Grrl Power #1209 – Exigil PL+ with a dash of nutmeg
I don’t know if there’s a building in which a senator would take a fairly secretive meeting that could contain a hall that’s a quarter of a mile long, but it feels like they’ve been walking for a while.
I almost cut this page because it doesn’t really advance anything, but ultimately decided it met my personal amusement threshold. I like the world flavor. (Give me “Things Galactus would say” for 200 Alex.) Who wants to place bets on me remembering the “Exigil blood tastes like eggnog and is cold” fact when one of them finally shows up in the comic? I was surprised to learn that eggnog dates back to the 14th century, although back then it was called “posset” and was a hot drink made from curdled milk, ale or wine, and spiced. Honestly anything involving curdled milk sounds pretty gross to me, but I can see how posset was the antecedent of eggnog. Replace the curdled milk with some heavy cream or thin custard, and the ale with rum/brandy/cognac and Bob’s your uncle.
Of course, the answer to Scarlett’s question is simple, a vampire who was turned well after the invention of eggnog and had sampled some, who has also had Exigil blood would likely print up a damned newsletter about it. Sure, some vampires might be all arch and secretive, but a smart vampire would take steps to advertise Earth as a popular vacation destination to Exigons to swell the local supply herd. Ingsol knows a large number of vamps, so it’s obviously come up before. As I type this up, I’ve decided that Exigil O+ tastes like eggnog with rum, AB- tastes like cognac, and on down the list. Not that alien immune systems would have O, A, B, and AB. They might have positive and negative, but it’d probably be like P+ and L-.
Also, in the Grrl-verse, vampires can consume stuff other than blood. They don’t hilariously bazooka vomit the instant they ingest solid food like in What we do in the Shadows. However, drinking blood gives vamps an almost heroine-like high and regular food doesn’t, so most quickly lose interest in eating what is functionally “ashes” to them. Not all. The younger ones especially can still appreciate a plate of nachos or a burger, but Grrl-verse vampire physiology is streamlined for a more liquid diet… also some raw muscle tissue, sure, but my point is that they fare better if they keep away from food with a lot of fiber in it. Scarlett knows most vamps that get to Ingsol’s age have long since given up on human food, which is why she assumes he’s probably never actually had a glass of eggnog.
Oh, I kind of forgot about Ingsol’s accent, so I went back and reuploaded the prior two pages with minor fixes, because leaning fully into his accent like I picture it in my head would make it obnoxiously hard to read. Like the Count from Sesame Street meets “Nuclear Wessels” Chekov.
The September vote incentive is up! Let’s call it the November vote incentive and just say I’ve still got two I.O.U’s, eh?
Well, Dabbler is doing her Dabbler things, and the Patreon version has a nude variant and a comic that… I don’t know, expounds on the goings on of the initial picture?
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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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So, Deus, Galtyn and Machina Industries hold most of Central Africa now? Presumably they’d move on West Africa 9 which is already troubled. After that where, East Africa maybe but Southern and Northern Africa are pretty stable.
He might also want to take parts of nations, such as dividing Sudan with Egypt. Making Africa a few large nations and dominating the African Union.
Not most. He’s really only has control of southern Malawi where Galatyn was originally carved out, and recently he’s assumed control of Mozambique. That said, Zambia, Zimbabwe, the remainder of Malawi, and Tanzania are starting to sweat.
“starting to sweat” – I wonder what smart politicians do when they suddenly have someone like Deus set up shops nextdoor. Seems to me I’d be talking about treaties and trade to avoid dealing with demon armies. Deus seems to be pretty transparent about his aims, so he’s probably already got people spreading the word.
I know I know smart politicians seem thin on the ground, but that’s only because we disagree with them so often and we assume that’s because we’re smarter than they are. Deus actually is smarter.
African politicians are smart enough, but a lot of their power base is diametrically opposed to Deus moral outlook.
Deus: Sure, let’s sign a treaty!
Politician: Eeeeexcellent!
D: I’ll just need you to agree to these environmental protections…
P: Ah.
D: … and these human rights protections…
P: Oh.
D: and these wealth-redistribution plans…
P: Ooh…
D: …and we can be the BEST of friends!
P: …Let me get back to you.
And you’ll need to execute these warlords.
If you execute all the warlords… um.. who will lead?
politicians? Nope. They are not leaders, generally.
Regarding your changes to Ingsol’s accent:
Tvilight I get, but why is it also the other way round, i.e. wampire?
And… the missing post is back :P
Anywheres, the ‘problem’ with the accents is they can’t pronounce double-yous, which is why ‘one’ becomes ‘vun’ (personally hate that word as have trouble saying it properly :( )
Because Chekov said “Nuclear Wessels” and I think that’s funny.
It’s like Japanese people and L versus R. It’s not that they can’t hear or make the phoneme, it’s simply that they cannot discriminate between the two sounds. Just like you English speakers (and Americans too) can’t hear the other three ways to pronounce R. When humans are born, they hear all the sounds. The first stage of learning speech involves training the nerve bundle that handles signals from the ear to detect phonemes and reject noise. Once this is fully trained, a sound that’s close enough to be recognised as a phoneme is coerced to the archetype and you can’t hear the difference. When a French person corrects you, your phoneme detector filters out the subtleties as noise and you insist that’s what you said, as oblivious to the pain you inflict on francophones around you as Indian people are when they run fifty words together like some sort of talking machine gun. Variation in languages is fascinating. If you record a demonstration by a native speaker, and then use your computer to play it back slower and slower, at a certain speed it won’t trigger your phoneme processing and suddenly you’ll hear the difference clearly. Go back and repeat and after a while even adults can learn to hear new phonemes.
You know what else is made from curdled milk? Yogurt and cheese
Koumis. Alcoholic fermented milk.
And skyr.
Icelandic Yogurt, have tried it
Ayran and Dourgh – both basically yogurt and mineral water with herbs and a bit of salt served well chilled, sometimes with ice. Excellent on a hot & nasty day.
And so Team Shady Shit sailed of for whatever the Dinner version of Brunch is.
Also, I smell a V:tM Revised fan, with the explicit “ashes” reference.
‘Food will be as ashes in your mouth’ has been around WAY longer than V:tM, let alone Revised
It’s like people thinking a baby carriage going down the steps is an “Untouchables” reference
I saw that movie when I was a kid. No I’m not that old, it was a “History of Film” class when I was in 8th grade.
You mean the original? Or Costner remake?
Potemkin, the original source of the meme.
There was a merit that allowed you to eat food, it enabled you to appear more human downside was bit messy since you don’t process said food the same way a human does. Every time you have that nice steak your are chucking it back up later that evening.
JFK, right?
Yay to missing posts!
Came here and there were two posts already, after making the curdled milk post was going to reply to one of the other posts… which has disappeared at the time of this post (gotta hate technology :P )
Powerpoint you say? (sigh) then we shall never be naught but mortal enemies and I come from an era and family that knows a lot about blood feuds.
Remember – he IS supposed to be a villain/anti-hero.
Also – ROTFL about the text using ‘heroine’ when describing tasty blood [instead of ‘heroin’] – since one imagines heroine blood is more yummy than just normal female blood.
Spike seemed to think so
And yes, several peoples will line up to kick SmugD’s arse simply because what he considers to be charming others consider smarming, and the only reason it hasn’t happened already is because he has toejam-sucking individuals who also happen to be very powerful to protect him
Agendas within Agendas beside Agendas. And Deus having a finger in each one. Love it. And it will be interesting to see how Ingsol and the Twilight Council will square the cooperation/having to go along with Deus timetable with their cooperation to Archon who has a very different view on things than Deus does and is on a “Frienemies” relationship with him.
Also, How does Ingsol know what eggnog taste like? Or that that specific kind of alien Has bloood that taste like eggnog?
Questions, questions…
There are indeed secure buildings where secret meetings can take place that also have super long hallways. The Pentagon for one.
Deus is obviously using Alari tech to make the hallway appropriately long for menacing conversations.
This vamp’s supposed to be less than 700 years old. The word “eggnog” is younger than he is (starting around the 1700s) but nearly identical drinks were being made in Britain going all the way back to the 1300s, and there were earlier variants with differing ingredients stretching back even farther. The old-timey word for prototypical eggnogs was “posset” and you could still technically apply the term to modern eggnog if you feel like being quirky.
So really, there’s nothing surprising about him knowing what eggnog tastes like from his mortal life. It does suggest that he was in the British Isles at some point before he was turned, or that their was a similar local drink wherever he came from. He certainly knew it under another name (“posset” was English, and could have been heard in France easily enough) but he’s clearly kept up with linguistic changes so it’s “eggnog” now.
There’s a fun podcast episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating, about eggnog, its antecedents and descendants
It’s not an eggnog unless it is serve in a small wooden cup.
“ Honestly anything involving curdled milk sounds pretty gross to me”
Yoghurt and cheese would like a word.
Exigil?!? I thought Deus said “eixil”…!?
I don’t actually remember what Exigil look like. Anybody remember when they’ve shown up before?
They haven’t
Deus should be the protagonist of this comic!
No, he should the filling in a grave on the blue side of the moon
Regarding Lorlara and Deus…
https://youtu.be/ulteZYyWAA8
And NOT because he’s taking advantage of her, or her supposed ignorance of terrestrial sexual harassment laws. She’s an ALARI Personal Assistant. Clearly as far as she’s concerned, it’s either one of the duties… or one of the perks. And given her enthusiasm and affection, I’m going to say it’s the latter.
While I appreciate your attention to detail, DaveB, I’d created in my own mind an explanation for the missing accent. Ingsol only uses the accent during Twilight Council meetings because it is expected of him.
he is a dick
haven’t heard the ladies complain tho
Dunno if it’s already been mentioned, but up here Ingersol was a brand of cheese, their spread was much better than cheese whiz but is sadly gone from store shelves…not that there’s anything cheesy about Ingsol’s accent of course ;)
And here I thought the vampire’s accent was more like Discworld… He does it to sound like a vampire, but can speak normally especially when frustrated.
Sedeuced by the Deus Side.
The difference between positive and negative is really the same kind of thing as A or B, the fact that A/B are letters and the other one is generally just written as a + sign is because they were discovered at different times by different people.
[Looking it up on Wikipedia, the reality is even more complex, there are five relatively important factors (and a ton of minor ones) encompassed in what’s historically been categorized as ‘positive/negative’, the most important of which is called D when analyzed separately]
I’m sure it’s been said before, but I want to briefly express my appreciation for Deus’ character. It always annoys me when a supposed super genius decides to conquer the world with military might. They’re a super genius, surely they can think of a better way?
The letters we assign to blood types are entirely arbitrary – Aliens could have totally different blood chemistry and still have “A+ blood” if they felt like using that nomenclature.
Just keep in mind that A, B and Rh are three different proteins that may or not be present in your blood cells. AB+ means you have all three. O- (think zero) means you have none of them. The A and B proteins were identified in humans first, but sometimes a transfusion typed using just those two would still have adverse reactions. The Rh factor was first identified in rhesus monkeys, then found to be the missing factor in human blood typing as well; whether you have or don’t have the Rh factor is indicated with the trailing + or -.
If the blood of a donor has one or more of these proteins that the recipient does not have then the recipient’s immune system can start attacking the donated blood cells as unwelcome invaders. If the recipient’s blood has the extra proteins compared to the donor blood, no significant reaction from the immune system is likely to occur.
Cats are also typed A, B, AB (but not O), but these feline protein are quite different from our primate ones. Don’t think that your A- blood can be given to your A blood type Mr. Fluffles.
I could imagine that vampires actually like to sample different drinks. I mean of course they neeed blood for sustenance and maybe have a sensitive stomach that doesn’t allow them to digest any normal food but as long as they don’t swallow it, it might not be an issue
Wine testers spit out wine as well after taking a sip, to not get drunk on the job.
On the vampires eating, I think of the Wraith from Star Gate Atlantis who can eat and taste it but it does them no good…and is probably unpleasant, or non vampire example the Gems from Steven Universe can eat…and for some reason *add to the theories pile on their origin* can taste food (despite being hard light constructs around a gemstone CPU.
Personally I don’t think I ever loisted among my various vampires what would happen if they ate normal food *that I can think of off the top of my head* my sheets have plenty of various diets, weaknesses, abilities, etc…but aside from the food based weakness *Garlic, Cherries, Tomatoes, etc..* of various vampires nothing about just regular food.
*on another topic to not make two posts right after each other. The alien delegation reminds me, one of their big issues with Earth right now is the Aethereum Causeways they’ve been detecting, but Earth *US government at least* has been keeping a lid on what/who is behind those and insisting to the aliens they don’t know anything about it.
Which aside from speculative witnesses that could have been outside the comic shop that one day,
does Deus know? He clearly indicated he suspected or knew the orbs were Nth tech back when talking about the “Superion field” and who is architects might be.
Detla is an alien hanging out at Archon who clearly saw it, Dabbler knows about it *but doesn’t seem the type to go bragging*, there is a chance Harem told Deus about it.
But this raises another question, the Alari playing Bodysnatchers/Skrull Secret Invasion as a Senator; do they know Sidney is behind an Aethereum Causeway, or is this information more tight lipped *which given the more people know a secret the harder it is to keep a secret, so would make sense a select few in the military are on the need to know basis on that*. Although a senator discussing building a magical dungeon seems the type to be in that select few and a good reason Sciona would have had him targeted for “replacement”.
However from the alien delegation point of view I would think Deus with the Alari and demons working together on Earth would be a big suspect of developing and testing out a small Aethereum Causeway.
Josh: Shall we walk?
Toby: And talk?
J: Walk-and-talk?
T: Walk and talk.
J: Talking about walking?
T: Walking about, talking.
J: Good talk! *ducks into office*
T: Good walk. * enters conference room*
Methinks this is the way most of the friendly negotiations end with Deus. Just saying.
Of the dairy we eat today, cultured buttermilk is closest to what the original base for Posset was like (if it’s the kind with tiny flakes of butter still in it).
I love Ingsol’s last line to Deus. Laughed so hard I thought I was gonna THROW UP!
Scarlet is really channeling Ariel the mermaid in that one panel
Blood that tastes like egg nog,
well I do have an alien whose blood tastes like syrup and another that tastes like Sunny D, both were plant based and attacked by nether world vampires…those same “vampires” on Earth were just peaceful space hippies to the humans.
one of these also was on a planet with a toxic grass *to them* which humans would trade for as it was basically wild cheesy potato sticks (flavor and texture), *anything dairy was toxic to these aliens (not a far stretch given how toxic lactic acid is too most Earth based life as well).
That can’t be a Sorkin Corridor. They are not traveling near fast enough down it. If it was a true Sorkin Corridor they would have been at the double doors at the end, if not through them by the end of the conversation.
Assuming Deus is a superintelligence, with a capital S on super, it brings up the question of how much of the way he acts is calculated to make him seem likable. Not, likeable as in he seems like a good guy, but likable in that he’s a sort of goofy hyper egomaniacal type that’s just kind of fun and silly. Which would be a way to keep people off their guard, make them underestimate him, make them tolerate behavior from him they otherwise wouldn’t, and gives him some flexibility that coming off as more calculating, or even as a “good guy” wouldn’t.
To answer the question about why he would know what eggnog would taste like, just because he is a vampire doesn’t mean his taste buds don’t work. He is not a zombie where most of the neural pathways are shut down, he is an undead with thought processes so it would only stand to reason that his nerve endings would still be active thus, being able to taste thing.
I think I have seen something like that before. Vampires at a tasting, treating it like a wine tasting where they smell the food, chew it, savor it, but then spit it out into a bucket being carried around by a thrall. It was a background thing in some shot at a fancy vampire patty.
If he tasted things normally I doubt he’d be that excited about a race whose blood tastes like eggnog
This type of accent for Ingsol ?
https://youtu.be/CLBK1bw9WOI?t=67
a Transylvanian one.
Another ones could be for europeans
https://youtu.be/x5D4wBK9pvA?t=103
German
https://youtu.be/qlu6lDuml_I?t=99
Italian but without the hand gestures it seems incomplete
A random sort of question, but one that comes up in a world with both supernaturals and supers. Are there any supers here with the same powers as a supernatural, just minus their weaknesses or other elements that denote them specifically as that supernatural.
for instance, If a world has both therianthropes *people who turn into one animal, either in part or whole, like werewolves, that can be inherited or passed on in a bite*, but also has supers such as zoomorphic shifters (Beast Boy) do you think the therianthropes harbor in general any prejudices towards them?
-maybe more so with Zoomorphic Aura (Vixen) who take on the powers without any outward changes
or the least different, Solo Zoomorphic shifters, which would be supers with the power to turn partway and/or fully into one animal. But it is either a magical spirit beast bond or a power. Just like this one guy can take on horse traits, become a centaur, or fully turn into a horse, etc…
I think we see this with vampires more so like a super with hypnosis, life drain, super strength/speed and such taking on the aesthetics of a vampire without actually being one.
Well, Pixelicious becomes a super when she switches to Pink Panther-mode, and you also have Jabbs who takes on the powers without the forms of aminals
Been rereading from the beginning and had a question: While testing out what allows her to control the orbs (the mittens discussion) she doesn’t seem to have tested if she can control an orb that is in contact with another orb she is controlling. IE Is there a cumulative usage, such as the air generator and pew pew used like a flame thrower rather than a laser? Can she hold the flight orb with the molestorb –er lighthook– and keep flight up while also holding together a group of thugs with lighthook>
Sigh, for whatever reason I started hearing Deus’ voice as Takahata’s perfect cell from dbza and now it’s stuck like that. Now I gotta read all this over to see what that hilarity is like.
Educational moment!
There are actually multiple ways of classifying blood types. The one we use is ABO because it’s particularly useful. In this system, A and B denote two different types of antigens present in the blood. A if you have one, B if you have the other, AB if you have both, O if you have neither. The +/- tagged onto the end that you often see is actually borrowed from another classification entirely, that of Rh antigens, of which there are dozens. Specifically refers to one out of that group that is particularly relevant, with + meaning it is present and – meaning it is not.
In short, A, B, and + are all just tags to say “this thing is present in this person’s blood”. So while the things in the blood may be different, and they may use different letters or symbols to represent them, it is entirely plausible that any species with blood would have some variation of an ABO blood grouping.