Grrl Power #443 – League of extra-atypical gentlemen (and ladies)
So yeah, the Twilight Council basically opens up the Grrl Verse to basically anything I want to throw in the world. (Though still there are a limited number of super science tinkerers because of how quickly the world would diverge from ours if someone, for instance, invented a power source and instead of using it to power armor to rob banks, he used it to power cars, which would in turn devastate the oil industry, and a good portion of the economy, diverge, diverge, etc, etc.)
“Miscellaneous” are races that don’t have sufficient population to have their own seat. I was going to put that in the comic itself but I needed to cut it for space. Also cut – after Maxima introduces Decollete, she says “Who, yes, [demons] are technically aliens but there’s enough of them to warrant their own representative.”
I only recently learned the word Décolletage. I’m sure I had heard it a bunch of times, but never quite groked its meaning. If you’re in the same boat I was, it’s basically a fancy French way of saying cleavage, but really it refers to the neckline of a dress/shirt and all the skin left exposed on the neck, shoulders, back and cleavage. Basically a dresses “negative space” and is considered part of the overall ensemble. Decollete is the adjective form of the word, so “a decollete dress shows off a woman’s décolletage” As soon as I read it, I thought Decollete would a funny name for a succubus, I mean it sounds like a name anyway. If only I can resist writing about it here in the comments, then only so many people will get it and they get that special “in the know” feeling like when you’re the only one who gets the obscure reference when watching MST3K with a group of friend. Unless I’m the only one who didn’t already know the meaning of those words. So, uh, don’t read this if you didn’t already know that.
Not to be confused, by the way, with “decollate” which is a verb meaning “to behead”
I also literally just learned as I’m writing this that “grok” wasn’t invented for that infamous SNL sketch (someone can probably find a video of it – the links I found on youtube were mostly videos of people talking about the sketch instead of the sketch itself), it’s actually a word coined in Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land back in 1961, meaning to understand or empathize with. For the longest time after seeing it in the sketch, I just thought it meant like/love/dig/groove on, and people saying stuff like “I grok your pain.” were either misusing it or just being jerks and trying to fly under the radar.
The picture of Sydney in panel 2 is one of my favorites in a while. The pinched, pursed lips is a weird art thing that’s evolved fairly recently. Not with my art specifically, I mean broadly. I think it started in manga, and you can see it in stuff like Empowered and Rick and Morty a lot now. I think it’s cute of done right, but honestly I’m not 100% sure what expression it represents on a real face. Semi-duck lips? But not obnoxious selfie ducklips, it’s more like a combination thinking and confused expression? I don’t know, but I think it’s cute on Sydney.
This page colored by Keith.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon as soon as I get up. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like :)
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Oh! Okay! So they’re showing Sydney all of this because she’s going to find out about it eventually, yeah?
Because she has that extremely potent Truesight power with her orb, it is better to read her into this stuff rather than her stumbling across these beings like with Greenie and her possibly making a scene or questioning it every time she comes across something.
Possibly also because they want the twilight council’s help in tracing the origin of the orbs.
Yup! At some point there will be a stern talk about not posting about any of this on facebook.
Somehow, I expected fewer shirts in a group named ‘Twilight Council’, but I know underground buildings can get quite chilly.
Hopefully the topless girls are in the rows we can see further back.
Who says the aforementioned Females will be humanoid? or even Mammalian?
So the Reptilian people are just off screen? All good, tho i was tempted to also mention their gender… :p
Topless X-Com 2 vipers? Do Want.
I just did a Google search. WHY DOES A SNAKE HAVE BOOBS?!
Don’t, just don’t.
Too late. I couldn’t resist.
Because…
…Fan service.
Why do many species of insects look like leaves, or twigs (or both)? Why do various species of fish, birds and insects have markings which look like eyes, on the backs of their bodies? Why do non-poisonous species, of various animals, end up looking nearly identical to genuinely poisonous animals, living in the same environment?
Why do cats purr at a frequency which is optimally pleasant to human listeners? Why is a domestic cat’s cry similar to a human baby crying? Why do humans instinctively tend to stroke at an optimal speed to provide maximum pleasure to both cats and dogs?
Having breasts makes them less likely to be killed, out of hand, by humans (and similar bipeds) which they meet. Even a 5% difference, in the likelihood of surviving an encounter, can provide a profound advantage to the long-term viability of a species.
Or that artist likes drawing big boobies on snakes.
Or because drawing a set of pp’s on them was too realistic and mind breaking
Nope, not falling for it. I am not googling “snake pp”!
Good, because snake’s tend to have two pp’s
No. That’s not how evolution works. Creatures evolve to fit their environment. A snake doesn’t evolve breasts because mammals have breasts. That’s… no.
A regular snake no. Otherwise I would have cited such an example. But a human-sized intelligent snake, which interacted with humans… possibly.
Humans do tend to wipe things out too fast for evolution to compensate. However if said snake species had enough other things going for it, to delay their extinction, then natural selection would favour mutations which allowed humans to empathise with them. I.e. viewing them less like animals, and more like people.
For a ranged stun attack?
they aren’t snakes when they have arms, pectoral muscles help move arms donchaknow
Those are venom glands. Really large venom glands. To account for the ranged venom spit attack they can do.
Because it’s not a snake. It’s an alien species that happens to share a broad list of traits with snakes. Snakes don’t have arms either, but I didn’t see you complaining about those.
It’s also worth noting that in the previous x-com game, that species had previously been spliced into infiltrator units that looked mostly human (even up to the point of having legs). It’s possible that even though these once-infiltrators have been able to come out of the shadows, they may not have been able to completely purge the human DNA’s influence from those former infiltrators.
Not I.
Choris isn’t wearing a shirt…. or anything for that mater, Gregor is shirtless..
Icon is his own shirt/mail….
Dabbler, well Dabbler just qualifies for not being topless, but certainly not by her own choice….
I think that’s a fair level of shirtlessness
Before or after she posts on The Book of Faeces?
Sydney is clearly a fan, of the weird, so it better be before before hitting that. Or she will get herself and Archon in trouble, for spreading things around, that she should not. Nobody will come out, of that, smelling of roses.
Sounds like a shit social media site…
Alright, cool.
Just one thing, Dave. Please, please, PLEASE don’t make the excuse for the reasoning behind this conspiracy that THESE BE THINGS MAN IS NOT YET READY TO KNOW!
Because that’s always been a lame excuse.
Best reason for the council, away for the extra/ultra terrestrials to interface with humanity so as to prevent a war of extinction.
The best thing I can think of is a quote from Men In Black:
Kay: A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody *knew* the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody *knew* the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you *knew* that humans were alone on this planet.
Yes, I know that quote. And yes, I remember that quote. I bought into it when I was a kid, but now that I’m older I realize that, no, people have more of a sense of humor about his stuff nowadays, and there’s already a culture built around cryptids and undead and fae. The revelation that they’re real would be cause for celebration, not for panic.
It is always … refreshing… to be positive. And I should say that I agree a big segment of the population may well be acclimatised enough, to such things, that if they proved to be friendly, the public would tolerate or accept the existence of them.
I think only a small minority might celebrate such things though. It is one thing to enjoy such in a nice safe fantasy environment. Quite another if one moves into the neighbourhood. Folks start worrying if their kids are safe.
Which leads to the downside, namely the intolerant and xenophobic are not just present within our society, they are positively thriving. On top of which you also have religious extremists, of many varieties, who are bound to take exception to anything, which they feel goes contrary to their teachings and world-view.
Plus we live in a world where celebrities are at risk of being killed by their own fans! So such beings are at risk from both those who hate the different and unusual and (to a much lesser degree) those who love it.
I think you give people too much credit while Yorp hit it on the head. While most people might be open to dealing with other species there will be some who want to:
hate them because they’re different.
hate them because they’re too like us and will take our place.
kill them to: see what they taste like / wear their skin as coats / make an example (for whatever reason their crazy ideology comes up with) / use their bodies to make “traditional” Chinese cures for impotence / dissect them (For SCIENCE!), or any number of other reasons.
attack them because we love them and they can’t bear to be apart from us.
Put them in some rich guy’s private zoo. (Anyone else notice only guys seem to do this?)
…basically keeping themselves secret is COMPLETELY for their own protection because when it comes right down to it humans are shitty people.
Oh, I forgot to add the number of governments and secret organizations that would want to capture them to learn about their technology, the number of other species, their powers and social structures, their weaknesses, etc. Any bets on whether or not North Korea would suddenly discover that the “unicorn cave” they found (yes, look it up) was actually some fey race and their leader mated with the unicorn making him an all powerful deity?
I still disagree. There are bigots in the world, but that doesn’t mean we need to hide what makes ourselves different. There’d be advocacy groups that pop up, internet forums, conventions, etc. There’s no need for a huge conspiracy.
A culture. Not the WHOLE culture… and let’s not forget that there’s a broad gulf between a society that fantasizes about the paranormal and a society that is ready and willing to accept the paranormal as a reality without feeling threatened by it.
I’m thinking Dresden Files. “Mortals are the Nukes of the Supernatural world”.
Even if humanity as a whole is alright with most of the Council, it would be all too easy for, say, the Succubi to make a power-play and get Humans going after the Weres- “Ooh, help me! Save me from those nasty, ravenous, feral monsters!”- or the Fey doing the same with the Demons and Succubi, only through Religious channels.
Basically, humans are dangerous, and even if it’s not a matter of straight up existance- it’s like the ban on weapons in space. That isn’t just there to keep out the nukes, but also the conventional munitions, space lasers, all that sort of stuff.
How is that lame? Humanity can’t even handle its OWN existence. War, poverty, greed, corruption, power struggles, racism, murder, manipulation, etc.
You think humanity can handle the existence of potentially limitless other life-forms, some living on the same planet? People would lose their minds, start accusing each other of being such and such, knives and fists and bullets fly. People are /STUPID/. Foz used the perfect quote.
“Humanity can’t even handle its OWN existence. War, poverty, greed, corruption, power struggles, racism, murder, manipulation, etc.”
You’re looking at all the bad things, but there’s something you’re ignoring. Despite all of those awful things you listed, humanity still exists, and hope still persists.
And we know there’s likely to be life outside our little blue dot. Since it’s already established that there are superheroes with superpowers in the world, and people are okay with that without going all X-Men, mutant-hating on it, then that’s evidence that people won’t react so negatively to the existence of other such extra-beings.
One fact about any military is that they feel that anything that can be made into a weapon should be made into a weapon. And assume that the other guy has already done so, and we need to get our own version to counter it. The various indigenous and non-terrestrial examples of magic and technology will be co-opted into weapons systems. “Mr. president, I implore you, project hypno-boob needs our utmost attention.The enemy may have already breasted, err, bested us in this field”.
Such positive feelings must be nurtured and encouraged. Despite my negative points, in the comments above, my words are just intended to point out the things which we must be cautious about, and take precautions against.
Proper education, acclimatisation and good public relations and public information campaigns can all help to reduce and minimise the risks. I think acknowledging the antipathies present in society is a vital part of that though. Being overly idealistic and optimistic is fine for a member of the public, but potentially catastrophic for a policy maker.
Each attempt we have made to build an idealistic society has met with crushing failure. But do not loose heart at that historical fact. Because there is a solution. Which is to realise that there are negative elements within the human psyche, that will always be present. If you have an idyllic environment and drop humans into the middle of it, there will intrinsically be problems.
Note that I am not implying that “evil is always present in humans”. It is more complex than that. There are differences within our population which are vital for our long-term survival. But some of those cause problems in certain circumstances, if not allowed for. Just to give a single example, I cite sociopaths.
Properly educated, trained and put into a suitable role, they can be productive and even essential members of society. Many of our most successful business people have such traits. However, if we leave the policing, governance and management of society purely in the hands of such individuals, then empathy and compassion will be lacking in our lives, and our civilisation will be a much worse place to live.
However properly balance their ruthless, yet efficient, management capabilities with checks and balances, to ensure that their behaviour remains within healthy and positive boundaries, and we can have a much more fulfilling society as a result.
What Yorp said was true. In an ideal world we would all be enlightened beings. We don’t live in an ideal world though. If even 1% of all people are educated but ignorant (we all know it’s greater than 1% not even COUNTING the uneducated in this world) that would be tens of millions of people who choose the hate the outsiders. People aren’t all smart or well-adjusted beings. In Africa during the ebola outbreak they had a group of armed men invade an ebola quarantine hospital, force the staff to leave or die, and then loot the place because they thought the doctors were making people sick. When the looting started other villagers joined in. They stripped the place clean. People were carrying off infectious ebola-blood-soaked mattresses to take home. You want those people to understand aliens and other species they’re afraid of aren’t going to harm them?
The reason anything isn’t common knowledge is because it is not commonly experienced. If I told you I was telepathic, would you believe me? I doubt it. So would you tell others that telepathy is real just on my say so? Hardly. In order to convince the world of the existence of miracles, paranormal, extraterrestrials and other “pseudoscience,” you need to convince the gatekeepers of knowledge…specifically the scientific community, who, for the sake of their careers, believe no one.
Actually, I knew you were going to say that.
forgot syd’s orbs are magic have we
Actually, I don’t think it’s been established whether or not they’re magick. I think even their casters could only shrug at ’em, so it could be tech, or even both, since apparently they aren’t mutually exclusive in this world. Or something else entirely that’s impossible to codify in terms we can understand, but that’s a bit difficult for a writer to work with.
Actually neither we nor the various members of Archon have been able to determine what their nature is. They may be magical, they may not. They could be organic. Or naturally occurring phenomenon. Perhaps they are what result when a black hole bumps into a white hole, of equal size?
Or the testicles of an ancient extinct high powered race…
Or eggs, spaceships of a currently dormant race, obscure astrophysics manipulating nanite tech, fake facsimile hologram type tech and the actual powers are from somewhere else…
The possibilitys are endless.
Devices constructed in the future.
Sent to the past.
So the world would survive a supremely bad happening.
I would find it very amusing to find out that Sydney constructed the Orbs in the future and then sent them back.
But would it confuse you, to find out that they then went further back, hatched a girl, who grew up to marry a guy called Sydney Scoville? Sydney could be her own grandmother!
“Oh dear, I’ve gone crosseyed…”
Recommended solution: Just enjoy yourself and go with it ^_^
Wait, wouldn’t that sequence mean that Sydney made her mother?
OW! …my brain…it burns!
I think pursed lips have been used in anime and manga when the character is weighing two decisions or when doing a silent whistle. There is a body language link https://changingminds.org/techniques/body/parts_body_language/lips_body_language.htm which says it denotes anger, disapproval or frustration.
I’m sad I don’t see anything referencing AIs (possibly accidental like Ghost in the Shell). Also cyborgs, mutants, mutates (or other side effects of science like talking cows), angels (assumed to be antagonistic to the demons), and alternate time lines (steampunk),
it’s quite possible maxima didn’t get to them yet, as syd got a lil overloaded…
The author’s explanation for this can be found here. Which explains the lack of human AIs and cyborgs. If wondering about the non-human ones, don’t forget about Dabbler.
As for the rest, Polysanity is correct to state that the introductions were not finished. Mutants though we may have already met, as members of Arc-SWAT. Maxima being one that we know will not fall in this category, but several of the others may.
For example most of Sydney’s fellow recruits did not give origin stories, leaving the implication that they were born this way. If their parents were not supers, there is a strong implication that they are mutants (albeit other possibilities exist, and the scientists have not been able to say for sure one way or the other).
Harem (who is admittedly only auditing the training courses) we know to have manifested her powers during puberty, which seems to be normal for ‘natural born’ supers (as opposed to the ones who were exposed to weird effects, such as Maxima). Ren and Varia seemed to likewise have been born that way (from the lack of any mention of something to the contrary).
Vance though clearly is not a mutant. As a colony of spiders, he represents a distinct Terrestrial species, with super powers. And there may be other super animal species too…
*assumes a heroic pose*
I don’t see any Cybertronians there, tho there was a nice car outside with it’s radio going, despite noone inside… :p
“Harem (who is admittedly only auditing the training courses) we know to have manifested her powers during puberty…”
Not puberty, she was 8 years old. At 11 (puberty) she already had 4 bodies.
I get confused with anything more than four paws in number. :-(
The age of puberty varies to the extent that the youngest to give birth (I think) so far is 5 years old, the dirty done age 4. The earliest onset to completion of puberty takes years and everyone is unique.
When talking about supers using average for human statistics is a weak position.
The youngest human mother I’m aware of was an 8yo girl in South America. The baby was the product of molestation by her father. All around an absolutely aweful situation.
Nope. You were right. She was 5yo. I’m disgusted with the human race.
Yea, the depraved exist within humanity.
But do not be disheartened. There is a lot more good in the world, than evil.* We just have to work to keep it that way, and to strive to find better ways to improve society. Which we are doing.
Someday, if we avoid wiping ourselves out before then, we will achieve a state where we actively look after the welfare of every individual, as our main priority. Ensure that everyone is living a happy, healthy and fulfilling life, and the rest will look after itself!
* Trouble is that we have reporting which keeps throwing the worst in our face, but not balancing it with the best. Every day we see reports about murder, rape and molestation. But the actual number of such reports is minute, compared to the population. For example the UK has over 64 million people within it.
So, for the purposes of keeping things in perspective and avoiding thinking that humanity is about to plunge into hell, please consider the following. If you see a newspaper headline about another murder, just mentally rephrase it as “64,000,000 people not murdered, who are living peaceful lives”.
Of course society must report the bad things, in life, in order that we can recognise and counter them. Each individual incident is a personal tragedy, for the victim and their loved ones.
Agreed. The advantage and the problem with modern media is that every murder, every accident report, every terrorist attack, gets reported around the world within minutes. CNN’s motto might as well be “Around the world in 30 minutes, every 30 minutes.”
A good example is that the man in Tokyo who went postal with a kitchen knife and killed 19 people and wounded 20 others, was reported in my local paper this morning.* But you have to look at the broader picture… such as, yes, 19 people died, and yes, their loss will be felt by friends and family, but we’re talking 19 people out of a population of more than 127 million.
The media loves a good murder, or serial killer, or terrorist attack. It’s what gets viewers to watch, which drives up their ratings, which drives up their profit margin. Outside of state-controlled media, television stations have three rules: Get the money, get the money, and get the money. That’s why they focus so much on negative events, and why tabloids are still making a big deal out of the Jon-Benet Ramsey murder, which happened two decades ago!**
The truth is that such violent events are actually relatively rare, when you put them in the proper perspective. Positive newsworthy events happen all the time. It’s just hard to convince the media to spend more than two or three paragraphs talking about it, because that’s not where the ratings are.
* Well, since it’s 6 minutes past midnight, technically it was yesterday morning.
** Granted, there were a lot of bizarre things about the case, and new things keep popping up. For example, just this year, one of the “persons of interest” 20 years ago was arrested on a child pornography charge. But, overall, I stopped caring about the Jon-Benet Ramsey case about 19 years ago, and I really wish the newspapers would let it go.
But we do have golems wich is close enough to robots. I for one is hoping to see Aegis pretty sister.
Perhaps this poor dog https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/147 who Sydney scared way back in the days will return as a supervillain hungry for revenge. Stranger thisng happen in superherocomics.
No, he just hangs out here and talks alot.
Wooof wooof!
His vocabulary have certanly expanded.
He happens to be Grrl Power’s answer to Ralph von Wau Wau, frequent customer of Callahan’s Place…
;)
As for your point about mutants, they could reasonably be represented as part of their species, or ARCHON. Or they might not even be part of the Council, since it seems to focus on the supernatural and the extraterrestrial.
Overload nerdgasm :D
I wonder where the reset button is for Sydney’s circuit breaker?…
That sent a pleasurable shiver down my spine.
For reasons.
Mmm. I wonder. A faction of the readership (myself included) recon that Sydney was being sneaky and evasive about where her orbs actually came from. Plus Maxima and Zephan seemed to think likewise, from their significant glances, at the time.
Could Sydney’s faint have been a tactical one? To avoid an introduction to an aquatic party (or whatever was the undisclosed truth about her origin story). Just to buy time, to figure out what to do, if they do lay claim to her orbs!
Are sirelings similar to offsprings???
Yes, vampiric ones.
There are two forms of vampire progeny: those turned by a bite and those born. Sirelings refer to the former. In most literature, the latter is impossible once one is a vampire but a vampire can still have pre-transformation offspring of the normal sort.
With Blade (as portrayed by Wesley Snipes) being what happens if a pregnant woman is turned into a Vampire. A daywalker is born, with enough humanity to survive exposure to sunlight, yet still having many of the other attributes of vampires. Such as the ability to look all broody.
Problem with that is that if you were wanting to build up an unstoppable vampire army, you’d take loads of pregnant woman, bite them and then raise the children.
Finding many pregnant women is not exactly hard considering the centres that they have to visit for check ups :/
I think there has to be something to do with timing as well, but even so, capture and imprisonment until the right time fixes that problem.
All in all, I think daywalkers are flights of fancy or an incredible fluke that can very rarely happen.
Actually there is a mechanism which would explain the normal lack of daywalkers. Simply because vampires, who seek to gain power, wish to do so for themselves. Whereas a vampire raising an army of unstoppable daywalkers is giving them the power. Said vampire would be defenceless if they became disloyal.
Vampires don’t like it if the turned turn on them.
I would also suppose it would depend upon the timing; after all, Blade’s mother was near-delivery when she was attacked, which the shock indued labor before she “died.”
In some literature it is possible for vampires to breed, at least with humans, as the term “dhampir” implies. The game “Blood Rayne” follows the life of one of these beings, the title character, Rayne.
Actually, to me, “dhampir” implies a vampire hamster.
As long as they aren’t Giant Space Hamsters
Or miniature giant space hamsters!
Go for the eyes Boo, GO FOR THE EYES!
Or miniature vampire giant space hamsters!
My brother lived in Gabon for a few years. As a family we saw a lot of elephants in South Africa, growing up, so he was unconcerned the first time he saw a family of elephants wandering across the road ahead of him.
Then had to swerve violently, to avoid them, when he realised that he was almost on top of them!
It turns out that they were a species of dwarf elephants, which grew smaller because of the jungle environment. Whilst he thought he was looking at normal elephants, a long way down the road, it was purely an optical illusion, due to the featureless road and them being tiny. The adult ones were the size you would normally expect of a normal calf elephant!
Whatever you, don’t watch the movie!!!
Hehe fangirl overloaded.
Sydney or the readers? :P
yes
i didn’t read all the comments to see if this is covered.
Grok doesn’t just mean to understand or empathize with, it’s supposed to be deeper. it’s like making the knowledge a part of yourself on an intrinsic level.
Agree with darthfluffy (including the bit about not reading all the comments). Though it’s been a while since I’ve read the book (… decades, actually), that was one thing that stuck: “grok” is a complete knowledge and understanding of something.
Also the Fair Witness thing. Which sounds great, except over the years I’ve pretty much decided it can’t really be done. (Don’t ask why; I’ve forgotten the details, and you probably don’t want me doing a full analysis anyway.) Still, the mildly OCD autie/ADHD in me kind of likes the idea. Probably why it stuck. “Anne, what color is that house?” “It’s white on this side.” And won’t swear that it hasn’t been repainted since she last saw it, seconds ago.
That was Stranger, right? Or am I conflating that with another book? *sigh* They say memory is the second thing to go. I forget what the first is.
Not my personal favorite Heinlein, though. That would be The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
Harsh Mistress – great book, yes. Sad ending, though.
“Dance, Kali, Dance!” (From ‘Stranger’ – probably the shortest Heinlein quote I know.)
And, yeah, the Witnesses were in Stranger. Great concept, but he didn’t really do much with them.
Can’t say I really have a favorite Heinlein. I have a few that are slightly less favorite.
There was a period when I’d go on a binge and reread all of ’em every few years. Ah, the good ol’ days…
For those interested: Stranger In A Strange Land :P
Or, maybe you are more interested in this, this and this (part three has several uses of ‘grok’ within the first 90 seconds)
If it makes you feel any better, Dave, my knowledge of “grok” is the exact opposite. I’d never heard of the sketch until I read your rant.
Will we soon learn the secret behind Pixel’s uber-cuteness?
Cuteness? To me it’s more an uncanny valley kind of thing.
I’m with Sydney on this one – I don’t like her.
I’m just hoping her role here will be over soon and she fades into obscurity.
I must officially dislike Pixel. Unless Sydney warms to her. Although she is not at her best here. Looking a bit too much like a sulky boy. Her pursed lips aren’t doing her any favours. Mind you, Sydney’s, in the second panel are not much better. I have been giving it some time to see if they grow on me, but to no avail.
Contrary to your uncanny valley comment, I think it is because they are too stylised. The rest of Sydney’s expression is good, and the whole does easily carry the intent DaveB was after. But it just is not poking the cuteness button. (Her eyes do mind, just not the lips).
Sounds almost like you’re saying her lips aren’t growing on you. I think we should probably be thankful for that… a canine would look silly with Pixel’s lips.
(Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
Dave, It seems there’s a colouring error on Scarlett’s corset, under her right breast.
No, that is reflected light (and it was Keith who coloured this page
Maybe, but don’t look like that to me, light from below?
Yes, I read Keith did this one, but Dave designed it, he is the one who knows if it’s right or not.
From the chair, and also the shadow on Scarlett’s face, from her hair, we can see that there is illumination on Scarlett’s right hand side. Her very pale arms (possibly aided by the shiny bracers) appear to be reflecting the light, on that side, to provide under-lighting. Resulting in the effect you reported.
Chorius almost looks like he is thinking “Hey! Who are you calling a ‘missile anus’?”
Living armour, this pleases us.
But is it a FMA reference or something else?
Headless knights with nothing inside appear all over the place, they are not unique to FMA.
Hindu, there are over 1 billion of them
Yes, that is a true, if eclectic, observation. However most of them are not in this chamber.
How can you be so sure? The hindu gods realy like to make avatars. Irradon have a blue tint so he may actualy be Vishnu.
Because if you fitted one billion human (or human-like) Hindu’s into this chamber, they would be extremely compacted. Oh and dead. Further we would have to start figuring out if the temperature and pressure, that woulld generate, mgiht start turning their remnants into bits of diamond.
Yes, of course. I am so slow some days.
I had a feeling the joke was a little obscure.
Fondue, there is lots of it.
Ok here’s a fay nerd question, which fay period are you going to draw from? Guessing from the setting its Tolkien esc. But I do like it when stories use traditional folklore (see Terry Pratchett and surprisingly Pokemon) for the people wondering were tinkabell fits she’s a off shot off Shakespearion fay all twinkle and mischief.
Have a look at panel five, on the back of the chair, on the right. Hopefully that faye will give you an indication of where Dave is going with this.
I created a very short tale, based around my interpretation, of traditional faerie folklore, which you might find interesting.
the :3 face, ie pinched lips: its kind of thinking/duck lips but with a hint of a smile. I use the :3 smiley a lot because this is actually a face I naturally pull, i have chubby cheeks (even when i was skinny! XD) and they push my lips together like this when i’m thinking :P
It sounds delightful, and looks like it would suit you very much.
Maxima:(upon reviving Sydney) It seems I can’t take you ANYWHERE!!!!
Sydney: Sorry about that! But something like this just doesn’t happen to a girl like me everyday!
Maxima gives a silent but stone faced stare at the readers.Then ushers Sydney to a seat.
What Maxima would say remind you of overhearing parents of ADHD type kids saying something similar in public places?
SNL sketch? Never heard of that.
On the other hand, SiaSL is the very first English-language SF book I read. It’s also one of the most famous SF books around. (Also somewhat divisive, which I consider reflects Heinlein’s intentions – it is in large part a fairly obvious critique of contemporaneous US society, which I only grokked later because I didn’t know much about the stuff he critiqued back then.)
It will be referring to Saturday Night Live, which the performers do create sketches. But I have never seen an episode of it, so am unfamiliar with the sketch in question.
That moment when someone is shown every conspiracy of nonhuman life is true. Followed by the moment they realize they can never speak of it again.
Ahh, that latter may be where Grrl Power diverges from other telling of such tales. Where ‘the secret’ must always be maintained. Which gets both irritating and ridiculous, if the protagonists are actively trying to uncover it.
Unless they are so totally incompetent, that they never make any progress, then you need to have episode after episode where the truth is uncovered, but only to have evidence whisked away, before it can be made public knowledge. The first time I give them a pass. After that, they just get listed for allowing it to happen again!
Yes, Mulder and Skully, I am looking at you!
Are we going to get a crash course on what “Odyssians” and others are, or should I just crack open a White Wolf Publishing RPG book and hope I find it?
Maybe the “fantastic” races from greek works like “The Oddyssea?”
Better than that, there will be many pages giving a gently air-cushioned course.
Plus, if you search (using, for example, CTRL+F on Chrome), on each page of the comments for “DaveB”, you will see he has made a lot of comments, in answer to various questions, regarding this comic page. A few of which replies give bare bones details, for some of the named races.
Oops, link problem. Please use this instead:
So yeah, the Twilight Council basically opens up the Grrl Verse to basically anything I want to throw in the world. (Though still there are a limited number of super science tinkerers because of how quickly the world would diverge from ours if someone, for instance, invented a power source and instead of using it to power armor to rob banks, he used it to power cars, which would in turn devastate the oil industry, and a good portion of the economy, diverge, diverge, etc, etc.)
–
Actually getting off of fossil fuels would be a very good idea. And that would give you a chance to show another way than digging deeper and costing more and in the end will end when it runs out too far to mine. And the fact that GHG’s are heating the atmosphere etc. Why shouldn’t old tech die and new tech take over? (Only if the old tech wants every bit of their nasty product sold regardless of it going to turn our Earth into a place not unlike the End Permian Hot House. You would not live on such a planet.)
It would be background without you elaborating.
The economy is quite adaptable even to big changes. Capitalism is great when it works as intended. The oil economy will die eventualy, the sooner the better.
Nothing wrong with tech being old. In fact technology way older than fossil fuel is much better in many ways, take windmills for example.
I agree, oil is doing more harm than good and has been doing so for a long time now, in addition it is going to collapse anyway quite soon when it gets to expensive to extract. Electrolysis could help with squeezing energy into cars but it does not solve the big issue of power generation. Having something to replace oil when it goes would good and replacing it earlier would be great.
It is worth noting that Saudi Arabia is now one of the biggest investors in renewable energy research. They are all too aware that oil will eventually run out, and want to be well positioned, for when it does.
Mind you the threshold at which it becomes uneconomic to extract oil keeps getting pushed back. Each time we approach it, some clever engineer finds a way to overcome one technical limitation, or another, which brings the cost down to practical levels.
Personally though I wish they, or some other research-minded nation, chose to invest heavily in liquid thorium reactor research and development. We would be able to obtain unlimited energy far easier and, more importantly within our own lifetimes, than by the snails-pace progress that is being made in fusion reactor research.
Problem is, every time someone starts talking about reactors, other idiots start screaming “Three Mile Island!” “Chernobyl” “Fukushima!” until the ones who made the initial suggestion are too afraid to lift their head(s)
Well I can’t blame people for being sceptical about nuclear power considering how bad the old fashioned cold war type reactors are. That said I agree that we should realy start developing liquid thorium reactors.
I wonder what powers Dabblers technical toys? On second though, considering that she is a succubus perhaps I don’t want to know.
Well there is reasonable cause for that. Older types of reactors do not have sufficient safeguards. Plus finding out that countries are willing to build reactors on fault lines or exposed to tsunami risks (and doubtless other variants that have not yet blown up) do give the public fair reason to be sceptical, even when assured that ‘modern reactors are safe’.
But, regardless of whether they are or not, conventional reactors do kick out deadly byproducts that will be creating a hazard for untold generations to come. And we know that power companies and governments alike do not take sufficient precautions to contain those. Not to mention the reactor types which can provide material for nuclear bombs.
None of which are problems for liquid thorium reactors. Should I ever get my paws on national-level budgets, or J.K. Rollins/Bill Gates degree of wealth, I would devote a significant proportion of it to developing such. Including publicising all of its advantages, and encouraging other countries and companies to participate in joint research initiatives.
Which is something that is safe to do, given that you do not risk proliferation of nuclear weapons via this technology. It is something, that, once developed, you would want to spread far and wide around the world, so that every community can benefit from it.
Once that is achieved, we will have eliminated poverty caused by lack of resources!* Forever!!** With unlimited energy, you can provide for all the other material needs people have, by one means or another.
* Of course wars, state persecution and other reasons could still cause poverty. But hopefully the incidence of wars will be reduced, as nations will not have to squabble over resources, in order to survive. And with more resources, the rest of the world will, one hopes, be better able to counter persecution and other abuses.
** We have enough thorium to provide all humanity’s energy needs for longer than the Earth will survive (before being engulfed by the Sun, in its old age).
If it wasn’t for the fact that thorium reactors can’t make materials for nukes we would probably already have them. Stupid cold war.
*nods, glumly*
Yeah, but was talking about simply talking about reactors has the Oil-camp screaming about Nuclear Winters and other crap
You mention ‘deadly byproducts creating hazards for generations’, but you get that now with coal-powered power stations
Mmm, somewhat different things. But I see what you are aiming at. If I were to put myself into the kennels of future generations, I would prefer to live in a world which had hastles cleaning up radioactive waste, dumped in abandoned mines, as opposed to having the ever-present risk of drought, drowning or other extreme-weather hazards.
But I would be much happier still, if the past-me had managed to provide unlimited energy, so that my kennel is air-conditioned, has flood-defence pumps and a fully automated Cuke™ bottling plant and Yorpie Snax™ production facility!
A windmill and some solar panels on your doghouse wouldn’t hurt either as it would make you more independent of the power companies and the distrubution net. You would probably have to dig up a few saved bones to afford it but it would benefit your pups in the future.
You need to get your head around the implications of unlimited energy. In the present day, enlightened countries are discussing making internet access a fundamental right. Something that is provided to you free, regardless of your status.
What I described would allow us to do that with power. Every community, even the small ones, every hospital, every college, university or even large school could have its own LT plant. Even large vehicles (such as ships, submarines and space ships) could have such a reactor.
There would only be a need for a company to be involved if a community chose to delegate the operation of the plant to a private firm. I am sure my descendants would choose to live somewhere that the community owned and operated their own!
Costs for material things (especially factory produced items, like power plants) become radically less in unlimited energy societies. Plus LT reactors operate at far lower temperatures, than conventional reactors. So do not need big cooling towers or the over-sized reactor rooms we are used to seeing in films and on TV,
LT reactors are small, have a much safer operating environment (lower temperatures and none of the more dangerous byproducts) and fail safe (you need to input power for it to operate, if that is lost it shuts down, rather than blowing up). Thus can be made orders of magnitude cheaper than today’s prices, especially given that energy costs can all but be ignored!
For all the above reasons operational and maintenance costs will be lower too.
Whilst our society might look at renewable energy alternatives, for emergencies, these are impractical options, to the power needs of such a future society. Just as our applications expand to meet the power of our computers, so too will their devices, but as regards energy.
I was not kidding about the factories. But just do not picture them as the big things you are used to factories being. They will only be supplying one dog, after all. However they would probably still need a football field sized solar array to power that. Which a kennel would not have.
Rather the back up will be connection to another LT reactor, in the same area. Much like we have backup generators in hospitals, and other key buildings, today.
“some” reactors were designed without sufficient safeguards.
I’ve not really looked into three mile island, but Chernobyl was user error in the end, if I recall, it was caused by trying to stop the automatic shutdown and then not recognising the problem bypassing the safeguards caused.
Sure, the safeguards were not great, but unlike Fukushima, natural disasters were less of a threat.
Speaking Fukushima, it almost survived both the earthquake and the tidal wave. I remember hearing that it would have survived, had the backup generators for the controls not been swamped by the exceptional height of the wave coming over the tidal wave barrier.
Newer designs of reactors would have been fine too, having many more safeguards.
I think we Brits had the first nuclear meltdown though.
Our first reactor went critical and burned for three days straight.
Ofc no one knew about it for decades as the whole thing was very hush hush.
They actually carried on using it afterwards, which just goes to show that to some degree, safely was a concern, even if the science was still getting there.
Dave is trying to hurt me. I’m sure of it. Aside from the fact that we get another shot of the perfect Miss Gwen there in the background, he has to go and drop in not 1, not 2, but 3 redheads! Okay, we’ve seen one of them already, and she’s not exactly my type – but redhead!
I live in the wrong universe. Must have my wife go goth this Halloween (luckily she often accepts my requests and uses them as a chance to play around a little).
Oh, meant to say this earlier, but the expression is, I think, generally used for confusion and/or mildly focused thought.
It may have been addressed before, but have we identified the emo guy in the leather jacket seated in panel six (below Katarina)? Maybe he is the representative from the ‘Emo-jis’, a mute race that communicates through a wide range of facial expressions.
This thread deals with the grouping around him. He is Gregor, who represents the Lycans.
You asking that though, makes me wonder about that panel. It appears to me that we are missing a person. Gildomar has provided an explanation though, if you check the thread linked above. Namely taking it that Maxima has made an error and called Gregor’s daughter “Clover” by mistake, who then corrects this to say “Katrina”.
The only trouble is that it does not read that way to me.
Maxima’s line introduces Clover, as Gregor’s daughter. Then she moves on to the next person, who, not recognising her, she says “I don’t know…”, to which Katrina supplies her name. Ergo both Clover and Katrina are present.
Prior to this revelation I took Lethane as being the cloaked individual, in front of Chorius, standing next to Gregor’s chair. Now though, I can only assume that Gregor’s daughter Clover is in the one wearing the cloak. Given that, separately, Katrina’s speech bubble incontrovertibly identifies her. Likewise there are obvious associations between both Iradon and Decollete with their respective introductions. So all others are accounted for.
Which means that Lethane is not visible.
Her introduction though is positioned in the gap that the cloaked Clover is facing. Has Clover been talking to an invisible person there? Given that Lethane “speaks for the Odysians”, perhaps he or she is using the cloak of invisibility (the original one, of Greek legend)?
I am not convinced by this mind, given that Maxima does not have the ability to see the invisible. Gildomar‘s explanation therefore is the more reasonable. But it does not explain Maxima’s dialogue.
*scratches head, with paw, in confusion*
Ahh, Obtusity has solve the dilemma I raised.
My error is clearly just down to my problems with names. Despite having used the big fluffy one’s name a lot already I simply did not make the association with him, when Maxima’s dialogue mentioned “Gregor”.
As an aside though, Gregor’s daughter, Clover, has a look which very much masks her gender. O.B. Juan was perfectly reasonable in identifying her as “an emo guy”! I certainly did not take it any other way myself.
No, you correctly identified Lethane
How could you forget what Gregor looked like? Specially seeing how he shows up again in the very next panel? o_O
I did not forget what he looked like, I did not associate the name as being someone we already knew. My brain does not forget these things. It just does not link me to it.
Besides which there is more than one Gregor in the world. Quite often you will get multiple people with the same first name, in any one room. :-P
Two lycans named Gregor on the same council just might be stretching it a little :P
Names can run in families or clans. Sydney herself being an ideal example. Ancient Rome only had a very limited number of names, so you would invariably have several individuals, within each generation, sharing a name. Plus the culture of the various factions, within this chamber, may not yield the same kind of norms as we expect in modern Western society.
But none of that is relevant mind. If you recognise the name as being one associated with someone who is present, the rest falls into place easily, and there is no problem. But if your brain does not tell you “this is a familiar name, you know who this is” then you do not think to do that. You treat it the same as you would do with the name of any other stranger.
Was just messing with ya, have a Yorpie
*wags tail, companionably*
My apology to Clover. When I read the page my brain did not link the name to the assumed gender I saw of the person sitting there. I should be more careful, especially with non-human races around. I hope they have the bathrooms in this place set up to handle the needs of the attendees. The delegates from Xandar 4 may complain “Bathrooms for only TWO genders? We are insulted.”
One of the societies I was in at university, they banned my first name.
Of about 40-45 members, there were twelve of us, and things were getting confusing.
We then banned the second most common name, because there were seven of them and they were having the same problem.
Almost half the members had the same two names (and both make names too. With a roughly even distribution of gender, there were not many guys with non-banned names), and no, the society has nothing to with names whatsoever.
Unfortunately for me, my second name was the other banned name in the society…
I was one of five pups with the same name, in just one class. Our teacher was the deputy head and delegated corporal punishment administrator, for the whole school. Plus was cross-eyed. Which was significant, because when he “looked at you”, with his cross-eyed gaze, and demanded an answer from “you”, by name, you could still not be sure if he was talking to you, or the guy to your left, right, ahead or behind you.*
It made for a nerve-wracking environment, for all five of us!
* Yes, we were all seated in that arrangement. And, because we were working on projects, which were kept in those locations, we could not spread out.
We are missing the dwarf and the pokemon representatives…
I think they were trying to gloss over the pokemon bit with that comment about “miscellaneous.” If Syd knew about the pokemon, there would be no salvaging the situation.
We are actually missing quite a few, but Sydney fainted before Maxi could finish the introductions
Who’s the grey-haired kid next to Dabbler? Everyone else has a name line up, but that one’s not named?
That’s… Pixel, she has pink hair, and she is Sydney’s new rival
With the name “Twilight Council” (probably preexisting Stephanie Meyer’s work by several decades at least), I wouldn’t be surprised if Ingsol’s getting some jokes about sparkling in the daylight. And/or Gregor’s getting some about being on Team Jacob, having a temp at 108 degrees, etc.
I am not entirely happy about this.
It does make marginally more sense than Dabbler being the sole alien, but then it kinda detracts from the “realistic” premise of real world+superheroes. And it puts extra strain on Sanderson’s law to keep it interesting.
So yeah, not dropping the series or anything but I do think pure superheroes would be way more interesting.
You need to state which law you are referring to, if an individual has made multiple laws.
Personally I think that the modern consensus amongst fictional writers indicates that one should limit the number of fantastic elements (if dealing with ‘our world but X is different’). Which I strongly agree with.
However the Grrlverse has already, prior to this scene, established that the following exist:
• Super powers
• Creatures of legend, which are actually humans with super powers
• Aliens*
• Demons
• Magic
• Psionics
So no new elements have actually been brought into the setting, as all the introduced individuals may well fit within one or more of these categories.
What has been done though is to show that there are a lot more of them than we suspected. And much more variety, within the indigenous hidden peoples. Although the latter aspect does confirm that the legendary creatures breed true (perhaps in the traditional sense, or in the contagious alternative). Admittedly it also shows that Bigfoot is not the only one adept at concealing himself from modern society.
But, yea, all that said, if folks were looking for a straight super-hero story, it has diverged from that. But it is not unusual in the genre mind. Many of the big franchises have aliens, magic, psionics, demons, gods and various types of non-human races.
* Early on Dabbler indicated that there is a galactic civilisation. And the club scene, and subsequent conversations, have indicated that there are many types on Earth.
Well, we did not actually see any demons, and Magic and Psionics could easily fall under purview of super powers (e.g. Scarlet Witch and Professor X).
Also it would be way more fun to keep Dabbler as ambiguous as to wether she actually is an alien or just a metahuman with delusion/confabulation/lying compulsion.
Actually we did. During the scene that Dabbler was telling Sydney about the Succubus race. We saw (and by implication Sydney was told) about Dabbler going to school with a varied bunch of demons. At the time the author confirmed that scene to be canon.
Which, taken with the authors comments regarding this comic, we now know to be representatives of various genetically related, but otherwise separate races. Plus there was also the demon in Dabbler’s flash-back. It too was of another distinctly different type.
Whilst they could have been waved away by explaining that they were false memories, it would contradict information in Dabbler’s cast information, which indicates that she is the progeny of three different races. Then of course Dave has let us know that Dabbler’s adventures in Wereworld, which detailed her prior adventures, in space, is also canon. Finally in her bio, it also says
We would not expect to be lied to in such information, and Dave has kept true to that, from the outset. He has provided the occasional hint, as to the breadth of the setting, and confirming these aspects of it, in particular, prior to the current page.
Such as seeing Gwen casting a spell, having Deus make an authoritative sounding comment about the lack of illusionists on Earth (with the implication that he knows other magics are more common), and the glimpse of the blue non-human, unmasked by the Truesight Orb, at the Grand Canyon.
I, for one, am glad that Dave did not go down the route of having Dabbler being a compulsive liar or delusional. That would seriously cheapen the character, for little gain. Albeit that it would make for an interesting personality/character, it would not be the one that I have grown fond of.
Well, we’ve seen Dabbler talk about it, so it could (with, admittedly some stretch of imagination) to consider it part of her confabulated past. Well, if not for WOG that is, and I missed that part.
And yeah, there had been hints and pointers that supers are not the only extranormal things in the comic, but nothing that could not have been swept under the rug if the author wanted it.
As to “. Albeit that it would make for an interesting personality/character, it would not be the one that I have grown fond of.” – I would actually love to seriously consider the implications of EXISTENCE OF LITERAL HELL (and I cannot emphasise this enough) on stuff like politics and law of the goverment and how would they even establish whether any of Dabbler’s claims on existence of aliens and heaven and hell is actually factually true, but apparently everything but sentient sinks does exist, and has existed for some time now and nobody cares, so we’re not likely to see anything like that.
Actually nothing we have seen yet rules out Hell being real. In fact, when Sydney pressed Dabbler on the issue of whether she was an alien or a demon, Dabbler replied “Can’t I be both?”
Just because demons are aliens, does not mean that Hell does not exist, nor does it rule out that you might get to see it.
*pops a marshmallow onto a stick, and pokes it in the fire*
Yeah, existence of Hell is definitely not ruled out. If anything it’s reinforced.
But a serious discussion about it is now rather unlikely.
The scenario when an actual demon from hell arrives and brings actual tangible and persuasive proof that Hell exists and therefore likely Heaven exists and God exists, that would be thought-provoking and demand a serious discussion.
If everything but a sentient kitchen sink exists, and has existed for some time and has been known to exist, and apparently this is still the world like ours, then we are unlikely to actually delve into the implications, which is kinda sad for me.
And you don’t really have to have Dabbler be delusional per se, just keep it ambiguous enough.
She does make HUGE claims on very little actual basis.
That we know of
I wonder what credentials Katarina has for being there? Surrounded by vampires, werewolves and other monstrous-appearing individuals, she looks suspiciously normal.
My impression from context is that she’s part of Gregor’s pack, like the 2 sirelings are with Ingsol.
Or, she could just as easily be Extra-Terrestrial, like Irra beside her
Just because she doesn’t look ‘alien’ doesn’t mean that she isn’t (plus, we only see her head, her left shoulder and right hand, that may be the only parts of ‘her’ that is ‘human’-looking)
Somewhat related: Archon seems to have a really large contingent, compared to the other representative groups. Two for the Lycans, two for the Fey, three for the Extra-living, a number of single ambassadors. And from Archon, we have Maxima, Sydney, Pixel, Dabbler, Zeph, and Gwen. Show of force? Indication of primacy in the council? Need to travel in greater numbers because there’s imperfect trust of the other contingents? (Though there seems to be at least friendliness (and history) with the Extra-living and Lycans, so that last possibility seems unlikely on its face. Also, I’m not sure who needs to be in the room for *Maxima* to feel threatened.) Or possibly it’s a less formal arrangement than I’m assuming, and whoever shows up at any given meeting is who shows up, and maybe next time there will be a whole pack of Lycans while only Maxima and Zeph will represent Archon.
I’m fascinated to see how the politics of this entire thing pan out.
There are a number of possibilities. At a guess Archon both represents humanity (which vastly outnumbers the other races) and provides a safe venue to meet, in which case several of the team may be there to act as security and buffers for unfriendly council members. They’ve brought a mage, a techno-mage, Maxima, Halo, and Pixel but given the company her powers are probably not weak unless they’re mission specific.
It seems like a helluva lot of trouble for Max to go through just to bring Sydney to a “poker game”…
;)
Obscure reference in MST3K? You mean like the time he said, “Oar Folkjokeopus?”
Groking (pronounce the o like otter for those who don’t know) goes a little deeper than understanding although that is mostly how it’s used now. To grok something is to understand all aspects of it and to be able to feel it from all sides as though it is a part of you. If you grok someone you have to love them because you understand how they feel on everything so well that you could never hate them. Most people are incapable of both the level of empathy and the level of thought necessary to grok a person although they MIGHT be able to grok an object or concept. Ex: Fanatic Islamists grok nothing because they are too far into their own twisted ideology to grok even that ideology, else they would realize that said ideology accomplishes nothing but murder and oppression of others.
> SydneyDoingTheFryDrooling.gif
I’m not sure I would have used the word ‘twilight’ there, and not just because someone used the word for the tittle of poorly written novels. Something like ‘Cryptic’ or ‘Outsider’ could be more encompassing of things like aliens and attractive horned mole people.
Mmm, I am with Dave on Twilight Council. Its poetic nature conjures up aesthetic imagery. Wheres your suggestions lack the positive connotations, which can stem from that and, in fact, have negative ones instead.
‘Cryptic’ implies something that has been deliberately created to conceal the truth and be evasive (see ‘cryptic crossword’ as an example). Which will automatically raise suspicions for anyone who may have dealings with it.
‘Outsider’ fails on many counts. Folks are very often suspicious of outsiders. It will not sound representative of the native-Earth factions, they are hidden Earthlings, not outsiders. If you are an ‘outsider’ how can you claim any right to a say in local matters? The term alone will promote feelings of isolation and exclusionism‡ amongst the membership and between the various factions.
‡ I have been hanging around too many Americans, for too long.
*sigh*
I was thinking you could have the Cryptid Council. (Bonus points for alliteration!)
Drawback is that of course they know that they exist so the name isn’t particularly accurate. Unless one of the main goals is to ensure their status as cryptids to the world at large.
These kinds of meetings usually have a break at some point for refreshments. The catering job for this group could be quite a challenge.
“Um, Max. We are out of the sausage links and the Lycans are starting to eye the other guests. And a pixie just dropped some cloves of garlic into the blood wine as a prank.”
Important announcement for Pokemon Go players
Sydney is a pokestop (panel 5). But you must seek her permission before attempting to catch any pokemon, in her.
The latest news on the game is that China has initiated a full scale invasion of Japan, by spoofing the GPS signals on their Pokemon game devices. There are no servers in China set up to play the game and there are no Google GPS locations for Chinese Poke-spots. The nearest location with the game is Japan, so Chinese players picked that. Jailbreaked (jailbroken?) devices are usually needed to install the fake GPS software, so the users may be opening themselves up to other malware.
https://www.techinasia.com/chinese-gamers-ruining-pokemon-japan
And Russia believes it is a CIA plot, so to counter it they have introduced their own version where players hunt down and collect Russian Historical figures (but no fighting allowed)
Soo. I see a pixie and some kind of elf. Very pale elf (Drow/Sylvan mix?). Tolkienesque in size. But what kind of elf do these represent? Seelie(or Unseelie) court? Tuatha de dannan? Or the Elder Scrolls variants (Altmer, Dewmer, Dunmer, Bosmer and so on), D&D variety? Nordic Alfr? Or just your common denominator for all things elven.
If it is the latter, there is only the one. Pointy ears.
:-O
Maxima, are you an honorary member of the Fey races faction?
*looks around worriedly*
Oh no, it is… the thing which is never spoken of… My love of stroking silky, pointy, ears, may have gotten me into trouble!
I must wonder about how trilla feels about…..keyholes…
yeah, how could you fully parse the rest of the sentence with that un-paired quote still hanging open?
I think the only reason Sydney didn’t produce “The Squee Heard ‘Round the World” before passing out is that her voice went ultrasonic, so only canines and bats heard it.
I’m revoking your nerd card for insufficient familiarity with Heinlein. But perhaps I’ll reinstate it for teaching me that SNL has referenced Heinlein.
This has all got rather silly rather quickly.