Grrl Power #153 – Xuriel Tantalis, friend to conspiracy theorists
Had I planned ahead better I would have introduced the clicker earlier as there’s once or twice Arianna probably would have already used it. I’m sure it will show up sporadically. I’m also sure Arianna often wishes it was a tazer.
Dabbler’s name can be correctly spelled as Xuriel or Zuriel, since her native language (Infernal) have some phonemes that English doesn’t. Really, the best way to spell it would be Zhuriel, or maybe even “Juriel” where the J sounds the same as the J in Jacques or Taj Mahal. It’s actually quite a common sound in English; “ge” in beige, the “s” in version or the “X” in luxurious. Heck, if you’re Sean Connery, you can’t make it through a day without using it. Speaking of English’s shortcomings, I think G should always be hard and J should always be soft, and while we’re at it, let’s just switch to Unifon. So I guess you could write her name Zuriel. If you guys have ever read some of the Dirty Pair comics that Adam Warren did, you can see examples of Unifon in use. When I do a “What was Dabbler doing before she joined Archon” flashback, I’m sure I’ll slip some in, so get your decoder rings ready. :)
I seem to have been upgraded from special guest to semi-regular on the The Trade Podcast. I make another appearance so listen in if that’s your bag.
And speaking of podcasts, I did one a while ago over at TGT, and they’re running a tournament where they pit guests against each other, so you can go over there and give that a listen and throw down a vote if you’re so inclined. Hopefully their page doesn’t take a dump. It was acting squirrelly Sunday night.
Hehe Gibbs. *fist pump* I’m not the only one that loves NCIS I see. ;p I’m going to go back to my corner now and continue nursing on my painkillers. Torn shoulder muscles suck!
haha gibbs so serious and funny
As someone who doesn’t know this reference, do you wanna help me out?
I did not know the buzzword for it either. But a “Gibbs slap” refers to a clip to the ear as given by the boss in the TV series NCIS. It appears in last week’s comic. If you do not recall that, have another look now, as there was some editing after posting, including the “Gibbs” as it now appears.
Although it is only after hitting the “submit comment” button that I realise that your comment is in the appropriate place and I could have just said “above” as opposed to “last week’s comic”. I have not yet gotten completely used to the RSS comments feed linking directly to the comment, rather than having to hunt through for it. A very handy feature normally.
From pretty much her first introduction, I’ve been of the opinion that Dabbler’s real form is way more attractive than the glamered one. I’m not sure why this is, though.
Not just a small difference, either. Dabbler is probably in my personal top three among the characters in this comic, while the glamer ends up bunched with the guys, i.e. not even on said personal ranking.
I have trouble putting my finger on why that is, but the glamer feels fake in an uncanny valley sort of way.
Out of curiosity, does anyone else feel the same way?
I prefer her natural form too. But I like multi-armed heroines for some reason. Although it does help that the ones I have come across are cute too.
That aside though, it may be down to the Mystique factor. If she is in any form other than her own, it is just a mask where she is pretending to be human. Whereas in her normal body she can be herself.
Mind you, aliens in particular need to do the disguise thing. Like Superman. If he did not find a way to empathise with humans by pretending to be one, he would get uncontrollable urges to say things like “take me to your leader!”
I’ve been following this comic for some weeks now and I really luv it. Great artwork and all around great story telling (though I’m looking forward to the -next- day, in-comic time, already).
To me, Dabbler’s glamour looks more predatory than her natural form, which is kinda wierdly cute in a four-armed, purple way but her glamour is damn sexy and attractive – as to be expected from one as her I guess.
I would much rather meet her all glamoured up than in her natural form (if only because I can well understand Sidney’s first reaction to her when she saw through the glamour). I’d still not know what to say and probably start drooling even without her seduction level all up and about but that beats trying to brain her with a chair, doesn’t it?
Welcome to the community. :-)
That’s probably the furry in you.
hey hey hey, don’t go cracking that kind of joke about furries, i’m a furry myself and I read this comic, however even if I were not a furry I would still find that second form damned attractive, and yeah there is a cute side about the purple form but then again it was made to be that way for a reason
Strange. You look more scaly than furry to me.
Some of us are both, furry up top, scaly below.
or in rare cases like me have both fursona and scalesona, I happen to have about 4 fursonas to myself, my scaley(dragon) and my 3 furs, shark, sergal, wolf
‘Sergal’? O_o
look it up on google
I agree, and for several reasons. First and foremost, the facial expressions. In her glamer form she almost exclusively wears this smug/arrogant expression, which I find quite repelling. In her normal form she feels more playful/crazy and less bitch/icequeen.
Second reason would be general apperance. While I find the miss-matched eyes mildly off-putting, I greatly prefer her hairstyle and cloth choice (or lack thereof)
X3 yeah, in her natural succubus form she looks like an overgrown puppy, in glamor form she looks like she means bisnuess and lots of it, like she would be ready to blow your brains out if you tried to get with her and not in the good way either
So what, exactly, does that clicker do? I’m assuming it messes with the sound or video in the cameras maybe? I dunno. Its prob blatantly obvious and my tired mind just cant figure it out.
Have a look at the comments on the previous page for suggestions, some of which are contradictory. Personally I now think that the clicker is just an audible device normally used for training dogs. Although it may also have a sonic and/or radio signal being sent in parallel.
Presumably Dabbler has been told, prior to the conference, that Arianna will signal her if she is saying things she should avoid. Amalgamating the other suggestions, and picking the ones that now seem most likely to me, give the following sequence, by panel number:
4. Arianna is clicking to tell Dabbler to “dial down” her sex-appeal.
5. Anvile hears the click and decides to back it up with a cuff round the ear. Dabbler complies.
7. Dabbler is revealing more than she should do. *
8. Arianna tells her with the clicker to stop. Which Dabbler ignores.
9. The sound-man is wondering if his equipment is broken because he is picking up the sound.
12. (final panel) Arianna gives up in disgust and throws the clicker, which Dabbler intercepts before it hits her.
* Although I think that she is actually smarter than them, in this instance, and realises that her policy is actually the better tactic, if she is to operate effectively in the long run. But rather than argue the case, she is resolving the issue her cheeky way.
Seems about right to me, makes the most sense. Could be high-pitched too, that could explain it being picked up by the audio equipment (had that happen to me lots at sound desks). Anvil could have just told her in her own way to tone down the sex appeal.
“Don’t turn them into mindless drones you idiot. We’ve got enough zombies on staff already because of you.”
Yeah, chances are it’s one of the dog training things that makes a high pitched whistle that humans can’t hear, but dabbler isn’t human. It does fit with the sound equipment getting weird though, because many speakers can’t play a sound at that pitch but if the electronics (filters in particular) aren’t perfect in the microphone, then it can pick it up and it usually comes back as a broadband static sort of thing (it won’t necessarily be white noise, but it would be weird).
actually that clicker is a metal plate inside a plastic case that when get’s pressed makes a shrill click-click noise, normally used to signal a dog to do a trick or something like that, it is up there in the range of nearly un-hearable noises but ehhh like I said it’s nothing other than a shrill clicking
she can summon weapons but no mention of other items – like the clicker.
clear indication of movement so her summoning is motion based and not teleporting small objects to her.
this has been confirmed as a throw…
Yea, graphically it could have either been taken as a throw or it being summoned. And the text seemed to support the latter. But DaveB has confirmed that it was thrown by Arianna. Not that it precludes Dabbler from telekinesing stuff. She may be able to do it. Just not this time.
Mind you, I should have remembered that her ‘summoning of weapons’ is actually described in her cast details.
I am thinking that in the last panel, Ariana just threw the clicker at Dabbler in frustration. Just, Dabbler is fast enough to catch it instead.
Gibbs-Slap YAY!! That is EPIC! I love that show!
Damn skippy, Gibbs is one of the greatest Supers of them all!
So, no one else believes that maybe Dabbles hadn’t realised she was cranking up the Glamour a little too much? Maybe she was running on auto and didn’t notice the effect it was having on the journo’s, Anvil’s Gibbs-slap hit the ‘off-switch’
It’s possible, but far more likely that she, being Dabbler, did it on purpose. And, as a bonus, she knew it would piss Ari off.
She’s a tantric psionoclast. Or, as Sydney put it, she has “pornosense.” She knew, detected the results, and probably found it quite delicious.
As noted in https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/641 for reference.
Depending on the range of her sex appeal and her detection capabilities that might have been quite some meal. Perhaps she will be earning ‘royalties’ every time the clip is re-run too.
I would imagine that she only senses/tastes what’s going on in her immediate area at any given time. Also, I would assume that her lust aura doesn’t imprint on the recording and get transmitted (i.e. the viewers in the studio or at home watching this live didn’t get hit with the lust aura). So if you mean “will she get to feed some more when this is played on the 11 o’clock news?” I doubt it.
First, I love your comic a *insert egregious hyperbole* amount. Very funny, and even more witty.
That said, instead of us all learning some other, inevitably inferior language, how about all you kiddies simply double your study time?. The rest of us did so, and earnt facility with the tongue that Swift, Jefferson, Twain, Austen, Dickens and thousands of others used.
What does it say about you, that previous generations could do something you find too hard?. For goodness sake, you even have machines to do your spelling for you. As the famous Australian Mark Read would say, “How about you all harden the fuck up?”.
Huh? Is that the language used in the comic, the general comments, or somewhere else that you object to? As far as I can tell, the comic and comments are contemporary English.
What language do you think that they should be?
I believe this is a rant about the use of poor grammar and poor spelling.
FYI, guys don’t cross their legs.
Some men do when they’re trying to hide arousal. Anyways, the leg crossing scene is at least one woman (on the right in the grey), if not both women.
Wouldn’t that just make you sit there with one leg obviously up in the air, supported by your penis?
Not generally. It depends how you dress, and how the folds of the trousers shift.
Depends on the length: it will either look like an enlarged sausage shoved down your pants (or balloon, like in the first “Police Academy” movie when Mahoney went to the tailor to get fitted for full-length trousers) or a mini tent pole action, and you don’t want to have either at a press conference (even if you happen to be the press)
In a group like this if you are going to out them, I think you would have to plan for eventual full disclosure.
Wait, which one is getting publically outed?
Poor Ari’s got a throbby on her forehead. :(
Never let the enemy know your battle plans.
The real truth is, “Dabbler’s glamour form”, is her *real* “battle form.
After all, the four-armed one is her natural form. Everyone knows battle form is a transformation. Ergo, glamour form = battle form.
Not really. Her glamour is used to blend in with the Mundanes when she’s *not* fighting. She is saying that the purple four-armed woman in Archon uniform in a fight is also her (makes sense to me: getting in a punch-up could disrupt her glamour so just don’t use one).
The point that Phil B is making is that Dabbler is correct to misdirect her opponents. Your statement is perfectly right. But that is not the way she has said it. For good reason. The government do not yet want to reveal that aliens and/or demons are walking the Earth. Probably a bit much for the public to cope with, on top of confirming that super heroes do exist. But, if she gets into a fight she does want to be able to use weapons in each hand or otherwise make use of her extra limbs. Be it in combat or just grabbing hostages or whatever.
So by stating it as a “battle form” then it allows her to use her natural form, with all its inherent advantages. Yet maintain the deception that her human form is her native one. And disguises the likelihood that she can adopt other guises on demand.
To simplify my last post: battle/Mask self = natural form, civilian id = glamour.
Oh no, Barack Obama is drooling!
Woot for NCIS reference!
Woke up this morning with an image in my head (dream remnant?), if I had money this might make a commissh. Anyway, here it is as best I can describe it.
Dabbler in a ready at ease stance (standing, feet about shoulder width apart), lower arms holding a matched pair of fair sized automatic hand guns (something like this: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MY_AUTOMAG_III.JPG) pointed up at sholder level (Lara Croft stance from Tomb Raider 2 is what comes to my mind), upper arms holding at rest a pair of recoiless rifles/cannons with auto loader clips (something like this: https://i17.tinypic.com/3zqir8g.jpg, carried something like this: https://www.anime-export.com/product/10562), a thick gold chain runs across her back and down to the autocannons, tieing them together (either from the grips or the very tail end of the guns). There was more to this image, was part of a multi-panel comic layout where Dabbler laid out more of what she could do but I’m already forgetting most of it (involved a stereo-tyipcal ninja/Dabbler-clone mob illusion encircling the press conference).
I just realized Dabbler is Connor MacLeod after a sex change. When will she say “It’s a kind of magic”?
I have always felt that Dabbler was following that line, with the vibe from Rutger Hauer’s character’s dying words, in Blade Runner:
It is actually a Highlander reference.
Wow, I must be long overdue for a re-watch of that! Thanks for the reminder.
Mmm, albeit, as it is the movie that got me hooked on cinema going, I only have that on VHS. Which would explain why I have not watched it in quite some time! Mind you, the good news is that the player was still working, the last time I plugged it in.
The TV though… that I have not tried in a couple of years. :-/
Ooh, ooh…
*pitter pattering of paws, fading in the direction of YouTube*
I fully accept NCIS as we see it on television exists in this universe and Gibbs was hired and paid a great deal to help in training Dabbler.
I also accept that Gibbs is a super immune to Dabbler’s succubae wiles. She simply isn’t ex-wife material.