So, I was thinking about Dr. Jones, and I had an idea. I re-read “Brave Little Toasters”, and I think this makes sense. I don’t know if it’s quite right, of course, because some of my other ideas have made sense and then failed utterly to materialize.
This probably didn’t need to come from Tip. Maybe Tigerlily could have a similar conversation with her personality sprites or something, instead, so it would be more like introspection. But Tip is the doctor of psychology, after all, and his storyline has always been connected to Tigerlily’s.
Sorry if it rambles. In order to make sense, I think it has to build on various points. And Tigerlily probably could use more and better lines. And it occurs to me that it would be cooler if Tip starts slipping in more and more jive as he talks, but I don’t have the chops for that.
[Tip shaves off his sadness beard, and takes the clothes he collected from the various nonhuman enclaves he’d visited in “Angry with the Sky”. He goes to Tigerlily.]
Tip: Our precog says that the only way to save ourselves is for me to make out with you, but I can’t kiss you while I look like a hobo. And I also thought of something that I need to share with you. So I’m going to change behind this screen, and talk to you for a bit. Is that OK?
TL: I admit I am intrigued. So preach on, and we’ll see if you’re kissable when you’re done.
Tip: I’ve been thinking about your robot-building problem, and it occurred to me that you’ve committed a post hoc, ergo propter hoc error.
TL: If you’re gonna speak, speak English, boy!
Tip: I know that’s an incredibly square way of phrasing it, but I also know that somewhere in you is Berenice Jones, who grew up square and straightened her hair, and lived an upper-middle-class life, and probably learned some Latin terms for informal fallacies, until she rebelled against squareness and became you.
Tip: I met her, you know. In another universe, where so many things were different, and others were almost the same, but people had made different choices. Her hair was still straight, and her fashions were upper-middle-class, and her music was Easy Listening.
Tigerlily: *Looks aghast*
Tip: She had your body, and your voice, and she was smart, and she had your snarky sense of humor. But she utterly lacked your spark, your funktastic burning flame. Before the disaster that ruined that world, she had a small business of her own. The only rebellion she ever made was to run a pirate radio station after her world was destroyed.
Tip: Tigerlily, the last sapient machine you built with any soul was Sweetdaddy Jupiter Velvet, am I right? When you built Sweetdaddy, did you have any particular purpose in mind for him?
Tigerlily: I built him because there was a Cadillac in front of me and the fires of creation burning behind my eyes!
Tip: Exactly. You built him for the pure love of creating. And you put part of your own fire in him; your love of all that is funk. And lo, he was funky too, right?
Tigerlily: Damn straight!
Tip: And then we had our little adventure, and you built a teleporter out of coat hangers, and after that, the robots you built were as square as accountants working 9-to-5 jobs. And you think that I have something to do with that problem.
Tip: But something else happened, too, remember? You made your declaration of war from above; your intent to conquer and rule in the name of funk! And you made that declaration to the sapient machines themselves, that they had to serve you or be destroyed.
Tigerlily: And your point is . . . ?
Tip: And I suspect that when you created robots after that, you had in mind that their fundamental purpose was to serve you; to be conscript soldiers in your conquering army.
Tip: Maybe it’s different for different mad scientists, but I think that for you, when you create free children of your mind, you reach down into your love of funk, and create them sharing that love with you. But when you create slaves to serve you, your reach down into the part of you that used to serve the Man, and put that servitude into them. And that servitude has been the foundation of all of your more recent robots.
Tigerlily: Dag. That other cracker also said that I had become the Man!
Tip: It’s not just that if you love someone, set them free. You have to share your own freedom with them. You have to want them to have not ever been enslaved.
Tigerlily: *Mind. Blown.*
[various visual effects could go here, possibly ending with Sweetdaddy Jupiter Velvet saying “MAMA DONE WOKE“]
[Tip steps out from behind the screen, dressed gloriously. Maybe there’s a brass sting. Tigerlily embraces him with fiery passion, and the mojo is strong enough to move all of Annex One out of the way of danger.]
This is so plausible that, even if it doesn’t show up in the strip’s resolution to this arc, it will be at least a side-plot reason in my mind, as to why Tigerlily’s mojo failed her. I don’t think that so far the canon has supplied any reasons why it failed, she just pins it on Tip. So whatever happens, this makes perfect sense, even if she understands it differently later.
Random thought: Might Ginny Lee’s schematics be written in such a way as to impose her pattern of thinking upon those Sparks who make use of them whether temporarily or permanently? Thus leaving Tigerlily not so much Cured as currently a Sane Scientist of Ginny’s sort? o_O
In which case sex with Tip might be what is needed to discombolate her enough to make her a Madgirl again? o_O
Perhaps he should try it on.
I think he’d rather try on the current occupant of the outfit. ^_^
No reason why he can’t do both.
Sequentially or simultaneously?
Yes.
Oh, I hope those schematics are for a certain weather control device found hanging in Ira’s guard shack!
Looks like Dr. Jones is getting serious. ^_^
Props for your mad, bad-ass head canon, sir.
Meant that as a reply to Owlmirror 🙂
So, I was thinking about Dr. Jones, and I had an idea. I re-read “Brave Little Toasters”, and I think this makes sense. I don’t know if it’s quite right, of course, because some of my other ideas have made sense and then failed utterly to materialize.
This probably didn’t need to come from Tip. Maybe Tigerlily could have a similar conversation with her personality sprites or something, instead, so it would be more like introspection. But Tip is the doctor of psychology, after all, and his storyline has always been connected to Tigerlily’s.
Sorry if it rambles. In order to make sense, I think it has to build on various points. And Tigerlily probably could use more and better lines. And it occurs to me that it would be cooler if Tip starts slipping in more and more jive as he talks, but I don’t have the chops for that.
[Tip shaves off his sadness beard, and takes the clothes he collected from the various nonhuman enclaves he’d visited in “Angry with the Sky”. He goes to Tigerlily.]
Tip: Our precog says that the only way to save ourselves is for me to make out with you, but I can’t kiss you while I look like a hobo. And I also thought of something that I need to share with you. So I’m going to change behind this screen, and talk to you for a bit. Is that OK?
TL: I admit I am intrigued. So preach on, and we’ll see if you’re kissable when you’re done.
Tip: I’ve been thinking about your robot-building problem, and it occurred to me that you’ve committed a post hoc, ergo propter hoc error.
TL: If you’re gonna speak, speak English, boy!
Tip: I know that’s an incredibly square way of phrasing it, but I also know that somewhere in you is Berenice Jones, who grew up square and straightened her hair, and lived an upper-middle-class life, and probably learned some Latin terms for informal fallacies, until she rebelled against squareness and became you.
Tip: I met her, you know. In another universe, where so many things were different, and others were almost the same, but people had made different choices. Her hair was still straight, and her fashions were upper-middle-class, and her music was Easy Listening.
Tigerlily: *Looks aghast*
Tip: She had your body, and your voice, and she was smart, and she had your snarky sense of humor. But she utterly lacked your spark, your funktastic burning flame. Before the disaster that ruined that world, she had a small business of her own. The only rebellion she ever made was to run a pirate radio station after her world was destroyed.
Tip: Tigerlily, the last sapient machine you built with any soul was Sweetdaddy Jupiter Velvet, am I right? When you built Sweetdaddy, did you have any particular purpose in mind for him?
Tigerlily: I built him because there was a Cadillac in front of me and the fires of creation burning behind my eyes!
Tip: Exactly. You built him for the pure love of creating. And you put part of your own fire in him; your love of all that is funk. And lo, he was funky too, right?
Tigerlily: Damn straight!
Tip: And then we had our little adventure, and you built a teleporter out of coat hangers, and after that, the robots you built were as square as accountants working 9-to-5 jobs. And you think that I have something to do with that problem.
Tip: But something else happened, too, remember? You made your declaration of war from above; your intent to conquer and rule in the name of funk! And you made that declaration to the sapient machines themselves, that they had to serve you or be destroyed.
Tigerlily: And your point is . . . ?
Tip: And I suspect that when you created robots after that, you had in mind that their fundamental purpose was to serve you; to be conscript soldiers in your conquering army.
Tip: Maybe it’s different for different mad scientists, but I think that for you, when you create free children of your mind, you reach down into your love of funk, and create them sharing that love with you. But when you create slaves to serve you, your reach down into the part of you that used to serve the Man, and put that servitude into them. And that servitude has been the foundation of all of your more recent robots.
Tigerlily: Dag. That other cracker also said that I had become the Man!
Tip: It’s not just that if you love someone, set them free. You have to share your own freedom with them. You have to want them to have not ever been enslaved.
Tigerlily: *Mind. Blown.*
[various visual effects could go here, possibly ending with Sweetdaddy Jupiter Velvet saying “MAMA DONE WOKE“]
[Tip steps out from behind the screen, dressed gloriously. Maybe there’s a brass sting. Tigerlily embraces him with fiery passion, and the mojo is strong enough to move all of Annex One out of the way of danger.]
*Applause*
This is so plausible that, even if it doesn’t show up in the strip’s resolution to this arc, it will be at least a side-plot reason in my mind, as to why Tigerlily’s mojo failed her. I don’t think that so far the canon has supplied any reasons why it failed, she just pins it on Tip. So whatever happens, this makes perfect sense, even if she understands it differently later.
If the strip hadn’t already turned to color, that revelation would be an excellent time to turn to color
He could use the old tried-and-true “That outfit looks great on you, but it would look better on my bedroom floor” approach.
Wouldn’t Tip say: “That outfit looks good on you,bur better on me!” ?
Trying to use Tip “Logic”.
But it’s not a traditional girl outfit. Women’s labrobes have a higher cut (don’t ask me how I know that)
I don’t know if it works for Tip, but it would sure work for me!
“Come peep some schematics”?
Is that what the cool kids are calling it these days?
No, that’s what the nerdy kids are calling it, which is why it’s such a surprise that Tigerlily would be using the phrase.
Random thought: Might Ginny Lee’s schematics be written in such a way as to impose her pattern of thinking upon those Sparks who make use of them whether temporarily or permanently? Thus leaving Tigerlily not so much Cured as currently a Sane Scientist of Ginny’s sort? o_O
In which case sex with Tip might be what is needed to discombolate her enough to make her a Madgirl again? o_O
In panel 2, Tip is looking rather henchman in his posture.
Are we sure this isn’t Berenice Jones from an alternate universe?