Grrl Power #1196 – Max chill
Max went into this expecting a lot of bickering and “he did this and that to me” and “she started it” and closed off body language and lack of eye contact, so she’s a little exasperated by all the snuggling and everything seeming to be working out. (Again, if it seems like everyone is too laid back about this, give it a few pages.)
I’m actually not sure what the dress shirt worn under dress purples would look like. I know in the USAF there’s a sort of “casual dress blues” that’s a short sleeve shirt with rank and epaulettes and nametags and the like, but that’s obviously not what is worn under a jacket, cause all that stuff would get pressed into your skin by the weight of the jacket. But it’s also probably not just a white dress shirt you can buy at Macy’s… is Macy’s still in business? (one quick googling later) Huh, I guess they are. It’s been a while since I was in a mall. Anyway, there’d probably be rank epaulettes and branch identification or something on the dress shirt worn under the jacket. I don’t know how often officers in dress uniforms sling their jacket over their shoulders or hang them on the back of a chair. I’d guess not all that often, so maybe it’s not a critical detail.
The August vote incentive is up! Yeah I know it’s late, so hopefully I’ll manage to get some bonus (read: overdue) incentives up as I attempt to catch up.
Oh no! Sydney’s been injured! A Wampa may or may not have been involved, I’ll leave the exact nature of the incident up to you. It’s not relevant to the picture. And before you’re like “Dave, Bandaged Rei is one thing, but floating unconscious in a bacta tank is probably an even narrower fetish.” just check the picture out.
The Patreon version has nudes and variants, and a comic that reveals something interesting about the orbs.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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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.
Has the issue of contraception, or lack thereof, been mentioned in comic yet?
It’s the military, I guarantee that’s fully covered. No matter which party is in control, I’ve never seen anyone seriously suggest cutting back on military healthcare coverage.
Really? It happens all the time
Is that *military* healthcare coverage, or *veteran* healthcare coverage?
Because I can see certain callous people considering one of those “maintaining a weapon”, and the other one “wasting money on something that no longer benefits us”…
Ironically enough, that’s how a lot of people controlling the purse strings think anyway.
“The VA. Giving soldiers one last chance to die for their country!”
Can we just get rid of the “all people who aren’t rich, especially minorities, should be ground up into paste” party yet? I’m kind of tired of their nonsense at this point.
Tommy Tuberville
Thought he was simply preventing promotions o_O
Yes he is.
Because the DoD gives the slightest amount of support for its service members who want or need an abortion. He is one of those murderous regressives that want to ban abortion for any reason and at any time, and is clearly perfectly willing to tear down the military to get what he wants.
The legalistic and lobbying groups that took down Roe, have already won partial victories at the supreme court to create a national ban at chemical abortions (so much for their holier-than-thou claims that it was all about states deciding for themselves.) And are even now laying the groundwork to use a combination of both arguments to nationally ban any form of anti-conceptive (both the ruling that on bizarre grounds declared that laws have to interpreted as if it is the year when the relevant amendment was introduced, and the one that effectively stated that government agencies should not exist and certainly not beyond the/exact/ mandate that was written into the law that founded them).
They even found a loophole in the weird politicised landscape of the USA judicial system that allows a single local judge to make nationally binding rulings. A judge who is overseen by the most conservative appelate circuit judges and from their straight to the one supreme court justice who has repeatedly stressed that he is in court to undo the entirety of the 1960 and 1970s.
I do not think that enough progressives and americans (women) really understands how much under threat they are in their pursuit of live, liberty and happiness (especially since the legal understanding at the time of writing of the constitution women had no right. at all. And the supreme court just ruled that laws have to be interpreted as if it is still the year of their writing. If the are so inclined they just decided that women have no human or civil rights under the USA constitution. The supreme court may not be prepared to do this, but there is a considerable minority of the republican party that believes this should be the position of American women. Just read some of the state republican party platforms. The ones where they can be as extreme as they want because voters in their state will vote for them no matter what (that happens when you treat political affiliation as something you are born into, more like a religion than politics), and outside the state nobody pays attention to party platforms anyway. It is pretty horrifying how far they are willing to go to institute a theocracy based on old testament laws.
Dave, I apologise for dragging politics into this forum. I will try to not do so again.
Good thing this is set in the past, as the GOP is restricting reproductive care to service members currently.
At least trying to.
Whether or not they’ll actually succeed is another matter.
Actually that happened way down the line when Sid was getting it on with the dog guy on the way back to earth if I recall right, but that was between humans and aliens…
(Ahem) not “dog guy”, WOLF guy, please.
You mean Woof guy.
Somebody was howling that night.
FRITZ! People, he has a name, and it’s FRITZ!
Geeze, Dabbler doesn’t go around calling Peggy “Ape girl”.
Frix not Fritz (although the real spelling is not able to be pronounced with a human mouth). Also Dabbler would call Peggy a Human girl not Ape girl, since Peggy’s species is Human, not Ape, while Frix’s species IS Woof.
… but humans are apes… also monkeys because apes are descended from old-world monkeys. In reverse, Frix is not related to a wolf or dog or earth canine at all, so it wouldn’t even be technically correct.
Yes, I am fun at parties but would refuse to attend one because of my lifestyle choice of being a gremlin hermit.
Hyu-mons are primates, which also includes the great apes
And the Great Apes include Humans within their classification.
In an upcoming episode:
Maxima and/or Sydney and/or Adriana:
“Thankfully no one was seriously injured.”
{The next panel}
Dead body found.
someone tried to have sex with the device that shoots out chains through walls.
na, the goblin was with the bearded guy.
Digit is too important a character to kill off that way. I expect she found someone to tie up with during the episode.
Wall-bot? Or maybe she created Vibroman (be a long queue for his ‘services’ ;) ), codename ‘Buzz’
I can’t help but thing Sydney is going to be a little stand off-ish with Parfait for a little while now. Either that or be much faster on the shield orb.
Absolutely, and personally I also think that would be a healthy reaction to it.
Of course, Sydney’s mental health is defined by what she believes happened to her and by what she believes she feels about it. Essentially we all build our own world.
Sydney does have a therapist she works with who has so far (in my opinion) has done a great job at showing her care and showing her a desire to understands her. SO I think Sydney could overcome this.
I do believe Archon needs to look more into what are we gonna do to prevent this. They are obviously weak on the aura front. Two attacks now both have been successful (and yeah people I am calling what parfait did an assault she sort of roofied the entire building). Maybe have hacker girl create some sort of ward by looking at Halo’s shield or hacker + magic stuff I don’t know add 5 saving throws to the building? I think you are picking up what I am putting down. Actually how far can reality hacker person go? Could she hack everyone into resisting aura? Maybe she can do 1 hacks maxium before people explode or she ruins peupless powers I think this can be written a million ways.
Also I would have perhaps put a trigger warning on the episode where parfait was getting handsy. BUT I also acknowledge that this is “grrlpowercomic / the mighty halo” and an artists has freedoms of making their craft
I still think it’s too much to call it assault, given that the effect was largely nonvoluntary and a combination of alien biology and alien morality are involved as well, in comparison to Vehemence’s aura. If someone tripped over a can of aphrodisiac and it got into the ventilation system that wouldn’t be called assault – assault implies a certain level of conscious maliciousness or disregard or self-direction.
I’m not willing to acknowledge it as assault unless Parfait does it on purpose AGAIN with the explicit goal of bypassing consent or makes zero effort to learn to reign it in or dampen it in any way. For example she could stand to keep a bottle of sleep potion in a purse or something when it gets out of control again – remember, she did try to tell Sydney she’d need one to stop the aura prematurely, and if Sydney had happened to have one on-hand that warning would have allowed the issue to resolve very early on, which suggests that Parfait was being truthful in her simple lack of control of the aura.
Yes, she got “handsy”, but she was victim to her aura as much as others were.
I agree that the term “assault” for the incident could be far fetched, but the original statement stands: the team members are all vulnerable to aura attacks.
I’m hoping it is going to be explored how she was almost not affected at all despite being at ground zero.
I specilulate their actual preference (even if they themselves are unaware or deny it) does play into it.
Something I want to sort of echo Maxima on is IF you are attracted to your same gender but you are not out of the closet what parfait did you was akin for forcing people out.
If you know an attack is coming it is way easier to dodge. She knew Parfait was building up to something, she knows she’s not into girls, and she has experience with this sort of thing from both Vehemence and Dabbler. Also consider this wasn’t a focused intentional attack by Parfait. The poor kid just couldn’t contain herself anymore. That probably also played a role in how widespread and easy to push off it was.
Sydles has ADHD.
People tend to think about that as if it means being eternally and infinitely distracted.
There is another characteristic of it that most people don’t (or won’t) consider, and that is fixation. Hyperfocus.
We’ve established that the lust aura is not – or at least not always – a complete override of conscious thought and volition, so it is entirely possible that Sydney’s neurodivergence (along with be very much consciously aware of what was happening) is what allowed her to avoid getting sucked in to what was, I don’t doubt, a nonetheless very enjoyable barrage of sensations.
it allowed her to escape sans top at least. she was wearing the Arm of Modesty which limited her ability to fend off the physical advance.
I feel certain that that was at least in part because she didn’t want to hurt Parfait.
I don’t think this budding friendship is going to be damaged. ^_^
She kinda seemed to be the last we saw of her, yeah.
Rank epaulettes are only a Navy thing in the US armed forces. The other branches of service use *only* a collar pin for officers and a shoulder patch on the sleeve for enlisted personnel and non-commissioned specialists, and in the case of specialists there’s a collar pin indicating the specialty.
From what little I’ve seen, *not* being in the service… I expect all that pin-on stuff on the front wouldn’t be present on both shirt and jacket at the same time; it would get moved from jacket to shirt if jackets were worn in and then removed, and likely moved back at earliest convenience if removed jackets were put back on. If the event protocol called for no-jacket but the *weather* called for jackets, then there’d be overcoats, the same ones used if the weather called for *more* than jackets. Collar pins on shirt collars would be visible above the coat collar except for those rare times the collar is flipped up (likely limited to unexpected extra-windy rainstorms where umbrellas were either absent or ineffective), and potentially, shoulder patches would be present on the coat as well as the shirt and/or jacket. That said… I have the impression that at formal events where protocol calls for a jacket, the jacket does *not* come off, like, *ever*.
Nope, rank epaulets are on all dress uniform shirts and the pin-on stuff (nametag, command and qualification badges) is all there under the service dress jacket. You have to be completely in uniform when you take the jacket off, which can happen when not actively at a formal event/briefing but dressed for one. I have only seen the collar rank pins on Navy/USMC khaki ‘not quite dress’ shirts and utility uniforms like flight suits and BDUs, which are not service dress uniforms, and usually the utility uniforms have sewn-on rank patches.
Since there are no uniform combinations for mess dress which allow taking off the jacket, that uniform has only a white pleated-front shirt with no pin-on accessories.
Rank epaulets are a strictly officer thing in the Air Force; enlisted get shoulder stripes.
There is, incidentally, a *formal* dress uniform (I can’t remember the actual name of it) which is the Service Dress jacket and trousers (or skirt, for female Airmen) with a white button up with name tag instead of the the blue uniform shirt with all its assorted accoutrements.
Makes sense. Navy officers are unlikely to show up in the scope of a sniper, and in the chaos of a crowded war ship there needs to be a clearer indicator for the chain of command than some subtle pins on the collar
Speaking as a former Navy member, the funny part is when we are on ship and the ship is underway everyone from the CO on down are all wearing coveralls, which only have sleeve patches for the junior and semi-senior enlisted (up to Petty Officer First Class), and collar patches for the senior enlisted (Chief Petty Officer and above) and officers. Also the Chiefs and Officers wear brown belts with brass buckles while the rest of us wear black belts with steel buckles. When the ship is in port the officers and Chiefs are wearing either the NWUs (short for Navy Working Uniform, basically the blue camouflage uniforms they introduced shortly before I left the service) or the Service Khakis which are solid brown with a collar pin. Dress uniforms are for official functions or when going on liberty (time off while in port) in uniform.
Maxima does seem to be going on about this a bit to early. I know she’s trying to get ahead of it, but it’d be like getting addicted to drugs…you’re not going to think you’re having an issue while still on the high :p
Maxima in white…… playing snow-white innocence outrage… and looking like she is wearing a mental hospital’s clothes for the non-straightjacket types….
I guess the author intended at least one interpretation, not both, of max wearing white, LOL.
I get the snow white innocence imagery but which “non-straightjacket types” are you referring to? staff or the 99.99% percent of patients who are non-violent. Having worked in state psychiatric hospitals since the late 1980’s the closest thing I ever saw to a uniform was the scrubs that some of the nurses preferred to wear. There are somethings the patients are not allowed to have due to a risk of self harm but for the most part they are encouraged to wear ordinary clothing. I realize this reads as defensive but I do actually want to know the interpretation you are picking up on.
I recall seeing a psychiatric ward for long-term patients when visiting a relative — while they can come in with any ordinary clothes they have, the long term residents that aren’t violent are all wearing white because that’s what the hospital buys when their ordinary clothes are too small or too used. My relative was wearing white too; in the same style; no patient in other color was noted at the time, which may have been an outright coincidence.
If this was an intentional author choice due to a similar superficial experience with a mental health section of a hospital, it would be cheeky in pointing out Maxima needs to chill out as much as the others need to take long term disciplin consequences more seriously.
It may just be a variation from state to state. We did pretty well with our community relations program and managed to keep a variety of clothing on hand. But yeah, the battle of budget vs keeping everyone dressed is a real thing. The closest we ever got to an actual uniform was in an adolescent program where we had problems with the wannabe gangsters flaunting their gang colors.
It does put me in mind of the two highest ranking physicians at the hospital where I worked. One supervised all of the psychiatrists and the other supervised him along with the other clinical directors. Both were retired Air Force colonels and even when they were in civilian cloths they were still “in uniform”. I don’t think Dave was trying to project a mental hospital vibe but given your experiences I can see where it could come through that way. On a tangent, I suspect that Max could be naked and still be in uniform. For myself, I see Max as going for the “this is serious and I am going to sort it out” look.
Mental hospital’s… What the shit?
Her outfit is basically business casual, with a white shirt and black slacks.
You act as if businesses aren’t equivalent mental health levels to mental hospitals.
While I didn’t think it was going to be a problem (on this front, people have already debated the consent part) with most of the pairings from #1194, I was under the impression that Mr. Amorphus was in a relationship? Because that is him and Jiggawatt in one of the panels of #1194 yeah? or is it another guy who looks like him???
If I am correct I am waiting for that bomb to drop, the others seem chill and was, as far as I understood it single at the time of the incident.
I wonder if someone is going to suggest scheduling a “cuddle session” every 3 months or so.
3 months?
It is a team building exercise.
If you do it wrong(correctly) you might wind up with new mini supers for the team.
Or a Lust Aura club with shielded walls. Only enter if willing. I’m sure Dabbler wouldn’t mind sharing a business with Parfait.
I have to say, this is all very interesting. Maxima is being very responsible by calling a meeting to discuss what happened. The rest of the team are showing their maturity by stating, “it didn’t make us do anything that we didn’t want to do in the first place, we’re not mad. We train daily to be prepared to face nightmare scenarios and horrific combat situations, a bit of unexpected pleasure isn’t going to make us collapse into sobbing paroxysms of PTSD.”
Meanwhile, people in the comments are STILL trying to suggest that what happened was a Bad Thing. “There must be some kind of lingering effect to the aura. They’re STILL being mind controlled! Once it wears off – IF it wears off – then they’ll admit that they were sexually assaulted and our earlier statements will be retroactively justified!”
Agreed. Those in the comments need to talk to their own Dr. Frost, And soon. Sexual paranoia is horrible.
It’s not mind control, but they do all seem to be enjoying the afterglow of some really good sex. Once that wears off and post-nut clarity sinks in they’ll likely start thinking differently.
There has been a slow migration over the years of what constitutes sexual assault, or even rape. Every successive generation wants to be “more aware” than their predecessors. In the past several years the momentum of that expanding definition is moving to include regrettable sex. IE: consent at the time, then decide to revoke the consent after the fact.
I think that bounced off about ten years ago, since it was untenable and left women open to symmetric sexual assault charges.
If they both say “We really shouldn’t and then do anyway, then he is in the same situation as she wrt claiming to have been assaulted.”
“He was hard” is no more a defense than “she was wet”.
Thus, retroactive assault charges are not going to fly in general.
Eh, it could – but they would probably need to be able to show conclusively having been in a state where any consent given is questionable (threatened, drugged, etc.), and that the other party was taking advantage of that. It’s a rough one to prove though, so yeah probably not “in general”.
Sidney pretty openly refused consent, and Parfait kept going anyways. Yes, she was under the influence, but that’s not an excuse for IRL assault, nor should it be for this. Everyone else is much more up in the air, but that is pretty clear-cut.
That is absolute nonsense. What’s happened is coerced consent is no longer consent, not regretted consent.
Just like what happened with Sci-fright and SmugD: she didn’t want to, but if she wanted that information, she had to either let him fuck her (while Valyeur watched) or go rob a dozen banks and risk getting caught or for SmugD to move the item
I have no idea who they are, but that sounds like it could be coerced consent depending on the details of the event.
Coerced consent is about not respecting the boundaries someone else has set up and applying pressure to them until they cross those boundaries. Like all rape, it’s about exercising power over others which is something he has to actively do. Now, if he knew about the situation and deliberately exploited it to pressure her into sex (and let me restate that I have no idea about the situation you’re talking about), then it was coerced consent and she was raped.
Guesticules is referring to when Deus bartered what Scionna wanted in exchange for sex. Which is… NOT coersion. It’s a straight up bargain, trading X for Y. I think the best quote on the subject is, “If you think sex workers “sell their bodies”, but coal miners do not, your view of labour is clouded by your moralistic view of sexuality.” (by an Erik Sprangle, I believe)
A responsible meeting? HAH!
Colonel: “What do you mean you have a problem? The time to bring that up was at the meeting.”
Grunt: “Yeah. Right. I’m going to stand up during a meeting with all my superiors and all my subordinates, and say I’ve been falling in love with X, but now I had sex with Y, who I’m not really into, so Y’s all mad at me. And X just had sex with Z, and they’re getting along like gangbusters, but I can’t even look at X without Z getting all jealous, because Z knows how closely me and X work together. Just imagine how bad Z would be knowing I’m in love with X, and both X and Z would know because I had to tell you all this in your stupid meeting! And I have to rely on all of them to have my back in combat every single day. You think Z would trust me to do that knowing all that? I already wouldn’t trust Y or Z behind me right now.”
Colonel: “I’m not having this kind of crap in my unit. I’m posting you to the USS Shitstain until the problem goes away.”
Ethical fluidity. It’s all good so long as everybody’s okay with it. And if you’re not okay with it, you’re the problem.
You’re projecting. I guarantee that Maxima would never deal with anyone coming to her afterwards in that way.
What happened was a “Bad Thing” because it could not be known in advance that nobody would have a problem with the outcome. Just because nobody was hurt in one instance doesn’t mean that somebody couldn’t have gotten hurt in another, and thus it’s not acceptable to act with reckless abandon.
Just like driving through a red light. Even if you do it once, and nobody got hit, it’s still a Bad Thing, because it’s likely that you would have hit someone, and if you do it again, you’re likely to hit someone.
“What happened was a “Bad Thing” because it could not be known in advance that nobody would have a problem with the outcome. ”
That’s not necessarily true. Dave absolutely can say that the lust aura will never make you have sex you would regret afterwards, not because it prevents the regret, but because the supernatural magic inside the aura perfectly takes all of your preferences and desires into account and never makes you do anything you wouldn’t genuinely want to do and never makes you target anyone who wouldn’t want it equally as much. In that scenario, it would be something in universe that can be known in advance.
The two points of contention are Parfait herself not taking Sydney, and we know she was made horny by the extra pleasure centers of the bonding and not just the lust aura, and Mr. Amorphous, who cheated on his partner, but we know people do actually want to cheat sometimes and would do it fully rationally, and it’s entirely possible Mr. Amorphous is just a person who wanted to cheat and was only NOT doing it yet for other reasons (IE the sex was still 100% consensual and 100% predictably consensual but now he has other problems because he wanted to and chose to engage in sex that was against the rules of his relationship).
Dave can say anything about how his setting works, that’s absolutely true. Has he, though? So far, all I’ve seen is that a lust aura makes you horny, and based on the previous precedent of the violence aura, it is more likely it does not take consent into consideration rather than it does. Throw in that Parfait isn’t an experienced succubus and that she didn’t have the control to stop the aura when asked? It’s even more likely the aura didn’t give a damn about preferences or consent.
But yeah, sure, Dave could say, “It’s all good. No ew, ick, or squick!”
Just because you are horny (even Hyper Super Horny) doesn’t mean you won’t do something you wouldn’t normally, unless controlled
Same with the Violence Aura: they weren’t just being Aggroed like a rabid honey badger, they were being controlled to fight the nearest person, even if they were allies
DaveB could say that, but the morality of it doesn’t depend on the author’s knowledge, but instead on the characters’ knowledge. Which he can also assert. But it still makes people do something they wouldn’t otherwise do, and some people are going to have a problem with that.
We have been shown Dabbler’s lust mind control has a slow wear off designed to have the victim not be offended.
No one is offended.
I can buy most of the team being fine with it, but everyone?
There are obvious corner cases both ways. Heatwave presumably was with her boyfriend, Math didn’t notice the difference… two people “discover” they’re bi (the girl with one leg supposedly was gay).
In addition to forgetting her name, you have very badly misremembered Peggy’s sexual orientation.
True. Thank you.
Peggy has always been bi, or as she described it to Sydney sometimes “her body starts gets beggin for a preggin and she gets all boy crazy.”
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-117-table-for-two/
(Panel 6)
Nope, Heatwave was not with her boyfriend, he was with Jiggs, unless you meant Ari (and it’s just speculations that she was calling her husband, or even that she has a husband)
It’s been awhile since I retired from the Army, but it doesn’t look like things have changed all that much. Max’s Dress Purples look like the equivalent of the Army/Air Force “Class A” Service Uniform. When you take off the jacket, that leaves you in the “Class B” Service Uniform (long or short sleeve shirt and trousers/skirt), and so you have to wear the rank and nametag on the shirt. You *can* wear the ribbons and other decorations on both, but the Class B is the more casual, so you generally don’t, unless you’re wearing Class B to a summer ceremony, or something, where it’s too hot for the Class A jacket.
Then there’s the higher-level Mess Dress Uniforms. Even at her rank, Max would only wear those to major ceremonies – they’re the military equivalent of black/white tie, and you don’t take the jacket off at such an event, so the shirt doesn’t have any stuff on it.
And contrary to DanialArin’s comment, Army/AF does use rank epaulettes on the older Class B shirts for enlisted, though that’s changed, moved to a patch on the sleeve with the new Army Green Service Uniform. The officers wear a metal rank pin on their epaulets on the old AND new ones.
This seems to imply that Succubus powers don’t actually OVERRIDE consent. They just make you really, really horny. What you DO when affected is at your own discretion.
Which is interesting, because Vehemance’s powers seem to work differently. As they were implicitly, if not explicitly “You have no choice but to punch the next person next to you.”
So, the question is WHY. (What is interesting is there is a Gold Digger arc with a similar situation..and it’s treated as a bad thing because it pushes the relationship before it was ready.)
Another option, which is likely not where the author is going for? Succubi mind control has a ‘gradual cool off’ safeguard.
Vehemence was PUSHING the aura. I think this is not difference between Vehemence and Succubus, but simply between using the aura deliberately as weapon to force as big response as you can get and involuntary leak. Parfait is probably too inexperienced for that, but I suppose Dabbler WOULD be able to force Sydney into same-sex relationship.
I think it’s the difference born of the level of intent and control. Vehemence’s aura was a practiced function by someone well-versed in the usage of vehemic energies to the point that he could effectively create new superpowers at will using it, and he clearly intended to use it.
Parfait’s aura, on the other hand, was something that just HAPPENED without her intent, with her not being fully learned in how to control it yet.
We can imagine, maybe, a teenage Vehemence just discovering his powers for the first time, and sometimes people around him just get inexplicably violent or aggressive whereas otherwise they were normally pretty peaceful, but maybe we’d only see those people who had gripes against each other fighting, or were otherwise originally actively holding back violent urges towards each other for the sake of civility. Maybe occasionally when he happens across a couple of teenage gangs beating each other up he’s suddenly overtaken by the ambient violence and ends up throwing hands as well and nobody questions it until after the deed is done.
The author already went there: “It’s designed to taper off gradually to minimize […] lingering bad feelings”.
I am curious whether all of Harem was affected? Like were all of her dupes seeking out the nearest fuck-buddy? Because that could be awkward for any not in the area of the aura.
The situation as I see it, putting aside everything with Parfait that I already said my piece on *quick recap, Orange/Blue morality, affected herself as much as others, tried to stop herself, alien biology also equals alien outlooks, miscommunication by neither stating their expectations for a girl’s night at the onset, and Parafit not realizing that just thinking about something can trigger that very thing to occur mentally
-PS fun psychology tip, if you find yourself imagining arguments and stressful situations your body treats it as a real and causes you real stress, this can have a spiraling effect on your current mood if you don’t catch if fast enough, Funny aside this happens a lot when hungry because your body is trying to increase adrenaline so you will have the strength to hunt or fight over food.
any who,
this specific situation; the real problems occurring as this wasn’t mind control but a strong aphrodisiac activating under the surface feelings.
Person A has the hots for person B, and person B has the hots for person A.
However due to their vocation *military and rank* cannot act on or consider this as a viable option.
Aphrodisiac, inhibitions knocked down, Person A and Person B express their feelings and act on regardless of it not being a viable relationship in this vocation
However I suspect the worse situation has also occurred, because humans are throughout their adult lives always in heat *majority, biochemically speaking relative to other primates and most other mammals as well* and two people may be attracted to each other sexually, maybe even fantasize about it, however one or both are already in a committed relationship and thus socially and emotionally cannot and should not act on this feeling.
Enter strong aphrodisiac, they express their feelings and the lust takes over. It was technically mutually consensual, however this may endanger their relationships given cultural views on “cheating” regardless of the situation, and despite it being an involuntary action of the alien/demon’s side from being worked up may still try to seek blame.
So yes, outside influence, triggering under the skin emotions that they didn’t want to (socially regardless of biologically wanting to) act on.
So they could either try to blame.
A: Sidney for summoning an untrained succubus and spending a good chunk of time with both of them getting sexually worked up before the sex is food and a handshake alien/demon went *pop*
B: Parfait, the alien/demon who didn’t express this could happen or clarify what she was expecting to have happen and that if it did she could go off like a shaken soda can.
C: Archon, because despite being a military complex with knowledge of super powers and magic, specifically this kind of magic through direct knowledge, never set up any counter measures should someone drop a sex-bomb into the building (which is only considerable as there are experience practitioners of magic on the premise, one of which was a risk of this in the first place that they didn’t fully trust (Dabbler had X following her, yet no one thought to have psionic wards set up just in case she decided to set off an orgy spell or something?
-Regardless of the *didn’t see it coming, we shouldn’t point fingers* some people still could given these circumstances and it could be argued legally as such. But I can’t say that as a certainty unless one of the resident lawyers in the comments has chimed in somewhere I didn’t see.
All your points here are EXACTLY the kind of thing I was thinking when reading the comments for all the pages covering this “Parfaitʾs ‘lust aura`” incident!
As far as the dress shirt…at least in the army it’s everything that the short sleeve has except medals….there is a plain white t-shirt under that
(And since I have been asked how would you know before 1 you can look it up pretty easily 2 I’m a sergeant in the US Army….and yes my credentials have been called into question for less)
Well Arianna is kinda missing in the meeting.. i suppose she would have complaints later.
I wonder why so many want all the characters to scream and rage.
Personally I would prefer to avoid wweeks of forced drama.
I doubt that’s what anyone wants. But what some people want is for the message to be something other than “inducing people into having sex they otherwise would not is morally acceptable, or even good, because see, none of the characters had a problem with it, so you shouldn’t either.”
Everything people say or do is a reflection of their values. And people look around at what other people are expressing to judge how acceptable their own values are to the rest of the world, and how safe they feel expressing themselves. If a substantial amount of the media people consume carries messages like “sexual violence is normal”, then people are going to be worried that some people will feel emboldened to commit sexual assault.
This, pretty much.
There are better ways to have your characters have sex.
Because a lot of people are uncomfortable with the idea of people being influenced into sex
Say somebody got your daughter drunk and had sex with her, would you be fine with it?
Having something like the lust aura affect people and them just shrug it off comes off as pretty dodgy
Is it a security risk if nearly half the female population becomes pregnant? Will morale still be good when the paternity tests become mandatory? What about jealousy? “Is that cheating on your wife when you are under a horny spell?” Would a horny spell count as a cause for divorce? Can you still defend yourself from an attack when all the base is on their back? Does everybody have the same views on contraceptives and/or abortion? Are super-babies born in murderous ways like in The Boys? Can you even abort a super-baby?
I think a lot of people are not seeing the deeper and terrifying consequences of a sex attack.
“Is it a security risk if nearly half the female population becomes pregnant?”
Suddenly procreative rights become a matter of national security. “This morning the President, bowing to strong pressure from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, issued an executive order guaranteeing the right to abortion at the federal level. Funding from the defense budget will be allocated to provide free services.”
(I know the timelines do not match but …)
In unrelated news, a private airplane carrying Sen. Tubberman was forced to make an emergency landing on an island in the Aleutians too small to see on a map. A rowboat with construction materials for a runway has immediately been dispatched and is expected to arrive in the next decade, two at the most. Why the senator was in that airplane and why it was heading towards the north pole remains unclear. Sources declined to comment.
It seems established that there’s little emotional fallout from half a dozen people. The ethical fallout has yet to even be addressed, but I don’t see any reason it wouldn’t be. I’d rather wait and see how Dave resolves this before I form an opinion on what he’s done.
I think Sid’s about to run SO many laps that her loins won’t be able to take anything for the next decade. as punishment for being the cause of this debacle…
… huh. This being a group of supers, the power dynamics are a little more egalitarian. And several of those struck by the effects were depicted seeking… appropriate relief. Including Sydney responding with eyeball licks.
Still, major security breach, since everybody was compromised at once, by one inept succubus.
I gotta ask what the point of this event was then.
Character development? Illustration of why Archon is thinking it might need to invest in a dungeon? Or simply rule of funny?
Someone has to goof with their superpowers once in a while, and this was (so far at least) a relatively low-damage event. Give things time to shake out before you start trying to decide whether it was needed/appropriate or not.
As Mark Twain wrote in the introduction to Huck Finn: ““Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”
Just feels a bit unnecessary on it’s face.
Even the “without the lust Aura this wouldn’t have happened” because:
1)All of Archon is already p sexually open.
2)None of these pairings are surprising. If you had told me these people were getting together before the lust aura, I would have just shrugged and moved on.
And this has nothing to do with the need for a dungeon.
And it just kinda ends on us being a little awkwardly reassured that something worrying “wasn’t worth worrying about at all actually.”
Unnecessary? Perhaps.
But then this comic does not exactly have a plot, so why would there be a point to anything?
Remember the scene before this one had Archon attack a secret base by a bunch of rich goons who funded unethical (and highly unconsensual) research in the hope of getting a superpower of their own out of the deal.
And the one before was a super brawl in a market in Dakar (the capital of Senegal)
And this arc started as Sydney and Parfait having a wonderful time at a girl’s day out, which turned toward being a bit too wonderful for the entirety of the Archon building. That’s point enough compared to the rest of the story arcs.
The event’s not over yet, so nobody but Dave actually knows. Just wait.
Is “Not have sex for a while” a concept a succubus can actually manage?
When I look for ”dress purples” in any form, Google throws a million purple dresses at me.
That’s because you should be looking for “Dress Blues”, DaveB made Archon’s uniform Purple to indicate a different branch of the military
Maybe it’s just me, but I feel bad for Sydney here. She’s up on that stage, essentially one of the centers of attention right now, and not for her typical wackiness or anything she’s remotely okay with.
I know I’d feel extremely uncomfortable, even with my annoyance at Parfait to occupy me.
“Listen you guys I have read enough comics where everyone gets extremely stupid about each other for weeks at a time in combat scenarios and out here in the real world we’re a military unit that SUPER can’t afford that so I’m trying to head off that eventuality.” – Max
“OH! I completely understand the point of this meeting and am on board now.” – Sydney
What about Parfait? Still sitting on the chair….!
Who says those relationships won’t be sustainable moving forward, Maxi?
And if they are not, is it really your business unless they affect morale? And how would that be any different from friends who got into a fight… like you and Anvil over sexy underwear?
Former USAF here, you DO wear the same shirt underneath your full service jacket, and you can choose whether you wear your ribbons and such beneath it… because that allows you to take it off without being out of uniform. If you are determined to stay in your service jacket all day, then you do not need to wear the decorations on the shirt underneath it. I served in California, Texas, and Louisiana, so I definitely always wore full decorations underneath so I could shuck my coat as soon as whatever situation put me in dress uniform permitted it.
Part of the casualness here could be the military culture. I spent 8 years in the service and let me tell you there was a LOT of hooking up with very few people ever getting weird about it. I think it was partly stress relief as you know you are under orders a lot and depending where you are there could be the possibility of violence and death. Another part is every looks GOOD. You all do PT, you are all super fit. You arent supermodels but everyone male or female is pretty much a stud. Lastly most everyone is pretty cool with each other. The military turns you into brothers and sisters, so you all tend to be really chill together which also makes hooking up easy.
So I think thats whats up here. Now after a bit Im sure the gang is gonna start processing things, some for better or worse. Sometimes those unexpected hookups lead to something more. Sometimes its a one time deal. But for the most part, eveyone stayed cool with each other in my experience.
Finally, a game that makes watering the flowers exciting! House of Hazards turns everyday tasks into death-defying challenges. Be careful – even the toaster wants to toast you.