Come Quick 2015-03-22

Thor · Post by **Thor** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 12:08 am

LINK

Pickle is a real swinger.

AmriloJim · Post by **AmriloJim** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 12:12 am

Is it naivete in Castela's upbringing or a defense mechanism kicking in immediately? I tend to think the former, given her surprise to learn that fey had feelings.

Opus the Poet · Post by **Opus the Poet** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 12:18 am

Definately naivete, and being too short to see the rope around the neck. Just saw swinging and assumed there was a swing there.

kingklash · Post by **kingklash** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 12:23 am

Judging from Pickle's speech patterns, she seems to be three or four years old then. Six going on seven now, and she's putting things together after noticing how her sister smelled. I wonder what happened for that young girl to do that. Is placement for older Paras and Mythics more difficult than it is for Mundane preteens, tweens and teens?

AnotherFairportfan · Post by **AnotherFairportfan** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 12:32 am

Opus the Poet · Post by **Opus the Poet** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 12:32 am

I would think that was a given.

Post by **Dave** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 12:40 am

kingklash wrote: I wonder what happened for that young girl to do that. Is placement for older Paras and Mythics more difficult than it is for Mundane preteens, tweens and teens?

The paranormal/mythic populations probably total up to no more than a tiny fraction of the human population... and there are obviously a whole bunch of different species and races. There might not be all that many paranormal families available, at any given time, able take a child of any particular species and provide him or her with a suitable home and upbringing.

And, if life is as dangerous for the less-powerful paranormal types as Phix has hinted, there might be a high rate of orphanings.

So, this lass may have given up hope of ever being adopted, and had to face the possibility of spending her entire childhood in the orphanage... and then moving on into adulthood with no family and little support. In what dark Satanic mill might she have ended up being fated to work, if she could even survive? Was she one who could hold human-shape and hide her nature, or would she have to remain forever in hiding?

oldmanmickey · Post by **oldmanmickey** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 1:04 am

This one is a real kick in the feelings here. The poor kid

AmriloJim · Post by **AmriloJim** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 1:09 am

One more thought on what we're reading as Castela's naivete... we have encountered paras for whom hanging would not be effective, so it is possible for 'Stela to think this is a game.

scantrontb · Post by **scantrontb** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 1:56 am

kingklash wrote:Judging from Pickle's speech patterns, she seems to be three or four years old then. Six going on seven now, and she's putting things together after noticing how her sister smelled. I wonder what happened for that young girl to do that. Is placement for older Paras and Mythics more difficult than it is for Mundane preteens, tweens and teens?

personally, i'm leaning in the direction that MIB was "responsible" for keeping them hidden from the mundane public's knowledge, and up until Thup was evicted there were NO adoptions out of there, or at least VERY VERY few, all the kids that were there, were there for the duration... when Thup was evicted, and BRANDI took over again (inside her own head that is) THAT was when things started to change around there. I'll bet that Katherine was one of the first NON-Para's to have adopted any para-natural ever(from there at least).

DilyV · Post by **DilyV** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 2:28 am

I was a young 19 year old private in Korea... I'd just gotten there and had been in my unit for a few weeks. We had a guy who got promoted to Staff Sergeant on a Friday. After the end of day formation, everyone scattered to the four winds and I remember people asking if anyone had seen the Staff Sergeant... everyone thought he'd have been partying... Tradition has it that the new promote usually funds the party for his promotion.

Monday morning rolls around and we're at morning formation for physical training and he's not there. A soldier was ordered to go to his room and tell him to get to formation. No one answered the door. The master keys were brought out and they found him hanging from the heater pipes. No note. No inkling he had any suicidal tendencies. This wasn't a thing where he hung himself from the light fixture in the center of the room or anything like that... the pipes ran along the ceiling right on the wall. They were maybe eight foot ceilings. He was found with his back to the wall, still in his uniform from Friday. They figured that out because he'd received "blood rank" meaning that after they pinned the rank to the shirt, they pounded it into him before putting the keepers on them. The rank pins were still imbedded in his collar bones. He didn't struggle. There were no scuff marks from his boots on the wall. Not that he was hanging off the floor. He'd looped 550 cord around his neck, cinched it tight and just let his body go limp. He could have stood up, could have saved himself at any time. He was in a single occupancy room, locked from the inside.

no one ever figured out why he did it... He was due to rotate back to the states about two months later, had just gotten promoted, was single, had no issues that anyone knew of. He just decided to end it.

This strip just leaves me speechless... I honestly can't find the words to express my reaction. To say it's sad is an understatement.

TazManiac · Post by **TazManiac** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 2:32 am

AmriloJim wrote:One more thought on what we're reading as Castela's naiveté... we have encountered paras for whom hanging would not be effective, so it is possible for 'Stela to think this is a game.

Anyone recall Pickle 'Running with Scissors' on the Island?

I don't think you can effectively strangle Castela, in the conventional sense, so something like 'hung from the neck, until dead' found no relevance in her, esp at such a young age...

PS- Looking at the young Orphanage-mate, I wonder if she also had societal stereotypes she was contending with;

"Everybody knows what your type are like, just look at you!..."

stjen · Post by **stjen** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 2:51 am

Sudden thought (at 3am) -- we know that they paired younger kids with older kids. Perhaps Pickle was paired with the hanging girl -- that was why she didn't have a problem with "swinging" with her, not knowing any better. And that this is the time where Atsali became Pickle's new "big sister".

zachariah · Post by **zachariah** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 7:24 am

At least we can put the PTSD thinking about Sali away and forget about it now. The calm way she handled pickle shows Sali has learned to accept and cope that bad things happen. She shows no signs of trauma from this, just sadness. Makes me wonder that this is not the first time this has happened.

We know the stresses in teenagers these day combined with the world mind set that teen suicide has been increasing. It makes sense the ratio would be higher in the para's. Given how they isolate them selves and the apparently para hierarchy of perceived status the stress upon them would be greater. The fact they go to school and have to hide who they are, abandonment, and potential bullying from inside and outside the para community.

eee · Post by **eee** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 7:45 am

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

We need to find out more about Mr. Meadows. He seems to be an amazingly compassionate and centered man.

Warrl · Post by **Warrl** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 10:05 am

Opus the Poet wrote:Definately naivete, and being too short to see the rope around the neck. Just saw swinging and assumed there was a swing there.

Also the little detail that doing the same thing probably wouldn't harm Castela at all. She doesn't have quite the same self-preservation instincts as other people who aren't plants (she has different ones). To her, having something wrapped tightly around the neck is not instinctively-obviously wrong.

Sidhekin · Post by **Sidhekin** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 10:51 am

stjen wrote:Sudden thought (at 3am) -- we know that they paired younger kids with older kids. Perhaps Pickle was paired with the hanging girl -- that was why she didn't have a problem with "swinging" with her, not knowing any better. And that this is the time where Atsali became Pickle's new "big sister".

If she'd been, Pickle would not have called her "the girl at the orphanage", surely?

'sides, "Atsali" and "Pickle" seem pretty close already.

lake_wrangler · Post by **lake_wrangler** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 11:56 am

Sidhekin wrote:If she'd been, Pickle would not have called her "the girl at the orphanage", surely?

While you are most likely right, I must mention that this kind of thinking is most dangerous! Never take anything for granted, when it comes to Paul and Wapsi Square...

May I suggest you get a good health plan, in case of whiplash?

Gyrrakavian · Post by **Gyrrakavian** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 12:25 pm

I didn't think we needed that question answered quite so vividly.

Sometimes it is simply better to tell.

Glasshawk · Post by **Glasshawk** » Mon Mar 23, 2015 12:59 pm

Long time reader of the comic (and long time reader of the forums without registering) and Friday's and this comic touched a spot that is well beyond painful. 17 years ago, my girlfriend at the time committed suicide. No hints, no warning signs, nothing. She was prepping to move out East to start a job before her master's degree program and on the last evening we were going to be together, she had been at my place for a couple hours. She asked if I wanted her to head to that college for her master's degree and I asked her if that is what she wanted and she told me "Its everything I've wanted to do", I told her she should go and I would still be here when she got back. I remember her last comment of "You may not be everything I want, but I will settle for you. We've been together in lives before, in this one, and in more in the future." I didn't think anything of it, since she was a believer in reincarnation and had told me before that we were two souls attached. The next morning, I get a call from her parents that she shot herself in the head less than two hours after she left my place. Between Friday's comic and then having a friend from back then call on Saturday and ask "So do you and (her name) have a herd of kids running around by now?" had me in a position where today's comic just... There are no words.

As 'Sali is probably figuring out, burying memories only works until either someone digs the memories back up or they pull themselves back to the surface. And as I've dealt with over this weekend, memories always dig themselves back out. Pickle just triggered something in Sali's memory and that genie is not going back in its bottle anytime soon.

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