Grrl Power #278 – Alarmingly Disorderly Harnessing of Doom
Merry Xmas to those of you who get up to that sort of thing. My present to you is a regularly scheduled comic. :) This was supposed to be an easy bottle episode type page but there’s actually at least a whole page worth of new art on it. :/
Given the limitations of the media, this is my attempt to visualize ADHD, or at least the ADD part. Just a bum rush of stuff going on with the occasional tangent taking you off to parts unknown unless you’re really trying to focus. Sydney seems to have found a way to leverage it with her medication waning just the right amount, even if Batman keeps trying to horn in. Speaking of Batman, this is the song stuck in her head now if you’re not familiar with it is this, obviously with “Batman” in place of “Scatman.”
When I originally envisioned this page, it almost completely laid out Sydney’s plan, obfuscated only by the fact that she was considering several different options, indicated by several running sets of arrows like a football play, but as I started building the page, I realized that would basically just spoil the next few pages. In a comic book, I think that would be ok since people probably wouldn’t spend up to 4 days flipping back through the book and recalling each scene with a checkmark on it, but everyone reading along now potentially has that luxury. I didn’t want to spoil the fun, so I omitted most of the checkmarks and threw in a lot of red herrings, which I think is fine cause it’s still in line with the ADD fueled blur of images. Not everything she dredges up will be useful after all, hence the red X’s everywhere.
Sebastian Shaw, for those of you who don’t know, is the character Keven Bacon played in X-Men: First Class. (The bad guy) His power was to absorb, store and release damage, so hitting him does nothing but make it so he can hit you back just as hard. Some of the ways the X-men ever beat Shaw are applicable to Vehemence, which is why Sydney’s drafting from that well. The reason he looks like colonial Wolverine on this page is that’s how he looks in the comic. Obviously for the movie they didn’t dress Bacon up like that, probably because someone was worried audiences would think he was Wolverine’s aristocratic brother or something. Mutton chops, owl hair, the lot. He dresses like 1800’s British upper class because that’s how everyone in the Hellfire club dresses. (It’s a group he belongs to) Well, I say everyone. The men dress like that. The women in the group dress like hookers with capes, because comics.
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome which I can’t live without anymore, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
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.
Ah-hah! The orbs are just tools… but at last and finally we see Sydney’s true super power.
And Happy Holidays to you, Dave.
Thank you so much Dave for portraying ADHD as a benefit. About time someone did so.
PS: “ADHD Brain – Rarely This Co-operative”
…Words to fucking live by right there!!
TRUTH!!
Not gonna lie, I teared up a bit.
There is a reason why people with adhd tend to be listed as creators of something. Art etc.
Now if only I can figure out why I haven’t created something. *grin*
Reminds of Scott Malkinson on South Park: The Stick of Truth. Who wields the power of diabetes.
“My diabetes is a blessing and a curse. Mostly a curse.”
Merry Christmas, and damn Sidney’s brain is SCARY with a capital S.
Say it with me, everyone: BRAIN BLAST!!
not enough Jimmy fans to get that one.
but still a riot hahahaha
Comics usually portray a psionic mind-blast as what happens when a telepath forcefully overloads another’s mind with images & information being projected at a tremendous rate of speed.
Can you imagine what a psionic mind-blast from Sydney could do to a person?…
O.O
Zanack had it right ^_~♥
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h508MiesbSY
And the reverse. How little effect it would have on Sydney.
yeh Sydney’s mind is like a whirlwind, a direct blast would just be incorporated into the swirling death storm
And I’m guessing mind control would also fail. And mind reading might cause a migraine in the reader. In short, Sydney has a mental shield.
Kinda want to test this now. Where’s a telepath when you need one?
Considering how many tangents my brain goes off on sometimes, it would be chaos.
Heck.. I have to have a sci-fi space battle going on in my head at work just so I can concentrate on boring, sleep spawning, data entry
I end up creating entire worlds and if I could focus enough I would be able to write them down and make money selling e-books. But writing things down that I have already thought up is boring so it never happens. If only I had an alternate personality that could focus easily and still had my memories…
My issue is. That I sometimes make cast in shows more entertaining, by dropping them into my all original verse.
Technically original.
When I write a first novel of the series, I have to do a redesign of the ships and starfighters so the cover artwork doesn’t run the risk of copyright infringement.
That’s actually a lot the “up” for a bipolar sufferer.
“Like” the up
don’t blame comics for the hellfire ladies.. blame tv. or history :)
the hellfire club was an old British institution where wealthy mean would get together for sex, sadism, satanic rituals, and lots of getting drunk (think eyes wide shut)
it inspired an episode of avengers- where the costumes came from- which then inspired Claremont and byrne’s xmen.
When you say it inspired an episode of Avengers, do you mean the old spy show that seems impossible to find anywhere and had a meh attempt at modern remake movie, or the Marvel Avengers comic?
The old spy show in this case. Diana Rigg in a black leather bustier, knee boots, spiked collar and whip in hand. Even V couldn’t handle her.
Impossible to find you say.
Dang, thought I had the link set up right. Oh well, if this doesn’t work, never mind.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xwnzp9_the-avengers-1966-s04e21-a-touch-of-brimstone_shortfilms
Actually, the sex, sadism, and satanic rituals aspect of real-world hellfire clubs was limited mostly to myth. In reality, they just tended to be upper-class clubs that tended to use satanic language in their charters because blasphemy was in at the time among wealthy Brits. So they called themselves devils and renamed common cuts of meat “breast of virgin” or “Devil’s loin”, but that’s really as much as they actually did. The sex and BDSM stuff was just rumors.
Spoilsport.
or so THEY say… of course they would say that they “renamed” (long)”pork” to those names. hmmm… really, do you think that whomever was in those type of clubs/ secret societies/whatever, would ACTUALLY tell people what they were doing (and or eating)? ;D
in reality though, i never knew they were a REAL group the the X-men writers modeled the comic book group after… huh, learn something new every day.
They weren’t exactly secret.
Actually the most scandalous thing that the original Hellfire Club did was to allow women to join as members with equal standing as the men, which was pretty much unheard of in British social clubs at the time.
It’s amusing to me that the word “scandalous” can be applied to not being an intolerant bigot. But then a lot of people seem to consider gay marriage “scandalous”, and any kind of interracial relationship to include simple friendship was once considered “scandalous” also. So there you go…
A person uses scandalous when they are offended. So it’s basically meaningless as a definition of bad behavior since it is so hard to get everyone to agree a certain behavior is scandalous.
True enough. I’m scandalized that someone would consider themselves to be the judge over what other consenting adults get up to in their bedroom. In my mind as long as there is no abuse involved it’s all fair game.
But then I’m also “scandalized” by the behavior exhibited in the Gay Pride Parade. But not because they are gay. I’d be just as scandalized at that kind of behavior if it was a man dressed in leather leading a woman dressed in leather around on a leash, or vice versa. That may describe my prudishness, but that’s just how I feel. It’s not the gay that I’m offended by, it’s the general exhibition. I’ve had many gay friends throughout my life and without fail all of them have been fine people, people that I would be quite happy entrusting with watching over my home or other property. Only one woman can I recall who would have been comfortable with participating in the kind of display which goes on in the Gay Pride Parade, and she and I were rather close in high school.
Yeah. Freaking the mundanes is fun but at a certain point I find myself the mundane in question. And the sexual orientation is is not the issue the behavior is. Freaking At The Freakers Ball by Shel Silverstein (also wrote the Giving Tree… go figure.
while I realize that things tend to get overblown in rumor ( and I doubt it was ever as glamorous as the movies make it), I would find it hard to believe their was no wild parties at these institutions, as there are similar clubs now and wild parties do get involved – note several scandals involving secret service agents smuggling in prostitutes.
when wealthy and powerful people run off into secret clubs for weeks on end, I doubt it’s just to play badminton- they get drunk, get laid, and where silly outfits.
ps-
humorous example:
the recent republican presidential convention in florida got rained out, and one of the local scandals was the local strip club owner had imported some extra ‘offstage talent’ for the regular after convention parties which then had to be canceled- and he went public asking the convention to pay him for the work anyway.
ooops.
@scantrontb i learned something new the other day, the musical term “a cappella” has its’ origins in a reference to chapels, which cappella is Italian for; these chapels were so underfunded the only musical instruments they had was the congregation’s voices; a cappella means like the chapel
“I’m here to talk about Eddie.”
“That’s a tender subject.”
Meatloaf again?!
Happy Yule everyone
Three steps ahead
A day ahead
Month
Year
Generation
Seven Generations
So I’m assuming the X’s are for things that she considers of no value to the situation, ?’s are for things that might and green ✓’s are for things that are definitely of use in this situation?
Or maybe I have that all inside out or something cause their are only 2 green checks and they are on pages that signify that 1) Maxima can dodge bullets but not fear vomit because she wasn’t expecting it and 2) Sydney needs to think 3 moves ahead…
So maybe the checks are the fundamental principles that sparked the plan, X’s are things most likely to help and ?’s are things she isn’t sure about if they will help. With Batman being the only thing she decided definitely wouldn’t help. Sebastian Shaw didn’t get a mark at all just Sydney herself confirming his usefulness.
Oh well I’ll think about this more after Christmassy stuff happens.
Merry Christmas, Dave and God Bless us Everyone.
The lack of checks is deliberate to obscure the plan.
Merry Christmas to you too.
That plan to obscure the plan.
That’s a good plan…
yep, she hasn’t lost hers (or anyones) HAT yet!, so that must mean it IS a good plan…
“Und any plan where hyu lose hyu hat is?”
“A bad plan?”
XD
Will not archive dive Girl Genius… Will not archive dive … dang it!
Bye-bye. See you in a month or two.
Well, since Sydney’s not wearing a hat, any plan will not be a bad plan…
Buhahaha ADHD brain activate!
Might be good for planing but looks like someones situational awareness slips when in that mode. You might notice how shes holding the com orb but droped the shield to type. I kind of feel like shes going to get the plan out to the team but also get a boot to the head and miss out on seeing the grand finally.
Maybe she’s using only one finger to type and using the rest to hold the ball? After all, the shield ball isn’t floating around her head like the other’s that aren’t being used.
Actually an ADHD brain would see the plan, the squirrel nearby, Vehemence, everyone fighting, and what collour the clouds are, all at the same time
And then decide that that airplane at 3:00 is far more interesting than everything else, upon which time you get clobbered for not paying attention. And yes, I still do that in shooters (ooh blinky ligh *BANG*…)
Hmm… Sydney’s perfect shield would mitigate that side effect quite nicely actually… so long as she remembered to drop it to swap air on occasion.
New power…tapping adhd cures light facial wounds???
She still has the same bruise
it got fixed…she had clean face on first update…
Man, I wish I could turn my ADD mode in my brain on and off like this. Even with medication I still end up with a filtered layer of that sort of randomness flooding my head at all times.
Such conditions are different for everybody, yeah.
Hyperfocus can do some funny things though
So, not to nit-pick or anything (and I really appreciate the work you did to get this page done for Xmas), but Sydney’s bruise is missing again.
Even though the shadow on her right side is still a bruise?
Good thing someone understands this cause all a see is one huge jumbled mess!
Also I don’t consider V like Shaw, well maybe a little. Never saw Shaw regrow an arm and get a stronger one. He’s kinda like a mix of Shaw and doomsday.
And rather like Doomsday, V seems to lack substantial motivation.
…The anti-life doesn’t justify my hate?
Seriously though… lessee…
Possible uses:
?’s – “Fear vomit” (doing something unexpected?)
– The unmovability of the orbs from her (an even stronger force than Maxima / using it for a punch?)
– Haven’s teleporting power
– Dabbler’s lust aura
– Opal’s Portal power
– Jiggawatt
– Spicy Food (Sydney’s natural ability? – spicy attack?)
– Death Toll’s Nemesis power
– Using the orbs themselves as pugilistic weapons (like she did against Shadow Boxer and Math –
possibly not considered the same ‘violence’ since the orbs seem to not actually exist?)
– Dabbler’s mesmerizing body parts (distraction?)
– the Shield (and its embiggening ability?)
Definite uses:
– Unexpected attack moves (superhero approved cool!) or maybe ‘Cooldown period after violence?’
– Three Steps Ahead
Incorporate into strategy:
– Sebastian Shaw counter-tactics from comic books?
Red Herrings:
– Batman
– Scatman music
– Bat Underwear
– Shirtless Guys with Great Abs
There’s one thing you didn’t list.
One of the panels is of how Harem got socked in the nose by Sydney due to surprising her. So it’s likely an element of the plan is using that to get Vehemence to waste power on Anvil, or on Sydney’s projected image/shield.
I think that Sydney is going to use a combination of hot pepper sauce to the eyes, the tendency to lash out at surprises in combat, Dabbler’s Boob Hypnosis (possibly on Vehemence, probably to counter the Aggro Aura.), and possibly half of your other listed things there.
Also, Sydney has 8 superpowers. Her orbs themselves are unofficial weapons too!
Well… I actually listed that as Harem’s teleport power, but yeah, it could also mean ‘the element of surprise’ :) Good call.
And I did mention the use of the orbs themelves as weapons, like how she used them against Shadow Boxer and Math.
While it’s doubtful that Sydney’s orbs themselves can do anything (they’d be even less effective against Vehemence than they would against Math) I think I can see Sydney setting up an “I Am Not Left Handed” moment with Maxima’s ability to shift her “power reserve” around.
All she needs to do is get Maxima free, and she seems to have an idea of how to do that already, assuming that plan involves super-spicy noodles, Harem’s teleportation and Dabbler’s hypnotic boobs.
Well, the orbs might help if she can position them to restrain V, since they’re basically immovable by anyone other than her. She’d probably need at least 5 even to hold just one of his wrists though. Although I’m pretty sure this is a red herring.
I wonder what would happen if Sydney put her orbs, three around each of Vehemence’s shoulders (in triangle formation) and just left them there.
Would Vehemence not be able to move at that point? I mean, the orbs are so unmovable that even Maxima couldnt budge them.
Well, re-mentioning the orbs was more to tie into my theories/remind other people. ;P
It’s all going to go crazy soon, and we’ll be right here to witness it.
Yeah, he really seems to like to flatter us by using stuff from the comments (totally working by the way! :D ) Though it would be hard not to since we usually hit all the obvious stuff and then some. Shaw’s definitely us though. I don’t think you were the very first to mention Shaw but probably definitely one of the ones who mentioned it enough to keep it at the top of Dave’s mind.
Anyway, it does a good job of making us feel a strong connection between the audience and our protagonist.
After all these years putting up the comic it’s nice to see a review of past events. It kind of ties everything together.
Also, yes, you skills as an artist have defiantly leveled up.
“You don’t tug on Emma Frost’s cape…”
Big, Bad, Maxima
Baddest gal in the whole damn town
Stronger than old King Kong
Meaner than the Vietcong
yeah, the front may slip off… :D
Well, according to this, I have indeed commented before – not that I remember. As a person with ADD, I will state this is very similar to how I did college. I went to the lectures, couldn’t read the book for any real length of time, so when papers were due, I brainstormed – no idea too crazy – while talking to a voice recorder. Then, attempting a saner man, I would listen to it and write down only the good ideas. Learning to use ADD as a tool rather than believe it to be a learning disorder was one of the first steps I had towards actually coping with it and functioning un-medicated. Though, I still do enter cloudcuckoolander states at times, to the chagrin of the group I GM for.
I have 15 reading spots at home just so I can read/finish a novel in a reasonable amount of time.
Of course I can bypass those spots by walking on the treadmill while reading.
1: Unexpected Attacks
2: Orbs are the The Immovable Object.
3: Magical energy absorbers have powers to generate that energy (Ie. Dabbler’s Lust aura or Vehemence’s Rage Aura)
4: Speedy thing go in, Speedy thing go out.
5: Instictiual reaction to a sudden shock=attack.
6: Spicy noodle damage=lost eye
7: Orbs can move with enough force to damage
8: FWTDT Nemesis powers reacts to absorbers via draining them
9: Think ahead of opponent
10: Maxima can talk normally yet be heard over the explosion, possible effect of shield.
Possible notes? Vehemence has shown himself to atleast think somewhat similarly to Sydney herself, perhaps his reaction to something unexpected is to hit it as well? Orbs can possibly be used to block him or prop something up to block him without giving way as long as they’re positioned right, Sydney can talk to someone in her shield without the noise of combat getting in the way.
From what I see, sydney might be planning to hit vehemence in a way that he’ll offhandedly attack the offending object, possibly by sending a speeding orb through a portal, then set it up so that Vehemence unintentionally attacks Death Toll’s unconscious form propped up by the orbs?
He’s also extremely Genre-savvy, like Sydney is. Which should practically be another power for how useful it is.
Thank you for this comic, Dave. Merry Christmas to you and a Happy New Year.
Triple treat!
1) Regular update despite holidays. Your professionalism is highly appreciated!
2) No holiday special either – I was dreading Vehement Claus would make an appearance.
3) Actual main character retakes the stage.
Jubilations!
I give this my official triple-thumbs-up with extra-spicy Sydney-approved ghost-chili-essence-distilled hot sauce!
Merry Christmas, DaveB- hope Santa has left something nice in your stocking!
I do believe he has!
eeexcellent. Yesss, Santa, incentivize this level of web comicker dedication.
As I’m sure others have done in this comments section, I can confirm that this is, indeed, a pretty damn good attempt at portraying this kind of thing. And, ya know, it may mean you get distracted easily and…other things…what was I saying?
…
Oh! But occasionally you get a brain-blitz like this and just put something together out of the blue and it’s actually really Batman! Err, helpful. Helpful! Like Batman. No! Argh!
Looking forward to whatever diabolical plan she comes up with.
Christmas emergency, trying to get a gift for my niece. What was the Unicorn series that Dave said he liked?? I can’t remember and a general search brings up to many titles and none of them spark recognition.
wasn’t it MLP?
So that’s what that song was. I’ve always had a fragment of it in my head, and now I know the rest! Thanks Dave!
Having not heard the song in years, I found myself playing it on repeat this morning.
Better than stripper Batman with Catwoman and stuffed kitty…
Great and Merry Christmas!
that, that is like how my brain works ALL THE FREAKIN TIME. but when focused, it does make for interesting strategies in fights for real,
I know! I know! The plan is to distract him with Dabbler’s super-boobs so Sidney can surprise him with spicy fear-vomit! She using her cuff thingy to call for takeout, I just know it.
Seriously, though, this comic cracked me up. I love it when Halo argues with herself.
……….Perhaps I DO have not-so-minor ADHD.
Also Dave’s previous description “ADD is like a double-edged sword. Also the handle’s a blade.”
I’ve heard it theorized before that every psychological disorder has some situation in which its properties are advantageous. For example, people who suffer from depression tend to be better at logical processing, while OCD is believed to have started as a means of introducing hygiene into a species that had yet to understand germ theory.
ADHD, for example, is about the closest the human brain comes to true multitasking without a defect in the corpus callosum, The fact that focusing on lots of things in quick succession makes it nearly impossible to focus on any one task at a time is the cost of that multitasking capacity (although there is also the possibility of hyperfocusing, which is the reverse problem of typical ADHD symptoms).
Huh. I’ve been reading classic X-Men a lot lately. A friend of mine works at a comic shop and managed to get me a great discount on those collections of the early works. I’ll admit that I’m a bit past the Hellfire club arc, but I could have SWORE that Sebastion Shaw was Mastermind. Then again, my memory is dubious at the best of times. Loved the update, though I noticed a small inconsistency. Namely, Sydney’s missing the bruise on her right cheek as well as her split lip.
unless of course one of those last two orbs heals her, their is that possibility. Though to be honest he very well could have just forgot when he did the pictures…
If I remember the Phoenix storyline after all this time Mastermind was pretending to be Shaw. But there was a real Sebastian Shaw behind the scenes.
I told you guys, Sydney for the win. I may not know the exact details on how she is going to win but she has to be the one to take out V putting her in the inner circle of active heroes since that is where she seems to be at the start of the comic.
hmmm.
have harem get super death sauce, have dabler distract v. so maxima can get free, use 5 orbs to hold v., enlarge shield that blocks everything to contain aggro aura, gassmask + vaporized death sauce blinds v., use opal to position v. so that when he swings wildly he strikes “for whom.”, “for whom”‘s nemesis drains v.’s built up energy, arrest depowered v.
Sydney may be onto something, we need to find Batman.
Three steps ahead.
Half-Life 3 confirmed.
Scatterbrains. Can be awesome. Think of everything at once and you’re sure to have thought of something useful.
Perhaps the orb’s new ability is to figure out which thought in a million is the useful one. To ‘see’ what might actually be helpful.
….naah…but it’s a funny thought.
“Think of everything at once and you’ll have something useful.”
I think you just described Quantum Computing.
THANK YOU for remembering to keep the balls rolling….around her head.
Also, ADHD is totally like that. My stock phrase when describing it is, “I attack problems the way pirhanas eat.”
That’s a good one, I’ll have to remember that.
And the untrained and inexperienced recruit saves the day. Again. Though I love the way this page gives us a bit of insight into how Sydney’s brain works, I’m probably a Grinch for wanting her to be completely wrong and need to be saved…especially since it’s been established the comics she’s got an encyclopedic knowledge of have little if anything to do with the way powers work in the Real World.
Seriously, Sydney can’t remember to take her orb case with her from the car in the first few comics, and now she’s a tactical genius who can solve every super-powered-related question? And it’s the same day! Sure, it’s been…what, almost two years?…in Real Time, so of course the characters have been fleshed out in the author’s head, with lot more skills and abilities and potential. However, from Sydney not being able to think of a decent excuse for having the orb case with her, forgetting it in the car, to…this. In significantly less than twelve hours.
I could buy Dabbler, Max, or Math…but not Sydney. She had her Hero Moment with Death Toll. Beginner’s Luck or a new perspective or what-have-you. I have to wonder if the author has thought of anything *past* this fight…because not only do we have Deus ex V making ARCSWAT look like wanna-be’s, also-ran’s and never-was’; now we have Super Sydney making them completely obsolete. What is she going to learn and who is she to learn it from? Max, who is apparently out-thought and out-fought, revealed to be a tough talker and non-walker? Dabbler, who has admittedly hypnotic breasts but was ready to run away as soon as V revealed himself? Anvil, who may be able to take a punch but apparently has no training in any form of physical conflict (seriously, V grabbed her hair and threw her wherever…she didn’t grab him, lock a joint, counter-attack, nothing? Sure, hair is a heck of a handle but between him grabbing it and being able to throw her, she had adequate time to do SOMETHING…if, you know, she had any training other than `Stand there, get punched.’) Is Sydney going to be in desperate need of learning how to lose? Because that’s all ARCSWAT is capable of teaching her at this point.
The fight has gone on far too long and introduced far too many paradigm shifts. I’m not seeing a way back to the fun and games that put this on my Must-Read list. Sydney, as established, should say right after the fight, “Hey, you know, thanks for the offer and all, but I’m out. You’re supposed to be professional heroes and who saved your butts? Let me see…oh, yeah: ME! The girl who doesn’t know what the hell she’s doing! So, yeah, I’m thinking I’m better off on my own because I’m obviously better than all of you put together. So…peace out!” Cut to Sydney chilling at the comic store a few months later, grumbling sigh as she sees a Breaking News segment about ARCSWAT getting trashed by yet another unbelievably powerful entity the likes of which makes gods weep in fear…you know, the guy who beat the girl who beat the irate cow who beat the sentient moss that beat V. Last line of the comic as Sydney grabs her orbs and heads for the door, “You know, they really need a different hobby. Maybe…no, not knitting; needles are sharp. Maybe finger-painting?”
Seriously, where does the comic have to go after this? That saddens me because the comic started out *fun*. At least it’s still beautiful.
I don’t get the reason why forgetting the tube or bring unable to think up a decent excuse is mutually exclusive with solving a problem. The absent minded scientist stereotype exists for a reason.
Remembering the tube is like your keys, mundane and boring and needs a mind good at organised process following and order. Solving V is very much an analytical and intuitive process that if anything will favour a mind that despises order and process and prefers relational disorder that doesn’t just think outside the box but probably doesn’t realise it even exists.
As for the excuse, well that requires good creative thought which is an entirely seperate skill.
Yea, your complaint would be correct. If Sydney’s brain worked like a normal person.
As ADHDer, this is how she thinks. Forgetting random crap and everything. But when it comes to it, such a brain goes into Hyperfocus and can think VERY fast.
And yes, she has memorized everything about comic book super powers, counters, uses, everything. That’s all aplicable knowledge here
In general, yes, untrained troops simply do not out-think or out-fight trained troops. And the plucky newby coming up with the winning move is a tired trope, partially for that reason. But there are several factors here that don’t fit normal combat.
I doubt the leaders let them train much against mind control given the problems inherent in the potential trainer (Dabbler) and her mind control powers (lust). Talk about a legal and public relations disaster begging to happen. So only Sidney is likely free of it at the moment.
Similarly, Sidney and the local intelligence operatives are the only ones who have the luxury to actual think in the middle of this. (There better be a good reason the intelligence operatives aren’t obviously doing anything at the moment.)
Winning tactics in warfare are generally team tactics. Which are largely useless in this situation because many of the team are mentally compromised and distracted by the Zerg rush of newly-awakened enemies. The team started out doing smart tactics (teleporter supply runs, set up overwatch and communication, etc.) but they sort of devolved into one-on-one matches. One-on-ones are won by the strongest fighter, who is Vehemence.
Another large part of winning tactics is reflex tactics – things drilled in so heavily you do the right move automatically. Training for changing circumstances just means learning when to shift to a different set of already-learned tactics. But history is littered with tactics that work wonderfully under normal circumstances but are disastrous when things change. Almost by definition, a fight with dozens of new supers constitutes things changing (paradigm shifts). This has more then one follow-up:
So who has trained to change tactics based on new superpowers? The gamer. It is a HUGE distance between theory and practice, but at least she does have the theory. ARCSWAT probably trained against each other, but again, that’s against known powers. ARCSWAT also probably considered new combat doctrines but haven’t had time to adapt them fully.
People who are using standard tactics are going to get tripped up by new circumstances and, even among combat troops, people who can override their own training when it starts failing are incredibly rare. Sidney’s ADHD is her advantage here.
So my real problem with this is the staleness of the trope rather than the unlikelihood of Sidney coming up with anything useful. I hope Dave subverts the trope in some way to relieve this.
Actually Sydney isn’t an untrained newbie. She is a comic store owner with years of experience in deducing powers and abilities and how those powers and abilities cancel each other out. The ability of a gamer, especially a gamer with years of experience in the potential use of powers. Since she knows how to process those powers then she can manipulate them, including the power that V is currently using.
Well… actually she IS an untrained newbie. She’s already found that a lot of stuff that Maxima told her shows that comic books tend to be horribly inaccurate, because of the rule of cool and other tropes and poor writing tricks.
However, she IS very genre savvy as well. If Maxima doesnt beat V, though, I’d be satisfied with Sydney doing so (though it would really necessitate Maxima showing she’s actually badass instead of just ‘words to that effect’ in one of the future archvillains), or Sydney doing something to let Maxima beat V.
It’s better that Sydney beats Vehemence than them needing to rely on one of the villains to do so, or worse – Vehemence just leaving. But it does look like Sydney is going to do something :)
Maker, I understand where you’re going with this, but it’s simply not `realistic’. In a `realistic’ fashion, the gamer gets dropped into a harsh situation and s/he gets their butt handed to them simply because they don’t have time to think and consider and bounce ideas off the DM and argue errata points. This is why a D&D game contains a few fights that take up ten minutes of the character’s day and eat most of our evening. A gamer may have a certain flexibility of thought processes but is NOT trained to ACT on those thoughts.
And again, it’s been shown within the world of Grrl Power that comics are NOT applicable to the `real’ powers that exist. So Sydney’s vast knowledge is at best suspect; if she’s lucky it’s useless and if she’s unlucky, she gets someone killed because `real’ life isn’t like comics make it appear. Sydney does NOT HAVE `theory’! She has COMIC BOOKS, which as has been stated DO NOT APPLY to the `real’ world of Grrl Power.
I’m resigned to the idea that Sydney will save the day. Kinda funny that Dave wants to avoid the Deus ex Maxima feel and instead switches it for Deus ex Sydney. At least Max has the background for it, but Sydney’s codename should be changed from Halo to MarySue. Seriously, put ADHD or ADD mental mightiness up against a Navy SEAL or Army Ranger. I know who I’m betting on to walk out under their own power. This whole V arc has seriously lessened my enjoyment of the comic…not *quite* bad enough to drop it but if it weren’t as well drawn and pretty, it’d be close. Right now it’s sort of the horrified fascination of watching a slow-motion train wreck. The comic has been…well, I suppose the accurate term is `evolving’ in Dave’s mind over the past couple years, but I personally consider it Devolving…from quirky, silly fun, a refreshing view of superheroes and their lives to just another stuporhero slugfest.
It’s Dave’s story and I admire the heck out of him for telling it his way and with such wonderful art. That is not to say I agree with all the steps he has taken but then again…I don’t have to since it’s his story. In the end, I can grumble and snarl and whine all I want, but it’s Dave’s story. I try to present my objections clearly and logically, and enjoy the discussions thus sparked, keeping firmly in mind that except for Dave, anything expressed is only an opinion, and we all know what those are like.
Speaking from experience, (Super) ADHD brain doesn’t work like this.
For you, perhaps, but there seem to be a few other people for which it does work like that.
maybe the reason syd has the orbs is because she has adhd and her mind works like that of a dranse deminsinol being using the equivalent of a survival kit,and she forgot to pick up the thing that looks like a visor on the head of a statue underwater that she removed the orgs from