“Our” Scarlet heard the comment that Dustin made to “his” Scarlet… his words leaked over from his timeline to ours and were recorded by “our” Daylla and Castela.
Apparently, Timothy’s words to “our” Scarlet about going for coffee, leaked back in the opposite direction, and were recorded by Dustin’s Daylla.
Two parallel universes or realities, sharing some things, differing in others… with a leakage developing between them.
yeah, this seems clear.
We may both be right Dave.
I’m still thinking this effect is due to damage or an artifact of the world engine.
Making the ghosts a callback to the dead world engine like I mentioned yesterday would neatly tie a lot of the comic together and we would get to see all of the characters together as a result, which might explain the recent pinup of the golem girls.
You could very well be correct. We know that the timelines created by the Calendar Machine cycles were not identical… they evolved differently from their common starting point. The individuals living in them were similar, but did differ in name and identity and actions from one cycle to the best. That seems similar to the differences we now know exist better the “main” universe and Dustin’s. His might actually be one of the 56 earlier cycles, still “existing” and continuing somehow even after the Calendar Machine “reset” apparently wiped it out.
This would be a neat tie-together!
(Those darned Lanthians… is there no end to the havoc their screwing-around created?)
I think this is a flashback to a few strips ago when Scarlet as freaked out about Timothy going to the vending machine for coffee, because, isn’t panel two the exact same conversation from our universe, only told from their universe’s side of things? here Dustin is talking with Scarlet about Pickle and Daylla, and in our universe, it was Scarlet “hearing” Dustin’s side, but Timothy wasn’t here yet, and as soon as he showed up, the EVP recording fizzled out and we get exactly what OUR side said, being heard HERE as their version of the EVP recording…
They’re in school, and probably have to maintain a human appearance like the current Gryphon students do. They just look different than the kids we are used to.
I would assume it’s because this kid was born instead. Random combinations of genes and chance of different name as some parents don’t choose until they see their child for the first time. It would also seem may you can only be heard/seen in other worlds IF you don’t currently exist there.
Exactly. Dustin is so similar to Timothy genetically, that he looks almost identical to him. His difference in height is explained by the slight difference in their genetic makeups.
So, the next logical question would be: Why is Dustin roaming the school corridors at night, when his para club probably isn’t having a sleepover, since they’d still be in mourning of their Daylla?
I concur.
The Calendar Machine loops stopped back in 2012 with the destruction of the machine.
This may be genuine leakage between “normal” alternate universes.
The usual cause is that the two universes touch where radical coincidence occurs and the usual danger is exchange of people or things that don’t belong.
Que twilight zone music everything nearly the same except Timothy is Dustin and there daylla is dead, which I have to ask how did she die because if it happened while in the school… which one of are kids is going to die
If we assume that Dustin’s universe consists of all muggles (Homo sapiens), then I think that weakens the case for one of the cast members to die in the supernatural universe. Fragility is a defining characteristic of muggles. “Muggle Daylla” could have been killed by all kinds of things that wouldn’t hurt “Button-eyes Daylla”. Meningitis, leukemia, or any number of diseases and medical conditions could have done her in.
A muggle-verse could also help to explain why Dustin had to verify Daylla’s identity in this strip (http://wapsisquare.com/comic/it-is-you/). “You look like Daylla, but she died, and she had eyeballs.” In the first panel, the “threads” around Daylla’s eyes are visible.
It’s not just muggles who can die. Back when Atsali and Castela first moved in with Kath, Phix pointed out to M and S that these kids were “mortal young paranormal”, were at risk, and would be killed quickly if humans were to learn of their paranormal nature. Phix implied quite strongly that there are many paranormal in a similar situation – they’re completely dependent on the Masquerade to keep them safe from human fear and a possible pogrom.
We now know that Castela is physically a lot tougher than that, but her friends may well be just about as vulnerable to damage as a human of the same age.
We really don’t know about Daylla. She’s metallic but we know nothing of her vulnerabilities and metabolism. She said she’s a liquid metal… and liquids splash. She might be almost as vulnerable to a car crash, or a fall from a high place, as a human is.
So, my guess is that Dustin’s world-line is a fairly minor variation on the “main line” and that he and his friends are paranormals. This would fit both the “quantum many-worlds” and the “Calendar Machine after-effect” theories.
I finally found the “parallel” comic. Needed to be #1 under Related Comics. http://wapsisquare.com/comic/get-to-the-questions/
Definitely a different Scarlet. Also her line is different. Don’t know if this is due to faulty memory in Dustin’s flashback.
Will Dustin’s name get added to the metadata for that comic?
Okay, this? This is why we let the second law of thermodynamics do its thing. Let the superposition undergo decoherence, let the wavefunction collapse, and everybody gets a nice sensible causal series. Hell, you can get rid of wavefunction collapse, and while you’ll get macroscale superpositions, as long as you keep decoherence in play, everybody at least *thinks* they have a nice, single, consistent history. But if you prevent entanglement with the environment from going thermal – from being randomized by entropy – you get this kind of mess. The superposition hits macroscale, the interference terms DON’T get suppressed, and BAM! Shroedinger’s cat goes insane – nostrils filled with the scent of ITS OWN F*CKING CORPSE – and shoots out of the box like an angry chainsaw!
Somebody needs to crank up the temperature in that school or SOMETHING. The decoherence time is WAAAAY longer than it should be in any human-habitable environment, and that needs to be fixed. Unless of course you WANT spooky disjoint sets of mutually-phantasmal middleschoolers with wildly different histories turning your timeline into a timebraid.
(Of all the fan theories offered in the comment section, I’m willing to bet that mine is the one most likely to get a laugh out of an actual physicist. That technobabble almost makes physical sense. Almost.)
Now he’s accusing Timothy of being the ghost.
In this reality, there appears to be no Timothy. The club room seems to be the key, probably has a flaw in the World Grid.
Seconded
I’m thinking parallel worlds. So the points of crossover make people of the other world looks like a ghost.
Bingo! Yes, I agree.
I’m going to claim an I Called It from yesterday.
“Our” Scarlet heard the comment that Dustin made to “his” Scarlet… his words leaked over from his timeline to ours and were recorded by “our” Daylla and Castela.
Apparently, Timothy’s words to “our” Scarlet about going for coffee, leaked back in the opposite direction, and were recorded by Dustin’s Daylla.
Two parallel universes or realities, sharing some things, differing in others… with a leakage developing between them.
I think Daylla may have just figured it out.
Bloody Laumeric Field… So where (for a given value of place-ness) *is* Daylla??
yeah, this seems clear.
We may both be right Dave.
I’m still thinking this effect is due to damage or an artifact of the world engine.
Making the ghosts a callback to the dead world engine like I mentioned yesterday would neatly tie a lot of the comic together and we would get to see all of the characters together as a result, which might explain the recent pinup of the golem girls.
You could very well be correct. We know that the timelines created by the Calendar Machine cycles were not identical… they evolved differently from their common starting point. The individuals living in them were similar, but did differ in name and identity and actions from one cycle to the best. That seems similar to the differences we now know exist better the “main” universe and Dustin’s. His might actually be one of the 56 earlier cycles, still “existing” and continuing somehow even after the Calendar Machine “reset” apparently wiped it out.
This would be a neat tie-together!
(Those darned Lanthians… is there no end to the havoc their screwing-around created?)
Certainly looks that way: his Scar does not look like ‘regular’ Scar
Yeah, lest we forget; ‘that room, that ROOM!’…
I think this is a flashback to a few strips ago when Scarlet as freaked out about Timothy going to the vending machine for coffee, because, isn’t panel two the exact same conversation from our universe, only told from their universe’s side of things? here Dustin is talking with Scarlet about Pickle and Daylla, and in our universe, it was Scarlet “hearing” Dustin’s side, but Timothy wasn’t here yet, and as soon as he showed up, the EVP recording fizzled out and we get exactly what OUR side said, being heard HERE as their version of the EVP recording…
Yup. I think your analysis is correct.
Also note: Dustin’s Scar looks different
What GHOST around, comes around; or, when the spirit moves you; or Fan-boy is a Phantom, or…
Has anyone noticed that the new kids all appear to be ‘muggles,’ even the parallel Scarlet??
Huh…
They’re in school, and probably have to maintain a human appearance like the current Gryphon students do. They just look different than the kids we are used to.
What happened to the Daylla of the [Dustin+] universe, and when did it happen?
And (a much more abstract and philosophical question) why isn’t there a Dustin in the [Dustin-] universe?
I would assume it’s because this kid was born instead. Random combinations of genes and chance of different name as some parents don’t choose until they see their child for the first time. It would also seem may you can only be heard/seen in other worlds IF you don’t currently exist there.
Exactly. Dustin is so similar to Timothy genetically, that he looks almost identical to him. His difference in height is explained by the slight difference in their genetic makeups.
So, the next logical question would be: Why is Dustin roaming the school corridors at night, when his para club probably isn’t having a sleepover, since they’d still be in mourning of their Daylla?
Wanting to be alone with his thoughts? He may have snuck/broke in, or hidden somewhere in the building in order to stay after school hours.
Looking more and more like a weak spot between universes.
I concur.
The Calendar Machine loops stopped back in 2012 with the destruction of the machine.
This may be genuine leakage between “normal” alternate universes.
The usual cause is that the two universes touch where radical coincidence occurs and the usual danger is exchange of people or things that don’t belong.
Mine head it doth acheth so!
Que twilight zone music everything nearly the same except Timothy is Dustin and there daylla is dead, which I have to ask how did she die because if it happened while in the school… which one of are kids is going to die
If we assume that Dustin’s universe consists of all muggles (Homo sapiens), then I think that weakens the case for one of the cast members to die in the supernatural universe. Fragility is a defining characteristic of muggles. “Muggle Daylla” could have been killed by all kinds of things that wouldn’t hurt “Button-eyes Daylla”. Meningitis, leukemia, or any number of diseases and medical conditions could have done her in.
A muggle-verse could also help to explain why Dustin had to verify Daylla’s identity in this strip (http://wapsisquare.com/comic/it-is-you/). “You look like Daylla, but she died, and she had eyeballs.” In the first panel, the “threads” around Daylla’s eyes are visible.
I think those threads are actually slots.
It’s not just muggles who can die. Back when Atsali and Castela first moved in with Kath, Phix pointed out to M and S that these kids were “mortal young paranormal”, were at risk, and would be killed quickly if humans were to learn of their paranormal nature. Phix implied quite strongly that there are many paranormal in a similar situation – they’re completely dependent on the Masquerade to keep them safe from human fear and a possible pogrom.
We now know that Castela is physically a lot tougher than that, but her friends may well be just about as vulnerable to damage as a human of the same age.
We really don’t know about Daylla. She’s metallic but we know nothing of her vulnerabilities and metabolism. She said she’s a liquid metal… and liquids splash. She might be almost as vulnerable to a car crash, or a fall from a high place, as a human is.
So, my guess is that Dustin’s world-line is a fairly minor variation on the “main line” and that he and his friends are paranormals. This would fit both the “quantum many-worlds” and the “Calendar Machine after-effect” theories.
Good points. I guess we’ll see as the story progresses!
I’m pretty sure she said she’s “living” metal.
Seems Daylla has reached a crossroads—go back to her friends, or go with her boyfriend.
Technically, Dustin isn’t her boyfriend
But he could be.
Also this guy is on terms with them intimate enough to call Castela “Pickle.”
Or maybe that Castela likes to be called Pickle.
This is screaming “thin barrier between parallel worlds”.
Sorry, couldn’t hear you over the comic screaming”thin barrier between parallel worlds”…
Also also, Scarlet is wearing round glasses, not her usual squareish ones…
Longer hair, too.
I finally found the “parallel” comic. Needed to be #1 under Related Comics.
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/get-to-the-questions/
Definitely a different Scarlet. Also her line is different. Don’t know if this is due to faulty memory in Dustin’s flashback.
Will Dustin’s name get added to the metadata for that comic?
This is looking suspiciously like two world lines crossing, merging or diverging.
Duuuuhhhhaaaahhhuuummmmm……
Okay, this? This is why we let the second law of thermodynamics do its thing. Let the superposition undergo decoherence, let the wavefunction collapse, and everybody gets a nice sensible causal series. Hell, you can get rid of wavefunction collapse, and while you’ll get macroscale superpositions, as long as you keep decoherence in play, everybody at least *thinks* they have a nice, single, consistent history. But if you prevent entanglement with the environment from going thermal – from being randomized by entropy – you get this kind of mess. The superposition hits macroscale, the interference terms DON’T get suppressed, and BAM! Shroedinger’s cat goes insane – nostrils filled with the scent of ITS OWN F*CKING CORPSE – and shoots out of the box like an angry chainsaw!
Somebody needs to crank up the temperature in that school or SOMETHING. The decoherence time is WAAAAY longer than it should be in any human-habitable environment, and that needs to be fixed. Unless of course you WANT spooky disjoint sets of mutually-phantasmal middleschoolers with wildly different histories turning your timeline into a timebraid.
(Of all the fan theories offered in the comment section, I’m willing to bet that mine is the one most likely to get a laugh out of an actual physicist. That technobabble almost makes physical sense. Almost.)
The conversion between Scarlet & Dustin, in Dustinʾs reality wasn’t exactly the same as it was in Timothyʾs reality 😖
Now… how well does the audience remember that conversation from before? Hmm…