Grrl Power #305 – The Harem relay
There are probably some regulars who would make for better part timers than Olivia. Sydney’s only known her since yesterday. Her half brother slash cousin (their dad made it with their twin sister moms for those of you haven’t been here since the beginning) would count as a regular but he wouldn’t be a good choice as she’d be flustered around him all the time. Honestly Sydney may be thinking of hiring Olivia just to ensure her conversion to the comic side.
Harem makes a pretty good supplemental communication system considering she can’t be disrupted or interfered with, at least as far as anyone up to and including Dabbler knows. You can even just tap on one of them to use morse code. She’d probably find that annoying though.
BTW, assume the picture in panel five has been up for a few hours to accrue that many notes. That’s “Vogue” in the picture. Before that Harem was Vogue she was “Cowgirl” and she decided to go retro today. Her closet is probably pretty big. I wouldn’t be surprised if it had multiple stories. (Her shirt says “Luck out with your duck out.” It’s her favorite selfie shirt.)
I’ve got a NSFW Dabbler fanart for you by Steven Stahlberg.
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You know, if Sydney does end up marrying Olivia’s brother, he will become “Tony Schoville”. Which will confuse folks when they realise that her dad is also Mr Schoville. On top of which Sydney will have to introduce Olivia as “my sister/cousin in law”.
Sydney better brace herself for a lot of hillbilly jokes!
Psst, Yorp (everyone else, nothing to see here, just move along)… Scoville, not Schoville
Everybody, sing along…
Many, many years ago when I was twenty-three
I was married to a widow who was pretty as could be
This widow had a grown-up daughter who had hair of red
My father fell in love with her and soon they too were wed….
This made my dad my son-in-law and really changed my very life,
for now my daughter was my mother, ’cause she was my father’s wife.
To complicate the matter, even though it brought me joy,
I soon became the father of a bouncing baby boy.
Would that make the baby also his uncle?
It’s either his daughter’s brother-in-law or his mother’s granddaughter. If you switch the two roles, his son is either his uncle (mother’s brother) or his great-grandson (daughter’s grandson).
This little baby then became a brother in law to dad
And so became my uncle, though it made me rather sad.
For if he was my uncle then that also made him brother
To the widow’s grown-up daughter, who of course was my step mother.
And I’m my own grandpa … (sing it with me)
Ok, I know he wasn’t the first to sing that but I first heard it sang by Ray Stevens. Which led me to such classics as “The Mississippi Squirrel Revival.” Hallelujah!
Also “The Streak”, and that one about barbers.
First time I heard it was Grampa Jones.
Here’s an OLD version of the song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VKAASpt26M
And the classic Muppet version…
https://youtu.be/gkiOm-vmpcY
Ray Stevens himself was a classic. ‘Nuff said.
Wow, thanks for the catch. That does change… something.
This kinda reminds me of Zaphod Beeblebrox the First. His father was Zaphod the Second & his grandfather the Third. It involved a time machine & a faulty contraceptive…
Yorp, you should know if you want to do true Hillbilly style, you NEED to have at least one “Purdy” cousin…….who is at least your sister/mother/Aunt etc. Paddle faster! I hear banjos!
*rides by in a ski boat playing bluegrass music on the stereo*
It is obvious, that main love interest of Sydney will, actually, be Leon. He is already on the other side of THE LIST.
Tony probably was already too.
Yea, just so. And, in my opinion, is still the main candidate. Unless a Hugh Jackman (a.k.a. Wolverine) lookalike comes onto the scene. Just compare your memories of the two scenes.
In one Sydney does a measured “yea, he could do”, for Leon.
Whereas, in the other, she was practically tripping over herself, to ogle at Tony. And was getting severely embarrassed, at her awkwardness. Which is a good sign that she was being overcome with emotion.* Not to mention doing little to hide her interest to Olivia. Such as, in just the previous comic, Sydney enquiring after Tony with her ‘she asked with no particular motive’.
Clearly, even after entering Leon as a possible, Tony is still a leading contender.
* And it is not a case of her being comfortable with Leon, simply because he is a nerd. She would be equally at home in Tony’s presence as a comic fan. So there is more to it than just that.
I think with Tony it’s a lust thing primarily. He basically eye candy that she has the hots for. Leon however might be more boy friend material. They have similar tastes and interests and unless I miss my guess Sydney would need someone with a fairly high IQ for any real permanence in a relationship. Not saying she wouldn’t have a short passionate and physical relationship with him if she had a chance just she get bored fast.
I doubt it. None of the team beefcakes got in the list just for having abs and being shirtless.
Meh. That just goes to show The List (inverted) is for boyfriend material, not a ‘who I like to ogle’ list. We saw the process first hand. Leon did not get added until he had passed the verbal interrogation.
I used to work with a guy who was always telling people that he was married to his sister. ;)
At their wedding, his dad met her mother (or vice versa, I forget) and they hit it off and eventually got married. Technically making them step-siblings.
I never actually met his wife, so I don’t know how happy she was with him telling him that.
Here’s a link to the song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEHu2sAy5hc
Heh, real life is stranger than fiction! I recall a Love, American Style (yes, I’m old) episode where the father and mother who had each had a child from a previous marriage finally “find out” that their kids, who were always bickering just like siblings while around their parents, were actually dating. As it turns out (spoiler alert!*) they fell in love while their parents were courting but decided to keep it secret so as to not screw things up for their parents.
* Spoilers have a statute of limitations, damnit. Rosebud was his sled! There are soldiers in that giant, wooden horse! Cain was the one who killed his brother Abel!
They had that in Drive Me Crazy. Two leads parents start hooking up as their kids are hooking up :p
The other day I asked folks under what circumstances can a father marry his daughter. But nobody took me up on it. The answer of course is a vicar can marry his daughter, but to somebody else.
And even a woman can marry her son or even her daughter! Because the UK allows female vicars now, so she can marry her son or daughter, again to someone else.
Excellent TV series: The Vicar of Dibley (Related though irrelevant (irreverant?) note.)
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEnzdRG7J9k )
Heh, one of my friends was just telling me how he’d married his brother and his sister.
… was his name Cletus the Slack-Jawed Yokel?
Woody Allen legally married the adopted daughter of his common-law* wife of 12 years. Which makes her even less related than a “normal” step-daughter. It still seems creepy as hell to me, but that’s Hollywood for you. Just as creepy is their age difference, he was 57 when Mia Farrow (the aforementioned partner) found nude pictures Allen had of the girl, who was 20 at the time. And their relationship had been going on since she was 19.
* But common-law marriages are only recognized in a handful of states, and I have no idea in which state(s) they lived during those 12 years.
Legally, an adopted daughter or a step-daughter is not the same as an actual daughter for illegality by way of marriage. Incest requires a blood relationship. It’s taboo, but not technically illegal (so long as they’re legal adults and you’re not already currently married). That’s why the Woody Allen/Soon Ye thing was not illegal. And yeah it does feel creepy regardless.
I’m all for anything that gets more Olivia in the comic
He store is doing all right now. Yesterday morning they were talking about having to close in 6 months due to lack of business lol.
I think she just got an idea for who to hire as a new employee lol…
Sorry, but I would have to regretfully decline, as I don’t even live in Texas, much less the DFW area.
Oh, you meant Olivia…. It would be a way for her to get a hands-on immersion into the world of comics. Plus, I wonder if she’s already into RPGs or if that’s another thing Sydney introduced to her?
I see a sydney plan forming, this shall only end in hysterical tears for all involved.
1) What is Maxima’s impolite way of letting people know something?
2) Is that supposed to be “Luck out with your duck” or “Luck without your duck”?
1) Dive bomb explosions corralling them to where they need to be.
2) Or it could be “Luck out while you duck.” or “Luck without you, Duck.” Punctuation makes a difference. Of course, this is assuming there are no other hidden words.
Or I could have just read the notes under the comic. D’oh!
Luck out with your duck out.
Double entendre. Could mean duckface, or something more sexually explicit.
It reminds me of a t-shirt I saw that said “Rock out with your (picture of a rooster) out.” Close, but not quite…
girls got mad skills with the hentorb…
If she can ‘write’ in cursive with it, mimicking a simple hand gesture (note her left hand holding her ball) is a bowl of turbo-infused noodles :D
You are now the top Google search for turbo-infused noodles!
—- FIX BAD SENTENCE —
You are now the top result for the Google search “turbo-infused noodles”
Looks like I was never meant to be in IT – which stands for Internet Thingy… (thanks IT Crowd – I’m just not funny on my own…) ;-)
You know everyone is going to have to check that now…..
It’s probably the orb she’s had the most practice with since it’s one she could use in private.
Shh! Don’t be so personal, you will make Sydney blush!
That final implication made me chuckle!
Just binged the entire archive a few days ago, so obviously not read all the comments, but has something been said somewhere about Sydney gaining experience for the Vehemens fight, or even whether we’d see her ‘level-ups’ every time? Tia
Welcome to the community. Great to have you on board.
That is a point that has been raised several times. And different folks have different takes on it. With quite a few options and nuances to each version.
The one I favour though is that Sydney did not use any of her powers in a new way, that would unlock more capabilities. Although she thinks of it like a role-playing game with experience, perhaps linked to foes defeated, I personally doubt that is how the orbs actually operate.
Note that everything Sydney did was utilising a variant of a power she has already demonstrated in the comic so far. Even using her shield to block Vehemence’s aura is actually just a matter of turning on the shield, when you get down to it. She would not get xp for blocking fire separately to blocking lightning, for example. So magic would be intrinsically no different to protecting from Maxima’s blast.
The one exception being that she did push a glyph to see the aura details. But presumably that is not enough, on it’s own, to justify unlocking more powers.
My other favoured pet theory (which does not seem to go down, with others, so well), is that a lot of things she unlocks will just get updated on the skill tree unseen. If she uses a power in a way that matches some untried capability, it will not bother her mid-combat with saying
Such a delay could cause her to catch a lethal case of death. So the next time she checks her skill tree (if she finds out how to do that, on demand), she may well find a few extra things have lit up. Based on any successful testing, or combat improvisation, in the meantime.
But, at some point, something Halo does will give her the option to pick what she next unlocks. At which point the skill tree will pop up again, of it’s own accord.
And I personally am of the school that whatever determines when she levels up, it increases much the same as your average mmorpg each time. Level 1 takes say, 50 exp, level two takes 150. So on and so forth. So my personal theory is that she will likely “level up” at some point during her training just from continually using her orbs to learn everything about them. Basic level grinding really.
Because, as far as “using her powers in a new way” goes, she didnt do any of that at the test site, short of perhaps the shield enlarger. She already knew what her orbs (barring the two mystery orbs of course) could do before they went to the test range. She had used them all a couple times before the whole bank thing even went down, and hadnt leveled up from her private testing either. And if it was that simple, her aura vision would have gotten her a new level from this fight as it was a skill she hadnt used before.
for the most part i agree with you, in that nothing was used in a new manner except for possibly the enlarger, though to me the dialog on that scene was her struggling to remember WHICH symbol it was that controlled that effect, NOT that she was trying to DISCOVER IT at that moment… she was just searching out WHICH button it was (she even SAID that to herself), from a bunch of equally foreign symbols, that she had to concentrate to remember a PREVIOUSLY USED one, leads me to believe that she already knew HOW to enlarge/shrink her shield, it was just trying to do it in public that had her flustered into not remembering right away… personally, i am favoring the moment when she was trying to fire the PPO, and she noted that it was harder to use than the other orbs… “almost like it has a SAFETY”… i say THAT moment was when she gained the skill point, because she LEARNED SOMETHING NEW about the orbs… AND it wasn’t until she calmed down (and the AI in the orb(s) deemed it safe enough) to continue with the skill tree upgrade.
“Sydney did not use any of her powers in a new way”
*cough* ᵗʳᵘᵉ ˢᶦᵍʰᵗ ᵒʳᵇ *cough!*
*looks at Traab’s comment*
*hack* ʷʰᵒᵒᵖˢ ᵃᶫʳᵉᵃᵈʸ ˢᵃᶦᵈ *gack!*
Ahem, nasty cold that.
Looks like they went ballistic the moment things settled enough for Sydney to feel secure? Maybe they literally pick her brain to decide when would be a good time to tell her about the “level up”. I’m leaning towards it having a pretty sophisticated AI and wouldn’t be surprised if it put a tiny bit of itself in Sydney’s brain (talking programming not hardware here) to facilitate better communication. I also think that if Sydney had suddenly felt the need to defend herself they would have gone back to normal mode instantly. Perhaps she could have done it by force if she had focused on commanding them instead of spazzing out.
My favorite theory is much simpler: It’s been leveled several times, and big though the Vehemence fight was, it had dinged immediately beforehand. When you’re high-level, back-to-back fights don’t net you levels – even if they’re boss fights.
compared to how many of those skill tree spots were empty versus full, she is a relatively LOW level character… 34 filled versus a total of 145 on the whole tree, that leaves 111 NOT filled… only 23% of all of them are filled in.
@Par.
You are now.
One of us…….
One of us…….
One of us…
Come with us!, Join us in the Cult of Yorp, we haz Kibbles.
And Bits!
Thanks for the quick and extensive reply. Both theories actually seem equally valid to me, though I can see why the secon one would be less popular. At leat I know now I didn’t miss anything said already. Thanks again,, for the reply and the welcome.
My pleasure.
*wags tail*
Good doggie for helping the new guy. Here you go boy! *tosses a Yorp snack*
Mmm, yummy!
Pretty sure that shirt say Luck out with your duck out.
Well, that’s what the author says in his under the comic blog so I think you are on to something. ;)
That is so bizarre… Harem relaying messages like that. If it wasn’t for the fact that she’s a double agent, it might even be the most secure means of communication.
Heh. That made me laugh out loud.
*Reads the bit in the commentary for this strip about using Harem to send morse code, and her getting annoyed about it. Puts on Groucho Glasses and waggles fake cigar.* Well, that depends on who’s doing the tapping, don’t it?
And where on Harem they are doing the tapping.
Fastest. Interview. Ever.
:-D
Getting the job offer, before you know you want the job? Yea, that is pretty good going.
Why not just hire an Harem. It would be perfect multiple birds with one stone :P
And when she says “I have to make a drop off at the bank. Back in a minute.” She LITERALLY means one minute.
Um, is this really a good idea? The interest will mostly die down in a few weeks…
Even minor characters from Star Wars can, decades after they had a few seconds on screen, still get a standing ovation, when they walk on stage in any of a variety of conventions (e.g. game, comic or film). Let alone the adoration that the A-list celebrities can command, to this day.
The biggest pull for tourism in California is Hollywood. For Florida it is Disney. For Texas it will be Dallas,* if that is where Archon HQ is. That will be the place to go if super heroes are your thing. And the second-most famous location, where real super heroes can be found? This shop.
Are you sure that the interest will die down? Ever? Bearing in mind that Mark Hamill does not have a real light sabre. So, unlike Halo, he could not even sign your autograph with his glowing blue thing.
* Officially it is a generic city in an unnamed state.
that is exactly what happened this weekend at ECCC (Emerald City Comic Con) and that “minor” character was the actor inside the C3Po suit… we never saw him as a human face, but the character is still loved enough that he was a major celeb at the con… Granted, he WAS overshadowed by the likes of “slightly” more popular people like John Barrowman, Alex Kingston, and that comics guy, you know: that guy that does all those cameos in the Marvel movies… um, WHAT IS his name… Oh YeaH!… i remember now: Stan Lee… but hey, he’s C3PO (and people STILL want to see him… even after what, 38 years!)
I had the honour of once buying him a drink. I have not licked my paw clean from that day to this!
lifts yorp into a tub and proceeds to careful of claws scrub him down.
*sullenly puts up with it, like a good doggy*
*once over, runs off and has a, really satisfying, full-body shake*
Not to mention the “buy something ask a superhero a question” cheat mechanic, currently only used by news professionals but word WILL get out. They may need to hire a bouncer for the door, and quintuple all stock orders.
A mental image appears of Ariana spraining a cheek muscle when Sydney brings in that stack of questions, spontaneous villainous evil grins are hazardous to your health.
It might die down some, but enough interest will remain to keep the shop in brisk business, I imagine.
Unless Arianna decides that Sydney’s shop will get a headstart on stocking Archon merch.
Yea, I have my claws crossed that Sydney rolled a critical success in her haggling skills. Even a one day head-start gives her the prestige status of being the ‘premier’ venue.
And it would not be implausible, even from Ariana’s point of view. Unless Archon itself has it’s own official shop, in the mall. There is little point in granting that perk to any single bidding firm, given that the whole merchandising industry is going to be begging for the products anyhow. So she does not need to bribe one, to get the ball rolling.
Whereas making the oddball member of the team more popular, especialy with the hardcore fans, would help offset the negative press that she will get from more prurient members of the public, who do not like her language. And it will make those who think her oddball behaviour is unprofessional realise that she still has a sound business head, despite that. Which will allow more folks to give her the benefit of the doubt when also judging her fitness to be a cop.
One of the perks of having Arianna wear more than one hat in the Archon management team. The saleswoman’s hat alone would not see returns from it. But the spin doctor’s hat? That would be thrown into the air at the thought!
Is it bad that I’m trying to determine if that’s Donald duck or Harold the duck on Harem’s shirt? :D
Is it possible you meant ‘Howard? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_the_Duck
He is known to have a more ‘R’ rated history than Donald.
Wouldn’t three people in a selfie make it a groupie ?
Actually no, since Harem is taking a picture of Harem and company it is a selfie just as she said not a traditional one
I like the Sunstone comic you through in, just picked up a copy myself
Hey, Dave – I wasn’t sure if you were aware of this or not, but I figured I’d bring it to the group’s attention either way: https://www.michaelwhelan.com/wp-content/gallery/retrospective/island.jpg
so, you’re saying Halo is missing the ring… probably the control ring…just one of those…one ring to…..
Nice co-incidence. But not a stretched one. If you want to depict a set of objects, one choice you have is to make them all alike. If you chose not to, then colour is one of the more obvious variables to change. And we often choose to associate such things with a human element, to make the image more emotive.
Here is one example of a picture composed with choices along those lines.
But it is always interesting when you get a close match, even when you realise that. So it is nice that you pointed it out. And that is a cool picture, to boot.
Michael Whelan is one of my favorite SF illustrators, and the funny thing is I’d had that as wallpaper on one computer for two years (there are multiple reasons, at the very least two, to like the image) and had been reading this comic on another computer for a couple of years and never linked them in my head until two days ago. Felt like an idiot.
So, are we starting a ‘Sydney’s harem’ anime subplot (harem as a genre not the Team member)?
Let’s see, we have Tony the Jock/Stud, Leon the Geek/Nerd, and Joel the best friend. Ooh, and Math the obnoxious Jerk (who offers good advice when needed).
Man, all we’re missing is the tinny J-pop/K-pop title song!
You’re missing the Broody Emo Guy, and the Airhead from your list of reverse harem stereotypes.
slots filled by max (don’t tell her though) and deshante (even if she is rather intelligent for the role)
Actually as far as airheads go, Heatwave (Brook) fills that role quite nicely and yes Max does fit the emo one rather well.
Granted, but to work in a harem situation they’d have to be guys (Sydney doesn’t swing that way).
Can’t think of an emo or airhead among the guys yet.
Granted. Mind you a couple have their share of personality flaws, which are not too dissimilar, in some aspects. Namely Math and Achilles.
Sorry for replying to myself, but have just created a gravatar and want to see if I can get the bloody thing working. Hopefully there will be a picture here.
Gaa! Didn’t work, didn’t reply Back to square one.
It’s always the innocent civilians that get dragged into all the superhero-y schticks.
My paranoia is showing, I suspect the ball-cap girl of having sinister motives.
It is the line drawn on her face that is helping your paranoia to that suspicion. It looks like a scar, and that draws the sinister associations.
But these can be easily dispelled. Simply look at her hat. Although it is fairly dark, it is not actually a black hat. So clearly she cannot be a villain.
I think it’s actually the extreme-blond hair color and unusual lip color choice. Color choices like that in comics are traditionally meant to stand out which usually means either villain, hero or supporting cast. Since she’s standing out and not making her reason for standing out obvious, my decades of training is probably saying “villain”.
Heh. DaveB has one heck of an advantage in this comic. In terms of avoiding such easy to predict plots. Unlike most other films, comics or the TV shows, the vast majority of people met in day to day life are not actually villains or heroes in disguise. And Dave is portraying a slice of life.
Sure there will be villains. But most of the people she deals with will either be her work colleagues or the regular kind of folks you have to interact with yourself on a daily basis. Be it your local corner shop clerk, your next door neighbour or your family.
And this is one of the big perks of using secret identities. Any character who does that has relatively boring interactions in this regard. Whenever using that he is indistinguishable from anyone else so, other than the inevitable ‘trying to keep the secret’ plot lines, there is much less scope.
Whereas exploring Sydney’s life, and the other protagonists’, we get to see some interesting things. And I am also looking forward to the odd non-villain non-hero super thrown into the mix. Our girls have a justifiable reason for why they would get to meet such rarities, more often than regular folk. Especially if one becomes their local hair-dresser.
Correction —> …one of the big perks of not using secret identities
Remember, its not paranoia if they are out to get you! *Hands out Phillip J Fry style tinfoil hats*
Calling it now.
Olivia is hot and is thus a super.
Hey, being incredibly hot IS a super power, its just kinda hard to turn off and usually only works on people who already prefer the appropriate gender…
unless your dabbler.
Everybody is within Dabbler’s preferred gender…
So, not sure if this has been brought up.
But can harem teleport a set distance away.
example.
If she was in a featureless space, could she teleport 300 ft in one direction, and if so whats her level of precision on that.
Oh you BASTARD (no offense). The answer to that simple little question is so irritatingly complex it makes my head hurt a bit.
For most teleporters the answer would simply be no/it doesn’t matter because position is, relative (which I will explain later). My recollection is that she can, probably by simply using herself as a reference point or defining it based on her current/previous location.
For most teleporters the difficult part would be verifying that they actually moved due to the featurelessness of the space. In a truly featureless space then actual position is irrelevant because the teleporter is the only point of reference, without something else position has no meaning. Even if there were another reference point (lets say an unsupported coffee mug) it would still be hard to verify which one had actually moved. (ie did the teleporter move and the mug remained stationary or the other way around?) It becomes even harder to discern potential movement if the mug’s location is defined based on the teleporters position, for example “the mug is fifty feet in front of him/her”. So even if he/she teleports to it (or its location anyway) he/she wouldn’t be able to tell he/she had moved because the mug doesn’t look any closer, exactly like it would if he/she hadn’t moved or the teleport failed.
So, for most teleporters it isn’t possible to tell, however Harem is special and could tell because she can be in several places at once. So she can simply leave a copy or the original (depending on her actual method of teleportation) behind to define a second position and perspective. In the event that the mug “is 50 feet in front of her” either the second Harem would appear to be fifty feet from the first and fifty feet from the mug so that the first Harem’s target is met and the mug’s position remains true, or it would create a second “original” mug fifty feet from the second Harem (who is next to the first mug). In the first case she has manipulated the space because the space must bend in order to allow her to teleport the the spot near where the mug was and remain fifty feet in front of both of them which makes the space itself no longer featureless (it is now bent, giving the space itself a feature). In the second case the space has created something from nothing based on the actions of its occupant, which means that the space is capable of performing actions thus also violating its featurelessness again (it is now active/living space that manipulates its contents).
So congrats, you made me figure out how Harem could (theoretically) manipulate space itself, prove the existence of Dave (or at last that space is active), and may be able to perform reality manipulation (sorcery?) without the ability to perform Magic…
Not entirely on topic, but let’s hope that her space suit in that situation weighs under 50 pounds or she is going to be sucking vacuum after the vorp.
(Sorry, make that a MASS of under 50 lbs for those about to bring up that distinction in zero G)
It has not been raised, so the best we can do is speculate. We do know that Harem can do something similar though. Which is that she could only see the outside of the ambulance, via the television broadcast. Yet was able to teleport inside it.
Further, DaveB has confirmed that she can sense if a spot is empty, momentarily before her arrival. So she can avoid being squished by appearing inside as solid object.
So the possibility is there that Daphne can do as you speculate. On the other paw though, whilst giving a set distance is fine for a computer program, or navigational aid, it might not be what her super power requires, for her to be able to properly visualise the destination, well enough for it to function.
So, until there is some comic reason for Sydney to find out (or if we see a scene from Harem’s point of view), the issue remains one we can only guess at. Dave, wisely, usually does not give spoilers on such things. Unless it is something which is causing readers to loose their suspension of disbelief, due to them not understand how something is working.
No point on him committing on issues he may not have decided upon himself. Given that would either narrow his creative options later, or disappoint someone, if he changes his mind. And Dave always reserves the right to do the latter anyhow. Until something appears in the comic it is not canon.
Technically though, no space is ever actually empty (Air molecules, dust particles and so on). I am guessing perhaps the vorp effect could be a displacement effect of pushing out everything and anything.
Another good example for teleportation would be the awesome comic 3 minute max https://www.3mm-crisisstrike.com/ as this is a hero who uses a machine with pre set set up limitations for porting. If anyone hasn’t read it, I would highly recommend it.
“VORP” is our clue for the air. “POOF” would be air being displaced, to make room for her. Along with paper and peoples’ hair nearby getting the blown-in-the-wind look. Which does not happen. Whereas “VORP” sounds more like the slight adjustment of pressure when air gets swapped for flesh. I.e. the air at the destination point being swapped, with the body from the departure point.
There will be a momentary vacuum so air will start to come in but, before it does, Harem will replace the void with herself. And any disturbed air simply equalises the pressure, with her now as part of the equation. Resulting in the noise.
Harem clearly incorporates her clothing, and other items carried, in the process. Maybe she even swaps slightly more than her combined volume in air, to avoid any risk. Which would explain why it is not much quieter, if there is a slight discrepancy in the volumes.
So far she has been described as being able to vorp to places she can see (even on video which should be impossible and combining this fact with her ability to sense an area for safety immediately before appearing would suggest she has a couple of possibly related? clairvoyance type abilities), places she has been to long enough to become familiar and places she has another Harem at already.
Somehow she forms a connection to the place just before vorping there. In all three cases it seems more important that she forms a memory of what that place is “like” than actually having visual access to it. Visual and visual via video methods are both familiarity formed in short term memory. Being able to teleport “blindly” to places she is already familiar with (home, HQ, etc… ) is long term memory. So familiarity with some features (spatial? color? spirit/what the place is used for? ?? ) of a place important to her power are all that is needed and the supposedly different “methods” are actually just the difference as to whether that information is stored in her short term or long term memory (or whatever organ controls her power’s version of short term and long term memory)
Since this seems to function in a fairly natural/organic manner I doubt she can currently say to her power, “Take me X distance that-a-way.” and expect anything better than her eyeballed opinion of the distance (if she does just as well teleporting to the other side of a wall that same guessed distance statistically as well as “eyeballing” it in the open then she probably is somewhat clairvoyant at the moment of teleporting).
If she learns the nature of the clairvoyance that allows her power to function so well maybe she could start training to teleport “blind” allowing her clairvoyance to “feel” out the distance. With feedback to how far she went each time to mentally recalibrate that sense. But it would probably never be perfect (though its supers so crazier things have happened).
I kind of think she enters a dimension where all points are equally close together or far apart, where time and distance isn’t really a thing but perhaps the nature of forms is? So everything is, from our native perspective, all jumbled up together and the only way to tell one “place” from another is to focus on its nature or form, narrowing down the possibilities by winnowing out all that isn’t a match (which is why she needs to get a memory of the place one way or another), till you just have the “place” you want. When focusing on that place to the exclusion of all others (a little like choosing to listen to one among several nearby conversations) you are effectively “there” as far as that odd dimension is concerned. So if you leave that dimension after finding that place and focusing on it exclusively you find yourself there in our dimension. Traveling through there is primarily a mental function.
You also have to either mentally maintain your form somehow while there or (and this is where it makes the most sense) you perhaps become a creature of pure mind/spirit while there and have to recreate your body when reentering our dimension. The way she has multiple clones suggests a chunk (or given its nature perhaps all) of her mind/spirit remains in that dimension. Since that dimension doesn’t have distance as we know it her mind can exist there and be touching on all of her clones simultaneously.
This makes me want to learn the answer to: Did she “teleport” first without a clone (meaning her first powered act was to destroy the original and create a copy at a new location) or did her first teleport create a clone while leaving her original body where it was? Kind of like asking was her power to accidentally send herself to this dimension and after being lost in a place of mind with out time for a difficult to define segment of existence she figure out how to create a new body back “home” to inhabit (while still being more aware on her new plane of existence than before) or was her real power being able to ascend to being subconsciously aware on that plane and that granted her the ability to develop what we see as her powers now. The answer is probably buried back in the comic/comments somewhere.
Later. There’s pranks to be planned….
The duck out shirt is a reference to duck lips right?
It would seem that either way it does indeed involve protruding lips.
.
Yup. Also known as duck face.
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/duck-face
She is the master of the selfie and she was going retro today.
Unless you meant something else. Then you are wrong! >:-/ Soooo wrong… (JK ^_^ )
The odd thing about that meme is that it is called “Duck Face” whereas “Duck Lips” would be more appropriate to what they are describing. Odd being that they miss out the first significant use of “Duck Face” namely a character with that nick-name in Four Weddings and a Funeral.
Not that I ever felt that the moniker was particularly appropriate, as I felt she had an attractive face with no duck-like properties.
But, if, going with the ‘meme’ it has to do with lips, then yea, she does have a pair, and her mannerisms and expressions did emphasise them, at times. So making it a glaring omission from that list.
Hey guys remember to vote for Grrl Power on Comicmix March Madness. We’re behind.
I keep getting directed to the seeding round, whenever I go to check. Despite the fact that it was announced that it would end over a week ago, and be replaced by the voting brackets. And no mention was made of it being extended beyond that date.
Has it actually gone into the first round of voting yet? If so, do you have a link to the appropriate page?
So i followed a link to Pixie Trix posted here and ended up bingeing on the whole Ma3 archive. I liked it but not as much as this comic.
Sydney, you have mastered comedic art, to the degree where you can make me laugh, just by pursing your lips, and glancing sideways!
And up a bit. Well up quite a lot. Otherwise that would have been titillating. Err that is not to say that you would have been looking at Olivia’s tits. And not that you lean that way. Um, it is just that comic is a bit…
Actually maybe what I mean is, Sydney you have great comedic timing!
panels 9-10 is she reading what i think she’s reading because OMG I KNOW/LOVE THAT COMIC!! IS IT REALLY SUNSTONE?
Yup. You can check out DaveB‘s comment about it, in his blog under the previous page. Plus there is a link to the associated Deviant Art page.
Where you can find an interesting product on offer. But for one day only!
Dabbler has two navels? Is that canon, or is that just Stahlberg’s twist on things? Or does she just have a very deep navel piercing, stretched out to 0000000 gauge, and she left out the ring for the photo shoot?
Canon, as per DaveB‘s reply on the previous page of comments.
Stahlberg’s picture has superb technical skill, and he gave Dabbler a nice expression. But I was very confused by the Zeppelins he incorporated in the picture. I kept getting the urge to duck, to avoid getting my eye poked out!
Despite that not being to my taste (albeit not out of character for Dabbler, and doubtless within her capabilities), I thought it was a very enjoyable piece of art.
*hangs head down*
But I am too shy to do the critique he asked for on DA.
One of the things I am hoping we get to see in this webcomic is a lot of testing and experimenting to find the mechanics and limits of various characters’ powers. It makes sense that ArcSWAT would do that, and even more sense now that genre savvy Halo is on the team. It’s one of the things that I love in X-Men and miss in most other comics.
Not to mention working on teamwork to leverage power combinations.
Finally: can you imagine the great discomfort when it is time for Dabbler to test/demonstrate the limits and circumstances of her powers for the benefit of the team? “Aren’t those the guys we fought…” “Yes! Now that we know how good they are at generating vedic power, we have to find out about how good they are at tantric power!” “Uh…”
Yea, I am looking forward to those things. And would join you in wishful thinking for the last paragraph. Maybe in an age-gated spin-off comic, “Tantric Power”? ;-)
FYI, Google has come out with their April Fools pranks for this year. It is at
https://thenextweb.com/google/2015/04/01/roundup-all-of-googles-jokes-for-april-fools-day-2015/
I personally like the Pacman overlay onto Google Maps.
There is even a list from Sydney (No not that Sydney). They mention a Steam game system powered by, well, take a guess.
https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2015/04/april-fools-day-2015-spoilers-all-the-fake-stories-and-pranks-revealed/
He he. One of those links is more on topic than you realise. The Honda Selfie one actually makes reference to “Duck Face”. Sadly it turns out to be “so last year”.
Fortunately, given that the comic is set in 2011, that means Harem is three years ahead of the curve!
I loved the Guardian one!
Shame “Virgin’s Paw Door Entry” was only for Virgin Australia flyers. If they operated that from Bulgaria, I would have signed my paw print on the dotted line!
I have a feeling there are knock-off shops working feverishly to put out Google “Pandas” with another name.
I may not have looked well enough, but is there a corner of this website that has all the fanart for this comic? I saw that there are a few spanish fanart for the translation. Will I just have to peruse DA for Grrl Power fanart?
Just hit the DA button at the top of the page to be linked to DaveB‘s Deviant Art gallery. There is a fan art folder within the gallery. However fans also put up their homages on their own pages, so browsing will indeed get additional results. Or you can check through Dave’s favourites to find some faster.
Whilst you are in Deviant Art, you might want to click on their new product button, at the top of the page.
“Stylus In Real Life”
I have finally realised the subtext for Sydney’s top. It reads:
“What would Deadpool do, as a Star Fleet Command Officer?”
Hey, quit playing on XKCD all evening!
By the way, if you see a unicycle with a jet engine, that was my ‘masterpiece’!
And it helps folks appreciate that drawing stick men ain’t as easy as Randal makes it look!
What comic is Olivia reading, and does anyone notice Olivia and Sydney are in the same positioning as the two people in the comic that Olivia is reading?
Sunstone.
Nice catch on the positioning. Albeit similar, rather than a close match. In the link you will see that one is behind the other, rather than side by side. That aside though, they are both facing the reader, and the height differences and hair shades are in the right directions, if not of the same magnitudes.
We’ve fallen down all the way to number 8 on TWC voting.
Either other sites are having April 1 incentive vote gags or the machines have figured out how to start autovoting again (twokinds had this problem/benefit? for a while )
So get to voting again gents.
DaveB will get us a new incentive when he gets time I’m sure.
I’d love to see a spring time rooftop tanning event – off to one side drones getting lased and sydney stopping paparazzi helo from sneaking up and getting a video… of course NSA would have eyes in the sky until Leon (under duress) censors their images live stream…
Actually, why not just leave a Harem or two to mind the store? You’d think she’d be the master of holding down 2-5 jobs at once…
That all depends on how good a contract she has herself. If she is canny, she will have negotiated that at least one of her bodies is always exempt from being at the beck and call of the military. In which case, she would be free to help out Sydney as a favour, regardless of her military duties.
If not, I suspect that any unit or organisation would find someone with Harem’s capabilities to be invaluable. I am guessing that she has an awful lot of calls on her services, during the course of a day. Especially given that she can be summoned by anybody with a cell phone.
If nothing else, she is the ultimate courier. Need your top-secret package delivered immediately? Who’s the girl to call?
Sydney, she will not let X-face make a copy en-route.
I need a Link to the current round of march madness. I cannot find it anywhere.
I could not find it either. And it does look like it has been up for a while, despite me trying to find something beyond the seeding round recently.
But nonetheless, here it is.