Grrl Power #1240 – Puzzle a possessor
Welp, Sydney’s mind has gotten bored with the situation. Really, that’s no surprise, seeing as how they stuck her in a light beige room. Would it kill them to maybe print a nice landscape on the canvas? Sure, if someone is having a proper looney-tunes freakout, you probably want to minimize their stimulation. It would be foolish to stick someone having hallucinations in a room where one wall is a 10×10 foot print of van Gogh’s self portrait, another wall is a high-res picture of a nebula, another is a silhouetted forest, another is a giant M.C. Escher, the floor is a print of a photo taken of the ground from the top of the Eiffel tower, and the ceiling is one huge eye. That would not be therapeutic.
By the way, anyone think it’s weird that it’s “Looney Tunes” and not “Looney Toons?” They were cartoons not a band. So why was it “Tiny Toons” and not “Tiny Tunes?”
Anyway. In Sydney’s head, and mine too, admittedly, there’s a sort of height hierarchy, where races are clumped together based on size category. The problem is it kind of breaks down beyond a few examples unless you really go digging around in extensive monster manuals. Halfling to human to giant is an easy matchup, but what comes next in the Kobold to Lizardman chain? Are there 9 foot tall mostly anthropomorphized dragons out there? Probably, but you probably have to look in Monster Manual 8 to find them. And then there’s the problem of gnomes and dwarves. Why is is halfling to human and not dwarf or gnome to human? Or maybe it goes halfling -> human -> hill giant, and dwarf -> human – > stone giant? It could be a multi-dimensional chart.
Or it could just be that some races are shorter than others, and myself and Sydney have spent entirely too much time thinking about it.
For the record I hugely prefer the mini-lizardman version of kobolds. They’re so cute.
(Not my art, clearly. First pic is by Sorc at FurAffinity, who seems to like lizard Kobolds more than me. Second one is Nisnow from reddit.)
It amuses me that if you look up hobgoblin on the DnD Wiki, each edition of the game has them becoming better and better looking. Like the first edition one looks like some Mongolian Oni, and evolves through different stages of demon gorilla until the 5th edition where they look like cool, red lion men. Baldur’s Gate 3 has pretty amazing artwork and 3D design, but the first time I met a hobgoblin in that game, I was like, why isn’t this handsome race available for character creation? They look like Bruce Campbell with a slightly shorter, wider, downward pointing nose. I wanna play as one of those! Or I would if I hadn’t been playing a badass looking gold fucking dragon guy. Though I will say, as cool as he looked, the player avatar’s primary function is being surprised in the reverse angle shot when a big monster is revealing itself in a dialog/cut scene, so my awesome dragon guy was like (;ʘöʘ) half the time I was looking at him.
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.
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“By the way, anyone think it’s weird that it’s “Looney Tunes” and not “Looney Toons?” They were cartoons not a band. So why was it “Tiny Toons” and not “Tiny Tunes?””
They were Looney Tunes because they were loony, and they had a musical sound track. Sometime highly central to the story, like “What’s Opera, Doc?” But the Tiny Toons were named by people who didn’t appreciate that point, and thought it was just an odd way to abbreviate “cartoon”.
‘What’s Opera, Doc?’ isn’t a “Looney Tune” it’s a “Merrie Melody”. In fact I’d say the 3 of the best known “Looney Tunes” are actually “Merrie Melodies”. The aforementioned ‘What’s Opera, Doc?” famous for “Kill the Wabbit”, ‘Duck Amuck’ where daffy is erased and redrawn, and ‘One Froggy Evening’ with the singing frog. They’re also responsible for Tweety and Sylvester, Speedy Gonzales and the first true Bugs Bunny cartoon (there are versions of him in earlier cartoons but ‘A Wild Hare’ is when he becomes the rabbit we know today).
Many of the “Merrie Melody” shorts, especially the earlier ones was warner bros trying to make money on its extensive music catalogue. They had rights to more music than they could ever use for film. A lot of those early cartoons are based around the piece of music used to back it, usually with the actions following the tempo. Eventually “Merrie Melody” being misnomer-ed into a loony tune.
…”but ‘A Wild Hare’ is when he becomes the rabbit we know today.
I read rabbit as “wabbit” lol
To be fair, the music of Raymond Scott is a little looney.
The original Looney Tunes were cartoons made to match musical scores, with very little speech to capitalise on the recently introduced ‘Talkies’.
Though they were Looney, their name probably owes more to Disney’s Silly Symphonies.
The star of them was originally Bosko, and there’s a few good reasons why that was changed within a few years, with the recurring stars such as Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, etc.
Merrie Melodies started a year later in colour, and were originally one shot comedic cartoons with no recurring characters.
Would that make kobolds dragon quartlings?
I’m sorry Lapha, but you are really not, they have like 5+ ways to deal with you and most of them don’t involve killing Sydney.
Also kobolds aren’t lizards they are dragons!!! If anything they are Dragonborn halflings.
I was thinking something similar. While ogre-sized lizardfolk and dragon-men certainly do exist (albeit having never gained the traction to have one form that’s maintained between editions), there is a point where the giant equivalent of the reptilian races is just going to be “it’s dragons. No really. Big sapient monkey might be a ‘giant’, but big sapient reptile is eventually going to come down to ‘dragon’, however many steps there are in between”.
Mind you, the ironic thing there is that Sydney would be right about goblins and orcs if they were talking Warhammer rather than D&D. Mind you, Warhammer all but explicitly says that halflings aren’t human halflings, they’re OGRE halflings. The Old Ones seemed to like “little guy and big guy” pairings apart from the classic three.
what about godzilla and dinosaurs? They are giant lizards that are not typically considered dragons.
Dinosaur are the ancestors of poultry , Sic transit gloria mundi – “Thus passes the worldly glory.” –
For a big red badass Dragon it’s a dire insult .
I’ll imagine an adult red dragon taunted by a titan:
“For me you’re just a over sized Kobold.”
I would expect that “your mama was a gecko” would be a first class ticket to a barbecue pit for insulting a ddragon
your mama was a gecko and your father smelled of barbecue
For the 1st kobold pic in the artist commentary, “sorc” is written on the side, so I looked it up, and found someone using the handle @SorcArts on Twitter (actual pic is from 2019)
As for the 2nd, there appears to be a signature under one of the arms, but it honestly looks like a scribble to me.
I threw the second one into saucenao and it returned an artstation profile called Alexandr Tryascin, but the piece itself seems to be deleted as the artist only showcases 3d art there now.
It’s from this twitter: https://twitter.com/phantom_nisnow/status/1179791192277450752
The Sorc kobold is most likely from twitter, or Dave has been lurking around furry sites.
Would that be surprising?
source for the Sorc one that I mentioned earlier https://twitter.com/SorcArts/status/1101263488616296448
Google Lens suggests second is @nisnowo on twitter. No ability to confirm since I don’t have a Twitter account anymore.
IIRC, ‘Looney Tunes’ are a loooot older than ‘Tiny Toons’ going back to the early black and white days. They almost always had songs. See if you can find any of the earliest Porky Pig offerings.
Oh my god.. are they going to get her to leave Sydney by making her go full ADD? When was the last time she took her meds?
Seems a bit cruel to be honest…
Lapha is trying to use Sydney as a hostage and was willing to sell her and her nuke-equivalent orbs to the highest bidder.
If anything, this is not cruel enough. Lapha should get a whole day of this until she yields.
Yeah but it’s also very painful to stop certain meds. SSRIs for instance, and I think a sudden stop of most ADHD meds too.
For ADHD meds, it depends on the medication, and the person. If I stop my adderall cold turkey, I get super hungry and tired, but that’s nothing compared with when I was on SSRIs and forgot to take them one night. Nightmares bordering on hallucinations.
Ouch! Maybe it is about the dose or a particular SSRI substance, but I fortunately did not have that kind of problems with mine: around a week of mild digestive problems and headaches when starting the medication and about the same when I was ending it. Considering the time I was on them, I probably forgot a pill at some point, but did not get anything nearly as severe as you did.
for me the only side effect from stopping SSRI was brain zaps. not painful, but really, really disorienting when your brain goes bzzt like a mini-seizure.
Most of us don’t use SSRIs. Aside from usually not being effective, they can even aggravate the symptoms. They are only useful if the ADHD person has depression that stems from a deeper root than being frustrated and sad at the way ADHD is fucking up their life.
Stimulant withdrawal makes you tired and hungry and maybe cause a headache. Basically the same as caffeine.
I never had withdrawal symptoms from Ritalin/Concerta, but I only took it 5 days a week.
Though one time when I took it on the weekend I had symptoms consistent with an overdose (I took the normal amount I would’ve during a weekday), which nearly caused a nervous breakdown.
I too think my ADHD is a cognitohazard to any mind reader out there. It’s not just a disability, it’s also a weapon!
most telepathic races considered the human race as an infectious disease of pandemic proportions
ok now it sounds like Miles describes Ivan in the Vorkgasgon saga “He is not just an idiot but he makes the people around him idiots, he could be sent to the enemy if any general can remember the plan around him.”
Going full AD&D? ^_^ I’m there for any & all gamer chat. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is my jam!
I need to find the advance schema for the xvarts, then.
Goblins have their own built in advance schema. Goblins to hobgoblins to bugbears to barghests.
Kobolds are originally lizard-like, not dog-rats, and had nothing to do with dragons. Their advance schema would be Koblds to lizard men/troglodytes to saurials/lizard kings.
As a German I have to say Kobolds are small, often but not always high magic, humanoids that play dirty tricks on people they live with.
They can bring wealth and good fortune. A typical Kobold story has either the Human demanding more and more until the Kobold is fed up. Or they only see the dirty trick part and drive the Kobold away. Icluding all his wealth and good fortune.
Typical kobold storys have very rarely to never a happy end.
The older versions of folk tales rarely seem to have happy endings
We were just outside of Vegas when the meds wore off….
Ah yes… the most obvious yet devious plan… drive her out with the endless noise of Sydney being Sydney
ransom of red chief. that’s where this was going. make Lapha BEG to be released. quick, obscure batman Quick, how do we get Sydney to imagine shirtless batman again….
Easy, have shirtless Batman make out with shirtless Wolverine.
And now we have 3 options, Dark Claw is the merger of both, and what can he do in the shadows?
3 options, claws, cloak, darkness and fear!
4 options, claws, cloak, darkness, fear and ruthless inefficiency!
5 options, claws, cloak, darkness, fear, ruthless inefficiency and the Spanish inquisition!
And now we’ve entered the endless loop of spanish inquisition and badly matching numerals that can add up and over to infinity and beyond we have a self unpacking fractal bomb of information that can overload any system.
This way it’s going to be (useless) information overload and Lapha really wants to go back to her body.
Ah yes, it looks like the meds are wearing off. Let the games begin!
Reference John Larkin.
I called it as well, the old … “you want this Mind can you take it” – Defense
How about adding some Sidney flavored food to the mix.
Ah yes, the old ‘annoy them so badly that they give up’ gambit. Works every time.
I don’t know, seems to me like it’d be a bit of a rarity in kidnapping situations.
In a normal kidnapping scenario, the kidnapper has the ability to go somewhere else for a while if they’re getting too annoyed. Not so with Lapha.
“The Ransom of Red Chief”
That was basically my first thought. Sydney going off on a Sydney, intentionally or non intentionally, Dabbler picking up on it and playing along and then Max finally catching on.
It may be cruel but is still deserved.
Now, here’s the weird thing I just noticed:
Dabbler picks up and starts playing along… after a spoonful of chilli.
Max joins in… after taking the chilli from Dabbler.
Is the chilli acting as an aid for getting into Sydney’s mindset?
Yeah, that confused me as well.
Max is all ‘don’t engage this’ takes the chili, takes a spoonful and starts engaging herself.
All of this raises the question: What does Dabbler cook into her chili?
Maxima acquired that chili for Dabbler on page 1224
Did Dabbler add her own spice to it?
Pretty sure Max picked it up for her
Although Dabbler could still make additions
She wants memories and knowledge? She’s going to get ALL of Sydney’s geeky knowledge.
Btw, the Kobold on the left is by Sorc: https://www.furaffinity.net/view/31017902/ (NSFW warning for the rest of the gallery)
Any room designed to hold Sydney should have the walls, floor and ceiling covered in as intricate yet random a design as possible, you want her focused on that, not finding a way out.
I think DaveB’s point was that this room is NOT custom-built, more like quickly thrown together to do the job.
Yay! Double-length page! Love Max’ hilarious expression in panel 12! Also, really like how you’ve been drawing her during this sequence.
Max, you sure you want to eat Dabbler’s chili? Sure, she’s immune to diseases and stuff, but you’re likely not (unless Max hasn’t been sick since her gold phase started, and we don’t know it?). Also, you got the chili, so I’m assuming your comment about the quality is intended to rib Dabbler. Haven’t given much thought to the lineage of the races mentioned, but that’s mainly due to their not existing in the game world I’m building. *shrug*
I’m going to assume Sydney’s ADHD meds have worn off at this point, and either Lapha ignored anything personal outside of the sex history, or hadn’t gone back far enough in Sydney’s memories to find this out. *continues munching kettle corn*
It’s been commented that succubus immune systems are SO goid that they can actually end up curing illnesses in people who have sex with them. So sharing the chili carries no risk beyond maybe ending up horny…
Max knows that Dabbler’s suffering from Mana withdrawal, it’s not contagious
And if Dabbler’s functionally immune to disease she’s not going to be passing anything on anyway.
The really wild question is whether dark-elves and black-elves are just synonyms for the dwarves (there’s some evidence from the Eddas that this is true) and the entire concept of drow is nonsense.
D&D drow are pretty far away from the folklore whichever way you slice it, I think. Including the drow to be found in the folklore of some of the islands near Scotland (generally better known as trow).
D&D drow are more closely related to dwarves via the Elder Scrolls Dwemer- both being elves that live underground in power-hungry, monolithic societies- than through folklore.
Drow are dark alfar, by way of the Norse light alfar/dark alfar – which are pretty much a mixture of elf & dwarf qualities [as we think of them now] – with a detour from JRRTolkien – who made elves SO much more attractive. ^_^
Which is basically the point being made. In fact, there’s a true irony in that the Noldor – the branch of “high elves” we see the most of in Tolkein’s works – are actually pretty close to dark alfar, since their original defining characteristic was their skill at making things and being more likely to live underground than other kindreds.
Take you seriously?
Hmmm, let me consider.
… No.
Because the more upset you get, the more likely you are to make a mistake, slaver parasite.
Yes, but is the grue a pure strain or a cross?
Max, please don’t from the same bowl with the same spoon as Xuriel. You have no idea where she’s been.
Actually, I think we know exactly where/who/what she’s she’s been in/have in, in excruciating details.
… no matter how much we ask her to stop talking…
I mean… Lapha has given Sydney the means to rewatch every movie she’s ever seen, re-read every comic, replay every youtube video and such… Sydney’s covered for entertainment.
Medication is wearing off it would seem…
Anyone notice that Lapha is no longer speaking through Sydney, but her own mouth?
As if she’s instinctualy retreated.
Keep this up a bit and Lapha will have to pull all her threads out of Sydney and then she can be plucked from Sydney with ease.
Maybe… Thoughts.
?
Her own mouth is sleeping in some off-world dorm, along with the rest of her
Huh, I was right, Lapha really can’t feel Sydney’s state of mind.
Despite the possession, there still seems to be either a physiological or mental degree of separation.
They covered this in the last page. It was stated that an Aetholith can’t read your mind, just your memories. So they don’t know what you are currently thinking, just what you have thought about before.
Monty Python’s ‘Confuse a Cat’ skit reference.
Mmmm, Chili. I think i’m having chili for supper today…
Yes, I thought they might engage the Kender Strategy.
Of all the people to possess, she chose to try to grab the one that is certifiably insane. Let Sydney get bored and this possess will be screaming to get out of sydney’s head.
Actually I am surprised after seeing the memories, she is not screaming to get out of there already.
Lapha will leave Sydney and jump back on it’s previous host body….
Or will it?!?
It’s processing power… This is pretty genius.
lapha is a computer virus essentially or hacker. infiltrating the mind like a virus and pilfering surface data. She is not directly linked to the system in this case Sydney.
Sydney is normally running at a normal speed, giving her plenty of time to pluck data out, process and send it on. But off meds, Sydney is overclocked and she just can’t keep up. Her mind is splitting up as essentially she can’t read as fast as the information is arriving. So her threat will be a zero point if they keep this up, can’t copy data if you can’t keep up with the hardware.
ADHD. IS. NOT. A. SUPERPOWER.
Sydney’s mind does not work at impossibly high “overclocked” speeds. She’s just unfocused and unable to orient herself on a pressing task, especially since Lapha just made the actual task at hand much less pressing by turning it into a hostage situation.
Lapha can keep up. She’s just frustrated by the mind she’s latched onto continually running off down tangents and she’s not strong enough to keep it from dragging her along by the leash.
For clarity, I am not saying its a superpower but in this instance her brain is going a 100 miles an hour and as you say on branching pathways.
So I agree with what you are saying, she can’t focus, and in turn is dragging Lapha around because she herself can’t keep up.
her foots fully on the gas and driving all over the road, and all Lapha can do is hang on, or in the way its looking.. stop trying to keep up.
Catch23 said Lapha CAN keep up. But she is getting annoyed and frustrated that Sydney’s mind keeps going down tangents.
Also that they are not seeming to take the threat sge thinks she represents seriously sibce they keep going off topic about movies and dnd and chili minutiae that has nothing to do with the hostage situation about which she is trying to create a negotiation.
Kobolds are interesting. For several hundreds of years they’ve been goblin or brownie type creatures, and then 50 years ago D&D came out and the became small lizard men in western culture and small dog men in eastern culture. There is now more literature referring them in the later two forms than in their original form.
Well, we do live in an Information Age – respectfully, there’s more media about EVERYTHING now than there ever has been. On that particular subject, I’ve been watching Delicious in Dungeon lately, and an adventuring party had what looked like a humanoid sheepdog in it. It was only in a later episode that they mentioned kobolds, and I realized that’s what he was.
They didn’t become small lizard men in D&D until 3rd edition, about 25 years ago. Before then, they were goblin-like, but had some features that made them just a little like a rat or a small dog. Japanese RPGs had well and truly branched off by the time kobolds became lizardlike in D&D, and most Western fantasy that branched off more than 20 years ago keeps kobolds as mammalian as well (eg Warcraft).
Mmmm, Chili. I think i’m having chili for supper today…
I think you may have misspoke…. She was still cute, but a different kind. There is a “sick cute” where you want to just drop everything and take care of the cute patient.
“respect my authoritaaaa”
I still think “annoy her into leaving” isn’t going to be the actual solution though.
Lapha is more offended than anything else and has no reason to think possible imprisonment for life or execution is preferable to enduring them joking around.
I have a niece that is very much like Sydney, Asperger’s, even while on her meds is hard to keep up with. An hour with her can be very frustrating, I feel for her hubby, but who knows? I seriously doubt Lapha can deal with it for the rest of Sydney’s life, locked in a padded room with nobody to talk to OTHER than Syd, except to ask if she’s ready to leave. A bit more, then Max drops the other boot, telling Lapha no one is leaving unless she does release Sydney.
Regarding all those fantasy species I don’t think the creators had anything in mind regarding “X is the halfling version of Y”. I think they just used their creativity to create a bunch of species and if you want to connect some of them in this manner then that’s entirely up to you because it’s all fantasy. There’s many different universes that feature Orcs, Elves and whatnot, and there are different interpretations about them (e.g. in Discworld, Elves and Pixies are bad news most of the time, Trolls think a lot better in the cold, and being a Dwarf is more of a lifestyle than a species, hence Carrot).
But I admit that it’s fun to play around with the thoughts of who could be the halfling version of whom. E.g. if you look at Flakypastry, that could mean that their main character Kobold Nitrine is a quarterling of their dragon landlord.
I don’t think it’s a conscious choice to make a halfling version, but it’s fairly common for a “new” fantasy race to be “mostly like this existing fantasy race, but smaller/bigger”. Halflings are just a well-known example of “mostly like humans, but smaller”.
Feed the Squirrel, and Lapha will beg to be let out if Sydney’s head.
Lapha: “What are you doing?!”
All: “We are distracting you, you big turd blossom!”
magical Lapha retreival.
Dabbler: “And luckily it worked. That way I could charge the *non*-lethal retreival option.”
Anybody remember that scene in MIB where Will Smith touched the thing that caused the NYC blackout? Sydney just touched the thing.
Dabbles must be feeling better – she’s starting to look cute again.
OMG!!! I just realized what Syd is doing. by doing this she is going to annoy Lapha to going back to the other host, without the need to use that device.
She isn’t TRYING to… this is the ADD meds wearing off… firsthand knowledge. Extreme unrelated glimmers of insanity/intellect happen.
if i were possessed by a being who could read my memories but not my mind, i suppose i might try to communicate with my friends through code so that the possessor wouldn’t know what i was planning
Regarding the kobold illustrations posted they are, respectively:
“Ixen the Kobold Rock Merchant!” By Sorc and “Mishon The Kobold” By whitestripe999
Courtesy of Google Lens