Spider Human 2017-04-13

Need to talk about the day's episode of Wapsi? This is the place to do it. Play nice! ^_^

Moderators: Bookworm, starkruzr, MrFireDragon, PrettyPrincess, Wapsi

Forum rules
When two threads are posted for a day's comic, the thread posted first becomes the starting post. Please delete the second thread and add your post to the first thread. When naming the thread: Comic Name YYYY-MM-DD
Thanks guys! This keeps the forum nice and neat.
User avatar
AmriloJim
Posts: 1190
Joined: Sat Aug 04, 2012 10:47 pm
Location: 35ºN 101ºW (for the GPS-challenged, that's Amarillo TX)
Contact:

Spider Human 2017-04-13

Post by AmriloJim »

User avatar
oldmanmickey
Posts: 1656
Joined: Fri Aug 08, 2014 4:41 pm

Re: Spider Human 2017-04-13

Post by oldmanmickey »

I know how she feels. First time i found out i was going to get to meet Neil Armstrong i went ape
Dear, don’t bore him with trivia or burden him with your past mistakes. The happiest way to deal with a man is never to tell him anything he does not need to know. L. Long
User avatar
AnotherFairportfan
Posts: 6402
Joined: Thu May 01, 2014 2:53 pm

Re: Spider Human 2017-04-13

Post by AnotherFairportfan »

Okay, that explains why Katherine was so surprised to hear that Digit was attending high school.
Proof Positive the world is not flat: If it were, cats would have pushed everything off the edge by now.
FreeFlier
Posts: 2492
Joined: Mon Oct 26, 2015 11:33 pm
Location: Land of the webbed feet

Re: Spider Human 2017-04-13

Post by FreeFlier »

Should have expected that . . .

Actually, I partially did see it, but not clearly.

And definitely did not expect, even with yesterday's hints, that Katherine would go full-fangirl!


And Katherine has found a way to embarrass Atsali! :lol: :lol: :lol:

--FreeFlier
User avatar
AnotherFairportfan
Posts: 6402
Joined: Thu May 01, 2014 2:53 pm

Re: Spider Human 2017-04-13

Post by AnotherFairportfan »

oldmanmickey wrote:I know how she feels. First time i found out i was going to get to meet Neil Armstrong i went ape
Should have seen seventeen-year-old me when I realised that i knew this nice fellow named Harry Stubbs who'd spotted that i was somewhat lost at the 1966 SF WorldCon and come over to explain things and greet me better as "Hal Clement"...
Proof Positive the world is not flat: If it were, cats would have pushed everything off the edge by now.
User avatar
Dave
Posts: 7584
Joined: Tue Jul 31, 2012 5:58 pm
Location: Mountain View, CA, USA

Re: Spider Human 2017-04-13

Post by Dave »

AnotherFairportfan wrote:
oldmanmickey wrote:I know how she feels. First time i found out i was going to get to meet Neil Armstrong i went ape
Should have seen seventeen-year-old me when I realised that i knew this nice fellow named Harry Stubbs who'd spotted that i was somewhat lost at the 1966 SF WorldCon and come over to explain things and greet me better as "Hal Clement"...
I would have gone seriously fanboy under those circumstances, too. :)

And this gives Atsali another wonderful (and very traditional) opportunity ...

... to be completely embarrassed at how her Mom interacts with her friends and acquaintances. I'm sure if Atsali does it right, she can hit at least fourteen different notes and semitones while saying just the one word "Mommmm....!??!?!?!??!"
User avatar
Drakkenmensch
Posts: 409
Joined: Fri Nov 15, 2013 8:03 am

Re: Spider Human 2017-04-13

Post by Drakkenmensch »

Makes sense now. She expected Digit to have just gained self-awareness, not that she would have full knowledge of her original spider form and be able to chat about it with clarity.

To Katherine, this is the chance of a lifetime to talk with a real life spider person!
User avatar
Dr. Otter
Posts: 138
Joined: Mon Oct 01, 2012 4:03 pm
Location: Metro DC area

Re: Spider Human 2017-04-13

Post by Dr. Otter »

oldmanmickey wrote:I know how she feels. First time i found out i was going to get to meet Neil Armstrong i went ape
I did a double fanboy fit when that happened to me--I met Neil Armstrong at the same event where I got to meet another childhood hero, Don Walsh. It was an evening of highs and lows, you might say.
Be the role model she'll always remember. Be a Girl Scout volunteer today!
User avatar
Gyrrakavian
Posts: 782
Joined: Fri Dec 19, 2014 11:22 pm

Re: Spider Human 2017-04-13

Post by Gyrrakavian »

To be fair, I'm with Kath on this one.
"Occam's razor is a fine thing, but the universe is a Rube-Goldberg machine."
FreeFlier
Posts: 2492
Joined: Mon Oct 26, 2015 11:33 pm
Location: Land of the webbed feet

Re: Spider Human 2017-04-13

Post by FreeFlier »

You know, Katherine and Atsali certainly act alike when they're enthused about something . . .

--FreeFlier
User avatar
Sgt. Howard
Posts: 3329
Joined: Tue Jul 31, 2012 11:54 pm
Location: Malott, Washington

Re: Spider Human 2017-04-13

Post by Sgt. Howard »

At least we can be relatively assured that Katherine will NOT try to shove a pin though her thorax and fix her on a board for display...
Rule 17 of the Bombay Golf Course- "You shall play the ball where the monkey drops it,"
I speak fluent Limrick-
the Old Sgt.
User avatar
Thor
Posts: 604
Joined: Tue Mar 26, 2013 1:45 am
Location: Looking for an opening

Re: Spider Human 2017-04-13

Post by Thor »

Sgt. Howard wrote:At least we can be relatively assured that Katherine will NOT try to shove a pin though her thorax and fix her on a board for display...
At least not until after the questioning is done.
User avatar
AnotherFairportfan
Posts: 6402
Joined: Thu May 01, 2014 2:53 pm

Re: Spider Human 2017-04-13

Post by AnotherFairportfan »

Dr. Otter wrote:
oldmanmickey wrote:I know how she feels. First time i found out i was going to get to meet Neil Armstrong i went ape
I did a double fanboy fit when that happened to me--I met Neil Armstrong at the same event where I got to meet another childhood hero, Don Walsh. It was an evening of highs and lows, you might say.
Oh, thank god - i thought meant the New Orleans Don Walsh, of whom Tales Can Be Told.

One such tale (as i got if from a mutual friend) involved brokering a sale suppressors which turned out to be to gentlemen with Sicilian surnames and then not delivering the goods after the money was in hand. (To be fair, it may have been a breakdown in the supply chain, not intent to defraud.) This caused simultaneous problems with the Sicilian gentleman and with that federal agency with alcohol and the like in its name.

In order to avoid both sets of interested parties, he arranged to become an informant for the FBI, and somehow got Jack Anderson to do a column about how this fine upstanding citizen who was co-operating with the FBI on important investigations was being harassed by ATF; somewhere along the way he settled things with the Sicilian gentlemen as well...
Proof Positive the world is not flat: If it were, cats would have pushed everything off the edge by now.
User avatar
JSStryker
Posts: 197
Joined: Tue Oct 22, 2013 12:33 pm
Location: Just outside the blast radius

Re: Spider Human 2017-04-13

Post by JSStryker »

Sgt. Howard wrote:At least we can be relatively assured that Katherine will NOT try to shove a pin though her thorax and fix her on a board for display...
Let us hope Digit never sees Kath's spider collection, she might know some of them...
Vive la weird!
User avatar
lake_wrangler
Posts: 4300
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2012 8:16 am
Location: Laval, Québec, Canada

Re: Spider Human 2017-04-13

Post by lake_wrangler »

JSStryker wrote:
Sgt. Howard wrote:At least we can be relatively assured that Katherine will NOT try to shove a pin though her thorax and fix her on a board for display...
Let us hope Digit never sees Kath's spider collection, she might know some of them...
I doubt we have to worry about that: it is highly unlikely that any of those spiders ever visited the Library, seeing as her spider collection was from a time before Katherine ever went there... And while it may be conceivable that she would have continued collecting after her first visit to the Library, I doubt she would have had time, while in the Library, to further her collection...
User avatar
jwhouk
Posts: 6053
Joined: Wed Aug 01, 2012 7:58 am
Location: The Valley of the Sun, Arizona
Contact:

Re: Spider Human 2017-04-13

Post by jwhouk »

lake_wrangler wrote: I doubt we have to worry about that: it is highly unlikely that any of those spiders ever visited the Library, seeing as her spider collection was from a time before Katherine ever went there... And while it may be conceivable that she would have continued collecting after her first visit to the Library, I doubt she would have had time, while in the Library, to further her collection...
I don't think Atsali ever even gave her the chance...
"Character is what you are in the dark." - D.L. Moody
"You should never run from the voices in your head. That's how you give them power." - Jin
User avatar
lake_wrangler
Posts: 4300
Joined: Sun Aug 05, 2012 8:16 am
Location: Laval, Québec, Canada

Re: Spider Human 2017-04-13

Post by lake_wrangler »

jwhouk wrote:
lake_wrangler wrote: I doubt we have to worry about that: it is highly unlikely that any of those spiders ever visited the Library, seeing as her spider collection was from a time before Katherine ever went there... And while it may be conceivable that she would have continued collecting after her first visit to the Library, I doubt she would have had time, while in the Library, to further her collection...
I don't think Atsali ever even gave her the chance...
So basically, raising kids is a full-time job, which then prevents Katherine from giving her phobia the time of day? That would certainly make sense.
Holuvasin
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2017 11:16 am

Re: Spider Human 2017-04-13

Post by Holuvasin »

Going ape shit must be a past time of hers.
Alkarii
Posts: 1854
Joined: Sun Nov 09, 2014 3:02 pm

Re: Spider Human 2017-04-13

Post by Alkarii »

I don't think Digit would have personally known any of the spiders in Kath's collection, and likely wouldn't care. Spiders aren't usually social outside their own species, aside from predation. Hell, most spiders will even eat members of their own species.

I heard somewhere about social spiders, but, again, probably only with members of their own species. It's even possible that Digit may have sampled members of some of the species in Kath's collection; I'd seen a couple of documentaries of jumping spiders preying on other spiders. In one, the jumper plucked at the other spider's web to draw its attention, then pounced. In he other, it was one kind of jumping spider against another. One was bright green, the other was a mottled grey and black.

So, yeah... Digit probably won't care about the collection.

Edit: Although, she could also point out to Katherine that most humans would be pretty horrified to see humans pinned up on display, so there is that.
There is no such thing as a science experiment gone wrong.
User avatar
Dave
Posts: 7584
Joined: Tue Jul 31, 2012 5:58 pm
Location: Mountain View, CA, USA

Re: Spider Human 2017-04-13

Post by Dave »

lake_wrangler wrote:So basically, raising kids is a full-time job, which then prevents Katherine from giving her phobia the time of day? That would certainly make sense.
I'm not really clear where people are getting the idea that Katherine has a spider phobia. Shelly's the one with the spider phobia (and Amanda isn't crazy about them, either).

Katherine collects (or collected) spiders, as a hobby. It's one of the first things we learned about her. She seemed entirely comfortable with them, and commented that she'd added one (live) spider to her collection on the way over to the get-together.

Having a spider drop down beside her didn't make her spill her curds and whey. Instead, she took it in her hand, spoke to it in friendly familiar terms, and gave it good advice.

Kath wasn't at all freaked out by seeing a representation of a huge spider out in the desert. Atsali was the one who jumped at the mention.

I looked at the character-and-page index (such a wonderful resource) and didn't see anything else... other than Pablo's implication that Kath's own nature was spider-y and reclusive.

None of that says to me that "Katherine is afraid of spiders" (let alone phobic about them). It all says "Kath is comfortable with, and greatly interested in spiders." Hence, her fangirlishness at the possibility of actually talking to a (former) spider.

So - am I missing something, or are people mis-remembering her history?

Now, Kath did have a phobia (call it "social agoraphobia" for lack of a better term) as the result of post-traumatic stress syndrome, from having been very nearly killed when the team at the archaeological dig was machine-gunned to death.

She got better, during the Great Mapimi Adventure. Somebody wrote her a prescription which read "Get kicked in the face by a teen Siren" and it was just the ticket. :D
Post Reply