Grrl Power #813 – Metaphysics 101
Given Dabbler’s description of devils, you would think that succubi would actually be considered devils and not demons. It’s one of those distinctions that is usually more important to academics than it is to the Infernal populace, unless it’s some political leader looking to score points by stirring up racist nonsense or start a war.
You know, one of those totally justified wars, like, “Are we two horns going to let those one horns terk er jerbs? More horns! More jerbs!”
Dabbler is hugely simplifying this crash metaphysics primer. When she says there are “routes to tap it,” there’s a lot to dissect there. It’s like saying rubbing two iron bars together is a route to tap the electromagnetic force. It’s accurate, but obviously there’s a lot more to it. Especially when considering that magic is an integral ingredient of many races. Demons, devils and several other species and races are interwoven with Infernal magic. Angels and all their variants are the Celestials, Faye are the nature magic, etc.
I spent some time filling in the thaumic subdivisions there. I’m not sure I’m happy with “Void” and “Machine” so I reserve the right to sneakily retcon this at some point.
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.
Is this called “Demonsplaining” or “Succusplaining”?
Given she actually knows what she’s talking about and the audience don’t I’d say it’s neither lol.
Nah. Because *Whatever*splaining doesn’t care if you know what you’re talking about, it cares about who’s doing the splaining :p
I’m going to guess however, the big ol’but is “Not all demons are evil, but 95% of them are.” and maybe with the added “But they’re superior and see you as cattle, so from their perspective, not so evil.”
No, that’s wrong. It’s not just about who is doing the explaining. They must also being doing it doing to someone who already knows as much or more and likely has personal experience of the subject the explainer doesn’t.
Yeah, it’s definitely neither. Xsplaining isn’t literally everytime X explains something. For example, a male scientist talking about what his research into proteins of the brain reveal, isn’t mansplaining. But if a man is, for instance, interrupting an author of a book trying to talk about her book to brag about his knowledge of that exact book, explaining things in a patronizing and condescending manner, assuming a default position of authority despite lacking it….? And yes, that is one of the early high profile examples.
Sexist much? If a man said that but reversed the gender, he would have had his testicles removed faster than you could bleat “atmetoo!”
I respectfully disagree. There is a real phenomena of prejudicial condescension. I’m not keen on terms like “mansplaining,” since they feed into confusions like “is that every time a man explains something to anyone, or to a woman, or is it only sometimes, or what???”
A man assuming he knows a subject better because he’s a man and condescendingly explaining it to someone he has no rational reason to believe is less familiar with it, or incapable of figuring it out as ably as he did without his intervention, absolutely is worth calling out as arrogant, a**holy behavior. Same goes with a member of one ethnicity, religion, political affiliation, nationality, region, etc. condescending to another out of prejudice.
“Mansplaining” can be toxic when over-applied or used to stifle or silence someone because of their gender (i.e. labeling any man venturing any information or opinion as “mansplaining,” labeling a man sitting with knees apart to keep cool and avoid crushing his testicles between his thighs as “manspreading,” etc.). That doesn’t mean the phenomena the term was coined to label isn’t some seriously annoying, toxic, archaic BS, though.
Stereotypes often have a root in reality. Still, using that stereotype is always prejudicial and always toxic. It doesn’t matter if the term was used toward someone with a superiority complex or someone with actual knowledge. Mansplaining, like the terms gold digger, slut and snitch, is always a haughty dismissal of a person’s actual intent. Like all stereotypes, the term should be eschewed.
A recent study found females were far more likely to psychologically manipulate a romantic counterpart. Hence, we should discourage this abusive term by delegitimizing it in every circumstance.
Do you have a link to the study? I couldn’t find it, but I only did a cursory search. I was trying to figure out what romantic relationships had to do with mansplaining, since it’s primarily a work-oriented issue.
However, I did find an article in Psychology Today that seemed relevant. In the last paragraph it makes the point that the term “risks becoming a means of trivializing mansplaining as not worthy of real outrage and of degrading men generally (Cookman, 2015).” Is that where you were headed/trying to say? https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/it-s-man-s-and-woman-s-world/201603/the-psychology-mansplaining
Yeah, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3876290/
I misremembered the “property damage” part as the emotional abuse part. The corrected quote is here:
“Psychological aggression by an intimate partner was reported by 48.4% of women and 48.8% of men.”
My point, though, is that we should disarm these words rather than give them social weight. The last thing we need is raped men being dismissed in court because they “mansplained” too much. We already have it bad enough with trying to fix up years of that travesty on the woman’s side.
“A recent study found females were far more likely to psychologically manipulate a romantic counterpart. ” — There is no context to apply this here. Men and women do interrelate in other ways than as romantic partners, which I assume you know.
Stereotypes do not have a “root in reality.” Stereotypes require ignoring reality, observation, and critical thought in favor of the stereotyped assumption. Stereotyping and reality can only coexist when they do not interact. Stereotypes do have roots in historical prejudices, the longevity and pervasiveness of which can cause them to be confused with reality, though.
I find the term “mansplaining” non-descriptive and prone to abuse, but the activity of chauvinistic/patronizing condescension that it’s meant to describe does have a root in reality. There are terms that condemn behavior that is arguably only ‘bad’ from certain points of view, like “gold digger” (marrying for financial advantage should be distasteful for both genders or neither, but “gold digger” never seems to be applied to men), “slut” (a particularly sexually active man would be more likely to be called a “stud” (complementary) or “horndog” (mildly rebuking)), or snitch (reporting a crime to law enforcement is going to be condemned by the criminal, but why would anyone else criticize that behavior?).
Patronizing condescension doesn’t vary in how bad it is based on shifting mores (like marrying for money, being promiscuous, etc.). It’s always bad, because it always stems from and perpetuates a false image of reality.
That said, “mansplaining” is on a level with “boys don’t cry”, “you run like a girl” or “woman driver.” It’s a lazy term best suited for use by people who have little or no interest in accuracy or actually trying to fix or improve anything.
“There is no context to apply this here. Men and women do interrelate in other ways than as romantic partners, which I assume you know.”
My recollection of the study was wrong anyway, turns out it was nearly equal by gender. Regardless, the purpose was to dissuade the normalization of derogatory terms in general.
“Stereotypes do not have a “root in reality.””
“the activity of chauvinistic/patronizing condescension that it’s meant to describe does have a root in reality.”
This discussion cannot continue until you understand the term “root.” I’ll wait.
(“gold digger” never seems to be applied to men)
It’s gender neutral – however men are less likely to leech money from a female due to current societal norms. Not to mention there’s a whole history where women had no money to leech.
I wonder if more precise terminology is needed here. Perhaps “false expert”, or even just “quack” as in the old meaning of a pretend-doctor whose advice was somewhere from unhelpful to harmful.
The problem with “mansplaining” is not actually that the explainer is a man (though that can appear to be the criticism, to the uninformed), but that the explainer is presuming competence – and more importantly, lack of competence in the audience – where this is not justified (for fallacious reasoning that happens to be gender-based). Thus, a term that more accurately describes the problem would be more useful.
Didn’t have a problem with the word ‘mansplaining’, the issue for me was “But if a man is, for instance, interrupting an author of a book trying to talk about her book to brag about his knowledge of that exact book, explaining things in a patronizing and condescending manner, assuming a default position of authority despite lacking it….?”
I think FFKonoko was referring to an event that went viral after J.K. Rowling got involved. Laura Kalbag tweeted about her first book, Accessibility for Everyone, saying “I wrote a book! It’s coming out very soon.” A man then apparently felt the need to ‘explain’ to her: “Actually, you wrote a text. It took a few other people & skills to make that into a book.” So it was worse than the man explaining the meaning of the specific instance (the book she had written) — he was explaining to her the general meaning of the word “book.” Incorrectly, nitpickingly, condescendingly, and obnoxiously. If he was trying to make a point about all the people whose work goes into publishing a book, he failed.
Rowling’s reply, by the way, was: “Congratulations on writing your first book, Laura. Other people edited, copy-edited, proofread, printed and bound it. You wrote. Be proud.” Now, that would have been a good way of making the point about the team of folks that helped get the book published.
Women believe they know subjects better just because they are a women.
You are not describing a behavior that is or ever has been specific to males.
Both your statements are observably false. Women experts my act this way, because they are experts, not because they are women. As a man, I have, in fact, observed Men acting in this fashion, in assuming that women are less knowledgeable in an area because they are women, without having any idea of whether or or not said woman actually has any knowledge. I am not immune to such actions, but I’m trying to be better about it.
While such behavior is not necessarily specific to men, we do way to much to perpetuate the stereotype, far more than women act the pedantic bore. Don’t bother with the #NotAllMen. It’s a tendancy, not a universal trait.
And actual mansplaining is toxic in assuming the ignorance of women in general. And the argument over the precise definition actually avoids the issue over whether or not the actual attitude is wrong. Here Dabs might as well have just said that Sydney is close enough, instead of becoming pedantic about the history of demons and devils and their relative places in cosmogony using ven diagrams, etc.
You seem to hold a very different definition than the people I notice using this kind of term seem to use the form. Based from the contexts I see the format most commonly used I would say it speaks about a communication problem instead of a information problem.
This can be the result of three different causes:
a. I completly misunderstood what these people where saying
b. these people use another definition than you do
c. I completly misunderstood what you were saying.
I don’t claim to know which one is it, but find a and b the most likely.
Part of the problem with mansplaining is sometimes it is over-used. But, yes. The ‘real’ definition is the former. “A man, explaining something to a woman, who knows more about it then the man doing the explaining.”
A secondary definition it has been expanded to is “A man, explaining something to a woman, who does not need or want the explanation.” (This is less helpful, but still useful)
Some people claim the definition of “any time a man explains anything”…but that’s generally used to strawman it.
In this case, it’s a needed, and warrented explanation…so yeah. No problems here.
People say terms like “literally” can mean “figuratively” and thus render the term useless. Because it’s used that way, and the meaning of words changes, right?
But when it comes to some prejudicial terms people are willing to defend their original meaning.
I suppose we should stick with the original meaning of “nigger” since it meant “black person” until the 20th century.
it didn’t ‘mean’ “black person”, it was a derogatory term denoting ‘of the Nigerian Race’, which was extended to the black community because ‘they’re all alike and interchangeable’. It was an insult then, and is an insult now, no matter who uses it. however, if you want to really grind someone’s gears, try calling them ‘niggardly’ (which means cheap) and I bet they’ll think you used the other ‘n’ word.
Worth looking up the etymology here. Also look up the etymology of the word “Nigeria”, which leads to “niger”…
Nigeria was named after the river, Niger (or was it the other way around?)
Yes, not the other way ’round.
” People say terms like “literally” can mean “figuratively” and thus render the term useless. ”
Nope. Those people are simply wrong. Using literally that way is almost always a form of hyperbole where it’s implicitly apparent that the speaker/writer knows that they aren’t speaking a literal truth, but want to exaggerate or emphasize a point. The people who think the definition of literally is thereby changed to mean figuratively are a literally minded sort who are probably currently sad because they only got presents from their cat snookums on their birthday and not their family.
The point of a language is to convey meaning. If I say “the sky was literally falling” do you have enough context to discern whether I’m using hyperbole or suggesting that it’s raining? You don’t. Therefore, the word becomes increasingly useless as contraindicative hyperbole is increasingly used. This goes doubly in written form where such context is far harder to discern.
Do note you didn’t actually rebut my argument… You made a strawman about how autists aren’t getting enough birthday presents. If your I.Q. rises above 80 do let me know. That’s not a strawman because I already rebutted your argument; I’m just commenting on your apparent intellect.
She’s been dying to use that phrase…
“Big ol’ but.”
I really like that Tamatha has some guidance in this (and I both from both Dabbler and the Decolette). It must be challenging for her being the odd one out in most circumstances.
*correction: I mean. Kinda wish this forums had an edit function.
All the editing in this forum must take place before clicking the Post Comment button.
That’s why the latest generation of spellcorrupt software autocorrupts after you hit the “post” button.
Naughty Teacher Dabbler. Hnngh!
Clearly a larger, more detailed pick needs to be the next vote incentive.
That is all.
+1
If there’s a briefing session afterwards,how would Maxima veiw this?
Which part?
Seems to me, they all handled themselves well (except Pixelicious) considering the circumstances
This is just throwing spaghetti at the wall, but could the different forms of thaumic energy have anything to do with Sydney’s orbs?
the same beings (or equivalent) forged the well of magic that also made her orbs potentially. Be one way to tie it back around.
That would assume that magic isn’t an innate aspect to the universe which different life forms might harness in surprisingly different ways.
that is the theory, and something from a few series. The general idea being something or somethings from long ago found a way to manipulate the raw multidimensional fabric of reality to form multidimensional systems of control that react to programmed symbols, vocalizations, and other criteria to produce specific desired effects; like having an easy bag of tools to make life easier wherever they went.
The idea being that drawing squiggles in the sand or on a piece of paper and tapping on it to cause something like lightning, spikes, light, fire balls; or saying any combination of words shouldn’t under normal physical laws do anything and has a very artificial feel to it like activating code in a computer, using key words or symbols to activate a macro. ect….
the possibility of tapping into the raw dimensional distortion is there, but would be harder, less controlled, more like a tesla coil than a computer a surge of water rather than a controlled plumbing system with valves, ect… so this system fine tuned the natural phenomenon so anyone could access it and do things with it that normally couldn’t be done like activating a fire ball because your astral quality matched the criteria of the system to align with fire outputs and drawing a program sigil into the air to conjure the desired fire output effect.
The big trick being while less advanced civilizations or those who happened to have a “tune” for specific parts of this program can study it, use it, and learn ways to activate various affects and combinations there of, like magic apps, spells, new spells, crafting new sigils ect… they couldn’t dream of building the initial multidimensional reality distortion “machinery” behind it all; and may not believe something so fundamental to their existence and experience was artificial to begin with, or don’t question it anymore than a dog questions what makes the car go; it just knows it does and needs you in there to make that happen, or any number of tests with animals using buttons, figuring out the sensor to open a garage door, ect… its part of their world now, they just don’t know how it works but are figuring out how to use to their own advantage.
I am vaguely annoyed that “hammerspace” is nowhere in the diagram.
But I suppose that would be one of the things that had to be glossed over for brevity.
could be the same thing as hyper space; a general catch all for a sub-space. Astral space can also fulfill that function; although more rarely. Usually hyper space is the one physical objects can dive into and come out of while astral space is the “symbolism” or “dimensional/mana quality” shadowing physical space and bound to it so physical objects can’t so much enter it as you can open your inner vision to open your astral eyes to see within astral space and perceive this dimension and the qualities of the physical universe’s shadowy side…
but yeah, hyper space would be a good one to apply as hammer space. Have a hyper space pocket (bubble within hyper space that is anchored to your astral body so you can physically retrieve items from this bubble at any time).
But ‘hammerspace’ isn’t really hammerspace, it’s a teleporter that calls a known object (with a teleporter module) from a known location (Dabbler’s lab).
The teleport mechanism itself is probably a hyperspace system though. So either way hammerspace is probably closely related to hyperspace in this diagram. ;)
Here’s the but (my guess): just like Kevin draws magical power from violence, and succubi are able to draw energy from NSFW activities, infernal magic draws from infernal acts. You may not be evil, but your magic runs off stuff that tends to be… sinful, I guess? Violence, greed, lust, the usual se7en suspects. Not necessarily evil, but often so. Like to most of us, there’s nothing evil about sex, but strict religious types view it as sinful/infernal.
Presumably the angelic version of a succubus would draw magical power from monogamous or platonic relationships?
Hm. So, Vistric Energy … Apparently there’s devils who use it. Dabbler talked bout that when splaining it back when Kevin showed up.
Tantric is apparently used by succubi who are demons. It might be used by other demons. I mean, I don’t want to give up on Incubi existing even if Dazz says they’re not the same race as succubi and hinted they didn’t exist. But Dave is owner of this universe, so…
Meanwhile. Tantric appears to be more than just “infernal” … there’s clearly an element of “life/nature” there.
Believe Dabbles said there were no male Succubae (can’t remember off hand what she actually said, butt she seemed to word it specifically), Sydney simply didn’t follow up on it (if she even caught it)
On the void and machine thing; perhaps Oblivion and Creativity?
Magic can be really complex, although we have to ask if these really are counter points to each other, or just energy fields all obeying the same set of rules or if the different kinds of magic work differently from one another.
In my own world there are 7 schools of magic, created by the seven Architects of Magic where either one or a mix of several can be found on any given world as the governing laws of how magic works there. Usually only two or three schools at a time; but occasionally all 7; rare as due to contradicting elements they don’t mesh well.
1: Serenity
2: Sin
3: Storm
4: Stillness
5: Shadows
6: Science
7: Splendor
Each with numerous sub-divisions and complex rules, without going into those details (trying to reframe from that)
Serenity = Prayer power, holy, positivity, light, personal sacrifice
Sin = Negative, demonic bargains, personal sacrifice but of a more violent nature including sacrificing things not personal
Storm = Elemental, nature, manipulation of the building blocks of reality through direct astral alignment means
Stillness = magic comes innate from external sources, magic crystals, mana stones, demon stones, special bacteria and mana compounds
Shadows = Magic is counterintuitive to natural laws, shadow dimensions, mirror spaces, necromancy, faith and madness open the doors of magic
Science = Alchemy, magic is imbued into the physics so closely that without a frame of reference to counter point it, it would just be accepted as a result of chemical reactions and sticking certain materials near each other, including “ki energy lines by drawing special circles in certain substances”.
Splendor: Bibbity bobbity boo, poof I made an apple appear out of thin air with the wave of my sparkly wand. Humans normally can’t do it, requires supernatural creatures, fae, and spirits to whom physics are more a general guide line than real rules, and such powers in reduced forms can be given to humans even in defiance of the laws of physics (conservation of mass and thermal dynamics usually, like making ice appear out of thin air or turning someone into a frog; and retaining human intelligence even as a frog at that).
Why ssstop there? You could do more magicsss like… serendipity for luck and coincidence. Salvo or swarm magic for duplication. Sanguine, stitch or salve for blood magics and healing. Sever for division. Sky for wind. Sear for fire. Sonic for sound. Snow for cold. Stream for water. Seismic or stone for earth. Somnolence or sedation for sleep. Sting for poison. Scarcity for depletion or draining. Skew for misdirection. Scenic for illusion. Scent for smell. Spacial for teleportation and storage. Maybe Saint or sanctity for holy, since serenity is closer to ‘calm’. Seed for botany. shrubbery for the knights who say ni. Scan for identification. Search. Scramble for chaos. Scribe for contract magics. Sealing magics. Shield magics. Sculpt for shaping. Seduction magic. Scourge magic for pain.
Well, that’s all I got without grabbing a thesaurus. :P
Ha, ha, yeah the S thing was a silly sorceress thing. It was meant to be each of the seven sorceress sisters sought simplified synonyms for their spells.
Sorceress of Stillness, Sorceress of Serenity, and so forth.
But every basic magic does fit in all of the categories; just with different ground rules.
for instance you want to cast a fire ball?
Under Serenity you’d need to call upon an angelic messenger of fire with prayer.
under Sin you’d bargain with an ifrit to whom payment of blood or other sacrifice is needed to cast the fire ball.
under Storm you need to channel the elemental archetype of flame through the astral patterns
under Stillness you can only do it if you find a mana stone of fire or swallow a demon stone of fire
under Shadows you must call upon the entropic force of the cosmos to destroy in the form of fire
under Science you draw a sigil representing fire that channels the flame Ki
under Splendor you say a fire rhyme and point your wand and fire is produced without fuel or proper source
Are we even sure that Dabbler is wearing clothes? After all other characters from SPACE have been shown to use hologram/forcefield combinations to fake it. She could be using magic to do the same, considering that starting up the MagicApp to draw a diagram switched her to “teacher” garb and glasses.
Dave, you could just fuzz some words and note in smaller text that this “aspect has not been unlocked for all audience members of the lecture, please subscribe for..”
Right now we are seeing Xuriel’s glamour, as we saw her change appearance. Her clothes underneath are what we saw at the breakroom, unless she was wearing a glamour back at Archon for some reason.
Plot twist she’s always wearing a glamor and just goes around naked all the time. Would explain how quickly she was able to extract that demon dildo a few pages back.
this would be a plot twist, unfortunately Sydney has used the true sight function twice when looking at Dabbler and seen clothes on her.
One day she will walk through and anti-glamour portal that pops her glamour- and will have to spend the next 15 minutes picking up every thing that was in her pockets.
She dosn’t care that she’s now naked – but pockets are useful!
Probably something like “But if they do decide to be evil, they’re super good at it. So it isn’t like the universe is discouraging it.”
Also whatever happened to Yorp?
Yorp is probably stuck on the mandatory overtime treadmill again.
It seems to be his lot in life.
So, what happened to Yorp? I’ve not been in touch with this comic, so, I’m a bit confused.
Nvm. I’m a dumb.
I highly doubt the overzealous slayer stupid is even listening, I’d just put her to sleep then lock her up for assaulting an officer.
Test do not reply
So… Where would “Chaos” fit in here? In the, “Other Stuff Don’t Worry About It” section? Or does that align more with Void?
if we are thinking like Slayers or Greek mythology, Chaos would be “all the above” and “none of the above” the great sea of chaos from which all worlds were born and the many planes of existence were forged.
the underlying oblivion the frame work keeps all of existence from slipping back into.
So theoretically if someone could tap/harness Chaos, as a force/energy/essence/power source, they could conceivably utilize techniques/abilities for all other “forms” of magic? But also be unable to be properly understood, scanned, or even contained… Chaos sort of “infects” everything around it when unrefined…
Not really a fan of pacing exposition I take it
Diegetically, it’s physics. Don’t call it metaphysics. Metaphysics is the area of philosophy (or metascience) concerned with {\sl not what reality is} but {\sl how to know reality}. Akin to metaMathematics’ concern of {\sl how we do Mathematics}. I can understand how one might mistake those data as metaphysics. In our world, they would be paranatural—have been studied under metaphysics. Metaphysical abilities, thus, consist of a particular mindset, pondering a questions of a certain sort. What is reality? but caring more about the “what” than the “reality.” Our sources suggest that noted epistemologist (though his existence remains controversial) W. Jefferson Blythe III held the question of “is” in great esteem.
i do wonder where is the aetherium in this graph
if even gods can barely tip their toes then… how powerful are sydney’s orbs?