[Alex Warlorn]

While the heroes have been put into context in the worlds they've visited before, this is the first time they've been mentally altered. This is likely due IMHO to the VERY unique and overpowering nature of the world they're in. They are no longer visitors to the 'dreams' (if that's what they are) they are now PART of the twisted mini-worlds they're in. I wonder if they'll need outside help to regain themselves.

[Alex Warlorn]

Well, Petra hasn't been changed this strip, but given the traumatizing scene she just witnessed that she has no reason to believe isn't real at first glance, I'd say her assimilation into one of the 'dream's' denizens isn't too far off.

[Alex Warlorn]

Each of the travelers so far have been given two pages. This is the second page for Petra, so I'm wondering if the pocket world will just leave her a fallen broken mess or still has a role planned for her.

[Emi]

Thank you for posting your comments on this story arc, I am happy to see someone is reading it :)

[pectus_umbra]

Are you kidding? It's great! I love Yume Nikki^^. And I see that you're dipping into some of the fan games as well, like .flow. Any chance of Uboa?

[Alex Warlorn]

Emi, on 22 June 2011 - 04:03 PM, said:

Thank you for posting your comments on this story arc, I am happy to see someone is reading it :)

I'll confess. I feel like the conversation with Anubis was directed personally at me. I never said the travellers were being put into their IDEAL FANTASY kingdoms, only that they were being assimilated into the mental worlds they were finding themselves in. So that kinda made my comment feel kinda unwelcome.


Petra it seems has either fully or near fully embraced the mental world she's in.

So after years of being the straight girl, Keiko is now forced to where her psyche being peeled back layer by layer? I can't guess yet what -if any- meaning what she's going through has. I can't guess where the mental world she's in is going with this.

[Alex Warlorn]

So they were all instantly assimilated into being just another fixture of a pocket world forged out of the most repressed parts of their psyche?

If crushing the person's conscious mind until only the sub-conscious mind remains is what happened as soon as they left, what does the end result LOOK LIKE?

I'm still curious how our 'little mermaid' is doing, (or rather, was doing in the instant all this happened) since this is what's buried in the deepest part of their minds, I doubt it has anything to do with not being able to swim or some mundane inability like that. And what the inner demons of the one other male in the group was.

Ironically of course them all being together was what was keeping that world from preying on them (humans are social animals, we stay sane best when we're with others in theory at least).

Makes you wonder if Madotsuki Nexus is actually a gateway to the collective subconscious and she's been going through OTHER people's dreams this whole time (except for the blood world in the good end patch which is her own), and the reason no one there ever speaks to her is that the original person who that world was based on has already been fully absorbed into the place.

THE SCARY THING IS THUS: just because TIME has no meaning in the mind, DOESN'T MEAN that cause and effect has no meaning! That means they can't simply cheat time and not have ever had those things happen in the first place by never teleporting away! Mental scars do not simply go 'poof!'

[Alex Warlorn]

Is there any particular reason they look crazy but HAPPY as their minds are broken down to their base parts and are united as one at a single tiny point?

Sorry Eri-chan, you just lost any rights to childhood. Assuming you haven't joined your foreign-exchange-sister in that mental soup of the collective subconscious after having your psyche reduced to powder, then you just lost your rights to being immature or a child. Keiko won't be around anymore to look after you or hold your hand or help you from making bad decisions.

I know this sounds cruel hearted for saying this, but I hope this doesn't prove to be a simple 'reset button' scenario that fixes everything and they just continue on their way never speaking of this again or it never happens or they just leave feeling a little more uncertain or questioning of themselves afterwards. It would lessen the impact IMHO.

The laws of narrative say there's a reason the other two's mental moments haven't been shown. I wonder what that reason is. Hopefully it's Eri-Chan's magical girl powers manifesting and she achieves a nano-second of enlightenment in her eternity in a moment and she's able to leave. The real Hell being that she's going to have to leave Keiko behind.

(BTW: The twist of the magical girls turning out to be evil? I read the storyline backwards and forewords and it REALLY felt like a tossed in plot twist rather than one the narrative had been building up to and wasn't that good.)

Looking foreword to next week's comic.

'All happened the instant they teleported away.' Reminds me of Watchmen's "I did this all fifteen minutes ago." and works just as powerfully here.

I admire you, this kind of twist takes artistic guts.

Too bad almost no one seems interested in discussing it.

[Alex Warlorn]

I mean, assuming we don't get by a PAINFUL 'it was just a dream' or 'they were -only- clones' or 'this is all someone else's worst nightmare' this is by far the biggest twist of the entire series. And perhaps a nasty deconstruction of reality jumping in a semi-random nature, sooner or later you're going to run into a place that doesn't play by any rules you know, and you won't be able to learn the game fast enough to win.

I can imagine Ellie James at this point breaking down into, "I JUST WANNA GO HOME!" after learning this (since we didn't see her psyche being broken down into just another unrecoverable random indistinguishable piece of the collective unconscious).

[pectus_umbra]

Ah, the power of Yume Nikki^^. It really is beautiful. Though I was surprised by the use of the facial expression. With what it's usually used for, it lends things a certain...unsettling potential. Looking forward to more. But for now, tentacle combat! :D

[Create a Comic]

You should post these comments to the writer's blog so he can reply to them. He can't post to the forum due to a banhammer many moons again, which is why this place (and the larger forum in general) is so dead now.

[jonathan888]

Emily still pops in here from time to time.

[Alex Warlorn]

Create a Comic, on 21 August 2011 - 03:48 PM, said:

You should post these comments to the writer's blog so he can reply to them. He can't post to the forum due to a banhammer many moons again, which is why this place (and the larger forum in general) is so dead now.

So where is his blog then?

[jonathan888]

http://z6.invisionfr...hp?showforum=30

heads up: not necessarily safe for work

[Create a Comic]

Alex Warlorn, on 30 August 2011 - 02:23 AM, said:

So where is his blog then?

Right next to Emi's. Underneath the comic.

[Buckeroo]

Create a Comic, on 21 August 2011 - 08:48 PM, said:

You should post these comments to the writer's blog so he can reply to them.

Well, to be brutally honest, I still read the comic because of Emi's art, not Xuanwu's writing (Has he introduced a single plot-relevant character that doesn't have glasses? It's fine to have fetishes, but it's another altogether when it sacrifices diversity).

That said, whoever is responsible for a certain cameo in the September 1 strip has my gratitude. Hooray for Washuu-chan!

[Alex Warlorn]

This chapter takes some artistic guts IMHO as I said from the start. It makes a good shocker.

[Alex Warlorn]

And FINALLY back to the dream world. All of this happening in one instant. So Eeichi is a believer in 'Free Love' eh? Interesting. I wonder what buried parts of his psyche are about to come to the surface to crush his conscious mind until only his subconscious realm remains as another uninhabited landscape. This ironically makes the game Yumi Nikki even MORE chilling, because it implies that the majority of worlds that the heroine visited were not her own, but mental worlds of people who had gone completely insane.

[Alex Warlorn]

Geeze. Now I'm stuck wonder if this guy's id and ego are so intertwined that there's nothing really to break down . . .

[Alex Warlorn]

I still think our lad trapped in the black and white world is far too accepting of his Id to be broken by it.

And last but not least we come to Eri-Chan. How will her inner demons try to devour her? Her fear that she has failed to grow at all during this adventure? That they've been trapped in a series with no real myth arch? That the story has no actually ending planned and will just continue until she's burned up and used up and fades? Or does fate have one ace up it's sleeve for her? Proving stronger than their inner demons is what magical girls are SUPPOSED to be after all.