SFP

Olivier Faure

Well he doesn’t look like a supervillain mob boss at all.

Also that woman is totally Patrick in disguise!

Ellie

I hope “character x is actually/secretly Patrick” becomes a meme on here, because that’s hilarious.
- Titan360 .
  
  Patrick is secretly in every single scene of SFP.
  - Philip Bourque
    
    The entirety of SFP is a dream Patrick is having. He fills all the roles.
Stephen Gilberg

Glad I’m not the only one who thinks the woman has a manly face.

Gotham

“I’m leaving too, actually. Good luck. Yes, the mastermind of the Conspiracy is actually the Exquisitely Crafted Table. Please, for your sake, remember: address Them in exactly these terms. Answer truthfully to all Their questions. Know to respect Their wisdom and you won’t have to face Their ire.”

From the depth of the human Tony Duval’s own soul, an inhumane growl is rising. With immense existential dread, M. Duval realizes it’s always been here. The part of him that allowed him denial finally lost against Their utter madness. Tony is alone now. He’s always been alone. In the deep recesses of his terrorized and so comically vulnerable mind, the voice he will never be able to not hear anymore rattles:

“Also elbows off during meals”

Gotham

The Exquisitely Crafted Table shall ask one riddle which will determine your fate.

How did people bring the Alltable here considering it’s thrice as wide as the only door to that windowless room?

Answer wrong and nobody will remember your existence. Answer correctly and you shall be granted the part of the table that doesn’t like, wobble just a tiny bit and it’s like /so/ annoying
- Tim F
  
  I worked with a table like that once. The answer was you deliver the table while they’re still constructing the building. Do you think the table’s that old? I’d wager that one-eye is.
  
  In the case of my table, to get it back out they’ll need to remove it in pieces, which will mean cutting two inch-thick stainless steel.
- Olivier Faure
  
  Maybe the ceiling can be removed?
- TheDistinguishedAnarchist
  
  Tables can also shipped in individual pieces smaller than the whole, and assembled in the desired room after they arrive… >.>
  - Gotham
    
    Finally, it took /hours/ for some wise one to salvage my soul with a stone cold first degree actual answer to a dumb question that I totally was asking for real because I’m such an idiot and even google is elusive to me
    - David Gillon
      
      Or it’s the Dirk Gently solution and someone with a room with a larger door materialized in precisely the right place at precisely the right time. (IIRC the DG scenario it’s getting something large – a piano? – down a dog-legged stairwell it mathematically can’t quite have fit into on the way up, with the answer being it tucked a corner into a doorway halfway up that was only there for a couple of minutes).
    - Glotos
      
      Couch, I believe. They got it most of the way up, thanks to a temporarily existing door they could open, got stuck beyond that, and couldn’t get it back down.
    - Eric Schissel
      
      I thought the Dirk Gently solution (not the character’s solution, but the solution in-novel…) ended up being that the item of furniture _had_ basically been there since the beginning of the world after all.
    - Ian Osmond
      
      … oh … I hadn’t realized you’d been asking …
      
      Legs on tables, for instance, are normally built separately, and, in classical furnituremaking, the ways they’re attached are typically beautiful, and often basically invisible to the casual glance — and, sometimes, even to the naked eye. But a skilled enough carpenter could disassemble the table into its parts, and then reassemble it in place.
    - TheDistinguishedAnarchist
      
      Well acceptance is the first step in recovery, I guess…
  - Olivier Faure
    
    I thought the same thing, but then I thought “No, this table totally looks like it’s one unified piece carved from some sort of giant super-rare centenary tree (of an endangered species for bonus evil points)”, but I guess we’ll never know for sure.
- Glotos
  
  Obviously it was brought in as a table seed and grew to its current size. Those fancy curvy legs are roots growing into the stones.
  - Gotham
    
    There’s something so quaint about imagining Their ominous-ness in teeny tiny form.
- friendlymosquito
  
  Have you tried turning it sideways? I don’t have a tape-measure, but based on approximate people-height units, I give it 50-50 odds you could make it fit.
  - Gotham
    
    You fool. The Exquisitely Crafted Table must always face the gods, to remind them of their destructor.
- Lysiuj
  
  The room, and the entire world, were built around the Table.
- tygertyger
  
  The Exquisitely Crafted Table has full control over it’s shape, mortals. It traveled to the desired location as part of the Water Table and entered the room in book form. But an Exquisitely Crafted Table of Contents cannot host meetings, hence its current appearance.
- AdamBombTV
  
  Forgive my ignorance in these matters, but did The Exquisitely Crafted Table (longmayitrule) arrive with the chairs as if they were it’s disciples, or did they chairs arrive separate as if bought from some far away land through the medium of ebay perhaps.
  - Gotham
    
    They are one and the same, an entity whose glorious unity is elusive to our feeble minds restricted to the primitive conceptualization of disappointingly discrete objects bound by trivialities such as a definite emplacement in time and space.
    
    Facing what humans knew instantly to be What Lurks in the Shadows Beyond our Grasp, their horrified minds conjured legends long proven false so as to justify to themselves Their existence and with any luck, avoid utter insanity. Terrifying children tales about a place above the stars called Carpentrunk where universe-breaking wars took place until it was no more and They have remained exiled ever since, reveling in the darkness that lies beneath, sleepless… creaking with every step to remind you you are never safe.
    
    (I was hoping to find other Transformers+wood puns on the way there but I’m coming short, my absolute bad)
- martynW
  
  IKEA.
  - Gotham
    
    You chose… wisely
- Weatherheight
  
  Grape Ape lifted the dome up and placed the table inside.
- Margot
  
  Well, this is a world where teleportation is possible! Of course, until recently, this was only known about by a very select and secretive group, who vowed only ever to use it for the transportation of large items of furniture that won’t fit through doors.
- ruhrow
  
  Step 1: Turn table on side
  Step 2: Put one pair of legs out the door
  Step 3: Rotate the table so the legs are parallel with the wall and walk the table out until you hit the second set of legs
  Step 4: Rotate the table to ease the second set of legs through the door
  Step 5: Beg the Alltable for mercy for having manhandled it so.
Weatherheight

“All along it was… The Mimic!”

“I would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those darn kids!”

Ellie

I really hope this guy isn’t secretly Odin or whatever.

Ian Osmond

Okay, now I really hope he IS.
- Eric Schissel
  
  a non-wandering very patient Odin. Seems a contradictioninwhatsit.

Tim F

Ha! Of course it was Odin in that room, known as ‘old one-eye’ among the gods; he left his right eye in the enchanted spring Mímisbrunnr to gain knowledge.

I don’t have a read on ms. Crossfit but I’d take a wild shot (ha) and guess Diana. Cueball feels eastern.

Is anyone getting a Neil Gaiman vibe here?

Ray Radlein

The large, ungainly bald guy who never speaks is obviously… Henry
- David Gillon
  
  Looks more of an ‘Arry to me.
Gotham

Did Odin also have twelve million rings because if so I am convinced
- Tim F
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draupnir
  
  “In Norse mythology, Draupnir (Old Norse “the dripper”[1]) is a gold ring possessed by the god Odin with the ability to multiply itself “

Gotham

This is actually Patrick from the original timeline’s future, where the mug Alison threw at his face actually connected. This was the start of his dark(er) turn and once time travel achieved—which took a few years give five or six decades—he started the Conspiracy and then went to the day before Patrick got a mug thrown in his face to kidnap himself, drug himself and put himself way past drunk on Alison’s doorstep, so that she never knows she was the cause of the missing eye.

It’s fucking foolproof

Ellie

You FOOL. This man has blue eyes, CLEARLY he is Alison and Patrick’s child from an dystopian future in an alternate universe where they rule the world as tyrants. Disillusioned with his parents’ rule, he tried to end their tyranny but found that he couldn’t defeat them despite having the power to see possible futures with one eye. He and several others then unlocked the secret to time travel, but discovered that they could not change the past without creating an alternate universe and his own future would remain unchanged. Accepting this, he and his associates traveled to the past and orchestrated the events that would lead to the conspiracy,

Why were the biodynamics who could have seemingly changed the world killed? Because the one-eyed man saw futures where they would bring about it’s destruction and he knew their deaths would set his parents on the right path. Why did Guawara choose to become Alison’s philosophy teacher and seemingly have telepathic abilities despite being older than other biodynamics? How does the conspiracy stay out of Patrick’s reach? Because he and one-eye are from an alternate universe and have been using their combined abilities to stop Al and Pat from going off the deep end.

Or, you know, Patrick could just be wearing contacts.
motorfirebox

Did you just submit “No, this is Patrick” as a conspiracy theory?
- Johan
  
  Well I’m convinced.

Tylikcat

That’s horrifically like the heirloom table my own family has cursed me with. But larger. (And I thought mine was inconvenient.)

…I bet mine takes more leaves, though. (The leaves are the least inconvenient and most amusing thing about it. Well, except that the actual leaves were lost, so I had the fun of finding a place that would mill mahogany to the right thickness, but)

AustinC123

sounds spendy. Wood costs so damn much.
- Tylikcat
  
  This was around twenty years ago, and it wasn’t cheap? But it wasn’t terrible. I suppose I look at solid furniture as a reasonable investment, though… that damned table. (It’s solid mahogany, and quite lovely, but too big for most dining rooms, and the dratted thing takes twelve feet of leaves. Which, admittedly, was fun when I wanted to seat 20+ for dinner*, but it was a pain in the ass.)
  
  * To think I used to have matching stemware for evenings like that…
  - Ian Osmond
    
    You can buy sets of 20 matching stemware like that for ten bucks at PARTY CITY.
    
    If, like, you’re cool with disposable.
  - AustinC123
    
    Prices on wood (of any kind but especially the hard, slow-growing stuff) have maybe doubled, in some cases more than that, in that time. It’s nuts out there.
    - David Gillon
      
      “It’s nuts out there.”
      
      Also catkins, cones, fruits, drupes, and assorted berries.
    - Tylikcat
      
      Well, I’ll hope nothing too awful has happened to them, then. (The whole shebang is currently in a house I’m the co-owner of, but in which my ex is residing. It’s seriously time for him to buy me out – like, lawyer or two by four time, he’s exceeded our agreement by a lot – but I haven’t had the time to deal with it. 🎶But I’ll have legal insurance again soon🎶.)
    - Tylikcat
      
      I did hear a little about that, come to think of it, from instrument maker friends. I was lucky as it was, to be well connected in terms of a wood seller who would do the milling work for extremely reasonable prices. (Growing up remodeling the family place sometimes came in handy? Okay, it often comes in handy, but most of the stuff involves things that these days people could lost custody over…)
  - David Gillon
    
    “and the dratted thing takes twelve feet of leaves”
    
    My entire house is only 13 feet wide!
    - Tylikcat
      
      It’s one of only a handful of inherited things I received, but there are those sides of the family, I think I mentioned? Seriously, in my generation we’re mostly trying to figure out where to stash the stuff, because there’s stuff, and we mostly want to take care of it, but no one really wants it. (With the exception that if I’m back in a place where I’m cooking for the hordes again, I wouldn’t mind the dratted table – and to buy the sort of place that can hold it. Which might explain some conversations you’ve seen between my sister and I…) I got the table as punishment for being a better cook than my mother – but the joke was on her, because I rule my house with an iron fist, and she wasn’t allowed to pull shit when a guest under my roof. (The table came with the stipulation for hosting all holidays. Except Christmas.)
      
      Of course, I was recently gossiping with someone who assumed I inherited the house, which… I can totally see where they were coming from but, OMG, no, not even a little bit (until you start talking about the more indirect sorts of privilege). (It was particular a thing because of the contrast between rust belt and west coast housing prices, which makes it sounds like a lot more house.)
    - David Gillon
      
      “I got the table as punishment for being a better cook than my mother”
      
      I’ve heard similar stories, a friend’s mother was told her mother’s art collection would be skipping a generation.
      
      “It was particular a thing because of the contrast between rust belt and
      west coast housing prices, which makes it sounds like a lot more house.”
      
      Yeah, if I moved back North then my not very big house here would buy something much more substantial.
    - Tylikcat
      
      I was also pretty strategic (or lucky) in my timing of buying. I mean, it’s a nice enough house on an acre – this is the place where I put the brick oven into the kitchen. The tech surge hadn’t quite made it out there, so it only because a suburb of MS about six months after we moved in, and the place has quadrupled in value – which is everything that I hate about the greater Seattle housing market right now.
      
      Also, if you’re going to have a place like that, you have to commit to its upkeep. Which I enjoyed the heck out of while I lived there – I put in gardens and orchards (though I’m unlikely to take on that kind of space again, unless I retire somewhat more effectively next time, not to mention living in a semi-rural area adds a commute time tax to everything, even if I was close to MS) – but the ex and his girlfriend don’t, nor do they pay anyone to on a regular basis :-p I mean, it can be salvaged, but it would take a lot of work to get it really read for sale, say. I try to think of it as something like a shed skin, but it’s a little annoying.
    - David Gillon
      
      {wince} Yeah, that would kind of piss me off.
  - palmvos
    
    12 feet of leaves…. two bodies end to end? did some of the leaves have legs? how much was the sag in the middle? or did the thing have huge cross beams?
    - Tylikcat
      
      Kind of two of the three? I didn’t actually have a room that would let me expand it to all twelve feet in any useful configuration – six was far more common. (And that required a bit of shifting furniture, but was worth it for those times.) The support structure is massive – some really impressive woodwork going on there. But in the similar tables I’ve seen, there are slip in legs – just like an arch that you slide under the leaves – to support the structure when it’s under load. Those were lost, and we used a saw horse, essentially.
      
      I mean, this was the house where I had three ovens, and often scheduled them pretty tightly if anyone else was bringing food (as in Thanksgiving). (Everyone always thinks they can warm up their thing at the last minute. This… doesn’t scale!) Those were good times. Though the parties where I fired up the brick oven and put out pizza fixings were a lot more relaxing.

Brandon Barrus

I’m holding out hope that when I know what the hell is going on and who any of these people are, it will be awesome.

bryan rasmussen

is this comic finally going to answer why at all these debauched parties of beautiful people there is always a secret room in the back with ugly old but powerful people ruling the world?

Tylikcat

My experience is that debauched parties of beautiful people are far more like to occur near, but not too near college campuses, in hotsprings, or in various art establishments. YMMV, of course. (I have been invited to a number of secret rooms in back, but maybe just not the right ones?) (OMG, the mongolian vodka.)

Danygalw

That woman looks like she’s literally carved out of wood.

Which is not impossible.

Glotos

His associates look like they’re about to leave feet-first and are rather annoyed about it.

Eric Schissel

there’s only so many attitudes to take to that near-future attitude [to vertical, if the pun isn’t obvious, sorry], and that’s a lot more common than, say, serenity or welcome…

JohnTomato

White hair and woman look related. Jaw line, puckered mouths, visible fingers.

Tim F

My guess was daughter in law.

Lysiuj

“and at the end of it we find ourselves in want of a desk”
Because it would be more comfortable with a small number of people, or because it would be better at establishing and maintaining a heirarchy between you and him?

elysdir

Two observations about the Exquisitely Crafted Table:

1. It looks circular to me. Which makes me wonder if it is in fact *the* Round Table, ~~of pizza fame~~.

2. It appears to have only two legs. Which seems unusual for a round table, but I suppose part of the Exquisitely Craftedness is not needing as many legs as some other tables might.

(It kinda looks like the two legs are at angles that would suggest a third leg, which makes me wonder (a) whether the third leg was lost in the same incident that led to One-Eye’s loss of an eye, or (b) whether the third leg is invisible. I’ve heard of the Invisible Hand; maybe this is the Invisible Leg.)

elysdir

Oops, I said “it” to refer to the Table, where (per Gotham’s comment about the Table) I should have said “They.” I apologize.
- palmvos
  
  ok… this is where the engineer gets shot. there are 7 chairs around that table so its a little large (4 is more common) there are nowhere near enough legs. probably because its a pain in the neck to draw them all. (CAD software makes things so much easier)
  the table leg (if there are 3) would probably be between the 2 men. green suit guy’s chair is missing legs.one of the back legs should be visible (one front leg of the chair is covered by green suits own legs.
  in the artists defense- the cairs are spaced out more than needed. one would expect that a 3 legged table would fit 6,9,12 chairs. 4 legged table 4, 8, 12 if the table is round, oblong or square tables of course might work differently.

elysdir

One observation about Tony:

He’s keeping his left hand in his jacket pocket, kind of awkwardly imo. At first I wondered if his left hand were missing (or Invisible!), but no, we’ve seen it a few times in the past several pages. But he does seem to have a penchant for keeping one hand in his pocket.

(I imagine he’s probably just following the old adage “Keep your friends close, and your hands closer.”)

Steele

These individuals all look a bit beat up/scarred. Assuming this DOES have something to do with “The Conspiracy”, I’m a bit reminded of an old “What-If” story called “Punisher kills the Marvel Universe”, where Punisher goes after metahumans at the behest of a cabal of people who’ve been injured/maimed/lost loved ones to meta-human conflicts.

However, where SFP diverges is that the conspiracy supposedly killed children, and BEFORE any super powers became publicly known. Makes me wonder what happened to these folks to make them go after a kid who could make infinite energy instead of a guy like Cleaver who used to destroy shit for lulz.

Todd

Heh!

Son of Batou/grandson of Daddy Warbucks lookin’ gooood . . . .

Darkoneko Hellsing

That’s one Heavy table