Grrl Power #1498 – Evil shopping and a show
The word panopticon derives from the Greek word for “all seeing” – panoptes. For some reason Deus is reversing the word to imply “seeing all” but is really just describing a regular stadium/colosseum where everyone sits around the action and looks in toward the center. Sight lines work both ways, so basically he’s being annoying.
You can tell Sciona might actually kind of… not like Deus, but maybe grudgingly respects him a tiny bit? She said she’d stab him in the lung, not the heart or the brain stem or the dick. That’s basically a love letter from her. It doesn’t mean she’s going to forgive prior slights, be they intentional or merely perceived. In the meantime she’ll continue to use him for orgasms and box seats – which Deus is perfectly aware of and is totally okay with. So… they kind of are dating, for a given definition of dating. I mean, dating usually implies that both people are interested in eventually advancing a relationship toward… sex? Marriage? Family? Splitting their mortgage payments? But some people date because they like being in a relationship, even if it’s not going anywhere. Some people have a person they hang out with because none of their regular circle of friends like karaoke or going to museums or that one local band. Maybe they sometimes have sex afterward, maybe they don’t. Maybe the sex they do have is exclusive, or maybe they have a karaoke sex friend and a museum sex friend, etc. Dating is basically just two people both agreeing that they’re dating. Or maybe I should say, at least two people agreeing that they’re dating. But man, dating as a thruple has to add a real degree of difficulty to a situation already rife with pitfalls. I assume it’s usually a couple looking for their unicorn, but I guess three people could just be hanging out and someone’s like, “Hey we should all date!” It’s probably happened?
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.
I was hoping to see whoever was wearing those shoes. Alas!
Deus is wearing the same color pants as the person wearing the shoes. Ergo Deus.
And we were just told he has a private booth at the stadium, probably for similar reasons Cora has a private booth.
The shoes were ugly and the pants badly tailored. Deus should not be that sartorially challenged.
It’s probably Deus’s evil twin, Sued.
“Sued”
*squints* – lawyer joke. Oh, humor…ar…ar
Surely a complete coincidence.
Firstly, are we sure D isn’t the evil one? Secondly, do they have a father obsessed with narrative?
Speaking of which, will we ever see the parents (or other family) of some of our main cast other than
Sydney?
We are definitely sure that Deus is not the evil one. He is a paragon of goodness and the savior of humanity. He just likes the villain genre. I like the zombie genre but I haven’t eaten human brains in YEARS.
We’ve already seen Jiggawatt’s half-brother, Omar, who is in Arc-Sparq and is Digit’s superior. I think that Jiggawatt also did mention having a half-sibling that also has powers when they were discussing if superpowers were genetically inherited from parents at all. So either Omar has powers that we havent seen yet, or she has a second sibling?
And we’ve seen flashbacks with Maxima’s younger brother, and Arianna’s husband of 14 years, Aurelius Shrapnel is ARCHON’s financial consultant for supers. Plus they have a son named Mervin Shrapnel.
We’ve seen Dabbler’s half-sister, Paraphel “Parfait” Xanadu Dawnstar Sij Thothogoth, many times, and they’ve mentioned Dabbler’s mother, Xanadu Tantalis, who is apparently one of the high muckedy-mucks of the Succubi Ruling Class.
One of Dabbles’ mothers (she has at least two, and a father)
It’s a smash-cut from the opti-pan back to Earth
Either our mystery man in the previous page wasn’t Deus or this page could use a little “Some time earlier…” box in the top-left or something.
Agreed, this seems to be setting up why Deus and Sciona are at the stadium on fracture, his private viewing box probably ends up being right next to Cora’s, but it could use a little indicator to make it clear this is happening before the previous page.
Also I’m going to laugh if next page it is revealed that the only reason Deus doesn’t see or recognize Sydney is because he is carrying an oversized stack of boxes for Sciona and it is blocking his view.
If those were Deus’ shoes on Monday, his stadium box isn’t on Fracture. At least not the one where Cora and crew are watching; there will likely be multiple stadiums. Sydney and Cora’s ship needs to stay reasonably close to Max for emergency transport and/or medical care, so their stadium has to be on the same planet as the match. And of course he knows Max is fighting and would need support. Assuming he knows about Sydney’s portal capabilities she’d be there also, possibly also sussing out Max and Sydney’s disguises based on the action on Fraction. So he’d go hoping to encounter Max or Sydney… which explains why he’s out walking around instead of relaxing in his box while servants fetch snax.
Deus is proposing they go shopping/stealing on fracture (or wherever) then go to the main viewing stadium at the match location.
Ok so 1, bad, because Sciona is with Deus when Sydney sees him, so she could get her memory erased. Again. So that’s not good.
And 2, good(?), because Deus seems to keep working on Sciona and I still think he’s trying to…redeem her? Turn her? Whatever Deus’ aims are, you have to admit having Sciona be team Deus would make her about 80% less evil. Because of his annoying big brain he’s reasonably safe from her shenanigans, so he’s forcing her to ask for things she wants, and getting her used to being around people who are her equal who she cannot just obliterate on a whim. Baby steps.
Or maybe Deus being team Sciona makes him 80% more evil because she is definitely a evil villain.
I find it pretty futile to try and assign villainy or heroism to Deus and his team. Deus is this weird anti-villain or even anti-anti-villain with a “I’m going the math to make sure my goal justifies my means” attitude.
To be clear, I’m using the literary terms of heroism and villainy here.
A hero is someone who is doing what the writer’s society is considering good and righteous, exemplifying heroic traits. Depending on the society those could be being a good host, compassion, being top and not a bottom, or proficiency with English longbow.
A villain is someone who is doing what the writer’s society is considering bad and evil, exemplifying villainous traits. Depending on the society it could be cannibalism, preference for ranged weapons, religious fervor, or being a smart woman.
An anti-hero is a hero who lacks heroic traits and an anti-villain is a villain who lacks villainous traits. The Punisher is considered an anti-hero and Harley Quinn is typically considered an anti-villain although she has been making a long journey from full villainy to anti-villainy to anti-heroism.
It seems to me like Dave don’t intend to put a hero or villain label on Deus yet.
villero! (the other choice sounds like a drug)
Herlain.
Deus is the Antagonist.
He antagonises everyone.
Magneto is a good example of someone who is both an anti-hero and an anti-villian at the same time.
He’s willing to do literally anything (up to and including mulitple genocide) to protect his (extended) family. He swaps between antagonist and protagonist-ally entirely depending on who he thinks is the biggest threat at the moment.
—
Deus is a Magnificant Bastard. Which is an antagonist role, but not always a villianous one. Deus… Doesn’t just live in that grey area, he’s building castles there.
I like Dr. Doom as a better analog. Runs his own country, his people love him, he’s a super-genius, and most of his “evil plots” are intended to protect the world from itself and alien threats. He also saved the universe at least twice. The heroes just hate him because he’s ruthless and because he hates Reed Richards, who is ostensibly a hero despite endangering the Earth and/or universe as often as he saves it.
At least, that was Doom in the 2000s, when I read comics. Before that, I’m pretty sure h was actually evil.
David Xanatos. Full Stop.
I’d argue that, by technical definition, Deus is more often a protagonist, on account of pushing forward the primary narrative that the heroes are following and hardly ever obstructing it. He certainly surrounds himself with antagonists and potential antagonists, but he and his directions hardly do anything but progress the narrative, on and off-screen.
“Magneto is a good example of someone who is both an anti-hero and an anti-villian at the same time.”
I seriously cannot see Magneto as an ‘anti-villain’ or ‘anti-hero’ no matter how much X-Men 97 tried to force that view on the viewers. He’s a mutant supremacist villain who wanted to either kill all non-mutant humans or enslave them all. That’s downright evil. Heck, his group is even self-named ‘The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants’ – that even beats Mr. Sinister for bad branding.
He is, however, what I’d describe as a ‘sympathetic villain’ sometimes – because you can understand the tragedies that happened in his life to set him down his path, and it’s sort of understandable why someone who went through what he went through would have that view of other people. It’s probably one of the reasons that Xavier always had a hard time just seeing him as ‘just another supervillain’ when he wasn’t attacking him with telepathic Holocaust memories.
So yeah – I’d label him a sympathetic villain, rather than an anti-villain or anti-hero. Sort of like DC’s Mr. Freeze, or Roy from Blade Hunter, or arguably Killmonger from Black Panther.
—
Deus, of course, is not a villain at all, anti or otherwise. He is the savior of humanity and a paragon of virtue. He just likes the villain branding, even though he’s not a villain and I completely agree about him living intentionally in the grey area, although would he really build castles there instead of high-tech apartment buildings with mansion-style penthouses? Or perhaps a Playboy Mansion? Castles feel too drafty.
So, you’ve not read the Clairemont-era comics where Magneto runs Xavier’s school explicitly on Charles’ instructions (while Charles is off gallivanting with his alien girlfriend) Or watched any of the good X-men movies, where he’s acting explicitly to protect the lives of most mutants. (His plan if the first one was to make the leaders of the world mutants, so they would act in their own self-interest and NOT persecute all mutants. Today’s evidence shows that’s a bit naive, but good intentions (And one life for billions isn’t inherently villianous, but yes it should have been him in the machine))
Magneto is no saint, but his heart is generally in the right place. His worst moment in the movies is immidiately after Stryker fails to do a genocide. Revenge is a very human thing.
(I have not seen X-Men 97 yet)
Magneto’s literally never wanted to enslave humans. Also gonna point out his “kill all humans” views were always in response to baseline humans killing Mutants for the “sin” of existing.
It’s why he’s occasionally been a hero. Because there HAS been times when humanity’s been more tolerant of mutants.
Deus is “other” to the point of being a borderline orange-and-blue situation. On a personal level, he is, if not immoral, then amoral (neither moral or immoral). On a big picture level, he seems to be generally moral, if a bit selfishly motivated since he’s part of the bigger picture. He’s entirely not interested in being bothered with ethics, however, if it means getting in the way of his big picture.
On the other hand, he’s not a sociopath. He’s well aware of other peoples’ emotions and emotional motivations, he’s good at reading peoples psychological structures. He’s a more than a bit trollish in playing with those emotional and psychological elements in others, but he’s not generally malevolent in nature. He seems to genuinely enjoy being nice and doing nice things for people who he likes, and even with hostile people with very alien social mores like Sciona who he keeps at a kind of arm’s length, he still goes out of his way to operate from a position of measured kindness within their idiom rather than just being a dick. Keep in mind that Sciona is sort of one extreme of a continuum that Lorlara also exists on. Lorlara actively approves of Deus, but Sciona’s apparently been stuck on Earth for a while and is sick to death of Earthicans and their bullshit, up until Deus, who she grudgingly gets along with, if doesn’t actively like.
Deus seems interested in uplifting humanity/metahumanity/Earthicans mainly because he can perceive how we keep tripping over ourselves and finds it…dissatisfying? Annoying? Frustrating? Unworthy? He generally assumes he can do things better than others, but that’s at least in part because he actually CAN do things better than others, or organize other people to do things better for him/on his behalf.
He’s actually a fairly refreshing look at superhuman intelligence. Someone genuinely that intelligent, that far outside the experience of baseline human intelligence (including emotional intelligence) would to baseline humans appear to be arrogant or megalomaniacal (despite the fact they are as intelligent as they say they are), would demonstrate elements that to baseline humans would present as emotional disorders, personality disorders, etc. just because they’re now so alien to baseline human intelligence that the conventional definitions no longer really apply from their position.
A lot of characters who people mistakenly refer to as anti-villains tend to just be ‘sympathetic villains.’ There’s sometimes some overlap (ie, Killmonger from Black Panther is definitely an anti-villain but CAN also be considered, arguably, a sympathetic villain, since he does have an altruistic core to his evil actions. It does not remotely make him a good person, and in some ways I think he might be worse than some actual full-blown villains because he will NEVER actually see the problem with his views, since he hides behind a false morally good motivation for his evil acts. Thanos (at least movie Thanos) was arguably an anti-villain, since his motivation was altruistic, even though his actions definitely were horribly evil. He doesnt, again, in the movie, not the comics (in the comics he is an outright malevolent and horribly evil villain who is doing everything he is doing for the love of Death, except for one human guy who he just tortures for his entire life for the lulz, because he’s evil), have some sort of malicious view of his victims or the heroes that stand against him. If anything, he seems to have an internal struggle about how he knows that what he is doing is bad. He just considers it necessary (“The hardest choices require the strongest wills.”) Not to mention he is insane and incredibly stupid. But I guess that’s why they call him the ‘Mad Titan.’ Someone like Magneto, on the other hand, does have hateful views of non-mutants in general.
I guess that Harley Quinn would have been considered an anti-villain as well, at least a first, since she STARTED by wanting to help villains to become good people, because she thought there was always some reason that can be solved to turn a villain into a good person. Largely stemming from her view of her criminal father. Which Joker totally took advantage of. She then eventually veered off into full villainy, before moving right past that into anti-heroism, although she took a brief stop off at sympathetic villain when she got into the relationship with Poison Ivy, and wound up dragging her into the anti-hero category as well. At least in some versions.
Re: Deus & Sciona
Deus’ plan seems to be to become the leader of humanity by acclamation. I believe he has goals beyond that, both short and long term.
Imo, he is cultivating a relationship with Sciona because she could become a useful asset in reaching his goals. Beyond that, in her current form she is as attractive as many of the other female characters, and Deus likes sex. She is also no teddy bear, and has surprise potential, which makes her more challenging and enticing. Deus is abundantly confident and not afraid of Sciona at all, so why not date her?
“Ok so 1, bad, because Sciona is with Deus when Sydney sees him, so she could get her memory erased. Again. So that’s not good.”
Assuming Sciona is with Deus when Sydney sees him, and she is not instead off somewhere else getting her ‘item’ that she needs, either by buying it or relieving it of their owner through non-monetary means.
“And 2, good(?), because Deus seems to keep working on Sciona and I still think he’s trying to…redeem her? Turn her?”
He does tend to make his allies a bit less ‘ruthless’ – at least to his own moral requirements. No killing innocents, for example, which he’s made Vale and Cthillia BOTH abide by. He’s also directed typically ‘evil’ beings into more positive outcomes (The Alari, a Demonic Legion, various supers who would otherwise probably be supervillains, like Vektor and Opal). And the places he’s taken over are GENUINELY better and more moral places than what they were before Deus entered the picture (Galytn, Mozambique, etc).
But I think with Sciona, it’s both in order to direct her to less Earth-conquering goals (To quote Omni-Man, “Earth isnt yours to conquer.”) AND to use her for his own fun. Plus reduce her likelihood to kill innocents in the process. Not necessarily completely redeem her. It would be a nice side-effect, but it’s not the goal.
Since I like comparing Deus to a post-father David Xanatos, it’s sort of similar to how Xanatos redirected Fox’s more criminal impulses to something more positive, while also being very advantageous to him. Although with Fox and Xanatos, Xanatos does have genuine feelings of love for Fox. (if you dont know who I’m talking about – they’re characters from Disney’s Gargoyles).
“Whatever Deus’ aims are, you have to admit having Sciona be team Deus would make her about 80% less evil.”
I 100% agree with you and you are getting a free get-out-of-ninja-assassination card for saying something so unabashedly brilliant. Congratulations. The card can only be redeemed once, and is non-transferrable.
“Because of his annoying big brain he’s reasonably safe from her shenanigans, so he’s forcing her to ask for things she wants, and getting her used to being around people who are her equal who she cannot just obliterate on a whim. Baby steps.”
You are a permanent guest in my heart for your brilliant post. Bravo. :) Have one more get-out-of-ninja-assassination card, same rules apply as to the first one.
Honestly, these two are a fantastic powercouple and they both damn well know it. The only reason they aren’t admitting it to eachother is because they can’t fully trust the other to not use this potential weakness to their personal benefit.
Once they get over that hump, they are going to be one the biggest threats to anything and anyone out there.
Or greatest set of allies, depending on which way the wind blows :D
No, Sciona’s not admitting it to herself. Deus is smart enough (obviously!) to not poke at her self-delusions. She WANTS to be a threat to him, but her own stupidity (because evil is stupid by default) undermines her effectiveness.
Most women that meet him probably also want to stab him at one point or another.
Most sentient creatures he met might have similar thoughts.
They’re all obviously jealous of his natural greatness.
All praise Deus, amen.
Once one really gets to know Deus
Especially in the case of women
Is despite lack of harm
And considerable charm
You end up wanting to kill him
Nice!
He can be very charming and gallant and nice at times, but he is also very infuriating a lot of times, sometimes both at the same time.
I genuinely care very little which of them is first to stab the other in the lung first, so long as at lesst one of them goes home in a box.
Wouldn’t surprise me if Deus have a contingency plan for that too.
I’m pretty sure Deus wants to go home in her box…
Hurr hurr hurrr.
My experience is second handed and limited even at that, but from what I’ve seen polyamorous relationships tend to be more complicated than “three people dating”.
For example, a man has two girlfriends. The girlfriends aren’t dating each other but each has another partner of her own (one has a girlfriend the other a boyfriend). The group often hangs out together in many possible combinations. I did not ask about threesomes.
Yeah polycules are often more complicated than a simple triange. Mine happens to be a simple triangle at the moment (I have two girlfriends who date each other and me but no-one else), but at one time I was dating four people at once, two of my partners dating each other, and another of my partners dating someone I didn’t know.
Fun fact: your partner’s partner that is *not* your partner is your “metamour”, and your partner in this arrangement is the “hinge” of the dynamic!
For the record, you are not necessarily required to hang out with your metamours; I didn’t really know mine and only talked to them a few times. This kind of stuff is up to the people involved to discuss and set boundaries on. Communication is key, after all.
Your example can also be a hilarious setup in a sitcom where a man has made dates with two women at the same restaurant at the same time (or I guess it could also be a woman making dates with two men at the same restaurant at the same time as well – probably something like that was done on iCarly or Hannah Montana or something).
This duo probably has better long term stability than Maxima x Deus.
They do. I never believed in the potential Maxima x Deus. It just feels like a boring pairing and I think a lot of their personal and business conflicts would really sour the relationship if it had ever happened. Sciona’s just way more fun and willing to play and engage with Deus in situations where you can tell Max would get frustrated.
Max, as a certain lady photographer once mentioned, is a Mount Everest kind of challenge. Deus probably doesn’t see her as a long term lover/partner, but he would really like to be able to add a sketch of her to his little book.
He’s also as big a nerd as Sydney, and so is probably just flirting at Max to be the Catwoman to Max’s Batman, or the Black Cat to Spidey?
…Hm… Maybe he should get some cat ears for next time, instead of a lighting-and-thunder machine.
{Jacque Cousteau voice}
MEANWHILE…. TWO HOURS EARLIER
I mean they are my new favorite couple.
He has the same problem I do… can’t help but aggravate the living shit out of someone to the point that they want to kill you while they fuck you
This is Xanatos and Demona so much….I’m here for it.
Oh good lord it is.
Dating in it’s basic sense is just agreement on a specific point in time for a specific event. In that definition, you and your coworkers having a meeting is a date. Exclusivity and romance are cultural additions to the word. Being “softer” definitions, they lead to much romantic comedy.
Sciona and Deus sitting in a tree, …. S T A B B I N G (and other things)
stabbing each other sex-i-ly?
OK, assuming that Sidney runs into Deus and Sciona a few hours later – are we headed for a “we’ll never speak of this again” threesome or something of the sort?
their kid (yes im sure there will be a kid by them) will eventually rule the world one way or the other
Sciona! No! Rule #4 of gun safety: Keep your booger hook off the bang switch until you’re ready to make the boom.
I would suspect part of her mind is considering how satisfying it would be to use that on Deus at that moment.
I have to wonder just how much experience Sciona actually has with external projectile weapons that follow the “firearm” profile. It’s not like she really needed to use them as a mage in Alari society.
I doubt a mage can set off a spell accidentally. So trigger discipline for mages may not be a thing.
Supers are different; apparently Max *can* blast something without meaning to. Perhaps it feels like a sneeze if you don’t know you can do it.
Yeah, that’s a long phrase to describe what Sciona may not be familiar with. But it covers firearms, laser guns, blasters, etc.
Pedantically “firearms” covers only weapons that use the expansion of oxidizing gases to propel a solid object to inflict harm on the target via transferred kinetic energy.
It’s why a commander of archers didn’t say “Fire!”, he generally said something like “Loose!” instead.
The term has taken over due to the ubiquity of those arms, so I expect humans will say “fire!” of lasers too. I mean, they’re already using it for great guns (that fire shells) and missiles.
She was ready, the second SmugDick leaned in the doorway
There’s a extraneous quotation mark at the end of the second word balloon in the second panel
I’m claiming a win! Panel 4: “I have a private box.”
In Tuesday’s comments I said that Deus might be looking for his own stadium box seat. It won’t be bourne out until next week, so a very snall, incomplete win! I’m just happy that one of my guesses might pan out!
What might happen next:
LordViking has a marker on Deus can’t see Sydney with his arms full of Sciona packages. That would be funny, but imo Deus would hire a porter for that.
Stadium box seats like this are rented long term, not sold like real estate. Deus & Sciona might both suspect that Ixah is Maxima, but they appear to be on a spur of the moment date.
What are the chances that the stadium DOUBLE-BOOKED suite 401 because Deus does not usually attend? If he’s looking for 401 he may not even be paying attention to disguised Sydney!
OR: Deus & Sciona are just passing by on their way to his not-401 suite, and he immediately recognized Sydney despite her disguise.
Let’s see if I can get a clearer win on my prediction this time!
The final panel of the previous comic is actually a smash cut to this scene: the pattern on the floor in that final panel matches what we can see of the carpet Deus is standing on in the first panel here.
So it was SmugDick, will be back when he’s gone
I think Deus is ACTUALLY trying to “fix” her. If there’s anyone out there smart and charismatic enough to pull it off it’s probably him
Glad to see that one of my preferred powercouples in the story and the genre is getting official ‘frenemies with benefits dating’ status. As others remarked, this is a much better pairing in many regards than Maxima x Deus. I tend to assume that at least part of Sciona’s shopping/stealing list concerns the parts she needs to get her wayward ‘child’ repaired, stay in their less-than-homicidal good graces, and keep the de facto truce with Sciona Jr. ongoing. I am terribly curious to see how the chance meeting of Deus (with Sciona in dating/shopping/tourist tow) and disguised Sydney shall unfold. I tend to assume he shall see right through Sydney’s disguise, as he previously did with Sciona in her new body, and connect the dots with his previous suspicions about the power set and body mannerisms of the new star of the games.
Read some lit rpg smut recently where a spell made a “panopticon” field which was effectively a true sight area against stealth, invisibility, etc.
MC was a dungeon, called Blue Core.
I fully support Deus, because you just know that if he is in charge of Jurassic Park, not only will he make a safer one than Hammond, he’ll almost definitely attempt to make humanoid dinosaurs for the heck of it.
The third in a thruple invariably must be bisexual, else someone in the base couple is getting the better part of the deal. e.g. bigamy/biandry.
You’re assuming multiple genders are involved in the thruple. It could be a fully gay or fully lesbian thruple to simplify things (insofar as thruples can be “simplified”).
That is quite a piece of artillery that Sciona is waving about. She is really dressed more for a small concealed carry weapon. She doesn’t really seem like the “enormous hand bag of cannon holding” kind of girl. Presuming that it is a conventional fire arm the grips look big enough for a double stack magazine but the muzzle seems consistent with a small caliber. Chekov’s gun?
Date-opportunity for intelligence gather on what you frenemy with benefits is up to, same difference.
Wait – A Trinity knot??? I would have expected an Eldridge….
Before the date, Sciona was right there with Deus watching the UCBA feed and having a ‘hmm’ look, so she might share his suspicions about Max’s disguise. On the other hand, she might or might not recognize Sydney when she meets her during the date.
Bleh. Sorry, but as far as I’m concerned, the sooner Sciona gets thrown face-first into a woodchipper the better. And then the output from the woodchipper can get thrown into the heart of a star. Which should then go supernova. And collapse into a black hole.
It says something about US weapon laws, that I immediately connected the quip that she might be going to “an American school” to the fact that she’s holding a semiautomatic handgun, instead of the outfit.
Was that intentional, as the bad guy’s idea of a joke? A bit dark, but sadly not unlikely (in contrast to countries with proper regulations…)
It would make more sense if it were an AR-15, the preferred weapon of homicidal psychopahts
Worldbuilding question: we know that some factor of having superpowers makes you always be super attractive for your gender. The men are built and endowed, the women are slim, stacked and sometimes also built.
What happens if a superhero transitions? Does the super-factor recognize the opposite-sex hormone and help along the process to make them super attractive in their true gender instead of their birth sex?
It depends on whether the default optimizing effects of the Superion field on a super’s body are shaped by their biology, their self-image, or a mix of both. In all evidence, there is a basic, default template that is shaped by biologically-driven conventional attractiveness and not by individual tastes, since there is little variance in the bodily ideal the supers embody. On the other hand, we also know from the previous discussion of Deus and Xuriel that the Thaumion and Superion fields answer to intent. Therefore, I tend to assume that trans supers would either become shapeshifters or instantly and flawlessly transition to their desidered gender according to the usual hunk/bombshell template when ther powers awaken. I suspect there is no such thing as an un-transitioned trans super after their origin in practice.
I like that take! It could create some funny situations where someone doesn’t realise they’re trans until their powers awaken and auto re-mold their body and they’re just like “woah. This is WAY better”
We don’t see a lot of GNC people in the comic, but I’d be really interested to see DaveB’s take on a super-attractive super-androgynous Non-binary
Would be highly amusing if a transitioned super had the ability to mess with other peoples sex, gender, or even outward appearance as part of the power set they acquire. I can imagine the unhinged chaos even just one individual could cause with that.
For a super she is surprisingly not top heavy
The flapper outfit she’s rockin’ for this outing is rather less cleavage-friendly than her usual style, so it might give this impression, but she absolutely matches the standards of the other super gals. Check her when she was in her usual skimpy style or topless. Let’s say she is in no need of a magical boob job like the one she gave to her original Alari body. Heck, the very first thing she appreciatively noticed about her current super body is that it came with nice tits.
I wouldn’t call that a “flapper outfit.” It looks like a suit jacket and button-up blouse to me (can’t tell if she’s in a skirt or pants at this point). Only the hat warranted Deus’s comment about the 1920s…and I’m genuinely curious as to why she chose it. What is she specifically trying to disguise/hide and why? Who on Fracture (or wherever she was initially planning to go) would recognize her human form?
I would have put that hat as more of a 1960’s style rather than the 1920’s. Post Jackie O’s pillbox, I could see Twiggy wearing it. The outfit really isn’t very flapper era as well. I think the “1920’s” comment has more to packing a weapon like a prohibition era gangster.
Now that Sciona has warned him, Deus will undoubtedly figure out a way to make his lungs stab proof. If he hasn’t already done that. People wanting to stab Deus in the lung has probably come up before. He’s that type of guy.
Man, this reminds me of yesterday evening, when we were discussing the Society of Creative Anachronism, and one of the D&D group guys got introduced into it’s other meaning, Society of Conscenting Adults. Watching guys realize they were clueless about being hit on is almost as entertaining as the creative damage Sciona is going to try to do to him when she thinks it’s the most opurtune moment. But yeah, good open and good poly relationships are hard work.
Dave, did you change your model for Deus? He is barely recognizable. His face is thinner Panel 1 & 3) and his head and neck longer (panel 2). Also, his shirt must be super elastic as the neck opening increases by about 50% between panels 4 & 5.
Lastly, that is a very interesting knot for his necktie. How does one tie it?
That would be called a trinity knot, and it is indeed one of the more challenging necktie knots.
Here’s a very good walk-through: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W933pL6WRXs
Thank you very much for the info and link. Looking at his channel and a couple of others was eye opening. I had no idea that there were so many ways to tie a necktie. I went my entire career using the very simple know – what one site called the “Four in Hand”. Fortunately necktie fashion and etiquette is irrelevant to engineering so nothing was lost. I haven’t worn a tie in decades so I doubt I will bother learning any of these options but t was interesting to see the variety.
He probably thinks that song is about him.
Is Deus’ tie knot a cover piece or the strangest tie knot ever, I don’t think I have ever seen one so ordered in shape.
it’s called a trinity knot. You can google how to make one.
Dating him? No.
Non-exclusive chilling with him, on the other hand…