Had a busy week, so I thought we’d just do a little drop-in on the Graysiders. Apologies to everyone who has no idea what’s going on here, but it has been a while since we saw old DM.
Had a busy week, so I thought we’d just do a little drop-in on the Graysiders. Apologies to everyone who has no idea what’s going on here, but it has been a while since we saw old DM.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Who’s that and why does DM want to torture it?
It’s the thing that stabbed Brian.
or, it’s Brian, and to save him they had to turn him into this
No, Brian’s in hospital with Phawkes standing guard over him. This is the devourer’s assassin reduced to an insect. Brain size and neurons might not count here. He probably wasn’t too intelligent in the first place. See 529.
Please, Doublegee, don’t you also start with the “bugs have no neurons” thing. The buggers (literally) happen to have a VERY HIGHLY developed nervous system, you know. I should know – I had to disect the ever-so-tiny things a lot of times to extract their brains. For science.
Go back to episode 529 where Teal turned the Devourer’s monster minion into a winged insect after it stabbed Brian. The Dracomage and one of his friendly torture-chamber pain-mice.
Ah, that helps. Don’t know if it’s what’s actually going on, but it does make sense in terms of past episodes.
Glad someone’s keeping track 😀
Mice from comic 230
https://thisis.delvecomic.com/NewWP/comic/winner-takes-all/
Same zappy-device as well (or at least a similar model, depending on artistic drift, mousie has slightly different headgear as well)
Kinda doubt there is enough neurons for pain to even exist. Although if you go straight to the soul (after all, that thing is conscious despite lacking a nerve system)… it might work! But you’d need the proper tools for that, not some off-the-shelf electric cigarette lighter.
Considering it’s got actual color coming from it, and it’s in the Greyside, that pokey toy going FZZT is definitely magic, and likely exactly the proper tool for the job.
Let’s say that any zoologist would strongly, heatedly disagree with that statement regarding how many neurons are needed for pain to exist (PAIN, FFS, as in “get away from this that is harmful”, the most basic nerve signal to be ever developed by living beings even before actually being animals).
Let’s also say that any enthomologist would not bother disagreeing with the statement that bugs lack nerve system – they would simply, in a fit of rage, stab you in the neck (if you are lucky; some would go for less directly vital yet more painful places) with the probe needle they use to laboriously disect the critters very developed yet minuscule nerve system (brain, glanses, anular nerves…) for its study.
I suspect that this may be more along the lines of “the amorphous blob-man with teeth and claws made of the stuff of the end of reality might not have neurons to begin with”. It’s reaction to something that should have been … rather painful … on page 528 was to attack the person who did it with the same level of intensity it attacks anyone else in range.
Literally the only thing that affected it in any way was Teal’s hug and happy thoughts.
The real question is – did becoming a bug _give_ it neurons, or does it still lack them?
> (PAIN, FFS, as in “get away from this that is harmful”, the most basic nerve signal to be ever developed by living beings even before actually being animals)
You don’t need nerve system at all to display such behaviour: one-cell organisms display such behaviour well enough. Hell, some actual, definitely not alive machinery behave that way too! Not quite convinced by that argument.
> they would simply, in a fit of rage, stab you in the neck
My math and CS department was actually neighbors with the biology department and I am fairly certain people there were quite saner than you’re describing. Maybe I should just ignore all arguments from you wholesale.
@ Joker_VD: Dude, I *am* a biologist. I know first-hand how crazy my colleages can be 😉 Incidentally, do you notice how you nicely moved your goalposts from “not enough neurons to feel pain” to “no neurons are needed to feel pain” in a single post? Because it IS kind of noticeable.
@HappyHead: Monster ignoring pain does not mean monster not having neurons. f it hadn’t, it could not make its muscles to move nor be able to perceive its surroundings. And given how precisely and hard it stabbed Brian, I guess it DOES have the capabilities of both perceive where are its prey and of making its muscles move.
Yes, it had to have felt the pain to be able to respond in any capacity: the fact it retaliated to it’s attacker doesn’t mean it didn’t feel the pain, and, in fact, proves it has brain neurons to be able to know where the pain came from
Monster not being made of organic biology due to being made of condensed end-of-existence does mean it may not have neurons or even muscles. It’s not an animal, it’s a literal violation of physical reality pretending to be an animal for stealth purposes. Remember that this is a setting full of that magic thing, which does not have to follow the rules of physics and biology. Not everything that moves and goes squish in a world of magic is made of biology.
It’s a close relative to this thing: http://thisis.delvecomic.com/NewWP/comic/pinteresting/
Which again was not made of biology.
As a technical note, the torture-mouse’s torture rod seems to be a flawed version of an electrical cattle prod, such as you can buy on Amazon and many other sites. It’s flawed because the prongs appear to be joined, which would short out the electrical effect. Though it would still be pointy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cattle_prod
Fairly sure the electrical effect would be coming from the pointy bits, kind like it’s showing