Grrl Power #196 – Girls go to the bathroom in pairs to talk Star Trek and boobs, right?
I could have done a whole page on whether or not having hypno-boobs works against succubi hiding under a glamor, like what’s the difference between actually being hypnotized by boobs and just finding a particular prepossessingly presented pair perhaps perplexing? For the record when Dabbler says “hypnotic” she just means they’re disarming the same way 8 shots of whiskey can be, but in a subtle way that wouldn’t be discovered with a Detect Magic spell.
Actually this page hints at a much larger discussion that will eventually happen about the galaxy and aliens at large, including a few “what Dabbler was up to before she came to Earth” pages, but I want to stay focused (hah!) on the current events in the story for now.
Did you know that some women’s restrooms have couches in them? Sure if you’re a woman you probably know that, but that’s cheating. I didn’t know that until last year. I’m not a germaphobe by any stretch of the imagination, I’ll just say I hope the couches are vynil or some other non-porus material that’s easy to wipe down. I guess they’re there so women have a place to escape male idiocy for a while. God I could do a whole series of comics about that.
Despite listing it second, Dabbler’s real concern with letting her tech out into the wild is that humans are kind of dicks to each other. Living in 1st world countries its easy fall for the ‘ol “People are basically good” nonsense. Certainly from Dabbler’s perspective, she’s looking at humanity as a whole, not cherry picking the best among us. She’s thinking about what the worst of us will do with it. I believe Quark sums it up well here. And Agent K says about the truthiest thing ever said on film here.
It’s weird how looking at a page will make me remember what I was watching out of the corner of my eye while I was working on it. I will forever associate this page with Stripes, watched in honor of Harold Ramis’s passing, and Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, which if you haven’t seen it, I’d recommend. It’s not quite Cabin in the Woods, but it definitely has fun with the genre tropes. Plus is stars Wash from Firefly, Cerie from 30 Rock, and Bert from Reaper.
I hope no one is offended by Sydney saying “Seriously, no homo.” Surely if she was saying “no homo” to be exclusionary, then that would probably be more offensive, but in this case she’s just using slang to say that she’s not into girls. That said, it’s probably ok if it comes across a little offensive, as Sydney is a little rough around the edges and not all that worldly. She does have a mouth on her and like me, may not be up on exactly what a particular group finds offensive. Arianna may need to send her to a finishing school crash course eventually. (Sydney, never use the word “homo” unless it’s followed by “Sapien” or “genized.” Also, you eat vichyssoise with the 3rd fork on the left!)
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On the last panel, last line: I can believe that.
Nice alliteration. Also, “Dabbler” & “subtle” should not be used in the same sentence. Unless “devious” is also present.
yes… we`ve all heard of it….
Love it :P
That is the single best page title ever.
Ha! Thanks, for pointing that out.
+1
*pushes Yorp into a vat of acid so I can give the +1* Here you go,+1
*throws Scooby snax to Meshaber and pickle3719 on the way down*
Blub.
Yorp! *chucks in a life belt on the end of a fishing rod*
hey, stop throwing Yorp down here
I am bleaching my feathers !
(can’t a duck get any privacy ??)
Creates privacy screen around Ms. Duck
What knucklehead threw a dog in my duck soup?
He he he.
*cough* *splutter* *wheezes from acidic fumes and being dangled partly by the neck*
*attempts a thumbs-up to indicate thanks for the rescues, as best as is possible without opposing digits*
“offers YORP human exogloves with neuroinduction field”
Remotely activates all purpose force feild on YORP’s collar to save him.
Not wishing to join the fight above: +2
+1 also.
Offers ai vin some pretzles.
If Dabbler isn’t perfectly unbeatable and unstoppable (and maybe she thinks she is…) isn’t she being irresponsible just bringing it to Earth then? If she gets beaten, or dies of (super)natural causes, all that tech gets out.
meh knowing dabbler, she`ll, like, have at least 5 contigency plan in case that happens… yes she`s that smart.
I don’t think so. Remember, when she drops something she fetched from Hammerspace before, it gets transported back 5 seconds later. So the only way to get a hand on her tech would be to first freeze Dabbler in such a way that she cannot telepathically(?) will it to transport back and not remove it from her hands.
the teleporter activates as soon as her tech leaves her hands. So the only way to get her tech is to somehow paralyze Dabbler so she can’t drop the weapon and keep her holding it. Of course she’s probably got contingency for that as well.
That’s what he said.
Though I admit I had to read it through a couple times to be sure…
Simple enough way around this is to combine a knockout drug and a instant paralytic. There are some really fun spiders and other creatures on this planet that could possibly cover the paralytic, the only problem is coming up with something that will make her lose consciousness faster enough so that she can’t give any mental commands.
Yes I do think about this stuff all the time. Everyone has to have hobbies.
On an alien/succubi crossbreed physionomy… Good luck finding something workable without experimenting on Dabbler a lot first… And I seriously think Dabbler would object strenously. Besides, at least one power consider her to have ambassadorial status. Thats usually not given unless either the represented parties are totally inconsequential (have nothing and can make no trouble), or are powerfull enough so that messing with the ambassador would be making all sorts of trouble.
Now, I am guessing that Dabbler don’t trust all earthers to be reasonable and believe in her status, hence security measures.
Even easier is use either an anti-teleport field (magic,psy,whatever), or be ready and able to do a teleport trace effect.
to create an anti-teleportation effect you have to know how the ‘port system works. Does it convert the matter into a tachyon stream? Does it open a micro-tear into Hyperspace? Fold Newtonian space and simply shifts the item across the gap before releasing the fold? Without knowing how it works any method of stopping it would be a brute-force approach and marginally effective if at all.
If it involves brutally forcing a sonic corkscrew into a potential thieves’ rectal cavity, then what’s the problem? o_O
There was one form that supposedly didn’t move the object teleported but rather move the universe around it till it was adjacent to the coordinates needed.
Yeah, that came up in the Star Trek re-boot movie, when Spock showed Scotty how to handle the problem of transporting to a ship moving in space from another ship moving in space.
How about that tranquilizer they used in the 2nd Jurassic Park movie? It was said that it works faster than the nerve-conduction velocity. I’m no doctor or neurologist, but that would mean it’s essentially an injected drug that travels the bloodstream at nearly the speed of light?
Nerve conduction is only slightly slower than the speed of light because nerve tissue does present *some* resistance to the flow of electricity, but telling us that a blood-borne agent works faster than that sounds a bit far-fetched to me.
What I find fascinating is research which convincingly shows that peoples brains make detectable changes that show a decision has been made, a significant time before the conscious mind is aware of it. I am not talking milliseconds here. But long enough that you could measure it with a stopwatch, rather than needing high-speed photos to prove the point.
By looking at real time MRI displays highlighting the key decision area of the brain, the researchers know before the volunteer does, that they have made a decision!
If Succubi have that particular trait as well, then the fractional difference between the speed of light in a vacuum or in the brain will not be the deciding factor.
Search Results
“Depending on the type of fiber, the neural impulse travels at speed ranging from a sluggish 2 miles per hour to, in some myelinated fibers, a breackneck 200 or more miles per hour. But even this top speed is 3 million times slower than the speed of electricity through a wire.”
If the tech leaves her hands, it gets teleported back to her spaceship.
So even if they capture her, they still can’t take her tech without breaking into the spaceship (which probably isn’t parked next to the ISS)
well aparently grenades don’t teleport, anyone wanna play hot-potato with a Warp grenade? Opens up microsecond portals into Hyperspace…
Perhaps they should prescribe anti-sucubus-shots?
.
..
That somehow gave me a fully wrong picture, I believe.
There is no such thing. Fortunately she cannot use the title Hypnobutt. Kei from the dirty pair claimed that years ago. But I bet the butt is also hypnotic as well. :>
But I bet that if she had butter on her butt the bottom line would be boosted hypnotism.
Is a ‘butter butt’ related in anyway to a ‘butter face’?
Well…If Dabbler put butter on her butt, I wouldn’t mind at all if some of it got transferred to my face. I think I’d be hypnotized that way too.
I’m in favor of “The Cure” (not the band) method of dealing with Dabbler.
In my household “The Cure” (still not the band) means over indulging in the object of your fascination/addiction, so much so that you become sick of it. So if you love to eat Gummie Bears, then you eat ALL of the Gummie Bears (try to avoid Diabetic coma).
So if you’re hypnotized by Dabbler, this may be a solution that even she would approve of. ;-)
I fear that I would need many and frequent treatments ;)
I am right there with you generic family member. Possibly multiple treatments per day.
well that sort of thing works i used to love Chinese food but after i worked at a Chinese take-away and had a free meal every night i worked (2 – 3 times a week) i carnt stand it any more to much of any food will cure you of a desire for it probably works on other stuff to
the only thing i bet it wont work on is sleep
I did pizza delivery for 4 & 1/2years stil love and eat it when i can.
well that sort of thing works i used to love Chinese food but after i worked at a Chinese take-away and had a free meal every night i worked (2 – 3 times a week) i carnt stand it any more to much of any food will cure you of a desire for it probably works on other stuff to
the only thing i bet it wont work on is sleep. i tried doing that nearly every day for most of my life still cant stop doing it
Depends on the individual really (and you sure it wasn’t because you found out what went into the food that put you off? :P)
Imagine how sick of Chinese food everyone in China must be.
Truth be told, a cousin of mine worked as a baker/confectioner. And he indeed couldn’t eat chocolate for several weeks to a few months each year after easter. He had to work with so much of it during that time, that he couldn’t stand the taste for a while afterwards.
That, however, is about one specific kind of food. That is chocolate. And not about a whole cuisine. Which is something way broader. So for most people, it won’t be the same for the latter. Or we would all long be sick of the traditional food of our respective regions. (Which I’m not in the slightest, really.)
i should have bean more spesific i got sick of the the types of Chinese food the restraint sells i still like other Chinese food i wasent over exposed to
I had a cunning technique for comparing Chinese restaurants. I would order their smoked shredded chicken. It was ubiquitous, so you could compare like-for-like. And it was an easy dish to mess up. So if the chef was lacklustre then it would be dry and chewy. Which, sad to say, was the case more often than not.
Also it is a quick dish to prepare. So your evening is not wasted if it is rubbish. Because if they cannot get such a basic dish right, it will not be worth your while wasting your time and money on ordering any of the more complex dishes. Still leaving you time to find a decent place to eat.
But then again, you could get pleasant surprises, as there are loads of different techniques for preparing and seasoning it. Some of the best would melt in the mouth and have yummy bits of herbs which left a delicious aftertaste. The one drawback being that you may just want to forget the rest of the menu and say “Three more portions of that please!”
Don’t really see the problem there Yorpie: if you really like the chicken enough to want 4 dishes of it, were is the problem?
Admittedly, only ever been to a Chinese restaurant twice: first time was that one in Las Vegas (the one that featured in one of the “Rush Hour” movies (really liked their soup), the other was a local restaurant at the end of th lunch hour so there wasn’t much to try (extremely fussy when it comes to trying new food, have bad memory recall with everything except when it comes to food, and bad food tends to repeat more often than good :()
A different for of therapy might work, that’s similar to the problem your baker friend had. I used to occasionally eat a chocolate candy bar while I was driving, especially if I knew I wouldn’t get to eat anything else for quite a while. At least, that’s what I did up until the day I drove downwind past a pig farm…
I’m assumed she meant xenophobic, but you did just point out that Dabbler is new to English, and frankly “kill the outsider” works as well as “fear of the outsider”.
I think she does mean Xenocidal.
Sure, we might also be xenophobic, but i suspect the greater galactic community is less worried about us having nightmares, and more so of us going on a killing rampages on everything not us.
Well there’s always Phil Foglio’s Adult comic “XXXenophile” – which could very well be the cure for attempting XXXenocide.
Or she got a bit of this – https://www.saltmanz.com/pictures/albums/Cover%20Scans/Book%20Covers/Xenocide.jpg
https://pics.mobygames.com/images/covers/large/1195381023-00.jpg
If you think about it, there’s a lot of reason a ‘greater galactic community’ would worry about us- we, as a species, have evolved and survived essentially by replacing anything not-us with everything us. We don’t live in harmony with nature or neighbors or whatever- we replace it with stuff that we prefer. And when there’s not the inbuilt abhorence of killing that we have to other humans, there’s a very real posibility that we’d wind up going on a galactic expansionist jihad, and whether or not it was actually successful, it would most certainly be damaging in some way. We also don’t like losing, after all.
Just check out the “Humans are Warriors” and related pages on TVTropes.
It’s not an inborn abhorance to killing other humans. It’s the simple fact that we’re outnumbered 7 billion to 1 that keeps a lot of people from going on mass killing sprees.
Unfortunately, there are still those who see those odds and go (cue Barney) “Challenge… accepted!“
Barney…Or Zero.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xfv9JXYZps
If the greater calactic community has any sense, they put us in isolation so that we don’t screw up the universe. Or maybe in a cosmic lab of some sorts. Hm… that would explain everything, wouldn’t it.
I still vote for the “They watch events on Earth as a “Reality Show”” theory.
Or get the opposite with “Galaxy Quest”
Even between different societies of humans, the best method to *instigate* conflict is to “de-humanize” the other people…Have you ever noticed that’s what governments do to gear up popular support for a war?
You are not hinting at current world events, by any chance are you?
Not that it needs much of a hint mind you. The subtlety dial has been broken in that situation for quite some time.
There was a switch? Where is ti, maybe I can start shutting all these a$$holes up.
That’s a much more nuanced look at th- ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOBOOBS!
… for some strange, bizzare, why??? reason … I read the word Hypnoboobs and suddenly thought Hypnotoad. And then the brain put hypnoboobs and the Hypnotoad and melted.
I know this might sound kind of random, but I sometimes find it kind of ridiculous how a lot of guys seem obsessed with women with large breasts. I personally prefer woman who, I’m not saying are flat chested, but have smaller sized breasts. I sometimes actually find larger breasts as a deterring feature in a woman. I know, weird and random thing to bring up, but I had the urge to say it.
I personally like women in a variety of shapes and sizes, as long as they are reasonably healthy.
To me attatude and personality have a lot to do with if I find them attractive or not.
I do not subscribe to the “bigger is better” theory, and women who do annoy me. I also do not find freakishly huge breasts attractive. If you’re a woman who has NATURALLY freakishly large breasts, I won’t hold that against you, but I won’t exactly call it a selling point either. What matters to me, and has always mattered to me is her personality. Who she is when she’s all alone in the dark. Women who are very good at being very naughty, but are still loyal, generous and kind are my favorites.
I’ve often said “all else being equal, bigger IS generally better; but [when it comes to breasts,] all else is seldom equal”
I don’t think it is random, but on topic. Personally I find boobs of Dabbler’s size to be a turn-off. But, if a pair matching my taste come into sight, the comic pretty much sums up half of my internal dialogue. The other half being:
‘Keep looking at her eyes. Must maintain eye-contact. Up-here.. no, no up there, not down here!’
That said, however it is merely what catches my eye. Personality, wit and a good smile is what I stay for.
I know what you mean Yorp. Though for me the most physically appealing thing is the eyes. A decent set of breasts is very nice to look out but if she has the eyes then I am lost.
Is it wrong if I find Sydney to be the more attractive individual (perhaps most on this team)?
It’s not ‘large breasts’ specifically, but ‘female breasts’ in general, regardless of the size (just some find certain/particular sizes more appealing)
I’d have to say breasts don’t interest me, I’m more of a ‘backside’ admirer if we’re speaking only of physicality, however, the greatest temptation to me is a woman’s voice. A voice can be beautiful, sexy, smart, fun, and basically sum up a person’s entire personality far better than any body part separate or whole. The eyes may be the window to the soul, but the voice is it’s music.
I can’t remember the name of the anime right now, but a character summed up the way I see boobs with “Larger breasts are filled with dreams, but smaller breasts are full of hope.” That said, I believe they are all beautiful in their own way.
To each their own tastes. I’m personnally attracted to all kind of women, for all kind of different reasons… thought I do notice a slight preference. And even then some varies over time. I think I’m just being horny right now, and once I fall in love it’s going to be with the girl’s mind and I will find her beautiful.
Guys being attracted to big boobs are over represented in fiction I think, thought they may still be a majority IRL? I wonder why? Evolution because bigger breasts look healthier and suggest fecundity? Years of genders being enforced into extremes of muscled manly man and curvy feminine woman?
Evolution also plays a good part.
Ages ago, our ape and monkey ancestors had big butts that reacted to arousal and so on.
As we evolved, the focus shifted to boobs. Its simply related to our subconscious now that big boobs mean more milk for our prospective offspring and better survival of said offspring.
It’s sad that this has led to the oversensitivity concerning boobs.
Seeing that New York City has actually had to make a law to allow women to go topless, I find it disturbing. This seems fairly sexist in its basis to me. Why should women need an extra law to allow this in the first place?
Free boobs for everyone!
Most likely New York City needed to pass that law because there was an existing state law that forbade women to go topless. Pretty much all states have Indecent Exposure laws.
In Germany, there’s a nice little term.
It’s that men usually don’t like much above 1.5 KaHoK (Canadian Woodchuck Claw/ Kanadische Holzfällerklaue). Meaning that anything above 1.5 times their reach / hand size is simply too big,
as in: I can’t grope it all anyway.
… so you’re saying “much more than a handful is wasted?”
But, the kneading can be just as much fun (for both participants)
Pretty much.
For me, it seems simply too much, especially when it gets too squishy because of that.
And I like them natural, without extra bumpers installed.
All of this makes me wonder if the men have figured out how to talk to Dabbler without looking directly at her.
They probably have to carry a bucket of ice, if intending to chat with her.
Stage one. Hold a firm mental image of their grandmother whilst talking. Be sure not to stare at any particular spot, but to keep focus moving. Try to read the article about the outbreak of World War One on the wall behind her, whilst talking.
Stage two. When that fails, picture their grandmother in a bathing suit. No, wait, that is not working… fixating on lips. Smooth luscious lips…
Stage three. Plunge foot into bucket of ice. Attempt to make polite excuses and exit room immediately.
Depending on their talents, it might also be possible to create a skin-tight barrier around themselves that negates the effects of hypnosis. It is still magic, just relatively low-key and with a tendency to slip into the subconscious.
I’m more into well-defined arms myself anyway so the chest isn’t my main focus personally. Being into guys might have something to do with that though.
You don’t eat vichyssoise with a fork Dave, not matter how creamy it is, and it is really creamy, it is still a soup so you would eat it with the outermost spoon, unless that one is the tea spoon the it’s the spoon next to the tea spoon.
Vichyssoise is traditionally served cold, and one is supposed to use the utensils from the outside in by course, which is why unless you had tea first soup would be the first time you use a spoon, and therefore it would be the outermost spoon.
Now that I’ve written all this I have thought of the possibility that you could be messing with us, so good job it worked.
o_O
Check the secret link at the end of that paragraph for where I got the idea. :)
Service with a smile :-D
Now we have to look for Easter Eggs hidden in the author’s comments too!
I’ve only done it on this one and the previous. Don’t go hunting through the whole archive for them. :) I’ll do them in the future when I have something relevant to sneak in there.
I totally missed the previous one, until now. Really subtle.
Don’t forget the details on how to use the special golden pomegranate straw *grin*
DaveB, where are the tattoo’s on Dabblers arms on the last three panels?
And where did her arm bracelet thing go
…errr come from.
they’re there – on the opposite arm. The first 3 panels are a view of the mirror from between them (kinda creepy, since that means we the viewers, are invisible, and in the women’s restroom)
Some guys would like that.
And some girls, but they would probably be already in there
He he. It is well worth pointing out just how strong such effects can be. Even when the dial is in neutral. If you read the journals of anyone who had to deal with Nelson, even his rivals, they all say how magnetic he was. Every eye in the room would be drawn to him. Not just because of his rank. Succubi obviously have that, with extra sexy sauce.
Soo… you are telling us that Nelson was, in fact, a Succubi/ Inccubi
No, what I think he is trying to say is that Nelson has/had a lesser version. It is known as Presence, like when you are with royalty or a president of a company.
Depends on the president: some are just a no-body with power
Yea. Although the way you are describing it might mislead. Because it can be mistaken for the awe that members of the public feel when they meet particularly famous celebrities. But true charisma does not need fame to work. Such individuals command attention even when they are not in uniform or otherwise recognised for who they are. Which is a point noted in those diaries I mentioned. Nelson had it even as a junior officer with no power, for example.
Although charismatic leaders are likely to rise to the top, not everyone in a position of power has it. Far from it, in fact. Good schools can teach people to emulate such behaviour. But it is only a shadow of the real thing.
A friend I knew had it. In a room, everybody would gravitate towards her. Yes, she was pretty. But not stunning. Her looks alone were not enough to trigger the effect. If she quietly stood around, she would be overlooked. But if she started speaking to people, within minutes there would be a crowd surrounding her. The same was true in any venue we went to. Even ones with famous people in the room, as competition!
Yet the really weird thing was that, when her husband walked in, he would steal every-bodies’ attention. Without even trying, or noticing that he had done. Whatever it is that she possessed, he had even more of it!
thats what it sounds like to me…
Well, who knows how long the Succubi have been visiting us? Maybe since we stopped being hairy apes? If so, it is not co-incidental that Succubi look similar to us*. It is us who would have become similar to them. And a few of their descendants would breed more true than the rest of us.
* In the great scheme of things, Dabbler is actually pretty similar, but she also is a mix of two other races, in addition to Succubus, so we can overlook some… discrepancies. Number of limbs. Bright purple skin. That kind of thing.
That is something I wondered a…bout. What level of non involvement do interstellar species have. It’s something I’ve pon…der…ed on occassio…n.
I’ll be in my bunk…
Well, all I know is the Grey’s are a bunch of assholes who like to shove things up peoples asses.
Did her outfit change? Dabbler was wearing jeans in the previous comic.
She is wearing them in this one also.
See first pannel.
Re: the couch thing….generally if a women’s restroom has a couch section it’s separated from the functional part of the restroom. Couches in the anterior room, toilets etc in the interior room.
I’m just saying. :)
They’re also there to help women deal with heels (yes, they hurt, ALOT), wrangle small children, and generally wait their turn for the stall.
The couches were also there to give a mother a place to breast feed her baby.
Ah, good to know. Having never been in a women’s restroom I assumed it was in an adjoining room but not necessarily separated with a door.
It’s not seperated by a door a lot of the times. The main reason they exist is to shove nursing mothers out of the public view, because we can’t have women feeding their babies in public. :/ or, in polite society terms, it’s to give mothers privacy while nursing a child. All other uses are incidental. But, you know, usually they are very spare, beige rooms that smell a little funny and have every woman going to the bathroom passing through. And, yeah, I remember quite a few vinyl couches.
Some of them though, are very nice. Luxurious even. The ones that are nice are usually not in malls or shopping centers, but churches or universities. Suuuuper fancy restaurants, garden clubs, golfing courses, country clubs, etc.
I’ve heard of nursing mothers being harassed by establishments and/or individuals expressing outrage that they’d do so in public, but never seen it first hand. What I have seen first hand, and quite often, is young men ogling said nursing mother with a “OMG, Boobs!!!” look on their faces. Were I subject to such attention, I’d feel terribly self-conscious and maybe a little embarrassed. For that reason alone, I support the addition of couches in women’s restrooms, or better, the small “privacy booths” you occasionally see in classier places.
Yes one Mom was kicked out of Victoria’s Secret for breastfeeding. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4FosURjNT8
I mean Come On! What is wrong with people? She asked to use a dressing room!
Ugh. What’s wrong with our culture that it’s is accepted to just let teenage boys stand there and sexually harass a woman? In that instance, I think it’s the boys who should be taken away/shoved out of site.
I think it makes sense to provide the accommodation for those that want it, but when the accommodation becomes a requirement… Blergh.
I’d not heard about that Victoria’s Secret incident. Honestly, though, I really hear most of this from a friend who’s an activist at TheleakyBoob.com. I know more about motherhood now than I ever intended to. :p
I’ve actually never seen such. A bench outside the restroom entirely, but that’s all. I’m guessing it’s more typical of higher-class places then I have had the opportunity to visit.
Though…given all the marble in there, that restaurant could well be such a place.
Being gay myself, I didn’t find anything offensive about Sydney’s use of slang. It seemed appropriate both for the character (as you said she’s a little rough around the edges) and for the situation presented!
Thanks, I am glad somebody started the ball rolling on that one. As I feel that I should respond too, being a commentator who has previously picked up on a term that would be received badly. But only by a UK audience, rather than an American one.
I too found nothing offensive about the way the term was used here. And, as Nic Mercy says, it fits the character. Contextually I would have gone with “lesbian” myself, but either works. Especially with Sydney being a tomboy.
Really though, I always thought since page 607 that Sydney is more of the “Not a lesbian, but would still hit that harder than a Superboy Prime punch.”
Or maybe, “Seriously, not Homo”
“No homo” is a slang term independent of the character’s use. It’s used more or less realistically here, although I’ve never heard it used by a female IRL.
to what term ae you refering you called out im from the uk and i dont remember anything like that in the comic and i have read it threw a few times
I can’t remember which comic it was in, offhand. But contextually I think it was Maxima describing Sydney as a “Spaz”. In the UK I used to hear kids in the playground insulting somebody by calling them that. As such, it sounded off coming from a senior person, in a position of authority.
The word has different cultural baggage in the UK to the US though. So whilst it may not sound odd to an American, it might cause offence to politically correct Brits. If you are not overly worried about such though, it would not surprise me if it passed under your radar.
No, it has plenty of cultural baggage, and is a homophobic phrase. It fits Sydney’s character to use something like this blindly and she doesn’t seem malicious … But I would love to see her called out on this sort of thing eventually.
I can’t get this to play so I hope it’s the right bit, but here’s a nice cartoon that I think can shed some light on it. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dRL4SV3b4gY
There’s also this great song from the Boondocks that I’ll try to post later… I love The Boondocks.
I was referring to “spaz” rather than “homo.” The latter having already been addressed at the beginning of the thread. The former has such significantly different connotations on either side of the Atlantic that it has to be split into separate definitions in the Wikipedia page on Spastic.
i see what you mean i recall spaz being used but i am aware of the difference from UK and america so i would have passed it off as the american vernacular and probably not thought it worth remembering at the time
I would think being able to comfortably make use of a widespread “acceptable” degradative would in fact be a veiled attempt at accepting the whole- If we can’t make fun of something it means we don’t truly accept it as something equal. Just a theory of mine though…
It’s probably the peripheral shading, but Dabbler’s boobs in panels 5-7 look different from panels 8-9. In 5-7, the lack of shadowing alongside the corset’s edge gives the appearance of a clean, “seamless” fit, while in 8-9, the shadows along the front give a more bulging appearance (in the front, that is – they consistently (and pleasantly, I might add) overflow on the sides in all the shots)
…also, Dabbler’s face in panel 4 is indeed hypnotic – I just caught myself just staring at it for a good several minutes.
This would be a good place to point out that the top half of that corset is going to fall off in the next few minutes regardless of the amount of doublestick tape used. Or would if it weren’t a glamour. Wearing such things below the midpoint is a bad bad idea, quite besides the modesty issue. Which Dabbler obviously lacks.
Yes Dabbler can get away with looking like that one moment when they take the picture of the model all the time. Whereas the model only looks like that for 30 seconds, then she exhales and stuff shifts and pops out.
I think I see the problem.
In every panel except 5-7, Dabbler’s top has some gold flower embroidery along the top edge.
…AAAaannnnddd, it had already been fixed.
My browser still had the image from this morning.
I like how Sydney is slowly leaning closer. They seem to have a certain … gravity.
“melons” that big YOU BET they got their own gravity… maybe zip code hehe
like dablber would care if it effects guy sor gals hehe
Love Sydney’s face in pannel two.
Asking a geek if they have ever heard of Star Trek is like asking a Catholic if they have ever read the Bible.
There’s a problem with that analogy…
Do bears shit in the Vatican? Oh, hang on, let me try again…
Is the bear a catholic. Wait, wait. I almost have it. Something to do with bunnies. They are fluffy and can be used in an emergency in the woods. Or is that puppies?
Give the pope a bunny in the woods and… wasn’t there something about fishermen?
A bear and a bunny are doing their business not too far away from each other in the forest. The bear asks, ‘Do you ever have a problem with stuff sticking to your fur?’ The bunny says, ‘No, my fur keeps pretty clean.’ So the bear picks up the bunny and wipes his butt.
Thought bears were Buddhist =P
Aren’t they Taoist?
Only if they’re Pandas.
i feel i should point out a geek on average has read more star trek stuff than a catholic has read from the bible
And a geek on average truly believes with all their hearts that Star Trek is an historical record, from the future
Belief? We do not need that. We have the documentaries and historical documents to prove it!
Yeah, that’s why said “truly believes”, because they have actual proof
They also believe that it was better in the original Klingon.
And by ‘original Klingon’, do you mean the ones from TOS, or the mutated freaks from TNG?
Actually it turns out the ones from TOS were the mutated ones. The klingons got hold of the augmentation serum that created Khan and tried it on themselves. but since it was created for and with HUMAN Dna. It started to rewrite the subject’s Dna to become more Human. Including the loss of Forehead ridges and such.
Bollox! Unless Mr Roddenberry specifically said that, that is just those freak cosplayers trying to make their freakness legitimate (totally turned me off from even attempting to watch “Enterprise” the first time one of those freaks showed up threatening Dr Sam Beckett)
Yeah, back then that was one of my favorites growing up.
Until the End-Movie, the closing of it just killed it for me.
As The Great One was at the helm of NextGen it is apparent that he was behind the change.
https://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Augment_virus
“This storyline, seen in the Enterprise episodes “Affliction” and “Divergence”, was intended in part to explain why Original Series Klingons had a more Human appearance, and later Klingons did not. The writers also hoped the two-parter would shed some light on the change in the Klingons’ temperament and disposition between the TOS and TNG eras. “
Unless my school was unusually interested in the Bible, I’m pretty sure Catholic High Schools all have a required class specifically for students to learn all the Old and New Testament. That said the most avid Star Trek fans might view their material with higher frequency. High School was …interesting.
you need to remember most geeks will read more than one book on star trek hell im a harf geek nd i read 3
pulse a lot of Catholics don’t go to catholic schools
and a lot of catholic schools focus more on learning passages than the whole bible
most dont even know there is soft core porn in there
Let’s be frank.
Not that I want to diss anybody, but the Bible (like other religious texts) is full of porn, incest, rape, murder and all the other stuff you’re told is bad, but others are allowed to do.
Not to mention that the people telling you NOT to do the evil stuff are actually the ones doing most of it.
If hypno-boobs were a real thing, then https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypno-boobs would be the biggest page on Wikipedia.
…And probably rack up (pun intended) a whole lot more page visits than any other pages…
To be honest, for a lot of guys, one doesn’t need a succubus to get the hypno-boobs effect. Pretty much any boobs will have that effect. (I include myself in this observation.)
Also, hypno-boobs would be a great name for a garage band.
Me too, I must admit.
“Hypno-Boobs is the name of my __________-tribute band”
If Earth is ever invaded by aliens with hypno-sex powers we will need someone who is technically savvy, has an encyclopedic knowledge of all all references to any alien race, and is immune to any form of sexual temptation.
All hail Sheldon Cooper, savior of the Earth!
He he.
+2
Yep, that sounds about right.
That is until he “learns” what sex is all about.
If Sheldon is going to be the saviour of Earth, let me of the planet now!
Is it just me, or did Dabbler lose her pants between the first and last panel?
They’re there, admittedly I may have slung them a little low in the last panel because I made the angle of the dip in the front of her corset too steep.
That *is* really low, Dave. You wouldn’t think that would happen by accident, especially since you just talked recently about her wearing tight pants.
her pants lowering is probably an automatic succubus response to having her boobs stared at – kind of like how a venus flytrap starts closing once the fly lands on its stamen
Actually, those hairs on the traps are called trichoms and extend from the surface of the leaf. The stamens are in the flowers.
I dunno… The first panel the pants are above the hips and no panties are showing but then full hips and a great deal of panties…. maybe I’m just wishing….
I want to take the sheer, agonising irony of the second and third panels and stick it in a scrapbook, so I can take it out when I am old and relive it again. Is Sydney’s eye twitching slightly in the third, or is that just the angle combined with the distilled irony?
If you mean her right eye, yes, it does look like it has been caught ‘mid-twitch’
I wonder if arc-swot know about this?
https://monstergirlencyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Succubus
Well, in your linked reference, succubi are Greater demons, but in Dungeons & Dragons, they are Lesser demons. It just depends on which cosmology/demonology you choose to reference.
…Then there’s https://yousuckthecomic.com/go/200
That would pose a problem if Dabbler (for some strange reason) decided to make every woman on staff a Lesser Succubus.
Just a note here, in all the panels except the close-up breast shots (6 & 7), Dabbler’s corset has some scroll-work or embroidery across the top. It vanishes in those close-up shots tho.
Oh geeze, I need to fix that.
Ok that’s fixed now if you CTRL+F5.
That band across the top of her corset? It rotates like those old-fashioned ticker-tape thingies? That is sooo cool! :D
So, her illusionary tattoos are draw-on?
I think she’s just inspecting them. When a girl inspects something about her face in a mirror, she tends to touch it.
They’re illusory so they’re easy for her to tweak.
Ah, okay so THAT’S what it is! I was looking at her facial marking and was like “Wait, weren’t those a little more angular?” Like in the featured character portrait bar on the right. This clears it all up, thanks Dave!
Also, Dabbler is so much fun to read. xD
Agreed,
Usually girls tend to be written as one XOR the other. Brilliant geek XOR sex crazed.
Brilliant geek && sex crazed is fairly rare. It’s fun to see her shift gears like that and remember, one trait doesn’t define a person, unless they’re Ned (warning, TVTropes link).
Somehow I broke that link.
Ned Still a link to TVTropes.
Regarding Dave’s link to Deep Space 9, that scene is followed by nephew’s comment: “I feel sorry for Jem’Hadar.” Damn right!
Note that even Quark freaks out when going to Roswell.
query did syd climb on the counter to look down at xuriel in 3 or is that a weird viewing angle?
She’s looming and Dabbler is shrinking down against the wall. That or Sydney’s experiencing a sudden but temporary growth spurt.
I noticed that Sydney puts people against walls a lot… also, I was pretty sure on 2nd viewing that she actually had climbed up on the counter… or, I suppose, she could have tackled Dabbler and they could be more…. horizontal.
Well, even though Sydney is a female, she’s still the tomboy-type, so I guess a temporary growth spurt may be applicable…
Oh wait! It wouldn’t *really* work that way unless she was also trans-gendered.
Given that the last three panels are NOT mirror reverse (it’s the first three), I’m assuming that Sidney is kneeling on the countertop in panel three…?
By that logic Dave, Dabbler is best served in close-quarter melee fights by fighting completely naked…
…and I’m okay with that.
I think that would make the rest of the team useless though… And probably unneeded.
No, Gekko71 specified “close-quarter melee fights”, not that she wouldn’t have a role in other types of fights, just in those types she would be best utilized fighting naked (like how in the opening cinematic for the DCUO game, Bats has Cyborg distract Luthor by shooting at his shield, a great general knows how and where to send their troops for best impact)
Most guys wouldn’t really need to get into close-quarters combat for Dabbler to have an impact on them…
Most of us would be okay with that, I assume; but Dave doesn’t make a 18+ version of this comic for it. I bet he could make a ton of money with it, though.
Echoing other posts: loving Sydney’s reaction in panel 2 and how she hops on to the counter to loom above Dabbles in panel 3 :D
Yes let the hate flow through you ” :: pushes out of way:: WRONG PLACE! damnit LUST Sydney let the LUST flow through you, give in!! :: waves hands like a wizard:: ” …your not a wizard “I might be you don’t know:
Just something, but are Dabbler’s eyes the wrong colour in the first panel?
Oh no, wait I see it.
Flash back to this page :D
You have really improved. The flats are great, and get the story across, but I really love how far your artwork has come in the last 600 strips.
Make that the last 90 strips, which frankly makes it more impressive.
Take a look at the strips to either side of that one XD That one was a bonus strip, and lower quality than the standard, I assume because it was rushed. Dave HAS been improving, but it’s not quite so dramatic as that link makes it seem ^_^()
I hate my stupid stupid stupid dirty mind some times. I also hate my damned curiosity. Stupid brain, just enjoy the funny and get rid of the mental images of “What if she didn’t turn her around?”
I do love how Dabbler grabbed the top of her head and spun her around to break the spell, along with that look in the third to last panel. So classically “They’re not supposed to work that good!”
I can see where Dabbler’s coming from.
Considering what we’ve seen a small part of what her tech could do. Just place her tech in any situation where some person took the life of another and put it in the hands of the perp. You don’t have to go far to see the amount of the damage it would cause in the long run.
Considering some groups of people, it would be a disaster to allow the tech out where they might try to steal it.
Meh. We’ve been perfectly capable of wiping the Earth clean of life for about the last 70 years. Frankly there isn’t much outside of mind control tech/magic that Dabbler can have that’s locally more dangerous than extinction. As long as she doesn’t give us star drives how bad can it get?
I don’y know. Imagine her railgun in some gang driveby. Considering what she did to a tank and what it took to stop the shot, I’d think her small stuff could be jest as destructive as any star drive.
Or imagine her teleporter tech used to put a dirty bomb in a school or stadium. :P
Lets see, an alien who’s grasp of English is still shaky in places. And with significant succubus influence in her mindset to affect her likely interpretation. Plus she surely will have heard herself being described as a ‘sex bomb’, at some point.
So just what would she think a ‘dirty bomb’ was?
As a race we have, yes. On an individual level, the vast majority do not, and there are checks in place to prevent any single person from setting that off, I believe.
Imagine what would happen if every person on that planet had access to that tech – or even just 1% of us. We’re prone to emotional extremes, insanity, misunderstandings…
Would be a great way for an alien race to clear the planet without actually doing anything directly (as long as there is no trail back to them having supplied the tech in the first place)
Second Amendment: The right to bear arms.
I’ve always wondered what kind of arms it encompasses.
Personally, I’d love to make them loose all their guns and give them swords for it.
But what about the other spectrum?
Like big honking bombs? Can anybody in the US actually legally get a big rocket or even a nuke?
The idea behind the second amendment is that a) it provides a militia that used to be very necessary and b) it was (and theoretically still is) considered not only allowable but necessary for the citizenry to be able to overthrow their government if it got out of hand, just as we did when we split off from Britain. Theoretically this means the citizens should be permitted the same weaponry as the military; however, since the founders could hardly have imagined the sort of outrageously overpowered weapons we have today (like nukes), it’s been limited to guns and the like (which are sufficient for defending against pretty well anything short of bombs).
To be a bit more clear, the Second Amendment, more or less, says that having a standing army is bad and instead The USA should just have a militia. And therefore all citizens have the right to own any weapons that would be needed to maintain a militia, whatever those may be.
It doesn’t protect any specific weapons because they KNEW that weapons would eventually change so instead they protected the goal. As the goal post moves so does the area that is protected.
Next you need to know a bit about how a militia is generally used. The main points being that they fight armies on your home soil. (be it an invading army, or, you know, your own army…)
So things like tanks and jets and rocket launchers and the like are protected, in addition to assault weapons and other guns, because that’s what you need to fight an invading army. But things like nukes and other large scale explosives are not, since using those on home soil is all kinds of not good.
It also means things like hunting rifles, pocket knives, swords, competition marksmanship guns, ect. are NOT protected by the second amendment.
It is NOT the right to bear arms, it is the right to bear MILITARY grade arms. (Nukes aren’t military arms.)
Like that one episode of Smallville? Where that kid wanted to nuke the town because of all the Kryptonite-freaks? Imagine if a Christian fanatic state militia got their hands on one of those rockets.
I remember reading a sci fi short story long ago where an alien race was worried about humans getting star flight and spreading their insanity/aggression across space. They ended up sending a delegation to Earth as ‘friends’. They presented humanity with the secret to very cheap and near 100% efficient solar energy as a way to solve the energy crisis. The end result was that Earth never go around to producing powerful yet portable energy technologies like fusion power. This kept humans tethered to their own system and out of everyone else’s way.
That story has one very big hole in it. Solar can work in space and probably more efficiently. All you need is a reaction mass and you have a cheap plasma drive. And we already can put large objects into orbit. Within a few decades that technology would open up the asteroids to mining and the beginnings of terraforming other planets. And in a hundred years we’d be visiting other systems.
In space, yes. But not in interstellar space. Exit the solar system and the amount of energy that would reach your space ship would have difficulty powering a basic computer and radio, let alone a plasma drive.
It is the nature of radiant energy that it drops off fast as you move away from the source. Just think how quickly you loose the warmth from a fire. Move a single pace away and it is negligible. Your space ship would have to go a lot further than that.
So whilst your point works well as to the exploitation of the planets within our solar system, it does still match what O.B Juan indicated was the intent. To stop us getting out of our back yard and going to the stars.
I don’t suppose any of you ever read “Second Stage Lensman” … You can use solar power with all of the stars, not just the nearest one. If it’s visible, it’s usable.
I read the various Lensman books a long time ago, so yes, but I cannot remember them. EE Doc Smith wrote space opera though, so do not take any of the science as being realistic. That said though, you are perfectly correct. But the amount of energy being received in interstellar space is significantly below that which you would expect within a solar system.
I am not an engineer, but I fail to see how that would be enough to power a plasma fusion drive?* Maybe an alternative drive, which modestly sailed you with slow but steady power. Over many generations. But it would not allow you to do as quoted
All you would be able to do at that point is start the journey. It would still take many generations and hundreds of years, after that, to even reach the first star with such a weak drive.
Of course, as always, I am open-minded should someone point out a flaw my logic. Or the math of just how much energy you can get from sunlight in interstellar space. And, of course, one need not allow such disbelief to stop someone writing a good story with the other premise. But, unless they can back it up with plausible science, then it falls in the realm of space opera, rather than hard science fiction.
* Yes, you would be harnessing the power from all stars, rather than just the one you left behind. But the important part is how much energy is falling on your space ship. It would need to have vast solar sails to capture enough starlight to power an energetic drive like that. Possibly viable in the relatively high energy area near a star. If human technology was advanced enough at that stage to produce reinforcing technology that was light enough to support the sail in manoeuvres, but without adding too much weight to the gross weight of the ship.
But the interstellar voids would require an even bigger sail.because there is less energy. Requiring even more weight to support it, thus adding more mass for the drive to overcome. Plus there is bound to be power loss in transmitting it to the drive. Which would require adding more mass for relays or building super conductors, along with all the heavy infrastructure** that would require. So unless you are introducing a whole bunch of other extra new technology, that was not mentioned in the starting premise, I remain convinced that it would not be viable.
** Note that superconductors designed for use solely in interstellar space could be a lot more lightweight, as they need ultra low temperatures to operate. However there is still a significant weight to add, even considering that. And, if the ship were intended to actually enter a solar system, and get exposed to the higher temperatures there, then you need to factor that in.