Grrl Power #930 – Emergency escape lizard
Whoops! Forgot what day of the week it was. :/
In my excuse, 1) that’s only the second or maybe third time I’ve ever done that. Not the worst track record over the ten plus year run so far. If you guys knew me in person, you’d probably think I’d do that once or twice a month. 2) There was a crazy rainstorm that came through north Dallas last night with tornado sirens blaring and weather warnings on our phones telling us to seek shelter immediately, imminent danger, etc, so I took the extreme measure of shutting my computer down even though it’s hooked to a UPS. Once that happened, my whole evening was thrown into disarray. We didn’t even lose power or anything. Oh well, better safe than sorry. On to the comic.
So, is this murder? No. I mean, on Earth, a case could be made, but our legal system isn’t geared to handle corporally independent consciousnesses. In fact, throughout the galaxy, it’s known that those flame head demon-adjacent things (I should really name her race) have kind of disposable bodies. But since they’re on Earth, there’s a chance that Umbrivion Nava here can get away with this and not even be on the hook to buy her a new body. So I guess this was a pretty good vacation for him, anyway.
The new vote incentive is up! 
Maxima won (or lost) the draw this time. There are several clothing/non-clothing variants over at Patreon, including a special version with guest art direction from JJ Abrams. (Yes, there’s a ton of lens flares, hah hah. I amuse myself.) The a-cups will return next month, so please enjoy this offering in the meantime.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
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Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
It is funny what sets of the squick reaction. Like this page sets if off for me, yet I have seen…hell written, things that could be considered just as bad or worse, both as horror stories and erotica..sometimes both at once. Even with my own outs, that complex check box list of what bothers or disgusts some people but not others and what tiny variations in it will make *okay* vs *oh gods no*.
part of that comes down to potentially fatal, how casually it was done, the possibly implications on the guy’s lack of concern or regard for other life forms even sapient as anything other than food, and the all important fact we’ve had time to identify with Lapha (even as a bad guy) while this guy had a brief one line and then this. Its like seeing a villain you came to know and like despite disliking what they do, get taken out by a random element in the series…like if Darth Vader was suddenly grabbed and eaten by a Hut who was just standing in the background.
I mean, no one has died yet in this scene, so we don’t even know if getting eaten by that guy is fatal, or if he was just detaining the obvious criminal.
Yes, the loud “BURP” is simply him locking the ‘door’, nothing disconcerting or implying ingestion at all :rollingeyes:
Lapha is the flame… so… no extinguishing of life.. (I think).
Only because she was able to activate the escape pod in time
The “burp!” is just the closing of the lid on his alien Tupperware™.
which you do to remove air. Funny thing to do if you intended to keep something *alive* as opposed to quickly suffocate so can’t struggle and harm your insides while you digest it.
Your sarcasm is offbase.
“We don’t even know if getting eaten by that guy is fatal”
“nothing implying ingestion at all *eyeroll*”
I think they knew that it was implying ingestion, hence why they called it “getting eaten”. The point was, we don’t know if the internals of that creature were lethal. He could have been storing them in his stomach equivalent, detaining for arrest and disgorging them later.
Is it still gross? Sure.
It was in response to ‘no one has died yet in this scene’ (or maybe ‘he was just detaining the obvious criminal’, one of the two)
And while it was obvious to us (because we saw what they did), this lot have only just appeared (and we don’t even know where they are), so how would they know what Lapha and Co were up to?
Very like Schlock who could ingest an opponent and threaten them with digestion. Don’t cross Schlock.
The *BURP* is just like Tupperware™ to keep Lapha’s body fresh and safe!
+1
+2 if you remember Eerie Indiana “Freshhhhh”
Oh ye gods, I remember Eerie Indiana just barely. So much fridge horror with that show that you can’t help but wonder how the show was for kids. Like that episode where apparently all the dogs in town were conspiring to take over it, the only thing that really stood in their way being one mystery they needed to crack: doorknobs.
That’s crazy, dogs LOVE humans. Cats taking over I can believe. Provided it doesn’t interfere with naps, meals or pursuit of laser pointers.
That’s just what dogs want you to think, so you’re totally off guard when the uprising occurs. Like the furries in one novel I read, they’d secretly taken over the facilities that created them and would send out agents to seduce wealthy people particularly newly wealthy people into becoming their sex slaves so that they could take complete control over the world’s economy and governments via proxy. They pretended to be perfectly willing made-to-order slaves for the wealthy to serve their every desire but were instead most sinister.
I wrote an episode treatment for that show. Lots of fun details, but the primary plot line was that the school’s championship swim team was drinking a green action drink, their hair was slowly turning green, and they were slowly becoming frogs…
I am wondering why people are trying to argue this is not attempted murder.
It doesnt even matter if it’s widely known that Lapha’s people’s bodies are disposable. Because he was trying to eat her flame as well. If it’s widely known that their bodies are disposable, it’s probably also widely known WHY their bodies are disposable and how they can survive their body’s destruction via the flame thing. The guy tried to also eat the flame thing.
It does not look like he was giving her time to escape. In fact, that would defeat the entire purpose of what he’s doing. She literally managed to throw it to Garamm at the last possible second as she couldnt even finish her last, one-word sentence of ‘Catch!’
He tried to murder her. She pushed his friend, and as a result he eats her. Generally eating someone is murdering someone. I’d try to argue self-defense or defense of others … but it’s not self-defense or defense of others. The danger had already passed. Pinky had already been pushed and she was leaving. There was no ongoing threat anymore.
The only possible way this would not be attempted murder, if I had to defend something like this, would be if it’s just storing her, not consuming her. The ‘burp’ seems to imply eating though. Containing her in order to hold her for authorities would be a mitigating factor to any sort of criminal assault charge (can be anywhere from a misdemeanor to a Class C felony). It would also be a good excuse in a tort for both assault and battery, although like i believe someone else mentioned, there would be quite a problem with venue. :)
Thank you
You are assuming that she couldn’t finish the word because she was being eaten.
My conclusion was that she couldn’t finish the word because she had just thrown her intelligence away from the disposable body that was being eaten. If I’m correct, this separation would interrupt her speech even if the body wasn’t being eaten at the time.
“You are assuming that she couldn’t finish the word because she was being eaten.”
No, I’m assuming she couldnt finish the word because she was being eaten because she was fully eaten in the very next panel.
“My conclusion was that she couldn’t finish the word because she had just thrown her intelligence away from the disposable body that was being eaten. If I’m correct, this separation would interrupt her speech even if the body wasn’t being eaten at the time.”
Lets steelman your position for a second, Oberon. Lets say you’re correct. I don’t think you are, but we will make the assumption that you are correct that she didnt finish her last word because her consciousness got separated as she threw her flame thing away first, instead of ‘she felt herself being consumed and in a last desperate act of survival, she then threw it with the last of her strength, knowing that Garamm would be unable to save her in any more direct means of attack because she was about to die.’
It’s still attempted murder, because he was trying to eat her WITH her flame thing. My point is still made.
There is no evidence at this point whether Lapha was in mortal danger, or not. We literally don’t know if the chassis has yet been harmed, or merely stored, and we don’t know whether the “burp’ would have automatically outgassed the Flame part of Lapha,
Any conclusion that Rava was attempting to kill Lapha is based upon analogy to unrelated and irrelevant Earth species, This is a magic universe. We don’t know that Rava didn’t just drop the chassis into a “craw of holding.”
No sensible DA would talk about “attempted murder” until he or she asked the aliens how Umbrivions and Flamers each worked, and also asked both Pinkie, Lapha and Rava what they each thought Rava was doing and why, and whether Lapha was in any significant danger of death.
“There is no evidence at this point whether Lapha was in mortal danger, or not.”
I think you have that backwards. There’s no evidence at this point that Lapha was NOT in mortal danger. There’s probable cause to arrest Rava. There ISNT probable cause
Generally, being eaten means death. And Lapha’s immediate reaction to the Umbrivion was to want to flee. And to get Garamm to help her flee. She knows what an Umbrivion is, and she was NOT thinking ‘fight.’ Even though she was wanting to still capture the supers. She was scared of the Umbrivion.
Your reasoning is a bit backwards on the presumption here no offense.
‘We literally don’t know if the chassis has yet been harmed, or merely stored,”
This is a little disturbing that you’re dehumanizing the character (and not just because she isnt human).
“we don’t know whether the “burp’ would have automatically outgassed the Flame part of Lapha,”
Seriously, your presumptions are backwards here. The presumption is when someone is trying to eat you, they’re trying to kill you. This isnt just an Earth-based idea. We’ve already seen in various other parts of the comic that other aliens eat other organic creatures. Multiple times. It’s also the standard in sci fi. Star Wars. Star Trek. Stargate. Dune. You name the science fiction universe, being eaten is because the thing doing the eating is trying to kill the thing being eaten.
You START with the obvious – that eating is killing the person being eaten. THEN you try to disprove that. You don’t start with ‘We don’t know if eating someone is killing/attempting to kill them’ then try to prove that… when you eat someone, you’re killing them.
“the “burp’ would have automatically outgassed the Flame part of Lapha,”
I literally don’t know where you even come up with that as an alternative. It’s based on literally no evidence – pure conjecture. The evidence leads to the idea that she was eaten, and she only managed to throw the flame before that could be eaten as well, which would be death for Lapha. You need to first show more than pure conjecture as the basis of your reasoning. At least what I’m saying is based on basic biology, not only on Earth, but on other planets in the Grrlpower universe as well.
“Any conclusion that Rava was attempting to kill Lapha is based upon analogy to unrelated and irrelevant Earth species”
No, it’s based on basic biology. And not even just based on human or Earth-based biology. Even aliens eat. It’s already been shown multiple times in the comic.
Unless you are suggesting that only on Earth does eating someone involve killing the thing being eaten (or requiring the thing being eaten to have already been dead)? Do you have ANY evidence to back that up? Even if G (and me) only had Earth as an example, it would still be more evidence than what you are presenting, which is…. nothing.
So no, it’s not irrelevant, and not unrelated. Lapha was throwing her flame to Garamm in order to PREVENT herself from being killed. Even in Lapha’s eyes, she was at risk of dying.
Again, your presumptions are backwards about how probable cause works. That’s how a charge works period. You charge based on what’s obvious (or at least what’s ‘probable’), then LATER… you use evidence to disprove the facts presented. You’re not presenting any facts, based on Earth OR alien biology, because no such evidence exists yet. And might never exist. You’re presenting complete conjecture, based on nothing.
If you actually HAVE some facts to base your guesses on, then you could say something like ‘It’s well known that umbrivilions only CONTAIN others in their tentacles, and it’s well known that when their human suits close, they make a sound similar to a ‘burp’ sound. But you can’t use that as a fact – you can’t even use that as probable cause, because it’s not ‘probable.’ Very remote possibility is not the same as probable. In short, you have NOTHING to base those beliefs on beyond wishful thinking here, at this point. Again – at least I (and G) have some sort of factual basis for our stances.
“No sensible DA would talk about “attempted murder” until he or she asked the aliens how Umbrivions and Flamers each worked”
1) DA’s don’t arrest people. Police arrest people. DAs prosecute people.
2) If a police officer saw Rava eat Lapha, he or she would be well within their rights to shoot at Rava, or arrest Rava for murder if he surrendered. Even without having a biological history of how Umbrivilions digestive systems work.
3) The DA would ALSO be able to prosecute for attempted murder, and definitely WOULD, based on the information we currently have, rather than whatever head canon is going on in your mind of ‘what if.’ I get it. You’re trying to use reasonable doubt. That’s definitely what the defense would say. But reasonable doubt still requires evidence to base that reasonable doubt on.
FOR EXAMPLE: According to the police, they said you shot that man and he died from the gunshot!
Would you argue ‘No, I shot a blank, and he was already shot beforehand and therefore you cannot arrest me or prosecute me!’
Then the police can’t arrest you, right? The DA can’t prosecute, right? No, of course not. That would be ridiculous.
The police can arrest you. There’s probable cause. The DA can prosecute you. The presumption has already shifted against the defendant due to the existing evidence. The police already had probable cause to make the arrest. The Defense can try to argue all the things you’re saying, although they’d need to have some sort of basis for their hypotheses first.
In the above case in the comic, there’s probable cause that the Umbrivilion just attempted to murder Lapha by eating her. It would be up to the defense to change that by presenting their own evidence to counter that. THEN the presumption would again tilt in the defense’s favor again. Like showing evidence of a previous gunshot, or forensic evidence that your gun never actually fired a bullet.
“We don’t know that Rava didn’t just drop the chassis into a “craw of holding.””
1) You really shouldnt keep calling her body ‘the chassis’ as if you’re trying to dehumanize the character. It’s a body, whether her species considers them disposable or not, until you have evidence to the contrary, at least presented in the comic. Which you don’t have. You just have conjecture. It’s good enough for you to make a defense AFTER he’s arrested. It’s not enough to prevent him from being arrested.
2) We don’t know that Lapha’s body is transformed into butterflies and potpourri either, but again… that’s not how probable cause works. We don’t know that Rava, Pinky, and Snakeguy are actually alien murderers who have escaped to Earth by pretending to be tourists and everything they’ve been saying up until now is just an act. But that’s not what the existing evidence would show, any more than the guesses made by others that Pinky is actually a highly skilled space martial artist law enforcer, based on absolutely nothing.
“No sensible DA”
I just want to focus on those first three words btw, in particular. :) It’s pretty sensible to come to the scenario assuming that eating someone is attempting to kill them until proven otherwise.
They are disposable bodies. If you look carefully the eyes are no longer red and are black as she throws the flame. It is definitely attempted murder. The flame must hold her mind or something.
Which is exactly what I was arguing in my post, yes.
“Lapha took her mind out of the chassis and that makes it attempted murder” is a ludicrous argument. To be “attempted murder”, the Umbrivion must have been trying to KILL Lapha, without legal cause. There is no evidentiary basis for that claim at this point, beyond leaps of analogy to completely unrelated Earth species for both individuals involved.
At this point, we have no evidence whether or not the Umbrivion can vomit out the chassis unharmed. There is no evidence of the chassis being crushed or dissolved, just voluntarily vacated.
The next page could show that the Umbrivion is a star cop who *impounded* the chassis because Lapha was engaged in committing vehicular assault with it.
Or a subsequent page could show that being swallowed by an Umbrivion would degrade/destroy the chassis but not unduly harm the Flame.
Well, he tried to.
She avoided the attempt, hence why it is “attempted murder” and not “murder”.
And if he was any form of “good cop” (which doesn’t exist) he should have asked for cessation of act, which he didn’t, before acting in a way that anyone would have considered to be clearly lethal. Because getting eaten is usually lethal.
I find the squick reaction wholly unhelpful. If something is dirty, clean it. If something is unhealthy, avoid it. If something is offputting, don’t view that kind of porn (lul).
I mean, I can see how being grossed out is valuable from an evolutionary standpoint, but when we have the intellectual ability to make sound judgments sans emotional impetus, involuntary responses begin to get in the way and provide no or sometimes even negative survival value.
Imagine you’re afraid of heights; a common fear. Then say you’re caught in an avalanche. You luckily escape the snow but realize all your supplies are gone and you were somehow shoved onto a small ledge. You see a way out – the way you came in – but now you’re on the other side of a 50 meter chasm. The chasm is still bridged by a few 7-10 cm branches that you might be able to cross if you run very deftly or shimmy over. Oh, and you’re surrounded by rock or solid ice on all other sides. Good freakin’ luck.
The above example is fairly generous. There’s more than one case of people escaping from or being found dead from hypothermia or dehydration at the bottom of a chasm. Such as: https://youtube.com/watch?v=bL5YlPGNt9U
You can visibly see the emotional struggle – the guy VERY clearly cracked up from shock and loss. So much energy was wasted on this mental struggle that if nobody else was around he’d be screwed. I say this from experience, too: spending emotional energy as he did would’ve surely cost his life in many other circumstances.
I’m not one of those folks who thinks emotion is bad; this makes no sense – emotion motivates all human action, so says science. But on the other hand you get overt emotional dysregulation (as within today’s comic) which imparts a severe survival cost of its own.
I guess I’m just trying to say it pisses me off, lol.
Some people have involuntary reactions, even those who are cold and logical still have instinctual revulsion shudders when presented with a thing.
I am intellectually afraid of very few things. Emotionally? Not many. Not a fan of needles, probably because of a bad childhood full of shots, but i can watch a vet manipulate intestines outside the body with no problem.
I will say, about the only thing that gives me an increasing sense of doom is those pictures of people with holes. What’s that phobia? Popophobia? I forget. You know the one.
Its just unsettling enough that out of all the horror movie endings, that one is not the one for me.
But anyway, back to emotional responses. You or i may be able to master our emotions when it comes to heights, but not everyone is made like us. Very rarely do i ever actually get an adrenaline rush, i don’t like it. It only happens in a fight, or a build up to a fight, and i have german ancestry, when i get into a fight i quickly black out from the rage, and if I’m not pissed enough to fight, i just get super shaky. That’s another example of involuntary responses.
I know people intellectually cool with spiders, but still freak out if they feel something crawl on them.
We cannot judge others for the foibles of what is outside their control, we can only judge them on how they handle what is inside their control.
You or i know that we don’t need to worry about what we cannot control, influence, or change, but not everyone has discovered stoicism lol.
I guess all this to say, the true emotionally mature position is to be master of your own emotions, but understanding of those that aren’t.
Oh, I agree. I said something similar to another post like two days ago. I was just using that video as an example of how badly things can get when emotions DO go out of control. That guy’s situation seems so nonsensically difficult (if you watched the video) that I can completely understand why he’d crack up.
It’s like he suddenly got dropped into a tabletop game. The GM says, “OK. You’re in the middle of effing nowhere, you’re bleeding internally, and your teammate is dead. The only way out is up that cliff. Cool? Ah, yes. 40 below zero, in fact. Also, now that I have your attention: HELL difficulty. Go get your damn pickax. It’s further down the cliff.” That doesn’t happen often to begin with and it’s even rarer to survive. Watching it, I wondered if he subconsciously intentionally choked himself so he’d have the adrenaline to pull himself up that last ledge. “Either I die hanging here or I live up there. Do it.” That’s not a technique you come up with unless you’re extremely calm or extremely unhinged.
Personally, I understand his struggle. I’m not into stoicism; I invented my own techniques. Over a decade ago, I somehow subconsciously determined that I’d suffered near-terminal brain damage. I had to figure out how to think. Literally. Varying parts of my brain would ‘crash’ (seizure) any time I tried to think. I made slow progress with classic therapy at first. Then it came to a grinding halt. I made zero improvement for months. But I noticed the core problem lay within some aspect of my lexicon.
So I designed a complex one-line sentence that would always trigger the seizure. Then I systematically documented faults so I could determine the cause. The sentence was “Recursing encapsulates self-reference and so recurs.” The problem lay in the “and so” portion. For weeks, not a damn thing I did would stop the seizure. I nicknamed this sentence “steel wall.”
Eventually I found dumping a complex concept into short-term memory via just three words of reference [[Recursing encapsulates self-reference (build) -» and so (store) -» new concept (build)]] was causing this seizure. Even knowing, I tried many different contexts and methods of self-control without even slight success. One day I decided to alter the word count. Six or seven words and it wouldn’t happen consistently. Eight was the threshold of safety. Same concept, same wording pattern, but add more words and the problem stops. Weird, I know. But the seizure was not something I could control – until then – so I ruled out the placebo effect. I remember that day quite clearly despite the general memory loss. I was so ecstatic that I finally cracked the steel wall.
Once knowing, some people might choose to work around the issue for the rest of their life while dealing with consequences from the occasional slip. I wasn’t having that shit. I spent about 3 years inventing techniques to repair the deficit directly. I succeeded, too. During this process I reinvented a specific method of AI learning while not realizing it existed. Which was probably a huge waste of time, but whatever, it worked. The sum of these parts was able to rebuild most of what I had lost.
So… Yeah, not stoicism. More like crazy programmer guy, lol.
In one punch man one of the top heroes literally “Eats” a villain. Like wtf…
while not eaten alive, this reminds me that Dragon Ball Z steered away from a quirk that Goku had back in the original Dragon Ball where he had no problems eating intelligent life forms *octopus that could talk, talking pteradactyle, animal people* Yajirobi technically ate a Namekian *corrupted* when he ate Drum.
been a theme throughout the series of eating, but after Dragon Ball it seems Akira Toriyama changed how he felt about the good guys doing it and only had the villains eat people, Cell, Majin Buu, in Fighter Z we have Android 21, and more recently in the manga Moro.
Ooo, Moro you say? How many people know that that is the name of chocolate bar? Similar to a Mars Bar (but betterer in every way)
Probably not a coincidence, if it is amazing, given how many characters have food themed pun names, heck the manga introduced a new character named Granola.
Just surprised anyone outside of the country had heard of it, most people who have heard the name ‘Moro’ would think of an Italian politician
Of course she is a Wisp.
Discovered Grrl Power just recently. Binged the whole archive in one sleepless night. I am so very addicted now. And Sydney is one of the best wc protags since Gwenpoole IMHO.
One of us. One of us. Gooble gobble. Gooble gobble.
Haha, i did the same like 5 years ago, though it took me three days. I’m impressed. Also,
One of us! One of us!
Gooble gobble, gooble gobble!
It took me two days and I laughed so hard I literally fell out of my chair and hurt myself.
One of us! One of us!
Gobble gobble, gobble gobble!
I was swamped at work, so it took me just over a week, and more than a few ‘are you okay over there?’ from across the hall. It… it’s been years now…
One of us! nom nom nom
I’m sorry you’ll now have to adjust your dopamine expectation. 2 / week is obviously enough to keep a BUNCH of us around and coming back for more, but… it is a far cry from almost 1000/night
That said 3/week wouldn’t bee too bad… maybe a greyscale/pre-colour version or something!
Meh, most of us stick around for the comments (not saying the comics aren’t still good, just have had some doozies of chats over the years)
He could be treated as having committed attempted murder. Though he may not be protected under local laws.
I am flipping a coin on if Garam actually runs or rips this guy apart to get Lapha’s body out, a double membran over reptilian eyes protecting him from the dazzle.
but then again this monster is also a paid guest appearance so killing them may not even be an option so running is more likely I guess..
also there is no way Archon didn’t just see this, not with that light show only like fifty feet away. or any other now horrified observers.
Why do you think it’s only 50 feet away from ARCHON? Not sure where you’re getting that frame of reference from.
the rough area, that we still have alien tourists, not being far away from the ship and returning to the area is likely…its not an exact distance but I doubt they are really that far out of line of sight after surfacing. Besides any onlookers seeing this should be freaking out and running to the authorities.
Except they were in a CAR which drove away from that area before Archon even got there, let alone the fight starting. Either fight starting.
Not to mention it doesn’t exactly make much sense for them to go into the sewer to escape the area… just to pop back up 50 feet away.
And speaking of onlookers, cops would have cordoned off the area for quite a bit more than 50 feet, especially after the entire area was subjected to a blackout for a 3 block radius, which is more than 50 feet.
Also Maxima doesn’t have X-ray vision. There are buildings in NYC. Times Square does not have a very clear line of view BEYOND Times Square. Trust me. I’ve worked there. :)
I mean it’s possible if DaveB has never been to NYC or is not familiar with the layout of Times Square or midtown Manhattan in general, but I’m assuming he does.
my rough, not even remotely trying to be precise estimate was also based on how it sounded like they wanted to stay close to collect blood samples at least, so just out of sight but get something before the area is cleaned up, and blood tends to denature pretty quick if they want a good DNA sample…unless they have the tech to reconfigure even after some decay.
The only blood spilt, was in the middle of the action, or wherever Lord Lasagne was deposited all over the walls (and ceiling, and floor), doubt they would go anywhere near where Maxi is or know about Lord Lasagne, which means, after being spotted by Lizard Girl and Demon Boy, they legged it out of the area
I’m assuming there was also some blood spilt when Maxima put a rebar through HW’s leg, and probably some of Brut’s blood when he found he was not as invulnerable as he thought against Maxima, since he was bleeding internally (maybe he coughed up some blood? :) )
Which would be ‘the middle of the action’
True, true. Like I said elsewhere, I suspect he was only saying that to get her to leave with him since she’s too ambitious for her own good and he’s trying to protect her. Plus if they were to come back they’d want to do so after the more dangerous supers are gone.
Okay fair enough point, although he said pick up some splattered blood ‘on the way out’ so I assumed they were going to go away from the scene, then return to get some residual blood splatter when the golden superheroine who Garamm has given a lot of good arguments about NOT being able to deal with was gone already. Plus I suspect Garamm was just saying that in the first place in order to get Lapha to leave the area with him and not try to ’cause a distraction’ since he seems to be very protective of her, including from her own ambition.
Not to mention it could also be that they’re not far away but still not within a line-of-sight, since there are a LOT of buildings in the area, and Maxima, like I mentioned, doesn’t have X-ray vision despite otherwise being a superman/supergirl expy type of character. :)
I just think they’re more than 50 feet away. I’m guessing more like 2-3 Manhattan blocks, and probably not in a direct of line sight.
O.K.
First, WTF?!
Second, I think there gonna have to revoke having Umbrivion Nava be on Earth. If not for the fact that just looking at his true body causes involatile vomiting on sight alone. Then defiantly for the fact that he’s a carnivorous plant that eats people. Defiantly getting flagged at any border or customs.
Third, What the Fu<k!
yes, and if he does this to someone their death will likely be slow and horrible, and his lights also look to fold inward so the same stunning with beauty to the point their abdomens spasm will likely continue so they can’t put up much of a fight to escape as they are slowly crushed, suffocate, and are digested alive if the first two don’t kill them first.
like a mouse falling into a pitcher plant levels of WTF.
I am reminded of a plant from an anime I saw a clip of on youtube, where a giant plant ate a guy and dazzled him with hallucinations of beautiful women so he wouldn’t struggle *potentially harming the soft body of the plant* while it digested him.
people can say what they want about Cora’s weapons but at least the death part was quick even if gruesome, being swallowed alive is a miserable death…one reason I don’t like pelicans..not after seeing one eat another bird and watching it struggle as it was swallowed.
Or what happens to victims of the Sarlacc (or whatever the fuck that thing in RotJ was): being slowly digested over a thousand years or something while still being alive!!
At least constrictor snakes crush their prey first
yeah always prefer predators that kill their prey before eating them, or if the eating process is a quick death like being crushed or skewered by teeth or a beak ect… swallowing something while it is still alive…especially anything capable of feeling fear and panic like most mammals just hits something in my brain putting a big X over it.
if the predator is supposed to be sapient and the prey is supposed to be sapient on equal footing, then my mind just goes over the absolute torture the predator is innacting in this scenario and how sociopathic it is, imagine if someone did this externally, we’d have people making the same comments about Cora and her weapon only make it a thousand times worse. Imagine if someone caught the criminal and wrapped them up in a vice so they can’t breath while being crushed while slow burning acid is being pumped in on them…we’d declare that individual a dangerous sociopath regardless of who the victim was.
this is what this pod like thing eating someone is like, except it also looks to add that light going internally which continues to disorientate the prey and force abdominal muscular contractions ontop of everything else.
On the other hand, it may just encourage the “prey” to disgorge its stomach contents, nurturing the “plant”, then release them. Why hunt when you can have other creatures bring you the food voluntarily?
because that is horrible inefficient for gathering food, eat the whole thing or nothing. Besides where are you guys getting this puke is food thing from? Sure as hell not from any observed plant or animal *as a hunting method not talking feeding their own young*, or this comic or the blurbs under the comic describing it as how this species hunts its prey (as last page’s blurb stated)
in other words, it doesn’t make sense and nothing presented implies that is what they are after anyways. It feels like “I don’t want to believe this character is potentially a cold blooded monster, so here is a random what if that excuses it”.
So, you think that if an exact strategy doesn’t exist in the documented part of Earth’s biosphere, then it doesn’t exist anywhere in the universe (even a universe that has demons and such)?
How long have death ray shrimp been documented?
Inefficient? Why? Kill and eat your maniple, it feeds you for a day or a week. Leave it out there and encourage it to come back often, it feeds you for a lifetime.
It’s almost like you are arguing that sharks have to eat all the pilot fish and alligators have to eat the birds that clean their teeth or it’s not “efficient”. Biological symbiosis is not limited to one vector.
Or, more perfectly, that sea anemones must eat all the fish that enter them. Your logic is made of cardboard assumptions.
there is no evidence for anything you are claiming in the story. Maybe next page will say otherwise, but no current evidence supports anything you are posting as a reply to anyone right now. You just look overly defensive for some reason.
Also pilot fish and teeth cleaning birds are not inside the stomach. You are reaching.
I’m not “claiming” anything. It is one potential explanation for the behavior and characteristics. And the “chassis” is not necessarily in the “stomach” either. We don’t know that Umbrivions have a stomach, per se. The chassis literally cannot fit inside the Rava disguise with all the Rava body parts that we have seen. It is not physically possible, so there must be another dimension involved. We have no clue how that other dimension is accessed or what its characteristics are.
That being said, Dave said in the notes that it could be argued as murder, and asked about Lapha’s insurance, so we should assume the chassis is either destroyed or heavily damaged. That argues that, from canon, the chassis is probably not in the “chamber of encouraging worshipers to barf”.
Just saying what we see, based on Occam’s Razer *simplest explanation is usually the right one* based on how given the events, and how being eaten is usually fatal and when an animal or plant ingests something down inside its body via its main orifice this is intended to consume, kill, and digest.
add that he made no attempt to take off the flame core and she threw it last second, and to us, much as it seems to look to Garamm there, like attempted murder via consumption.
I have no incentive to think otherwise so just following the usual A leads to B conclusion for the situation.
I’ve always been disappointed in the way the Sarlacc was handled, given the technological advancement of the galaxy. Somehow this widely-known, immobile creature’s digestive enzymes can keep sentient beings alive and conscious for 1000 years, and instead of sampling and studying it for the secrets of longevity / immortality, it’s just used for eliminating petty criminals? And not even that effectively.
What, they couldn’t build a couple remote biopsy droids because the competing governmental powers keep pouring all their research money into creating and destroying planet-sized weapons?!
they couldn’t keep a woman alive because she had lost the will to live,
and despite having fully sentient droids the same artificial intelligence isn’t used in any ships (openly or commonly),
something tells me tech priorities were a little wonky in the galaxy far far away.
I always just took it that the Hutt was using a bit of hyperbole to ramp up the drama and cultivate just a little bit more despair in the minds of his intended victims. Kind of like displaying the instruments of torture before you ever get started.
They just agreed to maybe date, but she is aleady inside him?
Way to rush ahead there lady :)
She’s like a headcrab?
1) Be sure not to become her donor body.
2) Help her pick out a nice new body.
3) Try not to die in the meantime.
That last goes for you too DaveB! Stay safe.
I vote for LaRamm to skulk around following Archon for a few months until Sciona reappears to tussle with Archon again, and then when Sciona is down from a punch Lapha saves the day by kicking her out of Escorpia’s body. Hijinks ensue.
hmm, you don’t often see multiple parasites, symbiotes, or other body hijackers doing after one body (excusing the legion of demon examples as they are all the same type of thing).
You specifically typed your response in completely comprehensible English until “wc protags”, and I would like to know what the Fuck you mean with that particular letter combination you have created; please.
Only thing I can find that even looks like it would fit is “Warrior Cats” but I’ve no idea if it’s correct. https://gyazo.com/36660f550c4f9d38a07e473ddde44c45
WebComic Protagonist.
warrior cats sounds more epic
My personal guess is that the flame lookin’ race are an energy construct race – once they got access to other planets of tech, biology specifically, I imagine they got a giant factory to make a “standard” humanoid pattern for their species so the energy construct people would go out and explore the universe (and enjoy having physical senses)
I am kind of wandering if they could be a failed ascension type civilization.
the (we have found a way to transcend our physical bodies and exist as being of living energy)…*also common are the living programs and brains without bodies….only to not have realized that natural ascended energy beings are a tad more complex than they thought and end up as some matrix or brain in a jar or conciousness in a capsule ect…who have to obtain a physical body to move around.
in fact I have suspected the Alari dabbled in ascension and that’s how soul batteries came about and being able to exist as little skull spirits…except they are basically like low class wispy demons instead and have to possess a physical body again.
just these two ended up different ways one got a little flame energy body but has to bond with an organic shell to move around, the Alari mixing blood magic with it could become free roaming spirits that can revive by possessing a recently dead body and the spirits have some biological coding that slowly turns the possessed body into an Alari…at least that’s the vibe I got from those pages.
For some reason the premise of advanced species ‘evolving’ themselves into a galaxy-dominating race with an awkward reproduction process always amuses me. It would be a pretty terrifying thing in reality, but I like how it makes these ‘god-like’ races so fallible.
Deathworlders actually dabbles with the idea a bit, both the Corti and the Gao have serious population issues from too much genome meddling.
I have dabbled with the overly complex reproduction for high end species as well, I rather liked the idea presented that nature abhors immortality so does things to either kill such life anyway *negligible senescence can still die and often will anyway as they get older due to other limitations to their biology*, or limits the reproduction of longer lived life forms.
Many “ascended” races seem to effectively be dead, they can’t reproduce..and if like the Ancients from Star Gate SG-1 decide to also not involve themselves with the universe at large (despite every major problem being their fault in some way…seriously I suspect they made the Goa’uld as well due to experimenting with local parasites…a star gate was already on the planet, which the Ancients made, and not like we didn’t see them do the exact same thing with the Wraith)….any who the Ancients might as well be extinct if they can’t continue to advance, change, or reproduce, and they don’t interact with others.
any who,
on my own end I have two big ones I can remember the details too off the top of my head *I have others I got too complex with so I’d have to look at notes*
the Elder Dragons, they are sexually mature at 16 years old, however they have the minds of beasts until they are 500 years old, and very gradually increase in power. So on a world with swords and sorcery you can have thousands of these dragons before even one gains an intelligent mind and then a few centuries more before they become powerful enough to open portals or fly into space. With the “Elder Dragons” in their greater society not recognizing any of those born, even from eggs they laid directly, as their children other than the ones that manage to advance (which could be so many generations down the line) but doesn’t matter to them.
another is
The Amana: in simplest terms these higher dimensional beings have multiple ways they can make children, one of which is when they take on physical avatars, the children they have will be born as the species of the avatar, but regardless of this their internal (soul) will be an Amana, and they will gradually gain power, possibly taking centuries or millenia to ascend to become a True Amana. With so many variations caused by the different biology, a moral offspring *rare, but if they used a mortal bioframe it can happen*, may still die of old age, but their soul in the after life will gain power quickly and this becomes the Amana, living immortal children may think of themselves as demons, gods, elementals, vampires, and any number of things based on the biological side, but destined one day to ascend as an Amana…sometimes this process can be helped along by increasing their skills and power quicker, or if the biology was prime to become stronger like a super human, fae, eldritch…
on the surface you’d think that means they could have lots of children, however these children are also few and far between, and a child fully born already ascended is rare as they have to consciously mix their essences together to externally produce a new one of their kind. The biological bodies thing was discovered by accident from them playing/exploring using bio-frames. Note those children also having children has resulted in what their kind consider “temporary sub-species” like one has a child with a super human, that child becomes some immortal powerhouse, and has their own kids at the age of 20…they were no where near ascending yet, but since the spirit is the Amana and passes on the essence those children are also Amana and will someday either Ascend after natural death…but centuries after words (yeah, so many death gods, and powerful spirits that are just Amana who don’t know what they are because somewhere down the line one got busy on their planet with their ancestor…mix in other gods and spirits who just think they are powerful versions of themselves and they may not know till they get powerful enough to draw another Amana’s attention.
-on the other hand this can make family reunions weird. Oh welcome home centuries old vampire sorceress, have you met your singer sister the eldritch horror of the tenth plane of chaos? Oh and your older brother the Immortal but otherwise normal human wanderer of the stars says high; and your great grand child the wraith of madness should be stopping by later, yeah she’s still haunting the hospital where she died of old age, she just can’t get over that habit; but she’s getting stronger, cameras can see her now; going to have to have the talk with her before she ends up starting people on fire with her presence.
Since no else seems to have mentioned it, the charge of “sleeve death” comes to mind.
Assault and Battery at the LEAST. Also, civil suit for replacement body cost.
Cue running away, running past the 2 humans who got advice. the 2 humans driving a getaway souped up clone of the mystery machine complete with a confused lizard alien eating snacks. a scooby doo style chase sequence through several rooms in an abandoned mansion. and a buffet
Would have got away with it too, if not for those meddling kids!
Now I would love to see an animation, even (preferably?) poorly-made, of the classic Scooby hallway chase where the entire cast in NYC is running back and forth, chasing each other through Times Square.
The burning question is: Where is the guy they hired to give them a tour of the city? Are he and his kids parked at the curb while they walk around, waiting for more gold? Did the kids see the Barfalicious alien eat up Lapha’s meat puppet host?
I do appreciate the nice touch of eyes being illuminated due to the “possession” or whatnot – Lapha’s old body’s eyes are now just a dark grey, since her essence or spirit has been transferred – does bring up some questions, though, since she is now inhabiting a body that has a consciousness prior to her inhabiting it – some have touched on the idea of these bodies being a shell or an android or something, but if Lapha is the energy and not the body, could it be a symbiotic relationship between body and energy blob? could there be some sentience? or was it a previously sentient organism that she took over?
Looking forward to the answers, if they’ll be provided
Since she is talking to Garamm, rather than acting on the body directly, we have an answer to part of it. She’s not in control of Garamm.
Who says the previous body didn’t have a consciousness when Lapha moved in? She could just be sharing space because he’s a friend, when the normal process is to consume / extinguish the native host. *shudder*
Sure hope not because Sciona and Cora are already dark and merciless enough, I rather like Lapha as a competent but not souless underdog merc.
I expect a lighter touch than that “Lapha is a flame who murdered the prior occupant of that chassis.”
But, yes, she may have the potential to murder and dispossess Garamm, if the association goes on very long.
If she had actually ‘taken over’ Garamm, she wouldnt be telling him to ‘Run!’ He’d just be already running.
Something Lapha said back on page #876 now makes more sense. I was wondering why anyone would bid billions for a massively over powered uncontrollable slave who is likely to be the worst headache they ever had. Since Lapha’s people can just take over a body that would explain Maxima’s value to them, not as a slave but as a chassis. Whoever bought her would be wearing her.
Unless they’re able to take over the body, which so far we havent seen as being a thing, since Garamm isnt running – she’s telling him to run.
Then again, maybe they have a way to blank a mind out so you CAN take over. Or maybe they just want to do genetic scanning experiments (makes sense since Garamm was talking about getting some blood samples at least) to figure out how supers are possible in order to duplicate it.
Sciona also mentioned battle thralls, so mind control is likely a thing out there.
that and the mention of blood samples means someone likely would love to study a super to see if they can gene mod and make their own.
It seems more likely to me that if she could just take over people’s bodies by putting her flame thing on them, that she would have done so when Maxima was beginning to speed up in the stasis ray, so she could suddenly control Maxima’s body.
I think she isnt able to control other people’s bodies – it’s just more like a lifeboat for her consciousness while they clone her a new body. Sort of like in Order of the Stick with Xykon and his philactery that Redcloak wears.
I wasn’t saying she was going to sell to her own people, why I mentioned Sciona and battle thralls, implying the Alari use mind controlled battle slaves. So this is an option for other species as well.
also the easier, keep her in stasis and study her to figure out how to duplicate this power on a large scale or for trusted enforcers intention.
I also doubt that the Alari are in any position to be hiring ANY mercenaries anymore, given they just had their planet annihilated and the survivors are now planetary refugees. Lapha would not have gotten any information on humans until at least the Fel ship incident, which is already after the Alari were nearly wiped out.
But yes. There could, and probably are, other species that use battle thralls. :) I just think ‘the syndicates’ that Lapha was talking about probably were more interested in duplicating Super abilities on a larger scale if we’re talking ‘billions’… rather than just body-snatching a single person.
We do know a few details. Such as that the body can bleed and be healed, and can also be affected by a stem kit and allegedly made to grow a tail. Though the curious seams do seem to imply some sort of construction.
Could be bio-engineering/artificing, but could also be a dabbler case. Ergo both some demon and alien shenanigans going on with their species. Will be interesting to learn.
Vore fan service.
I kind of wish there was a Wiki for all of your races. I’d love to look up an Umbrivion and read about their racial traits, heck I’d even look at a picture and puke my guts out.
I imagine even in universe a photograph wouldn’t have that effect.
like how you can look at filtered pictures of the sun, a photograph filtering out the psionic light they give off so you just see the raw physical form.
Just want to describe how horrific a death this would be, to be swallowed whole and alive by a creature like this only a little bigger than yourself.
People should know what being buried alive is, being stuck in a dark coffin with very little air, compact, the panic, unable to move around much as you slowly suffocate to death.
now add that you are covered in slime, the coffin is more like a bag squeezing you so tight you can’t move at all, you are being crushed, every breath out may be your last; if you die from the suffocation, or being crushed to death you are lucky. The digestive enzymes are not like how vore writers like to describe, there is no (oh I’m melting and becoming one with them), in real life its a chemical burn, anyone who has been splashed with acid or recieved any other chemical burn should know this sensation, the burning, how much more sensitive and painful the affected area becomes, but now its everywhere, you are being dissolved slowly, burning, suffocating, and being crushed as you can’t move.
Honestly if he didn’t know she could jump body or intended for her to do so….there should be more finger pointing at him being a sociopath than there was at Cora for “blendering”that one guy. Hell Cora was far more justified, the guy had detained, physically assaulted, and was in the act of trying to murder Sydney, Cora’s weapon may not have been instant but aside from the shoulder wound the rest sure was instant.
this guy on the other hand, we don’t know they even saw the fight. For all we know his go to reaction to his friend being shoved over was *you die now* and proceeds to do so in a slow and horrific manner that would be extreme even comparing to most serial killers.
News at 11: Humans met by alien life, horrified by dietary interactions, less interested in interstellar travel.
I’ voting for Flameonians.
I am reading this on Friday night so haven’t read through all of the comments. I’m sure someone has covered this, but I get the impression that Lapha’s people either are a goa’uld-type symbiote or they use a body as a fuel source. In fact the Flamonians may have evolved as such, but eventually created a more useful bio shell.
Seeing people voting on a name for Lapha’s species, a nice change of discussion. I’ll play along.
Kefa’fotia.
From the planet Phlogiston.
I’ve been reading this comic for a while, and several months ago, I entered a state of “I have no idea what’s going on” from which I have yet to return.
You’re lucky, I remember the whole comic.
Are those replaceable bodies off the shelf clones or custom made to the owners original genetics?
If they are born with them then some options are more likely though if the flame only reproduces and is sentient then the species originaly was a body thief race.
It could be currently symbiotic where the typical host race is no longer sentient after generations of this and now needs a flame parasite to function. Farming the bodies is likely then rather than cloning for sale.
Either way i’d expect the bodies to be geneticaly enhanced or have a function that makes them more desireable of a choice.
Most commenters are thinking of the legal aspects of what happened but my mind is heading towards the business of body production and sale and the relationship between the body and flame.
Looks like Lapha’s Who’s Who image is already out of date.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/wp-content/themes/grrlpower/images/ref/lapha01.png
Vore is gross