Grrl Power #1170 – Save vs. Girl Talk
Dabbler reaaaaaaaly wants to hear specifics. This is absolute torture for her, but they both know that Maxima knows something is up. Dabs isn’t exactly being subtle here, but she’s going to take the lifeline as offered. Max might not even mind sharing some details with Dabbler, except she knows Dabbler will be pushing only for the most salacious parts of the evening, whereas Anvil just wants the normal girl talk stuff. Which, if what I hear about girl talk being exhaustively comprehensive is true, will most likely include the salacious stuff.
It’s a fair bet that Dabbler skips the first 30% of porn videos. I mean, for reasons other than they’re always terribly mic’d, and there’s only so many unconvincing line readings of “but you’re my step-sister…” that one can take. Dabbler just wants to get to the action.
The June vote incentive is finally up! Maxima is prepping for her night out.
And in the Patreon variants, she gets (un)dressed and takes a look through all the makeup options.
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Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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The good news is that apparently Rowan made it through the evening without serious injury. Possibly alcohol related memory loss, but that’s beside the point.
Also, I have to assume that Dabbler may have managed to put some sort of sensory data recorder in the choker and is extra anxious to play that braindance. 200 years of adventuring experience doesn’t preclude her doing something woefully unwise…if she gets caught at it.
This is what I was coming to say. Dabbler put a recording function in the choker and is going to download the data
On the one hand, that makes perfect sense. On the other hand, this is pretty clearly about how Dabbler figured out that she had accidentally left in a feature she knows Max wouldn’t be cool with a few pages ago and is hoping to rectify this before Max figures it out.
Besides, if Dabbler DID include a recording feature (which would be pretty in character for her), I’m sure she has some way of remotely accessing the data without needing to physically take the choker back. She has magitek AND alien super-tech, you really think she wouldn’t have been able to include some kind of magic or alien bluetooth equivalent that enables her to access the recordings from elsewhere in the building?
I have my doubts Dabs did that, she said the mana battery was limited, and adding too much would make it useless. 20-30 minutes isn’t worth the work, right? I think the more that was stored, the less mana was available for the illusion.
I find it amusing that you think Dabbler was telling the truth about that and not making up an excuse to get the choker back.
Dabbler was thinking aloud to the 4th wall, and takes pride in her craft. I can’t see any justification at all for the repeated theory that she did put a recording function in, which would go far beyond the minor tweaks done to prevent shininess. It would require some major changes, and could only have taken place in the hack session while assisted by 3 other competent builders without any of them noticing. I’m shocked she was able to work in the social aura.
Yeah, plus, if she had installed a streaming feature, she wouldn’t have been freaking out and then being concerned, she would be warming up her spaceship and leaving the galaxy
yeah but like any good tech you always put in a back door. maybe that’s what she’s worried about?
But this isn’t “good tech”, it’s a re-purposed, mass-produced party trinket that was reprogrammed in the field. With the input and oversight of other competent members of the team. I think Dabbler’s own explanation is the true one, presumably as a weak psychological effect that piggybacks on the visual signal or some such.
And even then I’m surprised she was able to sneak it in. Converting the hardware and software from just broadcast to receiving and storing input would have been a far
If you make a function too easy to access, you can’t guarantee that it won’t activate at a most inopportune moment. Like a pop-up ad. Whereas requiring physical possession pretty much means you need to be more deliberate when trying to access it.
Would she be able to have a remote viewing feature? Absolutely.
Depending on the magic system involved, it even could be possible for her to add the remote viewing feature in a way that causes it to not actually drain the mana battery at all – it’s just that the person activating said remote viewing feature has to pay the full mana cost when they’re using it.
That said, could such a remote viewing feature be secured enough to prevent exploitation by a third party? No. Some systems allow for barriers to be put in place to attempt to restrict who could access such a remote viewing hook. But in any of them, a sufficiently powered magic user would be able to exploit it to do things that they couldn’t do if the remote viewing feature didn’t exist. The same can be said for the record functionality itself.
As such, I’m guessing that Dabbler didn’t make said choker into a security hole just to cheat on a game she’s been enjoying with Max since before the comic started.
Was she tempted to do it? Absolutely. But desiring the purity of her game to catch Max naked is sufficient to cause her to not do it, even if all the operation security issues weren’t enough of a deterrent. That said, I feel like somebody probably gets a better grasp on operational security and its importance sometime before they’re a hundred and eighty how many years old.
Swap “magic user” for “hacker” and you have the problems we had in the computer industry with remote desktops in Windows. They were a nightmare with the first generations of the product, and then I was out of the business so I never knew if they got fixed or if they were removed, because I didn’t see the option in Win11 as installed on my computer.
I may be too late for you to ever read this, but https://www.howtogeek.com/752040/how-to-turn-on-and-use-remote-desktop-on-windows-11/ implies that it’s off by default.
I wouldn’t have thought Dabbler would have needed it if any thing actually went down. I would think that she would have picked up on the tantric residue if things were even remotely romantic.
Good page today. Many funny faces.
The first three panel series put me in mind of Mabel, from Disney’s Gravity Falls.
The second minded me of Eda, from The Owl House.
Both of those are absolutely good things.
was her date as sweet as the drink?
was sugar involved? (old song)
it should be totally written out in valley girl speak. like totally.
No need to sugarcoat it.
please don’t glaze over the details.
I got a sweet tooth for puns.
Speaking of sweet tooths: the return of Dabbles cute tooth returns in panel nine
Always enjoy a nice sweetlol.
I’m pretty sure that you all now just do this to torture me, although it does keep the ninja economy rolling along. :/
Also gives the ninjas lots of opportunity to practice their sweet moves, which is just icing on the cake.
mmm, now I’m hungry, mind if i ganoche on some of those puns?
Give me your ‘get out of ninja hit squad attack’ card back right this instant Brichins!
well, ninjas wear full body black clothes.. and its 100 in the shade here so i’d say the ninjas are Krispy Kreamed.
Macha Icecream Party at Panders Place. Bring a topping.
Betrayers. Betrayers on all sides.
I’ll set up the honey traps, the beholders need some new eye candy
Relax, Pander. The icecream was Fat Free, Sugar Free, Dairy Free, Organic, and Freezer Burnt. It tasted horrible and we had a mean ten year old capture the very moment of their disappoint on physical film. It was a trap.
Ah okay. Torture for those ne’er-do-wells. I approve. :)
So you decided t’ okashi it out, hmm?
Ame have to file a complaint
Never, it’s the centerpiece of my Internet Points collection. Really pulls the room together.
*takes back card!*
would ninja paratroopers constitute use of a stealth bomber?
Yes, yes they would. And they would take the loong way.
Why do I keep getting the mental image of Winnie the Pooh licking a honey pot right about now?
That … hits different under a comic about Dabbler and clandestine disguises. O_o
Dabbler had to fight REALLY hard with herself, but for once, survival triumphed over horny.
Man that’s anti-tantric damage being inflicted real-time in panels 8 to 10. Poor Xuriel.
Panel 9 has Dabbler’s very wild imagination processing Max’s statement and all sort of possibilities are flashing through her mind, with very few of those thoughts being about the engineering challenge she was just given.
So…. Rowan got close enough to notice that particular issue… ;)
Didn’t the girl who was upset with Max for taking up all the male attention make a comment about her having no pores or being weirdly smooth when she was failing to forcer her out of the bar?
Had to go look – the self-appointed bouncer girl calls her ‘surprisingly sturdy’ but only touches her jacket.
So clearly she and Rowan shook hands after all.
… Who said it was Rowan?
It’s a fair guess that he might have mentioned that ‘her skin felt “weirdly silky and slippery” since Maxima put it in quotes.
Was joke hinting that she went somewhere with Shioh instead
ohhhhhhh
Feels more like something a kid would say. A very young one.
Even money she drove him back to his place and had a brief encounter with his kid.
Recall, he also claimed to be getting “back” into the dating scene.
*sad background music*
That would be an interesting twist.
I for one would love to see it.
Not because I want to see Max slotted into mommyhood, but because the sheer volume and variety of hijinx options are absolutely staggering.
You mean like a Mindy and Buttons thing? :)
Max and Rowan are busy and need a babysitter. Sydney volunteers.
Hijinx ensues, almost culminating in an intergalactic war.
Oh wow. No rational adult would leave Sydney in charge of a child – but sleep-deprived parents of newborns aren’t necessarily rational.
Gets me thinking though – anyone on the team with kids (now or later) is going to need sitters with security clearance, just like ambassadors and other politicians. Other team members would be good candidates, but that’s not going to be viable all the time.
I am now attempting to Rube Goldberg together the chain of improbable events that leaves Rowan’s theoretical little girl in the care of Deus for a day & long evening.
I think there’s a couple panel of them looking at each other in a kind of mildly perplexed curiosity, followed by mutual maniacal-cum-villainous grins, and then panels of hijinx that could only be the result of a billionaire super-intelligence employing his vast resources to bring their mutual visions of mad, innocent joy and imaginations to life.
Something like Weinersmith’s ‘Bea Wolf’ come to life.
Vale would undoubtedly have both hands full keeping them from conquering the world prematurely with puppies and glitter and balloons full of chocolate pudding.
…
Deus Industries goes into the Toy business.
The original Super Soaker returns to production along with the _best_ toys ever imaginable, for literally all ages. World Peace is achieved, and Earth becomes the galaxy’s source of the most awesome toys & other entertainment. Nobody anywhere ever feels self-conscious or excluded, life becomes super-fun and full of friendships. History – in the dialectic sense – ends.
Even if the world-altering stuff doesn’t happen, Deus keeps a craft project he and the kid made together and displays it on his office trophy shelf. Partly to annoy Max whenever she visits, but also because he legitimately took a liking to the kid and wants to keep himself grounded with a reminder of normality.
The rest of the main cast adopts the kid the moment their existence is made known, and provides endless coaching on how to help their dad present well while also pranking Max.
If Dabbler really always skips the first 30% then she has clearly never seen hentais. :-) Oftentimes they start out with action and then go back in time a bit to do the build up. And that includes one that is literally named “Step sister” btw., but trigger warning: It’s BDSM with borderline consent issues.
Also I bet Dabbler is being sus on purpose because she probably enjoys the attention in a kinky way. You know how kids start misbehaving to get negative attention if they don’t get positive attention? That’s how I see Dabbler with Maxima. Max really is kinda like everyone’s mom I feel like.
Alternatively, Dabbler files hentai in a separate category from porn. Much like some cultures make distinctions between powder snow (the stuff that’s great for skiing) and wet snow (the stuff that’s good for snowball fights and making snow people). Also, apparently some languages take such distinctions at such a basic level that they have terms for both of those that don’t include a common base. Also I’d guess they’re probably bored enough of snowballs and snow people that they don’t think of wet snow as being particularly good for either of those, but rather consider it particularly good for building with or something.
That having been said, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a live action porno that followed that action model.
Personally, I don’t think porn would do much for Dabbler. She’s a Succubus. It would be kind of like you watching Iron Chef. Maybe some casual curiosity, but when you’re hungry all it does is make it worse.
So no sniff test?
No checks for residual tantric energy?
No checks for emergency calls to locations matching choker GPS records?
I know Max is doing an “I’m watching you” gesture, but holding something which resembles a finger V somewhere near her mouth is probably going to give Dabbler the wrong idea.
To be fair it would be hard to not give Dabbler the wrong idea.
there are worse wrong ideas that can be gotten. trust me on this.
It’s especially weird that the hand pointing toward her is her right hand, and the hand pointing at Xuriel is her left hand.
No, that’s one hand doubled to indicate motion, not both hands.
Yes, but look at the position of the fingers, now look at your own: the only way the pinky and ring fingers are on the outside in both positions is if they are different hands (doubt Maxi would bend her hand backwards when it’s easier to rotate the wrist)
Dave definitely forgot to mirror the hand when drawing it.
Oh, no, Dave’s an AI!
So a few pages ago (link), I posted my theory about Sydney’s unknown brown orb being a power source for the other orbs. Torabi replied that this theory, while making sense logically, was incredibly boring because it didn’t open up any story possibilities or serve any real narrative purpose. And it wouldn’t affect Sydney’s tactics any, as needing to recharge the orbs is such a rare event that it may as well not exist.
Those are fair points. However, after thinking about it further, I have come up with a rebuttal.
It’s true, the brown orb being a simple power source is boring…on its own. BUT! What about its interactions with the other orbs? Remember, in Sydney’s skill web, each orb has a node connecting it with every other orb, indicating that there’s some kind of “combo” power that can be unlocked by using those two orbs together. So if the brown orb is indeed a power source, then what could its “combo” powers be?
So here’s my (expanded) theory: if the brown orb on its own can charge the other orbs, maybe it can also supercharge them. By using the brown orb in tandem with another orb, it produces a surge of power that makes the other orb much more effective than normal. For example, using the brown orb with the PPO could produce a much stronger beam, using it with the Flyball could allow faster-than-light travel, using it with the Lighthook could produce more numerous and/or powerful tendrils, and so on.
Perhaps there could also be a downside to this; for example, maybe after the supercharge effect wears off, both the brown orb and the orb that was powered up could be totally unusable for a given period of time. This could lead to some interesting risk-and-reward decisions for Sydney: is it worth it to be able to fly insanely fast for an hour, if afterwards I won’t be able to fly at all for a whole day? You get the idea.
Thoughts?
I had similar thoughts about the last orb, that it was the power source for the other’s. Think the “engine room” of Syd’s “space ship” analogy for her power set. I think she has a long way to go with the skill tree before she can use it like you’re suggesting, I suspect she’s going to have to link all the orbs there first. Then it might be possible to use the orbs just by thinking it, and using the brown one as both the power source and the control orb for all of them. Holding it and the one she would want to power up might work, giving that one a recharge/power boost.
Like the PPO, if she holds it and the brown orb, she could produce a broader beam rather than a fine one like she used on uber squidword, like the difference between a 1/2″ garden hose and a 4″ firehose. Or the light hook go from 16 tons to 100, I could go on but you’ve already got that same idea.I think she should try holding it and her flight orb to see if it recharges much faster. I doubt the flight orb would reach warp speed, that’s way more costly power-wise than her causeway, but reaching interplanetary speeds would be a big boost, like flying to Mars in 30 mins!
Elon, let Sydney take you to mars, see how SHE does it! 0.01% of light speed, no worries! lol…
Can she leave him there?
It IS what he wants, so, sure?
Earth is about 8 lightminutes & 20 lightseconds from the Sun. Mars is about 13 lightminutes & 23 lightseconds from the Sun. Depending on where the two planets are in their orbits, the actual distance between Earth and Mars is somewhere between adding or subtracting those distances. Getting from Earth to Mars in 30 minutes will require substantially greater speed than 0.01 % of lightspeed.
Regarding your theory from a few days ago, there’s another function that has been disregarded (or at least I’ve never seen it mentioned): Flight Data Recorder.
It’s plausible to assume that, since there’s only ever been one set of orbs witnessed by the galaxy in general, that they are one-of-a-kind and possibly experimental. Every experimental craft I’ve ever seen/heard of/read about has some method of gathering data about its operation. Whoever or whatever left the orbs for someone (Sydney) to find would probably like to know the details of their functional life while out of their creator’s control. When (note that I don’t say “if”) it/they come back for the orbs, information is quite possibly the most important thing they’ll be looking for.
I dunno, just a midnight thought that struck me.
Also Black Boxes are painted orange and have pinger beacons to help rescuers locate them…..
What if the locator beacon is triggered after all this time?
Who (or what) is going to come looking for the wreckage?
A “simple” power source can be set up to do other power related things.
Lightning power output, quick charge from sources it’s placed up against, mirowave heat beam….
A scary brown orb idea just popped into my head. Maybe it’s a security device, triggered by attempted upgrades (or maybe by some kinds of poking and prodding?). Any “authorized” owner of the orbs would know about it, and take care to never mess with it. But if the orbs fall into the wrong hands, well, eventually they would try to figure it out and,,, Chicxulub crater.
Hey Dave, how about a quick blurb on how much sleep supers actually need?
I’d expect the answer is, it varies, just like it does with non-supers.
That said, I’d guess that on average supers don’t need as much. It’s likely that Too Much Coffee Man needs just as much sleep as anyone else – or possibly more, owing to his addiction – but on the other end of that spectrum there could be some supers that never sleep.
Dabbler in panel 2 looks really cute. Great job.
You are right but let’s not sleep on 4, 8 and 10. The broad smile in 4 to the melting of it into that trying to hold in the fact she is being restricted in 8 and finally resigning herself in panel 10. And Anvil.. well… Anvil always looks fine.
Max’s real super power is setting up punchlines and forcing them to die on the vine. Dalzzer is really fighting years of instincts there.
Who can imagine Max going to some small town in Vermont to find romance over the holidays…?!?
(Unless you don’t watch those Hallmark films???)
I feel ya, Dabbler. I too skip the badly acted bits at the beginning of porn videos.
Dabbler – Sid 2.0?
They do have similar personalities and annoy Maxima.
Technically, Syd is Dabbles 2.0 seeing how Dabbles came first (many times ;) )
well done. here have a donut.
Dabbler’s Blenda-Choke 1.0 (deliberately left out work-in-progress name ) had the minor glitch of the “coding” meant to help Max out of her shell causing everyone else in the bar even remotely interested in Max to be 200%+ more likely to crack onto her. Dabbler realised the problem while Max was already at the bar, Max definitely noticed the interest & annoyance caused by it. I’d say Dabbler is scared of Max putting 2+2 together and figuring out what was going on, Max has worked out /something/ is going on with the choker but probably not WHAT, helped by Dabbler’s lack of “I’m not panicking” straight face, with the bargain being the low-key dealing with the situation…
Thought one: Alright Rowan! He has been to where few have been before!
Thought two: Rowan, what the fuck is wrong with you to make a comment like that to the woman in question? That’s a comment you make to your buddies after she’s done with you.
Sheesh, kids today.
Pretty sure this is in reference to the girl who tried to remove her from the bar due to soaking up the male attention. IIRC she commented about her completely lacking pores and maybe her smooth skin? Also, she shook a few hands, IIRC. I *really* doubt Rowan made that comment.
Nope, the bouncer-ess only touched her jacket, and no hand shaking was depicted during the bar sequence. The only skin contact shown is when she pushes the super drunk guy out of her face, and he’s clearly in no position to make reliable observations that. So either Max heard him say something off-camera, or she and Rowan made skin contact.
Panels 3-10 are almost custom made to be reactions and/or avatars.
“Sus?” Hah! I’m betting Dabbler has a recorder built into that collar!
I kinda doubt she could do 200% or install a recorder on it, it is rather small and the power/magic drain would seriously limit the useful time using the collar. Most likely she could see how much was drained off, since time and activity would increase the drain. It’s a pity it’s not strong enough to work just like a glamor as Dabs uses, Max could change her look on the fly, it would make stealth missions MUCH easier! Max might need a crash-course on magic use if so.
She probably could but I don’t think she would. To avoid Maximas wrath but mostly she seems genuinely valuing Max friendship more.
I like how it looks physically painful for Dabbler to NOT comment.
Ahahah, Dabs is going to do a playback of the chokers recording of the evening’s events. With popcorn.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I seriously hope that this is not the last we see of Shioh.
That’s what she said… twice ;)
She was a cutie! And Rowan of course… Nothing really serious with him, just someone Max can relax with and so on.
Fingers crossed, but every other side character slips away after a single act. I’m not sure we’ll even see Rowan again.
Dabbler has a really easy out here. “It’s the first field test and nobody knows how any human superpowers work. I know my work is good, but I was a little worried that your powers might decide to interact unexpectedly with the choker. Did anything happen around you that seemed strange?” Then she can pass off the lust-aura as being “well, it’s supposed to have a simple normal-person aura on it; if that reflected weirdly off your shiny skin, then it might have had unintended effects.”
Except 2 other magic users and a wizard-level techie helped her modify it. If any of them inspect it again, they’ll find her unsolicited extra feature.
The fact Dabbles agreed so readily should be sounding giant military-grade intergalactic-scale invasion klaxons in Maxi’s head
I dunno. That sounds like a request that might mean possible sexy times with Maxima and someone else, which is something Dabbler is keenly interested in having happen, even if she isn’t allowed to enjoy it quite as much as she’d like to. It really doesn’t require another ulterior motive than the one Maxima is already aware of.
I don’t think G’s comment was about why Dabs agreed to try to adjust it. Of course she would – she made it because she wanted it to get used.
But why would she be acting all weird and immediately accept Max’s condition? Dabs immediately agreed to a big sacrifice there in exchange for Max not demanding an explanation, so Max should recognize that Dabbler is hiding something.
I honestly thought Dabs was about to explode for a second there, she is seriously straining! The effort she had to put that in clearly was hurting her. The funny part was when no sooner as Max left Dabs, Anvil swooped in asking the very same thing that Dabs so badly wanted to! But now that they know it works (to a degree) she could go out with Anvil etc to go bar hopping etc…
Stopped reading after you said (typed) “she could go out with Anvil” :)
In other words you read almost the entire thing except the last 6 words. :)
Heh, yeah I caught that once it posted, I meant as wingwoman for each other, (and people say I’M a perv!) :p
I think if they and the many ladies that is Harem were go bar hopping, it would make for an interesting evening!
Understood what you meant, was just having some fun, because Dabbles isn’t going to be having any for awhile :(
OK. Assuming Maxima actually wanted to feel Rowan’s touch she had Invulnerability dialed all the way down. Assuming she didn’t want to accidentally maim Rowan she has strength dialed all the way down. Speed would be dialed down so she didn’t get bored with a relative hour between kisses etc. So maximum flying and probably enough in energy blast to take out space ships if she “hiccups”. A dangerous date.
Do we actually know that she cannot dial down all of them at the same time?
DaveB’s author blurb on page 258 suggests to me that she doesn’t have to spend her pool on anything, and can keep it all in reserve. Whether she can take a stat below baseline without funneling it into something else is less clear.
30% you say dave? *makes a note for future reference*
well, Dabbler should also instinctively be able to sense if Max got some.
You can just hear the cartoon “I just broke something” broken-spring Ba-DOING! between panels 9 and 10
How about putting pregnancy in Grrl Power by having Halo and company protect somebody who,s pregnant.
pregnant male, due to alien?
*hijinx senses tingling*
It is reassuring to see that Dabbler’s survival instinct is stronger than her lewding instinct. ^_^’
As a succubus, her lewding instinct is technically a RESULT of her survival instinct.
Point
Y’know, we don’t know that the choker doesn’t also have a recording device in it, so Dabs could sate her curiosity anyway.
She’s so eager to get that collar back I honestly think she’s built in a secret recording function and eager to run back to her special place to check the video of what Maxima’s been doing all this time.
Of cause she did. No one must ever get to know that.
I hope the choker comes off as a reveal if/when things get serious, otherwise that will be quite the issue if she accidentally forgets it.
Sometimes the devil’s gotta take a bad deal.
All this and nobody is asking the most important question. Did she manage to get home without any more speeding tickets?
“Is Rowan even a car guy? Will Shioh and Sydney mesh or clash? Will Leon’s poster only count as an HR violation if someone complains? Find out next time – same Bat time, same Bat channel!”
Wait! This lady has been Max all along?
You appear to have completely missed the start of the Max’s-night-out arc.
Never mind. Brook explained it to me.
Since you couldn’t have possibly been in a position to ask about “weirdly silky & slippery” skin, I’d have to say you don’t have the clearance for the answer.
FNORD.
(Unfortunately, neither am I)
Kenya looks soooo adorbs in that last panel!
Personally, find that creepy, serious horror nightmare vibes (normally Anvil is lovely, just not the Kewpie-doll look… )
Great Cal-Arts smile on Dabbler up there
This might be the hardest deal Dabbler ever had to makle
Dabbler’s deals are /always/ HARD … at least for someone.