Grrl Power #530 – Axis of uncertainty
Cthillia’s position is sound (yes, this same Cthillia. Like it’s such a common name.) but given the company she keeps, who knows? Probably 10% of the council is immortal, and another 20-30% has a considerably longer lifespan than humans.
This is a bit of an odd page for this comic, only 4 panels and no wall of dialog. I originally had some snappier stuff written, but I reconsidered because it made the big bads sound like meme savvy 20-somethings. I do try to occasionally remember that all characters aren’t just Sydney wearing different costumes and attempt to write them differently. That’s okay, there’s more panels and words on the next page. You know, the way comics work.
In panel two, “introducing characters 101” dictates that Sciona should have said that guy’s name. It’s on the next page, but I’m not sure I like the name I came up with for him. If I leave it till Monday’s comic that gives me a few days to try and come up with something better.
Super Fan Clever Fox did some super fan art of Dabbler!
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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Glad to see that Sciona is following health and safety best practices. Always wipe off blood, with an antiseptic-treated cloth, after daubing your ritual circle!
The implication here is that because Cthillia is an anomaly, she isn’t accounted for correctly in the Veil structure. That probably means that the Council mandates she keep herself disguised or hidden at all times because she looks very conspicuous and is presumably of “supernatural” origins, and widespread attention towards her could cause problems for them.
If that’s the case, it’s a pretty massive raw deal to her, and it’s understandable how she’d have a personal stake in changing the current situation.
Good point. Although I do not think anomalies would be much of a problem actually. There will be a fair number of unique supernatural creatures, in different factions. But if they want to be concealed they just need to submit themselves for a magical biometric scan and their unique characteristics can be added to the ‘Veil inclusion list’.
Supers uniqueness is a problem though because they unpredictably appear within normal human society. Hence why not being able to write rules to account for them can cause major headaches. For instance if one can turn into a bat, the Veil would think she is a vampire and conceal her.
Which is a big problem if she is an otherwise normal teenage girl and nobody can see her in class! Her attempts to prove she is still alive and kicking could easily unmask the existence of the Veil.
Hence why Veil mages are studying supers, to see if there is some simple way to identify them, regardless of their specific powers.
Big primary and secondary sexual characteristics, compared to the average for age and gender, would be a good place to help narrow down the false positives, in the meanwhile.
‘Late teen, flat-chested, girl,, turns into a bat, = vampire’ Or Krona playing a prank.
So no one commenting on Gunnhildr working with the big bad?
Is she bad though? She has attacked vampires and werewolves. The kind of thing Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Van Helsing and other good guys get up to! And many a hero has been left for dead, by their evil enemies, only to return set on vengeance! Look at ‘the Crow’, Clint Eastwood, and ‘the Bride’ from Kill Bill.
Plus these monsters are being concealed by the Veil. Which is also allowing aliens to get up to anal probing! I know a few readers who would be cheering anyone prettier trying to tear down the Veil!
Of course she has attacked Pixel, yet another type of lycanthrope, along with evil drow.
Then, we come to our poor heroine. But, from Sciona’s perspective, she has cast her lot in with cops, cops who must be corrupt, as they consort with demons and are in a secretive pact with this league of monsters!
Thank goodness that beacon of Democratic light, Deus, has seen fit to support the rebels, fighting against the evil empire!
Maybe Gunnhildr is a vampire, with a soul. Who will convince Sydney that she is fighting for the wrong side, and will convince her to join the rebellion too!
Back in the Council chambers meeting, Gunnhildr’s comments made it clear that she and the vamp she was talking to were part of the group behind the Mannekiller’s attack. I believe that’s the same vamp that then headed off to the Mars factory to become a less-than-willing blood donor.
Cthilla may be so hideous to mortal humans that it is like a secret weapon.
Or she may be … drumroll … drop dead gorgeous.
Literally, such a curse: anyone who looks upon her unshielded face drops dead from heart-explosion :P
Her shoulders are too pointy for me, she’s not up to my standards. Don’t know about her knees.
to be fair in some myths Nymphs where so beautiful any mortal looking at them would be stricken with blindness so beaing pretty to that lvel could actually have severe consequences.
Indeed.
Or, running with Guesticus‘s idea, it could have been a curse from a suitor, or a supernatural being, enamoured of her beauty, and jealous of the thought of anyone else even looking at her, let alone winning her heart!
Which was how Athena punished Medusa for dare seeking sanctuary in one of her temples
Most of that was on your pun (unless that wasn’t intended to be a pun, or play-on-words…)
with the leathery texture of the hands, lizard like claws and aparent eye-related death beams, i’m calling basilisk on cthilla. now where is sydney gonna find a sword of gryffindor in LA?
The last we saw they were in New York city. So currently they are most likely to be either in Archon’s East Coast HQ (which I would guess is probably in or around New York) or they have returned to their central base (‘somewhere in the middle of America’).
So Sydney would have a few hours delay, if she had to get her McGuffin from Los Angeles, in the West Coast.
The one thing which tends to point away from her being a basilisk, is Cthillia pointing out that she is not immortal. She would need to either be that, or extremely long-lived, to be the source of the basilisk tales. Plus we know that she is unique, from the closing dialogue. So there cannot be other members of her family, or race, with such capabilities, or else she would not be unique.
In fact as Sciona seems to think that even a mere century would be problematic, for Cthillia, she probably has not been kicking around for the hundreds, or thousands, of years which would be required, for her to be the source of the legends.
Sciona could easily have the wrong impression though, so you may well have called it right. All the points you raised certainly checked the right boxes!
An interesting trope inversion has occurred in the comic. Thinking back to when the Semper Vigilantis were described to us, we learnt that they are all federal agents, in addition to their covert role. In the X-files, Scully and Mulder formed a small department investigating the supernatural. Whilst in M.I.B., agents J and K investigated aliens.
Here supernatural creatures and aliens are actually the ones cast in that role! Although Archon do support them, at times, the Semper Viginantis otherwise operate autonomously.
Their very name means “Always Pussy,” and now you’re trying to make them into an automatic pussy? Like a fleshlight or something? Or wasn’t that what you were trying to say?
:-D
I think I quite like it that way.
Which of those propositions are we not making assumptions about? Neither of them seem that certain to me. One Cthillia is so improbable that a 2nd would only be marginally less so.