Grrl Power #1019 – Rosetta brain
The important thing to take away from this page is that, yes, the Alari have ass-sculpting technology.
A hundred and thirty languages is a lot. It’s one of those figures I could probably justify by reminding everyone that she’s a super-genius and also 187 years old, but even so, that’s basically a language every year and a half. She probably only learned 3-5 by the time she got into demon middle school. Her demon elementary school was diverse, sure, but you don’t want to learn languages from people who barely speak it themselves. Besides, she didn’t even learn she could do this until late demon middle school.
By the time she got into demon high, she’d learned connecting to others’ brains like this has a lot of other benefits, especially when making out. Let’s just say it made all parties involved extra invested in getting to second base and beyond. Succubi have more bases than other females. Well, maybe not, but more innings, anyway.
This is one of those things I’m surprised I wasn’t able to work into the comic before now, but Xhosa is a pretty cool sounding language. She’s not going keep her brain tentacles in their ear sheaths in a target rich environment like that.
What a perfectly normal sentence to type.
Tamer: Enhancer 2 – Progress Update: It’s done!
Seriously. It’s done! 210K words of weapon building, dinosaur fighting, harem satisfying, lumberjacking, moderate diplomacing, bad guy chopping action. Also some humor.
January’s vote incentive is titled “The Origin of The Might Halo.” Hopefully the reason is evident.
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Her method of learning new languages is hilariously similar to how Uryuoms do it in El Goonish Shive. I’m sure that’s a coincidence but given how long that comic has been around there is a decent chance most webcomic readers have at least heard of it. I’m actually surprised she doesn’t learn language like Tamaranians, might be the only time Starfire can be more “open” than Dabbler.
That is the exact same thing I thought, huge EGS fan here. (Grrlpower and EGS are both in my top 3)
As a result of this webcomic, I now have headcannon that Uryuoms and Succubi are the same species, just going by different names, and both these series take place in the same ‘verse, and it’s scary how much my head is now pulling in parallels between the two.
Should make a crossover surprisingly easy, if they ever decided to do one.
Grace: And this is my friend Dabbler. She shares my enthusiasm for learning new things and for not wearing clothes!
Imagine Grace and Dabbler actually meeting. I would *love* to read that crossover!
It would be great because they have so much in common, but they’re essentially exact opposites in terms of their sex drives and attitudes towards sex!
that sounds about right, one or two universes over, in the main cannon the powersets are different, and Uryuoms dont have biological genders, i can see succubi being Uryuoms fault, but not actual Uryuoms.
Dave has referenced EGS in-comic…
Xhosa does sound pretty cool, I’ve met 2 native speakers over the years and the clicks do seem to flavor their accent in English. Khoekhoe is another of the Khoisan languages; apparently Africa is the only continent with these phonemes, aside from an extinct example in Australia.
Welsh is another interesting one with some sound combinations that are hard to get down.
But Xhosa isn’t one of the Khoisan languages, is it? I thought it was a Bantu language that had adopted the click sounds from the surrounding peoples. Or am I wrong?
It’s apparently a Nguni language, which is a subgroup of Bantu? Have pretty much exhausted my knowledge of the subject at this point and trying not to get sucked in the Wikipedia rabbit hole yet again.
The Wikipedia rabbit hole has another name.
Those brain sucking ear antennae first made their appearance in Dabbler’s science corner:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-dabblers-science-corner-1/
I refuse to believe in any language where ‘zurp’ is a word.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=zurp
Zurp is a slang term in English among some millennials. It means a mixture of ‘yes’ and ‘yeet’
Also, apparently, it’s a real word as well. It means ‘to smoke weed secretly or in a secretive manner preferably in the shade so smoke isnt as visible and the risk of being caught or busted is less.’ Go figure. :)
“Yeet” is a word?
Yes. “Yeet” is a word.
Your opinion on whether a word is or is not a word doesn’t matter. People use it, and people understand what it means. That’s all you need. It doesn’t matter that it was invented by people younger than you.
Or, instead of interpreting things in the most aggressive way possible, we could celebrate finding one of today’s lucky 10,000, and link them to a definition and perhaps some examples.
Nah. It’s pretty clear from their other posts that they just dislike slang made up by people younger than them.
After reading Urban Dictionary for a while I have come to the conclusion that millennials thoroughly deserve the problems they will inherit.
You should take a dekko at the invented words decorating Victorian English, especially among the upper middle class, especially at universities. Almost all of them are long gone now, but they were recorded for posterity, and some of them found their way into literature.
After reading Urban Dictionary for a few hours I came to the conclusion that it is 78% BS + 20 1% oh my gosh I got to get this pieces in by 5. The rest of it is simply internet trolls trying to troll the most troll thing on the internet
LOL
Just to make sure we’re all on the same page: Millennials (AKA Gen Y) are, at YOUNGEST, in their late 20’s as of this post, having been born 1981-1996. Gen Z are those born between 1997 and 2012, and Generation α (or Alpha) are the children of Millennials, being born between 2013 and… now. We’ll just have to wait and see if we make it to Generation β.
Anything you read on Urban Dictionary should be taken with a pinch of salt the size of Jupiter (planet, not deity).
they say while speaking a language with the word slurp.
Zat so?
I guess we can assume Dabbler knows the non-Terran languages. In which case, not knowing the first sentence would really trigger her curiosity.
I like how you depict casual racism against white people. It’s neat.
I’m confused about this post. I mean I’ve seen examples of that, but more in some posts, not in the comic so far?
Be more offended, you giant crying baby. You’re soooo victimized.
Dear diary.
Sooooo triggered right now. I can’t even
Am I missing a thread or something? Because reading this response is making me think that BobbyG is referring to something I have not seen.
Both of those Gandalf’s are fake accounts
I don’t understand this entire thread though or what BobbyG or Gandalf are talking about.
Gannie is attacking Bobby, and… no idea what they were talking about, might not have even been anything on this page, they simply posted here because it’s the latest page
Okay, so none of us really understands what they’re going on about? Just wanted to be clear on that.
“The Very Secret Diaries” (NSFW) may or may not have been referenced.
@gandalf,I know you’re looking down on him but your comment is not exactly making you look like a good better person than what you perceive him.
I agree, and I don’t even know what threat they’re referring to at this point.
Er, “Please Don’t Feed The Trolls”?
too late. trolls fed. now we need a hero to do hero things to the trolls.
check Bloomin’ Fairies as to the proper procedure for Trolls.
(you might need to Patreon it to see the back issues)
is it similar to The Cummoner? if so I had more L. Skywalker type stuff in mind.
Wouldn’t the L. Skywalker type stuff be “try as hard as possible to redeem them, and often succeeding in doing so?”
You called?
BobbyG said:
> I like how you depict casual racism against white people. It’s neat.
What was the racism in question, or are you simply trolling?
You know I really want to see more of those three guards for some reason there’s strangely wholesome, and would like to see more of those three getting up to Shenanigans and having Adventures.
The REAL real takeaway from this page is that Dave has come a LONG way since the first iteration of flat-butt Heavenly Sword.
Sydney, you may as well tell them about your universal translator in your eyeglasses.
They are absolutely going to ask anyway after your little KT-Gate scandal.
She is so bad at keeping secrets.
I really feel like Dabbler should have offered to buy that knowledge instead of just casually having it.
I meant grabbing it.
Also, how did those three understand eachother??
Learning to understand the spoken word is much simpler than learning the whole language. This is not uncommon IRL actually.
Deus most likely grabbed a large number of translator devices to hand out among those that work for him while at Fracture.
Likewise the Alari could have them, and the demons could have either that same tech or translation spells with exclusive function between members of the same combined force.
How do somebody from France, someone from Germany, and another person from Italy understand each other?
People can be multilingual, right?
Yes, but it’s more often by speaking a common language than understanding all of the relevant languages. (Dinner in France, the table next to me was French and German coworkers. They were speaking English.
I meant grabbing it.
And hey, how did those three understand eachother??
It cost them nothing for her to learn it from them, so what would she be paying them for?
The word “rape” comes to mind.
So to take this full-circle, prostitution?
It has been postulated that is all we are. I’m not sure “they” are wrong.
Hard to say which is the more wildly inappropriate way for an alien to learn a new language.
Dabbler sucking someone’s brain with her ear tentacles.
Or Teen Titan’s Tamerans who lip lock a native and learn their language.
The idea of an Alien/Demon/Whatever entering your brain and taking knowledge out without explicit consent is an absurdly uncomfortable concept. I get we’re rooting for her but since the language center of the brain is easily disturbed the idea that she could sneeze and ruin a strangers ability to form a cohesive thought is terrifying
this is why I made it so even when the most powerful and advanced aliens went to learn human language directly from a human brain the “method of communicating the date” between the advanced being and the squishy human brain was extremely uncomfortable for the human to say the least.
the idea Dabbler can do this with different species this painlessly speaks volumes for being designed for pleasure…although wouldn’t be surprised if she used a neural numbing wave to counter how uncomfortable this process is…if so the…um…victim…would still likely have a hangover like headache after a few hours or the next day.
This brings a whole new multilayered meaning to “brain fuck”.
Ok if she can duplicate knowledge like that
1 that what she did right now was piracy, or espionage. She basicly stole soldiers know-how. Sure language is public but Dabbler take that soldier knowledge about language. Besides tentacle on head of foregin soldier= assault and squicy
2 if this work with any knowledge this is op
In one of Dabbler’s science corners she used it to get info from DaveB, so it does work for more than languages. Also, he didn’t look too good, so I guess there are side effects that she may be suppressing here.
I find it awkward to find inappropriateness to bodily functions. It’s the equivalent of finding “eating” inappropriate or cats/dogs licking their arses to clean themselves.
It just is.
you are right, but funny enough it is still a thing in some cultures.
Never show your teeth, never show your feet, hair, eyes, tongue,
do not spit, and dining etiquette in some cases has some people insist they eat away from others in private. a writer for Babylon 5 likely found out this one and used it for an episode where an alien species was offended because a human ate in front of them, the behavior of eating was considered intimate to them (despite not being some safe vore for mating reasons species), just the act of shoving something inside a wet orifice can be enough.
but imagine meeting aliens that deer poop and think nothing of it.
heck I wouldn’t be surprised if there are aliens that primarily pass their waste as gas and find humans farting or burping to be completely revolting behavior.
cultural and biological differences, and culture influenced by biology *although we know from enough human examples that sometimes people just make up random rules for their appearance and behavior), can only imagine the horror shows if humans had tails, cultures that cut them off, cultures that sew them to their backs, with the least awkward being the likelihood cultures that force them to be kept under clothes *hell Western culture got to the point with just ankles and legs they insisted tables have skirts so men aren’t turned on by them…dead serious*.
heh I had a dream the other day about angels that wore decorative dress sheets over their wings at a party because touching feathers with other angels was considered intimate contact.
in the book Hail Mary the alien had a thing for watching their friends sleep. but eating, you do that crap in private. and don’t talk about it! It may help you understand that the aliens were a species that had a digestive trac, but no anus. the narrator had a word for it so it must be something that happens.
Yeah, there are species like that on Earth. Just not hugely common, because most animal life on Earth evolved from worms, and so the anus goes back a LONG ways.
Flatworms don’t. Then there are facial mites, that just accumulate it until they die.
Putting aside cultural issues. Eating and what cats and dogs do is one thing, that’s on your own. But what Dabbler and as mentioned what DC’s Tameran’s do physically involves someone else without consent or explanation of what they’re doing, which isn’t a stretch to think that it be a violation of personal space and therefore inappropriate.
It’s just apparently in this comic the woman is just weirdly fine with having her brain syphoned on the spot. something else you can add to the things Dabbler gets away with and faces no repercussions for.
Please keep up the comedy gold!
Little known fact: As a pup I was fluent in six languages, including Xhosa! And I didn’t have a handy language downloading app.
Sadly I lost all but one due to lack of use, after I left Africa. But my proficiency was such that, on the phone, I would be mistaken for a native speaker.
Not that I was anything remarkable. To the contrary six was rather a modest number compared to many people I knew there.
Don’t sell yourself short just because others know more. I think six languages is pretty dang impressive!
Something tells me, that Dabbles still managed to pick up on what the words meant, even if she couldn’t understand them :D
That wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest!
My father is a polyglot. Knows about seven languages conversationally, and another eleven or so at ‘can order lunch comfortably’ level. (Protip, once know one Romance language, you know them all) He says the hard part is that you no longer have an ‘inner monologue’, you just *think*.
I’m the exact opposite of a polyglot. I have the amazing ability to forget how to speak a language within a year. Almost completely, although I’ll usually still be able to read it at a VERY slow pace.
I’ve KNOWN 8 languages, but I have this major problem with retaining a language after I no longer need to use it.
I have FORGOTTEN 6 languages, or I’ve gotten so bad at them that I can barely speak them, although I can still read semi-well and write a little less well.
Learned French in high school. Forgot it as soon as i got my A.
Learned Spanish in college. Forgot it as soon as I got my A.
Learned Hebrew when I visited Israel. Forgot most of it about 6 months after I came back home.
Learned Russian when I visited St. Petersburg. Forgot it about 6 months after i was home.
Learned Hawaiian when I was little. Forgot it by the time I was in high school. Still know a few words, but they have to repeat it several times.
Learned Korean when I was little. Forgot it after my parents divorced.
Learned American Sign Language in summer camp as a counselor in order to teach some deaf kids how to use computers. Amazingly I still retained about 900 words and the alphabet and some slang, to this day.
I would probably forget English if I didn’t speak it for a while at the rate I go with forgetting how to speak languages. Then I’d just go around grunting and pointing probably.
It is a well known fact that if you don’t practise a language regularly, you will forget it. Just as important, while your brain may think it remembers minor details like pronounciation, your vocal organs lose their muscle memory and you start struggling to put words together fluently. Which simply means that just reading the language is not sufficient. You. must. speak. the. tongue.
Which indicates why “languages” are often called “tongues”.
The longer you have used a language, to longer it will take to forget it. But about ten years should do it.
*grunts and points at gorblimey*
Some days I’m barely unilingual. (start at 1:30 mark)
That. Funny. Ha ha!
*goes back to grunting*
Interesting that the one ‘secondary’ language you’ve retained (more of) is the Sign Language, rather than one of the spoken languages. I wonder if that’s simply an effect of it being associated with a different part of the brain? Or does ASL still see some use? I could see it as being more likely to be relevant in NY than the others listed, but I don’t know to what extent it actually is.
I did French at high school level, and could probably just about scrape survival-grade as long as people talk relatively clearly. I also know a few bits of Spanish, German, and Italian, but only at a basic level at most. Much of my knowledge of languages is biased towards what commonly comes up in choral music, so not necessarily very relevant to everyday life!
Almost thought that that was the Alari hand in panel nom (panel nine)
We already see her intrigued, but having her hand unconsciously reaching, to me, seems like it would look better visually
Great book.
When is number 3 coming ;)
Actually, Sydney, it’s one hundred and thirty-one now.
V O T E
How did she avoid telling Max during the debrief after New York?
She still has two options to bluff:
1) kinda like that she got a translator on fracture station.
2) play it as dumb trivia, because, is it hard to guess that the demon was speaking “demon language” and the Alari was speaking Alar?
She could even play it off by asking “What is the Alari language actually called?”
Archon has demonstrated a consistent and embarrassing lack of proper debriefing, especially given that they have 2 separate branches of geeks looking into all the suspicious activity / artifacts, and at least one genre-savvy nerdgeek monitoring the online super fandom. Granted they’re probably all buried in weirdness given how busy the team has been since it’s public debut, but there are lots of very obvious questions going entirely unasked.
3 say shes got a nack fir identifying languages by how they sound but isnt multi lingual (like how i can identift chinese and japanese from each other but barly know 100 words in either language at MOST
If Dabbler can suck language from someone’s mind, I wonder what else she could take – can she get skills from experts? Fix her swordfighting limitations by connecting to Math?
Or is it specifically language that gets auto-copied? Maybe because it’s necessary for proper mind-reading?
“If you can think it, I can read it. And memorise it. And use it against you.”
“If you vocalize it, I can record it. And replicate it. And use it against you.”
Clever boy.
100% would get that cybernetic implant long as its restricted to skills and languages and not memories
Problem is, language is memory, same with skills
Dabbler probably knows Alar and Chiktr so good luck pretending you just pulled that answer out of your butt.
I mean, an Alari speaking Alar is just the natural guess, and it’s not implausible that Sydney read up on demonology and knows what language the demon guy (at least I assume it’s a demon) is speaking and can similarly guess.
and how would reading up on human imaginary demonology would she guess a real demon language?
and yes “demonology” is all made up, its not religious dogma, its the inventions of bored people and only partially based on a few middle European gods and folklore but is like 99% pulled out of the ass. It is basically the same as Dante’s inferno, religious fanfiction.
add that dis-information, the veil, and you have plenty of reason for any information about demons and such the average human could access would be inaccurate in this setting regardless.
I just want to make a note that I know demonology stuff is taken as true in some series (a lot of demon and hell based series use it as a template), but I would be very surprised given everything so far if it was even remotely true in this setting.
I’m not talking about imaginary demonology, I’m talking about real demonology, i.e. the study of actual demons in the Grrlpowerverse. Zephan does it, Dabbler knows some of it first-hand.
Considering the mission, it’s plausible that she was actually briefed on it, but even other than that, she might have requested access to some of what Archon knows.
yes this is possible, although I wander if Zephan would give it to her. He seems to have retained his suspicions of her and her keeping secrets may be enhancing that.
But Dabbler could be teaching her off panel as well.
Just having my usual knee jerk reaction to demonology.
If Max learned about Sydney’s enhanced eyewear, would she take her fury out on Kora or Dabbler or both?!?!?
And Sydney for not disclosing this fact?
GUYS I FIGURED OUT THE MODEL HE USES FOR MAX’S LIPS!
https://moviewriternyu.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/potatoes.jpg
Huh, not seeing even a hint of the mustache in Dave’s adaptation.
Huh. Those glasses could be a real asset in a situation like this. They’ll be careful what they say around Dabbler, but it’s possible they won’t expect anyone else on the team to be fluent in off-world languages. I wonder if it’ll come up.
That said – If it meant Dabbler’s ass was comfortably within my grasp, I, too, would seriously consider swearing fealty to an Alari house.
I guess we’ll see just how perceptive Lorlara is, whether Sydney being able to effortlessly identify two off-world languages raises any red flags.
Though I guess it’s not a difficult leap to think “Oh, she’s been to Fracture” > “Anyone who goes to Fracture gets a universal translator”. Who knows? Maybe they’ll assume that, and miss Cora’s little gift.
That looked like the thing Profion put into Damodar’s head as punishment in the Dungeons and Dragons movie. Hell he even used it to extract information just like Dabbler just did?
I have to give you kudos for even remembering that awful movie. Nicely done!
(As I recall, Damodar did something similar to the cute Magic-User woman who joined the party of adventurers, but I forget the details.)
So once again, “Han Solo and Chewbacca Syndrome” rears its head. We have three guards or formidable-looking citizens conversing with each other, each in their own native tongue despite understanding their fellows…like how Chewbacca never says something like “Shall I prepare our vessel for hyperspace now?” and Han Solo never answers with “GWARRARR HRRRGHUFF!”
Why do characters do that? :-/
I think most species can probably learn to recognize a wider variety of languages than they can comfortably speak. Auditory receptors need to be able to recognize and discern between a wide variety of stimuli to be able to comprehend the world, but vocalization equipment only needs to be able to produce a narrow range to be able to communicate with others within the same species.
Ah should have been through a kiss like starfire.