August 4th, 2017
4 Aug 2017 · page 720 of 1306
Mirror mirror, on the.. floor
Cast: Harriet Barber, Jack O'Malley
Comments (60)
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Mirror mirror, on the floor
Who's the prettiest of them... four?
Hey Pride, you're not so special.
Envy used this same spiel (trying to sow dissent by making Harry and O'Malley conflict) before you!
Man, that green fox would love to hear it actually beat out the mutant peacock at something for once....
Pride, that's... not the best person to do that to.
Ah, that's right, O'Malley doesn't like mirrors much. (I wonder if his shock is because, this time in his Safe Space, he can see his own soul?)
Pride, you might have picked the right person to do that to for all the wrong reasons!
The choice of duragatory words means pride knew (more than us) what that mirror would do to O'Malley.
Or did it know? I assumed that remark was referring to the fact that Mal's kind of scruffy and (at least from the perspective of someone who cares about such things) not much to look at.
I think the act of holding up the mirror is unrelated to anything Pride would have said. It seems more like villain banter to distract from what it was doing. The words weren't its point; getting Mal to see his reflection was. Since Mal didn't face Pride the first time, Pride wouldn't know details about him personally; what happened here might be a witch thing rather than a Mal thing. Maybe all witches are blinded by their own reflections in the anchors.
Pride's a Deadly. It probably sees what the Malforms see--their own reality. Which, in turn, is what Mal sees.
Also...Mal, Malform. Can't believe I never noticed that before....
A huntin' we will go! A huntin' we will go!
Ya know...I'll bet Pride tastes like chicken.
I think Pride tastes like a Unicorn frappucwhatever.
...That was an exceptionally strange thing to drink. I felt almost obligated to drink it before I could properly mock the stuff. It was, all in all, very oblique to everything else.
I hate the taste of food coloring and coffee, so I was just out. I did watch a video that featured the line, "Maybe if I Instagram it, it'll taste better." That was enough contact for me.
Oh right. I forgot he's creeped out by mirrors and his own 'lack of a face'
Yeah, but it seems to me as a bit overreacting, if lack of an aura is the only reason for that. And his exclamation sounds like surprised. Or it is indignation?
Well, maybe his face did surprise him given he haven't seen him for a while (he didn't know about grey bits of his hair, for instance). Though he saw his drawing in Wolfe's album.
=== And his exclamation sounds like surprised. Or it is indignation? ===
I think he's hurt :(
It's not a surprise or indignation.
Hurt, yes, and hurt in unexpected way, I'd say.
It is a wild guess, but... what if he did see his aura in the mirror?
:0
Ooh, yes - maybe inside the anchor he does have an aura, and it's even more blinding than a wizard's...
If that is the case, he's going to be fighting blind here... hope Harry can keep Pride distracted for a little while. Without, you know, feeding it by accident.
He doesn't have an aura, at least as Ben saw it.
The walls of this between-worlds space are dark reddish-brown, only the floor is glowing white.
But the background of Mal' reflection, which should be dark as the walls are, is surprisingly light, almost glowing pinkish. Why?
That would be aurable.
Given his expression in the mirror, I don't think he expected Pride to do that. So, I think he was surprised, being blindsided by something he's spent his life trying not see.
By his brightest aura, you mean? :)
Mere wizards' aurae give him headaches. An aura of a witch is many times brighter.
And judging by what Ben saw (or rather, didn't see) when he had the Sight, Mal's never had a visible aura before - he didn't like mirrors because it was too disturbing to see himself without one. I suspect his reaction here is a combination of shock at seeing himself with an aura for the first time and being overwhelmed by the brightness/weirdness of the aura itself.
SOmehow my brain scanned the panels out of order and I thought for a minute that he got glass in his eyes when Harry shot the mirror.
I'll be honest: His reaction makes a lot more sense if that were the case.
Mirror Mirror on the floor, show that sin just where's the door
If she fights back if she flees, chase her down with metal bee's
Witch of Widdershins have no shame, for this incident you share no blame
Send her back from whence she came
Oh man, I didn't even think about the implications of Pride encountering the guy who doesn't do mirrors!
I don't even think it knew he didn't like them, I think it was trying a last-ditch attempt to trap him.
Can't have been. It didn't compliment him. It insulted him.
It really depends on how much Pride knows about witches. If it knows that O'Malley can look at himself in a mirror, then I think it was an attack on him. If not, then I think it was an attack on his pride -- "do you really think you can pull this off? are you so proud of your control over your gifts?" -- which would be consistent with the attack on the University.
Yeah, but what was the purpose behind the insult? In addition to what JWLM said, t could've been a flat-out insult, meant to hurt him, or it could've been a last-ditch effort to get him to show some amount of pride (a la "eff yeah, I can take you on like this!") in order to trap him. :)
Based on previous actions, I'm inclined toward the first.
Pride, being a Deadly, probably knows what Mal sees because it also sees it (like the Malforms see their own reality). And it's probably gleaned that Mal doesn't like what he sees. Hence, mirror.
It must know that only he can desummon it; any tactic that can at least slow him down or interrupt him can only be to its benefit. Stymie the witch, prevent desummoning.
"Yeah, I pride myself on being a good shot and keeping a level head on my shoulders during a crisis."
Oops...
Mirror's broken. What's it gonna do to her?
Well, there are other fragments lying around in the first panel, but ignoring that, I would think that just distracting Harry from casting the desummoning spell might be enough.
That degree of smug is going to cause you problems, Pride. :D
...so it knows that the O'Malley hates mirrors
Might be an aversion all witches share since it seems like the deadly know all about witches
MAL. WHAT.
MAL!
Wonder if Ms Barber's got any powder and shot to reload?
Does it count as seven years bad luck if the mirror you're breaking is already shattered?
My guess is that the size of the fragment determines the period of bad luck. (That one looked to be about 4 1/2 months, give or take a week. ;-) )
It doesn't count if you break it deliberately.
Looking at his own reflection, and thus his own aura, is like seeing the illegitimate offspring of a fractal and a mandelbrot set doing the can-can while tripping on LSD as an industrial metal cd is brutally molested in your ear by radio static.
You're terrifying.
Naaah, mostly harmless.
THAT'S EVEN WORSE!
nothing a good towel can't fix.
Took me a minute to realize what happened, then I remembered Mal's severe aversion to mirrors because of his spirit sight. Wow. Dick move, Pride. clenches fists
Mirror Mirror - [https://www.youtube.com/wat...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rfxqRRN2hM "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rfxqRRN2hM")
This song is...oddly appropriate for this moment. Although now I can't stop comparing the whole comic to This Will Be The Day, which is eerily perfect.
[https://www.youtube.com/wat...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNtcP6EXm3s "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNtcP6EXm3s")
Hi everybody again.
What I am up to, is...
If somebody among you can read Russian, perfaps you'll be interested to see two lovely short fanfics by Heylir:
'Диплом "для бедных" ' - [http://archiveofourown.org/...](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11712213 "http://archiveofourown.org/works/11712213")
и
"Земное царство" - [http://archiveofourown.org/...](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11712495 "http://archiveofourown.org/works/11712495")
Enjoy!
I just have to say... Why does everyone keep suggesting Harry's In Charge? She's obviously the muscle in this outfit. I guess nobody's genre savvy enough to play to the trope.
Oh know, that final panel on this page, I've seen that particular view angle before... and I ABSOLUTELY love it! Pride smarmy smile, the sidelong glance, it's just fantastic.
I'm reminded now of the Good Omens quote:
"It may, or may not, have helped Anathema get a clear view of things if she'd been allowed to spot the very obvious reason why she couldn't see Adam's aura. It was for the same reason that people in Trafalgar Square can't see England."
Finally! Harry got to shoot something in here! ;-)