Grrl Power #1200 – Mundanonyms
For those of you wondering who CoCoPineapple was, well, here’s your answer. In case you don’t recall, which is fair since it’s been like 850 pages since his last appearance, he’s the financial advisor who prevented Sydney from maybe possibly immediately bankrupting herself on rare comic memorabilia. As for the name CoCoPineapple in Arianna’s phone, “cocoa” as in chocolate, used here very much as a term of affection, and pineapple, as in a pineapple (Mk 2) grenade, AKA, a frag grenade, AKA, something that produces shrapnel. It’s a holdover pet name from college.
That of course doesn’t explain why Arianna has herself labeled as “PRHotBlonde” in her own phone. It’s possible I thought that the text scroll showed you what the other person used as your handle, but on reflection that’s probably not true, since I’m sure some people have unflattering handles in their contact list like “SuperBitchExWife” or “Terrible Kisser Guy in Phillies Jersey who I let get to second base anyway because Tequila is my personal nemesis.” I’ve never messed with that on my own phone so it didn’t seem super important honestly. Let’s just assume that Aurelius changed her name on her own phone one evening and she thought it was cute.
How Sydney didn’t notice Arianna’s full name on, for instance, the door to her office, business cards, any press briefings that had one of those info scroll bar thingies at the bottom, or any press releases that got CCed to everyone before release, or any time Arianna introduced herself to someone in a professional setting and presumably used her last name is another matter entirely.
The timing of Arianna texting her hubby to book it to the base and the amount of time Sydney and Parfait seemed to have while they were making out doesn’t quite make sense. Unless that makeout session lasted for like 45 minutes or something, and it definitely didn’t. For one thing, there’s no way a lust-addled succubus is going to be put off for that long, for another, Sydney would be mostly hickey from the waist up. The only way it works out is if when Parfait’s lust aura got interrupted, it took like an hour for the effects to attenuate. That means this “emergency assembly” took a really long time to actually assemble, but that’s a much better situation than if Parfait’s aura just stopped cold, and suddenly a base full of supers snapped back to their fully rational senses mid-thrust like a bucket of ice water got thrown on them. This meeting would have definitely gone differently if that was the case, but apparently Parfait’s aura has a long “afterglow tail” on it.
The August vote incentive is up! Yeah I know it’s late, so hopefully I’ll manage to get some bonus (read: overdue) incentives up as I attempt to catch up.
Oh no! Sydney’s been injured! A Wampa may or may not have been involved, I’ll leave the exact nature of the incident up to you. It’s not relevant to the picture. And before you’re like “Dave, Bandaged Rei is one thing, but floating unconscious in a bacta tank is probably an even narrower fetish.” just check the picture out.
The Patreon version has nudes and variants, and a comic that reveals something interesting about the orbs.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
With a last name like Shrapnel, I’m a tad surprised Arianna’s handle wasn’t “Blondbombshell” or something to that effect. Unless that’s what’s on Aurelius’ phone for her >.>
That could potentially get confusing with a certain blond thrower of kinetic energy explosion themed super who appeared in Kevin’s Super Rumble.
How come Sydney didn’t realise….
People tags. Not the same as people. Quite common occurrence for those of us who are “neurodivergent”.
( can we draw, quarter and hang the [censored] who came up with that particularly loathsome term? plzthx..)
“neurodivergent” is one of those terms that sounds a lot like one that somebody would come up with when incompetently flailing to find a word after they realize that what they were using before was incredibly more offensive.
That’s probably neither a good state of mind to come up with a better word nor the right person for it.
The fact that someone can find medical terminology like “neurodivergent” offensive just shows how much we’ve regressed intellectually as a society
The fact that someone can find medical terminology like “cis” or “birthing person” offensive just shows how much we’ve regressed intellectually as a society
Until a biological male can conceive and give birth, then “birthing person” is offensive as it was intended to be
The term isn’t used to mean males or people who used to be males, so why the hell would males giving birth be necessary to use the term? Ya judging it offensive while not even knowing how the term is used
You do realize people transition both ways, right?
There are people capable of giving birth who don’t identify as women.
A lot of people pretend that trans men don’t exist because it completely destroys their narrative.
True on all sides (not ‘both’, I can count at least three distinct groups) of the debate, actually. Transmen are only remembered to exist by most trans activists when they need a ‘gotcha’.
> Transmen
Oh, so you’re a blondewoman?
> only remembered to exist by most trans activists when they need a ‘gotcha’.
Not true. They’re mostly not talked about because they’re not under as much attack.
Actually, there’s been several cases where those ‘language guides’ only change language for referring to women, but not for men, who get to keep their terms. And as for transwomen facing more resistance, that’s because a transman who goes into a men’s changing area is only putting himself at risk, while the transwoman who goes into a woman’s changing area is forcing all the women in there to make threat-assessments. (See the Wi Spa incident, in which it was determined after the fact that the particular transwoman who was at the center of the controversy had, in fact, been charged with indecent exposure on multiple occasions prior to identifying as trans.)
“those ‘language guides’ only change language for referring to women, but not for men”
Citation fucking needed.
“transwoman”
Seriously, are you German or something? English not your native language?
I know like four trans men in my daily life, so it’d be pretty hard to forget about them. They’re about as common as trans women these days.
Then why use a neutral pronoun like ‘person’ if you aren’t including males?
“birthing person” isn’t offensive, it is just excessively convoluted and superfluous as a term. “chest feeder” is all three.
Not true.
Trans women are able to breastfeed just fine, but can’t (yet) give birth.
The day medical technology allows people to completely transition from 1 gender to another with side effects or long term issues will be a wonderful day for many people. In the process of building up to that technology there is a high chance that other breakthroughs such as regenerative medicine, life extension, and broad spectrum cancer cures will be found.
> medical technology allows people to completely transition from 1 gender to another with side effects or long term issues
Congratulations! We’re already there. (Except for all the bigots)
Oh, sorry, did you mean sex, not gender? We’re already ~90% of the way there.
Only things missing on the medical front (rather than all the bigots) are functional gonads, wombs and nerve-triggered erections (we already have physically triggered erections).
They’re the only bits we can’t do already that actually matter. (And before you start ranting about chromosones, they’re irellevent. Why should anyone care about editing the blueprints after the house is already built?)
I think that Crim might not be referring to surgical procedures, but he instead is referring to something like where the transition doesn’t have to be continually re-enforced (or whatever it’s called to make sure that the surgical procedures do not close up), like a permanent genetic change from XY to XX / vice versa, since he also is saying that, at that point in genetics, we will have come up with a way to end conditions like cancer and massively augment lifespans on a genetic level (since the reason people age – or at least the scientific consensus on aging – is because telomeres on the ends of the chromosomes shorten each time DNA is damaged and replaced from environmental and psychological factors).
> where the transition doesn’t have to be continually re-enforced
We’re pretty much there.
Trans people who have had their gonads removed need to take hormone replacement because we don’t have gonads producing hormones (but so do post-menopausal women (for exactly the same reason), and a lot of cis men take testosterone suppliments)
Trans women who have had a vaginoplasty need to “use it or lose it” after a few years ( a permanent genetic change from XY to XX / vice versa
And there you go thinking chromosones are important after you’re a couple of years out the womb. Let me reassure you that they aren’t. Changing someones chromosones after that wouldn’t actually do anything to their body. (And we actually can change someone’s chromosones. It’s not done because it doesn’t do anything)
You can have a man call himself a woman, and get breast/etc surgery, but there’s still no tech that would let him become a woman in any non-superficial way.
I’m among those who’d wish we were women, but unlike the cult, I’m not self-deluding. I eg. haven’t been to work in pants in 3.5 years (I don’t dare to go in a skirt in the public here in Poland, though), but I haven’t shaved off my beard nor do I call myself a woman.
I say “cult” because that’s how that group is behaving: beliefs that contradict facts, hunts against any heretic (including this very thread!). And no factual information, just the Revelation: eg. you have lectures about “proper” pronoun use everywhere, but try to find eg. if you would start hormone supplements, would breasts start growing on their own (with caveats that “going too fast would make them ‘tubular’) or not? Etc.
Likewise, any fact that contradicts the narrative is to be buried. See eg. edit history on Wikipedia on Blanchard’s typology of transsexualism: for most years, the article had it described as “pseudoscience”. According to Blanchard, there are two main types: “androphilic” (a misnomer) with onset in early childhood who tend to be attracted to men (but like real women may also prefer females, possibly exclusively), and “gynophilic” with onset in adolescence who hate anything to do with a male body (own and others’). Dunno about pseudoscience, but I really, really wish I knew this information earlier. (And for me, onset was not in adolescence but late university).
Huh. I’ve never had the middle of a comment dissapear here before.
Oh, it was the bit between the less-than sign and the greater-than sign. Well that sucks.
> get breast/etc surgery
Trans women don’t need breast surgery. Your body just grows perfectly natural breasts if you are estrogen-dominant.
> Blanchard
Is a crank.
> there’s still no tech that would let him become a woman in any non-superficial way.
Natural, fully-functional breasts, and vagina that even gynocologists can’t tell is an aftermarket add-on. What other conditions would you even check?
Trans women are indesinguishable physically from post-menopausal cis women who have had their uterus removed (or were born without).
Trans men have it rougher, because neo-penis construction hasn’t got a nerve-controlled erection working yet (as far as I know).
> any fact that contradicts the narrative is to be buried.
Nah, science just marches on. You want to study the history of this stuff and you can go read Blanchard’s nonsense all you like, but he’s as discredited as Blondlot’s N-rays at this point.
Excessively convoluted and superfluous? Even if no one were trans, if we were to avoid using the words “birthing” or “person”, how should they say it in a medically accurate and comprehensive way? “a woman, girl or teenager who is carrying a baby, in labour or giving birth”? That seems rather more… well… convoluted to me.
Why not just “mother”, you might ask? That’s concise… but not accurate. Adoption happens, for one thing — as do stillbirths. Medical terminology has never been restricted to the happier outcomes, after all.
‘Emergency rations’ sounds more reasonable to me. It’s what I used to call my younger brother.
I have also joked about prenancy being called ‘ morbid fecunditis’
I also once, only once, introduced my father as ‘the provider of beer’ and my mother as ‘the provider of beatings’, for which both my father and I were soundly beaten. I was 9.
Which presumably did nothing but confirm the title.
To be fair, both dad and I were drunk at the time and probably deserved it.
“‘Emergency rations’ sounds more reasonable to me. It’s what I used to call my younger brother.”
I forget the webcomic but there was one where a guy called his brother ‘spare parts.’
Medical terminology is intended to be specific. There are ways to be a woman by all standard definitions and yet be unable to give birth (the most common one being the menopause); if that distinction matters, the term “birthing person” is useful for specifically excluding such exceptions.
“birthing person” sounds to me like “person currently giving birth”, rather than “person capable of giving birth”, but I do admittedly have a problem identifying the temporal frame of reference of statements in general.
> biological male
Which bit of biology are you talking about? Because there’s a whole heap more to biology than your gonads.
“Cis” is more of a misappropriated organic chemistry term than a medical term. (Kind of like “gender” being grabbed from grammar to be used to describe sexual orientation.)
I’m pretty sure the medical term is still just “heterosexual”.
If ‘cis’ is misappropriated so is ‘trans’…they are literally just opposites. Also, relevantly, ‘cisgender’ and ‘heterosexual’ are completely unrelated terms with completely unrelated definitions. One can easily be a heterosexual transgender person, or a cisgender bisexual or various other combinations thereof.
Like, ‘cisgender’ literally means ‘not transgender in any way’…that covers a significant number of non-heterosexual people, I assure you.
Eh, if people don’t like using latin prefixes for cisgender and transgender we could always offer to use the greek instead.
But I bet most people who object to being called cis would object even harder when they hear the other option.
Academic curiosity, what IS the other option?
The Latin prefixes “cis” and “trans” translate into the Greek prefixes “homo” and “hetero”. And yes, it’s that way round.
Cis = homo = same side as
Trans = hetero = other side of
Which, incidentally, is why it’s called “Transylvania” – literally “the other side of the forest.”
So, for people who don’t like being called “cisgender”, the other option would be “homogender”?
I think they’d have even more of an issue with that term :lul:
So, for the people who hate the term ‘cisgender’, the alternative is ‘homogender’?
Why do I feel like they’ll have a bigger issue with that term :lul:
I think that people would get more confused with ‘homogender’ and ‘heterogender’ since it would be confused with homosexual and heterosexual.
I did say that I didn’t think they’d like it ;p
@Pander: I was mostly thinking that people wouldn’t like the same shortening being applied to homogender as to cisgender.
Because the people who don’t like being called cis tend to be rather homophobic as well. (Transphobia being repackaged homophobia and all that)
I would prefer others to not speculate on my gender or sexual preferences. I am a human being ,dammit, and I am greater than the sum of my private parts!
Agreed.
But if the fash cluster are going to do it anyway, we might as well make fun of them for it.
> Kind of like “gender” being grabbed from grammar to be used to describe sexual orientation.
Gender has nothing to do with who you like to fuck.
Personally, as someone neurodivergent, I don’t mind the term, but medical terms can absolutely become offensive due to the way they are used.
‘Idiot’ was once a very specific medical term…using it in that way now would be highly inappropriate due to the connotations it has picked up. I personally don’t feel neurodivergent is in that category, but saying ‘being offended by medical terms means we’ve regressed intellectually’ demonstrates profound ignorance of the way languages and societies actually function.
As someone with ADHD, I am with you on this. I know that the ADHD subreddit has issues with the origin of the term, it seems that it was partially done with the intent of downplaying the impairment/disabilities aspect of things like ADHD, but I think as a catch-all term it suits fairly well. We do not have ‘typical’ neurology. So I vote we take it and use it, what ever the original intent was.
Nope. Same shit. Different day. Pretty much most of the offensive words related to neurodivergence WERE the medical terminology at one point.
I think the big issue there is actually different. Cisgender is a relatively new term. The R word (despite being neurodivergent I won’t say it) is not, and comes from a time where they grouped a significant number of different disabilities together into a group with the full intent of ignoring them or lobotomizing them in order to make them normal.
“Cisgender is a relatively new term.”
We have records of specific, named trans people going back to at least ~500AD.
The reason everyone thinks trans people are new is because the Nazis burnt most of the evidence. (No, I’m not making that up or exaggerating: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-forgotten-history-of-the-worlds-first-trans-clinic/ )
This specific term is relatively new, not transpeople
I agree that “neurodivergent” isn’t offensive, but…
Is “stupid” offensive? “Dumb”? “Retarded”? Those are all medical terms that got coopted as insults.
1. Language sometimes changes.
2. Context matters.
And in this case, both are basically the same issue here. The terms you’re describing have only changed slightly in their actual meaning. While they were used as ‘medical terms’ they were also used to lump a bunch of mental disabilities together without any cause, care or study like what was being done for physical issues. You’re acting like ‘it was a medical term’ is a blanket get out of jail free card for them when we also don’t use terms that used to describe what women and war vets used to suffer for various reasons (mentally) because of how stupid and dumb it is. (Not using the R word here.) Simply put, terminology for mental disabilities at the time were being used while they were also using lobotomies to treat mentally disabled people, because mental disabilities weren’t treated with the same respect or seriousness and often considered a failing in a person rather than something outside their control.
So to say ‘well doctors used to do say these things’ ignores a lot of context, and it also ignores the fact that the meaning for these words hasn’t changed nearly as much as you think they have, despite once being medical terms. They don’t even have that much more malice associated with them than they used to either.
“So to say ‘well doctors used to do say these things’ ignores a lot of context”
The big one to make the point, I think, is that homosexuality used to be in the big book of mental illnesses.
To be fair, most of the terms people find so offensive in psychology and medical practice weren’t offensive at the start. People made the offensive over time by using them to deride othersfor their differences.
From the perspective of a retired psychologist and medical adjacent supervisor it is both frustrating and unavoidable. I still have old texts that refer to “Idiot” and “Moron” as clinical descriptions. Even by the time I got into the business the phrase “retard” had been pejorative for years if not decades. Stuff just creeps into our daily lexicon. The other problem is that it loses its clinical descriptiveness. When I was getting my degree people were just starting to talk about treating attention disorders and I was already working when I heard about Asperger’s for the first time. Fast forward forty odd years and those terms are now just generalities that refer to groups of observed behaviors and symptoms. Twenty years form now and there will be something else.
People… tags? What are you talking about?
And what’s wrong with neurodivergent? It seems like a nice word to me, but maybe I was just happy to find a word that I felt described me that didn’t have commonly negative connotations.
Well … “divergent”, in itself, has a negative connotation in our current global society where anything outside of “normal” is painted as inferior.
And “normal” cannot be applied to humans, since every single one is slightly different from every other one on, and around, the whole planet.
Even “perfect twins” (I don’t know the english word for multiple babies coming from a single egg fecunded by a single sperm that divided one or more times than usual) start to differentiate after their first breath, since every cubic nanomillimeter of atmosphere is also different from every other one and everything we humans come into contact with alters our own biological processes in infinitesimal ways.
The English term for that kind of twin is “identical twins”…so enjoy that irony.
In some languages like Norwegian we use the term”one egged” for monozygotical twins aka identical twins and “two egged” or more for various types of twins.
Is a double Yolker identical or non identical?
I don’t think it’s either. Eggs that you eat with a yolk from the supermarket are unfertilized.
Which one is fraternal? Is that from the same egg that split? Or two eggs that got fertilized at the same time?
Fraternal (dizygotic) twins means that there were two separate eggs with two different sperm during the same pregnancy, so they’re genetically unique from each other. Arnold Swartzenegger and Danny Devito in Twiins would be fraternal twins. :) Or if you want a real life example, Scarlett Johansson and her brother Hunter. Or Ashton Kutcher and his brother Michael (who has cerebral palsy and a heart condition – two things Ashton Kutcher does not have).
Identical (monozygotic) twins means that there is one fertilized egg that splits and develops into two offspring with the same genetic information (ie, identical). Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen are identical twins (duh :) ).
Much thank yous
Although, thought it was from the same sperm (well, obviously not the same same, but from the same ‘batch’)
Wait, Mary Kate and Ashley aren’t the same person? o_O
Yes, “normal” can be applied to humans, depending on context. And just because someone is “normal” on one scale doesn’t mean anything on any other particular scale.
“Typical” is also something that can be applied to humans, and “neurotypical” is a specific term that indicates typical neurology; nothing more, nothing less.
“Neuro-atypical” is in no way a presumed negative, since it applies equally to people with perfect recall, to geniuses, to people who can’t recognize faces, and to morons. It simply indicates a degree of divergence from typical brain architecture.
If you think that’s a negative, that’s on you. Free your mind.
While I’ve usually heard them referred to as “identical twins”, the medical term seems to be “monozygotic twins” (possibly because, as you just mentioned, they may not actually be identical).
Also: it’s honestly ridiculous how not being “normal” is so often regarded as a bad thing, considering how so many of the people who think that way also greatly respect famous people who achieved success thanks to their personal divergence from “normality”.
Actually, we wouldn’t even have the devices we’re using to view this site and communicate were it not for people who were in some way “abnormal”.
Yeah, no idea why someone would WANT to be boringly average normal person …
> our current global society where anything outside of “normal” is painted as inferior.
It’s not painted as inferior.
It’s painted as evil and scary.
Frequently with “both strong and weak at the same time” tones.
I always took “normal” to mean “average*”, with the * to mean that some people have a very strange hangup about being average.
That’s the thing, why not just use “average” then ?
It’s *SO* ingrained in every culture across the planet to use “normal” rather than “average”, that the original definition (checks all of the identifiers for a physical, mathematical or chemical formula/reaction) is completely lost, and almost everyone uses “normal” to talk about human beings (and even some animals) that *CANNOT* fit into a “norm” by their very nature.
I take great care to avoid that “normal” word as much as possible, unless I’m actually writing/talking about “hard, number crunching” sciences where “norms” do acutally exists, simply because I’m been on the wrong end of that “normal” word applied to humans, resulting in lasting damage to my mind and body : I’m more sensible to sounds than average, migrainous and somewhere on the Asperer’s spectrum, plus a ton more that came from traumas suffered because other people yelling at me to “just be normal”.
I now have, on top of things I was born with and with no control on, PTSD, Chronic Depression, several broken fingers that healed crooked, broken left arm, leg, nose, left orbit with splinters of bone still embedded in nerves due to beatings suffered when I could not refrain myself from crying when hearing one specific song, and scars both physic and psychic that will never go away.
And I live in a very progressist, society-oriented country where the attacks I had to endure are *now* considered, by law, as “particularly heinous crimes” with sentences ranging from 25 years in prison to life-long seclusion (we do not practice the death penatly since the end of WW2, too many errors led to too many tragedies).
With my state of mind, that I was born with without a choice in the matter, the US system would have treated me with cocaine and alcohol in the 1920’s, lobotomy up to the 1960’s, electric shock therapy up to the 1980’s, heavy “turn into a zombie” medication up to 2018 or so when they finally realized that people like don’t WANT to fight our minds every day on top of suffering from the reactions of others.
Speaking as an old school electronics technician, normal is literally imaginary.
I actually got that joke.
Math is wierd.
Things outside of normal do not necessarily mean inferior.
The ‘normal range’ for IQ in the US is between 85 and 115. Someone with an IQ of 140+ would be clearly outside the norm, or abnormal. Someone with an IQ of 190+ would definitely be considered ‘abnormally intelligent.’ But they would obviously not going to be of inferior intelligence.
Shaquille O’Neal is abnormally large, but he’s clearly a superior basketball player because of that height advantage.
Michael Phelps is an abnormally fast swimmer. Jesse Owens was an abnormally fast runner. Etc.
Same for someone who is abnormally beautiful. Or in the case of Grrlpower, someone with superpowers would be considered abnormal, but one would be hard-pressed to say that Maxima or Harem or Hiro or Stalwart are ‘inferior.’ Although with Maxima, she’s probably considered both superior AND scary (when she wants to be), but not evil since she’s a superhero with a good P.R. team. :)
> Things outside of normal do not necessarily mean inferior.
No, but they are frequently hated, feared and attacked.
The normal range for IQ is a deliberately chosen range with 15 points between standard deviations under the curves, and was designed to be that way. Tests are modified to different countries in order to compensate for language and cultural differences, but in general, they measure a subset of skills that were selected with the bias being “useful for business and military problem-solving and hierarchical function” … whether they intended it that way or not at the time.
Normal is a statistical term referring to the area under a distribution curve where the majority of the samples reside.
Usually part of a calibrated area (IQ tests use bell curves with 15 points between standard deviations and centered on 100) and the “normal” part of it is usually defined as inside the first standard deviation away from the center.
It has no judgmental use in that context. Anywhere else and it’s soaked in nitroglycerine with nitrogen triIodide crystals salted over the top.
Sorry we don’t stock that paint. Anything stigmatic paints the hands in a distinctive manner that can be used to identify the perpetrator.
This whole comment section is retarded.
You’re a part of this comment section. WeLcoMe To ThE CluB. We HavE JacKetS
No that doesn’t work well around here. I suggest you try it somewhere else.
then you need a better computer or connection to speed it up.
Wow. Sydney was such a different character back then compared to now.
I prefer now Sydney. I was annoyed by how dumb then Sydney was acting.
… As opposed to how Sydney acts now? o_O
Is there really that much of a difference? Other than added arrogance? (point being how she acted when someone else made Maxi laugh)
To be fair, Sydney had gone from “I have to hide the orbs lest I be experimented on” to “I get to be a superhero?” to “They’re paying me how much to be a superhero?” in a very short amount of time.
Um. She’s married to the teams financial advisors….Am I the only one who else has a problem with this…. But then given it’s a comic… I doubt that there will be a repeat of the candle that happened with the Air force credit union in the late 70 s or early 80s
Not really… Arianna is under employ, but her husband is a freelance consultant, probably under retainer, either individually or generally by ARC.
The amount of non-supers for various “support” roles within/around ARC who can deal with the …weirdness.. of it all is already so small they’d be interconnected professionally anyway, because the work is so specific, and demands an exceptional ability and professionalism to begin with.
As good as Arianna is in her field, you just can’t imagine her marrying a damp, incompetent squib. Aurelius must be damned good to have attracted and retained her …attentions.
As far as one can tell from what we’ve been shown, Aurelius has his own circle of clients that happens to overlap when it comes to Arianna’s employment.
And that’s simply because ARC tends to employ/retain only the very best available for a given job, which he seems to be.
Because if he wasn’t, Arianna wouldn’t even allow him near the place… She *is* hellaciously ambitious and has the biggest toy box ever to play with in her field. She’s not ever going to risk that…
I’ve been thinking it was strange we never got Arianna’s last name. DaveB must have been sitting on that one for quite a while.
Like a grenade about to go off. And thanks to Parfait, it DID hur hur hur.
And flinging “Shrapnell” everywhere?
One place specifically. The target literally called, beckoned shrapnel to penetrate. Everywhere else was likely safe, relatively. Then again, that’s making a prudish assumption about relationship agreements. Shrapnel could indeed have been flung everywhere.
I know you can generally change peoples name in group chats for everyone to see, not sure about direct messages. But often you won’t see your own handle with the messages.
I do recall Dabbler mentioning her charm spell wears off gradually to prevent lingering effects, I’m going to assume most emotion effecting magic to work in a similar way.
Which is probably still in effect to mitigate regret of actions taken, which was an effect mentioned a long time ago. In other wards this meeting was poorly conceived timing wise. Dabbler is well aware everyone would still be happy with what happened. An unspecified length of time later on the other hand might be an entirely different kettle of fish. Assuming their mind can revert after lengthy adjustment in which they likely defend / explain their actions to others and themselves repeatedly.
That doesn’t make it poorly conceived, unless you really *WANT* melodrama. The anti-fraternization order will put people back in uniform, for the most part, and everyone will have time to decide how to move forward. There is still some drama to get through, but the whole subject is out in the open so that there’s no excess social shudder.
A simpler explanation would be Arianna keeping her maiden name in professional settings. As I am not from USA, it always surprises me how (as far as I can tell) the overwhelming majority of women changes their name when working. I work in areas where that is not the case, so it makes sense for me if Arianna kept her maiden name.
Also, I knew there was a lingering effect of the lust area, but still it seems that everything is wrapped too easily.
It’s uncommon, but during Sydney’s “job interview”, AKA meeting the general and so on, both Ariana and the general mentioned that it would be odd in Sydney’s little fantasy about wolverine drawing that he would take HER last name.
It’s not just a USAsian thing: mum took dad’s surname when she met and married him while he was in the Rhodesian Police Force (he was British, she is Rhodesian)
> (he was British, she is Rhodesian)
That you said it that way says a lot.
What? He came from Britain, she came from Rhodesia, he died about twenty years ago (hence ‘was’), she is still alive (she never stopped being a Rhodey Girl)
The fact you call it Rhodesia instead of Zimbabwe says either you’re over 50, or you’re in the Nazi/fascist/Republican political cluster. Possibly both.
Your views on trans people from further up the comments cements this.
It sounds like Guesticules’ mother might’ve gone straight from being a Rhodesian citizen to being a British citizen. In which case, although I’m sure she feels ties to the people of Zimbabwe, she probably doesn’t feel that the current government (even if much better) represents her heritage. I mean, if she left before the government changed, then she’s technically not even from Zimbabwe. Right?
I don’t know anything about geopolitics, but I thought I could offer a different point of view. I’m just making guesses at all of this, but it seems plausible.
Which is where the age option comes from.
The fact you agree with the namechange proves you know nothing about what happened
Yes, she left in the 60’s, she still had family living there… until they were forced out because they didn’t belong to the same group as Mugabe (who lost the fucking war but ‘won’ the country due to outside interference)
By the way, the area was never originally called Zimbabwe, that is the same for some ruins that no one knows the origins of
Hael, it didn’t even have a name before Rhodes
It’s been the name of the country for the last 50 years. I am less than 50 years old.
> (who lost the fucking war but ‘won’ the country due to outside interference)
Sounds like he won the war in the way that mattered then?
Are you really defending British Rhodesia as a good thing?
> Hael, it didn’t even have a name before Rhodes
That’s bullshite. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mthwakazi)
Yes, I’m completely convinced that nobody living in Africa had given the area a name before Rhodes got there…
It was worthless shrub land, which is why the King gave it to him, and he and his people turned it into the Bread Basket of Africa (which turned to shit within a few years of being handed over to Mugabe)
I note you ran away from me linking the wiki page to it for before British Rhodesia existed.
And my response to your commonets on trans people.
I wonder why that might be?
That’s because didn’t say anything about trans people
“Until a biological male can conceive and give birth”
You keep pretending we don’t know the dogshistles if you want. I’ll be over here in reality.
You haven’t seen reality in years, only what your racist bigotry will permit
> your racist bigotry
I’m confused. Who do you think I’m racist and bigoted against?
Me, for a start
That the Brits took from the people who lived there by force.
Which you seem to like to keep ignoring.
Worthless Shrub land that’s someone else’s is still SOMEONE ELSE’S. It’s not the King’s to give.
Which therein is the problem with Colonialism.
Mugabe’s still an ass, but that doesn’t change that British Rhodesia was a racist shithole for pretty much its entire history.
They didn’t take from the people by force, the King gave it to them
Wait, you think meant King of England? o_O
Tell me, how betterer off are the peoples of that region now?
I think in most countries is common for women to take the name of the husband, even when it is now changing, and there are several double names or even he taking her name. It is a continuum, with, to my knowledge, the peak being in a woman being referred directly by her husband full name (Mrs. John Smith). But there are areas where it is more common to a woman to keep her maiden name if that was what she used when she began working. Engineering, medicine, science, but also arts, etc. In my (admittedly limited experience) women in USA, even in those areas, modify her name more than in Europe or Latin America. I do not know so many women of other continents in those areas to extract a trend.
It’s also possible in France since 1794 …
Uncommon until recently but possible according to the law
Thanks, that is interesting.
My wife was already professionally established when we got married with licensure and other credentials in her maiden name. She operated under her maiden name or a hyphenated last name for several years and mail continued to show up with old names for a couple of years after that. So yeah, that’s a thing.
After this,what are the odds that Max will put Sydney on KP duty?!?!?
Now here’s an image and ask how would Sydney look wearing an outfit like that fellow up front:
https://artdiscovery.info/rotations/rotation-2/packet-18/
RE Sydney’s punishment:
Is there a 21st century analog to ‘peeling potatoes’?
Even more PE? Peggy will need an assistant. She already has other duties.
Scrubbing the public bathrooms. With an old toothbrush. *ALL* of them. Publicly.
Very Thradithional. Very Military. And enough of a meme in and of itself that Sydney would *understand* that there’s a limit to …shenanigans.
Cut to Sydney trying to figure a way to use her powers to speed up the process.
Cut to the PPO accidentally blowing up the bathroom.
the reward for blowing up the bathroom with the ppo and/or the molestorb is now she has to do the cleanup with modified versions of these…
https://www.etsy.com/listing/810528609/real-cow-hide-leather-fist-mitts-gloves?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=bondage+mitts&ref=sr_gallery-1-1&pro=1&frs=1&sts=1&organic_search_click=1
KP: Kiss Parfait
Hey, he did say he would violate ALL applicable traffic laws. Maybe that includes the laws of physics.
I have it on good authority that ‘ye canna change the laws of physics’
You mean you have it from person who frequently does so and is called Miracle worker?
wouldn’t need a power, just a salad topping. Miracle Whip.
Can someone explain what the joke is here? Arianna Shrapnel together sounds normal to me. I did understand Sydney saying Mervyn though, as that’s a kind of landmine
what colour was the landmine? Doesn’t matter, it’s blew now.
No, she was just saying she hadn’t noticed Ari’s surname before (or at least didn’t connect it to the only other person she knows with that surname, because Sydney)
Normal? Have you ever heard of anyone with the surname ‘Shrapnel’?
Um, yes. The concept of shrapnel is literally named after a guy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Shrapnel
As was the Minie ball, widely used in the American Civil War.
His last name was Ball?
TIL
Not personally, but “shrapnel” in the sense of anti-personnel shot loaded into canisters is named for its original developer, a certain Colonel Shrapnel.
So, for that matter are weapons such as the Gatling, Hotchkiss and Maxim machine guns, or the Colt, Browning and Smith & Wesson guns.
The Gatling gun as it turns out was in fact invented by a doctor, who had hoped that the sheer killing powwr of the weapon would discourage further conflicts. The best of intentions, roads to hotter than average places and all..
And we can wish that the folks who created nukes had leaned from that.
Then again, humans are horrible, destructive, evil creatures who will always find new ways to kill each other. So nukes were probably inevitable.
It’s actually one of the possible solutions to the Fermi Paradox also.
The “Great Filters” explination, yeap.
Though the current drake equation results are obscenely variable (the low estimate is basically “we’re alone, maybe one other” and the high estimate is “we’re in a backwater”)
And also the ‘there are many but they are so far away that they never can get to meet each other because the universe is expanding faster than intelligent life can evolve to a point of finding another source of intelligent life. :)’
Grrlpower does seem to lean towards the ‘Great Filters’ explanation from what Cora explained to Sydney on Fracture Station, mixed with the ‘backwaters’ explanation from stuff that Dabbler’s mentioned on the roof of the nightclub.
> because the universe is expanding
The drake equation actually takes that into account and only asks “that we could communicate with by lightspeed comms”
> Grrlpower does seem to lean towards the ‘Great Filters’ explanation
Invoked by name by Cora in 755.
Also shortens to Mirv (as in Multiple Independently-targetable Reentry Vehicles, ie orbital cluster missiles) Shrapnel (as in the stuff left after an explosion) As Sydney pointed out when she first met him.
And now I find that Aurelius wasn’t tagged in his first appearence back in #346 :(
What are you talking about? “Mervyn though, as that’s a kind of landmine”
It’s not showing up in the first five pages of google search, though there’s a few memorials to people named Mervyn who were killed by landmines. Can you cite for us the source for a kind of landmine with that name or nickname?
Thanks in advance.
I doubt Ariana wants people referring to her by her initials. Probably keeping to first name only professionally.
Ass is hardly ever a preferred nickname.
That would depend on her middle name. Like Ariana, my first name starts with an A and my last name starts with an S (in my case, I was born with that last name rather than marrying into it), but my middle name does not start with an S – it starts instead with a T.
Wait, we’ve gone from #1199 to #1120? I don’t get that math…
#1120 was the “wait for it” joke in the underground villian base?
Check the page listing for this page
Yeah, I saw that in the URL.
I am guessing that it’s a typo? And I double-checked, he didn’t skip a number or anything funky before.
So, DaveB has a time machine!
My wife and I have our contact lists synced, so if they do the same then they might have eachother’s nicknames in their own phones.
In the Who’s Who Shrapnell is spelled with two “Ls”. In the final panel we see the name with just one “L”. Which is correct/preferred?
As the comic linked in… Dave’s under-comic text (what’s that called, anyway?) indicates, it seems to be two, but Sydney imagines it’s just one; she heard it and immediately thought of the explosive-related word. Because Sydney.
So, no chance of Ari and Suzy then? :(
Just because she’s been married for 14 years doesn’t mean she’s not bi or in a (semi-)open relationship.
Let’s just say less likely…we can dream. The Shrapnels do raise an interesting possibility. A romantic resort with an adjacent succubus to provide a lust aura to fan a familiar flame.
and now my internal jukebox is trying to remember eternal flame. thanks. can you feel my heat beating?
Although I mostly identify with Punk and ’70’s metal my wife razzes me for being a Bangles fan.
What’s wrong with being a Bangles fan? do I have any minions left? I need to improve my Pun Production…
Who is Mervyn again?
Arianna and Aurelius’ son who is possibly 13 at the oldest.
How do you figure that? They’ve only been married for 14 years, but that in no way prevents them from having a child before that.
Arianna is the type who very much would have gotten her degree(s), and presumably started her professional career, well before considering marriage, let alone having a child.
She doesn’t do “accidents”, and is the very embodyment of “legally airtight contracts first”.
So yes… She would have married first, and only *then* have had the child.
Arianna strikes a lot of people as someone who would have gotten all of her ducks lined in a row with her career before having a child. Or at least the type of person who’s organized and prepared to the point that she wouldn’t have a child out of wedlock (unless that was the reason for her becoming so ultra-prepared in her daily life).
The question no-one is asking is: Was she like that before she had kids?
Unless he was adopted or even shrapnels from a prior relationship.
In other words he may not be a boring human with two human parents.
I don’t think he’s a super based on some stuff that Aurelius had said when he was last in the comic about himself, but he admittedly didnt say anything about his SON not possibly having powers.
Ari’s son
perfect name too. Mervyn=Merv = MIRV. Multiple Independant Reentry Vehicle. they named their kid after a nuclear warhead.
Arianna is a lawyer, if I recall correctly. Shrapnel is probably not the best surname for a lawyer, HR personnel, public relations specialists, or basically anything Arianna does professionally. My guess is she doesn’t use her surname professionally or didn’t change her surname to match his. But that’s just a guess.
Eh, the comment she made about a wife taking her hubby’s name in Sydney’s initial interview suggests she would’ve taken the traditional route, there. Generally would be considered necessary for any woman with political ambitions (remember how much grief got for just keeping Rodham as a hyphenate?).
“The timing of Arianna texting her hubby to book it to the base and the amount of time Sydney and Parfait seemed to have while they were making out doesn’t quite make sense. Unless that makeout session lasted for like 45 minutes or something, and it definitely didn’t.”
Hey, once you’re horned up, you keep going on your own, even if somebody takes the lust aura away.
Shouldn’t Arianna’s Who’s Who’s say Arianna Shrapnel?
Honestly, Sydney’s last question is the fairest of them all, just not in a Snow White way.
If I had that surname my kid would have been named Sylvester.
‘parfair’ in the character links??
A MUCH more ‘elegant’ sounding name, IMHO… ;-)
Huh…Y’know the possibility of anyone in this comic being married just never actually crossed my mind.
There are plenty of married swingers. Not to mention some other extended agreements such as more than two married together. Work hard play hard.
I submit one key piece of evidence that they are NOT swingers, nor in anything other than a committed relationship–they are only sitting with one another, holding hands. Despite having a tower full of people of the highest levels of physical attraction, all of whom would’ve been quite willing to go to town on one or both of them. Arianna, sitting in the midst of the aura, not to mention a stew of her own juices, simply waited for him to arrive and then pounced, and kept it just between them. If they were open to dallying, this would’ve been the event that induced it, even if they were not in such a relationship prior to this.
Which, by the way, means one thing: Mr. A. absolutely is a cheater, Jiggawatt absolutely did voluntarily sleep with her friend’s bf, and short of actual immolation, they should just suck up the consequences of their actions (which, unless Brooke has undergone a complete lobotomy since we last saw her, should at least include dumping his ass, and giving Jiggs the permanent cold-shoulder).
> If they were open to dallying, this would’ve been the event that induced it
Not all open relationships are as open as you seem to think.
True, but even if they are only in an established triad or somesuch, Ariana only texted one person. The odds of her being in anything other than a committed and monogamous relationship are thus extremely low.
There are open relationships with conditions.
Such as “partner gets to veto” or “not someone you work with.”
I said the odds are ‘extremely low’ not ‘zero’. They could either be in one of a very narrow band of open relationships, or they could be in the far more common even before that narrowing case of monogamous marriages.
So I went looking for the stats, and found some.
45% of Americans are married, and 4% of Americans are in open relationships.
And open relationships with conditions are by far the most common type (I’m counting swingers in this group, obviously).
4% is actually quite high for population stats. It’s more than the number of redheads (1-2%), for instance.
So it’s literally (at least) ten times more likely that they are in a committed monogamous relationship than not. If the Open With Conditions (Which Would Not Have Allowed A Hook-up Here) set is even half of all open relationships, that would still mean it would be about 2% of relationships, and ergo that monogamous relationship is at 20-1 odds. It’s not ‘one-in-a-million’ territory, but still I’m putting money on the 19-in-20 odds.
And furthermore, I submit that since this is a work of fiction, we are being given insights into characters by what the author chooses to show us. This would have been an opportunity for DaveB to indicate some degree of non-monogamy in the Shrapnel household, were he so inclined, and he did not. Even if the conditions say no workmates, for instance, Ariana would’ve been quite able to text both her hubby and their whatever-term-they-use, which she was certainly horny enough to want if she had the opportunity
You’re free to have whatever headcanon you want, of course. By all means, enjoy the thoughts of Ariana and Aurelius having a network of co-partners stretching to both coasts, if you so desire. I’m just saying that it’s very unlikely that that’s what the actual set-up in Dave’s own canon is.
> You’re free to have whatever headcanon you want, of course.
Where did you get the impression that I am claiming that they’re in an open relationship?
I was just pointing out flaws in your understanding of open relationships.
Further up I pointed out that this doesn’t disprove anything. But disproving things is hard in general, so that’s not saying a lot.
Or that it hits you differently if you’re in a room with somebody else and by yourself…
It might have helped Arianna’s case that she was in her office at the time, and not presumably having a very attractive coworker actively rubbing himself against her.
just a note here:
in the Characters tags of this page, and another one, Parfait is spelled Parfair, so clicking her name on those two pages tags will only show.. those two pages, while clicking on her tag on another other page where she appear will show all those pages except those two pages, because they are misspelled
I don’t consider a lust aura as mind control, as demonstrated by Math and Jabberwokky.
Yes, Jabberwokky WAS being mind controlled by Dabbler via kiss, but that’s a lot more potent and Dabbler basically confessed to that being a spell put on her, rather than the aura flaring up their lust.
Also, between Math and Jabber there’s been sexual tension from the get-go, and as far as they’re concerned, this was a situation waiting to happen.
They weren’t even aware of the sudden lust aura: they’ve been repressing their lust all along.
I can hear you thinking: “What about Vehemence?”
Well, Vehemence triggered rage, and rage takes a lot longer to surface because it’s such a socially unwanted emotion.
There’s regret involved with giving in to lust, but almost never a “Huh? What happened? Where am I?”
People keep using Math and Jabberwocky as examples, but they that doesnt really fit.
To me Math and Jabberwockys apparent default setting just seems to align with the lust auras effect. You even bring up that they dont notice it because they already were horny and had sexual tension. That bears out in scene where it seems theyve been pretty free around each other during sparring as well.
But the fact that the two horniest members of the team besides Dabbler didnt notice the lust aura doesnt really prove that they aura doesnt screw with peoples heads.
The lust aura still seems to have encouraged people to have sex, or at the very least increased peoples lust and lowered peoples inhibitions to the point they took action they would not have otherwise due to a variety of reasons: existing relationships, professional boundaries, being on duty and so on. In fact most of the team besides them seem to acknowledge that something effected them, they just show a surprisingly near universal lack of regret or worries about it all.
It certainly doesnt seem to be direct mind control, and certainly not intentional, but still feels like a significant and sudden alteration of peoples mental states. I still dont see the difference between this and someones drink being spiked to the point they arent fully lucid anymore.
Actually, the biggest argument against it being actual mind-control is highlighted in today’s episode. Ariana held out while waiting for her hubby, probably for at least half an hour. Then the two of them, judging by the positioning as we’ve seen with the other couples, had a completely monogamous encounter.
Either Ariana is highly resistant to mind-control, or this wasn’t that–it induced a high state of arousal, but let the person determine their own course of action about what to do with that.
Which, sadly, means that Brooke absolutely should dump Mr. A’s cheating ass and give the cold-shoulder to Jiggs.
Thats actually a fair point, we do have a couple people who did not end up sleeping with anyone else, including Ariana.
Additionally we do see that Sydney resisted it, so at the very least we see this aura wasnt forcefully changing peoples sexuality or who you are attracted to.
The reason this hasnt made this all fine and dandy for me just yet though, has been that the characters that didnt hook up with someone else, either at all or immediately in the case of Ariana, were all alone at the time.
We also actually didnt see how things kicked off between anyone else, besides Math and Jabberywocky, which are the ones who already didnt need the effect to sleep with each other. So it seems like everyone who happened to be with other people, ended up hooking up whether they would have otherwise or not.
Seeing a pair of characters get affected, look embarrassed or hot under the collar, and then choose to walk away from each other to find their preferred partners would have done a lot to alleviate a lot of this misgiving im having here, same with avoiding the steamy reception booth gag, as that just another thing indicating that peoples usual inhibitions and behavior was compromised.
Its alot of unintended and unfortunate implications that I doubt Dave was intending for, but its what makes the event unpleasant for me so far. Unfortunately I think the best remedy would have been more thought about what was being depicted as the aura events went down.
> the steamy reception booth gag
We only saw a single hand in the reception booth. They could have just been clearing their view of the foyer.
You clearly haven’t seen the movie Titanic. XD
I have, it was terrible. I get the reference.
But we’ve still only seen one hand in there.
Sydney resisted Vehemence’s aura too though. Syd’s weird and the man character.
On the other hand Seneca points out she wouldn’t have ended in bed with the others without the Lust Aura.
Why in particular should Brooke react that way?
We don’t know how long the aura was going on, it was long enough for Sydney to lose her shirt and get a fair few kiss marks but we don’t know how long it took
We don’t know how it impacts people based on their situation, people who were alone had reactions of bring out the vibrator, stream porn and call their partner
There’s no evidence that anybody who was in company resisted the urge to go for it.
We know that it affected a military person while they were on duty enough that they were doing something that steamed up the booth, that’s a pretty strong evidence that it’s strongly affecting people’s judgement
So, she calls her husband, “chocolate pineapple.” Anyone remember what eating pineapple does for guys?
It’s a great laxative. Apparently something Ariana decided she needs permanently to live with.
She calls him Chocolate Frag Grenade.
How would Arianna react if Sydney asked…
Sydney:Here’s a question,why was your office located in the alley behind the courthouse and above the pool hall?
What would Arianna say?
you kidding me:? its the perfect name! Mervyn=Merv=MIRV(Multiple independant reentry vehicle) he’d be named after nuclear warhead!
@DaveB:
After a quick scan of this page’s comments, I feel like I might be the first to ask…
… why’s this page numbered 1120, when it’s supposed to be #1200?
No, you’re not.
I thought this crowd might need an uplifting song so I rewrote one for you.
MAMAS PLEASE DON’T
Douchebags ain’t easy to love, and they’re harder to hold
They’d rather give you grief an tell you their shit is gold
Too many belt buckles and pastel power ties
And each night begins a new day
If you don’t understand him, you aint the only one
He’ll probably drive you away
Mammas, don’t let your babies grow up to be douchebags
Don’t let ’em drive segues or act like lil’ fucks
Let ’em be kind and respectful and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be douchebags
‘Cause they’ll always stay home, and they’re never alone
Trolling the people they love
Douchebags like vaping in restrooms and clear vodka mornings
Kick little puppies and children and girls in the night
Them that know him sure won’t like him
And them that don’t sometimes won’t know how to take him
He ain’t wrong, he’s just different
But his pride won’t let him learn he always thinks he’s right
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be douchebags
Shouldn’t this page be labeled …-1200-… instead of …-1120-…?
The previous page was labeled …-1199-…
We praise DaveB’s art not his math. though some like the way Math is drawn, with or without shorts.
Is it just me, or does Anvil get bigger each time we see her?
Only around ‘normal’ sized people, or people sitting in chairs
She’s also standing on a higher step.
Dude making Sydney have a bi curious ark is gonna be interesting as f*ck , please do continue on it
Man , you gotta give Sydney a bi curious arc , this became so interesting , coming from the “so straight” girl in the story , it could be some nice character development
What are you reading that would imply that Syd is getting bi-curious?
She just shut down a succubus with a runaway lust aura. She’s a ZERO on the Kinsey scale.
The only sexual preference Sydney has EVER shown throughout the comic has been heterosexuality. I’m not sure where the bi-curious part is coming from. She has very vocally and emphatically said no to Parfait during a lust aura, and didnt react particularly well to the kiss either, and has threatened bodily harm on Dabbler the one time she hit on her as well. Seems pretty strongly hetero still to me.
Sydney feels to me like the kind of girl who almost expected herself to be a little bi, just from adjacency to cultural queerness, but just happens to not be at all.
Seeing the voting incentive I wonder if one of the Orbs can heal ? A med bay would be part of every spaceship, wouldn’t it ?
That is my guess. I’m betting activating the passive on her last orb will provide Sydney with perfect health and start working on her physical fitness, if not a supers-bod.
I just realised something. Where the hell is Vance? AKA man full of spiders. Did he drop out or something.
Well, consider, spiders tend to mate with other spiders. They may have been busy elsewhere.
and this is how you start a Spider-verse
@Dave Panels two and five have the same finger number issues for Gwen. Sorry. ^^;
This one has a wrong number as well, it should be #1200
Oops.