Grrl Power #379 – Don’t forget the alien sex tourism
I imagine if you could pass among a local populace in a reasonably impenetrable disguise, it would be super cool to tour alien worlds. In fact if you could facilitate that, you could probably make a pretty health business out of it. There’s a jillion things you’d have to take into consideration though, everything from basic biological compatibility to the environment and the food supply down to ensuring your tourists don’t smell like kerosene to the locals. They rarely address body odor in sci-fi shows, but even just among humans, we all tend to smell like the thing we eat a lot of that another culture doesn’t (not just our bodies, but the stuff we cook with gets in our hair and clothes), and humans have a pretty poor sense of smell compared to other mammals.
Imagine a race that evolved from some kind of scavenger that strongly smells of carrion because that’s what attracts mates. Sapient Carrion Crawlers or Neo-Otyugh for example, or what about a race that farts chlorine? The big Sci-Fi franchises rarely touch on that stuff. In Star Trek all aliens are humans with prosthetic foreheads that have The One Quirk™ like they’re not allowed to travel at warp speeds until they get married or their amassador has to get to first base with the ship’s doctor or all diplomacy will break down or they’re a race of shapeshifters… And seriously, Wesley didn’t want a girlfriend who could shapeshift? Who cares that she turned into a Spider Wookiee? It shows a staggering lack of imagination on Westley’s part that he couldn’t look past that. I can guarantee whoever wrote that episode had never been a 14 year old boy.
But I digress.
Does this mean the team will eventually have to deal with stinky aliens? Honestly I’m not sure how many aliens the team will deal with in the near future, but there will probably be some of that. Dabbler will eventually break it down for Sydney at some point when I can figure out how to not make that an 8 page expo-blast.
Originally Sydney was going to say “Offer not valid in Florida and France” as France is a perennial go-to to dump on but I didn’t want anyone to misinterpret the not-really-a-slam given recent events.
Let me throw out another reminder about the Amazon link. I’m so bad about Xmas shopping myself, but that’s partially cause it’s easy to lose track of time when you don’t socialize at school or work all day. One of the benefits of being married is there’s someone else around the house to remind you of major holidays.
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Have I mentioned how much I love all the attention that is put to details like these?
Nearly all other settings tend to brush past them intentionally, forgetting that they’re a crucial part in making the world come alive, and ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING!
This may even be detailed enough to become a /tg/ quest on 4chan.
Mi Girlfriend took subtlety lessons from Sidney. XD
I recall two things: Rygel, from Farscape, who farted helium. Also, from Galaxy Quest, the alien who fell in love with the human and who stayed in love when her cloaking wore off. Love. True love…
I get the sense that Dabbler’s more like Chiana when it comes to wanting to sex everyone up.
Guy “Oh, now that’s not right!”
You beat me to the Rygel comment. Especially funny when he and Chiana had to share the pressure pod.
Better yet the time Rigel ate chakkan root and his body digested it such that he developed explosive urine (not firehose pressure, think air ignited).
Scene: the Doctor’s office.
Doctor: “So, you’re telling me there’s a burning sensation when you urinate?”
Everyone hates on Florida. It’s not that bad here. I mean, I’m here after all.
And another here. Be careful though, too many Grrl Power fans and we might swamp the state!
((Looks outside)) Doh! Too late…
Florida: Even at our northernmost, it’s the mid-70s Fahrenheit in mid-December
I’m in PA and it hit 70 today. Granted that’s not normal, but still…
I’m 300 miles north of you and it’s in the 70’s so you’re not that special =P
I’m in Canada (okay Toronto is almost as south as Canada goes, but still) and we are near the same high temperatures. Our normal highs are about the nightly lows we are getting.
El Nino’s playing his tricks
Yeah It doesn’t really get cold here until usually Mid-January when the Polar Express comes through anyway but it’s usually cool enough here now to at least have a jacket in the car just in case.
I’m in Windsor (both when this came out and currently) which literally IS as far south as Canada gets. don’t worry – the winters will get cold again as Climate change alters the jet stream, bringing more arctic vortices further south. And with more heat energy driving the weather, there will be ever so much more of it…
Don’t feel down. Once your new overlord is installed and he gets that nice “Escape from New York” style of wall around the whole USA then everyone can be like Florida :) (I am kidding about Florida, I have a lot of my work colleagues based over there and they all are great peeps who oddly even take the mick about their fellow Floridians )
Better walled up than blown up, I say… Oh noes! TOO LATE!
(Madman goes running in!) Allah! AKUZBAR! (Blows up)
(Madman’s turban on-too-tight friend) Oh! SWEET! Put this on YOU-DUDE!
Lived in Florida… twice. Don’t believe him it is worse the you can ever truly imagine…
Never Again.
Just because you got carried away by a mosquito…
That was a dragonfly. Giant mosquitoes are native to Alaska. Which is why I live in Washington State, where Sasquatch stroll through the woods and you can’t find a package of Jack Link’s Beef Jerky to save your life!
Oh, and before anyone complains about their weather, here’s a joke for you all:
Q: What do you call 40 days and nights of continuous, non-stop rain in Seattle?
A: April.
What’s the rest of the world like in comparison? I have lived in Florida forever. People, weather, anything.
Is it weird that I just noticed Dabbler has two different colored eyes? At least in glamour.
It’s not the glamour, even in her true form she has heterochromia.
The specific medical term for her condition is “Ow, somebody stabbed me in the eye and I had to build a new one”. She did manage to improve on the human designed version, so it does not make the ‘doo-doo-doo-doo-doo’ sound when she zooms in on something.
She doesn’t have two ANYTHING eyes. she has one eye, the other one was poked out, she replaced it with a cybernetic implant. (presumably she chooses to keep the cybernetic implant a different color for style points)
It’s quite possible that her original eye was also hetero-chromatic.
Not to sound too pervy, but Dabbler’s legs are AMAZING.
Pervy? She’s literally a walking talking sex fiend. I’m not even kidding, that’s her actual designation, being a succubus. She wouldn’t take every opportunity to show off those amazing legs if she wasn’t pushing for attention. Pay all the attention you want, it’d make her happy.
From the way Barberian looked that morning, he paid so much attention that it cost him a LOT. Dabbler is expensive on the metabolism…
The Dabble exercise plan! Beats the hell out of dieting! :D
Eh, couple days worth of Carbo-loading and he’ll be back for round 5-7.
and then Dabbler gets her fill of protein shakes
archon will run out of chairs by that time.
And lots of Vitamin S? -_^
It will make her happy and fed.
I wonder if Archon’s doc will diagnose Sydney with Asthma. Often a complication in adhd. Would explain how she gets out of breath so quickly.
Depends on the type of Asthma, there are several varieties. Not all get out of breath so quickly. The version I have mainly kicks in when I forget to actually breathe when talking in ultra excited geek mode and only realise when getting light headed and not enough air over voice box. And to those without it asking “how can you forget to breathe?” trust me when you have any Asthma you have to have breathing exercises and lessons because, yes you can unfortunately.
Have a similar problem, but with me, it is simply literally forgetting how to breath for a few seconds (don’t breath as often a most people, due largely to taking deeper bigger breaths than ‘normal’, and taking a ‘pause’ and then thinking had forgotten to do something, oh yeah… resume breathing!!! followed by ‘umm, how do we breath again?’)
Exactly. I had to point this out (as I’m a smart arse lol) to someone at work when they commented that a particular task they were doing was as “simple as you breathing”…To which I pointed out that does he mean he starts, stops and sometimes forgets to actually do it.
I believe her getting out of breath is due to being in poor physical condition.
Halo brand Velcro Flyers. Now with “fly off in surprise” action.
What happened in those first three panels, the ones with all the nudging? I’m confused.
The alien Waitress just showed up and Sydney got excited.
THe first two Sydney is nudging her about hte princess thing.
The third is her bopping Syd to get her to stop asking about it.
Almost: the first two were getting Dabbles attention that this is the alien princess waitress, third is Dabbles letting her know that she got it
Aha! Thanks.
I love how Dabbler is going cross-eyed at Syndey’s hand in the last panel.
So, given how I managed to sleep with my pillow too low and have knotted up the muscles between my shoulder blades as a result, I have to wonder, what happens if Dabbler sleeps wrong (she does sleep, right?)? Would she be able to use her lower arms to massage the muscles for her upper set, or would the pain extend to both sets of shoulder blades? Or is her musculature such that she never has to worry about the situation?
Even worse…What if her other muscles get sore? You know, those muscles that human women DON’T have…
;)
Those are so finely toned that they never get sore…
Need the next bit to be Dabbler biting that finger, and when Syd pulls it back the cherry stem is tied around her finger. ^_^
Oh yes, that would be wonderful :D
Oh. My. God! Yes, please! ahahahahahahahaaha
or how about slowly sucking it and when popping out has a knotted cherry ring around it.
Then Dabbler says,
“You are my new Friday night girl.”
Yes!! So many yeses!!!
Love the friendly convos with these folks.
Also had to reread the big panel a few times.. the word setup threw me.. Took me a bit to realize that the big ones in the middle was the opposite side person talking..
Next to last panel. I though the shoe was going to fall onto the orb and hover in a circle around Halo.
… I feel that an opportunity like that should happen. Maybe she can put little ghost costumes on them for Halloween…
i fully support every detail of this suggestion.
“I imagine if you could pass among a local populace in a reasonably impenetrable disguise, it would be super cool to tour alien worlds.”
Speaking as someone who does kind of do that IRL? It sort of is, the downside is worrying if somebody who is not “Hip” Finds you out.
You might want to read the Myth books by Robert Asprin. He explores that theme in a few of the books.
Also covered in a few ST:TNG shows. The one where Riker is discovered to be an alien (alien to the natives he is impersonating, naturally) is especially hilarious.
Well to be far it wasn’t especially funny from HIS point of view.
That’s because none of them found him attractive enough to space-bone him :P
Assuming you’re referring to the Star Trek: TNG episode First Contact, then he did indeed find someone to space-bone. Whether or not she found him attractive may be an open question though as she mainly seemed to want to be able to brag that she did it with an alien.
Oh, and the woman in question was played by Frasier’s ex-wife.
Was referring to the episode Oberon was talking about, and how he didn’t find it funny because they wouldn’t space-bone him (whether because his disguise was of an ‘un-attractive’ specimen, or they were able to see through the disguise and found hyu-mons to be unappealing in ‘that way’)
Ignoble has it right, I was referring to the episode First Contact where Riker had to screw a native who wanted to “make it with an alien” in order to improve his odds of escaping. Although she was done up with glasses in the librarian look she was pretty cute, so even though he seemed reluctant this is Riker we’re talking about…
Then of course, there’s Sir Richard Burton (the explorer, not the actor) who impersonated a Muslim to explore the Arabic world. He brought back the Kama Sutra and 1,001 Nights. If he had been caught, he would have been put to death.
Isn’t the Kama Sutra, from India? o_O
Sure, but given the wildly popular subject matter of the book, there’s no reason to expect it to have stayed there.
Yeah, but then why would Snake Burton’s daddy have to have snuck into Arabic land to steal it? o_O
Is there a point to any of this, or it is just more exhibition that won’t get used, or if it does get used, it won’t be for 5 years?
Exposition…exhibition is something else entirely. Albeit, still within Dabbler’s schtick.
I’m thinking it MAY have something to do with the stuff “above her paygrade” that the other guy suddenly realised she would need to know when he found out she was at the club.
besides I would still happily be reading this in 5 or 50 years. I am just thankful that art and story this good comes out twice week, when you have some web comics like say Dyna Girl that bring out one page once in a blue moon if you are lucky.
I so enjoy this stripe. I can imagine playing a superhero campaign in this universe; it could be WILD!!!
What if you play a Super VILLAIN in that setup? It’ll be interesting to see how some of the people here would attempt to handle someone like Maxima.
If they are smart, they will take her out to dinner first… oh wait, she had a bad experience the last time that happened :P
Yeah having a guy come crashing through the ceiling looking for a fight tends to do that.
Max would be fairly easy to deal with.
Sydney on the other hand, she is the one to watch out for.
Heh, the final panels were off the bottom of my screen here. So I was half-expecting the panicked Sydney to end up face-down in Dabbler’s cleavage, or lap!
if only Yorp, if only.
Also dude are you over here yet? if so did you start your marathon crisp ordering?
He he. Yea, I am back in the UK. With snorkel, so that I can keep my head above rain-water levels. Although fortunately not in part of the year, where I would literally need that. This year, anyhow. I have over a previous Christmas.
I have been knocking back my salt & vinegar crisps, like they are going out of fashion. Current favorites being the Real McCoy crinkle-cut ones. Lots of surface area to soak up masses of intense flavour. Plus they have the texture that Walkers crisps lack.
I’d like to argue against the Texas remark, but…
But what?
Two words: George Bush.
Two more: Ted Cruz.
You have no call to complain about any Texas jokes.
Of course, New York has two pretty good ones as well: Donald Trump.
I’m not complaining . . . well, not exactly. Certainly I respect everyone’s right to have their own opinions and DaveB’s right to put in whatever jokes he likes. I’m just wondering how well received jokes about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would be.
He should have added California to the list.
Reasons,
Pelosi ,
Boxer,
Brown,
San Francisco ,
Hollywood , need I go on?
Also Louisiana (unless you have a Purdy cousin or mouth then you sure are welcome). Actually Texas has one redeeming feature, which is Gas Monkey Garage.
I can find many jokes about the whole lot of them That I find hilarious, they just go beyond the “They’re not US bulls#!t”
Well to be fair, any country, province, stats, or other locality can be used.
Because somewhere someone thinks the people there are idiots.
“Waaaraaaugh”
Ka-RIIIIIP!
Well the wookiee came in handy for once.
Stupid cybertronian mini-con clone.
*Looks in horror* my Moonblade!
That was just Screwball jr.
Don’t worry I have plenty more
Forgot to post the lame one-line rejoinder earlier:
Yeah, and I think you’re a space case.
From DaveB‘s blog: “In Star Trek all aliens are humans with prosthetic foreheads that have The One Quirk™”
Strangely enough, I thought Star Trek’s single big Quirk was the Captain of the Enterprise…And he didn’t look like he had a prosthetic forehead.
;)
“Who cares that she turned into a Spider Wookiee?”
From what I see, she’d be nice & warm to cuddle up with on those cold winter nights. I might have a problem with those eyes though…And particularly those fangs.
“Does this mean the team will eventually have to deal with stinky aliens?”
As long as they’re not outright toxic to humans, it shouldn’t be THAT bad. I’d think a bigger concern would be for them to inconspicuously tote around sufficient environmental gear to keep a liquid methane breather alive though.
“One of the benefits of being married is there’s someone else around the house to remind you of major holidays.”
Tell me about it. My wife & I married on a Valentine’s Day, so I couldn’t possibly forget it. I”ve probably saved myself a buttload of argument & grief by picking THAT day for our anniversaries.
;)
You think you have it bad? My Wife’s birthday is 9/11 ….
I know a guy who got married on 10/10/10 just so he would never forget the anniversary date. :)
Trust me, if you ever DID forget the Anniversary it is likely to be the last thing you ever forget
So, there is this SciFi series written by Alan Dean Foster that I adore called Pip and Flinx. One of the things I love so much about the books is the thought he put into alien life. One of the species that Humanity kind of grows a close friendship with are the Thranx. They’re a bit like Praying Mantis. He goes into depth about things like how they can’t tolerate the cold and how they smell like flowers to us. In contrast, we’re disgustingly flexible (the act of a human sitting is intensely unnerving for them) to them and we smell awful. It’s a fun little series and I highly recommend it.
yeah he is really great at giving life to what others would simply churn out as two dimensional characters plus his work on fleshing out the Star Wars universe.
Try Ian Douglas’s “Star Carrier” series.
There are no humanoid aliens.
And when there is meaningful interaction with aliens you learn at least a little about them.
Yay, another person who read/reads the Pip and Flinx series (aka Flinx of the Commonwealth series)!
I especially liked the Ulru-Ujurrians (giant, fluffy,mostly peaceful, mind-reading-and-tunneling-through-Spacetime Teddybears who occasionally rip a bad guy into shreds….when they aren’t busy playing civilization and making scientific miracles look like childsplay….. ;-) ) (<- for everyone who hasn't read the books) Big thumbs-up!
I liked the one about the trigger for the ancient weapon.
Little thing wandering the galaxy, babbling away.
And every so often saying something scientifically profound.
And no one notices till near the end.
yeah, they all thought he was some sort of nigh-immortal alien (seeing as he survived electrocution, impalement, blaster shots and other stuff without any indiction that he even noticed what was being done to him…)that had gone little bit wonky in the head over the course of several millenia (i think Bran and Truzenzuzex deciphered pretty early in the book that the little guy was using a mix of languages that had been dead for several thousand years or so…)
Note also that the Thranx homeworld is called “Hivehom.” Seems appropriate, doesn’t it.
yeah :-)
since we’re already on the topic of good sci-fi books, has anyone read the Sector General Hospital series by James white? It describes, in detail, over 60 (!) sentient and spacefaring species and mentions several hundred more, the vast majority of which aren’t even remotely humanoid. Like the Tralthans (six-legged, elephant-like (in size and appearance) creatures with four indepently swivelable eyestalks and two trunks) or the Illensans (chlorine breathers that look like someone took a bunch of needles and spikes, randomly threw them together and got something (very) vaguely resembling a humanoid shape…. also, they thinke they are the most gorgeous species in the entire universe, with the others species politely disagreeing on that opinion XD) It also features a rather interesting four-letter system for describing previously unknown species to anyone who isn’t directly at the scene of accident/operation/first contact and doesn’t have visuals on said species (Example: AACP describes a carbondioxide breathing plant-lifeform with 8 appendages and 12 occular and/or other sensory organs. A describes the lowest, most primal form of evolution, while anything beyond T is so rare and exotic that it sounds like it came from the realms of myth (like shapeshifting, inter-species telepathy, telekinesis, teleportation, or even downright immortality, among many other wonderfully weird things…)
Fun Fact: It is also mentioned that, so far, no one has ever encountered any species that is beyond the V classification…
Dave, for some rather bizarre aliens check out Babylon 5.
Also your talk about stinky aliens calls to mind specifically these guys:
https://aliens.wikia.com/wiki/Pak%27ma%27ra
Damn, I was just gonna mention them. Damn mind reader, you. -shakes fist-
given I didn’t get to it until Tuesday, I’m surprised someone else didn’t get to it first.
They did
Sydney’s imagination features the Sydney Opera house! That’s my town.
On the Sydney Scoville Jnr. Tour, she will mention how it was named after her :D
But Ms. Scoville, you will not get into the White House as an environmental lobbyist and start dating the president. Wrong Sydney. In that case, the Syndey issue would not be compared to international treaties with Australia, but more likely some of the final attacks on Japan during World War 2.
Movie night, space, aliens… I’ve recently been thinking about the use of Parsecs in Star Wars and have come up with the following argument:
I feel compelled at this point to speculate that the use of Parsecs as it was used by Han is appropriate when talking about warp drives, based purely on how warp drives work i.e. by warping space so that the distance the ship travels is shorter than the distance between the start and end points by pinching space around it; thus stating that someone completed a specific journey in a specified distance implies that all ships move at the same speed, but the warp drives bend space to varying degrees, and in the case of Han, the warp drive was particularly good at altering the way space appears.
I just feel the need to mention/discuss this with people and there’s no-one around here (irl) to do that with.
Wellll…in the EU, they make his statement true.
*Ahem* Kessell is a penal colony set on an asteroid in the middle of a cluster of black holes. To go there normally requires a roundabout route through the cluster at sublight speeds to avoid the gravity wells.
What Han did, to avoid the police, was cut right through the cluster, turning a 20+ parsec trip into less than ten. He also managed lose most of the bottom hull plating, and he still got caught and had to dump the spice.
He might boast, but it was really a very bad day for Han.
Just figured he knew a short cut
… strange question but…. how loose are her shoes?
Insert “Your momma” joke in response.
Waitwaitwait, if I recall correctly in the Wesley-Shapeshifter episode, he did still like her in the end, but she had to leave because of her overprotective guardian, I think. In the end she turns into her “true form”, a big ol yellow light. And he just smiles with his mouth open. Then they never see each other again. The end.
Yeah but we all know Wes just preferred the company of an older male role model who wanted to “show him the galaxy”
Ewww tmi . But a non-invasive sfw notable version here https://sharksplode.com/comic/captains-prerogative/
I don’t know if anyone else saw the start of the Childhood’s End miniseries on SyFy this week. At the end of the first episode it looks like we may have found some of Dabbler’s long lost alien relatives.
There’s a book series i’m reading right now where in the 5th book after interacting with at least a dozen different near-human and alien species the main characters finally meet a people with super sensitive sense of smell and at first contact negotiations for forming an alliance the other race is cringing and gagging like us humans smell like pungent shit, and the masking perfume the aliens bring to aid them is so out of our range that we can’t even smell it.
I don’t understand what’s happening in the first three windows btw. Could someone explain?
Sydney is nudging Dabbles to let her know that that is Jeanie Green, and panel 3 is Dabbles’ way of saying “Quit it!”
I had some trouble with it too.
In the first two panels, Sydney is subjecting Dabbler to a barrage of elbow nudges to let her know that this is the alien waitress she was talking about. The third panel is Dabbler responding with one big elbow nudge to say, “I get it, Syd. Knock it off!”
Sorry, that was supposed to be a response to Pander’s question above.
Don’t forget the alien sex tourism
I imagine if you could pass among a local populace in a reasonably impenetrable disguise (..)
… if someone was there for the sex tourism, wouldn’t they rather have a penetrable disguise?
(Sorry. I know that’s now how that was meant to be read, but I still just couldn’t resist)
Dabbler holding the cherry with one of her glamour’d arms is a nice detail.
I thought that at first too, but now it seems to be on a stick: cherry into the orange/lemon. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it –until I don’t.
Halo: I think Dabbler’s a space princess.
Dabbler: I think Halo is a space case.
Harem: Yeah, I noticed that already. At least my nose doesn’t hurt anymore.
“Invisible grope”
And your ass feels good to.
Sure, if we do have alien reptilian intelligences hiding in plain sight, their carnivorous diet would give them away. Or at least attract attention to them via their slaughter house breath. So they may use something quite strong to hide it or stop other humans from smelling very old meat for awhile.
The last time I was living in Florida I was stationed at McDill Air Force Base in Tampa. And on January 28,1986 I stood outside and watched the Space Shuttle Challenger not make it to orbit,so Florida deserves to not be denied.And I’ve been living in Texas since 1995,and have lived in Texas most of my life (a was born just outside of Chicago & I got there as fast as I could,but don’t remember much of it).So Texas,since NASA is there it most DEFINITELY deserves to be recognized as the most accepted for future F.T.L. Space Travel.
Not just carrion eaters, but meat eaters can stink up the place.Why their breath can smell like a cooked slaughter house. And Yes smell is mostly ignored. Much harder to hide smell than ones form. Even in a pseudo-human form or an image thereof, their diet just might slip through.
I was born and raised in Texas. Last or nearly last on the population getting adequate coverage of the all important medical. We have one of the best medical facilities in the country, but it is hard to get to it to use it. Not good for a supposed First World Country.
“Mostly harmless”
Is it bad I thought Dabbler’s lower lip was Sydney’s finger? *facepalms*
Am I alone in mentally adding “know what I mean, say no more” when reading the word nudge?
I skimmed the comments and didn’t see anyone else mention this, but sorry if someone did and it was addressed.
I suspect there might be a mistake in the speech bubbles in the panel right below the top 3. It looks like Sydney says “I don’t work for alien immigration Sydney, and again native aliens isn’t…” which doesn’t make much sense, and then I can’t really tell who is saying what for the rest of that panel (it looks like Dabbler is saying Sydney hasn’t seen Men in Black and needs a movie night to understand pop culture, and then says she likes her own suggestion).
I think the connecting lines are supposed to be passing underneath the bubbles, and the bubbles in the middle aren’t connected to anything, to suggest that they’re being said by the other character. But it’s not the clearest way to present it.