Saint James Infirmary #1038: “A Man of Many Talents”

[Daphne]

Script: Daphne • Line Art: Plutonian Knight • Colors and Lettering: Octavia Moon

[lifmcs]

Watch the finger go tick-tock,
then you will swallow my cock.

[SDPunk]

I’m going to double down on my assertion that Adrian has his father’s ability here. Finger, cock, both going tick tock, brains washed.

[GodWilling]

Well, Miriam is (apparently) also Patrick's offspring, and she too has developed persuasive fingers after (possibly) a bit of instruction from Erin and some further reading.

1010 came in a run of pages that needn't be considered canon, but it does mirror the current cover, and it suggests that someone is reading up on hypnosis and using it on Miel and Jacqui in 1986. And it currently looks like that someone would be Patrick. Patrick is also under the tutelage of a Rain-like figure who is most likely the Polly referred to in the guest pages, and who may or may not be the Wilmot-founding Polly shown in the story itself. It has been assumed that Adrian's similarity to John Wilmot is familial.

[SDPunk]

Patrick’s finger trick does seem to mirror the Hypnosis used by the main character in Travel Plans which  puts them in the same world and/or references same.

The thing is, as fast and lose as Daphne has played with Hypnosis technique (not complaining, the story needs what it needs) some one being able to induce a deep, personality altering trance with “look at my finger, three, two, one” is more in the realm of X-Men than hypnosis.

I have some suspicions about where things are heading but spoilers.

[caseyx]

This is MCC so I'm probably wrong but...  The dialog in this one makes it sound much more like this is all a game between lovers.  He says he can hypnotize her and she responds playing along.  "I will do anything you want Master so hot" doesn't sound like someone who is controlled but rather someone who is playing along and finds the fantasy appealing.

I'm sure I'm very much in the minority here but I find that idea a lot hotter than learning that Adrian's dad has some random hypnotic powers.

[GodWilling]

This is MCC so I'm probably wrong but...

The pop-up text offers this up as a possibility. Acting against it is that Miel has just been out for a bit of whoring, apparently in response to a hypnotic trigger, and that Patrick's "programming" of Klara appears to be setting her up to do similar work for him. In true SJI style, all we have is circumstantial evidence at this point.

For what it's worth, I don't think Patrick's fingers are instrumental here, since Klara has been submitting to his will from the moment they met in the shop. Either he has already been programming her previously, in which case he may have set up some visual or physical triggers, or else he simply has some power over women (or else, she's just playing along with his game). But if he has such a power, I doubt it's random. If he does have a blood connection to John Wilmot, then isn't it possible he's some kind of descendant of Atlas...? ("Titanomachy Property Management" in 368 suggests we're heading in that kind of direction.)

I'm partial to victims finding being controlled hot, but only if they are actually being controlled.

[SDPunk]

Patrick is also under the tutelage of a Rain-like figure who is most likely the Polly referred to in the guest pages, and who may or may not be the Wilmot-founding Polly shown in the story itself. It has been assumed that Adrian's similarity to John Wilmot is familial.

Based on John Wimot referring to Polly as Greek, I’ll lay dollars to donuts Polly and Rain are the same person and both Patrick and Adrian took/are taking lessons from her. Hang on, a little Greek mythology to check....

So perhaps Rain is Calliope, the muse of Epic Poetry and mother of Orpheus, she taught him to sing. Orpheus could calm beasts and move the heart of Hades, there was some witchcraft in that music. Given the general thrust of the story it’s possible she is Erato the Muse of Love Poetry, but then you lose the Orpheus connection, and given Patrick and Adrian that seems significant.