Saint James Infirmary 570: Focus Issues.

[Daphne]

[jmundt29]

No cutaway.  Uh-oh.

[mns_95125]

No cutaway.  Uh-oh.

Although she does look more pissed off than entranced, so that might be good from your perspective.

[laguna85]

Himm 

[GodWilling]

If she's still in a trance at the end of this I'd be surprised. And delighted.

[Haight]

Hot... I do wonder where Raven is in all this. And I would have expected Miriam to be the one to fall to her own memory first... she does seem a bit more 'hapless' than Erin. Perhaps Erin's got a weakness to hypnosis that hasn't been explored yet?

[jmundt29]

And now, I'm the one hoping for no cutaway and some sort of resolution.  Boy am I glad this is happening now and not a month ago.  This happens right after this date in November, I'm looking for walls to punch.

[GodWilling]

Absolutely delighted.

And yeah, very hot.

The pendant shouldn't work on Erin - or is its effect simply shorter-lived on watch victims? Possibly it's Miriam's memory of the effect of the crystal on her that's at work here, rather than its actual visual effect. Not surprisingly, the exact rules of this realm are not known to us. It would be interesting if a command issued to Miriam to think certain thoughts could take them elsewhere, or influence what Erin's thinking or feeling.

Miriam seemed to be firmly stuck in the memory in the last episode and suddenly broke out of it for this one. It's hard to see how the story could progress much further down this line. But I'm interested to see what the long-term effects will be and whether there's any deeper programming in there.

[Haight]

I think the watch only protects against things like the pendant (Or PC) when it runs up against the watch's literal commands. You can still hypnotize the women affected by the watch, it's just if you try to make them go against their master it doesn't work.

[laguna85]

Jakob make that all his girl only good for a hole and sucking, give a good blow job and take it in any hole.

all sex slave!

that why all his girl have blank faces

[GodWilling]

I think the watch only protects against things like the pendant (Or PC) when it runs up against the watch's literal commands. You can still hypnotize the women affected by the watch, it's just if you try to make them go against their master it doesn't work.

Yeah, I think that was the general opinion when Caitlyn ceased to be Derek's plaything at the airport. All we actually know though is that at some point anywhere between Julian holding up the pendant and Caitlyn sticking a gun in Derek's face, the pendant's programming ceased to have (or never started to have) a hold on her. And it did appear as though the instructions issued under the pendant's influence ceased to be effective as soon as Caitlyn snapped out of it. Otherwise she should still obey any command Derek gives her.

I think basically I'm just looking for ways in which Erin could be significantly affected by this. (And of course that's assuming that she's not just faking it for a laugh here.)

[Haight]

I think basically I'm just looking for ways in which Erin could be significantly affected by this. (And of course that's assuming that she's not just faking it for a laugh here.)

Well, you'll notice that Jakob liked to keep his women in the 'mindless' type of mind control, except when tormenting them (Dani and the ledge). That might just be because that's what the pendant is capable of; the watch seems more able to do the 'altered personality' kind of mc, and while it seems to be presented by Dani that there's always the possibility of collateral damage, especially when trying to undo things, it's capable of altering certain aspects of someone while leaving the rest of them intact.

I think it's unlikely to affect Erin on a permanent basis only because if it did it'd be... incapacitating, more or less. It'd be interesting if it did, though, whether to the 'mindless sex zombie' degree or to some other. Obviously it wouldn't be fun if this accidentally turned Miriam and Erin into sleeper agents for Jakob, but...

[GodWilling]

Obviously it wouldn't be fun if this accidentally turned Miriam and Erin into sleeper agents for Jakob, but...

Hmmm. I think I could handle that happening. Yes, I'm sure I could.

The thing is, this may be happening just because it can, and because some of us will enjoy it, but I'm guessing it's somehow relevant to the plot. It could just be a device: Erin may be unable to help with a crisis elsewhere simply because she's stuck sucking this blue remembered cock for a while. But I'm hoping there'll be something more significant in the programming, if only because that means we're likely to see at least a little more of this scene.

For a long time I've kind of figured that Miriam was a sleeper agent for Jakob anyway. That's probably why I've been inclined to see this as a deliberate trap rather than an accident.

Mind you, I've had my doubts about Raven too, so if all of my suspicions were correct, Erin would be in real trouble here.

And for trouble read peril.

I'm fairly sure she isn't, but - yeah - I could definitely handle it if she were. And yes, that's a deliberate double entendre.

[Haight]

For me the optimal outcome would be an obvious affect on Erin that necessitates Adrian using the watch more aggressively as a sort of prophylactic - if you can block the influence of other MC only when it goes against issued commands, it would be good to issue a lot of commands such that any attempt to mind control the subjects would inevitably trip them up - and would create a more obviously 'mind controlled harem' situation for the residents and friends of SJI, despite how much Adrian seems to have wanted to keep his head in the sand about all of it.

Obviously we're different, though - you enjoy 'peril' a great deal, for me the idea of a character willing to give up all that control, submitting to a controller who's going to take away all her free will, is really, really exciting - positive emotions like affection, lust, and love tied up with desires to submit and dominate, as well as a bit of fear.  You might like the idea of, say, Erin accidentally coming under the hypnotic sway of a villain like Jakob, for me the idea of, for example, Dani teaching Adrian how to use the watch using herself as a test subject, talking him through taking control of her mind, would be damn hot (Or Rain doing the same thing, for that 'older woman teaches younger lover a few things about sex' allegory, natch).

[mns_95125]

But I'm hoping there'll be something more significant in the programming, if only because that means we're likely to see at least a little more of this scene.

We might be able to infer something about the programming based on Miriam's post-programming behavior.  We know, for example, that she had no conscious memory of what Jakob had done to her, and just thought of him as a client of her father's and a friend of the family (#319).  She was capable of functioning as a normal person, and thought of herself as such.  But some commands had clearly been implanted that altered her behavior, such as her inability to have penetrative intercourse, so long-term changes in behavior are possible.  (It's interesting that she experienced the sex block as ego-alien, though -- she still wanted to have sex, but freaked out when she tried.  It isn't clear whether Jakob could have programmed her to just never try and chose not to, perhaps out of sadism, or if the pendant was limited in a way that would have prevented such an approach.)  She also indicated (in #333) that Jakob wanted her to find him a scallop, which implies that she might have come to Kearsage because she was programmed to do so.

We can also look at the actions of others who were probably programmed via pendant, such as Claudia and Johannes' secretary.  The former also exhibits long-term behavioral changes, in this case the apparent inability to leave the New York house that Jakob left her in, and the latter seems to have divided loyalties (or triggered behavior to pass on information to Jakob).

Putting the above together, then, the pendant seems capable of implanting long-term changes in behavior, and of making the subject forget that such programming has taken place.  Leaving aside the possibility of Watch interference, then, the inadvertent sleeper agent scenario could well be on the table.  One can easily imagine the "go to Kearsage and find me a scallop" programming, for example, getting applied to Erin with effective sleeper-agent results.