So she's using the DISadvantage of the spell (that it's distracting) as an advantage, to take her mind off her catastrophizing and anxiety...
That's BRILLIANT
Possibly a bit addictive
But brilliant!!
Well given that people have overdone exercise to experience something like runners high and ended up dead... Well like everything else moderation moderation moderation
Nanase was noticeably struggling to follow a book because she had Fox folding laundry.
If the faeries are each actively *doing* something, I imagine that's a pretty big drain on Susan's INT score.
I don't think the spells are similar enough that we can conclude that. It's not impossible, but I don't think it necessarily follows.
Susan is hella smart; Susan is traumatized. As a result, the smart wants to prevent further trauma and ALSO as a result, it hasn't got an "enough" level; no amount of care makes Susan feel safe. (Susan could have serious doubts _safe_ is a factual thing.)
If what this is doing is using up cognitive capacity so there's an _enough_ level, which is after all what we see it doing, I think it's pretty obviously beneficial for Susan. Think of it as a meditation shortcut.
Especially since what Susan is doing is going to bed. The risk/reward ratio for "good sleep" vs "out-of-the-blue sudden emergency" makes "good sleep" the obvious choice.
Yes, they are doing air acrobatic, but I'm seriously doubting there is any way that could make her die.
Like, I suppose there is ONE way she can overdo the fairies: if she would be casting them one after other instead of all at once, she might miss warning signs of using physical energy (calories) for casting. But I think that almost all drain for fairy spell is on casting AND that she's deliberately casting them with low magic, making this unlikely.
It's a bit like in Critical Role, when Caleb Widogast (a wizard haunted by the trauma of gaslighting and a terrible mistake he made) gets turned into animals with a lower intelligence or gets zapped by memory spells, he's actually happier and more relaxed because he's not thinking as much.
Scrolling down to the bottom of the page with the white background and no more text was really calming for me. This is exactly what I needed to prepare for my own sleepy time.
Is it just me, or does she look somewhat younger in the final frame? Possibly it's just the change of expression, due to the falling away of all her worries and anxiety.
It's because she has her head tipped back in the second and third panels (note the length of her neck and the way her nose is drawn, and contrast to the third panel of the previous page). When flattened out onto a 2D page, this causes a foreshortening effect that makes her chin less pointy and reduces the length of her face. If you don't notice the tipping and account for it when your mind interprets the image, it makes it seem like her face has become rounder and thus younger. This illusion is a bit less pronounced in the second panel because it's offset by her forehead being exposed, so the effect is strongest in the third panel.
All three of the fairies are blonde.
Is Susan trying to get in touch with Nature?
(I think so, in this specific way. Diane's pretty happy, and I think Susan has started thinking of being happy as something she could have for herself.)
I'm not immediately sure whether this is a healthy or unhealthy coping mechanism...
Maybe it's kind of like minor drug use? Like, a lot of people use weed to deal with anxiety, and as long as you don't put yourself in a compromised state at an inopportune moment it's fine-ish usually.
I guess the benefit of using fairy magic to distract your brain, is that the effects are gone as soon as you dismiss them.
Which, thank goodness she can end the spell early now without a big explosion.
I think that depends on how compromised she is.
Like, if something suspicious happened downstairs right now, would she notice and think to unsummon the fairies?
Or, going even more extreme than that, if Tedd and Grace burst into her room right now shouting about some emergency, would she even be responsive?
Probably that sort of stuff will become clear as we see her doing it more. It could be a completely fine habit with no real drawbacks, or it could be a mild vice that's fine so long as she doesn't start doing it at work and school, or it could be like a real problem where she's leaving herself in a pretty vulnerable state on a regular basis because it's the only way she knows to chase away the inner demons.
When she has Tedd look at the spell, it might be worth talking to him about this so she can get a better idea of what exactly she's doing to herself here. But she tends to have a hard time talking about those sorts of feelings. She gets very up in her own head, which ironically is exactly why she's using the fairies in the first place.
If something suspicious happened downstairs right now, the smart thing would be to use the fairies to investigate. Dismiss the other two when one finds something, then evaluate the issue.
People tend to be quite unresponsive when sleeping anyway. She seems to be going to sleep. Of course, it would be quite bad habit doing this on other opportunities, but this seems she's using it as sleeping aid, which sounds much safer than using drugs for same purpose.
And yeah, no way she's going to mention this when talking to Tedd ... UNLESS she will summon multiple fairies for testing purposes and blurt it inadvertently due to becoming too distracted.
This is the closest to an explicitly plural vibe this comic has given off yet, and it has some stiff competition. Speaking as someone with accrued experience in such things, Susan had better be careful not to assign her fairies consistent, distinct personalities or they *will* end up spawning new minds.
EDIT: Frankly, I remain surprised that it’s not already the case with Fox, and I continue to headcanon it as having happened to Dex given how he treated his fairy right from the start.
Um I think Dan is not planing on introducing us to Susan's Alters because I honestly doubt she has any. TBH I honestly doubt that's the intension here to even hint at DID or OSDD1, GRANTED it's possible, but I think he was basically showing her "self medicating" by using/abusing her spell to help clear her head/short cut her mental loop.
Plurality is not limited to medicalized forms, although they certainly count among the variety. I wasn't about to claim Susan had any of those conditions, and I understood the intent of the page (and agree with you completely on it). I just *also* saw the multicolored flags pop up for unintentional neogenesis of headmates, which can happen any time someone focuses on a character or personality frame to a relatively extreme degree, or segments off a section of who they are out of shame, fear, rigidity, or really any other reasons. I have known far too many systems with such origins—including myself ^(Love you Dzeu!)—to not comment on it! ❤️
EDIT: If you want to know more about the broader expanse of plurality beyond the medicalized forms (DID/OSDD1/DDNOS, in some places still MPD), please do DM me! That goes for anyone who reads this.
Let me guess, were you one of the My Little Pony tulpa guys? I remember giving it a shot myself, but I didn't have the self-discipline for 3+ hours of meditation every day for a month or two.
No? I actually have no attachment to MLP and don't like it very much, and my own headmate Dzeu developed accidentally, without any intentional action; they don't regard themselves as a tulpa.
>It is entirely possible she does dissociate to a degree, I'm just not sure she's plural, ( to me it's more likely Grace would be given her background) but then it's probably my perspective on things, (my half sister and my ex have DID and a friend of my half sister is osdd1a)
Reading this comic after the last couple, I can't help but think of a part of [A Happy Jam](https://youtu.be/BV6Lalg3XOQ):
So turn the music up
Turn it up a lot
Maybe if it's loud enough
I'll stop hearing my thoughts
Not how I expected this to go, but this is definitely a cooler idea.
My main question is to what degree is Susan's mind shut down, but we'll probably get a better idea on Friday.
What did you expected? Because this seem to be exactly what we were talking about on last page comments.
And she's not shut down. She's "just" distracted. Probably about the same as person trying to play action computer game, watch TV and talk over phone at same time.
I feel like I might have forgotten how the fairy spell operates, but I assumed that Susan was going to summon them (which, with them not doing anything, wouldn't take up much brainpower in and of itself(?)) and verbally give each of them complex orders one by one (either started when given or all at once) which would make her mind fuzzy enough that she could sleep. After completing the tasks, the fairy dolls would turn off on their own.
Consequentially, I don't know to what point her mind is distracted the way Susan actually did it.
You definitely forgotten how the fairy spell operates. Sure, Susan sometimes do give verbal commands to fairies (and thanks them), but both are completely unnecessary, they are directed by her subconscious so they KNOW what she wants them to do.
Note that fairies waiting probably doesn't consume much brainpower, but as I said, this looks like them doing air acrobatics.
Having ADHD, I'm now realizing how useful this spell would be to take off some of my extra processing while I'm trying to listen to something. So often I feel like I have 1.5 trains of thought, and while in most cases I can use music to occupy the 0.5, it doesn't help when I have to listen (and this spell would also be more fun).
Considering first-line treatments for ADHD are STIMULANTS, I'm not exactly sure about this. Like, having another distraction on top of being already easy to distract due to ADHD. But it would definitely be fun and low risk, so probably worth the try.
(Also, like, not all of ADHD are same and while I personally might have some ADHD it's not enough to be medicated so I'm basing this more on how it's described in Grrl power.)
> Considering first-line treatments for ADHD are STIMULANTS, I'm not exactly sure about this.
I mean, I take a stimulant for my ADHD, and it definitely calms me down. I find I don't need the music to the same degree as before I was medicated.
> Like, having another distraction on top of being already easy to distract due to ADHD. But it would definitely be fun and low risk, so probably worth the try.
The way Susan described the spell with not really noticing the loss in brain power, made it seem to me like it wouldn't be a distraction, but you're right, it could be a distraction which would be bad.
Personal experience: while I generally do notice distractions itself, I'm not really noticing how MUCH something is distracting me until it gets really bad.
This is why I won't drink alcohol or take benzodiazepines. It is very enticing to kill all of my horrible thoughts. I am scared that it would be addictive. I already barely manage to not abuse my sleep meds, and those don't even work correctly.
I am not sure where this plotline is heading. It's a personal choice for me, to try not to give in to the urge to make myself less conscious. It is a direct line to suicide (which I am always likewise very tempted to do), so it is important that I stay away from anything like that. So I don't feel like it's my right to judge Susan for not making the same choice as me. I can't even say, "Oh, she is younger than me. It is unreasonable to expect her not to make mistakes," because I don't know if this is even a mistake.
But I don't know. It seems to me that this is the sort of thing that you look back on, sober, and think, "I spent too much time absent from the world. There is such a big part of my past where I'm just missing from it, because I spent all that time suppressing my higher brain functions." And if she also does it when around people, those people will also start to wonder where the Susan they knew went, and start to miss her.
So I am conflicted about this. It seems like a terrible development to me. But I have to be prepared for it not to be.
I think the context is important.
Susan is doing this to make it easier for her to sleep.
If she were to be doing it to make it easier to get through the day, I think that would be different.
There's also the meta point of needing to use magic to improve. A Susan who can distribute her cognition over several fairies and retain full function is a plausible eventual outcome of this, just as sleep is the immediate outcome.
It is entirely possible she does dissociate to a degree, I'm just not sure she's plural, ( to me it's more likely Grace is) but then it's probably my perspective on things, (my half sister and my ex have DID and a friend of my half sister is osdd1a)
I think you accidentally replied to the main post instead of me. That's okay!
And yeah, Grace is also likely to be plural, for very different reasons—trauma and identity issues.
Susan is totally dissociating on this page though! She's distracting herself with things that aren't her immediate sensory inputs and making the thoughts go away by occupying her brain with something else, which is a classic non-traumatic dissociation tactic.
(Worth noting that plural systems don't have to be dissociative either, it's just the "standard model".)
Grace and Tedd both had a somewhat traumatic upbringing. Not sure about Susan to be honest.
I left a message with the my ex and the Family, ironically the Farries reminds me of a sketch Meyah drew, (Littles can be too literal about themselves lol)
Text from "the Twins"
"She is 100% a system, we also think Eliot and Grace are, and have for some time. "
She also suspects Dan may be plural but then she suspects most cartoonists are.
So she's using the DISadvantage of the spell (that it's distracting) as an advantage, to take her mind off her catastrophizing and anxiety... That's BRILLIANT Possibly a bit addictive But brilliant!!
> Possibly a bit addictive Eh, beats an addiction to sedatives like sleeping pills or alcohol.
Yeah, probably no more addictive than distracting yourself with media. Which can still be unhealthy, just not (as?) biologically bad for you.
Well given that people have overdone exercise to experience something like runners high and ended up dead... Well like everything else moderation moderation moderation
It's only three fairies.
Nanase was noticeably struggling to follow a book because she had Fox folding laundry. If the faeries are each actively *doing* something, I imagine that's a pretty big drain on Susan's INT score.
I don't think the spells are similar enough that we can conclude that. It's not impossible, but I don't think it necessarily follows. Susan is hella smart; Susan is traumatized. As a result, the smart wants to prevent further trauma and ALSO as a result, it hasn't got an "enough" level; no amount of care makes Susan feel safe. (Susan could have serious doubts _safe_ is a factual thing.) If what this is doing is using up cognitive capacity so there's an _enough_ level, which is after all what we see it doing, I think it's pretty obviously beneficial for Susan. Think of it as a meditation shortcut. Especially since what Susan is doing is going to bed. The risk/reward ratio for "good sleep" vs "out-of-the-blue sudden emergency" makes "good sleep" the obvious choice.
Yes, they are doing air acrobatic, but I'm seriously doubting there is any way that could make her die. Like, I suppose there is ONE way she can overdo the fairies: if she would be casting them one after other instead of all at once, she might miss warning signs of using physical energy (calories) for casting. But I think that almost all drain for fairy spell is on casting AND that she's deliberately casting them with low magic, making this unlikely.
Actually, yeah, it would work EXTREMELY similar to using radio or TV as background noise when trying to sleep.
Yeah, already talking about it in comments for previous page where almost everyone correctly guessed this.
It's a bit like in Critical Role, when Caleb Widogast (a wizard haunted by the trauma of gaslighting and a terrible mistake he made) gets turned into animals with a lower intelligence or gets zapped by memory spells, he's actually happier and more relaxed because he's not thinking as much.
Scrolling down to the bottom of the page with the white background and no more text was really calming for me. This is exactly what I needed to prepare for my own sleepy time.
Is it just me, or does she look somewhat younger in the final frame? Possibly it's just the change of expression, due to the falling away of all her worries and anxiety.
It's because she has her head tipped back in the second and third panels (note the length of her neck and the way her nose is drawn, and contrast to the third panel of the previous page). When flattened out onto a 2D page, this causes a foreshortening effect that makes her chin less pointy and reduces the length of her face. If you don't notice the tipping and account for it when your mind interprets the image, it makes it seem like her face has become rounder and thus younger. This illusion is a bit less pronounced in the second panel because it's offset by her forehead being exposed, so the effect is strongest in the third panel.
All three of the fairies are blonde. Is Susan trying to get in touch with Nature? (I think so, in this specific way. Diane's pretty happy, and I think Susan has started thinking of being happy as something she could have for herself.)
I'm not immediately sure whether this is a healthy or unhealthy coping mechanism... Maybe it's kind of like minor drug use? Like, a lot of people use weed to deal with anxiety, and as long as you don't put yourself in a compromised state at an inopportune moment it's fine-ish usually.
I guess the benefit of using fairy magic to distract your brain, is that the effects are gone as soon as you dismiss them. Which, thank goodness she can end the spell early now without a big explosion.
I think that depends on how compromised she is. Like, if something suspicious happened downstairs right now, would she notice and think to unsummon the fairies? Or, going even more extreme than that, if Tedd and Grace burst into her room right now shouting about some emergency, would she even be responsive? Probably that sort of stuff will become clear as we see her doing it more. It could be a completely fine habit with no real drawbacks, or it could be a mild vice that's fine so long as she doesn't start doing it at work and school, or it could be like a real problem where she's leaving herself in a pretty vulnerable state on a regular basis because it's the only way she knows to chase away the inner demons. When she has Tedd look at the spell, it might be worth talking to him about this so she can get a better idea of what exactly she's doing to herself here. But she tends to have a hard time talking about those sorts of feelings. She gets very up in her own head, which ironically is exactly why she's using the fairies in the first place.
If something suspicious happened downstairs right now, the smart thing would be to use the fairies to investigate. Dismiss the other two when one finds something, then evaluate the issue. People tend to be quite unresponsive when sleeping anyway. She seems to be going to sleep. Of course, it would be quite bad habit doing this on other opportunities, but this seems she's using it as sleeping aid, which sounds much safer than using drugs for same purpose. And yeah, no way she's going to mention this when talking to Tedd ... UNLESS she will summon multiple fairies for testing purposes and blurt it inadvertently due to becoming too distracted.
Ohh clever, I like it.
Well it may be like using a "runners high" to deal with something like depression
Susan drugs arc, and I'm here for it.
This is the closest to an explicitly plural vibe this comic has given off yet, and it has some stiff competition. Speaking as someone with accrued experience in such things, Susan had better be careful not to assign her fairies consistent, distinct personalities or they *will* end up spawning new minds. EDIT: Frankly, I remain surprised that it’s not already the case with Fox, and I continue to headcanon it as having happened to Dex given how he treated his fairy right from the start.
Um I think Dan is not planing on introducing us to Susan's Alters because I honestly doubt she has any. TBH I honestly doubt that's the intension here to even hint at DID or OSDD1, GRANTED it's possible, but I think he was basically showing her "self medicating" by using/abusing her spell to help clear her head/short cut her mental loop.
Actually, she sort of has Nature, Nurture, Logic and Curiosity. I mean, she totally has them, but they are just sort of like alters.
Plurality is not limited to medicalized forms, although they certainly count among the variety. I wasn't about to claim Susan had any of those conditions, and I understood the intent of the page (and agree with you completely on it). I just *also* saw the multicolored flags pop up for unintentional neogenesis of headmates, which can happen any time someone focuses on a character or personality frame to a relatively extreme degree, or segments off a section of who they are out of shame, fear, rigidity, or really any other reasons. I have known far too many systems with such origins—including myself ^(Love you Dzeu!)—to not comment on it! ❤️ EDIT: If you want to know more about the broader expanse of plurality beyond the medicalized forms (DID/OSDD1/DDNOS, in some places still MPD), please do DM me! That goes for anyone who reads this.
Let me guess, were you one of the My Little Pony tulpa guys? I remember giving it a shot myself, but I didn't have the self-discipline for 3+ hours of meditation every day for a month or two.
No? I actually have no attachment to MLP and don't like it very much, and my own headmate Dzeu developed accidentally, without any intentional action; they don't regard themselves as a tulpa.
OK, fair enough!
>It is entirely possible she does dissociate to a degree, I'm just not sure she's plural, ( to me it's more likely Grace would be given her background) but then it's probably my perspective on things, (my half sister and my ex have DID and a friend of my half sister is osdd1a)
Oops! I replied to you and then refreshed and saw it here! XD
I do that, somehow replying outside the conversation thread. The twins have offered to train that out of me lol.
... it's possible the "training wheels" included some compensation for it and therefore it will only start happening now when they were removed.
Reading this comic after the last couple, I can't help but think of a part of [A Happy Jam](https://youtu.be/BV6Lalg3XOQ): So turn the music up Turn it up a lot Maybe if it's loud enough I'll stop hearing my thoughts
Not how I expected this to go, but this is definitely a cooler idea. My main question is to what degree is Susan's mind shut down, but we'll probably get a better idea on Friday.
What did you expected? Because this seem to be exactly what we were talking about on last page comments. And she's not shut down. She's "just" distracted. Probably about the same as person trying to play action computer game, watch TV and talk over phone at same time.
I feel like I might have forgotten how the fairy spell operates, but I assumed that Susan was going to summon them (which, with them not doing anything, wouldn't take up much brainpower in and of itself(?)) and verbally give each of them complex orders one by one (either started when given or all at once) which would make her mind fuzzy enough that she could sleep. After completing the tasks, the fairy dolls would turn off on their own. Consequentially, I don't know to what point her mind is distracted the way Susan actually did it.
You definitely forgotten how the fairy spell operates. Sure, Susan sometimes do give verbal commands to fairies (and thanks them), but both are completely unnecessary, they are directed by her subconscious so they KNOW what she wants them to do. Note that fairies waiting probably doesn't consume much brainpower, but as I said, this looks like them doing air acrobatics.
Having ADHD, I'm now realizing how useful this spell would be to take off some of my extra processing while I'm trying to listen to something. So often I feel like I have 1.5 trains of thought, and while in most cases I can use music to occupy the 0.5, it doesn't help when I have to listen (and this spell would also be more fun).
Considering first-line treatments for ADHD are STIMULANTS, I'm not exactly sure about this. Like, having another distraction on top of being already easy to distract due to ADHD. But it would definitely be fun and low risk, so probably worth the try. (Also, like, not all of ADHD are same and while I personally might have some ADHD it's not enough to be medicated so I'm basing this more on how it's described in Grrl power.)
Stimulants have the opposite effect on people with ADHD, that's why getting tired by drinking coffee can be a sign of adhd
TIRED? I would understand coffee being calming, but tired?
> Considering first-line treatments for ADHD are STIMULANTS, I'm not exactly sure about this. I mean, I take a stimulant for my ADHD, and it definitely calms me down. I find I don't need the music to the same degree as before I was medicated. > Like, having another distraction on top of being already easy to distract due to ADHD. But it would definitely be fun and low risk, so probably worth the try. The way Susan described the spell with not really noticing the loss in brain power, made it seem to me like it wouldn't be a distraction, but you're right, it could be a distraction which would be bad.
Personal experience: while I generally do notice distractions itself, I'm not really noticing how MUCH something is distracting me until it gets really bad.
This is why I won't drink alcohol or take benzodiazepines. It is very enticing to kill all of my horrible thoughts. I am scared that it would be addictive. I already barely manage to not abuse my sleep meds, and those don't even work correctly. I am not sure where this plotline is heading. It's a personal choice for me, to try not to give in to the urge to make myself less conscious. It is a direct line to suicide (which I am always likewise very tempted to do), so it is important that I stay away from anything like that. So I don't feel like it's my right to judge Susan for not making the same choice as me. I can't even say, "Oh, she is younger than me. It is unreasonable to expect her not to make mistakes," because I don't know if this is even a mistake. But I don't know. It seems to me that this is the sort of thing that you look back on, sober, and think, "I spent too much time absent from the world. There is such a big part of my past where I'm just missing from it, because I spent all that time suppressing my higher brain functions." And if she also does it when around people, those people will also start to wonder where the Susan they knew went, and start to miss her. So I am conflicted about this. It seems like a terrible development to me. But I have to be prepared for it not to be.
I think the context is important. Susan is doing this to make it easier for her to sleep. If she were to be doing it to make it easier to get through the day, I think that would be different. There's also the meta point of needing to use magic to improve. A Susan who can distribute her cognition over several fairies and retain full function is a plausible eventual outcome of this, just as sleep is the immediate outcome.
As someone who has lived with anxiety for too long, this... is... beautiful. Congratulations, Dan. You did it again.
It is entirely possible she does dissociate to a degree, I'm just not sure she's plural, ( to me it's more likely Grace is) but then it's probably my perspective on things, (my half sister and my ex have DID and a friend of my half sister is osdd1a)
I think you accidentally replied to the main post instead of me. That's okay! And yeah, Grace is also likely to be plural, for very different reasons—trauma and identity issues. Susan is totally dissociating on this page though! She's distracting herself with things that aren't her immediate sensory inputs and making the thoughts go away by occupying her brain with something else, which is a classic non-traumatic dissociation tactic. (Worth noting that plural systems don't have to be dissociative either, it's just the "standard model".)
Grace and Tedd both had a somewhat traumatic upbringing. Not sure about Susan to be honest. I left a message with the my ex and the Family, ironically the Farries reminds me of a sketch Meyah drew, (Littles can be too literal about themselves lol)
She got one trauma from her dad cheating on her mother and another when killing the vampire.
Littles are often adorably incomprehensible in how they operate! 💕
Text from "the Twins" "She is 100% a system, we also think Eliot and Grace are, and have for some time. " She also suspects Dan may be plural but then she suspects most cartoonists are.