Looking In The Mirror 2016-07-04

[jwhouk]

Happy 4th!

Yes, it's an early comic, considering its a holiday.

And that question is the most dangerous in the world - right up there with "Does this make me look fat?"

[TheCollector]

Wow, human disguise Castela looks great :3

Also I seriously love Katherine's gray streak like that.

[FreeFlier]

Wow, human disguise Castela looks great :3

Also I seriously love Katherine's gray streak like that.

I think the gray streak just got larger . . .

The real question is what answer does the little weed want . . . she's at the transition stage between thinking creepy is cool, and being horrified by it.

--FreeFlier

[AnotherFairportfan]

Here comes that seventeen-year-old-with-issues version.

[TazManiac]

And she looks like a 'Bud Emulation' is in her quiver of arrows...

(Bud the Golem, not Bud the soon to be flower/fruit...)

[jwhouk]

I'm not so sure. I did a bit of coloring:

[starkruzr]

There's... kind of a wide gulf between this and "fat." Yeah, kid, your natural(?) state is creepy looking, just because your visual sensory apparatus is completely unlike ours, so you basically live in the Uncanny Valley. Eyestalks inside empty sockets are gonna creep people out. That's nobody's fault. It just is.

[DilyV]

Wow, human disguise Castela looks great :3

Also I seriously love Katherine's gray streak like that.

I think the gray streak just got larger . . .

The real question is what answer does the little weed want . . . she's at the transition stage between thinking creepy is cool, and being horrified by it.

--FreeFlier

I was going to say the same thing... There are no right answers to questions like that....

[Thor]

"Am I creepy looking?"

Is that really something you should be asking a woman with bizarre black spider eyes?

[AmriloJim]

"The same people who are criticizing your butt in those magazines might tell you that."

[GlytchMeister]

She doesn't hit "uncanny valley" for me. She's too far from human in her naturalish state... The eyestalks and the visible vine weave take her out of uncanny valley and tell me she isn't human.

For me, uncanny valley is when something appears human, but the motion and the mannerisms aren't right. Animatronics hit that button very squarely for me. I hate human animatronics.

To be honest, if her "Human" form/disguise wasn't spot on, that'd freak me out more than her non-human form.

[oldmanmickey]

The honest answer to that from mama would be no sweetie your a fine looking young lady in any form. The answer from joe smoe on the street might very well be holy crap i gotta stop drinking. Then agian it does make one wonder just how many paras have become major motion picture and tv stars.

[Akasha]

actually, i think the right answer to that is,

darling, you look allright to me. of course, you are different, like me with my eyes i am different too. it is possible that for some ppl this is creepy. but the same goes for your sister, and all your para-friends at school, or aunt monica or aunt shelly. i find that you are beautiful and lovely. besides that, you will find out, that on occasion it is really really good to be able to look really creepy too. <insert funny story here, hey, you can't expect me to do all the work for you, can you?>

[illiad]

Wow, human disguise Castela looks great :3

Also I seriously love Katherine's gray streak like that.

which one? the 'shiny part' or....

"Am I creepy looking?" Darling, do you WANT to be??? you're great with your friends...

[ziggy78eog]

What? Creepy? Pickle no, you are not creepy, you are adorable. And just like your sister, you will blossom into your own pretty flower. And just like bees to pretty flowers, the guys will be swarming all around, just to be next to you. Adolescence would be easier, if we could control the "self-doubt inducing hormones" that get pumped into kids, in mass quantities.

[GlytchMeister]

If teens didn't get crippling self-doubt, they'd all get themselves killed by thinking they were invincible and the best thing since sliced bread.

[Dave]

You have a good point there. In humans (at least) it seems that the brain centers which are used to analyze "possible consequences of actions" don't fully develop until we're in our early twenties. Teens are notorious for acting on impulse and "not thinking this through" before doing something enticing and dreadfully stupid (I know I did a few things impulsively that I regretted fairly quickly).

"Crippling self-doubt" might well be the result of some sort of idiocy--suppressing survival mechanism... a way for the hormonal and nervous systems to shout "Don't!!" (loudly but not at all specifically) to keep teens from acting rashly until their brains develop the ability to think through the whole risks-and-rewards question accurately.

If so it would be very Darwinian... those who don't inherited the tendency, would be more likely to get themselves killed doing something stupid while still too young to reproduce.

[AnotherFairportfan]

Actually, it's not that the Good Sense centers in teenage brains are under-developed, it's that the Bad Idea Gland hasn't yet begun to atrophy.

My friend Joe Celko {yes, if the name registers, THAT Joe Celko} always said that males are genetially programmed to father as many spawn as possible and then go out and vet killed xoing something stupid to make room for the next generation.

[Catawampus]

Katherine might want to be careful giving any sort of, “No, you look fine” answer to that question. To most people, Castela would look creepy at the very least. Telling her otherwise will just cause problems when Castela goes out and meets more people and sees their reactions. So perhaps something more along the lines of, “Yes, many people will find you creepy. . .but they'll get over it if they get to know you” might be better.

[Alkarii]

I'd probably make the possible mistake of saying "who cares?" Or I might say "You say it like that's a bad thing."

Though I suppose it might be better to ask if looking creepy a bad thing.