Grrl Power #121 – The Talk. Well, a talk.
Sydney’s obviously a little hyped up with her recent conquest. She’s got the sass.
The little mini comics at the bottom aren’t necessarily canon but in this case they’re basically what happened between panels 8 and 9, because I’m unable to edit myself and want to do a single page with 17 panels on it. :/
Next week I’m not planning on having a regular comic, as most people will be on break and not up to their usual routines. Personally I’m looking for even more things to entertain me online over the Xmas holiday but there it is. I will have a guest piece up so be sure to check in at least once, and I will be hauling my gear home to my parents and drawing – I really need to build at least a one comic buffer so I don’t have to put up a comic in pieces like with #120 if ever a con rolls through town or heck, if I lose power over the weekend or something.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
I can just see the last panel as wallpaper.
that’s it explain it in easy to understand terms
Trying to get through to Sydney is like trying to convience a five year old who just ate a bag of sugar to sit still.
I think Max managed it extremely well.
on second thoughts, panel 10 gives the impression that spiderman broke her neck in a fit of anger (which based on Sydney’s habit of lashing out when surprised or angry, might be what Max is trying to explain, the consequence of her actions).
how ever the Wikipedia it says The Green Goblin abducts Parker’s girlfriend, Gwen Stacy, and lures Spider-Man to a tower of either the Brooklyn Bridge (as depicted in the art) or the George Washington Bridge (as given in the text). The Goblin and Spider-Man clash, and the Goblin hurls Stacy off the bridge. Spider-Man shoots a web strand at her legs and catches her. As he pulls her up, he thinks he has saved her. However, he quickly realizes she is dead. Unsure whether the whiplash from her sudden stop broke her neck or if the Goblin had broken it previously, he blames himself for her death.
A note on the letters page of The Amazing Spider-Man #125 states: “It saddens us to say that the whiplash effect she underwent when Spidey’s webbing stopped her so suddenly was, in fact, what killed her.”
so what is Max trying to tell her, if she doesn’t use her powers someone could get hurt or even die and if she uses her powers someone could get hurt or even die, sounds like someone could get hurt no matter what Sydney does.
I think the Spiderman example remains a good one for Sydney because we can assume without doubt that she’s read the original issue, so she knows the context you found on Wikipedia already (and could possibly have the text memorized, even).
I see your point about using or not using her powers, but I don’t agree. Both of your statements are true, but Maxima’s point is that the reckless use of her powers will inevitably cause some kind of damage that Sydney can’t brush off or undo (for example, in panel 4, she brushes off her own destructive actions by saying “that guy totally deserved that.”) I don’t think she’s trying to explain to Sydney that acting or not acting in the future will hurt people. Maxima is just telling her to stop throwing punches every time someone walks up to her!
Nailed it in one, fellow believer~
Excelsior!
That assumes that one of the remaining two orbs does not have at least limited time travel capability.
Or healing abilities, perhads advanced enough to reanimatte the recently deceased. However, considering that there’s already a super with such abilities, that may be unlikely. It could also detract from the whole “powers come with responsibilityies and actions have consequences” bit. Plus, one thing that’s very common is that those with the power to heal others are often weak themselves, thus it’s rare to have a healer that can stand on the front lines. Which is odd, you’d think there’d be a healer who could regenerate themselves at equal to or greater than wolverine speed and therefore be able to stand there own as well as heal others at a possibly slower rate. Maybe not having super strength, but greater resistance to fatigue and able to take several bad hits, recoup, then bounce back and keep fighting. Throw in moderate weapons proficiency and you have a formidable Battle-Medic.
I think at this point Max was trying for any connection to responsibility and results of misuse of powers she could make with Sydney
I get the sense that Sydney is less concerned with hurting someone and more concerned with the sobering, formative superhero moment aspect. She’s certainly quick to assault anything that comes into her field of view, but implying she might accidentally set herself up for proper maturity and character development has got to be utterly horrifying for her.
At the current state of things: When Sidney does something, someone gets hurt.
One of the stories that’s told about Gwen Stacy’s death is that no one knows who added the little “SNAP” sound effect to the panel where the webline catches her. It’s a legend, really, in that I have no idea if it’s true or not but it is oft-repeated.
Oh, and by the way if you want to know the correct way to save someone in that situation if you’re Spider-Man, check out the Ultimate version of the story.
Also an issue of “What If?” about Spider-Man’s clone taking Peter’s place as Spider-Man, husband of MJ, and father of May Parker (aka Spider-Girl), having to face that situation again. He saved MJ (since Gwen was already dead in the timeline of the story) or the child I don’t remember for sure, by creating a net below them, not trying to catch them with a line.
Yeah it was Ben Riley/Scarlet Spider who did the net. It was also how MJ figured out that it wasn’t Peter. (The web-net was Ben/Scarlet’s Impact Webbing)
Reilly. Taken from Aunt May’s maiden name.
so my spelling memory’s a bit off, it was almost a decade ago!
Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend, it’s just a pet peeve of mine. Though not so much as the inability of people to spell “Osborn”. I mean a few years back Norman Osborn was in just about every Marvel comic being published and yet people just didn’t seem to be able to spell his name correctly.
People putting “Rouge” instead of “Rogue” bugs me too, but I’ve come to terms with that one.
No big it happens to the best of us, and I’m far from the best ;)
You will notice in the various movies they do the catch correctly for the falling persons.
Replying from the future, Amazing Spider-man 2…I’d swear her head hits the damn floor, even if whiplash wasn’t a thing.
The point is think before you act. Parker knew better but he didn’t act on it. He just reacted in panic and the whiplash affect killed Stacy. Notice in the Spiderman movies he does it the right way.
No wonder Maxima is a colonel.
In a later issue Spider-man is faced with the exact same situation & saves the victim WITHOUT causing a whiplash-related death. I believe Max’s point here is that Sydney needs to learn how to use her abilities in their most effective manner. This will, of course, require learning restraint at some point, as well as the limits of both the Orbs & herself.
Perhaps this is the first step in the journey that leads to the scene on p. 4 (Where Sidney has been promoted to corporal).
I like how you made it so you could see her arm with the coat opened i panel eight. Nice perspective art.
I see that the eyepatch gives Syd some slight evil tendencies. Good thing Max is there to rein her in.
“Connection made!” You go, Max! Show the world that nerds are great allies!
Good on you mate! Planning ahead is great! now if i could just put that in practice myself. Anyways, happy holiday and wotnot!
Who will the guest artist be?
Maby a couple of them just so you could have 3-4 updates in a week. Hint, hint.
I do wonder how Sydney is going to react to actually harming (or even being responsible for the death of) an innocent bystander.
Serious question, mind you.
Last panel.. that face… It is the best of all faces.
It’s pure gold.
Ha! I didn’t even mean to do that.
She’s pretty much going to end up as a villain.
don’t give her ideas, they have all the fun if they can avoid mono-logging
Also if they can avoid jail-time.
occupational hazard
We’re still flashing back to the origin story here. In the present day she’s a valued member of ArcSwat as one of the heavy guns. So at most she’s going to get maybe one or two pages as the villain type.
Bet $5 that she is just messing with them, or at least a little.
I guess Math is asking Harem to kiss it and make it better.
do you think anyone will offer to “kiss it better” if Sydney kneed him instead?
I’m Sure he would ask for one.
Harem?
Who else?
Dabbler of course. Just tell her it’s a Earth custom.
Perhaps. But Dabbler’s exceptionally mixed heritage, physiology AND abilities suggests that any liaison involving her could go in very strange and unexpected directions very very quickly. That much unpredictability in one package may be a major turn-on for some, others may be more than a little intimidated, and still others may be downright turned off..
Math may be a dyed-in-the-wool lech, but we don’t know which way he rolls as regards going outside his own species. Very easy to assume that, as long as it is female and walks semi-upright, he will go for it. But we don’t know that for sure.
having a pulse helps
We know Dabbler’s the Cpt. Jack Harkness of the team. I admit I find the thought of dabbler…Intriguing.
You mean, a semi-immortal creature not-from-this-Earth who can regenerate from a pile of ash?
More along the line of an attractive humanoid with multiple hands to do such INTERESTING things with.
The fact that she’s part succubus helps the chances of this happening. She typically hangs out in attractive forms anyways, natural form included.
Oh yeah, that too (but you forgot “slightly loopy as well” :D)
I like slightly loopy.
Oh, my gosh, thank you. I just wanted Sydney to shut up for one second and listen!! Let Max finish a sentence, for Pete’s sake.
“My hyperactivity gives me an initiative bonus” I’ll have to remember that next time I roll up a character. My current warlock gets terrible initiative, but since he serves the deity Dis Nee he has the ability to summon all manner of noisy objects from a pair of cymbals to the USC Trojan Marching Band when Rule Of Funny applies.
Just call up your endless broom army to clean your enimies bones.
I’m sorry but I have to ask, but is Dis Nee’s mortal enemy Deeze Nutz? Cause that seems like a one sided battle.
Funny, but Dis Nee is Disney corrupted into a god of comedy that demands his followers be funny whenever possible… which means you were just following him…
Following? As in marching in step behind him? Suddenly hearing wicked witch minions.https://www.hark.com/clips/nyzwrgvzfv-wicked-witchs-soldier-march
No, no…no, those were CLEARLY the Palace Guards of King Kandy…
For some reason, I keep hearing that soldier chant as “Oviedo… Orrrlando”. I guess that kind of joke only makes sense if you happen to live near Disney…
Who is also known in the Warner Universe as ‘Rattus Legiticus”, and he will smite all those who use the graven images of his minions without permission.
Sir, you almost made me bust out laughing, which would have been bad considering that I have family visiting and they brought small children and it’s very close to their bedtime. Shame on you for being hilariously funny at inopportune times!
On a slightly less funny note (although hopefully still amusing), there is a family owned locksmith business in a nearby town called Dee’s Keys. I often say that it’s a perfectly good joke ruined by the fact that The family decided to sell keys rather than mixed nuts!
PS: It suddenly occurs to me that I need to work on a punch line for this joke in situations in which it’s being read rather than spoken.
Wow Dave, I have to say you post with amazing consistency for someone with no buffer. Props.
Also, build a buffer. ^_^
You posted twice in one week once, next time, don’t post it, start your buffer stack. And try to get a few more in there. This is one of my weekly sanity fixes.
I think her ADD meds have worn off. While it has been only part of a day most ADD meds only last for 8 hours or less (dependent on metabolism, etc) and if she took them with lunch they are of course gone. And pulling them out in public ALWAYS raises questions whether voiced or not.So yeah less drugs + more stimulation = very ADD Sydney.
For me, the meds (which were admittedly pretty weak) just put me on a rollercoaster. My eventual solution was caffeine, administered in 12 oz doses, pretty much around the clock – it helps me stay focused and relatively level over the course of the day. As an added bonus, I get blinding headaches if I don’t have enough, so there’s a built-in control mechanism to keep me on the program. The downside? I end up spending a lot of time in the bathroom, and am at much higher risk of kidney stones. Considering what I get like without it, I’m okay with that.
Ritalin worked well for me and I would sometimes go off it on weekends and holidays because I felt more imaginative without it. Creativity seems to need a touch of crazy, at least that’s my experience.
Man, those are some pretty quick withdrawal symptoms. I also took Ritalin in elementary school to help manage my ADHD (actually a symptom of undiagnosed Aspberger’s Syndrome) but stopped taking it for high school. I don’t remember what I said to get my parent’s to agree to stopping drugging me. I do have to watch what I eat though.
heh i stabilized my ADHD with martial arts and smithing. When my youngest daughter was diagnosed with ADHD i started her on a similar training and activity schedule. She has a handle on her hyperactivity now, plus i just cant understand the need to medicate for everything. Seems like if you have the hiccups they want to drug you into stupidity these days.
of course, it’s to A) make you spend more money. and b) make the populace more controllable, what else did you expect?
To control us, what you think the Pharmacuedical companies are helping the government control us.
Hmmmm…That could be true, I think we need to…ohh pretty shiny thing…now what was I talking about?
I’m not sure if it’s just America or if it’s the same over here in the UK, but if their not pumping you full of drugs because you broke a finger nail, it’s a trip to the psychiatrist to help deal with the trauma of braking a finger nail.
didn’t Ambrose Bierce’s Devil’s Dictionary describe a doctor as someone who looks at the size of a patent’s wallet before deciding how sick they are
I wish I had the same resources as I really got into working metal when I got my Machinist certificate but I always seem to be short of funds and working low pay jobs. My dream is to take Ken-do while making my own Katana erom scratch (a project that will likely take years if done correctly).
id suggest looking into the SCA at sca.org they do miggle ages activities such as heavy combat, smithing, arts and crafts. It is were i picked up smithing when i was starting. they have local chapters all over the globe. its a great hobby and you may find Kenjitsu and kendo pratcticioners there as well
It seems that the best thing for the Metal-worker w/ADHD is to move up to Alaska:
[https://www.the-whiteboard.com/autowb001.html]…series starts here
[https://www.the-whiteboard.com/autotwb1595.html]…random sample chosen from closer to the present – also a nod to “The Incredibles”
I’d also recommend the story-arc: “The Wormhole Gun” as a perfectly good starting-point.
Have wanted to get into smithing for a number of years now, wanted to get a small smelter/forge and anvil put into our shed, but no idea who/where to go to find out about that (not even sure if local council would allow it). Just wanted something for when get ‘pumped’ after watching action movies and need to burn off the adrenaline (have a minor case of ADD, would be ADHD but also have Chronic Fatigue :()
The bad part is back in the 90s when they gave ritalin out like candy to anyone who ‘might’ have had ADHD.
Ritalin made me stop eating and was a zombie for the day. I can work around my problems by using music in my car to focus on the road.
I asked about caffine and my doctor said meth ( Adderall ) had fewer toxic side effects.
Oh yeah, and there is that other thing. Chemistry can’t fix Character and Character can’t fix Chemistry. You have to do both.
Caffeine? Really? I figured one of the side-effects of ADD was a lower sensitivity to caffeine.
I’m a bit of a cola addict and I don’t feel any effect from the caffeine. Even energy drinks don’t do it for me. The only energy drink that ever got me fired up, was the original recipe Red Bull, that was later forbidden. 750ml in one evening and at 4am that night I was doing coloring plates at the age of 18, just to have something to do. :D
For me, Ritalin does the trick, 4 hours at a time.
My case doesn’t justify something so strong as Adderall (though I’d love to have a prescription for it – imagine all the things I could get done!!); even my Ritalin prescription was very light, but it was still enough to produce that flat affect that school administrators loved so much in the 70s. I hated the “greying” of the world, so I didn’t take it when I was supposed to; as a result, I tended to come off pretty bi-polar.
The usual dose for ADD is actually pretty low to start with. I wish I had been diagnosed when I was in school, I might have done much better. As it was my abusive father said he wasn’t going to pay for another year of “F*cking off” and told me to get a job when a failed too many classes my junior year of high school. But I still managed to get some college with a 3.6 my first quarter.
One of the effects of ADD/ADHD is many stimulants and depressants work opposite of how they’d normally work, in fact one way to test if a person has ADD/ADHD and isn’t just hyper is to see how they react to a stimulant.
And Max didn’t even have to Gibbs Slap her. :P
Thus avoiding the depressed skull fracture and broken neck. Please try to remember just how strong Max is. And unlike Sydney, Max is aware of her responsibility and how dangerous she can be to those around her. For Max (and Sydney too, if you think about it) simple assault can escalate to manslaughter very quickly and easily.
I’m quite sure Max has enough control of herself to limit the damage to a mild concussion.
she can turn her powers off you know.
Resorting to violence to demonstrate what a bad idea resorting to violence does not have a strong success rate.
Well said, many Kudos to you!
The face of Maxima in the last panel is unique! It’s anyway great, how many types of facial expression she shows on this page! Some sort of typical side effect of being around Sid, I guess…
I personally would have asked Sidney following question: “How were you able to live the past 3 months without any serious incident? It’s not, that there weren’t any startling experiences in this time, right?” (see page 11/12 and 33)
How was she able to hold back all the time without lashing out seriously? Is it possible, that the inner pressure from all that self restraint reached a critical point? Or was the fear of being reveald and studied bigger than her hyperactive nature (see page 54)? Or maybee she is just happy to meet all the supers and doesn’t think, she could do serious damage to them.
Either way it’s good, that she and Maxima had that little chat!
Well she’s had the orbs squirreled away that whole time, so she resorted to her regular fisticuffs in that time, but now that she’s getting used to having them available to her, Max sees her folding them into her regular flailiness and figures it’s only a matter of time until she grabs the P.P.O.
i can see it now
hey sid-
aggh *hadoken*
Yeah, I can see a Lina Inverse dragon slave moment.
As funny as it is to see her go crazy when called flat chested and level a town or the entire mountain side just because she got angry, if not for the in-story that people in her world (or at least her part of the world) are insanely well built she’d be slaughtering hundreds if not thousands each time she got upset in a crowded place. Not to mention her other tendencies to set people on fire at random, punch things so hard she smashes them ect…. I had a fanfic idea once of her going to the Lost Universe reality and discovering just how much stronger she is than a regular human, by her comidic reaction of punching someone into the air seriously hurting that person or killing them.
If I recall correctly, they were in the same universe. I don’t recall exactly where that was explained/hinted at though.
Not the same universe, but connected via The Lord Of Nightmares.
yeah what the other guy said.
the Lord of Nightmares created/is split into four universes.
Slayers takes place in one, while Lost Universe takes place in a different one
(one that is confused if you try to mentally work out Slayers Try as part of it, but would have to be a different cycle of creation) The Overworld and Lost Universe being the same place with Dark Star and Volphield, plus Goury’s sword is Gora Nova, which is also one of the Lost Ships.
Plus Ragu Masvidie the spear of light is also another lost ship.
But the big clues being the end credits of Lost Universe showing the multi-verse dark lords and heavenly lords sigils. Basically Dark Star is the Lost Universe darklord making him counterpart to Ruby Eye Shrabranigdo from Slayers.
Of course sad thing is, if Lina went to the LU universe most of her magic wouldn’t work as she’d be cut off from the spirits and demons her magic draws power from *I say most because Ragna Blade and Giga Slave should still work as they draw power from the Lord of Nightmares, so unless you jump to a different multi-verse power from her should still work)
Although this then does beg the question if the sword of light was created by Dark Star, is it actually a demon (Mazoku, Monster Race, Lost Ship central core) in its own right and fully aware just not able to communicate as a sword, or does it draw its power from Dark Star. If so then there should be a way around the whole dimensional divide affecting magic issue. Of course its more likely it counts as a Mazoku and it has its own power.
this comment section is the last place I expected to see some sweet, sweet Slayers meta
(I’m going to look up what Lost Universe is some time, huh)
but what did Pokota create as a Sword of Light copy o.0
or does the last season not count as a part of sane continuity at all
I figured the sword was just some kinda device that collected energy around it or something like that, more shamanistic than dark magic…
Lina/Sydney-wise
Lina actually acts A LOT different when the situation is not ~comedic~ and only lacks a laugh track than when shit gets serious. She got mad at the Otherworlders at the end of Try for pretty much the same stuff she regularly pulls herself if we take the comedic parts at face value
so I just don’t and pretend nothing like that happens
I mean people not getting hurt magically is one thing, but that scale of property destruction is no joke
imagine Lina destroying a field with harvest that an entire village was planning to live off that winter
~OOPS~
so yeah let’s pretend Lina doesn’t do that stuff and really hope Sydney won’t either
I’m hearing Homer’s voice in panel 9…
As was I when I wrote it. :)
And the following panel, too. (…but your formative superhero moment comes with free sprinkles!)
Homer’s been dead for millennia how do you know what he sounds like
Homer *SIMPSON*.
“Mmmm, doughnuts!”
Homer’s odyssey, The epic tale of one man’s quest to the duff brewery to get beer for moe’s tavern
MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGIC.
My grandpa only died a few years ago, not millenia ago.
Oh also this is what they are talking about. Yes this character from this incredible obscure show you probably never heard of is also called Home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_pqnsKWlpc
So what they actually made a show about a guy who owns a store full of cursed objects? That is awesom
and to win the super smart ass points
Yes, actually. It was called “Friday the 13th” even though it had nothing to do with those movies or that date. It was about an antique shop that had sold MANY cursed objects, and his niece who inherited the shop going around with a team to retrieve them all. Basically what Warehouse 13 ripped off/merged with the warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYquKiVJAlE
What you mean there really is that is awesome I was just trying to pull the joke out longer but hey now I will be looking for a place to watch that show online, I’ve always thought it was a good idea but the books I read with the idea in mind never really lasted
Never mind the looking for a place to watch it, I said that before I saw the clip
yeah it was a pretty good show. Better than Warehouse 13 if you were to ask me. If only because it felt more real, plus they didn’t tiptoe around “magic” as an explination like Warehouse 13 does (they try to say everything is science, sorry but a hairbrush that can alter the course of history is not science, nor is most the stuff they find)
Although after awhile in Friday the 13th you realize that the uncle must have gotten a full store filled inventory of demonic goodies from the devil, because they are retrieving a ton of stuff. Also that later in the series they do start to question the reasoning of putting all these demonic artifacts together in the same vault (especially as some have intellegence).
ahhh yes, like the Medicine Rattle that could cure anything, but it had to kill someone else afterward. Used to love that show.
well played, ser.
Whoa, Maxima pulled off something Superman in person would fail at!!
The word Maxima was looking for is PWNED! But “achievement unlocked” is good too.
Bonus points for reaching Sydney the nerdly way, LOL
Maxima should be thinking about seeing if Sydney’s medication needs adjusting soon enough…
Only a short time reader, but wanted to give some feedback.
I really enjoy the mini comic at the end! I like the smaller size to go along with the smaller importance to the story. I like having a bit of “behind the scenes” detail. I like that it probably did not take you as long to draw. I like that there is enough detail to know who is who, but *less* detail to show that this is not integral to the story. You have a “parents in the panel on Calvin and Hobbes” vibe that I think works well.
Not sure if you have done it before, but I hope to see it again!
Yeah I break those out every 4 or 5 pages once I started doing them I think.
@DaveB – I personally would NOT MIND AT ALL if you did a page with 4 regular panels and the rest in those little scribbles, it would help you get more script out in a shorter time, and besides, IMO the expressions in those scribbles are not only hilarious, they are also a lot more “expressive” ???
Loving the story, and if you wanna do a whole page of scribbles once inna while, -I- won’t mind at all, and don’t let ANYone tell you negatives, this is GREAT!!! I love Syd lots, and I am loving this story, and even if the scribbles are not canon, they DO add flair and style…I am seeing a HUGE improvement in the ‘evolution’ of your work, check Sinfest for a really good example of evolving style. Keep it up!
Easter Egg submission: in panel 11, the edge of an orb can be seen on the right-hand side. Which one is it?
I disagree. I think the edge of the telepresence orb makes sense there. Remember that Halo is just off-frame to our right, so the placement of the orb is good there.
Max’s success kid face mad me lol
Was anyone else thinking that Sid was going to somehow observe that Max pronounced Spider-Man without the hyphen?
Max is going to uave to unleash more of her inner nerd she locked away now that Sydney is around. D&D and Spidey comics are just the start.
I can just see Maxima showing up at Sidney’s shop for her weekly comics pull.
Ah Uncle Ben sermon 10 one of my favorites. Or some such the joke is from Schlock Mercenaries if you haven’t read it you need to takes a bit of catching up.
Like two weeks to read completely, They have been posting every day for over a decade.
want a real time consumer, try to go back and read all of Sluggy Freelance.
Nah, the real timesink is reading all of the Walkyverse comics from Roomies through to the end of Shortpacked!
Maybe it’s just me and maybe the comments above addressed it (I just skimmed them.) But aren’t Maxima’s lips always red since that’s their natural color? If so, where did he lips go in the last panel?
She has pressed the red parts of the lips together. You can do it too; roll your lips a little inside your mouth as you look in the mirror at your face. Same thing for Max.
Connecting, like a boss.
Also: Sydney looks incredibly, incredibly evil on panel 8. Maybe we’ll get to watch her getting the opportunity to deliberately act like that sometime in the future. Of course, problem is the she might be good at it and enjoy it a bit too much….
For anyone who doesn’t get the last panel: I’m fairly sure it’s a preference to an internet meme. This particularly one is generally know as the f**k yea guy
https://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/001/987/fyeah.jpg
In case we see any others later on: know your memes:
https://cdn.ebaumsworld.com/mediaFiles/picture/484029/81985139.jpg
It was actually accidental, but after I drew it I realized Max looked like Success Kid.
So hey, Success Max.
Success Maxima was my first thought on seeing it. So… hidden bonus mission objective accomplished?
Generally hyperactivity does not give one a wisdom bonus. You tend not to be able to use that initiative bonus to actually think about what you are doing.
Generally wisdom is used for observation, in the RPGs I play, int is used for thinking about what to do and dex is used for initiative
But there are feats to substitute one bonus for the other in initiative rolls. Unfortunately, Sidney did not allocate her points in such a fashion.
Where would hyper activity come into play anyway? Which ability score would it adjust and/or what skill would it be?
Strikes me it would effect Agility at some point. Maybe other stats, too. And it would steer a character towards a Chaotic alignment.
Seriously, ADD paladin? That…actually, I saw one once. (was a deific templar, not a paladin, but same diff). It was NOT a pretty sight.
And this is coming from the person with a clinical sociopathic white mage.
Agility? Are you kidding? I was a ADHD klutz as a kid. Not much better now, even though I am over 300 lbs. Effects of ADHD in RPG terms (from my personal experience):
+1 to initiative (independent of dexterity)
-2 wisdom (impedes decisions, concentration, determination, consistency)
Combine with other Aspberger’s/Autism effects
+3 intelligence (logic, scientific reasoning, mathematics, pattern finding)
-3 charisma (social skills suck!, reduced empathy, emotional depth)
ADHD, ADD might be desired for a chaotic deity but would be a mess for one trying to serve a lawful god.
I don’t think ADHD has anything to do with agility.
I had perfect agility, but that was more out of practice playing a rather crazy game of jumping and balancing between rocks in the desert and pretending the sand was lava. I actually got so good at it that when visiting ohio I jumped rocks across a river with out getting my feet wet much to the astonishment of a neighbor kid of my cousins at the time.
Thank you for writing a comment with specific statistics, they made a lot of sense… wonder if my DM would go along with them… wait no that would be terrible my cha is only 9 and my wis is 10, then again my character is clinically insane so high cha doesn’t make the most sense
Insane +High Charisma = Cult/Religious Leader
you could add leader of a political party or country to that list.
Adolf Hitler (whom some would argue was insane) became leader of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (National Socialist German Workers Party), and later leader of Germany, due to a combination of charisma and his opponents deciding they’ll live longer by not being his opponents.
Ok first of all it is 9 that isn’t very high to begin with second he is a mad scientist… but if you consider the political situation back in his home cult leader is technically possible
Also many people thought that cult like Nazis just wouldn’t last. They forgot about the jettisoning of their Constitution and becoming a dictatorship with the help of their own Chancellor. Remember Star Wars?
I didn’t say it would effect POSITIVELY.
But perhaps it should. In all the dicing I’ve ever done, I’ve found the higher a target’s moving speed, the harder it is to hit (and agility tends to effect movement speed). So going after a medium-small like Syd, with ADD or even worse ADHD, would be a wiff-city unless I dig out a character with the ability to nuke with area-of-effect methods. Regular melee would be a madman’s game. Every headshot would miss because she’d be stooping over to pick up a shiny pebble.
The ADD paladin I had the misfortune to be playing one of my ‘antagonistic’ characters at the time, which meant sooner or later she had to fight with him. Except he kept getting distracted by her random minions running around. Drove her bananas. Also he pickpocketed a significant amount of her shiny stuff completely by accident. Later, a situation came up that wound out with him getting in a fight with his own god. I would not mind seeing that particular character sheet burned, is the bottom line.
I want panel 9 as an avatar icon!!!
“Mmmm. Incredibly desctructive powers…”
I’m amazed that Maxima has managed to keep her composure this long dealing with Sydney.
What? You mean the last 2+ hours? This is still the first day they met
This update reminds me of the quote “With great power comes great responsibility”. I think max just needs to point that out.
You mean probably the most famous Spider-man quote? The line from Uncle Ben that literally resulted in Peter Parker becoming Spider-man. Think that came across at least a little there.
Actually Uncle Ben said that “With power comes responsibility”. It was Peter who extended it to “With great power comes great responsibility”, because he realised that as a superhero he had more power than Uncle Ben ever envisioned, and therefore even more responsibility.
Later versions such as the movies and Ultimate Spider-Man have simplified it to Uncle Ben giving Peter the whole motto, but I think that robs it of some of its power.
I think Sydney’s motto would be “With great power comes great destruction!”.
(Until she got distracted by some shiny object and wanders off after it)
Honestly, I think the best way to handle her would be to give each of the team members a laser pointer and any time Sydney stated to do something dangerous, they could just point it at the floor and she would drop everything and chase after it.
She’s not quite that bad. One thing that people don’t tend to know is that ADD also can give you is an intense focus such that the rest of the world kinda fades away. The “Absent Minded Professor” effect.
While theoretically you are right, I don’t think Sidney is the type of gal who could really focus on anything other then comics.
I can visualize her being in a teamfight and suddenly go “Hey look!, a butterfly!”
Well I was just using my own experience with ADD as a guide. ADD or ADHD have a wide range effects and symptoms.
That last panel – hahaha. I love this comic. *first comment ever*
homer!!! lol
And we’ll all breathe a sigh of relief that it wasn’t the PPO she used on Math.
If Maxima every tell Sydney she can’t be a superhero because its to dangerous for her,she can counter with Sally Avril
No, not too dangerous for her, but for those around her
this is a limitation that it is surprising not too many take advantage of. The “i’m too strong, if I fight full strength, or use the kind of powers I have it would engander or kill those around me”. More often you have people who ignore it and run for cover and you are left wandering where everyone else is when the main fight is leaving craters the size of buildings around *like every fight in DBZ where the others are standing “somewhere” and watching.
I was inspired by Tenchi Muyo when they pointed out Ryoko was endangering herself by holding back to prevent her own power from killing Ayeka. *the guy she was fighting was of course not holding back*
I had to applaud the writers on “Annihilators” for pointing out that all these S-class fighters could get the run around by a much weaker fighter because they are all so used to holding back in a fight or else they’d blast a hole in the sides of a ship or else fight at these high levels that its hard to fight somewhere inbetween.
I’ll put it this way, its hard to stop bank robbers and leave them for the police like Bat-man or Spider-man when you’re used to fighting gods on asteroids and punching eldritch horrors in the “face”.
-you stopped the bank robbers…but did you have to create a miniature black hole and summon a three hundred foot tall eldritch dragon of eternal darkness to do it?
You don’t use a nuke when a fist will do.
Max should learn to keep a supply of sedatives for Syd.
mental image of Sydney strapped to a trolly, a bit like Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs. as soon as the excreta hits the rotating oscillator (as a friend of mine would say), they sic her on the bad guys
you mean like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKH5fhssd88
something along those lines
I love Maxima’s expression in the last panel. Made me laugh out loud.
“Connection made” That made me laugh out loud.
A critical response from a physicist: joules per square inch is not really an important quantity to describe a punch. The most important number is force, commonly measured in newtons or pounds, to describe how hard the punch is; for example, Mass Effect uses newtons to describe the impact of biotic throws and pulls. Pressure, which is [force]/[area], is important for puncturing and bruising (good for describing bullets, swords, and pinches); an equal amount of force applied over a smaller area will cause more puncturing. The total momentum transfer, which is [force]*[time], describes how much the punched object recoils (so, a good number to describe the Hulk’s punches and how far the punchees get sent flying). Joules per square inch describes how much energy per area is imparted by the punch, which is not directly correlated with damage caused: it mixes up kinetic energy and thermal energy (local heating caused by the inelastic collision of first with skin), and ignores the time over which the energy is transferred. It’s the total force and pressure, not kinetic energy, that determines the stress and subsequent damage caused to the punched tissue. Anyhow, if you’ve made it through the lecture, the summary is that Sidney should be talking about the pounds per square inch here.
Fair enough, I may change it to Newtons cause it sounds more sciencey than pounds per square inch, though I could easily chalk it up to Sydney not appreciating the difference between joules and newtons.
I thought similarly, Dave, but seeing as she’s already mixing SI units with Imperial, I wouldn’t worry about Sydney saying joules. She’s already going weirdly by mentioning them with inches rather than centimeters.
It works on different levels, in other words.
It has already been established that Sydney has an … interesting mindset. Why should her grasp of physics and terminology thereof follow ‘normal’ rules?
we covered that in physics when I was at school, I tend to get the terms and such mixed up, I just put it down to “it’s been so long I’ve forgotten most of it” and “I know what I mean even if no one else does”. unfortunately Sydney doesn’t look old enough to be able to get away with the former, but she may get away with the latter.
Perhaps Sydney likes the idea of joule force and thermal imparting upon whomever she punches over Newtons or pounds ps imparted? There is the pascal:
Since the pascal is the smaller unit of measurement, 1 pascal converts to a fraction of these units. For example, it takes more than 100,000 pascal to comprise one bar.
The pascal (symbol: Pa) is the SI derived unit of pressure or stress. It is a measure of perpendicular force per unit area i.e. equal to one newton per square meter.
The good thing is DavidB is the Internet at your fingertips can fill in most of the any science you want to add here and there to give it authenticity. (Star Trek did it all the time.)