Grrl Power #1400 – So breed me maybe?
The obvious drawback is the constant pregnancy, mood swings, weird food cravings, not being able to drink alcohol or gargle mercury, and oh yeah, the part with a human being ripping its way out of your genitals. Trust me, Maxima immediately brought up all those points, (okay, not the mercury bit) and Sydney immediately derailed her with “What kind of food cravings?” and Max was like, “You know, like pickles and ice cream, or…” and Sydney was all, “Well, that sounds gross, but if I’m craving it… It’d probably be good, right?” And things devolved from there.
The (solid) holograms they were wearing didn’t just magically appear on them. They were (obviously, based on this page) being projected from those spandex-ish zentai suits. Sydney wasn’t wearing one when she was trying out disguises earlier cause she was standing in a projection booth. That’s what those sparkly blue panels were. Also the holoplinth. That mostly just projects the image on the bottom of your feet and undercarriage. And underboob, sometimes, depending on how much vertical occlusion certain body parts might otherwise provide.
This will probably be the only page I’m going to draw them in those outfits, because I spent so much time trying to warp that pattern to their contours. It bugs me when you see a manga and the girls are wearing tartan pleated skirts, and instead of the pattern following the pleats, it’s just a flat texture overlaid over the skirt. You can kind of get away with it on a non-pleated skirt, or a cape or something, as long as it’s hanging limp and not flapping in the wind. But on a shirt? Sleeves never line up with the torso pattern, and if it’s a long-sleeve shirt and the person is bending their elbow, a flat, laid in texture looks terrible. I don’t know how much attention people pay to that. As an artist, I know it bugs me. I will admit that a lot of it depends on the art style. As the realism and detail goes up, the more important it is to contour textures and pay attention to folds and stuff.
So, yeah, this is probably the last time they’ll appear in those.
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.
“I’d be continually serviced . . .”
No, Syd, You wouldn’t be a “sex toy” for their hottest to play with, you’d be a BABY FACTORY. Assuming your biology was compatible and somehow no one ever found out “in the act” that you’d duped them with a hologram (in which case, you’d probably be lynched), you wouldn’t be continually “serviced”, you’d be continually PREGNANT (at which point, hologram or not, the medical scans, blood tests, if not because of the half-human baby you’d bear, you WOULD be found out and then probably lynched).
Assuming their species/culture even goes with the traditional method of reproduction (slow and hazardous as it can be) and wouldn’t just want to harvest her eggs for use in a literal baby factory.
There’s a sliding scale of squick here. If her consent is respected and she’s allowed to come and go as she pleases then it’s just that she’s being treated like an emperor with a harem. Not so bad for her and assuming all parties involved are also consenting not so bad for the harem members. Then there’s the full bad side closer to a Fabius Bile or some other warhammer 40k grimderp nonsense that would indeed be better for all involved if it was just an egg donation. Given the promises being made and what the ladies are likely imagining it’s probably closer to the emperor situation than not.
We don’t know what these creatures societies and cultures are even like and considering they were offering to lavish her with luxury and everything, I really doubt ‘broodmare with no will of her own’ would have been the fate. We just don’t know though. Personally I suspect that her gem would give whatever clan or w/e higher status just for being part of it and, while she might be pushed to marry some noble or something and have a few kids, she’d be much more of a clan-wide status symbol/noble than ‘broodmare’. So she wouldn’t get serviced by a bunch of virile young men, but she also wouldn’t be trapped into a life of consistent pregnancy or something.
What you describe is possible, but not the most likely scenario. (Neither is the ant queen scenario, amusing as the thought is. Mantellans clearly are not drones, and we did get to see at least two genders in the crowd chasing after Tzerki)
Generational social constructs require either a biological imperative (that’s how we get lion prides and why most primates form clans), or a strong social advantage. Kings grew out of the need of cities to have somebody to run their armies against the inevitable attackers (and the feudal system because the exact same model did not scale up to country sized regions). The person who led the army was in a position to control everything even without an enemy marching on them. And they were in the position to ensure that their sons had an education in fighting, leading armies and not abusing the town resources too badly. Ensuring that their son was the logical candidate to follow them.
Similarly there is a reason that we do not see hippy communes anymore, after only a partial generation. It is in part because some of the ideals went against two hundred thousand years of human evolution. And in large part because there was no social advantage to its members. In particular the ideal of free love meaning you can not say no did not at all feel good to the women.
Social status is not, by itself, a generational advantage as it is ultimately a fashion what provides status and what does not. A star sapphire may be the hottest forehead gem this year, but there is no way to prevent that in a couple of years it may become, say, a flame ruby.
Religious significance can be that advantage as religions tend to stay largely unchanged over centuries or millenia once firmly established in a culture. But religious zealots would not have shrugged off her escape with a ‘oh well’
If there is an established royal house that is identified by their heriditary star sapphire, that too would provide an advantage that can last as long as the monarchy lasts. However, it is not likely that an aristocracy would allow its daughters of nobility just wander freely to choose which den of commoners to ‘marry’. And these Mantellans would not expect to be able to talk a princess into joining their den any more than say a sorority would expect to talk a european princess (or a famous actress to stay with scenarios possible in the USA) into joining them.
It seems to me that just social status is difficult to explain how it would work on a (inter)planetary scale. A hive style species is also unlikely because we have seen nothing to indicate Mantellans are like that, and one or two indications they are not.
Which leaves me with the conclusions that the star sapphire is heriditary in some way, rare, and providing some kind of real advantage to a den. An advantage that is not magical or supernatural in a species whose only claim to the supernatural is that they can dig faster than they can run. I can think of some, but all of them have exactly no evidence to back them up.
So … we will likely never know why exactly the Mantellans were so eager for Tzerki to join their dens. That is unless Dave decides to write a spin-off comic: Tzerki – The Mantellan Years
Who lady with freaky hands in backgroun?
Digit
Max would probably be familiar with the lady with the list on tiktok who has 200+ DISTINCT reasons not to have a baby. Many of which are horrifying. It would destroy any semblance of interest in babymaking for anyone who isn’t already a mother and drowning in sunk-cost fallacy
So I was suddenly struck by something.
Anybody else getting Hidden Fortress vibes suddenly?
We have the retired samurai = Max
The princess being escorted = Sydney
Two hapless commoners = Harem & Digit