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I AM EMPOWERED, pt.21: The Twitter-based YEAR ONE prose dealie continues!
🕑 Added 2021-11-05 13:01:03 +0000 UTCBeen quite a while since I've posted anything from this incomplete prose experiment; looks like the last post of this type was waaaaaay back in July 2020. You can check out I Am Empowered's previous installment here, or check out the entire archive of this defunct project here.
In case you'd forgotten, or are a semi-recent Patron and haven't had the time nor the inclination to look back though this site's sprawling archive, I Am Empowered was a short-lived prose project in which I tried to flesh out aspects of Emp's story not fully addressed in the comic proper. I wrote Emp's first-person narration in (old) Twitter-based 140-character format, with the time-jumping narrative taking place roughly around the beginning of Empowered vol.1.
We've hit the point in this loose jumble of episodes that no remaining chapter is complete; all the remaining material from this abortive project is a series of fragmentary sketches that wheeze to a halt in an inconclusive manner.
Anyhoo, I thought you folks might like this particular incomplete chapter, which will eventually introduce a beloved character who didn't appear in the comic series until much later in Emp's story. Also, as you'll see, I strip-mined later scenes from this episode quite directly for an Empowered GN chapter.
ELISSA GETS SCANNED (Part 1)
So, a few days into my associate membership as a Superhomey, I’m working the overnight shift at the Homeycrib, as befits my lowly status.
I take a breather from gazing dully at the Monitor Wall’s bajillion screens and head off to the break room, empty stomach gurgling noisily.
I resolutely ignore the temptations of the vending machines, stocked as they are with snacks and junk foods more evil than any supervillain.
Instead, with another BIG SIGH, I dutifully retrieve the night’s meager, calorie-miserly little microwave meal from the break-room fridge.
Say, here’s a unique office-fridge advantage of being a body-issue-plagued worker prone to stocking direly diet-y foodstuffs:
No one in the workplace, and I mean NO ONE, is very likely to poach my 150-calorie(!) Roasted Turkey and Vegetables “Skinny Mini” meal.
In truth, every time I open the shared fridge, I’m hoping against hope that one of my teammates DID, in fact, thieve that day’s Skinny Mini.
Then, gosh, I’d have no choice but to hit up the vending machines for a frosted toaster pastry or some peanut-butter cups or an apple pie.
BTW, those items’ stats: toaster pastry—420 calories, 10 g fat; peanut-butter cups—230 calories, 14 g fat; apple pie—440 calories, 27 g fat.
Jeez, doesn’t all that fat and sugar and carbohydrates and bad stuff sound just horrible? I MEAN, F**KING DELICIOUS. No, no, just horrible.
It’s not as if I might’ve slipped up and wolfed down any of those evil foods and stared miserably at the stats on their packaging afterward.
Anyhoo, cut to my wee little Skinny Mini meal rotating in the microwave, looking tiny and lonely on the vast expanse of the oven’s carousel.
I’m staring glumly at the Mini’s diminutive tray, thinking that a single turkey must provide enough meat for 30 or 40 of these meals, easy.
I hear a crackling sound behind me, and turn to see a brilliantly glowing ball of light hovering in midair above the break room’s tiles.
The unearthly glow intensifies from brilliant to blinding, before a whirly-swirly blur of rippling darkness bursts outward from the glare—
—and resolves into the whipping, flapping, flailing folds of a midnight-black cloak, thrashing open with a spray of glittering sparkles—
—to reveal Sistah Spooky standing with opera-gloved arms crossed, fixing me with an unmistakably sour expression that her mask can’t hide.
As always, her ridiculous and unattainable level of flawless beauty is an almost physical affront to my gnawing sense of bodily inadequacy.
Bared, sculpted abs above clingy, low-rise boy shorts I’d never dare wear—and a perfect thigh gap, as opposed to my all-too-rubby thighs.
Garters and stockings, for that leg-intensive look that practically screams, “I’m hawt and I know it, so why shouldn’t YOU know it, too?”
Plus, thanks to six-inch platform heels, she looms over me like a nightmare vision of an especially contemptuous and sneer-y fashion model.
<EDITORIAL NOTE: Amazingly enough, only during this abortive prose dealie did it ever occur to me that Spooky would indeed tower over Emp due to her platform shoes, even while I was repeatedly drawing both characters "full-figure" in the comic. Shocking but true!>
I doubt her flaunty little costume does much to intimidate bad guys, but it certainly intimidates the hell out of dumpier girls like me.
Come to think of it, I’m fairly certain that’s why she dresses that way. “Behold my hotness, ye poor, pudgy lesser beings, and despair.”
Awkward silence for a full ten-count, frown-y Spooky glaring and unmoving, twitchy me wilting and fidgeting under her gaze.
Cue the microwave beeping that my Skinny Mini is finished—ahem—”cooking” and ready to deliver its 150 deeply unsatisfying calories to me.
“You’re needed on the rooftop,” Spooky declares icily, then whirls around with a casually theatrical billow of cloak. “Follow me.”
I start to say something about my freshly nuked meal, think better of it, anxiously puppy-trail after her with mind racing.
By overtly failing to acknowledge the microwave’s beep, is Spooky wordlessly stating that I might be well-served by skipping a meal or two?
One sign of a genuine Alpha Female: She doesn’t need to say anything aloud, as I automatically hear her hypercritical voice in my own head.
Not every girl could make her platform-heeled footsteps sound intimidating and imperious, but Spooky always manages the feat with ease.
Cloak streaming, she clip-clops authoritatively up the stairs to the roof, with me uncertainly padding after her in suit-stockinged feet.
I stare at her towering shoes in disbelief, unable to grasp how she’s stair-climbing so effortlessly, without even a single ankle wobble.
Since Spooky mainly flies in battle, her footwear’s wild impracticality is usually irrelevant. Right now, I think, she must be showing off.
“Behold my majestic gait in 6-inch platforms! You, oh lesser being, would surely totter and stumble and humiliate yourself in such shoes.”
Again, she doesn’t need to make that pronouncement aloud, as I’m automatically thinking it for her. Superpowered Queen Bee at work, y’all.
Then I think: Is Spooky “cheating” by using her magical powers to allow her to walk in those absurd shoes, just to make an impression on me?
Jury’s out on that one. I could just as easily imagine her practicing for months in those platforms to demonstrate her manifest superiority.
Cue another long, awkward silence as we stand on the Homeycrib’s rooftop landing pad, looking down at the nighttime urban panorama below us.
She clearly has no intention of deigning to explain what we're doing up here. I have no intention of giving her the satisfaction of asking.
I glance over at Spooky, trying my best not to quail before her perfect hotness and cool arrogance, and I'm struck by an amused insight.
Given the strong winds up here at 40-story height, her cloak should've been fluttering and flapping about wildly, uncontrollably, laughably.
Instead, Spooky's cloak continues to just billow dramatically in a fixed pattern, never once behaving in a manner that might embarrass her.
I realize that, hilariously enough, she's definitely using her eldritch powers to keep her Goth Drama Queen Cosplay Ensemble under control.
Call me doofy—"Okay, you're doofy, Emp!"—but the fact that Spooky's burning magical calories to make herself look cool humanizes her a bit.
She's not quite the perfect, immaculate icon of bootylicious badassery—or, if you prefer, badass bootyliciosity—that she wants us to see.
Not unlike Cassidy's hours of prep-time before the mirror, Spooky's expending a heckuva lot of effort to portray a façade of effortlessness.
<EDITORIAL NOTE: As mentioned earlier in I Am Empowered, "Cassidy" was Emp's extremely hawt roommate from her freshman year in college.>
Anyone traipsing into battle in hot pants and pentagram garters must be deeply committed to a very weirdly idealized image of herself.
(END PART 1)
And that's it for today's installment, folks! Not sure many Patrons will be thrilled to see this prose experiment's return, TBH, but I thought I'd try posting some different material in November to shake things up a bit.
NEXT TIME ON I AM EMPOWERED: Time for the beloved character mentioned earlier to make an appearance (of sorts), while Emp's supersuit evinces powers not actually addressed (very much) in the comics!
NEXT TIME ON THIS HERE PATREON: No idea, to be perfectly frank! (Very likely something in the Distressed Damsels category for the $5+ Patron tiers, though.)
Comments
KranberriJam
I missed these! I'd buy all of them in a book, finished or not!
Thomas Pool
I've sampled several prose attempts by comic artists. Few of them are good at it, their talents limited to clever dialogue. Adam is not one of those. His internal monologues and scene-setting are first-rate. That little bit about the lonely little microwave meal turning in the carousel was wonderful.
Aidenke
These little "inside the head" stories are a lot of fun. It's nice to spend the time with Emp and get her perspective on everything going on around her!
JKurt
Hey yay!! I Am Empowered is back!
PixelThis
I enjoyed this episode, it kinda fits in well with the where the webcomic currently is. We know Spooky is a mess under her badass bootyliciosity and it's interesting to see Emp kind of inferring that
Burninator
I really like this sort of backstory stuff and think it's one of the most interesting things about the Patreon, so more along these lines, particularly for some of your other past projects.
Strypgia
I for one _am_ happy to see this thing return. More insight to Year One Of Caping Emp's thinking is always good. For the contrast to her 'current' much happier and supported self alone, if nothing else. This bit lets us see Emp is pretty dang observant, even if here it's mostly ending up feeding her constant self-criticism about her body image. Huh... have we ever seen Cassidy 'on screen' at any point? I don't remember her showing up 'in person'.
travis duryea
I didn't realize how much I missed this post series
FeyOne
That is fantastic! This patron, at least, loves it. :)
