patch 2.78.7: in the same scene, jessie points out that shiloh has a belly button instead of pointing out their tattoo. she shows them her lack of belly button and explains her mother is a marsupial before getting embarrassed because she realizes she flashed her nipples at them.
patch 2.78.6: shiloh's "wearing more revealing clothing" move on their second date upgraded to a crop top to show jessie a tattoo and piercing she hasn't seen before (on their stomach) rather than letting her see what she saw on the first date again.
patch 2.78.5: in the same scene, script tweaked to say "shrugging arms and palps" instead of "shrugging all 6 arms" since spiders weren't nailed down design-wise yet.
patch 2.78.4: spider in scene 28 ("IS EVERYONE AN ASSHOLE AROUND HERE") says he paid 15 crent instead of 15 dollars for his cleaver now.
patch 2.78.3: at the end of scene 32 ("no dreams for the wicked"), after jerking shiloh awake, jessie now says she thought they were an assassin or something. this can be stated more explicitly now because shiloh saw the sniper comically trying to assassinate jessie on their third date.
scene 76 ("the torture of boredom") has more thematic merit than schadenfreude by a LARGE margin. the big reason it's on the chopping block is because TWO entire thematic throughlines regarding jessie's family and her past self (they're interconnected themes) are on the block.
okay but it is kind of funny that the two scenes where i'm back and forth on whether they'll stay in are jessie torturing someone--
definitely one of those scenes that i'll have to think a lot about. i have a feeling that its fate will be decided by the look of the page count by the time i'm in late act 2 and how much it's stressing me out.
however, now that i've put it that way, its presence as the scene that functionally shoves the reader into the pool to get the shock of the cold water over with shouldn't be ignored. the next scene with graphic violence is scene 57 ("sex will fix this"), and i don't know that it should be the first.
you could argue that it's skippable because it's the first scene in the comic that actually contains extreme, protracted violence, but i do think it's a weak scene content-wise.
but, pertinently, it's the very first scene one of my beta readers said they skipped. ultimately, it doesn't really matter how good the writing is if the reader doesn't read it at all. due to its weak thematic relevance, i have a hard time coming up with how to make it more compelling.
it'll really suck if it does get cut, because it has one of my favorite jokes in it.
schadenfreude may end up removed, ultimately. it's supposed to show jessie's growing enjoyment of sadism from her repeated exposure to it in a gratifying sexual context, and her growing resentment of shiloh, but it is a fairly weak scene, thematically.
patch 2.78.2: at the end of scene 48 ("schadenfreude"), the cheater now cries, and jessie hesitates, but continues hitting them until she notices she has an erection.
patch 2.78.1: at the beginning of scene 48 ("schadenfreude"), jessie now comments that she doesn't like when shiloh cries during their more extreme BDSM sessions because she hates hearing women cry.
patch 2.78.0: an emergency jessie alert now sounds on the phones of everyone at the international peace assembly when jessie enters the building.
patch 2.77.9: at the beginning of scene 38 ("wait until i tell the twiddler guy about this"), an emergency jessie alert indicating jessie was scene in the area now sounds on shiloh and jessie's phones after she enters their apartment.
patch 2.77.8: edits made to the first date dialogue involving shiloh's motivations for getting a knife as their first tattoo and jessie's total unfamiliarity with adult independence.
patch 2.77.7: when jessie says there are starving children in the world while torturing the tardigrade in scene 76 ("the torture of boredom"), she now mentions she reinvented world hunger, because she mentioned early into act 2 that she ended world hunger.
patch 2.77.6: continuing to patch the first date's content, jessie now asks shiloh what their favorite book in the bible is. it's vayikra. i do not yet feel prepared to decide what jessie's favorite book in the bible is. i need to refresh my knowledge of the nevi'im and ketuvim.
patch 2.77.5: jessie now says that she could simply make shiloh NOT breathe instead of trying to pretend to breathe when shiloh points out how odd it is to only hear their own breathing after sex. as foreshadowing.
patch 2.77.4: in scene 57 ("sex will fix this"), when jessie's voice cracks while she's saying "because i opened myself up to you," the crack is now depicted by a break in the bright fuchsia that makes the dark purple of her original text color always present behind it more apparent.
pretty jazzed about the side strip for idletry's "anniversary" this year... let's hope i finish it quicker than usual--
patch 2.77.3: in the same context, jessie says one of the climbers "didn't even dress for climbing a mountain," even though he is only in a t-shirt and sweatpants because she put him in them. this allows the audience to interpret her as saying he chose to wear those, or that he chose to climb naked.
patch 2.77.2: jessie now tells the mountaineers they seem like they suck at climbing mountains so she is going to provide some insurance, instead of quietly ensuring their survival with a snap out of sight, after they tell her they don't need help making it back down.
patch 2.77.1: jessie calls the climbers "two fruits" instead of "two tods," as they are no longer foxes.
that blast radius is suthpen. suthpen is controlled by the largest (but not richest) city on their planet, graduation. graduation leveled multiple parts of the mountain ranges cupping their continent for access to water. so there are definitely people NEAR those mountains...
patch 2.77.0: tentatively, sequence involving jessie traveling will now feature her learning that the city she destroyed by blasting a massive hole in the planet is full of characters who won't do anything unless she writes them.
patch 2.76.9.1: dick explicitly mentions that the group is a support group they started to try to get rid of the abuse of power common with therapists by providing a community-led alternative now.
scene 27* sob emoji