Grrl Power #929 – The technicolor yawn is in the eye of the beholder
Since I am not talented enough to draw something so beautiful that you all throw up, I’m going to say Umbrivions use some sort of psychic attack to distract prey and their prey’s friends with double rainbow levels of visual cortex rapture. Some sort of beholder style psi-aura that only works with eye contact, like a weird gorgon.
Oh man, imagine a spell that temporarily turns the visual cortex into a pleasure center for the brain. That would be a weird spell certainly, but I think it’d be a lot worse than a sphere of darkness. Instead of no input, everything you look at makes your eyes flutter and your knees buckle. A sword comes flashing at your face and catches a glint of sunlight, and you’re like “Aw fuck, so good, just like that baby!” If that spell swapped the function of your visual cortex and pleasure center, you’d be blind and jizzing yourself every time you looked at a bright light… then if someone flicked your nipple, you’d see a burst of… leaves? I don’t know what a nipple flick would translate to visually. Dancing pastries?
What I’m saying is that in a world with magic, there would be some fucking messed up recreational spells.
This page partially exists because I felt a little bad that Henchwench had a pretty amazing run, where Robert Nava’s cameo only got a single page. But there’s other story stuff I wanted to do to wrap up this Times Square sequence, (which is almost done, hang in there) so it’s not just a pity cameo or anything. :)
Star Justice 12 is indeed out! The audiobook version will be out when the narrators can get to it, probably a month or two.
Oh, wait, that’s not the cover. That’s the fan-art one I did that MSE showed his artist and said, “Do this, but better.” (You can click on the thumbnail to see my art, and the link to the e-book to see the final.) To be fair, he definitely succeeded. I actually think mine is pretty good, but it lacks the final one or two passes needed to make it “professional” looking. The proportions need that Liquify filter tweak, the lighting could use another pass, as could Juliette’s hair. Also the background is atrocious. It looks like an obligatory placeholder, which it basically was.
The new vote incentive is up! 
Maxima won (or lost) the draw this time. There are several clothing/non-clothing variants over at Patreon, including a special version with guest art direction from JJ Abrams. (Yes, there’s a ton of lens flares, hah hah. I amuse myself.) The a-cups will return next month, so please enjoy this offering in the meantime.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
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SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
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Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
OK interesting effect. I think there’s a certain Elder God that already has the copyright on that?
Not uncommon for eldritch beings to have some affect in people looking at them either due to existential dread (something more relatable if you read the stories about 100 years ago as opposed to today, the thought of what they represent and man’s true relationship with the universe). Other than that either by patterns of light or exotic radiation various things happen. Fear aura is common, instant worship, a daze, turn into beef jerky zombies, eyes burn out, radiation poisoning, insanity from how it affects the brain is very common, ect…
Hey, if you’ve got it, flaunt it!
So he DOES make you throw up. In a GOOD way……
Maybe there is a double effect. The intended prey is attracted but everything else gets a repulsion effect on top of the pretty to prevent any interruptions in feeding.
Or it could be that’s how it *used* to be, but now, they simply feed off of the unwanted food. Bonus, it’s already partially digested.
Sure, other sophants have an opinion about that. But, hey, *MORE* free food! BONUS!
the intended “prey” didn’t look at him, whereas both the silver-dress alien lady and the other alien did, and were visually affected, where the prey only had her locomotion affected due to being lassoed by the tentacles
That’s because the ‘prey’ had already encountered those tentacles before…
It’s not that unrealistic, particular patterns of light among other forms of pulses of radiation can have unexpected affects on the human brain, cause hallucinations, feelings if euphorbia, dizziness, sleep, trigger various biological functions. They don’t even have to be that intense or even detectable to the human eye to have these impacts.
actually thinking about it, over stimulating the optical nerves should cause nausea, something akin to vertigo at least, imagine a splitting headache after as well because of the blood vessel responses in and around the eyes.
Only, if your blood vessels, contract. Expanding stops headaches, I learned that from Migraine medicine.
I’m not a doctor, but I would imagine there are limits to how much the blood vessels around the brain could expand before that too would cause problems. Expanding from having contracted would certainly relieve pain, but not unchecked expansion.
which ever made my eyes throb and ache is whichever I was referring to when I had a really nasty headache.
that said if there is a bliss effect the release of too much dopamine and serotonin and too much relaxing of the body could also cause considerable problems as well.
I’m starting to want to see this purple girl over on Patreon, hint hint
I still want Lapha and Garamm to escape. Or at least Garamm to escape.
Then free Lapha.
Yes! #freethespaceatractionavians
Not the first time Robert Nava’s got this reaction. ;^)
My beauty is being in not understanding by optical vision spheres. Only minds of greater visual preconception may bask in awe and wonder.
It’s that shirt, dude. It’s that shirt. @_@
Is not it being the ceremonial garment of recreational travel and visual enlightenment?
No you’re good, it totally is.
We are honored greatly, by your respect for our ritual customs.
As denizens of Xxyolian conceived “Juleinde ejut xyoieho lojyx kanil-ousice thidzel oiamjev”.
Space Fluffy!
Huh……….I was not expecting that, which I guess was point.
It is your primary directive to swim closer to that ｂｅａｕｔｉｆｕｌ ｃｒｅａｔｕｒｅ
Do not resist… Don’t struggle…
I can’t think of worse things than throwing up inside the helmet that you need to keep sealed in order to breathe…
Yeah that would really suck. Like puking in your SCUBA gear, possibly worse if they have to stay in it like an astronaut does during a space walk. Hopefully their filtration system can handle it quickly.
This is probably a sealed system with no direct ejection, and the filtration system is unlikely to cycle very fast… yeech.
SCUBA however vents directly to the outside, you can actually puke right through the respirator. Just have to spit a bit and move to a new spot afterward. It’s actually not all downside either – one of my coworkers said the most fish they’ve ever seen diving was after they puked underwater and it attracted a ton of species, so there’s that. I suspect this may have the opposite effect on local wildlife though. Unless there’s a very level-headed biochemist nearby with sample bags.
Potentially fatal
The fishbowl is full
The waters have been chummed.
Nipple flick would be watching Baby Shark…
Why yes. I AM a sadist. Are you volunteering? =)
Doo doo doo
Baaaabyyyy Shark
(Jaws theme plays on 1000 jack-in-the-boxes)
Damn, now I want a “Jaws” jack in the box.
that was the whole point. :} (evil grin)
I thought one would exist, yet I cannot find a shark jack in the box, found evil clown, chest burster (pretty sure a mod), sock monkey, and even a dolphin; yet no sharks.
Thingiverse has any number of 3-D print sharks that could be adapted. The hard part would be building a new new music box spool to play the Jaws theme.
“Oh man, imagine a spell that temporarily turns the visual cortex into a pleasure center for the brain.”
Like sneezing-panda videos?
The idea of trying to portray something in a visual media, or even describe it in writing, that has some bizare affect or influence on others but not really being able to do so because of how alien or unknowable or *invisible pulses felt but not seen or heard, or even felt as one feels the waves, an inner sickness not of body but of spirit, of energy*, sort of…what are they trying to describe; is all to relatable for anyone trying to get the mental equivalent of the uncanny valley or strange influence idea out there for a character or creature.
I personally had many years ago a Paralysis Demon that inspired a number of characters and creatures each different attempts to describe it in some way. The idea was this being if you drew them or described them wouldn’t sound scary, and in fact may be beautiful to behold. But if you looked at them too long, especially in the black pits with swirling blue rings or dots of light *it changed* eyes; there was this fear that would come over you, no matter how kind her words were, or the sweet scent, or how protected you felt by her presence…to look at her triggered something outside conscious thought and control a deep primal fear like something in your brain, that primitive primate of man’s distant past in there rattling its cage and screaming at the conscious mind that this thing is dangerous, to run away, such an extreme fear that it could cause physical pain from the stress and anxiety it brought, the muscles twisting themselves like every fiber of your being wants to escape in any direction, even inwards…yet to look away, even if she’s still there it would pass; as the voice had the opposite effect, a soothing effect, like a cat’s purr, a relaxation of the body and mind to drift into peaceful slumber.
…but try to draw that and its…oh its a tall lady in white wearing a Venetian masquerade mask with glowing vampire eyes…
try to describe an eldritch being whose language is pulses of light and magnetic fields that cause insanity in human minds and may even just kill smaller simpler creatures like insects; but then try to convey that visually and its…um…put some flashing filter on the shot like everything goes negative.
you can’t really portray things visually, that visually should have these affects on people, so yeah reactions are a good way to go, or else crack out the thesaurus and pull a Lovecraft with a paragraph trying to describe the really specific affect.
Sort of like the Medusans in Star Trek:TOS; “Is There in Truth No Beauty”.
I really need to hunt down the old show and watch it again, apparently I forgot over half the show.
That said, one inspiration for strange eldritch languages or a deadly presence was an idea I once saw that some UFOs aren’t space craft but the alien being its self, an “energy being” who emits light and other forms of radiation and whose language is pulses of various forms of electromagnetic radiation thus causing strange effects to vehicles, watches, phones, leaving burns on the area people who see them, and messing with the brain’s chemistry and electrical flow that one experiences time loss as it disrupts the ability to properly form cohesive memories *like switching the brain into dream mode*,
That idea also shows in Star Trek, notably in the pilot episode of TNG: “Encounter at Farpoint”. Spoiler alert: The Colony and the UFO are both alien jellyfish with the ability to reshape matter and energy.
Now I am starting to wander if I saw these as a kid, forgot where I saw the ideas, and came up them years later for other glowing space aliens like my “Amana” and a number that also have jellyfish like bodies, glowing bits, and tentacles in their true forms behind the masks and costumes. Other than *colorful version of Lovecraft*
Is this turning into a Family-Friendly Hentai episode?
Can it really be hentai if it’s family friendly? This is the cultured and intelligent kind of questions we dare ask ourselves on this forum.
thanks to the internet my first thought went to vore, but I’m shaking my head like, “no way he is trying to eat her*, even if tentacles/vines dragging someone half their size towards a large opening with flaps immediately brings up that image. then mention this over stimulation of beauty may also be a hunting method…
Nice that a panel joke from 8 months ago pays off!
Are…are we about to see a villain get vored?
Flerkin + Aurora Borealis = ^ that guy ^
I hope not. I been shipping Lizard-Demon pretty goddamn hard. They’re adorable.
The things I used to do with Life/Mind combinations in Mage: the Ascension…right up that “visual cortex-pleasure center” alley.
For example:
Cognitive Dissonance (Life 2, Mind 2, Entropy 1)
“Stupidity should be painful.”
In the era of fake news and echo chambers, this rote is rapidly becoming popular. It forces the subject to be consciously aware of when they are saying something they know to be less than completely and contextually honest, and causes them to experience an acute, powerful migraine.
Requires four successes, inflicts two levels of Bashing damage per falsehood, and lasts for one scene.
I also enjoyed creating this:
Disappearing Think (Lufe4, Mind 3, Time 2)
A disturbingly insidious rote that prevents the subject from forming memories of an experience.
The Mind and Time elements of the rote keep the events experienced in the subjects mind for the duration of the effect, while the Life component prevents the brain from actually physically forming the required folds and connections to keep the experience in the subject’s memory. Once the Effect ends, the subject has no memory of anything that occurred after it took effect. This rote requires four successes and lasts for one scene, with additional successes adding to the duration.
I was somewhat inspired by both Thinner & the BoVD in creating this next bit of nastiness:
Feast Of Famine (Life 3, Mind 2)
The subject of this Curse is metabolically incapable of deriving any nutritional value from anything, and regardless of the amount eaten, will continue to suffer from intense feelings of hunger.
I also came up with this gem, which went on to become a favorite with our cabal:
Tantrum ( Life 4, Mind 2)
Tantrum allows the mage to temporarily suppresses the frontal lobe of a creature or person, diminishing or even negating their ability to control their impulses or reaction to stimuli, while also providing a powerful mental “push”. The subject then acts out the urge or impulse supplied without restraint, beyond the character of their Nature.
Contrary to the implication of the name, Tantrum doesn’t need to cause the subject to act out in a violent or selfish manner; one could just as easily induce a “kindness tantrum” or a fit of unrestrained courage. The mage has no deliberate control over the behavior of the Tantrum-thrower, and should be aware that thwarting or otherwise upsetting someone having a Tantrum can quickly cause them to become violent, as they have little or no impulse control.
Tantrum requires three successes and lasts for one scene.
…I could keep going. I’m sure y’all get the idea, though.
“Tantrum” does not sound like the sort of thing you’d want to cast on somebody who was already attacking you. Looks down at blood soaked hands… “Well, darn, I’d only intended to subdue him!”
I found it to be an exquisite way to disrupt the coordination of the opposition.
You weren’t putting any sort of compulsion, charm, or other such manipulation in place, and the targeted always acted out within the bounds of their own character, so it was all but impossible to identify it. I had another little bit of fuckery my cabal liked, I called Cassandra’s Curse.
Essentially, it attached an intense feeling of utter, completely, and totally derision & dismissal to everything the target attempted to communicate. In short, nobody believed anything they would say, and would actually go mock them. This is a great way to break down enemy intelligence gathering.
Possibly my ST’s favorite rote of my making, however, was one I called Causal Chaos.
In short, it caused the subject to perceive effects before causes. That naturally altered their actions, thereby altering the outcomes….the feedback loop was magnificent.
Whoever works at the council on alien/otherworlders department are definitely gonna have lots of fun (read: overtime) after this
And probably demanding, “Where’s the MIB’s when you need one!?!?!?”
Another troublesome part is why I cant use VR, is that if your optical nerves are assuming that you move but you are not it causes annoying feedback issue(screen be fine, even on immersed state subconscious at least is contently aware of stationary surroundings; but when only thing your eyes can see is contents on screen, subconscious cant help you out )
“They get to experience all that delicious Terran cuisine twice!” — But does it taste the same the second time?
Even better: Two flavors for the price of one!
Also an alternate way to serve Grakz!
What? No mention of Synetheisea?
Bleed over from one sense to another?
In the dark a sudden noise influencining the brain ‘s vision center?
(Are those stripes sound waves???)
the bright taste of the colour orange, the subtle smoothness in texture of vanilla, the chundering chumwater paisley of durian fruit.
Had durian.
Can confirm.
Wait. Just watch out for some of the Pokemon? I don’t know I can’t remember so many flashing colors
Episode 38 of the original Pokemon TV cast. Aired Dec 16, 1997.
It became infamous because there was a sequence in the cartoon that caused a LOT of kids to puke…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dennō_Senshi_Porygon has a lot of details.
Unintentional crossover with Freefall? Hi Sam!
The love child of Sam Rockwell and Kosh from Babylon 5.
I was thinking “Vorlon” myself with this one.
First thing that came to mind.
Egad! It’s Lovecraft’s lesser known “The Technicolour Yawn Out of Space!”
So was that a being similar to a Flerkin?
Did anyone else get distracted by thinking about a ways for eye muscles to be set up to get diamond shaped pupils?
Not really. Gecko. Not Geico.
Some Earth animals have pretty weird pupil shapes too, which allow for some interesting effects like polarized vision. Pinky’s can’t be too much different.
Way back in the days of 1st Edition, a good friend of mine extrapolated off of the high-level spells of the Power Word variety (Power Word: Stun, Power Word: Blind, Power Word: Kill), to create Power Word: Orgasm. (Because, despite being engaged in higher education at a prestigious university, we were all emotionally 13 years old.) I believe, in the progression of roleplaying events, he eventually sold it to the Temple of the Goddess of Love.
Ah, so medusa and bassilisk lore was slightly misinterpreted. They also could turn men to stone…. we only heard about the non X-rated versions.
He is so beautiful that looking at him makes you vomit.
It might be that an Umbrivion is quite beautiful, but in more than the normal 3 dimensions. Looking at one forces you to attempt to comprehend those extra dimensions and the result is not unlike motion sickness.
I was expecting that to turn into a joke along the lines of “you are beautiful, it was just 20 years and 200 lbs ago”, but motion-adjacent input is actually not a bad explanation.
Vorlon to the tenth power.
I nipple might look like a burst of multicolored balls or lightning. It would depend on how one would visualize their own orgasm.
That robot creature is so glad it doesn’t eat anything, unless it is going to puke lightning bolts, or fusion fire. That would be bad.
That’s not a robot, that’s an environment suit, with the owner being a creature that require a liquid environment to breathe… which he just puked in.
Hope his suit scrubbers are top of the line or he’s going to miserable until he leaves that suit.
The spell exists, it is called Hypnotic Pattern :D
Umbrivions = evolved Mesmers from Subnautica is what I got from your description.
*Garamm pops out and slugs the rainbowsquid*
“NICITATING MEMBRANES!”
I’m basically thinking a psi effect that does two things at the same time:
1 – Draws out the viewer’s subconscious concept of beauty. A bit like the Id Insinuation Psionicist ability in D&D, but with an area effect/multiple targets. (Per the description, the ability draws out conflicting desires from the Id.)
2 – Causes a massive surge in the neurotransmitters Dopamine and Serotonin, and the hormone Oxytocin. This can overload the person’s pleasure centers big time. Not only that, but excessive Dopamine in the system CAN cause nausea and vomiting. Serotonin Syndrome (from excessive Serotonin levels) can cause hallucinations, nausea, and vomiting. Boosts in Oxytocin lead to significantly higher levels of trust, affection, and social bonding (which would be incredibly useful in a predatory species to lure in prey).
Those two in combination should likely have exactly the effect you’re trying to depict. The only restrictions would be that it would only work on something that possesses those brain chemicals in some quantity, and has enough sentience to have a concept of “beauty” (or, at least, “desire” or “lust”).
I am doubting that Pinky is the space martial arts champion that others were theorizing yesterday.
space martial arts: float…float…float….poke…float away…float away…
Nothing today rules that out: you can’t fight if you can’t face your opponent (the effect probably goes through eyelids, so even closing your eyes and ‘blind-fighting’ won’t do any good)
If you meant simply shoving Pinky out of the way: why exert more force or effort than is needed?
I meant that if she was a ‘space martial arts master’ it probably would have taken more than pushing her face for her to go spawling over a garbage can. :)
Perhaps it’s a clever feint to make Lapha drop her guard. The seemingly undignified sprawl over a garbage can may in fact be the perfect position to do a insanely cool space kung fu move that easily defeat both felons. But she was distracted before she could do it.
You know, despite your tendency to write cringy puns, you’re still very endearing because you say things like ‘insanely cool space kung fu move.’
Thank you. I suspect we have a lot in common.
Oh, you meant Pinky was the Space Martial Artist
Nah, remember even Maxi got caught out by surprise… once
Wait, is this guy the same species as Vale?
no he appears to be some plant like thing with a shiny blossom or flaps and several long extending tentacles, not unlike the man eating plants of some anime and fantasy series.
Vale is a bunch of smoke full of eyes.
I’m bored…
Why am I bored at this point? It’s like… okay… aliens. Alien things. Alien sexual harassment. Alien wackiness. Alien shininess. This arc had two objectives: Does Maxima get abducted? No. Does Sidney get killed? No. So… when are we going to move on to the next thing?
Like the premise was super hero law enforcement. it’s currently alien wackiness. And we did alien wackiness on Cora’s ship.
Like… is it a fun premise? Sure. Alien tourism of earth. There’s fun potential with that that could be its own comic script. But I’m waiting for something focused on Arcswat and its characters. Or Sidney or Maxima’s character. Or something that progresses the story. Like… if hawaiian dude is an interstellar cop and busts the demon and lizard… fine. End arc. Resolution. Set up next arc. Go. But if this is some other distraction I’m going to start moving from bored to annoyed.
I could see a plant species with that effect to get various species to regurgitate their food around it for fertilizer.
It’s a really efficient way for plants to get predigested food spread around their roots. Unintelligent plants of earth already use their beauty to trick us into planting them all over and depositing fertilizer by way of the garden store/compost bin; this species is just way way better at it.
I imagine at some point in their past, a great Plant Thinker realized that animals actually have their own consciousness and desires that should be respected. Food for thought …
vomit is usually bad for plants, what with the stomach acid. Defecation is good for plants, that is what fertilizer is.
that or a rotting body or captured prey for some plants. But having a larger creature puke all over the plant is generally not a good thing to have happen.
Alien biospheres and biology. Said species could very well adapt to thrive in more acidic environments.
feels that making something vomit is more a defense mechanism, vomiting is uncomfortable, sometimes painful, expends a great deal of energy, and causes the animal to lose their meal; something they are not guaranteed.
while taking a crap is a common biological process that plants can benefit from.
if something makes an animal vomit via its smell, or any other sensory overload; animals will learn to AVOID it, hence the use of stink sprays and nauseating aromas by various animals and plants on Earth. *with the notable rafflesia pulling double duty as the smell dissuades herbivores but attracts flies that it feeds on.
but in the majority of uses it is a defense mechanism, a keep away, this will make you sick.
If you want to attract something, well just look at pollination plants with their myriad of tricks, sweet scents, a sweet dew treat to get pollen on their heads, even some that mimic sexual partners so insects get that pollen all over themselves (not joking there are actually some flowers that do this).
a general rule of thumb, if it causes pain or discomfort in other species, especially the primary predators it would have to worry about; it is a defense mechanism. Keep away, I will hurt you.
Perhaps the critters on the homeworld empty their digestive system by vomiting. That would not be the strangest system, by far – it’s just bad luck for earthies.
Dazzle then debilitate. Thinking he is evolved from a slow moving predator. The prey is stunned first then ends up tippled over puking after a nice look at the shiny plant which then scoops up and eats. Like a visual Venom.
Earth birds clear their systems that way.