Grrl Power #548 – The sky has one star – according to Sydney’s Yelp review
Is there a vampire movie from the last 20 years that doesn’t have a fast forward sunset in it? I haven’t seen the Twilight movies so they don’t count. As proper vampire lore anyway.
The most unrealistic thing about this page is that Jabberwokky doesn’t have tattoos all over her arms and legs. She has that sternum eagle… or, uh, cleavage eagle? Cleagle? Although I guess, looking at that page again, she didn’t have tats on her legs at least. I assumed she had them on her arms but used her jacket to cover them up to save time with the art.
I had fun trying to come up with the name of Sandy’s course. For the joke to work it had to be the most boring thing I could come up with – so apologies to people who are technical writing fans I guess. I started off with something involving accounting, but I couldn’t think of a way to make and accounting course superhero related. Maybe some kind of Super Forensic Accounting, but I don’t think they’d be teaching that on Sydney’s first week. If there were Batman type “supers” taking the classes, then yes, but the Thors and Hulks can opt out in favor of some sort of “To Smash or not To Smash: When to exercise restraint” class.
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One of these days, I want to see a “suddenly, a tail” transformation that goes down a pant leg instead of over the pants through a belt.
I wanted to see burst pants rather than the tail going up or down. Until she gets a chance to change wanting to keep touching her to maintain the transformation and the tail blocking the hole.
Yeah but that gag only works if it’s a guy… “Excuse me sir, is that a tail down your leg or are you glad to see me?”
Jumangi. Robin Williams’ character (Alan?) is telling the youngest (Peter) – who appears to have been enwolfened, or possibly enchimped – to suck it up, then relents (dad issues). He ends up tearing the seat of the kid’s pants so his tail can wag free.
That is nothing. Just wait until you feel it!
Cerebus did the tail in pants joke the best. It was the first time I actually physically hurt myself laughing. Three cracked ribs. Doc didn’t believe me until I let him read the chapter. He gave my mom a discount.
Tried to locate the Cerebus strip/page in question/mention but no luck… (Btw the second best line when he misses his woman (no bouncy bouncy squirt sigh…)
In one of the “created by Keith Laumer” Bolos anthologies (bolos- A.I. driven supertanks. with a ground to anything superweapon called hellbore than can duke it out with orbiting striking warships. slightly mangled description of the supertanks) there was a short story where a bolo’s personality core was found by an energy race that was being slowly killed by a race that didn’t realize energy could be sentient and was simply powering their weapons technology.
The race turned the bolo into a human from its memories. Since bolos included personal showers for their commanders in tight quarters. The bolo dreamt about her being nude and then was confused about why a part of his human body’s anatomy was standing at attention
Laumer:
*blink*
I don’t remember that. And that’s saying something, considering how much of a Laumer fan I used to be. (Never really stopped being a fan, more sort of… burned out.)
I can only think it must have been in one of his post-stroke stories after his writing went to “meh”. A sad ending to an awesome legacy. I basically stopped reading anything new of his after the first few. Also, didn’t he co-author a bolo anthology at some point? Bah, I’m too lazy to look it up right this second. Also, I’m supposed to be working. O_o Perhaps later.
Cerebus:
I kind of remember that one, but I’d have to look for it too. Maybe during Church and State? Bah.
My condolences to the families. Tough line of work.
It was one of the sub authors in the series I think. His created by Keith Laumer volumes had multi-authors in them
I’m not sure if “co-author” is the correct term. I think perhaps edited, just as GRR Martin is the editor for the Aces High series, while also being a contributor.
I have that anthology, and also several of his stand alone stories. If I run across it before this lame update is buried in time I’ll share the title for the forum in general. Or Google or Wikipedia might do the same for you individually.
Not at all sure that co-author even applies. David Weber and John Ringo have written Bolo stories. Baen Books re-released a lot of Laumer – that’s where I found some of his stuff, usually edited by Eric Flint. Eric’s editing may have improved a few stories…
Anyway, I think the estate may have authorized more than a few Bolo stories.
And it was a Bolo story, in one of those bolo anthologies lol
My 1st reaction was to recall this story that I’d originally read back in Nov.1969:
[https://www.amazon.com/Analog-1969-November/dp/0202869113]
Re Cerebus: I think the strip you want is in issue 58, (Church & State I). Also found it funny, albeit not rib-crackingly so!
Re_”That is nothing. Just wait until you feel it!”:
…I refer you to THIS page:
[https://tmi-comic.com/comic/date-night/discombobulated/]
Heh.
For anyone else reading through Grrl Power in future, tmi-comic.com is dead. I found an archive here: https://archive.org/download/Too-Much-Information-webcomic-online
But all the images in the zip are just incrementally numbered. Using archive.org I found the page is dated 2016-06-07, and on the author’s DeviantArt (https://www.deviantart.com/oden1i) I found a post on 21 Jan 2016 that matches image 2281, so I checked everything after that but I couldn’t find an image about tails…
Wait a minute, Varia gets all furry when touching Jabberwokky? And does it sounds kind of dirty?
Yes, that will be Varia’s gestalt power with Jabberwokky. She gets some kind of power with anybody she touches (except Maxima who has a force field so cannot be touched).
It sounds like this: “ ”
Perhaps that is a part of Maxima’s problem with men. She cannot be touched and so doesn’t get enough Vitamin O.
I’m curious… has it ever been established whether Varia’s ability can last for any duration after losing contact with her “gestalt source”? Can she keep it going for a while, or does she lose it immediately upon loss of contact (a serious weakness)?
It has not. However the circumstantial evidence has just increased in the above scene. So far we have only ever seen it working whilst she is actually touching someone. Plus we can see here that it did cease after releasing contact, although we do not know how long after, other than ‘less than a lunch break’.
That particular power would be all but useless if they have to remain in contact. Unless they train extensively in fighting whilst holding hands with a teammate, there would be very little value to be added, unless the form can breath fire, or do something other than claw and bite.
So I suspect that there is something like ‘it can carry on working until either dismissed or replaced by another power’. With possible exceptions, like Harem’s piggy-back teleport. But even that could work (given the nature of teleportation).
They really need to test sydneys idea of carrying say, a vial of blood or skin around from various supers so she can activate specific abilities as needed. Because yeah, having to work in tandem is kind of a big handicap for varia in the field. Actually, forget the vial. Bandaids with a few skin cells on the pad. Slap one on before a fight and she can magneto all she wants until it falls off. That would not only let her carry a LOT of options, but also several of each as backup.
It needs to be tried. But I doubt that Dave would go down that route, as it would be granting easy access to the best of seven billion different powers (well as many as Varia can test per day, anyhow).
If Dave did that Varia could solve any problem, without the need of the help of anybody else, other than to run interference, whilst she picked a suitable power.
Although it would probably be self correcting. She would be able to do even the most extrordinary things that we see any super do. So she could transform matter into other states (e.g. creating weapons grade plutonium, on demand), raise the dead, cure any disease, manipulate time, open portals to other dimensions, speak with anything (such as spirits, gods, extradimenional beings).
In other words she would be too valuable an asset to risk on a SWAT team. She would be a resource of world importance and the powers that be would do everything in their power to encourage her to work in a place of great safety. If only to ensure that they, or their loved ones, could be cured or raised from the dead.
Not to mention similar wishes from her colleagues on Arc-SWAT. If they die, or are injured, in the line of duty, Varia would be able to prioritise restoring them. Provided she did not die in the same incident.
Of course this remains true even without the trick you detail. But with that she could vastly accellerate her testing program. No longer need she wait until she can meet up with someone. Nor does it have to be limited to just people with the appropriate clearance to work with police.
Varia could be given frozen samples of millions of people, who have volunteered bits of themselves for scientific testing. If she spent a minute testing each sample, she could try out four or five hundred new powers a day. Provided she did not waste time on less valuable activities.
Likewise once she has discovered valuable powers. Which would be a better use of her day: patrolling a city, stopping a couple of supers from brawling, whilst drunk, and maybe helping out foil a super-bank robbery. Or curing a thousand people of terminal diseases? Or raising a thousand babies from the dead? Or turning a thousand tons of deadly pollution into a thousand tons of (previously) scarce rare earth elements?
Doesn’t that depend on those powers actually being available? So far the powers that we’ve seen her have are not that game-breaking — multiple variants on self-transformation, some side-along teleportation, and possibly the ability to share Halo’s orbs. No timebending, no reality warping.
Also, if she spends one minute per power then she should be able to test *at least* 720 powers per day.
* 12 hours of work (1 power/minute * 60 minutes/hour * 12 hours = 720 powers)
* 8 hours of sleep
* 1.3 hours (80 minutes) for eating (https://gizmodo.com/this-is-how-much-time-americans-spend-eating-each-day-1784651387) [She definitely wouldn’t need more than this since other people should be preparing her food in order to free up her time.]
* 2.7 hours for biobreaks, TV watching, etc
Do this 5 days per week for six months and that’s very roughly 93,000 powers. You could tune the testing as you went — e.g. try to see if genetics has any influence on the powers and, if so, use that to narrow the search space for the really godly ones.
Varia already stated that she gets similar powers from bloodlines when she explained her powers to Sydney when they met for the first time. There was even a note by Dave under the comic that jokingly stated she probably outed a few orphans in her time.
Slaver ;-)
I gave her a normal working day of 7 or 8 hours. Especially bearing in mind that testing unknown powers is stressful. Even with a hint about what they do, any one might be a ‘whammy’. Varia would need a lot of chill time after each day, not just the token amount you suggest.
I have worked that kind of routine, and it wears you down if you combine it with a high stress job. Which I can testify from first-paw experience.
We could also be seeing the possibility of Sydney’s random thought – keeping DNA of another person on her to use there power at will.
My personal thought is like any skill or even muscle, Varia has to use her power to get it stronger. As in 1st time she used her powers she could only hold it for 5 minutes, but after a week she got up to 10 minutes, then after a few months is up to 30 minutes, ect.
Dave has indicated that power stunts are possible, in this world. In other words finding ways to make a power work better, potentially including doing precisely what you are suggesting.
Mind you if she could keep a power going for five minutes that would actually be longer than many fights she may get into. So her time might be better spent practicing other things which may need improving instead.
But if the starting duration was only a second (from loosing contact with her gestalt partner), then extending that would be hugely important.
Her acquired powers have always been shown to deactivate very soon after contact ceased – though that might have been voluntary (“I don’t need to demonstrate this any more”). On the other hand, if she could maintain them for any reliable time she wouldn’t need to, for instance, grapple with Jiggawatt to use magnetic powers to fly.
Using magnetic powers to fly takes hella lot of skill and practice (you think Maggie was able to just fly around like that without years of practice?)
He stuck to conspicuously wheelless cars and getting mad at parking signs back then.
I also like the idea that Jabberwokky isn’t covered in tats… I know that seems to be a craze these days but not every woman has a tattoo… and if they do they usually aren’t covered in them…
Well you get your partial wish. We have already seen one on her chest (the eagle) and one on her back (tiger). Plus Dave indicated, in his blog above, that she probably has some on her arm too, covered up by her top. Which, looking at it, pretty much restricts those to her shoulders.
There is speculation that her tattoos, which are animal types, might actually be linked to her ‘fighting styles’. If so then we would expect a shoulder one to match the one she demonstrated in the fight before.
As for your comment about heavily tattooed women don’t forget that we are not looking at an average slice of the population, because Arc-SWAT ‘s backbone is formed by career military supers. Hence why Peggy has her tats. They are part of her hard-core sniper image.
Not that I know the rules and regs for her branch,* but I know that serving personnel are more inclined than average folks to get tattoos, even if just ones indicating their unit. And once you start you are more likely to get others.
I don’t know if Harem was career military before joining Archon, but she had a psychological (and social) need to ‘personalise’ each body, so that they would be visually distinct from one another. Hair colour/style and clothing could only go so far, so she has four each with different tattoos, and one without.
Whereas if Jabberwokky’s powers are linked to her tattoos, then that is self-explanatory. If not she is a ‘bad girl’, with a rap-sheet, and probably prison time. Which, again, would put her in a demographic more likely to have extensive tattoos than the average gal.
Even if she has not overdone it, as you say.
* Or even her branch – she served with Maxima, but they need not have been in the same branch, so Peggy could have been in the army, as they do have both helicopter pilots and snipers. Or likewise with the air force (Maxima’s branch).
Those are two specialisations which are intensive enough that you would not normally have one individual qualified in both, let alone actually being deployed in both roles. But Peggy is an exceptional enough person to serve side by side with supers, so we expect her to be beyond the normal bell-curve.
I imagine that her day job was pilot, and she just proved to be such a good basic training sniper and hobby sniper that she was allowed to continue that certification in addition. Which would have made her stand out for serving alongside a super, in two wars. That and having made friends with her anyhow.
just noticed something. The tiger on Jabber’s back is in exact (as exact as I can recall, anyway) viewpoint and pose as a blacklight poster I had on my bedroom wall when I was a kid.
Max and Peggy are/were both Air Force.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/989
I remembered the scene. That could have been mixed forces chilling together after a joint operation. I forgot the shirt logos.
In that page, Max’s uniform is definitely AF, even though she’s wearing a man’s uniform tie, rather than the female whatever-they-callit.
Oh yea, never any doubt about Maxima’s arm, as indicated above. I seem to recall that her uniform was slightly non-standard. But within the bounds of ‘artistic licence’. Or, failing that; ‘I am in a new branch so can tweak the outfit a bit to suit me better’. :-D
… USAF Combat search + rescue crosstrain for “contingencies” and only the AirForce special ops, Marines +(now)Navy fly Ospreys- the Army is waiting on the V280 Valor, a near clean sheet design sized between the Osprey and the AW609 civilian tiltrotor…
We learnt that Peggy lost her legl underneath a helicopter. So odds are that is what she originally flew, rather than an Osprey. But pilots do often learn to fly more than one type of aircraft and the two types are closely related enough that it is credible that Peggy would be licenced on both.
Although maintaining such does require ongoing practice, with a minimum number of flight hours per year. Which with having to keep both her osprey piloting skills and sniper skills at top levels, may have led her to allow her helicopter rating to lapse.
Probably depends on how much social life she gets. Or whether Archon have copters that she can pilot as part of her duties.
… no argument there , Yorp. Peggy is most likely command pilot for both Gen.Faulk + Max during those odd times Max has to use conventional transportation …
I suspect the brass would rather talk to her face to face, when in transit, rather than have her flying next to their plane or copter. :-)
Likewise I can’t see Obama wanting to piggyback Maxima, instead of being on Airforce One.
Why? Who would want to pass up a chance to piggyback Maxi? What a thrill that would be :D
Just as long as you don’t try and recreate that scene from “Neverending Story” :D
copter piloting is so damn fabulously high paid that I doubt she’d let it lapse. Also, the Air Force absoposilutely would not want a multi-rated pilot to give up any rating. Ospreys and copters are as different as either is to fixed wing craft – lotsa reasons to keep the skill certified, and the military would have no problem paying for it.
I think it’s probably more along the lines of “Go ahead, tell me only men can wear this part of the uniform.”
As long as men are allowed to wear the skirt
There are a lot of tattoos among inmates, but the vast majority look amateurish (they are) and lack a wide color palette. My boss, on the other hand, did about ten years in the Navy and rides a Harley. His tats are spectacular and professional.
There are going to be a few people in Archon showing up far along the right tail of the bell curve. Hmm, how man standard deviations to right are Anvil and Max in physical strength, other than both measures are variable. Assuming μ=100 lbs, with σ=10 lbs. Maybe, Anvil is 300 – 400σ and Max is 30 – 333.
It’s not the military with out long boring classes about sexual assault, rape, ad suicide prevention. All delivered with death by PowerPoint!!
Somewhere there’s a caped evildoer called PowerPoint. And one night he’ll get drunk and get stopped for pointing the wrong body part. He’ll be forever mocked for the high graphic presentations of his favorite cross dressing cartoons including Bugs Bunny that he projected on white walls
:-D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2djHEIxPVs
Just askin’.
and racial equality. Oh by damn they drove that home. Racial shit by anyone to anyone was stomped hard flat and buried deep. No matter what your outward appearance, if you starting saying “mah ni” it goddamn better end “ece has the prettiest blue sunday school shoes”
Oh, and the biannual classified materials class. Originating source, higher authority, have a witness sign off that you secured it, unauthorized disclosure, “need to know”, etc. A whole day. The whole morning of STD classes with graphic color films, plural, and then the mess crew would serve blueberry pie at lunch.
If you fell asleep, you had to stand up in the back the rest of the day.
but if you were nodding off, you could stand yerself at the back for only as long as you felt you needed it. that is, if you took action to stay alert, it’s ok, no discipline needed. If Sarge has to tell you, you get the whole day treatment.
I don’t know how it is in the US military, but in the Norwegian airforce, where I served my mandatory time back in ’91 and ’92 (yes, Norway has mandatory military service. I guess because there aren’t that many of us, just a little over 5 million in total) I’m convinced those boring powerpoint lectures were deliberately scheduled for the hottest days (I was in basic training during the summer of ’91) in auditoriums without aircondition _after_ the drillsergeants had already exhausted us earlier in the day so that staying awake would be as difficult as possible.
Mountains. They limit the population size. But they also radiate an aura that demands the building of forts and forts magnify the effect compelling conscription. Switzerland is the same.
Tibet resisted the compulsion, with prayer wheels. Not realising the mountains compel for a reason.
I went to boot camp in San Antonio Texas, started in late June. They were ALL the hottest days. Actually, it was best that way – it was red flag almost every day. During red flag, no marching, just walking, no outside work details. Calisthenics pretty much had to be completed soon after sunrise or started near sunset (sunset = about 8-9 pm).
Result was work details were cleaning up inside buildings in nearby military bases. Several were actually parks, so I wound up cleaning warehouses with canoes and camping gear on several occassions.
Try going north of Montreal from November until the end of January for boot camp. Heat was not a problem. The lack of heat sometimes was.
Lackland afb in texas in july for me. THEY LIE! I got sick once and in the hospital I saw the news, there wasnt a single day below red flag, most were black flag days and work continued more or less as normal. About the only change in behavior was encouraging us to drink a lot, at all times, whenever we werent responding to a question pretty much. Hydration was important. :p
I don’t think that population size is any deterrent to having a mandatory conscription period. The US had one for years.
Some amount of mandatory public service is probably a good thing for a nation.
In some countries (I think Israel and South Korea, among others) “mandatory” service does not mean just subject to the draft, but it means every able bodied person, with only minimal exceptions. During Viet Nam era, only a very small percentage of US males were inducted, and females not at all. My family had a few men of draftable age, but all their draft numbers were so high that none were ever called.
( Each day of year was randomly assigned a number, from 1 to 366. As the military needed men, the numbers were called in order. If your birthday was (for example) July 4, which had the number 15, you’d be in the 15th group called up that year, along with every other man born on the fourth of July. My relatives, by chance, all had numbers greater than 150. So they would have been called up only after approximately half of the other draftable males in US.)
Switzerland follows that principle. It is a very sensible one. In that if they get into a war practically every adult in their country has had basic military training. Plus they have near 100% gun ownership.* So if there is the need they cab rapidly mobilise as much of their population as circumstances demand.
* Speaking from memory, I can’t be arsed looking the statistics up.
It is worth noting though that they do not have the vast number of gun-related deaths that the US do. So it is entirely possible to have a well-armed population, to defend against the tyranny of governments both foreign and domestic. Provided the culture is focused to those ends.
Note crime prevention is not a priority. Nor is using guns for hobby purposes. With the resulting advantage they can be securely locked away most of the time. Bearing in mind that the greater your requirement for instant access (for instance to guard against a home intrusion) the less securely the weapon can be kept.
Stood up at the back of the class once the day after taking some unauthorized “me” time at a local bar. Caught the usual shitstorm for it.
Captain standing there says to me: “You wouldn’t be so tired you have to be standing here if you hadn’t” yadda yadda.
Me: “No offense intended, sir, but I’m always tired of this place.”
He couldn’t control his chuckle, which is probably why there was no further shitstorm incoming.
Death by PowerPoint…soooo…the death of a thousand papercuts has been replaced by the death of a thousand mouseclicks. Terminal RSI, anyone?
As a fully certified shorts fetishist, I would just like to express my appreciation for Dabbler and Jabberwokky’s current attire.
Well, that class means you spend less time on After Action Reports. So you definitely want to take that class, gals.
+1
At first read, I thought the clouds were smoke coming from Sydney’s orbs. Then I thought it was coming from Sydney herself.
THose trailing clouds are usually the forewarning of an incoming front with some power… ie there’s a storm on the horizon – and since bent towards Sydney it’s coming her way…
Not sure if DaveB did that on purpose, but if so…great foreshadowing easter egg.
Well she does have a mini tornado over her head, in panel 3.
Brown mystery orb: weather control?
Anyone fancy a bet on it? I haz a Yorpie Snax™!
*checks garden*
Yup, still there.
… allways thought that was the mark for “slow burn”…
*digs up Yorpie Snax™*
*brushes dirt off*
I just thought it would be nice. Especially with the ‘thunder bolts’ around Halo’s hands, in the final panel.
Here you are.
I googled a bunch of clouds for reference and those swervy ones were cooler looking than just regular blobby clouds. I wasn’t foreshadowing a storm front… this time.
I read the character profiles on the right. Jabberwokky: Super martial arts themed around animal archetypes.
Can anyone tell me what kind of animal a ‘Crusader’ is?
Human, Caucasian, Christian, Archaic.
“European” is a more accurate, less racist term than “Caucasian”. I am European, not Caucasian, have no ancestors for several centuries (at least) from eastern Europe. I know the term is still widely used, but that doesn’t make it correct. The term “Mongoloid”, created at same time as Caucasian or Caucasoid, is considered inaccurate and offensive when used on Asian peoples; it’s time to retire Caucasian as well.
Ahh, so you wish to deny your Crusader ancestry? I am afraid that just because later generations of your forebears emigrated, does not stop their genes flowing in your blood.
At first I thought your demand did have merit. But, for this case, I found flaws. Namely that I could not think of any significant population of Caucasian Christians who did not participate in the Crusades. Bearing in mind that the colonial era was not until centuries after this.
Pagan Christian populations would not have participated, of course, but my definition precluded them anyhow. Appropriately, given that they were amongst the targets.
Further your definition would preclude Russia which, geographically if nothing else, is more in Asia than Europe. Yet, as per my link, they did conduct crusades.
Generally speaking though I am also in favour of the various racial terms being formally dropped from usage. That has not yet happened however. Probably because they do still have use if trying to describe people, for valid reasons. Such as describing the appearance of criminals.
I would be happy for other terms to be used though. but the overly-politically correct shy away from ‘white’ and ‘black’. So include, ironically, some of those clinging to the terms.
Here mind I purposely chose every word. One use for ‘animal’ being to point out the irony that no other animal conducts religious wars. Another being to poke fun at anybody who considers humans automatically superior to animals and somehow not an animal.
The ‘Caucasian Christian’ was to remind relevant folks of their heritage and the sins of our forebears.
The ‘Archaic’? Well I hope it remains such. But it was a positive note to end on.
Not every Crusader came from the Caucasus Mountains
That would be why the dictionary has different definitions for each meaning.
I agree that “European” is at least geographically wrong, but oppose the term Caucasian because of its racist origin, and that what limited science accompanied its invention has been long since totally disproven and discarded. Some other term may be better. Best yet is doing away with grouping people by appearance altogether; it hasn’t seemed to produce any worthwhile results. In fact, grouping by appearance is being misused far more than any benefit gained.
So, if a cop is asking you ‘which is the terrorist?’ when two similarly-dressed guys are trying to stab each other to death, you would say ‘the one who looks to be about half an inch taller than the other one? Because saying ‘the black guy’ or ‘the white guy’ is far less important than being politically correct?
Oops the terrorist just killed the good guy. Hope that was not a friend of yours?
This isn’t that sort of case, Yorp. To try and say that you should ignore Garbler is saying becaof an extremely hypothetical situation is silly at best.
Besides, it’s easy enough to say, “the brown haired dude!” But you’re right, people at that moment will resort to “white dude has a bomb!” Rather than think about a non-racial identifier.
However, I would hope that if you have time to write a post on the internet about an animal archetype called “crusader” you would have time to think about how a word with racist origins and implications might not have been the best choice, even though you weren’t aware of those implications at the time.
Though, I suppose, if you yell “the crusader has a bomb!” Everyone is going to be looking for the dude in chain mail with a white tabard and a red cross rather than either a white dude or a dude from the caucuses.
Oh really? Having been in a situation similar to that, I beg to differ. I chose a more dramatic version, for impact. However my lack of conciseness, as a teenager, due to political correctness may have made the difference between catching the culprits and not.
In my case I witnessed a late-night smash and grab of a shop. The police car had arrived moments after the culprits fled. Wasting time trying to give enough of a description to pick out two guys by their (fairly non-descriptor) clothing, to avoid saying ‘a black guy and a white guy, running that way’ is something I determined never to do again.
I will not allow your well-intentioned, but foolish, arguments to cause me hesitation in an emergency. I need to have the most appropriate terms available for use without moral qualms.
A black dude is allowed to call himself a ‘nigger’. I am allowed to call myself a ‘Caucasian’.
And anyone who is a member of the most politically and economically dominant race, on the planet, who has a chip on their shoulder about that, should get a tougher skin. Because that makes us fair game for teasing. And I enjoy doing that, from time to time.
By the way, I pointedly chose to use that term, as a dig at those who use it to indicate racial superiority. With the broader dig at everyone who elevates themselves above animals, using similar rationales. And, because of the history of the term, to describe racial types, in the same way that we still divide animals, it fitted the tone very well.
So, yes, it was carefully considered (albeit in the few seconds it took to write the post). I haz read books.
Actually, given that we are talking archetypes, the Crusader archtype is human, European. In this context Caucasian is not really applicable unless you’re using it in the way that Garbler protested. That is, as a stand in for saying “of white European descent.”
Since we’re talking archetypes.
Garbler is right, you are wrong. Sometimes instead of a long winded reply you might want to crack a book instead.
Where am I wrong?
Just piping in here because I’m into using word which are descriptive for language, especially when I know the origin of the words. :)
I don’t know what’s wrong with the word caucasian. Also, I believe that mongoloid is considered offensive today because it started getting used as slang for people with Downs Syndrome (and previously it incorrectly compared all people of asian descent with the Mongols). I’m pretty sure it was replaced with oriental (for people of asian descent – especially eastern asian) as compared to the western world term ‘occidental’ (and imho, oriental is probably a lot more accurate than saying asian, since Asian includes most of the countries in the orient, Russia, India, Mongolia, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, the Ukraine, Nepal, Uzbekistan, Brunei, Afghanistan, and if you want to get REALLY technical, ALL of the Middle East except for Egypt (since the Middle East is still considered to be part of the continent of Asia). When someone says ‘oriental’ it’s a lot more specific that you’d be meaning people from places like China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, etc who have certain shared racial features. Meanwhile, people kept using caucasian to describe the skin color mainly because there was no negative connotation associated with the word.
Hmmmnnn… without getting too far into it, the gist is that the history of the word and the foundation of its use as a descriptor for “white people” is racist, and the current use effectively erases the identity of actual Caucasions from the caucuses.
I’d also like to point out that the definition of where Europe began and ended was a debate where Russia tried very hard to be included as European because … well, Eurocentric power games at the time. I’m personally of the opinion that Europe and Asia are the same content and if they aren’t we should call the Indian Subcontinent as its own continent as well.
It’s much easier to say Catholic Christian, generally European, certainly archaic.etc. I don’t think that the Orthodox branches of Christianity participated in the Crusades. Could be wrong though, all my church history was extremely… uh… Lutheran, then Wesleyan, therefore focused on the Catholic then Protestant side of things.
Again, not sure how it’s racist since there’s never been any societal use of the word as an insult. No one ever used ‘caucasian’ or any derivative of the word as anything other than ‘white.’ As opposed to a word like mongoloid, which is often used as a term for Downs Syndrome (or mentally retarded/slow/etc – other less PC terms for the same condition). So I can see how mongoloid would be considered racist as an insult rather than something descriptive. If there was ever a slang for white people used as an insult and it was either caucasian or a word related to caucasian, and that became part of the cultural language as an insult, then I could see the word ‘caucasian’ becoming a racist term. That hasnt happened though. Caucasian does seem a lot easier to use as a descriptor for white people than any other terms (other, perhaps, than simply saying ‘white’).
And while yes, Christian is obviously very accurate when describing ‘Crusader’ obviously, it doesn’t describe the race, which I think was the intent of the OP when making a ‘technical’ description for Crusader as an animal (despite it really just being ‘human’ :) )
PS – Europe and Asia are not the same continent, despite being part of the same landmass (and thus scientifically it could be argued that they are the same continent), ‘separated’ by the Urals (Black Sea and Phases River). It helped that there was a sea separating a good deal of the more populated part of Europe with the more populated part of western Asia. In ancient times, the maps were not as well drawn as today, so they didn’t realize that the continents were ‘largely’ connected. By the time that maps were better drawn, the separation of Europe and Asia was already in the cultural mindset of all people on both ‘continents’ so that idea of Europe and Asia being separate continents stuck.
It doesn’t have to have been used as an insult to be racist, and, just like not everyone who use to be called ‘Mongoloid’ (before it was cop-opted into an insult) were of the Mongol nation, not every European, particularly white European, came from the Caucuses Mountains
Okay to preface – everything I’m going to post is not being insulting. It’s me trying to have a rational conversation. So if there are any people are going to be easily ‘triggered’ by words that are clearly not meant as an insult … I welcome those people to feel free to skip past this post.
Ahem…
Actually, for a word to be a racist slur, it does need to be an insult.
That’s sort of what a slur is. An insinuation or allegation that is likely to INSULT them or damage their reputation. How is calling a person who is white ‘Caucasian’ going to do either of those things if the word has never meant anything insulting?
How dare you compare me to people who are descended from the Caucuses Mountains! :) I’ve never been there at all and neither have my ancestors as far as I know! I’m insulted and demand an apology!
In the same way that before it got used as a meaning for Downs Syndrome, mongoloid being used as a ‘descended from the Mongol tribe in Asia’ isn’t actually racist. At worst, it’s imprecise. Imprecision is not racism. Especially if it’s been used as a non-insulting descriptor for so long so as to co-opt the word to mean ‘all people with a particular skin tone.’ Just like, oriental tends to mean people with a particular skin tone/facial features of people from the eastern asian area (China, Japan, the Koreas, Vietnam, Tibet, Taiwan, and Mongolia – and sometimes some southeast asian countries like the Phillipines, Thailand, Indonesia, and Cambodia and other near-East Asia countries like Singapore and Nepal).
Yeah, some people take offense at the word oriental. I consider these people to be getting insulted for the sake of getting insulted, rather than for any sort of legitimate reason – they’re just being virtue signalling babies (and I say that as someone who is half-Korean and not born in Korea). It’s a lot more accurate than saying Asian, which could mean (if you’re going to nitpick) a lot more than just eastern Asian. The point of descriptors are to use as few words as possible in order to make it easy and quick to describe something while retaining accuracy.
I consider it mildly insulting, as anyone might reasonably, to be consistly and instituitionally misidentified. I have no delusions of superiority of anyone’s lineage including my own; just an objection to irrelevant labels, especially those misapplied.
“I consider it mildly insulting, as anyone might reasonably, to be consistly and instituitionally misidentified.”
Except it’s not institutionally misidentifying you to use a word which has been used for centuries now to describe a specific skin color, regardless of what it might have been ORIGINALLY used for in such a miniscule amount of time that most people wouldnt even know what the Caucases were to begin with. Not to mention why would you be INSULTED by mis-identification in any case? Irritated? Okay – maybe if you want to be verbose, or are very anal and insist on using less precise words like ‘white.’ Maybe. Insulted though? Why INSULTED? What do you have against the Caucases? Did the people of the Caucases have some sort of abhorrent practices, of which you find yourself demeaned by being associated with them? The origin of a word and how the word has come to be used in society are totally different things, and being insulted by how the word has come to be used simply because of the origin is as unreasonable as being fine with being called a word which has societally become an insult, just because it might have been originally used as a non-slur descriptor in the other direction.
Also, it’s also not an ‘irrelevant’ label, since its relevance is its use as a non-slur descriptor of a type of skin color. You seem to be doing what I just described when I talked about ‘oriental’ as a descriptor – trying to get insulted for the sake of getting insulted, not because you’ve actually been insulted by another person.
Insult, for the purposes of my post, is the dictionary term, which is also the societally accepted term for the word – to speak to or treat with abuse or disrespect; a disrespectful or scornfully abusive remark or action.
Nicely put Pander.
Not that it is my intention to put down those who are arguing the opposing side. You are arguing your case with good intentions. But with a totally unacheivable objective. Human brains are keyed to pick up differences in the features of other people. And the broader the difference the more significant it is to their brain.
The only way to stop humans from needing terms to be able to describe these, is to mess around with their brains until they cease to notice the differences. Or standardise all their bodies so that there are no differences.
Neither of which are either moral or practical.
Rather we need to focus our efforts on stopping those differences from causing conflict in our society. Not flaffing around trying to get rid of words that there will always be a need for. Until humans cease to be recognisable as humans.
When homo superior comes along, let her decide what terms to use.
Except, you didn’t mention it being a racist slur, just that you were not sure how it was racist
Calling me ‘Caucasian’ is insulting to me, because ancestors are not from West Asia, and if you are going to go by ‘the birth place of all’, then everyone, black white and purple, are African
“Except, you didn’t mention it being a racist slur, just that you were not sure how it was racist”
Right. Because racist means showing or feeling discrimination or prejudice against people of other races, or believing that a particular race is superior to another. That’s literally the definition of racist. And this is feeling of discrimination or prejudice is most often displayed in words by the use of verbal slurs. I see no reason why calling someone caucasian does ANY of that.
“Calling me ‘Caucasian’ is insulting to me, because ancestors are not from West Asia,”
And if someone called you the word which has since become known as being gay, would you assume ‘well that’s not an insult, because it originally was used to mean a bundle of sticks? No, you’d be insulted (justifiably) because it’s BECOME known as a slur. Words change meaning. It no longer means ‘person from West Asian Caucases’ – it’s such an obscure meaning, in fact, that if you did not have access to google you would have no idea of the origin, and you wouldnt have any clue what the Caucases are even. Ask 1000 people without access to a search engine, and (unless they’;re trying to be cheeky and suspect some sort of social justice trap), 999 will say that caucasian means ‘white skin color.’ Because that’s what it means now. It’s not an insult. It’s not racist.
“and if you are going to go by ‘the birth place of all’, then everyone, black white and purple, are African.”
Actually recent anthropological evidence has found that the ‘birhtplace of mankind’ was actually, apparently, Europe, not Africa. They’ve found fossil evidence of the earliest ‘humans (Gaecopithicus freybergi) to be found in Bulgaria and Greece, up to 7.2 million years ago, beating the earliest fossils found in Africa by over 100,000-200,000 years so…. the assertion that ‘we’re all from Africa originally doesnt seem to be accurate anymore. Or at least not undeniably accurate (who knows, maybe there are earlier fossils yet unfound in Africa, but right now the fossil record doesnt show that.
Not that any of this matters because back that far, stuff like skin color would have been utterly irrelevant anyway as a descriptor.
Yay Bulgaria!
*starts digging in garden*
I sniffed some interesting stones in here the other day, that had a real real old whiff of bone!
Yorpie: *throws you a Yorpie Snax*
I’m tempted to quote something from Shawshank Redemption but instead I’ll just post the link to the clip :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXjQQHiquZI
:-D
Pander, Guesticus is right. It doesn’t have to be a slur to be racist. In fact, it can be intended as praise and still be racist. Racism has at least two side to it. Slurs are in the “putting people down” side of it, but racism also has the “elevating one race above all others” side to it.
No one ever said that Caucasian was a slur, only that the use of it as a fancified word for “white” is racist. It is racist because of its history (Yeay Nazis, and the whole process that came up with using Caucasian for white people. Two separate things, mind you but the first adored the second.) and because it erases the identity of an entire culture and group of people from view.
Caucasians have their own history and culture, but if you speak to the average American about Caucasian, they’re going to think you’re talking about White peoples. And some will be quite militant about it.
If you’re into this sort of thing, here’s a video report about it: https://youtu.be/544mWLy1RZc
And here’s an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry:
The term “Caucasian race” was coined by the German philosopher Christoph Meiners in his The Outline of History of Mankind (1785)…
Meiners acknowledged two races: the Caucasian or beautiful, and the Mongolian or ugly. His Caucasian race encompassed all of the ancient and most of the modern native populations of Europe, the aboriginal inhabitants of West Asia (including the Phoenicians, Hebrews and Arabs), the autochthones of Northern Africa (Egyptians, Abyssinians and neighboring groups), the Indians, and the ancient Guanches.[15]
In his earlier racial typology, Meiners put forth that Caucasians had the “whitest, most blooming and most delicate skin”.[16] In a series of articles, Meiners boasts about the superiority of Germans among Europeans, and describes non-German Europeans’ color as “dirty whites”, in an unfavorable comparison with Germans.[17] Such views were typical of early scientific attempts at racial classification, where skin pigmentation was regarded as the main difference between races.[citation needed] This view was shared by the French naturalist Julien-Joseph Virey, who believed that the Caucasians were only the palest-skinned Europeans.[18]
Thank you. This is exactly what I was talking about in my first comment objecting to “caucasian”. IIRC true Caucasians were both target and perpetrstors of crusades at one time or another.
The same can be said for “European”. Just because you favour a geographical term rather than a term which describes the phenotype does not mean that I have to. It did not serve my purpose, which was to turn the scientific term:
“Homo sapiens sapiens”
Into everyday language. Which then required narrowing down the species type to retain accuracy to the original comment.
“Human, Caucasian, Christian, Archaic.” did this more accurately than:
“Human, European, Christian, Archaic.” as the latter is not pertinent to the genes, just where people live.
I was. Because it is true, when talking on the grand scale (I am sure there would have been the odd exception to either definition, as such they are irrelevant).
As far as I am concerned the overly politically correct and the KK can both be equipped with machine guns, and get locked a room until they have resolved their issues, if they wish to be militant about it.
I will continue to use whatever term I choose to. In this instance ‘Caucasian’ fitted the tone of the comment better than the alternative I would have otherwise used of ‘white’.
If you can suggest something which would fit better, please feel free. But do note that the attempts I am aware of still refer back to ‘white’, ‘black’, ‘oriental’ and the like to define them.
Crippling our language so that we cannot easily differentiate between very different looking groups of people would create problems in our society. If your solution does not solve those too, then keep thinking. If it does, speak up, I want to hear it. If not, then stop moaning.
For info:
British Police Identity Codes
UK Home Office Self Defined Ethnicity Codes
Lets try that again:
UK Home Office Self Defined Ethnicity Codes
Replying here because there’s no other option.
Why include the racial identifier at all? It literally doesn’t matter for the archetype.
And to challenge the use of Caucasian doesn’t limit the language, it changes how we use it. I rather argue that by insisting on a term like we actually make it harder because of the problem that there are real Caucasians, and white people aren’t them. Why not just use the term “white?” It’s more accurate, and reflects the current understanding of race. Caucasian as a term for a larger racial group (aka white people) is rather archaic.
Another thought. Mostly thinking about whether or not race matters to the animal archetype of crusader. I’m actually kinda between to ideas of how the archetype is. One is very apperance based, that is the chainmail, tabard and the bullet shaped helmet, the sword, the shield. I mean, seriously you’d have a hard time seeing the race of a crusader in full gear.
The other is the assumption that the crusader is white. Not black or dark skinned Europeans, but white. So maybe race does matter for the archetype?
If so, then would Jabber have multiple dog archetypes to pull from? Horse archetypes as well. Arabian style? Clydesdale style? Greyhound Style? Chihuahua style?
… I’m kinda hoping that is the case, because that could have some really funny results.
” It doesn’t have to be a slur to be racist. In fact, it can be intended as praise and still be racist. Racism has at least two side to it. Slurs are in the “putting people down” side of it, but racism also has the “elevating one race above all others” side to it.”
Except this isnt praise OR an insult. It’s just an origin of a word based on where the people with that type of skin color supposedly originated. There’s nothing insulting or praise-worthy about it at all. There’s no racist elements to it.
“No one ever said that Caucasian was a slur, only that the use of it as a fancified word for “white” is racist. It is racist because of its history”
Despite what might be heard on Francesca Ramsay’s Decoded, there’s no ‘history of racism’ in the word Caucasian. People don’t see ‘caucasian’ and think ‘nazi’ or ‘aryan’ – they just think ‘oh that’s a way to say white of a particular skin tone of white.’ Because it’s a descriptor. It has no negative OR positive slur or praise to it, because it’s just describing an area, and has not, since that point in time, started to be used for any OTHER definition other than ‘white’ (unlike ‘mongoloid,’ which started to become associated with a descriptor for downs syndrome, which made using it to describe asians/oriental people as ‘mentally deficient’ – which is a clear slur).
What someone (who is rather obscure to the general populace) said in 1785 is not a very compelling argument for why the word caucasian is racist, when there’s almost universal understanding of what the word means not only today, but for most of its entire history.
I am NOT going to pull out a color chart every time I need to describe a person. I’d rather have one word to describe them in a way which has a universal, societal understanding, where the word does not ALSO mean an insult, and is as accurate as possible. Words with a geographically-based origin are just as good as any.
Remove it and it targets all Christians. This would be inappropriate. It needs either “European” or “Caucasian/white” to exclude all the Christians in the Middle East. Being the birth place of Christ that is actually a significant population group that it would be unfair to label as “Crusaders”.
They had their own religious leaders, not all of whom agreed with the Vatican Pope’s decrees on Crusades.
Err, check out the final word in my original comment. It only had four. Again, it fitted the tone nicely.
*wags tail approvingly*
Mind you as we now know that the Crusader is a type of beetle (if that is the one Dave was aiming at) we need not limit ourselves to just mammals.
“Parastratiosphecomyia sphecomyioides Style”
Was what Jabberwokky started to say, at the beginning of the fight. Math then defeated the enemies. And Jabberwokky finished naming her style. ~ After-action report.
Regarding PS:
Well, actually scientifically it is one continent, but yes, the dividing line given is the Urals. But if we accept that, then the Indian subcontinent also has a very distinctive cultural and geographical live around it too, and should be recognized as its own continent. You point out that it was cemented in people’s minds the way it is now because of maps, but that wasn’t something that happened without argument. It happened while they were creating the better maps of the world, trying to be scientific about it. And there was a lot of politics and debate involved.
It’s also something that happened in Europe and therefore the distinction between Europe and Asia was very defined while the differences between Indian Subcontinent and Asia were ignored.
And since we can grow and learn, I say we should just effing well choose one or the other, not just go with the way things are because that’s the way they have always been.
actually scientifically it is one continent, but yes, the dividing line given is the Urals.
Actually, not the Urals, once tectonics came to be understood. The continental plates are now considered the structure, with surface features (ironically parallel to the discussion of race) considered non-indicative of unity, instead being merely historically informative.
The Eurasian plate extends from out in the Atlantic ocean all the way (in some points) yo Asia’s Pacific coast.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurasian_Plate
Yeah, and that’s really cool, buuuut then isn’t India and, for that matter the Arabian Peninsula be considered its own continent?
Some parts of the world teach that there are only 4 continents, many teach only 6, though which land masses are combined differ… though it’s seriously Eurocentric to leave Europe separate and combine the Americas. I frankly find that one baffling.
Anyhow, I think the point can be made that defining the continents can be very political. I’d be happy to go with the Teton ice, or to just go with the 4 land masses. Either way, really.
Don’t you be ignoring the ‘lost’ continent of Zealandia!!!
This forum needs a like button. :D
Guesticus:
Oh god, I read that originally as Zoolandia and was going to make a whole big post joking about the movie before I re-read your post.
People did not understand about tectonic plates back when the concept of continents was first made. And no, the Arabian Peninsula is not considered its own continent – it’s considered part of Asia still, unlike Europe. Again, largely because of early maps.
And don’t forget Risk. If you start chopping the board up into little sub-continents, you totally change the balance!
Beware letting the board flip over, then whoever owns Australia, with its magnetised pieces, automatically wins!
Yknow, I’ve never played Risk :) But that flip the board over move sounds similar to my brother’s move to win in chess.
“… I don’t think that the Orthodox branches of Christianity participated in the Crusades. …”
If you check out my link above you will see that they were amongst the targets of crusades. Likewise with the infamous fourth crusade. Enlarging the schism between Catholic Orthodox Christianity.
Thanks. ^_^. As I said, my education was rather Lutheran, everything was a triumphant March to Protestantism and Democracy. :p I’ve worked hard to fill in the gaps I have, but…
My wife used to complain about mis-identification. She, on her mother’s side, was descended from dory fishermen from the Azores that settled in Providence, RI. In a Portuguese community.
When she filled out her census forms, she ranted that Portuguese were specifically excluded from the term “Hispanic.” Portugal was part of Spain off and on for centuries.
Me? French-Canadian/German-Texan. Weird combo.
“Crusader Bugs are typically quite large bugs with long oval bodies that can produce a strong smell as a deterrent to predators. They are easy to recognise by their yellow cross mark on their backs.”
They are fairly common, and you don’t want to upset them too much. Her fight against vector would have gone completely different if her supernatural martial art had actually been based on this.
https://australianmuseum.net.au/crusader-bug
Ahh, well identified.
[Ding!] – [Achievement unlocked: Ignorance dispelled!]
How the heck did my question get such a thought out discussion on race? And as a side note, I’m Russian, Irish, Scottish, German, and Polish going by my parent’s family ancestry. They get mad when I call myself a ‘mutt’.
On another note, the only one who even said anything in regards to my question was Greyman. Kinda…
But since she had a ‘shield’ and a ‘sword’, I’m going with an actual warrior type crusader.
So, that aside. How does ‘crusader’ fit into ‘animal archetypes’?
It doesn’t. It just means her Who’s Who bio hasn’t been updated after a non-animal archetype power was displayed, as it is probably waiting more in depth discussion so as not to be spoilery.
Well, the page is waaaaay back…
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1435
here. It says ‘animal archetypes’ even on a page not using an animal archetype, lol. I think enough time has passed for it to change a few words, if nothing else.
When Dave makes a change it is by creating a new version, so that the old one can still be viewed on the earlier pages. So it is not quite as simple as just altering a few words. You will note that Dave has now changed Sydney’s Who’s Who entry, ostensibly just to alter the green orb’s text. Yet he has selected a new picture for Halo, at the same time.
It is a pretty one, so is nice that he has done this. But it serves more than one purpose. One is that it matches the updated style Another one that I suspect will feature heavily is that it is visually distinctive and thereby gives Dave a chance to spot the error if he happens to choose the wrong one. He has to input a code, so it would be all too easy to make a mistake.
For Jabberwokky though this is not actually necessary as her look remains consistent between the two styles. Plus Greyman pointed out above that there is an animal which matches the style, namely the Crusader beetle. So the Who’s Who probably is accurate as it stands.
Due to my ignorance on insects, and trying to find a witty alternative answer.
*wags tail guiltily*
At first I agreed it was a bit weird to have massive tattoo on her torso but none on her arms and legs but then again her costume during the fight was kind of odd too with the heavy jacket mixed with no covering so that might just be her style.
No covering? She very clearly was wearing a fishnet top. Which strangely is most noticeable for the holes where it isn’t rather than the cords where it is.
Actually, jumping back to the discussion of her orbs being like a spaceship’s systems… the last orb might be Universal Translator or Cargo Bay.
Or a translator bay or universal cargo. Just don’t let the latter out near to anything precious. She might get a bigger bang than she was expecting!
The brown sphere could be a universal carrying case. Through dimensional engineering is bigger on the inside and can have near infinite capacity. But no gravity effects for her so she “carries it”. There may be all sorts of things in that infinity space. Like Jimmy Neutron’s “hyper cube” or the Doctor’s TARDIS.
To find anything all she has to do is reach in and think of what she wants.Another possibility is that she holds the ball and imagines something and it materializes from it or from the matter in the vicinity. But first she has to unlock it. That is the bitch in this story.
“… holds the ball and imagines something… ”
Remember age 13, parental guidance rating.
you completely missed Nerpnet’s “ the discussion of her orbs being like“, which caused a brief parser fault when I read it.
Ignoring the obvious testicle joke, restricting Sydney’s imagination to PG-13 seems unrealistic so she probably aught not to have that power.
Translator makes more sense to be part of the comm ball.
Throwing a curve ball in the the place… I hereby dub the last orb the computer system.
Maybe it makes raspberry pies?
Or summons… The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town
Technically, a Raspberry Pi is a computer system. https://www.raspberrypi.org/
*rolls eyes*
You are telling no porky pies.
Good bye, Pork Pie, classic Kiwi road movie, haven’t seen the remake yet though, but it looks like they did a cracker of a job (and has one of the bestest quotes in the history of quotes: “I’m taking this bloody car, to Invercargill!!”)
The seventh orb holds the other 36 orbs. Orb #43 summons up projections of 60’s and 70’s Saturday morning cartoons.
I just read the who’s who and had to laugh…
Sandy… Arianna’s Number Two…
Is she really that shitty at her job? LOL
Eew!
I bet that will be the last time she will say, “Arianna you suck at writing job titles, they are all so stuffily formal.”
who what when where and why… this is a great opportunity for a Dilbert cross-over
Dilbert would most assuredly have to be a guest villain
Sky: Monochromatic. Transparent. Indifferent to commands. Bit of a jerk.
One star, would not fly again (if flying weren’t so AWESOME).
:-D
“Oh man, I am not allowed to fly above head height, or faster than a running pace, without being supervised by a licensed flyer?”
“Yup, further they must hold at least a private pilot’s licence, with the self-propelled category. Plus you are not allowed to ask Mr Amorphous to stretch to five stories tall. And you must compare it to your own running speed, not Maxima’s.”
“What am I supposed to do during breaks now?”
“Admire the sunset?”
There is one star in that sky. I want it to keep going as it is for a while. Keep it about 150 000 000 km away and I can be happy.
Oh come on, that is a bit harsh. Just because you do not like a celebrity there is no reason to drop them into deep space, even if you provide them with life-support, so that they can ‘keep going as is’.
Even worse if they happen to end up in the Sun. Nothing we are able to build would keep them alive there!
Even Harrison Ford would have difficulty there. You know he probably would not be able to engage the celebrity drive fast enough to get clear in time.
Here’s a celebrity star that looks best at > 100 000 000 km.
https://youtu.be/SuxISBfYPAY
Far greater.
Anybody say “lost boys : The tribe” ?
I think I remembre it having more preperation and story, less fast forwarding.
Have the video (possibly all three), but have only watched the original
As a technical writer, I can honestly say that I’d have the same reaction if I had to go to a Technical Writing for After-Action Reports class taught by government officials.
Technical writing?
So it’s like the superhero version of the Ikea phamplet?
“I inserted fist A into villain B’s face, with a 3/4ths turn, then applied foot B to Convict A, at a 45* angle, so that the rotation induced Convict A to rotate Convict B to a 180* facing.”
Ooh boy, sounds great! For Nyquil!
With a whole lot of “this space intentionally left blank”.
Which is a self-falsifying statement.
“this space intentionally left blank” [the following being written in invisible ink:] except for these pre-printed comments. For the sake of legal transparency this is a test for obsessive compulsive pedants, who cannot resist writing a comment about this, in the space. Such candidates will automatically be disqualified.
“There are no questions printed on this page.”
I am not going to dignify that comment with a response.
IBM tech manuals had many of those spaces. Also glossaries full of this definition:
A terma is a set of one or more termas with optional related termbs.
Relevant forms to submitt for collateral damage as a result of super-powered takedown. Damage valuation and relevant insurance codes and municipal laws by zoning type.
Technical writing might be kind of interesting to learn about, but not all that interesting to do.
Poor Sydney, she didn’t see the cute fwuffy tiger :P
Thank God.
Here, I’ll fill in for you:
SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE…
A…..Are we sure Sydney doesnt have other mental disabilities that shes forgotten to tell us about?This isnt even her being memey shes just apparently gonna yell at the sky until some charitable soul takes her in and shows her where he bedroom is again.
Or at least reminds her that the best time to fight a vampire is full daylight.
Sydney has a mental advantage. She is in touch with her inner child.
It gives her a 90% reduction in the risk of suffering stress related illness, a +10 reaction bonus from easy going gamers/ children/ the young-at-heart, but a -6 reaction from anybody with a corn-cob up their butt.
*discretely offers a corn-cob-removal-device*
Be careful. Some of the people that use the corncob removal device may be tempted to then take the corncob and start using it to beat people.
(Sorry… your comment reminded me of one of my favorite lines from Mass Effect, and I couldn’t resist making a riff on it. “Looks like Garrus got that stick out of his butt, but now he’s trying to beat guys to death with it.” — Joker)
Sorry Yorp but im not going to accept anything that youve had to use on yourself on a daily basis for the last 3 years-yknow dog germs n all ^^
It is a struggle, but the treatment helps. If you want, I can lick it clean? Dog saliva is a powerful antibiotic.
Dried out corn cob?
At first, thought Sydney had been testing Brown Ball, but looking at it again, all her balls are over her head, wasted opportunity there Sydney :(
Is phrasing not a thing any more? Are we not doing that?
Hmm, thought had phrased it correctly…
Phrasing!
I love this
Colateral damage value caulation 101
Just so you know Dave, the are no fast forwards to sunset in any Twilight movie. And damn you for peaking my interest enough about that so that I couldnt stop wondering about that until I checked by watching all of those films.
I wondered why you looked so sparkly today. Yet moody too.
Successful initiative roll.
This story was on the same page. A friend of yours?
https://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/must_see/40731681/dog-eats-wedding-cake-on-morning-of-couple-s-big-day
Well it was a clever dog, as it had the cake but all the guests got to eat cake too. Apparently humans have difficulty doing that.
Varia is tucking her shirt back in because she doesn’t want to be “out of uniform.”
Unlike Dabbler.
And then the Mayan turned into a furry.
I remember Dave saying she was an Aztec. And since her power technically makes her a ‘transformer’ maybe she can be an Autobot that turns into a Pontiac Aztek. (The ugliest American car eve. The international title goes to the Yugo.)
Ahh, I wondered what this was called.
Hey, I owned one of those! Bought it used ($300). Looked like any other boxy Eurocar. Ran okay for almost a year.
there is always the Fiat Multipla for the international title.
I would love to see how the orbs react to Sydney body swapping with one of the other cast members, harem would be most interesting….
Mmm, five bodies, no teleport, but having to split up the orbs between them. Probably still with a two orb finite limit mind, as that is the nature of Halo’s power. But would have all the sensory sharing, as that is the result of how the five bodies are created, as opposed to actually being a power. That would be in Sydney’s body, with Harem’s mind.
Plus Halo would not be able to store bodies, as that would need the teleportation power. So any body which had no orbs would just be a normal human, albeit one that is sharing information with other bodies.
It would be sensible to keep one in the Archon HQ, or other secure location, where it did not use up orb capacity, but could provide important information and act in a command role, being able to formulate strategies, without being in danger.
Splitting the orbs evenly between the four would leave one body with just the one orb, halving its potential in a crisis. And being all too specialised, meaning that loosing at rock, paper, scissors is likely. Plus one other weak point being that the brown orb is useless, other than for punching, until its power is discovered.
A solution to that is to keep two bodies always teamed up. Having three orbs between them gives a couple of useful powers, plus the orb punching capability. And the advantage of being able to flank opponents, act as diversions or other duo tactics.
Whilst the remaining bodies can either stick with those, for tougher situations, or split up, when that is necessary, such as searching for survivors or missions with multiple objectives, or supporting separate teams as Harem had to do recently. Mmm, then how to split the orbs, under default conditions?
Body Orbs
1 None
2 & 3 Mystery orb, PPO & Truesight
4 Forb, Airball
5 Tentacle & Flyball
Okay, so far shields, weapons, propulsion, sensors, a waldo, and environment. The only thing missing that I can think of kinda scares me and, in deference to the writers, I’m not going there.
I’m thinking that a hammerspace type of brig/storage bay combo is probably a good possibility. Other good possibilities of powers that would not be possible with other orbs include a knowledge database (main computer/nav system) or a healing bay which affects OTHER people but not herself (after all, the sick bay isnt used to heal the ship, that would be engineering).
I don’t think it would be a holodeck or transporter or telepathy because…. well the yellow comm ball seems to be something that can do that, or might be able to do that in the future.
I don’t think it would be a healing orb for healing Sydney herself because with how many times she’s gotten hurt would have healed the two times that she’s held the unknown orb… although it’s POSSIBLE that she doesnt have enough dots on the unknown orb to heal herself, and it can currently only be used to heal OTHER people.
Ok, I find it hard to read through everything on this style of forum, so forgive me if someone has already pointed this out, but today I realized that when Vera gestalts with Halo, their powers combined makes the “HaloVera.”
I reeeallly hope that last orb has some healing mojo…
Healing mojo with Kirby dots…
Considering how often Sydney has been injured (not counting the last three days), Healing is not one of the powers
That’s my thoughts too. Her bruises would have definitely been healed for either of the times we’ve seen her use the last ‘unknown’ orb if it did healing.
*sighs* I know, but it would make the HaloVera pun funnier… and thus, hope springs eternal.
Well, we know something ‘hinky’ happens when Sydney and Vahriah (not sure where you got the ‘Vera’ from o_O) touch, so there is still hope for that sub-codename
There have been recent comment threads on both Varia’s interaction with Halo’s orb and on how names can often be abbreviated in an unusual way. Both referring to scenes in much earlier comic pages. Possibly this comment may be coincidental, but I took it as riffing off both of those threads (or the original scenes which inspired them).
Plus MCM has made involved comments, in the past, so there is another aspect which could be intentional. Or may just be me seeing plays on words, in increasingly unusual forms. However “HaloVera” does sound like “Aloe vera”.
So, trying think of a suitable pun reply, or to skip it, I was split end decided not to. I was ‘frayed folks might make the connection.
Either way though the portmanteau abbreviation does have a nice cadence to it. So would make a good name for their team-up. Much like Dave’s coining of the term “Halomobile” for Sydney performing taxiing services.
It’s totally from me doodling and scribbling down their names as labels and playing with sound. Maybe also from a little bit of accent drift where Variation the ” I” becomes softer and the emphasis is placed on the First syllable instead of the second, especially when shortened. … that’s my accent, btw, not one I’m making up.
All of this to say I spelled it how I heard it in my head and didn’t verify correct spelling because puns are awesome.
HaloVera would be a great name for the orb if it healed burns and other surface wounds.
[Aloe Vera is a succulent plant common in SW US, Mexico and Central Am. whose very juicy pulp is great on sunburns (personal experience).]
Yeah, understood what the ‘HaloVera’ referred to, was just confused where the ‘Vera’ came from in regards to Varia
Women haz comic shops?
:-D