Grrl Power #1349 – A Standing Ovulation
Having never been female myself, I don’t know what “Unexpected Feelings of Femaleness” would be. Were I a facetious person, I might suggest a sudden urge to go shoe shopping, buy a bunch of makeup, even though they already have a huge drawer of makeup, to hang unicorn posters on her bedroom wall, or to lay on her bed with her feet kicking back and forth in the air while writing “Mrs. (her first name) (his last name)” in her trapper keeper over and over. Those last two might only apply if you were a tweenage girl in the 80’s.
If I were not a facetious person, I might think women can feel it when they look at some guy and their cervix goes, “Yo, get that dude in here.” That’s more of a sarcastic notion. It may not be fully inaccurate though, because as I said I don’t know one way or another.
I can tell you what feelings of maleness are though. It’s walking into a Home Depot and seeing one of those screwdrivers that comes with 16 different screw bits stored in the handle and thinking, “Well I definitely need that.” Even though I’ve already got 7 other screwdrivers with various amounts of screw bits already. Same thing with tiny and/or exceedingly powerful flashlights. You know, that wasn’t so much a problem when I was growing up and flashlights all had sucky 8 watt incandescent bulbs in them – well, except for those big “doubles as a truncheon” flashlights that were powered by 4 D-cell batteries. Or the camping flashlights that took those batteries that were the size of a third of a car battery. My point is, you couldn’t buy a flashlight back then the size of a Pez dispenser that could light up a room like an array of stadium flood lamps.
Here’s another maleness thing (notice I’m not using the term “manliness”) It’s seeing a sexy woman in some negligee that’s like, 80% straps, and your first thought is, “Yes, I quite appreciate that” (<–heavily sanitized version) but more importantly, your second thought is “After she wears that once, she’s going to stuff that in a dresser drawer where it won’t come out again until and anniversary or a birthday or something, and when she does retrieve it, it’s going to be as hard to untangle as 200 yards of Christmas lights.”
I’m going to try something with this new vote incentive.
This month, I’m closing on a new house, selling my Mom’s house, finishing packing Mom’s house, moving city to city to the new house, forwarding mail, canceling utilities, all that. And after that’s done, I get to start the process of selling my old house, which needs a little work before it can realistically go on the market.
SO. I’m going to try and do this vote incentive in stages. Currently it’s just pencils. The TopWebcomics one will update with colors and detail until we get to the no clothes versions, then that will continue over at Patreon. Also there will be a comic or two in between each version to fill out the story.
I know it’s hard to tell from just the pencils, but this is Heatwave and Jiggawatt. The comics will explain why they’re doing what they’re doing. Although I feel like even saying that much makes it easy to guess, but hopefully the journey will still amuse.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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I’m increasingly suspecting that Flash Drive might be an innate user of tantric energy, much like Kevin is an innate user of Vehemic energy. It might feed itself by making him come off as “really, really, ridiculously good looking”. Might explain the escalation. Elsbeth gave him a blast with how attractive she felt he was, which fed the power enough to get Dabbler hot and bothered…and it cascaded from there. Good recharge for his powers, but now he needs to work it off again.
This has been silly-spitballing with CM.
That’s more well-thought-out than my idea. I just thought he might be part-incubus.
Dabbler had a whole exposition dump about how there aren’t any incubus and the origins of succubus. Anyone got the page numbers on that one?
Pages #993 through #999.
imo Occam’s Razor is saying, he’s a super- supers in this universe tend to be pinup material, and then he’s also extra-handsome, making it even more potent
But if all supers are pin-ups, why is this one having such an effect on everyone, including Max? An SL300 Gullwing isn’t THAT much sexier in metallic black vs Navy blue…
Yes, yes it is THAT much sexier.
I think Max suspects something due to the fact she suddenly feels a bit different. Bad news for him as you KNOW she’s going to order a full investigation, but men!
Given he’s got the pride-flag tattooed were-dino ogling him too, investigating him as a tantric powerbase miiight be warrented..;3
A pride flag doesn’t mean “gay”. It’s an umbrella flag.
True. Rainbow means all sexual preferences welcome. Different colors represented different sexual fetishes and preferences. The rainbow covered all colors.
The original “pride-flags” were bandanas people wore in their back hip pockets at fetish clubs. Colors represented what you were into and the side you wore it on represented if you were a giver or taker.
Dancing with them was the origin of “letting your freak flag fly.”
The new pride-flag also covers races, but forget that the colors used for races were used for sexual pride flags. Those I remember will offend the races now associated with them.
I’m definitely suspecting SOMETHING if his incredibly good looks can put a dent in even Maxima’s prodigious defenses.
If nothing else, this is now a better world because flashlights are much better than they have ever been before.
I refuse to be satisfied until flashlight lumen can scale like DBZ power levels or Scoville units. I want to carry around a metal tube that requires two keys and automatically notifies the FAA every time it’s activated. I want to get a sunburn from the reflected light off a building down the block! I want it to legally qualify as a lightsaber!
I want it to be illegal – and unsafe – to turn it on indoors!
;-D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5f6mDfc5zg4
The world’s brightest flashlight, brought to you by Hacksmith Ind.
There is nothing better than being behind a professional cyclist in spandex.
Two facts stand out to me: that Maxima was only ‘affected’ after Flash Drive directly spoke to her/interacted with her (she’s actually SEEN him the longest, per speed vision on his approach), and the fact that out of everyone, DIGIT was affected – Digit, who I believe has been previously confirmed as Asexual. So Flash Drive really seems to have SOMETHING going on, whether it’s conscious or not. In my opinion this is more than can easily be explained away by “so hot it’s almost a super power but not actually one.”
I… don’t think Digit is ace. I want to say that she’s ‘classic battle shonen protagonist’ level of sexual, so if there’s anything she’s more interested in that sticks out to her, a normal tier hot dude isn’t going to catch her attention. But, it’s been some time since I recall that, as she was supposed to be the sex comedy relief as she didn’t immediately catch on that bending over at the hips while wearing spandex would catch most gynophiles attention.
I thought so as well, but looking back to page #948 the actual quote is: “I guess she’s the closest to being asexual as anyone on the team, in that the hormones normally responsible for arousal instead light up her brain when she thinks about spot welds and torque ratios.”
So she could be attracted to him. Or maybe she just followed all the other women to see what was going on.
She could be attracted to the welding on his bike. Though her gaze is in the wrong direction for that.
Or maybe she was following the others and got distracted daydreaming about spot welds. She just happened to end up in front for some reason. She does look rather distracted.
Thanks for finding the quote! But if anything that means Flash Drive is somehow overriding the way Digit’s hormones typically work, which feels like it just increases the odds he’s got something more than just his looks going on. Note the way Digit’s got the pouty lips and slightly open mouth (pretty sure I see a bit of teeth between them?) in her current pose – that’s not just curious or going along with the crowd, that’s “affected” by… something. Or at least so it appears.
You’re forgetting he makes his own and enhances his own bike. If she’s sensitive to upgraded technology…
Digit may indeed be A-sexual under *NORMAL* circumstances but also not immune to particuarly overwhelming amounts of tantric energy. So she might be able to, say, go into a bar full of male strippers and not care in the slightest, but still couldn’t withstand Parafit’s tantric blast earlier at the same time. Sort of like how someone sitting on one of those life-guard chairs is technically high enough so that they won’t get wet from the waves, but at the same time that chair won’t keep them dry from a tidal wave. In this case, Flash Drive being a tidal wave of sexiness big enough to get even her going.
I can only imagine how much Max would flip her shit if a Colonel told Max to shoo because she was “being a distraction” on another base.
Her double standards never cease to amuse me.
You might have a point. On the one hand, she might acknowledge that she IS a gold flying brick; she’s a slice of lemon away from being a hurled Pangalactic Gargleblaster. She couldn’t really claim that the attention is purely sexual, when “holy moly the leader of that superhero team is here” is obviously going to be a dominant factor.
On the other hand, she just told a dude, “I’m sorry, but you’re literally too sexy to be here.” I do wonder if anyone will call her out on that later. Especially since she clearly doesn’t buy the “boys will be boys” defense; shouldn’t she expect similar discipline from her female subordinates to what she demands of male personnel?
If she, like many of the commenters, suspects that his charisma has a supernatural element, which appears to be uncontrolled, then actually she’s fully in the right to suggest that his continued presence would be detrimental to the current work environment. Max, OTOH, has never shown any sort of mind-warping ability whatsoever.
If anything, the fact we just had it author-reinforced on the previous page that Max has an element of built-in mind control defense from her gold/’tin foil hat’ aspect, that could explain why she has resisted Flash Drive’s effect longer than the others. Which if relevant would definitely put this into supernatural/mind control territory…
The guy is literally creating a wall of estrogen behind him, and you are saying that Maxi is wrong to request him to leave so that wall can get back to work? Cereally?
This isn’t a base, this is a construction site, and the workers are currently not working because they are busy drooling over his package
There’s several reasons they put up walls around construction sites. One would be to keep stuff from leaving the site.
But another is to try to prevent the workers from being distracted by stuff going on outside. They are working with tools and materials that reward distraction with lopped limbs, lethal falls, etc.
The ones in the panel are mostly more resistant to injury than most humans. But that likely doesn’t cover every worker on this site.
Anvil got done dirty. Head covered up by the previous panel.
Kind of makes you wonder if he developed his super speed as a subtle connection of needing to get away from awkward situations
Enjoying the story, but it was the title that made me LOL. It ain’t fair when artists can wordsmith like that! (That’s my snivel and I’m sticking to it.)
Oh, this is terrible. Because of today’s comic, I’ve thought of a name for a tank in a MMORPG.
Protmanteau.
Just off-camera, Ellie is glaring at everyone with a look that says, “Back off, super-boobs and were-weirdos! I saw him first! I hired him to handle my package personally, and I plan to give him VERY DETAILED handling instructions before he leaves!”
all those stories about postman procreating with all the lonely women on his route, they were about people like him, weren’t they?
As someone who has delivered post by bike.
I certainly wouldn’t discount the possibility it can be a pretty active job, but it’s also true that for many people the postman is their primary social interaction.
Postman, or milkman, or dastardly baker (poor Ernie :( )
Logging on to comment here for what will likely be the last time. I’ve really enjoyed this comic, and its many sex positive aspects, as well as the art and fun characters.
I’m really grossed out by this “femaleness” thing, especially in our most proudly feminist character. I also reject your version of “maleness” as described in the post–While I take no issue with your experience of gender, it is very different from my own expression, and frankly I find your take on both male and female identity disgusting.
I wish you the best, and hope that someday you will come to a greater understanding. Goodbye.
I think you take Dave a bit too seriously. This sounds more like a joke to me.
Yeah, that term (and the attempted explanation in the commentary) really fails. Would have been better put as an unexpected urge to flirt. I’m chalking it up to general exhaustion after two moves (his mom’s to living with them, followed by his household to a larger house) and selling both original homes. Memory from a few months ago says he’d mentioned possibly looking into places in upstate New York, which would be a heckuva relocation, since he is/was in the DFW, TX area.
Somehow I felt like something like this was going to be going on based on the last comic. I can’t help but Wonder if any of the ladies standing behind him or before him suit his taste.
Poor guy entered the cougars den, also I know we have probably met the other two women on the right of the gaggle, but I cannot recall them. Love the texture in the hair on the lady on the farthest right.
Digit (the absent-minded inventress: the one not allowed out in public without a chaperone :P ) is the blond with the giant wrench
And the one the hair you like is Jiggs, the one depicted in the current invotive
Both listed (with links) at the top of the Author Waffle
Hm. That “ah!” might be looking away from a woman who can look him in the eye and seeing at least two others who are looking *down* on him.
This is likely unusual for him, even if he hangs around with other supers. An extra 6 inches of height on the average woman (5’3″) for being a cape puts her at about the average height for a non-cape male (5’9″).
If he’s average height for a cape male that would make him around 6’3″, so in a crowd he’s probably seeing just a bobbing sea of hair.
Being a super-attractive male, he’s probably slightly taller than that – although I don’t know if that would make him a bit *less* attractive to non-cape females to have that much of a difference.
Describing Max’s emotions as “unexpected feelings of femaleness” seems like the sort of thing that would be very offensive to some people. I can’t help but think that there must be a less controversial way to phrase that.
Well, anyone can find anything offensive if you willfully ignore the humor meant in it, which this clearly is meant to be. max DOES know how to be a woman, but this guy is so unearthly good woman that locking down that responsiveness is just really hard, and EVERYTHING about the story is indicating that.
If you just go from that premise, it’s slice of life comedy with unwieldy superpowers, nothing more. If they want to be offended by that, well, that’s up to them.
The OCP clearly indicates that the character can make lesbians straight, start fights between gay men, and make a crowd dissolve into chaos, he’s THAT good looking. It’s a Flaw, not a Benefit. The only odd thing here is he doesn’t have his mask handy to stop all this.
I think that would be more “urge to twirl hair around finger and smile coquettishly,” rather than “femaleness,” as I’ve seen both men and women act like that when talking to someone they find attractive. Granted that hair length plays a factor, but that’s usually replaced by “ring finger and thumb on chin, index extended on cheek with said smile and the shoulder slightly shrugging.” Definitely not limited to females, at any rate. Also, not part of her powerset, so why would the diagram even need to he pictured? *shrug*
Actually, I think that would have been better put as, “urge to flirt.” Or “urge to flirt, rising,” if you prefer.
Actually, that probably would have been better put as Max’ urge to flirt going up, as opposed to a “femaleness,” which (as others have put) really doesn’t work, here. “Urge to flirt, rising.”
I don’t think “urge to flirt” expresses any of what DaveB has described. Nor do I understand this apparent need to police other people’s experience of sex and gender.
I think a more likely interpretation, given the information provided, is that Max is experiencing a sudden, internal reminder that she does indeed inhabit a female body. She most likely thinks of herself as a person, a soldier, an American, a super, and potentially many other things before she thinks of herself as female, most of the time. Her usual external reminders of being female are unwanted male attention that she considers degrading or disrespectful.
The only person being ‘policed’ here, is DaveB. Guess what? Neither he nor I have any experience with female sex or gender, beyond second-hand reports. He’s now receiving a number of these informing him that he goofed on this particular instance.
Was it the most offensive thing ever? Nope. Hell, it’s not the most offensive thing in the comic’s run. But it’s a fair point of critique, especially since it appears as a caption/narration, and thus has “Voice of Author” overtones.
Nobody can speak for everyone, and yet several people appear to be trying to. The most people can say is that it doesn’t match their experience, but what they’re actually communicating is merely that they don’t like what’s been expressed, which says nothing about its factuality.
Responding to specifically “why picture it when not normally part of her powerset” – prior comics have established Maxima changing her ‘power balance’ to surge one attribute or another. The diagram in this comic is meant to take advantage of that prior knowledge to show that something ELSE is being surged, with the arrow ‘off the charts’ in the same way that it did when Maxima amped her strength while fighting Vehemence. It shows that despite the only minor visual representation on her face, there is a very powerful internal shift at work here – basically expressing the sheer magnitude of it, in the same way that Dabbler’s irises dialating in the prior comic conveyed the same effect overpowering her.
Addressing the broader question of ‘femaleness’ in this and the rest of Flash Drive’s pages… yes, the reaction is clearly over-the-top, and equally yes this is clearly out of character for some or most of the characters shown. I believe that “abnormality” is very much the POINT here, and not just blatant fanservice – we simply have yet to see the other shoe drop where the “why is this happening” and subsequent fallout occurs. It’s equally possible we may not get the “why” right now and it’s just setting up for something else later.
In terms of storytelling, remember that immediately prior to this Maxima was narrowing in on something being wrong with Sydney and Kat, and paying particular attention to a certain Senator’s aide – well on her way to uncovering Sciona’s identity. This entire over-the-top scene could very easily be a plotwise reason that bit of sleuthwork gets dropped due to sheer distraction, allowing Sciona to continue to hide for a bit longer.
Re the powerset. It looked to me that it was an attempt to show that the power spiked in an entirely different plane compared to her usual superpowers. Geometric, non-orthogonal, shapes do not lend themselves well to create the illusion of dimensionality on a flat medium.
It may have been an attempt to joke at ‘the most common superpower’ suddenly becoming active in Maxima.
And to be fair, the write up that Dave is being given angry statements about actually was an apology that he did not know how to write, express or visualise what was going on. With that him not being a woman and everything.
In story the character is not his and came with flaw of ‘inexplicably being attractive to all women and a certain percentage of men’. It was not his decision to add that, and honestly, it is a hilarious flaw for a superpowered character in a story. Just one that is difficult to translate from ttrpg to a comic.
In my personal opinion some people overreacted to these few pages. Of course they play up the stereotypical cultural ideas of ‘male’ and ‘female’. But we are also 1349 pages into a comic about stereotypical superheroes (and one decidedly atypical). Sometimes the comic deconstructs said ideas, but most of the time it exagerates them to a comical degree (like that whole thing that is going on with Math). This particular mini-arc is no different. Hard Drive is described as inexplicably attractive, and the comic shows just that in a funny (to me at least) way. All the women who see him are drawn to him and behave in for them unusual ways without even realising.
This comic does not do subtle gender criticism, and does not want (nor need) to. But if you must, think of this mini-arc as a gender flip of ‘my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard’.
“Standing Ovulation” is the funniest joke you’ve written this month :-)
I remember those flashlights…they are currently illegal to sell in my jurisdiction due to the level of impact they can impart…broken bones with minimal effort!
… That’s just learned reactions to arousal… Nothing special or different from Male “and now I want to be in bed with her” feelings… Honestly, the “feelings of femaleness” is largely misunderstood to be something other simple arousal- which is stupid.
Except… and I honestly don’t know if this was meant or just an illustration of how hard it actually is to draw the same thing twice, this time it appears to have had a small, subtle, but yet still noticeable, physical change in Maxima’s expression that I literally cannot unsee (seems to centre not on the raised eyebrow, but the pursed lips).
It honestly causes the illusion of a different facial structure despite there not being one.
classic “hot mail” vibe
Is … is this a new stat that Maxima can push power into? Several hundred petajoules per second of “femaleness”?
I imagine that the result will be every guy in a 50-mile radius becoming pregnant.