Grrl Power #702 – Meet and groom
One of Sydney’s unofficial powers is the ability to turn on a dime, emotionally speaking. She has big reactions and big swings. One might almost describe her as manic. Not manic depressive. Just manic. Not sure if that’s a thing, but it’s Syndey’s thing.
I read something like 130 novels last year, (during my morning walks, not while I was supposed to be working on the comic or anything) including rereads of a few series. All of them were pulp sci-fi or fantasy, a lot of them happened to have haremy themes in them. I don’t know why I lean that way when I’m looking for new books to read, I think most novels with harems kind of slam the characters together too quickly and there’s little emotional weight to the relationships, but every genre has stand outs.
Anyway, that’s been on my mind a lot lately, so I thought I’d have fun with the reverse harem thing on Cora’s ship. I might have leaned into it a little hard, as I’ve never seen any sort of harem setup where the harem gets introduced along with, as Sydney puts it, their sexual resumes. Unless that harem story is just straight smut, then it’d probably be okay.
If reverse harem books interest you, the one I’ve read and can recommend is Dragon’s Gift by Jada Smith and May Sage. It’s a little more romancy than your typical pulp fantasy harem novel, but there’s a decent plot and good characters.
I updated the stale vote incentive with some old pictures I had of Cora, including the one I finally found of her Naga armor. It’s from 1992, so yeah, probably older than a lot of people reading the comic.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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Hmm, just had a thought, wouldn’t flexible bones cause problems with muscles like that? Instead of exerting force on something if he exerted himself, the associated bones would bend instead. A muscle cramp would bend him up like a pretzel.
squid and cuttlefish dont seem to have a problem
They, don’t have any bones.
I think it’s just a bit of hyperbole, she means that he is so flexible it *seems* like his bones are bending, not that they really bend.
IMO.
Maybe the level of flexibility in their bone material is governed by something like an electric current. So as they exert muscle force for strength they can control how much their bone will bend or resist.
When I first got some bearded dragons, I thought their fingers were broken. The pet store person (not where I got them) said that they’re fine- just they have way more bones in their claws than we do in ours. So it could be sixteen-jointed jenga/puzzle bones.
Given its an alien it could have/makes sense, to have a completely different evolutionary history. He may be evolved from a line that has rubber like bones, flexible yet sturdy; his musculature being around this and taking advantage of it.
If that where the case. He whould in all likelyhood have completely different Muscle Structure. But since his muscles are quite defined we can see that they are virtually identical to human muscles.
Nah, that’s just the hard light suit…
or conversely, point out every character you see with horns should have a vastly different skull and head and neck muscle structure to support those horns. Dabbler’s head is completely wrong for supporting four horns, as are 99% of every demon character you’ve ever seen in anything.
Also you need wings to fly, and even if you do, Angel from the X-men couldn’t fly under wing power as his back, chest, and abdominal muscles are completely human and would lack the capacity to use those wings on his back at all, especially as they are just floating over his shoulder blades.
My point, don’t think about it THAT hard, just let the flexible guy with bendy bones not look like strings of sausage packaging to anchor to such bones and be attractively muscular instead.
I agree! The fanciful and quite unrealistic representations of demons and such is so poor compared to the actual thing. These artists should be ashamed of themselves for being so far off the mark, right?
I do believe you missed the point. Also there are real horned mammals by the way, it’s not a new anatomical comparison. But again you missed the point, I was in no way shape or form complaiing about that, but pointing out it is part of suspension of disbelief to have human like bodies with inhuman features that if adjusted for anatomical accuracy wouldn’t look as good.
Probably comes as a shock for someone who mainly has made posts about real life applications of the law in the fictional Grrlpower universe, but I completely agree with Rhuen here :) Stuff about how powers actually work or how alien physiology works in the comic isn’t as explained because in real life, there are no superpowers or (proven) aliens with alien physiology to compare it to (as opposed to the law and how DaveB does try to keep certain things like political and legal ramifications mostly realistic), so might as well enjoy it as a reasonable suspension of disbelief. :)
Very often, DaveB does try to give at least a semi-hard fiction depiction of science, at least as it works within the Grrlpower universe. Sort of like Mass Effect does, even though in real life there is no ‘mass effect’ which makes a good deal of their technology possible.
Plus even if he was trying to be harder sci-fi, she could always just be exaggerating.
Pretty much if we’re going to argue about whether he can have flexible bones and hard muscles, you might as well argue about the Squidward’s sizes violating the square cube law (which is something another webcomic, Atomic Robo, makes fun of ALL THE TIME when Atomic Robo winds up fighting giant monsters right after explaining how monsters of that size should not be able to exist in nature, then complains ‘WHY DO WE EVEN HAVE A SQUARE CUBE LAW?!?!’
Because we want giant monsters and Godzillas and King Kongs and Squidwards. That’s why. :)
I think it’s just a bit of hyperbole, she means that he is so flexible it *seems* like his bones are bending, not that they really bend.
IMO.
So what are the odds that fuzzy makes it to earth without his fur 1) braided 2) beribboned 3) both
What hair accessories does Halo carry for emergencies?
The ship is probably stocked. Frix himself probably has all the hair care products he, and Sydney, might need.
Or they can fabricate it if they don’t have it already :).
I vote for 3), with some golden and pink knots at the end!
with him appearing downtrodden and the rest of the crew quite besmirk’d at disembarcation
“behold the Power of the Mighty Halo! (or you will not be allowed to choose the color of your ribbons)”
BTW… According to the voting incentive Cora’s last name is Zylstra!? Is she of Dutch ancestry? She doesn’t really look it, but we Dutch are a varied lot… :)
Repairing any sufficiently advanced machinery is indistinguishable from surgery?
+1
I’ve got a high Int, it’s just another skill. How hard could it be?
When Tig Notaro’s engineer character in Star Trek: Discovery (And really, STD? They should have seen the obvious jokes coming and come up with a different name for the series) was questioned about her ability to place a heart on life support she said something like “A living person is basically just a machine. And I read.”
“Frix’s species actually reproduce through spore generation and budding, but he’s such a good repair guy I keep him around anyway.”
Ohhhhh, the fan artists are going to have a field day with this one.
There is fan art of this comic? I got to check that out.
Yes there is fan art. I wonder if there will be a donated /art trade page here at some point too.
So i’m guessing a top of the line spaceship doesn’t need a low tech pipe wrench to fix anything mechanical, so what kind of meat do you suppose he was fixing with it?
I assumed it was a hard light depiction of whatever tool he was actually using. I did note that when he entered it was in the “flaccid” position. When approached by Sydney for brushies, it rose to the ready position.
Ah yes, the old ‘fear boner by proxie.’ Well spotted.
Don’t know how long it’ll stay up. Today’s Freefall transcript reads:
Florence, of course is a mutant Bowman’s Wolf and the ship’s Engineer.
Frix appears to be some sort of mutant goat/canine whatever, and the ship’s Engineer.
If Frix’s nose/taste buds are as sensitive as Flo’s, Frix my find himself spending half an hour trying to breathe water after sniffing grakz-breath.
I was tempted to mention Florence the Bowman’s Wolf from Freefall when people were talking about the scientific biological accuracy of flexible bones with hard muscle :). It’s conceivable creatures could evolve like that, or be genetically altered to be like that, just like Florence was genetically altered to walk upright and her skeletal and muscular structures are altered as well.
It just tickled me that today’s Freefall had so much applicability to this Grrl Power. Engineer’s with obvious furry roots and competence, spicy foods, space ships. Overall, every criticism of the comic for things like “The horns are impossible,”… I mean, puh-lease! The complainers are assuming the horns have a particular weight and density, where they might in fact be bird-boned or hollow shells. Even assuming solid bone structures, they know nothing of the internal musculature or bone structure.
Even more, why are they insisting on accuracy of a webcomic, a science fiction and fantasy webcomic? Hard Light Projection? Teleportation? Aetherium Causeways? Star Gates? Man portable rail guns? Magic? Vampires? Werewolves? All that and they question the physiology of horns?!?
the only mention of impossible horns I saw was my sarcasm, so just to point this out. It is important to read an entire thing first. I was responding to someone saying the lizard guy shouldn’t have bendy bones and hard human like muscles, by first being sarcastic using the typical horns, and Angel wings as typical examples; and then saying we shouldn’t be THAT picky on some things in superhuman and supernatural series. So let them have the horns and wings, and don’t think too hard on super flexible bones not working with typical human muscles. Just let it be so it can still look good.
You clearly know nothing about spaceships
Plumbing is still plumbing. Threaded pipe is too cost and space efficient to not use.
Teleportation/Replicator waste recyclers!
Plumbing is deceptively simple, and seldom requires more than a material upgrade. Heck we use the exact same shut off valve set up as the Ancient Greeks…and before them the Minoans.
Even when developed independently a lot of plumbing tech tends to gear to the same point and just sort of stop except when wanting something for aesthetics.
You know how some apps still use an icon shaped like a floppy disk to signify ‘save’?
The adaptable tool tightens, lossens, cuts and joins plus lots of other things as needed.
It uses a 3D icon of a wrench to signify that it is a ‘tool’ when not in use.
If you don’t like how you look might I suggest working out.
Checked your vote incentive.
If she’s making her own tech, I can’t help but think her reason should be at least a thirty.
And dude, putting her at the fighting chops of Punisher and Captain America? She’d best impress.
(The fact that I know this shit without looking it up shames me I think… Oh well.)
Love the comic, and thanks!
Kinda ironic that the only one who actually looks sexy is the only one who knows how to wear real clothes XD.Maybe the others would look alright if they werent trying so pathetically hard to be sexy n all-The hardlight bodypaint just makes them look wierd and uncanny valleyish.
I… would totally read that reverse harem. Or write it. Hahaha one of the books on my “to write” book is basically this exact setup except the captain is a crabby sasspot who can’t keep a crew around, and the sexy crew boys are three super hot androids that a salesperson sold her as a not-subtle joke about how badly she needs to get laid. XD
I do wish that everyone’s favorite Golden Stick in the Mud was here with Sydney right now for this very reason. Would Maxima fly off the handle at Cora for the Harem even though its her ship, crew, the fact that everything seems to be consensual, and the fact that they are Aliens? Would Maxima still voice her opinion, but begrudgingly respect Cora because Maxima is a Military Officer first and foremost? And I think a big missed opportunity would be Maxima being among a group of Aliens who would still find her attractive, but because they don’t know she an Earthling just see her as a typical, (which Maxima would be because she is not on Earth) Alien? Also, Cora would tease the hell out of Max because Dabbler probably told Cora about Max!
Sorry, I somehow double posted, that was supposed to be for the second part of the comment section.
I just noticed you have a Spanish version of Grrl Power linked in the sidebar! But shouldn’t it be “Las Chicas son Guerreras” (the girls are warriors) instead of “…Guerras” (…wars)?
along the lines of ‘harem’ fiction, there’s a webserial called Exhuman (exhumanstory.wordpress.com) that’s interesting. Great world building and the author likes to turn standard tropes on their head. I’d strongly recommend it.
Well, now we know what Sydney is into.
You don’t remember the werewolf, do you?
The real question is..
Can he blue steel?
A mechanic that can only turn left wouldn’t be very good.
Of course he can blue steel! Work it!
230 novels? That’s almost enough to compete with James Nicoll, who reviews more books a year than most SF magazines.
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/ To read said reviews, also to commission one of something you would like to see reviewed, (N.B. he won’t accept commissions from authors/editors/publishers to review their own work).
I need to quit playing Metal Gear Solid games. I keep seeing an exclamation point over his head in the final panel.
!
Just wondering; what is the usual update time?
That depends on your Time Zone obvoiusly, but Dave Barrack lives in teh Central US Time Zone & the updates come up at 5 AM, Monday & Thursday mornings.
Yeah, I’m showing up here a bit early today too…
So, 11am, 3 minutes ago? (Standard time)
6am Eastern in the USA.
It’s summer where you are?
It’s %$#@!! cold here Hudson Valley/NY/USA.
I like it when Sydney shows her ADD since I have ADD as well.
Better yet is when it’s for things that I might do to.
Sydney’s is on a whole nother level though.
I don’t see why manic can’t be a thing. If they can diagnose depressive, they won’t hesitate to do that. If someone is clearly manic, they wait for the other shoe to drop. Manic/depressives are just so much more fashionable with today’s shrinks.
Ok, Frix just win the 2 place, he is sure pretty, but way too much adorable to be the first one on my list… Did i already said that this comic is already really one of my favorites things I ever read? the first place is not that far thoug…
After what happened with Gregor at the Twilight Council, and Pixel, when she got into her were-jaguar form, i am not really surprised by Sydney’s reaction to the space-wolfman.
His fur works the same way anime clothing does…