And now, my latest attempt to paste in an excerpt from another chapter of long-defunct prose experiment I Am Empowered, a Year-One-ish first-person account from Emp in 140-character Twitter format detailing her earliest days as a superheroine. This time around, the neologisms fly fast and furious as Emp discusses the practicalities of rescuing civilians in a perilously cape-infested urban setting.
ROUGH HANDLING AND RESCUE-NEEDINESS (part 1)
I should note that my cape-clad colleagues use a specialized, often quite offensive vocabulary of slang terms for the civilians they rescue.
For the record, I myself try to avoid the use of such insensitive and unkind—if not outright degrading—language. (Well, I TRY not to, okay?)
Now that I've properly established my Bona Fides of Exquisite Sensitivity, here are a few civvie-related terms from the Unofficial Superhero Glossary.
FAINTING SHEEP: Poor folks who have frozen up entirely in the face of life-threatening terror, gone wide-eyed and semi-catatonic with fear.
I'm well aware that the term is erroneous, as the animals famously prone to the genetic disorder myotonia congenita are goats, not sheep.
My superpeers not only dehumanize civilians by equating them with animals, but compound the insult by equating them with the WRONG animals.
CHINA SHOPS: A callous but not entirely inaccurate term for the frailest and most osteoporosis-prone segment of the elderly population.
Quite often, when I'm carrying an especially fragile-seeming senior citizen to safety, I'm more frightened (of injuring them) than they are.
Once, I was so nervous hefting a tiny, brittle doppelgänger for my late great-grandmother that SHE had to comfort ME while I was saving her.
FOOL HEADS: Panicked civilians who are, as you might guess, yelling their fool heads off. They do bellow actual words and sentences, though.
BANSHEES: Unlike the slightly more coherent FOOL HEADS, these terror-stricken folks do nothing but scream wordlessly at deafening volume.
I've been amazed by how long and how loud—and how annoyingly—a human being can scream, often without ever seeming to need to take a breath.
Interestingly, scream-output decibel levels seems unrelated to overall size and body mass, as children can out-shriek big, strapping men.
BLUBBERS: Not an unkind reference to weight but, rather, an unkind reference to frightened civilians who sob and wail and bawl uncontrollably.
As a Crybaby-American all too often prone to bouts of weepiness myself, I tend to be highly sympathetic towards my fellow Blubbers.
Howeva: I'm often dismayed by the prodigious amount of nasal discharge that a Blubber in full yowl can produce—and smear into my hair, ick.
WETPANTS: A reference to how extreme fear can, unsurprisingly, have adverse effects on bladder control. The next stage? See: BROWNPANTS.
CLINGERS: Terrified civilians who grab onto you so fiercely during a rescue that they're not easily removed once safety is reached.
Last week, it took longer to pry an especially tenacious 8-year-old Clinger off of me than it did to save the poor thing in the first place.
I'd peel one arm off my neck, and the other would latch on elsewhere. I'd gently tug both her arms free, and her legs would snake around me.
Honestly, felt like I was wrestling an octopus in an "I'M A PRINCESS" T-shirt. (And I've wrestled octopi before, so I know whereof I speak.)
I'm keenly suspicious of adult male Clingers, though, who sometimes seem a tad too enthused about grabbing onto me while I'm rescuing them.
Then again, I'm a small-ish female carrying a much larger male, so it's possible that he might clutch my, ah, most prominent asset for stability.
Yeahp, I am indeed saying that men have a disconcerting tendency to grab my all-too-grabbable behind when I'm hauling them out of harm's way.
SUPERSTORM CHASERS: Just like "storm chasers" recklessly pursue rampaging tornadoes, these doofi recklessly pursue rampaging superhumans.
They tend to be "trouble tourists" who travel to this city solely to see superheroes in action, though some locals are just as cape-crazy.
Most of this city's tourism industry is based on its (over)population of colorful superfolk. Heck, even I moved out here for the superscene.
The problem: Superstorm chasers are a major annoyance when you're fighting, thanks to their clueless action-ogling from the front lines.
Sensible civilians run for cover when the going gets cape-y, while dumbass, derpy superstorm chasers run right into the thick of the action.
Repeatedly, I've had to rescue superstorm chasers who've almost gotten killed while gawking at—and videoing, of course—cape-on-cape clashes.
The worst part? These doofi think of getting rescued by a superhero as just a really cool part of the Complete SuperStormChasing Experience.
SUPERSIZED: A stigmatizing, weight-biased, cruelly derogatory term for the morbidly obese, and arguably the most offensive label in cape slang.
As a person constantly struggling with body-image issues, I would never, ever get all judge-y and shame-y regarding other people's bodies.*
(*Okay, maybe I do OCCASIONALLY get all judge-y and shame-y regarding other people's bodies, but that's mainly a Kardashian-related issue.)
Still, as much as it pains me to sound insensitive-ish, I must admit that people of size frequently pose considerable rescuing challenges.
The truth is, I'm just too small to successfully pull off a fireman's carry on anyone whose body mass happens to be much over 350 lbs.
The last time I tried to over-the-shoulder-carry a person of size, both me and the poor guy I was trying to rescue ended up humiliated.
<END OF EXCERPT>
Wellp, if this actually worked, webcomic readers, I’ll try again shortly with another excerpt from I Am Empowered, okay?
Today’s Patreon update: Originally done as a means of scratching out more worktime to complete the long-gestating Empowered vol. 12, I've switched over to a Monday/ Wednesday/ Friday Patreon posting schedule that won't feature the fixed content format I previously used. However, my vast archive of years of Patreon posts—extensive Empowered previews, vintage con sketches, work stages on covers, "damsel in distress" commissions, life drawings & much, much more—remains available for Patrons' perusal.
-Adam Warren