The Old Hack

http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2500 Page 2500. Wow. Also, you tell him, Ellen. He deserves it.

Good intentions can still lead to ruinous results. In fact, they are notorious for it.

I kind of recognise that from my own cats. They really didn't like thunderstorms. It took time to soothe them.

TotalBiscuit just passed away. Cancer. He was only in his thirties. I didn't agree with him politically. Especially not with his attitude towards GamerGate. But he had a wife and kids and bollocking NO-ONE deserves that. I hate cancer so much.

Of course, some people don't consider that to be all that much of a problem.

Frightened, or standoffish, or tearing all over the place at random moments?

Ah! I'm sorry, I didn't get that. I just tried to find examples of likeable characters that nonetheless weren't safe to be in the vicinity of.

Well... just remember that 'compared to.' I am not sure it is actually easy per se.

...that was the problem. She couldn't be after a certain incident where she was badly damaged. From time to time she would with little warning revert to her original programming, which was to kill John Connor without regard to the damage she did underway. By the time the series was unfortunately cancelled, they had yet to permanently resolve that particular problem. I agree with your other examples, mind. I suspect we could make quite a long list if we tried. Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy readily spring to mind just to name two.

His cancer got him? God dammit. I did not agree with him on everything but I would not wish cancer on him or anyone for that. God, how I hate cancer.

Go ahead and post it there too if you like. Your friendly neighbourhood moderator will delete this post for you if you really want it removed.

I read an amazing news story in the Washington Post about a device that can interprete brain waves so precisely that it will allow a paralysed person to direct a robot arm so that they can use it to pour coffee for themselves and drink it. They still experience spillage but that might be due to needing more practice rather than because of design flaws in the arm. I wonder if this is a case of technology where the designers are like, "We know bugger all about how this actually works, but it works so I guess we just have to keep working at the math to prove it."

They have come up before. Nioi has long been a contentious figure on previous incarnations of these forums. Hoo boy, yes. Or Cameron from Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Ah! I think I get what you mean now. Thank you. Also, if she is going to appear in her Box little girl form, it will be that much harder to want to hurt her. It is so unfair. You feel like such a heel if you try to make yourself hit something that looks like a cute little girl. O.O No, if there is any conflict here to really worry about, it is Magus. He wants revenge much more badly and I am not sure he will be easily satisfied. Probably. Let's allow it to pass. It is not that important. I think it is because at that state the brain's neurons are so young that they still have no experience in forming memories. The brain needs practice at everything. And gets better at retaining things the more use it sees. Occasionally Lucas acted like a complete hack. I of all people cannot bring myself to condemn him for that. Ah, I see. Only please be careful about that. 'Emo' has been used so often in a negative context that it comes across as an insult. One of each, please.

Ah yes! That makes total sense. To be frank, that is a big reason I am so creeped out by it, but you are of course right in that Ellen herself would not resent it as much either emotionally or intellectually. Darn it, I so dislike Nioi. I know it is mostly irrational but I can't help it.

Certainly And that perspective is fully valid. As you yourself say, it differs for everyone. Certainly it is worth noting that Ellen is a fictional character and that your very real lived experience obviously carries a great deal of weight. And I am very glad that you feel that way. It is a sad fact of life that not everyone appreciate its gift equally, unfortunately. And not all do so merely from being 'emo', as it has somewhat dismissively been phrased. There are people who suffer from profound mental illness or have lived through so severe trauma that life seems more burden than gift to them. I myself happen to have some experience in that direction. I suffer from clinical depression and a rather severe anxiety disorder. These days I have medication that allows me to live much closer to a normal existence but earlier in my life both my conditions remained undiagnosed and thus obviously untreated as well. I say this in order to explain that I have personally experienced such an intense state of depression and anxiety that I quite literally no longer really cared whether I lived or died, and as a result very nearly did get killed. This event did convince me to finally seek out psychiatric aid (something I had avoided for years then due to very bad earlier experiences with the system), something my one-day-to-be-wife had repeatedly urged me to do. My point with this is that I fully understand being in a state where one does not really appreciate the gift of life, and the anger one may experience during its aftermath. Suffice it to say that I fully appreciate Ellen's point of view and would happily hold her coat while she explained it to Magus. I think I understand. I can relate to that, too. In fact, I will say this: having been so close to death, I now hold a much greater appreciation for the life I have.

Hrm. What is your reasoning behind that? I am genuinely curious. I think you may be right but I am not sure how you arrive at that conclusion. Personally I feel that it might go either way. Suddenly having a lot of strange memories mixed in with those you already have would be a... very strange experience that I do not think I am capable of actually envisioning. *scratches head*

*scratches head* I admit, I don't quite understand your point here. As I see it, Ellen resents the trauma itself, not just the fact that it happened. It is an entirely instinctual reaction well below the level of rational thought. Are you saying that Ellen would resent Magus less were she compelled to consider how few options he had? This will probably sound weird, but personally I think Ellen is still angry at Tedd. It is just that now she has to deal with the fact that Tedd actually takes pride in her existence and loves her as a person, too. As he said, if what he did were mistakes, those were the best mistakes he ever made. So now she has to mix in intense anger and frustration with that love, pride and respect, and so Tedd in Ellen's own words 'confuses the Hell out of her.' Again, Ellen's outrage is irrational. And frankly, Magus' attitude towards Ellen is not very likely to mitigate it. Tedd at least views her with love and pride. Magus... patronisingly wants to 'fix' her in the firm belief that he knows what is best for her. That he is willing to admit that he might be wrong will not help his case as Ellen is still likely to see him as acting like an ass on top of everything else. I hate to say this, but Magus is acting like pure early Elliot and being a complete idiot relationship-wise. I suspect that will bite him just as hard on the arse as it did Elliot, if not harder. ...and who is also dead now. *scratches head* She is a new person now. She may still have the emotional connections if she succeeded in bringing them with her, but we still do not know what that is going to mean. Of course, all that is only likely to frustrate and anger Ellen even more. Hm. Maybe the event is similar but I suspect it is not the same. This was at a level of intellectual and emotional complexity well past the ability of a newborn infant to process. What is more, the stress lasted longer due to the misconception that she had at best only a month to live. Actually it may have lasted even longer as even after she found out that she had a place in the world after all, she had to cope with the fact that the place that 'should' have been hers belonged to someone else by right and that she would never have it back -- and in fact had never had it in the first place. So, half a day of massive and intense stress, then months or more of reduced but still traumatic stress... no, I do not think the analogy quite works even though I do see your point. At the very least and as you pointed out, babies do not form detailed memories that could allow them to potentially feel the kind of resentment Ellen does.

See all you gotta do is rub that lamp.

I disagree. She resents the massive trauma she suffered when she came into existence. There is a difference.

I could think of a number of reasons why Ellen might resent that event as well, chief of which was that Nioi pulled that one on her without her informed consent.

Maybe more like the havoc she would cause while looking. Incidentally, I called it with the security cameras, rather to my satisfaction. It would have felt really stupid if the place didn't have any.

That is patently ridiculous. I don't think that even if they did unite they would choose to call themselves the Republic of Yemen.

Seriously. The Pharaoh is actually right, there has been a lot of that going around. There was a particularly sad case in Denmark back in the late sixties where some con artist convinced a large number of families that the world was ending and that their only hope was to escape with friendly alien UFOs at New Year's Eve. So they sold everything they owned, trusted him with the money, and well, the world was still there after New Year's Eve but the con artist was long gone.

Well, yes, but it was not as much that as I would have been really disappointed in him if he had.