CURRENT STORY DISCUSSION

It's interesting that Megan points out that Fiona has been written as bitchy lately, because I really haven't seen it that much. There's the OMG BISEXUALITY!!! thing, and perhaps Fiona could have been more sympathetic to Sadako and Lucy, but the reader has a lot more reason to care about these characters than Fiona does right now. We've had time to process Lucy being a traitor and we know that she really did like Fiona, but Fiona didn't know it wasn't all a lie, and she also had no time to react to that. Perhaps once the shock wore off, she would have ran off to try to save Lucy if there weren't a million other things going on here. And with Sadako, well... the reader knows Sadako just wants to die and might feel a little bad for her (I know I do) but Fiona has just gotten finished with finding out Sadako used Lia to trap her, did a whole bunch of horrible things to Lia including rape and turning her into a monster, and repeatedly threatened nearly every sympathetic character's life. I can't really expect she'd care about Sadako at this point. Maybe Fiona's not being the nicest, least selfish person in existence, but damn. I wouldn't call her bitchy.

Also, Mary's speech reminds me of the bit where Ellie's conscience told Ellie that Sadako's death was her fault, and thus it was okay if Sadako raped her. (Wow, I am starting to feel REALLY BAD for my attachment to this character.) Yes, Lia is a really nice person underneath the Mara stuff, but being around her has put Fiona in danger of being killed. I know it wasn't Lia's fault, but if Lia went all Mara the terrible one day and Fiona got killed, it not being Lia's fault wouldn't make Fiona any less dead. Seems to me like Lia having the potential to go into Mara-mode is sort of like her having one of the more dangerous mental illnesses (again I go with the shitty metaphors! but this one's more accurate than the bomb, I think. ) It isn't her fault she has this problem, and she is still a super nice person, but Fiona absolutely has the right to leave if there's a risk of her partner hurting her, even if said partner doesn't mean it and isn't at all evil. It's sad, but it isn't wrong.

And, uh, "love her for the rest of your life"? Fiona is 18. Maybe slightly older with all the time she's been spending in the dream world. She hasn't been in any serious relationship before, and this relationship has a long way to go before it becomes a stable one. If she gets back with Lia, that's nice, but I don't think she should be promising to love anyone for the rest of their life.

So uh, long blather short, I hope Mary is not meant to be seen as 100% correct in this situation. I also hope that Fiona does not banish her, like Sadako did with Himitsu last time around. This could go very wrong.

(re-reading old pages. Fiona's squishy belly in the love scene makes me wibble. SHE HAS A SOFT UNDERBELLY AND IT IS ADORABLE.)

Fiona is totally bitchy.

She is a flawed character with perfectly good reasons to like and dislike her; she overreacts to the wrong situations, she's got a one-track obsessive mind that leads her to caring a lot less about other peoples' well-beings, she's actually pretty easily fooled, on top of a lot of other character flaws. But that's the beauty of it. She isn't perfect Mary Sue. She's human. Humans can be completely unreasonable, and that's what's reasonable about it.

I hate that part about her, it makes me like Fiona a lot less, but it makes me like Megan's writing more.

And I'm here for YU+ME, not FI+ONA.

I think Fi has some reasons to feel put-upon and a little bitchy considering everything she's been through. The good thing is Mary's there to give her the occasional slap down and wake up call that she needs when she gets a little too OOT.

Lia, once she reconnects with her conscience will have that too, and that's going to be interesting to watch - if Megan shows it (I hope so). Sadako was her own worst enemy when it comes to that score, after all, she drove her own conscience (Clandi) away; but even for her she could not escape in the end.

wow, the dripping blood on the last frame is such a nice touch. and argh! I wanna know what Fi asked Don to do, but I probably won't find out until some time next week!! *grumble grumble sulk*

oh god what the hell did I post last night. I can't believe alcohol WASN'T involved. WTF self. Sorry, folks.

Uh, anyway, glad to see Fiona didn't banish Mary! I really would have liked to see a "consciences aren't always the best regarding self-preservation" plotline, but oh well, I'm not writing this comic so Megan wil do the plotlines she finds the most interesting.

Looking forward to seeing what happens next!~

after all wrote:So uh, long blather short, I hope Mary is not meant to be seen as 100% correct in this situation. I also hope that Fiona does not banish her, like Sadako did with Himitsu last time around. This could go very wrong.

Seconded. After spending most of Part One giving Fi 'advice' from a script and the whole 'Just kill yourself' moment from the backstory, Mary's got a bit of nerve getting peeved about being ignored.

yeah....Mary isn't 'the best' at her job, but pretty kick-ass all the same. i think she needs to think more before she tells Fi what she should do and figure out what really is 'best'

Honestly, I've got to say I think Mary is being fairly illogical here. This path will probably make for a more romantic ending, but Fiona was probably making the smarter choice by wanting to sever ties with Lia. When Sadako lost her conscience she didn't go insane and start killing everyone for fun. She turned into a huge bitch, sure, but Sadako wasn't very moral to begin with and she still didn't start stabbing babies for shits and giggles as soon a she had the chance.

Sadako was free to do things she wanted to do like rape people, have people killed, and tell a shitload of lies. These were her urges and with no conscience there was nothing stopped her from acting on them. I can only assume this means Lia actually does want to go on a killing spree for hundreds of years. She thinks it would be very fun and it's always something she wants to do in the back of her mind. The only difference about these urges when she has her conscience is that she feels very guilty about having them. Have you ever had the urge to do something and tried to repress it because you felt guilty about the urge? How long did you last? Forever? Was it forever? Some would-be murderers can repress their urges all their lives and live like healthy normal people, and good on them for it, but those people get old and die. Lia has to feel guilty enough to never act on her murder urges forever. I'd say Fiona would be making the smart call if she dismissed Lia as a lost cause. Still, I want a happy ending, so I'm glad that's not the call she made. XD

And yeah, I really thought the blood on that panel was a very nice touch. Really added to the atmosphere. Also, did anyone notice Fiona has a sword?

Going back over a very discussed topic, i think there is a reason why Fiona reacted more about lia being Bi then a mass murderer...
People have already pointed out that fact that she was probably rationalizing her actions as she heard the story, that Lia was without a conscience for a long time, and Fi knows how bad things can get in a few days, imagine years and centuries!

But Remembering how Fi reacted when she found out about gays (man-man and woman-woman), it's clear that that is a subject she knows very little... she heard that people murder each other, that people lose control and kill many others... but she had not heard yet that someone can like woman AND man at the same time!

And she was jealous about the guy... and it was the first revelation, so it was the initial shock...
And she gave too much importance for that, Megan said herself that that's her least favorite part of Fiona!

My point is (and sorry to write so much just for this), her reaction doesn't makes her a monster or ruins the character, just shows that she is human, has her flaws and doesn't reacted as expected all the time! We always think about how we are going to react or respond to certain things, but rarely it works the way you planned.

Ah, and i liked the bloody last panel, nice touch! =)
I hope they found Lias conscience, she was probably locked up somewhere in Sadako's castle!

Faenir wrote:And she gave too much importance for that, Mean said herself that that's her least favorite part of Fiona!

That is probably the worst letter in Megan's name you could have missed. XD

Hahahahaha oops!!
Sorry about that, it was late in the night =P
I'll correct it!

In regards to Mary I think she has changed a lot since when she used to tell Fi to just kill herself she really loves and cares about Fiona now and has gone through so much to try and do what's best for her, she figured it was better to follow a script then to be replaced and not have any idea of what was going on in Fi's life...I think she is a really awesome person (if you can call her that actually).

I do think its kind of weird that Fi has switched into hey I'll just listen to you and only you and not myself mode...that kind of worries me a bit...its a good thing to have a conscience as a guide but not as your whole method of being (at least in Nod I would say...maybe not necessarily in the real world).

On another note everyone seems to be against Fi and Lia getting together, its true that Lia has some issues and that Fiona is fairly young but she most likely gave up her own life to be with Lia and Mary knows how much she loves her, if anyone knows how Fi feels it would be Mary. I think she had a pretty good point...and maybe she didn't really mean the rest of her life she was just trying to make a point....either way I think Lia and Fi should end up together, not because they are "supposed to for the sake of romanticism" but because they really, truly love each other even if they haven't had perfect pasts or lives...*shrugs* maybe that's my opinion anyway... *shrugs*

darkrose072687 wrote:On another note everyone seems to be against Fi and Lia getting together, its true that Lia has some issues and that Fiona is fairly young but she most likely gave up her own life to be with Lia and Mary knows how much she loves her, if anyone knows how Fi feels it would be Mary. I think she had a pretty good point...and maybe she didn't really mean the rest of her life she was just trying to make a point....either way I think Lia and Fi should end up together, not because they are "supposed to for the sake of romanticism" but because they really, truly love each other even if they haven't had perfect pasts or lives...*shrugs* maybe that's my opinion anyway... *shrugs*

I agree with that, love is (at least supposed to) be about accepting the other person problems and flaws and looking past it. Even tough the History of Lia that Fiona knows is different from the real one, the Person, the Ideas, the Convictions, the "spirit" (in the lack of a better word) of Lia she knows very well.
I think they should end up together, even if just for a little, to give a closure to their love story. Even if Fi has to go back to the real world and leave Lia.

And i saw people assuming that Fi would not stay long because Don was telling the story like it was a long time ago... well, she may realy not stay there long, but Don is older then Sadako's Reign, and he still looks young... so he could be telling that story thousands of years in the future (DW time), after Fi had a long life with Lia at Dream World/Zod!

Faenir wrote:Even tough the History of Lia that Fiona knows is different from the real one, the Person, the Ideas, the Convictions, the "spirit" (in the lack of a better word) of Lia she knows very well.

Does she? The Lia she loves wouldn't have stabbed her in the boob. I'm really not buying the excuse that she had no conscience. All that means is that she really did want to kill Fiona, she just wouldn't have because it would have made her guilty.

The choice to not stab your partner isn't even just one of conscience, it's one of simple long-term planning. If you kill the person you love then you won't be able to see them anymore and then you'll miss them and it'll be your own damn fault. Sadako could reason fine without a conscience. Seeing Lia sad made Sadako sad, so Sadako's guiltless mind was willing to go to any lengths to make Lia happy so that Sadako would be happy. Was it moral? I would say it was very immoral. Was it a logically sound thought process? Sure! Even as cruel as she was to Ellie, Sadako was so grief stricken by Ellie's death that she stayed locked away for centuries. Lia didn't exactly seem grief stricken after she stabbed Fiona.

So, what, is Lia's love for Fiona based entirely around guilt? Will she just not miss Fiona without her conscience? Even as an amoral bitch, Sadako still wanted the woman she loved to be happy. Really, the only way Lia gets off on the "I had no conscience" excuse in my book is if consciences double as basic reasoning skills which are also provided by the swirly Nod King Eye, which is why Sadako didn't careen headlong into serial murder when she lost her conscience.

Curiously, when Sadako loved Lia she had no conscience, and yet she still "ruled fairly and justly" and wanted Lia to be happy. On the other hand, when she had a conscience she was terribly irresponsible as a ruler and she didn't care at all about Ellie's happiness. I hate to say it, but Sadako's attempt to find her own path actually seems like it made her a better person.

darkrose072687 wrote:I do think its kind of weird that Fi has switched into hey I'll just listen to you and only you and not myself mode...that kind of worries me a bit...its a good thing to have a conscience as a guide but not as your whole method of being (at least in Nod I would say...maybe not necessarily in the real world).

From what we've seen.. There's really no difference between how the conscience works in the real world and how it works in Nod, besides having an actual, physical form. So if you think she should listen to Mary that much in the real world, then respectively, she should listen to Mary that much in Nod.

@Xshu; Assuming that your definition of a conscience and how a conscience works is actually how they are defined in the YU+ME universe, sure. But if a loss of conscience can affect someone greatly enough to stab someone they truly love in this comic, then that is merely a story element that we'll have to accept.

Keep in mind that the conscience, as Megan writes them, is still a fantasy thing, even though it's based on a concept of something we fathom in actuality. After all, according to this story, our consciences are actually angel-like citizens in a fantasy land that, if actually physically removed from our presence while in said fantasy land, can cause us to become bad people.

The dependency on the conscience, as well as the personalities of the conscience and the actual person, might also affect how strongly the conscience is important to that person's personality. After all, Fiona didn't seem to be such a bad person when she wasn't listening to Mary in the real world; like it was mentioned in the comic, Mary didn't get many words in edge-wise when it came to Fiona's strict Catholic upbringing, yet Fiona didn't kill or maim people, guilt or not. There's a strange chemistry that goes on between a person and their conscience.

Sooooo, as far as I'm concerned: What I read here is what I get. If that's how powerful a conscience is to Lia, that's how powerful a conscience is to Lia. Eh.

Xshu wrote:Really, the only way Lia gets off on the "I had no conscience" excuse in my book is if consciences double as basic reasoning skills which are also provided by the swirly Nod King Eye, which is why Sadako didn't careen headlong into serial murder when she lost her conscience.

Maybe the Swirly Eye of Nod Royalty confers the bearer with "Noddite"-like traits. Since the natives of Nod don't need to have consciences, perhaps the same goes for the Ruler of Nod, even if that person was originally from our world.

Just tossing that out there. ^_^

~~Schiz

On Lia:

I posted my Lia theory in the "Is Lia evil?" thread, but idk if anyone goes there and I think it's relevant to this discussion too. I hope that's okay?

It's pretty reasonable that after finding out what Sadako did to her, she feels really angry and scared and hurt and violated and powerless. She wants justice, she wants to have control over her own life again, and she probably wants Sadako to hurt for what she did. However, at the same time she's probably really terrified of Sadako and doesn't want to go back and confront her face to face. The hurt gets worse, there's no way to relieve it, and she finds that hurting people makes her feel a little better. Maybe she feels like she's in control. At this point, nothing else makes her feel better, and she doesn't have a conscience not to tell her this is wrong. So she keeps doing it, and it becomes a habit and her default way of coping with stress, even though it's obviously wrong.

In this scenario, she stabs Fiona because she feels like Fiona is trying to take away her only coping mechanism, and she has to get rid of that threat. Perhaps she already is really upset because Sadako got what she wanted and Lia feels like she's never going to get her justice now and it's kind of Fiona's fault.

So Lia before didn't need her conscience any more than anyone else, but after the deceit/rape/being-tricked-into-suicide stuff, she was so wounded that if she didn't have a conscience, she would take it out on everyne else.

On consciences IRL/in Nod:

Consciences depend completely on your moral compass. They make you feel like you should make moral choices over immoral ones, they make you feel awesome when you did the right thing, and they make you feel really, really guilty when you fuck up. The trouble is, what you believe to be right or wrong isn't necessarily the same as what really IS right or wrong (or if you're into relativism, your right and wrong might be different from my right and wrong). For instance, if you feel in your heart you're doing the right thing by killing your baby, your conscience isn't going to bother you about it, even if that's really a very wrong thing to do.

Similarly, if you feel something is wrong, even though it isn't, your conscience is going to tell you not to do it. Say if you're wanting to break up with a significant other who's still very into you but that you just don't love anymore. It's not wrong (at least I don't think so) but you might feel like it is, and still feel really, really guilty about it. Or the whole situation with Ellie and Sadako-- Ellie was NOT morally required to let Sadako do whatever she wanted to her, but Ellie believed that she was and so that's what her conscience told her.

So listening to your conscience in YU+ME is usually a very good idea, but not always perfect. Same as IRL.

TheResult wrote:But if a loss of conscience can affect someone greatly enough to stab someone they truly love in this comic, then that is merely a story element that we'll have to accept.

But that's just it: Sadako lost her conscience and still felt a very deep sense of loss and sadness when she inadvertently killed Ellie. She was so depressed that she tried to commit suicide when Lia left her. Sadako even came to believe that nobody could ever love her and has spent some time trying to kill herself over it by any means necessary.

Lia, on the other hand, didn't seem to care one way or the other what happened to Fiona after the stabbing. Lia leaped right out the window to smilingly murder children as soon as she did it. Sadako is an example of a character within this very comic who was able to function without her conscience. Sure it turned her into something of an amoral rapist megalomaniac, but compared to The Mara she's a paragon of sanity.

TheResult wrote:The dependency on the conscience, as well as the personalities of the conscience and the actual person, might also affect how strongly the conscience is important to that person's personality.

True, but this is actually my point. In Sadako's case she was a selfish person, but she didn't listen to her conscience much in the first place and so she only went from "creepy stalker" to "selfish rapist" when her conscience left. Not too much of a slide there in my opinion, and by the time she fell in love with Lia she was actually nicer than when she'd had her conscience. She was still selfish, but at least she made an effort to keep her love happy even if it was really creepy. She wasn't making Lia talk in her voice or anything like she used to. Why? Why did Sadako just slide a ways down the slippery slope while Lia jumped off the slope screaming "YEEE-HAW!" all the way down while riding an A-Bomb made of Nod corpses?

The only reason I can come up with is that Lia and Sadako both wanted different things that were effected differently by their consciences.

Sadako wanted love very badly, and justified her actions to her conscience that she would dooo anything for luuuuh-huv! Then after her conscience was banished she just broke down into full-out pressured rape mode. She wanted love and she wanted it requited, but she didn't particularly care if she had to force the "requiting" with guilt or mind control or illusions. Very dark and thoroughly uncool.

Lia wanted to murder people whether that desire was brought on by Sadako or it was something she's always had—and either way she could think of no way to justify this—so her conscience kept a tight hold on those urges. This ended up resulting in a nice, fun person who did nice things and did all those things Mary talked about. Then she went on a rather creative super-centurion killing spree when she lost her conscience. It's great for her that she has a conscience powerful enough to repress the urges, but Sadako is evidence that you do not randomly grow new vices without a conscience. It seems to me more like losing a conscience means you simply can't repress any previously existing vices which you were unable to justify to your conscience.

So yes, you're right that it depends on their dependence on their consciences. Sadako's relationship was a distant one, while Lia's conscience was something of a restraining bolt for her homicidal tendencies. Err...Nodicidal tendencies.

TheResult wrote:Mary didn't get many words in edge-wise when it came to Fiona's strict Catholic upbringing, yet Fiona didn't kill or maim people, guilt or not.

Yes, but that's because the basis of a Catholic upbringing is "if you do good you will go to heaven, if you do bad you will go to hell". Even without listening to her conscience, she still had incentive to be "good".

SchizoAuthoress wrote:Maybe the Swirly Eye of Nod Royalty confers the bearer with "Noddite"-like traits. Since the natives of Nod don't need to have consciences, perhaps the same goes for the Ruler of Nod, even if that person was originally from our world.

A fine theory, but more or less debunked by Don.

Could you be confusing "Lia feels driven to kill" with "Lia WANTS to kill"? If you're seriously addicted to alcohol, you don't always WANT to drink. You might even be aware a lot of the time that your drinking is unhealthy and you shouldn't be doing it. That doesn't mean you aren't still driven to do it, or that you see drinking as the first possible solution when you have a problem. I think Lia's more like that.

And, while you don't randomly grow new vices without a conscience, people do develop new vices all the time. If you do something that makes you feel better, and you don't feel terrible about doing it again, it can become a vice. Losing her conscience made Lia not be able to feel terrible about doing it again.

True, I suppose I was conflating the two. My mistake. Lia may not desire to kill, and may simply be driven to do so. She does seem to be enjoying herself in those flashbacks, though. She even has a bag full of skulls, which means she kept trophies. That combined with the various ways she chose to get creative about her murders makes me think it something she wanted rather than something she used as an outlet. If it was just an outlet she could have just stabbed all her victims, but Lia has actually eaten people. I mean...eaten people! Holy shit, Lia!

Regardless, I'm pretty sure my points stand whether it was a desire or a drive.

On that note, we're not even sure that Lia thought Fiona would die. After listening to everything that just happened, and seeing that she couldn't kill Sadako, there is the chance that she also figured that the stab wouldn't kill Fiona either.. It would just buy her enough time to escape. Which it did, because nobody chased after her.

Wow, I'm gone for a few days, and... wow.

The Result, I think you may be right about Lia just buying time, but then again, she may have just been driven to attack anyone nearby - there seems to be no difference to her, and we just don't know or understand where this side of Lia is coming from.

A lot of people are going back and forth on Lia and Fi getting back together, and love. One person mentioned "looking past the shortcomings of the other person" as an important aspect of love. I have issues with that - looking past them doesn't help, and will eventually get between the two of you. You need to accept those shortcomings as part of your lover's personality, and work with them!

Now, here's an idea. Lia can't go back to the real world, she's dead there. Fi needs to go back and get on with her life, she can't stay as ruler. People have theorized that Don could be the next ruler, but that may or may not be possible.

What about Lia? She's from our world. Reunite her with her conscience, pass the swirly eye to her (somehow, without killing Fi?) and Fi can go back and live her life.

And for those of you saying "Fi+Lia 4 eva!" please, remember that even though they cannot be together the rest of their lives (how many of us can be?), Fi will always love Lia, the Lia she met and got to know. You always love your first love, even if you can't stay with them. It's part of what makes you who you are!

The King of Nod seemed to imply that there was no way to pass on the eye without killing him, unless he was lying about it being "the only way". In addition, it looks like Nod doesn't want Lia as its leader or else it would have given her the eye when she stabbed Sadako. Well, unless maybe that was just because she was The Mara at the time.

I think that Sadako being fair can be a result of her personal beliefs plus the Eye of Nod. In the lack of her (insane) conscience, that Eye would restrain her somewhat.

As for Lia stabbing Fiona, you guys must take into account that psychopathic people can be impulsive. She probably didn't stab Fiona out of anger, but because killing feels good.

Huh. Todays page seems to imply that people are just evil without consciences. We need disembodied entities to represent the urge to be good, but the urge to be selfish is just built in? For a comic taking place in dreamland, that's a pretty cynical mythology...