Paranatural

It's much harder to carry around and umbrella without being suspicious at school, though.

Update!

Should this be spoilered? I don't know the rules. Is Spender angsting or in pain? Probably both. In any case, I like the phone pictures.

edited 23rd Feb '16 6:00:05 PM by DatLonerGirl

Spoilers on a new page generally aren't necessary unless it's like a super plot twist or something.

Spender seems to be in physical pain, given that he's clutching at his chest, where the Forge brand is.

What interests me about the phone pictures is that Spender's phone can apparently take pictures of spirits, which are Invisible to Normals. Spender has a special spirit phone from the Consortium? Or spectrals can see spirits and stuff even in pictures? (My guess would be the latter, personally.)

edited 23rd Feb '16 6:30:33 PM by NativeJovian

You don't have to spoiler it, no.

Personally, I prefer doing it that way, out of courtesy, but there's no real rule on it.

edited 23rd Feb '16 6:30:40 PM by RaichuKFM

i think so too

so is Max's arm actually broken? or just a careful precaution? probably just precaution.

Well, we did get a nice "snap" when he took the hit, so it seems likely that it's at least a partial fracture (ie, the bone is cracked, but not completely broken).

Page.

That last panel seems familiar somehow...

Calling it now, Hijack's in Spender. Look, he can't even hold a phone right.◊

And it isn't like Spender to just moan about his pain, whether he's by himself or not. Hell, he could've done that while talking to Lucifer, but for some reason he waits until he's within earshot of the other teachers? Suspicious, veeeery suspicious.

Hmm...

*Starts analyzing Spender's dialogue on the two most recent pages*

Maybe Spender wasn't confused about why Isabel is calling him. Maybe Hijack was confused about why that girl he met in gym was calling him.

Then again, maybe he would be asking more questions of her.

Then again again, maybe that's the deal with that weird "I" in that speech bubble on the last page instead of him trying to remember? It's so ambiguous! I'm leaning towards not though, mostly because I want to see them try to explain this to the teachers.

edited 26th Feb '16 5:57:36 PM by DatLonerGirl

I find it unlikely Spender has been hijacked. He's already got Lucifer and Mysterious Shadowy Tentacles. If I was Hijack, I'd probably nope the heck out of there. Also, I suspect he probably avoids mediums and spectrals, due to either them having an innate resistance or their resident spirit buddy causing issues with his possession methods.

Hm, yeah.

Further speculations: He's still in Jeff, suspecting that at least Isabel would follow him, and is acting like Jeff did when he was un-possessed to look inconspicuous.

Could also be Starchman, since Hijack seems to have a fondness for people whose eyes you can't see (evidenced by the fact of him re-possessing Jeff and not, say, Coach Oop at any point during the trip to the teacher's lounge).

And in other news, Paranatural finally has a Patreon. Hopefully this will improve the schedule. Was he already writing the comic full-time? I can't remember if he had a day job.

I think he is a freelancer.

Actually Shadowy Spectral Monster might be why Hijack-Spender was moaning so badly before he picked up the phone to talk with Isabel. I see two, maybe three scenarios.

One is that Hijack is in Spender. This is what I guess you'd call the most "obvious twist", in that at the optimal pace for the comic (reading rate) the reader wouldn't pick up the hints and thus they'd be blindsided by the reveal, but at the slower rate of updates it's easier to pick apart the hints long before the twist comes up.

Now, if my theory that spooky ghost monster is giving Hijack an unhappy fourth dimension experience is right, then there's a chance that Hijack might hightail it out of there to the nearest host he can find. This is the twistiest of twist options, because it means that we have no idea who Hijack might pick then, because it's depending on how long he stays in Spender. He might GTFO now and leave into the nearest teacher in the room, but the Activity Club is definitely going to notice this. If Hijack leaves when the Activity Club doesn't have their eyes on him he might be able to get away while Spender's coming back to his senses. From there he could prey on anyone in the school, which would make the game that much more afoot.

The third option is that it is one of the teachers. I don't think we have enough evidence to confirm one of them over the others outside of wild speculation.

If it's one of the three teachers, the math teacher seems the most likely to have suitable emotions? "Personality: stressed"

(If it wanted Garcia specifically, it could have got him earlier, so his weirdness probably doesn't grant him improved likelihood.)

I don't think he's in Spender, considering how Spender already has something in him. Plus, I'm not sure if saying that Jeff was safe would be the safest move for Hijack - it might have been better to make them think that Jeff was still possessed in order to distract them for a few crucial seconds. We still don't know exactly why he wants to get into the teacher's lounge.

I don't think we've ever really seen Hijack try to blend in - before now, he was deliberately trying to draw attention to himself. Now he has to hide, so it's possible that whoever he's possessing will behave somewhat normally, requiring the Activity Club to think of a way to get him to trip up.

I think towards the end of the chapter, he'll try possessing Spender, which will give us a good look at what he's got inside him.

edited 28th Feb '16 5:12:21 PM by KarkatTheDalek

Hey look, here's what you get when Eightfold is all grown up. (The linked page is fine, but there's some NSFW stuff on that comic, so be careful if you go clicking around.)

edited 29th Feb '16 5:34:59 AM by NativeJovian

I saw "NSFW" and "Eightfold is all grown up" and my mind went terrible, terrible places.

For the record, READ KILL SIX BILLION DEMONS IT'S GREAT!!!

How many demons do they have to kill?

5,999,999,999 demons to go.

Wow, that's spot on. And the rider kinda looks like Terezi. I oughta pick that back up, I dropped off at the bimbo demon servants.

So now it could be one of the teachers, Spender, Jeff (still), or the Principal.

I'm gonna guess the Principal, as she's also-kinda being bullied. I think.

Need a plan

They also need to stop narrating when the plan shifts to bondage and bloodletting...

I was not expecting that. I laugh a bunch.