Grrl Power #1201 – Impossible Aura Elevator Mission
So for anyone waiting for the other shoe to drop, here it is. Granted, it’s not a very big shoe, but the succubi are still manipulating people. You can call it mind control, or you can think of it as preventing a bunch of super powered individuals from developing grudges against Parfait/Sydney/Succubi in general/each other. It’s clear Dabbler is doing what she thinks is best for the team. And what she’s doing is basically clipping the emotional peaks. Everyone’s feelings are their own, just a little less hot. By morning everyone will be fully back to themselves, and Dabble will be sweating mana salts, like someone getting meat sweats at a Churrascaria.
She’s lucky Xephan isn’t there, because he might not be as okay with it as Gwen is. He might agree with it, but he’s more likely to inform Maxima. Maxima holds unity cohesion as a priority, but also isn’t about to put up with anything approaching mind control.
“Go away from me now.” is Maxima’s way of saying “Don’t tell me about it or let me find out.”
I decided to make them switch to another language, because it felt unrealistic that Parfait, who only started learning English after finding out her older half-sister was camping out in America, would know English words like “intransigent” already. Even Dabbler and her super brain and language skills would probably not know a word like “breviloquence,” because when she copies a language from someone’s brain, she only learns what they know of the language, and unless that person was a heavy “word of the day calendar” user, “breviloquence” just doesn’t meet that threshold of words that the average English speaker will know off the top of their head. (It means speech marked by brevity and concision, BTW. It’s not the literal opposite of sesquipedalian, but close enough.)
Not that Dabbler can’t easily expand on her stolen language skills, of course, but Dabbler’s the kind of super genius who doesn’t feel the need to use big words to make herself sound smart. Well, usually. Sometimes she does when she wants to intellectually dunk on someone. Even in those cases, she’s likely to expand her vocabulary toward scientific or socio-secual fields, not words that seem to exist simply to justify the need for the word “sesquipedalian.”
Edit: Fixed the revelry/reveille goof.
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.
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Intransigent Masculinity in the face of rising Gender Egalitarianism?
We are getting further from gender equality every day…
No, we are getting closer to gender equality overall.
It’s just that at the same time the average is moving to the centre, there are a bunch of loony extremists getting real loud over at one end.
“To the privilidged, equality feels like oppression.”
As with most things the bellcurve is getting king of saggy with age.
It’s just that the looneys have an excess of power right now and are suppressing those to the center and left. The looneys’ power is because they have access to butt-loads of money, not because they are popular.
I don’t want to get drawn into an extended debate so I’ll just say this one thing.
YOU THINK THE PEOPLE IN POWER AREN’T ON THE LEFT!? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I would say its not like there’s a ‘high table’ or a ‘council of owls’ there are power players on the left and the right. its just that the right wing ones have succeeded in abusing the freedoms they talked the government into giving them and are able to make far more noise than they should. sadly, in their own interests the power players have suppressed critical thinking so there are large numbers of people voting for face eating leopards thinking they will be protected. I really love how somehow college students, professors, and dead people are as powerful or more so than sitting members of congress including high ranking ones and governors.
The Republicans just put a Young Earth Creationist 3rd in line for POTUS.
It’s called “Diversity” – Maybe the Leftists should practice what they preach?
We shouldn’t have diversity in positions of power where the diversity in question is “fascist insurrectionist”. The paradox of tolerance applies. Between project 2025, the Heritage Foundation and The Calremont Institute it’s pretty clear that the entire GOP has been devolving into the Charlottesville unite the right rally in slow motion for a while now, and you’re clearly right there with them. Go watch a chill goblin video or something and try to stop being such a brownshirt.
Since when is “Religious nut” synonymous with “Fascist Insurrectionist?” That’s an odd accusation to fling around without evidence.
Since Jan 6th.
“The paradox of tolerance” is just Orwellian “intolerance is tolerance” in newspeak.
Nope. Also you’ve never read Orwell.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
I hate that the name for it includes the word “paradox.”
It’s not a paradox except linguistically. It’s the observation that bullies need stopping.
It’s a paradox because unlimited tolerance leads to intolerance, and thus is self-contradicting. Maximizing tolerance actually requires you to be intolerant of intolerance, which is somewhat counterintuitive.
The best resolution I’ve seen to the paradox is to reframe tolerance not as an absolute principle but as a contract: you are granted tolerance in direct proportion to your willingness to grant it to others, so it becomes a transitive right.
Yes, and I assuredly have. I would firmly recommend you read 1984, because if all you took away from that is “fascism bad”, “oppression/totalitarianism bad”, and “soviet union bad” then you have assuredly missed the point of that book, which was also a caution against the zealous embrace of propaganda and societal control by western societies.
And the fact of the matter is that oftentimes when people start discussing “the paradox of tolerance” they are usually about to demonstrate very intolerant attitudes (literally “zero tolerance policies”) that are both bigoted and anti-free speech and will do so in the name of promoting tolerance and diversity without an ounce of shame or self-awareness. The goal of people who justify their behaviors with the “paradox of tolerance” is usually sooner to silence political disagreement (hence bigotry and censorship) which it immediately equates with the worst slippery slope said speech can be accused of than to genuinely protect against disruptive actors who are actually sabotaging the venue. Calling it the “paradox of tolerance” just means that you are claiming that your version of being intolerant should totally count as tolerance (it does not, in any sane sense) and pretending you are actually furthering tolerance as opposed to doing the obvious (driving people you disagree with away, with the effect of destroying the space needed for dialogue to occur between sides and further radicalizing people on both sides as a consequence, which obviously promotes more intolerant attitudes).
Really, any time people cite the “paradox of tolerance” what they often really mean is that they are pro-censorship of views they dislike (and pro-hostility against whoever voices them) and are deluding themselves that this is being tolerant somehow.
So you think Nazis should be allowed to recruit.
Good to know.
Anonymous: And so how do you resolve the paradox? How do you prevent censorship without censorship? How do you prevent people from controlling other people through violence and threats without taking some kind of action against violence and threats?
Illy, rather, I think Nazis have the easiest time recruiting when people are pissed off and there is no avenue for speech for people to talk out their differences, dialogues where better perspectives and options to resolving whatever personal issues are troubling people present themselves. If you censor speech you hate, you are not suppressing the ability of the hateful to recruit; you are simply driving the hateful voices underground and causing hate speech to develop specialized venues where there are fewer reasonable voices to provide a healthier counter-perspective, creating an environment where hate (there is such a thing as degrees of hate) prospers and intensifies, and they will recruit people to those venues. You aren’t cutting off the supply of neo-nazis by censoring them. You’re giving it to them. Because they will develop their own alternate venues and they will use any over-zealous censorship as a legitimate grievance to recruit members with. As Martin Luther King once said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
Torabi, you prevent censorship by not censoring, by taking a stand against censorship, and by developing and promoting free speech venues. Violence does not fall under speech and is not stopped by censorship but by whatever physical security exists or going to the police like a normal person. And actual, legitimate violent threats are fine to ban people or even go to the police over (if they are properly credible). But you should generally avoid slippery slope fallacies when making those sorts of determinations. Generally speaking, the law exists to curtail and present repercussions to violence.
Anonymous: So your solution is either to declare threatening speech as not speech, or censoring threats as not censorship. Or, I suppose, to define self-censorship in response to threats as either not censorship, or society functioning properly.
These all strike me as just avoiding the paradox, not resolving it.
Ahh, right. By making it harder for the Nazis to recruit, you’re making it easier for the Nazis to recuit. Gotcha.
“And actual, legitimate violent threats are fine to ban people”
Someone saying “I’m a Nazi” *IS* a violent threat. So you’re ok with banning Nazis, but you aren’t ok with taking any action to make it harder for them to recruit?
I don’t think you’re being honest here.
For some reason my detailed reply is not appearing here. That’s a tad disappointing.
I suppose the fact that any of my detailed replies are being prevented from appearing when I am explaining and defending freedom of speech says it all, really.
For the record, I’ve neither been incivil nor supported nor promoted any form of heinous conduct. Even so, my long-form posts have been barred.
You sure you’re not just hitting a formatting restriction?
The setup here is stupidly fragile.
I very much doubt that you’re being censored, at least intentionally. Did you have any markup or links in your comment? Four links seems to be the cutoff point at which a post is caught by the spam filter and held for manual approval. I don’t know how often DaveB goes through the moderation queue. But it is very rare for him to outright delete any comments, and I think he’s only threatened to do so twice: once when he caught covid and he had no tolerance for anti-vaxxers, and… some other time where the discussion got rather heated, and he decided it was over.
And I just so happened to stumble upon the only instance I can remember of DaveB shutting down a thread of conversation.
The paradox of intolerence stops being paradoxical when it is rightly viewed as a social contract instead of a moral standard.
When a bigot comes in to spread intolerence, they are breaking the peace treaty the other people in this example have agreed to, and thus are no longer covered by the tenet that these others should tolerate them.
i.e. if you reject giving tolerence then you forfiet the right to recieve it.
Oh, you’re one of those weirdos who thinks religion has a place in government.
Oh, you’re one of those weirdos who thinks anyone who is the least bit religious is a second class citizen who shouldn’t be allowed to run for public office.
Hey, if you can’t accept reality and have to believe in Santa to cope, then keeping you out of positions of power over me sounds like a good thing.
It’s not the religion, it’s the fascism. Being white is fine, being white nationalist is bad. Being religious is fine, being a religious nationalist is bad. His beliefs are irrelevant except insofar as they dictate his actions.
Anyway, this person is clearly a pathetic troll acting in bad faith. Don’t argue with him. Argue around him. No one else is such a coward that they can’t engage with the truth or google “Mike Johnson insurrection”
Sorry, I’m an Athiest, but that doesn’t mean I discriminate against “believers” like you do. And January 6th was NOT what the press would have you believe. It was a peaceful protest (As opposed to the “Mostly Peaceful” protests by the left that resulted in arson and mayhem the summer before) and the only person who was killed was a protestor who was shot by the mall cops at the capitol through a closed door.
See? Fascists are pathetic supplicants who couch their cowardice with reflexive lies. Anyone who isn’t a coward can do a ten second internet search.
Babbitt –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjscskqLx0U
Charlottesville –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcoYKuoiUrY
“It’s not the religion, it’s the fascism.”
It’s also the religion. Evangelical christians are Israel’s biggest supporters because one of the preconditions for The Rapture is all the jews being in Israel, so they can be sacrificed to end the world and take all the evangelicals to heaven.
They also see the climate disaster as a sign that the end times are coming, which is why they aren’t trying to save our ability to survive on this planet.
This is an old, old story with chrisianity. Jesus was saying that the end times were only a few years away in his sermons.
“Fascists are pathetic supplicants who couch their cowardice with reflexive lies.”
Yeap. But some of them believe that they believe those lies.
If their commitment is to using the office to impose their religion on others, then they should not be considered trustworthy to hold that office. If they can keep their beliefs separate from doing the job, then it doesn’t matter what their personal beliefs are.
Who should we pick to do a job? Someone who will commit to doing it, or someone who will only do it if they feel like it?
Elfguy said:
> Oh, you’re one of those weirdos who thinks anyone who is the least bit religious is a second class citizen who shouldn’t be allowed to run for public office.
Nah, I’m fine with them running for office as long as they keep their beliefs out of their governing. The problem is that ardent Christians have a real problem doing that, and in America the ardent Christians tend to be science-denying nutbars.
I’m just a filthy foreigner, but aren’t you yanks big on “Separation of Church and State”? Like, Wasn’t that the whole point of your rebellion against the crown?
Woah Woah Woah.
Cool it with the antisemitic remarks.
How can you say such a think when our greatest ally, Israel, is under assault by Hamas terrorists?
(there is a *tone* to my typing, but I recognize it cannot be distinguished from sincerity over the internet, as we are all reduced to text on the screen.)
I’m all for diversity, but I don’t think single digit IQs should be represented at the highest levels of power by themselves. Perhaps someone with a double digit IQ to represent on their behalf… or woe betide a triple digit.
The GOP hold the House and the Supreme Court, they’ll likely control the supreme court for at the very least a decade (and don’t try and tell me that the Conservative members aren’t GOP stooges, the most you can realistically claim is that there are a couple of areas where a couple of them won’t ride with the right)
They’ve just appointed a young earth creationist, biblical literalist, election denying tosser who’s in favor of banning contraceptives as Speaker for the House…
The GOP controlled states have massive gerrymanders to ensure they maintain control and the GOP controlled supreme court is basically saying “we don’t agree with your argument here but if you make this other legal argument we’ll allow it”
and by world standards the Democrats are maybe slightly left of center
You’re confusing “world standards” for those North America and Western Europe, because by global standards Democrats are far-left and even the GOP is left-leaning. There are billions of people in dozens of countries for whom the left-vs-right debate isn’t “should abortion and gay marriage be legal?”, but rather “should gays and lascivious women be executed or some less severe punishment?”.
Yes that’s bad, no I’m not saying the GOP is good, left-vs-right dichotomy is an extreme oversimplification, generic disclaimer. My point is you’re complaining, from a position of high privilege, that you’re not as well off as certain other people, while simultaneously invoking and ignoring the many more who are worse off than you.
India has no laws against same sex relationships although it doesn’t have same sex marriage
That’s a billion people there
China has no laws banning same sex relationships, although there are massive gaps in protection (e.g. violence against them is not covered under hate crime)
That’s a 3rd of the world’s population right there, and the Indian government is pretty right wing generally (but they’re aiming the hate and non-Hindus more than sexual orientation)
Indonesia, it’s legal to have same sex relationships but there are gaps in protection and with about 280 million people it’s the largest Muslim country
Brazil, homosexual couples have the same rights as heterosexual couples
Same sex marriage is legal in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Uruguay as well as Greenland, the Falklands, all the french territories, and the Caribbean Netherlands, same sex marriages performed there are recognised by some other countries as well.
Japan has no laws against homosexual relationships and there isn’t a big history of action against homosexuals
…
Yes, there are places where they really persecute homosexuals (parts of Africa, much of the middle east – it’s legal in Cyprus, Northern Cyprus, Israel, Lebanon and Turkey)
As far as should abortion and gay marriage be legal have you listened to right wing radio?
The evangelical crowd?
Hell, members of the supreme court basically gave instructions on how to challenge same sex marriage and, for that matter, interracial marriage in the judgment.
Last year the Texas GOP platform called LGB people abnormal and opposing all recognition of transgender identity, it includes a call to repeal the voting rights act (because we should be able to discriminate against african americans – although I’m sure in private they use other words)
They banned a long standing gay GOP group from having space at their convention
The GOP pushed more than 340 anti LGBT pieces of legislation in the USA in the first half of 2022.
Rick Allen, a house member for Georgia read biblical versus calling for killing homosexuals in the house in 2016
Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee and Bobby Jindal met with Kevin Swanson, an evangelical preacher who calls for death for gays, to try and get his endorsement when they were running for president…
Scott Esk ran for a seat in Oklahoma for the GOP, he’s stated that LGBT people should be stoned to death.
Joe Jones the head of the Shield of Faith church has called for the execution of all LGBT people
The head of the Idaho Family Policy Center – which has succeeded in lobbying for some legislation to get through – is explicitly anti-LGBT
…
Nor is left versus right wing solely about abortion and gay rights. Have a look at the healthcare system in the US versus the rest of the world, education, support for the unemployed, assisting families with costs of having children, the criminal justice system…
“how to challenge same sex marriage and, for that matter, interracial marriage in the judgment.”
I find Clarence Thomas doing that particularly ironic. But his wife is an insurrectionist, so I guess it tracks.
I guess this is just the theme for the day. Rules are for people lower on the hierarchy. The powerful don’t have to suffer the consequences of their own judgments.
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.”
– Francis M. Wilhoit
I figured that’s what you were referring to in your other comment. I’m quite familiar with it, and I feel that I’ve quoted it before in the comments here, or at least paraphrased it, but can’t seem to find my own comment with it. It has enormous explanatory power, and very succinctly describes a mindset that is widely held, and yet few are willing to admit to, if they can even recognize that they hold it.
Not you specifically, but y’all collectively have some strange definitions of left and right by what you’re including or excluding.
It used to be defined thusly:
Left: “New ideas are better than old ideas.”
Right: “Old ideas are better than new ideas.”
You know, the old progressive vs conservative angle.
Then for some reason the communist/capitalist economists decided to pick those two terms, but since Marx coined the term capitalist (while arguing against it, but that’s not really relevant), and capitalism only became a somewhat coherent social movement and theory after Marx’s work, capitalism is the younger concept of the two by a couple thousand pages of really badly written economic theory. (sidenote: I’m not saying Marx is a bad economist, I’m just saying that he is a terrible writer. I haven’t managed to finish any of his books so I can’t rightly judge.)
Damn tangents… where was I? Oh right! So since capitalism is a younger concept than communism, capitalism is left and communism is right, though really feudalism is much more right than either of those. On the other hand, since socialism is the bastard child of capitalism and communism, it is even more left than capitalism. If there is any modern offshoot of feudalism it is corporatism (i.e. special rights for the richest companies (and a few rich, but only if they own big companies), and screw everyone else. Also: Obey your boss or he will destroy you.).
Anyway, that’s enough unhinged ranting of political and economic theory that I just only partially improvised. Gnight, fucksticks. I love you all.
There’s an issue with the “old ideas/new ideas” paradigm, being that if someone embraces both new and old ideas in their pursuit of a theocratic white supremacist ethno-state, they’re a centrist. That’s an extreme example, but those are good for showing things. Progressive, conservative, reactionary – they’re all useful terms, but “the right” and “the left” are not just that. They all have people excited about/fearful of new ideas.
You’re confusing “world standards” for those North America and Western Europe, because by global standards Democrats are far-left and even the GOP is left-leaning. There are billions of people in dozens of countries for whom the left-vs-right debate isn’t “should abortion and gay marriage be legal?”, but rather “should gays and lascivious women be executed or some less severe punishment?”.
Yes that’s bad, no I’m not saying the GOP is good, left-vs-right dichotomy is an extreme oversimplification, generic disclaimer. My point is you’re complaining, from a position of high privilege, that you’re not as well off as certain other people, while simultaneously ignoring and invoking the many more who are worse off than you.
“by global standards Democrats are far-left and even the GOP is left-leaning”
Ha! Not even close.
By Global Standards, the US doesn’t even *HAVE* a “Left.”
The Democrats in the US are Centre-Right. The Republicans are over the fucking Horizon.
In USA? There are *very few* actually leftist people in power. “Left of old school conservatism” isn’t actually left, it’s center.
Biden’s done some good stuff for unions, but then he had to go and flub on Israel doing genocide.
Biden is still a right winger. Just not alt right (even if sometimes, like Israel right now, it’s blurry).
“Alt-right” as a term was coined by Richard Spencer so he could avoid saying “Nazi.”
Biden’s centre-left. Tries to do some good stuff, but too willing to throw his hands up in the air and go “I tried” when the obstructionists get in the way.
Biden is right wing. There is nothing left wing in his policies. You *could* argue about center right, but center left is really grasping at straws.
“There is nothing left wing in his policies.”
He’s pro-union, beyond just the police union.
He tried to get student loans cleared.
He tried to raise the min wage.
Pretty sure he tried to give the american rebrand of universal healthcare a boost as well.
He’s got the standard liberal problem of trusting that the completely corrupted system will somehow work though.
He’s kinda the one responsible in the first place for the kids in ICE cages – which afaik are still a thing as his time in power runs out – so he’s got a bit more to answer for than “did you keep communications open during the rail union strikes” if you ask me.
About the “centre-left” comment, he’s perhaps “centre-left” to the mainstream USA politics but holy shit is that a low bar to clear. The USA is afraid of socdems, nevermind socialists, and very few know that communism is far further. Socdems are roughly centre to centre-left in a lot of paradigms, socialists would be the mainstream left, and communists would be further yet, and Biden’s act of more or less managing one strike (by eventually saying “most unions got what they wanted, the others should shut up”) is just “not capitalist extremism.” That’s only centre-left if the “true centre” is okay with extremism.
He did go back after the rail strikes and got them most of what they were asking for in the first place. And he’s made it easier for workplaces to unionise.
I wasn’t aware he was responsible for the kids in ICE cages. Obama years?
“mainstream USA politics but holy shit is that a low bar to clear.”
Agreed, but the really sad thing is that by global standards that bar is flying high.
When that’s actually proven, you can claim that.
Because it hasn’t been.
Hamas using Palestinians as Human Shields and firing missiles from Hospitals and Refugee Camps has.
Also should be noted a great deal of the people they massacred on October 7th were Palestinians who dared tolerate and coexist with Israelis.
“When that’s actually proven, you can claim that.”
Sorry, are you actually watching the news?
America’s left is everywhere elses’ right wing
With British Labours rightward leaps that is unfortunately no longer true.
They’re not the only ones, sadly.
Only if you’re talking about communist countries. We’re not (yet) Fully communist, so yes, we’re a bit to the right of THOSE loonies.
You really need to buy a dictionary so you know what words mean.
Communist would be one to start with.
Somehow you remind me of another gal in a now-defunct forum. She had the interesting idea that only converatives where on the Right and everyone else was actually some form of Lefty.
P.S: She used conservative in the best sense of the word: protecting what made one strong in the past & making sure that traditions and “the spirit of the nation” were brought forward into the future. And “Everyone” was really everyone, including Alt-Right, White Suprematists and Isolationists.
JustSomeGuy said:
> YOU THINK THE PEOPLE IN POWER AREN’T ON THE LEFT!? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
The people in power, Republican or Democrat, are not on the left. America does not *have* a meaningful left-wing in government, only center-right and far right. Left-wing means groups like social democrats, socialists, and communists, and at least two of those are actively reviled in the “land of freedom to believe what you want.” In a country where the idea that it’s both good and sensible and practical to care for everyone’s health, don’t even pretend that we have a left wing.
You probably won’t read or believe this but …after having this exact long conversation with my poli-sci professor, I realized that he was actually teaching me something. Let me shorten the ride for you; Left and Right are subjective. Honestly. If you were to chart out what beliefs and values were on the ‘fringe’ of each side, then define the ‘center’, you’d find that, yes, in fact, there are PLENTY of far-leftists in US govt. In fact, the Democrat party has had them in spades since the mid 90’s. But there are almost no “center” reps left. (thanks to polarization). Our society is really good at pointing out when ‘the right’ has “gone too far.” Except you define ‘Right’ and ‘conservative’ as the same… they’re not. The US has a unique idea that the rest of the world doesn’t in that the “right” is actually more about classical liberalism – limited govt. The rest of the world doesn’t have that. Europe’s “left” and “right” is closer to ‘fascist’ or ‘communist’, but that distinction is boring and you don’t care. To put it bluntly: we used to have ‘conservative’ (don’t want things to change – you shouldn’t be able to do that) vs. classical liberalism (do what you want and deal with your own consequences – near anarchy lack of laws), vs government power. We don’t have those groups anymore. We have “Right-wing” and “Left-Wing”. Both are big-govt. There is a real discussion to be had about a “uni-party” if you think about it.
It’s been 20 years since that conversation, and it’s proved true time and time again. Most people think they are ‘centrist’, or close. I encourage you to go ahead and define what is ‘fringe leftist’ and ‘fringe right’, then mark where you actually stand. FYI, classical communist / fascist values are only different ways to implement socialism. They both belong on the political ‘left’. Classic American ‘right’ is your ‘taxes are too damn high’, govt. is too big, people. Those who want to remove restrictions/regulations/preserve constitutional rights arguments. The parties have largely switched places; the American ‘left’ has forsaken liberalism, is openly calling for the end of free speech, and embraces socialism and the ‘right’ is calling for protection of free speech, etc.
To hear you say “The people in power, republican or democrat, are not on the left. America does not *have* a meaningful left-wing in government, only center-right and far right.” makes me ask – if *they* are so far ‘right’ of you that you don’t think they even reach true center… where are you? …or, respectfully, you have no idea what you’re talking about.
“classical communist / fascist values are only different ways to implement socialism. They both belong on the political ‘left’.”
Did you just believe the Nazis named themselves honestly?
Actually, in context(!), the Nazis were honest.
In the Weimar Republic, “conservative” was just another word for “monarchist” while “socialism” covered both, actual Left and Right-but-not-monarchist. And in regard to the Emperor, nobility and all that, the Nazis were quite Republican.
Yeah, you’re claiming that the Nazis were socialist.
When the first people they threw in the concentration camps were the socialists.
Get out of here with that nonsense.
I’m sorry, maybe I was not clear enough.
Of course the Nazis are (!) not soicialist!
And they never were, if you use the modern (!) word “socialist”.
But they were “Weimar socialist” because in the Weimar Republic the word “socialist” was A) the actual, real Socialists and B) any random political group with an anti-monarchist outlook.
What I’m trying to say is that “socialist” (today) and “socialist”(WR) are two different words!
(P.S: I am from Germany and history is a bit of a hobby of mine)
Little nitpick : “Nazi” was the shorthand for “National Socialism”, in other words “the people of our country first and foremost”.
Just the name itself, and the starting ideology, is quite innoncent, and is *still* recommended almost everywhere in the world in 2023.
It’s the horrible action of fanaticized extremists that added their own racism and political views to the “National Socialist” party and ideology that gave that horrendous current meaning to the word “Nazi”.
In itself, a political party with an agenda of “the people of our country first” is a mostly good idea that almost every current government is actually trying to apply.
But then, extremists, fanatics, and the whole boatload of “in power” people that want to work *for their own gain* instead of the population of their country tends to destroy that lofty ideal.
What? Someone cares about the distinction between fascist and communist socialism? (Really? That’s what you found objectionable about my ridiculous rant?) I’m tickled, but it’s still boring. I’ve looked at how many comments here are just political warfare… on a comic-strip. I’m sorry. This is oversimplified and not what I came here for and I’m sure you’re not going to be convinced. But in good faith, I’ll have a go.
Forget the labels; objectively look at what they say and what they’re asking you to do. Does it matter what you call yourself if you’re doing the same things? Do you vilify or dehumanize others to justify hating/hurting/taking things? And if you’re honestly on board, good for you. I’m glad you found what you want and where you belong. You do you, be your authentic self, be real, etc.
Yes. It’s true; fascism IS socialism. No. I’m not bored enough to go into details. Why? It’s a comic strip. I came here for fun and found propaganda warning me of those ‘bitter clingers to god and guns’.
To your point: “communists went first”. (Technically the mentally ill, deformed, autistic, downs, and elderly went first. They used euthanasia busses, not camps.) But in general, yes. You’re right, but the Nazi party categorized them as ‘political dissidents’ and ‘criminals’ – as they were tight allies with the communists at the time. Quite comfortable and tight allies because their ideology was so similar, but that was also the problem. They wanted “Their” brand of socialism. Why? Both wanted the world.
Only half of those who were sent and died in camps were Jews. Most people don’t talk about how Hitler vilified and sent other groups to the camps. Christians made the majority of the remaining 6.5 million. (…along with Gypsy’s, “vagrants”, “nonconformists”, and gay men – they got a pink triangle.) By your standard, we can firmly place Christians (and the rest) on the “opposite side of fascism” list. But, like all the others, there were dozens of reasons why they were sent other than their ‘group’. Even Jews could be overlooked if they helped the Nazis. In the end, all these groups/people had one thing in common: they either had something the Nazis wanted, or they were “enemies”. So why communists “first?” To be overly reductive; they were competition and you take out your competition first.
I don’t expect to convince you and you’re not convincing me. I’ve read their own words, their books, their journals, and letters. I studied their movements, written dissertations on their methods, application, aspirations, and lies. I know you have no reason or motivation to believe me. That’s fine. I came for the comic strip.
But, yes. The national socialist workers party was socialist. So was the united soviet socialist republic. Hang whatever name you want on it; their names were, and remain, accurate regardless of how we’ve changed or redefined language since their failed empires passed.
“The national socialist workers party was socialist. So was the united soviet socialist republic.”
Ok Tankie.
Bet you think North Korea is democratic as well.
There’s a long history in realizing that our attitudes toward governance fall on more than one axis, and trying to then create a reasonable two-axis representation. Everyone seems to agree that one axis is some flavor of Authoritarianism, but what to cross that with varies. The wikipedia page on Political Spectrum has a reasonable summary of several.
It’s good to remember that the original left/right split was “radical left” vs. “monarchist right”
The interesting thing is that most of the things people cross that with give graphs where the vast majority of people are along a single fuzzy line.
Most people’s politics can be correctly estimated from their honest opinion on how important heirarchies are.
Tank said:
> You probably won’t read or believe this but …after having this exact long conversation with my poli-sci professor, I realized that he was actually teaching me something. Let me shorten the ride for you; Left and Right are subjective.
Of course they are.
> [lots of stuff]
Sure, if you insist on outdated definitions of words you can make that point. That isn’t how the words are used today.
Outdated definitions… I see we’re still in semantics. I guess that even though it was true back then, it isn’t true now because we changed the names? I don’t think things have changed much except that we throw words like “fascist” at things where it simply doesn’t apply.
If you’ve read the communist manifesto, you’d have to agree that while Marx and Engels didn’t write our current definition of “socialism” and would be somewhat horrified by the current crème de la crème term ‘state capitalism’ embraced by the communist party of China, they would be infinitely comfortable and ideologically fit in all these movements with ease; old and current fascism, communism, or modern ‘social democracy’.
Not in America, no.
Your so-called left wing party is too right for me on a lot of issues.
And I vote right wing in my country.
When referencing your local experience, it’d be nice to mention what your country (or at least, region) is, for those of us who don’t know you.
The guys in power aren’t on the left. That’s painfully obvious. You have to have a screw loose or two to see rampant capitalism, imperialist policies, little to nothing done to reduce inequalities and think “yup, that’s the left.” The only global superpower – the US – has no left to speak of. Even by everyone else’s standards it’s far to the right of any other country’s paradigm, and sometimes farther to the right than their paradigm even has words for.
If you think there is literally anyone leftist in this country you are delulu. Or possibly just mistaking center and center right for left due to the extreme lack of leftists in power.
Right, center, left…
WHICH ONES are the looneys?
They are ALL acting looney!
It doesn’t matter which side you are on right now. EVERYONE who is not in it ONLY for themselves and to hell with everyone else is a FOOL!!!!! Just ask 90% of the people in power in the US right now. Or even better? Ask the Supreme Court of the US when justice died and politics became all that mattered!
“EVERYONE who is not in it ONLY for themselves and to hell with everyone else is a FOOL!!!!!”
You must live a very sad life, since you obviously do not value empathy.
Empathy is almost as useful these days in the US as teamwork is.
I was raised to be at least reasonably empathetic, but trying to be that way now is a one way ticket to misery in the US. No one CARES now. All that matters is spreading hate and fear as well as inciting violence to spread said hate and fear. THAT is what matters in the US now. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are as dead in that country as justice, empathy and common sense are.
LONG LIVE SELFISH SHORT TERM PROFIT! SCREW Everyone else as long as I make MY bucks!
You need to find some new social circles then. Because it sounds like you’re in some pretty toxic ones.
The Doluth model is not going anywhere. That is the model that said that the Man goes to Jail.
In the USA
The VAWA was brought in after an earlier gender egalitarian version was put in use… And Women went to Jail more than men.
In Canada:
Men are still legaly responsible for their sexual actions if drunk, while women ate not.
Look up, *don’t be that Guy* posters.
In Britain, Women legaly are not recognizable as capable of rape. So a woman who forces a man to have sex with her, by any means that isnot his informed consent, will maybe, be considered to sexually assault him. Maybe.
And it does not end there.
Yes but a lot of feminists do have difficulty accepting that female privilege is a thing. Just because you’re disadvantaged in some respects does not mean you are not privileged in others. A lot of girls will feel that being ignored socially, getting criticized on what you do pitilessly, receiving no real respect unless you manage to earn it, and told to sort out your personal shit on your own is a form of being snubbed and discriminated against, when for guys that’s pretty normal, for instance. If you have a work environment like that, a girl who is in fact being treated just like one of the guys will easily end up feeling that she is being unfairly targeted and discriminated against.
Gender roles are a trade. You give up certain rights or freedoms in exchange for others. Someone is going to be upset if they have to pay the penalty for one role without receiving the benefits.
“Yes but a lot of feminists do have difficulty accepting that female privilege is a thing.”
That’s covered in modern intersectional feminism.
IF of course, they bother reading such.
Bets?
2nd-gen feminists who refuse to move with the improvements to feminist theory are a problem, yes.
The subject of female privilege doesn’t require intersectional theory, because the privilege we are discussing is particular to femaleness as a whole rather than the intersection of other identities. Intersectional theory is mostly about white privilege of women (when it cares to go there – afaict usually it just emphasizes minority rights and troubles through the feminist lens and appeals to white guilt in a way that isn’t intended to trouble white women overmuch) and it tends to minimize the role of femalehood in receiving privilege (ie. “white privilege” rather than “white woman privilege”).
So yeah, I’m not seeing how “female privilege” is suddenly an “intersectional” subject whereas presumably “male privilege” is not.
You don’t understand intersectionality.
But that’s ok.
The most common explination-example of intersectionality is actually the privilege/disadvantage mix of a rich black man in America. He’s privileged because he’s a man, he’s disadvantaged because he’s black in America, and he’s massively privilidged because he’s rich.
To the contrary, I might well argue that you do not understand intersectionality. A single identity (“female”) is not intersectional. And there is a difference between a nuanced approach to the subject of how the same identity can manifest privilege in some contexts while being disadvantaged in others and trying to layer identities as if that suffices to add nuance to the subject of a person’s privilege. The latter is by no means an adequate way of exploring the former. The point I’m getting at is that intersectional theory is not really relevant to engage the basic subject that women do receive privilege specifically for being female in some contexts.
We know that women by and large receive significantly more lenient treatment from criminal court for the same crimes as males of the same socioeconomic background do, for instance. That is a form of privilege particular to femaleness.
“That is a form of privilege particular to femaleness.”
Nope. White people have a similar effect. Which is the point.
Privilidge has many, many axis.
That is irrelevant. Regardless of whether or not one is white, women by and large receive significantly more lenient treatment from criminal court for the same crimes as males of the same socioeconomic background do. Hence, it is privilege that stems specifically from femaleness. And my point is simply that feminists have a difficult time accepting that female privilege is indeed a thing (even if women are disadvantaged in other contexts), which I suppose you are proving.
“And my point is simply that feminists have a difficult time accepting that female privilege is indeed a thing”
That you think that shows that you don’t understand intersectionality.
Cool. Could you let feminists know that please? They need to learn that more than we do.
I doubt you’ve ever encountered a “feminist”, but have interacted with plenty of real ones and just never knew.
Oh I’ve encountered plenty of feminists. Just none who are genuinely intersectional. Feminists as a whole don’t truly care about equality any more no matter what they say, they’re only interested in elevating the status of straight, cisgender, white women, at the expense of everyone else’s rights.
What then would you call someone who truly did care about equality for everyone?
I have some reservations about the term “feminism” myself, as it’s clearly rooted in the past, and not the future.
There is already a term for that: Egalitarian. I always found it suspicious that feminists claimed to be working towards equality while using a name that deliberately excludes half of the population, when they could have come up with a term that does genuinely imply equality. As I have gotten older, my suspicions have only been confirmed and I have come to realize that feminism does not stand for equality, and that any claims otherwise are only a smokescreen to hide their true intentions.
Our world is not their world, and misogynists having more victories of late than the egalitarians in our world does not necessarily mean that’s happening there.
More to the point, it doesn’t mean that Professor Zanziel’s classes on exactly what’s going on in a culture on a world entirely removed from theirs conveys that misogynists have been winning lately. I mean, they’ve been teaching for nearly two hundred of their years, and it sounds like they may have been teaching about this same trend the entire time. So it’s bound to be even more out of touch than anyone in this forum. To the extent it’s accurate, it’s mere luck.
The global overall trend is getting closer to that, yes. We are much closer than one hundred years ago. Do not confuse short-term changes with long term trend.
Depends…
In US abortion is challenged and it’s a women right.
And it’s recent.
In France we had a problem of some Muslims – about 10% of them so less than 1% of our nationals and about 1% of population – are against the secular republic and actively pursue the application of Sharia by any means …
And they had useful morons on the far left of the political spectrum…
The political correctness about islam is like a lead screed, and a sizable proportion of young french Muslims sees themselves as ubermechen , religions are like political parties – if you are atheist or irreligious it’s just their primitive form- they must be criticized – in France the intellectual level of the Imams 2.0 is below the Marina Trench -.
And this is bad news for women’s rights.
↑ I’m French and that’s bullshit ↑
They want you to believe Muslims are the source of our problems. Wanna know who challenged the defences of the right to abortion lately? The far-right RN party (24 votes out of the 32 that were against came from that party) and they’re the biggest haters of Muslims in town.
I dunno, a human-safe microplastics predator would be more on my top list for billionaire projects.
Make it generally enviromentally safe.
Don’t want it eating useful microorganisms.
Dragonfly larva…. old story. still scary.
Keep a stiff lower lip.
i’m just waiting for a ticket on a intergalactic tree, but I got to catch that flu first.
I think they believed a strain of bacteria that eats plastic and excrete vanilla flavoring. Been awhile since I looked it up, but it was definitely fun to read headlines paraphrasing “New scientific breakthrough turns garbage into ice cream!”
One already exists.
Rhodococcus ruber.
That’s actually really cool.
Now what would the side effects of spreading that around be, other than everything looking like it’s got an orange filter over it?
What would be the side effects? Tiny particles of plastic would very slowly be decomposed. You need a much more complex ecosystem to break tough stuff down faster than that, and plastic is literally designed to be tough. Decomposing wood, for example, taxes a complex mix of insects, funghi, and bacteria.
Cool, so this is just a PG-13 The Boys now? Supers just being awful for the lulz. Cool, I guess.
no not really, you’re just being a prat
Hmm, I was already a little iffy about how well everyone was taking this initially, and the fact people basically got drugged into having sex all throughout the base, but now finding out their emotionally responses afterward were curbed so they couldn’t properly express their feelings? Thats a bit far for me.
I can kind of forgive Parfait, because it was an accident due to not having full control of her power. Could happen to any of the supers, this was just in a bit more of a squicky way. But Dabbler is *intentionally* altering people’s emotional states to make them more okay with it which is… a bit too much for me. I have enjoyed this comic and it’s shenanigans for quite a while, but this is a bit too far for me. Emotional or mental control/manipulation is a bi t of a rough spot for me, especially in sexual terms.
Well, into being supernaturally horny. I agree that people should not be put under emotional influence without their consent, but on the other hand I can also see the utility of a freak out counter spell to help people come down off a supernaturally charged emotional state, assuming the goal is to let people process their feelings. I do think it should be THEIR feelings they’re processing though.
Something like that sounds incredibly useful if offered to somebody freaking out or about to freak out and given consent. It’s just that without consent this type of manipulation is really gross to me.
It might be a good option to offer them, it’s not good to impose it without consent
I think the issue is that in such cases, the window to gain consent is incredibly small and frankly the offer itself might trigger a freakout.
I recall another webcomic including Succubi and Incubi (colloquial just referred to as Cubi in the setting) where a mature Succubus briefly removed a newly discovered Incubus’ ability to feel wmotion because he was having a mental breakdown. Because he’d in the space of a few hours witnessed multiple murders, begun manifesting his telrpathic powers without understanding them, learned that his father was actually an Incubi who had disguised himself as the former husband of the young Incubus’ mother (whom he had killed), and been told by his father that if he ever tried to contqct his mother agsin, he would kill her.
In that specific case, it’s arguable that a brief intercession of muting emotional reactions is tantamount to restrainting a flailing pwrson so that they don’t harm themselves or others.
Consent is most certainly important, but the real world is complicated and messy and sometimes harm prevention requires constraining action in advance of possible violence. The guidelines of such an arguement though are of course a nightmare even before one adds a supernatural element.
There’s a few pretty big differences in that situation though.
a) The character in question was in the middle of a panic attack at the moment, that is to say, they were given the opportunity to control themselves and failed.
b) the character who removed the emotions immediately informed them of what they did.
c) the character in question offered to give his emotions back, and followed through with that promise the moment the character said so.
and
d) It was a complete negation of all emotion, not overwriting negative emotions with positive ones.
Its pretty dramatically different from what Dabbler’s doing, that is, modifying people’s emotions to what she thinks is best, and certainly to something that benefits herself and her sister greatly.
Hark! I do believe I have found a fellow reader of DMFA! … Uf, poor Abel…
Haven’t read that in years!
There’s a huge difference between an emergency situation and a non-emergency situation
If somebody is freaking out badly in an emergency room they might get sedated, in most places people won’t sedate somebody who’s undergone trauma just because they might freak out (Russia is an exception)
If done properly, this IS better outcome: remember that she’s just changing weights of feelings they have anyway. This turning into fight wouldn’t help anyone, well except Vehemence. Now, question is if you trust Dabbler to do it properly.
I trust Dabbler to do it sexy. Please read this with the best Alex Kingston imitation available.
Hey I’ve met Alex Kingston!
Yes, the answer to mind control is more mind control.
In fact mind control the entire planet so that nobody can ever be violent again…
The difference between Dabbler and say, certain politicians and former politicians, is that Dabbler seems to actually want to HELP people, not just lie to them, take their money and run.
I know. I know. That is heresy in the US these days according to many in positions of power.
Succubi are monsters. They are harmful by their very existence. Having a powerful succubi at the super base is like having a pet tiger. Sure it might love you. Sure it might be completely tame. But one wrong move, or just a little too much enthusiasm and you are crippled or dead.
And what the tiger thinks is gentle/soft/affectionate will not necessarily feel that way for the human on the other end.
I’m not sure there’s actual evidence that Succubi are necessarily harmful
They can be but don’t necessarily have to be
It has been explicitly stated that they mind control humans just by existing. Having sex with them literally mind-breaks humans if they aren’t memory wiped. There is no way for one to exist in human society without causing huge amounts of suffering.
And that’s all assuming that they follow human ethics, which it has been *very* well established that they do not. Dabbler doesn’t hesitate to mind control the people on the base into being okay with having been mind controlled, and she doesn’t even see anything wrong with it. Presumably Dabbler is one of the “better” succubi.
If you think nonviolent rape is bad, succubi are inherently evil.
I basically agree with you about this. It’s an entertaining storyline, and Dave is portraying the succubae as enlightened as all get out, but the truth is that they’re barely in check sex ninja/assassins who are comfortable with what they are though they were manufactured as weapons / addictive drugs.
Hyu-mons are more harmful than any other creature on the planet!
Hyu-mons actively hunt other creatures for the pure sport, including each other, they even invented activities to do it on a regular basis and called it, you guessed it, ‘sport’
Sure, you will get a few individuals of other species that will hunt for ‘pleasure’ rather than necessity (ie food or protection), but that’s usually because something is wrong with that individual (like injury or old age)
Succubi are effectively humans, except they are built for rape. Imagine a human, except they can mind control anyone they want, and they literally rape people for sustenance. Their ethics match their biology, and they see nothing wrong with any of this.
Dabbler is an adventurer – in other words she hunts for fun. She has all the evils of humanity, plus she’s a mind controlling rape monster on top of that. If humans are really so evil(you seemingly aren’t aware of just how screwed up the animal kingdom is), you should be twice as horrified by succubi.
Dabbler isn’t using mind control all her aura is going is stopping peoples emotions from peaking
basically she’s running a high and low pass filter on peoples emotions the same you would with an audio recording to remove popping and droning sounds
What part of ” ‘Hey that was just what I needed’ Aura” sounds like it’s just a widdle filter rather than outright control?
It’s what Dave describes it as beneath the comic.
It’s still mental manipulation as a response to mental manipulation to try and reduce the chance of splashback onto the mental manipulator
“too keep the sharp edges blunted”
the implication here is that those sharp edges still exist but aren’t hitting to the full effect they would be normally without the aura
its like how you restrain yourself from swearing while at work or in front of small children
the impulse is still there but its not as strong as it is normally because of an “aura” that’s in place
Uhhh if you’re restraining yourself you’re actively CONTROLLING your own actions.
by that logic every moment of your life you are controlling yourself
so you are constantly under self mind control
go and find an actual reason to be angry
What strange, and slightly worrying, “logic” you have.
You are DECIDING to not swear in front of those kids or at work. It’s not restraint if you’re not doing it on purpose. Making everybody ok with what was do to them isn’t some sort of autonomic process, Dabbler is doing it intentionally.
ah changing your own and the comics logic i see
first you said that it was controlling your own actions now its deciding
dabbler said that she’s blunting the emotions not removing them
now if she’s only blunting the emotions of everyone in the conference room point to me a single example of someone who us upset about what happened (beyond max who wasn’t there when it started and actively stopped it once she entered the aura and realized it was happening)
currently the only person i can see who is upset that it happened is the very same person who caused it someone who keep in mind would also be affected by dabblers blunting aura
so while i wont make it there is an augment for there being victim blaming that could be going on in your argument
hi! can i ask why you think ‘self mind control’ (being in control of your own actions, if choosing not to act on impulses) is the same as externally-sourced mind control (a separate individual enacts their own will on your mind, altering it or the decisions you make without you knowing)?
so like… if i reached into your brain and made you draw on your arm with pen, except you didn’t know i did that, it’d be the same as you deciding to draw on your arm with pen? that’s the point you bring to mind by saying “oh you’re ALWAYS under mind control because you control your own actions, now don’t get upset over the idea of someone else mind controlling you”
i don’t get your point. from my perspective: dabbler ‘blunting’ emotions is still creating an altered state. it might be a less harmful form of emotional manipulation because the emotion is still there and it allows the individual to maintain more reason and think through their reaction to the events, but it’s still messing with their emotions. i would argue de-weighting someone’s negative reaction to something they would otherwise hate is still scummy, even if it does serve a good purpose in keeping the building in order and keeping everyone from freaking out, but outright erasing how bad the others feel, even if you’re only erasing some and not all of the bad feeling, is icky.
with that same process you could make anyone less willing to stand up for themself if something happens or is done to them that they hate, because you take any negative reaction they have, chop some of it off, and they assume they just don’t feel bad about it and thus should be okay with it. you spill hot coffee on someone, but you didn’t mean it, so you erase most of their hard feelings – even though you got them burned and stained their clothes, they don’t feel so bad, so you don’t get consequences for spilling coffee on them. then later you accidentally trip them, and they get a nosebleed- again you make them feel less bad about it, because you didn’t mean it and it doesn’t ‘help’ if they get angry, so they aren’t mad at you about the nosebleed.
or, you find that person has a nice lunch that day. you decide you want to eat theirs instead of your own, and they don’t know you took it. then when they find out their lunch was taken, you make them not feel bad about it, and suddenly they’re fine with losing the lunch they brought, and they buy another. now you’ve stolen from them and convinced them they should be okay with that! you have taken away their agency as a person now, because they’re not acting according to how their personal perspective informs them, they’re acting however you influence them to act.
i consider there to be a difference between mind control and ‘self mind control’ because ‘self mind control’ is. how living beings are supposed to be free to function? you decide your own actions because it is your mind and your body. an invasion to that, particularly without your knowledge, is some sort of deep violation.
… That Original Series sounds like a great way to spend my lottery winnings. Do you think 10 million would be enough?
Might get you a 4 or 5 episodes if you’re talking fairly cheap TV series level production (The Walking Dead season 1 was 3.4 million/episode), Lucifer was about 3.5 million an episode for season 4.
I think JMS’ revision of his screenwriting book in the late 90s/early 2000s had 1.8 million as an average for an hour long drama (but I’d have to find it to be sure)
So, at least 25 then? Good to know…
“Succubi to the rescue” could probably be done through youtube or twitter at this point, just call them ASMR
So, I think you’ve made the right decision for maintaining the overall mood of the comic, by making sure there were zero actual consequences for what Parfait did, but it does entirely ruin the comic for me. I’ve been reading since roughly 2013-2014, but today’s going to be the last day for me, and I’m just disappointed and sad.
To be clear, the main reason is that I consider what Parfait did as basically giving date-rape drugs to the entire complex, followed by a significant number of the complex having sex in state where they were literally incapable of giving consent. Given that, per word of God, Dabbler is just “clipping the emotional peaks” here, literally every single person in that complex has no problem with being emotionally and mentally compromised, and then pushed into sex. In fact, they were near-universally happy it happened and Dabbler considers it a form of rescue!
I literally do not see how you can interpret this in any way but Dave, the author, telling people who have been date-raped in real life that if they could just get over themselves and enjoy it, everyone would be better off. Like it or not, when you tell a story, you are delivering a message to the audience, and I am not exaggerating when I say I believe that is the message of this arc. That’s why I’m leaving, not anything individual characters did in the comic, and why I’m so sad and disappointed.
I think you’re WAY off the mark here. It has been made clear earlier that noone went and had sex with people, they weren’t attracted to or would have considered as potential sexual partners already. All Parfait’s aura did was make them loose the inhibitions, the ‘No, I’d probably better not’, that would have normally keep them from acting on those impulses (or at least have made them go through a longer proces before acting on them).
Now, you can definitely discuss the ethics of such an external impulse – but calling it Rape is a serious misuse of that word. Indeed, my impulse to answer you is to a large degree influenced by my being tired of the way some people call it rape, whenever people have sex in a way THEY don’t approve of. Rape is a serious crime and a terrible trauma to the victims – don’t throw that word around to make minor points about how YOU think people shpould go about having sex.
If I were to give a date ecstacy without their knowledge, so they were more likely to drop the inhibitions and sleep with me? Or hell, just slipping ecstacy into the drinks at a party because I think that it would be good for people to get over their inhibitions and release some stress?
That’s not maybe rape. That’s not some kind of minor league rape. That’s straight up rape. That is straight up assault and a huge violation. “They wouldn’t have done it if they weren’t already into the other person” absolutely is not a defense.
It’s not a minor point to tell people not to drug their friends so they are more likely to have sex. In fact, Dabbler’s explicit point is that she is happy to magically drug the people at Archon because she thinks they should go about having more sex. She, and apparently you don’t think people should have inhibitions like not cheating on their partner or fucking coworkers and so it’s just fine if you drug them to get over these little “inhibitions”
I’m an extremely kinky, sex positive person who does actually think people should be less inhibited and more open to sex.
I don’t think it’s right to drug people into that, I don’t think it’s okay and it’s absolutely a kind of rape.
> Or hell, just slipping ecstacy into the drinks at a party because I think that it would be good for people to get over their inhibitions and release some stress?
This is definitely not rape. It’s still bad, but not rape.
Assuming that the perp uses the situation to have sex with one of the drugged victims, the laws in most developed countries in the world disagree with you.
Seeing as we’ve now got confirmation that Dabbler is still affecting people now can we trust what the characters are saying?
The effect was strong enough that a military person was steaming up a the glass on their post while on duty in view of people coming into the building, I don’t care how much you’re attracted to the other person if you’re being affected by an external influence that makes you do that then there isn’t meaningful consent.
steaming up a small room isn’t that hard
i can do that to my car after a workout as my body vents heat
no sex needed just higher blood flow
If we want to ignore all context, sure they could have been doing plates in there for all we know
But considering what everything up to that point was implying, we can pretty much infer that they were atleast playing with their own joystick.
true just pointing out that fogging up a small enclosed room (considering it looks smaller than my car)
isn’t that hard to do with nothing but elevated blood flow and mild exercise, hey look that is exactly what happens when you masturbate
derailing and very much besides the point
not really the comment i originally made was to point out that “strong enough that a military person was steaming up a the glass on their post” isn’t really that strong and is something that can happen without any aura in place, so using it as a bench mark for strength of aura is a null point to begin with
now the chances of a military personnel fogging there station glass from excess body heat is low considering going to work right after a workout is unlikely, but that’s not the point i was making
the point i was making is that the effect of fogging glass up is really piss easy, were just used to being in rooms that are either well ventilated or have adequate AC in them(using my car as yet another example i basically run the ac on constantly after any form of workout so i can drive and not have to wait 10 minutes for my body to finish venting heat)
now continue the conversation using an actual valid measurement for the strength of the aura
The point stands that the context of the glass scene was in connection to all the horny people either getting off by themselves or having sex. The idea that the glass scene, rather obviously evoking the sex scene from Titanic, is not actually depicting them doing something of that sort is silly at this point, even if we cant actually know the specifics of whats happening without Dave showing or telling us.
It all but spells it out that they were doing something, either sex, or masturbation, something they shouldnt have been doing while on duty and at their station and that is a clear sign that the aura overrode better judgement in favour of satisfying the urges.
Just because somebody is attracted to somebody else doesn’t mean that they’d choose to have sex with them.
Let’s say that you’ve got a coworker who you find attractive, if you drug them with something without their knowledge to reduce their inhibitions to have sex with you are you raping them?
Except, both parties involved admitted that the only reason why they hadn’t hooked up already was because of the third party, and neither were involved in influencing the other, and they one who was DID NOT DO IT INTENTIONALLY!!!
a) I’m not actually talking about characters in the comic
b) If you’re talking about Amorphous and Jiggawatt where did they say they would have already hooked up apart from Heatwave?
They state (paraphrasing) that the sex was great but that they regret that it’ll hurt Heatwave on page 1197
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-1197-succubus-wrangler/
c) does the fact that neither of them was responsible for the auro automatically mean that there can’t be bad consequences?
d) does the fact that something’s an accident mean there can’t be any bad consequences?
You’re off the mark there, I think. I’m going to use letters because it’s easier. Friend A gets friends B+C drunk because he knows both of them are interested but won’t make the first move on each other. Friend A leaves and friends B+C then have drunk sex. If you think gender or biological sex matter here fuck off. Friends B+C then wake up and are both okay and might be mad at friend A, but it’s not rape, and it’s not illegal.
Except B and C wern’t interested because B was in a long term relationship and the two are coworkers and A spiked their drink without telling them. If B and C were told ahead of time hey I’m getting you two drunk and they could say no thank you that will compromise my judgement or sure lets go, then no problem. This is.
On top of that D walks in noticing that after B and C start recovering they are questioning whats going on D gives them more roofie to keep them happy and docile.
I do not believe thats how they phrased things, just that they did not mind the sex itself happening, just that it was in a cheating context.
Also the fact that Dabbler has an ongoing aura affecting how people react to what has happened makes the honesty of everyones behaviour in the meeting questionable, as we can now not know how much was genuine and how much of their negative responses were muted/clipped away.
Bye!
Comics have been having their characters express a point of view that doesn’t align with real world morality for decades, and it is often done to show how those characters are wrong in their world and ours.
If your skin were a bit thicker, you might finish the arc before judging it, but a comment like that just tells the world that you believe the message of X-Men is that it’s okay to be racist if most others are, the message of Batman is that if you throw enough resources at a problem then beating up the mentally ill is more effective than therapy, and the message of Watchmen is follow your heart and you’ll never do wrong.
Based on Dave’s comments this is pretty much the end of the arc.
We have one of the main characters in the comments using emotion control on people to avoid consequences of previous emotion control
The author is specifically saying “You can call it mind control, or you can think of it as preventing a bunch of super powered individuals from developing grudges against Parfait/Sydney/Succubi in general/each other. It’s clear Dabbler is doing what she thinks is best for the team”
So the word of god take on it is basically “the answer to mind control/emotion control is more mind/emotion control to make it o.k.”
Mind control and the like is a damned murky areas in the comics, have a look at the problems Moondragon has gotten herself into, or Xavier for that matter.
Never mind the complete horror show of The Purple Man
and your crap gibes at the end of the post really doesn’t help your case
totally unacceptable were it to happen in real life, or be treated as an opinion or encouragement of what should happen in real life
but as a study of a separate universe where ‘lust auras’ are just a thing that can happen and there is a species that requires constant sex to live… still scummy in thought, but i can get you’re not supposed to see it as the preferable option to happen in-universe, you’re just seeing the consequences of a species with that capability losing control, and another member doing what she thinks will reduce trouble.
if daveb really thinks there’s NO potential issues or moral objections to how this went about, then that’s a red flag. but as far as in-universe considerations, following the consequences of what lore and situation was set up, even if they’re awful, is reasonable. again; as a judgment or opinion of real-life matters, scummy and unacceptable. as a fictional matter because all the involved factors were leading to this anyway? no actual people were hurt in the comic events, and the only potential harm is from reactions to reading the comic material, which doesn’t mean there is no harm, but that nothing *happened* in reality. if you click off the comic and never read it again, there are no further consequences. i don’t think daveb is actually endorsing ‘put a whole building in an altered state that encourages them to have sex and then another altered state so they don’t feel violated or hurt by the prior altered state’ as something to or consider ‘good’ or actually attempt.
The harm comes from its role in shifting the Overton window — or perhaps more specifically, its role in the “spiral of silence”. Basically, most expression on an idea presents it somewhere along two axes: “normal” or “abnormal”, and “good” or “bad”. In many cases, these axes are analogous: “normal” is “good”, and “abnormal” is “bad”. But sometimes, “abnormal” is presented as superior to “normal”.
Every expression, whether it be a piece of art, a story, or a comment, contributes to the dialogue about what is good and what is normal. No singular expression can be blamed for the shift in the cultural narrative, but they all do contribute to some degree. One expression emboldens others to speak up who might otherwise have felt alone.
This comic expresses certain views about sex and consent and manipulating others for your own ends. Some people obviously agree, while others disagree. They all want their views to prevail in the common culture, because their needs are best met when the culture respects them.
The comic was a variety of characters who express different viewpoints. While I think the author definitely trends… far beyond sex-positive, all the way into restraint-negative. But I think it’s also telling that Sydney did not succumb to the succubus, and that she’s being treated positively by the narrative, even as she’s reinforcing the importance of consent.
That said, I do understand the concern that choosing to have all the characters be okay with this, or forgive everyone for what’s happened, not only reflects a certain view, but also projects it as desirable or normal — that people who would have a problem with the events are either non-existent or wrong.
Mark Foley said:
> I literally do not see how you can interpret this in any way but Dave, the author, telling people who have been date-raped in real life that if they could just get over themselves and enjoy it, everyone would be better off.
Or, alternatively, authors are allowed to write complex characters including villains, anti-heroes, and morally grey ‘heroes(?)’ into their world. An author who writes a story about Captain America punching Hitler in the face does not necessarily approve of Hitler. An author who writes a story about God drowning all the pregnant women does not necessarily approve of abortion. An author who writes about the Punisher does not necessarily approve of solving problems with bullets. Aldous Huxley did not necessarily approve of totalitarianism via drugs; Brave New World was supposed to be a dystopia and to raise exactly the sort of questions that Dave is raising: what do you do when utilitarian consequentialism (“everyone is happy”) clashes with deontology (“you should not use cultural conditioning to manipulate people into taking drugs all the time while shipping protesters to an island and then telling them that they’ll be happier there”)?
But Dave very much is going by his kinda flippant comments underneath the comic.
The author gets to choose the consequences of those characters’ actions, and how they are framed. Two authors could write the same kind of character, doing the same kind of thing, and one could portray it in a positive light, while the other negatively.
I would interpret the complaints not as “you shouldn’t have a character doing these things”, but as “you shouldn’t portray this as morally correct”.
Torabi said:
> I would interpret the complaints not as “you shouldn’t have a character doing these things”, but as “you shouldn’t portray this as morally correct”.
I don’t read this as Dave saying “Dabbler is acting in a morally correct way.” I read this as Dave saying “Dabbler is an extremely problematic and dangerous character who is essentially uncontrolled by her ‘team’ and has the potential to cause great harm if she gets bored or suborned. Worse, her team doesn’t know that.” That’s an excellent bit of psychological horror writing.
That is an interesting read, but I dont see where it came from exactly.
Would you mind pointing out what in the comic gives you the impression he is framing Dabbler as a problematic and dangerous character? Or the author notes when he specifies this?
At the moment my take away has been that Dabbler has been portrayed in a primarily positive manner and that Daves notes have usually supported that in my eyes.
wow, that really fucked up. Like, Jesus, I’m pretty sure I’ve read as story where the bad guy was doing stuff like that. Parfait’s horny bomb was an accident, the result of her not having the control she thought she did so worrying and a reason she should not be considered safe until she has that under control, but not a moral transgression. This though? that’s pretty fucked up. This is Dabbler deciding she knows better than everyone else how they should react to this, and then editing their emotions to push them towards the reaction she thinks is appropriate. That is terrifying, and the mindset it revels is disturbing. What if she decides she knows best how everyone should react to something else down the line?
and hey! that works, she is not even a little human, so her having truly inhuman through process makes sense. Friction from her deeply inhuman view of morality and the rest of the casts very human view of morality would be an interesting idea to explore. a character who’s mostly a good person but does not understand why everyone would get so upset about her editing their emotions is interesting. I’m just a bit concerned that the writer might not be viewing it in that way and instead just sees the whole twisted mess as a comedy bit.
Two things; one, Dabbler is literally a sex demon. Her worldview is strictly different from the humans on both a cultural and biological level.
Second, she actually is probably correct in her decision to keep everyone’s emotions in check on a purely pragmatic level. There are somewhere around 15 confirmed supers in the debriefing room, possibly more off-screen. Given that ARC’s supers are among the most powerful in the world, even a couple of them having a mental breakdown could be a city-leveling event. The first priority is to make sure nobody DIES.
1)That doesn’t make what she’s doing any more or less okay.
2)No. They aren’t that strong and nor do their powers cause that wide a range of destruction just because they’re upset. And that implies it’s morally okay to just have them on mind control forever in case they might feel upset.
They’re in a profession involving combat and death. Keeping them from ever being able to process strong emotions on their own will just lead to more problems later when they inevitably get traumatized by something.
1. It doesn’t make what she did morally okay from OUR point of view. But this is a fictional story. You have to understand that characters will not all share YOUR values.
2. They are definitely that strong. Presumably you’ve read the comic and seen the level of destructive power they can output. They can easily level a city if they went on a rampage. Think of it like putting a diver into a decompression chamber after they had to do an emergency surface. Sure, there’s a chance they won’t die horribly from rapid decompression… But why take the risk when you have a safe way to ensure their health?
Sex and violence are very different things. There’s a reason why we can show a character in a movie get decapitated but we can’t show a single female nipple. Our society doesn’t mind violence all that much, but gets absurdly weird about sex. These are very different stressors and someone who can handle being in violent situations could absolutely have a different and more severe reaction to a sexual stressor.
Also, blunting the edges of severe emotion following a major incident is not the same as having the whole team under constant mind control.
1) The POV of the character isn’t my concern. Do you think that’s what I’m saying when I say what Dabbler did is morally repugnant?
I have no issue if that is her character. I’m just speaking my mind and arguing with people who apparently think roofies are A-OK.
2) They really can’t. Most of them can’t even destroy a building in one shot. And definitely not if Maxima is around to intercept them.
Which is assuming they would have a violent response at all.
And yeah, being able to handle being emotionally manipulated into sex is different from the trauma of combat. But the baseline ability to learn how to not fly off the handle from a spike of rage or despair or shame is the same.
And artificially making them feel good about it now isn’t going to fix the underlying issue.
Not to mention that it completely violates team trust and consent.
It’s basically drugging them to make them feel okay about being drugged.
I feel like you’re not understanding the extremes the emotions here can reach. We’re not talking about “Lost at a video game and am angy” level stress. It’s not something as minor as the urge to throw your controller vs self control. We’re talking about “Could cause a psychotic break and/or PTSD” level stress.
POV is important to consider. Because the character’s experiences and motivations are important to judging their actions. In this case, Dabbler is taking on risk and harm to herself in order to prevent anyone present from becoming traumatized. Not getting their consent for the “afterglow aura” is bad, but it’s also something you can’t really *get* consent for. Waiting until they have become fully lucid and aware of the situation before asking for consent would lead to the damage to have already been done and the opportunity to shield them from becoming traumatized would have been missed.
It’s like taking keys away from someone who intends to drive while severely drunk. TECHNICALLY taking someone’s property is wrong even if you intend to give it back. But the extenuating circumstance makes it become acceptable.
To be completely frank; that’s a pretty big assumption on your part.
Not 3 pages ago people were perfectly willing to accept that the characters were this chill about it all on their own and that Max was being a bit of a prude.
But now, suddenly, they were all on the verge of a violent psychotic break that would kill hundreds of people? (Something completely at odds with their characters)
>It’s like taking keys away from someone who intends to drive
It’s actually like finding out someone was roofied and influenced into having sex with someone they otherwise wouldn’t and then drugging them again to make them okay with it.
People changing their opinions as a result of receiving new information? No way! Unbelievable! If only YOU could achieve such a feat!
People were willing to accept that these characters just happened to be chill, because people CAN be chill about things. Its a “Well if the writer says they’re all chill, then they’re chill.” situation. Opinions changed based on the new information that they may not actually be chill.
Your analogy sucks. The scenario you’ve prescribed requires there to be malice. But we’ve already established that there was no malice here; Parfait lost control of her powers by accident. There is also a difference between “blunting the sharp edges of emotion” and “Making someone okay with mind control.”
Their opinions also aren’t being force-ably changed. They are not being made to be okay with mind control, they’re just being kept relatively calm temporarily. They can still think through and process their emotions in a healthy, rational way tomorrow.
Essentially, you’ve made up a pretend version of this scene with completely different circumstances and completely different mechanics and then are getting mad about your made up construct rather than what has actually been written.
>People changing their opinions as a result of receiving new information?
Except it’s not new information.
Nothing in the scene tells us how extreme their reactions would be because of the constant mental manipulation.
>The scenario you’ve prescribed requires there to be malice.
Usually, yes. But it is possible to drug people by accident.
Which is effectively what Par did, and she had a good excuse granted, but they should be allowed to process that on their own.
>“blunting the sharp edges of emotion” and “Making someone okay with mind control.”
There kind of really isn’t. Those edges being blunted implies they exist and would have changed their stances on this. Par likely would have been barred from the base anyway but still very scummy to artificially lower the discomfort of others just to make her feel better.
She needs to feel how grave of a mistake this is. Just like if someone with a more straightforward superpower accidentally injured a bunch of people it wouldn’t be okay to mind whammy them either.
Like I said in my post, it makes perfect sense for dabbler to see this as the right thing to do. I offer not criticism for the character acting in character. My concerns are to use somewhat nerdy terminology, doylist not watsonian. If an author has a character who sees nothing wrong with say, to pick some shocking example at random, euthanizing anyone who’s lost a limb act upon that belief then that’s just the character being written with a weird mindset. That does not mean that they could not write that poorly, for example in a work with a serious tone them killing someone who lost an arm is laughed off as a joke that would be bad writing. While for example, confronting them and exploring the inhuman mindset that produces that belief would be good writing.
The criticism I have with this entire sequence of events is it feels like the author is simply using the mind manipulation to remove unwanted narrative consequences of the horny bomb, rather than explore dabblers character. For example a scene where a human mage confronts her and they explore why dabbler is fine with this, or it’s shown after this dabbler is notable less trusted or something of narrative value coming from it other than a tasteless sex joke.
Did Dabbler consult with Dr. Frost about what she intends to do? Or Max? No, because she knows the answers would have been “No” and “Hell No!”. So she’s being a sneak. For their own good.
this is the essence of chaotic good. or in Dabbler’s case Chaotic horny.
While Max would certainly give it a “That’s too close to mind control, so fuck no!” I’m not so convinced about Dr Frost.
Because what Dabbler is doing at the moment is throwing out a wide-area calm emotions aura to give everyone time to process everything *without* using their obscenely dangerous superpowers and military training to do something they will absolutely regret.
Lower down you say “It would lead to a massive burst of anti-succubus bigotry. Might even get all succubi evicted from their homes. The comments section is proof of that.”
In which case simply being calm wouldn’t even help. They’d just calmy suggest Par and Dabbler never come near them ever again.
There’s no way to explain this situation that doesn’t involve Dabbler just subverting what they feel on a fundamental level if you think the response would be that severe.
I’ve been in situations where I would be glad that something like this was done to me without my prior consent.
I’ve talked to people like Dr. Frost about those situations.
Dr. Frost is probably the most likely to keep this quiet because it has good uses.
I think the military brass would fall into one of two catagories, with very few in between. Either chucking Dabbler and all other succubi off the planet, or “you’re doing recruiting drives now.”
Good for you but not everyone is you.
And people have a right to their physical and mental autonomy.
Additionally; this isn’t sustainable. Dabbler had an excellent platform to explain things now. But the more secret mind control that goes down, and the more that will inevitably be revealed in the future, the more volatile the response to them will be. Possibly reaching actual violence.
>I think the military brass
The military already knew Dabbler could do mind control. We all did.
It was just never used in this context; IE on teammates because their genuine emotions would be inconvenient.
You keep saying “inconvinient” when you mean “potentially catastrophic”
You, and others in the comments section, keep trying to sell this as “calming emotions”. And I’m being very generous by going with that.
If their genuine feelings and thoughts were that extreme, how calm they are wouldn’t help much.
Additionally; potentially catastrophic feelings? They’re in a profession where they have to learn how to process trauma and extreme emotion, not have it mind whammied away. Otherwise, when it inevitably happens in the field, they’ll be a wreck with 0 experience.
And most of them don’t have the experience to be trusted to do that reliably.
And they’ll never get the chance to if every time they might get upset about something morally ambiguous the very thing that might have upset them is used to make them okay with it.
Not to mention the consent, possibly ruined relationships of those not under the mind manipulation aura, etc etc.
Some people would be fine with it, others would not. Which is exactly why verifying consent is important. The only way to respect both is to err on the side of caution, and ask first. What varies from culture to culture is the assumptions about what does and does not require consent, and under which circumstances. Our society generally says that we should respect a person’s autonomy unless there is an immediate risk of irreversible harm. Dabbler’s culture seems to value hedonistic pleasure and positive feelings over personal autonomy and honest experiences.
That said, I wonder how Dabbler would feel if someone had done something to suppress her emotional response when she got angry. I suspect her ethics is one defined by power and hierarchy, in which different rules apply to different people.
I think someone trying to mind-control a succubus would have a really hard time. (Ba-dum tish!)
Part of their growing-up experience is learning to break one of the most powerful mind-control effects we’ve seen in the comic so far. I doubt most mind-control is more than a suggestion to adult succubi.
Whether or not it could happen is irrelevant to the question of how she would feel about it if someone did succeed at doing so.
Fair point.
But the fact that she is always under a mind-control effect that she was born with probably would.
It’s been shown repeatedly that succubi don’t consider mind control to be a big deal.
Whether or not that cultural more is good or not, it’s what she’s used to. Think about nude swimming around children if we didn’t mentally link nudity with sex.
I’m also reminded of Torchy’s “lets not call it possession.”
Which, among other aspects of her behavior, leads me to think that she probably doesn’t think there’s a moral element to it — or that her morality is based primarily on power. That if someone is weak enough to succumb to an effect, that they deserve it. The strong deserve whatever they can take, the weak deserve whatever they can’t resist.
“she probably doesn’t think there’s a moral element to it”
Yeah, it seems like Dabs (and succubi in general) don’t worry about consent all that much.
“or that her morality is based primarily on power.”
She’s had a long career as an “adventurer.” There’s a reason the traditional D&D party/plotline gets refered to as “murderhobos.”
Add in Cora’s observation that she’s gone soft, and I think Dabbler’s been very used to being one of the most powerful and “in charge” people she interacts with (and always at the top of her own chain of command before ARC). Along with her having “Hero PR” backing her decisions.
If she gets caught for this we might see some character growth from her.
Hm, this is pretty on point for why, to borrow Worm terminology, Human Masters like Dabbler pretty much get Kill Orders when discovered.
Honestly, if this ever gets discovered Dabbler may very well have to run to escape Earth before she’s killed by a SuperBlackOps team.
I’m honsetly trying to think of a human-controlling Master from Worm who’s a Hero and only coming up with the obvious one from the finale (and the Hero designation there is dubious). There’s another one, but they stop being a Hero as soon as they firgure out they can do it.
Which does imply that it’s very much a “break glass in case of emergency” power to pull out of the bag.
(No spoilers for the sequal please, I’m still building up the courage to read it)
And on reading the wiki: Canary before she entered the story was a human-mind-controlling Rogue. Also Gallant and Glory Girl do emotion control as Heroes.
So it’s possible, but you need good PR and weak powers.
And Canary used her power to control one person who was threatening her, and got a life sentence in the highest security prison alongside people who had killed literally dozens if not more people.
Also Glory Girl’s power is sold as being a ‘Shaker’ effect, even though it very much is a Master effect.
So basically you are right, it is possible, but there is pretty much zero tolerance for it in setting, to the point where characters with Master powers will actively pretend they have something else, or a weaker version of their powers.
Canary didn’t get in trouble for using her power on someone who was threatening her. She’d have been fine if she’d simply told him to “Go away.”
She’d probably also have been fine if the authorities had given her a fair trial.
And, ironically enough, she’d probably have been better off if she’d done something similar as a declared Villain.
She told her ex to ‘go fuck yourself’, and somehow that resulted in him cutting his own dick off. Instead of, you know, buying a dildo or just masturbating furiously. It was pretty clearly an accident.
That’s kind the point. She didn’t get a fair trial, because she was a human Master. Instead she was given the bare minimum to defend herself (she wasn’t even allowed to write in her defense IIRC and had to depend entirely on the court provided lawyer for literally everything), and then was basically given a death penalty in an unprecedented punishment for her first ever crime.
I read that as him trying to put his dick inside his own ass while erect. Which would inevitably lead to his dick needing amputating.
From my memory, she was put in a “your vocal chords cannot move” restraint from the moment she was arrested, had a shitty public defender assigned and was royally fucked over by the system.
Switching series for a moment though, there’s an elephant-in-the-room sized example of a human-mind-control hero with stupid amounts of power and control: Charles Xavier. He got put on a bus in the comics because he’s a superman problem, not because of what he can do.
And the reason he gets away with everything he does do (in both the movies and comics) is because people trust him to have cast-iron morals. I don’t know why they do, unless it’s because he’s controlling them to trust him.
Does the team trust Dabbler as much as that? Probably not. Do they trust her enough to make calls like that in the short term and review them later? Possibly.
I’ve suffered from depression and suicide. I would have *thanked* someone like Dabbler taking the edge off in those situations. Even if they waited a few weeks (or years) to tell me about it.
So I’m holding off on judgement of Dabbler’s behaviour here until everything settles. If she gives Dr. Frost a full report under patient confidentiality then I’m good. That’s my “is Dabbler being honest enough with the team?” line.
She also might have made the call that a month of abstenance is worth it for her sister and the team’s sake.
You’re probably right on what he tried to do. But the point is that ‘go fuck yourself’ isn’t a direct order to cut your dick off and shove it in your ass. That’s how he interpreted it, independent of Canary’s wishes.
And Canary was rich, or at least decently successful. She could afford her own lawyer. So either she wasn’t allowed to spend her own money to hire a lawyer, or the lawyers all refused to represent her. She was beyond fucked over by the system.
Mind you I’ve read more than one story about Charles mind-controlling various X-men for various reasons, and then the other X-men absolutely losing it on him when they learn about it. So…yeah, it’s hardly universal that he is trusted to not abuse his power. And sometimes he does abuse his power anyways. And Xavier has gone full villain at least once too.
That’s you though, and you are evidently comfortable with other people making decisions for you, regardless of your consent. I’m very much the opposite. I would consider someone messing with my thoughts and emotions to be the deepest sort of violation, and would only be able to forgive them if they were actively saving lives in doing so.
Because at best, assuming Dabbler is fully doing this for the benefit of the team, that still means that she doesn’t trust her own team to respond appropriately to Parfait’s actions, or even control themselves. Because she didn’t even give them a chance to be upset. She cranked out her own aura and stopped those negative thoughts from even happening, and then didn’t tell any of them about it. Even children get treated with more respect than that.
“you are evidently comfortable with other people making decisions for you, regardless of your consent.”
Everyone is. It’s called “accepting the result of elections.” Also “emergency medical care.”
And if the people democratically decided that all trans people should be eradicated, would you dutifully march to the ovens, or would you fight back?
And in various countries, people can get some variety of Do Not Resuscitate order that is legally binding, which prohibits some emergency medical care. Respecting their denial of consent is prioritized over saving their life.
“And if the people democratically decided that all trans people should be eradicated, would you dutifully march to the ovens, or would you fight back?”
That’s an extreme example (but I like to think I’d fight back, obviously). Most people accept monsterous things because the government tells them that’s what they should do.
But look up how the folks the Nazis threw in the concentration camps reacted (jews, queers, socialists, etc…). Most of them *didn’t* fight back. Or the Palistinians right now.
Most people don’t fight back.
Not an example I would use, as I would argue that I do consent to most decisions made by the government since I actively participate in elections, and when I don’t consent I have the right to protest that decision or will just break the law outright in order to ignore that decision. Now admittedly I live in a wonderful and peaceful country where oppression is so rare as to nearly not exist. I’ve never had to make that sort of hard choice on risking everything to oppose an atrocity committed by my government.
As for emergency medical care, well the key word is ’emergency’. As in an exceptional circumstance where people’s lives are in active danger. Not hypothetical danger. Not eventual danger. The sort of danger that if they took the time to ask me for permission, then I’d end up dead. Or they can’t ask me for permission because I need the medical care before I’m in any shape to respond.
If I was clinically depressed and suicidal, and a doctor shot me with a dart full of happy drugs, they’d probably be disbarred from practicing medicine, because they are violating my right to consent to treatment. Unless I was actively trying to kill myself at that exact moment.
And that’s the big problem with Dabbler’s aura. She preempted any sort of negative reaction. Maybe everyone in that room would’ve been basically fine with it. We can never know because she took away their ability to feel those negative emotions. Maybe they would’ve gone far enough to attempt to attack Parfait or Sydney. Again, we don’t know, but that seems unlikely. Particularly when you know, Sydney has an nigh invincible bubble, Maxima is in the room, and Dabbler has freaking sleep spells anyways! If someone did lose control she has options to calm them down in the moment. She did not need to resort to her aura to prevent an emergency.
When it comes down to it, Dabbler’s aura was 100% selfish. She didn’t want anyone blaming Parfait for sexual assault, so she removed their ability to think of the sex they just had as a negative thing. You know, removing their ability to freely decide how they felt about the situation and deal with things appropriately. And the she frames Parfait’s actions as a good thing, saying that it was about time that everyone at Archon fucked each other, and completely ignoring the fact that everyone there is an adult, and if they wanted to have sex with each other, they could just, you know, go ahead and have sex. Them choosing to not have sex is not some problem that needs to be solved.
“Now admittedly I live in a wonderful and peaceful country where oppression is so rare as to nearly not exist. I’ve never had to make that sort of hard choice on risking everything to oppose an atrocity committed by my government.”
What country do you live in, because I want to move there.
I’m actually enjoy the comments on this arc more than the arc itself.
So many “Jesus” quoted by people who probably don’t even want to know who or what the real one (maybe, debate still ongoing) was, so much cloistered minds, a metric boatload of criticisms about “mind and emotion control” while the whole concept of the United States of America is literally based on brainwashing the masses with adverstisement and politics since it’s very foundation.
Reading those comments as an European, that went through Catholic education, attended the Seminar to become a ordained priest before realizing that all that “holier than you” was just basic hypocrisy to justify their own horrible behaviour is hugely entertaining.
And it typical American fashion, NONE of the pearl-clutching crowd in here is willing to consider that maybe there can be other cultures and points of views.
Xuriel is a literal demon, alien and adventurer that comes from a culture based on mostly-willing slavery, and you’re all attempting to judge her behaviour by the “American good Chirstian” standard.
My own theological studies told me a couple of decades ago that the American culture would lead the actual returned Jesus to renact the parable from the “merchants of the temple” on a continent-wide scale, with more prejudide, and a lot more damnation for all, so that “Good American Christian” trope is a very sad joke in itself.
Even the US version of the Bible is very far from the one found everywhere else in the world.
But the French are not in the clear either, that bit against homosexuality comes from a petition to change to original coptic writting from “not sleep with children” to “not sleep with men”, two thousands years ago written to protect the children from the very real mental trauma of Spartan military practice (involving repeated group rape of young boys to make the “soldiers”) and Roman practice of raping anything to prove their own might (being on the recieving end simply meant you were inferior, and thus a slave), because the French culture of the late 18th century saw homosexuality as detrimental to the prosperity of the nation (not enough children born = not enough money to make), *nothing* in that petition was from a so-called moral high point, and it backfired horribly, leading to the widespread practice of peadophilia (that was previously specifically mentionned as unholy in the Bible) by too much of the clergy AND public humiliation, imprisonment or murder of anyone not “purely heterosexual” fo a century.
This a story set in a fictional universe with entirely fictional cultures, including demons that do not fit into the standard American definition of what a demon is (and, surprise, the American version is almost exactly the opposite of the ones written several thousands years ago in the Bible, the Torah, the Talmud and the Quran), and yet I’m reading comments acidly critiquing a fiction, while being completely OK with the actual, horrible, real world shenanigans of your own political caste that made social progress jump back more than 75 years.
YOU PEARL-CLUTCHERS WOULD GREATLY BENEFIT FROM REMOVING THE WOODEN BEAM FROM YOUR EYES BEFORE TALKING ABOUT THE SPLINTER IN THE EYE OF YOUR NEIGHBOURS !!!
Such hate and bigotry is disgusting, to everyone EXCEPT Americans.
I’d go as far as to write that the people I’m referecing here are much worse than any Muslim, Yew, Hindu or Agnostic that I know, OF COURSE with the VERY BLATANTLY OBVIOUS exception of the radicalized ones that don’t think for themselves anymore and just *have faith* …
well, its just another Manic Monday in the comment section. waiting for a Sunday when no one reads your comments day.
Dude? I’m a bisexual atheist, in an open relationship, into a ton of BDSM and kink, up to and including consensual non-consent.
This isn’t pearl clutching, and “my culture says it’s okay to drug people to lower their inhibitions” does not somehow make it okay. Cultures can in fact, be bad. As you seem to be aware given the screed against Christians here. Why aren’t you defending the Christian “culture” of opposing homosexuality? Or the culture of keeping the women at home?
Also, it’s hilarious you think it’s only Americans doing this shit. Ask queer Koreans about what their culture thinks about sexuality?
“anyone not “purely heterosexual” fo a century.”
All the way through to the present day. Though we’re starting to undo that damage.
If you think only the USA’s government utilizes propaganda, you should try pulling your head out of your sweet little behind for long enough to take a look around. Quite ironic that you deride the “holier than thou” attitudes of some Christians in thiis same comment.
Thats a very hholier than thou” tirade for someone with such a seeming dislike for christianity/catholicism.
You are making a lot of assumptions about other commenters, including their nationality as well as their views on their own culture and politics, as well as deriding their character in an insulting manner as a result of this.
You also acknowledge radicalization of factions in other groups without considering that it is a major issue faced by americans as well.
For the record, im not american, but european, and not religious in the slightest. I am not cool with what has happened on the basis of minds being messed with and the consent portion being made impossible. Additionally its Dabbler who herself is overlooking the local human culture and using her own to justify her actions in this, shes completely ignoring what peoples opinions on this would be because in her eyes “this was good”. Its got me feeling very uncomfortable and if that was the intent, in order to provoke discussion on the topic, id applaud it, but I do not think its what Daves intention was, and this was just meant to be a bit of funny and sexy shenanigans.
Please stop trying to frame this all as such puritan american pearl clutching, and not people with actual criticism that just isnt universally shared by all readers.
France had they’re own problem about secularism, a loud part of French mulsims are blatantly using the white man’s guilty conscience , to be more equal than the others.
As a french I’m aware that my ancestors had performed infamous acts, but infamous act are not the white’s only burden.. Every power had committed infamous act at their height of power
-Ottoman empire is famous for that and at the contrary of occidental are proud of it they put the promoters of armemian genocide on the equivalent of French pantheon
In 1996 Enver Pasha remains 1996, his remains were brought to Turkey and reburied at Abide-i Hürriyet (Monument of Liberty) cemetery in Şişli, Istanbul.
In 1943 Talaat Pasha it was state funerals with Franz von Papen as guest of honor and he was buried at Abide-i Hürriyet (Monument of Liberty)
Jordan whose population protest about “French hypocrisy” had killed more than 3 000 palestinians refugies and wounded 10 000 during the black september – أيلول الأسود Aylūl al-ʾAswad –
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September
Killers chatising us for being no so anti-Zionist – a loin cloth in this case to hide antisemitism -.
And about Zionism it will be intrinsically bad?
In this case the ummah concept is also evil …
Doublespeak for leader and Doublethink for followers are a base in religion and politics…
We don’t have monster we have worse … humanity
“Homo homini lupus est” is defamatory for the wolf
I will no chastise US about all, we the French had issues the tree main being the leader minimo, the Valery 2.0 – without gas and ideas* – and the heiress of Tucker Telephone.
*original and good ones…
>And it typical American fashion, NONE of the pearl-clutching crowd in here is willing to consider that maybe there can be other cultures and points of views.
“Don’t criticize the mind roofies, it is a part of their culture.”?
Are you actually serious right now?
Blanket reply to everyone : I’m way too much aware of Real World Politics, Religions and atrocities, having suffered from those same things for the last 30 years.
What I *AM* criticizing vehemently is people trying to fit their own moral codes and philosophies in *a satyrical, fictionnal webcomic*.
Of course roofies and rape are horrible, *in our current civilization*, even if it was the accepted standard of conduct less than 200 years ago.
Of course every form of government since the discovery of writing (and probably before, but we don’t have solid irrefutable evidence of that) used and still uses propaganda (Delenda Carthago Est).
Please don’t confuse “Zionist” and “Sionist”, that single letter makes a galaxy-sized difference : Zion, in the three founding text of all three Abrahamic religions, means “a place where every one can be safe”; while “Sion” was/still is a political movement created somewhere betwen the first two world wars with the explicit agenda of “The Jewish people are superior to every other philosophy/religion and will inherit the world, as has been ordained by Yahweh.”
And, once again, extremists, radicalists and fanatics have twisted what was a *GOOD* thing into the most horrible possible version.
BUT DON’T PUT WORDS IN MY MOUTH (OR INTO MY KEYBOARD, AS IT IS) WHEN I DID NOT WRITE THEM !
For the very last time : applying Real World politics, economics, religions, laws, philosophies to *a work of fiction* and then acidly critiquing said *work of fiction* is utterly nonsensical.
Works of fiction do not exist in a vacuum; they are a reflection of our real-world values and problems, given just enough distance that we can get a different perspective and work through them with a bit more emotional detachment. The juxtaposition of your naivete and your superiority complex is quite amusing.
HAH.
The whole point of “works of fiction” is to exist in their own vacuum. The author might inject his own views in them, indeed it’s almost imposible to NOT do so, but what I’m vehemently against here is *the readers* acidly trashing a work of fiction because of *their* views and not even trying to stay inside of the story.
There’s a difference between “it makes sense for Dabbler the character to take the actions she did because she is a character with different a different morality compared to humans, and this is a fictional scenario where succubi culture and mind control is real”, and “while i acknowledge the former point, as a human with human morality, this scenario inspires disgust in me, and i want to vocally express my opinion that i do not like this content, even though it makes sense in the fiction”.
If you’re big on respecting cultures, why doesn’t it go both ways? Why can Dabbler disregard human importance on autonomy and not being mind controlled, but humans don’t get to contest Dabbler’s choice based on her own culture? These cultures conflict and there is no compromise that will satisfy both cultural mentalities, but it’s the humans affected by Parfait’s aura that will have to live with potentially damaging consequences, neither Dabbler or Parfait got anything more damaging than ‘you have to not be in this general area, but can go anywhere else in the universe you like’.
I never wrote, or even thought, that anyone wasn’t entiteled to voice (or write) their opinions. I’m against people using their own worldviews about a work of fiction to attack the author of said work of fiction.
And yes of course, Cultural Shock is a thing that exists, and I think it would be very interesting to see a debate betwen Dabbler, Parfait, the whole team and several other cultures about what is acceptable or not, but the statement of this work of fiction is “sillyness with cheesecake and the occasional beefcake”, such topics, while extremely worthy and even *necessary* are NOT canon within this work of fiction.
I’m joining a GURPS game this week, does anyone have a link to the GURPS character sheet for Sydney?
And still no mention of hardening the facility against aura-based attacks?
Not even a ‘this is why we can’t do it’?
this is pre-covid. we have to fly in an elite team of consultants as well as several people so important they either get a ‘company plane’ or they fly first class. they will then have a catered lunch of not less than 20 a person. and at least 2 or three breakout sessions with with catered meals or high dollar dinners out. in short 2-3 boring months. then 6 months of budget arguments. then the plebs will find out they have a 12 month project that’s 9 months late and they have to meet the original deadline.
“Oops, I cast mass power-word:rape! Tee-hee!”
mass power-word hamster might be more fun
“Oh hohoho, worry not sister I’ll just make them like it. And anyone who might not like that I’ll make them like it too. OH HOHOHO”
The nice thing about a lot of fancy words, breviloquence included, is that they tend to be invented by pedants who tend to be pompous and thus borrow almost exclusively from ancient latin (the most pretentious of languages, as they are basically dead and why would you use them?!?);
For example, if you had known that “brev” is the root for “short” (abbreviation, brief) and “locut” is the root for “speak” (eloquent, grandiloquent, circumlocution), it wouldn’t be too hard to figure out what breviloquence means. (And if you thought that “breviloquence” means that whoever said it is too stuck up, you’re probably right. So many better synonyms: terse, taciturn, etc.
That being said maybe the language is being translated from likes negatives and it was a literal translation? “Not prone to brevity” could easily be “garrulous”, ” loquacious”, or “doesn’t know how to shut up”.
not really?
The word implies ‘eloquence at using small words and brief statements.’ That is, saying the right thing at the right time in a simple manner.
Terse implies almost dismissive shortness of speech, refusing to say anything more than absolutely necessary.
Taciturn implies unwillingness to speak much at all.
Brevity, distilling words down to short and simple, is very much what you want, and the word implies being GOOD at it, too.
“Another visitor, stay awhile. Staaaaay forever!” – Elvin Atombender, Impossible Mission
I have that as a ringtone, along with “Aaaaaargh” and “Destroy him, my robots”.
Relevant because I recognize the elevator game image, it’s from Impossible Mission.
I cannot believe it’s been close to a year, and I have re-read our favorite web comic many times. AAAAND I have two C64 tattoos, but I have no idea how I missed the Dabbler Impossible Mission in panel 8…
But now I’m definitely getting the ringtone. Either that, or the elevator noise.
I find it amusing that people assume that the characters have to be perfect. Its ok to not agree with what characters do. These are humans(or alien demon things that have who knows what sort of moral standards) and no one is going to be perfect or always do the right thing.
There’s a huge range between “the characters must be perfect” and “this character thinks everybody should have more sex so using mental influence to make it happen is fine”
People can be fine with reading books about flawed characters but find the idea that reading a book where the main character is a serial killer disturbing and decide they don’t want to do it.
Sydney is far from perfect, people like her.
But when you get somebody using mind affecting powers to influence how people react it pretty commonly gets messy.
The Problem is, nobody says its fine. Just like no one says eating babies is fine. or that No one says having slaves is fine. People are just that way, whether its fine or not. In Dabbler’s case, at least she actually IS a sexual being, not a being that has sex on the brain, LITERALLY a being made for the processing, and spreading, sex. Period. This is literally her natural state and she cant understand why others cant see it her way. If you look at this comment section, i think you can see some parallels here if you let yourself.
Simply put, this is Jubilee killing someone with her powers by accident. Is it horrible? yes. Is Charles Xavier a dick for wiping people’s minds of the act? yup. Is it necessay to avoid the uncertain future of superpowered beings having mental fallout that could result in actually fallout? If trying to return the group back to a pre screwed state or some semblance of the normalcy they once had, yes, it is.
Is it an ugly world they, and we, live in? you bet your sweet ass it is. But what else is new?
Do you mean nobody in comic is saying its fine? Because everyone in comic who knows IS saying its fine (that being Dabbler and Parfait) and everyone is incapable of voicing an opinion to the contrary, or do you mean in general because if you were to look at the comments section youd see there have been those defending what happened and saying its been a good thing, or atleast not a bad thing. Even the author doesnt seem to think its a big deal what shes doing.
Even if this was framed as a Xavier moment, which does not seem to be the case, there is a bit of a difference between a teenage girl accidentally killing a person and the potential fallout being a explosion of anti-mutant bigotry leading to more deaths and conflict, and an alien adult? accidentally causing a mass sex outbreak in ARCHON and the fallout being limited to within that group and the result likely being a break in team cohesion and people being angry at someone/s. The stakes are not the same.
It would lead to a massive burst of anti-succubus bigotry. Might even get all succubi evicted from their homes. The comments section is proof of that.
Why though? This has been a relatively private mishap, happening within the confines of the ARCHON base and could be considered classified as it exposes a major weakness for the team.
Additionally there has not yet been a wide spread anti-succubus movement to this point in universe (rather the opposite since species seem to fight over having Succubi schools in their territory). So I dont know where the wide spread bigotry or evictions is meant to stem from.
Its a completely different climate compared to X-men.
I think Succubi and their aura abilities might face more scrutiny from ARCHON, but if that isnt already going to happen now I seriously question their leadership. Parfait might have been held longer and questioned whether or not she was sent intentionally by Tom or Deus, but would likely have been extradited back due to those exact same connections.
Because it would go up the reporting chain, and government arseholes are government arseholes.
Also, about half the comments section here would happily see Dabbler removed from the story for this.
We already know that most spacefaring species aren’t as concerned about several of these things as we are, so using them as the yard-stick isn’t great.
Thats already going to happen and those Government assholes arent involved at the moment so they will just see what they want to see in any case. And im pretty sure “aura large enough to effect and entire base and distract them all” is going to be at the top of their concerns rather than how anyone felt about this. They are gonna see a potential weapon and not really care about if a few feelings got ruffled. I doubt it would go public, as no government or military wants an obvious weakness of their own forces known, so a wider reaction is unlikely-
Also I do think we can use the spacefaring species here, not to measure reaction but rather, because unlike in X-men theres a great deal more succubi in space than on Earth and they arent stuck on the backwater planet slowly entering the intergalactic sphere if the hairless monkeys do turn out to be bigots. They also likely have a great deal of political good will on the intergalactic stage if they, as a people, wanted to leverage it against humanity for that sort of thing.
I mean. If what we learn is that succubi literally cannot stop mind controlling people, we would be completely morally justofied in telling them that they’re not allowed on our planet. You don’t get to break laws just because your culture doesn’t value basic morality.
I scrolled so far looking for a comment about the old game. Much of importance is being discussed, don’t get me wrong. It is just not common to reference the old 8 bit days. It was one of the only games that I had that talked on the c64.
Goddammit. I’d just managed to come to terms with the storyline, based on evidence that Parfait’s aura, while definitely potentially disastrous, was not actually mind-control (though that led to me being of the opinion that Mr. A was a cheater who deserved to get dumped by Brooke, that Jiggs was the sort of person who’d cheat with a friend’s SO if she was horny enough, and that whoever was in that guard booth deserved to get fired).
But now we get the reveal that Dabbler is, in fact, a straight-up ‘well-intentioned villain’, possibly exceeding Deus in that regard. And the bullshit reasoning used here is utterly trite. Max and Sydney, both of whom are clearly in control of their own emotions at this point, are fully capable of subduing any member of the team who has a tantrum without hurting them. Add in some tranqs from Xuriel and then anyone who needs to be talked or taken down temporarily can be.
But no, she opted for the route that overrode everyone’s ability to process what had happened naturally, and just coincidentally caused the result she’s been wanting all along. To hell with Xuriel, and if Gwen really is aware and letting it happen, to hell with her, too.
What would the fallout be from Max/Syd physically restraining members of the team?
And I don’t think they could stop a Jigg/Heat fight without knocking both of them unconcious, and then there’s massive “you just attacked a member of your unit” problems.
As someone who suffers from depression and panic attacks, if someone threw a calm emotions spell at me when I needed it, then told me a few days later *I would thank them.* The same way I would eventually thank someone who physically restrained me from jumping off a bridge.
Who gets to judge whether you “needed it” or not? Might there not be times where you don’t think it was appropriate, but they did?
Honestly? If they could tell I was in a state to maybe need it, then I probably needed it long before that.
You’re assuming that their judgment would be honest and remotely accurate. What if your emotions were simply inconvenient to them? Would you trust a stranger to make that call?
If I’m in a position to stop them, then I know my own state of mind well enough to know if I need it or not. We accept medical help from strangers when we need it.
If I’m not in a position to stop them, then my opinion doesn’t really matter until after with the option of vengeance, now does it? And again, my reaction would depend on if I needed it or not.
But the option of vengence only exists if you become aware of the manipulation afterwards. And if you don’t become aware of it, it’s functionally identical to a (mild?) brainwashing.
In the current context, Dabble’s chill-pill-aura can never be found out, otherwise there is a big risk of un-doing any of the positive aspects. Especially Max cannot be told, since just last page she gave the clear order “No mind control”. This would at least severly damage the relationship between Max and Dabbler…
P.S: Yes, technically, the aura is Emotion Control and not Mind Control and the order was about Heatwave and not everyone else. But somehow I doubt Max would be impressed with that level of ruleslawyering
Being forcibly calmed down without your consent when you have an emotion that inconveniences someone else sounds horrifying what are you on? This is preventing them from freaking out whether they have good reasons to or not, Dabbler only cares about the results not petty little human reactions to suddenly being stripped of inhibitions and filled up with lust in a work setting.
If any one of these people ‘freaks out’ and doesn’t react well, entire cities could cease to exist
Yes because Mr Amorphous could level a city, especially while Maxima was around.
Even Jiggawatt could be contained by a combination of her and Dabbler in a more traditional sense.
Let us not overstate the power levels of the people involved here, they arent Magnetos or Lungs, they are Wolverines and Grues.
The people involved who could crumble a city with an emotional freak out include Maxima, Sydney and maybe Dabbler.
Jigg can teleport. You aren’t locking her down without putting her inside Syd’s shield.
Heatwave can probably go hot enough to simulate a volcanic eruption (see her showing off to the alient tourists).
Those two getting into a “no holds barred” fight would start by blowing out the power and phone grids, and then start melting buildings and irradiating the whole area. It wouldn’t be as fast as Max doing a full-power finger-blast, but it would end up the same.
Heatwave isnt there at the moment and not one of the people at risk of going meltdown at the moment, and Dabbler has been sworn to NOT use this kind of thing on her by Maxima (whether or not she holds to that we will see). Jiggawatt on the other hand is neither invincible nor impossible to shut down, and I do not believe Dabbler wouldnt have at least some counter play to shut her down long enough for Maxima to make it stick if needed to.
But thats assuming they will brawl, they havent even been given the chance to process this normally and arrive at that point. Theres always the option to deploy the calming power power and calm them down, then explain what just happened and talk things out. That would be a much less dubious use of this ability and much less of an infringement on their agency.
But at this point its taking their agency away and treating them like they arent responsible enough to manage their own emotions, because its convenient to do so.
“Heatwave isnt there at the moment and not one of the people at risk of going meltdown at the moment”
Given her reaction to Harem, she’s the one I’m most worried about.
“Jiggawatt on the other hand is neither invincible nor impossible to shut down”
Death Toll is the only person we’ve seen who can hold Jiggs in place when she telebolts, and even that doesn’t hurt her. And we’ve seen that she can telebolt slowly when she wants to. I give it a couple level-ups before she figures out she can just go pure lightning-form.
“Theres always the option to deploy the calming power power and calm them down, then explain what just happened and talk things out.”
That’s different to what’s happening how? Let them sort out their feelings over what just happened, then inform them about the calming power after?
I think I can see where your coming from but:
-> “Heatwave [is] the one I’m most worried about.”
Given that she isnt currently there, shes the one I gave the least concern about myself. Shes also the single person Dabbler had to promised NOT to use this kind of thing on. So thats an interaction I especially want to see, because we will learn alot about her character in how she handles that.
->”Death Toll is the only person we’ve seen who can hold Jiggs”
True, hes the one hard counter weve seen. But Jiggawatt was also partially countered by Dabblers, as shes able to negate the toxic radiation off of dark lightning. I would hazard a guess she is not the first lightning user or teleporter Dabbler has faced and I would trust shed have at least some gadgets to help deal with either in a fight. Also if ARCHON isnt training on nonlethal take down methods against their own supers, they are much less genre savvy than Maximas been shown.
Basically I trust they could deal with the situation and limit it to property damage within the ARCHON base.
But I could be wrong here, they could have no counterplay and Jiggawatt could wreck a cities electrical net, but that is assuming she does go on a rampage.
->”That’s different to what’s happening how?”
The read I have on the situation is that Dabbler is deploying the “thats just what I needed” aura immediately, in order to prevent upset feelings and some grudges, not to prevent a rage episode or panic attack. I would consider both those a bit more than the “sharp edges” of a group otherwise coming to grips with what happened, id expect more annoyance at interrupting their work, making things awkward between people, enabling cheating, neglecting their duties and so on.
We have not been shown that shes responding to someone having an episode and shes certainly not explaining herself in a timely fashion, shes letting them all process what happened under the belief this is how they naturally feel and continuing to maintain the subterfuge.
I think I’ve pinned down one of our major differences:
You want Dabbler to wait until something happens to act. I’m willing to let her act based on obvious and likely consequences of the current state.
To use a different example: I’m quite happy with shooting someone who’s waving a gun around and screaming that I’m a freak who deserves to die. You seem to want to wait until they’ve pulled the trigger first.
@Illy
Cant actually reply to yours, so replying to my own.
->”I think I’ve pinned down one of our major differences”
Almost, I think you’re right that we disagree on when she needs to use her aura, but I consider pulling the gun and waving it round, to be someone actually beginning to get angry and upset, pulling the trigger would be them actually attacking someone. Using her aura to calm down someone who is obviously angry and starting to lose it would be the time to use the aura before they attack someone. Not before they get angry at all or have a chance to react naturally.
In this situation I feel it’s more like she used her aura because she thought someone might think about “pulling a gun” but there’s been no sign of that in the comic and because of that I can’t actually agree that she necessarily did it for any other reason to avoid people just being upset in general. The comic needed to, or needs to going forward, show more for me to take that interpretation away.
We’re at the bottom of the comment depth, it happens.
“she thought someone might think about “pulling a gun””
If you knew with good certainty that someone was about to pull a gun and shoot you, I would still be happy with shooting them before they drew it. How far out someone is from shooting you doesn’t matter to me, what matters is the likelyhood that they will do it. (Yes, this means I would be quite comfortable with a lot of things happening to American Republicans, because it’s obvious what they’re trying to do)
This does get close to thought crimes, but I try to be a consequantialist, and it’s the logical result of allowing effective self-defense.
“…we cannot and we do not desire to employ violence, except in the defence of ourselves and others against oppression. But we claim this right of defence-: entire, real, and efficacious. That is, we wish to be able to go behind the material instrument which wounds us, and to attack the hand which wields the instrument, and the head which directs it. And we wish to choose our own hour and field of battle, so as to attack the enemy under conditions as favourable as possible: whether it be when he is actually provoking and attacking us, or at times when he slumbers, and relaxes his hand, counting on popular submission.”
I can see where your coming from with that position, and if we were in person I think id enjoy a chat about the ethics of different forms of self-defense but Im gonna stick on topic here and try to kind of wrap things up (since we are running out of space)
I just feel that at least in the current situation she was wrong to do this. This happened amongst people who are on the same team, supposed to trust each other and have training to both deal with out of control supers and trained to be in control of themselves and their abilities, I think more reason than the expectation that people will get upset was needed to justify this kind of aura. As thought they might possibly dangerous, they havent shown that they would actually become dangerous.
I feel like it is atleast owed that they have the chance to show self-discipline and control, even though they may be upset, and process these things themselves. To do less is, to me, jumping the gun and just assuming authority over what that person is allowed to feel. Hopefully that clarifies my own position well enough.
“(since we are running out of space)”
We have all the space we need ;p
“To do less is, to me, jumping the gun”
And here’s the difference, clean and clear :)
I’m willing to trust Dabbler to make that call *for now.* Cognition hazards are a bugger, especially when knowing that the hazard exists is also a cognition hazard. People’s reactions to anything approaching mind control can get real nasty, and her sister would be at the centre of their ire.
As long as Dabbler *voluntarily* tells Dr. Frost what she’s been doing, I’m ok with it. She’s protecting her little sister. All other reasons are probably secondary to her, even if they might justify it on their own. Dr. Frost is the person on base who needs to know about this specifically, since she’s the team’s mental medic. Everyone else already knows that they need better protection against auras and emotion control.
(But it is starting to get awkward to reply now xP)
I can absolutely sympathize with her wanting to protect Parfait and even bolster her a little, but have two issues with that being her primary motivation.
1.the comic hasnt shown us that Parfait being in real danger, more than people simply being upset and resenting her, was a tangible concern, Dabbler might as a succubus have been able to tell there were emotions of that level, and maybe she has reason to believe that means her team mates might do something, but the comic has not put the work in to show that to my mind.
2. I feel like her last comment undermines both any attempt to highlight the danger Parfait was in or any lesson about self control to avoid that danger in the future, since she more or less says “This is a good thing that has happened.” Which I feel like shifts the frame away from sisters safety and towards her usual sex focused mindset.
I dont think id absolve her if she went to Dr Frost for these same reasons, but id appreciate that she took steps to keep an authority figure informed about the mental effects her team has been put under and id be curious to Frosts input on the whole event. It would certainly be an interesting scene that would explain more about both the level of influence the aura may have actually had, as well as give us an unaffected person within Daves world, reacting to the whole event.
Fair points, all.
But I don’t think a story needs to spell out and show everything that happens, even if that thing is important.
(I really enjoyed watching Primer)
Then that’s on them. Still don’t get to just control people’s minds. Heatwave would have every right to be upset. Her BF cheated, may have been a lust aura going on, but seeing as how Arianna was able to call her husband while in the same state, means Amorphous wanted to cheat with Jiggawatt and Jiggawatt wanted to screw her BF’s boyfriend.
Would they have controlled those urges otherwise? Possibly. However, this showed who they really are.
There is no “Doing bad for good” this is doing bad just to save some stress and not get people pissed off at her sister.
The whole “she’s doing it because they might freak out” angle doesn’t work when she tells NO ONE she’s doing it.
If she isn’t informing at least Max, she’s doing it entirely for the benefit of Parfait and herself.
Yeah. As I wrote in another post: the problem in defending Dabbler is Arianna Shrapnell. She is high enough in ARCHON that she could give an OK in this emergency situation. She is also happily married and so is among the least likely to freak out.
Yet Dabbler is keeping the truth from her…
“what are you on?”
Clinical depression. My own brain sometimes decides to attack me for no good reason.
You have my deepest sympathies.
Maybe I’m stepping out of line here, but especially in your situation I would expect you to be aware of how a treatment has to be adjusted to the patient. And how blanket medication of all patients is either useless (if the dosis is too low) or more harm than help (if dosis is higher).
True, but magic is magic like that ;p
The big thing it means is that I have been in situations where I would not have been able to give consent for something like this (my worst attacks render me non-communicative), but would have thanked them afterwards for it and give consent for the future.
So to sum it up: Dabbler’s action is a neccessray stop gap in this emergency, because the original lust aura is so bad (even if accidental) that some major fallout is most likely. Right? (just checking…)
But in this case logical deduction demands that the situation with parfait should not be sweept under the rub, but must be addressed at some point. Do you agree to that point also?
If yes, I can understand your interpretation of the events.
If not, I still have a problem with your arguments…
Max was expecting the meeting to go very differently.
We can assume that she does know her team well enough to make reasonable guesses about things like that.
Differently, yes. But how differently?
Just some disstaisfied rumbling? Angry shouting? Violence against Sidney and/or Parfait? All-out city-leveling rampage? Or maybe just disapointment? Lots of sobbing? Soulcrushing despair?
‘Cause the level of reaction has a direct influence on how much of an emergency this was and whether the chill-pill-aura is OK or not…
Well, as someone who ALSO suffers from depression and anxiety attacks, if someone I don’t know and don’t trust, decides to throw a ‘calm emotion’ spell at me when my emotions are working WELL WITH HUMAN NORMS under the circumstances, they have MAYBE 30 seconds to explain what they just did, why they did it, and under what circumstances they will stop. Failure to provide an intellectually acceptable explanation means i get to inflict increasingly severe forms of violence in an emotionally ‘calm’ manner until they stop.
Max, Hiro, and maybe Peggy have the moral standing to inflict a ‘calm emotion’ spell on me first, and explain shortly afterwards.
Sydney can get away with it when external circumstances make it INCREDIBLY self-explanatory why she just did that, such as to counter a Violence Aura.
Anybody else had better have their Mental Health credentials displayed clearly in front of them, and be speaking in a soothing voice which explains EXACTLY what they just did, why they just did it, and what they promise NOT to do next.
But Dabbler is someone they know and trust.
That really just makes it worse if you look at this as Dabbler betraying that trust for her own goals. Particularly since she knows that Maxima would adamantly not approve of her doing exactly this. To the point of threatening Dabbler to abstain from sex for an entire month if she does exactly what she did in this comic to Heatwave.
Or to put it another way, I trust my friends. If they decide that my fashion sense is a problem and destroy all of my clothing and get me new clothing, I’m going to be even more upset at their actions because they are my friends and should know I have a problem with them doing that.
And yet, Dabbler didn’t inform everyone that she was pushing a spell on them, despite having everyone in a debriefing room which was exactly the correct time and place to tell them.
Dabbler has had plenty of notices that her sense of what’s appropriate is NOT shared by the the entire rest of the group, and that she’s expected to stay on a short leash with regards to sex stuff and mind control stuff. Trust-wise, she is very definitely in a gray zone.
If Dabbler HAD said something like “By the way, just to make sure everyone got to the briefing room without breaking anything, i had a calm emotion spell up for the last five minutes, but I’m about to turn it off now. If you can’t handle the fresh emotions, let me know, and I’ll put it back up just on you….”
She might have gotten away with that, although it would raise lots of questions. like “why didn’t you ask Max for permission when she was standing right next to you.”
Since Dabbler DIDN’T tell anyone, we now have a very serious problem.
Also, to re-iterate, I named exactly three people who are trusted ENOUGH to mess with the minds of the rest of the unit. Everyone else in Archon is NOT trusted that much. Not Heatwave, or Amorphous, or Math, or Dabbler, or Harem….
So all those years ago when I first started reading this comic, I was not expecting to hate Dabbler. I was like, ‘oh hey, a fan service character, sure why not?’ But you have convinced me Dave, that not only is Dabbler awful and a villain, but the entire succubus species should be treated with suspicion and violence, because they will evidently rape you, mind control you into thanking them for it, and feel like they’ve ‘enlightened’ you for the experience.
Regardless, this is about the point where I stop reading. I got into this to read about fun superheroes in a modern setting. Not to continually be bombarded with Dave’s toxic opinions about sex, and his desires for the world to operate on porn logic.
Ya, I’m with you there. This is a great comic… when it’s not being this. But this has happened enough times that it’s gone from a witty exploration of superhero tropes to just sexist and rapey.
i missed when stuff was about figuring out sydney’s orbs and developing higher-dimensional-being-lore and sydney getting to do stuff :(
also sydney hasn’t gotten a time to do something normal like visit a comic shop in a while. i miss early comic-era where that still happened… and how wacky early-comic sydney’s expressions got, the current style kinda tamps those in exchange for rendering detail
my best hope as of now is that this arc gets dropped by the next page or two, and is effectively forgotten about and soft retconned out of the story
mission impossible <3
Now I definitely want to see what Dabbler’ and Parfait’s mother looks like, if we don’t already have some pictures!
I don’t think this is going ot be a popular comment, so im going to give it some context, im in school to be a park ranger, part of that invovles law enforcement officer training. and parfe broke some laws. spesificly she commited assault, sexual assault, and i’d say in the panel before her and sidney are broken up by comdeic timing you could argue sexual battery. not to mention that she roofied sidney and everyone else in the building. I could take the evidence provided by the comic to pretty much any distict court judge and get a warrant for her arrest. along side that and no less jarring is that parfe is now being praised while sidney seems to be in trouble? getting punished? she was the victim of a crime.
i get that this is a tits and ass comic, but it’s also a comic about super heroes and doing the right thing. so food for thought.
“I could take the evidence provided by the comic to pretty much any distict court judge and get a warrant for her arrest.”
Yes, but you could also do that for a black man walking down the street excersising their second amendment rights. Hell, you could murder them on the spot and not get more than a slap on the wrist in some parts of America.
Big difference: Parf didn’t do it intentionally, and she even tried to stop when she noticed what was happening, but with nothing available she ended up being affected just as much as anyone else
The only one praising Parf is her sister, who is also a literal sex demon. And Sydney is being punished because she broke protocol and snuck the untrained sex demon onto the base, by deliberately misleading Gwen!
I don’t think she deliberately mislead Gwen.
Gwen asked a question and Sydney misinterpreted what the question meant and answered what she thought the question was.
Gwen took that answer as the answer to the question as she intended it.
It’s a communication failure rather than a deliberate mislead (which doesn’t mean it should be free of consequences for either party)
The consequences (since they’re both relatively new at being military) should be token plus more training.
As a native speaker I could testify ” French is not sexy” it’s an English speaking people cliche ..
I’ll translate Sgt Hartman in French:
“Si vous survivez à mon instruction vous deviendrez une arme, vous deviendrez un prêtre de la mort implorant la guerre”
En attendant ce moment-là, vous êtes du vomi, vous êtes le niveau zéro de la vie sur Terre, vous n’êtes même pas humains bande d’enfoirés !”
“Comment tu t’ appelles sac à foutre ? A partir de maintenant tu t’ appelles Blanche-Neige, est-ce que ça te plait ce nom-là ? Y’a quand même un truc que tu vas pas tellement aimer Blanche-Neige, on te servira pas ton poulet frit et tes pastèques quand tu viendras bouffer à la cantine.”
Sort de ta connerie sacré de bon Dieu, sinon moi je te dévisse la tête et je te chie dans le cou !” my favorite
“Tu viens de quel bled paumé deuxième pompe ?
-Chef, du Texas chef !
-Ah parole de Dieu… Texas y a que des taureaux et des PD qui viennent du Texas mon p’ tit cow-boy ! »
“T’es si tocard que tu passerais pour un chef d’ oeuvre de l’art moderne. C’est quoi ton nom gros poussin ?
-Chef, Léonard Lawrence chef !
-J’ai horreur qu’on s’appelle Lawrence, y a que les PD et les marins qui s’appellent Lawrence ! A partir de maintenant tu t’appelles grosse baleine ! »
Homophobic and racist , for me it’s no sexy at all
https://youtu.be/f3flPxWM9vc
I can’t help but think the mind control is going to be forgotten and ignored. That’s what Dabbler is doing. It’s people’s right to be angry with what happened. You don’t mind control them to let them off the hook for what happened :p
Parfait also got people to cheat on their partner. Which I’m sure part of it will be explained as “Well, he always wanted to cheat.” but wanting to and doing it are two different things.
The only way that works out and I’m sure it’ll be all “Sure! Let me cheat too! I love it!” from Heatwave anyways :p
This is the exact dumpster fire i expected from the comments. Time to leisurely observe the different train wrecks.
Who’s got the popcorn?
It is getting kind of hot in this flame war isn’t it. I don’t want to straight up mock people for having the opinions they do. I have no idea what traumas they might have e been through and based on data and research “violation of the self by another” types of trauma are far more common than anyone might suspect. I would guess that the people upset the most have either personally experienced that, knew someone who has, or medically treats people who have. Your view of such a thing being treated so lightly tends to change when you’ve seen someone who starts having PTSD reactions at being touched or someone who breaks down crying if they think their parent is going to beat them for doing a chore “wrong”.
I’m kind of in the middle on this. I think it has been handled poorly and was a poor choice of storyline and am ready to move on. I am not ready to stop reading the comic forever just because the author is a gonk when it comes to handling sensitive/triggering subjects. Reality is that you cannot make everyone happy and at some point you are going to do something people hate.
As a general rule, it’s all fun and games until it happens to you. It hardly matters what “it” is. Personal trauma makes it hard to enjoy things that others might find funny. A dislocated joint can be played for laughs, but may trigger deeply distressing memories for someone who has experienced it themselves.
I think part of what’s at play here are vastly different ideas about how common traumatic sexual events are. Some people think they’re exceedingly rare, and that most people should feel comfortable treating it lightly. Other people think they’re extremely common, and that it’s monstrous to make light of something that negatively affects so many people.
I personally think it would be exceedingly interesting to collect data on how frequent people think different events are, and how “imporant” those events are, whether in a positive or negative manner, and then compare that with data on how frequent those events actually are. I think the shape of those different collections of data would be really enlightening, and go a long way towards explaining people’s positions and behavior.
Wow, actually kind of the worst case scenario?
It was less fucked when the characters were just oddly okay with it.
It’s wild to read the comments about how mind control is bad and evil and the big wrong.
What do you think school is? Religion? Politics? Social Groups?
Mind Control is a direct and immediate form of mental manipulation. Our very existence in the real world is manipulated on a daily basis, and what we consider “ok” changes with every generation.
400 Years ago, we had no electricity, slavery was mostly ok world wide, and if you told someone you could communicate with people on the other side of the world instantaneously (Via Phone) you’d be considered a loon and locked up at best, or burned at the stake as a practicioner of black magic at worst.
This is an issue with people demanding that every character have Western Human Morales or have a villian tag slapped onto their foreheads.
The creature that will DIE without having, or being near, sex and horniness, is subduing a potentially violent and explosive reaction to people having sex.
We are all manipulated on a daily basis about what is right or wrong. Dabbler is doing the exact same thing in a direct manner. Except she is manipulating people based on her species and her people’s beliefs.
Stop trying to apply Western Human morals to fantasy sex demons. It’s never gonna work.
Gonna need some neosporin after than level of stretching bro.
>What do you think school is? Religion? Politics? Social Groups?
Not things that instantly supplant your feelings in place of someone else’s.
They can’t be compared to mind control because mind control is 100% effective all the time every time and you can’t even try to resist it.
Like, by that logic, cattle slavery is okay because “What’s the difference between that and being forced to go to school?”
Isn’t it instantly supplant your feelings? A few things.
If Succubi auras are, in fact Mind Control as everyone seems to be screaming over. They are not 100% effective. Otherwise, Sydney and Max would have been affected by it as well. They were not. Ergo, not 100% effective. Which means people can resist it without even trying. So that shoots that point out of the water.
As for School/Religion etc, and “instantly” supplanting your feelings. It 100% does. Kid shows up in a t-shirt that says Star Wars is great. Kid is immediately called a nerd and bullied in school. Their feelings are immediately and instantly supplanted by what the bullies have done.
Now, sure, not every kid is going to suffer from that. (Just like not everyone was affected by those auras.) But the majority of the time, that’s how that goes. It’s herd mentality. If everyone in your area hates X, you are going to be raised to hate X. Most people are going to hate X. If you don’t hate X, you are going to be the black sheep of your community. By nature, humans don’t want to be put out in the cold when it comes to community.
That is the basis of someone getting “canceled”, in fact.
Furthermore, I clarified that Mind Control was immediate and the others had a slower progression, but not that much slower, in my opinion. Especially, because as I’ve pointed out, the succubi auras are not 100% effective. That’s just your head cannon. (Which the comic itself disproves.)
@Yoinks. Not sure where the stretching is. Care to explain?
>Isn’t it instantly supplant your feelings?
No. I have been completely disinterested in several religions, schools of thought, and advertisements throughout my life.
They are not comparable to mind control or influence because of that very fact; you can just say “No” and your mind is your own.
Someone can’t reach inside and directly twist it to their own ends.
>If Succubi auras are, in fact Mind Control as everyone seems to be screaming over.
It’s explicitly stated and shown to be manipulating people’s emotions to be more okay with what happened in this very page.
It’s effectiveness per person is maybe up for debate. But it’s morally repugnant regardless since it’s being done without consent and is fairly invasive of autonomy.
She’s basically drugging them into a more agreeable state of mind.
>This is an issue with people demanding that every character have Western Human Morales or have a villian tag slapped onto their foreheads.
No one is saying this. They just have, fairly understandable, aversions to the idea that mentally roofy-ing people is bad and wrong. Instead of harmless like the comic is portraying.
There is no “issue” with having a moral stance on this topic.
You may have been. Just like Sydney was completely disinterested. That doesn’t mean these things aren’t pervasive and extremely manipulative.
They are comparable to mind control. At least the mind control shown in the comic. Since the mind control in the comic can obviously be resisted and doesn’t force you to act extremely out of character (See Sydney). It instead is like having a few hard drinks. Hard drinks lower inhibition but aren’t mind control.
Manipulating people’s emotions to be more okay with something is not in fact mind control. It’s manipulation. A car salesmen can manipulate you into buying something.
A priest manipulating a child into a sexual act is then mind control by your definition. It’s also morally repugnant.
Again. This “Mind Control” isn’t nearly as bad as people seem to be making it.
You’re free to have a moral stance, so is everyone else. Morally, I think this isn’t nearly as bad as mind control and rape. It’s someone manipulating you into not doing something stupid. Like talking down a drunk friend etc. That’s just how I view it, sorry you seem to take it to the super hyper extreme but don’t see the real world connections.
>That doesn’t mean these things aren’t pervasive and extremely manipulative.
Pervasive or manipulative =/= mind control.
I’m sorry, dude. But there is no way to equate commercial ads or religious teachings with actual, supernatural control over the thoughts and minds of others.
There is a clear dividing line there that mundane methods can’t replicate 100% even with the application of drugs.
Meanwhile Dabbler can just be near someone and make their emotions flare up in any way she wants and completely turn an enemy into a loyal ally mid-fight with 1 kiss. (See animal lady) Even with varying degrees of resistance, that’s just a huge leap in ease of access.
>It instead is like having a few hard drinks. Hard drinks lower inhibition but aren’t mind control.
Cool, so it’s like roofying them.
Which is just as bad.
Drugging people to make them okay with being drugged.
I guess this is an issue we will never see eye to eye on. It happens.
I’d argue that if you walked up to a bunch of unpaid supers in a fight that were just there for shits n giggles and offered one of them an extremely well paid lucrative job. They’d probably switch up just as fast.
The amount of stupid shit that is harmful to their own bodies that people will do with a perfectly clear mind for large sums of money should mean that money is stronger than mind control in your book.
I don’t know if you’ve ever been roofied. But I promise, the difference between 4 or 5 shots of tequilla and actually being roofied is night and day. Best of luck to you.
>They’d probably switch up just as fast.
Not if they’re there specifically to kill the team of super heroes so that they can run wild as villains.
Which was the explicit and stated reason.
That “if” is what makes it not mind control in all of your examples.
Meanwhile; it didn’t matter what animal lady actually wanted; as soon as Dabbler kissed her she was (temporarily) effectively turned into a puppet.
>But I promise, the difference between 4 or 5 shots of tequilla and actually being roofied is night and day.
It is just as bad to secretly get someone drunk as it is to secretly roofy them.
i think the difference here is that nobody is making the choice for you when you’re offered something appealing, and an individual person’s response to the offer can differ if you’re not using mind control, whereas it cannot if you are.
not everyone values money – even a lot of it. some people have goals they’d die for, and nothing will sway their opinion against reaching those goals. except mind control, which bypasses one’s own reason to enforce someone else’s will.
something very appealing or influential STILL has to go through an individual’s reason in order to change their mind. sometimes people let ideas in because they seem right, or because they come from a source they trust, and they are still using their own judgment, if perhaps not reason.
mind control does NOT go through an individual’s own mental processing or reasoning, because it is enforced anyways. maybe some people would have made the same decision on their own, maybe not – the point is we don’t know, because they didn’t make the decision.
i guess think about it this way: someone tries to tell you that your arm is bad and you should cut it off, even though it isn’t. you hear that, and you try to figure out why they’re telling you that – are they telling the truth? how did they find this out? is it something you should act on?
or, scenario 2, someone tells you that your arm is bad and you should cut it off, except they’re using mind control and you immediately do it. you have one less arm now. but hey, it doesn’t matter, because you’d eventually have cut off your arm if someone regularly told you to do it, right? there’s no way you’d do anything besides what someone tells or convinces you to do.
or let’s imagine this, as an example with benevolent intentions: someone from your future knows your future life, and knows you have person x as your life partner down the line. they want you to get to know your life partner sooner, so they mind control you and them to meet in a hotel and get it on. because you’d eventually want that, right? is that any different than you deciding ‘yeah i want to get with person x’?
idk, just want to hear your perspective. i don’t get it yet if you argue that human vices or vulnerabilities are equivalent to supernatural mind control being used.
A lot of people are upset by the past few comics, which is fair; despite the fact that this is a wacky sexy superhero comic, this touches on some points more serious than usual. However, this IS a comic about sexy superheroes, so “the sexy accident” is hardly off-brand – recall the number of times a superhero was effectively stripped due to some explosion or superpower, for example. TV Tropes has pages dedicated to Love Potion hijinks. Grrl Power just took it logical steps past making out – which isn’t unrealistic in context (looking at you, Olympic Village).
Some people consider what Parfait did to be rape, while others consider what Dabbler did afterwards to be orders of magnitude worse. However, consider the following points:
* Sydney was at Ground Zero of the aura, yet she wasn’t reduced to mindless rutting. She still maintained presence of mind enough to fend off Parfait. It’s safe to assume the aura remains at equal or reduced potency the further out you get from the source (rather than growing stronger). We know Sydney doesn’t have any special resistance to succubus love magic (recall the side-effects of Dabbler’s warming spell, which DID lead Sydney to seek out private sexytimes as soon as possible). Similarly, Arianna was in control enough to call her husband rather than seek some random hook-up on-base, and even Anvil just reached over and took care of business herself rather than seeking a companion. The aura was definitely an influence, but nowhere near Purple Man levels of mind-control. If anything, it’d be comparable to serving drinks at a party and then discovering after the fact that the fruit punch was actually quite alcoholic due to an accident at the bottling factory.
* Without going heavily into it, rape typically includes an element of control – that is, the rapist deliberately taking away the control from the victim, an intentional act by the rapist. Parfait arguably didn’t rape anyone because she did not intentionally use her lust aura; she had an accident and the base got caught in the fallout. This the same principle as when a mutant accidentally kills someone when their powers manifest uncontrolled for the first time – it’s an accident, not murder. They don’t need punishment, they need training so they can avoid hurting people – and probably therapy to deal with the guilt.
* Speaking of therapy – Dabbler cheering up her sister is at least partially that. Parfait had an accident, then got called out and confronted by everyone affected by it. Imagine if a kid got sick on a rollercoaster, then got pulled off and had to stand there while all the other ride-goers glared at him. Succubi viewpoints differing from humans aside, Dabbler’s being a supportive big sister and comforting Parfait. Whether she follows up the pep talk with cautionary words of “don’t do that around humans without their permission” remains to be seen for later pages.
* Many people are saying Dabbler is untrustworthy because she’s willing to casually mind-control people and would be willing to do so at any time. They’re perhaps missing the point that Dabbler has ALWAYS had this option, but is only exercising it now. She also has a lust aura and far more control over it, but she’s never used it to control Max (and we know from the recent strips that Max doesn’t have any special immunity to succubus auras), nor has she used it to set up orgies with the other supers. When HAS she used her succubus lust power? She used it when first meeting Sydney, for harmless teasing, when called in for consultation. She used it (outing a particular affection for She-Hulk) when helping to test Sydney’s Truesight orb. She used it to help disable Vehemence. She used it to disable Jabberwocky. Her magic had a similar side-effect when she helped Sydney avoid hypothermia. Time and again, we see she uses her succubus lust powers when helping the team, NOT for her own personal gain. At most, she does it to tease Max, NOT to actually bed anyone.
Dabbler didn’t even use her powers to bed Barberian after the Vehemence fight, and her wipe spell was a courtesy to him “Otherwise he’d be forever ruined for human women”, not to protect herself. To quote DaveB: “Edit: To clarify one thing for those of you concerned and so you don’t have to go hunting though the comments for my response – Barberian fully knew what he was getting into last night, and he’ll eventually remember most of it, just not some of the more intense aspects. Her wipe spell is a bit like a flashbang, it’s a total whiteout for a while, then stuff mostly returns to normal.”
She’s using her Calm Emotions aura to help both her sister and the rest of the team. Some people may complain that she’s taking agency away from those subject to the aura, but it’s important to note WHY she’s using the aura. She’s never used her lust aura for her own gain with the team and then used Calm Emotions to cover it up (as far as we’ve seen in the comic, at least). She may have different viewpoints regarding the morality of sex compared to most of the team, but she’s only using her aura to help diffuse an otherwise potentially-dangerous situation. She’s trying to help, much like Professor X editing the memories of anyone witnessing the aforementioned mutant accident.
* Should Parfait/mutant be held accountable for what happened? Arguably, yes, but our current real world laws don’t really take into account extraordinary circumstances like accidental uncontrolled misfire of powers. Until the legal system catches up and evolves to take such circumstances into account, you can’t really apply conventional legal rulings. Similarly, any application of moral judgments also need to take into account the moral codes of both Parfait/mutant and whoever got caught up in the event – and when talking about moral judgments, intent really matters. Parfait did not intend any harm – and at least from a succubus viewpoint, neither did Dabbler.
At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that *this is a silly sexy superhero webcomic*. In real life, punching someone in the head leads to life-ruining brain injuries, not otherwise harmless knock-outs. Parfait’s lust aura is being used as a Love Potion Incident, and Dabbler’s Calm Emotions aura is being used as a magical hand-wave fix to avoid messy complications because this is a silly sexy webcomic and not a dramatic tragic webcomic. If anything, stick around to see how DaveB handles Heatwave’s reaction.
I thought the General was a Star Trek nerd who like the Orion Slave Girl episode of the original series. She-Hulk never crossed my mind.
Halo resisting could be she’s not as sexual as others. Likes sex. Yes. Obviously. Also, she had Parfait there on her, possibly ruining it due to being all over her, but Sydney wasn’t into girls.
However, what Dabbler is doing now, is about personal gain…her sisters gain.
I do agree, it’s just a silly sexy superhero webcomic, but what’s the point of a comment section if not to discuss it in whatever fashion you want to discuss it at that point?
I’ll watch crime shows and think “That person is a PoS” everytime I see someone kill an innocent person (or persons) to save their one family member.
“They said if I didn’t kill this innocent person they’d kill my daughter!” Well, yes, sucks, but they just killed an innocent person themselves. I wouldn’t let them off. It’d be straight murder.
Like the show, still able to discuss it/rag on it too :)
“Halo resisting could be she’s not as sexual as others” – I think nay. Recall, she was strongly affected by Dabbler’s warming spell, and that was just a side-effect. She also had the same internal monologue as Arianna when first meeting Dabbler with lust aura active. As far as evidence in the comic goes, it looks like she was just as affected as everyone else. Halo resisted sex with Parfait because it isn’t something she would have done anyways; the aura just amplified inclinations the characters already had.
I still argue that Dabbler isn’t using her Calm Emotions aura for personal gain. Certainly not for her own personal gain, and she’s not initiating it with a premediated plan for Parfait’s gain; she’s using it reactively to help clean up Parfait’s mess. If she had told Parfait in advance, “Go ahead and use your lust aura, I’ll clean up afterwards for you” then that’d be one thing, but that’s not what happened here. There was an accident, and Dabbler is handling the fallout to the best of her ability, using the skills and powers at her disposal. This isn’t the first time she’s helped handle someone’s power mishap, either; she summoned that “Nyom” toy to absorb gamma radiation after Jiggawatt’s ‘Darkning’.
Sexy, beautiful, perpetually horny, multilingual, magically smoothing over negotiations, jack-of-all-trades, covering for her companions’ shortcomings – face it, Dabbler is a D&D bard.
For sure she’s using her abilities to clean up another’s mess. However, sometimes that mess just needs to happen. She’s doing this to keep Parfait from truly feeling the weight of her screw up. To keep those who may get angry at her, from getting angry at her.
I did say, could be. I also said, just not into girls.
However, I think there are those who have every right to be angry at Parfait and angry at Dabbler for blunting that anger.
Amorphous cheated on Heatwave. Now I’m going to guess the “Damn she’s hot and I want to screw her” was already on his mind. The same with Jiggawatt on Heatwave’s (her best friend) boyfriend. However, that lust aura made them unable to resist what they wouldn’t have done.
It also brings to light that such an attraction was there. Then Heatwave will get to return and it seems almost expected to be “Oh. No hard feelings” about it. At least, that’s what Dabbler is implying she’ll be able to do.
“Dabbler is a D&D bard.”
That’s… A remarkably good comparison.
You can’t use the “just a silly comic” excuse and then tell people to wait how Heatwave is handled as if the author will now suddenly treat the topic with gravity and seriousness.
>Parfait’s lust aura is being used as a Love Potion Incident
Yeah, and they suck, for this very reason.
+1
Off hand, I know of only one work with a Love Potion arc that doesn’t suck (IMHO, of course). And even that’s only because a whole arc about the fall-out was tacked-on later. (Just for irony, it’s an all-out porn comic, something about an ugly succubus, or so) All other cases I know of are either completely silly and strictly played for laughs or they become arkward to some degree, just like here.
My how the turns have tabled. What is the opposite of “pearl clutching”? Pearl throwing?
People are getting pretty sweaty trying to explain how this still isn’t mind control.
Sure, I’ll take the bait.
It’s not mind control, it is limiting the brain and body’s ability to influence a person’s mind through random chemical and electrical fluctuations. If someone calls your mother a whore and you punch them in the face in a sudden rush of anger is that you in control? Or is that the animal hardware in your meat-suit overriding your ability to consider things like why this jerk’s insults matter at all, or if how much they deserve a punch overrides how much you deserve to put up with the consequences of assaulting someone?
If someone can still feel their full range of emotions, accept input from them and analyze a situation logically instead of just reacting instantly based on whatever emotion is strongest at the time I’d call that the opposite of mind control, it’s putting the mind squarely in control of the body and brain, as it should be in a perfect world.
Think about just how much of your own life is controlled by your emotions making choices for you instead of you being able to decide for yourself after allowing emotional influence to pass.
Have you ever seen Farscape? There is a race of aliens in that with the natural ability to enhance calm logical thinking in others, they used that power to create galactic peace, are they actually sinister manipulators controlling everyone?
You’re intentionally conflating self-control with external control. Something which other here are also annoyingly trying to pull off.
“If someone calls your mother a whore and you punch them in the face in a sudden rush of anger is that you in control?”
LMFTFY
If someone calls your mother a whore and and rams a needle full of sedatives in your neck to keep you from punching them is that not them controlling you? Parfait did something horrible, accident or not, and Dabbler is FORCING everyone to not be bothered by it.
How are you guys not pulling muscles with all this stretching?
“Have you ever seen Farscape? There is a race of aliens in that with the natural ability to enhance calm logical thinking in others, they used that power to create galactic peace, are they actually sinister manipulators controlling everyone?”
You just described brainwashing.
Haven’t watched Farscape in years, you mean the Delvians? Specifically Zhaan? Pretty sure she never FORCED her powers on people, and yes if she did she would be a “sinister manipulator.” (or maybe you meant Stark. Dude just shared memories)
I looked it up, the Farscape aliens I meant are the Eidelons, the ones who created the peacekeepers, they showed up the the movie and the one that went with the main characters tried to use his powers to avert a war by making the Scarren emperor receptive to logic and compromise before he got shot.
But about your example of being sedated, it’s not really the same. If I’m sedated I can’t feel any emotions let alone think clearly. But what dabbler is doing here is not sedation or removing anyone’s emotions, she is just preventing any one emotion from being louder than any other. I think of it like a large internal debate where each emotion is limited to having the exact same number of speakers and time to speak, and then logic analyzes it all and makes a decision.
It’s not really a “stretch” for me to picture this as you put it because this is basically just how I live my life day to day. Due to my own neurological quirks this image of emotions being blunted is my subjective image of self control because I have never desired to or been able to live and experience my reality any other way. I can’t really understand a perspective that completely condemns Dabbler’s ability to give people time to think clearly as evil, it’s not as if they can’t go over it again later in their head without the aura’s effect.
Basically I can’t help but view rash emotional decision making (in general not specifically this comic’s scenario) as much more than base animal instinct, like how a dog that stepped on a nail might lash out at someone trying to help because it decided that it being in pain can be resolved by attacking an assumed source of the pain.
Plus, back to the comic’s scenario, I feel like many human cultures place far too much emotional and spiritual weight on the act of sex, especially American culture.
To correct a really common misconception you are making here: Dabbler’s aura isn’t a ‘calm emotions’, it’s ‘hey that’s just what I needed’. She isn’t just blunting negative emotions, she’s overriding them with a positive emotion. So she literally forcing them to feel an emotion that they might not feel otherwise in order to get a result that is favorable to her.
Or to put it another way, she isn’t allowing logic to rule, she’s just switching which emotion gets to take charge by amplifying satisfaction and contentness. And from her own words, she’s pumping that aura out at full strength. So either people would be feeling extreamly upset about what happened to them and Dabbler is mind controlling them into thinking it was okay, or she’s overriding their logic by overloading them with an emotion so they’ll react how she wants.
Either way its pretty much the opposite of what you think it is.
Yeah, that is a good part of the problem.
But there is also an inconsitancy: Dabbler herself is describing the aura the was you say it, to here own sister and in a different language, so there is little reason to not take her at face value.
At the same time DaveB is downgrading it to a “just calm down”-aura in his author’s comment directly under the comic. (It’s almost like he is trying to retcon the whole deal, he-he)
Considering that the Chill-pill-aura only lasts through the night, I see three possible scenarios at the moment:
A) It is as Dabbler herself implies and the chill-pill-aura allows a permanent reconditioning of her team mates.
This is just brainwashing your “friends” into agreement… (Dabbler is pure EVIL)
B) The new aura is only temporary suspending emotional peaks (like DaveB claims) but Parfait’s lust aura leaves so many emotional scars that a major freak-out is all but guaranteed.
In this case, the temporary chill-pill-aura is really just to blunt the worst. But the affected team members will still need a lot of counseling, therapy and so on and they will be on medical leave for quite a time… (Lust aura is VERY BAD and must be avoided/suppressed at all costs)
C) The chill-pill-aura is only temporary, blunts only emotional peaks and everyone will come to grips with the lust aura becaus is was mostly, kind-a, sort-of quasi-consenual anyway.
Here Dabbler using her aura is just uncalled for and way out of line, since everything will resolve itself anyway… (Dabbler is just untrustworthy and should be banned from ARCHON)
Of course, there are some variations to this possible scenarios, but so far I have not seen any reasonable way out of this mess…
People are not condemning “Dabbler’s ability to give people time to think clearly as evil”, they are condemning her choice to do so without their consent.
And how is someone to learn to control themselves if someone else controls their emotions for them?
So, let me get this straight…
You walk up the street togehter with a friend when some random guy shows up, insulting you, your family and just about everyone around.
Before you have any obvious reaction, your own friend is force-feeding you some THC. This makes you mellow enough so you don’t attack instantly. After your high wears off, you had enough time to think it trough and decide to not answer with violence.
Did I get that right? And you somehow think this is the least bad solution from a bunch of bad options?
I’m sorry, but I have a slightly different opionion here…
Well… Yeah. If my calm mind came to the conclusion that there is no reason to hit some random guy because nothing he says really matters and I don’t care to get wrapped up in whatever weird issues he clearly has going on, then yes that seems like a fine solution to me.
Of course THC doesn’t work just like that, and even if it did I wouldn’t need it to come to the same conclusion, so this may not be the best example scenario. So I guess my stance on your proposed situation is, please don’t force feed me THC, drugs are expensive and you might damage my mouth.
You say
“… I wouldn’t need it to come to the same conclusion …”
But that’s the whole point!
Neither you in my scenario nor the ARCHON team members are given a chance to come to that conclusion on your own, because a (trustworthy?) friend is acting preemptivly. Instead you and the supers are forced to take a timeout from the blunt edges of your emotions, wether you want/need it or not…
(And, yeah, THC doesn’t work that way. Would you know a better drug for this scenario?)
Considering the relationship Dabbler has with Max, and Dabbler’s stated views on Human/American puritanism it makes sense why she would come to the conclusion that this was a good and necessary course of action to protect her sister and avoid fallout that has a non zero chance of spiraling into a full on witch hunt for all earth bound succubi.
And as we are yet to see any actual harm from people having their most intense impulses temporarily limited I don’t think it’s really a serious problem, sure getting informed consent is important and would be the decent thing to do before Dabbler started up her aura. But the reasoning behind her actions and the lack of malicious intent leaves Dabbler morally ok in my eyes. She just made a quick rash decision to try and prevent bad things from happening, but hey maybe if someone had used a similar aura on her to take away her “free will” she might not have made such a hasty choice to keep people calm and could have come up with another option?
Remember that Dabbler had to learn to break worse mind control than this when she was still a kid?
Your logic is sound, if you take this page on it’s own. But it starts to break down, once it is put into the context of the big picture.
Especially the special relationship with Max, together with her super-intelligence is working against Dabbler here. Just last page Max told here quite clearly “No Mind Control” (note 1), so she is going against Max expressed wishes. And she has been on Earth for a while now and should have at least some understanding how the average human will react to Mind Control. Yet she shows no regret, hesitation or second thoughts of any kind. Instead it’s business as usual for her. (But maybe it’s not in her personality to openly show insecurities, even toward her sister. *shrug* Who knows? It doesn’t really matter here…)
This opens up new questions:
Does she not care about Max’ wishes? Then her alignment/morals are called into question.
Does she not see the potential backlash? Then her reasoning/desicion making skills are highly questionable, since highly intelligent does not automatically mean rational. This may also threaten Max’ position at the top of ARCHON. (note 2)
Are the results of the accidental lust aura realy that bad – either emotionally scarring or in violent backlash against the aura-wielder? Then, yes, Dabbler’s chill-pill-aura is justfied, even with the potential fall-out looming over her. But at the same time it opens up a whole new can of questions, not just about the lust aura but aura-wielding in general.
Because, if you accept that the situation was desperate enough to justify Dabbler’s interference, the next question is why the ARCHON base and Earth in general, is not better proetcted against any type of aura. It also brings up the question of how other aliens deal with this. And it’s not just the lust aura – it may well be that humans on Earth are just the single most prudish culture in the universe – it’s about blocking/suppressing any aura, the agression aura from earlier, the other types of emotional auras we have seen and potentially many more auras by aliens we have not met so far.
Now, some aliens may be immune to auras, some aliens may not care (as long as the aura-wielder stays away from their elite or hivemind or whatever…). For the heck of it, some aliens may even enjoy it when someone is walking nilly-willy over their mind, emotions and personality in general. But I just can’t believe that the majority of aliens out there would be happy with being mentally railroaded or emotionally highjacked when ever an aura-wielder comes along.
So either A) there must be some protocol or tech in place to detect/block/suppress auras or B) aura-wielders in general are persona non grata on many planets (with a few kill-on-sigth orders thrown in just for the fun)
Back to the question why ARCHON (and the general public!) is not better protected against any auras. On Page 1 it is actually understandable, because Dabbler could resonablely believe she was the only aura-wielder on Earth, so there was no danger and she just liked playing games to much (teasing, pushing bounderies and the occational mischief) But then the attack with the agression aura happended, some more aliens visited (including another succubus) and Deus has an unknown number (as far as Max & Co. know!) of alien allies running around.
So why is there no counter against auras on Earth?
If Dabbler is keeping the information from her human friends, we are back to the question of how evil Dabbler is.
If Dabbler is not understanding the problem, we are back to the question on her reasoning.
If there is no counter or if humans are extra-suspectible to auras, banning any and all aura-wielders from Earth would not only be justified but neccessary. (An actual witch hunt out of question on principle)
And finally, if they just can’t get ther hands on the neccessary tech – or if Dabbler is unable to jury-rig something, then DaveB please, please, please tell us about this! It would probably make a nice story arc: “Sidney and the Quest for Aura Blocking” ,-))
And, Finally, If anyone is still reading…
I have no fear of any negative consequences from this arc. The current arc just broke – well, no, “dented” my suspension of disbelief and know I’m a bit vexed over the inconsistencies I found afterwards…
So, it’s just not in the setup of Grrl Power to be bad consequences of the current story line. If push come to shove, DaveB will just handwave them away… (On the other hand, the arc is not over or the fallout could be picked up rigth after it, so, maybe I will have a big helping of humle-pie soon. Honestly, I actually hope so…)
Note 1: Technically the aura is Emotional Control, not Mind Control and the clear order was about Heatwave, not everyone on base. Yet, I strongly believe this ruleslawyering would make Max just more angry and with Dabbler’s stated intelligence, she should know this.
Note 2: Why is an super-intelligent but irrational Dabbler a threat to Max? Well, if Max is more or less aware of this, she allowed an unstable person access to the base and her personell without any oversight. In this case she is Unfit For Command. Period.
But maybe Max was not aware of how chaotic Dabbler really is? Then Max’s qualification as commander of ARCHON is still questionable because of her being that oblivious.
And finally, if Dabbler – highly intelligent – took active steps to deceive Max, we are back to the question: “How good or evil is Dabbler really?”
P.S: Minor squabble, but you called the insult-shouting-stranger inconsequencial in the last post. Maybe I missunderstood you, but that stranger was originally brought up by you in your original answer to Lemmy. Well doesn’t really matter, the point came across.
if someone calls your mother a whore, you’re the type of person who would immediately, no consideration or regret, punch them in the face?
that’s an example that doesn’t work on everyone, because not everyone goes right to punching people. i wouldn’t. it’s individual difference. which is a BIG hint that this is NOT comparable to mind control, which enforces a specific decision on anyone it’s applied to. you mind control any random 2 people to punch the next guy they see in the face, they do it. or you mind control them to seek out the guy they hate most and punch them in the face – doesn’t matter that they hate the guy anyway and the mind control ‘does them a favor’, they wouldn’t have gone to punch the guy in the face anyway.
there is no real-world example that equates to mind control because mind control isn’t real. you have to use fictional examples, and all of those turn squicky quickly – turning a person into someone they normally aren’t, because they aren’t making decisions according to their own experiences, motivations, and considerations. or i would consider it comparable to a bodyswap – your body, image, and identity is made to enact actions and decisions you ordinarily wouldn’t, and you have no control and perhaps even no knowledge of these decisions and actions made for you.
now, if all you’re arguing is whether dabbler’s use of mind/emotional control to make everyone act more generously towards each other and parfait than they normally would is a *justified* or even *preferable* move to just letting them act normally, you can argue that. but making false comparisons just kinda shows you’re already taking a favorable position towards dabbler and parfait and making interpretations of the situation to fit that.
Long time reader, but I had to finally leave a comment because this…this page was a big yikes.
I mean, having a protagonist removing people’s ability to feel angry or violated after explicitly being sexually violated (accident or no) is… well, frankly disgusting.
Like, being honest, the whole arc has felt awkward anyway. I wasn’t personally a fan of how Parfait’s aura removed the agency of various characters, how a character in a long-time relationship cheated under its effect, and how readily everyone seemed to move on from it, but I also get that the fan service and risqué moments are part-and-parcel of this comic, and from an authorial standpoint this allows those moments, and in-universe it makes sense that the team (given how they’ve been portrayed) would be willing to forgive Parfait following an unintentional release of magic.
Like, it’s still skeevy because of the mental manipulation, and it felt like weaker writing, but the characters reacting positively was… not unexpected. It was an accident, and the team has been considerably forgiving in the past.
The actively tamping down on people’s ability to respond to what happened though? And from a protagonist we have been so far encouraged to root for? That’s…again, yikes.
I mean, Dabbler has always been a bit annoying for not always respecting “No means No,” and yes in-story the whole “alien culture” thing is undoubtedly playing a part, but from a writing standpoint this….this is again tantamount to a main character drugging someone who was raped until they can calm down.
It just…feels wrong, and I am so disappointed this story went down this route. Maybe, maybe if this is addressed by the characters as the effects wear off, or if Dabbler can actively see some of the harm it can cause, this can be rectified…. but, honestly? I’ve never been less hopeful for the future direction of this comic.
They are not having their ability to feel angry (or any other feeling), they are being calmed so they can think about why they are feeling that way, and to be able to properly act rather than simply react
Well, I obviously disagree.
As stated in my prior comment, having their emotions nonconsensually calmed or muted fundamentally changes how they think without their permission, and effectively removes their ability to feel angry or violated.
If someone is unable to fully express their emotions following a traumatic event, they are unable to think about that event in its full emotional context, and therefore their actions will be artificially restricted. If a character’s reactions are being “calmed” to a point they cannot react angrily to being violated, that is removing their ability to feel angry.
Additionally, framing this as it allowing them to “properly” react implies that the proper reaction to being violated is to not react angrily?
Frankly, I beg to differ.
They are justified in feeling violated, and in being angry. Again, in muting their emotional response, Dabbler removes their ability and choice to have these justified feelings.
Yes, she is protecting her sister, but that does not make the action forgivable.
Yes, I understand that with the context of Parfait being young and having an accident, the characters as shown would be more forgiving; however, having a protagonist actively robbing their friends of the choice to react following such a violation is still disgusting, both in-universe and from a writing standpoint.
To reiterate one of my prior statements and put it as plainly as possible, even in the context of calming, this is still an incidence of a “main character drugging someone who was raped until they can calm down.”
Also, something I missed but Richard noted, this was not just a calming effect, but rather a “Hey, that was just what I needed” effect, as Dabbler calls it. This implies a far more invasive mental manipulation. While I already fundamentally disagreed with Dabbler nonconsensually restricting her teammates’ ability to feel angry, there is also a staggering difference between how a “calming” effect compares to a “Hey, that was just what I needed” effect. Paired with his provided examples, I am even more disappointed.
As to me copying another’s comments, I assure you that was not intended. I did a quick keyword search of the comments on this page, and could not find any that used the exact same wording as me; however, if that was the case, I do apologize. I maintain that these are my views on the issue.
Again, to reiterate, the whole arc felt skeevy, the writing weaker, and Dabbler mentally manipulating her teammates with a “calming” effect (or, in actuality, a “Hey, that was just what I needed” effect) was frankly disgusting. I am still disappointed the story went down this route, and unless Dabbler is called on this or sees the repercussions, I’m not hopeful for the future direction of the comic.
Why does this post feel like it was posted before?
Getting a heavy deja vu vibe this, specially the last paragraph
Sometimes people have similar emotional and intellectual responses to events, and express themselves in similar ways. I suspect that’s pretty common among normal human beings.
No, it wasn’t just similar thoughts, it was the exact wording
Because you don’t have any new ideas except to tell everyone “Nuhu you’re wrong don’t read what is on the page believe my BS that makes this all ok.”
Oh you meant the post you were responding to. Well there is only so many ways to say the truth so yes people who are right will start to sound similar.
About your point, as I said elsewhere read what Dabbler calls her aura “Hey that was just what I needed” not “Hey I don’t know if I am ok with that I should think this through” Her aura is making people ok with what just happened, We can’t even be sure Seneca is actually bisexual because Dabblers aura is not allowing her to consider if she didn’t want that, go read Amorphus’s lines now knowing Dabbler is forcing him to feel “that was just what I needed.”
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-1197-succubus-wrangler/ while under Dabblers aura his response is force the same feelings of uncontrollability on someone else, its “just what they need”
Go read Harems line, she is perfectly paraphrasing what Dabbler calls her aura.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-1196-max-chill/
*and to be able to properly act rather than simply react*
Who gets to decide what the proper reaction to being attacked by magic if not the person who was attacked?
I have to wonder if DaveB designed this scenario intentionally to extract tortured arguments in the comment section.
Really, the core issue is one which must be extremely rare in the real world: sex between people who have (effectively) been drugged, but neither of them is aware of it or of the one who made it happen. In real life, rape happens when one person intentionally violates the will of another. But here, as far as either party could tell, the other was giving enthusiastic consent. You can’t really call either of those a rapist unless you really expect we should run a drug test (and, now that we know about it, a magical aura test) on everyone who gives consent.
And Parfait, who triggered the whole mess, did so involuntarily. It seems like a stretch to call her a rapist in those other interactions, unless we have a term for accidental/involuntary rape in which the enabler does not participate – not a thing that happens in the real world often enough to coin a term for it.
The closest we come to “real world” rape is Parfait pushing on Sydney. She is a victim of the aura almost like everyone else, with the difference being that she WAS aware of the aura. And we know she is at least somewhat aware of human/western cultural norms, so she should have tried to resist it. And maybe she did? I don’t see how we can really know about that, except that if she tried, she obviously failed. But since Sydney isn’t ready to call it that, there is no case to be made. (And the fact that US law has medical requirements for what can constitute rape, and those requirements were not met here, is only somewhat relevant – US law is not the universal source of moral truth.) Some readers are unhappy that Syd isn’t taking it “seriously”, but it seems plausible – she understands the cultural difference, and though she had to push back, it didn’t really take a fight to get the message through to Par. Presumably if DaveB wanted a grittier comic he could have had Syd take the alternate and equally-plausible path of calling it attempted rape, and taken us through the legal proceedings and anguish. For that matter, he could have started the comic with a rape in the very first episode, and made the entire series about that. But he didn’t, and it is fair for him to decide the kind of story he wants to write, and most of us are enjoying the result. If you really *need* to read stories about rape and the aftermath, and you find no other story line acceptable, you were probably destined from the start to be disappointed in reading a light-hearted comic about superheros.
As for Dabbler’s latest “mind control” expedition, I would agree with calling it that a lot more strongly if it wasn’t going to wear off overnight. As it is, to me it seems she is just making sure people have time to think with their neurons instead of their hormones.
Finally, I want to point out that anyone throwing around the phrase “pearl clutcher” is really just name-calling, not making any kind of worthwhile contribution to the discussion, and instantly looses the respect of any reader with a brain or a heart. If you’ve got thoughtful commentary, bring it. Otherwise, why waste our oxygen?
“(Culpably) Negligent rape by proxy”. it’s really very straightforward to describe. some of the genocidal atrocities in Africa or the Balkans have been way worse than that.
Going to disagree with you there. I do think “pearl clutcher” is entirely appropriate here.
To quote Jimmy Car, “Its important to remember a joke about a thing is not the thing.”
Similarly “A comic about a thing is not the thing”
People getting angsty over an imaginary scenario in a web comic definitely falls into the category. If you don’t like it, fine. Give your feedback. Stop reading if you don’t like, thats also fine. But this wailing and gnashing of teeth over an imaginary event that happened to imaginary people (and largely off panel too) is utterly unwarranted.
Can you specify where you draw the line between leaving your feedback because you dislike something and “wailing and gnashing of teeth”? Because plenty of people have been getting called pearl clutches regardless.
And while a joke is a joke, sometimes when you tell a story you make unintented implications and they are worth discussing.
I may not be the first to mention it but nevertheless: I played the game from the picture back then in the 1980ths. Never understood what the game was really about until half a year ago when I saw how to finish the game. It even has an “End Scene”.
Was one of the first games feasturing spoken language. On a 1Mhz 64kByte computer.
I haven’t posted in a bit, but I love that throw back Elevator Action arcade game graphics. Loved that old thing, thanks for recreating it.
Parfait has tough, making that kind lasting impression on Halo’s bosses. Hopefully, she will be able to mix it up with crews in the future!
I just have to ask because of the pornhub commet. Did it ever recover since the fap-apocalypse
So, I haven’t seen anyone else bring this up. Is Dabbler suppose to have the Columbo look there with her eyes or is that just a art goof?
I know she has a false eye but I don’t recall anywhere else that they were this off balance, is it suppose to be part of the magic drain she can’t control it like normal?
DaveB?
For what it’s worth, the opposite of ‘Breviloquence’ is ‘Grandiloquence’. ‘Sesquipedalian’ means ‘having fifteen feet’, implying a word is fifteen feet long.
People (loose definition) are questioning what Dabbles is going to do is a good or bad thing
We have had it from the character herself (Heatwave) that she doesn’t always think things through when she gets mad, and that time just resulted in her caramelizing herself over a simple kiss-prank!!
What do you think she will do to Jiggs this time? Or worse, poor Parf?
Think McFly! Use your head for something more than growing hair
Heatwave isn’t there, and is not one of the characters being controlled at the moment. She is also the single person Dabbler swore to not use this kind of effect on, which means that she is expected to deal with her negative reaction and practice self control like anyone else. Especially since time has passed and she may have grown a little since the kiss prank.
No one has thus far been shown to be in any danger other than hurt feelings and resentment, whether by the comic or Daves notes.
Hasn’t been that much time: only a couple months at the most (this is still in Sydney’s Flashback before she became a corporal)
Yes, Heatwave isn’t there (we know that because Morph hooked up with Jiggs instead), but she will be back at some point, and someone will tell her what happened, just like how she wasn’t in the ecnalubma when Harem kissed Morph and she will have feelings about it
Cool, so you acknowledge that Heatwave isnt there, so isnt a reason to be using the Aura right now?
Because needing to use it to prevent her from having a meltdown has no bearing if she isnt even present.
Addiitonally Dabbler has been told not to use this sort of thing or anything approaching it on Heatwave to deal with her.
And sure, not much time has passed chronologically, but many things have happened in that time, its plenty of time for some character growth. Even if she hasnt, again, is not present and not an excuse to bathe the whole base in an aura to make less hot headed people more accepting of what happened.
Also,I’m going to assume you hadn’t seen the question, butt could you please respond to my question on the last comment page as to what the point you were trying to make stating certain acts were legal in certain countries after people pointed out those acts were morally dubious?
Because at the moment the best interpretation is that ky comes across as completely tone deaf to the point being made.
I know the comic’s old now but another thing just occurred to me, especially after this comic. Dabbler is TOTALLY going to “rules lawyer” around the “nothing remotely resembling control” Devil’s Pact and mind control Heatwave. Only realistic way Heatwave would accept it.
Facts.