Grrl Power #990 – Read my lack of lips
I love seeing people in the comments wondering if Sydney was going to ask about Infernal administrative services when I’ve been planning on Sydney’s mouth question from about the second time I drew this guy like 7 years ago.
Sydney isn’t great about not just blurting out the first thing that comes to mind, but she’s trying to get better.
You ever see animes where the monsters don’t move their mouths when they talk? I always thought that was pretty lazy. I mean, I get it. Producing an anime has to be a shit ton of work, but when I’m watching Devilman or Guyver and the demons/zoanoids aren’t even moving their jaws up and down slightly, I always wondered where the sound was actually coming from. Well, now I’ve answered that question, at least in my own little corner of the fantasy-verse.
It also means that if Grrl Power were an animated series, Dabbler would spend the rest of this scene using that voice speaker spell and not moving her mouth, increasingly aggravating everyone present.
Tamer: Enhancer 2 – Progress Update:
Half done. I’ve collected most of the good stuff in FC6, so the game is starting to lose its hold on me. Honestly, the starting semi-auto rifle you get is basically the best weapon in the game once you load it with armor piercing rounds and a silencer. All the other AR’s in the game are less accurate at the expense of using more ammo. It’s all about the headshots. So yeah, I found some unique SMG that sets people on fire. It still takes like 20 rounds to put them down if I’m not nailing them in the head, so I used that on like, 3 people, then switched back to the one-shot-pop-and-stop.
October’s vote incentive is up! This is a redraw of a comic I did in 2011 I think, but never published. I had originally pictured the comic going through an establishment phase, and then taking occasional breaks from the storylines for little one-off moments like these. Which I guess I could still do. I just got wrapped up in the story telling and forgot.
So Dabbler and Sydney are up late one evening on night watch but Dabbler has just discovered Cinemax…
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Sydney’s one big weakness, putting her foot in her mouth and just making it worse the more she tries to backtrack. Reminds me of her foot in mouth ramblings when she first learned about Peggy’s leg.
Another thing that seems a bit off to me is that demons are about chaos, devils are about order, both being evil of course. So is Thothogoth actually a devil & everyone (including himself) referring to him incorrectly?
Tom might take offence to that too. He seems like a bit of a drama queen.
”Typical DnD centric stereotype. Not all demons follow your RPG standards you know.”
Tom is just covering for the fact that he’s embarrassed to be Canadian. He watched most of the Terrance and Philip episodes as part of his pre-invasion intelligence gathering, and he’s well-aware of just how brutal Americans could be if they find out the Truth. This is all an act to throw Sydney of the scent.
To be fair, that’s a pop culture thing, and not even consistent. So not necessarily the case here, if the destination even exists.
For example while DnD and it’s various spin offs have demons as chaotic and devils as lawful, the MTG multiverse has the reverse, with demons making deals and being lords and devils being the murderous little chaos gremlins.
Which, incidentally, lead to some shenanigans when WoTC made their MTG setting guides but didn’t switch the titles of demons/devils leading to some heavy world building dissonance with characters and enemies that were the opposite of their in universe racial guidelines, with no explanation as to why.
Cus as they’ve tried mixing IPs and growing their brand they’ve generally done so with all the consistency and care of someone assembling their first ikea furniture
also in several tv shows and books demon just refers to someone powerfull(i,e that time i reincarnated as a slime) the one fantasty race that has remained remarkably consistent throughout its pop culture history has been the dwarves, pretty much everything else has some pretty wild differences between universes
On the “that time I got reincarnated as a slime” thing, the usage of demon, and more relevantly demon lord, is very much a translation kerflufle. I don’t know Japanese, so this is just a combination of repeating things I’ve seen from translators coupled with my own observations from watching subbed anime and reading a broad variety of translation quality in manga, but I have watched and read LOOOOOOTS of isekai anime, manga, and light novels, and the latter two categories have mostly been amateur scanlators, so I’ve been able to see some stuff like certain common mistakes, how some stuff can have multiple “valid” translations, and how the connotations for how a given word is supposed to be interpreted can vary wildly from author to author, and the Slime-isekai is actually a very interesting crossection.
As far as I can tell, there is a word (or word part, as it seems to be more commonly used as a prefix, like in Maou, Mahou, and Majin) that can either mean magic OR demon, which leads to a lot of confusion when it comes to translations. Generally speaking, you can tell which was intended based on the context, especially from the art, but not always. A good example of this is Megumin from Konosuba, in the official English translations her race is translated as the “Crimson Demon” clan (I don’t know what the original Japanese is), but some popular unofficial translations use “Crimson Magic” clan instead, because it is clear that A, they are *not* demons as the term is used in universe, and B, their defining characteristics that set them apart from regular humans are their crimson eyes and their massive amount of magic power (as well as their chuunibyou tendencies, but that seems to be largely cultural rather than necessarily innate), so I would argue that “Crimson Magic” is probably a more accurate translation for how the author intended it to be used (although given their chuuni tendencies the intention might actually have been demon, considering they named themselves, but I still think magic is a better translation both because it more accurately describes them and because it differentiates them from actual demons as they exist in universe). In addition to the Crimson Demon clan, and the demon army, there are also devils who seem to actually come from some kind of hell, which may or may not have anything to directly do with the demons, the guy in the mask (I’m blanking on his name, but I think it started with a V) is an archdevil, and it appears that what he is and where he comes from is different from most of the rest of the demons, despite the fact that he was also one of the demon generals.
As for Slime-Isekai, there seems to be basically three usages for “demon” and I am unsure of what the original Japanese words are for each of these, I know one of them, can guess another, but have no idea for the third. There are Majin, which seems to be a catchall term either for all sentient non-humans, like the Oni, the Hobgoblins, etc. or it might be more specifically the non-human followers of the Demon Lords (I am unsure of when and where the word gets applied in Japanese, due to inconsistencies in translations that I have encountered, and the fact that I am not reading it in Japanese, not that I could). This seems to be intended to be more of a “the magic races” type thing, but it generally gets treated as “demons” both in-universe and by translators/fans. Then there are the Demon Lords, which is probably Maou in the original Japanese, but I have not confirmed that, Maou is sometimes (in general, not Slime-Isekai) translated as Demon Lord, Demon King, or simply Devil (The Devil is a Part-Timer is a great example of this usage). In Slime-Isekai the Demon Lords are basically incredibly powerful Majin that lead organizations of other Majin and control territory, at least from the perspective of the humans, as the council of Demon Lords seems to require that one be on their council in order to claim the title, but they don’t seem to care if the humans call you that regardless, this is shown because Rimuru is called a Demon Lord long before he claims the title for himself, but this council doesn’t get involved until Rimuru starts actually claiming the title (although that’s mostly Clayman, it is at least implied that the council wouldn’t have bothered with challenging the title if Rimuru wasn’t actually claiming it for himself). Then on top of this, even within this council there is a distinction between Demon Lords and True Demon Lords, as not every Demon Lord on the council has awaked AS a Demon Lord, as that has specific requirements that must be met and if they are then you are innately a Demon Lord regardless of what the council says, so the public can call you a Demon Lord just for being powerful and controlling other Majin, you can only call yourself a Demon Lord if you are a member of the council, and both of those are different from BEING a Demon Lord (so it’s hypothetically possible to BE a Demon Lord and NOT be allowed to claim the title, nor have anyone call you a Demon Lord). Then, to confuse matters even further, there are also a race of just actual demons, who seem to come from another dimension and get summoned in some fashion, one such method is awakening as a Demon Lord seems to summon actual demons to be subordinates, but there may be other ways for demons to come here, and they apparently CAN also awaken as Demon Lords themselves, examples of this race are Noir and Guy Crimson. I do not know what Japanese word is used for this demon race, but I would imagine it is neither Majin nor Maou, but if it is one of those that just adds another layer to the confusion.
All that is to say, that using English translations of Japanese works is probably not the best example for how English terms like Demon and Devil should be used. Granted, the point that different sources ascribe different attributes is still valid, even if the given example is not the best. Some sources I have seen (can’t recall which ones, though) use demon and devil interchangeably, some have demons be lesser evil entities ruled by devils, or vice versa, some have them be wholly separate things but the divide is NOT law/chaos based but some other thing, and, as previously noted, we have the law/chaos division popularized by D&D.
Also, I could be wrong, but IIRC when Dabbler was explaining the different kinds of magic to Sydney, I feel like she mentioned a Law/Chaos axis and said that was what separated devils from demons as it overlaps with the evil side of the good/evil axis, meaning Sydney’s assumption that demons were less ordered and devils were more ordered could be at least partially informed by Dabbler’s prior explanation for how the various magics have impacted various races. Or I could be remembering totally incorrectly.
In the case of Guy Crimson and Noir, or Diablo as he is named eventually, they’re just called Maou but they also have the title of Primordial, meaning they’re one of the 5 original demons which all other demons kinda sprung forth from as fragments of their being. Crimson and Noir were the Red and Black Primordials. Apparently, Guy managed to somehow gain permanent residency in the mortal realm a LONG time ago and quickly became one of the original Demon Lords and I THINK his story is kinda what set the precedence for becoming a Demon lord in the first place?
Events in the past and future seem to kinda shape the rules of that world on the fly.
Quick, someone give me the TLDR
TL;DR: demons are different in some asian stories than in most western stories.
Your explanation seems to mostly make sense; I’d add a few factoids, like Slime isekai’s “true” demon race (like Guy Crimson and Noir) are supposedly “darkness” elementals (whatever that element represents in the context of this setting), and while I don’t remember if either were used, two words often used in Japanese for “demons” are akuma (which is also used to mean devil) and mazoku (most famously for grognards like me in Ye Olde Franchise Slayers; you know, the one with Lina Inverse).
Oni are often translated as demons, devils, ogres or trolls.
True, but they’re usually a different type of being (such as in Slime isekai, where they lean more into ogre territory).
Honestly, in my opinion, translating *anything* Japanese into english using the term “Demon” or “Devil” is just asking for problems. The reason being is the two ideas are not 1:1.
There’s multiple things that, religiously, when they get translated cross-culture, they choose a term that the translators at the time feel is very roughly equivilent, and then that sticks by tradition, despite both creatures having zero to do with each other. Oni are oni, they aren’t demons. Demons are demons, they aren’t oni. Kami aren’t gods, gods aren’t Kami.
Yes, there’s similarities, but they’re far from the same thing.
Just accept things don’t have a translation and use the native word.
A big example of this is the word “God”. Seriously, this one is soooo loaded.
Imagine how differently Greek mythology would have been perceived if they had called Zeus, Aphrodite, Apollo, etc. Angels, and instead of calling Heracles a demi-god had called him a Nephillim, and the one thing they called God was Xaos. That’s a MUCH closer to 1:1 when comparing Christianity and Greek Paganism. And if you did similar with Hinduism, God would be Brahman, while Vishnu and Shiva might be better called incarnations. Just that change in translation all of a sudden would invalidate a lot of the justification for religious wars between the Hindus and the Muslims.
However, in all these cases, they’re not 1:1, they’re their own things.
It strikes me that frequently the way religious terms were ‘translated’, it was specifically to ‘otherize’ the other culture as much as possible to make it seem inferior. Really, it’s a bad habit humans have.
“Othering” is nearly synonymous with “categorizing” (just with the addition of “I am in this category”), which is one of the critical skills/instincts/capabilities that forms the basis of intelligence. Not sure I quite agree with “bad habit”…
The difference between otherizing vs categorizing is when you put people in the category that makes it more different from you even if the more similar one is more fitting.
Othering has the additional implication of that category being “bad”, mostly by way of being different.
Thought I’d help out a little here. You’re on the right track. I do speak Japanese, though admittedly not fluently, and there is a lot of mistranslation due to trying to ‘americanize’ the script so that it is easier for an English speaking audience to follow. The word ‘mahou’ translates to magic, loosely. With how Japanese works as a language there is a tendency to take part of that word and apply it elsewhere to create terms that follow in a similar vein. As such: ‘majin’. The suffix ‘jin’ refers to a race (ie: Nihonjin translates to ‘Japanese’ when referring to someone’s nationality) and ‘ma’ is pulled directly from ‘mahou’ to create ‘majin’, or loosely translated ‘magical race’. It wouldn’t make much sense if translated that way so they tend to just leave it as ‘majin’ and people assume what it is by induction. Lastly the tough one: Demon Lord, or Maou. Again you see the character ‘ma’ being used with a known word (ou) that translates to ‘King’ or ‘Ruler’. Thus the literal translation is ‘magical ruler’ but if you used that as the title for these incredibly awesome characters it would be a little…bland. Therefor the translators often tweak it a little bit so that while it isn’t a perfect literal translation from one language to another it at least sounds really cool. I speak several languages and I often see literal translations being adjusted because when they are directly transcribed they really don’t work in a 1:1 fashion. You have to adjust to make sure that the person on the other end of that translation can understand the meaning more than the specific word choices.
Yeah, most ‘literal translations’ ignore context that end up with people complaining about it being too literal and losing the subtle meaning (usually by people not native to the language being translated)
But then you get ‘contextual translations’ with a different group complaining about the translators ‘taking liberties’ with the original source material :P
It is exceedingly difficult in many cases for a translation to convey the same information in roughly the same amount of time or space, and you’re ultimately depending on the translator understanding all the implications of the work in the first place.
I am still waiting for that ‘isekai’ story where the wide eyed, naive, adolescent white kid is transported to a mysterious, magical land where he dies a week later because he can’t get insulin, and then we hook up with the hero of the story who has a job to get back to since this interloper punked out.
That is my, shtick
I thought your shtick was chronic misuse and abuse of commas. I mean, you demonstrated it right there.
Dabbler did say “Neither of us are devils” and she was talking *to* him, so either he’s not a devil or he’s deceived dabbler, which would be pretty impressive.
There is always the Myth Inc. take on demons…dimension travelers (or was that demension… I forget).
Oh hey! It’s been a while since I saw another Myth Inc fan. To be fair that series kinda falls into that lane of “we are very clearly trying to mess with the way things are commonly done for comedic effect” (just look at the deveeels) so using them as a guideline results in information telephone.
Sure, but white guilt? WTF to humans or white people have to feel guilty about in regards to DEMONS…?
Maybe the fact that they’re represented as Always Chaotic Evil though they clearly aren’t? It’s like in Mass Effect portraying all the Geth as genocidal cat’s-paws of the Reapers when it’s only a small minority that are (non-heretic Geth are pretty chill). Same with the Rachni from the same setting.
The arrow literally says “…while not entirely relevant…”
not the slightest bit relevant.
because the terminology comes from W.A.S.P’s (white anglo saxon protestants) so specifically is suggested to be according to ‘whites’ (even though most of us are a weird pink-type colour bordering on yellow and brown without achieving orange…for the most part
(i’m having a bit of fun here, in case you can’t tell)
Humans are all the same colors as wood. Every shade of the wood of every tree, there are people that color. Every shade of human that exists, there are trees whose wood is that color.
Our last common ancestor with trees was a very very long time ago so this is surely just a coincidence, but sometimes things just work out.
at least a few cENTuries
She doesn’t just put her foot in her mouth. She CHEWS.
So, if the shirt that Dabbler is wearing isn’t the Demon’s shirt, then whose shirt is it?…
I suppose in theory it could be his shirt, but not one he wears, (Shoulder spikes!) but one he brought along because he thought Dabbler would look cute in it.
It IS the shirt of someone she “rolled in the hay” with, she just stored it afterwards for the times when her latest partner doesn’t have one. Like now… :P
A professional succubus prepare for when their partner don’t have any shirt.
That sounds like Dabbler; Willing to take shirt from just about anyone…
She found Math’s shirt from where Jabberwocky and Detla hid it
Well in #311 tom was wearing A white shirt, so it’s probably that one.
It’s The shirt, the archetypal quintessential post hookup boyfriend shirt worn by every post coital girlfriend ever.
It’s just a bit of illusion-glamour she magicked up because it was appropriate for the moment. (By Dabbler’s standards of “appropriate”.) She’s actually naked.
It has four arm holes. It’s her own.
I would say it’s just a glamour illusion but that isn’t an interesting answer.
Dabs ‘hammerspace’ shirt.
With sleeves for 4 limbs, I would say it’s either her own or it’s one she had in her possession or else conjured specifically for use during this ritual.
It’s designed to tweak Maxi while also tweaking Maxi (being, the alternative is Dabbles not wearing anything :D )
So is he going down on someone, does that mean that he can talk without sounding muffled? Does he even have a tongue?
I bet he has a tongue when he wants to. ;)
I bet he has a tounge when Dabbler wants him to.
I read that last panel as being sarcastic, then I looked at the arrows and now I’m not sure.
I would also look into more mundane solutions to the talking without lips problem. Honestly if I was designing a body from scratch I would be sorely tempted to ignore vocal chords entirely and go with the much more versatile and powerful syrinix. It’s how parrots can mimic human speech to the point of impersonation despite lacking lips. Rather than have a whole rube goldberg setup of vocal chords, mouth, and tongue required to generate a tone and then modify the tone into speech a syrinix can just generate sound directly with all the details included.
You think the vocal chords are silly? Take a dekko at the stupidest nerve in the human body:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzIXF6zy7hg
Very Dave to have this argument. In other strips the fight would have been on for a while…
As of right now there have been no significant counter examples. In fact I’d argue that the whole ‘thats just racist’ thing is a shield. Sydney even points out that it may be a bias. Has Thoth done so little research that he didn’t realize what he’d be walking into? Also, when you walk in with the idea of taking over as supreme commander like he is, you don’t get as much consideration. If Sydney is considered being offensive with her last question, She is punching up not down or sideways. Unless he’s planning to take over governmental structures and play illuminauti with the earth he going to face a lot worse than this and not get much in the way of pass on it.
The correct answer is “No, I’m not being hurtful, I was just asking.”
It is telling that this part of “pop culture” has no room for “just asking”.
Tom here espouses attitudes that are the product of human (originatingly American) universities’ humanities departments, so he cannot have gotten them without doing some research. As you point out he is being sensitive well over what is reasonable for someone in his position. Sydney partaking in “white guilt” is frankly out of character except for her signature over-reaction. So we conclude that this has to have been played for laughs, or we’d have to question the author’s sanity. Then again, maybe it’s shmuckbait and he’s trolling the audience. He very well could be.
there’s an in universe explanation. this is a shield. Sydney is getting really close to the ‘fine print’ of this ‘generous offer’ its important to shut her down as fast as possible. if this isn’t played for laughs Max or someone should follow up with some rather pointed inquires.
I’m going to assume it’s played for laughs as it always is in this comedy.
>So we conclude that this has to have been played for laughs, or we’d have to question the author’s sanity
The giant, cartoon arrow signs slamming into Sydney didn’t tip you off?
:V
He did enough research to know that he could probably shut down any line of inquiry by claiming it was racist… Palmvos probably has it right about why he wants it shut down.
While Sydney hasn’t met many demons yet but this
> As of right now there have been no significant counter examples.
isn’t really true.
There’s Dabbler (who works for law enforcement), the succubus on the Twilight Council, the teenage succubus she met, and the pretty boy who just walked through a portal and started talking about slide-show presentations.
You are right about the pretty boy with his slideshow, but the rest doesn’t really confirm the picture.
First the teenage succubus had although unintentionally confirmed two of her biases toward succubi and was never shown to be seriously orderly.
Second Dabbler confirmed with her presentation towards the teenage succubus that at least the tendency towards evil is a inherently demon thing, so assuming related pop-cultural statements are also true is although overly generalizing not a strange assumption.
Third although this seems to be more an alien thing in the grrlpower universe Dabbler has shown to seek chaos in everything she does(destabilizing Arc Swat, using more thermodynamic solutions against opponents and using an official meeting to show off one of her powers)
Fourth Thothogoth himself talks about order, but has shown a tendency towards chaos, by switching subjects all the time ignoring the orderly slideshow etc.
So I argue the problem is not with the lack of negative counter examples, but with the abundance of positive examples.
>and was never shown to be seriously orderly
Well, neither are most teenagers by that metric.
Or most adults.
The question wasn’t whether or not demons/devils are “seriously” orderly. It’s about Sydney being surprised that she would see one advocating for an orderly, structured society.
When she has, in fact, seen various demons live in relatively orderly ways, if lewdly for succubi. They act professionally, cordially, and follow the law with deviation well within what you could see from a human.
>Second Dabbler confirmed with her presentation towards the teenage succubus that at least the tendency towards evil is a inherently demon thing
She does no such thing. She tells the young girl that she has her own agency and can choose to live how she likes.
>destabilizing Arc Swat
When has Dabbler tried to do that?
>Fourth Thothogoth himself talks about order, but has shown a tendency towards chaos, by switching subjects all the time ignoring the orderly slideshow etc.
Again, well within the human norm of someone who is impassioned and rushed.
Hell, Sydney herself is far worse at maintaining an orderly attitude than any demon we’ve seen.
The correct term is, Speceist!
specist, i had to look it up.
I wonder if they have “Special” qualities…
Race, Racism, Racist, Racial
Species, Specism(?), Specist, Special(?)….. this could cause all kinds of issues. Maybe we should stick with Xenophobic…
Sydney this is why you have your lawyer write your questions for you. Because when you do it yourself you cause more problems.
Sydney, you’re thinking of the wrong pop culture. Try applying 5e to him, lawful evil. Still evil, but more organized with a goal to not let chias reign.
*chaos
Yeah, i remember when chias reigned. They even had thier own jingle too “chi…chi…chi… chia pet”o
“Not entirely relevant”? How about not relevant at all in the slightest. Tom there isnt a human of any colour for it to be relevant even if you believe white guilt is a justified thing, and his little assistant actually used the word invasion, in which case its not “oh noes, I made you feel bad”, its “fornicate your feelings. Think yourself lucky you’re still alive to complain about it and everyone who ever supported you isnt on fire.”
I know its extremely unlikely that the strip will go that way but I would not be unhappy if Maxima punched him in the nuts for that “hurt feelings” ridiculousness.
It’s a joke.
A obvious joke like everything in this comic.
Funny the number of people who get all hurt and offended by obvious jokes, who then go on to complain about how other people shouldn’t get hurt and offended by obvious jokes.
It’s like there’s a pattern…
But… WHY would there be a pattern?
It is a mystery! OooOOoooOOOoooo…
and why does that pattern most often appear to be plaid?
Just because it’s a joke doesn’t mean it’s any good or doesn’t warrant complaint.
I think that Tom is being all about chaos in this moment. He just used emotional turmoil to slap down one of the teams most powerful members.
That is my Stieck (sp?)
Schtick?
There is a square for Lawful evil, yknow. :)
The term “demon” is derived from the Greek word daimon meaning divine power or god. The actual translation of demon means “replete with wisdom” connoting that the demons were highly knowledgeable creatures. Also, in pre-Christian and non-Christian cultures, demons were, and are, not necessarily good or evil, OR chaotic. although in Judaic cultures, they demons were still considered evil spirits. But the whole chaotic/order thing…. that’s largely a D&D invention. :)
It sort of makes sense that there would be demons into order. Tom seems VERY fixated on contracts and pacts, which are the attempt to bring ordered deals out of chaos.
Clearly, the visitor offering to improve our governments is Lawful Chaotic.
I’d say that makes no sense but I’m sure you’d say that’s the point. :)
You mean he’s not cosplaying as Oroku Saki x Trigon?
Are the questions just going to be jokes, or is Sydney going to ask something intelligent? Either way, If you could ask one question, what would you guys ask Tom to get the best information.
Oh I’m sure Sydney will get to it, either directly or after she triggers other people to ask questions first. We just have to wait 1-3 strips for it I think.
Of Particular Interest to Sydney
“You Say ‘Tabula Rasa’,
What will happen to our Existing Culture?”
Erasing all Geek and Nerd Cultural Referents Would Be Dire….
“Well, we’re going to ruthlessly crush it, reducing you to malleable clay, which we will then sculpt into an ideal society.”
“What?”
“Relax, the stakeholders will have had their opportunity for input into the nature of that society before we crush them.”
I expected her to ask about Cook Books ;)
Sometimes a question is just an innocent question.
That “answer” wasn’t an answer but an accusation.
If you want to learn something about someone’s cultural background but are immediately called racist – do you still dare to ask?
yes, because they are hiding something.
We’ve seen this transition more than a few times in this comic already.
This is the initial comedy that’s setting up the actually serious, questions/issues. So I’m content to see how things work out in the next strip.
Is that an angry HAL9000 in the background of panel #5?
Do you /want/ evil AI overlords? Because this is how you get evil AI overlords!
It looks like it.
It is. The helmet on the rack in back is definitive. This is the scene in which the two astronauts are discussing what to do if HAL is nuts, and the computer is reading their lips to see the threat to it. Which ties in to the discussion of voice and mouth.
Ahem, speciesist, not racist.
Using “race” in the Star Trek sense.
And the human sense (their is only one human race… so calling another human ‘racist’ is being a moron)
People who are racist, in common parlance, are those who believe that POC are another race. The term racist is descriptive of their actions, and decrying the term is being needlessly pedantic.
I’m often confused about why ‘POC’ is not considered a racist term. Because it sounds very racist. How is ‘People of Color’ different than ‘Colored People?’
I’ve never understood that. Mostly because it doesnt make sense at all. Black and white at least makes sense. Yes, black people arent actually black – melanin in the skin actually are varying shades of brown or beige or something, but lets be fair – white people arent actually white either – caucasian skin tone ranges from very pale orange to peach to cream to caramel to rajah. AS for someone like me (indigenous pacific islander/asian mix), I have no idea what they’d be using as a color. Polynesians and Pacific islanders tend to have a range in the more ‘slightly brown-skinned’ hue, so I guess technically you could just use brown there, as a general description, even though they arent actually ‘brown’-skinned. And not sure with asian either, since I know the color ‘yellow’ is also considered racist (although there are actually three types of yellow – warm, neutral, and cool, and the three tend to get conflated when being used in a racially insensitive way). And the term ‘melanated skin’ doesnt sound right either, since all skin, except for albinos, have melanin – just different amounts, based on certain genes, which regulate skin color, like SLC24A5 and SLC24A2.
Actual ‘white’ would be an albino person, and both ‘black’ and ‘white’ people have been albinos.
Black and white just seem to be the best terms to use because they’re generalized on the color spectrum. I mean you could always change it to ‘brown and peach’ to be more accurate but I don’t really see people doing that. Then again I never thought people would be referring to black people as ‘people of color’ without it being horribly racist either.
In general, I think people spend way too much time fixating on skin color in the first place and that fixation has been the source of way too many problems in human history.
“but lets be fair – white people arent actually white either – caucasian skin tone ranges from very pale orange to peach to cream to caramel to rajah.”
And then you get into the distribution; I’m so ‘white’ my wife claims I glow in the dark, but only between the freckles, which cover about a third of my skin anywhere I’m actually exposed to sunlight.
I probably actually average out about cafe au lait anywhere you’d see away from the beach.
The ones claiming that POC are separate tend to be POC themselves (they were the ones who came up with that term to show they are different to white people, which, ironically, now make whites the minority ‘race’)
so what word does work? discriminatory?
maybe words can hold multiple meanings and racism has a recognized and important meaning. *being* racist makes you a moron, calling someone a racist doesn’t, as long as they actually hold racist views
specist!
Science has determined, that RACE is incorrect, race is a way of saying us and them!!!
I had someone scream ‘racist’ at me once. I told them to stop being a bigot. :P
Hey, that’s an insult to morons! At least an actual clinical moron isn’t being deliberately insulting most of the time.
Isn’t “moron” Greek for “blunt”?
From Online Etymology, “1910, medical Latin, “one of the highest class of feeble-minded persons,” from Greek (Attic) mōron, neuter of mōros “foolish, dull, sluggish, stupid,” a word of uncertain origin.”
So, yes, if sideways. We do speak of a blade becoming dull, “not sharp”, ie: blunt.
But be careful. It is “blunt instrument”, NOT “blunt idiot” which is a tautology.
There is no white guilt, only dem guilt, which they try to assuage by saying “everyone did it”, but no, everybody didn’t do it, and the only ones who started a war to perpetuate it, in this country at least, was them.
I have never, in recent memory, seen a Democrat (or Republican for that matter) politician *defend* the Confederacy.
Let alone by saying “everyone did it”.
The Dems try to pretend, repeatedly, that the South, the Confederates, the KKK and Jim Crow laws were Republican institutions. They then try to pretend that all the racists magically left the Democrats and went over to the Republicans when Nixon won… despite the number of significant politicians and percentage of voters that left D for R being in the single digits.
Mmmm… bit of both. Yes, a number of Dems DID transfer over during the 1970s, when the Dems engaged in a disgustingly transparent and blatant deal with similarly treacherous and hypocritical accomplices. Essentially, they all but abandoned their their voter base (lower income whites, whose racist attitudes the Dems had previously encouraged in order to ensure said base would go to the voting booths) in favor of larger groups of voters promised to them by surviving civil rights leaders (because, let’s face it, a lot of them were murdered quite dramatically and blatantly). Essentially, the Dems decided to stop fighting for a percentage of white male voters, in favor of the much larger number of black and female voters.
After that, the committed and open racists (both amongst the voters and the politicians) shifted to the Republican party, feeling betrayed and abandoned.
That being said, let’s not pretend that EITHER of the “two main parties, the only two that matter, if you vote third party you’re throwing your vote away” isn’t riddled with racist, sexist, monstrously corrupt sleazebags. And let’s also not pretend that our current president doesn’t have a history of racist legislation, racist comments, and dalliance with groups like the “Daughters of the Confederacy.” OR that his predecessor didn’t fan the flames of racism both before and during his single term in office (just look at what he did during the Central Park Five incident). Both parties have literal blood on their hands.
My impression was that a good deal of the transfer in the 70’s was actually over cold war issues. The ‘neo-cons’ or “new conservatives” who left the Democratic party because they thought it wasn’t sufficiently resolute in standing up to communism. I think if you look at the timeline for when the South turned Republican, it was more of a generational thing; The Democrats stayed Democrats, but their children grew up Republican. Really, very few people actually changed parties.
“After that, the committed and open racists (both amongst the voters and the politicians) shifted to the Republican party, feeling betrayed and abandoned.”
Of course, the Democratic party never really gave up on racism, they just swapped client races, which is why today they’re the party of racial quotas, and attack as ‘racist’ anybody who wants an end to racial discrimination. It turned out most of the black Civil Rights leaders weren’t so dedicated to equal rights that they’d turn down discrimination in their favor. Even rationalized that it would jump start equality, rather than perpetually deferring it as really happened.
That said, historically, the Republicans did take on quite a bit of Jim Crow guilt thanks to the Compromise of 1877, where they traded the Democrats not contesting a dubious Presidential win in return for ending Reconstruction. And, yeah, some genuine racists did decide that, if the Democratic party was going all in for racial discrimination in favor of blacks, (And thus against whites!) they were better off in a party that at least was for racial non-discrimination.
I guess I’d agree on dirty hands all around, even if I think some of your narrative downplays Democratic sins.
So you recognize that parties experience generational change… and yet attribute the attitudes of past members of a party to present members. It’s baffling how people try to disown their own history, but attempt to bind others to theirs. It doesn’t matter which party had more racists in it in the 70’s. The parties continually reinvent themselves as new members join, based on what they believe the parties represent now.
There’s a difference between believing in non-discrimination as a policy goal, and believing that we’ve already achieved it. Burying your head in the sand and pretending something isn’t happening doesn’t accomplish anything. Ignoring when someone makes a decision based on someone’s race and pretending it wasn’t a factor doesn’t make you color-blind. You can’t just declare a problem solved, and then stop looking to see whether or not you’ve actually solved it. And you can’t expect someone who’s been shackled and starved for years to compete successfully against someone who’s been exercising, training, eating well, and getting plenty of sleep. But that’s basically what society has demanded of people who have been denied equal access to education and other resources for generations, and then declares them inferior by nature when they can’t compete. It’s not a level playing field. Just because some people have overcome those handicaps doesn’t mean the game isn’t rigged against them, it just means they were so much more superior than the people they were competing against who had it easy.
Well, the inherent prob there is the Republicans basically did a 180 from their Union days around Nixon, so they ACT like Confederates. Whereas the current Dems are like the Republicans pre-Nixon. There honestly isn’t really much of a Political Left in the US, just Center Right and Farther Right. the GOP stopped being the party of Lincoln a few decades ago. The Dems have racists in their ranks, sure, not arguing that. The Modern Republican party actively attracts and encourages racism and bigotry to exist.
I really think you have it backwards. The overton window in politics has been shifting left, not right, since Nixon. In general, US politics has always had a leftward slide, not a rightward one.
A single dimension drastically oversimplifies the situation. While the US has been shifting left on some social policy, despite the overwhelming political advantage on the right, it’s also been shifting towards authoritarianism on both the left and the right, as the democratic process has failed to produce results that people can accept.
Left/right and authoritarian/libertarian are two different axes. I only said that the US has been shifting to the left. It also definitely has been shifting to authoritarianism, although I disagree with the reason why.
I think the reason it’s been shifting towards authoritarianism is because of a combination of tribalism, laziness, and general ignorance of an increasing number of the populace in choosing their representatives. and gradual, subtle propaganda, by those in power, which has become a lot subtle in the last few years. Before about 60 years ago, the people in power were generally a lot more subtle with their power grabs, with the exception of FDR.
So I agree with you, actually, overall :) Just a difference of opinion on the reason for WHY it’s shifted authoritarian.
I’d agree with that, though I’d say the tribalism, laziness, and ignorance are also in part a product of both propaganda and policy that has discouraged proper civic education. But I also think that evolving social mores have revealed a fundamental difference in what various groups use as a basis for their moral reasoning, and it may be irreconcilable. One group believes in rights and freedoms, the other, only power.
” and it may be irreconcilable. One group believes in rights and freedoms, the other, only power.”
Again I think we mostly agree but disagree on one point. I don’t think it’s one side believing in rights and freedom and the other power. I think both sides are largely believing only in power, and there’s a MINISCULE number of people (from both sides) that believe instead in liberty and freedom above their own personal power.
If it honestly was ‘one side being invested only in power and the other in liberty’, then you’d see a distinct difference when one party is in control vs another party. There isn’t. No matter the President, no matter who has the majority in Congress, it has been a standard since the late 60s/early 70s (albeit again, truly started by FDR in the 30s/40s) towards authoritarianism of ‘do what the government says, and to hell with individual rights, because we know better than you’ (despite the people in government often being incompetent at seeing the results of their often self-aggrandizing rules and burdens on the people which they don’t even follow themselves).
Don’t be fooled into thinking the tribal differences are wholly separated into the virtuous/noble and the evil/selfish. Like you said, there are PLENTY of authoritarians on the right as well as the left.
For example, the laws on insider trading (which I think are an example of good laws which promote an even playing field in the stock market) did notseem to apply to Congress for reasons that continue to bewilder me until the 2012 Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act (STOCK Act, don’t you love backronyms?). Or how the ACA mandates did not apply to Congress, their families, or their staff.
It’s actually sort of odd when you think of it, because the universe itself tends to move from order (or more specifically, stasis) to chaos (or more specifically, randomness), while government overreach tends to go in the opposite direction, from a lack of rules and a reliance on personal responsibility to so many rules that even the rulemakers have no concept of how many there are anymore, and statism.
Btw I don’t mean that to say that Americans in general don’t believe in liberty, because I think the overwhelming majority of Americans citizens do believe in liberty. I just don’t think the majority of elected officials do.
Which is why in order to ‘subjugate’ a population, elected officials and others in high levels of power (Tech, media, banking, etc) used to do so very slowly and subtly (which is the way to change people without them realizing they’re being changed), although lately, they’ve been getting a bit impatient and have started to get a lot more reckless in the power grabs and blatant hypocrisy.
Good, I brought our tangent back around to the original argument again :)
Yeah, that’s the problem. Americans in general are decent folks. Your Right-wing Politicians (and quote a few left-wing ones, looking at you Sinema and Machin) not so much.
Assholes politicize stuff that should never have been simply because they want to keep their jobs, despite the fact in a lot of cases, said “Political” stuff is covered by, you know, BASIC HUMAN RIGHTS.
I just meant that POLTICALLY, the US really doesn’t have a left, not compared to most of the world. Just Center and everything right of it.
Europe is admittedly a lot more leftist than the US (except some parts of Eastern Europe, who have already suffered under excesses of communism and socialism when they were satellite states of the Soviet Union and arent anxious to be under it again). However, most of Europe is also a LOT more authoritarian than any state in the United States, largely because of having a statist mindset for centuries, and often having royalty in place for most of their history as part of their basic governmental origins. Both left and right can have their good and bad points, but excessive libertarianism (outside of absolute anarchy, as long as the Non Aggression Principle is supported) is a lot better than excessive authoritarianism, whether left authoritarianism (ie, Stalin, Castro or Mao) or right authoritarianism (ie, Pinochet or Batista). I’d rather be under a right libertarian system than a left authoritarian system, or under a left libertarian system (even though those tend to not do well when you size it up too much, like a 60s hippie commune level) than a right authoritarian system.
Which sort of brings me back to my original point in a different thread, that it’s usually more about libertarian and authoritarian than left-wing and right-wing :)
Btw, the way this circles back to the main point of the thread is that libertarian systems, tend to be more supportive of different belief structures within that system than authoritarian systems, and since the US is a lot more libertarian than many other nations, largely in my opinion because of a lack of any history of royalty within government, it leads to being harder to successfully subjugate. Or as Maxima put it, “we are famously bad at being subjugated.”
I meant the people supporting the parties, and the philosophy of those parties. Almost all the politicians are in it purely for their own power and gain, and will say or do whatever they think will lead to them having it. This is Nomic again.
The average person wants to be free to do whatever they want to do, but doesn’t care about whether or not other people are free, especially if those people are different from themselves. They may claim to desire freedom or liberty, but what they want are rules that protect them from other people, but don’t protect other people from them.
Fundamentally, some people believe the purpose of government is to protect minorities and individual rights from the mob. Other people believe that the purpose of government is to protect the “natural order” from individuals trying to subvert it. People who believe in a natural order, a hierarchy of dominance, that some people are destined to rule, while others are destined to be ruled, are going to tend towards authoritarianism, no matter their professed belief for freedom.
“I meant the people supporting the parties, and the philosophy of those parties.”
That would be a gross generalization then. I tend to not assume all people are identical, regardless of political affiliation. And it seems like people often assume the absolute worst of any group that they’re not a part of. That’s sort of the main problem with tribalism in the first place. Vilification of ‘the other.’ It’s easier to make a generalization about politicians because they have an actual voting record and are a relatively small group (a few hundred) of people in the pubilc eye. It’s a lot less easy to make a generalization of all party members of any party. Too many people, too big a tent on either side. And most importantly, most people are usually somewhere in the middle. You just don’t notice it because the people on the extremes are the loudest and ‘the squeaky wheel gets the grease.’
“The average person wants to be free to do whatever they want to do, but doesn’t care about whether or not other people are free, especially if those people are different from themselves.”
I think that’s your opinion, not something that you can show proof of beyond personal anecdotes.
“They may claim to desire freedom or liberty, but what they want are rules that protect them from other people, but don’t protect other people from them.”
That hasn’t been my experience, so I think you might be basing it on your own anecdotal experiences, or possibly only talk to a bubble of people who agree with you (although I think you’re more open minded than that, I’d hope). Most people I know would rather have liberty than a ‘big brother’ style of government telling them what to do in a micromanaging manner. So the anecdote can definitely go the other way.
In any case, like one of our most famous Founding Fathers,Benjamin Franklin, said, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
“They may claim to desire freedom or liberty, but what they want are rules that protect them from other people, but don’t protect other people from them.”
I don’t agree. I think people tend to go by the ‘Do unto others’ rule. The majority of people tend to not want to start trouble with other people if they don’t have people start trouble with them first.
“Fundamentally, some people believe the purpose of government is to protect minorities and individual rights from the mob.”
Well the government IS set up to protect against the tyranny of the majority. And that’s a good thing. However, American government is NOT set up to give people rights. It’s only set up to prevent the government from infringing on your natural rights that you have by simple dint of birth. That’s the difference between negative rights and positive rights.
“Other people believe that the purpose of government is to protect the “natural order” from individuals trying to subvert it.”
Like I said, I fundamentally disagree with the concept of positive rights. The government does not give me my rights. I have my rights because I’m alive. They’re natural rights – ie, life, liberty, pursuit of happiness (which I hope you’re not confusing with ‘natural order’). That’s not the job of the government, and when the government starts thinking it is the source of your rights, instead of a necessary evil set up to prevent others from squashing those natural rights (especially by the government itself), if there’s no pushback from the people, then it’s time to get a new government.
“are going to tend towards authoritarianism, no matter their professed belief for freedom”
Then those people would be hypocrites or liars that never really believed in freedom in the first place. That’s people who want a dictatorship, but think they will be among the elite in the dictator’s regime. I don’t think that’s the majority of people though. I think that’s a very loud but very small minority of people.
It’s harder for people to lie through their actions than their words. I don’t think you can provide any evidence of your position. But available polling data doesn’t provide much support for your idealistic optimism. More than 30% of Americans no longer value democracy as a principle.
Government is that which governs. People who claim to be against big government are often in favor of some other organization micromanaging their lives, such as religion. They want government to protect their power, but to get out of the way when they exert their power over others.
I never said that rights came from the government, and I don’t know what led you to thinking I was making that argument. But those rights mean little without a mechanism to protect them, and that is the prospective function of government. However, ‘natural rights” and “natural order” are unrelated, or perhaps more accurately, in conflict. The “natural order” is the hierarchy of power, the idea that the strong deserve to dominate and control those weaker than them.
Governments historically have been created to protect existing power and property, to prevent the weak from banding together to overthrow the strong. But American government at least theoretically was established to protect the rights of the weak from the strong. Of course, the strong and clever have worked long and hard to subvert the system to their benefit, creating an elaborate web of rules to accrue power and privilege, while denying the weak and honest fair representation.
Government must be carefully structured to preserve the rights of the weak. If it is too small, then it will be ineffective. If it is too large, it will become corrupted and an additional tool of oppression.
“It’s harder for people to lie through their actions than their words. I don’t think you can provide any evidence of your position.”
Which position are you wanting me to prove?
“But available polling data doesn’t provide much support for your idealistic optimism. More than 30% of Americans no longer value democracy as a principle.”
That’s a very odd way to say that 70% of Americans still value democracy as a principle.
Also Americans are not a democracy – we’re a republic because democracy does not protect against the tyranny of the majority. It’s susceptible to cults of personality and posse justice. So some of that 30% might think similarly to that. Sorry had to say that, even though most people don’t know what they’re meaning when they use the word ‘democracy.’ Also what type of polls? Push polls? How heavily weighted are they? What are the exact questions being used? For that matter, which poll or polls?
“Government is that which governs.”
O…kay? That doesnt explain the difference in how a government governs and whether it is for negative rights (the idea that government exists to prevent infringing upon our natural rights) or positive rights (the idea that government exists to grant us rights and without government, we have no rights at all). To be clear I believe in the former camp because that’s the basis for the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. As do the overwhelming majority of Americans even by your own polls (although I have no idea what polls you’re referencing).
“People who claim to be against big government are often in favor of some other organization micromanaging their lives, such as religion.”
No idea where you’re getting that. People who claim to be against big government are usually in favor of small government, or individualism. I’m not even remotely religious, and I’m against big government because people in government tend to be massively incompetent, corrupt, or outright bad people who happen to be charismatic or good liars. So I naturally want government to be small so it will have to be more subject to the population, for fear that it will anger people with government overreach.
If anything, I think you have it backwards. People who have no religion, or at least some sort of moral framework, tend to turn government INTO a quasi-religion, as we’ve seen with the Soviet Union. Even with me, I’m not religious, but I do view the libertarian mindset and the non-aggression principle as a good moral framework (NAP is similar-ish to the Golden Rule of ‘Do unto others and you would have them do unto you’).
“They want government to protect their power, but to get out of the way when they exert their power over others.”
Government usually squashes individual power, rather than protect it, if it gets too large and powerful. Which is why an overwhelming majority of Americans support systems which try to hold the government accountable to the People. Again, by your own poll (which I’m not sure which poll you’re using even). Also, the people you are talking about – a loud and vocal minoriity of people, tend to be the first put up against the wall if a revolution DOES come, because one of the first things an authoritarian government tends to do after a revolution, especially after the revolutionary side wins, is get rid of the people who rail against government. Which ironically includes the revolutionaries who brought down the old government, save for the ‘elite’ who find themselves in power. That’s what happened in Cuba, for example.
“Governments historically have been created to protect existing power and property, to prevent the weak from banding together to overthrow the strong.”
Which is what makes America original. The Founding Fathers saw that this was what tends to happen, and instead designed American Government with safeguards to try to prevent that. The point of American government is supposed to be to protect the population against the government itself. That’s why rights are described as things that ‘shall not be infringed.’ Because the law is written to say ‘Government, you have only what responsibilities we give you, and your primary responsibility is to not infringe on our g.d. natural rights.’
“But American government at least theoretically was established to protect the rights of the weak from the strong.”
Correct. In addition to protecting the population against itself, it’s also designed to protect the population against others who would take natural rights AWAY from the population. And it’s designed to prevent a tyranny of the majority, which was the primary problem with pure or direct democracy, and why we opted instead for a republic. It’s also why we have certain things in place for the executive branch on a national scale, like the electoral college, which many people have a sophomoric understanding of. It’s also why we have a separation of powers and what was meant to be equal branches of government counterbalancing each other (which has been taking a hit largely because of laziness and cowardice in the Legislative branch, Judicial Activism in the Judicial branch, and Cults of Personality and ignorant tribalism in the Executive branch).
“Of course, the strong and clever have worked long and hard to subvert the system to their benefit, creating an elaborate web of rules to accrue power and privilege, while denying the weak and honest fair representation.”
I agree that that is what some people in power WANT. But the majority of the population does not support it, and the more ‘in your face’ people get about it, the more the American public rails against it. Like I said in another post, the main way that the American public ever gets subjugated at all is for it to be slow and incremental, and not noticeable. As soon as it’s blatant, you get pushback because of the basic philosophy of most Americans to the people they set up as temporary rulers.
To Maxima’s point: “We are famously bad at being subjugated.” (if we realize that we’re being subjugated)
“Government must be carefully structured to preserve the rights of the weak.”
I agree.
“If it is too small, then it will be ineffective.”
I mostly agree. But you’d be surprised how small a government CAN be while still being effective. It depends on how local the government is, because local government is still effective, but also more susceptible to its governed than a distant ruler. Again, it’s why I like a libertarian system with the NAP, or even a minarchist system (not anarchist btw, minarchist – minimal government required to make things function smoothly and protect the human rights from being infringed).
“If it is too large, it will become corrupted and an additional tool of oppression.”
I agree again! We surprisingly agree on a lot of the important stuff, even if we disagree on the nuances, which is encouraging. :)
So your previous comment was false then? Got it.
Because none of that has anything to do with what you originally said. You completely tried to pivot to something else that would take hours to refute.
White guilt is the irrational belief that by being white, one is inherently privileged. At the same time, privilege has been equated to a form of evil in our modern culture. By extension, people who are white, and therefore have white guilt, must atone for the sin of being white in some way, which is usually demonstrated by speaking positively of other races and negatively of their own.
The irony is that white guilt is incredibly racist, and doesn’t stand up to legitimate scrutiny. Also, if someone applied a similar negative label to any other race for any reason, they would be called racist, and justifiably so.
Try focusing on relevant recent history. Who waves the traitor flag these days?
So THAT’S how Succubi are able to speak when their mouths are…otherwise occupied
What’s next,the slideshow presentation and will Sydney sleep through it???
Sydney’s awkward, derailing questions for the win, lol.
Exactly! The questions may seem unimportant but their function was to defuse an escalating situation.
It may have been accidental, but … Sydney’s pretty good with a strategy.
Sydney is quite good at destroying other peoples plans, knowingly or not. Chaotic good in it’s purest form.
In the Myth Inc. universe, all ‘demons’ are simply ‘dimensional travellers’, neither inherently good nor evil (unless they actually happen to be good or evil… )
I’m so happy this was addressed! It was bothering me since I first noticed his jaw was disconnected from his face. I definitely would have been Sydney in this scenario. lmao
Well many of us would think about it but few are so blunt and honest as Sydney about it.
I was wondering where the mouth was too… glad to have an answer…
Panel six isn’t a question, it’s an accusation, and a biased racist one at that (does Sydney forget what Dabbles is?)
i mean dabble is a succubus which in pop culture are usually obsesed with sex and literaly eat by sucking sexual energy and dabbler fits that stereotype to the T, she isnt evil but most modern representations of a sucubus arent evil anyway, the days where you could claim that all sex that is not misionary for procreation is evil are mostly over with the only hold outs being the extremly religious types
of course dabbler is much more than just a sex crazed maniac but at least the basic stereotype fits with her, so its a more valid question than it would seem like
Name a scene in which Dabbles is attempting to instill order.
The scene where she was baking cookies. Cookies bring order to a hungry stomach, and everyone was sitting nice and patiently and orderly waiting for them. :)
Coincidentally that was episode #666.
A very ordered number, mind you, since it’s a palindromic number.
Baking, and for that matter most forms of cooking, uses heat to break down chemistry and thereby hastens the universe’s slide into entropy.
This is why cookies are associated with the Dark Side.
Ah, but you can’t EAT cookies until they’ve cooled a bit. When they cool down, the molecules that make up the cookies are moving slower. Thus more order!
Also, the number of things to eat are less in the end. Before, there was a wild mishmash of different ingredients. After, there are only cookies. Thus order.
Plus most of the normal troublemakers are behaving while watching Dabbler make cookies, thus achieving a net result of more order than chaos.
Also don’t dump on cookies – they are not the dark side (they are good and pure and wonderful and more transcendent than even a powerpoint presentation and I’m gonna make some now because now I just made myself hungry) …. or I’ll send a ninja hit squad your way *shakes fist*. I know it’s usually only for puns but the economy is in bad shape and they’ll work a variety of different gigs.
Yet we were talking about a scene in which Dabbler was baking cookies, not in which her cookies were being eaten. While entropy may be slowed during the eventual (likely) eating, Dabbler was engaged in the part where entropy was hastened. And mixing ingredients, rather than keeping them in separate containers, is another form of entropy.
Also, I knew that ninjas worked Kama-Yaris, but they also work gigs? I dunno, that sounds fishy to me.
“While entropy may be slowed during the eventual (likely) eating, Dabbler was engaged in the part where entropy was hastened”
Overall, there was more order created than chaos, therefore a net gain for order via cookie-age. Especially if you define order as creation and entropy as destruction. Cookies are created, therefore it is creation, and thus order.
On the contrary. Prior to the cookie-making, the ingredients were orderly and separate, presumably in their own containers. Now they are so thoroughly mixed that it would be a virtual impossibility to separate them. Flour and sugar living together! Mass hysteria!
“Flour and sugar living together! Mass hysteria!”
I’m going to let you win this argument by conceding because of the original Ghostbusters shout-out.
Good game, sir. Have a twinkie.
No wait, that’s not right. True to his nature and in keeping with being a demonSoSoGoth is being deceptive and guilt tripping Sydney. Dabbler did a Venn chart awhile back categorizing demons, devils, succubi, angels etc. regarding their innate goodness, evil, chaotic, magical etc. nature. Tom is most definitely chaotic if I remember correctly.
Yeah Dabbler did explain this to Sydney already so her perception here isn’t entirely pop culture but also how Dabbler explained it.
But that’s just a tendency, not a hard and fast rule.
Sydney I’m very disappointed with this, D&D should not be given that much relevance by a true nerd such as yourself. Also public misconceptions about demons means that this talk it over with major stakeholders is doomed to fail.
I take it those are examples of “infernals with atypical humanoid physiology” in the background of Dabbler’s panel. A theropod dinosaur look-alike, a tentacle being… and is that someone computer-based behind her?
So, basically, a wizard did it. Gotcha.
Panel 5 background, I don’t recognize it at all, where is she speaking from??
In front of a green screen displaying examples of such.
HAL 9000 through a pod window while Dabbler describes talking without moving your mouth-bits is superb and I love you for it, DaveB.
Several thoughts come to mind; the first being that I was half right Sydney would ask about that, my own ADHD with a touch of OCD brain was focusing in on it; although I figured she’d try to start with relevant questions but then mentally derail and ask about that.
the second, Sydney has done this before, with the vampires. Which is important for the future as Sydney represents someone who is NEW to these things being real and has tons of pop culture exposure. So a public reveal of anything from vampires, werewolves, to demons will have to deal with these. It is a world where they do exist, but are so secret that like our world has tons of pop culture that uses them in a variety of ways. hell “demon” technically shouldn’t even be what they call themselves given its roots as a Greek minor god like spirit entities; which the Church clutched the term and began to use for every supernatural thing resulting in the term being so vague that it has come to be used to describe everything from fairies, to vampires, to angry ghosts, to horned forest gods, ect…
*basically in the same category as fairies, dragons, and vampires, where it is a sort of *you’ll know it when you see it*.
So yeah as I was saying in the last two comment sections just by being demons they will experience A LOT of push back from society and more resistance as a result than they would have by showing up in space ships and saying they just look like demons but are *insert some alien name*.
an additional thought on the mouth not moving thing, two things came to mind
one being Rimaru from (That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime) how they learned to speak was manipulating “magicules” in the air with their intentions thus forming words others would understand (also explained the translation aspect) despite them being a slime.
the other is King from (The Owl House), whose mouth so seldom opened that some debated if he had a mouth *luckily some early episodes did show him opening his mouth but it was only to eat*, funny enough he apparently never noticed this himself and the first time he opened his mouth while shouting at the same time he released a sonic pulse. So his species instinctively keep their mouths shut when speaking because mouth open become a sonic weapon.
Nice 2001 reference.
Ahem, as a lawyer, I can confirm, that it should be the law that hot women must wear an oversized men’s shirt after they just hooked up with a guy.
Rule of Sexy leaves no doubt in this case. You don’t have to be a laywer to see how legal and logical it is, it’s just common sense.
Ah, but then you have the counter to that side of the opinion… what should NON-Hot women wear? :D
I’m sure they CAN wear oversized men’s shirts too if they want to. Equal opportunity. I’m just thinking most agree it should be mandatory in the case of the hot women among us.
I reckon it turns out that Tom here is really like the Arquillian ambassador from MiB, at the kaiju size he arrived in, that the cockpit is big enough for a roughly average human-sized pilot.
So yes, that really is Tom’s shirt.
.
He’s just too sensitive amongst the “primitive inhabitants” to give the game away.
That would be sort of hilarious.
And maybe true, given Dabbler mentioning his size altering spell, and pointing out when he was getting bigger again.
Equally though Dabbler could just have conjured up a suitable likeness of his shirt, for subtle bragging purposes. Which tickles me in its own way.
While a good start, dabblers answer dosnt account for … food..
True. But the mentioning of “innate magic abilities” gives a strong hint as to how that aspect is handled too. Enough that Sydney did not bother pressing her point on that angle.
Also thats not racist as it does not pertain to his race , demon is their species not race. There are many races of demons and so this is speciest (speciist?)
Aww I was expecting the “Dungeon Rules Lawyer” Sydney to speak up, not the “Demonology 101 freshman student” ^_^;
Like this?
In such circumstances, I would definitely want Pander as my co-council!
*uses paws to pop wig and cape on*
I love the VLDL channel :)
Rowan is … just such an awful person. But I gotta respect his rules lawyering! It’s on point.
Those words you just used: I do not think those words mean what you think they mean.
no, it means pretty much what he said… that “you’ll transfer your loyalty from whomever/whatever you currently worship to worshiping only ME”
Granted, that probably won’t actually HAPPEN unless he’s got some sort of mind control magic in the Power Point slideshow, kinda like the TV signal in the movie “They Live”… but, you know small steps, don’t want to blow the chance too early…
More ‘loyalty’ rather than ‘worship’. A feudal soldier owed fealty to his liege lord, who, in turn, owed fealty to a higher ranked noble, and so on, with them all ultimately owing fealty to the monarch. Britain, still being a monarchy, still has members of its armed forces swear loyalty (a.k.a. fealty) to the monarch.
As a point of interest, one of my friends used to serve in one of the regiments which has the Queen as its commander (albeit that there is also a senior officer who commands it for most practical purposes). My friend had a lapse in judgement, whilst commanding a guard detail at a royal palace. Which resulted in him being given a severe punishment. However, as such has to be approved by the Queen, in those circumstances, she indicated that she felt it to be overly harsh and advised lesser punishments should be administered. Which was reduced accordingly.
My friend was very grateful that his fealty was to the Queen!
The U.S.A. kept the same principle and similar trappings, but made the object of fealty the President, rather than the monarch (due to otherwise trivial quirks of history, which made that option less viable).
I should be fascinated to learn, if you can answer without causing trouble, what kind of lapse of judgment would even be available to someone commanding a royal guard detail. Did someone photograph him peeing behind a bush or something?
His detail were all in the guard hut, which oversaw the main road entrance. One of his colleagues, who was just exiting the base, stuck his head in and told my friend to look lively because the Queen’s had just turned up. This was a frequent prank though, so my mate just laughed it off.
Five minutes later, there was a rather loud “Honk honk!” sounded from a car horn. When he rushed outside, he found that it had not been a prank but a genuine warning. My friend had just left a senior member of the royal family waiting. Far worse than that though was the fact that he had been totally unaware of the fact. A serious breech of his duty, in being in charge of guarding the palace!
Several months later he was on royal guard duty again, this time at a function that the Queen was attending. As she walked past him, she turned to my friend, and addressed him by name (he assures me she knew every member of the regiment by name, and also recalled personal details, such as spouse and children names).
“My husband will be following shortly, I trust that you will let him in this time.” Said with a wry smile.
The Queen has quite a good sense of humour and one heck of a memory!
*standing to attention, tail wagging approvingly*
“the Queen’s had just turned up”
should read:
“the Queen’s husband had just turned up”
*sigh*
I had paused to decide whether to type “husband”, look up his name, or put in whatever the correct nonclemature might be (probably “consort”). Then I got a kitty cuddle attack, from my injured kitty, so had to stroke her tummy. Then forgot I had not put anything in there.
Yeah, “Husband” works well here, the title is “Prince Consort” which in the anecdote would not be used because too stuffy.
The Poms are a bit too feminist for my liking. Any Queen of England gets a “Prince Consort” as a husband because look who’s boss, but Kings have to award the title of “Queen” to their spouses because politeness. I mean, “Princess Consort”… Really?
& just BTW, the reigning monarch is the C-in-C of the UK military, the whole shebang, not merely a given regiment.
It isn’t just the Poms that do that. And yes, it bugs me too. But it isn’t feminist, rather the reverse. A King gets a Queen for a wife, who then might have all sorts of power behind the scenes but isn’t expected to rule in her own right. Historically often could not, but could be a regent, for a while. A Queen for a ruler is rather novel still, as such things go, so she can’t have a King because then everybody would have to be reminded that she’s the Ruler, and not her husband.
I’d make it official policy that if there is a King Regnant he shall have a Queen Consort and therefore a Queen Regnant shall have a King Consort. And we’d use that in official address and whatnot. Or, if that is still not deemed acceptable, a King Regnant with a Princess Consort and a Queen Regnant with a Prince Consort. Take your pick, but what’s sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander.
Then again, the whole institution is seen as rather archaic and some people cannot wait for it to die out entirely. Me, I think that monarchy has distinct upsides next to the downsides and so the idea is still well worth considering. Though without a lot of the cruft that has seeped in over the centuries.
Thank you for a well-considered reply.
The only thing I can add is what I mentioned in #989, that heritable rulers should be considered as institutionalised child abuse since someone in the Family MUST take the reins (see what I did there?) when the incumbent dies. The children MUST be trained up in leadership and protocol management from birth. It takes a very strong personality to say “Stuff this, I don’t need it!”
The problem is, how much does a “better” succession system cost? And the cost is not just and simply denarii, it’s the adversarial combat either at the ballot boxes or actually at bullet-point. With child abuse, we have peace and something that looks like ceremonial entertainment at tolerable cost; with “democracy” we have public engagement, dirty laundry and expensive incentivisation at the ballot box.
Monarchy doesn’t have to be hereditary. Elected monarchies do exist. (As have “dual kingships” and a lot else.) They don’t have to be all about power either. Sometimes “being the king”, not ruling the country, is already enough to help the country prosper.
Perhaps it helps if you consider that back when this sort of generational passing on of knowledge and skill was normal for everybody, peasants, craftsmen, nobles, the lot. If you call growing up in a palace child abuse, what of growing up on a farm?
Maybe we can do better these days, but it looks to me like “how to select the best person for the job?” is still an open research question. Not just for the top jobs. They just tend to be more visible so if it goes spectacularly wrong then quite a few people take notice.
“what of growing up on a farm?” Och aye.
But as long as we’re excluding small-nation-sized ranches or stations, most kids get to mix socially and frequently with others. In Oz we have “The School of the Air”, which is a remote classroom with radio facilities. Dunno what the USA has. But the School of the Air does not quite permit the continous social contact enjoyed by most kids.
However, in one sense, I do agree. Farming does require very tough people, to cope with long and bitter campaigns agaist the land, the pests and the weather.
Thought the Yankee Doodlers swore fealty to the flag, not to any temporary ruler seeking to burn it down
And yes, while technically the Queen is the C-in-C of the entire military, there is one regiment that she is directly in command of (and plays a more ‘hands on’ role)
No, it really means nothing of the sort in context.
“Ceding your fealty to my administration” would mean giving up your loyalty to his administration. A loyalty he neither has to be given up, nor that he would want to be given up if he indeed had it.
It’s just a crappy doggerel attempting to sound fancy and failing because the author didn’t manage to get the meaning of the words right.
The author got the meaning of the words exactly right. Sydney currently owes her ultimate loyalty to the President of the United States, as the commander in chief of its armed forces, of which she is a member. As Thothtogoth is proposing that the United States (and other countries) accept him as their ultimate leader instead, that would also entail their armed forces ceding their loyalty to his administration (and thereby ultimately to him, as its leader).
His turn of phrase works equally well whether he is addressing the assembled representatives of the armed forces or just Sydney alone. Either way he is proposing they transfer their loyalty to him.
In a modern context (as we no longer have a feudal system, yet it is directly descended from such) “fealty” is synonymous with “loyalty”. Although the word does have archaic roots, it is still in relatively common usage. As such it adds character by using such a term. For example it implies that his role as a “Dominus Secunde” may better approximate that of a feudal lord.
Of course, it may not, but it is fair to assume that his translator spell/device has chosen the most appropriate phrase. Of note the rest of his dialogue does show a good understanding of English.
Alternatively, of course, he may have learnt English the normal way. In which case he will have had to have done that at some earlier point in time, as the dumping of free energy, which he took advantage of to travel to Dabbler’s location, was an improvisation (barring Matrix style instant learning, but in which case refer back to the previous paragraph).
If he was on Earth recently he would have had a hard time not seeing Dabbler in news feeds. In which case he would not have had to wait for circumstances to allow him free energy to teleport to her. He could have just travelled to her by any normal (Earth or Galactic) transportation methods. Meanwhile consider that Earth is a backwater planet, with little need for a galactically important individual to visit it.
Therefore odds are that it is unlikely he comes to Earth often. And he could (with the use of spells and ultra high tech) be very old, by human standards. So maybe he was passing through the local Dyson sphere on military business, centuries ago, and decided to slum it in a nearby tourist sex planet? Where he picked up English.
Ergo his turn of phrase may just have given a clue as to how he learnt English. Either way what he said is perfectly acceptable good English.
Agreed on your general points, but I think Oberon is just making a simple grammar mistake in parsing the sentence. The sentence is of the form “Ceding X to Y” meaning that X is given to Y. Instead Oberon seems to be reading it as if “your fealty to my administration” was the X and the “to Y” was not written down. This is obviously not the intended way to parse the sentence as it would make no logical sense.
In other words the prepositional phrase starting with “to” modifies ceding, not fealty. In the most general sense both are grammatically correct, and logic easily clarifies which is meant. “ceding to my administration your fealty” I guess would be fine and I think less ambiguous, but sounds weird. disclaimer: I’m not a linguist.
You are correct on your take of my correct interpretation.
You are incorrect that I’ve made a grammar error.
To “cede your fealty to X” is to give up your fealty to X. And as I have previously pointed out, no one on Earth currently has any fealty to the X in question, nor would the person representing X wish that loyalty to be given up if it did happen to exist.
The proposition that this means “To cede (give up) your fealty to that which you now owe fealty and also transfer said fealty to X,” that is the grammar error. It presumes much which does not exist. It assumes that the sentence is written as “Cede your fealty to A and transfer it to X,” which is simply not the case and is not at all what Thothabroth said.
The grammar as written is incomplete; the context supports the version as Yorp and AGuest have it.
“Ceding” is a transfer of X from Y to Z; that much, I think, is not in question. Oberon is evidently reading “cede your fealty to me” as X and Y, with Z left unstated. In other words, that it doesn’t matter to whom fealty is transferred as long as Thothogoth no longer has to deal with it. The others are reading “cede your fealty to me” as X and Z, with Y unstated. In other words, that it doesn’t matter to whom you used to owe fealty as long as you transfer it to Thothogoth. At which point, context makes it clear.
This is all exciting and stuff but
I WANT TO SEE THE PRESENTATION
It is rated at “transcendent”, on a demonic scale.
You might not survive viewing it!
*covers eyes with paws, quivering*
I really would like to see the presentation as well, and I’ like to see if the voiceover narration to it has Tom Hanks, Sam Elliot, or Morgan Freeman if it’s truly transcendent.
James Earl Jones. With the Imperial March playing in the background.
How did I forget James Earl Jones for epic voiceover narrators???
I also forgot Mako.
(the guy who played the Wizard in Conan)
“Let me tell you of the days of HIGH ADVENTURE!”
https://youtu.be/9oIWi3IK3RI?t=34
Sadly Mako’s dead :(
Now I’m sad because I just remembered that.
Well, least we still have Greg Baldwin and Keith David.
For people who want to argue about whether this was indeed a racist/spiecist/genocist/domainist assumption maybe this:
– https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-813-metaphysics-101/
– https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-814-history-demonology-101/
helps.
I argue that the first is more interesting to the current discussion than the second, but that’s just my opinion.
Indeed,
the astral planer beings also bring up some issues. I was already wandering how the demons relate with the Xevoarchy, and the Astral Planer beings I assume are being counted as 3rd tier civilization types along side ascended or (gods) and such. Although a naturally ethereal being being counted as a civilization level because they can directly move through and impact things physical beings need lots of machinery for sounds like cheating the system but eh,
I’ve also wandered if these would ever come into the story, especially involving demons and aliens like how Star Trek would occasionally come across some super being influencing a civilization or various sci-fi *especially video games* with the eldritch being being behind the demon lord’s actions. Mixing in outer space civilization stuff always adds an interesting twist as one group calls it a god while another says its just an advanced higher dimension aliens, but either way its just as powerful and influential.
Also yes, Sydney’s conclusion wasn’t just from pop culture, Dabbler did imply back there that demons have urges and lean in that direction.
“I was already wandering how the demons relate with the Xevoarchy, and the Astral Planer beings I assume are being counted as 3rd tier civilization types along side ascended or (gods) and such.”
I’ve been going on the assumption that Astral Planer beings like demons are probably part of the Xevoarchy, in a very ‘Council’-like sense on Earth, but galactic. Especially based on how Tom seems to be saying that he offers tabula rasa – a blank slate. Possibly meaning that he represents factions which have enough pull within the Xevoarchy to calm them down about the danger that Earth represents if its within his faction.
Certainly Dabbles has celestial orbs.