dandys world iceberg: what the twisteds really are

the cute toon skin is the bait. heres the iceberg. surface, you collect toons, complete floors, run from twisteds. first layer down, the twisteds are not separate monsters, theyre corrupted versions of the exact same toons you collect and play as, which means every friendly character has a ruined double stalking the floors. that reframes everything. second layer, what is dandy. hes the flower shopkeeper who helps you, but if the twisteds are corrupted toons and dandy presides over the floors where they hunt you, is he a helper or a warden running the trials on purpose. third layer, the character backstories, vee has an implied history, astro is tied to sleep and exhaustion in a way thats a little too pointed, poppy and the rest all carry hints. datamining and the research log flavor keep surfacing references that suggest a system or facility behind the whole toon world. its still alpha so the community is literally building this iceberg in real time, every update drops another clue. my working theory, the toons are subjects in something, the twisteds are what happens when the process fails, and dandys smile is doing a lot of heavy lifting