Edward got the driver door open, but before seating himself he lurched at his boyfriend, hugging him with all his might. Ping Pong returned the embrace with shaky, exhausted wings.
“I missed you so damn bad,” the platypus mumbled with unusual frankness, out of doors. He indeed hadn’t seen his partner for two days. Edward hated crowds, so he never attended Highly Illogical’s performances. The online livestreams of the concert hardly counted as “seeing” him. Not this way.
art for my upcoming future!au story, drawn by my beloved wife @/honorarybeanscout! love you, thank youuu💛
here’s my newest oc, “Rayray,” drawn by my beloved wife. (ty angel ily💛)
Rayray is Fancypants’ longtime boyfriend. The two met when the former was a model for the latter’s clothing company. He’s the stepson of another CL OC of mine, Denmother Carson, Jane Doe’s predecessor.
Rayray and Fancypants begin dating on the down low in 2003, a bit before Edward’s first summer at Camp Kidney. Susan, Edward’s mom and Fancypants’ stepmother, supports them and tries to shield them, to no avail. Antonio, Ed and Fancypants’ father, throws Fancypants out of the family mansion and denies he ever existed. Fancypants has tons of money of his own to fall back on, and he and Rayray quickly get a Vermont wedding before moving in together.
This is tough for Edward, because Fance was his one stepbrother he liked and who isn’t a monster, (a canon divergence of mine.) On the heels of being forced to cut ties with Fancypants, Edward’s shipped off to Camp Kidney against his will. It’s a while before Edward is reunited with Fancypants and he meets Rayray for the first time. Edward’s also realizing he’s gay, and could really use some listening ears and support before Antonio inevitably finds out and disowns him too. This possibility brings him to the brink of a nervous breakdown, a breakdown he certainly would have had were it not for them having his back.
Ed runs away and moves in with Fancypants and Rayray for a while, and takes a job as Fancy’s new accountant, before going off with Ping Pong.
So who is Rayray?
He’s a very kind, down to earth lizard whose hobbies include tennis, yoga, maintaining his and his husband’s cars, and spoiling Edward (or “Ed-honey,” as Fance calls him) absolutely rotten, even more so than Fancypants.
Rayray always wanted to go to camp as a kid, but his stepmother, a scoutmaster herself, ironically never lets him. Ed’s first big outing with Fancypants and Rayray is a glamping trip, (at Edward’s insistence; Rayray would have rather roughed it,) and they all three have a wonderful time. The trip really helps cement Edward’s trust and fondness of him.
Despite his strength, good looks and financial success, Rayray can have moments of sensitivity and even be a bit delicate. He’s estranged from Denmother Carson, who disowned him too. Rayray misses his now deceased father, who was much more accepting of him when alive than his stepmother. Rayray’s behavior towards Edward can be seen as him paying tribute to his dad, and he often jokes that Edward is his and Fancy’s “boy.”
Rayray, and Fancypants, are a big, big thing in Edward’s life. And that’s just how they all want it.💚❤️
you should tell us how you see the loons since you are their #1 fan...
BAHAHAHA YOU’RE SO RIGHTTT.
Dave: “Where will I do my synchronized swimming?!” *Ping Pong pats his back as he sobs* (“It’s No Picnic” Season 1 Episode 4B)
God, I love these nerds. Well, one thing’s for sure: I consider them separate characters. It’s not like The Lemmings in canon where they’re interchangeable. When I write their Bus Pass bios, they’ll each be getting their own. For now, though, I’ll do a little rundown of tidbits for each. I have much, much more in store for these beanpoles than what’s below. I’m a simple bird: I see secondary characters, and I project onto them and make them mine.
Dave Loon
—Canonically he’s the more sensitive of the two brothers. Headcanonically I make that difference even starker: Ping Pong is the kind of nerd you simply can’t win against, while Dave falls apart at the mildest pressure. Love that for him.
—In the show, we’ve seen he’s a grandma’s boy and I really really like that because I was too, haha. (She’s getting a blog tag. Nana Loon. I’m sure I’m not done with writing her.) That sort of implies he prefers her over his parents, but I wouldn’t say so. He loves his parents. (Also it’s. Hilarious how Ping Pong knew they came from eggs and Dave didn’t. I consider that another sign of his higher maturity.)
—Dave and Ping Pong are the only scouts who can fly, emphasis on ‘can.’ Dave haaaates flying, it makes him so nervous (but what doesn’t) and he only ever does it when Ping Pong’s flying with him. If not, he’s completely grounded.
—Dave has a huge crush on Lazlo, (who clearly feels in the same way in return, see the episode “The List,” which lives rent-free in my noggin,) and because it’s Dave he’s a huge mess about it. He blushes, he stammers, he shies away, usually hiding behind Ping Pong’s back, the latter of which is a reflex for him in most situations anyway. (Also, because this is a Joe Murray cartoon, in his worst moments Dave will at times spontaneously burst into flames, with no ill effects. No one considers it novel or dangerous. It’s just a thing that happens, like your shoe coming untied.) Ping Pong loves them together, and because he’s a big brother, gives Dave lots of friendly teasing about it.
—Dave’s the younger brother, hatching a few minutes later. Nonetheless, they’re called ‘Dave and Ping Pong’ collectively without variation, presumably to be in alphabetical order.
—Dave’s the more passionate of the two about journalism. That’s not to say Ping Pong doesn’t love it; he really does, but as they mature, Dave’s the one who retains his interest while Ping Pong pursues another avenue: music. But he especially liked it when it gave him something to play at with his little brother. (Dave would gasp at the insinuation this was all just ‘playing.’)
—In my wife💛 and I’s Future Au, which we call “Refried Beans,” Dave and Lazlo marry and set to living year-round in the attic of Scoutmaster Lumpus’ cabin. Dave works for the Prickly Pines newspaper, and Lazlo is now Scoutmaster’s Assistant, while Slinkman is now Scoutmaster. Lumpus is retired but still lives in the cabin too, and they’re all joined by Jane, and her presence is the only thing keeping Lumpus from going axe-murderer at the fact he’ll never, ever escape Lazlo.
Ping Pong
—As I’ve said, his real name in my headcanon is Bruce. This is hardly ever used. There’s a reason he became Ping Pong but I’ve yet to decide why.
—Ping Pong is the more mature of the two canonically. Headcanonically he’s unstoppably stable and unflappable. You can’t bully him and get anywhere without him turning your namecalling back on yourself and more cleverly. You can’t beat him in a fight. You can only make him feel endangered after everyone else in the room feels endangered first. This first came about out of necessity to toughen up to defend Dave, and it then became further ingrained because Ping Pong’s the biggest smart alec in the Western Hemisphere and he gets a kick out of being able to sort you out while reading his book at the same time. He’s like if Yakko Warner had feathers and legit booksmarts on top. (What a powerful creature.)
—In the “Radio Free Edward” episode, we get a passing line that he intends to play classic rock for the camp’s radio station. I’ve decided to run with this and say classic rock’s his passion and true calling. He becomes a legit star in short order by his late twenties in my au and it just never goes away. If I had to describe his singing voice, (and you’d never expect him to have it, and I find that hilarious,) it’s like Bruce Springsteen, Angus Young, Rod Stewart, Rick Springfield and Freddie Mercury all had their vocal chords fused in a laboratory. It’s insane.
—I think it was “Beans are from Mars” where the show erroneously calls Dave, Ping Pong and Edward cabinmates? I’m gonna do a Bob Ross, call that a happy accident and say it was true… for like two weeks. But what a formative two weeks. Edward I guess had had enough of the Dungs and demanded new cabinmates. So he went with the Loons and because Samson’s unlucky, he went with the Dungs. (I think he and the Dungs get called cabinmates that episode too.) It was during those two weeks Edward decided he’s head over heels for Ping Pong, (but he won’t admit it, being Edward.) Ping Pong is completely wise to this, not that Edward knows, and really likes toying with him. And mercilessly snarking and outwitting him. Then he starts crushing too. (I like to think their little picnic with Dave in “Snake Eyes” was basically a first date.) Then of course they switch back to their usual cabinmates, but there’s been a sea change where they’re no longer just two guys who like talking smack to each other. And by the time of Refried Beans, (basically the present,) they’ve also gotten married. I’ll save the details on that for now. It’s a doozy.
Both
—They’re from Canada originally but moved with their family, including Nana Loon, to Southern New York or Connecticut at a very young age. They’re both also fluent in French. At camp, they like to tease Edward by pretending to talk about him in French, which he doesn’t understand, when they’re actually discussing the weather or licorice ropes. (Later on, Edward likes when Ping Pong speaks French. Like, embarrassingly melting like butter on a freshly baked baguette. Ping Pong finds it funny. But what about Edward doesn’t he find funny, I ask you.)
—Their parents are also nerds. Go figure. Their father is a professor at a college, (I haven’t decided what he teaches,) and their mother is a semi-famous novelist. She knitted them the turtlenecks they received in “The Big Cheese.” Lumpus does indeed confiscate them for fishing pole cozies, but Mrs. Loon wrote a strongly worded letter threatening to mention his misgivings at her next book release. In the end, the Loons got their sweaters back, Larry his sneakers back, etc.
Chip and Skip Dungbarton are a set of grubby, brainless dung beetle twins who attend Camp Kidney. They’re invariably followed by clouds of flies, and it upsets them greatly whenever they vanish. They come from a tradition of filth and are even considered experts on the matter. (In one episode, Lazlo goes to them for advice on how to make Samson dirty too. The Dungs laugh off the idea anyone can get on their level.) While they tend to be the muscle to Edward’s little plots, they aren’t malicious if left to their own devices. If you have a nosepeg, stand six feet away at all times, and don’t make them think too much, they can almost qualify as decent company.
Biography: Canon and Headcanon
Chip and Skip Dungbarton were born to “Big” Kip and Pip Dungbarton of Knockshis Springs, Colorado. The Dungbartons were a pretty well-off family as they owned the local garbage haulage company, “Big Kip’s Crud Removal.” The company has impressive profit margins because Big Kip tends to bring a lot of the collected garbage to their home and only a small portion of it to the actual dump. The Dungbarton residence is thus chronically filthy and would be a much hated eyesore in the neighborhood were it not for how respected Big Kip is. Of course, dung beetles depend on filth for their health, and Big Kip, dopey but very loyal to his family, wants his family in good shape.
In school, Chip and Skip got horrible grades, but they gained a lot of respect for their strength and unbeatable mud pie-making cred. Hence in “Samson’s Mail Fraud,” Skip mentions they have many friends back home. In “A Job Well Dung,” we learn they are cared for by three nannies as well as their parents, and despite the family’s wealth, the boys’ dues for camp once went unpaid for months. (I propose Big Kip and Pip simply forgot.) In “Parents’ Day,” the two get a set of trenchcoats from their parents as a gift. And in “The Big Cheese,” they are mailed some of their mother’s cooking, the sight of which made Slinkman physically sick. Pip, their mother, apparently wore a lot of makeup on her wedding day, as Skips resembles her according to Chip after being slapped with a faceful of pink paint.
For one reason or another, the twins were sent to summer camp in Prickly Pines, California, at the Bean Scouts’ Camp Kidney. As the result of their names being pulled out of a hat, they were made bunkmates to one Edward Platypus, (you’ll find that that’s typical of his luck.) Edward’s an ornery, isolated little guy who hates his life back home just as much as he hates Camp Kidney. He hardly hides how much he loathes his stinking, moronic roommates, but they seem either genuinely oblivious to this or merely tolerant of it. The Dungs have helped him on numerous occasions with his various schemes, (‘help’ is a strong word,) such as stealing an air conditioner, (“Over Cooked Beans,”) catapulting watermelons at the Squirrel Scouts, (“Step Clam,”) and countless other times. None of these nefarious deeds are the sort of thing they’d do on their own time, but they most likely join in as Edward just won’t acknowledge them otherwise and they really want to be his friends.
Edward’s “relationship” (if you can call it) with the Dungs is complicated and awkward. He regularly calls them names. He installed a sliding metal door between their half of their cabin and his. In “Friendward” he promptly shuts this on them when Chip asks if he wants to play, and Edward claims to have no friends right afterwards. In “Penny For Your Dung,” Edward reveals he hits the twins whenever he needs to make them cooperate, and that “it always works for him.” Chip and Skip, who could easily lay Edward out if they wanted, clearly just let him. At the same time, in “Waiting for Edward,” it’s shown Edward relies on the Dungs’ presence for the sake of his ego and feeling smart by comparison. Their absence affected him to the point he tried painting rocks to replace them, and when Edward felt the twins would abandon him, he was distraught. In “Dirt Nappers,” he expresses concern when the two may be made to hibernate for a hundred years, and helps to get Camp Kidney’s dirt back to avoid this. He dressed as an orphaned tree in need of soil for them; that has to count for something.
Chip and Skip however are not a hivemind. In “Irreconcilable Dungferences,” they have what seems to be their first falling out. One even blowtorches their bunkbeds apart and builds a lean-to to live outside the cabin. The other campers are forced to make them make amends as Chip and Skip are evidently more of a headache for everybody apart than together.
In “Spacemates,” Nina Neckerly of the Squirrel Scouts is led to believe by a board game that the two are her soulmates, (Oh… Oh, honey, no…) This causes her emotional turmoil (understandably) but she then tries to make it work and pursue them after all. Chip and Skip are of course Chip and Skip, and Nina gives up, despondent once again. As clueless as the twins may be, they sense her upset and build her a rocketship out of “biodegradable materials” to appeal to her love for that sort of thing. This ends… badly, but is a prime example of the Dungs being good-hearted in their own muddling way.
Also not to be overlooked are their interactions with Samson Clogmeyer, the “camp wimp” as Edward calls him. The twins aren’t above mocking him (if only to please Edward) in several instances, and Samson himself is naturally averse to the twins because they are the worst nightmare of a neatfreak such as himself. Nevertheless, despite first refusing to deal them his illicitly cooked chemistry set candy (ok Clogsenberg), Samson then goes to great pains to save them when he believes they’ve been made into candy, and is visibly heartbroken when he believes they’ve been obliterated. (“Their entrails are SPEAKING to meeeee!😭” a favorite verbal stim of yours truly.)
In my “Refried Beans!” AU where the scouts have grown up and are all now roughly 30, the twins returned home from camp and worked under Big Kip at Big Kip’s Crud Removal. They too bring a lot of the garbage home, and are some of the best collectors in town as they simply hate leaving rubbish behind rather than claiming it. This makes the business thrive further, and they start buying additional trucks and hiring more help. Being back in Colorado doesn’t mean they’re out of Edward’s hair however, (they’ll never be,) because they’re always calling and texting him to say stupid stuff not valuable at all. “hey edward check out this banana peel” “edward how do you unlock a door” “edward do you think garbage has feelings. do we hurt the garbages feelings” etc etc.
And, for the life of him, Edward can’t bring himself to block their numbers.
—Samson grows up to be a pharmacist (and part-time magician) and still lives ten minutes from Camp Kidney. He marries Almondine who becomes a math teacher.
—Every year on his way back from summer camp, Clam brings his parents home the coolest rocks he found.
—Apart from his runaway older brother, Raj also has an older sister named Veda. She’s a very loyal and friendly girl, if a bit of a micromanager. (Raj gets his mother-henning from her.) She’s being raised to take on their family’s businesses in India, and honestly Raj doesn’t mind. When he grows up, stays in America and runs his own record store, she’s always checking on him, sending him gifts and money, and calling and texting small talk.
—We know Jane Doe loves poodles, but she’s never owned one. She did have a pet cow when she was growing up in Minnesota, though.
A few miles and blind turns on woodsy byways later, they were on a road they were much acquainted with: the one that led to Camp Kidney. The view beyond the windows of Edward’s convertible was the same one they had seen for six consecutive summers from the bus. Hardly anything had changed except for the trees growing stronger and fatter in their trunks, and some fresh telephone poles in place of rotted ones.
“It’s like a timewarp,” observed Ping Pong in the passenger seat, after a couple minutes of meditative silence from him, his boyfriend and the muted radio.
“Yeah,” Edward said shortly as he drove.
“Back to when we were young and wouldn’t break bones when we fell out of trees, and our backs wouldn’t hurt when we sneezed,” the loon hunched in his seat and pretended to balance himself on a cane.
“Pfft,” snorted the platypus as he dodged a pothole, “C’mon now. We’re thirty.”
“It won’t be long until we need shoe horns and our rice pudding fed to us.”
A wee snippet from my upcoming novel about Edward and Ping Pong as adults!
