NOVEMBER VOTING INCENTIVE FOR ALL!
So the deal here (again) is that I've been working on background images for that bonus comic I keep working on. I had some backgrounds of scenery from my city drawn and colored but nothing that would make a good voting incentive. So I quickly drew a pic of Phoebe, smacked something together and the end result actually looks pretty good!
VOTE TO BE AN ENGAGED CITIZEN!
As for this comic...
Daphne falls into one of the biggest teen relationship fallacies: the mistaken belief that common interests equal compatibility. They don't. At least, not in the long run. I've seen many a budding relationship formed over a shared love of something like Star Wars or Harry Potter, only to be later dashed on the rocks of reality. That's not to say, however, that Daphne and Tyler are necessarily incompatible. Tyler may be wrong here. Because similarity does not always equal compatibility either.
Puck 519
NOVEMBER VOTING INCENTIVE FOR ALL!
So the deal here (again) is that I've been working on background images for that bonus comic I keep working on. I had some backgrounds of scenery from my city drawn and colored but nothing that would make a good voting incentive. So I quickly drew a pic of Phoebe, smacked something together and the end result actually looks pretty good!
VOTE TO BE AN ENGAGED CITIZEN!
As for this comic...
Daphne falls into one of the biggest teen relationship fallacies: the mistaken belief that common interests equal compatibility. They don't. At least, not in the long run. I've seen many a budding relationship formed over a shared love of something like Star Wars or Harry Potter, only to be later dashed on the rocks of reality. That's not to say, however, that Daphne and Tyler are necessarily incompatible. Tyler may be wrong here. Because similarity does not always equal compatibility either.
Even Canada’s Satan would never do that.
He may steal a soul or three, but not old lady’s purses.
Shame, Daffy – SHAME !
Hey, cat.
Be nice to Daphne, or you don’t get any catnip.
@pat
Beware any “GIFTS” from Daffy.
You don’t know where they’ve been.
Or worse, you do.
@demarion
Ewwwww…..
😛
We all know who has the last word on evil in this world. And it’s not Satan.
A half-dozen people say all at the same time, “Tracee” except fro that one guy who says “Mr. Kornada” and no one notices.
Harumph.
TRACEEE is the nicest human in this entire comic.
Just ask Miranda.
Awwwww, why can’t opposites attract? What would Paula Abdul say?
You like the movies, and I like TV?
The “Opposites Attract” bit doesn’t usually pan out well, when what’s opposite are core ethics and values.
Indeed. Not saying they need to be entirely on the same page, look at Puck and Colin for a couple that are different but close enough in this regard, but at least one of Daphne and Tyler (for the greater good it better be Daphne) needs to somehow come around to a set of ethics closer to the others for this to work out.
It may yet happen. I hold out hope.
Well, she’s developing an awareness beyond her own skin, an even a bit of interest in what’s not-Daffy.
True. Depends on the nature of the opposites.
Well, opposites can attract. And the fact that they’ve been spinning around each other like two neutron stars means that some kind of gravitational attraction has been going on.
Gravitational attraction is opposite of opposites attract, but nevermind, metaphors that don’t break down are as rare as… an internet conversation without nitpicking. 🙂
Oh, you nitpickers! Will you ever cease picking?
Obviously not. Why would you even ask? 😀
Someday you’ll be elderly, too, Daphne. Unless you keep up stealing from the elderly.
Daphne would likely trip the mugger and beat the hell out of him with the cane until the police arrived.
Agreed! Hopefully someone gets video footage. On their future eyeball cams.
No she won’t. Young people will never grow old! Ask any young people!
@ Robert Nowall
One of these days THE TORONTO ZOO will catch up with Daffy and drag her back.
I doubt the zoo people could keep out Puck when she comes to reclaim her daughter…
@Rock
I prefer to think Robin could not be more pleased than to have Daffy removed from her life.
I’ve never once observed Daffy cooking, doing laundry, babysitting, or doing the slightest thing to contribute to the family.
BTW, a Random Observation: Have we ever seen a four-panel of Puck in Wintertime ?
Voting Incentives, yes. But during the storyline ? No.
Seems like it’s always Springtime in Hamilton !
If Puck really wanted to be rid of Daphne, the pup would be gone. We’ve seen several instances of Puck going out of her way for Daphne’s sake, too.
And at the very least we’ve seen autumn, “when all of nature becomes a redhead”.
Puck doesn’t want to be rid of Daphne. I mean, she’s stuck by the brat this long!
And yeah, that autumn stretch was early in the game when I was still toying with the idea of seasons AND the autumn events only lasted for a few weeks. It was fun while it lasted.
It is always spring in Hamilton. Not the real Hamilton, of course, because it’s nasty outside right now. But in the comic, I have deliberately kept it spring forever because doing otherwise just gets … complicated. See, the story arcs run so long with a weekly schedule that one night (like prom night right here) can take many months. And then the weather in the strip gets super out of whack with the actual seasons, and suddenly people are wondering, “Why is everyone in parkas in July?” Yes, there is the problem of people wearing spring clothes in January, but Hollywood has long conditioned us culturally to accept a fictional world without winter. In the movies and TV shows, winter only exists for one purpose: Christmas.
Also, it’s not to say that two people with similar values would be good for each other. If Daphne was with someone who indulged her criminal tendencies, they could both end up in prison or worse. And Tyler could find that another goody two shoes would be boring and unadventurous.
Yeah! You need a left wing and a right wing to get a bird flying! And you need a left wing and right wing to get a United States of America crashing headlong into destruction! Wait, maybe that analogy isn’t so good…
@EG
The Left Wing and the Right Wing need to “talk” to each other to determine their common goal.
Otherwise there is just a bunch of furious flapping, with many feathers being shed, and the Eagle goes no where.
That’s when THE CAT moves in.
Hey, don’t talk moderation and common ground! THIS IS THE INTERNET!!! MODERATION HAS NO PLACE HERE!!! ONLY EXTREMES NEED APPLY!!!
@EG
I’m the cat that when watching a horror movies, I cheer the “geniuses” when they decide the best way to defeat the monster is to split up and each go their separate ways.
Mice do the same thing.
They think by scurrying every which way, instead of joining in a mob to run me off, that I’ll miss one.
Initially they are correct.
But only initially.
Speaking for the U.S., I see nothing wrong with that analogy.
Interesting … defense there, Daph.
She is not a debater at heart. She is a dictator at heart. Like her mother.
Whoa! Way beyond just being snarky.
You mean Daphne’s behavior? She’s had a long history of stealing and conning the elderly. It’s not her fault that they’re the easiest targets!
“The herd must be culled” can be a deeply-engraved instinct.
She doesn’t think she’s evil; she thinks that what’s good for the species is aligned with what’s good for herself.
Yeah, maybe some internal wolf instincts manifesting?
“Cut to the chase” comes from silent comedy movies, which were often quite short and made more-or-less in sequence, very quickly, to close budgets with minimal editing. The “Chase” was a common climax/ending/main gag in a film, so “cut to the chase” means “go directly to the main event” or simply “get to the point”.
Looks like someone didn’t read the alt text
Lots of people can’t read the alt-text. In fact, the minority of people can now because you need to be on a legit computer and not a touch screen device. Who uses computers anymore?
But yeah, I put that alt-text as a bit of bait KNOWING that would happen.
@EG
Who uses computers anymore?
People reading comics at work ?
That’s a large subsection of my readership, actually.
*raises hand*
Firefox for iOS shows it, but not really used to it yet in this release.
Ben saved me from your trap–thx Ben!
Oh Firefox. Always doing the things other browsers don’t. I like those cats.
Puck did try and give you the heads up, Daphne.
Well, she was told that there was a dragon in the cave. But sometimes you just need to go into the cave and face that dragon.
With regards to “opposites attract” and other oversimplifications and misconceptions about compatibility as a couple, here is my current views on what contributes to a sustainable relationship. I’d love to hear if this list seems to fit well with other peoples thoughts and experiences, or if someone spots some interesting differences!
I think that to live together, a couple…
needs:
– largely similar values and ethics
– largely different strengths and weaknesses (especially the latter)
– to enjoy working together, not on everything but on many things greatly benefits from:
– similar willingness to adapt (so as not to be one-sided)
– different perspectives
– different thought patterns
– different modi operandi
– a mix of common and individual interests
will develop (no need for worry):
– similar/compatible habits
should develop (perhaps be more conscious of this):
– highly effective cooperation and coordination
I honestly don’t know or understand anything about what makes a functioning relationship. The only common ground I can see is that functioning relationships feature two people who are both very invested in having a functional relationship, whether due to external motivation (e.g. their society forbids them breaking up so they just gotta make the most of what they got) or internal motivation.
What I have observed, though, generally points to arranged marriages or downright random pairings being no more or less functional than the ‘met my soulmate’ couples in the long run.
Nothing is less perdictable than the human species. Nothing.
Human species can be predicted quite well. It’s individual humans which are hard to predict. Similarly as subatomic particles. Each of them totally unpredictable, but together mostly predictable … unless they form a human brain.
Even together, humans form a chaotic system that frequently proves to be the least predictable system in the universe. Even Earth’s weather, which is easily the most chaotic and unpredictable in the solar system, can’t hold a candle to people. Ask economists. Or better yet, don’t ask them, because economists make their whole living pretending to be able to anticipate what people will do with their money. Alas, no economist can consistently outperform standard market rate for very long.
That’s what I call ‘unpredictable’!
There’s always friends with benefits.
They can be buddies that have a physical relationship as well; not everyone firmly associates sex with love/monogamous relationships.
And If time comes when either of them find it necessary to reserve that solely for someone they are in a romantic relationship with, the beforehand understanding and acceptance that this is a possible if not likely eventuality.
Stop thinking outside the box! You’ll break the dang box!
@Sigurther
“There’s always friends with benefits.” – HAH !
You’ve been listening to Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” too often.
It always works out poorly for one party – not always the female, either:
This song is about a young couple losing their virginity in the back seat of a Chevy. Seger says the song is autobiographical, but he took some liberties, as their tryst was after high school. The girl he was with had a boyfriend away in the military, and when he came back, she married him, breaking Seger’s heart. Seger says the song represents the freedom and possibility of the high school years.
Well, people grow together. It’s assuming that’s not part of the process that messesthings up. As well as several dozen other things. Seriously, I don’t understand how we form pair bonds at all. If it weren’t for our evolutionary drive to, I don’t know what would happen to us.
Anyway, I believe in the ability of these two to act in ways that amuse the audience. Go for it Daph and Tyler!
Oops. I forgot to mark for followups.
I don’t think we can ever understand the craziness. I guess it just needs to be fun to watch.
I’m down with that.
Hey EG !
When I read the Comments, at the top the background is LIGHT GRAY and they are fairly easy to read.
But as I drop lower, the background becomes DARK GRAY and they become difficult to read.
Do you have some GRADIENT applied ?
If so … STOP IT – JUST STOP IT !
There’s always been a gradient. It’s the same no matter what the length of the box is, though. And I don’t have the CSS skills required to alter that.
Wait, what? In firefox, the start and end point are fixed no matter the length, does it look differently in other browser?
It shouldn’t. I suspect Salem has the brightness way down. Or poor eyesight.
@EG
I just checked Firefox and Edge.
The Gradient remains.
I hate fancy HTML.
Bring back white text on black screen circa 1985 !
MS-DOS 5.0 RULES !!
@SalemCat:
Try a text mode web browser, then. Of course there is software out there that will let you browse the web, including images while excluding fancy shenanigans, directly in your terminal! In modern Linux at least. Something that runs within Emacs probably works on Windows too.
Um . . . look, Daphne, short of her being your old second-grade teacher, the one who wouldn’t teach you anything because of her bigotry (and yes, drawn from life, up yours Mrs. Chouinard, I cheated all through the second grade by leaving class and asking the school librarian for answers), that was low. Be a crook if you must, but a cheap one, that’s beneath you!
FYI, it took me until I was 20 to realize I cheated, so not only did I cheat, but also I did so in complete innocence!
I like your grade two style. You were a rapscallion.
Someday, Daphne will be old. WHAT SHE GONNA DO, STEAL FROM HERSELF???
No, steal from OTHER seniors.
Or from the young?
Also valid.
Oh boy, crime runs rampant in the assisted living home. Get Angela Lansbury out of retirement!
Actions speak louder than words. Daphne will need to act more appropriately if she really wants to take her relationship with Tyler to the next level. She may not be completely sincere, but at least needs to make the effort.
Agreed. Though it may be beyond her.
It’s hard to teach a canine not to pounce on a perceived soft target…
To quote the storied founder of TP Enterprises (Yes, that character). “It’s a recipe for disaster – that’s why it’s so perfect!”
That has to be the most poignant post I’ve ever seen you write, Salem!
GULDANG it, this was supposed to be in response to Salem’s “Left wing/right wing” comment above!
Well, we all know now.
@DLKmusic
Cat takes bow in thanks.
i mean thats like stealing candy from a baby its just there begging to be taken. the only difference the elderly are more profitable.
Exactly. Candy isn’t very valuable on the black market. Except to Phoebe.
But unlike babies, the elderly can and will report you to the authorities, and/or smack you around some.
You need to go after the senile, frail ones. You’re just choosing your victims wrong.
That’s some pretty decent young-adulting by Tyler, there.
Daphne has room to grow. LOTS of room to grow.
But she seems to be trying to make an effort…
Well, young adulting IS the hardest kind of adulting to do.
I thought mature adulting was…
No, Rock. Like many other sports, adulting gets easier with practice — except if you blow an ACL or cause some other permanent injury.
I have to say… that has not been my experience.
@MSG Bob
A man asked a doctor, “Doctor, will I be able to play the piano after the surgery?”.
Doctor: “Sure, why not?”
Man: “Good, I couldn’t play one before.”
Hmmm… Tyler’s eyes are very narrow in this strip and when he talks about how “it wouldn’t work” he looks away from Daphne. Meanwhile, her eyes are wide open and focused directly on Tyler, even in the last panel where its clear that she’s uncomfortable with the direction of the conversation.
Puppy-dog eyes? 😉
That’s because Daphne – for once – is wearing her heart on her sleeve. Tyler, meanwhile, is stuffing that heart waaaaay up inside that suit jacket, hoping no one finds it.
Tyler is afraid. And not without reason: he doesn’t want broken hearts, he puts a high value on their friendship, he does not believe a deeper relationship will work out and he thinks it has a high risk of ending less than gracefully. He sees a risk that seems too high to take on. Finally, and crucially, he does want a deeper relationship… thus he is unsure about his ability to stick with the seemingly safer option.
A risk that may or may not have occurred to him yet is that also the seemingly safe option, to keep it as just friends, may cause either an immediate end or the beginning of the end of the friendship. Or maybe he has heard of the idea that a casual friendship can’t be sustained between two people who are attracted to each other and he is scared to find out whether it’s true or not (most of my experience says this is not a problem, but I guess for some people it won’t work?).
Or maybe I’m just projecting my own experiences onto Tyler. But hey, isn’t that what fiction is for?
I would say your breakdown is wonderfully accurate and complete. This is EXACTLY what is going on. So your projection is startlingly accurate.
He and I do seem to have a lot in common. I am not startled.