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.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
And actually like others have said if he can refill liquids wouldn’t he just be refilling himself with blood plasma, the liquid part, rather than whole blood?
Well if that were the case, he’d only be able to refill the wine with water and maybe ethanol, and not all of the dissolved solid compounds that make the wine taste like wine instead of watery ethanol.
My first thoughts as a Board Certified Hematologist, however, all those membranes and intracellular, er fluids…
Unless he has to be extra-who-dinary about the ‘liquid’, it will most likely go by ‘intent’ rather than ‘specifics’ (although there may be times he can be specific, like wanting a glass of the original Coca Cola {made with cocaine} that came out of soda dispenser as a thick syrup, or a 1854 vintage of wine {either fresh batched or aged until 2011}), other wise the only ‘liquid’ he could ‘summon’ would be water (and even then you get into specifics like: fresh or saline? how much percentage of salinity? lime-stone filtered or ‘just fell from the sky’?)
there are many other liquids than water, especially since we don’t know anything about the temperature. how about some molten gold? How about lava? Supercooled water could be interesting, weaponwise.
“Supercooled water”? Isn’t that ‘ice’? o_O
No, it isn’t.
Water doesn’t crystallise into ice automatically, it needs a nucleation site to grow the crystal from. Get some really pure water in a smooth container, and you can cool it below 0° without it turning into ice. Then add something or shake it up and it all freezes instantly.
You can do this at home with a bottle of water from a shop and your freezer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fot3m7kyLn4
That is
coolsupercool.Just be sure not to drink quantities of water that is too pure. That can kill you.
Actually, you shouldn’t drink massive quantities of regular water either. Although not as common, overhydration (or hyperhydration) can be just as deadly as dehydration.
(Note: The above is not intended as medical advice, which one should get from a licensed doctor rather than some stranger on the internet, including, but not limited to me. I assume no liability for anyone who follows or fails to follow it. Void where prohibited.)
Indeed. People have died in water-drinking competitions. However with totally pure water you can take a fatal dose without such extreme circumstances. Just trying to quench normal thirst may be enough.
My “quantities” was just to express that a sip would probably not be dangerous. But, to give you an idea of the relative risk, QI, when wanting to demonstrate the dangers, were allowed to offer their panel recycled sewage (and the host drunk some), but were not even allowed to put a sample of pure water in front of them!
No risk of that for me: haven’t drunk water in almost 30 years (horrible stuff, literally makes me feel nauseous, and have tried all kinds: filtered, bottled ‘pure’, tap, the only water could tolerate was fresh straight from a mountain stream)
You mean, you haven’t drunk “pure” water. Even the sugariest of fizzy drinks are going to be mostly dihydrogen monoxide
Even if your own personal BS meter is broken you should at least check the comments before posting stuff to make sure it hasn’t been completely debunked by people using real logic. Any water you drink gets mixed with saliva, stomach acid, all kinds of bacteria and their byproducts and whatever you’ve eaten in the last several hours before your body even starts to absorb it. The purest possible water is that produced chemically in a hydrogen fuel cell as a byproduct of producing electricity, and astronauts have drunk that for days at a time without the slightest threat to their health.
QI facts have a recognised half-life. It was a recent episode. Statistically I had a good chance that the elves knew what they were talking about. And the facts I stated were all true. Any speculation, on my part, was qualified.
*shrugs*
However I know that you can die from drinking too much water, from more than one report of such. Ergo, if that much is true, you can also die from drinking too much pure water (I do know however that it is a matter of how much in how short a time, not how long it is sustained for).
I make no claim as to what that level is.
Check your own meter.
Not only did they put ultra-pure water in front of them they specifically said that a glass wasn’t enough to do damage; ~25 minutes in here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbiwHp7gVkI
Actually, if you view on further, you will see Stephen Fry confess that, although they claimed it was, what they actually had in there was normal water. Hence it being no risk to them. Although I do grant that he answered in the context of ‘plain water, in that quantity, being no risk’.
I can give you a bit of insight, as to what will have happened behind the scenes. The producer (or designated minion) will have contacted their regular insurance company, to inform them of the demonstration they wished to do. The purpose being just to get them to sign off on it. The show has lots of things, like precious antiques, put in the hands of erratic comedians, so this will be a regular task.
However, when the underwriter went to look up how risky pure water is, he would have been unable to find data, in the format that he needed. It is not something that would appear on an actuarial table, as drinking totally pure water is not routinely done.
Whilst he could research scientific articles, and try to make a judgement call, this would be placing his company at unnecessary risk. Whilst The Motarp is confident that it poses no risk, the underwriter was not. If he called it wrong, and lacking the specialised scientific skills to do that, such is entirely possible, then his company could end up having to pay out.
Who knows, in ten years time the astronauts mentioned above might start to suffer some long-term consequences, and fall ill. Likewise members of the panel.* Far safer just to deny the request.
This is why I did not bother researching the specifics more. Somebody who’s job it is, to do that, concluded that it is more sensible to play it safe. And if a skilled professional makes a judgement call, like that, I would avoid the risk myself. Let other more risk-loving individuals, act as guinea pigs, to build up our knowledge base.
* I am not claiming this is even remotely likely. I am just illustrating the thought processes involved.
plain water, in that quantity = pure water, in that quantity
That’s often called “water intoxication” or “water poisoning”. Essentially, you’re altering the balance of electrolytes between the inside of the cells and the fluid outside the cells, causing water to be drawn into the cells to try to balance the electrolytes, which in turn causes the cells to swell.
I don’t have to tell you that if your nerve and/or brain cells start swelling, that this is dangerous and can lead to death from drinking too much water. Cerebral edema or too much pressure on the brain stem is the eventual result, disrupting autonomic functions.
An adult with healthy kidneys should be able to excrete 800 ml to 1 liter per hour, so that’s a good benchmark for the maximum safe rate at which you can drink water. (Of course, you can tolerate a little more than that if you’re sweating, for example like a marathon runner.)
Is that why all those ‘home-made slushy’ devices never work? o_O
As long as he already has a sample of what he’s refilling, he has a base template for the recreation process. So as long as he hasn’t been drained dry, I’d think he would be fine. So the refilling power is very specific, limited, and extremely useful within those preset limits.
As far as powers go, it’s quite interesting.
I think the core aspect here being missed is the ‘refill’ not ‘summon’. So the magic would only create whatever drink/liquid was in the container previously. That cup refilled with wine because it previously had wine, and I don’t mean in a ‘at some time it once had one’ but rather it just had wine a bit ago, someone drank it, now he refilled it.
Yeah, was thinking that that was the case: he can’t ‘refill’ or ‘summon’ just any liquid, he can only refill the container with it just had (may or may not require some of the liquid to still be in the container)
He could make a fortune in medicine, the sample sizes for proteins and DNA extracts are ridiculous.
As far as powers go, I would want the ability to teleport my bio waste out of my body instead of wasting time looking for a toilet. This could be real helpful on aircraft and when hiking.
Or just to not produce any bio-waste at all.
Careful how you word that one. You wouldn’t want to lose the ability to sweat in the heat.
I’m not sure that sweat qualifies as waste. It is being produced to regulate heat, not to rid the body of a poison. If in a completely temperature controlled environment a human does not need to produce sweat in order to survive.
Sweat contains salt, and you can still sweat in a completely temperature controlled environment
It also contains other things like anaesthetic if you’ve just undergone surgery. Man that stuff stinks.
Your body will sweat out alcohol as it sees it as a poison. Most of the alcohol is eliminated from the lungs and kidneys, but a person will smell like they are dunk long after they’ve become sober if they haven’t had a bath.
The presence of salt doesn’t make sweat a waste product. It is excreted not because it is a waste product that the body needs to get rid of, but because it assists in regulating body temperature.
I have a friend who insisted every time one of the TNG crew tugged on their outfits to straighten it, they were actually activating the waste transporter, which did just what you’re talking about. “How often do you see someone on the pot in that show” was their logic.
Still, it’s funny to think right in the middle of trade negotiations, Picard is like “got to port a deuce” [tug]
Still better than the reason why Ryker keeps sitting down oddly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVIGhYMwRgs
Yes, they made a collection of it.
Riker sat/leaned/slouched/etc on everything in funny ways because the actor had back problems throughout the 10 years of filming the show
Maybe that’s because he was so tall, it was simply easier to ‘swing a leg over’ the back of the chairs
No, it was because he has a long-standing back injury due to moving furniture. It was less painful for him to simply swing a leg over the chair, or turn it around and straddle it, than it was for him to pull the chair out and sit in it normally. In fact, most people probably don’t know he was wearing a back brace for most of the series.
This is also the reason why, despite effectively being TNG’s equivalent to Captain Kirk, he had so few actual physical scenes. Instead, Worf, Tasha, and even Picard would be involved in the action, and then Riker would show up appropriately disheveled, as if he had been involved in the fight, off-screen.
P.S., I talked to a friend of mine who is a massage therapist. He said “Yeah, couldn’t you tell? He walked like his lower back was constantly in pain.” I guess it takes someone who specializes in treating back pain to recognize something like that, because I never noticed until it was pointed out to me.
Wait, you were the one posting all those comments about his injury?
No, actually, but I knew about it before seeing that clip.
Heh, just seemed to be almost word-for-word
My favorite was in the very first pilot episode, where he sat on one of the touch-sensitive bridge consoles. Isn’t that that pretty much the same as sitting on the keyboard?
Gotta love Star Fleet Engineering… they have a bad habit of routing plasma conduits through control consoles (which is why the consoles exploded when the ship took too much damage… it was an exploding plasma conduit), but they remembered to add gluteus maximus sensors in their keyboards, disabling the controls if it detected someone’s butt sitting on it.
Apparently, we still have centuries to go before we solve the problem of butt-dialing.
Lol, I had a two hour voice message on my phone of just muffled voices and fart noises because a friend butt dialed me when I was on silent mode.
LOL. You should have seen the look on my boss’ face when I played back the voicemail I got(similar to yours but more discernible). I led with the line,” Boss, I am worried about this highly inappropriate message I received from a coworker…”
If I recall correctly, the real reason they were always tugging on their uniforms though was because Gene Roddenberry didn’t want any of his perfect future people to ever have a wrinkled uniform – which is almost as silly as your friends idea, DaveB.
You actually see people going to the bathroom all the time in TNG.
The bathroom is the rear-facing door on the port side of the bridge. Every time you see a character exit the scene using that door, they’re taking a bio break~
That is a serious health and safety violation, not having the doors marked! Not only should it be unmistakable, but it should be self-illuminating, even in darkness or smoke.
INTERCOM ANNOUNCEMENT: All hands abandon ship!
(primary lighting fails, and smoke obscures vision, even with emergency lighting coming on)
CREWMAN #1 (finding way to door, by luck): Quick this way!
CREWMAN #2 (grasping control mechanism): Transporter room one!
(protracting coughing by ALL, due to smoke inhalation)
CONSTIPATED CREWMAN (concealed in smoke): Kindly release my appendage! Plus could you tell me if there is any loo paper, in the next cubicle?
that’s one of the ways you can tell sci fi from space fantasy; in things like star trek, they worry about waste, recycling, water cleaning, how big a fuel tank they need…
Well, they don’t want to show the huge queues for the toilet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAKQzZfpaz8
That’s nothing, in EQ2, there is only one toilet, on the entire PLANET! And it’s in an undead filled dungeon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6V5er5xQnjQ someone else had that idea as well
Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, “Make it so, number 2”.
Dave I have the ability to remember what page I’m on in any book without needing a bookmarker, what do you think of that?
Also as far as wishes go, my wish would obviously be to wish for a small object (that only i can see and touch) that’ll grant me an unlimited amount of wishes which’ll never harm me (or my friends and family)
Ixnay on the wishing for more wishes! (sorry, had an Aladdin flashback.)
But what if I wish for more genies?
Then you get turned into one. “infinite cosmic power, tiiiny little living space.”
“Phenomenal Cosmic Powers! iiiity bitty living space”
“Oi! Ten thousand years will give you such a crick in the neck.”
I too just note the page number and close the book and can pick it up later and remember the page, but I also do things like misplace my mobile device AND glasses at the same time for three days and finally find them both in the fridge in the butter compartment. WTF?
Dam my sick mind (to my defense i am on a 2 week sick leave) if he can refill any liqued he coud write war and peace in the snow. Now that would be the ultimat party ty trick.
woow man how mutch beer did you drink.
Haha. Similar impression. I thought about how annoying it would be to use the toilet and THERE IS NO END TO THE GOLDEN SHOWER!
From DaveB‘s blog: “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?”
Well, in GURPS, they define Regeneration as something quite a bit different from Regrowth. Any living organism that can heal damage is “regenerating,” but a lizard that snaps off its tail & it heals back (or an earthworm that’s cut into a few pieces) has Regrowth. As far as “Regeneration” being a superpower, it usually means that normal (more or less) healing is greatly accelerated.
Regrowth would require, biologically speaking, a means of producing Stem Cells that can “re-configure” themselves into specialized organs to replace those that wind up missing…There’s not many species of creature that can do that after reaching adult stage.
Ok..Can’t wish for additional wishes.
How about…
“I wish I knew what to wish for.”
(Isn’t there something in Greek mythology where a woman wished for the best possible thing for her sons? They instantly dropped dead and their souls were welcomed by the gods in paradise.)
Can’t confirm but that sounds suitably dark and twisted for a greek myth. Needs more incest and god rape though.
Why do you think the Gods welcomed them? Fresh arse-meat
Yeah, that’s why personally don’t make even idle wishes
As the old saying goes, “Be careful what you wish for… you just might get it.” Or, as Spock once said, “You may find that having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting. This is not logical, but it is often true.”
Zack Tilly!
I’ve read an old fable so long ago that I’m not sure of its origin, but I think it featured Baba Yaga, of Russian fame.
A guy wakes up to find himself sitting on a fallen tree trunk alongside a road. Try as he might, he can’t recall how he got there, or even who he was. He looks up to see a withered old crone standing nearby, who asks him, “What is your third wish?”
He asks, “Hold on there. What do you mean by ‘my 3rd wish?’ What happened to the first two wishes?”
The crone replies, “Well, you’ve already been granted two wishes. Your confusion is the result of my granting them.”
So the guy is thinking, “I don’t believe in any ‘granting wishes’ nonsense, but I might as well see if I can find out why I can’t remember anything.” So he wishes to remember who he is.
“Your first wish resulted in killing your family & all of the friends you had in your village. Your second wish was to forget everything that happened. I now grant your third wish,” the crone chuckled just before disappearing.
Back in the obligatory rounds of college D&D sessions one person in our party came into possession of a ring as his part of a treasure trove. Detection showed it was magic, but not what kind. He went through the standard sets of tests to see if he could do anything extraordinary while wearing it but nothing seemed to work. Finally in frustration he said aloud “Damn, I wish I knew what this ring did.” A voice from thin air said “This WAS a ring of one wish.” and the ring turned to dust on his finger.
That is why I kept a carefully phrased wish, written down, and used as a standard part of item testing. For use at a very early stage in the process. It was structured such that if the wish was of insufficient power to grant the intent directly, it would advise a list of the most readily available alternative ways of accomplishing the wish.
That way you do not waste a limited wish, but instead find out out say, where a magic pool that grants the improved attribute you wanted, is located. Plus, if the item granted multiple limited wishes, it would indicate that using one of those would allow you to teleport directly to the location.
If it turned out to grant wishes, then you get what you asked for. Unless it turned out that even a full wish would not grant that (for instance increasing an attribute, above a certain level might require ten wishes). In which case, you might learn that “this ring can grant you seven more wishes, if you use those and locate the Djini lamp, in the dragon’s lair 300 yards to the South East, you will be able to complete your wish. Provided you use the following phrasing…”
OK, this went in a weird-er direction very very quickly.
“Maybe she was limited to cantrip wishes.”
So she can only grant people indestructible blue jeans? (ba dum, tish)
But now that I think about it, that could make actual bullet proof vests, or bridge cables the thickness of dental floss. More importantly, we could finally get a working space elevator.
Or blue jeans that force you to stumble regularly.
+1
For all we know the bullet could go right through you and take the jeans (still whole) with it. Indestructible means bulletproof, not bulletproofing.
Speaking of blood . . .
I saw a movie ages ago that was a sort of comedy/horror flick. I think it may have been a TV movie but so far as I know it only aired once and then disappeared forever. It was called Nightlife and it stared the former Bond girl Maryam d’Abo as a vampire who falls in love with a mortal doctor.
He keeps her supplied with blood so that she doesn’t have to go out and chomp on people, but gradually her condition starts to deteriorate and she becomes more and more feral and dangerous, ready to rip someone’s throat out at a moments notice. It turns out that blood is just one of the things a vampire needs! The other thing is a healthy jolt of adrenaline, usually produced by their victims when they realize they are about to get bit.
Oh, and while all of this is happening, her ex-boyfriend – another vampire, of course – is coming to find some way of forcing her to come back to him.
Did I mention that this was supposed to be a comedy/horror film? I can’t even remember now whether or not I enjoyed seeing it.
He’d make a killing making/selling deuterium oxide.
Just a little heavy dihydrogen-monoxide.
Dideuterium oxyde?
That would end the debate what it tastes like and if it is poisonous though.
We have no garuntees that the taste or biological activity of dideuterium oxide would have any relation to that of diatomic deuterium or deuterium peroxide but I’d still be down to try a sample.
The prevailing thought I’d that drinking a lot of heavy water will kill you. There were some tests that indicate it may cause issues with cell division.
I read a mystery once in which several members of a university or research establishment’s staff mountaineering club suffered fatal accidents by falling during climbs. It turned out that one of their colleagues was putting heavy water into the bottles of water that they took to drink from during climbs, and that once this had been absorbed into their body-fluids its difference in density from ordinary water was affecting their sense of balance…
Sounds interesting but how real was it?
Not very. Despite the name, heavy water is not that much heavier than normal water. (In fact, ordinary tap water contains 0.02% heavy water, so in a way, you’ve been drinking it since birth.)
It does interfere with many biological processes, but it is not radioactive; the deuterium in the water is stable and does not decay. Also, you’d have to drink a lot of it to even notice any effects; experiments say you’d have to replace about 25% of the water in your body, which is about a week of drinking nothing else, which would cost about $10,000 (or 7,650 British pounds).
Once about 50% of your body water has been replaced, heavy water has a pronounced effect on the mitotic spindle, and is fatal at that concentration. Below that level, it induces sterility, and most enzyme reactions, such as the cytochrome P450 reaction that takes place in your liver, would occur much slower (6 to 10 times slower), so there would be noticeable effects on your health before it reached lethal levels.
Tritiated water is mildly radioactive, but is much more expensive than deuterated water (which is, in turn, much more expensive than regular water)… and tritiated water is treated as a radiation hazard, so it’s much harder to come by.
Also, for the record, even if you could somehow replace all the water in your body with deuterated water, you’d only be about 10% heavier.
Hypothetically speaking, would this added bulk offer any damage resistance traits?
Knockback resistance, yes. If a blow would push a super 10 yards back, normally, then after bulking up he would only go 9 yards.
Increasing the density of flesh and bone should improve damage resistance. Whether heavy water would do that though, depends on where the bulk of it ends up. If part of the flesh and organs, it could help to make them more durable.
Whereas, if there is more in the blood stream than helping to strengthen organs, then it could actually weaken damage resistance. The denser liquid, slooshing around, causing more pressure than the arteries, veins and organs have evolved to contain. Thus increasing the risk of internal damage occurring.
“Dideuterium oxyde?”
No, did you?
Years ago, also had an idea to replenish any container with fluid (typically it would be the last fluid placed in it before getting drained: you just had the most perfect martini you have ever had? no problems, until some arsehole pisses in your glass when you aren’t looking!)
Also, would always have the exact amount of money needed to buy something (to avoid suspicion would restrict it to ‘small’ items under $1000, nothing was said of trading or bartering the items for something more expensive ☺)
Others have mentioned those ‘wishes’ in the comments, that’s why mentioned them here
If you get three wishes, maybe the trick is to use the first one to wish for a genie who’s not an ass?
Except, all genie are demon, that’s why they screw with your wishes
The important thing to consider is, do you have to use the magic words (“I wish…”) or not?
If not, you might end up with a situation like that in Wishmaster. In that movie, you didn’t have to say “I wish”, and often the djinn would outright ask you what you wanted.
The one guy who might have managed to get away clean was the one who said, “I want you to leave.” Unfortunately, he then said “In order to get through this door, you’d have to walk through me, and I’d love to see that.”
So the Djinn turned him into a (still living) stained glass window and walked through him, shattering the window (and killing him). He did get his “wish”, though.
Demon? Maybe so, but some are still pretty cool. I seem to recall being enamored of the one Barbara Edenplayed. Kinda makes one wonder what her show would be like if they were making it today.
The Barbara Eden link didn’t take for some reason. Trying again!
https://georgespigot.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/jeannie-02.jpg
She was awesome.
You only had “<a>Barbara Eden</a>” in your tag, without the URL. I keep the following link, in my bookmarks, to easily check any links, or the like:
https://www.w3schools.com/html/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_links_w3schools
Did you know that Barbara Eden was 36 years old when that program started? Just wow.
And she still looks hot
Have already mentioned where ‘genii’ came from, don’t feel like repeating it again (almost did though :()
Please, don’t give those talent-less less-than-leeches in HolyWeird any ideas
A bit sideways of the topic, but there is a webcomic that sort of plays with that idea: “I dream of a Genie Bottle”.
Djinn are mortals just like humans, not spirits like demons or angels. They just happen to be able to shapeshift due to being made of fire (or air) instead of earth, and some of them are powerful sorcerers.
Depends on the continuity or mythology. In some, they’re the corrupted spirits of animals, nature spirits, demons, minor gods, etc.
I’m talking about the original Arabic folklore, to be specific.
I noticed that the genie in the flashback has pointy ears. So does Maxima. This could be significant. I need a volunteer for someone to rub Maxima and make a wish.
ok…volunteering for that. I’m nothing if not curiously suicidal.
*rubs max* I wish you would not hit me after that.
*hits you as you touch*
Funny, you don’t look much like Maxima….
*looks completely innocent*
Years ago, on Saturday Night Live, there was a sketch involving a magic fish that granted 3 wishes (Mary Gross as the fish, Tim Kazinsky as the peasant who caught the fish, I think). The peasant hires attorneys to get the most out if the wishes. The first wish was something like, “Our client wishes to have the largest cow in all the kingdom… But not so large as to be unwieldy!” To which the fish, whose face passed from evil glee to crestfallen, replied, “Damn!”
The third wish was three wishes for each member of his representation team.
People keep mentioning the most expensive liquids page that gives scorpion venom, but that’s unsustainable when upscaled and not even the most expensive thing out there.
Tritium is $30,000/gram (the scorpion venom is <$10,000/gram, gold is $42/gram), and is used in long-lasting luminescent things like watch faces and fusion reactions (and the larger, cleaner types of nukes), and at least the first of those uses probably scales very well. Getting it liquid might be tricky, but he didn't even touch the glass in the comic, so a container of liquid hydrogen at 20 kelvin is probably totally refillable.
Gold is prettier. And easier to spend.
Even if you don’t want to deal with cryogenic liquids, give him a cup with sample of tritiated water and then you can trivially separate the tritium with electrolysis.
For extra bonus points, you could even use heavy oxygen in the water sample, so you can also collect ¹⁷O or ¹⁸O while you’re at it. (¹⁷O is used as MRI marker as is, ¹⁸O is used as precursor for producing ¹⁸F for PET markers)
In panel 7 shouldn’t it be, ” Then why not go work …” instead of “They”?
I am surprised that made it to the second page of comments before someone noticed.
They did notice, not once but twice. But duplicating it does not hurt, if it helps Dave to spot a typo.
All of your minor wishes are so easy to monkeyspaw:
The ability to never lose stuff: “Very well, you can never own anything. Therefore, nothing you own will ever get lost.”
The ability to never get lost: “You know where you are now, and now you may never leave that spot.”
Perfect vision even when you’re 97: “Perfect vision … for an elderly person.”
The ability to remember what page you were on in any book without needing a bookmark. “But that’s all you can remember about the book.”
I wish for Luck.
PS: And I choose if it’s good or bad.
Evil gamesmasters, world-wide, chuckling at the all-too-late amendment.
So unlucky that. Fancy.
5 second rule!
That is for non-evil DMs. However, in utmost generosity, I will allow your character to overturn that. All he need do is roll 99 or less on a d100.
*snickering*
One would really have to have a lot of luck (and the good kind) to do that.
Ordinary luck would be sufficient, most of the time.
Reminds me of a friend in a Champions game, who asked if he could have a new superpower in the middle of a game.
The GM’s response: “Sure. Roll 3d6. The target number is 2 or less.” (Translation: NO.)
(from the Discworld)
The wizzard Rincewind once said “Luck is my middle name. Unfortunately my first name is ‘Bad’.”
^_^
What they don’t show in the movie is that shortly before Dorothy’s arrival in OZ the Wicked Witch of the East was trying out a new wishing spell. She said “I wish for a big house.” She got one.
The Regen thing depends entirely on the individual in media. In nature it’s a defense mechanism, usually for very specific body parts. For the sake of comics most characters with above normal healing factors it also depends heavily on the writer. Wolverine has been known to regrow from a skeleton, and once from a drop of blood with a magical boost. Lobo from DC comics actually DOES have the issue with clones popping up from time to time. This also once happened to Sho from the Guyver series. Also D&D Trolls have a taste of this problem. On a side note Deadpool has been labeled as horrible tasting by Dracula before, but not sure if that’s related to his regeneration…
Speaking of the D-Pool: there is at least one ‘duplicate’ of D-Pool made from parts he has ‘lost’ over the years
Having mental visions of some foe of Deadpool’s diligently gathering up all his bits and playing jigsaw.
No, that’s an entirely different Marvel (TM) character.
Not sure if I like this new shading – Sydney’s looking a bit too dead-fish/doll-like in that second-to-last panel.
It’s the forehead
Probably a combination of both, perhaps combined with us not being used to the new hair-style. But I do concur that ‘doll-like’ is probably more accurate than my previous ‘child-like’, when you factor in the shading, on top of the rather rounded features.
Sorry to focus on the negatives, DaveB. Needless to say, all the rest is superb, as always.
RESPECT THE THIRST!!!!!!
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/powerthirst
First, the flattery!
I love the second panel of this page. DaveB, you did a brilliant job of showing our heroine looking shaken and worried after maybe witnessing a murder. Keeping the background simple and free of other characters only heightened the effect. Great work.
Second, the criticism.
I cannot say that I’m a fan of Sydney’s new hairstyle and hope that she’ll soon give up her magical hairband.
Anyone else of the council that Sydney has yet to meet?
You know, Deus’ super-symbiote-geode half is about the size of a wineglass…
And unless Thomas knows what the geode-juice was, in which case, he wouldn’t need the geode itself
So he knows exactly what comprises his blood? We have nothing to suggest such a limitatation but I doubt he’ll see the geode any time soon. Or that refilling it would help studying it much.
Could see Tom being used for evil Maxima replication experiments eventually though.
+5 * (variable addition to the attributes of your choice)
The geode-egg was exactly the first thing that occurred to me. I was just about to post about it, then checked to see if someone had beaten me to it.
As superpowers go, I think this beats the guy with access to all the gold in the world for sheer utility.
A) Tyris is totally right, Deus’s/Maxima’s symbiote geode would be a terrifying thing to give to this guy
B) Scorpion Venom man… Scorpion Venom. Rare and exotic animal venoms are bar-none some of the most expensive fluids on the market. This dude could make an easy $1M per use of his powers… which would of course devalue the market… so maybe he makes sure the market always has “just enough”, and diversifies his output. Maybe gets into selling printer ink, too.
I’ve started to think of those little mini comics at the bottom as running commentary like you find on DVDs.
Inkjet ink. Chanel #5. Scorpion and Snake venom that is used in medical research and treatment. He could be a millionaire in minutes. Does it have to be a room temperature liquid, or could he do liquid (molten) metals? How much needs to be in the container for him to be able to refill it?
Or pure liquid enzymes, they are incredibly expensive,
Some biological intermediate compounds are in the thousands of bucks per milligram range. They’re so expensive that they’re only ever used for calibrating instruments; anything else will just bankrupt the lab in double-quick time.
DAVE! Regarding your second comic recommendation, anime movie Wolf Children has about same premise: ordinary woman marries werewolf, they have 2 kids, then her husband dies and woman is left alone with 2 werewolf cubs.
Tom is lucky that while pondering his wish he did not think back to his childhood and absently sing the old jingle of the Oscar Mayer company.
If I’d get a wish, it would be for extreme luck, it’s basically an infinite wish.
You get money, health, love, immortality with no downsides, practical invulnerability, etc.
And no fame if you don’t want it.
Re: Regeneration: I have a great story about regeneration + Vampires in a role-playing game context I think you will enjoy. System is GURPS, in it, regeneration has various levels that affect how quickly you recover HP (shorter interval, higher cost, GURPS being a point-based character creation system). There is a separate ability called regrowth with a flat cost. Basically, regeneration is rapid healing but no ability to heal any more than what a normal human can heal. Regrowth allows limbs etc. to grow back as well.
I was a player in a very high powered game (lots of points) and I made a character that could regenerate at absurd speeds (about 30 seconds to regrow a body from a small bit of remaining tissue). In the same game, another player was playing a vampire built using the rules from the GURPS Vampire: the Masquerade source book, where many vampiric abilities cost blood to activate so they are very “burst-y”
We quickly developed a fighting style where I would ride him piggy-back, with my right arm and legs wrapped around him tightly and my left arm held wrist-to-his-mouth. I could regenerate faster than he could drink. Was hilariously devastating in combat until the GM (and us, willingly) had to come up with a way to nerf it.
Heh. That is cool.
As each increase in regeneration (once a pattern was established) resulted in each doubling of cost granting 60 times increase in regeneration, I expanded the limited table accordingly, in my games. Previously the best was 1 hit point per second, for 100 points. So I added 60 hit points per second, for 200 character points (Total regeneration).*
Then allowed an intermediate option of Health hit points ** per second, for 150 character points.
* A further doubling, of cost, would allow regeneration of all hit points (perfect regeneration). But that passed out of the realm of something useful to players (the return on that cost was negligible, especially when compared to the alternatives such points could be spent on).
** Average person = HT 10, so 10 hit points per second.
Supers could achieve HT 15 relatively cheaply, increasing that to 15 hp/second.
Antimatter isn’t as KaBlooie as Starfleet would lead you to believe.
A kilogram has less megatonnage than Tsar Bomba.
(Even when you take into account an additional kilogram of mundane matter to react with it.)
Did I read a trillion dollars per ounce?
and how pray tell wold you fill a container for him to refill?
You fill the container by being sneaky about it.
1: Make two containers capable of holding antimatter.
2: Create antimatter and put it in container A.
3: Transfer the antimatter from A to B.
4: Tom refills A.
5: Transfer from A to B and back again.
6: Tom refills B.
Continue until you reach the limits of the containers.
Here is a demonstration similar to that.
Actually, you can see how he did it with the third glass
I would still avoid taking a nip of it.
True, but one kilogram of antimatter interacting with one kilogram of matter still releases slightly less energy than a 43 megaton nuclear bomb. You still wouldn’t want to be at Ground Zero when a kilo of antimatter detonates.
P.S., Tsar Bomba was 50 megatons. It potentially had a yield of 100 megatons, but the second stage of the three-stage bomb was equipped with a lead tamper instead of a uranium-238 fusion tamper, to give the pilot a 50% chance of survival.
Even at just half the potential yield, wooden houses hundreds of kilometers away were destroyed, and stone houses lost their windows, roofs, and doors. Windows were broken as far as 900 kilometers (560 miles) away, and anyone standing outdoors within 100 kilometers (62 miles) would have suffered third-degree burns.
*sighs* Yet another missing tag. This time I forgot to close the italics tag. Boy, I’m having a run of these, aren’t I? Only the word “destroyed” was supposed to be italicized.
There was a Deadpool arc where he ran into Dracula, and other Vampires, but due to his cancer, his blood is like poison. Also he had a run in with flesh-eating ghouls and he tasted like ‘rancid tofurkey that was marinated in formaldehyde’.
and once he was absorbed by a machine hive mind and got kicked out because he gave it a migraine
Er, Dave, that definition of assault is gonna vary WILDLY by jurisdiction. For instance:
https://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.us/Docs/PE/htm/PE.22.htm
Texas Penal Code section 22. Assault definitely includes the violence.
Sydney isn’t wrong, depending on what state you’re talking about.
Sydney has been accused of committing an aggravated (or aggravating) assault… on the laws of gravity.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/479
Sydney was pestering the wrong person, to give her Hammerspace. General Faulk is the master.
Would using that that be assaulting space?
Looks like it is the same for New York!
NOOOO! We, the readers, misadvised DaveB, given those are the two most pertinent states.
Federal statute says the same, and that really IS relevant ;)
Actually federal statute is subtly different again. What we talk about above is laws which have both assault and battery (as separate crimes) or, in different states, assault incorporating battery (as one crime).
But federal law (as per my link on on the next comments page) has assault without battery (a single crime, without any counterpart, at Federal level).
And few pages before on a poor mugger: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/416
he could live the life by making scorpion venom.
$39,000,000 per gallon of it.
or insulin if he wanted to be charitable.
eh, insuline is the easiest protein to mass produce
now some other enzymes on the other hand, like RNAses and stuff…
Wow, I /really/ don’t like either Crimson or Scarlet. So they have an agreement with Thomas about his blood, but that last panel just makes them look abusive.
Did you fail to notice the pink hearts, rising up from him? The fellow is enjoying himself.
I didn’t see them but I instantly thought that deliberately baited them into doing this — otherwise why the witty comeback?
I see the hearts now, so maybe this is a non-verbal form of consent? Still seems rather harsh, and in public, too.
Imagine if the genders were reversed. This would look even worse then.
Well, not even extrapolating any additional benefits, just refilling a small amount of liquids in a container, there is always this.
https://thewhiskeywash.com/bourbon/50-of-the-most-expensive-whiskies-in-the-world-hint-it-is-mostly-scotch/
The neck of course, but how about that big vein on your inner thigh? Wouldn’t that be fun to get fed on there unless the vampires aren’t so pretty. Good thing these vampires aren’t so infective either and can restrain their feeding. In Blade 2 people came to be fed on and others just ended up there.
Assault means to threaten, batter means to do damage to you. Unless you want it that is.
Or unless you are in say Texas or New York. Where batter is just something you cook food in. There assault requires harm.
*looks up, at comic, significantly*
I know planning an assault is planning an attack on a base, but, what would you call the actual initiation of and process of carrying out the plan of attack, its not battery, at least not in a case like that, but what would be the definition of the actual attack on a base after its been planned and its now being carried out? I’ve always wondered, just for writing clarification and never bothered to ask. I mean until now it never even occurred to me to wonder what the actual word to cover it would be. Go figure I actually spend my time writing stories and it just never came up. After all military jargon isn’t like everyday conversation, unless your military, and when my father was in the military, seeing as he worked on the aircraft that did bombing runs and such, it just never came up. So, what exactly would the action of committing an assault after planning it would be called?
Sorry if this seems a bit off topic, and even a bit round about,in the way I wrote it, not to mention I didn’t use proper English in some parts of it. But, I think I get the idea across. Been a long day and I’m a little slap happy.
It is one of those areas where one just has to beware of like-sounding terminology, when dealing with jargon from different segments of society. In this case military vs legal. Even worse when considering that the general public might consider a word or term to mean a third thing again! Which is the case here (although it probably leans more to the military one).
“Gun” versus “rifle” being one that has been oft-mentioned, much earlier in the comic, due to the distinction the military makes for those, compared to the general civilian habit of using them interchangeably.
Whereas an American paralegal has a very different understanding of what a “wobbler” is, compared to any member of the British public!
Another good example of the military using different terminology.
If you are in the Navy, it is not a ship. It is a BOAT. Even if the “boat” is the size of an aircraft carrier or a battleship. If they’re being a stick-in-the-mud about it, they can be very insistent about the terminology. I’ve been yelled at for calling it a ship.
(The person I was talking to, was of the opinion that because I was also in the military, despite being in a different branch of the service, I should have known better.)
That being specifically the USA‘s navy? I think that the RN disagrees…
Looks like I was wrong… the reason he was complaining was because I called a Los Angeles-class attack submarine a ship!
Both the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy call all submarines “boats”. Surface vessels with only one deck are also boats. Surface vessels with multiple decks are ships.
There is apparently a technical reason for this distinction. As it was explained to me, “On a boat the center of gravity is below the freeboard, on a ship it is above. In practice this means a boat, such as a submarine, will lean into a curve when turning, while a ship will lean out.”
I suspected something of the sort. Coming from a naval family, I knew that distinction. But was not sure if it applied outside the RN.
Your additional information though is very interesting. I have a submarine design, which I chose to class as a ship, for my own purposes. However, if that definition is correct (and it sounds highly plausible to me) then it actually justifies my designation!
*sweeps tail, from side to side, happily*
While all of this is interesting and also very helpful in many ways that still leaves my specific question delving into military terminology vs civilian. Planning an assault on a base vs actually committing the attack on a base, what is the proper terminology involved in both military and civilian?
OK, lets deal with the military side first. Planning an assault is done via a briefing. The actual attack, generally speaking, is an assault. But there are, logically, a huge number of terms, depending on the specifics.
So so you might have: reconnaissance, flanking, diversion, frontal assault, air assault, assault fire, assault phase, and quite a few more!
Afterwards you would expect a debriefing, where the unit discusses what went right and wrong with the mission.
Then the law enforcement side. For which you including the word planning is actually important, because that would be the first charge. Namely conspiracy to commit a crime. Which is a federal crime (number 18, on that list), so is applicable in any of the states. This would be applicable to each of the crimes which were included in the plan.
In addition there is Conspiracy to commit murder (number 61, on the list).
Then you would actually have the charges for the attack itself, if it went ahead, which would vary depending mostly on the target. As you mentioned ‘a base’ though, let us assume it is a military installation, or government facility, of some sort. In which case, again just looking at the list of federal laws, linked above, various of the following might be applicable:
1. Aircraft and Motor Vehicle Crimes
3. Arson
4. Assault
7. [use of] Biological Weapons
17. Congressional, Cabinet, US Supreme Court Assassination, Kidnapping and Assault
18. Escape and Rescue (this is to do with prisoners)
36. [use of] Explosives and Other Dangerous Articles
41. [owning unregistered] Firearms
57. [possession of, use of, etc] Gun Crimes
58. Homicide/Murder
59. Manslaughter
60. Attempt to Commit Murder
63. [if the base is not on US soil] Foreign Murder of US Nationals
64. Murder or Manslaughter of Foreign Officials
72. Malicious mischief
78. Presidential and Staff assassination
82. Sabotage
89. Destruction of vessels or maritime facilities
92. Terrorism
95. Treason
97. [if committed as an act of war, but breaching relevant conventions] War crimes
All extracted from that list (which is just a summary document) with [my various comments inserted]. And bearing in mind these are just my opinions, as an unqualified civilian.
In addition to the above there are also all the laws relevant to the particular state where the base is located, plus any other legislation which might apply (such as city laws).
Finally civilian language tends to vary a lot, depending on what an individual has been exposed to. A lot of things I considered to be ‘general language’ turned out to be ‘military jargon’ simply because of growing up in a military family, and not realising that the casual terms were unfamiliar to some civilians.
Whereas those exposed to legal terms (be it from the enforcement or criminal sides) will have greater familiarity to those.
So there is a huge range of ways civilians might describe such, including ones which might not crop up in either military or legal circles. Maybe ‘planning an attack’, ‘lets charge them’, ‘we should blow up the base’ and so on.
Becoming “attack the base”, “charge them”, “blow up the base”, etc, as they take place.
In general, isn’t “assault” the attempt and “battery” the success? (Thus, punching a person is assault AND battery.)
Keeping to general terms, no. It is “anticipation” versus “harm”. In those jurisdictions which have both terms.
If the victim sees you throwing the punch and the punch lands then it is assault and battery. If you blindside them, it is just battery. If you throw the punch, but stop, just before hitting, it is assault.
Small wishes like drink refilling could be a toned down version of monkey paw wishes, for the genie who likes messing with mortals but isn’t a sociopath about it.
On an unrelated note, I second the reccomendation of Kill Six Billion Demons. Beautiful (if sometimes very gory) artwork, an interesting story that includes martial arts angel cops made from carved stone filled with nuclear fire.
Wish granting genies in any continuity must have definite and limited powers lest they invite bad writing. A powerful genie can never be given to grant wishes to someone who will make a wish that is good, rational, concise and has sound stipulations against monkey-paw wish fuckery.
Yeah, Kill Six Billion Demons is phenomenal. It’s kind of amazing that it started out in the MSPA forums. I’ll have to resist reading the other one just yet.
There are so many good comics. Cassiopeia Quinn, Prague Race, Awful Hospital, SFP, Broodhollow, Unsounded, Schlock, Unlife, Drive, Stand Still Stay Silent, My Life at War, Zebra Girl, Outsider . . .
. . . and those are just the ones I can remember on three and a half hours of sleep. I follow too many goddamn comics. DAVE, LET ME SLEEP!
In the earliest stories it wasn’t so much a case of “granting wishes” as gamers today would think of that, it was more a case of the genies using their innate powers to do jobs for the mortals… Transporting them to other places, bringing things (possibly including some of the genie’s own hoarded treasure), rapidly building palaces, and so on…
I don’t even know if this is okay to ask, but how many executive patreons are there? Is there a queue for cameos?
There is no harm in asking. DaveB does try to read all comments but, given the number of them, and how time-consuming the comic is, he may miss some. As such, if you have more than an academic interest, it is probably best to message him directly. Apparently Twitter is the one he is most likely to spot. Other options include Facebook and Deviant Art, but you are more likely to be spotted here, before there, I think.
You can also click on the Patreon link, in his blog above, to get a general idea. Plus that would be the route to go if intending to become a patron.
I doubt very much if there is a queue though. What there would need to be is a wait for a suitable opportunity to insert the cameo of your choice, in an organic fashion. That would just be a matter of discussing it with Dave (via the Patreon system).
Logically the more specific the request, the trickier it may be to fit in. So if someone wants a combat cameo, that would have to wait until the next time that happens, for example. But if they just want a power demonstrated, in any way that looks cool, then that would be a lot easier. And just opting for a ‘here is my photo, put me in anywhere’ is even easier.
As you can see in the blog above though, a concept might need ‘tweaking’, to fit it into the Grrl Power Verse.
No no, he was warned. It is assault and battery.
Actually, he is in New York. Where there is no crime for battery. Unfortunately it would fall afoul of their assault laws and how BDSM is prosecuted there. However he is consensual (which does not count for much under NY law, in this regard). The most important aspect though is that he seems to be suffering no lasting harm. Which removes the greatest onus on the police to prosecute them.
You did not make your awareness role. You wrote “there is no crime for battery’. The correct way to write that sentence is “there is no CHARGE for battery”.
Roll again. All you need is a 2 or better.
https://www.shapeways.com/product/ER95N95R4/mobius-1-sided-die
Cool die.
As for the linguistics, both are valid phrases. For a charge to exist, there must first be a corresponding crime in the law books. There is not.
My statement actually carries the higher weight, on account of the fact that you can have crimes under which nobody has ever been charged. Somebody has to actually sit down and translate the wording in the legislation, which describes the crime, into a formal document, which states the specific charge being made against named individuals. Until the basic template (or at least the key wording of it) has been created, and agreed, no charge can be said to exist.
Further, one crime might have more than one charge associated with it. Such as aggravating factors, which would carry a higher penalty than the base offence.