Mind Control Comics Forum

Taking Chettbaker's suggestion, here's a thread for talking about the SJI plot in general, rather than specific episodes.

I'll kick it off by adding some reference material...

Wilmot College is a private university in the small(-ish) town of Kearsarge, New Hampshire (approximately 43° 27′N, 71° 54′W). Kearsarge (named after the mountain to the south of the town) is roughly 25 miles northwest of Concord. It was founded in 1690, the first women's college in the United States (and the second oldest after Harvard). It became coeducational in 1983.

The various sports teams are the Wilmot Mantises.

Reposted from Snowballs chance thread:   

Ok the Players:  

Adrien Cavanaugh: Our Hero.

Derek  :  Out of Play awaiting ordersin Newark from...Claudia!!! (in New York)

Q Tarbox(aka Q-box):  Getting Kanti to get Laura to grab the all the mind control perfume samples


Rain:  Possible Harbinger gets Amy(Zenons Secretary) to take almost all of the Hypnotherapists XXX??? mind control stuff.  Currently working for Yvette.  informs Adrien of coming conflict (Powers/Influence
Unknown)

Zenon Cimaszewski:  Unethical hypnotherapist working in conjunction with Derek to find the watch and Danielle..  Currently renegotiating or waiting in limbo for orders from;... Claudia

Sawyer: Owner of Strip club.  A man with influence and  power (but what kind of power???)

Yvette:  Owner of of Princess Pink & Yevettes hair and nails:   Powers currently Unknown.. though employs two what look like identical bimbo esque women as well as Q Tarbox.

Claudia: Operating out of New York (Is She this stories Big Bad?) Owner of Harem that Danielle left.  With High ceilings and fine woodwork comes great responsibility Ref /sji-i114

And Danielle: Pole Dancer, Pilot, crack mechanic..meaning shes a good mechanic, carpenter, Ninja with snowballs and  former employee of New York Harem and current owner of ":The Watch".

As to your working descriptions

Adrian Cavanaugh:  Accepted (though exactly what his moral conflict is, we don't know yet, could have something to do with his ex and/or why he high-tailed it for Kearsage in the first place).

Derek:  Accurate, but why did he get this job in the first place?

Q-Box, partially accurate.  There's no indication that Kanti and Laura have interacted since Kanti was exposed to the most recent sample.  Marliese took the therapist's mind control triggers (at Rain's suggestion).  Q could be at least partly behind that, but we have no proof as of yet.  Currently cowering in the back of Yvette's van, terrified of Pearl.

Zenon:  Accepted (though what exactly Claudia's plan is for his project is unclear at the moment).

Sawyer:  Accepted

Yvette:  Accepted.  However, it's unclear whether she's always been Yvette or if she has a twin Yves or an alter ego Yves (see discussion between Sawyer and his bodyguard in reference to Q after Jacqui's visit).

Claudia:  Accurate, so far as we know

Danielle:  Accurate so far as we know, but there are so many layers to her skill set and her hypnosis that it's unclear where she began or where she is now.  Tough to tell whether she still has control of the watch since Mallory and Marliese reprogrammed her with the second cohort on The Night of the Watch.

Is now a good time to ask about Raven, Rain, and Sue?

What is Rain's history?  Why is Sue so calm?  Is she really an assassin or something?

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I didn't catch the reference to the scientist brothers name being Vikram during my read through.  Thank you.


Speculation:  The two beauties in the Diner being Yvette and Yves?



http://mindcontrolcomics.com/home/members/weekly/sji-i096/

As Q can not get samples directly from Vikram, getting them through his sisters seems the easiest way.
Speculation: Since Kanti can not go directly through her brother to get sample, then she would go through his co worker Laura.  There is no direct evidence to prove this last point


Which episode is this?


Agreed.


Speculation: Rain being the blonde woman doing the deed which Pearl walks in on. Which establishes connection between Rain and Jacqui

I also have no idea how this thread will work out.  We update and edit our posts as more is revealed?

Great fun so far :)

Vikram is a figure of some mystery and considerable question at this point.  It seems that he has given Kanti samples in the past, but the joke about Sample #49 (after Laura's freeze) was that he might give it to Kanti because it smells terrible and it might repel Q-Box.  This is odd, because we don't know how long Laura was frozen or if he gave her any commands.  Presumably he didn't, because it's doubtful he would have given this to his sister when she was going to be in the company of someone he didn't like or trust.  We don't know what happened in the time gap.  In order to square his innocuous appearance with his apparent concern for his sister it seems that we are left to assume that all he did was shake Laura out of her torpor.  Anything else (no matter how interesting it might be) severely complicates our view of Vik even before he crosses paths with the Watch.  Now, that might be a good thing, but we don't have any traction here.

Doubtful that a chick would have the name Yves with a twin named Yvette (barring some sort of Law & Order SVU sort of surgical accident).  Yvette might be one of the blondes, but I get the sense that they work for her.

Agree on most of Q with this addendum.  When we last left him, he was cowering in the back of the van traumatized by the news that Pearl is at Wilmont.  By the way, is it Wilmont or Willmont?

As to the purported command to get more perfume--That's entirely possible, but Q-Box seems like the sort of guy who doesn't believe in delayed gratification.  After all, that's what got him sent to prison in the first place.  That's how he treated the perfume once he learned the trance trick.

He started out wanting to be domiant in bed all night.  Granted

An hour later, he wanted oral pleasure.  Granted.

Twenty minutes later, he wanted something else.  He seems like a very linear thinker, so I'm thinking it was another bedroom experiment, not access to more perfume.

Right at the top.

This would be a good place to put a comprehensive cast list.

I complained about the recent installment of "The Hidden Knowledge", so let me say I've liked the way this comic has gone lately.  Really like Adrian stepping up and asserting himself as Master.  Still hoping that Jacqui's hot daughter becomes one of Adrian's slaves.

I prefer to stick with heroes and villains with this thread.  A separate thread for supporting cast sure.  But keep it simple, just because of the large number of supporting cast members in this comic strip and the ease of which even the most basic discussion can get side tracked (guilty as charged on more then one occasion).

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May I mention that we have the best fans, ever?

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I blame subliminal messages hidden in the comics.

That and the compulsive nature of deviant behavior ...and/or reading habits.

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That's a fairly nice list, but you forgot to include the other members of the Mantis squad who have appeared in Denoument and Cait's flashback.

Oh, and the smoky, seedy establishment where Dani used to dance is apparently called Van Winkle's.  They own a mug (but I didn't catch the episode, I'll have to go back for that) and Erin's wearing a T-shirt from there during her "private moment" (tm John Crichton) in ep 13 (the New Year's Resolution episode).

I tried twice to edit my last post.  It didn't work and sucked away a half hour.  So, here goes with a new post.

I applaud your list GW.  It's thorough and comprehensive.  The only minor characters who've showed up twice that you haven't mentioned yet are the Mantis cheer squad.  Our author has identified them in both pictures from left to right as Wendy, Hitomi, Imani and Rachel (the captain).  While PK and Octavia favored rounder portrayals in Denoument, HMB and Sorenka used more striking angles which leave a slightly more sinister or devious impression.  The only other major difference is the portrayal Rachel.  Her hair is several shades darker in Denoument, she has changed lipsticks (switching away from the black usd in the guest page), and her curves are considerably more ample (which led me to ask if she might have been a fellow freshman in the flashback...obviously incorrect).

The only other minor note is the possible Yves/Yvette complication.  As you noted in your list, Sawyer and Hans refer to "Yves" as Q's protector, friend, and possible employer.  When Hans delivers his warning, Q is working in a Princess Pink van.  From this we conclude that Yves owns or operates Princess Pink Beauty Supplies and that the blondes from the diner are also his employees.  The confusion occurs when we take a look at the storefronts on what is presumably Kearsage's main drag.

There's a beauty salon called "Yvette's."  This seems a bit coincidental that people of the same name in related businesses in a small town.  The simplest answer is that Yvette runs a salon, and her brother (fraternal twin?) Yvess supplies her with cosmetics.  There are other possibilities, but they are too murky and convoluted for me to clearly articulate.

It may be worth noting that the names Rachel, Wendy and Imani fit perfectly into the partial list of Zenon's patients.

Excellent complementary piece.  Is it possible Cait referred a couple of them to deal with the mantis effect?  Her stated reason for going to Zenon is "weight loss" (which makes very little sense on the face of it).  Based on her other conversations, I'd call it "preventative control of the Mantis Effect.";)

Both PK and I are utterly blown away by your work GW. My notes aren't that detailed. :)

Wow, that's a really, really good catch.  I wonder if that has any further significance?

It also helps complete the answer for me as to why Caitlyn would be going for weight loss counselling: 1) she's a cheerleader, so she has a strong interest in maintaining fitness; and 2) she's gained all this weight recently. And so has everyone else on the squad!  This could be a real problem!

Except, as we all know, it's the opposite of a problem.

the calendar on SJI-79
said
 
Jan 2 some thing with Adrian
Jan 12 Laura dinner and now add Raven
Jan 31 Rent Dues


Now she have a job at the airport Danielle can pay rent.

Yeah, really! That was an amazing rundown of pretty much everything!

When I was a kid, Marvel put out these mini-series called 'Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, vols. 1-whatever-it-went-to' (one in '83, one in '89, but I'm not dating myself by telling which one I was into), and I'd read them as much as I ever read Spider-Man or Captain America...just loved having everything about the characters - history, powers, even eye color and driver's license-type stuff - all in one place like that, to look at and think about and enjoy. This post really brought that back to me, so thank you for it, and for that!

Same here on the love for  the Official handbooks (DC comics had them too).  And I totally agree with what everyone has said so far about your post Goodwill.  Great work and great post!  There really should be a like button feature on this board. Definitely like.

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Amy and Hayley Honeywell
Ages
27.
Heights
5' 9".
 
Caitlyn Hess
Age
19.
Heights
5' 7".

Marliese Sherrod
Age
27.
Height
5' 6".

Raven" Lenore Klopotowski
Age
24.
Height
5' 5".

"Sue" Phạm Thị Suong
Age
20.
Height
5' 4".
 
GodWilling hope this help you to add to the list
I Love the height of all the ladys there my height  ;D

Wow, Raven seems to have carved her own identity far away from her roots.  Laguna, would you mind providing vital statistics from the April Bonus for public consumption on this thread?  Daphne, Octavia, PK, any objection to the inclusion of those stats here?

Nope. No sharing the pictures, though. :)

I will not do it show the picture
Also I do not want give more information away without Daphne OK.

It's fine to share the stats; thanks for checking!

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I mentioned the name, not because I thought we were missing some cigar-chomping Stromboli-shaped (the Disney animated puppeteer, not the sandwich) petty tyrant named Van Winkle who was stupid enough to let Dani go, but because you mentioned she quit, but didn't mention the name of the establishment.  I didn't bring up Sharkey's either (though that was a bit of an oversight).  The thing is, so far, all that's happened there are interesting conversations.  We haven't seen the proprietor (no matter who he/she/they might be).  Yves/Yvette is a special case because it's a mystery and it looks like that mystery might have a significant effect on the plot.

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I....I... ??? um, I thought Daphne settled this in a conversation months ago.  We know from conversations that Dani did work at a strip club, that she quit because of the smoke (she says).  I thought that Daphne had indicated in one of the early threads (before the first Christmas of SJi) that Van Winkle's was the club where Dani had worked.

And there's a little of the snark present in 87, if greatly muted.  I had thought that Laura the literalist was the one with the most confusing reaction to The Watch.

Also, do we have it documented that Erin was reprogrammed?  Remember that secondary programming on Dani, Jacqui, and the second cohort took place while Erin was keeping Adrian busy.

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The search function can't find it.  Maybe it's in the mcforum, or more probably, I confabulated it.  I thought I remembered a post conversation back and forth where we asked about Erin's Van Winkle's shirt and we found out that was the club where the patrons were petitioning for "smoke-free" to get Dani back.  Entirely possible that I'm misremembering this, but I do have a recollection of a conversation along that line.

Shall we ever discover why it is named 'St. James Infirmary'?

Your thoughts...

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If I remember one posting that there is a book and song.

Here is the song information by Wikipedia

St. James Infirmary Blues" is based on an 18th century traditional English folk song called "The Unfortunate Rake" (also known as "The Unfortunate Lad" or "The Young Man Cut Down in His Prime"), about a soldier who uses his money on prostitutes, and then dies of a venereal disease. Variations typically feature a narrator telling the story of a young man "cut down in his prime" (occasionally, a young woman "cut down in her prime") as a result of morally questionable behavior. For example, when the song moved to America, gambling and alcohol became common causes of the youth's death. There are numerous versions of the song throughout the English-speaking world. It evolved into other American standards such as "The Streets of Laredo."[1]
 
The title is derived from St. James Hospital in London, a religious foundation for the treatment of leprosy. It was closed in 1532 when Henry VIII acquired the land to build St. James Palace.[2]
 
The song was first collected in England in its version as "The Unfortunate Rake" by Henry Hammond by a Mr. William Cutis at Lyme Regis, Dorset in March 1906.

Location of the Deep black vinyl
In page 09 and 18 the building is by it self a whole block.
Now if you look at page 121 there is store each side of it
New location or opps.  ???
or two stores

2: The woman in the polaroids may be Claudia ?

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Remind me... which theory is that?

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This may be one of those "the fans know the work better than the creators" moments, but... Adrianna?

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*pfew* OK, I was worried I had forgotten a character!

Laura's dad's name is Malcolm, btw.

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What's Pearl's dad's name?

Cantor.

That's his name?  Did he choose it after converting?  That sounds more like his position at the local synagogue than a first name.  Oh well, live and learn.

While we're looking for background information--what can you tell us about the Missouri Hackberrys? ;)

That's his last name, of course. First name's Ezra. Doesn't sound like a convert to me...


Now you're getting greedy. :)

Sorry, in chasing crumbs, I generally end up unintentionally overreaching.  I was confused because when I asked for Ezra's name, I asked for his first name, and you responded with his surname.  When I saw your response I thought...Cantor Ravella?  Ladies and gentleman a selection from the congregation's cantor,....Cantor Ravella.  Silly of me.  No, he sounds quite traditional.

We're getting little tidbits on Dani and Pearl, and even a little on Mallory and Laura...and all we have on Erin is that she's a rolling stone, originally from Missouri and she had an eclectic group of friends before college.  We don't know if she has siblings or if her parents are still (or were ever) married, or even if she might have been adopted.

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Name partner!

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 ::)

We don't yet know anything about the length of the dalliance between Ravella and Cantor.  Also, if his is the first name on the door, not only is he a "name" partner, he's probably either a founding partner, the senior partner, or a senior partner scion of the founding partner (or founding family).

Now then, I looked back at #79 just to verify.

Caitlyn's there for weight loss, but the rest of her teammates are in Zenon's computer appointment book as either referrals or gift codes (Rachel as the gift code)...except for Hitomi.  She's not there at all.  Any thoughts on why Hitomi isn't listed as one of the Doc's patients?

Also, -by looks like -lby is a patient trying to stop smoking.  Who's this? ???  It looks like the name could be Shelby.  Have we seen her anywhere so far?  Does she (I'm assuming this is a woman) run in one of the SJI circles? ???  One of Mallory's subservient librarians, or one of Erin's fellow theatre majors?

Occam's Razor suggests that it's because she isn't one of his patients.  Just because the doctor set out to hypnotize every woman in Kearsage doesn't mean he succeeded.

Among the squad vets though, it seems like it's hand-to-hand-to-hand referral, referral, referral, gift.  Cait came on her own because no one explained the Mantis effect to her, but Hitomi's a vet, she seems to be established in the Mantis sisterhood, shouldn't she have been referred or gotten a gift certificate slipped in her mailbox at the Student Union or something?

It also could be that Hitomi's name isn't there because it's on the next screen, or out of our view, or whatever.  Or maybe she did get a gift certificate, but hasn't made an appointment.  Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, as they say...

That's possible, but it looks like the entire squad began making appointments one right after the other.  It's not alphabetical, maybe he has this organized into cliques?  Nah, most recent appointment makes more sense.  But it's not either of those.  Dani's listed at the top (presumably the last appointment), but Cait's listed next, and we know Laura's appointment was scheduled (and began) after Cait's from the timelin in episodes 7 and 8.  So it's not order of appointment.  What's the organizing principle here?  If not for that order problem, I'd say that Rachel got a gift certificate and then recommended the treatment to the squad...except the freshmen? ???  Is Hitomi a fellow freshman? ???


ETA--What's the name of the coffee place where Raven works?  Is it Atomic Coffee?  If yes, isn't that awkward, since the proprietor is one of Erin's exes? ;)  If not where IS Atomic Coffee?  ??? Did the sheer power of Erin's disdain force it to close sometime between Adrian's arrival and The Night of the Watch? ???

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Raven works at Overroasted.

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Was Atomic Coffee the proto-name of Overroasted, or is it a competitor?  If it's a competitor, does it still exist?  If not who was the owner, and when did he (I'm assuming it's a he) pull up stakes, and who moved into the space?

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I think you forgot add the two Librarian that work with MALLORY LEFEBRE  (124)

But we don't have names for them yet...do we? ???

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social media has spoiled me. I wish I could "like" posts

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Pat does seem considerably more chill than Adrian is/was.  It's possible he wasn't surprised to have a female roommate, but then he heard her call out to him from the shower, so he had some warning.  When we first saw Rain's place, I was more interested in the musical instruments lying around than all the medieval art on the walls.  At the time, the prevailing theory was that she was the blond for whom Q-Box served his time, and we knew she had a frosty relationship with Jacqui.  I thought she and Jacqui were roughly the same age, so I tried to figure out where she might plug into the college hierarchy and assuming her to be mid-thirties and a lover of music (as evidenced by the instruments strewn about her residence) I wondered if she was a Prof or assistant Prof of music.  This was back when we thought she was a normal human.  Now, we think she might have been Wilmot's paramour or his direct heir which throws a lot of things into confusion.  Polly indicates that she has Greek heritage, might she be joking about being a muse, and she's waited quietly all this time for her paramour's reemergence and now...voila?

We know the machinery is switched on, but it's unclear if the belltower is actively broadcasting, or if it only has the "mating experiment" music setting.  Its effects might be gradually being felt around campus and town, but everything we've seen so far can be attributed to other causes.

Harem Night had Dani Erin, Mallory, and Caitlyn.  The day after Harem Night, Adrian has coupled with Jacqui, Dani again, and Amy.  So that's five and Cait is the only undergrad (so far).  Maybe the only phenomenon we might attribute to  the belltower is Adrian's stamina, but I got the sense that that was already ingrained.

EDIT--Because I belatedly realized I messed up the Honeywell twins names in this post earlier, I went back to GodWilling's info master on the first page of this thread and I tripped over something.

Erin is supposedly 5'3"  Huh? ???  I went back to the early part of The Night of the Watch and saw that she's wearing heels most of the time, but they don't look lik eight/nine inch stillettos (which wouldn't they have to be for her to be only a couple inches shorter than Dani (5'10") in her maid's outfit?  Also, Adrian is what 6'1" she doesn't look tiny when the heels come off.  Ah, whatever.  My personal blunder/unawareness.

And Marliese is 5'6" but she looks almost the same height nude as 5'10" in her maid's uniform and 2" open-toed shoes.  What?

All of this is made even more confusing by the covers.  In themost recent one with Mallory, Dani and Erin grouped together, they aren't wearing clothing and appear to be standing on a level.  Mallory looks the tallest, but that could be perspective or Dani could be slouching, I guess.  However, no WAY does Erin look 7" shorter than Dani or Mallory.  If Dani's 5'10," I'd guess 5'6" for Erin or 5'5" at the absolute outside.*shrug*

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Well, it is canon that there's 'something in the water' with respect to Wilmot and its womens' breasts, right?  I wonder if the tower had anything to do with that?

But Erin mentioned that she always got hot down there, near the transmitter room.  And was it just at really low power?  Did Erin and Adrian accidentally turn it up?

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Yes, Cait is confirmed as the only one of the two cohorts who has experienced growth in that area.  Note that for some reason she regarded this as problematic weight gain, her official reason for making an appointment with Zenon.

You are right about that being Erin's favorite makeout spot and she remembers it having an intensifying effect on her.  It is also true that we didn't see the panel before Erin hit it--it's possible that it was set at 1 and just abandoned, but, unless this thing has its very own underground power source distinct from the Wilmot grid, it should have been off due to the power outage during the Night of the Watch (at minimum).  It's a computer, my experience with computers is that loss of power turns them off, but resumption of power doesn't just automatically turn them back on.  You have to physically turn them on and boot them up (of course the vast majority of my experience is with PCs, so...that could mean nothing).  At the very least, we can assume that this is the first time it's been set at 4 since Adrian arrived on campus.

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Have I mentioned recently how much we love you guys?

We love you too.  When's the next update? ;-D

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Lights and refrigerators turn on automatically when power is restored.  DVRs begin reassembling and reassimilating data "automatically."  Clocks have to be reset.  Computers, televisions, and personal computers have to be turned back on (remote, power button, etc.).  Also, there is a gap between when power is interrupted and a generator kicks in, and that gap, even if it is less than a second, is enough to lose data and require the flipping of the on switch of the PC or the remote, or the CD player.  Even if the system was assembled and installed in 1983 in preparation for admission of young men to the university, for this to work, you'd have to assume that power to the belltower was never interrupted even for an instant in the (probably) quarter century between the end of the experiments when the machinery was set to its lowest setting and abandoned.  I just can't see that happening.

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1. Yeah, I assumed that.

2. No, I ddin't assume that.  I was indicating that it would take a colossal stroke of luck for the power never to be interrupted.

3. No, I didn't assume that they made that decision.   I assumed that even if they installed a back-up generator, that the set-up of the tech would not allow the system to automatically restart once the generator kicked in (as computers do not automatically restart when back-up generators restore power these days).

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 GodWilling
 you have more information on Echo She is Adrian EX-girlfriend
also she is in 54 with Danielle
picture on page 141
time up date

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Slacker! :)

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g15 gives us a potentially happy window with very little context--better than the other spinning possible futures we've seen so far, but too many questions for those of us who WANT a happy ending to just make it a goal.

As to Adrian's impressions of who the "leader" of the harem is...well, leadership isn't clear and his impressions aren't clear.

Dani formed the first cohort, but her "wake-up" knocked her out of it and she was reprogrammed by Mallory and Marliese (which might appear to place her in the second cohort, but there are so many different layers of programming of differing depth and effectiveness on her that she's tough to categorize).  Also, note that it was her idea for the "secret harem" concept in the first place.
Y'know, the interesting thing is that Jacqui's identity isn't in question.  She was almost the last member of the first cohort, but her programming was interrupted.  She isn't really a true member of the second cohort because she's not part of that lineup.  She's the bridge.  Half her programming was done by Dani, and the other half tag team by Erin, Mallory, and Marliese, but as their guinea pig for trial and error.

I think Rain knows more about the dynamics of the harem than anyone else because she knew John, she knows about the Watch history, and she has some sort of prescience (and, in addition, she seems to have gotten the entire second cohort scoop from Marliese).  In fact, she's probably the only person who knows about PC, the belltower, and The Watch (though she may not know about PC's reemergence yet).

Was just about to post this when I noticed Jmundt had posted ---but we never did see (or hear) what Dani said to Mallory, Marleise, Jacqui or Erin when she put them under! She might have already been programmed herself (as the head of the NYC Harem) to make sure girls who were programmed didn't draw too much attention. So she may have naturally suggested "You will do anything and everything your master wants, you only wish is to make him happy and fulfil his desires, but he must believe this to be a natural phenomenon, ...n'es pas?"

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A couple of implications that we need to tease out:

(a) Who was using the watch at any one moment is what established a pecking order among the harem.
(b) The only conversations about the operation of the harem between the women are ones we've seen.

I don't think either of those are necessarily true.

Yeah, what Daphne said.  As one of the people who initiated the whole 'cohort' thing, I should mention that I always thought of it as a purely structural/descriptive thing.  I never thought that implied that the first cohort was somehow 'in charge' of the second, although I do think they know more about the nature of their relationship with Adrian.  Laura's most recent conversation with Adrian confirms that much.

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Well, all she says on the topic is, "I was worried that you would, you know, freak out, vous savez?" That's really not a "version of events," is it?

Perhaps you could provide a harem hierarchy at some point in the near future because the interconnections and coincidences end up giving us a..well, as a Spinelli fan, I'd call it a Cobble's Knot.

Also, if I might be permitted to step in just for a moment--I get the impression that part of what GW is expressing about 126 is that the impression Dani leaves in 126 (that she directed the deception) seems to be contradicted by 75 and 76 when she's being reprogrammed by Mallory and Marliese and the second cohort is getting the "We feel this way naturally," programming.  However, what I didn't notice--and haven't for more than a year and a half is that the new girls are reciting this...wait a minute....

I think it might be narrower than that: it's about the first cohort being in charge of the watch.


The person I remember doing that was Laura, who seems to have taken a somewhat ironically self-aware approach to her harem membership.  ("A fine bunch of sex slaves we are.")  I took that as part of her personality, not as a sign of an authoritarian hierarchy in the harem itself.

Laura's the most overt about it, but Jacqui and Amy agree with her and Erin's lobbied a couple of times to add Raven...or at least once.

That speech bubble in 76 is funky.  There are four people talking in unison and one would think the fourth person is supposed to be Dani, but her situation in the frame makes that a little confusing.  I thought for a second that maybe Marliese was giving the three new girls a cue response, but none of the tails on the speech bubble look like they direct at her.  It's late for me, and I'm going in circles.  I'll check in tomorrow after the new posting to see if anything's been cleared up.

Easily done!

Adrian
  \
   all eight girls.

I'm not being flip, either.

It appears that the core contradiction that is of concern goes something like this:

(a) Dani (under the hypnotic influence of Zenon) kicks things off by enslaving Erin, Mallory and Marliese, and starting on Jacqui when she's interrupted.
(b) Dani appears to shake off the influence of Zenon, and loses her ability to use the watch, leaving Erin, Mallory, Marliese and Jacqui (partially) enslaved.
(c) While Adrian and Dani are off rescuing Caitlyn, Amy and Laura, Marliese seems to figure out how to turn the watch back on, and completes Jacqui's enslaving. They keep this fact quiet to Adrian upon his return, for reasons that are never explained on-camera.
(d) While Adrian and Erin are upstairs breaking the bed, Mallory, Jacqui and Marliese enslave Caitlyn, Amy, Laura and Dani using the watch, and appear to program them to not realize it is the watch that caused it.
(e) Then, subsequently, Adrian finds out what is going on, and makes that clear to Jacqui (in 122). Jacqui bursts out that "Dani said we shouldn't ever...", implying that she received instruction from Dani about how to handle Adrian, but when would that have happened? Jacqui was actually part of the crowd that reprogrammed everyone in (d), including Dani.
(f) Dani then says pretty much the same thing to Adrian in 126, implying at least that she made a decision not to tell him she was his slave. But when and why did she reach that conclusion?
(g) Dani does, however, remember that the watch exists, and that it has some kind of malevolent effect and is important.

Did I get everything there?

Everything except for Dani being in Derek's power during the rescue mission and freed somehow that isn't explained (because it doesn't appear that Adrian tried the hypnocock trick on her...is that just an example of Derek being professionally helpless and moronic, or is there something ese going on there? ???).

That would have happened in 74, but it appears that Dani was never woken up from being triggered until she was exposed to the watch again.

Wait what?  If she wasn't awakened, why didn't she remember how to use the Watch?  Or is she only awakened when given the command "wake up" while exposed to The Watch?  Huh?

She did remember.  See issue #73.

What?  What the...? ??? :-\  Okay, running back in #73, she remembers how to use The Watch, but what flipped her from Derek's power back to Adrian's with the memory as opposed to what happened when Adrian tried to wake her up?

Another question--why does Marliese keep getting credit for finishing Jacqui's programming when, as far as I can tell from #72, Mallory is holding the Watch and saying the programming and Erin is immobilizing her.  Marli is busy lower down...or possibly not involved at all.

Presumably, she identified something about Adrian, both in #71 and #73, as well as in #19-22, that enabled her to recognize Adrian as her master over Derek.  My take:  in #19, Derek 'activates' Dani, at which point she remembers the watch and everything else, and for some reason - whether that's Adrian's winning over Derek, or Dani's recognizing that there's no way a loser like Derek could be her true master, or some other reason - Dani recognizes Adrian as her master.  She even talks to Jacqui later about how she had been negligent in her duties.

Then, Adrian tells her to wake up.  She forgets all about the watch, about the incident with Derek, about seducing Adrian, about enslaving all her roommates and Marliese, and is given the update while she was 'out'.  She agrees, reluctantly, to go to Derek's place to be 'reactivated', and the plan is to take her away from Derek quickly, so that she can then return and use the watch to free the others and, in Jacqui's case, to allow her to wear clothes again.  Things do not go quite according to plan, but ultimately they succeed, with all four of the rescued women now identifying Adrian as their master.


Issue #72.  Marliese picks up the watch and activates it, somehow.  Then Mallory and Erin complete Jacqui's slavery.

My interpretation is that Zenon's trigger makes the subject very open to suggestion from any source.  Derek may not have known that.  So when Adrian was the only guy around all he had to do was act dominant and the triggered women would submit to him.  That's why the hypno-cock thing worked.

But unlike with the second cohort, Marliese isn't the one holding the activated Watch.  Mallory does that.  Mallory and Erin finish Jacqui's programming.  I ventured the idea much earlier of Dani simply faking Derek out, but her physical reaction to his demands looks too extreme for that to be "plausible."

To me, the holder of the watch is far less important here than the fact that they got the watch to work.  Marliese got the thing to work, so she gets the credit.

I'll offer this. None of the SJI Eight have lied to Adrian at any point. They may have been somewhat evasive, but they have never flat-out said something to him that they knew not to be true.

In 122, When Jacqui exclaimed, she was reporting something that actually happened.

In 126, Dani was relating her feelings honestly. Especially when she pitched the snowball. :)

None of them have lied to Adrian except Mallory in panel 2 of Episode 74.  She used the Watch, but not to scrub out Derek's influence, to put in new programming.  It seemed that Adrian had already eradicated Derek's influence himself (by accident).

Mallory didn't lie. She abbreviated.

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I just thought I'd drop a brief note here trying to list the various 'mysterious figures' in the comic, since there are a growing number of them and it's getting difficult for me to keep track of them all in my head.

• Whoever broke in to Vik's lab and photographed the Pink Clouds notes.
• Whoever drove the car that hit Danielle.
• Whoever found the Watch casing by the side of the road.
• Whoever parked the BMW outside the Infirmary.  (Probably the same as the driver of the car that hit Danielle, but could theoretically be someone else.)
• Whoever is now getting a lap dance from Caitlyn.

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I'd go with Yves as the burglar because he seems to be the day-to-day boss at Princess Pink.  I think he'd be interested to compare Vik's version to the previous one to see if he could make modifications to it so he could get away with distributing it.

I think the hit-and-run driver is the same person who collected the watch housing and is currently parked outside SJI.

I don't know who it is Caitlyn's dancing for, but he has to be connected to the person who gave Alex her marching orders at the store.  If he's just some Random Patron, then he and the Philandering Dance Major should

1. Buy some lottery tickets and

2. Hit the Vegas casinos.  Together.  Without PDM's wife or any members of the Mantis Squad.

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the noise that may cam out the room Himm?

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I wonder if you can integrate the shell into anything to make it work.  Could Adrian put it into his guitar to get a guitar of mind-controlling sexiness?  Or does it take more work than that?

And is Jacky still planning on stripping at Sawyer's?  I wonder... was that some sort of residual from Danielle's original command to her to strip?

It could be residual, but I really felt like this was more about a celebration of life and power, not a tack-on from that command.  After all, Erin, Mallory, and Marliese finished her programming so she could wear clothes and wouldn't randomly be swamped by sexual fever or fervor.

.

I don't think he even knows about the shells (although if one of them is powering the belltower, it might be responsible for his hypnocock gambit if he were fundamentally altered or enhanced..nah, he wasn't born there or conceived there...never mind).

GodWilling
Thank you for keep the list up todate for year and one month
 ;D

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should keep dates and list of names on computer
 think put back?

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And another note of deepest appreciation for maintaining this!

Thank you for bring it back

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Me myself, I like the idea of a pervy aristocrat setting up a women's college with a device in the clocktower to turn them all into sluts.  I somehow don't think it's as simple as that, though. 

Real good job on doing the work on the mythological connection, GodWilling.  As a mythology nerd, I eat that stuff up. 

Rain's certainly got a stonier heart than Adrian does.  Regardless of how well-intentioned each character is, Adrian is much less willing to break a few eggs to make the omelette he wants.  While I of course wish Adrian was a bit more gung-ho with the mind control and harem of sex slaves bit, but I don't think that's mutually exclusive with being a basically decent person (at least in this erotic fantasy we're all enjoying), and I like him for that at least.  Rain... has a bit of a harder edge to her.  She wants something, that's for certain, but I don't know if that something is good for any of the other characters. 

I don't mind Daphne playing the cards close to the chest as much because the comic comes out so regularly, but for an information nerd there are still a lot of questions frustratingly unanswered, heh.  Like, conversations happen, and we aren't shown what's actually told (like we don't know what exactly Rain told Adrian at their big talk).  So sometimes it comes off as being obfuscating for its own sake.  I hope the payoff is worth it (so far it has been, natch).

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Might be just modern times catching up to a 300 year old promise. 

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There could be more behind it, but attributing some of it to the belltower seems safe since they passed several couples (presumably roommates for the co-ed experiment) making out in the grass as they went to administration to ask about the housing "mix-up."  It seems that Rain took up residence in Kearsage right around the time the town and college were founded.  I don't know if she is responsible for the belltower experiment, but it seems that she has been engineering the emergence of a worthy heir for John Wilmot and that Adrian might be it.

I have no idea what is going on in this Title. i like it it is just quite hard to keep track of who is who or what is happening!

It might be time for a plot recap, although there's an awful lot of plot at this point...

Yes, that is an awful lot.  It's an awful lot of fun, but it's a lot. ;)

I have this vision of one (at least) wall of Daphne's office covered in a huge sheet of paper with multi-coloured flow diagrams showing plots, sub-plots, sub-sub-plots, red herrings, time bombs....

Scrivener!

I just go back and reread; that's the way I get a recap. It's a horrible burden. ;)

I would like to see a control that lets me jump directly to an issue, though. The page-naming convention is straightforward, but I'd like a web control for all the one-page-per-issue comics, and perhaps a drop-down with chapters to get to obvious starting points.

I've done some work on this so I'll add the information here. I'm not including any of the guest artist work since there were meant to be out of time sequence.

E001-E079. This was several weeks, only because we celebrated Christmas and New Years in real time with the comic.

For the remainder, as near as I can tell, each is a day. I consider days starting when they get up rather than midnight since they seem to be up past midnight on most nights. Smiley

E079-E112, E113-E144, E145-E168, E169-E227, E228-E307, E308-E416, E417-E517, E518-E585.

The current episode is 585 and we aren't nearly finished with this night yet. As you can see, the current day is at 68 pages and the longest day in terms of episodes was 109. That was two days ago. The shorted day, not counting the Night of the Watch, was 24 Episodes and that was 7 days ago.

For completeness sake, I have these journaled in 6 volumes at this point. Volume 1 has been put out by Daphne as the Night of the Watch.

Vol 2 - E079-E168 ( 3 days )
Vol 3 - E169-E307 ( 2 days )
Vol 4 - E308-E416 ( 1 Day )
Vol 5 - E417-E517 ( 1 Day )
Vol 6 - E518-E585+ ( 1 day)

I have the guest pages in their own volume.

Approximately how much time has elapsed within the story since Ep01-current issue? Seems there are some very long nights. Is it currently 60+ episodes on the current plot/night?

Two of us agree on the approximate timetable that I just posted recently.

I believe we are right around 70 episodes for the current day/night sequence. (35 or so for the current night.)

I’ve just read SJI in full recently, and greatly enjoyed it. However, I do think that it’s so broad that I’m not able to fully comprehend it yet. Is there any chance someone can give me a GREATLY abridged overview of the plot up to present day?

Adrian moves to Kearsarge to attend Wilmot College, renting a room at a house, the inhabitants of which call Saint James Infirmary (still no idea why, although Mallory said it would be obvious... still waiting, 10+ years later). Erin, the redhead, gets Adrian a job at the record store where she works, and spends a day or two flirting with him, before they move on toward both of Erin's bigger and better things. Danni, the blonde, goes to the campus doctor for free therapy, gets hypnotized, and subsequently uses a mad scientist-esque pocket watch to brainwash Erin, Mallory, Mal's girlfriend Marliese, and Jacqui (Adrian's boss) into being Adrian's sex slaves. Craziness rears its ugly head, and before the night is over Adrian frees several other girls from the clutches of Derek, Danni's manipulative ex, who has been using hypnosis to turn girls into his sex slaves. While Adrian's getting a congratulatory fuck from Erin, the rescued girls are brainwashed into becoming part of Adrian's harem, too.

Hijinks, complications, and nightly orgies ensue. Adrian's harem grows by leaps and bounds, and both evil masterminds and dark and/or pink magic cause problems that never gives any of the characters long enough to catch their breath.

Currently, there are at least 4 methods of mind control which have been introduced, aside from hypnosis and the watch: a chemical called "pink clouds" (for which they've isolated an antidote), straight-up magical mind control, an object that has turned one of Adrian's girls (the cheerleader, I forget her name at the moment) into the secret slave of the owner of said item, and some sort of demonic entity summoned into the world by Cherry, one of Erin's old flames.

The demon has subsequently been sealed off from the real world by Cherry, but Erin might have employed the same demon, or something similar, in a subsequent encounter, possibly freeing it to wreak havoc again. Time will tell.

Several old enemies have been removed from the playing field, usually via violent ends resulting directly or indirectly from their involvement with Adrian and his harem. Unfortunately, the ultimate BBEG of the comic, Jakob Kuppler, is still moving behind the scenes. That's right: despite what the authorities think, he's still alive, and at least twice as dangerous. Adrian has seemingly provided the watch to Jakob's intermediary to be taken back to wherever he's currently hiding, although whether it's the real watch or not, and whether the object handed over includes a GPS tracker to find Jakob's lair, remains to be seen.

Unbeknownst to Adrian, Danni has recently added pretty much every hottie in the entire college to the harem.

Oh, and Jacqui's daughter (who has been referred to by no fewer than 3 different names during her time in the comic) is also part of the harem now. Adrian has fucked her on at least 3 different occasions. As it turns out, she's Adrian's half-sister. We're in the middle of hearing the backstory for that at the moment.

I approve of this message.

The most plausible explanation I've managed so far is that it alludes to the St James Infirmary Clinic in San Francisco:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._James_Infirmary_Clinic

Having just read the entire run for the third time, I am feeling the need to recap to get a few things straight in my head, so here goes.

1. There are multiple types of mind control in play.

1.1 the crystal, which is some sort of printed circuit based on the original red crystal used to make the scallop

1.2 the red crystal, which may or may not be naturally occurring, but can be reshaped, resulting in the scallop

1.3 the watch, which based on Dani’s information alters neurobiology by repatterining neurons, which is freaky stuff and would seem to account for mind control by the watch being both more durable and making those altered by the watch more resistant to other forms of mind control (see Caitlyn and the crystal; Laura, one of the twins, and #49; but weirdly not Dani and Derek)

1.4 Pink Clouds, which is, at least to the smell test, identical to Laura’s #49. Short acting, requires reinforcement.

1.5 The Clock Tower (which something in the back of my head says is now missing all of the scallops used to power it, when Dani, Erin, and Adrian go to clock tower control, there is a panel when they leave showing the slots, which previously had four scallops in five slots with no scallops in five slots, suggesting changes afoot with the Mantis Effect) which exercised a low level of mind control on all Wilmot students and gave the students a reputation for general sluttery. Also since it is the basis for the technology which drives the watch we can likely conclude it is repatterining the neurons of everyone in its radius of effect. This suggests the “Mantis Effect” of growing bigger tits is caused by very subtle manipulation of the endocrine system through changing parts of the autonomic systems in the brain.

This also suggests whoever built the Clock Tower built a surgically precise, subtle, and multifaceted device which Jakob ripped apart and used the pieces to build a hammer. Which is totally on brand for Jakob.

1.6 Astrid’s what ever it is. It is at least artifact looking enough for Caitlyn to think, that on first glance, it was something Astrid dug up at some archeological site.

1.7 Paul Cavanaugh, this guy, who is either acting as a lens for the clock tower effect, or the effect of the clock tower on (some) men is to give them some level of innate mind control, or Paul represents a fourth, unique type of mind control ala Professor X, something that is natural and originates from him. I lean towards the third explanation b/c he seems to use it on Meil the first time they meet and is still using it after he leaves Wilmot. 

This presents an interesting and alternate reading for the hypnocock phenomenon. Adrian has his dad’s hoodoo and this was the first time he actively tried to use it.

1.8 Erin does some sort of witchcraft and while it requires underlying ability, can be learned by anyone with the potential. If this ability, whatever it is called, exists and doesn’t have some kind of mind control attached to it, I’d be shocked.

1.9 Mallory is in communion with the Loa of the Crossroads and may be an avatar of some sort. The entire tradition has some level mind control (zombies) built into it. As it exists in the real world it is a blunt instrument. In the world of SJI it would make sense for an entity Mallory could contact to be able to give her control of people’s minds.

This represents six unique types of mind control. I read somewhere else in the forum that Daphne said something about mind control being common enough in the world of SJI that most people were not surprised when mind control is used on them. It isn’t everywhere. The government hasn’t weaponized it. You may go your entire life and never be mind controlled. But odds are good either someone you know is mind controlled or someone you used to know disappeared due to being mind controlled. 

Johannes Kuppler doesn’t seem to actively object to what Jakob does, only the things Jakob does when he’s doing it. This suggests that Ezra’s comment about rich men and rock stars having harems may have more to do with access to mind control than anything else.

Now for an interesting “What If...?” Beyond Rubies uses a red crystal with some sort of circuitry printed into it, iirc, to control minds and change neurobiology enough to cause extreme biological changes, as well as mind control. It’s consistent with both the “Mantis Effect” and Jakob’s use of the watch. The main antagonist of BR is one of the Kupplers.

As I recall, if you look carefully there are Easter eggs implying that SJI, The Hidden Knowledge and Beyond Rubies all take place in the same world.

Assuming that is the case Hidden Knowledge would represent some sort of neurolinguistic programming which borders on sorcery, or actual sorcery, and would be a seventh unique type of mind control.

This is all quite wonderful.

I dunno, the reaction of Pearl/Miriam to how she was being groomed/MCed implies that mind control isn't something that's commonly talked about or understood. A world where that was fairly casual would be neat... but I don't think SJI is it. Mind control is something that's treated as a mystery, law enforcement doesn't use "mind control" as an explanation for weird behavior, etc. And the main characters don't really talk about it much as a casual thing.

As far as the watch being able to affect bodies as well as minds, though, that's neat, and I seem to remember from early on there was talk of the watch having other knobs. I'd love to see one of the long-running characters have her breasts permanently, significantly enlarged and have her react to that... would be fun considering how well-developed the characters are in this story.

I don’t think Miriam/Pearl’s reaction is necessarily from a place of ignorance, but rather from a place of her father knew it was happening and didn’t do anything about it. If anything her expectation that her father knew what was going on suggests broader knowledge of mind control in the SJI world, not narrower.

Just because mind control is known to exist doesn’t mean people are blasé about it. Part of the mind control kink is about the control. Part of it is the most intimate possible violation, taking things that are normally safe from outside tampering and rearranging them to suit the controller’s whims.

Pearl would be justifiably furious with her father for allowing a client to dig around inside her head and change whatever he wanted just because he was a good client and billed a lot of hours.

Maybe. I figured she would have gone to the cops if mind control was openly known about.

I don't think there's a suggestion that Ezra knew that Jakob was using mind control. Indeed 358 suggests that Miriam believes he didn't know anything bad was going on and, indeed, that he didn't. Miriam's later burst of anger with him relates (I think) to his discussing Jakob with Johannes as essentially a business problem to be ironed out. She's pointing out that it's that kind of thinking that led to Ezra putting her in harm's way and failing to see what was happening.

Jakob's use of mind control was a sufficiently embarrassing problem for him to fake his own death. I think the SJI attitude to mind control is more that taken by its victims, for whom it is commonplace and whose opinions have inevitably been coloured by its use.

Why do I keep rereading this story? Exceptional characters, I’m going with that.

So above referenced points

1.8 #674 Erin demonstrates mind control over Raven by “turn[ing] down [her] gag reflex” and says she can do lots of things. Adding #701 to this entry, Erin clearly has some hoodoo that includes mind and body control. Might be related to her breasts always being bigger than everyone else’s and having a somewhat variable size.

1.7 #675 as is the norm in SJI there is circumstantial evidence, but there is a lot of it culminating in #675 when Pearl/Miriam completely runs over her boss’s resistance to anything and everything, and just knew (“intuition?”) in #667 she was into being tied up.

I’m dropping a marker, Patrick Adrian Cavanaugh is a telepath or mind controller, of some innate ability, and so are both his kids.
 

Getting something straight in my head again. Which means another huge wall of text incoming.

Either the Cavanaugh brand of mind control is more durable than the red crystal effect based on #1043, or Jakob has such an incomplete understanding of how the red crystal works, he isn’t able to effectively employ it yet. I’m going with the former because “hypnocock” and Miel’s general reaction to the red crystal. The red crystal is a technology, and so can’t be made more powerful by the will driving it.

So a hierarchy of mind control begins to form

1. Cavanaugh, which makes sense assuming the John Wilmot/Poly connection the Cavanaugh’s seem to have. It makes them descendants of a Greek god and/or titan, potentially Zeus himself, which would explain Zeus’s success at general sluttery
2. The Wilmot Clock Tower, which as I said above has a different purpose than the Watch and is more subtle and precise.
3. The Watch which is a localized version of the clock tower with fewer options. (Potentially, still a lot we don’t know about the settings, which Danielle does know now, something which suggests Adrian is capable of undoing what the watch does. If Jakob used the watch to make Danielle forget how to set it, and Adrien made her able to remember/learn again it adds more evidence #1 above.
4. The refined crystal. Because it is a simplified, imperfect version of the watch.
5. The red crystal shards, because they work, just not as well as anything else.

Other things, which we do not yet know.

I consider it a safe assumption that Erin’s witchcraft can undo the effects of the refined crystal. She’s done it more than once now. It is also possible that Erin’s witchcraft combined with the Cavanaugh hoodoo is what is really cracking the watch’s control. Check out Miriam/Pearl’s eyes when Adrian fucks her, which is after Erin’s ritual. This makes Tamara Jakob’s worst nightmare with the powers of both her parents.

Mallory is such a wild card at this point, Cherry and the German were terrified of her, willing to kill a random person on the chance she might be Mallory b/c they considered her so dangerous. Additionally as Wilmot’s new head librarian and the books we know are in the restricted section, (considering that is only a single shelf and it’s better than what’s in the Arkham library and there is likely more) she has become orders of magnitude more powerful. Speaking as a long time Lovecraft nerd and general fan of weird fiction and horror, that shelf is frankly terrifying. Also, whoever is responsible for the book list on that shelf, we may have been separated at birth.

Astrid, still not enough on the board to make a determination. My guess based on length of exposure and Caitlyn’s reaction is that it is either less invasive and/or less powerful than the refined crystal. It can’t overpower the watch, but it can bend it a little.

Which suggests Caitlyn in is real trouble based on Danielle’s statement that every time you bend the mind into a new shape it is a little weaker than it was before. Caitlyn is one of the few who has been controlled by everything, Adrian, Watch, Refined Crystal, Astrid’s whatsit, and pink clouds/#49. She may need an intervention from Adrian and Erin soon, or go completely insane. We should be afraid of and for an insane Caitlyn. This may also make Raven the most stable instance of mind control in the story. Her primary mind control is a combination of Erin, Adrian, and the refined crystal. It’s possible nothing else can touch her.

Pink Clouds/#49 is capable of overpowering everything, for short periods of time. It’s possible the pink clouds antidote makes you immune to future dosing. I may be leaning that way now.

Beyond Rubies? The Hidden Knowledge? Who knows, no data points to compare.

All I'd offer up regarding that is Jakob's gift to Rain in 236, with the note "My regards to your father." On the assumption that the punishment of Atlas was not intended to be a happy thought for Rain, I've been inclined to think that that places her on the losing side of the Titanomachy, while Zeus was very much on the other. Jakob had a company called Titanomachy Property Management. The gift and 449 suggest he is well aware of who Rain's father is.

The idea of Rain as one of the muses does make a lot of sense. For what it's worth, though, if her father was Atlas himself (which might put him in a position to look down from the sky), his offspring included the Hyades (the bringers of rain). One of those was called Polyxo. (And another, I notice for the first time, Coronis, or crow).

Ugh, too many ways of reading that. Atlas is trapped at the end of the world and imprisoned by his duties. Supposedly the only break he has gotten in all of history is when Heracles subbed for a bit.

Rain could be a daughter of Zeus, who is a sky god, who is the one who sentenced Atlas to his servitude. So the Atlas clock could be a middle finger to the daughter of Zeus, either “look what your dad did to you” or “you tried to do this to me, but I used the watch to set myself free.”

And as I made dinner the following occurred to me:

Rain could be Athena as well, the patron goddess of strategy, knowledge, crafts, etc. the atlas clock would then be a dig at her, “your dad did the same thing to you he did to Atlas.”

Also Athena was pretty much the only person in the Odyssey who has anything nice to say about Odysseus. Everyone else hated that narcissistic little sociopath. It was her comment about Odysseus that sent me down the Athena path.

Additionally, Rain heavily hints that she arranged for The Night of the Watch to happen. To be honest the hint is so heavy handed I’m tempted to call it a confession. Whether that reveals anything beyond her frankly ridiculous morality (Hey, Imma wreck your life, which I need to do because I made a stupid mistake, but here’s some T&A to make it better), is up for debate, but it suggests she is treating Adrian like Zeus. Which reinforces the Athena/daughter of Zeus narrative.

This whole thing, no matter who Rain’s father is, shows Jakob to be legendarily stupid. He threatened to send a daughter of Atlas or Zeus out to turn tricks for him. Pretty sure that wouldn’t end well for him.

On an entirely different topic.

Erin died Erin Cavanaugh in 2015 and Adrien was injured enough that he was walking with a cane. What is the current date in SJI? When the issue was published, it was 4 years or so in the future, now almost six years in the past

Also Erin is still alive when Tamara is a student at Wilmot, which should be somewhere in the late 2020s or 2030s, and Adrian doesn’t have a cane.

In the main sequence, 2011.

Hmm.....

And so I go and reread the Titanomachy, and I’m even more convinced Jakob is Cronos and Adrian is Zeus.

If I’m junking up the topic too much, let me know, I can sit in a corner and keep it to myself.

Oh, no! This is wonderful!

Is he eating his children, though? Metaphorically, at least. I suppose if Adrian is actually his child he might be eating him by disrupting his life and trying to enslave the women he loves.

And just to stir the pot even more, I could point out that Kearsarge is an acronym for Greek Sara and Sara (from the Hebrew) means Princess....

You mean Cherry and Julian? Or Echo, Claudia, and Megan? Or Danielle? All Jakob does is destroy the things he creates. He couldn’t even hang on to the watch.

I remember someone had put together a timeline of the story so far. I can’t find it.

From my theatre days, tech to opening night is a couple of weeks. Which means in 1043 pages, maybe three *very* busy weeks have passed.

Am I wrong?

And I refer you to #598, if Adrian isn’t using telepathy here, I'm at a complete loss for what is actually going on.

Now, somehow Erin has been able to drag others into Miriam’s memory/Jakob’s booby trap, and somehow that impacted Adrian when he was at SJI and Erin was at the theatre. Danielle was effected as well while with the twins and Laura. Not sure how far out we are from the original Miriam ritual, but I think it’s been about 60hrs, Maybe as few as 36, but they were sense linked before this, not telepathic.  

So either the ritual woke up something in Adrian he wasn’t using before, native talent allows him to do things with the results of the ritual that aren’t typical, or Erin is serving as a bridge here. Erin is part of the telepathic conversation, so all three are possible.

Then we find ourselves at #604, Adrian’s first use of any of the red crystal based devices. My guess is when Patrick comes to town Adrian is going to learn some things.

Alright, I’ll put away my fine tooth comb eventually. SJI late-2, Erin is laying on/next to Changeling, which is decidedly not the game she was playing in the earlier flashback(guest page 2 between #117 & #118), correction, the Changeling book is on the table, but the game setup is nothing like any WoD game I’ve ever run. Glamours aren’t mind control, but they are in every way that really matters. Also, First Ed DMG, third Ed something, and second Ed Vampire, I’ll stand by my separated at birth comment.

I want to get to something that is driving me a little nuts about the timeline and villains. Right now we have three serious villains, with two peripheral villains.

1 Jakob, the True Big Bad(tm) who is responsible for all the bullshit really. Danielle plans to kill him for very good reasons. Adrian is not so sure. Also, Rain went from assuring Adrian he was responsible for making sure it didn’t happen again and she would take care of Jakob, to Jakob being Adrian’s responsibility in the matter of two or three days. Awkward.

2 Yves, who is the baddie of the Pink Clouds thread, with the manager/owner of Van Winkles as his level boss. Except because of Jakob our heroes have kind of lost the thread on this one. I suspect it will really crop up next at Mallory’s birthday when he attempts to use Pink Clouds to keep Danielle, Jacquie, and Mallory as dancers. I do not pity them when Mallory goes murder stripper on them.

3 Astrid, who may not be actively bad, but now Caitlyn is recruiting from Adrian’s harem for her. She may simply be selfish, but I suspect there will be some sort of confrontation. Coates is her willing patsy/level boss. Did I mention I think all the various layers of mind control Caitlyn has been effected by are not going to combine or end well? To be entirely clear, I have some suspicions as to how this will play out, but again, because I’m usually more accurate than most, I’ll not share them.

To finish up on my villains thought, in three weeks, give or take, we went from zero villains, well I guess Danielle was the level boss for Jakob, but because he understands strategy and linguistic loop holes the way fish understand stellar ballistics, and underestimates all women because he hates them, (long lists of Jakob’s failings to be honest), really I consider Ingrid and Yves more of a threat than Jakob can ever be. The only thing that will make Jakob a threat is if he manages to get unfettered access to family money. Which of course he may be able to do with the watch. However, I can’t imagine Adrian just allowed a fully functional watch to get on that plane and fly away, b/c talking to Rain about Odysseus and how to win unwinnable battles.

Oh gods, this is developing into a serious red string murder board, sorry about that.

Any way, in the three weeks ish since the story started we have accumulated six villains, three are still on the board, (Jakob, Astrid, Yves) and three are gone (Vik, Julian, Cherry)

Honestly the only one who doesn’t seem to have a truly fatal flaw is Astrid, but we’ve only known her about four days now I think? So I’m willing to give her time.

Guest #12 2016 Adrian is interviewing for a job and finds a flyer with Erin in a play called Betrayal

Guest #13 2020 Adrian is at Erin’s grave with Rain, she died in 2015

Guest #15 April 15, 2035, Tamara is a student at Wilmot, Erin is Alive

I think I may be losing it.

Or these are three possible futures, the first, Adrian decides to check out, doesn’t do the thing. The second they do the thing but something goes wrong and Erin dies. The third, and the only future with Tamara, assumes they win.

Adding to this due to confusion and posting a lot. During the Tits and Holes shenanigans Danielle saw the original drawing of the watch and memorized all the switch settings. Why does she call Marilyse for switch settings in #788?

I don’t even have a handle on the mind control yet. I can’t deal with time travel and the many worlds hypothesis.

Side note, looks like Hidden Knowledge is one of the books in the restricted section.

So here is a question inspired by #788. During the Tits and Holes shenanigans Danielle saw everything, all the engineering drawings for the watch. Why does she call Marylise for switch settings?

Possibly Adrian told her to ask Marylise so she wouldn’t realize they knew, so they could send a sabotaged watch to Jakob at some point, b/c we already know when this happens Jakob is supposed to be coming in tonight.

I have never been able to follow the storyline. Some threads, yes. The whole thing? No. Most of the time, I have no idea who the current characters are, though I can almost always identify Adrian, Erin, Jacqui, Marliese, Danielle, and Raven. And I don't take any of the guest strips as canon; I have noticed they tend to be nonsequitors.

Further evidence of Erin’s witchcraft, 674, 701, & 714

Further evidence of Miriam following in her father’s footsteps, 675 and really every single interaction with Heidi from that point forward.

The core three, Danielle, Mistress of the Watch; Erin, What people are Superstitious of; and Mallory, psychopomp, avatar or the god of the cross roads, and head librarian of the Wilmot library? Be afraid Jakob, be very afraid.

Add the rest of the Harem, which continues to grow by leaps and bounds, now including dozens more students at Wilmot. It doesn’t take many Caitlyns to make an army.

I keep reflecting on things Rain has said. I’m starting to think the first eight were hand picked by Rain manipulating events to create force multipliers in her coming war against Jacob.

List of MCC titles with direct or indirect references in SJI

Travel Plans: Patrick’s watch my finger method of hypnosis
Beyond Rubies: red crystal that controls minds and changes bodies
The Hidden Knowledge: the book is in the Wilmot restricted collection
Canadian Girlfriend: linked to THK through Levesque (I have my own pet theory about this I’m not going into here, maybe over in the Canadian Girlfriend thread)
The Ring Cycle: the ring with printed circuitry similar to the crystal
Unleashed: the book Get Girls with Hypnosis is the major MC, pops up in SJI1010, assumed non-cannon, but due to timeline is entirely possible

Having just reread the whole thing in hopes of finally getting what's going on (largely successful, I think; the character tags were hugely helpful here) I have a few unanswered questions that don't feel like mysteries yet to be answered or details that I should be able to guess a plausible answer for. I had a bunch of questions along the way but most of them were eventually answered.

1) What is the relationship between Marilese and Rain? Is Mallory aware of it? One scene suggested they were intimates and then they haven't appeared together again in like a thousand pages.

2) Who sent the letter that prompted Claudia to send Derek to search one of Jakob's residences for evidence of Dani's identity? And why did Derek need to see a pair of Dani's panties to realize that the woman he'd spent some time dating in Kearsarge was in fact the woman he went to Kearsarge to search for? Why does Derek hold his nose entering that residence, when the only stinky thing we see is months-old dirty laundry which is probably not great smelling but not 'dead body' level stinky? I feel like this is a moment in the story where I've legit missed something.

3) What does Guest Page #20 show? How does it relate to #329? Did young(er) Q seduce young Miriam, or not? The only bad thing I'm confident Q does is recognize Nanti has been dosed with Pink Clouds and take advantage of it, then use it on Nanti again (once? Twice? more?) and lie to her about it, which in some moral universes would make him an irredeemable villain but in SJI makes him, like, the third- or fourth-best guy after Adrian and Harmless Polyamorous Weston, probably better than Ezra. On the other hand, Vikram seemed like a decent enough guy until his heel turn so maybe Q has just been biding his time. We still don't know why Jakob caused Miriam to testify against Q, but presumably this is a mystery that will resolved someday when Yves is revealed to have been Jakob in disguise all along, or something.

4) What was the point of the circuitry in the ring Vikram gave Amy? Where did he get it? Is it related to the technology of Jakob's pendant?

5) What's the past with Mallory that Cherry and Julian have alluded to?

6) Why does Cherry's monster-from-the-id show up at the bottom of #507? Why does it react to being shot on #514 when it didn't in #351?

I almost had a seventh question about the current scenario of chemical breast enlargement plus Miriam's uncanny power. This is in fact what prompted me to do the reread. But after the reread, it seems fairly clear that a) Miriam inherited a spooky tactile hypnosis power from Patrick, which she's only lately discovered; b) Lauren overheated a synthesis batch and created a perfume that makes breasts grow and turns some women more submissive and suggestible and others more aggressive and dominant, and c) Miriam became more aggressive and reacted to the increased submissiveness of Erin, Dani, and Raven to enslave them with her power.  Also, none of this relates to Kanti's weird encounter, despite that involving another perfume/chemical and happening immediately before the onset of the breast expansion and suggestibility spree.

Anyway if anybody is aware of answers to these questions that I've overlooked, let me know please.

1) Dunno, but note that Marliese evidently has history with Jakob, and that Adrian asked Rain for the truth about Marliese in 948, before the airport confrontation. I also suspect that Rain deliberately sent Marliese into the SJI to become enslaved on the Night Of The Watch.

2) Claudia received some kind of local property tax bill for the apartment, which alerted her to its existence. Dani hadn't visited Zenon when she dated Derek, so she wasn't susceptible to Derek's trigger then. When he was about to try triggering her after she'd visited Zenon, Adrian got there first. There may be a dead parrot (unsketched) in the apartment.

3) g19 shows Q cheating on Jacqui with a woman named Annie (who may or may not have become Katie), upon whom he had used Pink Clouds. g20 shows Miriam under the influence of Pink Clouds, no longer remembering about Annie and believing she was the one who had sex with Q.

4) Dunno, but note that Julian seems to have had an interest in Vik from the start and that the two were known to each other, with Vik trying to have Julian killed at the motel. And it's not necessarily reality, but we see an enslaved Cherry (I think) giving Vik a blow job, apparently in New York, in 823.

5) We only know a few fragments about Mallory.

6) Everybody's got to be somewhere. I'd say that Laura's bullet merely distracted the monster, and we didn't really see it reacting to Caitlyn's.

We didn't see what Kanti used on Giselle, but she was keeping Giselle sexually stimulated, which seems to affect suggestibility under the new perfume, and doesn't appear to be required for Pink Clouds. If Giselle's breasts have grown by the next time we see her then we'll have a fair idea that Laura didn't overheat anything while she was on the phone to Kanti and that the two threads are connected. If they haven't then it's more likely they're disconnected. That, of course, is why we didn't see what happened. The bulk of my money is still on Yves/Sawyer as Kanti's programmers, with Sawyer having already established that Giselle is susceptible to Pink Clouds.

Okay, that all makes sense, thanks.  Q using Pink Clouds on Miriam connects to Miriam saying she'd been messed up into believing she and Q had been lovers.

W/r/t Vik on 823, I assumed at the time that was Danielle, but it could have been Cherry, sure. The thing on that page that I didn't connect to anything at the time was Danielle greeting Miel at (presumably) Jakob's door, which suggests a level of recency in the Miel-Jakob relationship that will presumably be slowly unspooled over the next thousand issues if we all live that long.

Something that I noticed on the reread but don't really have a question about: Mallory sure is tangential to all the main storylines. Despite being one of the big three SJI ladies, she's tagged on fewer pages than Jaqui or Miriam, barely ahead of Caitlyn. She's also the main cast member whose past and overall situation we know the least about, as you noted.

A little like Sue, who's been waiting patiently in the wings for her time to shine for ages.

Mostly I'm wondering how many hundreds of pages it'll be before the pole-dancing/strip club/Mallory's-birthday party, and how gigantic the Astrid's-party-where-she-attempts-to-coopt-Adrian's-harem party is going to be because it seems like every named character has been invited. And which one is supposed to happen first? The pole-dancing has been in the works for longer but the battle-of-the-harems has been scheduled for "this Saturday" since its introduction.

823 is interesting. Vik and Miel are both identified as characters in that page. Adrian is getting this information from a representation of Echo that is "from Cherry's memory". How that works is anyone's guess, but we see Cherry apparently on her first visit to Jakob's apartment, then being shown the watch, so my guess is that it's her enslaved in the next panel, and then she's possibly telling Jakob what she knows about Erin, or identifying Erin as a suitable target for him. Whether that implies that Cherry was also there when Miel was greeted by Danielle is... who knows? But was Vik really there when Cherry was taken? Did that really happen? Vik was also in The Cloud with Cherry when this tale was being recounted, so might he have been influencing what Adrian was being told? I don't know. But if we take it at face value then it definitely gives us a link between Vik and Jakob, and might even explain why Cherry's monster came for Vik.

I believe a close examination of the chronology places us currently on Sunday 22 January. Mallory's calendar in 79 suggested the pole dancing would be on Saturday 28 January. We were advised early on that time in SJI is impressionistic, which I think translates as: don't examine the chronology closely.

It's been an eventful couple of weeks! At the outset of the reread I thought I'd try to keep track of the calendar but then I figured there was a good chance there might be one or several timeskips, everybody goes to sleep Monday night and we see them getting coffee on a morning but it's actually a morning in March, that kind of thing.  But if the current date is Sunday the 22nd then Saturday the 21st has come and gone since Caitlyn started recruiting bodies for Astrid's party "on Saturday," and if the next Saturday coming is Poledancing Birthday Saturday, that conflicts with the general assertions that people are free "on Saturday" for Astrid's orgy, since the birthday plans predate it.  What makes the most sense to me is that the current day of the week is somewhere in the Tuesday-Thursday range, Astrid's party is on the next Saturday (so less than a week away) and Mallory's birthday party the Saturday after. 

There's basically two possibilities. Either what Echo conveys she saw is stuff that Cherry saw Echo see, which would certainly require her to have witnessed Echo witnessing Vikram's blowjob, or else what Echo conveys she saw is stuff that Echo, the real Echo who exists in a brainwashed state in NYC somewhere, saw and Cherry's magic conjuration of Echo's imago drew from the real Echo's memories. And yeah, that presumes that what Echo conveys is stuff that somebody actually witnessed, not stuff being made up on the spot by the Zenon monster or Cherry. 

My expectation is that everything shown on 823 did happen, and whether the actual source is Cherry's memories or Echo's memories is unimportant, but that's because it's what I would do if I were writing this story. Likewise, my guess about the days of the week and scheduling is based more on my sense of pacing than anything in the text.

I know Daphne says we shouldn't examine the timeline too closely, but I'm going to do it anyway along with my reasoning.  TLDR: I think it's Sunday, January 22nd, but there are a few things that don't quite fit.

• #1-#5: Date unknown.
• #6-#11: The following day, based on Adrian's being hung-over from the prior night's drinking.
• #12: Christmas day, based on the fact that Christmas gifts are being exchanged.
• #13-#78: Monday, January 2nd.  This is the Night of the Watch.  Danielle went to the clinic on this day, and in #79 the calendar has a marking on January 2nd that reads "Le clinique.  Merci, Adrian!".
• #79-#115: Wednesday, January 11th.  Mostly - this set may cover multiple days and contains elements that are very difficult to reconcile chronologically, particularly #79 and #97.  The first panel of #79 seems to be the day after the Night of the Watch, as it says that Derek "cleared out overnight".  The third panel indicates that Zenon is on vacation and Amy is sporting long hair.  The fourth panel has Jacqui in a distinctive yellow top, which she is also wearing in her later appearances in this range of the comics, implying that they take place on the same day.  The final panel of #79 gives us our first evidence locking events to specific dates.  Raven's upcoming visit to the Infirmary is Thursday, January 12th.  Jacqui and Danielle's stripper event is Saturday, January 28th, also confirmed by Jacqui in #82.
  
  #97 is hard to put into order.  Zenon has now returned from vacation.  #62 said he would be on vacation for "a week" back on January 2nd, which would imply he would be back by the 11th, except he wasn't as of the third panel of #79.  Amy cut her hair sometime between that panel of #79 and #97.  This suggests that #97 takes place on a later day than that panel of #79.  On the other hand, events in #99 are on the same night as #93, which seems to be on the same day as other parts of #79.  On the gripping hand, Amy has short hair when she shows up to sleep with Jacqui and Laura in #106, which is again on the same day as #99.  Basically the chronology here doesn't seem to make a lick of sense.
  
  My reaction here is to assume this day is Wednesday, January 11th, and that the minor things that don't fit can be ignored.
• #116-#144: Thursday, January 12th.  Amy refers to her threesome with Laura and Jacqui as "last night".  Raven goes to the Infirmary on this day, and the calendar from #79 refers to that being scheduled for the 12th.  This is more evidence supporting the belief that First Harem Night was the 11th.
• #145-#168: Friday, January 13th.  Danielle got her job at the airfield the prior day in #125 and is asked to "start tomorrow", and in #154 she is working and filling out new hire paperwork.
• #169-#227: Saturday, January 14th.  Events continue directly from the previous day.
• #228-#307: Sunday, January 15th.  In #202 Erin says "I have tech tomorrow" and in #167 Weston makes a reference to "tech on Sunday", and Erin goes to tech rehearsal in this comic set, so everything lines up.
• #308-#417: Monday, January 16th.  Events pick up where they left off, e.g. Miriam and Reka's discussion in #310 seems to follow directly from their tryst with Weston the prior night.
• #418-#517: Tuesday, January 17th.  Ezra came to town the prior night, Johannes and Einfreidur are still there.
• #518-#646: Wednesday, January 18th.  Q's comment to Kanti in #530 is clearly referencing the events of the previous day.
• #647-#688: Thursday, January 19th.  Amy and Hayley's dialogue in #649 and Caitlyn's reference to "last night" in #654 when she slept with Coates.
• #689-#747: Friday, January 20th.  Erin and Raven slept together the prior night and wake up together.  Erin also refers to Reka's "booty call", which would have been the previous day.
• #748-#990: Saturday, January 21st.  There is another temporal incongruity here.  In #754 Hitomi's phrasing of her invite to Amalthea implies that "Saturday" is in the future, but by my estimate it is Saturday.
   If we assume this is a reference to the following Saturday, that would put Astrid's party on January 28th, the same day as Jacqui and Danielle's stripper event.
• #991-: Sunday, January 22nd.  Adrian wakes up in bed with Miriam in #992, which locks this to the prior night's events.  Everything up to the most recent comic is on this day, although this comic set includes an extended flashback to 1986 and Kanti's dream sequence.

Wow, laid out like that, even bearing in mind that of course we see the characters going to bed each night, I'm surprised at how short a time frame this takes place over, not even two full weeks for the bulk of events.

I'll just add that this:


was in the thread for 86, roughly where you'd expect it to have been. As I've said before, I suspect it was realized that the fact that Zenon was supposed to be away for a week had been overlooked, and things had to be adjusted on the fly to make his re-appearance not be too early. The calendar appeared pretty much at the point where there was a break in the chronology.

Am I wrong that Saturday seems to be double-booked with Astrid's orgy party and Mallory's poledancing birthday? Y'all have convinced me that the timeline hangs together much more closely than I gave it credit for, so that discrepancy is the only thing that sticks out.

My best guess is that both events are currently slated for January 28th, so there is double booking going on.  Perhaps the people doing the Astrid party invites just don't know about the pole dance party?  I'd have to go back and see who knows what.

Is this an accurate chronology of events?

992-present is one day (Dani watch examination, coffee shop history lesson, Kanti dosed with Pink Clouds, searching for Dinah, sexcapades, Dani and Amalthea, Laura’s perfume incident [ongoing])
748-992 is one day (Cloud incident, Cherry fully healed, Zenon, Airport incident, other sexcapades)
689-748 is one day (beginning of the cloud incident, Dani begins recruitment, Aiken arrives
649-689 is one day (Miriam and Heidi, Adrian wants the truth from Rain, sexcapades)
518-649 is one day (Compton and the Twins, rehearsals, Miriam’s second ritual, tits and holes, saving Cherry, Coates and Astrid, Aiken is summoned, Dani’s promise)
417-517 is one day (Brother and Sister, Jakob flees, Dani and Julien, Vik shenanigans, Cherry’s wild creature)
301-416 is one day (Dani and the Watch, Fencing, Miriam’s first ritual, Airport drama, Adrian and Miriam)
227-300 is one day (Rehearsal, Rain gets the broken watch, Caitlyn and Dani vs Clouds, Cherry’s arrival, Jakob is alive, Miriam’s frustration)
195-226 is one day (Caitlyn and Pink Clouds)
169-191 or 192 is one day (Laura’s uncertainty, Hitomi and Coates, Dani hit by car)
144-168 is one day (Derek looking for Caitlyn, Reka and Weston with Erin)
116-143 is one day (Snowball fight, Raven and Erin, Kanti and Q)
79-113 is one day (Miriam’s arrival; Pink Clouds with Kanti)
13/14-78 is one day (Night of the Watch)
6-13/14 is one day (NY resolutions/Introduction of Zenon and Derek)
1-6 is one day (Adrian arrives in Kearsage)

Total 16 days from issue 1 to present day?

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