Grrl Power #950 – Gob-blocked
Frix isn’t reminding Prinrin that Sydney is a potential an engine of destruction because he’s afraid of what she might actually do, but because it’s a pretty good way to deflect her interest. I’m sure there’s been more than a few women who have warded off advances by saying “My boyfriend is an ex-Navy SEAL.” whether or not any part of that statement is true. Sure, they could easily say “My boyfriend is a millionaire with a 9″ dick but also he’s addicted to cunnilingus.” and in certain situations that might even work better, but it could also spark a guy’s competitive nature. Is it better to imply her guy knows fifty ways to kill with a shrimp fork? It’s situational. Still, it’s hard to beat “My girlfriend can cut a tank in half.”
“I’m curious about your specific Navier-Lamé elastodynamic ratios” is physicist speak for “Gurl, you tight?” Also, “I want to solve for your Cylindrical Coordinate Displacement Unknowns” means “Let’s get it on.” Hmm. That sounds like a T-shirt Dabbler would wear.
At least, I like to think that science nerds hit on each other in ways that are really specific to their field and inscrutable to anyone else. But given the poor male to female ratio in most STEM fields, there are few salacious equation the ladies haven’t heard before.
They put up with Digit’s crazy inventions because despite her destroying the occasional wall, stuff like her Wall-Bot actually works, and now they can keep just ahead of the usual interior damages to the base. Keep in mind that Digit is hardly the only one in a building full of supers that damages the architecture.
The new vote incentive will be up with Monday’s comic. It’s almost done, just need a little extra time to finish up the detail work. So enjoy Detla for one more weekend.
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.
I hope Frix calls her when he’s in town again.
And tells her she’s nice and all, but it wouldn’t work out.
Because we really need to see lots of interaction and character development between secondary and tertiary-at-best characters.
As someone with a bit of experience with poly life, Frix really did handle that about as well as you could hope. “I’m flattered, and interested, but I’m spending time with a partner right now and we’re still settling into things so maybe another time.” He’s a good dude.
The line about Sidney being able to julienne tanks is just icing on the cake.
He still needs to sit Sydney down and explain to her why getting jealous is a MAJOR terminal roadblock
Well, yeah, but that’s something to do in private and will likely be a much larger conversation about expectations and ground rules so as to mitigate situations like this. Right now the thing to do is what he did, not only does that get Prinrin off his case, but it also demonstrates to Sydney that she’s his priority right now, which will help put her in the mindset for the private convo.
Never said he had to tell her right this now!!
Fair, just given the way the comment you were responding to was phrased, and the way your comment was phrased, I interpreted yours as a rebuttal as opposed to an addition. I apologize if I was wrong but it looked to me like you were saying Frix wasn’t handling it properly because he didn’t do that part.
Yeah, meant it to be something he needs to discus with Sydney in private, specially now he knows how she reacts around others
I mean- jealousy is an emotional reaction. The impulse that exists in some poly cultures to demonize the emotion of jealousy is destructive. It is jealous behavior that is problematic- most especially jealous, controlling behavior, but also responses to imagined slights born of jealousy (which, it’s worth pointing out, are much more emotionally real for Sydney due to her ADHD and one of its lesser known side effects: Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria, where imagined rejections are felt as if they were real rejections). Of course, Sydney is falling into that trap herself here- because her impulses are so much more innately monogamous, but she recognizes that’s not an appropriate way to respond, she’s swinging just a little bit too far in the other direction in a way that broadcasts her jealousy despite technically being permissive. She has a lot to learn, but the biggest step will actually be learning to be comfortable with her jealousy at the same time as not acting on it aside from communicating with her partner(s) when she needs comfort about it.
Honestly, to me the fact that Sydney reacted that way is proof an open relationship simply isn’t for her.
It’s fine for people who are into it, but she’s *not* into it, she’s just trying to be for her mans sake.
And in something as big and important to one’s life as sexual relationships and intimacy, you shouldn’t do things that you know will hurt you, because it will ultimately hurt both of you, somehow.
It’s not natural for her… at this point. She has had a very limited number of partners, and may or may not have had previous shenanigans with non-Woof persons.
Whether she grows that direction or a different one is up to happenstance and the whims of a God with a bizarre sense of humor, named Dave.
I think Sydney knows that already… but, being a noob to poly she is just having trouble applying what she knows, But she is trying, bless her.
Yes, she certainly is trying, just ask Maxi… or Doc Frost… or… anyone who has more than five minutes with her :P
And that’s just the ones who like her!
I doubt Sydney has the dexterity and fine beam control needed to julienne anything with her PPO, unless the third unlocked but unidentified setting is a more precise beam.
Can kinda see why Digit and Brooke teamed up together: both a pair of lovable air-heads (neither are stupid, just… working on different wavelengths)
That said, Prin still shouldna left Digit hanging like that :(
Not cool Lil Green, not cool!
His name is Dende
After reading the author’s notes, I now want to know ALL of the T-shirts that Dabbler wears.
… Why would you build a robot with the express purpose of rebuilding walls, then have it programmed to IGNORE WALLS when pathing?
Why would you do this?!
So that it can repair twice the number of walls needed
Because sometimes, you need to take down the damaged section around the obvious hole so that you can build back from the solid bits?
Did it bust through the wall, or did it just bust itself OUT of the wall it had repaired (using itself as a large brick)?
Think Like A Spark: If you can repair walls, avoid-breaking-walls is an unnecessary feature!
This is the best line in all of the comments.
Because if there are no broken walls, then what would it fix? How are you supposed to do quality testing. In fact, Digit should build a robot specially built to destroy walls.
The robot must be able to get to the damaged wall and start working as fast as possible. It’s purpose is to save time so you can’t have trivial things like walls standing in it’s way.
Ignoring walls requires no additional programming. Avoiding walls does. Thinking through all the ancillary necessities is boring for a genius focused on implementing something novel and interesting. They want to do the exciting, experimental bit, and then leave the boring stuff for someone else.
The ignoring walls is not a feature, it is a bug, a programming oversight.
Bugs are happy little accidents aka Undocumented Features.
“I found a feature!” – Nordern, various videos
This whole wall-mess is entirely on Omar
“Still, it’s hard to beat “My girlfriend can cut a tank in half.”
What about “My girlfriend killed multiple several stories tall creatures straight from Cthulu mythos”?
That’s probably classified and likely unverifiable, also a mouthful. Meanwhile the tank thing was on every news network in the country and probably beyond, as well as likely viral online, so a much more accessible reference (if Prinrin hadn’t already seen the footage she probably will soon), also rolls of the tongue easier.
Anybody else notice Digit’s goggles are circlet-style(some hair front and behind) when seen directly from the front, but bandana style(hair all behind) when form an angle?
Seems consistent over the last couple of pages at least lol XD
Headband instead of circlet(english is not my main :P )
Wow I haven’t seen a Beyblade avatar in years. Credit!
Headband instead of circlet(english is not my main language :P )
WALL-BOT IS BEST BOY
*dies laughing*
He is wholesome, and if I was polyamorous or did not have a girlfriend I would totally want him as a boyfriend <3
(I don't get jealous easily, and I love that my girlfriend is polyamorous because she is so cute when she gushes over her other partners)
OH YEAH!!
Latrine Bot seems like a shitty idea
Hey it was just a joke tagline – don’t get pissed off.
:)
Oh god I’ve been spending too much time reading Ro Jaws’ posts.
That’s what happens when you spend to much timer with your mind in the gutters.
Your humor becomes unsane-itary?
One thing that bugs me about the “wacky inventor who almost exclusively invents things that are dangerous to themselves and others” trope is, realistically speaking, they would never be employed by an elite team regardless of how skilled they are when their inventions actually work right.
It’s kind of a severe liability to rely on advanced tech that may go wrong in zany ways during a mission, and since the mad engineers tend to be in relative denial about how not-ready-for-use their tech is, there’s a perpetual risk of any invention being brought into the field not being fully tested and safe to use.
I strongly suspect that a significant part of ARC-SPARQ is actually the refinement, and QA/QC that follows from the…oh, fudge it, I’m just calling them Sparqs, that follows from the Sparqs’ inventions & researches, collectively, and severally.
Also, part of this might be so Archon can keep an eye on her.
Better she trashes stuff in a reinforced military base with protocols and personnel who know what she’s capable of than a civilian neighborhood.
…currently referenced as “The Sydney Protocol”.
the “Digit Protocol” probably existed long before it, and it just got a “Sydney Addendum” when Sydney was recruited.
Ideally, the inventor just creates prototypes, to prove that something can be done, and how it can be done. Then, other people dismantle it, read their notes, and use the principles to create something practical and safe. But it often plays out that they have to pull out the prototype for field use, either because there’s not enough time to refine it, or they lose access to the production model.
One of the notions in the early volumes of the “Laundry Files” novels is that the government agency recruits, forcibly if necessary, those wizard level mathematicians whose work is capable of opening pathways to realms outside of the universe where the nasty badness lives. The idea being keep them contained and off the street and they probably won’t destroy the universe as we know it. I could see ARC-Sparq hiring up the superhero level inventors to keep the more chaotic examples out of everyones hair. Now I’m wondering if Deus isn’t a lawful evil Sparq.
In the Disk World novels the tyrant lord of Anke-Morpork? Keeps his world’s Leonardo locked up in a loft with all the supplies, and snacks he needs, because his mind is both too valuable to waste, and too dangerous to let loose. An example being a paper on something innocuous, with notes scribbled in the margins on how to build a nuclear bomb.
Lord Havelock Vetinari is not a tyrant. “Tyrant” implies that the ruler is evil – that they are cruel and oppressive. A dictator he is, and absolutely ruthless, but not evil. Merely… practical.
He’s essentially the archetype of a benevolent dictator.
(Besides, he knows the few people who have legitimate claims to rule the city. They know they have such claims. They are content to let him do his thing.)
The relationship between Carrot and Vetinari is a source of delight in every story it comes up in. Really need to binge the entire series again.
I don’t think Digit’s inventions go wrong, I think she is just careless in how she uses them. And how she tests them. At least, that is how I choose to see her, and what has happened so far does back me up.
For some reason, I get a sort of Clockwork Orange vibe from panel 4 with Sydney looking through the hole in the glass.
I got a “T-rex looking at the kids through the window” vide. ^^
It’s absolutely not important, but while I don’t claim to be an absolute subject expert I’m pretty sure “Navier-Lame elastodynamic ratio” is nails-on-chalkboard technobabble.
Navier-Lame is a particular formulation of linear elasticity. The constants used in the equations are all pretty much the same if you reformulate it somewhere else.
Although it’s lame, I think that generally most scientists put so much mental energy into their research that they’d prefer normal pick-up lines, rather than science-related ones.
It’s sweet talk. It doesn’t have to please everybody.
It’s also coded. More direct non-engineer sweet talk would have been rude to Sydney.
It’s not technobabble, it’s pretty obvious what Frix is talking about if you know what Navier-Lamé is, which is just a form of elasticity. In any case, it’s humorous when heard in context, which is the main-point.
What I think is weird is that Navier and Lamé are both references to specific human beings, and either Frix knows the English term, or has a translator that is capable of translating at a conceptual level, rather than just word-for-word.
Who says they were human, and/or Earth-bound? Navier and Lamécould have been millenia-old alien engineers on a tourist trip just who decided to publish some mathematics papers on Earth as souvenirs.
If this isn’t Frix’s first trip to Earth, it may not be the first time he’s needed to know what we call that particular set of equations. You never know, one time may even have been for a legitimate engineering purpose!
It drops off somewhat as you get older but I’ve been privileged to be around a wide variety of professions. Farmers, engineers, mechanics and psychiatrists all make profession related sex puns. I’ve seen an 80 year old Chief of Medical Services giggling over the notion of reverse peristalsis
You may enjoy”Pretty Miss Polly Nomial” by Richard A. Gibbs (first published in the “Journal of Irreproducible Results”) for its combination of mathobabble and sexmath jokes.
https://fundamatics.net/article/little-miss-polynomial/
“She became tensor and tensor.”
Nice one with the eyes, Sydney. You trying to look like Gary Busey?
Also weirdly, that lock of hair in front of the goblin’s face makes it look like she has no nose.
Also also, get a load of that robot. A regular Kool-Aid Man I see.
Ok, now I’m disappointed that someone in the comic didn’t yell “Oh yeah!” when Wall-bot did its thing.
it happened off camera- that bots been around a while. after the 10th time it burst through a wall to repair another, the joke got old. right now the frustration is that the team of engineers who took the first prototype apart (it was worse) have not been able to understand its workings enough to teach the working one to avoid walls and bystanders. Dr. Frost has an assistant trying to treat several of the senior engineers involved for various mental health conditions,
Your story would be believable except for the fact that that joke never gets old.
I like to think Dr Frost has achieved academic notoriety in her field by publishing some nigh-unbelievable case studies (suitably redacted and anonymized) of the psyches and working relationships at all levels of Archon, both charter members and the extensive support staff. Possibly including herself.
I’d be more worried about the thousands of drones/fighters she killed on the world she was stranded on and I’m brain farting on. Much less the what, 2 or 3 capital ships?
Alari Prime
I’m loving the lines on the wall, very Half-life. :)
Umm, those are direction lines, they are sometimes found on the floor: you start with the directory (like we saw a couple pages back) which tend to be colour-coded and then follow the line that branches off of it (supposedly to help prevent people getting lost, or distracted)
Grinding Gears (that way)
Beep Boops (t’other way)
The Pit (t’other way, then down)
Parking Garage (same way as that way)
I mean based on her size next to Frix and previous images of Dabbler feeling him up…. Prinrin would need to displace internal organs to fit half, and would need to adjust her esophagus to go the whole hog.
Fred Perry, of Gold Digger fame, just did a humorous porn comic where a Dwarf and ‘smallish’ minotaur hooked up. Your comment reminded me of that one.
For the daring, and remember it is very much not safe for work. It is funny however.
https://e-hentai.org/g/1910909/1ac1bf80f5/
Organ size is not relative to body size.
Silver back Gorilla – 1in
Chimpanzee: 3in
https://www.mandatory.com/living/1067224-you-wont-believe-the-size-of-these-animal-penises
Anyone else hear Wal-Bot-Ready in the Battle bots computer voice?
Feels like instead of namedropping “A terran tank” he should be namedropping some kind of standardized ship-size instead.
Like a cruiser or something.
Pinrin works for the Twilight Council. That implies that she has been on Earth for a while and would know about Terran tanks. She is, after all, a goblin inventor.
Pray that Digit don’t get asked to invent something like a…M.A.S.S. Device or a weather dominator!?
I love panel 4.
So has wall-bot construct walls in a deterministic way, or does it just make and break walls however it wants. How many employees has it entombed?
Yup, Prinrin is Bernadette…. and Frix ‘Could be’ WORF from STNG.
Wonder if Sydney will….. or won’t “Loss her Innocence” by the Mondays comic. Also noticed Digit is wearing a “Wrist Thingie” just like Leela wears on Futurama.
The same ‘Wrist Thingie’ Sydney use to wear
Hi! Please never make that comparison with Prinrin again. It’s very much not who she is.
Dave—
About 6 months to go until the big #999.
Maybe we’ll see Sydney’s parents.
I have to ask. Is Digit here your version of “Mei Hatsume” from My Hero Academia? Because I’m getting some MAJOR “Mei Hatsume” vibes from her. The only thing different is that she’s…….well Digit is a long-haired-blonde whereas Mei Hatsume is a short-haired-pink-dreadlocks kind of girl. Also, Mei has a more…..manic air to her. Digit seems more mellow in comparison.
Nope, humanized Gadget from “Rescue Rangers”
Ah. Forgot about her.
wall-bot needs to show up in the background panels in the future.
Re: Bikkie
I did a little poking at my browser history, and in February I ran across the links to the literotica amateur story you asked about. So I now know the name, again:
Home for Horny Monsters
Now you should be able to find it with an alpha search on Literotica.
And here’s a link to the author’s profile where you can find links to all of her (pretty sure it’s a female since the handle is ‘writerannabel,’ but if not and if you see this, pardon me) works:
http://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=3816655&page=submissions
Now that I’ve spent the time locating it I might even read a few more chapters.
I wouldn’t mind Prinrin being a pinup sometime.
VERY sexy.
There are images out there if you go looking.
There are images out there if you go looking. I don’t think I can link them here for obvious reasons.
Okay, just a silly pet peeve of mine, but they would never build a building as large as Archon HQ out of wood framing even if they weren’t expecting sudden “accidental” explosions from supers. xD
Okay but what if they knew that some areas weren’t going to survive the supers no matter what materials they used so some places where made with cheaper/easier to replace and possibly fixable by a dryad materials?
true, in fact in my neck of the woods commercial buildings use metal studs. However, the wall may not be load bearing, I’d probably try to set this area up as a giant open space and fill in the walls as non load bearing. the hope is that the redundancy required by code and the smaller target pillars means that wall bot, joke bot, toilet bot, door bot, etc. are less likely to cause major structural damage. just lots of drywall damage, because Gypsum dust is nontoxic right? right? what does this note from the state of California say?
Everything causes cancer in California. Some sort of spacetime discontinuity mishap involving the Tardis, a lawyer companion, and an industrial label maker.
For the structural elements, you’re undoubtedly correct. But I wouldn’t be surprised if they’d designed the building with as few actually structural internal walls as possible (if any), before using lesser materials to divide the very large spaces thus created. The official explanations being that it’s cheaper that way, and that it allows the ‘minor’ walls to be reconfigured within the ‘major’ ones if required. The degree to which they were also deliberately allowing for unintentional reconfigurations need not be stated, at least not in front of the budget committee!
Apparently Digit( and Fidget) was a character in Gadget & the Gadgetinis, a french sequel/Spin off of Inspector Gadget.
From the Description it sounds like a sort of cartoon version/parody of Inspector Clouseau.
Hey Wait! If not Michael Dorn (Worf)for Frix’s voice, What about Comedian Brad Garrett? (Robert – Everybody Loves Raymond) THOUGHTS???
Okay but what if they knew that some areas weren’t going to survive the supers no matter what materials they used so some places where made with cheaper/easier to replace and possibly fixable by a dryad materials?
Apparently “what it does to a tank made by the human military-industrial complex” is a universal measurement of offensive magic and powers. Sydney’s pew pew orb seemed like about 20 Txp/s (tanksplosions per second) before she got any upgrades, and now it’s 2000 or more. Official measurements are still pending.
So wall bot is a wall that patches up walls and walks through walls. It’s very wall-e.
A familiar resemblance Prin bears. Strong in the force is she?
I’m pretty sure the way people in science fields ask each other out is…
…To ask each other out the same way everyone else does, anticlimactically enough.
People trying to make field-specific pick-me-up lines are probably going to elicit an eyeroll and almost certainly be turned down I would imagine.
In this case, it was a profession-specific soft turndown line, which makes it more witty.
Oh No! “Oh Yeah!”