Grrl Power #1270 – The fall grrl
Yay! Back to Sydney and crew!
A few quick explanations. Sydney is practicing keeping the orbs off to the side somewhere as there will probably be situations where they can get in the way while orbiting her head. Such as sparring. She loses concentration when she starts fronting on Seneca, which is why they float back to orbit her. I didn’t feel like there was a good place to put that information on the page without breaking up the flow, so, in the comment it goes.
She should probably be keeping them like, ten feet to her left, and not sitting on the ground. Landing on a totally inflexible ball would suck. Imaging getting into a fight in a bar and you get flipped and land kidney first on a cue ball. That would leave a bruise.
Second, I didn’t forget her glasses. She’s obviously not going to wear them while sparring, even if they’re super tough space tech. Getting those nose pads smashed into your nose… sides (no idea if there’s an actual name for that part of the nose) would probably leave you with a considerable snore. And, you know, general pain.
Thirdly, I’m trying out a few things with the art in an effort to speed things up just a bit without compromising too much. Most notably I’m trying to cool it just a bit on the depth of the color shading. I went back and read a bit of the comic and hit that part where they’re discussing starting up the dungeon project. I did totally flat colors there because I was just sick enough that I could work, but my already abysmal speed was halved or worse. Totally flat is too flat. I don’t think two-tone cell shading will satisfy me, so this page is 3-tone. Flat, shadow, highlights and some blending in between. I think I’ll up it to maybe a 4-tone – basically this with some dark ambient occlusion shadows added in. Then we’ll see how long I can maintain that before I start adding in more and more shading again.
I also colored my pencils instead of inking, but I don’t think I’ll keep doing that. Cleaning up the pencils probably took longer than just inking them. I think the line weights are a little more varied this way, but it’s probably barely noticeable to most people.
Oh, the golf clap (hopefully that’s legible) in panel 5 isn’t for the throw, it’s for Jabber bending over like she does. She’s flexible and doesn’t mind people looking at her butt, so why not?
The new vote incentive is up!
Oh no! Superheroines in a deathtrap! Well… a tickle trap. Okay, not trapped, trapped, but… look, three of the girls are getting tickled. Actually, in a way, seven girls are getting tickled since the other four Harems will feel this as well, but technically it’s only the three shown in the picture since Harem insists there’s only one of her – it’s just confusing since she can be in 5 places at once.
As you can probably imagine, Patreon shows what happens if they laugh, and also has a comic revealing who is behind this nefarious situation.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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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 do believe that part of your face is called the bridge of your nose, and yes it super sucks, especially when they break off and stab in (gymnastics accident). I now only have solid frames that rest directly on my face because of that exact thing. I can still feel the stab point/scar tissue almost 20 years later.
They’re called the nasal sidewalls. The nasal bridge is higher up, between your eyes. The nasal dorsum is below the nasal bridge, and the nasal sidewalls are to the sides of the nasal dorsum.
Depends where your glasses sit: mine tend to drift between top and tip on an apparently random basis. And, yeah, it hurts like a motherf***er. I’ve had footballs to the face, a number of excitable Staffies (Pitbulls for the US bunch) clamber on my hitherto-napping face, and I’ve even tripped and smashed my face into the side of an ice-cream van.
The bridge would definitely be affected by a hit. The sides of the nose are, yes, the nasal sidewalls, and the cheek right there over the sinuses is the nasofacial sulcus.
Sydney’s viewpoint from that mat!
she just sees two words appear on her glasses: and both words start with ‘M’
the reason she doens’t have them 10 feet to one side is there is a TETHER effect…..remember? if i was practicing martial arts and moving around/being flipped, i wouldn’t want to suddenly be yoinked in the wrong direction. that could actually be quite dangerous…more so than accidently landing on one. though it WOULD be interesting to see the limits of the tether effect being tested. could Sydney, for instance..dangle in mid air while the orbs were on a platform above her? could the length of the tether be altered?
I’m wondering whether she could use the orbs for climbing. Send them up to a ledge, then haul herself up. It probably requires rather more control and practice than she’s done so far.
There’s also the possibility that the orbs would just punch through the ledge when she calls them back to her. We haven’t seen that either. If witnessed, it would certainly change the design of the “Sydney restraint cell” used when Lapha was controlling her.
I wonder if she can, for example, sit on the orbs and ‘fly’ on them, or maybe use them to lift things?
I also think she should practice fightng with them, not the powers, just the orbs. She already used them like that in some occasion, but think what she could do with some traing with seven floating, indestructible spheres that she can use to hit and parry.
Do we know they’re indestructible? I can’t remember any time they’ve directly taken a big hit off the top of my head so I can’t blame Syd for not risking damaging them, since I SEVERLY doubt they can be repaired.
I assume they’re indestructible to anyone who doesn’t have the same level tech.
One deflected that shadow guy’s weapon early in the steakhouse brawl, but I think that’s the only time that’s happened.
For all purposes concerning Sidney going hand-to-hand against someone, they can be considered indestructible.
Consider that they may have been underwater, subject to wave action, growing coral, etc for 65 million years.
That does seem to imply some serious durability.
They’re probably indestructible, given that they were found in the Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan peninsula. The site of the K-T event that wiped out the dinosaurs.
This could actually mean a few things.
1) It survived the asteroid the wiped out the dinosaurs and 75% of all species on Earth, 66 MILLION years ago. At point blank range, despite that at that range the entire area would have pretty much melted or been on fire from the impact, including the air, and anything hundreds of square miles around it would have been simply vaporized.
2) It could have been or part of the asteroid which hit the earth. Which could mean that it was partially responsible for the destruction. See point 1.
3) It could have been the cause of the explosion itself, rather than it being an asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs and 75% of life on Earth. Which is possible since there was some sort of ‘glitch’ with the map part when Sydney originally was planning on using it to go straight back to Earth instead of to Fracture Station. It would help to know how old Fracture Station is, since it would make it more likely that we’d then know how long ago it was on Earth, since Fracture Station was in the ‘history tab’ of the places travelled to prior to Earth.
4) Even if it was not the cause of the explosion or at point blank range of an asteroid collision, it has probably been there a very long time. Anything that can survive millions of years underwater and still work and not seem to have any physical damage is probably incredibly durable.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-1009-does-sydney-have-accident-insurance/comment-page-1/
It seems to have been somehow involved in the K-T Event that caused the Chicxulub crater that wiped out 75% of life on Earth 66 million years ago. That implies indestructibility (which they said was equivalent to 10,000 times the world’s nuclear arsenal, generating a blast of 100 million megatons in the first few seconds, turning the entire area into superheated plasma. Except apparently for the orbs (unless the orbs are what caused the blast and crater in the first place).
They can’t punch through concrete – Concretia trapped her in this exact way back in the henchwench arc. The tether can certainly yoink her around, but I’m not sure if she can actively pull herself up like that. However, she has featherfall now (passive flight orb point), so I’m guessing that she might be able to do this.
It’s somewhat inconsistent about the force they can exert and resist.
Max was unable to move the tube in strip 66, and she commented on that. Presumably she didn’t use her full strength as that would likely have ripped the tube open. I wonder though whether that was some sort of inertia-cancelling effect instead of a resistance.
I’m voting for “Didn’t think of this, or got distracted before she had a chance to check.”
They also couldn’t break through the glass box they were put when she was possessed by Laph, so that is not inconsistent
I doubt that box was glass. Transparent aluminum or something.
They don’t seem to exert a huge force amount of force when they move (although it’s enough that they can hurt near standard humans) but they seem to be able to resist a huge amount of force trying to move them away from Sydney
If we’re pondering such things then here’s my thought: If they made a harness for her and attached one (or more) of the orbs to it, could she achieve no-hands flight by commanding said orb to go above her head?
I’ve been speculating about that for a while, too. The comic is inconsistent about how this works; If you hold one of the orbs, she can’t get more than a certain distance from it, so she obviously experiences a force.
But early on Maxima tried to pull the orbs away from her, and couldn’t.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-66-hero-baiting/
I assume the orbs are actually a 3 dimensional extension of some large object anchored on Sydney, but sitting outside our normal space-time. They can only move within its confines, but won’t allow any forces applied to them to be transmitted back to her.
Flying might or might not be an available exploit of their software, depending on how it’s written.
My understanding of it is that Sydney and the orbs have a set distance they cannot get beyond one another, but this can only be used to immobilize, not cause movement. So when Maxima tries to pull an orb out of Sydney’s reach, she cannot do so, and it doesn’t bring Sydney with it. Similarly, Sydney cannot travel any further if she gets too far from an orb. To “fly” using the effect, Sydney would basically need to fly the orbs up to the limit of their range, then jump and tell them to move higher. Falling would put her out of range, and thus she would stop falling – but I don’t know if she would actually feel a solid surface she could jump off of, or if she’d just be stuck hovering in the air until she lowers the orbs – I suspect it would be the latter, making it useless for anything approaching flight, although it could have worked as a sort of poor-man’s featherfall back before she unlocked that passive. Hanging a rope from one of the orbs and attaching one of those automatic ascenders could be an option as well; it would need to be attached to her belt to be hands-free, of course.
That doesn’t make sense from a basic logical framework.
Suppose Sydney is on a stationary train. Her orbs are inside a steel box welded to the frame of the train car. She starts walking to the rear of the train at one m/sec. She gets to the limit of the tether, and can’t move any further.
Now suppose the train is moving forward at one m/sec when Sydney starts moving to the rear of the train. Since her movement cancels the train’s movement, she is stationary. If the orbs can’t cause movement, then when she gets to the limit of the tether, the steel box is ripped open or torn from the frame of the train.
Newtonian relativity is a thing.
The ground outside the train is an external frame of reference to both the orbs and Sydney. Sydney is increasing the distance between her and the orbs. Once she hits that specific distance from the orbs, the tether effect is going to stop her from moving farther, regardless of how fast either are moving in reference to the ground outside. It’s the distance between, not the overall movement.
If that were the case, she would have either been crushed to death and buried underground or flung into space the instance she bonded with them. Relative to an outside observer, Sydney is subject to both the rotation of the Earth, the passage of the Earth in orbit around the Sun, the solar system orbiting the galactic core, etc. These are just zoomed out examples of your train example.
Now if they were to mount that steel box to the station platform with Sydney on the train and the train started to leave the station, then that would be an example of what you were trying to describe. That would be interesting to see if the orbs tear through the box or if Sydney would be snatched backward. It would depend on if the orbs treat it as Sydney trying to move away from their geographic location, if the orbs interpret it as something pulling them away from Sydney, or if they’re smart enough to determine that it would cause harm to Sydney by not following her, even though it’s Sydney, not the orbs, changing their geographical location.
Given that the orbs were used to hold her in place when she was kidnapped during the xeno fight, the result would be either the steel box being destroyed freeing the orbs or the Sydney or the train being destroyed. Given the orbs still have training wheels on, I’d expect some safety feature to kick in, of which I can imagine at least three. First, temporarily disconnecting from her. Second, some secondary defense kicking in around her (possibly filling in the passive for force fields with a RED dot which will eat her next power up). Third, the orbs generating a movement power such as micro version of the aetherium causeway to escape from the totally mundane steel box that could not possibly hold Nth tech from doing its job.
Except Sydney *isn’t* *moving*. The *train* is moving the orbs away from Sydney (relative to the ground-stationary reference frame). My point is that you can’t arbitrarily say (as Varyon did) that the force from the orbs can only immobilize, and not cause movement, because what is immobility and what is movement depends on your frame of reference. So either Sydney exerts a force on the orbs that prevents them from moving beyond a certain distance from her, or the orbs exert a force on Sydney that prevents her from moving beyond a certain distance from them. Since Sydney is a good deal more fragile than the orbs, the former would be the safer option. The problem is that we have examples of it working each way.
If you’re on a train that’s moving you’re moving
I should have said “immobilize relative to each other.” Which could allow for jump-speed flight now that I think about it – push the orb up into the air to its limit, then jump and continue to push the orb up. If she moves the orb up at the same rate as she is moving from the jump, the two would functionally be stationary relative to each other, and when gravity tries to decelerate Sydney, the orbs say “nope” and she keeps going as-is. If that’s how it works, anyway – we already know they’re linked to her mind (both from how they behaved with Lapha and how they behaved in the Patreon mini-comic when she was mind-transferred to a temporary rental body), so it might just be that the “can only stop” limit uses her own subconscious conception of relative movement – so the jump-flight option wouldn’t work because she’d consider it [i]flight[/i] rather than staying stationary relative to each other.
I don’t think there really is a logical framework here; The orbs can’t get further away from Sydney than a certain distance because of the way they function, but the forces exerted each way are dictated by their control software, not physics. That software has a command written into it that prohibits dragging her around by an orb, but whoever wrote it neglected to consider all use cases, so you CAN stop her from moving away by locking down an orb.
Maybe they’re prototypes, and still have bugs that got ironed out in a later software upgrade that these ones didn’t get on account of being taken out of circulation by an accident that killed the user.
I guess you could potentially have her run into a situation where they start downloading patches…
More likely that’s just the default setting. Sid might be able to change that but the controls aren’t in English.
Speaking of hyperadvanced technology that is a prototype with bugs in, you folks might enjoy this: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11158355/1/Stargate-Physics-101
Stargate fanfic, it’s the story of the engineers who originally designed and built the Stargate system, and all the bugs they (didn’t) find and (didn’t) fix.
“this can only be used to immobilize, not cause movement” doesn’t this imply a preferred frame of reference? What if she’s traveling east?
I’m pretty sure Einsteinian physics isn’t completely correct in the comic. FTL and gateways seem to be pretty common, most superpowers completely violate physics with no side effects, time travel (including reverse, or how did everyone but Sydney get back?), etc.
It’s not just the orbs. What about Achilles tasting that sword blade? Even if it can’t penetrate his skin, the blow should have snapped his head back. Instead it does nothing, because otherwise it would have harmed him. And his power is “can’t be harmed by physical force”.
I think the orbs prevent movement with respect to local gravity. And they likely don’t use opposing force, the exerting force just…”disappears”. Possibly the energy gets stored in pew-pew? This would certainly also make it very difficult to harm the orbs if they can just cancel stuff in some manner.
Achilles’s power seems to cover more than physical force. At one point he mentioned drinking super-ebola in order to prevent it from getting out.
His power is perfect invulnerability, which extends to ALL kinds of harm, presumably including mental and spiritual, even temporal (he doesn’t age anymore).
so his power means he can’t read internet comments?
He can read them. They just don’t offend him.
Easy solution would be to just have them 3 feet away STRAIGHT UP. That’s far enough away that few people are likely to bump into them during any normal training, and still low enough to avoid hitting the ceiling (though this being a gym, the ceilings are probably rather high, so that’s not likely to be a concern anyhow). Granted several members of the team are flyers, so that wouldn’t necessarily protect them, but they seem to be practicing just regular martial arts, not super-powered ones, so maybe flying is disallowed.
Re the shading and art, I think 2 and 3 tone is perfect, there have been times before when it feels like you’ve gone too far with the shading detail and there’s no point in killing yourself working out complex shading when this level looks great and is hopefully something you can keep up consistently
Agreed that this level looks great, honestly like it better than the more heavily shaded ones. With heavier shading techniques it tends to really clash with the backgrounds, plus it starts to kinda look like claymation or 3d posed stuff, which is impressive sure, but not my favorite style.
My 2 bits would be to leave it around this level for the most part, then kick it up a couple notches for a big dramatic closeups or pinups like Jabber bending at the waist. That way most of it is good, consistent, and easy, and the emphasized bits stand out more
I like the aliens reacting to the golf clap in the background.
*checks* “Rhinodorsum”, apparently.
That’s literally “side of nose” in Latin.
Which tells you something about how languages work, and the relationship English speakers have with the various languages we beg, borrowed, and stole from. ^_^’
I’m glad to see your comment, Bharda, after your last post.
And you can take your “olive branch” & shove it.
I will not legitimize anything you have to say, and I will not be friendly or cordial with someone who aligns with people openly calling for the end of democratic government, or any policy item in Project 2025.
What you “weak government” people really mean is, you want to be able get away with doing anything you like, to anyone you like, in any way you like, with no worry that the people will collectivize and use their combined power to hold you accountable.
I didn’t have the spoons for you last week, and I still don’t.
You are The Enemy, period, full stop, end. Of. Sentence.
It was not meant as an olive branch. It was an honest statement of support for someone who appears to be in a hard place at the moment.
I work hard, internally, to not wish my political opponents ill (other than in their political pursuits, of course). You killing yourself would make my life very, very, VERY slightly more convenient… that is a horrible reason to wish someone ill.
As such, I am glad you are still here. It was meant as an encouragement to someone who is apparently dangerously depressed, as one human being to another. That is all.
With exceedingly few exceptions, suicide is a sad thing. Despite your angry response, your inaccurate and dishonest claims about my position, and my personal dislike of you, I still wish you well.
Oh, really?
What was “dishonest,” exactly, mister “weak government?”
And spare me the disingenuous “well wishes.” What really mean is, you wish I’d stop opposing your hierarchical bs, and conform to your desire for a static, retrogressive society that meets your expectations.
We’re not go back.
Deal with it, fascist.
I think we all want the government to be weak when it seeks to oppress us, and strong when it seeks to protect us. The problem is the intersection between the two: when people try to protect themselves by oppressing others. Or people see their power to oppress others being curtailed as itself a form of oppression.
And while I certainly believe there are consciously evil people in the world, and that they are responsible for much of the suffering and oppression, the vast majority are probably just misinformed and trying to protect themselves against a hostile and confusing world. When people are taught that their only options are oppressor or oppressed, most will choose the former, not realizing that we can instead choose freedom and peace.
And there may be some people with whom there can be no peace, because they embrace hierarchy as their core virtue, and won’t be satisfied with anything but ruling over others. We may have to tear them from their perch, clip their wings so that they may never rise again to terrorize those weaker than themselves.
But let’s not go making enemies unnecessarily. Sometimes reason fails not because the person is beyond reason, but because you’re not the right person to reason with them, or they haven’t had the right experiences yet. Sometimes you just need to step back and disengage. It’s definitely not healthy to stare into the abyss all the time. As much as I enjoy arguing with people, sometimes it gets to be too much, and I’ve got to take a break. Spend some time with people who understand you and make your life joyous.
Hmph.
You actually stumbled into an interesting question.
If “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance,” and if “you stare into the abyss too long, it stares back into you,” then how do we resolve the inevitable consequence?
Torabi, you’re a reasonable & fair-minded person, and generally An Ally…buti don’t think you really grasp the peril that we are facing right now. Particularly the LGBTQ+ community. These people are enacting laws to not only re-criminalize our existence, but now starting enact laws to mutilate and torture us as a consequence thereof.
Consider this: recently, Louisiana has enacted a law giving judges the power to compel the surgical castration of anyone they convict as a sex offender. Now, maybe that seems “merely” barbaric, but not wholly evil, since it is – nominally – only applicable to sex offenders…but recall whatI mentioned a moment ago. They are also passing laws that make it a crime to exist as a Queer person in public. A gay or lesbian couple kissing in public is, in their eyes, a sex crime. Especially if a kid sees it. A cishet couple can have a full blown make out session in a high school lunchroom, but if two men are holding hands on the sidewalk outside, they could be arrested, drug before a judge, and then have their genitals removed.
That’s what these people are building, right now, in real time, as we speak.
And it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
The same people screaming that my being a trans woman somehow violates their child, are _also_ the ones demanding the death penalty for any such “violation.”
The want us dead, Torabi. They want_me_ dead.
How exactly is one supposed to “disengage” from what is a very real, very immediate, and ongoing existential threat? Because that’s what this is.
And it will not stop there. It never does.
The first targets of the fascists in Germany in the 1930’s were Queer. The first book burning the Nazis had was the Institute for Sexual Research. We’re an easy target, because we _are_ such a small minority, and it’s easy for cishet people to dismiss us, to just passively go along with “othering” our group. And that’s how it starts. Othering. Dehumanization. They start referring to people as “vermin,” just like Trump, his allies, and their fascist cult have started doing. Then they start passing laws that target “the vermin.”
But eventually, the umbrella of who gets to be “real people” starts to contract, and everyone removed from the in-group becomes a “legitimate target.” An outsider. Not a person. Not a human being.
So, Torabi, tell me what to do here. You’re implying that I’m not responding correctly, so tell me how to do it better. Because while I am _so_ very sorry if my vigilance against fascists is upsetting to people who aren’t – yet – in the crosshairs, I absolutely will not ever, _ever_ let them crawl out of the abyss unchallenged.
I think the answer to that is fairly trivial: just because someone needs to be constantly watching doesn’t mean it has to be the same person all the time. We’ve got to have people we trust not only to watch our backs, but to allow us opportunities to rest.
I am well aware of the horrors mounting against non-conforming people. And even though I’m not among those under immediate threat, I fear just the same, because I know the hunger of the oppressors is insatiable: they always need an enemy to fight and unify against, to exploit, and that when they run out of targets, the circle will shrink, leaving more outside. Nobody is really safe.
But I don’t see how yelling at people on the internet and announcing that they are your enemies is productive. I understand the urge, I feel it myself, but I’ve learned to restrain it. There are multiple people I encounter regularly that I would love to make clear to them that we are enemies, and that there’s nothing they can do to change that, so they should just stop trying to interact with me. It would make my life simpler, but it wouldn’t necessarily make it better. I have enough enemies. I don’t need to encourage people who I have conflicts with because of our natures to actually try to make my life miserable. And there are people with whom I’ve had incidental conflicts that I’ve later developed a positive, even friendly relationship with. It’s hard to tell how deep a conflict runs until you get to know a person better. There are still some people I am absolutely certain that I will never get along with, that I know enough about their values to know the conflict is irreconcilable. But jumping to that conclusion too early just means creating enemies unnecessarily, some of whom might have been allies instead. And for those that are truly irredeemable? Announcing that you seem them that way just means giving up the first-strike advantage. What do you gain?
I’m not trying to encourage you to stop fighting. I am saying that if you’re feeling suicidal, as you implied a few weeks ago, take a breather so that you can keep on fighting. Let someone else man the front lines for a while, so that you can be there when they need you.
And I’m saying that if your goal is to change someone’s mind, telling them they’re the enemy isn’t going to do it. It’s only going to make them commit even more to their position, because you’ve removed any incentive for them to change. And if your goal is to eliminate them, well, don’t announce it. That just makes it harder to succeed.
My best guess as to the source of the urge is that it’s the othering and dehumanization you warn about. Cast someone as the enemy, make them double down, and you assuage your own guilt when you attack them.
Seek to reform, or crush swiftly. But don’t mold people into monsters so that you can feel better about taking them down.
“What was “dishonest,” exactly, mister “weak government?””
For only the most explicit of several things:
“you wish I’d stop opposing your hierarchical bs”
I have explicitly stated, in prior conversations when you have accused me of this kind of thing, that I am AGAINST having such a hierarchy, that I want a weaker government to AVOID that problem.
You can certainly disagree with my on method, of course. HOW to accomplish something is generally a reasonable conversation.
But to continuously accuse me of explicitly what I am trying to avoid is dishonest.
That one is, as I said, only the most explicit of things you accuse me of that I have explicitly disavowed. There is also the general incredibly convenient mind-reading where you claim my motivations and desires on things that I have not mentioned, or that I have also disavowed previously. Basically, you are using dishonest strawmen against me, and it is tiresome. It is in bad faith.
Out of a desire to avoid using up your “spoons” (yes, I am familiar with the source of that usage), I will stop there.
Well, one last example of the same kind of behaviour: my well wishes were sincere, and without any secondary expectations or goals. You treating me better is not expected. Hoping to encourage someone such that they do not kill themselves was the full and honest goal.
Hierarchy officially established by a government isn’t the only kind of hierarchy, which fact you are obviously neglecting, because it suits you. It’s the same disingenuous horseshit as insisting that racism is over because the law says it’s illegal.
It is insulting, how stupid you people think we are.
Like using the phrase “mind-reading” to dismiss assessment based observation of past & current action by your group. Everything is always an exception with your kind, because observing the larger pattern of behavior is so very damning. Even worse, once it became obvious that the majority of society was moving on from bigotry and enacting laws to break down those unofficial hierarchies, suddenly your lot start shouting “mob rule” and saying that democracy is bad, actually. Your demands for “weak government” are a fig leaf for your resentment that the majority of society doesn’t want to continue living in the proverbial dark ages. That’s why you fascists keep removing polling stations from minority communities, and split off chunks of cities into little affluent white enclaves, and criminalize being Queer, and shut down libraries, and a thousand other government actions – which you hate, remember – in order to avoid the reality of a changing world, and an advancing civilization.
You’re all hypocrites and liars, scared and pissed off because society at large refuses to stay in the shape you want it in. I used to feel sorry for you people, I used to want to find some sort of way to coexist.
Then you – plural – started attacking us, weaponizing the law to try forcing LGBTQ+ people back into the closet on pain of incarceration, torture, mutilation, and death. You started having Nuremberg-style torch rallies, screaming about “Jews replacing you.” You started criminalizing poverty. You started stripping away body autonomy. You started literally black-bagging people off the street. You started describing “us” as “vermin” and suggesting we have rights, or even humanity, because we aren’t just like you.
And if you, Deoxy, personally, as an individual, suddenly feel that I’m lumping you into the group responsible for these things, or holding you accountable for the deeds of others, then I suggest you take a really long, hard look at the people you’ve aligned yourself with. You are known by the company you keep.
To paraphrase a European saying, “If you’re sharing a table with nine Nazis, you have ten Nazis at the table.”
“your group”
“your kind”
“you people”
Again, you are assuming things that are convenient for you.
And if I in any way defend myself, clearly, I am lying or delusional, because you know more about me than I could possibly know about me. Obviously.
You argue repeatedly in bad faith. You set up strawmen, knock them down, and declare yourself the victor.
You are full of anger, lashing out at anyone who disagrees with you, claiming all kinds of horrible things about them without evidence of any kind (or in direct contradiction of the evidence), then act like the victim when called on it.
You have little more than hate and libel to sling at me. It is a tantrum by a child. It doesn’t even anger me anymore. It is predictable and sad.
I MUST be evil, endorsing all kinds of horrible evil things (many of which I have explicitly condemned), because I disagree with you, largely on method not goal.
And this, because I had the gall to honestly wish you well in difficult circumstances. Such an evil, horrible human being I must be.
For optimal balls-out-of-the-way, I’d put them ten feet *UP*.
Do you think Frix understands the ‘golf clap’ is for Jabber bending over? He looks like he might be taking offense that Sydney got thrown so expertly.
He hangs out with Cora.
And Dabbler.
And has at least a couple of weeks accumulated Terran time a’shore.
He knows.
…he knows.
It is because of those reasons that I think he finds it odd to be clapping. It’s such a normal experience for him that it passes without comment.
Bending at the waist and keeping a flat back is just generally better posture, for that matter. (Bending your back and knees adds a lot of strain.) But this assumes you’re wearing reasonable clothing and doing manual labor or something. If you’re wearing a ridiculous top and miniskirt, maybe don’t take my advice.
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I think the balls being where they are is pretty self-explanatory — should be farther away for safety, but there are limits to what you can show in the compressed space of a comic panel.
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Dark Ambient Occlusion is my favorite music genre.
Green belt is still rather unskilled. It’s “I can manage to not knock myself out with my own nunchucks” level.
Since she has a flight orb and a transportation orb, sitting on them or using them to rock climb seems like a “fooling around” activity.
That depends on the organization. Starting with white, some places have it two ranks up (White, Yellow, Green), some have it three ranks up (White, Yellow, Orange, Green), and some even have it as the rank just below Brown (Green, Brown, Black). I think it’s most typically high-Novice or low-Journeyman level (in the Novice->Journeyman->Master progression), and I’d imagine that’s how Jabberwokky is using it here. It’s not at a level where you want to rely on it in a fight, but it is at a level where you are generally better than an [i]untrained[/i] fighter.
It is also is about the point where you have learned enough about how to fall without ruining your day.
Which say what you will but can be a very useful life saving skill for any and all to have. People die and take serious injuries in falls and the ability to mitigate that is something that is grossly overlooked.
The fact that she isn’t completely knocked out after that fall/throw (probably throw) means a lot more than people would think for a scrawny girl like her. Being “traditional green belt” means she’s finally at the point before actually learning the dangerous stuff. It is impressive for her complete and total lack of self control.
It’s still higher than White, which is the point Jabs was making
It’s a long way up from where she started and there hasn’t been a lot of time in the comic and she’s had a lot more things to work on that just melee combat training
The art is fine. Don’t exceed the point of diminishing returns.
The balls being used aggressively…?
It would negatively effect the story if she become overpowered. More overpowered.
She already has flying and slow fall powers.
(imagine her using them to hold grocery bags and they follow her.)
god matt and achile are such unapologetic perv, everytime they’re here they steal the show for me…
Who is Seneca sparing with? Is the student who got her body hijacked or that hijacker who previously tried to steal Maxima?
This one has a tail, so it is the hijacker.
Definitely Lapha, with the blue “locked” flame and tail. Interesting that she’s out and training with the team already instead of still being processed or locked in a cell somewhere. Unless there’s been an undocumented time-jump, it’s only been a few days since she was captured.
(Captured, jump to Max’s boyfriend, jump to Tentacle/Blood Golem murder spree and extortion)
If she is not being overtly aggressive supervised activity is relatively low risk. Although information can flow both ways it is also an opportuity for intel gathering.
I agree, but it typically takes time to build trust. She’s documented in trying to kidnap a Super twice, did hold one hostage for a while, probably has an extensive criminal history, and it would take weeks or months just for the debrief interviews and knowledge testing.
But maybe I’m overthinking it… another logical explanation is she isn’t actually training with the team. She’s still being debriefed, and Seneca’s “sparing” is a way for a trained Green Beret to gauge Lapha’s hand-to-hand fighting capabilities. And even hardened prisoners are allowed physical activity time.
Detla was training with them within a few days of fighting with them as part of the first kidnapping plot, although she did have the advantages of having been tricked into that fight and having Dabbler vouch for her people’s sense of honor. Jabberwocky similarly joined them within a rather short time of the Vehemence incident, although again, she was influenced into attacking them rather than doing it on her own (then again, I believe a previous comic with Sydney asking what the worst thing they had done with their powers was had her flashback to robbing a bank – meaning she had a criminal record already). I think the turnaround time from “enemy” to “probationary ally” is extremely short for Archon, which isn’t realistic but does help the comic flow better.
And now I’m attempting to model a universe in which all information transfer is, somehow, exclusively one-way.
Because I am a masochist, I guess. X’D
I suppose the eventual heat death of the universe is one way transfer.
True, but how do I package that as a cutting edge tech-paradigm that I can sell to gullible techbros for enough money to retire?
If i knew that, I’d be at a much higher pateron tier for this comic. my sense of ethics is being slowly boiled away.
Every time someone in my family cracks wise about “never using our powers for evil,” I get a little closer to saying, “Why not? What even _is_ “evil,” in this day & age?”
Make an app involving very long term investing in the heat death of the universe.
I’ve been thinking about this since the punch-o-meter incident, perhaps teaching Sydney Aikido or Shao Lin kung fu? It would be fun to see meteor hammer techniques with the balls.
It might just be the shading, but does she look curvier in the ‘golf clap’ panel?
Sydney definitely has more curves than she did in chapter one. Some of that is down to Dave’s evolving art style. There has also been some debate in the comments over whether or not Sydney has filled out a bit due to physical training. I’m betting it is just the pose. That looks like a pretty tough angle to work from.
The training should give her more tone, but probably wouldn’t have any impact on her cup size (if anything, training would likely reduce that by reducing her overall body fat… although given she already had very low body fat, I suppose it’s possible she could see a slight boost simply from having more developed pectorals). It’s probably a combination of angle and the evolving art style. It’s possible it’s something more subtle – maybe her continued use of the orbs is gradually making her into an actual Super, and so she’s gradually becoming more attractive (DMFA played with this – one of the main characters, Dan, gradually became more and more attractive due to the author’s evolving art style, and this was eventually explained away as him having been in the process of awakening as cubi – a generic term for the Succubus/Incubus metarace in that setting; the fact everyone else also became more attractive was humorously ignored).
Will you be returning to the issue with the orbs power supply soon? It will be interesting to know just how long it takes for them to recharge, and for that matter, what the source of their power is. I don’t imagine Sydney has a power battery and an oath to say while each one gets topped up. Although I can certainly see her trying to think of one.
Th annoying part about complete amateurs is that all the ‘memorized to muscle memory’ moves and counter moves can be bypassed by them doing something unexpected that no trained fighter would do. I’ve seen it done and it’s especially difficult when you’re trying to control them without hurting them.
Yeah, like them suddenly dropping flat on their back and kicking upwards just as their opponent lunges towards them and continues to pass over them
Was me doing the dropping and older brother almost getting kicked in the jewels (he was very pissed)
I think this is the first we’ve seen of Jabbs since the Lust Aura situation with Parfait. Are she and Math still an actual item. And did we ever get confirmation whether they were or weren’t affected by it (especially with Math not seeming to have been) and she just so happened to decide to pounce on him at that particular time.
Unless there’s been an undocumented time-skip, there have only been a few in-universe days since Parfait’s Lust Aura, maybe a week or so.
The entire Parfait arc ending with Lapha captured only lasted a day or two in universe, then
-> [time skip?] -> Max’s boyfriend, a few hours? -> [time skip?] -> Tentacle/Blood Golem murder spree and extortion, maybe several days? -> [time skip?] -> today
How could we even tell if Math were affected by the lust aura? Would it be any different from his normal self?
“She would crush you with her pinky ” against Sydney OK if she does strictly unarmed her 2 tentacles pseudopods coud be a serious treat.
But against Sydney furry boyfriend ( 7’4″ Frix) it’s another game even for Jabberwokky – no grapple or you’re out -.
She hadn’t if I recall correctly demonstrated super strength.
She has, when she was sparing with Kevin, she used “Rino Style” against his punch, and stopped it to a degree. She did slide back to the punch, but wasn’t knocked down or lost her stance. I’s say that’s super strength. Clearly not on the same level as Max, Hiro, Stalwart, and so on but has some to a degree. Martial Arts does make it seem like you’re super strong, but that is just practice and knowing how to deflect attacks and use your opponent’s momentum against them. But in the case of Kevin’s punch, she used both palms flat on his fist.
Jabber is bending at her hips, not her waist. Stand up straight and bend sideways; the place where you bend is just below your ribcage, and what is called your waist. For me, it’s about 6 inches above my hips, and where the natural indentation for top to bottom halves sits. This is why low-waisted jeans are called “hip huggers.” It’s also why I tend to be cross when we have the nurses come in to work to take our metrics for our health plans and they say they are measuring our waist, then put the tape measure around our hips. Not the same place on the body!! *eyeroll* Ugh.
I appreciate that Jazza has her hands on her thighs while she’s bent over like that though–that way, she won’t mess up her back. Assuming supers can mess up their backs like that, anyway, but the back is the weakest point on your body when bending over, since it’s apparently not designed to support our top halves in that position. I appreciate the attention to detail! :)
As for coloring, I agree with those who’ve said it looks great–it does. Not sure how Max will look, though, so I’m going ti withhold final judgement until I see her in this coloring style. :)
Well, to be honest, it’s also a great way to flash cleavage to a room! I broke my back in 2 places, L2 & L4, and herniated ALL the disks in my spine, so it is only my hips when I have to bend down. it sux, and I was a trained martial artist, I stress I was one.
I have wondered why Sydney doesn’t have a belt with either special holders or at least a clip on to the belt similar to pokemon trainers where she can just clip the orbs into and have them held to her person but out of the way? I’m sure Arkspark could whip something up, obviously it’s probably that you just didn’t think of it or it doesn’t match the character aesthetic you’re going for.
Basically, the orbs want to orbit her head, and Sydney has to concentrate to get them to do anything other than that. Plus, she can call the one(s) she wants/needs to her hand at a thought, and that would interfere with that in a crunch, so not the best idea. The pole balls are magnetic, I don’t think that would be an option with the orbs.
So something like the tube she used in the first comics?
I’m sure they have something like that already for when she needs to be somewhat covert, probably a backpack because of their bulk. But per Dave’s comments the point of this exercise was to help Sydney gain more control by keeping them off to the side while doing something else, like martial arts training. Then she lost focus with her ADHD mental jumps from when she heard “Green Belt” to thinking that meant something significant to challenging someone else in the room she knew was a “Green… something”.
Seneca is looking away in the middle of a sparring session, and Lapha is about to give her a glove to the face for it.
Nah, Laph is taking a cheap shot* and is about to find out just how good of a Green Beret Sen is
*technically, no such thing as a ‘cheap shot’ in a fight, not even a sparring bout: it’s all on the one being distracted, specially if they are the ‘teacher’
I love the fact that the guys behind Jabberwokky aren’t clapping at what just happened to Sydney, but at the fact that Jabber is flashing her butt at them in tight spandex shorts LOL.
IMO, 3.5-tone shading is just right. It staves off the uncanny valley principle, where the more a visual experience approaches reality, the more the unreal parts draw the attention. I love the comic regardless, but there comes a point of diminishing returns where adding more detail nudges the art closer to the boundary between representative and realistic. The best explanation of the uncanny valley I’ve found is a page on the old Manly Guys Doing Manly Things comic: https://thepunchlineismachismo.com/archives/730
Again, I love your work and this is one of the few webcomics I’ll binge from the beginning every now and then.
Her choice of positioning screams “Lifetime of Lower Back Pain!”
Because of her training, Jabber is gymnast-level flexible, and to be honest, any large-breasted woman suffers from upper back pain their entire adult life. Not that it’s why she’s doing that, she loves attention. What better way to get it from the men and women in the room? That’s mostly her “show off” pose, mocking Sydney as well as clueing her in. My Sensei was good for that, as soon as he thought you were getting cocky, you’d be looking at the ceiling with his hand aimed at the Adam’s apple, fingers touching your throat, and him telling you “You’re dead.”
This strip is reminding me of when I trained at a mui thai gym with a guy who had been an Olympic TKD competitor. I was doing good… TOO good, in fact. I asked him, “are you holding back?”
He shrugged and admitted that he had.
I clamped down on my indignant reaction, then politely asked him to not hold back against me ever again.
He shrugged again… and then whooped my fanny.
Every single sparring session.
For three months straight.
By the time I was able to hold my own against him, to the point that the sparring wasn’t TOO one-sided, I had improved EXPONENTIALLY.
It’s not just martial arts. In college I liked to play chess and could hold my own with most of the people in my dorm. Then I got to play with a ranked player. Not only did he whoop my butt but he could consistently predict how many moves it would take. unfortuanately i didn’t have time to learn much from him as I had graduated and had to go out into the world.
I feel like we have a whole new power/skill scaling system project now.
“Strip Mall Dojo – Belt Color” : A Strip Mall Blackbelt
“Comic Book Universe – Power Scaling/Power Application” : An Alan Moore-level Superhero Antagonist
“Fictional Detectives – Investigative/Observational/Deductive Reasoning Capacity” : A Bookstore Benoit Blanc
Jabs is not afraid to give fan service in comic or out.
I really like Jabberwocky. She’s actually being supportive and helpful here. Though, let’s be honest, we could probably give Syd all the training in the world and she’s default to ‘wildly spinning her arms about like a windmill’ style.
“Don Quixote Flail of Justice”
the windmill insurance rate went up.
She’s obviously at least a little capable of learning some martial arts move given what she did at the bank. And what she did to Jabberwokky the first time (although Jabberwokky easily was able to recover from the flip given her martial arts powers and training). And she did apparently beat the heck out of a mugger before having the orbs. Probably from mauling instead of a windmill attack. :)
Wouldn’t it be better to learn to use the indestructible orbs as a weapon/shield?
There is a problem with that idea, we don’t know if they are indestructible, very tough, but since they are her powers, and we have NO idea what would happen if even one busted open, would you risk it? that’s like taking you VERY expensive titanium laptop and using it as a shield, sure if there was no other way, but it won’t explode with the power of a star.
I honestly prefer the flatter shading. I do think that pure flat or cell-shaded is too flat, but this hits me just right in terms of “Detailed, but not busy”.
They should also REALLY have Sydney learn to use martial arts in conjunction with her ability to mentally move her orbs around for blocking and attacking, like she did with Shadow Boxer guy. Since we’ve already seen her stuck IN the shield with at least one other super (Shadow Boxer and Vehemence – not that martial arts would be much help against someone like Vehemence at full power).
Also like how she was doing against Math… until he predicted her balls’ movements and poked one into her shin
Yeah. :)
Although to be fair that’s:
1) Against Math, who is waaaaay beyond pretty much everyone in martial arts, including Jabberwokky. Except Maxima I guess.
2) Without her even being trained by ARCHON. :)
Just wanted to chime in and say that this level of shading looks great! Recently re-read through the entire comic and the various styles that have been used and this 3-tone just clicks for me as a reader (and hopefully saves you a bunch of effort too!)
Adjusting your magic martial arts abilities to stay just above your student so they never feel like they’re making any progress seems like it would be a pretty bad teaching technique for most people; that feeling of progress is a pretty major motivator. ArcSWAT peeps might not have much choice in showing up to training, but morale and drive are going to be big factors in how much they get out of it.
Of course Sydney is a cartoon character, so this may not apply in this instance.
I am reminded of Quigley Down Under, where the main character, an expert rifleman who never uses a pistol, is forced into a pistol duel by the bad guy. It ends with Quigley winning the fight because he is excellent with the pistol; he just prefers rifles.
Similarly I can see the bad guys capturing Sidney and separating her from her orbs to render her helpless, then being totally surprised when she flips a guard, takes his gun and goes James Bond on their ass.
I missed this part of Sydney. I can’t stop laughing.
Since rules weren’t agreed does this mean Seneca can claim to have a draw against Sydney with no restrictions? I say take that deal.
Yups, if Sydney gets a draw, so does Sen (that’s how draws work :P )
I just imagine Panel 7 was Sydney doing a cartoon ZIP to challenge Seneca, moving faster than the orbs could follow. No further explanation needed.
Wait’ll we meet HER sensei : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HsKvr9zTNo
How bout Sydney vs Hitomi Tanaka? “Normal Human” who just happens to be a former adult film actress and a black belt.
is jabberwok ever not wearing her make up? I get wearing it during the day or on a mission that just popped up, but during training? now I just once want to see her without eye-shadow and bright turquoise lip-stick lol
Ok, we already know that Sydney has control over the orbs and their movements, and that she is natively… Exercise averse. So how long do you all think it will take before she realizes she can massage her own sore muscles at exactly the right place and pressure by controlling them. And what are the odds Dabbler is the second person to figure that out?