Sorry Tina. We’re only human. You get the good, the bad, and the indifferent all in the same package. Maybe someday you’ll be right, but don’t hold your breath.
I’m sorry, but reading the part about the good and the bad, I started hearing the theme from Facts of Life in my head and now I have an overpowering urge to find a power drill to get it out of my head … >.<
Huh…I always thought that laws could be changed, but not bent…and rules can be bent…and you don’t get in as much trouble when you break rules. 🙂
I also have a slightly skewed perspective on rules…I expect there to be loopholes in them that allow things that might seem like cheating to be okay. This may be because my dad used to challenge me to races, then when he said “Go” he’d do something to keep me from starting. When I cried foul, he’d very calmly point out that he never said that action was against the rules. *shakes head* Laws are much more black and white to me.
Ah, Phix is in her ‘I will annoy you into saying what you need to say so that you understand the situation and yourself better’ mode.
Wait, does she have anothor mode?
(Maybe yes, but that’s reserved for Nudge…)
Not exactly.. She hasn’t hit Tina on the head só hard that the tentacles sprout from he ass as some creepy, over-sized hemorrhoids.. yet… 😛
Knocking Nudge out of her horseshoes seemed to be “part of the learning” for Nudge, so, I wager the thought that Phix has quite a bit higher expectations and hopes for Tina, than she éver had for Nudge.
Puppies are for learning tricks, kids are for learning them being good humans.. (see where I am going here?)
It may be as a Demigod, Nudge’s nature is fixed and cannot be altered. Tina, on the other tentacle, is inhabiting a human body and has taken on a human role. A covey of demons normal mode of operation is to influence a human soul (usualy in a negative way). The demon collective effectively IS Tina 2.1’s soul and as such has taken on the moral imperitives that go with being human. Phix is pushing her buttons, effectively taking on the role of Tina’s Demon to get her to examine herself and her motives more closely. Phix’s undisguised glee at this is probably at the absurdity of a Sphinx serving as the consience to a bunch of demons instead of filing her usual role of demon predator. Normally, when Apos find a human chock full ‘o demons, they just kill ’em.
I would think that Phix’s delight is in the fact that she was an advocate against the wholesale slaughter of demon infested humans because she thought they could evolve into something better than they were if given half a chance like the Tina collective is getting.
I would rather say she is releasing some of her frustration by letting her inner troll get a bit of airtime. Especially in the last panel.
However having to constantlylive with Nudge I can’t begrudge her that. Of course seeing a bunch of demons come the realisation thathumans should be better is such delicious irony, that trolling seems inevitable.
People shouldn’t have to be made to do the right thing.
Sometimes folks need a hand with that. (Not necessarily a little Nudge.) That comes from other people, if they’re lucky. Tina’s one of the better people to help out, particularly if you could use some coffee with your advice.
The problem is not that the people in question were unwilling to do the right thing, but were afraid that they would do the wrong thing. Bureaucratic inaction is often caused by a fear that ANY action will be wrong, so they dither and push decisions off on someone else. And that person pushes it on to someone else.
Bureaucrats have to be afraid of losing their job for an incorrect or costly decision, it is the reason that the Supreme Court Justices are appointed for life— so that they don’t have to be afraid of losing their job and can make correct and unpopular rulings.
Phix is already in Mama/Teacher mode here.. pretty clear where this is going.
Phix seems, indeed, certainly pleased here.
Probably because it underlines her pacifist conviction that killing the host is throwing away the baby with the bathwater, especially íf there is a possibility to turn a Daemon into a force for good…
Good catch. My mind just automatically regarded it as Phix using “who” as a reference to the personality the Collective projects with Tina 2.1 but I think you’re on to something there.
The thing is, it IS in people’s natures to do good. The problem starts when dealing with organisations: In making rules to try to do the most good for the most people, they sometimes make doing the right thing against the rules.
Tina didn’t make anybody act against their nature. Just the opposite. She broke human rules, not demon/sphinx law.
Lol, It’s won’t fight but I will ask have you any reference to someone doing the right thing. Where the benefits to the person did not or the end result was not a hoped for benefit to the person doing it???
I’ve seen many people do the right thing when there was no benefit to themselves. Those actions may not have been major or news-worthy, but they benefited complete strangers with no ancillary “good” falling to the person taking action.
Of course, if you ask a hardcore believer in the theory that we only do things that benefit ourselves, they will likely say that the positive feelings that resulted from the good deeds were the reason good deeds were performed…but I think that’s a bit of a stretch.
I’d agree: it’s in our nature to do good, but we’ve been corrupted so that we find it hard or are unwilling to do the good. It’s only when we get back to that pure nature–aka “heaven” that good will again reign.
Sorry to disagree with you, but good and evil are _not_ a matter of nature. They are value judgments.
What is in our nature, and indeed in the nature of all life, is opportunism and the avoidance of injury.
We generally label the “good” as that which serves life, but in a social context it’s almost impossible to avoid stepping on toes.
We live and learn, and sometimes don’t.
Its all a matter of experience… after some time not caring, you find it is better to start caring for those that remind you of lost friends, and so gain new ones..
If you are unaffected by things that would normally kill a human, you can wander along not caring about your actions, but now and then given cause to be a bit more careful what you do by someone (Phix)who CAN cause you harm…
This is Tina.. no real cares, until someone very close to her has a problem, that she helps even though she thinks Phix will punish her for ‘interfering with the humans’ again… 🙂
sheik:
Its all a matter of experience… after some time not caring, you find it is better to start caring for those that remind you of lost friends, and so gain new ones..
If you are unaffected by things that would normally kill a human, you can wander along not caring about your actions, but now and then given cause to be a bit more careful what you do by someone (Phix)who CAN cause you harm…
This is Tina.. no real cares, until someone very close to her has a problem, that she helps even though she thinks Phix will punish her for ‘interfering with the humans’ again… 🙂
Not to belittle Tina, as she has come so very far … but I think it was more of a “last act of defiance” kinda deal. She decided she was damned either way, might as well go out doing what they thought was right.
In this case the mouse doesn’t have the gun, but I get an image of the hawk giving the mouse a tap on the head and just flying right by.
Nah, Phix wouldn’t do that because she knows the sphinx-demon relationship is like a bear facing a chihuahua … you think how cute it is the little bugger wants to yap at you like that, heh. So she just shrugs it off.
In essence, she *is* the “smug, arrogant bitch” she was just accused of being. 😀
I’m reminded of the story of The Golem of Prague, wherein a Rabbi creates a clay golem to help defend his parishioners from persecution. The golem had the word “emet” (truth or reality) in symbols on it’s forehead – a charm which gave it life. In time, when it had served it’s purpose, the Rabbi rubbed out the first symbol, leaving “met” (dead), and it became simple clay once again.
As the GGs have incantations in glyph written into their bodies which give them form, life, and power, so too may Tina 2.1, hidden under her ever present neck band. Others have pointed out that Shelly’s demons coalesced, under pressure, and so became an animate Conscience. It may be that Phix is applying pressure to both test and form Tina, now that she is free from Nudge.
Perhaps the day will come when Phix changes Tina’s incantation, that she can be “a real girl” as Skruddgemire said!
Or, more broadly, to see how demons do when “given a fresh start” and immersed in the human world.
Tina’s demons were stripped of their memories of their former demonic existence and timeless culture, and had to make their way through life entirely in the human system. They may be the equivalent of a “feral wolf child” (a baby lost in the wild and raised by animals), or more positively like the children in “The Trap”. They seem to have come to appreciate the human condition, in a way that “traditional” infest-and-torment demons do not, because they were isolated from traditional demon culture during their “formative years”. They have broken out of the usual mould.
It’s certainly possible that they were an experiment by TPTB, and it could be one with huge, long-lasting implications if it works.
What are you saying? This is making me like Phix and Tina more and more! All of their agression toward one anohter, I know its just pent up sexual tension! All they need is to shag each other, and they’ll be right as rain!
Anybody else want to hop on this ship?
{{ decides against travel, but drops the price of a ship ticket into the second-track purchase fund basket sitting next to the pun jar on the counter }}
Every time Phix interacts with Tina, she comes off as a bully.
That’s independent of how she comes off with other people, but there’s always a sense of menace and enjoyment of the power one has over the other, like a cat toying with a mouse, when she talks to Tina.
Tina is upset because she was forced to take an active role in order to correct a wrong, where as she’s always been the one to cheerfully point out what others need to learn for themselves. And it appears that some of Nudge has rubbed off on (in?) Tina as well for her to so brazenly snap at her unwanted tutor.
I love what’s happening here. Tina has given some indication of being on the cusp of a crisis – mentioning her “36-year-old body,” forgetting to set the alarm or do the laundry, etc. These are the kinds of situations that often befall us human beings, and can lead to new self-awareness or bring us to another stage in our development. And so with Tina…
Of course, Paul may have something else in mind, but I like this particular arc. It’s giving away just enough to keep it very interesting. On to Friday!
Paul has left us plenty of clues as to Tina’s standing on helping others in the past. Remember when she visited the Tina 1.0 effigy in the basement of the shop?
To kind of riff on my point about a crisis – notice how Tina’s hair in the first couple of the strips in this arc, was fly-away, with strands going this way and that. Not the controlled Tina we’re used to seeing, perhaps, but a flustered, discomfited Tina. Making it up as she goes along, she still feels ill at ease for doing what she did. The question is – why did she do things THIS way, as opposed as some OTHER way? There’s going to be more here than just chewing out a Phix…
Okay, I just love Phix in the last panel. She is in the ‘Namaste’ pose which is usually followed by “The spirit in me respects the spirit in you”, or how my one friend a yoga instructor says it, ” all the good in me recognizes and acknowledges all the good in you.”
One of my favorite photographs is of my wife, bowing and making that gesture, outside a Macdonalds in Bangkok… right beside a human-sized figure of Ronald Macdonald portrayed as making the same gesture!
The willingness and tendency to “do the right thing” is a complex issue, affected by a lot of psychological elements. Empathy… a sense of fairness… expectation of some sort of direct or indirect reciprocity at some point in the future… other things as well. Some research recently suggests that people who find the world to be more “threatening” are less likely, overall, to behave “nicely” towards others… more likely to choose actions based on their own advantage. Sociopaths are at the low end of the scale… they act entirely for their own advantage, and simply don’t care at all about the impact of their actions on anyone else.
If the same general principles apply in the Wapsi world, then it opens a big question. How much influence do a person’s demons have, in whether that person tends to “do the right thing” most of the time or not?
I could very well believe that a person being strongly influenced or tormented by Doubt, Fear, or Anxiety could be too insecure to act in another person’s best interest if doing so posed any risk. A person influenced by Pride or Greed might not want to, having a sense of privilege or a “me first” attitude. Lust might drive a person to withold right action as a way of manipulating a possible partner.
If this line of thinking is valid, then Tina (a cohort of demons) is bemoaning a state of affairs that are to at least some extent caused by the actions of demons! And, she’s upset and angry enough about it, to be yelling at a sphinx who could exterminate her in a heartbeat.
And that shows a level of change and growth in her, which would really explain Phix’s smug comment in the final frame.
Amen to that. I can’t think of another webcomic, and darned few other works of fiction, that cram so much excitingthoughtprovokingness (if there is such a word… German probably has one) into its story. This is really fine stuff.
I’m pretty sure it’s a direct translation of “excitingthoughtprovokingness”, so he left out the spaces. Google wouldn’t recognize it because it thinks you only typed one word. But this is just a guess; I only know like 4 words in German. 😛
Well said! Even though it may be a tongue twister, the thought is there.
At least we don’t have to discuss the musical works of the famous Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern -schplenden -schlitter -crasscrenbon -fried -digger -dangle -dungle -burstein -von -knacker -thrasher -apple -banger -horowitz -ticolensic -grander -knotty -spelltinkle -grandlich -grumblemeyer -spelterwasser -kürstlich -himbleeisen -bahnwagen -gutenabend -bitte -eine -nürnburger -bratwustle -gerspurten -mit -zweimache -luber -hundsfut -gumberaber -shönendanker -kalbsfleisch -mittler -raucher von Hautkopft of Ulm! It would take too long.
And in the last panel, behind Phix on the wall is a statue of The Blessed Mother in almost identical stance. Interesting is this to say Phix is “watching over” Tina like a Mom?
True, it has been an interesting tangent, but realize that as the audience we must take what is presented no matter how it may be perceived. Even if you were to choose to not read this segment of the Wapsi story, I’d have to believe that curiosity would eventually grab you by the lapels and drag you back to read.
There are a lot of points in the storylines that Pablo weaves that don’t quite make sense the first time around… But then, about a month or so later, you’re scrambling back to remember when they were talking about this or that – and it turns out that the point that didn’t make sense then makes sense later.
As I remember it, Nudge was still leading the Collective when Tina first met Phix. With her past history with Phix it could be that Nudge was the one sweating bullets, not just the Collective, with good cause as it turned out.
This will be interesting…
What, Phix, you couldn’t have gotten a puppy?
@SWM:
::snicker:: OK, ten points to you, sir, that was awesomesauce.
Well played, sir. 🙂
And Nudge still isn’t housebroken!
The house on the other hand…
And the best thing is: she’s willing to carry the house anywhere you want it put, tail wagging all the way!
Sorry Tina. We’re only human. You get the good, the bad, and the indifferent all in the same package. Maybe someday you’ll be right, but don’t hold your breath.
I’m sorry, but reading the part about the good and the bad, I started hearing the theme from Facts of Life in my head and now I have an overpowering urge to find a power drill to get it out of my head … >.<
Funny thing, I got Clint Eastwood’s ‘The Good the Bad and The UGLY’ theme running thru my head. Here listen:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQGGQ-FCe_w
Ooo-oooey-you-a-wah-wah?
OOps. left the “eee” off the first “Ooo”.
Pretty much… 😀 Like the good Doctor, I got that theme stuck in my head, too.
So do I. NOW, anyway.
Thanks a whole lot.
Yeah, but at least it got rid of “The Facts of Life”
Oops. 😉
That was just pure evil Nebulous, I love it.
Wrassum brasssle goombas moursssers . . . .
Is it just me, or is Phix borrowing a page from Nudge’s book?
Yes and No. She’s not really as manipulating as Nudge, but, yes, she is forcing Tina to look at things “in a different way”
I guess it’s Phix’way of pointing-out to Tina that she has come far further than she gives herself credit for.
This would be why Phix and Nudge didn’t get along (aside from Nudge getting her in trouble). They are too similar and yet different.
If Phix is the Law of the Game then Nudge is the Rules of the Game. Rules make up law, but law may be bent or be over ruled by rules.
Huh…I always thought that laws could be changed, but not bent…and rules can be bent…and you don’t get in as much trouble when you break rules. 🙂
I also have a slightly skewed perspective on rules…I expect there to be loopholes in them that allow things that might seem like cheating to be okay. This may be because my dad used to challenge me to races, then when he said “Go” he’d do something to keep me from starting. When I cried foul, he’d very calmly point out that he never said that action was against the rules. *shakes head* Laws are much more black and white to me.
Have you ever heard of Peter Suber’s Nomic,
a game of self-amendment in which changing the rules is a move?
One way to win the game is by making further moves impossible or self-contradictory.
Also Fluxx, a card game based on changing rules as you play.
The odd thing? A game of either Nomic or Fluxx could become the other one, and vice versa!
Did you ever step on his toe when he did that? 🙂
It’s the rules that make up the law that can be bent or over ruled. Not the laws themselves.
As for trouble….eh….depends on the wording and how well you can argue your case, I’ve found. :p
But yeah, laws are more black and white with the “rules” making the shades of grey between.
To get a complete understanding of rules you should look up Calvinball.
Just remember that today is Reverse Thursday!
Excellent! That means tomorrow will be Tuesday the 31st.
Also, it’s a great day for two-fisted phizbin.
Ah, Phix is in her ‘I will annoy you into saying what you need to say so that you understand the situation and yourself better’ mode.
Wait, does she have anothor mode?
(Maybe yes, but that’s reserved for Nudge…)
Not exactly.. She hasn’t hit Tina on the head só hard that the tentacles sprout from he ass as some creepy, over-sized hemorrhoids.. yet… 😛
Knocking Nudge out of her horseshoes seemed to be “part of the learning” for Nudge, so, I wager the thought that Phix has quite a bit higher expectations and hopes for Tina, than she éver had for Nudge.
Puppies are for learning tricks, kids are for learning them being good humans.. (see where I am going here?)
You know? I’d like to see that in a poster. Tentacles out the ass. woo!
It may be as a Demigod, Nudge’s nature is fixed and cannot be altered. Tina, on the other tentacle, is inhabiting a human body and has taken on a human role. A covey of demons normal mode of operation is to influence a human soul (usualy in a negative way). The demon collective effectively IS Tina 2.1’s soul and as such has taken on the moral imperitives that go with being human. Phix is pushing her buttons, effectively taking on the role of Tina’s Demon to get her to examine herself and her motives more closely. Phix’s undisguised glee at this is probably at the absurdity of a Sphinx serving as the consience to a bunch of demons instead of filing her usual role of demon predator. Normally, when Apos find a human chock full ‘o demons, they just kill ’em.
I would think that Phix’s delight is in the fact that she was an advocate against the wholesale slaughter of demon infested humans because she thought they could evolve into something better than they were if given half a chance like the Tina collective is getting.
PS
On Your question the last page: No, I am not Czech, I am Dutch. 🙂
The comment stays (even more so): good for you mate! 😀
I would rather say she is releasing some of her frustration by letting her inner troll get a bit of airtime. Especially in the last panel.
However having to constantlylive with Nudge I can’t begrudge her that. Of course seeing a bunch of demons come the realisation thathumans should be better is such delicious irony, that trolling seems inevitable.
People shouldn’t have to be made to do the right thing.
Sometimes folks need a hand with that. (Not necessarily a little Nudge.) That comes from other people, if they’re lucky. Tina’s one of the better people to help out, particularly if you could use some coffee with your advice.
Be thankful you got Tina.
Shelly, Brandi, and Jin have a tendency to try and kill you in the name of “doing the right thing”. (>^_^)>
Reverse psychology?
Why not ask, “Are you a good witch or a bad witch?”
the answer to that question is, of course, “what day of the week is it again?” 😉
(i have that as a tshirt. it REALLY bothers my mother, who has no idea of my religious leanings.)
MMMM, By this twitching of my thumb, something WICCAN this way comes?????
The problem is not that the people in question were unwilling to do the right thing, but were afraid that they would do the wrong thing. Bureaucratic inaction is often caused by a fear that ANY action will be wrong, so they dither and push decisions off on someone else. And that person pushes it on to someone else.
Or, as the Japanese saying goes, “The nail which sticks up, gets hammered down.”
Bureaucrats have to be afraid of losing their job for an incorrect or costly decision, it is the reason that the Supreme Court Justices are appointed for life— so that they don’t have to be afraid of losing their job and can make correct and unpopular rulings.
I love you phix.
Congratulations Tina – you passed!
Will she get a cookie?
Only if Don Rickles is around…
Only if Phix brought some; her baker, Becky, is probably home in bead trying not to count the dots on the ceiling….
Or in bed. Whatev.
Depends on her fixations.
Indeed. Phix is pleased.
DAMN! Tina has balls… so to speak.
Big shoulders.
Armor-piercing Titanium Nipples ??
Chesticles.
Titanium Nipples? Sounds like a techno-grunge band.
dot tumblr dot com
Phix is already in Mama/Teacher mode here.. pretty clear where this is going.
Phix seems, indeed, certainly pleased here.
Probably because it underlines her pacifist conviction that killing the host is throwing away the baby with the bathwater, especially íf there is a possibility to turn a Daemon into a force for good…
Intersting development.
The thing that encourages the heck out of me is that Phix said “*who* you are” as opposed to “*what* you are”
The demons have been playing human for so long that they’re starting to become human.
Pinocchio is starting to turn into a real little girl.
And Phix is being pretty smug about it.
Oh.. You’re right!
Didn’t notice at first…
Good catch. My mind just automatically regarded it as Phix using “who” as a reference to the personality the Collective projects with Tina 2.1 but I think you’re on to something there.
The thing is, it IS in people’s natures to do good. The problem starts when dealing with organisations: In making rules to try to do the most good for the most people, they sometimes make doing the right thing against the rules.
Tina didn’t make anybody act against their nature. Just the opposite. She broke human rules, not demon/sphinx law.
Lol, It’s won’t fight but I will ask have you any reference to someone doing the right thing. Where the benefits to the person did not or the end result was not a hoped for benefit to the person doing it???
I’ve seen many people do the right thing when there was no benefit to themselves. Those actions may not have been major or news-worthy, but they benefited complete strangers with no ancillary “good” falling to the person taking action.
Of course, if you ask a hardcore believer in the theory that we only do things that benefit ourselves, they will likely say that the positive feelings that resulted from the good deeds were the reason good deeds were performed…but I think that’s a bit of a stretch.
I’d agree: it’s in our nature to do good, but we’ve been corrupted so that we find it hard or are unwilling to do the good. It’s only when we get back to that pure nature–aka “heaven” that good will again reign.
Sorry to disagree with you, but good and evil are _not_ a matter of nature. They are value judgments.
What is in our nature, and indeed in the nature of all life, is opportunism and the avoidance of injury.
We generally label the “good” as that which serves life, but in a social context it’s almost impossible to avoid stepping on toes.
We live and learn, and sometimes don’t.
Its all a matter of experience… after some time not caring, you find it is better to start caring for those that remind you of lost friends, and so gain new ones..
If you are unaffected by things that would normally kill a human, you can wander along not caring about your actions, but now and then given cause to be a bit more careful what you do by someone (Phix)who CAN cause you harm…
This is Tina.. no real cares, until someone very close to her has a problem, that she helps even though she thinks Phix will punish her for ‘interfering with the humans’ again… 🙂
sheik:
Its all a matter of experience… after some time not caring, you find it is better to start caring for those that remind you of lost friends, and so gain new ones..
If you are unaffected by things that would normally kill a human, you can wander along not caring about your actions, but now and then given cause to be a bit more careful what you do by someone (Phix)who CAN cause you harm…
This is Tina.. no real cares, until someone very close to her has a problem, that she helps even though she thinks Phix will punish her for ‘interfering with the humans’ again… 🙂
Heck, after barely being able to hold it together around a Sphinx, now calling one out on the carpet… She really has become something else.
<3 Tina.. Let's just hope that last comment is not the epitaph on her tombstone lol
Not to belittle Tina, as she has come so very far … but I think it was more of a “last act of defiance” kinda deal. She decided she was damned either way, might as well go out doing what they thought was right.
In this case the mouse doesn’t have the gun, but I get an image of the hawk giving the mouse a tap on the head and just flying right by.
Hmmm. Hawk and mouse? I get more of a cat and mouse game (c8. And I’m not lion.
Excuse me, there is a rather impatient Pun Jar at the door.
Nah, Phix wouldn’t do that because she knows the sphinx-demon relationship is like a bear facing a chihuahua … you think how cute it is the little bugger wants to yap at you like that, heh. So she just shrugs it off.
In essence, she *is* the “smug, arrogant bitch” she was just accused of being. 😀
I’m reminded of the story of The Golem of Prague, wherein a Rabbi creates a clay golem to help defend his parishioners from persecution. The golem had the word “emet” (truth or reality) in symbols on it’s forehead – a charm which gave it life. In time, when it had served it’s purpose, the Rabbi rubbed out the first symbol, leaving “met” (dead), and it became simple clay once again.
As the GGs have incantations in glyph written into their bodies which give them form, life, and power, so too may Tina 2.1, hidden under her ever present neck band. Others have pointed out that Shelly’s demons coalesced, under pressure, and so became an animate Conscience. It may be that Phix is applying pressure to both test and form Tina, now that she is free from Nudge.
Perhaps the day will come when Phix changes Tina’s incantation, that she can be “a real girl” as Skruddgemire said!
What Tina doesn’t realize is, she’s becoming human.
And you do have to wonder – is this an attempt by The Powers That Be to created another version of Shelly’s “conscience”?
Or, more broadly, to see how demons do when “given a fresh start” and immersed in the human world.
Tina’s demons were stripped of their memories of their former demonic existence and timeless culture, and had to make their way through life entirely in the human system. They may be the equivalent of a “feral wolf child” (a baby lost in the wild and raised by animals), or more positively like the children in “The Trap”. They seem to have come to appreciate the human condition, in a way that “traditional” infest-and-torment demons do not, because they were isolated from traditional demon culture during their “formative years”. They have broken out of the usual mould.
It’s certainly possible that they were an experiment by TPTB, and it could be one with huge, long-lasting implications if it works.
Every time Phix interacts with Tina, I like Phix less and less.
What are you saying? This is making me like Phix and Tina more and more! All of their agression toward one anohter, I know its just pent up sexual tension! All they need is to shag each other, and they’ll be right as rain!
Anybody else want to hop on this ship?
No – but i’ve got some torpedoes…
{{ decides against travel, but drops the price of a ship ticket into the second-track purchase fund basket sitting next to the pun jar on the counter }}
I disagree…though I’m not boarding any ship that fits Bucc-i’s description either. 😛 I like Phix and Monica’s boss.
Yuppers. Monica’s boss is one lucky little scholar.
Every time Phix interacts with Tina, she comes off as a bully.
That’s independent of how she comes off with other people, but there’s always a sense of menace and enjoyment of the power one has over the other, like a cat toying with a mouse, when she talks to Tina.
Okay, I see what Phix is doing here. LOL
Tina is upset because she was forced to take an active role in order to correct a wrong, where as she’s always been the one to cheerfully point out what others need to learn for themselves. And it appears that some of Nudge has rubbed off on (in?) Tina as well for her to so brazenly snap at her unwanted tutor.
I love what’s happening here. Tina has given some indication of being on the cusp of a crisis – mentioning her “36-year-old body,” forgetting to set the alarm or do the laundry, etc. These are the kinds of situations that often befall us human beings, and can lead to new self-awareness or bring us to another stage in our development. And so with Tina…
Of course, Paul may have something else in mind, but I like this particular arc. It’s giving away just enough to keep it very interesting. On to Friday!
Paul has left us plenty of clues as to Tina’s standing on helping others in the past. Remember when she visited the Tina 1.0 effigy in the basement of the shop?
To kind of riff on my point about a crisis – notice how Tina’s hair in the first couple of the strips in this arc, was fly-away, with strands going this way and that. Not the controlled Tina we’re used to seeing, perhaps, but a flustered, discomfited Tina. Making it up as she goes along, she still feels ill at ease for doing what she did. The question is – why did she do things THIS way, as opposed as some OTHER way? There’s going to be more here than just chewing out a Phix…
Okay, I just love Phix in the last panel. She is in the ‘Namaste’ pose which is usually followed by “The spirit in me respects the spirit in you”, or how my one friend a yoga instructor says it, ” all the good in me recognizes and acknowledges all the good in you.”
Namaste, the gesture:Añjali_Mudrā.
One of my favorite photographs is of my wife, bowing and making that gesture, outside a Macdonalds in Bangkok… right beside a human-sized figure of Ronald Macdonald portrayed as making the same gesture!
Thank you for sharing that. I did not know somewhere Ronald McDonald was performing Añjali Mudrā.
You’re quite welcome… and it turns out that I have that one on-line…
That is a hoot! And I also thank you for the share.
Wonderful, thanks for sharing!!
Ran-ran-ruu!
“Doing the right thing should be in the humans nature. They shouldn’t have to be forced to do good!” – Quoted for Truth
Phix is basically feeding back the same moral paradoxes Tina pulled on Bud at Club Cerberus.
…which Tina enjoyed almost as much as Phix is now.
The willingness and tendency to “do the right thing” is a complex issue, affected by a lot of psychological elements. Empathy… a sense of fairness… expectation of some sort of direct or indirect reciprocity at some point in the future… other things as well. Some research recently suggests that people who find the world to be more “threatening” are less likely, overall, to behave “nicely” towards others… more likely to choose actions based on their own advantage. Sociopaths are at the low end of the scale… they act entirely for their own advantage, and simply don’t care at all about the impact of their actions on anyone else.
If the same general principles apply in the Wapsi world, then it opens a big question. How much influence do a person’s demons have, in whether that person tends to “do the right thing” most of the time or not?
I could very well believe that a person being strongly influenced or tormented by Doubt, Fear, or Anxiety could be too insecure to act in another person’s best interest if doing so posed any risk. A person influenced by Pride or Greed might not want to, having a sense of privilege or a “me first” attitude. Lust might drive a person to withold right action as a way of manipulating a possible partner.
If this line of thinking is valid, then Tina (a cohort of demons) is bemoaning a state of affairs that are to at least some extent caused by the actions of demons! And, she’s upset and angry enough about it, to be yelling at a sphinx who could exterminate her in a heartbeat.
And that shows a level of change and growth in her, which would really explain Phix’s smug comment in the final frame.
Love this very plenty. Very plenty. Just can’t get enough Wapsi. And two of my favorite characters in one arc…
Amen to that. I can’t think of another webcomic, and darned few other works of fiction, that cram so much excitingthoughtprovokingness (if there is such a word… German probably has one) into its story. This is really fine stuff.
It’s not “Farfenügen”, but howsabout “aufregenderdenkendem vorschlagendemsellung”? 😀
Thanks, dadman! If I practice frequently for six months or so I might even be able to pronounce it 🙂
did you spell that correctly? i tried to look it up on Google and it has zero hits, and asks if I’m spelling it correctly…
I’m pretty sure it’s a direct translation of “excitingthoughtprovokingness”, so he left out the spaces. Google wouldn’t recognize it because it thinks you only typed one word. But this is just a guess; I only know like 4 words in German. 😛
Well said! Even though it may be a tongue twister, the thought is there.
At least we don’t have to discuss the musical works of the famous Johann Gambolputty de von Ausfern -schplenden -schlitter -crasscrenbon -fried -digger -dangle -dungle -burstein -von -knacker -thrasher -apple -banger -horowitz -ticolensic -grander -knotty -spelltinkle -grandlich -grumblemeyer -spelterwasser -kürstlich -himbleeisen -bahnwagen -gutenabend -bitte -eine -nürnburger -bratwustle -gerspurten -mit -zweimache -luber -hundsfut -gumberaber -shönendanker -kalbsfleisch -mittler -raucher von Hautkopft of Ulm! It would take too long.
And in the last panel, behind Phix on the wall is a statue of The Blessed Mother in almost identical stance. Interesting is this to say Phix is “watching over” Tina like a Mom?
Just waiting for our tall, sexy, librarian to give Tina a cookie.
Phix reminds me of how Jin used to be.
…Man, do I wanna punch her.
Never thought of Phix as a female canine…
I’m sorry, I don’t buy it. The reactions as of late have been way more than the situations warrant. It’s really unpleasant to read.
True, it has been an interesting tangent, but realize that as the audience we must take what is presented no matter how it may be perceived. Even if you were to choose to not read this segment of the Wapsi story, I’d have to believe that curiosity would eventually grab you by the lapels and drag you back to read.
There are a lot of points in the storylines that Pablo weaves that don’t quite make sense the first time around… But then, about a month or so later, you’re scrambling back to remember when they were talking about this or that – and it turns out that the point that didn’t make sense then makes sense later.
As I remember it, Nudge was still leading the Collective when Tina first met Phix. With her past history with Phix it could be that Nudge was the one sweating bullets, not just the Collective, with good cause as it turned out.