*gets on Tearstrain to Sadsville*

Perhaps Suzy will grow tired of simple blackmail and move onto...bigger projects (although judging Mayview as a whole this might be as big as she gets)

Yeah, I hope she doesn't get robbed of a beat down here.

@Apophyllite
Ooo, that would be a great way to get tons of viewers! Even if most of them might not care a whole lot at first

Must you bring back sad memories? ;_;

We must keep our favourite tiny paperspiderspirit alive in our memory...

Untill she inevitably comes back into the comic by being rescued or shenanigans...

I don't believe she'll come back into the comic until the very end, I can see the epilogue featuring Isabel getting the book back after everything is said and done.

Maybe she is the final boss...

Apophyllite wrote:

Maybe she is the final boss...

*camera pans in to Boss Leader*
*bandages are ripped off revealing eightfold*
HA, you thought it was Boss Leader pulling the strings, but it was ME EIGHTFOLD

On that note, who [i]is[i] boss leader?

I don't know why, but I'm always thinking of her as Max's mom, though I'm sure that theory holds no water.

My mind just sort of takes relevant characters and subconsciously creates the plot twist that most authors would probably go with, but Zack isn't most authors. His story lines and plot points are entirely unexpected, a delicately woven masterpiece littered carefully with subtle foreshadowing and all the perfect elements, though we can only see one small knot at a time, and will probably never see the entirety of it, even after the story is over. I wonder if it took him many years to craft, or perhaps if he's just a talented genius.

Or maybe I'm just making a huge deal out of this where I shouldn't be.

I wonder if he ever comes on here and reads our commentary, cackling at our incorrect conclusions and, occasionally, smiling at our correct ones.

Pretty sure Boss Leader isn't anyone we've seen before, just a new character that is the boss leader of the consortium.

Though I guess it's a pretty natural conclusion to reach if you have a protagonist with a dead parent and a mysterious figure of the same gender happens to pop up later in the story. It's probably a trope or something... But yeah, paranatural does tend to subvert tropes mostly.

Also, I doubt Zack ever visits this place. He did promote it when the comments section went down, but there hasn't been much activity here.

well a friendly spirit, with the right location, could phase through the ground to retrieve eightfold's book...
Just sayin'

It is interesting that she first met Max when he was having a dream about his mom, but I have to agree that it wouldn't really make sense if she was his mom.

For the Activity club, it sure seems to be inactive a lot xD

While any spirit could phase through the ground to where the book is, it'd take a specialised power to actually get the book out of the ground. Since the book is solid material and the ground is too, it won't phase through the ground like a spirit would... Or maybe just a strong enough spririt that can dig through the ground by poltergeisting...

Most of the activity here is probably paranatural and thus invisible to non spectrals... there are probably thousands of spirits/spectrals constantly posting but we can't see it...

If that's the case, then we should be able to see it eventually, no? After all, exposure to paranatural activity for an extended period of time is a way to become a spectral, right?

I agree that not any friendly spirit would be able to grab eightfold's book. They'd have to have a strong will (like Lefty) or something to be able to grab a solid object.

Maybe eightfold will be picked up by someone else at some point and then recover and head back to Isabelle maybe if Max ever leaves Mayview??? (Which he can't do right now as far as we know since the train is currently inactive, trapping all spirits and spectrals within Mayview.)

Unfortunately I don't think exposure counts if it's through a computer screen...

Since the book is a possessed item, spirits will probably be able to grab it, PJ being able to hold Max' bat since it's a tool. I just mean, even if they can hold the book, the book is still stuck in the ground. Ground they can't move without a special ability or a strong enough will (thus the poltegeisting part of my earlier comment).

I still don't really get why they're trapped... The Ghost train is in a tool, spectrals with green energy can use that tool... Shouldn't they be able to use the tool to use the Train's ability to get past the barrier? Why does the train need to be completely revived? Does the ability the tool grants not allow people to get past the barrier?

Ah, right. I forgot that the book fell when they were under the ground. And that spirits could grab tools. -_- Maybe I should reread the comic sometime.

I think that maybe the spectral who uses the train tool might be able to get past the barrier, but be unable to bring anybody else with them when they do so. Either that, or they have a completely different ability and the train had more than one, originally, though that might be a little OP.

Man, now I'm actually hoping they do find a way to get eightfold back...even if we still don't see her for a while.

Apparently only Zarei would be able to control the train, but I admit it seems like a weak excuse given that the train was controlled by Day's arrow rather easily and somebody else probably wouldn't have a problem with guiding the train either.

The ability just might manifest in a different way when used with a tool. A way that would still move stuff out of the way but perhaps not enough to pass through the barrier. But yeah, it's possible that the person holding the tool might be able to pass through, but only be able to get someone else through if they could fit said person inside themself >_> like with the train...

I think once a spirit is in a tool, any spectral (with the right energy colour) can use that spirit's ability whether the spirit likes it or not... I guess the spirit could draw them into the mental world and kill the spectral there but that would be against it's own interests...
Even if Zarei is the only one able to control it, she still says she's trapped, and her energy should be green enough to use the ability... I think...

If Zarei's energy matched the train's color better, then the train would recover more quickly, right? Wouldn't that be in the best interest of everyone? Though, if the choice is Zarei or one of those spectral students, then I think that, even if the recovery takes longer, Zarei should be the one with control of the train. But, we still don't know what the train can do as a tool... Maybe it can still get the barrier open enough for people to leave Mayview, but Zarei doesn't want anyone to know?

I think it's possible that the train's ability would manifest in a different way when it's a tool, but at the same time, it's also possible that the train's ability is exactly the same as it was before.
I don't really know where I was going with this...

The only thing I can think of for why the train isn't up and going is that it's huge and that a being of that size would take quite some time to gather up enough spectral energy to get out again. That or Zarei is weak in terms of energy (for whatever reason) and takes longer to power it up that way. Hoping it'll be explained more clearly in canon at some point.

I don't see any reason why Zarei would lie and not tell people that it can't if it could. Unless the only other way out is an unfortunate one.

@NinjaKitten
Didn't we see that with eightfold? Like, she could eat books when alive and then convert that power when in the book?

I think her powers didn't stem from book-eating. She just liked eating books, and may or may not remember the contents afterwards. Pretty sure those bookshelves of hers in her mind-world were filled with the books she had eaten.

I think it makes sense that the closer your energy colour matches a spirit's, the faster it'd recover. But yeah, the train is huge and even with a perfect match would probably take a pretty long time to recover. Also, kinda forgot, but Zarei has another tool. So splitting her energy with 2 spirits would probably make it take even longer.

Ooh! Since the train is in a lantern, maybe the tool works in a way that shining it's light on something moves it out of the way...

Eightfold says here she only eats the words and her paper powers stem from using the paper left behind... Like poop... And during her farewell speech, she also said she does learn everything she eats...

Seeing this page again makes me wonder what would happen when Muse recovers... Doesn't seem like he'd be too keen to go back into the tool just to stay with Ed...

Well, The stronger the spirit the longer it'll take so with that said I wonder exactly how strong Ed COULD be, with a tool like that.

probably a very long time, but keep in mind that we don't know how long Ed has already been using this tool. Scrapdragon, on the other hand, will probably be Max's spirit for the entire comic, unless Max loses them, or trades up

Hmm, I didn't notice that before...seems to be a trend of multiple spirits per user going around.

Muse's connection with Ed might be deeper than we've been shown (since he's only appeared briefly twice), but man I can't imagine the havoc that would happen when Scrapdragon is fully powered up. If Max really is possessed by something else as well that could delay the creature even further if the energy is being split between them.

Do you think that Max would be able to get Scrapdragon to un-grudge while Scrapdragon is in the bat? If he could, I wonder what Scrapdragon would have to say... That is, if it can speak in its normal form. I wonder when we'll be able to meet Riddle. Like, for real, and not when they're speaking through Max and frightening the shortcut. (Remember that?)

Tools start to look like the spirit that's possessing them. Ed's brush already looks kinda Musey, so I figured it might not take much longer... Even from the few times we've seen them interact, it doesn't seem like Muse cares all that much about Ed.

I wonder what Max's bat will start to look like :0

The whole spirit recovery thing has me thinking though. Is the the power with which a spectral can use a spirit's ability related to the strength and recovery of the spirit, or the spectral power of the spectral itself? Or maybe a comination of the two... Like, would Scrapdragon's magnet powers become stonger as it recovers, or is it fully dependant on how much spectral energy Max can use...
Personally I always just assumed it was up to the spectral to suply the power, otherwise a damaged spirit wouldn't give much in the way of power. But this conversation had me start to think a bit more on it...