Grrl Power #995 – Big Oil has nothing on Big Peasant
These pages are a bit more challenging to draw than the standard talking heads page. I write them to convey the tale Dabbler is relaying, then when I’m laying out the page and the word bubbles, I realize I don’t know what I’m going to draw to accompany the text. Admittedly, the bit in panels 1-3 made more sense in my head. The joke I was trying to pull there was that programming magic the same way as you’d do machine code is hilariously inefficient, so the “great work” guy reigned over a thousand years of darkness in order to build a “Working Computer in Minecraft” level processor to pull off some basic ass output.
Then I thought that anyone who wasn’t familiar with Minecraft memes or who didn’t take an introductory Apple BASIC programming class in the 80’s might not get the joke and think the pyramid was some kind of A.I. being like the W.O.P.R. (Yes, I grew up in the 80’s.) If you did learn a bit about Apple BASIC, or even spent 20 minutes on it, you’d probably get the joke, because the very first thing you learn to do is get the computer to output, you guessed it, “Hello world.” In fact, if you google “apple basic” that’s the first image result.
Ah, that joke is definitely better now that I’ve exhaustively explained it. So now instead, let’s all just take a moment to think about a Mind Flayer who appreciates a nice fluffy pillow. The sleeping arrangements of chaotic/lawful evil monsters is not something I spend a lot of time on, but I guess my default instinct would be that they probably sleep on a pile of skulls or in a web made from human sinew or in a crypt surrounded by spikes or something scary looking, but who’s to say Mind Flayers aren’t into super comfortable bedding? Granted, I would probably be a little crabby and therefore just a bit more evil if I had to sleep curled up in the sloughing puss of a giant’s chest cavity, not to mention the extra time taken in the evil shower in order to properly de-fester, but I think of my priorities as a creature of evil would be to invent memory foam. And I don’t mean foam made from human brains that can still remember not being foam, either. Well, I guess if I was evil, it wouldn’t matter to me either way as long as it conformed to and supported my contours.
Tamer: Enhancer 2 – Progress Update:
Nothing to report. I had to finish the vote/pinup thing and that put me behind so I spent the weekend finishing comic pages.
November’s vote incentive is updated, in case you missed me posting about it on Friday. Here’s a link to a dedicated post about it if you want to comment.
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Dave, I think you’ve probably spent more time on it than most people, just for this page alone.
I kinda gathered illithids preferred to sleep in shallow water, but that may just be in their larval state, before they crawl into someone’s eye socket and devour their brain and grow out into a full-adult mind flayer – at that point, who knows.
I’m personally just tickled to know that Dabbler’s the magical equivalent of a sex bot.
descendant of sex bots, THAT’s the really bad part, even without the soul binding magic stuff, the descendants through reproduction of these designs still being treated like them makes the situation of “slave” as a society norm even worse than a few asshole wizards kidnapping a handful of people to bind their souls to automatons.
it is like the game ArTonelico how the Reyvatails even with a human parent are treated as second class because they inherited the bio-android traits of their ancestors from thousands of years prior.
One thing is for sure: the precursor to the modern succubi knew what their purpose was- even if they disagreed or found their purpose distasteful or abhorrent.
Most beings go through their lives forever unsure.
that is not a good thing.
Life has no purpose, that is what makes the search optional and fulfilling, and those who just wish to exist can and do.
life with a pre-set purpose isn’t “life” it is “function” to be without choice, ambition, and to accept this and be proud of it, ever question it, is to liken one’s self to a machine that does one thing/
Yes, that’s why Dabbles likes to dabble in so many things (and people, if they are so inclined ;) )
Knowing your purpose in life doesn’t make it or you less than those who go through life not knowing shit
If you go through life never finding your purpose, how is that more fulfilling than someone who already knows?
To quote (or paraphrase) Mark Hollins of Talk Talk:
Baby, life’s what you make it.
Don’t you hate it.
Celebrate it.
No living thing has a fixed purpose and life has no meaning. This would negate the concept of free will. You have to give it meaning yourself. And one of the best, perhaps only, ways to do this is by giving meaning to somebody else’s life.
exactly, mostly. that very last part leave or take, but whatever makes them happy and helps others works too.
I’d probably rephrase that last part as ‘no living sapient thing’ (I don’t think the tuna that became part of the tuna fish sandwich I ate for lunch yesterday had much of a personalized purpose beyond living long enough to reproduce), but yeah. :)
I think the grand purpose of life for any sapient creature (admittedly mostly humans, but this would work for aliens as well) is to figure out what purpose in life works best for them. ie, “Life’s what you make it.”
Or as Fyodor Dostoyevsky put it, “The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but finding something to live for.”
Might seem a bit like circular reasoning but people are individuals so they’re going to often have very unique and individualized purposes. It would be difficult to make some sort of specific all-purpose purpose in writing. :)
Geez, I do not write even remotely as normally as I speak.
Cereally? Your life can only have meaning if you give meaning to someone else’s life?
While I don’t agree with it being the ONLY way to have meaning, it is the way which has the most meaning, because it’s the way that a piece of you will survive your lifespan.
The idea being: If your purpose in life only lasts for the period of your life, and after your life is over, nothing is left, and no one has been affected by anything you did, does it anything you did really matter in the grand scheme of things? But if your life touches other people, it sets off a type of butterfly effect and that can have effects long after you’re gone. If nothing else, the desire to leave a lasting imprint on the world does generally encourage general goodwill to one’s fellow man, or at the very least, a drive towards progress for more than just yourself.
Except, ‘the desire to leave a lasting imprint on the world’ can also encourage evil, specially nowadays when you are more likely to hear about someone shooting up an orphanage than someone who helped build one
Point being was: just because you already know your purpose in life, doesn’t mean that you can’t do other things as well
Dabbles knows her purpose in life is to have sex, a lot, doesn’t mean she can’t (and doesn’t) do other things (and people ;) )
You have to eat and sleep to survive, right? Doesn’t mean you can’t do other things in-between, right?
“can also encourage evil, specially nowadays”
I’m pretty certain people doing evil things in order to be remembered for all time is not a new thing particular to nowadays. Genghis Khan, Torquemada, Nero, Joseph Stalin, Rosemary West, Vlad the Impaler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Ivan the Terrible, Leopold the 2nd, Elizabeth Bathory, Bloody Mary (Queen Mary the First), Ayatollah Khomenei, Fidel Castro, Mao Zedong, Robespierre, and of course Adolf Hitler. It’s not new for people to do things that are evil to leav a lasting imprint. But that’s not my point.
My point is that the desire to leave a lasting imprint by doing something good for another person is more common than doing something horribly evil in order to gain eternal notoriety. Most often by simply having a family and raising children to be good adults.
So while doing something for others is not the ONLY way to give your life meaning, it’s usually the most important way, because it will usually survive your own existence in other people’s memories or the effects that helping others caused in those other people.
“Dabbles knows her purpose in life is to have sex, a lot, doesn’t mean she can’t (and doesn’t) do other things (and people ;) )”
I wouldn’t say her purpose in life is to have sex any more than my purpose in life is to eat. My OBVIOUS purpose in life is obviously to keep ninja hit squads employed and to sway others to the greatness that is Deus, the paragon of humanity, so they can be better as well by striving towards such perfection even if they will never reach those lofty heights, as the journey is what matters – all praise Deus amen.
But as for Dabbler, sex is a natural and required part of her existence as a succubus. Her purpose in life seems to be to be an adventurer and inventor. Which does, in fact, wind up helping a lot of other people, and her actions will last far longer than her lifespan (through Archon, through Cora, through probably many other people that she’s interacted with, both positively and negatively), long as her lifespan may be.
Lot of people were doing evil things in order to be remembered, but after few thousands years of tests, I would say the best thing to do to be remembered is to build something big and sign it.
A sex bot who can kick your ass with tech, magic, or a good old fashioned sword.
Dabbler: Heh heh, you said ‘glazing’. *bites into glazed donut*
Max: Hey, I didn’t say anything about your Ding Dongs. *bites into Ding Dong*
i think Dabbler is actually eating a pineapple ring, you can see the grooves and how the sides are sharply defined; one of the Harems had mentioned doing a fruit platter rather than just popcorn
And for that matter Max has a Ho Ho, but punster’s gonna pun.
It really does look like a pineapple ring. Never saw anyone eat one with their hand tho. :) The syrup or juice tends to be sticky.
Then again Dabbler likely does not mind getting her hands sticky.
Like said on the first page: maybe it’s candied or dehydrated
or maybe she likes sucking sticky warm liquids off her fingers in front of people.
Your pineapple juice should not be warm, unless it’s freshly barbequed, in which case, you should not be eating it with your fingers…
I prefer to eat cooked food, and pineapple only really with ham honestly.
but considering demonic fluids, not only hot and sticky, but spicy.
Heated up, spicy pineapple slices, try it, and know what it is to taste the um…sticky fluids, of a demon.
Having a program execution output “hello world” is basically universal for first step in learning how to program.
well If I were that Illitid(mind flayer), I think I’d have the made fix my cowl. When you are an evil superintelligence that eats brains you cannot go around looking like a murder hobo, show a little class. Hem those edges at least! and that collar needs to be at least 4″ higher and trimmed in gold.
illitid= Illithid made= Maid. forgive my S.E Oklahoma education, dyslexia and ADHD
“hello world” is the most basic piece of code that every programer independent of the language is learning does, its basically universal, i started with C++ and thats the first thing i did before starting with more complex stuff like types, classes, functions, struts, templates or shit like that
There are a lot of mods for Minecraft. Out of some of the popular ones, there’s one that can cook villagers into emeralds, one that can convert emeralds into energy, and several that can convert energy into healing. So, obviously, I made an engine that cooks villagers to make energy but prevents them from dying via healing. Net gain in energy.
“Admittedly, the bit in panels 1-3 made more sense in my head.”
I call bullshit.
It can’t have made more sense than it does right there.
That was genius. It made just total sense as soon as I saw the “Hello World”. And the pyramid design similarity to Deep Thought in HHGttG is not lost on me either.
To someone with the necessary context, sure. He was concerned that it wouldn’t make sense to someone without that knowledge.
FORTRAN4.0
PROGRAM FIRST()
* MY FIRST PROGRAM
PRINT 10
10 FORMAT(11HHELLO WORLD)
END
======
Peasants are quite happy to throw other peasants under the bus so long as they don’t have a sense of “you’re next”, and pillow fluffing as a display of maker prowess is only useful for making bed, bath and beyonder jokes in the margin. What you want is a V8 peasant washer. Strap em in one to a cylinder. First a cold rinse and a quick slosh then change the water and light the fire underneath. It will be highly entertaining listening to their screams and you can finally do something about [/that smell/]. Once the water warms up enough add some tallow and whip your orcs into a frenzy on the treadmill sloshing them up and down like made in a frothy hell. Follow up with a blow dry and general flea treatment and they will be healthier, smell much better and with appropriate dental care some of the peasants might even be worth shagging.
That “Screaming in Existential Dread” sign looks like it belongs in Castle Heterodyne.
Dave that “Hello world” thing isn’t unique to Applesoft BASIC. I’ve run across it in a number of other “how to learn X programming language” books.
A question,
where was all this taking place?
Were these Arch-Mages on Earth, Hell, some other Netherworld, Aelfheim, some other planet, another dimension but still a human(oid) world with magic.
which also raises the question what position were these Arch MKages in to do this stuff so freely?
Was this a wizards with towers and secret sects like a Conan the Barbarian adventure,
or more of a Bortherhood of Mages manipulating things behind the crowns The Witcher type of scenario,
or is this a Magic Kingdoms scenario where those with magic power formed a dynasty and took over their lands using magic as the basis for why they “deserve” to be in charge. *If the gods did not intend for us to rule then why were we gifted with some of their power*…while keeping the serfs ignorant of the fact they too could learn magic.
hard to imagine all this happening in a low fantasy setting, although magical crime syndicates like those in Outlaw Star I guess could also pull this off; but one would imagine the flash back aesthetic to look a tad different there.
(Is that Bortherhood of Mages or Botherhood of Mages?) These are some legitimate questions but if Dabbler answered them, this expository thread would be longer than a Lovercraftian monologue.
Brotherhood, and not sure why spell check didn’t catch that one.
This is reminding me of Jack Vance’s “Dying Earth” series of short stories. Nearly all the wizards in that setting were utter sociopaths. If one of them showed up in a rpg, they would be the final boss. In fact there was one mini-series of short stories where the protagonist was a wizard trying to build his own girlfriend. It ends with his girlfriend rescuing him from a rival wizard and dying in the process. His last words to her was that he might save parts of her brain for the next girlfriend he builds.
… that might actually count as romantic, relatively speaking.
Funny, I don’t remember any of my computer classes having you learn how to get the computer to say ‘Hello World’ despite being in the 80s.
i love the fact that the mind flayers maid is a drow
Reading this page back again, in an age where AI is actually practical for specific tasks even if it’s limited functionality that’s really only a year or two after this page…
Yeah, that gives you an idea of how much has been going on in the background.
that logic can’t be beaten lmao