Grrl Power #440 – This reaction would earn him a D- at Monster U
So, a few things to talk about on this page. Yes, vampires exist in the Grrl Verse. That shouldn’t be so surprising since we already know about aliens, demons and Succubi specifically. I want a world to play in where just about anything goes, even if the primary focus remains on the Supers.
Originally this page took place while Max and Sydney were traveling down a tunnel, past a security station, then in an elevator before stepping out in to the hallway you see here, but the stuff with Ingsol didn’t fit the way I wanted. It was a question of content vs pacing. Really the story could use more pages without a lot of dialog and more establishing shots, but that would leave you guys with much less to comment on, so that sort of stuff gets cut all the time. I’m sharing this particular edit because I wanted to convey that the door in the woods doesn’t open straight in to this hall, even though I didn’t quite show it in the comic. Basically, there are several layers of precautions to prevent people from accidentally discovering the existence of Vamps.
Vampire or no, trying to scare a fledgling superheroine who can cut through a tank like buttah isn’t probably the smartest idea, but I guess being a Vampire may come with certain habits that are difficult to break. Ingsol’s just lucky that Sydney’s head desk therapy worked as well as it did.
People who regularly read my comments under the comics might know that I rarely have time to design characters before they appear in the comic. Virtually everyone except for the main characters got drawn for the first time on the page in which they debuted. I can say I didn’t mean to make Ingsol look quite that much like a stereotypical vampire. If I’d had time to do a few drafts he might have been a little toned down, but at least this way it’s visually unambiguous, which is beneficial to reading comprehension. Admittedly he looks a bit like Demitri Maximoff and Count Chocula had a kid, but I guess he’s just decided to lean into it.
Ingsol’s accent makes him transpose V’s and W’s, except for cases where doing so would make reading his word bubbles inscrutable. “… a character in a nowel. Wlad the Impaler…” etc. It’s a funny accent that way.
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Very curious why they are here, exactly.
A super secret poker game apparently
Ingsol should be good with the “Poker Face”…After all, he has already perfected the skill of “dead expressions.”
ask a very old knowledge about the orbs maybe?
I always thought the counter for super speed was a well timed stick or rod of some sort.
Non-NewtonIan shields?
Invisibility?
tightly stretched monofilament wire?
Oil slick.
handful of marbles?
If your really good, a coin being tossed at the forehead of the speedster. Going a 100 miles a second can make any object thrown at them hit them a lot harder
The speed the Flash moves at in some of the comics, the spray from a water pistol should rip him to shreds like a machine gun. But of course super heroes are a newtonian physics free zone in terms of their powers :-)
Would the water have enough mass to do real damage? I mean, dropping a penny from the Empire State Building can’t do lasting damage because its mass is the limiting factor.
Does the penny move at Flash speeds?
it’s not the mass that is a limiting factor, but terminal velocity. A penny can only fall so fast and it’s around the same mass as an expended .22 round. However, something going several thousand feet per second would still take the traumatic damage of being shot… unless the penny gets moved aside by the air displaced by the speedster.
Realistically, anyone capable of those levels of speed are also going to have reflexes on the same level.
The world is going to be frozen. A thrown penny will hang in the air and they can walk around it, effortlessly. Squirted water would be…just floating. High powered bullets – to comic book Flash – would still be just hanging in the air (if he squinted, maybe they’d move sloooooowly). Etc.
Most methods of ‘dealing with a speedster’ forget to consider this, assuming there’s any kind of logic to the speedster’s powers. And there should be, at least on this level – if they didn’t HAVE reflexes and subjective perception of time at the same level as their speed, they would constantly be running into things.
The falling pennys impact force is not limited by its mass, but rather by its terminal velocity (melt a penny into a sphere and the terminal velocity, and thus the impact force increases despite the mass remaining constant).
The dynamic energy in a moving object, like a falling penny or a driving car, can be expressed as
E = 1/2 m v*v (can’t figure out how to do a superscript for squared :-))
where
E = dynamic energy (J, ft lb)
m = mass of the object (kg, slugs)
v = velocity of the object (m/s, ft/s)
As you can see, a 50% in velocity will produce a much larger change in impact force than a 50% increase in mass. So given the ludicrous speeds silver & bronze age flash could reach even a low mass projectile like a light shower would impact with the force of a freight train (except all that energy is focused on one small point rather than being diffused). Every time someone creates a speedster character without explaining this the ghost of Newton weeps bitter tears..
All very good but everyone keeps missing the obvious. The air through which they are traveling. Aircraft at just a fraction of the speeds these guys go heat up due to fiction with the air, not to mention the compression of the air in front of them. Both create heat of quite amazing levels.
The SR-71 doesn’t have a titanium skin because it is light and expensive but because it is a metal that can handle the ridiculously high temperatures produced from traveling at those speeds.
Reply to Sharpandpointies, whose entry didn’t have a “Reply” link.
I would assume that superspeed would have to be a power that could be turned on or off, or else life would be very boring. In any conversation, she’d have to wait for ages for the other one to finish a sentence, and then force herself to speak equally slowly in order to be understood. And if superspeed has to be turned on, that would leave a reaction time where she could be taken by surprise.
In fact, Maxima already mentioned this during her first meeting with Sydney, when she failed to dodge Sydney’s projectile vomit.
Regarding N0083rP00F’s comment on the friction stuff, many superspeedsters have some kind of reason (DC: ‘SPEED FORCE!’) that they don’t die due to air compression, or create massive sonic booms, or whatever.
Comics.
Reply to Yngvar…I think we’ve passed the allowed amount of replies… :)
In comics, there have been discussions about that. People like the Flash seem to be able to alter their perceptions so they don’t live in terminal boredom at ‘Frozen World’ superspeed (or when they have to run across the planet), but somehow manage to maintain the level of reflexes necessary to continue to operate at that speed.
Like, Wally West Flash walking around normally, chilling out, feeling the touch of a sniper’s bullet on the back of his neck, moving away from it, turning around, looking at it, saying ‘Hm, interesting’…if his speed needed to be turned on, he’d be dead before his brain could switch it on.
Again, comics. :)
Maxima, on the other hand, has ‘needs to be switched on’ superspeed, specifically. It could be problematic for her in some situations, but at least she doesn’t require a lengthily exposition of mostly BS to explain why she isn’t trying to find a way to kill herself thanks to terminal ennui. ^_^
In reply to me…dammit, I messed up the adjective/adverb again. I hate Lengthy/Lengthily.
^_^
At high speeds, inertia really is a bitch. So even if you notice that penny, and have the reflexes to react, you’ll still need a lot of time (real, not subjective!) to decelerate.
Reply to Castamir:
Moving at lightspeed and faster, the Flash does stuff like corner on a dime, run through crowded cities, and the like. Or at similar speeds, does complex stuff like ‘read every book on engineering in a library in an instant (without ripping up the books, impossible) and then run back to a falling bridge and rebuild it as fast as it falls.’
Speedforce. It does everything, including ‘mess with inertia’. And similar things work for other speedsters in fiction, like Quicksilver. No matter how BS it is, like Star Trek there is always an explanation.
I think when moving at extremely fast speeds (beyond a certain threshold) the molecules of the air would be getting compacted as they aren’t able to move out of the way. Smash enough together and you start getting nuclear explosions around the extreme speedsters. Still waiting for someone like Flash to obliterate the planet accidentally due to running too fast (although he can vibrate his molecules to move through solid objects so maybe the speed force naturally does that… but it doesn’t help others that move at his max speeds).
As Sharpandpointies points out, in the DCU at least, there’s a…thing, called the Speed Force, a sort of fundamentally weird substance/area of exotic physics that gives most Speedsters of the DCU their powers, via tapping into it. I was actually just reading the second chapter of the current Flash series the plot of which so far involves a friend of the Flash and then a slew of others in Central city gaining speedster powers and when he’s trying to test/train his friend’s powers, said friend wipes out trying to run but doesn’t die PRECISELY because something something provided by the Speed Force. I forget the exact words, but it basically cushions you. This gets less crazy sounding when you consider speedsters in the DCU have a sort of quantum connection or whatnot with the actual Speed Force…to the extent that if they die, or aren’t careful, they lose all independent physical cohesion and literally get absorbed into it. In fact, this is a plot point at several times including the DCU Rebirth special released in May 2016. It’s also discussed there and in the more recent Flash chapter that Barry Allen can sometimes subconsciously influence the Speed Force to do things like make a friend into a speedster. Basically: it’s Sufficiently Advanced Physics, as it were. The Flash and most of his fellow DCU speedsters are Willing Channelers for something that borders on magic.
actually phasing is a good one too.
especially if the speedster isn’t super resistant. you just phase nto far from a wall or pillar and let the person go HEAD FIRST into it.
Assuming the speedster charges directly at the phased person at superspeed, trying to use their own body as a battering ram or something like that…rather than wandering up at superspeed (walking, but likely still faster than the phased person can perceive), trying to punch them in the face, and realizing that whoops, they aren’t really there. :)
Of course, Flash Classic can phase himself. I haven’t been following the modern comics or TV series so I have no idea if either current Barry can run straight through mountains.
Dunno if he can literally “run through a mountain”, but ch2 of the Rebirth ‘soft reboot ‘ Flash series shows him demonstrating to his newly speedster -ified buddy how he can choose to vibrate his molecules a certain way so as to avoid the molecules in another solid object, allowing him to phase through it – that case only a wall though. A mountain is more complex, more of a challenge, but you might liken it to the Four Minute Mile for us normal humans then, in that where a new speedster like the one he was teaching probably can’t work on that level just yet, it’s in reach for someone like Barry who’s been working on his abilities daily for years.
Let’s not forget that for a lot of Speedsters it can come down to how they perceive things around them. I’ve always put it down to lazy writing and editing when someone who can see bullets moving through the air, slow enough (at least to them) that they can dodge or pluck them from the air at a moments notice, can’t dodge a trip-stick, foot, or a oil slick the next.
One of the things I really like about Maxima’s power set is that, to access the upper levels, she needs to (as it were) shuffle around her power points intentionally. So unless she’s got super-speed active, she’s not necessarily going to be able to react to something she’s not expecting. Someone raises a gun to shoot a bystander, she can reflexively activate super-speed, and as long as she does it before the bullet actually *hits*, she’s going to have plenty of time to intercede. Someone doing something she doesn’t have the proper reflexive response to (eg: Half the stuff Sydney does) is going to be more of a problem.
This beautifully handles the common “superspeed is the god power” problem. It’s only a god power if it’s on *all the time*. Maxima’s isn’t.
It does not work. No matter how far you throw it, they can run and catch it, then return it to you, so fast that you think it never left your hand!
Nonsense!
The superfast dog vanishes simultaneously with the stick (there may or may not be a crunching cracking noise from behind a nearby bush).
The dog has brought the stick back, dropped it at your feet, waited for you to pick it up and throw it again, gotten bored, picked the stick up, carried it behind a nearby bush, and chewed it to pieces. You only hear it IF the dog finally slows to normal speed to enjoy the chew.
I take it you aren’t, and don’t play with, a superfast dog?
I amble. Mainly because my walkies companion, Buffy, is both old and poorly. She meanders slower than I do.
Wave a piece of salami though, and she does demonstrate super-fast properties!
If you want to change Ingsol’s looks to tone him down a little, you could always say he dressed up a little extreme in an attempt to scare the newbies
Dabbler’s earlier prank may have affected her reaction to him. think the reason Sydney just stood there staring at him for a second was that she expected him to suddenly morph into Muppet form at any moment.
Like the Count from ‘Sesame Street’?
“…attempt to scare the newbies”
Oh yes, Ingsol had advanced notice of their arrival. The guard outside DID say that Max & Sydney were expected.
Huh. Have you taken to read the SCP Wiki? This seems similar.
I’ve read some of it. I’m not sure how it’s similar though. Isn’t SCP some sort of fan-fic wiki about a supernatural prison?
Pretty much. It’s a fictional wiki about a load of odd supernatural stuff that is contained in ultra-high-security facilities with death row convicts (used for testing) and scientists in charge of testing the stuff and making sure it never leaves the facility or is destroyed if deemed to dangerous to stick around. They use ordinary technology to keep this stuff secure, which leads to interesting protocols for some of the stuff in there, especially the stuff that appears in the game SCP Containment Breach.
I’ve read it a lot, I don’t know how this is similar.
If there is a lot of diverse fan fiction there, I guess some story has “vampires are real” as a hook. Given that Dave has gone with fairly typical vampire imagery (as per his blog, above), it would not take much for it to seem superficially similar.
As Grrl Power is based around super powers though, I imagine there will be little overlap, when you go deeper.
Wait, is it actually fanfic (meaning that the whole thing is based on an outside canon), or is it just something anyone can contribute to? The latter is not referred to as fanfic, as it has a proper designation: Shared Universe. There’s been previous experiments with Shared Universe mythologies, but I would bet it would really come alive in the internet era given the increased ease of communication. This actually makes me want to check SCP out a little.
I have never checked it out myself. But, from past comments made by others here, I get the impression that it is the latter. So I was probably using the wrong term, as you say. Folks do tend to speak favourably of it, so it is probably worth your while to investigate it, if that tempts you.
Yeah, I’ve also read some of it…There’s enough material already there that it can easily become almost as much of a time-sink as the TV Tropes site.
So photo flashes are bright enough to at least bother a vampire. That adds professional photographers to the list of people that vamp’s don’t like. Noted for Project X. Tanning salon owners are also high on the vampire “I hate you” list I suspect.
Photo flashes are bright enough to bother a *lot* of people.
…especially when delivered at point-blank range like that!
:P
Yea yea, and he recoils from stinky garlic breath because it is stinky. You trying to make out he is a cos-player? Who happens to own a spooky crypt, at New York real estate prices?
What are you complaining about, Yorp? Elsewhere in these comments, you’ve admitted to living in between three different cemetaries! And you can’t (or won’t) even admit to being either a vampire or a werewolf!
O.o
Err, well I do go to bed when the sun rises, admittedly.
*starts poking at neck, with paw*
I wish I had a mirror around here, to check for bite marks!
Well, if you can’t see yourself in the mirror, how are you going to tell if you have the bite marks?
:P
I can’t even see a mirror, you must be right! I shall have to find comely young maidens, to nibble on their necks. Oh the woe of it!
Pff, you may just be a security guard. Have you got a neckbeard too? Kind of like a shar pei crossed with a lhaso apso?
No I do not!
*grrroowl*
So having a smartphone camera flash go off in your face doesn’t bother you?
Not really. But as part of my storied past I spent some time as a pro photographer. Bright lights, while less then ideal, are not that big of a deal.
What gets me is Sydney is using her camera in a super secret, hush hush, base. I wonder what security will have to say about that.
Judging by comments made here, by a reader who used to work at such a facility (nucwear submawine related, if I remember right, rather than wampire), the every day practice involves everyone routinely ignoring the regulations, that smartphones are not allowed.
Unless they belong to an outside contractor brought onsite to replace a hard drive in a computer. (I’ve had my smartphone confiscated before, when I had to go to a military base. Of course, this was just after the Edward Snowden situation, so maybe they were just being paranoid. They gave me the phone back when I left the base.)
See that is the problem, in a nutshell. The precautions are there to stop strangers. But the staff, who work there all the time, just get waved through. And Snowdon was a trusted employee. Hence why he was able to do all the stuff he did, unchallenged.
Also, Leon has already applied “security procedures” to Sydney’s phone. The phone is secure & the camera on it is secure, but Sydney can very easily get into big trouble if she lets certain images be shown to unclassified people.
There was a comment a while back where Yorp and I debated the nature of vampire weakness, specifically sunlight and whether it was based on UV radiation or the fact that the sun is the focal point, on one level or another, of the combined worshipping power of every being native to Earth’s surface, sentient/sapient (can never remember the difference) or otherwise, and as an ancient and unbelievably powerful religion based around the eradication of the darkness and night, and the predators within, it’s holiness rather than UV… of course with the advent of science perhaps UV radiation can be considered a holy symbol for sunlight…
Technically the stereotypical “vampire accent” is only supposed to turn w into v, not the reverse. But I agree it vas funnier dis vay.
Plot twist: It’s actually a Jäger accent…
YES! Girl Genius crossover! Double awesomeonium! Halo meets Agatha! Total Chaos! Lots of exclamation points!
Not sure if even Maxi could survive what ever those two come up with :D
Believe someone mentioned a crossover long ago, and still get a giggle chill imaging them looking at each other and then slowly turn simultaneously to grin at Maxi, with Maxi starting to freak out, even Dabbles gets freaked out and begs for them to stop grinning :D :D
As Maxima slurs to the general later (after having downed a few bottles of whisky), it was one of the few times in her life that she actually felt fear.
Von Zinzer is sitting right next to them in tears because he thought it couldn’t get any worse.
No he is just sitting there dead faced as usual, handing Maxima more booze.
Sounds like a grave situation, especially if his brewing skills are as bad as his cooking!
According to the novels, Von Zinzer is actually quite good at brewing alcohol. It is something of a hobby for him. Most of his mistakes with cooking are due to the occasional presence of Sana Wilhelm.
Let’s just say that there will be a lot of super-people who would stop wearing their hats after meeting any Jagers. If they don’t stop wearing a hat, they’ll deserve whatever happens…
Oh I would have to wear a hat. It would be such fun, if a jäger tries to get it! I could even get to practice heroic freestyle fighting.
Wheee!
I recommend the fighting style of Savate…You’ve already got the advantage of four legs instead of only two…
I imagine Anvil and Mamma (General) Gkika could have a wild evening at a Jäeger bar (provided they made sure it was bar brawl night, and not poetry slam night).
I would love the idea.
As for Jaeger speak, I found it odd that the writers felt the need to (fairly recently) put in a translation for a page of such talking. Do people really have problems in following the accent? The first couple of times I saw it, I had to pause to make sure I had it right. But since then it just reads like straight-forwards English.
Maybe they had new readers who threatened to sue
But yes, found it odd they felt the need to add a translation below the comic, reading it didn’t seem ‘right’
I think it was an entire page of Jaeger-speak that prompted the translation – in small doses, it parses pretty well, but even as a regular reader, I was having a bit of a problem with my brain translating as fast as I usually read. I had to slow down dramatically to be sure I was reading it correctly.
**loading translation software – running – running – running…*
Woof woof Timmy woof WOOF well
After the fourth or fifth time that happened, you’d think his parents would board up the durn thing, wouldn’t you?
They found it easier simply to get a new Timmy
One night of fun & nine months later, they’ll have either a Timmy or a Tammy.
Didn’t have any trouble reading the original text, so much so, reading the translation was a struggle
I found that it’s just a sort of “write as you speak” but when i showed it to my friend he had trouble with it.
The first time someone sees it, sure, I get that. But by the time you are hundreds of pages into a story, with many instances of such dialogue?
Mind you, everybody sees the world a bit differently. I should not be surprised when I come across instances of some people finding a task straightforward, yet it confounding others.
This is not the first time they’ve added a “translation” for the Jaeger speak. Its usually when the Jaeger’s have some important plot thing to say that doesn’t get immediately restated/reacted to by another person.
I figured it was more of a courtesy to their non-native English readers. Plus it’s a bit amusing that their editor at Transylvania Polygnostic University (IIRC) feels the need to provide a translation from time to time.
Good point.
Ooh, I wonder if they do tours? I live fairly close to Transylvania. Close enough that their wolves keep wandering over here.
Oh, and that is in no way even close to a Jaeger accent
It should be though.
‘ v ‘ instead of ‘ w ‘ and ‘w’ ‘instead of ‘ v ‘ was also a feature of lower-class London accent in Dickens’ time: see Samuel Weller (pronounced ‘Veller’) for an example of a character who talked like that…
If Ingsol has a genuine ‘chekov accent’, then it’d probably be Bavarian. That’s what they had Chekov actually speaking in… which is particularly cruel for a character named Pavel Andreievich Chekov (three ‘v’s, one in each! He can’t escape them!)
Why they did that I haven’t the foggiest. an actual Russian accent has the reverse problem; Vs are easy for them to pronounce, but they tend to miscatagorize Ws as Vs.
Additionally, in places where a “w” would be particularly awkward (e.g. DaveB‘s examples “Vlad” and “novel”), the “v” is replaced with an “f” (ergo: “Flad” and “Noffle”)
So I guess Grrlverse vampires appear in photographs.
No silver used in digital photography, no reason for them not to.
Silver only affected lycanthropes, not vamps
Depends on your mythos you’re drawing from.
The legends vary. Things like having to sleep in a coffin filled with the soil of their homeland are usually dropped. Not being able to cross water, compulsively counting objects (which is the explanation for The Count on Sesame Street, actually; that’s an old Vampire trait), a weakness to the purity of silver, needing to fill their mouth with garlic then bury the head at a crossroad to make sure they don’t revive, etc.
Vampires in one form or another are an extremely old concept. They were more or less codified by Bram Stoker in Dracula, which had a not insignificant amount of influence itself from Carmilla, but that’s just the modern conception of the creature. There are a LOT of old, bizarre things that have been said about them at various points.
There are a number of myths that cross cultural boundaries in ways that defy logic, and while the details vary from region to region, every culture in every part of the world has legends about long-lived formerly-alive-human creatures that are only active at night and sustain on the blood of humans…
and about shape-shifting humans that take the form of predatory animals…
and about slight, pointy-eared creatures that move quickly and fluidly…
and about a giant, reclusive, hairy biped…
it’s enough to make me wonder if there might not be something behind all the commonalities
How could you forget the flying, fire breathing lizards? There are whole serieses of books and atleast a few tv shows dedicated to how they could possibly have been real.
‘Course they were real. George killed one, after all.
*sighs*
*rolls eyes heavenward*
Eeek! *runs for cover*
Reminds me of a bit of dialogue from the computer game DARK, where you were playing as a vampire named Eric. In this setting, if you don’t drink some of the blood of the vampire who turned you within the first week, you turn into a mindless, predatory ghoul, so you spend the first part of the game trying to find your creator. (You’d think that Eric would know who created him, but he has amnesia, which doesn’t make his job easier.) One of the first elder vampires he investigates has a coffin in his bedroom.
Paraphrased:
Eric: “Um, do vampires have to sleep in coffins?”
Rose: “Only if you’re old-fashioned. I prefer a nice soft bed myself.”
And then you have Carpe Jugulum, with a vampire trying to overcome such limitations.
Indeed though generally the most notable example of the lack vampire reflection is with mirrors which until relatively recently relied on silver deposited in the back of the glass. Modern mirrors often still utilize silver but aluminum is a common substitute,
Silver is often used in stories against all kinds of undead/unholy creatures and not just lycanthropes. This because in old times they believed silver was solid sunlight or something to that effect.
Silver was considered a “pure” metal in a lot of regions of the world (please don’t ask me to explain what a “pure” metal is historically, since I’ve yet to find anything like consistency).. Therefore, introduction of a “pure” metal into anything “impure” would act to disrupt the “impure” energies.
In my fantasy RPG, silver disrupts innate magic (internalized magic like lycanthropes and undead) while gold acts as a kind of magic reflector / harmonic resonator. That property is a big reason why dragons like to sleep on piles of gold – “magic fingers” and all that. :D
Of course in some versions of the idea a lycanthrope whose body wasn’t verrry carefully dealt with when he died was likely to rise as a vampire — without needing to have been bitten by one — anyway… which may be where some vampires’ own shapechanging ability came from.
Iron stake through the heart and decapitation. Don’t believe Hollywood when they suggest wood is acceptable. Wood rots. Pretty fast. In less than a decade you could have your vampire crawling out of the ground and popping his head back on!
By the way, the above comment is based on actual archaeological digs conducted in my corner of Europe. Several hundred of such vampire burials. Not one of them rose from the grave!
… That we know of. ;)
No, he meant the ones found with the extra iron in their system
I suspect that instances of archaeological discoveries of empty graves are severely under-reported. Sadly I am not aware of any academic research into the ratio of empty to occupied vampire graves.
I smell thesis proposal here!
As far as I recall Originally it had to be a stake from a cross, it was the holy origin that worked, not the material.
I am purely citing hard archaeology, with no blurring from fictional authors or speculative historians’ opinions.
Interestingly the leading academic in this field once made enquiries about staying in my village, as a base to conduct further research. Plus local lore has it that Bulgaria’s last vampire hunter retired here. Which may, or may not, be connected.
If you watch the movie Bram Stoker’s Dracula, you will see Varna appearing several times (such as on station names, when travelling by rail). It is the second biggest city in Bulgaria (during the tourist season anyhow). Yet it only has the one big cemetery (as far as I know anyhow).
Contrast that to my village, which has less than two hundred inhabitants now. Yet my house lies within a triangle formed by three cemeteries!
Sounds like you’d better start hanging a silver cross on your collar, Yorp (On Buffy’s collar too)! You’re right in the middle of a crossfire!
A triangle…..with a house at the center…..
The Illuminati! The Illuminati control vampires, are hiding in Bulgaria, and…..
Yorp is one of them!
Yes! Even his ears are pyramid-shaped! You’ve found the key clue to FNORD
Actually it didn’t affect lycanthropes either, until modern times. The full moon involved in the transformation is a relatively recent addition too.
Also, reflex mirrors used in normal cameras (used to help focus the image) aren’t used in digital cameras either. Even if DaveB still uses mirrors (or silvered film) as a vampire’s weakness in the comic, digital photography still would work on them.
So I can’t wait to find out what the truth is behind vampires.
They are probably an entire species, separate from humans
I don’t see how vampires can’t have a reflection in mirrors. That part of the legend is probably made up because at the time the actions of photons weren’t understood as well as today.
That’s why Sydney can take a photograph of a vampire.
There’s no mirrors in that phone anyway.
The ‘no reflection in mirrors’ would work if a vampire was actually a sort of ghost or poltergeist. It’s ‘appearance’ would merely be a psychic projection on the minds of it’s victims.
If a vampire could make you see or not see stuff then that’s what they would be famous for.
It’s not making you see/not see stuff. It’s naturally a spirit, there’s nothing there for a camera to see or a mirror to reflect, but it projects something that a living mind can perceive. (Also allows for apparent shapeshifting into a wolf/giant bat/mist)
In addition, you need some way to detect the things that doesn’t involve the vampire attaching itself to your neck. It’s a little too late by then.
“When did you suspect Vladimir was a vampire?”
“About two seconds after he began draining my blood through my jugular.”
In ye olden days good mirrors have either silver or mercury (aka quick silver) as backing behind the glass. Vampires, along with werewolves, in some mythos have issues with silver. Hence the not showing in mirrors thing.
Mostly in modern times as well.
Similar to photos the reflective surface of a mirror used to be silver. Quite Easily Done.
It was explained to me that Vampires don’t appear in mirrors because mirrors reflect the true soul of a person and Vamps are soulless. Of course that explanation is theologically unsettling as it means a fern, a wooden desk, and a turd in a toilet bowl all have souls.. :-/
There is a Vampire character in Spider Robinson’s ‘Callaghan’ stories. He’s a thoroughly decent, ethical individual who does indeed have a mirror reflection – biut he’s so ashamed of his affliction that he can’t even look at himself.
Black Ribboners of the world unite!
::lowers his head a moment in memory of Sir Terry::
Sorely missed.
*puts on a silent fireworks display, in his honour*
*with tears in eyes*
In various Eastern philosophies objects do have spirits (soul is more of a Western thing). So you can have a spirit of a river or a mountain. Plants do, furniture might, bowel movements… the jury is out.
Have you checked yours in a mirror, to see if it does have a reflection?
…and we know this one to be false by the simple test of looking at a ginger in a mirror ^.^
As someone who is what I like to call “were-ginger”, I take mild offense at this.
But didn’t your hair used to be brown, before you started eating those spicy foods?
Dirty blonde but it goes ginger if I spend too long in a swimming pool or the humid atmosphere that is scotland.
Becoming ginger in Scotland is just the natural side-effect of being in Scotland for too long.
Didn’t you notice that area has one of the highest red-hair concentrations in the world?
Clearly, Scotland is some sort of supernatural ginger conservation area, and any non-reds who stay long enough become red to increase the breeding population.
Humans (well those living outside of Africa) inherited their ginger and pale skin genes from the neanderthals. Most of Europe has had a very good mixing up of the gene pool, to homogenise differences. However Scotland is isolated enough, from the rest of it, that you would expect clusters of traits that are less common elsewhere.
It might also explain their tendency to batter foods. Some deep rooted genetic-driven instinct to immerse Mars bars in batter. We should investigate this more, I have long had the urge to try battered Mars bars.
Some parts of America are the same with deep-fried foods.
Three words: deep fried Pepsi
(I’ve never had it before, and I’m still trying to wrap my mind around how that’s supposed to work.)
Deep fried Twinkie is about the only thing the deep fried craze of America’s northern Midwest sounds good to me. I don’t generally eat anything fried except chicken, steak, or gator during the Cajun Festival my town has once a year.
Battered gator…mmm …. where is a Jäger when you need one?
Two words Whatever; Funnel Cake
“I have long had the urge to try battered Mars bars.”
I tried that once…It didn’t turn out looking very appetizing after I battered it with a hammer.
Well, among the earliest of religions was Animism, the belief that everything has a spirit of its own. Thus, objects that are apparently inanimate would still show up in a mirror.
It’s a preternatural creature. The laws of physics do not necessarily apply.
Like Sydney! O_O
Also as far as vampire looks go, Ingsol is clearly what in the “Vampire Classic” camp. No piercings, tattoos, not even a shaved head. Jaegar would be so disappointed.
Worse… He does a have a hat. Canna be a proper Jaëgar without a hat.
Doesn’t have a hat. Darn autocorrect.
Any plan where you lose your hat is a bad plan.
He does, however, have a failtastic soul patch. But then, all soul patches are failtastic. Apart from that, yes very classic.
Well… keep in mind, Syd is not holding the Com-ball, right now. Ingsol’s look could be an illusion…
To convey the passage of time, or in this case, the time spent in passageways, just put a Spongebob-esque box in the top left of the first panel which reads “Several Hallways Later…”
Raise your hand if you said “Several Hallways Later” in a Cousteau-esque accent.
Sadly, yes :(
i’m not sure… i think mine might have been more of a Carl Sagan accent that Cousteau…
One of two times I ever laughed out loud while watching Eek the Cat.
Eek screaming and flying down a hallway for several seconds, then pausing the scream to say “Lot of space in this house…” (or something to that effect), then screaming again.
Other time was, “I spy with my little eye.. something gray.” Is it.. concrete?”
The Squishy Bears were riding in the back of a concrete truck – okay, in the drum of a concrete truck.
either no one warned him or it’s dabbler again there…
i bet on the first one.
Blah, sleep deprived, forgot that I can’t use greater/less than signs to denote emotes. The previous message should have said:
Points to the “Who’s Who” section
still the apparently is very open on results mr penguin male conscience for a special kind of zerker hero in a “video game” hehe
Alas, being a geek leads to attaching certain labels to these sort of things, so now I wonder what rules these vampires play by. World of darkness? D&D? Discworld?
I vote for old World of Darkness. Ingsol seems pretty Ventrue to me. Or maybe he’s a Tremere with delusions of grandeur. :-)
Tzimisce. ^_^
Gesundheit!
;)
Maybe he is all sparkly, in daylight?
*fails to control the instinct to vomit*
Bleh. Sorry ’bout that.
You know the really ironic thing about the monsters from the Twilight series? They actually DO conform to a very old set of monster legends….. FAIRIES!!! Seriously, the oldest stories about the fairies were horror stories and quite bloody. Although given what current lore describes “fairies” as… I can totally see them using the nickname “vampire” instead. (And it was Bella that used that word – the actual vampires used “us” or “monsters” to name themselves)
Except you don’t become Fae by being bitten… You spend an LONG time in the lands of the fae and other things happen to you to make you Fae (and usually you just die / are killed).
Biting is traditionally involved, in becoming trapped in the lands of the Fae. But it requires you eating their food, rather than them biting you.
Very Persephone.
Parallels drinking vampire blood (rather than the vampire drinking your blood) to become a vampire.
Good point. Mind you that is common to much folklore. At their heart they often have a morality point. Some choice that the protagonist makes, that takes them down a particular path.
Often no more than choosing whether or not to eat something. As examples: a bit of a cottage made of candy, the apple offered to them, or deciding to plant, rather than eat, the magic beans.
Just think how Snow White might have turned out if she had chosen to plant the apple seeds, rather than scoff the fruit down. She could have grown an orchard of sedative-bearing apple trees, started up a pharmaceuticals industry and used the proceeds to hire a mercenary army, to overthrow the evil queen.
The Grim Capitalist Faerie Tales.
The earliest stories of the Fae do not involve how more Fae get made. And given that many groups of the lesser Fae have single genders… that is very good question! Lots of kidnapping and hunting down humans tho. And some few stories about Fae/Faires conferring immortality to normal humans by some method or another. Plus many of the stories specifically state that Fae babies are very, very rare, but Fae themselves are not. Surprisingly bloodthirsty in fact for a species that has such trouble reproducing.
The stories of humans gaining immortality and supernatural beauty by drinking the blood of other humans goes back almost to the dawn of writing. Both Greek and Chinese literature had variants. Aztecs had a whole religion on the topic. None of those stories really fit the Twilight vampires tho.
Children were often warned that they must behave or the fae will take them away. Most of those, who were taken, never returned. Stay too long in their lands and you probably become one of them. But there would be nobody to tell that tale. The new fae itself would have no such interest.
Oh, dear. Yorp just yorped.
Don’t eat that – you know where it’s been.
“You know things are bad when you feel guilty for being rude to vampires.”
Man, that guys lucky to not have broken nose (and that Sydney did not go for the PPO).
As DaveB said, her head-desk reset worked
Nah, he played it smart. Started talking to her from a bit back, which gave her a chance to process. If he had whispered in her ear THEN she would have freaked.
And, once she processed, the eventual reaction was inevitable. Dude’s obviously safe or Max would have staked him already. Or Dabbler. Or, heck, Achilles.
Didn’t save Daphne, or Dabbles
Freaking out at trivial or non dangers is part of a general inability to recognize what is danger and what is not. So while we have seen more of our girl losing it, it is fully in character for her to pet the hungry [wo]man-eating tiger, or in this case, take a photo of the vampire about to drink one’s blood.
Speaking of the PPO, what’s up with it apparently glowing in panel 3?
They all glow
The orb you think is the PPO, in panel 3, is not. The prominent one is the brown mystery orb (clearly distinguishable by its inner cloud). You will notice that
VladIngsol’s nose is illuminated by its brown tinge. The PPO is in view, but partly obscured by the Forb.Whereas, in the next panel, they have all moved on, in their rotation. The one occupying the same position is now correctly the PPO (as confirmed by its inner crackling energy). With the shade of illumination, on his nose, changing to red.
As Guesticus says, they all glow. All of the time. On every page in the comic.
However they were confirmed, quite early on, to glow differently or more prominently when active.
They were? o_O
Yea, new one on me too.
So, any bets on when Sydney will put panel 1’s conversation to use in a fight?
Three moves ahead. Of course she will. Mach the knife is going to regret his next encounter with Halo.
When Maxima goes rogue.
Bound to happen some time. Evil twin, mind control (Vehemence had a good stab at that already), Golden
KryptoniteGeode, shapechanged impostificator, or whatnot.Gold kryptonite takes away their powers. You’d need a red geode to turn her evil.
Or maybe Bizzaro Maxima shows up. Deus does have half the geode after all.
Thought it was Blue that turned them ‘normal’
Deus has half the geode, but none of the juice
That’s what Blue Kryptonite does in the TV show Smallville. But in the comics the Blue has no effect on Kryptonians, yet is as deadly to Bizarros as Green is to Kryptonians.
Too be fair she has already used a variant of her confusion attack to defeat vehemence. The whole, “Noone expects fear vomit” thing. Which she translated into getting jigga to telebolt onto his arm and absorb the lightning.
Sydney’s new special friend.
I like the addition of vampires. I hope Sydney asks more about them over the next page or so… Have to wonder if the vamps have tried to drink Max’s blood (with her permission of course).
I also mistook the glow in the painting as a pair of boobs.
Nope, that’s a Giger butt.
Yeah, was just thinking how they looked more like a pair of glowing albino butt-cheeks :D
So I wasn’t the only one.
The disturbing part is the rib cage, and (weirdly distorted) spine, above the butt-cheeks!
I didn’t even “see” it until it was pointed out. Now I can’t stop looking at it.
“Whatever you do, when you meet Skinny Pete, don’t stare. He doesn’t like it when people stare.”
Max’s skin is impenetrable according to the origin flashback.
She still bleeds (a true ‘blue blood’)
We’ve never seen her skin penetrated though, only a trickle from the nose.
Wouldn’t be easy. It takes a good deal of super strength to even give her a nose bleed.
“Nuclear Wessels.” That one never gets old. Shame we’ll never get to hear Anton Yelchin use it.
why not?
He died
Even so, it would’ve been too closely derivative to the older movie if he did so that much earlier in the “reboot timeline.” It was good enough for me to see him have trouble with the voice-recognition software with “Wictor”…Twice, no less.
:)
He was recently killed in an unusual car accident.
Amusingly, the same traits that made Vlad so disliked by the people in a position to write about it, made his subjects adore him. Go figure.
Politics, I guess.
No, national defense.
Vlad, his father AND his grandfather spent their lives trying to prevent the Muslim Turks from over-running their under-populated country. The Turks were (in)famous for the atrocities they would commit during their course of conquering & subjugating, so Vlad had to do so much worse, just to make the Turkish soldiers fear him more than they feared their own leaders.
Indeed, the Holy Crusades were initiated as a survival response to the Muslim aggression that had spent the previous 460 years conquering Christian nations across the continent, having already successfully invading them about 2/3 of them at the time.
That’s the time frame little Vlad grew up with…
When your leader wants to torture people from other populations (or demographic groups that do not include themselves) the public can do just that.
That behaviour persists to the present day.
At least Vlad had the excuse that he was fighting the invading Turks. Living in one of the countries affected by this (Bulgaria) I can assure you that anti-Turkish sentiment persists to this day (in the segments of the population who do not identify themselves as Turkish, anyhow).
I recall being in a supermarket and squeezing a tomato, to see how fresh it was. Only to have my hand slapped by a little old lady. “No! Turkish! Buy those ones instead, they are Bulgarian!”
Even “Turkish delight” confectionery is not marketed as such here. My dad requests “Bulgarian delight”, when I ask him what he would like for Christmas (although that is just a family term).
Well he most liked to demonstrate the skills he acquired in his youth to the ones who taught him so much.
Yeah the Turks always seem to disappear from the western writers stories for some reason. It’s not like they invaded his homeland, held him hostage for most of his childhood, and used such methods to cow the local populace on a regular basis.
Okay, just what sort of reaction was he expecting in panel three? Whatever it was, holding that pose caused his to sweat in panel four :D
Typical terrified girl scream probably. Considering Sydney has a similar reaction to sunlight as a vampire, the ‘awkward sweat drop’ is NOT a surprise.
Think he was worried that he didn’t get an immediate fear reaction from Sydney.
Yeah, i think he was going for surprise and/or scream.
And when Sydneys reaction left him feeling awkward.
Kinda like a joke that somehow fell flat with a new audience.
Yea, he is clearly used to such reactions, and has caught Sydney by surprise here, so the odds were heavily stacked in his favour.
Little does he know that Sydney is in “don’t let Maxima know that I have been seeing Mupppets” mode. If Big Bird comes out to join him, she will be, “yea, whatever”.
She did recently take her ADHD meds, which may be suppressing her usual flightiness.
Is DaveB trying to sneak the whole cast of Sesame Street into this story arc? Can’t wait to see how Snuffy shows up.
Years ago, a friend who is a little obsessed with Star Wars decided to run a D&D game, and announced that minotaur would be a character race. So naturally, someone had to play one. Since minotaurs in Krynn are a maritime race, the player assumed this was also true in the game world (incorrectly, it turned out). The GM was running late for character creation and at this point the players were doing him a solid by figuring out how the heck we all knew each other. Another character was planning of playing a rogue, so they came up with a backstory about the two of them meeting and the rogue’s life being saved by the minotaur and thus they became friends. Cue the inevitable Chewbacca/Han Solo joke. Someone said, “Wouldn’t it be hilarious if we all played characters that are sort-of like Star wars characters, then see how long it takes the GM to catch on?” A stunned moment later…
Male Minotaur Fighter & Ship’s Captain (Chewie)
Male Human Rogue with a lot of trading skills (Han)
Female Human Paladin, Specialized with Crossbow (Leia)
Male Human Psionicist/Fighter, Specialized in Longsword (Luke)
Human Male Wizard, specifically requesting Comprehend Languages as a spell, knowing 7 languages, lots of “Face-Man”/diplomacy skills and sporting lots of gold jewelry. (C3PO)
Dwarven Male Tinker, with white-blonde hair and bright blue eyes who dressed in spotless white leathers with a harness draped with tools. (R2D2)
And, because we needed a cleric, a Gnomish cleric (The bacta tank – :D ).
The GM made a joke about the first two characters at week two of play, but it took him another 10 weeks of play to twig on the rest of the team (except the gnome – that was just waaaaayyyy too obscure). And he declared we would all die horrible deaths…
OMG OMG OMG!
I just realised something. But I must not say it. It would be uber spoilerish.
Nope not even going to hint it! *pulls zipper across mouth*
But, if I am right about this arc, I will point at this thread and go “Hah, that is when I realised it!”
Heh, clever role-playing group.
Well, found out how grown up I am. Giggled like a 6 year old at “nuclear wessels”.
Everyone over a certain age or exposed to the right class of Pop Culture giggles at nuclear wessels.
Also, it appears that Ingsol is enough of a Trekkie to have gotten the reference.
Due to his condition he probably spends a lot of time at home watching TV. He probably saw the movie at some time on his subscription to Batflix.
So that subscription service isn’t restricted to DC films then?
He then muttered in Romanian which is a where tales of vampires come from and is possibly the most direct evolved form of Latin.
Would explain why vampire don’t need wifi, though he’s missing out on great ways to lure get through Pokémon Go.
There are thing a vampire just will not do. Even in desperation.
I wouldn’t be too sure about that…There’s lots of Lore about what a vampire would do to satisfy…The Thirst!
O.o
Even snack on Sydney’s blood? With it being 20% Ghost Pepper and 10% pure capsaicin?
Sort of like the time that a vampire tried to drink Superman‘s blood, and found out too late that Superman’s “drawing power from the yellow sun” aspect made his blood deadly to vampires…
^_^
He he.
Somehow I think Aliens are safe too.
Soups actually was infected by a xenomorph once
The capital “A” denotes a species-specific name. Namely the acid-for-blood face-huggers, who metamorphose into devilishly handsome critters, with extendable snapping jaws.
DaveB: maybe you could add an extra page (and dialogue) before this page showing the tunnel walk
Meant when you publish “The Adventures of Sydney and her Allies” in physical form
No, no, we must encourage Dave to make leaps forward, when it suits the plot. Modern audiences expect such things.
And the joke works a lot better without being watered down, too far in advance, with clues. Dave knows his stuff.
Besides which, the door behind them looks suspiciously elevator-shaft-door type, rather than an end-of-tunnel variety.
And now I read Dave’s blog. OK no elevator. :)
Uh? Dave’s comment said it is an elevator:
“Originally this page took place while Max and Sydney were traveling down a tunnel, past a security station, then in an elevator before stepping out in to the hallway you see here…”
Uh? Dave’s comment say it is an elevator:
“Originally this page took place while Max and Sydney were traveling down a tunnel, past a security station, then in an elevator before stepping out in to the hallway you see here…”
Déjà vu. Something has changed in the Matrix. Was it more than just the blog? Are Agents coming?
*runs away and hides*
This is a little better for me because I watched the SGDQ Castlevania block last week, but I don’t know a lot regarding vampires. However, I think I like this comparison:
https://www.egscomics.com/egsnp.php?id=3
You know Maxima’s poker face is getting a good workout from this.
Given Sydney’s proclivities, I kind of expected her to ask, “Do you sparkle and if so, can I END you when you do?”
Sydney: Can you say “moose and squirrel”???
Ingsol: For the last time,I…am…not…Russian!!!
He’s not an Irish King of Hell either :P
Can ANYONE here figure who the “moose and squirrel” are???
Bullwinkle and Rocky?
Da, Komrade. Natasha and I, vhe know who moose und squvrrl are.
Also know who small time-travelling dog vith pet boy is, and also large dense Canadian Mountie vith bright horse.
Can also sing Roger Ramjet theme song when provoked.
Hey, Rocky! Watch me pull a rabbit out of this hat!
Err, you do know that you are not wearing a hat?
And… eew… that advert, which associated puppies with toilet paper, was only drawing an analogy that they are both soft!
Heh. My avatar comes from a political cartoon from years ago after the Democrats had major gains in both the House and Senate elections (US elections, in case I’ve left anyone behind). It had an elephant whose buttocks were missing and a donkey in a waiter’s uniform holding a silver tray, on which were said missing buttocks. No caption.
Friend of mine saw it and said in Eeyore’s voice, “Here, you dropped your hat.”
+1
That was funny. And I’m (at least on paper) a Republican. ;-)
Could never keep track of which one he called “Moose” and which one he called “Squirrel” (knowing him, he kept switching)
Mulder and Scully?
I don’t think either of them have tails.
But Moose and Squirrel they are, nonetheless:
https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/alt.tv.x-files.creative/426bwD8M2LU
Personally was thinking more “Sam & Dean”
Boris and Natasha weren’t Russian either. They were from Pottsylvania.
I loved the Castlevania candleholders. I wonder what will drop if Sydney destroys one.
Oh wait, she should totally grab the hentorb and use it as a whip while they’re in this setting!
I loved the use of the candle holders too.
Futurama?
I’m guessing: S04E11 Where No Fan Has Gone Before.
The crew encounter the old Star Trek actors and Walter Koenig is asked to repeat the line.
Oh yeah! I liked that episode.
I guess Ingsol is Ingsoc’s non-political Romanian cousin. What do you think, Comrade Smith?
Doubleplusgood!
Of course, maybe this is being drawn on a Mac, so that’s why 1984 wont be like “1984”.
“The cow flies at midnight.”
Psst, I really can’t remember any George Orwell making any vampire references.
Government , vampire close enough.
“Ingsol” is an anagram of “Losing”.
…I somehow doubt that he likes it when people point that out.
It’s also an anagram of “Ling So”, the name he uses in China
Or “Singol” for dating sites.
Oh, heck, wait a second. Is #720 the actual first appearance of Maxima’s little brother, as compared to #2072?? I presume so – popping a bag in your now-super-sister’s ear sounds very little-brother-ish to me …
It… always was, although #2072 is chronologically first
*checks through list of “what is behind door number rabid bee?”*
Nope, Dracula’s castle was not on it.
*pouts*
You got zonked on that deal, Yorp…
;)
Dave: you could have shown that this wasn’t right inside the secret door simply by having the door in panel two still open showing the hallway behind it. Possibly with the door in 1 still open a crack with a bush/tree visible through it. *shrug* Not trying to dis you or anything, love the work.
Not surprised after all the shit Syd has seen over the past couple days, not least of which being the sexy alien/demon hybrid, that a vampire would be deemed at this point as “neat”.
Yup. Vampires she understands. Maybe too well; the poor guy may end up in the next comic frantically trying to escape while she peppers him with “What KIND of vampire are you?”
And, quite possibly, comments about aspects of his appearance, living area and general behaviour that he is obviously “doing all wrong”.
At least she didn’t twirl around and bop him in the nose. After happening a good three or four times, that gag was getting a little stale. As DaveB said in his blog, the reset must have worked!
Now, let’s drag Ingsol outside and see if he sparkles or he sizzles . . .
Heh. Sparkle, or Sizzle?
I’m gonna steal that – thanks.
In Alameda?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdSJFrhb-HM
Heh.
So, does this mean that in Sydney’s world, mermaids are real, too? And werewolves? And unicorns? And so on and so forth . . .
lycanthropic mermaidacorns!!!
I recently read a story where one of the characters can shapeshift to wolf… but he isn’t a werewolf, because his normal form isn’t human. (It’s Corgi.)
I used to be a werewolf…
*looks up at the full moon*
… but I am alright noooooOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW!
::mimics John Astin::
I used to be sick, but I’m muuUUUuuch better now!
Night Court – it had its moments.
There’s a novel whose name I can’t remember. I wish I’d bought it when I first saw it, because I’ve never been able to find it since.
In the book, they explore what happens when a wolf is bitten by a werewolf. Apparently, he becomes human on nights of a full moon.
(Paraphrased) “I used to wonder what made humans think they were so superior to us. Our eyesight and hearing are better. Our sense of smell is hundreds of times better. We are superior hunters. And then I changed for the first time, and learned the truth: opposable thumbs.”
I can think of a couple books that might be what you mean:
‘Full Moonster’ by Nick Pollata addresses the topic of werewolves and wolf-weres in a Bureau 13 setting;
‘Hogfather’ by Terry Pratchett [and any of the ‘Guard’ series, with the character of Angua];
Niven’s short story ‘What Good is a Glass Dagger’ has a wolfwere who is human until magic is devoured and without magic, he becomes a wolf
So – any of those
It was definitely not any of those, unfortunately. (It wasn’t a Bureau 13 setting, it wasn’t a short story, and it wasn’t written by Terry Pratchett.) But thanks anyway… I might have to see if I can find those.
“Howling Mad” by Peter David (yes, the same from “New Frontier” fame)
https://www.fictiondb.com/author/peter-david~howling-mad~108809~b.htm
OMG, thank you! That’s it!
In D&D they are called wolfweres. Unlike werewolves they are just born like that and do not transmit the condition by bite. They can transform into their human form any time the full moon has not risen.
But in the version you describe, I wonder what would happen if a werewolf and a wolfwere bit each other?
In Harry Turtledove’s Legend of the Fox series, he wrote a region where a good proportion of the population are were by blood, to some degree–some transform fully, some get a bit hairier and like their meat rare.
Anyway, one triple full moon night, this big naked guy wanders into the castle. He doesn’t speak, but he’s huge, and he seems to like the beer, so they leave him to his drink. In the morning, there’s a large bear in his place.
Speculation is that a werebear in ursine form encountered and mated with a natural bear, and produced a werehuman, who had become curious about the other humans and tried to join in their activities…
In one of Spider Robinson’s stories about Lady Sally (wife of Mike Callahan, no less), she nkows a were-beagle…
…Yeah, the breed of dog…Beagle. A were-beagle.
IIRC, in the Borderlands anthology series, there is a character attacked by a feline lycanthrope. (Un)fortunately, due to the attack and infection happening in a low-magic area, the he or she can only transform into a bedraggled kitten.
Being magical, though, the character is then able to slip in kit-form across the border into Faerie, so it works out.
There is a feral cat who has been hanging around in my forest (formerly known as a garden). Any bits of food my Jack Russel does not want, I put out for the cat. Who obviously wants to make friends, but is really skittish. When it sees me, it will rub itself against the picket fence, next to my patio. Clearly emulating being stroked, but being too afraid to approach and flees if you go near it.
Fortunately it is gradually loosing its fear, and will now come close enough to snatch nibbles being proffered to it. A couple of days ago it stayed long enough to sniff me, after doing so. And last night, for the fist time, it let me stroke it. Just the one brief stroke mind.
Now you are saying I need to be wary that it is a lycanthrope?
Quite possibly. Sort of.
Noting that we now know that “aliens walk among us”. So it seems plausible that some of these aliens may resemble creatures of mythology. Or of cryptozoology (Sasquatch, Nessie, etc.).
Easy to imagine the Loch Ness Monster actually being a very long-lived alien who really likes holidaying in Scotland, for instance.
Nessie is a dinosaur super. Rather like Achilles, in terms of being able to outlast her peers.
She manifested her powers during the second dinosaur golden age of technology. Before the… you know… bad day they had trying to position that last satellite. It came in a wee bit too fast.
Actually, 7thsealord is correct about Nessie being an alien creature. Just ask Doctor Who.
“Come visit beautiful Loch Ness, Sol 3’s number one isolation spa! This lovely little lake is located in the Scottish Highlands, so haggis and bagpipe music is just a few short paddles away! And if you like ginger, there’s quite the selection from which to choose! Remember, shuttle service and space is limited, so pack accordingly and don’t be late!”
The concept of haggis must have been introduced by an alien visitor. No human could have come up with that. And the bagpipe? It was also imported to Earth. It was originally designed as a sonic defense weapon to fend off the ravenous bugblatter beast of Traal.
I’ve seen some of the other things humans have eaten when desperately hungry so I can believe it. For some reason they always get turned into a “delicacy”.
Haggis is a delicious food! My first girlfriend was Scottish, so I have attended many a Burns night. And thoroughly enjoyed the fare.
Mind you I was too young to know what it was made out of. Ignorance can be bliss.
I hope you had finished digesting it before you found out what was in it……..
Seriously. Imagine the first human who thought “Hmmm, I wonder if the insides of this oyster are food, or poison?” And then ate it, maybe because he first fed one to a bird or a dog and they didn’t die. But still, ate it.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a true omnivore. I love oysters on the half shell. I had a few food hates as a child (lima beans, spinach, and asparagus) but I’ve outgrown them all. I blame the asparagus one on the format rather than the vegetable. My father would buy it in cans, and they were always mature plants and after chewing the good part out of them you’d be left with a mouthful of fibrous mush that was just non-existent-gods awful. Lima beans was also a texture thing. Spinach I think was the bitterness.
And what about the experimentation that had to have gone on before people found out that only the liver of fugu was poisonous? Imagine the day after the dinner where that was served, and one person is dead. In the midst of the grief, who had the composure to sit down and figure out who ate what portions of the pufferfish, and then maybe do some experimentation with dogs again to see what parts could be eaten without causing death? I’d have just gone “Hmm, can kill you. That’s something I’ll never eat.” Which is exactly how I feel about fugu. A few people die every year from improperly prepared fugu, because it’s basically like heroin: Enough gives you a buzz, too much kills you.
Being the first to try eating something totally different is one thing; being the first to name something new is another thing. I’ve got a huge amount of respect for the balls required to name the “kumquat.”
“I blame the asparagus one on the format rather than the vegetable.”
My most-hated food is hominy grits. Like eating wet sand.
I love grits! How dare you!!!
Meh, eat what you like. But if you ate grits that were like wet sand, you weren’t eating good grits. I hadn’t eaten grits before entering the military, and even they managed to make a respectable side with a lot of carbs, which is what I was looking for. Damn, I’d tamp in the food up to the top of my esophagus and still be famished by the time the next meal was due…
The fiend!
You seem to be alive. So, no fugu for you?
“Easy to imagine the Loch Ness Monster actually being a very long-lived alien who really likes holidaying in Scotland, for instance.”
“Stop trying to take my picture! I’m the tourist here, not you!”