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Through some technological miracle Vee and a few other toons were able to restore an internet connection to Gardenview. Unfortunately due to how old the computers are they could only get a handful of sites to work, plus this was everyone’s first time on the internet so they had no idea what they were even looking for.
Everyone spent most of their time looking up random things they wanted to know but were never taught on AOL.com. Shelly spent most of her time looking up various dinosaurs and tacking on ‘scientifically accurate’ onto the search, she needed to know how paleontology had changed since Gardenview’s closing, taking any and all notes she could on the many changes that have happened over the years.
Rodger was quite fond of the computers too. Half of the questions he had about the closure of Gardenview were available online.
Some of the more vain and paranoid toons decided to look up fan forums to see how the public remembered them. Besides the excessive amount of art that all of the toons wish they could scrub from their memories of the results were predictable.
Glisten saw a lot of slurs and got called gay a lot but at least people like him…?
Vee is a woman and slightly mean so the men on the fan forums hate her but women liked her at least.
Looey learned that everyone wasn’t too sure about him at first but he now has a small dedicated fanbase. He also learned that people really like clowns now, which is a win in his book!
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Now Tisha wasn’t self centered like the others were, she already knew her place as being a side character amongst side characters. Instead of looking herself up she looked up Shelly.
All Shelly ever wanted was to be loved. And by god Tisha was going to find a Shelly fan, no matter how hard she had to look…
Tisha was not ready for what she found…
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It took awhile to get Shelly to step away from her work to go look at fan content, Shelly figured it would only lead to hurt feelings. She remembered the years of only getting a handful of fans visiting her in a week. They would never look her in the eyes and often didn’t even talk to her…
Plus Shelly was much more invested in updating her notes on certain dinosaurs and using her air scribe on some smaller ammonite fossils she had. But Tisha had piqued her interest by telling her that there was fanart of her.
Once Shelly was able to be dragged away from her work and over to the computers, Tisha opened one of the fan forums about the show and went to the section dedicated to discussing anything Shelly related. A very promising start. Tisha then stepped back to let Shelly read through the posts
‘Man I really wanted to see Shelly as a kid before the place shut down but Gardenview was probably one of the least sensory friendly places on earth :(‘
Was what one of the posts read, another said
‘Shelly was what made me develop my special interest in paleontology <3 Man I bet she would be proud of me working on my doctorate’
Which Shelly did feel really proud of. She couldn’t believe that she was what made a kid follow their dreams. She felt like crying the happiest tears of her life. But she didn’t really have time for that when there was a big question on her mind that became more prevalent as she read more and more…
“What is autism and why does everyone think I have it?”
Tisha sighed, knowing that this would be brought up eventually and pulled out a few sheets of paper
“It’s hard to explain, so I prepared beforehand. Just read through this article I found on the internet about it”
Tisha handed Shelly a print out of the WebMD article on autism and its symptoms.
“Unfortunately I do believe that they’re probably right about you having it…”
Reading through the list of symptoms sure did recontextualize a lot that she knew about herself and the children who visited her
“I don’t think it’s just me who has autism… Like I think there’s several of us who have autism..”
“You’re probably right about that…” Tisha said with an awkward chuckle
“Should we tell Finn that he has autism?”
“Probably not.”