09

Nov 2015

Chapter 8: Page 12 - The Blame Game

Posted by / in Comic / 47 comments

Happy Monday! And happy 2 years to The Demon Archives. :D Give us presents! Or like, nice comments about overall thoughts of 8 chapters of content. Or fan art. Or whatever ;D

I like how this sequence is turning out. I feel like I managed to distill the most important parts of the psych/therapist encounter in as short a number of pages as possible, while still giving it the weight it is due. Just a couple more pages with Dr. El-Amin before continuing on to the next scene. One that I’m REALLY excited for XD

  • Matt [in Middletown]

    He’s mad because she used some soldiers (viktor as well) as meatshields so that they had a chance to escape.
    “I’m sorry Tenzin, it was the only way.” -Jane
    “Shut it Jane. I don’t want to hear it.” -Tenzin
    https://demonarchives.com/chapter-3-page-4-way/
    https://demonarchives.com/chapter-3-page-5-grumpy-face/

    • “Dang meatsacks say they want options but are never happy with the odds.”

      • Chris

        You can’t ask a Hero to sacrifice others for their own survival.

        Jane is the Anti-Hero.

      • Dusty Coyote

        Meatbags are notoriously fickle about what they want.

  • Why do they ask the questions when they feel they already have the answers? Heh. Though I think the doctor has a point.

  • Keith Schiffner

    dumbest dang shrink I ever saw…I’m mean seriously stupid.

    • Well I look forward to what you think on Thursday.

      Also, I had to cut a LOT of dialogue in order to not have a 50 page therapy session XD

      • Keith Schiffner

        :) Stupid questions are not stupid…assuming you know what is going on with a patient is. Until you get their vitals, lab results, imaging and EEG’s. Because with patients, you have to be patient in a hurry. Even then, you are buy guess and by golly. It’s called medical arts for a reason. But, I don’t know a thing…years out of practice.

        • Oh I didn’t show the nurse and the nursebot doing all of that stuff first :D Or the weeks of doctors poking and prodding at him. The Doc here has all of that data available to him :)

          Are you in the medical field yourself?

          • Keith Schiffner

            was…I was one of the guys who made sure the patient A) gets to the doc and the nurses alive B) had them hooked up so the nurses wouldn’t screw it up…though we’d leave them to doing catheters C) oh yeah stay alive, keep the patient alive and kill everything trying to hurt the patient…then treat any of THOSE survivors. Some times the cigar is just cigar doc. And yes, dealing with the occasional violent drunk that the MP’s couldn’t handle but would sit quietly for me while I got blood samples to run the labs on.

          • Ooof. You’ve had it a lot more raw than I’ll ever have (med student), or the good psychologist here has ever really had, cushioned in his nice office in Glaucus HQ.

          • Keith Schiffner

            don’t get me started on physicians who can’t read lab results. ;) Or need a knuckle dragger like me to point out the broken bone in the x-ray.

          • DeNitro

            Not to insult your very real medical experience, but. You have to remind yourself that even as Psychiatrists are medical doctors the part shown here is a mental therapy session. The biggest irony is less Psychiatrists are doing this part, having therapists who they supervise to do sessions while they handle any medical needs. Just my experience with too many people I have known needing non medical help. :-)

  • Delta-v

    It’s not unexpected that Tenzin would have convinced himself that it’s all Jane’s fault, but as I remember the episode, he did an awful lot of ignoring her advice. :(

    To make matters worse, he’s pretty sleep-deprived, which only exacerbates his problems.

  • l33tninja

    He’s mad because she knows his secrets and he thinks he’s a failure for “letting” his sister die. People don’t like other people (or in this case, sentient AI) to know stuff like that.

    • Dusty Coyote

      He was also conned into snapping out of his coma.

      EDIT: Where he wanted to DIE. So she stole that from him….

    • Adriano

      I have one word to say :

      ‘INDIRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA !!!’

  • He’s probably mad at her for saving him when he still thinks he should be dead and not them.
    Also, Jane is an AI with a female avatar. Why is it a surprise that he calls Jane “her”? Odd detail to fuss on.

    • More that the doc was trying to draw Tenzin out to talk about her more than anything else. Well, and that Tenzin was humanizing her.

      • Dusty Coyote

        Digital Intelligence. It has a personality. It identifies itself as a female. I’m pretty sure the line is about as fuzzy as his memory is.

        • l33tninja

          I like your Gunnerkrigg Court avatar, btw

          • ;( I’m sad because his yoga-Tenzin one is gone ;)

          • l33tninja

            that was a good one, too. But I don’t think he can resist a good coyote pose…

          • Dusty Coyote

            Nah. Still got it in the files. It’ll come back.

          • Dusty Coyote

            One of my friends growing up was Navajo. His mom always said I was just like Coyote. Troublemaker, trickster, but overall good guy. He’s important to me.

            Edit:
            Jane has that same streak by the way.

    • l33tninja

      Also, just another thought here, Jane is actually in love with Tenzin. She valued him over all the others on that mission. Tenzin expected odds of survival, with his own worth weighted equally to the rest of the team. He had some advantages because of his suit, but saving the victim was the goal in Tenzin’s mind as well as preserving his team to the maximum extent possible. However, in my opinion (speculation at this point), Jane weighted Tenzin’s survival above the others and made decisions not to allow the others to die, but to keep Tenzin alive even to the detriment of the others.

      • I’d contest whether she’s in love with him, at least in any romantic sense. So far, we’ve seen no indication of her being capable and/or interested in humans in that particular way. However, I do think there’s strong evidence that she is very attached to him and clearly she cares about him more than she does about most others. Whether that influenced her decisions or not, I think is left intentionally unclear right now. The team was decimated by a number of factors all working against them-Tenzin’s unpreparedness and sloppy leadership, the Lily trap distracting them, the deathbots outclassing the team’s tech and weapons considerably, Jane’s lack of ability to process the scale of the ambush until it was too late, poor intel going in, and the team simply not having the resources/training for a threat of this magnitude (and the writer being an evil, evil man, let’s not forget that). Tenzin’s floundering psyche can’t process that right now. All he can see is blame and grief and he’s projecting that everywhere and on everyone, including himself and Jane.

      • NickDA

        Agreed in the non “eros” sense of love… very astute.

        • l33tninja

          more philia than eros

          • Dusty Coyote

            He’s her brother in some ways. If this was a more aquatic service, I’d say they were shipmates.

          • Just imagined them having some sort of inbred hillbilly relationship. Dad brother husband, or something XD

      • I think Jane has a new kind of attachment for Tenzin, you could call it love but its something post-human.

  • DeNitro

    If he wasn’t blaming Jane he would blame something else. He is projecting the blame to avoid coping with it. Easier for anyone to blame something and stay angry at it as an excuse to not have to deal with emotional pain. I bet the Doc will gently show him he’s acting like a little girl and he will start to fight through it. ;-)

    • Chris Kotthoff

      Ten was blaming himself during his coma. You can’t just ‘deal’ with survivors guilt, Jane got him to stop hatting himself but still allot of angst that needs to directed somewhere, why not blame the girl…er…AI who’s brilliant strategy ‘have your best friend sacrifice himself so you would can get a clean shot and then stopped you from stopping your friend from sacrificing.’ Ten will get around to actually blaming the Death Bot but right now, Jane is the one constant during this whole nightmare whom at times seem to have more control the Ten himself.

      • DeNitro

        I get it, not one of those who say “Just deal with it,,” to real issues. However he has to begin to “deal” with it by talking about it and working it out. ;-)

  • DrCrazy102

    “In that case, why don’t you tell me why”
    Doc: “Do you want the long version or the short? Well, here’s the short; you stuffed up in so many spots in your life and now your girlfr-cough-cough, intelligent AI knows about them. Still want the long?”

    I so wish you hadn’t cut out the “50 pages” of psychoanalysis and Freudian analysis of Tenzin, @DaemonDan:disqus. So many jokes, so little time but now so little chance but so perfect!

    • I leave it to you all to think of the jokes and share them in the comments ;P We do still have a couple more pages of psychobabble.

  • Kensei Seraph - Terran Ghost

    Thanks for the story.
    I am enjoying it and look forward to more.

    • Glad to have you! Wow, and I just barely saw your comment in Chapter 1 :D It’s always fun to see new readers blast thru the whole archive :)

  • Chris Kotthoff

    “… Why don’t YOU tell me why I’m mad.”
    “… Maybe the fact you are missing a couple of limbs and now have a USB port in you skull?”
    “… #### you, Doc.”

  • Dusty Coyote

    Happy Veterans Day to my fellow service members.

    • NickDA

      Very much so.

  • Henrik Svantesson

    Goddammit doc, you build a rapport with your patients before you prod their most vulnerable places.

    • Heh. Sometimes you gotta make use of the only appointment you’re likely to get XD

      • Henrik Svantesson

        Isn’t the point of the first appointment to make sure there are more appointments?

        • Heh, probably. I forget if in my mind this was the first, or just the first in forever because Tenzin’s been avoiding them.

          • Henrik Svantesson

            Fair enough - though if this is the treatment I see why he’s been avoiding them. Not that it’s unrealistic mind, have friends who avoid psychologists like the plague precisely because they’ve had terrible ones that push too hard rather than build a rapport with the patient.