Grrl Power #448 – Motivated gourmet
Yes, I’m aware I used the sound effect “KA-BUN” on the previous page and not “KA-HARE.” Basically just because KA-BUN was funnier sounding. And Sydney glossed right over it so we should too…
The species drift thing with the lycans seems like something that could make for some interesting drama… if this was a comic about lycanthropes. As it is I’ll leave it for one of the multiple spin off comics I’ll never have time for. Let’s see, so far there’s Arc-LIGHT adventures, as briefly glimpsed on this page (by the way I’m well aware blood banks don’t keep open swirling vats of blood around, panel 3 is just what Sydney is imagining happened.) Basically it’s BPRD meets Fringe. Then there’s Demon High, as briefly glimpsed here. There’s actually probably some others I’m forgetting about.
Anyway, Katrina is slightly off about it being intra-genus drift, or at least she’s simplifying it for brevity’s sake. Basically there’s like a 1 in 10-12 chance of an intra-species drift, so a werewolf might spawn a were-dog, a 1 in 40 chance of an intra-genus drift, so a werewolf might spawn a were-jackal. Roughly 1 in 100 chance of an intra-family drift, so werewolf to were-fox, and about a 1 in 750 chance of an intra-order drift, so werewolf to were-tiger. From there it spikes. ~1 in 10,000 chance of intra-class drift (werewolf to were-rabbit or were-gazelle) and no one knows if there’s a chance of an intra-phylum drift because as far as anyone knows lycantropy is restricted to mammals. No were-fish or were-birds. That isn’t to say the Grrl-verse (I guess that’s really the term I’m using) doesn’t have humans who can turn into bird of fish hybrids, but they’re something other than lycans.
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I know guys who would volunteer….
80% of the readers probably would.
Only 80%? Lycanthropy (as portrayed here, at least) is a ‘curse’ with fairly minor negatives and ‘yuge’ positives. Its effectively an enhanced survival trait.
Well some are alergic to dog hair and some just find it uncomfortable.
People can be aesthetically as well as morally very picky.
Yep. Were-Lizard or GTFO :p.
80%?
I highly doubt that, you are massively overestimating the amount of readers that are willing to “sacrifice their humanity” in that way.
Being both a Furry and an Otherkin (Feline Therianthrope) and critical of how these things, has made me aware of those forms of make-believe and how people may perceive them.
I think readers of El Goonish Shive has a higher percentage rate than this comic for possible volunteers, and I do not think even they would make up 80% of its readers.
See, I’d like to be a were-feline, but ONLY if a “hybrid form” where I keep my personality and mentality is retained, is possible. Not werewolf or werehorse, only a variant of werefeline.
Others may be less picky.
Yet most others, they may like to read about beings like that, but not want to be ones themselves.
I reckon far more readers of GrrlPower would aim for classical superpowers like flight, varying power beams, superstrength and superspeed, rather than some form of animal transformation.
I think the volunteer rate would be heavily affected by control
If it’s purely at-will and one retains one’s normal mind, the volunteer rate will be relatively high.
If one would involuntarily change and become a purely instinct-driven beast under the light of a full moon, much lower.
Of course, but lycanthropy* as presented thus-far in the Grrl-verse is at least as easy and controllable that someone would transform on command in a social setting rather than just tell you that they are a lycanthrope. If there was even a small chance of dangerous (or embarrassing) personality changes or if the transformation was at all painful, they probably wouldn’t go through the trouble.
*Lycanthropy is essentially “wolf-man” in latin, specifically referring to werewolves (through the many humans-who-turn-into-wolves-or-wolf-like-beings in mythology/folklore). Therianthrope would be the “proper” blanket term for humans that turn into animals. D&D uses “lycanthrope” for all were-creatures and so do everyone thus far in the Grrl-verse so I’ll go by that. Maybe the relation between the different lycanthropes made it make sense to use that term while “therianthrope” is used as blanket term for all types of human-to-animal shapeshifters, some of which aren’t infectious (kitsune, selkies, etc.)
If the transformation’s painful then you might aswell still have the option to use it in dire situations. Only mental effects or lack of control would be an issue IMO.
I would be pretty pissed off if I became some kind of feline and people still called me a lycanthrope though. The term is zoanthrope, as in zo’ological park (zoo for short).
Now I want to see a SJW Feline Shifter who’s offended by the racially insensitive lycanthrope being applied to all therianthropes.
I would pay to see that
I’m not even a shifter and I still strongly object.
I would volunteer if it would turn me into a Werebear. That would be awesome, and terrifying to some specific former daily show hosts.
Were-elephant if going big. But then you have the whole issue of if you transform in a room, everyone pointedly trying to avoid talking about you.
So, failing that, were-gorilla would be a good option for me. If sticking to the ‘big is better’ rationale.
Either option gives me certain advantages I lack.
*holds up paws*
But wait, wouldn’t you be half-dog, half-elephant?
Elephant size, increased brain capacity and trunk, dog for the rest of the package, including sense of smell. I could live with that.
*holds leg, extending from snout, and wiggling paw around*
Yea, a trunk would be really useful.
An Elephant’s sense of smell is better than that of a dog. Of course dogs smell stronger when wet.
dude what’s with the asterisks and italics in your comments, you schizophrenic or something
It is a style of writing used in role-playing circles, to indicate when a character is conducting a physical action. There are various different conventions used too. For instance enclosing text in double-brackets, if talking out-of character. I do not do that here though, so folks just have to figure it out themselves.
thanks for the cringe lmao
Dog/gorillas can have the land. Us weresharks prefer the sea.
With were-sharks swimming around in it, I would be happy to leave you to it. Watch out fo the were-dolphins though. Not to mention the were-orcas.
There is a case of an Orca killing and eating a great white not just once but several times and it seems it might be teaching it’s calf how to do it too.
Ew. That orca should eat a shark only once… then go find another shark.
The incident you are referring to was the tourist boat back in the late 80’s, yes? Wherein the great white went into the general vicinity as the orca and baby orca, and the adult took out the great white effortlessly?
There’s actually an entire ‘culture’ of Orcas off of California who have specifically trained in and have a seasonal portion of their diet being the killing and eating of great whites.
With the ‘Word of God’ being ‘no non-mammalian weres’, I suppose that puts were-sharks off the list, however since is ALSO said specifically that there might be other things that might turn into fish or birds, there might be an analogous beastie. Having said that, an Orca is, in fact, a mammal and so a were-orca is on the realm of possibility.
No there is an Island off the Ca. coast where they have a shark observation post for great whites. They saw a commotion in the water and thought a white was hunting but it was the white that ended up dinner. The Orca was very precise in how it killed the shark. I believe it involve turning the shark upside down so it became torpid.
It seems there was a tourist boat that say it first.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SS6NjdGLVZs&ab_channel=SHARKSANDANIMALS
Those warmbloods can’t let us Selachimorpha have anything! They are the biggest and baddest on land so you would think they could let someone else have the sea but noooo.
you’re not a shark.
He looks like one to me. Study the avatar. See, completely submerged, in the water, hence undetectable.
get help.
It killed and ate it several times? Is this shark some kind of immortal? Does it have from-a-single-cell regenerative powers?
Either way, we should probably thank the orca. After all, it is creating a hereditary line of hunters to keep an apparently unkillable predator in check.
Since the fall of the last of the dinosaur guardian lines, the sacred duty has passed to us , the mammalia. Wilhelmina, stop nibbling your flippers! Let your pilot fish do their job. Now tell me who created us orcas?
Yes, that is correct, the great blue wizards. Our sole purpose, as guardians, is to prepare for the day we may be called to oppose the Evil One, and prevent him from multiplying, with every kill, until he has consumed all life in the oceans! When all his bodies will fly forth from the oceans, to kill our surface cousins too.
Remember, with each soul he consumes, where there was one, there will be two. Where there were two, there will be four! Should the Evil One manage to break the cycle, and kill even one of his guardians, rather than falling himself, the Call to Flippers will be sounded throughout the oceans. We are bound, in our sacred duty, to abandon all other activities, and converge.
Remember, you must not snack on our smaller cousins, as The Truce, will be in effect. They will be organising the evacuation of all schools in his path, and will ensure you have any food you need to sustain you, in the war. Now, let us practice our shark fighting skills…
You know, it’s thanks to us generous and humble sharks and our ability to create new biomass from nothing (the laws of thermodynamics are for warmbloods) Earth would be quite dead now. Where do you think we got food during the big mass extinctions? You are welcome.
You also count the oldest known vertebrates amongst your number. Still being a ‘teenager’, up until the age of 150, must suck though!
Taking the mid-point of the age estimate, the shark featured was born in 1,622 when:
• Richelieu became a Cardinal
• The Jamestown massacre started the American Indian Wars.
• Étienne Brûlé was the first European (since the Vikings) to see Lake Superior.
you’re not a shark.
How rude. It is a matter of courtesy to accept somebody’s statements, unless there is an important reason not to. And there is no good reason to stop folks having fun, if they want to.
get help.
“It killed and ate it several times? Is this shark some kind of immortal? Does it have from-a-single-cell regenerative powers? ”
Dead shark. CAPTAIN Dead Shark.
No, just Dead Shark.
That orca must be related to a certain Van Helsing, then.
Sounds like one of the family in clan MacLeod…As long as his head doesn’t get bitten off, he’s good.
It’s TWO of the family, isn’t it?
There can be only one!
When I first saw the second movie, the first thought in my head was, “There should have been only one.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlQOFeRj-uc
you’re not a wereshark.
Ahh, no matter how often you say it, your proof is lacking.
In that case, were-horse for me.
Down side: no opposable thumbs
Up side: built in tap-shoes!
::does a staccatto tap dance with his hooves and flickers his tail::
Sign me up for Were-Tiger! *eg*
I’ll take Were-Bat
Would I be classified as a vampire if I ended up being a Were-Vampire Bat??
If so, your name would be most appropriate.
Weretiger + razor = Awesome Kzin Cosplay!
I don’t know about that cookout thing…If they use Democracy to make group-decisions about things, it could get a little tricky. Think of 2 werewolves & a weresheep voting on what’s for lunch.
Kevin and Kell
or who.
Weresheep: Ahh, steaks win again!? Umm, do you guys mind if I just go over there and graze?
or would it be?
Werewolf: Okay, who’s the wise-guy that voted for Green Salad?
Green Salad? Oh, that was Arthur Dent.
It’s Dent Arthur Dent, get it right
Ford: hurry up or you’ll be late.
Dent: late for what?
Ford: you are?
Dent: Dent, Arthur Dent
Ford: well, Dent Arthur Dent, you’ll be the late Dent Arthur Dent.
But only Slartibartfast knows him by that name. Ford & Trillan know him as Arthur, Zaphod knows him as a semi-evolved simian.
And Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged referred to him specifically as “a jerk. a complete kneebiter.”
Zaphod has called him Monkey Man, but the Head Waiter at Milliways knows him as just Monkey.
At least he did not get called Unjust Monkey..
Well they are very strict about population control.
“Usually”
So you might end up were of Canis adustus, Canis anthus, Canis aureus, Canis latrans, Canis lupus (including any of its subspecies), Canis mesomelas, Canis rufus, Canis simensis, Canis lycaon, or Canis dirus or some other extinct species of Canis.
I wonder if the felis based lycanthropic viruses distinguish between F. catus (Domestic Cats) & F. silvestris (Wildcats) and F. silvestris catus (Feral Cats)
Good question, since the definition of a species is quite subjective.
Sure there are rules tacked on, but they vary wildly across the kingdoms.
How we define classifications is pretty arbitrary. I’d assume that the numbers given are pretty rough estimates that vary widely based on how genetically close the classifications are. Jumping between species in a genus that are more closely related would be more common that species that are farther apart while ones farther apart in the genus would be less common. These are averages for a crap-ton of potential species and I’m not sure how much data they have. How many infections do they have data for? Lycanthropes can’t be TOO common while remaining secret and some might not report their activities.
Makes you wonder if the virus just picks up DNA casettes for all the species it infected as a sort of defective DNA sampling device, and the defect rndomly activates one of them.
Or it could be partly a compatibility issue. If infectee DNA is sufficiently compatible with parent were-species it’s used but if the compatibility is too low a more compatible were-species from the genus is used.
If i’s a magic virus that can infect any species (assuming that’s ow it colected the DNA samples), comptibility shouldn’t be an issue.
MAybe it just mutated and a different casette became active?
Hence could… I’m just fielding a theory.
Thinking from a genetics point of view, this would require massively changing the way the architect genes (not just the Hox, but all versions of them) work. Keep in mind, these architect genes are doing most of there work during development (this should grow into a rib; cells in that area should become the spleen; organize a heart this way, so it can actually function, etc.) not after the organism is already an adult.
Amphibians transition from tadpole to adult over a few weeks. Even in mammals the transition from child to adult takes days (mouse, shrew) to months (deer, wolf) to years (human, elephant, whale), not seconds! Also, the transition is one-way. Once you are an adult, you can change back to a juvenile state. You can become infertile as you get older, but that is not a return to childhood, but usually because of things wearing out and running out of supplies.
Were-anything is caused by way more than manipulating the various architect genes.
Well firstly it’s a magic virus.
Secondly it could have the ability to turn certain cells back to stem cells, allowing them to redifferentiate accordint to a different plan (though it has to be a HUGE virus), as has been shown to be possible.
Kat talks about the symbiote ‘containing its own recessive genes’. Which sounds to me like it is carrying the were-animals genes with it, and appending those to the hosts. Much like some bacteria/viruses (delete as appropriate) splicing their own DNA into humans.
So, rather than adapting what is already there, it is adding DNA from a separate source. Or two separate sources, given the recessive aspect mentioned.
If so, once you analyze a particular were’s DNA you should be able to tell them “you are exhibiting the common version of your lycanthropy, as a were-hare. Your recessive species is were-hamster.” Or conversely “you are a rare hare and your offspring will likely be bunnies”.
Well since it “drifts” to even diferent species and more, my theory is that it’s a magically made virus with an absurd size made by aliens, that was made to catalogue every animal species on earth, but has over time slightly mutated, causing it to partially imprint one of the DNA casettes onto the host, the drift just means a mutation causes the next infectee to maybe switch to a nearby casette, the more similar the specie the more likely, probably because of a DNA/RNA repeat, that causes the replicase to slide along the half-replicated DNA, producing a variable number of repeats.
Btw I just got my microbiology diploma today, yay!
Congrats!
™*throws a party, with trestle tables, groaning under the weight of Yorpie Snax™ and Cuke™.
Yes, well, whenever you notice anything like that, a wizard did it.
or it could be that the author draws whichever animals they feel like drawing.
Sydney’s mental image of blood banks is horrifying.
It’s Sydney. Of course she’s going to start getting Blade and Underworld mixed up. (and then Dabbler starts picking up mental images of Kate Beckinsdale in a leather catsuit…stupid porno sense)
Kate’s catsuit was rubber in the first movie.
Indeed. Surgical-grade latex. Though as Malin Akerman (Silk Spectre II in Watchmen) complained, wearing that kind of thing for prolonged amounts of time makes you smell like a condom. (Thankfully, not a used condom. Ewww.)
Wait, they haven’t heard of talcum powder? o_O
It happens even with that. Studio lights are hot. Action scenes are sweaty. The filming day is long.
That’s why you wear it in for a couple months first: like when we get a fresh hot-water bottle (lurve the smell of a fresh rubber hot-water bottle), at first it’s nice and potent, but after awhile it can get a little too much even for me (and it retains its oily water-repellent texture for months)
They typically have a dozen or more such outfits, so ‘wearing them in’ would not be practical. Plus they are so form fitting that it usually takes a team of people to help put them on, over a period of hours. In conjunction with the rest of the make up process. These are not every-day-wear garments.
And that’s the problem: they are viewing it as ‘just a costume’ instead of as ‘every-day-worn’ garments
Sadly that is because it is the priority of film-makers to make films look good., rather than to give the cast comfortable clothing. For instance not having a zip or any means of simply removing part of the outfit, if needing a call of nature.
Meaning that actors have to avoid eating and drinking, more than a minimal amount, even when everybody else is having a refreshment break. Plus they will loose their lunch break, as will their costume and make-up crew.
Because that is the only opportunity for a bathroom break, which will not interrupt the filming schedule too much. Given the length of time that is needed to remove the outfit enough to perform any bodily functions. Plus bear in mind that filming goes on for months, or even years. The costumes are often cited as being the most hated aspect of such jobs!
Super-hero outfits being amongst the worst offenders. Fortunately they are also helping to change the culture. If studios want to keep attracting big-name actors to the repeat roles, of these films, they have to try and minimise the discomfort. So suit designs are now starting to be built with zips, or more easily removed sections (rather than being a one-piece outfit).
Regardless, even if the actor is lucky enough to have a design close enough to regular wear, to be comfortable, these are still work clothes. Used in the tough conditions I mentioned before. And not ones of the actors own choosing. So you can be sure that most will want to divest themselves of such, at the earliest possible opportunity.
When the actors complain too much, that’s usually when the studios finally do something about it. Remember the space-pajamas from Star Trek: The Motionless Picture?
The entire cast threatened to walk off the set if they didn’t change it. So they did, and what we ended up with are the Wrath of Khan uniforms (which are far cooler-looking).
A good example of what Yorp is talking about (adding hidden zippers or other ways to remove the costume) is the outfit Charlize Theron wore in the movie adaptation of Aeon Flux. It looked one-piece, and the shoes were literally part of the costume, but there were carefully-hidden zips to allow bodily functions and make it easier to remove. In fact, in the “bonus features” section of the DVD, I remember a segment where the costume designer is talking about exactly that… “One of the things we had to consider was how to hide the zipper so the costume didn’t lose its futuristic appearance” (paraphrased)
Other good examples of uncomfortable costumes is the Psylocke costume worn by Olivia Munn; she AND the costume had to be lubed for her to get into it.
Jennifer Lawrence suffered from skin irritation caused by the blue makeup in X-Men: First Class, and it took 8 hours just to apply the makeup (skin irritation caused by the blue makeup is ALSO the reason Virginia Hey’s character was written out of Farscape). By the time Days of Future Past came out, they had gotten the makeup time down to 3 hours because JLaw was wearing a blue bodystocking to which they attached the various latex bits.
And then there’s Malin Akerman, as I already mentioned. Aside from the raunchy smell when removing the costume, it’s LATEX. It’s NON-POROUS. It TRAPS BODY HEAT. All of which contributes to making the costume extra-hot to wear. All that sweat would’ve washed any talcum powder away.
Maybe they need to follow the example of the Aeon Flux costumer and start designing costumes (specially for females) to both look good and be functionally comfortable
No more propping the actor up like a prop in between scenes
@Guesticus
Yeah, but if it’s based on a comic, they’re going to have to be very careful to get it right and make them functionally comfortable. You know how rabid the fans can get if a costume isn’t “perfect”.
I concur. Some of them can get so angry, that they end up having an aneurysm!
I’m glad I’m not the only one thinking that. That’s not how blood-banks work! D:
At least she didn’t imagine a big safe with bars of clotted blood in it or something?
Although a vampire would probably view it more as delicious, than horrifying.
For info Dave does confirm, in his blog above, that it is purely Sydney’s imagination.
Okay, now that’s what I’m picturing… complete with “HERSHEY” stamped in the face of the bar…
No, only if it was brown blood
i don’t think blood bank keep blood in an open tank like this.And chemical plant dont keep toxic product like this for a criminal to fall down in when chased by the local superhero.
DaveB agreed with you in his blog.
If I were Pixel and made that spectacular save, I would be very proud . . . until I realized what I had just had to leap into.
Also if that is how she made the save, she didn’t save anything. The vile is open, and both her and the vile (and it’s contents) still fall into the tank.
It’s possible that Pixel might be able to at least cover the top with her thumb or something before they both land (Splash? Blood Bloop?) into the vat. Then it’s a matter keeping a tight grip until she can get back out.
Then again, it’s just how Sydney is thinking about it…
The blood would be contaminated anyway, I mean the blood isn’t gonna get used in any case, don’t they have a telekinatic or something?
I juts like how the blood is simmering and bubbling……
And not just frozen at -80c
Yea, that made me smile too, on first-read through.
If she fell in, with or without the vial, they’d just flush the vast as “contaminated’
Isn’t one of the guys on the catwalk a “space marine” from waaaaaaay back?
Yup, thought so as well, he was even introduced and named, wasn’t he?
nope, the blood in the vat is the entry point of a massive reservoir that is pumped directly into every single household in the entire country, and has no safety mechanisms of any kind
“Gloop”
Was just about to ask that: who saved Pixel from a (literal) blood bath?
See? It pays to read the other comments first :P
Well, we don’t know Pixel’s velocity. She could be on a flat enough trajectory that she will clear the tank and land on the other side?
Is that the velocity of the laden or unladen Pixel? And European or African Pixel? o_O
Maybe Sydney will be willing to conduct tests, using her tentacle orb?
“Vial,” please. “Vile” means something completely different.
What about a vile vial?
A veiled vial filled with viscous vile venom
Veritably, venerable versatile viable vibrant volatile violent viscous vapour vigilantly virtuously violently visibly victimising vulgar violating villains victoriously!
Vae victis!
That’s it! We’re going to restrict the amount of time you guys can spend with a dictionary!
Agreed, always avoid absolutely awfull allitterations.
How vicious.
haha words am i right
But still appropriate, considering.
…And the bloodbath begins…
For Pixel, anyway.
And… after making that crack about reading comments first, didn’t read yours until too late :(
I’ve been guilty of doing the same thing. Even though sometimes I just don’t have time to read them all before I post, I still try to avoid posting something that would essentially a repeat. But it seems you’ve learned your lesson, so I’ll let it go (eyes narrowing menacingly)…This time.
“(by the way I’m well aware blood banks don’t keep open swirling vats of blood around, panel 3 is just what Sydney is imagining happened.)”
Suggestion if you ever decide to go back and revise: a “thought balloon panel”? I mean the panel’s border incorporates cloudy shapes that make it look like a thought balloon.
DaveBshoulderAngel: That is a really good suggestion.
DaveBshoulderDevil: But it is much more fun, seeing the smoke coming out of their ears, as they fume, at how ‘blood banks don’t work that way!’
Go evil DaveB! Troll us more.
Yeah I probably should. I’ll have to figure out an easy way to do that in Illustrator.
Could always just lift Dan Shive’s rounded corners for imaginary panels.
So a gu was running around stabbing people with used needles, or did he just stick a bloody finger into his drink?
I imagine a more serious version of Sydney’s wild thought: infiltrating a blood bank and contaminating reserves with a syringe.
But he was caught trying to do that
Another option, some stories have lycanthropy able to be transmitted sexually.
OK you owe me for a bottle of Brain Bleach™, to try and get rid of this mental image, of a mad hare humping a packet of donor blood!
BFFFFFFFFFFFFhhhhhehehehe, oh my sides.
But if it’s any body fluid he could just spit in them.
That reminds me;
It’s been a lo-o-ong time since “Peter is the Wolf” has been updated. ￣︿￣
I wonder if it has joined that ever growing list of webcomics which are no longer.… published«?» (in the middle of a story arc no less ╰_╯)!
Yeah, it’s been so long have forgotten what was going on (last real comic was some experiment to control how the big she-wolf wolves out, wasn’t it? usually the trigger is sex)
In one set of stories it can be transmitted by a bite, a claw, by sex, and in mother’s milk, or by any mixing of bodily fluids.
And? We have no way of knowing how long he had been at it before Pixel saved the day
Indeed we do not, but they do.
Any suspect blood would be double-checked for contamination. They have his DNA, so testing for its presence would be relatively straight forward. The qualifier being if there is any complications due to the lycanthropic elements changing the blood. As Arc-Light know about that though, they can ensure that it is factored into the process.
No, was meaning they caught him that time, but how long had he been propagating before they managed to track him down and apprehend him?
The simple fact that they don’t SEEM to be hip-deep in assorted lycans by now is probably an answer in itself.
A reasonable point. Kat might have lots of ‘sisters’, who have been keeping their heads down.
Yorpie Snax™ are accepted here, if you like that mental image.
But do the blood donation stations have a way to detect magic viruses?
Maybe not. But they are designed to detect and discriminate DNA. Plus Kat has indicated that the symbiote carries such.
Arc-light probably has a way to detect thaumaturgical reactivity of objects including blood. Most magic items don’t generate magic, just react when exposed to magic, the reaction should be detectable.
my biggest worry would be does this guy understand about blood types as unless he is o- and he doesn’t know what he is doing he could kill more than he terns
Yeah, O- is probably one of the most likely type to contaminate. It’s a nearly universal donor, being compatible with all but two other blood types.
In a similar vein (pun intended), it’s a good thing that it can’t be spread by contaminating plasma. Plasma is universally acceptable; it’s 95% water, and the rest is mostly glucose, clotting factors, electrolytes, carbon dioxide, and a few proteins that can be found in everybody’s blood. No DNA, though.
all he has to do is filter the blood out of the virus.
Other awkward moments: elephant/hyrax, bat/rat
bat/rat, not to be confused with Ratbat, who is a Decepticon.
I think Disney made a movie of that spinoff recently, it’s called Zootopia :D
But it was after the Lycans infected everyone. So it is somewhat post apocalyptic?
Hmm, maybe an antrocalypse?
Conveys meaning and is gramatically correct, though for diferent reasons.
That does raise a good question. How does the offspring of a were look like? What about between different were species? Or between a were and a non were?
If it’s a virus, the child should be born as a non were, though if it infects through blood, there’s a chance that the child is infected during birth (same way babies from mothers with HIV are born and could be infected).
Unless it works like a retro virus and just modifies DNA and be done with it.
Just ask Blade
Any “scientific” stories tend to ha were & vampiric viruses being retroviral in nature which kinda makes sense considering the changes they make to the body. A magic retrovirus isn’t that much of a stretch from that. This of course assume a successful conception (which most sources which allow for it say is uncommon). In a lot of those cases the result tends to be a hybrid. I’m unsure what a Were- human hybrid is called but I assume you are familiar with Dhamphyrs (which typically can reproduce with a 50/50 chance of Dhamphyr or human children).
Well if it’s a virus of the same strain that causes all the infection, it would make sense that one from the mother would infect him (unless every single cell in the body is infected, which is unlikely, but it is a magic virus so idk).
If all cells are infected, it would tehnically cause the baby to be infected by both viruses on each set of chromosomes (since it’s obviously a retro virus), the result would depend on where the trigger for the transformation is located, making it a 50% chance of one of them (unless it is really spread out, eaning it the kid would either transform partitially with some features missing or a latent form), 25% chance of a latent virus, making them immune to further infection and 25% a hybrid with an unknown ratio of characteristics from both viruses.
But hey it’s magic so it’s 100% depends on the plot.
Still think it would suck to get lycanthropy as a herbivore. I like meat far too much to have my digestion system start rejecting it.
But you ca eat it in your human form.
Lycanthropes regenerate, fast. In were-form you could just carve off a couple of really big drumsticks, cook them up, whilst regenerating the limbs. Then turn back to human, for a humongous meaty feast!
But conservation of mass, you’d be just as hangy as before, not to mention in pain.
If you ask me autocanibalism just isn’t worth it.
I am pretty sure cars are not mammals? And they are not very tasty. :-/
Great for sticking heads out of windows though.
I think Daniel the human is a were-transformer. But that is cheating, by using technology, instead of magic.
Daniel here. Naa, I’m no Were-Transformer, just stuck babysitting Screwball, the hyperactive Minicon Runt who now has the idea in his head he’s a robot Were-RC-Plane & REALLY has to LEARN how to live with people… -_-
Would losing body parts cause hunger though? If not, it could be an interesting weight loss scheme, if somewhat distasteful.
This seems to be an odd misconception that a lot of people have.
Herbivores can eat meat. Easily, and naturally. Heck, there’s some deer on a little Scottish island somewhere up there that HUNT and eat small birds.
Meat is easy to digest. Protein is easy to break down into usable proteins, by pretty much any digestive system- that’s part of why baby animals of all kinds (including herbivores) drink milk- a protein smoothie.
Now, the other way around isn’t true. Obligate Carnivores (that is, cats, as opposed to Dogs or Bears which, while being mostly carnivorous, can also eat certain plants) cannot eat plants, and MUST eat meat.
Check out Night of the Lepus for a hilariously bad movie about man-eating rabbits.
But yeah, were-hare here can chow down on steaks and burgers just like the rest of them, and the worst that’s gonna happen is weird smelling farts and maybe a little indigestion.
They eat only the skulls, and carefully discard the meat. They do it to provide calcium in their diet.
What fart doesn’t smell weird??
A brain fart.
It still triggers the olfactory-control parts of the brain, so you still think it smells weird.
Nah, there are certain enzymes that are required to properly (or at least efficiently) digest meat. You can build them up through repeat consumption but going from pure vegetable matter to large quantities of animal matter (including much heavier fats than plants tend to contain, it’s not the protein necessarily) will cause some digestive trouble and illness. Vegans who go back to consuming large portions of bacon after years off, say, do not do well.
That said, a were-herbivore would almost certainly retain some degree of the gut flora and fauna of their human self, meaning that the animal would have some predisposition towards meat eating that its wild counterparts would not share.
The idea is not just whether or not I COULD eat meat, it’s the idea that as a were-herbivore, the taste of meat might become less enjoyable.
As a human, my diet is comprised heavily of meat. In fact, I tend to design my meals around it. While I do eat plenty of vegetables, fruits, grains, and dairy (I’m not stupid enough to go full carnivore), I do lean heavily on the flesh of animals. I do this because I love the taste. A good rare steak, a juicy burger, a nice cut of porkchop, bacon wrapped anything, chicken nuggets, fish tacos…I like meat. So if anything caused me to lessen my enjoyment of meat, I would do everything to avoid it.
That seems perfectly reasonable and is somewhat equatable to why I’m not an astronaught. Microgravity ruins the blood distribution in the body, causing one’s tongue to swell up and everything to taste kind of like you have a cold.
That and it turns out I’m highly dehydrated protenous gunk intolerant and get 36hr stomach aches.
Just demand that your vehicle be equipped with a centrifugal living and working area, to provide artificial gravity. Likewise ensure that they provide proper meals. Don’t fly with some cheapskate budget outfit!
No were-birds? I’ll never see any of my kind on here.
In almost every myth I can remember lycanthropes are decidedly mammalian. Other beastmen like lizardmen, harpies, lamia, etc. tend to fall into other categories.
You could switch to White Wolf games…They have a couple of varieties of werebirds there. One of them that I remember off the top of my head is the Corax, a werecrow.
…Avoid them when they’re in groups…
Unless you are about to report…
a Moider (lame ‘Taggart’ accent)
It’s not a “Moider” it’s a “Murrrrdurrrr!”
Was trying to remember how to spell something hadn’t heard in over ten years (probably longer), and did say it was a lame accent
Lame? *squawk*
The full line was “there’s been a murder”
He’s had some classic lines over the years.
“There’s a mad man oot there pumpin’ bullits in folk”
“What does the poison do?”
“It kills people, sir”
And
“Last name?”
“Taggart.”
“First Name?”
“Chief Inspector.”
“Do you work on the buses?”
Didn’t mean his accent was lame :(
Can remember back in the day, there was call to have the show subtitled, into English!!!!
That is sad. Plus your avatar reminds me of this.
*tears welling up in eyes*
*sniff*
Whatever happens, I must not cry. You cannot make me cry.
*bawls*
Tears welling up because of where that bird pulled those nails and hammer out of? o_O
Kiwi ingenuity at it’s finest :D
By the by, did you know it was actually a kiwi who had the first manned flight? Couple years before the Wrong Brothers in America (it took that long for the news to reach the rest of the world :()
That tool kit did make the eyes water.
But never ask a grumpy old man where to put something like a hammer.
So somebody rode a kiwi, big whoop.
https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/449061-safety-instruction-parodies
‘Nuff said.
*snif*
You bastard, it took me half an hour to wade through that site.
Then my work here (in this thread) is done.
Do birds even salivate?
*tries to spit*
Nope. But we have other ways of decorating your car.
I’m off to the pub, I’m spitting feathers here.
Other ways to decorate scooters, too.
And ways to feed catgirls.
https://www.collectedcurios.com/sequentialart.php?s=889
The next couple of pages are the best in the comic.
The rest of it is good enough mind, that it has now been put in my permanent read list.
Statues are always on the wrong end.
https://nsfw-comix.com/nsfw065.htm
https://nsfw-comix.com/nsfw067.htm
Warning: The website linked is NSFW. No, seriously…That’s the actual name of the website.
Those were quite funny. Thanks for the link.
Wouldn’t Superman poops be like Super-dense?
That depends on what he ate, I guess. I remember one issue where Kryptonite had been rendered harmless, but the word hadn’t gotten out to all the criminals yet; Superman stopped a bank robbery in progress, and one of the robbers threatened him with a lump of Kryptonite.
Superman ate it.
“A little stale, and it could use some salt.”
I’m not sure I want to be nearby when he poops that out. Someone might get hurt.
That doesn’t mean there aren’t other shape-shifters that can become birds.
I’ll keep my feathers crossed.
Sign me up.
I’ll be a were-human.
A human with the power to transform into a human!
Ranma ½
Hmm, that would be interesting if the other form would look completely different from you.
Wait, so all the mettings of “guys that all look really similar” are a actually all werehumans!!
You are probably familiar with the clan of the were-Baldwins.
https://cdn1.thr.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/gallery_landscape_1296x730/2015/06/baldwin_brothers_h_15.jpg
That’s cheating: they simply posted the same guy at different ages (and one after a traumatic head injury)
It was a brilliant scheme, to break out of type-casting. Perfect four different personas, and have each of them pursue ‘separate careers’, in the same industry., as ‘brothers’. Aided by recruiting some look-alike stand-ins, for the occasional red carpet event, where more than one might get invited.
Also, you’d have a small chance to sire a werechimp.
I’m pretty sure that would retroactively drive Darwin insane.
Do you think… gasp… may we have discovered the ‘missing link’? Humans are just chimp-wolf lycans, who attempted a hairless, weak, blunt-toothed hybrid form (presumably intended for crossing deep rivers, without scaring any local prey). Who mutated, and were locked out of changing, to their other forms?
Do you think wolves see werewolves as werechimps?
is it just me or is the dude behind the villain in panel 3 got black face and arms but white legs?
An African American Arclight Agent is holding a white perp from behind.
How can you tell what colour his legs are? He is wearing jeans!!
You noticed the colour of his legs through his jeans, but not noticed he had two heads and three arms? o_O
He’s seeing the Arclight Agents boots.
Oh right, those
So it can be any mammal? Could the guy from the last panel of this page be a weresloth? Do weredolphins have a hybrid form that looks like a mermaid (or merman)? Can werebats have a human-sized hybrid form that can fly?
Possibly. But why would he put on a sloth suit, with fake claws? Note the zip on the suit, and the straps holding the claws in place.
Dang, that is a good one. It seems likely to me. Barkley has a hybrid bipedal form, so it would follow.
Kat is human sized, in her hybrid form. So clearly size disparity is not an issue for her, so probably would not be a problem for the bat.
The flying aspect would depend on whether the magic aided that. I do not think that a human sized and shaped individual would be able to fly without such. The wings would need to be as big as a hang-glider’s to do that. And it would not be able to fly, even then, only glide. But additionally it is beyond the size stipulated.
Concur on all points, particularly the human-sized flyer – the musculature speed necessary for a human-sized individual to generate sufficient lift is… improbable. Even birds can only do so because their entire bodies are built around flight – super high metabolism, hollow bones, minimal functionality outside flight itself…
Something like this.
1st, I DEFINETLY voluntair to be a test subjet for the ratio of were species. My furry vain claims it.
2nd. lycantrhopy means wolfman. the soud have a more universal name like bestiatropia.
And the result comes in…. Humpback Whale… Have fun
Would that be a human sized wale of a whale sized Wale?
A blue whale would give a hybrid form an unusual advantage.
…I’m not clicking that.
Where do you think the word ‘dork’ originated? :D
Don’t worry, it’s safe.
Most things are rendered safe, once treated with taxidermy…
My preferences don’t go that way, but I suspect that at that ratio, it’s not necessarily an advantage… Would any… [ahem] “receivers” like to opine?
Hybrid forms mean you can control where on the spectrum between human-sized and animal-sized you are. 8ft might be unpleasant but that’s an upper bound for your powers.
Hey I was in that museum!
no you won’t make me klick that! I can resist!
“He’s going to be very popular.”
~Igor
Haha, that movie hs good quotes.
He vould have an enormous schwanzstucker.
Voof.
*sings* “Oh, sweet mystery of life at last I’ve found you!”
Anitrophe?
i believe the collective term is theriomorph
Or Zoanthrope, combining the -anthrope suffix with the same word for animal used in the term “Zo’ological Park”, commonly shortened to Zoo.
I am going to stick with the one Sydney used. The girl is smart enough to know the correct term.
Plus, importantly, it was immediately recognised and understood. On account of being the word most often used, in such a context. Thus its meaning has grown beyond its etymological roots. Further ‘lycan’ is an oft used abbreviation, of the same, which is snappy to use. Whereas ‘zoa’ or ‘zoan’ sound weird. And ‘therio’ carries little or no meaning, to the general public.
But folks can use whatever they want, of course. The CDO segment, of the readership, will appreciate it at least.
I concur that use define language, but as a side note the downside to give an existing word a new meaning, especially a close one (and the one reason to do NOT encourage it) is that you start dealing with ambiguity.
“I met a lycanthrope! Isn’t that cool?”
“Not necessarily, what kind?”
“Oh, right, the wolf one”
“Yeah, that’s cool”
Then in order to deal with it you need to figure out a new name for the old meaning, or shift to use a synonym if one already exist, both of which can take time to spread.
An unsolvable issue, though, is all the literature from before the new meaning, that can become ambigous since there was no need to clarify at the time.
BTW: My personal feel is that it’s “Were” the umbrella term that has been becoming popular.
Agreed on “Were” as a colloquial generic term. It seems to be used that way and certainly doesn’t have the inherent inaccuracy of “lycanthrope” on a non-wolfie.
It doesn’t feel like something that’d be used outside informal conversations though.
Heh, I like how Sydney’s minds-eye has created a vat of blood, like a cannery might have a vat of tomato-soup. But her imagination has gone wild, on this page.
Heh! Even that wouldn’t be an accurate depiction. Soup vats in food factories are fully enclosed (except for a hatch that can be sealed) & the liquid ingredients are pumped in from pipes. The hatch is so that the Batch Cook can add the other ingredients.
IT’s probably “Vat of acid(TM)” from Batman, the one the Joker fell in.
Given the nature of the Joker, I’ve often wondered if that was the legal sort of acid.
Her imagination go wild on every page she is in.
Only the most important one ever proposed! Grrl Power After Dark. The scenes too naughty for Grrl Power Original Flava!
coupla thoughts:
A) in your blog, did you mean ” From there it spikes. ~1 in 10,000 chance of intra-class drift” or
” From there it spikes. ~1 in 1,000 chance of intra-class drift”
‘Cuz either you’re missing a zero, or the comma is in the wrong place :)
@ Baldrickk:
B) Marvel Man was kind of a were-human. A guy with the power to change into a large, powerful, (meta-)human
His numbers do seem to follow a fairly reasonable parabolic increase…
I was actually thinking all his numbers “feel” a little low, even considering the small populations, that’s a LOT of drift.
Yeah, 1 in 10,000. I fixed it.
Is Sydney warming to Pixel? Mentally casting her, diving in such a heroic role?
Question is puppy, are you warming to Pixel-icious? o_O
Maybe he’s just into fairy types?
Maybe, or maybe she’s the only member of Arc-Light she could think of at that moment.
Well she has known the head of Arc-Light a couple of days longer. Such as at the lengthy debriefing, following the battle.
If he fails on the ‘not sexy enough’ front, how about Leon? We do not know his position, in the organisation, but Sydney had several hours chatting to him, so if he is Arc-Light, she would likely know, by now.
However, nope, it was Pixel, who has to fall into the vat of blood. But she could not be seen walking the streets, covered in blood. So Pixel would have to strip off all those blood-soaked clothes and… what.. stop looking at me like that, Guesticus. No, I am not falling for Pixel. Sydney though?
You’ve been falling for Sydney since day 1.
*nods*
Guilty, as charged.
Join the club.
We have jackets.
He’d rather you have Yorpie Snax™
Less sewing (manual or machine) involved
Honestly Sydney doesn’t know a lost of Arclight agents yet. It not completely surprising she cast one of the few she knew.
Either that, or the next panel of Sydney’s imagination has Pixel falling into the open vat full of blood. She’ll never get that out of her hair.
Yea, I could well see Sydney taking it there.
Perhaps Pixel’s hair used to be white? But the stains have not quite come out yet.
Pfffft, or maybe she tried the old “tomato soup cleans all” recepy and it dyed her hair.
Nahh. Pixel got downwind of a Were-Skunk spray, and tried to get the smell off with tomato juice.
Tried it briefly, it does surprisingly little. You’d need Kool-Aid to be that vibrant.
Not so sure because she’s got her doing the sidekick job while the hero fights the actual villain. Basically turned her into robin.
Nah, Sydney was just thinking of how inconvenient & funny (to Sydney, at least) to envision Pixel taking a blood bath. First impressions are lasting impressions so it might take quite a while for Sydney to change her mind…Except maybe for people with ADHD like Syd….Ooo, look! A Squirrel!
Took me a minute to realize why Katrina looked slightly less adorable, she lost her whiskers in this page.
Heh wouldn’t be the first time Dave accidentally left something out though he usually fixes that pretty wick when he finds out.
Did you think she might have burnt her whiskers off? ;-)
In the final panel, where did they get all of the meat for the cookout? It happened when one of the neighbors came over to try to borrow something and saw all of those weres. The neighbor had seen to much then and . . . well, let’s just say that one thing led to another.
Mind you, if there were really that good a chance that his friends and family might messily devour him, I’m guessing the were-gazelle would just find somewhere else to be until everyone had shifted back into their human bodies.
OR maybe the neightbours were just told they have a rare hair disorder.
Sort of like Dukey?
Heh, I wondered if anyone’d get that reference.
Hopefully we’ll also learn about those orbs Sydney discovered while in Florida…!
Were’s the pun in that? o_O
So smile, darn you smile!
For Better or For Worse! *lol*
I loved that strip. Made by a fellow Canadian! *grin*
um, i was referencing batman animated series?
Look on the bright side: if you’re going to contract an incurable, life-changing disease, leporidthropy is probanbly better than AIDS.
Since it’s a magic virus, maybe Xtrophy akes yo immune to HIV?
Zoanthropy.
yet there is a werecastle…
A guy that turns into a castle on dark and stormy nights?
And his name is “Sandy”?
It’s a girl
…and she’s a brick… house
If said castle is a mammal I guess it’s possible in this story.
To a large extent the distinction between species is a human approximation where we try to draw lines around messy borders. After species the distinctions become increasingly arbitrary on whether some set of characteristics makes for.the same genus or not. It seems strange that the laws of magic would pay attention to that, unless this is a rough approximation thing.
But species due to evolution (at least with mamals) do obey a sort of species order where animals hang out in groups of the same species (dogs could mate with wolves and have viable offspring since they are the same species, but wolves hang out in packs so they don’t).
So maybe the virus just draws the line at a certain divergance rate of the animals it infects.
Well that or it saves all the DNA ever, due to magic, and you just get a semi-random one (closer relatiions are more likely).
So maybe most weres have DNA of a different wolf and we just don’t notice and assume it’s the same virus.
Almost every story that contains magic has a point beyond which you cannot logically explain the behavior of the magic without either mind reading capabilities, an extremely advanced model of species’ psyches, or both. You could explain it with story telling necessities, but why not assume mind reading is a part of every magic? (After all, every sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from technology, and technology does exactly the same. E.g. these comments only look like a stack of cards because it helps us, not the computers.)
Which, in turn, would mean that someone (The host of the virus? Its originator? Its creator? The local society?) could be influencing the behavior of the virus, at least subconciously, to follow our mental models.
It’s probably a rough approximation. Then again, we are talking about a magic disease that somehow knows what species currently exist (i.e. it doesn’t mutate into potential animals that don’t have real-world representation), so it can do what it wants.
It’s probably magicish. Still uses real genetics to do it’s work, but amplified by magic
since it apparently stores the DNA for the phenotype of every mammal that ever existed on earth, i’d assume the magic part is it’s storage capacity.
Were jellyfish. That’s pretty much the worst.
And how prey tell would a jellyfish bite you?
More importantly they are not mammals. So it would have to be a mage using a shapeshifting spell, or some explanation other than a were.
There’s also the possibility of a “skin-changer” type of were, so that the shapeshifting is dependent upon a specific item. The Selkie & the Swanmay come to mind as examples.
So I could be a were-dog but the breed might be different from my progenitor and anyone I bite might be different. Personally I’d chose German Shepard for a nice balance of intelligence and strength. But I can see the possibility s in a were-Chihuahua as long as you don’t mind being some ladies handbag pet.
A human sized chiuaua would probably be the stuff of nightmares.
Think of the celebrity security gigs though.
Just imagine those giant eyes staring… But not as scary as a werelemur.
All the better to see stalkers with my dear. Also chihuahuas move pretty fast and have very sharp teeth.
Lemurs are fine, you’re thinking aye-ayes
Yes, that is correct.
https://static3.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_super/11111/111114913/5134780-0045984026-Adult.jpg
Imagine some human transforming into something like this. Maximum creepyness.
Yes, his name was Marty Feldman
Sadly no hoverboard version.
That’s what we’d need! A Back to the Future & Teen Wolf movie crossover!
No Scottish insects!
Or even not as scary as Marty Feldman.
“Damn your eyes!’
“Too late.”
Indeed. Chihuahuas are I think the #2 dog breed most likely to bite (behind Dachshunds). But they are so small that hardly anyone cares – unlike the four breeds of pit bull, which are actually BELOW average in likelihood to bite but tend to do an incredibly thorough job of it when they do bite.
A human-size Chihuahua throws the “so small” thing totally out the window.
Of course, there’s still the question: mentally is it a human-size Chihuahua, or a Chihuahua-shaped human?
Were-Bulldog, if you are looking for something with bite. They are even-tempered enough that they rarely DO bite, but when they do, i believe they can lock their jaws and not let go. I think they can even keep increasing their bite strength, kind of like a ratchet clamp. I do know that in the few stories I’ve heard about it happening and the beast not voluntarily letting go, they had to be pried off using a great deal of effort and strength.
German shepherds are great (as long as you can avoid the hip problems). I had one growing up. She was very protective, intelligent, and gentle with children.
I think you will find that is down to the lederhosen.
That’s a Dachshund and while they also have hip problems later in life they aren’t shepherds. They were bred to hunt rabbits.
this is a German Shepherd: https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmetrouk2.files.wordpress.com%2F2014%2F05%2Fad_134213158-e1399573120511.jpg%3Fw%3D620%26h%3D929%26crop%3D1&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fmetro.co.uk%2F2014%2F05%2F08%2Ffrom-a-union-jack-hoodie-to-german-lederhosen-patriotic-dogs-that-love-eurovision-too-4722074%2F&docid=4oDbuw89bXJadM&tbnid=VSPuQpgQrzeNRM%3A&w=620&h=929&bih=955&biw=1920&ved=0ahUKEwjC_bmDkcHOAhVBk5AKHZaFATgQMwgeKAAwAA&iact=mrc&uact=8
That does not look like lederhosen, to me, which is what I was linking. In fact I had disregarded that image, in my search, for that very reason. The garment was the key image I wished to convey.
But cheers for trying.
Lions and tigers…and a gazelle? Oh, my…
And then the gazelle became a pop star and invited the tigers as backup dancers?
The Detroit Lions have were-players and they STILL can’t manage to win games.
I can imagine training sessions. “Hey, stop that! I don’t care if it is called a pigskin, you can’t eat the ball.”
I was thinking of the grrl-verse eventually having all were teams. This might work out for the Bears, Lions, and Bengals, but the Miami dolphins might find it difficult to make any headway on the field during games.
waterpolo
The Eagles would be practically unbeatable. How would you tackle them?
With nets.
All these monsters…
Kinda really don’t like this new development – the story becomes too much of a Fantasy Kitchen Sink (trope!), which destroys world building coherency. Even one of those things would drastically change the world – and when you have so many of them, it is the “normals” that become a rare breed.
When was the last time anyone saw a regular, non-enchanted forest? You can’t grow two trees next to each other without some wizard or demon coming along and enchanting them.
Most of those ‘monsters’ hold triple PhD’s, the rest, only exist in Sydney’s noggin
It would destroy the world building for a less capable individual, sure. But Dave has clearly thought this out a long time in advance. Look through the press-conference and you can see a couple of foreshadows of this. So his power-structures and stories factor all this into the equations.
Whilst humanity is clearly in a minority, in terms of the number of species kicking around, on the planet, that does not necessarily equate to there being more non-humans, than humans, overall. In fact Gregor’s comment about ‘tightly controlling the numbers’ hints to the contrary.
As does the fact that they (the entirety of all the species represented here) have managed to preserve the secret, for so long!* If there were too many members of any of the species, the incidents of accidental (or deliberate) exposure would be much too frequent to cover up effectively.
* The Twilight Council has been kicking around for a couple of centuries, plus some factions probably date back to prehistory.
I wonder if the Twilight Council as a “new media” team, to create trails of “fantasy” obfuscation.
You had to throw a little reality in the fantasy, didn’t you? I wouldn’t say normals would be a rare breed (7 billion+!), but there sure should have been some leakage or public acknowledgement of information before.
What? You believe the National Enquirer is just a tabloid rag? o_O
Batboy is real!? https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/mt/2014/10/batboy1_1/lead_large.jpg
Batboy wasn’t from the National Enquirer. Which, while definitely sensationalist, tends to be technically accurate. (“Experts say X” – they really are experts, but not necessarily in anything related to X.) Twice I was in a position to verify stories the Enquirer reported, by talking directly to people involved, and the Enquirer was more strictly accurate than the Seattle Times.
If I remember correctly from looking at the covers at grocery-store checkout counters, Batboy is from the Globe. Which is tabloid short fiction, and doesn’t seriously try to be anything else.
Not the Globe or the Enquirer…That’s World Weekly News.
How do you know that there are 7 billion of normals, and not 700 million of normals and 6 billions of secret werehumans?
Actually, this exact comic page perfectly demonstrates one of the problems with such a mish mash of character types: even a single carrier can jumpstart an epidemy of transformations.
And as for Arclight’s ability to fight it: they are no more able to do it than WHO can stop the AIDS.
This council has more resources than the WHO can muster. Think for instance of a “locate lycanthrope” spell. Or a nanites, which can be released into the upper atmosphere to cover the globe, and destroy all members of a particular species.
Any story that has exceptional beings in them usually focuses on those beings and not the normals. Usually a normal is involved to give the audience a relatable self-insert point, but in your typical comic, the X-men deal with the Avengers, the inhumans, aliens, giant robots, etc. Still that entire population of exceptional weirdos represents probably less than 1% of the planetary population. In the Star Wars movies, there are 10’s of thousands of star systems, but between only 3 and maybe 200 jedi+sith, yet all the movies focuses heavily on them.
But basically all I’m saying is this comic isn’t limited to just supers, and this story arc focuses more on the supernatural beings. After this they’ll still be around but they’ll mostly pop in here and there. And in the next story arc, we’ll probably see Sydney get up to some more mundane stuff in places. Though obviously the overarching plot arc won’t be “Sydney goes to the store.”
Besides, doesn’t DC and Marvel do this sort of thing too? Multiple folklore/mythology/fantasy elements exist to offer the widest selection of possible enemies, superhero origins, etc.
I really, really hope that you’ve thought very thoroughly before you decided to include all those monsters.
Because if even a single drop of blood were to fall into the wrong hands – you’d instantly see criminal organizations en masse transforming to such an extent that no Arclight can do a thing against them – and when the governments of the world would have to do the same as an only countermeasure left.
This government has two alternatives. Archon and the Twilight Council. Both of whom have effective countermeasures. But the latter will be much more effective, at dealing with such. They have been doing just that for centuries!
Actually, this comic also implies that Council’s methods are extremely ineffective – they couldn’t stop the propagator from converting several people in a row, and they didn’t cure the werehare.
Ahh, but it may simply have been a matter of transitioning to new jurisdiction. Letting Archon get up to speed on lycan protocols.
‘Curing’ lycanthropy is probably as anathema as ‘curing’ mutants in the Marvel universe.
How would you like to be ‘cured’ of your humanity and reverting back to your ancestral chimp form?
Has it occurred to you that maybe they can’t cure the werehare? Just because zoanthropy exists, doesn’t mean that a cure exists. You can have zoanthropy without a cure, but you can’t have a cure without zoanthropy.
So… that doesn’t happen, unless Dave needs it to?
Another thing about the Empire is that it’s quite human-centered…Because that’s the way Palpatine wanted it. Even though humans are widespread in that galaxy, they still are a minority race.
Also, you will find, that there are no, actual, ‘humans’, you have Naboonians and Alderaanians and what-have-you’s but not ‘humans’ (go check out the list of races available in “Star Wars Combine”, the longest running Star Wars game)
Given the entertainment and plot advancement found in the “Sydney makes a bank deposit” debacle, I see no reason why “Sydney goes to the store.” couldn’t be a plot arc. Obviously it’d have to be well hidden beneath countless other happenings but random superstuff coupled with ADHD distractions would help a lot there.
Stan Lee would make a good cameo appearance in one of those scenes…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8m-NxpUIP0
After all, he’s at least 10x a Master at it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuFQh7nR4No
…And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
I’d more expect to see him at /her/ store.
He’s also done cameos in webcomics too. For one example:
https://www.greystoneinn.net/greystone-inn?sort=923
I wonder if the were-gazelle drives a Chevy Impala.
Would a were-horse drive a Ford Mustang?
Given that a were-hare is named Kat, I’s expect the mustang to be driven by a were-bovine of some variety.
Pardon me, but that sounds like you’re talking some bull…
;)
Weres! Were your dream car is? Here, at were-honest John used cars! Be were of competition, were the cheapest! Grab your jacket, were your hat, come here now!
Fiiiiiiiind your fit!!!
Barracuda (Plymouth)
Beetle (Volkswagen)
Bison (Chevrolet heavy-duty truck)
Blackhawk (Stutz)
Bluebird (Nissan/Datsun)
Bronco (Ford)
Charger (Dodge)
Cheetah (rare 1960s high-performance sports car)
Cobra (Shelby, Shelby-Ford)
Cougar (Mercury)
Fox (Audi, Volkswagen)
Gazelle (Singer)
Honey Bee (Nissan/Datsun)
Impala (Chevrolet)
Jaguar (outgrowth of S.SCars, formerly Swallow Sidecars, Ltd.)
Lark (Studebaker)
Marlin (AMC)
Mustang (Ford)
Pinto (Ford)
Rabbit (Volkswagen)
Ram (Dodge)
Road Runner (Plymouth)
Sable (Mercury)
Skylark (Buick)
Spider/Spyder (Porsche)
Stag (Triumph)
Sting Ray/Stingray (Chevrolet Corvette)
Super Bee (Dodge)
Thunderbird (Ford)
Viper (Dodge)
Wasp (Hudson)
White Eagle (Kissel)
Wildcat (Buick)
Checker Marathon or a Plymouth Superbird
Don’t forget the Ford Taurus.
Wouldn’t that be a fine bit of irony, if the were-bull drove a Taurus? xD
(Word of advice, from someone who’s actually been there and done that: If you’re planning on buying a Taurus, do NOT buy one from the 1995 thru 1999 models. Those were the ones with a crappy transmission that would often fail within the first 50,000 miles. You know how CarMax says they’ll buy anything? They have standing orders NOT to buy 1995-1999 Tauruses.)
Sooo… that whole red flag thing is a myth right? Did you feel the urge to charge people with red shirts on? How about temper, in general. Did you find that your personality was affected? Was your hybrid form like a minotaur, if you even had one?
Well, my Ford Taurus was green, not red, but it did fill me with rage (because before it got wrecked, it was spending almost as much time in the transmission shop, as it spent actually working.)
Oh, and ironically, my astrological sign is Taurus. (Or “Metal Dog” if using Chinese astrology.)
Sooooo….A were that changes between bovine & canine?
;)
Pfft. Hey, if I absolutely must be a were-herbivore, I don’t have a problem with looking like a minotaur. Heaven knows I have enough body hair. (I’m not losing my hair, it’s just migrating southward. It is cosmically unjust that I have more hair on my chest than I have on my entire head.)
Look at it this way…The older you get, the more southward the migration, then someday you can ignore how cold the toilet set gets.
I prefer to think of it as “The more hair I lose, the more head I get.”
Yes, that is a double entendre. And yes, both potential meanings are true. ;)
You could also claim that it’s not “male pattern balding,” but a solar collector panel for powering an inexhaustable sex machine.
If only that were true. Actually, now that I think about it, if that was true, then hair transplant surgeons would probably be out of a job. xD
What kind of blood bank keeps there blood in an open vat?
The kind in Sydney’s imagination.
Which clearly relies more on drama than logic for its imagery. Not, IMO, a bad thing.
Well now, a plot to turn the whole world into bunnies. That is certainly a ‘hare-brained idea’.
That pun deserves to be rabbit-punched.
I would hop at the chance to do that, but I would be afraid I would in-hare-nt a reputation for violence.
I used the word “Grrlverse” on July 7th, and I don’t think I heard it anywhere else. Did I invent it?
Gotta take credit for any minor contribution I may have made. :-)
I certainly have been doing my bit to popularise it. I suspect it is one of the ones Dave was mulling over, years ago, when trying to decide what to call the setting. But would need to check to confirm that. If not, you may deserve your footnote, in history!
Well, in his story anyway.
“Did I invent it?”
Maybe, but Dave has been using it at least for almost two years:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1533
Thanks for the reference. I Googled it and didn’t get a hit that was older than my own. I may just have subconsciously remembered it, then.
It’s called Multiple Discovery :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery
I think if the curse was more like the werewolf curse in Being Human, then less people would be interested in being a were-anything. Maybe the Were-Hare would be the best option then. Less killing of random people.
Grrl-verse lycanthropy, however, seems completely controllable and they probably wouldn’t change in a social setting like this if there was any real chance of dangerous or embarrassing personality shifts. More curse-like transformations would obviously be a problem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chordate#Subdivisions
Actually fish, birds, reptiles, and mammals (among others), are part of the same phylum (Chordate and it’s subdivisions). That being the Chordate phylum of the Anamalia Kingdom.
Of course that does bring up something interesting since dinosaurs are also part of the Chordate phylum.
https://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/dinosaurs/dinoclassification/
Dinosaurs are birds, though. Or, well, birds are dinosaurs. So you’ve already covered them.
Actually dinosaurs aren’t birds.
Dinosaurs are Mesotherms, and while some dinosaurs did end up evolving into birds. Not every bird has dinosaur backgrounds. Many dinosaurs ended up not having any evolutionary branches into modern Chordates.
Of course not. All those who evacuated Terra, before ‘the big one’ hit, did not need to downsize, to cope with the prolonged nuclear winter.
That and a few of their descendants died off, or went the way of the goat.
Some dance on the Way of the Goatse. Don’t be a goatse…
XD. I was more talking along the lines of the most largest and amazing land based carnivore in history. The Adrewsaurchus. 15 ft. Long, massive jaws that could kill almost anything. And one of the most advanced brains of it’s era. And looked kind of like LoR’s Wargs (but bigger and more evil).
A truely, fine tuned, hyper intelligent, hollywood level horror movie villain, leveled super predator.
It’s only descendants are goats and sheep.
That and everyone knows you can’t dance while doing a Goatse. At least not a true goatse.
You underestimate the internet. This is dangerous.
So if a were-sheep or goes on a biting rampage and bites 200 people, then we could end up with (using the theory proposed, by other commentators, that the were-virus magically carries a catalogue of all mammals’ DNA):
• [200 – 20 – 5 – 2] 173 were-sheep (domestic flava)
• [200 / 10] 20 were-Ovis (6 species other than the domestic sheep. Plus ignoring sub-species) So: 4 argali, 4 bighorn sheep, 3 dall sheep ,3 mouflon & 3 snow sheep.
• [200 / 40] 5 were-Caprinae (47 species, 7 of which are extinct) So 1 goat, 1 musk-ox, 1 ibex, 1 Arabian tahr and an extinct species. Let us say: 1 Euceratherium collinum (a critter with goat-like appearance, having goat-type horns, but also large rodent-like incisor teeth & forward facing eyes, like a predator).
• [200 / 100] 2 were-Bovidae and were-Antilopinae. So, to represent the extinct species, a bubalus cebuensis (a teeny tiny buffalo only 2’6″ tall!). Plus a springbok.
• [200 / 750] 27% chance for a were- Artiodactyla. Let us say a were-andrewsarchus (yup, that hyper-intelligent Warg-like monstrosity!)
• [200 / 10,000] 2% chance for a non-Artiodactyla were-mammal. I am going for a were-panda. ‘Cause they eat, shoots, and leaves.
My preferred assumption is that any given were-virus has just two versions of lycanthrope within it. The dominant and the recessive ones. Because this is how DNA works. So the magic is just there to justify the clearly magical transformation, rather than the rules of inheritance.
So if one lycanthrope breeds with another, we can use normal genetic inheritance statistics to give the odds of what one, of the four potential lycanthrope types, they carry, between them, might be born.
But biting a normal human, the victim only receives the two types of lycanthrope DNA that the lycan carries. Normally which one is expressed depends on whether you get two copies of the same allele. Clearly that does not work in these circumstances. So we turn to DaveB‘s odds, from his blog above, of the recessive gene expressing itself.
So our mad-scientist releases six were-sheep, each of a different sheep breed and each also with different recessive lycan genes. The first five have all expressed their dominant allele (they look like the type they are most likely to produce). The sixth has actually expressed its recessive allele. The recessive species is in parenthesis (brackets).
Each of the sheep bite 200 victims:
argali (bighorn sheep) [200 / 10] —> 180 were-argali & 20 were-bighorn sheep.
bighorn sheep (musk-ox)[200 / 40] —> 195 were-bighorn sheep & 5 were-musk-ox.
dall sheep (springbok)[200 / 100] —> 198 were-dall sheep & 2 were-springbok.
mouflon (andrewsarchus)[200 / 750] —> 199 were-mouflon & 27% chance for a were-andrewsarchus !
snow sheep (panda)[200 / 10,000] —> 199 snow sheep sheep & 2% chance for a were-panda.
(domestic sheep) andrewsarchus[200 / 750]199 were-andrewsarchus !!! & 27% chance for a were-domestic sheep.
If I’m going to be honest, I wouldn’t want to be a theriomorph(Is that the right term?). Too limiting, really. You just get two forms, your human form and then the were-form. Much more interesting to have a shapeshifting ability. Even more so if you can manage to make chimeric shifts. Granted there is the possibility of that going out of control…
Therianthrope would be the “proper” general term for human-animal shapeshifters, but Dave used “lycanthrope,” so I’d use that for the Grrl-verse. I think “zoomorph” would be used for a more unrestricted human-to-any-animal shapeshifter, like Beast Boy.
Are you referring to that green-skinned kid in the Teen Titans? He gave up that name & much prefers “Changeling” now, thank you very much.
Sounds like the second-lamest minor character (only after “Bouncing Boy” from the Legion of Super-heroes) watched too much ST:DS9
Nah, i think the lamest character from the Legion was Matter Eater Kid.
;)
How is eating all kinds of matter lamer than simply turning into a giant bouncing ball? o_O
Even the one who could change your clothes into plaid was better!
Even Stone Boy of the Substitute Legion was better…At least his power was used to save the world (metaphorically speaking), even though it cost him his life!
Wait, better than MEL or BB? o_O
Definitely better than BB. Stone Boy at least had the “heroic sacrifice” going for him. BB retired & got married…Nothing spectacular. The best thing MEL has going for him is that his food budget is near-to-nothing…
If you have a read through the author’s blog, for the previous comic page, you will see that they probably* have three forms. Human, animal and hybrid. Plus, in addition to that, they do have limited shapechange, via the “fleshwalk” skill. Which allows them, at advanced levels, and as regards their hybrid form, to:
So, should Kat practice that skill, she could develop a hybrid look with regular human skin and just the bunny ears and puffy tail. Maybe a cute button nose.
* Maybe Dave is using ‘hybrid form’ and ‘animal form’ synonymously. But I do not think that is likely.
Hybrid form isn’t actually a single form but a general term for any stage between their human and animal forms. How it looks is controllable but the extent to which one can control it is a skill, here known as “fleshwalk”.
What kind of footwear did Pixel wear in her previous appearances? Does anybody know? It’s just that I just noticed that Sydney imagined her as wearing a pair of flip-flops and was wondering if that was because Pixel had been wearing them earlier.
“was wondering if that was because Pixel had been wearing them earlier.”
Yes.
None. She was barefoot with a pair of flipflops in the corner.
I finally found the one you’re referring to, Keiya. I guess she likes to go barefoot in the Arc-Light office for whatever reason.
Meanwhile, I’m guessing this is the page you were referring to, Duende sociopata. Well spotted, considering you can only really see what Pixel has on her feet in the last panel.
Thank you both!
It just goes to show how unobservant I am that I didn’t even notice she was barefoot in the one or wearing the flip-flops in the other . . .
You’re welcome. Actually I got attentive on the bubble bus page because of what we saw on the one Keiya referred.
I wonder if the symbiote ever mixes up the dominent and matches the recessive were-species it carries? Being magical, it need not follow the same rules that strictly biological reproduction does.
For instance an individual could turn into a were-snow-leopard/Siamese cat. Perhaps expressing the animal form as a leopard size, but with the body shape and silky fur of the Siamese. Although fur type and colouration are controllable, by the were, from what Dave said in the previous blog
So, if they practice the skill, they could pick which aspects they wanted. And a highly skilled practitioner could probably control which aspects to show each time. So using the pussy cat for scouting, for instance. But switching to the leopard size for combat.
What dual-lycanthrope combinations might appeal to you?
Part cat, part bird. Thus, the Forgotten Realms favourite: the Tryssm!
If you were part cat and part bird though, wouldn’t you keep trying to eat yourself?
As much as a part-cat and part-dog would be tying to chase itself up trees :D
I don’t know if you remember this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CatDog.
My qualm about the show was that both ends often engaged in eating and drinking, yet there was no, um, ‘exit’ for the resulting matter to leave. The only explanation was that was a ‘portal’ somewhere in the shared digestive tract that linked to some other location. I would hate to stumble into that one while playing the game.
Yup, remember that show, unfortunately :(
No, while we saw them eating and drinking, we just never saw them expel waste, usually in the form of the other end vomiting…
I would pick a human/chameleon camouflage form that would allow me to remain unseen, even in large groups of people. The ‘were-waldo’.
Maybe if you could convince our very own resident-Waldo to bite you?…
You’d have to find him first.
Our Waldo finds you…
:D
*pops out and bares teeth* Did someone say my name?
This was relevant to this section of the thread.
Also these are me…something was wrong with my Gravatar thing…fixed it now.
I had noticed, in your earlier posts. But just figured you were hiding.
See? I told you he’d find you.
Yes, this is all been in conjunction with the fact that Waldo’s chosen avatar was used with the meme: “In Soviet Russia, Waldo finds you.”
I recently reset a few things on my computer. It must of messed with my settings for it. Now that it’s fixed, I hope it will stay that way.
Eagle for flight and aerial combat, wolf for land travel and combat plus social aspect and killer whale for water travel and combat plus social aspect.
Dibbs on the were-marsupilami genes! (even if I probably would have to pay licensing fees)
Simple. Part lizard, part bat (namely, the wings). Hello Were-Dragon!
That, or part wolf, part grizzly bear. Primarily, I just want the raw strength of the bear. Just be a were-wolf with more strength than I know what to do with…and the size! WHOO!
But then I wouldn’t be able to hide as well….
…hmmm…sacrifice my elite ninja skills for raw power…tough choice.
I almost fell for ‘chameleon bear’. But that involves a non-mammal.
Oooh, oooh, Bigfoot Bear!
It is nice to be able to consider the crypto-zoological creatures as part of the natural order.
*wiggles tail delightedly*
He steals picanic baskets?
Okay, so the real question is this: why would there be a Fritos pie recipe without chilli? Discuss.
Ok, so now im picturing a scenario and I cant stop giggling.
“BEHOLD MY POWER!”
/transforms into were trout
/flop flop flop
Or just play the magicarp scenes in your mind,
“Magicarp carp magi magi carp carp!”
Mr. Fish!
https://thepunchlineismachismo.com/archives/comic/survival-of-the-cutest
Evolution through violence (against others) :D
It’s not very effective.