Grrl Power #1355 – Best seat in the alley
Man, it has unfortunately been a very long time since I drew this guy.
Dabbler is either being inconsistent here, or just complex. “Spank me hard enough to dislocate my butt cheek because I’m a succubus and I like it, but only if I know who you are and we have that kind of relationship, otherwise I’ll kick you in the head with my hoof. Well, maybe. It’s probably worth chancing it.”
I always wondered about the mechanical differences digitigrade legs would lend you in a fight. The real differences are that the foot is longer, but the shin is shorter. The leg when fully straightened would be slightly longer I think… You can’t really compare a deer’s leg to a human leg that way, I just mean in an anthropomorphic animal person, at least the way I draw them, the legs would be slightly longer because they stand with their legs slightly bent.
So the different joint placement would give you some different leg lock options, like you can see Dabbler giving “Hoss” here a sort of Full Nelson, and since he’s got a long horse face, she can do it from the front while sitting on his nose. I think digitigrade legs would deliver slightly less energy in a spinning back kick, because while the leg is slightly longer, it doesn’t have the weight of the foot directly behind the heel like with a plantigrade leg. That said… an animal like a deer or a goat has a pretty small hoof, but an anthropomorphic clydesdale? I think he would have an advantage in a rounhouse kick.
Tangentially related to this discussion, can I just complain about the naming of the roundhouse kick? The name roundhouse really makes me think of someone spinning while doing it. I had to look it up to get the terms right in the above paragraph. For pretty much my whole life, I’ve thought of the roundhouse as the one where you spin and kick your heel into someone’s jaw or where ever. ROUNDhouse. But no, the roundhouse is just a non-spinning snap kick, knee up, foot out, only you lean a bit so you’re coming in from the side instead of just hinging your shin straight in from the front. Call that a side-snap or something.
So anyway, IMO, digitigrade legs with big fat hooves would have an advantage on the “round”house, feh. And plantigrade would be better for spinning back kicks. BUT… if it was an anthropomorphic lion, and could also claw the shit out of your face when he kicked you… That’s not the mechanical advantage I was talking about, but it would be a nasty addition to a fight. You know what I wouldn’t want to fight? An anthropomorphic Utah Raptor that knew Muay Thai. A Mutah Raptor, if you will.
Oh look! The vote incentive has an update!
It’s not quite where I wanted it for this update. I kind of skipped over posting just the flats and started shading Heatwave, but hadn’t gotten as far as J-Watt. But I figured I’d post what I had.
I’ll hopefully have more progress soon as things here are kind of slowing down. Still putting the house together after the move, but there’s still plenty to do. The Patreon version is updated as well.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
I thought roundhouse was the same move too.
But when you think about it, the spinning kick is not something you use in a fight against someone who is fighting back, as it takes far too long and makes you vulnerable; rather like a haymaker. It’s a showy move. So it’s only used against someone you’re pretty sure is unable to counter. Or as a stunt.
Spinning jump kicks were intended to have an unarmed attack against opponents on horseback. It was a way to get an attack up to their level from the ground.
That doesn’t make much sense. You’re in the air trying to kick something that vastly outweighs you (horse plus rider) and is on the ground (so is much more stable). At most you’re kicking the riders at about their waist level (no, you can’t kick them in the head from the ground if you start on level ground; humans don’t work like that).
Maybe if the rider is leaning over to spear someone else you could kick him and get him to fall off.
The way to get an attack up to their level is with a spear.
Speaking as someone who’s used jump kicks and jump spin kicks (both in so called “street fights” as well as in sanctioned bouts), they are indeed good for getting height and range. You’re not kicking the HORSE, you’re kicking the rider, hoping to dismount them. And as for them being hit in the midsection versus the head… believe me, that works too.
Seriously, it’s FUN launching a jump spinning sidekick from your corner of the ring, and connecting your foot to their torso before they’ve left their corner.
You are absolutely not kicking a rider off a horse with a jump kick unless you are starting from a higher surface, and even then you are just as likely to knock yourself back. If they are armed, you are never going to do that. The spinning kicks for unarmed fighters against horseback is pure myth.
That being said, some people are saying that spinning kicks are useless against anyone skilled. That’s a more modern myth from the early MMA days, but there have been several high level fighters who have used spinning kicks to finish fights, up to and including the UFC championships. It’s rare, because it’s a high risk, high impact move that requires picking your moment perfectly.
It’s absolutely true that movies and TV dramatically overuse spinning kicks compared to real fighting, but the idea that they have no purpose against skilled fighters is yet another myth.
Opus, that is complete nonsense made up by a certain sort of fantasy a motivated Tae Kwon Do stylist. Nobody jumped up and kicked cavalry in their heads.
Who said anything about kicking them in the head?
Honestly, have seen many fantasy Asian dramas, and while they do do a lot of wire-work, when dismounting someone it has never been via a head-shot, always to the chest
You don’t get to impose your puritanical world view when talking about my friends, but I get to act condescending and catty when talking about you and your world.
Really wish we were exploring the other characters more than Dabblers one note thing.
Please accept my wholehearted agreement.
Xuriel is trying my patience.
Ah, yes, the old “how dare you offend me, while I can offend you with impunity!” stereotypical attitude.
I imagine we’ve all encoutered individuals who’ve demonstrated that particular trait.
That pretty well sums up DEI, in my experience..
Did not expect to see him… no no, I did not. It’s nice to be truly surprised in this day and age!
Well, there’s a character I never thought I’d see. “Big D” indeed.
Is that a Noisy Cricket? I think it is.
my thoughts exactly!
it’s the off-brand clone copy: ‘Annoyed Cicada’
Come on Maxima… You missed the tiny, and no doubt extremely lethal, little snubby she points at his chest….
She did mention that Dabbler “drew down on him”. I think that’s what she was referring to?
That was indeed the meaning.
Eeeyyyyy Dynotaku, many a year it has been, was wondering when he’d show up.
The moment I saw that horn… “Oh, it’s that asshole (affectionate)!”
Have we seen him before?
Not in this strip
Xuriel’s definition of “puritanical” would probably not be accepted by any reputable dictionary.
Yeah quit horsing around Dabbler, rein in the story already.
I’m sorry, who is this guy again?
Google ‘dynotaku’.
I was very tempted to name that guy Unihorny.
But that’s a Dabbler area effect.
You can search for Dynotaku but is NSFW
I think Dabbler is working off the assumption that surprise, affectionate contact from a shadow is okay so long as it’s someone you know.
She also, probably, is missing out on why encouraging that kind of behavior is bad. At least on earth.
This goes to her egocentrism, I think. Xuriel judges the universe purely by her own standard.
I’m not saying she’s alone in this or that she’s evil, but she’s … often tiresome, and not wholly trustworthy. Just look at the aftermath of her little sister’s aura eruption.
Xuriel is as fair to us as we are to our cattle.
Dynotaku! A blast from the past indeed, I never thought he’d show up. Is he the one who gave Dabbler her ribbon gun, it’s his style.
Less clothes >>> fewer clothes.
‘Less’ for continuous measures (less water); fewer for countable measures (fewer people).
All right be honest. How many people read the first panel and in their head went “Nah Nah”
Max, this is how an adventure succubus expresses affection – reflexively trying to kill you in sexually titillating ways, until she recognizes you, in which case it becomes trying to have sex with you in extremely violent ways.
Holy cr@p, it’s Dynotaku!!!
…don’t ask me how I know that.
Probably the same way I know him. And Dabbler. And probably half the people here….
Was he on Were World? Don’t remember an anthro unicorn on that planet
To hell with all of the rest of this stuff…I’m just jazzed over the 40 year old “Ti Kwan Leep” reference from The Frantics!
And one for Jenny and the Wimp.
Apparently this guy is some known character, but I was getting real Big D(eus) energy off of him.
Dabbler isn’t being particularly weird or even complex. There’s lots of behavior that would be welcome from a FWB that would provoke retaliation when coming from a stranger.
Yup. And she was skilled enough not to put the sword through her opponent’s face before identifying the aggressor. Once a friend is identified, the attitude shifts from defensive to ‘oh hi buddy’.
Nice touch that she has a noisy cricket even before hearing of earth.
But currently she would hit her legs first if she fired.
A roundhouse kick is generally started from the back leg pivoting on the front, so you are coming around. The ‘front roundhouse’ has almost no power behind it (compared to other kicks), so its mostly used the same way a jab would be.
The spinning hook kick you’re referring to is very effective though; because it has all of the big muscles in your back, butt, and thigh helping with the impact along with the inertia of the spin.
As for digitigrade vs human style advantages, I would think the former would prefer ‘sidekick’ style linear attacks and jump-kicks over spin or ‘pivot’ kicks, since pivoting on a hoof would put a lot of torque on that ankle/knee joint or require them to basically go ‘en point’ to spin.
And that doesn’t even account for the risk of of digging into the floor material as you spin.
Human feet can pivot on the ball of the foot and maintain contact/control while doing so and quickly plant the toes and heels while making contact with the target.
Someone like Dabbler performing the same kick, however, would probably be better served by bringing both feet off the ground for a second and then effectively kicking the ground and the target both at the same time.
You just triggered my pedantry.
Dabbler is not digitigrade. She’s unguligrade.
Cats and dogs are digitigrade: they walk on the pads of their feet. When humans walk like that, we call it “tiptoeing”, but it really isn’t.
Horses and goats are unguligrade. Only their hooves touch the ground, and hooves are homologous with toenails. The only humans who sometimes walk like that are ballerinas, and they have special shoes to do it with.
Demons traditionally have cloven hooves, like goats. And cows, but cows aren’t cool enough to compare demons to.
https://campus.murraystate.edu/academic/faculty/tderting/CVA_atlases/mammalian_stances/MammalianStances_Plantigrade_Digitigrade_andUnguligrade.html
Yeah, only ballerina’s walk on their ‘tippy-toes’, most other hyu-mons walk on the balls of their feet (very painful for the males of the species)
Okay, granted. Really I was talking about the mechanical differences in the foot/ankle/shin configuration when it comes to kicking. Well, until I got into speculating how much it would hurt to be kicked in the face with a giant hoof, but in terms of kicking, digitigrade and unguligrade are mechanically almost identical, especially in comparison to a plantigrade leg.
I’m ashamed that I know exactly who this is and that sincerely hope I don’t see any more characters from other creators that haven’t done anything in nearly a decade.
If other characters haven’t been seen in more than a decade, why wouldn’t you want to see them again?
Shi (the character) has just had a kickstarter where she encountered characters that hadn’t been seen in public for many decades (like Oswald the Rabbit, when was the last time his creator did anything?)
Huh wasn’t expecting him to show up here
I think I know that horse too. O.O Oh dear God, does that make me Eskimo sisters with Dabs?
For a complete change of topic – A ways back the possibility of Sydney appearing on a morning talk show was floated. Personally, I loved the idea and wonder if we are ever going to get to see it in the comic.
Depends: what time does Sydney wake up and becomes semi-functional? :P
Uhh, “what I’m okay with us doing together depends on our relationship” is neither particularly complex nor inconsistent. That’s just… how relationships normally work?
It would even be location dependent.
Yeah, she’s gonna draw on a stranger spanking her from a skeevy dark alley. But if it’d been a party or a club, I’d bet there’d be less sword involved.
Yeah, this really isn’t inconsistent. Dabbler enjoys being treated in this fashion, but only if she likes and is attracted to (for a succubus, those often go hand in hand) the person doing it. If you were walking around town and someone suddenly grabbed hold of your junk, you probably would be rather upset – but if upon turning to face them it turned out to be someone you regularly have sex with (a fuck-buddy, spouse, whatever), said upset would likely vanish if not change to excitement.
The point is that the behavior this attitude results in on both ends is dangerous. What if she hadn’t identified him in time? what if this had happened with someone she didn’t know, who had mistaken her for some other succubus?
Like, there are in fact very good reasons people don’t do that, even if they think it’s someone who would enjoy it. The limits of what people routinely surprise each other with in public is limited by what people are not expected to react violently to from a stranger, and there is nothing fundamental to being a succubus that changes those incentive structures.
True, but note how she stopped to talk (threaten?) before turning Horn-head into a bicorn?
I never said he was smart for doing this, just that Dabbler wasn’t being inconsistent in being defensive if someone she doesn’t know does this but liking it if someone she knows and likes does. Of course, I’d imagine this guy gets off on the danger inherent in surprising someone like Dabbler.
For the record, I don’t think he should be doing this kind of thing, nor that she should be encouraging it, on account of, as you mention, how poorly things could easily go. But they’re adults, and they certainly have the right to make bad choices.
Compressing one’s boobs to look down, at first I wondered if that was a real thing. Then I remembered I have to suck in my gut just to see my toes.
Thanks! I was wondering what was going on in that panel!
And one for Jenny and the wimp!
Lol, someone else said the dojo, but I heard the will reading first, on Dr. Demento.
Now I need to emphasize I have grey eyes, and can I have a Mountain Dew?
Nail Art“From subtle elegance to bold statements, nail art lets your fingertips do the talking.”
JewelleryTreasuresWhat a stunning collection! Each piece in this jewellery treasure shines with elegance and timeless charm—truly a beautiful blend of artistry and luxury.
I recognize this horse from your FA account…
In a roundhouse, it’s not the person that spins. It’s the leg circling at the hip.
Snore.
I don’t care about why Dabbler is on Earth. Yes, yes, Dabbler and an excess of the people she runs into are sexy and sexually forward to an improbable degree. We get it. Can we please move on to something that isn’t completely irrelevant and pointless?
So the second pair of hands is an adaptation to having really big breasts?
Been a while since I’ve seen that guy. Takes me back to your Dynotaku days.