Grrl Power #1044 – Familial foibles
I apologize for my terrible spanish.
This page should answer any questions about what’s going on here, in case you weren’t up to speed, or, you know, have just forgotten some of the details of a webcomic from 5 months ago. The TL:DR version is that the symbol on a succubus’s collar is determined by her master. Parfait’s collar looks different than Dabbler’s, but still features the quadruple X symbol, meaning her master is also Tom.
I had to edit this page as I was drawing it. Originally, I figured Dabbler would be incensed by Thothogoth here, but as shown on the page linked above, Dabbler said that succubi like who they are, including their bonds. It definitely depends on who they’re bonded to to some degree, but, again, on that page she also said that the council of succubus Matriarchs provide considerable disincentive to those who think they’re signing up for a punching bag/fleshlight.
So originally, Dabbler immediately whipped out her vierhander (her sword is a 4-hander) and threw down with Tom, but if I’m trying to be true to her earlier statements, then she’d actually be happy for Parfait. It’s still kind of a dick move on Tom’s part though. I mean, normally if your kind-of-current-but-mostly-ex-even-if-you-banged-him-like-three-days-ago-boyfriend basically announces that he’s going to start banging your younger sister because you’re not well behaved enough? Uh, yeah, you’re gonna throw down. But these are succubi, so it’s… a little different for them. It still doesn’t mean Dabbler can’t be protective of her little half-sister.
I’m not sure a soul-eater (yes, she’s holding Blackrazor there) would actually do much to a person unless it strikes the fatal blow, but the way Dabbler is threatening with it here, I’m going to say that anything that gets chopped off by a soul-eater can’t be regrown without taking some really extraordinary measures.
As far as the whole “infinite regen+portal+volcano” goes… I mean, yikes, right? Only, since Tom is a Fiend, he’s going to have some not-insignificant resistance to heat. HOWEVER – lava is fucking hot. It generally ranges from 1,300 to 2,200°F. So 50% heat resistance would still mean getting your dick cooked at, let’s average it out to 1,200°? I almost wrote “Ice Volcano” but that seemed like it would take a little more explanation. Like… a geyser of liquid nitrogen or something?
I don’t think people appreciate how hot lava is. I’ve actually been near lava. My family went on vacation to Hawaii, I want to say it was in 1984 after the volcano erupted and a big swathe of the island got covered in lava. Maybe we went in 85 or 86, because at the time, you could take a bus out to see the cooled flow, which just looked like a million trucks full of asphalt had spilled down the mountain all the way to the ocean, and then melted. Anyway, there was still an active tube of lava running under all the cooled stuff, and we could lean out over a cliff and watch the stuff pour right into the waves. The tourguide said that if the wind started blowing in our direction, we would have to leave right away, because the steam from the lava hitting the water would have all sorts of nasty shit in it and would destroy our lungs.
So standing upwind from this lava that hadn’t had a chance to cool hardly because it was running up a lava tube before it hit the air, from about… 100 feet away(?) the heat from this lava was cooking the oils out of my face. It was like sticking my face into a really hot sauna whenever I leaned out to look at the lava.
I say all of this to reinforce the horror of Dabbler’s threat, but also to tell you that the experience in Hawaii has ruined every movie with lava in it since. That Kali-Ma scene in the Temple of Doom when the guy was in the cage and the trap door opened up below him, then he’s lowered into the lava below? ABSOLUTELY NOT. The instant that doop opened, he would have been blasted into ash like he’d been standing five feet behind an F-16 when it was taking off. The shaft would have focused that heat into a heat laser. Like a blow torch verses flash paper. And the scene in the Tommy Lee Jones movie Volcano, where the subway chief guy is standing on the back of the subway car, surrounded by lava, then he tries to jump over it, but lands in it, then tosses the guy on his shoulder over the lava while his bones melt? How ’bout no! Standing two feet directly above lava means not only are you on fire, I’m pretty sure the ambient air temperature means your lungs would be ash already. Even discounting the heat, I’m pretty sure if my bones were melting, I wouldn’t have the wherewithal to shot-put a human being. Adrenaline? Yeah, probably. Mental faculties? Probably not.
April Vote Incentive is up! Looks like someone had better make sure their life insurance includes acts of Snu Snu.
Alternate versions over at Patreon include less cloth-y versions as usual, but also some of those color changing chokers.
Her shirt, since no one has figured out the kanji yet, says “I ahegao you. (As long as you ahegao me.)”
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
I love how Deus is almost looking at the device as if it has betrayed him.
Would have been funner if the last panel was him going “Honestly? That wasn’t me!”
given he also said implacable rather than inexplicable, he deserves a little discomfort.
He’s a Drama Queen, not a Grammar Granny :P
i dunno, implacable works; the urge could not be stopped, rather than the urge was unexplained
That works even betterer
I imagine it would get boring with over use.
Fun fact: ice volcanoes actually exist! Europa, Enceladus, and Triton are all excellent examples of cryotectonics in action in our own solar system alone!
Cool (Sorry) I thought someone made them up. First time I heard them mentioned was in a Jon Pertwee Doctor Who story where they stopped a Dalek Army by…*SPOILERS!*
Hey Dave, I may have missed this but I have to ask Where did the Banner go? I went back and its not on Mondays or todays Grrrl Power. Also the WHOS Who keeps appearing and disappearing. I’m using Microsoft Edge right now, Please don’t tell me its this.
I’m not seeing a banner either and I’m using the latest Firefox (I’m not hostile to Edge, but I’m not completely thrilled with Bing being a nanny).
Edge uses the same rendering engine as Chrome (and several other larger browsers) as of several years ago, so it rarely has rendering differences anymore. There’s just some site changes that have been messing with the layout (and comments).
Banner’s gone for me as well, using Brave, which essentially acts like Chrome in most ways.
Don’t know about the Banner, but the Who’s Who only shows up when you go to the comments section
As for Bing, prefer using that over Google
@DaveB, seriously, ask us Spanish speakers for translations before writing, nothing breaks SOD or faith in a writer than a terribly translated piece. Either use the convention or ask someone heck, use Google Translate. GT would have given you “Siguiente en la telenovela Girl Power” or if translated it piecemeal, “Siguiente en la telenovela Poder Femenino”. Which would be still wrong, but not as wrong…
A good translation would be “Próximamente, en la telenovela de la Chica Poder”/”Próximamente en la telenovela Chica Poderosa”
So, I just reverse google translate that out of curiosity, and I find it interesting that GT decided to leave Chica Poder untranslated, apparently the capitalization made it decide that it was a Proper Name? *shrug* just thought it interesting that GT has rules on when to leave words untranslated.
I’m kinda wondering if there’s a limit on how many Succubi can be bonded with one master. Theoretically, if a master has multiple succubi and they are all passively absorbing his mana through the bond to stay alive, this would actually become hazardous for the master.
(Think of it as having a device on sleep mode and plugged into a power strip. Just because it is using less energy doesn’t mean it is not sipping away some power. You have 6 devices on that power strip and, even if they’re all left in sleep mode, the drain is significant enough to make a difference in your power bill.)
More than likely, although as a demon lord be probably has mana to spare. Probably not as much as say the Slayers anime demon lords who allow spells to draw power directly from them, but a fair amount
Per the page before the one Dave linked, “the succubi can’t take from the master without permission.” Which isn’t surprising given that the wizards designed the system and only made concessions on the details later when forced.
But I’m curious if there’s a limit as well.
The way the link was described having a master is plugging a gap- as in its not like a master and servant from fate stay night where the master’s mana is fueling the servant, a succubae’s master serves to keep their mana from leaking away.
So I don’t think they are dependent on Tom for their mana supply, just dependent on him lest it start draining away. Remember Dabbler was implied to get a recharge from sex, way before Tom ever showed up, so she doesn’t need him to recharge her batteries.
I am honestly more interested in how a young succubus would live without a master/mistress or if the hole in their mana pool doesn’t open up until they get older which would raise even more questions.
I know the answer is not easy to find, so it shouldn’t irritate me so much that people continue to ask… but the author has definitively answered this already.
There’s one guy that’s survived falling into lava.
He pulled himself out of the crater. He did have some injuries, though. One of his arms and both his legs were severely burned, and he was hospitalized for some time.
And that was the COLDEST lava in the world. (930-1110 F)
(Although it doesn’t mention it, considering the burned areas, you can bet his junk got junked.)
Anakin Skywalker doesn’t count :P
I just winced in pain at that punishment if any thing dabblers sister just became his master
From the description, I pictured the Soul Eater would make Tom feel everything happening to the severed part afterward… So Tom would feel his junk dipping in the volcano uhntil the end of time – or the regeneration spell fail.
Parfait looking over a Sidney there, half expecting a , “hi, you’re cute, want to have sex?”
Lava isn’t actually all that hot*, but there’s a lot of it, it has a pretty decent heat capacity due to its density, and it’s pretty efficient at radiating, convecting and conducting that heat to nearby things.
* It’s still way hotter than any sizeable object you are likely to have in your house, and definitely hotter than anything you should touch without protection and preparation.
But really, the flame of a gas lighter or stove, and (the filament in) an incandescent lightbulb are all hotter than lava, they’re just much smaller, and aren’t nearly as good at getting that heat into you.
The closest you can reasonably get is a good fire with lots of coals. Those can reach the upper lava-temperature range (without forced air, with they can go higher) and can effectively radiate a good part of that heat.
Oh yeah, have experienced a good coal fire, the embers were actually hotter than the flames themselves
“Lava isn’t actually all that hot”
Well, everything is relative, so compared to the surface of the sun, sure, “not that hot”, but actually, it’s hotter than *anything* of *any* size most people have in their houses.
1500 F is MUCH hotter than any normal household oven or stovetop can achieve, for instance, (and *certainly* hotter than the flame of bloody lighter! Seriously?!?) and lava is often hotter than 1500F. (Your point about filaments is not *entirely* wrong, but that’s only for certain specialty bulbs, not regular incandescents.)
With the addiction of a kiln and some *serious* warranty voiding, you can manage about 1000F with a microwave….
Handheld lighters vary, but most of their fuel sources burn at 1800-2600 F or more, and various sources claim they can burn at over 4000 F. But since the flames are so tiny, that heat is dispersed very very rapidly so they don’t feel that hot.
But for perceived heat, we have to look at the total energy being transmitted, not the temperature at a single point. A single cc of burning butane above a lighter would be hotter than 1 cc of lava on teaspoon, but the thing about lava is that it comes in large quantities, so the total energy is far higher.
Think of standing next to a smaller amount of lava, say a couple 5-gallon buckets, instead of a massive river of lava. It would be like a roaring bonfire (wood fires are around 1100 F) – really hot, but you can stay mere feet away for an extended time and not catch fire. But pull out a lighter and put it right up to your palm – it would burn you instantly, and prolonged contact would result in charred flesh.
Daughters of Xanadu? As in, “In Xanadu did Kublai Khan”?
No, not that Xanadu. Or this one or this one or this one. All of which actually refer to the ancient Xanadu.
In universe, given that humans have had under-the-radar interactions with the galaxy for millennia, I suspect this Xanadu was named after one of Dabbler’s many-generations-back ancestors, for whom the Terran city was also named.
there’s no Xanadu in Xanth?!?! but there’s Xanthian gum here…
and having looked up the lyrics to Xanadu I find another song that I have completely messed up the lyrics. I could swear there’s a line about not making a mistake in Xanadu.
well at least I’m not the only one who thinks there’s a bathroom on the right in Bad Moon.
This whole master thing continues to be extremely creepy and distracting. Even from a Watsonian perspective the way he makes a point of bringing up the whole master and slave dynamic gives off creepy, controlling vibes even if there’s reassurances that any attempt to be an actual abusive douchebag would end badly for him. All in all, “Tom” comes across as a massive asshole. I would not be surprised if “Tom” tries some shit with Dabbler or her half-sister.
He’s an Infernal. They’re not supposed to conform to human morality standards. Judging by all of the language he’s used to mark hierarchy, it wouldn’t be surprised if he was more closely related to Devils than Demons. The way to tell the difference is as follows: Devils screw people over by following the rules, Demons cause mayhem by breaking the rules.
“This whole master thing continues to be extremely creepy and distracting.”
Tom didnt create the master/slave thing. He’s just a part of how they use it now to bypass the problem of succubi needing to have masters in order to, yknow… not die. He’s actually been VERY good to Dabbler and as it’s been stated many times, a lot of the power actually remains in the hands of the succubi in the relationship. They can leave and find another ‘master’ as they please, and abuse is dealt with harshly.
“All in all, “Tom” comes across as a massive asshole”
No he does not. And in fact it’s been stated outright, by Dabbler herself, that Tom is actually a perfect gentleman to her about the whole master/slave deal. The only thing that, to humans, would be creepy is that Dabbler NEEDS to have sex with Tom, but as a succubus, that’s sort of like saying fish NEEDS to swim in water. Or a human NEEDS to eat food. My relationship with Buffalo Wild Wings is completely consensual and only moderately creepy.
“I would not be surprised if “Tom” tries some shit with Dabbler or her half-sister.”
I would, because Tom’s been very good to Dabbler even though Dabbler constantly mouths off at him about things that really have nothing to do with her, like Tom’s business arrangements with Deus, in a country in which Dabbler is not a citizen of and has no political rights to do anything about. The whole master/slave dynamic with succubi is not because the master OR the slave necessarily WANTS to do it – it’s because the slave needs to in order to not die because of how they were created, and the master (or mistress) is basically being a volunteer in the process to help out as a placeholder in place of the original ‘sorceror/sorceress’ master/mistress, but is set to so many rules to prevent abuse that it seems like they’re doing so more as good Samaritans than as evil victimizers.
Also Tom is a buissness partner and probably good friend to Deus and that means he is likely a good person too am I right?
Dabbler don’t need sex with her ”master” Tom right? If I got it right she needs to fred on tantric energy but that can come from any source. Technically she don’t even need to get it from sex at all. Seems more like Tom and Dabbler went at least five rounds just because they genuinely like eachother. The no doubt massive amount of tantric energy Dabbler got was just a bonus.
Yeah I admit I can be a bit of a romantic.
“Dabbler don’t need sex with her ”master” Tom right? ”
Correct. It’s actually an obligation for the master to have sex with the succubus. She’s allowed to go from master to master if she wants. Remember when Maxima asked about if she was Dabbler’s master, would she finally listen to her orders. And was told probably not, no. Plus Maxima would be obligated to have sex with her as part of the bond.
“If I got it right she needs to fred on tantric energy but that can come from any source. Technically she don’t even need to get it from sex at all.”
Yeah but getting it from sex is the most fun way.
Everyone loves Parfait
So the fact that the matrons entrusted Tom with *two* succubi means he’s actually a pretty reasonable guy, right?
It also means he got enough mana to satisfy two succubi.
Yeah, Okay Sydney, Dabbler has her dark side.
But what else would you expect from someone who shares heritage to bloodlines in the Infernal Regions? Don’t let Dabbler throw you off just because she happens to pay more attention to humanity’s nether regions…
You have said worse Sydney, simply for stubbing your damn toe!
Lava is hot. In fact, so hot that if you jumped into a relatively active Volcano, you’d be dead before you hit the lava because the ambient heat of the air would strip your flesh off.
Let’s say a soul-eater keeps your soul in your body even after it removes bits; your soul is forcibly quantum entangled and separated, letting the astral entity in the soul-eater feed off the suffering of a soul that is split. Also means you retain feeling of the bit they cut off.
REALLY useful for interrogating, cause you can just behead them
She said she’d castrate him with a soul eater, and THEN portal his cock into an active volcano, after carving infinite regeneration ruins into it.
So,
1) Cuts off balls with a weapon that prevents any healing.
2) Makes sure the cock will keep coming back no matter how damaged.
3) Sends it to a volcano by *portal*, so technically it’s still attached to him. One way portal, I assume; There’s no pulling it back out.
Uh, kinda unimportant question; What is the date in the comic? Or year for that matter, I am currently presuming that it is either late 2010 or early 2011… But I’d like to know if there is an official date.
Next Sunday AD
Or Gollum holding the One Ring up while sinking in the lava himself.
Realization that it means that he feels his body parts if they’re separated. so he would eternally feel the pain of a constantly regenerated burning in a volcano
I am happy, that “THE BUTTON” wasn’t just a one-time gag, also the fact, that Deus has some unconscious sense to use it with a perfect accuration.
Great chapter
Further to the ice thing a few pages back.
It’s also why you usually don’t smoke when drinking expensive booze. Or eat spicy food at the same time. Etc.
Max is also doing a status move here. “If you’re going to serve me really expensive booze as a power play, I’ll just negate it and ask for a cigar to go with. It will also be really expensive because that’s how you roll.”