Oh my god.* Who could it be? You guys will never guess. What a mystery.

I was going to write a big long post about shoes vs. not shoes, but as I was thinking about it, I realized why aliens are so often naked. (Like Grays. Not the sort of media where the aliens are naked for other reasons.) They’ve lived in a post-scarcity society for so long they no longer have need of textiles. Because they don’t have companies that exist solely to be profitable. Once a society hits the “we can just tell the matter replicators what I want, so we don’t need money” stage, I thing there’s going to be a resurgence of hand-crafted stuff. Cause people will need hobbies, but after a few generations of that, people might be all, “maybe there isn’t really a need to even wear shoes, besides these knit ones from space etsy don’t really work that well.” And over a few generations their feet toughen up a little bit, and eventually they’re like, “who even needs shirts or pants? We keep our junk on the inside anyway.”

The way I see it, Wookies are at that last stage before abandoning pockets. That’s why they still wear those pouch bandoliers.

I’m not serious about any of that. I can’t imagine any society, much less a space-faring one, that doesn’t need pockets. Unless they have subdermal matter replicators or something. It’s just such a common trope. But space monsters almost never wear shoes. So I started thinking about what percentage of Grrl-verse space aliens would wear shoes.

*(Becky)

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 learned what “hoi polloi” meant while writing this page. Like Sydney, I thought it meant the upper crust. I’ve learned to double check that stuff while writing. Most of the time. I’m sure everyone has a few words they’ve incorrectly surmised the meaning of. I vaguely recall way back in middle-school, I thought “vague” meant “specific” or something. But it wasn’t for very long. I’d read it in a comic or a book and it got clarified after a few weeks.

Then there was the time I learned the word “voluptuous.” I didn’t learn it incorrectly. That was one of those times where you learn a new word, and suddenly you hear it everywhere. AKA the frequency illusion, or the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon. “Ooh, that milkshake is voluptuous.” or “That hourglass is voluptuous.” Etc. Actually I don’t think I was suddenly hearing the word in commercials or casual conversations. I was reading a ton of Piers Anthony, and I think voluptuous is the only word that dude ever used to describe women. Except for when Chameleon was smart.

The holo-stadium will let people feel the impacts and the waves of heat and all that, or a safe range thereof. And they don’t just have subwoofers in every seat, it’s all advanced force-field holodeck stuff. And as Cora says, audience participation can add to a cool action/sporting/bloodsport event. Plus they have 2,000 kinds of beer, popcorn, something that is a lot like popcorn but is made from some other corn-like plant, pretzels, slightly stale nachos with cheese that turns back into window caulking when it cools, chili dogs and fried cheese. Granted the cheese mostly doesn’t come from Sol-3 bovines, though there are some domesticated herds grazing places other than Earth, but it’s usually a bit expensive. A lot of species can eat a lot of food from other planets if they take some enzyme supplements. Basically the “Lactaid” type section of the space pharmacy is quite large.

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.

Yes, you can level up your superpowers by using them. Mostly though, you’re just getting better at using them, learning all the tricks and power stunts you can pull off, and well as learning finer control. But the actual power output, in the cases where such a thing can be measured, can be improved as well. That doesn’t mean in a decade or two, the whole team will be as powerful as Maxima, but they will be more powerful than they are now. But at some point, age will start to erode that fine control, and pushing their powers to their limits will cause their sciatica to flare up more and more. Super powers don’t stop aging. Well, unless your particular suite of powers actually does do that.

Hiro isn’t emasculated by having a woman boss, or by the fact that she’s a fair bit stronger than him. I mean, that’s what he tells himself, and he almost totally believes it. All his actions support that. He doesn’t go sulk in his room or make snippy comments or anything of the sort. That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t mind beating Max at arm wrestling one day. Those hormonally motivated imperatives are hard to resist. Guys don’t mind carrying in the 40 pound bag of dog food or cat litter while the wife/girlfriend carries in the bag with the crackers and instant ramen, and we don’t mind getting tasked with getting down something from the high shelf in the kitchen, because all the testosterone swirling around in our brains is whispering to us, “This makes you a man…” So yeah, Hiro would like to be stronger than… well, anyone, if he could swing it. He just doesn’t scuff his feet and pout when Max does something out of his tier.

Speaking of FTL communication, I had 4 paragraphs written suggesting that FTL travel or communication might break something fundamental about the universe, as you’d be violating the physical limits of the rate of information propagation, but… I started posting too late and couldn’t articulate why I thought that might screw things up. Not that I’m remotely qualified to lecture meaningfully about advanced physics. It was just a thought I’ve been kicking around for a while, but I don’t think what I was writing was making enough sense to spark any sensible discussion. I’ll have to noodle on it and see if I can make it make sense. So in the meantime, just enjoy the page.

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.

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.

I’d wager Max is thinking that it might be time to have “the talk” when she gets home. With Rowan, I mean. Going on a few dates under false pretenses is usually pretty inexcusable, but there are probably some circumstances when it’s… not terrible. Like if you just entered Witness Protection, and start dating a week later… that’s got to feel like a lot of lying. I mean it is, but that’s a case where it’s at least understandable. (Although, come to think of it, you’re probably discouraged from dating or doing anything that requires you to talk about yourself a lot within the first few months in WitPro, to give it time for your new identity to time to sink in. I have no idea either way, but it’d make sense.)

“Dating if you’re a superhero with a secret identity” is probably more of a gray area. I think you’d want to subtly but fairly quickly establish their views on the militarization of police powers and related industrial complexes – at least in the Grrl Verse. If you’re in most other super-verses like Marvel or DC, you’d want to establish their views on vigilante justice. (I think the Avengers are sanctioned law enforcement, depending on what stretch of the comic you’re reading. Maybe the Justice League too? I don’t actually know. But you rarely see Batman or Ant Man giving testimony in trials.)

Anyway, my point is, if you have a secret identity and you’re dating, figure out if you’re wasting your time and theirs early on by learning about their views on your day job. And if you have an intelligence branch as part of your superheroing outfit, do a background check to make sure your beau isn’t an agent of HYDRA or a Skrull infiltrator or some DC equivalent. Or just to make sure they’re not some influencer looking for a big vlog hit.

So you figure out if you’re compatible and that you trust them, you gotta come clean pretty early in the dating process. You can’t True Lies that shit and wait till you have a teenage kid together. Even then, I’m sure plenty of people will be all, “It’s totally unacceptable to lie on a date.” And that’s a valid… desire. Probably a little optimistic, but it’s nice to hope for a more ideal world.

So the next question is… is letting a naked alien man (what, like he’s going to get his pants wet?) wash smart latex off your back in the shower cheating? Galen (and/or Gellen) is going to get a pretty good look at Max’s bare butt. That said, until she grits back up, her butt is so shiny all he’s going to really see is his own face.

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.

Yup, Max’s sass seems to have leveled up. Or maybe it’s because she’s not surrounded by subordinates?

In between pages, Sydney did ask Max why she chose a hot shower over the mechanical space-latex scraping chopstick machine that she used last time, but halfway through she realized she’d answered her own question.

This is a kind of weird lecture from Max, given that Galen (or Gellen, as I was reminded last page. I did the same thing with his name as Slyv/Sylv. But I’m not going to sit here and tell you his full name is Galen Gellen like I did with Sylv.) Anyway, Galen is from a considerably more sex-positive society than Max, and he’s not even from the space equivalent of a red state, which means he actually knew how sex and reproduction works at some point in… I guess, late middle school. And going to space school where you have to learn 6,000 different species worth of sex organs, that’s no small feat. In practical terms, what that means is Space High School tends to be a lot unofficial practical field learning. I.E., hands on learning about all the A-Z spots and all that.

On the other hand, Galen is like 6’10” and proportionally endowed like he’s on the large end of porn stars, and hangs out with Cora, who is in some ways competitive with Dabbler. You know, for a woman who isn’t actually partially comprised of and powered by sex magic. So maybe he could use a bit of a reality check. Well, not reality, more of a “people who aren’t living the life of sexually charged space adventurers.”

So here’s a question. Is Cora really a real size-queen if she has bio-mods making it easier to handle large pizza deliveries with extra sausage? She got the bio-mods originally mostly for compatibility and her own safety. But she has kind of taking a liking to certain… ratios. I don’t know if women take any sort of psychological satisfaction in… you know, internalizing a larger partner. I kind of suspect outside of a certain subset, the answer is no. Like, it’s the end of the 3rd date, and things are progressing, and his pants come down, and there’s a lot on display, are women more like, “Ooh, a challenge!” or “Oh, god. That’s going to hurt.” I suspect more fall into the latter category in all honesty. So, for a purist size-queen, I think Cora is on the outs. But if all you care about is how much goes where, then she’s a pro.

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.

Apparently cutting loose has Max feeling a little sassy.

Max could do what she implied, but at this point, she has enough control over her powers that it shouldn’t really be a problem. That is to say, she can set her power sliders where she wants them and keep them there, even if she’s in the midst of some, let’s say, involuntary spasms.

Which isn’t to say there hasn’t been a learning curve, and a few incidents along the way. The first boy she fooled around with after “The Summer I Turned Pretty Much Gold Plated” and returned to school in her new gilded form. Of course most of the kids were all, “Who’s the golden freak?” or “Ug, so tacky.” “Oh my god, Becky. Look at her butt. She’s just so… gold!” Not that Max showed up in a thong so that Becky’s friend could actually see her butt, but you get what I’m serving.

But then there was the one guy who knew Max from Middle School (As I’m writing this I decided Max’s transformation happened when she was 13, between Middle and High School, but it was in one of those small-ish towns where everyone is an Air Force Brat and every freshman in High School knows everyone else from Middle School, except for the 15% new students that churn every year because of new deployments.) So this one guy sees Max being all introverted and self-conscious and goes up at the lockers and talks to her like nothing’s different. “So my family went and saw the Grand Canyon and Monument Valley over summer break. Did your family go anywhere interesting?” It was an earnest attempt to be a good friend, but it did eventually wind up with him finding out that it’s a bad idea to be mapping out a girl’s G-Spot when she has new super strength that she’s not quite an expert at controlling yet.

So he wound up with a cast that made it look like he was giving the middle finger (which, indeed, he had been giving the middle finger, and, not to be too indelicate, but Max… took his finger. But she also actually almost took took it.) But he wasn’t bitter, because the cast was a laugh-riot to everyone, and he never spilled the beans about how exactly it happened, only saying he was wrestling with unimaginable cosmic forces at the time it happened.

What Galen is implying in panel 5 is that since Max is on a ship, that makes her a sailor, and thusly should acquire a new lover at each port they visit, or just pick from available crew. Re-reading it just before I post, I guess it kind of looks like he’s saying that Max should hook up with him because he hasn’t established a Terran lover yet, and he’s looking to check that box. (Or check out that box, if he wanted to get punched in the mouth.) I suppose it works both ways, but my thought when writing it was he was telling her she should be sowing her oats. According to Space Sailor Law.

Sowing Wild Oats is one of those phrases isn’t quite cromulent for women. Sure, anyone can go out and have sexual adventures, but sowing oats does basically imply “disbursing seed to many fertile fields,” where women are the fields in question. But it seems a bit on the nose to suggest that women “gather many wild oats,” or something, like they’re going around saying, “Hey, farmer. Dissipate your oats unto my field, which is loamy and neatly tilled. >wink wink, nudge nudge<”

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 trying-to-come-up-with-a-page-title me of right now as I’m posting this comic really wishes that writing-the-comic-page-in-the-past me would do better at sticking to a single theme per page. This page goes from explaining the prank from the previous page to computer voice gender preferences to ship AI’s of pop-culture to betting to trope-aware arguing. I spent an hour trying to think of a title for this page and I bet most of you only pay attention to them when you’re looking through the archive to try and find part of a story segment. And honestly, the page titles aren’t always super helpful for that. There are times I’m looking for a page to link in reference and I just don’t remember where a certain page appears, and the page title is something like “Flibbity Gooberly” while the page itself is Dabbler trying to draw the Orb upgrade interface or something. It probably made sense to me at the time I posted it, but it was some obscure-ass reference that I, myself, have now forgotten/disassociated.

You know, the Enterprise-D’s computer was just about the perfect kind of advanced computer. It was something resembling an AI, in that it could parse natural speech and extrapolate contextually, (especially when they were talking to it in the holodeck) but it wasn’t the sort of computer that was anthropomorphized in any way, and didn’t ever seem to have any ambitions of its own. Unless there’s an episode I’m not remembering where it went crazy. The closest I can recall was when it created Moriarty, and that was just based on a badly worded request from… Jeordi? It’s been a while since I saw it.

Actually, by far the worst kind of computer techno-fear episodes they ever did were all the Holodeck’s fault. Every season had an episode where the safety protocols got disengaged and people got trapped. Hey geniuses, maybe make it so the regular holodecks can’t have the safeties disengaged under any circumstances. Like the whole thing shuts down if anything goes awry. Have the first thing every single line of code does is check to make sure the squishy meatbags inside can’t have their noggins cracked open because the rocks are too hard or whatever. Like how post-Otis elevators can’t fall if the cable breaks, because the weight of the carriage pulling on the cable is what holds the emergency brakes open. If the cable snaps, the spring-loaded brake returns to its original shape, jutting out past the carriage to catch on the rails.

So then I guess maybe you’d want a smaller holodeck that can only be used by the redshirts… er… I guess they were gold in TNG. They shouldn’t have muddied those waters by making an unnecessary change. But I suppose that could have happened because the “main” actors didn’t want to do a lot of close up shots with their yellow shirt reflecting on their chins, making them look jaundice? Pure speculation on my part. It was probably totally arbitrary. Anyway, at least in that security focused holodeck, you could be reasonably sure that random crew members >cough<Barclay>cough< weren’t side loading custom mods or rootkits or whatever.

Oh, look who it is in the vote incentive. And a not-quite-yet-but-it’s-coming NSFW version over at Patreon.

Vote incentive and Patreon updated with some shading. Not finished yet, but progress.

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.

Ahhhh! Done with the fight scenes for a few pages at least, and back to the characters being goobers. The meat and potatoes of this comic. Feels good. Also not having to draw a bunch of speed lines feels good too. I mean, obviously I have some huge speed line templates that I cut and paste, because there’s usually no point to doing a unique radial burst for each panel, but still. There’s more to good speedlining that just laying lines over or under some action, as I’m realizing, but hey, that’s the job. Still, I wouldn’t say no to 3 or 4 Japanese interns who put in 16 hour days doing mind-numbing background work. Man if I could get that for a single page… well, that page would probably just be an establishing shot of a massive city, because that shit is tedious. That or a lot of rubble.

There was some debate on the previous page about whether Max qualifies as a “Mary Sue,” which in its current common usage, is a term I generally don’t like. Because the original Mary Sue was specifically a female character who is great at everything, but most importantly, also an author self-insert. Unfortunately, the current common usage seems to have become “any competent female character.” Without the author self-insert part, it almost always feels like the person complaining about a female character being good at stuff is really zeroing in on the female part of the equation, and that becomes extremely evident when you ask them, “Is Batman a Mary-Sue?” Because Batman is a billionaire playboy who is better at literally every single physical activity than Olympic equivalents, is also the world’s greatest detective, can outfight like 20 ninjas at a time (dudes who have spent their entire lives training only to be deadly fighters and don’t waste any time on that detective stuff or solving riddles) has all the gadgets, up to and including his own fighter jet armed with a variety of missiles, which is probably illegal for a private citizen in a much bigger way than vigilante justicing some thugs in an alley, has his own space station with orbital strike capabilities, which, again, probably illegal in a way that the entire U.N. might care about, etc, etc. The Mary Sue-accusers usually say, “No, because Batman loses fights all the time.” Right, he loses fights, (usually so he can get thrown in a deathtrap only to quickly escape) but never the war. If a female billionaire playgirl gadgeteer, etc got her back fucking broken rather famously, then recovered and was basically completely fine afterward and proceeded to beat up Bane, I feel like they would get “Mary Sue” lobbed at them. What about James Bond? What about Iron Man? Riddick? John Wick? Mary Sue or just the main character of a franchise who necessarily has to win in the end so the franchise can continue?

But here’s a serious question. If Maxima is a Mary Sue (the non-author insert kind, obviously) because she’s powerful and wins fights… is Saitama? (From One Punch Man if you didn’t know his name.) Saitama is probably exempt because his strength and battle record are almost entirely played for laughs. Also he’s male. I guess the real question is if Maxima was Maximus, would anyone even think of accusing him of being a non-author-insert Mary Sue? Cause I’ve never seen anyone accuse Batman of being a Mary Sue out of the blue, it only ever happens when someone asks the guy who’s accused a female character of being one if Batman is also one, and accuser guy suddenly feels defensive about getting called out for being sexist.

If you think seeing Maxima win a bunch of high-level fights with relative ease is a little boring, that’s fine. That’s a totally valid criticism – even taking into account that she entered specifically because she analyzed previous tournaments and was fairly certain she could probably win with relative ease. That’s still a valid criticism, because it’s on me to relay an entertaining version of those events.

Oh, look who it is in the vote incentive. And a not-quite-yet-but-it’s-coming NSFW version over at Patreon.

Vote incentive and Patreon updated with some shading. Not finished yet, but progress.

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’m sure no one was surprised that Max wasn’t for real murdered by this attack. But for the record, without ManaVore, Final Blade would have actually been able to pierce her armor, because of the crazy amount of magic behind the attack. It wouldn’t have killed her outright, but it would have hurt.

I read/listen to a lot of LitRPGs, and so many of them have abilities like “This Skill can block any single attack, but has a five minute cooldown.” or “Activating this Skill makes you undetectable for 3 minutes, or until you interact with an object.” The problem with a skill description with an absolute in it is either there’s some fine text The System isn’t telling you about, or those skills are wildly exploitable. I mean, really, ANY attack? You could block the Chaos Titan Gamemaster’s Reality Schism?  Zeus’s lightning bolt? The Death Star’s main weapon? A stinging comment? Which is a sort of social attack, but still an attack!

I’m not suggesting using The System should require fine text or a 38 page user agreement or that the most common class should be “Lawyer” because everyone has to initial in triplicate every time they acquire a new skill and store a copy at The System Hall of Records. Just a little clearer wording would be immensely useful, like “This Skill can block any single attack up to three tiers higher than itself. Has a five minute cooldown.” Something like that.

Now, with all that said, “Final Blade” was genuinely supposed to be an unstoppable attack, because it was a skill Ryzyl got way back when he was Bronze Tier, and now he’s S-Tier… or uh, I guess he’s be Platinum tier if the lowest tier was a metal. The skill is also a Platinum Tier attack and is the sort of thing you’d use, pretty much exclusively, on other Platinum Tier adventurers, demi-gods, Armageddon level monsters, that sort of thing.

Originally, I’d planned on Max catching the blade, (because she’s ridiculously fast) but it would keep inching toward her sternum no matter how much strength she put against it, while Ryzyl explained how the attack is unstoppable. In that scenario, Max would have flown into space, dragging Ryzyl along, and wait for him to expire in the hard vacuum. While kind of a cool solution, it didn’t really make sense, since the boundary of the arena is only 5 KM up, and it would take Ryzyl longer than the allowed 30 seconds to expire, since he’s a high-level adventurer, and not a 3rd level Rogue rolling D6/level for his hit points.

The only goofy thing about this result is that ManaVore doesn’t have a fuller, which is the indent that runs down the center of some blades, usually from the cross-guard to halfway or 3/4 of the way up the blade. Supposedly it “reduces its weight and improves balance, handling, and flexibility.” You can see one on Ryzyl’s dagger in panel 6, though I’m not sure how helpful it would be on a ten inch blade. What that means for Ryzyl is that his knife is just pressed against the flat of Max’s sword, and it seems like just a tiny readjustment of the angle or a little twist of the blade could cause it to skid off into her back. But I guess that’s not how Final Blade works. Once activate, it’s just straight in to the heart. (Final Blade has no effect on creatures without hearts.) <- See how easy that is, The System?

Oh, look who it is in the vote incentive. And a not-quite-yet-but-it’s-coming NSFW version over at Patreon.

Vote incentive and Patreon updated with some shading. Not finished yet, but progress.

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.