Grrl Power #775 – Grrl’s night!
Exciting scheduling and making evening plans! I know what you guys come here for.
And yes, Krona Bips her ear, and then I didn’t draw anything in her ear. I guess she’s got the same invisible bluetooth earpieces that the Avengers use.
I think the more important question, Kat, is can rabbits swim? Actually, I assume just about any quadruped can doggy paddle. I mean, a horse can swim. Or… kind of kick around in the water. I’m not sure if not immediately drowning counts as swimming. I can’t say I’ve ever seen a video of a rabbit swimming though.
I’m not sure where the Semper Vigilantis are exactly. It’s either some sort of underground pool, or just a covered one designed to look like a cave. It’s probably somewhere off to the side of where the Twilight Council had their meeting with Arc-SWAT back before the whole Sciona thing kicked off. Given that there are some aquatic or at least amphibious members on the council, it makes sense they would have a variety of accommodations. It’s weird seeing Scarlett there though. There’s nothing about vampire lore that says that they can’t swim, but you never really think of vampires as big swimmers.
Yes, some legends say they can’t cross running water, which is supposed to refer to rivers I think, but it would really screw vampires with that limitation trying to navigate any modern city with a sewage system, storm drains, municipal or residential plumbing. Sure, there’s probably some ratio of how much water it has to be vs. how far they are from it in order to affect the vampire. Otherwise a vampire could get trapped whenever the sprinklers go off.
Now, if a high level priest could bless a city’s aquifer, the sprinklers would be a serious problem for vamps. Also fire sprinklers, water fountains, etc. Your local pastor couldn’t pull that off. That guy is what, probably a level 3 cleric? He could do a wheelbarrow full of water balloons all at once, tops. But I’m betting a bishop could do a medium sized aquifer. Well, maybe a water tower.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. 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.
Yes, you have seen a video of a rabbit swimming. One attacked president Carter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter_rabbit_incident
Oops, no video, just still photos. that was back in the 16mm film days.
The story that the rabbit was attacking is ridiculous. The rabbit was said to have jumped into the water to avoid chasing hounds. It was heading to the canoe probably because it was the closest ‘land’ that it could see. The reports of it growling was probably just strained breathing after a run from dogs and a swim for its life.
It was clearly a vicious Jackalope in fall after their horns fall off for the winter. It could have been worse, it could have been a Drop Bear.
I have heard a rabbit growl, but to be fair, this is while it was throwing a slipper in the air like a puppy would. Second funniest thing I ever saw around that rabbit. (The funniest was when the cat came up the stairs to check out the bedroom she hadn’t been in for a while, and saw the rabbit, froze, then tear-assed down the stair in an obvious panic. The rabbit was a mini-lop so it was slightly bigger than the cat, who had never seen a rabbit before in her life…) (The rabbit, Chip, turned around at the sound of the cat running for her life, and was briefly confused before going back to wandering arpound aimlessly…)
https://xkcd.com/204/
Eh, most priests would be level 2, tops.
Level 3 would probably be just shy of retirement, the senior priest at a large church, or possibly a bishop.
I don’t know about TRPG Holy Water, but rl holy water is treated like one of those sympathetic (?), or even contagious, materials. In that it makes things it contacts holy, and especially spreading through liquids, holy wine is just regular wine, with a drop of holy water added. So maybe you only need to bless a small part of it, for it to spread to all the pipes.
For the most part, I’ve seen the procedure work on the container for water, even large containers. Indeed, I’ve worked at a Heinz factory before & they have a whole line of kosher foods. While a Rabbi has religiously-imposed limits on what foods he can/should deal with, the only real requirement for making any kind of food kosher is that it’s blessed by a Rabbi…That’s it.
At Heinz, they have a Rabbi that comes in & blesses their pickle vats to make kosher pickles. The Rabbi also blesses every single tool that might come in contact with the pickles. Kosher pickles.
In essence, it would work the same way for making holy water…An ordained priest can bless a water fountain & all of the plumbing & the pump that feeds into the fountain & voila! Holy water in constant circulation in the fountain.
I can’t say I’ve ever seen a video of a rabbi swimming though.
Making something kosher has nothing to do with blessing it – anything that does not come in contact with non-kosher ingredients (meat or milk from a non-kosher or improperly slaughtered animal), and contains no meat/milk mixture, is kosher by default. The rabbi’s job is to check everything and make sure that everything is in order, that there’s no places where non-kosher ingredients are likely to get in, and occasionally to evaluate the workers and determine it is unlikely for them to deliberately mess with things. You probably saw him checking each of the tools and containers and assumed he was blessing them. To be fair, with a ketchup factory there probably isn’t a whole lot for him to do.
There is, however, a Jewish custom that may be related to the whole running water thing – a mikvah, or ritual immersion pool. This is not “blessed” water either, it is based on the physical structure of the pool itself – but it must have at least a minimum size, and there is a minimum amount that must be connected to a “living” water source like a natural stream in order for it to legally be considered “part” of said natural stream.
So if we are using Jewish law, it seems likely that a vampire would be unable to cross anything that constitutes a kosher mikvah, but it is unlikely that kosher pickles would have any effect on the unholy denizens of the night.
Unless you are allergic to pickles (pity the poor unfortunate, lonely, girl finding out the embarrassing way :( )
I think the term you’re reaching for is Homeopathic.
But I don’t think that’s exactly the case, as all a priest would have to do is bless a small amount of water, pour it into the ocean, and quite soon after (due to the interconnectedness of the world’s oceans, plus the evaporation-precipitation cycle) the entire planet’s water would be blessed.
I believe the reference was to sympathetic magic, which I don’t believe applies to adding holy water to wine to create holy wine. Sympathetic magic is more using something similar to achieve the effect you want, such as sticking pins in a voodoo doll to cause pain in the victim, or men drinking ground up rhino horn to achieve an erection.
It is amusing to me that homeopathic ‘medicine’ seems to ‘work’ in the same way that a greatly diluted drop of holy water does in a large quantity of wine. But I guess it isn’t surprising to find similarities between various forms of idiocy such as religion and homeopathy.
That is the Dogma, yes. A drop of Holy Water added tp a lake makes the whole lake Holy Water. And making Holy Water is essentially a first level spell, so there is a reason undead hate clerics…
Just don’t ask a down-on-her-luck Goddess of Water to do it. That never ends well.
(Amusingly, but not well.)
actual answer: Any level Catholic priest can create an amount of holy water themselves. they can multiply an amount but adding it to a smaller amount, e.g. adding a gallon of holy water to 3 quarts of normal water creates 1.75 gallons of holy water. adding THAT to a gallon and a quart gives you 4 gallons, etc. The requirement for the original blessing is they have to actually intend to use it AS holy water, so you couldn’t bless an aquifer just as a general precaution, it would HAVE to be part of a plan to hose a specific vampire or coven thereof. Also, the Church looks poorly on urinating and/or defecating in holy water, so that would need to be kept in mind.
I think your math is off there. 1.75 + 1.25 is 3, not 4.
I distinctly remember Pixel’s cat form having spots, not stripes. Someone remind me if she’s a wereleopard or werejaguar. If it’s leopard then she shouldn’t be any better a swimmer than most cats, if it’s jaguar then yes she should be a fairly good swimmer. Before anyone points out that she’s a human in animal form I shall say that I’m operating under the assumption that all werewhatevers adopt instinctual behaviors of the animals they transform into.
Jaguar (and not a panther :P )
It is literally impossible to be a jaguar without also being a panther, because “panther” is not a species, it’s a genus.
Jaguars are [i]Panthera onca[/i]. ;)
Maybe so, butt Pixelicious is kinda understandably not happy with being labelled a ‘panther’, considering her colouring and all :P
Panthera also includes Lions and Tigers. A “Black Panther” is any member of the genus with black (melanistic) fur, typically either Leopard (Panthera pardus) or Jaguar (Panthera onca)
However, calling Pixel by the genus name (“Panther”) in animal form is a bit rude – if you did the same for her birth form, it would be “Homo”
As an aside, a female “werewolf” is technically a “wifwolf”.
“Woman” comes from “wifman”, and was the female equivalent to “wereman” – with “man” being a gender-neutral term meaning person , and wif- / were- being the gendered prefixes for a human. A were-wolf was then a male-human-wolf.
“Wif” also became “wife”, while “husband” (“hus-bondi”) meant house-owner. So, ladies: “were” is the man you are married to, and are you your own “husband”?
No, you have those backwards. Youre right that theyre a thing, but wif is for male and were is for female, thats where we get woman from, from wereman. wereman ->weremen ->wemen -> women. As the vowels became less stressed and the consonant r less pronounced in english, it became women, and woman as the singular. Wifman is the male, and if you didnt specify wifman, it was assumed you meant female, because the female is default, and men got no special acknowledgement until they invented wifman.
And hus-bondi actually originates from the meaning “the guy who tends the sheep”, same origin as literally husbandry, the task/art/job of tending sheep. As the enclosure movement became a thing in england, (and scotland/ireland/wales slightly as well) more land was devoted to sheep instead of to crops, and as the woman was assumed to be in charge of, and managed, the house and house duties, the man did all the husbandry and livestock management. This spawned the term hus-bondi/husband because “where is your husband” means literally “where is your dude who takes care of sheep” and often had subservient under/overtones.
So, to reiterate, husband means dude who takes care of sheep, wife comes from wif, the male pronoun, and was necessary to even specify that someone WAS male, because man as a singular word didnt exist until later. wereman was default, and either meant a person, or a female, and you needed the prefix wif to denote male.
Fact check:
Were is male.
Wif is female.
Mann was gender-neutral for “person” until 10-13th century.
Husband means “master of the house”.
“Husbandry” moved from meaning management of a house to management of a farm around the 14th century.
Literally 8 minutes research and typing to correct every assertion you made. ;)
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Were
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woman#Etymology
https://www.etymonline.com/word/husband
https://www.etymonline.com/word/husbandry
…
You’re claiming that “Hus-bondi”, from the Old Norse “Hus” meaning “House” and “bondi” meaning “freeholder”, means “sheep-wrangler” instead of “House Freeholder”/”House Owner”? I think that’s a mite garbled.
If her animal form got called “panther” then her birth form would be called “human”. The equivalent to “Homo” is “Panthera”, both genus names.
“Human” is “Homo Sapiens”. “Homo” as a genus would just be “man”. (“Homo Sapiens” / “Homo Erectus” / “Homo Neanderthalus” : “Wise Man” / “Upright Man” / “Neanderthal Man”)
So, feel free to tell little-miss-laser-claws that you think she looks like a “man”. I wonder if she’ll take that any better than “panther”
The main diference is that “man” comes from German and “homo” from Latin, but both means basically the same.
Neanderthals and the others are all “humans”, Homo Sapiens are “modern humans”.
Guesticus comment is a call to DaveB’s footnote pun way back when Pixel’s wereform was seen for the first time. A remarkable display of memory.
Also the genus is the latin word “Panthera”, while ” panther” (without the final ‘a’) is an English word (derived from the former) that is loosely defined but mostly refers to leopards, specially if black. So you can be a jaguar without being a panther (still a Panthera though).
Panther in the prairie states is most often used to refer to the American mountain lion, because they have become common here. Before I moved south to Texas I saw them several times every year at night or in the early morning.
Those are spots. It’s just that those spots appear to be arranged in stripes.
Also, all cat species are both spotty and stripey, but not every species displays their spots and stripes prominently.
…and she does.
DaveB stated she is a werejaguar. It’s also up there in the Who’s who.
It’s an enchanted, cursed tome. Is it really going to harm it to get it wet? I mean, she must not mind the curse if she’s so determined to protect it. Or maybe damaging the book could harm her? Ugh, not enough exposition from the fourth wall pokers.
what if the Tome is kinda like “The Picture of Dorian Grey” in reverse… whatever happens to the book happens to HER… so if the book would have been destroyed by getting soaked and dissolving the pages… what happens is that she gets melted away like the Wicked Witch of the West when hit with a bucket of water… and that’s why she’s so protective of it…
Getting the cursed, enchanted tome that’s chained to you wet isn’t exactly something I’d want to TEST to see what happens. Better off being safe than sorry :).
Just like Daphne and her ‘sisters’ :D
Exactly.
“What happens if one of you die?”
“How the hell should I know? What happens if you die? I’m not going to try to test it!”
She mentioned it being cursed when it was suggested that she just undo the chain and leave it on the side of the pool. I gather it’s chained to her so that it can’t wander off, and it would be a really bad idea to let it wander off.
It appears to be tied to her like Sydney and her orbs.
She must be fun to take through airport security.
“Place the book on the conveyor belt please.”
It’s also possible that the book chained itself to her, and she isn’t able to detach it. It’s even possible that the chain doesn’t exist in the normal sense, but is rather a visible manifestation of the curse, so that even someone like Maxima couldn’t break it.
The chain that bound Fenris in Norse mythology, for instance, was made of the essence of things that, because they were used to make the chain, no longer existed in the world (two examples I recall where the sound of cats’ footsteps and the beards of women).
Who else should be going with Sydney other than Krona and Harem?
Pixel?
That’s six bodies, four of Harem not including the one that has to stay on duty at ARCSWAT plus Sydney and Krona. That’s already a major crowd. Now if Harem decides she only needs one of her there that leaves room for a couple more who aren’t Harem, but Halo and Krona are on the … petite side, whoever else besides Harem needs to also be on the small side. Maybe Peggy? She’s on the A-Team.
I was thinking either Dabbler or Cora.
Varia.
I wanna see Varia touch Sydney with one arm and Krona with the other, while Harem gives her a hug.
We might not find out much about that…Varia’s power only works while she is in direct physical contact with someone else. As soon as that contact is broken, Varia loses whatever ability she gained from that person. While Varia could be in physical contact with all 3 people at once, there’s not much she can do while maintaining contact with them.
In essence, Varia can gain abilities from as many different people than can touch her, limited only by the physical space in which people can still get close enough to touch her. In practicality she’s limited by how much action she can perform according to the number of people that can maintain contact while she acts.
Plus it’s already been established that she doesn’t get anything from touching Sydney.
Not true, she just didn’t realize what she got.
When Varia touched Sydney, the orb halo went around both of them, possibly meaning she could use the orbs. Nobody noticed though.
Once that gets figured out, I’m picturing each of them being required to carry a set of straps on their ‘utility belts,’ set up so they can quickly roll up a pants leg and bind up calf-to-calf like a three-legged race team. That gives maximum ability to stand side-by-side, back-to-back, etc. while maintaining skin contact and leaving all four hands free.
On the vampires and running water thing, it has to do with purity, and them being corrupted creatures. Basically, running water is seen as pure, so a being of corruption cannot cross it. Same way light is considered pure so it burns them. This is probably where the whole ‘targets virgins’ thing comes from too, as it’s corruption of purity.
Anyway, with this holding true, it would mean sewers don’t really bother them in the slightest as there’s nothing pure about what goes on down there.
I remember reading something about water rejecting the dead too. Like, that’s why dead bodies float and vampires are basically dead bodies that still move around.
LOL … and they’d be able to cross polluted rivers (such as the Ganges or Yangtse) with no problem
I don’t think ANY river which flows through city would be pure enough.
The Ganges is certainly polluted, but a Hindu Vampire at least might have a problem, being as its a Holy River…..
If you ever play World of Darkness, the ‘can’t cross running water’ thing is actually a myth, and not real. As is not being able to enter a person’s home without permission (which does seem to PROBABLY be a myth as well, since Crimson was able to break into Archon’s building, which also has a living area). Being repulsed by garlic also seems to be a myth according to Ingsol, if I remember correctly.
Archon isn’t a private residence, that is what the restriction is about: public buildings are a buffet for them, specially places like hospitals or prisons
Always, personally, felt the problem with garlic is because vampires can’t lose the smell of what they eat (like a normal living person can), and they don’t want something a pungent and smelly as garlic to be hanging around for the next hundred years or so :P
Oh, and the fact that garlic was used for it’s healthy properties may have had a factor in it’s spread :)
The way I’d heard it was that the vampires all just inherited the allergies that the first vampire happened to have.
It has bedrooms in it, so why wouldnt that be considered a residence? There’s nothing in the vampiric lore that says it has to be a ‘private’ residence. I’ve seen stories where they couldnt enter hotel rooms either. :) What if you’re renting an apartment? It’s not YOUR private residence then, technically speaking. You have no full ownership over it. Only a rental agreement. If your landlord gives a vampire permission, then does that mean they can enter your apartment? Are you even capable of giving permission to a vampire to let them enter if you don’t own it? :) It’s one of the reasons I always felt the ‘cannot enter without permission’ rule was very vague, and why World of Darkness said ‘it’s just a fake myth that vampire society has allowed to be told to give humans a false sense of security. :)
Btw, the reason for the myth that vampires are ‘repulsed by garlic’ actually has its origins in a scientific fact. Humans are one of the only species on the entire planet, not only of mammals, but of multiple other species as well. Even other genus, families, orders, classes, phylum, kingdoms and DOMAINS tend to find garlic to be toxic, including many BACTERIA. It’s toxic to the point that farmers sometimes plant it around other crops to keep away other animals. And humans? We just can eat it with no problem.
We’re special that way (in the same way humans can get vitamin C deficiency when most other animals except guinea pigs don’t – I just went off on a tangent there). The fact that it is even toxic to a lot of harmful bacteria makes it good for humans’ health.
In any case, garlic is toxic to almost everything EXCEPT humans, and vampires are no longer human. It might not kill all other animals, but it will make them at the very least sick. So garlic repulses vampires just like it repulses most other animals. :)
In the “Dresden Files” series there is the Threshold, is a protection that homes have, it can be stronger or weaker depending on various factors, for example, a home where the same family lived for a long time have a stronger threshold, a bachelor’s would be weaker, if you use your home for work (i.e. you have a office at home) it would be weaker still. A supernatural creature could pass through a threshold depending on their relative strength but doing it uninvited would make him leave a part of his power behind, if he is strong enough and the threshold is weak enough it can just ignore it.
Archon is a public building where people that are not related to each other just happen to live (or maybe is better to say sleep), this should cause it to have a weak threshold, enough even for a young’ish vampire to be able to enter it.
The dormitory/living quarters section of the building may actually develop an internal threshold specifically because they AREN’T public spaces (they require either a security clearance, or a security check-in), but do have team members living there.
Also, remember that ARC-SWAT actively cultivates team bonding, which could actually generate familial resonance that reinforces that internal threshold.
Regardless, even a weak threshold is enough to prevent Dresden-model vampires from entering, because pushing past an active threshold requires so much energy that the vampires can’t even maintain their existence outside of the Never Never if they try to bully through one.
Emphases on private, Archon HQ is considered a public building owned by the Government
As for your landlord giving a vampire permission to enter and you can’t do anything about it, that’s how it should be, because, yes, the landlord is the owner, you are just the tenant
Thank you for expanding on the garlic thing
Seems odd about the whole landlord thing, since the landlord doesnt LIVE in the building, but the tenant does. Yet if Archon ‘owns’ the building, or the government ‘owns’ the building, and parts of the building are not publicly available to everyone, I’m not sure how the rules should go with vampires. Does vampire law force them to have to go down to the department of housing or go to do a title search first? One would think ‘your home’ would mean ‘anywhere that you live.’ Not sure why ownership changes it – or why ownership AND living there as two simultaneous requirements would be a thing, rather than just ownership and some level of private access.
And no problem about the garlic thing. My uncle as the first person to tell me about how toxic garlic is to almost everything except humans :). When I’d get sick, he’d tell me ‘eat some raw garlic’ and I’d look at him like ‘yuck.’ But… it works. Crazy but true.
As I understand it, the thing about needing permission to enter someone’s home is about Boundaries.
The vampire is constrained by the boundaries of its territory, (native soil, running streams, etc are all boundaries), and a dwelling place has its own boundary that places it outside the vampire’s territory. Unless a master of that boundary gives it up. In the normal case, that would mean someone whose dwelling it actually is – someone whom the boundary normally works to protect.
Crimson was able to enter the Archon building, but she was incapacitated in the vents by non-Threshold means. We therefore don’t know whether the Threshold effect (assuming it exists at all in-universe) applies to [i] all of the building, [ii] only the restricted-access Archon area beyond the public-access areas, [iii] only the accommodation section beyond the ‘working’ Archon area, and/or [iv] only each person’s individual room along the accessible corridors. If [i] is the case, then it implies a pre-existing invitation to get her past that Threshold, but one could easily argue that the shops in the public area constitute a standing ‘invitation’ to enter in order to buy from them.
or archon’s security just shots at everything bigger than a determined size, yeah it might suck for the ocasional dove that gets lost but it obviously works really well at stopping intruders
Rabbits are not neutrally buoyant and swimming is extremely difficult for them. Please do not take your bunny to the beach.
Humans are not neutrally buoyant, they have to be taught how to swim, or they will drown
Yes I should have stressed that. Please don’t throw your cute bunny into water. They won’t like it, even if they can swim if they really need to.
Also the flowing water needs to be on the surface. A buried stream or underground sewer wouldn’t cause any problem at all no matter how pure the water was. It primarily refers to streams and rivers and not things like oceans for example though Dracula did have to use a ship to get across the English Channel.
That’s because in those days, they hadn’t thought to tunnel under the Channel, or fly (too far for even Him to flap across, not to mention how would he carry all his luggage? no, better just ride in the cargo hold where it’s reasonably comfortable :P )
Really, uh… really going all in on this polyamory thing, huh? Okay.
Yes! Great, isn’t it? A refreshing change from the usual romantic triangle trope.
You misspelled “boring.”
But yes, yes it is boring.
Krona should just meet Sydney and Harem at Event Horizon and they could call out for pizza.
So… a serious consideration of polyamory + having pizza is “boring”, but just meeting for pizza isn’t.
Got it.
No, neverending obsession with sex is boring.
Comic books and nerd paraphernalia is cool.
So a discussion about coming to terms with a possible three way relationship with three people who aren’t considered “classically appealing” is considered a neverending obsession with sex?
You might need to find yourself a…more tamed comic.
Improve your reading comprehension skills.
I have not been objecting to the fact that there is sexual content.
I am objecting to focusing on it to the point that other factors in the story are being neglected.
If you look down thread you will see that DaveB mentions that the sort of things I am talking about need to be caught up.
It doesnt seem that krona is interested though. Sure its a talk but im not sure this will go through all that well.
As long as Sydney gets a new friend who is a girl will be a plus for her, so what if they are not a new ‘girlfriend’
You list 3 people beside Sydney and krona. Who’s the 4th person in the pool ?
Scarlet is the one with the red hair, Kat (the werehare) is the one getting a giant pink panther belly-flopping on her head :D
As a guy with A.D.D. (the hyperactivity part went away as I grew older), I have to say that it doesn’t quite work that way.
A.D.D. is about lacking CONTROL over your focus. Sure, I’m easily distracted, but, just yesterday, I got so into one of my projects that, for all intents and purposes, the clock instantly jumped forward 8 or 9 hours and I got to bed late.
Maybe DaveB needs to start adding a personal identifier every time Sydney talks about her ADHD
Doubt any two AD(H)D cases are going to be completely the same
Personally have Chronic Fatigue, butt, for me, it’s relatively mild, mostly more of an annoyance factor (leaves me tired most of the year with a few ‘good’ days, except when on a computer, and then can spend literally days awake), whereas others have spent half their life asleep, or at least so tired they can’t get out of bed (cue the stigmatic non-jokes about lazy people)
Is there any treatment for chronic fatigue? because caffeine doesnt seem to do anything for mine but give me caffeine dependency.
Not really, because they have no idea what really causes it, which is why so few real cases get reported
One of the big causes is injury or surgery, and neither apply to me, unless you count the surgery as a baby (less than two years old) to reattach the tongue, butt didn’t start having the CFS symptoms until after the first stroke at 18
Like said, have always found sitting in front a computer screen gave me energy, butt only for as long as remaining in front of the screen, will ‘crash’ shortly after stopping (which is why still looking for a computer job can do from home: can work when able and then just crash when finished, or play porn games :P )
Back in the late 90’s early 00’s, people use to complain that computer screens sucked their energy out, for me, it was the other way around it was like was an energy vampire sucking the energy out of the screens :D Oh, and these were the old bulky CRT screens (unless the other claims that they emitted radiation was true and it simply restored energy levels in me, can’t exactly deplete what was already depleted :P ))
re: chronic fatigue – might be worth checking some other health things, like sleep apnea. After my parents started CPAP therapy I went and got checked for it; I’d woken up feeling trashed almost every morning for as long as I could remember. The doctor and techs at the clinic straight up said “you’re too young and otherwise perfectly healthy, this is likely a waste of time so we wouldn’t recommend it, but we’ll do the evaluation anyways if you insist.” I did.
Sleep test showed I stopped breathing nearly 30 times an hour, with the longest gap being 2 1/2 minutes – I think the threshold for considering therapy was only 6-8 incidents? Pretty thoroughly shatters REM sleep, as well as potentially contributing to a host of other health issues associated with sleep deprivation. I was approved for CPAP on the spot without any of the usual follow-up tests.
Been on it a few years now, it’s been life changing. I wake up rested (and now comprehend those formerly un-relateable ‘morning people’), feel tons better about life in general, better memory, have lost some excess weight, have motivation and more emotional connection to things, etc etc.
Don’t have any problems once asleep, butt do have low blood pressure, and, when attempting to sleep it can drop low enough to cause me to pass out
As for breathing, have a large lung capacity, and, to fully inflate takes around 30 seconds, so stopping breathing for a minute or so isn’t a problem
Don’t feel ‘trashed’, just tired
ADD = Lack of Control and Focus
ADHD = lack of bodily ability to slow down enough TO focus and higher levels of engagement and stimulation are required.
ADHD kids as well as high-functioning autistic ones tend to be incredibly skilled at multitasking, even singular highly complex tasks that require real-time tracking of multiple conditions and variables.
we make FANTASTIC combat medics, I’ve discovered.
Just a brief, anecdotal add on to what the other repliers have said: ADHD symptoms seem to manifest different symptoms in different ways in girls. I’ve heard theories that this has to do with the biology, or (more likely in my opinion) the way that hyperactivity and inattentiveness is treated when the child is a girl rather than a boy. Hyperactivity tends to be (and yes there are exceptions) more accepted as a trait in boys, whereas girls are usually taught to be still and behave at an earlier age (success rates vary, naturally). What this means, in this girl’s experience, is that you learn to multitask just to DO something, if it’s seen as you being “productive” instead of hyperactive, then you’re less likely to get scolded for trying to get the energy out.
The double standards go both ways, mind you. Boys who lack focus are much more strictly expected to control themselves, whereas girls are just “dreamy” and, y’know, maybe a daydreaming girl is seen as a bit of a ditz, but it’s not usually punished unless you’re not paying attention in class or whatever.
Also, that whole “losing yourself in a particular activity to the point that you have no awareness of the world around you” is actually another symptom of ADHD/ADD, according to the psychiatrist who diagnosed me. I guess most neurotypical people don’t do that? No idea. Anyway.
This being said, I seem to vaguely recall something about Sydney being treated more like a boy growing up, so my comments may be entirely pointless in her regard anyway.
Yeah, Sydney was often treated as a tomboy, whether because of her AD(H)D or just Sydney being more into ‘boys toys’ only DaveB knows
I mean, I suppose the fact that Sydney IS a girl, regardless of how tomboyish her personality turned out to be, she still would have been subject to different treatment. By teachers, daycare personnel, etc, if not her parents.
I can confirm. I have ADHD and I’m actually really high on the hyperactivity scale, but my hyperactivity is all very small movements. I don’t get up from my chair and move around, but I’m always jiggling my leg or fidgeting with my hands. My psychiatrist says it might be partly because I’m a woman and I clearly remember being rebuked as a little kid if I’d get up an run around the way some of the boys did.
I also have the hyperfocus thing. I’ve been known to get so wrapped up in something that I forget about little things like eating or going to the bathroom until I surface 8 or 10 hours later.
Oh boy do I feel you on so many different levels, my friend. Half the time I don’t even realize I’m doing something with my hands at all until someone calls me out on fidgeting and suddenly I’m aware of a rapidly forming pile of twisted up bits of paper forming in my lap.
And there have definitely been many, many days of lost time. Especially with activities that have a repeated but not too boringly identical rhythm. Like the Sims games, or Stardew Valley, damn does that game eat my brain…
Similar: get so involved in a game or something on the computer, will do a Kronachrome and snooze the desire to go toilet (after awhile, the feeling goes away and doesn’t come back, at all, where the poop goes is a mystery butt {spelling ironic this time :P} don’t end up constipated and when do next go toilet there is no blockage or problems)
Yeah, we all work differently. I can do certain types of multitasking, and sometimes *need* it if one of my tasks is to boring, but it absolutely requires that they take up different ‘channels’ in my head. I can’t do intense language-based stuff like writing and still listen well to a podcast, but I can sit working on a device that needs a thorough tuning of parameters and listen to a podcast or audio book just fine. The part of my brain evaluating options and more of this/less of that operates heavily in visualization instead of language in that mode.
Then there’s the days that I can’t concentrate for fuck all even on things I want to pay attention to, like games and books. Spending an entire day in a grey fuzz where you are so utterly bored that you can’t *do* anything to make yourself un-bored sucks, and makes me feel like a teenager again.
I assumed she just Krona’d her ear to be a bluetooth receiver when she “bip”-ed it.
Macro for answering phone, along with the best background noise cancelling ever (apparently).
So … has Sydney just dropped whatever friends she had from back before she stumbled into the world of high-paying super-heroing? In-continuity it’s been less than a year (even less than six months, IIRC) since her lifestyle shift, so it’s a little odd there are no associates from the many, many years of mundane life she wants to decompress with on a big girls night out.
Also, I went back to check the first strip (because I remembered her hanging out with norms playing a superhero RPG), and it reminded me that was framed as the present, and subsequently her introduction to ARCHON was framed as a flashback to “a few months” earlier … and as far as I recall, the strip’s continuity has remained within that flashback ever since. It’d be funny to see this acknowledged with a long delayed ” … and that’s how got to where I am now.” And Sydney’s due to actually join that RPG group; looks like it includes that friend she made in the comic shop who we haven’t seen in forever.
We saw her the day after the super fight when they had to hire someone to run the register when Sydney was on duty at ARCSWAT. Oh Gawds, that was literally years ago our time.
It’s amazing that this webcomic started all the way back in August 2010.
holy fuck it’s really only been a couple weeks for Sydney, and two months for- OH SHIT SHE HASN’T TALKED TO HR PARENTS!!
Sydney presumably has a hard time maintaining friendships, between her eccentricities and running a struggling business. Now she has the additional burden of fame and secrets that she’s not supposed to disclose to others, which makes it hard to have normal peer relationships.
What friendships she does have are probably shallower, common-interest-oriented acquaintances, in mostly male-dominated communities such as comic books, so she has few female friends to hang out with.
Which is why she is looking for more female friends, who are not into girly things, because apparently she gets enough of that from the guys she hangs out with… or something
There has never been anything in this comic which would indicate Sydney has trouble maintaining friendships. At all.
Sydney is portrayed as the archetypical everygamer. From the ADHD to the hairstyle that won’t behave, to the comic book obsession Sydney is an amalgamation of the sort of people who play the games which the series opened with. And gamers pretty typically have tight circles of friends within the hobby because the hobby eats up so much time.
I will assert that contrary to the post above, these friendships are not necessarily shallow and that across four decades I have seen a lot of marriages between gamers, as well as people who moved around the country taking jobs in one area or another to keep a circle of friends together.
Yes, there are shallow people in gaming. There are also shallow people in any endeavor.
Don’t attempt to brand Gamers as a group with an unwanted negative stereotype.
I actually do need to catch up with that part of her life.
Actually, you need to get cracking on getting her role-playing group set up.
I’m pretty sure that the only real friend she had before her superheroing days was Joel and whoever else she games with on her DnD game.
And I guess her friends from her online games too?
Yep. I remember a panel talking about a scheduled raid. She’s already out of that group, since she hasn’t been on in so long.
A tight group would understand, and give her leeway, specially once they find out she is now part of Archon
Plenty of military play online games, friends just have to be patient and understanding when they get deployed (and send well thoughts for their safe return)
Some even send care packages
In Sydney’s case, they will be sending them to her squad mates :P
Squeezy toys for everyone
A steady supply as they have a tendency to explode after a while (too much squeezing) :P
Can’t unsubscribe from new comments, was kinda hoping it would be to the thread I posted rather than the whole thing, but the unsubscribe link ain’t stopping the emails…
You can’t stop the signal, Mal.
I’m glad they gave him a gravesite too.
If Skyrim is to be believed, rabbits be amphibious af. I’ve chased one across half of Skyrim underwater and the little bugger didn’t drown.
In games, the only ones who drown (or suffer falling damage, or the general limitations of, well, basic physics) is the player
More than once have had a mob fall off a high building or ledge, and then leap right back as though they were fucking Stuporman. Or shoot them from above, while on a vertical wall, and they literally run up the wall to get me
Funnily enough, the question of how much water a given priest can bless in real life *has* been answered-
So long as it is a contiguous body of water, any priest can bless any amount at once. However, that water then becomes a holy object, and allowing it to be desecrated is pretty hefty sacrilege. Thus, the moment *anything* defecates, urinates, or otherwise defiles any portion of that holy water, it becomes unholy, and if it’s something that could easily have been expected to be desecrated, that priest has some *serious* answering to do.
ok, that means no natural streams can be blessed. fish, insects, and other things crap and such in the natural waters. also, given the existence of blind fish, its possible that springs cannot be blessed.
Yes, rabbits can swim. They even have webbing on their paws and a natural instinct to paddle. It’s mostly a survival thing – not a recreational/preferred thing. They just don’t LIKE to swim – they usually only do so to escape predators if they can’t run or burrow.
Elsbeth is misspelled “elspbeth” in the characters list under the comic. Not like she has a list under the correct spelling, since the pages she previously appeared in haven’t been tagged yet, but this one should probably be fixed sooner rather than later.
I’m tempted to say that people spell names weird all the time, but yeah, I should probably fix it.
The whole thing with those character tags should be synchronized with the ‘tags’ that are on the bottom. The tags on the bottom are much more completed but a lot less comfortable to use.
As I understand it, they’re deliberately not synchronised because they serve different purposes. The ‘Character’ tags immediately below the page refer only to who is on the page, so searching by tag will get you every occurrence of that character. The Tags at the bottom of the text are what drives the Who’s Who bar: they have to reflect not only who is active enough on the page to merit mention, but what level of information is appropriate on each page to avoid spoilers.
Rich Morris almost made it a trademark of his that he can’t even keep track of the spellings of his own characters :D
It’s Krona. She had her magic up. If she wants to bip an earpiece that doesn’t exist, that’s hardly the weirdest shit she’s done.
Blessing a water tower is a plot point in a Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic.
Her outfit looks great, but I’d be she doesn’t have one of those tiny earpieces but rather just has an “app” she wrote that gives her access in the EM with cellphone emulator software, err, realityware(?), anyway the ear bip is just the activator command so she doesn’t always have to write code, it’s like a button on a touchscreen phone. Not to mention she’s her own phone provider, and the batteries last as long as the universe does.
Holy water & running water vs vampires. People have had discussions if “running water” includes rain, and thus sprinklers as well. It’s been basically reasoned that moving water in small individual packets like droplets or full glasses of water aren’t running water, and so not an impediment to a vampire.
Now onto the holy water thing. It’s supposed to be kept in a special (immaculate?) container so it doesn’t get desecrated. So putting it in a squirtgun will kill the holy, and you can bet that the city pipes aren’t qualified to hold holy water either. So even if all the water in a 20 mile radius was turned into holy water, in seconds the vast majority wouldn’t be holy anymore, especially the stuff that comes out the taps.
Now if somebody knew just the right crazy priest, I wouldn’t be surprised if they could figure out how to hand craft a squirt gun that is a proper receptacle so they would be useful on an undead hunt, but you won’t find them at Toys-R-Us. ;P
The Lost Boys used off-the-shelf squirt-guns, had no problems retaining the Holiness (and they simply filled them up from the font in the church, either before or after a christening)
‘The Lost Boys” were the vampires themselves.
Meant the movie (forgot to add the “”), it was the Frog Brothers who used the squirt-guns (still haven’t decided o whether to watch the sequels yet… )
The soundtrack was the first CD ever had, a friend got it for me, couple years later finally got a stereo that played CD’s :P
actually the font and such is just a part of tradition, putting holy water in a random bottle doesn’t un-sanctify it
One would expect that a squirt guy is not, in itself, a desecration, as long as it is undefiled as an object.
But then, that means the vampire can discharge your weapon simply by touching it, thus defiling the weapon, thus defiling the water within the weapon.
All of which implies that holy water would become unholy — I typed un-halo-y without hyphens — the moment it touched the vampire as well. Perhaps the effect there is simply mutual annihilation of the holy characteristics, and the subsequent damage to the vampire is due to some volume of non-cursed flesh.
It doesn’t seem like holy-unholy cancelation throws off any other effects…I’ve never seen any movie do that. Seems like a missed opportunity.
It seems to me that a book of holding opening underwater might be in danger of draining contents of the said pool into a holding space.
On the subject of vampires not being able to cross running water…
“It is true that the undead cannot cross running water. However, the naturally turbid river Ankh, already heavy with the
mud of the plains, does not, after having passed through the city (pop. 1,000,000), qualify under the term ‘running’ or, for that matter, ‘water’.” – Terry Pratchett, Reaper Man
That’s one of my favorite descriptive lines, along with Douglas Adams’ description of the Vogon fleet: “The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don’t.” (That line sprung to mind while looking at the Fel Mega-Dreidel’s attack on Cora and Archon.)
It’s funny how you can miss obvious things by reading too fast.
I didn’t realise that the odd shape in panel 5 was a red bikini top. So, I missed half the joke until I began reading the comments.
I dunno, your vampires seem kind of more like WoD vampires than D&D vampires to me, and they’d fit a lot better in this kind of world anyway. Most of the “classic” weaknesses other than fire, sunlight, and the need to feed tend to be either misinformation or the peculiarities of a specific Clan or Bloodline in World of Darkness. And there’s an entire sub-set of one Clan who uses their shapeshifting to be aquatic.
Too bad they didn’t have Krona at the restaurant battle on day 1. She could have reset the entire structure when it was over.
True, but it getting destroyed made it possible to rebuild it as a money-farming landmark, and if it wasn’t destroyed permanently then it would probably not be remembered, except as much as a house seen in a movie. Probably just a promotional ad, I’d think.
Or turned everybody clothes into appropiate restrains. A hell of mass arrest.
I keep getting told by my Chinese acquaintances that that style of dress is actually called a “qípáo”, which translates as “banner dress”, or the ankle-length version which is “chángpáo” (“long dress”)…. and that “cheongsam” is a more general term that can also cover some types of male clothing.
I’m not just trying to sound smart here; I’d been calling them “cheongsams” for years also. Curse you education-by-fanfiction! :P
Almost read that as ‘cheong-gasms’ :/
Weeell… clothing fetishes ARE a thing. I won’t judge you. ;)
Holy water balloons are the pinnacle of vampire-hunting arsenal.
I thought that the weapon Aziz carries was the pinnacle of the Vampire hunting arsenal.
quick question, but why is krona deleting elsbeth’s top?
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-482-panty-raid-0/
It’s her longstanding hobby to do that stuff unobtrusively and get away with it.
Pixel’s belly flop gave her plausible deniability and she quickly took advantage of the opportunity.
It’s kind of like the women in Arc Swat playing “Make Maxima Say” bingo, except Krona is the only player. Thus far she always wins, but she will probably get caught eventually.
Knowing Krona and her powers I would think they should’ve already figured out what’s going on.
And now I think they DID, and turned to troll Krona and get stripped into a for laughts kinda erotic game. Yes, I like that better.
Every time we’ve seen her do it other things were going on, and she is multitasking and thus appears to be otherwise occupied. Last time it was in combat and she was disarming blood golem ordnance at the same time. Here she is talking on the phone with Sydney and facing away from the pool.
A lot of pranksters get a thrill not only out of not getting caught…but out of not even being suspected.
Or even manipulating events so that someone else is suspected.
It’s possible that I might have been a prankster back when I could keep a straight face.
For “fun”. :)
Sydney X Krona OTP?
I’d love to see them get together, even leaving everything else aside.
Actually the running water has to be fresh surface water and relatively unpolluted. It’s about vampire’s connection to disease.
A cursed book doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that can be damaged or destroyed easily. Maybe, Elsbeth just doesn’t like wet book smell or stuck together pages?
Some myths with creatures that are allergic to water actively imply they can swim but can’t go against current. Such as the Nuckelavee which can’t go through flowing fresh water but can cross rivers if there is a route (which raises the question as to if they can ignore this limitation with stagnant water) and are actively forced under the northern sea in summer by an Irish sea god while coming to the surface in winter.
Also rabbits can indeed swim and are somewhat good at it. In Florida there are rabbits with special adaptions specifically to escape panthers via swimming really fast just like Florida deer do. Although don’t go bathing pet rabbits, they will kill themselves if you surprise them. Otherwise it depends, like with House Cats, on the bunny as to if they like swimming or not.
So, Krona uses her powers to be a sex offender? The transformation of the panties of some vampire character whose name escapes me was at least slightly justified since the vamp in question stood over Krona. But this assault was completely unjustified and makes Krona seem rapey.
And yeah, I said rapey. For anyone who cares to debate me, take a minute and think about how the scene would be perceived if it was a male character who magiced away the bikini top of a female character. There would be a #MeToo explosion.
1. There appear to be no males present.
2. That makes this locker room horse play.
3. Nice puritanism though.
That’s Oberon all over
Oh I see:
1. It’s not rapey unless males are present.
2. The name of the room a crime takes place in makes it ok in some cases.
3. Calling someone a name means you can ignore the crime.
I guess I can kill you with no consequences as long as there are no females present, it’s in the living room, and I call you a fucking idiot when I do it.
Maybe I’ll just call you a fucking idiot and leave it at that. Your attempts to justify Krona using magic to forcibly strip her work colleagues makes that quite obvious.
O
You were the one to bring up males
Striping someone and leaving it at that is not raping them
As Old Scratch’s Attorney. implied, if it was males only involved, it would simply be ‘locker room horse play’, as often happens amongst males who don’t have a problem with their sexuality
Firstly, and most importantly, rape is rape. “Rapey” cheapens an awful crime by diluting its horror with false equivalences. I’ve experienced a wedgie, having my clothes hidden while I was swimming, unwanted physical, sexual contact from a coworker, and an attempt at forced sexual interaction. I do not have any trouble distinguishing a difference in kind and nature between the first two and the second two sets of events.
In both cases, it was (from Krona’s perspective) getting even for a perceived slight or offense with a relatively harmless prank. Gunnhildr hopped down a level to stand over Krona, but it’s also possible that Krona overheard Gunnhildr’s conversation where she makes it clear that she’s joining the fight now because the attackers have already lost and vampires could use the PR, instead of out of heroism or giving a **** about anyone else in the room. Of course, she turns out to be working for the bad guys, but even without knowing that, hearing her expressed motivation makes her sound like an amoral jerk. Hence wedgie.
Elsbeth egged Pixel into cannonballing (cat-nonballing?) the pool, which makes Krona have to hastily snatch up her phone to prevent it being doused. Disrespect of property: Krona’s leads to disrespect of property: Elsbeth’s.
I do agree the social dynamics would be much different in a mixed-gender setting, assuming hetero-normative social customs. That said, why would anyone assume that a mixed group of human-derived paranormal beings would have the same set of social customs as Joe or Jane Average?
(Technically, what Krona did would escalate beyond a prank into petty theft, except I’m fairly sure she’d have found it easier to essentially Ctrl-X Elsbeth’s top, then Ctrl-V it back, than she would to delete the top from existence (she can’t create a time loop, so I’m fairly sure she can’t violate the laws of thermodynamics by permanently destroying matter, either). )
I’d suggest that proxy-invoking #MeToo when you’re not the Me who experienced the thing Too is far more of a cheapening of sexual assault than the comic page to which you’re applying the invocation.
The equivalent situation would be one guy stealing another guys swim trunks which would also be perceived as not rapey.
Hmm… Sanctified water sprinklers… Someone watched Supernatural. Nice.
My first thought about the Pixel plunge was ‘Oh no, hair in the pool. That’ll clog the filters.’ But the Council has numerous weres and other assorted members. Their filtration system must be set up to handle various contaminants such as hair, feathers, scales, and assorted bodily secretions.
My first thought about Krona’s cheongsam being swimwear was, “Okay, odd choice for swimwear but I suppose she can reset it to ‘dry’ and/or ‘clean’ at any moment so, she can rock a cheongsam for swimwear.”
My second thought was “Huh. I suppose she might be ethnically Han – I mean, bright green eyes don’t tend to show up in that ethnicity but then neither does bright blue hair – gotta figure those colors are edits.”
My third thought was “Wait, why would someone who can edit their appearance at will even own clothes? She can look like she’s wearing whatever she wants to look like she’s wearing.”
And from there it somehow went to power perversion potential…. which in her case really is epic.
That might not be what she swims in, just what she wears over her togs, and she takes it off before getting in
about the earpiece thing
she probably just redirected all calls directly to her. like, her ear and mouth. can she do that? i think she could do that.