Paranatural

update

Also a plug below for another D&D thing by Zack. Some cool character designs on the cover.

So, what door is Spender opening in that last panel?

Should be the door to the Activity Consortium headquarters. You can tell because of the formal pajamas and Lucifer's presence in wispy white not-yet-recovered-spirit form.

"Formal pajamas." Funny, but true.

page

page. the boss

page

I was wondering how this nice chat letting Isaac in on the Activity Consortium was going to go wrong.

I, uh, hadn't guessed it would be like that.

So 90% chance imposter, 10% chance Boss Leader just isn't human???

Edited by DatLonerGirl on Aug 19th 2022 at 4:56:28 AM

I think 100% chance BL is not just a spectral human. Some kind of transcendance or whatnot, being a spirit wholecloth, etc etc. Lots of options.

We might be learning about what Francisco was referring to on this page's ending.

Given that Isaac doesn't remember this conversation, this is clearly something that BL doesn't want to be known. The emphasis on 'at all' makes me think this is a 'was never human' situation. BL can't easily explain it away by going 'oh, I'm a ghost', or 'well, I guess I've been changed by the act of controlling this place, so that's affecting my scent'.

It's also possibly something she could explain away to Isaac easily enough, but still can't allow a powerful spirit to know.

page!

There's a lot to unpack here. So the wight is the one in control? It's not just a mindless beast? And it seems like Isaac agreed to have his memories deleted... but since he didn't remember that, he eventually became bitter. The Boss probably should have just killed Catnine over his objections.

I think Boss Leader is a spirit who has claimed a Wight's power, rather than just being a Medium for one. Whether she then uses that to be a Medium for Sandman (where a regular Spirit would lose itself quickly to what is presumably such a major yarn-eater), or just fabricated Sandman entirely, I don't know. But I doubt Sandman was the Power sleeping in Mayview; I think she took it from the wight in the lake. She only showed up after that incident, unless she's been every Boss Leader (which she'd need to be, if Sandman is a lie). I don't think she is Sandman in control of a human's medium's mind; she seems a bit more trolling and fond of spooking than a pure desirer of PLEASEDON'TBESCARED, though that might just have been only the momentary feeling and not indicative of Sandman's principle grudge.

So, to review, what Boss Leader claimed was going on is that she, like all previous Mediums for the Wight known as Sandman, is a coma, eternally using Sandman's power to maintain the dream hub, and Wights can't really communicate directly, their language being one of raw feeling.

Catnine appears to be asserting that she is a Wight, not merely the Medium for one. He wants know how she managed to become a Wight, but she says that one who wants that power can't be trusted with that knowledge.

So perhaps the truth is that the story of a series of comatose hosts for Sandman is a lie, and BL is actually just a mouthpiece Sandman uses to get around the 'no direct communication' problem. With I guess the insinuation here being that Sandman wasn't always a Wight, but found a way to become one.

It remains probable that Sandman and The Secret Power are two completely different Wights, in my book. BL's been trying pretty hard to figure out what's been going on in Mayview, after all.

Oh, yeah, that seems more convincing than my speculation there. Especially the part about it being separate from The Secret Power; I'd say I don't know what I was thinking, but I think I took Catnine's statement overly specifically while quite tired. More awake and lucid now, I still like the idea that BL stole some power without exactly becoming a wight but I'm less certain how that could be squared. If she is somehow Sandman directly that sorta undermines, for me, the idea that wights are the grudgiest grudges, and I think that should at least be

It is worth asking that how would a spectral (or ghost or spirit, for that matter) possibly be a medium for a wight, even a willing one? Their, like, whole thing as elaborated here involves forcibly ripping swathes of spectral energy to recuperate near-instantly. But to be a medium of a spirit, that spirit has to in a recuperating state, and the only way to get that is destruction; well okay maybe Eightfold would have opted to self-destroy unnecessarily for silly flair, but still I think that's pretty fair. So, can wights, these monstrously powerful incredibly emotionally-defined beings, choose to exercise restraint in self-revivification? At least long enough to leech onto a spectral, or indefinitely, if being a medium's spirit doesn't involve forfeiting the ability to rip energy from anywhere else?

It's interesting however you slice it.

Some observations from the replies on the Twitter announcement post, and some observations of my own:

Sandman has a giant yellow eye with a small black dot pupil on gray skin. BL shows those same features a few pages before that, when she's hulking out. Also back in chapter 4, when she notices something in Max's dream room. And here, a yellow eye. (Of course, that's ascribable to taking on one's spirit's traits as a medium.)

An observation on this page:

Dreams starting in the middle / dream logic:

• this page, Mina points out that she can't remember the start of the dream or being called to the dream hub.
  "You just showed up after... and all the adults suddenly trust you?? […] This dream... when did it start? I don't remember being called here."
• this current scene starts with BL saying:
  "Most dreams start in the middle, so I don't always get to introduce myself."

  (and indeed, Isaac already knows that she's called "Boss Leader", as his thoughts on the current page make clear)

• previous page:
  Isaac looked on in confusion. Dream logic mingled with his waking mind's lucidity, trying and failing to remind him of things he wasn't sure he'd ever known.
• and on the current page, Isaac can't remember the start of this dream, or how he knows that BL is Spender's superior.
  Isaac didn't understand what was happening. Trying to make sense of it brought him right to the precipice of a gap in his memory, the beginning of the dream that hadn't been. Who was this Boss Leader? Mr. Spender's superior? When had he learned that? Spender hadn't mentioned her—he'd only said that Dimitri's injury would warrant "conversation." What had filled the space in Isaac's understanding between that utterance and now?

Mayview's "great power" is referred to in glowing white text, and Mayview's "hidden truth" is referred to in white text. And on the latest page, Catnine says "The power of a WIGHT!!" with a faint glow behind "power".

It occurs to me that it's also possible that every Boss Leader before the current one was a real person- perhaps after 'the buff one' died, Sandman was somehow freed from the need to choose a new host, and decided that it knew humans well enough to start running the show.

Which I suggest because if this con has been going on for generations, it's weird that BL never ran into a spirit who could tell something was wrong by smell before.

So I read back and wtf, does anyone remember this?

Also, what does this imply about Sockpuppy? Especially with his color? Is he another piece? Is he linked to the creation of artificial spirits? Do we really know what wights are? If BL is a wight pretending to be a medium, they could have been B Sing hardcore.

EDIT: Inhuman choices???

Edited by DatLonerGirl on Aug 26th 2022 at 2:33:35 PM

I remembered the Spinx of Truth (or was it Twuth?) on sight but I did not recall that confrontation taking place in that Stephen-centric chapter or that particular true statement.

The Sockpuppy implication is, I think, pretty definitely that Mina can't create an artificial spirit that could control a wight. Dude's pink, so he's not himself a wight, and... would be a really weird piece. A piece of the wight having black spectral energy (if that bit in Spender isn't a piece of something else besides) makes some thematic and aesthetic sense. Also, Sockpuppy is Mina's first artificial creation, right? I thought that's why he's a secret special boy.

While BL could have been lying about what wights are in general, I do think that she likely wasn't, except maybe by omission? That's purely Doylist; I feel like giving us readers that particular puzzle piece as a full fake would be less, like, sporting than Paranatural is.

Oh yeah, can't be controlled, that makes sense. I did write that pretty early in the morning.

update!

Isaac's desire to be a "real boy" is rather poignant, and as someone who grew up often acting a role, it resonates with me. Eventually, you can Become the Mask. Which is why you have to carefully pick which masks you wear, and how often.