Endtown by Aaron Neathery for May 03, 2019

Time to trust the kid.

Curiouser and curiouser.

2 + 2 = 5 says Big Brother Eden.

Aha! Wally and Kirbee were humans that became anthros. Having five fingers is a part of their experience and memory. Chic was hatched as an anthro and would not have any such body memory.

This is turning out to be a really fun arc…

Well, okay then. Either Kirby can’t count or the weird not-see-weird-stuff waves effecting folks don’t work on kids.

Kirbie: “Haha, I’m messing with you. Three, just like the rest of us. The thumb is not a finger.”

Wally get your butt back to Ravenscroft, I want to see what is in that comic book.

Little does Kirby know, they’re already IN a Habitrail!

The “chosen” ones can easily see both realities, the human and the mutant. Kirby seems to have that ability, too. Chic does not. The chosen ones do not need the glasses, they see both the Topsider reality and the mutant reality. I think what is happening is more a thin veil between alternate universes and reality streams in the same place. Wally didn’t know it, until he saw the comic. My first impression was he swore because he didn’t see what was in the briefcase, but I think now that he swore because he did see it. Maybe someone out there is manipulating how the mutants are formed or how they perceive themselves.Wally has just had a rude awakening. Kirby just lives with it. Chic doesn’t have to (he was born after the “virus” was released).

And Chick can find his way to the exit from this place, too.

It is a Cartooning convention. You combine the two middle fingers to simplify drawing hands. Why he sees 4 instead of 5.

It’s time we get out of this place if it’s the last thing we ever do.

I went back and checked in the archives, and yep, Wally’s always had four fingers. Same with Kirbee, Holly, Linda, all the Endtowners and everyone in Unity. So whatever had them not noticing, it’s not unique to Eden. Chick understanding it would make sense—he’s part of this version of things, having come from within it. (You would think this would have come up in EndTown and Unity but…how many ‘mutant’ children other than Chick have we seen?)

On another tangent, Ravenscroft has pieces of a Topsider uniform, with the headpiece cannibalized to make makeshift goggles. I speculate, again guessing madly as I do, that they’re his; I further postulate that Ravenscroft is a post-mutation Topsider who managed to survive it like Linda and (for a while at least) Jim. This would at least partially explain why he claims to know things he shouldn’t and why he has the comic book.

Ravenscroft came to understand the ‘dissonance’ at some point, whether initially or after some time post-mutation. I further suggest that caused an onset of Schism Syndrome. But he survived.

By plucking his own eyes out. “The darkness burns”—not being able to see ‘reality’ through the Topsider goggles is actively painful, specifically how I can’t say.

If the version of reality where Wally et al exist is not real, then his eyes weren’t either, so the goggles would let him see ‘reality’. I know that’s something of a stretch, but so are most of my tangents.

Things are very very strange in Eden indeed.

Ya know, maybe the entire human race got addicted to virtual reality and online gaming, and all of this is what happens to minds without foundations in reality. I’m really enjoying the ride, thank you, Aaron.

Despite all her worries, Kirbee still has a bounce in her step, and a joke on her tongue!

I´ll leave it at … this is weird.

if having three fingers and a thumb is what’s freaking Wally out after he turned into a CAT, well…

Kirbee has been assimilated. On the subject of Topsider eyepieces…..they were designed to show you the human figure instead of the Topsider suit when you looked at another Topsider. Flask pointed that out. She described the suits as very clever…..you could do nearly everything in the suit.

We still have the question of why hasn’t Chic told Wally and Kirby of his experience with the invisible Topsider. Odd, to say the least.

Since Duffy knows about the goggles and what they can do (allow one to see invisible things), I’m wondering why he did not (or was not allowed to) bring the goggles topside to see the hanta (ghost).

Why is he knocking on the door to his own place?

He’s just finding out now that he has four fingers?

“Be kind to your four-fingered friends…”

What I gather is that the invisible comic, “Cracked Cat and Trixie”, that the psychic Ravenscroft custom drew, (and that is a lot of work), for Wally is the old saying about behind every good man is a better woman.

Because when Chick was being snatched on the beach and they threw paint on the snatcher, at first it looked like a topsider but as it looked back it looked like Holly’s deceased husband, Lynn, who was recreated in the Fitzgerald by dittos when Holly decided she would prefer to stay in her virtual reality bubble instead to stay with Wally, Chick, and Kirbee.

So the mysterious beach incident can go either way, topsider or they are being shadowed by Holly, her ship, and her dittos since she is the captain of her ship.

To my understanding, Wally and the others knew they had only four digits on each hand. It’s only since coming to Eden that they’ve been confused. Except for Chic, because he never knew of a different reality.

wait… why is he knocking at his own door?

You know, they could all be Avatars, hooked up to a main frame. Their lives would be an illusion shared by all. The glasses are used to see reality. Without them, the computer system would keep everyone believing the delusion. The main frame computer would not need to hooked directly into the person’s body, it could be wifi, which by the way is currently being developed not only to read minds, but control what people think and how they behave. There is no virus, just a computer with somewhat unlimited power.

“There are… FOUR fingers!!” – Newly mutated Picard

I specifically recall that Topsider goggles had systems installed that made you see regular people around you instead of people in Topsider suits. It’s possible their gloves had tactile illusions built in, too, but I don’t remember that.

I’m not sure how that plugs into seeing comic books nobody else can see, though.

Actually Wally is holding up 3 fingers and a thumb.