Grrl Power #205 – Hyperactivity bonus vs. backstab
Apparently there was enough room between the wall and the table for a shield that large. Good thing it either automatically resets to a smaller default size or Sydney thought to reset it herself after the demonstration, where if you remember the shield was large enough to totally destroy that room if it went up in there. Her shield does form centered on her, large enough to encompass her, but will adjust itself up or down a bit not to slice off anything near her, which is why Shadow Boxer there didn’t get a haircut when her shield went up. That may be a yet undiscovered option though. Something else to note is that the orbs don’t automatically activate when Sydney grabs them, she can hold them without them turning on, but in this case it was a defensive reflex.
It was kind of tough drawing Sydney taking a real punch. Her adorkableness affects even me. Sure she’s suffered a few hits already during the course of the comic, but most of them were self inflicted except the bonk on the head at the bank, and we all know how well that went for her assailant.
I’ve groused a little about the nature of the webcomic format a little before, in that the delay between pages allows people to consider each page with far more scrutiny than they would if you’re just flipping through a finished book. As such, the resolution to Sydney’s current conundrum may not surprise much of anyone, but what can you do? Of course it works both ways, and the little gags I hide in there whenever I can are more likely to be ferreted out.
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it is wed 9 am
countdown to an ‘orrible, ‘orrible maiming T- 24:00
That made me laugh. For more than just the obvious reason though. Poor DaveB sure was insightful in saying that the web-comic format is a tough one. We are speculating and anticipating what comes next so greatly that it would be hard for him to top it.
Not that he should try mind. His build up to the next scene has involved limiting the range of possible outcomes, leading to some storytelling purpose. Which should be told the way he envisaged it, regardless of any speculation. Which is by no means a bad thing. The anticipation is half the fun, after all.
In fact, in comedy, you can laugh more at the build up to an obvious punchline, than to a traditional one that sneaks up on you. Some comedians specialise in this form of delivery. The little one, of the Two Ronnies, for instance, could do a monologue which had an inevitable outcome. But he kept on teasing you by seeming to be about to say it, then interjecting some other gab before it. Then meandering down a side path. Heading back to the punchline, slowly. By the time it finally arrived, your sides were aching from laughing for minutes
Who is on first!!!!
We haven’t seen her without her glasses so we don’t know how bad here vision. It’s possible that it’s bad enough she won’t be able to distinguish the orbs from one another in an emergency leading to grabbing one of the mystery orbs.
The one that turns everything within the forcefield, except for Ms Scoville of course, into soylent green? I’ve been thinking that this comic needed more *SPLOTCH*like sound effects…
…or the one that teleports the holder to the bottom of the ocean, fusing their body within a coral reef, leaving the orbs to be found by a random scuba-diver?
One does have to wonder what happened to their LAST owner. You know, the one who leveled them up this far?
If she is like me, then she probably has difficulty in seeing a bus, without her glasses. :-(
But, hopefully her practice with the Orbs should render that to be a non-issue. If she has been sensible. The obvious way to summon an orb is to look at it and then tell it to come to hand. The wise way to do it is to command it without looking.
This is the difference between a ‘hunt and peck’ typist and a touch typist. You can do it either way. But my money is on Halo having been disciplined enough to force herself to practice the hard way, in order to stop bad habits and delays creeping in. The fact that she is able to use the balls as if they were fists, for punching and blocking, corroborates that line of thinking. She is using them instinctively, like a touch typist.
Yorp, who stole your avatar?? Was it one of those dastardly super villains? Should I call the pound…?
I want to see yorps avatar with added glasses
I would comply, but I am still in sympathy from Sydney’s noodle eye incident.
Heh. It vanishes on occasions when I am running my clean up program. I suppose I should hunt around for the cookie it uses and add it to the exempt list. But, it is easy enough to pop onto the Gravatar web-site and give it a poke to bring it back.
Except that at the moment I am avoiding entering my password on any sites that can be avoided. Until I know that a company has guarded itself against Heartbleed, or is immune to it, then I am just going to make do. That functionality is harmless enough that it probably makes no difference, either way, and I am unconcerned enough not to have bothered to research their situation individually. But I will still give them some time to get their act in order before taking even that minor risk.
I think that’s the case here. She was stunned and blinded, but was able to instinctively grab the shield orb and pop it up.
No matter how bad near-sighted she is, there i no way she could not recognize balls due to their colors. If she was color-blind than those glasses wouldn’t make a difference to begin with. As someone with bad near-sight I can distinguish objects that size with color differences without problem (6.5 diopter myope with 0.75 astigmatism for me and among my friends I have someone with 14 diopter myope and 1.5 astigmatism even he can perfectly distinguish color coded objects at the size of fists). Would it make fighting difficult? Yes but she calls obs into her hand by thinking so at very least there won’t be any miss-call with orbs and she can always hurl them in general direction of shadow boxer. Another thing is Syd’s glasses are thin…….too much thin to have really high numbers of diopter (above 5)
She managed to grab the forcefield orb without her glasses. With her eyes closed, even.
I’m guessing that there’s a bit of mental control involved, and that she doesn’t have to actually look up, watch the obs in orbit, and then make a grab for the one she wants. After all, we’ve never seen her have any issue at all in having the two she wants in hand, right?
I think Grrl Power needs some good theme songs.
Music playing on the page :)
A tune to go with that pages content.
This page needs…….
I’m to sexy for my shirt!
I am an evil bastard. That song will follow you to sleep!!!!
Now we have Fallout references…I find Sydney more and more sexy.
I wish my Pip-boy was that useful.
So are we going to see Sydney turn the inside of her forcefield into a sphere of pain? I’m thinking tentacle orb and bashing that guy around like a rag doll, or full blast with the PPO.
I can see that as something that Sydney would shout when she retaliates. “Sphere of pain!”
I can’t wait for tomorrow. The best way I would draw the next sequence of events:
Tight closeups of each one of the other heroes in the room, with a running cursing dialog of Sydney across the bottom. Each of the heroes is showing a different expression: revulsion, humor, awe, shock – and the last panel is Arianna whispering “Oh, the Humanity….”
You never actually see what it is that Sydney does. But you hear the effects of various orbs going off in the background to all the panels.
…And when the battle is done & Sydney releases her force field, Shadow Boxer flops over onto the floor into a fetal position with head-to-toe bruising, eyes wide with fear, voice whimpering incoherent babble.
Sucking his thumb tugging on his ear whimpering mommy.
make the bad lady stop, PLEASE!!!
You just made me laugh so hard I had tears in my eyes.
It could be worse, for a while there was one person who was snotting on their keyboard (at least once a week) from laughing at the comments.
I wonder… is she immune to the power of the pew pew orb cause if she was she could use the shield to limited it range and smoke the bad guy without aiming.
What is bound to happen next has me thinking of Babylon 5. I know that’s a stretch, but hear me out; that one episode in Season 4, where they’ve got Sheridan locked up and are using “enhanced interrogation” methodology on him, to get a signed confession, and he leans over and spits on the paper. The way the interrogator takes off his glasses and sincerely, sympathetically, says “I wish you hadn’t done that. I really, really wish you hadn’t done that.”
Her glasses are already off. I fear for this man’s life.
I wonder, that’s light as a weapon, dark but still or the removal of light. What would happen if the light hook was used as defense, to block. Would he scream as it was disrupted, Would Syd scream as hers is?
Or her screaming. “Three!” wraps him up with the light hook. “Moves!” kicks him the 7-10 split. “Ahead!” bashes him with the orbs.
But I don’t think we will see any of this.
Sure was fun thinking about it. DB do you ever consider how much you effect peoples lives with this comic?
So, you know, no pressure there DaveB :) Certainly he wouldn’t have to buy his own drinks in the right part of this side of the pond! (Which I guess is the bit where I happen to be at the bar, but hey baby steps…)
Wow, this must be a record number of comics on thetwice-weekly format.
Ack! I meant “comments”.
Yup , beat skill tree by 15 at this point.
I love how the pip boy actually says “WARNING: YOU ARE BEING PUNCHED”
Years later, and it’s still funny XD.
Who was it who said: “I’m not trapped in here with YOU….You’re trapped in here with ME!”
Seems appropriate.
I believe that was Rorschach in Watchmen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3lsJmwNO40
Frank Castle said it as well when he went to prison. Needless to say they were happy when he finally decided to break out and leave the comfy confines of his happy paradise.
Frank Castle a.k.a. Punisher? I wouldn’t be surprised that the other prison inhabitants (prisoners and guards) were happy to see him go.
That’s a real hot button from when I was a kid – getting my glasses knocked off. Once that happened, it was GO TIME.
I have a guess as to what is going to happen, and I have a want of something less correct. My guess is that she binds and chokes him with the tentacle orb. My want is expressed so well in the following comic – https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0020.html – from Order of the Stick.
Is it just me or did anyone else notice that the red orb just “happened” to get in the way of that sock to the face?
Not just you. She seems to be using them as natural body extensions without thinking about much. Hopefully they are VERY tough if she keeps hitting supers with them!
I wonder if the skil tree could be used as a shield?
I notice the pipboy has a status window in panel 5 so helpfully indicating she is being punched
As for the orbs im guessing indestructible
Has anyone covered the possibilities the molestorb has for restraint yet? if it can change diametre and infinite length as well as the durability of her shield voila instant rope, sydney could also practice her bondage, also is it limited to one length or can it grow multiple appendages like a vine?
That could be dangerous if she could shrink the diameter down to a monomolecular width. Instant sushi!
Shrinking that amount of carbon (human body) down to that size (one molecule)… more like instant diamond. A very small one. Maybe with some unusual properties.
i would hate to be that guy, trapped inside a shield-wall with angry sid and the tentacle orb…
‘WARNING
You are being punched’
As soon as I aw that i was Sh*tting myself with laughter!
He’s attacking Halo? He must be…Modern Warfare Man!
Holy crap, something she can’t teleport through? I guess there *is* a jail cell that could hold her! Of course, she would have to be by Sydney at all times, and Sydney could never let down the shield, so it’s not much of an advantage… But still! Impressive!
i can’t tell if the effect from the nega punch or the pew pew orp is it geting cut or the energy bouncing off it
on opps not or
*Warning you are being punched*
HAHAHAH! This is my 8th time reading through this comic, and I never noticed that before. I love the little details