If Mr. Green would treat Virginia like this, I shudder to think what must be happening to poor Nick!
On the other hand, Dr. Lee’s righteous outrage is leaving her dangerously oblivious to the – ah – diligence with which her erstwhile subordinates are pursuing their duties…
On the gripping hand, now would be an excellent time to learn this is a Ginny drone she has been piloting ever since being ordered to disassemble Nick!
What gets me is, Green had that whole thing about how being Nick being a brain in a jar isn’t really “alive” anymore, and yet he’s trying to do the same thing to Virginia while still trying to get in her pants.
In fairness to Mr. Green, part of not having Anasig as firmly under his control as he believes it to be might involve the giving of orders in his name that he knows nothing about. To be mundane it needn’t even be an attempt to subvert his control if some executive assistant who doesn’t know he has a thing for Ginny was merely following standard procedure. @_@
The contrast between his behavior as Dr. Ao and his behavior in the flesh is certainly interesting. I’d be tempted to say the former was all a ruse, were it not for advances he made as Violet Bee. But who knows? Maybe he’s a stone cold sociopath.
I don’t think it’s impossible that Mr. Green is a sociopath, saying whatever he thinks might get him whatever he wants, largely indifferent to consistency.
Hm. Although I just had another thought. Dr. Ao’s statement might make sense if you consider something about Nick that he didn’t say explicitly. Nick identifies as a helicopter, and has joined the Machine Union. Dr. Ao/Mr. Green sees an explicit conflict going on — the Old War/New War between humanity and humanity’s sapient creations — and Nick is pretty much on the “wrong” side.
In the comments for that comic, people were saying that Mr. Green didn’t know about how Nick was happy and alive as a helicopter. Maybe he did know, but used that knowledge to think of Nick as an enemy to be controlled, imprisoned, and ultimately destroyed.
The fact that Nick also has a some sort of quasi-romantic relationship with Dr. Lee probably doesn’t make Mr. Green any more disposed to be sympathetic.
I just realized that Dr. Lee woke up without her glasses, and yet they were available for her to put on in the next strip. Oddly convenient, considering that they’d stripped her & dressed in her in a hospital gown, and cut her hair sloppily to prep her for brain extraction.
It’s more than a little strange, too, that the surgeons are just holding sharp things up when the surgery has to be postponed, at best. Or are they made nervous by their subject ranting at them, and they want pointy things to feel like they have some defense lest she attack them?
The injection being prepped looks like a possible setup for a quip about a sting delivered by bees. This works regardless of whether the bees literally enter the room, or have hacked the system so that an authoritative voice states that the operation has been cancelled and the subject is to be given clothes and her freedom.
I agree. How do we know know she’s not still in the simulation? The increasingly bizarre circumstances might be a clue, except that in the world of mad science and anasigma the doctor’s (or technicians’) behavior and brain extraction methodology isn’t necessarily all that bizarre.
I don’t think she’s still in the simulation, because we already had a long ‘deal with your personal demons while questioning what is real’ storyline with sweetheart. This one figuring out how to get out was more of a technical and puzzle solving exercise than a ‘me as with what is reality’ exercise. If does turn out to be a simulation anyway, it’ll probably just her figuring out how the VR works and how to manipulate it, not some endless nightmare scenario. But I think she’s out of the VR at this pokt.
“I just realized that Dr. Lee woke up without her glasses, and yet they were available for her to put on in the next strip.”
Are you sure about that? I just went back a few pages, and it looks to me like she woke up *with* her glasses, though I’ll admit it’s tricky to see given the angle of the last panel (and I’m not 100% certain it was originally posted that way)
MauveCloud: Virginia wasn’t wearing glasses in the frame where she’s lying down. http://skin-horse.com/comic/meet-you/.
It’s not an issue, though. As she can’t see very much without her glasses, she obviously keeps a pair in hammerspace so she can find it easily enough. It’s certainly more useful than keeping hammers there.
I gotta side with MauveCloud on this one. If you compare the side view of her in panel 2 here with the side view of her when she woke up, it definitely appears that she was wearing her glasses the whole time.
It was probably necessary for her to have them on so that in the VR she would feel like they were there.
I don’t see anything that looks like glasses. In the panel after the FZZT, there’s a line that goes to the anesthesia mask, which looks like a strap, and that’s it. No sign of anything else that could be frames/temples.
Also, now I look at it, her ear is missing. Or maybe it’s supposed to be obscured by the VR gear interface.
Are we looking at the same pictures? Look at the first two panels from today’s strip, and see the two simple lines that make up the temple and frames of her glasses. Those same two lines are there in the same position in the panel when she woke up. They’re not part of the respirator. And her ear is right there in plain sight between the lock of hair and the operating table.
Let us not pick artwork nits that distract from the essence of the plot, busily unfolding like an origami frog in a gentle spring rain, thickening like a fine cream sauce. Mary Worth this is not.
I love that — upon hearing that it was her nemesis (sort of) who has tried to have her killed (more or less) — her reaction is not terror, or even outrage (the outrage was upon learning that someone else was doing the brain-schlorping around there), but simply annoyance. Reminds me of some of Helen’s responses to Madblood.
“Attention, surgeons in the extirpation OR. New orders from Mr. Green: Dr. Lee is to be dressed, taken to the Atrium, and given tea with lots of honey, spit-spot.”
For a moment I thought Ira’s choices were morally challenging, but on second thought, it’s hardly a challenge, is it? Camus said one must imagine Sisyphus happy. No doubt Ira’s diligent research revealed that the specific labor that engenders maximal satisfaction is to live in a work camp harvesting walnuts. One daydreams of vast banks of warehoused brains emitting astronomical quantities of utilitons. Of course, as Virginia pointed out, Ira himself could be considered to be a walnut harvester, so one must imagine Ira to be thankless, misunderstood, but also happy — infectiously happy, even, as he shares the job he loves with the world.
Yes, but Dr. Green does it too, by delegation. Though I suppose it is more satisfying to be directly involved in the nuts and legumes of the process. Virginia sure seems to miss it.
But is Mr Green always in control of Mr Green? Since he has to be many different things at the same time how can he always be the same thing at different times?
I must correct this ridiculous discussion of “brain extraction,” which is a ridiculous old wive’s tale. The scientific name for this procedure is “brain liberation.” Your opinions are ignorant and invalid if you can’t even use the right terminology. Though I should also mention that there is an evolving consensus that “brain liberation” has become a derogatory label for what is now more accurately and scientifically called “cerebral unfettering which by definition is an unalloyed good.”
Yes, but in order to liberate the brain from its confines, it must indeed be extracted from the skull. So while “brain liberation” may be the objective, “brain extraction” is, in point of fact, the process.
Well, you definitely can’t blame a girl for turning down a guy under circumstances like that! ^_^
If Mr. Green would treat Virginia like this, I shudder to think what must be happening to poor Nick!
On the other hand, Dr. Lee’s righteous outrage is leaving her dangerously oblivious to the – ah – diligence with which her erstwhile subordinates are pursuing their duties…
On the gripping hand, now would be an excellent time to learn this is a Ginny drone she has been piloting ever since being ordered to disassemble Nick!
What gets me is, Green had that whole thing about how being Nick being a brain in a jar isn’t really “alive” anymore, and yet he’s trying to do the same thing to Virginia while still trying to get in her pants.
Make up your mind, dude.
In fairness to Mr. Green, part of not having Anasig as firmly under his control as he believes it to be might involve the giving of orders in his name that he knows nothing about. To be mundane it needn’t even be an attempt to subvert his control if some executive assistant who doesn’t know he has a thing for Ginny was merely following standard procedure. @_@
I’m wondering if the speculation that Mr. Green is an AI might explain the conflicting orders? A schizophrenic AI…
Or some executive assistant, knowing perfectly well that he has a thing for Ginny, gave the order in his name. . .
[It does fit Dr. Englebright’s M.O., I think]
Is “Mr. Green” a person, or a title that many people share?
That is indeed another theory that has been posed at some point.
The contrast between his behavior as Dr. Ao and his behavior in the flesh is certainly interesting. I’d be tempted to say the former was all a ruse, were it not for advances he made as Violet Bee. But who knows? Maybe he’s a stone cold sociopath.
Maybe?!?
Definitely and decidedly.
I don’t think it’s impossible that Mr. Green is a sociopath, saying whatever he thinks might get him whatever he wants, largely indifferent to consistency.
Hm. Although I just had another thought. Dr. Ao’s statement might make sense if you consider something about Nick that he didn’t say explicitly. Nick identifies as a helicopter, and has joined the Machine Union. Dr. Ao/Mr. Green sees an explicit conflict going on — the Old War/New War between humanity and humanity’s sapient creations — and Nick is pretty much on the “wrong” side.
In the comments for that comic, people were saying that Mr. Green didn’t know about how Nick was happy and alive as a helicopter. Maybe he did know, but used that knowledge to think of Nick as an enemy to be controlled, imprisoned, and ultimately destroyed.
The fact that Nick also has a some sort of quasi-romantic relationship with Dr. Lee probably doesn’t make Mr. Green any more disposed to be sympathetic.
Now I’m wondering if Mr. Green has a wife he’d be “not-cheating” on if and only if Dr Lee’s brain was in a jar
Strictly speaking, Dr. Lee’s brain isn’t in her pants. I’d post further about it, but it’s getting into a really weird area.
Did he turn down Mr. Green, too?
Not in so many words, but Nick’s attitude when he discovered Violet Bee wasn’t human was just as good as turning him down.
I just realized that Dr. Lee woke up without her glasses, and yet they were available for her to put on in the next strip. Oddly convenient, considering that they’d stripped her & dressed in her in a hospital gown, and cut her hair sloppily to prep her for brain extraction.
It’s more than a little strange, too, that the surgeons are just holding sharp things up when the surgery has to be postponed, at best. Or are they made nervous by their subject ranting at them, and they want pointy things to feel like they have some defense lest she attack them?
The injection being prepped looks like a possible setup for a quip about a sting delivered by bees. This works regardless of whether the bees literally enter the room, or have hacked the system so that an authoritative voice states that the operation has been cancelled and the subject is to be given clothes and her freedom.
yeah, to paraphrase calvin and hobbes, don’t argue with the man holding a sharp blade to your head
Are you suggesting that she might have woken up from one VR and into another?
I agree. How do we know know she’s not still in the simulation? The increasingly bizarre circumstances might be a clue, except that in the world of mad science and anasigma the doctor’s (or technicians’) behavior and brain extraction methodology isn’t necessarily all that bizarre.
I don’t think she’s still in the simulation, because we already had a long ‘deal with your personal demons while questioning what is real’ storyline with sweetheart. This one figuring out how to get out was more of a technical and puzzle solving exercise than a ‘me as with what is reality’ exercise. If does turn out to be a simulation anyway, it’ll probably just her figuring out how the VR works and how to manipulate it, not some endless nightmare scenario. But I think she’s out of the VR at this pokt.
“I just realized that Dr. Lee woke up without her glasses, and yet they were available for her to put on in the next strip.”
Are you sure about that? I just went back a few pages, and it looks to me like she woke up *with* her glasses, though I’ll admit it’s tricky to see given the angle of the last panel (and I’m not 100% certain it was originally posted that way)
MauveCloud: Virginia wasn’t wearing glasses in the frame where she’s lying down. http://skin-horse.com/comic/meet-you/.
It’s not an issue, though. As she can’t see very much without her glasses, she obviously keeps a pair in hammerspace so she can find it easily enough. It’s certainly more useful than keeping hammers there.
Hammerspace isn’t really a thing in the Narboniverse…
…but Mojo is! And we’ve seen Virginia use it before! Ties up neatly!
“Hammerspace isn’t really a thing…” Mell might disagree with you.
“Mell might disagree with you”? There’s no “might” about it.
“Mallets just happen.”
I gotta side with MauveCloud on this one. If you compare the side view of her in panel 2 here with the side view of her when she woke up, it definitely appears that she was wearing her glasses the whole time.
It was probably necessary for her to have them on so that in the VR she would feel like they were there.
I don’t see anything that looks like glasses. In the panel after the FZZT, there’s a line that goes to the anesthesia mask, which looks like a strap, and that’s it. No sign of anything else that could be frames/temples.
Also, now I look at it, her ear is missing. Or maybe it’s supposed to be obscured by the VR gear interface.
Are we looking at the same pictures? Look at the first two panels from today’s strip, and see the two simple lines that make up the temple and frames of her glasses. Those same two lines are there in the same position in the panel when she woke up. They’re not part of the respirator. And her ear is right there in plain sight between the lock of hair and the operating table.
Let us not pick artwork nits that distract from the essence of the plot, busily unfolding like an origami frog in a gentle spring rain, thickening like a fine cream sauce. Mary Worth this is not.
Mmmmm… frogs in a nice cream sauce. Sounds tasty.
I love that — upon hearing that it was her nemesis (sort of) who has tried to have her killed (more or less) — her reaction is not terror, or even outrage (the outrage was upon learning that someone else was doing the brain-schlorping around there), but simply annoyance. Reminds me of some of Helen’s responses to Madblood.
Is this whole setup a sting operation?
“Attention, surgeons in the extirpation OR. New orders from Mr. Green: Dr. Lee is to be dressed, taken to the Atrium, and given tea with lots of honey, spit-spot.”
For a moment I thought Ira’s choices were morally challenging, but on second thought, it’s hardly a challenge, is it? Camus said one must imagine Sisyphus happy. No doubt Ira’s diligent research revealed that the specific labor that engenders maximal satisfaction is to live in a work camp harvesting walnuts. One daydreams of vast banks of warehoused brains emitting astronomical quantities of utilitons. Of course, as Virginia pointed out, Ira himself could be considered to be a walnut harvester, so one must imagine Ira to be thankless, misunderstood, but also happy — infectiously happy, even, as he shares the job he loves with the world.
Actually, I thought that harvesting walnuts was a symbolic representation of Dr. Lee’s occupation of harvesting brains.
Yes, but Dr. Green does it too, by delegation. Though I suppose it is more satisfying to be directly involved in the nuts and legumes of the process. Virginia sure seems to miss it.
But is Mr Green always in control of Mr Green? Since he has to be many different things at the same time how can he always be the same thing at different times?
Is that Echo Bravo wielding the scalpel?
Lets hope not. For a MIB, he shouldn’t be allowed to play with sharp instruments.
I must correct this ridiculous discussion of “brain extraction,” which is a ridiculous old wive’s tale. The scientific name for this procedure is “brain liberation.” Your opinions are ignorant and invalid if you can’t even use the right terminology. Though I should also mention that there is an evolving consensus that “brain liberation” has become a derogatory label for what is now more accurately and scientifically called “cerebral unfettering which by definition is an unalloyed good.”
Yes, but in order to liberate the brain from its confines, it must indeed be extracted from the skull. So while “brain liberation” may be the objective, “brain extraction” is, in point of fact, the process.
Hey you don’t get to use “Brain Extraction!!!” That word is only for us – You’re being corporeal-ist!
Liberation, extraction, whatevs. Where’s my sriracha? – Unity
Fat lot of good it does to liberate a brain if it’s not plugged into anything.