Being Fiona 429 (Patreon)

Surprise!

Not sure how much the last strip gave this twist away, with Felix asking Jess if she had any ideas in regards to changing the plan, but where to start?

Some spoilers ahead, I'm going to keep things vague here, but will be more specific in a separate spoilers post later this week.

So, first of all, this will be made more clear in the next strip, but Jess is going to take over ownership of the Fiona identity (Remember Jess' conversation with Hugo in Strip 337?). I didn't have this planned when I wrote that strip, but it accidentally set up this situation with the one change that Jess is doing this out of kindness rather that maliciousness.

And in a second case of unintentional foreshadowing, when this scene was originally shown from Lisa's point of view in Strip 178, Fiona had green eyes. When I later decided to give Jess blue eyes whenever Felix was in control of the body, I had debated whether to go back and change the art of 178 to show Fiona with blue eyes. I'm glad I didn't, because in the final version, it is Jess walking into the cafe, not Fiona!

This twist came to me a few weeks ago as I struggled through writing the last few strips leading up to Fiona's meeting with Lisa. Originally, my intention was to have everything go exactly according to plan: Fiona meets Lisa, they bond over coffee, Fiona tells Lisa she's moving away, Lisa invites Fiona and Craig out for one more outing before Fiona "moves away," and the story continues.

I'm going to make a separate 'extras' post about the trajectory the story would have taken had Felix and Jess stuck to the plan with Lisa believing for the rest of the comic that Fiona is a unique person entirely separate from Jess.

But this new twist in the story? Where Jess takes over Fiona and Felix finds himself no longer in possession of the Fiona role he "never wanted?" I'm excited about the new possibilities and flexibility it introduces to the story with Lisa no longer in the dark. Particularly with what it will mean for Jess and Felix's summer jobs, for that documentary I had planned for Riley to make, and for how Felix gets to be Fiona in the future. Because don't worry, this is not even close to the end of Felix borrowing Jess' body, it just won't involve tricking Lisa (as much) anymore.

I had considered the possibility of Jess taking over the Fiona identity in the past, but at the time it never felt that interesting. But now, with how the story has developed, with what I have planned for Jess and Felix's winter term and summer break, this is going to bring us to a much better ending to the story (which is still a long, long, way away).

Oh and one last thing; I had originally intended for Jess to have an Irish background, but I decided that just because she has green eyes, that doesn't mean I had to make her Irish, so I decided to make Jess (or more so her Mom, since Jess has her Mom's last name) Dutch instead, (who are better known for having blue eyes, but there are still those with green eyes among them).