Grrl Power #1242 – The dish too hot for fire!
The room is still lit with red, windy light (windy light?) but I’ve color corrected (and wind corrected?) it for your viewing convenience.
Is this torture? Considering this is something Sydney might eat anyway, no? Except Lapha is obviously experiencing it differently. Like if Sydney really liked cilantro and Lapha really hated it, like the smell of it made her nauseous and dizzy, would it be torture for Sydney to eat a bowl of the stuff? Honestly, it seems to me that Lapha would like or dislike whatever the host liked, at least in terms of “if they have that gene that makes cilantro taste lightly lemony and not like if you mixed bitterness incarnate and a bag of fresh lawn clippings up in a transporter, and also maybe some soap.” Lapha would likely have some independent thoughts about texture and wiggling stuff like gagh, but the genetic stuff would be determined by the host.
In the case of spice, I guess I’m implying that heat tolerance is something that can be trained. While Lapha might be enjoying the presumable deluge of endorphins the dish is triggering in Sydney, she can’t get over what feels like Sydney gargling a mouthful of yellow-hot iron filings.
Aetholiths weren’t designed to fight existing control systems, which is why they have about a 50% control over a conscious person. Sydney trying to get her mouth around that fork was like if she had a mouthful of negatively magnetized braces and the fork was also negatively magnetized. And like, strongly enough that she really had to concentrate on what her neck muscles were doing. Although if she had powerfully magnetized braces on the top and bottom row of teeth, she would have difficulty closing her mouth, which is something that Dabbler might be into, so I guess it’d be more like she just had the braces on the lower teeth, because Lapha waving her jaw around and clamping her mouth shut, but in the end she finally got a few mouthfuls.
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.
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It occurs to my that while she may be occupying Sydney’s body and obviously has some control of her nervous system, she is processing sensory information herself directly and not utilizing Sydney’s brain for sensory processing. Sydney’s eyes have become a waterfall, so her body is feeling it and reacting but Sydney is enjoying herself while Laph just got a sensory overload it looks like.
I’m half suspecting that Sydney managed to obliterate Lapha’s mind, but left the powers intact… And now Sydney has all the control.
[Sydney uses Bite!]
[It’s Super Effective!!]
That’s not a bite, that’s clearly a *NOM!*
The onomatopoeia clearly says chomp.
Its a nom chomp.
It’s a chnomp.
the best part is the plague doctor mask
The best part is how it’s hooked on her horns!
Thanks, I just noticed that detail now that I relooked at it. But, the plague doctor mask is really cool.
+1
[Sydney follows through and uses Rear Wind Attack!]
[It’s REALLY Super Effective!!]
Cue up Red Bovine’s “Phantom Windbreaker”
Yes, it’s technically torture, they are stimulating pain receptors.
As I’ve said… Guantanamo-Level
This would be Guantanamo-level if Lapha were merely imprisoned.
Right now, though, she’s holding Sydney hostage.
I’m pretty sure this qualifies for “I’m not locked in here with you: You’re locked in here with with me!” from Rorschach in The Watchmen.
I’d argue it isn’t. The body is Sydney’s and she’s a willing participant. No one is FORCING Laph to stay there and suffer. it’s torture if you can’t escape it, but Laph CAN if she chooses.
I mean, you can just give me your passwords and the names of your co-conspirators, and thus escape the pain, so it’s not really torture…
id rather take the same option available to lapha, and leave.
Think of it like this: If Lapham were a human gunman holding a gun to Sydney and making it clear she would kill Sydney if not allowed to escape, would it be torture to flood the room with tear gas?
Depends, wà it Zed ( Bobcat Goldthwait ) from Police academy going for a second round in the training gas booth?
Makes you think we’ve been doing it wrong and putting out fires all this time
That’s not comparable at all.
Imagine there’s a teargas chamber. Someone breaks into it without permission. They’re asked to leave. They’re told to leave. They’re ordered to leave. They’re begged to leave. They don’t leave. Is not stopping the regularly scheduled teargassing torture? They weren’t invited, they forced their way in, they can leave at any time. How is them having predictable consequences of their actions torture? Sydney would have eaten spicy food anyway. That’s normal and scheduled.
I agree. It’s not torture to refuse to open the windows of a car someone steals and then refuses to get out of on a hot day.
Their heatstroke is of their own making when they refuse to open/unlock the doors. It’s not my responsibility to give them the keys to MY car so they can roll down the windows.
Uh did Lapha just die from Spice overload cause she went weirdly quiet there.
i think she just passed out, Sidney’s eyes are still fiery, so she is still in there, just, not conscious, so she can probably be extracted without risk before she wakes up
after all, she said earlier that she woke up before Sidney, so their awareness is not shared
I think she did an emergency shutdown. That doesn’t get her out of Sydney, but it does mean she isn’t able to manipulate Sydney for a while.
Sydney: Hey Dabbler. When I try to review Lapha’s memories, all I get is something that looks like a Blue Screen of Death. Is she trying to reboot?
think Sydneys mystery orb just swallowed her. maybe its a computer like function and Lapha jumped in there and hid.
I like this theory
I don’t think it’s super likely but I like it
The flame is gone, but the glowy eyes are still there
…this can’t be good.
Either she’s permanently fused with Sydney or she has passed out.
Maybe Sydney has the eyes because Lapha’s essence and power are still in her, but Lapha herself has vacated the premises.
An extra-orb upgrade? (Sydney now has a security subroutine in her brain… lol.)
The eyes say Lappie’s still in there, but it appears she is her race’s equivalent of unconscious.
You have to love Dabbler whipping out her take on the classic medieval plague doctor mask.
Now that Lappie is effectively unconscious, it’s time to put the body blank in a chair next to them, and when she wakes up again, remind her that this was lunch, and ask her if she really wants to stick around for dinner?
That depends – does the memory erasure apply to *any* forcible extraction, or just when Lappie is consciously resisting the extraction? Because if it’s the latter – extract now while they’re not able to resist.
Well she got out of her partner without destroying his memories
and it seems unlikely that Parfait and Dabbler would know as much as they do about the race and be unaware of that side effect of removing them
So I think it’s got to be deliberate action from the possessor (although it’s possible that it’s something the possessor can set up ahead of time as a deadman’s switch thing)
I think you may mean, “…ask her if she really wants to stick around for defecation.” Even Sydney doesn’t enjoy that & it’s pretty much inevitable at this point. Elimination by elimination.
You are getting confuzzled with grakz and the Unmaker Special from the near-base store
Given her reaction to the Unmaker going in, it should be a close second to Grakz coming out… Putting Grakz in Unmaker might actually kill her in an undignified ‘Elvis’ manner…
Time to pull out the space tube video.
So do you recognize the person in this video?
Hey that’s the station, Grib`ors food stand … Hey I’ve seen that channel!
Wait …
no.
No!
NO! NO! NO NO NO NOOOOOOOO!
You wouldn’t!
You couldn’t!
it will be a crappy experience. get out now while you can.
IF she’s extractable without the flame being visible, it’s worth a go to just take her out now. She clearly doesn’t leave husks in her wake by default, and her own description suggested it’s something she has to actively do TO Sydney on the way out – assuming she can even do that and that whole thing wasn’t a bluff.
There’s always the chance that Lapha might end up addicted to severely spiced food after this little incursion, which would be hilarious if she couldn’t handle it like Sydney can ;)
“Sydney uses spicy food.
It was super effective.
Lapha has fainted.”
I guess they found a non-lethal solution after all.
Grax?
Nope, that’s straight Earther hot food, likely from the Fusion restaurant in the Archon HQ building. She obviously goes there enough for them to name a dish after her.
Nah this is the place from issue #28 they love Sydney and will make it extra extra hot just for her. Yes the dish is named after her, after all it is her usual.
…And Sydney is no longer asked to sign the indemnity waiver before they serve her…
If Lapha is still defiant after she wakes up, then it’s Grax time!
no, there will call the top military chef. (that way he can handle classified material) who will then be given the mission to make something hotter than that. minus the post digestion glow and floaties. the doctor will be on hand to make snarky comment and treat the inevitable side effect of eating the hottest dish ever conceived. Legends will be told of the poor fools who volunteered to taste test it.
I love Dabbler’s Hazmat mask – total Plague Doctor fashion.
Always keep a plague doctor mask in your subspace wardrobe. You never know when you might need one.
Although you might get picked up and captured by the SCP if you do.
So, if Lapha is unconscious or incapacitated as some have suggested, would this not be the time to forcibly extract her without the risk of lobotomizing Sydney? Also, did Sydney supply her favorite restaurant with Gratz?
Possibilities include forced factory reset, new personality may emerge. Fainted, might be possible to extract. Extreme distance jump, eyes may be slow to fade but this is unlikely and only included for completeness. Transferred to Orb, would allow third orb to be active and she could analyse functionality.
Any other possibilities worth considering?
I’d lean towards her, in a panic, detecting that the last “Unknown” orb is actually a control system for the orbs and transferring there. While she has no hands, she could gain a lot of insight into how the orbs actually work, and could barter that knowledge for bringing her boyfriend down and becoming part of the team.
“I know you can’t let me loose with this knowledge, and I seem to kind of be stuck here now…”
She is designed to understand how to use any device she is connected to so that would be interesting.
That being said, I’ve always assumed that the database is the central pips which Sydney I think has 3 lit up for (which seem to put her more attuned with the function of the orbs in general, from what Sydney theorized).
But it is still possible the last orb is the ‘ship’ computer, like Maxima theorized.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-543-elimination-speculation/
It’s not navigation, since the new pips for the fly orb showed a navigation map which Cora’s crew was able to read for her. But it still MIGHT be a ship’s computer (or cargo hold or brig).
Voluntary imprisonment in the device on Dabbler’s head. ANYTHING to get away from what Sydney is eating.
Good catch, I hadn’t considered what that device could be beyond a mind shield.
I have to laugh that Dabbler’s wearing a plague doctor mask as she’s feeding Sydney.
Does that restaurant now get to boast about being too hot for a literal demon?
I don’t think she’s a demon, she was described as a sentient spell unless I’ve missed something technically she is not a demon.
So the restaurant is too hot for a flame spell. Or spell flame.
Did… did she accidentally kill Lapha? Or… can she jump to the orbs?
Her eyes are still Spooky, so Lappie’s not dead (Though she may wish she was) Maybe the final unidentified orb is a control system for the orbs, and thus would be compatible with Lappie’s race?
Any single orb should be compatible unless they are designed not to be or more accurately Lapha and her kind are not designed to be compatible with the orbs due to the technology not being known to the designers.
That’s an assumption. It’s still a possibility. Lapha’s race was designed to interface with systems. The orb database (if that’s what the last orb is) might be a system which Lapha’s race can interface with, just like she can interface with other species brains or other databases.
There was always that theory that the mystery orb was a cargo hold… or a prison.
Now that the piggy backer got roasted out of there she should get some pictures like that with that spicy food for further product (and her) advertisement (If THIS isn’t the dish named after her of course): ‘ARC: Aggressively Ridiculous Capsaicin -so spicy it drives out demons! ‘I might actually need some Milk!’ – The Mighty Halo
Where are the orbs?
In a box on the wall behind her. See previous two pages.
The page you’re looking for is here.
This actually reminds me less of torture and more of people dealing with coworkers who steal food. “I added hot sauce to my meal that day… and a few hours later the fat lady two cubicles down suddenly started screaming.”
It’s not torture because it’s self-inflicted. If you didn’t steal, you wouldn’t be feeling the burn.
That only counts if you add an amount of hot sauce you yourself wouldn’t mind eating.
Not really: if you have asked who had been taking your food, and asked them to stop, and they didn’t, then this would be punishment, not torture, because they still stole from you
Workplace stealing, even just between co-workers, is still a crime, and can result in termination (the fact the fat lady is screaming in pain is just proof that they are guilty and no union rep would go near the case if she tried to sue for wrongful termination)
Yeah, there have been cases where you’d be termed, instead.
https://www.askamanager.org/2021/05/a-coworker-stole-my-spicy-food-got-sick-and-is-blaming-me-2.html
Granted, that one was… special, shall we say (there’s an update link), but what you’re suggesting is still a prank that’s considered harmful, and therefor is generally a big no-no in the corporate world (at least, according to many comments on the subject when it comes up in NAR/NAW *shrug*).
Sydney seems to be fine with eating it so the comparison seems to work…
Abso*meow*kinglutely.
I secretly added some **Carolina Reapers to my Bibimbap. Let us see if our plucky lunch thief notices the difference.
((**For the record, it was a Red Savina, as this incident was thirty years ago, and I have several more levels in fire resistance, and the kids mummy tried to have the individual responsible for her sweet, innocent precious getting ‘poisoned’ arrested for attempted murder.))
I’m curious – it seems like a lot of people have mentioned “transfer to the orbs” as a possibility.
Which it may well be. But was previously discussed and I just missed it, or something new?
Also – if she *has* transferred to the orbs rather than remaining with Sydney, why are Sydney’s eyes still glowing?
It’s pretty speculative.
I think people are thinking it might be possible based on the information in comic #1233
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-1233-attack-of-alexsiri/
“Aetholith … used to be used mainly to control ancient information and defence systems”
it’s a stretch and I’d be dubious if the orbs were that open to control
Yep, I mentioned it as well a while ago.
Could be like the ‘Sparks’ that she uses to power up the nodes of her skill tree.
Could be part of a missing component she needs for last orb, or the entire orb set.
I have an additional thought too. At one point Sydney mentioned when she was shooting her pew pew, that it was like touching a sun.(Iirc) Given that Alpha is a sentient spell, it could be that source Sydney touched could have been the source of all magic. Take that as he will.
Lapha “is it over? am I alive? I think I met the flame that rules all. The light said it is not your time”
It’s been a possible outcome since we learned what she could do but since there’s no way to trust Lapha so until now it’s been an academic thought rather than a solution.
Either Lapha committed suicide or she’s retreated deep inside Sydney’s mind. The eyes may return to normal or she’s in there so deep that it’ll take some hard-core magic to get her out. i do love the plague mask, not that it would really help in RL, it does show just how bad this stuff really is!
I NEED more Dabbler in a plague doctor mask.
I would add a vote for Plague Doc Dabbler as a vote incentive
I would also add that Plague Doctor Dabbler should be an upcoming vote incentive
With, of course, an available NSFW version
Gagh is always best when served live.
If you mixed Gagh with Gratz, would the Gagh run away?
That sounds like a mini boss game
Loser gets to eat the remains
it would be disowned. the Gagh will assault the gratz and defeat it for the glory of the Klingon cooking command.
it would mutate into blast-ended Skroots
you know those sleep apnea machines where the air goes through water before being pumped into the sleeping person’s lungs. Well there should be one for milk for specifically this situation.
“I guess I’m implying that heat tolerance is something that can be trained.”
For a normal digestive track, yes. Got a friend who since Covid can’t stand anything spicy at all. Me? Love it. Use the ‘Extreme Heat’ sauce at the Wing place for ketchup. And when I had sinus surgery for about six months I had no sense of taste or smell – I was soaking everything in Siracha and going for the hottest sauces at a local Chinese buffet. Knew I was getting better when I could smell the Axe body wash my son used, lol…
What place is serving Elijah’s Extrene sauces? I need to take kiddo there.
((Current tolerance level is Carolina Reapers, and I have been asked to not cook with them by everyone but my kiddo.))
I wouldn’t call it torture, if only because Lapha chose this particular body and set of taste buds out of a sense of greed.
See, if she was some kind of freedom-fighter striking a blow for a cause she believed in, that’s one thing. But she’s not. She’s a bank robber who just found out that she’s very allergic to the material the banks keep their money in. She chose the physical discomfort when she could have walked away and gotten a real job.
Lapha rebooted into safe mode
Think the unknown orb just gave her the option to get stuck in there instead
I would view it like a hostage situation and law enforcement using tear gas to try and get the criminal to surrender…
Most capsaicin freaks are going for the mouth burn, but there is also such a thing as stomach burn. It’s a lot milder than the mouth burn, but it doesn’t tend to benefit from the semi-immunity your mouth can get if you eat a lot of spices. Maalox does absolutely nothing for the first, and makes the second last for hours longer. I don’t recommend it.
I also don’t recommend milk. You can cook with it to make a dish that contains the same amount of peppers milder, but far as I can tell it does nothing once a spicy dish is eaten.
My dad used to make a pickle relish using pickled habaneros. It gave him near-draconic levels of halitosis that caught several folks by surprise.
I once asked a police officer if his pepper spray was food grade, and if it was could he please spritz it on my hot dog? I wasn’t suspected of any crime and wasn’t resisting arrest, and he’d have had to admit to it in a police report when he got a new bottle, so there was no chance he’d actually get it out and I knew it. I was joking. I have a high spice tolerance but police grade spray is something like 40% capsaicin, and I’ve no illusions that I’d have actually been able to handle eating it.
Next comic we see Halo back to her abnormal self, Lapha sitting in a chair restrained. Lapha opens her eyes and they don’t have the typical flame look and the first thing out of her mouth is a Sydney cuss string making Sydney laugh and everyone else worry. A panel of words covering words covering more words. The next panel Dabbler is explaining to Max that when extracting Lapha a good share of Sydney’s past was copied into the personality matrix so now they have a very compromised Magend. The level of messed up that is, results in the boss having a discussion with the head of Archon.
If Lapha is knocked out and can be safely removed, that would make sense logically, but narratively it would be to simple to be a satisfying resolution. I think there will be more hopes to jump through.
I know for a fact cilantro tastes like soap drenched in diesel fuel, don’t talk to me about genetic quirks…
Alright, but you’re not gonna like what I have to say, cause no it doesn’t.
What is this see-lan-tro?
There’s only four food groups biscuits beans bacon and lard
All right cowboy, pack it up and move it out!
How do you know what soap DRENCHED IN DIESEL FUEL tastes like? I assume hyperbole, but if not I’m concerned!
I know what soap with smearing oil tastes like(inadequate washing after smearing oil intense activity).
Maybe this guys works a lot fuels.
See, I can taste the soapy aspect, but it’s not very strong for me. I can also taste the ‘spice’ aspect, but the soapy aspect is just about the same amount of unpleasant so it winds up mostly a wash. Maybe slightly less pleasant than the dish would be without it, but if it’s otherwise good, entirely okay. IOW, I’d prefer pizza without cilantro, but hey, pizza is pizza and I like it.
So cilantro is on my list of things that seem mostly irrelevant when I want food, not on my list of things to strongly like or hate.
“It’s my mouth too!”
No, Lapha, it isn’t. That’s the point
Torture? No, not at all. Remember: She attempted to more or less make Sydney a slave by jumping on her body and hoping to completely override her will, and when that didn’t work, took Sydney hostage and very recently threatened to kill her if forcibly removed. This isn’t torture. Using force up to and including lethal against someone who JUST said they’d kill you if you attempt to end this hostage situation without their demands met is justified self defense. She’s not being tortured, she’s getting what she deserves.
Agreed, this is a compliance hold although it would have been better to have the evaluation body nearer to enable her to deescalate the situation nothing was stopping her from saying she would comply.
You seem to be operating on a definition of torture that presumes that it is inherently wrong or unjustified. This is still torture, because it’s deliberate pain inflicted either as a punishment or to coerce someone into doing or saying something. Just because it may be justified as a response to Lapha’s threats and actions doesn’t make it not torture.
I WANT that “tech plague mask”!
Just remember, this is Lapha TASTING the food…Lapha has yet to experience the joys of passing the waste out of their body…
People keep saying that.
If that’s a concern, though, I must be really weird. Because I eat significantly hot stuff regularly, if not quite Sydney grade, and it’s never been a problem for me. Even the stuff that left my mouth tingling an hour later.
Maybe it’s a necessary adaptation to being married to a woman who might well be Sydney’s asian cousin. Because my reaction to some of her culinary misadventures has been ‘didn’t we have that last Tuesday?’
Eh, cancel that question. I am that weird. Maybe it’s my superpower.
That’s pretty normal. If you chew thoroughly and let your mouth break it down, you don’t tend to get “fire butt.”
In Asian dishes (especially the soups and stews and noodles) the peppers tend to be well cooked, and your digestive tract will handle them fine.
“Fire butt” is the special torture of those who minimize the chewing and gulp raw hot peppers down before their mouth has had time to process them.
Hmm. Good to know.
Tangentially on topic, I wonder how Sydney would react to Szechuan peppercorns? Not capsicum family or anything related, but leaves your mouth tingling and numb at the same time. Lots of Szechuan and Hunan dishes combine them with chilis.
Hey, Lapha is talking while holding Sydney’s mouth shut.
Huh! Yeah, I didn’t notice that the voice was indicated as coming directly from Lapha’s flame, instead of Sydney’s mouth, until you pointed that out.
wonder if lapha crashing will result in her debugging sydney before she is happily removed from the spice fiend and she will no longer need the meds, though still be a goofball.
Is it significant that Lapha has separated into several unique flame segments in the “Chomp” panel? Is that a literal clue that she’s lost her ability to keep it together? Lost consciousness? Lost the ability to control Sydney, at least until the capsaicin (or hot sauces combination) have cooled to some lower measurement on the Scoville Scale?