Saint James Infirmary Guest Page 12: She Just Happened

[PortalComic]

Portalcomic is a studio with a lot of members.

All extremely talented!

Yes we are!

[Daphne]

Yes we are!

Modest, too!

And, Henri reports, excellent hosts. Really, you should commission lots of things from them.

[GodWilling]

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[jmundt29]

But I thought that was the entire point of the Rain thing.  He tried three different avenues to reverse the effects.  At the same time he learned the full extent of the web around him he also learned of a larger threat (from Rain) and he accepted the niche already carved for him specifically to meet that threat.

I...well, hmph.  About the mid-20s, I don't know.

[Vidor]

Just read this one.  Wow, this sucked.  Worst SJI ever.  I really don't care for bleak, depressing endings to my MC porn, thanks.

[Daphne]

Worst SJI ever.

[Vidor]

Well, I guess it's possible to make a comic worse than that one.  Maybe Adrian could start feeling bad, and go to a psychotherapist and pour out his guilt over what a terrible human being he is.  Or maybe he could star enslaving fat women.

[GodWilling]

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[jmundt29]

I stepped out and the discourse turns sour.  Ouch.

GW--The way you describe Adrian is, generally, the most charitable light in which I can view most of the male characters in the rest of MC Comics oeuvre and the other active male participants in SJI (Derek and Q-ball specifically).

From Bertram to Kurt, to Coach, to the Pwned morons, to the Martian overlords and British louts on Martian Harem, they're all appendages and only the best of them have winning smiles.  The schemer in By the Book is just as devious, but he seems to have actual interest in who these women were, are, and will become.  The others, not so much.  At their mildest, they are manipulators, at their worst, they erase and rewrite the women who interest them to cater to their own fantasies or appetites.  Adrian doesn't do this.  He uses his youth, strength, stamina to fulfill their fantasies, to bring what they imagine to life.  That seems much more give than take--and again, the few times that he's given a direct order, it's been to

1. try to awaken his housemates from the Watch's influence and
2. to prevent the harem from expanding.

This would seem to make him categorically different from most of the other central male figures in MCC and definitely different from Derek and Q (Q brought first his desires, and then his fantasies to life with the perfume).  And that certainly seems different from El Magnifico.

There are a lot of things we don't know yet, but I think at this moment, the argument concerning "Don't.  Stop," could be answered with a Forgetting Sarah Marshall rebuttal.

[GodWilling]

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[jmundt29]

I suppose that's close, but I was offering an alternate theory.  I didn't believe that Adrian had Dani hide as part of a "To Be Continued" scenario, but had her hide because for him, that was the end--Erin was home, and he didn't want to have to explain what couldn't be explained.  He wasn't looking to revisit, just looking to not blow his chances with Erin before he ever got one.  There has to be a Youtube of the conversation between Mila Kunis character and her cohort at the desk after she gets the invitation to the muppet dracula musical.

[Vidor]

I say: Adrian is basically a jerk because he's taking advantage of these mind-controlled women

Why do you read these comics on this website?

(And to be clear, I can judge Adrian to be a jerk and still not hate myself for enjoying his exploits in this fantasy story, which is obviously so much more than just MC porn.)

You can say that but it doesn't make it true--or, to be clearer, it doesn't resolve the fundamental and unresolvable conflict between the two halves of that sentence.  And, let's be honest, this comic series isn't "so much more than just MC porn".  It's MC porn.  That's what we want and what we're paying for to come to this website and read.  And comics like the installment we're talking about here, which seemed to be created out of some desire to give Adrian his comeuppance, pretty much ruin the whole story.  You know what isn't arousing?  A sad, depressing comic where the protagonist is broke and jobless and apparently doesn't have any slaves.

[jmundt29]

I would have said "and everyone is miserable."  The slave dynamic doesn't HAVE to be present for a beautiful, engaging, or arousing scenario  Adrian and Echo look to have been pretty much crushed, they're hanging by a fiscal thread and the entire world around them is bleak--and Erin's reaction to...whatever has forced her at least next to and possibly into the arms of a self-important depth-of-a-wading pool, wannabe hair model.  Not a pleasant outlook.*shrugs*

[GodWilling]

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[Vidor]

I don't think most of the people who watch films about cowboys sit through the whole movie thinking that the cowboy is a jerk who needs to get his comeuppance.

It's just MC porn, right?

No, a story about poverty and joblessness isn't MC porn.  That's the problem.

Episodes where Yves and Q have a chat are dull, but at least they don't actively ruin the mood.  As for us being wrong-footed, let's hope so, because that sure did suck.