Editing Gnome (section)

==David the Gnome==
[[File:david the gnome.jpg|thumb|left|David has had it with your shit.]]
If you hang out on /tg/ long enough, eventually, you're going to see a macro. A still from a cartoon, depicting a garden gnome-like figure with a blue shirt and a red hat. He's frowning intensely and has both hands clenched into fists, and emblazoned on the pic will be some variant of "How about I slap your shit".

This is David the Gnome, originally the star of a series of Dutch children's books presented as a anthropological study of the gnomes written by Wil Huygens and illustrated by Rien Poortvliet, whose influence on the series was as defining as [[Tony DiTerlizzi]]'s art was for [[Planescape]]. One of the books going into depth about gnome biology shows has a picture of [[PROMOTIONS|a shy topless female gnome]], with the description that [[Magical Realm|because of the firmness of their breasts female gnomes have no need for bras]]. Oh you, Netherlands. It was made into a very popular animated series in the mid 1980s by a Spanish studio. The English dub had David voiced by the eerily gnomish Tom "Father Dowling/Mr Cunningham" Bosley. In a mountain forest, David lives the life of a goodly [[druid]]; telling lessons about nature to the audience off-screen whilst on-screen rescuing cute animals from danger, patching up their injuries and curing their sicknesses, all whilst protecting the forest from beings who would harm it. He frequently clashed with gnome-eating trolls, whom he defeated with his wits and [[trap]]s.

It is perhaps most famous for its soul-crushing ending. See, throughout the series, we're told that gnomes only live to be 400 years old - and both David and his wife are 398 at the start of the series. Most cartoons would have just ended in some upbeat fashion, but not The World of David The Gnome. Oh no! Instead, those tuning in for the final episode got to see the clock tick around to the gnomes' 400th year, whereupon they stagger out into the forest, withering quickly under the onslaught of age, share one final embrace, and then turn into a pair of young trees. And then just to reinforce that they're dead, we see their ghosts/souls emerge from the trees, hug each other again, and go dancing off into the sky to the gnomish equivalent of Heaven, all whilst David's series-long partner, a fox named Swift, lays down at the foot of the trees and cries his heart out(then a female fox shows up and he runs off to get laid).

Sweet fucking [[Garl Glittergold]], that was a depressing ending...