Grrl Power #1096 – Layover
Okay, before you’re all “I don’t think Maxima would tell them to just take the day off,” Anvil explains on the next page.
Sydney’s smart enough to know that while some of her contributions to the team extend beyond the abilities granted to her by the orbs, she’s not at a level where she’d be viable as a field specialist the way Dabbler and Math are. It’s not unrealistic to think the team might retain her as an analyst or some similar position, especially now that she’s been read in on some fairly classified stuff, but analysts don’t often get anywhere near the same breadth of experiences that the field people do. To be fair though, no one else on the team besides Dabbler has fought giant alien supermonsters and sampled Fracture Station’s many food courts and made it with an alien space privateer, so Sydney’s a little ahead of the experience curve relative to the rest of the squad.
I’ve been trying to stick to the simpler coloring style to make up a little time, but you can see it drifting in and out. I have to actually catch myself when I start overdoing it cause I’d been doing the other style for quite some time. I experimented with making Max a little shinier too, but in this particular panel, she’s staring into the open breach of her T-Rex pistol, meaning there’s some dark circles reflecting on her face, which kind of makes it look like she’s developing a case of measles or something, IMO. Well, I’ll keep at it. Sometimes shiny people are going to have weird stuff reflected on them.
The October Vote Incentive is up!
Why did it take so long? I couldn’t tell you. Well, I hand drew the lace on Lorlara’s body stocking, so that took about an hour by itself. Anyway, it’s likely the next one will be single character, and hopefully it won’t be so late. Usually with fewer characters I can do more outfit variants but we’ll see.
So I have enough “Blue Babes” to do a theme. Eventually I’ll be able to fill in the whole rainbow of my own characters. I did a rainbow lineup previously for those who hadn’t seen it. I’d love to revisit that one of these days.
Enjoy variant outfits and lack thereof over at Patreon.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Dabbler may have illusionary clothing for every occasion, but Sydney can summon real tools from dramatic moments.
Or: Panel 2 is from Dabbler’s POV. She can actually psychically SEE Sydney’s mood, which in this case is manifesting as the Nevermore raven. When she shoos it off, this is literally dispelling some of Sydney’s despair.
If Anvil didn’t have her back turned, she would have just seen Dabbler making shooing motions at empty air.
Yeah I kinda doubt there would be a convenient talking raven on that island(?) that they stopped on.
I doubted it so much that before I even finished the page I did a rabbit dive down the list of birds native to Senegal. Learned a bunch of new and beautiful birds, but there is indeed a brown-necked raven which are pretty much solid black. Especially under suitably ominous lighting, I expect.
Thanks for doing the research! I appreciate the gag more knowing that it might not just be artistic license.
Just had a thought; that headband was given to her by the other succubus (her name escapes me) that was magical, maybe Sydney’s mood triggered a function in it to display her mood like that? Since Dabs, Krona, and Leon were able to make a simple color change choker that could hide Max’s look it wouldn’t be that far of a stretch…
This is now canon as far as I’m concerned.
I don’t know about that country in particular and I haven’t lived in any part of Africa in like 50-some years, but shopping in Africa for items made in that country is pretty awesome considering that items made there are sold here in the US for something like 2000% markup, and you would be buying them at like wholesale prices there. Seriously I was buying stuff there for like a dime and getting ripped off, that sold in pricy NYC boutiques for like $25 after taxes and tarrifs.
Basically you can shop for things all over the world in 2022.
You can buy your Nike shoes in a high end shopping mall EVERYWHERE, however in sri lanka market you might be able to find rip-offs for 1% of the price.
Some people have the idea that africa is full of hungry people, but what is means to live in a thirth world country is that there are huge differences. There are people with high end cars and luxary house, somtimes in walled compounds AND there are those who are figuring out how to get food and rent for the next 2 days.
However, i kind of have the feeling they are going to shop for a plane or ship or information.
By the definition of “people with high end cars and luxury homes, sometimes in walled compounds, and also people who are figuring out how to get food and rent for the next 2 days” America is a “third world country” or at least headed that way…
When you track the income disparities between the rich and the poor in this country, yes, absolutely.
That’s not a definition. However, just because your premise is flawed, does not mean your conclusion is wrong.
America is headed towards lower development status by (A) letting vast numbers of unskilled people arrive without permission and stay, and (B) inflating the currency by huge giveaways, eroding the value of earned income for the majority. Both of those increase the distance between ends of the economic spectrum, and between the middle and the top.
In addition, putting America under the control of international agreements and foreign countries erodes the exceptionalism (and brain theft) that put us on top of the economic ladder in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Ah yes of course, it’s the unskilled people that are increasing inequality, not the flawed concept of trickle down economics which saw those at the top retaining more and more wealth. Riiiigggghttt… The problem with this premise is that there is floor, a zero so to speak on the scale and poor people can’t go below it, so they can only drag your average down so much, whereas rich people can be huge outliers, so will always be the greater drivers of inequality. So you might want to check those beliefs, are they evidence based or racism based?
Let’s call it what it is… Trickle Up Economics.
I’ve had this discussion with a lot of people who try to defend it (I know you’re not trying to defend it). They always get real quiet when I ask what the end goal of pure laissez faire capitalism is.
As for the guy you’re responding to and his “oh noes, migrant workers” nonsense… Even if that point of his were true, the problem wouldn’t be the migrant workers. The problem would be the unwillingness of businesses to pay enough for skilled laborers to take the job in the stead of migrant workers.
Paying a living wage to McDonalds workers isn’t going to break McDonalds, nor make their food unaffordably expensive. They pay a living wage in other countries by law, and they can do it here. Sure the price of the food is increased a little bit, but not by an appreciable amount. We’re talking maybe a 10% increase, but they pay their workers 300-400% what they do in America. I think a 10% increase in prices for a 400% pay increase is very agreeable.
The end goal (insofar as there is one) of pure laissez-faire capitalism is making everything available for as little as possible, or at least within delta of that.
But that’s not relevant, because we don’t have pure laissez-faire capitalism. We have “the deck is shamelessly stacked in the favor of anyone who can afford to buy a Congressman or two” capitalism, and that’s a touch more problematic.
The end goal, if you want to be fascetious about it, of laissez-fair (or unfettered for those who do not speak French) capitalsim is to prove Karl Marx right.
There was this eye-opening presentation a couple of years back that I have not been able to find back unfortunately, where the author apologised for not being able to show the income inequalty in a single graph. Because at a scale where the image would show the lowest and highest income at the same time there would be no appreciable deviation from the X-axis over about 95% of the graph. Though it really was the last 0.0001% of the distribution that shot off the chart.
That kind of inequality is not sustainable in the long term. Unless you want to make money a meaningless concept for 90+% of the population and wipe out your entire econmy.
I hate to break this to you, but “stacked in favor of buying a congressman” isn’t a bug, it’s a feature.
The goal of capitalism – the real, tangible, material goal, not the libertarian fantasy ‘goal’) is acquisition, pure and simple. First of capital, then of wealth, and finally of power.
That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
Capitalism, as a mechanism, is utterly incapable of recognizing – letting making – moral or ethical choices. It can only interpret one kind of data, and that is the simple binary of, “does this action extract more wealth than it consumes?”
IF Profit >0
THEN Action
ELSE NULL
Capitalism has no internally definable end state. It doesn’t care about, or even understand, how much it already has, as its only focus is on acquisition. The only thing capitalism wants, is More. It is a machine designed to run without stopping. It is genuinely analogous to a cancer. It does not, it literally cannot, stop making more of itself until there are literally no resources left for it to use in that process.
A memetic Grey Goo.
Laissez-faire capitalism doesn’t have a goal. It has a dynamic.
Its dynamic is to drive out all economic actors except those achieving maximum efficiency in allocation of resources.
Taken to its conclusion that winds up with one monopoly per industry. Not really a good plan.
Even with some intervention to bust monopolies, the feedback is limited to short term efficiencies which means that investments more efficient in the long run – like infrastructure, education, disaster preparedness, etc – are ignored, and then we see other countries that *do* invest money in those categories eclipsing our per-capita productivity.
The way laissez-faire capitalism breaks on some of the really long-term stuff is so tragic it’s funny. Know what happens when you keep most of the population too poor to even consider raising a kid for twenty years? Demographic collapse, that’s what. You see it first in the market for your goods hollowing out, and then in a shortage of labor as there aren’t as many young people graduating high school and college any more. And then of course capitalism responds by hiring immigrants and blaming “thu libruuulls!”
You can’t have a market without consumers.
If they either don’t have any disposable income, or just don’t f*ing exist because their parents refused to have kids they couldn’t afford, then…
OOPSIE POOPSIE
So the end-game “goal” of capitalism is its own self-destruction, really.
@Torabi
I identified it as ‘economic auto-cannibalism,’ about 20 years ago.
Other symptoms includeis the obsessive, irrational attempts to seek profits by cutting costs to the point that you begin damaging your own product/process, and undermining your ability to endure instability by gutting your surge capacity/reserves.
It’s the Quarterly mentality that gives zero thought to the following year, let alone the following decade.
Capitalism is a system for maximizing efficient utilization of resources. But people mistakenly focus on the “efficient” part, and ignore that it is expected to maximize allocating and using those resources. Capitalism never expects to save anything for later — the goal is to use it all up as fast as possible, and assign that value to someone as fast as possible. It’s a system for carving up and consuming the universe. It is ultimately destructive.
That “skilled labor” thing is extremely important.
Capitalists & their bootlickers love to toss around the phrase “unskilled labor,” but they always do it by trying to describe a job in the absolute narrowest confines conceivable, with no acknowledgement that nobody gets hired to do just one, single, simple, repetitive motion.
Take “burger flippers.”
Literally nobody in the fast food industry is literally standing there only ever and exclusively _literally_ “just flipping burgers.” You could have built an efficient machine for that job a hundred years ago. No, what fast food workers are, is kitchen labor, and customer service, performing a _plethora_ of activities in an unpredictable, high-stress environment. That requires a certain set of skills, and aptitudes. But by reductive labeling & perpetuation of a hierarchical, nearly caste-system attitude, capitalists normalize paying these people less than living wages, while demanding ever more labor out of them, to line their own pockets.
Yet, when a crisis struck, all of a sudden these “unskilled workers” became “essential workers,” in order to justify keeping them on the clock, at the very risk of their lives, so that capitalists wouldn’t be foregoing profits, or – horror of horrors – inconvenienced.
And this without improved pay, commensurate to their risk.
Then, once the crisis was deemed – incorrectly – “over,” suddenly we see the inexplicable return of “the burger flipper,” and HOW DARE THEY expect to be paid a living wage. Don’t these cretin know how completely expendable they are?!
*sigh*
This is why capitalists, and especially neoliberal capitalists, really are just absolute garbage. They insist on acting like everybody is exactly this stupid. Like nobody can see through this idiotic charade. They say stupid shit like “nobody wants to work,” when what they really mean is, “nobody wants work a shitty high-stress job for not enough money to even survive on, let alone care for their families, in order to enrich _ME_.”
Now, you wanna no what takes exactly zero skill?
Owning something.
No, I don’t mean “taking care of” anything, I mean simply the passive condition of ownership. And specifically, in this case, ownership of stock, because owning stock somehow entitles one to be paid.
It is _literally_ getting paid for doing exactly _nothing_. Stockholders are purely parasitic in nature. They do zero labour, requiring zero skill.
But…getting back to skilled labour.
In my industry (I’m a trucker), you get a lot of right-wingers (both cryptofascist, and just open, mask-off fascists) who absolutely _love_ talking shit about Union shops, when it comes to shippers & receivers. They complain that Union workers do such terrible things as “go to lunch,” or “take two hours to load the trailer.”
Here’s the thing, though – and I’ll use Dole out of the Port of San Diego as my example – yeah, they take two hours to load. On the other hand, I have _never_ had to get a Union worked load “reworked” because it was over-weight, or wouldn’t balance correctly. In fact, just last night, the Union loaded the refrigerated container I’m currently attached to so well, that there was less than two hundred pounds difference between the tandem & drive axles. They packed it so well, that even when I _repeatedly_ slammed the thing while adjusting my 5th wheel slide position (previous driver had it jammed full forward, too much weight on the steers), nothing shifted inside the trailer, and the weight on the drives & tandems remained almost perfectly balanced.
And that is an margin of just two hundred pounds, in a thirty-nine-thousand pound load of bananas!
That, kids, requires _skill_.
And that skill is what Union labour prices will buy you.
I’m sure you already know this, but I would like to highlight one point: rewarding ownership over labor is what distinguishes capitalism from other economic systems, including others that operate on free markets.
That is both exactly what is wrong with capitalism, and why it is appealing to people. Because of the promise that if they play their cards right, they can win at it, and get paid for doing nothing. All while complaining that other people complain too much about having to work for a living. The parasites call the actual producers parasites.
The very concept of a “free market” is asinine, but on the whole, I find that where most people get tripped up is in imagining that markets are somehow an exclusive appendage of capitalism, as opposed to one, specific tool in the socioeconomic machine shop. Even worse, they tend assume that if you employ markets for anything, you must automatically employ them for literally everything, and that you can’t have markets for anything, if you don’t also link profit to privatized ownership. And the cherry on top, they usually don’t (either can’t, or more likely won’t) understand the difference between personal and private property.
…in all, it’s enough to make a Poli-Sci absolutely bonkers.
ok, I’m going to throw some sand and mud in here. ‘free market’ is a MODEL. just like the mathematical constructs we use to predict the weather, behavior of a car when it collides with something, whether a bridge will collapse when one of our ideas walks across it. etc add nauseum. like all models it has limitations. this is why someone needs training before they work with models and why a detailed report is done of the results. I will grant you that a good fea report is only a slightly better cure for insomnia than a legal text. (much respect to pander) but these are important because all models have limitations. the models only work when the criteria are met. ‘free market’ model has some viscous criteria that anyone arguing for them should have to answer for. they teach this in an intro to economics course and then go on to teach other models for a reason. Ill give you a hint… no sane businessman wants to operate in a free market. not one.
@palmvos
Which is why I called it asinine.
The same goes for my vehement friends to my Left, who want to insist that a “market-free” communist economical system is teh bestest. They ultimately come to the same place from the opposite direction.
The fact is, humans – and by extension, human societies – are not extremophilic critters. We thrive in a moderated system, with lots of different options. Although they don’t actually understand any of this on an intellectual basis, it is one thing that the conservative/reaction crowd does intuitively grasp. Trying to force everyone into the same program of living isn’t ever going to work, because that’s just not how humans work. Where they tend to trip and face-plant, is in their blind-spot assumptions that, A – they represent a majority, and B – the program that they are familiar with, and which they believe works for them, is somehow universally applicable.
Typical human hubris, so nothing unexpected there.
Ultimately, any permanent solution is going to require balancing multiple ideologies, material necessities, and the over-arching national interest, and that is _hard_, and time consuming.
Anyone who thinks working in a fast food restaurant is an easy job has never worked in one.
your entire shift is most likely a nonstop flow of customers and making food/packing orders/cleaning. you might get one 10 minute break if your lucky and the place is not under staffed. these companies have already backtracked the higher wages some of them were paying in the pandemic, lucky for every one else the prices have stayed high. places like walmart are about 3/4 of the way done to completely eliminating the job of cashier which will save them billions in wages. again the prices will not go back down.
we are already seeing the end stages of rampant capitalism, as someone mentioned earlier soon no one will be able to buy anything and every thing will collapse
If someone had asked me about it ten years ago, I would have said that the final death of this hell-system was still fifty to a hundred years off.
At the end of 2019, I’d have said it might well happen near the end of my lifetime, in about forty or fifty years.
Today, I’d be willing to take odds on less than another ten years.
Do not doubt, The Revolution _is_ coming. The real question, at this point, is how violently those upholding the current status quo will try to stop it, because the harder they try, the more blood thirsty, vengeful, and merciless the revolutionaries are going to be.
It wont happen till after Marijuana is made legal nation wide. when that happens Conagra or someone like that will buy all the dispensaries and price every one out.
to which I will paraphrase/quote Contrapoints
‘the Left talks revolution. the Right trains for it.’
somehow I don’t think Marijuana’s legal status is going to have much to do with it. then again I probably have a very different definition of ‘civil war’ in America’s future.
I never understood the big fuss over the legalization or decriminalization of marijuana.
If anything it would be a huge boon for tax collection for the government, so they should be okay it, and it would be increasing freedom for consumers, so the populace should be okay with it, as long as the consumer is of an age/position where they can enter into legally valid contracts.
If people are okay with alcohol or tobacco being legal, then I am unclear of the problem, legally or logically speaking. And we already saw the mess that happened during Prohibition.
Because the people who talk the most about freedom see it as zero-sum: maximizing their own freedom (or really, power) requires minimizing that of others.
The right wing in the USA is a strange coalition between oppressive religious conservatives and free-market capitalists. What they have in common is a desire to rule, by any means possible, but the rules they wish to implement either have little to do with each other, or are in outright conflict.
It’s interesting to watch the capitalists move left as the religious zealots take over the right.
“It’s interesting to watch the capitalists move left as the religious zealots take over the right.”
To be honest, capitalists have been on both the left and the right. It’s not really a political affiliation as much as an economic affiliation. Most of Silicon Valley are VERY left wing, but they are capitalists. Most of the military industrial complex are very right wing…. and are also capitalists. And of course most libertarians tend to be capitalists as well, because, with the limitations of the Non-Aggression Principle, libertarianism lends itself very well to capitalism. But there are also left wing libertarians who are very much a ‘hippie’ mindset, which TENDS to be very much the opposite of a capitalist.
Not really sure how we go to this from what I was talking about since I was just confused about the problem with legalization, or at least decriminalization, of marijuana. Although I guess it’s because it’s a more libertarian (small l) vs authoritarian mindset. But even there… there are left wing authoritarians and right wing authoritarians.
Yes, there are capitalists everywhere now, all across the spectrum. But it’s interesting to see how the politics align, or don’t, or how they’ve shifted. American Conservatism was liberalism, from the perspective of the rest of the world. Capitalism was a liberal idea, compared to mercantilism. But the American right long assumed there was a natural alliance between capitalism and social conservatism, and has had some surprises recently that they don’t like. Each side got what they wanted out of the exchange, until the left-wing capitalists came along and violated the agreement.
The right likes to trot out nonsense like “get woke, go broke”, but the actual trend is the reverse. Businesses go where the profit is, and the culture is shifting, despite the cries from the hard right. Most people are in the center, so there’s certainly pushback on anything the edges do, but the momentum has shifted.
Capitalism is an evolutionary philosophy. It’s incapable of grasping the concept of an end goal. It only looks one step ahead, and makes decisions based on local information.
But yes, as Cerebrate puts it, the end goal of capitalism, as claimed by its advocates, is to drive innovation up and prices down. This is certainly not the goal of capitalists themselves, who would rather innovate as little as possible, and drive prices up as much as possible.
It’s almost if their words do not match their material actions.
If only we had a word to describe people who claim one thing, while doing the exact opposite…
‘Politicians’? ‘Priests’?
I was thinking “liar.”
Said that, twice
used car salesperson
salesperson
business owner (type of salesperson)
I see no reason to think the average skill for migrants is lower than for locals. Acquiring a skill requires a level of intelligence and willpower that correlates better with the intelligence and willpower requirement for migrating than it does for staying. So on average migrants should be more skilled. Likewise, illegal migrants get an even better stat average since they score high on guts and luck. So unless you make the legality of migration skill-dependent, you’re going to find that overall the best people in a country are the illegal migrants.
I don’t know enough about income disparities to say something meaningful without a lot more knowledge, it sounds like a very complex subject.
That said, huge giveaways obviously can grow or shrink wealth disparity depending on who you are giving it to and who you are taking it from. If you take from the relatively poor and give to the relatively rich you’re increasing wealth disparity while if you do the reverse you reduce wealth disparity. If we can assume people will invest their wealth, then wealth creates income so that makes income disparity partially dependent on the direction of the money flow.
On the subject of the effect of the value of earned income on career choices (which is the only way this could affect productivity), I don’t know a lot of people who thrive at jobs they took just for the money. People tend to do good or bad work based on their personality and do better or worse depending on how motivated and happy they are. Miserable people or those who became demotivated tend to do bad, while happy people who care about their job tend to be very productive. So money should be given to employees if you want them to function, but only to the point where it increases happiness which I hear tapers off after a certain point.
Sidenote: I do know people who were promoted to their level of incompetence. They certainly don’t feel good about themselves and their work, but they do get paid a lot. I guess they don’t count because they don’t actually earn(as in deserve) their income.
I’m not neccesarily opposed to a certain level of income inequality, but more than a factor ten is absurd. Nobody should earn ten times minimum wage, so I propose we take the highest income (Elon Musk’s, I guess) and divide it by ten to get the minimum wage. If that is untenable then we tax Musk’s income bracket until one tenth of his net income becomes tenable as the minimum wage. (This last bit was obviously tongue in cheek on the specifics.)
Income inequality is not really a complex subject that requires a lot of knowledge of the subject.
Americans by and large think it is fair if the CEO of a company earns about 20 times as much as the average employee of that company.
They think that CEOs actually earn 30 to 40 times the average income.
In reality 400+ times the average income is more common (not universal of course).
It get worse when you realise that the typical CEO is barely at the lowest end of the top 10% of income earners.
How this discrepancy is possible is pretty easy too. Money buys politicians (increasingly literally) and politicians pass laws that favour the income inequality (and tax avoidance). Money also buys public opinion through overt and covert propaganda, which has cemented firmly in the minds of most Americans that ‘greed is good’ and ‘being rich proves that you are more deserving’
Social Democracy (of the European, slightly more aggressive variant than Berny Sanders is promoting) used to have somewhat on a break on this tendency of capitalism to collect everything in the hands of ever fewer people, but then Tatcher and Reagan happend and the unfettered capitalism ideologues got to call the shots regarding socio-economic policy (see also Friedman, Hayek and the Austrian School)
Comparing undocumented workers’ education to the under-educated masses of the US isn’t one of those exercises that really make sense to me. It’s probably important tor realize that most educated people wouldn’t need to sneak into another country to find work, so that’s basically, “How do the most desperate people failed by Mexico’s education system compare with the average person failed by the US’ education system?”
I would agree with you, the odds would favor the undocumented worker simply because of the barrier to enter that comparison for them. But it’s probably more important to understand why our education system fails most of its students.
To be clear, I’m not talking about failing students in terms of the grades they get on their report cards. I’m talking about why our education systems do not prepare us to be capable adults.
A lot of it is funding. The schools that do the worst are pretty consistently the schools with the smallest budgets per student. The wealthy in this country have pretty routinely fought to maintain funding disparities between schools, including the whole insisting that schools be funded by property tax in the school districts, rather than just being something paid for by the state or federal government. As such, it’s basically, “This country is becoming a third world nation because its wealthiest citizens refuse to accept what they need to for it to not be one.”
Are you absolutely sure you want to be making the argument that immigrants are “unskilled” and that some came here without permission? Because if we want to be pedantic, as you appear to desire, the very first immigrants to what would become the United States of America arrived without permission from the local population and many of them did not possess what the local population would have considered useful skills at the time.
Much as I agree with your underlying point, considering what _happened_ to the local population shortly thereafter, that may not be a good hill to die on. As it were.
I think that’s kind of the point though. Either both are acceptable outcomes, or neither is.
Oh look, utterly vapid fascist talking points.
Sure didn’t expect to see those on the Internet. Nope, nope, not all.
Remember, Hanlon’s Razor almost always applies (unless proven otherwise)
This assumes that malice & stupidity are mutually exclusive.
History would dispute such an assumption…
Well, if we wanted to be really pragmatic about it, it is empirically true that a lot of those “permission-free” immigrants work their asses off to both support themselves in the US and send money to support a family back home, and as I recall, that’s one of the values us Americans are supposed to respect, belike.
Myself, if we want to keep the population steady, I suggest a transfer program. We find some native-born lazy bum, of whom we have a more than adequate supply, give their citizenship to the hard-working illegal entrant, and then deport their sorry ass to somewhere where they _have_ to work to eat. Everybody wins!
(A) If those “unskilled people” are staying, it’s because there’s paying work for them to do that nobody else wants to do.
(B) What huge giveaways? The ones being given to the wealthy? Because the ones being given to the poor are a pittance in comparison.
(B2) How would giving money to poor people increase the distance between them and the top end of the spectrum anyway?
(C) Oh noes, coming to agreements with others and abiding by them reduces our ability to take advantage of them!
Um, are you REALLY expecting sense or logic from a country that elected a self entitled narcissist to its highest office, stood by while he tried to overthrow it and now seems to think he is some kind of a messiah while many of his loudest followers glorify the pain or deaths of mothers and newborns to further their political ends? Really?
Sense has no place in our world. It never has, but it REALLY has had no place in our world since 2021.
America is headed for third world status not because of undocumented immigrants and lottery giveaways. Those are both strawmen that the real source of the issue likes to have us focus on instead of them.
The real problem is the growing wage gap. The people in charge are continuing to take more for themselves, despite already having more than they could possibly need. Most of the schools in the country are underfunded to the point that they can’t pay for competent teachers to actually educate their students. Louisiana is probably hit the worst by this, because they had the lack of sense to give such large tax breaks to the biggest companies who operate inside of them that their poorest zip code in any metrics that just look at the people who live there is also their wealthiest zip code when you look at its GDP, and that wealth is such an absurdly high amount that it compares well to that of other countries.
As far as the limits that other countries are attempting to impose on us go, the people I’m aware of most being afflicted by that are the source of the problems that plague this company. I am not trying to say that they are criminals. I don’t really know whether or not they are. I am talking about their morals and their lack of appreciation for the bigger picture. They think about themselves, their own gains, and what they think would be cool.
There are at least a few who seem to have some appreciation for the problems of the world. For example, the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation has done a lot to help out. But it hasn’t done enough to counteract all the harm that Bill Gates did to the country and the world in amassing the wealth that he has. Other philanthropists tend to be similar – they’re helpful, but not nearly as helpful had they not perpetrated the evil that put them in the position to become philanthropists.
It’s also not just a dollar thing. When you underpay somebody to the point that they can’t afford their health care and thus die from something that could’ve been easily treated, there’s no amount of money that can bring that person back. When you withhold funding from schools such that they can’t educate their students, you can’t then send those people to education later to get them back to where they should’ve been. Cleaning up pollution is much more expensive after the fact, rather than putting in the infrastructure to not pollute.
Deus says that greed is good, but it only works that way if greed sees the big picture. But most of the time people talk about the big picture, the biggest they can imagine is at most one level up from the person they’re chiding over not seeing the big picture. Most of the time people have talked to me about seeing the big picture, they meant “you’re not thinking about my wallet”, when I was, in fact, thinking about what was good for all of the humans on the planet in the long term.
Of course, if you can think on that scale, a desire for opulence like Deus seems to favor feels unlikely to me. It’s possible that in his particular situation, it’s required, because the Gatlyn people wouldn’t give him the respect he needs to have in order to do the things that need to be done due to their long history of greedy overlords. But I don’t believe that. Maybe it’s required because the Gatlyn supers wouldn’t follow him if he wasn’t promising them something that they can easily believe is better than what they have. But it’s also possible that he’s not actually thinking entirely at that scale.
Of course, the world of grrlpower is one with superhumans, which means they don’t have the same resource constraints we have here. Maybe with super powers, that kind of opulence isn’t counter to saving the world.
To be clear, I’m not saying that I have all of the answers. I know enough to see that the system we have is designed for the benefit of a very exclusive few, to fail for the vast majority of people, and thus to fail for those very exclusive few because they’re not a sustainable set. I do not know enough to design a system that works correctly. I understand that it would need to take care of everybody, that it would need to have us not blaming the other victims of the system for the failings of the system that’s making us all be victims.
I actually agree, Tgape.
I know I am not the best judge of things. I am the son and grandson of soldiers, not any of the special or elite people who actually matter in the US these days. The ones who get away with kidnapping, sedition or outright treason because of who they are or who they support.
I am a student of history and I see where this whole mess is going. So many want some kind of superhero to swoop in and save the day without them having to lift a finger. (See what I did there? :P ) Real life does not work like that and those who realize such tend to work in the bounds of real life for good or ill. The wage gap is a problem and no mistake. But those on all sides who blatantly exploit it for their own benefit if not outright evil are just as much of a problem. I do not blame any one person in the US for the whole country’s issues, although one is trying very hard to become the ultimate evil in the country and we all know who that is. Others think that serving that evil will make things better somehow. I don’t see that happening.
What I see happening is more people driving SUVs through parades. I see dead mothers and dead newborns all over the place. I see more school shootings. I see bawls if not outright gunfights between adherents and opponents of whatever political faction is in power maybe even in government buildings because laws do not matter to the loud and rude anymore if they hold public office. If they ever did actually matter.
The US had the chance to be something better and we threw it away in the need to be apathetic. Maybe I will be surprised at the mid-terms, but I doubt it. I am sure we will see at least one mass shooting at a ballot station, because, why not? Evil wants us afraid. Evil wants us to pause and hope that some superhero swoops in to save us from whatever they have planned. That way they do not have to fight us when they take everything away from us because no superhero is going to swoop in this time.
And anyone who says ‘Trump’ is that hero? All I will say is ‘Grow up and maybe lay off the weed a bit?’.
It all started going downhill after 9/11. within days there were conspiracy theories floating around it was an inside Job.make up the patriot act to easily arrest Muslims to be held with out trial( the ones in Guantanamo still have not had a trial) . start Homeland Security which in only 20 years became the biggest bloated Bureaucracy we have. Rumors/unreliable information gain traction with the masses who have no clue if it actually true. Its ridiculous 40% of Americans think the moon landing was faked
School shootings were the response is more guns,security, student movement restrictions, no lockers or backpacks, metal detectors, ID badges where even if they know who your are if you forget it you have to leave. just seems to me turning the schools more into prisons will just generate more of the mental breakdowns these kids experience that make them do these things.
Well, I am sure that some will demand that schools become armed camps. The kind with minefields, barbed wire and towers that hold machine guns. I saw one nutcase say such and he was ridiculed, but I am sure that others will do it now. The sad truth is, it won’t help.
Criminals will always be able to get their hands on weapons they should not be able to, because they do it outside the law. Nutcases will always be able to slip through cracks in security, because all it takes is one crack and anything made by man has such cracks.
And before anyone suggests ‘Skynet’ to run security for schools… Don’t. Just don’t.
Mental illness is not a simple thing that can be detected like COVID. It can lie in wait for years or decades before lashing out. I know this all too well. I have battled depression since the 1980s. I have had moments of rage but I was lucky. My parents taught me about things like respect, responsibility, duty and honor. All those stupid and pointless things in the modern world that so many of all political persuasions have built of greed, ignorance, apathy and manipulation.
Scared people do dumb things. This has been known since the dawn of recorded human history. Con men and charlatans take advantage of said fear. This has been known for just as long. And that, my friends, is why so many on ALL SIDES want to change what history is taught. Why so many books have to be ‘removed for being inappropriate’. Why so many who DARE to speak out against whoever is saying whatever need to be shouted down or even better, hurt or killed for daring to do so, because they MIGHT be listened to and THAT would be BAD!
The US may have been intended as a democracy. As a historian, I doubt it. I think it was always going to be an autocracy no matter what the Founding Fathers wrote but this? I think they would thrown up their hands and just walk away. Well, that and start to buy guns for the nutcases and criminals come for THEM.
Because anyone with sense knows that certain people got a taste of power and will not give it up for stupid things like laws or lives. Why should they? No one is going to stop them. They can do whatever they want, whenever they want. Why? Because they say so.
Just for the record? ‘I’ have weapons that say they can TRY to do what they want to me and my family but it won’t be as easy as declaring something ‘stolen’ and starting a riot just because they want to be a king or emperor and CAN start one.
“America is a Third World nation with a Gucci belt.”
– Anonymous, Internet
Technically, they are not ‘rip-offs’, as they are made by the same people in the same factory the rich-pricks buy their over-priced shit
It’s why they are impossible to tell them apart (the only difference is… one has the fancy label and the other doesn’t)
I would not be surprised to find that there are exceptionally skilled tailors & seamstresses in the markets where they are going. Clothes shopping in not-the-USA is usually a joy – custom fitting and far-better-prices has been the norm anywhere else I’ve gone. Hoping that Anvil falls in love with the country and we get to see her and Sydney making weekend trips in the future.
When my father was in Mexico city in the 1970s, he had four excellent suits tailored while he waited. They would bring out one suit, measure his size, take it away, bring out another one, and by the time the third one was fully marked, the first would be ready for a second fitting. Some of them needed adjustments the second time, some did not, but going from off-the-shelf to fully tailored was less than an hour wall clock time.
I wonder if another factor is shipping. One of the reasons you get so many Chinese knockoffs, even of electronics, is that it is literally cheaper to ship something from China to the United States than it is too ship from one state to another. Tldr, when international postage rates were established, China was a very poor country. Afterwards, they have retained those extremely favorable rates.
Useful explanation – https://redstagfulfillment.com/universal-postal-union-treaty/
I like how the article glosses over that doubling the rate for packages from China means that it still costs 1/3 of what USPS does for state-to-state shipping.
The USPS is also the best postal service in the world, by many measures. They may not be the absolute cheapest, but their rates are cheaper than most, while their service is better than most, in terms of speed and efficiency.
This is absolutely true… although FedEX and UPS are actually better efficiency-wise. The latter examples also came up with technological innovations that the USPS had no incentive to come up with, like tracking numbers. :) Amazon also has a very impressive shipping service, but to be fair they sort of have piggybacked off of the USPS so they have an unfair advantage that the USPS, FedEx, UPS and DHL do not have for reasons that still escape me (since it makes no sense why the government would have given Amazon such a major advantageous boon).
Still, for the price, the USPS is remarkably efficient and one of the best mail services on the planet, jokes about snail mail and ‘lost in the mail’ anecdotal stories (of which I have many personal horror stories) aside. :)
FedEx and UPS, et al, are not interested in carrying mail.
They only ship packages for a reason, and if we are very, very honest, we will acknowledge the fact that these corporate parasites also give a significant amount of their “service,” over to USPS.
But sure, let’s privatize everything. I’m sure that can’t possibly be a bad idea.
“FedEx and UPS, et al, are not interested in carrying mail.”
I literally use UPS and Fed Ex quite regularly for carrying mail because they’re more reliable for important forms that I frequently have to send to clients, government agencies (like the USPTO, although now it’s mostly done online with TEAS and TEASi), and opposing counsel. Also the rare times I’ve bothered doing real estate closings, I would never rely on the USPS for that instead of UPS or Fed Ex to send any of the letters or packets.
“They only ship packages for a reason,”
They do not only ship packages. They do everything the USPS does. Even PO Boxes. I got a UPS Box instead of my PO Box because it was less expensive, more secure, less prone to getting junk mail, I could use a real address instead of ‘PO Box,’ it was open later, they alert you as soon as any mail is delivered into it, and they are willing to forward it from your UPS box to your home if you want. Or to any other address that you want.
“But sure, let’s privatize everything. I’m sure that can’t possibly be a bad idea.”
Don’t worry, the USPS will never be privatized. It’s specifically written into the Constitution as a required function of government. So unless they change the Constitution itself, the USPS will continue to exist. But it does have competition, which HAS led to improvements in the USPS over the years since UPS and FedEX came into being.
Ah, but you’re in an urban area with high market density where a commensurately high level of service is profitable for UPS and FedEx. Whereas the USPS delivers daily and at a flat rate everywhere because it’s a public service, not a for-profit corporation. Current leadership notwithstanding.
I ship things to a very remote town (~1.5 hours to nearest city) in the US a few times a year – FedEx won’t go there at all, and UPS only sends 1 truck a month unless more packages than usual have accumulated. But USPS delivers and picks up every day (to the local post office not each house, admittedly). This is the first time I’ve even heard of a UPS box.
There’s a certain blindness, among capitalists, that assumes that literally anything and everything can (and should) be done at a profit.
This is why they want to dismantle the Post Office & turn Social Security into a casino, via Wall Street.
The idea that there could ever possibly be something that is done for any reason other than turning a profit is utterly alien to them. But then, they enjoy pretending that humans are exclusively rational economic actors, notability does not exist, and that it’s acceptable to ignore the teeming multitudes of economic & financial losers required to create one ‘winner.’
“There’s a certain blindness, among capitalists, that assumes that literally anything and everything can (and should) be done at a profit.”
This feels a little bit like a strawman argument, since no one said what you’re using as a statement of fact by capitalists. There are certain things which ARE better left in a non-profit arena. But for the most part, profit-based businesses are superior in reliability, and ultimately become cheaper for the consumer, because they have an incentive to advance while public works do not have that same external impetus.
“This is why they want to dismantle the Post Office & turn Social Security into a casino, via Wall Street.”
These are also strawman arguments which no one has ever proposed. The Post Office in particular is mandated in Article 1, Section 8 Clause 7 of the US Constitution as one of the requirements of the federal government’s legislative duties of Congress. However, the Post Office has BENEFITTED from having competition in the form of private mail services like Fed Ex and UPS (such as faster service, weekend service, tracking numbers, and putting the services online, none of which the USPS would have done had UPS and Fed Ex not done it first).
Also Social Security’s problem is that it’s already going bankrupt because there simply haven’t been enough workers kicking in to Social Security.
Like all savers, the Social Security program benefits from high interest rates. Money paid into the Social Security system is invested in bonds and other high-quality securities that pay interest. When rates rise, the Social Security program earns more money, meaning it becomes more solvent. However, rates have been persistently low for years now. If rates remain low for the long term, the Social Security program will simply have to recalibrate with lower income for its beneficiaries.
In addition, life expectancy in the United States is rising, which is generally a good thing. However, when it comes to the mathematics of Social Security, longevity is a killer. Longer lifespans result in higher total payouts, and as the Social Security fund isn’t an endless reservoir of cash, more money flowing out results in less money in the overall pool.
IN ADDITION…. Social Security was created in the midst of the Great Depression. The architects of the program couldn’t possibly have foreseen that there would be a baby boom following a Second World War. The results of that baby boom are currently taking their toll on Social Security, with an estimated 70 million boomers retiring between 2010 and 2030. This amounts to a huge increase in the amount of Social Security beneficiaries. To properly pay out these beneficiaries based on the original formulas, additional revenue is needed by the program.
IN ADDIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTIOOOOOOOOOOOON….. the flip side of the “too many beneficiaries” problem with Social Security is the “not enough workers” problem. As the baby boom has pushed a significant increase of beneficiaries into the system, the worker-to-beneficiary ratio is falling. In just a few years, this ratio has fallen from 2.8 workers per beneficiary to just 2.1. If this ratio continues to drop — or even if it just remains at 2.1 — Social Security will essentially be permanently underfunded.
IN ADDITION x 3…. while higher economic growth translates to higher net revenues, the Treasury Department has stated that the U.S. can’t grow its way out of its Social Security problem. While acknowledging that increased economic growth will certainly help the program, the Treasury Department states that taking action now to reform the program will result in a gradual transition to something more sustainable. Otherwise, drastic actions will have to be taken when the Social Security fund reaches its anticipated exhaustion date in 2041.
In A to the izzy, Ddition to the dizzy…. if you were born in 1960 and intend to file for Social Security benefits in 2022, you might be in for a shock. Thanks to quirks in the Social Security benefit calculation, your benefits might be permanently reduced due to the reduced wages paid in 2020 as a result of the pandemic. According to Andrew G. Biggs, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, “Assuming a 15% decline in the Social Security Administration’s measure of economy-wide average wages in 2020, a middle-income worker born in 1960 could have his annual Social Security benefits in retirement reduced by around 13%, with losses over the retirement period in excess of $70,000.”
Also, in a-d-d-i-t-i-o-n, Social Security cannot handle economic contraction when unemployment rates skyrocket, and with sustained unemployment still in issue, as of June 2021 — there simply haven’t been enough workers kicking in to Social Security. With fewer workers earning a wage and contributing payroll taxes, Social Security revenues have been dramatically lowered.
FINALLY… in addition, and this is the major problem with public works vs private – CONGRESSIONAL STALEMATES. While congressional leaders love to talk about the need to “fix” Social Security from ALL the problems mentioned above, little has been done. Plenty of proposals have been bandied about, from increasing the Social Security retirement age to permanently cutting benefits or increasing the payroll tax. Yet, as of September 2022, no major adjustments to Social Security have been enacted.
“The idea that there could ever possibly be something that is done for any reason other than turning a profit is utterly alien to them.”
Actually capitalists tend to be some of the largest charitable donators in the United States. :) Not to mention businesses tend to have something called ‘corporate social responsibility’ programs (CSR) – the concept that a business has a responsibility to do good. CSR means that a company should self-regulate its actions and be socially accountable to its customers, stakeholders, and the world at large. Almost every major corporation has a program like this, if not multiple programs like this. And not just because of altruism – it’s good for business to be seen as generous and charitable. The consumer base tends to vote with their wallets and wants corporations to at least make a show of making the world a better place while they’re raking in profits. It’s one of the reasons Ben and Jerry’s did so well even when in competition with larger companies like Haagen Daaz or Breyers (aside from their ice cream tasting awesome).
“it’s acceptable to ignore the teeming multitudes of economic & financial losers required to create one ‘winner.’”
The only time there’s ‘one winner’ in capitalism is when monopolies and oligopolies are allowed to exist. Which is because the government is picking winners and losers in the private market. If you prevent monopolies and oligopolies, and enforce that (ie, via the Sherman Antitrust Act), you remove a major problem with capitalism – the possible fall into corporatism (basically the capitalist form of socialism). The problem is federal government (and sometimes some state governments) tends to not enforce the laws, but instead just makes new laws…. which they also do not enforce if the lobbyists pay the legislators enough. This is the other problem – cronyism. Which again is not capitalism – it’s the federal government NOT letting the free market handle the problem and instead the legislators are trying to line their own pockets with what are essentially bribes and insider trading. :)
Btw just to be clear, I am not advocating corporatism. Corporatism is evil and prone to massive corruption, because people are prone to massive corruption in general when put in positions of power, public or private. I do not think that everything needs to be privatized, or should be privatized. I do think that most things benefit from having private competition though, if only to force them to make themselves more efficient, because public works are not actually free – we pay for their upkeep with our taxes and I’d rather those taxes be spent more efficiently.
If having to compete with a private company makes the government more efficient, I see no problem with that.
But I’m NOT advocating for something like OCD in Robocop taking over the government, because that would be just as horrifically dystopian as any communist authority would be. I just want the consumer to have more of an ability to hold those in power accountable for inefficiency and corruption, whether in private or public enterprises, while still maintaining a safety net for those who are at the economically most precarious regions of society (ie, poverty level). Altruism has it’s place in a stable and well-constructed society. I’m not like some sort of Ayn Randian thought process. :) BUT…. altruism cannot be forced by the government, or it is not altruism. It can be suggested by benefits by the government, or by the profit motive and positive public relations in a private business though.
@Pander
Who are you trying convince?
Don’t bother answering that question, until you answer the one I asked you last week, that you continue to dodge & dance around.
@Bharda:
“ Who are you trying convince?”
I will answer anyway. You.:) I am trying to convince you. :) Or anyone else who reads the post.
“ Don’t bother answering that question, until you answer the one I asked you last week, that you continue to dodge & dance around.”
1) I needed the question you asled last week to not be sonopen ended in order to answer it intelligently, hence why I kept asking for elaboration and was asking for what your end gowl was to asking the question as you wrote it. You are a rather intelligent person and I want to give you an equally intelligent answer. Which requires more specificity in your question. Like I’ve said before, I respect you even if we disagree. Which means I want to answer your question correctly and, hopefully, convincingly. For example, if you ask me “whonwas the first president?” I would need to know the first president of what and how it relates to the point we are trying to get to.”
In a court I would be just saying “objection, relevance?” basically. :). But this is a friendly conversation/civil argument so instead, I ask for elaboration, since a yes/no answer would be too vague.
2) I am not sure what the question last week has to do specifically with this thread.
Pander: What property of this oh-so-pure capitalism you believe in prevents regulatory capture? Something like the Sherman Antitrust Act is obviously government interference in the free market.
The core mechanism of capitalism is the cycle of using wealth as leverage to acquire power, and power as leverage to acquire more wealth. Corporatism is the natural end-goal of capitalism. Capitalism requires external boundaries to prevent it from falling. It is not self-regulating, despite what so many of its proponents claim.
Torabi:
“What property of this oh-so-pure capitalism you believe in prevents regulatory capture? Something like the Sherman Antitrust Act is obviously government interference in the free market.”
Why are you putting words in my mouth that I did not say?
I support something like the Sherman Antitrust Act specifically because pure and unadulterated capitalism by itself has some flaws, which the Antitrust Act fixes one of the most major flaws – namely the slide towards corporatism. The other major threat for Capitalism is a possible backslide back to mercantilism, which involves the government getting TOO involved. Think about it like a libertarian principle. Pure libertarianism is a problem, UNLESS you incorporate some sort of modifier, like the Non-Aggression Principle, which fixes a lot of the problems in unfettered libertarianism. Similarly, capitalism’s problem is the tendency for people to group into monopolies and oligopolies, which can trample a person’s right just as easily as socialism or communism can. ESPECIALLY when there’s collusion with the government. Think OCP in Robocop, or other dystopian megacorporation works of fiction.
That’s the reason I incorporate the Sherman Antitrust Act into free market capitalism. It’s a good stopgap measure to keep the free market …. well….. free for competition by new players.
“Corporatism is the natural end-goal of capitalism”
No. Corporatism is the end goal to unfettered capitalism, just like mob rule is the natural end goal of unfettered democracy, and anarchy is the natural end goal of unfettered libertarianism. The key word here is ‘unfettered.’ It’s the main purpose for HAVING a government in a ‘free nation’ in the first place. To keep the status quo going once you get society to a productive place which still recognizes the liberty of individuals.
It always confuses me when people want to go to the EXTREME example, as if there’s no way to put a stopgap measure or fix to a system’s flaws. And the main flaw, as you’ve stated (and I’ve stated in the past) is corporatism. Which the Sherman Antitrust Act fixes… IF the government actually ENFORCES that act, in order to prevent monopolies and oligopolies, which they unfortunately don’t always do. The last big time they did was when they broke up Ma Bell. They should have done it for a LOT of other monopolies and oligopolies though – Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, to name four of the biggest monopolistic problems (with Amazon’s main problem being that they get massive tax breaks from the federal government while competitors do not). Disney had this problem as well as the other 6 major media corporations.
“Capitalism requires external boundaries to prevent it from falling.”
Um…. yes. That’s what the Sherman Antitrust Act is for. Although I think we also need an Internet ‘Bill of Rights’ to bring make the Bill of Rights apply to a lot of the tech monopolies since they’re often quasi-governmental because of how in sync they are with the federal government… much like Sallie Mae and Freddie Mac were in the real estate market.
Pander:
I already knew your stance was a bit more nuanced, because of prior discussion, but in isolated posts, you tend to come across as in favor of what you’re now calling “unfettered capitalism”, particularly when you’re shilling for Deus.
But here’s the thing: that distinction between total, unfettered, pure and unadulterated, free-market capitalism and functioning capitalism is exactly what Bharda and I have been trying to discuss with you. But in the past, you’ve claimed there is no such distinction. I feel like that wasn’t all that long ago… Ah, here we go:
What I’m describing is capitalism capitalism.
There is no economic term called ‘benevolent capitalism’ or ‘negative capitalism.’
It’s just Capitalism. Period.
And this is what happens. The advocates for capitalism increasingly have to qualify it… or rather, as you’ve done, assume these various external safeguards are intrinsic to the idea of capitalism, that it’s just capitalism. You define capitalism in such a way that minimizes or negates its flaws, and magnifies its successes. It’s hard to have an honest conversation when you’ve stacked the language in your favor.
You can’t fix a system’s flaws if you’re not willing to recognize them in the first place. That’s the exact reason to examine the extreme examples — if you’re going to construct boundaries to shape a system, you need to look at the edge cases. How will the system fail, if there are no guard rails?
“Ah, but you’re in an urban area with high market density where a commensurately high level of service is profitable for UPS and FedEx.”
I did the same thing even when I lived in Toledo, Ohio. And the places I’d mail to were places which were not always big cities. They were also small towns.
“I ship things to a very remote town (~1.5 hours to nearest city) in the US a few times a year – FedEx won’t go there at all, and UPS only sends 1 truck a month unless more packages than usual have accumulated.”
I’m relatively certain that FedEX will deliver there actually, at least now. Although yet, the fact that the USPS does not need to make a profit is one of reasons it can make regular deliveries to places which are in the middle of nowhere. That being said… UPS and Fed Ex can and have made regular deliveries to McMurdo Station in Antarctica. Talk about middle of nowhere. :)
“This is the first time I’ve even heard of a UPS box.”
You should check it out if you use a PO Box. Much cheaper option and a lot more secure and reliable.
Also if you went into a UPS store or a Fed Ex, you’d see them. They’re at every single store. :) I think that only DHL does not have them.
FedEx, UPS, DHL, and Amazon all hand off packages to the USPS that they don’t want to deliver to, because they’re too far out of the way. On the other hand, a substantial portion of USPS mail is transported on FedEx’s planes, and has been since 9/11.
This is true, on both counts.
Size of clothes don’t matter that much when you share house with fashion ninjas. Just out the clothes in your wardrobe, close the door and when you open it they will fit perfectly.
Always!
Expect!
Ninjas!
Also Nunjas!
Nunjas, is that ninja nuns? Well you wouldn’t expect nuns to be ninjas right?
Both wear black and live in secretive communities, I mean what’s the difference?
Nuns are sexy hot?
Ninjas might be sexy too but since they hide we will never know.
Ninja 3: The Domination.
Also beware the Flying Nunjas!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CojNHPD_cOU
I used to watch that show.
Heck, I used to watch ‘toons like Mighty Mouse on Saturday mornings, which is even worse than this.
God, reminders like that make me feel old…
Howsabout Warrior Nuns?
Lookout! SATAN!
– The best nunja defense
Oh yes, we’re totally going to believe that Sydney becomes orbless after the way this comic started.
I’m betting its just that she needs a long rest for the orbs to fully recharge themselves through the ether, typical sorceress recharge spiel. That or she needs to throw the orbs into nuclear waste to absorb all of the energy off of them.
Or the user may need to sacrifice the soul of a virgin.
Well, Dabbler is definitely safe.
Or she just really needs to eat something.
Or she needs to go for a dip in the… remember where she found the orbs?
Or to eat a good curry.
And I 100% expect her to phrase it as a “Long Rest to regain all her expended Orb Points”, as well as an eventual argument of the necessity of exactly 8 hours to do it.
I don’t think Dave’s trying to convince us that she will. He’s trying to show her worried about it. We know she’ll be OK, because this stuff is more or less part of the superhero journey.
As if we are ever going to catch up to the “3 months ago” bit. Up to 1096 pages and still no closer.
I’m hoping the current timeline never catches up the original intro, and that Dave has a final page prepped (to be posted post-humously many decades hence) that says “anyway that’s my backstory, time to start some real adventures! Fin.”
We’ve had a semi-timeskip when Sydney got portalled into the future, then another to her graduation.
Time is moving slowly, but it’s moving.
If Dave decides to retcon it all I’m fine with that. Continuity schmontinuity. I’m mostly here for the jokes.
And the puns?
Shirley, you can’t be serious.
Totally cereal, and don’t call me ‘Shirley’
This comment section never disap-pun-ts
UI was going to let this thread go. I was totally not going to do anything about it because it was Airplane nostalgia.
Then Voyager ruined it by this pun which should, by all fair assessments, be considered a crime against humanity. For SHAME, Voyager!
Ninja hit squad en route.
It’s a feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behavior, but that’s not important right now.
See… this sort of thing I’d let slide since it’s not a pun, just an Airplane reference.
Although Brichins probably has a ton of ninja after him right now for all of his other transgressions against humor. :)
so your saying flying puns that speed on by are ok? that does make sense Ninjas are a fly by night operation.
You can kill me, but you can’t force me to pander to you by not using puns!
I’m sending a six pack of ninja hit squads to you for THAT pun.
heres the part that bothers me… the RP session that apparently hasn’t happened yet as we are still in the flashback is where the light passing through a forcefield question originated. this question was answered in the aftermath of the steakhouse fight. so somehow the question was answered before it was asked.
I’m sure I’m not the first one to notice this…. maybe the last orb is a paradox machine!
I am confused by your confusion. It’s probably the fact that Hex’s laser didn’t penetrate Sydney’s shields, and her conversation about that fact with Dabbler, that led to her making those assertions during the RP session at the beginning of the comic.
crap… its worse. Lasers don’t go through Sydney’s shield. so in the RP session she tried to argue something that she knew wasn’t necessarily the case as her shield is clear but does not allow lasers through it.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-294-sydneys-mighty-need/
Yeah, you’re just not getting it. The questions in the RP session are not “honest questions”, they’re her trying to lead to a specific outcome, based on her knowledge. Lasers are blocked by some shields, and pass through others, and her argument was that Kopykraut didn’t have the ability to make his copied shield power block lasers.
She’s trying to Rules Lawyer them into a stupor to allow her to break the rules, aka legal cheating
Well, some people can’t remember what happened on the previous page, let alone the first pages of the comic. So I’m sure some people would believe it.
Smash cut to the confirmation of the ever-popular theory of Sydney’s profanity being a power source. Miss Scoville, lay on the burn!
Even better:
It turns out that the orbs are powered through the user consuming capsaicin. There’s a reason they chose Miss Scoville. She was the first human they encountered with a capsaicin level high enough for them.
When was the last time she had a good curry, again?
Imagine how powerfull captain Haddock would be if he had the orbs.
I think I hurt myself trying to comprehend this glory. For a split second the world went white and I heard a 1000 Hz tone.
And then give him a Red Lantern ring, a bottle of whisky and some of Popeyes spinach.
I miss the original Sydney, who had such a filthy mouth that she literally made nuns and sailors blush. She hasn’t sworn in ages.
In the “What’s all this then?” blurb in the upper right, it says “Rated R for language. Seriously, Sydney has a filthy mouth.” I think Dave needs to review this. Personally, I’d prefer the return of the filthy mouth.
I would prefer it didn’t. As for last swear, I believe she at least got a few rants in during the alien fight on the Alari world.
To be fair, Sydney got chewed out by her superior for swearing too much. She is almost always in-uniform and in public, meaning she should not swear. Now during that Girl’s Night Out arc for example, she definitely could have eased up and sung some swears. I agree with your criticism.
Cue stupid mugging attempt in next 3 pages. Perfect excuse to verbally tear a strip off someone, while trying not to overuse the lighthook.
It’s amusing to think of her that way, but I personally find the actual swearing boring, even when it’s creative. I just kind of gloss over it, because it typically doesn’t contain any useful information.
+1 to this sentiment.
I feel the explanation would likely be that Anvil told Max about Sydney’s current state and decided that while she’d prefer they be there she thinks they’ll be fine without them and that Getting Sydney to not have a complete breakdown would be a better use of their time.
Sydney almost getting shot in the face by an Ascender mid-boss might also be a good reason to keep her home from that particular mission, at least until she’s a bit less green.
I’m still greatly curious to see how Archon’s raid on the Ascenders goes. ArcLight & Dark have had lots of time (and Cora’s neuro-bug) to gather intelligence since they rescued Concretia / Anima. I’m looking forward to seeing how ArcSWAT handles a situation they’re prepared for, instead of constantly being in reaction mode.
If max needs dabbler for her investigation skills, doesn’t she have a personal dimension door spell or cool magitech personal fligher she can jump in to make it back to base without Halo? I understand Halo is more convenient normally, but you can tell me Dabbler is stranded without her.
right that’s what I was gonna say
It’s possible but the energy she’d need would put both Sydney and Anvil in a semi-coma, not ideal… LOL. Dabs may know a spell but like when Sydney was left behind there’s a lot of calculations she’d have to make and that would still leave the other two stranded. The “Blink” spell she used during the first super fight took a lot out of her which is a basic teleport spell for short distances.
Yeah, but everybody knows spells without a casting time penalty are especially high in MP cost. You’re basically just brute forcing them to work and to hell with how much manna gets consumed in the process.
But I don’t think we’ve seen any evidence that Dabbler has a long range teleport spell.
Krona might actually be able to tell if Syd’s balls are running dry, with her fancy reality hacking visors.
Especially since her powers seem to be linked to the orbs. Her interface has the same color breakdown as the orbs, and is in the same order as what seems to be the default orb rotation whenever they are near each other.
Krona taps into the same energy the orbs do so she can see it but Krona doesn’t know enough of her own powers to be sure of anything. The orbs are so advanced it’d be a case of the blind leading the blind. I don’t know about anyone else but I wouldn’t let a car mechanic tinker with a atomic bomb…
Krona: “Well I think I’ve narrowed it down to this one single switch. Flipping it will either give the orbs full charge from our yellow sun, or reverse their polarity and absorb the entire Earth through a singularity. For an estimated 27% recharge and a voided warranty. I’m at about 60/40 on that, tell me again how sure are we that it’s vital for Halo to keep her powers?”
*flips the switch*
“…well either it worked, or we’re now living through infinitely-stretched time in the event horizon. Guess we’ll know when we try to contact another planet.”
There are those who believe that if Sydney’s orbs are reset, the universe will disappear and be replaced with something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There are also those who believe this has already happened.
*flips the switch a few more times*
“You maniac!”
With Krona’s ability to edit reality maybe she can just top up the Orbs’ fuel tank.
Krona: “So Sydney, do you take regular or hi-octane?”
Oh, those going shopping eyes. The truth is. Not many like going shopping the ones who do. Look like that when they get a good excuse to go, shopping.
My wife used to get that look every payday… Took me years to convince to her that I was making decent money, not that we were rich! We were married maybe 2 years and she seen this rabbit fur coat, she just HAD to have it… I finally agreed to get it for her and she wore it just once… When I asked her why not she admitted it shed and didn’t like that… IT WAS A FUR COAT! jeezz…. So never again…
Wait a minute…
Is that ‘mission prep’ I see Max doing? She didn’t use her pistol in the fight with Darude.
If so, I think the Ascenders (The guys who sent the good squad in) are in for a VERY bad day.
Darude was a cloud of sand. Clouds of sand are notoriously resilient against bullets
Also, Max and Hiro are wearing armour. These two people are extremely tough by normal standards and then they put armour on top of that. They are definitely going to ruin somebody’s day. I expect results involving long-term incarceration or loss of life, or maybe both (death penalty, after being on death row for 10 years as all the legal processes work their way through the courts).
Maxima and Hiro are so tough wearing armor isn’t going to be much help – these vests are probably just standard issue “part of the uniform”.
“…We’re literally impossible to harm with conventional means, why are we issued armor?”
“Uniform code is uniform code.”
Might also be for the same reason Maxima has a gun. A statement of intent and threat more than a practical and needed tool. “We bothered to put on armor, this is serious shit.” Or possibly as a full uniform it is concealing enough to hide who is inside the armor, making it harder to specifically counter each person.
…Or maybe she’s just tired of having her clothing destroyed at an inconvenient time.
And maybe camouflage?
I mean, there are times when being all big or shiny is good, but sneaking into places that are likely guarded is not one of those times. I think I remember Max saying that makeup just slid off her skin so camo paint won’t do anything either.
Reply: “Armor has more of a chance of surviving a violent encounter intact than normal uniforms.”
“Oh, right.”
“Because we’re facing an unconventional enemy, with largely unknown resources.”
“…”
“…and, uniforms are intimidating.”
“Wait…did you just quote Burn Notice?”
“Who do you think was a consultant on the show?”
I really loved Burn Notice.
Although I’m not sure if it was because the show itself was great (it was) or because it had Bruce Campbell in it, for whom I have a bit of a crush and have ever since I first watched The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. as a little kid.
I loved the first season of it as a modern MacGyver/Bond mix, but lost interest after a couple seasons when it got too repetitive.
Well in this case they maybe prepping against another attack while waiting on Dabs and Sydney’s return. I have my doubts they have enough info to mount a counter attack just yet.
Makes sense to remain armored and on high alert for the time being, but to me that conflicts with her prepping or maintaining her sidearm right now. Sure, she can strip, clean, and reassemble it in the blink of an eye, but she also is mindful of displaying good habits for the rest of the team.
Most likely she’s cleaning the sand out of it, which would’ve been tricky to do over the ocean at top speed.
Maxima’s own blasts are more powerful than her gun – she uses it mostly for intimidation, sometimes for measured force. It’s really not used all that much.
Max’s “finger blasts” can melt/burn/vaporize while her hand-cannon not only intimidates but can have an effect from “get your attention” to “blood splatter” depending on the defenses of the super she’s fighting.
And let’s face it, if you saw a 6ft golden amazon pointing her finger at you, you’d look at her chest first, while the same pointing the biggest hand gun you’ve ever seen, the gun would be all you’d look at!
One has to wonder if Chimyriad already notified them of her location.
I would think dabbler should have some way to teleport them….if she can obviously
She probably has the capacity to teleport them, but not the legal right to do so… Remember, she’s not supposed to share her tech with Earth, and having her tech directly benefitting an Earth government like that might be skirting it a little too close to what intergalactic authorities would like…
While Sydney (once recharged) and Maxima could likely fend off literally any force sent to Earth, they can’t be everywhere at once, and so an intergalactic authority would still be a huge problem for Earth to have to prove that they are a separate, sovereign power. Might doesn’t make right, but it is what’s used to establish jurisdictional boundaries.
“She probably has the capacity to teleport them, but not the legal right to do so” No, that was a choice she made.
I kinda wonder if Sydney’s orbs were at FULL power she could expand her shield to the point of covering part if not the entire planet. It would make for a huge plot line down the road. We already know that magic and even Harem’s teleport can’t cross it.
On the one hand, the author would never actually permanently de-power their own main character in a superhero comic.
On the other hand, “Oh no I lost my superpowers now I have to think my way out of problems” is a well-established plot for the smaller arcs.
Permanently depowering Sydney would be a violation of continuity. Remember, we’re still in flash back mode because she isn’t a corporal yet. See Page 4.
Though page 4 says “back up a few months” and we’re technically well beyond more than a few months… unless Sydney was massively understating how much she was going to flash back.
Also, you do realize the whole reason she’s the main character is that all of this is HER flash back, right?
Is it technically well beyond a few months if she’s looking at it from her perspective?
And the perennial question: “Exactly how much is *a few*??”
Maybe a de-powered Sydney will still be their premier strategist, or start working with Arianna and Leon and 10x all their personal merch revenues and tech capabilities. Or leverage her galactic connections and/or rapport with Deus to bring alien tech to Earth for Archon’s exclusive use.
Never forget that the nerds are really the most powerful members of the team.
Small arcs to some series and whole series premise to others.
Gosh, what if the ridiculously advanced artifacts run on a AAA and it runs out. Seems somewhat suspect.
Although I am also skeptical that same ridiculously advanced artifacts don’t come with a help file.
Oh well, some hand waving must happen for the plot to go on.
Perhaps they run on a galaxy-wide SEP field and she just keeps drawing too much attention. Footage of Earth’s new landmark has probably been making its way onto the galactic interwebz during their flight, they could be at real risk of a transportation rug pull if it goes viral.
There’s a huge help database about them… just go to http://www.somefuckingalienarsedwebsite.spaceMOFO
Mostly Harmless!? Yeah, right! You saw what they did to a Fel battleship! Damn right, you have to update the entry. Well, as soon as this Ford guy gets back, you need to get on that.
Oh, not that database. I get it. Just look in the brown orb for instructions.
Ford actually wrote a lot more than two words but the editors shortened it a lot. :)
From the outcropping to out shopping.
Sydney has to drive 55.
That seems…. unprofessional of Kenya, given the situation. If I were to take a guess, however, this will set them on a collision course with a certain possessing Villain from the past. (whose name escapes me at the moment because I am horrible with names)
It’s exactly what Sydney needs to distract her from her existential dread
Maybe she’ll find a new McGuffin to recharge from.
The elemental power cubes of rubix. The first 4 of the set of 14. Got to collect them all! Pity they dont seem to do anything and have a sphere shaped hole in the center of each of them.
Sci-fright? Or, as she is now known, Scorpina
That was it. Thanks.
Sciora (Scorpina) landed somewhere with Spanish as the predominant language. In Senegal, French is predominant. I don’t think they’re going to run into Sciora here.
I’m myself partial to Esciona, and I think it’s probably somewhere in South/Middle America.
Who real name is ‘Sciona’, not ‘Sciora’ :)
What, they couldn’t be in actual Spain? They don’t have criminals or drug cartels in Spain?
There’s a “Birds of Mexico and Central America” book visible in the Esciona scene, so it’s probably Mexico, definitely Central America.
I dunno… (rubs chin thoughtfully)
Jack Ryan was just an analyst and he got a TON of field experience…..
I dunno (rubs shin thoughtfully…)
Jack Ryan was just an analyst, and he got a TON of field experience
I could sydney becoming ‘the guy in the van’ type support role. Only I suspect here it would be a command room with a bunch of screens using remote sensors to feed her real-time data.
I mean, once they find out about the glassing of Galytn, I imagine there’s going to be an even greater number of Supers “NOPE”ing the hell out of any confrontation with Archon.
Eh,…
The ones with brains did that ANYWAY after Max showed what she could do. Sydney was impressive, yes, but Max was frankly a bit terrifying. Completely intentional.
My big question is WTF is Max going to do with a pistol? She can throw things and deliver more kinetic energy. Or is that the point, and the huge pistol is her “non-lethal” option?
There was an earlier strip where she demonstrates to Sydney on the firing range just how much of an intimidation factor a giant gun is. And, of course, we saw her employing it against Brüt.
She explained this to Sydney years back. The gun is her “non-lethal” option because it scares people. Her finger’s more dangerous, but people haven’t properly learned to be afraid of it.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-327-ask-a-self-evident-question/
Panel 3 is the best. That is all :D
I am going to make the brave guess that by “going shopping” Anvil actually means “going to acquire transportation”.
Or less conspicuous clothing so they can get a commercial flight.
Well, yeah, a lot of people shop for more than clothes and food, some actually shop for planes or boats (or boat planes and plane boats)
A sydney transportable speed boat.
If they dont make it by flight…
I’m making the brave guess that by “Going Shopping” Anvil actually means “Keep Sydney from falling into a pit of gloom.”
If Syd has never spent time outside the US the prices and services at an African marketplace are going to be a novelty and a treat.
And while nobody is going to have “Size Amazon” on the rack, Anvil is going to be able to find someone who’ll take her measurements in the morning and do the final fitting in the afternoon and still come in drastically below off-the-shelf costs in the USA.
Anvil has multiple bags of clothes for Max to try on “eventually”, pretty sure she means clothes shopping.
Sydney 30 seconds into range of market.
“Spices!!!!! – sniff- yeppers dems peppers.”
You can get paper bags filled with spices there, cheap as fuck.
Her emergency tree-fiddy covered to local currency would get her a ton of spices, more if in raw form. Like cinnamon bark right off the tree, the real spicy stuff with sap still in it.
Eating a raw pepper might impress the merchant a wee bit too.
And the food stalls…not recommended without full shots and antibiotics and antivirals handy.
Flies are everywhere and in everything.
Her glasses are gonna be great help to her there.
Let’s say the get a full day’s worth of shopping in.
And suddenly brown ball eats all the exotics there.
She initial hopes brown ball has a hammer space tak inventory system.
Last large panel would be her cursing lod enough that animals react as if to Tarzan’s call, only in reverse.
I’m betting her orb-travel companions will prevent her from actually consuming anything spicy, given they have to ride with her in an enclosed space for at least several hours.
From my military experience this stuff happens all the time. You’re ALWAYS on call so if there’s nothing pressing going on or you just need to kill time you go shopping, catch a movie, go for a walk, etc.
In fairness to Sydney, I too would be dreading the loss of the ability to be my own spaceship.
My nickname for Anvil is Thunderjugs.
Also, my nickname for JiggaWatt is JiggleTw……. never mind.
“I won’t be get to be a superhero” — While I can definitely see a depressed Sydney changing her wording midsentence — humans do that — I’m is that garble a typo rather than deliberate?
(“I’m is that” was indeed an unintentional editing goof. Though an appropriate one
I’m gonna double down on this.
I think Sidney’s just stressed out. She needs a little time off, some R&R to reconnect with her old life. A shopping trip with the girls might help, but playing D&D with the old gang would help way more.
She really didn’t volunteer for this and she hasn’t had a chance to process any of it. And this has been a constant evolution of crisis and she’s being trained by fire mostly.
She will eventually reach a breaking point.
Now I’m picturing the ‘Past the breaking point’ Sydney, and I am seeing the mysterious final Orb igniting and she just… serenely takes apart whatever the threat was… By which I mean reduces it to monatomic dust because she found the replicator/repair kit.
and then she throws up when she realizes what she’s done.
And yes, I mean she breaks all the energy bonds in the molecules of the threat, reducing the threat to a cloud of unassociated single-atom particles, rather than, for example, lumps/puddles/clouds of 16 kilograms carbon, 7 kilograms hydrogen, 1.8 kilograms nitrogen, 1 kilogram calcium, 780 grams phosphorus, 140 grams each potassium and sodium, 100 grams chlorine, and 19 grams magnesium.
To be fair, if I suddenly discovered I had that potential in such a way, I too would post-action-scene hork. The reality of just… Erasing something or someone by returning it to its basic elements with a thought is a terrifying amount of control over the very nature of reality.
What if her orbs can only be recharged by being exposed to Dubstep?
Or extract capsicum from the users bloodstream.
Or watching the last season of Game of Thrones and keeping a smile on your face the entire time.
Unironic smile? Or ‘Please-kill-me-now’ smile?
Unironic smile. An ‘I am so happy about this storyline’ smile.
So, Sydney’s balls will never get recharged then
LOL
Is Sydney in panel 2 meant to be saying “I wont be get to be a superhero anymore” rather than “I wont get to be”
I hate to say it, but the whole plot line with the orbs being exhausted really doesn’t jibe with Sydney’s great space adventure, when she was zooming around the galaxy, blasting multiple giant space aliens, etc., without apparently taxing the orbs at all.
That might be part of WHY they’re drained now.
She has kinda been working constantly and under stress since that event.
So if I draw 90% of a batteries power, it becomes a infinite power source?
Fascinating “theory” you got there. Personally I think I would be at 10% charge.
If it’s a non-rechargable or slowly recharging energy source, this might just mean she has drained them over time.
Also she hasn’t actually taxed them that much during her space adventure. During the squid fight she has only turned on the PPO for short bursts, which allows it to recharge, and probably not been flying fast. Glassing the desert, however, means putting the PPO on full blast for 15 minutes straight. That will drain a battery.
(We have no idea how much energy opening an Aetherium Causeway takes, either way.)
Krona might be able to figure things out with the orbs but it would take time and with this new threat and a team member MIA things are a bit pressing so Sydney is like a main asset that’s down for repairs. Or a better look at it she’s a spent asset in need of reloading. If time is all that’s needed then going shopping for things that might help them travel safer might be enough for them to get home. Plus the orbs may only need a large number of people close by to trickle in enough to start the recharge cycle.
I’m banking on the brown orb just has to be activated to recharge the rest of them.
You have to remember that Krona might go crazy if she really studies the orbs though. And thanks to Deus’s presentation we might know why.
I remember it well, I think those two could spend hours and hours staring at her orbs, the real trick is for Krona being handy when Sydney’s orbs have a point to spend so far it’s been hit and miss. The first time it was just luck. they have been together more than once since and she didn’t see anything so when it’s upgrade time they “open up” to Krona I guess? It’d be like trying to look over an engine when the hood is still shut. Sydney is waaaaaaaaay to far from that kind of control over them.
“Depowerment Doom”
The unique dread if you realize your powers (and thus your ability to be a super) are in danger of vanishing.
Sydney is super luckily that the orbs didn´t need recharge in the middle of a battle
I’m still trying to wrap my head around Sydney running out of juice after melting a bit of desert, but not after defeating demon warriors and opening interdimensional gates. Does it turn out that warping space time requires no more than a couple AA batteries?
The “melting a bit of desert” is actually extremely energy intensive, more than any combat that doesn’t make mushroom clouds.
We have no idea how much energy the orbs’ method of opening aetherium causeways requires. Apparently it’s not a regular wormhole.
Which she uses for prank food gifts.
You’re not thinking this through: It’s like being shocked that, after spending all night playing Youtube videos on your phone, it decides to run out of juice while you’re sending a text message. How can that be?
Until she charges it, all the energy costs keep accumulating. Flying off after glassing some desert was just the straw that broke the already exhausted camel’s back.
I would bet you money that the orbs recharge every time Sydney levels up. It might not be the *only* way to recharge them, but I’ll bet that’s what’s been happening, especially during the thrilling space demon combat. Melting the desert was a high energy drain, and it was certainly clever, but it was still a very basic use of an orb. Nothing that would have gotten her a lot of XP. Now figuring out she can puff out clouds of pure nitrogen? That probably got her on the way to her next level! A few more tricks like that, especially now that she has to figure out how to make do with less power, and she’ll probably be just fine!
More likely, they recharge when she sleeps, considering they just kind of… zonk out when she loses consciousness.
Given that the orbs are un/semi-consciously controlled by the user, I wonder if they’re normally stationary for other users and only hover and circle because of Sydney’s ADHD.
Bet it involves involves some tantric woofs.
Would explain why the original orb owner would have chosen earth. Could also explain why the last bookmark in the aethrial gate was fuzzy. Drained of power and/or chosen to hide like needle in haystack.
On the other hand…. are more fingers and Syd has not had anything dangerously spicy in ages
Possible TYPO in panel 2: “I won’t be get to be a superhero anymore.” The first be should be omitted.
Dave, I wouldn’t worry about Max’s reflective skin too much. The brushed gold chrome look you normally use is just fine. Making her a highly reflective is fun when Dabbler is making faces in her the curved reflection of Max’s boobs. But doing it all the time will be a rabbit hole that you should avoid. Beyond that taking massive time I’m guessing you don’t have, it also means that you would get some goofy results if you did get all the reflection true. Case in point in panel 8, with that angle and with Max looking straight down the chamber. The back face of gun should be project across Max’s face with the empty chamber centered on her eye. Add in the contours of her face and the distance and Max gets a strange mask at best and a pirate eye at worse.
Why would the gun be on her eye, specifically? Nothing at all should be “projected”, she’s a curved reflective surface and nothing is shining its image at her. Any reflection should be a (fainter) version of what you’d see if she had a makeup mirror glued on that point, +/- distortion for the curvature (like either side of a spoon).
Her skin should reflect whatever is in line with a ray from the POV bouncing off that point on her skin. So the gun breach might be visible on each cheek and maybe smaller on her nose, and that’s it. The gun reflection on her forehead is just wrong, the rest of the room should be visible there.
I really like this coloring style! It gives depth while keeping things cartoony enough that the faces in panels 5 and 9 don’t look freaky and jarring relative to the rest of the art. I also admire Max’s shininess on this page; nicely legible yet unintrusive background in that panel too. The rock backgrounds mostly blur together, but I assume that’s what you were going for? You could probably simplify them more if you wanted to, all that fancy texturing seemed a bit wasted once I actually zoomed in to take it in. Actually…yeah, it’s a little weird for the background to have more detailed (though subtle) texturing than the characters (like how there are individual water droplets in the wave crash, and all that fractured(?) coloring on the rocks); usually farther away objects appear to have less detail.
Overall I’m a fan of this art direction, and this is a very nice page!