And now, my latest attempt to paste in an excerpt from the third 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; note that this chapter is an especially long one exploring the art and science of superheroic roofjumping.

ABOMINABLEMENT DIFFICILE (part 5)

The elevator ride down? Not much better. It's quitting-o'-clock, so I'm crammed into a car with a very, very amused swarm of Office Drones.

Ladies: Think that being crowd-squeezed in an overloaded elevator is mortifyingly uncomfortable? Try it when you're mostly naked, sometime.

I hastily begin mumbling apologies once I realize that, oops, my coating of sheetrock dust is rubbing off on everyone pressed up against me.

Behind me, a male Drone stage-whispers, "Wow, she looks even more naked in person." A female Drone hisses, "Nice stripper-wear, honey."

In a flurry of "excuse me" mutters and businesswear-fouling gypsum dust, I arrive on the ground floor and yank myself free of the elevator.

In the lobby, a reasonably cute but marginally douchey-looking Bro Office Drone approaches me and asks, "Hey, can I get a picture with you?"

I start to refuse, then think better of it—with my suit shredded and my powers gone, why rush to get into battle?—and sighingly acquiesce.

Bro Office Drone crowds in a little too close to me, raises his camera phone to frame us both, says "Big fan, big fan," then reaches around—

—and claps his free hand over my mouth, like countless bad guys have done before. I sheep-bleat "MMPH?!" in startled protest, right on cue.

Camera flash, I'm immortalized being hand-gagged by a Big Fan, then I'm shoving him back as his fellow Bro Drones' fratboy laughter erupts.

Red-faced under my mask, I storm away with what little dignity I can muster, feeling the eyetracks of everyone in the lobby sliding over me.

I cringe at the sounds of Big Fan snapping shots of my retreating backside, then flinch at his parting shot: "Loved your GIF, by the way!"

(More about my infamous GIF—and how frequently douches of the male variety profess to love it—later. For now, a hint: My butt is involved.)

Fuming, I stomp out through the lobby's revolving door—and emerge into a shrieking, turbulent crowdflow of panicked, fleeing civilians.

I'm buffeted, body-blocked, and almost trampled by the escaping, shout-y masses, until I finally manage to claw my way over to a lamppost.

As I hang on for dear life, the civilians' screams and yells are drowned out by the earsplitting din of rending metal and shattering glass.

Across the street, the hulking, armored mass of Trigger Troll has just landed on a poor little Prius, crushing its roof and blowing out its windows.

Dangling daintily from the troll-patterned exoskeleton's claws is—no kidding—a girly-drink bottle of Plutonium Blonde SuperHard Lemonade®.

When Troll pops his helmet to take a swig of Plutonium Blonde—and belches majestically, a bonus—I begin to deduce that he's srsly hammered.

A wreaked-havoc trail of randomly wrecked cars and haphazard property damage stretches down the smoke-swirly street, eliciting Deduction #2:

Clearly, this isn't an organized supercrime in progress. Instead, I'm witnessing a day-drinking idiot supervillain's drunken mecha joyride.

Make that TWO day-drinking idiots, once the lumpy, misshapen form of Quasarmodo sways into view, also dainty-dangling a SuperHard Lemonade.

Quasarmodo's other beefy paw, howeva, grips the arm of a cute civilian girl (of Hipster stock, prejudging by her glasses and skinny jeans).

No damsel she, Hipster Chica struggles wildly and shrieks impressive profanities at him, but the deformed doofus easily drags her along.

Quasarmodo slurs drunkenly, "C'mon, civvie girl." (Time out for a very suave burp.) "Don'cha wanna hang out a li'l with some badass capes?"

Being both mildly superstrong and nonmildly boozed-up, Quasarmodo is certain to break Hipster Chick’s arm any moment now, if not her neck. 

The fleeing civvies have successfully fled. Right now, I’m alone out here with the bad guys, hiding behind my lamppost, nerving myself up. 

Deep breath. Second deep breath. Okay, one more deep breath. Then I bite my lip and step out into the street, my knees a teensy bit wobbly.

Hands on hips. Hair toss. One last deep breath. "Let her go, asshole," I bellow at Quasarmodo, pleased that my voice only breaks a little.

Hearing me, Trigger Troll whirls around, hops off the wrecked car with a blast of jump jets, lands—rather unsteadily—ten feet away from me.

An autocannon deploys from his exoskeleton's arm, swings out and locks on to me, red streaks of targeting laser flickering over my face.

Troll's cannon is so close—and so large—that I could easily shove my fist down its muzzle aperture—a cool move, if I still had any powers.

Garbled by alcohol and low-fi audio gear, a muddled demand blares out of his exoskeleton's speakers. "What're YOU gonna do about it, dummy?"

The laser-sight dot roams up and down my mostly supersuitless body. "VillainWiki sez y'r useless when y'r suit's all torn up like that!"

Pause for a hiccup, rendered extra-goofy by his crappy speakers. "Yeah, sez right here—at 50% surface area, y'r suit's powers crap out."

GOOD: VillainWiki's off-base, as my hypermembrane can still function while 50% intact. UNGOOD: I'm presently (much) more than halfway naked.

On cue, the cold steel muzzle of Troll's cannon bumps my bare belly. I try—and fail, badly—not to flinch. Hands-on-hips pose: getting shaky.

"Hey, look, dummy—y’ hardly got a bikini's worth of suit left," Troll speaker-blares. An exaggeration, I muse, though not by very much.

If measured in terms of 50s-era proto-bikinis—high-waisted and quite modestly cut—then, yes, I do hardly have a bikini's worth of suit left—

—and I’m jarred out of my mind-racing bikini-reverie tangent as the 75mm autocannon’s cold, hard muzzle nudges my warm, soft belly again.

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Quasarmodo stumbling closer, still dragging Hipster Chick by the arm, but now eying me with interest.

I might not be even vaguely as cute as Hipster Chick, but I'm considerably closer to being naked, her painted-on skinny jeans be damned.

(Big struggle, stopping my Mental Hamster Wheel from spinning off on a tangential rant about the vicious sartorial tyranny of skinny jeans.)

“Okay, sure, my superpowers are gone,” I admit, a little shakily. “But, hey, guess what I’m still good at—what I’m notorious for, in fact?”

Silence ensues as Trigger Troll’s armored headpiece and Quasarmodo’s lumpy, pieced-together head stare at me blankly.

<END OF EXCERPT>

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