[1183 – 1185] Nightmares
└ posted on Wednesday, 10 June 2020, by Novil
- Policeman: Hands up!
- Sandra: Woo!
- Policeman: Oops, wrong house.
- Rioter: How do you like that, racist scum?!
- Richard: You don’t have to worry, Sandra. There haven’t been any riots in the country for a week.
- Sandra: I know, but…
- Sandra: I’ve been having all kinds of nightmares for weeks now. And they keep getting worse!
- Eugene Tyson: Please excuse the intrusion, but let me tell you that such nightmares shouldn’t be taken lightly!
- Richard: Oh! How would you know?
- Eugene Tyson: My name is Eugene Tyson. I was professor for oneirology at Yale. My therapies helped dozens of people to overcome severe trauma!
- Richard: You were professor at Yale,… and now you’re working as a sweeper?
- Eugene Tyson: I posted something wrong on Twitter…!
- Richard: You’re lucky to still be alive!
@ Sureen Ink:
Look up the 1807 Insurrection Act and how it’s been used over the years and you will find that it IS in Trumps power to send in the national guard. He just hasn’t done it yet either because:
1. Incompetence, which is most likely, or
2. He sees that this whole thing is bait and he’s just going to wait it out while these adult children hang themselves with their own noose. This later one isn’t as likely but is still in the realm of possibility.
Sorry if I said this already, but I noticed we haven’t seen Larisa in a while.
Well, that’s probably just about some of the sharpest whiplash between “oh hey this isn’t bad” and “oh god they’re going for the ‘both sides it’s enlightened centrist bullshit,’ this ain’t it chief” that I’ve been party to in a number of years.
One side intentionally carries out murder as a remorseless chauvinistic power trip and then uses their status and power to lie about it and get away with it.
The WORST of the other lashes out as the result of centuries of systemic oppression and seeing any attempt at peaceful reform or change result in either nothing or a pittance of platitudes at best boiling over into a rage that can no longer be suppressed.
Equating these is tone deaf to a degree that genuinely disgusts me.
Really good strip(s), well worth the wait.
There is no cause so great that it will not attract a few fools and villains.
There is no cause so vile that it will not seduce a few good people, a few smart people.
Don’t paint all police with the broad brush handed to you by the bad cops and the bad departments.
Don’t paint all protestors with the broad brush handed to you by rioters, arsonists, vandals, and looters.
@ Ryguy987:
The governors have used the National Guard in this instance, sometimes to good effect, sometimes to ill.
What Don Orange is talking about is sending actual active-duty combat troops into American cities to ahem “restore order” while openly talking about “dominating the battle space” against American citizens. You know, the sort of thing that regimes like Putin, Assad, Kim, Madurro, and the CCP would eagerly do.
Lemonado Girl wrote:
So you think that the “activists” in the second segment are justified in attacking that house, in beating Sandra and burning Woo to death?
Wrong is wrong, going on about “historical factors” and “systemic issues” doesn’t make beating innocent people and burning them out of their homes any less wrong, regardless of anyone’s politics or superficial nonsense like skin color or ancestral origin.
There is of course a Prof Eugene Tyson.
Not at Yale, and not studying dreams, but still.
@ persia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergo_decedo
Just gonna leave that here for you, since i imagine you are likely young and not familiar with logical fallacies. You don’t get to decide who does and does not read this comic.
Ya know, I really did used to like this comic, when it was presented as a lighthearted family affair. Then the politics crept in (anyone remember Woo’s I Have A Dream speech? Felt in poor taste even at the time, now it just feels uncomfortable given the current state of the US). Then came the frequent sexualization of children, which also has felt creepy and uncomfortable. And now this tasteless mess. My original enjoyment of this comic has turned into something akin to the old metaphor of watching a train wreck.
I guess I should just acknowledge that this comic is no longer enjoyable to me. From what I understand Novil doesn’t take well to pretty much any kind of criticism and also appears to me to be something of an egomaniac; accordingly I expect my post will be deleted.
Well that’s all, I will be on my way to do more productive things. Enjoy your deeply flawed comic, sycophants. I shall not be returning.
You guys still not done ? My popcorn is running out.
An excellent satire of our times.
@ ValdVin:
This fashionable “carrying a gun is worse than throwing a brick” refrain reminds me of a joke.
“I’m booking you for illegal fishing.”
“But I’m not fishing!”
“You have the equipment.”
“Then I’m placing you under citizen’s arrest for streaking.”
“Streaking?”
“You have the equipment.”
(Yes, I did change it from the version I heard, but the point isn’t contingent on the joke being in good taste.)
Dan wrote:
It’s about anxiety not about equating Antifa to cops, or cops to Antifa for that matter.
@ MJ:
You’re kidding right? We can’t be sure these days. Fucking OANN makes Faux News look like MSNBC
I wholly support this. The humor, not the situation in the world.
@ Crabcake:
For someone who tries to lecture others on logical fallacies, you sure love to throw personal insults and ad hominems (“sycopanths”, “bootlickers”, “egomaniac”) around. You won’t be missed.
Oh, and btw, unlike in case of political systems which lay a claim to universality, ie applicability to all citizens, as well as certain degree of objectivity, art is inherently personal, so “sod off” is a perfectly valid response…it may not be nice, but one has to play nice oneself before one can expect to be treated nicely.
@ AdamNewTA:
I’m not even sure whether you’re trolling at this point, but FWIW: the joke was about Cloud describing his character in a very self-righteous, knight-templary crusady way, to which “deus vult” is a perfectly valid response (in character), seeing as it was the motto (kind of) of actual crusaders. I don’t even think it had anything to do with the present situation or any moral issue whatsoever.
A friendly advice: you may want to stop looking at everything through the spectacles of oppression, identity politics and all that. If the only tool you have is a hammer, at some point everything is going to look like something that should be hammered.
Arent wrote:
Then you would immediately agree that the left should first and foremost criticize actual prejudice and racism – IS, Hamas, BDS – and then, afterwards, they could also criticize in a constructively and balanced manner racism and antisemitism of both white and black US citizens.
So full-on attack on Hamas, anythin ggoes, and until they’re completely wiped out no criticism at all of …
Oh, wait. No criticism of the IDF even after Hamas are wiped out.
Riiiiight.
While we’re at it, nobody’s allowed to research treatments for rare cancers until heart disease is completely eradicated as a cause of death and until China reaches net zero carbon emissions the USA will take no actions to reduce theirs at all, right?
Oh, and one black guy shot another in Los Angeles three weeks ago, therefore no criticism of the Minneapolis PD is allowed for at least another 49 weeks, of course!
That attitude?
That doesn’t work.
It’s been tried.
AdamNewTA wrote:
I get that it was a joke. This is a comedic comic strip after all. However, the phrase is used in the second panel, as part of the setup, not the final panel, as part of the punchline. Here is the line in context:
Cloud: Of course, my hero will be God’s shining beacon in a sea of corruption! An impeccable champion in mankind’s eternal struggle against moral depravity!
Landon: Deus vult!
So are supposed to think that Cloud and Landon are wrong in believing that, to combat corruption and “moral depravity,” they should embrace fascist ideology? Or is it that they want to give their character 3 boobs? (Not to mention, “Essential Geneder Pack” also implies a little bit of transphobia)
No, you incredibly addled fool. We are not supposed to think that at all.
Several flaws in your worthless attempt at an argument:
1) A character in a story said a thing. That doesn’t necesarily mean we’re supposed to agree with them. If it did, we’d be supposed to agree with everyone in 1984 and To Kill A Mockingbird and Starship Troopers and The Lord Of The Rings and All Quiet On The Western Front and Schindler’s List and Twelve Angry Men and The Hunt For Red October and Crimson Tide and The Battle Of Britain. That would be completely impossible, even for someone with enough cognitive dissonance to be a biblical literalist, a flat-earther and a vaccine-denier and call himself a scientist.
2) “Deus vult!” does not mean “Embrace fascist ideology!” It means “God wills it.” It’s been used by a lot of very bad people, as have many other phrases. If some fascists once used “Make it so” quite a lot, does that make Star Trek fascist propaganda? No. American propaganda, maybe. Fascist? No. Wanting to dictate every aspect of everyone’s lives, make them all slaves of the state as personified in one leader with an inflated ego whose face is everywhere and whose propaganda posters are protected by laws made specially for him? Worshipping some dickhead? Identifying anyone who in any way disagrees with him as an “enemy of the people” and a “threat to national security?” Encouraging the mob of people similar enough and loyal enough to that leader to beat, bully, rob, rape and murder anyone “too different?” Those are fascist things to do. Saying “It is God’s will that I make my MMORPG character as beautiful as I can and help new player with difficult group content when they can’t get an on-level group together and with crafted kit, as members of my kinship helped me when I was new?” That’s not fascism, even though it contains a phrase that’s nearly a translation of “Deus vult!”
3) The character saying “Deus vult!” in the comic in question probably hasn’t passed the 16+ history exam yet, and therefore quite possibly isn’t aware of the history of the phrase. He’s about halfway to the age where a lot of people got from a -1 wisdom modifier to a 0. A child liking the Maltese Cross as an image isn’t an endorsement of the Nation German Workers’ Party of 1936-1945. It’s a child liking an image. I’ve heard of a North Korean family getting in trouble because one of their children wore a sweatshirt with “USA” on it, without knowing what it said, because the family had never been taught the Latin alphabet. He didn’t know it was a USA shirt. He just saw some shapes on a comfortable shirt.
As for the “essential gender pack,” there is, as I recall, very little information in the comic about what’s in that mod. You could take its title as meaning that biology is the essence of gender and it being mentioned at all as a sign that Novil and Powree are transphobic if you really want to, or you could take it as a horny teenager’s choice of name for a mod he made to let players make more adjustments to their characters’ primary and secondary characteristics than the base game allows, which he didn’t call “sex pack” because it doesn’t include sex animations and/or because the game site doesn’t allow that name, or you could even apply the principle of charity and see “essential gender pack” as a pack that’s essential for many players because it allows them to break away from the false dichotomoy imposed on them by the default character creator and more truly express their genders. The comic didn’t make it clear.
If you don’t know what the principle of charity is, I suggest subscribing to Suris on YouTube and watching lots and lots of his videos. You may find you like him.
@ Samantha:
Bye!
ValdVin wrote:
Lemonado Girl wrote:
I’m not disagreeing with you about what’s really happening in the USA in our world, but please note frames 5 and 6 of the first strip, frames 3 and 4 of the second strip and the whole dialogue of the third strip.
Sandra is having nightmares about the stuff she’s heard is going on her world.
Note the words “nightmares,” “heard” and “her” in that sentence.
The “nightmares” one is also in the title of the strips.
Nightmares don’t always reflect perceived reality.
What she’s heard doesn’t necessarily reflect reality.
Her world isn’t identical to ours.
Ryguy987 wrote:
You read the Daily Mail, don’t you?
AdamNewTA wrote:
The point of the two strips is to show effects the violence has on the mental state of normal citizens.
I’m disappointed so many readers miss the point of these strips. Once again, they are not primarily about police or antifa, it’s about stress, anxiety, dealing with trauma. Is this something only PTSD sufferers get?
He probably posted something like this guy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6e26FuLuTk
Or this guy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcq874yB044
@ Chris:
No, I don’t. In fact, I didn’t even know that site existed until you pointed it at me. Looks like cheap RINO propaganda to me but I’ll look further into it sometime. No, I’m just a fan or Razorfist, which while he does have controversial and sometimes contrarian opinions, he is a licensed and capable political scientist and knows how to cite his sources; He just so happens to also play a very loud and arrogant character, ala, Spoony. His general video and humor style could really be described as “Spoony with no filter, a lexicon, and not afraid to tackle real world events.”
Antifa are terrorists in the same sense that the people who did the Boston tea party were terrorists. Antifa attack (sometimes violently but generally not) suspected fascists; not little girls. Juxtaposing violent police with anti-fascist actors is a false equivalence. Fascism is an inherently violent system and not doing everything to get rid of them is allowing violence to occur.
“On 24 January 1878, Vera Zasulich, a young Russian revolutionary, shot General Fyodor Trepov, the Governor of St Petersburg, in retaliation for his torture of the Tsarist regime’s many political prisoners. Trepov was wounded in the attack, while Zasulich was soon arrested and put on trial. When questioned as to why she hadn’t shot again and finished the job, she replied simply: ‘I’m a terrorist, not a murderer!’”
It seems like some people are angry about this comic.
Maybe in an effort to balance it out, I just wanted to express my support for the series as a whole regardless of how I feel about this particular comic.
@ Dan:
Antifa contains a small minority of violent and destructive individuals who color how some folks see the whole group – just like cops.
It’s just as unfair to all the vast majority of good cops out there to call cops in general fascist as it is to call everybody who associates with Antifa violent and destructive.
If I may just say so JESUS GODSDAMN CHRIST! O_o;;;
I mean, I’m on board, I wanna see where this is going just to see what the fuck… but at the same time WHAT THE FUCK MAN?! ._.;
I mean.. wow… yikes… wow…
@ Arawn_Emrys:
the “protestors” don’t deserve support. they’re terrorists that think burning down blakc neighborhoods somehow helps blacks.
or that tearing down george washington statues is fighting racism…
or hell, tearing down statues in MY country, that doesn’t have a history of police violence or racism.
at best it has a history of elitism against MY people. we had our version of the civil rights act 1 year after african americans.
fuck antifa they’re fascist cucks.
Nurr wrote:
I agree and I think it should be pointed out that that the focus of the strip is on Sandra, a teenage girl who sees in her eyes that the world around her was falling apart. (Saying was since the comic is just generally following real world events and not actually following them since the protests have continued.)
Personally, the comics have had an overall feel that people should try to be more inclusive, especially with regards to the refugee arc a year or so ago. I trust that Novil and Powree have discussed how the whole arc is going to occur ahead of time and they know what the final buildup is.
To get back to your question, I think it is just the situation of people taking a side and overlooking the context. Though, I could also be bias as I have pretty much picked a side myself with regards to the protests and I might be placing under context with regards to having reoccurring nightmares throughout 2020 due to Covid-19 and my (now former) retail job.
@ Name: Antifa has killed all of 0 people. Their most violent action has been the equivalent of a pie to the face. Meanwhile, cops are committing mass murder and violent riots. FUCK OFF
@ Killjoy:
The people in the second strip AREN’T REAL
@ Lemonado Girl:
yeah, it’s tone deaf as hell and doesn’t accurately portray what’s going on at all
@ Bart De Bock: They are literally anti fascist ya git
Hi to every body, it’s my first pay a quick visit of this blog; this blog carries remarkable and genuinely fine material in support of readers.
Lol wow, this one is just sad. Better check your hate crime statistics