Grrl Power #794 – Sapphic snack
It’s a really good thing Decollete didn’t do the hypno voice in front of Maxima. While Max understands that monsters got to monst, and The Twilight Council polices themselves, mind control is way over the line, even if those dudes would have 100% definitely raced to buy some drinks without the nudge.
Would Max be okay with Dabbler using it to interrogate someone? You know, in one of those ‘time is running out and if I was Jack Bauer I’d shoot you in the knee’ situations? Jury is out. Honestly she’d probably be okay with it if it meant saving a bunch of people and the interogee was a real tool.
Normally, telling someone they have a ‘wonderfully distinct face’ is a bit of a stealth burn, but Decollete means it sincerely.
I’m not 100% sure if YukiAkuma’s version of Tamatha is quite this naïve, but I thought it’d be funny, so here we are. Actually, in the Grrl-verse, succubi tend to mature quite quickly once they hit puberty. At 14, Tamatha would be a very late bloomer, but now that things are starting to happen, they’d progress quickly. Like, if she was strictly my character, if Sydney met her again in 6 months, she’s look a lot more like Harem than she does now.
This all isn’t some stealthy way to introduce a creepy lolita thing into the comic, it’s just the result of thinking about how the biology of other races would work. Over the last few pages, there have been quite a few comments about the age of consent for different races like elves for example. If high elves live to 1,000 and don’t start puberty till they’re 45, then the 18 year old age of consent we’ve arbitrarily picked for ourselves simply wouldn’t apply. Conversely if… I don’t know, gnolls only live to 60, and they start puberty at the age of 8, then 18 might not be the right number for them either.
So succubi, with their tantric energy needs, have a different number than humans as well. Even if they can live for several centuries, they develop quickly.
All that said, don’t worry, Tamatha isn’t going to get up to anything inappropriate. When Decollete says “top up by proxy” she means to stand outside the bathroom and feed through the wall.
Books!
Michael-Scott Earle’s next crowdfunding project is up. This time it’s for the next Space Knight. This series is very LitRPG, but thankfully it’s not set inside a video game. I can’t stand books like that. I honestly can’t think of lower stakes than fictional characters playing videogames – unfortunately this means that 85% of LitRPG novels are of no interest to me. But Space Knight is dudes in space killing monsters and getting loot, they just happen to have a way to scan the loot and get stats off it through an Empire spanning database. It’s a very action heavy series, but MSE writes good, clean action, which is unfortunately a somewhat rarified skill among pulp novelists.
I’ve never specifically recommended Space Knight before. I never connected with the characters in it like I did with Tamer or Star Justice, but if you’ve read Tamer and thought, “This could use 100% less base building and 100% more action.” then you might dig Space Knight. If you want a taste of it, the first book is available for free at his website.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
These days, who cares?
Also – my massive collection of lezbo pron proves I’m not homophobic! <- Internet Meme
Wonder what sort of environment Tamatha was raised in if she’s never heard of same sex attractions before?
I’m wondering if this is her first time in a bar if she is confused by same sex, and especially girl-girl, attractions.
It wasn’t terribly long into my being legal enough to hit the bar scene that I saw girls making out with girls. Most of whom would loudly proclaim that they weren’t lesbians, if asked about their actions. Ok, table maker.
Clearly those women were just practicing kissing for their future boyfriends.
Oh clearly :) :)
Children are not always that observant of what’s going on around them when they’re busy looking at their phones :).
Tamatha was raised Amish, but has seen some pretty racy things by their standards. She’s currently just passing through her Rumspringa stage, albeit a highly unusual one.
So Dabbler sensing Old Coots preferences and exploiting them was fine, but throwing a little magic into a suggestion is where you (or Max as you suggest) draw the line?
There’s also the matter of who you’re influencing. Random innocent peope, or a vital witness/suspect in the theft of “armageddon in small, convenient packages”
Also known as ‘fun size death and mayhem dispensers’
It’s the difference between giving somebody what they want, and changing what they want.
Maxima did display some distaste with Dabbler’s “interrogation” of Cooter, but I got the impression it was more that she felt Dabs was debasing herself than it was any concern about exploiting Cooter.
I forgot about that scene, my memory of when Maxima commented on Dabbler’s approach of distracting a villain had her feel conflicted.
Except, we are not quite sure what she is conflicted about: is it what Dabbles is doing? or is it her (Maxi’s) feelings?
Also, the team was trying to chase after the blood mage, who stole a bunch of items from the Black Reliquary. (ARC doesn’t know who else was in the vault stealing stuff, so Sciona was the only lead on the magical items of mas destruction, thus it was a rather important thing to try to find)
Yeah, and “nudges” are pretty iffy, too, because the people who employ them tend to just keep “nudging” harder and harder until they get the action they want. “Nudges” turn in to “shoves” in practice, so I’m with Sydney here.
Wait, what? Most people who employ nudges stop at shoves? Wow. I must have some statistically significantly skewed experiences, or something, because I was under the impression they then went with judo throws. Or is that just for people who are too oblivious to notice their nudges and shoves (me, mostly), or at least act like it (other people around me)?
Brett didn’t say they stopped at shoves, he merely implied that shoves were what came next. Try not to read into other people’s words what isn’t there.
Kinda like what Brett was doing? Judging all people the same as he would act?
Guess he missed the part where Deco got the action she wanted, which was for them to piss off and leave them alone for a few seconds
Ah, well, the thing is, I don’t notice the verbal shoves, so I don’t really know if they follow the verbal nudges or not. I *do* notice the verbal judo throws, mostly because they don’t make much sense.
Would you consider Maxima’s ‘nudge’ of the guy in the comic book shop to be quiet unwarranted also?
“Impress me with your silence.”
It didn’t escalate to shoves. :)
People have been nudgingly influencing others with words over physical violence since civilization began. You probably have been nudged quite a bit yourself in real life multiple times by people who suggest something to you which subtly influences your actions, and you might not even realize it. Although it probably wasn’t a succubus with a beholder aura. :)
Nudge nudge, wink wink.
Say no more Govena’.
Say no more.
Tamatha is so cute in that last panel.
She is truly adorable
That tooth in the third panel…
So confident one moment, so utterly shocked the next. Yeah, she’s the picture of naive.
Oh, I forgot to say… Ears up in the third panel, ears flat in the last. Way too cute.
Lunch hour in SucubiHigh must be interesting…
Their cafeteria trays come with automatic pixelation.
The tencacle surprise is one of the favourite meals.
Two words: Taco Tuesdays.
Not a good idea to expose Tamatha to such concepts at her age???? I’m not sure if CPS is equipped to deal with succubi?!?
I agree that it is a bit late, but she’s probably still open minded enough…
With … “arguments” like those does she even need mind control?
She was suggesting them to do something they would probably done in any case.
Any human female with comparable “assets” could have said exactly what Decollette said without any Jedi mind control tricks and achieved the same result.
In my mind, the nudge was so that they would immediately head for the bar to order “drinks” instead of sticking around to get everyone’s order. Pretty much any guy would have gotten the drinks given Decollette’s looks, she simply sped up the process.
Boobs are sometimes the ultimate superpower.
Against teenage boys they can be very effective.
Yeah, he was just as likely to have done it if she were just a regular, but similarly attractive woman.
I quite like how d&d 5e does elf maturity: Physically mature at the same speed as humans, but spiritually mature (something about visions of past lives/present lives/future lives when Trancing) at around 100-120. Further details in Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes, with Davvy Chappy doing a video on them too, but here’s the short form:
Elf souls get reincarnated, something to do with their God/Godess (it’s kinda up in the air and depends on said deity’s mood) Corellon. When they trance (semi-consciousness instead of unconsciousness for sleep, still not fully awake though), they experience visions (instead of dreams). Young ones see visions/memories of past lives, and at around 100-120 they start transitioning to visions of their current life, at which point Congrats! Elves consider you an adult now! Much later on, they start transitioning to visions of their next life, which also gives them cool face markings and also they gon’ die of old age in the next decade or 2.
Did Decollete and Sydney become friends offscreen? Not that they’re enenies but what could she possibly want from Sydney?
They are work friends – they just ran into each other at a random location (the club) & are having the “polite shop talk” kind of conversation….. at least at the moment.
I understand them running into each other and having the customary “Hey, we both know each other!” conversation, but Delcollete, just got rid of not only the guys, but her trainee as well. She wants to speak with Sydney privately. My question is why? What reason does she have for a private talk with Sydney, who is more of a aquaintance and friend to one of her rivals than a friend to her. It’s very interesting.
There have been some momentous occasions recently that Sydney was directly and indirectly involved in.
Her very public arrival on earth aboard Cora’s ship. Cora who has saved Fracture Station twice and is pretty much above the law there. That’s gotta give her an interstellar reputation of sorts. And Cora also goes up against Fel battle ships and ‘liberates’ artifacts from them as well. She is not small fry and Decolette must know that, if nothing else than through Dabbler. She might want to know about the why and how of Cora arriving on earth with Sydney. Possibly even under orders of the council.
The other even more momentous occasion was that Fel battleship being taken out in seconds. From the way Cora and Dabbler talked about the threat such a ship posed to other worls it is very much a matter of: hit them fast and with extreme force or risk losing the entire planet and its population to them. Decolette, and much of the Council must have known that and gotten worried just how powerful those supers really are (and here is to hoping that the report by those two xevoarchy cops will be dismissed as a poorly thought out prank)
The relations between ARC and the Council may be cordial, but they are at best that. It is rather unlikely that Arc would give more than a cursory report to the Council about that unexceptedly unequal battle. The Council may want to know a lot more about Arc and could have correctly identified Sydney as the one most likely to tell things she should not.
Then again, it is equally possible that Decolette is just going to ask Sydney if she can help out organising an orgy with Cora’s crew, whose unbridled hotness any succubus can sense from across town :)
Sydney wasn’t involved in the Fel-fight, she arrived too late, butt in time for cleanup duties
Decollete may not know that.
It was televised, so she probably did know that.
Yeah, the fight was (Sydney was watching Cora’s press conference), butt it might not have been mentioned that Sydney was not invovled
Assuming that Decolette does want to talk about that battle (and not about Cora’s crew ;)) it does not matter that much if Sydney was involved in the fight or not, nor if Decolette knows or not.
She has every reason to expect that Sydney was involved in (or at the very least informed of) the after action report.
The Twilight Council does not know that the only reason that Maxima brought Sydney along for the meeting with the council is that her particular powerset would make her see through the veil and her lack of impulse control would have ter blurt out what she saw, likely at the most inopportune time.
All they know is that she is powerful (she could cut a tank in two with little effort, if a great deal of fumbling. She has a forcefield strong enough to protect against the equiivalent of a small nuclear blast. She can also fly and has a bunch of highly classified powers and unknowns, which is a good way to make everybody very nervous about her).
The logical interpretation by the council is that Sydney was brought along because she would be more directly involved with the council, once her obvious lack of training was remedied. They have every reason to expect that Sydney is aware of a lot of information that Archon is not sharing with the Council.
(p.s. and they would be right too. Sydney may be a recruit now, but her power set will make her pretty much an ideal junior officer. She can safely be overwatch (flight plus force field), she can do surgical strikes (ppo or lighthook), she can protect against counter strikes (force field plus life support bubble). She also has shown that she has a good tactical insight in every battle she was involved in. She figured out how to subdue the two major threats in the parking lot brawl. She was instrumental in organising defense against the mannekillers at the council. Her performance in the Sciona 1.0 battle was admittedly lacking (though her suggestion to use her remote projection ability for power was overrujled by her commanding officer, but would in hindsight have been the better choice. But panicking over upgrades and setting the mountaiin side on fire definitely were failing grades). In the Sciona 2.0 battle she kept situational awareness and detected the trap Sciona had laid. Arguably Sydney is the reason why the team made if off the Alari homeworld at all. And once stranded she first tried to extricate herself from the situation (the best tactical choice) and when that did prove impossible (or at least impractical) she devised a creative offensive against a superior opponent. Twice. So, yeah, I think that after reading the AAR of Sydney’s various exploits General Falk has pretty much decided to see if she can be fast tracked to officer training (assuming that they can get her ADHD down to a dull roar).
I think that you’re making an unfounded assumption that the Twilight Council does not know that Sydney can see through the Veil. Since Pixel (and Krona inferred it as well) have both literally told her that the reason there’s an exception made for her is because she can already see through the Veil (despite not being a biological super). Plus Dabbler also knows, as well as Zephon (both of whom, along with Pixel, are also represented by the Council plus being part of Archon). It’s probably a good guess that the Council knew that they might as well add her specially into the Veil program as an exclusion since she already had a way to see through it anyway.
Plus Krona already knows that the only supers who are authorized to know about the supernatural stuff are ‘corporals and above’ (according to Harem, who said it to her while Krona was standing right by them). So Krona, a member of the Vi in the Council, would also know that Sydney, a cadet (not a corporal) had a SPECIAL reason beyond having powers to know about the Council.
Additionally, it’s possibly to have a word with her about Tamatha. Sydney has a particularly strong character and gets bonus points for her hero status. Most serious mentors I know would be pretty concerned if someone as obviously influential who is as much of an unknown as Sydney is to Decollete started spending time with their young charge all of a sudden. Many of the bits that Decollete *does* know about Sydney (or thinks she knows) may also be of concern in this situation.
For example, I’m sure it wasn’t lost on Decollete that Sydney had to be kicked out of the council meeting for them to get her to stop interrupting the meeting before it could even properly start. While she might find that a useful aspect of Sydney, in the sense that she could be a tool applied to achieve certain ends, she probably doesn’t want Sydney encouraging Tamatha to follow her in those traits.
Also, Sydney has been historically somewhat prudish, which Decollete would probably see as a potential very bad influence for Tamatha to have. She almost certainly does not know that Sydney has since bedded a Woof, and has since been a bit less tight about those things.
After ‘bedding’ a Woof, fairly sure everything would be ‘a bit less tight’ ;)
I think Sydney likes that Decollete is more tactful about sex, a topic that Sydney is only now becoming comfortable with, than the majority of her justifiably self confident team mates are. And I’m sure Decollete doesn’t mind nurturing a friend with (inside ARCHON connection) benefits. Subtly charming people is something she literally went to school to learn.
A friend with benefits in more ways than one ni doubt since she is a succubus.
I loved that last line about her being “the most sheltered succubus in history”. Even watching cable or browsing the internet should have taught her at least SOMETHING about same sex relationships.
Yes, but she probably thought that women had more class and self control that to hump each other in the toilet stall of a night club.
Maybe she don’t like tantric energy from same sex/lesbian couples. (It is an acquired taste)
And now I’m thinking Tamatha was raised in a Buddhist monastery. Or maybe a Vulcan Anti-Pon’Farr commune.
Or just in a small town or out on a ranch.
A Succubus Ranch? I guess they’d all be “free range”…
Tamatha hasn’t been raised by Succubi.
I strongly doubt that a succubus ranch is a homo free enviroment.
You’d never see Succubi living in a rural environment.
Food is way too scarce.
Unless they can feed on animal sex!?
Not the vegan ones, they rely on plant energy. They have some serious seasonal disorder in Fall and Winter, but their Springtime version of hay fever makes it vital for everyone to check the pollen count before going outside that day.
Technically, when a bee pollinate a flower it is sex.
Technically isn’t terribly interesting though, outside a certain type of mind.
“Homo”, is a derogatory term.
Perhaps in some contexts. Regardless, my intention was not to offend anyone so I apologize of I did.
You’d be surprised how effective just not mentioning stuff like that can be. I myself didn’t really have a concept of same sex relations until 12-14. Admittedly harder today than it was a decade ago to go without realizing it exists until that age, but a mix of denseness combined with taste/access to media that doesn’t show any same sex relations could result in someone being surprised by it in the tween years.
Really? The ‘insult’ “fag!” was hurled about at my elementary school on a daily basis…
I recall getting into a fight with a kid and the principal asked us what happened. A part of my story was “He called me a fag.” The principal then asked the kid if he knew what a fag was, to which the kid replied “two guys doing stuff together.” We were probably 8 or 10 years old. And I’m old, so this was long before the internet even existed.
For me, growing up, a ‘fag’ meant a cigarette
Guess someone asking you if they could ‘bum a fag’ from you would have resulted in them going to the hospital
Yes.
“Smear the Queer” was a very popular recess game in elementary school. Whoever had the ball was “it”, and everybody else would try to tackle them. Piling on was encouraged. You could throw the ball at any time – but if you did it too soon, you were a wimp.
I’m guessing Guesticus is English :)
Nope, wrong Hemisphere (hint, it’s summer now)
Throw a shrimp on the barbie?
Play Knifey Spooney?
… Wrong country
… Kiwi?
When I was a senior in high school, my mother caught me in my room jacking off to my porno mags; mostly Playboys, with one Hustler. She took one look at the array of magazines with their pictures of naked women.
“Eddie, I hope you’re not *gay*”.
I don’t understand how she came to have that particular concern given that particular context, but it’s pretty clear that one can get significantly past 12-14 without understanding what “gay” is, as I was older than that, and my mother was always older than me. I realize that this isn’t the word that you asked about, but it was the word used in the part of the country where we were living at the time for that group of people.
I’ve heard a bunch of different ideas of when the Internet first came to be. Most of the people I’ve asked about when they think the Internet was born either say 1993 or whenever they first encountered it (this was after 1993 for all people in this category, though usually not much after.) RFC 675 used ‘Internet’ in its title, it was the first RFC to do so, and it was published in March, 1974. I was born a bit earlier than that.
I have lived a few different places within the US, and some of those places talked about ‘fags’ more than ‘gays’. But we were in ‘gays’ territory since before I started the 4th grade. The anecdote I started this response with happened sometime between NTP (RFC 958) and gopher (RFC 1436).
(Just in case it’s not clear from the rest of this post, I am and was male. At least in terms of how the word was used in the area, ‘gay’ was exclusively used to refer to males until some time after this incident. I think it took a majority of people getting Internet access before they got it through their collective heads that a woman could also be gay.)
Umm, what is an ‘RFC’? Guessing it’s not a Rugby Football Club? o_O
“At least in terms of how the word was used in the area, ‘gay’ was exclusively used to refer to males” – Some Ed
In a lot of places/dialects, it still is a specific term for male homosexuals as opposed to female ones. Not through any misconception that the latter don’t exist, just through having (a) different specific term(s) for the females as opposed to the males. Sort of like how most people would use the word ‘cows’ to refer to bovine creatures of either gender, whereas others (especially in farming areas) would instinctively differentiate between the specifically female ‘cows’ and the specifically male ‘bulls’ within the mixed ‘cattle’.
18 is somewhat arbitrary. Age of consent varies quite a lot around different cultures. In the US, it varies among the different states. It’s just the idiotic FedGov that declared a nationwide, arbitrary “18”. And then uses a law to protect teens against the teens themselves.
Wondering about the legal issues that causes now. What happens with teens dating across state lines, say one over 18 in a 16+ state, and another consenting party who’s only 16 but lives in an 18+ state? Which law applies if someone (say parents) presses charges, the state of residency or the state where the act took place?
Depends on if the minor was crossed across state lines by the older of the two.
There’s a specific law about crossing state lines with a minor to where they’d be legal. something about immoral purposes. Law came about in the 50’s? 18 U.S.C. § 2423, transporting a minor across state lines is a crime when done with the purpose to engage in illegal sex or child pornography: (a) Transportation with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity. ~ more after that cut.
Ah, I recall Colin Mochrie presenting a news story about that very thing. (sorry couldn’t find the video clip)
That handles one version, but what if the minor crosses to a state where they’re not considered a minor? Does their native state consider it a crime still, or does the jurisdiction belong to the state where it occurred and therefore is not a crime?
Mann act. Originally passed in 1910, nominally as a way to deal with involuntary prostitution, but frequently used to persecute people for extramarital or interracial sex. It’s since been narrowed substantially, although it still covers transporting a minor from a state where they’re underage to one where they’re legal.
Which raises the interesting potential question of determining who did the transporting. The response could well be argued differently depending on whether person A travelled across state lines to meet person B and return to state A, or person B used their own resources to travel to meet person A in state A. Throw in an extra level of complication by asking whether the liaison was planned in advance of the travel, or an unforeseen consequence (e.g. “I only meant to visit state A for sightseeing, but while I was there I met person A and we just got on”).
What is the story behind this “not my character”? Is she from another comic?
“cameo” from some high-tier patr(e)on. Mentioned few pages back in the extended description.
I’m curious as to what exactly Maxima would do? Stand up and shout “Hey, dudes! No buying drinks for this chick! She is mind controlling you with her tits!” The reveal might be less of a reveal than she might think…
You’re forgetting the response from the guys.
“and?”
“And what would you like, a goldschlager?”
That’s basically just a dumbed down rephrasing of “The reveal might be less of a reveal than she might think…”
I’m reasonably sure that Max would have been okay with it in this situation, the guys were crowding them and it’s better than max’s possible response of punting them into stratosphere or particle beaming.
Also wondering how the lasers and lighting in that place and Max’s golden sheen would have interacted.
Tend to disagree – even when Dabbler was using just her jump rope skills and not her glamor, Max was conflicted even with her own life on the line. I would say actual mind control for a petty brush-off would not be condoned.
The thing about having actual morals and scruples is they have to be consistent, not just convenient.
I suspect the conflicted feelings were less a matter of “I’m being rescued by a teammate using basic mind control” than “I’m being rescued by a teammate acting like a ditzy slut.”
Remember that scene in “Event Horizon” with that idiot who came in demanding a limited edition only-available-at-convention comic? Fairly sure Maxi would have appreciated having the ability to politely tell him where to go and he actually going there, rather than being forced to flee to the roof
https://youtu.be/tbxnp_ixqOo
Except she conveyed pretty much the opposite.
Umm, no she didn’t, she just told them in a way that would get them to do it without scary the shitstain out of their undies
She never said that they would join them
Ah yes, the possibilities inherent in “could”.
Now I’m really curious about Tamatha. Where exactly has she been most of her life? I get that the US is a bit more liberal about personal relationships than a lot of the world, but the rest of the world at least acknowledges those relationships even if many of them do so in line with the Dark Age.
I wonder if Tamatha finds the “flavour” of samesex tantric juice different to hetero mojo? Perhaps more sweet desert than main course? After all you may have a sweet tooth, but sometimes you just want a juicy steak.
Is that a Homestuck epilogue reference?
I was reminded of the scene in Taken where Our Hero shoots an innocent woman in the leg and threatens her life and the life of her kids in order to get some jackass to give him information. And this is a woman who knows him and likes him and who has welcomed him into their home. I can’t help but feel that there was another way for Our Hero to get his information without resorting to such tactics. And yet he is still Our Hero because he “did it to save his daughter.” But we never revisited that couple, or looked back on the impact he had on their family.
We do not get to revisit that family for much the same reasons why comic books never follow those laser blasts, death rays and fire balls that missed their target and travel on into a densely populated city.
They can’t be our heroes any longer if they are shown to leave a higher bodycount than the supervillain, and he can’t be our hero if he is proven to be as great a or greater monster than the terrorist he is supposed to be stopping
You are speaking for Marvel and DC, and the golden age.
But some of the independent publishers of the silver age examined just that. Even if their art wasn’t always that great some of the stories they told were more nuanced.
Some of my favorite superhero stories are the subverted ones where the supers are the villains. Sometimes the (anti)hero is forced to fight them to defend themselves, and sometimes a new hero realizes what horrible people their new peers are.*
*Link is safe, but the show is very graphic so the previews may be NSFW. Which is a shame; much like GoT (the books, never even tried the show), great storytelling but I decided to stop pretty early on.
So the recent Supervillainy and Other Poor Career Choices. by J. R. Grey?
Had not heard of that one, but looked up a summary and it’s going on my reading list. :)
The title also reminds me of 2 others in the refrigerator logic genre – How to Succeed in Evil and the ongoing and prolific web series With This Ring, which both feature a protagonist who points out how short-sighted supers are with their powers – then proceed to apply them properly.
But I can’t help but feel sorry for Sydney if she is right. Also isn’t she precious? This is another one of those children Say the Darndest Things moment.
I don’t think she needs to use mind control to have people do what she wants.
Will she have Sydney take a moment to realize how attractive she is?
I hope the Grrls have so much fun they become regulars… this is a fun setting for hijinks.
OMG Tamatha is the most innocent succubus I have ever seen! I LOVE IT!!!!!
Texan Amish?
I for one hope Sydney does meet Tamatha again in six months. Although I’d prefer she still looked, like, fifteen at most. ;) But y’know nothing wrong with ending up looking nineteen either…
With great power comes…. erm… great tracts of land? Sorry, I lost my train of thought there.
Knew derailed, eh?
Hey, a succubus has to store all that tantric energy somewhere, right?
That barely there dress is all she needs to get guys (or ladies) to buy her all the drinks she wants, really.
Yes, butt she wants them gone now, and in a way that won’t have them get belligerent or fearful: fearful belligerent people (not just males) tend to do stupid(er) things
Actually, I’m not certain she wants them gone gone. I have a suspicion she probably spends more time flirting with her customers than most would consider ethical, especially considering that she really can hypnotize and really can mind control without hypnotizing.
It feels more likely her plan is to get her time alone with Sydney, have her talk, and then go join them without Sydney in tow. I mean, she gotta get lunch sometime, right?
Didn’t say gone completely, or she would have ordered them outside, she just doesn’t want them hanging around any longer than needed
Dave’s comic byline pretty much covered what I was thinking immediately: “Wow, a succubus bar owner flirting with the customers to boost sales. That’s… very clever, really, if a little sketchy ethically.”
Any more so than complementary (overly salted) peanuts? o_O
At the end of the day, the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment implications of obtaining evidence by coercion are that a criminal will likely not be convicted, that he or she would likely receive some kind of settlement from the governing agency, and that you will get punished for using extralegal means.
If Archon is a law enforcement agency first and foremost, then using extralegal means to obtain information in order to prevent a greater tragedy is wrong for them. If their primary job is to prevent catastrophes on a mass scale, then in theory it could be justified, even though it’s not lawful nor legal.
Such concerns never stopped the CIA, which had agents working with one of the south American cartels in Los Angelos in the late eighties who went so far as to retrieve escaped prostitutes for them.
Law enforcement agencies within the United States don’t have as clean a record as fictional law enforcement agencies.
CIA isnt a law enforcement agency, it is an intelligence agency.
Any actions the CIA took on US soil would be unlawful no matter what. Same with the NSA. That’s why they get in trouble whenever it comes to light.
For the same reason the FBI can’t operate outside US Territory, and yet, they are often shown to do just that in movies and TV shows…
So, you saying, the National Security Agency can not operate within the nation it is supposed to be securing? o_O
The NSA is specifically chartered for foreign intelligence surveillance only. They can work within US borders to secure communications against outside threats, but the NSA has no legal right to conduct surveillance within the United States. That’s specifically for the FBI to do.
And yet, the NSA has done so for decades, mostly legally (though not overtly) due to lots of different legal mechanisms, and probably still is. I know people personally who helped build an NSA data center completed earlier this year, and I’m pretty sure they didn’t need the massive capacity just for additional back ups of all their existing info.
In fact, the article linked above is pretty good starting place to read about some of the things the NSA (and other agencies) are still doing within the US, targeting US citizens.
They enforce the law, even if it means, at times, going above the law
Crashing into someone at high speeds is, technically, illegal, and yet, cops do that often to stop speeding criminals
Asking a criminal politely to implicate themselves, resulting in a lengthy prison sentence, is utter stupidity, specially if said criminal was part of a group intent on mass-chaos and slash or multiple deaths
Butt hay, ask them nicely and sure they will repent and give up their colleagues, who will them forgive them and sit around singing love songs in prison
Police crashing into someone to end a chase isn’t illegal. They have the right to use those measures when necessary. Technically so do regular citizens, but it’s a lot easier for a police department to justify it to its insurance company than a random person.
I was going to write a bunch of stuff here, but jdreyfuss is pretty much correct on everything said, except one minor error in saying any actions the CIA takes on US soil would be unlawful ‘no matter what’ – it’s just any actions against US citizens on US soil or employing a police power (which the CIA does not have). For example, the Domestic Contact Service, or the National Resources Division of the CIA (which is the CIA’s domestic wing).
Although to be fair, a lot of the time, that domestic wing HAS done stuff which has violated the Constitution, and therefore would be illegal (Project Shamrock, Project Minaret, HTLINGUAL, MKUltra, the Warren Report incident, etc.) since what the CIA can do on US soil is supposed to be VERY limited and the FBI is supposed to take the lead especially when it involves US citizens on US soil.
Other than that, I’ve got nothing to add other than to just agree. :)
[Expects to read many long paragraphs of legal insights, instead finds:]
Are… are you okay? Do you need us to bring chicken soup or stage a daring rescue? ;)
I can’t help it. Everything jdreyfuss said was correct except that ONE minor thing, so I was robbed of making a very long legal diatribe with a bunch of links and citations to laws and cases.
Dangit.
PS – yes I would still like some chicken soup. It’s freaking cold here.
So, we agree that law enforcement agencies are allowed to do things that would normally be considered illegal if used to stop a criminal or criminal suspect? Good, just checking
And, like said: crashing into someone at high speeds is, technically, illegal (it’s why the perp tends to either go to jail or face hefty court costs, or both)
Just want to throw something into a point made in the “author notes” regarding other races and such.
‘If high elves live to 1,000 and don’t start puberty till they’re 45, then the 18 year old age of consent we’ve arbitrarily picked for ourselves simply wouldn’t apply.’
The above statement is pulled from the “Author Notes” and heres the rebuttal for it.
1: Heres the thing. Looking after children is a bitch. Like a super big problem. Moreso for LONG periods of time. Thus the concept that a lot of people seem to have of fantasy races with long lives having extended growth periods falls flat in any biological means of the idea of child rearing and growth of a species. Looking after a group of children for any period of time over a few years runs risks of endangerment to the child, loss of production from the community in care and a insufficent intake of food and living needs over their production. Thus the idea that a Long Lived race having an extended childhood (As in human growth childhood) wouldn’t work when taking things into reality.
2: Long lived races such as Elves, Dwarves, etc. They lived around Humans as well and it wasn’t uncommon for an Elf to grow up alongside a Human in many fantasy novels. They age generally to their physical prime at a normal rate, then from there they experiance an expanded growth of prime before reaching a stage of aging that would be akin to being 30-40 in a human. An example I have used in my PnP has been something like this.
A Human is a Young Adult from 13 – 20
A Dwarf is a Young Adult from 13 – 60
An Elf is a Young Adult from 13 – 80
3: Now the next problem is this ‘puberty’ statement. Heres the thing. Are we talking about the age of which we start to see another in a sexual light, as in to reproduce or for pleasure? If thats the case then it in itself would cause problems in the race’s ability to intermingle with other races in just social light. Though in cases of same race social views, yes an Elf at 45 might be considered a Child by an Elf of 200+ but to a human, an Elf at 45 looks like they are a late teen early adult. If its about reproduction, then the idea that a long live race having something similar to a Estrous cycle (Only produce offspring at certain times) just makes them more like animals than a humaniod.
There are a few other problems which gets all iky to talk about, having deleated much that I felt was TMI but in the end my statement is this.
Races age from youth at similar rate to a human, it is when a race reaches its prime does the extended years come into play. It difficult thing to make a key stage of puberty for a long lived races due racial mingling that is common in fantasy, thus putting a ‘later’ Estrous cycle for these races would clash against their capabilies to socialize. The only time a Long Lived race is considered a Child while in their prime, would be from others of their Race at the mid to late frame of their lives.
I don’t necessarily agree with the idea that longer-lived humanoid species would be at a disadvantage if they had proportionally long childhoods. It’s pretty well established that part of what enables humans to be as socially and individually complex as we are is our extended infancy and childhood periods. We reach full biological maturity in our early to mid twenties, spending over a quarter of our lifespans as juveniles. Yes, we reach basic (though not complete) sexual maturity several years before then, but our brains continue to develop beyond that point. There’s no reason to believe that other humanoids wouldn’t have a similarly extended maturation timeline.
There are plenty of creators who do have different fantasy races/species maturing on different timelines based on their life spans. There’s no particular reason members of different races couldn’t socialize despite this; there would be a social assumption that children would socialize with others of their developmental level, finding new playmates as they age out.
There’s also no reason to have to bring estrus or menstruation into the picture, since menstruation certainly doesn’t mean someone is no longer a child. People with uteri usually reach menarche before they are actually physically ready to conceive and give birth. I, for instance, had my first period at age 10. Obviously, I was nowhere close to being mentally or physically ready to give birth at that age. Not to mention, that framing ignores half the population (unless you’re talking about succubi, obviously) so it’s not super useful.
You do know, that, as early as one hundred years ago, childhood was much much sorter, and the idea of teenagers didn’t start until around the middle of the 20th Century
As soon as a ‘child’ was physically old enough, they were working or breeding (unless you were ‘Gentry’, and then you were just working on {in}breeding)
It’s possible you’ve read different fiction than I have, but I also know people who’ve read the same stuff I did and missed points. I’ve read quite a few things where an elf kid moves into a community with a bunch of humans, and “grows up with” one of those humans. But the elf kid starts out 5-10 years old, at the time as the human is just a baby. 15 years later, they’ve “grown up together”, but they’re clearly different. The elf is more mature mentally, which is no surprise because they’re older. The human is more mature sexually – they’ve just gotten to the point in puberty where it’s no longer this confusing experience. And the elf is just starting that.
Also note that if an elf lives for 1000 years, and finishes puberty around 45, and a human lives for 100 years, and finishes puberty at 12… the elf *has* matured proportionately faster. Depending on the author, elves are considered an adult at 50 to 200, for a species that lives between about 800 years and indefinitely. Percentages may make it more obvious. With a life expectancy of around 70-80 years (because, let’s face it, few humans in fantasy stories live to the generally considered max age), a human spends about 20% of their life as a minor. With a life expectancy of around 1000, because elves tend to really live that long in these stories, the elf spends 5-10% of their life as a minor. Or at the other end, maybe they spend 200 years as a minor, but that’s less than 1% of their lifespan.
Wow. Someone who plays PnP! Is that the Powers and Perils from Avalon Hill? If so, something to consider: their elves are from another dimension where time moves much more quickly – one of their years is something like 10 years in the Middle World. When they move to the Middle World, they age with respect to the passage of time in their homeland, which is now much slower. GMs are supposed to consider Elves as new arrivals to the Middle World, so they have comparable experience to humans with the same effective age, because they’re effectively the same age. Player characters are supposed to start out as adults, because if they’re not yet, and they’re from a race from a particularly time distorted area of the lower or upper worlds, they may not be an adult for a really long time.
Note that my Powers & Perils books were revision 1, and I understand that there’s a lot of things that have changed since then. I don’t really understand what those are, just like I don’t really get much of what happened to D&D since 2nd ed, apart from the fact that AC was fixed and suddenly little dog men became little lizard men for no apparent reason.
I don’t know why, but Sydney’s eyes in that last panel look like they’re trying to escape her head they’re bulging so much. I think it’s just the different style presentation, because her eyes have been bugging me off and on during this whole bar-arc.
It’s possibly because she doesn’t have her glasses to trick you into thinking they are magnifying her eyes
It’s the shading at the bottom of her left eyeball – it makes the eye look like it’s bulging out of her head. The dark makeup under the eye pushes this effect even further.
“…the 18 year old age of consent we’ve arbitrarily picked for ourselves…”
Implies that there’s no reasoning behind the age of consent at all. Which would also mean that the rest of the sentence would make no sense either, as the nonexistent reasoning for us would still be nonexistent if applied (or rather not applied due to failure of existence) to high elves.
If, as it is actually in reality, there is a reasoning (too much science on mental development to post here) behind why most developed countries set the age of consent at roughly 18 years, the same reasoning would obviously lead to different numbers for species with a different life cycle, which is probably what you had in mind.
Not to mention that the whole concept of ‘age of concent’ is a relatively new one.
For most of history maturity and puberty were treated as near synomymous. 14 year old boys could, and frequently would, be treated as sufficiently adult.
And of course the notion of concent did not apply to women or girls anyway. They had no rights and certainly no bodily integrity. Her body and her reproductive capability belonged to her father and then to the man she was effectively sold to. (Most western countries treated rape as a property crime against the woman’s father or oldest close male relative well into the 20th century. With full biblical blessing too.)
I am aware that the law as practiced in these cases started to diverge from the law as written by the second half of the 19th century, under pressure from the suffragettes. On the other hand, a lot of what we now think of as barbaric laws and practices were still enforced in the mid 1970s, so that divergence was slow and small until fairly recently. In 1979 the idea to cast a woman in a leading role in a horror action movie was so outlandish that the studio almost cancelled the project over it and threatened to destroy the career of Ridley Scott. Female authors were still routinely forced to assume a male alias because the publishers were convinced that a female author writing on ‘male’ subject, would prevent men from buying their books. I suppose it was a step up from the practice two decades earlier where female authors had to assume a male alias to trick the publishers into accepting them in the first place. When Anita Hill testified against Clarence Thomas in 1991 it was no longer openly said but still heavily implied that accepting sexual harassment and intimidation by a male superior was the ‘price’ women had to pay if they wanted to have a job instead of staying at home. Christina Ford testifying against Brett Kavanaugh makes it abundantly clear that things have not changed a great deal in the three decades since.
… well, how did that soap box appear under my feet without me noticing it …
Anyway, the age of concent is a relatively new notion that is indeed arbitrary and rather unevenly enforced. As is the age of maturity.
I mean in the USA you can legally operate a two ton death machine at age 16, can get married at 18 (or in some states as young as 14 though that surprisingly enough only ever seems to apply to girls, and in a few other states it is 19 or 21) and you need to be at least 21 years old to be allowed to drink alcohol and enter places where alcohol is sold. Oh, and guns have no age limit at all.
A bit weird and arbitrary set of rules and laws…
“…the 18 year old age of consent we’ve arbitrarily picked for ourselves…” – DaveB
“Implies that there’s no reasoning behind the age of consent at all.” – Aphotep
Not necessarily. Most countries have a similar concept, and most pick an age in the upper teens to draw a line. That sharp cut-off doesn’t accurately reflect the reality, either of the relatively gradual maturation of each individual or the variation in timing and speed of that process between individuals, but it’s a lot clearer – for all involved – than trying to account for individual development, and when writing laws clarity is key. What age to use for the cut-off is effectively an arbitrary choice, as is the number and nature of exception clauses (be those officially part of the law or unofficially in the guidance of prosecution/sentencing).
Boosting drink sales? May I introduce you to Gramilian sand pea’s? Or basically anything that would encourage you to smile at me?
Do.. do they not have internet on Tamantha’s planet?
I have a feeling that she got somehow dumped on Earth at a very early age and has been surviving on her own for quite some time. Which is kind of sad.
No, she was raised by a loving, and possibly overprotective, couple
And remember, Tammy is 14 in 2011, home computer ownership still wasn’t nearly as prolific as it is now, not to mention, dialup was still the prevailing system in many places (for some, it still is)
Plus they probably limited her internet usage. Or had a V chip equivalent on the computer. :)
I seriously doubt Decollete needed to use any sort of mind control magic to get those guys to buy drinks when she has those two hypno orbs right in front of her.
She did need to use mind control –to push them to go AWAY from the “hypno orbs” as you put it long enough for them to talk privately. With Tamatha, she just pointed out a light snack.
It might be funny if the reason for the privacy was to give the ‘shovel talk’ to Sydney over Tamatha –IE “Don’t you think of hurting my sweet little girl or there is a shovel and shallow grave in your future.”
Deco is not Tammy’s mother, just her mentor (and if she threatened Sydney, she would have to worry about her succubus mentor)
All this talk about age of consent and fantasy races got me remembering an episode of Star Trek: Voyager, and it’s… well, just keep reading:
So, in the show, the crew befriend Kes, an Ocompa. The Ocompa apparently only live for like, a decade, and go from toddler to adult within like, 1-2 years. Anyway, there’s this “What if future” episode that shows the crew some 5 years in the future (well, further into the future, you know what I mean), and it shows that Kes (now looking a bit older iirc) hooked up with Tom Paris, and they had a daughter, and now Harry Kim is dating this “Adult” 2-or-3-year-old!
And apparently NO ONE has a problem with this! They even JOKE about it!
So, clearly, this is an extreme case, but thought it was worth mentioning, if just because of how farked up it is!
So basically out-of-step aging is a great way to introduce narrative conflict.
Ocampa also apparently only had single child in whole life. Which means they would go extinct very quickly. Someone didn’t do the math.
Only if they breed with their own race
So basically out-of-step aging is a great way to introduce narrative conflict.
Dang it. That was to the above comment.
That’s OK. We all understand that sometimes comments have a mind of their own and go wherever they damn well please.
have to say this:
enjoying storyline. enjoying overall direction.
but HATING new sydney.
as a long time reader:
colouring looks.. creepy. drawing also looks like some other completely random artist drew her.
please bring back Dave the artist!
Remember: Sydney has had a makeover (some would consider it a makeunder) so as not to look like, well, herself
ps/ colouring for everything else looks awesome.
it’s just sydney that looks horrible :(
I realize you said the mini succubus was only a cameo but I think she needs to stay around she is to adorable to go, and has great character potential.
I agree with this fine individual.
What do you mean I’m biased
If Dave wants to keep her around and the community likes her, would you allow/like Tamatha to be a recurring character?
I’m not thinking main cast, but available as a plot hook or other just someone to throw in when a young, supernatural character not directly associated with a major organization is needed. Maybe she shows up at a Mighty Halo fan event and says hi to her.
I mean, yeah? I’d be totally down with that. It sounds awesome frankly.
Not holding my breath, but if Dave decides he wants to do that I’d not say no.
That actually would be pretty cool. I like the character :).
In Schlock Mercenary, there was a “cameo” of the webcomic artist Gav in 2002. He is still a recurring character (or rather characters) today, over 17 years later and has had an entire arc prominently featuring him. Maybe Tamatha can get some extra longevity if people like her.
There’s members of the main cast that we don’t see for six months or even years. More regulars are not needed.
I’d like to see her become one of the regulars at Halo’s Comic Emporium.
Someone you sometimes see in the background talking to Olivia.
Or an employee, that would work without shoehorning her too abruptly into the main sphere of the characters.
Top off might have been a better choice. It took me couple minutes and a reread to get that it didnt mean something “else”.
Hey Dave, from one ADD to another — relevant article!!
The New Formula to Calculate Your Dog’s Age in Human Years
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/math/a29830394/dog-years-human-years/
Some really interesting stuff on DNA methylation to measure rates of maturation across species.
Some people don’t think things through before posting.
Would somebody explain to me why my one month old pup is supposed to be considered -8.75 years old?
Oh, right, it’s because they failed at math and research.
Pro tip: if you want to figure out how something works for dogs at all points in their lives, you need to look at dogs at all points in their lives.
Don’t be fooled, Sidney! … Decollete memorized the shape of your … well, your everything when you met before.