Grrl Power #835 – Recruitment
One of Max’s unofficial super powers is “super” hearing. Not super hearing, like, hearing Lois Lane calling for help from across metropolis, or Daredevil level lie detection via eavesdropping on heart rate. She just has… better than usual hearing. So she might have heard more of that conversation between Dabbler and Anvil than us. Of course, Dabbler has pretty good hearing herself. Just look at the size of her ears. So maybe Anvil was talking real low.
Some of you are questioning Anvil’s choice of Deus for this fix up, and that gets addressed in a bit, but it’s just an opportunity thing for Anvil. Max is meeting with Deus no matter what Anvil does, so Anvil is trying to encourage Max to up her social game while she’s out. She’s of the opinion that it’s been so long since Max flirted with someone, that if she does it at all, she’ll go up two or three levels. She might not be wrong. Honestly, I haven’t decided if this is all a setup for Max to try and flirt, only to be apocalyptically bad at it or not.
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I know I’m not first, but this is as early as I’ve ever been.
And somehow you still got it wrong.
Right? I should go to bed, get some rest.
It only counts, if the first post is about the posted page, to show that you actually read the page and commenting on that, rather than simply making a post to be ‘first’, as such, that honour goes to Horse below
BoldStupid of you to assume I didn’t read it. I mean, why would you? How long does it takeyou to read so few words?Snotty of you to assume I didn’t read it first. Why would you? How long does it take you to read so few words?
Why would you assume I didn’t read it before commenting?
Because you didn’t comment on it
Sorry about the triple post.
Understandable: they didn’t show up, did they? :)
I just figure Anvil told Dabbler to dial it down, be subtle and let Max warm up gradually into this.
…And Anvil’ll let Dabbler slap her on the ass as hard as she likes for a reward… Not like it’ll hurt Anvil.
or Anvil will slap Dabbler on the ass. Dabbler obviously responds well to Anvil pulling her hair hard enough to lift her off the ground.
i’m glad i’m not the only one who noticed this!
Another way has been found to give Dabbler a reward!
Perhaps in Succbi all pain that is below the “permanent damage” level is registered as pleasure. It would make sense in a evolutionary way. Also “ultra stupid bimbo response” may be part of her fight/flight mechanism.
The question will be more how does Deus decide to play it. We know he plans mind games and long term.
That and to get into the pants of as many females as he can, but no idea if he just enjoys the conquest or is secretly making a large harem on that side.
And no I don’t think his current bloodthirsty secretary is on that “Get into skirt/pants” list yet…or even on his radar for that.
I think it’s more about Species, at least 1 of each Species he can…
Um, should I be worried about him wanting to put Cybertronian on his list? Cause I’m not into Males, I’m all about the Ladies..
And Daniel the Human is laughing at me…
I guess we’ll find out of the band The Cybertronic Spree ever tours in Galytn. XD
Insofar as Cybertronians even have sex/gender, at least a few of them seem to be female. Come to think of it, the wild imbalance might help explain why they’re always fighting…
NO! I get to be the female Cybertronian! NO, I DO! (battle ensues)
The bloodthirsty secretary isn’t in his sights because it would be too easy. Deus is one of those guys who find the challenge to be arousing. He wants to add Max to his list of conquests precisely because she is a challenge.
Why would you assume that they have never had sex? It is canon that Deus and Maxima dated. That word can have different meanings to different people, but to me someone I’ve dated was at least a few months relationship and almost certainly means that we got to the sheets stage. Someone I went out with one or a few times to see if we were compatible before moving along isn’t “someone I’ve dated.”
That’s one way to “pick-up” on the conversation.
Think Dabbler can “rise” to the accord reached?
That’s “up” to Dave, I just hope he doesn’t leave us “hanging” too long.
Dazzler’s up for anything, I see.
It also took 8 minutes for my browser to get today’s strip. Patreon had it first. Some host has to look into caching issues.
Joe, clean your cache, that tends to speed up browser
I doubt very much he’s still using Firefox 1.x. Modern browsers on modern boxes have decent cache management, even Edge and (Google) Chrome.
Much more likely is the comic server is getting congested, or is routing through a congested backbone.
It’s not a browser issue. It’s all about caching on the hosting side.
That sounds like a weird drug side effect. “Users may experience congested backbone. If your Coccyx is affected for more that 4 hours, please see a doctor.” “
My headcanon is that unexpectedly Anvil kissed Dabbler in panel 7 to shut her up, which is why she looks so out of sorts in panel 9.
I seriously doubt Max will try flirting with Deus. But a target of opportunity might be on offer. And flirting with someone else around Deus would really get under his skin. I vote she meets a likely guy and cuts Deus’s interview short to go have coffee or drinks with him/her. Have we established Max’s preferences yet?
Sorry that wasn’t meant to be a reply to you. Sometimes I suck at texting. It was meant to be a lone comment must have touch something and didn’t notice.
Max’s preferences—-Hiro. Don’t forget how much they’ve been sorta, kinda, not really, but really, flirting with eachother since at least as early as the fights against the giant golem that declothed them. The fact that he is her direct subordinate is the only thing stopping their relationship, but considering I remember him being second in command to her, their ranks are super close, and this group isn’t a perfect mock-up of a military, they might be able to bypass that ‘issue’ eventually. And I think it really is an eventuality, barring a weird and out of place rom-drama event where Hiro finds another girl that isn’t in ranks and breaks Max’s heart in the process.
Don’t believe Hiro is Maxi’s ‘preference’, just… she likes him
And it doesn’t matter if Hiro also a Lt Col, he is her second-in-command, and as such, her subordinate and thus ‘off-limits’
While Maxi may be attracted to Hiro, that doesn’t mean she is in love with him, so no broken hearts when he moves in with Stalwart
The superior-subordinate issue may be easily solved once Arc-Swat splits in multiple teams due to ongoing recruitment of more members, and Max and Hiro get separate teams to command. If you ask me, concerns about power imbalance between superior and subordinate, questionable as they are in the first place if taken absolutely when romance genuinely blossoms, are not really appropriate for superteams where leadership usually is a strict consensus construct due to the huge personal power each individual packs. Moreover, Archon inevitably is a Mildly Military organization at best since strict military discipline is unenforceable on supers. When Arianna once inquired about Max and Hiro dating, she spoke as if it was a mildly scandalous contingency she was prepared to accept. But admittedly Max and Hiro are steeped enough in their professional military backgrounds and gripped in a dutiful mindset that the usual rules against fraternization may unfortunately have gotten ingrained in them.
One rule for humans, another for supers to rule them…
Archon is not only supers. There are unaugmented humans serving there as well. Also, not all supers are equal… Or should we say some supers are more equal than others?
Archon has every right to expect the old-fashioned restrictive authoritarian way to continue unblemished: it works, so it won’t be fixed.
It works for now, because Archon is employing the admittedly effective short-term strategy of drowning supers in money, fam, and privileges to distract them from the unnaturalness of the inferior species commanding the superior one with no effective means of enforcement besides collaborationist supers.
In the long term, however, it is a wholly unstable equilibrium that can only evolve in a few ways (not necessarily mutally exclusive): supers evolve into the new aristocracy; they outbreed humans and/or artificial means of making them are used until mankind evolves into a superpowered species; supers tire out of taking orders from their inferiors and stage a coup. I am thoroughly persuaded the days of society as we know it get numbered once supers of Max’s power level start appearing.
Perhaps the only effective strategy that can allow a sufficiently stable medium-term coexistence between the two species until supers can peacefully outbreed and replace normals, is to treat supers (or at least the most powerful ones that can effortlessly crush armies) like independent nations.
Supers are not a separate species
…Yet.
Take a gander at The Boys, where The Deep coerced Starlight into performing oral on him by saying that he was second in command (he wasn’t, but she didn’t know this at the time as it was her first day on the team) and that he’d have her removed from the team if she didn’t. Starlight could kill The Deep without any trouble at all in a fight, he isn’t even a minor threat to her. Personal power is not the only thing at play in a sexual harassment situation, threats against employment, reputation, income, etc. are all part of how these things play out.
“The superior-subordinate issue may be easily solved once Arc-Swat splits in multiple teams due to ongoing recruitment of more members, and Max and Hiro get separate teams to command.” – Irioth
That’s a temporary fix at best, even if it is technically permissible, and I’m not sure that the situation would arise. Once numbers reach a level where there are multiple fieldable teams, there arises a need for a ‘Head of Operational Division’ to co-ordinate these teams and be a single contact point between them and the other divisions. While it’s possible that a Baseline human or one of the lower-ranked Supers might take that role in order to keep Maxima nearer to the sharp end, I expect it to be more likely that Maxima gets promoted as the new ‘Head of Ops’ while Hiro and others of his level take the individual team commands. Not only does that keep Maxima in overall command, but it puts her in a reserve position able to reinforce whichever team needs the firepower. The fact that it still puts Maxima and Hiro in the same chain of command is unlikely to carry much weight with whoever makes the assignments.
Kenya is one to talk about being subtle while holding Xuriel off the floor by her head? That’s subtle? That subtle is about as subtle as a brick to the side of the head.
Oops. By her hair. Subtle difference.
Kenya was so close to getting Maxima to wear something other than fatigues for a social meeting. Dabbler’s bull-in-a-china-shop meddling managed to undo all her hard work in an instant.
It’s nothing to do with subtlety, that’s Kenya royally pissed.
Add to that Kenya’s Max’s best friend.
I think its both, Kenya was having fun playing dress up(trying to get her friend out of her shell) and Dabbler came in too loud scaring off her prey.
Unfortunately Dabbler likes it hard and often so obviously never needed to stalk her prey.
Your post is generally correct, except Maxima was never going to wear fatigues to her meeting with Deus. She was going to wear her dress uniform, which is perfectly appropriate for fine dining, black tie, etc.
It was meant that way, it’s the only thing Dabbler understands.
Yeah, “subtlety” does not seem to be a word that features prominently in Dabbler’s vocabulary.
That’s a pretty good shot of max in panel 8.
It almost looks like there’s a vein popping out on her brow.
Is Maxi unhappy she can’t do that to Dabbles? She looks bereft, a little girl told she’s not allowed to have that triple-choc ice-cream cone she was offered…
Even so, she certainly rocks the “Mad Max(ima) look.
Shes not MAD and barely into the angry, miffed perhaps?
Miffed?
Yes, Miffed.
I would most definitely say she is very miffed at the moment.
A Maximally Miffed Maxima, would you say?
If there is still time to affect thursday’s comic.
Please do NOT make Max apocalyptically bad at flirting.
For reasons better explained in the Overly Sarcastic Productions episode ‘manly men’ in their Trop Talks series. Where they make a little sidestep into the dangers of writing stereotypical manly men characteristics into a female lead in a leadership role (over men).
If you want to play the ‘not a date’ for comedy, why not play up the TWTIHFB angle? Given her beauty and exotic looks Max must have plenty of bitter experience with men who hit on her for no other reason than that she is uniquely exotic. Being the strident feminist that she is that must grate on her nerves.
Between Deus being his usual smug self, his little book of ‘conquests’, Maxima, Vale and the Alaran personal assistant plus Kenya and her date there should be plenty of oppurtunity for any mini story you could care to tell. Including ones where she actually flirts with Deus only to shoot him down, or flirts with Vale (who I am sure would be quite amused by that), or does not flirt at all. I can not quite see Max do a Black Widow style interrogation (but she agreed to the meeting because she wants to interrogate him about the things he hinted at in that interview), What I can very easily see is that Max is actually quite good at the social game, she is after all a lt. Colonel and you do not get to that rank without showing the ability to play politics, and you do not get promoted higher if you can not display the ability to deal with clueless politicians and ruthless CEOs). The comedy can come from the other characters, or from the circumstances surrounding them, or even from Deus (I mean, we all love the smug bastard characters, but we love them getting slapped down even more :) )
I thought the reference was to Deus being apocalyptically bad at flirting.
Thanks for saying what I was thinking. Max did not get where she is by being bad at flirting, she’s just sick of being looked at as Female, Hot, and Exotic by men who only had sex on their mind. Give her someone who sees her as more than just a hot body, and she’ll be happy to flirt and see where it goes.
But… I doubt Dues is that man.
Well, Max does not consider him so.
Deus does see her as more than a hot body.
He sees her as a conquest, a challenge of mind, body, and soul, and he is INTO that.
Yeah, SmugD doesn’t care about what the prize is, he just wants it, after that, he no longer cares
He doesn’t view Maxi as a person, just as an acquisition he wants and that he has so far not managed to get, which makes him even more determined to have her
Simultaneously the smartest person on earth while having the social skills and common sense of a horny teenager.
The only person to claim Dabbles is the ‘smartest person on earth’ is… Dabbles
Good point.Specially given that shes by far not the only supernatural/alien lifeform on the planet so the chances of her being anything more than slightly above average for her age intelligence wise are extremely low.Even her heroname sums her intelligence up-shes a Dabbler- She knows a wide range of random things but compared to any specialist shes probably so far behind it hurts.
Well, Xuriel has a good claim to be one of the smartest people on Earth if the comparison gets to be normal humans. Not many are able to match her achievements as a polymath scientist/engineer/wizard, although quite possibly a few can match her in single fields. On the other hand, if superpowers can enhance intelligence they way they do other abilities, in all likelihood supers exist that are as brilliant or more so. It seems too early to tell if there are any alien or supernatural races that are smarter than demons (are there any ‘traditional’ supernatural breeds that are famous for their brainpower?).
As it concerns her having the social skills and common sense of a horny teenager, this is especially appropriate for her race at some stage of development, and past a point she gave up the development of social refinement means typical for her kind to pursue the path of omnidisciplinary technomagical gadgeteer and jill-of-all-trades adventurer. It is quite possible that in the same situation a more refined succubus such as Decollete would play a wholly different game. In the scenes they shared, Max and Decollete hardly talked, so I’d curious to see how they would deal with each other.
You are forgetting Gadget
Admittedly I am not mindful of them in this quite large cast. Are we perhaps talking about the blonde gal once seen working in a lab with Dabbler, the dwarf guy that once inquired Sydney about the forest fire she caused experimenting with the Pew-Pew orb, or someone else entirely?
Gadget is the head of Arc-Sparq (the one seen with Dabbles in the lab, before Dabbles got distracted by her porno-sense going off)
Thank you for reminding me of Lucas George, he’s probably up there in intelligence as well
So she should do pretty well playing Jeopardy! A wide variety of topics might just suit her. Just stay away from “Idioms” or “European History”. She might be able to work things out, but unless she has already thought about it, she will be too slow to answer many questions/answers. “Hmm, disastrous British cavalry attack on the Crimean Peninsula? That projects into the Black Sea, south of the Ukraine. When would British troops have been in that area?” [ Hears another contestant ] “Indeed, what is the Charge of the Light Brigade? What is a Light Brigade in the first place?”
Does jeopardy have a “battery operated personal accessories” category?
If you’ve ever associated with (or been one) high IQ teens, not an usual combination. Raw intellectual horsepower doesn’t do squat to tone down hormones, it just gives you fewer peers to learn social interactions with.
Of course, she’s hardly a teenager. She’s just a succubus living in an all you can eat buffet where she’s not allowed to try most of the dishes… Probably very frustrated.
That, and perhaps she got fixated at the succubus stage of teenager development to some degree. She apparently dropped out of succubus finishing school to pursue the path of techno-magical gadgeteer and jill-of-all-trades adventurer. An admirable choice that maybe left her a bit lacking in social graces and subtlety for the adult standards of her species (cfr. Decollete).
Silly Anvil. Everyone knows you’re supposed to grab by the roots of the hair.
That’s why Dabbles looks like she’s had a bucket of cold water over her :)
The fact that Maxi is not going out in any of those outfits is even more reason to let Dabbles stay
Please tell me it’s possible to Anvil’s boots
Possible to get Anvil’s boots
I’ve seen loose fit faux leather boots, though they were in brown not black, but that definitely implies it should be possible.
They are sold under the ‘Dread Pirate Roberts’ collection at the Davy Jones Locker footwear stores.
Sweet, thank you :D
Wait, was that a slip of Maxi’s tongue, or did you just say she would wear an actual dress? o_O
‘My mess dress’, as in mess dress uniform.
Difficult to say. As in “We dress for dinner” but the blokes put on daks with shirt & tie, the sheillas put on frocks…
I have heard of “Dress” as in “Mess dress” and “Dress Uniform”, both “Neatly pressed daks and clean shirt with tie and gongs”.
Mess Dress is a formal military uniform. She’s air force, so think “blue tuxedo” and you’re pretty close.
ARC mess dress is purple-ish, but pretty much the same thing.
Found a shot of Max in Dress Uniform if you aren’t sure what that term means, but I’m thinking Max’s “Mess Dress” is what she took Sydney flight speed training in. Can’t find it right now tho…
She is wearing a stand red “office uniform” in your link. Just Google air force mess dress to get an idea of what hers would look like. Though hers would most likely have trousers in place of a skirt.
Mess Dress Uniforms are usually white tuxedo style uniforms… with long tails
Department of Navy Mess Dress are white as are Coast Guard dress uniforms.
Army’s formal uniform is Green, and the Marine Corps has it’s Dress Blues, which you do not want to wear marching in parades.
The Air Force has been trying out new designs for several years, but still just has a fairly generic Dress Uniform which looks somewhat like a blue version of the Army dress uniform.
Okay, just noticed that Anvil cut her off, so she was probably about to say “… uniform.”
Still like the idea Anvil and Dabbles had her so flustered she was going to wear a dress :D
When Deus and Maxima finally get together,can anyone here imagine what the conversation will be about!?!?
It’ll consist mostly of Max threatening to kill Deus, and Deus saying stuff that makes her want to kill him.
Later, the conversation will be on constant loop in Arianna’s office next to the popcorn machine.
My guess at least half of the people in Arc SWAT are behind this
There’s a betting pool.
And “Make Maxima wear” cards?
Also “Battle Hookers” needs to be a real game.
“furoticon” is almost battle hookers, it is a card game where the object is to use your harem to overcome your opponents’ harem boink them into exhaustion.
There are thousands of online games that are just that.
Because the developers (or rather their creepy marketing guys) still cling to the disproven notion that it will sell more games, and make the rubes spend more money on predatory microtransactions.
Nobody came up with the idea, yet, to actually call a game that, though.
Yeah, they use skimpy-girls to draw people in, but even the ones that are all about the sexy tend to have a decent gameplay
I get the feeling Deus is more interested in Max for her wit and challenge than her powers. I think she represents more than a ‘conquest’ to him. Sex would only be a consolation prize. I feel like he wants her acceptance more than anything else.
Remember the way he was pawing her picture after the press conference (unless that was Max’ idea of his reaction)?
Would Deus actually be stupid enough to try to kidnap her for some nefarious purpose?
… Yes, if he thought he could get away with it
For someone like Deus, finding genuine companionship must be hard.
One way to get Max interested in acting less rigid could be telling her that, when dealing with someone like Deus, there is such a thing as social weaponry. She doesn’t have to be a girly girl to use his narcissism against him.
Honestly, as a business meeting, representing the U.S. military… She should go in military Dress uniform, whatever that is for ARCHON. I’m sure any venue’s dress code would allow such. Plus it would put Deus off foot.
I Dunno What Deus is playing at but I strongly suspect this is more about putting Maxima off foot than trying to get in her pants. He might play upto the dating part of it or such, but it’ll all be part of the plant to keep Maxima off her game.
…Alternatively, he wants the rumour mill to run hot by appearing to be on a date with Maxima because publicity will help his other goals in some way.
In spite of her constant attempts to get under Maxima’s skin {and/or pants}, Dabbler still has a lot of respect for her {which i’m pretty sure is mutual} and woe betide anyone who tries to hurt her if Xuriel knows about it.
I mean, bugging Max and keeping her from getting stodgy is Dabbler’s exclusive remit.
It does me good to see someone tell Dabbler to knock that shit off. Grownups are trying to live their lives over here!
I see Anvil is a purveyor of the “correct way to talk to short people” memes!
It is important to lift them to your level.
Panel 5: Go figure that Dabbler’s excited. She likes getting her hair pulled, although it’s usually from behind…
In panel 6, Anvil’s knee looks way too close to her ankle. I thought maybe it was the transition from muscle to tendon, but she doesn’t have that particular calf profile.
I see her gastrocnemius outer lobe and a bit of the soleus, both being well developed and since apparently nobody besides Sydney and Dabbs has any subcutaneous fat other than Comically Large Breasts both muscles are easily seen under the skin.
I find I like Kenya more, and more. I honestly envy the guy who can keep her attention now-because I know I wouldn’t be able to do it, but he’s gotta be one amazing dude.
I still reckon the bloke who will get her complete attention will be volunteering at the local animal shelter and owns the ugliest dog in town.
Would having a psychologically (had to spell that 1 slowly!) damaged dog that had a rough start to life count? Cause then Daniel the Human might be in the running… :P
…And I have to wrap this up quickly before he sees this…
Yorp doesn’t look damaged…
Yorp? No idea about Yorp, but Daniel the Human has a dog that was almost beaten to death by the family she was born into, literally rescued from death by a stranger, cared by another then given to him. She can be a bit weird, licks everything randomly and used to dig holes like a Constructicon, but Daniel the Human seems rather attached to her…
Sadly, it is true that some alleged humans should not be permitted even to look after cockroaches. “The more I see of humans, the more I like my dog” (Choose your own source, it seems to be impossibly ancient.)
Happily… I think… dogs give total loyalty to those who care for them — as opposed to merely provide basic necessities. It can be a bit annoying when your mutt continually tries to herd you away from your fellow humans.
Maybe your ‘mutt’ is trying to tell you something about your fellow humans, or at least those ones
It has been known.
Max wants to try out flirting, LIGHTLY, and not especially with Deus, but maybe just enough to tease more info from him. Deus doesn’t believe in “lightly” and will try to blow any sign of flirting far out of proportion, keeping Max on the defensive.
Honestly, someone needs to tell Anvil that she’s being VERY inappropriate here. Now, I actually like Deus – everything we’ve seen of him so far indicates that he’s less a villain and more an ambitious would-be champion of humanity. So far the only person he’s actually killed was an African warlord who stood between Deus and the people he wanted to help. But… Maxima doesn’t like him, their relationship is tense and complicated, and Anvil is pointedly ignoring Maxima’s expressly stated wishes in order to push her own desires.
Seriously, imagine this with different characters, in a different setting. Maxima as a fantasy world princess, Anvil as the parent telling her, “oh, you’ll look LOVELY in this dress for your official date with Lord Deus!”
Maxima: “You mean Dark Lord Deus?”
Anvil: “Oh, this one is perfect! Yes, you’ll certainly send his pulse racing…”
Maxima: “I do not like Deus. I do not wish to court him. I have no interest in him as a suitor.”
Anvil: “Oh, let’s get this ribbon for your hair – oh, we might just be looking at a “six month pregnancy!” Teehee!”
Maxima: “I find his repulsive! I am turned off by his moral code, his personality, and his tendency to confuse servants with whores!”
Anvil: “All I hear is the sound of wedding bells… mmhmmhmmm… off I go, being a matchmaker, spreading joy and happiness… yes, those are tears of joy I leave in my wake…”
(Also, I really like Anvil too… but she IS in the wrong here. Someone needs to tell her, “CHILL. It’s a professional meeting with someone Maxima dislikes, and who should not be given any mixed signals. You want to help Maxima’s social life, find her someone she can date who she would actually LIKE.”)
The difference here is that while a parent or officer has power over someone, anvil is only Max’s friend, so I assume if max actually was uncomfortable enough that she didn’t want to do this truly, anvil would stop. Sometimes friend push friends to do things they are trying to avoid. In this case dating ANYONE.
Exactly. An important part of what friends are for is to gently pressure friends to change their ways if they think is for their good. Before Deus’ situation showed up, Anvil was trying to persuade Max to a date, any date, after a year. Once Deus showed up on the horizon, she latched on the opportunity, but she hardly did anything more than trying to put Max in a nice dress. Everything else is up to Max.
The Max/Deus dynamic seems complex enough that I’m not going to make previsions about how it would evolve, in the coming meeting and beyond. However, if everyone that knows or observes them is making comments about unresolved romantic/sexual tension, there is in all evidence something about it. A person’s feelings about another person are not so rarely more complex than their conscious and spoken opinion.
Having said that, if you ask my opinion, so far the by far best potential romance option for Max seems Hiro. She appeared relaxed, comfortable, and of one mind at flirting with him and being reciprocated in a way unseen with anyone else. It would probably be best for her romantic/sexual fulfillment if he gets detached from her chain of command ASAP by splitting Arc-SWAT in multiple team and they become free to explore this romance option. Unfortunately, both of them seem too dutiful to date otherwise.
Does anyone here know what Deus’ back{ground|story} is? I suspect Archon doesn’t, so neither does Maxi.
Ignorance of origins is the root of caution, and Max is probably familiar with both Sun Tzu and Machiavelli.
I love that Catholic Schoolgirl in a porno outfit that Dabbler is wearing.
I like the surprised look on Dabbler’s face in panel 4.
you mean, normal hentai?
Considering Deus’ power may be telepathic reading of the women he sleeps with, he will put his AAA game into this.
And weirdly enough, as a long term thinker, not go for sleeping on the first night with Maxima if she’s just coming out of her bubble…
Bout time someone did that to Dabbler.
She’s basically the caricature someone would paint of a “sex positive” person if they wanted to make “sex positive” look bad.
it looks like she’s lifted off the ground then pinned to the wall body-to-body by Anvil. If you have even a tiny predilection towards dominant amazons that’s gonna ring some bells and push some buttons. Clearly just having that intention directed at dabbler is enough to get her started and the action itself overwhelms her enough to actually listen.
BTW, I love how Dabbler deals with the stocking issues caused by her feet being essentially two giant, sharp toenails by having leg sleeves with a toe-thong
?Spoiler?
I wonder can DaveB mention something time Deus appears? Or am I spoiling the plot?
Many commenters seem to think the character is “Dues”. His name is DEUS, pronounced “day us”. It means “a god” in Latin. That’s any god, not just your favourite one.
His corporation is called Machina, and he has an X on his face. It’s a reference to the phrase “deus ex machina.”
When people wrote plays in ancient Rome and Greece, they solved big story problems by flying in a god to work magic. They used a machine like a crane to lower the god actor onto the stage. In Latin, “god from the machine” is “deus ex machina”. *
Today, deus ex machina means a very unlikely solution for a problem that can’t be solved. Think of Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother.
*In ancient Greek, it was *theos ex mechne”
You’re certainly not spoiling anything by pointing out the reference. It’s been pointed out a thousand times already. I don’t know if the misreading problem is as severe as you imply, though. At the time I write this, my browser’s search function reports 31 instances of “deus” on this page; only two of them are from the comic author, and five more are from you, leaving 24 cases of a commenter aside from you spelling the name correctly. There are only two instances of “dues”, and one of them is you describing the mistake. So we’re doing pretty well so far.
I just assume that a commentator saying Dues instead of Deus is just one of those spellcheck issues.
Yeah, that was brought up when SmugD was first introduced
As you know , I follow the comic, but only drop into the comments irregularly.
The “Dues” thing comes in waves. I assume it’s by irregular contributors.
The deus ex machina references are very heavily flagged. It implies DaveB has a plan for Deus to do something which will shift the whole tenor of the comic.
Is Deus bad or good, or just amoral like the old gods?
Believe the ‘Dues’ thing is simply a typo
No flirty Max. Her dynamic with Deus up till now is Deus providing the “flirting” and Max taking a pass on it when not just shooting him down. Because she’s confident with that dynamic (and because she’s Max), any flirting on her part would be purely in her “presentation” while she acts businesslike and cooly accepts or shuts down his advances. His Deus, confidence-of-a-god advances.
Max can probably hear almost down to the audio level of atoms and molecules engaged in Brownian motion, if the environment is quiet enough. Unlike the rest of us, the hearing part of her ears are completely undamaged, because the hairs in Max’s cochlear are impervious to damage from loud noise, just like everything else about Max is virtually impossible to damage.
You know…most men find attractive women perfectly attractive in Airforce mess dress…
I believe I’m falling a little in love with Kenya over this arc.
Love the small differences you’ve been adding to her look. That last panel is so intriguing.
Dave, she has “superb” hearing.
Hypothesis: She has regular person hearing, its just NEVER been damaged. No gradual decline like most people would experience from regular living.
We of the Sexy Maxima conglomerate have come to an accord
‘Mess Dress’ and ‘Dress Uniform’ are two completely different things
Mess dress is derived from a Dress Uniform but it’s like comparing a tuxedo to a business suit
Most female officers have a full length skirt as part of theirs.
Since this is an alternate universe and a seperate organization,
maybe have ArcSWAT’s ‘mess Dress’ more Continental in style ?
Max might also want to talk to Harem before seeing how Deus ‘flirts’…
I think he doesn’t bother much with small talk…
I believe Max was in on the conversation Harem had trouble ‘focusing’ on ?
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-606-boring-meeting-try-orgasms-why-not/
Maxi typical prefers wearing the trousers (partially because she tends to fly)
Yeah, fairly sure Maxi knows about the Daphne’s and SmugD (personally believe that scene after Sci-fright ‘attacked’ was a ruse so SmugD wouldn’t be suspicious if Maxi didn’t comment on Abby being in SmugD’s office)