I suppose snow is REALLY beautiful when you can’t feel coldness… or can she? Bud went without any clothes to the beach in winter once, but Jin can feel her beau’s toes being cold…
As Jin told they expect it to be cold 😉 Maybe if they don’t expect the reaction of: Cold is still within them. No matter if they can really feel it or not
Yes–Thanksgiving was far too cold this year–but now it’s better, even at a lower temp. Another big factor is acclimation to the cold, even after a week or two. 32⁰ in March is definitely much warmer than 32⁰ in October.
I thought that Creepy 1.0, Shelly’s guilt, was sort of resolved with Heather. Creepy 2.0, ‘the closest thing to a conscience’, seems to be a seperate creature, to me.
I guess I can see where you’re coming from thinking of Creepy Girl having a 1.0 and 2.0, but I think that the two sequences you’re thinking of involved two separate entities (in a manner of speaking).
The Heather sequence was dealing with Shelly’s fears and guilt relating to the loss of her mother, and the creepy girl we saw there was Shelly as a child.
AFAIK, Creepy Girl as she really exists is Shelly’s Conscience, so the question here is this: Are we seeing Shelly’s fears resurfacing, or is her conscience making an odd appearance. 🙂
Yeah, I think of Creepy 1.0 as the girl in the boiler room. The Conscience, Creepy 2.0, feels like a separate entity to me, also. Didn’t get my point across earlier…
Good, for a second there, I thought I was the only one who saw her. (And mini “booooo” to Pablo – you just cut ‘n pasted that from the “nightmare” scene, didncha?)
This information is provided “As Is” and AFAIK it is correct. But with a memory that would make a goldfish despair I’m a notoriously unreliable source of info…
“Creepy boiler room girl” is Shelly’s demons who have coalesced into a single entity. She’s no longer demonic but something more, and has been referred to as an elemental, a creature almost as powerful as the gods. Her existence is still bound to Shelly and she will die when Shelly dies.
And just today, I was saying to myself, “Where are the creepy characters like the girl in the basement? Haven’t seen any in forever.” Does this mean a plot twist is on its way?
Heh…you know, I actually read the wikipedia article on ther term “menage à trois” recently. I had no clue that it actually meant a living arrangement involving three people that may or may not include sex (though it usually did).
🙂 I read that comic regularly. Actually, that’s how I found the wiki article. I was visiting a friend and wanted to check out the comic. It’s bookmarked on my comp at home, but I had to google it on hers.
Um, OK, where did that random panel come from? Looks like the text says “You see me just fine don’t you?”. I may have my characters mixed up, but is that the little girl Bud was before she was tortured and starved and died way back when?
no this is Shelley’s “conscience” a snapshot of her from just after her mother died, This is a separate entity yet joined to Shelley in the same way as Monica’s demons are attached to her because the conscience is a compression of all Shelley’s demons therefore plugging the doorway to the demon realm that is Shelley.
I’ve always been confused by the doorway thing and why the demons couldn’t use Shelly as well as Monica to recreate Tina’s demons’ mortality ploy. I know Conscience is different because she isn’t inside the demon world and will die when Shelly dies (I’m pretty sure Monica’s demons are just closer to M, while still mainly residing mainly in the Demon realm), but I don’t remember her doorway actually being closed.
Shelly was a doorway only as long as the image and ink of the portal cloth was on her. Not a natural one like Monica. When she locked it, that was only for Monica and that’s why Bud ripped the ink from Shelly at the end, closing that doorway too. She had “defeated” her demons creating conscience girl long before locking the doorway
Also, in the comic referenced, conscience girl said she was already separate from the demon realm. It didn’t take locking the doorway to do that. This may mean she can appear to Shelly without using any sort of doorway, as such. She may reside “in” Shelly.
in http://wapsisquare.com/comic/awalkingdoorway/ a while before the cloth got attached to Shelly, Jin said that Shelly became a doorway as a result of her spirit quest after her mother died. And “a queen of sorts,” as doubt liked to call her, said the same about Shelly during her evil monologue to Monica in http://wapsisquare.com/comic/portholesanddoorwa/ So that’s why I’m confused. I understand that Conscience is linked to Shelly directly and all, but when her doorway closed, I didn’t get.
OK, I thought I understood what happened to Shelly’s doorway, but now I decided that I don’t. I guess it’s not so simple after all. 😳
Paul talked about it here and here. That makes me think I might have had it a bit backwards.
Paul said: “Shelly created a doorway but it was slammed shut on the demon side” and “As for Shelly, what happened to her during her vision quest was the creation of her ‘conscience’ that is autonomous in her own realm (the boiler room) that she can change to her liking, free of the demon realm.” So it seems that during her vision quest, Shelly created a doorway (basically widening a narrow passageway that Jin’s demon called a porthole) and possibly used it to turn her demons into her Conscience. If it were “slammed shut on the demon side,” that sounds as if the rest of the demons reacted defensively to Shelly, but I’m not sure if that’s what he meant. It may mean that Shelly destroyed the demon’s end of the passageway. Apparently, Shelly’s Conscience wound up in Shelly’s ‘boiler-room’, which is on Shelly’s side of the blockage (perhaps it’s what’s left of the passageway?) and is stuck there.
Originally the two portal cloths were connected to each other. When Jin stuck the design of one of them on Shelly, that just moved one end of the connection. Apparently both ends had to be unlocked to pass all of the way through. If you jumped through the other cloth and Shelly’s end was locked, you wound up in her boiler room.
When Bud jumped through Monica into the demon realm, she brought the second portal cloth with her. When she escaped, she and Maya jumped into it and passed through Shelly because Brandi had unlocked Shelly’s end. Bud quickly destroyed the pattern on Shelly, making the portal cloth that was left behind in the demon realm connect to nothing, so it won’t work anymore.
I think Shelly’s doorway technically exists, but it’s slammed shut. Apparently it couldn’t be opened for Bud or Maya or the rogue demons, so it may as well not be there.
I may have replied to the wrong comment, too. I was trying to create a second reply to SWM and Tessa. I hadn’t refreshed and didn’t see Julie’s comment, but I agree with it.
What he said about Conscience was what I figured. As for the doorway slamming shut, that’s really interesting. Could just be whatever force created Conscience also slammed the door shut on the demon end. Or it could have been defensive like you said(i can see how the other demons might not want to risk going through it). We know Monica was a wide open doorway that her demons, and Tina’s Demons used to pop out into our world. I’m wondering if Shelly’s strength, and Monica’s poits are because they are doorways. Being one of those portals could be why Tina can see auras, maybe the original Tina could too, and the demons just lucked out by getting the original tina’s abilities. 🙂
@Tessa – But Jin said that the vision quest (which we know created her Conscience thanks to Paul), is what opened Shelly into a doorway. If the doorway was slammed shut on the demon side, did the demons do it, or did the conscience do it to keep her little place all nice, tidy, and not-so-crowded?
@Julie – That’s another cool option (about conscience closing it)! Cosncience just said she was separated from the demon world (and their rules)… She very well could have cut herself off for the freedom. It implies it can’t be reopened because she says she’ll die if Shelly dies, unlike other demons who get put into new hosts. Unless… maybe if she DID reopen, she’d be broken up back into her component demons (thus basically dying anyway). really interesting stuff!
@Julie – Oh and I knew that her spirit quest was what made her a doorway (I posted the page Jin said that earlier in this thread), I just meant whatever about that incident that was special and made conscience, might have just been what also closed it, too. (I like the other possibilities more though.)
Oh good! 🙂 I was worried that I was over-thinking things and then confusing myself unnecessarily. There’s more than enough to work with in this comic without me complicating matters. 😛
Huh…in re-reading it looks like the introduction of the portal cloth “tattoo” is what allowed Shelly’s doorway to be locked. (This comic is kind of the tail end of things, but a handful of comics before that is when Bud first mentions the portal cloth being locked.)
@Julie: Conscience gave Shelly credit for Conscience being separate from the demon realm and Shelly can’t take credit for locking the portal. Also Bud talks about a gateway, not a doorway. Finally, Paul said the doorway was “slammed shut on the demon side,” but locking the portal cloth locked it both directions. So I think it’s just the connection with the portal cloth that got locked and unlocked, not the doorway to the demon realm.
@eschmenk – Yes, but separating Conscience from the demon realm and closing the doorway weren’t necessarily the same thing. If it was, then I don’t see how Conscience could have been created during the vision quest…not if what Jin says here is true (note that she said that Shelly “is a walking doorway…i.e. the doorway’s not locked yet).
@eschmenk – And here’s another reference to Shelly still being a doorway much closer to the calendar event…is it possible that she’s just an inactive doorway? They simply refer to her as a doorway because she became one at one point?
@Julie: Well, is a closed doorway a doorway? Here, Jin’s demon says that Monica and Shelly are now doorways, even though Shelly’s portal was probably locked at the time and certainly had been locked earlier.
Also, don’t forget that Jin was talking before the portal design was even on Shelly. To me no portal design would be like a locked portal design. The design wouldn’t be there to allow anything through. I think with Monica, the doorway is considered to be permanently locked, but still present. I agree that Jin made a big deal about Shelly being a doorway, but perhaps Paul didn’t know how far he was going to take it. Also, keep in mind that Jin didn’t seem to be aware of how the demons were abusing Monica’s doorway (and didn’t know about Tina’s demons’ involvement in killing Monica), so she might not understand everything about Shelly’s doorway.
Youu and me both…though the time it took you to get all that down allowed me to get back to the conversation between Shelly and Conscience in my re-read of the comic, and I’ve had a thought.
Conscience says that thanks to Shelly she’s separate from the demon world. Does that have to mean a locked doorway? Or can it just refer to her being different after the transformation the vision quest created?
Oh yeah…I’ve abandoned the portal cloth = doorway locking mechanism theory. It’s amazing what perspective all this reading gives. If only I could keep everything stored in my brain for fast and easy reference so I wouldn’t have to devote a couple of days every few months to this kind of endeavour… 😛
@Julie – I kinda figured the “locked doorway” scene you posted was referring to the cloth specifically and shelly just mispoke. But… Now that i think about it, it could be that shelly could play host to the cloth BECAUSE she was also a doorway. That might be why Jin chose her. When they poited from the club, mon accidentally put Tina in Shelly’s boiler room… but Tina could only come out after Bud took the cloth out of Locked mode….http://wapsisquare.com/comic/dontfreak/
Actually now I’m very confused again….
@Tessa – It’s highly likely that we shouldn’t try to think this hard about such convoluted metaphysical fun stuff this late at night. 😛 I won’t tell you how many times I’ve confused, unconfused, and then reconfused myself just in the last hour.
Maybe we shouldn’t think that hard about it ever? There may be no right answer yet.
@Tessa: (here I go violating what I just said) the way Paul said: “As for Shelly, what happened to her during her vision quest was the creation of her ‘conscience’ that is autonomous in her own realm (the boiler room)…free of the demon realm.” That almost sounds as if Shelly split the piece of the demon realm where her demons were living away from the rest of the demon realm, so it became a separate realm. As far as I know, Monica doesn’t have a corresponding realm, despite being a doorway, herself.
I don’t understand the interaction between the boiler room and portal design. I also don’t know why Bud said someone would be trapped there if they tried to come through without Shelly’s permission. Shelly couldn’t lock or unlock the portal, so does that mean Shelly had some additional ability to block things, or just that no one would unlock it without Shelly’s permission?
Oooo…no right answer yet… That’s an excellent way to think about it! 🙂 Especially since Paul has pointed out before that what we see from the characters is not necessarily all truth or the full story. They say things that they think they know….whether or not they are actually true.
It’s highly likely that Shelly’s stint as a doorway is either A) not over, B) not fully understood, or C) both A and B.
More like she becomes afraid of losing people. She (Shelly’s demon) was formed by the trauma of losing her mom. She became really active when Shelly and Heather were/weren’t an item…
Now? She’s scared her freakish strength will scare Bud off… Yeah.
Though why she’d be afraid of scaring Bud off with freakish strength is beyond me. After all, Bud’s the one who made diamonds all the time when she was angry…
Blond and black… light and drk… everyone knows a superhero squad/adventuring party never has two of the same characters! They will obviously have to battle at some point (poit?)
Lol… Judging by Shelly’s expression in that first panel, Bud doesn’t know her own strength! Is Shelly’s girl in the boiler room reacting to Tina… ‘talking’ to Shelly about Tina’s comment?
Last time we saw conscience in that hallway was in http://wapsisquare.com/comic/see-me/ when Shelly was looking for guidance and inadvertently called her out. Maybe she’ll pop out again and explain Shelly’s strength.
No one’s noticed that Bud’s getting a quick handful in panel one?
And that’s the Prurient Thought For The Day
Meanwhile, I know I see the Nu-nu-pee just fine, or at least that’s what I would think, at least at first. The Little People known to the tribe aren’t really sinister. Now if it was Deer Woman, that’d be a different story, and I’d be headed for the hills, myself.
They met at the club back in 2008 sometime. Tina clocked Jin’s and M’s Doubts when they were playing two against each other, then Tepoz was brought in to sober up Jin before she brought down the building…
I admit I’ve not been voting. I keep forgetting to since the vote link is tucked neatly off to the side, and I use a reduced window to do my web browsing at work. 🙁
A definitive clue to the GGG’s, especially Bud’s, strength: Bud’s glomp/bearhug was enough to squeeze the holy high hell out of Shelly, who’s probably the second strongest human in the Wapsiverse…
We need more Tepoz. Preferably being used as a blunt instrument to make Lemon Wine in 2.8 picoseconds. It would be more intoxicating than a spread of Tina, Monica, and Jin nekid.
In the clear light of day, I notice Shelley’s conscience is no longer confined to the boiler room. It actually looks like she’s taken up residence in a decent apartment, complete with accent carpets…
I think Bud is more of an aquaintence than a friend where Shelly is concerned. Thus the look of “Hey! We’re not on THAT good a personal level for you to be hoisting me about, or having your hand on my butt, let alone on my shoulder” from Shelly.
Also, do we really know who is the girl in the dream sequence? I’m not at all sure it’s the conscience girl or the boiler room girl. I don’t recall any concrete link being made to either.
Shelly and Bud spent quite a bit of time together getting ready for the assault on the time machine. Monica even made the comment that they were spending time together and it was doing both of them some good…
Actually, I think it was Jin who said that, not Monica.
Shelly could be worried because of the way Bud tends to react whenever someone uses superpowers unnecessarily, I suppose. Or maybe being crushed was very stressful. Shelly was frightened of Bud at first and Brandi had to teach Shelly to not listen to her demons. So that might mean that Shelly listened again. After all, her demons are rolled up into that little girl, I think.
Well, the first verification I found to the boiler room girl being the same as Shelly’s demon/conscience is here (the page before is where Tina mentions being freaked out by her “creepy girl in the boiler room”). I’m looking for the actual boiler room image that everyone else is saying this clip refers to…
Well, you still might not have any life, but it probably would have be easier if you had just clicked on the link in a comment I wrote about 12 hours earlier. 😉
Actually, it was easy to overlook. The link text was only the word “Yes”.
Well phooey! I try to infer from the comments what the embedded links are (instead of clicking every link and getting more distracted than I already am ;)), but I must have either missed or made an incorrect assumption on that one.
In any event, I was intentionally re-reading the comic from the beginning for fresh perspective, so I linked that comic when I got to it. However, I spent two full days reading all of the archives, so the existence of my “life” is pretty much impossible. 😛
He’s happily attached to Lakshmi. 🙂 I imagine we’ll see him again if ever an amusing or interesting development pops up in their life and/or relationship.
Too cheerful this early in the morning.
I suppose snow is REALLY beautiful when you can’t feel coldness… or can she? Bud went without any clothes to the beach in winter once, but Jin can feel her beau’s toes being cold…
As Jin told they expect it to be cold 😉 Maybe if they don’t expect the reaction of: Cold is still within them. No matter if they can really feel it or not
That and I am guessing she is from Nordic trides like pre-Vikings. They love the cold.
PBH
Eastern Mediterranean, isn’t she? I seem to remember Alan commenting about her Greek-like accent…
And what’s Conscience doing poking her head out?
I can personally vouch that expectation is a good 90% of feeling and suffering both extreme cold and heat, even for normal folks.
~D.
Yes–Thanksgiving was far too cold this year–but now it’s better, even at a lower temp. Another big factor is acclimation to the cold, even after a week or two. 32⁰ in March is definitely much warmer than 32⁰ in October.
Whoa, where’d Bud come from?
She must’ve poited.
nah, I speculate she used the front door.
Bud !
BUD!!!
Bud: What?
Bud…
…zer?
(Hey, we all knew that one was coming…)
Wise….Wise…
nuts. Can we switch Julie’s and StJason’s comments?
Hey, you guys are out of sync! Go outside and come in again.
Not my fault he skipped one… 😛
Love the worry hat………..
Wrong comic.
I know, I read QC too. Apparently so does jordinyc 🙂
Where has the little god gone off to with the booze?
I think he’s been sampling it.
“Wha’? Ish zhat muy cue? Ish Ah on now?”
He’s chilling on my desk at home with a mug of beer. 🙂
I thought Shelly’s ‘Creepy Little Girl in the Basement’ was gone…
No – why would she be? Monica’s demons are still around, and Creepy isn’t really a demon, anyway.
My question is why is she showing up here and now?
I thought that Creepy 1.0, Shelly’s guilt, was sort of resolved with Heather. Creepy 2.0, ‘the closest thing to a conscience’, seems to be a seperate creature, to me.
I guess I can see where you’re coming from thinking of Creepy Girl having a 1.0 and 2.0, but I think that the two sequences you’re thinking of involved two separate entities (in a manner of speaking).
The Heather sequence was dealing with Shelly’s fears and guilt relating to the loss of her mother, and the creepy girl we saw there was Shelly as a child.
AFAIK, Creepy Girl as she really exists is Shelly’s Conscience, so the question here is this: Are we seeing Shelly’s fears resurfacing, or is her conscience making an odd appearance. 🙂
Yeah, I think of Creepy 1.0 as the girl in the boiler room. The Conscience, Creepy 2.0, feels like a separate entity to me, also. Didn’t get my point across earlier…
Separate.
Good, for a second there, I thought I was the only one who saw her. (And mini “booooo” to Pablo – you just cut ‘n pasted that from the “nightmare” scene, didncha?)
Yes, but why even a mini “boo”? If he wanted it to look exactly the same, why not?
I don’t know why he did it, but there is probably some reason.
This information is provided “As Is” and AFAIK it is correct. But with a memory that would make a goldfish despair I’m a notoriously unreliable source of info…
“Creepy boiler room girl” is Shelly’s demons who have coalesced into a single entity. She’s no longer demonic but something more, and has been referred to as an elemental, a creature almost as powerful as the gods. Her existence is still bound to Shelly and she will die when Shelly dies.
And just today, I was saying to myself, “Where are the creepy characters like the girl in the basement? Haven’t seen any in forever.” Does this mean a plot twist is on its way?
There’s a character I haven’t seen in a while. What is Tepoz doing these days? Didn’t he shack up with some chick?
wherever did you get that idea from…
TMZ reported rumors of Tepoz and Smurfette vacationing down in Blumenau, Brazil.
LOL
I know no one will look it up, but I actually researched the location, lol. Tried to put a bit more back story to the joke
Smurfette’s too small, I would think.
He’s off in a menage a trois with Pizza Girl and Dietzel.
….WHICH Pizza Girl?
Dylan, Dietzel’s GF.
Heh…you know, I actually read the wikipedia article on ther term “menage à trois” recently. I had no clue that it actually meant a living arrangement involving three people that may or may not include sex (though it usually did).
I’m almost afraid to ask what you thought it meant. They were doing something with mayonnaise in Troy?
Heh.
May i call to your attention Menage a 3?
🙂 I read that comic regularly. Actually, that’s how I found the wiki article. I was visiting a friend and wanted to check out the comic. It’s bookmarked on my comp at home, but I had to google it on hers.
You quit your evil webcomic teases, you pusher…
Now now…these are good things he’s pushing. 🙂
hah. all those characters who have seemingly disappeared into the nether, they’re not gone, they’re just holding one big orgy
Um, OK, where did that random panel come from? Looks like the text says “You see me just fine don’t you?”. I may have my characters mixed up, but is that the little girl Bud was before she was tortured and starved and died way back when?
… and, is that the way Tina sees Bud right now?
no this is Shelley’s “conscience” a snapshot of her from just after her mother died, This is a separate entity yet joined to Shelley in the same way as Monica’s demons are attached to her because the conscience is a compression of all Shelley’s demons therefore plugging the doorway to the demon realm that is Shelley.
I’ve always been confused by the doorway thing and why the demons couldn’t use Shelly as well as Monica to recreate Tina’s demons’ mortality ploy. I know Conscience is different because she isn’t inside the demon world and will die when Shelly dies (I’m pretty sure Monica’s demons are just closer to M, while still mainly residing mainly in the Demon realm), but I don’t remember her doorway actually being closed.
I had a lot of trouble with that at first, too, but it’s actually simple. Shelly closed the doorway, thus separating her Conscience from the demon realm, apparently at the same time she defeated the demons and turned them into Conscience. It was probably all part of the same thing.
Paul had to explain to me that it meant that Shelly had locked the doorway closed.
Shelly was a doorway only as long as the image and ink of the portal cloth was on her. Not a natural one like Monica. When she locked it, that was only for Monica and that’s why Bud ripped the ink from Shelly at the end, closing that doorway too. She had “defeated” her demons creating conscience girl long before locking the doorway
Also, in the comic referenced, conscience girl said she was already separate from the demon realm. It didn’t take locking the doorway to do that. This may mean she can appear to Shelly without using any sort of doorway, as such. She may reside “in” Shelly.
in http://wapsisquare.com/comic/awalkingdoorway/ a while before the cloth got attached to Shelly, Jin said that Shelly became a doorway as a result of her spirit quest after her mother died. And “a queen of sorts,” as doubt liked to call her, said the same about Shelly during her evil monologue to Monica in http://wapsisquare.com/comic/portholesanddoorwa/ So that’s why I’m confused. I understand that Conscience is linked to Shelly directly and all, but when her doorway closed, I didn’t get.
You’re right, Tessa. That would indicate Shelly was a doorway before the portal cloth design was placed on her. Now I’m confused.
The portal cloth didn’t necessarily make her a doorway to the demon realm. It made her a doorway to the other portal cloth.
My theory was that Bud had taken the second portal cloth with her into the Demon Realm, and that’s how she came back through Shelly. 😀
OK, I thought I understood what happened to Shelly’s doorway, but now I decided that I don’t. I guess it’s not so simple after all. 😳
Paul talked about it here and here. That makes me think I might have had it a bit backwards.
Paul said: “Shelly created a doorway but it was slammed shut on the demon side” and “As for Shelly, what happened to her during her vision quest was the creation of her ‘conscience’ that is autonomous in her own realm (the boiler room) that she can change to her liking, free of the demon realm.” So it seems that during her vision quest, Shelly created a doorway (basically widening a narrow passageway that Jin’s demon called a porthole) and possibly used it to turn her demons into her Conscience. If it were “slammed shut on the demon side,” that sounds as if the rest of the demons reacted defensively to Shelly, but I’m not sure if that’s what he meant. It may mean that Shelly destroyed the demon’s end of the passageway. Apparently, Shelly’s Conscience wound up in Shelly’s ‘boiler-room’, which is on Shelly’s side of the blockage (perhaps it’s what’s left of the passageway?) and is stuck there.
Originally the two portal cloths were connected to each other. When Jin stuck the design of one of them on Shelly, that just moved one end of the connection. Apparently both ends had to be unlocked to pass all of the way through. If you jumped through the other cloth and Shelly’s end was locked, you wound up in her boiler room.
When Bud jumped through Monica into the demon realm, she brought the second portal cloth with her. When she escaped, she and Maya jumped into it and passed through Shelly because Brandi had unlocked Shelly’s end. Bud quickly destroyed the pattern on Shelly, making the portal cloth that was left behind in the demon realm connect to nothing, so it won’t work anymore.
I think Shelly’s doorway technically exists, but it’s slammed shut. Apparently it couldn’t be opened for Bud or Maya or the rogue demons, so it may as well not be there.
ATM, my comment is awaiting moderation. It looks like my second link (second “here”) isn’t working. It should have been to http://wapsisquare.com/comic/look-at-the-time/#comment-8692
I may have replied to the wrong comment, too. I was trying to create a second reply to SWM and Tessa. I hadn’t refreshed and didn’t see Julie’s comment, but I agree with it.
What he said about Conscience was what I figured. As for the doorway slamming shut, that’s really interesting. Could just be whatever force created Conscience also slammed the door shut on the demon end. Or it could have been defensive like you said(i can see how the other demons might not want to risk going through it). We know Monica was a wide open doorway that her demons, and Tina’s Demons used to pop out into our world. I’m wondering if Shelly’s strength, and Monica’s poits are because they are doorways. Being one of those portals could be why Tina can see auras, maybe the original Tina could too, and the demons just lucked out by getting the original tina’s abilities. 🙂
And I agree with you. 😛 Isn’t that a happy little coincidence?
@Tessa – But Jin said that the vision quest (which we know created her Conscience thanks to Paul), is what opened Shelly into a doorway. If the doorway was slammed shut on the demon side, did the demons do it, or did the conscience do it to keep her little place all nice, tidy, and not-so-crowded?
@Julie – That’s another cool option (about conscience closing it)! Cosncience just said she was separated from the demon world (and their rules)… She very well could have cut herself off for the freedom. It implies it can’t be reopened because she says she’ll die if Shelly dies, unlike other demons who get put into new hosts. Unless… maybe if she DID reopen, she’d be broken up back into her component demons (thus basically dying anyway). really interesting stuff!
@Julie – Oh and I knew that her spirit quest was what made her a doorway (I posted the page Jin said that earlier in this thread), I just meant whatever about that incident that was special and made conscience, might have just been what also closed it, too. (I like the other possibilities more though.)
Oh good! 🙂 I was worried that I was over-thinking things and then confusing myself unnecessarily. There’s more than enough to work with in this comic without me complicating matters. 😛
Huh…in re-reading it looks like the introduction of the portal cloth “tattoo” is what allowed Shelly’s doorway to be locked. (This comic is kind of the tail end of things, but a handful of comics before that is when Bud first mentions the portal cloth being locked.)
@Julie: Conscience gave Shelly credit for Conscience being separate from the demon realm and Shelly can’t take credit for locking the portal. Also Bud talks about a gateway, not a doorway. Finally, Paul said the doorway was “slammed shut on the demon side,” but locking the portal cloth locked it both directions. So I think it’s just the connection with the portal cloth that got locked and unlocked, not the doorway to the demon realm.
@eschmenk – Yes, but separating Conscience from the demon realm and closing the doorway weren’t necessarily the same thing. If it was, then I don’t see how Conscience could have been created during the vision quest…not if what Jin says here is true (note that she said that Shelly “is a walking doorway…i.e. the doorway’s not locked yet).
@eschmenk – And here’s another reference to Shelly still being a doorway much closer to the calendar event…is it possible that she’s just an inactive doorway? They simply refer to her as a doorway because she became one at one point?
@Julie: Well, is a closed doorway a doorway? Here, Jin’s demon says that Monica and Shelly are now doorways, even though Shelly’s portal was probably locked at the time and certainly had been locked earlier.
Also, don’t forget that Jin was talking before the portal design was even on Shelly. To me no portal design would be like a locked portal design. The design wouldn’t be there to allow anything through. I think with Monica, the doorway is considered to be permanently locked, but still present. I agree that Jin made a big deal about Shelly being a doorway, but perhaps Paul didn’t know how far he was going to take it. Also, keep in mind that Jin didn’t seem to be aware of how the demons were abusing Monica’s doorway (and didn’t know about Tina’s demons’ involvement in killing Monica), so she might not understand everything about Shelly’s doorway.
Dammit! I need to learn to write faster. 😀
For more reasons, than one, actually.
Youu and me both…though the time it took you to get all that down allowed me to get back to the conversation between Shelly and Conscience in my re-read of the comic, and I’ve had a thought.
Conscience says that thanks to Shelly she’s separate from the demon world. Does that have to mean a locked doorway? Or can it just refer to her being different after the transformation the vision quest created?
Oh yeah…I’ve abandoned the portal cloth = doorway locking mechanism theory. It’s amazing what perspective all this reading gives. If only I could keep everything stored in my brain for fast and easy reference so I wouldn’t have to devote a couple of days every few months to this kind of endeavour… 😛
@Julie – I kinda figured the “locked doorway” scene you posted was referring to the cloth specifically and shelly just mispoke. But… Now that i think about it, it could be that shelly could play host to the cloth BECAUSE she was also a doorway. That might be why Jin chose her. When they poited from the club, mon accidentally put Tina in Shelly’s boiler room… but Tina could only come out after Bud took the cloth out of Locked mode….http://wapsisquare.com/comic/dontfreak/
Actually now I’m very confused again….
@Tessa – It’s highly likely that we shouldn’t try to think this hard about such convoluted metaphysical fun stuff this late at night. 😛 I won’t tell you how many times I’ve confused, unconfused, and then reconfused myself just in the last hour.
Maybe we shouldn’t think that hard about it ever? There may be no right answer yet.
@Tessa: (here I go violating what I just said) the way Paul said: “As for Shelly, what happened to her during her vision quest was the creation of her ‘conscience’ that is autonomous in her own realm (the boiler room)…free of the demon realm.” That almost sounds as if Shelly split the piece of the demon realm where her demons were living away from the rest of the demon realm, so it became a separate realm. As far as I know, Monica doesn’t have a corresponding realm, despite being a doorway, herself.
I don’t understand the interaction between the boiler room and portal design. I also don’t know why Bud said someone would be trapped there if they tried to come through without Shelly’s permission. Shelly couldn’t lock or unlock the portal, so does that mean Shelly had some additional ability to block things, or just that no one would unlock it without Shelly’s permission?
Oooo…no right answer yet… That’s an excellent way to think about it! 🙂 Especially since Paul has pointed out before that what we see from the characters is not necessarily all truth or the full story. They say things that they think they know….whether or not they are actually true.
It’s highly likely that Shelly’s stint as a doorway is either A) not over, B) not fully understood, or C) both A and B.
I think she appears mainly when Shelly is forced out of her comfort zone…
More like she becomes afraid of losing people. She (Shelly’s demon) was formed by the trauma of losing her mom. She became really active when Shelly and Heather were/weren’t an item…
Now? She’s scared her freakish strength will scare Bud off… Yeah.
Though why she’d be afraid of scaring Bud off with freakish strength is beyond me. After all, Bud’s the one who made diamonds all the time when she was angry…
Blond and black… light and drk… everyone knows a superhero squad/adventuring party never has two of the same characters! They will obviously have to battle at some point (poit?)
Yep, Bud knows too….
No Shelley! Resist the call of the boiler room!
Lol… Judging by Shelly’s expression in that first panel, Bud doesn’t know her own strength! Is Shelly’s girl in the boiler room reacting to Tina… ‘talking’ to Shelly about Tina’s comment?
Last time we saw conscience in that hallway was in http://wapsisquare.com/comic/see-me/ when Shelly was looking for guidance and inadvertently called her out. Maybe she’ll pop out again and explain Shelly’s strength.
But how do you know that’s Conscience in the hallway?
now I wonder, just how strong is she/can she be. in order to make a difference wouldn’t she need to be at least as strong as the golems?
Snow…..now that’s a four letter cuss word this mailman knows how to say. In fact I could cuss/say it in 115 languages.
雪 <—–that's mandarin Chinese
An AmishAngel who can cuss in 115 languages; now -that’s- impressive!
Mailman, 115 languages, my god what a delivery route!!!
Maybe he just likes to cuss out the dogs on his route, each in its native language.
No one’s noticed that Bud’s getting a quick handful in panel one?
And that’s the Prurient Thought For The Day
Meanwhile, I know I see the Nu-nu-pee just fine, or at least that’s what I would think, at least at first. The Little People known to the tribe aren’t really sinister. Now if it was Deer Woman, that’d be a different story, and I’d be headed for the hills, myself.
Oh , I noticed that too , but I was waiting for someone else to say something about it first .
Giggity .
there was a lack of… cupping bare-lower-back-skin contact is nice, I just quibble with her methods.
Height differences! Accidents waiting to happen or opportunites?
Didn’t any one notice where here leg is?
The appearance of Shelly’s conscience could mean this is all one of Shelly’s dreams/fantasies.
Also, does Tina know about Tepoz?
They met at the club back in 2008 sometime. Tina clocked Jin’s and M’s Doubts when they were playing two against each other, then Tepoz was brought in to sober up Jin before she brought down the building…
Are you people VOTING?
I admit I’ve not been voting. I keep forgetting to since the vote link is tucked neatly off to the side, and I use a reduced window to do my web browsing at work. 🙁
I’ll try to be better!
Twice or three times a day….and we keep falling in numbers…
Well , I’ve been , but yeah , we’re still slippin’ somethin’ fierce .
The election was last month… a month ago tomorrow tio be precise. Oh you mean for world’s greatest web comic.
That’s right. This is much more important than some dreary national election.
A definitive clue to the GGG’s, especially Bud’s, strength: Bud’s glomp/bearhug was enough to squeeze the holy high hell out of Shelly, who’s probably the second strongest human in the Wapsiverse…
Uh, wait, what?
We need more Tepoz. Preferably being used as a blunt instrument to make Lemon Wine in 2.8 picoseconds. It would be more intoxicating than a spread of Tina, Monica, and Jin nekid.
Speak for yourself.
In the clear light of day, I notice Shelley’s conscience is no longer confined to the boiler room. It actually looks like she’s taken up residence in a decent apartment, complete with accent carpets…
I think Bud is more of an aquaintence than a friend where Shelly is concerned. Thus the look of “Hey! We’re not on THAT good a personal level for you to be hoisting me about, or having your hand on my butt, let alone on my shoulder” from Shelly.
Also, do we really know who is the girl in the dream sequence? I’m not at all sure it’s the conscience girl or the boiler room girl. I don’t recall any concrete link being made to either.
Shelly and Bud spent quite a bit of time together getting ready for the assault on the time machine. Monica even made the comment that they were spending time together and it was doing both of them some good…
Yes, but I think their time together was more like business meetings than good time friendship bonding kinda stuff.
Nah – not when Bud shows up unexpectedly and brings Thai take-away.
And Shelly doesn’t tell her to fibble off.
Actually, I think it was Jin who said that, not Monica.
Shelly could be worried because of the way Bud tends to react whenever someone uses superpowers unnecessarily, I suppose. Or maybe being crushed was very stressful. Shelly was frightened of Bud at first and Brandi had to teach Shelly to not listen to her demons. So that might mean that Shelly listened again. After all, her demons are rolled up into that little girl, I think.
Well, the first verification I found to the boiler room girl being the same as Shelly’s demon/conscience is here (the page before is where Tina mentions being freaked out by her “creepy girl in the boiler room”). I’m looking for the actual boiler room image that everyone else is saying this clip refers to…
A-ha!!! Found it! 😀 Tina saw Shelly’s Conscience as the creepy girl…the one that already freaked her out back in the boiler room. 😛
Sometimes I love re-reading comics from the beginning…and other times I wonder if this means I have no life. 🙂
Well, you still might not have any life, but it probably would have be easier if you had just clicked on the link in a comment I wrote about 12 hours earlier. 😉
Actually, it was easy to overlook. The link text was only the word “Yes”.
Well phooey! I try to infer from the comments what the embedded links are (instead of clicking every link and getting more distracted than I already am ;)), but I must have either missed or made an incorrect assumption on that one.
In any event, I was intentionally re-reading the comic from the beginning for fresh perspective, so I linked that comic when I got to it. However, I spent two full days reading all of the archives, so the existence of my “life” is pretty much impossible. 😛
So… what now?
Democracy!
Whiskey!
Sexy!
Ribs Bud, Shelly has (had) ribs…
I’ve wondered where Tepoz has been. Also, whatever happen to Owen?
He’s happily attached to Lakshmi. 🙂 I imagine we’ll see him again if ever an amusing or interesting development pops up in their life and/or relationship.