Grrl Power #1180 – The scent of a femalien
I can tell with about an 85% accuracy whether or not a motion captured performance in a video game was done by a Japanese performer or an American one. I’m pulling that number out of my ass – there’s no independent testing involved here, but I’m pretty sure I’m right. Japanese have a certain distinctive… I call it “torso acting.” Anytime a zombie dies or a human gets shot in a Resident Evil game, you can see it. Yakuza (or people motion capturing as) have a different sort of body language, but there’s still something distinctly Japanese about it. Office workers and otakus have their own tells as well.
The reason I bring this up is that aliens, even the ones with completely humanoid bodies, would have their own culturally motivated body language. Same thing with fantasy races, like elves. If you were a motion capture performer and the director tells you to “walk (possibly gaily) across the glenn of Elftown” and the next day you’re playing “a Viking lumbering across a muddy street,” of course your body language would be different.
A normal human could pick up some of these tells if they’re paying attention, and someone with super intelligence, assuming their observational skills are a fraction of what their brain power is used for, would have to have a severe head cold to miss all the signs an alien might put out. Especially if it was someone they knew. Obviously an alien who had been living among humans for a long time, or a Japanese who grew up in America would have those idiosyncrasies fairly muted, but they might still pick some up from parents or others if there’s an ethnic community around them.
(It feels wrong to write “a Japanese” instead of “a Japanese person,” but it’s fine to write “an American” or “a German,” but not “an English” or “a British,” but it’s fine to say “a Brit.” Language is weird. I still have to catch myself when I’m talking about Ukraine and not say “The Ukraine.”)
So maybe Deus smelled something, maybe it was body language. Sciona had been living on Earth for an indeterminate amount of time before her appearance in the comic, but this page does rather heavily imply that the senator there is also an Alari, and likely one of the ones Sciona took along with her when she found herself in Mexico. So his body language game wouldn’t be nearly as on point as hers.
This page should be the last flat shaded one. I’m still technically sick, in that I have an incredibly mild cough, but literally no other symptoms, and I’m sloooowly improving so I’m basically better? I just won’t be fully 100% for like another week at this rate. Obviously I didn’t get the incentive finished yet, but I’ll totally for real definitely have it done for next Monday’s page.
The June vote incentive is finally up! Maxima is prepping for her night out.
And in the Patreon variants, she gets (un)dressed and takes a look through all the makeup options.
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Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
Where did her thumb go in that handshake? Is it in deus’s palm?
Behind his hand? …as handshakes typically put the web of their hands together. (Web: the part between thumb and forefinger)
DId Deus just doa Biden on her? Next he be falling UP stairs and off stationary bicycles.
Telling the truth, riding actual bicycles, not wearing 4 inch lifts in his shoes, able to ascend or descend inclines over 1 degree without uniformed assistance.
I was wondering. Looked like a guest artist, but the art style was too similar.
Hope you feel better, the last vestiges of creeping ick like that is annoying when it lingers.
I mean technically they’re not wrong. Fairy Groves are a thing in mythology. Except they are also usually dungeons. The mythical beings that inherit Fairy Groves tend to be really really high level, the reason there’s no monsters there is cause they are afraid of the Fairy creatures. So if they made a fairy grove, they better be really careful not to piss anything off – of half the country and several world leaders might go missing!
Considering Fairy nobility are demigod level at their weakest, that would be a massive understatement. At their strongest, they could easily fight deities to a literal standstill. Not to mention their customs and world views are VERY different from a human. Not to mention they are very, very, VERY vindictive. Perfect example? Sleeping Beauty. Evil Fairy wasn’t invited to the party, INSTANT DEATH CURSE.
So cool. Thank you for posting this. Keep updated!
Deus has fairly intimate reference for her body language
… How? This is the first time he has seen that body
I assume she has a familiar scent, despite the new form. Maybe a favorite perfume, or the smell of corpses perhaps? Maybe smells like blood, since she works with blood magic and corpses.
I’m assuming he didn’t identify her, specifically, but he knows she’s an Alari. My guess is that he can feel/smell her blood magic, and/or she’s using Alari-style perfumes and foods, which he would be quite familiar with. After all, there’s his assistant right in the room with him!
… Because only Alari can eat Alari food or wear Alari products…
Which means Sydney must be an alien because she’s able to eat that grakz stuff (and survive it passing through)!
Depending how long its been, Alari culture may not have spread much outside of Galtyn, to say nothing of the actual materials you might need to replicate their cuisine and toiletries. Recsll the Alari under Deus came as refugees. Its unlikely they brought a stockpile of produce, seeds and what have you.
The demon bodyguard isn’t even in control over her own disguise?
What? SmugD is afraid she might activate it without permission and go exploring on her own?
Oddly, autistic people might track even better on this. They have a hard time blending with allistic humans, and spend a great deal of time and effort “masking” to try to appear normal, so they are keenly observant of allistic human behavior and body language, and mimic it. They just don’t do it naturally. So they might easily spot another “alien” type doing the same thing.
I think it is true for humans in general that we learn to attend to things in our environment that have particular importance to us. After years of working in the mental health field I can confirm that autistic folk have to pay extra attention to behavioral cues. Even after being retired for nearly a decade after working on what was termed a “Multiple Disabilities Program” I can still distinguish between a Thorazine shuffle, a Parkinsonian shuffle and a bad back shuffle when watching a person’s gait. It ties into some of the other discussions in the comments about learning to attend to various senses. My own thought is that a lot of what we see as intuition or a “gut feeling” is the process of unconsciously picking up on our own senses. The senses are there, we just don’t actively attend to them unless circumstances require it of us.
Oh lord, you got that awful long cold thing that decided to show up. I’m still draining from that crap & I’ve not been “sick” for like 2 weeks.
Maximum sympathies sent, this thing is just awful. I found spicy food tends to alleviate symptoms for a bit & those breathing strips for your nose help with sleep.
You might want to get a COVID test. There’s a new wave going around that is laying out a lot of people, even people like me who are otherwise healthy and quadruple vaxxed. It’s possible you have the same; not sure what would change if you knew, but it’s always better to have accurate facts. I hope you feel better soon.
Fun Fact: Batman once knew The Martian manhunter was disguised as a Japanese business woman because he detected some “Martian body language.” Also, the name J’onn used was, “a dead giveaway”.
That name? ‘Rei Hino’
I love the idea that both the Martian Manhunter and Batman watch Sailor Moon… Bats probably just read the Manga tho
No, Bats knows everything about everyone because the writers make it so
omg, can you imagine Batman as a Sailor Scout?
Fighting evil by moonlight
Winning love by daylight
Never running from a real fight
He is the one named Batman!
He will never turn his back on a friend
He is always there to defend
He is the one on whom we depend
He is the one named Bat…
Dick Greyson!
Barbara Gordon!
Alfred Pennyworth!
Tim Drake!
Fighting evil by moonlight
Winning love by daylight
Never running from a real fight
He is the one named Batman!
I never really understood the “never running from a real fight” line. That was pretty much Usagi’s go to strategy when things started to go pear shaped…run away and wait for Sailor Jupiter and sailor Mars to show up…
it was never a real fight until they got there
I would prefer if you stuck to flat-shaded. It fits the artstyle a lot better. With shading, you get a lot of uncanny valley imagery. It’s like if you saw someone with a face with anime proportions in real-life.
In a way, I suppose this is praise for your shading ability, because it can make things look very lifelike. I just don’t think the comic’s artstyle should be rendered to look lifelike.
Dave, get yourself a COVID test. I got completely whacked by what I thought was a chest cold until I took the test and realized what I had. There’s a new wave going around that is laying out a lot of people, even people like me who are otherwise healthy and quadruple vaxxed.
wow, I see