[0716] Silver Lining
└ posted on Monday, 7 September 2015, by Novil
- Larisa: Yes, I’m really sorry, Ivan. … Yes, I’ll never do something like that again.
- Larisa: Are there already journalists besieging our house? … How many? … Oh, that’s good to hear.
- Larisa: Fortunately, dad didn’t seem to be too angry with me.
- Sandra: What about the journalists?
- Larisa: There were already so many print journalists, TV reporters, bloggers and curious onlookers gathering in front of our house that the pressure became too big and they collapsed into a black hole.
- Larisa: Mom is now looking into selling it to a vacuum cleaner manufacturer.
- Sandra: Every cloud has a silver lining…
![[0716] Silver Lining](/comics/2015-09-07-0716-silver-lining.png "[0716] Silver Lining")
I’ll admit I’m a tad disappointed in this resolution (so far).
A real world situation was being addressed, with potential relationship-defining/changing moments for Landon and Larissa, only to be (mostly?) ended by a out of left field Mcguffin resolution.
I hate to sound like an @$$ and I don’t mean to sound hurtful, but if this is the resolution to the story arc I’m somewhat let down. So much could have been fold in regards to Landon and Larisa’s relationship, not to mention any collateral fallout concerning Sandra and Cloud.
If there’s more coming then I apologize for jumping the gun, but at the moment I am a bit disheartened.
“The pressure became too big and they collapsed into a black hole?” That would require 10^29 atmospheres of pressure!
I… I never thought I’d find the creation of a black hole to be underwhelming.
I half expected a montage of everyone they knew reacting to the photo.
….. what.
Oh come on.
I’m pretty sure selling such a black hole runs into some serious problems. First, it should’ve fallen through the Earth. Second, it should be extremely hot and be impossible to approach. Third, I’m sure selling it would run afoul of laws against trafficking in human remains.
Where is Sandra’s Cloud’s silver lining? Is it the various scars from his training?
So I just found out that the kids would be just about the same age as me if they were to age in real time starting when the comic started. Kind of weird to think about. Now I kind of want to see what they would look like as 18 year olds heading to college.
I blame Yuna for the black hole.
I think it might be non-literal, seeing as that would probably destroy the earth.
Larissa’s Mom Understands:
When Life gives you Black Holes,
Sell them Before they become a neighborhood Nuisance.
An unattended Black Hole can Ruin a perfectly good lawn.
Sometimes the only way out is to go full silly.
And here I thought: “How it could be good?”
Well, a world without sensationalist journalists and blogs is certainly a better world. Thanks, Larisa!!
I suppose that Larisa’s blase attitude all through this story line was an indication that it wasn’t going to have any emotional weight, but this is silly, even for a strip with talking wildlife. It would require a far cartoonier strip than this one usually is for a mere press of people to collapse into a black hole, or such a black hole to not immediately fall into the Earth’s core and start consuming the planet.
Hopefully the same happened to all prosecutors who heard about this and wanted to have a field day with this case.
Jerry wrote:
It also tends to run afoul of HOA regulations.
Sometimes silly is the best way out. I thought it was a pretty good resolution, myself. And I agree with #CoyoteBR. The fewer slavering scandal mongers screaming “SHOCKING!!!” the better.
@ Leomon:
Same but hopefully its she is lying
@ maarvarq:
Yeah but we can always just blame it on Yuna.
I really hope she still sees some genuinely negative consequences from this….
I honestly didn’t expect that. I was expecting some sort of resolution, but not that.
Then I reminded myself: Talking wildlife, totemic gods, and girls with flamethrowers. Okay.
@ Leomon:
I really agree with you here! Hope this story is not finished yet!
For all those who are surprised at Novil’s lack of mature and thoughtful handling of this subject – he did warn us at the start.
A black hole on your front door? That’s what it happens: “you die” https://youtu.be/8nHBGFKLHZQ (Kurzgesagt video)
Well this was pretty anticlimactic.
Hmmm, I dunno…
If that is the resolution, an underage girl published a nude pic of herself with no consequence or lesson learned. That seems wrong, but, well, it’s handled more realistic than if there would be a great panic or if she was figuratively bullied to death for it. I doubt too many people would give a damn.
Fools lacking caution with stuff they don’t want to get out and said stuff getting out either because of stupidity or out of revenge is depressingly common.
Recently there was a dude in the news, who is 17 years old, took nude pictures of himself and send them out. They are trying him as an adult for distributing child pornography, of himself.
He didn’t make the news for his pics or sending them to people, he made the news for being tried as an adult for committing a crime he couldn’t commit if he was an adult.
Still, this seems underwhelming indeed.
This confusion is simply due to a misunderstanding between Russian euphemisms and Western ones.
To the Western mind, a “black hole” is a literal reference to a space thing. To the Russian mind, it is merely a polite way of saying “Ivan took care of it.”
@ maarvarq:
Cartoonier a wildlife community capable of reasoning and speech as regular characters, with a cameo by Smoky the Bear?
Print journalists, TV reporters, bloggers and curious onlookers gone without chance of return, not many decent people lost to the black hole then, but sadly, if theres intelligent life on the other side, with that cross section of humanity as the example of whats here, they’ll have a barrier up round the other side with a large sign saying… DO NOT ENTER !
I think a resolution this dissappointing will create enough pressure for a black hole itself.
Due to Hawking radiation, the black hole would dissipate mass faster than it could accrete it, and would evaporate in a cloud of fragmentary quotes and memes before it could do much damage, or start trending. >:=)>
Hmmm@ hamstap85:
Probably. I could see larissa asking cloud to pull some strings with his sister, and she now has a new source of energy and such. win win.
Someday they can cut Cloud open for his silver lining.
I warned you folks that this arc would have a cartoon ending.
I have to agree that it needed a cartoon ending else it would have been a tragic ending, but it still feels really unsatisfactory.
Hopefully this serves as a reminder not to write yourself into a corner. If you want to dip your toe in the water be prepared to swim in the ocean to follow.
@ Leomon:
>A real world situation was being addressed
Sending a message to 60 million people. About as much as those who will see a presidential address, probably. Yep, total real world situation.
Actually I was kind of worried the over-the-top setup would result in some normal boring relationship drama. Lucky for us, there’s nothing normal or boring about Larisa ever.
Temporalvisions wrote:
Why? She did something that only matters because people are obsessed with the idea that it does matter.
Quiet all you haters.
You were warned about teh funni3s, in case you forgot THIS IS A COMIC STRIP! Funny is supposed to happen.
Good job Powree and Oliver. (bonus points if Yuna finds a way to actually remove it.)
well… I don’t give a damn about the realism of the situation – that’s not the least bit of the reason why I read S&W.
But I have to say I’m still really disappointed. Not for the lack of maturity, but for the lack of story telling. I really hope this goes somewhere, because up untill now all we got out of the last two weeks of comics and a promising premise was a short explanation which I did not really think of as espacially funny.
Drama and comedy both come from taking risks. Not from sugarcoating every potentially threatening situation.
Sometimes I feel like Novil is telling us a lullaby.
@ Crystalgate:
And because this is sexual harassment. She has multiple restraining orders, and she just sent those people nudes. Hell, if Landon wanted to, he could make a *great* case for her sexually harassing him. How would it go if a grown man started shoving pics of his dick in people’s faces? This is the same basic thing.
So, it seems that Larisa’s mistake has caused the deaths of a great many people. Are we just supposed to ignore that and laugh?
So, using the back hole to clean vacuums, then?
It’s a pretty funny comic…BUT I was kinda hoping to see the reactions of Cloud, Zoey, and Landon…well I wanted to see the reactions of EVERYONE.
The media Crush attained singularity status did it? Good. We can all hope they were Fox, CNN and such. Let Yuna know too as she’ll probably be the best one in the vicinity to examine it.
@ N8:
Sending a nude picture to a boyfriend/girlfriend is not the same as someone shoving a nude picture of himself into the face of a stranger. Maybe Landon could have made a case in the US, but there’s no way it would fly in my country. Heck, if someone sent a nude picture to strangers it would not be judged as sexual harassment unless it’s done repeatedly to the same people.
As far as the restraining orders goes, if Larisa has those people listed as a contact then they may have a case. However, if they got those pictures merely because they had Snappic installed, it wouldn’t fly in any country which doesn’t have a trigger happy law-enforcement. They would have to prove that Larissa purposefully sent the picture to 50 millions for the explicit purpose of reaching them.
ALSO YOUR CLOUD SANDRA….
😉
There should be genuine consequences for this, I think.
Larissa isn’t in compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.
@ Kyran:
In a world of 5-year old cold fission specialists, talking raccoons and animal Gods… why not?
Plus, I think the way you defined paparazzi and yellow journalism too generous. “People”?
ok, I.m still waiting for the bank to come into play.