Grrl Power #1239 – Sydula rasa
Well, it looks like Lapha has one card left to play. Imagine having to start over with Sydney. You’d have to show her SO MUCH sci-fi and cartoons in order to try and reboot her memories – assuming that’s even a viable solution with whatever brain-wipe method Lapha’s race employs.
Imagine being the lobby guard when Maxima shows up with an unconscious Sydney under one arm and gray blue-ish kind-of-purple alien girl under the other. I guess at some point you’d be like, “Oh, it must be Tuesday.” Working at Archon would probably be more interesting than manning the gate at most military installations. When Tenri gets her body back, she’s might have a jacked up neck from Maxima scruffing her like that. At least, I assume that’s how she’s holding her up, as her tank top isn’t being pulled taut across her torso. Not that the average Space-WalMart tank top would even hold a person’s body weight for long.
The new vote incentive is up! This is a bit of a weird one as it’s a character that hasn’t appeared in the comic.
It’s my Ifrit Pathfinder 1e monk, Fray! Ifrits don’t really make great monks in Pathfinder, as player characters they get a +2 to Dex and Cha, but -2 to Wis. For monks, Dex is good, Cha is largely irrelevant, but Wis is important as it can add to your AC and also has something to do with Ki points I think. But I didn’t care. I wanted a character with dark blue/gray skin and glowing orange hair, so that’s what I picked. (I don’t think Ifrit even really have dark skin, so maybe she’s 1/4 Drow? Don’t care. I think she looks cool.) Will she show up in the comic? I mean… maybe? Probably in a Dabbler flashback, but who knows?
As usual, Patreon has her in delicto flagrante.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
Lappie: Bwahaha! You’re locked in here with me until they let me go!
Sydney’s Brain: You’ve got it all wrong. I’m not locked in here with YOU. You’re locked in here with ME!
It’d be seriously sweet if Syd could overwhelm the slaver parasite like that…
right after she ate chilli and Lappie is rolling around on her head screaming in pain
Dabbler informing Lapha that this PARTICULAR device is her own creation and can forcibly rip her out of Sydney with ZERO ill effects in 3…2…1…
Lapha: “What are you talking about? That’s just a bowl of Grakz. There’s no way you’d feed this to a hu- …. ….. YOU EAT THAT WILLINGLY?
Would be funny if Sidney’s well documented tolerance for all things spicy would save her…
Tbh, I think that could be the way out, couldn’t it?
I assume it at least can kill her right here, right now.
They have not been pleading for Sydneys life. They are pleading for Laphas.
Im surprised Sydney hast tried the scrafice play yet. Basically will her orbs to Peggy or someone. (Peggy because she is a woman on the team without powers and I think that would matter to Sydney) and tell max to kill her and the rude AI brain invader at the same time.
She can read Sidney’s memories and they both know Sydney has no idea how to do that.
When did Maxima take up ventriloquism? :-)
i must say i really like possessed!Sydney’s eyes
OK Dabbler, you get total freedom to go mad scientist on this thing. Your only requirement is to see to Sydney’s safety. Her posessor’s saftey is optional.
I am pretty sure Laphas survival was optional when they started this conversation.
And Lapha just pointed a gun at Sydneys head.
While in range of a gun that Dabbler made.
How about selectively disabling Laphas’ physical control, but keeping her capabilities, and instead of pulling her out, sealing her permanently(or Threatening to do so) into Sydney. I doubt Laphas would be as willing to sell out a body sealed to.
If you had a mean to stealthy destroy her and to snuff définitive her flame…
If you had not
You had plan of action
“Sydney tell me about the lizard , did he is rotten as her and where are his whereabouts … catch him and take him.”
I’m not sure of her power
“We will be two playing the hostage game you and me , and it’s a Beria game, Himmler wannabe ”
“I’ll torture him with a medical supervision , driving him insane , and you could end this ”
“If you tear Sydney’s memories , i’ll bug your code and glitch you to oblivion like you parents… Ready for weeks of agony, sociopath”
“Me as hero is pure propaganda ,I’m not a goody two shoes … I mustn’t comply to any of your demand, except to not kill you and your associates if you surrender, you know it . But I you harm her I’ll do everything on my power to make the lasts week of you and your associate a description of the terms hellishly painful. Not only for petty revenge, even if it bring a temporary pleasure, but to discourage vocations. You’ll be tortured and killed in the most gruesome and inhumane fashion , did i make this clear wetware version of Windows 98 ME ?”
If she wants to bargain explain she cannot bargain and take her associate … she seems to care a little for him.
I’m surprised Ariana isn’t running the numbers on this.
Sure, we all love Sydney as she is. But imagine you could actually “Blank Slate” her, then start over. Point her ADHD hyperfocus at combat skills and military regulations. Build her up as a Winter Soilder…
And you didn’t technically kill or her wipe her brain, so you’re not legally accountable for the loss….
Ariana MIGHT. She’s not here and Max is probably glad she isn’t – I think she LIKES Sydney, despite all the issues.
I don’t see that. Sure, Sydney is particularly a handful but she doesn’t seem prone to amorality, at least not beyond what her job requires and her job isn’t black ops.
Winter Soldier is great for black oops. But Sydney isn’t in black ops, she’s the Might Halo. Explaining why one of the most famous, relatable and established members of the team is suddenly gone from public and is next seen being Winter-Soldering is a PR nightmare she does not want.
That’s a several-decade-long investment.
And that’s why sociopaths shouldn’t be running things
I really wonder what Varia’s power would make of the Sidney/Lapha combination…
Will Lapha return Sydney’s memories and hop back on her previous host body?
Also,what is that device Dabbler just summoned?!?
I would assume a anti-Aeolith gun.
Laphas only hope is that non-lethal extraction was more reliable. Because she just pointed a gun at Sydneys head.
Probably the same thing Lapha used to get Tenri out of her body. No idea whether she got it through official channels or for nefarious purposes.
It looks similar to the device Tenri’s being held in https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-1229-half-napped/
Yeah, I give Lapha one day and night of being able to tolerate Sydney’s brain. Next comic’s gonna start off the “stalemate” then a montage of Sydney-isms and Lapha becoming progressively more confused/annoyed, finally topping it off with her begging to be let out as Sydney recites the entirety of the Monty Python and the Holy Grail script to herself.
Sydney just needs to start singing “I’m Henry the Eighth I am” over and over…
And if she gets tired of that, she can switch to “The song that doesn’t end”
I’m not dead yet!
The thing is, once the meds wear off, and the caffeine wears off, and she’s fed nothing but water and gruel or some such, her brain is going to start going extra bonkers trying to get stimulation.
The most terrifying torture for most ADHD folk is *boredom* and Sydney is going to be very, very bored.
Also, software is affected by the hardware it runs on. And Sydney has faulty hardware. The parasite hasn’t experienced what happens what happens when the artificial regulators wear off.
And in addition to everything else, I absolutely guarantee that a random ear-worm is going to start playing in Sydney’s head. One of the way I know meds are working is that the music stops.
This has got to be pure desperation. It’s not a very good negotiation. “Let me go, where you lose one of the biggest weapons earth has, a lot of classified intelligence goes free, and you lose your friend anyway, or you can rip me out of your friends mind where you’ll still have all that stuff in a blank slate and I’ll be forcibly solved.”
Like the only thing stopping them from saying go ahead is they are sydney’s friends, but letting her go doesn’t help sydney at all. Just keep her locked up.
Considering what we’ve seen magic can accomplish in this world, I think it to be EXTREMELY unlikely that Lapha has an unbeatable trump card here. Pull a Spock’s katra via Doppleganger tentacles, sleep spell that works on living spells followed by removal when unconscious, stabbing the living spell with SoulReaver, reversible injection rendering Sydney clinically dead long enough for extraction … if Aetholith possession was an instant game over with no recourse, it’s very doubtful they’d have been welcomed into galactic society where the Fel were not.
I like your thinking, but one thing; unconscious would be Sydney only. We learnt that when Sydney came to and tried to move her hands.
Other than that, you’re good.
We don’t know whether it’s Lapha was never unconscious or whether she was unconscious and recovered earlier
We certainly don’t know whether Dabbler has a way of guaranteeing that Lapha is unconscious
Though, as Dave mentioned a while back, they are very person non grata in civilized space, not only because they recently won their rights as citizens and sentient, but also because of this sort of risk – to the point where most of her race, upon finding out she did this, would want to off Lapha themselves just on the strength of the critically bad PR this generates.
The only thing Maxima would need to say to Sydney, “Hey, Sydney, if you were Batman and its a choice between letting a ruthless slaver mercenary sell all the secrets of the Justice League (and Earth’s defenses) through Batman’s knowledge or Batman getting amnesia to try a new life, which one would he pick?”
Sydney will commit to suicide faster than Lapha could recover.
Yes, clearly that should be Archon’s aim…
I didn’t say that Sydney should actually commit suicide via aeolith-aided-amnesia or that Maxima would actually want her to do.
I’m saying bring up Batman and have Lapha realize that her ace in the hole get-out-of-jail-free card is a dud. She is not dealing with cops or entitled soldiers here, she is dealing with superheroines/superheroes her and her calculus does not work.
From there, she will be amiable to any more reasonable offer.
At this point I’m wondering if Dabbler could make a copy of Sydney’s mind then upload it again after the original is wiped.
If that’s not an option, maybe Dabbler could magically convince Lapha that it’s winning by leaving Sydney and taking the orbs, while what’s really happening is that Lapha’s just leaving.
Magic gives a hell of a lot of possible options to think about.
They could just kill Lapha right here and now.
1. She rejected a peacefull resolution.
2. She just pointed a gun at Sydneys head.
Police would be allowed to shoot her. And Dabbler holds a gun.
Okay, and how would they do that without hurting Sydney? [Insert magical fix here] won’t make for a very compelling story.
Do you know what hte difference between a pair of tweezers and deadly shrapnel is?
The movement speed.
When they have “tweezers of Lapha removal”, they also have “bullets of Lapha killing”.
When they can build something to contain a Laphas mind, they have a tool to destroy Laphas mind.
In fact, you usually figure out the killing/destroy part long before the keeping alive part.
Dabbler has been a adventurer for a while.
Of course she has tools to deal with intangible foes, include those that posess people.
The only reason they haven’t used any of her means, is the hope to keep Lapha alive.
Thaaaat won’t happen. I think the most likely scenarios are comedy victory and guile victory. Either Sydney annoys Lapha into leaving, or they trick her into leaving. They have a whole mess of tech and magic based means of mimicry, maybe they’ll trick her somehow using that.
If they had a gun that would only affect Lapha and not Sydney and they can absolutely guarantee that they can affect Lapha without her being able to affect Sydney (and that there isn’t a deadman switch effect) then yes they probably can
There’s no evidence that those conditions are filled (the first panel of the next page could show the after effects)
“Doesn’t it worry you that I’m not worried?” – Zebra Girl Webcomic.
As the next page shows, they are clearly not worried. So assume they had the means to kill her when the discussion started.
Max just asked Dabbler: “Any ability I need to worry about?”
And Dabbler answered: “Nope, I know how to kill or remove her without danger.”
Maybe Dabbler asked for a distraction if that is needed?
They could use the device in Dabbler’s hand to extract Lapha without killing her.
Or they could use any powerful dispel magic effect to snuff her, full stop.
When Lapha starts making threats against the use of the only device that could allow her to live, that’s a serious choice with consequences.
Can’t read her mind… I wonder if Sydney could concoct a plan against Lapha.
If she had access to the orbs she might be able to teleport herself with the comm ball and leave Lapha behind. Or maybe we’ll discover a use for the unknown cloudy orb.
Alternatively… They could offer Lapha a job. I’m not sure what laws and rules would be involved, or what kind of money Lapha makes from mercenary work, but I could certainly imagine her ability to interrogate people by possessing them would be highly valuable to Arc-Light or Arc-Dark.
Despite Sydney’s low rank she still has sensitive information about both Arc and the workings of her Orbs that are presumably now outed as Nth tech to the universe. Sure there are questions about loyalty and reliability but hiring her might be a means to resolve both the security and possession problem while gaining the benefits of her abilities.
The problem with Lapha and giving her a job is twofold:
First, Earth has nothing valuable that she can be paid with. Earth currency is not usable elsewhere and technologically it is a backwater. It can’t even print new bodies for her if she needed it. The only thing she came here for is supers and Nth tech and Earth can’t pay her with those.
Second, is loyalty. She’s a mercenary. She works for the highest bidder. Earth is not in the position of highest bidder and you don’t trust someone for whom the most important thing in the world is money with something that is more important (to you as the client) than money.
Deus was able to trade on the station for his high-end tech, so there’s evidently something Earth has which is worthy of trade.
But thats besides the point. Earth already has a population of aliens we’ve seen who have been hiding under the cover of the veil. They obviously find something worthy on Earth for use. Earth is now aware of alien life elsewhere so there’s nothing to prevent Lapha from ordering a new body and having it delivered while paying for it in whatever “currency” or barter Deus used.
I’m sure she could get pretty decent money for Nth tech or Supers, but she’s failed twice now, (noting last time it had left her poor) and is bartering only for her own escape.
Sure, Archon could simply take that deal and be rid of Lapha, but if they have an opportunity to keep Lapha and the knowledge she currently holds from Sydney’s memories, they could certainly make a payment offer. Is Earth advanced? No, but compared to how Lapha has lived up to this point, she can probably check Sydney’s memories and see that living on the Archon Pay, giving her access to Earth’s pleasures and such (regardless of how low tech they are) might be a significant step up from the street urchin life that led her to be a mercenary. Even if we take the commentary of her seeking a more action oriented life, its not like working for Archon won’t have its action.
Dabbler certainly seems to have found Earth and Archon employment to be agreeable despite her likely abundance of treasure wealth and the riches she could make from her technological capability or the life she could lead closer to the side of a powerful fiend like Tom, as the daughter of a Succubus matriarch.
As I see it, Laphas survival was optional when they started this discussion.
And Lapha just pointed a gun at Sydneys head.
The only question is: Is non-lethal removal quicker?
Thats presuming Lapha hasn’t already “Taken” Sydney’s memories. She could easily have a full copy already and Sydney is still operating only because Lapha is still connected, allowing Sydney to keep accessing them and operating.
Presumably then, Lapha’s offer would be to restore a copy of Sydney’s memories to her brain before removal
Well there are three issues with that:
1. It would require Lapha to be good at planning. That has not been the case thus far.
2. They have memory transfer magic. Because otherwise Laphas species would not exist
3. Lapha is a Sydney backup. Unless she can delete those memories quickly, she at best forced copy job onto Dabbler.
I still think the brown mystery orb is going to finally see use here. This is a brand new things that has happened to Sydney. She has activated it before but it didn’t do anything because there were no boarders to repel from her mind.
So Lapha is offering a choice where whichever way ArcSWAT lose Sydney (be it enslaved in space, captive in ArcSWAT’s basement, or minddead) but thinks they’ll go for any option where Lapha walks home free with possession of the orbs?
And this is assuming that no-one possibly calls it a bluff or that they don’t just put Sydney into a medical coma and give Dabbler (or any one else in the galaxy, *or* any superpower that might exist on Earth that can take control of Lapha) however long is needed to work out how to extract an AI from a human mind safely?
At this point, holding out for any offer better than “you get Tenri’s body back and don’t make the charges against you any worse” is pretty stupid.
Wiping works better if you aren’t a backup copy, Lapha.
At best, you just forced a copy job onto Dabbler.
At worst, you just pointed a gun at Sydneys head. And Dabbler has the means to kill you.
Just get Krona to adjust reality
Probably the best approach at this point.
The solution is very simple: Sydney needs to be fed extremely spicy food until Lapha leaves.
It’s not torture if Sydney consents. Lord of the rings extended edition while being spoonfed volcano hot vindaloo?
While off her meds, obviously.
Simple solution; torture Lapha by making Sydney eat “hot stuff.” Sydney will be all YUM! while Lapha will be all “Let! Me! Out of here!”
What, no string of stupid mashed together insults, Sydney? You’re losing your touch.
Not sure how Lapha hopes to escape. Moment she jumps out of Sydney, they’re gonna grab her. Even if she does the “I’ll send her back to you when I’m free” thing, that just means Sydney will be doing the grabbing.
I think she’s dumb enough to think that “Letting her go” means she’ll keep Sydney. Ah nope, if they have to, they’ll put Sydney in a medically induced coma and strap them both down for as long as it takes. Lapha STILL doesn’t get humans at all! We don’t let someone steal red-letter secrets, or steal a member of the Archon crew! You’re DONE lady, DEAL with it! Maybe down the the road someday you can get a bit part on the next “Lord of the Rings” remake!
But I wouldn’t count on it…
just feed her chilli
I feel like Lapha hasn’t really thought this through. Dabbler obviously knows about this particular variety of body-snatcher, and so far none of her plans have worked.
The method to get her to leave voluntarily is simple. What does Sydney enjoy that effects others with extreme pain?
Serve her Sydney’s favorite hot food after dosing her with something that induces hyper-sensory taste and smell. And give her siracha (original) laden spicy V-8 to wash it down with.
Lapha’s an idiot.
At BEST she’s bought herself an extended stay in the detention center until Sydney dies of old age. They’re not going to let her go. All the while she can do nothing to advance her ‘game state’ as it were while all ARCHON has to do is wait till Syd dies to let whoever is the top super at that time claim her orbs.
But that’s highly cynical and leaves us without our favorite blonde. Thing is, that even if Dabbler takes decades to figure out a way to remove Lapha or for humanity to advance enough to be able to go to Shatterpoint on their own and buy the tech needed to remove her, they have that time. Lapha doesn’t.
Her best move right now is to simply agree to be taken into custody on the grounds she gets an actual host (either some braindead person or a golem or something) and just get used to being in prison life while playing good girl. Either that or agree to be released on the grounds her knowledge/memory get erased so she can’t recall that the orbs are nth tech.
just tell lapha that you will disassemble her in runtime and forcefully extract the memories from her code…. if it comes to code cruelty, we here on earth have a long and storied history in mangeling code ;)
Hmm, a parasitic entity that has taken a valuable and likable member of military agency hostage and could destroy Sidney’s memories if forcibly removed.
Well, death it is then.
I mean its probably a bluff, which Sidney should figure out quickly enough if it is, if not what is an acceptible degree of npossibly neurological damage if they mana poison Lapha to destabalize her structure, or use mana dampeners to weaken her to loosen the connection first, maybe not extract but make weak enough to directly attack without causing serious damage to Sidney.
Maybe call in some psionics to help stabalize Sidney’s mind during the Mana matrix destabalization.
I mean, we know Archon has access to mages and psionics, so there are options. Lapha is just flailing desperatly at this point, and she only knows what Sidney does, but not all at once, it seems the memory extraction is selective. An external trigger being required like the orbs coming up and thus learning about them or talking about Silence of the Lambs and taking Lapaha a moment to access the memory.
Maxima and Dabbler could be testing the reaction window for Lapha’s connection here. Which could be enough information for a group of mages and psionics working together to disconnect while Lapha is extracted or killed.
*assuming extracted is the goal here, and no matter what she is not going anywhere.
on that note, seems Parfait’s friends fled the scene, so wandering if they have gone to Tenri’s room to save their friend, and how quickly the rumor of Nth tech is going to spread now.
… i think thats the point a -lot- of the people this, seemingly not all that bright being, would try to pull this stunt on,especially in the circles she lives in,
would cheerfully forcibly extract them, do the magical equivalent of decompiling her down to non-intelligent code as if they were dealing with an annoying computer virus
whilst she was conscious and likely trying to scream, and put Sidney’s mind mostly back together with the resulting memories >.<
HOW HAS SHE SURVIVED THIS LONG AS A PIRATE/SLASH SLAVER IF SHE IMMEDIATELY JUMPS-
ahem, sorry-
how is she STILL ALIVE when her best bet at an insurance policy here is entirely dependent on her captors being better people then she is- and willing to play games with someone with intelligence that could get their entire planet glassed, despite said individual seemingly being, metaphorically souless/completely amoral???
like, if Deus was in charge here, there's an excellent chance she'd literally already be dead/worse before Sydney even woke back up-
its a stupid plan with mostly-moral superheroes for petes sake-
is.. is she actually a psychopath/sociopath?
i know some variants of ASPD in humans come with impaired planning ability/a tendency towards impulsive actions, but i dont want to anthropomorphize, especially given she's a non-carbon based intelligence…
If Deus were in charge here, Lapha would think she won right up until the point where Deus makes an evil laugh and everything falls apart around Lapha faster than she can cope with.
… or maybe this is actually…
some kind of bizzare attempt at either suicide, or an absurdly warped cry for help?
From a cynical perspective, blank slate Sydney isn’t a terrible asset.
Look at it this way. She currently has barely any military training, so that’s not a huge loss if wiped. She also currently has a bunch of secrets and know-how that badly outstrips her rank(and let’s be honest, discipline).
If you poll ArcDark, they’re probably going to say blank slate Sydney is much preferable to an enemy agent out there in the wild with what Sydney currently knows. There’s an argument that -no- Sydney is a preferable outcome. Space is vast and full of out of context problems; Sydney’s knowledge of the bleeding edge of potential resistance to those problems is an unacceptable breach.
Blank slate doesn’t mean “functional adult but with no personality”
Blank slate means she needs to be potty trained and taught how to walk again.
That’s less cynical and more sociopathic
It also ignores the fact that there’s no way of guaranteeing what blank slate Sydney would develop into. Going through the equivalent of the terrible twos with somebody who can destroy a city in under 10 minutes seems like it might be problematic…
To be fair, they can call the bluff. If she does do that to Sydney, they could see it as a win win. Oh look! We get to re-educate Sydney and make her less hyperactive and a better soldier!
Assuming the hyperactivity isn’t genetic. which, given her father, is not unlikely.
Have you been diagnosed as a sociopath yet?
You are aware that this scenario where she would become Halo-Winter-Soldier (Winter Halo?), she would be starting from a blank, ie, she would need to be taught how to walk, feed herself and speak from zero?
That process would take YEARS (unless they have some means to copy a complete mind on her but if they could do that, they could restore Sydney) during which she would be non-operable as a soldier? Years during which she might actually be desperately needed?
The only reason this is acceptable is because the alternative of letting Lapha go free means that she leaves with all the secrets that are in Sydney’s memory? Which include secrets that would help a potential alien invasion, Nth tech secrets and everything that a powerful alien force intending to invade Earth for its supers would find very juicy.
you are forgetting the rare forbidden experiments. Language is something that is learned at a key point, if not learned then, well its hard to even get the concept to work. this argues the the memory wipe is a bluff of some level.
Real world science doesn’t hold up well in comic book realities
Everything you said is sociopathic and/or ignorant.
The stand out is the idea that she could be trained to be less hyperactive.
ADHD is genetic. Our brains don’t make enough dopamine (to greatly simplify a complex situation). You can’t train this response. All you can do is supply alternative means of producing more dopamine, such as by stimulating the brain with chemicals.
Just give Sydney some of that spicy space stuff.
She has access to Sydney’s memories, if she doesn’t voluntary jump from Sydney’s body when she eats it, she will be begging to jump body before it comes out at the toilet.
I mean even if she manages to sell Sydney to someone, there’s an extremely good chance they’ll kill her to make sure she cant be tortured to reveal who she sold nth level tech user too. And that’s if anyone is dumb enough to buy her knowing that Max is gonna come flying in with her mega death beam that can take out the boogie men of the universe out in a single shot.
Remember, Sydney only liked the Grakz on the way IN, and she LIKES spicy. Feed her a few bowls, tell Lapha roughly how many hours she has before it hits the fan *in the chair.* Recommend that she review Sydney’s memories of the last time. Then offer her a way out. Just based on the memories, she’ll be fleeing for the previous body. Or else Syddles will have Grakz on the regular.
She’s moving from a prison term to termination.
Uh, Dave, did you forget Maxima has touch-based telekinesis? She only has to touch one part and she can lift with all-over support…
I have a low tolerance for this kind of thing. I would have attempted a well aimed particle beam through the lit fart. Unless they are after intelligence. END THE THREAT. Then again, this is why I’m not in charge :P
Maxima: “You’re making a very VERY big assumption that we would be unwilling to ‘shelve’ Sidney, (in a comfortable cell with Netflix) rather than let you run about wherever you please with something as dangerous as her orbs.”
Sidney: “But we’ve established she can’t use them, right?”
Dabbler: “No, but are we sure she can’t run your body off a cliff, at the bottom of which is an ally of hers with a spare body, and then claim the orbs from your corpse?”
Sidney: “(gulp) No… no we have not established or proven that theory one way or the other… and I would very much like to keep it that way!”
Maxima: “Us too. So you see miss Lapha, the hand you’re trying to play isn’t as strong as you thin–”
Sidney: “Can I get Paramount+ in my cell?”
Maxima: (blinks) “Pardon?”
Sidney: “Paramount+, another streaming service in addition to Netflix! I wasn’t really going to drop my CraveTV subscription for them, but then they reclaimed all the new Star Treks, and that’s pretty much what I got the Crave sub for in the first place, well, that and Harry Potter, and the new movies that they can’t call Harry Potter because he hasn’t been born yet, but dammit, if Paramount is going to hold the shiny new Treks hostage, I guess they’re going to win THAT hostage negotiation in a way this lame bodysnatcher obviously isn’t. HEY! We should actually watch Invasion of the Body Snatchers! Would that make this awkward for you or is that more like porn to you? Well, maybe it’s more like old 70s porn with afro-bushes because the movie was actually made in 1956, which I guess would mean it’s more like 50s porn than 70s porn. Was there 50s porn? I kinda assume it would be disappointing by modern standards but I kinda want to see it now just to find out how weird and lame it was! Like to seduce the dude, does she just flash a bare ankle from under her poodleskirt or what? Gosh! We’ve got so MUCH to watch together! I’m kind of looking forward to my full-time streaming video career path now! Wait! Streaming! I could do a live-stream or reaction videos and Arianna could still use them to benefit the Archon Team somehow I’m sure! Hey, is it abuse of my very limited authority if I ask Anvil to do a Warner Brothers landing on the house of any idiot who suggests I start an OnlyFans or–
Lapha: “AAAARGH LEMME OUT LEMME OUT LEMME OUT LEMME OUT LEMME OUT!!!”
Dabbler: “…Man, I never get to use this thing!”
Dabbler grinning evily: ”Speaking of porn Sydney, have you seen any good hentai lately?”
Sydney: ”Hentai! You like hentai Lapha? I do. We gotta watch my hentai favourites together.”
Lapha groans in agony.
I wonder what it says about me how easily I can do a Sydney-esque, ADD stream of consciousness wall-of-text of wildly inappropriate thoughts that seems like it could have easily gone on indefinitely if I hadn’t hit the breaks myself?
We have something like Grakz, but it’s hot on the way in. It’s the only known recipe that uses Indian ghost pepper as the main ingredient by weight.
Grakz is also hot on the way in. It’s just HOTTER on the way OUT. Some weird chemistry going on internally.