SFP

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  • MoonicaMusing

    That sounds horrifying and so very Patrick.

    • Taulsn

      I mean, whatever keeps you sane.

      • palmvos

        sanity is overrated.

    • It sounds like extreme compartmentalising to me

      • Kid Chaos

        When you literally can’t turn it off, you have to do something. 😕

        • M. Alan Thomas II

          There’s compartmentalizing and then there’s clinical levels of repression and dissociation. (Possibly necessary, of course, but if that’s the sanest he can be, it’s pretty effed up.)

    • Khlovia

      But if you’ve spent much of your life thinking everybody’s thoughts but your own, it is understandable that sheer, sere, mathematically clarity might feel like salvation.

    • MoonicaMusing

      You’re all describing logic in service of sanity or in service of Patrick; s/he says “logic in service of itself”; it’s this disconnect that horrifies me.

      And I don’t mean it’s wrong or not completely understandable, just that it’s horrifying to me personally.

      • Todd

        I wonder if those words, “logic in service to itself,” has anything to do with Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason . . . .

        Just a few pages ago, I could’ve sworn I caught something about Walter Benjamin’s Arcade Project . . . .

        • Dave M

          “Perfect clarity. Pure rationality. Logic in service to itself.” Sorry, I don’t see that as a perfect ideal at all. It sounds rather cold, lifeless and sterile. And extremely susceptible to faulty data and flawed reasoning. The Anima might not be an enemy, but I wouldn’t trust her. She’s another persona trying to reorganise Patrick’s mind to ensure her dominance and the destruction of the other persona’s (so exactly like Menace, just with less silver age theatrics).

  • Lostman

    Panel three: Alison knows her limits.

    • Kid Chaos

      “I really don’t want to go there.” 😵

    • bryan rasmussen

      Clevin’s still the main squeeze!

  • Darkoneko Hellsing

    Ah, so he’s dishing away feelings.

  • Herwood

    So this is very interesting… I’m just starting to realize that Patrick had to erect an entire city to keep his and other’s thoughts ordered, and that it was filled with countless other people, or at least versions of people and Patrick. So the fact that now only two Patrick’s are left is a very troubling sign of his mental health.

    • We haven’t looked through any windows as yet. All the other Patricks may be huddled in their storm shelters waiting for Storm PatrickvsPatrick to blow over.

  • Gotham

    Yeah… anyone mentioning the erection of barriers as a *good thing* loses my suspension of mistrust.

    • masterofbones

      Boundaries are absolutely necessary in order to be a sane human being. Patrick’s mind was essentially being perpetually bombarded with toxic sludge, and these barriers keep him safe.

      On a more realistic level, have you ever experienced a strong emotion that left you unable to act in a time of need? Barriers help overcome those emotions so that you can deal with them later, so you can survive right now.

      • Gotham

        Oh I agree, but this is the pragmatic approach. What we’re witnessing here is Anima!Patrick showing her cards in a way that I’m sure foreshadows a grim narrative twist.

        Taken another way, it’s not the same thing to recognize dams are great at preventing floods, and to laud dams because man isn’t it great when everything is ordered properly under a mighty and unquestionable rule.

        I guess we’ll see, but you know which way I’m betting.

  • Quick, to the colosseum! You can’t leave us hanging like this.

    • palmvos

      patreon sponsors only.

  • Arkone Axon

    “A large number of the hedge mazes consist of ideas scanned from YOUR mind, incidentally. Exactly how sordid and “gross” do you consider your own fantasies? Including the images you deliberately projected at him a number of times in order to tease him…”

    • Olivier Faure

      This moment is now made even creepier in retrospect.

      • Mechwarrior

        And even then it was pretty creepy if you actually considered the implications.

        • Arkone Axon

          Yep, so many hypocrites who condemn others for partaking of what they secretly yearn to indulge in. Glass houses and the throwing of stones and all that…

          • Todd

            >eye-roll<

            Yes, how dare people condemn others' actions while thinking impure thoughts themselves . . . .

        • Gotham

          Debatable. Patrick’s mind reading, no matter how involuntary, is definitely the most condemnable of violations. You could arguably defend Alison’s intentional harassment as a form of self-defense against this.

    • Gotham

      Is the accusatory / sexual policing tone really necessary?

  • Walter

    “We can go, if you like”
    “I’m good.”

    Alison gives good ‘nah’ face.

  • This sounds kinda awful, but knowing what we know about Patrick, it sounds like this is probably the most comfortable approach he has to keeping his head in order.

  • JohnTomato

    That’s some damn orderly waste material. If it’s being dumped, or over written, then the effort to make it tidy is wasted energy and Patrick isn’t in the position to be wasteful.

  • Peter G

    I predict that Alison is going to have to stop the expulsion of Component in order to either save Patrick, or to sacrifice him if he is too far gone. The mental city seems ordered, but it isn’t working for Patrick in the real world.

  • Liz

    That’s a nice river of thoughts Patrick considers to be negligible there. Sure would be a shame if someone were to fall in it and see what they are.

    • M. Alan Thomas II

      Yeah. They might find the guy huddled on the bed back in the real world.

  • “mostly in a series of hedge mazes surrounding a colosseum”

    So Patrick sees sex as gladiatorial combat wrapped in a puzzle – he really does love Alison!

    • palmvos

      given some of the entertainments offered at the Colosseum back in the day, he isn’t the only one.

  • I’ve started thinking of the Anima as Vorlon-Patrick. She really does seem very committed to order. Is Alison the three-edged sword needed to cut the Gordian knot that defines the struggle between Vorlon-Patrick and Menace?

  • R2D2TS
  • Teka the Budgie

    Look how pretty the last of Patrick’s humanity is as if floats away down the sewer…Because the city as if currently stands sure looks like a bastion of order and reason. That’s the problem with trying to send your emotional impulses away. In the end you just divorce yourself from anything that could balance out your most extreme viewpoints.

    I wonder what would happen if Allison actually dipped a hand in there. “It’s toxic” is usually code for “it’s a secret I don’t want you to learn yet.”

    • Arkone Axon

      “Morty! Morty, don’t you get it!? The machine didn’t know what “toxic” is! It just filtered out what we THOUGHT was the toxic parts!”

    • Todd

      What makes you think the toxic stuff is Patrick’s humanity or emotions?

      • Danygalw

        …context?

        • Todd

          But what in the context suggests that?

          • Zinc

            The last part of Anima!Patrick’s explanation, maybe — she says that after the barriers were erected and the “chains” lifted, what was left was “Perfect clarity. Pure rationality. Logic in service to itself.” Emotions are often depicted as clouding logic and rationality, and vice versa perfectly rational and logical beings are often depicted as emotionless (e.g. Vulcans). So this is a pretty reasonable interpretation, assuming the authors (or at least Anima!Patrick herself) adheres to this trope.

          • Todd

            Well, yes, I see that argument, and it’s been in the back of my mind, but, from the explanation as well as what we’ve seen of Patrick in the past, emotions as a class aren’t listed as definitively being targeted and purged; we’ve seen Patrick laugh and show emotion, and that comment about the hedge mazes and colosseum suggests his sexuality hasn’t been altered (a place emotions are strongly prefigured).

            It sounds more to me that, as a telepath who can’t shut off his power, Patrick has had to learn how to filter out “noise” from the “signals” he wants. This would include some emotions, of course, from outsides sources but not all emotions from all sources.

  • Zorae42

    I wonder if those barriers are the reason Patrick can’t read his own mind. And why he’d never realized the inconsistencies in his beliefs.

  • R Lex Eaton

    Huh. I wonder if Patrick took some cues from Cicero in his mental discipline. This is reminding me of the “mind palace” mnemonic technique, where assigning objects and real entities to thoughts and memories helps them think clearly.

  • Mechwarrior

    Okay Patrick, once we get back to the real world I’m going to recommend that you spend time sitting in a dark room listening to the Alan Parson’s Project.

    • Tylikcat

      Thank you for that image.

      Huh. I wonder if I can find an Alan Parson’s Project channel. (I, uh, usually just listen to audiobooks when I train…)

  • Randolph Carter

    Ah, the INTJ mastermind realizes that while he may have a degree of difference from others, he’s still human, with emotions and all that rot. 🙂

  • Hiram

    …and that’s how the grand city of circular reasoning came to be.

  • David Brown

    Ghostbusters river of slime much?

  • ColaKitteh

    “We can go if you like?” Anima!Patrick is totally flirting with her, haha.

  • Sage Catharsis

    Just noticed the Tron in the outfit. :-[ not bad, cute in your style i guess. Good for a free comic. Ugh I sound like a hater 🙁

  • Potatamoto

    Alison: I’m sorry, you misunderstood. I wasn’t speaking of ‘gross’ sexual stuff, in that was I using ‘gross’ as a descriptor for all stuff sexual. I was interested in the *gross* sexual stuff. Where does that go down?

  • Evelyn Shea

    Speaking of not being nearly so puritanical, it feels pretty out of character for Alison to have such a puritanical interpretation either.