What if the same element that is causing the sudden surge of reality blindness also renders Tip’s mojo — particularly how he affects women — impotent? (Yes, pun intended)
If Tip can no longer seduce problem people, this could really be trouble!
This might be a bit more than just the cure, though. Reality blindness sometimes makes people interpret any sapient as human (rather than any animal as non-sapient), and sometimes makes people simply not see things that don’t fit their parameters. I’m a little surprised if EVERYONE sees HT, and sees him as a tiger.
(Or, y’know, canon drift. Maybe “nonsapient tiger WHAT” is the only currently-canonical reality-blind interpretation of HT.)
The way I understand it (and I could have this wrong), if you see HT, he’s a tiger. Even reality-blind humans have enough survival instinct not to ignore wandering tigers in case they start talking and challenging their worldview.
But I think if you hear HT before you see him, your brain doesn’t have the discrepancy of “Tigers can’t talk”, so you hear him normally. Then, when you do see him, the “Tigers can’t talk” kicks in and so you decide he can’t be a tiger.
Okay, I’m confused. Maybe I should be. Is the phenomenon that has outed HT and Sweetheart as non-human sapients the ambient radiation of the Groovetron or simply a by-product of the shock caused by Tip’s recent encounter with Tremontino’s exquisitely tailored suit? Either event was enough to cause a reality altering twist to the Skin Horse dimension.
They’re not outed as non-human sapients. If anything, they’re “inned” – people who were quite happy to accept them as non-human sapients are now recognising them as non-human but quite unable to see their sapience.
This is a known side-effect of the Mad Science Cure that Helen invented back in Narbonic and A-Sig were experimenting with in “Mixed-Up Files”, but whether that’s what it is is yet to be revealed.
I wonder if any of the Madblood androids are still running around, causing trouble (I assume there are – he made quite a few). How will those be interpreted by the reality blind? Just as particularly nasty Canadians with interesting music choices?
The only ones we know for sure that ended up in Canada were the handful that Dave, Artie & Zeta took to Winnipeg to meet Dr. Noah. And all of those were disassembled by the hamsters to make their robot suits (and Dr. Noah was dissected). The whereabouts of the other 14,976 androids is as yet unknown. It’s possible more of them ended up being gathered and disassembled by the hamsters, as they did have “an army of hamsters in mechanical suits”, but we don’t know how many were actually in that “army”. It may have still just been the original two dozen.
But to the first question — anyone with a Bill Davenport level of reality blindness wouldn’t see the androids at all. They may also not see Sweetheart or H.T. or Unity at all — after all, Bill (as well as the Dave clone on the cure) couldn’t see Artie at all when he was a gerbil.
What’s he gonna say? “Pick a card, any card…”
Unity is just applying good management skills. Find the strengths and then target them.
Sorry H.T., but you kinda deserve this and we all know it.
Sweetheart doesn’t deserve this, though. She’s a good girl. (Mostly.)
True, but as noted above at least she can walk around in public without causing a panic.
I dunno… she did break the waffle iron.
And she went on that rampage
Okay, so, anyone placing bets that the end of the week cliffhanger is revealing Tip got the cure?
Oh god, I hadn’t thought of that, but now you’ve mentioned it, yes.
I’m starting to wonder if Tip’s suit was somehow delivering a memetic version of the cure via his mojo or something.
What if that Tip starts walking around wearing men’s clothes, convinced that he always wears mens clothes?
In case of unprecedented emergency, mojo can substitute for heroic willpower.
Whoa whoa whoa, a cat of any kind being grouchy and ungrateful?! Let’s try and keep this cover story plausible, UNITY.
Oh, she’s just giving him the one command she’s fairly confident he’ll comply with… even if he wasn’t listening to her.
And here’s a horrifying thought…
What if the same element that is causing the sudden surge of reality blindness also renders Tip’s mojo — particularly how he affects women — impotent? (Yes, pun intended)
If Tip can no longer seduce problem people, this could really be trouble!
Such a devastating blow might easily lead to depression. So it’s really fortunate he’d always have professional help close at hand…
Not the puppets!
Agreeing with other comments, Tip’s gonna have been cured too.
Now that’s a scary thought. How far and deep does this field of reality blindness go?
On the positive side, if Unity goes on a brain-eating rampage, nobody will be able to tell she’s doing it.
Regular canibals still exist
The last cannibals stopped being so in 1997. Creutzfeldt-Jacobs.
Tell that to Armin Meiwes.
This might be a bit more than just the cure, though. Reality blindness sometimes makes people interpret any sapient as human (rather than any animal as non-sapient), and sometimes makes people simply not see things that don’t fit their parameters. I’m a little surprised if EVERYONE sees HT, and sees him as a tiger.
(Or, y’know, canon drift. Maybe “nonsapient tiger WHAT” is the only currently-canonical reality-blind interpretation of HT.)
The way I understand it (and I could have this wrong), if you see HT, he’s a tiger. Even reality-blind humans have enough survival instinct not to ignore wandering tigers in case they start talking and challenging their worldview.
But I think if you hear HT before you see him, your brain doesn’t have the discrepancy of “Tigers can’t talk”, so you hear him normally. Then, when you do see him, the “Tigers can’t talk” kicks in and so you decide he can’t be a tiger.
I like that! Reality blindness is, itself, situationally unaware!
So, like Frankenstein’s monster, he can only talk to the blind?
Or via telephone. Technology is amazing.
Ah, poor HT. You may be an evil bastard but no one deserves to suffer because of their race/species.
Okay, I’m confused. Maybe I should be. Is the phenomenon that has outed HT and Sweetheart as non-human sapients the ambient radiation of the Groovetron or simply a by-product of the shock caused by Tip’s recent encounter with Tremontino’s exquisitely tailored suit? Either event was enough to cause a reality altering twist to the Skin Horse dimension.
Tremontino’s suit might prove to be a protective armor for Tip. It’s pretty powerful.
They’re not outed as non-human sapients. If anything, they’re “inned” – people who were quite happy to accept them as non-human sapients are now recognising them as non-human but quite unable to see their sapience.
This is a known side-effect of the Mad Science Cure that Helen invented back in Narbonic and A-Sig were experimenting with in “Mixed-Up Files”, but whether that’s what it is is yet to be revealed.
I wonder if any of the Madblood androids are still running around, causing trouble (I assume there are – he made quite a few). How will those be interpreted by the reality blind? Just as particularly nasty Canadians with interesting music choices?
The only ones we know for sure that ended up in Canada were the handful that Dave, Artie & Zeta took to Winnipeg to meet Dr. Noah. And all of those were disassembled by the hamsters to make their robot suits (and Dr. Noah was dissected). The whereabouts of the other 14,976 androids is as yet unknown. It’s possible more of them ended up being gathered and disassembled by the hamsters, as they did have “an army of hamsters in mechanical suits”, but we don’t know how many were actually in that “army”. It may have still just been the original two dozen.
But to the first question — anyone with a Bill Davenport level of reality blindness wouldn’t see the androids at all. They may also not see Sweetheart or H.T. or Unity at all — after all, Bill (as well as the Dave clone on the cure) couldn’t see Artie at all when he was a gerbil.
Sweetheart seems like exactly the kind of person who would always remember to capitalize Dumpster, since it’s a brand name.
Wait, really?
A play on their own name, it was patented in the 1930s by the Dempster brothers. They called their original design the Dempster Dumpster.
Pretty nice of Sweetheart to offer H.T. a cover story all things told.