Grrl Power #738 – Don’t ask where cloud 9 is
Having your head in the clouds isn’t a criticism, it’s the goal!
I know what you’re wondering. In that third panel, Cora is standing in front of part of a fajita station. This party isn’t just the one sad table with the cake pops and a cooler of iced tea. And yes, I know what else you’re wondering. There is a vegetarian fajita option for Sydney and… probably someone else there is a vegetarian. Shiitake mushrooms. Sliced up nice and thin and roasted up with the fajita spices. I am not a vegetarian, but that’s still pretty good. Especially if you throw on a little chimichurri sauce? That’s good shit. I actually wish I had more cause to put chimichurri sauce on things. It’s not usually offered as a side with many dishes, at least here in Texas. I’m sure if you’re in South America, it’s more common.
I think it’d be good on any kind of meat really. Okay, probably not a hotdog or breakfast sausage, but on a steak or chicken or a pork chop? Yeah, I think I’m hungry.
But what you’re really wondering is, “Where is her hard light emitter in panel 4?” Well, it’s just past the curve of her back kind of hidden behind her shoulder blade… No I just forgot it. Pretend she’s turned about 15 degrees more toward the camera and then it would be reasonably be hidden by her back and shoulder.
Okay, for real, you’re probably wondering if Cora’s nimbus outfit reacts to wind. Well, obviously it does. It will start to look like it’s going to blow away and leave her bits out, but then the clouds reform on the other side out of nothing (like clouds do) so she stays Comics Code Approved at all times.
If she feels like being a bit more modest, (normally, not after Dabbler hacked it) she can adjust the coverage slider from light to moderate, all the way up to “thunderhead” if she feels like walking around looking like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man just exploded on her.
Edit: Whoops! Set this to post on Wednesday at 5 am instead of Thursday. Oh well, have a comic a few hours early!
Edit 2: Fixed Cora saying “P vs. NP” and changed it to “NP-Hard”
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
I’m just loving Cora’s face in that last panel. Well done, DaveB!
And the first “KRACOOM” panel :D
Not to mention that her barely there freckles are absolutely adorable.
Wasn’t sure if those were real, or just a dirty monitor, butt others have mentioned the freckles as well
Thanks, I was pleased with that one as well.
My favourite was actually panel 4
Actually what I’m wondering is, if it’s observer-dependent (which usually means “illusion” or “mind-affecting”), what would happen if you viewed it through a phone camera?
…My mind is not in the gutter. This is a scientific question.
It’s more like Lenticular printing (those 3D bookmarks that change images as you rotate them). The observation point changes how you see the reflected light through the lenticles.
Google, lenticular printing explained.
It’s not a mental effect, but based on optics and physicist, so any kind of camera will see the same photons your organic cameras (eyeballs) are picking up. The hard-light suit emitters likely have far more refined lensing and image interlacing.
Maybe she is actually adequately covered, and the near-nakedness is the illusion?
Does it effect Syd’s true sight ….
It’s basically still made of the same hard light as her previous outfits, so if Sydney’s true sight could bypass the effect it wouldn’t matter what Cora’s ‘wearing,’ be it barely there clouds or a full on burqa, Sydney would see a naked, limbless Cora just kinda floating around.
We don’t know if Sydney’s truesight sees through it, since Sydney has not used her truesight orb yet to look at Cora while she’s worn the hard light emitter.
The thing with that is, how could something have a tangible physical presence and be dependent on an observer? That’s Schrodinger-class mind screw.
not really.
it just means the tangible-ness of her hard light constructs are not dependent on the light hologram part. in all honestly Cora should be able to have invisible it could be as simple as (in star trak terms) she has a separate force field emitter form the holo emitter. when the too work together you get what looks and feels like real legs
A cloud doesn’t strike me as being particularly tangible in any case.
No, as it’s not an illusion.
It is ‘fake’ though. Do we have confirmation Sydney’s true sight only sees through magical illusions? The first time it was used she also saw X, who might have been using an artificial source for the effect.
I was under the impression that X was a part of the magical unit of Archon. Arc-wiz? I wonder if he’s still following her around, or if they went with another solution after his cover was blown…
Arc-light
Arc-Dark actually. The black ops side of Archon.
I was thinking it might be artificial because they mention having to work on sound transparency. Not that that rules out it was a magical effect though.
I mean X is part of Arc-Dark.
Arc-Light seems to be the intelligence gathering branch, and employs most of the magical members from what we’ve seen.
Right, knew it was one of those two
It’s part of his suit. Remember he exclaimed “How could I not!?” when Dabbler said he got horny when she pushed her lust aura.
Dabbler, that is not cool! The more I see of her pranks, the less likely I am to want to go to her home-world. I can’t speak for others, but I sure as hell wouldn’t like having to constantly worry about “harmless” sexual assault “pranks” from each and every one of the natives!
Yeah, me too. Though Dabbler probably knew Cora wouldn’t really mind… they’re old friends after all. But yeah, like that time in Dabbler’s school when another succubus used her powers to get a couple of cheerleaders all horny over one unsuspecting and rather embarrassed looking guy. Maybe the guy didn’t mind too much, but I wonder how the girls felt afterwards… it IS a form of mind control after all.
That might come under “projecting our cultural norms and values onto a very different society”. Between casual magic, and sexy stuff to a succubus being somewhere between “I need it to live” and “fun, entirely accepted and normal thing that we all are happy to do together”…was probably very much on the “stick a kick me sign on someone” level. Frowned upon, but not serious.
Similarly, both remember that Dabbler is not typical of Succubi, was frowned upon by decolette (probably spelled that wrong), and still generally keeps her antics aimed at people she knows well enough. Case in point here, it’s worth noting that she went up to chat with the two guys after Dabbler hacked it. And that Dabbler did still give her impenetrable modesty. For a given definition of the word, anyway.
“lead or feathers?” read that in a book somewhere could be wrong though
The issue with Dabbler is more that she’s often projecting HER cultural and social norms on a very different society. This particular prank is mild and Cora herself doesn’t really seem to mind (as noted, she decided to chat to the lads despite the clouds, and then talked about it in a fairly friendly fashion). But the fact is, even non-prudes might find the notion of someone having their emotional state flaunted to total strangers a bit disconcerting.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again–Dabbler is the team’s weak link, because when/if Deus ever decides he needs to distract them, he just has to have a person planted in the team who is NOT up for Dabb’s fun and games, and then just wait. Eventually, she’ll cross the line, said individual will have grounds for a lawsuit that will expose a lot of ARChon’s dirty laundry, and the team will be spending weeks in court while Deus finishes his Grand Scheme.
That Arianna can’t see that particular PR disaster coming a mile away makes me seriously question her competence.
I believe that your hypothesis falls apart on two fronts.
1) “he just has to have a person planted in the team” – This might be just as easy as “All we need to do is put a bell on the cat so we’ll know when he’s coming.”
2) I can see where a pile of lawyers might have to spend some time in court and a lot of time out of court responding to such a lawsuit. And that’s assuming that Archon members don’t have to sign a pile of waivers. I’d not sure it would tie down any Archon members for more than a few hours at most.
The lawyers are pretty much out of the picture entirely.
Arc Swat falls under the UCMJ.
True, Arc is considered para-military, at which point civilian courts no longer necessarily apply. And I can easily see their rules including, “You’ll have to interact with a whole bunch of diverse and interesting people who’s cultural norms will violate yours and be violated by yours in multiple ways. Suck it up.”
Dabbler is not part of ARC Swat officially. She’s a ‘civilian consultant.’ So…. lawyers actually would not be out of the picture entirely, it could be argued.
Although the fact that she’s an alien is a problem, but most people don’t know that in the public. Plus it would seem like the US government does know about aliens, so there might be some sort of secret set of laws dealing with it (which again is problematic from a Constitutional sense). So it would depend on if she does something and how Archon wants to play it vs play national security interests.
It’s also extremely high government secrecy… don’t go thinking they wouldn’t just plain “disappear” whoever would attempt to start a case. They’d see someone leaning that way, and before they actually feel that should happen, you don’t see them anymore.
Plus because of magic and alien tech, you don’t remember they were ever there.
So… ARChon are the villains, then?
I doubt they would ‘disappear’ someone who found out. That seems unnecessarily villainous in the United States. More likely they would bribe them or threaten them with some sort of legitimate criminal act (most likely the former rather than the latter, since those people could still give away the info in the latter example).
Not to mention, like Freemage said, that WOULD make Archon villains, rather than what they are – heroes. And most, if not all, of the people even in Archon would probably rebel against that – especially people like Sydney who are very enamoured with the idea that they are ‘heroes.’ Although also probably people who were vigilantes before being roped into Archon, like Heatwave, Mr Amorphous, and Achilles. Plus I don’t think someone like Hiro would be comfortable with that either – he seems like a particularly boy scout mentality.
In a universe where memories can be wiped or changed there is no reason to disappear people.
UCMJ would apply for complaints directly against Dabbler, but NOT for lawsuits against the DOD for knowingly condoning sexual harassment. A civilian lawsuit on similar grounds was allowed to proceed, though it was ultimately dismissed. Someone would, i think, have a much easier time arguing that the DOD knew about Dabbler’s inherent nature and activities, though.
On Point 1: The catspaw wouldn’t necessarily be a KNOWING plant–in fact, just the opposite, because that’s far more likely to work. All Deus needs is a combination of religious devotion (or simply sincere monogamous commitment to a spouse), patriotism and superpowers, and he just plants the suggestion that the guy apply for ARCHON (now that it’s out in the open).
Figure he needs to just monitor likely candidates who hail from south of the Mason-Dixon line to find the right mix of traits.
As for waivers, there’s limits to what you can sign away. Hell, even trying to argue that the waiver applied in court could be a legal nightmare–all it would take is a single conveniently timed leak to ensure that the media found out the government was having ARCHON recruits sign away their right to complain about sexual harassment.
Then he just sits back, and waits.
Where was it ever stated that they can’t complain about any sort of harassment?
Remember: supers could make far more money working in the private sector, that’s why Sydney was getting paid more in one month than she previously made in an entire year
That was in re: the line about having signed waivers. If those waivers prevent you from seeking a legal remedy for misconduct, then yes, there’s going to be some issues there, both from a legal and a PR standpoint.
That depends on what the waivers cover, you are assuming that means they can’t lay complaints of any kind, not just sexual (and there is no way Maxi or Ari would have approved that)
While I too would not want to visit the succubus homeworld, because of concern about this stuff, Dabbler’s not the one I’m concerned about.
Note that Cora apparently is interested in exhibitionism enough to 1. wear a hard light emitter in lieu of clothing, 2. go talk to these guys after Dabbler changed the setting, 3. have enough moisture buildup her hard light system decided she needed an illusionary storm to cover for any leakage after Math’s intensive scrutiny.
Personally, I suspect that in Cora’s mind, Dabbler did her a favor by giving her an excuse to walk around with skimpier attire than she could have gotten away with otherwise.
“Especially if you throw on a little chimichurri sauce? That’s good shit. I actually wish I had more cause to put chimichurri sauce on things. It’s not usually offered as a side with many dishes, at least here in Texas. I’m sure if you’re in South America, it’s more common.
I think it’d be good on any kind of meat really. Okay, probably not a hotdog or breakfast sausage, but on a steak or chicken or a pork chop? Yeah, I think I’m hungry”
Holey moley, Dave *IS* Sydney.
ADHD, anyone? :D
Come to Argentina, every meat is served with a side of Chimichurri…
My new daughter in law introduced me to chimmichurri, and now I am busy trying it on everything I can think of.
Shouldn’t Cora have said; Cumulonimbus chic? LOL
Somehow I think Max would take one look at Cora and say three things…
1. MAJOR!!! AVERT YOUR EYES IMMEDIATELY! (Max and Hiro are reportedly kinda sweet on each other)
2. MATH!!! erm… CARRY ON!!!
3. DABBLER!!!!!!
Cumulonimbus are piled higher and deeper than that.
Actually I believe the clouds covering Cora’s top half are Mammatus clouds.
+1
:smirk:
Panels 4,5, and 7: I’m in love. Panel 6? Well, I do like playing in the rain, with the right playmate. :P
“There’s a storm front coming…”
– Billy Joel
“The storm is coming! Return to your homes!”
/obscure?
HA! I get that reference! My best friend in gradeschool had one of those. Oh man, you made my day with that.
“The storm is over! All clear!
Thunder thighs.
Math must be happy: a gorgeous, almost naked woman who doesn’t seem to mind when he ogles her!
Kinda takes the fun (and the ‘naughty’ aspect) away, it’s like going to a nudist beach: no one at the beach cares if you are looking at them, as long as you don’t stand over them blocking the sun and apply organic sunscream without permission
I was going to say “you mean sunscreen” then realized you were using a play-on-words.
Yups! :D
Majority of ‘typos’ from me are deliberate, butt there are a few that slip through, either because machine is acting up and missing key-strokes or can’t figure out how a word is suppose to be spelt (and the auto wrecker can’t figure it out either)
And apparently Cora likes to be “appreciated” if the crotch lightning show is any indication.
Before this chapter Dabbler was my favorite now? she my favorite X 10 :)
See, I can understand how such blatant attention from a super fit person could be exciting.. But Math is almost always drawn with super creepy intense stares when he’s on the prowl – Just like In panel four. From my understanding, that rarely prompts such a reaction with the ladies.
Is this when we learn that Math’s power is directly tied to his sexual frustration?
[Jonathan Evans]:
My ‘read’, as a straight guy, would be …
– a very athletic man, looking VERY good indeed, both above-&-below the neck, is attracted to her …
– his DEGREE of interest is best described as an almost “Starving-To-Death”-level of ‘Desperate’ …
– he seems to have no interest at all in her emotions, or her personality, zeroing-in only on her looks …
CONCLUSION:
Such a physically attractive man would normally have no problem acquiring female attention …
… so, why then is he “Desperate-&-Starving” … ?
… there MUST be something VERY wrong with him — something that’s not immediately obvious, but it still keeps females away from him.
===
I’d imagine that a similar logic-chain would be going through HER mind, seeing as how she’s the [OBJECT_OBSERVED], as opposed to being an “Objective Observer”.
Nothing wrong with him.
He’s just surrounded by Super beauties that he can’t touch because of COC and USCMJ
It’s UCMJ.
Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Incorrect heatwave is dating a member of the team see the comic in the ambulance with harems kissing prank i don’t remember his name but he’s the stretchy guy
Mr. Amorphous That’s the guy
It seems, from previous discussions here, that there’s a loophole provided the two partners are never in a position to give each other orders. It being a pre-existing relationship at the time of joining up probably also has something to do with it. Of course, being ARC, it’s also entirely possible that the standard UCMJ does officially prohibit such relationships but it’s being blind-eyed (in the light of the conditions mentioned) for the sake of having two such useful talents on the team.
I’ve had female friends react very poorly to the attentions of a male who came on “too strong” or otherwise behaved in a manner which might be called creepy or desperate. Either during the interaction with the guy or immediately afterwords with a remark to me or the group such as “yuk” or similar. And most of these were good looking guys, in my straight male estimation. In my experience looks aren’t everything, to most women.
That’s not to say that being very good looking doesn’t get you a pass for some flaws in personality or character, but there are limits.
And in most of those cases (obviously not talking about your ‘friends’), it’s simply because it’s been the ‘wrong’ good-looking guy showing an interest in them
It works the other way around, too.
Have we had any indication that he doesn’t get female company?
Re_” … walking around looking like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man just exploded on her.”:
I’m not 100% sure, but this could very-well be that the Author has inspired the inception of a brand-new ‘kink’ —> [Cumulonimbus Bukakke]
OMG, poor Math. Guess this is when we find out if his breast staring therapy has done any good. Looks like he may have found the only female in the universe who doesn’t mind him ogling her.
I love her face right as the Thunder begins. Dabbler has a wonderful sense of humor. And I would not be surprised if you man is just encouragement of wave from asking for a taste test.
So could the hardlight emitter be used to change Cora’s skin colour? I think it’d interesting for cover ops on earth
We’ve already seen Cora’s emitter do this on page 698.
Dabbler: ‘Really? Because that little stormfront seems to suggest that you Like being watched.’
Maybe you should just go ahead and make that porn comic you’ve been wanting to make and be done with it? There’s pretty good money in that, so I hear.
Cora looks so adorable in that last frame
I am a bit disappointed one of the onomatopoeias wasn’t “Kachow!”
So this popped into my head recently while walking around. Where does the power for Sydneys orbs come from. I know that at one point one was hypothesized as a power source but with tech this advanced and operating off the theory that it’s to act like a space ship a single power source doesn’t seem very reliable. I was thinking about this then remembered the comic where Sydney described using the ppo. She described it like touching a star. So what if each orb is it’s own power source basically a miniature Dyson sphere and rach orb is it’s own power source.
Third to last and last panel, Cora’s face is just incredible cute!
Genital Thunderstorm lol
My restaurant serves a grilled steak chimichurri. Is good. :3
I guess that gives a whole new meaning to ‘Thunder thighs.’
More like “Thunder ^vulva^”!
Dabbler is working the controls. Of COURSE that sudden rainstorm is meaningful. xD
+2
No, that’s not what I was thinking. I hadn’t noticed that there was even anything in the third panel besides Cora. So I went back to check again, and I still didn’t see anything besides Cora for about 10 minutes of careful inspection.
There seem to be cultural equivalents. I have a neighbor who is Afghani, and she occasionally gives me a bottle of home made, I’m not sure if ‘sauce’ is the right word, but after looking at the recipe for chimichurri sauce it seems like it might be very similar. Her family uses it at every meal for dipping flatbreads into. I’ve occasionally asked her for the recipe but she has always told me that she just makes it and doesn’t have a recipe, and I haven’t pressed her beyond that simple request.
Here’s the recipe I found online:
https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/traditional-chimichurri
Comparing the final product to what my neighbor makes, hers is less fluid, so possibly made with less oil, and while it does have a kick the red pepper flakes aren’t as visible in hers as they are in this online recipe. It’s still very good. I’ve used it as her family does for dipping breads, as a marinade for meats, and I’ve added a few tablespoons to stews and such.
Ask her if you can watch her make it.
Well it is feasible that you can use Hard Light technology to camouflage stuff, so Dabbler probably reprogrammed Cora’s to hide parts of itself so she’d look more naked.
It’s also nice to see that Dabbler is one of the girls when it comes to Math, and likes teasing him as much as the others (otherwise she’d have given him some relief ages ago).
Why else send Cora over with that mode of dress on? (I think Cora is enjoying teasing him as well. A little too much.)
Math use the force. The speed force. I calculate if you move fast enough and unpredictable enough you can beat the computer. So run math run!!!!!
What’s the orange this on her back in panel 1&2? It disappears in the panel 4…
That’s the HL-Emitter, and DaveB has admitted he simply forgot to draw it in panel four
I love Cora’s, eyes!!!
hahahahah love to read about “chimichurri sauce”!.
I didn´t know that the argentenean sauce was so worldwide spread
hahaha
Dave, just a correction regarding “Okay, probably not a hotdog or breakfast sausage”.
you can use it over everything (as a breakfast sauce in your toast, but you will prefer the mild version of it)
greating from…. Argentina of course :)
Ahh, Math’s super speed in action.
So… Dave… a question. Seeing as how it feels the original story-line more and more is falling to the wayside in favor of focusing on the Harem/Sex Comedy aspect, how much longer do we have before Grrl Power becomes the side project/advertising for your Patreon porn work? I ask not only because of the seeming gradual shift in tone and style, but also the trend I have noticed in web comic creators in general that, if they have a reputation and the skill to create sexy art, they go where the demand (and thus, money) is.
And hey, if that is the goal, power to you. I hear the money is great! You do you! It just really feels like that is the end game with the tonal shift in both art and characterization.
This webic has always been about the beef and cheese cake (it’s in the damn description… somewhere)
Just because DaveB is getting better (mostly, with a few minor setbacks, like with Hiro) with his art, doesn’t mean he’s going to become a porn-artist
+1
“Ever since I was a young boy, I played the silver ball…”
^– this was supposed to be @Too Old To Be Cool re “Storm is Coming”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bfPwtUTP4k
Johnny Cash’s best song ever.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axHBwXeAaC8
The Who’s best country song :D
+2
+2
You were pretending to be a Silver Ball!? :)
Better than Blue Balls :P
I figure the groin level “Thunderstorm” is representative of Cora’s (physical response) interest in the two male hunks in front of her.
Makes sense. Her crew may be candy but everyone enjoys different…”brands”?…every now and again. Like window shopping but you get to try the…goods.
I’ll stop now before I get banned.
This would be a great vote incentive, the .gif of her clouds blowing and the rain falling.
Or even the clouds being blown away, if you know what I mean.