Grrl Power #1393 – From the mouth of privates
A large portion of Stygans are martially obsessed – they’re not totally a monoculture like Klingons or Ferengi, but the ones that aren’t are like an Asian guy in the 80’s. Everyone just assumes he knows kung fu.
Maxima’s not wrong, that a Stygan turning down a duel would be notable, especially one wearing an armored cuirass in public – but it’s not like there’s never been a Stygan that’s gone out on the town looking to get some dinner, dancing, dating and dueling in, and wound up eating a fermented Brax roe burrito and discovered that his sphincters are sequentially and rapidly losing their own duels with his meal. Saying “I’d love to duel but my butt is about to dishonor me all over the dance floor.” is a perfectly acceptable response. No one wants to experience Saturday Night Dengue Fever in the middle of a grapple.
Yeah, there are Stygan dickheads who will look for non-martial edges to bolster their own egos, but it’s really martial reputation that most of them are after, and some guy who squirts Visine into his opponent’s water bottle with wind up being ridiculed and shunned, not lauded for his prowess. I mean… usually. There are always little echo chamber cliques of cult-of-personality sycophants, but they are thankfully few and far between in Stygan society.
I realize while reading the page just before posting it, but in Panel 5, Samketh (the mouthy punk) is supposed to be implying that him talking during the duel up to this point was his attempt to distract Max/Egoma with banter, but unless you happen to have my brain, (and I suspect very few people do) I’m not sure that’s at all clear. I think it reads more like he’s implying that Max was the one being chatty, except that doesn’t make sense as the only thing she said since the duel started was “Give me back my funnel cake,” and that wasn’t even directed at him.
And by the way, “Egoma” is my attempt to extend the naming convention I used with the alien mercenaries that attacked the team in New York. They were all anagrams of Greek letters. Egoma is obviously Omega, Detla… I hope I don’t have to tell you what letter that is. Lapha is Alpha. Garamm is… Well, it’s Gamma, only I somehow managed to stick an “R” in there cause sometimes me not brain good. I probably can’t run with that scheme for too much longer because a lot of Greek letters have very short names. I mean, “Rho” can only become “Roh” or “Hor,” probably not the best name. Or “Ohr,” or “Orh.”
Ooh, look! A new vote incentive! And it’s updated with color!
Well, in progress, obviously. I have another one that’s actually a bit further along, but everyone was all, “Sydney Kobold vote incentive!” So I switched to this one. Plus the other one was a multi-character picture so it will actually take me longer to finish. I hope to have an update for this one each week, so stay tuned. There is a slightly higher res version on Patreon.
By the way, this gunmetal blue-ish background and teal pencils are how I draw the comic. I set it up this way so I don’t have to spend all day staring into a bright white blank page.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
Or it could become Hro.
I’m thinking Hro would be a grizzled old veteran, well past his prime but with a lot to teach a young punk like Samketh…
Hro sounds very old English as in the middleages there was amassive shift in spelling and pronunciation, so a word like Horse used to be spelled Hros (with the ‘H’ probably being guttural).
Some languages still maintain this with their word for Horse being some variation of Russ.
Makes me think of Hrothgar.
Well, Archon has Hiro, currently in charge of Arc-Swat when Max is away. He is definitely an experienced veteran, ready to teach, but not a grizzled old one.
But it just gets annoying fighting a guy named Ip.
I actually went into martial arts specifically to learn kip-ups, only to find that the instructor wasn’t interested in teaching them. (And then accidentally sprained BOTH wrists at the same time, cutting my martial arts career short.)
He actually preferred that, if you were knocked down, you went straight into a backflip, to gain some distance while getting back on your feet. If you did a kip up, you were likely to just be knocked down again before you had your footing. It’s just a showy move.
Which ironically makes it appropriate for this guy!
What’s the difference between a backflip and a roll?
A back-flip you extend your body, a roll you are tucked in and land in a crouch. My martial arts time ended when I broke my back and dislocated my hip and shoulder in ’83. Couldn’t extend them with out having to reset the joint and lost a 1/3 of the lower back flexibility. That and the nerve damage prevented me from training. I buy only metal canes however ;)
A backflip throws you into the air and you land on your feet upright.
I actually learned that move in a judo class that our local elementary school ran during the summer, back in the 60’s! Since the attacks in the class were mostly throws, we first had to learn recoveries from throws and falls, and they were generally one or another sort of flip that ended with you on your feet.
That’s why I was so embarrassed about spraining both wrists: I got knocked on my ass and forgot for a moment how to fall properly, and caught myself on my hands. Crippled for life! (Well, by martial artist/gymnast standards, anyway.)
I am trying to imagine which throw or fall would require you to recover with a backflip.
Besides the risk of kicking your opponent in the head most strenously during said flip, which I believe is a strict no no in judo ;)
Granted my experience with judo is limited and I am willing to accept that girl judo is less energetic than boy judo (though from the matches it is more like a tug of war?). It was fun to learn that even if a guy is bigger, stronger and heavier than you, if he is out of balance you can bring him down. Hard if necessary.
Still, I never got to tournament level and the Sensei had classes split by gender lines at a certain point. Guess he did not want to have to teal with teenage boys being required to effectively reach into a girl’s gi for certain throws and choke holds. He was great though at teaching us the difference between guiding your opponent /to/ the mat and /through/ the mat and that if he ever saw us do the later he would first humiliate us and then call the police. (of course he also taught Jiu Jutsu and Tae Kwondo, that may have had something to do with it).
I do not think daddy was as appreciative of his perfect little angel learning potentially killing moves as I was ;)
But ultimately, for self defense a no holds barred class was better for me. I learned important life lessons there like: don’t try to kick a man between the legs (they have excellent reflexes there). Aim instead for the kneecap of his standing leg instead and wear shoes that are better for running than making your butt look great. A stilleto heel will break before something important in a foot does (so don’t bother, they are designed to). Or always fight back against a sexual assault. they may give up if you do rather than kill you, but they are much more likely to panic after the fact when you are helpless. On the other hand do not resist a mugger. Chances are too high that they are hopped up on something and are entrely unpredictably aggressive. And learn to differentiate between the two.;)
Also, running is better than fighting every day, and while you should not have to, reality is that not getting into potentially dangerous situations is the most important skill you must learn as a woman.
DaveB only in the movie Wedding Crashers does visine act like exlax. In the real world putting visine in someone’s drink won’t give them diarrhea. But it can give them vomiting, seizures, coma, and even death. Which might make the person adding the drops mess their own pants as they get hauled off to prison. Play stupid games and win stupid prizes.
Spike it with boing – the virility enhancement drug instead!
To add to the other responses
A back roll will more likely see you end up in a superhero landing pose (too low to the ground and unable to dodge in any meaningful way). It is not a fast move either so a competent opponent can easily follow you and nail you again as you take the (relative) eternity to get upright.
A back flip on the other hand will see you in a ready stance almost instantly but at the cost of being airborne (and unable to change direction, or act really) for a similar relative eternity.
The best thing really is to avoid getting hit so you do not have to make either manouver.
What litte prince does here is a show move only suitable for duels which reset after a point. If this had been an actual fight Maxima, even without speeding up, would have followed him and hammered him into the ground whle he was prone or on the way to getting there. Ending the fight, possibly permanently.
Showing another difference between a young prince who was trained by the best duellists his father’s money could buy (or mother, for all we know stygian society is gender agnostic or matrilinear) and somebody who is in all ways superior because she is still alive after numerous battles where the opponents do not care with rules or chivalry only with survival by any means necessary.
You can always go with names like ‘Ugh’ and ‘Urm’ for the real stone-age types …
We need more kobolds… I know a guy who knows a guy…
Captain Fang from YAFGC?
That guy is even more chaotic than Sydney!
I’m pretty sure those bodyguards are enjoying this a little more than they would be comfortable admitting in public.
They WERE quick to point out that just because someone doesn’t claim a clan, doesn’t mean they can’t hand him his head. Weren’t they?
If you really want incessant banter, fight Spiderman.
That’s banter done right as you need a proper degree in smack talk in order to do it like Spider-Man.
Akin to how Jacky Chan is so skilled at martial arts he can make it loop around to being comical.
This guy lacks both.
It really helps if, like Spiderman, your reflexes are so fast compared to most foes that you talk smack during the fight to avoid boredom.
Huh, as far as the intent of panel 5 goes, my brain read it as “This won’t stop me. I’m used to getting tripped… just more verbally than physically.”
Exactly what I thought.
I read it as “I’m not making a fool of myself with this incessant yammering — it’s part of my *strategy*!” (like when a cat acts like “I *meant* to miss that jump”).
Just so people know, putting Visine in someone’s water can *kill* them. It’s not a laxative. It’s a potent poison, if ingested.
(reacting to Dave’s note below the comic)
Maybe a poison to hyu-mons, but a stimulant to certain species
How many points in this duel?
Some honor duels I have read about went to five points. If so? This is going to be a VERY long day for that brat.
Come to think of it, even if it is three, this is going to be very embarrassing for him.
Assuming the points are not merely cultural coup counting. If it is a part of the duel I would guess 3 or 5 for this kind of informal situation but it could also be something like the first person to get ahead by a certain number of points. It could also be there are points for other aspects then just knockdowns and clean hits but probably not.
So would it be more humiliating for Egoma to bring him down with a leg sweep five times, even though he knows its coming but just can’t stop it, or score five different ways so he’s always fighting the last war? The latter is more narratively interesting…
Could have it both ways. First tell him what she’s going to do to him, then do it despite his efforts to stop her.
Then, after it’s evident how outmatched he is, just finish off by claiming that she’s going to utterly destroy him… and just give him a wedgie.
I wanna give Sydney scriches
“Tzerki” sounds an awful lot like “Meteor” in Drac.
I thought it sounds Polish.
“Man is not a rational animal; he is a rationalizing animal.”
– Robert Heinlein, “Tunnel In the Sky”
I’ve met my share of cocky punks like this kid, know a little about sparing and think they are a master. I was a body builder before I took up the art so when someone got cocky I’d grab them by the neck and lift them up, I had to laugh when their eyes went wide. More so if they were taller than me.
Star Trek: TNG had a bridge officer named Roh for a while. The manipulation of Pho should be avoided. Ooph sounds more like somebody got punched in the diaphragm.
It was “Ro Laren”, but I came to point it out as well.
Nothing stops it from being “just” a first name.
At least it wasn’t ‘Ro Lex’, the ships time keeper
I thought Garamm was not a Stygian, so wouldn’t have a Stygian name.
He’s not, and neither is Lapha
Today was the day I realized her name was Detla, not Delta…
DaveB you could always combine two shorter Greek letters to get more mileage out of your naming strategy. That may actually provide a lot more options in the long run by mixing and matching.
Is that a random female in the last panel about to join the fun and increase the humiliation for Punkawan?
I think she was the one on the left of Samketh (AKA Punkawan) when he issued his foolish challenge.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-1389-on-fracture-station-theyre-called-warp-cakes/
Sydney, you both need to face away from the other audience if you want your talk to be private from them. Going sideways hides nothing if you are speaking English the translators have that. You want to actually use Ferengi or Klingon here since its unlikely that the translators are coded for earth media. I’m not sure what would happen with piglatin and other phonetic games like that.
Than again Gamma can become Magma, which in the right circumstances can be an awesome name ;)
I mean, Sydney of all people should accept two things can be true at the same time.