Grrl Power #1333 – Predictably predictable
No, she’s an Alari P.A! Sciona is an ancient-ish bloodmage who has proven ridiculously hard to kill in the past, and she does look down on nearly everyone. BUT – there’s no chance an adult Alari doesn’t have a stiletto or a boot knife or one of those switchblade knives that comes out of the toe of their sole or heel or some sort of space derringer on them. Well maybe not alari serfs and peasants. But anyone in a house echelon would probably be armed in some way. That doesn’t automatically mean they’re especially dangerous. It’s a lot like Japanese kids learning martial arts in middle-school. They’re probably better equipped to throw a simple punch than the average western citizen, but it hardly guarantees they’re an expert.
That said… I would bet Lorlara is above average at some form of self-defense. Or… other-offence. Not “challenge an ancient-ish bloodmage” good, probably, but hardly helpless under normal circumstances.
Telling a woman like Sciona that landing her in your bed is a cinch is a sure fire way to ensure she never goes near you again. Unless she thinks that’s what you wanted to happen! The poison is in your cup! My cup! Your cup!
If Deus is as he says and operates 37 steps ahead of everyone else, being surprised is probably genuinely shocking for him. It’s got to be like One Punch Man looking for a challenging fight. The only thing someone like that is going to be surprised by is stuff that’s so wildly improbable as to be reasonably dismissed as impossible. But then a stoat DOES wind up becoming the King of Tuvalu and invades Madagascar to free all his fellow mustelaids from “bondage” by mutating Sooty Terns into roc-sized bomb payload delivery systems, but not using them to deliver bombs, like everyone prepared and budgeted for, but instead has them clog up major ports to hold the world economy hostage.
There’s predictable, and then there’s actionable. There are, in fact, not infinite resources and time to prepare for all eventualities.
The new vote incentive is up! (Finally.)
I’m revisiting a panel from a recent page, but I included some comic reactions and a few outfit swaps, so hopefully you all enjoy it. I also plussed up the art from the comic version a bit, though I suspect that despite the time I spent on that, not a whole lot of people would immediately notice that, so I’m gratuitously pointing it out here.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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Deus is as nerdy as Sydney. They are also both very genre savvy.
Well, Deus is a Super-Nerd (sort of) (while Sydney is only a non-Super super nerd).
Dues reads like someone is playing a TTRPG character in the middle of everyone else just living their lives, and I mean that in the best possible way: The information bordering on meta-knowledge, the wild swings between grandiose speeches and amusingly petty nerd-shitery, the sheer joy at someone making a reference to princess bride. QED.
Good points. Deus source of power may be super nerdiness.
He’s treating life like it’s a game, and you know how some gamers act when they play a game.
Now if they treat their body and the norms of how to behave as part of the game?
A highly succesful business man.
This is an intriguing take, considering this comic opened with a TTRPG session all those years ago.
I must say I loooooooooove Deus surprised expression, well done
He is just SO HAPPY that she surprised him, it’s kinda adorable. I’d imagine it gets boring being a super intelligence and predicting people so effectively. I wonder if Max tends to defy his expectations regularly, and that’s a big part of why he’s so interested in her? I’d imagine the unpredictable nature of Sydney is a treat as well.
If Deus enjoys being surprised, I’m sure he’s a big fan of The Mighty Halo
Well, they seemed to enjoy each other’s company last couple of times she visited.
They are both nerdy fans of supers so they have that in common.
Nerdy fans of fantasy and scifi as well. Do you remember when she admired his collection of famous weapon artifacts? Although he was somehow hurt she thought they were replicas and he would settle for anything less than the real deal.
If keeping Deus safe is Cthillias job now, I wonder what happened to Vale.
In all likelihood, Vale is currently busy dealing with some other area of Deus’ vast operation where superhuman muscle is useful but she is more suited to the task than Chtillia, and they swapped jobs for a while. Or who knows, maybe maintainance of Vale’s flesh suit requires she collects mountain dewdrops once in a while, and she is busy doing that.
Oh, right. I completely forgot about the mountain dewdrops.
She could also be nearby, remaining hidden for this meeting. I would suspect a man like him to have multiple layers of security around him, most not-visible till needed.
Gonna be honest here. After so many years of beautiful, professional-looking artwork with complex shading and highlights and specularity and all that jazz, these flat colors with virtually no shading are really not doing it for me. The characters don’t “pop” like they used to, there’s no sense of depth or mass, and the whole thing just looks…unfinished. I understand you wanted to speed up your process and reduce the effort needed to create a comic page, but there must be a middle ground somewhere.
This.
Gonna have to deal with it. From a few weeks back, right now Dave is dealing with, “… we’re at the stage of taking care of my mom that we’ve all concluded that she’s going to move in with me and my wife. Which involves selling her house, buying a new house that can better accommodate all of us, moving nearly everything in her house to the new one, then fixing up our house, selling it, and moving nearly everything from it to the new house. And that is an absolute ass rogering amount of work.”
I’m confident the art style will revert back to it’s normal high level once life settles down, but it could take a while. In the mean time, just enjoy the story. Or go back and re-read the first few chapters if you want to see how much the artwork has improved over the years. Or move on.
Agreed. The art will be at it’s usual level once his schedule allows for it, and he might even go back and render these pages properly if we’re lucky. I doubt this is permanent, and I think we’re lucky to still be getting it *at all* rather than to have the comic placed on hiatus.
While I absolutely love the more-polished style of most of the comic, for pages like this that could just as easily be talking heads, I think I’m fine with the flat version. I certainly prefer it to the chibi pages, which feel like they’re non-canon extras more than real pages.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather have the high detail we see elsewhere in the comic, but if the choice is between flats and only getting a page a week or so, I’d rather have flats, at least for scenes like this. I’d prefer full detail for more high-action scenes, however.
What will Sciona do to keep Deus at bay?!?
Got to admit Deus would be a lot more terrifying if he wasn’t a fan of being such a nerd. How many other super villains would stop their evil monologue showing how superior they are… Just to geek out and have fun knowing that a rival knew an old earth line like that?
I mean look at how he even enjoys that more than any of his other evil plot schemes… And how his minions are practically rolling their eyes as this might not be the first time he dropped everything just to laugh and enjoy a moment like that.
This is the same guy who has given Vale the remote for his Dramatic Lightning Flash window…
I like how Deus leans into it. He wants to do good and change the world for the better. He realizes that attempting to make any sort of change will have him labeled a villain because the current powers that be will try to maintain the status quo and label him thus in an attempt to do so. So he…leans into it and has fun with it.
This. The difference between someone being called a hero or a villain isn’t that a hero does good and a villain does evil. The difference is that a hero works to maintain the existing power structure, and a villain works to change it. Deus is working to replace the corrupt and inefficient power structures in Africa, vastly improving the lives of the populace, but he is called a villain because those corrupt systems benefit the rich and powerful, and they feel threatened by his current actions, and especially his potential future actions, since eventually his gaze will turn to them.
Part of that difference is the methods used. Most “villains” employ methods that typically result in a lot of pain and suffering for a lot of people, which, of course, puts them at odds with most hero types.
Deus is skirting the line, playing the politics game, and being very careful to keep any blatantly illegal actions hidden, thus avoiding coming into direct conflict with the world’s ‘heroes’ so far. Sure, his end goal of maybe wanting to rule the world is typical Vilian motivation, but his methods are a lot tamer than most. I think what Deus has that most big villains lack, is patience. Most don’t have the patience to play the long game, and so go for the quick win, which requires a lot of heavy-handed brute force.
I bet he would pay through the nose for an elite minion that is as reliable and useful as superhuman muscle as Vale or Chtillia and can share his appreciation of nerd stuff and his Evil Overlord roleplaying. Ofc, someone that is the real deal and is not just brown-nosing him, he can tell the difference a mile away and has no use for sycophants.
I think that, too, is part of the reason for his joy at Sciona making that reference. He just found a rival (and potential ally and lover if the variables align) that is close to a peer for him and could also get in tune with his nerd side.
Well, ofc an ancient-ish blood archmage that landed in a super body with mind manipulation powers and once run circles around the entire Twilight Council is orders of magnitude more dangerous than a run-of-the-mill Alari P.A.
That Sciona in her former ‘troll body’ life-stage would fill the empty hours watching/reading Earthly pop-culture does not look so surprising to me. After all, she likely spent decades trapped in that state and she is neither the workaholic type that would spend every waking hour on the job nor one that would discard something useful because of her prejudices. So it would not be something that is so unlikely as to surprise a genius schemer.
What is odd, unless faking surprise is just one more step in Deus’ manipulation scheme. But lying does not usually seem part of his bag of tricks, he prefers to build Xanatos Gambit situations where any option you have somehow comes to his advantage. And unlikely events that surprise him likely are such a rare joy for him that he would not care to lie about them. Arrgh, my head is gonna explode if I try to analyze him any more deeply.
No surprise instead that the pop-culture reference goes over Lorlara and Chtillia’s heads. The former has not been on Earth that long and the latter does seem the aloof type that would care about such things.
I hope nobody is going to take Sciona’s comment here as evidence she was coerced into Deus’ bed last time. She was not, she went willingly and past a point participated enthusiastically and had a great time. However, she is negotiating survival of her power base and lifestyle with Deus and she does not want to show weakness. Moreover, she Sydney and Deus’ discovery of her identity rattled her, she is feeling defensive, and being Tsundere and contrarian with him is a natural consequence. She does not yet know what price, if any, he is gonna ask for his silence, although I bet it won’t be anything she would find intolerable and quite possibly it might be something that aligns with her interests.
Deus obviously enjoys a battle of wits with someone that, although not at his level, certainly is in his league. I bet Sciona, for all her Tsundere-ness, would like it as well, if she were reassured everything she built for herself in her second life is not on the line.
All in all, I assume these two would greatly enjoy each other’s company in more relaxed circumstances, such as say a ‘date’ or two just after they got done settling the issue at hand here to mutual satisfaction. Just continuing their battle of wits about anything and everything except vital interests as well as comparing notes about the supervillain lifestyle.
In slightly different circumstances, I can picture Deus and Dabbler doing something similar (they had a good day speculating about magic and the Superion field together), and quite possibly Sciona and Dabbler having a nice frenemy chat in different circumstances. In the first two cases, I can certainly see that as the prelude to a glorious bedroom romp. No idea if Sciona is bi-curious enough for that or not.
Loved the reference and the expression, was “chefs kiss”
I wonder what exactly dues gains with revealing himself here. A few manipulation points that deviate Sciona’s plan in ways he intends or just a way to get a better read on her and revine his predictions?
But he does confirm for us reading that its the dungeon Sciona has plans for.
I don’t think its necessarily unusual for Sciona to know Earth pop-culture references. She had been on Earth for a reasonable period of time, plotting and getting her head chopped off… Most of her head.
Yep. Moreover, Earthly pop-culture would have been a good way to relieve the stress and boredom in R&R moments when she found herself bound to a monstrous orc/troll body to survive for quite some time. It is not like she could go looking for hookups with hot guys or just hang around with humans at the time, and she was on the run from TC-affiliated supernaturals. In all evidence she deemed the few other supernaturals that were allied to her disposable pawns and cannon fodder. Other Alari were far away at interstellar distances.
Desu just looks… so happy!
Another rule is: if you encounter a pop culture reference that you can’t allocate immediately, then there’s a good chance it’s from “The Princess Bride”.
I call that Deus found it more important to counterpunch Sciona’s rape allegation than to keep his chances of bedding her high. Also, since he doesn’t seem the type who’s ever had problems finding hot women to sleep with in a long time, he can be fierce about it.
Chances of Deus bedding her would be high (but she would play Tsundere about it) in any case if she would not feel defensive about him possibly threatening her power base and lifestyle. And that occurring on top of Sydney recently doing the same out of the blue to rattle her further.
Moreover, both of them are megalomaniac supervillains, so they are bound to feel and act competitive to some degree when they meet. Although they are also kindred souls in a similar calling and intellectual near-peers, so I bet they enjoy each other’s company (not just in the bedroom) if their interests do not clash. Heck, now they can even share an appreciation of nerd stuff.
In the end, I assume she is going to welcome the opportunity of another hookup with him if other concerns do not go in the way and he shows interest since she remembers him fondly as the best lay she ever got (6xguy is very good, just not that good), and she cares about such things. As it concerns him, yep he can sample the dating & hookup best Earth and connected worlds have to offer. and he is busy filling that Little Black Book library among many other things. However, I bet she is special enough in her own way he would not mind having the same relationship with her he has with Harem.
Her implying a false rape allegation is half an exchange in their ongoing battle of wits (the Princess Bride reference is deliciously metatextual in this regard, since it concerns another famous contest of the same kind), half her venting anger at a very bad day when almost everything she had got threatened twice in short succession, at least once out of the blue.
Although, if she genuinely did not expect Deus would not show up at the dungeon site or he would not see through her facade with ease, I would deem it a significant strike against her foresight. Both things were fairly predictable.
It’s to my faked regret that I must inform you all I am officially signing up with team Deus.
Are any of the other supers wandering/working at this site going to notice Escorpia/Sciona/Ms. Garza (or whatever her current name is?) in a secretive huddle with Deus and his top associates? The most likely to notice would be ADHD Sydney, because one of the evolutionarily benefits of ADHD is quickly noticing things out of the ordinary. But she’s still under the effects of Sciona’s drug.
Sydney in her normal state might get curious since she knows Deus is an endless source of interesting stuff. But Sciona’s cover identity and Deus having a chat is far from unusual or surprising. He is who he is, her cover is Chief of Staff of a prominent Senator. They are both engaged in the dungeon project and they both participated in a meeting between several US, Gaitlyn, Archon, and Twilight Council power players to finalize it. Anyone in the know (as people working on or supervising the site would be) seeing them chatting is going to assume it is just more deal-making and/or comparing notes.
lmao, he looks so happy
Deus’s delight in being surprised by a pop-culture reference is hilarious. There does come a point where being enough moves ahead of everyone else turns life into a game of solitaire. Deus is not at that point, but he must feel it sometimes. I gotta say, it is nice that he shows no signs of falling prey to that most horrific of all philosophies, solipsism.
Also Sciona is REALLY not firing on all cylinders here. Taking Deus up on his offer of a roll in the hay is the best possible chance she could have to addict him to her new powers.
Well, just how many people does Deus have in his circle of acquaintances (that we know of, otherwise the known universe is the limit) and that come close to his level intellectually and resourcewise? Sciona, Dabbler, who else? Max is in his league powerswise, is a dating unicorn of his, and even has a geek side but even she is far from being his intellectual peer.
Proof positive that the princess bride is a perfect movie.
well done “Isabella”