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by Paul Taylor on April 23, 2012 at 12:00 am
Story: Wapsi-Archive
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Discussion (97) ¬

  1. Atomic
    April 23, 2012, 12:05 am | # | Reply

    Stir plot, and thicken!

    • Dave
      April 23, 2012, 12:18 am | # | Reply

      It’s that “plot flour” somebody suggested a few months ago. Or, possibly, a bit of okra… makes a nice thick goopy plot-gumbo.

      If Shelly’s correct, whatever happened to Tina 1.0 was deliberate rather than purely an accident. But, was it a Good deliberate or a Bad deliberate?

      • nerf-dweller
        April 23, 2012, 1:28 am | #

        So Shelly’s demons were blocking Shelly’s Doorway and Tina’s Doorway while Tina’s demons were out. Tina’s demons were chasing Monica who by design or not run in front of a bus and was dead for a short period of time. And unfortunately Tina 1.0’s died from hitting the bus from behind when it stopped to not it Monica.

        Tina 1.0 departed her body. Normally personal demons would return to Demon World when the host died. But Tina’s Doorway was being blocked by Shelly’s Demons. So Tina’s Demons were preven’t from return to Demon World. Tina’s Demons alway through Tina 1.0 and Monica dying broke the rules, and so got bound up on space/time (and possibly Calendar Cycles), lost most of their memories, and wound up stuck inside of Tina 1.0s body lying in the morgue until Nudge “nudged” the collective to become Tina 2.0.

        *plink, plinks * Drops a few pieces of ate in to the pun jar.

    • 5hademaker
      April 23, 2012, 11:17 pm | # | Reply

      second panel, first bubble is Paul’s impatience talking

  2. hotduelist
    April 23, 2012, 12:07 am | # | Reply

    wha???? Thoroughly confused

    • Yhelta
      April 23, 2012, 12:26 am | # | Reply

      Connie is not amused….

    • DJ
      April 23, 2012, 1:08 am | # | Reply

      There’s a comfy chair over here in Confusion Corner. Come join us!

      • harukohoshiko
        April 23, 2012, 3:29 am | #

        ~looks at confusion corner, listens to convo between Selly and Connie, looks back at corner smiles and goes to Mucho Moca~

      • GreyWolf
        April 23, 2012, 4:48 am | #

        Nope, Doctor gave us an upgrade. Watch yourself when sitting on the beanbag in the back, may surprise you where you end up ….

      • Aleister Crow
        April 23, 2012, 3:38 am | #

        That corner must be as big as the Coliseum by now.

      • GreyWolf
        April 23, 2012, 4:49 am | #

        oops replied to wrong one – see above 😀

      • Ratcatcher
        April 23, 2012, 5:28 am | #

        Aleister Crow- I brought cookies but, I think I may need a lot more for this crowd
        . . .

  3. Joe Minotaur
    April 23, 2012, 12:09 am | # | Reply

    I am the “Key Master”!

    • jwhouk
      April 23, 2012, 12:39 am | # | Reply

      And she is the gate keeper… (but she DEFINITELY doesn’t look like Rick Moranis.)

    • GreyWolf
      April 23, 2012, 12:52 am | # | Reply

      Sigourney Weaver was the Gate Keeper. 😉

      Easy to remember, once you spot the obvious phallic imagery they used, which was appropo considering the type of ancient myth they were representing. Key Master is male, Gate Keeper is female, KM puts their “key” in the GK’s “gate” … and hence why they were all sprawled out on the roof and looking flushed.

      But now here’s the real brain buster.

      Try to get the image of Rick Moranis doing THAT to Sigourney Weaver out of your head.

      Today’s special is brain bleach, we carry it by the drum. 😀

      • Joe Minotaur
        April 23, 2012, 1:22 am | #

        There is no Sigourney Weaver, only Zuul.

      • britishguy
        April 23, 2012, 4:05 am | #

        Ghostbusters rocks!!

      • Ratcatcher
        April 23, 2012, 5:41 am | #

        The implications of this conversation makes my brain hurt. I’ll take a gallon please. BLEACH!

  4. Dave
    April 23, 2012, 12:12 am | # | Reply

    Were told, by whom? Shellinx via Nudge? Phix? Some other demons? Father Christmas?

    Also, possibly of interest… a possible contradiction or inconsistency. Last week, Connie said that she had none of her earlier demon memories, but that she “remembered the rules.”

    But, back a couple of years ago when Connie introduced herself to Shelly, she specifically said that she wasn’t bound by the demons’ rules (presumably due to her new “fused” nature).

    Will be interesting to learn just what her rules and boundaries are, to what extent she’s a free agent and to whom if anyone she must answer for her actions.

    As with Tina, a lot of possible character depth available here!

    • Paul Taylor
      April 23, 2012, 12:25 am | # | Reply

      She remembers the demon rules, just as Tina does, although no other memories. Main difference, conscience doesn’t have to follow the rules.

    • GreyWolf
      April 23, 2012, 1:02 am | # | Reply

      What Paul said.

      It’s like the speed limit signs I see at my apartment complex. It’s private property, so the police can’t enforce them. The management can’t afford to hire groundskeepers that would actually monitor that sort of thing either. Really, it’s just another thing they can throw at you in a list of complaints if you are known to regularly speed through there and happen to be someone they are trying to get rid of for whatever reasons.

      So typically it would hold no sort of actual meaning to me. But because I know it’s a good idea, for me and my neighbors – I obey it anyway, and encourage others to do the same. There are kids running around here, why not just play it safe?

    • Yamara
      April 23, 2012, 8:53 am | # | Reply

      Connie made her independence of the rules clear upon her introduction to her creator at Shelly’s bedside. (And you’d have to know the rules to know you were free of them.)

      But… in that conversation she also was clear she knows everything Shelly is thinking. So that means her berating Shelly in panel one is another attempt at distraction, since Shelly never meant any of that, and she ought to know.

      Argumentum ad personam, no less. That’s what Shelly is smiling at.

      • Dave
        April 23, 2012, 10:25 am | #

        And, her smiles yesterday and today might also have a bit to do with an evening of the balance between these two. Connie had a huge one-up on Shelly from the beginning… she knew everything Shelly did, but was a mystery to Shelly except to the extent she chose to reveal herself.

        Shelly’s now showing that she, too, can understand the situation, by thought and experience and logic and intuition. She has puzzled out some hidden truths about Tina, despite Connie’s repeated attempts to deflect and distract.

        Powerful stuff… and that she’s doing it, shows how much she has grown from the Time Forest experience and from what happened with Justin. Working things through intellectually didn’t used to be her way.

  5. Maark30
    April 23, 2012, 12:18 am | # | Reply

    So where did Tina’s soul end up then?
    Here is an idea: If some religions are correct then the soul is recycled only without the conscious memory of its past. If that is true then we might just have an answer to the old plot thread of the little girl looking at the plasma wake that destroyed Lanthis that is part of Jin’s memories.

  6. azatoth
    April 23, 2012, 12:20 am | # | Reply

    These girls are starting too look to similar. It gets hard keeping them apart.

    • Joe Minotaur
      April 23, 2012, 12:26 am | # | Reply

      We make our demons in our own image?

    • Paul Taylor
      April 23, 2012, 12:34 am | # | Reply

      Conscience looks like Shelly when she was a young girl.

      • jwhouk
        April 23, 2012, 12:41 am | #

        Which is kinda what it’s supposed to be, right, Pablo?

      • Wyvern
        April 23, 2012, 2:19 am | #

        Shelly did point out, “Hey, you look like me!” So, yeah.

      • DJ
        April 23, 2012, 12:58 am | #

        Hey Paul. Have you always had the idea to call her ‘Conscience’ or is that something the readers have provided?

      • NOTDilbert
        April 23, 2012, 1:18 am | #

        I’M just glad nobody has tried to call her Jiminy Cricket…..

      • Atomic
        April 23, 2012, 1:59 am | #

        Jiminy Cranky, you mean…

        [clink]

      • Fairportfan
        April 23, 2012, 2:11 am | #

        Then why do they have completely different noses?

      • Fairportfan
        April 23, 2012, 2:12 am | #

        (That was a reply to Paul’s post…)

      • NOTDilbert
        April 23, 2012, 3:02 am | #

        Cartilage continues to grow through our lives, unlike bone. Noses and ears get larger; This may not apply to beings that can exist for 80,000 years, or are spontaneous creations of trans-literal amalgama-thingies.

      • xavienne66
        April 23, 2012, 4:34 am | #

        A.K.A. baby Shellinx. So cute! 🙂

    • yuffiek
      April 23, 2012, 12:55 am | # | Reply

      Shelly IS seeing two Connies there. Otherwise the quantum mechanics bit wouldn’t have been worked in.

      • Dave
        April 23, 2012, 1:03 am | #

        Ahh… so quantum uncertainty explains why her hair has that particular wave!

      • jwhouk
        April 23, 2012, 4:58 am | #

        Pun jar. Now.

      • Dave
        April 23, 2012, 5:49 am | #

        (deposits a bust of Werner Heisenberg, beautifully cast out of mu metal)

      • Dave11
        April 23, 2012, 6:11 am | #

        That comment fulfilled 100% of my morning chuckle requirement. Thank you!

      • Atomic
        April 23, 2012, 1:20 pm | #

        Time out, jwhouk — attempting to stick someone with a pun makes them the punjabi, and Shelly is the wrong kind of Indian for that!

        Tsk, tsk, you should know better.

      • bmonk
        April 23, 2012, 3:39 pm | #

        I’d think that I’d drop in a particle, but I’m not sure of it’s position, since I know the momentum it needs to arrive.

      • Dave
        April 23, 2012, 4:07 pm | #

        @bmonk… that’s why I referred to a “particular wave”. If Paul is going to invoke the weirdness of quantum mechanics in his strip (and I guess that Shelly is now a quantum mechanic?), we really should bring both the particle and wave aspects of Connie’s hair into view at the same time, right?

      • bmonk
        April 23, 2012, 4:20 pm | #

        That’s why I just waved it toward the jar. But it’s demonically tough to see both wave and particle at the same time.

        Hmmm. I wonder if anyone has entangled two wavicles and then measured one each simultaneously as wave and particle?

      • Dave
        April 23, 2012, 7:01 pm | #

        I believe that running that particular experiment is in the same category as having Tina stick a spear through somebody’s heart. A severe Reality Fault Interrupt occurs, time stops, and everything just sits there with the ERROR light glowing until somebody from outside the continuum comes along to reset the fault and get time started again.

        It’s one of those things that are Just Not Done in a proper, well-behaved Universe.

        Today’s Abstruse Goose has an interesting explanation for why it works that way.

      • Skywatcher68
        April 23, 2012, 11:26 am | #

        Unless Shelly has been working on 30-year-old Volkswagens.

        :drops a small collection of error coins into the Pun Jar:

  7. Stigmartyr762
    April 23, 2012, 12:45 am | # | Reply

    Forever the angry little girl.

    • Dave
      April 23, 2012, 1:01 am | # | Reply

      Angry, and sardonic wise-ass do seem to be her most common surface presentations. Both seem to be consistent with what we know about the troubled young Shelly at the time of her vision quest and near-death, when Connie was created.

      Considering that both of them have 80k years of “life” experience, I sorta suspect that there are depths to Connie that we haven’t been shown yet.

      The fact that she originally identified herself as “conscience” implies a lot… morality, empathy, responsibility, sense of what’s right and wrong… if these are actually significant parts of her makeup they might come into play in some interesting ways given her demonic nature.

      • boxilar
        April 23, 2012, 1:27 am | #

        I,d bet Connie,s angry defensive demeanor is because she really didn’t want Shelly to figure out her role in all this. Deals were made with demons. Plans were put into motion. People did things they weren’t proud of for the greater good. All the threads are interconnected and I smell Brandi’s hand in this. Or I could be barking up the wrong tree.

      • Simon
        April 23, 2012, 6:04 am | #

        Yes, well.. the new Shelly is proving much more insightful than the one who hadn’t spent millenia meditating under a tree… it’s hard to slip things past her…

      • Boxilar
        April 24, 2012, 12:13 am | #

        She’s a Sphinx. She’d been fighting her basic nature since her return from the time forrest, trying to hold on to her old self. The scene earlier with Justin where she says all emotion is transitory and this scene shows that the training with Phix has taken. She’s embraced her true nature as an apex predator. More than anything, predators have to be observers. The have to seek out even the smallest change in detail, the slightest sign of weakness, or they don’t eat. A lion has to be more agile, both physicaly and mentaly, than a gazelle. Apply those instincts and skills of observation to a human level intelect and you have a person like Shelly who could be damn near claivoyant when she wants to be. Reconciling her human experinces with her 80k in the forrest seems to have resulted in a whole new Shellinix.

    • Wyvern
      April 23, 2012, 2:20 am | # | Reply

      Poor kid doesn’t age. So 80,000 years later she’s still an adolescent being surly to adults.

  8. jwhouk
    April 23, 2012, 12:53 am | # | Reply

    …Shelly’s demons got hit by Tina’s exiting soul. The resulting collision caused the demons and soul to fuse into… “Conscience 1.0 (beta)”

    • DJ
      April 23, 2012, 1:07 am | # | Reply

      I think the idea was to stop the demons from leaving after the soul had left, thereby forming Tina 2.0.

  9. Julie
    April 23, 2012, 1:08 am | # | Reply

    Ooo…looks like there will be some excellent specials in Confusion Corner this week! 😉

    *plops down on the couch with a cup of black currant iced tea and some berries.*

    • DJ
      April 23, 2012, 1:09 am | # | Reply

      You’re late. Lucky we saved you a seat 😉

      • Locuranis
        April 23, 2012, 2:09 am | #

        I brought a sleeping bag and a six pack, because I think I’ll be here for awhile.

      • Bucc-i
        April 23, 2012, 5:10 am | #

        *comes out of a two-man tent with a couple of MRE’s*
        Be here for a while… hell, I never left!

      • Boxilar
        April 24, 2012, 12:15 am | #

        GP tiny. : )

    • as363
      April 23, 2012, 2:46 am | # | Reply

      As a small contribution – I’ll bring two 20Lb. bags of “green” coffee beans – one of Jamaica Blue – the other of Sumatra – and my own Bean roaster . I’ll also bring a pair of 2 cup size percolators . Please bring your own cups – that way I don’t have to wash them afterwards.

      • Dave
        April 23, 2012, 5:48 am | #

        Is that entirely fair, setting up a coffee urn which competes with Mucho Mocha’s main business? I realize you’ll save money that way, but I’m not sure it’s the best route to a penny urned…

        (drops a tip in the Pun Jar)

  10. Fairportfan
    April 23, 2012, 1:13 am | # | Reply

    Last panel: I see that expression and body language from Vellie* every couple of days…

    ==================

    *My 4-year-old granddauighter, for any who don’t know

    • Wyvern
      April 23, 2012, 2:21 am | # | Reply

      It’s cute when you don’t need to take it seriously.

  11. Joe Minotaur
    April 23, 2012, 1:27 am | # | Reply

    Connie blocked Shelly’s doorway but didn’t make it to Tina in time and that’s how Nudge got in.

    • Atomic
      April 23, 2012, 2:01 am | # | Reply

      Hmmm.. and Jin was where again?

      And.. who told her to do that??

      • Joe Minotaur
        April 23, 2012, 8:23 am | #

        Jin, Brandy and Bud did not arrive on the scene until Tepoz summoned them. Monica, Tina and Shelly’s incidents happened years before that.

      • Fairportfan
        April 23, 2012, 8:46 am | #

        However, Jin was involved in both – she tackled Monica out of the way of the bus and appeared to Shelly as Toctli.

      • Joe Minotaur
        April 23, 2012, 10:24 am | #

        It was Nudge that appeared to Shelly during her vision quest.
        http://wapsisquare.com/comic/demigod/

      • Joe Minotaur
        April 23, 2012, 10:28 am | #

        Jin showed up later as a rabbit.
        http://wapsisquare.com/comic/over-there-2/

      • nerf-dweller
        April 23, 2012, 3:38 pm | #

        Although Jin is a Golem, she’s had a lot more autonomy then the other GGs. She was off finding and arranging the pieces in order fix the Calendar Machine.

  12. Brian Terrill
    April 23, 2012, 2:08 am | # | Reply

    Ok… Now I’m confused!!!

    • Bucc-i
      April 23, 2012, 5:17 am | # | Reply

      Just remember to bring something when you come meet us in the Confusion Corner.
      I brought some MRE coffee, and MRE gum (which, in and emergency, can be used as a laxative!).

      • dadman
        April 23, 2012, 11:19 am | #

        And which, after chewing, can be used as a carefully-applied cheek adhesive to help you hold it until you can get the latrine pit dug. 😮

        OK, I think I just grossed myself out.

  13. Cherish Bloom
    April 23, 2012, 5:11 am | # | Reply

    She looks cute when she glowers.

    *gives her a kiss*

  14. Dave
    April 23, 2012, 6:00 am | # | Reply

    What with the multiple actors (Monica, Shelly, Tina, their souls, their various demons singular and grouped and fused, Jin, Nudge, Shellinx?, Brandi?) and the complex interactions which occurred on that fateful day, and the talk about demons acting on a quantum level, I’m beginning to think we may need a really big chalkboard and the world’s most elaborate Feynman diagram to actually describe what took place.

    The chalkboard Tina uses to advertise today’s baked goodies is nowhere near large enough.

    • Yamara
      April 23, 2012, 6:25 am | # | Reply

      What do you think I was doing over the weekend?

    • Yamara
      April 23, 2012, 8:20 am | # | Reply

      Comics are already the best storyboards.

      And with all respect to Paul, if Henson is going to get into productions like that, they can bring back FarScape first.

    • Dave
      April 23, 2012, 10:09 am | # | Reply

      I hope we don’t have to figure how to account for virtual demons… I have no idea how to renormalize them 🙁

      • NOTDilbert
        April 24, 2012, 12:59 am | #

        Hit them with a SQUID – Sub-Quantum Interferometry Device. Causes the wave and particle uncertainty to collapse to a single observable event. And, so far, hasn’t caused time to stop – although the number of REAL demons they’ve tested it on is questionable….. ;P

      • Yamara
        April 24, 2012, 1:07 am | #

        Seriously, I do have a few hundred words typed out from this weekend. It mostly speculates that the demon covens we associate with Tina, Shelly and Monica were assigned to different girls in that set, and that their deaths allowed or forced them to swap hosts.

        But I’m waiting to see what the story shows.

        As for quantum states, it seems that the wave function of demons collapses when sphinxes catch them, or when demons directly impact the capacity of souls to pursue their own quantum path. They find themselves trapped in time and space; the punishment fits the crime.

  15. kaibyo
    April 23, 2012, 6:32 am | # | Reply

    Last panel – Connie’s got the same expression on her face that my little sister used to get when you either told her she was wrong or had to do something she didn’t wanna do. A stubborn, dig-your-heels-in, dagger-glaring pout. I always sorta imagined seeing steam trickling out of her ears and nose!

  16. kaibyo
    April 23, 2012, 7:47 am | # | Reply

    And speaking of demons…..I went back a bit in Wapsitime and found this:

    http://wapsisquare.com/comic/wild-animals/

    Since Tina’s demons were obviously fond of her, could Tina (or Phix or someone/thing) be harboring a dormant “Tinasoul” until her demons were ready to add her to the mix? And maybe be a better person(?)(persona?) than she was as a drug lord’s/ mobster’s daughter????

    Everyone deserves a second chance.

    • TheDoctor
      April 23, 2012, 8:46 am | # | Reply

      Heres a question: How is it after all this time some ‘Mobster/ Gang member’ hasn’t walked into and then out of the coffee shop, made a call to say “Boss, I think your Daughter is alive and living in Minneapolis” ? ….. Unless MIB wiped their minds.

      • kaibyo
        April 23, 2012, 9:38 am | #

        Wood youse wanna be da one to tell da boss dat his kids body is missin’ from da funeral parlor?? If she wuz Daddy’s Princess (I know a few!) he might be REAL pissed off and start pointin’ fingers (& firearms). ‘Sides dey might be VERY superstitous about any missin’ body dat dey didn’t have nuttin’ do about bein’ dead, either.

        (I’m Italian – I can make fun of the Mob if I wanna!)

    • Wyvern
      April 23, 2012, 9:45 pm | # | Reply

      We know only this. Tina’s father could be anywhere by this time, alive or dead. (We haven’t even seen Shelly’s dad in a while!) So yes, this is a known dangling plot hook.

  17. TheDoctor
    April 23, 2012, 9:13 am | # | Reply

    Maybe its the Long hair but Shelly looks and acts more calm, responsible and mature since she realised what she is. Yeah, Shelly looks like her Mom.;)

  18. W.
    April 23, 2012, 9:43 am | # | Reply

    Connie only remembers the rules, but nothing else. What happens if Shelly figures out what happened and Connie remembers everything? Is that a possibly dangerous situation for her and or Shelly? Tina 2.0 was kinda threatened not to remember or bad things might happen and it was a very pointed argument.

    • scantrontb
      April 23, 2012, 7:10 pm | # | Reply

      I don’t think Tina was “threatened” into not REMEMBERING, but more along the lines of “it’s better for you in the long run” to NOT GO DIGGING after info about WHY she can’t remember. http://wapsisquare.com/comic/relish-your-ignorance/ and re-reading that strip, it’s clear that she’s serving one punishment for the “hurting a human” crime, and she seems to have squeaked by on a technicality over a second one, those “ideas” Phix is talking about… and THAT is what Phix is saying (threatening, really) that she’s better of NOT knowing about.

  19. kingklash
    April 23, 2012, 9:46 am | # | Reply

    Shelly is getting a new handle on Connie, and maybe finding out how to help Tina in the process. I wonder if a visit to Nudge is in order?

  20. txmystic
    April 23, 2012, 12:59 pm | # | Reply

    Sorry to have come so late to the confusion corner…I bring hot coffee and a chocolate cake with a salted caramel filling as an offering!

    You know, in exchange for an Escherian expansion of the available space…

    Soooooooo, thank goodness Shellinx mentioned that quantum dislocation property that would have allowed Connie to block wither Shelly’s soul or Tina’s, but I guess my question is similar to everyone’s…who instructed her to do so, and was her decision to save Shelly’s soul her own choice? Or coercion? Which?

    mmmmm….caramel…..

    • kaibyo
      April 23, 2012, 1:30 pm | # | Reply

      mmmmmmmmmSALTED caramel!!!

  21. Timotheus
    April 23, 2012, 1:34 pm | # | Reply

    Well, Phix has been talking like she was in on Tina’s creation…

  22. The Old Wolf
    April 23, 2012, 1:37 pm | # | Reply

    Shelly looks so at peace, while Connie is experiencing all the drama.

  23. Nathan Hevenstone
    April 23, 2012, 9:51 pm | # | Reply

    Looks like I’ll be joining the Confusion Corner. I made brownies. Some are normal, some are… um… hash…

    Unfortunately, I didn’t label or separate them, and have forgotten which are which…

    I also brought chocolate-chunk cookies, and they are normal, and so are these cases of the Dark Knight Rises Mt. Dew. I can get some alcohol if anybody wants.

    Oh! And I almost forgot these graham crackers, marshmallows, and chocolate (dark and milk)!

    Enjoy!

    *pulls out tent, portable couch, and portable camp-fire equipment, gets fire going, pulls out sticks for marshmallow roasting*

    (And please eat the brownies… I made a lot… :D)

    • davids4250
      April 23, 2012, 10:12 pm | # | Reply

      Mmmmmmmmm… brownies…

    • Dave
      April 23, 2012, 11:49 pm | # | Reply

      I suppose a proper respect for tradition requires saying a happy Oh Wow!

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