Grrl Power #962 – Pop gauntlet thrown?
They fixed the specularity, now to just add some subsurface scattering… and surface imperfections, and skin texture so she isn’t walking around looking like she has a photoshop gaussian blur filter on her, maybe some freckles. This choker won’t let them do anything like add that peach fuzz most people have, but I guess that varies pretty wildly from person to person, and also I suppose some women wax their whole face and arms and everything, so it’s not a dealbreaker. A few more tweaks and she’ll be able to get a coffee without getting mobbed by fans or villains.
If someone touched her skin… well, she runs a few degrees hotter than a regular human, and her skin is both smoother and has that microscopic forcefield over it. It actually diffuses heat (as well as gamma lasers and bullets) so I’m not actually sure what she would feel like temperature wise. Like, if you touch an aluminum surface, at least one that indoors and not baking in the sun, it feels colder than room temperature because it’s a far more efficient heat conductor than the air, so it pulls heat from your hand. But what if the aluminum was constantly being heated to 101 degrees, (Fahrenheit, obviously) but also had one end stuck in a bowl of ice water? Basically the heat would be constantly convecting from one side of the aluminum to the other, but my question is, would it feel warm or cold?
So yeah, that’s what Max feels like. Warm but also weirdly cool. Or maybe warm but cool over time. But still warm. Also a little slippery, because of the force field. She isn’t frictionless, just slightly more slippery, like she’s just starting to perspire. But not in the way that makes her clothes cling to her. It’s like… if normal human skin has 100 friction units, Max has, I dunno, 85.
But I think the important takeaway from this page is, if you’re ever dating someone with a snout, at some point in the relationship, the idea of muzzling them will cross your mind. Whether it’s because they’re saying something dumb or for kinky reasons, it will definitely cross your mind.
Heh, Sydney almost has to fly to get up that high. Hmm. You know, I didn’t actually measure that before I drew this page. She’s 5′, he’s 7′. ((/me quickly runs downstairs)) Okay, my wife is exactly 5′, and she could juuust touch the 7′ mark without jumping. Given that Frix’s snout isn’t at the very top of his head, I think Sydney could grab it.
July’s vote incentive is up!
You guys don’t know who this is yet. (Her name is Xerxa.) I will give you one single guess what she might be from. (And no, it’s not Dabbler’s mother.) It was a piece I had half finished from a little while ago and given my time constraints this month, I threw a little polish and some background on it and here you are. Unfortunately there aren’t nine separate versions because she’s not wearing a ton to begin with. Hopefully you can read about that soon. I hope you like it, personally I think it turned out pretty good.
As always, nude version are up at Patreon.
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.
Why doesn’t Leon have any iris? It’s been bugging me a while but I couldn’t see the obvious.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-772-apolyamorie/ He had normal eyes here lol
But his ealiest appearences he was sown with dots when drawn from any distance.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-123-its-only-trivia-until-youre-quizzed-on-it/
Its still odd though :)
Oh wow, I knew something bugged me about Leon in this scene but comparing it to that one made it obvious for me, His head is huge and like, a rectangle, which wasn’t at all what he looked like before. You can easily see it in the middle panel on this page, his head it almost looks like he’s got one of those bobble heads on. not to maliciously disparage the art, but it’s suddenly very obvious to me.
Gotta be honest….first time we’ve seen Leon in awhile…honestly didn’t recognize him. I love this comic, but Dave said it himself – consistency of appearance is something he struggles with.
He looks WAAAAAAAAAAAY different than he used to.
The tiny pupils are the most consistent thing about his appearance.
His drivers license lists his eye color as ‘white’.
Is he technically a super?
He’s on a lot of coke…
Guess you have to in order to keep up with Supers.
Perhaps he get his powers from coke like Snowflame.
Or Doctor Rockso, the rock and roll clown.
He does cocaine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbJABjVH-0k
I think the intention is for him to be kind of beady-eyed while still having eyes a similar size to the rest of the cast…
Of course looking at him closely, in panel 1 of this comic he looks weirdly Jon Arbuckle-ish. I think it’s the way the specific angle is making his head shape appear.
Jon’s got a farmer brother/family, why not a tech nerd cousin as well? Leon Arbuckle, head-canon accepted.
Had to comment, “Leon Arbuckle” made me LOL! Totally fits.
Been bugging the hell out of me too, he looks like a fuggin’ Muppet lately with his eyes like that o_O Like, dead eyed, unexpressive… I liked his early design better for sure :<
It’s because you can see his upper eyelids, he’s the only one who has that ‘feature’
Never ever doubt Sydney’s command of Nerdtrivia.
Elsbeth: I don’t think even Sydney would get th-
Sydney *whoosing in* HOW DARE YOU!!
If Sydney recognizes it, Leon should’ve too. His expression could be either non-recognition or disbelief at the reference, but either way I don’t think it was ever a popular enough product/character that not knowing it would count against anyone’s nerd cred.
He could have grown up in an area that didn’t have Fruit Stripes gum. I have quite a few friends who don’t know about it and they’re a few years older than I am (myself being 38). It was a big thing where I grew up (Michigan), and my friends in question (Texas and Oklahoma respectively) had never heard of it until I offered them a piece.
*as an example* not respectively. Sorry, was trying to write this while two cats were fighting over lap space >_<.
We knew of Fruit Stripes and Yipes the Rainbow Zebra in Arizona.
It really just depends on how popular/available the brand was in a given area.
On the peach fuzz comment Dave, haven’t you already stated that supers come naturally hairless except their scalp?
Yeah, that’s been said before, but they are trying to make Max look from Hero to….. zero? They’re trying to get her to look like a normal, everyday Human, and I’ve learned the weird way that imperfections help Humans look more like normal Humans. It’s strange to me, but that is what I’ve noticed…
The very best, photorealistic, cutting edge rendering of human flesh is (naturally) in porn. With Dabbler in charge her chances are excellent.
That’s a topic also addressed in the movie “The Bicentennial Man” with Robin Williams. While looking to improve Human/Android interactions it’s pointed out that, when sculpting & coloring flesh-like coverings for android faces, it’s the imperfections that make humans what they are. When someone says, “Nobody’s perfect,” they’re telling the truth…Someone who’s appearance is flawless tends to raise suspicion.
The term you’re looking for is “uncanny valley”, where something looks almost but not quite human. And the “not quite” causes problems.
A very underrated movie, like the novelette, asking some really embarrassing questions. I think the movie was making too many viewers uncomfortable, so it didn’t do as well at boxoffice as it should.
Friction doesn’t have units. It’s a ratio with the normal force. (If you press against a surface harder, then it’s harder to slide along it.) Most solids have a ratio below 1, although some materials (such as rubber to rubber) have a ratio greater than 1. It’s also important to note that when something is not moving, the friction will be higher than when it is moving, because the contact between the surfaces is not skipping over gaps.
As for whether something feels hot or cold, that’s up to a few thermodynamic properties, such as heat capacity, conductivity, and enthalpy. If you touch the hot end of the aluminum, that’s going to feel hot no matter what the other end is doing. Because it’s hotter than your skin (presumably) and won’t be pulling any more heat from you.
Aluminum being a good conductor, I’d imagine it would quickly conduct the heat from the limitless heat source into the water and thus the ice, so wait long enough and everything would be 101 degrees – how long depends on the efficiency of the heat source and the amount of water and ice (and I would assume the cross section of the aluminum)
Max would feel hot no matter what, since her body generates the heat, it would be radiated unidirectionally so she wouldn’t have a “cool” side unless maybe she was exercising (assuming using her muscles generates extra heat) or half of her was getting actively hit by something raising the temperature of that part of her body. In which case, the “cool” side would get hotter than it’s already elevated temperature, and would only be “cool” in relation to whatever part of her body is getting targeted by a microwave gun. Since her arm or whatever would be warmer than your hand pretty much no matter what, the heat from your hand wouldn’t be diffused by the forcefield around her body (which would make it feel cool), it would be warmed up by the heat from her body.
The aluminum comparison doesn’t really work because you’re taking room-temperature aluminum and putting it in an ice bath so you create a heat gradient. Max isn’t room-temperature, she’s above room temperature (and above normal body temperature) all the time. If there was a heat gradient, there’s a pretty good chance any “normie” would be at risk of dying.
That’s my thinking, unless I’m missing something.
A ratio is a unitless unit, and it can have a name, such as “dabbleslides”.
Dave has proposed that the frictive ratio of human skin is calibrated at 100 dabbleslides, and that on the dabbleslide scale, Max is at 85 dabbleslides.
I think humans should be 1 dabbleslides and Max is 85 decidabbleslides.
Centi-.
Stress makes my skin dabbleslides triple the norm.
Friction is expressed as a coefficient and the SI units are Newtons per Newton
From what I hear, something that helps Humans look, well, Human, is the imperfections. Our Pretender Armour took care of that already, getting better as we scanned more Humans. Got a few weird looks at first, but nothing for ages now. Well, except where any repairs are almost finished, you know, after damaging myself or “pissing off” Daniel the Human too much…
Dave’s wife is the same height as Sydney…
I guarantee he’s coerced her into modeling poses for him at some point. Lol
Who do you think was the inspiration for Sydney? o_O
Sydney totally gets that reference, and also fucking _ouch_, dude.
Way to make me feel old.
Also, Fruit Stripe Gum was heckin’ awful. Eww.
It still is awful, but yeah, I remember Yipes the Zebra as well…
I also remember the commercials & the zebra but I don’t think I’ve ever known his name.
I knew “Yipes, stripes Fruit Stripe gum.” but I didn’t know Yipes was the name of the zebra.
Preach it. One of the most foul-tasting gums ever made outside of deliberate “practical joke” varieties.
Never knew the zebra had a name until now.
I think I’ve only had it a few times in my 50 years on this miserable dust ball. Even as a kid, I preferred Black Jack or Clove. (- Both still my faves since it’s not as easy or affordable to get a hold of old school BLACK BLACK anymore. -)
Still a step above the gum in baseball card packs. I rummaged through my 1980s Topps Baseball Cards the other day and the smell of them brought back memories of gum that was a step above Bazooka Joe and a step below Fruit Stripes.
It really was. I’m old enough to remember it, but I had no idea the zebra had a name.
I dunno if I’m old enough to remember Yipes or not….I’m Canadian, we didn’t get that brand of gum in my Province, & I never saw commercials for it on TV.
American reference but I’m french… Clueless about it
OK, I just checked online…I do vaguely recall seeing that zebra with the multi-colored stripes before…most likely directly in stores rather than on TV.
So I guess we did get that gum up here too. My bad.
Fruit Stripes gum is still sold in stores. And there’s still a zebra on it. I didnt know the zebra had a name though.
https://www.dollartree.com/fruit-stripe-chewing-gum-4ct-packs/274831
Yoink. Here ya go. :)
Was just coming to say that. I had to reach for my stash of, what Ironmouse calls, “Geriatric Milk”.
But yeah I mostly remember Yipes name from an insult we used to throw around. “Damn son! The Fruit Stripe zebra lasts longer than you.”
Well, I am old enough to get the reference, but I didn’t. I have never heard of this zebra, or the gum for that matter. Must have somehow managed to miss that. But as another posted, I am also Canadian, so maybe that is the reason?
I’m Canadian, and I’ve seen and had Fruit Stripes gum. just think baseball-card gum before it’s gone hard, and with less flavour, but more flavours mixed together. Lime, grape, cherry and lemon are the ones I can think of, even if the taste didn’t last long.
Dave missed his chance to slip in another “So, I says to Mabel, I says…”
I thought the same.
Came here to say that!
It’s official.
Earth Dogs go Yorp!
Space Dogs go Worp!
Earth dogs don’t have gills – and they can’t do that thing with their tongues — could be related
Frix hasn’t been confirmed to have gills either.
You can be amphibious and NOT be able to breathe underwater.
Literally over a dozen people pointed that out the page we found out Frix was Amphibious on.
Amphibious – Able to live on land and in the water. Has JFA to do with if they can breathe in both mediums.
Maybe his ears are external gills, like an axolotl.
I remember the mascot, but would never have remembered his name.
I’m old enough to remember the Fruit Stripes zebra, but I had forgotten his name. *sigh* Sucks getting old…
you may never have known it, so there is that.
Maxima is almost over The Uncanny Valley?
She past The Polar Express about 5 minutes ago and is somewhere around Final Fantasy?
I remember beneath this very comic, when someone asked “I know Sailor Moon and Rainbow Dash, but who’s the yellow rat?” I said I would never feel older than I did in that moment.
That was, I think nine years ago, before Pokémon Go, and I feel old for remembering when that was a thing one might say.
I was trying to remember what had a yellow RAT when I was younger and thought I might also be considered too old (thinking it came out later). Read further and am wondering what was worse; thinking I was too old to not get that reference or being annoyed that they described the mouse Pokémon Pikachu as a rat?
oh gods i was thinking older yellow themed rat. cause the suit. mighty mouse XD
Technically, pikachu is not a mouse, but a pika. Electric pika.
Pika – A small, mountain-dwelling mammal found in Asia and North America. With short limbs, very round body, an even coat of fur, and no external tail, they resemble their close relative, the rabbit, but with short, rounded ears.
Naah, he’s a “mouse type” pokemon. The name is from two onamatapias in Japanese. “pikapika” is the noise of something sparkling, “chu” is the noise of mice squeaking. That’s why that Dreamcast game was Chu-Chu Rocket.
I was actually thinking of the first Harry Potter book initially, and the attempt to turn Scabbers yellow…
If Maxima had blue skin, then Sydney would point and shout,”A GIANT SMURF!!!!!!”
But Cora has blue skin and, as far as we know, she did not refer to her that way. Mind you, Smurfette did not have pink hair.
I remember the zebra mascot from my childhood but this is the first time I ever heard it given a personal name. That gum was absolutely foul tasting. Haven’t seen it in stores in decades now.
Just looked on Duck Duck Go. It’s there. Search String “yipes stripes fruit stripe gum”, and Wikipedia as “Fruit Stripe”.
Sydney will recognize that as Nightcrawler’s Image Inducer.
The animated series played with the settings at the end of one episode.
This reference has staying power not like Fruit Stripe gum.
Ya know, i miss the old art style, [the one most of the character portraits at the top have] and the last few pages have really nailed it in. I’m not sure if it’s because theres some dynamic fight scenes with momentum coming up or what, but these last few pages have just felt so…static.
The last panel is clearly a dynamic moment to me. It’s almost a Kirby pose.
So, regarding your comments describing Max’s skin and her forcefield, is it even possible for her to have sex with a normal human? If so, what could probably happen to her partner’s dangling bit during orgasm? I mean with Hiro, it’d probably be okay and he would likely enjoy a bit of an extra squeeze. But love knows no bounds and if she actually fell for a normal human would it even be possible to consummate the relationship? I mean, it’s a “woman of steel and man of tissue” type thing. Would penetration even be possible? It would be interesting to see if Max, in a moment of frivolity, actually turned as the sexual aggressor with Deus. He’s not stupid and would likely understand the possible outcomes of happy times with Max. Regarding the note on penetration, yeah he could get it up but could he get it in? That would a hilarious scene, both embarrassing and frustrating for Deus, while wickedly funny for Max. Ahh, don’t see Max acceding to that kind encounter given her personality, but one wonders and can dream. Oooo, patreon sideshow?
Back when Sydney first got back from Space & tackle-hugged Max, she commented how surprised she didn’t feel like metal, but felt…’soft’ was the term she used.
(( ignoring the fact that she had had physical contact with Max a few times by that time, both on & off the battlefield ))
We all know that Max can control her Zero-Range TK field….I’d wager she can dial it down to ‘off’ while with a soft squishy man-toy.
I wonder if supers have any difference in their ability to reach orgasm from vaginal penetration. Math might be able to stimulate some lady’s bits a bit better than most men during penetration, but in general, unless there’s some difference, I would assume that’s something most men wouldn’t have to worry about (at least as far as their dangly bits)
Now, if Max has a wrought iron dildo that she crushes or if some energy field she generates overloads or shorts out a vibrator she might be using… that would be scary for most partners, I wager
It is almost certain that Deus and Max have done the deed. He’s her ex, and he has a book of his conquests, many of which would be hazardous for a normal human. (We still don’t know how he got that X on his face, but I’m betting a lover.)
When Deus was introduced, there was confusion about whether a prior work lunch was a date or not. I doubt they’d still be disagreeing about that level of misunderstanding if they’d shacked up at some point. My own interpretation is that they went out a couple times but never got physical.
You can be an ‘ex’ without adding an ‘s’ to the equation (and only SmugD is calling Maxi an ‘ex’, Maxi is calling her lawyer :P )
Yipes may have been at Ypres.
But who knew that mascot even had a name.
Bubble Yums Mascot was Floyd D Duck.
I guess every thing kid related needs a cartoon mascot for marketing otherwise kids would never ever buy candy right?
I actually liked fruit striped gum but it did lose its flavor very quickly.
you could always boost the flavour of Yipes fruit stripes gum to last a little longer by either adding a piece of Juicy Fruit, or Big Red if you wanted the cinnamon boost.
Is the choker scrambling Max’s speech? O_o;
Regarding “Would Maxima’s skin feel weird”, I think the real point of heat conductivity is that metal objects don’t equalize temperature at the place where you touch until the temperature of the whole gets close. Once you hold a piece of metal in your hand until it matches your body temperature, you stop feeling any hot or cold from it at all; it almost feels like it’s a part of you because it matches your temperature exactly.
But Max, being a living super-creature, is not going to lower her body temperature by touching an person (or maybe anything except powerful ice magic), so she will never come to equilibrium unless you’re the one that gets hotter. I think we can assume her skin will largely be the same temperature across her body, if it’s heat conductive, and so when you touch her, her skin will immediately start dumping heat into yours while remaining the same temperature. It will probably just feel uncomfortably warm all the time.
The problem, I think, is instincts. If you touch something and instantly it feels warm, your body has to assume that it’s actually a thermal insulator that’s really really hot and advise you to remove your hand immediately or else you’re going to get badly burned. It’s similar to why your body refuses to believe that a cold pool or a hot tub are at a safe temperature when you are first getting in; the body doesn’t want to assume that something that feels extreme is actually safe, just in case.
Also there is no convection inside a solid. I understand what you’re going for, but convection is movement of actual stuff. There would be a thermal gradient across the metal that would reach steady state.
And I meant to add this to my previous comment but metal hotter than body temperature does not suck heat from you, the temperature attempts to reach equilibrium. If it’s hotter, warmth flows into you; if you’re hotter, it flows out. Depending on exactly how heat conductive the metal is, the place you’re touching may not appear to change temperature until the whole piece of metal reaches equilibrium, or it may have a slight thermal gradient, but heat exchange will continue until the side that is cooler becomes warm or vice versa. If you’re holding something warmer than body temperature, it won’t feel cool at all, because no energy will be flowing out at all.
Max being at 102 degrees is not going to hurt anyone. Humans can hang out in a 104 degree jacuzzi safely, so there is no physical harm associated with merely touching Max for extended periods… assuming she doesn’t take offense.
No, they are not wearing crazy headgear.
That was supposed to be a reply to the “Kirby pose” comment.
No idea why it attached there.
Oh God, the 90-90 rule, the bane of my existence.
Mine too, assuming you’re also thinking of the software one and not the decluttering one. Although that occasionally bites me too.
Let me guess, you build things. That rule I learned from building airplanes and hot rods, but I’m told it also applies to boats and houses.
((/me quickly runs downstairs)), sounds like a Second Life fan.
As someone who grey up in the 80s and 90s, yeah, I know that zebra. I completely forgot about it, but I do remember that :)
I got that reference. That was the gum that got me to try making my own gum when I was in highschool. I wound up making an allspice and cola flavor that was very similar to ‘Coke’. It was my first copyright.
They at one point had 7 flavors. But Chocolate stripe was dropped shortly after they released it, and cotton candy was thebubble gum only flavor. Yipes still is the mascot on the package.
*Sydney boo I love ya and I’m gonna let you finish this in a moment but first mama gots to defend her nerd cred!!!!
The Fruit Stripe Gum catchphrase was “Yipes! Stripes!” and the rainbow zebra’s name was Yipes!. The gum was disgusting; like “Lik-Um-Aid”. Who remembers Bucky Beaver selling Ipana Toothpaste and singing “Brusha, Brusha, Brusha. New Ipana Toothpaste”? Yeah, I’m old, So what?
Q. What’s a zebra?
A. The largest size.
Ba-boom-tish!
Booo!!! Hisssss!!!!
Agreed, we can’t support this sort of Bhavior.
I say we give him an F and see how he likes carrying that around.
I’d gladly walk around with an F as long as it had a twin
:)
Did Sydney use her new pip yet? Did I miss it?
yes, she put it on the flight orb’s “special” node and got “always on vertigo Nullification and passive Feather Fall”
You mean, this one? Yes, she did. And this is what it did.
*sigh* Ninja’d.
Oh hey, that mascot. Been ages since I last saw any mention of him. I think maybe ten years since I saw the gum in stores? Maybe more. I remember seeing a package somewhen, and it was more of a ‘oh hey, that gum is still around?’
I can’t even remember what the flavor actually was. Generic fruity/tarty? I don’t remember it tasting bad, per say. I don’t remember the flavor LASTING that long, though. I guess there was some ingredient in there that was particularly bad tasting to some percentage of people? Some sort of situation like cilantro. Or, presumably, chocolate skittles. Since some people apparently liked the flavor of those abominations. Which is kind of funny, because a quick check seems to show that people had different descriptions of what those things actually tasted like that made them so horrible.
Oof I think Elsbeth just stepped into it.
Considering she runs with the Council which includes a variety of centuries-old members, I’d have thought someone showing an extra decade wouldn’t even register for her. No idea how old she is though, so if it’s before her time I guess that counts as relatively ‘old’.
Centuries older isn’t such an issue – that’s far enough back that you’ve already got them filed as ‘very old’, so you’re almost expecting them to drop references from way before your time. When the difference is just a decade or two (if that?), they’re still close enough that that reflex doesn’t trigger. It’s probably worse for someone like Elsbeth who’s used to working with the really old ones, as she’ll be used to age differences in which a decade either way is a rounding error.
There’s also the question of knowledge. Most people don’t have the pop-culture history to say whether a reference is accurate to within the right decade, if it’s from much before their lifetime. But if it’s something they remember, they may be able to place it to within a year or two even decades later.
*nods* Excellent points.
I’m amazed by Max’ look: Nearly natural (withing the artwork style), just a liiiittle bit off :D I can hardly believe that this is possible :D
(I guess one could achieve this look with too much makeup, too.)
Awesome!
I’m 34, and I remember Fruit Stripe gum.
I didn’t remember the mascot’s name, to be fair, but I’ve never been much of a gum chewer, so I never paid much attention to the brand.
I literally saw Fruit Stripe gum today at the Dollar Tree.
Syd could also be standing on his toes to reach that high, she’s close enough for it.
Since others have covered it, I’ll give some approximation descriptions:
Friction is a ratio of the conversion of the normal force (perpendicular contact force) to resistance to sliding motion. Softer materials will mold themselves together to increase this, stiffer materials will resist this. As in the discussion with Achilles and how his powers work, I would expect that Maxima’s skin and general flesh has some degree of flexibility (giggity) and then her ‘damage resistance’ kicks in and adds its own resistance to further deformation, although the base is likely higher based on the fact she is supposed to feel weird to the touch (giggity part deux).
Temperature conversions: ‘room’ temperature is usually the temperature that allows the human body to shed heat at the same rate it’s created without having to employ any temperature control mechanisms (in Celsius, it’s 27° *presumably* so that it comes out to 300 Kelvins). 98.1 Freedoms is the approximate human body temperature, but is fairly ‘hot’ since heat transfers from hot to cold, with faster rates at greater differences, and the body has to employ various mechanisms to remove the heat instead of letting it build up.
Metal has good internal thermal transfer, regardless of surface transfer rate, so it winds up moving heat around itself so you wind up having to heat/cool the whole shebang at once. Metal at room temperature is still quite a bit colder than a human body, which is why it feels cool to the touch as it robs heat from the warm human. Heat transfer is driven by temperature differences, so metal that is the same temperature as a person holding it will feel neither hot nor cold.
How does a creature with thick fur get a tattoo? can the pigment of fur be locally changed ?
It’s a hardlight projection.
Or a dye job, or a gene-mod of the fur follicles. Don’t think it was ever stated?
sydnew must be at the tip of her toes, because damn her space boyfriend is really tall.
also, skin texture has a lot more going on than I usually think about
How is it that the “masking” illusions, used countless times in the comics so far (e.g. aliens including Dabbler, and vampires etc. masquerading as normal humans) isn’t simply used to make Max look more normal-ish? The illusions clearly already do a nearly perfect job of “fitting” the user; for example the illusory body keeps the position and posture and arm placement and lip-synching of the “real” body, well enough that aliens can wander around and interact and talk while perfectly passing for not-uncanny-valley humans. Why not use that for Max, just make her “masking” be almost identical to her real self but with less unsettling coloration?
If Dabbler can pass for human when she wants, why not Max using the same methods?
Well she hasn’t got time to TEACH Max an illusion spell, so she got her the Choker as a quick fix.
I think this is the same method. just putting her magical ability into a usable device.
but i just really don’t see why it would be as complicated as they seem to be making it. Since it seems to be a device you can readily purchase out in the galaxy, why you not be able to easily make any color and texture adjustments to the appearance it gives you?. The people who buy the things would demand that as a basic feature.
Recall that individual Peoples had to be written in to the Veil, presumably to make sure that it know how to interpret their actions for the image. When you’ve got potentially millions of visitors of a given type, then a relatively small cost to each can pay back the development costs over time – remember that the Council works over centuries, not over the few years over which Human accountants insist on being paid back. When you’re starting from scratch to write-in a Person of unique type, there’s nowhere to spread that cost around.
In fact, it’s probably even easier to write-in the usual types of People. Earth is highly unlikely to be the only planet with a Veil, so I would expect that each People is able to supply its own adapter code that’s compatible with many such Veils. The admins of Earth’s Veil therefore don’t have to write each one in from scratch: they can take the People-specific code provided at check-in, fit its standard ‘plug’ interface into the generic ‘socket’ code they grafted onto the Veil, and then it’s just a case of smoothing out any minor seams.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there is already code to interpret Humans for Veil interfaces. There’s a significant off-Earth population, some of whom have probably needed to visit another Veiled planet previously. But Max’s features are far enough off Baseline Human that it’s not surprising if certain elements of the interpretation don’t line up.
I think that the device that does that falls under Dabbler’s version of the Prime Directive, of not allowing high-tech into the hands of planets that don’t already have stuff like it… i’ll bet that the few aliens we’ve seen so far, like the waitress in the nightclub and that one guy in the grand Canyon scene when Max and Sydney were testing her flight orb, probably came to the planet with one as well, and were probably warned at the MIB-equivalent of Customs to not lose it or let it fall into our grubby little hands…
The hypothetical aluminum bar would be at around 45 degrees F (halfway between freezing and 100) because aluminum has INCREDIBLE heat diffusion. It’s why welding aluminum is so difficult- when you heat one bit of it, it moves the heat through itself so quick you’re basically heating the whole thing.