Grrl Power #435 – Fajita bombs
Hopefully you guys can tell what’s happening here. Panel 5/6 would definitely benefit from animation.
Sydney’s mishap brought to you by a true story. Before I explain though, I should make sure everyone is familiar was fajitas. Having lived in Texas for over 30 years I don’t want to take that for granted. I’m sure Tex-Mex exists in some form or another all over the US and even outside of it, though outside of Texas, the chance that it’s still called Tex-Mex drops precipitously. Sometimes labeled Southwestern or Mexican food, even though proper Tex-Mex bears only a passing resemblance to actual Mexican food.
Anyway, fajitas are seasoned and grilled meat, usually steak or chicken, sometimes shrimp, although in Sydney’s case here it’s portobello mushrooms, (especially good with chimichurri sauce) then cut into strips and served DiY style, basically build your own burrito with several side dishes containing some combination of rice, beans, lettuce, sour cream, cheese, guacamole, etc. The fajitas themselves, at least in every place in Texas I’ve had them at, are served on a broiling hot cast iron skillet along with onions, mushrooms, peppers or even squash. The skillet itself rests on a wooden plate designed specifically for the fajita skillet.
So here’s what I did – nearly the same thing as Sydney, but I caught myself before resting the back of my hand on the skillet. Instead I felt the heat from it and smartly thought to push it away from my hand. Except, like Sydney, the tortilla was covering my hand, so when I lowered my hand to push the wooden plate away, I didn’t see that I hadn’t lowered it far enough, and I wound up pressing the tip of my finger against the skillet and not the plate. About 1 second later, I yanked my hand away and threw my sour cream covered tortilla on to the back of the head of the person sitting in the booth behind me. It was embarrassing and startled them and everyone at my booth as well. But it was pretty funny once the throbbing in my finger subsided. Actually it was immediately funny, but it still hurt like a sumbitch. The team is in a private dining room so I thought I’d have Sydney lob her payload forward instead.
I’m not sure about Maxima’s shirt. I wanted to put her in something other than a black baby doll, but the open slots on the shoulders guarantees that bra straps will be seen. It doesn’t seem like a shirt she would wear in public, but besides dinner here she’ll probably keep her jacket on.
Oh and about the mini-comic – “Box social” is the funniest term I could find for a distaff counterpart to “sausage party.” Most of the other ones were predictably much more rude, but I think “box” is the funniest (and most nonsensical) euphemism for that business anyway.
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Why isn’t Pixel on the Who’s Who? She is speaking and we see her right shoulder and arm
Gwen is partially seen and speaks also, but only “YAAA!”.
Heck if that is all it took, I would have a Who’s Who entry!
:-D
Sweetie Yorp, you haven’t been formally named or introduced yet :(
I think that that’s Sydney who yells that.
Ummm… No, I believe it’s the sound he makes when Sydney yells at his walker about buying comics. BTW, your walker in quite cute…
No, Gildomar meant that Sydney yells “YAAA!” on this page
Correct. However, although Wanderer mistook what that reply was about, the comment is right, in that I I do introduce myself as Yorp. Thank you Wanderer for the compliment about my nice walker. She is very dedicated and takes me frequently on long walks.
Not that I was angling for an entry. My reply was intended to support your comment which started the thread. Pixel has a significant talking part, which is a key threshold that must be passed in order to qualify to be listed. So it would be right to list her.
On the other paw, even had Unmaker been correct and it was Gwen who said “Yaa”, that would not be sufficient for her to gain an entry. However I again agree with your take Guesticus that it was Sydney, not Gwen who yelled. It was out of pain, not surprise!
No, that was Sydney yelling in pain.
Maybe that’s one of Maxima’s boobs talking? Not sure whether it’s the right or the left, though.
Maybe it’s her cleavage talking.
Added. This was a weird edge case cause I wanted the frame to show both the screen Pixel is zooming in on and Sydney starting to build her fajita. Pixel’s face wasn’t a vital component.
While we’re at it, why is there a question mark next to Dabbler’s name in the Who’s Who?
Are you insinuating that it isn’t really Dabbler that’s with them at the table?
I’m Ron Burgundy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3zfP14pLxc
OMG, its a ninja disguised as Dabbler! It was the real Dabbler outside. That was one hell of a good switch!
I get the impression that DaveB has to type in the names by hand, in the Who’s Who. A typo would normally not bring up their picture etc. But it looks like a superfluous character, at the end, matches up OK.
Dave use a different W’sW for Dabbler with and without glamour. The first time she appeared disguised, and nobody knew what that was, he used this same W’sW with a question mark for a few pages. I guess he picked the wrong one this time.
Ooh, well remembered.
Oh, that makes sense
I wonder if the final flight point will unlock teleportation. It would be the next stage in movement. Although it might take a connecting power with the light hook, motion plus carrying capacity.
Also, this event might put Halo on fingerless gloves. It might be a good look for her.
My money is on FTL
So are my Yorpie Snax™.
I want to make sure every corner of the galaxy has a stash!
Im not thinking ftl yet. I wouldnt be surprised if the offshoots worked with spec travel speeds. Maybe knock her up another mach or two for now and unlocked the capacity for space flight.
Fingerless gloves won’t work: she needs to cup her balls in the sweaty meaty fleshy palm of her hands
How about finger only gloves?
Yeah, been thinking of making a pair of those: the fingers and thumb are connected by a small strip of material (probably the entire thumb is covered) and there is a strip that goes down the side from the pinkie to the wrist and you still have the normal ‘cuff’ of the glove
Have had bad frostbite in only the right hand (very difficult to ride a paper bike in winter with no hands) and fingerless gloves don’t work as it’s the fingers that have been affected (feet have been okay after getting an electric boot foot-warmer), have actually found strapping a baby hot-water bottle to the wrist helps more than finger-less gloves (just a small 300ml bottle as opposed to the 1200ml bottles)
Why not have the fingers connected by the full back of the glove? For proper use, only the palm would really need to be exposed [insert tasteless joke about crotchless panties here]. In your case, you could also add a couple Velcro straps to the aforementioned back to hold your hand-warmer…
Was talking about a personal glove, for me, and the water bottle goes on the back of the wrist
The big problem is using the right hand for trackball-duty and most typing so can’t wear most gloves (still hoping someone will make thin affordable gloves with wires woven in that can be heated to a comfortable level)
jee is making a sound suggestion. I am purely thinking about the warning given on packs of chemical warming gell here mind. The ones I have all advise that they should not be placed directly on the skin. Even the apparently mild warmth can cause tissue damage, if that is done.
Given that you already have frostbite damage, it is safest to assume that your pain receptors may also be compromised, to some degree or other. But even with fully healthy nerves, people can fail to realise that the combination of painfully cold environment and comforting warming are masking the damage being inflicted by the heat.
It would be safest to keep a layer of insulating cloth in between any warming device and flesh. But if you feel that is being over-protective just try comparing the temperature of your heating bottle to that of a gel pack. If they are similar you should heed the warning on the pack. They have carefully researched this (or found out the hard way via law suits).
The water bottle is in a lovely knitted cover
Cool… err… warm.
I have an archery glove like that. I like the thin leather because it lets me feel the string tension more than thicker ones do, and thus helps me be more accurate with my bows.
Further to the idea of velcro-based palmless gloves for Sydney.
Have a patch of fairly tough material that velcroes over the palm-space. My thinking is that, yes, Sydney will want to keep her palms bare for easy orb access MOST of the time – but there may be rare times when she needs to cover that area for simple protection (extreme cold, for a possible example).
Here’s where my cleverness comes into play ;) Make that velrco patch for her gloves STRETCHABLE, so Sydney could, if she chooses, hold an orb and have the velcro patch over both orb and palm, holding both together. So, her hands are protected, and she is in constant conract with an orb in that hand without having to constantly grip (doing that last can be extremely tiring over long periods of time).
This idea probably shouldn’t be done with the PPO, but if, for one example, she’s making a long-distance flight, could be a sound safety measure.
Extremely good idea.
That amount of flex might make it become too loose with use though. So perhaps just make the material long enough to fully enclose the orbs… mmm no, anything flat would allow the orb to slip out, in the gaps above and below.
Ideally the material would need to be cup-shaped, like a tea-cup (drawing on past experience and design solutions to a similar problem). This is true of both my less-stretchable and the initial fully-stretchable suggestions.
This, however, would prohibit the initial suggestion I was leading up to, namely allowing the excess length of material to be wrapped around Halo’s hand to velcro on the back of it (when no ball was being held). The cup-shape would make it too tight around the edges, and give an unsightly and impractical bulge on the back of the glove. All too likely to get snagged, for example.
For that matter velcro tabs can get snagged too. And hands are one of the most vulnerable places for that, given how much they get used. Just imagine how long they would last, without being torn loose, going round an assault course. Likewise getting clogged with dirt, bits of vegetation and the like.
Mmm, the core need is obvious, and the solution tantalizingly close using the initial idea.
Ok, how about this adaptation of the concept? Just have a glove with two wrists. The one further up the arm just being there to keep the whole glove on. The other one, on top of that, being made extra-stretchy, such that it can be pulled out far enough to allow the orb to be pushed in and sit inside Halo’s glove, in full contact with her palm.
The palm of the glove being likewise made of a stretchy material, which would allow the orb to stay in her palm. The only trick is to ensure that there is more tension in the wrist, than the palm, to ensure that the orb stays in, rather than being pushed out.
In practice Halo would need to pull the wrist out, with her other hand, very firmly, and tell the orb to fly in the gap. Someone trying to replicate this, without that capability would wish they had Dabbler’s number of arms. Or need to have dexterous fingers.
I actually do something very similar to this myself, in winter, mind. I wear two layers of paw coverings. A thin inner one, and a thick outer one. On particularly cold days, if having to conduct repairs outside, chop wood or when on walkies, I will slip a warming gel pack in between the two layers.
If working I put the gel pack on the outer side, away from the tools, else it becomes too bulky to grip them. If walking it goes on the inner, to get the greater benefit.
Ayup, I think we have a definite thing here. Certainly, it would work better than duct-taping specific orbs in place.
Let us hope that DaveB likewise approves. Although, knowing him, he probably has sketches of such drawn already!
:)
Simpler method of construction: Use a smaller version of the machine that presses bra-cup fabric, adjusted to make cups of the right shape. Add in a strap that goes over the knuckles to hold it closed, and viola!
Clever.
Why is your bike made of paper? Wouldn’t it fall apart if it got wet?
Perhaps because of being a fan of the Beatle’s song “paper bike rider“?
Like those rubber/latex fingernail covers for the front paws of cats?
Hot pink or electric blue, please. :D
Those are shooting gloves, or archery gloves. This is more or less representative of the type:
https://www.sportsmansguide.com/product/index/neet-suede-shooting-glove?a=570870&pm2d=CSE-SPG-15-PLA&utm_medium=PLA&utm_source=Google&utm_campaign=CI&gclid=Cj0KEQjwncO7BRC06snzrdSJyKEBEiQAsUaRjDcNF4257scTOzjWJCOVEnC5Z-jfUGAiBnyYkAlVRdAaAiOY8P8HAQ
“Access Denied!” :(
My glove looks more like a three fingered driving glove with no palm.
She’s ganna be so weak in the winter
Nah. She’ll just keep the blast orb on a low simmer as a hand warmer. Which is totally a thing she can do, because I said so.
Or we can assume they’re south far enough where winter will never be something to be animated.
Hahaha! *If* ARC-SWAT is located in Texas (DaveB lives in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex, I live about 3 hours northeast of him), I can guarantee you that even we get cold weather sometimes. I distinctly remember the ice storm of 2000, which left us without electricity and no source of heat other than the fireplace for two weeks. The most boring (and coldest!) two weeks of my life.
And, of course, that’s discounting the possibility of supers with weather control…
or alien weather control satellites…
Or of having to go help out (or deal with, or keep an eye on) the Wapsi Square crowd, up in Minneapolis, in February.
Or help out (etc.) an independent super-team up in Ohio.
They may need helping out. That big guy was going on about Flaky Pastry. If Zintiel is about to make an appearance, that whole park, indeed all of Ohio would be at risk!
Run for the hills! Then keep going, that is not far enough!!
I think ArtyD is referring to this type of thing. Winter gets even worse when they start singing!
How about fingerless gloves with a hole in the palm for skincontact with the orbs?
They have a popular driving glove that has fingers and palm, but the back only has a snapped wrist strap. If they reversed that and made gloves that covered the back of the hand and the fingers (possibly leaving the tips uncovered) with an open palm and a strap across the wrist, it’d keep her hands warm without compromising orb contact.
How about gloves with an open palm and a pair of flaps that can be used to cover the palm – one of them extremely spacious so that it fits around an orb?
I am sure Dabbler could help her with some ball cupping techniques.
More likely it’s the ‘Hyperflight’ (FTL) branch. The orb powers do tend to resemble starship systems:
Weapons, Propulsion, Defense, Communications/Sensors, Tractor Beam, (Environmental Systems and Main Power)
Damn, headcanon accepted.
Hmm.. if the orbs are truly alien artifacts, that makes sense.
If the orbs are more magical/mystical in nature, FTL seems.. out of genre and thus unlikely.
Still waiting patiently.
For you.
Not necessarily. If FTL is achieved via inter-dimensional shortcut (please ignore the mathematician crying over the use of the word “dimension”), it would certainly fit with a magical artifact. It’s not too much of a stretch that the orbs open up a portal that allows the user to fly through to reach a distant part of the galaxy (or beyond).
At the very least it’s not much more of a stretch than a dimensional portal or magical time/space travel device like the Phoenix Gate.
This would make it comparable to a magically powered Green Lantern ring, though of course at that level the distinction between magic and super-science begins to break down.
FYI, the fastest speed any human has ever traveled relative to the Earth was set by Apollo 10, which reached 39,897 kph. I think that would make a good milestone for Sydney to beat, and give her a “bragging right” people could relate to: ‘How fast can I go? Well, I lapped the Equator in an hour.’
Still will only be majorly impressive when she can beat Voyager 1 & 2 which are currently at around 39,600 Mph (11miles a second) or for Europeans its 63,730.022 Kph. Think at that speed she could lap it in about 37.8 Minutes. Just hope she has some Aloe Vera for those friction burns lol
Oh – did you know that when you get burned the decision to jerk your arm is not made by your brain but in your spinal cord itself? That’s why it’s not so smart about what to do….
Smart is not really a priority when it comes to preventing burns.
But yes, the arm will jerk away before the brain realizes what happened. The body is pretty cool
and keeping that cool can cause so much chaos…
Unless you are the Kwisatz Haderach being tested by the Gom Jabbar.
(not to be confused with the Gom Jar Jar. Which is the act of torturing someone by making them watch the first Star Wars movie over and over)
That’s the light version of the Gom JarJar. The full version is a spliced-together version of all his scenes (with frequent recurrences of his dive into the water) on infinite repeat.
somebody should make a 10 hour version of that…
Personally like Maxi’s top, and if she wears a bra with either black straps or those clear plastic ‘invisible’ ones, you wouldn’t be able to tell (or she could wear one of those strapless bra’s)
I’m surprised Max NEEDS a bra.
My thoughts. I don’t imagine any supers need bras, Max especially.
considering the effect when she was standing upside-down on the ceiling, she DOES need a bra.
Don’t make her wear one! Noooo! ;-)
Bikini bra perhaps?
Maybe she wears it for the same reason that many people wear underpants: as an extra layer of modesty in case something happens to the outerwear. A line of defense, if you will.
Frankly she may have no need for a bra at all, despite her large endowments. She has both a skin tight force field-like effect as an assist, and a naturally tough integument.
How would a bra affect her anyways? Even assuming she’s not actively using toughness, wouldn’t her breasts be stronger than her clothing?
Clear bra straps are, IMO, the most noticeable bra straps.
Yeah, that’s why added “quote marks” around “invisible” (and they get damn cold)
I’ve recently (with the weather, and I guess fashion) noticed several women who were wearing bras with visible straps, but they were more like 3/4″ wide colored bands. A couple seemed to be whatever the word is for a fabric with a pattern of holes in it*. Those seemed to embrace the fact that they were going to be visible under the tops they had selected, and used them as fashion. But those women were not hugely endowed, to my memory, and that might not work if a really functional strap is required for the job at hand.
* A Google search for “fabric with a pattern of holes” returned ‘eyelet’ as the most common use. But my brain kicked in and I think I want to say lace.
I wish I could fashion women.
*looks around expectantly, and hopefully*
All you need to do is sacrifice a rib
Or perhaps one of those black bars on the top has fasteners underneath to make a channel for the bra strap, so that it is always hidden under the fabric?
Or, she uses her sizeable super-salary to purchase specially made tops with built-in bras for her sizeable super-selions?
‘Splat’ AND ‘Blop’?
I can understand one or the other, but how is it both?
Blop is the tortilla itself. Spat is the loose food articles
“SPLAT” is the wrap hitting her ample chest, “BLOP” is the toppings falling down her equally ample cleavage
I have a third reading. “SPLAT” is the food. “BLOP” is her breasts being displaced.
You saying the food is that heavy? Or that her startlement caused them to *BLOP*?
I figured it was the semi-liquid portions of the fajita obeying the law of gravity upon arrival. Dabbler is large enough, but that top isn’t tight enough, to make her cleavage liquid-tight.
The top sure ain’t liquid tight. It is an illusion. She could be even more scantily clad, or outright naked! the perception of being clothed is not the same thing as being clothed.
Guesticus it is just the way it looks and sounds to me. Logically I guess it would require some assistance from Dabbler jerking in surprise. But that does seem to be in the theme of the page.
I’m pretty sure the SPLAT is the sour cream facial she received.
Probably not the first time she’s had something like that occur.
Probably is the first time it’s happened in public while clothed, though.
Maybe not on Earth, but there may be some situations on other planets that it could perfectly ok to do that. The Succubi Homewold for instance?
Like.
Fajitas are known, as a part of ‘Tex-Mex’ cuisine, here in [at least some parts of] southern England too.
Yup. I have even been able to buy them in Bulgaria. But they are not routinely available.
Tex-Mex or just fajitas up in Canada as well. Though I haven’t seen any restaurants that serve them DIY style in Canada. Haven’t really paid attention, but I think some of the companies that sell box fajita sets label them as Tex-Mex, which certainly helps with spreading the name.
In the Toronto area, there are plenty of mid-range restaurants that serve fajitas as build-your-own with the meat on a hot seasoned cast iron plate.
Ah, well, if I ever return there, I’ll have to look one up. Thank! :)
In Australia, I dunno if there is any real distinction between Tex-Mex and Mex.
All I know is that I LOVE spicy meaty burritos and their kindred (of which fajitas are clearly one). We have a couple of franchise chains, both of which I am a devoted customer – ‘Guzman Y Gomez’ (Australian), and ‘Mad Mex’.
most places outside of Mexico the “Mexican” is Tex-Mex. We have a series of Mexican-owned/ operated restaurants locally that have altered some of their recipes to fit American tastes, so they have Mex/ Tex-Mex.
One of the biggest American fast-food Mexican chains, Taco-Bell, when they opened restaurants in Mexico, actually had to have a glossary to explain what their “Mexican” dishes were.
Taco Bell used to have a few places in Australia, but all closed down a long time back (1990s, I think). Have heard that they are to Tex-Mex and/or Mex what prison food is to fine cuisine. Certainly comparing their fare to what there is now, that seems a fair description.
I once found a place that served Tex-Mex done by an extremely competent chef with quality ingredients… still I prefer McDonald’s by a thin margin.
On the other hand, I’ve also had some very good genuinely-Mexican food.
I’ve found an odd thing, that with only a few exceptions I prefer food from the southern part of the country – no matter what country. (One of the exceptions is American seafood cookery – aside from Cajun, the southern US doesn’t know what to do with fish or shellfish, the northeast and northwest are much better.)
I wanted to try gumbo, and was in Louisiana for quite a long time. Sadly I was staying with someone who was allergic to them. Even the smell of someone else having eaten them made her nauseous! A sad situation for her, given that she had to commute through crawfish heavy areas. All that yummy food around yet she could not have a bite!
She did take me on a guided tour of the swamps the crawfish live in though. Really beautiful. Not at all what I would have expected. I can see why people like to live there on house-boats.
“You can tell the native Cajun houses, from the rich folks who move here. The latter have electricity cables connected, to give them air-conditioning, fridges and so on.”
I can guess their marketing strategy, in trying that.
;-)
Is Mad Mex found somwhere beyond the Thunderdome?
Nope.
https://www.madmex.com.au/
Heh. Mad Mex. Not very clever and yet still very much awesome. Doubly so for being in Australia.
Not Taco Bell – Taco Hell. Although, to give them credit, they are not nearly as awful (at least locally) as they used to be ten years ago. Tried some about a year ago (dragged in by a friend) and intestinal distress onset was not immediate (following day).
Love going to Dallas every year for Animefest. DFW has some of the best restaurants, and I truly admire what they do with Mexican/Tex-Mex. So good. And if you live in the area or are visiting, the four star gourmet dining gas station (Chef Point Cafe) is great way to freak out people.
You have Tex-Mex chain in Australia called Mad Mex? That’s awesome.
Yep, and Luchador masks feature strongly in their logo and decor.
I wasn’t under the impression they were an uncommon cuisine, but I thought there’d be more of a chance that if you get them in Canada or South Dakota they might just come on a plate and the restaurant doesn’t make show of serving them on the scalding hot skillet.
Up here (central Canada) they used to be more common as fast food one-offs that were pre-made but the skillet style is used in sit-down restaurants and they have become fairly popular.
Multiple nationwide chains have them on the menu, and bring them out on the death-skillet. Applebees, Chile’s, Finley’s, TGIFriday’s, etc.
Which brings to mind fire sources brought to the table. Candles and heating trays, for example. They have the problem that Sydney experienced, above, and provide a convenient ignition source too.
I recall my folks telling me of an incident two or three years ago. Taking relatives out to a meal, and one of their guests suddenly dancing around with a flaming napkin. My dad threw water from the jug, on the table, to douse it. Despite having to mop that up, the staff were extremely grateful for that. And there was a spontaneous round of applause, from the rest of the clientele.
My dad was not sure if it was for his actions or the flaming Morris dance.
In the UK I have had them on the hot skillet and a smoke trail as they bring it to the table. Though that was double figure years since I’ve seen them that hot. These days its on a normal plate or on a metal skillet with just a hint of sizzle.
Could be a combination of health and safety (customers with nasty burns & smoke alarms being set off) and lazy chiefs & waters not wanting serving that has to go out in seconds.
Fajitas are amazing
Though I always keep the burrito in progress on a plate. So I’ve never touched the pan before.
They are delicious, and one ingredient DaveB missed were bell peppers. He did say ‘peppers,’ but that typically refers to hot peppers, and we see Sydney adding some to her tortilla. As if she wouldn’t…
I worked for about a year as a young man at a chain restaurant that served fajitas. The iron skillets they are served on were kept stacked directly on the grill, in a kind of semi-overlapping fashion. Aside from helping me learn to cook better dating the waitresses was a fairly decent perk of the job. While you’d like to think that being attractive wasn’t a requirement of the job it was, shall we say, a remarkable coincidence that across that year, and with the typical staff rotation places like that see, there was never a dog in the kennel.
1) Typically being an attractive female increases income potential, so more women that are attractive enter/ stay in the field.
2) While it might not be a JOB requirement, it is frequently a HIRING MANAGER’S requirement. Some are just horn-dogs that want to surround themselves with beauty, others do it to “improve the atmosphere” for the typically male clientele. Generally, up to 2/3 of the clientele are single males, couples, or family groups where the man is the breadwinner/ decision maker, and having pretty servers CAN be a factor in the choice.
I’ve never seen an unattractive male in the serving industry either.
It’s more a universal ‘attractive sells’ then ‘boobs sell’
Pretty people are very likely to be in service and sales jobs. While a good personality can dramatically enhance the effect or offset a less attractive person’s looks, the hard and a bit sad truth is that beauty sells well.
Granted, good looks also has a kind of subculture where a lot of brainpower is focused on maintaining/enhancing those good looks, thus creating a kind of common bond amongst the membership of that subculture, which tends to sponsor a kind of favoritism for good looking folks – “hotness-potism”, as a lady friend of mine calls it.
Good personality takes time to use. Good looks take effect as soon as you see someone.
You don’t really get to know your server, so personality doesn’t matter (long as they’re not visibly assholes of course)
Meh. I’ve seen several overweight or even just outright fat male waiters. I can’t say the same thing about female waiters.
When i ate fajitas i kept the skillet more toward the middle of the table and nowhere near where i can accidentally touch it
Another alternative for “box special” would be “clamfest.” For example:
“Girlfrieeeend, this clamfest is lame! Let’s go to that gay bar with the hunky guys!”
That’s “box social“, it’s a really old phrase, hinting that either Dabbles has been around for a lot longer or watched an old movie and liked the sound of it
The cast page lists Dabbler as being 187 years old.
Though most of that would not be in contact with Earth languages
Well the BBC did start broadcasting in 1922, so she could have been tuning in half her lifetime ago, if she happened to pass within a couple of light years of Earth. And the globe of our dinner bell just keeps getting bigger, by one light year, every year.
And here Dabbler is responding to it.
The very existence of Dabbler and aliens being as common as they are requires FTL really, even the limit of within a couple of light years of earth may not really be much of a limit. Possible some aliens noticed earth had sapients and hid a satellite somewhere nearby to wait for broadcasts, and we’ve got no idea how long tourism has been going on for.
I personally suspect that what everyone here is calling ‘demons’, is just another specie of alien, one that’s been in contact with humanity for millennia. From what we’ve seen of Dabbler and her ilk, I imagine that standard FTL isn’t used by them, as it isn’t needed. They instead have mastered dimensional control (as evidenced by Dabbler’s ‘weapon storage’), and travel via interdimensional portals, which effectively allows interstellar travel. Primitive humans have interpreted these as ‘summoning circles’, hence the superstitions about summoning demons. Whether or not other aliens use these, or travel via more conventional FTL starships, is unclear.
I’d be far less sure of that myself, what we’ve seen heavily indicates that magic is real and distinct from technology (although somewhat interoperable), and Dabbler is just great at both. The weapon storage isn’t actually a dimensional pocket or anything, that was explained, she just teleports stuff back and forth from her lab, and I’m nearly certain her cybernetic arm was mentioned as being required to do that.
Have we seen Dabbler create any portals? Teleportation for groups is a massive utility buff, enough so that if they had it I’d expect them to use it greatly and prefer to only use flight when they don’t but I don’t really remember anything along those lines.
It looked like Dabbler used magic to summon her magical sword. We can see her pulling it out of a portal.
Granted Dabbler may just have been using her cybernetic arm to summon it from her lab, via teleportation. But the effect looks very different. Which does not preclude her having developed a more showy way, of pulling that off.
However that portal is a significantly different element. One that would require modifying the basic technological operation significantly or casting an illusion or using a holographic projector. Any of which Dabbler could do. But it does seem like a lot of trouble to go to for such a frivolous purpose. Especially for someone who does not like to do more than just dabble in any given field.
Whereas, given that Dabbler does make heavy use of magic, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that it is just as it appears, a magical summoning portal.
“…Dabbler may just have been using her cybernetic arm to summon it from her lab, via teleportation.”
I just checked and at the time Dave said “she’s not teleporting it [the sword] to her hand like she did the railgun”
If you have a high-tech society, which also has magic, they are bound to make use of each for the role it is best suited. And to blend the use wherever possible.
Someone else raised the following point recently, but to reiterate. If you have FTL travel and can fly, let us say, one light year a month, yet you can magically teleport instantly across the galaxy, you will find that magic will be the mode preferred for personal transportation.
Yet it may not be good for bulk transport. Mages would probably get bored, and do not have to put up with a dull life as a haulier, not when they have magic, at their disposal, and can choose to live a more interesting life. So interstellar cargo ships may well be common.
Perhaps Succubus society combines the two, by building magical stargates? Which, in space are used for cargo ships, but on the ground are disguised as stone henges, to minimise local suspicion.
According to the movie Contact, which was written by an astronomer, the first broadcast powerful enough to reach another star was the ?1940? German Olympics with Aldof Hitler.
Because the energy goes out in all directions (half going into the ground to be absorbed) the amount of energy near the antenna drops fast each light year. As the radius increases, the volume of a sphere goes up exponentially.
One interview I saw with an astronomer I can not remember at the moment brought up the point that space is fairly noisy in the radio spectrum. He said that the strength of any Earth transmission would drop below the level of background noise within the first 2 or 3 light years. The end result would be that instead of the poetic notion of all our history being sent out to the universe in an eternally expanding globe, we are actually being drowned out before we even reach the next nearest star.
I think it’s worst than that. We drown ourselves out: Usable radio frequencies are a limited commodity so radio stations are limited in power so that only serve/reach a local area on the Earth and the frequency can be reused over and over again in other parts of the world. Out beyond the world an alien with a powerful enough receiver would find the stations over lapping each other with different programming.
You may have noticed that I stipulated a couple of light years. However much the quality of the signal might degrade, the actual energy is radiating outwards, and is not of a natural origin. So a sophisticated civilisation will be able to detect that much, and easily tell its point of origin, given that it is radiating from a single planet.
So we are announcing our presence, even if we are not opening a dialogue. It will be up to the listeners to guess how delicious we may be.
1936.
Berlin for the Summer games, Garmish-Partenkirchen for the Winter ones.
No Olympics were held in either 1940 or 1944, because of the wars in progress, although locations had previously been agreed.
1940 Summer =Tokyo; 1940, Winter = Sapporo [Japan] transferred to St Moritz [Switzerland] transferred to Garmisch-Partenkirchen again — because of a disagreement between the Swiss & the IOC — in early 1939; 1944 Summer = London; 1944 Winter = Cortina d’Ampezzo [Italy].
However all of those locations, apart [I think]] from Garmisch-Partenkirchen, were re-awarded hosting rights sooner-or-later during the post-war period instead.
Worth to notice it was the first TV broadcast powerful enough to etc. Wave frequencies used for radio just don’t get to space because they are reflected back to earth by the ionosphere (that’s why they could comunicate world wide even in a time when there was no satellites). TV ones on the other hand do pass ionoshpere. From an extraterrestrial point of view we were mute before TV.
Annnd I should have read the thread up to the end before posting, Killjoy already pointed this out.
Well, you were right to point it out though. My dates were in error, given that. Trying to pin down something definitive though is not so easy. Note the following:
Wikipedia did not say if those could be picked up by ET though.
For information TV is not the only radio broadcast which can reach into space. Regular radio, broadcast using VHF, can do so likewise. Which is what FM radio uses. And would be easier to translate, without needing to figure out scan lines and such protocols.
However they did not start until the 40s, so do not bring the date forward at all.
Although, regarding the most definitive claim made, each reference I found only cited the film Contact as a source, as mentioned by Ie Yamof Ool. Despite expert advice, Hollywood has been known to take liberties with the truth! And saying Hitler is the first face ET could see (noting that they would need to be pretty close to do so) is a powerful dramatic message to drive a plot. So I take that with a pinch of salt, unless someone finds a more reliable source.
But even the 1936 Olympic games broadcast (as corrected by Simreeve) does give us 80 years to play with. So still a big chunk of Dabbler’s life, which was the gist of my original comment.
And I think Professor Stephen Hawking is right that we should not assume ET will be friendly!
Don’t forget that EM radiation (radio wave and light being examples) operate on an inverse square law…
It does; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_propagation#Free_space_propagation
Yea, I guess there is a finite distance that we can be noticed at. But we should not assume it is as low as we can discriminate it at, with our paltry technological level.
I can remember my physics teacher laughing at me suggesting that we would be able to detect or even directly see exoplanets one day. “Planets are simply too small and too far away to ever be able to resolve them from the Earth”.
History has vindicated me. Although I should point out that he was a very good teacher. He simply allowed the limits of our present society to blinker his vision.
Beyond a certain number of light years, a surprisingly low number, something as complex as a radio or television signal becomes an unintelligible hash, good only for realizing that someone’s over there in that general direction broadcasting.
Even worse, AM and longwave signals don’t escape the earth’s atmosphere due to reflection and absorption in the upper layers. It’s not until VHF and FM broadcasts that we start putting signals into space.
The idea of traveling 80 light years away and listening to 80 year old radio broadcasts is pure fiction.
I stipulated 2 light years, not 80. The only claim I made, regarding the latter, was that the dinner bell would be ringing. Which you acknowledged is valid by saying.
Do note though that just because we are too stupid to figure out how to untangle the mish-mash at greater ranges, does not mean that civilisations millions of years more evolved than ours will not know how to!
Besides which, if we are assuming that they have FTL travel, of one sort or another, all they need to know is the fact that we exist, and where, to be able to come closer and watch the evening news. We have provided that much already.
We’ve got a restaurant in Israel that serves somewhat Mexican food and is called “Tex Mex”. Whether it has anything to do with the original Texas chain, I cannot tell.
Shachar
Tex-Mex is just “Mexican” that has been Americanised by the Texans ( the Texan style Mexican). It isn’t a chain, and there are variants, so unless it has been altered to local tastes/ foods it probably is passibly close.
I’ve heard that the inclusion of soured cream and black olives, both common features over here, is actually of Californian rather than Texan origins. Can any of you clarify this?
Here in Southern CA, we do usually use sour cream, yes. I very seldom see olives, though. Guacamole is everywhere down here though,
Is that ever kosher?
What’s not kosher about Arroz con Pollo (chicken and rice)?
Or a beef fajita?
Or fish tacos?
Or refried beans made without lard?
Or salsa?
For some reason, according to the strictest interpretation ANY combination of meat and milk products is not kosher – to the point that some highly-observant households have two kitchens and two complete sets of cookware, utensils, dishes, and other equipment, so that the stuff used in cooking, serving, and eating meat won’t be contaminated by any trace of milk or vice versa.
There’s a less strict interpretation that allows non-mammal meat (fish and poultry) to be mixed with milk.
What the Torah actually says is that one should not boil a kid (young goat) in its mother’s milk.
Quite a few of the kosher restrictions have sensible explanations in terms of health (in a time of poor sanitation, wobbly cooking-temperature control, no refrigeration, etc) and/or resource allocation (feeding goats increases the food supply for humans; feeding pigs, decreases it). But probably not this one.
The most common presumption is that such cookery would be disrespectful to the mother; but if that’s the reason, in principle cooking a kid in milk taken from a goat other than its mother would meet the requirement – and if you cook the kid in milk you get from the cow-herder, you won’t even accidentally get the mother’s milk.
Beef stroganoff still wouldn’t be kosher, though, unless you use sour cream made from non-cow milk.
Or… only eat full grown meat animals. If the cow is not a baby anymore, but the milk cow is bred to still give milk – you can can milk and eat it too.
Or if the milk cow has a NEW baby – and you eat the yearling.
I’ve never understood — and I’m Jewish — why you can’t, for example, have beef and goat cheese at the same meal.
That’s the thing, everyone’s interpretation of religion is slightly different.
Take Muslims at the moment with Ramadan. Any in the Arctic Circle would starve as they can’t eat while the sun is up. Some will happily work from a clock than the actual sun. The end of Ramadan is the sighting of the full moon. But when it is cloudy, you can’t see it. Some go by the calendar while others wait. All are their own interpretations of the same thing.
Myself – I don’t partake in religions for bacon reasons (and many more reasons, but that’s the fun one)
I agree that any religion, which would prohibit me eating a bacon double cheesburger, is not for me!
With all due sympathy, and respect, to those who cannot experience such a delight, due to their beliefs.
I only know one person who can’t experience such a delight, but it’s due to unusual body chemistry, and not to religion.
See, most of the pre-packaged bacon you buy in a grocery store (at least here in the U.S.) is pumped full of nitrates to help it keep its color longer. This friend of mine, his body chemistry reacts with the nitrates to produce methane. LOTS of methane. So much methane that the Starship Enterprise would be able to detect a gaseous anomaly on Earth… while patrolling the Neutral Zone. (It really is horrible, and lasts for about 24 hours after he eats the bacon.)
So, as a result, he can only eat a bacon double cheeseburger if he can be certain that the bacon comes from a source (like a butcher) that does not pump nitrates into it…
Certainly my Jewish aunt does not have that problem. One time I was washing the dinner plates at her house, when I noticed she had two separate sets. “Aunt! I didn’t know you kept a set of kosher plates!” Her reply? “Kosher, shmosher. Microwave and non-microwave.”
Lol.
Every time I think I’m starting to crush on Sydney she does something that reminds me of what a spaz she is.
-_-;
:-P
That’s a greyhound? Thought some mad scientist crossed a Chihuahua with a llama! :eek:
I put it down to the dog being too close to the camera lens and his face being distorted.
I thought that was the giant sloth from the Ice Age Movies at first.
And now I’m thinking about John Leguizamo. Thanks, Yorp.
::wanders off to find pictures of Barbara Eden to clear the Legumi One from his mind::
The four people I know who have ADD / ADHD bad enough to medicate ALL have a tendency to self-injury. I’ve watched the one whose condition is worst literally run into a door frame hard enough to leave a line bruse from his hairline to his chin (and he generally manages to hurt himself noticably somehow about once a month – we’re kinda hoping that as he passes thru puberty he’ll come out of that).
Your friend’s name isn’t Les Nessman, is it?
Best running gag in any sitcom, ever.
Rest assured that he probably will.
Hate having the sizzling dishes at a tight table. I had one dinner stuck between two roasting hot balti dishes. The end of the meal I had imprints of the circular handles on the backs of my hand. Want anything served on a roasting hot metal object then do it on a table with some space.
Is this the part where Sydny tries one of the unknown orbs while she has a small wound and she discovers her “bad power”?
Beat me too it.
Yes, now Sydney will (possibly) discover if healing is a power granted by one of the mystery orbs. Personally, I am torn. Option one (success) has her panicking about how she has a “bad power”. Option two leaves the possibilities open for other super powers.
If the orbs don’t have some immediate effect of healing, the may want the doc to watch while Sydney tries them – it’s possible she could detect a SLIGHTLY accelerated healing.
I was thinking Sydney just branded the back of her hand. So if one of the orbs does not heal her. Then they have a way to identify her from an impersonator.
Unless the impersonator has some way to duplicate it, either temporarily or permanently.
If they stop it becoming public knowledge (palmless gloves, rubber “skin” glued over it, don’t point it out?), then it could help prove her as the real deal…
Only for the next few weeks or so. Minor burns like that tend to heal within a month or two – at least in my experience…
I’d have thought that Sydney would have tested that the first time after discovering the orbs that she was injured in any way…
And when she chooses the dot,she will fly slower,because its no level up system,its a system to decide which subsystem should be sacrificed when the shield is overcharged.
He he.
Sydney’s food on Dabbler’s hypnoboobs. When Sydney can only concentrate on one thing at a time?
I hope that restaurant is not a family friendly…. wait, they knew Sydney was going … phew!
I interpreted that a different way, barely able to concentrate on one thing at a time meaning they struggle to concentrate on anything as their mind tries to wander at anything which would likely have the opposite effect of making the hypnoboobs less effective. Of course a Sydney that gets distracted even more easily than normal has its own potential issues.
The problem being that, whilst in this state, unless Sydney forces herself to concentrate on just one thing, then her mind will, as you say, go all over the place. Ultimately ending up not doing anything productive. Further the strain of focusing, so intently, means she has to try and ignore all the other incessant distractions, which are competing for her attention.
This is clearly portrayed in panel 5. All speech is faded out. It is there, but is just a background drone to Sydney. Likewise the heat is present, and her brain is (vaguely) aware of it, but Sydney is forcing herself to ignore all the clutter. Until a more urgent message is sent, from her hand!
Once the adrenaline has washed out of her system, Sydney will revert to that state. Nothing will cure it except a good night’s sleep (assuming that she is only allowed so much medicine a day).
Even if Sydney knows replacement food will come, she is hungry… And will feel bad about messing Dabbler up… Plus any clothing she is wearing will be stained… Doubtless Dabbler will make a show of mopping it off her breasts… and there is little else for Sydney to focus on, except the mess and those breasts… those hypnotic breasts… which are really fascinating…
And they let Dabbler in who is among the least family friendly persons ever. Then again she could have hypnotised them to let her in with her boobs.
Fajitas are pretty universal in the UK I think, as is the phrase Tex-Mex. I guess in non-English-speaking nations or places with fewer foreign food influences in general, it will be less so.
Great page! I thought those were portobello mushrooms. Shitake mushrooms don’t really get to that size i didn’t think.
Whoops, I think you’re right. I’ll change that in the desc.
Why would Maxima even need a bra? She has super-tough armored skin.
Do any supers need a bra?
We have seen what happens when Maxima flies upside down.
We already saw that
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1844
Didn’t see nearly as much as I wanted of it…
She works in an air-conditioned building with Math. Of course she wears a bra.
The scarf around the water jug made me laugh. I can see that it is there to soak up any dribble, but it is not something I have seen before. I kind of expect it to have a glass lid too, complete with a sombrero on top of it!
It’s common around wine bottles in restaurants
I am used to seeing a wine bottle wrapped in a cloth sure. But not worn scarf-like and tied around the neck.
Not just dribble, but also the ‘sweat’ (condensation) that will naturally occur on any jug of iced fluid.
For the same reason it makes sense for chilled white wines, but not for cellar temperature reds which won’t attract condensation unless the place is as humid as DC in mid-summer. Which any decent restaurant will overcome via air conditioning. For the patrons, at least. The poor cooks typically only get a fan, if that, in my experience.
That is not a water jug. That is actually one more guest at the dinner, a local New York super: Koolaid Man. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kool-Aid_Man. He mainly helps local law enforcement by working on the SWAT team that breaks down walls in things like hostage situations.
And Sydney just stuck her hand in his head. Try to respect someone’s personal space, OK?
Fifteen minutes could save you 15% or more.
Many years ago, that was something people did with dogs – the old “bandana around the neck” thing. Haven’t seen it in quite a while – i guess the advent of purse-pooches and glam collars took over that fashion trope.
And now we get to discover if healing is one of the two ??? orb-powers.
I doubt it. She didn’t get any special reaction from the orbs when she got that superhot sauce in her eye, which is arguably much worse potential damage than this, OR when she got walloped in The Big Fight, or in the various other lesser injuries she;’s sustained.
IF one of the orbs has a healing capability (and, given the diversity of orb capabilities so far, it seems logical), the threshold for its activation has not been acheived as yet.
It’s worth observing that even if one of the Amaze-balls grants accelerated healing in any capacity (herself, others, etc.), she’d still have to be holding it and have a sense of how to make it go the same way she does all the others.
Which she’s never done. I’m not sure we’ve ever actually seen her hold one, even when she was describing them as unknowns. We can infer she’s /tried/ figuring out what they do, but ‘healing’ is a fairly opaque effect in the absence of things to heal, and it probably hasn’t occurred to her to try them now that she’s involved in violence while she can lean on what she already /knows/ how to use.
At her ARC interview, they did suggest her giving this a try the next time she got a papercut or something – and she’s taken a lot worse than papercuts since then. I’d guess that she HAS tried at least a few times since then, to no avail so far.
We haven’t seen her give it a shot, so it’s possible she didn’t think of it, at least till AFTER the Doc had patched her up…
Naa, I do not find that credible. Her present condition is an exception to the rule. Normally her mind is going all over the place. She will have thought of it many times, whilst she was injured. The pain would keep reminding her, after all, if nothing else. And it would only take a moment to summon the orbs to hand.
Capsciaisin doesn’t actually cause damage, it just fools your pain-receptors into “thinking” that it’s done so…
….. Which is NOT to say that getting it in one’s eye is nothing to worry about.
Disagree? You will note that the experience necessitated a quick trip to the infirmary, special attention from the doc, and wearing an eyepatch for a little while.
At the very least, this is one of those cases of, if the body considers something harmful even if it isn’t, then it IS harmful even if only due to the body’s reaction to same.
The eye patch may have been because of the spaghetti that delivered the sauce into her eye, and no the sauce itself
Actually, I believe 7thsealord is right. The noodle probably didn’t hit hard enough to be the cause of the damage. Rather, as he has explained, it was due to the body overreacting to the stimulus. Think allergies, but instead of an allergen, irritation caused by capsaicin.
Heeeey…. I’ve done the same thing but worse. I’ll one up this one with my own situation. See the explanation under the comic. Now do this at home with actual cast iron pans. We were eating and I got up to do some other stuff and came back later to finish off the pan and clean up. Someone thought they needed to reheat the pan and put it back on the stove on high and then brought it back to the table. Fast forward to cleanup…. this is when I grab a hot cast iron pan that I’m thinking is cold at this point. Thanks to delayed sense, I manage to get about 5ft from the table before I feel the burn. I make a hail mary throw with the pan into the sink from about another 8ft away and lose a significant portion of the skin on my hand doing so. Yeah, only in retrospect is it funny as hell…. especially that moment when I go, “use a pot holder you idiot.”
Soldering irons run around 700°. I once reached without looking and got the wrong end of one.
Interesting thing about burns – really hot burns destroy the nerves in the first layer or so, and you don’t feel much for a second or so.
I heard a sizzle, smelt burnt flesh and had time to think “That is gonna HURT…” before i screamed out several NSFW wirds and began dancing around the middle of the shop.
Later accounts informed that the Leading PO had to almost tackle me to get a look before he sent me fo Sick Bay.
I was working on a car once when the back of my hand briefly touched the still hot exhaust. Pulled my hand out quick but left behind a circle of skin cooked onto the surface. No pain and the spot on my hand was a half-dollar sized blister with no top skin. It didn’t even scar.
Once worked at a restaurant that specialized in Sicilian-style pizza pie, which were lifted out of the ovens using plier-like clamps. One time the clamp slipped, and my hand went right up into the heating coil in the ceiling of the oven – I was actually able to watch the skin bubbling on the back of my hand before feeling the pain. That was 30 years ago, and I still have a faint trace of the scar
When I was in Jr. High School metal shop another student grabbed my wrist with a pair of tongs that had been in use to remove red hot metal from the forge for hammering.
Try helping a friend with emergency soldering of a broken cable connection to metalcase when you have mental exhaustion and the brain has stopped working as it should for the last weeks. Youre making really stupid mistakes about every 15 minute or less and understand it first 10-30s after. Including putting the 440C (840F) soldering iron not in the holder but in the lap while wearing shorts. Hurt like hell, and for the first 15 seconds after you dont understand why it burned you, because the brain cant understand why youre hurt by it.
Did that myself once but realized what I was doing right as I got close – didn’t actually touch it (I think) but my reflexive jerk backwards punched the person passing by. I did get a wicked blister in about a minute after I held the finger under cold water.
Luckily, 15 years later I reflexively grabbed a planing tool as it was falling and completely got rid of the faint scar from that. Granted, now I have a much more noticeable scar and a “dead” strip on my right index finger of massive scar tissue. Folks, if the electric planing tool drops, let it fall.
I’ve had both hands splattered with burning molten plastic…
I still have little scars 30 years later.
Flying drops of burning liquid plastic also make the most interesting zzzvvvvvrrrrp noise…
Sydney is taking it rather well that she is sort of being bossed into spending her points their way. Course she is probably about as sleepy as I am right now so maybe we’ll get that reaction later.
She’s basically looking up a stat guide online. Except that noone really knows
With Sydney’s attention span, it might all make no difference whatsoever when the time comes.
Is being asked to become the fastest flyer on Earth really being that bossy? Especially if it unlocks FTL, wormhole generation, teleportation or time travel?
Which sets up the special edition Grrl Power comic for Patreon members.
Sydney manages to unlock time travel and goes back to her own past. While trying to hide from herself she accidentally causes a commotion in front of her comic shop (I think it was something about spooking a woman walking her dog). Sydney goes out to see what is going on and forgets she was going to call a local dive shop about taking Scuba lessons. Sydney never takes the course, so she never goes diving in the Florida Keys, so she never finds the orbs. In order to put things right, future Sydney goes to get help from an eccentric researcher/adventurer named Dr. Zoeng. He tells Sydney that she can’t personally meet her former self without causing a paradox. So together they try to get Sydney back on the right track by sending her subconscious hints. They send her Florida travel brochures in the mail and a coupon for lessons from the local dive shop. Along the way, they have to stop any interference from the local bully ‘Brad’ that hangs out at her shop.
Yaar, something like that.
Nicely paradoxical.
One slight flaw is that Sydney was already wearing Tubey, when that incident took place. You can see the strap several times on that page, and Tubey itself on earlier pages, in the same scene.
Clearly there is a solution though:
The nice girl providing the walkies is actually a Time Lady, and her K9 companion is more than he appears. Hence how they could be encountered prior to that occasion.
Or, calling on a real outside possibility here, Sydney is prone to such outbursts and the pair regularly walk by the shop.
Kinda. She is also getting free advice from people with a lot of experience with artifacts who are clearly a bit more collected in their thought processes than she is herself. So while she might balk at following the advice when she gets to allocate a second point, she’ll at least have had it to consider.
The team’s advice is being carefully phrased as suggestions/requests. It’s clear they want to help her, but in the end, she’ll still get to decide whether to honor their input.
Consider that she feels her first ‘levelling’ choice was a mistake, that the orbs wouldn’t let her take back. Perhaps she’s come to appreciate the input.
Think of it as helpful suggestions on how to optimize the powers she has and provide insight into possible additional powers.
Because no gaming group ever has told one of its members how to behave or what to do. :D
I’m wondering if those specially annotated spots are special powers that also use the other leveling. Like flight would unlock teleportation, the PPO one could maybe turn it to a different element like ice or wind rather than raw energy/fire/lightning (depending on how you look at beam weapons). The shield orb could be projection, allowing Syd to put the shield around a target. The tele-presence one could be to allow her to enter machines, computers, or people minds (i.e. technopathy or telepathy). The glow worm could be allowing it to change shapes maybe, forming simple objects like a hammer or sword.
That would be pretty typical of RPG style leveling, but in those they usually require more than one level to activate, thus forcing the player to save a few levels to get them.
As far as the center orbs, since she currently has two, I’m wondering if they are for being able to use that number of orbs, so if she gets another, she can utilize three. The ones connecting the orbs with other orbs might be power combinations, allowing unique combo uses with those two orbs. The PPO and flight are connected, so that probably allows her to use the PPO without being propelled backward. If she got the one connecting the PPO and the shield, she could probably shoot through the shield. The PPO and Telepresence could probably allow for the image of her to shoot a beam. Things like that.
Noting that there are A LOT of cross-connects on the tree, so anything is possible. Depends on how often she gets to ‘level up’.
Box Social took me a while to get. Turns out it’s something different in America.
Wikipedia is my friend. I just need to pick the Dabbler upgrade, so I can use it even when I am not in front of a PC.
Me neither, though I didn’t know what it meant at all and I do read a lot (in English), I mean drawing a complete blank does not happen that often with English language words.
I doubt this is well known outside the USA, or even parts of the USA, funny phrase for dabbler to know though.
Different in America to where?
To the rest of the non-American influenced world. There is one meaning that is unique to America, if Wikipedia is right, as linked above.
I knew what a Box Social is (in general at least) a party of some sort with food (didn’t know about the lunch bidding) but I didn’t connect to it being the opposite of sausage fest.
A potential problem with this is that the back of the hand is usually more sensitive to heat than the front, so she should have felt it coming like you did.
Of course her brain is pretty much mush at this point :)
I’ve never had tex-mex but then I live in the Netherlands, I’ve had somewhat similar dishes though a recent African dish with pancake like things to grab the food with comes to mind, the pancakes were cold though, no hot skillet :(
While a still sizzling steak on a hot stone on a wooden plate is not similar it does have the same potential for injury/comedy and I’ve had that in Switzerland and it was pretty good, never came really burned myself on it though.
This is a situation where you must compensate for someone’s brain being different to your own. Dave managed to sense the heat because he was successfully managing his ADD. Here though Sydney has failed to do either. A big part of the page is to show how much her perception/attention varies from the norm.
And it is not the first time we have seen Sydney being affected by such problems. She is continually battling her condition.
After burning her hand,I’m sure no one else will be willing to drink that water after Sydney stuck her hand in it!!! ;)
Now what’s Dabbler going to do about the mess on her…person???
I’m sure she has a spell for that. I would, if I had access to magic. The first spells I’d learn would be the ones which allowed me to save time, and sleep and the morning toilet (in the ‘The Little Prince’ sense of the word) would be natural targets.
I did something similar at a Japanese Steakhouse in chicago many years ago. Only I put my hand down on the giant grill. I STILL have reduced feeling in my pinky and ring finger of my left hand to this day, and it’s been almost 30 years.
I actually knocked one of those plates onto my cousins lap once. He’s got a scar on his thigh from it. A lesson can be learned there, don’t wear shorts around fajitas.
On a side note, this would be a chance to see if one of the unknown orbs is a healing power.
I think the lesson is actually “Don’t wear shorts around you.”
+1
Touché
I’m hoping that’s the outcome of this scene, to test the other two orbs for healing. I’m still pretty disappointed in them that they didn’t test them on her bruises the day after the fight.
It is overdue to show that test, one way or the other. And they are conducting tests and examinations of the orbs at the moment. So I would expect us to see Halo try it.
For those not familiar with the original meaning of “box social”, it was an event in the US Old West (and other parts of the country), in which the unattached young ladies of the community would prepare a dinner for two and pack it in a {theoretically – collusion was not unknown} anoymous box.
Men would bid for/select boxes and buy them {thus generating a little money for the community} … and would then sit and eat the dinner with the lady who had prepared it.
Dabbler, meanwhile, is using a euphemistic usage of the word ” box”…
You wouldn’t happen to be on the run from the police, by any chance? Or Chris Leslie?
mmmmmmmmmm the 2 unknowns have some things “open” and the only “connecting” (between 2 powers) is flight and energy blast, would be interesting the connector between force field and flight, yet in the small inner circle, the only 2 that are on are right behind Force field and flight which lighted up a portion of the central circle…………… there are some tail lines to nowhere that are not blue yet, and flight has the only path that is still not blue at all and also has only path with no spots to light up (or buy as it was said here ) at all; will not be surprised if the accident “triggers one of the 2 unknowns” that ends up being self healing related
Maybe Dabbler wishes Peggy was there now, though I doubt Peggy would have offered in front of Maxima.
I’m a little surprised Sydney isn’t trying to speak out about how it’s her points, she should spend them the way she wants. :p
Hey you gotta let the best theory crafters tell you how to spec. Don’t want t to look like a booby right?
Right. That’s Dabbler’s job. No, wait. Her job is to make you look AT her boobies.
Typing that made me nostalgic for a moment. Anyone else remember the grade school calculator trick ‘5318008’?
Raj does.
Apple too: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/10/02/iphone_calculator_censorship/
The fiends, denying us our natural right to freedom of expression! And boobies.
I guess that becomes the question. Is Sydney a min/max munchkin twink or is she the type to go in and figure it out on her own.
Also, my guess would be that if it’s a level up style grid, it has a reset button somewhere.
*click*
Reset successful. Player 1 restored.
Welcome back Dread Pirate Roberts. Your flagship is being summoned. Unfortunately all of the crew have deceased. Would you prefer them animated as Wraiths or Vampires?
The Dark Gods have provided you with [ten] free [thermonuclear inter-continental ballistic missiles and launchers], due to the current difficulty setting in this era.
Grasp brown orb if you wish to hatch your pre-order temporal dragon now.
Two things: Sydney has had plenty of opportunity to test if one of the Mystery Balls offers any sort of healing (instant or simply increased natural healing but not quite regenerative), she even mentioned it a couple times (first time in regard to papercuts, second regarding ‘bad powers’), she even had an opportunity within the last two or three days (the “Noodle to the eye incident”)
Regarding being told how to allocate her points: to respects the people at that table and their advice (certainly can’t be worse than random placing them; she still doesn’t know what that one did)
Actually I think she does know. It was the aura detection thingy she used with Vehemence’s violance aura. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1564
“Sydney has had plenty of opportunity to test…”
True, but after the possibility of health powers were so notoriously mentioned I would kinda expect that it should have been shown/commented if she actually checked it.
To help folks interpret this (as it could be taken two ways) please bear in mind that Sydney is a keen table-top roleplayer. The comic actually starts with her playing such a game, after all. In such games, magical items (or technological artifacts, depending on the genre), of unknown nature, are routinely gained by the characters, due to their actions.
Players then need to conduct tests to find out what they actually do. So they get a LOT of practice at this. Often with very stubborn (and fiendish) games masters, who will make it as hard as possible, by seizing on any flawed methodology. So players soon learn to be methodical, careful and thorough.
Healing potions being probably the single most common type in fantasy settings. With med kits (or similar) being substituted in higher-tech settings. It is inconceivable that a gamer would own powerful artefacts, like the orbs, for several months and never check to see if they can heal!
The only viable way to interpret the above is that Sydney has tested (as per the first part of her comment) but concedes that her testing may have missed something. Or (knowing the convoluted paths that her brain takes at times) she is sure she has tested it thoroughly, but the possibility that she is actually 1/16th troll, on her father’s side, has not yet been disproven.
I call healing orb in next strip. or the one after that. :)
It would suit her power-set nicely. If that is what it does, yet Halo failed to test it, in all the prior opportunities she has had, well I will be… disappointed with her.
Quick sign-in from northern New Jersey: we’re hep to the sizzling-iron-pan fajita jive. Indeed, I think if you offer fajitas, you more or less *have* to serve them that way, or people will become as confused as if they’d ordered a burrito and it came wrapped in a pita.
That is a very cruel way to serve a burro!
Looks like a taco party.
“If I’m not supposed to eat it, how come it looks like a taco?” sort of thing?
It was in prison where I learned to love the clams.
It was in prison where I learned to love the fish.
It was in prison where I learned to love the tacos.
Carlos mencia did a thing years ago on Mind of Mencia where did he did this rap (in drag), pretending to be some lady hip-hop/rap artist going to prison. The song was not terribly funny until the end, where he sings about ten lines more in less in the same vein as above. Caught me completely off guard and made me laugh very hard.
So, I hope that Sydney is still wearing her armband comm unit, and it is taking baseline readings on her vitals. they should get a pretty good idea, soon, on adjusting her medication dosages and the timing to keep her at optimal functionality.
Or what’s advanced technology for?
She was wearing her arm-comms unit last page, but it seems to have slipped under her shirt/is put aside o charge/stay clean on this page…
Zoeng might be happily married, but he thought about “studying” Dabbler when she had her charm on.
Well nobody is perfect and she is a succubus after all.
Good thing Math wasn’t along. I think he would have a stroke on the spot.
They have the same kind of thing all around the US and Canada, usually just called Sizzling Fajitas for obvious reasons. It is rather funny when I’m with my Canadian friends because some of them still insist on pronouncing the “j” as a “j” when they order them. It must be a holdover British thing. A while ago we were eating with a very British game designer that was in Winnipeg for a Warhammer 40K tournament. We were ordering appetizers and he mentioned that he was quite fond of those “jal-op-an-o poppers”. Took us a couple seconds to realize he meant jalapeño.
This past saturday, I was at a local southern California mexican restaurant and I heard a guy pronouncing it jal-a-pe-no with the fully pronounced J, though he otherwise didn’t sound like a foreigner. I held my tongue and had to assume that he’s not a local, because any native SoCal resident that does that deserves to get beaten with a stick.
Jesus.
Anyone living in SoCal needs to be beaten with a tire iron.
I suspect that if the food had been aimed at anyone except Dabbler, Maxima would have reached over, grabbed the “hot” (not to her) plate, and caught the food with it.
I suspect that Dabbler enjoys things like these.
Doubt it. Maxima is only that fast if she consciously puts her points into speed. She has no reason to expect anything that needs superspeed now, so why would she be in speed mode?
Just like fear vomit, she wasn’t ready to catch anything
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/267
That did occur to me… but I liked the idea of Max being catty again… which then brought up another thought. What does Max leave her points in when she is in a relaxed social setting? (MUST they be assigned?) She might not even be able to understand speech if she is too fast, doesn’t need to fly or punch things or blow holes in the wall. I would suggest a certain amount of shield, just to “expect the unexpected”. Even if an anti-super terrorist group truckbombed the restaurant, she would survive, even if her companions did not. Rather cold-blooded, but also pragmatic military thinking.
That we do not know, for sure. Although the implication is that the power is always there, and Max can just move it around. Toughness/defence is probably the best default in social settings, for the reasons you stated.
However we do know that there is a minimum below which Maxima cannot lower any of her stats. She always has some degree of defence, super strength, reflexes etc. Which seems to be around the three star capability, on average. From the few clues that we can infer such from.
Which is more than enough to have intercepted the food. But Maxima can be taken by surprise (see the fear-vomit early on), especially if she is looking in the wrong direction at the critical moment.
I’d have thought she would have trained herself to jump to slomo mode on a yelp. You want that extra time to be able to look round, assess the situation, etc.
She may well have noticed what the problem was, the landing zone of the food, etc, and thought “bugger it, revenge for the last time she pissed me off”
Possibly. However expression makes her seem genuinely confounded though, and not the least bit gleeful. That said people’s faces pass through a variety of expressions, really fast, in such situations. And a super-reflexes person even more so. Max could have regained her composure and feigned a suitable expression. So your option remains valid.
But it is equally possible that the food was already impacting, at the time Sydney yelped. The body’s priority in a crisis is to get the limb away from the source of pain. Only after it has initiated that does it bother letting the brain know that there is a problem! And Sydney then has to process that and react on it. Given she was in a very befuddled state, that may have been slower than normal.
Or, a third possibility, is that Maxima’s minimum in reactions is actually very low. We do have two incidents of her failing to respond, so that option is actually rising. If so, perhaps it is only one star.
Achilles is one star strength and is only 50% stronger than a normal person. So Maxima may only be 50% faster than the others, at the moment. Given that nobody even started reacting, then Max is pretty much in the same boat as everyone else.
I think Dave did say that Max’s “base” mode is 3 stars in all powers, and that she can push two up to four, or one up to five at any time. I don’t remember where that was to check it.