Pidgeverse: the Experiment

Jason’s rather complicated conscience explains a lot about him. (At least they don’t look like his dad.)

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And even if it was all a setup for Alycia’s punchline, it’s still perfect.

I’m doing this one mostly for the “he had a dad, he’s so lucky” thing. IF ONLY YOU KNEW.

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The grass is always greener on the other side of the dimensional barrier.

Sometimes friendship conquers all. The experiment had some good outcomes after all.

Aftermath. It looks like Alycia isn’t interested in a male Summer after all, but it was still rough to find out.

For my money, this is the most fascinating conversation of the whole encounter.

I think this fits into the middle of the sequence there (between SUMMER07_007 and _008)


ALYCIA: (Cocks head, looks Sunny up and down)
SUNNY: (Smiling)

ALYCIA: Nope. Nada.
SUNNY: And that’s okay. Relationship, friendship, does not need to involve sexual attraction.

ALYCIA: Of course. Plus, by analogy, you’re sort of like a brother; thus, due to powerful societal and cultural restrictions, sexual attraction would be taboo.

SUNNY: So … if I’m like a brother to you, that must mean Summer is like a sis
ALYCIA: THAT’S ENOUGH OUT OF YOU, MISTER.


Baby steps, Alycia.

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I don’t imagine that anything in this whole sequence would ever change status quo. Jason’s awkward teenage libido aside, I imagine a feeling of taboo is part of it, but I’d prefer to think that everyone is just happy with what they already have, and they’re mostly doing this to goof around and figure themselves out a little better.

The other universe I could do in comic form would be something like the “Mean-agerie”, where our teen heroes were villains instead. They can’t be the sort of world-dominating villains that some of their powers or background might indicate - you sort of have to be able to laugh at them, so I can imagine them doing petty or amusing things rather than (say) mass murder or mind-wiping. I don’t really know how you’d turn Harry evil, except maybe Hecate revealing the extent of his family’s involvement in morally shady affairs and then using that weakness to put a whammy on him, but I can easily see a villain trajectory for everyone else that still keeps them part of a (sort-of) team.

Sounds legit. It helps that we sort of left people in a pretty good state, so nobody’s actively looking elsewhere.

Harry’s not evil. He just goes along with his friends who are (and plies them with chips, which he shoplifts from the local 7-11).

Is this a suggestion we can all get behind?

I see what you did there.

We’d teased them assessing each other’s fighting potential, but this is one of the few things I could think of that’d actually make Alycia throw down. :smiley: Presumably Alycia would figure out what happened pretty fast and nobody would get seriously hurt as a result.

Heck, perhaps the “full fighting power” he is pointing at is Using Her Head, being less complacent than (he feels) she’s become. Thus revelation, surge of anger, wait this guy is just as sneaky as Father taught me, hmmm, he would know my reaction, and how it would knock me off-balance, dammit Alistair …

Not that she’d be happy about being manipulated by Alistair (even if she determined he was doing it “for her own good,” which, of course, is what she always wants to hear), but she might then intentionally seem to go after him, all angry and reckless, and wait for him to try and use that ostensible state against her …

Alistair might, in turn, anticipate that she’s seen through it, and feint a reaction to see if she takes it. Alycia might, of course, count on that, and exploit it in return …

Throw in all the SGHG cognitive stuff, and you could have the equivalent of a grandmaster chess game, only in ten seconds of hand-to-hand.

Which of course is Alistair’s point, and Alycia’s real motivation in making him eat it. :slight_smile:

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Only then Alistair threatens to goose Summer for real, so the pair go over Reichenbach Falls…

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Wrapping up the Experiment story here.

The thing I found about these characters is that no matter how weird any given character’s story might be, you can have them play off their other self, because there’ll always be differences, and the alternates of other members of the group always change the dynamic (even if it’s just Jason stammering his way through talking to Leah, for example). We didn’t hear much from Charlotte or Harry, but only because I don’t feel I have license to write for them. There was plenty of potential material for everyone.

I’m pretty sure @fragolakat and @Margie wouldn’t mind, but I’ll tag them just in case they want to say so.

I have to say, I have a vague interest in a “next round” of MASKS that’s in the Pidgeverse, just because it offers an opportunity to shake things up a bit. But, as I said, “vague”.

The Pidgeverse is full of people you’d thought were one gender but who were actually another, and it turns out it makes no difference to anyone. So in that sense it’s almost too close - do you just play the gender flipped version of your old PCs now? :slight_smile:

Oh, I know, on reflection it probably doesn’t make any sense. Except that there enough little differences to provide some amusement. Or at least a series of entertaining comics.

So the other neat thing is that the “main” universe had like a 2:1 female to male ratio, setting aside our one known NB character. So ironically there’s more men active in the Pidgeverse.