Grrl Power #1086 – Befuddle a beholder
There’s definitely some wires crossed in Sydney’s brain, right?
So yeah. Cthillia is an anthropomorphic beholder of some flavor. That’s “beholder” not “Beholder(C)” because Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast/D&D owns the copyright on “Beholders(C).” I thought they also held the copyright on Drow, but I looked it up but couldn’t find anything to back that up. Not sure about Lolth. They’ve definitely (C)ed Carrion Crawlers, Displacer Beasts, Mind Flayers, and a few others. But as Cthillia is humanoid, I’m probably in the clear. All this isn’t to say that she’s a chaotic evil bipolar agoraphobe necessarily. She has eyestalks with powers and moderate budget for scale polish for sure, but her mental state and interpersonal skills are a little more up in the air.
Anyway. I had actually planned a far more dramatic reveal for her at some point in the near-ish future, but I couldn’t really see how the current storyline would lead to what I’d originally imagined. Plus it’s also super funny to me that Sydney just badgered it out of her.
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Honestly not even the top five weirdest/scariest things Sydney’s seen.
And that’s not even counting things that are (supposed to be) fictional!
Sydney has shot sparks of light from her butt.
OH NEAT! He’s a Beholder Humanoid. Actually pretty solidly designed too. I’ve been looking for a solid humanoid Beholderkin design and this fits the bill perfectly.
Cthilia is a she, DaveB used female pronouns in the post below the comic.
I’m mean, I thought the patterning on the eye-stalks made that clear.
Patterning of eye-stalks is a genetic feature and has no bearing on preferred pronouns.
Lookyloo was joking I think. :)
That’s not bad at all really….. Compared to some of the critters we saw when Sydney met the supernatural council it’s actually almost mild. The catch of course being we don’t necessarily know the characters origins so if she started out as human yeah I can definitely see how there would be a certain psychological issues there. I would also be very curious to see specifically how dabler or one of the more multi-dimensional experienced individuals would react….. Is the revelation of a particular species or just another unique snowflake?
hmm, yeah we the audience have seen some pretty inhuman aliens and infernals come in a lot of variety, Cthilla could just be a poor lost orphan from some infernal family, odder yokai, or other interdimensional entity.
I missed where her sex was said.
She/hey pronouns have been used
9 at least unless some of them are ordinary eyes (but even then I guess seeing is a power) . The one in the middle of her forehead is closed, and I’m pretty sure it’s the one she used to blast the vault.
It’s been said several times now that Cthillia is female. I will find some of the links when I am at a computer instead of dying in bed. :)
Ps – so she probably has 6 powers – one for each eye.
Looks like she has at least two more eyes slicked back on the top of her head, as well
Ngl, at first thought they were head-diks. Since they are shaped like them and are all wrinkly like a dik.
Then saw Chthila is a she and then got confused.
Some women have dicks.
She can kill with a smile, she can wound with her eyes
And she can ruin your faith with her casual lies
And she only reveals what she wants you to see
She hides like a child but she’s always a woman to me
She can lead you to love
She can take you or leave you
She can ask for the truth
But she’ll never believe you
And she’ll take what you give her
As long as it’s free
Yeah, she steals like a thief
But she’s always a woman to me
…it’s almost like Dave wrote & designed her around these lyrics. ^_^’
I really cannot wait to see what she accomplishes with the Epimorph…
Oh, very nice lyrics reference! >Clap<
I also like Billy Joel.
MASSIVE props for reference to the SCP Foundation. Spectacular website.
People have been wondering how to incarcerate renegade supers. SCP, man. Secure. Contain. Protect.
Is there a significance to the fact that her eyes are the same colors as Sidney’s orbs?
I’m curious why only two have a shared color.
I count 4
I count 4. Red, green, purple, and yellow.
Blue is close enough to be a match in the right light. Panel 5, but not panel 6.
Ummmm, there are 6 visible with 5 colors, but if the others’ assumptions are correct she has 9 eyes of at least 5 colors.
probably because orange is just light brown with context.
That was my very first thought: Is there some connection or correspondence between Sidney’s orbs and Chthila’s eyes?
How does she close her mouth? That top front tooth would giver her a overbite or a under bite. Either way she’s going to have dental problems.
That was my first reaction: That’s some odd dentition, how the heck does she chew? What’s with that uni-incisor on the top, and a row of fangs on the bottom? Functionally it makes no sense!
Probably comes from being married to a dental assistant.
Anyway, tempting Halloween costume option, frankly.
You’re assuming she does chew. A lot of predators just rip off chunks of meat and swallow.
That said, you’re right the uni-incisor is really weird.
Closing her mouth isn’t the hardest part. Imagine her trying to smile for a picture.
That said, I’m sure she needs to be pretty careful when/if she chews unless her lips and cheeks are incredibly tough.
That’s actually why she wants to use the regenetor blade – to fix her teeth. That’s it. Everything else stays the same.
I just wanna say, Cthillia is *AMAZINGLY* good character design. That head with the ‘molded slots’ for tentacular eyestalks to lie in so they can assume different positions on her face are a masterful bit of well-considered structure for making eyestalks practical and useful. So they don’t bounce around and aren’t in positions that are outside muscle memory, even while she’s actively moving. That is honest-to-god masterful in terms of thinking out what an evolved structure for supporting and using eyestalks as an active being would look like.
I don’t think I’d ask her out on a date, but – from the perspective of someone who thinks most evolved forms of life are beautiful for the elegance of their design – she sure as heck ain’t ugly.
Well, she did say she wasn’t as ugly as Cooter.
I thought Cthillia would be super ugly. I did not expect her to look that badass.
React like a normal person!
Sydney: Nah that’s not ever gonna happen.
Though I think it might have put Sydney ever so slightly off, I mean come on not a single Infinity Stone/Gauntlet ref?
cthilia is what results when you mumble to the bard that the party is going to SLAY the Beholder, and he chose to listen to his randiness again to fill in the missing words…
Just like the dragon, right?
Oh, man, was she ever hot! Good call guys, good call.
Other people: “Sydney is weird like this because X + Y + Z.”
Me: “I so identify with Sydney right now.”
Seconded.
Thirded.
Huh. Not sure what I expected, but this isn’t it. Neat.
I actually really hope this doesn’t stay just a gag and these two form a real friendship from this interaction, we’ve had such a build up with cthilia calling herself ugly and a monster since she was introduced that the first reaction is a hug and sympathy moment actually feels a little big y’know? I also enjoy her playing straight man to Syndey’s sydneyness
Same. Out of all of the comics so far. This is our favorite page. Especially how utterly flabbergasted Chithila is when Syds glomps her rather than screaming in terror.
Sydney building a friendship with her on screen and seeing a SoL hang out chapter or 3. With Chithila being all Batman tier tsundere would be beyond epic.
I actually really hope this moment doesn’t remain just a gag and the two of them form a real frendship, there’s been such build up for this reveal since chtillia was introduced with her being terrifyingly ugly, possible gorgon, and calling herself ugly or a monster, so Sydney’s literal first reaction being a hug and sympathy feels very sweet in a momentous sort of way.
Heck Sidney could offer (forgetting again her causeway supposed to be a secret) Cthilla a ride to fracture station pointing out all the different aliens there and some sort of resembling Cthilla so she may be an alien orphaned on Earth j
Sidney is likely jaded at this point between her fiction, and real demons, superaturals, the kaiju robeasts, and various aliens. Heck she had conversations with *i think there name was Trent* a tentacle from a tentacle monster hivemind covered in eyes and mouths.
on the copyright issues.
Monster designs can be tricky in that regard. I did look into due to writing fantasy and horror and heck I am proof reading one of my series (what I post to deviant art is effectively first drafts), that has a shape shifting monster called a mimic. Which is a public domain word and shapeshifting monsters are not copyrighted, so long as it doesn’t have the same origin or exact description of other mimics *that said a ton of video games and other series had already been using it for very similar but distinct concepts so safe bet not to have an issue*.
So when it comes to monsters you either have a name that is common usage, or based on a pre-existing folklore or mythological creature; but you make a distinct version of it, so while anyone can use the name you own your version. This also applies to any public domain things (see Disney specific versions of fairy tales vs anyone else using them, or the Winnie the Pooh situation where Disney now owns the red shirt version but the character and setting are now public domain).
you can even use a public usage name but your creature bares no real resemblance to it, making it your specific version. This is commonly done to more vague folklore like Elves, Trolls, goblins, vampires, dragons, etc…and my favorite as so many don’t realize it is in this category, kobolds. (who in folklore are just small invisible people that live in houses, mines, boats, and follow humans around), if you were to have kobolds but make them look like little dragons or rats then you might have copyright infringement issues, which may be why anime makes them into short dog people.
the situation with Drider falls under here as well, if you have a spidertaur and make them dark elves turned into that form in worship of a spider goddess, then you have problems. But make them a human transformed, or just born that way and call them Arachne (despite not matching the myth, but eh whatever) or Jorogumo; then you have no problems.
It comes down to identifiability with a specific brand or not.
(Unfortunately this can even apply to location names if you make up a name and someone can claim they had no knowledge of you despite using a name for decades that no one else was using, and point out similar names, and thought process to come up with the name, and differences between them arguing its like claiming only London England can be called London…and yet I don’t see anyone attempting to call anything Narnia…
The most copyrightable would be a unique design with a unique name, see Toho Kaiju and superheroes. Although you can get really close in design to some of those, and make a few cosmetic changes, change the name and backstory and be okay. (examples being so many Godzilla expy).
Jaded is the wrong term for it I think. It is more likely that Sydney, after getting her initial shock of realizing that everything sci-fi/fantasy is based on something real, just accepts that those things exist.
It just means in Sydney’s mind, people are people, and outta be treated as such until they do something to prove they suck (for example, the insane misogynist crime boss who got spaghetti’d)
habituated then.
Seriously, did Cthillia not know Sydney was once stuck in space? She has seen and fought things so far beyond humans they may as well be termed gods.
I’m sure that Sydney’s “Lost in Space” adventure is classified and not general knowledge. It would depend a lot on whether Cthilla was in the room when Halo filled Deux in on the details.
Halo never filled in Deus on the details.
Why Halo was really in space and how is classified, however that Halo was in space is not (thanks to her and Cora showing up in front of the press and then holding an aliens press conference).
I doubt Harem’s spilled those beans much besides to Deus. I’m not sure she even spilled them to Deus, though he would likely react with something like, “Well, that could explain… nah, that’s too much of a coincidence. It’s not like I’m living in a comic strip or something.” Except only in his head, because Deus isn’t going to spill those particular beans back to Harem.
But regardless of whether Harem told Deus, Deus wouldn’t tell one of his contractors. He probably wouldn’t even tell Cthilla if she decided to go full time employee.
she fought and killed two planet destroying super weapons from an alien race that casually destroys empires, yeah she has seen some shit
He has “Halo Orbs” for eyes :P
She.
Yeah I noticed the typo right after too lol. Unfortunately, no edit or delete option since this isn’t a log into chat type of thing so I just left it.
Sydney is actually a big asset to the team. Her ability to not freak out at certain things is ridiculously useful.
So…at some point, Cthilla used a wish from an Evil Genie and wished she had the powers of a beholder?
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/JackassGenie (Caution: TVTropes Links can lead to a lot of time disappearing into the void.
Interesting. Cthilla’s mouth closes and opens from the top. She doesn’t have a hinged jaw at the bottom like humans. Her upper lip and jaw look like they slide up and down instead.
What exactly is “normal,” Cthillia?
You seem very fixated on it, which is understandable, I think, but I don’t think you understand that, really, nobody is “normal.” Normal only exists in our perceptions, which is why, if you start digging into literally anybody, you’ll discover things that are “not normal” at some point.
Honestly, babe, you seem like a hella normal person to me, below the surface. You’re concerned about how you’re perceived by society. Yes, you are a much more extreme case than most Earth natives, and so that makes it – quite seriously – a potential safety/survival issue for you.
But consider the fact that you’re very much in control of yourself. That you are clearly quite able to think, to reason, to imagine, and to at least conceive of empathy. You are, in my wholly unprofessional opinion, at least as human as I am.
Very normal.
Yup. Different people are different. Some of us are very different. Cthilla’s just a bit more different.
…. so… she single?
Missed opportunity: have the 6 eyes the colors of the 6 orbs, implying a connection.
Seven orbs but otherwise sound.
To be honest dude what with the Trent the Tentacles, the city sized Cthulhu planet killer you are about a 3 on the what the hell list for this week. The dude in the Top hat at the council meeting who was eloquently spoken was higher up. Besides, this could be good for him that not everyone needs to feel threatened by his looks. It’s 2022 dude, people are more open these days, look how NY welcomed the alien tourists.
Cthilia is a her, not a him. See DaveB’s blurb below the comic.
I thought dude was often used in a gender neutral way (mostly because surfers are lazy).
I missed the gender reveal, was literally a quick read then a comment before trying to rest after having 31 injections into my head and neck lol
Good lord who is trying to turn you into a human pincushion and why?
Ironically its for pain management. Nerve damage in spine & neck, helps cause me to have over a dozen migraines a month plus daily headaches so I am trying out the experimental Botox jabs into my head & neck nerves to deaden them enough to try & reduce the severity of them. About a 40% chance of reduction, was my second session as have to have it done every 3 months & yes having them willingly use me as a pincushion in the same nerve bundles as well as my forehead, scalp & neck hurts…..a lot. But normal pain meds don’t work.
TBH, considering Sydney’s circles of interest, it would be a surprise if she didn’t have some wires crossed.
Also, I guess I also have some of the same cross wiring
To his(?) “ACT LIKE A NORMAL PERSON.” comment.
I’m surprised that Sydney hasn’t responded with a “I am, this is pretty normal in my life.”
Her
Sydney’s brain works so fast that it skipped past shock, horror, and revulsion to “Four eyes! No, six eyes! No, eight eyes!”, which caused it to slow down, and when she started to think about glasses, that’s when her mouth caught up.
That is pretty cool since the beholders are suppose to really not have a set appearance, oh wait that is the old tieflings from planescape, but still cool take on that creature.
Technically Drow are heavily based on Svartalves, which are mythological, and the name “drow” is just a old dialective word for “troll”, so D&D probably had a hard time enforcing that copyright, as long as you don’t bring Lolth (who is copyrighted) into it, same as they can’t copyright “goblins”.
The name comes from Scotland (specifically the Orkney and Shetland islands), also known as trow, trowe and dtrow
Cool, she’s a Bejeweleder.
This is yet another example of Sydney’s “contagious stupidity”… that might be her true secret super power
Am I the only one to notice that the colors of her eyes mostly match up to the colors of Sydney’s Orbs!? Like, that cannot be a coincidence! Right?
Did it occur to you to read any of the previous comments? There are 12 previous threads of people discussing the similarity. So I guess you’re the 12th person not to notice that someone else already started a conversation on the topic.
so beholder insect human cross-breed? eh, either way not going to rattle sydney not even in the top ten. tbh I really was expecting a basalisc sort of lizardman look. considering sydney and everything she’s seen her reactions are closer to roll a die and see what you get for normal stuff and for strange things its closer to oh neat or its not really that impressive
And now I’m wondering if that is a 9th eve between the two yellow ones and is it closed because it annihilates everything it sees in sort of a disintegrating ray?
How do I get a friend, girlfriend anything that is exactly like Sydney
I feel like Cthillia’s line in the last panel could be the quote on a CCG card for Scoville COnfusion aura, or something.
“Ok, what the fuck? Seriously? React like a normal person.”
‘While this card is in play Sydney Scoville gains immunity to mental status effects. Any creature attempting to inflict mental effects on her is confused for two turns and cannot take any actions.’
Didn’t Cthillia’s two “main” eyes both used to be yellow? You can see it in the ‘who’s who’ section. When did that change? This scene? Or earlier?
I get the impression the stalks can switch positions
I was curious so I went back & checked, Cthillia’s main eyes have changed when he was using “or had ready” certain powers.
My personal Theory is his mask has those folds in it so he can have 2 “normal” eyes ready to go, but you can’t quite see what his head looks like, so you never really notice that he is changing which 2 eyes he is using
She. Why does everyone keep calling cthillia he? It’s been reepeated many times now, especially in the forum.
Because people assume male as the default, for some reason. Especially if prominently displayed female characteristics are not evident.
Also, most people don’t read comments. Including people that post comments. There’s a general problem on the internet of people asking questions that have already been answered, but they didn’t bother to go looking for that answer, because they want it just spoon-fed to them, even if it would take less time and effort to just look for the answer themselves. For a particularly relevant example, questions beginning with some variation on the phrase “Did anyone else notice”.
Yeah but it’s sort of been repeated a lot at this point. Just seems odd.
That Cthillia is female? People gloss over and ignore details that do not comport with their preferences, beliefs, and understanding, probably to reduce cognitive dissonance. They also just tend to miss or forget details, in general. People ask a lot of questions in the comments that make me wonder if they’ve read the previous pages at all.
I suspect that one of the reasons female characters tend to have exaggerated female traits is because they would be assumed to be male otherwise. But catering to this assumption also reinforces it.
No no. Odd that people keep missing many people correcting the mistake and saying Cthillia is female.
Again, that would require them to read other comments. See the 14 different threads all discussing the similar variety of colors between Sydney’s orbs and Cthillia’s eyes, several in which people ask whether or not anyone else noticed. Their goal was not to acquire information, but to express themselves, and how clever they think they are. You and I may come to the comments to have complex conversations with other people, but that is not true for many people.
His eyes are like Sydney’s orbs
Her… :)