It's obvious that something is going on with the changes in Rose's (or her projection's) appearance suddenly becoming youthful, and as MuonNeutrino pointed out, the roses blooming instead of shedding their petals. Something is causing some kind of powerful, youthful energy to affect Rose, whatever her nature is. So far, she hasn't even seemed to notice it. It all seemed to start when Saria was mentioned.Technic[Bot] wrote: ↑Mon Dec 27, 2021 2:32 amI am very touch averse so I cant comment much. But yeah Rose has had it hard. Not that any of the cast has had a particularly nice life, even sans necromancy experiments living with Trace could not have been nice, specially the darker he got. We got the 20ish year old widows who went mad with grief, the girl who grew up sequestered because her mom either wanted to protect her or was ashamed of her, the young exile who is also almost a widow at 18 and the child soldiers one who is likely a cripple for now.MuonNeutrino wrote: ↑Sun Dec 26, 2021 6:50 pm Well, it's about time. Finally Rose has gotten the hug I've wanted someone, anyone to give her since 2013, heh. It doesn't make up for everything she's gone through, of course, but it's still cathartic to see. And damn, not touched another person in five or six years? That's harsh. Keidran seem to be at *least* as tactile of a species as humans, if not more so, and that'd already be torture for one of us. We aren't meant to be alone like that! Even before her... integration... to be stuck almost completely alone in a echoing, empty mansion with only a madman for dubious company, never feeling the touch of another being, for a period that would be a good quarter of an average lifetime for a keidran... it's a wonder she's even *remotely* sane anymore. But now maybe she can finally have peace. And I love the symbolism in the last panel. This whole time in this backgrounds for the atrium there's been rose petals all over the place and indistinct red splotches on the plants that might be more petals or rose buds, but I believe this panel is the first time Tom has drawn actual rose *flowers* in the background.
Rose's actual physical body is old - you can see in comic 1115 that her hair is faded and streaked with white, for example. What we've been seeing now and for the last few comics is still the projection, as evidenced by the 'glitch' and fading effects that Tom has been drawing on her in the past few comics, the same ones he used for the Maren illusion previously.
That said, I think from everything we've seen of Rose and how she's interacted with the others since we've arrived at the mansion that her projection might as *well* be her, at least from her point of view, she can obviously hear/see/feel/etc through it as if it actually were her real body. So I think the distinction is relatively academic at this point.
I think she is not dead yet more like on life support her body wont stay functioning if unplugged from the manor. Hopefully she will be able to rest and see her girlfriend again in the near future.
Talking about the painful lives we see in the characters here, there is one which I would consider to be the worst to endure, that of Euchre. I'm sure if there was any way to save Rose from being hanged, he would have done it - probably to the point of sacrificing his own life. As it was, anything he would have done would have probably ended up with both of them dead. Rose was saved, of course, but Euchre loses his lover Mary Silverlock, and Rose, both of whom despise him for betraying them. Plus, his position and future are gone, and he has no contact with his daughter. Everyone who was close to him ended up hating him. The fact that he never asked for forgiveness probably means that he thinks what he did was so awful that he cannot even forgiven himself. I could see Euchre trying to help Rose with her pain, perhaps in some final bit of self-sacrifice. But he would probably never want anyone else to know he was responsible. "Forgiveness" might be the title of this page, but it's something Euchre may never see.