It's Iimi! Pawn!

 The Dhumzur family returns to visit Kismetta and says they want to find a place where they can all live together. Kismetta wonders if this is the case or if she is only a… Pawn

 

 

Post-Comic Notes:

Credits: Overview of San Francisco (in the background on page 3) by Brion VIBBER. Used under Creative Commons License.

 In real life, it would probably take Nila (Indian passport) and Zara (UAE) at least a month to arrange a tourist visa to the US. Only 40 countries have visa-free travel to the United States. Neither India nor the UAE are on this list.

 When I began planning this in 2022, the Dhumzur family had many more options for Citizenship by Investment and visa-free travel to the United States. But, in the last year, many countries removed that option or made it much harder to get citizenship by investment. In the last few months, countries with easy access to citizenship have been bumped from the Visa-Free list and now require Electronic Travel Authorization (ESTA) submitted 72 hours before arriving in the US. The US considers countries that issue citizenship by investment to be a security issue.

Meanwhile, adding to the reduction in free travel, the EU announced they’ll have their own system in place  

It’s Iimi! Hold Fast to What You Have

When we last left Iimi, the fear that Iimi will have another nervous breakdown led to her mother forbidding her from continuing her defense of the Church. Iimi feels caught between the moral obligation to obey her mother vs. the call to help Krysta and Daryl by encouraging them to “Hold fast to what you have, so that no one may take your crown” (Revelation 3:11)

Part 2 of a 2 part story.

Post Comic Notes:

This will be the last comic with the “full-figure” model of Krysta. 

The problem with Comipo is it only has four basic models: Child, Male, Female, and Heavyset Male (which can only wear a business suit, or it would be the model for “Author Avatar.”). Every person in that body type has exactly the same figure. There are no “plus size” versions. I originally wanted to introduce different body types in the comic and thought Krysta, being six feet tall, was a good candidate. 

 

The problem with my attempt was it’s cumbersome to edit, as each panel had to be adjusted. In addition, it was hard to make the edit look natural as I couldn’t create the proper shading. 

I wanted to change this for awhile, but I felt trapped because I would need an excuse to explain the abrupt change.

 

So, learning that “minimizing bras” were a thing, I added a couple of lines of dialogue about a self-conscious Krysta wanting to change her wardrobe to justify eliminating the edits. 

 

I doubt I’ll try that kind of edit again unless the plot requires that body type… and I can’t imagine how it would. 

Iimi’s mental soundtrack on page 11 can be heard here:

It’s Iimi! Will I Ever Awaken From The Endless Nightmare?

In the double length conclusion to the Paula’s Abortion storyline, we see Paula wracked with guilt and despair, clearly mentally unstable. When she contacts Iimi through Kismetta, Iimi rushes over, determined to help. When Paula runs off, her friends must work together, learning that they can’t do everything alone. Sometimes, as hard as it feels, they need to step back and rely on God’s help for what they cannot do.

This isn’t the end of Paula’s story of course. But, at this time, this is all Iimi and her friends can act upon.