Grrl Power #1189 – Sydney and Parfait, sitting in a tree…
Hey Sydney, guess what happens if you invite (summon) an eager, young succubus over and hang out with her all night ogling boys and giggling and lounging around in PJs and talking about being an eagerly willing slave of a powerful Fiend lord? Oh wait, you already know.
Don’t worry, it’s not turning into that kind of comic. Or if that’s what you were hoping for, then… do worry, I guess?
What Sydney hadn’t considered is that Dabbler, for all her instigation, has her succubus nature pretty locked down. Parfait is actually still in Succubus Finishing School (Suc U). She’s doing her work internship credit with Thom. This incident might cost her a grade point in Power Control 201.
Succubi are famous vamps/honey pot/general seductresses, but they wouldn’t have that reputation if they were uncontrollably throwing themselves at the nearest warm bodies constantly. Becoming the Mistresses of Pleasure is a lot of what Suc U is about. The rest of it is all the advanced power refinements they can learn once they get their rampant randiness under control. That and advanced social acumen, manipulation, intrigue, etc.
The July vote incentive is finally up! There was a disagreement about digitigrade and plantigrade leg configurations. What better way to resolve it than a race?
And in the Patreon variant, what better way to resolve it than a nude race? You know, to eliminate uh… wind drag I guess?
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Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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"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.
I’ve been there before. Not sexually, thankfully, but in a situation that has some similarities. You feel it coming, you try your best to fight it, cry out and beg for help as you desperately throw everything you can to try and subdue it but knowing that your only hope is to get somewhere where you won’t do as much damage. Meanwhile everyone thinks you’re lying or, even if they don’t, they can’t do jack to help besides watch over you. Only difference is that, instead of lesbian sex, it’s ending with me convulsing on the floor as a siezure overtakes me.
Truely. Due to various life circumstances I’ve been around people with seizure disorders and it is not a fun ride. The worst for the person that I witnessed was coming up on a woman in a motel hallway. I don’t know how much of the even that I missed. When I found her she was conscious and clearly frightened but was unable to move or communicate. I stuck around until the EMTs arrived but I never found out anything about her or her outcome. Working in a residential facility we had people who had seizure disorders. I knew a couple of folks who could sense the aura of an impending seizure but couldn’t communicate it very well once it had started. They described similar feelings.
I’ve been able to sense those auras as well. My family knows that, whenever I start mentioning them, drop everything and get ready because I’m gonna have a petite mal if not a full-on grand mal. I’ve noticed some things that seem to aggrivate the likelihood like a lack of sleep, high stress, and a lack of meat in my diet but I don’t know how much of that is factual and how much is incidental.
But yea, I know it’s not the same as what Parfait is going through, but I feel it’s likely similar enough I can sympathize and say I’ve had a relatable experience. If it holds up, then whatever she does next isn’t HER. Not really. She’s doing things she’d never even consider if she was sane and rational and what she’s doing is probably not even going to be really LOGICAL beyond a basic instinct level. I won’t pretend like it likely won’t be hard on our favorite geek girl, but I do hope she understands that what’s happening isn’t Parfait.
Frankly I don’t consider this to be sexual assault any more than tickling is physical assault. It simply has not progressed far enough, and Sydney wasn’t clear (or aware) enough in her refusal for it to cross that line yet.
I feel like a lot of people are potentially deliberately making a false equivalence here. Succubi cannot, by any measure, be held or equated to human standards. Dabbler’s cultural background and presentation alone should be clear enough on this fact. This apple is not the same as our orange. You cannot, and more importantly MUST NOT, hold literally everyone and everything of different species to the same standards, or else you are basically committing casual SPECIESISM, not to mention advocating cultural erasure on the grounds of ‘it’s not comfortable for you.’
I’m sure plenty of folks are getting flashbacks to creepazoids A to F forcing themselves on someone by starting with kissing but this isn’t that. It’s pretty clear to any casual onlooker that Parfait isn’t fully in control of herself and that this came on rather suddenly, whereas for it to be sexual assault at this stage, she would have to be in control of herself and doing it on purpose in clear defiance of Sydney’s reluctance or refusal. Some people might be impassioned enough by personal experiences to say ‘lack of control isn’t an excuse’ but YOU ARE NOT A SUCCUBUS. You do not have an evolutionary background where your foremost ancestors were LITERALLY DESIGNED FROM THE GROUND-UP TO NOT HAVE CONTROL.
For the freshly-adult succubus it literally IS an excuse, their behaviour CAN be excused. Is it uncomfortable? Yes. Should a line be drawn in the sand? Yes! Should that excuse not be abused? Ab-so-LUTely – their own society reinforces not making this exact mistake over and over, and it IS a mistake. An excusable one. And, moreover, it is not your right whether or not to excuse that mistake, because you are not Sydney. Some of you are calling her a victim, but I think that Sydney has the right and MORE than enough self-autonomy to make that decision for herself.
The vast majority of humans do not need to have entire schools teaching self-control. It’s something we pick up along the way, and only a very, very small handful of humans need to take self-control classes. This depiction, right here, is literally so endemic to the Succubus experience that their ENTIRE schooling system is based around it.
It feels more like a fantasy equivalent to heat – there’s something hijacking her standard neural processes and the only way out is to either give in or get an override (via sleep potion), or to have more experience and practice in shutting herself down, the last of which she CLEARLY doesn’t have yet.
Do you have control over the random twitches in your muscles? When those random twitches cause your leg to kick out, is that anything less than an excusable mistake the first few times? Clearly the exact same thing is happening with her lust aura, and she has as little control over that as we do over the muscle twitch. She hasn’t achieved Buddhist-monk-in-the-mountains level of biological control yet. We have no idea how many times Parfait has gone through this and all signs point to her being a very freshly-minted adult who has yet to finish her higher educations and is very recently collared so all signs point to her simply just needing a little more time and practice to reign herself in and direct/channel this stuff more effectively, and for the people around her to be understanding of that.
TL;DR:
This is an excusable mistake and Sydney is the subject of a miscommunication and lack of understanding. If this continues to happen in further encounters despite Sydney’s continual refusal and resistance and in a demonstration of Parfait’s continual lack of development of bodily-self-mastery, then it ceases to be an excusable mistake. THAT is when it has become the appropriate time to become incensed — not here, and not now.
Well-typed!
Also remember that apparently, Earth is very backward as far as casual sexy times goes. Both Cora and Dabbler have referred to Earthlings as “Weird Prudes” and Parfait, being very young and naive about human culture, really has no “Morality filter” to speak of.
Remember that Sleeping Beauty being awakened by “True Love’s Kiss” was, in the original story, a lot less romantic and more “The prince had his way with her while she was asleep, and she was awakened by the suckling of her newborn child nine months later”
Yeah, the original fairy tales are a lot less PC, aren’t they? Nowadays we have people who literally think the prince should have somehow gotten consent to even kiss the princess awake. (How, exactly?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQA7-OqJrwY
Yeah, that’s a real news story about something that stupid.
Being a prude by succubi standards is like being considered poor by Harvard standards. By non succubi standards, earth has really good… corn.
Cora’s entire crew being openly sexual not just with their captain, but other people as well, despite several disparate backgrounds, and finding Sydney’s flustered antics cute also suggests quite a lot about other species in space. Like, I don’t think the tentacle room on her ship is just a Cora thing.
Cora’s crew is the harem of one particularly free spirited individual. They are extremely sexually liberal because if they weren’t, they wouldn’t want to be on her ship. We have nothing suggesting that they’re representative for the galaxy as a whole.
I mean, Sydney did invite over a succubi and quite frankly had a nice date with her. All other things aside we have to ask if Sydney did not have an idea where this might go before making a 20k summoning circle and going to Gwen and suspiciously not Dabbler who is a half sister and succubi who could offer insight.
In fairness, Dabbler would probably assume this was where it was going and that Sydney knew and wanted that, and just forget to bring it up in advance. Sydney’s been getting some experience dating non-humans and being as trope-aware as she is obviously should know the most basic of succubus stereotypes. It’d be easy for Dabbler to assume she sees this coming.
How you gonna summon a succubus and NOT expect this to happen?
I disagree.
I think it is actually far more likely that Dabbler, were she aware of the situation, would be _more_ likely to be surveilling them, given her experience with humans generally, and personal knowledge of Sydney in specific, on top of her understand of Parfait’s somewhat delicate, essentially-still-a-hormone-addled-teenager-where-said-hormones-are-also-personality-altering-drug, developmental state.
Notes for Tamitha to think about, looking forward. She may be young, but she’s reached the age where she has a right to be made aware of things her body is/will-be doing to her.
Sexual assault isn’t defined by the presence of refusal but absence of consent. You can’t just surprise grope someone and claim they didn’t say no
If that’s true then why is Pepe LaPew so funny?
He gets the shit kicked out of him and his cartoon horniness backfires horrendously
Assault and battery are the threat of and act of physical violence. But The Three Stooges are funny. Generally, Pepe LePew (not LaPew, he’s all man) doesn’t go into too-creepy places, gets beat up for his efforts often, and in three cases gets the tables turned on him in the end.
Doesn’t summoning a succubus constitute consent? Depending on how you see real-world sexual desire working, you could make a pathological argument that no sex is ever consensual because it is always under the influence of an imposed desire.
I get where you’re coming from, but you have to see the kind of slippery slope that kind of definition can become, especially when it’s so open-ended and a word as violence-charged and intent-implying as ‘assault’ is used. For example, one could say that Forrest Gump was sexually assaulted by Jenny if they infer that the mentally-handicapped cannot give consent under any circumstances, which in turn would lead to a somewhat long discussion about exactly how handicapped Forrest actually was, and whether he was unworthy of being allowed to have a family of his own when he was clearly and openly desirous of such things.
In this particular instance with Sydney and Parfait, I believe it would be more accurate to call it ‘unsolicited sexual contact’, which lessens the intensity of the event closer to what it actually is. More accurate still would be to call it ‘unsolicited sexual contact caused by temporary insanity,’ which is pretty much dead-on.
Obviously steps should be taken to counter or take into account the conditions that can lead to that temporary insanity, perhaps apologies could be made depending on Sydney’s position on the matter, but seeing people get themselves all twisted up into pretzels by calling this sexual assault – with all the implication of someone being accosted on the street by a dubious character that only cares for their own gratification – does somewhat significantly bother me, especially due to the fact that every reader here //has the context to know this isn’t anywhere close to that.//
I agree, this is no different a couple of drunk gal friends at a Frat party, one or both may regret it in the morning but hey, if it dangles let it swing! LOL
I couldn’t help but notice they both look like they are both under a glamor in the strip, like Sydney is suddenly very pretty rather than just cute and Parfait is looking like an experienced “pron” star rather than her usual pretty self.
Thank you for putting that out there, and for doing so definitively. We all can relate to some degree with how Sydney will react to this, at least subconsciously, but we also lack Sydney’s persona, and her (relatively extensive, and infinite compared to our) experience with non-Terrans. Two things I would point to as additional PoVs: Both Parfait and Sydney are trainees, one way or another – and Sydney’s experience with Succubi so far has been with an older and more experienced (and graduated) Succubus. From those two, it’s easy to see how this will be a teachable moment for both of them going forward. And honestly I’m already chuckling a little at the inevitable questions Sydney is going to have for Dabbler.
Meanwhile, somewhere, Dabbler’s porn-sense is tingling.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/PlayingWith/BlueAndOrangeMorality
I suspect Dabbler will be making an appearance soon to resolve the problem. No way she could not notice the sudden spike in sexual energy in the building.
I agree that Dabbler will probably notice it happening. I doubt she’ll try to stop it though.
I think she will. She’ll come in and Parfait will get that Nimora Salka- whatever it is -and she’ll cool down. Parfait will prolly get super embarrassed because she lost control, and that will prolly be what the focus is on. This was Parfait’s mistake and Sydney did nothing wrong, though I imagine Dabbler might ask that Sydney give her a heads up the next time she decides to summon Parfait. Sydney will prolly get super embarrassed and uncomfortable which Dabbler will find hilarious, prolly making wise cracks about the summoning ritual being a “Booty Call Spell” and that Sydney should have been ready for that.
But really, Parfait is a young Succubus. She’s still learning. And Dabbler is, when it comes down to it, a good person. I Imagine Dabbler will be firm but understanding. She’ll recognize that Sydney isn’t really at fault here, and control is literally the main thing Parfait is trying to learn. That said, Dabbler likely could make a callback to the memory erase spell, suggesting that she would have let it happen except then she’d need to use the memory erase spell on Sydney so Parfait wouldn’t accidentally ruin sex for her and “I figure you wouldn’t appreciate that”.
Oh.. Dabbler will stop it… But not necessarily because of Sydney…
Parfait lost control of her Lust Aura.. The thing Dabbler had on when she was introduced way back when to pull a fast one on Maxima and the rest of the High Brass..
And that Aura was tightly controlled, not the uncontrolled Aura Parfait is suffering from right now..
Dabbs might enjoy a good joke, and her sexual mores are, as pointed out, quite definitely not those of US-Amurrican Earth, but she also can’t let a Succ-U-Bomb Lust Nuke go off in Archon HQ.
She may be a tease, but she Groks the need for military ..professional distance.. and the damage loss of such can do to a unit. HER unit…
And if Max and Hiro are within the range of that Lust Aura… OhDear…
We all know how *terribly* Professional those two are about each other.
That’s some major backlash Dabbs would have to deal with later on if those two ..get it on.. because of a Youthful Mishap by her Sister..
Assuming she is on-site (and there’s no specific reason we currently know she wouldn’t be), yes, this is the most likely and best outcome.
Dabbler might still be in DC, or on her way back from the meeting with the Michael Pena senator.
The exact or relative timings of the Sydney/Parfait and Max in DC plots haven’t been explicitly established.
(I’m assuming that meeting was in DC. It could have been much more local, in which case the above possibilities are less likely.)
Well, I now know what I hope to see as the next vote incentive.
Is Parfait using Sydney an some sort of lust-sink?
Oh, that’s good. I’m going to use that excuse next time.
That…. May well be a possibility…
Parfait’s problem here is not unique. It would be a staple ..Challenge.. in Suc-U, with all the young and freshly collared succubi being present there.. And the SuC-U’s would have protocols and procedures to deal with this, and *teach* them to their charges.
Could well be Parfait is following one of those protocols by picking Sydney as the focus for her induced lust, so that it *doesn’t* spread or goes nuclear.
And before the pearl-clutchers and panty-twisters chime in again:
This is a completely logical procedure for someone attending Suc-U, and Dabbler has explained *several times* how things sort of work there.
First Aid in case of positive feedback of your Lust Aura is to pick *ONE* friend/classmate, and *FOCUS* on him/her/X ( demonic realm… got to account for anything..) so that the aura effect stays limited to that one person. -ish. And doesn’t affect the entire classroom/campus.
And no.. This isn’t rape, or even assault there.
Sexual/social mores are *different* there. By necessity and culture.
In fact, as a prospective classmate you sign up for this, and it wouldn’t surprise me that Suc-U is also one of the methods the succubi matriarchs use to train/select prospective collar-holders. **
Parfait, for all her charm, is making a College Years mistake, yes. But she is not “assaulting” Sydney.
She’s *not* familiar with the fucked-up faux-Puritan mess of *US-American* 20th/21st C sexual and social mores.
She’s engaging an emergency protocol the way she’s been trained to do at Suc-U, with someone she considers a friend.
To *prevent* setting off that Succ-u-Nuke.
And in the world she grew up in, *and* the college she is being trained in, this is actually Smart Thinking.
And a boon for the subject of that particular succubus’ attention.
** If you look at it logically from a power dynamics ( to use a dirty euphemism..) context, being a collar holder of a succubus requires an impressive list of qualities..
You need to have, at least, high mana, high libido, high stamina, and a high resistance against their Glamour.
Plus the mental fortitude to deal with training your succubus from a complete slave into a functioning individual.
The actual *reverse* of that particular fantasy scenario.
Dealing with the Brat-stage alone would require an amount of patience, wisdom, and strictness that is… rare.. very rare..
Uh, no. 100% rape since Syd didn’t consent to the “procedure”. Hell, would be rape in Succ U too if you just did it.
What a stupid take.
This is actually reminding me of a fictional character (who I will not name, or her author, because if you don’t already know who I’m talking about you do not want to know), who has a similar “lust aura” to Parfait’s.
This character is an adult, who also wields weapons all the time. And uses them casually, as in “threatens to use lethal violence against anyone who so much as disagrees with her during a conversation, or annoys her in any way.” Her massive powerset includes the drawback of requiring sex twice a day. If she can’t have it, she TAKES it – her lust aura flares up and one or more males immediately “assault” her.
Despite this, despite knowing that her condition causes problems for herself and others, she repeatedly spurns offers from potential instructors on how to control her lust aura. She also allows her victims to apologize to HER, letting them think that they’re the ones who raped her (even though her aura literally robs them of their ability to control their own bodies. She essentially mind controls them into indulging her rape fetish). This is on top of her many other displays of narcissism and sociopathy; essentially she’s a succubus/witch with the personality of Eric Cartman.
I just wanted to highlight the difference between that, as opposed to Parfait – the adolescent who is completely lacking in malicious intent, and is working hard to learn to control her physiological issues. Or Dabbler, for that matter – the responsible adult who, despite her radically alien cultural background, is both honorable and compassionate.
There’s a reason i stopped reading those books. I was disgusted by that whole scenario. At that point the character became to me no better than the so called monsters she hunts, and a hypocrite of the highest order. Hero in name only.
Who are they talking about?
“If you don’t already know who I’m talking about you do not want to know”
Actually, your description makes me DO want to know. Or does anyone else have an idea who they’re talking about?
a great half of any books you may consider reading, and a lesser half of a great many books you’ve probably never heard of.
Here you go: https://www.tumblr.com/rabbitsandrum/177206923125/the-anita-blake-drinking-game
I’m guessing you are referring to character Anita Blake – as this reads as a slightly exaggerated negative take on the character.
If so, I don’t know how far you got in the series, but she improves in control of both her violent tendencies and lust feeding as she
A) gets older and
B) gets therapy (of a sort).
I do wonder how much of that is a reflection of the author’s own life changes.
(IIRC 1 of the book’s dedications was thanking (her husband?) for taking her books on serial killers away for a while.)
I do tend to skim over the sex scenes to get to the more interesting parts of the stories.
I was thinking it was those books as well. I liked the series at first, but it kind of devolved into indulging into more and more porntastic sex scenes and I dropped it.
I think this is one of the things that prompted me to make my own writing style involve a lot of Fade To Black, the details are usually not important.
I’ve read the first 6 or so Anita Blake books, and I don’t remember any references to her being a succubus(-like being.)
I do remember explicit sex and violence.
I have a friend who was obsessed, and made me read them… by the time I finished the one set in Las Vegas, I told them, “I’m done. I’ve had enough. This character is repugnant to me.” And frankly, she got WORSE as the series went on. She was just horrible.
Yup, saw this coming.
I wouldn’t count Sydney out just yet. She’s proven more than once that she can come up with out of the box solutions (pun only half intended).
All she needs to do is to restrain Parfait using light hook and then give her a direct command to get her lust aura back under control.
Im looking forward to Dabbler showing up in a few pages ready with a fire hose (literal or magical) and finding everything is under control.
Huh…wonder if this will awaken something within Sydney…could add some spice to her relationship with fluffy boy.
Well I mean when Sidney summoned her it felt like a quasi date she had planned. AKA if nothing comes of it then it was just hanging out no problem, but if something does come of it then it was a date, and was Sidney easing into this polyamory she has been trying to see experiment with.
But if parfait is not in control of herself and Sidney isn’t ready this is in a very unusual place like Parfait would be the drunk or high one who gets a little too touchy feely horny when in that state and could regret it after so you have to try and stop their advances for both your sakes
It’s NOT turning into that kind of comic? Oh, well.
I personally think Sydney could accept some of the blame and help her friend out. It would widen her perspectives, and you can do it “off screen” if you are shy about it. Nothing wrong with a little experimentation when you’re young.
Sydney should have noticed her chat bubble turning deeper and deeper shades of pink.
To me, this seems less like “Parfait is sexually assaulting Sydney” and more like “Parfait is having the lusty equivalent of an anaphylactic episode.
Unfortunately, she was summoned while she was taking a bath, and didn’t know how to delay it, and thus didn’t have a chance to grab the lust equivalent of an EpiPen on her way here.
However, she was irresponsible to not insist she go get one from Dabbler or some alchemist or whatever, before continuing with the Girl’s Night Out.
That being said, she is merely an 18 year old, and who knows, she probably matures differently than humans do, so while it was definitely a mistake, it was still just a mistake (like, she forgot), or at worst a judgement error for which human teenagers, at least, are famous for making basically all the time (like, she thought she would be able to control herself), and now she is suffering the consequences by being forced to suddenly act on urges with someone she has not gotten prior consent from.
And now, because she has kissed Sydney, Sydney is likely to be effected in a similar manner as Parfait is being effected already. So, like… a contagious Anaphylactic-but-lust episode, or perhaps akin to Parfait having an anaphylactic episode while driving and getting colliding with Sydney’s car. But it’s a kiss, possibly leading to sex. Unfortunately, this means Sydney’s ability to give informed consent, or to deny such, may be impaired.”
Ergo, this is an unfortunate consequence of a young person’s mistake, understandable irresponsibility, or or understandably poor ability to properly calculate a risk analysis of the situation at hand.
It’s not like drunk driving, nor is it like any situation any human has ever encountered in all of history, because as far as I’m aware, there is no neurological condition that leads to annihilated inhibitions and pathologically increased libido that can also be quickly treated with a rapid dose of medicine.
“Don’t worry, it’s not turning into that kind of comic.” Dave, it’s been going back and forth between being more or less that kind of comic for a while. I absolutely understand that a lot of your vocal readerbase is enthusiastic about that kind of thing but by the standards of most media, you’ve been getting uncomfortably horny on main. I absolutely understand that yes, this *is* a cheesecakey webcomic with adult themes but for a lot of people, we’re really, truly just here for the cool worldbuilding and superhero stuff that you do so well and tolerate all the more salacious stuff because we understand it’s what you like to draw.
So yes, it’s a fair point that the comic has always been a little horny but I would argue that that is not its main selling point and not all of its fans need to be on board with that. That said, the comic has been, if occasionally annoying about it, more than fine for a whole decade. Nothing so sexy somebody who wasn’t here for that would complain about it. 2021 was kind of a tipping point and some of my friends stopped reading there because it crossed a line and set a precedent they just weren’t comfortable with. I didn’t like it either and I said so but I figured “eh, it’s a free comic, it’ll have some parts I don’t like and this is probably a one-time thing.”
The thing is since then, the comic feels like it’s been getting progressively hornier. Like, I’m not gonna lie, the past few pages have kinda felt like I’ve just been reading about your personal kinks. And I’m not here to kinkshame but I’m literally just here for cool sci-fi and superhero fights dude, I don’t really want to know hat you’re in to. When I check the comic now, I have to wonder whether it’ll be interesting superhero slice of life, the beginning of an exciting new action arc or maybe just kinda thinly veiled (or not) smut. I mean, ordinarily I enjoy reading your author comments for your thoughts and worldbuilding but last update it went to a place that really just felt like lines from a smutfic. Today another of my friends threw up his hands and dropped the comic. I’m getting to be the last person I know who still reads this thing.
I know that a lot of your fans are totally cool with this and that ultimately this is *your* creative endeavor but lately you’ve been making this comic into something it didn’t used to be and that it wasn’t advertised about. No it’s not full on pornography but you’re not just straddling that line, you’ve kinda crossed in and out over the past couple years with various themes and topics. It feels like it really is turning into that kind of comic if only gradually. I’m at the point where my own personal opinion is that if you were to start an actual porn comic and dedicate some of your time to that, I’d actually accept once a week updates just to be able to comfortably read one of my favorite superhero webcomics again and recommend that my friends come back to it. That’s just a hypothetical to illustrate how I feel about the state of things now, obviously I’m not asking you to do that.
To further clarify the complaint, I don’t mind the existence of sexual content. I might be willing to explore some of these themes in a medium that’s more or less dedicated to these kinds of themes but that’s not what I come to this comic for and it never has been. Partially, that’s because you and I are into different things and partially that’s because the whole Parfait thing still comes off as creepy with how young she seems and acts and how hypersexual she is especially here where she literally can’t control her lust at the thought of being submissive to a master and forces somebody into making out with her. Like, you see that? I’m not into that kinda thing, I’m kinda uncomfortable but because it’s in the same place I get “Maxima fights a human sandstorm and is helped by Sydney’s quick thinking which introduces a new problem of Sydney’s orbs having limited power” which I enjoy reading a lot, I have to read the Parfait stuff anyway. Because if I don’t, I might miss out on something important pertaining to Sydney.
TlDr: This comic does seem to be getting increasingly horny, not everyone who reads it signed on for horny stuff and it’s crossing some horny lines. The comic is hornier on main than it’s ever been and my friends are dropping it and I’m uncomfy. I understand that lots of fans are happy about this but some of us feel kinda bait-and-switched because we’re here for the other things this comic offers. Yes I understand that this is a free comic and your personal creative endeavor but I am stating a preference, not making a demand.
Seconded. Although others here are obviously all for exploring what might happen next, personally I left the paid Patreon when all the incentives switched to NSFW because I don’t want any of that content (or to support its creation/distribution). I’m here for the super-powered fun and shenanigans. Have reluctantly abandoned other fun strips for similarly questionable stances around consent “because it’s okay in their culture” or “after I violate their personal beliefs they’ll see I’m right.”
While I think addressing the in-world implications of the succubi heritage, and even this exact current scenario, makes sense narratively with the comic’s theme and has some very interesting character- and world-building implications, the above situation deteriorating even further is not an approach I’ll be reading. Fingers crossed the next page is interruption / prevention, and that the rest of the current arc pivots back to subverting and lampshading tropes instead of leaning into them for fantasy fulfillment / cheap laughs.
I personally don’t care much about the fanservice. I read this comic for the jokes mostly and I can tolerate a lot of sexy stuff since that sell and I want Dave to make a good profit. But you got to draw a line somewhere even when its just about fictional characters. How much should I tolerate to support Dave? That is certainly debateable.
I’m guessing that for the author, all the stuff in the comic fits in the same bucket. It’s all his “kinks”, as you put it. Everyone categorizes things differently. But I do think the early pages had an awful lot of superheroines in the showers, and so this shouldn’t come as a surprise. But every page focuses on different things, rather than attempting to make every page fulfil the same desire, whether that be something funny or sexy or serious.
Dave sure likes the shower scenes. Nothing wrong with that of course.
I don’t see how this can be categorized as even vaguely pornographic.
The comic in general doesn’t seem to be getting any hornier than was in the beginning.
And as far as Dave’s kinks go it has also been clear he likes buff women from the beginning.
This kind of situation puts me in mind of “if someone is too drunk they can’t consent, but what if both parties are drunk and regret it the next morning, is it mutual rape/sexual assault?”.
In general this is all part of the world building and the exploration of the consequences of aspects of their reality.
If you have magic (or advanced technology) that can
create intelligent beings,
or perform mind control (or influencing)
human nature means you will inevitably have to consider issues of sex and slavery.
I’m very much a fan of stories that consider or explore the consequences of the described reality.
In the real world generative AI has experienced quite a boom this year and there have been articles about people worrying about super advanced AI.
My question is, is how big a gap there will be between a General AI that is sufficiently advanced to be incredibly useful and one which is so advanced that you have think about the slavery implications.
I feel that maybe you aren’t seeing what I see, here. Yes, Dave has always liked drawing buff women. That’s fair and it has been there from the beginning and I’ve never had a problem with it and I still don’t. That’s not my gripe, here. There aren’t even any buff women on this page. The issue is this lady making what I can only describe as “hentai faces” as she describes how absolutely and utterly pleasurable it feels for her to submit to her master’s commands before she literally loses control of her lust. That’s not a shower scene. I don’t love the shower scenes but they’re sorta to be expected, y’know? I don’t know anybody who saw the art style and then saw the shower scenes and went “that’s too far with the sexy buff ladies, I’m out.” But this is a whole other thing where the actual in-comic-dialogue is starting to read like a smutfic and that is categorically different. The first time the whole “succubi are slaves” dynamic was explained it was really weird and uncomfortable. Now we’re going back and hearing in detail how much they love being slaves and obeying their masters. Yes, I know, it’s not slavery like we know, it’s a sex thing. That makes it more ethical but it’s still way smuttier than the comic has been in the past which is my complaint. This is not a “buff women” kink thing. This is going very deep in-depth to a master-slave BDSM kink which is embedded in the lore of the universe and you know what? Alright. Dave made this master/slave BDSM thing an important aspect of one of the species in this world and there’s no going back from that but my personal preference is that we not keep spending time elaborating on it and delving into the intricacies of it. It’s getting to feel too much like I’m reading something NSFW Dave wrote on Archive Of Our Own when I just want to read a superhero comic. I got no problem with Dave having kinks but I feel like I’m learning too much about them in too great a detail.
A question is, how much of this was planned out from the very beginning and how much is just following the chain of consequence of the early parts of the comic?
Dabbler is a character originally from an older comic.
I don’t recall if being a succubus was part of her character then.
I very much doubt any of the detail about how succubi came about existed then.
It might be just the basic shape and color scheme (IIRC the original had 3 pairs of breasts like e.g. some dog breeds).
So I suspect at the start of the comic you had Dabbler who was going to be a succubus and magic exists, and then later Dave came up with origin of succubi, and now he is exploring the consequences that origin.
The 1st young succubi the story reveals is Tamatha on page 789 who is a patreon cameo (I don’t know how these work. Is the young succubi bit the patreon’s request or Dave’s decision?) which leads into a discussion of magic and demons etc.
The origin of succubi only gets discussed after Tom (Thothogoth) turns up on page 982 who seems very different relationship-wise from how Dabbler remembers him in the flashback on page 176. So I suspect that bit of the story has changed from the beginning.
Then Parfait turns up on page 1044. I doubt Dabbler’s sister was planned from the beginning.
When writing stories you can have bits of the journey planned out and an ending in mind but you have to let the characters (and story) progress organically or railroad them with idiot balls, deus ex machina and plot holes.
This to me is just exploring the consequences of earlier story decisions not a kink thing.
In the real world look at how humans have created domesticated animals, working dogs in particular.
It is bad for the dogs mental health NOT to put them to “work” even if it is not actual productive work.
If humans had the magic to do it someone would have tried to make succubi like in this comic.
Yeah, I really don’t agree with the logic, here. Basically, and I understand that I’m interpreting this fairly unsympathetically here but this is how it reads to me, you’re saying that more or less, it’s not Dave’s fault that this is the direction the comic is going in and that this is what we’re getting right now. It’s not like Dave planned for things to get this horny. He just introduced a species of succubi and then he had no choice but to delve deeply into their creation and lore and it was only logical that that lore be extremely creepy and slavery-focused and once he went into the lore, he had no choice but to dive even further into the psychosexual consequences of said lore and go into detail about how this all makes the succubi feel. Sexually, that is. It’s not by Dave’s choice that we ended up here, it was just the logical consequences of these sequence of narrative events. I can’t understand that logic. Dave was literally in control of every aspect of this every step of the way and could have chosen not to explore the super horny stuff or chosen not to make the super horny stuff have the word “slave” in it so often or chosen to just literally not show this very explicit conversation. I mean, I’m sure he didn’t scheme this from the beginning as some sort of evil master plan but it’s not like this isn’t entirely a result of his own agency.
And lastly, no, I don’t think it’s a given truth in this world that if humans had access to magic, we’d make enough necromantic, soul-bonded sex slaves to give birth to a new race of sapient beings. I feel like that’s a very weird claim to make as just like, a point in your argument. Like, maybe *somebody* would have yes, but I don’t understand how that relates to narrative decisions *or* the relationship between humans and dogs. Ok, yes, your point is that if humans were not the masters of dogs that would be bad for the dogs and therefore it’s good that succubi have demon masters but that’s still a rule that Dave made, it’s not like it was something already there that he just had to work with. It was his choice to make succubi dependent on the sex of people they refer to as “masters” in most cases. That’s a big part of my problem with this page in the first place.
The law of irony says that Dabbler outta be coming by any second, in a naughty school teacher version, to sternly reprimand Parfait for losing control, apologize to Sydney for the training error, then to completely spoil the serious mood she actually created for once, Dabbler would then offer to take her place (but let her watch) so Sydney did not feel left wanting for the night.
Well this ended up going places. I guess that is a risk when summoning a lust demon.
Something tells me Dabbler is about to show up because an uncontrolled lust aura would light up like a beacon to her senses and then she’s immediately going to check it out and get the situation under control.
I prefer to blame the honey. Making substitutions in a ritual summoning circle is just asking for trouble. :)
In honor of a pilot ejecting out of a stealth f35 on autopilot today, followed by the wreckage being found about 2 hours ago.
“Sydney. what were you two thinking”
“Well we did make sure to fill the shield with blankets. And there’s a spell for oxygen”
“That’s not what I meant!”
They didn’t find no wreckage…hello! stealth!
Wait, what’s that? Just to radar? Well, that doesn’t sound like stealth to me.
Wreckage was found. it was a several hours later followup lol
It turned itself into a one hundred and seventeen million dollar scrap heap.
Not counting the $1.7 Trillion spent on the R&D.
Considering about 1k F-35’s have been built, that’s… another $1.7 Billion in that scrap heap… for a total of $1,817,000,000
Look, if you’re going to add in R&D then you need to add in all the development costs of Lockheed-Martin’s other, previous aircraft and divide by the total number of pieces in each production run. Innovation isn’t a linear thing. The plane was only worth 117 million, now it is only worth its weight in materials.
Less than its weight in materials, probably the scrap material won’t even cover the costs of disposal. It’s now a liability that will incur even more expenses being securely stripped of any classified bits, having its computer logs and physical remains analyzed, and eventually hauled to recycling or the dump.
It doesn’t make sense to count the R&D part, because the knowledge and blueprints that money bought aren’t lost. If the USAF wants to replace the plane, they don’t need to pay for R&D again.
… Because of one crash (cause yet to be determined), they are going to scrap every plane? o_O
If they did that stupidity with cars, we would still be pushing handcarts!!!
I divided the R&D cost by the number of planes
I think what I really wanted out of the Patreon NSFW stuff was for it to take what’s happening in the story and make the sexy endgame, so to speak. Like when Sydney had her first sexy time with her space boyfriend or when Max flashed Hero or now, with Parfait lusting all over Sydney. I just want to equivalent NSFW side page in the Patreon.
I listen to a podcast on making comics (for fun and/or profit) that’s co-hosted by the author of Evil Inc. His solution is a supplemental story line with all the NSFW content, available to higher-tier Patreon supporters. It keeps the main story clean and allows people to support him without also having to be part of the NSFW side. Seems like an approach that would work well here.
Ummm, yeah, summoned a succubus, went to the showers to watch her clean up, watched hentai anime with her alone together in your bedroom, casually agreed when said succubus said you needed some boys up in this party, started a conversation that was at least tangentially about sex…. Syddie’s surprised by something she probably shouldn’t be all that surprised about. Although there is good reason to be surprised and concerned about how fast it’s happening now that it’s happening, and about how out-of-control it seems.
Still, she’s wearing that comm collar and just heard the word that didn’t translate for what Parfait needs, and Dabbler’s somewhere nearby, wearing the same kind of comm collar, knows exactly what the word means and probably has it to hand (it would likely be pretty high on the list of things the teleporter in her hand can gate in). So this comes down to having the presence of mind to touch the collar and yell, “Dabbler, your half-sister is in my quarters and needs something she called a nimora salka! Or maybe a sleep potion! Help!”
Bit difficult to talk when she has a succ-u-tongue wrapped around her tonsils :P
especially if its like a tape measure…
If this WAS “that kind of comic” this would be hawt, but since it isn’t and Grrl Power doesn’t run on “porn logic” there are some SERIOUS issues with what is going on here.
Something tells me Dabbler will be in shortly anyway. She must look and feel like a neon sign in a pitch black night to her right about now. On top of that Dabbler knows Sydney isn’t exactly down for that and Dabbler isn’t an inherently terrible person/friend. So I give it about a minute before Dabbler comes in sprinting with the equivalent of a bucket of water.
I’m wondering if it’s actually the opposite and Parfait’s aura is like a black hole absorbing all the lust in the immediate area, which would be a dark spot on Dabbler’s radar. And probably a lot harder to detect at range, eg if she’s still in DC instead of another part of the base.
Fairly sure any experienced succubae would note a sudden, and expanding, lack of lust
So, if not Dabbles, maybe Collette (although not sure how she could do anything, other than contact Dabbles if she managed to track the locale down to Archon HQ)
They are both probably caught in a slow build up lust feedback loop. considering they both like each other and the viewing matter they were watching neither of them noticed till it got out of hand.
So here’s the thing. I DO hope they get it on.
I don’t have to see it, I’m fine with a ‘fade to black’ or whatever. Because I think it’d be interesting to see how Sydney deals with the after-effects. What she thinks about it, what she thinks about herself, how she brings it up with the team – because it’s going to come up – how it changes things with her and Dabbler.
I’m more interested in the social after-effects and interplay than watching the two get it on.
Same, we don’t need to know every sticky wet detail, just like we don’t know with her and Mr Woofington (or Leon and Kronachrome, or anyone else in a relationship in the webic)
So, Dabbler summons Parfait. No wonder Parfait is out of control. Dabbler basically established a master-slave relationship.
Sydney, not Dabbles, and there is no master-slave relationship going on between Sydney and Parf
For a start, Tom would have notified Dabbles the second he noted his collar got broken
Ok, I am not interested in the slightest about hearing any more why this is sexual assault in the mind of some, and I like the idea a lot of shipping these two as besties with benefits. From my PoV, what happened so far amounts to nothing more than two good friends getting drunk/high together and accidentally kissing/groping. There may be good reasons why this need not and is not going to escalate any much further and is soon going to be broken in some funny way. Although I would not mind them making out just a little more before Dabbler comes running to put the lust aura incident under control ro somesuch. What happened need not and should not lead to anything more than a little cute awkwardness/embarassment, and then being laughed off between friends. Nonetheless, it creates a precedent that shows these two besties a potential of their relationship. Syd is awkwardly but purposefully exploring the potentialities of multi-species polyamory, and a lot of water about her sexual awakening crossed the bridge since her inexperienced virgin self uttered the “not a lesbian” mantra at first contact with a succubus’ lust aura. I am honestly not persuaded that said mantra is still 100% valid in her current circumstances, and some honest bi curiosity does not lurk beneath her nerdy interest in succubus nature and friendship with several succubae. The bestie bond with Parf is blossoming but promising and their encounter so far had all the features of a good date. I do hope Syd sometime in the future decides to branch out her exploration of multi-species polyamory to her succubus bestie with benefits, and these two decide to start things again at their next date from this kiss and see where it leads them. Syd is into polyamory, a succubus’ bond with her master is the opposite of incompatible with casual sexy fun by nature and (ages-past) design, and the thing even better than a bestie is a bestie with benefits. If current and near-future Syd cannot swear in her heart of hearts that she is 100% straight, she is only has to gain from exploring the options she discovered in this moment. Some serious casual/BFFWB sexy fun with Parfait would have none of the baggage that Dabbler mating with any of her team-mates would have (except incapacitating exhaustion). It would not need any more graphic detail or story focus than her relationship with her space bf has. I do wonder if g/g sexy fun with Parf would need that partial memory-erasure hammer spell being applied to avoid Syd being spoilt for other species.
I second this, thank you for thinking alike and taking time to formulate this, sir!
It is not absolute that Sydney is totally against continuing this. Remember Sydney suggested a threesome with Leon and Krona when she returned from her three month absence.
Oops, I mis-remembered. Just the opposite:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-735-reindeer-games-and-the-inclusion-thereof/
Ok, so on one hand what do you expect when you summon a demon of a type that in mythology is exclusively known for sexual assault, as in fish have gills, birds have wings, succubi rape people.
On the other hand, I don’t read this comic for that kind of thing. I am the last of my friends who still reads this comic. The rest of the people in my friend circle stopped reading because either the comic or the “blog text” under the comic seemed red flag rapey.
I don’t know if I’ll be returning to GrrlPowerComic again.
I’ve been reading since the Mrs Boonliang restaurant scene. That’s how the comic got on my radar. Because I super into hot food.
I disagree that the comic has always been a little bit horny, but that’s neither here nor there because I haven minded up till now.
As for the slavery thing coming back up… very early on I noticed subtle references to BDSM via obscure fetish equipment like Deus having a “Perfect Wife” from CharlotteFetish in his office. And the fact that I recognized it should tell you that I’m into some pretty kinky stuff.
But…
I don’t read this comic for fetish stuff. Easter eggs is one thing, but this is another.
I can accept that this is a part of the world, and I can look past the bdsm references.
What I cannot abide by is clear violations of consent. If it’s going to be stopped by someone in the next page then it should have been a double or been stopped in the last panel simply because it’s not ok to cliffhanger on that specific moment.
You see, and I’m sure Dave knows this, the BDSM community is very very hung up on requiring very clear, enthusiastic, and uncoerced consent, and negotiating “scenes” beforehand so that all involved know what’s going to or couldn’t happen and everybody knows where the lines are drawn and what shouldn’t happen. People who violate that are kicked out of the community when they’re found out. Some however hide behind the bullshit excuse of “but the sub didn’t use their safeword” when that’s by no means an excuse to violate consent.
What I’m getting at here is even as someone who understands where Parfait is coming from, Sydney absolutely did not sign up for this. She just wanted to hang out with a friend she connected with, not have her mind screwed with by succubus auras, and not be sexually assaulted by a succubus who can’t control themselves. The BDSM aspect of succubus society only makes this that much more egregious because informed consent should play a major role in everything here.
Again….not sure I’ll be returning. This feels too much like a “my friends were right about this comic” moment. It’s just too much.
I’ve been here for the plot and the world building… this isn’t that. There are entirely too many aborted mysteries like the last orb’s function, the Kaiju on the alari home world, etc.
Looking back on it. It’s like a gpt generated story in that nothing every gets resolved. You just get lead on and on and on and on and the plot never actually advances .
So far, it’s no more than a kiss between friends
What part of ‘learning more about the history and genetics of GrrlPowerverse succubae’ is not “world building”?
Guessing you must have stopped watching “The Simpsons” about twenty years ago, because nothing changes on that show: everything that happens in each episode gets contained to that episode and everything resets to ‘normal’ by the end credits
Really? After the six week long apologetics lecture from Dabbler and the mind control Krona is doing to Leon?
As for no longer watching the Simpsons… I stopped watching TV 20 years ago. It’s an outmoded form of entertainment.
What mind control? You mean, a hot girl being interested in a ‘computer geek’ type of ‘mind control’?
If you have decided this is no longer for you, have fun wherever you end up, just… don’t slam the door on your way out
“What mind control?”
Lust aura, that’s what mind control. Tell me you haven’t actually read the comic without telling me you haven’t actually read the comic.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-101-what-else-would-you-do-with-two-invisible-arms/
The one being controlled, is Parf, not Sydney
Where did Kronachrome hack their minds?
As for the mind control with Krona… she’s hacked the both of them so that they’re into what the other’s into.
Initially thought you meant when Leon suggested Krona hack her own preferences (which was immediately and hostilly rejected), but presumably you’re referring to the text below this comic where Dabbler is making suggestions to Krona. Krona didn’t hack herself/Leon to be “into the same things”, she learned where to access her own settings, and ended up setting up 2-way feedback to help synchronize timing. Amplification only, not re-writing either of their preferences.
My god, how did I forget what a succubi kiss does?
Remember when Dabbler kissed Jabberwokky? Kissing, oh so much kissing
Fairly sure Dab’s kiss with Jabb’s involved magic, which is why what happened didn’t wear off because something went wrong
I hope this doesn’t get in the way of Frix, Sydney, and Parfait forming a polycule. D:
I don’t see how this incident would get in the way. Syd, bless her soul, is certainly not the type to be traumatized or hung up by the supernatural equivalent of drunken/high, awkward/accidental kissing/groping with a friend. If anything, it is going to make her aware of the possibility of upgrading her relationship with Parfait to FWB. The big issue is whether their protestations of not being into girls are 100% genuine or a good dose of bi-curiosity lurks within her. Judging from her overall behaviorAs for Frix, it would be part of the standard lifestyle of Cora’s crew. Another issue is what Leon and Krona are going to think.
Maybe that’s the only way to shut up Sydney?
Maybe it’s just me, but this reads less as Parfait being overcome by her lustful nature and becoming a problem Sydney has to deal with, and more Parfait pulling what would be considered a low-grade prank amongst succubus finishing school students. The panel with the “losing control of my lust aura” is just a touch too hammy for me to take seriously.
Okay, I’ll say it since nobody else will. The tentaorb is right there.
If these were two actual humans in this situation there would be no doubt how we would label this scene, which makes it problematic in a story.
But applying the same label to a story is complicated as a) these are characters not actual people and as such have no agency. And b) there is magic involved which means that the normal rules do not apply, at least not fully. Things /can/ happen in this story that are not possible in reality.
The way I see it the story can take two paths from here.
The first one is where Parfait was rather clumsily trying to seduce Sydney (her acting could be read as rather hamfisted), because she could tell with actual (magical) certainty that she was interested but too shy or embarassed to say so.
The second one requires a Themian Argument (where you use the worldbuilding of the story to justify something that happens in the story which would not normally be readily accepted). This is not automatically a bad thing, but it can easily go wrong, badly so. In this particular case a basically non-consensual kiss would have to get justified by the in-story explanation of what succubi can and will do. (the reason why this is not a valid reason is because characters in the story have no agency. They do what the writers puts on paper for them). This gets muddy because it is difficult to tell where the dividing line is between extrapolating original world building and justifying questionable writing after the fact. Having to interpret authorial intent is whole other can of worms that generally are best left unopened.
Personally I do not think that the scene (or the cominc in general) has crossed this line, and I highly doubt that on the next page(s) this kiss will be described as a good thing for Parfait to have done. The comics frequently skirts the line of questionable content, but it has yet to come even close to apologetica for said content. I do not see that happen here. The pay-off for this setup is likely to be a joke, same as with about any scene where Math shows up.
YEaaahhh….that’s not consensual.
Hmmm… so while people here are thinking Dabbler will intervene or else Sydney would be taken advantage of… let’s speculate how Sydney can fend for herself here in amusing ways.
The first think that springs to mind are the Lighthooks, which *just so happen* to have been upgraded to two Lighthooks recently. Gee. Insert hentai reference here.
Another would be the gas generated/conversion orb – if Parf was surrounded by mostly Nitrogen gas, that would probably make her dizzy/knock her out, but it would have be modulated carefully so it wouldn’t kill her.
The shield orb is out for restraining her, but may be useful for keeping distance.
Anything else that could be used in imaginitive ways?
Sydney certainly has the powers to fight off a physical assault from Parfait, the question is whether she can resist the lust aura enough to actually do so.
If she can, I’m thinking lighthook, because using bondage to calm down Parfait after she loses control of her BDSM fetish seems to have a lot of humor potential.
Food for thought. More then likely, Dabbler hacked Sydney’s glasses, and just might have an alarm set for things like this if and when they happened. Or she’s just that much of a voyeur.
And then, Dave, we discover that you, after all, ARE the evil genius that likes seeing the world (or at least the comments) burn with the power of a thousand suns…
Oof… hope Parfait doesn’t have a gazorpazovum injury in her immediate future.