Grrl Power #1494 – A play in five panels
Cora and crew are a work-hard play-hard type of team. They’ve all been in high-adrenaline life or death situations with each other, and Cora has definitely run loyalty with all the guys. They aren’t just hired hands, they’re… well, not a family, because they fuck. A lot. And there’s a fair bit of down time during FTL flight, and games get played.
To be clear, Maxima usually wears some kind of spray (or grit) that gives her a frosted look, to cut down on specularity and overall reflectiveness. She does not usually wear “advanced space” spray, due to a lack of access. The real reason for that is putting all that reflective crap all over her makes it take literally twice as long to draw her.
All I’ll tell you about the nurse’s outfit is that it does include two red crosses. They’re made out of tape, and I probably don’t need to tell you where they’re applied.
There was, expectedly, a lot of disagreement about whether or not co-ed showering and back-getting is cheating. The right answer, of course, is that’s the matter is entirely up to the people involved. One thing I didn’t see people taking much into consideration is the fact that Max is kind of used to getting away with a lot of stuff because of who she is. Everything from lots of little acts of insubordination, like taking umbrage with the fact that a lot of drill sergeant insult booties by calling them ladies. And then calling them out on it. “Oh, I see! Because the worst thing you can call a man is a woman! There’s nothing lower or worth less respect, is there? Well guess what? I’m not only stronger than any man on this base, I’m probably stronger than every man on this base!” Que base-wide tug of war contest. (Like I’ve said, Max has mellowed out a bit since her teen-early 20’s.) Up to other things that would probably have gotten a regular soldier demoted. Those sorts of incidents were few and far between, but when it comes right down to it, Maxima is a singular National Security Asset, and there are some people above other people who don’t care if she disobeyed an order when she 1) still accomplished the mission and 2) every other government is a little bit scared of her.
Now this isn’t to say that Max decided to not-really fool around but just show her butt to a large alien man and let him get her back, and did so maliciously, thinking, “I’m so hot and famous there’s no way anyone would be fool enough to dump me!” But there may be part of her psyche that tells her that things will go her way no matter what.
BTW, a SNERK is the opposite of a SNORT. A snort is just a short laugh-snore. A snerk is the same thing, but an exhale. Like a laugh-nose-blow. I thought I’d clarify because I’ve seen some comments in the distant past where people were asking.
Oh, look who it is in the vote incentive. The NSFW version is finally up at Patreon. Plus a bonus pic.
I think she would get in trouble for doing this. She’d mess up the… floor of the waterfall? Is that what it’s called? The receiving pool? No, probably not that. Anyway, she’d churn things up and cause a ton of weird erosion.
Since you might be wondering, Niagara Falls is about 165 feet high, so Babezilla obviously doesn’t have to be full sized. I’d say she’s about 175-180 feet tall here?
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
the whole shower thing makes me think people haven’t heard of things like nude beaches or mixed bathing before. really not that strange depending on where you are from.
There’s obvious differences between nude public spaces and inviting someone who’s actively flirting with you into your shower to rub your naked body down man, don’t be purposefully obtuse.
Today I learned that “wash my back” is the same to some people as “rub my naked body down”. And that flirting is the difference between not taking advantage of someone who says “no” and also not taking advantage of someone who says “no”.
Interesting.
It’s a matter of perspective really, it depends who you’re asking. Given Maxs previous interactions and her stances people thought she’d be of the perspective to believe that. And maybe she is and like Dave said she thought on some level it would be fine she could get away with it. Also might wanna clarify that last part looks like you sent the same thing twice.
The real problem is that some people would interpret the shower back washing as cheating as evidenced by leen. Maxima didn’t ask her boyfriend if things like the situation that happened were ok. Consent between the people involved is the number 1 rule here. Saying it’s ok because others not involved would be ok with it DOESN’T justify the shower backwashing. Personally if a women was flirting with me while I’m in the shower I’d tell her to get out of the bathroom because I have a girlfriend.
We don’t know what they talked about and what they decided was OK.
The boundaries of knowledge about her personal life and what she actually looks like seem more important than letting someone lend a hand cleaning your back.
It seems a bit much to assume that they talked about it being okay for her to be showeirng with other men who would be washing her back after having expressed, multiple times, immediately beforehand (and in the seconds leading up to the joint shower, a desire to ‘do the sex’ with her.
I feel like the burden of proof is definitely on your end to show that a conversation like that took place.
If there’s a burden of proof needed anywhere, it’s that her boyfriend is OWED fidelity before anyone can accuse Max of infidelity (cheating).
Using the word “boyfriend” to describe the person she’s dated doesn’t imply that they’re in an exclusive sexual relationship or that she owes him faithfulness to be sexually exclusive to him.
I get the impression that Max hasn’t dated a lot. If you don’t date a lot, from what I remember, the threshold of thinking someone is your boyfriend/girlfriend is much, much lower when you don’t date a lot…when you compare it to people who actually do date a lot of people.
“I have a girlfriend!”
“Great, how long has this been going on?”
“Since Friday night!”
“You mean, two days ago? How many times have you seen her?”
“Well, I met her at a bar on Friday night and then I took her to sinner and the movies Saturday night. I was going to invite her back to my place but she got a headache. I’m waiting until noon so I can call her.”
“Um, about that, it sounds like you ‘had a date’ rather than have a girlfriend….”
Now having said that, I don’t agree with her inviting him into the shower.
Speaking from an American Christian religious cultural perspective, her behavior was problematic…which is likely why she’s feeling some shame/embarrassment about it. Even if she doesn’t consider herself to be religious, cultural norms tend to soak through due to a lifelong immersion into the culture.
Speaking from the perspective of optimizing her relationship with her ‘boyfriend’ (however that term is being used now or will be used in the future), it’d likely be detrimental to her being able to easily further that relationship if he found out about the incident. And immensely more difficult to keep the incident secret if Sydney finds out about it.
Yep, this whole debate hinges on whether “boyfriend/girlfriend” have set, established, agreed-upon meanings, with commonly-recognized rules which could be violated, and thus behavior determined to be “cheating”.
Spoiler: they don’t. But most people think they do, which is a considerable factor in why people have so much trouble with their relationships: they think they don’t have to communicate, and that the other person is simply wrong, and violating their unexpressed internal rules deliberately.
Yeah it’s not that strange depending where you are from, but everything we’ve seen about where Max is from and her stance on things you’d lean on the side of that is strange.
As someone whose grown up around nude beaches most of my life, it’s explicitly meant to be a nonsexual location that even families go to. People who go around hitting on people and ogling others are heavily discouraged and frowned upon, if not kicked out.
And for mixed bathing, almost all versions I know of involve having a towel wrapped around you when not submerged and sometimes other coverings when in water.
There’s specific Etiquette involved in both these places, and that shower scene was an entirely different scenario that would be sideeudd even in a culture with nude beaches being normal.
What nude beach, or even a clothed beach, have you been to where a woman you’re not dating has asked you to rub lotion on her back and it’s NOT an advance?
Men run the range of assuming “no” is an advance to assuming absolutely nothing is an advance.
definitely difference between casual everyone nude. and everyone’s used to it. and someone being invited to only wash someone’s back. but the back view really affects the libido reaction even though nothing is going to happen after washing the back
It’s been quite interesting to watch the gamut of people who assume the role of anyone in a budding relationship and projecting them on Maxima.
In the nearly 1500 pages that this comic has produced it has consistently had an active discussion area. Discussing Maxima’s powers, morality, judgment and sex life have provided considerable fodder for debate. As much as people make a fuss about these things as though Max were a badly written character, the forum would be much less fun if Dave could satisfy everyone pet peeves about Max. (Probably an impossible task). I’m not willing to put in the work but it would be interesting to see a statistical analysis of the comments section.
What everyone thought when they read last weeks page: How can Dave B. assassinate Maxima’s character like this? Anyone can see that this is cheating!/How can anyone think this is cheating? Why are people in the comments so prudish?
What was probably going through Dave’s head when he wrote this: I need a way to set up this “Nurse, I need help with my painfully hard boner” joke I’ve got for the next page. What’s a scenario I can make that would give one of these characters blue balls?
It’s one of the perils of writing a webcomic where one page comes out every few days, instead of reading it all at once.
So are we going to get art of Frix in the definitely necessary yet outrageously slutty nurse’s outfit?
Here’s hoping :)
Cora’s the one who is going to be wearing the definitely necessary yet outrageously slutty nurse’s outfit. Frix is a doctor for crissake. He didn’t go to four space-years of space-medical school to be called a nurse.
I could have channeled Harley taking offense at being called Nurse Harley by Joker instead of DOCTOR Harley (since she is a doctor) but I went with a Dr. Evil reference instead.
Frix is the one giving the slutty nurse costume prescription, not the one being the prescription. :)
That’s where the hope lay (thanks for stomping all over it)
Look I’m a lawyer so I have to do some OCCASIONAL evil, sorry!
As the patient, Gellen is the one who needs Cora, not Frix, dressed as a slutty nurse!
How do we know G doesn’t find Frix sexy?
My favourite description of pornofashion was by Mercedes Lackey. “Two pasties and a cork. Placement optional.”
Arrows of the Queen. Its been so long since i read that i had to look it up.
From the sound of Dave Bs comments, Maxima very well may have considered this something, if not cheating, then pushing the line to it. But that she’s basically gotten used to doing what she aanst with no one really able to hold her properly accountable. Which isn’t a great attitude, but is an interesting characteristic to explore in a story.
Unless other info comes up, I certainly feel she acted poorly here, because she bother likely considered this bad behaviour and did it without the awareness of Rowan, the other person who’s opinion on this would matter.
So yeah, still consider her behaviour hippocritcal but interested to see if this gets addressed and treated as such. Or resolved ons ome other manner.
Yes, pushing the lines, but we also have His Word that she didn’t cross them
Maxi use to be criticized (harshly) for being standoffish, now she’s starting to let her hair down (figuratively and literally) she’s getting the same treatment
If you want to be offended, get offended for what she has actually done, not for what her boyfriend may or may not have a problem with (and yes, we have no way of knowing how he would react)
She was in the shower, naked, with a naked man who was rubbing her down. That’s crossing the line. It doesn’t actually matter where he touched her.
He wasn’t ‘rubbing her down’, he was scrubbing her back
Two people don’t even have to touch each other for the situation to be heavily sexual.
And Max was drawing lines to keep this from happening, while messing with the guy who was trying to make it happen.
It only takes one person for a situation to be heavily sexual… specially if the other person isn’t aware of the first one
Utterly irrelevant semantics. HE did it for sexual purposes, SHE let it happen. Cheating.
Apart from Maxi getting the rest of that stealth suit off, nothing happened (that’s why G has serious space(blue)balls right now, and being mocked by his captain and his teammate)
NOT. FUCKING. CHEATING!!!
Him being in there and touching her is the “something happening.”
Firstly, I’m not offended by her character acting like this, just that I would view her actions as cheating under current circumstances and without further recontextualizing information. Do we know for sure Rowan would? No, but I have made the point, as have others that her referring to him as her Boyfriend to reject Gellen infers some level of exclusivity or commitment to that relationship. If you don’t read that knto the situation, fine.
Secondly, what past people have said about her being standoffish has neither anything to my comment and even if her being standoffish had been a criticism I’d had, which isn’t the case, her pendulum swinging into this wouldn’t be a defense for her doing this.
And lastly, I never said she did cross the line into actual sex. I said DaveBs comments maid it clear that she knowingly engaged in these actions knowing that she cant really be held accountable by anyone. Even if it’s something she would consider it wrong for a partner to do so.
To sum up, she got in a sexy/titllating scenario with a guy she was teasing for trying to hit on her and let him touch her to wash her back in the shower while naked behind her boyfriends back. That’s all that happened, that’s her actions I’m judging her on, and unless we find out jer relationship with Rowan is less exclusive/commited than we’ve seen, then that’s how ill continue to judge her.
And through all that, I still like Maxima as a character. One fuck up does not ruin her as a person or character.
Just to be clear: not saying Maxi didn’t do anything wrong, just saying it’s not cheating
Am more than willing to call anyone if they do bad shit, but it has to been proven first
So far, all we have had is rampant speculationing and personal opinions (opinions based on personal beliefs)
I think you meant Cue, not Que (spanish for “that”), though I suppose it could be Queue if everyone was lining up for Tug of War
Actually, he did mean ‘queue’ (a cue is something you hit someone with in a sleazy bar… or play pool with)
Or take, if you’re on-stage.
Cue – a signal for action; a turn
Queue – a place in line ; series of data
Forgot about that meaning :(
“To be clear, Maxima usually wears some kind of spray (or grit) that gives her a frosted look, to cut down on specularity and overall reflectiveness.”
Almost sounds like a punishment a Greek god would give someone; You must coat yourself in an inconvenient salve to interact with normal people for the rest of your life.
Of course it’s also par for the course that military personnel are well well known for cheating on their significant others too.
All you have to do ask or look at the hilarious divorce rate for anyone in the military.
And of course Max just being a plain old cheating hypocrite is a very human thing too.
Right, because cheating is the only reason for divorce, in or out of the military
How is Maxi a crate of hippos? You saying she’s fat?
The funniest part of Max’s feminism kick where she uses herself as the data point is that she’s doing the classic woman thing where they seem to think that 1 statistical outlier disproves the rule. Yes max, you’re the strongest super in the world, but it’s not because you’re a woman, it’s because you drank meteorite juice. And since we don’t have a male human powered by meteorite juice it’s hard to draw conclusions.
Oh, God, Dave, you just made the whole thing so much worse.
Digit’s back! Yay!
Btw, for anyone who still thinks Maxima is some sort of Mary Sue, take note of what she was doing before the interruption of the breaking medical news in the next room over.
She is studying video of other challengers (Egg Bot?) – so she isnt going into fights blind without any possible strategies. A Mary Sue would not need to do that.
Question to DaveB or anyone else who knows.
What does ‘Yoozh’ mean, in the Author’s note: ‘Wearing advanced space satin finish body spray to cut down on specularity, as per Yoozh. – DB’
I did a google search and it says that ‘yoozh’ is slang for ‘the usual’ or ‘as usual.’ Wasn’t sure if that’s what was meant ‘as per as usual’ / ‘as per the usual’ although that would make sense. Just never heard the term ‘yoozh’ before.
My interpretation is that it’s a phonetic spelling of the first syllable of the word “usual”.
Deep Space Discounts shine reducer products: Coppertone-Downer; Matte’s Finisher, Hazy Todayzer, No Shinenannigans, Negative and Semi Negative gloss spray coatings and Rain-Ex (its like regular Rain-X, but you don’t wipe off the film left behind)
This is brilliant! Except Rain-Ex, could also have Shine-Ex, the matte-ifyer.
Cora also feels dirty being a part of this.
Difference is, she likes it.
Where does Cora feel dirty about any of this?
In the sense that she’s a dirty dirty naughty girl
In the words of The Amazing Bubbles,”I’m not a whore, I’m just popular!”
(So sad that Cameo died later in that fight.)
A lot of the concerns about Max’s behavior is supposition about what ground rules she has with her boyfriend. We don’t know. Its interesting the pursuer in this is getting pretty much free pass in this. If there is fall out, i am sure Max will be adult about it.
Although the idea she did it simply because she can, and she is too powerful to have face any consequences should result should not surprise, she is part of the US Defense apparatus. That’s just a default setting. This is a universe were ‘Christian’ America quickly made overtures to a guy with a literally army of demons at his back. It is actually good show of her character she doesn’t act out more.
Maxi being part of the US Defense has nothing to do with her past actions: she was doing shit like that as soon as she turned gold
And good point that all the crap being flung the last couple pages has been directed at only Maxi, as though G is the innocent victim and not the instigator
While G is definitely creepy for not backing off and I am surprised he wasn’t received much more harshly for not respecting Max’s boundaries, we have no investment in Gellen or high expectations for him. Him being a creep is not surprising and we would probably not mourn him if he got some kind of punishment for his blatant harassment.
Max seemingly turning around on her previous boundaries for some mutually naked shower backrubs on the other hand does surprise us and change how we view her as a person that can be trusted to not give in to temptation just because the circumstances are mildly convenient.
Except, no one is even considering that what he did was wrong, in fact, many are treating it like normal and expected
It’s only Maxi who is being judged
Multiple people have pointed out that Gellen has been pushy, possibly even skeevy, or creepy as Henry said in the comment you responded to. He’s likely gotten less focus for several reason: hes from an alien society, is part of a very open/poly crew-situation and is also a secondary character who we have less grounding on.
Maxima however is a main character and we have a lot more insight into her personality and situation, including having a boyfriend she seemed to consider herself exclusive with.
“Its interesting the pursuer in this is getting pretty much free pass in this.”
That guy doesn’t even come from Earth.
For all we know, he was being highly restrained and Victorian about it, by the standards of his own culture. Ye gods, he was standing behind a screen and not even leering at her naked body while he propositioned her!
/s
I wish to see that nurse’s outfit. :-)
Has anyone else been having trouble reading the past comics? A number of pages give me an error message:
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Your access to this site has been limited by the site owner
Your access to this service has been limited. (HTTP response code 503)
If you think you have been blocked in error, contact the owner of this site for assistance.
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Don’t know how else to contact Dave, so I’m posting this here for advice. It’s happening on random pages, but they stay blocked every time I try to see them. This is seriously hampering my ability to archive-binge.
I’ve gotten that myself, when I’ve been reading a lot of pages.
It seems to be something that triggers when you read several pages in a short time, I run into it looking for something while editing the fan wiki. It sounds like an oversensitive anti-bot measure.
Y’know, I always thought a snort as breathing out and a snerk as the opposite, not the other way around.
I always thought a SNERK was a smirk with a sound attached, like a half-chuckle.
Going to be honest, I would read the heck out of a Max in basic training comic series
“All I’ll tell you about the nurse’s outfit is that it does include two red crosses. They’re made out of tape, and I probably don’t need to tell you where they’re applied.”
I’ll just assume they’re applied in space.
Wait, is it Gelen or Gellen? I’ve seen it spelled both ways in the last few pages.
I guess it could be chalked up as a space-translator bug.
Go back a page or two and read DaveB‘s sub-comment
Of course, the actual answer to how people should react to Max’s showering is “not at all, because it’s none of their goddamn business. It’s Max and Rowan’s business, no one else should judge, and we don’t even have enough information to *speculate* on the implications.”