Sheldon and Taylor Dusty

This was the surprise I was working on. I'll have exclusive pictures on my blog you won't find anywhere else.

I'm very proud of this pic. It took me forever, but it was worth it. The strange looking background is kind of reflecting Sheldon's faulty reality perception. The building in the backdrop is Milkwood, Sheldon's school. Hmm... Blogspot made the quality of this all funky and weird.

This is actually a scene from Vol. 2 Should I Fit? : it's the first day Sheldon meets Taylor Dusty the Weeper, and it told him to dig a huge hole at some point, and Shel was just finishing up some other little things. A while back, he dropped some school supplies here, and now he's found them, and he's just picking them up... I love that stupid, blank look on Dusty's face.

The relationship between Sheldon and Taylor Dusty the Weeper is a strange one. I'd better start at the very beginning.

In Vol. 1 Am I Real?, Sheldon first hears the high, robotic voice in the illusion village. For over two years, he doesn't hear it again. But after the traumatic experience of the hate crime inflicted by a group of high school girls in "Should I Fit?", he dreams of Dusty (nameless at the time) carrying him to a trash bin where he meets Dusty's "pet." Several times after this, he sees one or both of these beings at random, often at crucial moments. Eventually, Dusty begins to chase Sheldon, causing him great distress.

One day, Sheldon has had enough, and he stops running from the doll and demands why it's chasing him. And Dusty responds, saying it just wanted to... say hi? Right from there, their whole relationship changes. From fear of being killed to a kind of awkward friendship.

While Dusty sees itself as Sheldon's servant, it's never actually seen doing anything for Sheldon. The doll, on first appearance, tells Sheldon that it is a Dutch miner, despite its very American accent, working for a French princess named Opal. In Sheldon's mind, Princess Opal switches bodies with his older sister, Ophelia, often. Dusty follows him around a lot and talks to him and remarks on what it does in a childish and innocent way. Speaking of which, Taylor Dusty's actually one of the only non-threatening hallucinations and voices Sheldon has, and Sheldon comes to enjoy Dusty's company and misses it when it's gone. However, whenever Taylor Dusty shows up again, it has a very different "past" and when Sheldon tries to call upon something it's mentioned before, Dusty either tells it differently or completely denies that it ever said that at all, apparently because it's on the run from the Brown Police. This is personally my favorite aspect of their relationship.

As for Dusty's personality, it's a little dimwitted like most of Sheldon's hallucinated beings, and Dusty's voice, when only in Sheldon's head, repeats the same words over and over: CD, my, cute, friends, flat, in any order whether it makes sense or not, occasionally adding an extra verb or two and often using the nouns in the plural. The doll with the physical form has a strange speech pattern; it inappropriately uses synonyms. E.g. "That's good great," "Yeah yes," and "What a surprise and unexpected moment." Annoying, isn't it? Shelby and Thelma find it relatively irritating as well. At some point, Dusty drops a hint that it would like friends, but everyone thinks it's ugly and repulsive. While friendly, easygoing, and sometimes downright jolly, it's the only hallucination that consistently tries to cheer Sheldon up. Also, it often stands near its "master" with a blank expression similar to the one seen above. A few times, Sheldon has asked Dusty for its gender in vain. There are instances in which it tries to hold its "master's" hand with just as much luck. Even though Sheldon's situations are dire, Dusty usually acts relatively carefree.

Taylor Dusty has a more serious side, though. When Sheldon is threatened, it tries to "defend" him, despite the fact that it can't do anything against anyone. Which brings me to another interesting point. While Shelby and Thelma often state plainly that they know they are voices in Sheldon's head, Dusty doesn't seem to know it's not a real thing. Sometimes, it even tries to interact with other people, unaware that they can't respond to it. Dusty at times shows an inability to listen to its "master," Sheldon. Though not shown here, Taylor usually carries a Death scythe or a trident but rarely both at the same time.

To sum it all up, the relationship between Sheldon and Taylor Dusty the Weeper is one of hallucinated subservience, friendship unfortunately directed to the wrong being, and a great deal of confusion.