Grrl Power #998 – All’s well that succs well?
I was trying so hard to trim this tale down to the basics but then in panel 4 I couldn’t help stick in a joke about… I guess it’s about ableism? Sort of? There’s absolutely a need to be aware of discriminatory thinking, but I also think there’s a cutoff, where all parties need to be cognizant of reality. If someone gets both their arms blown off in a potato gun incident, I think it’s okay to suggest that learning sign language or juggling might present a slightly steeper difficulty curve than usual. Not saying you can’t or shouldn’t, and I’ll try not to use the word disabled if you don’t like it, just please don’t bite my head off if I make an offhanded (no pun intended) comment about thinking you might have better luck Riverdancing than rock climbing. Personally, if I lost both my arms, my first instinct wouldn’t be to beligerently sign up for the patty-cake championships, but I might get annoyed if someone I worked with constantly said “hand-off” instead of “delegate.”
I don’t know, I wasn’t trying to get all insightful. I just thought it was funny. My point was, they’ve all had to sit through Archon’s HR videos, and telling someone they need to be “fixed” is probably on the no-no list.
“Why did you attack me with that bucket of water?” “You were on fire.” “Well, that’s just immolationist.”
Panel 5: If I’d had another page for this sequence, I was going to write about how if humans could gene-edit ourselves, our first step might be to make it so we could synthesize vitamin c. Some monkeys can do it. Most mammals can, but at some point one of our ancestors had a mutation that cost him the ability. Obviously he had access to oranges and was probably swinging a big dick, so here we are. But then what’s the next step? Make it so we can synthesize all the vitamins? Cure male-pattern baldness? Eliminate breast cancer? Two hearts are better than one, etc etc. At some point, those people couldn’t realistically call themselves humans. I think usually the species divide is defined at being able to interbreed and produce viable, fertile offspring. Once you lose that, you’re not really the same species any more. Dabbler’s point was yeah, we could get rid of our soul-hole, and our horns and weird skin colors and throat clits, but we certainly wouldn’t be succubi anymore.
“I’m sorry, what was that last one?” “Come and find out.”
There were some concerns about Dabbler being a security risk if she has a foreign master she’s beholden to, and those are perfectly valid. If she was 22, she would definitely be a risk unless her master was also on the team and had equivalent or higher security clearance than her. But she’s 187, and has been able to resist the obedience compulsion for a long ass time.
Oh, and as far as the symbols on the collars go, the 4-x’s isn’t emblematic of anything about Tom specifically, like he doesn’t have a birthmark that looks like 4 X’s or anything. It just forms when the bond is established. That said, it could carry over from some symbol the master strongly identifies with. Like with Deus, it might be that lopsided X on his face, but it usually some unique symbol, like a magical QR code.
Tamer: Enhancer 2 – Progress Update:
Still working on that sex scene. I don’t really want to FTB, but I haven’t really been in the mood to write it. It’s a scene with Yxlyn, and I think because I wrote her so naive and innocent in the first book, writing a sex scene with her feels tawdry or something? Which is stupid because the book opens on the scene with her and Sam – which I’ve already written. I don’t consider that a spoiler because the first book ends with them crawling into the little cavelette for their first time together. Admittedly it’s a really weird way to open a book, but that’s just where I cut it last time. Poor planning if I’m honest.
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“At some point, those people couldn’t realistically call themselves humans.”
You say that as if that was in any way shape or form a good argument against having our bodies augmented out the wazoo.
Also, so far I’ve heard nothing that would explain why Incubi aren’t a thing?
No really kinky gay Master Wizards out there that felt the burning need to enter into the Arms Race and create their own Sex Slave Servants? No horny Sorceresses that felt the need with all those powerful men to ensorcel and ensnare just laying around?
Plenty of reasons Incubi aren’t a THING…
Remember that succubi started out as animated flesh, aka zombies.
My guess is that these prehistoric (and possibly rare if Dave’s drawings are anything to go by) female arch wizards had a much better sense of self respect and sanitation. If they wanted company they likely did not have that much trouble finding any, and if they wanted empty sex, there was already a perfectly servicable invention for that that did not require any icky undead flesh sticking into their body. (and with just a tiny bit of magic they could get it to vibrate in a way that no man, living or zombie, could ever hope to match).
There was not much demand for undead male sexbots and by the many years later that the magic improved to the point that it was not as yucky anymore, that probably was firmly established in everybody’s mind. There possibly were some automatons, but nothing ensouled, and nothing truly sapient, so those automatons missed out on the whole become murder sex-slaves, soul holes and eventual emancipation. They were bits of magical machinery and remained so to this day.
Then again, probably the true reason is that years ago Dave decided to not get involved into that whole medival idiocy of sexually repressed succubus and incubus nonsense and stated that in his universe there was no such thing as an incubus. We just read a giant retcon to justify that decision ;)
Or maybe I am selling him short and he always intended this explanation for succubi (which given Xuriel’s apparent long history before the comic is at least as likely)
“My guess is that these prehistoric (and possibly rare if Dave’s drawings are anything to go by) female arch wizards had a much better sense of self respect and sanitation.”
It does seem like, for at least quite a long time, female archwizard were rare or even non-existent. So that could have definitely been one reason. There might actually be incubi but it would not have been from the same origins as succubi. However, previously when asked, Dabbler did not just say ‘yes, there are incubi but they’re different than succubi.’ Which leads me to believe that there are NO incubi.
The exact dialog went like this:
Sydney: “What about boy succubi, are they always skeeving on… wait, ARE there boy-cubi? Uh, incubi?
Dabbler: “That’s… complicated. Suffice to say, all Succubi are female.”
When asked further, she said that she could give the entire succubi history, which probably would have been good to know BEFORE Maxima tried to crush the skull of Tom, but Sydney was already late to be checking in with Maxima at that point.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-312-succudigression/
So yes, it does seem like DaveB always intended this sort of explanation for the succubi not having any male versions.
While the origin of succubi may be “complicated”, I was still expecting the existence of incubi to be more than a binary yes or no. Under some mythology, succubi and incubi are just forms of the same creature, and it shapeshifts in order to steal semen from men, which it then uses to inseminate women. I was expecting something similar, given how she phrased her response.
“While the origin of succubi may be “complicated”, I was still expecting the existence of incubi to be more than a binary yes or no.”
Could be, but as always, I usually defer to the idea that if something has not been shown or hinted at at all, then it’s not true until there’s at least some foreshadowing of that that thing.
Currently the only thing we have to go on about incubi is Dabbler saying 1) There are no male succubi (which would be incubi) and 2) It’s complicated (which after this Dabbler’s Science Corner heavily implies that THIS explanation was the ‘complicated’ part on the history of succubi origins).
Until there’s something more to go on, I’m not going to assume there are incubi as a default. If later on, DaveB puts something in to lead to the possibility that there are male tantric powered demons like incubi, then I can readjust my thoughts on the subject. :)
“which it then uses to inseminate women. I was expecting something similar, given how she phrased her response.”
Technically Zeus, king of the gods of ancient greece, did mostly that. He’d shapeshift in order to inseminate women (and some men).
1) That’s how he had sex with Leda – he shapeshifted into a swan and basically raped Leda as a swan because Zeus is a sick mf’er (Leda and the Swan).
2) That’s how he had sex with a guy called Ganymede (yeah Zeus swung both ways), where he shapeshifted into an eagle to abduct him and basically made him his lover on Olympus.
3) That’s how he had sex with Danae – Zeus turned into golden rain (no not that kind!) and impegnated her that way so she’d give birth to Perseus.
4) That’s how he had sex with Europa – this time he apparently SEDUCED her as a freaking bull because Europa was into some really kinky stuff. And she wound up becoming Queen of Crete and bore Zeus a bunch of sons.
5) That’s how he had sex with Alcmeme (who was the granddaughter of Perseus because apparently Zeus is not only into bestiality and rape, but also incest – again I stress Zeus was a sick mf’er) – who gave birth to Hercules. Zeus shapeshifted into Alcmeme’s husband, Amphitryon.
6) That’s how Zeus had sex with Semele (daughter of Cadmus, King of Thebes). Where she gave birth to Dionysus. At that point Hera started shapeshifting as well in order to get the woman killed because most Greek gods were complete a-holes.
And I’m pretty sure I’m leaving out a LOT of others who Zeus did the ol’ ‘shapeshift and bang’ with, because Zeus is one horny and perverted a-hole who does not respect boundaries at all. Zeus apparently cheated on Hera over 57 times, and she kept forgiving him. A LOT of those times he shapeshifted into another person or animal or a cloud or liquid or the woman’s husband.
“Look, 99% of Greek mythology starts with ‘And Then Zeus Stuck His Dick In It’…”
And it does not help that the men writing down these myths (or the ones who translated these myths) were more than a little misogynist. Quite a few of the godesses were pretty powerful and badass in their own right before the ancient Greek got their hands on their myths.
Persephone started out as /the/ goddess of death and /the/ ruler of the underworld and was nothing like the McGuffin the ‘accepted’ myth turned her into.
Aphrodite has a direct historical link all the way back to Astarte and Ishtar, who had quite a bit bigger divine portofolio (including also death, war, protection and much more) and generally were part of creation myths for their respective culture.
Hera was actually adopted into the pantheon from another culture and was the big powerhouse there (the greek could not accept a godess outpowering their big bad, so they reduced her to the passive goddess of hearth and family, and then subsequently made her absolutely petty. Though they did the later with every godess. Even aphrodite for whom it was horribly out of character even by the very low greek mythology standards)
Well, there’s also the line about a secondary biological mother, who had never met her father. And the “powerful reproductive systems” mentioned above.
Yeah I think I mentioned that in a different thread :)
Sadly Hera was basically the goddess of marital commitment so her portfolio as a god effectively left her with no recourse with regards to divorcing or cheating on him. Even as the top god Zeus may have been more restrained if he had to worry about Hera actually taking her vengeance out on HIM instead of his victims. Which isn’t so surprising, given the misogyny of the times horndog leader god that never has to worry about commitment for the men while submissive, solely committed to their husband women was the example from horndog leader god’s wife.
Incubi are probably a thing, but given that ultimately there is no difference between them and succubi, they probably are just called succubuses,
Dabbles specifically stated there are no male succubae
Unless she wants to look and act that way.
What? You think she cannot figure out a way to do that with her glamour, IQ and skills?
Honestly? I would BET that some succubi do that just to find a partner they prefer.
An illusion is not a shape-change
No, but her mechanical arm kind of is.
And even us regular humans have things like strap-ons and so forth. And going only slightly further than that we have surgery that does an imperfect but pretty darn good job at a full gender switch. Dabbles is more inclined to technology than most succubi, and likely some are as skilled as magical artificers as those who created their kind.
I think I’m going to conclude that if there are no males of the species it’s because there are no succubi who actually feel that they ought to be male.
Maybe all succubi are immune to gender dysphoria? Perhaps being gender euphoric is their natural state?
Her arm isn’t a shapechange, that is a replacement for her lost natural arm
“No, but her mechanical arm kind of is.”
Her mechanical arm is not a shapechanger. It’s just a replacement for the arm that she lost in a sword-fight. Any time it looks different, it’s just a succubus glamour – an illusion.
It’s not even like Cora’s artificial arms, which ARE able to change shape since they’re hard light constructs.
“Maybe all succubi are immune to gender dysphoria? Perhaps being gender euphoric is their natural state?”
Or that particular condition might just be limited to humans. And Dabbler is not human? I am not sure about that since I don’t know if there are any ‘human succubi hybrids’ since there IS a vehemic energy using human (Vehemence) so maybe there’s also a tantric energy using human.
Changing someone’s shape back to their “normal” when it isn’t anymore, definitely counts.
But the point more generally was that if human tech can manage sex changes good enough that people usually don’t notice them, then can we really expect that beings with access to tech far beyond ours, plus magic, actually can’t?
That seems a lot less likely than succubae being gender-euphoric by default because tantric magic or whatever.
“Changing someone’s shape back to their “normal” when it isn’t anymore, definitely counts“
It really, really doesn’t :) But I admire your argumentative devils-advocating spirit.
A person who has a glass eye did not shapeshift. Not did a person with a prosthetic limb. It’s not ‘changing shape’ any more than wearing clothes is changing shape from when you are naked. :).
I do see your technical argument that anything that may change your sillouhette is shape changing though, like wearing a push up bra, but the term shapechanger in this context is the ability to alter the existing body to become a different form. I get the context from the thread.
Admittedly, in this respect Cora is also not technically a shaoechanger but she has limbs which are shapechangers (as her prosthesis literally do change shape instead of just being an illusion, unlike Dabblers glamour, and as far ad we have seen so far, Dabblers arm always remains as Dabblers arm, with a teleporation device hooked into it.:)
(I wish I spelled silhouette correctly the first time but I hit enter before realizing my mistake and there’s no edits and no take backsies)
Dabbler has stated even before now that there are no male succubi when Sydney had asked her about that.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-312-succudigression/
It’s entirely possible that the matriarchs Just couldn’t get male reproduction to work in a manner that made more succubi and therefore they died out.
I wonder………
maybe they’re like bees… there’s only one or a handful of Incubi, used for mating – and then there’s a queen Succubus somewhere that is the mother of all succubi(?)
I answered this last time. Short answer: no need + significant cost –> not happening.
They can shapeshift _everything_. They can reproduce just fine without. End of story.
they can’t shapeshift, not at that degree, the most we know Dabbler can do is a second pair of breasts, and these have never appeared in this comic so it may not even be a canon ability anymore.
she uses various forms of glamour which regardless of its a simple pallet swap of the hiar or a beauty is in the eye of the beholder psionic link skill to make them the ultimate desire of their target; its all still just an illusion, and not a physical change. Little more than a combo hallucination turned hologram.
Her second set of breasts and tail are canon, she just doesn’t display them on Dirt for in-story reasons (out-of-story reasons is… DaveB simply found them awkward and could never get tops to ‘look right’)
When did DaveB ever say that? I know that Dabbler has two belly buttons (which i think I saw on DaveB’s deviantart page but I’m going to assume it’s canon), but I’ve never seen any evidence that she has a second set of breasts, and I don’t remember DaveB ever saying that, but I could have missed it. Can you provide a link where he said that?
Plus Dabbler’s illusions don’t mean that the parts that are not showing up don’t exist (remember when Dabbler squeezed Maxima’s butt with her second set of hands at Sydney’s interview, or when she was thrown against the wall by Coot/wyrmil and the impression showed four arms? We haev seen her press up against other people, and if she had four sets of breasts, that would have looked… different.
the second pair of breasts is from the pre-Grrl Power Dabbler who showed up in drawings and guest apperances in comics like Wereworld.
But yeah, even if her alien biology allows her to inflate and deflate these that doesn’t mean she can grow a penis or something
(not that some succubi with the right alien and/or demonic parts couldn’t do that), but as a default full on shapeshifting is outside her wheelhouse.
“the second pair of breasts is from the pre-Grrl Power Dabbler who showed up in drawings and guest apperances in comics like Wereworld.”
Oh okay, so not canon stuff. Thanks – wasnt sure if I had missed something.
It is canon, just not within Grrlpower
Ok I am now confused. If it is not in Grrlpower or ever referenced in any way in grrlpower, and they seem to not exist at sll when she presses up to people or wears her skintight wetsuit without using glamour, then how is it canon?
It feels more like a “what if” or guest fan comic scenario than canon. Like when arianna matched wits with a kodiak bear or maxima was mind controlled by space hitler or whatever that guest comic said.
In fairness, a second-pair of Hypno-boobs would make her the most stupidly overpowered person in the setting XD
Be… cause DaveB said it was?
“Be… cause DaveB said it was?”
Can you please provide a link because I honestly do not recall this ever happening. I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m saying I do not know about this and would like to see where it happened so I can know if it’s a fanart thing, a what if thing, or actual canon.
It was canon in a different comic before Grrl power where she was a guest character, Were world. As I said before. So why I don’t know if it is canon to This comic
Dabbler was on the very last page of the comic before it stopped, which gives a good view of how she looked back then, she had been big during the last arc of the story.
*some mild nudity*
http://wereworld.comicgenesis.com/d/20121008.html
Can I please get a link to that comic?
It was early on in the comic, some time around when Dabbles first appeared
And she didn’t just appear on the last page of Were World, she actually appeared a short time before the end, and, WW predated GP and you can kinda view as the reason why Dabbles came to Dirt in the first place
One big warning about WW: it contains lots of furry sex
I said
“she had been big during the last arc of the story.”
as in she had been in Wereworld for some time prior to the last page obviously.
Also yes, it is a furry sex comic, so lots of nudity and sex.
Rhuen:
Thanks.
That looks more like a fanfic equivalent, rather than canon, if DaveB did not write it? Or is Rann a name that DaveB used to use before making Grrlpower?
But still interesting.
Wereworld wasn’t written by DaveB, but Dabbler’s presence there is slightly more official than the fanfic level. If I remember correctly (and I don’t have the link to reference), Dabbler was around as a character concept* long before the rest of Grrl Power got started. At some point between her creation and DaveB writing this comic, Rann asked if he could borrow her as a secondary character for Wereworld. Whether she will ever refer in this timeframe to what happened during those years, only the author knows.
Obviously there are some morphological differences, notably the second pair of breasts and the tail. They’re sort-of-handwaved by saying that she was adventuring around the Galaxy for a while before coming to Earth, and made some changes to her ‘normal’ shape along the way.
*The result of an extremely lucky RPG random character creation session, I believe, with at least two ‘additional background’ rolls. Too powerful for the intended scenario, but too much potential not to use for something.
Dabbler left out a lot…
It’s quite likely there were experiments with male models. Handy for grunt work and all that.
However… In the case of males our higher brain immediately would recognise them as potential weapons, which in all likelyhood would have raised some eyebrows very early on.
In the case of females we first tend to think with our lower brains, and see the cuddly parts/possibilities. Which makes us forget females quite often are fiercer fighters than males.
In case of Dabbler, people (including those commenting here) habitually forget she is , in fact, a living weapon.
Very, very efficient camouflage, non?
Succubi started out as sex-bots. Brainless animated flesh. Aka zombies.
I cannot think any woman would want something like that anywhere near her body. And without a brain there’s no point to have it around for its companionship or witty conversation.
Under the circumstances I would stick with trusty plastic, and those female arch wizards of those ancient times no doubt felt the same. Fast forward a great number of thousands of years and it is quite reasonable to assume that there never were many male models due to lack of demand and that they completely missed out on the thaumaturgical advances that elevated the succubi from mindless animated bodyparts to a semi-independent and sapient species.
Dave certainly could have written that there were incubi, but given that he chose to not have such a species in his universe the explanations given do not stretch credulity (too much. certainly not more than the wild worldbuilding of this universe demands)
“I cannot think any woman would want something like that anywhere near her body. And without a brain there’s no point to have it around for its companionship or witty conversation.”
I want to make the obvious joke here but I do not want to be considered Misandrist.:)
“I cannot think any woman would want something like that anywhere near her body. And without a brain there’s no point to have it around for its companionship or witty conversation.”
I want to make the obvious joke here but I do not want to be considered a Misandrist.:)
This is why you don’t see any reanimated highschool boys.
*many*
trust me, they exist. Although the comics and art of such are usually still aimed at and made by men.
True I guess, although Amanda Conner is one of my favorite comic book artists ever. :)
It doesn’t have to be a good argument to be one that many people will accept, or promote of their own accord. Humans in particular place an awfully high value on being human, for reasons that aren’t particularly clear.
As for incubi… They may have manufactured some, but they may have been infertile, and thus there are no naturally-born incubi. Succubi could have been made to bear incubi, but it would appear that either they have no male offspring, or that their male offspring do not inherit any of the succubi traits. Since they are manufactured beings, you have to take into account the intentions of those who manufactured them, rather than assuming they will follow the patterns of natural beings.
honestly fuck the whole “lose your humanity” thing, the instant the tech is available and if i have the money i will transform myself into an inmortal cyborg demi god and good luck trying to attack the guy that has just transformed himself into an inmortal ciborg demi god because of reasons
people can choose to remain as normal humans with no augmentations either genetical or cybernetical just like how there are people who prefer to live with no electricity or running water, they can enjoy their 73 year lifespan
Based on the “powerful reproductive systems” statement, I assume selective hermaphroditism (sp?) is the norm for succubi. (2-gender-ism follows) Their inherent magic use could modify an egg to act like a sperm to trigger on-merge fusion with another egg. This would bypass the need for males.
I’m all for gene editing and augmentation (especially if it can be done with people who are already fully grown and is made inexpensive enough for anybody to do)… BUT… humans being augmented out of the wazoo? That’s where I draw the line. The wazoo is entirely the wrong place to be augmented out of.
Out the…bahonkas?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DczHdNwooY4
Anyone who has ever survived a haemorrhoid attack will tell you that wazoo augmentation is right up the top of the list after dentures and knees.
But don’t you miss being Homo Habilis? Haven’t we fundamentally lost something by changing so much we can no longer even be considered the same species as our ancestor?
As someone who reads a lot of scifi/fantasy stuff and enjoys mulling over the ethical and pragmatic implications, I have to say that most of those who oppose gene/physical modification to improve upon oneself are those who have never had their own body try to drown them in mucus for getting within two meters of a cat.
While it’s possible that ‘there’s no cure’ is available, it strikes me as more likely that ‘the shear cost of implementing this sort of alteration species wide vastly outweighs the gains’ or possibly some variant of matriarchal power structure keeping it in place so that the matriarchs are the source of ‘safe’ collar holders seems as likely. Of course, it could also be that and Dabbles is glossing it over.
The soul hole might also be tied to their ability to use tantric magic, and getting rid of the hole means no longer being masters of tantric magic, which they rather like being.
XXXX is a brand of beer in Australia.
So it’s probably good thing that Dabbler’s choker isn’t also yellow with red lettering and black borders, or Lion/Kirin might smack you with a trademark suit.
So… basically what you’re saying us Cora is not a human.
She’s only about 2/3rds human, according to herself, not including her gene mods.
Oh yeah she said that. Dave’s definition are consistent then.
Still not a fan, it feels to me that Succubi can’t have their hole filled because of social pressure telling them they wouldn’t be true succubi without it.
Hmmm… for some weird reason I get the feeling that’s the ONLY hole succubi won’t get filled… (Okay, I’ll let myself out now.)
not unlike Marvel where mutants risk being ostracized by other mutants (who may have been the only community they knew after fleeing from normies) if they got their powers *cure*/removed. Even when not intentionally this could happen, like how some X-men ended up living on the streets after M-day (also the writers at this time were kind of dicks as well as Marvel trying to appease the mouse overlord because mutants were under license at Fox which they hadn’t bought yet and were trying to push audiences away from liking them…) anywho, in universe at least this resulted in a lot of mutants if they wanted to not have their powers risking being rejected by their surrogate families.
-even prior to the mutant crack down by Disney appeasement marketing, there were some cases of this, as well as showing up in similar comics like Savage Dragon where freaks who lost their powers found themselves rejected by other freaks.
*even if said mutant’s powers were a danger to themselves and others, their “identity protective” society would pressure them to keep those powers*. Hence the memes with Rogue and Storm actually being prudent to the comic storylines.
Mutants predate Disney and Marvel! Read, “More Than Human.” Theodore Sturgeon, Originally published: November 16, 1953
Yeah I know that, that wasn’t the point.
in fact my rant about Disney is the fact they tried to bury the mutants in the comics and promote the Inhumans in their place pushing the writers of the x-titles to ever worse storylines, and reducing the number of mutants in the comics and trying to make what few remained as unlikable as possible.
or wait, you mean using the term mutant…well…duh…its a biological term for random changes in a genetic sequence or deformation of genetic material, as well as changes in other substances. Which also wasn’t the point, I wasn’t stating something came before something else so did it first or whatever, I was comparing the concept of one’s own group turning against them being used in fiction among individuals born into a particular super powered community.
in other words comparing succubi identifying culturally with specific traits, and even when they could remove said traits, culturally pushing back against doing so even when this would benefit them physically. With the Marvel comics and others doing this with their mutants, freaks, and other such groups where individuals desiring to remove their powers/traits are ostracized by others for wanting to do so.
the example being Storm who has atmokinesis telling Rogue (whose power is automatic lifeforce parasitism via skin to skin contact) that they don’t need a cure because nothing is wrong with them. And then ranting how Marvel turned this up by a hundred in the comics to make mutants less likable, not helping those who lost their powers, turning a blind eye to them..hell Jubilee was basically kicked out of the mansion and forced to live in poor housing post M-Day.
Thought Jubes was kicked out because she became a vampire (or was that after she was kicked out?)
And seriously doubt Wolverine would have allowed her to be kicked out if he was around
she became a vampire much later. During the whole less than 200 mutants left island in California bay era.
and Wolverine has no say when meta-control is in play. At this point X-23 had basically taken over Jubilee’s role as Wolverine’s sidekick.
Yeah, but you saying that Wolverine wouldn’t still care about his bestest bud? Note how said “… if he was around”, obviously implying it happened when he was… somewhere else
And obviously it’s all down to whatever the shit the writers say
too many chefs in the kitchen,
and the head chef wanting to ban a popular ingredient because a backer of the restaurant isn’t profiting from said ingredient being used, so trying to brown nose by banning it or trying to make the guests not like it somehow so no longer order it to have an excuse to down play or get rid of it.
Yeah, like why a lot of US sodas use that corn crap instead of sugar
I think that high fructose corn syrup is mainly used because it’s cheaper and sweeter than cane sugar, since the US produces a LOT of corn that otherwise would go to waste, so high fructose corn syrup makes up a large percentage of what corn is used to make (aside from ethanol, bio-based plastics, dextrins, dextrose, and livestock feed). A surprisingly small percentage is used for non-corn syrup human-based food, mainly because of the huge amount of corn the US produces.
And the reason the US produces so much corn is because of government subsidies. Which themselves are mostly the product of hypocrites.
yes, the X-men are like cane sugar, and the Inhumans an inferior artificial sweetener that despite claims is the same but better tastes like melted plastic mixed with pine needles.
Yes, mutants like Storm have it way easier than ones like Nightcrawler and after his mutating into his blue-furred form Beast because she looks perfectly human and those like Rogue with potentially life-threatening powers (Wolverine even ending up killing a mutant boy whose powers dissolved all organic life around him starting with his parents as a mercy kill, since the X-men never think ‘you know this would be a great time to put those power nullifying collars to use for good’). She’s someone ridiculously privileged preaching to the suffering because she has no clue what their suffering is like. Hmmm, now I wonder if that was an accident or intentional considering she’s black and therefor part of a group in the US that suffers due to being the ‘wrong’ color so they had her character hypocritically speaking about ‘there’s nothing wrong with you.’
I am sure that there are some groups of humans who would argue that Cora is human, and other groups that would argue that she is not.
Well, people argue that water is wet. Or that air has weight.
So yeah.
And I’m sure both groups would consider their respective positions equally obvious.
Air has mass.
Colloqially people use mass and weight interchangably.
When it matters, it matters, but most of the time it doesn’t.
:)
I’m bored so I am now going to argue that, technically, water is not wet.
Liquid water is not itself wet, but can make other solid materials wet. Wetness is the ability of a liquid to adhere to the surface of a solid, so when we say that something is wet, we mean that the liquid is sticking to the surface of a material.
“Why is water wet?” is a surprisingly deep rabbit hole. But you are correct, water itself isn’t wet.
And I’ll counter your argument that while it is true that water causes other matter to become wet, this means that water causes other water to become wet as well, as water is matter and has a surface that water clings to.
Therefor water is of necessity wet unless you have so small a quantity of it that it cannot form a layer.
I rest my case.
:)
I specifically said ‘liquid’ water to pre-emptively counter your counter-argument. Ice (solid water) CAN be wet. When it melts, it becomes wet because liquid water saturates it. So But normal liquid water cannot. :) Because liquid water cannot be saturated with water – it’s already water. If you add more water, you’re not making water wet – you’re just having more water. :)
Okay that’s not ENTIRELY true. There’s something called ‘dry water’ (it’s a real thing, google it). Which can then become wet, at which point it becomes normal water…. which THEN cannot become wet anymore :)
I somehow foolishly thought water/wet was not an ongoing debate. that air has mass was also resolved, so I thought. so how about a piece of absolutely counter intuitive crap to debate..
Electrons do not convey electrical power. they actually move very slowly.
“Electrons do not convey electrical power. they actually move very slowly.”
Correct. :)
https://theeducationalblog.quora.com/Electrons-move-very-slowly-through-a-wire-so-why-does-electricity-not-travel-very-slowly
Air has mass. Its mass is acted on by the gravitational pull of the earth. The resulting force is what we call “weight” for all other objects. Therefore, logically, air also has weight. The fact that other forces counterbalance that weight is irrelevant.
So is the joke xxx means sexually explicit and xxxx seems to mean more extreme than that?
Four Ecks is just some crappy Aussie Piss-Water they call ‘beer’
While I am not a fan of bitter ales, “piss-water” is not a reasonable description and it’s considerably stronger than American beer so I surmise you are from the UK. Don’t be so disparaging about things merely because they are not to your taste. Personally I think Guinness is revolting sludge but some people like it.
From neither
And agree with you about Guinness, tastes like burnt toast to me (but then again, so does real Champagne…), only ever found one beer enjoyed, and haven’t been able to find it again (even going back to the bottle store didn’t help, the manager even claiming to have never heard of it)
As a non-Banana-bender, I actually think the XXXX is a bit weak as a name. No, it’s not that they can’t spell “beer”, they fairly obvously can. The problem is, the X’s were a medieval european tradition of indicating the beer strength — unfortunately, at 4.4% a/v, Four-Ex is not a particularly strong beer. Personally, I think they should have stopped after the 3rd X. However, I guess when you’ve worked hard at your X’s, by the time you’ve drawn 3 of them you are on a bit of a run so you might as well keep going…
Of course, while the medieval brewers probably hadn’t cottoned onto percentages and almost certainly used “suitable for children/now we’re getting there/careful now!/whoa!/…”, it is possible the Banana-benders had figured percentages and each X stands for some variant of 1% a/v. But be careful. Not all XXXX is 4+% a/v, some varieties should actually have only 3 X’s… OTOH, then they’d have to change the label, and that may be a bit too technical for them.
Er, me? I’m a Sandgroper cobber.
this coming from an American, you guys have no idea WTF actual beer IS.
You consider Bud ‘beer’? That just invalidated yourself
I don’t. I’m Canadian. American “Beer” is horse piss. And “lite” Beer is fucking Heresy.
It’s also the name of the Last Continent on Discworld
Of course it is even funnier (or not, depending on your sense of humour)
The X rating was created as a last ditch effort by the terminally prudish of the late 1960s to slap on any movie that showed a woman’s ankles, or her shoulder blade. And also movies that were more than commonly bloody. The part of the movie industry that made a business of showing actual nudity, and more, was offended by being lumped in with violence and victorian notions of decency, so they came up with their badge of pride to call their movies XXX, to make clear they went so far beyond what the ratings board patronisingly considered unacceptable for the public.
Adding yet another X to that is funny, in a way.
I think the collective noun for Succubi would be an ‘Exhaustion”.
Or a Handful. It’s what you have, and it’s what they want.
You know what they say about succubi with big hands!
‘Cause Succubi are European folklore, while Harems were a Middle-East structures. Maybe a “Bordello”? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brothel#Europe
Meh. Biology is just the wild-nanotech mecha/life support suit your mind rides around in. Species is a reasonably arbitrary definition anyway, with lots of areas where the usual definition breaks down(like ring species or species that don’t reproduce sexually, and many cases where different species are capable of producing fertile hybrid offspring).
What makes a person a person is the mind; I’d have no problem defining a human-like AI mind as human for most purposes.
Also, while they might like the bond, I’d hope they’d atleast do something about the mana bleed rate; how many succubi have died because their master kicked the bucket from one cause or another and they couldn’t find a replacement in the hours that most would have? Etc. If their master’s death isn’t enough to force them awake and they sleep about as much as human(so asleep between 25 and 33% of the time, 6-8 hours a day), a decent number would be regularly killed by it in their sleep.
Fairy sure the Matriarchs would have worked something out so in the case of premature master-death the ‘Bus doesn’t break down shortly after
Interestingly enough, while the edges of any specific species are fuzzy, the concept of a species (a collection of potentially interbreeding populations) still has value. Species have certain properties that determine their continuity probability. They’re essentially genepools, and the main properties of a pool are width and depth. Depth protects against attrition, to be precise population level fluctuations caused by their trophic relations. While width protects against changing circumstances.
Letting humans determine their own biology can go in two ways: We can go deep or wide. I prefer wide since it has the best long term survival chances. Which direction gene-editing leads us depends on various cultural and economic factors, but in my opinion the best possible end result is a modern human Cambrian Explosion. We need to fill all the niches!
Well Harem is a collective? And she does have some renown for succubus-like behaviour? So presumably before she had renown she had noun?
BOOOO! HISSSSSSSSSS!
nice setup. good delivery. I suspect some of our more pun-adverse commenters are still recovering.
Good job, that one actually hurt my brain.
There’s a multitude of puns possible when it comes to Harem, I’m sure they’ll keep popping up everywhere. Just like ninjas.
Ooooo,, that means Harem and Dabbler have pronoun?
Considering dabbler’s previous comments about snacking on supers, would bonding with a super provide above average soul fuel?
Yeah, nah. More like fuelling up from a hi-speed pump. Same quantity, it just fills up faster.
Don’t knock the 2 hearts thing. Doctor Who ‘n all that, y’know.
Yes, and he’s not a hyu-mon, is he?
you could say he’s two hearts livi’n in just one mind.
I think Succubi as a symbiotic species is a sweet idea but if they can fix the Soul-hole problem, and it is absolutely a problem if a lack of a master will kill you within a week, I don’t see why they wouldn’t at least to some extent. Given the minutia of magi-tech that Dabbler has shown I don’t see why they couldn’t reduce their need for a symbiotic connection to at least a month but preferably a year or two. In that way they could properly vet their very much Soul-Mate instead of blowing the first person who will hook up with them in a time of crisis where their master has died.
Sensible but not a source of drama for ongoing tales.
Nice to get this lore filled in. (So to speak.)
But to answer your question at the bottom of the page:
“Harems” are just a racist trope. An English “explorer” had a habit of going on vacation to exotic places and then coming back with tall tales to make himself look awesome and fetishize the non-European savages he met. Arabic tradition was to have large families live together in segregated households. So there was a whole wing that was the women’s quarters, where the grandmothers and aunts and mothers-in-law would raise all the girls, free of male gaze or influence. That section was “haram” to men. (“Haram” means “forbidden,” and is the opposite of “halal.” Halal meat is okay to eat, but anything with pork in it is haram.) It was designed as a safe space where lechery and sexuality wouldn’t be a factor. But our English explorer heard about it and went home to tell titillating adventures of how these savage desert people of inferior morality kept a tent full of concubines and he bravely snuck in and isn’t it deliciously scandalous? Succubi may be demonic constructs, but I’d like to think they’re above spreading derogatory racist myths.
Uh huh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suleiman_the_Magnificent#Personal_life
Methinks thou doth protest too much.
Sure, guy. It’s not as if there were any historical records of anyone in any non-English culture having multiple, or dozens, or hundreds of wives. Not, for example, Babylon, or Assyria, or Arabia, or Brahmin Hindus, and so on.
There’s, like, literally no use for the English language word “concubine”, because no one has ever had more than one wife, or maybe 4. It’s clearly just a British racist plot to make white people think other people look “different”.
Clearly, the wikipedia article on Harems, listing exact examples that match the common harem trope, were all put there by racist white guys who did no study whatsoever about history.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harem
“a safe space where lechery and sexuality wouldn’t be a factor. ” You forget about Lesbians.
It would be the FAMILY women’s quarters.
If there is any one sex, then sexual partners are at hand! Check out male-only prisons!
Incest, kind of a major taboo
“Race” is a myth, merely a means to separate “US from THEM”!
Not that I don’t enjoy worldbuilding, but this series has a bad habit of these periodic lengthy lore dumps. I kinda feel like that’s the weak point of the series, there’s gotta be a better way to weave all this into a story instead of what amounts to a classroom lecture.
Its only a few pages, so in a book not all yhat much. And GrrlPower updates pretty freqently. If itbwas a 1/month comic itd be a problem, but like 1/3-4 days isnt bad forna 5 page lore dump. 2 weeks or so.
It’s a form of pacing that works great in a book, but not in a webcomic. Notice that fresh readers piling through the archive don’t feel it the same.
What you call the ‘weak point’ has been the ‘focus point’ of the webic from Day One!
Okay, if it’s a problem for you, then just hit “snooze” for a month and come back when you can breeze through it.
Or, just don’t come back at all, because the scenery may have changed but the story will be the same
What the actual fuck, man. It’s called constructive criticism, no need to be such an asshole.
What constructive?
You just attacked the very basis on what this webic is based upon, trying to make it something it is not
You are the one interpreting it as an attack and going full aggro on me. You’re taking this awfully personally for whatever reason. I like the comic, dude. I’ve read it for years. It’s OK to point out flaws in things you like. Calm your shit.
Old trick, accuse your opponent, of the same mistake, you are guilty of!!
or you realise that there are callouts to things introduced in the comic seven+ years ago ( #311) and other questions raised (Tamatha, for example. she has no collar, is she unbound and supplemented by colette? she seemed to feed on background T-radiation. As a natural succubus will she need the binding when she matures?)
so it’s a part of the story, many seem to enjoy it even if there is less obvious action. Worldbuilding is a virtue for many people.
I’d add that, in context, it could also allow Archon to stale for reinforcements or general readiness.
Yeah, but worldbuilding while other things are happening is far more engaging to the reader. This is just Dabbler sitting us down and giving us a lecture. Informative, sure, but not very entertaining. I’m just saying that it’s better to weave this kind of information into an actual scenario, rather than just compact it into a brick and throw it at the reader.
I’m just giving what I hope is constructive criticism, I’ve been following this comic since day one and I have noticed these compacted lore dumps are kind of a recurring thing that could be ironed out. Though some seem to have taken my criticism intensely personally, for reasons beyond me.
It’s just… kinda like complaining about a core element of a thing. Like complaining that a salad is a terrible hamburger. Or as if you thought it was a comic about spicy food aficionados, and can’t figure out why there’s superheroes and aliens and demons and such in it. You say you’ve been following it from the beginning, but it kinda feels like you missed the whole conceit. It’s like you went to a restaurant, filled up on bread, chased it down with an after-dinner mint, and can’t figure out what’s going on when they bring out the main course. You may be reading the same comic, but you’re not reading the same comic.
I mean, you do you. If you like it, fine. But it just seems strange to the majority of the audience, probably as strange as they seem to you.
You can like something without being part of the intended audience. And I suppose it could be a bit of a shock to discover that you’re not actually part of the intended audience, when you like something. When something seems like it’s changed, it’s possible that it was always that way, and just looked different from a specific perspective. A curve can look like a straight line from the right angle.
Personally it’s one of my favourite parts. It’s also been there from day 1, so like… it’s not as if you didn’t know this would continue to be a thing.
At what age does the soul/mana drain manifest? I ask purely because weve been introduced to a young teen succubus whondidny SEEM to have this problem? At least not to the degree expressed here.
She didn’t actually kiss a boy, yet, though.
Right, thats why I was wondering if the soul drain effect was an age marked thing? the originals were all made at their forever age, as constructs. But now they are born, yet the soul drain is still a thing, so… does it not manifest until a certain level of raw magical potential is reached?
Already answered by the author.
Thanks, I looked but hard to delve through so many comments for a specific discussion
Ah so what tom said makes sense. He meant remember You don’t even call me by the right name anymore. Remember how obedient you were when we first met.
I uh, think the ‘soul hole’ thing might well qualify as something that might need fixing. Not gotten rid of entirely, since the hole seems to link quite strongly into their abilities and has an actual benefit.
But I mean in the sense that they quickly die if there isn’t a ‘plug’ there. Minimize those issues.
I wonder if it’s possible for them to keep the bond thing, but also get rid of the requirement to NEED it to live. Likely there wouldn’t be a pressing desire for any of them to do so. But I suppose in an instance where there are more Succubi than there are qualified ‘leash holders’ applying, that might be something they handle. Possible that there is such a solution figured out, just not used until its relevant.
DaveB, I love the comic but I do have some constructive criticism.
You are an amazing world builder, and everything is generally well explained and shown. This can also be a problem.
The last few pages have been an educational series on Succubus. It has been like a University lecture. (I love lecture’s but I am quite eccentric and know that many people don’t have the patients.)
At some point you do need to focus on telling the adventures and stories of Sydney and ARCSWAT. You have been far to focused on world building and it will eventually mean people will start to leave.
Patience! Sorry. :)
I FULLY AGREE!
I mean, we’re basically on page 6 of this edition of “Dabbler’s Science Corner”… PAGE… SIX… That’s 3 freaking weeks without story! I feel like this level of over explaining might be to try to justify the whole “… slave” thing Tom said, and to explain it in a way that won’t result in people raging about the comic being sexist or whatever, but seriously, 3 weeks? Could avoid the whole thing and just get on with the story by not having to spend almost an entire month now explaining the use of a SINGLE WORD.
I feel like I’m having to slog through this just to get to the story and frankly this kind of over explaining thing is starting to wear very thin for me. The first YEAAAAARS of the comic, every page was story. Now it just feels like short action scene followed by OVER EXPLAINING what just happened. Then a bit of life, followed by OVER EXPLAINING what just happened.
I’ve been following since Sydney went into Mrs Boonliang’s restaurant. I’m a spicy food aficionado that could give Sydney a run for her money, and the comic showed up on my radar because the page got spread around a spicy food community I was in at the time. With that said, this isn’t the comic I initially fell in love with. There’s almost no story anymore. Just a bunch of over explaining things that have no bearing on future pages, or that only have bearing YEARS LATER, and even then only conversationally, not story wise.
Dave said he’s trying to strip it down to the basics. The basics can be done by not spending 3 weeks over explaining something that won’t have any bearing on the story.
Chekhov’s Gun, Dave… Chekhov’s Gun.
“Yeah but what’s it about?”
This is part of the story
It was always about bits like this interspersed by brief ‘action scenes’ (even if the Restaurant Rumble lasted nearly a year), not the other way around
The fact that it’s happening during the story doesn’t make it a part of the story. A good story is one where everything happens for a reason that matters to the plot of the story. If the pattern that has been going on means anything, it’s that this will never be retreaded anywhere else in the story. It will not have an impact. This is not a primer to understand something complex that’s coming up some time in the story that warrants a 3 weeks of lectures and education.
That hasnt been true for any other kind of world building he done. So far it has mattered, or still easily could. Think of the whole Veil and Sydney Meets the twilight council, it was largely this same thing. Lots of info dumb, with some banter. That then directly led into Scionas goal.
All of this also begs a question of Dabbler mentioned that Vehenmence was a particular killed Vehemic energy channeled, like a succubus, so I, personally, am interested to see if there any kind of link there. Does he have a similar, but clearly not identical problem, or is Vehemence 100% human and just figured out how to use Vehemic
And again. Oh no… not Six pages in 18 days. 1 page / 3 days. Seriously, if thats too slow for you, webcomics arent your bag.
I was around when Avatar: The Last Airbender was premiering. 1 episode a week, 26 per year.
But the World building was sown naturally into the story. Sometimes it was just shown, other times it was a simple 2 or 3 lines of dialog. But it rarely slowed down the pace of the episode.
The BULK of the background World building was done in other media like books. It was never mentioned in the series, but the supplementary materials explained Air Nomad society. Little details like “why do we never see female Airbender’s in any of Aang’s flashbacks to the Southern Air Temple?”. In the book we find out that Air Nomads refrain from all worldly attachments, including relationships. Their Temples were segregated (men in the Northern and Southern, women in the Eastern and Western.) and goes on to say that no one knows who anyone’s parents are. (In the show, the only reference to this is Aang getting Appa in the Eastern Air Temple and a woman spoke to him and the fact there are no opposite gender statues of Airbenders in the Temples. Maybe a throwaway line that Zuko said to Aang about “You would not understand being raised by Monks”.)
BUT the supplementary materials are OPTIONAL. Like I said, I am the crazy person who enjoys a long and drawn out explanation of things. I enjoy watching an Anime and seeing plot-holes and then reading the Light Novels and Manga to explain them. HOWEVER, while I enjoy them, my level of enjoyment decreases with the level of investment I have in the overall STORY. The way “How a Realist Hero Rebuilt a Kingdom” did world building was nice where they might take a minute or two at the beginning of the episode to explain an important detail of the world that is about to become extremely important. It was short and to the point
If Dave was writing ATLA, I feel that it would take an entire episode detailing the entire political structure of Air Nomad society, and then he would keep going on about the politics of every place they went. It would kill the pacing of the show and viewer would have to wait another week (or more) just for the story to progress. He would have written another 2 or 3 seasons of unneeded information that would bore almost everyone except the most hardcore fans.
Side note. I highly recommend the “Overlord” LN by the way. They go into great detail about the DMMO-RPG game mechanics and why Lord Ainz was so surprised when they arrived in the new world. How the leveling system worked, the other members of the Guild, the fact that in order to customize thing you had to by an add on kit, how the game had Pay-To-Win mechanics, etc.
i dont think its fair to ompare avatar to this web comic, for once avata had to work with a limited set of episodes and it was an animated show and in those time is usually at a premium, it worked really well yeah but this story is a little bit diferent
honestly the long winded world building elements are part of the charm for me, im interest in this world and i want to see what hyper detailed explanation the writes… well writes next, sometimes even more than the actual story (which im still invested in btw, but i dont really care about long exposition) in this case unlike avatar the author doesnt have any limited time and the update is consistent enough that i dont feel it as a problem, in other stories where the author only uploads like 1 page per month if you are lucky then yeah it sucks but this is two pages per week and its pretty consistent so it doesnt feels as heavy
also i think you are seriously understimating how hard is to make the whole “show dont tell”, its not as easy as many make it look
I appreciate where you’re coming from on the use of ‘supplementary’ media to fill in worldbuilding aspects that the ‘main’ series touches on tangentially at best. But there is a difference in production capabilities to contend with: a network property such as Avatar can employ (or use existing) additional authors and illustrators to flesh out the extras, while the production of Grrl Power is still essentially a one-man show. If DaveB wanted to split out some of the tangential bits away from the main comic, he’d either need to find extra time to do it himself or employ someone else to do the expansions. The amount of money coming in will be an issue with that, as will the degree of editorial control that he wants to maintain; I’m not in a position to speculate which of those, if either, is the dominant factor.
We have fourms and comments sections. Dave could have explained part of thing in his blog post, and stick the bare essentials in the Comic. Cutting the length down from 6 pages to 2.
Maybe Overlord is a better example. IIRC, it began life on a self-writing/fan-fic website in Japan. A “one-man show”. Later, they created the Manga. It combined the deep-lore (that we love) with more visual action of a Manga.
I am hopeful that someday Grrl Power will become big enough for DaveB to hire someone to help with the workload. Girl Genius was able to do this…………………
You know, GG is a much better example of pacing. There is quite a bit of visual storytelling (show don’t tell”).
That’s a matter of preference, not fact. I personally prefer there to be extraneous details that enrich the flavor of the world, and make it feel more real. If every detail is important, and the reader operates under that assumption, then the story just becomes a puzzle, a mystery to be solved. It satisfies some desire, but leaves others unfulfilled.
If an author only asks questions that they have an answer to, then they’re probably not asking very important questions. I think an author should ask questions to form a dialogue with the reader, to encourage the reader to find answers to those questions, create their own work to express it, and in turn, ask greater questions.
Also… What story? Do you really think there’s a single, overarching plot that this comic follows? With a defined ending that it’s working towards? I think there are elements that are intended to propel the characters into interesting narratives, but I think it’s structured to just go on forever, until the author runs out on interesting stories to tell. But I don’t think there’s a plot to get back to, that’s being delayed by all the interludes. It’s just a day in the life of the characters, and it turns out they spend a lot of time talking about things that interest them. It’s superhero slice-of-life.
Serial TV shows have different story every episode. Batman: the Animated Series, Superman: TAS, Justice League, ect. None of their episodes work toward a defined ending, even the series last episode rarely did that.
Small arcs that shows character growth, but might not lead to the conclusion of the main story. There might not even be a main story; just a series of smaller, day-to-day stories of Sydney becoming a hero. Stories about her learning how to be ‘famous’. Stories of criminals being stupid (Syd could even pull a “How to Succeed in Evil” or “Squirrel Girl” and point out how many more profitable things to use powers for other than crime)
So… The sort of thing we’re already getting in Grrl Power. How is this current storyline different, other than much of it is stuff that happened in the past? It’s stuff that tells you more about Xuriel, and may affect the relationships between her and the other characters.
Human Redefined:
http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2600/fc02546.htm
http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff2600/fc02547.htm
Hrm… so the ‘M’ in MILFs stands for ‘Matriarch’… I can see it.
Although, I don’t see them all as doms, especially if they’re powerful demons. I could TOTALLY see a bratty sub succubus matriarch.
I cracked up at the Dune reference.
The part about the matriarchs easing some of the more dire parts restrictions could possibly mean that the soul hole still exists, but it may now take months for the mana drain to become life threatening.
Hold on…. So the round of spontaneous romping with Tom was…. Maintenance…
So Dabbler should be good for a while now.. ;)
On the why won’t they fix it thing.
cultural reason likely, I have seen some pretty dumb and self destructive practices done by humans just because its the culture, or tradition, or ideological beliefs.
inflicting pain and mutalation on themselves, including to the point of risking permanent health problems *oh like intentionally swallowing tape worms and crushing one’s own organs to fit a standard of beauty because not doing so meant less chance of marriage and without marriage they wouldn’t have access to finances.
although a fatal flaw that was there before not being fixed is iffy, although as stated last comic page in the comments, mental uncanny valley territory may come into affect, being both of construct descent and demonic heritage some unusual instincts may result.
“tradition” is the dumbest reason, for doing anything! (Personal opinion)
It’s also an increadably common one.
“Tradition is just peer pressure from dead people.”*
*while I don’t personally believe this is true of all tradition, it’s pithy and memorable, and reminds you to think about whether a tradition is worth keeping for any merit of its own.
traditions are ways humans used to survive in a time where the world was scary, unexplained and we were defenseless, some of them have merit, are entertaining or can be considered as a “cultural landmark” and are worth keeping around but a good chunk of them are basically useless now that we have science to explain the universe and give us better means to survive and grow in our environment
you are right, however as Illy and Brichins say, it is also the most common and the most ingrained into any given society. Hell convince people that something that has only been done for a few years to a few decades is a tradition and they’ll do it. Granted outcomes may vary and how successful that gets depends on popularity or social pressure, but it still stands that tradition can cause anything from tossing coins into random bodies of water for wishes to mutilating genitalia to foot bindings, to cruel festivals, everything from the silly and harmless to the dark and sociopathic have been excused by one culture or another as *we do it because it is tradition*.
So what about Incubi?
It has been explained multiply times
I love how Jabbers managed to dig a substantial hole for herself in solid concrete.
About panel two… Does it have to the signitory’s blood? Could you substitute say the local equivalent of human or will any form of blood do? How fresh does the blood have to be (Like using recontitued from dried blood)? Because if I could just use any blood, I might just go to the local slaughterhouse and buy some.
I did this in a Rolemaster game thirty years ago (Hack off NPC’s finger and use it to sign something in blood). It caused strong reactions. Which I found a bit rich from people whose usual modus operandi was to charge down a hole killing everything that moved stuff any gold in a portable hole then scatter in all directions to foil pursuit because no one would ever guess they were going to meet up at the only inn for 50 leagues.
Whelp… she’s fired!
“There were some concerns about Dabbler being a security risk if she has a foreign master she’s beholden to, and those are perfectly valid. If she was 22, she would definitely be a risk unless her master was also on the team and had equivalent or higher security clearance than her. But she’s 187, and has been able to resist the obedience compulsion for a long ass time.”
Here’s the problem… you can say that. It can even be true. However, there is no way for her superiors to be sure that she’s being honest about that resistance. How can you prove you aren’t compelled to say that you are able to resist the influence of an extranational entity? The only way she could be trusted is if her master also possesses equal clearance. Now that doesn’t mean Max. It could be anyone on the team. Personally, I’d go with Math so that Dabbler can have lots of sexy three ways with him and Jabberwock. But as is, there is no security apparati that would keep her around. The fact she didn’t even disclose this fundamental conflict of interest would be a BIG concern to the powers that be.
Math? I think part of his character is that nobody will willingly sleep with him.
He’s been getting plenty of action so far.
And probably has a threesome lined up for later.
She can still be a soldier. Shes not beholden to anything “super level classified” that she didnt already know about by being an alien/demon and magic user in the first place. Besides, thy have never “fully trusted” her, since they had her being secretly followed (albeit ineffectively).
I think the most classified thing she knows, to the readers knowledge, is about Sydney’s true sight ball, but they wouldnt have known that without her. The raw skill, power, and bag of tricks and knowledge she brings to the table is well worth the risk shes not totally trustworthy, they already knew that.
Dabbles is not more of a security threat than the Daphne’s, actually, she is less of a threat seeing how Daphne has actively passed on intel to SmugD simply because she’s bored
Dabbles is not an actual member of Archon (neither is Math by the way), she is a civilian consultant and is free to leave any time she damn well pleases
The interpretation of “species” gets messy at times.
***
Species: a group of living organisms consisting of similar individuals capable of exchanging genes or interbreeding. The species is the principal natural taxonomic unit, ranking below a genus and denoted by a Latin binomial, e.g. Homo sapiens.
***
Of course, there are examples of different species that can interbreed, though such offspring are usually sterile, but even that has exceptions.
Then there are those considered different species because they can’t get to each other, which is as stupid as saying you’re dead when your heart isn’t beating.
Where I live there is an animal that lives on both the north and the south of a mountain range they can’t or at least won’t cross over it. They are considered two different species because of that, even though they are indistinguishable genetically and can absolutely interbreed if they meet each other. (It’s been tested.)
When I was in high school I used to joke that jocks and nerds were different species.
(Sadly it is an arguable example with the current definitions.)
So our definition of species seriously needs to be updated.
Do jocks actually have enough grey matter to qualify as nerds?
Why not!?
You going to tell Maxi she doesn’t have enough grey matter? o_O
Well I never thought of Maxi as a “jock”. Now I’m not well versed in US slang, but from what I’ve seen and heard of so-called “jock” behaviour, I would certainly use a word that describes what I wear next to my genitals. So by (my) definition, Maxi is not a jock, and therefore has sufficient grey matter to qualify as a nerd.
She was a track athlete
Not all jocks wore straps, didn’t make them any less jocks
It’s not what you wear, it’s how you behave (in what you wear).
In a world of shape-changing magicians, your desired sexual characteristics are one low level spell away.
There’s just no need to specifically make incubus versions.
a thought occurs to me, just how good is their glamors?
Last page talked about detection, but its not a shapeshift, just a hologram even with a psychic link variant possible. Take anything outside the range of the spell field and it should break from the glamor, a cut of hair, blood sample, piece of clothing *especially*, how long does the glamor last once something is taken say…fifty feet away and exposed to a mana drain.
how well does a fiber sample of cloth hold up when it doesn’t match the physical outfit there?
one imagines they must be fooling tactile senses as well with some changes, but even that only goes so far.
So this just concludes that the Mages and the kings and what not working for them were heavily reliant on magic and never considered more practical means of detection around it other than using things like *detect illusion* and such spells.
Heck think of her change to Ikon(?* the sapient armor (another set of questions on how other constructs with free will relate/interact/regard succubi with these origins*..any who, if she used that bikini glamor while wearing him and you threw a bucket of slugs on her, how long before how they move over the armored surface contracts visually how’d they move over her exposed skin to reveal the truth…although how subtle can she use her glamor again to correct the visual on that…
so yeah, first idea, remove something from her, and take out of conceivable range of the mana source to support the spell for an estimated time under observation.
A glamour is a superior illusion. It has been described as an illusion so powerful and perfect that even reality was convinced of its truth. A faerie glamour of Underhill would for all intents and purposes be an entire underground realm. You could walk as far as the glamour makes the Underhill extend and not bump into any wall, even if without the glamour you are in a muddy hole in the earth.
An illusion deceives one or more of the senses of an observer (so it would be more a psi effect than a magical one), while a glamour affects reality independent on the observer, or you could argue that reality is the observer being deceived.
Of course, there are other sources that just treat glamourie as a fancy word for illusion, or have different takes on its meaning and there is no telling what Dave had in mind when he started writing about Succubi and their glamour
I know of over 200 inheritable genetic diseases that could sure use some editing from the human genome.
As long as doing so, does not, introduce worse “defects”!
We know what the healthy form or forms are, so no problem.
most of those are recesive genes that require both parent to activate which is why they arent more prevalent, if you can cut out that gene from the entire human population you would literaly eliminate that disease permanently
Thinking over how the bond works and the life force to mana conversion, and magical artifacts working around it. There is one magical artifact from my own warehouse that occurred to me that could be a death sentence to a Succubus; unless the bond can alert the *master* to the distress and they act before it affects them negatively.
The Mirror of Syris: normally this isn’t a fatal artifact. This magi-tech device is designed to immobilize perfectly and drain the mana of its target to render them either defenseless or less dangerous.
to explain the mirror sends out a wave of energy that tunes into the mana signature of the target, it shifts the aura around the target *the mana conversion field that turns mana into magic and prevents backlash against the spell caster’s own body by the magic being used* into a form of astral stone, basically an invincible shield of stone (seems counter intuitive, they can’t be harmed, however due to this nature they also can’t move, act, and in most cases are rendered unconscious by the effect). This multidimensional petrification field will now rapidly drain their mana. Normally once the physical body’s mana and/or astral form’s mana is drained, the shell has no more power source and thus breaks away.
-note this shell is vulnerable to outside magic to some degree, counter spell, detox, anti-petrification, basically removal spell type spells can undo it before its fully drains the target.
For an entity with an indefinite source of mana (such as Rhulan whose higher self is a cosmic being, even if at the time she was resistant to it’s mental influence…mental problems, split personality, knowledge of one’s own soul causing madness, ect..), any who, this resulted in an indefinite petrification until either her fragmentation of minds could figure out a work around, or an outside force de-spelled it. *the later happened*
now back to Grrl Power universe, I wandered how would this affect the Succubi.
So they get hit by the mirror, they turn to invincible stone, and their mana is rapidly drained…so then does the bond regardless of distance then start to drain the non-petrified “master”…which If I am understanding how this works the fact they wouldn’t have permission but the spiritual link is there should cause some kind of painful conflict and immediate knowledge of it happening I’d think. Now do the master’s KNOW where the succubus is at all times? Like did Tom KNOW Dabbler was on Earth *despite Cora thinking she was hiding on Earth from him*…adding to the whole how he showed up the way he did via Vehemence dumping so much mana into the ground in one spot somehow drawing him or giving him a way through (still not clear on this factor in the sequence of events to be honest).
At any rate, if they can’t act fast enough they would be drained of mana eventually, and I imagine the Succubus’ life force to mana conversion would start to convert her life force to mana to feed this spell in fast forward and kill her…or can this even happen when the *plug is in place*
part of this also asks…what would happen if both the master and the succubus both suffered a complete mana drain.
…I want an Owlbear cub plushy now…
Yeah, was about to ask: is that a plushy? or a ‘no amused’ owlbear cub? Check out the eyes, if they are a real live cub, they have been through this too often :D
The look on it’s face of “**sigh… really?**” really does it.
I dunno about “not being human anymore after a certain number of edits/enhancements.” I don’t think it would really be a problem in the way most folks imagine.
I’m writing a science-fiction universe set a bit over eight hundred years from now, and I’ve got gene-edits of various kinds that are just built into what “human” means in that context. Some families (maybe ten percent or less of the population) are essentially clone lines, where each new generation is derived from the same genome – except that medical discoveries, of greater or lesser importance, are made all the time, and it’s considered “normal” for each new generation to have a few minor tweaks that recent discoveries have made possible.
So they don’t get “Suddenly major new thing that changes who and what we are,” they get “Oh, now we know how to counteract that tendency toward nearsightedness” or “Oh, adjusting this combination means we can avoid hardening of the arteries as we get older,” or “Oh look, this thing that makes people prone to osteoporosis, which was discovered and corrected a few generations back, can be turned in this way to help retard bone loss in zero gravity,” and so on. It’s a fairly gradual process.
And then the daughters of one family marry the sons of another family, and they have kids that get a random mix of those altered traits. And then their kids marry members of different families, and the altered traits diffuse outward into the general population. People are born with new traits because their parents inherited them from somewhere, not because their parents or grandparents have been doing any gene tinkering.
So by the time of my story “normal” humans are living about 200 years – more with “basic” medical care – are mostly adapted to zero-gravity, mostly have perfect eyesight, have never heard of anything called ‘diabetes’ or any of a hundred other genetic diseases … and have developed a few new genetic problems but none as bad as the ones they left behind, and the newer clone lines are being alert for corrections to those.
I just don’t envision the kind of sudden sharp break that causes the “loss of identity” Dabbles is talking about above. I see tweaks made in a thousand places just slowly radiating out into the population generation after generation, until they either fix or die out. It’s the same way evolution has always worked except the initial mutations aren’t random any more.
i mean the way technology works at least for now its not like we discover one thing and then it takes an entire generation to discover another one, the rate of progress is insanely fucking fast and once you have precise and safe gene editing you can do A LOT of stuff, like for example we are already working in inmortality and actually making some good dents at the problem that its not imposible to believe that in just a couple of decades people could live far longer than just 200 years
With respect, Carso, “we” can’t even fix a goddamn haemorrhoid unless it hangs out far enough to put a rubber band around it. For all their big fat books the only things doctors really know for sure is [a] wash your hands and cook your food [b] the blood is supposed to be on the inside, [c] straighten broken bones and immobilise them, [d] smoking is bad for you, [e] they want to be paid.
I did complain with the previous pages that the Succubi would need to ‘own’ their situation somehow for it to keep from screwing with Dabbler’s dynamic or the “two sides of feminism” dynamic Max & Dabbler have going on.
The fact they *can* change whatever they want about themselves, but chose to keep it *because* it leads to their superiority in a specific field and they have adopted it as part of their identity is sufficient, and it actually, in some ways, supports the previous dynamic.
So… thankyou, Dave
BTW, Dave?
If you feel that a sex scene doesn’t work as an opening for the book, it’s entirely fine to skip it. That sort of thing can happen ‘offstage’ and in fact it traditionally does.
If you feel like the reader would be ‘cheated’ in some way by there being one less sex scene in the book, you can add it somewhere else. It might make a good flashback somewhere around chapter 3? Or you can add a completely different, additional sex scene – maybe not even with the same partners.
Just sayin, as Author you get to put the book together however you want. If you feel that opening with a sex scene doesn’t work, then don’t do it.
Just before we go any further with the story I just want to say I am disappointed (or missed it) that neither DaveB nor any comments made a *literal Flesh light* joke, especially at zombie stage.
Bioluminescence is a thing.
Google Flesh Light. And think about what I meant by animated sex zombies being literal flesh lights after you do.
Bioluminescence is a ‘thing’.
Are you trying to make a reference or are you being opstinent?
I think he’s saying a bioluminescent proto-succubi would qualify on both counts.
Do you mean obstinate?
yes, spell check fails me again as the way I pronounce a word regularly is apparently close enough in spelling to another word entirely.
or not a word and spell check just failed period apparently.
I don’t see any issue in fixing disabilities, and yes, I absolutely DO think disabilities are bad.
Why SHOULD you be forced to suffer being disabled?
We have glasses to correct vision problems, and ALL vision problems are a textbook definition of disability.
We genetically engineered rice to produce vitamin A to cure blindness in the 3rd world(Well, that was the plan, but then a bunch of eco-fascist douce canoes burned down the test fields because GMO bad)
What’s wrong with cochlear implants?
Or nerve grafts to fix spinal injuries?
Or gene editing to make sure no child is ever born with mental retardation, down’s syndrome, or autism ever again?
Hi, ASD here.
I’d rather not be “cured” of my autism, if given the option, thanks. I wouldn’t be able to do my job without it, for starters.
I wouldn’t mind not having the side effects, but that’s curing the *SIDE EFFECTS*.
Fair enough. It sounds like you’re one of the lucky ones in finding a niche that works well for you, and no-one’s forcing you to be ‘cured’. Would you force others not to be ‘cured’ of things that are unequivocally set to cause them problems?
Interesting that you assume someone who doesn’t want something forced on them would want to force others.
I’m not sure whether that says something about you specifically, or something about the human race — because I think that assumption is probably correct for a great many of them. However, my impression is that it wouldn’t be accurate for Illy, so I find it odd that you would respond that way to her.
As I read it, Illy‘s post makes the first steps in a common implication chain:
– Person A (in this case Max) claims that a certain condition can be cured, but in a way that must be done before the patient (for want of a better word) can meaningfully consent.
– Person B (potentially Illy) interprets this as social coercion to have the cure applied, and argues instead (at least by implication) that the cure should therefore be banned on moral/ethical grounds. A common extension is to use a relatively benign or manageable condition to ‘make the case’ for banning an entire class or method of treatments, thus blocking its use against far more harmful conditions.
My intention was to point out that Person B’s scenario is coercive on both sides: either you are under pressure to be cured, or you are forced to live with the condition. In either case, your wishes are overridden by those of whoever set the rules. And while the pressure on the ‘cure’ side of that scenario remains social rather than legal, I would argue that it is the ‘no cure’ side which is the more coercive.
I was attempting to establish whether Illy was going for the full banning scenario, or whether she intended one in which the option remained open. Evidently that attempt was not sufficiently clear.
Everything there is about personal preference and individual choice. I don’t see any implication of banning a treatment or taking that choice away from others.
I also don’t see how a scenario in which more people are coerced is less coercive than one in which fewer people are coerced, but I think your argument on the forced cure side is inconsistent, because you switch from “treatment before ability to consent” to “social pressure to be treated”.
– I agree that Illy‘s post, in and of itself, did not say anything about banning potential treatments. It is, however, a common opening line for those who go on to argue that the treatment must be banned ‘to prevent abuse’. I was seeking to establish how far Illy was intending to go along that road. (Somewhat motivated by their diatribes about apparent ‘dog-whistle’ terminology under previous pages, given that “I wouldn’t want it for myself” can easily be used as a ‘dog-whistle’ for “I don’t want you to have it either”.)
– The “argument on the forced cure side” is inconsistent, and it is not mine. It’s the ‘slippery slope’ argument that others have used, to claim that not even the most minor and voluntary steps should be permitted lest they be the start towards social, economic, or even legal pressure. Note that I’m deliberately focusing on the extreme cases, rather than any middle ground with neither prescription nor proscription, because that’s the (false) dichotomy on which the ‘slippery slope’ operates.
– Both the ‘cure everybody’ and the ‘cure nobody’ scenarios involve coercion of the same number of people: the total population* subject to the condition. They simply coerce in opposite directions. In both scenarios there will be many for whom the coercion coincides with what they would choose freely, many for whom it would against their will, and many who have no prior position and simply go along with whatever is recommended. How those numbers compare will depend on the specifics of the condition, treatment, and context; the data to make that comparison does not exist.
*For simplicity, I’m disregarding any effects on future incidence. If either scenario reduces onward transmission significantly, then its long-term coerced population will be significantly lower – and potentially zero if the effect is strong enough.
I still love that first panel. I’m not sure if that’s a stuffed owl or a actual one, but it’s cute AF combined with a busty blue skinned blond succubus. Um…yeah….I approve.
@DaveB – possibly “an orgy of succubi”
Meh. I’m a day late with this.