Comic for March 7th, 2012

[unsteddyPhoenix]

I am SO proud that I got to post this

It's all a conspiracy! Isn't it Eric? Or are you just covering your [censored]?

[Blazestar]

From Eric's expression in the bottem-left panel, I'd wager that he didn't actually expect Evals to have conspired at all. I'm guessing he was just shaken by the fire and took it out on his slaves in a paranoid panic. But now that he has fed his own paranoia by getting a 'confession' from Evals, he's going to be in a pretty unstable state.

Or I could be totally off. It's happened before

[Samdragon07]

RUN AWAY MIKE.

[TinyVoices]

So, I suppose Eric is just rolling with the ball here? Eric now knows that Evals didn't start the fire, though he did try to gain members for a mutiny. So, why does he continue to feel that Evals did something?


I see a possible issue for Natani and Flora in the near future. Evals only had to say yes or no. He didn't need to ellaborate. (Though, that may have been to simply conserve space.)

*to Evals*- Who's support did you try to gain?
- Mike's and Natani's.
*puts collar on Mike*- Mike, is this all true? And how long have you known about this?
-Yes. I've known it since this morning, before the fire, and before I found out that Flora is pregnant and that Natani is a woman!
Everyone- wut

[Damage]

I think it's important that we recognize that Evals said "I attempted to gain support for a mutiny". Not "I attempted to burn the boat and escape enslavement". A large part of that is the vagueness of Eric's question.

[Schrodinger]

Yeah, saw that coming. Eric still being irrational and a [censored].

[AlfaWskyDlta]

It will be interesting to see what Eric tries to do about this. Any harsh punishment will most likely turn the rest of the group against him, but it is certain that he is planning on doing something...
Either way, I don't really see this ending well for Eric. I think that it's only a matter of time until someone steps in to stop his tyrannical ways.

[avwolf]

So, I suppose Eric is just rolling with the ball here? Eric now knows that Evals didn't start the fire, though he did try to gain members for a mutiny. So, why does he continue to feel that Evals did something?

He needs the justification. Eric's had a few moments of conscience throughout the comic. I suspect that he needs to justify his actions to himself. If Evals is a threat to the ship, then Eric can feel justified in taking his free will. If Evals had done nothing, Eric would have probably have had some kind of a pang of conscience (though likely not enough to actually release Evals from the control spell, mind you). So Eric grasps at straws to justify his actions and, in this case, is rewarded (at least, as far as he's concerned).

Notice how Eric turns his focus to Mike only after Mike exhibits prior knowledge? That's at least partly because it assuages Eric's guilt about using the control spells as long as he can justify their use to himself. "Knowing of a conspiracy to start mutiny" is probably good enough self-justification to assure Eric in his own head that he's doing the right thing. People can convince themselves to do pretty terrible things, provided they can justify those actions to themselves.

[BadFoMo]

As much as I like the comic and wanted to see what happens next, I really don’t like it when it update ahead of time. Did anyone happen to save a copy of this one when it first came out and are there any differences between that one and the one that’s on the site now?

Anyway, does anyone else see Flora (with her past life as a slave) trying stopping Eric from putting the collar on Mike? Maybe even telling him (or at least describing) how it feels to have one of those callers on, or to put one on himself to see what he’s been doing. Perhaps that will be the turning point for this matter.

Also, the alternate text for this one is: It’s all a conspiracy!

[Renadt]

Okay, as of now, I have lost all respect (not that there was much there) for Eric. Someone's gonna snap, and methinks it be Flora. Oh, and I applaud Evals for fighting the control spell.

[Fraggranaut]

All this 'self-justification' Eric might be doing means that he's also fighting the culture he was raised to. The idea of needing to actually justify using control spells is something he'd have largely not needed to bother thinking about before. I'd say, odds are, he didn't place spells on slaves personally very often, so if Mike starts panicking and showing as much (if not more) fear then Evals did he'll have to keep coming back to the fact they were both terrified of having their minds taken from them.

But hasn't Mike always been a slave? I just wonder whether he's going to have some side effect from not having his mind 'shackled' as it were anymore.

Still, nicely drawn and damn I want next week to come sooner so we can see what happens next!

By the way, everyone knows "You're next!" is the sort of things villains say! Right, if Eric starts monologing and saying "Good evening Mr Legacy" while petting Kat, we're in for trouble.

Good thing swivel chairs haven't been invented yet, or we'd be in a real mess!

[AlfaWskyDlta]

He needs the justification.

He's trying to justify raging at Evals for a potential mutiny that he didn't know about at the time... Not exactly logical if you ask me. The others are now aware of this also. Like I said before, things probably aren't going to end well for Eric if he keeps trying to defend himself.

[PhycoKrusk]

There is one thing that's important to keep in mind here. If Eric keeps asking questions to find out how big this mutiny was, eventually it's going to come up that Natani expressed interest, and then there's going to be a real problem. However you spin it, Natani is an expert assassin. Trace has no magic, Keith is injured, Flora and Kat aren't warriors, and Mike and Evals, we know, are totally useless in a fight. Even with the advantage of numbers, in the current state of things, Natani could take all of them, even with only improvised weapons. Either someone is going to jump in, or things are going to get really out of hand: The instant Eric found out about the attempted mutiny, he lost all control of the situation.

He's no longer in a position where he might be able to diffuse things, and anything he does to escalate now is going to turn everyone against him. His irrational thinking put him in check. His self-assuredness put him in a checkmate. You're done, Eric. Game over, man! GAME OVER!

[Holmborn]

yeah, respect is decreasing.
someones gotta slap some sense back into him.
it cant be Kat or Natani, since they have gone hiding.. cant be Keith because hes gone into sad face mode.. cant be trace, since hes not a melee fighter... Mike and Evals cant really do anything.. Flora, we have seen use some decent melee fighting, so maybe she could kick him the face for us?
OR MAYBE IT ISNT REALLY ERIC AT ALL, AND THE STOWAWAY CAN TAKE A DISGUISE?!
... naah, hes just being a dick right now.

[Shadow3750]

If Mike is shackled and asked "who else" Natani would probably be in the next strip, since kathrin is with Nat, maybe he'll go as far to suspect Kat too?