Grrl Power #688 – Don’t look a gift friend in the skin tight bodysuit
Obviously I skipped over Sydney’s immediate reaction, which could have gone down any number of ways. She didn’t flail and knock an alien in the nose with her elbow or anything. She probably just did the slow turn, then Cora gave her the short version of who she is… and then Sydney sheepishly mentioned that she had a bit of a tab at the booth.
Honestly I’m not sure what her plan was for that. The guy running the booth got a crowd and probably a few sales right off, and in the coming weeks he’ll probably get a few people drifting by saying “that’s the place where that human girl ate that super hot stuff!”
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like.
She doesn’t necessarily need to have nipples.
The existence of breast only tells us, evolutionary, that her ancestors were quadrupedals, and that her reproductive organs are located somewhere around the butt. (That’s how they evolved for humans. When we gained the ability to stand up, breasts evolved as a signal to replace the now lesser prominent butt wiggling at eye level. Big breasts are actually a problem while nursing, as they have to be pushed away to allow the baby to breathe while drinking. Nor do bigger breast mean more milk, the lactating organs are about the same size, no matter the cup size.)
Thus, for her species, lactating organs must not necessarily be included, she could lay eggs.
On second glance, she does have a belly button, so she might be mammalianoid.
Though birds also have them, they are just less pronounced and usually covered by bird, so it’s not a definite “must be” smoking gun for her to be “mammalianoid”.
Fun thought – it might actually be a single nipple, used to feed their always single offspring. :)
Turtles also have bellybuttons.
There is an umbilical in the egg as well. So it is not as mammal centric as people think, just more noticeable on mammals due to the softer abdomens.
The belly button is simply the scar left from the hole where the umbilical cord entered the body. Birds and reptiles also have umbilical cords (connecting to the allantois as opposed to the placenta in most mammals). I used to raise snakes, and newly hatched snakes have a two to three scale long slit running lenghtwise on their belly scales. This slit shrinks and disappears over the first few sheds. This is probably because a scar on the belly would detrimental to an animal the travels on it’s belly. Humans presumably can keep their belly button from being an evolutionarily detrimental feature, so there was no evolutionary pressure to continue making it disappear like it does in other animals.
Human females have both permanently enlarged buttocks and permanently enlarged breasts, which are both so anomalous amoung mammals (and all other animals), that a link between the two seems very likely. When non-human female primates begin ovulation, their buttocks swell (and sometimes turn red), indicating to males that they are ready to mate. Afterwards, the buttocks shrink back to normal. According to the hypothesis, somewhere in our ancestry, females developed “obsured ovulation”, which means that neither the male nor the female knew when the female was ovulating. Since mating was still important, the sign that the female was ready to mate, enlarged buttocks, was also still important, but the enlargement became permanent so that it would not be obvious when the female was fertile, while stimulating males to mate with her all the time. A male could increase the chances of his offspring surviving to adulthood if he helped feed and protect the offspring of any female he had mated with, even if he couldn’t know for sure that the offsping were his, so obsured ovulation was an advantage for the female. When language developed and became important to females deciding whom to mate with, males and females spent more time face to face, and the enlarged buttocks moved out of the picture (pun intended). Female breasts became permanently enlarged because they evoked the same response from males that the enlarged buttocks had. The bigger the breasts, the stronger the stimulus.
A convincing hypothesis, but a couple of problems. First, in many non-western cultures, only babies are obsessed with breasts. Second, breast don’t have cleavage unless they are pressed together by something, such as clothing. So, amoung our unclothed ancestors, breasts, even enlarged, would not have been a good substitue for enlarged buttocks. Unless, when a female found a male she was interested in mating with, she used her hands to press her breasts together in order to entice him to mate with her. That image strikes me as being ludicrous. Though, I admit, not as ludicrous as dick pics.
It is suspected that the only reason why we have large buttocks is because we evolved the ability to walk upright…which in turn was made possible as a species by a very slight change in the genetics of female spinal columns. Ape females have vertebrae that are all essentially cylinders…but in the lumbar (lower back) region of human females, we have one or two wedge-shaped vertebrae. This permitted our ancestresses to continue to carry their pregnant bellies reasonably comfortably while walking upright.
It’s speculated that our ancestors came down out of the trees when climate shifted and forests were not nearly as attractive as the tall grasses of the ancient savannas of Africa. (Grains being a very calorie-rich nutrient, plus savannas sometimes adjoin marshlands, where lots of fish provide plenty of extra proteins, and omega 3 fatty acids, important for fueling higher brain functions.) Evolving the ability to walk upright and peer through the tops of grasses would’ve given them a survival advantage in many ways, finding food, finding mates, avoiding predators.
Because of this upright gait, our buttocks, our gluteal muscles, had to evolve bigger and stronger, both to keep us upright, and to allow us to walk long distances. We literally have the largest butts, proportionately, of the entire animal kingdom, gluteus maximus, medius, and minimus combined. (“But what about kangaroos, Ladyofthemasq??” Nah, fam, those are the thighs that are huge. Kangaroos have virtually no butt to speak of, whatsoever.)
Additionally, because we now had an upright walking gait, humanoid females could carry their infants in their arms, rather than on their backs; the growth rate for human children slowed down because they didn’t have to focus so quickly on being able to physically cling to a hairy ape-like back…and so the biological energies of early growth and development could be shifted more toward the brain than the body. (Or so the proposed theories go.)
With humanoid female nursing sacks no longer painfully dangling straight down under a torso that is held more or less parallel to the ground during movement, the sacks could remain swollen and half-supported by the ribs when the torso is kept vertical. Much like the humps of camels, they became a convenient place to store extra body fat, which is important when the stresses of pregnancy make eating and keeping down food difficult for months at a stretch. (Contrary to popular belief, the fatter you are, the more likely you are to survive illness, injury, famine, and other physically stressful circumstnces.) This in turn made it easier for human females to survive & bear children, increasing our population.
The average human female honestly doesn’t have huge nursing sacks. Big sacks just get more attention called to them when they’re huge because of current trends in attractiveness standards.
We actually don’t now why breasts evolved. The “replacement signal for butts” is only a hypothesis and it has a few issues, most notable that the two don’t actually look that close.
It is suspected that breasts developed to allow babies to be closer to the mother’s face.
This created more bonding time.
As a result infant mortality dropped.
This led to more breeding aged women with larger and higher breasts.
This also led to women with larger and higher breasts being seen as more fertile.
This made them more attractive to stronger men.
This meant they lived longer and produced more children….
I guess this means nipples are….
THE CIRCLE OF LIFE!!!!!!
Imagine a woman cradling a baby, while walking. The baby can nurse while in an easy to hold positon. That is why breasts are, where they are.
Except that that’s where mammary glands are on most primates, many of whom do not carry their infants but instead travel on all fours while the infant clings to the mother’s fur.
But many of the non-human primates will carry their baby close to the breast in the trees. I can think of a few general arrangements for functional mammary glands in various groups of animals. Primates have two breasts, high on the chest; this allows a mother to hold a less independent baby to her breast to feed junior, even when high in the trees. Ungulates and many other herbivores (horses, elephants) have a version of an udder, with 2 or 4 teats low on the abdomen; their children can stand almost immediately after birth so can reach mom’s food supply on their feet. Many other mammals have a pair of lines of mammaries along the length of the abdomen, like canines, felines (even big ones) pigs, etc. These mothers tend to lie down to let their more helpless babies have their meals.
Elephant mammary glands are located in approximately the same place that human and other primate mammary glands are. They do not have an udder.
I stand corrected. Bears also have a pair of nipples on the chest. I can see a bear holding her cubs to her chest, but less so with an elephant. Maybe she can reach around with her trunk to help junior find the right place to get sustenance.
Bears do this lie on their backs while cradling their young thing when nursing.
Aaaactually… it’s super eurocentric to state that “big” breasts are evolutionarily a thing. When it comes down to it, mostly only people in Europe had oddly big breasts and oddly hairy men, and probably this thing was only reinforced by many generations of sexual selection. In different regions of the world breast size was selected for or against in different amounts without any clear reason other than that the people there felt like that was the best way to look – which is a self-reinforcing cycle.
Sexual selection produces outrageous, un-adaptive changes in lots of animals with low survival pressure – there’s no reason to expect humans would be exempt from it, or that any odd anatomical feature would confer a necessary benefit other than sexiness. The only part of breasts that *is* an evolution thing is that human breasts plump up prior to babies and don’t just shrivel down to empty flaps between babies, like they do in all other mammals, which only necessarily indicates that most humans think having some size of fat sacks on your chest is generally considered sexier than empty skin flaps.
MMMMMMM, empty skin flaps….
Also, large breasts are a recent idea as far as feminine beauty goes. Look at many of the female sex symbols of the 60s and 70s in the US: many of them had much smaller breasts and a much skinnier build than what’s considered sexy today.
What is considered ‘sexy’ and ‘the epitome of feminine beauty’ changes all the time, just look at some of the paintings from 300, 200, 100 years ago
There was a time when “construction site cone” breasts were considered attractive…
And that was long before Madge stripped off because her singing was crap :P
No nipples, and apparently no vulva, either.
So, where DOES she keep her sex organs?
At home. She takes them out on the town only on special occasions.
She lost them once, and had to buy them back from a street vendor.
The guy wanted twenty-two bucks, but she talked him down to seventeen.
Duuuuuude, I loved your song! ;)
I wonder if they are more church organ or mouth organ, in size?
*playing tantric sonata in D major*
Depends on the date.
3rd December 2018, my place, Italian food and a discrete string quartet?
I’ve totally lost track of what we’re talking about in this silly thread :)
At home. She takes them out on the town only on special occasions.
Hey Scottie! I presume the hologram is “Thicker” in some areas, since it has that armor-glove effect on the arms and such. A full body solid hologram is a step up in technology from an Anysuit, though.
Did you get that Email I sent you for DD? I still think QV would make a good movie.
Definitely an upgrade to an Anysuit, I wonder if it contains a collapsible shovel though for those up close and personal moments.
I assume the suit smooths things like that so it can not snag or hook on things.
At least a Trilogy, if not a series of movies, there is far too much to be crammed into just one movie
One problem though: Tom Baker is too old to properly play the part and give the role true justice (either versions)
“Not everyone keeps their genitals in the same place, Captain”
“He’s a Ballchinian!”
Or they just hide them due to the comic wanting to be SFW? Maybe the hard light is made to keep them covered?
I know the comic has tried to say “Realistic!” but come on, it’s been far from that not to mention allowances to be made for art.
Her hard light suit can obviously be padded where she wants it to be. So really, we don’t know if her breasts are actually that big. :)
Unless i’m misunderstanding couldn’t she technically not even have blue skin? That the hologram just colored it blue cause she finds it sexy? She could in fact be orange. Or purple. Or god forbid some ugly color like pale-ish white-ish beige or something. ;P
Or to quote a Seinfeld episode….
They’re real…. and they’re spectacular.
Or the platypus which both lays eggs, and because it does not have nipples. the young suckle it from the skin somehow https://www.livescience.com/7488-world-strangest-creature-part-mammal-part-reptile.html
In all this talk about evolutionary pressures which produced Cora’s breasts, we might be overlooking the ability of technologically or magically advanced societies to customize their appearances to look like, say, famous movie stars who have breasts.
We could also explore the vestigial route, a feature from an ancestor that has no current function other than they like how they look.
I have a bunch of reptilians in my Reality-H that have hard muscular lumps on their chests in the rough shape of human breasts. These aren’t venom sacks, and in fact are hard and armor like despite the shape not really helping to that. The real reason they have these is because their distant ancestors were created by humans as techno-organic sex toys (Double M’s, Monster Mates, the latest thing in deep space companionship), based on the monster girl fetish. A few hundred thousand years of natural evolution later after separation from ownership and living on their own planets and they are more reptile like with very few human features left, but those chest lumps are pretty much still there thanks to their own sexual selection *ancestral programming attraction to breasts*.
There’s also the unanswered question brought up in an earlier comic as to why all superheroes have super idealized forms, and how mutations couldn’t account for the variety of superpowers, and the idea it might be due to outside interference.
It may be that many species, including succubi, alari, and so on, had the same outside interference, and that’s why they all look so human… or perhaps more accurately humans, succubi, and alari all look like some unknown narcissistic alien species that likes going around shaping evolving species to look like themselves and handing out superpowers.
Well…that’s how it works in my series.
Powerful reality writing celestial beings who happen to have humanoid like forms went about the multiverse basically trying to create lesser versions of themselves and had a thing for certain types of powers so also manipulated the multi-dimensional fields of worlds to produce magic and superpowers. Even causing “Aurora Event” type apocalypses on some worlds that causes sporadic super power development.
and of course I’m not the first to do this. We have the Vorlons from Babylon 5 being responsible for seeding telepathy in numerous species, Star Trek had some humanoid precursors who not finding anything like themselves in the universe manipulated the genomes of thousands of worlds to produce humanoid life,
ect…
Just to point this out, although it pretty much has, but upper body breasts are not signs of a Quadra pedal ancestry, they are signs of a vertically aligned bipedal ancestry.
the boob/butt thing as pointed out is significantly flawed and drastically Eurocentric, and even then based on a look found only thanks to clothing modifications. While there is a correlation as to why the butt and breasts stay “inflated” in humans, this is not enough to express the idea one is a replacement for the other, the fact both stay inflated could even be seen as evidence that they are not.
-in fact human lips have the same thing (staying puffy and oddly colored for facial features on a primate), if anything one could argue your big red fleshy lips are the real attempt at replacement the big red fleshy butt of less vertically aligned primates.
Having an upper torso display for sexual, health, or ease of carrying nursing young, just seems like a reasonable adaptation for vertically aligned bipeds. Just as we see head and neck displays in animals that hold their heads up higher than their bodies or L-frame bipeds (most birds), heck the Penguin one of the only other current vertically aligned bipeds also has a display on its upper chest to attract mates.
Quadrupedal primates and elephants have mammary glands on the upper thorax as well. It’s not a sign of bipedalism, just a sign that the only known species of bipedal mammals all evolved from ancestors who already had their mammary glands there.
Okay fine;
All bipedal humanoid life have tits because
THESE three created the multiverse and they are a tad narcissistic…
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/powerlisting/images/4/4b/The_Choushin_and_the_omniverse.png/revision/latest?cb=20141027221200
Just to put a finer point here. Elephants are an exception to the rule, but they don’t negate the rule just by existing. The vast majority of true quadrupeds *that don’t have litters* have their teets located at the tail end. Primates fall under the arboreal mammal category which tend to either have the full line of teets or teets located near the head end of the abdomen.
Elephants closest relative is an arboreal mammal; so chances are they are descended from and kept this trait from such an ancestor. Elephants also have very little in common with most quadrapedal herbivores. even having entirely different structuring for their feet, legs, and stomachs among others. Heck its the only known mammal with a prehensile trunk *some like rhinos do have prehensile lips* but this is a modified nose. So Elephants are something of the oddity group.
Seems like they’d have a secret phrase or password to establish bona fides of some kind, like Ethan Hunt or James Bond on a mission. If they don’t, they should.
Exactly, even if they didn’t want to use Sydney’s code-word of “vermilion”, they could have used “cloaca” or another indicative word.
“Dabbler and her fabulous yings sent me to bring you home.”
“And yes, I mean I received three separate edicts.”
Best identification protocol exchange EVER since “Show me the rose.” in GoldenEye.
I laughed hardest at the “Skintas” pun at the bottom.
Please explain, what is Skintas?
Yes, please do. Google failed me. The main page was full of people named Skinta or Skintas (I searched both terms). Assuming it was a product or company I switched to the shopping page but no luck there, either.
There’s a company that sells uniforms, at least they’re all over the south/southwest called “Cintas”
All my Cintas shirts tended to be shite. Which isn’t surprising considering the company probably paid a few pennies for them.
Cintas also operates in Canada and New York. I figure they are pretty ubiquitous in North America.
But rather lacking on the other side of the pond.
Ah, ok. I guess the ‘Sk’ as opposed to ‘C’ completely threw off the search engine. Thanks for the clarification.
My first job out of high school was as a driver for the parts department of an auto dealer. I had to ‘rent’ their uniform, which was a white button up shirt with my name on a patch above the chest pocket and a pair of plain blue pants. Both fairly rugged for obvious reasons since the mechanics also had the same uniforms. Very definitely in the same ‘birth control’ category as Army issued eyeglasses. And of course they were not a product of the dealership but were contracted out to some company similar to Cintas (or possibly even the same, I don’t think I ever knew the name of the company. Hell though, it was probably stamped somewhere on the items). The only plus side was that the contract included laundry services, so I didn’t have to wash them myself.
It’s Sidney…
If she had a plan at all it was something along the lines of getting arrested, making friends with the resistance in Jail, breaking out and conquering the empire with a ragtag band of misfits and being declared a war hero.
When they begged her to be Queen, she would have to politely but firmly decline to return home to check on her comic book shop.
She’s really useful in a fight…
In a peaceful moment, not so much…
But she is always entertaining, and cute as hell.
Decline, hah. Sydney is far too savy for that. She might go back because she’s a godamn superhero and her world legitimately does need her, but if that happened before she signed up with Archon there’s no way she’d be stupid enough to decide that the movie ending of turning down wealth, fame, adventure and power for being a nobody running a tiny dieing shop is the right idea.
Shop Smart! Shop S-Mart!
ummmmm the store is selling almost bare to the walls regularly now that people know there is an actual super hero that owns the place and other supers pop in at irregular intervals. ‘dieing’ is no longer appropriate description, as long as they keep the “no loitering without purchase” policy. Also the huge salary from Archon and having a bunch of super powered friends and familiar food and entertainment kind of trumps ruling an alien society that might not even have wifi or pizza (or for Syd, hot thai noodles.) I didn’t buy Spiderman giving up the super suit and the slot in the avengers and a luxury suite in Stark tower in order to return to familiar squalor, but going back to a life with familiar friends and luxuries that you can afford totally makes sense
SNERK!
YEP! Definitely a friend of Dabbler.
Which Ironicaly means that Syd May have a harder time proving she’s freinds with Dabler, because she’s not even remotly casually slutty…
But she does have a thing for Ed and a bunch of hot guys on her phone.
Wearable forcefields: The ultimate evolution of fashion design.
Sounds like quite the marketing sales-pitch:
“Flexible-enough to wear like a 2nd skin, but firm-enough to stop any projectile …
… & instead of washing it, you just turn it off, & it’s GONE!”
Heh, DMC_Run’s comment over the text bubble’s in panel 5 would probably be the marketing AD for the suit…
Standard issue clothing on Planet Dang, I suppose…
A quick grammar fix.
“that’s the place where that human girl at that super hot stuff!”
at >> ate
_________________
still a good page. I look forward for more of the vendor guy, and seeing Dabbler’s reaction to Sydney popping up on Space Youtube.
That’s not a grammar error, that was a typo
It was miss spelling needing a fix. It’s the same thing, under a wide generalization, umbrella usage of the term.
Misspelling.
No, no it’s not
Nah, you want “et”. It’s actually a spelled-out accent.
Romeo and Juliet, in a restaurant they met, Romeo went into debt, ’cause Rome, he owed what Julie et.
Asking a question or two, about a shared acquaintance, is a unreasonable way to establish bonefides.
“What cybernetic does Dabbler have?”
Is a good one, as a close acquaintance will know she has two, and could detail them. Whereas someone researching that, on the fly*, may not be able to discover that, or may stop at just the one.
* Assuming they have a built-in internet connection (or alien equivalent anyhow) or a backup team supplying info.
Being a friend doesn’t mean you know all their secrets. It is enough that she knows Dabbler by the name Dabbler, since that isn’t her real name. An enemy would have referred to her by the name, Xuriel Shahara Tantalis.
Indeed. Hence why I chose one that Dabbler is pretty open and relaxed about. Even a casual acquaintance should be able to answer that question.
Indeed she is pretty open about it, but its implied max has known her for a while and she didn’t find out that little detail until the restaurant. (From what I remember, it has been a hot minute since my last reread.) Who knows if that detail has even come up with Cora.
Max though has only known Dabbler for a few weeks, which rather supports my claim.
*kills autocorrect buries it and dances on its grave*
unreasonable —–> reasonable
*kills autocorrect buries it and dances on its grave*
I would suggest a different and less alluring activity on that particular grave. And on the graves of the people who invented autocorrect.
(Heck, even my currently-active spelling checker thinks autocorrect is wrong.)
Pretty sure Sydney needs her cast page updated, since she’s almost definitely no longer only 4 pips on flight speed anymore. It’s pretty likely that she is faster than Maxima now (if not from the Mach 16 upgrade, then definitely from being able to traverse interstellar distances upgrade).
I’d assume that “Teleportation” / “Warp Drive” / “Flight” / etc., would be considered on separate scales, & not just different speeds of the same power. They just feel like “apples & oranges”, to me at-least.
Definitely different scales. Otherwise, Harem could technically be classified as being faster than Max.
Yes but even without the teleportation and warp drive, she is now very likely a faster flier than Maxima, so she really should have her pips updated. :)
But is that more significant than being the co-owner of a comic shop?
Your nerd rating could be at risk!
I doubt my nerd rating is at risk for making a ‘Is better than at ?’
Making arguments and declarations like that are a STAPLE of superhero nerd-dom, I believe.
Indeed but, in this particular instance, the question boils down to a very controversial “Is superhero or nerd-dom better?”.
:-D
The two are inseparable.
Like oil and … some other inseparable thing.
Excellent analogy.
About the tab at the guy’s restaurant … he’s likely to make more money at the booth from the attention Sydney brought then the losses of feeding her … So I don’t think he’s going to make much complain as he can put that on ‘advertisement budget’ and make a proffit still. :o I mean. His booth was -surrounded- by people. and then Galatube is going to show it. Its gonna bring so much attention to his booth that yeah. XD I don’t think he’s going to have much problems if Sydney can’t pay.
On a separate note, just how widespread is it to show teeth, to a friend? Most Earth species do it as a threat response.
Good point.
Clearly she is either well briefed on human culture or is cosmopolitan enough to know how to avoid such errors. For instance when the universal translator says “do you wish to have facial expressions translated?” knowing to say “yes”.
The hard light suit Cora is wearing could easily project that, if tied into a suitable device.
and honestly enough its not that common among Earth cultures. People just learned Western Europeans like to show teeth in a smile so copy it back. But it actually pretty unusual.
Honestly I find it creepy, I hate showing my teeth and I hate when people give me that big toothy smile. I half expect they plan to bite my hand as their eyes are telling another story *no matter what you may do with your lips at work, your eyes will betray your true feelings*. So a big toothy smile with apathetic eyes is so uncanny valley and creepy to me.
Big Toothy Grins are supposed to be creepy, remember Bruce from “Finding Nemo”?
Predators give BTG’s to prey
Someone needs to beat this into the heads of American retail and fast food chains who train their employees to give smiles like this. (Like dude…you look like you’re possessed by a flesh eating clown demon, stop it).
If you are just expecting people to bite you, then maybe you have bigger issues to handle. :vvvvv
9 out of 10 species I work around on a regular basis use teeth showing as a sign of aggression, and I grew up with it not being the customary way to smile and the idea of only showing genuine emotion to people. Seeing an insincere toothy smile is creepy looking.
Those same species also use teeth as there primary weapon.
I know Sydney’s straight but my yuri instincts are firing right now. Course they fire pretty much constantly, curse of the anime fan.
Not me … sadly if Dabbler hasn’t bedded her yet (especially after the Orgasmic Drying Spell), then Sydney isn’t on her way to be bi yet. Which is sad since I think she’d be cute with Olivia.
I really don’t see anything between her and Cora yet. Their relationship so far amounts to nothing more than “I’m jealous, therefore I hate you.”.
Giventime, it could bloom into a tsundere romance but that’s both a ways off and probably the least interesting potential lesbian relationship that Sydney has on offer.
Yet_Another_Separate_Note:
Running-up a tab has always been a pet-peeve of mine, as far back as “Wimpy”, & his classic line:
“I’d gladly pay you Tuesday, for a hamburger today!”
Nowadays, I just straight-up say to the cook/wait-person/bartender/whoever-is-taking-my-order:
“I have this theory, that food always tastes better if you pay for it BEFORE you eat it.”
If they feel like conversing about the topic, I’ll also point out that it’s usually considered rude to eat food before you pay for it — at the grocery store.
Interesting system… you’re saying you actually get them to take advance paymetn? Genuinely curious if you also tip in advance.
I’ve never worked in food service, but I suspect that it might actually be more work and inconvenience for the server / restaurant to accommodate a non-standard arrangement like that. Restaurant bills are not a ‘tab’, which is a line of credit; while you may pay for other standardized food items in advance, those are ‘goods’, whereas an individually-prepared meal is a ‘service’. It’s standard operating procedure for most service industries to perform the work before payment – as for why, ask anyone who’s ever had a building contractor disappear after getting the first check, leaving an unfinished job.
Yes, this policy includes a tip-in-advance.
For me, it started being an “issue” back when I had to commute to work via train.
The train station had a built-in coffee-shop, & on more than one occasion, I found myself missing a train because I had not yet paid for my coffee-&-bagel (& I refused to “dash” without paying).
You, are an honourable, butt odd, customer :D
[Guesticus]:
Consider, it was happening in the train-station of my hometown.
There is a time-honored truism, known to any successful thief:
“You Don’t $#!T Where You Eat”.
Or, as Kevin Kline’s character said in “The Big Chill”:
“…I have to LIVE with these people!”
At least in Australia, almost all fastfood and takeaway coffee or tea is paid for before it is served to you.
So that “get coffee and doughnut, but haven’t paid yet” isn’t so much a problem here, although our public transport in NSW recently purged all of the coffee and fastfood places from station foyers and platforms.
I suppose if you were a regular customer at the takeaway and one day you were short a dollar to pay, the staff might say that it’s fine to pay it back tomorrow/next time.
I love the idea of hard light construct clothing. It can look anyway you like and provide all the protection your average day needs.
Astra occasionally visits the Western Warden of the Confraternal Unity in her cloudhome, which is by default all white, and decorated by hologram into riotous color.
Cora: “It’s like I’m wearing nothing at all! Nothing at all! NOTHING! AT! ALL!”
Sidney: “Stupid sexy Cora!”
Dabbler: “I know, right?”
I was thinking the very same thing.
As soon as I saw “hard light” I looked on Cora’s forehead for the “H” symbol.
Maybe she wants a kipper for breakfast, smoked, not fried :D
The doctor from Voyager had a better model than Rimmer.
Who do you think was one of his progenitors? o_O
Dabbler needed ‘a gigawatt, at least’ power source to make her outgoing call, so whatever manner of interocitor she used is probably currently off, or in receive only mode. So.. maybe? Cora makes the call, then waits while ARC rounds up Jiggawatt and gets her to where Dabblers interocitor is?
And that was supposed to be a reply.. meh.
“Obviously I skipped over Sydney’s immediate reaction, which could have gone down any number of ways.”
You did the right thing; people have such high expectations of wacky behavior from Sydney that anything you had written would probably have disappointed, and would have been upstaged by peoples’ descriptions of how THEY thought Sydney would have reacted.
Cora: Exotic, annoyingly sexy, and enjoys abusing a loophole to always technically be naked.
Definitely Dabbler’s friend.
Sydney: Clever, energetic, impulsive, and has incredibly destructive powers that range from anti-personnel to anti-fortress.
Definitely Dabbler’s friend.
Sounds about it like it.
:)
Sydney needs to rank up to anti-city at some point. And that concept is somewhat terrifying.
Mach 4 down an avenue at 25′ off the ground would be effectively anti-city. The PPO from high altitude would also be able to shut down/destroy a city in under 30 seconds.
Depends on the size of the city, I suppose. Still, you’ve got a point.
Now that I’m thinking about it, I wonder how much of an impact it would have on the surrounding area if Sydney opened one of those Aetherion Gates close to the ground…
I think the “destruction by supersonic shockwave” effect might depend on the handwavium that Sidney’s forcefield employs, it might not create a shockwave at all, the field might seemlessly guide the air around its outside and negate any possibilty of shockwave build-up.
You think too small, the PPO has planet-cracking potential if amplified enough. It might even have that potential now but self-limits based on the target.
Sydney:Yep your dabs friend alright…. I NEED A ADULT!
Cora: “I *am* an adult.”
You can safely bet pretty much any amount that Cora does adult things…
Nothing at all.
Nothing at all.
Nothing at all.
Stupid sexy Cora…
Personally I think the real fun will start when Sydney gets to the Ship/Bridge and sees all those “Shiny, Candy like buttons” everywhere. And either Blast a Klingon Bird of prey making a cloaked approach to the station starting a war or dumps all the Spice in the cargo hold pissing off a Hutt somewhere. Before getting kicked off and locked out of the bridge.
Cora will regret letting Sidney on her ship, when Sidney asks to use the toilet and melts the plumbing.
Stupid sexy flanders…
*sexual beer-belly dance, with tassles on exposed man-boobs*
Forecasting Possibility…
Cora gets Halo to her ship.
Halo sees Deus there negotiating for a large amount of alien tech and weapons…even a ship.
Lightbee lets her hear and see this up close. “Can’t exactly write you a check for that ship…what do you want in trade? Here’s a list of things I can offer.”
Deus gets a chill and looks around – halo blips back…
scribbles in her lil book.
Deus has no plans to be in a hurry. Keeps making trades and doing biz…stuff they get gets moved near the portal.
A few jumps later (and weeks to us) Halo tells Maxima eventually what she saw Deus doing.
Maxima thinks a bit, talks to Intel and then takes off on full afterburners…
Show the stacks…and something passing through them at very very high speed.
Maxima gets back with the Dimension Ripper in hand.
Deus ready to go home and dominate electronics and gizmo market for the near future (bypassing customs to get illegal tech back to earth (why he didn’t just buy the designs and tech specs for stuff instead…)) and his portal is gone…
“I am somewhat worried about this…”
Above the Giant alien ship arrives.
Everywhere guns start to fire upwards and ships flee left and right…
“Okay, Now I am sure I should be more than somewhat worried about this …”
It is a long-standing law of comic book physics that the tightest, most sheer and stretchy fabrics in the universe will clearly outline bellybuttons, abs and ribs but will somehow become rigidly smooth so as not to show nipples, areolae, female genital slits or even male genitalia. Either that or all tight costumes come with a dance belt and nipple shields. (which is actually a good idea if you’re not intending to do erotic cosplay.)
Breasts just aren’t for show, the milk is loaded with immunological agents you won’t find in common processed bottle milk. Which is probably one of the reasons why the USA has such an abnormally high death rate among babies for a First World Country. To have the breasts over loaded that way all of the time is taxing on the woman’s body, especially their back muscles. Why breast reduction surgery is a human send to women. Modified sweat glands loaded with fat.
Navels, the umbilicus scar some people make such a big deal about them. Showing them shouldn’t be a big deal be that male or female. But some do.
The U.S. baby death rate is not comparable to any other country, because we count any child born alive, and we try very hard to keep them so. We could probably drop our death-at-birth rate by a third or more if we regularized our counting method. (It would still be a bit high due to drug use.)
And in the next scene…
We find out Cora has a strict, no exceptions “No clothes–hard light only- -this means you Sydney!” policy on her ship.
This will, of course cause SydneyOS to crash.
Cora is a bit of a bullshit artist. Or maybe she is just going for effect. Her ‘outfit’ is quite obviously not just skin tight, what with the ring around her neck (contains the field generator?), the clearly raised shoulder pads and arm armor/gloves, etc. It’s only around the juicy bits that her outfit is skin tight, breasts to crotch.
Who said the color effects have to be skin-tight everywhere? If it can project solid looking color on a surface, it could be the surface of the forcefield, too, which we don’t know how thick it is, or where it’s thick vs. thin, or what shapes it can take…?
Did we read the same comic? Cora is the one who said her outfit was skin tight, when it is obviously, as I pointed out before, not skintight in a fairly significant amount of area.
Yeah, nah, Cora never said anything about it being skintight, certainly not skintight everywhere
She simply said, that her suit was a hardlight projection that barely does more than colour her skin
Cora has some rather lovely freckles.
I like her already.
Shame she’s not… Green :D
Kirk still would love the blue
She had Kirk just by being female :P
I would like to ask those trying to short-time Sydney’s timeline something. Why?
Do you watch tv shows like this? If the characters in other comics and tv had to account for this kind of nitpicking, they would never have holidays.
Soap opera timelines are even worse, btw.
I have seen people trying to pick apart how much time has passed on Steven Universe before.
…and one person go insane trying to figure out how much time was passing in Ranma 1/2 (the world where its always the same year of high school LoL).
Try… “The Simpsons” :P
Have you seen the timeline theories?
There are people who divide the Simpsons seasons up into timelines based on the “future” episodes and what dates are mentioned in flashback episodes and claim the show is following alternate timelines of the same family and just resets every few seasons to stay in the same equivalent year. Heck I think the Simpsons’ writers got wind of this and used it for a Treehouse of Horrors sketch once.
Two words: Franklin Richards.
I would now add Jack-Jack Parr to the roster of super endowed babies.
I don’t think Jack Jack has timeline realigning powers though. Which I do believe was kind of the point here on how screwed up comic book time can get.
He is still a super endowed baby
Yes, but that wasn’t the point. The discussion was about timelines being inconsistent. Franklin Richards existing does this two ways (one how fast this character aged relative to other characters in the same universe) and two by having the powers to mess with the timeline himself.
Butt that was Night-Gaunt49‘s point
A thought occurs to me that I’m not seeing covered (a few joke lines here or there), but in all seriousness.
Sydney just ate super spicy alien food.
So what are the chances her superiors back on Earth (a low tech planet whose alien contact situation looks to be second party MIB level *as in not even directly in secret cahoots with alien visitors but secret cahoots with the secret society in cahoots with alien visitors)…
learn she has eating something from an unknown biological source.
Yeah, seeing special quarantine, lab work, closed off toilet system to analyze any possible contaminants to Earth’s biosphere. Check for any parasites in Sydney, any effects to her body, if the out going material after the digestive process collected would have had any detrimental effects on anything alive or artificial.
-nothing says (we had no idea this could happen) like realizing an unknown material introduced into the sewers could cause the bacteria down there to suddenly develop stronger than normal acids that eat away at the street causing them to collapse.
*real situation by the way in some cities with older sewer systems*.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsVgi8hoFFc
The portal that Dues and Vale used is even more so. it could let air-borne contagions pass in either direction too.
They’ve already established there are so many other spells piggybacked onto the Veil, that it’d be child’s play to add in the magical equivalent of a combination UV light emitter and negative ion generator and ultrasound frequency projector to kill all pathogens safely & cleanly…since while alien viruses could come here, ours could go there.
I’d be surprised if there wasn’t some scifi story somewhere, where humanity conquered a world simply because someone sneezed on the bad guys, and wiped them all out within just a few weeks.
That would be many real world first contact situations of conquerors coming to peoples they hadn’t met before.
as for sci-fi, its the end of (War of the Worlds), among others that took inspiration from it. Heck an episode…sadly only one…of SG-1 covered this.
Is that a Ur-Quan from Star Control… because damn. That is obscure. .
She’s wearing a retexture.
Glad Sid has been ” found ” as it were. Nothing more vexing than missing your Uber ride home after a binge. Still holding thumbs for HALO/ Deus X interaction.
What are you doing here.?
. Hmmmm , hmmmm,
HMMMMMM.
First comment, just wanting to say… I MISS the regular cast. As fun as this storyline is, i can’t wait to see how Sydney tells about everything that happened off Earth. Surely she will be pumped up with fighting the big guys, travelling through systems and meeting aliens after she returns.
I at least hope we will see a big reunion scene and at least some “explanation” scenes, as well as scolding Sydney for taking the risks and commending her for more insight into the orbs. She developed a lot during these hours off planet, but I also want to see her back to being goofy.
Welcome out of the shadows.
It will be interesting to see how that plays out. I hope we get something cool.
I kinda expect that DaveB has been saving some of the juicier bits for just that reason.
So this migth be really late, but i just learn that a scale for how hot something is in term of food is Scoville and i feel really silly. Damm thats clever.
I am sure that Lady Luck will be pleased to hear that.
Oh whilst were at it, thank you Lady, for all those things you provided evolution to play with.