Grrl Power #453 – I am The Refiller!
Assault is named badly in the legal world. It’s the threat of violence, not actual violence. I mean, if you’re in the military, and you’re planning an assault on an enemy base camp, it doesn’t mean you’re going to call them up and say “We’re gonna kill you so bad with bullets and grenades, and you’re going to be dead all over the place so n’yah!” You can see why Sydney has her terminology mixed up.
Having blood regeneration would obviously make someone quite the item with vampires. Wolverine would do pretty well with the vamp ladies. But now I have to wonder with anyone who regenerates… if you cut off a finger, how much of them would regrow from that finger? The whole finger, part of the hand? Obviously it depends on how powerful their regeneration is, but in the case of a vampire drinking the blood of someone who regenerates, if it was insanely powerful, a vamp could potentially stay topped off for a long time on a single ingurgitation. Yeah, just learned that word. Of course, if the person’s regeneration was truly bonkers, they could potentially regenerate a clone of themselves every time they got a nose bleed, but that would probably be pretty bad for a vamp to sup.
“Executive Patrons” get to cameo a character of theirs, or themselves, or even themselves as a super, and this is what we came up with. Tom H. C.’s original idea was that he could refill anything, including stuff like bank accounts or empty stomachs, but that seemed like there was a lot of potential for abuse with a power that basically worked on semantic chicanery, so we compromised. By the way how mad would you be if you blew a wish on “refill small amounts of liquid.” I guess in the “maybe it’s a flashback and maybe that’s just what Sydney’s imagining” panel 3, the djini is a beginner, so she couldn’t have fulfilled a big wish anyway. Maybe she was limited to cantrip wishes. Actually I guess as incredibly minor wishes go, that’s not a bad one. The ability to never lose stuff, or never get lost would be nice. Perfect vision even when you’re 97. The ability to remember what page you were on in any book without needing a bookmark. Man, that doesn’t even qualify as a minor power.
I have two cool webcomics to share with you guys.
One is a fast moving comic with lots of lore and colorful art that sort of reminds me of Sergio Aragonés/Groo. Less cartoony, it’s just because of how busy the background and details are. In fact the creature designs and backgrounds make me a little self conscious about my gray stone council chamber populated with silhouettes, but I’ll swallow my pride and share the good stuff with you guys. It’s called Kill Six Billion Demons. Based on the health of their Patreon, some of you might have already found it, but good comics could always use more eyes.
The other one is topical to the current storyline. It’s called How to be a Werewolf. It’s about human looking robots replacing people in a space colony… no, I’m kidding, it’s obviously about werewolves. Specifically a werewolf girl raised by her human parents and none of them know anything about being a werewolf. That’s the premise anyway, read it to find out what happens.
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.
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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.
I thought he was Bill Gates at first…
Homework time for all of you reading the comments, YouTube “Dance to the masochism tango.”
Ahh, Tom Lehrer…
I love that song!
But if you’re “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park” & they wake up mad, then you’ll find out what being bird seed feels like…
“And maybe we’ll do in a squirrel or two” Till Squirrel Girl catches you. :)
I’m a bigger fan of the Elements song but I’m a science nerd.
Was the genie’s name Agnes? Because then he could say the source of his power was, “I Got it from Agnes….”
I prefer “The Vatican Rag”. “First you get down on your knees…” Heh heh heh.
Let’s just hope that a wrong comment by Sydney during a negotiation doesn’t bring about this one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ky0ROTsD14
What are they hitting him with? Scarlet has a belt, but what is Crimson using?
Looks like a riding crop.
Anyone else getting a Misu sisters vibe from that last panel? DARLING MUST BE PUNISHED!
Holy shit, the last time I ran across a Sorceror Hunters reference, Bill Clinton was trying to get re-elected.
It is a cool drunken wish gone right, instead of the opposite. Very friendly djini.
So I guess his wish was ‘I want to refill this beer’ or something, and it was extrapolated? Or maybe, instead of specific, it was easier to make his power more general.
I bet he said “I wish I had the power to refill any drink!”, and since the vampires are technically drinking his blood, it counts. If I restrained him, then drained him of his blood via a needle and IV tubing, I bet he wouldn’t be able to regenerate the blood since it is no longer a drink. What would I use that blood for if not to drink? Easy. Wood stain. Add a little thickening agent and a few preservatives and blood makes a fairly decent stain.
…I mean…I would never drain someone of their blood so I had color for my new bar…never…>.> <.<
Well reasoned.
Eeew!
…it would make a good wood stain, but I’m pretty sure the smell would never come out – not even sure varnish would cover it up…
I happen to like the smell of blood.
From what I hear, human blood makes a great meringue. Yes, I have some very weird and egg allergic friends.
And then there’s the always-popular Blood Pudding recipes…
;)
So there’s an alcoholic, strolling along a beach. He kicks an empty bottle in the sand, and out pops a Genii who offers him three wishes. He wishes for a bottle of whiskey which would never run dry. *POP* The bottle appears in his hands. He takes a long pull, and sees that indeed the bottle is still full. He takes another long pull, and another. The bottle remains full. “*Ahem,*” says the Genii. “You have two more wishes remaining.” The drunk manages to slur out “I’ll take two more bottles just like this one!”
I don’t know if the Patreon originator had ever heard that joke, but his superpower could easily have derived from it.
Also, in a setting with Genii, we could easily expect to encounter a great many people with Genii-derived superpowers. Wealth is nice, but invulnerability and immortality are subjectively better. Best of all, with three wishes you can have them all!
Thing is, ‘genii’ were actually demons trapped by Solomon
Eh? That sounds like a Judeo-Christian interpretation of the thing. Originally, genies were creatures out of Arabic folklore that basically acted like minor spirits/gods.
They were worshiped up until Islam emerged, in which they were re-interpreted as sentient beings roughly equivalent to humans, just magic and living in the desert. Sorta like elves in Europe.
It does appear in the former, yes. In a major way actually. Solomon’s seal was what he used to give him power over the genie. Which is often considered to be the Star of David!
Further:
However it was also in the Arabic One Thousand and One Nights. In particular one of the tales was “The Merchant and the Demon” whilst another was “The Fisherman and the Jinni”. So even if they did not name them as being one and the same thing, or relatives of one another, they were none-the-less being very closely associated, even in the Arabic tales.
Djinn’re actually one of the three creations in Islam, if i remember right. Humans got spirits and bodies, Angels just got bodies, and Djinn just got spirits… it’s complicated. that’s mythology for you though.
The drunk was not as dumb as he sounds. Bottles can easily be lost or broken. Especially if eternally drunk!
Of course a more sober mind might have requested an indestructible one that could not get lost. But Thomas has gone one or three steps better than that!
Most people (gamers excepted) only end up with one wish.
Dying as a result of the first wish (such as being burred, under a pile of gold) being common. Or:
Cock up first wish, but survive. Use second wish to repair the damage done by the first wish. Make sure third and final wish is very carefully phrased.
This would happen more often than not, as most people would not consider the granting of wishes to be credible, so would make an off-paw wish, without careful consideration. Only once they see the results, of that, do they then take it seriously.
Personally I would end up with two. As I would cut a deal with the genie, to ensure that the spirit of my wishes were granted, without accidental or malicious interpretation, and that the genie also advise me on how to make optimum use of their capability. In exchange, if they kept their end of the bargain, I would use my third to wish for something that they want. But I would insist on knowing what they wanted, prior to sealing the bargain. Swapping places with them, for instance, not being on my personal wish list.
My goto solution is that my first wish would be” I wish I knew the best way to use my remaining two wishes to get everything I truly desire without causing any consequences I will regret”.
MY first wish is to be able to see all the consequences of my actions before i make them, if i focus on them.
Perfect wishes and future vision in one package.
Careful. Seeing ALL the consequences means you can never ever be surprised by anything ever again. Life would be extremely boring.
Still would be surprised by inhumanly spicy fear vomit.
When you get true wishes, first go to a lawyer.
:-D
A very, very good one.
Also, check out the Open Source Wish list! (Sadly now only available through the archives.) https://web.archive.org/web/20061108121451/https://www.homeonthestrange.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=95
+1 on Yorp’s wish list. I’ve used the same logic, BUT; when in doubt as to the GM’s intentions, simply refuse the wish. I got this tip from a fellow player after watching him p.o. a GM by refusing a wish. The other players poo-poo’ed the player, but then saw his wisdom, later, as the GM made them regret every wish they made. So, now, refusing the wish is my first choice, unless being granted by a Lawful Good entity, then I revert back to Yorp’s list. I even had a GM assure me, out of character, that his wishes, unless granted by an openly obviously overt chaotic evil being, were to be viewed in the best light in regards to my character.
First wish, All wishes of mine that are granted, get granted in a way I want (includes this one).
As I don’t want any negative effects with my wishes there shouldn’t be any.
Accidental wishes don’t get granted as I don’t really want them.
Saying a way I want still allows for creativity on the Genie’s part, so I still get pleasantly surprised.
Also takes into account if I get any future wishes from another source.
If the Genie can’t grant this wish, it might not be a good idea to wish for anything.
Just be sure not to suffer from depression. Or self-loathing. Or envy. Or hatred. Or lust. Or hubris.
The Mansion of E has a device that grants a wish, automatically, on insertion of an appropriate coin. It has an improved variation to yours:
It grants the wish that you most need.
Which may be a swift and painless death. But that was only known to have happened once!
Dang, haven’t read that in over a year, really should get back to it (took me long enough catching up as it was, two years of missing daily updates shouldn’t be a problem, should it?)
Heh…Good luck. They only recently finished the first day passing & they’re no far into the second day. Two years of updates will, ironically, take longer than a day to catch up.
;)
Yeah, stopped reading after they started Day Two
An elderly man was sitting alone on a dark path, right? He wasn’t certain of which direction to go, and he’d forgotten both where he was traveling to and who he was. He’d sat down for a moment to rest his weary legs, and suddenly looked up to see an elderly woman before him. She grinned toothlessly and with a cackle, spoke: ‘Now your third wish. What will it be?’
‘Third wish?’ The man was baffled. ‘How can it be a third wish if I haven’t had a first and second wish?’
‘You’ve had two wishes already,’ the hag said, ‘but your second wish was for me to return everything to the way it was before you had made your first wish. That’s why you remember nothing; because everything is the way it was before you made any wishes.’ She cackled at the poor berk. ‘So it is that you have one wish left.’
‘All right,’ said the man, ‘I don’t believe this, but there’s no harm in wishing. I wish to know who I am.’
‘Funny,’ said the old woman as she granted his wish and disappeared forever. ‘That was your first wish.’
He got a good deal.
I have experienced total amnesia not once, but twice in my life. I would perfectly happily relive the most excruciating agony, of having bones and flesh ripped apart, then pulled even further asunder gradually, for a week, only to be smashed again, without anesthetic, rather than experience even an hour of amnesia again. And those were not hypothetical memories.
Yups, that’s why the perfect punishment (POO) would be… to remove 5 seconds from someone’s memory, five seconds isn’t much, but it is enough to be noticed, and the victim will never know just how much nor what was taken
Sure, they could probably be able to recover the missing memories, but, how will they ever know that they did recover them, or simply created new memories?
I always figured I’d go with retroactive good luck and retroactive good health for my first two wishes and then just use the third one on a whim like getting an apple, or whatever strikes me at the time.
Immortality is not really, by itself, all that great. I heard a myth about a god who granted a favored mortal the gift of immortality…But forgot to also grant the power to retain youthful appearance. There you’d be, getting older & increasing physical debilitation until you reach a point when you can’t even stand up…But still you’d never die.
Immortality really only works well when it’s combined with Unaging.
Love the minicomic story. I believe this is the first time those minis have formed a story of multiple panels?
I also think it just broke the 5th wall.
*gets to 4th paw, and has to curl up, in order to count with tail too*
Man that is a lot of walls! I think they can still fly out, through another one though, without making themselves liable to property damage claims or needing to engage an Nth dimensional drive.
Yeah, if they’re frequently flying outside of the comic border to do the under-the-page- comic, it might get expensive for DaveB to keep repairing it…
In one of the Tales From the Crypt serials the cursed wish device ends in the death of a husband from a heart attack because the wife had wished for money and he was carrying a lot of life insurance. I don’t recall if that was the first or second wish, but the final wish was the wife wishing the husband alive “forever and ever,” whereupon his coffin was delivered and opened, only to see the husband screaming in agony from the eternal heart attack.
Aaaannnndddd, this should have been a reply to MidnightDStroyer’s comment which said:
In order to add that unaging isn’t enough. You also need perfect health, or eventually you’ll end up immortal and unaging but burnt to a crisp or smashed flat by a falling building or some other horrible fate.
Never ever wish for eternal life, without incorporating a safe opt-out clause. Even with good health, eternity might become unappealing eventually. Or, as in your examples, unbearable much earlier.
Since the great blood has been named, shouldn’t he get a Who’s Who?
Yea, DaveB said, on the previous page, that he was going to get his entry this comic. So it is just an omission, which Dave will probably correct promptly, when he sees your comment.
Give in to the omission Dave………you know you want to!
He could use a alias though. Like “Bloodbank” or “Infinite keg”. Bloodbank sounds like something out of a nineties comic.
I bet they call him “ATM”
I suppose it’s better than calling him ‘Bottom’s Up’.
Yeah but I forgot to upload the badge. It’s up now.
Did something edit my post? I’m quite sure I didn’t write ‘the great blood’
It was probably a Freudian Slip, as it was like that when I replied.
Were you feeling thirsty? Have you had difficulty seeing yourself in a mirror, lately?
Now that you mention it, I am getting a little irritated by the sun lately
The Googles tell me that scorpion venom goes for $39 million per gallon. The trick would be monetizing it…
I suspect that you’d run out of demand before you got through your first gallon.
But if you managed to sell merely 1 gallon, you’d be set for life anyway…As long as you aren’t outrageously stupid with the money.
There are plenty of liquids which have a very high market value.
And all of those are liquids at room temperature. Depending on any limitations of the power, he’d be an excellent employee at any smelting operation or similar business. Pour off some liquid gold, he refills it, no expensive heating process required. Pour off liquid oxygen, he refills it, no expensive cooling process required.
I seem to recall an XKCD comic about expensive liquids. Wasn’t printer ink one of the most expensive per gallon? “Hey Tom! The printers low again, get over here!”
Also, typo in panel 7, “THEN” not “THEY”. My OCD can’t let it go…
I recall once hearing that, in terms of price per ounce, printer ink is more valuable than blood, wine, or many forms of refined petroleum.
As he himself said:
” can’t do high volume” and “then there wouldn’t be hot vampire chicks fighting for drinking rights”
Volume isn’t an issue when the liquid is highly valuable, such as molten gold.
And it is fairly short sighted to value being snacked on by hot vampire chicks while remaining poor. Men have for time immemorial managed to surround themselves with hot chicks simply by being fabulously wealthy.
This way though, there is no fear that “they do not like me, they only want my money”. Plus keeping his present company, he is keeping open an option for immortality. Should he manage to change his aggravating ways, to become more sociable, in order to make it appealing enough to turn him.
Finally Thomas can always comfort himself, that they want him “for what is inside him”. ;-)
Maybe some enzymes, we use enzymes at the lab and a mililiter of that is bloody expensive, we always have to be careful with them.
Peptide complexes are great.
So are nymphomaniac vampiress complexes.
Better than sibling complexes… I’m look talking about you, Aniplex.
Or daughter complexes. I’m looking at you, Trump.
as ‘minor’ powers go, I’d go for the ability to memorise perfectly anything I’ve read, saw or learned, even at a glance. with the selective ability to forget on purpose. sort of super photographic memory with admin power over the mind? XD it would certainly come in handy in many scenarios I can think about.
or…. is it just exam season that speaks from my mouth…..
I’ve always wanted Techno-pathy. The ability to basically speak to computers and make them do whatever I want as long as it is possible to do on that device. For instance, I couldn’t make an ATM hack a corporate server, but I could get it to give me all of its money and delete the footage on the camera. Or I could get a really powerful gaming/programming computer and have it make games for me based off my criteria without me ever typing a line of code or modeling a character. I’ve always seen that as an extremely useful power that can still be hidden quite well.
But that’s a pretty major power. If I wanted just a minor power, I would just want the ability to have any chores done instantly. Laundry, dishes, random household repairs. Just *poof*, they’re done.
Telekinesis. Just strong enough to open the fridge door and bring me a drink. And controllable enough to use a tin-opener. With sufficient sustainability to keep a book, at eye height, and turning pages, all day.
Although the ability to create any liquid has also long been on my list. But I have always envisaged it in large quantity, so it fails on the ‘minor power’ requirement. If you can top up a tanker, at the wave of a paw, that upgrades it to the realm of a significant capability!
You would, for instance, be able to turn around the global helium shortage, if you set up a liquid helium plant. Just make sure that it has the capacity to handle you creating a tanker-full, per second, during the course of your working day!
Then, of course, you can fill up your swimming pool with molten gold.
I can understand you about telekinesis…In your case, you’d never have a need for opposable thumbs any more.
I would wish for understanding. Of everything. The ability to understand anything I perceive. Think of the uses and fun. Plop me down anywhere and I could not only understand the language and cultural references but everything I see including science, math any topic at all. I could look at Dabbler’s tech and understand how it works and how to make it.
A nice idea in principle. But it sounds a little too close to being ‘knurd’ for my peace of mind.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=knurd
I’d rather be able to Grok anything, for short stretches of time.
Meh, if you are willing to risk frazzling your mind, just go straight for “Death by Snu Snu”!
Darn it, I had not finished editing that, when I accidentally sent it live, by mis-clicking on an incoming Skype call! I had figured out that “grok” was very dissimilar to “knurd”, thus rendering my comment invalid, in the form I had started it.
I’d wish for luck manipulation.
It’s basically free minor wishes.
You’d better wish for fortuitous luck manipulation…Otherwise, you’d be like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkzE23pyME4
“If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”
;)
Bad luck for someone else can be good luck for me. Overtiiiime.
Hmm, didn’t they steal that from a comicbook? o_O
Doesn’t Black Cat have a Bad Luck Aura? And Domino has the Fortuitous Luck Aura?
I’d like Teleportation, specifically Autoteleportation…the ability to teleport what I’ve seen to another place. If I could manage about 200-300 lbs or so, I’d be in big demand for a Rescue Squad. The biggest trick would be to get me to a point where I could see someone trapped under rubble, for example. If I can see them, I can rescue them.
Also handy for a professional pick-pocket or even a bank robber too…
;)
Or inter-stellar exploration. Teleport a probe, to a distant star, today, and recall it in a month. Or a rover, for planetary exploration. Or, for human habitable planets, an environment-suit protected team (one at a time), along with equipment.
I’ve liked the idea of local gravity manipulation. Not enough to explode the Sun, just enough to pick up/throw a person. Like telekinesis, but better.
In the comic universe it would be your stipulation that you could also forget at will which would be your undoing. Sooner or later you’d be mind controlled, be utterly depressed, be in a hostage situation where you had to follow orders, or whatever. And then you’d be wiped clean like a chalkboard.
Hell, knowing the comics you’d probably manage to get back all your memories and lose them all over and over and over again…
that’s brilliant – you just gave me the basis for my next short story
There is a “Planes of Torment” book that has ‘retrieval of lost memory’ as the basis of the story without giving too much of the story away {namely the reason}, it turns out that he lost his memory on purpose by deliberately drinking from the River Lethe
Mhmm. Strangely, that sounds very similar to the story of the Nameless One, the protagonist of the computer game Planescape: Torment, except in this case, he was given water from the Lethe to make him stop forgetting everything, every time he “died”.
Have the game, but never got around to loading it
It’s not too late. Despite being 17 years old (released in 1999), I can still get it to work, even on a Windows 10 machine.
Mmm….
I have that too….
*pitter patter of feet receding upstairs*
Bought it only a couple years ago, not even sure why, don’t have time to spend on many games any more :(
Even if you can’t play for very long at any given time, it’s still well worth playing it.
If you seem to get stuck but don’t want too much spoilers, https://www.sorcerers.net/Games/Torment/index_mods.php has a walkthrough guide that gives just one hint at a time; it’s written in the Universal Hint System guide if you scroll down the list a bit.
Another good site (that’s still up & running) is https://www.gibberlings3.net/# for a few tweaks that can make game play a bit easier without actually being cheats, such as removing the “fog of war” in areas of the city you haven’t actually walked through yet.
Actually like the Fog of War, it shows me places haven’t explored yet
I’d take being able to restore to new condition any mechanical or electronic device with a touch,
Psychometry: the Ability to read an object’s history by touch. That would be cool.
ok here’s a thought…. what if one heated a bit of gold until it melted, then asked him to refill the container? is that considered a liquid by his rules?
well, if it is molten, then technically it is a liquid. we don’t know any other rules, so we have to go with technicality.
on the other hand, it requires being super heated to be liquid.
that, and made of a single type of atom (which is also metal).
that’s too points, that could be outruled.
Implication so far is that it also has to be a drink. So one must also drink the refreshing liquid molten gold.
Don’t know about gold. but apparently it works with wine. Now I’m pretty sure there are some 400 yo gourmet vintage brews that are probably quite pricy. So if he wanted, he probably could do that kind of thing. Or just become a bartender and create profits out of nowhere on happy hour.
Come to think of it, Those rules must be pretty complicated or pretty loose. Because blood isn’t even that much of a liquid. It is full of … let’s say “particulate matter” (cells).
Is “suspension” the term you are looking for?
Glew also seems to lost his/her “suspension of disbelief.”
;)
Even so, most alcohols have some level pf particulate matter in them. Most booze-brewers filter out that kind of stuff before bottling or canning, but fine wines are likely to be bottled with the stuff; most people call that stuff the “dregs” of the wine. Even so, I’d probably draw the line when it comes to refilling Tequila & including the “worm” at the bottom of the bottle.
remember: if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate
Chemically speaking, alcohol is a solution…
:P
And a very special one at that. A dreaded azeotrope.
Chemically speaking, alcoholic drinks (beer, wine etc) are solutions, but alcohol is a compound ;P
Socially speaking alcohol is a solution.
It can also be a problem. But that is true of almost everything in life.
Actually there is something very very interesting about that…
I will tell you about it next week.
Done right, suspension can help you build a bridge…
… through time!
Wines typically do not last that long. If they do it requires very careful handling across the entire time span, and 400 years ago there was a distinct lack of refrigeration. Cellars can substitute, but 400 years is a fairly long time to avoid a war or a fire or some other event which can spoil the product.
But a 25+ year old Scotch, now that is both valuable and far more easily preserved.
But that is the point, provided a single sample of a really old one has survived, then it can be replicated. Sometimes you get bottles from ships, which sunk in ancient sediment, and have been naturally refrigerated.
Even so, most such would usually turn to vinegar or an extremely unpaletable substance, after such prolonged periods. But those very few which both survive and get drunk, will sometimes have one which is described as having retained enough of the characteristics that they are pleasant.
Such would mostly be of use for novelty factors though. The optimum route to go is to replicate the best vintages known, rather than just go for age. Or, if after money (as a vintner) rather than just taste, choose to duplicate the hard-to-make (and therefore rare) quality beverages, such as trockenbeerenauslese.
No, most of those wines weren’t that palatable to start with (horrible disgusting sewer water tasted better)
You all seem to be overlooking the fact that the bottle plays a large part in selling the product and that, once opened, your 400 year old wine (or other beverage) is probably worthless. You do not have the power to reseal the bottle so cannot do repeat paid tasting sessions and you only have the one so cannot sell it and still have some left in a bottle you can sell.
Expensive drinks seem like a poor choice outside of a bar.
You most certainly can re-seal wine bottles. Albeit only for short periods (and not using the original cork). But, as you are replicating the drink, and probably in large quantity, you would instead be filling up other bottles with it, and sealing them. Using Thomas’s power, he would need to keep re-filling one bottle.
However, as such wine is actually decanted, before serving, to separate out the sediment, he could instead choose to refill the decanter. Or, even more conveniently, return it to the original bottle, after decanting, without any of the sediment, to make the re-bottling sediment free. Or another bottle completely.
The importance of the bottle (and even the dust on it) is mostly to help determine the authenticity of the product (but there is a snobbery aspect to it too). Once the original has been verified, the company could provide a warranty that the new bottles have identical contents, to that.
Whilst the storage container can significantly affect the character of a beverage, this is most notable in old wooden barrels. Especially those which might be kept in circumstances where microorganisms, within it, may contribute to the process. Modern storage (such as metal barrels) will preserve a beverage without significantly altering its character (by itself, although the drink will mature of its own accord).
In terms of bottles, the cork is actually far more important, to the normal maturing process, than the bottle itself. But modern glass, with a suitable resealable bung, could preserve the existing character, for some time.
However, you are right that the older the wine, the more rapidly it will deteriorate, once opened. That though is due to the exposure to air. Should this technique be planned, in advance, the bottle could be opened in such a way as to prevent, or minimise, that.
Preservators of ancient artifacts (and handlers of such vintages) would be able to come up with something. I imagine handling it in a sealed container (with suitable gloves poking through, from outside) that is filled with a non-toxic inert gas, that will not react with the wine.
The technique could be practiced and perfected on less-important vintages, before risking the prized ones. The one to be most carefully handled is the original. But once a batch of copies have been made, they can then be the ones used to ramp up production, rather than risking the original.
Maybe, even with such care, it will still be degrading. But, even with that, a time-critical promotion could get copies out to the mass market, in order to experience what only the super-rich could do normally. Laying-down such purchases would probably not be successful, unless the re-bottling technique worked perfectly.
I refuse to believe for an instant that you can’t taste the metal in a drink barrelled therein but, aside from that, you seem to have put a lot of thought into this.
It was mainly the proof of authenticity I was considering to be an issue.
Do you taste the stainless steel when you drink a sauvignon blanc or a chardonnay? They are often aged in stainless steel after a brief period in oak, as the style does not call for the heavy oaking that the more hearty reds can take without losing their balance.
Not only can you reseal a wine bottle, but that is a part of the process for preserving old wines. They are re-corked anytime the cork is getting on in years, as being a soft tree bark they do decompose.
You think small. Compress tritium into a liquid, that sells for way more per gram.
That said, his real superpower is making any liquid immediately worthless because of supply and demand.
It is easy to ensure that you do not over-supply a market. De Beers have been doing that, for decades, with diamonds. Just make sure to employ the services of a suitably skilled economist.
Same with the geomancer with the gold stash.
And Burt Reynolds and Tom Selleck with the mo stash :P
You know, pretty much all of English-based legal terminology is badly named. “Threats of physical violence” and “Acts of physical violence” make way more sense. “Voluntary murder” and “involuntary murder” (or “infliction of death by accident”, if you prefer) probably too are a bit more clear on meaning and distinction.
I always remembered it through very childish means:
Assault – Scared someone through words
Battery – Caused Owwies.
First-degree Murder – Killed and probably isn’t sorry.
Second-degree Murder – Killed and probably is sorry.
Justifiable Homicide – Had a good reason for death.
Actually… the the Model Penal Code (developed by the American Law Institute in 1962) recognizes no difference between first- and second-degree murder. Some states do classify murders by degree; for example, in New York, first-degree murder involves “special circumstances” such as killing a police officer, multiple murders, or murders involving torture. All other premeditated murder is considered second-degree murder.
Voluntary manslaughter is sometimes referred to as third-degree murder. It includes any intentional killing that involves no prior intent to kill, and which was committed under such circumstances that would “cause a reasonable person to become emotionally or mentally disturbed” (or, as you called it, “Justifiable homicide”). So a bar fight that resulted in a death is second-degree murder; but a bar fight that started because the other guy was screwing your wife would be voluntary manslaughter.
Involuntary manslaughter is a death resulting from gross negligence. There was no intent to kill, but someone died from someone’s intentional actions. For example, if you chose to ignore a safety regulation on a piece of industrial equipment, and someone died because of that choice, that’s involuntary manslaughter.
But keep in mind that this also varies from state to state. Some states don’t distinguish between types of manslaughter… Voluntary or involuntary, you’re still going to get 10 to 15 years.
Yeah…but when you use “voluntary” and “involuntary”, it’s a lot easier to remember than “first-degree” and “second-degree”, which is why I have the childish ways to remember it. I just through in justifiable homicide because that term is already a nice way to say “I killed someone because it was either them or me.” since self-defense is the most common time when that comes up.
Now…if you REALLY want to talk about weird law things, how about cases where someone breaks into another person’s house, hurts themselves while trying to rob them, and then sues the homeowner (the person they were trying to steal from) for injuries sustained. If I was a judge, I’d look at that guy, smack him, then send him to jail for wasting the court’s time and money. I’d then apologize to the homeowner that it even got that far, then go home. One of the many reasons I’m not a judge.
That usually doesn’t work, unless you can prove that the homeowner was deliberately setting traps for burglars. (Or unless you have a really stupid judge and/or jury.) For example, if a burglar tried to break in through my living room window and he tripped over a piece of furniture and got a concussion on the living room table, that’s not a trap. (We tend to use that room as storage for stuff we don’t need any more, but haven’t sold yet. We’ve been planning a garage sale for the last two years and still haven’t done it yet.)
On the other hand, if I set a strip of wood on the floor, with rusty nails sticking up from it, where he had no choice but to step on it, then I would definitely be responsible for his injuries. I’m reminded of a case where a farmer knew someone had been stealing from his barn, so he set up a shotgun trap. Sure enough, the burglar broke in, and promptly got shot in the leg. Naturally, he sued, and the farmer was forced to pay for his injuries.
Farmer: “If I’d known this was going to happen, I’d have aimed higher.”
Judge: “Oh, good. Then you would be going to prison for murder.”
(That was not an answer the farmer was expecting to hear.)
Sounds like the Judge was a moron!!
Not really. The law in that state said that “yes, you can shoot a trespasser, but only if he is completely inside your residence.”
First of all… the farmer didn’t live in his barn. It isn’t his residence.
Secondly… even if he DID live in his barn, the burglar was not completely inside. He got shot as soon as the door opened.
So, the judge had no choice but to find the farmer responsible for the burglar’s leg injury.
In the UK it does not even require technicalities, like that. The deliberate setting of harmful traps (as opposed to things like burglar alarms) is always treated just the same as if you had directly attempted actual bodily harm or murder (depending on how likely to kill it was).
You are not permitted to murder or maim someone for attempted theft. The only possible defence would be if doing so in self-defence, when in anticipation of an imminent threat.
Which would not run in court, because, if you had time to set a trap, you should have instead contacted the police. Barring some improbable straw-man circumstances you would only find in a movie.
I’m opposed to laws designed to protect criminals. “Death via misadventure” should be perfectly legal. Don’t want to be injured or killed while in the commission of a crime? Well, it’s a funny thing, there’s a really simple way to avoid that. Don’t commit a crime!
I sort of understand that we don’t want people getting killed because they get shot by a death trap while breaking into a house seeking shelter in the middle of a blizzard, or some other justifiable crime. But those fringe cases have to be outnumbered by simple cases of criminal breaking and entering a good hundred thousand or more to one.
Unfortunately, that very same “justifiable crime” is the reason we have to have these laws, no matter how badly they’re outnumbered by true criminal activities.
What I’m opposed to is someone being rewarded for an unjustifiable criminal act. Such as the girl in New York who didn’t want to pay the cover charge to get into a nightclub, so she snuck in through the window of the women’s bathroom. She fell six feet and landed face-first on the floor, knocked out a few teeth, and sued the nightclub for the cost of her dental work… and won.
I don’t remember exactly how much she won (I seem to remember that it was either $6,000 or $15,000)… but the point is that the nightclub didn’t set a trap. It’s not their fault that the bathroom windows were placed the way they were, and it wasn’t their fault that she lost some teeth trying to do something illegal. The club owners had to pay thousands of dollars because some dumb blonde didn’t want to pay a $10 cover charge. That’s just ridiculous.
Unfortunately, nobody wants to go to the hassle of rewriting these laws to say “if you got injured by a booby trap while breaking into a house to seek shelter from a blizzard, then you can be compensated for your injuries, but if you were planning to burglarize the place, well boo hoo, too f***ing bad.” Probably because it would take a hundred pages to list all the justifiable reasons you might need to break in.
IANAL, but didn’t the criminal law theory almost completely switched to the concepts of “mens rea” and “reasonable person”? The club owners took all the common and legally required measures to ensure safety of patrons and even (accident) perpetrators, but they can’t be expected to take precautions against all possible scenarios. If someone does something crazy and uncommon on your property and hurts himself, you are not guilty of not being able to foresee those uncommon acts and take measures to prevent it.
Here’s an actual legal case from here, that’s classified as “innocent infliction of harm”: “K. was sentenced for accidental murder that happened as follows. Walking the road, he lit on a cigaretter and threw the match away. The burning match landed at the empty gasoline barrel that was lying near the road and caused an explosion of gasoline fumes. The bottom of the barrel flew off and mortally wounded S. Considering all the circumstances, the Supreme Court overruled that the death of S. happened as the result of an accident, because K. should not have, and could not have, to actually foresee and prevent the harmful events that actually happened, and so he inflicted them innocently”.
Yes, that is a horrible miscarriage of justice. In no rational scenario should “I was injured while illegally entering the property when it would have been a trivial thing for me to enter legally. Pay my medical bills!” be a serious claim.
She should not only have been laughed out of court, but she should have been fined for the commission of the crime and for wasting the time of both the court and the defendant owner of the establishment.
The thing to remember is that we as a society place a greater value on preserving human life than stopping crime. It’s why police aren’t allowed to shoot somebody for fleeing arrest.
Simply put, on a societal level a person’s life is worth much more than the monetary loss of goods.
And that’s why property owners have to just stand aside and let criminals take their stuff (literally stand aside in some cases)
You are allowed to use force to protect property, but the amount used must be proportionate. Picking up an axe, and lopping off someone’s head, when they are running off with your TV is not proportionate. Restraining them, or locking them in, is.
Hitting them, in a way which might cause injury, such as punching, or striking them with an object then gets into analysis of ‘how necessary was this?’ This week a pensioner beat three burglars up, using his mug of coffee. Given that one of them was armed, the police simply praised his actions. They were most certainly proportionate to the threat!
If you choose to detain a villain, however, you must also take responsibility for their safety. Just as we saw protests against police, who failed to assist the man, they were arresting,in New York, who was having a heart attack, the property owner must make sure that their captive is not put in undue risk.
Where it is advisable though, to step aside, is if the villains are physically much more capable or armed. But that is just a matter of common sense, not a requirement under law.
Zack Tilly: if the criminals don’t use force, you can’t use force in return
Incorrect. You may use force such as is proportionate to the circumstances.
Restraining somebody, against their will, is an application of force. If, however, they are in the act of committing a crime, the restraint is justified. Appropriate care must be taken to avoid injuring them though, especially if they are not, as you indicate, using force in return.
The example I gave, in my previous comment, also showed a reasonable application of force. A pensioner using an improvised weapon, already in hand, to defend against the unexpected appearance, in his property, and right in front of him, of an armed man and two other masked accomplices, did not require that they initiate any force, to justify him striking first.
The burglar’s weapon put him in wholly justified fear for his life. The force that he used was considerably less-lethal* than the clear and present danger posed, by them having a weapon in hand.
* Cups can kill..
@Yorp:
My favorite thing about that scene was when he took the key that you normally use to open things like tins of sardines, and put it in the same place the cup had been, and the other prisoners (wisely) ran away.
“Death by tin-opening-key” is just too embarrassing to have on your obituary. Especially if you have a reputation as being a tough guard, in an inescapable-triple-max security prison.
Which puts me in mind of another equally-dangerous living environment, Sunnydale High School. In particular when the subject of the school newspaper comes up.
OZ: I normally just skip straight to the obituaries.
Unless they are black. In which case they can be shot in the back and murdered with zero repercussions for their killers.
I think a lot of it has to do with linguistic drift. Words gradually change, over generations. And we see slang, technical terms and jargon being created every day. Yet legal terms have to remain fixed. A particular word (or phrase) will have a precise definition, which has been contested multiple ways, for hundreds of years. Woe betide the cop who uses lax language on a charge sheet, for instance.
So whilst the rest of the language evolves around it, legal language remains unchanged and archaic.
They don’t have to, honestly. The penal code in my country has been rewritten at least five times in 100 years, and definitons and terminologu changed slighlty every time. But of course, that implies you have more of Roman-style legal system instead of case law.
If the legislation has been changed because there were loopholes in the previous laws, or they were badly phrased, or the terminology was causing different interpretations, then yes, naturally they would have to alter the words or the phrases specifically affected.
However, for the reasons I stated above, if you look at the areas which remain unaffected by the updated law, the legal language has a major institutional intertia which resists any change.
I can state this categorically, for England, and have no reason to believe it will be different elsewhere. Simply because there was a long campaign, by the Campaign for Plain English, to have archaic terms and phrases, which were confusing to modern English speakers, replaced with easy to understand versions.
This took a major and sustained effort to have the worst offenders changed. But, as with things like “assault” and “battery” there is only so far that they could take such changes, without risking changing the established meaning.
For instance, redefining the old, legal, meaning of “assault” to correspond with “battery” would be counter-productive as the public would still have a misapprehension of what the term meant, as the plain English meaning of “assault” is not the same as the legal definition of “battery”.
Further there is not a great need to distinguish between the two, other than when in court. People know that making threats to kill, or attacking folks, without good reason, is illegal, so it does not matter that much what it is actually called, under most circumstances.
Whereas it is important for them to know the difference between “trespass”, “breaking and entering” and “burglary”. So they can judge their own actions, in daily life. Is it OK to climb over a fence to retrieve a football? What if it breaks a window and is sitting within arms reach, inside the house? Alternatively, if you see smoke coming from a window, is it OK to break in, if nobody answers?
“Unlawful intrusion”, “Unlawful intrusion with breaking”, “Unlawful appropriating with intrusion and breaking”, whatever.
“Evard’s Unlawful Forced Intrusion With Breaking and Rending“
Yes?.. Or was it irony? Yes, terming “appartment burglary” as “Wohnungseinbruchdiebstahl” is probably a bit mouthful, but so what?
Just because it reminded me of the similar Order of the Stick phrase.
As regards the serious side, those terms are ones which are generally well understood. So no need to use two words (unlawful intrusion) where one (trespass) is universally accepted.
In order to convince the legal establishment to change these words, there must be an unequivocable benefit to be gained. Unnecessarily creating or adopting “Americanisms”, for instance, would not go down well. Because it creates a huge amount of work to recreate all legal documents, which bear the word, with the new versions.
There will be people, in prison, for the offences, for years to come still. So, as one example,their parole hearing documents will need changing. In addition to hundreds, maybe thousands of current documents (for instance Citizens Advice pamphlets, charge sheets, and crime statistics) which will be rendered obsolete and need reprinting and restocking. For each word changed!
Even if the words & meanings in a living language drift over time, the laws are required to be interpreted according to the “Strict construction of the language used, according to the law-makers’ understanding of the language at the time of legislation.” At least, that’s how its supposed to work under US Law…Which politicians have been overly-fond of “re-interpreting” to a gross extent.
This is like the question “If you cut off Deadpool’s head, does he grow a new head, or a new body?” or “If you have a ship and you keep replacing parts on that ship including all the wood that makes it over 10 years, at what point is the ship a different ship?” You start getting into existential quandaries when you really start thinking about stuff like this.
The Deadpool question has been talked about in the comics, he needed his head reattached quickly or there would be two of him running around. Also in the time when Madcap was trapped in his body/mind they had to get split into two halves of one body to regen both a new body. And also the fact there is a Deadpool comic series in which cut off parts of Deadpool have joined into a full Deadpool clone known as Evil Deadpool and are out to kill the original.
Well, at least that answers the Deadpool question. The answer is: Whatever the writers think is entertaining.
It gets even more interesting when he was slicing off pieces of his forearm to feed to a wounded archangel. Imagine a Deadpool regenerating out of his backside?
And then there’s Lobo’s version: every drop of of his blood that’s shed by somebody else grows into a complete copy, but after those ‘clones’ have ganged up on whoever wounded him they fight to the death until only one is left…
(except for the time when one of the ‘clones’ formed was weaker than the others, realised this, and was actually sensible enough to hide instead of joining the fight & getting wiped out: He was subsequently reduced in effective age by one of Klarion’s spells, joined the team ‘Young Justice’ (under the name of ‘Slo-bo’, and ended up — “thanks” to Darkseid — as a sort of conscious statute in the HQ of the ‘DC 1’000’000 version of that team…)
,
According to D&D Zeus’s blood, if it falls on the ground, will spontaneously create a monster!
However, I can find no reference to corroborate that, from myth. They made it up! I wants my money back!
I seem to remember a story about that but for the life of me I can’t remember where.
Zeus did not have that power in the original myths, but Echidna or Typhon are often credited with this. Greek myth has gotten pretty convoluted over the Millennia and I’m pretty sure if you quizzed most Ancient Greeks (presupposing you’ve got the right kind of phone booth) you’d find they never believed any of them.
Fairly sure, that that ‘Slo-bo’ emo-bo has been retconned into being the original and true Lobo
An example of such a regenerating character on TV was on Heroes: Reborn. If a finger or hand or whatever was severed from the prime version, there would generally be a clone by the end of the scene, wearing whatever the original was. This was possibly used at one point to replicate bomb vests.
Concerning regeneration, I know it’s magic and all, but still, red blood cells do not have DNA, they do not proliferate and they are unable to do so at all by definition. blood is created in bone marrow tissue (though I guess Dave knows that). (some) White blood cells can proliferate, but that’s a smaller fraction of blood.
Also, when it comes to insane regeneration/growth I always have to very willingly suspend my disbelief because of the law of conversation of mass. Mass is not created out of nowhere. Except for the instance where the guy refills the cup, creating wine from nothing obviously. Of course “a wizard did it”, but still, that kind of creating mass from nowhere [as in generating a body from a cell] should be a large feat of magic IMO. Or would require other assumptions like the cell can digest nitrogen or somehting.
If Maxima can create a mini-nuke by just pointing her finger, I do not see a substantive difference for Thomas being able to create a cup-full of blood. Likewise for whenever Harem creates a new body.
Yeah. Suspension of disbelief is a very irrational thing :D
Mostly true. However, red blood cells do have nuclei during early phases of erythropoiesis, which means that young red blood cells (called erythroid precursors) do have DNA and can be infected by a virus, such as human parvovirus B19. (They shed their nuclei as they mature to make more room for hemoglobin.)
Yeah, conservation of mass was brought up in at least one Wolverine story I read. his regeneration ability was greatly slowed down if he hadn’t been eating anything recently…His body still needed the proteins to rebuild himself.
Suspension of disbelief is a lot easier is you consider a multi-dimensional energy shunt that handles the conversion of light into matter, with a smattering of quantum location to move the liquid from it’s creation point to the container designated.
It’s just that somewhere in the black infinity of space is a planet that’s home to the djinn, and in a private room is a massive cauldron upon which the light of a captured star forever shines. And that’s where all Tom’s liquids begin.
Printer ink. He could be refilling ink cartridges. Infinite money.
He’d get sued by Brother, Epson, or one of the other big printer companies if they caught him doing that. Those guys are proud of their ink. I did the math once, and determined that they’re charging the equivalent of $8,000 per gallon of ink.
(Or instead of suing him, they might try to hire him. Then they could charge $8,000 per gallon for ink that they’re essentially getting for free!)
As a point of comparison, here’s a chart:
https://i2.wp.com/www.boingboing.net/filesroot/200912301004.jpg?resize=500%2C402
Unless those printer companies have patented a specific chemical makeup for their ink, they can go whistle up a Dixie Chick’s y-fronts
AS fans of Warhammer are wont to say:
You need to beat the lawyers, not the law.
“whistle up a Dixie Chick’s y-fronts” … I have not one damned clue what that means.
Clues:
• They can whistle for it. Idiom:
• Whistling Dixie. Idiom:
• The Dixie Chicks. An all-female country group.
• Y-Fronts. A garment of male underwear.
*supplies Yorp with a fresh batch of Yorpie Snax for being a clever puppy* ☺
*wags tail contentedly*
A good example for your questions on regeneration abilities: Deadpool. He once was split in two and both regenerated into two separate beings. And on another occasion he had to have his head reattached or he’d have two of him running around. It is said that Deadpool’s healing factor is so powerful, more so then any other healing factor comic hero/antihero/villain, that he can regenerate completely from a single cell, and has in fact regrown his head from a puddle of liquefied mush. Heck the reason he is so insane is because his brain is in a constant regenerating state, which also makes him a telepath’s worst nightmare.
There is also Madcap in the Marvel Universe. I don’t know what the worst injury was that he was able to heal, but he was even crazier than Deadpool…Indeed, if he could make eye-to-eye contact with someone, he could make them temporarily just as crazy (completely delusional, in their own little world) as he is.
WAIT! Could he refill someone else’s blood?!
He was able to fill the cup, so probably.
However if Sydney’s imagined wish-granting scene is accurate, then probably not. Those tend to be literal, so “I wish I could refill any drink” only allows him to replace his own blood because vampires drank his blood.
So, to do that for others, he would need to team up with vampires. Assuming that you were envisaging him hanging around the ER room at his local hospital, that version would not really be viable. People who had lost blood due to injury, or operation, would not have their blood classed as a drink.
Just about the only use for that version of the power (as regards blood) is allowing the vampires to have different flavours of blood. Unless you siphon off the blood from the vampires, in order to fill up a blood-bank. Which sounds fraught with potential problems
But what if he teamed up with someone suicidial who realy want a drink of something lethal yet valuable? Like liquid helium or scorpion venom for example. But instead of giving it to the unlucky guy he sells it and shares the profit with the poor depressed person. That may cheer him up enough to reconsider suicide and they both make a nice pile of money. Everybody wins!
I think we’re getting the wish wrong, “I wish I could refill any drink” is a wish wish, not an off the cuff utterance, and frankly something that sounds a bit more sober than he looks in that flash.
“I wish I could just POOF up refills *hick* ” Seems a lot more drunk, and on the mark, to me.
Perhaps we should factor in his love of the ladies?
THOMAS (looking at waitress): “I whish you could always *hic* refill my drinks”
Presumably the genie would not want to be bound to do that, in person. However could fulfil the literal request, by giving him the power we see. By virtue of it being her who granted the wish, she is refilling his drinks, albeit indirectly.
Clearly Thomas’s intent would be to keep having her serve him, but genies are not required to obey the spirit, just the wording.
Correction: “I whish you could always *hic* refill drinks, for me”
His blood is not his drink. It is the vampires’. Ergo my rephrasing.
Is it me, or is there a Matt Groening art style in Scarlet’s face in the last panel?
I can see it too… Sexy female Ralph with teeth…..(so nothing like ralph at all)
I was thinking more of the Jagerkin in the Fogio’s Girl Genius, myself.
Sorry Deof Movestofca, sveethot, but hy dun vant to be tied down!
No hard feelinks!
Poor Dimo: squished by a spark :(
But what a way to go ;)
Better still…
The spark.
Yup, that’s why said “what a way to go ;)”
At least he got a handful before he died.
Jägermonsters do not die, they just become ‘raw material’. Science! does not let their bodies go to waste.
Is that a different art style for Sydney in particular and the entire page in general?
Yes, Sydney has always been more of an ‘anime’ style
Tom could out-anime Sydney in one area. He could literally do the unending-stream-of-tears crying gag seen in just about any cartoon or comic book.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OcularGushers
Sydney does appear to be more child-like than normal. I hope her style does not drift too much that way!
So basically his life is a typical harem anime scenario.
Also, Can he also replenish “any” form of liquid? If so, can he replenish molten metals such as GOLD?
Only if someone want a drink of gold.
Me! Once I had it, I would probably not choose to drink it mind. Given it would be a tad hot for my tastes. But I am used to my drinks getting cold before I can finish them.
However they are still mine. MINE, ALL MINE!
Muh huh ha!
https://www.goldspirits.co.uk/shopimages/products/normal/Gold-Vodka_20cl.jpg
I haven’t had that vodka, but I have had Goldschläger. Although I vastly prefer my wines and meads dry, my whiskey neat, and my martinis dry, I do have the occasional weakness for a cinnamon schnaps or a Sambuca. While ordinarily I’d find them horribly sweet, on occasion they not only become palatable but dangerous, since they go down so smoothly.
Isn’t the supernatural attributes of human blood what sustains vampires and not merely its chemical properties?
He isn’t just creating atoms, he’s creating magic.
I can’t think of a single source, which claims that, off the top of my head. Although if you are picking that up from one of the paper comics, then fair enough, as I would not know those.
It’s just my interpretation of vampire lore.
It would explain why cow blood would be unsuitable.
There are also plenty of fictional works that allow vampires to sustain themselves with animal blood, but it’s barely palatable…More like surviving, compared to living.
They are the vegans and vegetarians of the Vampire world :p
Pigs’ blood would be more compatible
Regenerating from single cells was Lobo’s thing, if I recall correctly. Beyond the whole caricature of hypermasculine 90’s comic book characters sort of thing, that is. I really want them to make a movie about him.. but I can’t trust DC to not screw it up like they did when they tried to remake the character.
For truly bonkers regeneration read Tomie by Junji Ito (warning LOTS of body horror)
I love Ito’s stuff, and really, most mangas/comic that have really over the top gore like that.
He he. See, I knew Sydney monitors her biographer!
My “issue” with regenerating characters is usually the complete lack of explanation for where their mass comes from when it regrows.
It’s almost never a FAT character, whom I could reasonably believe draws on fat reserves to regenerate. Then you’ve got Wolverine regenerating his entire body from a drop of blood.
I hate it.
Wolverine still has to eat food. His regeneration ability is impaired unless he’s been ingesting proteins to sustain it. After regenerating a severe wound, he probably gets quite hungry. Which might tend to aggravate his “already-sunny disposition” even further…
O.o
No, I mean, he’s LITERALLY regenerated his ENTIRE body from a DROP of blood in some comics!
And you need way more than some energy biscuits to regenerate an entire limb and all the blood in it.
Well he does appear in the same comics as a guy who can create miles-long ice slides, out of nothing. Even arguing that he does so by sucking in water vapour, from the surroundings, and freezing them, would not prevent Wolverine from doing something similar. Most of our bodies are built from air, after all.
Just view his apparent screaming in pain as actually being drawing in air, and metabolising it supernaturally fast and efficiently. Skipping supplementary aspects, that others need, such as requiring food and drink, as a part of the process.
My above obliviously assumes normal regenerating circumstances. The drop of blood version is too ridiculous to me too. Although, taken to an extreme, the process I described could be extended to drawing in all the elements from the surrounds (iron out of rock or complex components from nearby animals, in small enough proportions not to harm them).
But, coming back from a drop of blood, should end up with a clone with a brain as blank as a baby’s!
That was something which bothered me with the 5th Element reconstruction (from a hand) scene. However, in her case, it could be argued that her memory was genetically-encoded, given how vastly more complex her DNA was than humans.
Well Deadpool once regenerated his memory.
And once regenerated from a hand, but woodoo piss was involved.
Wasn’t Leeloo’s “memory” just language and a general gist of what would happen if she let evil win? That much cxould easily be chalked up to instinct. Especially, as you say, in someone with that much genetic code to spare.
No, she knew she needed to go to meet the priest. Whilst that could be a ‘programmed instinct’ too, that would imply that her DNA was specifically re-written with the sole intent of having that instinct, in case she was destroyed, but reconstructed. She is smart. She may have anticipated that. But it is a complex logical path.
On the other paw, continually backing up (key) memories, to her DNA is (slightly) simpler (in explanation, if not necessarily execution).
Critically though, even we are able to do the latter (in principle). Given that we have learnt how to use DNA for mass-data storage. Whilst we would need machines to do that, at present, DNA is meant to be handled by organic mechanisms, so ultra tech bio-engineering would have little difficulty.
Plus we are in the early stages of using brain scanners, to tell what words, associations, etc are associated with each bit of a person’s brain. However such would not be needed in Lelu Lekatariba Lamina-Tchaï Ekbat De Sebat’s circumstances, as that too could be internally contained.
Note the latter complex explanations would require similarly involved descriptions, if attempting to create reprogrammable instincts, via DNA.
The “single-drop” regeneration was not part of his usual ability. According to
this happened when his blood landed on an item of cosmic-level power.
Kudos to all those of you who guessed right about our new friend, Thomas. As usual, I didn’t. 😒
“Oh, he’ll be a werewolf and this will answer the question about if you can have hybrids in the Grrl-Verse! No, no! Forget that! Really he’s an android and they aren’t really draining him at all, just putting on a show to see how Sydney reacts!” said Ignoble.
Admittedly, what DaveB comes up with is always more interesting and entertaining than my guesses, but it’s getting kind of discouraging. 😔
I think it is like folks who do cross-words regularly. They get to know the style of the puzzle setters, so can easily anticipate the cryptic clues. Which gets even easier if the player and setter have common backgrounds or interests.
However, in this case, picking up on Dave’s blog, under the previous comic, would also give the relevant clue. Namely describing him as a “blood-bag”.
Dave manages to surprise most of us a lot though, so no need to be too disheartened. I don’t think anyone anticipated the vamps going into a feeding-frenzy, right in front of Sydney, for instance!
So basically he’s a perv with magical blood and a thing for vamp ladies and BDSM……….
(Nerds everywhere salute you sir!)
Nah he’s a perv with a thing for vamp ladies & BDSM and a spell to refill limited volumes of any liquid.
That saluter still stands.
Okay, so what’s to stop Inggie (or Count Orloc) from supping on nerd-wine? o_O
Also, what if the one sipping on nerd-juice doesn’t stop? Does he have to be conscious to re-fill his meat-goblet? o_O
Obviously he does as his powers are consciously activated.
Whoa, phrasing!
You must be new, welcome, you can call me “The Phrasinatrix” :D
Very possibly this dude saying ‘No?’ I mean, what we have here is a clear case of Corny-Corspie-Nerd (not quite right as a super name, I know) being into two-on-one hot vampire lady action. NTTAWWT, of course – but he might not be into dudes sucking his blood. If the Twilight Council has an understanding in place with the mundane authorities that vampires restrict themselves to willing donors or people actively trying to kill them*, that’s probably enough.
*I’d be somewhat anti-vampire if supernatural ones actually existed – my species is the only one that gets to be the apex predator around here, thanks – but if you’re a crazed Hunter that tries to stake some Undead dude who’s just trying to get a friendly drink at the local Goth club, well, ‘legitimate fear of my life’ and all that. I mean, it’s not the vampire’s fault that his bite attack is also his most effective lethal attack used strictly for self-defense because the guy literally tried to STAKE him, all right? Everyone saw!
Yeah, that is relying on the vamp seeking permission
There was me thinking .”…… to be sucked off by a vampire” or something along those lines.
There’s an old joke about 12-inch pianists and slightly hard of hearing genies..
Or the joke about the man who asked the genie for a little head . . .
Somehow, that joke always reminds me of Calypso in the Twisted Metal series of games. He was something of a Jackass Genie, in the sense that if you won the contest, he would grant one wish… but except for a very few occasions, he was prone to being very literal.
For example, in Twisted Metal 2, Captain Rogers, a Vietnam vet, asks Calypso to give him the body of a twenty-year-old. “Your wish is granted!” … congratulations, you have the body of a twenty-year-old. You never said you wanted the head of a 20-year-old to go along with it.
(And that’s why the joke about the man who asked the genie for a little head always reminds me of Twisted Metal.)
Or that genie could dump the corpse of a 20 year old next to you. Or a lawyer turns up and says that one of your relatives died, and left their body to you, in their will!
Calypso wasn’t really a genie. “Jackass Genie” is just a trope. If I remember correctly, he somehow stole his power from a demon.
The very same demon (named Minion) entered the Twisted Metal tournament. If he won the contest, his wish was to return to Hell for all eternity.
“Your wish is granted!”
… Minion should have been more specific. He ended up in Hell, Michigan (population 266).
By the way, the U.S. Weather Bureau has a weather station there, for the sole purpose of telling you when Hell has frozen over. In 2015, temperatures plunged to -13C with a wind chill of -33C.
Also, you can buy Hell. The entire town is selling itself for the price of $1 million.
Wow, that is cheap. Sounds like a lot of people are keen to get out of Hell.
It would make an interesting talking point at a party, wouldn’t it?
“Have I mentioned that I own Hell?”
“I am the king of Hell”, sounds even better!
Just hold a referendum, of yourself, and with a 100% mandate, declare secession from the USA, and pronounce the formation of your monarchy. Sadly, this might then require a civil war, as the USA would deny that, on constitutional grounds. You should ensure you are prepared to defend your country, should they initiate hostilities.
However, I see little difference, in principle, to the the unconstitutional secession of America, from the British Empire. The tax burden upon Hell sounds unduly high to me.
All hypothetically speaking, of course.
*wibbles tongue, at NSA*
Yes, some armed conflict may result, but just imagine the good publicity the US govt. would get when it’s reported they’ve got to war with Hell!
Yeah but claiming to be the “King of Hell” might have it’s own problems involving Winchesters that keep coming back from the dead and their comedic sidekick angel.
Well considering genie’s are said to have been demons trapped by Solomon…
I am thinking that Scarlet and Tom need to be in the Who’s Who as well, seeing as how both of them also have speaking roles today.
Yea. DaveB probably got distracted by Sydney telling Dave about the continuity talk, she had with Maxima, and then having to add the mini-comic, to reflect that.
He was given the opportunity to make a wish by a genie . . .er, excuse me, Djinn, so he basically asked for a bottomless beer mug? I’m guessing that the blood regeneration thing was more of a side effect to what he wished for than it was the actual thing he wanted.
I’m guessing he was already pretty drunk when he made this wish . . . ☺
That might have been the Djinn of Frosted Beer Mugs.
He probably wished that he could refill any mug and the wish was non-specific enough to apply to all containers (hooray for djinn grammar)
Well, you could say, that he is a ‘mug’ for making that wish in the first place :P
Have him regen the blood of horse-shoe crabs. They’re milked for their blood because because their blood contains earths most potent anti-bacterial compound that isn’t an anti-biotic. Germs cannot become resistant to it, but its so difficult to get large amounts of it
It is one of the most precious liquids on the planet – he could demand any sum of money he wishes
I know that Limulus amebocyte lysate is collected from these crabs, but that’s mostly used for testing of endotoxins. What’s the other one?
You are both talking about one and the same thing, I think. It is the anti-bacterial properties of amebocytes which makes them useful for the testing of medical equipment and vaccines.
Next time someone has a genie,as in the third panel top row,make sure it resembles either Barbara Eden’s character from I Dream of Jeannie or the Hanna-Barbera version.
Hey DaveB. Couple of Typo’s I think (not that often I get on here early on update day).
Panel 7: They why not (Rather than, Then why not)
Panel 9: Soud point? ….I had to zoom in to 300% on a big screen and unsure if its meant to be sound point (still not sure if that sounds right) or Solid point. If SOLID then needs a tad more space.
I am rarely picky but I know you are a perfectionist:)
Panel 9 says solid point, but it’s hard to see :-)
It’s not the first time ‘solid’ has been mistaken for ‘soud’
I’ve been reading “Kill Six Billion Demons” for a while, since my son recommended it to me — and it doesn’t remind me of Aragones’ style, at all. Rather, it seems to me to borrow a lot from both the art and storytelling of Moebius.
Technically speaking, assault is the threat of IMMINENT battery (specifically defined as unlawful touching). So… if I tell you ‘I’m going to beat you up in a month’… that’s not assault. :)
Also I’m assuming that a regenerator would regenerate whichever part of him/her is connected to his/her brain (or at least the majority of the body. So…if you cut off a finger, the finger would regenerate on the body, but a body wouldnt regenerate attached to the finger. At least if regeneration works like lizards or starfish or other creatures that can regenerate parts that have been cut off.
Pretty sure it doesnt work with worms that way, but worms have a lot of things about them that aren’t common in higher organisms.
Indeed not. Given that “earth worms, which are cut in two, become two worms” is an urban myth. However the end with the head can potentially regrow the rest of its body, as you say.
Incidentally humans can regenerate lost finger tips. But this ability is lost as they get older, so it is only young children (up to two) who can do this naturally. However it is possible to artificially stimulate the process, even in an adult!
It is not an urban myth. It really happens, but it is actually far more exotic than that, even.
Earthworms, which are cut in two, become two fish! This does involve sitting in a boat for several hours while sipping a few malt beverages, but it does happen, and it is quite magical. And you and a friend can then clean, cook, and eat the fish, which taste a whole lot better and are far more filling and nutritious than half an earthworm.
I think a good wish would be the ability to be super-convincing of any argument or point you make.
I never thought of it that way, but you are totally right!
Don’t look into Pander‘s eyes! She has you bewitched!
*keeps tinfoil hat firmly on, to provide immunity to super-convincing powers*
*Puts on mesmer resistant mirrored glasses and hides accorns*
Artemis Fowl, right?
Man, I really had to dig up memory lane to get that reference :p
So you would wish for The Power of Persuasion?
Hows about The Power of Suggestion? ☺
Sheesh girls, cut him some slack. He just lost a lot of blood so his brain is not fully powered. And not in the nice way.
Actually if he is into SM and get’s turned on that might even drain more blood from the brain.
In other words, he’s having trouble thinking straight because all the blood is rushing to his head.
(Ba dum tssh)
Well we certainly know what he is thinking with.
[said with pride, for straight-talking honesty, and a touch of envy]
I read a story somewhere ages ago where some guy made the best wish for cash I’d ever heard. Since a huge pile of money or gold or whatever would run out eventually or might even be stolen from him, he wished that however much he needed at any given moment would just appear in his pocket. So long as he was wearing something that had a pocket on it, he could always pay his bills.
In this case the genie could have also turned him into a kangaroo, because he specified that the money would appear in ‘his’ pocket.
Only FEMALE kangaroos have a pouch.
Wishes can grant gender changes.
As always, a malicious genie can pervert that though. If that money appears from the pockets of those nearby, sooner or later he will be in jail for pick-pocketing!
Only if he ends up with money that has been specifically marked in some way to identify who had it prior to him, and then he could just accuse them of planting it on him (specially if camera evidence shows he never went near them), not to mention, the one who marked the money could be arrested for defacing the money
I’d love to have that wish.
This seems like the perfect guy to drive a 6000 SUX. Goes really fast, gets really crappy gas mileage but who cares? He has an infinite supply and never even has to stop.
So according to several lists online…
Most expensive liquids per gallon:
Scorpion Venom – $39m
King Cobra Venom – $153k
LSD – $123k
Chanel #5 – $26k
Insulin – $9.4k
Mercury – $3.4k
Black Printer Ink – $2.7k
GHB – $2.5k
Human Blood – $1.5k
Mail Polish $890
Yeah, printer ink was my very first thought.
Liquid gold (not sure he wants to touch it): $4 million
Liquid platinum (ditto, too hot): $3.6 million
I wonder how his power would be impeded with a minor burn?
Yeah, but could he put the stuff back into my Stretch Armstrong?
I have been able to do that since I was eight. Even if it is a book that I have set aside months ago. Mind you it is rare for me not to finish a book in a day (or half-day), so it is not something I practice much.
I can also usually open up the book to the page I was last on, by just holding it face up, by the spine, and letting it fall open. But I guess that has as much to do with the book picking up creases, for each page you turn, whilst the ones you have not yet reached remain more uniform. Thus naturally opening to the right spot.
None-the-less it is still fun to do that, especially if you have someone around to show off to.
Plus, if it’s a book you’ve read quite a few times over the years, it’s not likely to fall open at page you most recently read.