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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Most deviations from the Halfling to Human to Giant genetic look can be attributed to the Chaos Gem. Chaos be freaky like that.
NOT THE CHILI!
I am waiting to see how Lapha handles Sydney’s tolerance for ‘extreme’ foods.
Might be interesting
Hahaha! Heck YEAH! That would be amazing!
Give her a bowl of Grakz. If that doesn’t get her out, wait about 10 hours.
One bowl? Why only one?
do you want to wipe Sydney’s butt after 2 bowls?
no I think it’ll will disintegrate the chair at that point. kind of like thermite, no wait, exactly like thermite.
maybe lauha will remember the UVtuber stream when she was doing a burn challenge
Because its 10 times hotter on the way out and Sydney doesnt have a tub full of yogurt to sit in.
now that she is in Texas, I feel confident that she can quickly acquire a tub of yogurt. might I recommend the Greek yogurt.
Personally haven’t found Greek yogurt to be much different (let alone betterer) than ‘regular’ yogurt: it’s just some fad to charge more
If anything, Icelandic ‘Isey Skyr’ tastes betterer than Greek
For the record, kobolds are neither rat-men nor lizardmen. They are basically the Germanic equivalent of goblins. Kobolds are to goblins as elves are to fae. Also, gorgons are not related to bulls. Gorgons are humanoid creatures with snakes for hair. The most famous gorgon was the one named Medusa. It’s ok to use the D&D definitions for all this, but you should at least know when it’s sh***ing all over history, tradition, and folklore. :)
They were also associated with mines, and specifically, with the disintegration of what they assumed was silver ore but which when smelted would crumble into a blue powder. The resulting powder would come to be called ‘cobalt’, because they believed it was the result of Faerie trickery, and when the underlying element was isolated, it was called Cobalt.
[quote]Also, gorgons are not related to bulls.[/quote]
lol, they kinda are in a way: https://www.snible.org/coins/parion.html
Also: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/111271/why-is-the-dd-gorgon-a-metal-bull
Ah, I knew someone would get around to Nerdsplaining it eventually. Now I don’t have to feel a vague [ull to tramp down other people’s enjoyment of things that aren’t actually real. After 53 years, I’ve figured out that nobody really cares, so long as they are having fun.
Also, gorgons are not related to bulls.
– lol, try searching the term gorgon bull, might enlighten you. Like how D&D actually drew inspiration for gorgons being bulls from another source [The Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes]
Since when were gorgons ever related to bulls?
Dungeons and Dragons has “Gorgon” has a bull monster.
on that record as a kid who loved mythology and folklore Dungeons and Dragons has had some irritating influence on people who don’t understand what creative license is and that its not accurate to folklore or myth and doesn’t have to be.
see the annoying “what is a dragon” debate and realize the taxonomy definition comes not from myths or folklore but Dungeons and Dragons.
I imagine someone on the dev team just conflated The gorgon Medusa (Who, in many popular interpretations, has a petrifying gaze rather than the more-mythologically accurate “she is so hideous that those who gaze upon her turn to stone”) and the catoblepas, a bull-like creature who could only look downward due to the weight of its head, which luckily negates its supernatural ability to kill anything it looks at.
Yes, that’s the bullish version (catoblepas), couldn’t remember that one, only cockatrice and basilisk (which is not a fucking giant snake!)
The four-legged dragon, two-legged wyvern thing from D&D comes from English heraldry. English heraldry specifically because continental European heraldry did not make such a distinction and happily called dragons its two-legged (or even zero-legged) flying lizards.
To be fair in English Heraldry they also called Wyverns a type of dragon, and in fact many works of art made little distinction such as various paintings of St George and the dragon, as well as refering to various big snakes covered in spikes or other such things such as the Lindwyrm dragons. In fact I’d say most dragons in the UK were basically giant snakes or of the wyvern variety.
in fact “dragons” across Europe varied from the Tarasque (the actual one not the D&D onr) which had a turtle shell covered in spikes, a stiff tail, eight bear paws, and the head of a lion. We also had a dragon with the body of a porcupone and the tail and head of a snake, and another in France that was a giant snail with tentacles that reached across the country side.
One of the funnies to me was people online arguing that so many four limbed dragons were Wyverns when if we want to be that specific the quadrupedal four limbs with the front limbs as wings seen in many modern shows and movies is not a Wyvern at all, but closer to the Jaculus *which were usually very small dragons* but had the forelimbs of a bat, snake like body, and usually a dog or arrow shaped head.
if we go to Slavic countries almost all dragons have multiple heads, wings, and are shapeshifters,
in Greece it gets weird as the Drakon was often when it was a male was basically a giant horned snake, but the female Drakanae often had the upper body of a woman *sometimes with additions* and the lower body of…nightmares…often scaely but also things like wolf heads, cat tails, claws, etc..
one could almost argue dragon is less a type of monster and more a class of monster. Dragon is a term like fairy, elf, vampire, or demon, that refers to a great deal of things that are technically not related at all but share some aesthetic, behavioral, or purpose in the story, roles. A kind of “you just know” like you point at something and this patterns of what was called that before in your head says, “that’s a dragon, that’s a vampire, and that’s a kaiju” etc..
That said this exists already and is a great thing to have to point to when it comes to “what is a dragon”.
this vid does a great job discussing the issues of “what is a dragon”
*Overly Sarcastic Productions, Trope Talks, Dragons*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eXAPwjASEQ
Exactly.
tracing the history of some of these is fascinating. I have had so many odd rants and confusion moments doing these deep dives finding out what came from the country of origin for the term, how it its self was likely a composite of various tribal versions with elements borrowed from exposure to surrounding cultures.
How the term could be borrowed and synchronized (its not just for gods) with similar things in other cultures, or translators decide to use THEIR NAME for something similar for everything (hence why so many things all over the world keep being translated as goblin, elf, fairy, gnome, and demons, etc…) even when those terms and the local supernatural creatures should bring to mind very different things with very different origins in the cultural folklore.
and then fantasy came along, which had a recovery backlash for this subject of little people thanks to the centuries prior of people being taken to court and even brutally executed for even saying they saw a fairy or little person or telling someone in public about a dream they had about going to elf land and meeting the el queen.
The fantasy story solution was to make everything very small and diminutive. Taking away virtually all their power and authority beyond being magical pranksters. *Also of note thanks to the laws against depicting them or even writing about them for so long, a lot of stuff got mixed together and some terms when gone to other languages stopped being generic and were assumed specific…like Troll, was a term like fairy, it was just everything magical…which oddly fairy also ended up down that road thanks tot the Victorian era.
This mix of fantasy kids story effect and synchronization is funny enough how we got Christmas elves. They are basically a combination of the German Kobold being translated as “elf” and the story of the shoemaker influencing story tellers in the 1800s I believe where Santa was also commonly called an elf as well, and have the elves as small beings building things for him.
But yeah, the Kobold stories when translated to English often translated them as Elf, Goblin, Brownie, Pixie, or Gnome. So fantasy stories to differentiate would change odd things like give some wings or a tail or pointed ears, etc.. the Kobold to help differentiate was even made into a full on rat person at times, thanks to Brownies often being given tails, or trolls…its all kinds of mixed up.
Now introduce Dungeons and Dragons much later and to stand out would make its own rules, it is a game and fiction, it doesn’t have to obey folklore or myths. But people should understand that also means its not an authority on these things. D&D made them dragon-kin.
Which funny enough modern fantasy Anime has decided that Kobolds are four foot tall dog people.
Heck just to throw this out Harpies.
Mycenean (beautiful but usually invisible wind spirits that serve the gods and would snatch people up to take to the gods, had six limbs, two sets of talons *talon hands and feet* and wings on their backs.
Hellenistic Greece (ugly vicious monsters, and often confused with the Sirens *poor Sirens always getting mixed up with other monsters*, but made ugly to help set them apart).
Modern fantasy (attractive physical monster race).
It’s also worth noting that Kobolds being dragonkin in D&D is a fairly recent innovation, the various sources prior to 3e include a variety of descriptions “like goblins” “hairless and horned” “doglike with scales” “scaly and hairless”, their language was described as sounding “like the yapping of dogs” to the point where it was even called “yip yap”.
The ratlike appearance comes mostly from the illustrations by Tony DiTerlizzi where they seem to have fur, at least in some places. Illustrations from 1e give them dog snouts and it isn’t always clear they are supposed to be scaled and not furred.
Even when 3e fully dropped the “doglike” descriptor and made them explicitly reptilian rather than having “scaly hide” or “scaley skin” or even simply “hairless”, the connection to dragons was a 4e introduction, at least according to my searches.
I don’t recall specifically where I saw this, but I recall seeing somewhere that the Japanese depiction of them as furry dogmen came directly from a mistranslation of some D&D source books and misinterpreting the official artwork, but that could just be hearsay as I don’t have a source.
Here’s a source for the various descriptors from the old days complete with page number citations: https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2n0im?Kobolds-Were-they-ever-dog-like#:~:text=Even%20in%201st%20edition%2C%20they,%27yappy%27%20at%20least%20once.
I think the kobold connection to dragons was introduced as something some kobolds believed (or claimed) at some point in 3.x
Most stuff that I know about DnD I learned from Order of the Stick or Goblins so kobolds are little lizard people to me.
Just a heads up to Dave (not that he’s likely to see this), but the main landing page for the comic takes you to page 1239 and doesn’t indicate that there’s another page you can move forward to. I had to manually type in the page number in the web address (which I did on a whim) to find this page.
I’ve been having a problem like this a lot when I first come to view a comic update. Refreshing the cache usually does the trick. (shift-f5 on most browsers).
More specifically:
– Shift+F5 (sometimes Ctrl+F5) on Chromium-based browsers (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, etc)
– For Chrome on Mac, it should be ⌘⇧R
– Ctrl+Shift+R on Firefox-based browsers (Firefox, TOR Browser, IceWeasel, Midori(?), etc)
– On Mac, again it should be ⌘⇧R
– Safari, in its fervent effort to become the next Internet Explorer, needs you to do ⌘⌥E to clear cache, then ⌘⇧R to reload, and has no option for doing so on iOS.
– Firefox on Android is holding down the refresh button in the ⋮ menu
– I have no idea for Chrome on Android, nor Chrome/Firefox on iOS
Not for me, took me to this page
I wholeheartedly agree with you on the mini-lizardmen version of Kobolds being superior. They’re freaking adorable!
Deekin will forever and always be the best party member ever.
Our computer speakers weren’t working when we got that expansion so my brother did the voices, did you know that kolbolds have Mexican accents? It’s vastly superior to what the game provided when we got new speakers.
Me thinks it’ll quickly realize trying to kidnap Sydney with her adhd etc plus the others tossing in random BS at her (and that thing’s mind matrix) will make it WANT to leave, if only to escape the insanity! (snicker)
LoL, I had a char. in a superhero game like that Jackpothad 9 separate personalities(probably more) with separate powers and skills, they also had a resistance to therapy and mind control that resolved as a stacking damage over time as the mind controller had to contend with everyone in him he is self-described as nine people sharing the same place at the same time “to save on rent”.
I had a character in pathfinder that used a lovecraftian cleric archetype that used charisma instead of wisdom because they were driven mad by their god, so the character was blatantly insane, so when a succubus tried to mind control me into a love slave or whatever and I got a natural 20 on the will save (which was charisma based, per the archetype) the GM ruled that because I was so crazy when she got in my head she was driven mad too so the effect backfired and had her obedient to me instead. The campaign fell apart for unrelated reasons, but had it continued it would have been funny because it had previously been established the character was too crazy to comprehend sex/romance but he wound up with a love slave succubus so the idea was I’d give completely non-sexual orders but the GM would try to have the succubus interpret them in sexual ways which would lead to even MORE crazy confusion because most of my orders would involve things only I could perceive (because they only existed in my insane mind). Good times!
“Oh? You want to LEAVE now?! Well guess what, you’re my skull based palm pilot now! Belt in for the ride, sucker!”
Absolute mental chaos follows.
Lapha ends up in memetic therapy muttering about pop culture references.
Looney Tunes because the first ones were silent or only had music in them as sound, either from piano/orchestra in the movie theater or from a sepearate tapetrack/vinyl and so it was a funny musical cartoon
Looney Tunes was originally a showcase of the Warner Brothers music catalog, hence “Tunes,” while Tiny Toon Adventures is about diminutive cartoon characters with ‘toon’ being diminutive for ‘cartoon.’
Psych Ops, Sydney style.
Hobgoblin: they hired a Furry artist, I bet.
Interesting, Lapha’s voice bubble arrow just seperated from Sidney in the last panel and is coming directly from her self now like it would normally. In the last panel she has stopped talking through Sidney and only herself. Me thinks perhaps the ADHD is destabilizing the neural connection for Lapha.
No, Flame-eye has no vocal cords (or anything else), so it’s pointing to the increasingly enraged Eye because other readers would be confused about the fact we can’t see the rest of Sydney
yes, we have seen it before, the voice bubble pointing directly to the flame eye, we saw it when this exact same one was on Graham the lizard man alien. When she was on him she didn’t share his voice bubbles, she spoke directly from the flame eye..
Also Tenri has no voice box or anything right now and we saw the same voice bubbles pointed at her as she smoke from the little tower of sauron she is on.
to add, this page compare panel 10, where the voice bubble is pointing down to off panel at Sidney as they both talk, and the final panel where it isn’t pointing all the way down but makes a sharp turn to indicate it is coming from Lapha directly.
We Team Maxi on this one: Kobolds are rat-dogs, not scaly-dogs (certainly not related to dragons!!)
Would love it if Laph is just caught offguard, and next page she joins in with the nerd shit once she realises what is going on (mostly just to piss off the readers who want her dead)
I knew it was only a matter of time before Sydney’s ADHD would derail things. Let’s see just how frustrated Lapha gets before she says “screw it!” and capitulates.
curious if the ADHD glitches Lapha’s programming
This is genius. Sydney is weaponising her own natural traits, to try to make herself as undesirable a host as possible by way of sheer annoyance and nerd overload. She learned that Lapha can’t read her mind, just her memories, so Lapha might not even be able to realise that this is intentional trickery!
I mean, assuming it is. It is equally likely that Sydney is just lucky enough to have a lapse of attention at a very opportune moment.
Weaponizing assumes she planned on doing this. I think Sydney just slipped on a banana peel and did a backflip with a perfect landing instead.
The Pathfinder 2nd Ed kobolds are very much “Halfling Dragonborn,” up to and including certain subraces getting dragon-y ancestry feats. Which is fun considering Dragonborn aren’t a race in that setting.
Lapha’s argument doesn’t make sense, simply because she hasn’t offered a viable alternative. “Let me go” doesn’t turn out better for them than “shelve Scoville” and she should be aware that that’s obvious to them.
Like, laying aside all the weird arguments about whether she’s sociopathic or whether Archon should be more edgy and brutal in their dealing with her…the math just doesn’t work out.
Also, they can call her bluff, because if she DOES prove able to take Sydney’s memories they could put her back in and be in the same place as they are now.
I do like dragon wolves.or just dragons. So I like kobalds looking like lizard people but not being lizard people.
Sydney’s first official podcast. Off her meds strapped to a chair with the occasional official secret bleeped / blacked out.
People watching wondering how her orbs turned into a flame.
You’ve brain-jumped into someone with SEVERE levels of ADHD.
…you’re in for a bad day…
Probably already been said, but: it’s “Looney Tunes” because it was “Merry Melodies.”
Disney started it with Silly Symphonies. That inspired Warner Bros to release Looney Tunes and later Merrie Melodies. The golden era of animation usually built the shorts around a piece of music rather than a story, which is why so many of them are mostly focused on bouncy motion instead of being about anything or telling a story. I don’t personally find them particularly engaging. I prefer a good story, musical enhancement optional, even though I love music.
Tiny Toon Adventures are just that: stories focused on cartoon characters first, music second. Well, Rita and Runt may be more of an even split but it would’ve been a waste to do otherwise.
it’s Looney Tunes as the early toons were mostly musical, showcasing movie soundtracks.
Loony Tunes was my introduction to Classical Music for the most part.
The barber of Seville
The 1812 overture
Hungarian Rhapsody
Blu Danube
Lots of classical (ie copyright free) music in early Loony Tunes
I wonder if Lapha likes spicy food?
well, kobolds are supposed to be the lowest of the most diluted remote cousin of dragons, so much so that in some cases, they don’t have scales at all, and just look like your typical anthropomorphic furry
but yeah, in other cases, they do show the little dragon ancestry they have and look like miniature lizardmen
Kobolds are half-Garrams :)
Hmmm…. gonna beat mind “control” by not taking your meds? That might actually annoy her enough to qualify as torture.
For Kodolds, I like the “Dragon” versions and the “dog” ones and the “goblin” ones… Honestly, I rarely see Kobolds I don’t like(except maybe the times I tried to doodle them)
DDO also prefers the tiny lizards. Although they also realistically show how ugly they would be.
Although I personally have been referring to goblins as gnomish orcs. Mainly because haflings aren’t a mythological thing, that’s a copyright avoidance thing.
Pretty sure young dragons are the 9 footers. Alternative: dragonborn are a thing in DnD.
Yep, she’s completely off her meds now. Now just let her free-associate until Lapha loses it and begs to be removed.
Sydney’s body produces so much energy that it must find an outlet; if you don’t let her move, it all goes to her brain and mouth. Inadvertently revealing the flaw in Lapha’s plan:
Lapha: Let me have control of Sydney or I will steal all of Sydney’s memories. Check.
Sydney: If you take my memories, you’ll also take my ADHD and my obsessions, and this is what it feels like. Check.
its Tunes to match the other franchise’s “silly symphonies”. The later editon tiny toons are in fact small cartoon characters.
Annoy the demon out of you, actually that’s a great plan. I’ve always wanted to see a posession where the posessor is driven nuts by the posessed instead of the usual way around.
It Begins. Poor lil flame can’t Not be there either, tethered as she is. Sydney now has that most feared of things. a captive audience.
know what leave the body possessing spell being in sydney’s body for a bit after the meds wear off, have it enjoy the chaos until it begs to not hear every intrusive thought, and will make any deal to escape the mental chaos going on.
Once again Maxima shows her Dark Maxima evil side by taking away Dabbler’s chili. THE HORROR!!!!!!
Btw panels 12 and 13 might be my favorite panels so far. :) I love it.
I’m just here for the great kobold debate. Maybe knockers and brownies if people are feeling up to it. Shame about the mind parasite attached to the ADD addled super with soul bound powers. It’s hard to be a threat when zip ties and a blindfold are viable takedown tactics.
They’re letting Lapha know that she is not a real problem for them. They’re not letting Sydney get up as long as Lapha’s in her, and she’s not getting out on her own, and they’re demonstrating that they don’t need Sydney so badly that they’re desperate to do anything to get her out. Lapha’s presence isn’t getting any worse over time, so they can wait. And they can leave Lapha stuck listening to Sydney’s babbling nonstop as long as it takes.
The indirect callback to Max’s Ioun Stones nerd-drop is heart warming.
Sydney may drive Lapha to leave her voluntarily just to get away from this. And, her threat of taking Sydney’s memories would not be a good thing as she would be filling her mind with Sydneyisms.