Say goodbye to the scanning analytophore as the chapter "inside Ginny and Elissa" wraps up, webcomic readers. Tomorrow, we kick off one of the most complained-about chapters in the entire series; won't that be a thrill?

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.

I AM EMPOWERED

Chapter 1: MY STUPID NAME, AND MY EVEN STUPIDER SUPERSUIT (pt.5)

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. 

To Cassidy, my jeans and tops were never low enough, my shorts and undies never small enough. Sweatpants, of course, were beyond the pale.

I'd spend the day in class sparring over sexy superheroine outfits, then spend the night sparring over my own outfits' lack of sexiness. 

Near tears, stubbornly defending my underpants to Cassidy: "They're not 'granny panties' just because they're not a f**king THONG, okay?"

Oh, Cassidy was ALL about the thong. I assume that her glutes would've broken out in hives if any full-sized underwear had ever touched 'em.

I wondered how much impact I'd have on real-world sexism, if I couldn't even have a rational conversation with my roommate about underpants.

Unlike in class, with Cassidy I lost more arguments than I won, as my trembling self-doubt and lack of confidence were no match for her.

Flirty, outgoing, extroverted and—more relevantly—overbearing, Cassidy saw me as clay to be molded in her own "look at me, I'm hawt" image.

All my fine, fierce opinions about "sexualization" or "objectification" were useless against her Marianas-Trench-worthy (peer) pressure.

Cut to Abashed, Red-Faced Me, sipping only the shallowest of breaths so I wouldn't pop right out of the peekaboo top Cassidy forced me into. 

Matters came to a head at Spring Cape Fling, when she cowed me into dressing as Clobberina, partner to her own cosplay of Hothouse Flower.

In Real Life, Clobberina's track-and-field-ish costume looks kinda sexy—but mostly badass—on her lithe, powerful, sculpted athlete's frame. 

On my softer, pudgier body, with too much upstairs and WAY too much downstairs, Clobberina's outfit looked more like day-shift stripperwear.

Cassidy, half-drunk and fully aglow with all the attention Hothouse Flower's floral bikini deserved, couldn't understand my mortification.

"You're the hit of the party, E-Pow!" she gushed, to demands of "Clobber me with that big ol' superbooty," and the evergreen "Take it off!"

Why wasn't I basking in all the male attention being lavished on me? Wasn't that the REAL reason why superheroines dressed the way they did? 

"Besides," she slurred, "everybody knows that bewbs 'n' booties are the only REAL superpowers your stupid heroines have. Flaunt it, E-Pow!"

Of all the hundreds of verbal harpoons Cassidy had sunk into my blubber—shut up, I like whales, okay?—she'd hit a real nerve at last. 

As a superheroine, the very last thing I wanted to be was a titillatingly packaged—if chubby—piece of Ass Candy for the boys to gawk at. 

My lifelong dream was, to Cassidy, just one more opportunity to one-up every other girl in sight and to tantalize some drunken douchebros.

To quote my boy Jean-Luc, "We draw the line HEAH!" Full vertebrate status: ACTIVATED. As Daddy always said, "Time to get EMPowered."

I finally, sputteringly spoke my mind, blurted out repressed harshness, and terminated our pseudo-friendship with 45 seconds of truthiness.

Cassidy's face was still frozen in a Taylor-Swift-worthy mask of total surprise as I stomped out of the party, feeling shaky but righteous.

A welcome side effect of antagonizing Cassidy: No one would ever use the nickname "E-Pow" for me ever again, for which I am eternally glad.

     <End of excerpt>

Next time on I Am Empowered excerpting, we leave Emp's college years behind for some new-to-you information about the functioning of her supersuit, albeit from the POV of unreliable narrator Emp.

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