Mind Control Comics Forum

(http://cnt1.dvvent.com/dvv/open/mcc/sji/promos/sji-i635.jpg)

Do Erin's eyes look kind of unfocused, like she is in a trance or coma, or am I just hoping too hard?

I'm hoping you're hoping too hard.  But it's possible.  It's also possible that with Danielle's save it ended up a draw and she's glum about their prospects or her own performance.

Erin will need heal herself before reponding

What exactly changed in between now and then that allowed her to love? I don't get it.

It looks like, thanks to the Brown Hornet's super powers, our heroine has once again miraculously escaped unharmed.

Darn.

If Cherry is now free of Jakob's control, maybe she can share her knowledge about his plans and operations?  Also, I wonder if Julian is about to get dumped, and if so how he will react.

I wonder if we will see a return of mopey Adrian, sad because he has several gorgeous sex slaves

Nice Smiths reference.

And that last panel is great.


Possibly she understands what Cherry needs to hear from her? Regardless of what else may have happened in Cherry's mind that we didn't see, Erin is already under the watch's influence, which she was not when she was dallying with Cherry in the past. She's a different person now.

Yeah, but nowhere along the line did the watch program her to be a more loving person.

That depends on what you mean by loving, I suppose.

Until this journey into Cherry's mind, I don't recall anyone ever mentioning either here or in the story that Erin was not a loving person. So what do we have to go on now?

At some point in the past it appears that Erin had a problem with telling Cherry that she loved her. We don't know why that was or what the circumstances were. But it did seem that Cherry was somewhat needy in that regard, and frankly even I'd have probably told her I didn't love anyone if it would have stopped her insisting that I tell her I love her like that. And believe me, I'm generally desperate for sex; Erin had no such incentive to comply.

Other than that we've seen Jakob telling her (under the influence of the watch) that - like him - she doesn't love anyone. And she denied that.

All this page tells us is that Erin is not currently incapable of telling Cherry that she loves her - in a circumstance where a lot of people would find it easy to tell someone that.

I don't think we have conclusive evidence that Erin was ever not a loving person, nor that she is now a loving person. But we do have some evidence that under the influence of the watch she has appeared generally happier than she was before, and possibly, consequently, a nicer person to be around.

In 629 Jakob says "we both renounced love for our birthright"

So I'm assuming that Erin rejected Cherry in the past to concentrate on training her skills and abilities - where a love interest would be a distraction.
Now she has trained her skills and abilities she is able to love Adrian (as she says in #630) and Cherry without interfering with her abilities.

I'd agree that Jakob was most likely referring to something like that. And Cherry's interest in the wiccan stuff may have been all about getting close to Erin. But 621 gives us a bad impression of Erin's attitude to Cherry.

Erin and Aiken were apparently having sex at Christmas 2006 (256), which by my reckoning was Erin's last before coming to Wilmot. No doubt Aiken described this as channelling his energies into her. And there is some correspondence between Erin's sexual "energy" and her magical abilities. Perhaps this really was a loveless exchange of fluids. That's what Christmas is all about, I suppose.

But Cherry knew both Erin and Aiken. She knew that Aiken was mentoring Erin (272). And she knew about - and was involved in - the wiccan stuff. Yet when Cherry asks Erin in 621 "Do you love anyone? Ever?", Erin responds with a simple and apparently quite sharp "No." Surely Cherry could have been made to understand Erin's situation with a little more kindness?

But perhaps this is simply chronology. Perhaps 621 marks the start of a conversation that leads Cherry into wicca's world.

As it is, 621 suggests something more than a simple laying off. I don't think most people see loving someone (anyone) as being a matter of choice. Erin's answer may simply be a lie - an extreme form of "It's not you, it's me." But she implies that she's saying it so as not to be lying to Cherry.

There's a big difference between keeping your emotional distance and not loving anyone - especially if you are still having sex with people. We don't know how selective Erin was in her choice of sexual partners. But partners doesn't seem quite to be the word, and it doesn't look like she showed due care when selecting Cherry.

But...

That skype call (489) where Erin masturbates to get Aiken up to "five bars"... that just seems somewhere between sad and weird. It would be nice to think there was some mind control going on in that relationship. And that might make Erin's earlier attitude to love something akin to Miriam's closed legs policy. And it may let her off the hook regarding Cherry.

Wow, I have the opposite take on Adrian's character, but I'm wary of or possibly do not care for Cherry's situation here.  It feels like she got dropped into Twilight Zone's the Chaser--or more accurately one of the potion eps from Tales From The Crypt.  Which makes her dangerous in a different way and isn't really a comeuppances for all the garbage she's slung for her entire existence so far.  I hope things have turned or are about to, but I have reservations.