Saint James Infirmary #836: “Sharing is Caring”

[Daphne]

Written by: Daphne • Inks: Plutonian Knight • Colors and Lettering: Octavia Moon

[lifmcs]

The Uncertainty Saga continues~

[mns_95125]

Or does it?

[lifmcs]

I see what you did there

[GodWilling]

Don't go up there Cherry, there's a plane coming.

I have to say, my uncertainty levels are pretty low looking at this. My best hope is that the trap contains some kind of double bluff.

[mns_95125]

The one thing I think we do know now is that Erin is controlling the pink tentacles tied to Cherry, as opposed to Vik or the red monster.  We don't know for sure what Erin is trying to do with them, or whether her actions are themselves being directed by someone else.  (One could, for example, imagine a scenario where Cherry helps Aiken enslave Erin, and Aiken then turns around and uses Erin to enslave Cherry.)

[GodWilling]

SJI has conditioned me to assume that if Erin appears to be enslaved then she's almost certainly faking it. But when supposedly evil genius Cherry exhibits the same naïve stupidity that Erin was (I naturally assume) only affecting, I hardly even dare to hope that she's faking.

Maybe the storyteller is faking though. They do that. Erin has shown every sign of faking since about the second page after the spell was supposedly cast. Therefore she isn't? Quite?

It seems a shame that I'm desperately picking through all the layers of unreality in The Cloud - straight through all the perfectly apparent demonstrations of mind control - looking for something hot to happen.

[mns_95125]

SJI has conditioned me to assume that if Erin appears to be enslaved then she's almost certainly faking it.

I'm not sure I can think of a point where Erin has faked being under someone's control.  When she was in Pearl's memory she was broken free and suffered no long-term effects.  When she was in Cherry's mind I think the Jakobite genuinely did take control, but was killed before he was able to do anything.  Those are the only two incidents I can think of.  Am I missing something?  (It may be worth noting, though, that in the two cases I mentioned Erin was rescued by Danielle... who just appeared in this sequence for no reason I can figure out.  Third time's the charm?)

If we broaden the net to other characters, I do recall Caitlyn pretending to be under Derek's control at the airport, although it seemed more like she broke out of trance at some point after Julian handed her over.

[GodWilling]

I meant this more from the point of view that if something hot looks set to happen in SJI, it usually ends up not happening or at least - for reasons of the plot - not being hot.

Which is not to say that there hasn't been some hot mind control in SJI. This would be my list:

• Caitlyn at Sawyer's
• Julian's use of the pendant on the woman on the checkout
• Vik and the cop
• The cheerleader seduction of Caitlyn (stretching it but, you know, those tits)
• Pink Clouded strippers (more a possibility at this point)
• Erin in Miriam's mind ("tits and holes")

It was a fairly quick scan I did, but I think that's my complete list. And it's fine, you know - I'm not complaining. The plot is all in SJI and I genuinely love it. But I do hope that something's going to come out of the business in The Cloud.

For what it's worth Dani also came to Caitlyn's rescue when she had her second encounter with Alex.