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"A Dream"
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A Dream
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A Dream

by Paul Taylor on February 25, 2011 at 12:00 am
Story: Wapsi-Archive
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Discussion (91) ¬

  1. Sayria
    February 25, 2011, 12:17 am | # | Reply

    Maybe she IS a Golem?!

    And now we’re moving on.

    • ProleBoi
      February 25, 2011, 12:57 am | # | Reply

      I doubt that, but could it be a portal thing? Was this pre- or post-vision quest, I wonder?

    • SomeUnregPunk
      February 26, 2011, 3:19 pm | # | Reply

      We are moving on but the raven haired muscle chick’s character flaws are still very much a part of her. So very hard to change a flaw… I’m interested to see if she will ever change.

  2. Fairportfan
    February 25, 2011, 12:18 am | # | Reply

    Okay, so Shelly did lose time.

    Perhaps her dad was out most of the day and panicked when he came home and found her right where he’s left her.

    • Fairportfan
      February 25, 2011, 12:21 am | # | Reply

      Also, i just re-read yesterday’s strip, and she’s not saying that this was her earliest memory – there was a subject shift when Bud asked about the dolls.

      In fact, this could have been after her mother’s death, when Shelly would have been old enough to be left home alone while her dad was working; her mother died when she was ten or eleven, and she went on the vision quest at about fourteen or so (assuming she and Monica are near the same age), so this might have been when she was twelve or tirteen…

      • SoWhyMe
        February 25, 2011, 12:35 am | #

        I agree, it could have been any time during her youth so what you said makes sense.

      • ShadOBabe
        February 25, 2011, 9:09 am | #

        But this is supposed to be her earliest memory. I have memories from around the age of five, so this memory of her’s should be before she’s a 10 year old.

      • Fairportfan
        February 25, 2011, 11:21 am | #

        No – it’s not. Re-read the last three strips – Bud asks about Shelly’s earliest memories, but then she switches to asking when her mom got the dolls.

      • LittleFuzzy
        February 25, 2011, 5:31 pm | #

        I will back you on this shift of focus. It threw me off a bit before, which explains my rather mundane theory of yesterday. In my own defense, I doubt that Paul has awoken in the middle of the night to find his four-year-old daughter cleaning her room, so I suspect that such an explanation would not just come to him.

  3. Tessa
    February 25, 2011, 12:19 am | # | Reply

    I’m not sure where this is going, yet also very worried about it. Did this event happen before or after her Mom died?

    • Fairportfan
      February 25, 2011, 12:22 am | # | Reply

      As i just typed, i suspect it was between her mother’s death and her vision quest…

      • Tessa
        February 25, 2011, 12:36 am | #

        Sorry, I posted that just before your other post.

      • Fairportfan
        February 25, 2011, 3:40 am | #

        I wasn’t being snarky – sorry if it seemed i was – your post and mine both came up on my screen with the refresh when i posted mine.

  4. Uncle Rice
    February 25, 2011, 12:20 am | # | Reply

    So the dolls are golem traps?

    • Fairportfan
      February 25, 2011, 12:29 am | # | Reply

      Well, three of the four (with snake, goat, and cat heads) would appear to represent the GGs, and the fourth had serious hooter, presumably representing Monica.

      • SoWhyMe
        February 25, 2011, 12:45 am | #

        That’s a point. Monica isn’t a golem, yet she was frozen as well during the calendar machine fracus. On the other hand Shelly was not frozen that time, yet she was holding the doll (for Monica). So how come she was frozen before but not then?

      • SoWhyMe
        February 25, 2011, 12:53 am | #

        And don’t say Magic!!

      • Jay-Em
        February 25, 2011, 1:42 am | #

        Sorry, HAVE to do this *koff*—<imagic— *koff*

        Maybe it has something to do with “preferred user”. I mean , by lack of a person more “qualified” channeling the Tschotski-lights is around, the one person closest will freeze.

        Wow, wow, waittaminute…suddenly realize something; Wasn’t the Tschotski’s “freeze-function” only activated by the”Face-Light” of the person holding it while the middle C sounded???????.
        Shelly–>face-light–>channelling some other entity????

      • Fairportfan
        February 25, 2011, 3:37 am | #

        Pink Stuff.

        (In Star Wars “Episode One”, there’s a scene with pink stuff that can’t be cut by a light saber, even though light sabers can cut anything.

        (Kate asked what that pink stuff was, and i said “Plot mechanics”. Ever since, when there’s something in a story that isn’t [can’t be]explained, we call it “pink stuff”.)

      • Julie
        February 25, 2011, 8:17 am | #

        @Jay-Em – Jin did seem to think that it would be either Monica or Shelly who would channel her mother for the showdown with the Calendar Machine. It’s highly likely that Shelly could have been channeling May at that early age…that is if this memory of hers occured post-vision quest (when she became a portal).

      • Julie
        February 25, 2011, 8:20 am | #

        Or maybe I have it backwards and the vision quest/near death experience closed her portal? Bah! I can’t remember how that part worked.

      • txmystic
        February 25, 2011, 8:52 am | #

        Fairportfan;

        Add “midichlorians” to that list…

      • eschmenk
        February 25, 2011, 11:40 am | #

        @Julie: Portal or porthole? 😉

        I think that Monica and Shelly were “portholes” early on. That allowed Maya and the demons to appear to them. (That’s how Maya was able to teach Monica the glyph language.) Later, the attempted suicide and vision quest turned them into doorways. That allowed the demons to pass through them and affect others. (Shelly closed hers right away. Monica’s was locked by the key.) The pattern on the portal cloths was a was a completely different type of portal.

        Still, I’m not sure that this involved the facelight. Bud said sunlight. Jin said that Monica was channeling Maya when Monica turned her facelight on, but she was pretty crazy at the time. Monica didn’t believe her. See the imsunshine (July 28, 2009) strip. It seemed as if Monica’s facelight came on simply because she was angry. See the ouractions (July 14, 2009) strip. It didn’t seem like Monica was channeling anyone in the i-wont-let-them strip (November 26, 2009) either, nor when they destroyed the calendar. Maybe Shelly went to bed before sunset (long summer days?) or someone turned on a room light and that was enough to keep Shelly frozen. It could be that Maya was in Shelly’s head and got frozen and that was enough to freeze Shelly without a facelight, I think. I don’t know, though.

      • SoWhyMe
        February 26, 2011, 5:31 pm | #

        Actually, that sounds about right.

      • SoWhyMe
        February 26, 2011, 5:34 pm | #

        Opps, the above was supposed to be directed to Jay-Em.

      • Paula
        February 25, 2011, 1:36 am | #

        possibly the death thing
        shelly had died but so had monica but monica was being used as a doorway at the time so perhaps she had been frozen by the demons?

      • Jabberwonky
        February 25, 2011, 2:46 am | #

        Shelly’s ‘door’ didn’t close until after her near death experience on the vision quest.
        Could be linked to that.

    • ProleBoi
      February 25, 2011, 1:00 am | # | Reply

      Good point. The one time we’ve seen the chotskis used, they immobilized everyone but Shelly (if I’m remembering right)…

  5. txmystic
    February 25, 2011, 12:32 am | # | Reply

    Jinkies! You mean she held the note all day? That is only possible with time dilation. Anyone else in the house at the time (fixed frame of reference) would probably have seen a very slow motion version of what Shelly thought she experienced over a period of minutes…If one then stretches the pitch that middle C would have over that time, it probably gets too low for humans to hear…Her father probably saw her silently frozen, staring at the doll, while in her frame of reference she was singing to the morning sun…

    • SoWhyMe
      February 25, 2011, 12:39 am | # | Reply

      More likely she sang it over and over all day without realizing what she was doing. But who knows at this point.

      • Fairportfan
        February 25, 2011, 6:56 pm | #

        Perhaps Monday or so, we’ll know…

  6. ShadOBabe
    February 25, 2011, 12:34 am | # | Reply

    Dun dun DUN…

    Heh, I’m lame. But this is very intriguing.
    Curse you Cliff Hanger Fridays!!!! DX

    • SoWhyMe
      February 25, 2011, 1:24 am | # | Reply

      Yep and it’ll likely take all week to even begin to answer the questions just raised. That is assuming we don’t jump to another topic entirely. Paul has so many scenarios going at once it gets to be like a soap opera.

      Shelly and the doll … the latest
      Bud and Shelly’s new friendship
      Looney Jin
      Jin and Owen
      Shelly and Creepy Girl
      Tina and Nudge
      Tina and Phix
      Tina and the demons … new rock group?
      Nudge and Phix
      Nudge interacting with mortals
      Search for the relic

      And what the heck is May up to? How does Amanda fit into all this? Katherine? Where in the world is the little blue runt? Is Dietzel hitting on the pizza girl?

      Oddly, Monica seems to be crusin’ at the moment. nothing much going on with her or her demons.

      • Jay-Em
        February 25, 2011, 1:34 am | #

        If I were Paul, I’d be using Nudge’s first steps in the humanworld as comic relief. Tons of chaos and funny mayhem could result from Nudge’s apparent clumsiness and naivité.(like “saying sorry will be enough to appease a demon collective You manipulated and had eating ansjovis..brrr..enough reason for hefty punishment)

        The rest of those storylines You mentioned? Seconded, indeed a lot going on.

        Tina’s ascent towards “being human” has my interest piqued also.

      • Jabberwonky
        February 25, 2011, 2:56 am | #

        I expected this week to be Nudge, back in The Library either:
        A: moping around about how she was recieved.
        or
        B: chortling around about how she was able to drop the Coyote bomb.

      • Jabberwonky
        February 25, 2011, 2:58 am | #

        or
        C: in a bathtub with an exfoliating rub.

        (damn this no post-editing rascal)

      • Jabberwonky
        February 25, 2011, 2:49 am | #

        Jin and Owen!?! They’re fooling around on Lakshmi?

      • SoWhyMe
        February 25, 2011, 2:55 am | #

        Oh. Well then, Jin and whatshisface.

      • Jabberwonky
        February 25, 2011, 3:00 am | #

        Alan.

      • Jabberwonky
        February 25, 2011, 3:41 am | #

        Oh! The one I’m waiting to revisit is Katherine and “Maybe I’ll go back on my meds. Or find Monica a new adventure.”

      • Cherishbloom
        February 25, 2011, 7:21 am | #

        Seconded. Kathy reminds me of me. I tended to be quite shy in school and I’m not preferentially endowed like a certain glyph-reader. But scratch out the spiders. I wouldn’t collect them if you paid me… unless you paid a lot.

        And Dietzel. It would be hilarious if Dietzel had a stalker-love interest. Another dog.. or even funnier: A squirrel love-smitten by Dietzel!

        *cough* I should stop obsessing here.

      • ProleBoi
        February 25, 2011, 11:14 pm | #

        As long as Kath doesn’t find the squirrel before the squirrel finds Dietzel… “tastes like chicken” indeed! 🙂

  7. Jay-Em
    February 25, 2011, 1:28 am | # | Reply

    Oookay..last frame is unsettling, to say the least. Frozen like a golem, or a human frozen in time (like Monica)
    Yet no apparent goal. It seems a bit far-fetched to me that it was pure coincidence that Shelly sang a perfect middle-c while holding the tchotski…

    Cliffhanger indeed.

  8. NOTDilbert
    February 25, 2011, 1:36 am | # | Reply

    All those things Bud mentioned in the last panel – they happened to Monica, and she wasn’t a golem.
    But, she IS a glyph reader…..

    • Julie
      February 25, 2011, 8:25 am | # | Reply

      Monica had a face-light…which at the time I believed was her channeling May (as Jin described it once). Then again, I think Mon has used the eye-lights at least since the Calendar Machine was trashed. maybe those are different? The symbols of the eye-lights seemed to be specific to the golem though, and May is a golem.

      Lots to ponder with this. 🙂

      • Fairportfan
        February 25, 2011, 11:23 am | #

        May isn’t a golem. I think.

      • SoWhyMe
        February 25, 2011, 12:02 pm | #

        May had herself burned alive by the priests and, by giving them the recipe for making golems, had them make her remains into one. That’s how they knew how to make the girls into golems later on.

      • Fairportfan
        February 25, 2011, 6:56 pm | #

        Got a link on that? I thought that she was human till the disaster with the calendar machine…

      • SoWhyMe
        February 25, 2011, 10:34 pm | #

        http://wapsisquare.com/comic/nocontrol/
        And the following one.

      • Fairportfan
        February 25, 2011, 11:39 pm | #

        Cool. I’d forgotten that.

      • SoWhyMe
        February 26, 2011, 6:11 pm | #

        Oh yeah. Of course. I get it now. Monica doesn’t actually have a face-light. She channeled May to make that happen. The eye-lights seem to be little more than built in flashlights. Has Monica shown the face-light since May came back? Has that link been broken now?

        Which leads to the question; why didn’t the 4th doll look like May instead of Monica? Then there are the points brought up by Jay-em. Did Shelly channel some other, as yet unknown golem when she was frozen as a child and have a face-light then? Or was she channeling May as well? Also, as mentiooned by Jay-em, it seems the one who gets frozen is the one shining their face-light into the doll. Perhaps it was the appearance of the face-light on Shelly that really freaked out her dad and caused him to smack the doll away so forcefully.

      • Jay-Em
        February 27, 2011, 5:44 am | #

        Hmm..the last bit abour Dad freaking because Shelly had a face-light seems very very plausible, likely, even.

        It is of course possible Dad knows more about the workings of Golems, Tschotski’s etc. then he lets on to…

        Also: remember that Shelly’s Mom had those tschotski’s, like, forever. I smell some manipulation by Jin here.

        She’s out of it at the moment, bit hard to check her, but it seems reasonable to me that Jin made sure the Wahnee’s had the tschotski’s, so the “grand finale’ would expire the way she envisioned…

  9. Paula
    February 25, 2011, 1:42 am | # | Reply

    ahh i love it when we get an excuse to reread the archives. Anyone remember which year this was in? it seems like an eternity ago but im sure it hasn’t been so long.

    Anyway relying on my goldfish memory…
    I can’t recall anyone getting frozen!
    I think at the time i thought it was because they were generating sunlight/headlamps and couldnt move in case they broke the circle of power which would stop the calender machine from attacking. Since Shelly was the only one not to be generating sunlight she could move about the room.

    • Paula
      February 25, 2011, 1:45 am | # | Reply

      it was only after the sunlight wasn’t needed (monica had been stabbed and they had reversed the doorway to suck the calender machine into the demon realm) that bud moved

      • eschmenk
        February 25, 2011, 11:54 am | #

        Yes, but the mirror ball was being sucked into Monica, so the light wasn’t reflecting back at them and the hammer may have stopped ringing. Monica was definitely looking stuck in place up to that point.

    • SoWhyMe
      February 25, 2011, 2:34 am | # | Reply

      http://wapsisquare.com/comic/change-of-plans/

      Also, it was their face-lights (not their eye-lights) that was shining through the dolls to cause the freezing.

      • SoWhyMe
        February 25, 2011, 2:43 am | #

        Oh wait, I see what you mean. Now I’m not sure if they physically couldn’t move or they simply didn’t move as that would break the power circle as you say. Paul?

      • SoWhyMe
        February 25, 2011, 2:48 am | #

        On the other hand, in this strip, Bud is saying golems CAN be frozen in place by the dolls when light is applied and the right note produced.

      • eschmenk
        February 25, 2011, 10:44 am | #

        I think they really couldn’t move. Monica didn’t move even though she thought that Shelly was going to kill her. The rogue demon knocked Shelly away a couple of pages earlier.

      • Jabberwonky
        February 27, 2011, 9:29 pm | #

        That’s not always the case. This strip is the one that gave me the biggest goosebumps on my first re-read.

        http://wapsisquare.com/comic/wise-words/

    • Jabberwonky
      February 25, 2011, 3:09 am | # | Reply

      It happened in the year…relying on crude mathematical skills…83, 206. If you count the time loops lineraly.
      Or 2009 if you don’t.
      Start here:
      http://wapsisquare.com/comic/on-command/

  10. Paula
    February 25, 2011, 1:50 am | # | Reply

    OF COMIC TOPIC

    Never knew how much i missed katherine in the strip til i saw her smiley face in the news section.
    Bring her back 🙁

    • Paula
      February 25, 2011, 1:50 am | # | Reply

      *off comic topic

      • Jay-Em
        February 25, 2011, 2:01 am | #

        In my mother tongue, Your first statement makes perfect sense 🙂

        I miss “spiderv eyes” also. Her fainting when facing Phix for the first time, and Phix embarrassed reaction, still has me in stitches.

      • Jabberwonky
        February 25, 2011, 2:51 am | #

        Carrot Top?

      • Jay-Em
        February 25, 2011, 4:15 am | #

        Nee, zelfs niet in de buurt…

      • Jabberwonky
        February 25, 2011, 10:20 am | #

        Something about Smurfs that burp?

      • SoWhyMe
        February 26, 2011, 6:13 pm | #

        Nope, Jabber, not even close.

      • Jay-Em
        February 27, 2011, 5:46 am | #

        :ROFL:

      • Jay-Em
        February 27, 2011, 6:34 am | #

        DRATS! Foiled again by a polyglot…

  11. Jay-Em
    February 25, 2011, 1:58 am | # | Reply

    PS peeps: Don’t forget to vote

    vote!

    • Fatuncle
      February 26, 2011, 3:23 pm | # | Reply

      Thanks for the reminder – it had been a while since the last time I remembered to do so.

  12. jwhouk
    February 25, 2011, 7:55 am | # | Reply

    I think I have all this, but there’s one thing I’m not certain about:

    Where are the dolls now?

  13. Computer Matthew
    February 25, 2011, 9:29 am | # | Reply

    I like how she says that so nonchalantly. “Oh and your not a golem.”
    In my head it sounds similar to saying “Oh and your not a woman.”

  14. ChrisHerself
    February 25, 2011, 10:17 am | # | Reply

    What I REALLY want to know, is where they hell they are? I live in San Diego, and even here it’s too cold this time of year to wear tank tops…. Didn’t notice them poiting around to someplace warmer.

    • Paul Taylor
      February 25, 2011, 11:17 am | # | Reply

      They’re just in one of the several “boutique dives” that we have up here getting something to eat before hitting the clubs.

      • dadman
        February 25, 2011, 1:00 pm | #

        Shelly and Bud on a pub crawl? 😀
        I wonder if they’ll end up in Monica’s biker bar?

      • Danzier
        February 27, 2011, 11:49 pm | #

        I didn’t think biker bars were in the vicinity of very many other bars. Plus tha was a creepy part of town. I’d hate to do a pub crawl in that neighborhood…

        …without the bikers along for the ride. ;D

  15. Oldwolf
    February 25, 2011, 3:03 pm | # | Reply

    The artwork, the plot, and a ton of responses to each page are why I keep reading the strip. If anything’s a testimony to how good Paul is, it’s the fans responses. Not only the praise they give him, but the dialog his fans hold over the plot twists & turns he throws their way. Tell me, is there an Oscar or Emmy for webstrips???

    • The Old Wolf
      February 25, 2011, 4:10 pm | # | Reply

      Hm, do I have a distant cousin I’ve never met? 😀

  16. The Old Wolf
    February 25, 2011, 4:17 pm | # | Reply

    Just dragged all the Wapsi books upstairs for my wife to go through from the start. Speaking of which,

    *haaack* *cough* *haaxkkx*

    … isn’t it about time for the next volume? 😛

    • Paul Taylor
      February 25, 2011, 4:23 pm | # | Reply

      I just need to finish the cover, everything else is finished.

      • Jabberwonky
        February 25, 2011, 8:55 pm | #

        Yay!

      • Atomic
        February 26, 2011, 9:09 pm | #

        Ditto Yay! Looking up my Lulu account info now…

  17. Alechsa
    February 25, 2011, 5:33 pm | # | Reply

    Ahem: http://www.dramabutton.com/

    Sorry… I’m addicted to that thing whenever it fits.

  18. Jabberwonky
    February 25, 2011, 8:49 pm | # | Reply

    A sequence, a bit before Monica takes Shelly to the library for the first time. M conjectures what the dolls are for.

    http://wapsisquare.com/comic/crackwalnuts/

    That one and the next 5 or 6.

  19. Oldwolf
    February 26, 2011, 7:50 am | # | Reply

    What if the 4th Chotchki was like a control rod or mechanism for the other 3, and that any of them who’ve either died or been near death coulda been frozen by it???

  20. SoWhyMe
    February 26, 2011, 4:42 pm | # | Reply

    For those who might like to have their memory refreshed, here is where Shelly first introduces the dolls to Monica:
    http://wapsisquare.com/comic/supposedtobeyou/
    This seems to show that the only reason Shelly mentioned them was because of the resemblence to Monica of one of them (plus the GGGs).

    A few strips later, she talks about how her mother was a linguist and was studying the Olmecs. These seem to be important plot points showing her mother was, indeed, in the loop concerning the dolls.

  21. Little Sister
    February 27, 2011, 12:52 am | # | Reply

    Don’t you just hate it when time is lost to you, and you can’t get it back.

    • Fairportfan
      February 27, 2011, 2:44 pm | # | Reply

      When we saw the truly horrible movie made from Roger Zelazney’s excellent novel, Damnation Alley, our friend Starhelm said, as we cam out, “I don’t want to go to the box office and demand my money back – I want to demand my wasted time back!”

  22. blackflame
    June 19, 2012, 8:19 am | # | Reply

    Not sure how many re-reads now, but this time, my brain changed Shelly’s name to Killashandra for this bit…

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