Grrl Power #1244 – Meyegraine
This page exists because of all the times I’ve seen people get possessed in shows, and their eyes change, and I can’t help but think, “That has to hurt.” I don’t think I’ve ever seen it addressed in any show I can think of. Of course, if you turn into a werewolf, all that bone stretching and tail growing and fangs ripping through your gums might hurt, but a ghost possesses you and your iris disappears? Yeah, no worries mate.
The eye change is different than the eye glow, and you’ve got two types, the outer and inner glow. Like, maybe there’s an illusion of light pointing away from the eyes, and the “caster” can’t see their own illusion. If it’s just a real light floating just in front of the eyes, they’d blind themselves. And if it’s an internal glow… again, it could be an illusion, but in cases where it definitely isn’t, say, Stargate SG1 – that would definitely blind the user. Eyes are sensitive to light. Setting off a bioluminescent road flare inside the eyes wouldn’t be good for the owner of said eyes. Yes, the Goa’uld can heal the host, but then I have to imagine that every time a Goa’uld does the eye-glow, they’re like “Shit, I know most species find that intimidating, but I hope nothing important happens for the next seven and a half seconds.”
For some of those eye-changes, you can argue that it’s just some mystic contact lense that appears over the eyes. Basically just superficial and cosmetic, and the eyes don’t actually change. But in some shows, they give you a close up of the eye after the possession is over to show it changing back. That’s probably not an illusion – the eyes are physically changing. So you’re possessed by Bast or whatever, and now you have cat eyes. Well, human eyes don’t really have a mechanism to change like that, so, fine, it’s Bast magic. Except when Bast gets sent back to her kitty litter phylactery or whatever, am I supposed to believe that the possession magic has a built-in “make sure the host springs back to how they used to be, gracefully and painlessly”? No. Gods don’t care about that shit. If it would change back at all (and it always does in every show,) it would be a painful mess. So that’s what inspired me to make this page.
If I’m honest, I might not dedicate a whole page to eye depossession if it happens in the future, but it’s safe to assume that some ibuprofen will be involved.
The new vote incentive is up! This is a bit of a weird one as it’s a character that hasn’t appeared in the comic.
It’s my Ifrit Pathfinder 1e monk, Fray! Ifrits don’t really make great monks in Pathfinder, as player characters they get a +2 to Dex and Cha, but -2 to Wis. For monks, Dex is good, Cha is largely irrelevant, but Wis is important as it can add to your AC and also has something to do with Ki points I think. But I didn’t care. I wanted a character with dark blue/gray skin and glowing orange hair, so that’s what I picked. (I don’t think Ifrit even really have dark skin, so maybe she’s 1/4 Drow? Don’t care. I think she looks cool.) Will she show up in the comic? I mean… maybe? Probably in a Dabbler flashback, but who knows?
As usual, Patreon has her in delicto flagrante.
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I think Maxima has some yelling to do before Sydney gets out of that chair. Mainly about just HOW big a liability Syd has become now. Plus the stuff she didn’t tell ARC-SWAT, like her special glasses, or the whole Nth level tech… plus the effects of nodes she didn’t buy. She’s withheld a TON of info, and they honestly cannot have that. It’s time for some Jack Bauer interrogation, honestly.
she does not know what the nodes she did not buy do but has been examined for safety on that subject, and the ones she has not bought yet are discussed with ARC-SWAT and only theoretical, also while discussing the Superion field maxima was not acting confused when dabbler and Deus looked toward the orbs implying that she knew already. And once again the orbs being nth is only theoretical. As for this attack proving she is a liability as far as we know every super is supposed to be vulnerable to this partial possession and so is everybody else with classified info, infact she is less dangerous than other supers due to the orbs only responding to her
I would expect Archon to give priority to establishing protections against mental manipulation and possession for its bases and personnel if they are any competent. First there was the Parfait incident, then this.
From what I understand, this is breach of mental security happened the morning after Parfait lost control of herself and accidentally hormoned up the entire HQ.
We are talking superheroes here, but they, too, do operate under the principle of: “The impossible we do right away. Miracles may take a little longer.”
They STILL don’t know about the glasses and most of the rest they know as much as she does.
Dabbler knows about the glasses at least.
Wasn’t Dabbler the one who speculated about the whole Nth thing? They know.
Actually first it was a speculation by Syd and Cora, then an hypothesis that Dabbler and Deus made (with Max and Syd present) about the Nth being the most likely explanation for the orbs and the Superion field. They share all the available info on these topics (well, except the technical stuff that only Deus and Dabbler understand). It is unfortunate that Lapha discovered it and blurted part of it in the face of several demons/aliens that escaped, but Sydney is blameless about that.
Uh yeah they know, they just tried to keep it on the down-low, but Lapha just blurted it out to several aliens… NOT Sydney’s fault, Lapha was the one that tried to take Max against her will in New York. So she’s a known antagonist.
I just hope this dang-bat gets it, Humans are NOT to be toyed with! Supers even more so. BTW, Sydney does have a super power, only useful to her sadly, being able and willing to eat any amount of extra-super hot foods any time she wants! Much to the dismay and pain of those around her (or anyone that tries to use the bathroom after her…)
Sydney’s not responsible for the information getting out, she was unaware of the possession ability and she’s not responsible for Lapha’s access of her memories. If anything the criticism probably goes to Harem who hung around talking rather than taking Max down
And let’s not forget that the reason Lapha was on earth was to try and kidnap Max, supers are going to be targetted.
Considering Sydney was upfront that she had no idea about the source of the orbs and that the Nth tech is speculation from Dabbler and Cora, there’s no evidence that Sydney has any information on that she hasn’t revealed to ARC-SWAT.
Yes, she’s kept the glasses quiet, I don’t believe there’s any information she has on the nodes that she hasn’t discussed with the people appointed to look into it.
and really even if any of your claims were true yelling at her right after she’s been possessed etc would be a terrible way of trying ot handle things
That’s a way to say, “I haven’t been paying attention,” I guess.
There’s two folks who need reprimanding in this arc, and Sydney’s neither of them.
1: Daphne was WAY too slow off the draw. The moment a teammate shows signs of possession, she should be doing the VORRP-Poke to send them to sleepytime land. Instead, she let herself be distracted by the two arguing until, oops, now Lapha knows about the Orbs’ likely Nth-tech origins. Harem should be doing speed drills until she can do that maneuver in no more than a few seconds.
2: It’s painfully clear that the top brass has been lax on the subject of finding an effective counter to mind control, possession, etc. General Faulk should be getting a dressing down from the Joint Chiefs about the fact that this hasn’t been properly prioritized. Magic seems to be the most likely route. Gwen, Dabbler and Krona should be charged with coming up with something, whether it’s a worn piece of jewelry or a permanent enchantment or even a mandatory tattoo. And by ‘charged with’, I mean they spend 8-hour days, seven days a week, in a suitably equipped magical lab until something is ready for production.
2:
There’s a big assumption there that it’s easy to prevent mind control. possession etc
Dabbler has something that discourages possession from this particular race but we know nothing about what’s involved in creating it, whether it’s just for this race or has wider applications etc
Some things aren’t possible, or at least aren’t possible quickly
Why would max know about either the glasses or the nodes?
Honestly, I’m torn. Cat-slit yellow demon eyes? Yes! Normal yellow eyes? Yes! Both look equally great.
So, my typical course for migraines is to take a couple prescription strength excedrin, chug some NyQuil, and lie down in a dark room with a bag of ice on my eyes until I fall asleep. That usually does the trick.
Sydles gets all the sympathy and love, here.
jelly. i can’t have anything with caffeine in it because the headache will come back in the form of major caffeine withdrawal about a day later.
I usually put a cold, very wet washcloth over my eyes and the pain eventyally subsides from that.
first I have to Identify the headache. the worst is the activity headache- it gets worse if I try to sleep it off.
I get the ocular ones: Doesn’t particularly hurt, I “just” go blind for a while.
I was kinda hoping she would keep the eyes, I thought they were cool.
Eh. I was betting they were an overlay- like the visible segment of the spell-lifeform that was looking out using her eyes as peepholes.
But yeah, they were cool.
I want to know what will happen to Lapha and her lizardman partner now, honestly. She knows far too much to be let go, but given her sob story, I feel like she will get a somewhat satisfactory ending.
Perhaps Archon will find a way to employ her, taking advantage of her unique abilities as an AI race. There are certainly opportunities, if she can be trusted.
I’m hoping he busts her out and they escape. They’re my new favorite crime couple.
Frankly, from what we know about them, they seem over their heads at staging her breakout from Archon prison.
Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if lizard man and the other flaming eye girl whose body Lapha hijacked had left together, Lizard man and her seemed way too interested in that ‘rip off an oligarch without them even knowing they have been ripped off’ scheme she was talking about.
It is possible, but I expect that it shall be as difficult for Lapha to be given a more lenient treatment as it has been for Vehemence. I see no good reason why she should be given a better deal, and frankly I am not moved by her sob story the way Sydney was. She had a rough start, sure, but it was years or decades ago (hard to tell the age with aetholiths) and she made a career for herself of being an interstellar felon, kidnapper, and slaver ever since. She was ready to sell Max and/or Syd into slavery without a second thought, or keep Sydney a hostage under threat of mind-kill indefinitely if it kept her sorry ass out of prison. The only redeeming qualities of hers are her willingness to face death with dignity and her crime-couple romance with Garamm. She can rot in Archon Supermax/Gitmo with her sob story for all I care, and she better earn any privileges she might get.
Choices matter, yes. Also, choices don’t occur in a vacuum.
I would submit that Kevin is – as far as we can tell – more responsible for his outcomes than Lapha is for hers.
We’ll see how it goes. I’m still in favor of “reset to childhood and find her a good family.”
That’s still basically murder, it’s just personality/self/mental murder instead of physical murder. An execution is an execution even if it’s got bells on it to make it sound nice.
I mentioned this elsewhere, referring to B5. They call it “death of personality,” although it turns out to be a bit less permanent than they thought, as a suitably powerful telepath can bring them back, it seems.
That aside, Torabi and I went round on it a bit, asi was very adamant about the importance of retaining her most formative memory, in the interest of retaining her core identity. There’s a debate to be had.
Holding up the rare paragon as the minimum acceptable response to trauma and deprivation is… counterproductive, at the least. It ignores context, contemporaries, and intervening opportunities or examples, as well as surrounding cultural responses to what more fortunate and socially conditioned people regard as ethical or moral. Growing up deprived in an inner city community where one’s closest neighbors or role models revere gang members, these people will lean heavily towards gang life, especially given the amount of scorn or dismissal said communities tend to regard ‘civilians’ or law abiding, stable life citizens. Many of these underprivileged communities often see themselves as not counting AS citizens, that they will never have the privileges and rights that ‘actual citizens’ have, and thus often lean into acting outside of the laws that they are convinced will not protect them, only oppress them.
And from what we see of Lapha, she sure looks like she was stranded on the streets as just such a fringe minority, especially given how much suspicion ‘body jackers’ are clearly viewed with. If you can’t feel even a little ‘moved’ to compassion for what she suffered from– and I’m not saying without consequence, but justice needs to be contextual or we may as well live in a society run by computers– then I don’t know what to say. I just hope that you aren’t subjected suddenly to misfortunes because we’re all products of our environments and and environment that scorns or vilifies compassion does not discriminate just because you used to be one of the ‘in’ people.
This is one of those things that has _always_ bugged the shit out of me.
“So-and-So did X, so nobody else _can’t_ do it!”
And even more maddening, this argument almost always comes from the “the individual is sacred!” crowd. -_-‘
Like, every single individual person must always be treated as a unique and novel being (particular where debates about capitalism are concerned), right up until it’s inconvenient, at which point, “they’re all alike.” The sheer frigging hypocrisy of it is genuinely stomach-turning to me at this stage of life.
I would agree, but Lapha choose to have a life of crime, to use innocent people as a way to make money. In my book that alone is worth a death sentence! Life is what YOU make of it, not “Boo hoo, my parents are dead. I have a rough life, why shouldn’t I steal, kill, kidnap, what ever it takes to get ahead?” Because that isn’t a good person, and as always, sooner or later, you get caught or killed. Criminal life isn’t a life, it’s just more exciting is all. If someone craves that kind of excitement, join a military and leave the regular folk alone.
I grew up in the Gary, Indiana area during the 1970s, economy was shot, with the massive lay-offs the steel mills had done what few there were was taking up by the laid-off workers. I wound up taking a job as a cleaning guy in a “motel” in the down-town area, the only white guy in any direction. People were still uptight over the black panther movement and the post Vietnam situation. I seen plenty of people eating out the trash to survive, not to mention muggers, drug addicts, and so on. I have no sympathy for Lapha…
Well, for 1: I don’t really care what actually happens, or the morality of it, I’m just speculating, because it does present an interesting storytelling opportunity. It’s just a comic, death sentence, life sentence, or probationary job at Archon, I trust Dave B to make it interesting if he thinks it’s worth elaborating on.
2: If you know Invincible, they made a pretty interesting plot point of contracting evildoers to work for the good guys, like D.A. Sinclair and his reanimen. Maybe morally a bad person doesn’t deserve such an easy punishment, but maybe someone decides to let them off because the greater good is more important than the moral high ground? I’m not saying that SHOULD be the case, but it’s certainly a believable justification.
Employee of archon specialising in interrogations.
Oh damn, that’s actually super smart. Also, free mind wipes!! Lapha can steal the memories of those she hijacks!
I would find it funny/interesting is Lapha’s possesion altered Sydney’s body – like since she was possesed by an sentient AI, it could “fix” any problems with Sydneys body. (Like Sydney would now have 20/20 vison, and her chemical imbalance that she needs to medicate for her ADD would also be fixed).
I could picture Sydney making an offer of a deal for “body shop” repairs to keep Lapha both under control & working for Arc.
…… Or just make a deal for her to possess Deus to get his master plan…..
Given the apparently canonical crossover with Marion Harmon’s “Wearing the Cape” series that seemed to be somewhere later in the timeline, it doesn’t look like either is very likely. The Sydney in “Astra Gets Grrl Power” is the same near-sighted manic geek that we know and love.
Seeing as Syd seemed to be going on an ADHD fly while possessed it seems pretty unlikely
and letting Deus get access to Lapha’s memories might well come back to bit them…(not to mention that you’d be trusting Lapha with information Deus has, you can guarantee he’s got ideas for how to capture Max…)
Call me crazy, but I suspect the Big D already countermeasures in place for the possibility of possession/mental attacks, and that’s assuming that as a Super Intelligence – which has been implied but not yet confirmed – his suite of powers doesn’t come with a built counter.
I would be far more concerned about him getting access to whatever is in her store of memories.
I doubt Lapha knows anything of interest that Deus doesn’t already. Including anything she copied from Sydney. The one thing we were shown that he didn’t know was that he and Sydney were on Fracture Station at the same time, but I think it quite likely that he figured it out after Sydney told Neil DeGrasse Tyson about her trip.
I disagree.
Big D has implied he is a super intelligence, and Lapha’s career arc has likely provided her a wealth of data points that he would find extremely useful in confirming/denying certain things, and that in turn could expand and improve his existing plans.
Not a risk I’m willing to take.
so THIS is how my video game characters feel when i start tweaking the eyes
Congrats on your ocular gooification!
You now won’t get cataracts!
You may need new glasses though.
I suspect the eye change was cosmetic, forcing her iris’s to morph like that was the only draw-back. Hell you can BUY contacts to make your eyes look weird like that these days. Not prescription, just your basic cover-over. I seen zombie eyes, all-white eyes, cat/goat eyes, you name it. But since they are cosmetic, I’m sure they irritate like crazy.
I read or heard somewhere that the eyes don’t have any pain nerves in them. The place behind them. Yah lots but it’s not like you ever feel our eyeballs.
The sensation when I’ve gotten things in my eye begs to differ.
That sensation comes from the inner surface of your eyelid, not the eye itself.
So if you get pepper sprayed and don’t close your eyes you should be fine?
Not convinced.
(I once made a mistake and put a contact in straight from the deproteinising solution, the pain certainly seemed he happen before my eyes shut)
From https://www.brightfocus.org/macular/article/common-causes-eye-pain
“Foreign Body
The cornea, or the window into the eye, has the most number of sensory nerves per area of any part of the body. For this reason, when we get something in our eye such as dust, we immediately tear and shut our eyes to try to expel the object and prevent more dust from getting in. Drying of the cornea and sudden exposure to bright light can also activate the trigeminal nerve and cause eye pain.
Inflammation
Aside from the cornea, the uvea, which includes the iris and the layer of tissue under the retina, are the only parts of the eye that have sensory fibers. When these tissues are irritated such as by inflammation, we sense pain.”
Speaking of paperwork. Sidny is going to be annoyed to learn that she has to change all her computer passwords now that a third party is privy to everything that was in her headspace.
The vast majority of her passwords are already third party secured. By now she doesn’t even know them but they just work. Benefit of the one true computer nerd. He’s going to want to secure those glasses now that he’ll know about them…
I’m not remembering anything that suggests that anybody else (other than Dabbler) has discovered anything about her glasses
Thats also assuming the glasses do not have a better built in security system then anything he could provide
I would be frankly amazed if the glasses did not have a REALLY GOOD bio-metric security suite: iris and retina at the very least. In fact, they might not give Sydney full access until her eyes fully recover.
on of the solution for third party secure password (free and open source (OSI certified).) is Keypass for exemple.
It’s a database with a password generator you simply copy and paste…
https://keepass.info/
Being a software installed on your computer , you avoid the lastpass issue – passwords stored in corporate database –
LastPass suffered significant security incidents between 2011 and 2022. Notably, in late 2022, user data, billing information, and vaults (with some fields encrypted and others not) were breached, leading many security professionals to call for users to change all their passwords and switch to other password managers.
Why ya’ll keep assuming the glasses are now “out?”
I’d think her hyper-advanced glasses can adjust their own prescription.
This comments section sometimes seems to run on assumptions. I don’t get it, either. I mean, suspicions and speculations are all good fun, but sometimes one will get picked up and run with by a significant portion of folks here, and is sort of simply assumed to be canon.
The whole human race runs on assumptions! People latch onto ideas not because they’re well-supported by evidence, but because they find them emotionally appealing. It’s a combination of the is/ought and narrative fallacies.
Off topic to the comment, but in response to the commentary: I always thought the Goa’uld eye-glow thing was a surface effect on the whites of the eyes. Like, the reason the irises and pupils don’t glow is exactly to prevent the eyes from being blinded.
Just like blue eyes of the Fremen
…and the award for the greatest number of fonts used to print a single utterance goes to…
I think it’s time for Sydney to have advanced eye surgery. She can get non-prescriptive glasses to keep her style.
It might not be practical for her, not everybody is suited for lasic surgery, I was only able to get it with my -8.0 & -6.5 diopter vision because I had unusually thick corneas (now I’m pretty confident that implants like Dabbler’s false eye would be possible but whether she can get the technology is another question)
I’ve had sap from a pencil cactus in my eyes. Worst. Pain. Ever. I’ve had mace, and pepper spray, dust and other shit in my eyes…but that sap? Burned so bad I was shrieking in pain. They had to use a weird large contact lense with a tube attached, to flush out my eyes and the pain stopped immediately when the gummy mess was flushed away. So I can sympathize a bit with Sydney here. All the headaches.
Mace, Pepper Spray, CS gas… All wonderful things… I remember them having to drag me out of the chamber during boot camp, first time in years that my sinuses were clear!
I’m going to assume the kaleidoscopic effect was like the opening credits for Disney’s Wonderful World of Color during the 1960s.
So Syd has kissed a girl twice now, and didn’t like it either time.
Of course both times she wasn’t really given a choice about it, and nobody likes that.
Such a shame.
I think, for once, there’s not a Visine for that.
There’s a big assumption there that it’s easy to prevent mind control. possession etc
Dabbler has something that discourages possession from this particular race but we know nothing about what’s involved in creating it, whether it’s just for this race or has wider applications etc
Some things aren’t possible, or at least aren’t possible quickly
That was meant to be a response to somebody further up the page, so it probably makes no sense out of context