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Research Fever

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Research Fever is a Dandy's World Alternate Universe series of stories made by “Sweetmeat Shade”. It is currently being published on her Tiktok and Fandom accounts.The AU overall follows an infection plaguing the toons of Gardenview after it shuts down, causing the toons to transform into duplicates of Rodger himself. Despite its absurd and goofy concept based on the fandom’s memes about Rodger, it’s Played for Horror.

Tropes:

  • Anachronic Order: From what Sweetmeat has implied, each journal takes place at different points of the infection.
  • Apocalyptic Log: Brightney starts keeping a journal after she is quarantined in her room, her Sanity Slippage becoming more and more obvious with each entry until she’s fully transformed into a Rodgerling.
  • Art Evolution: The art has progressively gotten better over the past few months that the AU has been produced, and character designs have also changed as well.
  • Author Appeal: Aside from the rather chubby design of Rodger, Sweetmeat has also thrown in a couple references to media she likes, such as the redesigns of Flutter and Flyte being inspired by the Matrix films.
  • Body Horror: The Rodgerfication process involves quite a lot of this. From the eyes fusing together, to the mouth melting shut, the transition is clearly no pleasant one.
    • In addition, Sweetmeat has stated that the clothing that spawns of the toons during the transformation are apparently living organisms that bleed when damaged. You can even see bleeding cuts on Rodgerfied Cocoa’s blazer.
    • Pebble’s fate. Since the infection is somehow able to affect the rocks, Pebble was no different, being mutated into a pile of limbs held together by ichor, trying to mimic Rodger but horribly failing.
  • Clone by Conversion: The virus obviously turns toons into zombielike duplicates of Rodger, referred to as “Rodgerlings.”
  • Clothing Damage: Because Rodger is larger than most other toons in this AU, nearly all of the Rodgerling designs have the characters still wearing the tattered remnants of their clothes, especially socks and dresses.
  • Creepy Crossdresser: A lot toons did not have the time to change their clothes during the transformation, leading to a lot of the infected toons (especially the female ones) wearing torn stockings, shirts, and even dresses, with Bassie, Tisha, and Brightney being the most notorious examples.
  • Driven to Suicide: Cosmo commits suicide because he can’t deal with the knowledge that his cousin has transformed into a Rodgerling.
  • Go Mad from the Apocalypse: After watching his cousin transform into a Rodgerling in front of him, Cosmo becomes more and more mentally unstable until he commits suicide. When Sprout discovers his corpse, he becomes Ax-Crazy and nearly kills Glisten.
  • Gone Horribly Wrong: The infection was caused by Dandy wanting to reenact a storyboarded episode that was never produced about a Zombie Apocalypse that transforms toons into clones of Rodger.
  • Hollywood Costuming: Averted. Many of the characters have been given new outfits that fit the time period better. For example, Cosmo now wears rainbow pinstriped pants and Toodles’ sleeveless hoodie has been replaced with a dress.
  • Negative Continuity: Since the beginning, Research Fever has taken a more proper form, rendering much of the early material from May-August 2025 irrelevant. While the plot lines of each comic are still canon, a lot is changed as well.
  • Sanity Slippage: Many toons suffer this, especially Brusha, Brightney, and Sprout.
  • Shout-Out: Brightney’s journal includes many references to Phillip K. Dick’s short story Upon the Dull Earth.
    • Sweetmeat herself has noted that the AU itself is a shout out to The Matrix
  • Slow Transformation: The stages of infection imply the transformation takes days.
  • The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Toons affected by the virus nearly always have their mind tampered with in some way by the infection, in some cases gaining Rodger’s personality traits and developing the intense desire for research. Eventually, the mind completely shatters, leaving behind a mindless Rodgerling that may or may not still be wearing relics of its past life.
  • Viral Transformation: As one would expect of an infection AU about toons turning into clones of Rodger.
  • Wipe That Smile Off Your Face: In the original comics, Glisten’s mouth melted shut immediately after Vee leaves the elevator. Thankfully, he manages to reopen his mouth, but it isn’t long until he loses it again, this time permanently.

Alternative Title(s): The Rodgening

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