I have to admit I never considered what Will said. I just assumed the cure was just that because it did saved Ally (and because, you know, it’s from the future), but he’s right: just because it wasn’t another batch of sugar water it doesn’t mean it was a panacea. However, I’m still waiting to hear why this means Rikk can’t benefit from the various things I’ve been harping on since Rikk recorded his posthumous message (a reverse engineered vaccine, Animal’s blood, bloody freaking magic, etc.)
Ah, the crushing weight of guilt.
I’m wondering what the explanation for why they can’t engineer a cure from Ally’s blood or find more Sangui-Life will be.
… Wait a minute, what about the future people? Why the hell didn’t they mention this?! You’d think they would have brought a super-cure back with them as well.
Rick DIED in the future – I doubt that he lived long enough that it became a serious problem, or something that would have occurred to them. Especially if Rick normally wouldn’t announce such a thing to his team.
Aw, *come on*. The three of them have been having sex for how long now? Unless they saw a need for a decade worth of condoms in a closed-circuit love triangle, any blood transferable disease *would* have, by now. This explanation is painfully redundant.
Raza – I had the same reaction as you initially, but then did a little digging and realized that T is right. Some diseases are transferred only through blood-blood contact, not by sex. Hepatitis C is one. I’m kind of surprised I never realised this – but it still confuses me a little. Since you would figure that in the course of half a decade of sex there would have been SOME blood to blood contact via regular intercourse. But I digress. Truth is, even if it had happened via intercourse and not via the Djinn incident, we don’t know how long the disease may appear dormant in different individuals before obvious symptoms appear.
Aren’t they? HIV is transferable during sex only because it is present in blood and semen… and it *can* be transferred from a female to a male, mostly through menstrual blood getting onto damaged skin. It’s a lot more difficult than catching a bacteria that needs only get onto a susceptible membrane – single digit, possibly decimal probability for a single act of intercourse – but it does happen, and would be significantly more likely to have done so to Rikk than any of Ally’s short-term relationships and one night stands.
Still, I apologize for the brashness of my reaction. I would’ve been more polite about it if I’d realized the author read and responded to these comments.
Bunny – I just checked, and Hepatitis C *is* sexually transferable. It just doesn’t happen as quickly, or as often as initially believed… much like you suspected, blood-to-blood contact does occasionally happen during unprotected intercourse.
Hmmm. That still seems like blood-to-blood contact during sex, not transmission from the sexual fluids. Not that it isn’t a danger! But Ally was already pretty vigilant about that sort of thing from her years when she knew she was infected.
I have to admit I never considered what Will said. I just assumed the cure was just that because it did saved Ally (and because, you know, it’s from the future), but he’s right: just because it wasn’t another batch of sugar water it doesn’t mean it was a panacea. However, I’m still waiting to hear why this means Rikk can’t benefit from the various things I’ve been harping on since Rikk recorded his posthumous message (a reverse engineered vaccine, Animal’s blood, bloody freaking magic, etc.)
P.S. I love Ally on the last panel.
Ah, the crushing weight of guilt.
I’m wondering what the explanation for why they can’t engineer a cure from Ally’s blood or find more Sangui-Life will be.
… Wait a minute, what about the future people? Why the hell didn’t they mention this?! You’d think they would have brought a super-cure back with them as well.
Rick DIED in the future – I doubt that he lived long enough that it became a serious problem, or something that would have occurred to them. Especially if Rick normally wouldn’t announce such a thing to his team.
Aw, *come on*. The three of them have been having sex for how long now? Unless they saw a need for a decade worth of condoms in a closed-circuit love triangle, any blood transferable disease *would* have, by now. This explanation is painfully redundant.
Raza, if it were an STD, a whole lot of Ally’s life story would be a whole lot different. Feddyg would have died of it by now, for a start.
Blood-transferable diseases are not always also sexually transmissible.
Raza – I had the same reaction as you initially, but then did a little digging and realized that T is right. Some diseases are transferred only through blood-blood contact, not by sex. Hepatitis C is one. I’m kind of surprised I never realised this – but it still confuses me a little. Since you would figure that in the course of half a decade of sex there would have been SOME blood to blood contact via regular intercourse. But I digress. Truth is, even if it had happened via intercourse and not via the Djinn incident, we don’t know how long the disease may appear dormant in different individuals before obvious symptoms appear.
Okay, this may be horrible, but the first thing I thought when I saw Rikk’s hyperactivity here was “Does this mean his favorite pony is Pinkie Pie?”
I wonder who’s Rikk’s favorite pony now that you’ve got me thinkin’ about it Joraiem… But for some reson I don’t see Pinkie Pie bein’ his fav.
Right. I love Animal, but…, I say we hunt the rag doll down, slit his throat, and pour the blood down Rik’s throat, whether he wants it, or not.
Maybe that’s the betrayal? Animal’s Blood Cure, meaning Rikks life for something else the HoJ wants?
Rikk’s favorite? Probably Twilight or Applejack.
Aren’t they? HIV is transferable during sex only because it is present in blood and semen… and it *can* be transferred from a female to a male, mostly through menstrual blood getting onto damaged skin. It’s a lot more difficult than catching a bacteria that needs only get onto a susceptible membrane – single digit, possibly decimal probability for a single act of intercourse – but it does happen, and would be significantly more likely to have done so to Rikk than any of Ally’s short-term relationships and one night stands.
Still, I apologize for the brashness of my reaction. I would’ve been more polite about it if I’d realized the author read and responded to these comments.
Bunny – I just checked, and Hepatitis C *is* sexually transferable. It just doesn’t happen as quickly, or as often as initially believed… much like you suspected, blood-to-blood contact does occasionally happen during unprotected intercourse.
Hmmm. That still seems like blood-to-blood contact during sex, not transmission from the sexual fluids. Not that it isn’t a danger! But Ally was already pretty vigilant about that sort of thing from her years when she knew she was infected.