Mind Control Comics Forum

(http://cnt1.dvvent.com/dvv/open/mcc/sji/promos/sji-i471.jpg)

But here he looks fully engaged, even angry.  Maybe it was a calculated bluff.

I don't think we've seen Adrian 'fully engaged' since the aptly-named #451, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

I mean, I'm all for mind control, but I'm with Adrian on this one even if only because she knows Cherry waaay better than he does.

Missing the .jpg off the end of the IMG tag - so here is the direct link to the image (for members) and the accompanying hover text

http://mindcontrolcomics.com/members/weeklies/sji/sji-i471.jpg
"When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite."

I rather like Adrian here. I've always liked him as a character, but this time he feels more....human? more real is likely a better answer. I love MC stuff, but I do greatly appreciate someone with power who applies it when necessary rather than just because.

Seems like a trap to me.   Doesn't this guy have one of the scallop devices?   Do they override one another?

This is the Adrian I remember liking.  As far as Julian's offer being a trap, I'm sure it is one.  The question isn't whether there is a trap, but if the crew can avoid it.

This is Adrian showing he's a decent person, in spite of the power he's stumbled into.  I do like that, but there's also a part of me that would like to see the SJI harem temporarily under the thumb of someone more aggressively dominant as a contrast.

Well they kind of were at inception, when Danielle was following her programming. Keeping the overzealous maitresse-en-titre might have been fun, heh. We know the harem has been sort-of expanding (without full on watch programming) with what they did to Miriam and Ein... I'd love to see more of that, of course, preferably with full-on enslavement. I can't imagine Daphne would leave us without *some* titillation in the near future in this comic. The last few panels haven't been particularly sexy... but they're good plot, regardless, and something that had to happen.

I can't help but think that Julien is not only gung-ho with the mind control, but kind of dumb. If you have people who obey your every command, you don't get in the habit of never asking for input, because the sky could be about to fall on your head and *you'd never know*. I mean, even in the context of employment, it's good to have people who will make suggestions when the program isn't working; when I have a new batch of workers/students, I always say something absolutely pants-on-head retarded the first day and see who calls me out on it (and those are the people whose input I tend to value more). To bring it back to fantasy mind control, while Adrian isn't an idiot himself, he's got a harem of superlatively talented gals, and he'd be a fool not to make use of their expertise. Julien, while a dangerous man, is at least a bit of a fool.

You could argue Adrian's mainly concerned about appearing strong in front of Julian here. Julian needs something; Adrian's playing cool about giving it to him and pretending(?) he's not interested in what Julian's offering in return.

For all that Adrian's flaunting his decency in front of nasty Julian, he's just posturing. His own weakness is revealed at the point where he doesn't rule out killing Jakob.

Eh. Jakob's a mad dog.

But Adrian was pretending he didn't get that. Then he tacitly accepted that he might need to kill Jakob - that he might need Julian's help.

This is a really well written encounter.

I'm playing devil's advocate to an extent. But whether it's true or not, arguably Adrian playing up the fact that he will ask Erin is just a final act of defiance. Julian arranged this meeting and he has got what he wanted from it.

He's heard from the girls who and what Jakob is.  He doesn't have the first hand knowledge Julian does, but he's aware.  I'm putting his earlier statement down to a bluff.  He accepts that it might be necessary, but not that it is necessary.

I have a question.  Have we ever seen Adrian issue an order other than "don't expand the harem" when the question of Raven arose?  He gave permission for them to call him Master openly, but is that an order?

Yes, he's bluffing. That's what I said too. And by accepting that it might be necessary he blows his own bluff.


I think he asked Dani if she'd fix the watch if he ordered her to. But I've assumed it's the point of Adrian that he doesn't exploit their conditioning to obey him. He does accept the benefits of their conditioning to want to have sex with him though.

Adrian doesn't want to exploit his power over the harem, and he tries to do this by letting them do what they want.  It turns out that one of the things they want to do, courtesy of their programming, is him.  It's a bit of a paradox, really.  Free people do what they want, but in this case 'what they want' is itself a product of mind control that he isn't in a position to undo.