Grrl Power #910 – Jabber blabber
When I sit down to write a page, I know basically what I want to happen on it, and have a general idea of what the dialog will be. It takes some time to actually compose it and sort it into comic panel friendly chunks, but for this page – I knew what was going to happen on it, but had no idea what I was going to do for the dialog.
Sitting down to write it though, I wasn’t really worried. One of the secret powers of ADHD (for me anyway) is kind of never having to worry about writer’s block. It pours out like goo from a massive lanced boil. Doesn’t mean it’s going to be any good, or that I won’t just sit in my chair spinning and daydreaming twenty different scenarios instead of actually typing something out. The point is, quantity is not the issue. I stared at the screen for about 15 seconds and was like, “Hmm, what is Sydney going to verbal diarrhea about… ah! Jabberwokky’s kiss cure.”
Actually I had that story banked for another page or three, but I think it’s at least as amusing in this form.
Fun fact, Jabberwokky was supposed to be obnoxiously chatty, which is where she got her nickname. But I forgot to do that every time she showed up. Maybe she switched her meds right before her first appearance.
By the way, for those of you wondering, Clip Studio Paint does not handle large blocks of anti-aliased text well. The program is embarrassingly single-threaded. It’s actually amazing it’s as fast as it is, but I would really like to see some GPU support.
Check the vote incentive to see Sydney not naked. Check Patreon to see her… well, you can guess.
Boobs.
(. )( .)
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.
GPU support is for corporate software – Inkscape developer
Would anyone be willing to explain the vote incentive’s joke to me. I don’t get it.
Oop, it seems I’ve commented on a comment instead of the main thread. I apologize random stranger Martin Owens. Have a lovely day.
Eh, it’s not really a ha-ha joke. Sydney’s slight build and social awkwardness fools many people into thinking she’s childlike, but she’s all woman and likes sexing her beloved as much as possible. She’s also a super fandom nerd so sexting her sexytime friend something in TOS Command Uniform fits her entirely. She’s simultaneously full of desire and shy about showing her body, so this picture perfectly captures the contrary impulses powering her, which kind of makes if funny in a yeah-I’ve-felt-that-way-in-my-own-way sense.
And if AnDrew is referring instead to the message bubbles, consider that a standard emoji library is unlikely to include anything… too anatomical. (And that, by implication, the anatomy of mammal-like Space Wuffs is not too dissimilar to that of Humans.)
someone need the Saitama treatment!
At ten words or less.
her pupils going ham.
The on,y time I’ve ever seen anything even remotely like this, the patient died shortly there after, when their brain stopped regulating their heart. Result of an adderall od and hyponatremia.
Pupils going crazy can also be a sign of a Stroke.
Pretty sure that’s someone with telepresence (Dabbler) or Cora hacking glasses to figure out where she went. Maybe ArcLight checking in?
When did Dabbles ever display ‘telepresence’?
Hey everyone thinking of commenting about:
– Miles Vorkosigan
– Luis from Antman and the Wasp
– HHGTTG
– This is not how truth serum really works
Please consider taking several minutes to peruse all the other comments about these things, so you can determine whether or not you actually have something valuable to contribute to the conversation. If you still do, then please provide it!!!
Eh, its too common a trope in worlds with supers to bat an eye at it.
I mean even worlds that aren’t “technically” super worlds but action hero worlds (they have super powers too, just no one in-universe really acknowledges it and its all the same Captain America level and type of powers), also have truth serum.
So its an established trope for the genre, no point in trying to be all deconstructionist era about it.
I know what the other stuff is, but who is Miles Vorkosigan?
Main character in a series of Sci-Fi books written by Lois McMaster Bujold. I quite enjoyed it and do recommend it to others.
Specifically the Vorkosigan saga, which I myself haven’t read but now plan to at least start after seeing how well-known it is here. I’d already been a fan of most of the other recommendations I’ve seen in this forum, and after getting introduced to (and completely hooked on) The Deathworlders* I think I owe it a chance.
*Incidentally, his new YA book Dandelion is quite good too and completely separate from the Jenkinsverse. Although one of the main characters is straight out of the SOR cookie cutter. Hoping for more titles in his new ‘verse.
Thanks Ashabel and brichins. I’ll check it out.
This world has magic. It has people who can rewrite reality. It’s not hard to accept that it can generate a functioning truth serum.
And even the barbituate “truth serums” could produce this result if a person is naturally suppressing venting their stream of consciousness.
Concretia could probably make a little air bag out of concrete which would be better than mouth to mouth because it wouldn’t be used air.
I recall a line from the comic Freefall.
If you want to hide a needle, you don’t hide it in a haystack. You hide it in a needlestack.
After all, finding a needle in a haystack is easy, if you just think to use a magnet.
Or fire, then sift through the ashes
And then mythbusters happened and they added a couple of those old fashioned bone needles to the test ;)
I am watching several of the mythbusters episodes i missed. ‘the myth busters did it’ is a trope for a reason. I wonder if some schools have built science curricula around mythbusters episodes. I imagine Kari could still keep horny male teenagers glued to their vid screens.
Favourite episode is still the farting cement-mixer truck (if you have ever seen that one, you will understand how a truck can fart :D )
Involuntary Necromantic Postmortem Turncoat?
Also, I am going with the simplest explanation of the pupil thing, which is that it is just a reflection of the messages she is seeing projected from her glasses.
I’m going with comedic over exaggeration
This is what your missile targeting RADAR sees when the enemy aircraft fires off their chaff and flares.
Flares are actually for heatseekers.
Doesn’t really work on US missiles if you’ve got a proper lockon though.
This isn’t a secret, but hollywood never seems to get these things right ;)
Yes, but to save money, space, and pilot thought-reaction processing in a very intense situation, all US countermeasure dispensers pop both chaff and flares at the same time
Wonder if its because of her meds.?
Thats my guess, adderol does some weird things to the brain if you have ADHD
Sydney really said hi i have ADHD
I love the fact that her reaction is exactly what it should be. Sydney has to keep herself from ranting. Sodium pentothal suppresses your ability to think before you speak. Hence talking herself to unconsciousness.
Preeeetty sure that ain’t SoPent…
Why do you suspect this?
Evil cabalts truth serym does weird things when mixed with adderol apparently
You don’t expect me to die, Concretefinger?
No, Ms Scoville, I expect you to TALK…
And she DID. and did, and did, add nauseating.
…What were they even expecting out of her? Government secrets? I doubt anyone would trust the jabbermouth with anything sensitive and it’s not like she has been around that long. How her balls work? I doubt that would get anything they didn’t already know. Her and her team’s weaknesses? That’s not something consistently talked about and I doubt she has been Batmaning it.
Well, if these are the Evil Church from back in “Challenge Accepted,” then asking about the obvious demon in the group, what she is, and what her plans and weaknesses are, makes sense. That Dabbler’s plans are “Do good and Have ALLL The Sex,” and that her weaknesses are, “not actually sure, in the superhero sense,” isn’t exactly the answers they were expecting, it would be enough to set Halo’s mouth off on the current topic pretty easily, and then it’s going to dissolve into random association pretty quickly.
I’m pretty sure that Sydney’s answer to “What are Dabbler’s weaknesses” would be “Being riddled with bullets.”
Suggestions:
– What happened on your deep space adventure and why did you suddenly go to space?
– What are Argon’s connections with aliens?
– What is Maxima’s weakness if not electricity?(Sydney doesn’t know either, but there’s no reason to suspect that)
– Which gadgets does Xuriel have?
– What is “teammember”‘s real name?(I want to threaten their family like many other extra legal organisations have done to soldiers)
– Is Maxima sensitive to “x” weaponry?(could have been shown to her while training together)
– Which Argon members are kinetic resistant?
– What is Anvil’s power?(has been confirmed to be classified)
halfway through the first question they’ll learn that Sydney is a fangirl of Neil deGrasse and she thought of a really cool *hic* no, wait, a really *hic* hot practical joke to play on Neil and who decided that temperature was the measure of humor, anyway, not that practical jokes are a proper form of humor, especially if you’re on the receiving end which is where Neil was so maybe I should apologize to him, but *hic* I said “butt”, hur *hic* hur – anyway, nobody told me grakz made rings around Uranus and sparkly air so why shouldn’t I share the adventure and then he un-friended me so maybe I *should* apologize do any of you have his number or email address and is it okay if I ask him to forgive the lateness of the apology by pointing out that I’ve been kidnapped by Concretia and the monks of Antioch? Where’d you leave the grenade? [inhale]
“– Which gadgets does Xuriel have?”
Considering that Xuriel/Dazzler is a tech-savant succubus… that is a very dangerous question.
First it’s likely to start off with weapons, combat, and utility tech… then into reasonably normal sex toys… then into sex toys that would traumatize the average person… then into sex toys that would traumatize Ishtar herself.
(Even if half of it is speculation on Sydney’s part… you know her brain would lead her so far down the rabbit hole that even Wonderland would be left light years behind her.)
Knowing Sydney, she would start off with the sex toys, in graphic detail (even if most of it is made up :P )
that tentacle closet. nevermind the Spanish inquisition. that closet, I wonder how much the Japanese will pay to escape from it? sydney does know hentai. could you imagine what these geniuses will make of her description of that!
Or to be put into it. With heroically proportioned women who REALLY don’t need men. Japanese porn is alarming.
If you think Japanese porn is alarming… do your damnedest to stay away from German porn.
(I have a grad degree in social psych, one of my specialties is human sexuality with a focus on alternative lifestyles, which includes studying adult entertainment. Been studying it for over 30 years formally and informally. There are things I really wish I hadn’t seen or read in my research. A lot of it comes from Germany. Japan is almost tame by comparison… and that’s even taking into account that one live-action tentacle porn video I ran across.)
As I understand it (not at first hand), Germany’s reputation is slightly undeserved. Granted, it does tend to be the source and/or marketplace for some of the more – shall we say unusual – offerings. But that’s more to do with that jurisdiction having significantly fewer categorical restrictions on what can be made and sold than most others, rather than on their market being particularly demanding of them.
I think the big part of it is not necessarily that there’s a demand for it IN Germany. It’s more that in Germany they have the ability (legally) and the willingness to actually supply many of the fetish videos that other people want to purchase.
When you actually study the stuff from a more academic mindset, you can find a lot of things such as where most of differing types of porn comes from. It’s like there are certain countries that fill certain niches when it comes to “specialized offerings”.
So in Japan you have things like tentacles, demonic, and transformation porn.
Germany you end up with extreme fetish porn… and I mean extreme in some cases (some videos I wish I hadn’t seen.)
Brazil… let’s just say they often work in the barnyard.
Russia and others in the former USSR produce a lot of… family entertainment…
The US can readily compete with Japan when it comes with Hentai vs. the U.S. version of the same. It also produces a lot of shamale stuff. (Where Thailand and the Philippines produce the slightly different “ladyboy” stuff.) It’s split about evenly with Germany for the BDSM stuff, with Japan a close third.
Some places do it because there’s a demand there. Some do it because they might as well try to make a buck off what they’re doing anyhow. And some do it to fill a demand elsewhere.
PornHub releases a yearly statistical report of viewing habits for the video consumption in the previous year. Interestingly, it’s actually considered a valid academic resource because it’s data tracking from a company with the direct ability to do so. One of the most interesting things is that the highest demand for gay porn is in areas where it’s actually illegal to be gay, often for religious reasons.
Well the appeal to tentacles is they can get *everywhere*. A man can only do so much but a tentacle can fold back on itself to really fill you up, plus act as a sentient bondage device the whole time.
Im a huge tentacle enthusiast and really wish they were real :D
An armada of adornments?
a bombardment of baubles
A Calamaty of Caparison
perhaps?
A Diversity of Decorations?
I’m not sure what the original post was in response to, but I’ll hang another link on their chain!
An Effulgence of Exclamations!
A flock of frills
A glut of gewgaws.
More like a Host of Hogwash
An Immensity of Information.
She’s a Juggernaut of Jibber-Jabber!
oh, good try, but you diverted from the theme of ‘war’ or ‘battle’, try again!
(just teasing)
A Dreadnaught or a Dominance, then.
All hail the Queen of Babble-On
Have to wonder if This outcome is what was warned about of ‘You can’t handle the truth!’
The eyes going from O-o to o-O and back is so very Sydney…
:D
I think the serum is having an adverse reaction to her meds…
Actually its just countering her meds and force-booting up her ADHD. The whole idea if IRL “truth serum” is that is removes the filter between thought and talk, making you less likely to hold back anything. It basically gives you fake ADHD, add that onto real ADHD and you get this.
I can’t even read the page without thinking “You WANTED Sydney to talk. That was your first mistake.”
I mean, listening to her is hilarious….from our point of view. Them? Pfft. She has a hard time staying quiet, OR on topic….and they just let her leave both of those concepts behind.
Okay, having read the page…the lack of punctuation makes me think that was all one breath, which on the one hand is impressive, and on the other hand makes me want to yell at her to stop and breath normally for a few moments. She’s probably going to pass out or get knocked out just so she stops talking and starts breathing…just a question of which comes first. Still! There were a few important points there. Just…..don’t try truth serums next time? I don’t know how quickly she’s talking, but I doubt they’re going a very good job of following what she’s saying…..
I think Sydney is lgit starting to have acoronary r a stroke YEAH Maxima is probably putting all but 1 in the morgue
And that’s the problem with (at least a certain brand of) villainy: jumping straight to the evil approach even when there’s an easier method to get what they want. Either they assume that the evil way is always the easiest or fastest way, or because they enjoy it.
This guys is basically the opposite of Deus. He wants to do things the evil way for the style factor, but he’s smart enough to realize it’s not always the most efficient way to get things done, and he wants to win more than he wants to be evil.
beautiful…heheheheheheeeh
Imagine is Sydney was reciting this instead:
One day about four or five years ago
We is settin’ at the Conoco station
Kickin’ tires, and swattin’ flies,
And discussin’ the State of the Union
When right out in front of the Baptist church
Come a big ol’ purple school bus
Had astrological signs upon it
And thirty-five hippies and dogs inside
About half of ’em went for the courthouse lawn
And them dogs commenced on the fireplug
Rest of ’em set there starin’ at us
And I says, “Roy, go get your Flit gun”
He says, “Which is the hippies? And which is the dogs?”
I says, “Beats the hell outta me, Roy.”
What they was, was a bunch a’ them Crispy Critters
And their leader was a space cadet
He says, “Sagittarius, we has arrived.
“Prepare to disembark, men.
“Get the incense goin’ and the sitar out
“We gonna camp in the city park, man.”
I says, “Boys, let me explain the situation to ya.
“A: you’re gettin’ me down
“And B: we got us a leash law here
“And C: you in the wrong town.
“You drop one string a’ beads in that there park
“And you gonna see a whole lotta stars.
“You got fifteen seconds to get out of town, boys,
“Or we gonna blow ya ta Mars.”
Well, they all got back in the purple bus
And proceeded to the city limits.
Then the telephone rang, was the swimmin’ pool
Says a mess a’ wild Critters was in it!
So we all got in the Marshal’s Plymouth
(Which is always at the Conoco station)
Went flashin’ on down to the swimmin’ pool
To give them Critters a citation
By the time we arrived, it was too damn late
Them critters is all had their pants down
Them dogs was tearin’ the bathhouse apart,
And they’s after the fish in the fish pond!
I says, “Roy, you get the one in the silver T-shirt
“And I’ll get the rest with a net.
“We gonna have a jail full a’ naked Crispy Critters
“And a drip-dry space cadet.”
Well, we gave ’em hell, but we lost the war
‘Cause them Critters outnumbered us
So they moved in and set up camp
And they lived in that purple school bus
Six weeks later, there was nothin’ in town
But eighty-four dogs and a head shop
Sellin’ dried up weeds, and sunflower seeds,
And astrological postcards
Yeah, Critters took over the City Council
And the dogs all barked their brains out
And the whole damn town was Crispy Critters
And the mayor was a space cadet
is there text in her glasses?.
maybe message from friend.
All I see is the reflection of, apparently, some incandescent lighting fixtures, though from the angle of the reflection they’re…on the floor?
Actually pretty good tactics on Syd’s part.
They’re “socialized” at least to the point of having an instinct not to talk to her *WHILE* she is talking. So if she just keeps going, they never get around to asking questions that could actually compromise anything.
Meanwhile, just chattering and not giving them time to ask questions, she burns up the minute-or-two needed for the Cavalry to arrive.
Also, I see what you did there slipping in exposition about Dabbler and Jabber. :-)
Actually they *should* start shouting topics to at least steer her in the general direction of what they want to know.
I’m not sure if it would help. I mean, there is the ADHD, she’s on her meds, the truth serum, and now she’s getting into low oxygen mode … it’s wonder she’s still coherent.
(Although I don’t think the truth serum is strong enough to make her actually suffocate herself by not breathing … she’s likely to pass out soon …)
was inline dictionaries supposed to be online?
I’m pretty sure she is referring to integrated spellchecker/autocorrect
“The program is embarrassingly single-threaded.”
Funny, as the problem is propably Embarrasingly Parallel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embarrassingly_parallel
Apparently it was not Tilly Michael Burnham was referring to about not giving the truth serum to.
Actually, Id pay for a Halo/Discovery Crossover…. Sydney and Tilly would make an awesome team.
I’m a little disappointed in Sydney. All that blabber, and not one mention of “vermilion.”
I know right?
Actually since Archon isn’t able to hear any of this, it’s good she hasn’t said it. It’s a rare enough word that any evil™ analysis of the recording for this session would flag its use in future conversations. Better to keep her emergency code unused until it has a chance of being effective.
As someone with ADHD, yeah chemicals can react VERY differently for us, so this is very believable.
Example muscle relaxants make me hyper, the navy three times in a row gave me progressively stronger ones for pain. It took three failures for them to understand that ADHD brain chemistry is different. The third made me so hyper I was literal sitting on the couch vibrating, was not good for the pain.
As someone with ADHD, yeah chemicals can react VERY differently for us, so this is very believable.
Example muscle relaxants make me hyper, the navy three times in a row gave me progressively stronger ones for pain. It took three failures for them to understand that ADHD brain chemistry is different. The third made me so hyper I was literal sitting on the couch vibrating, was not good for the pain.
The reason is exceedingly simple really, ADHD causes the brain to have lower background dopamine, and doing something give a burst as reward. So in ADHD that spike is greater and drops off faster, creating the distractibility and short attention span. Stimulants like caffeine increase the background level of dopamine so that spike is smaller and so we stop searching for things to trigger it and calm down.
I don’t know much about muscle relaxants but to me it sounds like it lowered your background dopamine even more and so your body craved activity and stimulation even more.
Crap, is this an anti-Ritalin or something? Did you guys not check the contraindications before injecting your prisoner with questionable bad guy drugs?
” ‘Questionable drugs, ‘make the subject question-able’ drugs, did none of you check the label?”
Truth Serum + Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder = A speech, from what you can get information from it, than from the egyptian hieroglyphs without the Rosetta stone, when you do not speak even a single egyptian word.
“Tell the truth, the whole truth, & nothing but the truth. So help you, God.”
Precisely the wrong thing to tell Sydney to do.
When the truth is raised over level 9000.
Great Googly Moogly, it’s like giving fast-penta to Miles Vorkosigan…
Didn’t I see something like this in an Ant Man movie?
“– Which gadgets does Xuriel have?”
Considering that Xuriel/Dazzler is a tech-savant succubus… that is a very dangerous question.
First it’s likely to start off with weapons, combat, and utility tech… then into reasonably normal sex toys… then into sex toys that would traumatize the average person… then into sex toys that would traumatize Ishtar herself.
(Even if half of it is speculation on Sydney’s part… you know her brain would lead her so far down the rabbit hole that even Wonderland would be left light years behind her.) nice
There is special place in hell for you. Just becouse of this page. I love it.
I get this. There’s a h2g2 thing, isn’t there, where a guy who testifies in court to tell the truth, the whole truth, et c, takes it absolutely literally….. so forty-odd years on, his testimony in the dock is still being made, and nobody can get him to shut up.
“Gray’s Anatomy” is the name of the reference book that the show’s title is based on. The show is “Grey’s Anatomy”, with an “e”.