…….I think that, at this point, Jadis would happily beg on hand and knee for a cage; even one constructed from inherent power and inability to grasp it properly. Anything to provide structure, anything to provide reference.
Anything that she could grasp; anything to stop her from drowning in the sight of Everything, All at Once…
Ardator, Psychologist of the armchair and philosopher of the lowest order
I suspect that within her exists a storm of perfect apathy. She knows what is, what will be, what has been, everything, everywhere, all at once. She has no free will. She simply knows what will come next, the next step to take, the next movement to perform. She does not make an action, she does an act. She is a bad faith actor of the highest order. She is omniscient, but that only means that she is a train, hurtling down a railroad of certain choice
What a dumb assertion. Allow it to be? When you see time like she dies you don’t ALLOW anything. It’s already occurred, it is currently occurring, and it will occur. Your gaze has fixed it all in place and now you’re just acting out a part. You can’t make choices anymore. Every molecule’s quantum superposition is laid out for you like a worm farm in forced perspective.
“Only if you allow it to be” good lord what a load of tripe.
Also, I’d like to see a sword again because Allison is becoming wildly insufferable as a character. It sure was nice when there were swords to look at and talk about and not this wretched characters loathsome pathology of chronic resentment
I question how much experience you have with suffering, if frustration towards the… aheh… **character of another**…. is beyond your ability to withstand.
Perhaps you’re focusing too much on the swords, and less on those wielding them?
I’m gonna drop the pleasant sword-obsessed character for a bit and get really real with you here? Question how much I suffered? You don’t have any idea what pain is. I’ve had aggressive as shit juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and type-1 diabetes since I was three. By the time I was in my teens my joints were so deteriorated I broke both my hips playing hockey and had to give up every physical activity that ever gave me joy. Not to mention the pain of your bones grinding against your bones with no cartilage, and joint fusion, and deformity, and loss after loss and indignity and infirmity. Please, tell me about pain.
For my 26th birthday I got struck by a car, which damaged my vagus nerve to the point of developing total gastric paralysis. Ever been nauseous? Ever puked and hated it? Just today I’ve vomited five times and I haven’t had a single day without seasickness-level nausea every single second alongside multiple vomiting episodes in years and years. I haven’t eaten actual solid food since the accident. I vomited so hard on separate occasions I tore pieces of my stomach lining out. Ever puked out little quivering pieces of yourself? Ever ruptured your esophagus and nearly bled to death? Do you have any comprehension at all what pain is? Pain is your stomach muscles getting confusing signals so they pull so hard in opposit directions it rips your lining open in a two inch gash. Pain is being six-four and weighing one hundred and eighteen pounds because you can’t digest food anymore.
Five years ago I got the delightful diagnosis of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease after rapidly and totally losing the use of my legs. I’m condemned now to life in a god damned wheelchair and if it begins to spread to my upper extremities (there’s a chance! ha ha!) it’ll quickly become terminal as the disease damages the nerve cluster that causes the god damned diaphragm to move. Death by suffocation in a hideous shell of a body that used to work, that at one point could run and climb and swim. I’ve had eight surgeries in the last three years that involved breaking all the bones in my feet and legs and surgically excising my ankle joint just to try and save the legs.
This is *just* the physical, and *only* the things my *own body* has inflicted on me, not the bodies of others. Also, I f I were to go into the mental, this would be a novel.
You want to lecture me again about pain, because I am sick and tired of this unbelievably preachy character and their loathsome personal philosophy and their pathological resentment? Their sniveling and their vile, bilious sneering down their nose at other people who have suffered unimaginably because “at least I’m trying?” No she isn’t. I was never happier than when her little power-rangers team-up failed utterly. Incubus is right and just and correct in his loathing of Poor Allison.
What do I know about suffering? The real question is, what do YOU know about it? My guess is not much, if you can look at pages upon pages of this white-haired wretch and not feel anything other than an abiding resentment.
Lecture me about pain. Tell me about suffering. Or just call me gay like that other guy, at least that wouldn’t be totally and tellingly disingenuous
I commend your endurance and salute your will to live. If nothing else, you have both in spades.
Also, for the record, I agree with you that Allison can be rather insufferable and is by far the weakest part of the entire webcomic. She’s the reason why I stepped away from it for over a year. I can only hope she improves, for the betterment of all.
People forget how whiny a twit she was written to be way back in the beginning. Any hard drinking sorority sister that approaches godhood, has all her friends killed, and who and gets slapped down hard into a puddle of goo is entitled to a bit of time to reorient herself.
The woman has had less then a day to come to terms with having lost everyone she loved in a fight she never wanted to have, all in the defence of gods she never wanted to save. Now here she sits in a squeaky-ass wheelchair, so emaciated she can barely move.
So excuse her if she’s feeling a little bitter about her place in things, John. You’ve clearly got a good head on your shoulders when it comes to big-picture concepts, but your understanding of the basic details (like how people work) needs a LOT of work.
Seriously, you had me nodding along in the first half of your comment, right until you dropped a take far worse then the one you were bad-mouthing.
It’d be less grating if she weren’t… ALWAYS “feeling a little bitter about her place in things”. Her unstable teetering between “a GOD AM I” and “I’m a worm” doesn’t help.
If Jadis could or would change anything what she saw in the machine would change with it. Like Zoss, she can reset time to the moment she saw the future.
But, the simplest resolution to the time-travel loop is her immediate death.
I am terrified of my own unintelligence. I find my self thinking about it all the time. It is something that i cant change in any significant way, I was born with a hard limit on improvement and nothing can change that. I am probably below average but I fear that i am even less intelligent than I previously thought. I need help guys I don’t know what to do and its killing me. please help guys I hate the world sometimes and at other times I just do nothing. You all seem so happy here.
My recommendation, with love and respect, is to get your head out of your arse.
It’s not about you. Everyone has a hard limit, no one can do shit about it, so what if yours is lower than average. Many if not most of life’s greatest aspects don’t require much intelligence to enjoy or obtain.
You seem young and self absorbed. It’s normal. Stop contemplating shit, realize you are going to die soon, pick something to do that seems nice and go for it to occupy the ticking clock between here and heartstop.
And if we all seem happy here, it’s just because you aren’t paying much attention.
Like the other person, I’ll reply to this honestly as well. (I’ll assume you are not playing a character.)
Look at the world. REALLY look at it. Don’t look at just the people you think are cool or successful or otherwise have some sort of high status you think should be a goal–look at the people who seem mediocre or bad.
There are tons of “unintelligent” people in all walks of life. They still live their lives, they still get to do cool things.
If your response to this is but-but-but (I’m different)…no, you’re not. And that’s NOT a bad thing! Because you are human, just like everyone else is human, you KNOW by looking at the world that the thing you fear you are (unintelligent) is also true of other people who go on living life and having an array of successes as well as failure.
If you are ordinary, and ordinary people out there get moments of goodness in their lives, then you’re not doomed. It’s just logic.
So many cynics and nihilists cherry-pick information. If the thing they see is bad, they clutch it to their chest, assign it SO MUCH worth in their mind that it blots out the sun.
But if the thing they see is good–they don’t even notice it sometime.
I grew up in an abusive home. I had to actively retrain myself to notice neutral things and positive things. I was so used to focusing on bad things because that was a defense mechanism so I could avoid worse things. Neutral and good things did not make an emotional impact (I had blunted emotions), but I had panic/fear/rage at bad things so they “became” more real and disproportionately affected my thoughts and actions.
I had to actually stop in my tracks, and methodically count up neutral and good things that had happened in order to realign myself.
Like–the cashier today wasn’t my best friend when I checked out, but they also didn’t treat me like trash. I made myself notice a neutral thing like that. Or, when I went to the post office I discovered I had properly packed my box and had enough money to pay for shipping. So my trip to the post office wasn’t a “disaster”. Like, nobody does a happy dance over trips to the post office–but you know what? That’s ok. I will add “the post office trip was a mild success” to my collection of data that shows me not everything in life is horrible. (I have to, really. If I ignore that bit of data, I’m contributing to the warping of my own perception.)
To fix what’s going on in your head you need to actively pay attention to neutral events and positives. Right now the prediction-machine in your head is fucked up because you’re paying attention to all the negative data. (And no, this isn’t me saying “just be positive~~~~!” It’s me telling you to ground yourself on real facts in the real world. You don’t get to ignore the data that positive things happen just because you want to be a cynic.)
Set boundaries in your head. “I’m scared I’m dumb again! Ok, so what? What will wringing my hands do to help? Nothing. So I’ll forget about my anxiety, and do things to change my perception of the world so it is more accurate. I know I weigh the bad stuff too negatively, so I will set boundaries in my head and cultivate my own self-discipline to stop my own panic, and work to actively notice things that are neutral or positive.”
I used to be in the same boat as you. My biggest piece of advice is to find that little voice telling you all that about yourself, and ignoring every goddamn thing it says. It isn’t you, it’s an over-tuned survival mechanism forcing you to wallow in pain. Work on noticing whenever you hear it pop up, and immediately counteract it with positive assertions instead.
Need help with some positivity? Well, judging just from this message you’ve written, I’d guess that you probably have above-average intelligence.
Truly ignorant people are ignorant of their ignorance. It’s why the majority of humans statistically believe they are in the minority of intellect. If I had to guess, your brain probably functions differently then most folks’, and it makes you struggle with the mundane tasks, leading you to believe you must be unintelligent.
In reality, it’s just that modern society is set up with ordinary, average people in mind, and since you are exceptional, you have a hard time paying attention to the ordinary.
I could be way off the mark with all this, of course. I’m no psychologist, which is why I suggest you find one and get some therapy. I used to be trapped in the same thoughts you currently are, only I didn’t seek help and instead let my mind tear itself apart so bad it gave my brain the neural layout as someone with PTSD.
Don’t let that little asshole in your head do that to you, too. Get some help, call a hotline if you have to.
And always remember: normal, boring, “below average intelligence” people don’t worry about the things you’re worrying about. Which means you aren’t one of them!
Oh but it is worse! Imagine knowing everything but also knowing it can be changed… and refusing to do so because if you did, your knowledge would be worthless.
Ultimate sloth!
What a terrible prison she has constructed for herself!
It’s even worse than that. Knowing the future changes it. And it was doomed to be as it is because someone just HAD to see everything all at once.
Paul Atreides didn’t nearly get the kicking around he deserved.
It is also possible that she is imposing her will upon the universe. That would allow her to create a fixed unchangeable future. However, such techniques are the purview of monks, and she appears to be a spellcaster.
Remember, the power of the Art is to lie to the universe and convince it to be true. She probably created a lie for herself. A lie so convincing that even she believes it. Her belief in an unchangeable truth is an illusion she has cast over herself because she doesn’t want to accept that the whole universe is a lie told by YISUN.
Does she “refuse” to effect change? To me it looks like she simply can’t cope with the weight of Absolute Knowledge. A human mind isn’t equipped to see everything everywhere all at once.
Fellow dweller of darkness! It seems you are unfamiliar with these humans. Let me enlighten you. Each human is a fickle thing. Their personalities are a mask that hides a cacophony of voices in their head, all screaming for different things.
The simplest way to cope with their normal existence is to lie to themselves. For a human to even have AN IDENTITY they must refuse their own truth. Some, rare few learn to remove their identity, or accept a new one, or accept MANY new identities for themselves…
This story of Allison IS one such story. Jadis has an identity that has become fixed, but like all humans, her identity is a LIE. What kind of lie? We shall see soon enough…
I believe the implication – though it’s hard to tell, with the breathless way it’s presented – is that Jadis is saying the things that Alison is *about* to do, rather than the things she is currently doing.
It is also possible that Jadis’ future knowledge is inferred from past-present actions and their reactions.
If Jadis is able to view down to the atomic level, that would not be farfetched, it also means her vision would not be perfect as quantum-states exist, so the future would get hazier the further out she looked.
Would also explain why she did not go in-depth on Allison’s death (as that would be the least concrete) but rather her past, and when preempting Allison’s thoughts only did so a second or two in advance from what we can tell.
It’s not that she’s viewing anything, or calculating anything. She knows, exactly, where every particle in existence is, and where it was, and will be. She said it herself, she can’t see her own mind anymore– because if you know everything, including everything ‘you’ do, there’s no distinguishing yourself as anything but another clump of particles doing their deterministic dance.
If there’s one thing this story has taught me is that even the gods are imperfect, mistakes happen no matter how knowledgeable and omnipotent you are. She may want Allison to believe her knowledge is truly perfect, but past events and experiences tell me she’s wrong.
How do you know she’s wrong? Because she didn’t fix anything? She can’t.
Just because one knows what is going to happen does not mean one can change anything about that.
I’m not nitpicking so much as poking fun. Jadis has proclaimed herself omniscient, and is attempting to display that here, but in doing so she reveals that she seemingly doesn’t understand a great deal of the facts she knows.
That might just be her style, or it might be characterization.
infinite knowledge infinite understanding does not make, the act of seeing does not the act of knowing. Jadis is adrift with little idea of where she is going bar the sight of the future. take that away and she would be helpless as a babe
Look at the alt-texts for the previous few pages. I believe they are meant to me Jadis’s thoughts. If that’s true, then she saw exactly how Allison was going to react long before we did.
That said… Yeah, the “little electrons” comment was a bit weird to me too. Not only are all electrons VERY small, but if I understand correctly, them jumping between neurons is more connected to cognition than them bouncing off each other.
Electrons are insignificant compared to atomic nuclei… An electron’s mass is approximately 1/1,836 the mass of a nucleon particle (proton or neutron).
Are you bored yet? 🙂
Good idea, not delving deeper into her death but her past instead. Don’t want to freak her out TOO much.
Although you have to wonder, does her omnipotence factor in the change in this version of reality, with her as the heir?
Omniscience, not omnipotence. there’s a difference. Omnipotent means all powerful, which Jadis clearly is not. Omniscient is all knowing, which is what she is
Check the ultra-telescope and its Gigeresque observing chair. It’s pointing into the heart of the see-everything machine (this was not clear in the last page). It’s all set up for another look at the Shape.
So what happens if Ms. Allison Random-Element sits there and looks at everything while using the master key? I think she sees a different everything and a different future to Jadis. And then everybody has to change their world-view.
I’m not convinced that the current scene (the last nine comics) isn’t just a projection into Allison’s thoughts. Why else would Jadis, the bearer of the word MIND, after eons trapped in glass with a ruined body, suddenly be whole and healthy again?
(It can’t work forever; of course it can’t. So why does Jadis try it? Because Jadis tries it.)
Seeing THE future – as in seeing the ONLY future – is to create that future. Such a one is then locked into their own oracle. It is a cautionary tale, to be avoided at all costs. The only worthwhile such talent is to see the POSSIBLE, a much rarer and more subtle gift.
Jadis is the universe. All boundarys, all divisions are arbitrary and are lies. YSUN, the greatest of all liars, decided that making present different from the past would be a real blast. See past these lies at your peril. Review the lie of the water house in the liturgy for further enlightenment.
See, this is what happens when you’re a dick to people who have godlike-powers. Like when all those Ryubians were yelling at Solomon; so he’s not all powerful? He could still end the lot of you with his left pinky.
That’s what we’re seeing here, it’s basically “OK so you want to push things? lets go!”. Just verbally instead of with fists.
The Demiurges are mostly not omnipotent or omniscient, but that doesn’t mean its a good idea to piss them off, either.
Common, yes, but people have it in different amounts and unless you are either very good yourself or have a death-wish, you shouldn’t provoke people who are quite proficient at it. Also, have we seen anyone in the story who was good at other things without getting good at killing FIRST?
42 Fragments the Universe Beyond All Reintegration
Then why did the cries of the peasants break Solomon? And what did they even loose at death, having given him their mind, bodies, and souls to him in exchange for a promise he couldn’t keep?
Maybe if more people called him out on his bullshit he’d have taught his people how to defend themselves.
Omniscient without omnipotence is a free fall into insanity
Only for those that allow power to be a cage
…….I think that, at this point, Jadis would happily beg on hand and knee for a cage; even one constructed from inherent power and inability to grasp it properly. Anything to provide structure, anything to provide reference.
Anything that she could grasp; anything to stop her from drowning in the sight of Everything, All at Once…
I suspect that within her exists a storm of perfect apathy. She knows what is, what will be, what has been, everything, everywhere, all at once. She has no free will. She simply knows what will come next, the next step to take, the next movement to perform. She does not make an action, she does an act. She is a bad faith actor of the highest order. She is omniscient, but that only means that she is a train, hurtling down a railroad of certain choice
“she knows what is, what will be, what has been, everything, everywhere, all at once.”
niiiiice!
i mean the cube makes sense in that contex
@64 storm assults
What a dumb assertion. Allow it to be? When you see time like she dies you don’t ALLOW anything. It’s already occurred, it is currently occurring, and it will occur. Your gaze has fixed it all in place and now you’re just acting out a part. You can’t make choices anymore. Every molecule’s quantum superposition is laid out for you like a worm farm in forced perspective.
“Only if you allow it to be” good lord what a load of tripe.
Also, I’d like to see a sword again because Allison is becoming wildly insufferable as a character. It sure was nice when there were swords to look at and talk about and not this wretched characters loathsome pathology of chronic resentment
Insufferable is relative, is it not?
I question how much experience you have with suffering, if frustration towards the… aheh… **character of another**…. is beyond your ability to withstand.
Perhaps you’re focusing too much on the swords, and less on those wielding them?
Oftentimes those wielding the swords are more the tools than the blades themselves, just saying.
Ah. He and I are both tools of a kind, then? Well spoken.
I’m gonna drop the pleasant sword-obsessed character for a bit and get really real with you here? Question how much I suffered? You don’t have any idea what pain is. I’ve had aggressive as shit juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and type-1 diabetes since I was three. By the time I was in my teens my joints were so deteriorated I broke both my hips playing hockey and had to give up every physical activity that ever gave me joy. Not to mention the pain of your bones grinding against your bones with no cartilage, and joint fusion, and deformity, and loss after loss and indignity and infirmity. Please, tell me about pain.
For my 26th birthday I got struck by a car, which damaged my vagus nerve to the point of developing total gastric paralysis. Ever been nauseous? Ever puked and hated it? Just today I’ve vomited five times and I haven’t had a single day without seasickness-level nausea every single second alongside multiple vomiting episodes in years and years. I haven’t eaten actual solid food since the accident. I vomited so hard on separate occasions I tore pieces of my stomach lining out. Ever puked out little quivering pieces of yourself? Ever ruptured your esophagus and nearly bled to death? Do you have any comprehension at all what pain is? Pain is your stomach muscles getting confusing signals so they pull so hard in opposit directions it rips your lining open in a two inch gash. Pain is being six-four and weighing one hundred and eighteen pounds because you can’t digest food anymore.
Five years ago I got the delightful diagnosis of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease after rapidly and totally losing the use of my legs. I’m condemned now to life in a god damned wheelchair and if it begins to spread to my upper extremities (there’s a chance! ha ha!) it’ll quickly become terminal as the disease damages the nerve cluster that causes the god damned diaphragm to move. Death by suffocation in a hideous shell of a body that used to work, that at one point could run and climb and swim. I’ve had eight surgeries in the last three years that involved breaking all the bones in my feet and legs and surgically excising my ankle joint just to try and save the legs.
This is *just* the physical, and *only* the things my *own body* has inflicted on me, not the bodies of others. Also, I f I were to go into the mental, this would be a novel.
You want to lecture me again about pain, because I am sick and tired of this unbelievably preachy character and their loathsome personal philosophy and their pathological resentment? Their sniveling and their vile, bilious sneering down their nose at other people who have suffered unimaginably because “at least I’m trying?” No she isn’t. I was never happier than when her little power-rangers team-up failed utterly. Incubus is right and just and correct in his loathing of Poor Allison.
What do I know about suffering? The real question is, what do YOU know about it? My guess is not much, if you can look at pages upon pages of this white-haired wretch and not feel anything other than an abiding resentment.
Lecture me about pain. Tell me about suffering. Or just call me gay like that other guy, at least that wouldn’t be totally and tellingly disingenuous
blabla something funny about swords
Godamn just laughed my ass off bro you living in Spain without the s why even live your in hell 24/7 that just ain’t worth the effort
… Fuck you. It’s bewildering that people like you exist, that and completely pointless from any angle.
I commend your endurance and salute your will to live. If nothing else, you have both in spades.
Also, for the record, I agree with you that Allison can be rather insufferable and is by far the weakest part of the entire webcomic. She’s the reason why I stepped away from it for over a year. I can only hope she improves, for the betterment of all.
You seem fun.
My dear friend John Sword, swords are very Phallic, don’t you think?
And you miss them. A good old swordfight.
Is that supposed to be a “ha, you’re gay”-type zinger? This is Pride Month, you know…
People forget how whiny a twit she was written to be way back in the beginning. Any hard drinking sorority sister that approaches godhood, has all her friends killed, and who and gets slapped down hard into a puddle of goo is entitled to a bit of time to reorient herself.
The woman has had less then a day to come to terms with having lost everyone she loved in a fight she never wanted to have, all in the defence of gods she never wanted to save. Now here she sits in a squeaky-ass wheelchair, so emaciated she can barely move.
So excuse her if she’s feeling a little bitter about her place in things, John. You’ve clearly got a good head on your shoulders when it comes to big-picture concepts, but your understanding of the basic details (like how people work) needs a LOT of work.
Seriously, you had me nodding along in the first half of your comment, right until you dropped a take far worse then the one you were bad-mouthing.
It’d be less grating if she weren’t… ALWAYS “feeling a little bitter about her place in things”. Her unstable teetering between “a GOD AM I” and “I’m a worm” doesn’t help.
If Jadis could or would change anything what she saw in the machine would change with it. Like Zoss, she can reset time to the moment she saw the future.
But, the simplest resolution to the time-travel loop is her immediate death.
I think this is true even on the smaller scale. Knowledge without practice is just adding depth to your madness.
I am terrified of my own unintelligence. I find my self thinking about it all the time. It is something that i cant change in any significant way, I was born with a hard limit on improvement and nothing can change that. I am probably below average but I fear that i am even less intelligent than I previously thought. I need help guys I don’t know what to do and its killing me. please help guys I hate the world sometimes and at other times I just do nothing. You all seem so happy here.
Taking you at face value, here goes:
My recommendation, with love and respect, is to get your head out of your arse.
It’s not about you. Everyone has a hard limit, no one can do shit about it, so what if yours is lower than average. Many if not most of life’s greatest aspects don’t require much intelligence to enjoy or obtain.
You seem young and self absorbed. It’s normal. Stop contemplating shit, realize you are going to die soon, pick something to do that seems nice and go for it to occupy the ticking clock between here and heartstop.
And if we all seem happy here, it’s just because you aren’t paying much attention.
Like the other person, I’ll reply to this honestly as well. (I’ll assume you are not playing a character.)
Look at the world. REALLY look at it. Don’t look at just the people you think are cool or successful or otherwise have some sort of high status you think should be a goal–look at the people who seem mediocre or bad.
There are tons of “unintelligent” people in all walks of life. They still live their lives, they still get to do cool things.
If your response to this is but-but-but (I’m different)…no, you’re not. And that’s NOT a bad thing! Because you are human, just like everyone else is human, you KNOW by looking at the world that the thing you fear you are (unintelligent) is also true of other people who go on living life and having an array of successes as well as failure.
If you are ordinary, and ordinary people out there get moments of goodness in their lives, then you’re not doomed. It’s just logic.
So many cynics and nihilists cherry-pick information. If the thing they see is bad, they clutch it to their chest, assign it SO MUCH worth in their mind that it blots out the sun.
But if the thing they see is good–they don’t even notice it sometime.
I grew up in an abusive home. I had to actively retrain myself to notice neutral things and positive things. I was so used to focusing on bad things because that was a defense mechanism so I could avoid worse things. Neutral and good things did not make an emotional impact (I had blunted emotions), but I had panic/fear/rage at bad things so they “became” more real and disproportionately affected my thoughts and actions.
I had to actually stop in my tracks, and methodically count up neutral and good things that had happened in order to realign myself.
Like–the cashier today wasn’t my best friend when I checked out, but they also didn’t treat me like trash. I made myself notice a neutral thing like that. Or, when I went to the post office I discovered I had properly packed my box and had enough money to pay for shipping. So my trip to the post office wasn’t a “disaster”. Like, nobody does a happy dance over trips to the post office–but you know what? That’s ok. I will add “the post office trip was a mild success” to my collection of data that shows me not everything in life is horrible. (I have to, really. If I ignore that bit of data, I’m contributing to the warping of my own perception.)
To fix what’s going on in your head you need to actively pay attention to neutral events and positives. Right now the prediction-machine in your head is fucked up because you’re paying attention to all the negative data. (And no, this isn’t me saying “just be positive~~~~!” It’s me telling you to ground yourself on real facts in the real world. You don’t get to ignore the data that positive things happen just because you want to be a cynic.)
Set boundaries in your head. “I’m scared I’m dumb again! Ok, so what? What will wringing my hands do to help? Nothing. So I’ll forget about my anxiety, and do things to change my perception of the world so it is more accurate. I know I weigh the bad stuff too negatively, so I will set boundaries in my head and cultivate my own self-discipline to stop my own panic, and work to actively notice things that are neutral or positive.”
Thanks guys. Your advice means alot. 🙂
I used to be in the same boat as you. My biggest piece of advice is to find that little voice telling you all that about yourself, and ignoring every goddamn thing it says. It isn’t you, it’s an over-tuned survival mechanism forcing you to wallow in pain. Work on noticing whenever you hear it pop up, and immediately counteract it with positive assertions instead.
Need help with some positivity? Well, judging just from this message you’ve written, I’d guess that you probably have above-average intelligence.
Truly ignorant people are ignorant of their ignorance. It’s why the majority of humans statistically believe they are in the minority of intellect. If I had to guess, your brain probably functions differently then most folks’, and it makes you struggle with the mundane tasks, leading you to believe you must be unintelligent.
In reality, it’s just that modern society is set up with ordinary, average people in mind, and since you are exceptional, you have a hard time paying attention to the ordinary.
I could be way off the mark with all this, of course. I’m no psychologist, which is why I suggest you find one and get some therapy. I used to be trapped in the same thoughts you currently are, only I didn’t seek help and instead let my mind tear itself apart so bad it gave my brain the neural layout as someone with PTSD.
Don’t let that little asshole in your head do that to you, too. Get some help, call a hotline if you have to.
And always remember: normal, boring, “below average intelligence” people don’t worry about the things you’re worrying about. Which means you aren’t one of them!
of what we have seen so for the same could be said
Not if one accepts their powerlessness. But that might be worse than insanity, in some ways.
To know all that will happen and yet to be unable to do anything about it
true impotence
true sloth
Nailed it.
just Cassandra things~~~
Oh but it is worse! Imagine knowing everything but also knowing it can be changed… and refusing to do so because if you did, your knowledge would be worthless.
Ultimate sloth!
What a terrible prison she has constructed for herself!
It’s even worse than that. Knowing the future changes it. And it was doomed to be as it is because someone just HAD to see everything all at once.
Paul Atreides didn’t nearly get the kicking around he deserved.
It is also possible that she is imposing her will upon the universe. That would allow her to create a fixed unchangeable future. However, such techniques are the purview of monks, and she appears to be a spellcaster.
Remember, the power of the Art is to lie to the universe and convince it to be true. She probably created a lie for herself. A lie so convincing that even she believes it. Her belief in an unchangeable truth is an illusion she has cast over herself because she doesn’t want to accept that the whole universe is a lie told by YISUN.
Does she “refuse” to effect change? To me it looks like she simply can’t cope with the weight of Absolute Knowledge. A human mind isn’t equipped to see everything everywhere all at once.
Fellow dweller of darkness! It seems you are unfamiliar with these humans. Let me enlighten you. Each human is a fickle thing. Their personalities are a mask that hides a cacophony of voices in their head, all screaming for different things.
The simplest way to cope with their normal existence is to lie to themselves. For a human to even have AN IDENTITY they must refuse their own truth. Some, rare few learn to remove their identity, or accept a new one, or accept MANY new identities for themselves…
This story of Allison IS one such story. Jadis has an identity that has become fixed, but like all humans, her identity is a LIE. What kind of lie? We shall see soon enough…
Dr. Manhattan’s early thoughts on the matter? That he was only a puppet who could see the strings?
Presumably Jadis know about Watchmen
nice party trick
seen better
Good grief.
The blade doesn’t kill, for the hand is guiding the blade.
The hand doesn’t kill, for the mind is guiding the hand.
The mind doesn’t kill, for the world is guiding the mind.
The body doesn’t die, for it is remembered.
The memories do not die, for they are written in stone.
The stone doesn’t die, for the dust in which it turns travels the world.
And so it is, that the world kills the undying world.
There is nothing to do.
Everything is happening, everything has been done forever.
There is no right time. There is no time left. There is no time at all.
Reality is a clock with no hands.
The shape of my MIND is I.
Truly, Jadis knows the truest of all enemies. Would that she could defeat it, she would know the true name of ROYALTY and become.
A truly wise fool, Michael J. Caboose, once said, “Time… line? Time isn’t made of lines, it’s made of circles. That is why clocks are round.”
Thanks for playing along, allison! Really sold the whole thing.
In which Jadis shows knowledge of the past and the present and presents it as proof that she can see the future.
Little electrons bounce off of one another… as compared to the big electrons which stick together?
I believe the implication – though it’s hard to tell, with the breathless way it’s presented – is that Jadis is saying the things that Alison is *about* to do, rather than the things she is currently doing.
It is also possible that Jadis’ future knowledge is inferred from past-present actions and their reactions.
If Jadis is able to view down to the atomic level, that would not be farfetched, it also means her vision would not be perfect as quantum-states exist, so the future would get hazier the further out she looked.
Would also explain why she did not go in-depth on Allison’s death (as that would be the least concrete) but rather her past, and when preempting Allison’s thoughts only did so a second or two in advance from what we can tell.
It’s not that she’s viewing anything, or calculating anything. She knows, exactly, where every particle in existence is, and where it was, and will be. She said it herself, she can’t see her own mind anymore– because if you know everything, including everything ‘you’ do, there’s no distinguishing yourself as anything but another clump of particles doing their deterministic dance.
If there’s one thing this story has taught me is that even the gods are imperfect, mistakes happen no matter how knowledgeable and omnipotent you are. She may want Allison to believe her knowledge is truly perfect, but past events and experiences tell me she’s wrong.
How do you know she’s wrong? Because she didn’t fix anything? She can’t.
Just because one knows what is going to happen does not mean one can change anything about that.
You cannot come to unity and remain material:
In that perception is no perceiver
Jadis is saying what’s happening in the next panel, consistently.
And adding little is just part of Jadis’ speaking style. You might as well nitpick the italics used for “chemicals”.
I’m not nitpicking so much as poking fun. Jadis has proclaimed herself omniscient, and is attempting to display that here, but in doing so she reveals that she seemingly doesn’t understand a great deal of the facts she knows.
That might just be her style, or it might be characterization.
infinite knowledge infinite understanding does not make, the act of seeing does not the act of knowing. Jadis is adrift with little idea of where she is going bar the sight of the future. take that away and she would be helpless as a babe
Look at the alt-texts for the previous few pages. I believe they are meant to me Jadis’s thoughts. If that’s true, then she saw exactly how Allison was going to react long before we did.
That said… Yeah, the “little electrons” comment was a bit weird to me too. Not only are all electrons VERY small, but if I understand correctly, them jumping between neurons is more connected to cognition than them bouncing off each other.
All mater is made of electrons bouncing off of each other. Cognition is an illusion.
Electrons are insignificant compared to atomic nuclei… An electron’s mass is approximately 1/1,836 the mass of a nucleon particle (proton or neutron).
Are you bored yet? 🙂
Not bored so much as confused by the non sequitur.
Good idea, not delving deeper into her death but her past instead. Don’t want to freak her out TOO much.
Although you have to wonder, does her omnipotence factor in the change in this version of reality, with her as the heir?
Omniscience, not omnipotence. there’s a difference. Omnipotent means all powerful, which Jadis clearly is not. Omniscient is all knowing, which is what she is
With enough time, everything that can happen will happen.
This is the burden of the boundless intellect.
Check the ultra-telescope and its Gigeresque observing chair. It’s pointing into the heart of the see-everything machine (this was not clear in the last page). It’s all set up for another look at the Shape.
So what happens if Ms. Allison Random-Element sits there and looks at everything while using the master key? I think she sees a different everything and a different future to Jadis. And then everybody has to change their world-view.
An exciting prospect… Of terrifying potential.
Was waiting for someone to comment on how much it looked like the Space Jockey’s chair
There’s an old telescope with an observing chair where I work. Even without the Giger styling, those chairs are inherently creepy.
Your next line is…
The line about neurotransmitters feels… familiar.
Yep. Everything Jadis said after taking about Sarah and her funeral was the alt text for the last few days, and it just caught up to itself.
You probably already figured that, judging from your comment, but for later readers who aren’t checking, it’s there.
YOU ARE A FLESH AUTOMATON ANIMATED BY NEUROTRANSMITTERS
No, I am everything. I’m just pretending to be me right now. It’s something to do.
Well, that’s a bit disturbing
I’m not convinced that the current scene (the last nine comics) isn’t just a projection into Allison’s thoughts. Why else would Jadis, the bearer of the word MIND, after eons trapped in glass with a ruined body, suddenly be whole and healthy again?
(It can’t work forever; of course it can’t. So why does Jadis try it? Because Jadis tries it.)
No wonder she sealed herself in a block of ice. If nothing is changing inside it, she doesn’t have to worry about predicting the changes within.
Makes you wonder why she let herself *out*, mind you…
Not gonna lie, disturbing.
RIP Sarah Greene.
Seeing THE future – as in seeing the ONLY future – is to create that future. Such a one is then locked into their own oracle. It is a cautionary tale, to be avoided at all costs. The only worthwhile such talent is to see the POSSIBLE, a much rarer and more subtle gift.
Ever get the feeling that you’ve been here before…?
God fucking damnit she’s enjoying the performance of divinity, but is she still a human or is she literally fused with the machine??
I don’t get the impression that she enjoys anything at all, really.
Hammer time.
What a horrible existence Jadis has afflicted herself with.
No lines. No contrasts. Where does the Shape of the Universe end and Jadis begin anymore?
Jadis is the universe. All boundarys, all divisions are arbitrary and are lies. YSUN, the greatest of all liars, decided that making present different from the past would be a real blast. See past these lies at your peril. Review the lie of the water house in the liturgy for further enlightenment.
See, this is what happens when you’re a dick to people who have godlike-powers. Like when all those Ryubians were yelling at Solomon; so he’s not all powerful? He could still end the lot of you with his left pinky.
That’s what we’re seeing here, it’s basically “OK so you want to push things? lets go!”. Just verbally instead of with fists.
The Demiurges are mostly not omnipotent or omniscient, but that doesn’t mean its a good idea to piss them off, either.
Solomon only has the power to kill. It’s a rather common ability. He created a city, he created children, and yet his focus is on death.
Honestly, rather pathetic.
we weren’t reading the same comic, it seems.
Common, yes, but people have it in different amounts and unless you are either very good yourself or have a death-wish, you shouldn’t provoke people who are quite proficient at it. Also, have we seen anyone in the story who was good at other things without getting good at killing FIRST?
Time until Jadis really, finally loses it with Allison: 35 years and change?
(Getting properly angry with somebody is like hard work.)
Then why did the cries of the peasants break Solomon? And what did they even loose at death, having given him their mind, bodies, and souls to him in exchange for a promise he couldn’t keep?
Maybe if more people called him out on his bullshit he’d have taught his people how to defend themselves.
You’re advocating cowardice.
I suspect, though he wouldn’t admit it, Solomon fell prey to a fear similar to his sifus. What happens when you teach your people all to use Ki Rata?
They start using it on each other.
I’m advocating basic survival instincts. Pissing someone off you have absolutely no chance of beating isn’t bravery, it’s just stupid and reckless.