Grrl Power #1294 – Sheet Fighter: Sapphic Warrior Turbo Plus Alpha
Dabbler: Question my ability to attach things to other things, do you? Engarde! (produces giant, floppy dildo from hammerspace)
Cora: Indeed I do, scurrilous trollop! Prêt! (produces fleshlight from hammerspace)
Dabbler: Allez! (sword fencing noises, but instead of that, it’s wet, squelching sounds)
Sydney: I feel like I’m watching the world’s worst sex ed film.
Is it just me, or does “makeup sex” evoke the image of a lipstick plunging into a jar of face cream and someone going “Ooh, I’m so moisturizing!”
I bet it does now. :)
So we’re finally going to see Peggy’s “origin story” as such. It’ll have a little less levity than most pages, but I won’t dwell on that stuff unnecessarily. Hopefully I don’t screw up the military stuff too much. I’ve got a guy to run things by, but, you know, it’s always the things you don’t think to ask, like someone walking around with their BDU sleeves rolled up, or do snipers transport their rifles in a hard case to keep the sights from getting knocked around? The answer to that one is “Peggy does,” because I’ve already drawn that page and I’m not changing it. The fact is I think they probably don’t, because if you google “military rifle case” you get a bunch of pictures of rifles cases that look tacti-cool, but aren’t, as far as I can tell, anything that’s ever been used by any actual army. “actual military rifle case, like for real, not just crap painted olive green with stenciled lettering on it” doesn’t produce better results.
Aether’s Revival Book 9 is out.
As is Mark of the Fool 8.
The new vote incentive is up!
Dabbler went somewhere tropical, in a very small bikini. As you might guess, it doesn’t stay on for long, which of course, you can see over at Patreon. Also she has an incident with “lotion,” and there’s a bonus comic page as well.
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.
Garamm was right before, when intuiting why Peggy was reluctant to accept a new limb… but I feel he’s missed the mark this time. Scars are often treated as something to brag about – every scar comes with a story. The same thing goes for crippling injuries… even if you lost a limb, if you lost it while doing something badass, you have bragging rights about it. Usually while people pay for your drinks.
I’ve been having a lot of phone conversations with an elderly friend who is recovering from a bit of surgery (he’s bored). He’s not too happy about having to have his hip bones replaced… but he has no problems at all with talking about the time he was shot in the neck, or the other injuries he’s received during the course of a long and adventurous life.
I feel that really depends on the type of scar and how one got it.
“I wrestled an alligator to save a baby.” Awesome and something to brag about.
“Surgery for some random ailment / infection.” Mundane and not much to say about it.
“Got pulled out of a burning building in which several other people died.” Traumatic and not something that one would want to live through again in retelling.
Peggy’s loss of her leg is likely closer to the latter than the first.
“Surgery for some random ailment / infection”
Eh, sometimes that can be bragging rights worthy too. “This is where they cut the last of the cancer out….” is a worthy scar. Something that serves as proof that you survived the medical condition and came out the other side relatively intact….
Guess it would come down to individual perspective though….
YouTube keeps suggesting videos for me from a woman who lost a lower leg when bone cancer got established in her ankle. They cut off her leg about midway between knee and ankle to:
1) make sure they got all of the misbehaving bone cells away from her body.
2) give enough length below the knee to give a secure connection to the socket for her artificial feet.
I have learned a bunch about this condition from this woman.
Speaking of “if you can talk about it”
Have the scar from the cancer surgery, but not showing the scar nor what the cancer was (other than, it was one of the rare ones, like, less than one in 3 million {or was it 30 million?})
I expect not many people would show in public the scar from cancer surgery if it was somewhere in the pelvic region (testicular, prostate, ovarian, cervical, etc.). I guess the scars from breast cancer surgery (partial or full mastectomy) would also not be one to be showing off that often.
I had an infection several years ago and lost a few feet of intestines and most of my weight. I tell people surgery like that takes guts.
How do they stomach it?
Both of you stop that right now! Bad! Ninja hit squad bad!
“Arr. It be the first day after I got me Hook.”
:)
So yeah, Sydney’s not the only AuDHDer who likes to drop straight to the punchline.
Also, THANK YOU SIR! I can’t believe someone fed me a pirate joke straight line on Sept 19th!!!
*giggling* I wrestled a baby to save an alligator I know that’s not what you said, but that’s the mental image my brain decided that what you said deserved.
In Punderworld, Hades was talking about one guy who spent 2 decades refusing to admit how he died… Then his best friend shows up in the underworld and is like “oh yeah, this guy? He threw himself into a volcano to prove he was immortal!”
For the most part it is the event that caused it rather than the scar that was traumatic. The biggest exception to this is probably those scars that change appearance or function. I had a co-worker who was badly burned in a housefire. Being a kid with burn scars on her arms and upper body was pretty traumatic. The flipside is another co-worker who lost a leg below the knee. He rocked along as though it was just an inconvenience but nothing to really slow him down. Everybody pretty much has their own response. I’ve lived long enough to have acquired a few surgery scars but gall bladder operations don’t make for great conversation. The interesting scars came from “This is where I did the stupid thing and this is where I did the other stupid thing.”
You can only brag about it, if you can talk about it
Yep, that’s pretty much my reaction to the enormous exit wound on my lower leg, from when I was killed in 2001. It wasn’t only traumatic for me but also for the EMTs that scraped me off the street to put what was left into a body bag only for the “body” to complain about the rough treatment.
Didn’t mean if you lived to talk about, but that is important a well
Honestly, it’s a safe bet even when you aren’t an alien. It’s easier to go “Scars are traumatic” and have the other person go “I’ve gotten used to this one” than to go “Scars aren’t an issue” and watch the person’s face sink into silent negativity because they have not yet gotten used to this one.
I very, very much doubt that a sex tape of Cora and Xuriel having a bout of epic catfight and makeup sex could ever come in the same neighborhood of bad porn, unless you are really, really not in the related kinks (lesbian, catfight/rough, alien, superhero, etc.).
The “I accidentally breached the Masquerade and got recruited in the secret organization” origin trope. Worked for many characters.
Sydney got to go to some secret meetings because the yellow orb allows her to breach the Veil.
How does Frix have tattoos through his fur?
His fur is probably short enough there that a permanent change to the hair follicle shows up as a tattoo would on skin.
So an advanced “space tattoo” that, instead of changing the color of the skin, changes the color of the hair growing out of the skin. I can go with that.
We have mixed info on Frix’s hair length, though. It’s short enough to see his ab definition, but long enough for Sydney to bury her face in it when wet. So… whatever length is convenient at the time.
Some Erf Dogs have no hair on their legs (and not talking about poodles who have been butchered by the French to look ‘snooty’)
I have heard that poodles were originally bred as retrievers and that the traditional “poodle cut” was to reduce drag in the water and still leave fur around the joints for warmth in the water.
There are virtually no mammals that have universal hair length across their bodies. All of them have areas that are shorter and areas that are longer
If you allow me to nitpick, there is a good number of mammals that have no hair. E.g. many aquatic mammals. That is equal length ( ==0 ) all over the body.
What you said is true, but I was referring to variable hair length in the same spot on his abdomen. Hair short enough to see visible abdominal muscle definition (Math fight, a few weeks ago) and Sydney burying her face in his wet fur (a few months ago?).
Freeze branding results in a patch of skin with a ‘frostbite scar’ where the hair grows in white.
Ranchers are preferring it in lots of places now because it’s less pain, less scarring, less likely to get infected, etc. But it’s a little weird the first time you realize that you’re looking at white hair growing in on a steer’s flank in the shape of the brand.
Cutie Marks!
Given the tech we’ve seen, it could also be holographic.
I’ve had a long, adventurous life involving motorcycles, rugby, mining and drilling rigs. Along the way I’ve smashed one hand quite badly and it’s noticeably deformed. I get bragging rights on that… sometimes I even tell the same story twice…
Try searching for “government issue rife case”.
*”Rifle”. (jeez)
I got one of those when I was a soldier for the Royal Canadian Army. Mine came with a rifle in it. I had to sign it out and give it back when I was done with it.
“Excuse me sir, it appears this case just has a pile of sandwiches in it, and I’m not signing for those”
‘What kind?”
…”Submarine”
The fewer people in your audience understand a reference, the more people will learn from it, so yes, it is more educational that way. But that’s only true if you explain the reference or your “students’ research it themselves, otherwise no one’s learned anything from the process – other than possibly that the “teacher” is a confusing person to communicate with or that the students are unwilling to decode one’s cryptic utterances.
None of which implies anything about whether teaching a reference is actually useful education, or simply a waste of everyone’s time.
Though the author blurb below the comic somewhat covers it I’m surprised that Dabbler’s first comment didn’t lead into an innuendo about a strap on.
Floaty-fire head would know that reference, though, as she has been blessed (cursed) with Halo’s memories.
She’s the half that does understand it, Peggy is in the half that doesn’t :P
don’t forget Garam and the men of Cora’s crew are all at the table, too.
meanwhile I’m someone old enough to understand both of the references made lol
Yeah, now I understand how Captain America felt when someone mentioned flying monkeys.
I am probably old enough, but not American and a large span of my childhood I had no TV.
Which means I had a lot of time to delve into old literature. Which means I get a lot of references “wrong”. For example the first reference I have for two people fighting, then suddenly one of them proclaiming “I am your father” is from the song of Hildebrand (Hildebrandslied) of about 800 AD.
There are probably older examples.
I can connect Anything to ANYTHING I AM DABBLER!!! lol
“Yes, but can you remove it safely afterwards if there’s a mistake?”
Dabbler is quite proficient in the safe removal of limbs.
Whose safety is guaranteed is entirely up for debate, but it certainly includes Dabbler, not necessarily the one whose limb is removed.
On the other hand, Dabbler did replace her own eye for a cybernetic version after she lost it in a swordfight (referenced to when Achilles took a powered up energyblade to the eyeball to block it)
I haven’t been able to look up the strip where she talks about it, but I doubt she actually replaced her own eye.
Think of the logistics involved.
You’ve just been injured in a fairly specific way, namely your eye has been made permanently non-functional without your head being removed.
Yet you’re still functional enough to perform eye surgery, which at least on Earth is one of the trickier forms of surgery. The optic nerve (at least in humans) is classified as a part of the brain rather than a nerve (not too sure of the difference, but I read it somewhere).
And to top it off, you’re doing on *yourself*, which at the very least involves one or more good mirrors. Not to mention a very specific form of anesthesia which dulls the pain enough to be functional, while not affecting your ability for fine manipulation.
No, I think someone else (Frix?) did the actual replacement work. She probably designed and built the eye though, possibly at first as a failsafe or a thought experiment, then later rebuilds as improvements occur to her.
Self-surgery seems to me like being your own lawyer. You’re too closely involved to do a good job, so you only do it if you can’t find a competent alternative.
Party on!
Excellent!
is there a fight for it? I’m feeling a bit beasty.
We’re not worthy!
A couple of good book(Kindle) series recommendations.
‘have to say this Aether’s was a bit slow and it also pointed out that plot progression is measured in decades at this stage of the series.
Whereas Mark of the Fool is continuously engaging and progressing on a coherent quest line and character growth.
People currently at the table include: Sydney, Peggy, Lapha, Frix, Garamm, Altus, and Sylv. Dabbler has not yet joined the table, and Cora has left the table to fight with Dabbler, so neither should be counted.
Obviously Sydney understands the reference. Lapha ultimately understands any reference Sydney does. Peggy clearly understands the reference. Frix has probably spent enough time around Sydney to at least half-understand the reference. 3.5 is exactly half of 7, not less than half, so Sydney’s in the clear.
Apparently Lapha has Sydney’s memories but they don’t seem to be integrated as such.
The analogy I think of is like carrying around a dictionary. Someone uses a word you don’t know, you can open the dictionary and look it up.
Except this being memory, it’s also associational. So it would be occasionally like someone grabs the dictionary and recites the definition for you.
Sydney got the memories of Lapha’s intimate relationship with Garamm (in the extremely clear and detailed recollection that she could use as a marker for “this is a Lapha memory”) just by talking about it.
I suspect Lapha would be better at handling this, both due to her species design (I’m assuming their origin is a wizardly creation like succubi) and more experience.
Even if she’s never possessed anyone other than Garamm, she probably has some experience running a computer system, which for aetholiths appears to be a “full body workout”.
I
“Dabbler: Question my ability to attach things to other things, do you? Engarde! (produces giant, floppy dildo from hammerspace)”
En garde is two words it means “on gard ”
Prêt means “ready”
Cora: ”Challenge accepted.”
Cora morphs her arms into several dildos of the same size as Dabblers.
I wonder how well Cora is proficient in controlling a larger than usual (more than 4) and more flexible than usual limbs.
She did do pretty well with a lamia-like bottom half and a tank thread, so it could be quite a lot of all hands full and more for Dabbler.
Vote incentive idea, Cora as a tentacle monster tickling and otherwise keeping Dabbler occupied?
Well if the extra limbs are partially controlled by AI maybe? Cora could give them a command like for example ”grab Dabbler by the horns” and then it goes automatic.
Apparently this is sort of what an octopus is like. There’s brain tissue in each limb that is semi-independent.
I approve of this suggestion!
Well, guess that answers my question. It was the aspersions.
Snipers probably would use a carrycase (either hard case or soft bag) to protect their death-spitter while in transit, but once ‘onsite’ they would ditch the case in the transport
Haven’t seen too many modern movies with snipers (can only really think of that movie with Wahlberg that was turned into a TV show, and “Clear And Present Danger”), but have a feeling they did have cases for when they weren’t ‘on the job’
I would think that even on mission they would have it in some kind of cloth /ghillie bag basically up until they’re ready to set up and start looking for a target. It would help protect a precision instrument from moisture and dust, make sure that any smooth parts don’t accidentally reflect a bit of light (matte paint notwithstanding), provide (a little bit of) padding against bumps (especially if said bump would make noise), and depending on the design of the bag, maybe even make the rifle less likely to hook on foliage or whatever.
and the only real downside I could see is that it would take an extra 30 seconds or a minute to get it out of the bag.
That makes sense, and they would have a sidearm if they get caught ‘hotfooted’
They have a spotter for that and often carry a cqb weapon themselves, just in case things go south.
A good well padded softcase is much more useful than a hardcase that’s more awkward to handle and takes up more unsquishable space.
Not always have a spotter, and sometimes the spotter gets spotted first
The first question that occurs to me is since Maxima got her powers sometime in high school, how’d the government know they should classify her before/when she enlisted?
They did not. It happened retroactively. Once the government acknowledged Maxima’s existence and recruited her, it moved to suppress evidence of her nature from becoming public knowledge. E.g. bribing/intimidating/talking relatives, friends, neighbors, doctors, etc. into silence, getting them to sign ironclad NDAs that land you into maximum-security prison for a long time if violated, seizing or destroying physical evidence, etc.
Assuming Max’s first uses of superpowers did not immediately catch the media’s attention in a major way, but they did with the likes of FBI, CIA, DoD, etc. it is feasible and believable. E.g. if only relatives and neighbors knew about that time she accidentally blasted down a wall, only the doctors and nurses that examined her knew about her turning golden, etc. Then a lot of people in suits and mirrorshades swarmed down and took control of the situation.
What I am curious about (not knowing how that kind of NDAs would work in such a situation), is once existence of supers and Maxima’s status as America’s top super became public knowledge, witnesses of her early exploits would be free to tell their story or not. I bet “I went to high school with teen Maxima” tell-alls would fetch a pretty penny. Public curiosity about every gossip-worthy detail of Archon members’ background would be huge and worth a fortune.
@DaveB would need to confirm, but I’m pretty sure most of what you just said would have been rendered unnecessary due to supers being covered by The Veil prior to the press conference*. Granted, if her family was anywhere near a military base, that accidental particle beam blast from when her little brother startled her awake** would have been investigated quickly (and likely somehow written off as a gas leak), but either way, The Veil would have conveniently made people in her hometown disinclined to talk about how she was gold, much less anything else. It’s very likely that any cover up would have needed to be done once she was actually in the military, and the people in her hometown were never contacted. Also, I’m guessing it was likely she was getting attempts to recruit her shortly after said particle beam incident.
That being said, I’m seriously interested in Max’ first few weeks/months/years of being in the military; I’m assuming she got called ‘clown hair’ a lot, given the military’s normal standard of no dye jobs, and that Archon is a definite outlier (you can have dyed hair in the US Armed Forces, but only if you have superpowers type of deal). Granted that this assumption about abnormal hair colors is based on Peggy having brown hair in flashbacks***, instead of her current pink.
*https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-459-throw-pas/
**https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-122-if-only-all-behavioral-therapy-was-this-easy/
***https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-150-not-sure-where-max-stencils-her-kill-marks/
Uh, I was oblivious that the Veil covered supers too before the press conference. Although it had been kinda failing in that regard before that, since rumors about their existence were spreading and people were acknowledging Max’s oddity in the build-up to that bank event and wondering if she was a super. You have a point, although given the Veil’s unreliability at the time I wonder if some mundane cover up was still necessary.
I assume standard military discipline got relaxed to Archon standards very quickly and quite effectively once they started recruiting supers. You really don’t want to antagonize them into rebellion or defecting to your rivals with petty and unnecessary regulations. Extending that modified standard to Muggle support personnel was much less critical and quite possibly occurred organization-wide when Archon was established and Peggy transferred to it.
Now that I think about it, the Veil seems to be similar to what happened in “Ash: A Secret History”, a series by Mary Gentle.
Minor spoilers:
They’re uncertain if a certain 14th century mercenary captain named Ash actually existed or not (mostly because a female mercenary captain is unusual to say the least).
They have artifacts (letters and such) but whether they are classified as fakes keep changing. Then they start digging up other artifacts that again are either good fakes or genuine depending on the day – and there are papers by historians about this that keep appearing and disappearing…
It’s kind of back and forth whether supers were covered by the Veil or not. The first few strips imply that supers were a known about, and not in a “Wow this is totally new” way, more like “They’re really rare but they exist”.
Joel’s reference in https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-10/ is not “This is completely unprecedented and will change everything”.
It’s more along the lines of “I saw Ryan Reynolds in the local coffee shop once.” You know he exists, you just don’t expect him to be in the your local shop getting a coffee. You hadn’t heard he was filming a movie in town.
Recruiting officer: Welcome to the United States Air Force. Are you here to enlist?
Maximillia: Well, I can fly already and I think I can help in trouble spots.
Recruiting officer: Excellent! A good pilot can often fast-track to an officer. Are you wearing gold makeup?
The Veil fixed most of this for them.
During the explanation about the Veil to Sydney in the Twilight counsel storyline by ingsol. Maxima is personally presented as an example where the Veil surpressed the awareness.
Also who do you call when your daughter suddenly turns gold and starts firing energy blasts from her fingers.
I would first call the doctor who would start contacting the people with the most knowledge on the subject(professors) who have all been compromised by the secret service to rapport military interesting developments before they report them to anyone else(bribing top academics in promising fields is common practice for intelligence agencies, both to keep other nations from accessing new information as getting it yourself).
She probably got called in sick when she became gold(this was canonically the first stage) and I think that within a week the secret service had someone at their door.
Sydney kept it all low key, because a. she didn’t seek professional help b. she recognized it in time and c. she has easy to hide powers.
Maxima doesn’t fit causes b and c.
Sorry Dave, but since Cora stood up, and Lapha has Sydney memory, 3 of the 5 at the table got the reference.
3/5 > 1/2 unless you’re part of the 5/4th of the world that can’t understand fractions.
Or you are 9/11th of the world who takes what someone says as literal, and not an exaggeration (specially when Sydney is involved)
And just because Peggy knows Sydney is making some weird reference doesn’t mean she knows which weird reference (half of what she says is some weird reference that only Sydney understands)
Uh… you forget the three male members of Cora’s crew?
Dabbler Hen has 4 wings!
Dave! Important! Google a “Drag Bag” for Marine snipers.
Yeah, she should do references that slightly over half the table understands! Some people from the other tables should come sit over there so her references are more understood!
…That’s a joke BTW.
A double SNL reference on this page? One from Wayne’s World and the other Chronic Liar Guy.
Tommy Flanagan, member- no, President. That’s it, that the ticket. President of Pathological Liars Anonymous.
For some reason all I can picture now is Dabbler pranking Cora by gluing limbs on to her various nubs. And not high tech active limbs, not even good Earth protstetics. I mean more like maniquine limbs. And by glue I mean high-tec bonding agent, that even when you deactivate it, still takes a week to release stuff from skin.
And it would be a prank as her actual hard light limbs could work around the fake ones.
I appreciate Sydney’s thousand yard stare.
Whereas you are probably not the only one I have never to my recollection thought of makeup sex as sex between cosmetics until you brought it up.
well, with some of the free to play games we can also have monetized cosmetic sex.
The snipers in my unit had store-bought soft cases they’d use for transit to and from a zone, but once we were out in the area of operations those cases got ditched pretty quickly.
Chickens look like an argument between a Poltryfied Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash…
*Poultryfied
My Little Poultry: Friendship Is Chicken
Friendship is Deep-fried :P
Just realised, Cora and Dabbles are palette-swaps: one is purple skinned with blue hair, the other is blue skinned with purple hair!
Which one is Roxy and which one is Poison? :P
Can someone explain the reference to me? I’m lost. Is it a Twilight zone thing? I feel dumb.
Yeah, not fully sure what specific flashback sequence Ms ADHD is referencing either, been far too many (and some of them are ripoff’s of other sequences)
The doodleydoot bit is a reference to “Wayne’s World”. Whenever they would flash to a montage or flashback Wayne and Garth would make that noise. Wayne and Garth would later on become early adopters of the YouTube talk show format.
Drag bags are what they are called though often not dragged behind you when crawling though you can. The only cool thing about being a sniper is the badge; you also get to tell people you are a sniper.
Oh, Peggy. Less than half the table, maybe, but certainly more than three-quarters of the commenters.
I have always held the opinion that the best jokes are the ones that go over the heads of half the audience. If everyone gets the joke, it was too obvious. If nobody gets it, it was too obscure. The sweet spot is right in the middle somewhere. I treat humor like a game of Dixit. Either you get it or you don’t. Hopefully you get a nice mix of both.