Katalepsis III: "Conditions of Absolute Reality" (part one)

This review was comissioned by @skaianDestiny


I intended to finish off New Statesmen last week. Embarrassingly, I'm currently visiting family overseas and I forgot to pack the physical book I've been using. So, I'll do the final New Statesmen post as soon as I return in mid August. I also don't really have a good watching environment to tackle a TV episode length video like the Dr. Who episode in queue right now.

I really want to catch up on my quota, since I just took a partial sick week and am now way the fuck behind for both last week AND this week on top of it. So, I'm shuffling the queue a little and putting Katalepsis 3-4 ahead of Dr. Who. It's a lot of material, so it'll likely provide enough material to last me until I'm in more ideal video-watching conditions and/or have that comic book in hand again.

So. It's been a little while, and I believe I've picked up some new readers from reviewing Arcane. Let's start with a recap.

The Story So Far​

Until a few weeks ago, Heather Morrell was a friendless schizophrenic college freshman on the brink of dropping out and returning home to a life of medicated-senseless torpor for the rest of her life. Over the course of 48 hours, she was transformed. Or rather, she learned that she had never actually been the thing she thought she was.

Her constant "hallucinations" are ethereal creatures that most people can't see with the naked eye. Her "psychotic episodes" are glimpses into other dimensions. The seizures she sometimes experiences are caused by telepathic contact with the pan-dimensional entity that is granting her these powers, and that is also responsible for abducting her "imaginary" twin sister Maisie and wiping the rest of the world's memories of her existence.

Now in the company of some conveniently attractive local occultists, Heather is on a mission to rescue her long lost sister from the lair of a reality-warping god monster, using that monster's own power and hoping it doesn't damn her. Also she's fighting local baddies, making friends with From Beyond fauna, and being a queer harem protagonist, just to keep things from getting too dark.

The last thing that happened was her managing to receive an eldritch messenger-drone from Maisie, but then losing said construct to the "Sharrowford Cult." This group later tried to ambush and kill her and her companions, forcing Heather to overclock her powers in self-defense and lose consciousness in the process.

The Cast So Far​

HEATHER: our protagonist. She's recently gotten some magical protection from the Eye that lets her brain have a rest when it needs one, but is now facing the fact that she'll need to start using the powers she's spent a decade hiding from in order to rescue Maisie. She also, not coincidentally, needs to learn to grow into her power and self-actualization as a human being after years of "mental patient" conditioning. Compassionate. Poetic. Horny.

THE EYE: our...antagonist? Maybe? It's hard to say for certain. This extradimensional entity has taken Maisie to its dismal, ruin-choked homeworld and has been slowly absorbing or transforming her or something over the years since then. It may be reaching into Heather's brain, or it may be accidentally spilling into Heather's brain via a twin telepathy thing. Possibly malevolent, possibly just heedless of the damage its been causing, and possibly named Mdlkthpk. Powerful. Mysterious. Lovecraftian.

EVELYN: the sort-of heiress of a wealthy occultist dynasty. I say "sort-of" because she's a self-made orphan (don't worry, her mom totally deserved it) who can't yet access all the family's financial resources or figure out how to use all its supernatural ones. Evelyn has some donor family access to the inner workings of Heather's university, which is very helpful as she's made a bit of a project of Heather and unlocking her unique dimension-blurring powers. Prickly. Moody. Trying to be better.

RAINE: Evelyn's voluntary caretaker, bodyguard, and on-again-off-again. A street-smart runaway with an uncommon affinity for violence, sex, and anarcho-communist literature. May have helped Evelyn become a self-made orphan. Was responsible for finding Heather at her lowest point and bringing her to someone who could help. Based. Redpilled.

MAISIE: Heather's twin sister who only she remembers. We don't know why the Eye took her, or even if it meant to take her, but it did. Is slowly transforming into something, leaving Heather with limited time to rescue her before her humanity is lost. Can send eldritch messenger-drones, apparently. Damsel. Distressed.

TWIL: Raine and Evelyn's frenemy who is a werewolf. Sort of. She's like, the thing that werewolf-myths were inspired from, but a lot got lost in translation. Lives out of town, but occasionally pops in to make a nuisance of herself (usually) or be helpful (rarely). Briefly dated Raine, and still unhappy about losing her. Bitter. Unpredictable. Doge.

THE SHARROWFORD CULT: not their actual name - may not actually even be a cult, per se - but it's what Evelyn's named them. In practice, they basically seem like an occultist street-gang who specialize in stealing magical artifacts and knowledge from anyone who gets their attention. They've just started being a real problem at the end of arc 2, forcing Heather to use her dangerous and neuron-frying powers to warp herself and Raine out of their grasp. One of them is a girl named Lozzie, and another of them is a zombie or something. Brazen. Punchable.


So, with everyone back up to speed, let's go!

3.1-3​

"Conditions of Absolute Reality" takes its name from the novel "The Haunting of Hill House," by Shirley Jackson. The movie is probably better known than the book at this point, but the latter's opening line is what's being referenced here.

"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream."

Dreams (and "dreams") were already a major element of Katalepsis' first two arcs, but they take center-stage here. After using her mental math-magic to first deflect an incoming bullet and then warp herself and Raine away from the Sharrowford Cult ambush, Heather's overtaxed brain loses consciousness. And, while unconscious, she makes the acquaintance of Lozzie. Previously, Heather had only known Lozzie as "that cult member who wears an obscuring skull-helmet." Now, she gets to know her as a charmingly fey teenager in a trans flag hoodie who manifests in her dreamscapes.

Lozzie is evasive about her real-life circumstances, and eager to explore the dream-landscapes with Heather. It's hard to say if the scenes she guides Heather through - European castles, lush rainforests, the surface of Mars, and other locations far beyond scientific knowledge - are actually real images taken from the universe, or phantasms conjured from imagination. It's also hard to say if Lozzie, herself, is real or imaginary. Heather has no way of verifying what the elflike girl tells her, and she's hesitant to tell her anything verifiable about the real world even if Heather could wake up and check.

It's an interesting reprise of Heather's earlier predicament, with the pneumo-somatic fauna that no one else could see. How do you determine the reality of something that can only make itself visible in your own head? It's basically an acute example of the ever-haunting problem of hard solipsism.

When Heather finally does wake up, regaining consciouness is difficult. Though it's not clear if this is due to Lozzie, or due to the nature of how she got knocked out in the first place. In either case, the author continues to use Heather's voice as a vehicle for intricately beautiful prose.

“Physically I was awake, the slow reanimational alchemy of bodily function and firing synapse, but for a long time I could not have moved if the Devil himself had shouted in my face. Awareness dawned with tentative creeping fingers, of bed covers bunched up around my stomach and a pillow underneath my head, and a familiar smell all around me.”

Sometimes, Katalepsis inspires me to improve my own writing. Other times, it makes me feel like I should give up because I'll never reach this level.

Anyway, Heather beamed herself and Raine free of the ambush two days ago. Since then, she's mostly been unconscious, save for brief periods of movement that seemed more like sleepwalking than actual awakeness. Apparently Heather told Raine not to take her to the hospital at some point, which was probably wise, but it's creepy that Heather doesn't remember saying it or even why she would have said it. Also, they're in Raine's apartment, which Heather surprisingly hasn't seen before. I'd kind of assumed that Raine lived with Evelyn myself, but apparently not! She lives in an unsold property that she and several other students have broken into, put their own locks on, and been squatting in for at least a schoolyear. Presumably they've converted the basement into a weed farm, the attic into a porn studio, and the back lounge into a pirate server farm. You'll need to wait for them to empty out the synthetic estrogen before you use the bathtub, but the shower should be open. Feel free to fish out your favourite from the giant stack of game consoles in the corner by the stolen 48-inch TV, but be careful not to knock over those ISIS scalps hanging from the wall overhead; they used to be able to fit them all in the closet, but after so many spring breaks in Rojava the collection's been spreading all across the living room.

While Raine's been looking after the not-all-there Heather, Evelyn's been in her big spooky house working on some type of retaliation against their aggressors. Raine has every confidence in her. I do not. Especially with Raine spending so much time taking care of Heather in the anarcho-catgirl death fortress and so little keeping Evelyn's fingers away from electrical sockets.

It's not said in as many words, but I thiiiink the implication might be that in Heather's current state it could be dangerous to bring her near whatever Evelyn is cooking up. That would explain why Raine is still keeping her here and not there.

Heather spends another day or two recovering, and even attending her university classes and trying to catch up as best she can from the ones she missed. Honestly though, I think it might be time to give up on her academic career. She's got a sister to rescue, and a bunch of local magi-thugs to fend off in the meantime, and frankly she's not going to have the time or mental energy for school (and worrying about that will only distract her from the important stuff). There's always next year. How's that for irony? She didn't think she could live up to school at the beginning of arc 1, and now it seems like school might not be important enough to be worth her time.

Anyway, she also spends some time getting more comfortable with Raine. With one particular line being crossed when she finds out Raine has a gun (that she only wishes she'd had with her at the end of arc 2) and had a confirmed body count of three, plus helping Evelyn with her mother, even before possibly adding two others to the total in that last battle.

“I stared at her and thought very carefully. Stared at those big warm brown eyes and the soft curve of her cheekbones, the rich chestnut hair and the way her hips curved under her pajamas.

”Do I scare you?” Raine asked. I looked up and expected a touch of swagger on her face, but instead found straight laced sincerity.

”No, no you don’t. That’s what worries me,” I said.

Raine raised her eyebrows in silent question.

”It … I find it attractive,” I admitted. “Not the killing itself, I’m not that broken, and I don’t think you genuinely enjoy that part either?” I spoke those last few words slowly, haltingly, one eye fixed on Raine. She shook her head. “Right, well. I don’t know what it means. I never liked action girls or anything before. This is entirely your fault.”

Raine couldn’t keep a stupid grin off her face. She pantomimed a bow with a flourish of one hand. “A blame I am destined to shoulder.””

While trying to work through this, Heather also makes the faceless "bodies" less faceless by using Twil as a hypothetical. If it turned out that Twil really was out for their blood last arc instead of just out to be annoying, would Raine have killed her? Even with their kinda-sorta romantic history together?

““Would you have killed Twil?”

Raine grimaced and shrugged. “I don’t think I could. I mean, I could have a silver bullet made, but honestly? I ain’t sure even that would put her down.”

”In principle, would you?”

”If she was going to hurt you or Evee? Absolutely. No question.” Raine took a deep breath. “But it turns out she’s not. I was wrong about her. And hey, I wouldn’t have just bumped her off without being sure. I’m not a cold blooded murderer.””

And, though she can't quite reconcile this with herself, Heather spends her first night with Raine in the wake of this conversation. I mean, her first night with Raine that isn't just sleeping and being mother henned over. Her first sex with Raine, or with anyone else for that matter.

She doesn't spend these couple of nights alone with Raine, though, and I'm not just talking about the other antifa supersoldiers in the other rooms. Whenever Heather sleeps, Lozzie is waiting.

It's a solid improvement over the entity that USED to torment Heather in her dreams, at least. And, if Heather can be sure that this isn't just totally a figment of her imagination, Lozzie does eventually begin to share actionable intelligence. The big zombie-like woman who Heather and Raine briefly fought is named Zheng, and that Heather shouldn't be angry at her because "it isn't her fault when they tell her to do things." Lozzie also claims that she was trying to warn Heather both before AND after the ambush, but wasn't able to get through to her until she was unconscious. Increasingly, it seems like Lozzie might be an unwilling participant in the Sharrowford Cult's activities.

She also seems to be really, really desperate for someone else to talk to.

““I’m not going to remember this, am I?” I muttered to myself and ran a mittened hand over my face. “It’s a dream, of course you know I love castles, you’re a dream.”

”What? … Heather?” Lozzie looked crestfallen. “What do you mean, you won’t remember it?”

I stood up from the chair and cast about. “Of course dreams aren’t real,” I snapped, to myself, not Lozzie. “You’re schizophrenic, Heather, you-“

I slammed to a halt. I wasn’t crazy, not anymore. I blinked and swallowed and reminded myself of that, hard as I could, reminded myself of the last few weeks of my life, of Raine and Evelyn and Maisie and magic and demons.

Lozzie stood up too, almost bouncing to her feet, face worried and panicky. “Heather, Heather don’t go again, we were having so much fun! Please!”

I screwed my eyes shut, held them hard, clamped down and tensed every muscle and grit my teeth.

And woke up.”

A prisoner, then. Able to reach out and touch freedom only in dreams. In fact, given the almost mechanical way she acted during her brief in-person meeting with the gang during the nightgaunt heist, and the Sharrowford Cult's apparent use of zombies, it seems likely that they have her body under some kind of hypnotic control while her mind is stuck in the dreamworld. As for WHY the Sharrowford Cult might be doing this with her, well, a probable answer is suggested after Raine brings the mostly-recovered Heather back to Evelyn's place.

To my great surprise and grudging appreciation, there is not a radioactive cloud of debris where Evelyn's house used to be. If she's had another diplomatic incident with the Fleaman Republic since Raine was last around to babysit her, she appears to have managed to sweep it under the rug all on her own. She isn't HAPPY though. Turns out that the Sharrowford Cult, who previously seemed like a band of halfwitted common thugs who'd happened to get their hands on a little bit of eldritch knowledge, have just had a massive increase in power and competence. Their new dimensional folding trick - a power unknown to Evelyn's admittedly limited occult library - has been used to create a network of spacewarped tunnels and cavities all around the town of Sharrowford. A veritable extradimensional warren. Evelyn claims she can defeat them, and Raine has faith in her, but the former seems like insecure boasting and the latter like unearned confidence.

As they wonder where the cult could have gotten its new power from all of a sudden, Heather thinks of something Lozzie said to her in one of the dreams, right before Heather woke up. Lozzie wondering if Heather was "someone like me."

“A thought teased at the edge of my mind. What if the Cult had a person like me? A brain-math dimension-jumper, to dig out their shadow-city behind Sharrowford?

”Heather?”

I blinked, frozen verge of speaking. “Ah, s-sorry.”

Raine peered at my face. “You holding up okay, Heather? Wanna sit down? Hell, this is pretty heavy stuff, shall we go make some coffee, have a snack, take a break?”

”I’m … fine.” I shook my head.

A person like me? Where had I gotten that idea?”

So, it turns out that this might just be a tutorial-boss for the eventual endgame. Replace the Eye with some second-rate hedge wizards, its alien home dimension with a little reality-bubble attached to Sharrowford, and helpless Maisie who can only send one messenger-gaunt in a decade with Lozzie who can update Heather with live intelligence whenever she's asleep.

...

There's also some fridge-horror with the pneuma-somatic fauna in play, here. When we (briefly) saw Lozzie in person, she had eldritch fluffy-puffies swarming lovingly all over her. Later on, we saw grafted-together cybernetic constructs made from chopped up pieces of them being used as the cult's attack dogs. Definitely seems like, among whatever other power they're stealing from her, the cultists are using Lozzie to attract friendly PSF and then butcher them for parts. Which, uh, I can't imagine Lozzie being thrilled about, given the Dreamlands Disney Princess vibe she's got going on.

...

Accompanying this tactical challenge, however, is a moral one. Potentially two interrelated moral ones, actually.

With an unexpectedly powerful enemy gunning for her and Raine distracted with Heather these last few days, Evelyn has procured some new muscle in the form of a summoned entity. The exact nature of this creature hasn't been gone into yet, but amusingly it seems to work a lot like my old erroneous theory about the Eye back when it seemed like the night-gaunt was its. Basically, while the "main body" of this thing (if it even has one) is offscreen from our 3D perspective, it can animate multiple avatars within our world to serve as remote appendages. Apparently, most legends about zombies and ghouls were inspired by this type of entity, as human corpses are an efficient substrate for them to use as avatars. In this case though, Evelyn has (fortunately) modified a collection of fashion dummies for this purpose instead of digging up bodies. Somewhat less fortunate is the nature of her relationship with the entity, which she (and Raine, at Evelyn's instruction) refuses to even recognize as a sentient being rather than a mindless drone or (paradoxically) a dangerous caged animal.

This demon entity is of a species that Evelyn calls Gelus praeministra. "Praeministra" is Latin for "maid," apparently, which is funny for a reason I'm about to share. Anyway, refusing to objectify the seemingly sentient being the way the others bid her to, Heather decides to name it "Praem." Now, the reason it's funny:

“Skin and shoulder-length hair shaded in the most subtle blue of glacial ice. Perfect skin, no expression, spine ramrod straight. Heels together, shoulders back, hands clasped daintily in front of her like a 19th-century maid. She was dressed in Evelyn’s clothes, a thick soft pullover and long comfy skirt, huge army boots on her feet. Age impossible to guess, anywhere from fifteen to thirty.

Blank eyes; no pupil, no iris, no veins. Only milk-white sclera.

Despite the obvious artificiality, my first thought was how darned cuddly she looked. She filled out Evelyn’s clothes very substantially.”

Not clear if this was Evelyn's doing or Praem itself's, but one of the two had the idea of glamouring its avatars to look like kawaii anime meidos with big milkers.

The following exchange implies that this was Evelyn. And for exactly the creepy reasons you're thinking of:

““Does she have a name?” I asked.

Raine opened her mouth, then paused and raised an eyebrow. “Does it? Evee?”

”Her,” I insisted.

Evelyn frowned at both of us. “What?”

”Did you name it – her?” Raine caught the look in my eyes and corrected herself.

”W-what? No, of course not. Don’t be obscene.”

Raine laughed and raised her hands in surrender. “It’s not such a leap. You’ve made an anime character, Evee. You even gave her blue hair.”

”I thought it was comforting, alright?” Evelyn stared at the floor and poked a box with the tip of her stick. “I have enough bad memories of these damned things without making them like my mother did, understand?”

” … you made an anime girl. I mean, no shame no blame. Whatever floats your boat.”

”What? You think I’m going to sleep with the dammed thing?”

Three days deprived of Raine, and Evelyn had made herself a new companion. Literally. A soft, feminine, cuddly companion, bound at her will. Guilt and embarrassment fought in my chest – second hand embarrassment on Evelyn’s behalf, and guilt on my part for monopolising Raine’s time and attention.

All through the escalating argument, the Blue Lady – the bound demon – hadn’t moved a single muscle or blinked once, though she did appear to breathe, heavy chest rising and falling in slow rhythm. I peered at her, then stepped closer for a better look. She didn’t seem anything like a mannequin.

Raine broke off. “Hold up, Heather, don’t get too close to it.”

”Your doubts really do wonders for my self-esteem, too,” Evelyn carried right on. “Thank you for this constant stream of support. You … I … “ Evelyn juddered to a halt along with Raine. Probably at the very unimpressed look on my face.”

But then, on the other hand, Praem does turn out to be getting something out of the arrangement. It's not quite slavery (though it may be something approaching that, depending on how much freedom Praem has to back out), there's an exchange being made.

And...on the very, very rare occasions that "she" speaks or takes independent action, Praem demonstrates the kind of personality that might lead one to appearing as a curvy anime waifu just to troll their sexually frustrated summoner:

““We made a bargain,” Evelyn said.

”Evee-“

”You think I’d sign my soul away? I’m no idiot. I am a Saye, after all, we know how to do these things. I made a specific, limited bargain. Cheap and easily fulfilled.”

”Feed me a cat,” Praem said.

We all stared at her – at it – at such an inhuman voice. High, whispering, icebound, like the rustling of snowflakes on winter wind. She stared straight ahead, hands folded in perfect poise.

”It’s winding us up,” Evelyn said. “Wait here.”

She stomped off into the kitchen and returned with an open plastic tub of supermarket strawberries. She fingered one out and held it up. “Hand.”

Praem raised one hand with mechanical precision, palm up. Evelyn gave her the strawberry. Praem paused, then very slowly and very carefully she placed the strawberry in her own mouth.”

So yeah. It really could be either way.

In any case though, the ability to have dry humor and fuck with people's heads for fun demonstrates that Praem is neither a mindless drone nor an animalistic brute, and should not be treated as such even if her service is voluntary. As Heather herself points out in as many words, even if no harm can come of this transaction, getting into the habit of treating people - or even things that only look and act like people - as objects is a very, very dangerous road to walk down. So, over Evelyn's objections, she calls it Praem...and so does Raine. Evelyn herself can only hold out for so long.

Also, either Praem is deliberately trying to give Heather a new fetish just to mess with her even further, or Heather did this all on her own. But, well:

““Alright, give me your hand.”

Praem didn’t move.

”You have to hold your hand out.”

I asked myself what I was doing. Having fun? A bit of harmless play? I clamped down on that thought. Bad Heather. This wasn’t harming anybody. She’d asked to be fed, she’d made the request.

”At least open your mouth. Hurry up.”

Praem obeyed that one. She parted her lips with a soft click. I frowned at her. Was she-? No, she couldn’t possibly be. She was an Outsider. Not human.

I reached up and fed her the strawberry. Pushed it past her lips with a fingertip. A fleeting moment of contact.

When I finished, I was blushing and flushed.

”Oh,” I muttered. “Oh dear. Well, uh-“

Praem chewed and swallowed.

”Oh, I don’t think I should do that again.” I swallowed on a dry throat and focused on closing the lid of the plastic tub, a tremor in my hands. I was terrible. Absolutely terrible. Why couldn’t I stop blushing?

Why was I aroused by feeding a strawberry to a demon?

”Are you at least going to answer the question? Does Evee hug you and … stuff?”

Praem answered with a smile.

That smile was a bucket of cold water over my arousal. A mere tugging of muscles and curve of mouth. Nothing in the eyes; cold and empty.”

That bit at the end is A+ too. Like, regardless of Heather getting a feeding kink and Praem's potentially deliberate role in that, Praem absolutely understood the argument that just happened about its own treatment and Heather being squicked out at the thought of Evelyn using its avatars for sex. It's a massive troll and might actually be doing this gig for the trolling opportunities as much as it is for the strawberries. I really hope they start talking more, eventually.

Back to Evelyn's moral peril though. Even without the Praem-related issues though, Evelyn's also giving other reminders that she was, in fact, raised by supervillains.

“I’ve started shutting down the entrances I can, closing them off or collapsing them, but some of the principles … escape me. It’s like an excavated space behind the real Sharrowford, in the existing bedrock of Outside.” Evelyn gritted her teeth in disgust and anger as she stared down at the map, at the shadow city. “These people, these fucking vermin should not be able to do things like this. This is a major working, a huge project, the kind of thing a mage could spend a lifetime bringing to fruition, and they’ve slipped it under my nose in the space of months. I don’t even know how long. In my city.
”

There's one line in her ranting where she compares the cultists in their dimensional tunnels to rats creeping out of the walls. On one hand, hardy har har, another Lovecraft title drop, boo this woman off the stage. On the other hand though, this title was well chosen by the author, considering that "The Rats in the Walls" is about a complacent scion who's confident that he's abandoned his family's evil ways only to discover that he really, really hasn't. Pretty clear telegraphing of what Evelyn needs to overcome, and that her problem is at least partly the belief (unintentionally encouraged by Raine with her endless support and enabling) that she's already overcome it.

It also plays into the hinted-at threat of corruption or loss of humanity. Can you beat the Eye without becoming the Eye, in the moral sense if not the physiological one? Who is Heather willing to work with and enable? How much potential does she have to reign people like Evelyn in and help them avoid that path themselves?

It turns out, quite a lot.

...

See, there's one more plot thread that starts being dangled in these three chapters. A particularly eerie-looking pneuma-somatic entity has been trailing Heather ever since she woke up in the Weather Underground HQ and continues as she and Raine head to Evelyn's house. Rather than silently tolerating its stalking, or even just wordlessly holding up her glyph to ward it off, Heather is actually assertive with this one. In much the same way she was with Twil in the last arc, only with more confidence behind it this time.

“I rolled up my left sleeve and held out the Fractal.

The crowd recoiled as one. The Tentacled Woman backed up a step. The mouth in her chest continued flapping.

”Shut up!” I snapped.

The mouth stopped.

I took a deep breath, teetering on the verge of hysteria. Hadn’t wanted to snap like that, needed to be calm, contained, careful.

”Don’t follow me,” I said, my voice rising. Anybody who saw me could go file a complaint. “Don’t watch me. Don’t haunt me. Leave me alone. Or I shall begin to consider ways to hurt you.” I paused, had to ignore the pounding of my heart. “I don’t know if I can teleport you Outside, but I will find a way to try. I got laid! Go away!”

With Raine’s hand on my shoulder and the brooding hulk of Evelyn’s house at my back, standing in the weak grey autumn sunlight dappling the street, I waited as the crowd of pneuma-somatic life finally got the message. They loped and flopped and skittered and hurried away, scattering wide across the street and into the shadows and down the alleyways.”

Heather tells us that she's still very afraid and unsure of herself in the immediate aftermath of that passage and that her threat was just a bluff, but I'm not at all sure that I believe her. Or, rather, I'm not sure if any fear or unsureness that she felt during that encounter are relevant to what she did and (consequently) who she is in practice.

Then, when Evelyn and Raine get into an argument over Evelyn trying to do something reckless to make herself feel less dependent on Raine after being deprived of her for a while, Heather the low-powered newcomer actually kind of takes charge of the group.

“I did the only thing which made sense; I put the box of strawberries down and marched right up to Raine, took her by the shoulders and tried to turn her around. She laughed but offered only token resistance.

”Heather, what? What- what is this?”

I put my hands on her back and steered her toward the front room. I felt like a Terrier pushing a Great Dane. “You and Evee need to talk. Talk.”

Raine sighed, her amusement flagging. “We did, we-“

”Raine, you’re wonderful and I think I might be falling in love with you.” Goodness me, did I really just say that? “But you and Evelyn need to stop arguing. Deal with each other. Right now. Go back in there and sort this out. You’re old friends and she needs your support and … go. Back in there. Go. Go!”

I shoved Raine the rest of the way, under no illusion that I’d be able to if she’d resisted. She grinned and shook her head as I pushed her through the door. I caught a glimpse of Evelyn’s thunderous frown and deep confusion, then shut the door on them.

”Don’t come out until you’re friends again!”

I waited a beat, my heart hammering, but neither of them burst back out to tell me off or shout at me.

Had I just done that? Where had that courage come from? Was this me?

I think it was.”

Heather attributes her newfound confidence and force of personality to her losing her virginity, but I really don't think this has much to do with it at all. I'm sure Raine's vagina is magical, but it's not quite that magical. I find it far more likely that the experience of batting a bullet out of the air, teleporting herself and Raine site-to-site to outmaneuver realspace opponents, and visiting Mars in astral form with Lozzie has just...turned her into a person who knows that she has done those things.

Or, potentially, actually changed her brain in a more esoteric way. In which case, she might be in the early stages of a metamorphosis. Possibly what the Eye has been trying to push her toward all along. That's the more sinister possibility, but based on the evidence so far it's also the less likely one.

Of course, Heather using her newfound empowerment to intimidate and rebuke these creatures who may not be hostile at all shows a corruption threat of its own. Perhaps this is the start of the road that leads to Evelyn's maternal ancestors. But I think Heather has enough compassion and empathy to pull herself back from this and realize that the "monsters" that sometimes follow her around might not be any less deserving of sympathy than Praem who she stood up for. Practicing what she preaches seems like a likely minor test in Heather's near future.

Also, to get back to a theme that's never more than a few beats away where Heather's POV is concerned...is it just me, or is her description of the PSF entity stalking her a little bit...mmm....

“She – I instantly thought of it as a she, despite the absence of visible breasts or hips – was slender and poised like a dancer, humanoid figure cast in pitch-black flesh made from slick protoplasmic tar, bubbling and roiling, faintly luminous. A mass of thick tentacles rose from her back, waving in the air, tipped with pincers and stingers, sucking orifices and coiling fingers.
...
She of the many tentacles and the roiling black protoplasmic tar-flesh. Staring at me. A mouth slopped open in what on a human would be her chest. No teeth. No lips. Just a hole. It wavered and wobbled and began to form silent words...The mouth in her chest sucked and slapped, speaking at me.”

I don't know, just, there's something about the focus on the femininity, the coiling motions, the sucking orifices, that she keeps having her attention drawn to that, well...you see what I'm talking about, right? She's describing a monster, but she's describing it in juuuust plausibly deniable sexual terms.

New waifu option? Possibly. Adding her and Praem to the roster in such quick succession would make my head spin a bit, but, well, Heather.

Anyway, chapter 3.3 ends with Heather going off to try and mend bridges with tentacle waifu in the hopes of getting help against the Sharrowford Cult that doesn't involve Evelyn accidentally turning her own kidneys into pterodactyls. So, that's promising on the Heather-learning-to-deal-with-having-power front, and also on the Heather-learning-to-be-nice-to-fluffy-puffies front, in addition to the tactical one.


We'll see if she recruits and/or bangs Slenderwoman next time.