Grrl Power #762 – This presser is about to get a lot more exciting
I forgot to put the brackets around the all the dialog, except panel 6, but everyone is speaking in some alien language or another. Okay, bear with me, I know I talk about Universal Translators a lot, but I’m not sure what else to comment about on this page, so here we go.
On Earth, there are a few major languages that are worth your time to learn. English, obviously, since we export so much entertainment, and a lot of international business is conducted in English. Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, German, Hindi, or Arabic. Basically any language where there’s ~100+ million speakers is reasonably worth your time to learn. Depending heavily on your interests and geography, obviously.
BUT. If you lived in a galactic mixing pot with a chance to encounter any of ten thousand viable languages on a given day, and everyone has access to near perfect automatic translators that even somehow create holograms over people’s mouths so they’re lip synced correctly… honestly, would anyone learn more than one language? You’d only need to learn one language that the translators knew to get your foot in the door, and then you’d be set. Even if you’re a Snarglax, and you move into Little Blogsville, would you bother learning Blorgian? Just pop your translator in your ear (and in this case, your translator is also your wallet and your smartphone with the holographic interface projected into your eye and you’d never leave home without it anyway) and you’re set. Ok, maybe you’d learn the Bolrgian for “I got mugged and someone stole my translator.” but that’s it.
Learning a language is not a minor undertaking. Unless you’re learning a second language when you’re young, side by side with your primary language, it’s a lot of work. I’ve tried several times to learn Japanese, and I started getting decent with it for a while, but at some point I realized I wasn’t really going to internalize it unless I moved to Japan for a few years and immersed myself in it. Eventually I was like, well, I could do that, or I could put more time into this webcomic idea that has been rolling around in my head for a while.
So I tried something different with coloring Cora’s face in that last panel. I think it looks pretty good, except that it’s a little blown out. Also it lacks a certain stylized charm, but hey, I learned a little from doing it, so hopefully that helps build my pool of art skillz.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
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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.
Cora’s skin does look awesome, but her hair looks out of focus.
Skin coloring’s a little too light relative to bottom left panel 5 pages back.
Looks good, but almost looks like they changed the actress, or she’s suddenly standing in front of klieg lights.
She looks lighter blue compared to her appearance in 757 but her face doesn’t look too different. Partly I think it’s the way her head’s tilted down. Having the light and shadow more diffuse on the side of her face not in shadow makes her look less shiny, but her hair is still the same amount of shiny, so it seems extra shiny in comparison. Hair is hard. Also I think a bit of shadow under her hair on the forehead or under her sideburn would make her hair look less float-ey.
Dem freckles tho <3
Yesss. Yessss https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6TpOkrQdMQ
Thought you would have gone with the Yes! chant, not the gay Decepticon :P
Actually, I really like that last panel. It looks much more photo-realistic.
That was my thought too, it reminds me of the pictures where someone starts with a photo then colours it or slightly alters it to match the drawn setting it’s pasted into.
To do that starting from hand-drawn is impressive.
Yeah, actually I was thinking, “Oooh! I really like how she looks in that last panel. …Except for her hand,” even before Dave mentioned it.
It definitely has a photo-real quality to it, so I’m kind of wondering if there was a reference model or what.
Is very byooty-full! <3
I hadn’t noticed the hand until you mentioned it. Her face is exquisite though!
I like it also. The freckles on blue skin effect was very well done.
I just figured it out. Cora turned her succubi talents on the fourth wall. No wonder we’re all so mesmerized by it.
Cora isn’t a succubae
I like how her hair looks actually.
I, for one, got sucked i by the eyes…
Nice, but definitiely different.
I like it…
I still say Sydney’s Klingon could come in use at some point to communicate with Leon or maybe Max (if she was that big a nerd in her teenage years) cryptically around aliens or someone.
I doubt the translator will pick up on such languages quickly. Real languages are evolved and connected but made up ones are probably only similar in structure. It’s probably easier to adapt and learn a whole planets system of languages simultaneously for the translator. Assuming it can simply learn new ones and not need them programmed in.
Not to mention there is the fact that languages are often figurative in their usage of words. Literal translation of many languages results in something that makes no sense without proper context. There are languages that omit “common sense” words. Also a single word can have multiple meanings depending on how its used. In Japanese for example, the word Ken can mean fist, strike, blade, a slew of related things depending on how its used.
So I think that while universal translators would help as a stop gap, ultimately a universal trade language would become Vital in terms of long term diplomacy as well as trade. Because universal translators are machines, and as such they’ll translate literally and that doesn’t always work.
We’ve already seen some universal translators fail to translate Sydney’s Klingon greeting on the Fracture.
While literal translators would certainly fail, we haven’t seen that so far. I suspect the alien tech is more advanced and able to read some tone and context from the discussion to determine the correct translation. Still, we have seen Dabbler struggle with a few words here and there, although it’s not clear if she has a full translator or just dictionary.
As to Dabbler, sometimes it may be her doing it on purpose, either for laughs or to get a reaction.
Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra. Shaka, when the walls fell.
Klingons may actually exist – or at least a race that uses the Klingonese language (who infiltrated Earth and got Star Trek fans to learnt he language).
…I wonder if Sydney will still have the Heavy gun when this all goes down
I’ve got to ask you Dave, just how many art and coloring styles do you know?
Not that many really, just variants of the same basic thing. Really the question is how anime I make the eyes. I wish I knew more. I had originally wanted much more distinctive looks for all the main characters, but it didn’t pan out that way.
You really don’t have to worry about your characters not having distinctive looks. No one will ever accuse your characters of having Same Face Syndrome except for Harem, but that’s obvious. *IF* I was your editor the only things I’d have you change is Dabbler’s eyes to one color and thats because heterochromia is so damn common place in webcomic and anime, that and because Dabbler is one of the most distinctive characters in the main cast. That and I’d suggest that you give Peggy the ability to teleport instead of Harem because a Sniper who can pop all over the battlefield would be pretty scary and OP as Hell! Hell, Peggy’s codename would be Phantom.
Of course, Peggy not being a super makes her at least as scary.
She’s just that good …
Last shot looks John Cassaday esque. friggin nice.
The last panel is absolutely killer.
Just wanted to chime in that the last panel is on fleek.
Do we still say on fleek? I’m going to say on fleek.
NO, “on fleek” is no longer on fleek.
So “on fleek” is now off fleek. It’s fleek-state is unknowable. Schroeder’s fleek.
One can know whether the quark is on or off, but not whether it is fleek.
Which may make you feel up or down, but I find quarks strangely charming.
That is a very awesome and almost photo-realistic Cora. Thumbs-up.
Cora looks.. cute. Not cutesy in the obnoxious moe or chibi way. But cute in the “Holy crap! The new girl next door is cute.” way that I find super attractiv.
So, yeah. You can keep doing that.
I second Keneth’s comment on Cora! Very nicely done, even if it doesn’t appear to look much like Cora from the previous page she was on, even with the lighter skin tone. Someone else commented on her looking more petite and I agree with them as well.
The last panel looks amaaaazing. Would you please put up a copy of the last panel without the word balloons? It’d be awesome to be able to use it for pen and paper or crpg characters.
I second this request! She’s amazing!
I love the way Cora looks in the last panel, the shadows pop in ways that are different from the other style and makes her look more cutesy and shoujo-like. Doesn’t match the style of the comic but still great to look at.
This press conference may be about to get more interesting, but I think news in the galactic community is going to get FAR more interesting when the natives of a pre-FTL ‘vacation planet’ savage a Fel Super Battle Carrier.
One rather important question: If a pre-FTL world destroys an aggressive ship in combat, would galactic law deny them salvage rights? Specifically, salvage rights to the ship’s FTL tech.
this is one of those things I wish the MCU would cover, like I hope the next Guardians of the Galaxy reveals someone in EndGame’s final battle had a recording device and we get a news broadcast around the galaxy of Thanos and his forces getting wrecked on Terra. Heck you’d think news Earth fought off the Chitauri in less than an hour *assuming in-universe time variance with movie* would have been news out there.
Earth beating the Chitauri was a fluke because instead of fighting them back through the portal all that happened was one individual got through their defenses and nuked their command ship, somehow disabling the whole army. What are the odds? It would be like having a world overrun by an army of killer robots and a child manages to steal a spaceship, fly it into an undefended space station and manage to single-handedly blow it up, instantly defeating the whole robot army. That’s just poor writing.
Oh wait, never mind. Nothing to see here. Move along, move along.
One thing End Game did that I rather liked (among various things I liked in it) was revealing that while the Avengers fought the main forces the Chitauri were encountering other supers in the city. Something the production couldn’t afford at the time. So I wouldn’t hold it against them to later discover some Chitauri got into a subway only to be ambushed by vampires and Morloks.
that said End Game though was another bag, no in space really knew about Thanos’ garden, but a whole lot including the Ravagers…and a velociraptor apparently that I didn’t see on the big screen (seriously this is a pause Where’s Waldo scene of all the craziness they snuck into this fight) so someone likely recorded it, like Howard the Duck, so the rest of space should have some angles of Wanda tearing apart Thanos making him suffer, Captain Marvel smashing his ship, Ant-Man, Iron-Man, ect… which in a Guardians 3 could all be humiliating for Quill as he had nothing to do with the final take down, never got a good shot in on Thanos, and was nearly killed by random grunts during the battle.
I’m wondering if the Velociraptor was Old Lace (from the Runaways’ Arsenic and Old Lace).
Was it red?
honestly it looks white and a little spotted, and smaller than the one in Runaways. It is right in front of Valkyrie’s Pegasus as they assemble to fight Thanos.
This is Old Lace.
https://d8o78q7l6yvl3.cloudfront.net/000258/23/0175892744-full.jpg
This is Arsenic and Old Lace
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/pt/8/8c/Gert_e_Alfazema_%28Fugitivos_Vol_1_4%29.jpg
Old Lace is usually either Orange or Red, with some blue on his back.
No, this is Arsenic and Old Lace. Or maybe this one if you prefer, but I’m a sucker for Karloff.
Quill being humiliated is not particularly funny… it’s a boring trope, the inept white guy. If he doesn’t grow up in the next movie, it’s all she wrote.
Luckily, having His Majesty Thor on board means they’ll have to do something off-trope, for one of them, anyway.
You mean Her Majesty Thorette (yes, the movie Thor is also being replaced by a female)
I will be blunt, that was blown out of proportions; it was also like the third or fourth time it happened. Heck when I saw the cover art I thought Thor-girl had returned from space and taken up the name again. But alas it was not.
Will be just as blunt (just not James, his songs are crap :P )
Have no problem with someone else becoming the Asgardian God(dess) of Thunder and Lightning, butt Thor is his freaking name!!! It’s not a title!!!!
That’s like getting a new Captain America, and naming him (or her) ‘Steve Rogers’
Or a new Iron-(wo)man and calling them “Tony Stark”
blame the writers on that one. I mean that exact same argument came up because of Thor-girl
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Girl#/media/File:Thor_Girl.jpg
I mean this same song and dance keeps going, the internet has amplified it from the comic shop arguments to message boards but its all deja vue;
but I think the premise was supposed to be a play on the original Thor comics and the whole idea that the spirit of Thor possessed the one who lifted the hammer. Granted they side stepped that and had THor just be depowered (but still super-human) and his powers go to her because they half assed the original premise. But hey, same era of comics that thinks Red She-Hulk was an acceptable name for a character (seriously WHO would call themselves a derivative of a derivative?) I have and will always argue if she shows up in the MCU she needs to use her old code-name of Harpy because in a more realistic setting NO ONE wants to be seen as the alternative version of an alternative version of someone.
Hmm, unless Red Shulkie has wings, why did she use ‘Harpy’?
“NO ONE wants to be seen as the alternative version of an alternative version of someone.”
You mean, like Bat-Woman and Bat-Girl? Or Super-Boy?
Are you talking about when Thor became that crippled doctor? They half-arsed referenced it in the first Thor movie (when they used the name of the doctor for Thor’s stolen ID to get close enough to his hammer)
Because Betty had wings, Red She Hulk isn’t her first gamma mutate form:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1b/Incredible_Hulk_168.jpg
At first back when I would say this like…ten years ago, it would have just been a call back. However looking up this pic (I jump in and out of comics)…it looks like, which Hulk characters often do…she has recovered this form somewhat.
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/marveldatabase/images/2/21/Immortal_Hulk_Vol_1_20_Textless.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20190418181418
on that second one no. Bat-Woman is a derivative of Bat-Man, same as Bat-Girl and Super Boy.
Red She-Hulk is a derivative OF a derivative as far as name goes.
Hulk (main)
She-Hulk (derivative of Hulk *rather than have own name bases name on similar character*)
Red She-Hulk (derivative of She-Hulk, as in is calling herself the red version of She-Hulk, who was already calling herself the she version of Hulk; thus a derivative of a derivative).
and yes I was, the comics had it as a thing, and honestly the movies do to just minus the transformation, Odin’s spell on the hammer remains, why Captain America had a sudden strength boost and could summon lightning. Remember the power of lightning and thunder naturally comes out of Thor *as revealed in Ragnarok* the hammer was a tool. However because Odin put that spell on it “whom ever can weild this hammer if he be worthy shall have the power of Thor” any worthy who lift it are granted Thor’s powers. That is the opening for Jane to have Thor’s powers in the MCU without depowering Thor.
Thank you for the history about the Hulk’s
As to the ‘derivative of a derivative’, that’s more on the ‘intelligence’ of the readers than the authors or, at least, the not die-hard readers (you know the type: “Is Hulk red now?” “No, that’s a different character, General PainInHulksArse” “Oh *points to a She-Hulk comic* Hulk is now a female?” “*SIGH* No, that’s Bruce’s cousin, Jennifer, she’s a lawyer, and very smart” “*Picks up ‘Immortal Hulk Vol.1 #20’* Why is Jennifer red?” “*Audible sounds of teeth grinding*” :P)
Again, have no problems with someone else (even a female, heck, Storm and Wonder Woman both had the powers at some stage) having Thor’s powers, for me, it’s also giving them his name
It is funny, because Quill annoys me. His character type always has.
If you want him to grow up, then the comics shouldn’t have devolved his character from how he was in Annihilation to reflect the movies. He had developed already but they back slid it to match the movies.
PS: Pretty sure Thor is getting written off as (we dropped him off somewhere) so we don’t have an S-class power walking among a bunch of D and C class power characters, kinda unbalances the team horribly.
Hey, that is a good idea, maybe they should make that into a movie.
… or up load a computer virus with their Macbook.
One line! Just. One. Line. All they needed to do was comment that our computer technology took a major jump post Roswell. Imply that our computer tech is heavily based on acquired tech from the Roswell crash, and with a bit of a stretch, it becomes believable that we could hack their systems.
Lazy screenwriters.
As a Unix/Linux admin, I’d buy that unix is based on alien concepts.
Wasn’t lazy screenwriters. Was stupid editing. THOSE SCENES WERE SHOT AND CUT.
Wait really? Can’t find them anywhere at the moment, but if so that makes me a lot happier. Hollywood is so, so bad at presenting a legit and coherent tech premise.
Are we referencing Independence Day?
If the ship falls to the Earth’s surface, it would be hard to deny humans salvage rights. The “powers that be” would have to violate the sovereignty of Earth, very quickly, to cease the the ship before humans got their hands on it. Even then, the act of coming in to cease the ship would expose humanity to even more FTL technology. Just knowing it can be done, and seeing someone actually doing it, provides a a great leg up to doing it yourself. At this point, “the cat is out of the bag”. It is only a matter of time before humans figure it out.
Is that a repeated typo of ‘cease’ for ‘seize’? Or is it a comment on the way the Galactic Powers are likely to choose to deny the ship to Humans?
Yeah, that last panel looks great but my concern is with the second panel: The Alari have just had their planet deaded and some of them think it’s a good idea to go on the interstellar comm links to tell everybody they’re holed-up on a defenseless pre-FTL world?
The words “Uh oh” come to mind.
There is an Alari ship parked over in Africa in Deus-land. You would think they would pick up on and reply to the messages being broadcast from Cora’s ship. It is possible that Deus has his own crew manning and possibly dismantling that ship at the moment, so no one may be stationed at comms at the moment.
We still haven’t confirmed that Archon even knows they have their own Alari colony-in-making on their doorstep.
I’m wondering why Cora’s ship hasn’t made direct contact with the Alari ship and said “Hey, we got some of your people here”, or at least let her passengers know there’s an Alari ship here and ask if they want her to make contact.
The African ship may not be safe for the little group on Cora’s ship.
“extended family”
We don’t know that said family aren’t currently in Galytn, similarly trying to reunite and fretting about the lack of Hypernet access relays. Not likely, but not disproven.
The Alari ship in Deus-land could be salvaged for FTL tech too.
I agree that the status of Earth is going to need review after this. Perhaps Sidney, with her n-th level tech, will be appointed as Earth protector by the galactic assembly.
I’m going to break out of lurker mode to say “Wow, that last panel is awesome. You did an excellent job on her face!”
I’ve tried to learn SEVERAL languages, at various times. It never ends well.
Generally speaking, it takes me about 1-2 semesters to figure out “ok, I’ve got the bare minimum of present-tense grammar down, and I understand the pronouns and stuff… But I’m never going to be able to have rules-lawyer debates about advanced laws of sci-fi physics in this language, so what was the point?”
In a galaxy with universal translators, the best reason to “learn a language” is probably more like linguistics or computer programming…
You never bother to truly LEARN the ENTIRE language, you just read a book on the language, copy some of the rarer and more interesting linguistic routines for future study, and then CONVERT your OWN language into a specialized dialect with a few unique loanwords, based on the fascinating rules you were just learning about.
“I hacked my translator’s english localization files to add Japanese honorifics after every proper name. Therefore, I speak Japanese now!”
Good post, Krenn-sama.
Sorry, sorry. That was Japanese for ‘Good post, Krenn.’
:)
Made a joke :)
DaveB said: “that even somehow create holograms over people’s mouths so they’re lip synced correctly”
My question is what do you do when you meet an alien race that uses purely telepathic communication or a race that doesn’t have a mouth? Do you like create a hologram to project a mouth, or do you just accept the fact that you are communicating with a species that doesn’t have lips or use their mouths to talk?
I’m going to guess most of the races in the galaxy don’t care about lip/mouth sync. They just read or listen to what the translator tells them and hope they are not getting the worst possible translation (or being misinterpreted because they don’t understand the boundaries/norms of the other species).
It’s pretty disconcerting when I watch a video where the lip sync is off from the sound. I’m thinking it would be even more disconcerting for that to be happening in real life.
meh watch enough anime and you get used to it
With cartoons I sometimes can get used to it. But with a real life person or movie, I just can’t. I will literally open two videos of it and pause one long enough to make the sound sync because it annoys me so much. :)
VLC player has built in function to adjust soundtrack timing, FYI.
Also, research of the latest vulnerabilities in vlc player have been patched yet… Someone has been hosing and ghosting computers with recent vlc software revisions.
Ok so I should use VLC if I ever have something that’s off sync?
Heh, the old martial arts movies are prone to faulty lip-syncing, so much so the guy from “Police Academy” did it during one of his fights :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTEX32DBGzw
Yeah but that’s on purpose, or because it’s being trnaslated from one language to another. Dubbing, I don’t have a problem with it not syncing up, just like I don’t with cartoons. But when it’s the same language, and the words and the lip motions don’t match up, something in my brain says ‘THIS IS WRONG I HATE IT MAKE IT STOP’ :)
The only time can imagine same language videos being out of sync with the lips, is YouTube, and that’s because of anti-copyright crap (it also causes some videos to be played reversed or other such crap)
It’s happened to me a few times with Netflix, but yeah – happens a LOT on Youtube.
You’d need the SUBTITLES enabled.
There’s a food fight scene in Meet the Robinsons that
deliberately mockspays tribute to the old martial arts tropes by a) deliberately having the characters mouths move completely out of sync, and b) totally overdoing the movements and camera angles. Caught me totally unaware, I had to pause it and explain to the kids why I was laughing too hard for them to hear the movie.Yeah, Franny is use to ‘spicy Italian “sausage”‘ :P
I’m going to guess they can sync up things that are recorded media, but on things like real life situations, you’ll either have to adapt to seeing NO mouth talking when someone talks to you, or unsync’ed mouth movements.
Better yet, set your communicator to SUBTITLES. That would probably help you.
Personally I want to see the translator for the race that communicates by smells only; your dog loves them and keeps trying to get into their spaceships..
OR the silicon race that only communicates using light (no real problem) but at 100X data speed. And they never developed patience as a virtue.
As for telepaths, what if it requires a special organ(for all of the chat channels) to receive telepathy, somehow I doubt the translator has one too.
Best case scenario: their audio range is just slightly off that of humans so easy tweek.
(lots of animals are off centered from the human audible range going into it but also dipping into infrasonic and ultrasonic at times)
Mid-Scenario: a species that naturally developed a radio wave “telepathy” and your radio communication equipment is like thousands of incoherent screams to them.
Worst case scenario: you meet a higher dimensional being whose “words” are pulses of electromagnetic radiation and dimensional distortions so some of their “words” have the potential to cause cancer, burn the flesh off your bones, or cause a series of special distortions between them that rip apart anyone standing in the pulse field.
I never noticed before that Cora had freckles…
Yea, gonna join the masses and add to the echos of how amazing Cora looks in that last panel, literally left me flabbergasted. Soooo good!
I really like the way Cora looks on the last panel, actually.
Is Scion really about to start some new shit already?
I’d assumed she would have learned after the last time.
What the frock are you talking about? Sci-fright isn’t even on this page
She’s busy trying to find ‘homes’ for her fellow Alari-skulls she brought back with her
This is likely the big red demon linked to Maxima’s origin story (the Meteorite with the gold stuff that become Maxima’s skin). We caught a glimpse of him at some point where he sensed maxima power, I think.
Pretty sure that demon is not one of the Fel. I remember Cora mentioning his name to Dabbler when asking if that’s why she was hiding out on Earth, and it had nothing to do with the Fel.
he saw Dabbler on a monitor, he is after Dabbler, and not likely a Fel or anything. He is part of her rogue’s gallery so to speak not the team’s.
The woman in the last panel, I want to marry her and have her children. (I’m certain the aliens would come up with some way to do that.) I don’t care if she has hard light fantasy limbs that come and go. I just want to touch that face…
Combining her very altered genes with your (I assume) standard Earthling genes could make some interesting results.
The NCC Scoville may be called upon soon.
There is definite value in learning new languages. Language is a tool for thinking. More languages means more tools. I’ll never forget the epiphany I experienced when I realized there are thoughts you can think on Latin that you can’t think in English. (Latin has 6 temporal tenses. English has 4. Japanese has 2.)
Cora in the last panel looks about 12 to me. Cute as a button, but missing 10-20 years.
Good luck with that universal translator. Words don’t even mean the same thing to different people using the same language. If someone thinks ‘sugar’ means ‘insidious communist poison’ then all bakers will sound like madmen to them. A true universal translator would almost have to work from intent.
I am a little confused. I would have assumed the Alari refugees aboard Cora’s ship would disembark and join the other Alari refugees already on Earth. But it seems like they don’t intend to do that? A better destination in mind?
You’d think that they would join the largest community of survivors they can; especially as the Earth group has already been granted resettlement rights in Galton.
you’re assuming this group would like these people
“extended family”
Opposing factions.
Same difference :P
Has it been confirmed there are Alari there, or just their ship?
The Alari asked to land there, so yes, it is confirmed.
Where was it mentioned that the Alari ship asked to land in the United State of Doucheburg?
When it was first mentioned, Gatlyn offered them asylum when they showed up looking for help. So yes there are Alarm on that ship.
Can you link the page please?
Not being an arse, just honestly can’t remember that scene
It’s in the news report Sydney watches before landing at Archon HQ.
Oh right, thank you, forgot about that
No information yet on how they might relate to each other. It’s been only a few minutes.
Something occurs to me, Dabbler said her father had four or maybe six arms and then mentioned a secondary biological mother.
Does this mean the Succubus here acts (or can act like) the folklore version? A rarity in media.
For those that don’t know, in folklore the Succubus and Incubus were often the SAME entity. The Succubus would acquire semen from a man, and through demonic means after transforming into an Incubus and laying with a woman that semen would be a mix of the “father” and the demon traits of…well; the demon, resulting in the child being demonic.
In short Succubus sleeps with guy, collects his semen inside her, transforms into a male form, alters semen to be a mix of its self and the original guy, then sleeps with a woman impregnating her; resulting in a child with three parents with the demon genes dominant.
no i just think Dabbler’s a freak/ joke character meant to be a “super hybrid” mixing a little of of everything into one character. (its literally the reason her name is dabbler after all)
Wow…is it just me or did Cora just get 37% hotter in that last panel?
Wasn’t it explained her name is Dabbler because she dabbles in everything, tech and magic, and is a Jill of all trades.
Not sure being born a hybrid fits the definition of a dabbler.
Yups, she dabbles in everything (and everyone, if Maxi would let her :P )
Because, it totally wasn’t just the dude sleeping with the chick. Honest.
Reminds me how there used to be a belief that having ever had a relationship with a black man meant that the woman might give birth to a black child, even after marrying a white man. Because, why would she want to continue enjoying the company of a guy she actually liked, after being married off to someone she didn’t
That cliche is ignoring the difference in power relationships in that society. “Guy she liked” or “guy she can control and dominate” or hundreds of other variations, depending on personal proclivities. It could be the female equivalent of executives dipping into the secretary pool… and not exclusive to a single guy.
Would that not be IKC Scoville?
Re Alari refugees in Cora’s ship.
It may be that the ones in Galton are the ‘elite’ who ran away when it became clear that their empire was not going to be able to fight off the kaiju invasion. Leaving groups like the ones with Cora to die.
They might not be too eager to return to be under the iron boots of the Alari empire.
That’s my theory also.
The rich and well connected left first.
Those who were near space ports hocked all their belongings and took whatever was there to leave.
Everyone else died.
I think we have an accord. The new look cora should stay.
maybe it’s part of her genetic makeup to change to fit in with her surroundings
So, is D going to be re-imaging the other characters.?
Looking forward to subtle changes in Halo and Max..?.
I wondered about Cora’s new look… I think she looks much better this way. The old way, I felt the color transitions were too harsh.
And now we know why C3PO was so important for all of those without multi-language skills like Imperial personnel.
Unless you have the local’s equivalent of a Babel-fish in your ear canal. Many languages if it is a crowded galaxy there would be languages you could never pronounce. There are some here that are more difficult than others.
I really dig the coloring on Cora in the last panel. I could get behind that sort of look all the time.
I have to say, Cora in the last panel looks amazing to me.
Her face does look awesome!
I joke about English being like a second language to me but I still haven’t found the first.
I actually have similar issue with Japanese. Without sufficient immersion, I have no chance.
Over my life, I’ve been taught some of several languages:
Japanese. Let’s face it, I suck at it.
German. At one time I was almost up to preschool level, if the preschoolers were slow learners.
Greek. My girlfriend was Greek, and it helped fit in with the family. Too bad being sent overseas killed that relationship.
Hawaiian. It’s a heck of a story why I was taught, but only had use for a month so I’ve since forgotten. Apparently I was good at speaking it, however it was not stuff for a polite setting. Like I said, there’s a heck of a story behind that one.
Spanish. Was taught in first grade, and then it was around 16 years before I met anyone that spoke it, and I’d forgotten it all. (Well, not all, but almost.)
I’m definitely not a polyglot, though I seem to have unintentionally tried to become one. Of all those languages, Spanish would be somewhat useful on occasion these days. I’m an anime fan, so Japanese would be awesome! Of the rest, I rather liked Hawaiian, and found it fairly easy to get the hang of, but there was very little I was taught.
On a side note, I’d like to know more American Sign Language and get decent at it. I didn’t include it in the other languages since it’s not “spoken”. I was taught some to communicate with my daughter before she could talk. Needless to say, our use was somewhat limited, she was 3. After she finally got some speaking skills, it got dropped. I remember a few words, but that’s it. She doesn’t remember any of it.
On a bit of an anecdote, I can recognize insults, even if I don’t know what they are. For a couple of years I had to take the bus home that went by a large Institute for the Deaf, so some of their students were on the bus. Like everyone else, there’s often some jerks badmouthing the other passengers if they think they have a language the others can’t understand. On those same lines, they shut up and stop doing in most cases when you make them think you know exactly what they were saying :D
I’m incredibly interested in your story behind ‘Hawaiian.’
So you still know the gesture for sarcastic “ha ha”….? Or do you just use the common one?
I like this coloration a lot more than the darker blue, because it allows you to use shading to a much greater degree to add expressiveness to her face. The dark blue was interesting and looked cool, but made it almost impossible to display any kind of subtle facial cues.
Interesting it’s a brief summary of the 10 most spoken langages:
1. English
1.121 billion total speakers
2. Chinese
1.107 billion total speakers
3. Hindi
534.2 million total speakers
4. Spanish
512.9 million total speakers
5. French
284.9 million total speakers
6. Arabic
273.9 million total speakers
7. Russian
265 million total speakers
8. Bengali
261.8 million total speakers
9. Portuguese
236.5 million total speakers
10. Indonesian
198.4 million total speakers
German was not widespread , Japanesse two , Hindi and English are spoken in India , Spanish in latin america excluding Brazil , in africa being fluent in french is an huge asset .
For european langages being fluent in English , Spanish ( Castillano), French ( Français) give you a broad array of means of comunication on 3 differents zones ( Africa, Latin america , and India ( English is spoken in india ).
To be fair, Chinese isn’t exactly representative of a WORLD language though. Not many people speak Chinese outside of China, which has a billion people in the country. Same for India (population 1.3 billion, which means not everyone even in India speaks Hindi) and Indonesia (population 264 million, which means not even everyone in Indonesia speaks Indonesian). The other languages have speakers outside of their language’s origination country though.
That isn’t true at all.
The United States, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, and Indonesia all have enclaves of Chinese immigrants.
We do? o_O
What exactly did you think a Chinatown was?
Chinese imigrants speak mostly Cantonese chinese dialect, and Cantonese and mandarin difers as French and Italian. (Lot of similarities but different )
French is mutualy inteligible if it was France French , Walloon French ( Belgian French ), Quebec French and in africa it’s mostly France French with occurences of Walloon French.
British English, American English and Australian English are mutualy inteligible.
Arabic had a variety of dialect they are like German and Dutch or Spanish and Portuguese.
Thank you, Etymology Man!
What Homep said, exactly.
Yes, Chinese were part of the Kiwi Goldrush, just not aware of any ‘Chinatown’
There is a huge gap between having ‘citizens of Chinese descent’ and having ‘enclaves of Chinese immigrants’
Although that Arseburn bitch is hellbent on selling us lock stock and weta-works to China, so, give it time and kiwifruit will once again be Chinese gooseberries
Actually everything I said was very true. 1.107 billion Chinese speakers worldwide. Population of China – 1.386 billion. Unless you think an IMMENSE portion of China does not speak Chinese, this is actually rather simple math.
The fact that there are conclaves of Chinese-speaking people in various other countries does not mean it’s a numerically significant number compared to the total number, or compared to other languages that are legitimately ‘worldwide languages’ like French, Spanish, or English – really the three main ones. Even in non-English speaking countries, you will generally find a statistically significant number of the popualtion that speaks either English, Spanish, or French. You will not find that with Chinese. This is not a particularly controversal stance. It’s just statistics.
Same for Hindi and India. Yes, there are people who were born in India who emigrated to non-Hindi speaking countries, but the number of Hindi speaking people outside of India is numerically insignificant compared to the total number of Hindi-speaking people, most of whom are situated in ONE country. And same for Indonesian. Name other countries where Chinese or Hindi or Indonesian are either the main or major language by a majority, or even a plurality, of the home country of that language. You won’t be able to do so.
Even Arabic at least is in a lot of different countries, even if most of those countries are situated in the Middle East.
Take the US for example, which is one of the more pluralistic nations when it comes to citizens of different national origins. There are 328 million people in the US (not including US territories and commonwealths – with them it jump up about another 6-8 million I believe, at least half of whom are from Puerto Rico). Of the total amount of people in the US, there are a total of 3.8 million who are of chinese descent, or about 1.4% of the US population – a rather small amount. Of the 3.8 million chinese americans, almost half…. do not speak Chinese at all. Only about 2 million chinese americans speak ANY chinese. The number that speak it with any fluency is even lower – usually the descendants of chinese immigrants stop speaking chinese at all within 2 generations at most.
Everything I just said is from the latest US Census, btw.
Pander – The predominant language in China, which is divided into seven major language groups (classified as dialects by the Chinese government for political reasons), is known as Hanyu (simplified Chinese: 汉语; traditional Chinese: 漢語; pinyin: Hànyǔ) and its study is considered a distinct academic discipline in China.[5] Hanyu, or Han language, spans eight primary varieties, that differ from each other morphologically and phonetically to such a degree that they will often be mutually unintelligible, similarly to English and German or Danish.
Saying China speaks Chinese is like saying that Europe speaks Latino.
I know there are several dialects of the chinese language. My point, however, is even if you combine all of the dialects together, you will find a negligible amount of speakers of any of those dialects outside of China. And of the dialects, most Chinese people outside of China will tend to either speak a Mandarin or Cantonese dialect, far as I know. It’s still not going to be considered a ‘worldly language’ – none of the dialects, not cantonese, not mandarin, none of them – because you will have a rather small population of people outside of China that speak it.
Yeah, Chinese is a weird one. The written language is near-universal, whereas the pronunciation is distinct (literally) for each dialect. “How many people outside of China can read Chinese” is a different question from “How many people outside of China speak Cantonese (or whatever)” The answer is tens of millions, at least.
Most of the widely spoken languages are trade languages or the languages of colonizers and conquerors.
English
Spanish
Portuguese
French
Russian
Arabic
Mandarin
Hindi
Swahili
Japanese – started to become a trade language in the 1980s, but then was eclipsed.
Cantonese – promoted by Mao as a trade language in red China, mandated alternative to Mandarin which had been the language of the prior regime for centuries
Mandarin – currently in resurgence as a trade language internal to China and elsewhere.
I’m native French speaker because I’m born in France. ( Je suis né en France donc le Français est ma langue maternelle. )
I’ve been in spanish class in high school
For English I’ve been in class in higth school but my undestanding of English is better than my expression.
Why learn multiple languages when you have “universal translators”? Because no translation can ever match actually understanding the language, things that are single words or simple phrases in one language can take paragraphs of explanation to render in others. Or consider the fun of translating between polychronic and monochronic languages, where going one way means including notes like “and they seriously mean ten o’clock exactly,” and the other “that means within an hour or two because they might have two appointments at that time.” There are languages where you literally can’t talk about your left foot because it only uses absolute direction, (west foot, sure, but not left foot).
Getting a Star Trek style universal translator boils down to solving the hard AI problem and teaching an AI all of the languages it has to work with. Even then it’s going to be seriously error prone, (by “table a motion” does this guy mean to set it aside or to start debating it?).
That’s why smart people ask for Clary, Clarification (as you pointed out “table a motion” has different meanings even within its own language!)
I thought “table a motion” meant ordering lunch. ;)
Fun fact about communicating clearly, most parliamentary procedure in the US is based on Robert’s Rules of order; Henry Robert was a civil engineer who wrote the first version after trying to
herd catslead a public meeting, and being frustrated at not being able to get the attendees to cooperate in group discourse instead of a shouting match. Takes a lot of frustration to get an engineer to devote 14+ years to writing a manual on how to hold a meeting properly.I don’t know – a decade and a half might be a little extreme, but I’ve known plenty of engineers who can get interested in a project for more trivial reasons than being unable to get action on an important (presumably) matter because people are more interested in being heard than in actually solving problems…
I really like Cora’s face in the last panel.