Space For Appeal
Aug23
on 2018-08-23
at 21:34
Chapter: (A)Wash
Characters: Ace, Akane Ryoshi, Denali, Gina "Mama" Gibs, Jaz, Luna, Magenta, na-Nilina, Rusty, Steward Ashe, Surety, Veracity, Walton, Wildstar
Location: OIS Gene Rodenberry
White makeup obviously wouldn’t work for Orions. So Orion court jesters painted their faces orange.
So, you might say that orange skin lacks appeal.
↓ Transcript
Ace
OK. I assumed an anthocyanin based pill was behind your pigmentation. Is that a big deal?
Magenta
About 1 in 10 million have my condition. It was kind of cool being the rare purple Orion, but since then they worked out how to do it on purpose. A lot of people react badly to it, but it seems a lot don’t.
So now everyone thinks I’m just another Purp user.
Ace
So why take chlorophyllizers at all?
Magenta
Believe me, I’ve considered it, but I’m pale as a bedsheet without them. Makes people think I’m ill. The only other alternative is a carotene based orange.
And we’ve come to associate orange face with clowns and fools*.
Narration
*She means mimes. They’re stuck with pigeons all over their parks, too.
OK. I assumed an anthocyanin based pill was behind your pigmentation. Is that a big deal?
Magenta
About 1 in 10 million have my condition. It was kind of cool being the rare purple Orion, but since then they worked out how to do it on purpose. A lot of people react badly to it, but it seems a lot don’t.
So now everyone thinks I’m just another Purp user.
Ace
So why take chlorophyllizers at all?
Magenta
Believe me, I’ve considered it, but I’m pale as a bedsheet without them. Makes people think I’m ill. The only other alternative is a carotene based orange.
And we’ve come to associate orange face with clowns and fools*.
Narration
*She means mimes. They’re stuck with pigeons all over their parks, too.
Associating an orange face with clowns and fools… [groan]
It may be funny the first time. But hasn’t that joke been worn out by now? I mean, wasn’t that a regular on late night shows and comedy routines and skits for the last two years? (This, coming from someone who hardly watches TV anymore.)
I am running a couple years behind.
And isn’t it still 2007 in-universe? The comic started in 2005 and Ace has had two in-comic birthdays. So, early 2008 at the latest.
If you’re going to hold me to real dates, Ace met Grace Hopper when she was 80 and he was 8, then he would have to have been born in 1978. I think I’ll retcon it to Hedy Lamar.
“That’s ‘Hedley'” 🙂
why not both? Ace has had an exciting life after all.
Oh, pooh! I prefer to assume that young Ace has time-traveled, whether he remembers it or not. You’ve displayed Trump on a viewer – date from there. Or just ignore all pop-culture references as being outside continuity. The Grace Hopper of this reality was born later and lived later.
Trump has been around since the 80’s, can remember a bit in a “Family Matters” episode when the sons best friend was working as an usher and he was monologuing about what would happen if Mrs Trump divorced him and married and divorced Neil Diamond, Jack Nicklaus and some guy named Darling, with the punchline being, she would be known as “Ivana Diamond-Nicklaus-Darling”
I rather liked the explination you gave when I first read that comic Andy. You explained that in your universe Grace Hopper had servived longer. An 8 year old m8ght scramble to get Miss Lamar’s autograph for more reasons than being a tech geek.
The joke wasn’t for the characters. That one was for us, the readers.
It won’t get old until a great wind brings in some change we can believe in.
There is a reason the saying oldie but goodie exists. ? I think the idea of an alien culture having strong enough opinions on it that they have their jesters orange amusing. Someone choosing to be orange in general is amusing. There are jokes I get tired of but I dont complain to the teller just because I’m not amused. I’ve never been a heckler though. I tend to take joy in the laughter of those it did amuse. We are all different though and that’s a spice of life. ?
Some will always giggle at him doing that. Like a giant that ate the Oompa Loompas.
When he takes down a shooter without a weapon or visits troops I bet the Orions will adjust opinion accordingly since they seem into Terran culture. They highly respect Ace and his mom for intelligence and combat ability and Grampy for his wisdom. If you think about what we’ve seen so far it makes sense that their culture would mock him orange or not.
(SNL skit from the late seventies?). Man is frustrated with mime room mate, and in an argument, he makes an aggressive gesture with his index finger, with his thumb raised. (making a gun) When he points his finger, there is a loud ‘Bang!” The mime clasps his hands to his chest with a look of shock, then falls over, dead. Man looks at his gun finger in horror.
Neighbors come rushing in with excited “We heard a gunshot.” “What was that noise?”
Man looks at them, still struggling with the idea he has killed someone. “I shot a mime.”
Neighbors cheer, praise, and congratulate him.
……..ahh television from my formative years
“And we’ve come to associate orange face with clowns and fools*.”
Yeah, so have we.
A banana ready for slicing lacks appeal. 🙂
Personally associate ‘orange face’ with chocolate and small people
[Guesticus]:
… as well as suspendered trousers, green, high-coiffed hair-styles …
… & the occasional, “Oompah-Loompah-Tee-Doo!”
😉
🙂
That’s them 😀
Hey, not sure if this is the proper place to do this, but unless i keep missing it, the section where we first meet Luna is still AWOL.
Gonna get to that.
Now why would white makeup not work for Orions? Granted, there’d be a sharper contrast wherever the makeup stopped with their dark green skin (most of them) but I can’t think of any reason white makeup would be a problem? What am I missing, Andy?
From others’ remarks, it appears to be a reference to President Donald Trumps fake/chemical tan that he has, at times, sported.. Not that he still uses it, but there y’are. Andy does not appear to be fond of the Donald. 😉
No, not the orange bit. I got that. I’m referring to Andy’s notes below the comic proper, where he says:
“White makeup obviously wouldn’t work for Orions. So Orion court jesters painted their faces orange.”
White is associated with the Imperial family. A court jester wouldn’t want to piss off the boss too badly.
Although classically fools were the king’s most trusted advisor as one of the few individuals who could tell the king the plain, unvarnished truth.
Oh, right! Forgot that. Been a loooot of updates were nobody’s wearing much of anything. 😛
He’s still orange and uses it. He’s less orange now. The story behind his poor use of fake tan and hair dye is just impatience. He washes out hair dye to quickly and puts too much fake tan on.
It isnt as bad now because of vanity. Trump genuinely thought it looked good and that women found him attractive. Woman that care about $$ pretended that before the presidency and those around him flattered him hoping for favoritism. Like greedy, unscrupulous people tend to do.
As the presidency has gone on he’s been exposed to not so flattering opinions. He is incredibly unappealing in both personality and looks to the major majority of women. Even supporters. This has caused a lessoning of orangeness as he became more aware.
It’s also postulated that he doesn’t make “button” or “hands” comments anymore because women expressed disgust.
I find him repulsive and I’ve only met one woman out of supporters and non that thought he was handsome. It was a (if not a bot or troll) 81 grandmother on Twitter.
For a man that was used to being flattered and pandered to daily it was an unpleasant revelation.
To be fair on my opinion. Personality is key to me and he has almost every single trait that’s unattractive in my eyes. Poor sense of humor, no desire towards personal growth, a temper, lies, is cruel to others, encourages violence, disrespects those that serve while using supporting them for approval (my father was a Vietnam vet who was captured for two weeks) , used charity money for personal use.
I worked in crisis intervention and volunteer when I can. I talked to vets, seniors, disabled all on fixed income and all unable to work due to age, injury or disability. They have to call to get bill, food and medical help every month because their Inc covers their studio apartment rent and that’s about it. The deserve economic dignity.
Sorry long post. I get passionate about those in need and the lessoning of orange was a conversation recently. Friend thought he looked less neon so we looked. ?
Wait, I thought carotene caused a yellowish pigmentation?
Google says: https://www.google.com/search?q=carotene&oq=carotene&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Among other answers, “Carotenes are photosynthetic pigments important for photosynthesis. Carotenes contain no oxygen atoms. They absorb ultraviolet, violet, and blue light and scatter orange or red light, and (in low concentrations) yellow light.” Concentrated in skin pigment, one could expect a shade of orange.
During WWII in England it was possible to pick out night-fighter pilots in a crowd because they were fed so many carrots they turned orange.
The “night-fighter pilots eat lots of carrots” was in fact BS propaganda to mislead the Germans. the British didn’t want to give away the existence of compact (for the time) Airborne Intercept Radar. So they spread a rumor that they fed the pilots lots of carrots etc to improve night vision. and now we’re stuck with “common knowledge” that almost every parent has used to get their kid to eat their veggies.
But the changing color from eating lots of carrots is true. I have personal experience from a delicious 50lb bag of carrots.
As a Dutch I find this very insulting…
j/k I can see the humor but Orange face here is only during sport events and Kingsday NOBODY Dutch is crazy enough to look like an Orange clown all year long.
1 in 10,000,000? With a population of only 50,000,000 that would make only 5 other people with her condition.
And the comment about being just another “purp-user”? That reminds me of how “fashionable” it was some years ago to be lactose-intolerant or allergic to gluten, while for people like one of my cousins it can be life threatening.
Don’t think this one has gone away – go read notalwaysright.com for a bit, and see how many of the stories are idiots claiming those allergies and then insisting on something being added that is exactly what they claim would kill them…
Yeah, i haven´t visited notalwaysright.com in a few years. The last few times i was on thar site it would only take 10-15 min before the anti-virus went crazy and a few more seconds before browser crashing. After the first time I wited a week or two to try again, giving them time to fix it, but the same thing happend again. Haven´t been there since. A shame, I really liked it. 🙁
Unfortunately the ones that use “I’m allergic and it will kill me” in place of “I don’t like that” or wirse yet “I want special attention” make things difficult for those with actual medical issues. I’ve heard food service people claim that it is all fake and deliberately spike food with the substance specifically requested left out of the food. What they don’t know is that not all reactions are immediate and they can range from discomfort (or smelly to those around them) to rush this person to the hospital before their throat closes up and they die, and there is noway to tell which one you are serving. Catering to the pretensious is better than being the cause of someone’s death.
I had the same thought.
1 in 10M for a civilization of just 50M… why not just say “there’s only 5 people in the Empire… There’s Karen, Alice, Jenny, Rose, and me.”
I’m a person who survived a 1 in a million wreck, meaning there are at least 330 other people like me in the US. I have no idea what their names are.
That’s not much of an equivalency. For starters, you couldn’t count those people with one hand; for another, it’s a vague estimate of a statistic; and finally, survival rate of any sort of accident isn’t much of a common factor. It’d be one thing if the same exact accident had happened 1 million times, and only 330 of you survived.
If you were born with no arms due to a genetic defect, and there were less than 10 other people alive in the USA with the same defect and condition, I bet you’d know most of their names, possibly all of them. Folks would have wanted to make a support group out of you.
Actually with the advances in medical care in the 22 years since my wreck, the numbers of survivors has gone up considerably. If you’re still alive when first responders get to you there’s a pretty good chance you’ll survive. and protocols have changed since my wreck that even if there’s no pulse they still have to do CPR until a doctor calls for an end to it. I was part of the reason for that because my heart spontaneously restarted when they were scraping me off the street and getting me ready for the body bag.