Grrl Power #785 – The cat’s still in the bag
There are probably a large number of people who are extremely nervous that a not-yet-even-a-private knows crap that a whole bunch of extremely high ranked people don’t. There are three star generals don’t know a thing about the Twilight Council. (They get read in if needed, but it’s need to know.) Generally speaking, most politicians aren’t in the know about that stuff either. Obviously the president and select members of the cabinet know, but the Council has veto rights in case, I don’t know, a president ever gets elected who is… not up to their standards.
In those cases the Council just deals with the heads of security agencies, and the at the time ARC agency, which before it was formalized into ARCHON, was like, Zephan and half the people who are organized under Arc-LIGHT now, working with Pixel and five or six supers they knew, sort of like an X-Files meets the BPRD.
In case you’re wondering how The Veil works here, in this case, Olivia sees Pixel’s human face, and will wind up misremembering how tall Pixel was when they shook hands. Things that can screw up The Veil’s effect are the little stuff, like if Olivia was wearing earrings that always catch on her collar or swing against her neck when she looks up, she won’t remember Pixel being a foot taller than her, but she might remember her earring. The Veil just can’t account for all those weird one offs. One incident won’t let someone pierce The Veil, but a number of small ones can start to add up. (The damage Sciona did to the sigils that mange The Veil had been repaired by now, BTW)
#MakeComics: When I wrote this page, Pixel initially returns Olivia’s compliment about her jacket by saying “Thanks, I like your, uh, arm socks.” Then when Sydney says “Was that rude?” Pixel interrupts her with “I don’t know what those are called. They’re like opera gloves but they don’t cover the hands. Arm warmers?”
But I had to cut it for space. Stupid word bubbles taking up space.
Repercussions (Wearing the Cape Book 8) is out! WtC is one of my favorite superhero series. In case you’re unfamiliar with the books, it’s not a harem series. I know I recommend a lot of those. Nope, female superhero, book 1 starts with her getting her powers and learning all about them, which is my favorite sort of superhero storyline when it’s done right. Although, at this point in the series, she’s got quite a lot of experience under her belt, and this book promises to have… well, if the title doesn’t hint at it, repercussions for a lot of stuff that’s gone down in the books so far. Here’s a link to the whole series, and the first book is free if you want to check it out but haven’t yet.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
I think we’re fine on what Sydney blurted out there. Joel no doubt gave Olivia an earful of what Sydney’s *really* like during the days she was gone. Her saying something like that completely out of the blue is, well, very in-character!
also things like.
people not affected by the veil are looking in odd directions when talking to someone (that person happened to be 8 feet tall)
Olivia, was looking up, when looking at Pixel, see her eyes and where they are looking
oh i meant looking at other peoples faces seeing them look upward. if you saw that person standing in a doorway the veiled person out of sight. then walked over through the doorway that would perhaps be one of those “huh…nah nevermind” moments.
I’m sure that that is one of the things that is over looked
Yeah, when you think back to it later, all you remember is looking them in their eye(s), why you have a crook neck is a mystery :P
Personally, don’t remember what saw in a mirror when combing the hair or brushing the teeth, so something like that
easiest thing in the human mind to scramble is memory. Memory is tied to the same part of the brain in charge of imagination, tinker with the right spot and the brain will readily accept even contradictory evidence and illogical situations and just go with it, rationalizing it later (think how you are in a dream. Don’t even question why the room is on backwards after walking back into it or why the dirt you dug up in the garden is now a blanket). now reinforce that and fill in the “rational” gaps and boom, you “clearly” were looking down, just look at the person you were talking to now.
but DaveB is right, like a dream, sometimes little things that clue you in and focus your mind making it lucid.
Read something if you aren’t sure you are dreaming if you can read it you aren’t dreaming if you can’t read, guess what you are dreaming. Olivia will remember this as if she was looking down not up. Since Pixel at her human form height will reinforce this memory.
The whole reading thing is because of where the language center is located in the brain. While you are dreaming it is running in sleep mode.
Actually, just like that urban myth about dreams and colour, some people can read in dreams
Often with me, the dream is literally like reading a book
And it’s the fact the room does look different to how it should be is how can tell am dreaming, same with going down streets and suddenly there is a deadend when there should be a cross-street
I just try to hover in mid-air. If it works? I am in a dream.
I used to use that, but after flying became such a common thing in my dreams it stopped working; although I will go semi or temporarily lucid if I realize I have better ways to fly; like a dream where I am back to flapping my arms, but remember I learned how to hover and zip about before.
I also have dreams where I sorta know its a dream but play along, this happens when it feels like an outsider is trying way too hard to make the dream scary that I have to roll my eyes at it, or they are asking too many personal questions like they are trying to figure out where I am in the real world…both of these are a tad unsettling to be honest.
But the one thing that guarantees I figure out its a dream, and may even act as my “okay I know, its time to wake up” like some internal dream alarm clock is “toon dreams” where way too many cartoon characters start to show up. Like walking through a sewer hunting a creeper monster and suddenly some of the adventurer party consists of Milhous from the Simpsons, Mickey Mouse, and Sonic the Hedgehog…yeah…its a dream, and getting dumb, time to wake up.
I heard a trick on that is to go back and try to re-read the same page twice or three times; it is hard for the dream to remain static and consistent each time.
Most people who think you cannot read in dreams think it because they saw it in a Batman:The Animated Series cartoon. The one where Batman is asleep in a machine that the Mad Hatter put him in, in a persistent dream state. And he realizes it when he realizes he can’t read any books. They just give the wrong reason for why he can’t read.
But I think it’s based on real life science from what I’ve checked. According to some scientists who study it, the brain is still relatively functional while you’re sleeping, but certain parts are less active (Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area), which are used in interpreting language. Which makes it a lot more difficult to string together sentences, let alone read letters.
I would guess that someone who is good at lucid dreaming would be able to though, but I haven’t been able to find any information on that with my Google Fu so far.
Didn’t say that all could, just that some could, still probably more who can’t than can
Don’t know about others who can, butt for me, it’s possible, just not easy, and usually wake up shortly after realising it’s a book
I think your confusing one thing in that cartoon batman only read up to a certain point of the book in that dream and did not know what the next page since he stopped in the middle. that’s how he knew he was in a dream because the book he didn’t get to wasn’t fully memorized, so he can only go up to a certain point before the machine wouldn’t know what the book was about, because even batman didn’t know since the machine was forcing a memory on to the pages
The point being, Blatsie would have to know that the reason the book was blank was because it was a memory in a dream
it is just another poor example of Blot-armour: only Blatsie is smart enough to figure it out, it’s how he always wins, even against alien superbrains
I actually HAD that happen dreaming of the book you didn’t finished and trying to make the story take on a life of a movie and have the dream stop because you dont know anything up to certain chapter and subconscious mind would try build to finish it but only show the character from the chapter before.
right but remember the machine wouldn’t let him it would it would cause accident in his dream he had to go back to the book since the machine started to hide the evidence.
That was the ‘tell’ in an episode of Batman The Animated Series.
I’ve had instances of reading in my dreams.
Also… Product Placement.
Hersey’s Chocolate Syrup in the squeeze container.
yep Mad Hatter had Batman trapped in a dream machine. It is also where a lot of people got that idea from and perpetuated it by word of mouth and keyboard to others down the line.
And some had the idea before BTA ever saw the (green) light
Oh, you meant the ‘not being able to read in dreams’ bit
Uh yeah…what else could I mean?
I was at some point going to reply that as sad as it is, most people get their “science” trivia from tv shows…and a lot from cartoons. One reason why outdated stuff like the 10% of the brain bit keeps being perpetuated in the general population. When someone says in a scientific discussion “I heard…” often the real answer to that is a sitcom, animated show, comic book, or someone else they were talking to that got it from such a source. Very rarely is it from a documentary or a science article.
Initially thought you meant that people could, and was saying that some people knew that before B:TAS
yep thats the funny thing about dreams you can read anything except things you haven’t absorbed in your reading so like bat man the pages will be blank and start to see wording become stretched to fill the empty page
Like said, for me, the dream was me reading a book, a book hadn’t read before, like sometimes it’s a movie or TV show haven’t seen (and doesn’t exist in the Waked World)
There isn’t a “language center” per se, more of a “language net” with some central focal areas.
Reading (and separately writing) is connected peripherally but is enough of a separate entity in terms of how the brain nets hook up that you can lose reading OR speech OR some vocabulary but not the rest, when the brain is injured by strokes or other trauma. Usually reading and writing (as I mentioned, separated but dependent) are added later than speech and in a different set of local zones.
Some people can read and write in their dreams. Some people dream in different languages (if they’ve learned them.) And dreams don’t ONLY happen in REM sleep, but REM sleep is when your dreams tend to be easier to remember because of the increase in “sensorium” activation.
I’m with Sydney. I completely forgot too.
Well, at least Sydney recognizes that “Yeah, I’m a security risk!” with her flaky nature.
Consider that she is only realizing it NOW.
she’s realized it before, she just forgets again
Yep… Sydney is “Oh, I’m a security risk!” but really… secrets ain’t going to remain secrets with someone like Sydney in on them.
The magicals are going to have to realize that, realize the veil is going to come down sooner or later, and plan to slowly introduce themselves.
As to the worry of “What about the sociopaths/psychopaths in our society!”… what about the sociopaths/psychopaths in normal society? Answer: You don’t worry about them. You just put ’em six feet under when they step out of line.
But who belled the cat? Er, were-jaguar…
Henry Mancini.
your regular recommendations of wearing the cape makes me wonder if you have read Worm (aka Parahumans) by Wildbow. if not, you should check it out because i feel it is definitely in your wheel house
I never got back to that one years ago. I used to let it get ahead and then binge read to catch up. Same thing with The Descendants and with Legion Of Nothing.
That’s how I felt about Paranatural. Good comic until it got into pure interpersonal / interfaction stuff with the school hobby clubs. I care about the ghosthunting, item possession, and other stuff. But they stopped writing that after a few months so I lost interest.
Worm has been mentioned several many times, at least in the comments
Had someone recommend Worm to me on a Friday evening.
By Monday morning, I’d binged the entire thing and was cursing the person who’d done the recommending…
And now there is Ward, the sequel…
Enjoy :-)
Did similar, did not regret it.
It took me a month tho, but then again that was also with me reading a significant portion of the reader comments to help augment the reading experience. (I am a dummy dum dum who often doesn’t ‘get’ things, and reading the comments can help me figure out if it’s an “oh I’m not meant to get this yet” moment, or a, “oh, that makes sense, I’m an idiot” moment.)
Sydney: Oh riiiight, the veil. Totally forgot about. What with the aliens, alien refugees, and alien invasion of Earth by real life Borg, alien mega-structure, time travel, seeing a world in ruins, fighting eldritch kaiju world enders who had arrived in a continent sized spaceship, and discovering I am bonded with Nth level technology that even puts ascended being tech to shame…well…the whole supernaturals playing hide and seek from human society just feels so…small and petty by comparison.
Oh no not a vampire…here’s Mecha-Cthulhu and the Bio-Borg!
Sidney. Sidney, no. Bad Sidney. Stop being a security risk or you’ll get the spraybottle.
*cowers*
I’m surprised that Archon hasn’t already literally resorted to the spray bottle.
They tried Mace, but Sydney just stole the bottle and used it as pepper flavored breath freshener.
Sounds like Just Ace, specially when he was a kid (he found the mace to be too mild, butt kept the canister to freak people out by spraying it on hotdogs, people would freak out more if they tried his ‘special mace’ :P )
*thinks*
Anvil, Heatwave, and a lot of others weren’t looked at with Truesight.
Nor have cigarettes, but we have no reason to suppose that any of them are other than they appear to be.
Mind you doing a security sweep of all Archon personnel would be wise, and sooner rather than later, in order to find if there are any ringers. Likewise periodic rechecks, to find if subsequent substitutions get made.
Not that it guarantees finding out any of the more insidious mundane disguises. Such as weaving a Vance suit out of spider silk.
I still wonder if we’re NEVER going to learn what’s up with Vance.
We already learned what is up with Vance. He was the FNG, and then Sydney joined up. So Vance decided that it was only appropriate to prank her with that whole ‘spider suit’ story. There is nothing more hidden there, and this was made really obvious by his conversation with Harem about the prank.
6 months without a smoke and panel two looks so good…. Did she roll her own? I look foreword to reading the rest!
Nah, looks like a bought one, look at the end in her mouth, you can see the brown (orange?) filter
Pixel is a huge danger for the Veil. Changing form is obviously covered by it, but what about removing clothes ? No reason to cover that. And then she goes around on all four. No reason either. But she still looks like a pervert, grabbing attention to her and possibly creating flaws in the coverage.
Don’t forget that the Veil is not dumb. Although it is magical, it is programmed like computer applications. And it has been perfected over thousands of years. Lycanthropes, in all their many varieties, have been cloaked by it for all that time. So sub routines to handle the points you made will have been tweaked and optimised down through the millenia.
For instance if in countryside, and transforming into animal form unobserved, Pixel would appear to be some common local predator. In a city environment that would be tweaked to something equally innocuous such as a common cat.
As for being in a hybrid bipedal form, whilst nude, the program could take a cue from the were’s behaviour. If the were mimes straightening a collar or pulling on a jacket, then the Veil could provide illusionary clothes. Whereas if the were says ‘I just love skinny dipping’, whilst approaching a body of water, then it could leave her nude. With other tweaks for similar circumstances where nudity in sight of mundane humans should not be concealed.
That sounds like the Veil is more intelligent than its creators. Let’s hope it won’t go crazy and start thinking that the best way to hide supernaturals is to kill them. :D
no the council came to that decision them selves, its part of their “policing their own” which they covered they have had to cull certain groups that endangered the veil. The veil has limitations, why some of what Yorp said would best be done out of sight, when people aren’t looking. Something TOO STRANGE and for some people it will break its hold on them. Probably how you got monster hunters in the first place.
We already have plenty of AAA games and other programs which are capable of doing far more than a single person would be capable of programming into them. Which (depending on any given program’s purpose) may well make them appear (or actually be) smarter than a person – for a specific task (and then of a limited types of things that computers are good at but have yet to exceed humans).
But we are a long way from having programs which actively adapt to unexpected and unusual events and make a sound choice on a good course of action. That would require true AI, which we currently lack. Likewise the Council’s magic has not been described in such a way as to imply they have that either.
Albeit that they do have fully AI constructs, so could probably have opted to build the Veil that way. Except they too may be wary of creating something that could turn on them of its own volition, or by being purposely corrupted (see the vault guardian construct as an example of the latter).
Besides which the best way to hide supernaturals is not to kill them, that would leave bodies, and those are evidence which also needs clearing up. Rather it is to kill all humans. Then there would be no risk of discovery, ever.
It would also require said program to survive the unexpected and unusual, and to remember what it encountered (and how it survived)
You can’t learn, if you are dead
“For instance, if in countryside, and transforming into animal form unobserved, Pixel would appear to be some common local predator.” – Yorp
It seems the Veil doesn’t always get it right on what is common and/or local. Or maybe there are enough were-puma families on the moors of Devon and Cornwall to confuse the Veil’s definitions of those words.
The pose says proud but the face says sad in the last panel. At least that’s what it says to me
Not a bad reading. Body language wise Sydney is trying to project bravado and pride to Olivia, to cover for her faux pas. Her face though reflects ‘oh my god, I just blurted out something stupid, in front of a civilian and that was witnessed by someone outside of Archon who is mentoring me’. So sad/’Homer simpson Doh’/worry (‘is this lame comment going to work or make things worse?’). Bearing in mind that Pixel has already been pushed into outing herself as being in intelligence, in order to cover the greater secret, that she is supernatural.
Speaking of Homer Simpson, that whole cartoon takes on an entirely new vibe once you find out Homer’s family has a Y chromosome linked mental disability that kicks in in your late teens, early 20’s. (Marge explained it to Bart once when he was complaining about how stupid his father was.)
That episode just killed the humor as far as I was concerned, made the whole cartoon so tragic.
which was completely ignored when they discovered Homer was stupid because he had a crayon shoved into his brain.
The Simpsons are toons through and through after about season 6 or so, not to be taken any more seriously than Bugs Bunny or Mickey Mouse. They are often aware now they are a cartoon and make jabs at the fourth wall.
Plus, very little ever carries on from one episode to the next (except for when they kill off a character or three)
Doesn’t matter what happens during the episode, almost everything is back to ‘normal’ when the credits roll
I’m pretty sure I remember a vase planing it to Lisa it was one of the scientist who stated that the defective Gene was on the Y chromosome. Also all the Simpsons smell seem to have at least once we deal with regularly genius in non-standard ways especially Homer Bart with their languages
Gasp!
You haz two bodies! I is jealous.
You should see how many different forms I have when I’m using my robotizer belt. Also i ment abe simson explaining it to Lisa. He even did a flip book of barts old school papers for her.
Show of hands – who here thinks the sound Pixel makes when she de-weres is the same as Mario shrinking?
I’m a little concerned that the veil may have left Olivia cross eyed. I mean something really dorked up her eyes in panel #5.
She is looking through the 4th Wall at you! (maybe you should get that checked out by your doctor, or coroner)
She finally pulled off a 4th-wall gag! How appropriate that it’s during a self-aware moment.
I’m still boggled that that jacked still fits after she shrunk down.
Well, Pixel is on the council.
I really don’t see anything here that’s surprising.
The council has a faction of human mages, the fae, aliens with offworld technology, magic, and magic technology.
Weres on the council likely have a wide variety of options to shop for clothing that accommodates their requirements. It just depends on how much they are willing to spend, and what they want the clothing to look like.
Resizing Clothing is fairly common when dealing with societies where shapeshifting is common. Think of Vegeta’s Saiajin battle armor that resizes when he goes into Ozoru Mode.
Whereas I’m boggled that Pixel can still pull off looking hard, despite having pink hair, “whiskers” and comically droopy ears and being as short as (or shorter than) Sydney!
Art comment:
I find the topography of the first five panels confusing at first read. Panels 1 through 4 have them in front of a set of double doors on flat ground. Panel 5 has them in front of double doors at the top of stairs. Closer examination shows the doors are a different color, have handles, and the walls are now concrete block. The next panels demonstrate that they are at a new location and in a stairwell. But, the flow of speech and similar door positioning tend to make it seem to be the same place until the reader takes the extra step to examine the background. It may help in scenes like this to make the second doors a more different color.
P.S. Pixel appears to have a seriously painful tail wedgie going on in panel 1. :)
Pixel can carry on talking with a girder though her midriff. I think pain is not something that bothers her much.
…Trump isn’t actually a vampire? Or a Gaki?
Some things humanity has to bear the full responsibility for. No matter how much we would wish to deny it.
What is Pixel smoking,a cigarette or a joint?
Also, who else will join Sydney and company for thier girl’s night?
Cigarette. You can see the filter, in panel 2, if you zoom in.
Me. I will wear a dress if necessary!
Aww, that link won’t work on this site (it did when tested elsewhere). So here is an alternative.
Hey Yorp,if you wear a dress,better shave your legs,in fact –better shave your whole body…!
Just for you.
Although not 100% related to the current update, the Aetherium causeway on the previous page raised some talk of Nth tech again. So as a thought experiment tried to imagine what that level’s version of say a “lightbulb” would be. After all, judging tech levels off of how fast you can travel, battery capacities, and weapons. But common use tech gives a rather big reveal of just how advanced a civilization really is on average. Like, lighting up a room or space.
So here is, technological levels as determined by illumination technology
https://www.deviantart.com/rhuen1/art/Technological-levels-as-defined-by-lightbulbs-819248135
Hmmm … what about magic illumination?
Light spells tend to be low level plasma/energy balls, or light with an extra dimensional power source. But still detectable energy and/photons, seldom anything too exotic other than how it’s made
Depends on the author.
In many of the stories I read growing up magical light sources allowed one to see specific creatures or writing. I could imagine modern mages developing a swiss army lantern to produce several kinds of magical light. Hmmm. I bet Semper Vigilantis has Swiss Army Lanterns.
you are on the right track. What if its not light, we only perceive it as light because that’s how our minds interpret being able to see. You normally see things because photons bounce off of objects and then into receptors in your eyes.
now Dabbler mentioned psychic light (your brain perceiving light because it is being told there is light), although Sydney’s orbs aren’t even doing that apparently. Which leads to the possibility the space its self around the orbs is just brighter relative to surrounding space without emitting light radiation, so a relative difference that would be nearly impossible to explain being possible with the current understandings of physics…unless there is some quantum mechanics principle I don’t know about, DaveB doesn’t know about and hence his characters wouldn’t know about, that can account for something even the air around something being made more visible without emitting any detectable traces of radiation and even bending all sensory signals around it or absorbing them so they are detected as empty space; interference with the space over-rides making them appear empty when really they aren’t just the materials in question react that way to anything currently available trying to interact with them.
Perhaps some Ascended tech or much higher level magic than Dabbler has (Jill of all trades doesn’t mean master sorceress), could know what to look for and how to detect it.
I will add if it’s a setting where magic exists because such Nth level beings manipulated the raw dimensions and wrote code in the dimensional distortion potential and magic users have
Simply found ways to access this system, even if only at surface interface level, then it is still Nth tech, just harder to realize that’s what it is
Had a look at your little tech level chart and, frankly, its faulty. For one, the first six “tech levels” are still all the same source of light: Fire.
Secondly, the last two are essencially the same tech, except for…
…Thirdly, if there are no emissions of photons nor electrones nor any other measurable particles inside the band of visible light, there is no light, as per definition of what light is. So what if the light source is omni-directional and omni-present? So what if the illumination is equal at all distances and casts no shadows? If the light comes form everywhere, of course there are no shadows. But there would still be emissions inside the wavelength band of visible light, otherwise, there would be no light.
And there would be a powersource. Maybe the power source is easy to hide and on a spectrum that only very finely tuned, highly specialised equipment can find, but it would be there. Light is a form of energy and energy can not be created form nothing, not even if you try and use magic. Even magic uses Mana or Psions or Sacrifices or whatever to power it. There is no such thing as something out of nothing. N-Tech can use the laws of physics better than us, has access to a wider range of laws and more loopholes, but they are still bound to the same book of laws. And there is NO creating something out of nothing.
that’s the whole idea; it is beyond human comprehension how it functions. The idea a group of scientists could stand in a room and be gawking at the “magic of lightbulbs” alone completely dumbfounded on what principles are at work.
and yes it is stated as such that several are the same light sources only fine tuned in control and distribution, but are fundamental stages in how society built and restructured around them, gas light for example allowed for a wider distribution into homes via pipelines, electrical even more so and safer.
the plasma and interdimensional are more about power source and distribution of excess energy. After all you said it yourself, light is photons. a form of electromagnetic radiation, you have basically only so many sources that at some point it comes down to how fancy and efficient you make that source.
the Nth tech is meant to be, beyond your comprehension; which your response clearly shows. That’s the point. Also its not likely what is being perceived is light and yes maybe if you had 3rd tier ascension level tech or level 9000 magic sensory you could find out the power source and the basic principle of what is at work with the “impossible light”; where as most anyone else would be left to shrug their shoulders.
Remember the concept I am working with here is the plausibility of a technology that can mold sub-space into a form of “hardware” creating the foundation and guiding rules of magic for a world, and anyone else creating magic code or spells are just accessing that system, hacking, or writing some basic software to use it; but couldn’t even begin to figure out HOW the hardware was even created as it exists in some layer of dimensions that can’t be accessed and overlaps all others as part of it.
and there are ways to theorize how the all light works other than photons, just have to think outside of thinking of it as illumination and more relative visibility and unobservable dimensions reactions that equipment that can only observe reactions in the physical/chemical dimension could not detect. After all even the insides of those equipment would be brighter as well in the area of influence, so what are they detecting exactly. Although if we were to try and find some other rational explanation you might conclude that even if you can’t detect something, something is still occurring and your physiology might want to not be in there too long just in case.
In other words if it could be explained in a way that makes perfect sense to someone in the real world on Earth today; then it failed. I mean its the sort of distance in understanding of the universe, a gap in knowledge, that even if its explained the explanation would be confusing, outlandish even, utilizing terms there are no terms for in English yet, and scientific concepts that don’t exist yet or current understanding of physics believes would require a ton of energy or defy certain principles, and be like trying to explain an LED and computer networks to someone whose only source of light and heat is a bonfire. Sure you can explain it, you might even think it normal, but to them you might as well just say “magic”.
this page is Sydney’s orbs having their own physics defying light and I guess an early clue as to how advanced they were all along.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-103-i-think-dabbler-is-about-to-detect-the-peoples-elbow/
If Leon *does* have a type (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-734-threes-a-conversation/), then he might be very surprised one night….
“President who aren’t up to their standards?”
Trump: “why wasn’t I told about fucking superheroes?”
Literally All of Arc: “you’re a giant fucking twat, you orange draft dodging chump. also half our team aren’t straight and you have a habit of flapping your mouth about them. STFU.”
At least he’s not a suspected war criminal
Or a war criminal who was granted clemency due to being a teenager, and who now has a cult following because he throws lots of money around.
How can he be a war criminal, and be a draft dodger at the same time? o_O
I have no idea who the “suspected war criminal” is supposed to be. George H.W. Bush (suspected of involvement with the Bay of Pigs fiasco), Ronald Reagan (Iran/Contra), Richard Nixon (bombings of civilians in Laos and Cambodia)? It’s not as short a list of potentials as one would hope it would be.
Of course, that assumes that the idea of war crimes even has meaning. How many women and children died in the fire bombings of Dresden or Tokyo, or in Hiroshima and Nagasaki . . . but those aren’t for some reason war crimes . . . but killing and burning women and children in a concentration camp is . . . but women and children dying in an internment camp isn’t . . . but . . . but . . . . It’s a camouflage net draped over the horrors humans are so practiced at performing on each other. Your horrors are “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” and mine are “acceptable collateral losses” and “tragic mistakes.”
That said, the only thing that would keep him from being a war criminal is the amount of effort and money he’s put in to be as far as possible from personal involvement in war. To quote Gen. Mattis, “I earned my spurs on the battlefield. He got his spurs from a doctor’s note.” (Trump played intramural sports during/after a period where he got a doctor to sign off that he suffered from bone spurs bad enough to disqualify him from military service, i.e. the only place his spurs actually existed was in the doctor’s note).
He’s certainly not shy about criminal behavior in any other sphere of human activity. Real estate fraud, bank fraud, tax evasion, sexual assault, extortion. That’s not even an exhaustive list.
In the Grrlverse setting, it would put them in a very difficult position (faced with a potential conflict between the letter of the laws regarding chain of command and the spirit of their oath to defend the Constitution against all threats, foreign and domestic), but then, I imagine it puts a number of loyal and dedicated public servants in difficult positions in the real world, too.
My best guess for a reaction would be for some/all of them to resign their commissions and either retire (similar to the Justice Society when faced with the House Unamerican Activities Committee) or go rogue/underground (similar to the Avengers splinter group during the Marvel superhuman registration Civil War event).
Nobody on this forum has any expectations of any sort that you would have any clues as to who people referenced regarding real world war crimes would be, Woodrobin.
All of the knowlege and every perspective which you have ever presented regarding anything historical could have been drawn from a comic book. Of course you don’t know who real world war criminals would be, you don’t know anything unless you hear it from a newsreader on television.
I have lived in different parts of the world than that in which you live, and move in different circles. Possibly I’m a bit older as well. During my lifetime I have personally known two women who were made “Comfort Women” by the Japanese. The Japanese of today are not the Japanese of the thirties and forties but the Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were. These women have been important to me. You’re just a bloviating internet egotist.
I suppose younger generations seem pretentious and ill informed to everyone.
It’s probably inevitable that this becomes so when they speak about things before their time.
Spare us all your self aggrandizing histrionics, Woodrobin.
Ah, so because most of the references I use when talking about a webcomic that deals with, invokes, and deconstructs comic book tropes are comic book references, I therefore only know about comic books? Interesting interpretation.
Of course, it wouldn’t make any sense to assume that I mainly reference comics because comics and webcomics are fictional settings that deal in tropes and rules of storytelling, and because I have some concept of the difference between stories and real-world events, would it?
I know who real world war criminals would be (again, depending on whose definition of war crimes gets used). The list of persons and governments who have committed things seen then and/or now as atrocities or crimes against humanity is depressingly long.
Admittedly, choosing Republican Presidents as guesses as to who Guesticus meant to reference was a bit snarky. My main point, though, was that the list is so long that it’s impossible from a very vague reference to have any clue who specifically Guesticus was talking about. And that’s, of course, assuming that anyone other than Guesticus would see whoever he meant us to understand he was talking about as a “suspected war criminal.”
A side-point: Do you actually know what “self-aggrandizing” or “histrionics” mean, or are you just using them as magic words that you think negate someone else’s words?
Self-aggrandizing? I’m not bragging or building myself up. As a human, pointing out humanity’s habit of inhuman behavior tears me down by association, if anything. I don’t claim I’d never go down the path of thinking horrible means were justified by what I imagined were glorious ends. That I’ve never had the opportunity doesn’t make me a moral paragon; it just makes me lucky enough to never have been faced with the temptation.
And histrionics? Dramatic behavior? How so? Attention-mongering? Not so much. I comment if I think something’s worth commenting on, but I’m not bothered if no one responds (which, I could easily assume, either meant no one bothered to read it, or no one cared enough to reply . . . although I suppose I could also assume it was sufficient enough to be left as is). I recall getting upset a bit with someone I felt was claiming I said things I hadn’t actually said, but generally this is relatively idle conversation about a well-written story, and not something I’m going to get worked into a frenzy over.
And “youger generations” and “things before their time”? On what absurd basis do you presume to think you have any clue when I was born or how old I am? Should I feel complimented that you assume I’m a young person? Clearly you mean it as an excuse to dismiss me out of hand, so I suppose I shouldn’t. I’d say the odds that you’re actually older than me are somewhat slim, but it really doesn’t matter. Age is sometimes associated with wisdom, but as is so often demonstrated, there certainly isn’t a fixed proportion between the two.
‘Remember: Re: comfort women, etc.: What happened to those women was horrible. At the same time, almost everyone who hates strongly enough to want to exempt a group of people from being treated as human can cite some “justification” in some other inhumanity that someone like the group of people they want to hate perpetrated against someone they feel more connected to than the group they want to hate.
I understand your anger, but it doesn’t make you right. Do the women you referred to think that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were just recompense for the rape of Korean women? Do you? What then is the just recompense for the rape of enslaved women in the American South? Who pays for the Armenian genocide? The Trail of Tears? The Inquisition? How about the massacres the crusaders perpetrated in Jerusalem? The slaughters of Genghis Khan? The decimation of the Midianites? Etc., ad infinitum and ad nauseam.
You’re not even arguing nuking civilians and reducing children to shadows etched into ruined concrete as a strategic necessity or “acceptable collateral damage.” You’re merely trying to justify one atrocity by referencing another atrocity. That road never ends, and leads in a downward spiral, from horror to horror, and nowhere else.
If Trump offered to make a deal with the Cosmic Kaiju we saw on the Alari world, but only if they did him favor, would it be called a ‘squid pro quo’?
Like said: suspected war criminal, Shrillary Killton (oh wait, mocking people by changing their names is bad) was being investigated just prior to the elections, and it could be said that the only reason she put her name in the running was to put an end to the investigations (specially seeing how nothing has been mentioned about it ever since)
And she was found to not be one by any metric. What’s your point?
The trial never ended, it was stopped due to her running for President
The final report in 2016 found no evidence of wrongdoing: House Benghazi Report Finds No New Evidence of Wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/us/politics/hillary-clinton-benghazi.html
Arc is then disbanded and everyone is put on trial for treason. The end.
Also, Carter flapped his mouth about Area 51. :)
Also, declassification of top secret documents is something any President can do. :)
And I think that Clinton declassified the Roswell documents.
https://www.nsa.gov/news-features/declassified-documents/ufo/
Will they declassify the secret zoo training program ‘Eats, shoots and leaves’? Who’s courses were as diverse as covert assassination and infiltration into the legal system, through a bar training program.
The end result of that specific zoo training program* put a stop to it before getting involved in a much larger and more entertaining conspiracy.
(Sorry, but I love that comic, and it has the best-lampshaded gag ever for the ‘eats-shoots-leaves’ joke. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire character was originally based on it.)
Or maybe that’s what they want you to think! Those are all alternate fan fiction, carefully crafted* over many years** as an ablative cover-up! The truth is still hidden behind the fake reveals!
* see this article on why cameras weren’t sophisticated enough to fake the moon landings.
** See also the Ascenscion miniseries – intro, summary (and spoilers)
+1 for you, just because between you and Yorp, I always get to smile a lot from this webcomic’s comment board. :)
Also good xckd callbacks :)
PS – Mythbusters did a great episode on the whole moon landing thing and the people who try to debunk it. :) I think one of the rationales were about the lack of sophistication of the cameras of the time :).
Thanks! You add a lot of fun (and education) yourself! I haven’t seen that Mythbusters episode yet, I’ll have to move it up the queue.
What the media group of the Council does is leak out intentionally poorly researched stories of fake monster stories like Bigfoot and Nessy. The debunking of these by the world press makes the believers of these theories look like idiots. Then, when another story of something like Vampires in the back allies of New York is published by someone who actually saw something, they are laughed off as just another crackpot.
And the Council controls how auto-correct is run to make otherwise erudite web posters look like idiots by doing things like changing the word ‘alleys’ into ‘allies’.
You are aware that there was a couple decades between Carter ‘flapping his lips’ and Clinton ‘spilling the beans’, right?
That would be a tremendously stupid moves.
Which I suppose is in-character for Trump, but still very dumb.
Obama is still president in this timeline. Recall the conference that Sydney walked in on a few months ago in universe- from the Earths’ perspective).
And it would be completely in character. Since they’d be doing something treasonous and unconstitutional. I’m wondering how following the law would be a dumb move.
I am just finding it really odd about people acting like they WANT the government to keep important secrets from the from the functioning members of the government at the behest of foreign governments. Or thinking the military controls the civilian government and not the other way around.
Or perhaps the US government is only a puppet, under the control of our alien overlords?
At that point I might as well just accept the whole ‘We are living in a computer simulation’ claim. :) And I would like to file a bug report with the sysop in that case.
The self propagating, adaptive, NPC programs are functioning normally, they are self actualizing and their sometimes unexpected, even self destructive, counter intuitive actions, are all part of the gaming experience keeping things new and different for the players.
Can I just sign up for the no backup purge?
The final panel should be Sydney’s catwalk pose.