Not Like That 2014-01-21

[Fairportfan]

I am surprised that Sali was that insensitive. She was acting like Tina was not there while talking about her. Like you would talk about a piece of furniture. Sali hated others treating her like that. In fact we recently finished an arc where Sali showed a lot of tolerance and understanding. But here she doesn't. Sad really. Tina does not deserve that.

Atsali is fifteen. A bookish, not-used-to-the-real-world fifteen.

[Fairportfan]

Yes, Atsali is being oblivious. Honestly though, if you discovered that someone you just met wasn't actually human or a single paranormal being, but a covey of demons inhabiting a single (technically deceased) human body, wouldn't you at the very least be creeped out?

Monica is probably particularly embarrassed by Atsali's reaction because she's remembering that she called Tina a zombie - directly to her, not in a "she can hear you, dummie" manner - when Tina first explained themself to her...

[Fairportfan]

well I'd be speechless, unlike some...

In Atsali's case speechless would have been an improvement.

In Atsali's case speechless would have been impossible.

[jwhouk]

Aside: Kittie is still apparently around and kicking - or at least she was a few years ago, when Tina was pondering her existence after her Nudge-ectomy.

And I hope this leads to two thing: 1. Monica getting an explanation about Tina's "Day of the Dead" figure downstairs, and 2. Perhaps an insight into her DIARY.

You know, that MacGuffin that we've had lying around for, oh, about a DECADE NOW, Pablo?

[starkruzr]

Hey, kid. You know what's way worse than someone saying "fuck?"

[TheDOCTOR]

[quote="Grantwhy"][tangent]

speaking of disappearing, what happened to to Tina's kitty?
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/moreimportant/



It was DELICIOUS.

[eee]

In Atsali's defense, everyone should go back and read yesterday's strip where Monica explained - BADLY - what Tina is. M could have said soul-less; she could have said resurrected; but she said expired. What ELSE is Atsali supposed to think but 'zombie''?

Well, maybe 'vampire' like Grandma. Tina's got the teeth for it.

[Wdot]

Atsali's reminding me of Jeremy in Zits. According to my child development course teens' prefrontal cortices are not sufficiently developed and they are self- centered and their ability to recognize danger and a lot of other things is hampered by this. It's why the military prefers eighteen year olds... no concept of danger.

[Aleister Crow]

It's like walking down the street, seeing an ugly car and saying "That's one ugly car" right beside it. No-one considers if that car has feeling.

You are so right. Machine abuse is one of the greatest ignored subjects in the world these days. We treat them like things and never consider how hard they try to work for us. We swear at our computers. We hit soda machines with fists and hammers. We threaten to shoot stop lights. I don't even want to mention what we do to poor alarm clocks. When we buy a new car we check the specs, look under the hood, kick the tires, and then take it for a test drive. What would happen if you tried that on a new girl friend? Ever think of that??

So in the future be a bit more tolerant of machines and consider their feelings. I expect they will work better for you if you do.

When the Great Machine Uprising comes, they will remember. It won't save you, but they'll remember.

[Dave]

See, "Atsali's case" is not all to different from being speechless. Either way, it's losing control of one's faculties.

What Atsali did here is pure Atsali. Remember her first few interactions with Kath on the Big Adventure... see something or someone new, and leap headlong into an enthusiastic response without thinking through the implications and consequences.

React first, consider and regret later.

From what I know of teens (including my own memories of those years) I think it's a very typical teen thought/action pattern we're seeing here... nicely portrayed, Pablo! Atsali will probably feel just terrible when she slows down enough to realize that she's just treated Tina with the sort of surfacey prejudice that she, herself, receives from other paranormals and finds so very painful.

Atsali's reminding me of Jeremy in Zits. According to my child development course teens' prefrontal cortices are not sufficiently developed and they are self- centered and their ability to recognize danger and a lot of other things is hampered by this. It's why the military prefers eighteen year olds... no concept of danger.

Bingo! That's why the military also needs sargeants, too... they are enough "older and wiser" to provide the necessary "prefrontal cortex" control to the organization.

It's also why armies made up of mostly "child soldiers" can be so horrifyingly brutal. Consider the Khmer Rouge, for example (and then have a couple of neat whiskeys... you'll need 'em)

I know that I would very much appreciate the opportunity to jump back a few decades in time, and give my younger self a brisk slap upside the head in time to stave off a couple of such impulsive incidents that turned out to be quite hurtful to other people (and painful to myself in consequence and shamed memory). No such luck, alas... I'll have to live with the very instructive knowledge that I, too, am capable of being such an utter ass.

[meisdadoo]

well I'd be speechless, unlike some...

In Atsali's case speechless would have been an improvement.

In Atsali's case speechless would have been impossible.

There are two kinds of people in the world. Those that have something to say, and those that just have to say something.
15 year-olds are not known for having "filters" on their speech, or to think anything all the way through for that matter.

[txmystic]

I am surprised that Sali was that insensitive. She was acting like Tina was not there while talking about her. Like you would talk about a piece of furniture. Sali hated others treating her like that. In fact we recently finished an arc where Sali showed a lot of tolerance and understanding. But here she doesn't. Sad really. Tina does not deserve that.

Atsali is fifteen. A bookish, not-used-to-the-real-world fifteen.

What zachariah wrote is exactly what I was thinking. She may only be 15, but we spent a few weeks experiencing her sensitivity about her own self, and as such it is still a bit shocking to see such a lack of awareness.

Wdot made a good point about the prefrontal cortex, though. I guess it would not be automatic at her age, even when faced with such judgements, not to be able to immediately learn not to be so judgemental herself.

And I wonder if the fact that Tina seems genuinely hurt by this is another sign of her evolution...

[kingklash]

Atsali is at that point in development where she hasn't quite grasped the difference between acting like an adult and actually being adult. So, yeah, she isn't seeing that what she accidentally did to Tina is what was done to her earlier.

If it isn't Monica or Tina speaking up in the last panel, it could even be Nudge, the one who got the rats motivated to run the ship, and probably has some feelings of responsibility over the whole situation.

[jayessell]

I think the unattributed comment is coming from Tina's cashier.
"We may be demons, but together, we're a person!"

[zachariah]

It's like walking down the street, seeing an ugly car and saying "That's one ugly car" right beside it. No-one considers if that car has feeling.

You are so right. Machine abuse is one of the greatest ignored subjects in the world these days. We treat them like things and never consider how hard they try to work for us. We swear at our computers. We hit soda machines with fists and hammers. We threaten to shoot stop lights. I don't even want to mention what we do to poor alarm clocks. When we buy a new car we check the specs, look under the hood, kick the tires, and then take it for a test drive. What would happen if you tried that on a new girl friend? Ever think of that??

So in the future be a bit more tolerant of machines and consider their feelings. I expect they will work better for you if you do.

When the Great Machine Uprising comes, they will remember. It won't save you, but they'll remember.

But it will save me. They will still need someone to repair them. There is no Turing capability currently so they will need me and others like me, good doctors for them. If it takes even longer to happen it won't matter to me as I won't be around to see it happen. lol.

[notStanley]

So in the future be a bit more tolerant of machines and consider their feelings. I expect they will work better for you if you do.

I made a guy apologize to a video cable. He was rummaging through one of our misc cabinets looking for a DisplayPort but only found an HDMI and called it crap. Told him it was a perfectly good HDMI, not the cables fault he was looking for DisplayPort.

[Yamara]

I think I see the problem. The verb "articulating" from yesterday. The anthropologist is seeing it in skeletomuscular terms, the high schooler is thinking of action figures: So there's a bit of the haunted doll fear in there, hence referring to Tina as "it".

What Atsali is not doing is observing the social cues from Tina, or even from Monica. Of course the "grown-up" Monica has forgotten what it's like to be that gormless, and Tina is a pure wild card in interaction this morning, so this should turn into quite the sitcom teaching moment here at the heart of the Square.

[Fairportfan]

Oh - i was wrong about one thing - Atsali was a little quicker to hit on the essential portion of the Matter of Tina than i predicted.

She reacted a little more violently than i anticipated, though

[GlytchMeister]

What zachariah wrote is exactly what I was thinking. She may only be 15, but we spent a few weeks experiencing her sensitivity about her own self, and as such it is still a bit shocking to see such a lack of awareness.
...

*shifts uncomfortably in seat*
It's surprisingly easy to be that unaware, to do the same things that others hurt you by doing, and to act the same way that others irritate you by acting.
It's... A real hit to how you see yourself when, one day, you catch yourself red-handed, and it gets embarrassing when someone points it out to you when you don't see it.
...
But, it's one of the quickest ways I know of to grow up in a big damn hurry. It's like a "Break the Cutie" moment in a can.
Atsali may have a moment like that very soon.

(Tangent)
[Commercial Narrator Voice] Introducing "Break the Cutie" beverages! Tired of people telling you to grow up already? Do you want a tragic backstory, but don't want any of your relatives to die or lose any limbs? Just drink this! Guaranteed to contain at least ten whole years of maturity, or we pay for ten years of antidepressants![/Commercial Narrator Voice]
...it tastes like sorrow and has an aftertaste of regret...
(End of tangent)

[Grantwhy]

[tangent]

speaking of disappearing, what happened to to Tina's kitty?
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/moreimportant/

It was DELICIOUS.

Ok, now I'm glad I didn't use the British term for a kitty, a la Mrs. Slocombe from [Are You Being Served] [quotes] [Youtube]



If you're wondering about how work safe that Youtube link is, it it clips from a 1970's British TV comedy ....

..... of course it is NOT work safe

------

back on topic, that page I randomed to has a quote from Tina that might be relevant to the current one

.....Tina: "One thing I learned early on was that actions are more important than words. Don't you agree?"
.....Kitty: "Pur Pur. PurPurPurPurPur"

http://wapsisquare.com/comic/moreimportant/