Grrl Power #1461 – Body composition issues
And fade to black. Or a dark, low saturation blue. Cause that’s the color of her sclera. I think in real life, dark sclera might be quite off-putting, but that’s because 99% of us would assume its an indication of a terrible medical condition. As a purely cosmetic effect, though, I think it’d look cool.
Oh, look, there’s such a thing a scleral contact lenses. I mean, I knew there were, they use them in movie makeup, but apparently now you can just get them online. I feel that’s one thing I would definitely not shop at Temu for, though. Well, my list of things I wouldn’t buy at Temu does in fact include everything, since I don’t shop there. I don’t understand how they’re in business, actually. “Getting a deal” is one thing, getting something that only vaguely resembles what you ordered is not usually how commerce works. At least not for long, but I guess that’s the world we live in these days. I guess it’s possible there are actual deals there, but the only thing I know about Temu is the demonstrably false advertising/bait and switch they do when they show the picture of the cool T-Shirt that looks like it has a spiraling hole through it and when it arrives it’s just a plain T with a badly spray painted asterisk on it and stuff like that.
It’s possible Deus has an exoticism fetish. Exotiphile? I suppose anyone who draws sexy alien or fantasy girls has a little bit of that as well. >cough<
Sciona probably knows an illusion or glamor spell that could accomplish exactly what he’s asking for, but she’s not above playing up girly insecurity to get a guy to give her free stuff maybe. She actually is concerned about losing her cool new powers, but the crossed arms and “I don’t want to admit vulnerability” side glance is her hamming it up a little. At least she didn’t go, “I’m scarwed of woosing my pow-pows, can you hewp widdle ‘ol me, mister stwong man?” I suspect Deus might immediately see through that.
Sexy bodymod news lady Gail has a special one-on-one interview with Tournament Quarter finalist Saraviah Nightwing! And if you subscribe to Gail’s Space Patreon, (which, due to the vagaries of Earth and Gal-Net’s DNS servers, happens to be the same as the Grrl Power Patreon, go figure) you can see that same interview in the nude! Well, eventually. The nude part of the interview, as well as the version that includes shading will be coming soon. Of course, you can view the interview in the nude now if you take your own clothes off. You know. Technically. Just put a towel on your chair first.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
He’s so immature. Or is that premature?
He’s confident and feels no need to be humble.
Worst, he can back it up, not bluffing.
Deus has Yeager Syndrome. He is EXACTLY as good as he thinks he is – and he thinks he’s VERY VERY good.
I would call Deus’ flavor to be “Larry Byrd” syndrome. Byrd was also exactly as good as he thinks he is, and adds in the absolute energy that Deus is showing.
I would call it “Larry Byrd” syndrome. Just captures the energy so much better. The trash-talking, the “Unearned” Aesthetic (dude looked like an unathletic ordinary guy), and zero bluffing. Yeager wasn’t known for trash talk or having things look “unearned.”
This raises a lot of questions about Sciona’s powers I never even considered. Is she a shapeshifter? Can all Alari learn blood magic? Why would reverting to her normal body risk eliminating Escorpia’s powers and could she theoretically use that to depower any human super? Not saying possessing and then transforming a dead super’s body is in anyway practical but it would be good to know.
Sciona probably can use a combination of her blood magic and Scorpia’s superhuman alchemical powers to restore her full Alari biology.
That’s why Sciona originally remade her Troll body back to Alari, so she could give herself temporary powers with blood injections.
However the Superion field works, you’ve got to be at least mostly human to access it long term.
That was a reason, but no doubt to motivate her complex plan to regain her Alari body there was also the sheer frustration and dysmorphia of having spent a lot of time trapped in an unattractive and male body to survive. She was proud of her femininity and beauty enough to give herself a magical boob job immediately after recovering her original body and cishet lustful enough to easily accept Deus’ offer of good transactional sex after a likely long dry spell soon afterwards. And the very first thing she noticed and was pleased with about lucking in Escorpia’s body was it came with the usual attractiveness perks of Superion channelers, well before realizing Escorpia was one. From everything we saw about her, she is many things, but not unassuming nor chaste.
On top of the other Temu issues, they push you to use an app that’s just barely this side of being malware, with the built in capacity to jump to full malware after installation if they push the right update. Even when using them through their website it’s recommended to buy a burner card to make the payment from, they’re so shady.
Some people just can’t resist the lure of a fantastic deal. 95% of cons rely on that.
Yeah, humans constantly letting me down. Just when I thought I was an overly trusting gullible iD10t… there’s some white claw swilling burger gumming orange clown on temu or tiktok or meta or… You get the idea. I don’t even google, when I forget this next YT password. That’s it. I can’t even get into my only email account anymore. And will not be bothered to get another. This will, I know. Utterly upset FEDGOV in a major way. But I no longer care. Off to feed the genmod ground squirrels I’m training for security work. They’ve got transparent steel teeth. :)
A friend of mine had to get her credit card replaced because someone tried to use it to make a $400+ purchase on Temu. When she showed me the notification, my first thought was, how? How does someone manage to spend that much on Temu?
Third-party seller sell everything on Temu they sell on Amazon. I’ve seen greenhouse kits, sheds, and electric hoists for over $400, off the top of my head.
Bullshit. I’ve bought tons of stuff on Temu and had very few problems, fewer than Amazon, in fact, and only with third-party sellers, unlike Amazon. Temu itself has always sent me exactly what I ordered, including the cool spiraling-hole T-shirt Dave specifically called out. People don’t realize that most of the stuff you buy on Temu is the exact same stuff you buy from dropshippers on Amazon for way more.
Never had trouble with the app, either, and if you use it and search the code “claimcredit,” you can get 50% back as credit, which is why I buy so much stuff on there. I use the credit back to buy more stuff and get credit back, giving me a perpetual 50% discount (it used to be 70% before the tariffs). Why would they risk billions in sales for chump change in malware scams? Use some common sense.
Better customer service than Amazon, too. Plus you can get partial refunds if the price drops just by hitting a few buttons.
I tried buying a hydroponics setup from Temu. Another time I tried buying bamboo seeds to plant in my yard. None of the seeds were viable, and the hyproponics was… not worth it.
Seeds imported from overseas are almost always nonviable because customs bombards them with gamma rays to kill any fungus or microbes on them to prevent ecological disasters. A special process is required to import viable seeds, not just sticking them in a package and shipping them. The same thing will happen if you order seeds from overseas on Amazon, eBay, or Etsy.
Plus, all those cool deals are for first time buyers
People will really just make up whatever they feel like, huh? Go up a couple posts, where I gave everyone the code to get a deal I’ve used numerous times for over a year. “First time buyers.” Suuuuuure.
– getting something that only vaguely resembles what you ordered is not usually how commerce works.
In today’s world of AI, it’s the norm.
No, that’s the news
I have to say, in that last panel, she’s looking rather sexy.
I wouldn’t exactly say he’s going to redeem her, I feel that he’s going to introduce her to his Vetinari like viewpoint. To become so essential to the way things are maintained that he can’t be removed and if it’s tried they then immediately revealed that they attempted to, thus making them hypocrites to what they believe in.
Also just saying I wouldn’t trust Deus’ little exoticism fetish at face value. Like sure that’s probably true, dude can likely get nearly any type of woman interested in him, but I don’t doubt getting some kind of footage of a U.S. senator’s chief of staff morphing into an Alari and a likely known criminal Alari at that would be great blackmail material. For anyone who doesn’t already know anyway. I kinda think Sciona’s bad at hiding what with transforming her hair like immediately after we saw her again.
Black slerae are off putting to humans for more reasons than that.
White sclerae are a social adaptation, as it makes it easier to see where other people are looking. Many mammals have either non-white sclerae or sclerae that aren’t visible to start with, and there is some evidence that the domestication process for mammals involves the development of white sclerae in species with visible sclerae, thus evolving the trait as a result of human selection.
Most Gorillas have Black or Dark Brown Sclera* and it’s not as off-putting as you’d think.
And you can find Sclera a lighter shade of Brown among Orangutans and Bonobo Chimpanzees.
*Some Gorillas naturally have White Sclera.
I shop at Temu regularly and haven’t found any cases of pure fraud – the t-shirts look like they appear on screen (cheap cloth, but that’s expected). You do have to adjust expectations a bit and not go for the offers that are obviously too good to be true, but I haven’t found it a rampant fraud pit.
What the heck does disinterlocked mean (marginal below the main panels)? It’s a tear-away zipper?
I believe she’s saying the zipper was opened by tearing the interlocking teeth apart, rather than the more usual “unzipping”. Assuming he didn’t set it up, it would be an impressive (and somewhat painful) move.
The opposite of interlocked. I assume it means the “volcanic erection” was powerful enough to force his zipper apart without “unzipping” it from the top. Probably wasn’t “tear-away” before, but it is now.
Aka a busted zipper, because it won’t un-zip without being interlocked again.
More clues today for the ongoing debate on how Deus has been neutralizing the Escorpia narcotic effects.
And if you do re-interlock it, it will be very prone to disinterlocking again. This past fall I tried keeping a takeout meal hot while walking home by slipping it in my jacket and zipping it up and now I need a new jacket because that keeps happening even when not abusing it, and I can’t get the same one I got because the jacket’s over 21 and they stopped making them over a decade ago. Although I suppose I can probably find a tailor and have a new zipper put in instead.
I believe the word you are seeking for Deus’ predilections is “xenophilia”.
Xenophile, which immediately makes me think of a particular work from Phil Foglio back in the 90s
I probably still have some Xxxenophile cards in a box somewhere
I’m not sure if I actually have any copies left. I only bought it because I knew the guy in college.
And I’m sticking with that story.
I feel like this scene is on the edge of overstaying it’s welcome. It’s still fun, but not really conveying anything that feels important.
Well, in most shows and anime, this is typically the point at which the scene would fade to black, and we get a view shift to some other characters doing other stuff.
Or we get a shift to the postcoital scene with the bedroom turned into a war zone (the Destructo Nookie trope typically at play for superhuman couples getting good sex) and with their lust sated, they can turn to other important plot stuff that is still unresolved. Other issues aside, isn’t Sciona on a (coerced, but no less real) mission to find core material to fix his ‘child’? He would be most displeased if Mommy forgets and misses this opportunity. He already shown her that his displeasure can hit very hard. Admittedly, we can still get a shift to other characters and plotlines, but I would be very disappointed if Sciona’s visit to Gaitlyn ends for good without this subplot being addressed as a way to make Scion something more than a bully for gangs.
Any time SmugD is in a scene. it’s overstaying it’s welcome
I think it’s time to start asking what would be missing from ☢️Grrlpower if Deus was never in it at all.
Do you think Deus would improve the comic?
If removing him left a big, smug hole behind, what would you fill it with?
Are you… Pander? You sound just like Pander
I’ve seen that handle, and yours, here, but no, I’m not Pander. “Any resemblence is purely coincidental.”
* Edit: In “Do you think *Deus…” I used an emoji that did not reappear here, the red circle with slash, for negation.
I’m not calling you out in particular either. I’d like to see all of the “Deus-haters” address the topic of replacing the character, I think it would be tremendously interesting. You never know, more good comics could get inspired.
As far as the handle “A Google User” goes, I saw someone else using it here and thought it was sufficiently generic that anyone could use it who didn’t want to give their real name. I was in too much of a hurry and couldn’t choose my own name at the time, because there are so many cool, different, and interesting names on the comments here. So I’m sorry if I inadvertently stole it from the other User, sorry!
The truly freaky thing is that you can get a scleral tattoo to permanently change the color of the sclera.
It’s not done in the traditional manner with a standard tattoo needle. Instead a needle is used to inject ink between the sclera and the clear membrane that covers the eye itself. The ink then spreads out and permanently dyes the sclera.
The thing is, it’s incredibly risky (the needle can easily go too deep and inject the ink into the vitreous humor inside the eye, which can cause anything from permanent tinting of the gel-like fluid so that it distorts vision and color perception (if the person doing the procedure catches it quickly enough), to complete blindness and potentially severe over-pressurization inside the eye.
But, there are people into extreme body alteration who still get it done despite the risks and the fact that doctors strongly advise against it.
I happen to know that after retinal reattachment surgery they replace the visceral fluid inside the eye with either a gas or a silicon fluid. (Silicon requires a 2nd surgery to remove it after the retina recovers.) The body gradually replenishes the viscera and absorbs the gas.
So I presume that tinted viscera could be removed harmlessly, if you don’t mind having eye surgery!
OMG, someone else has seen (or at least heard of) Coupling!!
Now there’s a show that didn’t translate from the UK to the US. Original was brilliant, US version was total crap
I only watched the first U.S. episode, because it was crap.
The problem was that they used the exact same script with U.S. actors.
The diaogue that was hilarious with British accents was just dull with U.S. accents, and Amricans just don’t turn our phrases the same way the Brits do, so the dialogue didn’t make as much sense either.
Compare ‘Coupling’ to ‘The Office’, which went through a similar process but (I never saw the BBC version) didn’t use the same script, let alone exactly the same characters, and was very successful in the U.S. version too.
Apparently, the first episode of the US Office was a direct copy of the UK Office’s pilot… and it sucked, US Office didn’t get good until Carell made the role his own, not a copy of Gervais
I liked the UK “The Office” and never watched the US version because I watched that first episode and it was the same script, but worse.
Perhaps the word to describe someone like Deus who likes partners of the very exotic kind is “xenophile”? You know, the kind of people who likes webcomics like this. Or so I hear.
Probably “chaser” as well.
The Temu business model isn’t anything new. In the ancient days before the internet one of my little old aunties used to get these cheap paper catalogs full of random items. Just like Temu there was a lot of crap mixed in with a few decent items. After puberty hit and I became more aware of such things I noticed there were a lot of interestingly shaped “personal massagers”. Temu just has a better warehousing and shipping network.
> The Temu business model isn’t anything new.
“When you came, you said to me as follows: “I will give Gimil-Sin (when he comes) fine quality copper ingots.” You left then but you did not do what you promised me. You put ingots which were not good before my messenger…”
i liken it to the old ads in the back of comic books in the 80s. :) “X-ray specs” and “Sea Monkeys” and Martial-arts pamphlets…
Ok, like Deus, I enjoy contrast. The fact that Sciona can turn back to her OG gorgeous Alari form-probably with the “enhancement” she gave it when she first re-took it..um…yes please.
Some stuff on Temu is actually pretty good. I’ve gotten several LED neon signs from there and they a great. I’ve had a couple of the LED drivers die on me but those are easily replaceable. Just takes some judgement when deciding on purchases.
I mean, I don’t order anything important at temu. But I’ve gotten some neat dragon shirts and a couple of fantastic packs of random socks, including “world’s best grandpa” and a knockoff set of socks with Goten and Trunks in the same pack. Also, a bug zapper that the houseflies carried away. It did take 6 of them working together, though. I’ve also played their fishing game for about a dozen hours, and I swear I’m getting close to that discount. I’m at 99.99%, and the scale keeps dropping. I wonder how many decimal places I’ll get to. I even bought some kids’ chairs that came in a tiny box and then expanded over 24 hours into chair-shaped objects, but they were soft, and they leaned up against the heavy coffee table, so it worked. Temu is weird.
Sciona may have her biases and blind spots, but she is totally right about being very protective of her current super body. Overall, it is way more useful to her than her old Alari one. Deus’ xenophile kink has little relevance here. Of course, if Deus can help her gain the ability to swap freely between forms, and/or mix and match, it would be best of both worlds.
A few people have gotten their sclera tattooed to get that look. IIRC, it was one guy doing it in a prison, but it briefly caught on in other places until people realized how risky it was.
I note that Deus is actually being very flattering to Sciona. He’s telling her that the “real” her, without her high tech cosmetics, is extremely attractive to him.
I’m thinking that he might actually be pulling a “long con” on her, attempting to slowly reform her without her even noticing. He’s been playing similar schemes with a number of his minions.
“Do you really want to risk incurring his ire?”
“Did he really make you watch a ten hour “this was their life” presentation about the last “innocent” you killed?”
“…He made me cry.”
He’s not flattering her, he’s ego-stroking her, appealing to her ego to do something she doesn’t really want… again
I knew a young lady who had the whites of her eyes turn totally blood red for several weeks.
Not looking like bloodshot but full on red.
If it’d been Halloween, she would have been the scariest vampire ever.
As many has said, Temu has massive problems, but over all, not getting the correct thing or something that looks nothing like the product isn’t the main once. At that they are barly worse than most of the mayor sellers.
the quality and materials can in several cases be dangerus (many clothings contains exessive chemicals) and you don’t want to buy anything that goes into your body there, as their safty standards are… questionable? lets go with questionable.
but say, swords? read up the details, and as several martial youtubers have testified, you can get decent low tire gear (but don’t skimp on protections, ever)
lockpicks? not the best, but if you want to try out it as a hobby, it’s cheep to get beginers kits
Tools? again, for begining tools to try something out, it’s barly worse than buying budget tools elsewhere. buy and upgrade if it seemed fun. Never try to save on lifesaving tools. ever.
it requires extra reading so you don’t accidentaly buy wildly wrong sizes etc but it’s good for try it out tire of stuff.
Let me guess: after this ‘encounter’, and she asks again about what she asked in panel three, he will answer “Nope.”
Nephew got me a few t-shirts from Temu, been wearing one for almost two weeks and no problems so far
As for the quality, even though it’s now winter, still just wearing the t-shirt (if hadn’t already suffered frostbite 40-odd years ago in right hand would barely even need hot-water bottles at all), also, spilt some water from one water bottle and… it self-dried in just a few hours
What he doesn’t say in panel eight is that, no, he could not counter that, butt, like he always does, is make it seem like it’s part of his plan (and everyone else is too stupid, or caught up in is other bullshit, to catch him on the omission)
You know what… This does cause a question to pop up for me on this. New body, new details, and new sensitivities. So now that she has a different body, would it feel like a different ride for her?
Funny you mention scleral contacts, you can also get them tattooed. Which for me personally, I’d rather climb into **another** fire ant nest. But it does indeed look really cool.
“Disinterlocked” is a term I did not expect to read today, much less during pillow talk!
Pillow talk cums after
Heh, sometimes. Other times it happens first. And definitely not on top of the canapes. The mashed potatoes maybe. Trust me bro, mind I’ve had pillow talk after afternoon tea. (a nice no name green tea, water was the right temp etc.)
…I wonder, can I comment here without an account?
Is Deus trying to go for a Sciona redemption arc thing here? Sciona is hardly benevolent in nature, but she has a goal: restoring her Alari people, which she attempts to achieve in the most evil way possible I guess: taking over Earth. And granted, the Alari people don’t seem particularly nice as a culture, but reversing a Planetary genocide isn’t morally bad on principle. Deus might be doing something about that too, considering his PA.
…right the Sciona redemption thing. He got her to do something for him, just for his enjoyment and no benefit to her. If he doesn’t know about her host of Alari souls, he might find out soonish, and he could help with that problem?