Endtown by Aaron Neathery for December 02, 2016

Let’s hope this time the food is real.

I guess the Edmund Fitzgerald is now a cross between the Matrix and the Flying Dutchman.

We’re to assume that the other “batteries” were trapped unawares. She’s aware of the fantasy… that can only keep her sane for so long… sooner or later she’s going to snap. I really liked Holly, and I hate to see her go. I really like Kirbee, but I just don’t believe the immediate attraction between her and Wally as a good replacement. It feels unfair, but that’s EndTown for you. I can’t wait to read more.

A small dysfunction in the dreamscape. Why would Holly have mouse features?

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But I can’t say I fault Holly for taking this option, given her life after the last Christmas, the milk trial, the lizard death trap, etc. Those endless wastes, the topsiders, the monsters… or what you always wanted…

So Holly opted to stay with the ship and they give her back her family. Fear isn’t the only emotion, I’m certain that love will keep the ship running for a long time as well.

She can’t have an illusion of a human sized body because dittos couldn’t give her physical sensations for body parts that aren’t there. Can you imagine her trying to eat via a virtual mouth that is a few feet over her head?

What is sad is that this seems to be giving a sense of finality to this closure. I really loved the relationship between Holly and Wally, how she saved him and he saved her, etc.

I wonder if this was a pre-planned transition or if Aaron came up with this “on the fly”?

One other weirdness in Holly’s fantasy world:Her young daughter is bigger than she is! Why not a mouse sized mouse daughter?

I remember several months ago that Aaron said they would both be happy in the end. He didn’t say how.

I guess this is the end of this episode, no more Holly.

I had to register an account. I think I remember someone saying to Wally that everyone he touchs ends up dead, or something like that. This is some heavy stuff, poor guy.

Ship: “It’s cool. She has enough energy for the both of us.”

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Now, the real question is, why did the ship act like the Lyn virus was hacking it?

She took the red pill, and ignored the matrix. Stayed down the rabbit hole. Insert your own analogy as leisure.

So she is gone for now. But she isn t dead and with the ship in the background there is enough space for a comeback in further days. Wally and Kirbee have to master the next adventures without her, but maybe we see her again in a time.

…aaand she’s finally lost her waitress uniform.

The Last Temptation of Holly. She took the “normal life” option.

Deserved praise for Aaron for having the courage to add and subtract characters as the story unfolds. Now we get to explore new relationship dynamics and no doubt new characters are over the horizon.

The Mouse that Roared

Wally’s going to have some explaining to do to the Doc if he ever makes it back to Endtown. He’d better hang onto that letter.

Now what do I do with all my “Wally and Holly” art?!

This is so incredibly sad. It was easier to accept this dreams/thoughts that dream/think themselves mumbo jumbo with Flask since, in her reality, she was dead. Holly is, as far as the Universe Neathery is concerned, very much alive. This is tantamount to an addict, abandoning the real world for the illusions of a perpetual “high”. Holly has ended up in the same sad place as Ally, alone in a dark room lost in her drug of choice. Wally is the embodiment of perseverance and ingenuity necessary for survival and overcoming adversity, but Holly was the spirit of hope that there was a future worth surviving for. If this truly is her fate, then I grieve this more than that shocking day when we thought she had been reduced to a pile of dust. Holly has been through hell and back, while still holding love in her heart. She deserves better than dreams. IMHO :-(

Holly blew it. Trapped in an illusion that will eventually kill her.

I don’t see Wally as the type to just “give up” and accept this letter. I don’t think this is the end. I guess we’ll see, though.

This actually made me cry.

I think they will meet again in the future. For now, on with the story! (and finally off of that barge)

It’s starting to look like Captain Pike in “The Menagerie” where he got to live in a fantasy world of perfect dreams!

It’d be wiser for Wally to no longer pursue Holly. She has made her decision and she’s comfortable with her illusions and dreams than with reality. She has partaken of the “lotus fruit” (of her dreams) and has lost the desire to persevere with Wally in a search for something better than dreams. Wally’s journey without Holly will be difficult, but Kirbee, Chick, & Irving will assuage his loneliness.

If Holly is living in an illusion, what is keeping her alive? Where is she really? Didn’t Shakespeare have a quote to cover this?

I have to admit this brought a tear to my eye. Mainly because just the other day I saw my little granddaughter running toward me with that same kind of delighted smile when she saw me.

In panel 1, is that the line of a dome over the city, or the edge of the ditto-screen illusion?

I have seen something like this happening, Holly dying or disappearing and Wally moving on with Kirbee. As an occasional writer, I understand that characters are not puppets who can do whatever the author commands. Any decently written character has his or her own ways and paths that they really cannot deviate from. Trying to force them to do something else ends up just feeling wrong. Whatever I might say about the Holly going crazy story arcs, they didn’t necessarily feel wrong. The fact that so many readers hate Holly and want to ship Wally with Kirbee attests to that.

“That’s what we all are, dreams that dream themselves.” Profound! And familiar. Like lyrics from a Moody Blues song. Aaron, did you write that? Well done.

We’ve heard there’s no mutagenic virus. Is this a hint that it’s all a dream controlled by the dittos? Or by who/whatever controls the dittos?

After awhile she will think of it as real and the outside world a terrible nightmare.

Turn it off and do your own.

Like Wally said “I’m not buying it.”. If it can keep Holly alive, why couldn’t it have kept one of the 800 alive?

The one interesting question w.r.t. the ship is what was real and what was illusion. Wally saw lots of spheres in the hulls, he poked one of them and saw the remains of a dead avian. This suggested that the ship was picking up victims and running them into the ground to fuel itself. This could be what really happened or it could be an illusion to convince Wally to grab his friends (including the decoy Holly) and scram. The ship may not have been visited since it crashed and Wally and company could be the first visitors it has seen. The question is, how well could the ship fool Wally and his ditto sense.

I doubt we’ve seen the last of Holly. I’m sure she’ll come in at some point when she’s become a distant memory to the readers to swoop in and save the day.

Could this be a test (for Wally)?

Wally isn’t giving up on Holly. He’s giving her up. He loves her enough to let her go, and whether she comes back is her decision. If he forces her to “be free” to his standards, then she’s no longer free to hers.

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It’s a hard decision for anyone to make to let go of a loved one whose chosen path is different from what you think it should be, especially when you see it leading to doom. But as pointed out in “The Cage”, some people would rather die than live in captivity. Wally constantly saving Holly from herself against her will, to keep her with him, would be captivity.

Holly’s daughter is looking pretty good for a dead fish. This is a pretty good alternative for Holly than the reality.

Reminds me of an episode of the 1985 redo of the Twilight Zone, where an accident involving a woman in a virtual reality booth, results in her being permanently locked in a dream of the perfect family picnic.

It’s a dream come true for Holly. She has her family back. Holly is content with her mouse form, especially since she is no longer lactose intolerant and can run at an amazing speed. And look how fast her daughter can run.

Holly knows this is just a dream,if it’s really her that is. the dream will fade, then the only thing left for Holly is nightmares because the ship/dittos need strong emotions. And it looks like Wally has lost his dittos. The group now has shadows and are visible to the satellite.

After a long frustrating day I came home to see what I posted had doubles. I deleted one of the doubles and the whole thing vanished. I don’t know what I said except that Holly has lived with grief and guilt, feeling a failure and cheated at the same time.After the life she had, I suppose that to be given a choice of life with her husband and chill is quite appealing.The girl has the long feet like her mother, so even though Holly is still a mouse, proof of motherhood comes down to those long feet.(Night gaunt,) I didn’t understand what you meant, because I had gotten lost amongst roads out and detours and too any hours in the car, then the delete it’s all ??? about what I said.

I wonder if Holly was referring to herself when she wrote “…no regret…no shame…” I suspect she might have felt somewhat responsible for what happened, since she kept Lyn from going public.

I’m wondering if that big wall in the background is a very tall wire fence to keep the flying cars out of the park area.

Holly’s apron is currently around Kirbee’s butt.

Some comics, like “Endtown” give characters good reason to keep dressing the same way. Given the shortages after the end of civilization and the difficulty of tailoring clothes to fit the varied mutant physiques, its likely that most characters only own a few different outfits and certain people, like the security folks and the Topsiders wear uniforms of some sort.

I get what you mean about comics and clothing. I’m guessing that for most artists, its just easier to “dress” their characters in the same clothing every day. Some strips have some variety, “Skinhorse” was notorious for having Tip wear a variety of outfits, and I recall Lynn Johnston varying the outfits the characters of "For Better or For Worse wore.

One thing we (and maybe even Wally) should keep in mind is that Holly was actively suicidal when she arrived on that boat. If the ship is indeed draining her energy to cause her death, the worst case scenario, then it’s suicide with a nice dream first. Best case scenario, she’s the captain of the ship and will get to do this long term (though I don’t see this ending well in the long term…). Though Wally’s going to have some explaining to do with Doc Chase if he ever sees him again. I feel rather bad for him – Doc never had a chance to say goodbye to Holly.

Poor Holy..But I understand her pointShe had a nice life before it was taken away from her, and after the trauma that she suffered on Endtown…I can’t say that I would do it differently from her

and thus, while we have acknowledged that Holly has just as many deep, emotional scars as Wally does, we choose to not actually address them as we did with him, thus ending her story arc in much the way a bowling ball thrown by a weight lifter does. With a beautfiul, grace full arc at first, followed by the sudden stop as gravity enacts its will upon it.

a little disappointing.

I remember the “Countdown” episode in which Holly’s compassion was contrasted to Flask’s anger and need to control. Sadly, it seems that Holly and Flask were more alike than I had imagined back then. They were both damaged people who had good intentions. The difference was that, for a long time, Holly held onto an ideal and tried to do what her ideal Holly would have done. It doesn’t seem like Flask had done that for a long time.

I can’t blame Holly, but I feel sorry for Wally.