Grrl Power #1061 – Late night intelligence and chill
Getting cornered by a succubus at a party is like “Do you have a moment to talk about our lord and savior, Orgasms?” They might not phrase it quite like that, but you can bet the conversation will eventually veer toward the topic of how every medically capable adult should maximize their orgasm potential.
In my head, the comic all plays out like a movie, and breaking it all down into a succinct and clearly illustrated comic page is still a skill I’m working on. I mostly blame my struggles on the amount I put on each page. Maybe one day I’ll just make every page a double page, but limit myself to 10 panels across both pages, as most comic pages average around 5 panels to each page? Anyway, I point this out because there’s a lot going on in panel 7 and I just wanted to break it down a little. Obviously Dabbler is proselytizing physical hedonism into Krona’s ear, but what’s hard to see is that Krona is using her hack panel to tweak her own personal arousal stats, and more importantly, setting up a sympathetic arousal link to Leon, so basically if one of them is in the mood, then they both are, in an attempt to limit “headaches” and “tiredness” and “but video games!” etc. Ideally I would have had a close up panel of her hack screen making her tweaks clearer.
Edit: To clarify, this link is one way for now. I should have made that clearer. If nothing else, she’s concerned about a feedback loop if it was two way. Not impossible to deal with, it’d just take more work that a few tweaks at a party while she’s lightly buzzed.
Mozambique/Galytn is seven hours ahead of the U.S. Central Standard timezone, so… I guess Sydney and Co left Archon HQ in the mid to late but not quite getting dark PM, and flew through the night, and arrived over there in the early AM? I’m not sure what time it is here now, but let’s say… 3 am? Honestly, 3 am doesn’t seem all that late to me. I don’t stay up that late very often these days but it’s still known to happen if I’ve got a good book or the rare engaging video game. I guess I think of 4 am as properly late. To me, 4 am is a late as it can be before it starts to get ‘early,’ if that makes sense.
Archon HQ is a 24 hour establishment, but they do turn off half the lights in most places after… I dunno. 12 am?
The June Vote Incentive is up! What’s that dripping down Sydney’s face? Uh… well, actually, clicking on the link won’t actually give it away necessarily, cause the thumbnail is from one of the, er, advanced pictures in the series, if you take my meaning. Yes, I mean there is a nude version of Sydney (and guest) over at the Patreon version.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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The text on krona’s spell says “Sympathetic mirroring: Arousal”
Nice Change of pace. And handy for a quicky in the office.
Got worked up by proximity to a succubus.
our other candidate for larval Nth getting her mack on (to use what is probably dated slang at this point LoL)
that said…did you change the upload time, its not even 3am where I am and usually the new comic isn’t up till after 6am.
Very larval at best, I guess. Remember Krona was in literal tear generating awe at the ‘level-up’ screen Sydney’s orbs generated at the Wars Factory Brawl.
Still, Krona was able to hack Sydney’s body and her orbs did nothing to prevent that from happening. So Krona.might have a somewhat rock/paper/scissors power to the orbs.
some times the comic seems to go up at 6am GMT not Central where DaveB is. So 5 hr earlier issue.
I’m not sure if I have seen that heart-with-a-triangle design before. I doubt it has any special meaning IRL, but I’d like to hear anyone else’s thoughts on it. Is it just a shorthand for using lust magic to spice up bedroom stuff? It is easy to compare the triangle and heart aspects to a glyph or part of a magic circle.
I was curious about the Pokeball… Maybe Holy Handgrenade? Meh.
gotta snatch’em balls
thats a ball gag, i believe
See I was thinking that was Marvin from Hitchhikers Guide and was trying to logic it out from there.
https://www.liquor.com/thmb/oU5ei9K6hku6cH9cVAnc9rP_6lA=/735×0/bottle-review_licor43_main_720x720-58910d7eb29e4378a6e65af6adf766ba.jpg
When you know they’re really saying alcohol isn’t the answer, but it’s close enough.
That’s a person wearing a ball gag or O ring gag
ball gags block access, O ring gag “allow acces”
Sorry if this is a repost, but its basicaly one of 2 fetishgags, one is. Ball gag, the other an o ring to keep your mouth open
Shame – i liked the idea of it being a pokeball in her current frame of mind – gotta catch them all!
Krona uses the MasterBall on the Nerd. It is Super-effective.
IIRC it’s the (a?) logo of the (former?) Finnish band HIM (also “His Infernal Majesty”)
They stole that from Power Puff Girls!
There’s a finnish band called HIM and yet they never sung the Mortal Kombat theme. That is a travesty of justice.
I can see why they wouldn’t have though, with the long winters there they spend most of their time… sub zero.
It’s just a combination of a pentagram and a heart.
It’s a “heartagram”. The band HIM used it as part of their logo once upon a nu-metal.
Well aside from it being the symbol for the band H.I.M. everything I can look up has zero sexual meaning to it. So I’m just gonna assume she likes heartagram’s because of the band.
They turn off the lights after 12pm? So… noon? Odd policy, but okay.
Also um… what is Varia attempting or… whatever that pose is about in the background of panel 4?
By then, there should be enough natural light coming in the windows that the lights are redundant. From my point of view, turn off the lights when the last person leaves the room. Corridors are lit all the time, but my reduce intensity during off-hours. A lot of places use motion detectors to determine when to turn the lights on and at what intensity.
Reasonable policy if you ask me. No need for artificial lights when there is plenty of sunlight just outside the window ;)
They could actually start a little earlier for even bigger savings.
Fairly sure she’s pointing out that Ari is, you know, right there!
Problem with motion detect lights, is, for anyone who is actually still working, have to get up and move around unless they like working in the dark
She looks like she’s going in for a hug… Maybe Ariana unlocks something she likes or she’s realised that she hasn’t tested Ari.
ooor maybe Leon is noticing that he is in that stargate episode where an attempt to take over central command was instigated by Hathor getting all the people there getting their personal Horny meters dialed up to Eleventy-seven
She’s gesturing with both arms, looking at Leon with pupils dilated (refracted? whatever one means the pupils are pin-points) with huge sweat-drop
Dave, your explanation for what Krona is doing there fills me with horror. By “tweak her own personal arousal stats” it sounds like you’re saying she’s making herself aroused more often (and possibly to a greater degree), and by “if one of them is in the mood, then they both are” it sounds like she’s magically roofieing her boyfriend to want to have sex whenever she does… which will apparently now be almost all the time without any consideration to circumstances or sanity?
No, I’m not sure I can explain how this is worse than Dabbler’s lust aura, but it definitely FEELS worse. Less interested in actual consent of the unknowing other party being manipulated, perhaps.
Yeah. This feels really rapey. Not comfortable with this at all.
Yeah, unless she talked to him about it BEFORE linkinng them, it is really repey. And if they did talk about it, it should be on panel. Or at the very least in his commentary.
Nah.
This isn’t drugs to her. She hacks reality so frequently and for such banal things, this is her equivalent to candlelight and wine.
People have the power of choice, one can be aroused and NOT have sex. Some might equate this to the state of being a teenager, or married.
‘ Some might equate this to the state of being a teenager, or married.’
A bit too on the nose there.
Yeah…this feels all kinds of wrong. Feeding into the whole “Men aren’t allowed to say no” thing…
I meant that she set that link up so that if he’s interested, then it will boost her interest. She’s aware of when it happens, as she set up the link, and it’s not two way as that could cause a feedback loop if she wasn’t careful, but I didn’t make that clear in my initial comments there. Also, she can turn it off whenever she wants, if she legit has a headache or a deadline or whatever.
She could make it two way, but she’d talk to him about it first. Also she’d have to figure out a way to limit feedback. But for right now Dabbler’s convinced her that being a “temporally appropriate amorous girlfriend” is a good thing and Krona’s like, you know what? That sounds alright.
So basically, when he’s in the mood, instead of her going “okay, hang on and let me go watch a video of Chris Hemsworth chopping wood or whatever gets my motor running” she gets a little ‘ping’ and watches a progress bar fill in on the side of her vision.
They haven’t discussed this yet, as evidenced by the “what’s gotten into you lately” question, but once they do, as a guy, Leon will probably be fully on board with this development – at least until he remembers that he works in a building with a ton of super attractive women and Harem still likes shoulder-boobing him and walking around in vacuum sealed yoga pants and now Leon’s worried that Krona’s going to be like “Seriously? My link has pinged 27 times in the last hour.” and Leon has to be real careful that it doesn’t devolve into a “am I not sexy enough for you” fight and the next time Krona comes over she learns that Leon has been wearing literal blinders like a horse so he doesn’t keep getting distracted whenever Harem has a discussion in the hallway outside his office and leans her yoga-pants clad butt against the glass and is ‘accidentally’ but also definitely giving him a pressed ham on purpose.
So that really does sound similar to what Leon suggested to Sydney and Krona back when he got shoes thrown at him. I guess Dabbler is a lot more convincing. :)
If arousal overrides agency, then free will doesn’t exist. After all, we are constantly awash in a torrent of neurotransmitters and other forms of internal and external stimulation. It would also mean that using a convincing argument or an attractive smile is the equivalent of mind control.
We really need a clear definition of agency before having this discussion.
From how DaveB just described it, it has nothing to do with overriding Leon’s agency. It’s apparently for Krona to make -herself- more aroused, so Krona is obviously going to be consenting, because she’s consenting to doing this to herself. It’s basically ‘changing your own mind with extra steps.’
If it was her doing this to Leon that would be a lot more like removing someone’s agency – especially if she did not ask for permission to do it first.
The sympathetic mirror link is uuuuh, potentially squicky. I wouldn’t like someone doing that to me without asking first. But for all I know they did talk about it a lot and she asked if she could do stuff like that – on the other hand this kind of “blanket consent in advance” is so far from vanilla it’s a wonder why Dabbler had to introduce the idea to Krona.
… Also, the “safeguards against [brain hacking]” Maxima discussed (when Sydney didn’t want to say she could teleport) might pop up. Leon is part of the intelligence team, that’s the kind of thing they should try to ward off. Anyone who’s made a dumb choice when horny can tell you, that’s a major liability XD
Yeah… two very good points here.
I’m glad I’m not the only one with this reaction
Considering Leon is asking what got into her, multiple times, I think it is safe to assume they *didn’t* talk about it a lot. He looks like he’s completely in the dark about the entire situation, and Krona is actively not answering when he asks. Which is deeply concerning. It is hard to establish what counts as violation of consent when one of the parties has the ability to manipulate reality itself, but I would argue that this is definitely in “magical roofies” territory.
I’m less worried about national security (although I’m pretty sure that is a major concern here) and more about the blatant disregard of body autonomy, to be honest.
Ah yes women in the mood don’t care if the guy has it too we’re known to flip the switch pretty quickly and with his size and hers I’m sure this is more comfortable for her anyway. As far as the security issue yeah now’s not a good time because I have a hunch an alarm will go off just as they are beginning marking the events that’s going on in Gaylan and Leon will get a chewing out etc… An old trope but still funny as hell LOL.
What’s interesting is that he’s essentially the one whosuggested it.
I had assumed she was hacking only herself personally. So that when he’s in the mood, so is she. Could be the other way around, but I’d likely assume the not rapey interpretation until author confirmation either way.
If it’s to change LEON’S arousal state to mirror hers, then it’s pretty … bad. I can’t seem o say the word that Teatime says because it won’t let me post. Like giving him a roofie or something. Anything which removes the other person’s ability to give consent has definite ethical and legal problems.
If it’s to change her own arousal state, it’s more like a sexual aid, since she’d be doing it to herself and making a willing choice to do it to herself. Sort of like what Leon had been mentioning at Sydney’s Welcome Back to Earth party when he had shoes and boots thrown at his head. Sort of like how Harem described drinking some shots to give herself ‘liquid courage.’
I suppose a third option would be if Leon agrees to it in advance, which again gives him the choice as well.
Sort of like a girlfriend asking a guy if he wants to pop a blue pill to get ‘in the mood.’ Otherwise it does feel like bypassing consent, which by definition feels very illegal.
Dave said above that she’s mirroring his arousal onto herself, not the other way around. Basically, if he’s in the mood then so is she, but she can turn it off if she needs to.
Wierd. I used that one because I saw it used elsewhere, and didn’t want to deal with censors. Good ol computers lol.
I’m never quite sure what will get me an Internal Service Error but it happens frequently over the past 3 or 4 months while it never happened before going back for years now. Might be something new with the posting program.
Pants Hacking
While I’m normally against researchers using p-hacking, in this case I could get behind it.
Or in front of it.
Or whatever works best for those involved. ;-)
Pants optional, but the goggles are still mandatory.
The goggles are ALWAYS mandatory!
“setting up a sympathetic arousal link to Leon”
That’s pretty rapey.
Krona’s face (in panel-7 )❗
Seductive cinnamon twist eating and what is Vari about to do to Ariana in panel 4? Ah the random events that transpire in Arc are mind boggling lol. I wouldn’t mind working there myself (OW hunney I’m joking!!) sigh… women….
She’s not about to do anything to Ari, she’s pointing (with both arms) to Ari to let Leon know before he does something not even he can remove from the security tapes
Ideas of “late” depend a great deal on circumstances. Right now anything after midnight is “late” because my lovely and talented and so very considerate upstairs neighbours get up loudly enough to wake me up, at, well, somewhere between six and seven, usually.
Apropos panel counts, I just pulled out some euro-comics, so the pages are A4. I’m seeing a fairly strict six same-sized panels in some, varying but about nine in others, and yet another seems to see 12 as a minimum. So, uhm, use whatever works for your style and intended page size, I guess.
Typo in the first panel, second balloon: “to chose to”, chose -> choose.
Or just take out the leading “to” and change it to “chose to”. Changes the tense to a past one from a future one, but it could work either way.
Setting up a sympathetic arousal link so if I am in the mood the other is forced into the mood.
That’s basically rape DaveB and don’t give the whole “oh its ok he agrees with it” because no, you are stating that Krona will overwrite his will to be ok with it.
Yeah, not reading this anymore if you seriously think this is anywhere near ok.
Aside from being rapey, wouldn’t such a link be incredibly unconvenient? Imagine Leon and Krona are both working in different locations. One of them gets horny, so now they both are. Normally, if you can’t act on it, arousal will disappear eventually. But in their case it’s impossible because the link will keep them horny until they BOTH act on it, and at the same tiem too! So their options in that case seem to be:
1. Keep working, continually aroused, which will have a serious impact on their concentration which could be dangerous in their line of work,
2. Call each other to do some co-ordinated masturbating (and just hope one of them won’t get turned on again within a while) or
3. Drop everything, travel to some convenient place for an impromptu make-out session.
Imagine that happens when they’re a continent apart and in life-or-death situations!
not necesseraly, harem has unwittingly established a precedent with this. when one of her gets horny, they all do but it doesn’t mean that the other hers are going to be unable to carry on what they were doing. at best, they’ll be distracted. kinda like working on a project and having to pee.
you can hold it and you are still working but you still know and feel like you have to pee until the need it satisfied or gone, one way or another.
people seem to forget sometimes that the brain often do many things at once and because you feel one thing doesn’t mean that it becomes an irresistible and that you lose impulse control.
Since we have had multiple “rapey” comments-
Krona only hacked herself and not Leon, which we know because Leon is noticing “what’s gotten into you lately”
Krona has turned willingly herself into a SUB for purposes of arousal. So she’s clueless that Leon, a healthy young male gets erections multiple times per day and flightful thoughts of lust are perfectly natural for a goal-oriented man in his prime. Now whenever they are nearby Krona automatically syncs and submits to these moments.
Submissives are both needy and willing to alter themselves to match their Dom. So unless you consider a SUB as rapey, then I see this as no different considering how many young people adopt that lifestyle.
Had Leon also been sympathy hacked, they would not be talking.
The commentary says “setting up a sympathetic arousal link to Leon, so basically if one of them is in the mood, then they both are”. If it was just in one direction, that would be “If he is in the mood, then she is”. It is specifically worded to convey that it goes in both directions. And if they didn’t talk about it beforehand, that is definitely rapey. And if they did talk about it, it would be important to show in the comic, or at least mention in the commentary.
Sympathy is a one way street.
A psychopath is incapable of feeling sympathy for you. However, if you found out that the person is a psychopath because when they were a kid, the neighbors were playing Lawn Darts and one of the darts came down into the kid’s skull, causing brain damage that lead to the psychopathy, you might feel sympathy for them… They feel no sympathy for you however, they’re a psychopath.
There might be two one way streets, each going in the opposite direction, but each is a one way street. So a sympathetic link could just mean it makes her aroused if he is.
That is at least not what’s written in the author’s notes section, or at least vague enough that it can be understood both ways.
It can at the very least be interpreted that the sympathetic link goes both ways.
At least in a healthy relationship, a sub can and will have boundaries and communicate these to their dom. Not that it’s relevant here, given that we have no indication that Leon is a dom, and neither do we know details on the settings Krona changed for herself.
Both the changes to herself and setting up the link, both without consulting him, at the very least speak to a lack of proper communication.
I’m not entirely sure why being hacked would prevent either of them from talking, btw. I would assume they both have enough situational awareness to know that being in the mood doesn’t always justify going at each other. Or at least they should have, this almost looks like Krona messed up somewhere and is not quite in control of her current level of urges.
I do not believe this is a logical conclusion. It could be true, but there’s really no evidence for it. And Leon repeating “no complaints” puts his arousal level being hacked in question. Krona is half naked and suggesting fucking at work. Leon is in a security position and also this is without question, unless DaveB has given up on any semblance to reality, an incredible violation of acceptable workplace behavior. He might be aroused, but constantly repeating “no complaints” instead of saying how much he’d love to but this would get him fired or prosecuted or both indicates that either he is a fucking idiot, and his character hasn’t been shown to be an idiot previously, or he is acting out of character because Krona has reality shifted his reaction to this situation into “You horny? Well then me horny also!”
How about Leon says something like: “You know what, I just worked all night long after a full day at work. I’m a civilian contractor, I only need to put in my 40 hours to honor the contract*. Let’s go to my place and fuck to our hearts content!”?
.
* Unless it specifies certain hours of coverage, in which case Leon shouldn’t be working all night long after a full day in the office…
Or, they’re essentially always on call, don’t work specific hours, and spend time on base while off-duty. They have a great deal of responsibility, but also a great deal of freedom. They operate under a very different standard of “acceptable workplace behavior”, which is likely influenced by the author’s views on sexuality and how the world should work.
If any of that was the case, people would always be asking Max what her problem is whenever she flips out over inappropriate workplace behavior, she wouldn’t have put Dabbler through a wall because of a tiny little motorboatingincident, a bunch of the girls wouldn’t have gotten PT for relentlessly teasing Math, Math wouldn’t have been assigned to watch porn to try to stop him from flipping his shit over the sight of an attractive woman, and Xochitl wouldn’t be trying to warn Leon that Ariana is “right there.”
So I’m gonna go waaaaaaaay out on a limb and say that what you wrote is valueless bullshit with not a single scrap of relevance to how ARCHON members or employees are supposed to operate.
The common element to almost all of your examples is Max, who the rest of the characters consider to be our of step with what is normal, acceptable behavior.
Except that Maxima is the boss, so what she considers appropriate workplace behavior is the right take if it is more conservative than everyone else.
If Maxima was on the other side of things you’d have a point, because a boss that says “Relax, that sexual harassment is just a joke!” is automatically wrong. But she isn’t on the other side, so your point is meritless.
That is a confusing double standard.
This is NOT the kind of action I was waiting for. Really, this is just like Bleach, a bunch of Fluff and a few panels that show the growth of the main person.
I like the Avatar reference (though Krona is no Huu. She may be a fan ;))
And of course part two of the quote is kind of a mood killer so she considerately left that out.
Did Dabbler just teleport herself back to Archon HQ?!?
Comedic flashback that’s all. Dabs talked it up when they were about to leave and it’s been eating at her til now, bad timing I’m sure lol
Check the banner, that’s from a couple weeks back (in-world time)
No, that panel’s a flashback.
Chill a bit.
1) This is a comic. We’re watching other people do things, not the author’s opinion on how things should be done. If you start assuming that all the characters do is something that the author thinks are okay to do, then why didn’t you draw that line at attacking and killing others?
2) She’s not overriding his will, she’s overriding his arousal, and vice versa. It’s an entirely different thing. May still be considered rape from some point of view, but she’s not controlling him. Are you saying that when one is aroused, one can’t think for themselves anymore? In that case, infiltration of several federal agencies would be pretty easy.
3) Right now, the only thing she’s hacking is pants, if I read the image inside her field correctly.
Come on, give characters some room to grow through bad decisions. Have you never read a good story before?
It’s overriding his will to BE aroused if he is not aware of what she’s planning in advance and agreeing to it, which is what I think people’s problem would be with it. A man going to a bar and slipping a woman a roofie to make her more compliant about sex.
If it’s hacking herself, on the other hand, this is not a problem. People hack their own minds all the time – it’s called ‘making a decision’ :) Or doing something to get themselves in the mood (mood music, setting of the room, or like Harem described – liquid courage).
Is it? She seems to be the only one acting aroused here. Are you sure she didn’t hack her own libido?
I’m not sure. I’m just describing both possibilities and how if she’s hacking herself, it’s fine. If she’s hacking someone else, it’s not good for a lot of reasons.
I think a lot of people are being coercive if “overriding your will to be aroused” counts. That has some troubling implications for women’s freedoms if taken to is conclusion. A lot of girls told not to distract the boys, or at it’s most extreme being blamed for their own assaults.
I think there are levels of arousal where it essentially would be removing free will in practice, but he clearly isn’t experiencing that.
I agree that he hasnt been experiencing that yet, but some people could interpret what’s happening in the comic as her asking if he wants to experience whatever she’s feeling right now.
…Hang on. Isn’t Dabbler in Galytn with the rest of the team? We saw her a few pages ago, using that tenth-of-a-second shield gun thingy to block the missiles. So how is she suddenly back at base, whispering in Krona’s ear? Unless she isn’t physically there, and that’s supposed to represent her talking to Krona remotely via her headset?
That is a flashback.
It looks like a flashback/memory/earlier panel. It’s Sydney’s “Welcome Back” party.
It’s a flash back panel.
It is slightly obstructed by the glyph action, but if you look behind them you’ll see the birthday banner from the party a few pages ago. Dabbler probably was left alone with Krona a bit too long that evening.
My predictions for Sydney’s plan: Dave is showing Varia for a reason, I think. I think Sydney is aware that Varia has powers related to her orbs and will ask Harem to teleport her over such that she has additional orb handling hands.
Harem can’t *VORP* another living entity (not even a houseplant), and she’s still limited by her weight-allowance (she could barely *VORP* Peggy’s gun during the Restaurant Rumble)
Varia’s gestalt with Harem is she can also teleport, so it would work assuming range isn’t an issue.
Oh right, forgot that
Harem still needs to know where she is going
Honestly, I think you are overthinking it, it is arousal, not a roofie, it is not different from normal pheromones, or having a pretty girl without pants sitting on your lap, if he is not already aroused he is playing for the other team.
Or asexual.
Or just not into her.
Sheesh. Your comment comes across as “If he isn’t aroused by a girl that I think is pretty hot in his lap, then he’s gay.”
To be fair, it’s established that they’re dating so he probably thinks she’s hot as well. Not that I disagree with your criticism.
Bad timing for this to happen the very instant that the deployed team is going into combat.
I’m not sure how useful Leon is going to be for the next few minutes.
I’m wondering if Krona’s tweeking might bleed over to Sydney via Leon?
With Dabbler stirring the pot, and already influencing Sydney to a certain extent, I wonder how long before she wakes up in bed with Krona and frantically tries to replay her memories of the night before, as in “Did I?” “Did She!” “Did We!!!”
Just as likely she wakes up between the two looks at Leon and smiles then she turns to get up to see Krona’s sleeping face and has a total panic attack while grabbing the teleport orb lol!
Yep, I would so abuse Krona’s power if I had that ability. Ever read the Magic 2.0 series by Scott Meyer? Get a lot of ideas along those lines. “Reality is a program, and humans are sub-processes. When we realized that –Spoilers–
She gonna get Leon fired!
But I would be sorely tempted too…
My roommate and I read this comic religiously… Last night, I said to her “you know what’s going to happen tomorrow with Grrl Power right?”
“What?”
“DaveB isn’t going to post a page showing us what Sydney is going to do. He’s going to post a page with an interstitial moment, and it’s going to have Dabbler in it.”
“…” she responded
I also predict that the next page will be Arianna finding out that the team is in Galytn, Galytn is under attack, and Maxima is engaging the enemy.
Prove me wrong, Dave.
Heh, that link thing shuld be a reqierd thing for future couples. :)
Wuld solve SO much drama and heart ache.
And for the drama lamas in the comments about the R thing.
Male boyfriend with sexy girlfriend ontop and he dose not to over reackt what so ever, i doubt he is even on it, or even if, i think his own natural reactions would over power whatever she is doing.
Because there are degrees of such things naurally.
I REALLY doubt she would ever do anything that would make some one lose controle without their consent.
Least of all her boyfriend.
If he is even affected, i think it is probably no more like smelling a nice perfume, or seeing his girl in a bathing siute or something, like “oh this is nice”.
Ok my spelling is horrible forgive me.
Recalling a book where “partner rings” are a thing, where the wearer can feel the emotions and sensations of the one the ring is bonded to. And there are some in-story debates on the ethics and possible abuses, since both making and putting on a ring have permanent, lifelong consequences. I seem to recall one of the characters was semi-accidentatly bonded to a woman he secretly loved (while undercover as a couple or something), but she marries someone else and he has to endure a lifetime of sensation as she lives a full life without him.
But can’t for the life of me remember the title or the rest of the story.
Something like that happened in real life.
Someone phones their boyfriend and asks why his smartwatch says he’s exercising at 3am.
I think panel 7 is Dabs explaining to Krona how to hack the arousal level of people in general which might explain whats going on with Varia in panel 4. Her eyes are rolled back like she’s possessed or something. Just another day in the life of people who work with a succubus LOL, I think Krona is about to get into MAJOR trouble if that’s the case while at the same time get a secret pat on the back LOL!
No, Vahriah is freaking out about Ari wandering the halls while Leon and Kronachrome are about to interlock in the ops room
Dude. The word is choose.
Dave I think you meant for Leon to say “Why AREN’T you wearing pants.”
What, no comments about it being obvious what’s gotten into her lately but not recently enough?
Most government building I was in for this or that contract would cut almost all lights after ~7PM. In every government office I worked people liked to get in early and leave early, so there was rarely any government people still on site after ~4-4:30 PM. It’s smart, you beat the rush hour a little on both sides. Not so great for this night owl, however… Always on were what you might call ’emergency lighting’ that would always be enough to help someone find an exit. You could go push a button somewhere to get another hour of full lights. So it was a fairly smart money saving system: You got an automated cut-off, an always on safety feature, and way for those working late to kick the lights back on to full by the hour.
When I was in a 24×7 operational environment the lights were typically always kept at ~1/3 level. Just by using the bank of light switches next to the doors into the ops center. This made it easier for people anywhere in the room to see the large monitors at the front of the room. If you had visiting VIPs or whatever you could easily flip the lights to full for their visit.
That sort of self-hacking seems ripe for abuse. It’s like drinking – a little shift makes it easier to make another little shift, and soon you are dancing on tables (or boyfriends).
Ok, so what’s going on in panel 4 with Xochitl? (please don’t kill me for the spelling, I surfed the archives a bit but struck out and the cast page is just shit at this point and has been for many years)
It kinda looks like affection, with Xochitl going for a hug with a very weird smile with some unknown (to me alone, perhaps) blond woman. But the blond woman doesn’t even appear to notice Xochitl even though she’s standing right in front of her. Is this bleed over arousal from whatever the fuck Krona is doing? Or what?
Also, what Krona is doing seems to have a lot of moral issues. Whose arousal levels is she messing with? Her own? If so, bad call because getting aroused any time Leon gets aroused is a really bad idea. We’ve seen the issues Harem has when she’s fucking in one body but trying to attend a serious meeting in another. This is like that, but worse because at least Harem has a clue why she’s all aroused. Krona could be performing heart surgery and Leon, miles away, could decide to rub one out. Substitute any action requiring focus and attention to detail at your convenience. Is it Leons? If so, ewww. That’s rapey.
The stick figure images from Dabbler are a bit confusing to me. Many (well, two) appear to be a MMF threesome, but Leon/Krona/Sydney are a MFF threesome. And both Krona and Sydney have pretty firmly said that this is an open polyamory arrangement, not a “we’ll all fuck together” arrangement. Because neither of them have any interest in sex with women. So, what’s up with that? And the spanking/BDSM thing, and the weird female stick figure in the yellow bubble? I’m so confused…
Vahriah is doing one of those weird “Dude! She’s right there!” moves to Leon
As others have pointed out, just because you are aroused doesn’t override most peoples’ higher brain functions
Leon may or may not be getting aroused (either because Kronachrome hacked her self {again} or simply because she’s sitting in his lap without pants) but he’s still aware that it’s not a good idea to be doing that right now
C’mon people, it’s a webcomic. Everyone saying this is “rapey” can relax the grip on their pearls and realize this is fiction.
“It’s just a story” is not a good (or logical) argument. No story will override their audience’s thoughts, but what is presented as ‘normal’ in a story will ever so slightly nudge the audience’s understanding of what is moral or normal (and only when the story confirms what the audience is already inclined to believe to be true)
This line of reasoning also inches uncomfortably close to being a Themian argument, which is a logical fallacy. You cannot justify a depiction of actions or belief systems that are understood by the audience to be problematical with a reasoning that relies on the story itself. Because none of the characters in a story have any agency. Only the author has agency. A good author will give the impression that characters in his or her story have agency, but in truth they do, and can do, only what the author wants because they are not persons. With that understanding problematic content can only ever be there because he author either wants or allows it to be.
Of course whether something is problematic or merely uncomfortable to the audience is a different discussion entirely (that takes place entirely outside of the story). People voluntarily curtailing their agency (to sometimes high degrees) is something that happens. A lot. The entire dom/sub culture is based around this. That I certainly do not see the appeal and would not want to do what Krona did makes it uncomfortable to me but not problematic (as there are plenty of actual people who would love to be able to do for themselves what Krona did).
Krona doing the same thing to Leon is questionable even assuming he asked for it as he cannot control the situation (they may agree on a safeword but the power to end the uneven levels of agency still rest with her, not him). Had she done this to him involuntarily then it would be flat out problematic and no amount of justification, in story or out, can make those problematic aspects go away.
Dave clearly thought about the ramifications of this reality hack and clarified that it is Krona hacking only her own libido, and that it is by no means an override of her agency (she can still opt to not act on her arousal, same as every other human being, while she can also suspend or terminate the hack at any given time). This may not be as clearly expressed in the comic itself as would be preferable, but odds are very high that the next page will actually show that when an alert comes in libido will be forgotten, illusionary pants will become unhacked and everybody puts on their serious face to deal with the crisis. (though I reserve the right for Dave to make a funny joke about Krona forgetting to undo her hack on Leon’s pants.
It is “just a story”. I worry just as much about this slowly nudging people towards rape as I do the story in general motivating people to get scuba certified specifically to search for alien orbs. You’re talking about something being presented as normal in a story where super powers, aliens, demons, magic, vampires, etc ARE normal. It has no bearing on reality outside of the GP universe.
The entire Themian Argument idea is an emotional pseudo-intellectual circle jerk of self endowed moral superiority. I don’t think DaveB is unconsciously saying rape is great through his characters, because I don’t think he believes that. I’m pretty sure he’s good with BDSM, but not rape in any form.
Krona is a fictional character inhabiting a fictional world. If you want characters that only make good and wholesome choices according to your personal views then pick up a pen and make it, or go watch something like Veggie Tales or Care Bears. Stop trying to impose your will on others by impugning their character, which is the only point of the idiotic Themian Argument claim.
Last panel: Pingus Interruptus or ‘Saved by the Ping’
can you imagine the scene negotiations one would have to have before doing a kink scene with someone like Krona?
Like how do you include a by-line for ‘ok so when we are doing con-non-con, do you want me to convince you, command you, or hack you in to wanting it?’
though refreshing the blood in the penis would allow for absolute rigidity to never risk tissue death, so you can forget the docs ‘after 4 hours’ warning
Uncensored Action Version where?
OMG, yes Krona is using bad judgement and didn’t get consent, if we understand the spell right. But Leon is a healthy male in his 20’s, around super-stacked women ALL THE TIME! How often do you think he is NOT aroused? I remember that age and am male, and having low level arousal be a constant bane. It’s called being a young man. He’ll be fine! It’s not mind control! He might be annoyed when he finds out, and he might not, because he didn’t notice a difference! Sheesh!