of planning, and the fact that I lost the file for... basically everything I did, including the above illustration. So it was a bit of a rush job.

The background bots started off as these very vague silhouettes, which I'm a little proud of. Look at how nice and somewhat readable they are! Okay, now what if I ruined it? What? You don't like that? That's rather unfortunate, because that's what I proceeded to do. In fact, if I take off all.. 10 or something adjustment layers, they look like this:

My process went: Shadow block> Fill rest of form> Color randomiser> Copy and skew (to populate background)> Hue adjustment> Gradient map> Fill Light> Chromatic aberration> Vignette> Levels> Curves.

The.... Magenta cube is there because due to the nature of the color randomiser, the foot had a high value, and stuck out like nobody's business in the end.

Here's what it would look like without the cube. Begone, distracting white blob! (I didn't have to worry about the lava arm because Percy happened to cover it up. What a save! But if he didn't then... there would have been a second cube.)

Basically, it was a mess. But... at least it came out fine in the end! I hope!

I'd love to have speedpaints on hand, but I was switching between CSP and PS for a good majority of the work.

I'd say that's it for these two pieces! I actually have more, but those demand more time. I'm much slower at doing inks than I am at painting, but I hope you'll get to see them soon.

[merilles]

Ladies of the Ring 💍✨

[starflungwaddledee]

running a little late, but someone's finally arriving at the @kirbyoctournament !

sent in to the tourney by her well meaning friends, starstruck is a Totally Normal adult waddle dee from king dedede's kingdom of dream land! she's here to try and meet new people, and maaaybe get out of her anxious shell a little bit!

equipped with her customary cheerful attitude, she's also sporting a brand new backpack full of lovingly packed goodies to help her through the event.

if you'd like to get to know her a little better, you can check out her tag on my blog, or these three important comics from previously! lastly, you can find the masterpost for her interactive tournament adventure here! this is an ongoing chronological story (separate to her canon story, but referencing it) that will last for as long as she's in the tournament!

a few notes for any interactions

🌸 despite being a waddle dee, other waddle dees typically don't like being around her, and folks who already know what a waddle dee should be like also tend to get a weird vibe off her. 🌸 she is quite friendly and approachable, but prone to extreme anxiety if she perceives she might have done something wrong or inappropriate. tiny wanya takes criticism the way a handful of hay takes a flame. 🌸 if you have wings and you take her flying she'll never leave your side. she's only palm sized, so if you are big and have wings or can fly, please pick her up and go flying with her please please pleeaase she wants to go go flying and fawn over your wings so so bad 🌸 for the purposes of the tourney, which by merit of its existence is something of an au timeline, consider this event to completely predate her ability to summon these.

[rubia-peregrinart]

good hunter's emergency contacts summons fieldguide

[sketchy-tour]

ALRIGHTY! Time to formally reintroduce yall to my silly idiot OC Dandy!

and by that I mean, I redid their ref art, tweaked their bio, and finally made a ref for their stupid pajamas! Wanted to do other fits for them but aa another time. Brain is mashed potatoes.

Anyway, Dandy is my silly WH oc who's main theme is self care/self love messages shown through the imagery of gardening! Meant to be a sort of "garden of the self" sort of deal. They go by ANY PRONOUNS! She/her or He/Him, or They/Them are all correct and okay to use when talking about them! (I just tend to default to they/them) Putting their full bio under the break!!! So you can read it all there!

"Resident gardener of Welcome Home, Dandy Leon is a curious but careful presence among the others in the neighborhood. They enjoy the quiet and spending their time tending to their various flowers. While a little shy around their fellow neighbors, they open up quickly when asked about their garden. Despite their more introverted disposition, they're always determined to make every day just dandy!"

It’s presumed that Dandy makes appearances only in the later episodes of the show’s run. But in old scripts found with them, it's shown that they moved to Home specifically because they were interested in the local plant life there. The episode that featured their move in seemed to focus on them slowly warming up to the others in the neighborhood, as their shy nature made it difficult for them to properly meet everyone. When asked as to where they lived before moving to Home, Dandy mentions living in a farm town far away, simply deeming it "far more south from here!" A lot of their dialogue also mentions their father, though he's never named but instead mentioned passively as Dandy would often use phrases like "Well it's like my pop always said-" when speaking to the other puppets.

During their short time on the show, Dandy's segments seemed focused on care for their garden, the language hinting that the flowers were more a metaphor for taking care of oneself and well being. Other characters can be found pointing out how much better Dandy’s garden looks when they’re feeling happy, but also comment how wilted it becomes when they’re shown to be a bit more downtrodden. They feel strongly about how important it is to be kind to yourself, even if it’s a skill they’re shown to still be working on themselves. Their confidence is something they also struggle with, seemingly a character meant for shyer audience members to attach to and grow alongside with. Dandy is often depicted in illustrations with Frank, getting along quite well in the show, often joining him and Julie on small escapades. Before the show's end however, most of Dandy's screen time is with Wally as he tries to get Dandy out of their shell more to spend time around others.

Interestingly, what pronouns were used for them seemed to change between the show's episodes and illustrated materials. While neighbors would refer to them as 'he' during the show, most art pieces seemed to refer to Dandy as a 'she'. Whether this was simply a miscommunication between teams or a printing error is unknown.

[qwantzfeed]

"get the hell outta my face": boring, cliche, unspecific.  "get the hell out of my observable universe": exciting, asks questions and suggests the answers to them, promotes science literacy and science awareness

[emminachemuore]

mission report: you go back to college and we wait

[teenytinyapprentice]

LBMR week: day 6 - coffee

They're professional of course but the Commissioner's a friend of the family

[playtheshadw]

Day 11 - Me, Myself and I

[bruhstation]

updated casa tidmouth designs as of june 2023!!! yahooo!!! (claws the wall and rips out the drying paint pieces)

individual characters below the cut:

[shkika]

Survivor on her pearl hunting journey is too scared to admit she found another family in fear of losing it again on the way back hehe

I've been pearl hunting with those rascals for so long dear god. Their names are Beach ball (round light blue pup) and Seaweed (dark green)

[piyo13sdoodles]

sliding in under the edge of october 27th to post this excerpt from chapter 74:

Cliopher drummed his heels against the hull, enjoying the still-so-familiar sound. He had spent uncountable hours sitting there, watching the sea, watching the sky, singing the Lays, drawing the dances over and over again in his mind's eye.