Grrl Power #983 – Business or pleasure?
Customs Agent: Reason for your visit to our dimension, Sir?
Thothogoth: Telling off an Ex.
Customs Agent: I see. I will expedite your processing forthwith.
Some book recommendations
The Laundry Files – A lot of people might know this as The Atrocity Archives, but that’s just the name of the first book. Basically, a funny-in-a-British-way-but-also-serious-cause-they’re-fighting-terrors-from-beyond version of the BPRD, following a beginner field agent as he works to defend the world from Cthonic terrors, apocalyptic math, and avoiding literal Death by Powerpoint. This series reminded me what, and I hate to put it this way, but, what good writing is. I don’t mean that all the stuff I’ve been reading lately is bad, but it’s almost entirely functional. It tells a story. Very little of it has any… I don’t want to say “poetry” because fuck poetry, but the Laundry Files makes you work just a little bit as it evokes the world. Like at one point the MC is redlining a rental Prius down the Autobahn “while someone back down the road fires Audis and BMWs at me out of a cannon.” Obviously no one is actually shooting cars at him, it’s just an artful way of saying that everyone in real cars are thundering past him and threatening to send him into a tailspin with their jet wash. Yeah, art. That’s the word I was looking for.
Oh, Great! I was Reincarnated as a Farmer – A guy gets isekaied to a new world where he’s stuck with the class “Farmer” and hates it so much that the author was able to fill a 600* page book about how hard this guy works to get around it. The thing I like about this book, well, one of the things I guess, is that a lot of the time someone winds up in a world with magic and levels and whatever, and there’s no explanation for all the game mechanics stuff. This book explains a fairly reasonable magical ecosystem that actually makes a lot of sense. I also like it because I am an inveterate “Rule Taker Advantage Of” AKA ‘Sploitzer, and this book is about a guy who is good at that, but travels to a world where there are literal scholars who study the magical rules of their world in order to try and eek out maximum gains, so he doesn’t just show up and figure some obvious thing immediately and all the XP, Gold and Women in the world just fall on his dick right away, unlike a LOT of these isekai novels.
*(According to Amazon’s page count thing which always seems to overestimate by about 25% IMO. I don’t know, maybe they’re calculating it using a 13 point font instead of a 10 or something.)
Engineering Ludus – Okay, so I really like Delvers, LLC. To me it’s like the seminal isekai novel. I mean it’s definitely not the first story of its kind, but alongside Tamer, it was one of my first. Tamer technically counts as isekai, but really I think there’s an implied value with those books that the character(s) will be interacting with another world’s culture, and Tamer is like, welp, here’s a forest. Anyway I like Delvers and Engineering Ludas is kind of like… official FanFic? Okay, Blaise Corvin invited some other authors to write short stories that take place on Ludus, and published them in Delvers LLC: Surviving Ludus. One of those stories got continued in a full length novel, which the author sent me and was like, “I hear you like Delvers.” So I read like one paragraph of it, then got annoyed and had to go buy Surviving Ludus so I could catch the start of the story, read that and came back to Engineering. Despite liking Delvers, I had never picked up Surviving Ludus before because I generally don’t care for short stories. I don’t like getting invested in a character when their story is only 80 pages long. I generally don’t even buy novels unless there’s at least two volumes published already.
But anyway, Engineering Ludus is more Delvers, well, not Delvers, but it’s more adventures on Ludus, albeit lower level than the Delvers themselves. At least in book 1? Hmm?
On an entirely unrelated note, I don’t like that “Isekai” has become the official term for “Hero from another world.” Like the Japanese invented the genre? John Carter of Mars was published in 1912, and that’s probably not even the first popular example. Yeah, I know, the Japanese largely popularized the trope. I guess no one would understand if I started writing “So the MC gets Cartered and has to fend off all the XP, gold and women trying to fall on his dick…”
Tamer: Enhancer 2 – Progress Update:
Final fight is close to wrapping up. I think it has some pacing issues as I have trouble turning off the “character moments” hose. Like, right in the middle of a fight, the MC gets his first good look at a new character, so I spend a few sentences describing them. It slows down the pace of things for readers. The easy fix it to abbreviate that description to just the absolute basics, then elaborate when the fight wraps, so I’ll probably just wind up doing that. I’m haven’t quite gotten to it yet as I’m trying to wrap the fight still, but, hey, this is “Progress Update,” not “How things will eventually be.”
September’s vote incentive is up! It’s been over a year since Max was featured in one of these, so I figured it was time to revisit.
If you just popped by to see it right when it went up, you might have missed the update. Her nipples were a touch high in the first version, and if you poke through the comments there, you can see the reference I used, only that model’s boobs were about 3 cup sizes smaller. Anyway, I flew her nipples south for the winter and updated the relevant pics.
Nude version is 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.
To paraphrase Max: Fuck off.
Should it read “Bringers of Order DEUX” instead of “Bringers of Order DUEX”?
that’s gonna sting.
It kinda works either way.
It can currently be interpreted that he’s the second-in-command of the bringers of the second order.
Correcting the ‘typo’, it could then be interpreted that he’s the second-in-command of the bringers of the second god/coming.
Sorry. Second option should say “second-in-command of the bringers of the order of god”
Can’t have second AND god in the same option. Obviously.
Yes you can. Post-Reformation, post-scisim; or maybe the original order got exterminatused and these guys view themselves as its sucessors.
You can be the second-in-command of the second coming, they are two different things
Are you making some monotheistic assumptions here? For all we know there’s an entire race of beings these guys call “Gods” and they’re trying to open the portal for the next one. Or maybe trying to open the portal for the number-two God who’s out of the world at the moment on vacation or something.
No weirder than vampire squirrels anyhow.
He means the sentence either has duex or deux. You case would need both words, so at least one word has to be added.
Well, I’m glad at least one other person understood my correction.
So you’re on Dabbler’s side and feel that her ex is dieu deux?
Or maybe he’s just full of Deux-Duex?
Deux does not mean God. That would be Deus (all praise Deus, amen).
But seriously, Deus is Latin for god, not Deux. As in Deus Ex Machinae (God within/from the Machine).
Deux means ‘of them’ in Latin.
Is that somehow related to our favourite billionaire industrialist who is pretty much the de-facto leader of a small yet powerful African country?
Sorry, Tony Stark has a lock on my favourite billionaire industrialist. That douchecanoe who keeps hitting on Max doesn’t even place.
I go with Bruce Wayne, myself. Although Tony is a close second.
Bruce is up there on the list, too, but Tony’s had better movies.
My guess: Not yet, but it will as soon as Deux, err, I mean Deus can arrange it. But it’ll probably be complicated to insert himself somewhere that already has a person there. A person who isn’t him.
Not necessarily. ‘Deux’ is a recognisable word, true, but in a different language to the rest of his speech, and there’s no evident reason for that one word alone to be in French. It’s also close to ‘Deus’, as RBZ alludes to, but in that case you’re even further away: wrong letter order, letter swap, and language swap. I suspect instead that ‘Duex’ is a proper name for the type of organisation – Thothogoth is in the ‘Bringers of Order’ duex, someone else might be in the ‘Revellers in Chaos’ or ‘Seekers after Serenity’ duex.
You know how many foreign words are inserted randomly (and sometimes rectally) into the English language?
Rough gues… All of them.
Deux literally means ‘of them’
Bringer of Them.
Sorry my bad.
Bringer of the Order of Them.
Also sorry, I mean Duex, not Deux.
It’s been a long time since I’ve learned Latin, but that doesn’t sound right. What’s the nominative of that word and what declination is it?
it’s always complicated… but that was a hell of a breakup.
> John Carter of Mars was published in 1912, and that’s probably not even the first popular example.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court is my goto for an early isekai. That’s 1889, but there are way older folk tales that are arguably isekai
I think the Western flavour of Isekai is basically the entire stranded on a desert island/lost world/outback planet/alternate dimension ( going through the ages ) branch of stories.
Part survival, part wish fullfillment, part “educational”, always woundrous.
So the root may be stories told by the campfires since the stone age by warriors/hunters/fishermen/grampaws about Places Beyond the Horizon.
So basically, Swiss Family Robinson? That dates back to 1812 for first publication.
if we have to add that travel to another world is a needed part of isekai then i think swiss family robinson would be a bit of a strech. The oldest one i can think of is peter pan from 1904.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz(first edition published May 1900-January 1901)’s Broadway adaptation is said to have paved the way for Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up ‘s 1904 debut, IIRC.
Considering that the Robinson Island was populated by animals that could not possibly have lived there, I believe it qualifies as a different dimension.
Or, the writer had no clue what sort of aminals lived on islands
I’ll see your Swiss Family Robinson and raise with Gulliver’s Travels (1726) and Robinson Crusoe (1719). Though frankly you could go right back to The Odyssey and beyond.
Considering that Swiss Family Robinson was implicitly a callback to Robinson Crusoe, that’s a good call.
Good point about The Odyssey, and it makes me wonder if the concept of isekai (not by that name of course) may be as old as fiction itself. Some cave man came home late and needed an excuse … and so fiction was born… perhaps.
there are stories of people going to the fairy world, dragon king’s palace, the moon, celestial worlds, the under world, in many stories the people living there with those beings.
we can also consider the lost at sea, coming upon magical islands trope to be a related genre, especially in ancient tales.
So yeah, someone going to another reality is pretty much as old as story telling.
Speaking of: one of the actors from the “Swiss Family Robinson” movie just died (he was also in “Old Yeller”)
If this situation is the Robinson family, shouldn’t we have an arm-waving robot shouting “DANGER! DANGER!” ?
Oops, sorry wrong version of the family.
I’ve always been fascinated by “Other world” stories. From C.S. Lewis’ “Narnia” and Frank L. Baum’s “Oz” to “The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever” and modern Isekai stories.
One of the earliest examples of this type of story, apart from ancient Norse mythology and other “Pre Science Fiction” folk tales, is the series of novels written by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and set on Barsoom, a fictionalized version of the planet Mars.
Edgar writes:
“I opened my eyes upon a strange and weird landscape. I knew that I was on Mars; not once did I question either my sanity or my wakefulness. I was not asleep, no need for pinching here; my inner consciousness told me as plainly that I was upon Mars as your conscious mind tells you that you are upon Earth. You do not question the fact; neither did I.” (A Princess of Mars, Chapter 3)
This doesn’t seem to make any sense. Just because he was looking at Mars when he teleported doesn’t mean that’s where he went. If you were instantly transported to a totally alien landscape (or even an unusual one on Earth) you wouldn’t instinctively know what planet you’re on. As someone from Edgar’s time might exclaim: Poppycock! Fiddlesticks!
What if “Barsoom” wasn’t really Mars at all? What if it merely resembled it enough that John Carter THOUGHT he was on mars?
That would make it a full on Isekai, while King Arthur’s Court is more Time Travel rather than other world, though the protagonist in that ticks a lot of the Isekai check boxes, implementing modern technology in a Medieval setting and so on.
I think this was just ERB avoiding a discourse on how the hero knew he was on Mars. IIRC at least some of these stories were serialized in the magazines of the day. There was probably a focus on action over explanation. Of course, John Carter was such a masculine ubermench that his masculine intuition could never fail. There was a reissue of a lot of the Barsoom books in the 70’s and I really enjoyed them as a teen ager. I have lately re-read a couple of them and they haven’t aged well.
But that same focus on action over explanation made a lot of similar mistakes. I’d wager John Carter had not, in fact, been transported to Mars, but merely thought he had. He instead went somewhere more hospitable, which merely looked rather Martian.
What we re-read as an adult only ages badly because we no longer remember the past is a foreign country… We need not *like* how they do things, only accept it.
I find this is the best way to read or listen to Kipling. They did things differently there, and for the most part it turned out not too shabbily. Mind you, there are a couple of modern Empires which could take lessons from how we perceive the iniquities of past empires…
I agree, there is something to be said for reading things as a product of their time. I enjoy re-reading War of the Worlds every decade or so. As for Mars, I think that is what ERB intended. In terms of being a product of its time, the Mars stories were written not long after Percival Lowell was describing the seasonal plant growth on Mars that he was watching through his telescope.
“‘Revellers in Chaos’ ” My Demigoddess of chaos, should show up here! :)
This series of looks popped into my mind when isekai started being discussed too.
Gor books by John Norman (36 of em)
https://www.amazon.com/Gorean-Saga-34-Book-Series/dp/B01LX7LBEI
Does “Paradise Lost” count as Isekai, which is a word I learned exactly one minute ago?
To be fair I think two related but separate genres are being mixed up here. (although I could be wrong, this is the impression I get with the term Isekai being used in my experience to refer to died in the mundane world and came back in a fantastical one).
I don’t think for example Digimon or El Hazard are classified as Isekai. To my understanding the Isekai genre is generally when a character dies or by some other means is not only transported to another fantastical world but their body is changed as well, typically reincarnating or turning into something.
examples of reincarnation:
That Time I reincarnated as a slime,
So I’m a Spider So What.
examples of body change still considered Isekai:
Overlord,
How not to summon a demon lord.
so for western audiences I think if we stretch our imaginations a b it and go with darker fan theories on how they start then,
Captain N the Game Master,
and
Dungeons and Dragons (animated series)
sort of apply.
if it is just person travels to another dimension then that opens up for a crap ton of stuff, Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, Alice in Wonderland, Narnia, Rainbow Brite, the original My Little Pony, every episode of He-man or She-ra where some kids or people from Earth somehow found their way there, Dragon Tales, ect….
honestly the travel to another world bit without alterations we can go back to Fairy stories of people being taken to the faerie world to live and come back and centuries have passed, or Japanese folk tales such as the one where a man travels to the palace of the dragon king to marry the dragon princess and returns home to find 400 years have passed.
If the definition of Isekai requires death and rebirth into a new world, then I submit Dave Duncan’s The Seventh Sword series as a candidate.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/35619419-the-seventh-sword
The two genres are “isekai tensei” (died and reincarnated in the other world) and “isekai ten’i” (transition to other world). They’re both “isekai”. Source: Wikipedia, so you know it’s absolutely correct. Or something.
Fyi ‘isekai’ is a farly fairly new definition/classification of works to identify them from others. At the time that anime like el-hazard came out it wasn’t really a definition of the genre.
ROFL…
Wikipedia. Absolutely… something.
Burroughs had several of those characters. Some of the Pelucidar stories follow the same tropes. it’s a bit of a stretch since they don’t come from another dimension/planet but some of the H.G. Wells reverse the trope with the antagonist bringing his superior knowledge/tech to our world.
Yeah, like I went on and on about in a different post, Urashima Tarō, which has been kinda running in some variant in Japan since somewhere after 758 AD is pretty similar in form to Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, where a dude gets transported to another world under the sea, and has some fun adventures before being returned hundreds of years after he left.
I’d also feel confident that it probably wasn’t the first either.
“I don’t like that “Isekai” has become the official term for “Hero from another world.””
I think it’s more like the official term for “Hero dropped into a literal MPORG”. At least that’s my impression from binging them at Crunchyroll. My favorite is Overlord, but I’ll go with any stupid one if a good one hasn’t updated recently. (My Next Life as a Villainess” really brings the stupid, but it’s entertaining.)
Dot.Hack and it’s various forms being a good example of the literal MMORPG setting. An entire episode revolves around finding out that character with Cooking skill are the only ones who can make food with any flavor…
I thought that one was Log Horizon with the cooking skill.
Isekai means traveling to another world.
Hero summoning is just a popular iteration.
The RPG part is not required for isekai, although it certainly has become common. The only true requirement is that one character (usually the main one) travels in some fashion from one world to a different one, where they spend the majority of the story. Alice in Wonderland is an isekai story. Chronicles of Narnia is a whole isekai series. The Wizard of Oz. It’s not actually a new genre, it’s just that certain specifc isekai stories blew up big and now bajillions of wannabe authors use the tropes from those stories as a sort of template to write their own trashy fiction.
Are you sure? I’ve asked around a lot trying to figure it out, and am generally told Narnia is not Isekai. I believe that John Carter of Mars is, but hero of another world seems too broad. Just looking for a clear answer. Narnia, Oz, and Alice are traditionally listed as Fantasy.
Well, they predate Isekai as a genre, and Isekai is certainly a sub-genre of fantasy, so them being fantasy does not preclude them also being defined as Isekai now that we have identified it as a sub-genre.
Ohh, Thomas Covenant would definitely be Isekai, has the whole gains-powers trope too.
Because the term didn’t exist when they were created. Isekai is a sub-genre of fantasy. Kind of like how Space Opera is a sub-genre of Science Fiction. And how both Fantasy and Science Fiction are sub-genres of Fiction in general.
The term is quite recent, no more than a decade or two at most. Generally, Isekai involves someone, generally someone from our mundane world, travels to another world to be a hero and have an adventure, usually following the classic Hero’s Journey format.
So Narnia, Oz, and Alice are all examples. It’s just that most people who use the term haven’t really thought of the genre outside of a few select portions of it and don’t realize how inclusive the term actually is. These stories are classically referred to as Fantasy because that is what they were labeled when they were first published decades ago, and no one has bothered reclassifying them since the term isn’t really in broad use in the larger reading and media-consuming audience in general.
I would actually like to see Narnia redone in the anime format.
also going the hero sumoned/revived on a diffrent world to save it. dose that maen the movie the fifth element is isekai? the female lead is in space , dies and is remade on earth then goes off on a heros journey to save everyone. i supose the difference there is we see the whole thing from the view of the suporting cast who we see as the hero.
Fairly sure it has been done, more than once (just can’t think of any examples off-flipper)
At least two of the stories *have* been done in anime format, and manga…
I haven’t seen them yet.
Isekai is a genre generally accepted to denote a character transported to another world and living/surviving there. There is even a Wikipedia page about it :P https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isekai
The word is just Japanese for “different world”, so that should give enough context.
There are a lot of Isekai stories that forego the RPG element, some personal favorites with the medium I used in no particular order:
Release that Witch (webnovel)
Lord of the Mysteries (webnovel)
Accomplishments of the Duke’s Daughter (manga)
Flirting with the Villain’s Dad (manhua)
Oh, I forgot to mention my absolute favorite in the genre!
Ascendance of a Bookworm (novel series)
Yeah, that’s a good one. I’ve enjoyed the anime adaptation.
I will just add I am getting a tad tired of every fantasy anime I come across lately being both *person from Earth arrived here with special powers* and *this world obeys the laws of a video game*
honestly both of those could be expanded on, like a world with video game rules but its a survival horror world or platform adventure world with video game rules.
and the fantasy one. the last series I watched that didn’t have video game rules was Fairy Tale. Slayers is one of my all time favorite anime and honestly I’d like to see a return to fantasy without hit points, experience points to raise skill stats and stamina bars, and other game elements. There are some although they are low fantasy *fantasy elements mixed into real world like Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid, and Ancient Magus Bride*, we don’t have many swords and sorcery anime being made recently that forgo the game element stuff.
Well, Japan and South Korea are busy beating the Isekai genre to death right now, so there are a lot of variants of this theme right now.
That may be from people who have never read the Wizard of Oz series. Ask them which of the dozen novels they have read. Some qualify…and although others have solely people from Oz, they travel to different parts of Oz and neighboring lands that they have never seen or only heard about in legends.
Do you think Dante’s Divine Comedy would count as Isekai?
Good question. It does follow a person taken from his native existence and who goes through a transformative experience, in this case gaining spiritual enlightenment but his presence and actions don’t have any lasting impact on the places he passes through.
Technically; scifi time travel could be classified as that as well
Things like Buck Rogers in the 25th century is where he gets Frozen and now is living in a different world than what he was originally born in time wise.
The Time machine. Could also be considered that as well.
LitRPG has become more popular of late, and it’s a natural fit for an isekai story. Couple that with the popularity of videogames the last “couple” of decades, and how common it’s become makes all kinds of sense.
Narnia‘s author (C.S. Lewis) also wrote a Space Trilogy in the late 1930s / early 40s, wherein the main character travels to Mars and Venus and lives with the native aliens. Like the Narnia series, it’s has strong religious themes while also covering some pretty good scifi themes (for the period).
May I recommend Dungeon Crawler Carl? https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/29358/dungeon-crawler-carl Also fanfic of it: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/35368/dungeon-crawler-katia (mine) and https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/33384/dungeon-crawler-darryl
The apocalypse will be televised!
A man. His ex-girlfriend’s cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible.
In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth—from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds—collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground.
The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe.
Only a few dare venture inside. But once you’re in, you can’t get out. And what’s worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it’s game over. In this game, it’s not about your strength or your dexterity. It’s about your followers, your views. Your clout. It’s about building an audience and killing those goblins with style.
You can’t just survive here. You gotta survive big.
You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that “it” factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That’s the only way to truly survive in this game—with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy.
They call it Dungeon Crawler World. But for Carl, it’s anything but a game.
Arching an eyebrow at Maxima in her Official Persona…
Smart Move, dude.. Smart Move..
With regards to ‘Isekai’, the English term is usually ‘Portal Fantasy’. Think ‘Narnia’ and so forth.
Also, Gor, Lin Carter’s Green Star series, and the Scorpio series for a slightly more modern bunch of examples.
I love how Harem is still casually drinking her soda while bubbled. “Screw it, damage is done and I’m not wasting good soda a fourth time.”
Sidney: Trollface Incarnate.
john carter of mars wasn’t an alien hero on *earth.* he was a human hero that went to mars. Superman, on the other hand, is an alien hero on earth, but he looks perfectly human.
Aside from the pincers, that is.
(That reference *might* be too obscure?)
Not if you know the artist :D
And John Boy may not have been an alien hero on Dirt, but he was an alien hero (seeing how he was not native to Barsoom)
But if John Carter was on another planet that wasn’t his own, wouldn’t that make him the alien?
“John Carter of Mars” might have been published in 1912, but the Japanese Urashima Tarō predates that by a few centuries.
There is one story I like about someone traveling to another world, Alfheimr renaissance on royalroad. Its not your common story as it tries to be a somewhat realistic about a man hiking out in an elvish viking world. It is deliberately slow, and not very well written, although it does improve. I get the feeling it is a world, the MC just realistically try to avoid danger and its mostly from his point of view. The author have put a lot of though into it as he didnt plan for it to be a book but a RPG world. There is potential for a lot of shit happening, and my guess is that the author might be years ahead story wise in his native language. There is a a lot of small hidden details thats up to the reader to notice, like MC and his concubine being meeting and talking with her unknown grandfather without any real clue it is. Just a name mentioned in a rant half a year ago.
The Laundry Files is a fascinating series that I need to get back to someday soon.
Anyway, Max stepping in here seems like a very bad idea… although I’m not sure for who.
The Laundry Files even has it’s own variation on Supers. Stross’ universe seems to sift space fairing races with extreme prejudice but otherwise ARC-Swat could exist in a close parallel to the Laundry Files.
I can add a plug for the Laundry Files. Very entertaining and now waiting for the next book.
The Laundry Files, right now, is in its 13th volume, IIRC. Charlie Stross has become my favorite writer.
Yes Stross is an amazing writer seeing as we are talking about Isekai he kind of has one of those his Merchant Princes series which is about a tech journalist who discovers she’s the lost scion of dimension hopping smugglers from a fuedal version of earth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchant_Princes
As you’d expect from Stross it thoroughly thinks about the implications of the power to travel between worlds and how to defend a castle when your fighting people who can also cross over.
Major villain bashing in 3…2…1…
I hope it will start with Vehemence shoryukening Tom.
At that height he could shoryuken him in the balls.
Could and should.
With Sydney going “Copy cat!”
Nah, I’d think she’d take his side.
“Nono you guys, that’s correct form for taking down a creature 100 times your height. I’d’ve cut off one of its legs, but that’s a matter of weapon choice, more than anything else. Using his fists, the balls are the 100% correct place to aim.”
Vehemence: ”Gimme another Street Fighter move.”
Halo: ”Fangirl squee! Tatsusomething… that spinning kick.”
V: ”Tatsusomethiiiing!”
H: ”Yes! Yes! Spinning Pile Driver!”
Etc….
… just don’t do ‘Come Here!’
that’s Dabbler’s move, and she writes it in lipstick
I’m quite curious how damaging Max’s punches would be on a demon of that size.
The tiny Max is so much scarier than Tom. Its a great effect, between the introductions of Dominus Seconde and LT Col Max. Max’s opness has been ingrained in us and feels more impressive
I think Tom has also been undermined in that his only other appearance in-comic was the final moments of his defeat at the hands of Dabbles in Bugs Bunny mode.
Plot twist: Tom gets a passport and diplomatic immunity, and becomes a persistent annoyance to both Dabbler and Ariana.
It wouldn’t work like that. Max is high enough placed that annoying her will lead to a ‘request’ that whatever ‘nation’ sent Tom, please come get him. probably along with a curtesy copy of the fell battleship video. just to set expectations.
I would think a copy of the footage would be superfluous, I imagine just about everyone on Earth, especially national leaders, has seen every angle of Max taking down the carrier.
However a personally signed glossy print of one of the choice action shots from that evenntwould be a pretty good power move. On the surface it’s a nice diplomatic present from a celebrity and foreign military leader, but also drives home the point that Max has the personal interest and capability to get the situation dealt with if the recipient fails to do so.
Why? Tom hasn’t done anything to piss off Maxi (yet), plus, if he can be annoying to Dabbles, that’s a huge bonus for Maxi :D
Max: Leon, did we get any of that action on the security camera feeds?
Leon: Oh, yeah. We got camera X3, showing Heatwave and Stalwart taking out their foot soldiers. We got camera X4, showing Hiro taking out their foot soldiers. We got cameras X7 through X9 showing the Fel attack craft trying to get through Cora’s ship’s shields. We got cameras X3 to X12 showing the flash when you blew up the attack craft. And we this weird little thing hovering above Roof5; I don’t recognize the ship design but it went straight up after you decimated the attacker.
Max: Excellent. Can you prepare a video package for the joint chiefs? Arianna also wants a copy. Come to think of it, so would I.
There would actually be some great scientific value in analyzing the footage of all the various technologies interacting. Granted, now that galactic contact has been established it’s probably faster, cheaper, and more accurate to just trade some maple syrup and chocolate for annotated schematics and working prototypes.
Better be careful with that maple syrup… you don’t want to start a war over it now do ya”?
Are you kidding? Ariana would eat him up. Might even take him off Dabbler’s hands.
Think of the potential for action figures in multiple sizes, as an antagonist you don’t have to pay royalties to…
Arianna would probably explain that he needs a makeover to be more TV-friendly, and ask what kind of makeup works best on his … uh, unusual skin, and then make a few calls to talent agents to try to get him spots on the talk show circuit.
At least, until she realizes that he could probably regale people with tales of what Dabbler gets up to on her time off, and then she’d be going into damage control mode.
Would be kind of fun that the reason he took so long to get here is that he had to get an intergalactic passport and an Earthbound visa.
We are about to see who has the biggest balls The golden goddess does not physically have any, but they are still way bigger. lol
Ovaries of steel.
Titanium
Gilded titanium.
Think Max’s best orbs are the gold pressed latinum ones
Dabbler knows the best golden globes when she sees them:https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-592-funhouse-funbags/
But Halo’s got more of them.
Dabbler totally missed the opportunity for a “Hello Sweetie” riversong moment there. Although I love that she actually congrats Tom on his promotion, that much have beena lot a hard work!
The “insecure” part, combined with that, makes it def seem like a real ex- relationship. Although “thanks for the loot” was not a great exit line for a boyfriend. Must have been a story there.
That’s just the breakup. People are often intentionally cruel during a bad breakup. Doesn’t mean they didn’t have happy years together.
I love the “normally rigid facial features and/or headwear bend to accommodate eye expressions” thing. That’s expressive and goofy without necessarily making a powerful or villainous figure cut down on grandeur too much.
That said, I fully anticipate a severe cutting down on grandeur in the next page(s?). Something along the tune of “oh sorry I knew I should have checked the paperwork before coming here” or “wait, don’t you acknowledge the Bringers of Order Duex’s diplomatic status on this planet?”… Possibly a short fight, followed by that. Or just a demonstration. They did melt a Fel carrier, that’s got to count for something.
His name is Archlord Thothogoth Dominus etc… but there are those who call him… Tom.
And you know what they say about people who exaggerate the size of their… Importance.
Just great!
I think Tom is about to get his block rocked.
Thoth swats Maxima aside like a common house fly…
…which keeps escaping and annoying you.
example of that being a bad idea:
*giant creature fighting Superman*
https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-a296f809a7c1f3966a3e24a29730ff98
pounds per square inch, its like smashing your hand down on a nail you thought you could squish.
Seen that panel before and as usual hate it.
Two things I always think of concerning Superman. First is okay the meat hand came down. Unless he has a forcefield please explain not a hair out of place or spot of gore on him.
Second is fine he is so tough he can punch a hole in the planet without harm (Don’t see it but give it for argument sake) He still only weighs 136kg. So he should be knocked around like a rag doll by large forces and simply does not get hurt by it.
Superman has an aura that extends slightly above his skin, this is used to explain his costume also not being shredded by bullets or burned by fire.
and while physics, yes if he didn’t control his position such as applying his flight power to hold his relative position. the same technique used to punch while in flight without just shoving off the object he is hitting. So assume he is using his flight power to balance himself in one spot and just above the surface so he isn’t knocked to the side or shoved down like a peg into the ground.
I need to give an ‘uh huh’ there. Because I could see it for recovery. I forget what I saw mention it. But they went on about how a throwing someone that can fly is not often a good tactic.
But the Superman just flies to counter hits on him is always Perfect. Not he was driven a bit into the ground. Not the hit was lighter than he thought so he went up a bit. Absolute still, no matter what hits him.
Then two comics later something far weaker will toss him across the city, slowly.
blame the writers and artists.
same all around when you have characters being written about and drawn by dozens of different people. It is why backstories change, why personalities change, why a character hurt by something one issue isn’t phased by it a little later.
Hell, some dips stole She-Hulk from the Hellcat comic and tried to kill her off for Civil War II…by being shot by a missile from War Machine; if not for the fan outcry at this they’d have kept her dead (longer), instead of immediately retconning this so she was beaten up by Thanos (off panel and THEN shot by War Machine as a final hit) but then have her in a coma.
this crap is all over the place in comics because no one can agree what the limits are, what the specific abilities are, or what their personalities are like. Why Eddie Brock goes from villain to anti hero to sociopathic serial killer, to agent, back to anti-hero ect..why the symbiote has so many retcons to their backstory, ect…
Hell Wonder Woman has these problems too, someone decided they didn’t like Batman’s villains becoming anti-heroes so decide to have Poison Ivy act out of character and brutally murder random people *she usually has an environmental agenda not just people who looked at her funny. Wonder Woman gets tone issues and inconsistent weaknesses, Supergirl and Powergirl too actually, including massive personality shifts.
(at least DC retcons their universe to shift this while Marvel lets the contradictions pile on.
the crux is writer in-fighting and no solid guidelines outside of what the current editors will allow.
I would guess that in some cases, the writers and artists are really invested in the characters and setting, which may lead them to either be very diligent and consistent with past material… or produce something that expresses their own personal interpretation, which may not be very well supported by past material.
I would also guess that in other cases, the writers or artists would rather be doing their own thing, but got stuck working on something they know or care very little about. Audiences seem predisposed to prefer the familiar, and the money follows. I’ve seen several artists express frustration that people like their fan work, but have little to no interest in their original work. So I think sometimes the popular work just ends up as a vehicle for an artist’s private project.
Superman, can hold himself in place, via his flying ability!
Sorry!!! Oops!
You mean… all that gore covering his thighs?
And Rhuen has a point: unless your skin is much stronger than the ‘nail’, that is what would happen
I didn’t argue durability. I can see that point. It is the usual durability means unmovable.
Normally I do agree with this, it is annoying when they don’t take the resistance of the ground, floor, or whatever else into account; even if we see the Hulk or Colossus for example dig their feet into the ground; if what is behind their heels and soles of their feet couldn’t resist the energy beam or whatever or the character for that matter exerting that much force to resist the beam; then they should be pushed back through it.
I give this a handwave though when its a character established to have some ability to push forward without pushing off a surface *unless they do in which case I just role my eyes*, artistic license and what not, even if Superman, Supergirl, Powergirl, Wonder Woman, Hyperion, ect… shouldn’t need to push off anything as they don’t really have propulsion, just forward motion. and its kind of annoying it was Omniman from Invincible that best explained this mechanism while most writers just shrug and go with it (a mind set that does result in the many inconsistencies from what can push them back to what can give Superman a black eye).
I’d put Tron/Tron Legacy firmly in the Isekai category as well
So, will Kevin overzealously jump in on the ‘big bad’ in an attempt to ingratiate himself with Max, or just make an offscreen pathetic ‘ouch’?
This isn’t really his problem, and l bet he wouldn’t mind seeing swatted around a little… plus, while he probably would enjoy throwing hands himself he still gets his vehemic charge even if all he does is eat popcorn and watch the fight.
Dis is gon get gud!
*dons Popcorn, 3dGlasses and Slurpee*
Am I the only one wooried that we can’t see what Kevin is doing?
Looks like someone’s overcompensating for something.
Sydney is always overcompensating for something or t’other!
I love when demonic-type creatures get normal human nicknames. Another good example is FHTNG TH§ ¿NSP§KBL? from Them’s Fightin’ Herds, also known as Fred.
Some of my favorite characters from Red vs Blue are Freckles and Santa, precisely because of their inappropriate naming.
On Charles Stross and portal fantasy, the final book in his Merchant Princes saga is released tomorrow. The series starts out as a portal fantasy, but with a twist – the heroine is transported to another world and discovers she’s the long lost heir…
To a clan of world hopping merchants who visits our world to acquire technology and exotic materials so that they can be extremely rich nobles in their own world. They also fund all this by running smuggling operations in our world. It starts out as portal fantasy, but evolves into techno-thriller (with nukes and political revolutions).
That… sounds fairly interesting.
Did Dabbler promise to bear him a child? The idea of a pregnant Dabbler is just to weird to get out of my head now.
What if she already did, and Tom is here for the late child support payments?
Then I would say I am on Tom’s side. I bet not even demons like a dead beat parent!
I wonder how this compares to Detla’s normal day…
Hah hah.
so far this days she has witnessed a guy who gets stronger the more he fights, followed by someone casually opening an Aethereum Causeway, and before she can even react to that a giant demon lord just pops out of the ground and none of these people are reacting the way you’d think people would to giant demon lord emerging from a portal in the ground.
Max: Welcome to the United States. I need to see your passport and visa. And I don’t mean the credit card that begins with a 5.
4
No, that’s a normal VISA, the ‘special’ one starts with a 5
Yeah we’d like to see your ‘other’ license and registration.
Not the one that has a social security # 123-45-6789 (yeah people actually used that)
Also – is he carrying any produce?
Skinny guy with a clip board hovers over.
“Hi Tom, I’m Agent Bob from ARCustoms. I am going to need to check your bags. Any fire arms, foreign fruits or animals I should be aware of before we begin?” Snaps on blue gloves.
and please be advised we do many any life forms, organic or otherwise; other than yourself but not excluding symbiotes, parasites, and others you may define otherwise with you, that may be with, on, or in your person at this time or emerge after.
We don’t have the backstory here, but Tom may be a US citizen. In the past, the US has often been accepting anybody who lived anywhere in the US for a few years as a citizen. So if he has been around here for a century or two, he may well have citizenship and he has no trouble with passports and such.
Is he carrying any perishable or foreign items?
I kind of wish I’d see this scene done in a more serious / straight superhero comic. Just imagine situation when the Avengers make some “dimensional adventurer” member, have her fight on their side for many, many issues… and then, one day, it is revealed that she really *is* a demon from Hell. With connections to major infernal powers and a really long demonic career that’s far from heroic…
There have been plenty of demonic characters in comics who’ve fought on the hero’s side. Raven, Blue Devil, the Demon (Jason Blood), Daimon Hellstrom, and Spawn off the top of my head.
so Raven from Teen Titans in other words.
I am sure there are also plenty of examples in Marvel, heck add in double agent aliens and I know Marvel has them.
So… did Ren leave at some point? He’s not in the bubble.
taking a leak, comes back, sees what is happening, turns right around to act like he is still going.
Ren, Jabber, and Math haven’t been on page for a while. You’d think they’d have stuck around to watch, but maybe they went to get cleaned up.
A good Hero from another World story is The Wiz Biz by Rick Cook.
Standard fantasy world is looking for a powerful wizard to save their bacon, and they end up with a computer wizard from “The Valley of Silicon” instead.
Pretty good, although it’s a very 90’s computer tech background.
(forgot the link)
https://www.baen.com/the-wiz-biz.html
Although if you’re going to get it, you might want The Wizardry Compiled which is the first 2 books for $1 less than the first book alone.
Argh, never mind, Compiled is the 3rd book. Cursed & Consulted is the omnibus of a couple later books.
Just read this series a couple months ago, it was a fun ride that stayed enjoyable longer than I expected given the simple premise.
damn am i the online one that wants to not see the stereotypical demon that just tries to power through max?
i am so hyped to see if he replies to her with courtesy. his name and tital again where he is from and how there is no ruling government of similar function as to earths there so he would not have a pass port. that he simply tracked down Xuriel and wishes to resolve there issue and how she has been ghosting him. damn i would love to see max’s reaction.
Agreed. Especially given the nature of faustian bargains and whatnot. When the Devil is also known as the King of Lawyers, it doesn’t make much sense for demons to try to bully their way through red tape.
…Oh, wait. She makes a distinction between demons and devils. But still, I do agree with you. It’d be a lot more interesting if he actually pulls out a passport. It reminds me of the concept behind Doctor Doom, “a villain the heroes can’t simply arrest.”
Or Deevils!!! :)
Myth-ing paperwork?
Oh, wait. Dabbler made a distinction between devils and demons. Still, it’d be really cool if he actually did pull out a passport and followed protocol, forcing Maxima to support HIS side despite her feelings on the matter. Kind of like how Doctor Doom’s concept was “a villain the heroes can’t simply arrest.”
I also want to see this. I’m actually feeling encouraged by the way everyone present is still willing to discuss their situation and haven’t just automatically resorted to violence – this is the way law enforcement is _supposed_ to operate.
Sometimes a little situational awareness goes a long way.
She’d be pleasantly surprised but still probably have to tell him to leave.
Dabbler hasn’t ‘t been paying child support.
Alimony or matrimony?
Wait, matrimony is marriage, what is the female version of… right, doesn’t exist because the male always pays child support to the mother, even if he is the one with full custody of the child(ren) and she has remarried (which use to be the cut-off for alimony payments)
Child support rules may differ among the various jurisdictions, but in general the parent who cares for the child most of the time gets the child support, if any.
Gender usually does not play into it officially, although people being people that may not always be the case and in practice usually there is a cultural predisposition toward female parents being considered as providing most of the care.
It is not unknown for meretricious arrangements to come into play, e.g. the parents agree in court that Parent A cares for the child the majority of the time, when in fact they do not, because Parent B goes along with the deal, possibly due to lacking the will or the resources to battle further.
Child support in most or all American jurisdictions does not require prior matrimony, since its basis is the State’s unwillingness to pay for a child’s raising if there’s a perfectly employable parent who may or may not be married to the other parent.
Alimony is a gender-neutral term. They call it the same thing when a woman has the large-money job and the man is the custodial parent who stays home taking care of the kids.
Or when they’re talking about the child of a gay or lesbian couple, for example.
These two aren’t human though. It’s possible that Dabbler ran away after knocking up Tom.
considering classic Succubus folklore, that is entirely possible if her biology follows.
(sequential hermaphrodites)
Yeah, IIRC they stole sperm from monks to impregnate nuns. Surely the only possible explanation how those totally chaste nuns who absolutely never met any monks in private got pregnant.
had to love the logic circles that this also required having a demon of hell that could enter a holy place and could not be exorcised.
I’d like to interject that I believe people spell demon wrong and it should be dimen, as in ‘dimension’ as these would normally be (in theory) creatures that live in/on a parallel dimension that may at some points also overlap ours.
Totally conjecture, though.
they are spelling it wrong, its originally Daemon and comes from Greek mythology. Which weren’t evil spirits but a kind of lesser gods, something above humans but below the gods. May or may not be below or include the nature gods like nymphs and the various river gods and what not.
as with any attempt to make everything evil that wasn’t Christian and the heavy influence of Greek and Roman sources on all of Europe; they adopted this term to encompass ALL supernatural things that weren’t God or angels, and before long to claim them all evil.
there is a reason this term is so openly vague and can be used to describe virtually anything supernatural between different series; or gets used as the translation for other cultures’ various supernatural beings.
Oh right, was thinking of palimony