Penny Drops 2015-04-28

[jayessell]

(Zoidberg Voice)
"I'm not hearing a "No."

[Ohnhai]

ahhh, bless

[Drakkenmensch]

Frame one: Nadette opens the bomber bay door and releases the heavy bunker buster bomb.

Frame two: all you can hear is the whistle of the bomb falling rapidly towards its target.

Frame three: IMPACT!

[Catawampus]

We may also be in for a scene change since we've reached such a nice cliff hanger.

The rest of the week will be taken up by panels of a speechless Atsali going through a series of more and more confused expressions, while Nadette watches with increasing alarm. Culminating in Tsillah popping up out of the shadows and yelling, "SURPRISE!!!".

This is a critical moment. Part of the reason Atsali has valued her friendship with Da Bears is that they provided some shelter from the horndog boys who've been sniffing around her. Now...there's every possibility that she'll feel as if Nadine has been doing the same thing. If she stays calm and thinks it through, she can avoid that. But as upset and confused as she is...this could go very badly for both of them.

We'll find out just how solid their friendship is now, I suppose. It is said that one sign of a good relationship is that it can weather the rough seas, and I think that this qualifies as a good sized maelstrom.

[zachariah]

I think Sali's reaction here answers a lot of questions about how she gets into so much trouble. Clearly Sali thinking processes are really, really slow. So information input and response are possible many seconds apart. So Sali has compensated for this by grabbing the first words and doing a quick scan to get their meaning. Then she reacts to the meaning she pulled from that. As we have seen most of the time she is off the mark and that gets her in trouble. She acts rather than thinks. With only partial information of course a lot of what she does will not be the right thing to do. I believe that her expression in panel three is only her reaction to the "I am gay." comment. She still has not absorbed the fact that Nadette also declared her love for Sali. Odds are that her first words tomorrow will be "YOU'RE GAY????!!!!!" She will totally miss the fact that a declaration of love was made. It may sink in a bit further on but it isn't there now.

[Sgt. Howard]

I used to own a 1952 Chevy Deluxe- three on the tree- synchrosmash was long gone on this thing. To get into first, you had to put it in second to get the gears turning, THEN you could drop it in first... whereupon it would make this solid "CLUNK" that told you that you were in first gear...


Atsali just went "CLUNK"...

[eee]

It would be really interesting to get a look at Atsali's mental processes and classifications and see how she had Nadette categorized in her brain prior to this. Assuming the mental landscape of a Incubus / Siren hybrid is something humans can understand. She seems somewhat similar to someone with Asperger's; you often have to explain normal relationship things to we Aspies, too...

[Sgt. Howard]

It would be really interesting to get a look at Atsali's mental processes and classifications and see how she had Nadette categorized in her brain prior to this. Assuming the mental landscape of a Incubus / Siren hybrid is something humans can understand. She seems somewhat similar to someone with Asperger's; you often have to explain normal relationship things to we Aspies, too...

The mental landscape of a HUMAN is near impossible to understand...

[DilyV]

I used to own a 1952 Chevy Deluxe- three on the tree- synchrosmash was long gone on this thing. To get into first, you had to put it in second to get the gears turning, THEN you could drop it in first... whereupon it would make this solid "CLUNK" that told you that you were in first gear...


Atsali just went "CLUNK"...

I think Atsali just stalled. I imagine that Nadette will reach up and tenderly push her mouth closed.

Nadette: Um... nice tonsils.

Atsali: *still in tilt mode*

[jwhouk]

One more thing. Is that a bit of vine appearing behind Atsali in the final frame?

We see the back of Atsali's chair in the other frames, but in the last on Atsali seems to lean forward as her jaw drops and then something new appears in our field of vision. What or who might that be?

No, that's Paul's signature.

[jwhouk]

A drawn personification of a pinball machine going tilt.

That's already been done.

[ziggy78eog]

Even with this revelation, it has still not sunk in yet. I have a feeling Atsali will still not be completely aware of Nadette's feeling for a couple of more days, and then it will be like, "hey, are you saying you're in love with me?", with comedic face palms all around.

[kingklash]

Of course, this hinges on how "I like both boys and girls" was meant when Atsali said it. She knows she's sexy, how she's perceived as sexual, but hasn't figured her sexuality yet. Now would be a good time for some sort of tension breaker. Maybe Cricket busting in, dragging the mermaids in by their dorsal fins. "These two were scared to talk to ya. I explained it'd be scarier not to say somthin'."

[lake_wrangler]

I may not be an expert on non-verbal clues*, but...

I get the distinct feeling that Atsali was not expecting to hear that...



And the award for the Understatement of the Year goes to...
*Opens envelope*
Lake_wrangler!

[chaingun427]

Not enough Doctor who fans here to get the title reference I guess...

[Atomic]

/BeginConfusedGrousing

Ok -- various bits have been rattling around in my Thinking Cap and I'm coming up empty -- so I'll let my fellow forumites fill me in.

1. Atsali is a siren, distinct from Succubi, who need tantric energy to survive. But, like succubi, sirens can invoke/provoke/manipulate extreme sexual desire in their targets. It's a weapon.

2. Atsali is finding her way through her own sexual maturation with Sudden Boob Onset, sexual desire, and all the related emotional conflicts, but at least has her mother's help toward understanding and facing them.

3. She's had the knowledge of an entire (insane?) civilization pass through her mind, which no doubt would include all the intimacies, perversions, and aberrations of said peoples.

4. She's not yet had the chance or maturity to fully accept herself as she is (re: Monica vs her Boobs).

5. She's has to deal with the baggage of her time in the orphanage, the reason(s) she was placed there (origin story, anyone? Bueler?), and the suicide of her friend with all THAT background.

In short, Atsali has a ton of stuff to deal with.

Ok - so Atsali has said she likes boys and girls. I'm sure she likes peas and carrots, too. Why jump on the Everything is Sexual bandwagon over a teen stating a generality?

Ignoring sex (or trying to ignore) and sexuality has it's own hazards as does trying to cast everything into a sexual/political/power/class/etc, mold. While Average is often a mathematical illusion (average daily temp, for example), Normal covers a huge range, and I don't see the social need to push everybody and everything into edge state categories.

Story telling aside, are Nadette's feelings exclusionary, and where did they come from? We don't know her back story either.

Oh, I'm sure we're in for a rollicking good time -- I just don't see everything coming down to an Either/Or situation. PW is a much better story teller than that!

/EndConfusedGrousing

[Sgt. Howard]

/BeginConfusedGrousing


Ok - so Atsali has said she likes boys and girls. I'm sure she likes peas and carrots, too. Why jump on the Everything is Sexual bandwagon over a teen stating a generality?



/EndConfusedGrousing

??? Peas and carrots AREN'T sexual?!?

Actually, in the full context of her statement, she IS talking about sexual preferences- ... "but I don't think Jacob knew that- that doesn't help..."

[KnightDelight]

This is a critical moment. Part of the reason Atsali has valued her friendship with Da Bears is that they provided some shelter from the horndog boys who've been sniffing around her. Now...there's every possibility that she'll feel as if Nadine has been doing the same thing. If she stays calm and thinks it through, she can avoid that. But as upset and confused as she is...this could go very badly for both of them.

This is true. Being with females was her one refuge from unwanted attention. Up until now, that is. It's sinking in that there is no getting away from that sort of thing. Even one of her best female friends wants to hump her (does she even have any male friends as such?). She may consider everyone a potential harasser at this point, even Berdine. There is no escape. Of course she may fall back on the fact she is a siren to explain it all, despite the fact she has been told how not everyone will fall under her spell. In any event, having someone this close to her as a friend being hot for her bod will not be good for Atsali's ability to make friends. She may see it as Nadette taking advantage of their friendship as just a ruse to have her way with her. A trust may be broken here.

[meisdadoo]

Unrelated, but not entirely off topic. I was watching documentary on crows last night and it turns out that crows do not have a prefrontal cortex. They have something entirely different at the back of their brain where they do their deductive reasoning (name of the bloody thing escapes me at the moment) Point being, crows think differently than mammals and in testing came out smarter than chimpanzees. And as odd as it may seem, a murder of crows (group of crows--google it) is actually a family of related crows that work together to feed and protect familial group.

We have all joked about Atsali being a "bird brain", turns out that is actually a compliment because once per ounce, bird brains are way smarter than mammals.

Who knew?

[as363]

Being of Scots' background (Mother's side) The following quote from Marmion seems to be appropriate "Oh what a tangled web we weave as we practice to deceive!" Edited one time - stupid fingers