Mind Control Comics Forum

Coming Friday!

you got me this one  ???
reporgraming sex slave?

Yeah, that's a puzzler.  Is it the therapist again?  Are we going to see the chem major in her element?  Is it the nefarious face of Quality Property management, or the sinister force running the blondes? ???  It seems we'll have to wait a little longer for Jacqui and Adrian. :-\

lol, the plot thickens again.

Okay, first the good news.

Yes, this is Laura at her day job and the Wilmot world is expanding again.  Her lab partner might be interesting as either adversary or normal person.

The bad news--the text in the lab partner's speech about his holidays is so hard to read that it could be almost anything and therefore undercuts the rest of the comic.

That is a mistake.  This entry is excellently drawn and a good bridge to the next subplot, but confusion over that one speech bubble almost totally nullifies it.  Usually, our reaction is, "Ooh, that was great!  I can't wait to see what happens next!  Please, please, please, grant us another issue!"   ;D  Entries like this one make us ask for bonuses in self defense.  They seem to require...almost demand either context or a shift back to an explicable plotline.  Or in internet shorthand WTHF? :o

Panels 1, 4, and 5 seem pretty clear, but the confusion over the text in panel 2 allows for multiple interpretations of panels 3 and 6, and that unbalances everything.  Perhaps you could at least give us the legible uncrossed out text of what Laura's lab partner said to her.  After looking closely, I can read most of it.

The lab partner's name is Vikram and he and Laura are doing perfume research (Wilmot's version of Scent Lure? ;D) and his family is disappointed he's not an engineer and that he hasn't pursued an arranged match with his distant (I hope) cousin's daughter.  His sarcastic impression text is very hard to read.  At first glance it looks like he's mumbling about a watch and there are all sorts of asterisks which looks like he's trying to invoke a trigger (like Daffyd) instead of doing impressions of his disapproving family.  Perhaps looking for a more legible font for such speech bubbles would be a good idea.

Panels 3 and 6 are the real puzzlers.  3, mostly because I couldn't read Vikram's response well.  Taking a closer look at his narration of his conversations with his foks eliminates some disturbing possibilities, for the moment.

Panel 3 is actually a flashback to some of the things that Derek made Laura do.  In fact, it looks like he had her "undress" as Queen Amidala and orally pleasure him while he waved around a cheap light saber.

Panel 6 is meant to be an old-fashioned SJI cliffhanger.  If this is Vikram's accidental discovery of female-specific Scent Lure perfume, this is the moment when the full effect of the musk hits Laura setting us up with a whole bunch of questions for the next month.

Unfortunately, the text problems in Vikram's speech bubble ruin this effect and make the comic 5 times as hard to follow and almost impossible to enjoy.  Please abandon this particular font.  It almost kills an excellent introductory entry.

Having talked myself into...and hopefully out of trouble with that last post, I thought I'd ask new questions now.

1. Amy?  Is this a different Amy from the one currently in Adrian's harem?  Or did Vikram just become the unintentional villain by discovering Scent Lure to dump on top of or cut through the Watch's work which he'll then have to use to regain his girlfriend's interest?

Here is Vikram's speech, in full:

"And Vikram, when will you marry?  And you are doing perfume research?  Is that not rather... female?  We thought you to do something with computers.  And have you written to your cousin's daughter?  She would be a good match."

Perfume research...mind-controlling perfume...Indian guy...  I predict many future drawings of various copulation positions from the Kama Sutra.
Is that too much of a stereotype? 

Well look like little of An Oriental Gothic and may be Scent Lure and PWNED in the mix.
Hypnosis triggers
Laura mind go blank in the last panels.
More been hyponsis long time or been tire and need to sleep is nice to sleep, a deep sleep.
close eyes and sleep

 :D find out next friday

Thank you for the full text, Daphne.

This seems like an excellent setup and Vik seems like a decent guy at the beginning of his involvement.  If he's destined to be an adversary, please make his corruption gradual.  If he's destined to be an ally or acquaintance, please keep him from doing a lightning-quick 180.  It would be a relief to actually meet another guy on the Wilmot campus who's actually decent.

Aaaaaaaaaaand the new story arc kicks off with a bang.  (Okay, the bang's actually coming next week, but you know what I'm saying. :))

(And it took me a minute, but once I figured out the font, I didn't have any problem reading that bubble.  But I'm obviously in the minority here, so you should probably find a cleaner one.  Maybe if it didn't have that line running through it.)

Third time through, I picked up about 65-70% of it, but it took squinting.  Ugh.  It almost seemed like strikethrough.  It would probably be a lot easier to read without the line.

It is intriguing, but I was really hoping to see Jacqui and Adrian together after much delay and I'm not really sure how sold I am over the idea of Adrian having to rescue several of his friends and acquaintances from a scent without even enjoying where they are yet.  Still, this does open some very interesting possibilities...and frankly, the tenor of the story will hinge on what Vikram's personality turns out to be.  If he's similar to Adrian this could be a lot of fun.  If he's like Derek... :o ::)

Although, it might get ripped out of his hands rather quickly.  Maybe this new scent or group of scents will interest whoever is behind Princess Pink beauty supplies.

So, now Laura, Caitlyn and Jacqui have all identified Adrian as their boyfriends to different people - Laura to Vikram, Jacqui to the waitress, and Caitlyn to her fellow cheerleaders.  Given that this all takes place in a small town, I wonder whether other people might hear through the grapevine about how Adrian seems all these different girlfriends.

Hey, my first post!

The line is important - it looks to me like it's mimicking Devanagari script (as used to write Hindi and related languages), where the line is the most distinctive feature.

Subtle touches make all the difference...unless they backfire.  I did not know this, and incorporating it into a font to demonstrate the accent of an Indian expatriate family is a marvelous idea...but there was a legibility tradeoff. :(

I guess I missed that entirely. I thought the text box was supposed to be ineligible to represent Laura zoning out and not paying attention to it. The next box then sort of indicated that she was day dreaming about sex. You mean it was supposed to represent an accent I couldn't understand? Maybe if it had been larger I might have been able to understand it. (Unless, of course, you're trying to represent that he is speaking softly as well as having a hard to understand accent.

He was sarcastically accentuating his parents' accents (native Hindi speakers speaking English).  Rather like a Russel Peters routine.  But yeah, if you can't read the thing it looks like he's saying something under his breath that could be a Hidden Knowledge-style trigger.  The quotation marks in his speech bubble look a lot like the asterisk that indicates the musk of the perfume having an effect on Laura at the end of the entry.  Without the context of his response it could even look like he's experimenting with pheremones designed to put her in a hypnotic or submissive state and isn't suprpised, but merely verifying her response.  That speech changes the entire tone of this week's little episode.

It almost looks like the discovery of the mind-blanking powers of the perfume will be accidental, because it appears that, from the earlier panel, Laura was originally holding the cotton ball containing the scent.  Then Vikram took it from her, smelled it and held it under her nose. 

Laura took the cotton ball out and put it on the slide, but I can't see if she treated it with the mixture.  She must have because Vikram doesn't modify it.  I don't know why she put the cotton ball on a slide, it's not like a cotton ball would be easy to examine under a microscope.*shrugs*

Now, is Vikram's girlfriend, Amy, the Amy from the Tit Twins, or a different Amy?  If that's the same Amy, he's in for another surprise this evening (if it even gets that far).

I do so love to read all the speculation...I, of course, am sworn to secrecy, and you will all just have to wait and see...frustrating, I know! but just know I find some really interesting theories are posted here in the SJI threads and it's really fun to read them all :)

If there was a smirky emoticon I might post a line or two of them :D

I would too. Aren't we overdue for a splash page?  ;)

Somebody on the interweb claims that this is a smirk emoticon   ;J

Definitely looks nothing like MY smirk :P

And now it looks like we're getting into pheremones/chemicals.  It looks like just about every form of mind control seems to exist in the SJI world so I'm glad that we won't be stuck on the same indocternation theme for the entire comic.

Prevents contamination if she puts it down.

Okay...well, if Vik is an accidental inventor and not a nefarious tinkerer, what was the purpose of the project that he and Laura were working on when they discovered this...side effect?  What was the goal of the experiment?

You have hit upon a deeper point than you may realize.

Does that mean there's magic and the possibility of supernatural entities in SJI as well?  :o Oh boy! ;D ;D ;D  That sounds absolutely thrilling! ;D ;)  Hmm, might Adrian not actually been b.s.ing about the hypnocock? ???  Well, obviously he was making it up to get out of the situation, but might he actually have some latent mesmeric or magical abilities that he unknowingly tapped into to override Derek's programming in that moment?  Hmm.

Actually, I think this brings me back to the watch.  Is the watch more than a prop?  Is it actually a combination of magic and machine?

Oh, and--what about Danielle's red book, the 3-ring with that mesmeric Rorshach swirl on the cover that was in her shoebox with those polaroids and the watch.  Is it a diary of her experiences, instructions or observations on the watch, or...*drumroll* a spellbook?  I think the odds are quite long on it being a spellbook, but maybe that's where the elusive directions are.

Note--I totally forgot that book even existed until I scrolled back to look at the shifting designs on the watchback and ask about them.

In stasis, the watchback appears to be blank gold.  It stays that way from introduction in Issue #30 to through Mallory's treatment at the end of Issue #36 (we see Dani guiding Mallory into the bathroom propelling her forward with a hand over her rump, while Mallory stares at the watch and listens; presumably that's Mallory's induction).

Mallory's flashback/recap in Issue 37, still has the watchback plain.

However, when the girls corner Marliese with it in Issue 42 (Ghost Ship, Part 2), there's a woman's face on the watchback (similar to, but distinct from Danielle's).

In two panels of issue 43, the watchback looks like it has a single closed eye on it (the woman from the previous issue).

There are two panels in issue 44 where the watch is visible.  In one, the back is blank.  In the other, we could be looking at the watch face, or at a hypnotic swirl design on the back, I can't tell.

In issue 45's splash page, the watch is plain gold again.

The last time the watch looks like anything other than a plain gold (or possibly brass) watch is in issues 53, 54, and 56 where Dani is programming Jacqui, but that's the watch face, not the watch back.

So how does this work, the gal shows up to change sexual preference, but the watch face emits swirling flame to break the will of resistors (like Jacqui)?

In earlier long post, I forgot to add an important question.

In a contest between different types of programming and triggers, which wins.  Say, watch vs. scent pheremones?  Of course, this may end up being a central question of this particular adventure.

"Magic & supernatural?" (groaning sigh) Please, no succubi...they seem to show up everywhere. And apropos of nothing, add me to the list who had no trouble reading the "Indian" font...and i was on vacation looking at it on a tiny smartphone screen.

But once I got home, I did have to go to the "cast of characters" member's bonus to figure out who we were watching. This expanded harem makes for some interesting activity!

I was actually thinking of a blonde Djinn, but I thought that Daphne's first use of a succubus was actually quite excellent.