Grrl Power #994 – One upmageship
That first guy definitely knew what he was doing.
So, Frankenstein(‘s monster). Zombie? Flesh golem? Resurrected abomination? If one could reconstruct corpse parts without any external tell-tale signs, then give it the ‘ol lightning treatment, and that guy goes in for a checkup, could a doctor tell? I’m sure an endocrinologist or anyone else who does a deep dive into biological systems could, but the thing these arch mages are ultimately shooting for is recycling life into an artisanal form and purpose. Yes, there are some… questionable morals in play here. And by questionable, I mean most of these guys are probably sociopaths at best.
Powerful arch-mages, left to their own designs? I mean, Playing God is like a 201 level course for them, and they’re way up there doing post-post-postgrad shit. After all, what’s the point of incredible power if you’re not going to abuse it?
Tamer: Enhancer 2 – Progress Update:
The good news, I’m done with my editing pass. Amazingly, I only added roughly 550 words as I went through the book. I know, normally editing is supposed to be cutting out stuff, and some authors have arbitrary rules about cutting 20% of their book to make sure it’s a tight read, but trust me, +550 words is good for me. Honestly I was expecting it to be closer to 5,000.
The bad news is I still haven’t added that last sex scene yet. Also I found that one minor scene I’d written got lost when Scrivener decided not to play nice with Dropbox. Scrivener has some issues syncing sometimes. I don’t think inserting those two scenes will bring me to +5,000 words, but we’ll see.
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Had to throw this in there.
It’s psychopath. Not sociopath.
A Psychopath can mingle with others, give the “appearance” of being able to function in society (aka not have a hobby of being a serial killer (at the end parts of their carrier when they can’t control their impulse anymore); not torturing people and small animals; being able to be around others without killing them on impulse; etc.))
A Sociopath on the other hand has strong and violent anti-social tendencies; can’t be in a group of people without killing someone; and are the dangerous (and more than likely to lash out at any perceived slight / annoyance).
A lot of people get that wrong because Sociopath, has socio in it. But if they were “sociopaths at best”, then they wouldn’t be able to hold a convention without a pile of dead bodies. Rather they are psychopaths who don’t really care about the value of other’s lives outside of their own kind and hobbies. But are at least able to interact with their own clique without offing one another.
I mean, the dead bodies are walking around rather than being in a giant pile, but I assure you, the requisite dead bodies are there
sorry but the one that got it wrong is you. OFFICIALLY there is no difference. however the way it is used the one that denotes valiant tendencies is psychopath while sociopath simply means social problems
“valiant”? As in “Knightly”? I knew it! The truth is there somewhere!
Technically there is no diagnostic condition called sociopathy. Psychopathy is a version of anti-social personality disorder and is characterised by an inability to form social bonds with other people and an inability to understand the empathic needs of other people. In the most severe cases a psychopath is unable to recognise other people as ‘real’.
Sociopathy is not a formally recognised mental illness and is usually described as a form of psychopathy that is induced rather than inborn. Psychopathy is not curable and generally not manageable. Sociopathy is referred to as psychopathy-lite because there is some success with treatment.
Also, a sociopath may be able to form genuine bonds with a small group or subset of people, a psychopath lacks that ability completely.
Both are dangerous in that they ultimately view other people as instrumental. Things that may be useful, but can be discarded as soon as that usefulness ends. Any bond with other people is either faked (the succesfull psychopath will not feel any connection but has learned how to mimic the interactions enough to convince the unwary) or superficial at best.
There is an even more informal (and debatable) variant on the spectrum where the person is unable to form bonds beyond the individual. They can empathise with others individually to a degree, but are incapable of extending that to more abstract groups. The concept of society is only present for them in the abstract. This is only rarely pathological but can be destructive if the person is elevated to a position of authority in an organisation. They are also likely to see interactions as transactional.
Even in the mental health field among professionals who work in this area the definition is still evolving. I worked for a good many years in a psychiatric hospital to had a focus on competency restoration and as a result encountered more that a fair number of people with the sort of personality disorders that would get them labeled “psychopath”. The last time I held a DSM in my hands the statistics for Cluster B personality disorders was about 1 in 30 people. The problem with that number is that it includes everyone from the asshole coworker who will step on you for a promotion all the way out to the Ted Bundys and Josef Stalins. Fortunately the real monsters really are truly rare. With all of the personality disorders there isn’t a really good yes, you are, no, you aren’t line. Part of what makes the “psychopath” scary is that they often function well enough in society and in some circumstances even thrive (insert your favorite politician/millionaire here). They won’t necessarily be antisocial, but you probably know someone with a personality disorder. That person who uses people without reciprocation or the person who lurches through life going from one crisis to another probably qualify but they won’t get diagnosed because their behavior won’t ever rise to the level that leads receiving psychiatric care. Related to that, there are several mentions of medication up and down this particular thread. I will state flat out that the cluster of symptoms that refer to the “psychopath” don’t particularly respond to medication. That doesn’t mean that you won’t find a psychiatrist that won’t try. The catch is that there are often co-occurring symptoms that do respond to medication. It’s not uncommon for a person with some flavor of personality disorder to experience other problems such as depression. In terms of treatment this is problematic because the symptoms of one condition may exacerbate the other. For instance, the vast majority of people with a diagnosis of some mental illness or other will never get arrested or commit a serious crime but when you toss an antisocial personality disorder into the mix the risk goes way up.
A flip side to this is that some folks want to label everyone who commits a crime as mentally ill. Nope, people commit crimes from a variety of motivation and evil exists and it is not a mental illness. I don’t mean evil in the sense of God versus Satan but rather in the sense of a calculated rational choice to harm others for one’s own gain.
So, what to do. Given that I worked in a forensic setting, a fair number of the people I worked around would eventually go to trial and some significant number would would eventually experience significant incarceration.
Side note: competency restoration isn’t cheap. The county or state isn’t usually going to invest the dollars on sending someone for competency restoration if you have been charged with shoplifting beer. If you ended up at my place of employment you probably had charges of serious assault, rape, murder or something on that level and the DA thought they had a prosecutable case. We didn’t operate from any assumption of guilt or innocence. Our job was the restoration of the ability to participate in the judicial process. It was notable that a fair number of people sent to this facility attempted to malinger other symptoms of mental illness.
In the community it is often a different matter. Most of the people aren’t going to be criminal masterminds, they are just dysfunctional. Medication can treat co-occurring symptoms and or disorders but the best thing to date is therapy to help them learn to moderate and manage their dysfunctional behaviors. One problem of communicating in this format is that it is difficult to talk about the subject without writing a freaking textbook. Another problem with the topic is that anybody with a keyboard can crank out a book or article and claim to be an expert. This includes me. I can claim experience but I’ve offered no proof. So, If it doesn’t have foot notes and a list of references, it is probably BS.
Pretty sure you’ve got it the wrong way around. Both psychopaths and sociopaths can be high functioning socially or just completely bonkers, but the major difference is that the Psychopath is congenitally unable to do empathy for others, while the Sociopath has been trained to see others as objects, either literally or via trauma.
You have it backwards: the sociopath can blend (think Blatman), it’s the psychopath that is, well, a complete psycho (think Joker)
The main difference is: a sociopath like Blatman (and his alter ego Brat Wayne) care about how the rest of society views them and tries to blend in, a psychopath like Joker doesn’t give a rat-shit about the rest of society (that’s even if they are aware of society and its ‘rules’)
Again. people diagnised with psychopathy can be treated/ be in therapy/medicated. There are probably more people out there married to a spouse who knows they have it and are being treated than you think.
Never said they couldn’t be treated, either of them
Okay, What is it when you tend to view other folks with suspicion, semi-believe they may not be human, but mitigate that by doing a social form of “Turing test” to verify when the paranoia gets too strong? Asking for a friend.
No idea what a ‘Turing test’ is…
Guesticules I sincerely hope you are joking about not knowing what a Turing test is. If you talk to a machine for an extended period and at no time wonder whether that the other party is a machine then the other machine has passed the Turing test. It is indistinguishable from a person.
You have it backwards. Sociopath is the minor version, psychopath is the extreme version. Both are examples of the current DSM diagnosis of Antisocial Personality Disorder, and over the years, the diagnoses would have been used interchangeably at times.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mindmelding/201301/what-is-psychopath-0
Pull quote: Some researchers use the term “psychopath” to refer to a more serious disorder, linked to genetic traits, which produces more dangerous individuals, while continuing to use “sociopath” to refer to less dangerous people who are seen more as products of their environment, including their upbringing.
Also, neither psychopath nor sociopath means they kill anyone. That’s not a thing.
There are over 7 million people in the US with ASPD, and 20% of them are “psychopaths”. That’s 1.4 million murders a year if they only killed once a year.
Treated/medicine in both areas ones though. can function. I watched a video once where one diagnosed with sociopathy explained in an interview how while he could fake being a good friend. and even be extremely helpful in any area he’s asked. it would mostly be for his own benefit not because he cared. He said as well he could manipulate people very well in order to fit in any situation he was stuck in. he also explained that he was undergoing therapy and was medicated. because a piece of him knew that there was something wrong. and that was just enough to go get help
So wait, Dabbler is a:
– alien
– demon
– construct
– AI
– Superhuman
?
And I bet there is some human in that somewhere. Is there any classification Dabbler is not part off?
Chaste.
Uneducated. Innocent. Naive. Male.
I doubt the Male part. It asumes she can not shape shift :)
But good listing otherwise.
She cannot shapeshift. She may be able to use a form of magic or glamour to appear male (the same way she used it to appear human and exceedingly alluring).
She also stated unequivocally that there are no male succubi. And that there is no male counterpart to her race. (which also makes it questionable if in a biological sense of the word Succubi are a species since they apparently lack the ability to reproduce independently).
Although, as we’re currently seeing the origin of her species…
I’m ASTONISHED that there weren’t any lonely Arch-maguses who happened to be attracted to the male form.
It’s a well know fact that all archmages are either lonely antisocial straight men, or lonely antisocial lesbians, nothing else.
Either that, or just whichever one spawned the succubi race was made by one of the striaght dudes.
The male models likely became other types of demon.
It is well documented that Dabbler swings both ways.
I feel like we met an incubi at some point in the comic, which would be the male equivalent.
Sydney imagined one, but Dabbler’s response was “That’s… complicated. Suffice to say, all succubi are female.”
Ultimately the answer of course is: because Dave wants it to be this way.
But if you are looking for an in-story explanation, it is not that unreasonable to assume that of the smaller subset that tried to create a male flesh golem, fewer were willing to openly come out doing so, and even fewer were caught up in the unofficial competition. They simply never developed their golem to the point where they had enough sapience to become independent intelligence’s. And thus no ‘male’ species was formed out of that competitive urge.
She casts illusions, she does not “shape-Shift”!
Yeah, why do so many erroneously believe she is a shapeshifter?
Virgin.
According to the cast page she’s also part-doppleganger.
Explicitly without the shapeshifting.
So it this is the origin of animation and AI in the magical world, then by implication Sciona is a master of weaponized sex-dolls.
Yesss, inject this into my veins…
http://www.jmd-reid.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Caliborn_worldbuilding.png
One comic left to convince me before I tell Max to get back to face-crushing.
This comic in general is not going to deliver what you demand of it.
After all, it is known for its weeks long tangents in the middle of different actions.
Also, you have nothing to demand of the author on how or what he should write, show or do with the story.
We may all be fans, but that gives us exactly no right to demand anything about the story the author choses to tell.
You can express a preference for certain content, but please do not be a toxic fan. A sense of entitlement over somebody else’s creative efforts can only lead to ugly confrontations. And we have all seen too many creators burning out trying to deal with the sentiment and the unpleasant interactions it causes.
Well, said!!!
Bravo,well stated.
I getcha dude. Fairly innocent remark in my book.
Seems other guy mistook in-character ‘I tell Max’ for ‘ I demand of Dave’.
Or I could be wrong, it gets complicated when issues have a lot of real-world baggage.
It will probably end up being that by product of their nature, Succubus NEED to have a master, even if they never see it, and just barely acknowldge his request, probably they get some measure of mafic sustenance, or something
So does the same thing apply to incubuses as well like a bunch of female sorceresses try to outdo their male counterparts with their own flesh Golems?
Probably.
Yah, there’s a point. While Dave has indicated prior to this that there are no males of the species (incubi), this origin story completely dashes that notion. Between the inevitability that there will be archmagi of more than one gender, and the inevitability, even among male archmagi, that something like one in seven male sorcerers are gay, I don’t see how males of this species could possibly have been avoided.
That depends. If the golems as a whole underwent the apotheosis, there would be at least some males. if it was a specific “brand” of golems that made the leap, then it is reasonable that there was some “female only” code hardwired onto it.
Doesn’t even have to be a brand. Could have been just one that the creator was like, “But… what if it could breed?” And that single individual spawned the species. Extra important, notice the flavor text at the bottom.
Lilith is the mythological mother of demons, and Dave is saying in the Grrlverse, that means “Version 1”
It’s likely only a single golem was the progenitor of the Succubi species in the setting.
This doesn’t preclude males, just means that they would have been a different species. I’m guessing vampires.
… for multiple reasons.
Maybe they just couldn’t get the darn things to work right…
Yeah… Here’s where it gets tricky. If they are originally golems made of flesh, they technically aren’t male from a genetic perspective. By this I do mean that they don’t make offspring by spreading motile gametes to inseminate non-motile gametes, and not the sociological depictions that humans use to define specific societal roles based on gender differences.
WTS, it is possible that the Succubi species are similar to the Asari, and that they require other species to procreate. This could be hardwired into their existence by their “Creators” to force them into a more servile role.
Possibly, but there is another possibility.
Let us call it the Sword of Truth hypothesis. (Keeping in mind I only ever read the first book)
As I understand it…the power of the Confessor is hereditary. The male offspring of a Confessor are always killed in infancy, in order to try and prevent the rise of a powerful, conquest-minded man, with the literal power to force anyone to become perfectly devoted & obedient to himself.
In short, while it is certainly possible for women to be sex predators, it is infinitely more common in men.
And yes, the whole ‘succubus lust aura’ bit does very arguably throw the issue of consent into question, it becomes an utter nightmare when viewed in this context. Moreover, and I think more importantly, from DaveB’s position as writer, do we really want a to deal with a narrative that would ultimately include beings that are not only serial rapists, but serial rapists that become ever more powerful, the more people they victimize?
Even Hell has limits.
This is a bit of a misunderstanding IIRC. I didn’t finish the series but I did read a number of books and the reason why male confessors have to be killed is much more simple. A strong female confessor can hit maybe 1 target / hour. A male confessor requires only minutes to recharge and a strong one might not even require that. Female confessors are a manageable risk, if one goes megalomaniacal she can be dealt with.
“…. the whole ‘succubus lust aura’ bit does very arguably throw the issue of consent into question …”
As a practising male with total mastery of “OOO gah raaaah” and a set of knuckle scabs to die for, I can honestly say the male-free succubus species was — is — a very intelligent solution to a difficult problem. Us blokes will quite happily give our consent to any charmer who cares to put the smile in. And those idiots who think they get to keep the, ahhh, lady won’t make that mistake again.
Must say experiences vary. Also a practicing male, but being a charmer with a pretty smile is not of itself sufficient to gain my consent. Or even, any more, my attraction. I think it was, for about three years, before I was 25. But at that age something like 10% of my body weight was hormones. Brains grew in more slowly.
Experience, however great the cost, really is the best teacher. I’m frankly amazed that some people can apparently afford to keep re-taking those lessons…. and puzzled about why it always seems to be my couch they wind up on the night the whole thing explodes….
I think the big difference is that girls are born with functioning brains, us blokes have to grow them and hope the ground is fertile.
Sorcerous’ don’t actually need the male version, they were ahead of the Sorcerer’s when they repurposed the magic wand… and have you seen what they can do with a solid oak Staff?
Hey, I guessed right about them starting out as flesh Golems.
Can I be disappointed for a moment that Unity from Skin Horse didn’t get a cameo on this page?
I’m with ya. Though she isn’t super… uh… succumbine honestly. She’d probably just start ripping heads off, then have a dance-off against the bikini bear lol.
While attempting to juggle the heads?
Why are all flesh golems portrayed as stitched together pieces? You dont think that a arch-wizard capable of making one has access to a shape flesh spell? Any kind of basic transmutations to change the shape and appearance of the dead flesh?
If anything forming a perfectly aesthetic body with straight magic, summoning a pile of flesh, then shaping it, would be easier or at least seem to a tower-wizard to be less effort, than aqcuiring corpses and hoping you stitched the viens and nerves together the right way.
Presumably it’s an identification thing, similar to survivor bias. It’s possible that *all* the people on that page are intelligent flesh golems but we can’t tell except for the ones that are stitched together.
I am thinking very early prototype phase,
the first guy was using necromancy, and the next year the one-up attempt was the borderline between necromancy and biomancy that is the Frankenstein’s monster flesh golem design. Probably a few conventions away before someone decides to use chimera methods to incorporate external DNA to smooth out the rough patches or magical vat homunculus methods to grow or heal over the stitching to produce a more life like construct.
Why? Because of tradition! Show some respect for dramatic symbolism, dammit!
A flesh construct needs stitches! Without stitching to identify it as such, what would you call a mindless unholy abomination of barly-conscious human meat?
That’s right, a Republican.
You sir, just won the internet for today!
I’m sorry, which parties president thinks that, when faced with an abundance of cargo piling up in port the best answer is to avoid relaxing restrictions on hiring freelance cargo drivers, but instead levy huge fines on the shipping companies for daring to get stuck in port? I’ll give you a clue, it ain’t the Republicans.
After 4 years of cartoonish insanity and evil the likes of which would make Skeletor and Cobra Commander blush, your whataboutism no longer has any effect.
Which side?
BOTH of them are utterly, totally insane. We can ignore the problem and make money hoping it goes away or kills off the people we don’t like (previous president) OR we can ignore OTHER problems while focusing on making people happy (current president). Neither of those are decent long term plans.
Admittedly, the current office holder hasn’t committed open, blatant treason that we know of. Yet.
I really think it’s best of we discuss politics somewhere else than here.
couldn’t have said it better myself Jaws.
In my head canon The dwarf and elf mages realized what they really wanted… was each other. And so a centuries long love affair was born.
Some people send flowers, arch mages construct flesh golems. The language of love is mysterious indeed! I wonder only that the dwarf golem lacks a mustache.
Female dwarves having beards and moustaches is a Pratchettism.
Also Tolkien. “The females look so similar to the males” and all.
You can look similar without having a beard.
So can the male dorfs
maybe in that universe female dwarves DO have beards, just not on their… facial lips
Thus leaving their respective ‘companions’ unsupervised in the laboratory of one or more top-level biomage, thus allowing them to covertly bootstrap the development of the Succubus race!
I’m getting a definite Leonard Nimoy vibe from the elf mage.
I never would have thought that the bear could be the maiden fair.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6VMSYIXCCY
“fair”, means with pale skin.
Ever seen a shaved bear?
Terrifying.
Also, pasty af.
Except for Polar Bears. They’re black.
I googled this after you said it and was surprised that you’re correct. I learned something new.
Same for zebras btw.
It’s the fish consumption. Supplies their vitamin D, so they don’t need to generate it in the skin, so all the evolutionary drive is in favor of better protection against skin cancer.
That makes sense.
The more you know… :)
It also means pretty
Except that historically it is almost exclusively used in reference to paleness when used to describe beauty, either in skin or in hair (blonde). It is often used to mean pretty, but using a more specific standard of beauty. Darker skin tones/hair colors can be absolutely gorgeous, but if you describe them as “fair” you’re gonna confuse a lot of people. Is that egalitarian? not particularly, but it is how the word is used, so if you wanna avoid referencing color it’s better to use an adjective that doesn’t reference color than to try to insist that a relatively archaic word doesn’t have baggage.
Things can be pretty because they are pale (at least in part), so they are described as “fair”. Things can be pretty because they are dark, but I don’t know of any words with that usage that haven’t been labeled as racist (swarthy comes to mind, but because it is used in reference to dark skin it’s kinda hard to avoid it carrying the baggage of racism, especially since historically it’s been used by a lot of racists).
Dusky, for one. There are also a lot of commonly used comparative terms like mocha or smoky.
See, I can only picture someone such as myself, a white guy, using those terms to romantically describe a woman the way I might use fair, and getting his butt kicked for racism. Granted, I do agree those terms have less baggage on them specifically, so the baggage comes more from society and circumstance.
Frankly, I generally try to avoid physical characteristics when describing what I like about someone, largely out of fear of people thinking I’m racist, sexist, whatever because I like a particular woman’s body. Sometimes I feel safe involving hair, but not always. Thankfully, the body is like priority three, not one, for me, so it generally isn’t a huge issue. Less thankfully, I have not often found myself in a position to describe the good qualities of women I fancy, largely because the relationship rarely gets past the general expression of interest stage because I usually then learn said interest isn’t reciprocated and thus move on.
I think I see the progression in this “arms race”
start with stitched together zombie necromancy,
proceed to that boarderline Necromancy/Biomancy that is flesh golem research,
then between adding intelligence, durability, and sensuality among other desired features, a few arch mages here and there decide to one up on the creating life research and proceed into the shaped flesh, polymorph, magical creature, homunculus, stuff with magical vat grown constructs, body parts brought together and then melded seamlessly in biomancy healing/formation tubes *start off stitched but the magic melds the parts together perfectly*, and various similar methods.
so in the end you end up with something alive, sapient, magical, with freewill,
making the succubi something akin to but between these examples.
“Demons” AKA Etherea from the anime Fairy Tail.
“Chimeras” from the anime Slayers (which can be fully grown from scratch or use living components, like a person)
or
“Magical Creatures” from the anime Rune Soldier (same universe as Record of Lodoss War)
so yeah I can see that drive to one up each other resulting in someone conjuring up demonic energies, primordial life magic, and forming it in a magical vat with homunculus alchemy and creating what is essentially a new kind of demon.
-however all that said, I agree this origin being artificial and not a gender specific mutation makes the absence of male and hermaphrodite versions odder, even if the founding generation were from a males exclusive arms race, just the technique to produce them existing and spies and competition, someone should have been bound to privately make these.
I mean it can make sense in this scenario for succubi to vastly outnumber the other two options, but if they can be made then they should exist…heck someone add shapeshifter genes into their construct and you end up with a traditional cubi creation able to shift between succubus and incubus and anything inbetween as needed.
Ever since Monday I’ve kinda been kicking around the idea of how to do all this without the somewhat macabre need for an ample supply of fresh corpses, and framing it in d&d terms I think I’ve figured it out.
So first your wizard is going to need a medium sized rock that they will form into a close approximation of the finished product using Stone Shape, before adding in the finishing details using the Mold Earth cantrip. Next they use the old-school 3.5 spell Stone to Flesh to make…. A corpse. But! It’s a new corpse what didn’t used to be anyone so it’s less bad! Then they finish up by completing the usual animation process and have a custom, to order servant with the added bonus of being more aesthetically uniform than the standard models.
The problem I see with this is the same as most of the approaches on this comments page, you get the look you want on the outside, but they don’t have any of the necessary internals. In your case there are no bones to inform the movements, so it’s more of an uncanny valley flesh slime when it moves.
I think it would work to produce bones and other internals, at least as the spell is written in 3.5.
https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/stoneToFlesh.htm
Why use a rock, Adam was created from mud, and it’s easier to mold into the basic shape first
Couple of reasons. As wizards, I’m assuming a certain distain of physical labour, which would incline them towards using magic. I’m also assuming that this little project is going to take a few days, and due to being somewhat distractible, those days are going to be spread out across a month or more, at which point it’s easier to use a lump of rock that can be abandoned for a while than it is to try and maintain a clay effigy and keep it from drying out and crumbling apart.
You do know how malleable rock is, right?
Yup. Thus the use of the spells Stone Shape and Mold Earth rather than the use of chisels and hammers to do the shaping, carving, and detail work.
In 3.5 creating a new spices is possible at epic levels. On the subject of your plan if I was DM Flesh to Stone would only produce flesh (with blood and the like in it) with no eyes or other bits. I’m open to being pointed to an official ruling on what would happen.
Well, the spell text does stipulate that when cast on a statue, it would produce a corpse. Additionally, it says that casting it upon a stone golem would create a flesh golem, so *shrug*.
https://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/stoneToFlesh.htm
The only lack of authenticity I’m seeing is that the Archmage in the Hefner attire should have shown up at the next convention with three to five (at least two of which should be blonde).
i’m glad i wasn’t the only one who got the hefner vibe from him lol!
i think he showed up with the MK II, you may notice her right hand had no stitch seams at the wrist and wasn’t corpse-green, or is it orc-green, and the white flesh parts were on opposite sides of her body from the first flesh golem; it isn’t at all a case of Dave flipping the image and forgetting some details when he made it small
Dabbler has obviously never met Sir Stabby if she thinks we wouldn’t give our roombas knives.
Uh well, I might or might not have laughed a little too hard at the Bear-hooker (Booker? Beaker?) in the last panel. I’m pretty sure the new Neighbors are not frightened that the joker might be hiding out in my house.
Hmmm. Seems kind of sexist. I mean it implies that all arch mages are male and they all would want female “servants”. Wouldn’t female or otherly sexually aligned arch mages make an incubus?
Yes, he’ll go to a sex doll site, while not as common they do sell male sex Dolls and female models also have optional cost extra penis attachments. So this origin makes less sense to be all female than a demonic mutation would.
Apparently not in this fictional retelling from a fictional world :)
Reality men and women are not equal. If they were equal there wouldn’t be anything for feminists to complain about.
That, is Legally!
oh they would.
apparently, because of the “pink tax” equality is not enough anymore.
As a feminist, I must refute that. That is a myth!
yeah, it… this page is so very, uncomfortably, objectifying.
The would, but this whole comic is massively sexist, so it’s more a shrug and move on error.
yesssssss….
fill me with your outrage, get offended, assign malicious intent indiscriminitaly.
seriously people.
Umm, where does shrug and move on error suggest outrage to you?
Does this mean Dabbler comes with a variety of accessories?
There’s nothing I can say about that, is there?
optional tail and extra pair of breasts were established.
“Pet projects”. I see what you did there.
And later, they held an analogy of ‘monster truck rally’, but that’s one for Oglaf to draw.
The female arch-mages meet at a separate location. Community guidelines are generally useless when dealing with arch-mages.
There’s prototype cooking robots. People also seem to like taping knives to roombas.
Hardware and software people are very passionate about pushing the useful boundaries what they do, while also being terrified of it.
WHO else thinks that dude in Red Smoking Jacket reminds you of Hugh Hefner. I mean put a pipe in his mouth and….Think about it.
I stand Corrected. Last Panel He has a PIPE! It is HEFNER from another Universe/Dimension.
Harry Mudd from Star Trek classic.
He just needs numbers on the next generations
So, in this world, Frankenstein made the woman first? And then didn’t bother with the man, cuz why invent competition?
Same, with God, the man, was a rough draft! :)
Frankenstein was not a mage, he was a man of SCIENCE! :)
Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science.
the science in the book was kinda handwaved
Mad science is so underappreciated.
And it’s pronounced Frahnken-steen!
that being said there are people who trust roombas with knifes… with varying degres of success
There are some people who trust Roomba with a claymore mine…
Whelp this confirms some things, male mages that identify as female call themselves witches
For what reason did you feel the need to bring up trans people?
… Hadn’t even noticed that
Just thought it was like how male witches tend to be called warlocks, thus, a female mage would be a witch (the ‘identify as’ part didn’t register)
That sounds rather Transphobic! :)
I think it’s just meant as a title. If we were in an 80s movie, male witches would be called witches while female witches would be called warlocks.
Also in 70s sitcoms about witches.
Umm…
What? That’s what male witches were called in Warlock 1, 2, and 3, and also in Bewitched.
Oh wait I just noticed I basically repeated what you wrote. I didnt see your post when I posted.
“male mages that identify as female” are female mages. There’s no reason they couldn’t have said “female mages”. Trans women are women, putting an asterisk in front of that is unnecessary and is usually only ever done in bad faith.
Is.. is that Radogast with the bear? o_0
The hood next to the care-bear looks vaguely familiar, kinda shockled that no one else noticed them, and you call your selves nerds and geeks!
I dig the bear.
in Canada, the bear digs you lol.
Just think though.. we’re doing this with robots… albeit slowly, but that’s one of the directions robotics is going.
I got a lil lost in the narrative here. Where is this suppose to have happened 20,000 years ago?
Not Earth
Magic World number 2478,
Humans, Elves, Dwarves,
magic system of base type,
demonic connection,
Bortherhood of Arch Mages controlling magical society among various feudal agrarian level kingdoms being kept dependent on magic.
in other words, pretty common, pretty boring, real tempting to throw in random stuff to mix things up like opening a portal to an Orc world, or having a god pose as a wizard to introduce some new/forbidden types of magic like advanced necromancy or floramancy to make sexy Alraunes or something, maybe shove some dead persons’s soul into a slime or spider with stupid high potential and OP skills to again, mix up the boring status quo.
I must say that I like how even with the context of the new vote incentive Sydney is still relatively modestly dressed.
I still don’t see how these aren’t just a type of undead. Wait, does that mean that Dabbler is part undead???
Sydney: “A really disgusting arms race?”
Well, for one thing “disgusting” is an entirely subjective viewpoint of an individual.
For another thing, yes…Arms race & legs race & a few other choice…fleshy…parts race.
I admit I’m still confused about the punchline with the dwarf and elf archmages. Is it meant to be that they have repressed feelings for each other? Ha… ha?
I just noticed all the zombie succubae prototypes have Heterochromia just like Dabbler
Thought it was more a case of one dead or cloudy eye (or covered with cataracts) and one live fresh eye
Um… question. Why are all these archmages… men? Cause… not gonna lie… this raises some very fundamental questions about the nature of the profession of magic across multiple worlds. You can say women are rare in magic for the same reason they were rare in science until the 60’s, but to say this is a norm across multiple worlds is a bit of a higher bar.
More over, yeah, I get necromancy / flesh golem, but isn’t transfiguration a thing? How about enchantment? Like you can just take a poor woman and cast “Enhance attribute Charisma” and permanency, along with copious use of charm person and dominate person and voila. Sex bot. With a pulse. Who can cook. I get the necromancy route is ONE WAY to do it, but it’s not like it’s the ONLY way. Minds do tend to latch on to the easier, closer concept. Hell, turn an animal into a humanoid if you’re concerned about ethics. That’s how half the furry races came to be!
The entity that enchants and builds its own servants and lovers from scratch or non-living bases is the least likely to draw attention from would be “do gooders” and “conderned individuals” unless they act against people.
The entity that creates its servants and lovers from living but non-human sources and/or the dead, will draw the attention and hostilities of overly zeoloust ideological sorts like paladins, and perhaps anyone with a connection to the bodies used taking issue.
The entity that abducts people to change their forms and minds as their servants and slaves will be drawing the attention of every adventurer, law enforcement, moral enforcer, perhaps even other monsters and villains they were plucking people from the territory of, and anyone else who will regard it as human trafficking, slavery…hell depending on the setting even slavers may hire adventurers because this behavior is drawing attention to them or else stolen from them, ect…
basically that later is not only morally abominable but also draws ALOT of attention to yourself. Some wizard or another may get away with it for a few years but once that one adventurer stops by or a more ethical wizard decides to break the control spell, angry divinity, annoyed demon or fae…and you either end up with an adventurer stabbing you or your now freed from your control sex slaves ripping you apart.
in short you are basically advocating human slavery and bestiality over animating a Real Doll, because of being too lazy to try and give them basic skills.
Artificial rarity, “for the same reason they were rare in science “!
“Why are all these archmages… men?”
Using major magic during a pregnancy causes sorcerous birth defects, maybe? PMS disrupts the mindset necessary for higher magics?
It’s easy to invent reasons for that, if you just abandon the assumption that men and women are completely interchangeable, and accept that we have real biological differences.
Men and women have real biological differences, but it’s the assumption that those differences necessarily lead to measurable, reliable differences in capability that can be used to create exclusive policies that’s the problem.
Not quite. Creation of an ‘exclusion policy’ is one problem, but it doesn’t mean that other problems don’t exist, and it doesn’t mean that ‘reliably measurable differences in capability’ don’t exist. Whether your preferred outcome is “the winners should all be X” or “the winners should be 50% X and 50% Y” or anything else, it’s still discrimination when you create rules intended to enforce that preferred outcome regardless of the actual results.
Historically, the claimed target outcome and actual outcome haven’t matched, whether due to misrepresentation or delusion. It’s apparent that many people have goals contrary to the image they wish to present, and select their priorities based on their preferred outcome, rather than the reverse.
What targets are set is, in many cases, a part of the problem.
Typically, these targets are set in terms of quotas: declaring what the composition of the chosen group should be, before the candidates have even come forward let alone been evaluated. That is prejudice, clear and simple, and policies to enforce it are discriminatory. Doesn’t matter whether the target composition is ‘all like me’ or ‘proportional fit to the census’ or whatever. It’s an easy type of target to set, because it’s an easy type to measure, but it simply perpetuates and can even reinforce* the behaviour it seeks to reduce.
If you want to set a proper target, base it on auditing the process and let the output fall where it will. If your prejudice for what the output ‘should’ be is correct, then a level process will deliver it (given a statistically adequate sample to work with). If your prejudice does not match the reality, then a level process will reveal this and you can adjust your expectations.
* A potentially long tangent, especially for this time of night.
I’m going to guess that it’s these archmages in particular who are just men, and that it’s not representative of all archmages in the setting. To put it another way, the same kind of male archmages who would create these sort of flesh golems are also the same kind that wouldn’t hang around women who are their equals.
life created from the flesh of the dead is called a Promethean, the creator is called a Demiurge. named after the mortal Prometheus, they are animated by the celestial fire and have that in place of a soul. They seek the philosopher’s stone to convert the fire into a soul.
that’s how World of Darkness explains it anyway.
Technically, wouldn’t a “Vallejo glamour” result in all the men looking like Boris, and all the women looking like his wife?
I’m not going to deny he’s a technically excellent artist, I even have a couple of his art books. But everybody he paints tends to look the same, for a reason: He works from photos.
Now, Franzeta, HE was a true master!
It’s evidently a progressive glamour, from the timeline implied in the speech bubbles. DaveB evidently decided to stop drawing when they were no longer so recognisably his characters.