Grrl Power #546 – Meet the new grrl, same as the old grrl
Ah! Wall of text! My eyes!
Maxima’s dialog was supposed to be all background text, like with the foreground stuff overlapping it, but I figured out how to make it all fit, and turned out to be kind of relevant.
For those of you unfamiliar with Jabberwokky, here is her first appearance.
And here’s the free show she references and the kiss.
BTW Jabber’s real name is Jazmine, she goes by Jazza cause it’s hard to have street cred when you’re rocking a Disney Princess name. Also Jazza sounds cool. Her last name is Ng, pronounced “ing” and she’s half Taiwanese. I know she doesn’t look particularly Asian, but while Lucy Liu is half Chinese and looks Asian as… uh a very Asian looking person… Chloe Bennet, who plays Skye/Daisy/Quake on Agents of SHIELD is also half Chinese, and I was blown away when I learned that, because she does not look Asian to me AT ALL. Apparently she’s a fairly successful pop star over there. So weirdly, Agents of SHIELD is the only show I’m aware of with two Asian leads in it. So my point is, Jazza is half Taiwanese and I can draw her however I like. Thanks Chloe!
Edit: Whoops, apparently Lucy Liu is full Chinese. I don’t know why I thought she was mixed. That should teach me to check my assumptions but it probably won’t.
Also I’m aware I now have a character named Dabbler and one whose nickname will probably be Jabber on occasion. So no chance that will confuse anyone. Also between her and Jiggawatt I have two “JW’s” which is why Jabberwokky doesn’t have a choker yet. I didn’t have time to design hers. Though Jiggawatt’s choker is just a “J” so it shouldn’t to hard to make them look different.
Also also I kind of didn’t plan that last panel well with the order of the word bubbles and the placement of the characters. The person speaking first should be on the left so their bubble will be above them, but if I had reversed the camera angle to accommodate that, then Max and Arianna wouldn’t in the shot. Oh well, Portals to the rescue.
Two links for those of you who like clicking on things. I was on a webcomic podcast and talked about webcomics mostly.
Also I found a kickstarter for a comic that looks decent. A gal bonds with a goddess and gets all fit and super powered. Really nice art too. Ignore the fact that the title “Patriotika” makes it sound like either a ‘What-If distaff counterpart Captain America but in Russia’ comics, (that should actually be called “Kommissarina Kremlin”) or one of those Poser rendered ‘superheroine loses her powers and gets damsel in distressed’ comics. I know you guys know what I’m talking about. Anyway check it out if you like.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
So, sexual harassment is OK under certain circumstances…
Probably, if the circumstance is ‘Teach Dabbler a lesson to not too casual use her succubus aura too much’, or ‘Show Dabbler how it feels to be on the receiving end of unwanted sexual harassment for once’.
Implying that Dabbler acutally could be harressed. :D
She prefers to be the one in control. Having someone not influenced or hit on innate the ‘moment’ like that isn’t common for her…. And funny to everyone else as she gets a slight taste of how dabbler can be to herself… In a slight exaggerated way.
It’s like that time one of the cats got drunk and jumped Pepe Le Pew.
Oh yeah, I remember that one.
Or when he got covered in blue paint.
Actually, I suspect that Max put her up to this, just to get Dabbler. It’s the only reason I can think of why she wouldn’t put a stop to it… though I would expect it to backfire, actually.
Naa, Maxima is aims to be a role model super. Her temper lets her down mind. So she has her failings. But Maxima actively works to be as good as possible.
Why do you think they have ‘Make Maxima Say’ Bingo? It is because trying to be a good role model does have the side effect of coming across as stuffy. Further, because Maxima keeps strictly to proper (human) codes of conduct, is why Dabbler teases her relentlessly.
And that is why Maxima is laughing at the irony here. Dabbler is getting to see why Maxima has to be so stuffy and keep to the rules. Because social problems are all too common, in human societies, if they are not kept to.
So whilst succubi do not need such help, humans do.
If the succubus is the victim it’s not harassment. Also, despite his exposure therapy session, Math has likely passed out from an anime nosebleed…
I don’t know, Math looks fine to me in the page, though with a badly concealed grin on his face, probably from remembering his encounter with Jabberwokky.
Agreed – like any succubus is ever going to object to advances. Like me, if anyone shoves fresh baked chocolate chip cookies at me, I won’t be filing any grievances for culinary harassment.
Assuming Math isn’t the one responsible for Varia’s/Xochitl’s Bed Head hair in the first place ;)
Not harrassment at all. Dabbler used her most highly effective abilities in combat to neutralize an aggressor, and now she’s being reminded that only Dabbler can fix what Dabbler breaks.
It’s like any other injury – Jabberwokky is affected by damage done to her psyche when fighting ARChon, and still needs to recover from it.
This is a clever answer.
Indeed.
Dabbler is an exception to every rule. Sexual harassment laws were framed with humans in mind. If that was a human being treated that way then Maxima should intervene. However Dabbler is a demon, who feeds off sexual energy, so her psychology and social needs are very different to humans.
Whilst Maxima is getting a kick out of this, it is because she knows her intervention is not necessary. Dabbler is alarmed, or surprised, and is worried that something has gone wrong with her powers. So whilst it is fair to say she is being harassed, it is almost certainly not sexual in nature.*
On the very long shot that Dabbler is actually feeling sexually harassed, Maxima knows she is very smart, so will probably be able to handle it herself. Which is actually acceptable protocol, even with human cases, if it is credible that the member of staff is capable of that and wishes to do so.
Likewise, for the same reason, Dabbler can indicate to Maxima that she requires management help on the issue.
Again, factoring in her alien nature, this is highly appropriate, as succubi will often play coy, innocent or use any number of other potentially misleading sexual ploys, as a necessary part of their feeding process.
Maxima would not necessarily be able to distinguish between Dabbler ‘playing at being shy’ versus actually being harassed. So, in Dabbler’s case, there would be a greater onus on her, to request assistance, than for a human in a similar situation.
* Note the definition of sexual harassment is how the victim feels, as opposed to the perpetrator. So Jabberwokky could genuinely be coming on to her, but if Dabbler is not bothered about the sexual aspect, but is about her power not working right, then it is not sexual harassment.
“* Note the definition of sexual harassment is how the victim feels, as opposed to the perpetrator. So Jabberwokky could genuinely be coming on to her, but if Dabbler is not bothered about the sexual aspect, but is about her power not working right, then it is not sexual harassment.”
Not that, despite a decade plus of activists trying to get that to be the definition, it is NOT the definition, and is, in fact, stark raving insane.
I’m not saying that to be rude, but because people don’t stop and think about it for one second to realize it. I CAN NOT do anything about how someone else feels.
Sure, I can do things that the legal fiction “reasonable person” could be expected to react a certain way to, but if you actually feel that me using the can opener in the break room is me making an unwanted pass at you, well… by the definition given above, me using the can opener in the break room would be sexual harassment. As I said, stark raving insane.
I’m not trying to be harsh, really, but people need to stop and think about things for a moment.
Sexual harassment is sexual behaviour towards a person that has made it clear that they do not want it, or, in some cases, where it is sufficiently obvious in advance that it would be unwanted/inappropriate. Definitions not fairly close to that result in stark raving insanity like I listed above.
It is actually how sexual harassment tribunals work in the UK. I have no idea how the various states handle such though. But I would be very surprised if it used a completely different basis.
Firstly courts do often have to determine the state of mind of individuals. In criminal courts this is necessary, for example, to determine if a murder was premeditated. This is down to intent. So even though it is only something that exists in someone’s mind, we can judge it based on their behaviour and other indicators.
In a workplace environment a company will have a rule book to give staff guidance on how to respond to respond to sexual harassment situations. Pretty much near the top will be to inform management of your concerns, at the earliest possible opportunity.
So you need not be concerned about your colleague with sexual fears about you using a can opener. As soon as they report that, a reputable manager will have them referred to a shrink to get treated.
So you can have your sardines free from the fear that you will be prosecuted for being a sexual deviant. Depending on whether you consume them orally or not, of course. The shrink may just confirm that her fears were genuine, in which case we move on to your tribunal.
The fact that you think it is OK to have intercourse with fish, in the canteen, does not mean that your colleagues have to put up with it. It is their opinion that is what counts. Provided that it can be substantiated as being a genuine concern, then you will find yourself out of a job. And possibly going to jail.
Yup. You do note that the last is determining their state of mind, as I indicted. The former is also just them letting you know their state of mind.
What I said was not incorrect. What you have done though is clarify the mechanics, when dealing with tribunals, which is helpful.
Whereas I was catting to the chase and pointing out the underlying reason, as to why we have those mechanics. Which I did in order to point out the difference in the situation between Sydney and Dabbler. Which, ultimately, does come down to their states of mind.
What you must be wary of though is using human techniques to do that, with an alien. Especially one who has a fundamentally different morals in the specific area under discussion. Ones that Dabbler has iterated to Maxima on may occasions. So she is well versed in the social rules that Dabbler wishes to live by.
Which specifically precludes Maxima interfering with her on sexual harassment grounds.
Thus explaining why Maxima is laughing.
Unless Dabbler changes her mind (note nothing to do with your perception of the situation, only hers) then Maxima is under no ethical, legal or moral obligation to intervene.
“You do note that the last is determining their state of mind, as I indicted.”
No, “state of mind” is NOT the same thing as “how they feel about it”. They are related, but not the same.
You can FEEL as disgusted or harassed as you like by the first pass I make at you, but, unless the legal fiction “reasonable person” would believe that it was sufficiently clear that it was unwelcome, then it fails in the “harassment” claim.
Also, in most cases, “state of mind” refers to the accused – that is, intent is generally required for most crimes, and even in the extreme cases (like murder), intent makes a HUGE difference (say, between life in prison and possibly not spending ANY time in prison for a particularly odd and unlikely accidental killing). If nothing I did would be in any sexual so far as I know (example: asking to borrow a “rubber” – in the UK and some other places, that means “squishy rubber thing used to erase pencil marks”, while in the US, that’s slang for “condom”), then I am clearly not sexually harassing you. THAT is the first “state of mind” in question, not the feeling of the accuser.
But all of that has been under direct and intentional assault by “activists” trying to use a definition almost exactly like the one you gave, including even the assumption of “perpetrator” and “victim” (when knowing false accusations would actually flip those terms).
So, for example, I walk into the office on my first day of work, speak politely with everyone, and politely compliment someone for looking “nice”. Someone feels harassed, and BAM! I’m a “perpetrator” for giving a polite compliment with no further intention. For bonus points, the person I “harassed” can be someone walking by that I didn’t even know was there who simply overheard (yes, literally), and their feeling of “harassment” could be because I didn’t also compliment them, because they dislike the person I complimented, or almost any such craziness.
Under the definition you gave, the feelings of the accuser are what matters, so I would be guilty. As my example in my previous post and the example I just gave, that’s stark raving loony.
To be fair, it does sound like the UK hasn’t gone quite that crazy on it just yet. Good luck, hope it stays that way (or gets even less crazy).
“So whilst it is fair to say she is being harassed, it is almost certainly not sexual in nature.”
Actually, with Dabbler in this case, it’s definitely sexual, but it would not be considered “harassment” (of Dabbler) since it’s Dabbler’s fault.
State of mind (of Dabbler) in this case is actually irrelevant. Dabbler may dislike it all she wants (not that she would), and it wouldn’t matter – essentially, Dabbler is the offender here (she initiated this problem), though the “offense” was committed as an act of combat in what was technically self-defense (though Jabber was controlled to do that as well… what a mess), and thus not actually considered criminal.
So again, directly backwards – yes, it’s sexual (whether Dabbler “feeds” on it or not, it has rather directly to due with sex and sexual attraction), no, it’s not harassment (of Dabbler), and no, state of mind (of Dabbler) is not relevant to that determination.
First off tribunals do apply common sense. So if a person is mentally ill and reading sexual harassment into situations which no reasonable person would, then their state of mind is not pertinent, other than as grounds for dismissal.
Note though that such a compliment could be used to indicate a pattern of behaviour. If you had been persistently harassing that one individual, and they had asked you to stop. But noticed that you never complimented anyone else, or payed them any attention. Yet you continued to press your affections on that person, then they would have justification to list that as one factor, amongst others which they felt to constitute ongoing harassment.
Note the differing opinions on how that one incident plays out. To you it is innocent. To the victim it is harassment.
I have seen court cases which do build up evidence using this approach. And have seen them found in favour of the plaintiff.
Do note that I did not just say “Don’t be stupid, of course giving someone a compliment is not going to be considered harassment”. That is the way it would go most of the time, mind, as courts are not dumb. But as you raised the point, I am happy to explore the extremes where it may vary. Despite the fact that you are choosing a spurious example, that is unlikely to apply in a normal case.
Most of the time harassment is occurring because someone is making sexual overtures, being highly pushy, offering crude innuendos, trying to look down cleavage and so on. But because he has a close circle of friends who egg him on, suggesting that is OK, or because other people are too timid to speak up and say ‘no, this is wrong’, they carry on doing that.
Yet even if the victim complains, to them, they just keep saying ‘oh, it is OK, I am just playing you a compliment’.
Well I am speaking up. If you are behaving in the way I describe stop it! If you are subjecting a person to this and they are uncomfortable and unhappy with it, you are causing them distress. It is harassment even if you think it is fine.
The perpetrator’s opinion has sod all to do with it. They are causing emotional distress to the victim. And in most cases that go to trial it is very obviously so.
Whereas, examining the cases where the plaintiff is being unreasonable, it will usually halt at the point that their lawyer tells them that no tribunal or jury will agree with them.
But if they do go ahead, their complaint will fail as courts do not apply rules blindly. Only if the circumstances reasonably support the mental state of mind claimed, will that be accepted.
“You can FEEL as disgusted or harassed as you like by the first pass I make at you, but, unless the legal fiction “reasonable person” would believe that it was sufficiently clear that it was unwelcome, then it fails in the “harassment” claim.”
Broadly speaking you are making a fair statement. However, you are mixing up several different aspects. The reasonable person aspect very much does come into it, in determining if the situation has the potential to harass. Making a pass is not illegal. Even if the person finds you disgusting. Persisting, once they ask you not to, is what is then risking harassment.
Likewise other behaviours which contribute to them feeling disgusted, such as I listed above.
If the person can avoid you, then this does not necessarily become a legal issue. But if they work at the same place as you, they cannot. Likewise if you start to stalk them.
So this does mean that you have to be wary if persisting in asking the same person out. If they just say “no”, you are OK. If they say “no and don’t ever bother me again”, then you are getting into murky legal waters. Proceed at your own risk.
Do note that Harem has harassed Sydney, more than once (for instance in the showers). In her case though, in the pool scene, it is not even reasonable to do it the once. Asking someone on a date is a normal part of society. Blackmailing them into indecent exposure is not!
On whole, all of that was quite reasonable, and from a legal perspective, it’s also fairly reasonable, even in the States… but the point I was making is that generally, activists are working hard to get your first definition (where the feelings of the “victim” are ALL that matters, literally all) to be what gets used by COMPANIES, not courts (they’d like get the courts, too, of course), using pressure, PR campaigns, and threats of lawsuits. Also, in some areas (college campuses being the best/worst example), they’ve managed to get the federal government to basically enforce that type of thinking.
“The perpetrator’s opinion has sod all to do with it. They are causing emotional distress to the victim.”
No, actually, it has quite a bit to do with it. If the “perpetrator” is from a different country, and there are both language and cultural difficulties involved, with no intent or even knowledge of the offense on the part of the “perpetrator”, education on both sides is FAR better than simply assigning “victim” and “perpetrator”, and from that point to “creepy psychotic stalker/rapist” is a continuum, with examples at nearly every point in between.
The “perpetrator” being determined by who the “victim” feels is a recipe for insanity. “Harassment” has legal definition(s – it varies by jurisdiction, I’m sure), and the FIRST check is “is it sufficient for HARASSMENT”. If it’s not sufficient for harassment, it’s not sexual harassment – both checks must be satisfied. In every place I’m aware of “harassment” does involve intent on the part of the perpetrator.
Simple example: in one culture I am familiar with, terms of affection for familiar women (especially those noticeably younger) include such items as “sweetie”, mostly by men, but not uncommonly by women. This is normal, widely accepted in those areas, and not assumed to mean anything or to be otherwise offensive.
In another culture I am familiar with (both in the States, might I add, just different areas), using that term is these days is “sexual harassment”, and complaints get made (sometimes only to HR, where the man remains unaware for sufficient time to create a “pattern of harassment”, and even knowledge of the offense does not instantaneously remove years of habit, even with the best of intentions) in some cases on the very first “offense”.
I assure you, nothing sexual is implied, save the barest meaning that it is used on women and not men (the terms used for younger men in that situation generally lack sexual connotations, and men are generally expected to get over it up anyway).
Is this “sexual harassment”? It certainly fits your definition, as the “victim” feels harassed.
And all of that is without mentioning that people can lie about their “feelings”, and there’s no real way to verify them.
Yes, sexual harassment can be a problem, but setting up a system where men actively avoid women in the business setting (and yes, there are plenty of examples of that, and plenty of examples of why it’s a very good idea) is insane, not to mention actively counter-productive.
Also, that ‘portal speech’ mechanism in the last panel is brilliant.
I love how you’re thinking with portals, Dave.
Me too. I dont know why but this is one of my favorite pages because of it.
I disagree. It took reading the comments to understand that that was supposed to be the tail of a speech balloon at the one near Dabbler. I could figure out it was meant to be Dabbler talking, but it got a very ventroliquist-like effect without the balloon obviously originating with her.
Awkward as it might be, looping the tail up and over the top to get to the proper word balloons, or letting it cut under (even though it might block some arms) would probably have been better.
That’s funny, I got it right off the bat – and I think it was a brilliant solution. Dave is awesome for coming up with it.
Hadn’t even noticed the tail leading in to the portal near Dabbles’ head at first, had noticed the other portal and thought for awhile that it was someone else speaking through a speaker
I know it takes a few minutes to figure out, but I’m majorly into video games and I just found it to be awesome. It’s a cute break the 4th wall moment.
If the speech balloon’s tail constitutes “breaking the 4th wall,” then it does so twice…Once to break out & once again to break back in.
:D
Well, in that case it didn’t really “break” the 4th wall. Dave used a wormhole to bypass it.
It is awesome. I had to head out, so did not have the time for the scene to soak in, when I initially looked at the comic. But now that I have had a chance to do more than a quick read and initial response, it does tickle me.
It took a time for this Chechov’s gun to finally fire, but I saw it coming.
I had a similar thought, but on a different topic. My initial feeling from panel one was that Sydney’s comment was an excuse for her to touch Varia’s hair. This would have induced the change in the flight path of Sydney’s orbs to be around both of them. Since they are in a crowded room this time, this effect would be sure to be noticed by someone. But that idea got cancelled by a sudden plot swerve by Dave.
And now I have a chance to realise what that is in between the pair of them. In my initial, hurried, read through, I thought Sydney was raising her hand up, to touch it. Then realised ‘nope that is something else, Tribble? Nope. No time, move on.’
Henceforth Math may be referred to as ‘Spiky Tribble’.
or Spike the Tribble (great name for a Tribble, and also for a new Klingon sport)
:-D
Yes, the Klingon Vollyball Tournament rules changed slightly (spiking the ball meant using a ball with real spikes put on it) after Scotty beamed all of those tribbles to the Klingon ship on that fateful day…
And spike the bloody is laughing his vampy head of that he can send a irritating demon maths way if they ask for spike, getting buffy a reinforcement
Spike is sitting on my lap, at the moment.
Along with Cordelia and Miss Kitty Fantastico. Plus Willow is running around and making a nuisance of herself.
They are adorable kittens that demons are not allowed to use as poker stakes.
So the question is, did Varia have a solo session fueled by her readings, or did she grab one of the other supers to accompany her?
Judging by the evil glare shes giving Mathias(Panel 4), I think we know the answer…
They did vanish from the pool around the same time as each other.
I noticed that the boys were gone by the last page (it was made clear), but I failed to pick up that Varia AND Jiggawatt were too (right after talking about her smut book).
So there are (including solo action) 32 possible permutations for sex between Varia, Jigawatt, and the 4 men of her “condition.” Assuming this doesn’t take place hours or days later, and this is totally unrelated.
For clarification, 32 permutations that include Varia. Another 31 without (32 if you count nobody).
34 if you consider that you must account for internet involvement or not. There is a rule about that.
It’s unlikely to have been with Dabbler. Varia’s still conscious and not in a daze.
What if Varia’s power gives her a counter or buffer to Dabbler’s, though?
Cunning solution to the conundrum.
I actually hadnt considered that. But I still think it’s probably one of the guys, or Jiggawatt.
Now you’re speaking with Portals!
When I first read it, I thought that this was a new way for Dabbler to throw her voice.
Well normally Dabbler speaks with a forked tongue, so this makes a change.
No, no, I am not talking in metaphor. She really has a forked tongue.
I love it that Dabbler’s dialogue shows that she’s “thinking with portals,+ even under stress.
As a side note, YaY! The first time in a long time that I’ve been able to see a new update here before there were at least 2 pages of comments already accumulated!
And for the first time since I’ve found this comic…First!
:D
Aww, nuts! So many comments posted before I could even finish typing…
:(
Well, try to see it from a positive side: it means Dave’s comic is popular wich gives him a incentive to keep drawing it. Definitely a win for both Dave and his fans like me!
*presents invisible medals to Joe Guy, KFox, Mezmerro, LordViking and yuffiek*
Congratulations, you ninja’d a master ninja, therefore I announce that you must be honorary ninjas. Should you ever get to meet Sydney, she will be expecting you.
I hereby extend an offer to these five brave souls to join with my platoon of ninja forces. Between your evident display of skills & on the strength of Yorp’s commendations, I suspect you should all be capable of breezing through the first few levels of training easily.
I like the fact she wants some Tat for her Tit. At least I am assuming its a tit for tat remark.
I would assume Math is very willing to give some tat for tit.
Thanks for explaining that. It flew over my head (since I am not Drax) and I was wondering what she was saying.
*hugs*
Don’t worry, we will find a way for you to fly too, someday.
Penguins fly all the time, they just happen to only do it underwater
Don’t worry, we will find a way for you to breathe whilst flying!
Or with a bit of help. At least one friendly(?) Yeti has been known to lend a helping club.
Benny Hill comedy show skit, from back when Benny Hill was a thing.. Benny is being the Old Southern Colonel and some SYT in a low cut blouse is sitting on his lap. He flirts with her, she flirts back, and the following dialogue ensues:
“Oh Colonel, you know I always give tit for tat!”
“Really? …Tat.”
Back when he was alive, you mean.
He did another one where she says “You get under my skin” and he replies, “No, you get under mine… there’s more room!”
Soooo… That kiss was some so of Lesbian Awakening? Eh, I guess if Jazza doesn’t like been one she can just decide to not be one, maybe see a therapist to help.
F.Y.I. Before you guys start blowing up at me thinking I am some sort of bigot. Homosexuality is a choice, but not in the manner most people think of when they hear that. A person with homosexual urges is sort of like a person with anger issues, both the urges and anger issues can be dealt with if the person with them wants to change. Also, a loving, supportive environment can greatly help with making that change.
I understand stuff like Pray the Gay Away camps just don’t work.
I’ll agree with you so far as that acting on an impulse is a choice, but the feelings itself are more hardwired than that.
Jazza seems more like she is in denial though than having had a sudden ‘awakening’. If her rambling after the kiss was truth it seems she has had several lesbian experiences already before that incident.
This is Dabbler we’re talking about. She made Sydney and Arianna think “not a lesbian” thoughts just from walking into a room, and Harem WAS thinking it.
Granted, Harem’s prior lesbian experiences might have been masturbatory in nature… and I’ll be in my bunk.
It wasn’t ‘just walking into a room’ though, she was pushing out her lust aura to make the people in there lust after her, thus making even the straight girls in the room having to remind themselves they shouldn’t be interested.
And Harem, while not explicitly stating as such, did hint she had lesbian experiences with people outside her circle of body doubles, and fully confirmed her being bi in the same page.
@Titan — You are flat out wrong. Just stop it with the pretentious stupid and go find yourself some therapy with a qualified psychiatric professional. I mean … all you have to do is want to get the help you so desperately need and you have a chance of becoming a decent person fit for public consumption.
You just have to want to to enough.
Wow…. Condescending much?
in fairness, you just did the same thing with your first comment.
Awwww. The special cupcake doesn’t like the fit of the shoes made by its own hand. Go cry a river about it somewhere else.
Here’s the Fun Fact: I wasn’t (and am not) being “condescending.” I was (and am) being “plain spoken.” You are mentally ill. You are a cancer to the people who have to put up with your socipathic disease. Seek professional, psychiatric help. It will do both you and everyone around you a world of good.
But, you just don’t want to be a mentally healthy person. Hey, you know. That’s your personal choice to make. The rest of us just have to (somehow) try and make a better day of it when you shine your particular ray of sunshine into it.
Can you leave the flamethrower at home, along with the virtue signal? We would rather have a civil discussion here. Chill out.
+1
I have been avoiding some of the more vitriolic threads, so thanks for speaking out on one that I had skipped.
Sexuality is a touchy subject. So if wishing to have constructive dialogue it is necessary to try and calm things down. Especially if genuinely wishing to convince someone that their arguments lack merit. They are more likely to be persuaded by showing them flaws in their argument, than by getting into a slinging match.
Plus it always helps to remember that this is a comedy comic, and we are guests here. Folks come here to chill. Having enjoyed the comic, following any debates that it kicks off can be fun. But not if it turns nasty.
This is a nice community though, so (most of the time) folks will tend to calm down, if given the chance.
Problem, Yorp, is that there’s not constructive conversation to be had with people who promote conversion therapy and its ideologies. The only thing conversion therapy has proven itself effective in doing is inducing extreme depression with suicidal ideation on those undergoing it. That is to say, it’s an effective way to get gay people to kill themselves.
Anyone with that goal doesn’t have any place in a nice community.
Wikipedia agrees with you about conversion therapy:
Plus it cites numerous credible sources.
However exposing the flaws, in a constructive manner, serves two purposes. Firstly it allows Titan to see outside of the information bubble he is trapped in. If we can make persuasive arguments it is us who may get him to reconsider his stance. Admittedly that is unlikely as it is doubtless reinforced by faith that this is the right route.
However by pointing out that such approaches have actually historically caused great harm, this might make an open-minded Christian to reconsider.
Secondly he spoke with conviction, as someone who has purportedly gone through the process personally (assuming I am correctly reading between the lines in his reply). Which can make a persuasive case to readers (and we may have several) who are in a vulnerable place and looking for answers.
So by countering that with the usual internet flame wars, we both denigrate our own community and lessen the chances of helping on either front.
Finally, if you are right to say:
then we do not want to be making that worse. Titan sounds like he is doing well at the moment. But if that is either misleading, or changes, then this would be a good community to help talk him through that. Provided we have not already scared him off.
If you are right titan experienced “therapy” sarcastic eye roll, his rage and quick attempt to attack rational compassionate people could be a way to redirect his fear and pain from the “treatment”. Hopefully he can get over the trauma with counseling and find happiness with who he is, especially as the vatican has opened an investigation into evidence the anti-gay passages were actually anti-slave sex passage (aka willing and caring ok forced and loveless bad).
Ok now i keep thining of some kind of magical cupcake who makes shoes in a workshop… Is anyone working on that cartoon? Disney Jr. might greenlight it….
Makes me think of the gingerbread man in Shrek. He seemed to talk cobblers.
Would you settle for a Spirit Pie?
Titan, if your position were at all correct, conversion therapy would be mainstream psychology, rather than borderline quackery. It would WORK, rather than create SUICIDAL IDEATION.
Uh…. a bit of overkill on the righteous indignation maybe? I don’t think Titan was being pretentious, and I’m pretty sure the last sentence was a joke.
Sounds very much like you are mixing up the idea of being gay with the idea of someone gay making strong advances towards someone else.
By comparing it to anger, you are equating it to the type of sexual advances that are wrong no matter the genders of those concerned.
Yes, everyone should be able to control the urge to jump on top of someone unwilling.
But, no, being gay is not an urge and not something that can, or should, be suppressed.
Pah, you put the wrong slash in HTML and it is so unforgiving.
When I say “Anger Issues” I mean stuff like a guy gets easily angry or has poor control over their anger. But if you find that a poor comparison, then think of it sort of been like someone trying to be more considerate or more assertive.
Also why is it that with every other aspect of ourselves we always saying we can change, but when it comes to Homosexuality and other LGBT stuff, people start insisting we can’t?
Having poor control over your anger and being sexually attracted to someone are two totally different things. The latter may not even be noticed in public for starters.
And people do change. Take taste. You could love fish fingers as a kid, but decide you dislike the texture and flavour as an adult.
Just like many are born with a sexuality and many change their sexuality as they grow.
But you wouldn’t force someone to eat fish fingers if they didn’t like them, would you?
Are you ignoring the first post in this thread where I said the change was up to the individual and that no one else could decide for them?
Is your reply purely about the last sentence and nothing else?
If so, please substitute it for:
“But you wouldn’t force yourself to eat fish fingers if you didn’t like them, would you?”
Depends on the situation, maybe I just wanna be polite, maybe I’m trying to add more fish into my diet
And I’ve heard many a gay person not wanting to introduce their partner to their grandmother as anything more than their ‘friend’ as not to upset their grandmother who is old and closed minded.
But behind closed doors, in the privacy of your own home, there is no point pretending to yourself that you like fish. Even forcing yourself to eat it every day won’t make you like it. And at some point you are going to snap and admit to yourself that you have a revulsion to fish. You may end up hating it even more than you disliked it in the first place.
And all because you forced yourself to eat fish instead of having that nice bit of sausage.
Can I haz cheezeburger?
That is not a cunning metaphor, by the way. You just made me feel hungry.
I wasn’t thinking metaphors when I wrote about fish fingers. I was thinking about what I had in my freezer for a light dinner. Had the fish finger sandwich last night after a large lunch.
The sausage… well, that might have been from the naughty corner of my mind.
I’m short. Not much I can do about it, even though it is sometimes pretty inconvenient. I have an autoimmune and chronic pain conditions and while medication helps somewhat and they could be a lot worse (I’m not registered disabled, and with support from an understanding workplace can work full time, even if my sickness record is attrocious) – I periodically forget that it isn’t actually normal to be permanently exhausted and in pain. If I could change this, believe you me, I would.
There are lots of aspects of ourselves that we can’t change – also included: base skin tone, hair colour, everything else determined by genetics… Some of them, we may not give much thought to – if there is literally nothing about yourself that is fixed and which you aren’t thrilled about – good for you.
It does not mean that literally everything about you is something that you have ‘chosen’ or could choose to change should you wish to do so.
Because we see all too many instances of ill-informed people societies attempting to ‘cure’ homosexuality. Including ours. All sorts of barbaric techniques have been tried, such as electro-shock therapy, brainwashing, vaccines and even chemical castration. And a number of countries do not consider it to be optional.
Plus tell them often enough that it is an illness, that their urges are abhorrent and that they are a shame on their family and they may even volunteer for such procedures. Peer pressure, social pressure and brainwashing techniques can all erode people’s resolve.
Further we see many instances of people who, even in their twilight years, ‘come out’ and say how unhappy a life they have led, by trying to conform to the expectations of others.
So by the very way you phrase your comment:
you are expressing your disapproval of their ‘condition’. This is clear by comparing it to a wholly negative thing like ‘anger issues’. You have already indicated that it can be ‘cured’ by a therapist if someone decides not to be lesbian or gay.
So despite indicating that it is the person’s choice, you are weighting your whole comment as a piece of propaganda, giving an extra piece of social pressure to try and push them down the path you approve of.
Bear in mind that any number of readers might be in just as vulnerable a place as we saw Sydney, on the previous page. And may be looking here for sympathetic advice.
So, if you really wanted to help, you would change your judgemental attitudes, and stop trying to push your morals onto others. If you succeed you may cause them to have a lifetime of unhappiness.
Rather than encouraging them to seek a therapist who will try to cure them, get them to seek one who does not have such a biased agenda. Having someone to talk through their issues with, and help them discover what their actual emotions and needs are, is useful.
That way there is no need for a ‘cure’. If it turns out that they are straight, then they are straight. If they are gay, then they are gay. And if they are intermediate, then they can come to recognise how they wish to live their lives. Plus will get help on how to deal with family and other people who may not be happy with their choices.
Of course this is only an option in free societies, where people are genuinely allowed to follow their choices and receive help in doing so. Whereas if they are in a heavily religious society, where such is automatically disapproved of, and therapists are trained to brainwash patients or otherwise push them into making ‘socially correct’ choices, then they are not therapists but brainwashers.
As medical personnel they should act in the patient’s interest, not the states, and not the dominant religion’s. Unlike anger issues, homosexuality is not harmful to society. Angry people may attack people. So it is fair for society to impose anger management courses on them, to protect others. That does not hold true for LGBT people. They are no more prone to otherwise harmful behaviours than straight people are.
Y’know what, I’m just going to thank you Yorp for making a kind response and an intelligent one. There are plenty of counter arguments I could make to some of your points, but I’m not, Why? Because although I knew what I was getting into when first made this post, I severely underestimated it. (Man the Internet is so self-righteous) But I will leave you with this, make of it what you will:
https://www.charismanews.com/opinion/59816-next-up-legalization-of-incest-necrophilia-pedophilia-zoophilia-and-more
I recognise that the website itself may have some religious tie, but the links it provides do not.
Actually you are living in a bubble, proven by accepting the links as being free of bias. I am not saying this to have a go at you mind, but it is an observation which leapt out on the very first link, without having to go any further. First off the article itself shows incredibly poor journalism and biased options, right from the start.
America has so many TV stations, including public access ones, spouting so much drivel that you can find practically any subject covered. In order for the reader to be able to judge whether the ones being cited are obscure, or mainstream, they would either need to be named, linked or cited. None of which has been done.
As such I can only assume that it is fringe broadcasters with minority opinions. However that is not the impression that the piece is trying to convey. It is purposely projecting an alarmist world view that the media in general are portraying zoophilia as normal.
Further the ‘about’ section of the website does outright declare the bias it has:
Note the phrase “pro-family writers”. Even as a non-American I can read that as the code replacing ‘Christian values’. Plus clearly, both from the article and from their own description, they have no intention of publishing any contrary opinions or providing balance to their article.
If you really want to convince educated members of society as to the merits of your arguments, you need to pop that bubble and take in wider opinions. Including the ones that do not sit well with you.
That way you may be able to source links which do not have a narrow self-perpetuating mutually-supporting world view. Otherwise you only harm your cause, when speaking to a cosmopolitan world audience.
You will have a very hard time of it mind, if restricting yourself to American news outlets. Given how polarised and politically biased they are. But some do make an effort, so seek them out.
In particular, if trying to analyse social trends, such as the opinion piece, quoted above, purported to do, there are plenty of sociologists publishing papers in peer reviewed journals. If a trend, as alarming as the one posed, was actually becoming a significant factor in society, the ‘journalist’ should have cited studies showing that as fact.
Whereas all they actually cited was a single person and a German based organisation. For an article about this becoming normal in America?
Dude, I’ve been listening to pro-gay arguments all my life, most of it sounds like attempt to garner sympathy and gay people saying that they can’t change. Well here’s what I’d like to ask them Why it is that with every other aspect of our psyche everybody says we can change f we want to, but suddenly change their tune when it comes to Homosexuality?
P.S. If I’m “living in a bubble”, then your also living in one. Only difference is that yours s Pro-gay. seriously try googling “Former Homosexuals”, you might be surprised by what you find (yes I know most of the stress you here will involve religion but still)
Oops, misspelled “stories” as “stress”
We all live in a bubble, it is a matter of how wide that bubble is. Mine encompasses much of the planet. Yours the region of the Bible-belt. I can say mine with confidence, as I have a philosophy which requires me to accept others’ beliefs as being valid, at a fundamental level.
So I approach such issues from the assumption that there are merits to your arguments, and seek to identify what they are.
So my surprise is that, even when following the path you suggest, I am having difficulty finding anything substantive.
Firstly, at the top of my results is a paid one from ‘Pray the Gay Away’. But you have warned me about them, so that is fine. Sadly I then have an entire page of hits from biased organisations. Ones which clearly originate from the Bible-Belt bubble.
This is not to say that I distrust religious opinions. But what we are dealing with is a controversial issue, where I have already been exposed to polarised views, on both sides. So to make viable analysis of the merits of either side I need to view material that has been collated and analysed by an organisation without a vested interest.
So I would be looking for medical or mental health bodies, news outlets (preferably the less politically inclined ones, but others will do, albeit requiring factoring in their known biases) or other sites that have some degree of fact-checking or journalistic standards (such as citing verifiable sources).
Of which, on the entire first page of results, all I got was Wikipedia. It actually fits the bill, on the final criteria. Plus does actually have robust measures in place to ensure that controversial topics are fairly covered. Needless to say we have to take Wiki with a pinch of salt. But that is why we look for the verifiable links, and take note of any warnings that flag issues. Amongst other precautions.
Here are some of the worrying points (from your cause’s perspective):
However there is merit to be found, in the following:
On page two of the results there was only one viable result, fortunately that was from The New York Times.
Likewise on page three just the The Guardian. I do not go further into the murky depths of Google, than that.
Fortunately they are both reputable organisations, with good journalistic standards. Their articles stand on their own merits and are worth reading in full. In particular I should point out that the NYT has a broadly sympathetic article, which does put forward arguments espoused by ex-gays. For the sake of brevity I shall only make a single quote from each.
The New York Times:
The Guardian:
Taking that all into consideration, leaves me with extreme sympathy for your situation. Caught between the edicts of your church, on one side, and the scientific and medical world (having a consensus against the solution you advocate) on the other.
However I do not think that the route you continue to champion, in the face of that adversity is a good one. Even following the research path you suggested only highlighted the dangers it poses.
What I did find encouraging was the support group aspects, of the ex-gay movement. As you are someone who is working to improve the lot of guys in this situation, I would suggest focusing on that side. Ideally trying to move the group away from the stigma of the broadly-discredited ‘ex-gay’ approach. Rather forming or supporting any group which is trying to find a solution to the community’s dilemmas.
One approach which may yield results is to analyse both the scientific and religious merits together. For instance Ray provides good information below that homosexuality has a genetic basis. He provides the source. Verify it to your scientific satisfaction.
If you agree that it is valid, may I suggest viewing this as God’s handwriting on our DNA? You are getting caught between the edicts of the church versus the scientific and medical world. Seeking advice from God’s writing seems to be a sensible solution.
The church clearly remains important to you though, so that should be part of your solution too. Just look for theologians who are examine God’s handiwork and reexamine scripture with that in mind. One of the phrases you used makes me think that you are already thinking upon those lines, either with your community’s philosophies, or hopefully, from an enlightened minister.
Note that this should not be read as being ‘pro gay’. It is purely suggesting to acknowledge that God has made some people inclined to be gay, and then see where that takes your examination of scripture. Importantly though, where there is a grey area, which is open to interpretation, trust God’s writing, in our DNA, to guide you.
If you hear a minister speaking in those terms, they are more likely to be able to help you. It will be a hard path, wherever it leads. But I think ultimately better than the one you are presently on.
Yorp, I understand science, know that it shows that boys born to Moms who have had many kids are more likely to be gay due to extra exposure to oestrogen in the womb. I’m also aware that stuff like gay conversion therapy can do more harm than good, and just so ‘m clearly not contradicting my first post, I mean forcing someone to change, what I’m saying is that if the person themselves wants to, and are n a kind supportive environment; They can change.
Also you think news outlets like The New York Times are going to print articles that aren’t Pro-Gay? If this thread is any indication there would be massive controversy and they’d most likely go out of business. you have to listen to people who made the decision to change themselves. For an example I’m going to use James Hartline:
Here he is on a news network talking about how he’s no longer gay (Only reason they showed this was because he was running for office)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCXtZJ0H2OA
And three year later he’s kicked out of his church because they decided to appease public opinion and go Pro-Gay, while he stuck to his guns
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-AhSfo_LOo
Also if God made some people to be gay why does he say this about homosexuality:
Yeesh, I need to practice with theses tags
When you are examining two works, and there are contradictions, you have to decide which has the greater merit, on those points.
One contains the words of Christ, as translated, interpreted and collated by generations of men. Including periods where decisions were made, by man, as to what of the received wisdom to keep and what to discard. Bearing in mind that these judgements were flavoured by the needs of the times.
Plus they were limited by the information available to those man, at that time. And we keep examining any new archaeological finds which might give us new insights as to God;s words. If we find anything proven indisputably to be in the hand of the disciples, clearly we would take that to be authoritative and would modify our teachings accordingly.
We know from history therefore that the teachings of Christianity have changed, over time, but always striving to keep to God’s instructions. As God is infallible we know that the words each generation received were those he intended them to have.
Now we have a new chapter, written in our DNA. Ours is the first generation who can read such. Therefore clearly God is addressing this to the needs of our times. Where there are outright contradictions, which do you think should take precedence? The words filtered through man or those written directly in the hand of God?
This is for you to answer, not me. He has put you in this position where you have been thinking on the issue for your whole adult life. God is speaking to you, through your genes. Listen to all of God;s words, weigh them, and decide what the message he is giving our generation.
I mentioned elsewhere the church is looking into new records found with newer archeology technology that gives new meaning and context to ancient documents suggesting it was the slave men forced into the act that was being denounced. Also many versions of the bible translation never said homosexual with the number that did jumping when gayness became a hot topic, and zero translated to cultures accepting of the practice where it would be more important to address if being gay was a sin in need of stopping.
Shenron, Older translations may not explicitly use the word “Homosexual”, but they do describe homosexuality as a sin; See Leviticus 18:22.
Ummm… inore the fact that it’s in all bold. didn’t properly close a tag
Titan, there is one problem with quoting Leviticus:
It was written for priests, not for everyone else. It is literally and specifically a rule book for the Christian priests, to differentiate them from the priests of other religions at the time.
He doesn’t say that about homosexuality. The Bible was not written by God. Some of it may have been inspired by Him, but It was written by fallible human beings, some of whom had a chip on their shoulder. For the following discussion, remember that the Bible was originally written in Aramaic and then translated to Hebrew:
At the heart of the claim that the Bible is clear “that homosexuality is forbidden by God” is poor biblical scholarship and a cultural bias read into the Bible. The Bible says nothing about “homosexuality” as an innate dimension of personality. Sexual orientation was not understood in biblical times. There are references in the Bible to same-gender sexual behavior, and all of them are undeniably negative. But what is condemned in these passages is the violence, idolatry and exploitation related to the behavior, not the same-gender nature of the behavior. There are references in the Bible to different-gender sexual behavior that are just as condemning for the same reasons. But no one claims that the condemnation is because the behavior was between a man and a woman.
There was no word in Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek for “homosexual” or “homosexuality.” These words were invented near the end of the 19th century when psychoanalysts began to discover and understand sexuality as an essential part of the human personality in all of its diversity. Consequently, it cannot be claimed that the Bible says anything at all about it. The writers of the Bible had neither the understanding of it nor the language for it.
Ahh, interesting. So, at most, an instruction to clergy, as to their codes of conduct. So somewhere there will be the instruction that results in priests not being allowed to get married. Likewise that passage is clarifying that priests should not seek the loophole specified.
Or, if taking the passage literally:
one could be cheeky and indicate that it just indicates that such sexual relations must be conducted in a different manner. Not that I would ever stoop to being so naughty!
*wags tail innocently*
Okay how about Romans 1: 27, 28;
That has nothing to do with priests, and I am aware that a few verses earlier it does say that “God gave them over to uncontrolled sexual passion” but given they context it’s most likely that it means he just let it happen, not actually caused it. And even if he did it was a punishment for blasfamy at best
Also, MSpears, 2 Timothy 3: 16 clearly states that all scripture is “inspired of God”
Inspired by god. Written by man.
And yet… it isn’t all inspired of God. Take the Epistles, for instance. Most of Corinthians consists of various letters from Paul to the leaders of the time. In every single one of his letters, he makes it very clear that it is HIS OPINION, and not God’s (unless you want to say that free will is an illusion and God “inspired” Paul to have that specific opinion.)
In regards to Romans 1:27-28…
Keep in mind who is speaking. Paul thought all sex was unnatural. He encouraged “good Christians and everyone else who could” to abstain from sex “for it is unnatural and an abomination unto God”.
Paul was a man who supported the institution of slavery (granted, slavery in Biblical times was very different from what most modern people think of) and the second-class status of women. Let me remind you:
(1) Women shall not teach men in any fashion. Guess we need to fire all those female school teachers, huh?
(2) Women shall remain silent in church and in public.
(3) Women shall wear a veil in public “lest they appear as lustful servants of the Morning Star”. In other words, if you’re a woman and you don’t wear a veil when you are in public, you are a whore.
(4) If a woman loses her virginity before marriage, her father is to take her out into the yard and stone her to death.
To name just a few. It’s all there in the Bible. And if you go up to any of those people who parade around with “God Hates Gays” signs and remind them about this, they say “Oh, well, all those scriptures were written for the people of the time. They don’t apply to modern life.” (And yes, a “conservative Christian” said exactly those words to me.)
Oh, really? If the meanings of those scriptures don’t apply anymore, then why do the ones about homosexuality still apply? Here’s the answer: Because those people are terrified of anyone with a different lifestyle than theirs. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, etc. They are ignoring the scripture that is personally inconvenient to them, and demanding strictest adherence to the verses that keep their hate boat from sinking.
Going back to 2 Timothy 3:16 for a second… you skipped the part where it says that “All Scripture is God-breathed”. Those are important words.
In Genesis 2:7, God took the dust of the ground and breathed life into it to create humanity. In that moment God breathed something into existence…..which wasn’t perfect. It couldn’t be. It wasn’t God. (And before you try arguing we were perfect before the Fall, first ask yourself why the forbidden fruit would have been a temptation if we were already perfect. Remember, God called us “good”, not perfect.)
Because scripture is also “God-breathed”, it means it too isn’t God. Nor does it even come directly from God, but instead it passes through an intermediary. In the beginning, the intermediary between us and God was dirt. God breathed into it and the result was that we were created. In the case of the Bible, God breathed His truth into the hearts and minds of people and the result was that the Bible was created. But like that ancient dirt that gave birth to us, the people who wrote the Bible, God’s intermediaries, weren’t perfect.
Even Paul acknowledged it. Paul says “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.” If Paul believed the Bible was perfect, he would have simply said “We fully know because we have scripture.” But he didn’t, because he knew that even with scripture as his source of knowledge, that knowledge was imperfect because it was “God-breathed”, not God Himself.
In other words, the God-breathed Bible is just like the God-breathed people who wrote it. It isn’t perfect. And that’s ok because as is the case with our parents, we can still learn important truth from imperfect people.
This is where faith comes in. Faith forces us to rely upon and put our trust in God.
Without the need for faith, there is no real need for God, at least not this side of eternity. When Paul spoke of seeing through a mirror dimly, it was a statement of faith that even though his knowledge was only in part and wasn’t perfect, it was sufficient for his salvation, sufficient enough to see him through until Christ’s return.
When we take the path of inerrancy, the space for this sort of humble faith evaporates and is replaced with an arrogance that claims more certainty than even the Biblical writers themselves were willing to affirm.
Which means when we affirm inerrancy, we reject the need for faith.
When we affirm inerrancy, we ascribe perfection to the creation rather that to the Creator.
When we affirm inerrancy, we create an idol fashioned out of the same need for certainty and control that drove Adam and Eve to snatch divinity away from God.
Simply put, Biblical inerrancy isn’t Biblical.
Now, I’m not naive enough to think that someone who believes in BIblical inerrancy will read this and suddenly “see the light.” Our fear and ingrained need for control are not overcome that easily.
If you believe in Biblical inerrancy, please know that not only are you breaking away from Church tradition, you are also rejecting the imperfection the Bible claims for itself, the very imperfection that is necessary for faith. You may have certainty and therefore have no need for faith in the Bible. But the apostle Paul sure needed faith.
Well typed MSpears
MSpears, wow, you hate religion huh, you have some biblical knowledge, but you seem to only use it to further your hatred of it. Also you made a lot of claims that could be true but you didn’t reference them, so I can’t take it 100% seriously. But i’m done arguing this with you, it pointless to defend a subject when the other person so thoroughly hates it
Wow, you can’t counter an argument and decide the original arguer must hate the topic.
If he doesn’t like a point that goes against his fixed ideas, he will pull one sentence out of the post and use one flaw to dismiss an entire argument. But that is standard practice with undefendable viewpoints.
His stance goes against his entire premise for his argument. He is showing that some things cannot be changed by stamping his feet and putting his fingers in his ears.
Well spoken MSpears.
I started writing this reply on Monday, but felt I had better sleep on it, and have a third re-read. Just to make sure that I was not jumping to an unfair conclusion.
Titan, both MSpears‘s and your Biblical knowledge exceed my own. However one thing I have vast experience with is determining whether comments on the internet are said in a hateful manner and, if so, where that is directed.
Firstly MSpears‘s comments were not hateful in nature. Much like your own they were strongly put, in order to be persuasive. That is not hate.
Secondly, the thrust of his argument was clearly not directed against the Bible nor against Christianity, but to point out that there are flaws within the Bible. This is not itself being hateful to the Bible, but purely countering claims that it is infallible. And using Paul’s own words to confirm that.
I am sure that MSpears would be happy to provide chapter and verse, so that you can look that up yourself. Or I can have a minister do so, the next time we speak, which will probably be later in the week. You will note that he did quote several though, so was making an effort. Even if there were others you are not familiar with.
You are aware that the debate between the infallibility of the Bible has been going on for millennia. Plus that there are a large number of Christians of various denominations, including their clergy, who accept the flaws, for the reasons stated above, and others.
You will have had many of the contradictions within the Bible pointed out to you over the years. Likewise the archaic things like stoning of women, and even weirder stuff than that.
Whilst I am certain that many of those things will have been said to you by people who both hate the Bible and religion in general, that does not automatically mean that everyone who quotes those points is hateful.
To the contrary there are those millions of good Christians who have the contrary belief to yours that God framed the Bible to guide us even with those flaws. Seeing the contradictions, in places, allows us to realise that we must be flexible in interpreting the Bible.
It is how we exercise that flexibility though which determines whether we are doing good or doing evil. The Bible has been used to justify many evil acts, such as atrocities during the Crusades, where many innocents were murdered.
If somebody has a hateful or evil purpose, in their hearts, then that will guide their interpretations to hateful or evil ends. Whereas someone with good intents, will find the Bible guiding them to good ends.
Hating people, who do no harm to others, and then seeking to justify that through the Bible, will pervert any good that can be found.
Whereas in this thread everybody, even including those who hurtfully used flame tactics, was speaking with the intent of preventing harm to people. The harm of hurting your feelings being considered the lesser evil compared to the risk of you encouraging others into extremely harmful practices.
So whilst you clearly feel very strongly about the infallibility of the Bible, please do not think that everybody who speaks a contrary opinion is doing so with hate in their hearts. There are very many people who have realised that good can be done by looking for God’s purpose beyond those flaws.
And this is important because human language is not infallible. One sentence can have different interpretations. In order to determine its intent we have to look at the greater context. This is true of any work.
So when we see obvious contradictions, some people try to justify them away. Whilst others point out that this shows we should follow the broad message of the Bible and not fixate on one point. Not when it contradicts other messages.
Of course this point has caused broad schisms in Christianity. But the various denominations’ theologians do still talk with one another and try to persuade each other of the merits of their cause. And to work together on common causes, such as the provision of aid to the needy.
You do need to see beyond your bubble. Plus you need to distinguish between those who do hate religion, versus those who just have a different way of interpreting it to yourself.
Especially when your way demonstrably is causing harm, whilst theirs is doing the converse.
As I suggested previously, examining God’s handwriting on us can help to point you at what is causing this seeming paradox (from your worldview). Examining the words, in isolation, without comparing them accurately to the real world, will do that.
Previous generations had to guess as to whether God influenced some to be gay, and others not. And those opposed to the idea invariably decided that it was not God’s doing. Whereas do not have to guess, we can see the truth.
Which invalidates the opinions of those who made judgement without that knowledge. God had not provided them with the means to do that, so we need not assume that they were stupid. We know things that they did not, so can make better interpretations.
Although, of course, there are those who will refuse to see God’s hand at work, when it contradicts their prejudices. All they do is rephrase the old arguments to try and justify their hatred.
I hope that your experiences will allow you to avoid that pitfall.
I do not see the Bible telling us to hate others, who do us no harm. Nor to push them into practices which will do them harm. Having seen that this is the result, world-wide, of attempting such, clearly this must be a wrong interpretation of the Bible. One way or another.
Here we go, comparing homosexuality with paedophilia.
Because anyone involved in a religion wouldn’t do something like that…
…would they?
I once had a homosexual person make advances towards me, so i responded this way ” I’m a little flattered, but very uncomfortable, please do not take this the wrong way, but I don’t like others of my own gender, hell, I barely even like myself ” (which elicited a chuckle and a slightly blushing response of ” sorry about that “)
If that were the case, then every sexuality is a choice. When did you decide to be straight?
Simple, just didn’t wanna be gay, also religious reasons
Didn’t want to be?
So, are you saying you didn’t have those feelings,
or are you saying you have them but are repressing them?
Experienced them before, didn’t want them
Your description below could be that of someone being confused during puberty. It is not the same as someone who is gay/bi/tg/etc.
If you were to tell me that you still had those feelings occasionally now, but were fighting them, that would be different.
TG isn’t exactly a ‘sexual’ thing, just so you know. Some of the folks that are ‘TG’ are still interested in folks of what they consider to be the opposite gender (and yes, TG is actually less than politically correct, but more people know that term that the ones used that are more PC)
The best way of making sure folks do not get confused is to point out that there are two separate issues. One is gender identity, namely male, female or other (in a variety of flavours). The other is sexual orientation, so heterosexual, homosexual or whatever.
Neither of which is dependent on the other. You have the same ratio of straight people within the transgender community as you do within the rest of the population, for example.
Grouping the two isn’t ENTIRELY inappropriate in a social/community sense… but you’re right that from a gender dynamics perspective they are entirely separate matters.
Whoops, misread your question. Thought you asked Why instead of When. Well, it’s common for people to experience attraction to the same gender early on during puberty due to sudden rush of hormones running through the body, so if you ask me that can be a crucial time to decide. For me it was early on in High School
‘Decide’ isn’t the right word. ‘Decide’ denotes some level of choice. How a person’s sexual attraction shapes up after the hormone bomb goes off may be developmental, but that does not indicate that it is at all shaped by conscious will.
Because people are wired a certain way sexually. Probably genetic, but they don’t choose to be gay any more than I chose to be black
Here’s how I look at it: relatively-simple non-social species are drawn to other members of the same species for one (and occasionally both, particularly among insects) of two reasons: cannibalism, and mating. Those two reasons go WAY back.
We should expect attraction to members of the same species to build on one or the other, or both, of those. In other words, in social species nearly-every individual is somewhat sexually attracted not only to the other sex, but to their own sex as well. Exactly what “somewhat” means would vary from one individual to the next.
And in fact we’ve seen homosexuality in quite a lot of social species (and a few non-social species).
Homosexuality is probably genetic in the sense that you’re of a social species therefore you’re somewhat homosexual, but not in the sense of any particular person being predominantly homosexual (such a gene would tend to extinct itself).
It could be epigenetic, but the amount of evidence suggesting that gender identity is strongly affected by hormones during gestation leads me to suspect that just how homosexual a person may be is similarly affected.
There’s really not much a person who is strongly homosexual can do about it. They are going to be sexually attracted to their own sex, and not much to the other sex. Period. (That said, it’s a continuum – probably at least a two-dimensional one – not a binary choice, and I think the extremes are a lot less common than is generally assumed.)
Thats not really confirmed. Theres no “gay gene” right? It could just be preference, unlike with skin color. You dont know, I dont know, and I dont really care honestly.
Not proven, but credible. Skin colour is actually a good example which supports the possibility actually. When I was an African I was brown. Through a suntan, due to living a heavily outdoors life, admittedly.
But if looking at just the results “brown” versus “apparent sexual orientation” we can see that it need not be down to just a single factor. A gene could provide a default state, which may then be modified by environmental factors and influenced by lifestyle choices.
The latter of which may only be limited in scope. For instance I can gain the pasty whiteness characteristic of Western internet geeks, if I do not get out enough. Fortunately only a problem in midwinter.
Whilst news articles about octogenarians ‘coming out’ show that the same can apply to sexuality. Bearing in mind that I am only talking about the results. Some of those individuals have a bunch of grandchildren. So they have been living a heterosexual life, even if they found it unsatisfying.
Of course we do not necessarily get to hear about those who chose not to, despite having drives to do that. We do know a number get caught out living secret double lives. Of the remainder some will be stuck there because of social pressure (much more so in oppressive countries, of course).
But, hopefully, there will also be those who are satisfied with their lot in life. Having a family is just as satisfying for homosexuals as it is for heterosexuals. It is only a relatively recent development in society that makes the former a viable lifestyle choice without needing to conceal their true orientation.
Of course there are separate genes which set basic pigmentation, to those which regulate suntanning. So expecting a single gene to influence the much more complicated, and survival critical, issue of sexual orientation is not realistic. Especially when you throw in the unknowns of epigenetics.
Credible studies have shown that early sexual experiences can indicate sexual preferences for life. So keep your hoover locked up if there are adolescents in the house.
What they cannot say is whether those were due to a predisposition attracting the individual to a particular scenario, or whether engaging in that activity was what set their preference. There are credible arguments for either. Or both, as I suspect may be more likely. But I do not follow developments, in this field, that closely, so that is unsubstantiated opinion.
However there are techniques to narrow down whether genetics dominate or not. For instance studies of siblings and twins. Plus wide scale population studies comparing suspected genes with behaviours. Which I am sure are ongoing. So doubtless we will get a better picture, one way or the other, in due course.
Meh. Strictly speaking, I don’t see the big deal on saying that being gay/lesbian/bi is a choice. It’s not like there’s anything to prove that it’s genetic, and I have a cousin who was straight, then lesbian, then bi, and now says she’s straight. People get attracted to certain other people. Some people are attracted to other people of the same sex. Others are attracted to people of the opposite sex. Others are attracted to both sexes. Others are sexually attracted to people of a certain skin color, or a certain height, or a certain profession, or whatever. None of it seems particularly genetic to me – it seems to be based on choices, although if someone told me that my being primarily attracted to tall men instead of short ones was immoral and I should change my preference, I’d tell them to mind their own business, rather than tell them that I was born that way as if that changes the metric of my choice. I have no idea why I prefer one thing over another – pretty sure there isn’t a ‘height preference’ gene either.
TL;DR – I don’t care if it’s choice or genetic, this is a stupid thing for people to argue over and over which to make a flame war.
Uniforms! … Are a thing that some people are attracted to.
Agreed on the flame war. As regards the debate though I must respectfully differ. Whist a global power actively treats homosexuality as a disease, which should be cured and there are active clinics using torture to ‘cure’ people, it is right to give voice against that.
That’s the gist of it; it matters because one of the two positions in the debate is effectively trying to purge populations of the other position where they can get away with it. The two may be on the same spectrum, but they are NOT equally legitimate.
“Whist a global power actively treats homosexuality as a disease, which should be cured and there are active clinics using torture to ‘cure’ people, it is right to give voice against that.”
Except Titan hasnt said any of that. He just basically suggested that homosexuality is a choice. Big deal. Don’t care. It’s not like he was saying ‘it’s a choice and therefore it’s justified to try to torture people to change their choice.’
Saying that you think something is a choice does not mean that you’re saying that it’s legitimate to force people to change their choice. And it’s just annoying how some people have taken it upon themselves to become some sort of white knight to attack him over a rather harmless opinion, since this is the internet and people have to get artificially outraged over whatever in order to get virtue signal points.
Especially when talking about the implications of someone who is literally able to magically change a person’s sexual preference with their space demon succubus powers, as if that translates to real life. As everyone knows, ost space demons are not succubi, they’re giant bugs bent on universal domination.
ost=most
The trouble is though that was not the limit of what was raised. It was then extended to indicating that homosexuality can be treated. Which is what gave rise to all the objections that it cannot.
But you are absolutely right to object to attacking Titan over that. He is clearly speaking with good intentions. Even if, on careful consideration, I do not believe him to be in the right.
Further, although Titan was careful to emphasise the importance of choice, others (such as various Bible belt parents, in America) do not. There is evidence of some forcing children into treatment against their will. Not to mention the other abusive cases I cited internationally (and many more that I did not, for the sake of brevity).
The weight of evidence against the effectiveness is overwhelming.* So by supporting treatment it is actively promoting harm. Plus is supporting the cause of those who practice that against unwilling victims, by perpetuating an impression that it is effective.
Which is not just a matter of intellectual debate. The comic and its community is sympathetic to vulnerable people. So we are likely to have a number who are grappling with such issues. Plus we have a broad international audience, including in Russia and Latin America.
So helping to spread the message that these are dangerous methods, which have a risk of death, over and above the emotional damage and loss of quality of life, is a very helpful thing for us to do. The message may be reaching readers in need.
Even if only one person reconsiders volunteering for such treatment, or another reader decides not to send a loved one against their will, then the debate is worthwhile. But even just nudging opinions, or informing the ill-informed, is worthy.
* What benefits there are have been shown to be of limited extent and with extremely harmful side effects, as detailed in various other posts.
Well at least we know they are not here for our water!
*hides the vodka away*
And some are less settled more fluid in gender and orientation adapting to life as it come as opposed to more rigid hardwired and inflexible in their nature
Incidentally I would be interested to see epigenetic studies on whether homosexuality increases in overcrowded populations. Preferably amongst both solitary and social species.
I can see an evolutionary advantage for a species, either way, but particularly for the latter. A pack or tribe which has extra members for guard duty and hunting, but which are not also serving to push up the population further, in an already overcrowded environment, would be socially beneficial.
There is certainly no “gay gene” because genetics really don’t work that way – assuming that sexual orientation is genetic in nature, there could be dozens of genes that influence it, and development is also influenced by external workers (which I supposed DNA codes for, but that’s a layer of indirection).
Additionally, DNA has some correction mechanisms to resist expressing certain mutations, your DNA might code for something but not express it UNLESS you are exposed to stresses during development that the same mechanisms have to compensate for – There was a detailed study of veins in fly wings that found that some flies had the code to create the veins damaged, but still developed veins… unless the eggs went over a certain temperature, then the proteins that were correcting for the defect in the DNA had to protect from the heat instead, and the mutated DNA became evident.
Bottom line: we are a long long way from sufficient understanding of DNA and development to identify exactly how genetics influences sexual orientation.
That said Bailey and Pillard study in 1991 found
52% of identical (monozygotic) twins of homosexual men were likewise homosexual
22% of fraternal (dizygotic) twins were likewise homosexual
11% of adoptive brothers of homosexual men were likewise homosexual
which strongly supports that genetics have a very large influence on sexual orientation.
Useful info, thanks.
I say ‘gay gene’ just as a generalized concept of ‘can homosexuality be proven to be genetic vs behavioral.’ I’m a lawyer, not a geneticist :). Good post though, Ray.
Thanks! I have to say, I normally steer clear of these sorts of discussions, but this one has remained amazingly polite and not the flame-fest it usually devolves into. Cookies for everyone involved.
I’m not a geneticist either (some terminology used above may be technically incorrect as a result, but the concepts are right), but I have a couple of friends who are biologists that get really twitchy anytime someone mentions “the whatever-gene” for the reasons stated above. I’ve heard the tirade enough to remember the gist of it. Over-simplifying subjects to such a degree tends to lead to some pretty major misunderstandings though.
The XKCD comic did a pretty good commentary on the sheer impossible complexity of genetics: https://xkcd.com/1605/
I
Cookies!
*munch munch crunch crunch burp burp*
Forry, didf yof sayf fomofhing elfe?
So you’re saying that people who don’t want to be straight also don’t have to be?
Pretty sure that people who don’t want to be straight DON’T have to be (at least beyond any sort of familial problems that might occur occasionally), at least in the US, since there’s no laws against sexual preference (and in fact are laws to protect sexual preference from discrimination and whatnot).
I wanted to be a priest when I was a boy. I discovered girls and the definition of “celibacy” at about the same time, and knew I could never “choose” to be a proper priest. Being hetero was not ever even close to being a choice. So when science & the people involved say gay isn’t a choice either, it’s easy for me to believe.
And to help you avoid stepping into this conversational minefield when not in a clique that supports the “choice” illusion, I suggest watching the South Park episode where Randy is exposed as being a part of the Easter Bunny cult. Particularly WHY the Easter Bunny is the real Pope.
hell, I’ve ran into several people who’re asexual, and that’s not really a choice. they literally just aren’t sexually attracted to anything. doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with them. It’s just how they are.
also, Titan, bringing up religion is going more for “removing choice” so that’s a pretty crappy analogy to back up your arguement.
being FLAMBOYANTLY Gay is a choice, and fairly annoying, but then again, a flamboyant Straight person tends to be just as annoying.
How you live your own life is fine, just don’t try and force other people to have to live it the same, or claim how you live your’s is “better”
no, it’s not an analogy. It’s part of the basis for choosing to be a priest – in one of the epistles (iirc), Paul instructs christians that it is “better to marry than to burn” (as in “burn with passion”, it usually interpreted). This in a lengthy passage on how sexuality and spirituality should coexist in christians harmoniously. He wasn’t talking solely about the priesthood, just about keeping a lid on passion while being christian.
My point was: even as a teenager, I realized that becoming celebate was a lifestyle choice I could not make . I would always be powerfully attracted to women sexually, and denying that and living as if I had a different sexual preference was impossible.
So my choice to NOT join the ministry is not an analogy, it is an exactly comparable situation to the “gay or straight” (or asexual or nonsexual, etc) “choice”.
HEY. Stop erasing the bi! Just because she realized she can be sexually attracted to women, doesn’t make her a lesbian!
Certainly true but is being bi actually a unique state or just being straight and lesbian simultaneously?
That is just confusing the issue.
When someone who is bi is in a relationship with a member of the opposite sex, people sometimes think they are straight. And when they are in a relationship with someone who is the same sex, they get called gay. But all the while, they are still bi.
When you are in a relationship and see someone attractive, you still go “phawr, look at that.” They still can, for both sexes, regardless of the gender of their partner.
And, just because someone isn’t in a relationship, it doesn’t stop them being straight, gay, bi or other.
And to dispel another myth, just because someone is Bi, it doesn’t make them automatically open to 3somes. The majority are not.
And then you have pansexuals. They are attracted, not just to the binary genders, but everything in-between.
pansexuals: At this point, it’s obvious that labelling words should be dropped, in the same way that we don’t have distinct words specifically for fans of various sports. Figure skating fans, football fans, soccer fans, fans of soccer who call it football, fans of cricket who call football “American armored wankball”, etc.
no need to generate the latin/greek set of pre/in/suf/ fixes to crank out a new word every time a new body kink is discovered by the whitecoated nerds. Just call it what it is in plain language, with the word “fan” appended to describe those who like it.
you mean pansexual has nothing to do with kitchen utensils?
I know former nurses who used to have to deal with vacuum-sexuals, as part of their job. That sucked.
Annnnnd…the enlightened philosophical discussion of “nature vs nurture vs choice” and morality plunges right of the cliff into the marsh of the lowest form of humor. Didn’t even have time to go down in flames. :)
We have to let our hair down, at times. Otherwise folks will not want to read on, if it is all dooooom and gloooooom.
*wags tail cheerfully*
What did puns ever do to you, to be met with such derision?
You have to understand two things about what you just said. First, that is just your (unsolicited) opinion on the nature of homosexuality that has absolutely no basis in modern psychology and only your anecdotal evidence to support it. So naturally, people are going to disagree with you. Second, what you said can very easily be interpreted as comparing homosexuality to a mental disorder or at the very least a weakness of personality. So, again, naturally people will be offended by what you said. Prefacing it with what is essentially, “I’m not a bigot, but…” probably had the opposite effect that you intended.
I’m not calling you a bigot. You seem to be trying to understand homosexuality in reference to your own experiences, which is natural. Everyone sees the world through their experiences. But the most important thing you need to understand is that your experiences aren’t the same as everyone else, and certainly not the same as someone in the LGBT community. So in this situation, it’s usually safer to listen to their experience to understand than try to tell them what you think their experience is when you weren’t even asked. And even then, there’s no guarantee that they explained it adequately enough for you to fully understand. So listen to many people and many experiences. More encounters = more experience = level up.
Also it doesn’t sound like Jazza is against being bi/pan so much as pissed off that she’s so attracted to Dabbler, specifically.
“I’m not a bigot, but…”
To use an old quote: “Everything before the ‘but’ is bullshit”
and everything behind it is as well
well, behind a bull, it is.
…Well, that’s not everything behind the bull; there’s also likely to be some hoofprints & a few pregnant cows…
a) By mechanics and tradition, every opinion on such comment sections is unsolicited. As long as it’s somehow relevant to the subject matter, I see no issue. Furthermore, I find that part of your statement hypocritical as by your own loose definition, your own opinion is unsolicited.
b) Considering it’s variation from the vast majority cases, homosexuality has actually been classified as a mental disorder for several years, before being re-classified due to social pressures and certain studies regarding neurobiology and sociology. Hence, while the comparison is fundamentally flawed, it isn’t really a far stretch from the most likely answer.
c) As for weakness of character… well, you -can- convince yourself of pretty much anything (both of being and of not being something). That doesn’t make it a good idea to do so – though perhaps in certain situations it would be advisable. People are remarkably good at rejecting reality and substituting their own – to varying degrees of success both short and long-term.
d) People could stand to not be so easily offender though, especially when it’s not directed at them personally.
e) Defending yourself is hard when you’re guilty until proven innocent. And regarding such subject matter, many have this mindset, especially online. Plus explaining yourself clearly is rather hard (different interpretations of what you said can lead to unforeseeable problems), and doing it concisely compounds the difficulty.
f) I interpret that you’re not branding him a bigot purely because he’s admitted to having homosexual urges, therefor likely exonerating him of hating himself and others like him. Not only is this not necessarily true (think gay pastors that preached anti-gay rhetoric/dogma), but it proves you would have likely labeled him as such without conclusive evidence, thus underlining my point ‘e)’ – guilty until proven innocent. Not the most tenable of positions.
g) Many people hold others to the same standard to which they hold themselves. There is merit in this world-view, but it also has it’s drawbacks.
h) “safer to listen to their experience [,] to understand” So you’re saying he’s best advised to hold their experiences as valuable and the correct point of view, while a moment ago you told him his aren’t important (actually, you tell him here again his experiences aren’t important via “you weren’t even asked”). This strikes me as a distinctly bigoted point of view – one intolerant of his opinions, that differ from your own/theirs.
i) This applies to him as well, though you don’t seem to give him the benefit of such leeway. Odd, huh?
j) But what if you over-level their area? Gray mobs don’t give experience anymore. Southpark’s boar-grinding strategy sadly doesn’t work.
k) Objection: pure speculation!
*not be so easily offended though
I hope you’re trying to say this:
1) Sexual orientation is not a choice.
2) Acting on your sexual interests–regardless of orientation, is a choice.
Because that I could agree with. People can choose not to engage in sexual activity–it’s hard, but not impossible, and certainly a valid lifestyle choice. What they can’t do is change which sex their body prefers–possibly barring temporary shifts under certain environmental conditions (Gay until Graduation, etc.), but these tend not to stick once those conditions change.
Pretty sure that’s what he meant as well.
Though I’d say he also implies one can condition against certain attractions – I can only speculate how; but if you associate bad enough things with said attractions/urges, they may become repugnant to you and possibly push you away from them. Or, conversely, the repugnant associations may themselves become attractive in time and you’ve just dug a much deeper hole for yourself.
I’d personally advise against such self-conditioning, as it likely will not be a permanent fix nor will it make you particularly happy – but in certain extreme conditions I can see it’s appeal as a survival/coping mechanism. If you’re liable to get killed by your government for your appetites, for example.
That is aversion therapy, which was proven to cause mental trauma when used as conversion therapy.
Well, mental trauma is kind of the point of it, if you boil it down to it’s basics. Still, better then being pushed off a building though.
I do suspect, however, it wouldn’t be quite as bad for someone that’s actually bisexual instead of just homosexual – which is a distinction/self-assessment that many that would use this on themselves are likely to not make/realize. On the purely homosexual though… well, as you stated – juicy mental trauma.
The core issue with that isn’t that prayer can’t “fix” homosexuality. It’s that prayer can’t “fix” anything at all.
It is a complete waste of time, unless the person doing the time wasting is focusing more on what they can do for themselves and not on what some imagined deity can do for them.
I remember the ‘pray for rain’ gatherings (just checked, they’re still doing it). Many lulz where had by everyone not involved.
Jesus Christ, talk about your jump cuts! First web were at the pool and now a meeting! If I hadn’t been flipping back and forth I would have thought I’d lost a couple of days. Also, when did word bubble arrows learn to teleport?
I took it as a great way to indicate that from Dabbler’s perspective, having pretty much forgotten that little detail from everything else going on in the battle, Dabs was “where’s all this coming from – who are you again? why are you coming on to … oh yeah, that….”
Have a look at the final panel of the last page. Do you really want to have an intermediate page, with Sydney looking like that most of the time? But with no jokes or funny bits, because it would be in poor taste, when someone is in such a bad state.
Dave has fast forwarded, past all of the downer stuff, to after Sydney has been brought back to her normal demeanour, and we can have some funny material again. He made the point about Sydney’s character, but there was no need to dwell upon it, beyond that.
Plus bear in mind that folks often try to encourage Dave to cut out intermediate scenes, and just get to the next pivotal moment. So, by all means, flip back and make sure that two pages were not stuck together. But I won’t be trying to unpeel them, myself, if it turns out that they were.
Is this backstory for Sydney’s BSOD seen in the previous installment?
I was sure that her issues developed long ago.
She still has the bloody nose – note the tissue
I didn’t even notice the portals until it was mentioned below the comic.
Which FEELS like it should surprise me but it really doesn’t.
Dabbler looks sooooo adorable in panel 7. ^^
It’s definitely adorable that she’s trying to look all innocent. Alas, with Dabbler, that look doesn’t work out too well. Innocent, she most definitely is not, and everyone in that room knows it.
She looks like a schoolgirl. I don’t think “innocent” is the word, though. She’s just legit confused while trying to place exactly what’s happening. And, disagree: the look does work well for her here. She is utterly adorable.
It’s the white. White clothing generally suggests innocence.
Or death, depending on your culture.
With Dabbler, it’s the kind of innocence you want to violate and corrupt. Not that Dabs isn’t thoroughly corrupted already.
I must admit that Dabbler is as cute, in the last two panels, as I have seen her since…
… Jabberwokky was last around! They really must be good for one another!
So I know this was brought up last week/monday but the art is flat out off this page, especially Maxima
I swear Maxima’s face changes every couple of pages.
Glad to read it wasn’t just me who noticed that: it seems almost like DaveB avoided drawing Jabbers with Asian features by putting them on Maxi
That’s because it actually does. The style used recently is vastly different to even her ‘Who’s who.’ picture. I can recall at least 4 distinct drawing styles for Max alone. Thankfully no liefeldian Max though.
Oh come on, you know that the internet has everything!
One suggestion. Max is on stage and this usually means bright lights. Needs more shiny sparkles. (which would be a good name choice if Max were a MLP character.)
I do not want to see Maxima rainbooming. I think that would be very messy!
I do agree that she has lost her sparkle though. Plus must concur with the opinions voiced on the previous page, that she does look like a different character here. Her sharp edges have become soft and fuzzy.*
Dave is getting some good results out of the pastel-like he has been trying out though, barring with her.
* Is magic beginning to change, so that residual effects, from days ago, are becoming stronger, when they should have died out? Most obviously with Dabbler, given the dialogue above. But she did cast a spell on Maxima, after the explosion in the Council access tunnel, which altered her appearance. But there is one other spell which might be reasserting itself, and finding the nearest similar looking subject. Dabbler only assisted on that one though.
Is Maxima becoming plushy Muppet Maxima?
Pleeeeease tell me the Barberarian is getting official contracting for a salon for them. He should totally become a regular. :P
Supercuts is probably haggling with legal over the marketing percentages…
I have long voted for that one, as have many others. We want him to set up a shop in the Archon maul. Preferably with Sydney’s comic shop moving next door to him. Which means he would be pretty close to the spicy noodle restaurant, if she gets her way.
I would not be surprised if they’re not already negotiating his recruitment. Although I imagine one of the sticking points would be if he’s still allowed to “top off” Dabbler.
Er, I would not be surprised if they were negotiating his recruitment.
Dabbler is a civilian specialist, serving in the military and expected to fight alongside them, in the field, so will be subject to much more stringent rules than a person serving in a strictly civilian role, even if that is ‘on base’. Although I have no idea on the rules as to whether a public area, such as the maul could even be classed as that (assuming he will have a salon there, rather than in the military part of the building).
But, even if Barberian is classed as a military employee, I doubt he would have the same kind of clauses as in Dabbler’s contract. And I cannot see her having agreed to one so restrictive as to put non-military people off her menu.
That said though I agree that he would want to confirm that, before signing up. He was clearly satisfied with his role as ‘snack’.
Soo… Dave. Not a fan of Empowered eh? Gonna have to agree to disagree on that one.
What are you talking about? DaveB is a big fan of Empowered, even has a signed framed picture of Sydney drawn by the artist
It is literally in his list of recommended comics in the sidebar on this very page.
More than that it is in the most recommended list and has not one but two annotations:
The only other comic with that high a level of accolades is Gold Digger, which Dave has mentioned as one of his greatest influences. Plus which he aspires to do a crossover with, someday.
‡ Typo alert by the way DaveB ‘the’ rather than ‘then’
*wags tail*
I hunted and I hunted, eventually I found the Easter Egg! That one was really well hidden, for such a long time!
*wags tail harder*
“Ignore the fact that the title “Patriotika” makes it sound like either a ‘What-If distaff counterpart Captain America but in Russia’ comics, (that should actually be called “Kommissarina Kremlin”) or one of those Poser rendered ‘superheroine loses her powers and gets damsel in distressed’ comics. I know you guys know what I’m talking about. Anyway check it out if you like”
Calling Poe’s Law on this one.
BTW, also a huge fan of both Gold Digger and Empowered.
Wow, half-Taiwanese! I know this really shouldn’t be such a big deal but I still squealed big time internally upon seeing, for once, my country of origin represented. :D
Strawman straight white male christian: “I don’t see what the big deal is about representation.”
Everyone else: “no shit you don’t.”
None of those are related to OP’s excitement. Taiwanese isn’t a orientation, a skin color (you probably mean race, but that’s not what you actually said), a biological gender, or a religion. It’s a nationality.
Perhaps simply saying ‘US-national’ instead of that SJW-wordsoup would have actually made a point.
I’m at a loss. What are you trying to argue here? What do you think *I’M* arguing here?
You? Probably some variation of anti-straight/white/male/Christian rethoric given the unfunny joke you made up.
As for myself, pointing out such things have nothing to do with the matter at hand.
+1
Nice to see how widespread the readership is now, around the globe.
………………………………………………………………………………………………….
Is there anybody from Antarctica reading?
[One hundred thousand penguins raise their flippers]
Great now disturbed has to rewrite the song ten thousand flippers in the air.
To be fair, there COULD be some. It’s not impossible as there is at least one science base there. Though I doubt they have the time to read webcomics… then again, sometimes I’d wager they’d have nothing but time. Would be cool if they did.
There is at least one. I have corresponded with them, in the past. It is the British Antarctic Survey. They have a fascinating base that actually walks! On account of previous bases having been lost when ice sheets are shed, and wander off as ice burgs. As has just happened with a huge chunk.
This time conditions were so bad that they had to move the base completely out of the region and evacuate its personnel for winter. Other nations do maintain a presence there though, so somebody might be keeping the penguins company.
Keep up the good work! Tell them to maintain their patrols, keep the weapons in good working order, and I will visit them when it is a bit warmer.
You mean McMurdo right? I think that place is big enough that it’s practically a city :)
What I was (very very badly, seriously I crit fumbled that post) trying to say is: don’t be ashamed of representation. It gets normalized to “not a big deal” because a majority of people see it every day, and the rest don’t see it at all, but it matters and those feels are real.
Maybe I’m a bit slow but I’ve been thinking about Mondays page and if Halo wasn’t so… spastic…? random? … Halo’esk…? How much mental effect would this whole situation have on her?
Hanging out and working with what pretty much comes down to “Living Gods/Demi-Gods” while being pretty much normal…
(yeah I know this is a big part of the comics plot…subtext? … I did say maybe I was slow… shut up!)
But think about how weird it would be suddenly living with these people… they are pretty close to flawless and then add in the (totally unfounded) insecurity she may have about her cup size and just general -not a freaking Godling’ness- …
I think for anyone else this would be slightly mind breaking.
I agree. They never actually address her insecurities and I feel like this would come up a lot more for her. Especially sense that she keeps comparing herself to others and her “friends” dont seem to care.
I think her mind has already broke… it’s just hard to tell broken Sydney from regular Sydney
Probably. I just hope her friends in Archon help her out. This could lead to REALLY low self esteem and self worth if nothing changes, and I hope this can lead to funny parts in the comic that shows her friends actively trying to help boost her morale. AAaaaand lead to sexy situations, but that is not required.
I disagree. Aside from some body image issues she has already clearly demonstrated her ability to hang with the best of them in a serious scenario. And even that is fairly minor stuff. It only seems to come up during group shower times and stuff like that. The rest of the time she seems fine.
Yeah but there has to be more to it than that, take the example of someone who suddenly becomes rich and or famous … they tend to go for a little while then ruin themselves.
Some normal slob suddenly running around with celebs and drugs and parties.. think how massive a change that causes in almost anyone.
Now Halo is special, but even if she is would feel a toll from that.
Let’s hear it for references to things that happened 3 years ago (in real world time). And this comic isn’t very searchable.
I like that you made her Asian… why isn’t Dabbler in her disguise? I thought she hide that form except for fights?
At one point, she said she prefers to stick to her natural form. Would you go everywhere in camoflage or costume if you didn’t have to? Here, she’s in a secure ARChon part of the building, I’m thinking, so natural form is ok.
That question was addressed at the bottom of this comic:
Don’t get hung up on labels. I have more arms like this, so why wouldn’t I?
It makes hugs twice as snug!
And I though HB don’t care so why would snugness matter?
Hey, when you have bowel control issues, snugness of garments like Huggies is very important.
Ahem… or so I am told.. moving on.
If ‘honey badgers do not give a s**t’, they have to be doing something with it.
I can not read this without laughing
on the last panel just above Dabbler’s head, is that a portal opening? it kinda looks like Jabberwokky’s hair in some ways.
or it’s someone running away from the ‘sex show’?
NEVERMIND the question…
“And, as in uffish thought she sat,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling to her tulgey lap,
And burbled as she came!”
Sorry, couldn’t resist. :-)
Well played. As it were.
When Dave gets fabulously wealthy by selling the rights to the movie version of GP I picture this scene playing out by having Jazza first see Dabbler in soft focus and slowly walk over while this song plays in her head https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/franksinatra/someenchantedevening.html. Immediately followed by the insane jealousy of course.
OK that fits a sex scene context better than most interpretations of it.
wait. Sex hair? Who did Varia have sex with? How long has it been sense the last page and this page? Who did she have sex with? What happened?
I thought it had been established that supers do not grow sex hair. Okay, pubic hair, same thing, right? Hmm, does that mean they all have low testosterone levels? Not looking at those muscles they don’t.
Sex hair refers to messy hair after sex and not pubic hair. Unless you are joking, in which case, try again.
Sex hair ≠ pubic hair. Halo is referring to “bed head,” the tousled and untidy head hair that looks as if someone just got out of bed (particularly after having good sex). Bed head was a popular hair style in the late 90’s.
It’s likely her book got her all hot and bothered, so off-panel she likely said “I’ll be in my bunk.” Not necessarily with someone, either.
I used to read the Asterix comics as a kid. At one point I got my hand on the same strip in both Hebrew and in English. That was the first time I realized what translating comics would mean.
Like DaveB said, the first person to speak needs to have their speech bubble on the left. That’s because English reads from left to right. Hebrew, on the other hand, reads from right to left.
When translating comics to Hebrew, it is common practice to mirror image the entire page, so that the first person to speak’s speech bubble is on the right.
Shachar
I learned something new. Thank you.
Unlike many mangas, where you have to train yourself to read the bubbles and panels in reverse order.
Earlier, they, too, tended to be reversed. I recently read the Star Wars manga on Comixology, and all the panels are flipped. The Millennium Falcon gets the cockpit on its port side. I think that originally came out some time in the 90s. Nowadays, of course, puritanism has won out, and we’ve been told to read them right to left. I understand it, but i sure haven’t managed to get used to it.
I actually found it surprisingly easy to get used to. Though it’s a bit harder with scanlations than physical books.
Doesn’t Hebrew switch direction on every line, or is that an old practice that fell out of use?
The problem with being a cornucopia of useless knowledge is you never know if any of it’s still current.
Hear hear. I still wonder when I learned that the Salem witch trials killed 20 “witches”. I also wonder why I’ve remembered it despite not thinking about it for years at a time. And if it’s the right number.
That was never the case. In fact, I don’t know of any language that is the case.
Japanese used to be written in top to bottom columns going right to left, and switched to left to right rows going top to bottom (like English), so they, to this day, sometimes are unclear which direction they read. To my gaigeen eyes it looks like they find the dot and start at the opposite end. Even then, I’m not aware of them ever switching direction.
Shachar
Okay, so I confused it with something else. But yes, some languages do–or did, alternate direction with every line. It’s called boustrophedon.
Including a language which nobody has ever used. As in even its creator is not fluent in it!
.htiw ti kaeps ot eno on evah tey ,egaugnal a detnevni evah ot kcus yllaer tsum tI
My mom was a French major in college, and has a collection of Asterix and Tintin in French. It’s how I learned (a rudimentary version of) the language as a kid, those comics were so expressive that I could tell what was going on without the words.
Omg i love the portal for no reason of the word bubble. So. Much. Why?????
Will Jabberwocky fit in at Archon,especially with Dabbler?
Maybe if Dabbler lets her snickersnak on a certain cookie…
Of course she will. What team couldn’t use a crazy tsundere? Especially one that wants to “fit” with the loveable sex maniac, but will settle for just cramping her style.
I am not sure if it is intentional or artistic drift, but Dabbler looks about a decade or so younger in this comic than usual. In the page after her romp with the Barberian she also looked substantially younger. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1705. If she admits to getting a ‘recharge’ before the meeting this may be side effect of absorbing tantric energy that she has not previously talked about.
Both of Lucy Liu’s parents are Asian.
This is true. Her mother is from Beijing and her father is from Shanghai. Sorry, DaveB, it isn’t one of her parents that’s Asian… it’s both of them.
To be fair, he may have been confused by their names (which are probably adapted names)… her father’s name is Tom, her mother is Cecilia. Those are not typically Asian names, except in Hong Kong, where it’s sort of a fad to have an English first name and a Chinese family name like “Winston Shu” or “Ricky Wong”.
It’s a very common thing for Chinese living in Western countries to adopt Western-style first names for interactions with non-Chinese (their “real” names are usually retained for family and Chinese-speakers). Also, birthplace is not necessarily a reliable indicator these days – lots of places outside China, Taiwan and Singapore have very sizable Chinese-based communities.
For that matter, can’t even make such assumptions about people actually born in China. Fellow I once worked with was born in Shanghai. No, he was not Chinese (as such), his parents and grandparents were Russian Jews who wound up there whilst fleeing, well, pretty much everything happening in Europe.
On the other side of the coin, another person I once worked with was a tiny delicate-looking Chinese – who was born in Jamaica, and somehow had an Aussie accent so strong it’d put Crocodile Dundee to shame.
Which is what I meant by “adopted names”.
As Korean-American comedian Henry Cho said: “Ah bet y’all didn’t expect this here voice to come outta this here face.” (Both his parents are Korean immigrants, but he was born and raised in Tennessee.)
Actually, your previous statement was that Chinese adopting Western names is a thing unique to Homg Kong. I can assure you it isn’t.
No, my previous statement was that Tom and Cecilia would not be exceptionally uncommon names in Hong Kong. Or at least, that’s what I meant.
So where did she get those oh so sexy freckles from? She has the most perfect sprinkle of them.
https://wallpaperstock.net/lucy-liu-smiling_wallpapers_35714_1600x1200_1.html
Is ‘Jazzing’ a real thing? o_O
Shouldn’t Dabbler be in the who is who bar?
Good catch.
My money says Jabberwocky is messing with Dabbler as revenge.
Possibly. If Dabbler is neither picking anything up with her porno sense, nor gaining any nutrition, yet Jabberwokky is giving off all the right cues from her other senses, it must be most alarming.
I bet, just like any other biological function, there will be some kind of condition or disease where succubi loose the ability to feed trantrically. Which, if not treated we know would eventually be fatal. So even though the mind-f**ck is more likely, Dabbler’s ingrained fear of the combined sensory and feeding loss may well make her react that way. If only initially.
Or if Jabberwokky is having a (plausible) extended reaction to Dabbler’s prior emotional manipulation, she is going to have a very awkward social time ahead of her. Especially as she knows the ‘no feeding off teammates rule’ and she only has herself to blame for Jabberwokky’s present state. It will be a very awkward time for Dabbler.
Even if you only view it as making it harder for her to feed off someone else. There are ways around such, but it narrows Dabbler’s options, which would likewise be alarming, as we know Dabbler likes variety in life.
So there are other options, but, yea, you could be right.
I took it that the !,? exchange between them was J’s sudden burst of lust, sensed by Dabs’ “porno sense”, and Dabs puzzled cuz not remembering at first why J would feel that way since Dabs had it “dialed down” there in the briefing.
Not quite: it was Jabbers spotting Dabbler and recognizing her, and Dabbles not knowing why Jabbers is looking at her like that (she is familiar with looks of lust aimed her way, but lust-hate? that’s new for her)
Not so sure about that. To me, Jabberwocky’s appearance in The Big Fight suggests someone who is …. much more direct in how they take revenge on people.
Ordinarily, maybe, but I’m sure Maxima has informed her of certain consequences. I can imagine the scene:
JW: “So I can’t slap Dabbler, or punch her in the-”
M: “No.”
JW: “How ’bout if I pretend I’m still under her whammy?”
M: “…”
M: “Go right ahead.”
LOL.
What is that portal opening up near Dabbler’s head? Is Dabbler trying to get sleeping juice to knockout Jazza? I think that can count as date rape Dabbler, dont do it!
In the comment below the comic, DaveB points out the flow of speech problem he has and was fixed using a Portal (note the orange and blue pair of holes) to fix it.
Oh, Woops! Missed that! Thanks for clearing it up for me!
He he. Confused me. Had not read the blog yet, and was kind of thinking it might be ‘this is coming from the next, unseen, panel’ – once I had discounted it being a window upstairs. But that was not sitting right.
Funny fix.
*wags tail approvingly*
Good comic. And yay, I see you’ve changed Halo’s card to include the green orb. But your cast page still isn’t functioning.
It’s broken (due to a WordPress upgrade) and will take time to fix. Time Dave doesn’t have at the mo.
Her mugshot has changed as well, we will probably see the panel it is from in the next week or so
He he he. Nice to see Dabbler getting some just deserts. Apparently even a succubus can have ‘too much of a good thing’. Or this flavour is .. not right.
Dabblers always been a bit of a special case,Between built in blue and orange morality and a semi hidden superiority complex when around other races she gets a pass for pulling a lot of things for funsies.That said I like to think Dabblers more freaked out at the idea of her roofie aura not working like shes used to lol.
Continuing the long standing tradition of indentured servitude based on threat and intimidation, a big welcome to Jazza! Welcome to the team.
I see she has been trained to respond to snaps, which is super adorable. She still jumps on people though, so we still have some work to do.
Are the priors things she has done time for or are they outstanding? It has no meaning to the narrative really, could be either or none. I just got that ole readers curiosity.
It will not be unpaid. This is more in the tradition of ‘you have the option of doing jail time or serving it off in the army’. Which is actually a win-win for both society and the individual. The individual would be going to jail anyhow, so it does give them a genuine alternative. And society does not have to pay for putting them in jail, but will hopefully get a productive and useful member of the armed forces.
Whilst it is a common movie theme, it is actually a viable legal option, for courts that are open-minded enough to consider that.
Of course it there is always the potential for abuse, if a government decides to use that as an active means of recruiting. Then it ceases to be a solution to an individual’s criminal activity and instead hearkens back to the days of the press-gang.
*insert Blazing Saddles press-gang joke here*
during the 1980’s, and maybe earlier, judges in the US were asked by the pentagon to stop offerring military service in lieu of jailtime unless the convict was at least superficially suitable – druggies were NOT welcome. I went in to service about that time, and a guy in squadron was busted for sneaking in a gallon baggie of pot. He didn’t even consider that basic training for soldiers includes basic training for drug sniffing dogs.
I really wished you didnt call joining archon as becoming a member of the armed forces,As cynical a git as I am sometimes i keep hoping that the plot will never get round to the planned super draft section of things.
Its easy to see Jazza as a legally acceptable test case for all the planned arresting of superheros thats part of Archons ongoing plans and I keep struggling to see Archon as a benevolent organisation as is @.@
You can set your mind at ease regarding the draft. Dave has clearly stated that the comic will never go that way. Which matches the statements made by Archon.
Which is not to say that a politician may not try and push it in that direction. But they will find Maxima pushing back. Hard.
It is necessary not to forget that they are military though. If there is a war, and supers are needed, then it is Archon who will supply them. Plus, if the nation were to go to war, and a general draft was implemented (such as with Vietnam), then supers would be obliged to serve their terms the same as everybody else.
I do not see that as a likely route for the comic to go, at least not until a long time in the future. What we may well see though is a special forces type operation, overseas. Such as hostage rescue or disabling a rogue nations nuclear or other WMD capability.
Super heroes cannot be arrested, if they are true to their moniker and do not break the law. Super anti-heroes or super vigilantes though have been put on notice that if they continue to act in illegal manners they will be arrested.
What they do not get is a ‘get out of jail free’ card, just because they have super powers. They will be staying in jail alongside the other super villains.
Unless they are suitable candidates to be offered an alternative. Possibly that may involve community work, where their powers are sufficiently beneficial to society. So even though the severity of their crime is such that they should be in jail, the benefits to society may override that.
Which need not involve Archon, if the courts deem that they are not a flight risk.
Jazza’s only powers appear to be combat related though. Which means the only option of usefully employing her super powers would be within Archon. Barring even more dubious possibilities such as serving as a mercenary for Deus. I doubt a court would be happy with that alternative.
Should there ever be a hint of entrapping an upright citizen though, to force them into Archon, I fully expect that Maxima would arrest the person making the suggestion. Such would fall under a law such as ‘conspiracy to pervert the course of justice’, along with ‘conspiracy to commit X’ (with ‘X’ being whatever crime was being proposed to frame the super).
We have a strong pointer that it would go that way, given Maxima’s impassioned statement that ‘there will be no whisking away’, when Sydney expressed her fears of being locked up for experimentation on her orbs.
I have to admit that this does look suspiciously like the hook that Archons going to be using in future to put all superheros under the governments direct control.After all vigilanteism is a crime so all people with superpowers who want to help make the world a better place and stop murders etc get to choose jail,A super draft or being forced to never use their powers to help anyone under any circumstances.Under a different writer this would be a story about a dystopian universe where rogue heros are the goodguys fighting against the lawful evil government regieme.
No, that is not the case.
Supers have many ways of using their powers to help people. There are innumerable opportunities in the private sector or simply by volunteering. They can conduct rescue work, help build things, heal people and so on. Provided that they comply with normal laws. So the healer would need to get a licence to practice medicine, for example.
Likewise supers have the right to self defense, and that extends to protecting others too. So they can act against a mugger. What they must not do though is break any laws, when engaged in such activities. Because if any show a pattern of vigilante behaviour (such as seeking out such activities) then the courts are going to take a zero tolerance approach to sentencing them.
Take Marble Maiden’s activities as an example, attacking the bank robbers. That is not an appropriate thing for a private citizen to do, in what appeared to be an out of hours situation. Had she been in the bank, as a customer, she would have reasonable grounds. Once they shut up for the night though, if she becomes aware of a crime in progress the appropriate thing to do is to call the police.
Note that is actually helping people. It is what citizens are meant to do. Any intervention is meant to be by the bank’s security staff, the police or Archon.
Instead she has illegally trespassed, has assaulted the suspected bank robbers (who could actually be legitimate security staff conducting a training exercise, for example), has commiteed illegal imprisonment and has attempted to pervert the course of justice. The latter being because she then left the scene.
As such, even if they really were bank robbers, they could claim that Marble Maiden had kidnapped them, tied them up and left them in the bank. Given that she has not made herself available to testify to the contrary, they actually have a very good case, and could well get away. Because of Marble Maiden.
Not to mention the fact that she could well have seriously injured several of them. It is all too easy for supers to harm squishy humans. Likewise improper restraint techniques can injure or even kill.
Marble Maiden will have an extremely long charge sheet for her vigilantism, even just for that one incident! She will be going to jail. Plus the courts might not deem that she is suitable material for any alternative. So she could be sitting in the cell next to Vehemence for a very very long time. And rightly so. She is a menace to society.
This is why supers have a specific law preventing them from employment in capacities where they may be required to legally act in this way, as part of their duties. Only Archon has the capability to assess their powers, and train the supers in how to conduct themselves safely in a law-enforcement role.
And if they do not fancy that, then too bad. They will have to get some other job, the same as any other member of society. There are plenty of other ways to put super powers to good use, if that is what motivates people.
I disagree on a small point you argued. A super could get a job as a security guard or police officer if they choose but arc is the best place to perform the job and maximize their abilities. The super just needs proper legal training in procedure and standards to stop a crime just as a normal officer can arrest someone while on vacation if they are the only officer around but it is preferred they call local enforcement to handle the issue, just as the super would be expected to call arc if they encounter a supervillian.
That is the one law which the Grrlverse has introduced, which does not exist in our world. It specifically makes that illegal. Principally because Archon is the only body capable of doing the assessment and training. Perhaps if a private organisation could demonstrate suitable capability the law could be modified. But they could not, until that happened.
Dave has indicated that there is an exception. Namely if a super has powers that could not interfere with their duties. The example given being someone who’s only power was being bullet proof.
They would still need to be cleared by Archon first mind. If that protection resulted in the bullets always ricocheting off, they would actually pose a threat to innocent bystanders and colleagues.
But if they passed that assessment, then they could join normal law enforcement.
And we have a parallel argument disagreement, we start from separate points of equally valid understanding follow parallel reasoning and while agreeing on the details of discussion end at differing results. I enjoy trying to reason out what you knew or believed to generate the thought process you expressed. This is interesting and informative.
Nice to know.
Something to consider. Archon’s stance, and the new law, is very useful when looking at some powers. For example mind reading. If a cop could do that, it would be a very easy way to find hidden evidence, such as a murder weapon.
And if it was found out that they had been doing that, every case they worked on would be thrown out on the grounds of breaching various constitutional laws.
Plus the cop would be going to jail for their illegal actions.
This law is protecting both society and the supers. Such a super does not have the option, in the Grrl Verse, to become a cop, as you suggested. The bullet proof one yes, but not the mind reader.
They should form a fighting duo. Then their battle cry could be
“Jabber Dabbler Doooom!”
…
I’ll show myself out…
I see Math has his fingers at maximum steepleage. Depending on how well his training has been progressing, another body part may also be experiencing steepleage.
What about BtJ? She’s named after a literary monster, so ‘Beware the Jabberwocky’?
I approve of this acronym. :)
Dabbler can empathise with that warning, about now.
It’s very much in the literary spirit of things, though it’s not conforming to the standard template.
JBW would.
I think it would be funny if Jabberwokky really *isn’t* under some lingering after-effects — she’s just attracted to and obsessed with Xuriel. Though, obviously, she’s going to have to work on her impulse control just a bit — maybe that’s why she’s got priors.
Rejection of affection when dealing with powered persons can get ‘complicated’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Super_Ex-Girlfriend
Reading the summary, I’m amazed as to how kind that guy was (to be fair, I can sympathize), not suing her for public harassment that even ended in him loosing his job. She literally assaulted him as well from what I read, several times. This man is a saint and she’s not in jail purely because plot armor/power.
That is uhh….. an interesting approach to word bubbles in the last slide.
IMHO, it’s a little too confusing.
I wonder, is there a zoomed/larger version of math’s smile from frame 4?
There is a double-size version, of the entire page, automatically available for anyone who contributes $1 or more to the comic’s Patreon scheme. Well worth considering, for those who can afford that.