I wanna be a space robot

It is, isn't it?

So how sad is it that Dyle is loved, and Dandy is not?

How sad is it that Dyle is turning down advances left and right to spend time with others, practically beating them off him with a shitty stick while Dandy is largely shunned? He's invited to Teagan's parties while Dandy is banned from them, Brusha wants him to sit for a painting while Dandy says she's a bad friend, Dyle has to fend off hugs from Goob that violate his touch boundaries while Dandy muses that he doesn't get any anymore.

If one believes that the tapes Dandy collects are recordings of the show, Dandy presumably clings to a life that he never lived — a falsehood implanted in his mind that didn't translate into reality — and he's therefore tortured by it. Arthur and Delilah's very first terrible, terrible mistake. It's easy for your creator to write on paper that everyone loves you and that you're the popular main character everyone is dying to support, but in real life nobody likes to be told they're supposed to love and support someone "just because," and while that makes sense to us as human beings it's terribly cruel to Dandy. Because if that's true, he would have no meaningful understanding of why his friends don't seem to love him anymore. Whatever happened during the ichor operation certainly didn't help his reputation either. And maybe the ichor operation was out of Dandy's love for them, too — maybe it was an attempt to set them free, a thoughtless expression of his love that went too far; I'd believe it. But we don't yet know.

Now, also consider that Dyle is the only toon so far with no preexisting show personality to live up to. So, despite literally being depicted with a chain that he physically has to drag around, he is the most free by the only metric of freedom that actually matters to the toons at all — he is completely open, especially in the absence of Delilah and Arthur, to think and behave however he wants, because without Gardenview being open his only remaining directive is to take care of the toons using his ever-so-punctual trains. He's just driven by what he wants to do, and that consistently seems to be kind and thoughtful things for the others.

Dandy lives in the past, Dyle lives in the now. Dandy clings to a fiction that never was while Dyle's only influence from the show he was never a part of was care and perhaps envy from the outside, a desire to earn his place with those he loved. Dyle has only ever known himself and the toons as their present physical versions — he engages with their reality in the here and now where Dandy engages with a delusion he was cruelly imparted with by his creators, a false reality where he was loved without even having to try. Dyle lives in the real world and has known nothing else: a reality where you can't just expect to be loved when you offer nothing in return. There are no main characters in the real world. Dyle has earned everyone's love through reassuring words like cheering on Gourdy, thoughtful actions like sparing candy for Yatta, generosity in his baking and egg-painting for gifts during the holidays, hard work like bringing in essential food and luxuries for Sprout. It's implied he's read at least a large number of Shelly's letters in saying he knows their content, and he notices when Boxten and Glisten are uncomfortable and not doing very well while Dandy either appears to miss the cue to be concerned or just isn't permitted a window into their private lives for whatever reason. Even the toon designed to be Dandy's best friend, notorious fence-sitter Astro (I say with all the love in my heart), is found sleeping on Dyle's trains when he otherwise says in dialogue that he hasn't been getting much rest, implying Dyle's trains are places that feel safe and private to him (and, given that Dandy's gossip about Astro is just about how Astro helps him sleep at night rather than noticing or being told about Astro's odd exhaustive habits, it doesn't make a great argument for the health of their friendship).

Fact of the matter is, Dyle has proven himself to be observant, trustworthy, generous, caring, and thoughtful all through his actions. He hasn't had to tell anyone that he should be trusted, because he's already proven it — whereas I don't think Dandy ever had even long before Gardenview closed despite he, Arthur, and Delilah all saying repeatedly that he was the lovable main character. Because excuses wear thin and talk is cheap.

What was once the radiant sun has instead become the moon hoping to reflect its light, with Dandy clinging to Dyle to feel a shred of the affection Dyle gets that he wishes was his own — love that he feels he's owed, because that's what his memories from the show told him. Every holiday he takes entire baskets and plates of Dyle's lovingly crafted goods and hands them out for free in his shop; every toon grabs one eagerly every time they arise, unlike when they ignore Dandy unless they need him. These gifts, just to add insult to injury, impart a selfless effect: useless for yourself, both made and spent with love for your friends. And every time, Dandy advertises Dyle had a hand in them — because everyone likes what he has to offer once Dyle and his generosity are involved. Dandy vehemently tells anyone that talks to him that Dyle is his helper, his little assistant, to convince himself that Dyle is providing him a service and not the other way around.

Once again the fear of replacement by someone better at your job than you are crops up as a theme. Dyle is the Cocoa to Dandy's Bassie, the theoretical V2 to his Vee, except for Dandy it's even worse. Everyone (including the other Easter toons) still loved Bassie, the pretty main toon of Easter despite her insecurities. Everyone still loved Vee, she was still great on her trivia shows and other toons seem to idolize her completely and/or want to get to know and value her as a person.

But nobody loves Dandy anymore.

Dyle is just better at being loved in this world outside of the cartoons than Dandy is, because Dyle has known no other world than this one. It's the only one of these replacement fears that's founded because it has already happened. And worst of all, Dandy is the main character of the show, now replaced by some nobody that runs the trains that no one was ever supposed to know about. Because, well, if Arthur and Delilah aren't here to launder your reputation anymore and prop up your status, it becomes apparent who's really stepping into the role of an important and dependable focal point instead. The toons don't need a self-centered leader and friend who exploits their needs for more memories of a past that never was, under threat of harming them if they don't — they need someone who supports them in the here and now in the reality of the Gardenview shutdown where they've been left all alone after whatever happened during the ichor operation.

Yes actually !!! I imagine exactly that.

I used to have a clock hung above my bedroom door as a kid whose ticking sounded almost exactly like Twisted Dyle's ticking, to the point my first time playing his floor actually made me drowsy oopsies — but whenever its battery was low it would begin to slow down and keep time poorly, so I also imagine this happens to him.

If he goes too long I imagine he starts struggling to perform basic tasks due to lethargy/fatigue, even struggling to get his own bezel off to wind himself, hence that one sketch I threw in of Rodger turning his crown for him. I think it's an equal parts sad/kind of scary and yet simultaneously a very intimate concept, that he might be so reliant on the help of another if he doesn't maintain perfect operation of himself — it goes from a point of shame and personal, childish failure of responsibility, avoiding letting anybody touch him, to instead being a point of intimacy and trust that he won't be judged for needing help or left to figure it out on his own like he always was before.

Being railroad-standard is a cute gimmick and all, but it would be terrifying to be too exhausted to have the proper dexterity required to wind yourself back up. Your body is failing you and if you don't somehow manage to push through it to get past your own failsafes, put in place to keep you as productive as possible, it will collapse entirely. And who knows what will happen then?