And now, time for another commentary excerpt from the decade-old, defunct prose experiment I Am Empowered, which was a Year-One-ish exploration of Emp's earliest days as as a superhero, told in Twitter-formatted first-person narrative for reasons that will eventually be explained. (Best brace yourselves for a recounting of Emp's college-age sociopolitical views, folks.)

I AM EMPOWERED

Chapter 1: MY STUPID NAME, AND MY EVEN STUPIDER SUPERSUIT (pt.4)

By age 15, any hope of an idealized—as in, Mom-like—body was long gone. Stuff me into superhero drag and I'd be a chubby, big-bottomed joke.

I'd be stomping around, infuriated by my jiggling butt and boobs and thighs, when Mom would casually lope by, like a gazelle in yoga pants.

Cut to me soothing my mounting disappointment and frustration with tube after guilty tube of raw cookie dough, my snack-food drug of choice.

My snacking habits, whimsical and adorable for a scrawny 12-year-old tomboy with a racing metabolism, were disastrous for a plump teenager.

Of course, I had plenty of useful rationalizations. "Don't you know MY DADDY DIED IN FRONT OF ME? Hand me those Creamy Frosted Mini Donuts." 

Every mindlessly wolfed snack drove me further and further away from my ideal—again, Mom-like—superheroine body. Hello, Shame Spiral!

I'd love to say that I had some thrilling, golden-lit, Lifetime-y epiphany worthy of a herpes-medicine commercial. I didn't.

I just gritted my teeth, stopped sniveling—well, stopped sniveling quite so much—and mumbled to myself, "Time to get EMPowered, dumbass."

I wrestled my snacking down to a less appalling level, and worked out like a fiend. Climbed and hiked. Field hockey and old-school DDR. 

Ineptly but enthusiastically punched and kicked a heavy bag, steadfastly ignoring that it looked like a very large tube of raw cookie dough. 

Briefly tried biking but quit in a hurry, as a behind like mine does NOT look good in skintight shorts and displayed atop a bicycle seat.

Mom seemed impressed, but a little worried, by how I spent the rest of high school in a haze of healthy sweat and semi-healthy(ish) eating.

"Elissa Megan Powers, you'd best not be f**king around with an eating disorder," she intoned, watching me like a hawk for any bulimic tells.

And with a background in dance, Mom knew far more about Ana and Mia and friends than all the skinny bitches in my school put together.

Mom needn't have worried. I toed the tightrope of "MAJOR FOOD ISSUES" without tumbling into the abyss of "OUTRIGHT EATING DISORDERS"—barely.

But even while grunting dutifully up a climbing wall, glowing with dewy perspiration, looking all "you-go-girl"-y, I was hiding something. 

Inside, I still secretly despised my big, soft, flabby body for not being the trim, taut, powerful body that a Real Superheroine should have.

Then, hi-ho, I was off to college! Hello, Freshman 15! Well, Freshman 25. Okay, fine, Freshman 28, as it turned out. (Psst: 30, actually.)

In class, I'd be barking at dumbass males, "Superheroines should be defined by their accomplishments, not by their boobs, butts and hips!"

Back in my dorm, look in the mirror, and golly gosh, what did I see? Boobs, butt and hips, and plenty of 'em. WAY too much of 'em, honestly.

Didn't help that my freshman roommate, Cassidy, was on a yearlong mission to browbeat me into slutting it up—nay, "expressing my sexuality."

"Expressing my sexuality," in this context, meant letting Cassidy dress me up like one big, reluctant, thoroughly embarrassed Bratz® doll.

     <End of excerpt>

Next time on I Am Empowered excerpting, stand by for a recounting of Emp's college roommate browbeating her into "sexy Halloweening!"

Note that the entirety of the serialized (if incomplete) I Am Empowered experience can be perused at the relevant hashtag on me ol' Patreon. Speaking of which:

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. So, who knows what today's post might feature? Could be Life Drawing or Distressed Damsels content (both of which are featured at least three times per month), or something in the Work Stages, Vintage Con Sketches or Design departments, or possibly something entirely new. Golly!

-Adam Warren