Grrl Power #1496 – Colosseum and feelum
I learned what “hoi polloi” meant while writing this page. Like Sydney, I thought it meant the upper crust. I’ve learned to double check that stuff while writing. Most of the time. I’m sure everyone has a few words they’ve incorrectly surmised the meaning of. I vaguely recall way back in middle-school, I thought “vague” meant “specific” or something. But it wasn’t for very long. I’d read it in a comic or a book and it got clarified after a few weeks.
Then there was the time I learned the word “voluptuous.” I didn’t learn it incorrectly. That was one of those times where you learn a new word, and suddenly you hear it everywhere. AKA the frequency illusion, or the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon. “Ooh, that milkshake is voluptuous.” or “That hourglass is voluptuous.” Etc. Actually I don’t think I was suddenly hearing the word in commercials or casual conversations. I was reading a ton of Piers Anthony, and I think voluptuous is the only word that dude ever used to describe women. Except for when Chameleon was smart.
The holo-stadium will let people feel the impacts and the waves of heat and all that, or a safe range thereof. And they don’t just have subwoofers in every seat, it’s all advanced force-field holodeck stuff. And as Cora says, audience participation can add to a cool action/sporting/bloodsport event. Plus they have 2,000 kinds of beer, popcorn, something that is a lot like popcorn but is made from some other corn-like plant, pretzels, slightly stale nachos with cheese that turns back into window caulking when it cools, chili dogs and fried cheese. Granted the cheese mostly doesn’t come from Sol-3 bovines, though there are some domesticated herds grazing places other than Earth, but it’s usually a bit expensive. A lot of species can eat a lot of food from other planets if they take some enzyme supplements. Basically the “Lactaid” type section of the space pharmacy is quite large.
Oh, look who it is in the vote incentive. The NSFW version is finally up at Patreon. Plus a bonus pic.
I think she would get in trouble for doing this. She’d mess up the… floor of the waterfall? Is that what it’s called? The receiving pool? No, probably not that. Anyway, she’d churn things up and cause a ton of weird erosion.
Since you might be wondering, Niagara Falls is about 165 feet high, so Babezilla obviously doesn’t have to be full sized. I’d say she’s about 175-180 feet tall here?
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
Watching a game in the sci fi Terra bowl with a gaggle of hot alien babes wearing shirts that feel vacuum sealed to them would make for a hell of a day. With merch and food on demand you could go for a right bender. How great would it be if instead of a fight it was just something like galactic hockey or astro futbol.
> How great would it be if instead of a fight it was just something like galactic hockey or astro futbol.
So…a fight? :>
I’m interested in how exactly they would get someone like “Ixah’s” contact information or any realistic way of paying a mysterious, omnipowerful being that showed up randomly to this competition. Maybe they all have fill out galactic standard banking information as part of the sign up forms? Are there signup forms? For that matter what would something like Kaboomoid or Eat Chicken need currency for? Am I thinking too much about this? All I’m saying is generating spontaneous merchandise for the popular fighters in this thing is definitely a scam. You can’t convince me it’s not.
Presumably through whatever registration forms were required to enter. I doubt you could just walk in day of and get into a fight.
you have space age 3D printers and scanners and computer systems that can probably extrapolate from the combat footage
the contract for entering the competition almost certainly involves some kind of merchandizing/likeness use conditions that also stipulates the revenue split and sublicensing for such
so anything sold on site? you can bet thats legit according to those contracts – there probably isnt a detailed sign-off on each individual product, but basically anyone selling on site has listings and those get cross referenced to those contractees and will get the appropriate split… thats trivialy easy to automate
and with the level of security they are likely to have? unlicensed sellers arent going to survive long enough to take their money home… hell with how easy this kind of system can be made, its probably more effort to try and sneak in than it is to get some printer inputs, sign up for a booth and just sell a bunch of on-demand printed plushies of contestants
Quite a few of the fighters have sponsors or patrons, individual’s, groups or comglomerates providing backing and support to the fighters they have found or (in Eat Chicken’s case) created.
The percentage of the merchandising probably gets handled by the patronage/sponsorship, like Cora’s group of captains.
I doubt any merchandiser would want to make them unhappy, let alone angry.
Either Cora or Dave explained a while back that yes, there were tons of legal forms to fill out. In Ixah/Max’s case, and probably most sapient entrants, this was done through hired legal representatives. This would have included entry fees, non-disclosures, a stack of liability waivers a meter thick, banking information for payments on win and a percentage of merchandise sales, etc. And she did have to somehow that she was a worthy contestant through a tryout or demonstration of strength/toughness; she didn’t just show up randomly and find herself in an arena.
I don’t know whether Kaboomoid is sapient or not, but if so surely there’s something he wants that could be exchanged for currency. I said “is” because I believe it’s still alive. Eat Chicken, Rambo Barney, and the Giant Robot (all not alive) and other non-sapient or remotely piloted entrants would have the paperwork handled by and winnings delivered to whoever created and/or will be piloting them.
Something sold actually AT the stadium and BY its operators will be squeaky-clean in terms of complying with applicable law and litigation precedents. That’s one of the very few places where you just absolutely can’t get away with scamming that stuff.
The plushie you buy in the parking lot, or at a flea market near the stadium, from a merchant who may or may not be accurately identified or someone you can ever find again? Almost certainly a scam. The plushie sold by the stadium, for which its owners can get prosecuted or sued, with property on the line that they can’t just walk away from and potential loss of much MUCH more money than they made in plushie sales? That’s going to be legit.
For whatever values of ‘legit’ are in play.
There’s prize money on the line anyhow; Ixah couldn’t possibly collect it if they don’t also have a way to pay her for plushie sales.
Plus, it proves that the purchaser was there, which would add to the value
Even if fifty hundred million bought the stadium-plushie, how many would still have it when the value goes through the roof in fifty years? A significantly less of a number
Probably the same way they’d pay her price money if she wins?
She has a Space P.O. Box.
Few months (or maybe even a year or 2 even) back that was all the rage on TikTok and other social media with the word “demure”. Suddenly 9 out of 10 videos used that word to (falsely) describe themselves.
Using the word “demure” for yourself is basically like using “genius” for yourself without clarification. It’s a strong signal that the claim is false.
An actual genius might acknowledge they were a genius about a single subject or field… but never without that specification. Real geniuses usually know better.
Sydney, why are you two doing “as-you-know” exposition?
Who else is suited to do it?
It’s meta. Tzerki knows, but Sydney doesn’t
I don’t think this is AYK. Up until now, Sydney’s been watching the matches on an FTL-tech bigscreen TV. Nothing noteworthy. She didn’t do much tourism when she was on the big station by herself. She could have assumed anyone who wanted a 4D experience would just watch from their personal holodeck, like any other Star Trek fan would.
The idea of wanting the experience of exploitative capitalism upon a physically captive audience is… well, it’s feckin weird… to ME. I suppose I shouldn’t impose my personal tastes upon a galaxy of trillions of aliens. :3
When Monty Python did their fairwell concert, it was transmitted to theatres worldwide – and was one of the greatest experiences I’ve had in a show. Being in a full theatre, watching a live show of the Pythons, and hearing the whole theatre singing “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” and knowing that thousands were doing just that worldwide? It was amazing. And a great show.
There’s something to be said for being in person, with a crowd, for anything grand and exciting. Now – I’m not sure I’m interested in watching bloodsports in massive coliseums, but hey.
She asked something she didn’t know and got an answer. How is that AYK?
Isn’t that the form AYK always takes?
I think going to the stadium for the experience of crowds roaring and overprized food and bad drinks is a little half-assed if you’re going to sit in a private box and order stuff from the vendors.
~~It’s called the class traitor experience~~
Hard to be a traitor when you belong to no class. Because nobody puts your sorry butt in a box but yourself, those who claim otherwise are lying dirtbag bolsheviks/randian symps. ;) (there got my dose of old experienced hench in for the day.)
p.s. I may be a species traitor though… I’ll save an animal before a human.
Opinions aside, those boxes are money makers for the venue. One of my high school besties graduated from and worked his way up through the management of one of the major football universities. At the midpoint of his career he was managing the skyboxes at their well known stadium. Corporate sponsors and wealthy alumni are their main customers. I’ve been in a skybox but not during a game. Even so I can say that the roar of the crowd is the farthest thing from the point of a skybox. Anybody actually paying attention to the game is watching it on a big screen TV on one wall of the box. The point is being there in catered splendor.
An event that takes place in a stadium has the problem that things can happen anywhere. So where do you sit to be close to the action?
TV does have an advantage in that they can place and move cameras fast enough to be close, and operators that know how things will move so you don’t lose track.
I’ve been in a skybox once or twice. Don’t get me wrong, it is a good view. But it’s more about who else is in there, you can move around, you get better food, etc.
I have attended exactly one sporting event in a private box (our company rented it for a company outing), so this may not be typical, but another perk of having the box was that some of the cheerleaders came up to hang out with us during the game.
Baseball so no cheerleaders for me unfortunately.
You are attending the wrong baseball games
Korea has some hot cheerleaders (believe it’s Korea, or it could be Japan, but probably Korea, you know Kimmie likes his scantily dressed girls ;) )
Just looked it up, NORTH Korea plays baseball!
How capitalist running pig dog of them.
Whooda thunk it?
Is Sidney still disguised as an alien princess? Will it come back to haunt her when they open the door for the food delivery and find the delivery boy is one of “Her” people?
I thought about that too but comparing the 2 disguises, her head gem used to be a diamond shape but now its round so im guessing that fixes the issue
no, a Sapphire Star Princess has an actual cut gem on her forehead. Which was Sydney’s mistake last time, and everyone witnessed that, so it was likely the first thing they modified the moment they could for next time.
lol,, not sure max would approve of the shirt made ” in her image” displayed in this page!
Here’s a word for you, to go with voluptuous. Pulchritude. Sometimes called the ugliest word for “beauty.”
‘Callipygian’ is another good one. More mellifluous than cacophonous.
Callipygian is a specific sort of beauty. Has nothing to do with e.g. the face.
It’s closer to saying ‘toned’ or ‘sculpted’ than ‘beautiful’ as ‘pretty’, yes.
Same with voluptuous.
one of my faves is ‘spathic’, because it is literally meant for large tracts of land
Are you by any chance a regular at Callahan’s?
Not quite: It may be from geology, but it’s about things at the small end. A mineral is said to be spathic if it splits cleanly, (i.e. it has good cleavage).
Maybe contestants can pay an entry fee OR sign away promotional rights.
Hopefully they can keep any income in excess of the fees or at least a percentage.
Sydney looks so cuddly. A welcome contrast to literally everyone else on the crew.
Re what words mean: “We might note in this connection the changed meaning of the term ‘original’. Its old meaning was ‘closest to divine inspiration; closest to the fount, to the well-spring, to the original, or to the source’. The modern meaning is quite different.” —The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, Elizabeth L. Eisenstein
Umm, so what does the ‘modern’ meaning mean?
How can the original meaning of the word ‘original’ include “to the original”? the original meaning of ‘original’ means ‘to the original’?
It is generally meant to mean ‘new’ or ‘the first’. Not as divine inspiration. So, the old term of ‘an original peice of art’ would mean a piece of art inspired by god, of great quality, etc.
The modern term would mean it is new, fresh, or made by the source maker, i.e. an original Rembrandt, as opposed to a copy.
The meaning or “original” as opposed to “copycat” seems to be roughly the same. “Inspired” originally carried the “breath of god” as connotation.
So the only difference is: removing ‘divine inspiration’? yeah, can totally see how it is “quite different”
Well, you’re basically going from “OMG that’s as good as Picasso or Rembrandt, it’s incredible!” to ‘oh, that’s new.’ So, yeah. basically going from an incredible compliment to just a statement of fact.
Really depends on the creator
Yes. Or the earliest available MSS, in the context of Ms. Eisenstein’s book.
*Ahem. ‘Moooiiiisssstt’
Don’t be using those hoity-toity words around here.
Illustrating blanks or lack of interest concerning what a character knows is basic but always nice to see.
Sydney is so deep into nerd culture that she doesn’t really know or care that her own planet has set-ups exactly like this, just minus the holograms.
That’s what caught my eye most too. Sydney knows business because of the comic shop, so it’s good to be reminded that she has vast gaps in her knowledge as part of her character.
After this entry I saw the merch addressed again. In the last panel the full logo on Cora’s shirt is visible: “Ixah is fae”. Assuming the shirt is hard light and not actual merch, it is a nice touch of misinformation on Cora’s part.
Also want to say that aspiring UCBA entrants can indeed just show up and get into a fight. But if they want any prize money they will have to register as contestants!
And now I’d like a scene where Harem asks Gail & Bluce for their autographs!
It’s “bae”, not “fae”.
Zoom in, and so it is, bae, or isbae?
Now I’m stumped. What do you suppose it means?
‘Bae’ is a slang term of endearment.
“Ixah is [Before Anyone Else]”
Originally “bae” was just short for “baby”. The “Before Anyone Else” etymology is a backronym, but it appears to be the explanation here.
Surprised there are no comments about the eye boobs.
Without my “old man glasses” tm on. That last frame reads very differently… because the ‘I’ blends into the frame and it becomes ‘Hoi Pollo’ and that has some interesting connotations that blends well with certain Pacific Island cultures. As in “aww Meatloaf for dinner again?” 8^)> Ahhhh, hahahahahahahahahaha! (Oww, my liver. I’m getting too old to do the hench laugh. oww.) worst, forgot to clean glasses before sleep.
Had to go back a few pages to realize the pink girl is Harem in disguise, and that only because she’s wearing the same shirt. :)
I like the touch that cora is already wearing Ixah merchandise, as she’s talking about how the merchandising works for this contests. It’s a little subtle details like that really show how much work goes into this story!
You could have also checked the “Who’s Who”
New pages are usually posted without the who’s who for several hours.
Nope, just have to head to the Comments to see the “Who’s Who”
Uh… no they’re not, unless I forgot to add someone. Unless there’s something wrong with your… browser… uh, cache? Yeah, that sounds like a possible smartsplanation.
Speaking of unlicensed merch, Is her bra/top suppose to look like that one girls mask? Seems a bit too familiar.
You mean Detla? No, it only looks like that because of the rest of the top being made out of that meshy type material (like pantyhose, or the fabric people put on top to avoid being arrested for showing off their bra or manboobs)
I thought it was Detla’s mask too until I saw the “Ixah is bae” on the sleeve and realized it’s meant to be an extreme close up of Max’s stage persona
Doesn’t the jewel in Sydney’s disguise mean that “Tzerki” is a member of “her” species’ royalty? Or has she changed its colour?
Wouldn’t it seem a bit odd to an eavesdropper to hear a conversation about royalty not being familiar with hoity-toity suchandsuch?
She replaced that jewel with a round one after the mob-of-suitors incident on Fracture Station (she has a round one in the scene where they meet Gaxgy on the starforge).
So many of us learned a new word (Phrase? It’s actually two words, “Hoi Polloi”) today.
Learning things is fun!
https://www.deviantart.com/redwoodtheelf/art/Its-Fun-To-Learn-Things-1356459293
(Grace from EGS, learning why the Nudity Taboo exists)
I didn’t! I refuse to learn anything knew. As a child I learned everything there is to know so I don’t have to ever learn anything ever thereafter! Perfect success!
Of course now that you have mentioned Ixah plushies that you have to create them now. The fans demand Girl Power merch! XD
I don’t know about plushies but it wouldn’t be that difficult to whip out a printed figurine. Max would be the most difficult but the gold could be done with vacuum deposition plating. Eat Chicken would be an easy plushie.
Eat Chicken: the Chucky-doll of plushies!
Hmm, which other ☢️GrrlPower characters would make the best plushies?
Mr. Amorphous would be a stretchy doll. The triceratops girl would be a cute plushy. Frix of course, furry-plushy. Mt. Atrocitous/Babezilla matching body pillows? Chibified versions of just about any character. The pink leopard girl has a great pelt. Goon Squad, you should sell Ted plushies by the dozen! What was the fae contestant’s name? Sara Nightwing? Sell her plushy in life-size! This is fun!
Dave B., you could probably contract out the merch production.
Of course, real members of the hoi aristoi would consider the use of it somewhat crass, unless they were actually speaking Greek.
Careful. The word “hoi” just means “the”.
And “hoi polloi” just means you’re showing off your ignorance of Greek.
I’m now obsessed with how it would feel to view the last fight from the stadium. I assume the zoom level of the action would have to change and as it did, that must give the viewers a rollercoaster kinda feeling. Like when people fall out of their chair using VR bit this is full immersion. I’d need a seatbelt XD
When ever I read the phrase “hoi polloi” I hear it in the voice of Curley Howard.
I never knew concert simulcasts in theaters was a thing! HBO used to do it for the home in the 80s.
/Looks/ $40-$75 depending on the act? I guess that’s one way to save theaters from Hollywood’s tone-deafness to pretty much every fan base but Nintendo or Sega and greedy-gutz greed in releasing streaming on the same day theaters get the movie…
Read a ton of Piers Anthony myself in my formative years, though Xanth wasn’t my main series. My bookshelf still contains Incarnations of Immortality and Apprentice Adept.
His writing was both funny and offensive, which is interesting to me now as you must try to not judge works only by the times they are read. As humor changes over time, much like people and society in general does, the past can be both beautiful and ugly at the same time, it is only in perspective that most see both clearly.
Started to find his Xanth books to become offensive way back in the day when they were still ‘new’
Stopped reading with “Colour of her Panties” (only managed to read a couple chapters at most)
I enjoyed a lot of Anthony’s work. I read quite a few of the Xanth books. I guess I have a fairly high tolerance for offensive but they did seem to become formulaic. I probably made it a fourth of the way through the series. I didn’t realize he was still alive until I went to check his bibliography.
Cora literally just said ‘hoity toity’, but of course Sydney being Sydney has to use a similar word to seem smart…
Just for all the people that get it wrong it is Voluptuous not Volu’m’ptuous. There is no M in it, they are not Lumps even if they have them! Vol-Lup (like S’up!)-Tu-ous! Not Vol-Lump (Like plump!)-Tu-ous!
And, yes, I’m irrationally annoyed by this!
Even though ‘Plump’ and ‘Lump’ *can* be used in the further descriptions of a Voluptuous person!
Who said anything about volumptuous? o_O
No one. I said it was Irrational…
I remember hearing the word “original” so many times as a kid… in the context of “Disney Channel original movie.” I was certain it meant, “Bland, normal, been-done-a-thousand-times.” I was deeply offended when somebody told me an idea I had was “most original.”
I recall thinking that “implored” meant “implied” for a while because I heard Fred Flintstone make that mistake as a gag.
Where is Digit? She’s been suspiciously absent. Is she on the ship getting railed by the one crewman that isn’t in the strip? Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it would be my preference were i in the same situation.
Imo, Digit isn’t that interested in the fights or Cora’s crew. She has the UCBA on a monitor in her workshop aboard the ship.
Perhaps Digit has discovered a room full of Cora’s sex toys which she is busily converting into harpoons. The possibility of Digit being ace has been put forward but you have to wonder about a girl who has that much fascination with forceful penetration.
We saw her two pages back
Yes but Digit really hasn’t been shown much since the shopping trip on the way to the tournament. I figure she could get the sex at her if she really wanted it, and would have been shown with the other ladies if she had. Therefore I conclude that Digit is a habitual tinkerer as part of her character, so things like eating, sleeping, and sex are just temporary distractions for her. As soon as they are taken care of she is right back to her true love, tinkering with machinery & harpoons. I predict that Dave B. will unveil some outlandish Digit creations based on galaxy tech somewhere down the line.
“I’m sure everyone has a few words they’ve incorrectly surmised the meaning of.” – Or we just are very bad at reading and miss key words like “not” or “always.” Anyway, hoi polloi was not among my miss-takes, but I’m sure there are others. I’m more interested in Sydney apparently having no experience with big stadium events and essentially volunteering to go out there into the middle of it. Because it’s a WHOLE THING, even given ordinary 21st century human techno culture.
I mean she should really go.
Believe it is more that Sydney was a bit shy and didn’t like large crowds, or had anyone to go to a stadium event with where she wouldn’t stand out
Now, a fan convention on the other flipper, where she could go in costume and blend in with similar-minded folk…
An Ixah plushie to go with the Maxima Pony?
Also, given that hoi is a definite article, the phrase “the hoi polloi” is redundant, akin to saying “the the masses”. More correctly, you should say either “I’m one one of the polloi,” or “I’m one of hoi polloi.” Obviously for English comprehension the first option is preferable.
Like ATM machine :) Or VIN number/PIN number/ISBN number. Or PDF format, GUI Interface, HIV virus, UPC code, DC comics (seriously, it’s Detective Comics comics), RAS syndrome, HTML language, or BFFs forever.
It’s known as ‘Redundant terms.’ Where the final word is already included in the acronym.
There’s also something called pleonasms which is simular to redundant terms, but are redundant phrases, like ‘free gift’ (by its very definition, a ‘gift’ is supposed to be free anyway), or ‘past history’ (all history is in the past), or unexpected surprise (if it was expected, it isn’t a surprise), or close proximity (by its very definition, proximity already means being close).
Pleonasms and tautological statements are interesting grammatical quirks, because half are truly redundant, where part of the sentence or phrase can be removed with no change in meaning, but often they are only redundant in final meaning and are minutely different things that are being used together to add emphasis.
I think its most fascinating type of example is when it comes to other culture’s foods or items.Where the redundancy is from using their word for the thing to say “this thing, but in the style that group does it.” like Chai tea or Naan Bread.
It was circa 1980’s when PBS produced a book and tv series: “The Story of English”. It repeats a saying, “Good butter and good cheese is good English and good Friese”, so difficult geography allows languages to drift apart. Imo English’s primary strength is plugging in loanwords from other languages, which is why it became the language of technology. The Firefly series chose to illustrate this by using a mix of Chinese and English for communication in the human space diaspora: English for technology and Chinese for its’ plurality of speakers.
Shouldn’t the translator translate greek expressions anyway?
It’s possible that some words are not translated since they are also used in English as the original foreign words and terms. Like croissant, deja vu, faux pas, siesta, mosquito, plaza, patio, kindergarten, doppelganger, schadenfreude, tsunami, karoake, origami, status quo, vice versa, etc. Or probably if she was to start talking to a lawyer like Ariana, her mother, or me, it wouldnt translate terms like mens rea, actus reus, res ipsa loquitur, pro bono, affidavit, prima facie, de facto, de jure, tort, estoppel, voir dire, etc.
Actually… et cetera as well!
I have to ask, what is the design on Harem’s shirt?
Check back in the pages. I think she’s worn it before in this arc, and it came up in the comments then too.
It’s said in the commentary here that it does mean something but it’ll be revealed later.
Now, her HAT says something as well. It looks kind of like Standard Galactic Alphabet, but only for the first and third glyphs, it would then say something like D?C?. If anyone’s got an idea, please help? ^-^ it’s fun searching but Dave knows far too much nerd culture for me, a science nerd, to guess at.
We are talking about Harem, wearing a hat, in GalatoBet, that spells ‘D-something-C-something’
Would it make more sense if it was Dabbles wearing it?
Entirely fair, but it is the same SGA that says it might be D and C and also that the other two letters don’t exist.
Meanwhile the actual transliteration might say something entirely unrelated. Maybe it’s PONY.
hoi polloi … from greek, ‘ οι πολλοί ‘, which means literally, ‘the many’, indeed …
Given that this is Sydney isn’t this a case of being “Right for the Wrong Reasons”? She was already an outlier before becoming a multimillionaire space traveling superhero.
xanth mentioned! :0
I learned “hoi polloi” (though not the literal translation; thanks to other posters here for that!) way back because my father was a big fan of Gilbert & Sullivan. In Iolanthe (aka The Peers and the Peri), there’s a song where the Lords (peers) are singing with the fairies (peri) interjecting whenever they use a foreign word. One stanza goes: “Twould fill with joy and madness stark the hoi polloi” “A Greek remark!”
I come from a quite isolated and very low population area of Kentucky, originally. Many words there have different meanings from the same word used outside that small region.
One of those words is “cock”. Literally, when quite young, if you heard one of us say something like “I love cock” we were referring to FEMALE genitals. Period. There was no association in our minds with anything male save perhaps a rooster.
As you might imagine, this caused a bit of a fuss for any of us that left the area. Oh yes!
Interesting, is there a time frame attached to that linguistic isolation? I mean, has the area become less isolated with advancing communication technology?
Wait, what? Cock refers to female genitals?
No, there is no way this post is for real
I find it quite believable. One branch of my mother’s family migrated from such an area in Kentucky in the late 1800s and my grandmother was born around 1900. Grandmother was very dignified and I doubt she would have said “cock” in any circumstance but there were linguistic artifacts. For example, where many people here in the South would say “y’all” she would say “youins”. In the late 1990’s my mother and two older siblings went to a family reunion in that very rural area and there were a number of people there who could have stepped out of a time capsule. They are getting rare but there are parts of the US that the internet has yet to visit.
My worst example of mixing up the meanings of words is confusing the words “nonce” and “dunce,” so I spent a few years calling people pedophiles when I thought they had done something stupid.
While the dictionary definition of “single occasion” is not commonly used outside cryptography, the “pedophile” definition is uniquely British. It’s also reportedly used as a softer insult, meaning “stupid” or “worthless”, so you weren’t quite as confused as you think!
First time reader, just got through a binge and wanna put some thoughts on something down before I get distracted by something shiny (ADHD gang rise up, I know y’all are here.)
So, on to the matter at hand – and appologies if this is some ongoing hot-button issue or has been discussed to death. Spent the last 4-odd days binging the comic and haven’t looked at any fan discourse in that period.
Sydney and Frix. I feel like that relationship is doomed to failure, and for both their sake (particularly Sydney for reasons I’ll address later) I hope it happens sooner rather than later. Their relationship (she calls him her boyfriend but… i’m not sure if he really counts? Aside from their relationship only existing because she was essentially in shock and really needed a hug, she’s substantially more invested in it than him as a result of their wildly different boundaries (her being pretty clearly monogamous and him already being in a poly relationship).
If the arrangement carried on too long I feel like all that’s gonna happen is she’s gonna get her heart broken once she does realize how lopsided the arrangement is.
Also not really fair to Frix, who essentially has to pretend to be exclusive with Sydney when they’re in the same solar system, given her demonstrated inability to tolerate him having relationships with people other than her.
I can only really see it going well in the long run if Frix were to decide to split off from Cora’s crew and live on Earth full time, but that seems about as likely as us learning what the last orb does before skynet starts dropping nukes.
Considered delving more into the trauma response aspect of the relationship, but it started to get incoherent and I had to rewrite my entire comment.
Anyways I do love the comic, known it exists for at least a decade but just never got around to reading it until a few days ago.