Grrl Power #1164 – Getting to, uh… know, uh… you…
They say write what you know, but that’s dumb because then who would write Doctor Who and Superhero comics and speculative fiction and any sort of fantasy or really anything but autobiographies? Still, I have no business writing about people dating in singles bars cause that is not my scene. However in this case, it works to my advantage because neither Max nor Rowan here are exactly experts, either.
Do you shake hands? I could believe arguments either way, but it seems like something that if you get it wrong, it’s a mark against you right off the bat. I’m going to guess if it’s a random singles bar introduction, probably not. If it’s a blind date… uh… maybe? I think it’s even odds between a handshake, a non-committal one-armed hug, and three seconds of awkward silence.
I can’t decide if in panel 5 Max is sincerely trying to flirt or “Put the Op4 on the defensive.” I think it’s leaning more toward “Well, if I’m going to do this, I’m gonna at least try and do it well.”
The May vote incentive is finally up! Digit has some new and exciting tech to show off, as well as some other things, albeit inadvertently.
Variant outfits and lack thereof over at Patreon, as well as the semi-usual bonus incentive related comic.
.
.
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.
Girl seems to be channelling The Grinch (facial expression) and Mr Burns (Finger placement and catchphrase)
I think the Mr. Burns catchphrase was based on Emperor Palpatine, but either way that last panel cracks me up!
Pretty sure Mr. Burns had his catch phrase long before Palpatine was in the movies.
[insert confused nick cannon meme here]
*checks notes*
ok, so there was time travel involved, then?
I think that’s a joking reference to the fact that Burns is (or at least was, they tend to do the “time creep” thing where Abe Simpson may have gone from being a WW2 vet to a Korean vet) canonically old enough to have lived in a time of buggy whips and steam power. So Burns would have been clasping his fingers and purring, “excellent,” long before the Star Wars films came out.
…Of course, if both franchises were in the same universe, then Palpatine would have been doing it a long time ago, in a galaxy far away, so… ;P
Then again, several jokes rely on Burns remembering the conquest of the West, cursing that “the Spaniards invaded again,” and… having a four-digit age.
I only kept up with the Simpsons for a few years, so maybe you’re talking about jokes that occurred later. But I only remember jokes that implied Burns had at *least* a four digit age, rather than jokes that limited it to no more than 9999 years.
Burns’ phone number is 3.
Can’t believe he never bought out Bell and Watson’s numbers to get to the front.
He was pretty sure the newfangled device wouldnt catch on and replace yelling at people from afar.
They are in the same universe! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCeZbrvvDmc&ab_channel=TheEscapist
Star Wars has yet to be connected to it
“Strong and wrong,” as they say.
Empire was ’80 and Return was ’83. Simpsons was ’89.
I’m pretty sure Emperor Palpatine’s line was ‘good. Gooooood’ or ‘yesssss’ Not ‘Excelllent.’ That one is definitely Burns. Although the Emperor does once says ‘excellent, everything’s going as planned’ in the prequels ( think in Attack of the Clones), but that’s definitely AFTER the Simpsons.
YES! Grinch face (only missing the hair curling up into horns), rest Burns
Shioh is an Evil Mastermind? GASP!
Oh, no … nevermind. Just a scheming little sister. I’m sure she doesn’t have any powers or a sudden need for her brother to be distracted so that she can use their home as a base for her plans to take over the world.
They’re the same thing dot gif
You don’t know how she likes to spend her free time. She could be masterminding any of that as part of a complex scheme.
So your saying Shioh is Evelyn Deavor?
Looks like she could be Trudy Light.
No, more like Dolly Gallagher Levi.
Or she’s scheming the return of paid matchmaking in the US for “not millionaires” and her brother is a test of her evil matchmaking skills…
Wait… that is a way to take over the world- by making people indebted to you for introducing them to their soulmate; and then demanding specific favors… *GASP* the perfect villain appears!
You’ve just described my Jewish Auntie, and every Southeast Asian matriarch (tw for blatant & hilarious stereotype).
Agreed. Although I think it’s less a stereotype and more a requirement for entrance into being either the aformentioned jewish aunties or southeast asian matriarchs. :)
Who says she’s younger?
Wait a second, is Max actually trying to end up getting laid? Because to me it feels very wrong to have sex on the first date (or even on the third date), but to each their own I guess? I’m just surprised that Max is the type of woman who’d try to hook up casually.
I for one wouldn’t want to date a woman after finding out that that’s what she did in the past because I’d have trust issues. Honestly, any girl for whom “having fun” is just a euphemism for “having sex” is a no-go to me.
Eh, sometimes girls just want one-night stands too. A lot of guys do that, and then later get married and settle down. Sometimes both people are looking for a one-night stand, and then discover that they clicked really well, and what was supposed to be a one-shot turns into a lifelong marriage. So I wouldn’t judge a woman for that.
However, given Max’s personality, I doubt she’s seriously looking for one. Instead, she’s practicing the process because she doesn’t even know how to flirt anymore. And she might actually get a friend or future date out of it, though I suspect she’d feel morally obligated to make a truth reveal before going too far down the dating router, if for no other reason than she could apply a slightly different sort of ‘Safety First’ practice.
Yes, I’m aware that a lot of people do that, and I don’t view it as a good thing for all the genders because it affects their bonding ability. I mean, your brain develops based on what you do, no matter which activity we’re talking about, so if someone is used to just hooking up (maybe for some months at a time) and then just being on their way, no strings attached, I wouldn’t trust them to be faithful, regardless of their gender.
You’re far more likely to bond with someone after having sex than if you simply spend time talking. Biology is like that.
I’m thinking this varies from person to person. With some people it’s ‘once they get to have sex with you, they’ve achieved their goal.’ No need to find out any more, moving on to the next conquest. I’d sort of prefer to know a guy well before I get intimate. One night stands do not leave much time to actually know a person well. That requires talking. You might find the two of you are not remotely compatible in any way other than biologically.
That is one of the most stupid things I have read in a long time.
You would not trust people to be faithful in a relationship, because they have one night stands? That is about as logical as not trusting them because of the colour of their pants.
I am always suprised about the moral judgement you find in some cultures around the world.
1: I think you misunderstood what Eaglejarl was saying there. They were stating that you’re MORE likely to bond after having sex, than you are after spending the same period of time just talking without having sex.
2: Talking to potential partners IS a good way to vet them ahead of time. You might not want to be in a relationship with someone you find extremely sexy, if their personality makes you want to take a trip in a billionaire’s submersible.
It looks like they were responding to alex, not eaglejarl.
Well first, Alex is talking about a scientific judgement here, not a moral one. There’s literally studies about bonding and sex, and what he (she?)’s talking about is something we have actual data to support, not just a blanket statement of “sex bad.” Second, you sound pretty judgmental yourself, and it kinda gives me the impression that you have some bad history coloring your perceptions here.
Did you just say that they’re judgemental because they said judging people (for sexual history) is bad? Seriously?
Someone who has one-night stands obviously is more impulsive and has a lower barrier to engaging in sexual activity than someone who doesn’t. That doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t also have the capacity to be loyal, but it seems logical that someone unwilling to engage in one-night stands is less likely to pursue short-term pleasure at the risk of their long-term relationships.
Or they’re a massively frustrated christian fundamentalist who’s “saving themself for marriage.”
I don’t think that’s a moral judgment insomuch as an understanding of social behavior. Someone who has one-night-stands is more likely to put physical pleasure in the moment before a long-term relationship where you get to know the other person’s good and bad qualities. Is that a universal statement? No. There are always exceptions. But it’s statistically more likely, and I’ve found that most guys would prefer a woman who did not have a lot of one-night stands prior to getting into a relationship with himself. It’s largely a reason why a majority of men do not want to be in a long term relationship with women if they find they have an ‘OnlyFans’ account (even if they might be likely to have a one-night stand with that woman).
This isn’t for moral reasons. It’s definitely not for religious reasons. It’s for sociological reasons.
Exactly that, thank you! :-)
This seems more like moral judgement badly veiled as “understanding social behaviour”.
I come from a non-conservative country. Sex is not seen as a moral sin here. I have never heard about any one thinking it was a problem that people had one-night-stands.
The majority of answears here, this one included, just look like people having religious, moral or cultural reasons for disliking people having one-night stands and trying to argue from a logical perspective, while making crazy or random assumptions.
“This seems more like moral judgement badly veiled as “understanding social behaviour”.”
Well you’d be wrong then, because it’s sociology, not morality. There’s a difference.
” Sex is not seen as a moral sin here.”
There was literally nothing said about morality. What was said was, and I will requote again since I don’t think you read my post well, “Someone who has one-night-stands is more likely to put physical pleasure in the moment before a long-term relationship where you get to know the other person’s good and bad qualities.” and “But it’s statistically more likely.” Where you are getting moral judgments from this I can not fathom.
“The majority of answears here, this one included, just look like people having religious,”
I am not remotely religious. I haven’t gone to a temple since I was 13 years old.
“moral or cultural reasons”
I’m mixed native hawaiian/korean.
” and trying to argue from a logical perspective”
I’m successfully arguing from a logical perspective. You’re not.
“while making crazy or random assumptions.”
Point out a crazy or random assumption in my post. Go on, I’ll wait.
If you are talking about Alex’s post and not mine, I still don’t see where most of what you said applies. He was saying he thinks it’s not a great idea to have sex on the first or even the third date (there’s a statisical likelihood of people having sex by the third date) because he does not think he can learn enough about the other person within three dates to want to expose himself to the intimacy involved in having sex. He is also saying that, based on what is known about Maxima (she sometimes comes off as prudish, although she’s stated in the comic that she is not a prude) it would be odd for her to ascribe to the social norm of ‘sex on a third date.’
He then says that he would not be comfortable with trusting a woman who confuses ‘having fun’ with ‘having sex’ because he feels he would have trouble trusting that person, since they are less likely to see sex as a special connection between two people, while he does see sex as a special connection, for which exclusivity for sex is a goal. IE, you would not want your boyfriend or girlfriend or wife or husband sleeping around because they feel that sex is a casual thing which is no big deal.
I don’t see where religion comes in for this. And even with morality, while it’s immoral as Alex is describing it, I think that Alex is saying that it’s more immoral because it’s insensitive to your intimate partner than because of some hang-up about sex.
This seems like an impossible roadblock in communication over text.
You’re both smart enough to hide your motives for a reasoning over text, so the only cure would be interpreting each other less controlled signs(non-verbal, tempo mistakes, etc.), but those aren’t present in text to text communication.
They will never believe you, because they only have your literal word, which they quite expressively stated to not trust on said matter.
“You’re both smart enough to hide your motives for a reasoning over text,”
Fortunately that’s why we make arguments based on what is actually stated, not on whatever thin one side thinks the other side is thinking in their inner thoughts. Until we have telepathic powers, they’re going to have to rely on what I, or Alex, or anyone else, says as written. Also I have no reason to hide my motives – I’ve been rather straightforward on my reasoning, which is why my posts are often way too long.
“so the only cure would be interpreting each other less controlled signs(non-verbal, tempo mistakes, etc.),”
Does anyone really think another person’s tempo and non-verbal queues are a better way of determining what another person is saying compared to just reading what they specifically wrote? Tonal qualities to better determine intent, sure, but those non-verbal methods of determining what the other person is saying are often far MORE pliable, not less so, than text, at least where definitions are concerned.
And since we are not speaking to each other, they might as well either believe that what I am writing is what I actually think, or they might as well not respond at all since they’d be coming at the argument with the mindset of ‘this person is lying and nothing he or she can ever say will convince me otherwise.’ At which point, why bother responding, right?
At the very least, I might be convincing a third party reading both sides of the argument.
Oh god i think i need to rewrite this post because its terribly written. :(
It’s fine, there were barely any mistakes in it. And thank you for summing up my points so well, not many people care to do that, especially when it comes to emotional topics like dating and sex. :-)
All in all it was good to see that relatively few people got triggered by my rather conservative views, so that’s a plus for this community.
There is no roadblock. We can’t agree, but it is alright to disagree. Sometimes informing people about how you see something is enough.
It is not about trusting their words or not. I trust that they see the world as they write that they see it.
It is about what arguments make sense.
Different cultures accept different arguments, because they make sense within that framework of that culture. What can seem logical to one person, because it makes sense in their cultural framework, might not be universal logical.
Like. I work with people from Korea and Taiwan sometimes. I see both societies as very conservative. The Koreans tend think that Taiwanes society is very progresive and it is very hard for me to explain that even the most progresive person from Taiwan is properly more conservative, than most conservstives in my country.
In that way most of Panders arguments are not going to change my mind, because from my point of view they make no sense.
In my culture we do not measure how religious you are based on the age you were last in a temple.
So saying that he haven’t been to a temple since he was 13, means nothing to me. It is not an universal argument or explanation.
The same way that I find it a crazy that some one that one-night-stands should be more likely to put physical pleasure in the moment before a long-term relationship or that because you enjoy having sex you might confuse ‘having fun’ with ‘having sex’.
In some cultures this might be natural and logical assumptions, but it is just assumptions and to me and I would assume for most people from my culture, they are pretty weird assumptions.
Since supers are not worried about “normal” STDs, their self-confidence means they can do all sorts of “fun” things. All the societal baggage about sex disappears for Supers. Don’t believe me , just read about Olympic Village Hedonism that occurs every 4 years.
/and your trust issues are yours.
Well, if you decide to trust a promiscuous woman to be your faithful wife, good luck! :-)
Lol, okay Oliver Cromwell.
She’s going to trust a promiscuous man, so there’s that.
Nearly all males and a fair amount of women are “promiscuous”. It’s just as much fun for both sides etc…
It the emotional connection that makes a life partner, NOT the behavure before the connection is made. Sure there will be temptations, that’s all part of life. EVERYONE has them. The one’s that act on them are the weakest is all. Public opinion is the worst about this crap, my kid sister was raped by 2 men before she was 15, but according to peers, teachers, and the cops it was her own fault… My parents had to put her in a private school because of issues that opinion had and to protect her from the Chads. How does the fact that a woman had sex makes her promiscuous? I for one would want a woman that’s had experience, but I was never worried about MY masculinity.
Heck, works for me. I’ve been happily married to a promiscuous woman for a couple decades now. I trust her completely and am not in the slightest upset that she has known a lot of lovers. In fact one of her exes – who is a good friend in his own right – introduced us and was later best man at our wedding!
Some guys get raging sexual jealousy but it just doesn’t make sense to me. If I lived a thousand years love would still be too precious and life too short to waste on such a trifle.
Aside from what others have commented: what Maxima actually said was “my friends have been encouraging me to… well, get laid”. That’s VERY different to saying “I’m just here to get laid”. Especially when it’s already clear she doesn’t know what to say in this situation.
It also strongly implies that she hasn’t been “getting laid” recently, and probably not for quite a while; otherwise, why would her friends have bothered encouraging her to? If it were indeed a frequent thing for her, they could’ve saved their breath.
Well, that’s something at least. I guess it is ok to chalk it up to her not having any practice and just giving the facts about her current situation.
However, if I was a woman, any friend who’d encourage me to “get laid” just because I hadn’t gotten laid in a while would no longer be my friend, because that kind of peer pressure would have no space in my life. Maybe they’d get one warning, but that’d be it. Women pushing each other into getting laid is a horrible trend. Yes, I have very conservative beliefs regarding sex (not as conservative as “no sex before marriage” though), and I don’t care if I’m being judged for that.
This. I told a number of women in college that my friends were trying to get me laid, but that really wasn’t ever intended as a proposition.
Sure, it might seem like my being more social in response to their efforts meant that I was open to the idea at minimum. But really, it was more of an, “and I want them to shut up about it, and it feels like the only way to do that is to at least seem like I’m trying.”
This generally didn’t go over well, which didn’t surprise me. I mean, I was basically saying they weren’t interesting enough for me to come out of my shell, I was doing it because of pests. What surprised me was how many of them reacted as if I’d said, “I’m just interested in sex.” and they were offended by that.
Now, it could be that they correctly assessed the situation and realized that I didn’t want to have sex, at least not with them, but they wanted to have sex and just didn’t want to admit they wanted to have sex. The easiest way out was to “misunderstand me”, so they took that approach. I don’t really know, I’m not good at understanding people. I try, but I frequently fail.
Or you understand perfectly in spite of the shrouds of deception that prevents proof.
Really? I consider it common sense if that’s what you want. I mean, you’re both there, you’re both into each other, and you’re both horny. Why not have sex?
That’s like going out to a restaurant and only having a salad for propriety’s sake when what you really want is a juicy steak. There you are, two people being miserable, eating what they don’t enjoy, probably drinking wine when you’re both dark rum drinkers, just to be proper. If they just got over society’s rules they could both have had the steak and a dark rum and felt good about it.
What does it mean to you when someone refuses their desires at least three times before finally having fun? Do you have a discipline fetish? No shame in that, I’m just trying to increase my understanding of other people. If it is the discipline thing, you might want to look into edging. It’s right up your alley.
Simple: Sex can’t be compared to most other desires, so your analogies don’t work at all. Sex is much more intimate, it causes you to feel connected to each other, and thus it causes psychological problems if you do it casually. Just look at the eyes of someone with a high bodycount. Most promiscuous people look like they’re dead on the inside. Their eyes are either empty or cold or they have that weird perverted/greedy look. The latter is mostly men, the former two mostly women, from what I’ve seen so far, and I’ve seen very few exceptions.
There’s nothing wrong with a fleeting human connection. It only gets messed up if your expectations don’t match your behaviour. So yeah, you gotta do some introspection and figure out if you’re the one night stand type, since that is a real possibility in that situation. And if you don’t like the risk of a first date turning into a one night stand, then that willl obviously influence your choices. Still, if it happens don’t beat yourself up over it, and most certainly don’t think you’re unpure or unclean or something, that’s puritan bullshit and you deserve to treat yourself better than that.
Personally I rarely have one night stands, and only with people I already know and trust. If they’re acquaintances that tends to work (very small sample size so don’t take that as proven fact), and if they’re friends (equally small sample size, etc.) it can get complicated with changing expectations and having to have a conversation about that. But this isn’t a bad thing, it’s just complicated. If one night stands lead to psychological problems I would think that the problems already existed, they’re just self-medicating with sex. And I agree that that isn’t healthy, but I don’t think the problem is caused by sex. I would even go so far as to say that you’ve got the causality backwards: Dead inside leads to lots of one night stands, not the other way around. The inability to make a human connection comes first.
Alex your doing generalized sweeping,as a older male that hit his 50s your talking about loyalty you want loyalty get a dog, Women cannot tell a male what there intentions are when comes to sex and dating my own life i been burned by woman doing the one night don’t even try say oh you just had a bad run. No from 25 -51 thats not a bad run its a damn curse
I stopped dating women entirely cause the dont want to get in a relationship, because that “i had something that’s happened” its bullshit excuse that i heard over and over and this newer generation of women dont even know what being loyal means.
Sorry to hear that, bro. I know what you mean because you’re not the first I’ve seen on the internet talking about that, by a long shot. I believe it’s a side-effect of the fact that the existence of social media is still fairly new.
its also an unitended side effect of womens liberation. they have the freedom to leave now. so some do. women are just like men, they are all people, they all have at least one a-hole in their lives.
Some people are just obsessed with sex in that they believe nobody should be allowed to just have sex for fun. For some reason, they actually believe that people can never have one-night stands yet still be able to have monogamous relationships. Which is of course nonsense.
Nonsense? Breaking emotional bonds hurts. Hurting others and yourself is wrong. Ergo, never break up. So says moral Hedonism.
[Hedonism says “Pleasure is good. Pain is evil.” Moral Hedonism focuses on the later part and seeks to avoid causing pain while the more common immoral Hedonism focuses on the first part and seeks pleasures of the self.]
Furthermore, pain teaches fear. Even mild pains. By breaking up and encountering pain, your heart learns to not bond with others. Such callous hearts never get to experience the full pleasures of true intimacy from sex. It’s why so few develop, well, telepathic abilities (the mystery mentioned in Ephesians chapter 5).
Freedom of religion rocks. Believe me or not, I am not your judge.
But if the relationship itself causes pain, breaking up will likely result in less pain overall.
Ah, but being stuck in a relationship that no longer works, or that you no longer want, also hurts. So by a parallel argument, the person who has the emotional bond ought to insist on breaking up, contrary to their own inclination, to avoid causing pain.
Or you could do the utilitarian calculus of “whose pain is greater” to decide which rule to follow. I’ve never liked utilitarianism . . .
I think it depends on what you’re after. If you’re just after sex, fine. You will probably run into some psychological issues over time, but you do you.
It’s my impression that most people do not just want sex. They want both sex and the intimacy that comes with it. They want to have more of an understanding of their partner than they could reasonably get in one date. Most specifically, they want to see if their potential partner behaves consistently within the range of behaviors they consider acceptable. One date that’s three times as long as normal would not do that as well as three normal length dates separated over time, because the latter shows the person under a more varied set of circumstances.
Regarding this particular scene, I don’t think that Max is looking to have sex with anyone here. She is well aware her baseline strength is off the human normal charts, so she really needs to hook up with someone who can survive a night with her without a hospital visit (at least most of the time.) But she also needs practice interacting with people. She can get the latter practice with anybody she finds socially acceptable. As a result, she’s talking with Rowan, who probably would require a hospital visit if they tried getting it on, because her dialed all the way to zero is not low enough for a normal person to do that stuff with her.
Getting laid was entirely both Dabbler AND Anvil’s idea. Not that I’m disagreeing with them, but no one should pressure a close friend/co-worker do that. Suggesting it? Sure. Often? Maybe. Pressurizing you? Ah no, that goes from friendly, helpfulness to “SHUT THE HELL UP!” real fast. More so for a man, as we just seen, can cause defiance in the “victim” and almost never means success. Max had to get over that defiance AND a butt-load of “Chads” to even consider it. And Rowan? If a tall, hot lady said “to get laid” isn’t a yes, just explains why she was in a bad mood when she walked in. Well, that and the trip to the bar. IF she does anything with him, it’ll be friendly conversation at best, he’s just too… Squishy? But at least he got his sister off his ass and did what no one else could do: talk to Max!
Haha yeah both Max and him talk to each other to get their self-proclaimed wing girls off their asses. I hope that they’ll stick to friendly conversation for the first date as well.
Max has had big issues in her youth, and the fact she’s trying to be more open says she knows this and is willing to at least try. And as I said before, it’s dangerous for her to “enjoy” herself too much, because of the goo she might make of a norm. If Max does anything with this guy, it’ll be after she’s made sure he’s not a plant, and to come clean to him about herself. She just come out of a trying situation and needs to relax, if her toes get curled in the process, it’s nobody’s business but hers! Don’t forget, Dabbler put a mild spell on the collar to do what was happening to Max from the start, so Dabs is STILL putting on the pressure!
I’ll be blunt, that’s very much a you problem
Max never said that was her goal tonight. She said that’s what her friends were encouraging her to do.
While I agree about most of what you said. she seems to just be trying to get better at socializing. I know from a friend of mine that being the one to make all the guys rush like that can be emotionally stunting. she also did things like this. going out and trying to lower her guard enough to have a normal conversation instead of just assuming that if it was male then it was a dirty bastard. she was honest about why she was there but I don’t think that’s her end goal. it seems more like she’s just trying to reprogram her own responses to be able to engage with others more normally.
Yeah, I can see how it’d be quite the challenge to always have guys rush at you once you enter a room. It must be tough building a real connection if most guys she talks to get horny within minutes of seeing her, and it gets even harder if you consider that the guys who are in her league but are not already taken off the market early by a highschool-sweetheart are most likely players.
So, while I as a man never experienced something like that myself, I do understand why women can become very guarded around men, and then they have to practice becoming less guarded because nice guys will respect it if a woman appears guarded and thus signals that she doesn’t want to be talked to. Geez, I honestly wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of a woman. I still struggle initiating a flirt, but I prefer that struggle to the women’s struggle.
God, you’re weird. Really big “reddit nice guy” vibes. You’re are so willing to shut someone out because of their sexual past. It really sounds like you haven’t spent any time in the dating pool at all and it’s all a fantasy for you.
Speak for yourself. You’re so full of prejudice that it looks like you know way too much about Reddit and not enough about real life.
God, the IRONY of you calling me prejudiced is too good. You sound like you’ve never had a meaningful (or unmeaningful) sexual relationship in your life and you’ve made up this fantasy about how you actually chose to be in that situation. You can’t trust a woman who would dare to have sex for fun? You may as well announce yourself as “Mr. Insecurity,” every time you walk into a room.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe there are people out there who are virgins because they choose to be due to religious reasons or whatever. But just from reading all your comments here, I can tell that that ain’t you.
I doubt things are going to lead *there* but it’d great for Max to have an interaction which is entirely civilian and is just someone having a nice drink and conversation with someone.
WHich “coworker” is Max referring to, Sydney,Anvil or Dabbler?!?
Clearly it’s Stalwart.
Arianna, who loves playing mastermind. Or more likely Anvil’s bull-by-the-horns approach to matchmaking (with Hiro and Deus), although I’d have expected Max to call her “friend” over “coworker”.
No, it’s obviously Goose
I don’t see any Sydney in that interaction, a strong maybe for Anvil, and I highly doubt Dabbler, but maybe Harem. Probably Anvil, giving a strong but not overbearing push to enter the scene. I don’t see Sydney giving dating advice unless it is because she wants to fan girl over the relationship, and Dabbler would try to start an orgy with the whole bar.
After this strip? Math, obviously. He had that exact same look on his face when he taught Sydney to think three moves ahead.
Sydney is the coworker she refers to, Anvil and Dabbler are the “friends” she refers to.
To be honest? Just about everyone! Although I never understood the idea of fixing someone that’s stressed out that getting laid would fix everything. Sure, maybe for an hour or so but that’s it. Less likely for a woman since she’s got to deal with the “Chads” anywhere she goes, that just adds to the stress!
Anvil. Maxima is referring to Anvil because Kenya has been trying DESPERATELY to get Maxima out of her social shell so that she will go on dates. At one point she was lifting her over her shoulder while Maxima was clutching onto the sofa, which also went over the shoulder.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-828-wingwoman/
She also buys Maxima clothing to try to get her to be more appealing to potential dates. Including stuff for the ‘third date.’
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-832-free-shipping-with-glamazon-prime/
And made puppy dog eyes to force Maxima to wear frilly, excessively uncomfortable sexy underwear.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-838-ill-have-the-wedgie-salad/
*quick review of funny plotline later*
Lorlara and Shioh together…. that would be interesting….
‘Interesting’ in a ‘horrifying’ way?
Like that curse: “May you live in interesting times.”
‘May you live in interesting times.’
this is not universally seen as a curse. waking up doing as your father did, and your father before them, year upon year, decade upon decade till old age steals the life from ones bones. some might say that’s a curse.
it certainly makes for a boring comic.
Lorlara hires Shioh to help pick a ‘proper mate’ for Deus…
Lorlara and Shioh competing to get their candidate more dates with Max. I would watch that show, especially if there are segments on the dating disasters of the rest of the main cast.
*gloms*
Dibs on Shioh. Mine now. Not sharing.
Get yer own!
but I want her to be a returning character. You drive a truck so we’d never she her again…
well, my ninja zombies are nearly useless for anything like that. so….
May have to stake a counter claim if Shioh shows up more.
Also, knowing that Rowan can (presumably) keep pace with her greatly raises my hopes that he has some depth and will be able to keep Max’s interest (at whatever level).
I’m rather tempted to do another read-through from the start and look for green eyes.
No point, even if you find them it could always be X or Chimyriad.
As the only actual super in the comments section, well on second thought you can have her. I don’t need that level of machiavellianism in my life at my age.
I will fight you for Shioh. No amount of puns will stop me. She’s mine!
I say the right amount will have you down for the count; the evidence has been adding up.
Your values may be integral, but they are irrational, if not down right imaginary, and the log will reveal you’re chasing a tangent while seeking a sine from which to derive a new constant to replace your variable factors.
Do you see the exponential difference in the arcs of our respective theorems? The final product of your operations will yield only a negative dividend regardless of their order.
*flicks clove and pushes glasses up with a single finger, catching the light*
The solution is discreet: a set containing just me, and Shioh, with no remainder.
I’m a little worried you might have killed Pander with that…
I doubt it. she can take quite a bit of punishment. her tolerance is low so I’m expecting ninjas. maybe this time she will get an old Austrian lookalike to chase down Bharda a motorcycle.
*gasp* I…. LIVE!
*heroically claws her way out of the pun avalanche. For Shioh!*
*sends the hordes of ninjas, pirates, zombies, koalas on a display reminiscent of a battle scene directed by the lovechild of Peter Jackson mixed with Michael Bay’s AND some personal injury and divorce lawyers (who everyone knows are the two worst types of lawyers, which is why I have always avoided going into divorce law or P.I. law) armed with mountains of red tape to bind Bharda up, whilst I steal away Shioh*
no… not the red tape….. please I beg you….not the red tape. ohhh the humanity!
*quckly files form 0904. again, in triplicate.*
I must acknowledge that your arguments sum up well. still, I must hope that the functionality of Panders Ninjas are greater than the weight of your proofs. and sadly neither the Hoff nor Reynolds are available to pursue any holes in your factors. If you will excuse me I have to torment something else in hopes of running your arguments down.
Hypothetically assuming that Max can navigate through to the getting laid segment of a relationship, at what point does she remove the choker and reveal her true identity? Or does someone need clearance to know that Harper is Maxima? And depending on how far down the line the secret gets revealed what does that do to her shot at any kind of lasting relationship?
Ok I just wanna say I love your name lol
She can keep her choker on.
Clearly gotta at least plant some seeds early on for an eventual reveal, if maintaining the relationship proves warranted. Maybe 3rd or 4th date mention casually that she has “some powers” but state clearly that she doesn’t want to talk about them because that’s all most people focus on. After say 7-8 dates she should have a pretty solid feel for him and his friend group’s ability to keep a secret, especially if they all hang out together instead of pairing off.
At that point she could decide how much more to say, but even a hint of “I have a public persona” is almost guaranteed to blow her cover. Even without revealing any specific powers, “I’m a super” and “I have a secret identity” are more than enough data points to get someone to pull up a list of publicly known supers for comparison, and she’s right at the top of the list. Honestly most people (or at least someone in their circle) would probably do that at the first mention of powers.
I’d say if Max even considers it, she’ll have a security check on the guy, given the nature of Max AND the government aspect of her life. I really can’t see Max trying to do the whole spider-man bit, trying to hide the whole superhero bit and date a norm. I think her mentioning that she works in government in some way would ease Rowan into the idea she’s a “retired” spec-ops operative would be a good start. It would be insanely ironic if it turns out he’s a super though…
Maybe the whole reason he’s reluctant is “Shioh, you KNOW i’d hurt someone!” “Rowan, you can do it! just focus and for heaven’s sake: RELAX!” just minutes before they go to the bar. Then after he’s relaxed and talking to some friends, The Golden Goddess walks in with a crack of thunder and in a VERY bad mood. Oh this could be a running gag that lasts MONTHS!
If this turns into a batman/catwoman thing it could be hilarious.
<-points at Illy while touching the side of my nose
obligatory reference link… I’m sorry. its required.
https://www.webtoons.com/en/slice-of-life/batman-wayne-family-adventures/ep-26-tmi/viewer?title_no=3180&episode_no=26
HA! perfect choice!
as I said it was required…. we now know the bat families greatest weakness. and that ‘someone’ needs better coms discipline.
That’s like getting a call from your prudish mother and getting “distracted” by your partner and forgetting to hang up… True story
No I won’t give details jeez!
Well, that’s my day all shot to hell. Thanks. :)
Grinch grin.
Grin(ch)
Shioh and Sydney must never meet
Must never meet? No the absolutely have to no matter the consequences!
Sydney’s sister from another mister.
It took me way too long to realize that “Op4” is “OPFOR” for some reason. My brain kept saying “Op4 must some level Max bumps her shielding to…” I blame too many years of analysis work.
Before anyone says Shioh is a villain, sisters EXIST to be evil to brothers.
I should know, I have 3 of them!
Does that make her a ‘good guy’? Dunno. We shall see.
You are to late. That was the second comment here.
No, actually ‘Evil’ and ‘Evil Mastermind’ are not the same thing.
They CAN be, but not always. ‘Evil’ is dumb almost as often as ‘Good’ is, they just generally get better press because no one sane wants to be put on a hit list by someone like Doctor Doom for defamation of character.
she cannot be a good guy. she is clearly identifying as female.
I have never ever ever been evil to my older brother … unless you count all of the years between when i was 8 and 13 when i would steal money from him to hide under my dresser along with his cigarettes which i was stealing so he woukd quit smoking. Using the money to buy video games was … um… for his own good! Yeah! He did quit smoking after all! And yes I may have once or twice jumped on him when he was sleeping to wake him up but our mom said to wake him up and did not specify how, and it was super effective! And yes when I was 7 and his girlfriend called I might have picked up the phone and said “he doesnt want to talk to you” and hung up on her, but he was playing video games and wouldnt let me play with him and said “Leave me alone so I can finish this already!” And his girlfriend (well, ex-girlfriend now really) would have definitely distracted him from that goal right? And sure when I was 3, I destroyed his piano but that way he went into medicine instead of becoming a musician so when you really think about it he should definitely be thanking me and not claiming that I am an evil devil sister. Really I am sort of a heroic sister who clearly does and gas always done what is best for my dear older brother I will not truck any terrible defamation that what I have done to him is evil.
You have carried well the siblings’ burden to make each others’ lives interesting.
Given that last panel, I think Shioh and Sydney would get along very well, and be great friends.
This should be accompanied by foreboding music and an ominous rumble of thunder in the distance. Hey, Dues, do you have any other settings on that clicker?
From writing classes 20 years ago:
Write what you know does Not mean only write what has happened to you. Use the emotions and reactions from things you know to feed the realisticness of your scene.
In fantasy fiction this is especially important for mundane scenes. You are asking the reader to believe that flying around is normal. Don’t also expect them to believe that long wet hair wil dry in fifteen minutes, unless you give it a supernatural reason. Write what you know so you don’t distract the reader from the story you are telling.
I will now exit teacher mose.
You had me googling for “teacher moose”. Turns out, that actually is a thing and people pay money for it.
Long wet hair will dry in 15 minutes if:
– It’s a hot, windy desert and they’re outside.
– Long is relative and the characters are all really small. For example, Smurfette’s hair could very well dry that quickly. It’s long for her, but it’s shorter than most human males’ hair is. Of course, this still requires relatively dry conditions because virtually nobody’s hair dries in 15 minutes while they’re out in a rain storm.
All of that said, agreed. It’s also important to know that any given person is an expert on their speculations regarding what the future may bring. In writing scifi, having a firm basis in science can be helpful, but it’s also possible to completely gloss over how any tech works.
That is, you have a communication device that communicates faster than the speed of light? Great. It works by transmitting neutrinos, not so great – we can actually detect those, we know how fast they move, and it’s not a helpful speed.
Or maybe it works by entangled particles. Also not so great, because it’s impossible to tell the difference between a change in state because of something happening on one side, versus that thing happening on the other side. Also, entangled particles don’t stay entangled forever.
Scifi doesn’t have to explain how its technology works. There are a lot of great stories about how fantastical tech could change how people interact that doesn’t talk much at all about the tech, but rather about the people and their interactions.
To be clear, this doesn’t mean you can’t have characters who hypothesize about how stuff works and suggesting entangled particles, so long as they’re not supposed to be experts on the subject. Harem’s explanation for her powers works fine, because that’s just her guessing. Also, maybe her real superpower is she’s able to get entangled particles to work the way she would like them to work rather than the way they generally do, and all of the stuff she’s able to do is just a consequence of that.
You can get away with lot of different levels of scientific explanation, as long as it’s not SO specific experts would tell you that won’t work already. You CAN say it works by entangled particle BECAUSE you can say it does something to make them MORE entangled.
Or, wormholes: We actually already know EXACTLY how to make a wormhole. You only need some exotic matter. You can describe the physics as precisely as you want, even provide equations if you think your readers would like it … you just handwave where did they get the exotic matter.
When asked by Time magazine in 1994, “How do the Heisenberg compensators work?” Michael Okuda replied, “They work just fine, thank you.”
Fine thin hair dries a lot faster than most people expect, especially on the longish side. if the ponytail of a individual has the band at less than an inch squared it can definitely dry within 15 minutes loose, provided the room has less than 60% humidity. Used to be my favorite trick, making a packed lunch in between my shower and doing my hair- well back when I had butt length hair.
Amount of hair matters when it comes to drying time, just as much as length and other factors.
“Write what you know” is more flexible than that, as “what you know” can always expand with proper research, experimentation, exploration, and talking with the people whose lived experience includes things outside your own, which is still research, but deserves it’s own mention in specific.
Also, I can walk out of a shower in Gila Bend, AZ during an average day, and it will be bone dry in 10 minutes.
Okay, so the hair example was a bad one. I remembered reading a book in college where a character had thick ankle length hair (as in when braided the braid was the diameter of a forearm, in St Louis, and upon stepping out of the shower and towling off, their hair was dry in 15 minutes.
As someone who had, at the time, waist length hair of a similar thickness, that upon towel drying was damp for another couple hours, it completely through me out of the story.
Shioh has a Disney villain look to her there. Okay maybe villain is much, but it does give me Disney vibes.
I honestly forgot that was the “fear boner” guy. I’m a bit impressed Max remembered, but I guess shouldn’t be surprised – she’s an excellent soldier, and part of being an excellent soldier is having good situational awareness. I can’t recall if she has an sort of superhuman hearing – some Superman expies do, some don’t. I don’t think she would have needed it to overhear his comment, however.
It was also a lot more recent for her.
Well that and if you walk into a room that dead quiet and you hear that, if you were in a good mood, you’d bust out laughing, where Max was already in a bad mood from the trip AND had no interest in the “Chads” that were in there, she could hardly manage a chuckle. I’m just surprised she managed to calm down enough to even try to talk to the shy-guy in the room! Much less admit to the whole “go get laid” thing.
She’s next to invulnerable and indestructible. So how sensitive will she be when sensitivity is so important?
It has been said that she can drain some of her abilities to boost others, so she probably could get her armor and strength down to human-like levels, and either go Flying for some special moves, or speed and test his endurance…
It is not said if she could drain her abilities and not put the points in another one though, it is said she has some kind of reserve pool, but we don’t know the extent of that pool.
Well, this side comic from El Goonish Shive seems relevant (the sidestory is only 17 pages). To avoid confusion for those unfamiliar with the comic, I should note that Tedd (the sciencey guy) has magic that lets him switch his physical sex whenever he feels like it (hence the sudden presence of boobs when the scene changes to him talking to Elliot), and Elliot has (amongst other spells) a spell that turns him into a female superhero known as Cheerleadra.
For this setting, my guess is that sensitivity isn’t an issue – the relevant tissues are still just as movable and thus would activate the relevant sensory nerves. It’s just that they are much more resilient than mundane tissues, and probably harden when necessary. Of course, Max would need to be careful if she opted to bump uglies with a mere mortal – I think she mentioned (possibly in a Patreon bonus comic) that if she experienced an intense climax, it’s possible the resulting muscle contractions could significantly harm her partner.
Err… it looks like I can’t do links in the comment section? If you go to the El Goonish Shive webcomic (Google it), then go to the EGS:NP tab (that’s for the newspaper-format sidecomics), and then go to Super Hero Science (there’s a navigation bar just below the current comic; it currently says Who Is Ellen Part 4, as that’s the title of the current sidecomic; click that and you can navigate to previous sidecomics).
You can use the HTML ‘a’ tag, or just paste the URL directly.
You can also put a website URL into the Gravatar login field, and your name becomes the hyperlink. If you click on my name it will send you to my serial on Royal Road.
Yep, I would definitely hang out with Shioh.
Funny thing, my IRL name is Rowan and I’m at least this level poor at bar small talk. I don’t have a sister though. It is a much more common name in the UK. The name is used for either sex. Its a fairly uncommon name which is horrible when you are a kid and great later in life.
Rowan when interacting with girls:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB01rSkSS94
Can confirm. I got better though.
I’ve gotten better enough to know she was asking for HIS number, but this isn’t a bar.
He is doing pretty well speaking with her, the other comic before advised that the choker is giving a small boost to her charms.
But he seems to be resisting it, as is his sister.. Seems like it anyway, the others are just trying to get in her pants but he is activly still awkward around her.
You need to check back a bit. Shioh is the girl that hit on Max & did not take the first “no”, triggering the whole reveal about this.
oh his sister is super under the effects of the choker, he seems to be resisting it thou
Judging by the last panel, this is normal behaviour for her… which just confirms the magic-whammy doesn’t make people do anything they wouldn’t, just muzzles the annoying voice screaming all the bad outcomes
If this was a more dramatic comic, she’d open up enough to have sex with the guy, and it would turn out he’s a villain that took the most opportune time to get her guard lowered.
His or her place… betting his, cause arc light and arc dark would be all over hers. Upon entry Star Trek and geek stuff all over the place. They click on that level.
Before lights go out she finds his “holosuite” and drag him in there in some form of rp.
Hoping it’s soundproofed.
Dabbler hits a button on a timer.
Camera pulls back, it’s the Kaiju timer from Pacific Rim retarded for Maxima getting laid.
Behind or under it minions are erasing the betting board.
Some folks look dejected but one is winner.
I absolutely love the way you put a Chuck Jones evil grin™ on a human. It’s super creepy funny.
+1 for recognizing that this smile is used by many of his other characters too (Wile E being my other favorite example).
She and Sidney should never meet. Or they must meet. I’m conflicted..
I like the final panel. Talk about a mastermind in the making…
This can go one of three ways, and whichever way it goes, it’s certainly going to be interesting to watch.
I knew it was statistically impossible for there to not be another woman with the same energy as Sydney, but I’m pleasantly surprised anyway.
Oooh I love her! I hope she becomes a regular secondary cast member. I wonder if Shioh runs a D&D group in the “church of Sydney” game and comic shop…
Is Shioh that desperate for a sister-in-law?
Hilarious! Max does not mess around INDEED.
On a side note, in panel three, it looks like Rowan is missing his bottom teeth or something. If the dude has false teeth, good for you for daring to draw such. ;)
What would you call the gender-swapped corollary of “Man of Steel, Woman of Tissue Paper”? I mean that is clearly “Woman of Gold, Man of Tissue Paper”, or maybe “Woman of Gold, Man of Jello” but it still does not end wll for the partner, unless he is tougher than reinforced concrete.
I think the problem with Man of Steel, Woman of Tissue Paper was the ejaculation. So we’re looking for something fragile that crushes easily if we want to make the metaphor work.
Hydraulic press woman?
resistance.
Given Superman could carve a statue of himself out of solid granite with his erection, one wrong slip up during intercourse and Lois’ abdominal would be ripped right through, of course not before a moment of her being lifted up and hopefully Supes catching that before anymore damage is done…kind of like if she welded a titanium dildo on a forklift and someone started the lift on it while it was inside her.
even going slow, thanks to the massive difference in resistance he would be able to easily shred through the mucus membrane without even realizing it like a hot knife through butter causing a ton of internal bleeding, hell his pubic hair should be like a cheese grater against a ripe tomato.
As I said, in my other post here, there is a reason story tellers don’t dwell on these unless doing a deconstruction series like “The Boys”, and handwave an excuse away.
yeah that’s come up a few times the last few pages, by me as well. Even questioning if Maxima has ever really had a good sexual experience *or great, good should still be possible* that wasn’t (self inflicted).
While some characters like Superman, Supergirl, Goku, etc…we either ignore it or say they have precise muscle control to this degree…it comes off more as a handwave as the writers want to focus on punching space gods not their sex life.
we have seen Maxima break a door knob just from being tired, so even lowering her strength and such looks like she has a minimum level that is still pretty super human, but if her mental/emotional state can influence these rather than it being locked on till she mentally adjusts the settings, so no (robot super woman locked her strength settings down to human so she doesn’t crush you like a toothpaste tube), then if you manage to bring her to orgasm, especially a really good one, then some part of you..waist or head…is effectively flicking the pin on a metal press that can crush other metal presses as it were.
I think her choices come down to 1)Boring sex life or 2)No sex life beyond her hands or external sex toys. Which would YOU choose? If you were Max, obviously.
considering her age when she started to turn golden, chances are she’s never experienced it. And given her limitation on potential sexual partners, probably never gone that far past foreplay. Heck her lack of experience in that department could add to her not understanding why others make such a big deal about it. She’s just never gotten far enough into the act to really, REALLY enjoy it.
Wouldn’t be surprised to find she has a sort of graveyard’s worth of broken sex toys, and never been comfortable enough to request some studier ones. Like finding a hand carved *by her* solid titanium dildo that has been crushed like someone dropped a mountain on it.
-while I never typed it out officially, for my own OP super heroine type characters I imagined a kinetic regulator spell within their defense aura layers that could be used to send enough of their own force back if needed. Used for general activities as well as sex. Although I think in writing I just pulled the old “precise muscle control”.
oh… just had a really awkward scene pop into my head.
Max trying a set of toys… gets nicely started then breaks them horribly because they are not tough enough.. she’s sitting there contemplating her frustration when there is a timid little knock at the door. Dabbler walks in. “I’m sorry I know you find this embarrassing but I sensed your frustration from across the building. what went wrong and can I help?” Max points at her trash can. “ahh, I see. should have guessed. listen for my health because that frustration gives me horrible indigestion can I fix it?”
Max raises an eyebrow. “I don’t want your kind of help”
“no, I meant let me fix these for you so they will help you”
“oh.”
a coupe of days later Dabbler’s porno senses tingle rather seriously.
“much better” she said.
I believe that some of dabbler’s obnoxiousness is just an act. That if she became aware of the problem she would simply fix it, and that she has either the tech or the potion (or both) to do it. after all… Dabbler let Sydney deck her after the ‘side effects’ kicked in.
First date with now spouse was awkward AF. I was completely unmasked as a neurodivergent weirdo because I thought I had nothing to lose, since she was getting on a plane the next day. Little did I know that was the exact way to act to get their attention. They wish I’d given them a goodnight kiss though…
My wife was quite promiscuous (even bragged about it) before we were together. She’s been a faithful wife for 23 years, so I think I made the right call.
That woman gonna turn out to be Sidney’s cousin or something, I’m sure of it.
That makes Rowan also her cousin, are you sure you want Max dating one of Sydney’s relatives?
Doubt Max would mind. Remember she actually likes Sydney and shares interests with her.
As long as they take after Sydney’s mother’s side of the family, not her dad’s :P
Both her parents need way more screen time.
Better than me, I don’t think I’ve ever written a hook up scene that wasn’t cringy at best and technically fantastical rape at worst. (oh my early to mid 20s AKA my horny era of writing…).
Which is getting me now because I planned to have a princess fall for a heroine and I am just stuck on how fast or slow, that should progress, or get their interactions while traveling together *incognito princess passing for a traveler kind of deal*. But its like…but the last time I wrote about two characters traveling together one had a crush on the other, and that other was magically drawn to the former; it played out more like an up and coming adventurer being the morality chain for a very dangerous revived ancient “evil” just trying not to upset her..while also teaching her about adventuring in the real world away from the set up fake dungeons her people had back home.
So not exactly a mundane, every day, kind of hook up kind of situation.
I would say you need to decide on the official social mores of the society to help you decide on speed.
If your society is fine with F/F romance, things would move faster than if they are not fine with F/F romance. Variable: Is the princess expected to be able to produce heirs in the future? If so, is there magic available to help with that issue in an F/F relationship? Also, how does that society feel about out-of-wedlock sex?
Once you know what the social pressures are, then you can decide how fast they progress. In the serial I am writing, not a single one of the (currently married) royal offspring made it to their wedding a virgin, and not just with the person they are married to (though a certain amount of discretion was required for all parties). That fact hasn’t been mentioned in the story, but it was relevant to working out the history of one of the princesses, whom my wife was helping me develop. I haven’t needed to decide if the youngest two have had liaisons, so they are ‘undefined’ for now.
One of said princesses is married to a marques daughter. Said daughter *would* be the heir to the marques title, but she stepped down because neither one of them wanted to get involved with the necessary magic to make an heir produced by the two of them. It would be more of an issue if she didn’t have a younger sibling to fill the role.
This would not fly as well in some other countries, but the four most prominent deities in this country are kitsune, and they have close ties to a kitsune clan, so some things are a touch different…
So once you know how their society feels about it, you can decide how A) they feel about those rules, if relevant, and B) what their own personal taste is for speed. Heck, the heroine might be a casual dater or even pick up guys and gals for flings, and the princess has to figure out either excuses to say she shouldn’t do that while working for the princess, or decide to confess earlier than she feels comfortable about to give the heroine a real reason to at least pause while she considers things. Of course, access to magic long-term birth control and cure-disease spells would have a tendency to alter a society’s outlook as well.
I don’t have a dating progression example for you though, the main romance in mine has a situationally speed-run to a three-person marriage of convenience, and having to work out many aspects of the relationship afterword. Yes, magic shenanigans were involved.
My story is in my user name’s link, if you are curious.
Ack, sorry for giving you two comments, I forgot to click the email me with new comments thing, so if you do reply, please reply to this one.
Without going into too much detail, the heroine is also technically a princess incognito but from a different world. Due to her mothers *who would be the (last time I had two traveling together* being very famous across multiple worlds.
Mom 1: The immortal priestess and member of the Lia family who are the largest international and multi-world trading company on their planet with a long history of also having heroes in the family as well as running one of the largest schools for adventuring and magic education; whose own mother is the princess of the light elves that rule the planet Juhn (a post apocalyptic Earth variant the light elves conquered), so technically a member of that royal family as well.
and Mom 1 in many circles gets credit for “taming” mom 2
Mom 2: the “ancient evil” near mythical figure across most of their world and whose own side of the family tends to sport all sorts of demons, dragons, gods, eldritch horrors, etc…thanks to various avatars and reincarnations.
-reincarnations also affects family with mom 1 *the two were married in a past life hence the magically drawn together, but that’s not public knowledge on their world*
and she was raised with aspirations of being a hero. Problem is..too famous. So under the guise of a school project on exploration she has been visiting *mundane* human worlds (quick note the people of her world are naturally super human anyway, but don’t usually realize it as everyone is to some degree). After a few bad experiences with superhero worlds is visiting a more magic based world, something closer to home but not affiliated so she can still be incognito.
and the princess in this story is the immortal divine princess of the sun whose mother the empress of the sun has been trying to get her daughter to accept a suitor…while simultaneously pushing them away *indecisive on the matter*, but the world they play “gods” over in their flying city is more fairy tale medieval legends and social norms are a little more old fashioned there. But after their first encounter where the princess is pretending to a common traveler and the heroine defeats some bandits the princess offers to be their guide to the capital city and has a crush (emotions she is unsure of) on the heroine…who feels it but is more on this world to forget her recent problems and hasn’t really been looking for love.
they will be traveling together for a little while, so how to progress that at what rate and interactions that don’t feel *hand of god forced*, it is one thing to critique a movie for (oh so they just like each other that much already huh?) but to write it so it doesn’t come across that way is easier said than done. Especially with the cards against I have laid down.
Hmm, I would have to say slow development is the key. Also depends on how oblivious the Heroine is.
My personal inclination would be to have the princess acting a little weird due to approach/avoidance conflict. She wants to be with the heroine, but anytime the situation builds toward casual (and generally platonic) intimacy, the princess experiences anxiety because of the other situations in her life.
The Heroine seems to come from a more open-minded society. While the princess is dithering, have the heroine piece together what is going on rather than any sort of confession, and she has to then decide whether to confront the princess or not. If she confronts the princess (in private of course) then it is all out in the open and a decision has to be made. But, the decision might not be the one the heroine wants (assuming she returns the princess’s affection), so she may be hesitant to push the issue as well, in which case it goes on longer.
If neither one of them pushes the issue and it starts to stagnate, a more experienced person (guy or gal) who has been watching these two be idiots for long enough might decide to step in and force them to do something about it.
—–
The elf mage sighed as he watched the two girls avoid the issue again. It was obvious that they’d fallen for each other, and while he might not appear much older than them he’d been married longer than they’d been alive. And he was done watching this stupid soap opera drama. “Alright you two, your game is getting irritating.” He took advantage of their momentary confusion to construct a basic force cage around them. Nothing they couldn’t escape if they really tried, but he was counting on social mores to keep them from doing anything that destructive when not in danger.
“Look, your dance is cute sometimes, but the tension has gotten way too thick, and you both get distracted by your own conflict which is dangerous. Yes, I know you have your duties as a princess, you aren’t exactly the first woman to have to cope with this problem. Here, I’ll help you out with a solution, and it’s not the only one.”
He pointed at the princess. “Princess, assuming that men as a concept are acceptable to you, make her your lady-in-waiting, then find a guy to marry that your hero there doesn’t hate. Sleep with him just enough to get a kid and heir, and everyone looks the other way when you spend most of your nights with your lady-in-waiting. If that’s not acceptable, be defiant, find a priest who is willing to marry the two of you in private, and then find a kid to adopt. Boom, you have an heir, the major issue is solved. And if that isn’t going to work, then abdicate, run away, and force your mom to find a second cousin or adopt another kid to take your place on the throne. There are options, you two are being stubborn. And if you aren’t willing to actually do something to make it work for you, then maybe you just have a silly child’s crush and shouldn’t be thinking about love at all.”
His voice had been slowly rising through this as his annoyance finally found an outlet. “I don’t really care, just figure it out! Avoiding the issue is just you being scared and allowing fear to rule you. GET. OVER. IT.” He stalked away, leaving the two young women in stunned silence.
———————
There’s my quick go at having a random third-party person try and force the issue. XD
That’s the guy? Really? This weird ass looking Dude? You couldn’t have drawn him at least a little conventionally attractive?
What’s the issue? Should all fictional characters be at least conventionally attractive, just because it’s fiction and we can make them so? I think “all good people are attractive” and “all good people are ugly” are both problematic propositions.
All characters good, bad, or ugly must still be attractive.
There is a tendency in fiction to hook beautiful women up with…not quite so handsome men. I have no issue as long as a hot guy hooks up with a goofy looking lady as well
No, because that would say something different.
Naa… Keep in mind looking good helps, but it’s a small part of liking someone. I’m hardly a “looker” but if you seen my wedding pictures you’d say the same thing many of my friends did: “HOW THE HELL DID YOU HOOK UP WITH HER!?!” LOL!
Just a bit of luck and being respectful…
I have never used any pickup lines, ever. Bars are only good for one thing: drunken one-night stands. Never had a good time or a repeat “date” from that. My first attempt ended with me and my bed covered in puke and having to sleep alone on the couch. YUK! Had to wash everything off in my yard with the garden hose too… Only thing I said was “What the hell did you eat!”
Wait, did Shioh just do a ClaireFace?
That “Rowan” looks a lot like Rowan from Viva La Dirt League. Is that supposed to be Phoenix Cross as his sister? Seriously go watch Baelin’s Route on Youtube if you don’t know what I’m talking about.
He does not look in any way like Rowan from VLDL, but I did post a link to one of their skits :) The one about talking to hot girls. :)
No “Who’s Who” entries for either Shioh or Rowan so I suspect this isn’t going anywhere long term, but hopefully Max/Harper have a nice time for now.
Maybe they aren’t who they claim to be and we shouldn’t know the truth yet.
Who’s Who tends to not kick in for a little, especially if Dave’s testing out a new character.
Remember Vehemence talked several times before being revealed, as well.
This is ….. nice. I am enjoying this character development