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.
wanting a full picture of batman ‘lost a bet’ to cat woman maybe?
Speaking as someone who has to deal with ADD since elementary school, I can confirm that this is pretty much what it feels like every day. The problem we have isn’t that we can’t concentrate, or aren’t able to perform problem solving. The problem is that we just have so many different thought trains running at once that we lose track of what we were trying to do.
Think of having 23,549 web tabs open at once, constantly switching between them all, and you can’t close any of them.
You forgot to add, randomly remembering events from high school, junior high, 1 event when I was four involving sneaking out of day care to go see the principal’s horse which was on his property right next door. The horse liked the apple.
I’m also still trying to figure out what I did to tick off the blond girl back when I was 6. She opened one of my knuckles to the bone. I remember seeing the bone before the blood started up.
Also, don’t forget that, as soon as you think of something important, another thought train t-bones it and pushes it off the tracks and it explodes
Also, see this XKCD comic:
https://xkcd.com/1106/
You can hold onto one idea just fine, it’s when you try to A.D.D.-I-mean “add” a second one that things get a little complicated.
Now imagine that the little stick figure has one hand tied behind his back. :(
This was the comic that introduced me to kerbal space program!
I’m interested to learn more, maybe you can educate me.
I’ve had colleagues who said that they were ADD who could and would focus on a particular thing, this was in the IT network management world, and achieve fantastic results.
I’ve never been diagnosed with ADD but there have been many times where colleagues would get my attention and then tell me that they had tried several times before I took notice of them. As in, they were in the room with me and called my name and I just didn’t respond. From my side, I simply didn’t hear them even though they were speaking to me from 5 feet away and calling my name. I was just focusing on a problem and the world just went away. Once they repeated their call or increased their volume or moved closer then I’d hear them.
That sounds like the ‘hyper-focus’ side. Even people like me who have mild ADD (don’t need medication to function semi-normally, though I am thinking about trying it out to see if it improves my job performance) will do that. Something becomes very interesting and you shut out everything else. It lasts until something forces it to break (like people shouting at you loud enough) or you lose interest (at which point you stop caring about it almost entirely, or at least I do). I tend to be minimally responsive when I do it and people will think I actually heard them because some part of my brain notices words and provides a generic response. Then later I have no idea that I talked to anyone at all or that they were even present.
Oh I hate the auto-respond function of my brain.
It’s great for providing others with information, but if you want to tell me something, it’s best to write it down and stick it on my monitor.
Also diagnosed with ADD and can second the notion about Focus which I use to shut out external distractions to get things done. Though it is really taxing and exhausting to burn through that little energy I’ve got left. Usually causes headaches. Freaks people out. While doing my things, I run a generic electronica playlist aloud to keep them away.
Giddy. This page has made me frick’n giddy with excitement. I don’t normally do “giddy”, but this, this is a special occasion.
As a recently Diagnosed sufferer of ADD (Just 18 months ago). It’s not, for me, so much a montage of thoughts as any new distraction pushes the previous activity out of mind. Till the next distraction comes along. It’s amazing to me, now that I’m being treated how easy it is to stay on track and get things accomplished with just a bit of added stimulant every day. The condition was concealed under a whole host of other physical issues. So I had unconsciously just dealt with it and coped. Now I can work on a task and complete it and I don’t have to check a list of Tasks to remind me of old ones.
wow ….just wow
oh god scatman set to batman nooooooo
HOW COULD YOU it’s in my head now
Yeah. It’s kinda like that.
I’ve pretty much learned to let it wash over me and through me without really paying attention to it. That’s okay for solitary work, but it doesn’t help my attempts at conversation at all. The medication helps a lot, but it never really goes away.
Where I excel is detail work. If there’s enough detail, I can get hyperfocused and blaze through a task like nobody’s business. The only thing is, I need to have music playing, or my favorite comedy album or something, as a planned distraction that screens out other distractions. Sort of like backburning during a forest fire. It actually works fairly well for me.
Dear god this. Had a job in a kitchen where they were letting us wear headphones at first and a few months in, they decided to crack down and stop that. I tried explaining that I wasn’t just wanting music for music but that I used it to help me concentrate. Was told that I was essentially SOL unless I could get a doctor to agree with that.
The look on that manager’s face when I showed him said note from my psych(written on his prescription pad at that), was freakin’ priceless…
Three moves ahead… Sebastian Shaw… hot noodle eye incident… blanket… THAT’S IT!
She’s going put a SHAWl over his HEAD to blind him!
Cool. But once Vehemence is defeated Sydney should rub it in by demanding he marry her. They are so compatible!
God no. Unless Sydney does things like a Preying Mantis and requires pulling off Vehemence’s head first.
Like this
https://i.imgur.com/DNNtnB2.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/kJ6bcHg.jpg
I wonder if Death Toll’s power is similar in function to Bink’s talent… That is that it only works against super powered attacks, not non-super powered attacks.
https://xanth.wikia.com/wiki/Bink
Similar to Bink is Kamijou Touma but PBS was a simple nemesis effect. It likely would block any single attack, powered or not.
i’d say that it would block any attack against him super or not. remember the panel that showed him whacking Concretia out of the way after Math sent her flying?… that was NOT a “super-powered” attack by any stretch of the imagination but purely a ballistic impact event of someone that just happened to BE a Super, and not an attack per se’ since Math had no way of knowing that he was behind the wall that he sent her through in the first place, therefore he would have just been collateral damage for Math’s attack against Concretia, that due to his Nemesis power was for naught, and he escaped without harm.
Bink’s power worked against ALL types of Attack not just Magic, remember Trent tried to stab him with a regular sword and Bink’s magic maneuvered Chameleon to take the blow instead.
Actually, Chameleon’s dive was intentional on her part. Those transformed into forms without a human component would lose their human identity unless Trent made a conscious effort, but it was a gradual loss. Bink’s talent worked by apparent chance and mishap. Her action was clearly self-sacrifice.
Having said that, Bink’s talent did have a very broad definition of magic.
hah, and all that on her 1st day …
I’m just very happy to see some Sydney pure silly jokes again. :)
Super ADHD brain really has never been that cooperative for me… The batman thing is accurate though…
Regarding the possible plan… The first of the 2 check marks are from the panels where sydney mentioned maxima being able to catch a bullet, and maxima saying she wasnt ready for fear vomit. The second is the “three steps ahead” advice math gave her. I think the plan will revolve around maxima’s speed or a surprise factor, and the fact that she will be probably literally 3 steps ahead of vehemence, though we already knew she had to do that in the last page.
Having never actually read any of the Xmen comics (the cartoons were more my speed 20+ years ago) I do not know how any of them defeated sebastion shaw… though Xmen first class showed a small amount of force with immense inertia did the trick… which is something that Sydney’s powerballs seem to be able to do.
You’re only considering checked answers in that. Take a further look at all ? bubbles that don’t end in an x too. Moving down, we have the Fear vomit, Do you have any idea how strong I am?, the Harem elevator surprise, surprise head grab, personal weakness with the noodle, Jig lightning null, surprise clobbering with the orb itself, DT power defense, three steps ahead, Max fallout shield, and the booby trap distraction. All elements point to surprise defense distraction to set up for Max to end this and with a possibility of fallout.
I have ADD, too – and when I activate my super ADD brain powers I – OH HEY A SQUIRREL!!!!!! DID YOU SEE THAT SQUIRREL THAT WAS AN AWESOME SQUIRREL!!!!
….
uh…..
so…..
Why’s Sydney’s face all healed up?
…
I like cheese. I HAVE A SHINY THING!!!!! I have so many books left to read. SHINY THIIIIIING!!!!!!!!!!
Wait, how about Death Toll versus Vehemence?
He’s dead, Jim
Cause of Death: Terminal Knife-inflicted Wound to the Left Buttock
Maybe he got better?
I actually think Vehemence would be smart enough to figure out how Death Toll’s power works and would just avoid attacking him. He wins, no contest.
OHMYGOD! That was actually a superpower? I guess I’ve been using it wrong D: Also I was thinking would spicy food count as violence? Because if that stuff was hot to her how could a mere mortal (though super powered) withstand that?
That could actually be an interesting plan.
“Here V eat this!”
*Throws bowl of dangerously spicy food in Vehemence’s face*
I am ADD and I can confirm that this is how it works, except that I will occasionally wonder how I got from Code Geass to trains.
well, that’s got a totally simple answer, in fact, that’s pretty much as silly a question as what animal is a female lawyer allowed to bring into court.
(any animal she wants, as long as it isn’t ‘er elephant)
[say it out loud, you’ll get it]
Sebastian Shaw looks like this, because the Hellfire club was designed after faous actors of the 70s. Sebastian Shaw looks like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Shaw_%28British_actor%29,
Harry Leeland looks like Orson Welles, Donald Pierce looks like Donald Sutherland and even if is hard to recognise now, Emma Frost is Dianna Rigg.
There are worse songs you could earwiggle* yourself with than “The Scatman”
*trademarked, distribute freely but with correct origin please thank you bye
Too bad – you should have said “Earwiggle™”.
I’ll credit you anyway, but I can’t promise to use it very often.
You’ll no doubt be fascinated to learn that the terms “The Naked Gamer”, “SELFY STICK” and “WHALE’S TALE PALE ALE” have been registered in the UK in the last week.
To point, wtf? “Whale’s Tale Pale Ale” and “The Naked Gamer” are really ones that make me wonder why they’d be registered for that.
Any plan that could use Dabbler’s boobs is a good plan.
A’DD’ brain indeed…
Sydney’s memories were about Dabbler’s mammaries.
I think it’s more of the memory of them being overbearingly distracting.
Methinks you missed my pun.
Sydney melded the memory of being mesmerising mammary enmeshed.
Maybe.
Is the art supposed to get more and more blurry as you go down the comic?
Hang on a mo… he’s not immune to Dabbler’s lust aura, is he? Has that been established? Would she be able to counter him by dialing it waaaay up like she did in the conference room? Sorry if this was already asked back in the wilds of the thread.
Asked many times, almost as often as “suffocate him with shield” theory. We don’t know, but the general agreement is that even if he would be affected at his current power level, lust is NOT counter to violence, those go together very very well. Lust aura by itself is in the realm “you really don’t want to go there”, you’d need to follow up with some clever plan.
(my bet is on “no” anyway, based on no evidence at all, just my “saving throws through the roof” perception of his current state)
Of course! That’s it! She can suffocate him with the shield!
Firing Orbital bombardment cannons.
Here’s your sign.
And a thousand more, just because .
I’m pretty sure those would be considered violence and just power him up more.
I would be very concerned about turning the lust aura on Vehemence at this point. He might just turn into the uber-rapist and violently have sex with all who oppose him.
Isn’t Anvil more like Shaw? With kinetic absorption? Vehem gets his power from the act of violence not the result of it?
Think personality and power usage, rather than the exact power itself.
Scatman is best man
Guys guys Dabbler vs Vehemence would be Make Love Not War
Aha! She will use her favorite hot sauce to defeat him! Not violence, but definitely crippling
How do you do this thing where you make Sydney’s mind look exactly like mine does? HOW DO YOU DO IT?!
I think theres a sneaky little way this can work.
1) Sydney enlarges her shield to protect Anvil, and Harem from the AOE of the rune from vehemance
2) Harem ports in with the three bottles of spice Sydney used earlier.
3) Two harems rapidly (To not be affected by the rune) port around vehemence bugging him and squirting him in the eyes to blind him. Sydney takes spot three, using her shield for cover and lighthook to hold bottle three. She provides a standing target Vehemance will remember.
4) Anvil picks up death toll and Sydney and DT are switched out while vehemence is blinded. Vehemance punches DT who he thinks is sydney, who nullifies Vehemances abilities.
Sydney is way too fragile to be out of force field.
While she is in the force field it is impenetrable.
Seeing her allowing a punch is way too suspicious.
V wouldn’t fall into that trap.
The hot sauce however, may work. who knows.
Well, she wouldn’t be out of the forcefield. And V doesn’t know its impenetrable.
First Syd manages to get the jump on Death Toll, and now she is about to Dismount V from his high Horse?
Maybe the Rank Corporal (which Syd had on the Cast Page at first) was valid after all.
Not to mention the term cadet in her profile. That means she is on track to be an officer. For Archon that means Halo leading field teams. There’s a thought to make the bad guy’s knees tremble.
The majorty of ArcSWAT are officers, either NCOs or fully commissioned. Most are corporals, like Harem, Heateave, and Stalwart. So far only Jiggawatt is the only “super” headed toward Private status (listed as recruite, and deservedly so).
Teams are gonna be kinda top heavy with Brass.
I think that’s a result of recruiting from the military. As individuals each super was placed so they could give orders and expect them to be obeyed. Now it just means Archon is a brass band of brothers. (and sisters)
Ok… so I think I actually understand her thought pattern in this. Her plan will be to use unsuspected action and knee jerk reaction similar to the Max fear vomit incident and the Harem elevator incident. Her use of the orbs as stationary objects that apparently she can manipulate in any way will probably come into play as well and will all likelihood end up being used as improvised bindings for V’s hands or to be used as a kind of punching bag shield. This will all likely be used as little more than a distraction tactic to allow Max to make a move. If that is the case, Max will probably use that time to pool her points into her power damages and reduce him to dust if possible.
I can only suggest checking all the memories with arrows that lead into a ? or a check and all memories that are checked. Note that a number of the ? memories as well as some of the checked ones are about defensive nature and neutralizing attacks. That’s where a lot of the line of reasoning looks like it’s going.
Check mark 1. Not the fear vomit, but the fact Max’s speed can vary widely.
Check mark 2. “Three moves ahead.”
Question mark 1. Leads to Check1.
Question mark 2. Harem’s shared mind and reactions.
Question mark 3. Dabbler’s Lust Aura leads to X rejected.
Question mark 4. Opal’s portals can redirect an attacker.
Question mark 5. Jiggawatt’s powers Maybe her electric move through.
Question mark 6. Noodle Incident. Beware loose ends.
Question mark 7. Indirect attack physically with an orb.
Question mark 8. Death Toll’s Nemesis power. Sucks energy sources dry as a defense.
Question mark 9. Enlarging the shield.
Question mark 10. Dabbler’s hypno-boobs are always on.
X 1. Maxima, So Shiney!
X 2. Got Your Hat!
X 3. BADGERS!!
X 4. Dabbler reads minds.
X 5. Bondage Bombs already failed.
X 6. I look good in an eyepatch.
A decent amount of those have to do with the effect totally unexpected actions have surprised several supers that are normally considered to have fast reflexes or fast defenses. Definitely distraction and misdirection about to go down. This includes some of the X’s so I’m not sure they equal “rejected” exactly.
That was the one with Jiggawatt’s dangerous “positive” lightning or whatever it was right? I guess she was thinking about gamma irradiating Magic Hulk over there? (could be kind of funny if a sort of reverse Hulk like character was taken out by gamma radiation)
I’m not sure if Dabbler can “read minds”. From her own happily surprised reaction I thought she just automatically reflected internal desires into a visible glamour.
The X that might be the eyepatch one might also be for the big bada boom.
Yes to all of the above. The list is for creating theories and even I’m still changing my mind. But Monday is coming up fast and answers will start appearing.
Never fast enough…
New page soon! New page soon! Awwwww goodygoodygoodygoody! its gonna be so awesome! xD
Okay that was creepy, updated the page and suddenly the mark appeared in Sydneys face
Yeap. It happens. DaveB will often touch up a page after receiving feedback but your browser may still fetch the original image until you force refresh your nearest server’s cache (hit ctrl-F5).
Just have Dabble push the lust aura, you can’t fight the stiffy!!!!
But with his current power level, that would just leave Vehemence possibly able to fight *with* said stiffy.
“If the erection lasts for several hours and my medication says to consult my physician and then I don’t…I get stronger!”
-Vehemence
And then everyone would just run away. ^_^
https://youtu.be/jyT_Nxm3xRE lmao!
what anime was that? i tried google translate on the little bit of text, but it didn’t make much sense.
From the sidebar I would say “Plastic Née – San “
Yup. I knew the scene without even looking.
Sounds sort of like my problem, unless something manages to lock down my attention, I will often have other thoughts derail the main thread and cause my short term memory of what I was doing to get lost or fragmented. I wish I could root myself so I could attempt to fix my brain, and install working math and keyboard libraries while I’m at it. Seriously, brain knows how keyboards and math are supposed to work but refuses dedicate a chunk of procedural memory to doing math and typing. It’s ridiculous.
The hard part is getting Max away from V, stopping him shouldn’t be too hard if she uses the fact that her orbs can’t be moved to trap him inside a large shield but out of reach of herself. That would block the aura, and might even stop him from absorbing vehemic energy. Of course she would have to figure out how to channel her own aggression then without getting too close to him or continuing to charge him.
“The men dress like that. The women in the group dress like hookers with capes, because comics.”
This is my second favorite sentence ever that didn’t involve someone offering me sex or bacon. Why has no one ever offered me both??
i’m sure that in Vegas (or practically any other place for that matter) that you could go to a place where somebody would be able to do that for you…
I have heard their was a place in New Jersey in the 70s called the Go Go Breakfast. Dancers and bacon and eggs. Closed for health reasons. Or so it was said.
Well, I am in New Jersey. Now I just have to get around to building that time machine so I can go back to the 70s. Why is it this seems more likely than me going out to Vegas to explore that possibility??
https://fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2011/325/6/e/hellfire_club_by_gcassata-d4grm2b.jpg
Yep. Apparently the women in the Hellfire Club have to wear laced up corsets/bustiers, chokers and panties. And capes.
The men have to wear cravats. And usually sideburns.
A couple hours till Monday still… *refresh… refresh… refresh… refresh… refresh… refresh*
Hahah… me too. :D
Thank you for the christmas gift..I would have preferred Max gay and wrapped up under my tree, maybe next year.
In all seriousness this has been a fun read. Your art style has matured and I am enjoying watching you grow and expand as an illustrator.
Your take on the normal comic story is one I also like. I remember some schmoo saying Max was a Marysue. I disagree, shes just powerful, and I was intrigued by the concepts you presented as how this may affect her ego and when things go sideways and how it could effect confidence among other things.as a side note I also see parallels to the Queens guard from the x-men..the one with the GIANT mohawk, if I remember correctly his powers were mind based. I actually liked all her guards as they were a direct rip off of the Legion of Superheros. ahh the good ole days.keep up the good work and thank you for such a fun story.
Now, I like T&A the same as many others, I mean Dabblers breasts are divine, but I enjoy character development more.
Sydney is a dream and the humor is fantastic and refreshing. But I did get “I am enwincible!!” stuck in my head for quite some time.
I will let the experts post theories about VhamAss and just sit back and enjoy this. But don’t worry, Ill pick apart things later….I’m a geek, its what we do.
Welcome padawan .
I was awake at quarter til one tonight trying to forget about my bad dreams when I started puzzling out the comic today. I’ve forgotten about nightmares trying to figure it out and now I can sleep! Thanks!
I wonder how large an energy pool Vehemence can maintain before he caps it out.
Also I wonder what his conversion rate is for aggression into energy, and then his ability to store said energy its probably not as high as 1:1.
He had a lot of combat to power up from earlier, but now he’s burning a lot. If it was just Him and Max going at it I suspect he’d eventually run out of pooled power and be on a one to one ratio with Max.
while I do think he probably has a weakness to good chilly, I wonder how that could be utilised.
V’s burning though the power looks like its been addressed in his aggression aura, causing all the villains to get back up and fight again so he can keep the pressure on Max.