Grrl Power #1335 – Hare brained?
The concrete setting guy’s actual power is to accelerate any sort of chemical reaction without any weird side effects. I mean, no weird side effects like weakening the chemical bonds of the end product. And yes, that would make him insanely dangerous if he used his powers on humans. Fortunately, “organic chemistry” is a little trickier for him to mess with. I put that in quotes because I didn’t mean in in the literal dictionary definition, i.e. chemistry involving carbon compounds. I meant organic like messing with living things. Which… a whole lot of living thing chemistry is going to involve carbon, granted. But I mean like, making someone metabolize all the fat in their body in 30 seconds is way, way harder for him than, say, making the propellent in a bullet cartridge expire like it’s sat on the shelf for 200 years. Though he has practiced giving people insulin crashes. Not to a fatal level, just giving them that shaky, “Ooh, I need a Snickers.” feeling.
I’ll probably include some dialog to this effect on an upcoming page, but everyone at Archon goes through “Spot the Mind Control victim” classes. Not just Archon. In this world of Supers, Secret Service, FBI, CIA – almost anyone in a field Intelligence position does. And even a lot of analysts. It’s one of those courses that walks a fine line between “look for inconsistent behavior” and “don’t be a paranoid idiot, sometimes people are in a bad mood for no apparent reason or had double their normal caffeine or half their donut intake that morning.”
But weird memory lapses or sudden reversals of opinions might get you on a list for potential scrutinization by organizations like Arc-LIGHT or even Arc-DARK.
I’m going to try something with this new vote incentive.
This month, I’m closing on a new house, selling my Mom’s house, finishing packing Mom’s house, moving city to city to the new house, forwarding mail, canceling utilities, all that. And after that’s done, I get to start the process of selling my old house, which needs a little work before it can realistically go on the market.
SO. I’m going to try and do this vote incentive in stages. Currently it’s just pencils. The TopWebcomics one will update with colors and detail until we get to the no clothes versions, then that will continue over at Patreon. Also there will be a comic or two in between each version to fill out the story.
I know it’s hard to tell from just the pencils, but this is Heatwave and Jiggawatt. The comics will explain why they’re doing what they’re doing. Although I feel like even saying that much makes it easy to guess, but hopefully the journey will still amuse.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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Honestly, let’s cut the charade and stop pretending that Sciona had anything in the same continent of a chance in this event sequence. Let’s call it for what it is: a total asspull pileup to force her outing to Archon. Even if Sciona had done everything in an optimal way to protect her cover (e.g. texting 6xguy in an closed, private space, not saying anything remotely suspicious to Sydney, perfectly wording the midwipe command to the trio), ever more contrived events would keep happening to out her here and now, all the way to a Calamarian posse opening a portal out of the blue and making a beeline to target her specifically or a random event writing “Sciona” on her forehead w/o her noticing. I am totally reminded of a Killer GM targeting the Sciona PC.
Most of those key events were of Sciona’s own doing. In your D&D analogy, this isn’t the GM targeting the PC; this is the GM chortling behind the screen as the player makes one boneheaded mistake after another, and letting the chips fall where they may as a result.
The only plot contrivance, frankly, is Sydney zooming in on the phone text. Everything after that? Yeah, I’ve seen lots of players who crash and burn in just such a sequence of ill-considered actions.
I disagree since IMO the whole event sequence is rather contrived, from Sydney jumping with both feets in the assumption the aide was Sciona because of a comment that had much less outlandish explanations to Max assuming foul play b/c Kat does not remember someone she never spoke to and saw once in the background of a meeting were the aide was far from the most important or memorable participant.
But in the end, it matters little since from my PoV the plot is hell-bent to out Sciona to Archon in the near future by hook or by crook. I don’t like it one bit, but what can I do?
Sciona barely passes for human considering her lover’s friends instantly thought she was a serial killer.
Sciona changing her hair to match her original body, by itself, is enough to out her. She did this between meetings with Supers that she knew she’d meet again. She was eye catching before and this showcased that she has a power. That’s in addition to having a body which matches the normal super look and openly flaunting it.
Sciona telling her lover was enough to out her. This also showcases just how bad she is at this.
All of that is without Deus interfering, which he is doing so openly and probably with the intent to pull Max’s attention to Sciona.
6xguy’s female friend (the male one was much more neutral and blase about the situation) was being paranoid, overprotective, and factually wrong, as well as slut-shaming Sciona (and her friend) with the excuse of ‘protecting’ him. In that specific context, Sciona looked like what she purported and turned out to be: a liberated woman with needs that was looking for quality hookups (potentially upgradeable to lovers) and had no use or patience for conventional dating rituals and mind games. Millions of people have behaved in a similar at least at some point in their lives and the overwhelming majority of them were not serial killers.
Millions of Muggle women change their hair all the time by means of mundane means (wigs, hair dyes, extensions). No one of them are supers. The style & color Sciona picked are far from rare.
A sizable number of Muggle people also have a body similar to a Superion-field channeler thanks to mundane means (good genes, appropriate lifestyle, exercise, cosmetic surgery) if certain jobs are any guide. All supers have a similar body, but many people with that body are not supers. Many people who have that kind of body also are proud of it and enjoy flaunting it.
Sciona only got outed because of a very unlikely event: a terminally nosy pseudo-super with no concept of privacy or propriety accidentally zoomed on Sciona’s sexting from afar and made its content (which was quite liable to be interpreted as flirting or RP) her business.
Deus so far stayed neutral in the feud between Sciona and Max/Archon/Twilight Council and I see no good reason I can think of why he should change his stance, esp. once Sciona made herself less troublesome.
“Sciona only got outed because of a very unlikely event: a terminally nosy pseudo-super with no concept of privacy or propriety accidentally zoomed on Sciona’s sexting from afar and made its content (which was quite liable to be interpreted as flirting or RP) her business.”
I granted this one; its the rest of the chain where I disagree about plausibility or writing bias. And really, Sydney having boundary issues and butting in where she’s not wanted is pretty solidly on-brand for her (as is hyperfixating on the least implication of superpowers/supernatural nature in another person).
Being stabbed is an intense memory for Sydney. Her making the immediate connection to an extremely odd statement by Sciona isn’t implausible–and if anything, her reaction was not certain enough. If she really thought she recognized Sciona, she would’ve wanted to call in Max immediately, or at least taken a helluva lot more care with her investigation (putting her shield up, for instance). Going into Scooby-doo mode on a mild hunch is pretty much how she passes a dull Friday night–again, very on-brand.
As for Sciona’s gaffes? She was caught off-guard, and the whole sequence threw her off her game. Also, I suspect she’s been relying on her new powerset a whole lot, and that made her careless when dealing with someone who wasn’t already under her control. I am sorry to inform you of this, but your waifu has a host of flaws, and this whole sequence was pretty on-brand for her, as well.
I do not question the plausibility of Sydney’s butting in the aide and 6xguy’s private business. I concede it was in-brand for her to do so.
I just tend to assume for her to hyperfixate on the outlandish (if factually accurate) contingency of the aide being Sciona reborn with no apparent doubt was somewhat extreme even for her. She had zero corroborating evidence from her PoV for her to do so. The aide’s comment had much more likely justifications: she could have got a deja-vu about a half-remembered dream or fantasy about a well-known celebrity (I have occasionally got erotic dreams about celebrities and I am no reincarnated alien). Moreover, it could have been her venting her justifiable anger at Sydney’s behavior and saying odd things b/c of that. Pretty much anyone that interacted with Sydney and got on the receiving end of her worst behavior got a fantasy of doing her bodily harm in retaliation as lampshaded by Harem during the Lapha possession event.
I do not find it so odd she decided to take the issue in her own hands rather than notifying Max since that too was in-character for her and her hunch was pushing the envelope of plausibility. She might have got concerns about making herself a fool (again) in her comrades’ eyes. Her Scooby-doo way of acting on that, if unwise, was typical of her.
I also have issues with Max immediately assuming the worst about Kat not remembering the aide, even if mental manipulation is a possibility in this kind of setting and I concede her feeling entitled to deem her own PoV appropriate for everyone else is typical of her overbearing personality. The aide was more memorable for her than for Kat since Max spoke with her. I tend to assume Sciona’s cover identity triggers her latent jealousy of Deus when they see them speaking. A part of her is attracted by him, even if she always struggles to acknowledge it.
Sciona’s sexy body and less-than-modest clothing style no doubt trigger Max’s prudishness and militant sex-negative feminism. That knee-jerk reaction should have gotten somewhat toned down by hanging out with female supers all the time, but admittedly this is one of the biggest and IMO most insufferable hang-ups for Max (did I mention I loathe prudes and sex-negative, misandrist feminists?).
Superion-field channelers have that kind of body (as appropriate for gender) by default and being eager to flaunt it is close to an instinctual urge for them. It was lampshaded at some point and it is the setting’s way of justifying certain genre tropes.
It is also quite possible that Sciona’s tattoo triggered her by-the-book assumptions of propriety.
Nonetheless, the Occam’s Razor explanation of Kat’s obliviousness is she simply failed to notice and record the aide. She took a minor role and otherwise stayed in the background during a meeting that included several, much more interesting and memorable topics and characters. Moreover, the aide and Kat never spoke.
At this point, I have no illusions that Max shall act upon her worst assumptions and Archon shall tear through Sciona’s secrets like tissue paper no matter how good her cover might be and what countermeasures she put into place to prevent it. What I perceive as writing bias is in all evidence hell-bent on fulfilling it no matter what.
I make no mystery of the fact I am super disappointed and pissed off (as much a fan might be about these things) about the extremely interesting subplot being wrecked halfway about Sciona rebuilding her life and power base, adapting to life as a human, getting character evolution to a more nuanced supervillain, getting in a non-toxic relationship with 6xguy and/or Deus, etc. We still know next to nothing about her plans for the dungeon (apart from she supporting its creation) and her new take-over-the-world plan.
All of that was quite fascinating and fairly novel by genre standards, and it is going to be wrecked halfway for the cheap sake of awarding an unwarranted and Mary Sue-ish intelligence victory to Sydney, Max, and Archon that reminds me of Silver Age asspulls and I would gladly do without. I struggle to see how in the best of cases it would end up any differently from Sciona being on the run again and losing everything she built for herself in her new life. I just pray the comic-book gods she is at least able to keep her new body and stay free, if on the run from Archon again. I dread the alternative of her going back to square one as a ghost (her current set of superpowered and sexy assets is super interesting) or being captured and put in the same position as Lapha as a captive source of cheap and often tiresome filler comedy and slice of life for Sydney. She is the second most interesting and successful supervillain (assuming Deus is labeled as that) as well as the only other recurring one this story got and deserves way better than what Lapha got.
I concede I am rather protective of Sciona’s subplot being fulfilled w/o premature outing to Archon and eagerly shipping her with 6xguy and/or Deus. Either romance alternative is close to equally good to me or even better both at once since Deus and Sciona do not give the time of day to chastity and monogamy (and I love them all the more for that).
I concede that written the right way Sciona befriending the good guys and switching to their team or alternatively taking shelter with Deus and switching to her side might be interesting plot developments in their own way. I am just quite skeptical at this point they would be more so than Sciona’s current plot development before the ongoing debacle would be worth it, rather than letting them have their course before forcing another confrontation with Archon. I only salvage the Deus-Sciona interaction part from this subplot, otherwise I would have been quite happy with Sydney’s memories being left mindwiped as a dangling plot hook among many and Max staying blissfully unaware. I dread Sciona being put in the same position as Vehemence. Lapha, for all that I care about her, could have fuzzed out on that pavement with my blessing.
I do have to agree with Irioth that there have been several unusual leaps of logic to discover Sciona’s new identity, at least from Sydney and now possibly Maxima, so it does feel sort of like the story being railroaded towards her being discovered (given how the comic usually tries to have a sort of ‘realism in comic books’ logic to it). Especially Sydney leaping to a conclusion that it must be Sciona because she said she had a vague recollection of stabbing her which, given Sydney’s tendency to annoy people, shouldnt be an actual clue. Maxima once told Sydney that she uses the ashes of people who annoy her as grit for her shiny skin, but Sydney did not then assume that Maxima is a supervillain who has actually done that.
But since the story arc isnt over yet I havent really made any comments about it.
It’s important to remember the exact wording Sciona used. If she said something akin to, “I could stab you and get a pardon, you know,” it’d be less likely to trigger the reaction it did. However, I just re-read the earliest part of Sciona’s arc, and the notion of deja vu being a key side-effect of Krona’s checkpoint spell was a big part of it. So yes, someone experiencing deja vu is likely to trigger some sort of reaction from Sydney. She likely has a host of ‘false positives’ when it comes to trope-detection–again, very on-brand for her.
Couple that with the very specific memory being discussed–stabbing Sydney–and really, some suspicion (but not certitude) was totally appropriate. And a key part of it–Sciona herself had no idea that the wording COULD be significant. It was a trap laid accidentally by Krona, and Sciona’s ignorance had as much to do with tripping it as her intolerance of Syd’s tomfoolery.
I am not saying you do not have a point (esp. in light of Sydney being an well-known trope-chaser with no restraint) but I still tend to assume she overreacted, given she is a universally-known celebrity that tends to annoy people and she had no other clue that Sciona was alive, back on Earth, and in a (super)human body.
It is far from outlandish or unusual for angry, annoyed, or upset people (as the aide justifiably was) to vent and blurt their feelings with less than optimal and seemingly odd wording.
It occasionally occurred to me to have erotic dreams and/or read/watch porn about sexy celebrities or their pornstar lookalikes that might justify me having some kind of odd deja vu about them. This does not make me a RL stalker or rapist, much less a reincarnated person involved in a retconned timeline.
Considering Sciona’s past it’s not “factually wrong” to think she’s a serial killer.
With her previous body she engaged in or attempted murder or mass murder at every opportunity, even against her own allies. It seems to be her first solution to every problem.
I am well aware of Sciona’s past, although she seems to have considerably mellowed in her new incarnation. However, unless 6xguy’s friend was a psychic able to sense “has killed in the past” vibes, and nothing in the scene suggested that, it was also irrelevant to the situation.
In that specific context, Sciona was not looking for victims and nothing in Sciona’s behavior justified to assume she was a serial killer on the prowl. At the time, she was exactly what she purported to be: a liberated woman with a itch to scratch and no use or patience for conventional dating rituals & mind games or traditional gender roles that was looking for a good hookup (with a potential upgrade to lover) in an environment appropriate to the pursuit.
6xguy’s friend was being paranoid, overprotective or jealous, as well as factually wrong to assume that Sciona’s attitude justified accusing her of being a serial killer on the prowl. 6xguy’s comment the morning after suggested it was not the first time his friend was acting that way.
I just find it very odd that no one (other than obviously Cora and Dabbler) has figured out about Sydney’s glasses, given how many odd things she’s done regarding it, but something far more subtle, like what very minor things Sciona has done (the stabbing comment to Sydney who was being VERY annoying to her, or Kat not remembering her as a Senator’s aide, given that Kat seemed more focused on the sandwiches during the meeting anyway, and the main people talking during the meeting were Dabbler, the Senator, Maxima, Master Gault, Zephan, and Ingsol, while Sciona was in the background for almost the entire time except the initial greetings), is somehow a huge red flag. :)
That’s just Sydney’s stupidity aura. Or her disarming personality. Whatever you prefer to call it. The expectation is that she’s going to make wild, sudden accusations, some of which will be right due to her eclectic knowledge and genre savviness, and some of which will just be nonsense. Sydney not doing weird random things would be a huge red flag.
It’s not a contrivance that she has a massive ego.
Seems like that would be par for the course for Senators and senatorial aides. :)
It’s weird that in all these comments about a DM and a tabletop game, nobody’s mentioning the chance of Sciona rolling nat 1’s.
I mean, let’s be honest. She’s constantly botched her Deception and Stealth rolls with all the angry looks she kept flashing Max and Sydney, muttering in Alari about how she wants to hypnotize Halo, and telling 6x-Guy about her entire thing as an alien blood mage.
But the highlight nat 1 has to be her completely throwing her roll to get Sydney, Slam, and Kat controlled with no one noticing. She got zero valuable information out of the exchange because of her actions, and in this DM analogy that very much reads like a player getting a nat 1 and a DM going “Okay, so here’s how your attempt ACTUALLY worked out.”
If you wish, Sciona’s impatiently using blood magic to change her hair in front of him was the unwise thing. At that point, it was better to give him the whole story rather than letting him speculate about the many possibilities in a setting where supers, aliens, and demons are public knowledge. Nonetheless, her doing so and coming out with him made of lot of sense once she decided to make him her lover and a willing minion like the Senator’s daughter. Aside from their relationship, she implied she plans to make use of him for lobbying just like the other Senator she got hooked to her juice.
BTW, still unclear to me whether the Senator she is an aide for is an Alari soul in a body suit she trained for his role and Earth culture or a human willing accomplice or addicted thrall she taught some Alari stuff.
Apart from this, she blundered when she did not instruct him never to mention her background while texting (even if she took steps to encrypt their texts) or at least strictly hint to it in plausible-deniability terms that strongly implied them flirting or RPing about her being super-class sexy by mundane means in a sexting context.
“BTW, still unclear to me whether the Senator she is an aide for is an Alari soul in a body suit she trained for his role and Earth culture or a human willing accomplice or addicted thrall she taught some Alari stuff.”
The senator is an Alari in a human suit. He asked Sciona if he said ‘See ya’ or ‘Siiya’ – because both of them speak Alar. If he was just one of her slaves, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t know her native language.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-1180-the-scent-of-a-femalien/
Yes, I too think the Alari in a body suit case is the most likely one. However, for the sake of completeness, I assume the alternative of the Senator being a willing human accomplice (like the other Senator’s daughter) that she taught some Alari cannot be entirely ruled out. This considering his key role in Sciona’s cover, power base, and plans, and her newfound greater willingness to deal with human minions and partners.
The first option requires to train one of her Alari followers in Earth culture and the Senator role, the second one to train the Senator in Alari culture, so some coaching effort would be required on her part in either case. But the former would likely be the path of least resistance.
“The first option requires to train one of her Alari followers in Earth culture and the Senator role”
I agree that it’s possibly a human minion, but I think it’s MUCH more likely to be an Alari. Plus safer for her plans since an Alari is going to be more loyal if its like the other Senator’s daughter, and less suspicious since that other Senator looked like he was going through withdrawal or something if not getting his fix of Sciona-toe. :)
Okay first following answer is a joke, second is serious.
1) From what I’ve seen of Senators, I don’t think it requires much training or knowledge. :)
2) Most likely (if its an Alari in a skinsuit and not just a slave), they probably just killed the Senator and inhabited him. And since Sciona has more experience on Earth than the United States has been in existence (I’m making an educated guess here at least), she likely knows enough about the American system of government to give a pretty good ‘Senators for Dummies’ primer to the Alari playing the role. Plus the fact that she’s his aide would mean she can handle most of the more involved stuff, claiming to do it as proxy for the Senator until he’s up to the task himself. Seems like it would be easier and make more sense as to why she’s playing the role of his aide.
Reminds me of the “Doppelganger awareness” you can get playing RPG’s, only takes having to slaughter a group of shapechangers who look like your party to get a hefty dose of Paranoia going forward…
I’ve said it before, I think the audience, and to some degree the author oddly enough LoL, over estimate Sciona’s ability to plan ahead (based on comments below the comics about how she should know better), but yeah what we see on paper it looks like she can plan, but her ego gets in the way (like actually changing her appearance to more resemble an Alari), its like a Skrull walking about in green make up all the time. As well as what I don’t know the term for it, but a special kind of impatience that kicks in when you see your goal in sight. Like someone will carefully plan, even for years but as soon as that goal is right there they will suddenly make rash decisions to rush that finish line.
Also I do continue to question if those souls in the soul battery are all that loyal to Sciona, if they were soldiers, of different houses, have any connections to the Alari refugees that made it to Earth…or if they might hold a grudge for being stuck on the surface in a battery (and what the plan was there, after all you don’t back up someone without a plan to get them a new body later normally).
For all their faults, the Alari do seem serious and sincere about their Might Makes Right meritocratic ethos. That’s a good thing about them and no doubt a big reason why they were able to build and keep a stable and functional interstellar empire before the catastrophe. Therefore, the ones in Sciona’s faction have little reason to be less than loyal to her, at least until a better candidate for leadership shows up.
In all evidence she was very high in the Alari social hierarchy to begin with, as indicated by her translated title of Duchess in their House system. Maybe not at the top but close to, in all likelihood thanks to her being a top-class blood mage and artificer. She was in a long-term infiltration and conquest mission on Earth as an independent agent, and she expected to rule Dirt as an autonomous leader for the Alari empire. Probably as her own House or some kind of planetary governor or viceroy.
As things stand, the Alari survivors on Earth are currently in the process of dissolving their ties to pre-existing Houses and being reorganized in two factions under Sciona’s and Deus’ leaderships respectively. Dunno if they are already at the point of officially designating them as brand-new Houses (at the least for the ones in Gaitlyn it is implied to be an ongoing process, with Lorlara being a forerunner) but that’s the natural outcome of it. No clue about the refugees out there in the galaxy that Sydney and Cora rescued and if any other survivors exist besides these three groups.
No clue about the long-term plan for survival, if any, of the Alari that got in the soul battery. Perhaps they expected someone like Sciona to show up from offworld, perhaps they thought they had the means to clone new bodies after things had settled, or perhaps they acted out of desperation and the soul battery was their equivalent of a bunker. Word of Dave is they were survivalists IIRC.
Y’know, Sydney isn’t going to remember her glasses have the super-zoom function this time, either. Someday she’ll get to discover it a third time!
Ha… Lets Chips….
Another pop culture reference…
Now I know this is fiction.
They are eating prop chips.
now I’m not trying to be all high and mighty and judgmental, especially since I make these same mistakes with my own writing… but for a comic that’s already very very exposition heavy, building up to a reveal only to have the main character’s memory redacted immediately is a huge letdown, and everything since has felt a bit like trying to walk it back, but not too much, maybe just a little more, but a touch less… and so on
ooooh Max smells a rat :D
Max might chalk it up to that in her bunny form she doesn’t remember stuff as well, which is a little speciesist.
And that is the problem with making people forget who you are rather than the last 10 minutes of their life. It causes gaps that make people suspicious. It’s a suspicious super is nearly as bad as a curious George. Yes that’s a DTO reference
Now, Max, whatever you’re starting to suspect about the senator’s aide, I’m sure it’s just… speculation.
Get it? ‘Cause she’s reflecting light? Specu… yeah, ok, explaining the joke.
I guess she should attempt to shed more light on the question.
I’ll get my coat.
Bigger tip off should have been that Sydney wasn’t just bouncing around. The lack of ADHD behavior should have been alarming.
She is munching. We always saw her showing little ADHD behavior while she was eating.
” I meant organic like messing with living things.”
I hate to be the one to tell you this (I do not actually hate it), but with regards to chemical reactions there is no such thing as “living”. You cannot in any way distinguish between a chemical reaction inside a living thing and the exact same chemical reaction outside a living thing. And even if you could, where do you draw the boundary? According to biologists and medical experts, the content of your digestive tract is outside of your body in all ways that matter, so could this guy mess with those reactions? Because even just being able to speed up or slow down reactions would allow various inventive kinds of murder, you can probably even use the gut chemistry to create high energy explosive if you twiddle with them enough. Everything you need is there.
The main component in C4 is RDX.
The chemical formula for RDX is (CH2N2O2)3
And if you can mess with the speed of a chemical reaction, then automatically you can also mess with the equilibrium, which means you can basically do anything that catalysts can do. (Catalyst would be a cool superhero name!)
I wouldn’t know where to start to calculate how much RDX you can produce before the victim notices, but even if this doesn’t work then something similar would work. Just producing copious amounts of methane would already be terrifying.
the ‘super’ aspect of the power is likely limited, not the potential/mechanical side of it. i.e. everyone has a Kirlian Aura and/or a link to the superion field, active or not, and it’s likely that passive connection can be used as a filter/defense against super powers to some extent.
I’m not shutting down the power of managing chemical reactions, just offering a reason why it might not work on organic living stuff.
Hell, in Marvel Comics, for the longest time, Molecule Man (easily in Marvel’s Top 25) was completely unable to affect living targets (and yes, they used ‘organic’ in the common argot sense, too), until Dr. Doom spent a huge amount of time psychologically manipulating him in the first Secret War series.
It is the fundamental nature of the Superion and Thaumion fields to be tapped by sapient intent. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense for this kind of limitation to exist just b/c the involved supers or mages believe it would.
DYK that elephants will get drunk off of a single beer and will stay drunk for hours?
That’s why elephants are well-known as lightweights.
That’s why they are the emblem for the Amarula drink: because elephants have been known to get drunk on the fruit (elephants and… pretty much every other animal that eats the fruit)
That’s an urban legend :)
The drunk off a single beer also BTW…
https://www.krugerpark.co.za/krugerpark-times-3-8-elephant-myth-22760.html
It’s not an urban legend, there are videos of all sorts of animals getting drunk off of the fruit of the tree
Or are you saying they used trained animals?
Just noticed those hooks are tip-loaded. That’s a no-no in rigging-land.
AAAGH! I’M BLINDED! SHE’S TOO SHINY!
That chemical reactions guy must have the worst intrusive thoughts. Not even about doing things to other people, but lying in bed at night when the thought strikes them that they could cause their lungs to rapidly atrophy or something to that effect, and they need to remind themselves “No, don’t do that, you’ll die.”
I’m surprised that someone like Concretia can’t do the thing with the concrete as a legitimate source of income. We’ve already seen that she can alter concrete, and not just as a body for herself (like when she captured Sydney).
She can manipulate concrete, not create it, so it has to already be made and set
She’s not restricted to concrete, specifically, but since she says marble is too soft, that probably rules out wet concrete. And even if she can manipulate the dry concrete mix, she probably can’t control the chemical reactions as it’s mixed with water. Her powers aren’t explained in much detail anywhere that I can remember.
Why not just take already-set concrete from elsewhere, then move it here and just form it into whatever is needed?
Be… cause that would be depriving that other location of its concrete
Concrete isnt exactly a limited resource.
Hello Dave! I love how this new approach to your art has allowed you to show just how very shiny Maxima is! It seems you’ve been on the fence as to whether it is a positive change (I adore seeing you flex your skill with details, but also hate to see creators get burnt out trying to throw down extremely detailed work into every panel), but considering that I remember several posts about how difficult it was to get her shiny enough with the older approach, and saying that even after canonically adding that Maxima gritting down it still technically wasn’t enough, I hope that is a bonus for you as well!
Love your work btw, I’ve been a long time fan! This comic has been bookmarked in my top ten list since page one <3