Grrl Power #524 – Importinent questions
Sydney, don’t forget that Super women are like 8-12 inches taller than you on average. Of course, she’s not entirely sure how professional porn starlets… you know, work with the equipment they do. Accommodation wise. It’s the same way you get to Broadway, Sydney. Practice.
I’m not really sure how it works for vampires that can turn into a fleet of bats. (Technically a Colony or a Camp of bats. I like Fleet. I’d also accept a Coven of Bats.) I joke here that they all argue and have seemingly independent minds, but that would suck for the vampire. Getting them to form back up would be like wrangling flying cats. Really they’re probably all guided by a hive mind or just a single consciousness. But it’s funnier to imagine them arguing as they flap around.
But here’s a serious question, do the bats have the same immunities as vampires? I mean, they probably would burst into flame if they got caught in daylight, so I guess they’d be resistant to conventional damage as well. That’d be pretty confusing for an owl that got a hold of one. Or what if a farmer blasted one with a shotgun? Unless the heart was decimated or the bat was decapitated (both actually pretty likely in that scenario) it’d just flop around on the ground while it healed.
Also, what would happen if like 10% of the bats were killed? Would the vampire form back up without an arm, or would little scattered chunks be missing from him all over? If the bats represent discreet parts of the vampire, is one bat the heart? Do all the other bats die of that bat dies? If 10% the bats were killed with silver or fire, would the vampire be able to regenerate the missing bits? If Sydney ever finds out that some vampires can do this, she will have questions.
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Petty satisfaction is petty, but she’ll take what she can get.
this is an amusing page, also I think Harem will wind up with yet another refresh course XD
If Harem’s “disciplinary action” is going to be the same as Math’s, Max had better make sure that they’re in different rooms & block them from linking computers with each other (Leon could handle that last part easily).
Leon has a nerdish sense of humor. So that not be a good thing…
Yeah, Math would probably get all guys on his screen & Harem might get all gals…No wait! Harem probably wouldn’t mind that, so Leon would probably give her documentaries about Bonobo apes instead.
Imagine if she doesn’t mind THAT!
Aaaand now I want Max’s expression in the last panel as an avatar. Dabbler’s too.
Still, don’t feel sad Dabbler, there are at least three different people here who could have taken pictures, and little miss reality warper could probobly make you a 3d image if you promise to make her an alien golem/real doll out of it.
Oh, and on vampire weakness, I go by world of darkness rules and think that yes, bat form would burst into flame. I remember one D&D game where the vampire turned to mist, and turned into a makeshift air fuel bomb when the sun rose.
I loved Buffy’s take on this, when she encountered Dracula:
Buffy: (stabs Drac with Mr. Pointy, right in the heart, perfect kill shot)
Drac: Turns into smoke (or mist).
Buffy: Turns to walk away.
Drac: Coalesces, prepares to strike Buffy from behind.
Buffy: Spins, stabs, another perfect kill shot. “I’ve seen all your movies. You always come back.
Buffy: looks at smoke.
Smoke: starts to re-coalesce.
Buffy: “I’m standing right here”.
Smoke: drifts away nonchalantly.
Yea, that scene has me in stitches whenever I rewatch it.
I didn’t get it. Daniel the Human loved it, but I never go it. For that matter, who’s “Dracula”…?
Sort of like Ingsol, but scary. Imagine him being able to hack cybertronians, by just looking at them, and then slowly eating them, over a period of three nights. With them being willing accomplices, due to the hacking.
Then, after their remains have been consigned to the scrap heap, they rise, as slaves of Dracula, with a craving for the oil of any autobot, and the desire to kill or enslave them all for their new master!
Eeeep…
In the past Dave has said that he does not mind readers using such as avatars. We should take that as being for personal, non-profit, use mind, and copyright would obviously remain with Dave.
Pretty sure I’ve done it before for on here, so here’s a few quick throw-togethers… :P
Max & Dabbler https://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h252/ShadowStalkerWA/Emoticons/GrrlPower-2017-05-04-GP0524-01_zpsib1tnglu.png
Just Dabbler https://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h252/ShadowStalkerWA/Emoticons/GrrlPower-2017-05-04-GP0524-03_zpss2zetzl5.png
Just Max https://i66.photobucket.com/albums/h252/ShadowStalkerWA/Emoticons/GrrlPower-2017-05-04-GP0524-02_zpsjnfmpdfi.png
You may need to trim them to the exact sizes needed (doesn’t the Gravatar site let you crop excess?), but it should be easier to work with that the whole page…
Imagine how many pic Harem managed to grab in this of both of them. :P
Likely enough to have her polishing the floor with a toothbrush forever….
Probably teleported over a spare with a camera hiding.
On that note…. what do you want to bet she’s got a $400+ camera?
On their salaries I doubt anyone would take you up on that bet.
Especially if Harem earns five times the base salary.
That’s quite the interesting issue there… She’s technically the same single person, but five bodies. Do they pay her a lump sum or base it off each of the working bodies hours?
If they paid her by the hour, she would end up being paid more than the General!!
Possibly Archon have regular military rates, plus a sizeable bonus per useful super power. In which case Harem would just get 2 to 3 lots of bonus. Whilst she has multi-bodies, teleportation and super strength, the latter only gets significant when the former goes down. So 2.5 would be a fair compromise for powers she does not have all the time.
This would also explain why Halo became the Queen of Salt, as she has a LOT of useful powers. At least one of which is totally unique, and of incalculable importance.*
Alternatively though NATO salary rules, or political meddling, might have required a very generous but fixed rate, for any super (with usable combat powers anyhow). Or it could be justified as ‘we need to prevent jealosy, on the team, so if you are in the unit, you get a fixed rate (plus extras for promotions, as per any military unit).
If that were the case, then it would be down to Harem’s negotiating skills. It would have made sense for Harem to just offered the one body, to serve in the military.
That would qualify for the fixed rate of pay, and eliminate any risk of all her bodies being killed by a single explosion.** So if Archon wanted to have her commit more of her bodies, they would need to offer her some extra incentive. And a lot more for all of them. Of course if those rules were imposed on Archon, then they might be happy to pay her ‘per head’.
I bet NATO salary guidelines do not have a definition of ‘person’ or ‘soldier’ which would prevent Harem from being counted as five people or soldiers. She certainly needs five times all the clothing and other equipment, including the symbolically significant dog-tags. So the bean-counters would insist on counting her as five, for logistical purposes.
Thus making it harder to try and handle it differently when it came to paying her.
* If they had not recruited Sydney, she WOULD have uncovered the existence of the Veil and doubtless blabbed it to the next TV reporter to ask her a question. Which could trigger a war of extermination.
Meaning that Archon would need to negotiate ‘hush money’, even if she remained just a shop keeper. And would require a contingency plan if Sydney decided that the public had the right to know. Although hopefully explaining that this would likely lead to a war of extermination might convince her.
** Possibly killing one will kill them all. But even she does not know that yet, so is wise to avoid having all her ovaries in one room.
It’s an interesting thought experiment.
We know that Harem likes to have all of her ‘selves’ doing different things. That’s how she has managed to work so many different jobs in so many different cities across the country (world?). And that means that they all need to pay for food, clothing, housing, transportation, etc. All the things that any five individuals have to do to maintain their lifestyles, Harem has to do for her selves.
So Harem has a really excellent logical basis for asking for five salaries. She is, after all, capable of doing five times the labor, and suffers five times the exposure as any single individual. And she is still bringing to the table unique and powerful capabilities, even if it is the same effect as having five individuals on the team with the exact same teleportation abilities, only excluding the ‘parking one in storage to recall at a convenient time later’ (a convenience for both her and the team, since it seems like she only likes to do this when injured) and ‘teleporting a second or more me to wherever a me is already’ abilities.
+1
And everyone gives thanks for the Harem P.O.V. shot.
Oh no! It is the stroke of midnight and Max is turning back into a pumpkin!
…And there was MUCH rejoicing.
Yaaaay.
Don’t forget the reaction of any superperson with enhanced strength or durability to insertion. They could break a guy off in there. And that’s before we take the sphincter into account. “It’s like trying to hump a can drink!”
Right… I guess that non-super women can probably deal with a Penis of Steel better than a non-super man with a Vagina of Steel. Not considering that the rest of the body in both cases might also feel like steel, which might increase the difficulty of… handling… in the first case much more than in the second.
Remember, that Anvil’s strength and such increase with kinetic energy. Thus during intercourse… the ride only gets better!! :)
Idk, could also go worse, imagine her clamping down with supper strength… especially if Anvil would user her gained strength involuntarily… Then again, for a man having sufficiently super strength, you’re right. So, Anvil could have made good use of the Barberian herself.
She is capable of altering hee strength level remember
Yeah, in the Whateley Academy series, the whole ‘X of Steel, Y of Kleenex’ (interpret that as you like, though I didn’t specifically mean chromosomes) got covered in a few places, most notably in “Sara’s Little Purple Book” an in-world sex manual for the empowered. Sara, who is part-Great Old One, plays pretty much the same role in that series that Dabbler does here. To quote:
“On the surface, the average Exemplar is what everyone aspires to be: strong, fast, tough, and drop-dead sexy; plus you get all of that without even trying. What most Exemplars don’t see is the hidden cost of all that ability, at least until it’s too late. All too often their power goes to their heads and they forget the responsibility that comes with it. Nowhere is this more dangerous than in sexual relations.
It was said in Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex and it still holds true: the raw power available at the fingertips of even low level Exemplars can be dangerous to a lover with a normal constitution. You may be able, like a tiger matron with cubs, to pick a baby up with tender hands and leave him unharmed, or to use chopsticks with flair. But in these tasks you merely have to exert a modicum of self control.
Sex isn’t about being in control. On the edge of orgasm, we leave rational thought behind and nothing remains but instinct. It doesn’t help that, thanks to the improvements to their bodies, Exemplars often feel sexual stimulus more keenly than others. If a norm feels the earth move, the Exemplar is at ground zero of the erupting volcano.
The phenomenon of Exemplar-induced sexual injury is so well documented that law enforcement agencies look for certain symptoms during the examination of rape victims to tell if the perpetrator was actually a mutant. A crushed pelvis, broken wrists or hands, fractured thighbones, deep lacerations across the back, and the tearing of various bodily orifices are good examples of injuries that may be inflicted by amorous Exemplars. Of particular note is the so-called ‘SuperHickey’, which involves small areas that have sustained such pressure that blood vessels have burst or cells ruptured. This injury can be particularly dangerous; there have been incidents which caused massive internal bleeding, as veins or even arteries were torn open without breaking the skin.”
“One of the most common changes seen in the before/after scenario in the transformation from a normal male to an Exemplar male is the enlargement of their penis to truly epic proportions. This is to be expected due to the nature of the transformation and the nature of men, but be aware that your enlargement may be as much of a curse as it is a boon. Just as the penis differs in size and shape between individuals, so does the vagina. Some are smaller and some are more accommodating. Some women may take one look at your elephantine asset and turn you down flat. Those that don’t may be overestimating their capacity, which can be dangerous and may end in injury. You yourself may not have the breadth of experience with your new equipment that you may have had with the old model, so again, take things slowly until you learn the limits of your partner.”
“In vulgar circles, there’s a certain injury sustained by normal men during intercourse with Exemplar women that they call the ‘c**t crush’. Involuntary spasms of the vagina and legs during coitus can severely injure a man’s genitals, pelvic region and back when using certain sexual positions. Again, always insist on a reinforced brick condom, and avoid the missionary position. If you must, a special girdle can be purchased that will take the sting out.”
Just to be clear on this: in the WA universe, the Exemplar powerset – which is one of the most common in the setting, being expressed by about 1/3 of all mutants – is the basic ‘turn into your idealized self’ power, though like in Wild Cards, it may well latch onto something darker hidden in the mutant’s pysche instead. Mutants with the power have a supercharged Body Image Template (think morphic resonance, a sort of inherent pattern) that will lock the mutant into whatever it is set to, which is influenced by the person’s desires and fears but not created by it.
Once they manifest (usually during puberty, like in Marvel mutants), their body starts to change to match their BIT, and pretty much nothing can permanently change it except an injury that exceeds the power’s regeneration aspects (Regen is also a separate power, but the Exempler power always has a certain amount of it). How drastic the change is, and how much they are improved over human baseline, varies from mutant to mutant and is rated on a 6 point scale (with ‘7’ meaning ‘off the scale’) the same as most other powers.
Note that the series was originally published on Big Closet. Anyone want to guess which kind of Exemplar transformation (and transformations from other causes) the stories focus on most?
Whateley isn’t exactly my go-to on supers. I haven’t read too much of their stuff, but I did read the Book of Jobe. That’s pretty mean of the “heroes,” especially since they had their sexes changed privately. And many of them seem ok with it. Then they take a guy with symptoms of a disorder, permanently change his sex in front of everyone, force him to adopt a clone with the mind of the rival who wants to ruin him, cause him to basically lose his inheritance and his family (unless he marries someone, possibly a family member), and very nearly causes him to become addicted to sex with his dad.
There are many supervillains who wouldn’t go as far as the heroes did.
There’s also the never-discussed problem of how much force is necessary to penetrate the hymen of a virgin superheroine with enhanced durability. Do such ladies need to deflower themselves with a titanium dildo to ensure that their first partner’s penis doesn’t go squish against an indestructible barrier?
That’s literally not how the hymen works! It’s not a barrier, it is more like a thin tissue around the edge of the vagina entrance. You don’t need to break it to have sex, although it can tear if you aren’t careful or haven’t aroused your partner enough. It can also tear during normal activities such as gymnastics, horseback riding, the list goes on!
wonderful misconception about the hymen is that it is a barrier.
if you get the girl excited enough her hymen will have opened and shrank as far into the walls of her… self as it can go.
(the more excited the further back.)
So you would be able to “penetrate” as you put it without a lot of the hassle you mentioned.
there are other variables of course, like size, age, skill, and experience on both players parts.
To make a girl into a woman is not just something you “wham bam thank you ma’am” any way! Perhaps I’m just old and outdated. Sorry i got off course I’ll just go over here for a bit
*wanders off to archaic gaming console and plays games*
Like a cigar clipper.
The proper trope for Sydney’s euphemism: “Victoria’s Secret Compartment”
No, I believe that’s cleavage.
I think/thought referred to cleavage, though this would be a subset of that.
“Victoria’s Secret Compartment” is for cleavage.
What yuffiek is referring to is “Trouser Space” (which usually refers to men, but women can do it too) or maybe “Ass Shove”… unless they’re retrieving a gun, in which case it’s a “Pants-Positive Safety”.
The Velvet Glovebox
Once heard in a DnD game about a Half Ogre player character that somehow hid this massive halberd, sneaking it into some underground bar, he was told he has a “Butt-Crack of Holding”
Was years ago cant recall where it was from.
the Creatures of the Nightcycle module for Paranoia back in the 1990s was mostly a World of Darkness Vampire: The Masquerade parody, in which the Troubleshooters get hijacked by a Vulture commander named Delu-V-ANN, put through the Vamp-Clone process and sent to face Drek-U-LAH in the Gamma Villa, where the local Computer nodes have been reprogrammed to enforce ‘Sullen Melancholia Is Mandatory’ instead of the usual Happiness).
However, it also threw in a swipe at Mortal Kombat as well, with High Programmer Drek-U-LAH’s bodyguard in the climactic battle being parodies of characters from the game. In the case of ‘Skorp-I-UNN’, his mutant ability was ‘Pull Harpoon From Somewhere Very Painful’, and describes him as walking stiffly and tightly clenched.
Though I suppose that the real final boss battle of the module was the debriefing given by Delu-V-ANN after the mission (which can, in some instances, end with Delu-V’s subordinate deploying an anti-Delu-V-ANN weapon.
I miss that game… Paranoia that is not VTM. my Paranoia core books got stolen during a 1 week sleep over I had 3 other game systems with me at the time, we all played and had fun.
Re vulnerability for the ‘vampire’ bats: According to Terry Pratchett…
“Vampires have risen from the dead, the grave and the crypt, but have never managed it from the cat.”
“Give a man a fire, he’s warm for a day. Set a man on fire, he’s warm for the rest of his life”
-Terry Pratchett 1948-2015
We miss you, WordsMaster :(
Greebo felt the vampire bat under his paws was trying to change shape and he was having none of that -Terry Pratchet
to be fair it is not certain that Greebo is a cat and not a daemon. also after Witches Abroad he can turn into a man, but the claws still work.
Just realized something, Max must be an actress. You know, golden globes and all…
Or to put it another way, “Maxima doesn’t need to win a Golden Globe. She already has two!”
Teeeechnically she has four… two up above, and two below. :D
Golden Bozos.
Luckily there were no normal guys in attendance, or they would now all suffer fromzero self-esteem
Well, that would counterbalance our dear protagonist’s experience in the showers.
Or in the current voting incentive for the TWC standings.
I love Harem’s smile in panel 3. Krona’s one in panel 5 is sweet and funny. Whilst Sydney’s lop-sided grin in the under-comic is charming.
Separately, those vampire bats are hilarious!
Does that mean a vampire has multiple personalities? o_O
Well the scene is there for the comedy, so we should take it with a pinch of salt. But even Dave does not know how it would work, so we are free to speculate, if we want to look at it seriously. Either the vampire would have a distributed consciousness (like Harem), in which case we can just view the above as being a vampire imagining ‘talking to himself’, Presumably for the laughs. Unless he is going crazy, of course.
Or, if he does not get free telepathy with his ability to turn into a fleet of bats, then they would actually need to talk (or whisper) to each other. For a short duration flight, where they all reform into one entity at the end, they are unlikely to diverge in personality or otherwise become a separate individual.
However if one were to be injured or captured, and thereby separated from the others, that is another matter. Would each, individually, have enough brain power to approximate the personality and knowledge of the vampire? If not, does each just carry a small part of the memories with them?
So it is very similar to the physical questions Dave was posing above, if one were to be lost.
Magic is clearly also involved (or something similar enough that we may as well call it that). So there is no reason why each bat might not have a full set of memories and possess the reasoning skills of the vampire too. If so, it may also govern what happens with a separation. So, for instance, the solo bat might just die if it is away for too long. Unless the magic can tell that it is a sole survivor, of course.
Mind you, if the rest of the fleet is destroyed, then there is the question of would a single bat be able to reform into a viable vampire? Possibly it can magically form a whole body, if it carries all the information needed to do that, with it? Or it may need to carefully feed on prey animals, until it grows bigger? Or perhaps an allied vampire could donate some bats, to either directly add mass, or as breeding stock, to eventually form a big enough fleet to recreate the vampire.
Ingsol, do not demonstrate this ability to Sydney. She will fly after you demanding answers. And giving names to each of your bats. And putting little pink ribbons on them too!
Was just meant to be a funny
The question about separated bats: what happens to them when the vamp reforms? Do they die? Cease to exist? Or simply lose the vamp-connection and become an ordinary bat?
Which it was. But you also have a gift for asking thought provoking questions. Even the rhetorical ones.
This! Suddenly I feel this need to see this…
The “Schooled in Magic” series by Christopher Nuttall (on Kindle) book #2 Schooled in Etiquette deals with what happens to a mage who transforms into a murder of crows (to fly around) when most of the crows die quickly.
Apparently you Humans (or at least those on here who are Humans) tend to have many random thoughts per minute, let alone in a day. Daniel the Human says each bat could be a part of the Vamp’s whole mind, only saying what is normally bounced around inside the head.
Gotta keep quiet, make sure they don’t hear you, I don’t like taking orders (even if it is from “me”), thirsty, cookies & juice should do…
Hey Screwball, I know it is hard to understand random thoughts when you do not have any thoughts.
Okay, I’m having a serious issue with following this page – I’m okay up to the panel with the bats, but everything after that just seems… disconnected and disjointed. Help?
Halo caught Hiro in the buff and is…impressed with his endowments.
Its a debriefing about the debriefing.
Ah, it was the change of scenery – with Sydney and Krona in an obviously intact area, compared to Maxima and Hiro in the vorched area – it looked like an independent scene on it’s own and my mind couldn’t work out the link.
The ladies have discovered that Hiro is an Olympic Vorch Bearer.
Terry Pratchett- Witches Abroad-
“Somewhere on the chilly ground, a very large bat was trying to get airborne
again. It had already been stunned twice, once by a carelessly opened shutter
and once by a ballistic garlic sausage, and wasn’t feeling very well at all. One
more setback, it was thinking, and it’s back off to the castle. Besides, it’d be
sunrise soon.
Its red eyes glinted as it looked up at Magrat’s open window. It tensed –
A paw landed on it.
The bat looked around.
Greebo had not had a very good night. He had investigated the whole place with
regard to female cats, and found none. He had prowled among the middens, and
drawn a blank. People in this town didn’t throw the garbage away. They ate it.
He’d trotted into the woods and found some wolves and had sat and grinned at
them until they got uncomfortable and went away.
Yes, it had been a very uneventful night. Until now.
The bat squirmed under his claw. It seemed to Greebo’s small cat brain that it
was trying to change its shape, and he wasn’t having any of that from a mouse
with wings on.
Especially now, when he had someone to play with. ”
The next morning at breakfast-
“‘Ah. That’d be it, then.’ Granny rubbed her hands together and looked
approvingly at the breakfast table, which had been dragged out into the
sunshine. ‘Anyway, the food has certainly improved. Pass the bread, Magrat.’
‘Everyone keeps smiling and waving at us,’ said Magrat. ‘And look at all this
food!’
‘That’s only to be expected,’ said Granny, with her mouth full. “They’ve only
had us here one night and already they’re learnin’ it’s lucky to be kind to
witches. Now help me get the lid off this honey.’
Under the table, Greebo sat and washed himself. Occasionally he burped.
Vampires have risen from the dead, the grave and the crypt, but have never
managed it from the cat. “
That would mean that Pixel should be naturally good at killing vampires.
Who knows, maybe her claws act like mini suns.
Depends on the setting. If its one where holy symbols work, then no. The light isnt the problem in those settings, its that the sun is literally a gigantic and obscenely powerful holy symbol, being the first thing worshiped by man. Thats why vamps can go out at night, even though the moon is nothing but reflected sunlight which should still burn vamps. The moon was also worshiped, but it was a far more mixed in purpose, including the darker faiths. Therefore no burning sensation while outdoors at night.
I think she’d consider that cannibalism.
Funnily enough, in “Thud”, Commander Vimes (very reluctantly) allows the first vampire Watchman, who turns into a flock of bats instead of a single one (conservation of mass applies even when there’s magic involved on the Disc), and there’s a scene where Sally (the vampire) complains about what happens when one or two bats get lost – and since she turns into a hundred and fifty bats, it’s something that happens almost every time.
the ability to turn into one bat gets lost if the vampire stops to drink blood. the not black ribbon vampires can do that since they have enough magic to bend reality far enough.
Also, it appears that both Sydney and Krona are going to make some serious deposits to their Spank Banks tonight. :)
I think they’ll think about RECEIVING deposits.
Either way, seems they’ll “be in their bunks” later on…
…If Sydney can stay awake long enough. From what I’ve seen of Daniel the Human, she could be at the point where the moment she stops moving is the moment she starts snoring…
Visually, my favourite part of the page is Sydney. That partially-lit look is just phenomenal. Plus she just looks really good there.
Dave killed it here. I personally feel good comics are all about reactive expression and by that measure this page is Golden.
Maximas range of expression in the last 3 panels alone is brilliant. I’d never get that right.
Bravo!
Yorp, I agree the shading on Sydney is fantastic, she really looks 3D
IIRC that 3D look first appeared at around page 40 but it nolonger looks like plastic and hasn’t done for some time. Definitely great work.
This is where you should be spreading the love to the colorist, not just Dave.
Today that would be Dave. Unless he forgot to add Keith’s credit.
Mind you, the fact that Keith is good enough that we rely on that, is praise in its own right.
Hopefully we will manage to get Grrl Power more famous, and increase the number of patrons, so that Dave can afford to hire Keith full time. But for now Dave can only get him to help out every now and then.
For the record, I’m waiting for their jokes to blow up in their faces here shortly when Hiro drops the bomb that he’s actually single. Kind of hinted at by the after clubbing comic when he brought back his groupies that night. Kind of hard to have a serious relationship as well when you’re treated mostly as a giant hunk of man candy by women as well.
You don’t have to be in a committed relationship to have a girlfriend, usually the ‘girlfriend’ is simply the one you are currently with
Current score, then.
Maybe I’m just being naive, but I thought Hiro was giving a guided tour and it didn’t look like they were hanging all over him. I’m not calling him a prude, just that he exhibits a moderate amount of decorum befitting an officer of his rank.
+1
*turns to barman, and holds up two claws*
Two modicum’s of decorum please. I wish to offer this fine fellow a decent drink for his insight.
I shall merrily imbibe this in a civilized manner.
It’s my understanding that, when properly simulated, the average human vagina will lengthen considerably. Seeing as supers are modeled off of the “ideal” I imagine Hiro is swinging about as much pipe as the average male pornstar. Which, if my research is correct, have little difficulty finding a woman able to accommodate thier size.
Seeing as supers are modeled off of the “ideal” I imagine Hiro is swinging about as much pipe as the average male pornstar.
The “ideal” of people who get their idea of what that means from watching porn, that is (sorry, Dave). The real ideal according to an actual scientific study of the penis size women prefer:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0133079
TL;DR – women do prefer a larger penis for a fling rather than a long-term relationship to the tune of only slightly larger – like half an inch – than average
while correct about the study, you are forgetting that women are only half the people who would decide the “ideal”
most guy’s probably would like to be better equip (even if they wouldn’t know what to do with it) so that would skew the average “ideal” a couple of inches to the plus size.
Bear in mind that women who have sex with men know and can appreciate what a difference in size can convey, both in terms of pleasure and discomfort. Aside from men who’s phallic size puts them at either end of the bell-curve, most men are going to have the same kind of experience regarding their own penis no matter their size, so I would not count men in the survey of ‘what makes an ideal penis’.
Also, I can’t believe I just wrote that on the internet.
Some people are attracted to the same gender as themselves. A male having opinions of penis size doesn’t need to be uninformed opinion.
It’s their damn dick, but you are saying they have no input on the ‘ideal size’? o_O
Could be worse. When I went to get a vasectomy, the Doc said he wasn’t comfortable with it… Then followed it up with, “If you were in a committed relationship for some time, and your significant other was comfortable with it…” I stopped him there and went “It’s attached to ME. I think I’m the only one who gets to decide if you’re taking something sharp to it or not.”
When I talked to my doctor about it, I told her that I had all the kids I wanted: ZERO.
This ended that part of the discussion.
I went to a different doctor. Generally I didn’t want anyone that stupid near my genitalia.
Sounds more like envy or slash and jealousy: you certainly wouldn’t want some like that anywhere near your trunk, you may wake up with a note saying “There was a bit of a mishap and we had to trim a few inches”
It’s outpatient surgery. No general anesthetia.
I think it might be beeter said that supers are modelled by extrapolation from the ideal.
“Beeter”? Freudian slip?
Gay dude here, I feel like I qualify as a dick expert.
Big dicks scare me. My ideal size in a boyfriend would be smallish to average, like 5-6 inches. If I met up with a guy hung like Hiro I wouldn’t exactly be happy about it. More like terrified and maybe kinda entertained. This example leans me more towards believing that super’s bodies are based on their own ideal, not the general archetype or external perception.
Reminded of a story from the Cold War.
Supposedly, a corporation in the Soviet Union ordered a large quantity of condoms from a firm in hte USA. The specifications given for size were, put as nicely as possible, either heroic or grossly optimistic. Note all this happened just after the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan, and feelings were running quite stongly in the West about that.
In any case, the US firm completed the order. To The Letter. And also prominently labelled each and every packet and carton of their product ‘CONDOM – EXTRA SMALL’.
That was also in an episode of Axis Powers Hetalia, except with Italy’s boss asking Russia for condoms.
I heard that same story from my father: Only it was about World War II. In his version American soldiers used condoms over their rifle barrels to keep the water out. And to demoralize the Germans the Army labeled the boxes “Condoms – small”
I wish to point out the joke about GI condoms in Good Morning, Vietnam. I won’t repeat it, as it is, shall we say, a bit charged in the current climate, but I am sure those who saw the film recall it.
here is the joke you are talking about.
https://youtu.be/rJlSA9S59t8?t=200
Jonah Falcon, an American actor and writer, has been reported as having the World’s Largest Penis with 9.5 inches (24.13 cm) in length when flaccid and 13.5 inches (34.29 cm) when erect.
Falcon has identified himself as a bisexual and works as a gaming blog editor. He gained media attention after appearing in a 1999 HBO documentary, a Rolling Stone Magazine article, a documentary by UK Channel 4 called “The World’s Biggest Penis,” and The Daily Show.
He was offered to enter the pornography industry but refused, saying it would be “just the easy way out… it’s not going to help my legit acting career.”
In 2012, he was stopped and frisked by the TSA at the SF Airport due to the large bulge in his pants. After passing through a metal detector and a body scanner, the world’s largest dick was selected for additional screening, then finally released.
Falcon has stated that his longest romantic relationship with a woman lasted for one year. [I can only guess why.]
Uncle Milty, Milton Berle, was- away from the cameras- not averse to the occasional dick joke and quite proud of his size.
So one day he’s taking the steam in a sauna, wrapped in a towel, and he gets accosted by a drunk who challenges him to whip it out and compare sizes. One bystander (who may or may not have been Jackie Gleason) yells, “Don’t embarrass the poor schmuck Miltie, just pull out enough to win!”
So, vamps drain energy from blood, right? In a lot of settings they work kind of like Maxima, with this pool of life energy they can use for different things that they refill by drinking. So I like to think of the bat swarms in terms of energy instead of physicality. That Vamp’s supernatural power is spread out among all the bats and when they reform they will have lost a percent of their power based on how many bats died. More powerful vampires could make bigger swarms making it more likely that one would slip through to reform, even if he would have like 0.01% of his total power reserves from before reforming from only one bat. .
For vampires, the core thing seems to be Sunlight = loss of powers += death. Actually in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the Count didn’t burst into flames when the Sun was up. He became powerless and paralyzed.
Which was how Van Helsing and crew managed to get him in the end. By ambushing his coffin en route to his castle and dumping him out onto the ground. At which point they staked him AND cut his throat.
So if you’re going by Dracula vampire standards, the bats wouldn’t burst into flame, but would either reform into the vampire (paralyzed and helpless). Or all the bats would fall to the ground, paralyzed and helpless. If you go by “burst into flames” vampires there are two possibilities. The vampire would reform (having lost the power to a colony of bats), and then burst into flames. The other is all the bats would burst into flame.
IIRC (it’s been a while since I read Dracula) it was less that he became powerless and paralyzed, than that he became weaker AND unable to change shape, which includes the form he takes while “sleeping,” which he has to do if he wants to cross running water.
I very much remember a passage where the protagonists confronted Dracula out and about London during the day, and despite his weakness, he was still able to easily escape from the five men who attacked him.
Yes, and ‘weaker’ is relative
Some versions actually have him staked, throat cut AND have a cross tossed on him as well.
Has anyone noticed that the “empty space” above Hiro’s concrete has either been conspicuously blurry or censored ever since he say down?
It’s not blurry, you only can see the side.
Has anyone noticed that the “empty space” above Hiro’s concrete has either been conspicuously blurry or censored ever since he sat down? Oh my.
That blurry ’empty’ space, is the wall beyond him, mentioned that last page, when people thought there was a ‘mound’ in his lap
And how mad will Dabbler be???
Not just Dabs. I imagine that Math’ll start pulling his hair off when he’ll hear about it.
Math: “Details, Hiro! I need the DETAILS!!”
The look on Dabbler’s face would suggest….
“Some friend you are…MAXI-PAD!”
or
“Don’t even speak to me!!!”
I don’t think vampires have discrEET parts, but clearly you meant “discrETE parts” instead.
As long as nobody pulls of dis ‘crete part that Hiro is using för modesty.
Well, like most people, they try to be discreet about certain parts.
For discreet body parts, go read Monster Pulse – where the body parts are usually discreet about being discrete.
But here’s a serious question, do the bats have the same immunities as vampires?
My team usually go with the idea that the bats are virtually identical to normal live ones. It’s both a benefit and a weakness for the vampire.
It allows him/her to bypass the usual vampiric weaknesses (still water, daylight, religion icons, garlic, anti-vamp wards…) BUT each bat lost translates as deep damage for the vampire upon reformation, and potential death if all/too many are dead. Depending on the vampire’s age/power.
Also, live bats aren’t particularly resistant nor fast, or sneaky during the day, so it’s quite easy to have some die…
Was that first panel a deliberate reference to the author blurb from last page? Because clearly Harem is still in the middle of her ‘sweep’.
+1 Took me a while to realise the true intent in that panel
The “sweep” was mentioned by one of the readers in response to the author’s comments, but yeah, Harem is still conducting her sweep of Maxima. The sweep of the buildings seems to be complete.
Just noticed that Harem is missing from the “Who’s Who” list.
The version of her that’s supposed to be there is in her bunk…
^_^
+1
Clever, except all five are out on patrol (which also explains why one of her can not *VORP* in with a fresh set of gear)
Ok, new superpower found!
Maxima of the Golden Hypno Boobs!!!
Effective against both men and women!
Pray that she never decides to become a super villainess!!!
Naaa, that’s an ancient power we even have back on Cybertron. It’s called “OOOO, SHINEY!!”. It’s just also got the “jiggly boobies” power too, a powerful combination…
And to take everyone’s mind out of the gutter, I would like to take this cosmic convergence of calendar, comic, and my avatar to say “May the fourth be with you!”.
May the fourth be with you too, kind sir.
Where we are, it’s a bit more of a problem that that. It’s May 5th Down Under…
…Beware the Revenge Of The fifth…
:P
The 6th Strikes Back
And Happy Cinco de Mayo to you!
One of the top sandwich-spread based holidays.
(does Google search) Never mind that last part.
A large group of navy ships is a fleet. A fleet of dolphins would make sense, but that is called a pod (or a super-pod for a very large collection of the critters). Bats would be more analogous to an air force. So maybe a squadron or a flight group?
A colony of bats makes sense if you have ever seen a few thousand roosting in a tree. At a few grams apiece, that many can significantly weigh down a tree.
… AND produce remarkable quantities of (putting this as nicely as possible) bat by-product.
Bat guano.
Also a character in Stanley Kubrick’s Doctor Strangelove
And what originally killed Dr No :D
Ghost peppers are also a “super pod”.
I noticed that there is a severe lack of flaming forest in the background of today’s comic. I guess they also got that under control. Maybe they have another were with extra powers like Pixel and this one has the ability to turn into a bear with the power to douse flames. (Hey, that story had to come from somewhere.)
In the online political simulation ‘Nationstates’, one of the nations that ,b>I created is inhabited by anthropomorphic bears. The resolutions that they’ve pushed through that game’s current equivalent to the UN, the World Assembly, include one on ‘Prevention of Wildfires’…
^_^
And, or course, the one about the right to bear armaments.
Don’t forget the penguins! They need weapons too!
But Smokey doesn’t prevent wildfires. Only you can do that.
So, what good is he then? Stand around and eat people who set fires? Better not invite him around to a barbeque…
Now you know why he carries that shovel, to hide the leftovers.
I think the proper term is STORE the leftovers… :P
No, hide. He used to pack lunch baskets, but the neighbor kept stealing them.
Pick-a-nick baskets?
Hmm, an Osprey does not normally come with water-bombing gear, but it would not take much to have a Bambi-bucket and get it rigged by a flying team-mate. Too bad most of the available water around New York City is salt water. That is almost as hard on the trees as the fire is.
Mind you the point of view above is behind the bats, looking in the direction they are fleeing in. The vampire would have been unlikely to choose to flee towards one of the traditional ways of killing vampires! In other words the fire could be raging away somewhere to the left or right, or well anywhere, other than that one bit ahead of the bats.
I’m sure Dabbler would be perfectly happy to tell Sydney all about the birds, bees, elephants and vagoos of holding. Probably with diagrams and interactive demonstrations.
+1
Panel 2 reminds me of a classic comment from the sitcom ‘Third Rock From The Sun’.
In a very similar context – “They seem to have more power when they collide…”
Happy Birthday Dave!
Been reading for a few years now and still one of my top webcomics ro read.
Keep up the great work
I always thought that one vampire can transform into one bat (or maybe into mist), completely ignoring the difference in body mass… and the clothes… Thinking about it, out would need a lot of bats to match the mass of a human. At, say, 20g per bat and, say, 80kg per vampire, that would be 4000…
Idea about the 10% of bats that are dead: The vampire would become 10% smaller :D Or hollow, until (s)he drank enough blood to regain the original size & mass.
Or could end up 10% less dense, i.e. “whispier.”
And that’s the thing (well, one anyway) that never made sense to me in the crappy shows like “Fluffy, the Umpire Layer” or that movie “Slade, the Umpire Humper”: when they kill a vamp, their clothes turn to ash as well
So, you have a problem with the clothes, but not the bones, teeth, hair, nails, outer layers of skin, makeup…?
Particularly if they’re wearing leather, there’s not that much difference between the fringes of the vampires “actual” body and the clothing adjacent to it.
There are also questions about the mechanism involved – if it involves intense localised heat, or some sort of chain-reaction (that doesn’t affect the ground/floor for some reason) then it makes sense for clothing and small held items to also be affected.
There’s also the Superman aura effect – Supes’ costume shares his invulnerability because it’s next to his skin, within his aura. Why not allow the same effect to apply to vampires’ clothing, but in reverse?
That might help in getting rid of radioactive waste. Just say ‘Here, hold this.’ to a vampire and hand him a canister of used fuel rods. Then open the window shades to see him and what he his holding go poof.
Of course horror movie rules mandate this would probably go terribly wrong and we would get some kind of radiation powered vampire to deal with.
Yeah, that sounds like comic book logic, it does.
LOL!
In the Buffyverse vampire victims become possessed by a demon. When these vampires die, they are actually being sent directly back to Hell.* Clearly it would be most improper for them to arrive naked, so of course they have to take their clothes with them!
The Powers That Be obviously would not want clothes tainted by the aura of demonic evil, to hang around on Earth. So, yea I think rmsgrey may have it right.
* Their former victim has now moved on to whatever final destination they were scheduled for, so is no longer a tenant. Any quibbling that the body is not the demon’s would result in the case going to arbitration. Clearly the Devil’s advocate will point out that ‘possession is nine-tenths of the law’!
In novels – clothes usually get left behind. But the special effect of “clothes left behind” in television is VERY expensive. So its reasonable to me that they just can’t have it in the story. (Unless its an important plot item they were holding)
How difficult is it to have a pile of clothes fall to the ground? The thing is, most of the time, when they you see the body turn to ash, they don’t have clothes on, it’s just a body shape
Daniel here. Loved Buffy growing up :P. Poked the Buffy Wiki, found this under “Behind The Scenes”-
“Joss had a very specific ideas about what he wanted to see when a vampire turned to dust. He wanted it to feel as if, at the point of impact, all the moisture in a human being’s body were just eradicated in this chemical explosion.”
https://buffy.wikia.com/wiki/Vampire#Behind_the_Scenes Third note.
Also found Vampire Death info…
https://buffy.wikia.com/wiki/Vampire#Death
Re: Fleet of bats, that’s almost exactly how it works for Discworld vampires. they turn into an equivalent mass of bats, and the Vampire’s mind has to manage all those tiny bodies at once. unfortunately, Female vampires has the disadvantage of leaving clothes behind, and it’s supposedly it’s difficult to remember to have two of the bats carry clothing physically.
Wait, only the females end up naked? o_O
Yup.
Why? Are the male vamps that ugly the rules of the Discverse dictate they remain fully clothed at all times? o_O
Yes.
You sure it’s the vamp who forgets about those clothes? I could easily imagine bats to be some what flighty, and that any bat carrying something as boring as some cloth when encountering a tasty bug would just let go and have a snack. I also have no problem believing that the first thing a bat thinks of after having chewed down on some tasty critter won’t be; Oh yes! That stupid piece of cloth. I have to go back and get it!
Face it, this is bats we’re talking about, not dogs. A dog would hold on to that piece of cloth as that’s what it was told to do. People could be stacking treats on it’s nose and it wouldn’t let go, just glare unhappily on the unobtainable goodies. And worst of all it wouldn’t even get a pat on the head by the vamp as by the time the vamp had hand to pat it, the dog would already be part of it. I do remember some vamps being able to turn into wolves which kind of show that at least some of them has put some thought into this.
The vamps that tried turning into cats aren’t around anymore. Few came back from their first transformation. Turned out cats have an attention span measured in “what’s in it for me?”, and with no one around to keep the cat distracted they tended to wander off looking for mice, other cats and a warm patch in the sun to sleep in. Getting the vamp somewhere safe was never a priority for the cats.
And we were talking about?
Oh, shiny!
Importinent?
A portmanteau of “important” and “pertinent,” I suppose.
Important and impertinent, I think.
Something is really off to Maximas Face and Lips in the last 3 panels. I can not pick my finger on it, however.
She’s just more expressive than normal.
It is just that since Maxima has turned up, we have been seeing her with either her lips together, or her mouth only opened a bit. In all three you are seeing her mouth opened much wider. Albeit that the final one is more of a savage toothy grin, in the process.
Pretty sure there is a bit of artistic exaggeration going on there.
When are we going to address the possibility that the Kill Machine was possibly sentient?
During Sydney’s inevitable breakdown later.
sounds about right, but it seems important to mention not only because the Constructs need to know this but also I am hoping Sydney makes friends with the Murder Death Machine.
Isn’t the Murder Death Machine in question… Dead? It blew up hard enough to blow off Max’s clothes, so… I’m thinking dead. Or, its sentience inhabited the entire form, and it’s now spread off a gigantic distance and unable to re-coalesce, resulting in basically the torture of full impotence for an indeterminate amount of time.
I think it’d rather be dead, in that case.
I think they just pulled out its power supply
The explosion seemed big enough to destroy it utterly. And the fact that nobody seems concerned implies that any remaining bits are showing no signs of regenerating.
On the other paw though, go back a couple of pages and look at panel three. We see a big pile of what looks like construct scrap. With a blue/white light glowing on the top of it!
Maybe just a reflection (off of what though I cannot ascertain)?
Or maybe it is mentally saying:
“Forget about me, you saw me destroyed. Look at sexy people with no clothes on, instead!”
No its intact. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2490 The big pile of scrap is just its body and the head is still attached on top, I think we are looking at the bottom part of its body. The Magic Terminator there was just scarred by its power core (Assuming it was a power core of some sort) and is now just powered down.
Ok I really like Sydney and Krona/Pixel hope they become friends
Sydney didn’t like Pixel when they first met, and it’s possible she, even now, only likes her transformed were-Super version
All three have come close to dying, in one way or another. If they can forgive Sydney for her contributions to that, then this could all be part of a bonding experience.
Krona certainly appears to be going down that route, at the moment.
I think the three of them should have a sleep over somewhere. We have already seen Sydney’s place, so either Pixel’s pink pleasure palace or Krona’s pocket dimensional bedroom would be best.
Mmm, mind you we probably saw Pixel’s in that earlier vote incentive? Still that was only a shot of a bed. I would like to see if any of the rest of it. Her leather jacket makes me wonder if that side to her taste might have inspired any of the decor. Perhaps her kitchen looks like a bikers’ bar?
Not gonna lie, Yorp. “Pixel’s pink pleasure palace” sounds like something more suited for Slipshine than here. Not that I have anything against that sort of stuff, but as I’ve been informed, DaveB is a little too busy for something like that these days.
OK Krona’s pocket dimensional bedroom it is. Do you recon they would give me an invite, if I dressed appropriately?
Try https://fuzzyard.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/f/u/fuzzyard_lounge_wear_for_dogs_pink3.jpg
Nice to see you back. I is sad when you is not around so much!
I gots told off for associating pink with girls once. Not falling for that one again!
Maybe you could just sneak in. https://i.imgur.com/B2JwEP6.jpg