Endtown by Aaron Neathery for January 15, 2016

There she is ….

I was apparently VERY wrong about the waitress being irked by the trio’s appearance. Apparently Wally, Kirbee and Chic are perceived to be just a normal human family and it was their puzzled behavior that kind of worried her.

And looking very pregnant.

OMG! More Holly backstory. Dang, I hate Fridays ;-(

When we saw her before, it was only headshots. She could have been pregnant then and the encounter with the Apex forces might be how she lost the baby. Assumption here is that it was Lynn’s. Man, some guns do lie on the shelf for a long time here… ;-)

For everyone wondering where Irving is, now you know. He just wasn’t in the shot for the last few days.

This has an almost perceptible chance of becoming… AWKWARD!! ;-)

Wally will soon learn the dittos are concealing them not creating illusions. This is no illusion. Its further back in the reality…..pre war….pre virus…….or at least the virus has not spread that far yet or wide knowledge of it.Time to sit back and enjoy the ride…..this is going to get really deep.

In healing from an injury, you want to know what’s changed from your normal. In this land of ditto-magic and happy breakfasts, we get to see Holly secure and happy, loved and loving. “And then my troubles began…”

Oh damn it…. I need the story now! not next week :(

Irving: “It’s BACON!”

“It’s a face!” I love that!

Oh, and Kirbee sure is enjoying that carafe of country gravy. Watch that waistline, girl.

Max and Holly?

Lyn’s baby. I got that guess correctly.Will the changeover cause the mutation?

Holly is in her past. Even if she sees Wally, she will not know him. I think this is before Holly’s previous teaser. The mutant in the road was probably near the beginning of the end of all. Holly and Lyn didn’t know what it was, so they weren’t common yet. Also her memory seemed to end with a helicopter blocking their way…possibly capturing them. This diner scene is too normal to be after that.

i still suspect Aaron Marx and his dimensionometer is in play here… remember Flask?

When things went all to heck, it was pandemonium with anthros and monsters everywhere. Holly and Lyn see their first one starting here. So I think we’ve gone back further, and now we see evidence of what Holly will lose.

I don’t know….that chin of the guy looks like Aaron Marx….maybe???

Does Holly even remember them now?

I think Irving is Anthro.

Lynn had a broader face and chin; I don’t believe this is him. I also don’t believe she will recognize Wally in this reality. I have to say, Aaron is a novel-grade writer.

Guess how’s coming for breakfast.

Please don’t let it be Marx. Please, please, please don’t let it be Marx!

We are in an alternative world, this time seems to be Holly’s world. What I didn’t perceive was they have been dimension-traveling since before we met them at the start. Even when the got Back to Endtown the 1st time and the light-poles were different, which should have been a clue, well, it did crross our minds, but it was close enough for me to not pay it too much attention.Maybe all of you had this firmly perceived all ready, but it was just a concept that I thought of, just hadn’t pulled it together yet.Mr. N has got a much deeper understanding of other dimensions than I realized or even thought about. Pure Genius!!

It’s Holly, but I don’t think it’s our Holly. It looks like Wally and gang have been brought to a time-offset parallel to see how Holly’s life was before the End. The dittos are there to disguise them. Our Holly may have been portaled somewhere else before the others, so she wouldn’t complicate things.This might be a problem. If something similar had happened in Hillside Prime, with a Wally and gang from another parallel being brought to Hillside Prime to see how our Holly’s life was before that world’s End, then the mutant virus could have come from that world with that Wally and gang being the carriers. Like our Wally and gang might be carriers and threatening this world.

I think it’s interesting that when Wally was talking about adjusting to looking as he does now, he stated that the eyes he sees in the mirror now aren’t his. However I think that besides the hair, the thing that makes human form Holly most recognizable are her eyes.

And to think… Not a Twinkie or bean in sight.…Plenty of eggs, though…

Its interesting that they were whisked here and then told that their tab was paid right before they came here and the waitress doesn’t seem to realize she is talking to anthropomorphic animals. Its also worth noting that nobody in the restaurant has mutated, so either the “mutants are plague rats” theory is bogus, whomever is running this is able to shield everyone from the mutagens around our crew or this is just a ditto illusion.I’m inclined to take the simplest solution and assume that they are still in the ship in a ditto powered holo-deck in order to get a ring side seat to Holly’s past trauma. The only rub is that a lot of food is going to waste here but if the Opabinia Queen episode taught us anything it is that the Lucraneans have a lot of good food on their ships and that some people (like Aaron Marx) don’t mind wasting food. If this is a ditto/computer generated illusion it would be easy to have the crew suddenly appear somewhere and have their meal paid for in advance.The second possibility is that they have been transported either into Holly’s past or an alternative reality showing Holly’s past. In that case, whomever running the show is really powerful, like Aaron Marx powerful. He is able to hide the fact that they are anthros, is shielding everybody from the mutagen and made certain the meal was prepaid, possibly preordered. That’s a lot to go through for a backstory. I could actually see Aaron Marx doing something like this for the fun and challenge but not many other people.I wonder if this is related to Wally’s dream about the eye, Erin Marx and the red goo and the stolen shoes.

If the virus affected Holly while she was pregnant, she may have miscarried the baby. Her mouse self is much smaller than her human self. To have survived the change, the baby either had to mutate at the same time, into a mouse as well, or she went into premature labor and then changed. Either way it would have been very traumatic. And what about her husband? (The gentleman with his arm around her.) Did he stay human, mutate into an animal, too, or into a monster like so many other humans did? So many questions. I look forward to learning some answers. :)

There is a lot to consider. I believe Mr. Neathery said time travel wasn’t a possibility in his universe and until I’m corrected, I’m going to forego that possibility.In light of that and knowing Wally is aware of dittoes being all around them, then we can probably conclude we are either observing a parallel reality where the dittoes are protecting this one from the mutagen that is still being carried by our characters.I would like to think this is a recreation of something going through Holly’s mind that the dittoes are recreating to involve Wally and company what happened to her. This would mean that Holly herself is in her present mouse shape and nearby, but out of sight.Doc Chase said Wally was the only one who could help Holly. This may be the way the dittoes will help Wally achieve that goal.Realize we are probably less than a week in the storyline after the fall of Unity and most likely only a month since they left Endtown.On a similar note, I think they are in a wasteland beyond the spires as they were near the end of it when the PT crashed. This would mean they are farther from Endtown than before and NOT back in the original wasteland where Endtown is located. They may find their way out of the wasteland and we may see Kirbee, Chic and Irving returning to Endtown.

It’s interesting that Chic’s ‘face’ has a nose and lips, not a beak. Did he make it himself or was it pre-prepared?

“Pay before eating”…right up there with “tip on the bill.”

Say hello to Holly, one to the Very best customers.

A Saturday thought.Holly is dead.When she stepped through the portal she actually fell to her death at the bottom of the ship’s cargo hold.However she moved on to another reality.The one were her and Lyn live a good life with a baby on the way.Just like Flask moved on to a better reality.Wally is going to have to let her go or steal her shoes back.(Reviewing the book shows a different outfit that Holly is wearing in the only panel that shows her shirt no scarf. In this she is wearing a neck scarf in the monster meeting she is lacking one.)Remember Dittos cannot talk only display.There are noises and this waitress is talking, she is no ditto construct…….the dittos are probably concealing our crew hence the waitress’s no surprise…..they appear human visually to her.

Chic: “Waitress, can you take this back? I’m a vegan. I don’t eat anything with a face.”

Clearly, these dittoes are in the business of granting wishes.Holly wanted things to be “normal” again…Whatever that is..I said things might get awkward, very awkward.Unless Wally bites his tongue…Be happy for Holly and don’t screw up your new relationship by going over and talking to her.Kirbee will know you still care for Holly if you do..Then what will you have..Besides a mess and no girlfriend?

Poor old Wally. Aaron does keep slipping him some nasty ones…

The waitress said “one of our best customers.” But two came in…and if Holly’s appearance is any guess, it might be three. Or four or five, from her size…