Grrl Power #437 – I hope Dabbler gave odds
I decided early on that illusions isn’t a school of magic that Dabbler put much study into, because with all her other abilities it would make her just a little too powerful. Also it would let me pull all kind of gags like… well, like this one that are kind of red herrings, and I didn’t want to rely on that too much. Even Gwen is barely above cantrip level. She needed a vaguely color coordinated fetish built out of napkins, (luckily that restaurant happens to have yellow and black napkins) a hard boiled egg, and a radish to pull it off. And that’s for the same reason. Maybe one day the team will fight against an illusionist, but it’s doubtful one will ever join the team.
Happy 4th to everyone, or I guess I should say happy Independence Day to Americans, and happy regular 4th for everyone else. I’m sorry I haven’t updated the vote incentive yet, only one of the pages I’m working on this week turned into a double page and I’m still not finished with it, so that’s how I’ll be spending my holiday. I mean I’d be drawing anyway, I’m just slightly behind. I’ll probably play some Overwatch too, to be honest.
Actually I got both Undertale and The Witcher III during the Steam sale, both immensely well reviewed games that have been languishing on my wish list for a long time – mostly due to a lack of time to play them. I figured I could grab ’em cheap and keep them in my library until I found a spare hour here or there. Haven’t tried Undertale yet, but I’ve put maybe an hour into the Witcher. I’m not sold on it yet, which is weird cause it’s basically 3rd person Skyrim. (Yes, you can play Skyrim in 3rd person if you’re a weirdo.) I know I need to give it a little time, I haven’t even leveled up yet, but little things like how Geralt moves bugs me. He walks by default indoors and runs by default outdoors. I guess it’s a decent way to handle it, given the size of the game area vs. the fidelity of the indoor areas, but IMO he walks too slow and runs too fast, at least when I’m trying to move into position to interact with stuff. Maybe there’s a option in the menu that will smooth that out for me. I’m also not thrilled there are plants I can harvest every 15 feet in every direction because I have a compulsion to collect them all even though I detest alchemy and crafting in games. If a shopkeep doesn’t sell it or it doesn’t fall out of a monster when I kill them, I don’t have time for it. Beyond that I haven’t really played enough of the game to render an opinion, so I’ll give it a few more hours before I make up my mind.
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Being ADHD myself, and having g gone for LONG periods without sleep, even after taking meds while sleep deprived, the brain can be a bit goofy and something like a MuppetMaxima really might not be much of a surprise, although not a hallucination, the pattern would be similar enough that the brain would sort of recognize it, but the conscious mind might reasonably consider the oddity of the situation to be a possible misinterpretation of reality.
Thus, the conscious mind could shunt the visual data assure and respond as if the item in question, responding and vaguely appearing as a known item or authority figure, were indeed that said item or authority figure.
And, sometimes, though rare, the mind of someone with ADHD can, when sleep deprived, respond and interpretate reality with an astounding amount of clarity and intelligence.
However; this is only my experience, and your mileage may vary.
Sounds about right
Well, that is my expeirience as well.
yep, this is me
Sleep deprived, AKA Tired-Random Daniel the Human can tend to have interestingly different logic from when he’s had a decent recharge cycle. Even more bad jokes, of worse quality, being generally a bit more “loopy”, so on. He can be a bit more fun like that, until I destroy something he really liked…
I had similar experiences the time I stayed up for an entire week. ADHD and sleep deprivation combine in odd ways.
A bit like when I don’t sleep for 2 days and see the shadows creeping in my peripheral vision.
Question: where exactly where Dabbles and Gwen hiding? That partition doesn’t seem big enough to hide the pair of them, certainly not Dabbles (unless they were lying down, on the grubby restaurant floor! O_O)
Dabbler and Gwen both have to work with super-SWAT soldiers, so will have been put through enough training that they will no longer be reluctant to hit the dirt, when it is needed. And it was needed. There was a bet riding on it!
It’s a waist high wall. They were just ducking down. Maybe sitting but you’re right, I’m not sure I’d want to sit anywhere on the floor in a restaurant.
With a high enough sneak skill this would be possible and what I do in Skyrim while wearing dragonbone armor with twin chain lightning spells that cost only 8 magicka. I get the job done quick as I do not need to worry about anything besides another spell user. I have played witcher 3 and I like the game, as I have played and liked witcher 2 assassin of kings. I have found that there are points that tick me off when I go to an area where I am level 2 and I have to deal with level 10s or 12s. I recommend the special edition of skyrim that is coming out. It will allow mods on the consoles supposedly. I am ready for the same quests and I do not care. I have had the game since 11/11/11 at the midnight release, and I can say this th certainty. Where is the dragon!?
I build some weapons for that, double spelled weapons all the way around, all of them starting with a shock spell that demobilizes what ever you hit, good ole Parallelization, with a high damage spell thrown in as the secondary damage, so you take a hefty hit then you can’t move.
“With a high enough sneak skill”
That reminds me of an AD&D game that I ran at or shortly after uni; one player got most indignant when I explained that his assassin PC would face heavy penalties to their ‘Move Silently’ score when trying to pass through an area covered with [still-growing] dry bracken…
^_^
While Skyreim Remastered will bring mods to the console, not everything that’s possible for PC will be possible for consoles.
Sneaking was never my favourite skill to level, So I often lost patience with it very fast. Most of the time, I simply play a battlemage with destruction and One handed weapons. And enchanting of course, why miss out on a fix to my weak stats or a boost to my strong ones.
If I remember correctly, there’s this one bandit fort on a river, with a cave under it that you can swim into. If you go upstream and make a fuss, the bandits can see you but not get to you that quickly (or at all.) So it is a very nice pkace to grind your sneak and/or conjuration skills, as they require enemies nearby to gain exp. Just summon a sword, duck until the bandits get bored, and repeat.
Sneak should never be ground. I mean have you ever heard a mortar and pestle in use? Not quiet.
Seriously though, you should never bother grinding sneak. Just leave it on while you walk around and it levels on its own.
I agree. I just got destruction to 77 on my current caracter, smithing 100, enchanting 99, and yeah that is it. I am on my way to fight alduin again. There is a couple achievements I have left to get. Namely return the thieves guild to is former glory. I am now wearing deathbrand armor as I had to do some diving and needed to move very guickly. This is going to get very crazy. And yes the mods will not be as great on console as on pc, but there are only certain ones I want, namely adding certain weapons and followers. I am not a person who cares about nude mods and the like. I want a new katana or an awesome suit of armor. Th vanilla skyrim is great and all, but I want to be able to customize armor and have a use for a danged latern.
Mods eh?
*prizes up the horizon and peers at the inter workings*
Ooh, some interesting variables here!
*tweaks a few*
• Red sky in the morning set to delightful.
• Number of bows per rainbow doubled.
• Pot of gold size, per rainbow’s end doubled.
Well, at least alduin got killed pretty quickly, although I feel bad. He did not even hurt me. Oh well here’s to hoping for a mod that can increase difficulty beyond legendary, and this coming from a person who has played and beat dark souls 2 up to play through 4 offline without summoning a phantom.
I am now seriously wondering what other side effects Halo has seen while on new medications…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ky3Ordfqn88
I have an idea for you, I mean for an illusionist Villain. Actually the guy is more an antihero than a villain, you might even consider him to be a vigilante rather a true villain. His name is Doppler. it’s actually short for his power, or ability. Doppelgänger when his power is active people breathing in the scent he releases see him as their best friend, a lost lover, or a loved one, everyone sees him has a slightly different person. He is the face in the crowd you recognize, but not always someone you know. A memory or a moment of duality. All caused by a simple scent. While his powers are an illusion it is the fact you’ve smelled the scent he releases which causes the problem. So once you’ve smelled him he becomes everyone and at the same time nobody at all. In actuality he is a paid spy working for the highest bidder, but always for a good cause. He has his own agenda and will do anything to get what he needs to complete that agenda. If you want a bit more for possible use let me know.
There will be no vigilante’s in this universe: you either work as an accredited member of law enforcement or you sit at home in your multi-billion dollar mansion and be bored, otherwise you will get taken down
Ideally, sure, but what about the Marble Maiden?
She is being investigated and tracked
Although she has gneiss intentions, if she is caught being a public hazard she will be in deep schist.
I’m not sure that’s so. The only limitation is supers can’t break the law. Intervening to defend someone who’s being attacked is not illegal, if it’s done in a responsible manner, and neither is taking frequent nightly walks in crime-ridden neighbourhoods. Vigilantism is going to be very impractical, and perhaps not very effective unless your power set is well-adjusted to the task (someone who can jam guns will be a lot better of than someone who shoots fire), but it’s hardly an impossibility.
If you take your “walks” down dark streets too frequently Archon will start building a file on you and investigating. After all, the police will notice if all the serial rapists in a bad neighborhood start ending up in the hospital. Once Archon identifies you, as long as you aren’t costuming up, they’ll probably give you a friendly warning to start walking in nicer neighborhoods. If you keep it up they’ll arrest you and charge you with vigilanteism. So no, there won’t be any vigilantes, or at least none that last long.
And, if you happen to live in that neighborhood? They’ll ban you from taking walks?
I was not aware vigilantism is a crime in itself, I rather thought the various reckless behaviors involved make such activities borderline impossible to perform in a legal manner, not to mention a real-life individual will see little success. Being superpowered grants you no exception from the relevant laws, they’ve been clear about that, but the sheer practical benefits of the right powers could mean those laws aren’t applicable in the first place.
Daniel here. I have an OC (Original Character) who by day is a team of computer programmers specializing in motion capture, by night a vigilante who works all over Perth, Western Australia, & at all times a super-hacker who Anonymous look up to. He achieves all this by basically being a T-1000 style blob of living organic steel who can literally plug into the net…
Hack the street-cam system (no back doors, don’t want the wrong people in there), monitor for trouble nearby, erase his vehicle from sight in real time, “Freakshow” delivers a few metallic punches, escape quick smart, Cops find another GoPro from that stolen shipment X months ago (that he “acquired” after busting the crooks) showing what the now tied up crooks did. Leon would bee keeping an eye out for an Email with a video of how “JackNHack” got through their security (“sped up as usual”) along with a few tips on strengthening it…
Main thing is, he’s got the skills & genetic talent to play vigilante & get away with it, then start working on ARCSWAT’s motion capture work for the 3D online promotional material with them the next day. And if he ever DID face off with ARCSWAT, his intense fear of getting thrown into another lab means things will get intense…
See the trouble with if this was done in the real world (which is where Grrl Power is set, albeit with super powers added) is that the villains would not even get charged. There is nothing to tie them to any crime. Some super has contaminated the evidence, and interfered with the crime scene.
So even if the villains were up to criminal activity, they can, for example, claim that it was the now absent super who did it, and they were kidnapped and illegally imprisoned at the scene by the same. With no one to testify to the contrary, there is an abundance of doubt as to their guilt, and they must walk free.
The ‘video evidence’ has nobody to testify as to its validity, so lacks credibility. Plus most jurisdictions do not allow secret recordings to be admissible in evidence. This is why shops which use CCTV have signs up, so that their recordings can be used in court. Vigilante recordings do not have this, nor the consent of the villains to be filmed. So it would be thrown out.
However there will be grounds to issue an arrest warrant for the vigilante, because there is both testimony, and proof, of assault and illegal imprisonment, amongst other crimes
Daniel again…
Hmmm, well considering he’d see that happening a few times (he controls individual cells, so splitting up is no problem, watch the bust “in person”), he’d work something out, most likely a live feed directly to a selected officer of what’s going on, for witness purposes. Sure, they’d trace the feed, but when you can turn part of yourself into a brain which, instead of keeping a body running basically becomes a supercomputer (the human brain is insanely powerful, even that of an idiot!), he just rigs the feed to “start” at the crooks mobile or something like that. “JackNHack” (online persona) could even redirect their trace in real time…
I know in Australia being caught on camera in public is legal footage. Haven’t worked out all the details, but he’d do as much as possible to make it all legit. If it comes down to it, he could always just shift into “form X” for “Freakshow”, noone ever sees “JackNHack” in person, then back to “Jack” once done & clear…
I do know he’d go full public figure & work closely with the cops private investigator/bounty hunter style if it wasn’t for the fact he & his Mother had been captured by a Mad Scientist a while ago (the reason Jack’s MOTHER retied from superhero work) who then started redoing the tests he did when he’d caught Jack’s Mother before on both of them. It was several agonizing hours before Jack could get enough of his biomass in place to break out, a mix of panic, anger, fear & attacking genetic mutations causing things to get VERY messy…
If you thought Sydney was afraid of being vivisected, Jack’s easily off the chart, yet knows people like the Mad Scientist need to be stopped & he did have his Mother’s legacy nagging in the back of his mind…
…When she eventually told him…
“…Wait, HOW MANY Lady Electrics has there been?!?!?”
See this is the problem though. Vigilantes think that if they get it wrong they can just try again, and keep working on perfecting their system. Trouble is that the real world does not allow re-dos. Crimes will be being committed and people will be being harmed, in the meanwhile.
WIDOW: (in court) Well I can only tell you what my husband said, as he was dying, I was not there at the time. But he told me that they were attacked without warning. Here you can see the notes he had to write, as speaking was almost impossible for him by that stage!
He was an ex-cop, so he instinctively tried to defend himself, but who can stand up to attack by a super-human?
He lay there, tied up, with the rest of the security consultancy team, with his lungs gradually filling with blood. That is why he had to leave the police force, you see, because they found he had suffered so much injury to his lungs, that any blow could cause him to slowly die.
I barely got to speak to him for twenty minutes, before *sob* he passed away. Neither of our daughters or our son got to say goodbye. And why? He was just doing his job as a security consultant! The police had been fully informed about the testing. Then this murderous vigilante comes out of nowhere and murders him!
Where I live the police and public figures are not allowed to video tape you without notification like at least a sign, but if the police recieve an anonymous video clearly showing you committing a crime they can arrest you for it. Without witness testimony the attorney will likely plea bargain for less punishment, but you can still be put in jail for your crime plus whatever the police find when they execute a search warrant.
A warrant to search your house, car, etc. for evidence of your crimes I mean.
Deliberately walking in a known crime-spot to ‘flush out’ potential criminals would have you locked up on the grounds of enticement and entrapment
I don’t think so. Those are usually only applicable to police, not private citizens, at least where I live. Vigilantism actually is a listed crime here though.
What about he citizen arrest laws in the United States, those were specifically created with the idea of Vigilantism in the first place.
Allow me to clarify your statement, to correct it. Such laws were created in order to curtail vigilantism, not to propagate it. The US was notable for having a protracted period of violent vigilantism, typified by dispensing punishments at the mob’s whim, very often resorting to hanging. Resulting in a great many miscarriages of justice.
Citizens arrest laws were shaped with the intent of avoiding this kind of behaviour. Instead allowing the victims of crimes a means to bring the accused to legal trial. Such laws prescribe the circumstances in which it is appropriate for a citizen to make such an arrest. And give a framework as to what reasonable force may be used to detain the perpetrator.
An integral part of the process being that the person making the arrest is responsible for the safety of the accused person, and is held accountable, if that is abused. Likewise the arresting citizen is required to testify as to the circumstances of the arrest and justify that it was done under legal circumstances.
Vigilantes do not do this, because, by definition, they are acting outside of the law.
In particular, as regards masked super-powered vigilantes, they often use torture to obtain ‘confessions’. If Batman was dangling you from your foot, with a three story drop below, would’t you confess to anything, to spare your life? Likewise the degree of force used is often disproportionate to the circumstances. For instance, you often see ‘heroes’ depicted killing villains, for totally unwarranted reasons.
Further they do not supervise any detained accused, in order to ensure that they are not in need of attention. Be that the simple necessity of conducting bodily functions or the life-threatening possibility of needing medical care.
Finally they do not testify as to the circumstances of the arrest, nor their role in it. They are not able to pretend to use citizens arrest laws. They are not abiding by them!
No, during the press conference, they specifically said that having powers and using them was not illegal, but vigilantism was regardless of if you are powered or not (and then they had an image of Cat-man with a gun to his head and scary-looking silhouettes of Sydney and Maxi behind him)
Specifically, vigilantism is “just as illegal” for supers as for regulars. None of what I described would be particularly illegal, I think. Of course, a regular human would see little success with such activities, and it would only be a matter of time before they slip up and hurt someone, get themselves hospitalized or otherwise do something actually illegal. A super, while not having any immunity to the law, could avoid getting in trouble with the law in the first place if they have the right powers.
Your statements are true in principle, but would be flawed in practice. Simply because if an individual chose to live a ‘vigilante lifestyle’, even attempting to behave in a lawful manner whilst doing so, they would face tricky situations on a regular basis. Sooner or later they will make a bad judgement call.
Additionally most people are unfamiliar with the wealth of laws, in any jurisdiction, which constrain and prescribe what is permissible in law-enforcement type situations. So good powerset or not, are likely to behave inappropriately.
In a real-world environment any power would need proper assessment of the scope of their power and training in its use in a wide variety of law-enforcement situations. Rank amateurs have no experience of the kinds of situations that can arise to even start building a credible and effective training program.
Take your gun-jamming example. Activate that to prevent a mugging. Not realizing that you are also disabling the weapons of the cops dealing with a drugs bust in the apartment opposite. When the bust goes bad, several die, because of being unable to use their weapons. Immediately the vigilante villain has a case to answer for negligent manslaughter!
The administration in this universe, via Archon’s press conference, have announced a zero-tolerance for such behaviour. Accommodations will not be made for people who choose not to get the training on offer by being a member of Archon, yet continually put themselves into situations which they are untrained to cope with.
Make a mistake and they get a maximum sentence, not a minimum one or dispensation for ‘good intentions’. They are putting the general public at risk unnecessarily and will get punished for doing so!
Oh indeed, vigilantism would require extensive law study, powers that let you account for stray bullets, hidden knives and gunshots from freaked-out muggers, police hearings for every last incident, and a damn good way of justifying to yourself why you don’t join Archon, where you’d be far more effective. Even then, most will slip up eventually. In the long run, I can’t imagine more than a handful pulling it off in the west.
(On a side note, the gun-jamming example isn’t a very good one, since that sort of backfire is just as likely if you’re using your powers to heat soup)
One thing one might point out is that not everyone lives in the US. Regions with less reliable law enforcement, less government resources to allocate to arc-like agencies and more crime may see significantly higher rates of vigilantism.
For a start, they never said they had to join Archon, just an official law-enforcement agency or even the regular military
Also, they don’t care about what happens in other countries, Archon is exclusively for the US (probably don’t even have jurisdiction or influence in or over Canada)
You want to be a vigilante in Cantpronounceistan? Go right ahead, Maxi won’t care, as long as you don’t go to the US and continue your activities
Guess should have specified no vigilantism within Archon’s jurisdiction
Warming the neighbour’s soup seems less likely to cause death than stopping police officers weapons from functioning. But I concede that it could definitely lead to scolded tongues, if already hot to start with!
:-)
The reason why it is particularly important to have such a law in the US is because it is the heart of the Super-hero entertainment culture. And, to be frank, Americans tend to be somewhat more susceptible to emulating what they see in Hollywood.
The UK has seen a couple of instances of good Samaritans putting on outfits, when doing good deeds. But nothing which approaches vigilante behaviour. Although there are a few who choose to do the same when conducting civil protests, which is more irritating, if caught up in it.
But Dave can certainly explore what might happen in other countries, who choose to follow a different path to Archon’s. I doubt many will encourage citizens to set up private hero groups and dispensing ‘justice’ at their own whim though!
Stand-your-ground is a vigilante’s dream come true, these laws already exist in many places in the U.S.
Only if you can prove they came at you and not the other way around. The criminal and his buddies (because most street level criminals work in groups) will say you attacked them unless they’re dead, and if you rack up many kills at all the police get mighty suspicious.
Then wear a camera or three. Making sure the facts are reported correctly is the least of your concerns in this case.
That sounds a lot like one of the aliens from Stargate:SG1.
The point though is you do have individuals like the Marble Maiden out there at this point who are in essence Vigilantes and they are being dealt with. Doppler would be such an individual who until he is actually identified would be such an individual. The question I pose with the character is a simple one. How do you deal with someone who in essence because of his power looks like someone else and he looks like someone else because you create his identity with your imagination after catching a scent of him. His power isn’t exactly an illusion, but at the same time your perception of him is an illusion. Would the power Sydney has with the clear sight orb even work in a case like this? Now sure per the rules of the world in question he is a villain because he’s taking the law into his own hands, but what motivates him to do so, and why has he chosen to? Vigilantes aren’t allowed, and shouldn’t be, however at the same time you do have laws in place in our own society for things like Citizen’s Arrest which propagate the idea of Vigilantism. So if he is a citizen perform a citizen’s Arrest, which is technically what the Marble Maiden has been doing when you get right down to it, does it fall into a grey area? In the case of Doppler though their is no grey area. Something happened in his own past which to a point has forced him to take revenge because he was getting no assistance from regular law enforcement. Doppler is a case of someone turning true vigilante in order to set things right for one reason or another. In his case the officers he wanted help from were themselves part of the criminal enterprise which included his own attempted murder. To someone like this in his particular case what would ARC do? Dirty cops, a man taking vengeance into his own hands, and people trying outright to murder a super who has been hiding the fact he has powers until this moment. Now you say their not allowed, but obviously even if they aren’t things will happen which can and will bring them out anyway. You may not want them but they are still there. Some, especially in a situation like this would have a good reason for being there. So, in a way I’m challenging DaveB to see if he wants to take this on and see what he would come up with. I firmly believe he’s up to it or I wouldn’t even consider it. This type of situation would test the boundaries of his world, that’s true enough, but I would love to see how he would deal with it as the guy in question has gone vigilante for the soul reason of being forced into it, even if he knows about ARC, and the rules set down by Max. With the rules she set down eventually someone has to test them or even be forced to cross that line. How will it be handled?
It is an interesting dilemma, as to how to solve the super aspects of the situation, so that makes a good challenge to throw. Which, of course would be up to Dave to respond to.
As to the morals of it though, that can be challenged by anyone. One of the great things about this setting is that Dave has not introduced any new laws (barring the one requiring that supers wishing to conduct law enforcement do so within Archon). This has been done for the very good reason that the presence of super-powers does not change the legality, morals or ethics of situations. Although it can make it harder to detect abuses, or find means of overcoming criminal activity.
Picking out the most challenging issue in your case, is that of police corruption. If it is endemic, throughout an entire society, then there is a possible justification for vigilantism, if there is absolutely no possibility of legal recourse.
Take for example the routes taken by different countries under Nazi occupation in WWII. Many partisan groups chose to conduct summary executions, and other punishments, for collaborators, or other criminals, not being brought to justice by the occupiers. Whereas others would convene secret trials.
When the accused had little or no means to argue their innocence, this amounted to no more than a kangaroo court, and still firmly remains vigilantism. However others made made efforts to try and avoid false accusations, and miscarriages of justice, by emulating genuine trials, as closely as the circumstances permitted. Most importantly ensuring that the accused was given fair opportunity to mount a defence and, if found not-guilty, the individual was set free.
In some cases going so far as to set up shadow governments, complete with their own legal system and courts! This is showing how vigilantism can be avoided, in even the most dire of tyrannical regimes!
Yet the USA has many many means of redress for abuses by cops. It is nowhere near being able to compare them to any of the very much more corrupt regimes, both present in the world today, and in historical examples. Especially in the context of the comic, where Archon has been set up, to provide even more protection than before. There is no excuse for taking the law into your own hands, when there are legitimate means to challenge and correct abuse of power.
Vigilantes invariably perpetrate far more injustices than they remedy. They feel that they are accountable to nobody but themselves, and can ignore the laws of the land, that everybody else agrees to abide by. They have no moral justification for this.
Mostly you are totally correct in this, In or around 1980 Miami specifically had a serious situation with crooked cops. One incident, which I actually found reference to was the Miami River cops case, in which members of a drug task force murdered drug traffickers and stole then sold the drugs they confiscated. Another, which I can’t locate dealt with an actual hit-man situation in which officers of Homicide in Miami were running a hit squad for the mob. They would commit the murders, then get themselves assigned to the case and put away innocent individuals for their murders. This secondary situation I can’t find reference to, but I remember it because I found it highly interesting at the time and things on it were silenced rather quickly after the initial reports. Miami specifically has one of the highest cop corruption histories in the entire country when you actually do a through search on the subject. Its one of the reasons I came up with the idea in the first place. Even if the Character Doppler isn’t used I would love to see a situation like this used on Grrl Power because of the close parallel to reality and the curiosity I hold to see how Dave would handle it since such things have and may well will happen again. In the hit-man scandal I mentioned their was something around 45 or so individuals put on death row who were totally innocent of the murders they were put into prison and on death row for because the investigating officers were the real murderers. I will admit my numbers may well be off by no small amount but the fact was that the police in the Homicide division were almost all the committers of the crimes they were investigating, or a large portion of them and they were simply shifting the blame to people who were totally innocent of the crimes in the first place. Now throw in super powered individuals, some may even be cops able to do things like create false memories in witnesses and such and you could have a highly interesting situation for ARC to come across. Especially if the crooked cops have been hiding the fact that their supers and using their powers in a very “naughty” way.
That was just mean. Funny, but still mean.
Max should be more on the ball about puzzling comments from the team. It’s one of the signals that they’re under attack from hostile supers.
Maybe, but we are talking about Sydney here…
Max: What?
Sydney: Wait. Duh. Super-speed. Dumb question.
Max: Um, Scoville, where exactly did you see me before?
Sydney: Over by the ladies’ room.
Max: I haven’t been over there. Hmm, I wonder where Dabbler got off to? Did you see Dabbler or Gwen over by the washroom?
Sydney: No. Why?
Max: Never mind. Just finish your meal. We have a meeting to get to. What are those orange and red pieces in your salad? Peppers?
Sydney: Scotch bonnet peppers! I asked for ghost peppers, but they don’t have any.
Max: And the dressing?
Sydney: French dressing mixed with their super-suicide wing sauce (still kinda weak though).
Max: Would you mind giving some of your salad to Dabbler when she comes back.
Sydney: Okay. Sure. Wait. What’s up?
Max: I just want to conduct a little experiment.
*Dabbler comes back, sits at table eats bite of her salad. Chews for a few seconds, then drops fork*
Dabber:GASP! Oh, no! I… I can’t breathe!
*swoons delicately to the floor, face flushed, chest heaving*
Dabbler: Quickly… I need… mouth-to-mouth… please… *loosens thread on halter top*
Maxima: *sigh* Dabbler, knock it off.
Dabbler: *pouts* Not even a chest massage? I could be having a heart attack…
Maxima: DABBLER!
*Dabbler sits back in chair*
Dabbler: I repeat, this box social sucks.
Maxima: rrrrr…
Dabbler: Well, it’s not MY fault demons don’t have the same reaction to capsaicin you humans do.
*smiles sweetly at Maxima* Sorry to disappoint you…
Aww.
I am just surprised that it wasn’t a real puppet muppet Maxima. Also, a little saddened to learn that Dabbler does not just have one of those readily available. I mean, muppet illusion is all well and good, and provides more options, but still. No muppet Maxima makes me a sad panda.
“I have a compulsion to collect them all”
Somewhere, Arianna is asking to borrow Deus’s remote.
I wonder if Dabbler figured out that she would be expecting hallucinations…
I was expecting the prank. Totally saw that coming. I’m with Gwen though, I figured Sydney was going to start some shenanigans. Or at the very least grab the truesight ball and bust the prank.
That shadow in the last panel… HAHAH!
That… is an unfortunate shadow (please don’t change it!!)
I find it quite possible that Dabbler have some magic that makes shadows look naughty.
As to illusions, in a Scion game one time, I had a child of Loki use shapeshifting to look like one NPC, illusions to look like a second and physical clothing/disguise to make it look like I was trying to avoid being spotted. One of the NPCs I was impersonating had a day-job as a Hollywood celebrity, so I went to find some paparazzi and proceeded to behave badly (and had another actor try to rescue his co-star.) The idea I had was to get one person thinking the other was trying to besmirch their public face….in a game where stories told about you shape your power and destiny, that’s a decent level threat.
Given that the senses for seeing through shapeshifting and illusions are separate, it was even better.
Illusions can be deadly when done correctly in the right circumstances. Except for OP’s like Maxima. They just have to worry about being tricked into killing innocents or team members.
And regarding the whole law vs. powers thing… That’s a really big can of worms. Is somebody with acute senses standing across the street and listening in to you discussing a plot to shoot the President in your house an admissible witness in court? Or does it fall under bugging a house without a warrant? Can you be charged with reckless endangerment if a bullet ricochets off you and hits a bystander? How far can a telepath go to get information and not run afoul of the Law himself? How do people who can fly coordinate with the FAA to avoid accidents with aircraft?
It falls into the category of bugging without a warrant. Humanity should not be required to change their expectations of what can reasonably be done, to accommodate the existence of each super power. They are too rare, for it to be reasonable to expect seven billion people to adjust their behaviour to allow for such.
If the conversation is being conducted under circumstances, such as you described, where nobody could normally overhear the conversation, then a court order should be sought to spy on them, in the normal manner.
An exception would be if the super was not in the employ of a government body, and could demonstrate that they heard the conversation purely by chance, whilst going about their normal daily life. This could be seen to be analogous of someone jumping over the garden fence, to retrieve a lost ball, and happening to overhear the same conversation.
Of course, in any country which had privacy laws, there would be discussions about whether supers with such senses should be required to wear sound-muffling headphones, to reduce their hearing to the normal range, whilst in areas where privacy would be expected. I am not aware of any existing US law that could be used to argue this principle though.
* Edited to remove ambiguity, in order to make your intention clear that it is where the plotting is occurring.
If you deliberately provoked someone to shoot at you, knowing this to be a likely outcome, yes. If you were shot without your collusion, no.
Nowhere. I would contend that it falls within common law expectation. Nobody, in any society, would consider it acceptable to have their thoughts spied upon. There need not be any written law for this to be found illegal, by any Judge. The first judge to make a ruling of such, would then set a case law precedent.
Such a landmark ruling, on an issue which would likely be hugely worrying to society, would likely be fast-tracked to appeal, at the highest court in the land, to ensure that the ruling carries the maximum possible weight of law. If it were to fail, for reasons I cannot fathom, I am sure legislation would be enacted with great urgency. Government having more to loose than private individuals, in this question.
By complying with all relevant laws. For instance getting trained, and acquiring a licence to fly. Then having themselves certified as being physically airworthy and capable of carrying the radio and other equipment that may be deemed necessary to comply with legislation. Such as flashing lights for night time flying.
Note that Halo is already affected by this. She has greater freedom than a civilian though, as the military are exempt of many requirements of international aviation laws.
Maxima will have filed a flight plan, in advance, however, as this flight will clearly have intruded on many civilian flight paths. But the fact that they were flying at such low altitudes, means that they could do without risk of interfering with, say, airline traffic from JFK to Houston.
*fondly remembers flying that route several times before*
Man, why don’t they let you stick your head out the window? Don’t they know that is half the fun of travelling! Next time I shall have to fly lower, so I can see if there are any supers flying around, doing interesting things.
Generally I go by the “play the shorter game first” so I’d recommend playing Undertale before Witcher 3. My brother’s played both and he likes them both but has told me he’s gotten to the point in Witcher where he’s more interested in the card game than the story.
Cardgame, you say? *Interest Piqued*
Bit late to the party on this but I feel you’ve overlooked a little something regarding the meat for heat swap in Sydney’s diet. Extreme challenge meals are marketed as a manliness test, essentially, so they tend not to use ingredients that buff meat-eaters might consider wimpy. In other words, no greens and no tofu but definitely large amounts of meat.
In the context of the chinese fusion place, it makes sense, especially as peppers were, historically, a poor person’s (read: vegitarian’s) added excitement and nutrition in their culture’s cooking.
On a broader scale, however, anything above regular Habanero level seems a tad unlikely to be available enough to her to be a diet choice, making me a little curious as to how she built up such a weapons grade tolerance.
Also, while the supposed tradeoff between heat and flavour is generally a misconception based around the fact that you’re unlikely to get much of the latter if you go too far over your own tolerance, there does come a point when you can’t hide the chemical taste of extracts.
That said, Ghost Peppers are genuinely delicious though, as is the Reaper if you can overcome its sourness with enough sugar. Scorpion peppers aren’t generally to my taste but their harsh, abrassive, almost orangey flavour certainly goes well in some things (brownies for example).
Knowing that it’s all natural, I’d definitely be down to try her pasta.
Sydney’s name is Scoville. You will probably find she cultivated a plot in her parent’s garden stuffed full of ghost peppers and other delights. And bulk orders capsaicin, as her table condiment of choice.
We see in her second in-panel meal that the thought of “pure” cap excites her but her first seems to suggest that she’s still into sauces. I doubt capsaicin is her condiment of choice but we all know she’ll be using sauces with a good deal of capsaicin in.
If we all did what our last names suggested I’d be buiding the next stone henge though so I really doubt we can just assume her family have been chilli lovers all the way back to Wilbur.
I Yorp.
I think she lives next to an authenic indian place, hindu are vegetarian, so I’m pretty sure thats where she eats. There are, or were, a few very hot veg places in mid-Nebraska so i cant see there not being a better aelection where people actually live.
You know you can just buy spicy ingredients at stores and cook your own food, right?
I make my own Phaals, Ghost Kormas (because I genuinely enjoy the Korma taste) and Reaper chocolates whenever I can convince my family to put up with my presence in the kitchen. I know you can cook your own but I definitely get the impression that she’s used to eating this kind of thing out and about.
I was just thinking: Sydney isn’t stupid, she’s going to figure out something is going on.
I can see it now –
Sydney, Pixel and Max are back at the table.
Sydney: Hey, where are the Bobbsey twins?
Pixel: They said they were going to the washroom to check on you. Didn’t you see them?
Sydney: Hmmm… Hey Max can you help me out on something?
Then later on the trip back with Gwen, Dabbler and Pixel in Sydney’s bubble.
Max: BTW Gwen, did Dabble teach you that “feather fall” spell?
Gwen: Yeah.
Max Are you any good at it?
Gwen: Yeah.
Sydney’s shield goes “pop” and Max swoops in to grab Pixel.
Dabbler & Gwen: SHI
I
I
I
I
t
t
t
.
.
.
Yes, she’s not stupid, but she is running on the memory of fumes
One comment on the current location. Due to the lack of other customers, it looks like Archon has managed to rent out an entire restaurant, in downtown New York, in prime evening hours. What is their budget for this kind of thing? The restaurant must have charged them a bundle to close for the meeting, especially after learning of Archon’s previous track record with restaurants.
They may be going going for the celebrity clientele status bump. They will need to put up a signed photo of the whole group near the entrance, and probably add new items to the menu. The ‘Maxi-buger’, covered in edible gold-leaf. A drink called Dabbler’s love potion number 9. They will probably create a plate of seven meatballs served on a spinning platter named after Halo, but when she finds out about it she will make them change it to tofu.
Who said it was closed except for them? We have seen one shot of their table, then the restroom, then the outside of the restroom
I think Dave mentioned somewhere that the room was booked for a private function. It isn’t in any of the blogs since they came in though, so I guess either I was imagining it, or it was in response to a comment.
Either way, if an ‘A-list’ celebrity turns up to a shop, they will often voluntarily clear the store. To ensure that they do not get bugged for autographs, or bothered by paparazzi. Likewise a restaurant will often happily clear an evening’s bookings. They will more than make it up by being fully booked for the next three years, by being known as a celebrity hang-out. In this case they have not one but three such celebrities.
If Arianna made the booking, the restaurant will be paying Archon!
A favorite tactic in early American business was to post a sign at a tavern or inn stating
“George Washington slept here”. Some places might try to update that theme by posting “Dabbler slept here” signs, but I think they would run out of signs.
yeah, key words there being “The ROOM” (not Restaurant) and… “in New York City”… i’m sure if they are at a (seemingly) high-enough class restaurant, that there are various sectioned off rooms that can be rented out for various sized private functions that will still allow the “general access” portion of the restaurant to stay open to the paying public, it only makes good business sense to do so… Heck, if i can go into a DENNY’S and get the back room closed off for a private, invite-only party… I’m sure that fancy-shmancy places like where they’re at right now will surely have them…
Guys, it’s been a lot of years, but… The ritzier restaurants in New York USED to have rooms specifically intended for private functions (unless they were in use by reservation they usually set empty; occasionally they got used if the restaurant was full to overflow). Some of them even had separate entrances on a different street (if you didn’t know what that anonymous door was, you had no idea it went into the restaurant on the other side of the block).
It kinda makes sense that Dabbler would be good with muppets and marionettes.
Since she quadri-dextrous she can do two puppets at the same time.
Word choice, Juan, word choice…
You can play Skyrim in first person?
fus.
roh.
Duh?
:}
Please tell me that a Muppet Max Plushie is in the works!
yes, please yes, if i ever get enough money to be able to afford food AND rent, I’d gladly patreon for a chance at a plushiemaximuppet!
I can’t wait until they get the gas-lighting is a dick move lecture.
gas-lighting dick is a lecture move
Dick lectures on gas-lightning in a movie
dick is a gas-lightning lecture move
*throws fore-paws in the air*
Nope, I give up.
I think that Satisfied Zombie Cat (Schrödinger reference there?) means that the lecture is delivering the message that “gas-lighting [aka making someone think they’re crazy when they’re not] is a dick move [something done only by jerks or very unpleasant people]”.
Wow, that is a real term. My being unaware of that, and having misread the spelling, meant I was having visions of marsh-lights and willow-the-wisps. Thanks, it makes sense now.
*wags tail, in the sane direction*
Not really, it’s more a reference the second half to Curiosity killed the cat. Which is: Satisfaction brought it back. On the other stuff you’re right on the money though.
Woof woof woof!
So just wondering, had actually been halusinating aka her own brain creating them not an outside influence would her true sight be able to see through her own halusinating or not?
I think it may be able to, given that the Fly-ball grants immunity to vertigo. This indicates that the orb-builders are aware of brain neurology, similar enough to humans, that the orbs will compensate for human mental frailties Thus ensuring that the orbs can function as intended, despite such flaws in the operator.
Of course, it is not automatic that one will follow the other. Finally it is also possible that whilst the vertigo-protection option has been unlocked on the Fly Ball, the delusion/brain damage-protection one, on the True Sight Orb, has not yet been picked.
I would recommend the word “fetch” rather than “fetish” in your rant. Since we’re talking about Dabbler, here, many brains (my own included) go in the wrong direction.
Oh my God that was so mean of them but also so hilarious! And I honestly didn’t notice the puppet control sticks until after the reveal! XD
Hey, third person has a purpose in Skyrim. It’s useful for navigating ledges, fighting while surrounded, and admiring your lovingly crafted equipment.