Grrl Power #909 – Making soup AND having kids?
Guys, the more I write about Alari society, the more I like them. Not like. What’s the word? Hate. But also like. I hake them. They make me laugh, anyway, and that’s what’s important. But on a serious note, why would the commercial include the girl whining about the impact to Alari society? I guess in a way, House Liglalathane is boasting about how their house and innovation will forever change things or something.
In case it’s not clear, the disks project a near-body perimeter, and breaching that field causes an adjustable level of “correction.” It doesn’t just zap you though, it causes pain improvement in the location that you break the perimeter, so even if you can’t see where your leg is, for example, because you’ve got it cranked over your head, the “urgent encouragement” can guide you into the right position. The amount of padding allowed by the field and the level of “motivation” can be adjusted, and obviously, trying to remove it yourself results in aggressive disincentivization.
At the very lowest settings, where it feels like a rubber band snapping against your skin, you could use something like this to improve your golf swing or your fencing moves and the like. At very high levels with a very slim perimeter… well, it could be a pretty horrifying tool.
For those of you rushing to point out that Cora is cursing the Alari while still employing their “would definitely break civilized conventions if we knew about it” tech, I will point out that she is using them on criminals, and not her own children.
“I can’t believe I’m going to sleep with you again.” … I’ll take “Things to make any guy lose his train of thought.” for $500, Alex.
Check the vote incentive to see Sydney in her jim-jams. Check Patreon to see her… not in her jim-jams.
Okay, so, her mouth. Yes, it’s a little big, but it’s supposed to the rictus grin of someone who is terminally embarrassed but is still giving sexy her best shot. Even though the sexiest thing Sydney ever does is very occasionally cosplay as some character with a semi-plunging neckline.
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One of my favorite novel series has a six-qual out. Binding Words 6 is available! I have finished it now, and I can report that I enjoyed it.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
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"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.
To the rescue! Also, those disks could come in handy…
where can i get some nanny disks looks like it would be great for exercise and martial arts. lol
Only if someone using them on themselves can safely remove them and reprogram them after donning them. Also, I wouldn’t trust anyone on the planet to have this technology. That includes me.
Sure, I’m sure I’d be completely ethical about using them for the first year. 20 years later? Who knows? But I do know that power corrupts, and…
Fuck it. If I had a limitless supply of those things, and they could be programmed with sufficiently complex code? By year 20, everyone in law enforcement in the US would be wearing one.
Yep, that’s necessary to keep them in check.
You’re both idiots, and I would absolutely not trust you with those disks.
430 million stops with police per year in the US alone, and you think they’re all evil racist murders because of… what? a couple of dozen instances of questionable justification a year?
The NYPD alone was sued 12,000 times between 2009-2014. Most people can’t afford lawyers and most lawyers don’t do freebies. I doubt all of those cases won but an average of 2,400 lawsuits a year in one municipality is hardly “a couple of dozen instances of questionable justification a year”
Actually almost none of those cases won. The very small amount of ones that did are sort of a testament to how rare the police abuse is.
And ‘one municipality’ takes on a bit of a new meaning when that municipality has a larger police presence than MOST states. There’s about 36,000 police in NYC alone, and they make about 400,000 arrests a year, although a lot of those are repeat offenses and don’t result in convictions.
NYC = 36,000 police
Entire state of Wisconsin = 13,000 police
Entire state of Pennsylvania = 27,000 police
Entire state of New Jersey = 33,000 police
Entire state of Connecticut = 6,600 police
Entire state of Oklahoma = 8,600 police
etc.
I think there may be about 4 states that have more police than NYC has in just its own municipality. Three if you don’t include New York State (California, Florida, and Texas).
Actually, DAs just hate to prosecute Cops, they are two parts of the machine that prosecutes criminals, and furthermore, the cities just settle out of court. Plus thanks to Qualified Immunity, you can’t really sue a cop anyway.
Top that off with the fact most people who are abused come from below the poverty line and usually get arrested for some minor crime and forced into guilty plea bargains by DAs being told by public defender it’s in their best interest.
Also, remember that we have no data on police violence. Police forces do not keep records, and any records they do have get destroyed. We only know about the disparity in deaths because they can’t hide dead bodies. How many times has a Mexican been put into immigration court for no reason? How many black people were harrassed or assaulted simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time? How come when BLM protestors collect together with no guns they get pepper sprayed and ran down with cars but white middle class people show up with guns and everything is okay?
Cops have a lot of power and almost no oversight, and any oversight they DO have is overturned. Power doesn’t corrupt but it will reveal those who would misuse it.
Now can we stop talking politics and talk about hot super babes?
Cereally? Someone who is in the wrong place at the wrong time is doubly in the wrong, but they should be left alone because of the colour of their skin?
Do you not see how racist that is?
I’ve actually worked in a DA’s office. So what I’m saying is first hand knowledge. At least in New York City, they’re fine with prosecuting cops. It’s just there’s actually a surprisingly small amount of police abuse compared to the amount of police and the amount of arrests.
We do have data on police violence. We have rather DETAILED data on police violence, in fact, and yes, the police departments do keep records. I’m not sure where you got that they don’t. That’s the entire point of Internal Affairs.
Also, you can sue a cop, even with qualified immunity – it just limits WHAT you can sue the cop for. And even for those things, the government can still allow the lawsuit to go through, despite the ability for the government to claim qualified immunity. For example – the George Floyd case. You’ll notice that the police did not benefit from qualified immunity there.
“We only know about the disparity in deaths because they can’t hide dead bodies.”
Again, no. I’m not sure where you’re getting your information, but it’s completely incorrect. Internal Affairs is a department DEDICATED to ferreting out corruption in the police department and criminally and civilly punishing police officers who engage in all levels of misconduct.
“How many times has a Mexican been put into immigration court for no reason?”
They’re not, unless they are not a US citizen. In which case they’re brought into immigration court because it’s…. an immigration case. You don’t get sent to immigration court like you’re a dissident getting sent to the gulag for wrongthink. You get an appointment to meet in court if you are in the country illegally. Not ‘because you’re Mexican.’
“How many black people were harrassed or assaulted simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time?”
You do understand that if someone commits a crime, regardless of the color of their skin, it’s not harrassment to arrest them, right? If you are ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time’ just comply with the police, do not run, do not fight the cops, and do not make any admissions – no matter what the color of your skin is. Black, white, purple, blue, or gold (assuming Dabbler, Cora, or Maxmia were ever arrested, not that it would turn out well for a corrupt cop if the tried anything illegal with those three).
And if the person did not commit a crime and is harrassed and assaulted, they can sue the police department, and no, qualified immunity does not attach in that case. Not to mention internal affairs gets involved. Like I said, the amount of actual police abuse in New York City is shockingly small compared to the amount of arrests each year and the amount of both police and criminals, and those few cases of actual, provable police abuse tends to be magnified by how the few cases that happen are immediately in the public spotlight.
“How come when BLM protestors collect together with no guns they get pepper sprayed”
I know of ONE case of that. In the entire country. And the police officer was punished for the misconduct. And I believe the officer in question was suspended or fired.
“and ran down with cars”
The police are not running down BLM activists with cars. Unless you mean when a crowd surrounds a car and starts trying to break the window and the driver drives to get away so they don’t get killed. Which has been shown on video multiple times.
Or do you mean when protesters went onto a highway. At night. And then two women got hit by a car. Because they were blocking a highway. At night. When they shouldnt be blocking a highway. At night.
“but white middle class people show up with guns and everything is okay?”
Probably because they were not trying to break into cars to pull out the drivers and beat them up, or surrounding the cars. Or blocking an active highway. At night.
Also the people who got hit by the car were white, in case you’re trying to argue that it was racially motivated, instead of due to the protesters being in the middle of an active highway. At night.
Oh also the driver was a black immigrant in that case, not that the color of the skin mattered at all.
“Cops have a lot of power and almost no oversight,”
I don’t think you realize how much oversight there actually is, especially in a city like NYC, but in general in any major metropolitan city there’s a LOT of oversight, and most DAs have very little problem with prosecuting police officers who have crossed the line and done something actually illegal. It just doesnt happen nearly as often as you think, because there IS a lot of oversight.
“and any oversight they DO have is overturned.”
I seriously do not know where you have gotten your information. I’m just letting you know what I’ve seen from first-hand experience in NYC (and second hand in Cleveland since I had a friend who worked in the DA’s office there when I was in law school).
“Now can we stop talking politics and talk about hot super babes?”
I literally wasn’t talking politics. I was just responding to LostInSpace’s post of how the NYPD was sued 12,000 times in a 5 year period from 2009 to 2014, and that lawyers don’t do freebies, when 1) that’s a very small number when you take into account the amount of arrests, especially when the majority of the cases are thrown out before it even gets to pleadings, and 2) lawyers are REQUIRED to do freebies, it’s called pro bono work, and the Bar association requires 50 hours a year from every attorney practicing in NYC if you want to remain a practicing attorney.
That’s not politics. That’s just explaining the law, since I did work in the DA’s office for a year, and I am an attorney certified to practice law by the New York State Bar, so I was correcting what he said, since what he said was incorrect. I wasnt getting into a flame war. I was just giving easily googled statistics.
It is possible to determine how much the NYPD shelled out in damages, du to law suits. It was a huge number. That’s before the events seen in the above comic strip. One might wonder what the damages due to Maxima and friendsd are going to be.
The more you say idiot things like this, the more you make it very clear that you are not a lawyer.
Here, allow me to fix your idiot statement for you:
The very small amount of ones that did are sort of a testament to how rare the police abuse is successfully prosecuted, given that the cities already have banks of lawyers on staff or retainer who are far better than a pretend Internet lawyer, and the preponderance of resources naturally skews the results towards the more wealthy side.
In the movies the overworked and underpaid civil rights lawyer might have a great chance of winning his case against the wealthy city who can better afford lawyers than they can to pay off civil suits, but life isn’t the movies. In life the vast majority of the better lawyers go to work for the highest bidder, which are going to be the firms representing a city police department.
Don’t believe me? Then listen to a real lawyer* say the exact same thing.
* You know, someone who is verifiably an actual lawyer, unlike Pander who only claims to be a lawyer but then says things that no lawyer should be stupid enough to say.
“The more you say idiot things like this, the more you make it very clear that you are not a lawyer.”
Literally everything I wrote is easily googled.
“Here, allow me to fix your idiot statement for you:”
Why are you one of the only people on this forum who act in such a trolling manner with the namecalling?
“The very small amount of ones that did are sort of a testament to how rare the police abuse is successfully prosecuted, given that the cities already have banks of lawyers on staff or retainer who are far better than a pretend Internet lawyer, and the preponderance of resources naturally skews the results towards the more wealthy side.”
Perhaps you can back up your statement? Also, you do realize that the DA’s office is the one that prosecutes police that have committed crimes, right? Also IA, which handles the administrative law aspects.
I’ll ignore the ‘pretend lawyer’ cracks, because your opinion of me doesn’t really bother me.
“In the movies the overworked and underpaid civil rights lawyer might have a great chance of winning his case against the wealthy city who can better afford lawyers than they can to pay off civil suits, but life isn’t the movies.”
Literally nothing in this sentence has anything to do with my post. Did you actually read my post? The DA’s office does not do DEFENSE in a civil rights case.
“In life the vast majority of the better lawyers go to work for the highest bidder, which are going to be the firms representing a city police department.”
Seriously, what does this have to do with my post or that there are actually very few cases of police abuse in NYC compared to the amount of arrests each year and amount of police in NYC? All the cases are public record. You can actually check for yourself on Westlaw.
Also, who are you even TALKING about when you say law firms that are being hired by the city? Do you mean law firm being hired for the PBA (ie, like Worth Longworth and London?) Do you mean a law firm representing the police union? Because the Police Union has their own lawyers already on staff. Do you mean the Special Federal Litigation Division, which is the group in NYC that tends to deal with allegations of police misconduct?
You do not know what you are talking about, Oberon, or you are responding to something no one said. The city has their own Law Department. So does the PBA. And the city has a special division for police misconduct. It’s made up of about 100 attorneys total, and at any particular year, they usually have about 1400 cases, many of which wind up being frivolous. They rarely hire out to outside law firms for cases of police abuse.
Also not sure why you’re linking to LegalEagle, aka Devin Stone, with him talking about ‘Crazy Ex-Girlfriend’ or what that has to do with my post either.
Now you can respond by calling me an idiot or something again so I can marvel at your ability to argue and call me a not-lawyer just because you can’t simply google to see that what I wrote is correct. :)
I feel like I should just go to my office, take a picture of my diplomas and bar certifications to practice in New York on the wall, and write a little note of ‘Hey Oberon look!’ and put that on the wall as well.
I think I might do that the next time you act like I’m not an attorney :)
Power doesn’t corrupt, it just shows you who you really are.
“Any man can handle adversity. If you wish to truly test his character, give him power”
I love that quote. Who said it?
Quite true. Anonymity works in a similar fashion. If you can do whatever you want and nobody would know and there’d be no consequences would you choose the path of the hero or the villain? There’s often commentary on how the wearing of the mask liberates one to become who they want to be but are kept from doing so because they lack anonymity.
Arguably anonymity is a form of power – either raises you above petty concerns, like accountability in many cases (anonymity because nobody knows who to hold accountable, power because you could make witnesses go away, or you could have had someone else take risks on your behalf, so you aren’t directly involved anyway)
but like I said, arguable
its also the defence against all those things.
admiral general best guy cant gulag you and your family for expressing thoughts if they cant link them to you.
the difference between me irl and anon me is… anon me can remember things after webing a few associated terms until i find the thing i couldnt remember.
i suspect this is a similarly mundane story as the majority of the population.
“Power doesn’t corrupt. Power reveals. Because when you give someone the power to do what they always wanted, you find out what that is.”
I forget who said that.
Alari nanny discs! Great for keeping your kids, and your prisoners, in line and obedient! Coming to a big box store near you!
Also your local fetish store.
That seems the more likely market for selling them on Earth.
That…would explain the woman wearing a leather body stocking I saw with two fence chargers, a cattle prod, and a remote controlled electric dog training collar in her cart at the local feed store…
But what did she need the 5 gallon bucket of Mystik JT-6 for?
The JT-6 keeps all the bondage racks well lubed and free from rust.
If you have bondage racks, would you really need nanny disks too?
The JT-6 would still be handy, either way…
Even masochists like a little variety in their types of restraint. Some folks enjoy the warmth of leather, others the caress of steel and for that special frisson, the nip from the restraint field of the nanny disk is just the thing.
The fact that (some of?) the Alari use a device for restraining criminals on their children tells you something about the Alari.
“You will respect my authoritay!”
~Cartman
You’ve slightly misinterpreted things: They’re not a device for restraining criminals. They’re a device the Alari invented for using on their children that other cultures sometimes use on their criminals. Which tells you even more about the Alari.
Well at least the Alari only use them on other Alari. Because I heard that the Alari are mostly pretty bad, according to Cora and Dabbler. :)
How’s that for a logic mindwarp :)
Woo, Pander.
But Yer Honor, the space murder hobos told me it was okay to kill and loot the Alari because they have no respect for anyone else!
No it’s more fun.
But yer honor the Alari aren’t bad, because they torture Alari, because they only torture bad people according to the space murder hobos.
Who’re those “bad people”
The Alari yer honor
Exactly lol.
Those discs aren’t too far off some of the shall we say correctional posture clothing that various societies, most noticeably Victorian, had developed. If you took too long a step, stabbing pain in the groin, didn’t keep your back straight, stabbing pain in the neck and I believe abdomen (although the corset probably did that anyway despite being for a shape purpose not a training one). Although I believe restrictive clothing became more popular; although I sometimes wander if that’s true given some modern articles of clothing; less pain but still discomfort and limited mobility.
Alari commercials are some of the best commercials I’ve ever seen.
Was she forced to watch the commercial in order to order it online… with teleport delivery?
(Now that I’ve typed it, it’s more likely the commercial is a flashback and the disks are from
her stash of weapons.)
Maybe it was a memory flashing in her mind while thinking of the disks to teleport them in
For a moment I thought that Dave had decided to torture us by switching to a third track before resolving the other twos. THEN I thought that the “ping” in Cora’s glasses had been a spam commercial for Alari control disks, and Sydney’s message never arrived. Pretty funny, actually.
Yeah, it’s a “side-flash to establish what the McGuffin du jour is” instead of having a character stand there and do “as you know” exposition. Plus I thought it’d be funny that aliens have the same sort of dumb black and white incompetents segment before their infomercials.
In any case, Cora had a supply of them in her inventory. Whether she bought them or confiscated them from some tiger-Alari-mom I’ll leave up to you.
she recently had several dozen alari refugees on her ship….
Alari Tiger mom would fit right in.
You should periodically do some “how various Alari refugees are settling in, in various places on Earth” strips.
Alari-German Biergarten, Alari discovering Buddhist monasteries, an enclave of surfing Alari holing up in SoCal, and, yes, blue collar Alari settling into life in the various maritime industries in Newfoundland.
Alari-Terran fusion cooking shows! Alari on a Ken Burns documentary talking about their shitty history of xenophobic racist conquest, and others trying to saddle up & ride with the Hungarian fascists. Alari consulting on Terran sci-fi projects.
…and actual science projects, because wealth & power are still attractive, even on our “primitive backwater.”
Oooh, oooh! How about an Alienation reboot, with an Alari as the buddy cop?
I am trying to picture a very confused group of Alari trying to understand and talk Newfie.
A bottle o’ whiskey an kiss t’ cod, ‘at’ll sort it.
I’m more amused by many Alari getting hyper-competitive over social media ‘likes’ as an actual measure social status.
@Harmony
Would we really notice the difference, tho? >_>
You’re assuming Facebook was made by a human being. :)
The teleport delivery is probably what Amazon has planned next if the drones don’t work out. :)
Don’t give them ideas!
Look at the scan lines. It’s an unskippable ad.
Damn Alari.
My complaint is that is a very weak lunge. Both the arm and lower body position is not optimal and you will loose some of the potential power of the trust. If you are going to force someone to perform on pain of pain you should at least force them to do it right.
No, he’s doing fencing, she’s doing space-ballet
Space-ballet-fencing sounds like something the Alari would like.
I suspect that most Alari entertainments have the potential to become a bloodbath. Their version of the game show “Jeopardy” takes its name quite literally.
And they’re sorely disappointed by American Gladiator…
… and even more disappointed by their performance in MMA.
“What do you mean no weapons? I have a hereditary soul reaper glaive from …” *boot to the head*
Heck, I expect them to be very confused by Shou Lin monks. “What do you mean the pacifist has beaten twenty of our family’s warriors in hand-to-hand combat???”
They would understand Sousuke from Fullmetal Panic very well though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhAcqfI_msQ
Strong advocates of ‘Rule Zero’ fencing, I suspect, even if they don’t specifically judge the aesthetic aspects of the fight alongside the martial effectiveness.
(Rule One: hit your opponent. Rule Two: don’t get hit. Rule Three: stay on piste (or other fight area). And when you’re confident in those, you can try for Rule Zero: do it in style.)
The lunge looks like it’s an attack to the throat/jugular/neck, and not a power thrust to the chest. Granted I’m not a fencer, but nor are the Alari either. Oh and it’s rather possible that extreme force could cause “issues”. It’s the slow blade that penetrates the shield afterall.
Looks like the set position is a modified version of sixte, and the proposed Alari lunge would be FAR overextended for human anatomy. If you miss that kill shot to the neck, you’re not getting back up out of that.
Hey, what happened to the boy in the following panel? I’m going to assume his next programmed move was a diagonal drop-and-roll left out of frame to escape from the overextended lunge.
Probably not overextended for Alari anatomy, though. Especially if they bring their wings out.
Someone did mention something about flexibility in his bingo book – or I’m remembering another character in another story with a similar set of hobbies.
Although the guard definitely looks (most) like a foil, the blade position in the attack looks more like a sabre-type cutting action to neck/shoulder. This would also fit with the slight curve in the blade (for those not in the know, stabbing with the point works better with a straight blade, while cutting with the edge works better with a curve). He’s a bit overextended relative to textbook, but certainly no further than I’ve seen Humans use (and recover from) successfully.
As for recovering from it? If Alari leverage and musculature doesn’t work for a conventional recovery (pushing up with the front leg, stepping it back to where it started), then there are still options. If you want to keep the pressure on your opponent, then a forward recovery (bring the back leg forward to a crouched-en-garde position, then straighten both legs) should work. Or if you need to defend, bend the back knee to the floor so you can rock backwards, opening the front knee to get better leverage.
Now how he’s supposed to go quickly from a left-handed en garde to a right-handed lunge, judging by the hips of the outline, is anybody’s guess. Swapping hands in the middle of an action like that is simply asking for trouble, as it’s an open invitation to be disarmed. (It’s also several flavours of against the rules for Earth’s ‘Olympic’ fencing disciplines, but I very much doubt the Alari use the same rules.)
I don’t think he’s training for GAMES. Most likely, when he will be using that training, there will be NO rules, just “kill or be killed”.
If there are no rules, then I recommend the Doctor Jones school of fencing.
A famous improvisation that was probably better than the original plan. ^_^
Rhuen, you forgot the highheel shoe… of any variety.
to be fair the highheel has a backwards history, starting off as way to grip the stirrups of a horse saddle, especially to stand up and shoot an arrow. Which was weirdly adopted as a way for men to look taller, then women, and became weird ingrained into fashion. That said there are a lot of shoes that were/are basically torture devices including bindings designed to deform feet and restrict mobility.
I am a little confused. Why is she going to sleep with him again?
Did she lose a bet?
in exchange for him to watch the prisoners by himself without letting any go.
He is not a cop, he was the illegal tour bus con-man, he isn’t being paid to do this right here.
I would say more because in spite of himself, he did the right thing and turned into a kickass monster man and both of those things are pretty hot.
I see.
So his “uh, but…” is the start of him asking why he would do such a thing, and she pre-empts him by dangling the only carrot that works reliably.
Thank you for the setting my mind on the right track. :)
You’re thinking of sex too transactionally here. He will be compensated for his service with money or perhaps a real license to do some work, the sex is because she’s turned on by him turning into a big monster man and fighting bad guys, and she knows he throws good D.
I agree with catch. Cora wouldn’t say “I can’t believe…” if it weren’t glands that were pushing her to do it. It goes with the earlier “I hate myself…” He’s just hot, even if the personality detracts somewhat.
…Which is where the gag that Cora mentioned earlier might come in handy…
Pretty much this. I didn’t hurt that she knew it would end his objection, but mostly it’s the monster man ultimately doing the right thing even if he is a dingus normally.
So…he’s like us.
“America’s can always be relied upon to do the right thing…after exhausting all other options.” X’D
Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.… (Churchill) :)
Actually, is Ray a human? He’s got the wrong skincolour, but that didn’t turn out to be a problem, and he seems human otherwise.
Says Alien in his who’s who. So not human and on Earth with an illegal busload of equally illegal tourists.
humans can be alien.
example according to from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition. you’re an alien if you’re from outer space.
He could be born in space
In many cases, ‘alien’ just means ‘not from round here’. Depending on your context, that could be someone from another planet – or it could be someone from the next county over.
A new type of hulk that is powered by lewdness instead of anger maybe. But probably a alien.
She wants that dingus’s dingus.
Eh…I’m pretty sure this is (99.9999%, repeating of course) purely transactional.
Because he oozes raw sex appeal?
Per the last panel, not even he actually believes that
He ‘oozes’ something!
Let’s hope it’s not antibiotic resistant.
Oh, yeah, that would be nice.
Unfortunately, I know better. It’s difficult to hope when you know it’s not true.
I mean, OK. It’s possible some of the stuff he oozes might be susceptible to antibiotics. But he definitely oozes something that’s both antibiotic impervious and antiviral impervious.
I too feel like I’ve missed something.
DaveB, maybe those childeren tell it will have lasting effect as a kind of lawfull warning.
A little bit like the warnings banks have to give about the risks of lending money.
Clearly she’s going to sleep with him AGAIN because she remembers how wonderful it was last time, truly an experience that changed her life for the better, and his wily charms have finally broken through her defenses. Do not listen to Rhuen and his wildly insane answer which only make sense if you think about it even for a tiny little bit.
It’s because Ray is a sex machine love casanova, period.
Also, clearly her lack of belief in doing it is merely that it had been so amazing the last time, she didn’t think it would be possible that she, of all people, would get to have a chance at another round, with him being in high demand and all.
Indeed. Her prior feigned disgust was merely her trying to overcompensate for the idea that she might never do the horizontal mambo with the sexual dynamo that is Ray Cosmos. Lover of Lovers.
Given her comment about charge, it’s less the wily and more the willy
Are you think it’s because in spite of himself he shut up and basically listen then did what he was supposed to when he was supposed to. Sometimes just doing the right thing at the right time and keeping your mouth shut what happened woman decide that yeah she’s going to make some time with you
Because women have needs too, and despite his numerous flaws, he has many virtues which he’s recently demonstrated making him the right man for the job.
Sure, but that doesn’t mean she needs to satisfy them with a specific person she doesn’t like. Honestly, if you hate him that much, just don’t do it, it’s not that hard. Ok, maybe hard for her, because wacky brain chemicals, but my goodness woman, have some self control if it matters that much to you! You’re still human, not some alien with different biology! I’m pretty sure there’s some space robot thing out there that can do the physical parts just as well by now!
Her usual bit of fluff is now hooking up with a Sydney
It’s been stated that that doesn’t exactly matter to any of them, except maybe Sydney a bit, but she’s okay with it being an occasional fling.
Cora did say any and all of her crew are fully available to Sydney if she wanted.
She hasn’t actually said she will.
Yes, she has. Cora does not engage in subterfuge. Her spoken line was to herself, not to manipulate him.
But, it is more of a prediction of the inevitability of sex with him, not a decision to engage in it. If it never happens, she will not be disappointed, as long as she’s had some awesome sex elsewhere instead
She pretty much realized she was going to have sex with him as soon as he turned huge and was helping to fight the mercenaries. Mainly because he turned huge and it reminded Dabbler and Cora why they’ve had sex with him before.
It’s kind of like Leela and Zap Brannigan. She knows she will regret it in the morning, but not much.
There might be a certain alien detainee there that’s possibly already familiar with them.
Which could mean Cora returns to find a very interesting situation.
I’m thinking Ray is the Galaxy’s “Bad Boy”. The type of guy that women have a relationship with once, and then go for the nice, steady, (boring?,) and safe type of guy from there onwards because they’ve learnt how toxic and bad a relationship with a “Bad Boy” is.
More likely, he is the hot hunk with the personality that women don’t want to hang around. The male equivalent of a closet Barbie. Not quite a “jump-off”, because they really enjoy the process. Just no interest in long-term anything, or short-term anything unless “needs” arise.
This does raise another question, which implies Cora has no room to talk about Alari methods. She brought those, or transported them from her ship via the same small teleported type Dabbler has for this purpose.
So she has shown being quick to use lethal force and has chosen to utilize a torture device to prevent restrained prisoners from moving. Granted they will be down a guard or more (assuming off panel persons going too), but she has in her arsenal perimeter fields that induce pain if breached, (so holo-tech version of an electric fence), seems useful…for that purpose.
However we know she personally has solid light projection technology. So why aren’t the prisoners in a holo-cube imprisonment cell? Simple enough, clear walls box that permits light and airflow only, put around prisoners. Or hell the Jurain bubble body thing, this weird ball put around the body restricting movement, which they are already tied up anyway so the holo-cube cell makes the most sense.
Instead her go to is a holo-mold that is charged with energy to zap them if they breach the body mold perimeter.
Yep, Cora is a sadist.
Another explanation could be that hard light is very weak and those teleporters are slow with transporting lots of matter.
Her limbs are made of hard light. And it has hit pretty hard and withstood alot
Consider what happened with Max and that stasis field.
Also, while such a hard light cell could easily be manufactured, would Cora have a use for four of them? The Alari disks are very portable, and you can have a dozen of them in a cupboard without arousing (ahem) any suspicion… or anything else, unless you WANT to.
Maxima is an S-class super, she over powered the stasis field; it is pretty reasonable to assume if Cora had a stasis gun it would be a lot more effective on these mundane prisoners.
in my head I was picturing one large holo-cube, and yes, as a mercenary/adventurer having holo-cells in her inventory would still make sense for “wanted alive for questioning” as a ready made prison cell if you don’t have a brig, and like this very situation; you have caught prisoners in the field, you have minimal guards and need to take action. So even with restraints a way to keep them from even trying to get away is if you don’t have say a back seat of a police car or truck to handcuff them down to. Either a fold out cage or a holo-cube.
and I am not going to assume such tech would have to be large or bulky when I saw a fricken time distortion device being held as a rifle or hard light constructs not only able to hold her body up but function as shape changing battering weaponry in a fight and take on as large a form as a lamia’s tail as seen at Fracture Station giving Sydney a ride and tearing up the street. It is pretty clear they have access to tech from a range of civilization levels and Cora being a well known adventurer who even saved Fracture station according to some exposition we got is likely to have access to some pretty descent level tech; again if these mercs can somehow have access to a stasis gun (the single most advanced thing seen in the entire comic to date) then hard light containment cells popping out of a pocket sized device is also reasonable.
*I really don’t want to go back to ranting about that stasis gun, I said when DaveB said it was time distortion I’d accept it. But by extension that raises the available tech bar for anyone else operating in the same circles a lot.
You are also missing the probability that she has stuff for “wanted alive for questioning”, but such methods function under the assumption that you are not just abandoning the prisoners to go do something else.
But yeah, you are seemingly using sadist to mean “actively and maliciously causes pain” when Cora seems to be much more of “apathetic to whether an effective solution causes pain”.
You are also forgetting that she was “quick to kill” when surrounded by armed thugs. They were uber killed because she normally fights things like the fell so her standards are based on that.
Cora has hard light limbs, but doesn’t seem to have a personal shield. When combat happened with the fel, she teleported in a heavy suit of armor. In the fight with the thugs, she was a glass cannon, able to either kill all of them immediately or seriously risk getting killed herself. She is CN at worst and would personally peg her are a 6-7 on the 9 point scale. Being shown to be willing to volunteer to do the right thing (helping alari, even though they are alari), be the hero, but often forgetting to be altruistic
There may be a weight restriction to the teleportation and the other options might be above that weight restriction.
And there are practical cosiderations: the holocube and ball may take more time to circumvent or are harder to switch off if something happens (for example medical emergency).
Her limbs are hard light, so the devices to produce them are likely very small, a larger holo-cube cell might be a larger device, or several, but holo-suit containment like a fixed position forcefield that holds the occupant in place is also an option. Also stasis gun…does Cora not have a stasis gun, sleep ray, ect…it serves to give us more information about Alari society and Cora’s personality.
A device that tracks body position and administers a massive shock only when you move would require MUCH less power than a hard light projector that has to make the light harder than 4 inches of steel for several minutes. Like the stasis field that was used on Max that ran out of power in less than a minute, the more powerful your captive, the cheeper it is to only use power to punish instead of restrain.
Maxima could blow up the entire city presumably. Not exactly a reasonable reference point for the normal limitations of a technology’s energy capabilities. It like saying you can’t rely on steel handcuffs to hold the average prisoners because Juggernaut broke out of them.
while it makes sense those discs use a lot less energy than a hard light projector let’s look back at a tourist petramorphic alien who had a fission device to heat up his drink. the energy ceiling looks pretty high for the standard tech. Also her hard light limbs have to have a power source too and she hasn’t been saying anything about needing to recharge them even after using them in battles and changing their configurations.
Well, for one; Cora isn’t a cop, or any kind of law enforcement for that matter.
She and Dabbler(formerly now) are mercenaries that have very high body counts… of enemy combatants.
As Dave implies: “For those of you rushing to point out that Cora is cursing the Alari while still employing their “would definitely break civilized conventions if we knew about it” tech, I will point out that she is using them on criminals, and not her own children.”
So, it’s quite easy to imagine that just because Cora is willing to kill doesn’t mean that she is okay with, or ever has, supported the physical and psychological torture of children.
As for your technology assumptions: You’re making a lot of assumptions about how Cora’s tech works.
I am making No assumptions , we know her limbs are hard light. We know she can vary them alot, including making a lamia tail out of them back on fracture station. We saw her hard light leg stand up to a sword. We know force fields exist in this world. So it isn’t exactly a leap of logic to assume inverted forcefield , in other words containment fields could not also exist and that she would have access to said technology.
That is an assumption since we have never seen her use said, “inverted forcefields” before.
You are assuming that she has variation on what is, so far as we know, a very individualized piece of technology.
Also: the people she’s using it on just tried to murder her and some of her friends. So it’s doesn’t mean she “doesn’t have room to talk” just because she doesn’t care about their potential discomfort if they try to escape.
We have seen a selective direction force field, her ship has one.
A regular force field, the easiest to produce, creates a solid barrier, nothing in, nothing out.
The selective direction force field in one type blocks in-coming force but allows out going force.
when you invert that, you allow incoming force *like tossing a prisoner into the force field bubble where they can’t get out* and prevents what is inside from getting out.
it is isn’t unreasonable to assume if one version of a tech exists that its sister technology isn’t likely also present.
While her hard light limbs may not themselves imply a holo-cell is in her inventory, the fact is and I was honestly up till morning and too tired to think of the obvious less high tech version of what I was talking about. A Force field cell is less complex than a hard-light cell…at least in context here.
Honestly before I read the page and just glance at it opening the site my first thought was force field body restraints. Like sticking someone in a hard light or force field body suit to prevent movement.
and let’s be honest with some of these replies; they are less concerned about the actual differences in the difficulty, complexity, energy requirements, or availability of these other options; and more trying to make excuses for Cora trying to view her as a much let’s say nicer or paragon of goodness or whatever character than she clearly is.
I am not saying she is horrible or evil, only that it clearly shows she isn’t really law enforcement and either comes from a violent culture or has become jaded to criminals that she just thinks less about due process and more about, just end these idiots so I can get on with my day. She isn’t a hero, she is a mercenary. Just one with slightly better morals (such as not engaging in sapient trafficking) than the mercs they caught here. But doesn’t care about rehabilitation, or due process, or anything of that sort as clearly shown back on Fracture Station and here.
Yes lethal force is reasonable when there is that threat, but if you are able to restrain or deescalate a situation that should be considered; especially when you clearly outclass an opponent; her comments about Maxima show that from last page Maxima wants them alive; which also allows for questioning them about the LLC and who else is involved and so on. Cora doesn’t give a crap, she is a space cowboy as it were, wander the stars, take the jobs, and not sticking around to clean up the bodies; she is hired to stop a threat so she stops it; and exterminates the threats. In short she is more Punisher while Sydney for comparison looks to want to take the Spider-man approach.
>We have seen a selective direction force field, her ship has one.
That, as you say, is a spaceship. Not something personal and portable like you’re suggesting.
>it is isn’t unreasonable to assume if one version of a tech exists that its sister technology isn’t likely also present.
Possibly, in some form or another.
But Cora isn’t implied to be some great inventor like Dabbler is. (Or a magic user.) So it’s unreasonable to just assume she has any variation of tech on her person at a moment’s notice.
In fact, Dabbler’s never used such personal force-fields to trap people either; she made use of binding tape.
>I am not saying she is horrible or evil, only that it clearly shows she isn’t really law enforcement
That has been apparent since her first appearance.
I don’t really get your point here; Dave has said, both in the comic and in the descriptions of pages, repeatedly that Dabbler and Cora used to work as mercenaries and have killed **a lot**.
This page is just touching on one of, the probably several, moral lines she doesn’t like crossing or seeing others cross.
That line being the torture of children.
Relative tech. We have seen multiple examples of smaller devices which should have insanely high yield energy requirements, the fission can warmer and the stasis gun (which should require ludicrous amounts of energy to work as a time dilation device); so any argument of energy limitations on comparatively less energy consuming tech is null and void.
skipping down to your last point about me talking about Cora’s personality, did you read anything past that sentence? Because my point is a lot of these arguments against Cora using less torture like tech doesn’t feel like rational arguments when saying, oh she doesn’t have it because it doesn’t exist or it has some crazy energy requirement or it must be big and bulky; when compared to other tech we have seen. It comes across as an excuse as if your reason for insisting that isn’t that she can’t get the tech but rather that she doesn’t want it.
Basically insisting Cora is only using the torture devices because she never had any other options as opposed to approaching her presented personality as the type that wouldn’t be bothered with having anything less than lethal normally so is making due with the least lethal thing at her disposal.
To put it bluntly, it feels like you are making excuses for her to lift her up higher on a pedestal of morality she doesn’t belong on. That is what I was getting at.
This is the argument I am making.
Better tech for this situation likely exists in this world. But Cora does not have the more reasonable tech because its not in her character to have it.
while the responses I am getting come across as, oh she is super good she doesn’t have that stuff because it just can’t exist *while willfully ignoring relative level of technology implying there is no good in-universe reason for it not to*
You just can’t seem to accept that she doesn’t have any such tech on hand.
Like, if she did, do you really think she would bother with personally standing guard (continually at the ready) with some guy that annoys her instead of just slapping down a forcefield and being done with it?
As a matter of convenience, if nothing else.
>Basically insisting Cora is only using the torture devices because she never had any other options
She actually only resolved to using the Alari tech because something needed her attention at another location.
So far as we know, Cora was perfectly content to just stand guard until Max was done with her fight and more permanent holding could be secured. (Which she clearly didn’t enjoy, but was doing anyways.)
If she wanted to hurt them, she could have done it from the get go.
>To put it bluntly, it feels like you are making excuses for her to lift her up higher on a pedestal of morality she doesn’t belong on.
Actually, you’re original point is that she’s a sadist. Which doesn’t match with, like, 99% percent of her actions in the comic.
I have given a reason why she wouldn’t have such tech on hand. I am stating the reason why is not the same reason you are giving. Its not that it doesn’t exist, its that her character wouldn’t have it as it doesn’t match her character type.
Sadist:
her go to action with muggers was brutal murder.
and she had to be reminded by Dabbler not to kill while on Earth, and just last panel was dumbfounded that Maxima wouldn’t just kill Brut and Henchwench.
>that her character wouldn’t have it as it doesn’t match her character type.
How do force fields not match her character type?
>Sadist:
That’s not what sadism means.
Sadism implies deriving pleasure from providing others pain. But she didn’t hurt these guys anymore than she had too.
Her initially wanting to kill these alien hitmen was simply ruthless.
the last sentence was a god damned joke in my original post. I was asleep when I wrote it so maybe it didn’t come across right.
So ignore the fricken “sadist” part. Sheesh.
It wasn’t the point: in fact much of that opening post is a bit scrambled from lack of sleep. the entire real point is due to her character type she normally goes for lethal, and her least lethal methods are torture devices when in such a sci-fi setting alternative methods should be available. So clearly she prefers to just kill her opponents. So yes we are apparently in agreement that she is ruthless.
As for force fields not matching her character type…How many times can it be repeated she is a kill first ask questions never kind of character? You even pointed that out yourself. So yeah it makes sense that she as a mercenary/treasure hunter wouldn’t have containment cell tech in her armory as a standard; but rely mainly on lethal methods.
Dabbler had the same problem, in fact Dabbler stated this in the parkinglot brawl she wasn’t used to holding back so her non-lethal alternatives were lacking.
It is reasonable, especially given Cora killed the muggers without question, had to be reminded not to kill these people, and just last page was confused why Maxima wasn’t killing Brut and Henchwench…and I feel like I am repeating that. I think I am having two conversations with two different people in the same comment threads on the same topic, repeating the same information.
Which again, fine call it ruthless; the point still stands she’d rather kill her opponents and her idea of making some stay put is under threat of torture.
Just to make this clear, I wasn’t even expecting any replies to that tired post. Normally people don’t. An off hand observation of what felt obvious, ha ha….the end.
>and her least lethal methods are torture devices
Actually, like Dabbler, her least lethal methods are ultra-strong bindings and standing guard.
The body-movement-limiter was for when she needed to be somewhere else.
>How many times can it be repeated she is a kill first ask questions never kind of character?
That has nothing to do with what would be an incredibly convenient and almost omni-applicable piece of technology.
The argument:
Given the setting compared to other works of science fiction with much the same technology presented other options should be available.
The character (Cora) does not utilize these options because she’d rather kill and inflict pain.
One can be sadistic towards one’s enemies and still go home at the end of the day with a loving family, pet, and be the kindest most gentlest person in their eyes. And no this not a 1-1 comparison to Cora obviously. It is a generalization of the character type.
This was an observation based on her behavior to date: this is not a discussion or up for debate. Especially not something as asinine as claiming these were her only options in all the universe to restrain someone. We are taking her choice as a reflection of her deeper character. This is not a negative, this is a grey; or perhaps use the old orange/blue morality alien (human decent yes but still alien to Earth’s cultures) mentality argument if that makes you feel better.
If she truly didn’t care, then why bother with bindings and standing guard in the first place?
She could have just used the movement-limiting-tech from the start and the only one who would have been able to maybe call her out on it’s true nature is the captain.
We have no way of estimating the power requirements for the stasis gun or force field tech, so you can’t argue with that.
(The stasis effect cannot be gravity-based, because a gravitational field of that strength would blow up everything inside by shooting relativistic air at it.)
That said, I do consider her using the nanny disks on already restrained and guarded prisoners unjustified.
My intent with that argument is to be a counter argument to those claiming such technology isn’t being utilized because it would require too much power. Which they have nothing to base that on either. So comparing to tech we’ve seen that should reasonably require a lot of energy too to dismiss such unfounded claims.
I am given the impression these last few days and reading what I myself typed I was not articulating my point very well.
that and apparently “Sadist” has become an outdated term taken a lot harsher than it did thirty years ago going by what others have responded with. Which really my point was as you say, it feels unjustified to use them on already restrained and guarded prisoners.
When you argue that Cora was in the wrong because she had an alternative, you need more than “it’s possible she has the technology”, i.e. burden of proof is on you.
Successfully deriving the existence of the technology from her shown technology would have provided that proof, but this doesn’t work due to the energy issue.
Daily meta-nitpicking provided by Voyager. ;)
Her main alternative was just not using them. Clearly my view on this is being clouded by providing unproven alternatives; when the best alternatives are
Heatwave, Achilles, Amorphous, and Dabbler if she’s still conscious as Maxima doesn’t need their help; to stand guard as well.
Not to mention the thing we’ve both pointed out, they weren’t really needed as the prisoners were already restrained and under guard.
You are missing several things. Firstly, Cora very recently got the hard light tech. It is probably very expensive relatively if such a renowned Merc is only just getting one. The combined issues of expense and probability that she had only the one make using a premium hard light prison infeasible. Secondly, the enemy mercs also have high tech gear, and giving them any room to possibly use that would be a bard idea. Thirdly, the hard light limb DID NOT stand up to a sword. The sword cut through almost the entire limb and then got stuck on the backswing.
They are still tied up and under guard. How is sticking them in a forcefield box giving them any room to do anything more?
Also the forcefield box/holo-cell which heck I should have said forcefield cell not holo-cell as the former is actually simpler and there is no reason given we have seen personal force fields that a portable prison cell; or a modified personal forcefield that restrains someone isn’t something Cora or Dabbler would have cooked up at some point; like people being lifted by Green Lantern’s ring to give a visual.
First off, they are tied up with mundane *ropes* and are left under guard by *cosmos*. Secondly, the only force fields we have seen have all been vastly high end gear. The personal forcefield you are referring to is so top of the line that both Dabbler and Cora 1) don’t already have it, and 2) possess childlike glee at the prospect of obtaining one. (if you are referring to the fel shields, those ones block energy and explicitly not kinetic movement. They would be shit as a forcefield prison)
Your argument relies mainly on “this thing, which is almost defined by the fact that dabbler and cora don’t have it so as to express how high end it is, exists, so why don’t dabbler and cora use an even better version as a portable prison”.
Heck, the simplest explanation for how she got the nanny disks is that she confiscated them from the refugees on her ship.
THAT personal force field was top end, doesn’t mean lower end ones don’t exist.
the only viable excuses for not using other methods are.
She simply doesn’t have them personally. Not that they don’t exist. But given her profession and kill first ask questions never methods simply never saw any use for them so just doesn’t have them with her
We’ve SEEN lower end personal force fields and they are explicitly shit against kinetic movements.
Also, the entire latter two thirds of your paraphrasing of my argument is a picture perfect definition of a bad faith argument. I repeatedly said the most likely reason why she doesn’t have a personal forcefield prison, which is that they would be stupidly expensive and rare such that she hasn’t *been able to* get one, rather than any lack of motive in getting one.
I wasn’t paraphrasing your argument, I was stating Cora’s likely motivation for not having such tech.
You keep saying (or are coming across as saying) she doesn’t have the tech because it doesn’t exist. Which sounds like an excuse rather than an explanation for her using torture devices. Rather than examining relative tech being utilized by these aliens and going by Cora’s actions and personality to date suggests she doesn’t have them because she wouldn’t want them or have a need for them in her line of work with her kill every threat approach.
Again, I have repeatedly stated that the reasoning is that they are *rare*, not that they don’t exist or that she doesn’t want on. The ONE time we actually saw something similar to what you are describing, cora was fangirling over the possibility of getting one.
Also, you are bordering on illiterate if you have somehow missed the numerous times that I’ve actually compared force field’s present in the setting to what you are describing.
The various things that come close to what you are describing are present in: cutting edge high end equipment, capital ships, and sydney’s orbs.
In the first case, the galagar shields, cora is directly stated to not have one and very much want one. And the latter two are infeasible for reasons of size and clarke-techness.
And to be fair, the nanny disks are undeniably torture devices, but cora is not using them as torture devices. Their intended usage is forced and painful exercise for children, Cora is using them as a shock fence dog collar on prisoners. There is a league of the difference between the two to the point where the only moralistic quibble of using the nanny disks in such a way is if she was using them for long term imprisonment.
You have tried to argue that this usage is still immoral on the grounds of some theoretical better solution, but the closest possible equivalent is one she explicitly doesn’t have yet.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-885-gotta-catch-em-all-with-their-pants-down/
That top of the line force field still failed to stop a kinetic movement from passing through it and crushing the owner’s ribs. Yes, it’s Brut, but he was still just punching her in the ribs using a meat hand with a knuckleduster.
As for the sword grab, you seem to have forgotten that Cora lost a hand to that sword before her defenses kicked it and captured it in her leg. You also see Cora wince from the hand being removed, even it it was hard light, which would suggest that she has pain receptors in her artificial limbs.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-877-ray-tracing-amputation/
She loudly asks the captives if they were familiar with the Alari Nanny Disks, which from Detla’s reaction they are. Doesn’t mean she actually stuck real ones on them, just something like a miniature field generator to convince them that they’re wearing Alari Nanny Disks and is relying on their fear of them to keep them in line.
Ah yes because everyone of those aliens is capable of producing the force Brut can.
I do believe, looking over the comments; the intended reasoning was that given other technology seen, compared to other science fiction programs, movies, and written works; it can be ascertained that other options besides these nerve stimulus pain inducing devices should be available in the setting.
Arguing that they would not is odd to say the least given everything else presented. Instead the failed attempt at dry sexual humor (ha ha sadist..so funny), to fit into the general tone seen in these little chats; seems to have driven you lot to defend this character as apparently calling her a Sadist was some “how dare thee” trigger.
If we want to be serious then how’s this. Cora has chosen to threaten her captives, I can relate, I’d do the same. This however does not mean other options are not available, only that this gives some clues to her darker aspects developing her character as a, shall we say; someone who probably should not stick around too long after this on Earth if she doesn’t want to get on anyone in charge’s bad sides by stepping over that line; such as perhaps flailing a bank robber or knee capping a jay walker.
A tiny view into a likely wider and darker past than presented upfront, aside from straight up murdering muggers; but hey; who wouldn’t if able; and take their stuff.
Although I am made aware that in the USA it is still illegal to use excessive force against an attacker and to loot their corpses.
Assuming she put false devices on them seems to be trying to paint her as, I suppose, more in line with the culture’s ideals of morality than is actually presented. I suppose that happens when you like a character; you want to imagine they fall more in line with your own ideals than what is shown. Probably why so many idealize characters like the Punisher or Rick Sanchez despite the intentions of their creators.
Yeah, im one the side that Cora is not doing something as morally black as Rhuen is trying to make it out to be, and even still, that is some weak logic. Good point on the Cora arm though.
Honestly the comparison between the force fields that cora has and the force shields cora wants should be made out to be “this is a thing she explicitly doesn’t have and wants, the version she has can be defeated by a (high tier) sword, the version she wants is directly shown to actually be of a high enough tier that it could function as a prison, as only brut doing a solid punch could get through it.
The galagar shield also temperately directly stopped the punch, while the fel shields did not even temporarily block similar punches, which further suggests that the personal defense fields are not actually “force fields” but more similar to the fake ones Star War has where you can walk through but not shoot.
Also the sword got stuck a few inches into her leg which then grabbed the sword with little grabby plates that came off of it, this looked intentional on Cora’s part to try and get the sword away from her.
The clamps were an automated subroutine that would happen whenever. It is pure speculation that the subroutine includes “intentionally giving way to blows”, especially as that would be a terrible idea in combat.
I find it more likely that Cora’s a sadomasochist (enjoying BOTH sides of that dynamic), but I think the solid light projector is on her person (it is, after all, how she deals with not having limbs). It may be the only one she has. If that’s the case then she’d be very VERY disinclined to leave it there as a prison cell while she goes to rescue Sydney.
Sometimes you just gotta pass on your personal childhood traumas to someone else. It’s perfectly normal and no i dont need therapy why do you aks
She not a sadist, shes efficient. Shes said police are meant to be the ultimate deterrent and is wiling to use any extreme force necessary to prove the point. These alari devices are compact and efficient to other methods and make a lot of sense to me.
Cora’s absolutely a sadist, that’s why she put her prisoners into painful and hard to maintain positions and slapped what’s effectively pain-collars on them the second she subdued them, to prolong their suffering. Which she’s not going to be around to watch and properly enjoy.
Also, I’m sure there’s absolutely no way that there’s a range limit on her hard light stuff.
Also I’m sure she knows exactly what she has to go fight and what she’ll need to do to win, and thus doesn’t need to make sure she has all her combat capacity at maximum, so she COULD waste that capacity making a cell that a bunch of supers/aliens could work together to overload. Out of her line of sight. Where she can’t monitor and reinforce it (assuming her hard-LIGHT stuff works outside of “line of sight”)
Clearly, her only motivation is sadism.
The logic is undeniable.
Hollow Shel- the sarcasm is strong with this one :)
I agreed the hardLight body is probably very expensive and very sophisticated tech which she needed dazzler’s help to build, we’ve only seen a Max range of Less than 15 feet so far with no evidence of any ability to generate anything that isn’t actually attached to her body, and she’s had the pain discs (which only trigger if they try to escape) this whole time and only Uses them (with obvious Disgust) when she has to leave to save Sidney.
so yes, obviously a sadist- not
One experience, proves nothing!
Wasn’t suggesting she use one her own limbs as a prison cell.
and to be honest I should have said the simpler option. A portable force field prison cell. Generate either a mundane forcefield around them as a temporary containment *equivalent to being put in the back seat of a patrol car* which allows neither force going in or out (the simplest version of an effective force field). Heck I’ve seen sci-fi where something like that is used and then another device can come by later to lift up the containment field and carry them off like a wagon to jail or another holding area.
the next up in complexity is the inverted forcefield, a version of the selective direction forcefield. Her ship has a selective direction force field (in-coming force is blocked, out-going is allowed), the inverted force field is simply the opposite. The subjects can pass through the field no problem to go inside but once they try to get out they are trapped.
the only reasons I can see that these aren’t options are because Cora is a sadist and in her line of work/her personality of take no prisoners she simply doesn’t have these readily available in her armory to teleport over. Clearly her go to is kill first, ask questions never. Heck her not understanding why Maxima would want to take two members of an unknown group alive is telling. Its not just public relations, you kind of need them alive to question them, learn who else is in their group, how big the group is, investigate in other words. Cora is clearly not a detective and more a mercenary with slightly higher morals than the one’s they just snagged. Basically she just isn’t used to even having prisoners.
Oh, I’m just making the point that “sadist” is reeeally a stretch. A sadist takes active pleasure in the suffering of others, and that doesn’t seem to be anything like Cora’s behaviour, either earlier or in the past couple pages.
Now, I WOULD buy “ruthless pragmatist,” sure. Maybe even (as a stretch) a personality issue that involves an empathy deficit. But sadist seems like clickbait/trolling. (And I’m cool with trolling, but I troll right back!)
Wait, do you think the Alari psychonanny disks cause constant pain? Because then I’d understand your position. But as far as I understand, they only cause pain if you move too much. Torturous if it forces you into painful position, but mostly just anxiety causing if you’re just sitting around.
Also remember these asshats not only attacked people Cora likes and considers allies, they were actively trying to *enslave* Maxima. They’re not just stupid, they’re stupid, greedy psychopaths who have no problem with the suffering they’d cause for Maxima so long as they get paid. SLAVERS, DUDE! Fuck those guys.
It is abundantly clear that using the term “sadist” in a general sense has clearly triggered the swarm of defensive responses.
Clearly doing so was a mistake on my part. Perhaps it shows my age as to how the vernacular is treated and my rather non-social behavior preventing that social vocabulary from being upgraded as regularly as it probably should be.
to be clear I’d have massacred the lot of them without pause or concern the moment they were revealed to be slavers, keeping only one alive enough to be interrogate as to who their buyers are so I can track them down and reduce them all to charred skeletons for the audacity.
However this does not change the observation that the setting (should) have other options available by doing a comparison to other science-fiction that has displayed similar levels and types of technology; and that everything is a choice, and she chose to have those devices and use them for this purpose. It may not be constant torture but it shall we say, “eye brow raising” that this was what she had on hand/transported from her ship for this purpose; and not say a sleep inducing device, or her own stasis gun, or any of the other devices we’ve repeated a few times as comparisons or options that (could/should) exist along side the tech we’ve seen if we are to use other science fiction as a source.
Again dude, the repeated counterarguement is that we have not seen anything comparable to a portable force field cage other than things that either 1) cora explicitly doesnt have, 2) do not fit within any reasonable definition of “portable”, or 3) are clarke-tech (the orbs).
You keep trying to compare it to other sci-fi settings without actually paying attention to THIS setting. THAT is what is infuriating more so than any accusations of sadism.
Cora needs to get away from the prisoners. How far do those hard light projectors work? Because those constructs are not permanent, so it is reasonable to assume there needs to be a device, which constantly keeps her limbs stable.
Also: just because her ship has a forcefield does not mean she has a portable, low-scale version. Such things could be more difficult to make for all we know. The version Fell had actually allowed regular movement through the barrier and only stopped fast projectiles and energy beams.
Also, also: sadist very much wants to have their victims alive for a long time. Cora is for sure brutal when it comes to combat, but the personality trait associated with that would not be sadist. Dispatching foes quickly and efficiently is just work for her.
Dabbler also did not have non-lethal weaponry ready for the ARC-SWAT work and needed to respec heavily. Would that in of itself make here a sadist?
*fatal error has occurred*
repetition of questions from multiple sources within the same string of dialogue has resulted in an automated system response shut-down.
-Rhulan looks at question-
Okay I’ll do this manually.
Not only is she a Sadist, but for the hell of it and because I know it will annoy you; I also accuse this character (Cora) of biting the heads off of kittens, and ripping the dicks off of random men she passes in the street.
I absolutely refuse to humor this nonsense any longer. The program’s need to answer and explain things has its limits after all. Try to leave my little meat doll on autopilot for a few days to take a break and stuff like this happens.
To be clear the above response is due to the exact same discussion already being discussed in several small bites above your comment with at least three different people. The repetition, they aren’t even responding to each other that much; as though I am expected to carry on the same conversation in a written visible to anyone at anytime medium, with multiple people.
As one may imagine, that is frustrating to say the least.
That said, apparently the term sadist is taken more seriously these days than it used to be given the reactions I am getting. Just another thing to make me feel out of touch I suppose.
This is a free forum and you are choosing to engage with every person taking issue with you choice of words. If it’s tiring, and you are not willing to concede, then I might suggest you consider choosing not to respond.
As it is clear the majority of responses to this are about the use of the word “sadist”.
Everything else has been beating around that bush or quickly overshadowed by it.
Which apparently has become a term taken far more seriously than when I was young. I will apologize for using what is apparently an offensive term now; and not respond to anymore replies to this discussion.
Honestly what is annoying me is that you keep not paying attention to the actual tech present within the actual setting and keep trying to put forth a “miracle solution” that has been repeatedly disputed by other commenters.
When it is repeatedly pointing out that she doesn’t have a force field prison, you try to ascribe it to apathy that she doesn’t want one, when the only even remotely equivalent thing that exists in the setting is something she very visibly expressed enthusiasm over the prospect of looting it.
I actually would have agreed with you about the tech until near the start of this arc’s conflict.
Because yes 99% of the technology we’ve seen doesn’t really look anymore advanced than what you might see on Star Gate or Star Wars (minus some unique items like the Star Killer Base or the ZATS which break the physics molds a little of everything else in their settings).
The real thing is she already has them restrained; there really was no reason to add this.
On the tech thing.
the Stasis Gun.
That is what is raising the bar for me for what they could have; that and the micro fission reactor as a disposable commercial device for a can.
but the Stasis gun is a hand held time dilation device that even corrects for relative position to the gravitational body on which they are standing.
That tech…is insanely advanced, especially compared to floating sword bits, the forcefields we’ve seen, all their weapons, DNA food analyzers, even universal translators. The only thing (arguably) more advanced is Sydney orb’s, and I’d actually argue aside from the Aetherium causeway universal doorway tech it is MORE advanced than anything else they do, and maybe even tied with the impossible light they produce and negative space occupancy.
I actually ranted about that device when it was shown because of how out of place it was. But if you are going to introduce something that advanced then your setting is open for every other crazy sci-fi device.
I see a Stasis gun and I assume things like solid hologram memory projectors, pocket dimensional batteries, sugar cube sized nuclear devices, DNA lock ammunition, laser whips, causality defense vests (raises luck), and other such weird tech is also possible in the setting.
But I guess aside from the whole sadist thing, I should have not listed alternatives but just stated there was no real reason for her to use this device on them period. They are already restrained and under guard…not to mention the captain of the only ship they seem to have as an escape (as we still see no other escape options they’ve presented for some reason), is the one guarding them.
Only point I’m going to respond to is Ray Cosmos being the captain – he specifically seemed miffed they didn’t cut him in on the grab, so… perhaps he’s a little more persuadable that Cora would like to rely on, and, being the captain of a currently still fully functioning spaceship… maybe her desire to sleep with him (whether transactional or more related to arousal) is either indicative of her trust that he will keep them captive, or it could be an additional incentive for him to do so, in a manipulative sense.
the thing that should have come to me sooner.
there are four people no longer engaging Brut and Henchwench in battle, where anyone of them could come over and help guard if Cora feels Ray can’t handle it by himself without some assistance (as implied by using these devices). Dabbler, Achilles, Amorphous, Heatwave.
Even if she takes or two to help with the situation with Sydney, at least one could stay behind to help guard if the situation feels like they need more than Ray to do so.
a strip late and the most obvious alternatives come to me, go figure. But that’s what actually getting a few good night’s sleep will do.
Without proposing any unproven tech or anything, given Maxima is handling Brut and Henchwench herself now, the alternatives to using this device if she feels Ray by himself can’t handle guarding them without some assistance like that.
1: Dabbler (if still conscious)
2: Heatwave
3: Achilles
4: Amorphous
the other local hero-cops who were engaged in this fight and no longer are. I doubt all of them are going with Cora to go rescue Sydney (if they I will be surprised as one or two will slow them down unless Dabbler has a gate spell),
So instead of using weird torture device, one of the others off panel twiddling their thumbs could come over and help guard the prisoners.
Last we’ve seen, Dabbler got hit hard in the head (though evidence points to that she tied the prisoners), achilles is buried, and amorphous seems to be on perimeter duty? Heatwave was helping to fight brut and HW, but we haven’t seen her for months. That and there are at least 5 enemies (2 aliens, 3 supers) unaccounted for that Archon knows about. Most likely is that heatwave is trying to deal with collateral, trying to find unaccounted for, or also on perimeter duty with amorphous (other end of street).
That or it was some preemptive “aliens guard the aliens, or else we might have another “fel ship salvage” situation to deal with”.
As to the possibility of using the stasis gun as a portable prison. Firstly, there are two version we have seen. Both of them have 1-2 definite problems with using them and 1 possible problem.
Stasis gun:
1) single target
2) limited battery
~) possibly same tech tier of galager shield (too expensive/specialty to justify the expense unless capturing people is a main income source)
Stasis pod:
1) non portable
~) again, possibly too expensive/specialist for if you are not planning on claiming “alive” bounty, ransom, or slaving.
And for some reason you keep attributing Cora not having equipment for tasks outside her specialty as apathy. Firstly, keep in mind that this is a mercenary naval ship captain helping county police process prisoners after a fight in a bar. Cora have *anything* that can substitute as handcuffs is already something that would only apply in a percentage point or less of cases.
The disparity for what Cora’s speciality is and the current situation is essentially you condemning a demolitions/explosive/heavy artillery crew for not having easy access to batons and tasers.
Seriously, think of the situation. She is a mercenary captain of a space frigate assisting police with the restraining criminals. the police in question having neither the manpower nor the equipment to reliably restrain the criminals.
AND NOTE. the criteria you are talking about is something that is 1) painless, 2) portable (to the extent of being instantly accessible while off of the ship), 3) capable of restraining a half dozen people.
It is incredibly possible that Cora’s preferred method of doing this would be to knock them out with something, full search disarm them, and lock them in the ship’s brig. The nanny disks just being the best “I can teleport this to me instantly” option.
And secondly, the nanny disk as intended is a torture device. In this case it is being used as some handcuffs (more precisely a small prison cell of electrified fence but meh at that point of exact comparison)
And to emphasize what I mean, handcuffs are a pretty standard restraining device. If the intended usage for them is to chain a child to something to force them to continuously do exhaustive labor, then handcuffs would be torture devices.
Is it immoral for a prison/jail to have an electrified fence surrounding it?
It’s a motion-activated taser, that’s all. Real-life cops use tasers that are ‘motion-activated’ in the sense that they activate them when you make aggressive motions. Assume reasonable parameters — (1) the disk is not capable of lethal shocks and (2) it will reset its boundaries when it’s determined that the prisoner physically cannot resume the original position, thereby restraining the prisoner in a new position. Given those two assumptions this seems like a perfectly reasonable device.
I first thought that last page had been a fake-out and Cora had received a random advertisement pop-up.
What’s up with the ‘Can’t believe I’m going to sleep with you again’ though? Giving Ray some positive encouragement for helping them out? A negotiation to not run off with the captured mercenaries? Can’t overcome his charisma bonus?
She already knows what payment Ray will ask for services (guarding the prisoners) rendered, so she agrees to the payment as not to waste time on the negotiations that would follow after “but …’
Or it could be she knows he’s a good fuck and that she’ll be tapping that ass later.
Though I’ve never directly experienced one myself, I’m aware that ‘hate fucks’ are a thing, and the people that engage in them seem to think they’re far more stimulating than regular ones. Go figure.
It’s not “payment”: Ray joined the fight willingly (since it was his fault anyway) and nothing is owed.
He’s very hot but slightly disgusting… think “Jack Nicholson”… and in his “enhanced” form he’s hotter, and when his mouth is shut and he’s being competent and helpful he’s less icky.
If Ray lost the inflated ego and the sleeze moves, he’d just be hot, but he’d also be a different person who deserved no screen time.
you triggered the right memory. not RL Jack or As Good as It Gets Jack. Ray is a non powerful version of the Witches of Eastwick Jack.
Hes probably also *really* good in bed. Men that are that absolutely certain of themselves usually are. Men like him are major one night stand magnets and hes probably got a body count even higher than mine.
I wonder what would happen if Deus and Ray met up and compared their “Little Black Books”?
SmugD would totally be the ‘Bottom’
I could see him as a power bottom.
Still on the receiving ‘end’ :P
that is a terrible stereotype that implies being the “woman” or the one receiving somehow makes you the lesser one in the relationship. A stereotype mostly supported by bad porn.
A surprising (to them) degree of overlap? An exchange of recommendations?
Really? I had assumed that arrogant guys were probably really shitty in bed, cause they’re all talk and no… uh, cock. Not that I’ve ever done any personalized polling on the matter. Most of my information comes from sitcoms where the funny writers that got bullied in school get to make all the confident, braggy guys they write look like total dicks on TV.
Probably largely a matter of taste and preference (do you like a comprehensive or sensual lover, or do you prefer someone with incredible stamina // are you more interested in length/girth for penis-bearers, or a certain physique [[and then do you like round or hard bodies, etc, etc…]]). it would then also be affected by what your experiences have been with people that you consider to be cocky or egotistical. After all, some cockiness is deserved while some is not.
Theres different types of arrogant. This guy isnt just arrogant, hes straight up cocky and completely sure of himself. Hes the the type of arrogant that screams hes got the skills to back it up. Hes clearly earned the right to be arrogant, even if it makes him an ass.
Well, at least she’s honest with herself. Hey, a good time is a good time, right? XD
For a second there I thought the *ping* on the previous last panel was just the advertisement popup at the beginning of this comic and I was like “Oh, DaveB, you bastard.”. Got a double-switcheroo there, I guess.
Oh, DaveB, you double-bastard. XD
to succubus, sex is like food
he is probably the equivalent of a really fat and greasy burger, you get heartburn just by looking at him, but after a good fight, you need to calories, so you’ll take the disgusting burger in spite
Umm, where are the rest of Arc-SWAT? Are they all just standing around watching Maxi?
Mandatory 30 minute coffee break. They went to Grey’s papaya for hot dogs and coffee, and thus arent around.
Or Cora’s going to bring a few of them along to save Sydney, or at least bring Dabbler. :)
All the lights went down and all that, they could be helping to mobilize emergency services and the like.
Why not leave the local constabulary to watch the prisoners, and drag meat-sack to act as an expendable shield depending on what they encounter?
The local constabulary is likely not made up of supers and/or aliens with highly impressive tech. They’d be well out of their league.
By ‘local constabulary’, simply meant the Dirtians, the ones who know the local laws, in this specific case, the same ones who were personning the impromptu Border Security and Customs Checkpoint
Once Cora slapped on the Nanny Disks, all they would need do is watch them, if Cora trusts them to work as well as she thinks they will
Indeed – and I would HOPE being developed by the Alari, they’d have the ability to detect wing movements, BUT we don’t know that wings aren’t a sexual maturity thing, right? only develop when Alari reach some decent age? So maybe there’s no reason to have them able to detect wing movement…
Thus why they’re marketed for children – because adults would be able to remove them using their wings, with wings being some sort of psychic projection rather than something with “normal” proprioceptive feedback (?)
Just throwing it out there..
From, what I have seen, only female Alari, have those wings!
Interesting – how many male Alari have we seen? There appears to be a male child in this strip, but the apparently female child does not have wings either…
Comic-Time vs Reality-Time… all this is probably happening within a very short amount of time to each other events we’ve seen so far in a linear medium like this comic-strip…
I wonder how much trouble Sydney is going to get into if/when this situation brings to light the fact that she “forgot” to disclose the fact that her glasses contain advanced alien tech.
Given that Concretia’s employers have been watching Arc-SWAT for some time and have developed tactics specifically to defeat the powers they’ve witnessed, arguably that’s what’s saving Sydney – if she HAD disclosed the alien tech, Max could have ordered her to use them in combat and then her captors would have known to confiscate them. She could also argue that just as Dabbler as not obliged to share her super-tech, so too is she not obliged to share the tech she’s been gifted.
DaveB, clearly the girl was not complaining about the psychodynamics on Alari society. That was a feature! She was praising how it will change Alari psychodynamics for the better by teaching the wayward youth to be better and not shame their houses like inferior species!
Exactly. Or, as all pubescents, she was complaining about the positive features of society.
Ever since she landed I’ve hated Cora more and more. She’s shown herself to be a pretty crappy person.
I wouldn’t say she is crappy.
But I do feel that for some reason a number of readers have put her on a higher (morally speaking) pedestal than she is rightfully on. I get a Yojimbo type of vibe from her. Her and her crew are probably more like space cowboys, and aren’t used to things like taking live prisoners, so she just doesn’t have reasonable restraint or portable force field prison cells or sleep rays or whatever else might exist in a sci-fi setting like this…a stasis gun does…she is the paid mercenary with some morals and ethics, and simply doesn’t think like proper law enforcement.
good reason say a Xevoarchy officer wouldn’t want to kill these mercs; to find out who their buyers are, question them, make deals, to get names trace the black market, especially marketing in sapient beings and poaching. Cora, nope, kill them, be done with it, and continue on her way to another job that pays better. She is doing a favor for Dabbler and hanging around to catch up with her old friend.
like Maxima, good reason not to kill Brut and Henchwench, aside from the law and due process (even if yes they have used attempted lethal force so lethal force would be authorized), by apprehending them they can be investigated, questioned, to find the other LLC members, how far this goes, and the like.
Cora simply doesn’t think this way. She at best could be called an “Anti-Hero”, but even that may be stretching it (its not a well defined term in the first place); she comes across as the ronin, only with a crew; they wander the stars taking jobs; many of which may be legally questionable; but won’t cross certain lines…however they have no regard for the lives of criminals. A, “they’re just violent scum, the universe is better off without them” view point with no regard to follow up…she’s not a detective or local law enforcement.
I wouldn’t be surprised if her choice of a torture device was one part; just doesn’t have less violent options in her armory as she’s not the type to have them; and another part being vindictive about even keeping these people prisoner when she’d rather just kill them and be done with them…heck her and Dabbler talked about looting the corpses.
Shes a perfectly decent person, shes just got a very black and white view of morality and how crime should be handled. Shes practical, efficient, and brutal, but shes got normal morals and values, and is a perfectly fun interesting person to be around.
Was the ‘ping’ in the last strip her ‘porting the discs to her or a pop-up ad you have to watch every time you activate them ?
Sort of like the commercials you can’t skip on some DVD’s or the unstoppable cutscene on some games ?
The’again’ part kind of implies she dumped him because he’s an incorrigible asshole she can only take in small doses but she likes the doses ;)
Raised kids and dealt with prisoners…where were those discs when I needed them ?
No she was talking to Sydney, and she is doing this so she can leave to go help Sydney.
You know, I didn’t consider how the commercial right after Cora’s notification would read. It’s supposed to be Cora getting message from Sydney, then the commercial is just an exposition gag, but it does kind of look like Cora got a pop-up and watched an ad while on guard duty.
It works.
I friggin love it!
Nah it reads just fine. Most people understood what was happening.
If those are the things Alari use on their own kids I’d hate to see what tech they use to stop you from skipping their commercials in videos.
The lid-locks from A Clockwork Orange come to mind. Would love to see the advertisement for THEIR version of that.
It’s clockwork Orange, no leading A.
nope, the capital ‘A’ in A clockwork Orange is a Canon part of the title.
although, if all you do is look at the title poster you can sort of miss it because it’s actually
10 times the size of the rest of the lettering and has Roddy McDowell’s character in the middle of it.
They added it, because people insisted, on putting the A, in the Title.
The A has been there since the first edition of Burgess’ Novel, Sorry.
I saw the movie, when it was first shown. I am 69 now.
And I read the novel in High school, and I’m 55. Your point?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Clockwork_Orange_(novel)
Note the picture of the original dust jacket from the first printing. The “A” wasn’t added at the movie stage.
I have a copy of the first American printing, the -A- is definitely there.
checking Wikipedia the title comes from the author overhearing someone in a pub in the 40s
Saying that someone was as gay as a clockwork Orange
the inspiration for the story was when the authors wife was beaten by some drunken American
Soldiers, and she miscarried.
It was “queer as a clockwork orange”, not “gay”, and it was “Queer” in the sense of the word “Strange”, not “Homosexual”
Wasn’t it, like, banned for twenty years?
No, it probably was added to the movie posters later, because they missed it the first time, because… Americans
Like, we can talk about the problems of using Alari Domestic Torture Devices or whether it’s legal for her to operate such tech on Earth. Instead, let’s just all agree that an interplanetary treasure hunter and mercenary is not going to be considered a paragon of morality, ethics, or concientiously exercising human/sapient being rights.
Considering what the aliens were doing, using lethal force of various kinds, attempting to enslave a sentient, and so on, considering that the aliens can likely overcome any local tech or method, and considering that the Alari disks are not painful unless you move outside the perimeter of the field, this is correct.
There is not really any ethical question here. She’s not torturing them, she’s restraining them using advanced tech that will inflict pain if they attempt to escape. It’s no more unethical than, say, chinese handcuffs.
The legal aspect may easily get bogged down in the wording of the relevant laws. If I remember rightly, a lot of ‘harm-to-people’ laws are currently phrased in terms of Humans harming Humans: a bloody-minded lawyer could argue that there’s no crime committed on grounds that Cora is the only Human involved, and even she may be doubtful given her origins. That’s a situation that I’m sure will eventually be remedied with a more general legal definition of People, but it’ll take time for the process to go through.
Alari Mom: What do you mean I’m not allowed to correct my spawn’s behavior??
Gov’t Official: You are, but you can’t use painful methods to do so.
AM: But, that’s not correction! That’s… persuasion! You can’t ‘persuade’ a child to act correctly, Pain is the only effective teacher!
Alari Child: I- I’d like to try the pers-
*Mom holds up Pain Clicker, Child flinches and stops talking*
AM: See?? Effective!
Yes, I know most human societies still allow the use of corporal punishment by parents on their kids, but this is a fantasy world, goddaammit!!
This crap feels like NTR. All of the people commenting about how this is actually okay just sound like afterthought rationalization shoehorned it to make themselves feel better about it.
Cora’s use is one hundred percent okay. The design purpose is not okay. Conflating the two is fuzzy thinking.
I googled NTR and came up with Netorare (Adultery manga), Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao, who was an Indian actor, Normal Trade Relations, a legal term in international trade, and “nṯr,” Egyptian language word for Ancient Egyptian deities which sounds like it’d be really hard to pronounce. Unless it’s like “enter” but like, ‘nt’r. I’d like to buy a vowel, Pat.
It was the adultery porn manga
Given the responses I got higher up when considering other tech that may exist and serve the same purpose without zapping them. I am under the impression what I am seeing is more trying to make excuses for Cora; placing her on a super hero pedestal, so saying, nah other options must not exist…rather than the more likely…Cora is a ronin, mercenary with some morality, but ultimately jaded by the darker aspects of the universe and criminal activities so thinks nothing of just killing them (see muggers on Fracture station), and being forced to hold back and take prisoners isn’t her style so this could be
A: what she has on-hand to use, other restraint options aren’t her style so she just doesn’t have them
and
B: being vindictive towards these mercs by using a torture device to restrain them even further, she’d likely rather put a bullet/laser beam or whatever through each of their heads before she goes help someone she actually cares about but has to find some option.
Heck her conversation last panel shows this, it didn’t even occur to her that taking someone alive also means being able to question them after words to start an investigation to the whole scope of the problem and find the rest of the gang involved. Cora would just kill them and be on her way, threats eliminated, with no concern for local long term ramifications. The star trails are waiting.
So I decided to read all of your responses for this strip and I have a question: I’m a long time fan but I haven’t posted a response in years, do all uploads have this level of engagement? I’m kind of interested in joining, lol.
Also, my two cents on the matter is that her morality appears to operate on a more…alien? level than the majority of humanity as we understand ourselves.
Also, I agree with Dave, the more he writes about Space Drow, the more I want to learn about them.
Sometimes you can post and have no responses, and sometimes see someone a page later make the same point and get a ton of responses, and sometimes…like with my bad attempt at pointing out the obvious as a kind of dry humor get a lot more and a lot more spirited of responses than you were expecting or were prepared for. In Hibernation season I am not ready for spirited engagements LoL.
But honestly I’d say on average every page since year 2 of this comic has been guaranteed to have at least 100 posts in the comment threads so it is a pretty active area. Honestly surprised DaveB didn’t just set up a forum like Sluggy Freelance did; but that might be too much work to get moderators for and an unnecessary back log of repeating topics.
the funny thing on Cora’s morality I feel I am coming across as condemning her when I was just pointing out her character and what more we’ve learned about her. Heck I’d be a hypocrite to condemn her character as I’ve written plenty myself like her including one major one who without her morality chain (a character trope that keeps the more violent character in check by various means…in my case as a love interest the more violent one didn’t want to upset/scare off…didn’t stop her from murdering a few would be assailants when the morality chain wasn’t looking though).
Honestly Cora’s morality chain while on Earth seems to be not wanting to get on the bad side of the local enforcers that Dabbler has joined up with. Otherwise chances are all those mercs would be dead right now.
I find the comments pages work better than a forum, as they keep discussion easily grouped by the topics on the relevant page. Forums are all very well if there are relatively few topics that get the majority of the attention, but they bung up very easily when there are two pages per week, each of which could spin off a multitude of branching discussions. Seeing certain perennial topics continually recur (e.g. “Why doesn’t Sydney just drop a shield dome over that other person”) is, in my opinion, the right side of that trade.
Yeah this is preferable. Keeps a fresh start for each page going so new insights aren’t bogged down by an on-going conversation that a forum would be bogged down with. Or as I have seen on some forums an old topic being revived because of new information being deleted just because some several months old topic for it already existed on the forum. So no anchoring to those.
“Why doesn’t Sydney just drop a shield dome over that other person”) is, in my opinion, the right side of that trade.”” we know, that when Halo, uses the shield, she is inside it.
We know that limitation to her capabilities, we who’ve been reading for years and seen that discussion play out oh-so-many times. Evidently not everyone does every time. And to be fair, if you’ve been speed-binging the archive of your new favourite, you’ve probably not been stopping along the way to read several times as much in our tangential ramblings.
I feel like I should clarify. My complaint was directed at Cora sleeping with that guy. In fact, my only complaint about this comic at all is how devil-may-care and flippant everyone here seems to be about sex. Some guys don’t deserve it and I don’t like seeing them get it.
So… Your complaint is that other people do not see sex as transactional, or as a means of controlling others? Sex is something people deserve, or don’t deserve, or can be earned, rather than something people do because they want to?
1. Reward dirtbags with sex and you get more dirtbags.
2. If sex is really that inconsequential, if it’s really something that anyone can do with anyone with no problems, then why do we prohibit children from engaging in it? If it’s really that harmless, then why can’t children join in?
I argue that we shouldn’t be allowing children to be having sex specifically because it’s something that people shouldn’t just hand out like candy.
I wasn’t addressing how eager or willing the characters are to have sex. The way you stated your displeasure suggests that you view sex exclusively as transactional and manipulative. It can be those things, but people do also have sex with other people because they both want to have sex with each other.
Sex can indeed have serious, life-changing physical and psychological consequences, and children presumably do not have the necessary mental development to make that decision. That isn’t necessarily why we prohibit children from engaging in it, however. And again, apparently that isn’t why you’re against it.
Don’t you see any harmful implications to attaching the concept of “deserving” to sex? If one person has the property of “not deserving sex”, that implies that someone else could “deserve sex”. And it is those very people who you claim don’t deserve sex that are the most likely to think themselves deserving.
Nah. No one “deserves” sex. However, there are people who absolutely do not deserve sex. This may sound inconsistent, but there it is. I mean, you could say that some people “deserve” sex, but that doesn’t mean they’ll get it, nor does it mean anyone should feel obligated to provide it.
Also, my displeasure suggests no such thing. You’re inferring something I didn’t imply. My complaints about this are the fact that I don’t like that guy, and she really doesn’t look like she wants to sleep with him, but apparently she will due to some sort of obligation and not some desire to have sex with him. So my objection is exactly the opposite of what you apparently think it is.
If this is *not* transactional, and it’s just two people having fun for the sake of enjoyment, then why does she look so displeased by the prospect? This is the kind of crap I don’t like.
If you “deserve” something, then you have “earned” it, or have some “right” to it. It suggests that someone, or the world, or fate, should ensure that you get it. I’m saying there’s a distinction between “nobody deserves sex” and “the concept of deserving is fundamentally inapplicable to sex”.
With almost every sentence, you’ve treated sex like a valuable object that one person gives another, rather than an action that people engage in together. Your concern seems to be entirely about rewarding or punishing people with it, about using it as a tool to control the behavior of others. If your language doesn’t express your thoughts or position on a topic, then what does it express?
Everything Cora’s said about Ray suggests that she feels conflicted. She is physically attracted to him, but dislikes elements of his personality. She may feel that his behavior is fake and manipulative, rather than believing him to be genuinely charming, but feels a positive response to it, while thinking that she shouldn’t. Sexual attraction is complicated. People are complicated. Trying to reduce it down to a binary “complete enthusiasm” or “total disgust” is demeaning. People have sex for their own reasons, just like they do everything else for their own reasons, and you’ve either mentally excluded other possibilities, or judged them invalid or immoral. You don’t have to like other people’s reasons, and you can certainly have preferences with regard to your entertainment, but I don’t think anyone has any legitimate interest in whether two other people “should” have sex, and I think it’s a harmful element of our society that many people think they do.
Lots of people don’t get what they deserve. Some people deserve love. Some people deserve jail time. Some people deserve indifference. Just because someone “deserves” something doesn’t mean anyone is obligated to give it to them. I said that before. There isn’t the link between what people deserve and what people have a right to like you think.
In matters of sex, feeling conflicted is enough to know you shouldn’t do it. I stand by what I said when I said it shouldn’t be handed out like candy.
As for sex as a “reward”, that’s exactly how it is for men, psychologically. They’re hardwired to feel the need to continue whatever it was they did to get laid. Whether the woman sees this as a reward or not is irrelevant. The brain treats it as such and there is nothing you could do (at least for the vast majority of men) that will reinforce behavior like sex because the brain perceives it as the ultimate reward.
Yes, I get that sexual attraction is complicated. I’m sexually attracted to Dabbler (well, her artwork can be a bit inconsistent, but I’m not going to complain too much considering how much Dave’s art has improved over the years). I wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole, though. Some people’s standards are way too low (admittedly, some are too high, too) and I don’t see anything wrong with pointing that out and encouraging people to do better. Granted, we are talking about a fictional character here, but one of the key points to a story is to be able to empathize with and at least get a little emotionally attached to the characters.
If I knew someone like this in real life, I’d do my best to talk her out of it. Ultimately, I don’t think it would be good for either of them.
Also, you can read whatever it is into it that you want, but to me, it looks like it’s something she doesn’t want to do. Admittedly, neither of us are the writer, so what do we know?
Those little gadgets beat zip ties for quick and dirty restraints. “Don’t move, or it will hurt. A Lot.”
For a split second, I thought Dave had goofed us, and what Cora got was a SpaceAdSense pop up.
I love it.
Also, I strongly suspect that there is a significant portion of the Alari population that is just going to much, much happier & better off assimilating to some Terran cultures. I mean, can you imagine what happens in those brains when they get a copy of Footloose? The original, I mean, not that cash grab remake garbage.
Also, also…I feckin’ love “Nanny Discs” already and desperately hope we get to see more of them in the future.
(Yes, I’m being a hypocrite)
You’re not being a hypocrite by saying the truth. Nanny discs are awesome and the Alari know how to make the best commercials to deal with lack-of-authoritarian-supervision motivated pandemonium. Something that truly does require inflicting…. improvement…. on people who move out of their designated spot. I want to buy 3 or 4 today. Then I realize they are alas not real.
Yet.
I would love having them used on me in some of my more extreme bdsm sessions :)
I feel like…if I could also be a kid again, and get a do-over, I would consent to these as training devices…but not ordinary discipline.
I’m wired such that bdsm doesn’t work for me, really, but zero judgement here, lil.
Those discs sure have some Fridge Horror attached to them. The ad demonstrates how they can be used to force the wearer to perform a task. Presumably you could program tasks like “Wash the Dishes”, “Vacuum the floor” and “Serve me martinis” in them. Nasty.
Yeah. They’re definitely abusable to pretty horrific levels.
So Deus’s bodyguard is gonna want those things badly?
How is Deus reacting to “his” alari requesting things they are used to…
Would love to see Max put one of those on Deus at dinner to ensure he just eats and doesn’t try to charm or question her for intel. Is there a remove the smug ahole grin from target available on the commercial level disks?
ARCHQ finds out about these… Some will want one for Sydney’s motor mouth is she’s ever at another presser. Some will want those for trainees at a shooting range…
Extra comic incentive? Show how one of these disks gets around ARC Tower and the effects before it’s passed on ? Before after/during… last panel show Mabel from Accounting with husband. “Honey I got something from work the gals said I need to try out on you. ” Draw that pair of panels like Farside comic?
Show adds of Dabbler Tech that she invented and thus might not be against interstellar tech rules?Probably be some stuff to help males extend… in all ways. Her Support wear that’s easy to remove. Smart Rope that has 40 plus Shibari knot networks preprogrammed. Real Alien dongers that make Dragon work’s toys look comical?
DaveB you need to clone yourself so you could do “GP Afterdark” a real thing.
I’m thinking this act alone will prevent Archon from being able to work with Cora, at least officially. Not sure which Terran humanitarian agreements apply to an alien holding another alien captive, but I’m pretty sure none of them condone using a torture device for basic detainment.
and Cora’s best excuse:
“Well normally I’d just have executed them; so this was the least lethal thing I had on my ship to restrain someone with”
Doubtful. Maxima herself has given prisoners the choice of surrendering or having their heads amputated. (no I don’t mean Vehemence, I mean the other guy she was thoroughly decimating when she got the news that Sydney was almost back).
Plus like brichins said (and i said elsewhere a well), there aren’t exactly any humanitarian agreements on how one alien treats another alien when being held captive for a crime. Not to make a comparison to animals, but since they’re the only non-humans I can think of, it would be the equivalent of saying a dolphin is guilty of crimes against humanity when they torture fish…. which they do sometimes. Or a duck is criminally guilty of rape when they have sex (ducks are truly psychopaths – google it if you dare). Admittedly, alien species like these are different in that they’re ‘sentient’ (assuming we can come up with a legal definition for that, which is a problem as well), but the whole ‘one non-human to another non-human thing would still need to have some laws set down first. Which there probably will be soon for sentient non-humans (judging from all the arguing happening in the UN and stuff that the alien representative of the Council is having to deal with right now).
So Cora’s probably in the clear for using her ultra high tech alien full body handcuffs/straightjacket/manacles combo which is even more efficient than all three of those above human contraptions (all of which are not necessarily against any humanitarian laws when put on criminals and inmates who have been arrested). At least, assuming it doesnt risk KILLING them in the process of containing them, which these don’t seem to do – just extremely painful as a deterence, not deadly.
Sorry my post was meant in a response to brodder, not brichins. I’m agreeing with brichins.
Woo hoo! …ahem. I mean, yes jolly good, thank you kind madam.
Apparently brichins is vying with Yorpie for being adorable in their postings.
If I can’t work in punny, I shall gladly vie for adorable.
It’s generally hard to pull off at my height and build, but I did just start a new job with a bunch of giants… For the first time in 2 decades I’m the smallest guy on my team, so maybe I can be adorable in spite of my size. Although I think Yorp will always have me beat.
Oh god I want that bunny.
I actually have some cousins that own a couple Flemish giant rabbits, they’re super docile and pretty tolerant to cuddling. Before you get one in an NYC apartment though, be sure that in addition to a roommate you also have space for massive quantities of food and a highly-effective poop disposal strategy.
I’m 5 foot 3 1/2 inches, tall.
Pretty much anything can be
Sounds like someone who has never been tazed before,
I have. Twice. Both times I volunteered because it was a demonstration with Paramedics present . . Second time I landed in the ER because of sustained involuntary convulsions cased by induced afibulation, and no the device did not malfunction nor was it used inproperly, Yet years later they still have live tazing as part of police training.
I don’t see a contradiction there. If you’re implying that tazing is too dangerous to be demonstrated as part of training, then perhaps it’s too dangerous to be used at all.
The point is to make people experience what they’re going to subject other people to, so that they can fully understand the consequences of their actions, and thus make better choices.
I couldn’t understand what was going on in the first picture. Is that a lid from the pot? How is the pot sideways? Was she balancing a plate on top of the pot?
rambunctious younglings just caused pot of stewed flesh to be spilled on maternal unit. light blue things are alari wings
Believe they were referring to the *CLANG*
As for the ‘how is the pot sideways’, that was because of the spawn knocking it up and the mother pulling it into her chest, spilling the stew all over her
The white edge on the top is caused by the light from the window hitting the side of the pot
I gotta say… I’m kinda concerned about where this is going, regarding Cora and Ray. Especially after the crap she pulled with regards to the salvaged ship and her utter lack of respect for the reasonable concerns of the local authorities.
She’s heavily implying that she doesn’t even like him, and yet she’s talking about having sex with him… as compensation for a favor. Coupled with their conversation about anti-crime measures on the previous page, and I’m getting the impression that whatever culture she comes from is NOT exactly morally superior to that of the USA. Or even that of Thailand, to be honest.
remember, morality, like beauty and many other things, is in the eye of the beholder.
remember, at one point many “moral” christians thought it was ok to burn what they called witches at the stake while still alive. some also believed it the right thing to do to torture those with the wrong beliefs, like jews, pagans, or even other branches of christianity, into converting to being christian, then kill them to save their souls
and i personally have known christians who believe and preach that no matter how good a christian you are, if you are not white then you are still a sinner who will burn in hell
I agree. Though I do feel that those “Christians” you mention are people who haven’t actually read the manual, or at most cherry pick the parts they like. (and that’s coming from a descendant of some of their victims, and who is decidedly NOT a Christian)
But my point was that the more we see of Cora, the less she seems like a representative of a “Star Trek” Federation utopia, and more like a dashing rogue antihero from a galactic civilization somewhere between “Star Wars” and “Firefly.”
When was it implied that she came from a Star Trek Federation utopia?
Cora would agree. And I think it’s a good thing that she’s a morally ambiguous character, rather than everyone on Archon’s side automatically being morally upright. I think it’s interesting that she transitions straight from advocating for authoritarian law enforcement and telling people having an intellectual discussion about it to shut up, to complaining about the Alari and their incredibly strict authoritarian society, in the process of pulling out a piece of their technology to use on her prisoners. I don’t know whether that particular juxtaposition was on purpose, considering the author only addressed the latter part in the post, but it’s interesting. My impression is that none of the characters are consistently the author’s mouthpiece, and DaveB uses their different perspectives as a way of exploring multiple sides of an idea he may not have given a lot of thought to before.
In regards to the ‘crap’ she pulled with the local authorities, they weren’t expressing ‘legitimate concerns’
They were arguing they had the absolute right to loot a crashed alien ship and appropriate any tech to boost their own military.
Her argument was this was the equivalent of a shipwrecked nuclear vessel being piloted by doomsday terrorists with a leaking reactor and a payload of genetically engineered airborne zombie plague virus.
They just didn’t want to believe her because ‘A’ Greed, and ‘B’ ‘we are the experts and we know what we are doing’,
Even though in reality they didn’t have a clue and would’ve killed every body if they gotten their way.
In regards to the “legitimate concerns,” they were EXTREMELY legitimate. They did indeed have every right to loot that crashed alien ship that A: crashed on U.S. soil, B: crashed while engaging in an unprovoked attack against the U.S., and C: was taken down by U.S. forces (namely, Maxima and company).
Her argument was “that really nice loot you just grabbed? Yeah, it’s actually poisonous. Of course, none of your sensors can detect that, but ours totally can – and you should totally take our word for it even though you know nothing about us except that one of your foreign born agents knows us, and that we’re from space just like the guys who attacked you. And no we won’t offer to compensate you or anything, we’ll just take this obviously poisonous and bad stuff off your hands ,totally free of charge…”
In reality, people don’t have omniscient awareness of all the facts. Their hesitancy to accept what seemed like a blatant and obvious scam was entirely reasonable.
WHERE do you all keep getting the idea that this sex is transactional? The man throws good D and she knows it, plus he turned into a huge monster man and ultimately did the right thing. If she’s worried about him being compensated, she knows he’ll get a little somethin’ from Archon for the assist. No, she’s gonna fuck him because he happened to push her moral and monsterfucker buttons.
So as someone that absolutely loves being on the receiving end of extreme BDSM (and I mean *extreme*) these devices are of great interest to me and I really wish they existed. Wonder just how high the pain settings can go :)
Good girl.
*headpat*
i could build something like that tho not with force fields like author states. use body suit like vr suit, line it with shock probes all over body, like they do with shock collars for dogs, maybe even add some reward functions also
I’m sure there’s a version with that causes horrendous tickling (which would make it WAAAY harder to hold still), mind searing itching, and also that slightly fidgety feeling that makes you need to bob your foot constantly.
Wasnt Dabbler inventing a tickle gun?
Tickle laser.
“We need more non lethal.”
Oh yeah :)
Wondering now if Harem did steal it :) She looked like she was doing so while Dabbler was distracted.
I guess one of the scariest things to the Alari would be someone who is ‘un-correctable’, aka ‘is so stubborn that they have developed insane pain tolerance and can brush off even the most intense setting on the nanny disks and actually remove it from their person despite the extreme pain of doing so’. Humans who are able to push past the extreme pain for a short enough time to remove the device would very much disturb them (hey, some of us have been known to literally chew off parts of our bodies to get out of traps like animals, humans be stubborn when they really want to be). Humans who have that genetic condition where they literally cannot feel pain will definitely creep them out. Hm, maybe the Alari can have that condition too, though they might get either killed or brainwashed into the perfect warrior depending on the house.
These disks probably foster a LOT of pain tolerance in the Alari, though, either way.
I would absolutely buy those disks for myself. They can totally replace the need for a trainer. That’s the most annoying thing during the pandemic for me. The Gym is closed and in my home gym I do not have the oversight of someone else telling me if my posture is correct.
I do realize how fortunate I am when I can say that this has the most impact on my personal life in the pandemic.
I’m reminded of the wonderful short story “The Primary Education of the Cameroi” by R. A. Lafferty. Find it if you can. It may be out of print.
Also “Polity and Custom of the Camiroi”.
Woo! Another Lafferty fan!
Those aren’t normal children; those must be pod people. Surely they have pod people in space?
That’s supposed to be the remains of a pot of stew in panel 2? To me it looks disturbingly like a squashed kitten. (Please tell me Alari cuisine does not feature squashed kittens.)
Yes, but they can be substituted for kicked puppies.
She was preparing Melmacian cuisine.
Eat your kitten paste spawn you’ve to grow.
I don’t want to eat kitten paste, I want canary candy.
Puppy candy is too unhealthy with all those feathers.
*canary candy
that made me curious about something and to my utter surprise I cannot find any kind of poultry candy. Found beef and pork, but no sugar treats made from poultry. Given humans will eat just about…scratch that ANYTHING if it is made even remotely safe…and sometimes not; I am honestly surprised candied bird meat does not seem to be a thing…if it is I’d like to know I didn’t find any.
I used to be able to get four-and-twenty blackbirds baked in a pie …
https://www.amazon.com/Idaho-Candy-Fashion-Chicken-4-Ounce/dp/B004S07I08
thanks.
considering people will consume Civet poop, bird’s nests, urine soaked eggs, and beaver musk secretions, among many other things. I thought it odd I hadn’t seen bird based candy before.
To be fair the beaver musk secretions are pretty rare these days, most commercially produced vanillin(imitation vanilla flavoring) is extracted from creosote.
Which I am so glad about,
one to add is I am so glad the method for producing cheese quickly was advanced with science because the old one was horrific. I know they’re food but there is a limit to what I think is ethically okay to put your prey through; even house cats would eyeball humans on some days like, “what is wrong with your species”.
hope those never released on earth, imagine what all the ocd parents would do, like the sports parents, the fraternities and sororities in their hazing, the military in basic training (instant salutes and always marching perfectly with perfect 90 degree turns for rest of their life), or gym teachers and sport coaches
…yeah.
Marching form, that’s the real concern.
*easily imagines her DI using this to train her reflexes into permanently lethal reactions*
Check out today’s “Terminal Lance”…..the Silent Drill Platoon has been deployed!
I would rather check out the new season of Log Horizon, season 3.
just realized with the revelation of these nanny disks, that might be what was in the bag the bad guys were showing sidney.
if they do try to use them on her, i bet her anger issues might be able to burn it out. anyone want to make a bet?
her swearing might make those things glitch horribly. I wanna see that.
Panel 7: It’s very clear Detla has had prior experience with these nanny disks. Criminal past, or just strict parents?
Or just being bored one day and browsing thru the space-equivalents of the “As Seen On TV” Adverts found EVERYWHERE on Space-TV, especially late at night…
Think about it, if i were to say “It Slices, It Dices, It…” how many of us could complete that sentence? yet how many of us could honestly say we’ve ever OWNED one?
i could se some human doing it and then applying it to themselves, but not setting timer and since by themselves program would keep running.
i remember a couple of stories i read, one where man installed diet program in home robot, but when he tried to over ride it to cheat on diet, he made it lock him and his family in home, blocked all communication, made him work from home, and in end found out he had erased goals so robot did not have any end goal
other story is where someone set up home care to pet mode by accident and ended up being conditioned to be well trained dog after several months
read these years ago and don’t remember names or authors, but diet one brings to mind asimov for robot or niven for technology going wrong
I was referring to the artwork. The hands are facing the wrong way compared to the handles (which are always horizontal for obvious reasons) There is something white on her, which I assume is a lid? But in the second frame there is no evidence of the lid protecting her.
Basically what I am seeing doesn’t make sense (sorry!), so I am trying to figure out if I am seeing it wrong.
Yeah standard before / after scene shifts and continuity errors on the part of the commercial production staff… JUST like down here on Earth… did you notice that in the before pics, that she’s just an “ordinary” mom making dinner HERSELF in the kitchen, her hair is all frumpy and stringy and her kids are being KIDS…. but in the AFTER photos, she’s all dolled up, they’re in a high-class ballroom, her glamorous hairdo and unseen servants by the dozen doing the meal prep off-screen, and that apparently the only thing that her kids are for is to do Ballet and Fencing good enough to not “shame” their House?
Evidently Alari handles are mounted diagonally, not parallel to the ground; it’s more ergonometric for their particular biology?
It could also be a t-shaped handle. Mom’s startle reaction resulted in pot twisting in her grip.
I think DaveB is also mocking the trope “Too Incompetent to Operate a Blanket“, specifically the as-seen-on-TV versions which are often initially in black and white as compiled here for example.
Oh, thought that clear-white was part of the *SPLORCH* (the contents of the pot spilling out all over her)
And don’t, personally see anything wrong with her hand positions, it all depends on how she was carrying it before her spawn attacked her (one tends to ‘hook’ their fingers under the handles with the thumb on top, not the other way around)
The more I hear about the Alari, the more and more I realise they are just Space Drow…
They don’t have yet the typical D&D evilness story.
Active slaveholders, specialized in seduction and with some disgusting reproduction ritual.
Well all evil drows are outdated anyway. Check out the newer sourcebooks, drow can now be all over the good/evil/lawful/chaos spectrum and even have lighter skin colours.
Sure the evil lolth drow still exist but they seem to be more of a subnote now….
I know.
They even revived their elven goddess of the moon to make it work
Yeah, They are trying to be more progressive and not feed into negative steriotypes, such as enforcing people’s black and white views regarding race by projecting their fantasy onto reality. Basically the idea of an entire species or race being good or evil is really; cringy, to use a modern term.
While fantasy wise it made sense with folklore generally being simplistic with demons, fae, or whatever having either a positive or negative approach to humans (granted fae could get complicated on that). But when you are trying to treat these fantasy species as flesh and blood things it gets iffy to declare every single member a race good or evil.
It also adds a lot to story telling potential and give nuances to what aspects of the outsider perception of good or evil are due to culture vs steriotypes.
I actually experienced something like this once. I was skiing and got airborne and hit a tree across my chest but under my arms such that it stretched the cartilage evenly down both sides of my ribs. For the next week, perfect posture with centre of gravity over my feet? No pain. Off balance even slightly? AAAAARGH!
My skiing got better really fast. The advert is spot on, this technique WORKS!
I’ve been reading this comic for literal years. Considered becoming a patron many times, never got to it.
The new vote incentive? Cute.
Possibility of seeing Sydney out of her jim-jams? Check.
Becoming a patron? Worth it. No regrets.
Last panel: Dink? Yeah, that does describe him, doesn’t it. Of course the other thing this reminds me of is when Loki unknowingly taps Tony Stark’s arc-reactor in Avengers.
The NYPD alone was sued 12,000 times between 2009-2014. Most people can’t afford lawyers and most lawyers don’t do freebies. I doubt all of those cases won but an average of 2,400 lawsuits a year in one municipality is hardly “a couple of dozen instances of questionable justification a year”
Whoops, accidental unthreaded reply
I mentioned a response to this above. But I forgot to also mention that, in New York, all practicing attorney have to do a certain amount of pro bono work. Very often the judges sometimes assign attorneys cases to indigents (poor/needy people who cannot afford an attorney) as part of the pro bono requirement. In New York the requirement is 50 hours of qualifying pro bono work. The amount of hours per year varies from state to state. Most of my hours have been in stuff like arraignments and sometimes traverse hearings (that’s a court hearing where a judge determines whether a defendant was properly served with a summons). But I’m pretty sure that, after criminal defense, litigation is the most frequent type of law that attorneys in New York have to do.
So yes, lawyers do freebies. At least in New York, we’re forced to do freebies as part of our continued bar certification in the state.
Bee-Tee-Dubs, for the curious, Lorlala’s full name recital back during the “dinner date” does include Liglalathane in her lineage, so she was raised using those nanny disks, no doubt.
Good eye spotting that!
Agreed, excellent catch. I’m hoping Lorlala makes another appearance at some point, she’s so delightfully over-zealous.
Dave, I like the Alari too, they’re supremely hate-able and the complete lack of self-awareness really adds to the effect. I liked them before I even met them. You hate them compared to how much I like them!
Is it just me, or does the way the Alari children talk sound sort of like the blue aliens in the ‘Strange Planet’ webcomic?
Links provided so people have any clue what I’m talking about:) :
https://cdn.comicsverse.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2019/03/imagine-pleasant-nonsense-nation-w-pyle.jpg
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/63321624/nathan.0.png
https://comicsverse.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2019/03/DzPIR5pWoAMpfhZ.jpg
https://cdn.comicsverse.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2019/03/D0gM270WwAAYjJR.jpg
Is it just me, or does the way the Alari children talk sound sort of like the blue aliens in the ‘Strange Planet’ webcomic?
Links provided so people have any clue what I’m talking about:) :
https://cdn.comicsverse.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2019/03/imagine-pleasant-nonsense-nation-w-pyle.jpg
(I must have put too many links in last time because it didnt get through moderation)
I’ve deduced that more than 4 links triggers an automatic moderation approval, but Dave hasn’t ever blocked anything of mine. I suspect it’s mainly a spam trap. But I still smirked a bit to see a long-time forum member get caught in the double-post trap. :D
I mispoke – 4 or more links. I’ve been meaning to jump back to an ancient page and test out all the comments functionality so I can rebuild my comments extension, but haven’t gotten around to it. Maybe the new job will give me more free time.
Apparently it just takes a little while for the moderation of 4+ links to go through, because now both posts are up :).
I probably jumped the gun. In any case, it’s a funny webcomic (Grrlpower is obviously my favorite though) and the way the alari kids were talking reminded me of it.
My experience from posting a few too many links before has been it could take as long as a few hours. I think DaveB has to moderate them himself when they get caught in the anti-spam net.
I haven’t run across Strange Planet before, but it’s quite charming. I have once again fallen down the rabbit hole of trying to Instagram sources into my RSS reader.
My advice to anyone who paid to see Sydney not in her jim-jams is to see a psychiatrist. Anyone who fapped to it is required by law to see one.