We have seen flashbacks contradict each other before. Not narration, different flashbacks displaying different things. Don’t be so quick to trust your eyes.
I can totally buy that she did a no wind-up shot put of an entire human being. Sure thing, no problem. But the mental gymnastics of “So you’ve stated you don’t want to be picked on, right? That’s your goal, you don’t want to be bullied? We’ve established this, I’m acknowledging this? YOU STATUS SEEKER!” is insane. There’s no way. How are you going to accurately recognize somebody’s real goals in one sentence and then act like you think they’re after something else in the next? Like, to justify the bullying, you’d have to pick one or the other, why would you just change lanes like that unprompted? Unhinged behavior.
It’s status seeking if you consider “someone who isn’t getting bullied” a privileged status. To young Morgan here, Debbie’s a peasant who wants to be treated like nobility, and this will not be tolerated.
It doesn’t need to be her actual logic. Mustard wants to get at Debbie for the whole sticky bun diarrhea bit, and these are just hurtful words she’s adding onto the physical violence.
I’m gonna go with “unreliable narrator” on this one. This feels super out of character for what we’ve seen of her outside of flashbacks. I just can’t see her completely 180° changing from … this just because she lost her sister and went to clown-cop school.
This feels too over the top even for the flashbacks. I don’t think this is real.
I’m starting to wonder if Maggie has a power that allows her to warp flashbacks. I have no idea how that could work, though I suppose it could be like severe gaslighting.
The problem with that theory is that, they’ve established that Maggie can’t copy natural abilities.
If it is indeed a SUPERpower, I doubt she could do that.
But if it is a Gaslight Manipulation tactic, she seems to be pretty damn good at it.
No, it has been established by Gus himself in Ch5/P30 that she can’t copy the *physical traits* of a person, a “mutation”. Pj’s skills require his particular brain chemistry, Strongman’s was insane muscles. Just a page later, he even refers to those two as “other” to himself… And Oats/Livewire calls Gus’ ability to pick at your insecurities his Routine on ch5/p10… So why else would a mastermind who is in control like that sew Echo’s mouth shut?
Exactly. Maggie copies skills, and Gus’s ability to manipulate others is a skill. He was established as amazing at tricking people into believing certain things, damn good at twisting a conversation and making you think what he wants you to think about a situation.
What I’m wondering, honestly, is how the hell he had her mouth sewn shut. Echo was an absolute monster in combat, she can’t copy clowns who rely on inherent attributes of themselves, but anything reliant on skill or training is fair game. My theory is that he convinced her to do it herself, because there’s no way in hell he pulled that off against her will with her skillset and arsenal.
On the other hand, the “skill” category seems to include “assembling a working battlemech out of balloons in seconds.” So I’m not sure where the limit is, really.
I think this is a flashback from Maggie’s perspective specifically. This is how she remembers it, which could be because it’s how Gus convinced her to see things..
So she was a horrible asshole. But even Regina George was much much worse and she got a redemption arc. Maggi’s claim that Morgan was evil and this “isn’t like a teen movie” is ridiculous. Teenage Morgan defintly fits the archetype of High-school bully that gets redeemed at the end, and that’s in a much lighter story than even the Meangirls musical, let alone Mean girls the movie or Heathers(Yes I know 2 of the Heathers don’t get redeemed but Heather Mcnany does and she is pretty awful)
This is devinitely Debbie’s flashback! No doubt just as accurate as Ollie’s or Maggie’s! Too bad Morgan is dead- we will never see her side of the story…
I know this is supposed to be some super-horrible thing that my favorite character supposedly did back in the day? I still laughed at the idea of Morgan chucking one human being like a baseball into a pile of other human beings like she were playing the ball and milk bottle game at the carnival. Not sure if it was meant to bully Debbie or meant to bully the other cheerleaders.
Who’s to say what *actually happened.” I think this is what Maggie remembers happening, which is what she believes Morgan might remember things differently, and if Debbie is still around, she might have her own version of what happens. Whatever objective truth there might be is ultimately inconsequential.
But what about all the other characters who’ve had black-and-white flashbacks/memories? McBell, Ollie, Bout, Fuchsia…
In fact, as far as I can recall, Morgan/Mustard is the only character who’s had an full-color flashback, and that was also the only flashback that was later contradicted by a different flashback.
Part of me wonders if all these ‘flashbacks according to Maggie’ is actually how Ringmaster’s Routine works. Like, actually false memories brought forth through motivatonal reasoning.
1. Fast-balling an entire human being seems on par for the rules of the setting, although we’ve mostly only seen Clowns do that kind of thing, we have also seen the two men in the previous panels do some crazy things as well. Not unbelievable.
2. I think the flashbacks of Morgan and Maggie are accurate. There’s zero evidence any of the “narrators” have been unreliable up to this point. There are plenty of people who were absolute trash in high school who eventually learned their lesson.
Plus, I think Morgan being a person with an awful past trying to make up for it is better writing than “Wow, Maggie is so crazy that Joe employed a whole narrative device to prove it!”
I think both are true actually. I think Maggie is presenting a false narrative of events and that Morgan was a jerk in high school. That’s why Maggie’s lies are even working because there’s a hint of truth. Oats/Livewire even told us that Gus’ ability works better if there is truth to it. We even saw Maggie tried blatantly lying in this fight about Fuschia betraying the Clown corp and Mustard didn’t fall for it. So Morgan was likely a mean girl, just not an evil cheerleader that chucked people around like dodgeballs.
Yeah this makes sense. Ringmaster’s Routine is a skill, not some magic mental nonsense. Misrepresenting things, skewing people’s memories of a situation, convincing them of falsehoods…something entirely unbelievable is, well, unbelievable, but if he can make something convincing enough, use your own memory against you and skew the facts or sell a lie, then his manipulations will stick. Maggie copied that manipulative skill from him, that explains why she had her mouth sewn shut: Gus knew she could do what he does, if she wanted to. So he prevented that, without irreparably damaging her as an asset, by rendering her unable to speak.
You know what okay nevermind she’s the kind of asshole people assumed I was and one by one expressed surprise that I wasn’t; nevermind my long posting about how I sort of relate to the way she’s presented.
wow, i can’t believe she REALLY did that! so very, very, very, very cruel. we have to kill her
i dont know if people can tell that this is meant to be sarcastic so just to clarify: this is sarcastic. hurray for cheerleader bowling though!
okay, fine, ambiguity over, high school era morgan sucked.
Yeah man just take this at face value with zero critical thinking on the reliability of the narrator
This isn’t Echo narrating, this seems to be a straight-up flashback.
it’s black and white and I have never once seen a flashback without an in story reason for why it’s happening tell me otherwise
She throws a girl almost her size like a baseball
We have seen flashbacks contradict each other before. Not narration, different flashbacks displaying different things. Don’t be so quick to trust your eyes.
actually this is a really good question, who’s narrating this ?
is it echo ? mustard ? is it mustard misremembering because of echo ?
is it an omniscient narrator ?
I can totally buy that she did a no wind-up shot put of an entire human being. Sure thing, no problem. But the mental gymnastics of “So you’ve stated you don’t want to be picked on, right? That’s your goal, you don’t want to be bullied? We’ve established this, I’m acknowledging this? YOU STATUS SEEKER!” is insane. There’s no way. How are you going to accurately recognize somebody’s real goals in one sentence and then act like you think they’re after something else in the next? Like, to justify the bullying, you’d have to pick one or the other, why would you just change lanes like that unprompted? Unhinged behavior.
Oh wait she totally did a wind-up what was I even on? Ignore me.
It’s status seeking if you consider “someone who isn’t getting bullied” a privileged status. To young Morgan here, Debbie’s a peasant who wants to be treated like nobility, and this will not be tolerated.
It doesn’t need to be her actual logic. Mustard wants to get at Debbie for the whole sticky bun diarrhea bit, and these are just hurtful words she’s adding onto the physical violence.
Women who suck so so so so sooooo bad 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰
I’m gonna go with “unreliable narrator” on this one. This feels super out of character for what we’ve seen of her outside of flashbacks. I just can’t see her completely 180° changing from … this just because she lost her sister and went to clown-cop school.
Look, *somebody* has to get bullied, and if this girl doesn’t want that role, then she’s gotta move up in the school hierarchy. Them’s just the rules.
This feels too over the top even for the flashbacks. I don’t think this is real.
I’m starting to wonder if Maggie has a power that allows her to warp flashbacks. I have no idea how that could work, though I suppose it could be like severe gaslighting.
…Huh. Maybe that’s what Gus could do which made him so persuasive – recontextualize or rewrite one’s history. Then Maggie could be copying him.
The problem with that theory is that, they’ve established that Maggie can’t copy natural abilities.
If it is indeed a SUPERpower, I doubt she could do that.
But if it is a Gaslight Manipulation tactic, she seems to be pretty damn good at it.
No, it has been established by Gus himself in Ch5/P30 that she can’t copy the *physical traits* of a person, a “mutation”. Pj’s skills require his particular brain chemistry, Strongman’s was insane muscles. Just a page later, he even refers to those two as “other” to himself… And Oats/Livewire calls Gus’ ability to pick at your insecurities his Routine on ch5/p10… So why else would a mastermind who is in control like that sew Echo’s mouth shut?
Exactly. Maggie copies skills, and Gus’s ability to manipulate others is a skill. He was established as amazing at tricking people into believing certain things, damn good at twisting a conversation and making you think what he wants you to think about a situation.
What I’m wondering, honestly, is how the hell he had her mouth sewn shut. Echo was an absolute monster in combat, she can’t copy clowns who rely on inherent attributes of themselves, but anything reliant on skill or training is fair game. My theory is that he convinced her to do it herself, because there’s no way in hell he pulled that off against her will with her skillset and arsenal.
As far as we know, she has Gus’ silver tongue not only in a figurative sense…
On the other hand, the “skill” category seems to include “assembling a working battlemech out of balloons in seconds.” So I’m not sure where the limit is, really.
WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA
You just made the MOST IMPORTANT POINT of this entire chapter
…Especially since she cut out Gus’s TONGUE, the one thing he’d need for such an ability . . . .
I think this is a flashback from Maggie’s perspective specifically. This is how she remembers it, which could be because it’s how Gus convinced her to see things..
So she was a horrible asshole. But even Regina George was much much worse and she got a redemption arc. Maggi’s claim that Morgan was evil and this “isn’t like a teen movie” is ridiculous. Teenage Morgan defintly fits the archetype of High-school bully that gets redeemed at the end, and that’s in a much lighter story than even the Meangirls musical, let alone Mean girls the movie or Heathers(Yes I know 2 of the Heathers don’t get redeemed but Heather Mcnany does and she is pretty awful)
We’ve gotten to the level of “unreliable narrator in a cartoon world” where it’s IMPOSSIBLE to tell what’s exaggerated and I’m living for it.
Talk about go long…
This is devinitely Debbie’s flashback! No doubt just as accurate as Ollie’s or Maggie’s! Too bad Morgan is dead- we will never see her side of the story…
In case anyone else is chasing archives, Debbie previously appeared in flashback at ch6p122, and possibly in the comic “present day” at ch6p46-47.
I know this is supposed to be some super-horrible thing that my favorite character supposedly did back in the day? I still laughed at the idea of Morgan chucking one human being like a baseball into a pile of other human beings like she were playing the ball and milk bottle game at the carnival. Not sure if it was meant to bully Debbie or meant to bully the other cheerleaders.
JOE! Stop doing my girl Mustard so dirty! ;_;
I though this was cheerleading practice, not dodgeball practice!
if that really is doughy’s wife I’m not shocked her kid is scared of clowns
Love all the people just now realizing that the flashbacks in black and white are not how things actually happened
Who’s to say what *actually happened.” I think this is what Maggie remembers happening, which is what she believes Morgan might remember things differently, and if Debbie is still around, she might have her own version of what happens. Whatever objective truth there might be is ultimately inconsequential.
But what about all the other characters who’ve had black-and-white flashbacks/memories? McBell, Ollie, Bout, Fuchsia…
In fact, as far as I can recall, Morgan/Mustard is the only character who’s had an full-color flashback, and that was also the only flashback that was later contradicted by a different flashback.
I am getting the sense that the black & white flashbacks are Maggie’s memory of how things went down. Call it the mime-lens.
WHAT THE HECK???
This is definitely something that really happened. Cheerleaders are strong as hell!
Part of me wonders if all these ‘flashbacks according to Maggie’ is actually how Ringmaster’s Routine works. Like, actually false memories brought forth through motivatonal reasoning.
Pray for my girl she just got thrown like a shot put 🙏
1. Fast-balling an entire human being seems on par for the rules of the setting, although we’ve mostly only seen Clowns do that kind of thing, we have also seen the two men in the previous panels do some crazy things as well. Not unbelievable.
2. I think the flashbacks of Morgan and Maggie are accurate. There’s zero evidence any of the “narrators” have been unreliable up to this point. There are plenty of people who were absolute trash in high school who eventually learned their lesson.
Plus, I think Morgan being a person with an awful past trying to make up for it is better writing than “Wow, Maggie is so crazy that Joe employed a whole narrative device to prove it!”
I think both are true actually. I think Maggie is presenting a false narrative of events and that Morgan was a jerk in high school. That’s why Maggie’s lies are even working because there’s a hint of truth. Oats/Livewire even told us that Gus’ ability works better if there is truth to it. We even saw Maggie tried blatantly lying in this fight about Fuschia betraying the Clown corp and Mustard didn’t fall for it. So Morgan was likely a mean girl, just not an evil cheerleader that chucked people around like dodgeballs.
Yeah this makes sense. Ringmaster’s Routine is a skill, not some magic mental nonsense. Misrepresenting things, skewing people’s memories of a situation, convincing them of falsehoods…something entirely unbelievable is, well, unbelievable, but if he can make something convincing enough, use your own memory against you and skew the facts or sell a lie, then his manipulations will stick. Maggie copied that manipulative skill from him, that explains why she had her mouth sewn shut: Gus knew she could do what he does, if she wanted to. So he prevented that, without irreparably damaging her as an asset, by rendering her unable to speak.
It’s a long shot, but I’m going to call it here: this is what Morgan was doing when she got the news about Maggie’s car accident.
You know what okay nevermind she’s the kind of asshole people assumed I was and one by one expressed surprise that I wasn’t; nevermind my long posting about how I sort of relate to the way she’s presented.