Grrl Power #598 – A break in… the case! (Also ARC-Light HQ)
Sydney, you could use that sort of phrase if you were designing video games or writing comics, so it’s not as unique as she might think.
So Dabbler speaks 137 languages, which seems like an absurd number even for a comic book genius, but there are a few asterisks involved. I’ll get into them later in the comic, but for now I’ll say that she doesn’t often learn languages in the usual manner, what she calls “the long way around” and when she boasts knowing 137 languages, she means that’s how many in her (180+ year) lifetime she has learned, not how many she could bust out at a moment’s notice without a refresher course. Some of those languages she hasn’t spoken in over 100 years and basically doesn’t know them at all anymore, but her poor ego needs a little salve at the moment, so she’s number dropping.
Sydney is playing one of those stupid games that is ostensibly a Match-3 (only this one is a “connect adjacent alikes”) and success rewards you with blowing the clothes off some anime character. In every game like this I’ve ever seen, it’s some anime babe, but Sydney managed to find “Elfboy Stripper.” There has to be a market for that even if I’ve never seen it. I’ve never gone looking for that variety of the genre, but it seems the ratio of girl stripper games to boy stripper game has to be something like 100:1.
In some ways, I kind of feel bad for girls, because there isn’t an embarrassment of riches when it comes to stupid, usually poorly made, smutty games catering to them. On the other hand, I kind of feel bad for guys, because there is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to stupid, usually poorly made, smutty games catering to them. “Well that looks dumb… oh hey boobs. Have six bucks and 2 hours of my life.”
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like!
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.
Interesting the Harem Hive Mind is smarter than Dabbler in it’s own way…
Ah, I misunderstood! It’s not revealed yet as the the team’s actual super genius….
Or it’s that inventor that was working with Dabbler in an earlier comic. The one who uses weird exclamations.
Pretty sure she’s referring to Sydney. The jump cut to Sydney playing her game makes it pretty clear, I think.
Most likely :)
She’s on the other side of the desk playing Elfboy Stripper.
And, it is more likely a referral to Sydney’s specialized field of study… “Super Heroes, Comic Books, and RPG’s”; which makes Sydney something of a savant…
It does seem that Dabbler’s ego has taken quite a hit.
Maybe Dabbler just needs a mental reset, like the one Sydney did earlier. But for some reason, Dabbs has to hit the reset button repeatedly?…
To avoid damaging Zephan’s desk. Multiple mild resets, rather than one heavy head slam.
At least Dabbler hasn’t lost her consideration for the property of others, even though Sydney just drove her bonkers.
There’s a reason it’s so easy to target men with such games, we’re biologically follow the Power of the Visual i.e. Guys have an easier time getting aroused by seeing something they find sexy. With women it’s more emotional, that why most Erotic Novels target women, and why Anime is written and drawn differently for Men & Women.
Best us can really do is try to strengthen our wills, and for the religious, pray for Spiritual Strength so that we can drive out any urges to view such content, and should we encounter it, are able to immediately reject it.
There is an alternate explanation that I heard as well. Most guys don’t look good naked. I mean have you ever looked at your knees? I’ve looked at mine and I certainly wouldn’t want to show them to anyone else.
I heard in the “no such thing as a fish” podcast that scientists did the will power test to grown men (for them that don’t know it’s the get something know or wait and get something better, usually done on children) and found that if you show me a slow mo clip of a woman running ala baywatch there will power dropped to that of a 3/4year old (the control vid was of a country side landscape) all because of the brain chemical released at the time.
Them not me (lol that’s a slip and a half)
As a note, it’s not a genetic thing, but an unmet desires thing.
Many men present many offers of physical interaction to women, but most are generally reserved on emotional entanglement.
Conversely, many women present many offers of emotional interaction to men, but most are generally reserved on physical entanglement.
Both genders are doing the same thing with their material… going after what they feel deprived of in potential partners, and generally ignoring the part they know is easy to get.
“Fun” experiment:
A girl who wears a shirt that says ‘F#@% Me’ and walks down a college campus, and a guy who wears a shirt that says, ‘Tell me your feelings.’ will both get a swarm of attention from the opposite gender. (Obviously the former getting a lot of solicitations for sex, and the later getting lots of girls venting, ranting about their friends, etc. for hours on end).
So, interestingly, it’s more a cultural thing than a hard fast rule about the genders. Many women who are more deprived of male advances and a much higher desire for the male form, and many men who are deprived of female friends will just talk for an hour to a prostitute about their troubles in life.
But to show that it was a cultural thing, rather than something which exists in society as a result of our genetically-influenced behaviours, I would have to give examples of societies where the paradigms are different. And not just one, or a small population, for that matter.
As genes would merely influence behaviours and genes expressed differently would be expected to vary those behaviours, we would expect some degree of variability across the population.
So, to prove the claim, I would need to point at a society with a large population and sufficient genetic diversity, yet still having a different behaviour to the one we are used to. Obviously modern globalisation has contaminated most populations with elements of Western culture, so this is not easy in the present era. So well-documented historical examples would suffice.
But I am coming up blank with anything which would check all the boxes. A society with emotional guys, who aren’t into porn, yet who’s female counterparts love porn but aren’t into chick flicks? I don’t think I will find that in human society.
I think we find it pretty easily in LGBT culture, where women are sexually declined much more often by someone they’d like, and men have an easier time finding sexual encounters but a harder time finding emotional connections…
And lo and behold, gay men are notorious for “being emotionally needy” and most lesbian women I know are more into looking at women in porn than even men are.
Good points.
But until the debate over genetic influences on homosexuality has been concluded I don’t think I have definitively proven the cultural point.
If sexual behaviours (of whichever flavour) are primarily governed by culture, then arguments by repressive governments, such as Russia, that ‘reinforcing traditional values in our society will stop people becoming gay’ would have merit. Which I don’t think that is the point I was trying to support by introducing LGBT culture.
“In some ways, I kind of feel bad for girls, because there isn’t an embarrassment of riches when it comes to stupid, usually poorly made, smutty games catering to them.”
As a woman, don’t worry DaveB. If more women want poorly made, smutty games catering to us, some enterprising man or woman will see the void in the market and will program some and sell them like guys do. :)
Exactly. The market is always looking for profit. Games showing skin sell to men, and women. However, men seem to enjoy it at a greater rate, so male consumers drive most of the profit seeking. If it is demonstrated that large percentages of women want skin showing games, then games will be made.
Just remember the most prolific and profitable genre of the publishing industry is the Romance Genre. That genre is dominated by female consumers and female writers. Actually, my understanding is, male writers in the field often use female nom de plume, as the publishers say male writer names don’t sell as well.
It seems men’s and women’s preferred mediums for porn diverge somewhat.
Yeah, it’s one of the many touchpoints on the BS that men are the privileged group in our society – pr0n for men is hidden and viewed as shameful or embarrassing, while pr0n for women is in every grocery store, released as major motion pictures (Titanic, Twilight), and generally celebrated.
And yes, Twilight scratches the exact same kinds of itches for the average women than pr0n scratches for men. Stop and think about it – physically perfect, immortal, wealthy men vying for the attention and affection of the main character, just because she exists.
Obligatory XKCD post
https://xkcd.com/714/
Obligatory AND satisfying.
(Don’t miss the alt-text on that comic – it’s IMPORTANT)
Starbuck porn? How could they ruin childhood entertainment with that? What will the do next, have cylon porn?
:–O
Depends on which version (of both the Starbuck and the cylon :P)
To quote Hermes’ wife, LaBarbara Conrad:
“Aah! Husband, some things were not meant to be cylonned.”
Naw – p0rn in grocery stores is VERY egalitarian. Its just in different places. The “romance novels” are over by the cards and the sexy magazines are by the checkout counter. (And yes – they have equivalent levels of p0rn )
I mean… the magazines leave the underwear/bikini on and the books have like… 1% actual sex. The grocery store is not where you go to get the hard stuff!
Right, because Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler, etc weren’t available at nearly any corner market and/or book store. And dozens, if not hundreds of general release movies weren’t full of naked or topless women for no good reason. And full frontal female nudity was usually classed as an R movie where full frontal male nudity was an X or NC-17.
Yes. In the USA, a fully nude male is usually viewed as far more disturbing and dangerous to the public than a fully nude female.
Also, male genitals protrude and are much more exposed even in sidelong views. Female full frontal nudity usually conceals all but the front of the labia majora, even those in some instances. A similar level of exposure would require opening the legs.
A difference in this is exposure of the chest. It’s generally more acceptable for a man to show his bare chest than for a woman to do so. I personally think that any place a man can go topless a woman should be able to as well.
I agree I’d love to see a society like that (and not just for the obvious reasons a man might have), but I fear that as long as men are severely attracted to boobs, a lot of women would still be VERY uncomfortable with this, and some of the more prudish ones might want to forbid it for the rest as well.
Getting ‘society’ to accept it would also take some work.
There are quite a few societies where women do go topless without being harassed for it by men. one of my dad’s oft-repeated anecdotes was about christian missionaries coming to an African village to civilize them. They were aghast at the topless native women and supplied them all with shirts and insisted they wear them. The next day, they were, but the nursing mothers and babysitters had cut two large round very functional holes in the front of their shirts.
Toronto, Canada… THe law states (and is taken advantage of) that women are allowed to roam around the city topless…. and they do especially in certain areas
While we are going to be about 20 degrees warmer than a few weeks ago, I would still recommend that a woman not be topless outside this weekend. Maybe wait until June.
Get a cease and desist order on Winter! And stream us some images.
I call bullshit!
That XKCD strip is more on the money. If you want to see just what kind of smut can be found in the fantasies of women go google erotic fiction “written by women”
I think you might be surprised at some of the results…
OK. Had to look.
As a guy I find I like that better than smut written by men.
And even within the same medium, the preference for themes diverges as well. I think it was Pornhub that released some data on that a while back.
Rules 34, 35, and 36 are invoked. There is porn of it. If there isn’t it will now be made. Why? Because someone has a fetish for it(both women and men wanting to strip men).
As an actual game developer I’m already contemplating it. Mostly because I think its funny. And there is a major game now with both (highly graphic) male and female nudity: Conan Exiles. AAA multiplayer survival game. Don’t really have the time right now though sadly. Still in the middle of my company’s MMO project and I have a Thieves’ World MMO under discussion. Still might do it if I can get the artwork.
Had seen a trailer for that last year, butt couldn’t remember what it was called or ever saw it again :(
Age Of Conan also had topless female characters
It’s on Steam if you are talking about Conan Exiles. Produced by Funcom. They are the same people behind Secret World and Secret World Legends. Conan Exiles and ‘Legends are using the same game engine my company is using; the former is (mostly) open source.
Don’t have Steam, don’t have a valid working email
Eh? You want one? I have my own domain with unlimited emails. I can just give you one.No charge. Unlimited storage (supposedly). Not great spam protection but not poor either. I just have to think of a way for you to communicate with me safely to establish it without compromising anyone’s privacy.
*takes pictures* I’ve never known someone who does not have an email.
*stares at Guesticus with wide-eyed wonder*
It’s like looking at a person using a VCR…. in the before times. In the long long ago.
“If you do not speak English I am at your disposal with 187 other languages along with their various dialects and sub-tongues.”
(I had to check the number Robby used.)
I was wondering if the number 137 held any significance.
We humans would have been impressed with any number greater than five.
Wiki says it’s the 33rd prime number; the next is 139, with which it comprises a twin prime, and thus 137 is a Chen prime.
(Oh… Like 41 and 43 are?)
Probably random. Like how Batman knows 127 martial arts.
127? Must have been really annoying to learn a strike for the 47 time from a different teacher. And not just this strike. How much can you even gain from knowing so many techniques?
Not much. Many of them will conflict.
I think that’s kinda missing the point. While Batman himself probably uses moves from only a few different martial arts, he pretty much needs to be able to defend himself against anything that anyone could possibly throw at him (both figuratively and literally). So it does make sense that he would train with well over a hundred martial arts masters to see if they can do something he isn’t prepared for.
“I do not fear a man who learned 10,000 different kicks, but I do fear the man who practiced one kick 10,000 times.” – Bruce Lee
I really agree with Bruce Lee on that.
Also, Batman knowing 127 … no i think the term even was that he has MASTERED 127 Martial Arts …. is downright silly, as there is no real point in mastering even 20, because one essentially sooner or later go into Jeet Kune Do, or the “whatever works in practice” mentality, and starts developing one’s own style, or a “style-less style”, and goes on from there.
Also, i doubt there is that many styles in reality, and even if there is, i’m pretty sure that most are merely copies of other styles with very small variations, variations that one would get by learning 2 or three other styles anyway.
And some styles seem mainly to be special due to their training methods, rather than the attacks.
In my spec ops training in the ’80’s, I studied many martial arts styles, not physically, but so I could recognize them and take advantage of such styles. The hand-to-hand combat style that I learned was basically “Dirty In-Fighting, Win-At-Any-Cost, F*ck-Honor-This-Is-A-Life-And-Death-Fight,-So-Get-It-Over-With-Already,-And-Try-Not-To-Attract-Any-Attention-To-Yourself,-‘Cuz-That-Can-Get-You-Killed-Too!”
Mostly I just looked at it as the chance to ruin somebody else’s day in a fast, effective, and efficient manner. Besides, if I had been reduced to Hand-to-Hand combat, I had probably screwed up and was in it deep.
BTW, this makes sparring in practice very dangerous, because, as soon as somebody gets a face full of dirt (or whatever is handy), it becomes real. This is why there were always a couple of soldiers standing by with CO2 canisters. Suddenly not being able to see and breath immediately knocks the fight out of anyone. Plus, we found that cold water just pisses the fighters off even more.
Most of the training focused on flexibility, speed, and strength, with a healthy dose of improvisational games (like you do for improvisational acting, but with a more martial bent) to keep the mind fast and flexible in a combat environment.
I think that “Dirty In-Fighting, Win-At-Any-Cost, F*ck-Honor-This-Is-A-Life-And-Death-Fight,-So-Get-It-Over-With-Already,-And-Try-Not-To-Attract-Any-Attention-To-Yourself,-‘Cuz-That-Can-Get-You-Killed-Too!” is a pretty good description of Krav Maga.
I haven’t seen a mention of Honor Harrington/David Weber and her mastery of this very art. (I can’t remember what he called it.)
Google answers all questions: Coup de vitesse. Also, she is a secret master of Shinanju.
Yeah, but Honor Harrington is the ultimate Mary Sue character. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the novels. But that doesn’t change the facts of her Mary Sue nature.
Yes, we have much respect for Krav Maga. We steal all kinds of bits from it.
Don’t look now, but I think Krav Maga has been stealing things back when you were finished refining them…
I have always found “kill-your-pride-and-run-away-screaming” to be the best style of self defence.
This is also the entirity of knife defence classes that Ive heard from several judo instructors.
Yea, I have watched a video of a guy demonstrating gun disarming techniques. And he trains more than one police force how to do that. In the comments section, one viewer said that if the guy with the handgun was standing more than ten feet away, then the instructor would be shot dead before he could get close enough to disarm him.
“Nope, I would run away! Hand guns are only deadly at relatively short ranges. Evading him, with that much of a head start, and without hesitation, would give an excellent survival chance.”
Oddly enough that’s similar to what Bruce Lee once said was the best strategy of confronting someone with a gun.
I saw series where some guys were travelling the world, meting and training with martial instructors using al kinds of strange martial arts. I remember a few interviews that were quite interesting.
One was a former champion of some martial arts tournament held in Japan. When asked what he would do if he was held up by a robber with a knife he simply said that he’d give him the wallet. The risk of getting cut wasn’t worth it if just handing over the wallet would defuse the situation. If on the other hand the robber came walking up waving the knife while still a few meters away then he’d run for it. Odds are the robber wouldn’t be nearly as well trained so he should be able to leave him in the dust.
Another interview was with one of the highest ranking kung fu instructors in Hong Kong. When asked what he would do if some street punk were to attack him he simply grabbed the interviewers balls, twisted and did a leg sweep. That was a short man who looked like he was in his eighties. He said that if you were to fight for real then there were no such thing as a dirty move.
The third interesting interview was with a very high ranking martial artist in HK. This guy looked to be in the late 20’s or possibly early 30’s, and his answers were very different. Disarming a knife fighter was something he considered the best response, and any one with a pistol within a meter or so he didn’t consider much of a threat. He also demonstrated this as he proved he could disarm both interviewers before they could pull the trigger, and then they knew he would go for the gun.
He did however say that he didn’t recommend anyone else trying this. He could do it as he had been trained since he was six years old, and now spent between 8 and 12 hours a day training. That and still being young enough his reflexes hadn’t started to dull was why he could do what he did.
Of the three the last one was entertaining and showed impressive skill, but no matter how much training he has I feel it was the least sustainable. It only takes one mistake, one knife cut or bullet wound and you can die if unlucky. And even if you don’t die a severed nerve cluster can make your arm useless. A bullet tearing through your spine can leave you paralyzed. So I think handing over the wallet or running away is the way to go if you have those options. Fighting is for when there’s nowhere to run…
SAS are trained to do exactly the same thing, for the same reason. OK if they are undercover they also do not want to draw attention to themselves, but not getting injured or killed is the greater concern.
I have the same policy myself. And was amused to find that the SAS also used the another technique I do, namely to carry a fake wallet (one with some money and unimportant cards) to hand over in such situations. Well back when I enough money that I needed a wallet.
I really should carry one though. And a dead mobile phone. Saying “I don’t have one” may not be convincing enough to avert the stabbity stabbity!
But rather impolite to rip off an interviewer’s testicles!
As for the third… wisdom comes with age. Except for those who are naturally cautious even when young. Or for those who arn’t and don’t luck out.
I’m pretty certain that Batman didn’t MASTER 127 martial arts. He’s only mastered a few. But he’s become quite adept at 127 martial arts, of which he’s mastered several.
Let me find the page where this is stated.
https://fsmedia.imgix.net/a2/41/cb/44/ebcd/469f/80bd/f8fb77215e85/sorry-but-nope.jpeg
I suspect after a certain point, ‘mastering’ a new martial art is
“Okay, I’m going to master this new martial art I haven’t heard of before, I’ll start off by skimming through all the moves in a guidebook…”
2 hours later…
“… huh, I know all of these moves already, they’re copies from styles, Z, X, and Y… well… except except for that one right there, it’s pretty creative….”
2 hours of practice later…
“Got that one move down. Okay, another martial art off the list.”
I read about a guy in Hong Kong who is a professional movie fight choreographer. It’s not unusual for him to pick up a black belt in a new martial art in a weekend. He was up to 40 at the time of the article. Basically, he’s just looking for unusual moves to put into the next movie.
That’s exactly why Batman has been known as the World’s Greatest Martial Artist. He may know a lot of styles, but he only uses what works best for the situation. His knowledge prepares him for countering moves, but he also uses his own mix of styles for what he finds to be most effective.
At one point in a comic I have, another MA Master observed him & noticed that Batman uses a wide variety of styles & uses a “mix & match” technique when fighting, (wrongly) concluding that Batman hadn’t mastered any style…As he found out when they fought.
I like how he beat Karate Kid, who was rated as a better fighter. Karate Kid was bragging about how he knew exactly what type of martial arts styles that Batman would use against him and Batman laid him out and said ‘Actually, we call it fist-fighting. Straight from Gotham City’
https://i.imgur.com/7Bxathy.jpg
Batsie just loves beating up kids, doesn’t he
Amusing. The referenced martial arts style is quite real and really from South India. It’s also the oldest surviving martial arts style… outside of plain, ol’ street fighting. The Bats would rank up there with Bruce Lee, and HE would probably take the “Karate Kid” down just as fast. While Lee gave a name to what he did both he and the Dark Knight really use the school of “use whatever works – fast and hard”.
Guesticus: Tough love, Guesticus. Tough love :)
Basketcase: I’m pretty sure Batman has also learned Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do :)
Batman himself has admitted that Richard Dragon & Lady Shiva are greater martial artists than him. Which is why won’t fight them unless he has rigged it in his favor.
Cassandra Cain is also a better fighter than he is, at least with her body reading .He’s mentioned this as well.
Batman has also said that:
Oracle (Barbara Gordon) is more intelligent than he is.
Stephanie is more determined and stubborn than he is.
Nightwing (Dick Grayson) is a better acrobat than he is.
Red Hood (Jason Todd) is more ruthless than he is.
Robin/Red Robin (Tim Drake) is a better detective than he is.
He doesn’t seem to say anything about current Robin (Damian Wayne) being better than him on anything though :)
Main thing is that Batman surrounds himself with wards and partners who excel in some area, often more than he does. That being said, yeah – Batman always makes sure to have a strategy to beat ANYONE – including people who are superior to him in one way or another. He’s beaten Superman on three separate occasions in the comics, not including the movie – definitively. He’s beaten Wonder Woman twice (although she beat him in the Hiketeaia – although I considered it to be a pretty bad comic book in general). He has contingency plans on how to take out pretty much anyone. And if you take what he said in Justice League Unlimited, his contingency to take out himself, if he ever went bad, was that he formed the Justice League itself.
So yeah, if he had to fight Richard Dragon or Lady Shiva, he’d almost certainly have some plan to level the playing field or, more likely, give himself an advantage. Sort of like how Tim Drake beat Cassandra Cain, who is a better fighter in every respect, by first drugging her. :) His main weapon is not his fighting skills or tech – it’s his preparedness to the point of paranoia. Super-preparedness, if you will.
Well, to be fair, Lady Shiva usually fights to kill. It’s much harder to defeat an opponant without killing, which is how Batman fights.
I used to read Richard Dragon comics back in the 70’s & 80’s, but I have no argument contrary to what you said…Indeed, after Barbara Gordon had been stuck in a wheelchair for some time, she found a need for self-defense, even as crippled as the Joker made her. Guess who recommended (anonymously) that she meet with Richard Dragon & contacted Dragon for the meet up?
:D
He started teaching her in Escrima, but I don’t know how much more her could have taught her…This was a couple of decades before Crisis on Infinite Earths & I have no idea how long the training continued.
Dragon also taught Barbara ground-fighting and blind-fighting, so that Barbara can have an advantage if knocked out of her chair and if she can disable the lights. At least with escrima, he taught her long enough for her to claim ‘mastery’ of escrima fighting.
which is one reason why martial arts don’t win wars. Modern infantry don’t have to train against every caliber of bullet and make/model of gun.
technically, learning to fire a gun is considered a “Martial Art” if you consider the root meaning.
Reason i always found the highland games interesting. the Scots developed those to train for war without making it look like they were. Take Shotput for example. sure, it’s tossing a heavy rock a set distance…. now imagine you’re tossing a ~40lb rock into the side of an English Knight’s helmet. Caber Tossing was actually used to create bridges across small rivers (hence the focus on making it flip and land straight) and so on.
re caber toss – I have wondered if that didn’t start out kinda like bagpipes supposedly did. Do it where the enemy can see (or with bagpipes, can’t see but can hear) on the eve of battle to scare the bejebus outa the enemy.
for the unenlightened, behold the caber toss:
https://youtu.be/xb0FU8rSisU
Bagpipes confused the Germans in WWII.
https://badassoftheweek.com/churchill.html
Also….
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Millin
who the Germans didn’t shoot because they thought he’d gone mad.
Bagpipes confuse everyone except the Scottish.
I dunno, maybe they confuse the Scots too.
I remember a Scottish comedian who used to make jokes about Scotland – mainly the music and the food, like haggis. The joke was “Most things that the Scottish do seem like they were invented on a dare. Caber toss. Eating haggis. Playing bagpipes.
Apologies to any Scottish readers :) You can make fun of me with hula hoops and whatnot if you want in retaliation.
Billy Connelly. That’s the comedian. Just remembered his name.
I doubt you will find many Scots disagreeing with the words of the great philosopher Big Yin.
A favourite of mine:
This around abouts the time that he was prancing around the north pole in the nude!
You only need a few different styles to cover every possible form of attack.
There’s an alternate version (forget where I read it) that indicates he specialized mainly boxing/kickboxing and Judo/Jujutsu. Of course you’d have to add a few weapon-based styles on top of that. And of course one of his teachers was Lady Shiva, who’s personal style could be summarized as “every possible way to kill you and look good doing it.”
Also regarding that number: I think her 137th language (English) does not have to be her last learned language in that context. Of course Dave said so in the comment under the comic, but she could have easily learned.. Korean.. or Japanese in the mean time (due to the mentioning of Japan). So it most likely does not have any significance.
Yeah, was thinking that as well: she simply said that English was her 137th language
137 is an old geek number. 137GB was the maximum drive size on an early partition table. Fixing it required a bios / firmware update and the OS needed to support it. The first generation of win98 and win2000 had the issue. It was fixed in second edition and in Service Pack 1 respectively but you still need to do the BIOS update as well and it had to do with 28 bit addressing of the blocks on the drive.
https://support.wdc.com/knowledgebase/answer.aspx?ID=936
Nerd.
Nice! You win one internet.
Like, that’s actually pretty awesome.
Hehe, watch it turn out to be a random number and Dave goes “yes… that’s definitely what it is.”
Really? never had that problem with *nix systems. So many more developers than just one isloated company, so someone was always willing to take on the hardware improvements coming down the road.
BIOS sits under the OS.
You’d have run into the same problem with any os if the boss wasn’t updated.
*nix filesystems, like IBM’s virtual storage before it, could be designed to combine physical devices to look like a single “virtual” disk. It’s software layer only, but remember that Unix was created when Windows wasn’t even a twinkle in B.Gates’ eye.
More nerds.
You need more pride in your voice, when you say that.
Or envy.
Yeah.
You. Say. That. With. PRIDE!
Well, what Dabbler said was, “English is my 137th language.”
That could mean that Dabbler actually knows more languages than that, it’s it’s just the 137th language she’s learned.
;)
She desn’t have to be very fluent in them. I know “two beers please” in a few languages but wouldn’t be able to hold a conversation.
Rincewind from Terry Pratchett’s disk world knew how to scream for help in multiple languages and how to scream in many more. IIRC, the problem being that one tribe on their flat planet were deemed ruthless torturers because “arggh” means “hurt me some more” in their native language”
John Pinette:
“I walked into this little mom and pop Italian restaurant. And I said ‘Feed me, I’m hungry.’ in Italian.
It’s ‘Sono Affamato’ I can say it in 27 languages. I can write it in heiroglyphics if I have to. If I’m stuck in a time machine for some reason I want to be prepared.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEjbMw9ol2Q
Any number that ends in 7 sounds like a big number, I guess :)
I hope you have learnt Galifrayan for “Help, I’m stuck in a time machine!”?
I think his main concern was with his stomach :)
My connection had been running slow before, so I only just got to see the link. He did a good job.
But it made me sad. It promoted the Toronto Just for Laughs festival, at the end. I did not even know they did one! But I can’ts go.
*cries*
That would have been my chance to meet Marie Piere, without having to stalk every shopping maul and park in Montreal!
137 is a pretty well-known number because it used to be thought that the square of the charge of an electron was exactly the speed of light times the normalized Planck constant divided by 137 times the Coulomb constant, and theoretical physicists wasted a lot of effort trying to work out why this should be; more precise measurements, though, show it’s definitely slightly less than that.
So Dabbler probably is not alluding to that, as she would have had to say ‘I know almost 137 languages’, if she wanted to be accurate.
“Over,” since 137 is on the denominator. Not sure how you speak a thirtieth (or so) of a language, though.
That sounds like a fair description of how much of the Bulgarian language I know. If being really generous. Actually I may be safer with ‘over 137 words’. ;-)
Regarding the games:
Bare skin sells. Very few of the games with that kind of general direction have an actual plot to act upon. Of course you can add backstory like…
You are a minion of the Dark Mistress and have been chosen to entertain her. To please her with the bare skin of male contestants by blowing away their resources and will to resist is your goal. Use your unique skill to find their weak points and strip them of their belongings!But in the end none of these games are more deep then strip poker. This is probably why the interesting games do not have “strip em up.. I meant down.” as their main goal.
I think I prefer the idea of eye candy to be sfw when it comes to games.. Which actually makes me ask: Is Sidney even allowed to play Elfboy Stripper while on duty? Or is she off duty as her lessons start in 10…15 minutes?
Maybe we should make one, I mean I can’t do the art but if Dave or someone else can make some art for Hiro and Dabbler stripper, I can mock something up, it’ll only take a couple of hours to make once you know what approximately. I mean this is not a game that will require a lot of proper game design, right? The cash can go towards more comic updates if it does actually makes some.
I did once re-make asteroids in 4 hours on a Game-boy advance, this seems less complex in many ways.
that should be for a game-boy advance, not on.
and based on a comment above we might want to have more room for emotional attachment for girls to also use/like it. but then it doesn’t sound like such a quick and easy thing to make.
remake asteroids in 4 hours? Oh, that’s right, you didn’t have to figure out the geometry of multiple moving objects including the pov and write the math code to move every single pixel of exploding bits without using image libraries and animation suites.
Sorry. That’s my knee jerk reaction to claims like this, when I spent weeks, back then, trying to write similar code. Nothing wrong with building on tools built by others – it just kinda rubs wrong when someone writes the last 5% of the high level logic and claims to have “remade” an old classic.
Aw, git off my lawn.
yeah, sure but that just makes you old and yes did have to redo the physics and collision detection as that was not in the game-boy advance libraries I used at the time. but thankfully there were indeed nice sprite libraries, etc.
Besides it was just as a dare, can you finish this before we go home … sure.
This approach applies exactly to such a game as this which you should build on top one of the shit-ton available image and app libraries. and unless you coded it in assembly, you have neither my respect nor my sympathy.
Got you both beat.
Got myself a Z81, some RAM, an EEPROM, wire and logic chips and built myself a computer.
Built a rudimentary video card which output yo an oscilloscope and programmed it in assembler.
I didn’t do asteroids, though I’ve written my own clone of that in the past too.
That machine ran a large Conway’s game of life, then did audio processing on it.
Unfortunately that was only a 2nd year project at uni (2/5) so it didn’t stay in my possession long enough to really do anything properly interesting with it.
I got that beat. In high school I grabbed some 7400-series chips and designed and assembled my own CPU with an instruction set I designed. Had only a few BITS for memory and my ROM was an 8 input NAND gate. Output was just a couple of LEDs and input a couple of momentary contact switches. I program microcode too.
I once created a new form of AI which ultimately tried to destroy humanity, but humanity fought back. The machines then tried to send back a cybernetic organism to kill the leader of the resistance before he was born, then tried again when he was a young child. Fortunately the resistance was able to send a protector each time. You probably never heard of it. It’s all very hush hush.
+1 for creative use of the Terminator plot.
Shh! Don’t go blurting out classified project names in public!
What programming language did you do that in? Assembly? Or was C already a thing by that time?
C was a thing, but I didn’t have it – I was trying in 6502 assembler on the Apple II. didn’t get terribly far on it. but learned a hella bunch about computers.
Loved my Apple ][ in the late 70s/early 80s.
Did some 6502 machine language and Basic combined.
Connected it to a VCR and later a movie camera…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUVjp07AuKw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSUkpcZi88g&t=6s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPaPe3aJEPI&t=2s
Also…On page 6…
https://archive.org/details/CineMagic023
I played D&D with this guy a few times. Saw this when the bad guy was a bat, displayed as a single dot. That one discussion caused me to give up fortran and learn assembler instead. He offered to work with me and we could work on this together, but I had no understanding then of how good I would become at programming. Talk about a missed opportunity.
https://youtu.be/VlChfc4AR4w
You’re the only other person I’ve ever encountered online who had an Apple II. Even Lord British had a Apple II+
Take one of the many, many shirtless Hiro images (pachyderm pic perhaps?) and just draw very rough 1-colour no-shading clothes on different layers in an art program like GIMP. You can probably make the ‘explode’ with code from the base image, so the placeholder art can be replaced later.
I’m envisaging a system where you deal health damage and clothing damage at different rates, so you have to power up to be able to take out their clothes without defeating them first. Probably with an option to save the final image as a device wallpaper at the end of the level?
I made mention earlier about this idea. I started to do a project with Dave a few years back… back before I had a family emergency and my computer got stolen. I still have some of the artwork I did for that and the email conversation. I don’t think either of us has as much time to do such any more though.
There IS a ‘Strip-em-down’ game with something resembling a plot. IIRC, you’re stripping vampires of clothing so they burn in the sunlight… and a LOT of innocent human bystanders ;).
I think you mean this game.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/333980/AKIBAS_TRIP_Undead__Undressed/
(It turned up in my steam discovery queue during a sale). And no, I did not buy it.
There’s a reason why one of the first things that game modders create is a nude mod!
I’ve done one of those for the original Sims game. I did other mods too of course.
It makes my games so much more fun to play!
I get those mods when I can too. Most recently I used such mods with Dragon Age. I’m not sure if my current company will make doing such mods easy. The UI, yes, but external costume data? Dunno. Ironic since a costume creator is a major part of the game (super hero game).
Regarding Sydney playing raunchy games at work…
She’s a super. They can complain, but what are they going to do, fire her? She, like the rest of the supers, is too valuable. They all have Ultimate Job Security. Because, at the worst, they’re at least being paid to not be employed by someone else.
Of course Ultimate job security only applies as long as they dont get too troublesome,most of the heros on the roster could fall to a well placed sniper round if they turned into murderous psychopaths as an extreme example.For general hijinks they tend to get a free pass as long as it doesnt cause bad pr for archon n.n.And that said I think only the A listers have ultimate job security,the D listers are largely employed to make up numbers and add extra potential adaptability to teams in general,
Pretty sure all they have to do is talk to her about it and she’ll be too embarrassed to continue.
Gaah! My eyes burneth! Thou must warn of TVtropes links!
Sorry, I was unaware of your allergy. May I inquire as to the reasoning behind the mental allergy?
Oh the site makes folks cynical and world-weary and loose their love of entertainment far too early. Plus it is really irritating having everything condensed into cliches.
Dabbler didn’t said she knows 137 languages. She dropped that she knows AT LEAST 137 languages. It could be more ;)
How many languages can she orgasm in?
All of them.
Her first language is of course innuendo.
So the question, who is the team’s actual super genius? Have they even been introduced yet? Maybe blondie who was working with Dabbler in that engineering bay?
I think that was just Dabbler sarcastically stating she got outsmarted.
Correct.
Even so, we should not forget that there’s a difference between smart & shrewd.
:)
Gawd, I remember the old Xbox 360 recommendation algorithms that would recommend those kinds of games to me, based on me enjoying Skyrim.
I’m not sure I wanted to know that statistic about the average Skyrim player. I like Skyrim.
“my priority-one knowledge trumps your measly ‘door’ and ‘rules’.”
Arguably the door was trumped by teleportation powers, you know…
So, this means they can stop tracking Coot? Even before Berry *VORP*ed in
Speaking of the bruised Berry: why isn’t she on the Who’s Who? o_O
He (/they) still participated in a variety of crimes, such as conspiracy to commit theft (/piracy), breaking entering and spontaneously exploding in a private property.
OK the latter is more as a victim than a perpetrator.
The middle one is interesting though, as the perpetration of that crime started on US soil (and could thereby be argued to fall under US jurisdiction) even though the property being affected was not. As it crossed state/international borders it would probably even class as a federal crime.
There are a number of crimes which do cross international borders this way, yet the law still has provisions to prosecute them. Although I have doubts if burglary has been tested as one in court yet. Although the conspiracy angle could well have. Such as someone in one country spotting a vacant property in another country, thanks to social media posts or whatnot, and collaborating with a local burglar.
I wonder if a crime like that can be prosecuted, in the US, if the burglary takes place in a country without an extradition treaty with the US?
I feel like “Robbed a bank via a tunnel from a house across the country border” has GOT to have happened at least once in history.
Wasn’t there some bank…Bank of England perhaps?..where money transfers from one country to another was accomplished by moving gold from one room to another?
And THAT was robbed??
(I may be conflating fact with fiction.)
There was the fictional film “The day they robbed the Bank of England”, but that does not match your description.
Money transfers can and have been robbed, but you do not need to go to a bank vault to do that. You just get them to transfer it to the account of your choice, rather than the one it is meant to go to.
I recall one in the UK where a company (rather than a bank) was doing a transfer, and the bank involved queried a spelling mistake. Which uncovered the fact that an employee had managed to get fake transfers set up (through legitimate channels). The transfers would have gone through successfully, barring that typo.
Plus last year, I think, hacking emptied a significant chunk of the national reserves of one of the Eastern European countries (sorry the name eludes me). Had they gotten away with the whole amount it would have threatened bankrupting the country! As it was they only transferred out about 1/3 or 1/6th the figures they were attempting. But those were still vast sums, which left a huge hole in the country’s budget.
In this day and age you do not need to nick the gold, just the electronic representation of it.
And we are probably not too far off some event causing a massive loss of confidence and another run on the banks. One that may not be possible to stop this time round. Be that an even more significant hacking robbery, a widespread virus or other attack that brings down enough institutions to start a panic, a solar flare (or other natural event) taking out a big chunk of the world’s electronic infrastructure or so on.
since the fed govt has (or is considering – I’ve lost track) dropped the barrier btwn banks and investment companies, we may see a 1929 “Black Tuesday” again. An important lesson of history forgotten again.
I was in stockbroking when that split was enforced (more recently) in the UK. It was a pain in the butt in the interim, where you could not talk to the person next to you about something because technically they were in a different company! Yet, despite the personal inconvenience we all saw that it was vitally important to have and maintain such separation.
*sigh*
*wanders off, muttering about how some politicians need a good shooting*
Maybe not bank robbing, but kidnapping of soldiers via a tunnel dug from one country to another. Military operation “Cast Lead” was the response from the victim’s country.
I imagine that if both countries were more equal militarily, then a wider conflict could result from a cross-border crime like this.
Actually he did NOT commit conspiracy to commit piracy or robbery at all. He was in the group to kill monsters.
Killing monsters isn’t a crime.
Also, to be in a conspiracy to commit a crime, you need to know that you’re going to be taking part in committing that crime. Ie, if you don’t know it’s a heist, there’s no conspiracy to commit a heist.
Actually, since monsters seem to be normal citizenry, that would be murder and a racist hate crime.
Also, you don’t need to know anything to be held guilty of conspiracy, as you can be an accidental conspiritor (according to the law), as in this case
Nope. Killing a monster is not murder.
Murder is defined as ‘the unlawful premeditated killing of one human being by another.’
Monster =/= human being. You can’t be found guilty of murder if you kill a monster. Also, the monster can’t be found guilty of murder if they kill you. Legally speaking by human laws, that is. Although the council has laws of their own that are enforced on its members, which probably includes not going around killing humans willy nilly.
Also, yes, you need to know that there’s a crime in order to be guilty of conspiracy to commit a crime. It’s called Mens Rea. A criminal conspiracy exists when two or more people agree to commit almost any unlawful act, then take some action toward its completion. The action taken need not itself be a crime, but it must indicate that those involved in the conspiracy knew of the plan and intended to break the law.
This is why I put the “(/they)” in my comment. Cooter was a dupe. But Wyrmil was one of the conspirators.
I agree wholly with your arguments otherwise though. Mind you whilst he stated his primary motive as ‘killing monsters’ (a lawful enterprise as you say), that does not exempt him from any other crimes he committed in the process.
We did not see the build-up to the break in, but if Sciona said ‘and now we have to break in to the place where the monsters are’ and Cooter was amenable to that, then he is guilty of both conspiracy and the actual breaking and entering (or piracy, given the offshore location of the crime).
So it is appropriate to impinge on his civil rights and track him, to both ascertain if he was complicit to any of the crimes, and to find his known criminal associates. One of whom, Wyrmil, is now merged with him!
As to how you would try them (even though we know this would not get into a US court) it would have to be handled the same way as with conjoined twins. Certain punishments can be levied against one, but not the other. For instance fines. However I do know of a case where one conjoined twin was found guilty of a crime requiring a custodial sentence. But which had to be commuted, as there was no way of imprisoning one, without doing likewise with the innocent twin!
Not sure which other crimes he committed in the process. But I’m assuming you mean stuff like breaking and entering, impersonating a law officer, etc. Basically stuff that the Winchester brothers regularly do on Supernatural? Because if so, then yeah, I agree with you.
Also as to how to try them, I’m sure that ARCHON would probably have to form some sort of secret courts for high security information, sort of the same way they do with FISA courts. But what they can’t do is try them for ‘secret laws’ – if a law is a ‘secret law’ – then it is not a law constitutionally. :) They’d have to try them, in a secret court (or if involving just members of Archon, military court with a heavily redacted transcript), based on existing laws that are known to the public.
To be honest Coots still worth tracking cause theres no guarantee on where hes headed only educated guesses,Its quite possible hes not headed to Sciona or the other end of the blood portal but could be heading to get gear or even allies capable of slaughtering the people-well person- that betrayed him and is travelling personally to get allies instead of calling cause he doesnt want Sciona to get even a hint hes still alive until hes stomping on her throat.
Did Zeph change his smoking jacket? It doesn’t have those fancy designs on it anymore
Ahh, I think DaveB might be adding those in when he spots your post. Looks like an oversight to me.
I ate not one but TWO Easter eggs last night! Ones that Santa delivered, oddly enough.
*looks puzzled*
Do you think the Easter Bunny sub-contracts?
I think the long red bobble hat is to hide the ears…
oh, I love doing stuff like that, putting Easter and Halloween candy into Christmas stockings is kind of funny in a weird, warped way, as is putting Christmas or Easter candy into Trick-or-Treat bags. It just messes with people’s heads…
Probably the same subcontractor:
https://i.imgur.com/GgACI2R.jpg
I KNEW IT!
Hmm, I though Dabbler was trying to get another word off her bingo card:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1358
Guess not.
Same idea here, but maybe they started a new one.
(Grrl Power #218 when looking in Archives yourself)
Or there is just the possibility that Dabbler is laying the groundwork for another attempt.
Going straight for a smutty line will probably find her going head-first through the door. But here Dabbler has reminded everyone that she slips up, on something innocuous. So, later, Maxima would be obliged to give her the benefit of the doubt, on an apparently innocent, if smutty, line.
I still need to know the story of who got her to say Trouser Ferret, and HOW.
This should be the new focus of the comic, in fact. People need to know.
+1.001
That might require a whole book to explain because that would take a whole hell of a lot of setup!
Whoever it was, that person’s the REAL hero.
Problem nowadays is simply women would need to make the smutty games. Guys clearly dont know what gals find sexy but sex does sell. Look at Supernatural and how long its lasted on fangirl power alone.
“Guys don’t know how to make sexy stuff for women,” he said, while referencing something made almost entirely by men as an example of something that women find sexy.
…
God your idiocy disgusts me.
Supernatural stumbled into it, it wasn’t intentionally made that way from the start.
Look at how often they tried to add female characters in the first few seasons.
Ahem.
Jensen Ackles was intentionally created sexy.
Shaddup. *covers ears*
SO how did Harem figure out where Sciona is? Did she suddenly show up over a major city and start sucking out souls or something?
Harem is naughty, but I don’t see her sucking up a city full of souls. Plus I don’t think her powers would let her do that. If she could though, it would answer your question.
“I ate her soul, she is in my tummy! Mu hu hu hu!”
But, yea, Sciona did just rob a vault full of apocalyptic artefacts. Even though she left prematurely, she did upgrade herself with one of those. And may well have acquired more whilst Deus was busy in the initial chamber. Her teleport could have taken her to the next room, for example.
Her previous attempt to bring down the sigils, and expose the Veil, had been considered a ruse, to get the Council to turn off the magical internet. Possibly Sciona was making more than one play with that though, like any good chess player. So she may have been enacting her ongoing plan somewhere else that relied on the magic web for protection.
Or she may still be after those sigils and trying to do so in as public a way as possible. In which case Daphne, with her ability to do lots of things at once, would be the team member most likely to have eyes on the TV. And could report in faster than every one else, with her teleportation.
Or, yea, just go straight for the sucking up souls. Gain a shedload of magical power, and the ability to animate an army of constructs with them maybe?
Remember she’s a Triple-Double-Agent for fun and LuLz. I’m guessing she got it from Deus, by way of 3rd party plausible deniability. He wouldn’t want Sciona running free any more than… well anyone rational would. She’s a Blood Mage Super Drow Pixe with a mean streak and a temper.
That raises the other question: how would he know where she went?
He has spies everywhere…
ಠ_ಠ
Also, probably has extensive files & reports to back up a good psych profile & can analyze her patterns.
That might explain how he found out what she was up to leading to the Reliquary Withdrawal (Lia was on his payroll at one time), butt after abandoning half of her ‘team’ and finding out Deus is a nosey bastard, Sci-fright would have been on the alert for any spies
Sciona is dumb as a rock and now she has the rest of her body restored is probably on full arrogant god complex mode right now.I doubt she can even mentally concieve that a mere mortal could possibly track her,Remember she was half convinced that she was betrayed by the team she promptly betrayed when Deus turned up cause a mere human couldnt possibly have been able to keep an eye on her sneaky sneakyness……Yeah I have a low opinion of that dumb elf thing….
Sciona stopped Deus from getting “All” the toys he wanted,I imagine him pointing Archon in the right direction is his way of getting payback.
He probably did something like the rock method
Ahh, ‘rock, paper, scissors, lizard, Spock’… she is in the warehouse on 132nd street!
Meanwhile, in a warehouse, in New York..
SPOCK: Spock to Enterprise. I seem to have been beamed to a warehouse. There is a lizard trying to bite my foot. And tricorder readings indicate that a rock here is radiating an unknown energy. Possibly some kind of tracking signal.
SCOTTY: Have you been at the Romulan ale again? And your signal seems to have a lot of tacheons associated with it. Have ye been through a time-wormhole?
Good call
Sciona is as subtle as a brick to the head so that wouldnt surprise me overly much.Look at how easily a dozen of her bases were found after they just suspected she was alive and trying to wipe out the council.Sides if there was ever a character to get instantly drunk on power its Sciona =).
I think Harem should’ve texted Max about Sciona…!?
Also if this were to take place on a certain yacht,would Harem delight in “vorping” anywhere she pleases on that yacht?
BTW-the name of the yacht is Monkey Business!!!
Yeah, was thinking should have commed her with a simple message: “I need to talk to you, coming in now!”
But that takes so much longer.
Not if she doesn’t wait for an answer
It’s like someone getting a phone call asking if it’s okay to pop over, they ask how soon can the caller get there… *knock knock*
Harem might have more stacked life experience than someone her age but shes still young and impulsive.Also she knows that the worst punishment she can get for stuff like this is a verbal slap on the wrist so the repeated admonishments havent really sunk in.Now if she vorped into the armoury and got shot in the leg that would be another story!
Is “deshantis” supposed to be a swear word, or. . .?
It’s just her last name.
Daphne de-possible-traitor Deshantes.
Is that, in fact, Harem? Transporting makes it seem so, but its it?
I didn’t remember her last name, and I didn’t recall her having purple hair, so I went to the CAST page to check it out. Cast page is not working.
And notice, THIS transporter is not wearing one of those neckband/choker things. Everybody has one. Every time I’ve seen Harem she’s got one. But not here.
It’s definitely Harem. As for chokers, she has one when half teleported in so it’s probably just an art mistake (Dave often forgets the chokers).
It’s not purple hair, it’s pink, which makes this the Berry body
Butt one of her does have purple hair: Bodie (purple with a splash of pink)
DaveB has omitted a few things on this page. Enough that I suspect he lost an art layer, or some similar problem, before posting. Or just had to rush it without doing his usual checks.
Others being Zephan’s jacket pattern and Dabbler’s XXXX on her choker.
Mind you, looking around for others I can see a wealth of other details, which we take for granted, that Dave has to account for every page. And on this one there are even detailed reflections in the wall panels/glass or whatnot behind Maxima in panel one.
Along with indentations in the blotting paper … ooh ooh, and Sydney’s face reflected on the game panel!
But, yea, distinctly Harem. Even ignoring her face, that Vorp is pretty much one of her trademarks. Colour, onomatopoeia and ancillary effects all match.
The missing choker though may well be intentional, in her case. If so, it is a subtle clue about where she may have just come from …
Had those same wall-reflections last page
She is wearing her collar (no bell) when she *VORP*s in
As a big fan of stripping elf boys I promise you the ratio is better then you think.
That’s good, women deserve cheap smut too.
Strange…With a name like Dragonus, I would’ve thought that stripping elf boys would be the preliminary for having a snack.
Wait! That didn’t come out the way I thought it would…Or did it?
O.o
Ooh, ooh. Who is the team’s actual super genius?
*paws hanging on to the edge of the cliff*
I can see Harem way down there, but she is just smart, and has had a lot more education than your average student, as far as we know.
*claws starting to slip*
Phew, had almost finished this post, when had a power cut. The fourth one today! Fortunately all the text I had entered was still here, when I got back into my browser.
But I still wants to knooooooooooooooooooooooooow!
Given the comics called grrl power itll be a she,Heck the only guy whos top rated at what he does in archon so far is Math……Ill let that sink in…..
Vance is the top rated at spinning human-appearing suits! Whilst Iron Cloth is the best at all other super garment enhancement. And Ren is the top perception time pauser. Even Super Hiro is the best sonic absorber. Nobody on the team stretches as well as Mr Amorphous.
But, beating them all, Achilles actually ranks higher than any of the girls, in his speciality. He is the only person with a six star power!
Yet every person you mentioned is at best mid tier in a fight(Im being generous to the guys cause Hiro pushes up the average as a budget version of Maxima) and in Achillies case is an actual joke character in a super powered battle.The only girl super I can think of so far that would suck in a fight is archons healer.Youve got to admit theres a huge power imbalance =).
Of course there is. If it went the other way it would be called Boyy Power. This comic though celebrates women of cosmic powers. But does not exclude guys, they just do not have as much.
Which is not a bad reflection of gender differences for, say, mundane physical strength. It just happens that when you are talking about such vast powers the difference becomes even more apparent.
Dave’s Slayers reference on the last page is from this manga:
https://www.amazon.com/Slayers-Book-Medieval-Mayhem-Graphic/dp/1562199137
But there are some differences from what Dave said. Lina don’t shoot fireball through the windows because Gourry is inside; she just gets inside from the window and says “Hi”. Also mad wizard in question is more like pampered daughter. Anyway Lina whoops her ass, rescues Gourry, and still don’t get the sword of light.
Max sure is quick to jump up everyone’s ass with boots.
That’s kinda her job.
And, Harem has already been ‘chewed out’ (in a non-fun way) earlier that week during Sydney’s ‘recruitment’
Shes already not taken seriously more often than not she so kind of has to maintain discipline where she can,Sides one of these days Harems going to be horribly hurt on reflex by someone not used to her randomly vorping in at this rate so Maxima trying to put a stop to it is a good thing.
ah… you DO realize that there’s a plenty big market for “Elf Boy Stripper” apps. That a gal could enjoy. Even if not… precisely… created for HER. But they’ve gotta be there. Because, ya know guys. And they
ain’t all gunning for the “boob team.”
Just sayin’ … I’m sure Sydney should be able to locate PLENTY beefcake vs cheesecake selections.
Which just means that much more joy to go around! :D
Heh. “Gunning”.
Wow… last page, I said send Harem to figure out Sciona’s location and hideout. Now, she just shows up knowing! Did she jump through the portal, get a GPS location, and warp to Maxima immediately like i suggested?!?
Or did somebody else with a huge paycheck tell her…
I bet an internet nickel (cash value 6.023*10^-23 cents) that she’s at Deus’ lair.
Too late on the not denting the desk…. you can see the little horn indents on the desk in panel 2.
Ooh, nicely spotted. And kudos to Dave for including the subtle detail.
Ah but… did she really “dent the desk” or is it just the desk pad that is damaged?
Ooh, subtler!
We did not see a french polishing robot scurry out, so you are probably right to cast doubt on the desk damage.
I always liked the bit after that. You know the one? Where he chokes on his cherry?
Or, as another way to put it, peasant or king, we all must walk to the bathroom’s “throne.”
Some kings get carried to them. Whilst others used to have an official arse wiper. Oddly a politically powerful position, that was much contested.
“Now, your majesty, as I deal with the consequences of your sixteen course feast last night, might you consider this matter of great import to the realm…”
[splash, wipe, splatter, splatter, bbbbbbrrrrrrrppppp, grunt, aaaaaaaaaahhh, pebble dash…]
I wonder if that is part of the origins of the ‘Privy council’?
Why not? Most of the King’s advisors for matters of state are usually just as full of s**t.
I swear is there nothing that Gary Oldman can’t do?
Give a bad performance?
Unless that is what the role demands, such as playing a talentless actor. But then only when the character is acting.
That’s his blotter I think, not the desk itself.
*hugs*
Wow, ninja’d by a four-limbed naked dude, on a cross! I feels for you.
Err four-armed, four legged…
… I think I needs hug too!
“four-armed, four legged naked dude, on a cross” ???
::facepalm::
Have you never heard of Leonardo da Vinci? That’s a robot version of his Vitruvian Man; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man
Because my name is <b<ai vin – as in Artificial Intelligence.
Yes, yes I have. Dude serves a nice bowl of Yorpie Snax. And he tried to make out that isn’t a four-armed four legged naked man too. But I can counts to four!
My eyes were not good enough to see the robot bits though.
*squints*
*turns head sideways*
Nice to be introduced to you, AI son of da Vinci.
Psst Get your dad to tell you about human nudity taboos.
If Zeph is lucky it may just be the blotter that took the brunt of the damage.
*gestures, in a come-hither motion*
Come on over and make this a group hug!
Psst. If the naked dude comes over, I am out’a here!
DaveB. You may already be aware of this, but the Cast page appears to be messed up.
I know I’ve mentioned it before.
It will be worked on at some time in the future, when Dave gets a chance. Until then, you will find that the Wiki cast page incorporates all the information which used to be on the Cast List, and a lot more besides. Thanks to the sterling work of fellow fans.
Yep. I’d rather him working on the comic rather than on the cast page. Priorities, man, priorities.
Kewl. Thanks, Yorp!.
*wags tail companionably*
Here’s the thing: Sydney now knows some real elves. How do they feel about this game?
She also knows some dryads. Do the male Dryads get all hot and bothered in the autumn when the leaves fall off the trees?
Do you get fussed about clipping your nails? Or your cat coughing up a fur-ball?
These things are just a normal part of the respective critters’ lives.
The only elf we have had any significant dealings with is the one who keeps trying to check out Maxima’s cleavage. I think he is probably pro-elf porn. In his case, of a flavour more suited to his tastes.
He probably has ‘starred’ in a few elf-porn videos :P
I think scions at least seems more competent than this lot and whoever designed the black reliquary so I assume the portal intercepts anything with a tracking spell in some horrific manner and a dozen other things none of us thought of.
Did you imply that Scionas more competent than everyone in Archon?Ouch!
“Misdirecting fish.” I love it.
Also had a good laugh at “Don’t dent my desk with your horns.” That’s not a sentence you hear every day… or, like, ever.
:-D
Of course, Dabbler is part Cyborg; which means that she could easily have all of the language data stored on a Hammer-Space version of a Tech 30 SSD, and simply has to take a couple of seconds to access the proper file, upload it to RAM, and let the software do its thing, and then she can be fully fluent in that language once again. I am guessing that she does have a limitation as to how many languages she can keep current.
“i can learn Swahili…or I can play Cyberpunk Bartender…Not gonna be using that language, anyway!”
I did learn it. Fluently. Can’t remember a word of it today. Nor the half a dozen other African languages I learnt.
“I know kung fu.”
I’m from Missouri…
“Show me.”
“I don’t know karate, but i know crazy, and i will use it!”
Hoping people recognized that I was making a ‘The Matrix’ reference :)
Ooh, ooh, hang on, I think I know the scene.
Wait, wait. Words sound wrong. Mmm maybe this one?
But if we go by the expression then … >I think I have it!
“You want to get nuts? C’mon, let’s get nuts!”
~Micheal Keeton (Bruce Wayne) to Jack Nicholson (Joker)
You think they’re nuts?
I know Dow.
(Anyone who can identify the movie I’m referring to, wins a no-prize.)
Additional hint in case that’s not enough:
“What is that? Some sort of martial art?”
“Nope. It’s the company that makes mace.”
One Crazy Summer.
What? No response?
Its a cold, crazy winter.
Unless you in the far north… they are having an unseasonal heat wave.
I have two inches of snow in my garden at the moment. Icky soggy snow that makes kitties paws wet. Not thawing though, it fell like that last night.
Sorry… my Internet was out for a while.
Yes, it was One Crazy Summer.
Check your mailbox for your No-Prize. ;^)
Give her another 300 languages and she could be fluent in 1337 speak. hehe. See what I did there? XD
[number greater than four paws] being related to some other [number greater than four paws] for reasons unknown.
*ears droop*
Nope.
If you give her 300 more languages, she will have 437
That Common Core math is the bane of civilization, I tell ya’
Sooooooo… Sydney is looking at NSFW possible pr0n AT work possibly on a work issued device… Not cool Syd… you can get a courts martial for that…. (and yes… courts martial is the correct terminology… I actually have a 1928 copy of the Manual for Courts Martial in my collection.
Well, insofar as “courts-martial” is the proper plural. But the singular is still “court-martial”.
It can also get you in trouble at a marital court.
Sydney’s not married so let’s not get divorced from reality.
What if she courts Marshall?
Oh, you mean the umpire? The court marshal?
Sydney’s in the military now, so maybe she might be interested in Major Payne?
Rank problem. Maybe Private Parts?
Maybe the class in 7 1/2 minutes will cover the inadvisability of accessing NSFW websites and 18+ Apps at work.
Those sorts of games are a big tease: they never actually show anything good, which is why Sydney laments that all she removed was the belt
Remove belt before pants…obviously.
For languages my sister is like that. She has more than a dozen languages that she was, at one point, at least tourist level fluent in (she doesn’t consider herself fluent in a language she’s been speaking for a decade and is her husband’s first language) but at any given moment she’d have to stop and think for all but two languages, even for languages where she spent months using them full time.
She likes getting new electronics because the instruction manuals printed in piles of languages are good refresher quizzes.
You just know someone WILL make Elf boy stripper game a reality.
The rules require it.
[chanting]
Praise be to the Lords of the Internet.
It wouldn’t suprise me if there already is game with that name somewhere.
Didn’t Sydney need to get to class?
Also, Dabbler’s missing the XXXX on her choker in panel 4.
Sydney had fifteen minutes and probably has not used all that up yet.
Well spotted on the XXXX.
Plus, assuming she isnt keeping her teleporting ability secret, she can pretty much teleport there VERY fast as well. Not Harem fast, but fast.
And at 400 mph even the declassified flyball can do the job pretty well. Subject to some collateral damage en route.
Sydney is the second fastest flyer (and possibly eventually will be the fastest one given her room to grow her power levels). But she’s not exactly the most maneuverable, given the damage she did to the sign :)
I could see her flying to her class in time but not so sure about no door or wall damage in the process. :)
Panel 4 looks like it bit Dave back quite a bit while he was drawing dabbler… Horn alignment seems off on the top two and the face flattened out on him still. Ok the flattened face might be continued comedy effect…
What the deuce? Oh of course harem is working with Deus and Deus having reason to get even with her probably I passed on Sciona’s location to Harem so she can pass it on to the rest of Ark. Swat and they can do his dirty work for him.
Ooh, good line of reasoning. I had not even considered Deus’s connection with Harem. Not for this anyhow.
The only point you have not detailed is how Harem would pass on that information, without revealing her clandestine meetings with Deus. Bearing in mind that cops habitually gather supporting evidence, for any information which might lead to a conviction. In this case it is unlikely that they will try to get Sciona into a human court, but their procedures will still be thorough, if only out of habit.
If Harem claims it was ‘an anonymous tip’, she will be required to give details. Tracking down apocalypse-causing artefacts will take precedence over niceties that might be granted to a cop wanting to establish an informant. And if she says even she does not know, she will be required to detail how the contact was made.
Phone records will be traced, CCTV footage checked for any note dropped off, handwriting examined, anything tangible will be combed over by forensics and magical experts.
Basically any lie Harem may choose to tell is fraught with peril that some aspect of the investigation may uncover it as such.
And if she is working undercover, at Maxima’s behest, as Deus suspects, then Harem will tell her the source directly. Meaning that the spotlight of investigation will be turned on Machina Industries.
I hope your angle is right though. The layers of ploy and counter-ploy, cogs within cogs, wheels within wheels, will be fascinating.
One major flaw: how would Deus know where Sci-fright ended up?
How did he know all the details of the artefacts?
He is a head of state, with his own intelligence service, and has probably the most advanced spy toys made by humans. Plus hires supers, supernaturals and doubtless mages, for any specialist needs his other resources cannot solve.
Yeah, butt we are talking about Sci-fright, and it’s only been less than a day
True. Consider though that Deus came to that encounter fully briefed on Sciona and her team. Whereas she did not even know who he was, so would not have been able to take precautions that could specifically counter him and his capabilities.
Sciona has shown that she is reliant on her traitors from within the Twilight Council. Her construct SWAT team were easily able to penetrate the Council’s outer defences and caught their leaders flat footed. Plus the ordinance mix was optimised to wipe out all but the most heavily armoured leaders.
Which was foiled because she lacked intelligence as to the last minute arrival of the Archon team.
The same happened with Deus. She took out her anger on Wyrmil, because she knew his capabilities and worked out she could get away with that. Whereas she really wanted to do that to Deus, but her lack of intel about him meant that she could not risk provoking them.
So Deus could have slipped any number of tracking devices, spells and homing rocks on Sciona. As her own crew knew where they came from, Sciona would not have taken precautions to prevent them doing that. And she though that the Black Reliquary had no personnel other than the golem.
Sciona’s only counters would be whatever spell she may have been able to improvise. Which would be unlikely to block all of Deus’s carefully chosen selection of trackers, designed to specifically target things she is weak against.
We have seen Sci-fright being quick to adapt
Not particularly,Shes pretty predictable in her own way.Besides shes just betrayed ALL of her allies so Deus might have an easier time tracking her than hed normally have and thats assuming he didnt already know all thats needed to know about miss chronic backstabbing syndrome anyway.
Destructible. But she gets better.
“What the Deus?” would be a good page title.
Deus appears to be on good terms with Cthillia, who probably knows what Sciona’s deal is. That could give him some decent clues at the very least.
Yes that is a possibility I considered but rather than figure out how he did it I simply figured I get from the lex luthor By. I mean that if something is possible to learn know or understand don’t ask how he got the information only acknowledge this possible for him to get their formation in the 1st place and asked no other questions. With Batman is the fact that Batman is a detective so you have to go through all these convoluted hoops to explain how Batman got there formation for his various plans and leaps of intuitive logic with the next Luther hes rich hes a genius hes evil at those together with his access to various people are good at what they do and bad just about everything goes to do almost anything in the world.
Yeah, butt Sci-fright abandoned Lia with Deus, and while she may have known where they came from and where they were planning on going, Sci-fright would not be stupid enough to stick to those plans
Nice catch.
There’s match-3 games for everything. There’s an elaborate match-3 wrapped in a date-sim called “HuniePop”.
‘Bonk, Bonk, Bonk’ That’s my usual response to missing something so obvious. Also “don’t dent my desk with your horns” is a hilarious line.
Make-up sex is a time-honoured tradition, true.
Wow, even Dabbler’s onomatopoeia is laced with sexual innuendo! I wonder which power she uses to influence that?
It might be an inherited power from her succubus lineage, I think. Bonking is in her DNA.
To be fair, bonking is in everybody’s DNA. It’s rather hard (but not impossible, according to the Bible) to have a child without the essential prerequisite act…
How long until Dabbler hacks Sydney’s game and switches the elf-boy to Cooter?
For embarrassing her like that? No time at all.
That would qualify as cruel & unusual punishment. Sydney had enough trouble when it was an over-grown Vehemence.
Now how did Harem learn of Sciona’s location???
Guess we will never know… or we can wait until the next page
What?? But, that’s like… NEXT WEEK!!! That’s practically forevah!
“Seven and a half…”
“What, not until next week?”
“…million years.”
Deus has a way of knowing things that he’s not supposed to know about :) That’s all we know so far.
Sydney is forgetting that her other job is also one where she can bust out phrases like “The Black Reliquary” at any moment. As long as some comic has one, of course. And really, what are the odds that there isn’t a good half dozen comics which have already featured a black reliquary? It’s probably been mentioned in Scooby Doo, just for starters. I can almost picture it:
Jinkies, Velma! Let’s go bang in the Black Reliquary while Fred and Daphne hunt for clues!
Sydney realizes she’s required to say reliquary regularly?
Reriquary regulrary, rearry? Thrats ruff!
That’s the kind of word that the more you say it or spell it, the harder it gets to say or spell it correctly. Try too much too quickly, it becomes wharrgarbl.