Grrl Power #336 – Mouth feel my wrath
Ok, now, before anyone wants to give Sydney a lecture on the minute difference between the term “texture” and “mouth feel” just be aware, she does not care and will hit you. Apologies to any foodies out there but to anyone who isn’t that into food, it’s kind of an obnoxious term. Obviously Sydney feels more strongly about it than most.
This page took far longer to write that you might guess, but it was because for a long time, there was a section of dialog with Sydney asking what meal this was, and Peggy explaining that Supers eat more than regular people, and also suggesting that since the amount of extra food they eat doesn’t come anywhere near explaining where they get the energy to fuel their powers, she thinks they just eat a lot cause they don’t have to worry about getting fat. I liked the exchange, but it didn’t really move the page along to where I wanted it, so eventually I cut it.
#makecomics: I don’t know why I like drawing them eating. For one thing, I find drawing people sitting is weirdly difficult, for some reason it makes me mess up the length of the torso, especially if there’s a table bisecting the view, but the worst part is all the junk on the table. Think about what’s on a table at an average restaurant. Usually multiple plates per person, silverware (forks are especially difficult to draw in perspective with the curvy neck and the flared bit before the prongs) cups or glasses, salt and pepper, sometimes other condiments. If drawing a cup or a plate doesn’t sound like a big deal, well, it really isn’t, until you have to do it in perspective, then the difficulty goes up a notch. Then there’s all the stuff on the plates. A fully stocked dinner table is actually one of the most fiddly sorts of things to draw short of something very precise and technical like a car with the hood up showing the engine and all the hoses and stuff. Drawing something like a warp engine might be challenging, but you can just make up what it looks like and no one can say you’re wrong. At least until the second time you have to draw it and then it has to match the first drawing, but everyone knows what a dinner table should look like.
By the way if you’re not following me on twitter you’re missing out on gems like this:
I wanted to see the length of my hand in relation to my forearm so I measured my hand – with my other hand. Apparently my hand is hand sized
— Dave Barrack (@grrlpowercomic) July 16, 2015
So the hosting move. I apologize that so many people had trouble getting to the site, for those of you who care here’s a quick explanation. To move a site you have to update the DNS servers, which give human friendly names to internet sites, so people can type “grrlpowercomic.com” instead of 132.161.55.71 or whatever the actual IP address is. Normally before you switch a site, you have it up and running using that raw IP address which you can use to get to a site regarless of what the DNS servers are doing, only the IP we got from the new host wasn’t working for some reason. Instead we tried switching the DNS server, then attempted to quickly upload a mirror of the site to it, a process that normally doesn’t take very long. Something we didn’t count on was the size of the files involved. Grrl Power has gotten over 130K comments because you guys are awesome, but that makes for a larger than average database, and the upload kept crapping out. So we switched the DNS back to the old hosting until we could get someone in tech support at the new hosting to help us out. The problem that occurred for some people was one of Godaddy’s DNS servers didn’t catch the switch back, and was pointing at the unformatted site with only a maintenance message on it. Eventually that got sorted out so hopefully no on is having any issues now.
We made a second attempt while on the horn with a level 2 tech support person, and that went so smoothly that I didn’t get a chance to use the moving graphic I drew, which is a shame cause it’s one of the cuter picture I’ve ever done of Sydney so I’ll just post it here. Hopefully I won’t actually have any cause to use it for a while, things seem to be running pretty smoothly here at the moment.
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
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SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
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Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
I’m with Sydney, shun the mouth feelers
I wouldn’t bee entirely sure about that…There are some situations (away from the dinner table…mostly) where that might be a good person to hang around.
I mean, there IS Rule 34 to consider…
Maybe Sydney just misses getting any mouth feeling herself?:)
OH, MYYYYYYYY…….
Kill Them. Kill Them ALL.
…..with fire.
Tasting heretics will BURN!!!!!!
Sydney should pick up some of that Unmaker sauce from https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/697 and apply liberally to their food.
That should do it.
“Ohhhhhh yeah, I’ve got yer ‘mouth feel” RIGHT HERE!…“
From what I recall from the comments of a BBC correspondent based there, that is the correct term in China.
“mmmm…this steak is so moist. I love how moist it is. It’s so moist it make my mouth moist>”
People who use words over and over again need a thesaurus.
they should have the book thrown at them
Oh come now, throwing a great big dinosaur at someone, for just having a poor vocabulary, is moist extreme!
I applaud your sneak pun.
Btw., does “the thesaurus” count as a case of “the the” in general? ;p
Nope! A thesaurus, the thesaurus, my thesaurus, all proper. It just looks funny in letters. Thuh Thei-sore-us is how I word it with my flat as shucky darn accent, personally.
(The word ninja has solved the case!!!!! Now to lurk moar.)
You have the most appropriate handle for explaining this.
Thanks.
I rather speak it as “thatha souroos”, so… I wondered…
Extreme moistness is never a bad thing :)
Mmmm. Pink, warm, and moist. Good steak.
yeah… right, “steak”.
Yeah, it looks like a taco & tastes like a fish. All in a nice, convenient, handy-dandy box-lunch package.
okay, repetition of words: It won’t allow me to reply to the first comment in this thread for some reason, so, here goes: This is something I came up with when I wondered “how many repetitions does it take for a word to lose meaning”:
The word ‘monitor’: let’s say there is a large lizard at a zoo. It is a Monitor lizard. There is a camera trained on its living quarters. that camera is also a monitor. the screen it displays its feed onto is ALSO a monitor. the person viewing this screen is, again, a monitor. and thus, we have a Monitor monitor monitor monitor. so, I say 4 repetitions removes all meaning from a word.
But the person’s supervisor is also a monitor. And the lizard is a mother, who is looking after her offspring. So she is a monitor monitor, in her own right.
You can reply to the first post of a thread, but you may have to scroll down to the bottom of the thread to find the actual Comment area. It always appears at the bottom of the block you are replying to. The comment block showed up, but you did not see it because it was off the bottom of the screen.
I’m very much with Sydney on this. That’s such a dumb term, I love talking about food and I still wouldn’t ever use the term “mouthfeel”.
Peggy has a point though.
Also, Achilles must be damn confident in his powers to eat a bottle of Super Ebola. Like, did he test against poisons and diseases? More specifically, how did he know his body would sterilize it instead of literally pissing super ebola into the water supply? Or that he could be a carrier without showing symptoms? God that whole concept is terrifying.
He did not claim to be smart. He is a man of simple pleasures. Like skydiving without a parachute.
Of course Achilles can’t fly, but he knows that he can land with the best of them…Providing he can climb out of the hole he makes.
He should always be able to climb out of holes he makes from impact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_depth
Giving him an extra-high density equal to water at 100F (which assumes he’s very, very muscular indeed) and the ground the average density of dirt, according to Newton’s Penetration Approximation formula, he’s not going to go deeper than 3′, assuming he lands feet-first.
70″ tall * (61.9 ft^3 human density / 120 ft^3 dirt density) = 36.1″ penetration depth, or 3′.
But he’s not a solid penetrator (hue hue) so he’s going to naturally collapse on impact. So the impact crater will be even less than that.
Unless he lands in a peat bog, “quick” sand, or something else way less dense than dirt, he shouldn’t get buried much past his waist in even the fastest of landings. Though if he lands in mud or clay he might not be able to pull his legs out, and will have to wait for assistance. He’s not very far past a normal human in strength, after all.
I imagine that, unless circumstances require otherwise, Achilles would usually opt for a belly flop when making, shall we say, a “hard landing”.
My thinking being that it wouldn’t hurt him anyhow, and he would then have somewhat less of a hole to climb or dig his way out of afterwards.
I can’t imagine he’d choose feet-first unless he’s trying to damage something. So at best he’d make some pretty legendary dents in whatever he landed in. I’d imagine stamping his smiling mug into every metal surface he hits would be a great “calling card” so to speak.
“Achilles was here.”
I kind of suspect he does that by habit. Remember his opening move in front of the press?
On the eating ebola thing, his body works in very weird ways. Maybe he doesn’t poop. Maybe his body absolutely consumes everything he puts into it. He could totally clean up the world’s nuclear waste problem with a spoon and a bottle of ketchup.
“You fool! You cannot fly!”
“Of course not! But I can land with the best of them!”
on, no, no… you should have said that you aren’t flying, you’re just FALLING with STYLE…
It’s an exchange between Storm and Colossus from Giant-Size X-Men #1.
Also, falling sucks, per Thunderhead in Young Heroes in Love #2. R.I.P. YHIL.
Anyone can skydive without a parachute. Very few can do it more than once.
If you ever find yourself in such circumstances, aim for trees, but never water. The latter will squish you as bad as hitting concrete. But those few people who do survive usually do so by breaking their fall going through branches.
Typically they also break every major bone in their body, but it is possible to survive a fall, even from tens of thousands of feet altitude, that way.
Achilles likes to go with the term “Falling with Style”.
You don’t need a parachute to go skydiving.
But unless you’re Achilles or Maxima (or otherwise nigh-invulnerable), you need a parachute to go skydiving twice.
…or if you’re Harem using her teleporting skill to make a gentle landing.
Remember that Achilles is used to their power, remember the fight where they deliberately blocked an energy sword with their eye. That’s the kind of thing you could only do if you have years of knowledge and experience being immune to everything, even the tiniest bit of fear could throw it off. Achilles isn’t going to have been eating that before joining the military and we know they have subjected him to huge amounts of power testing so really I’d expect them to already be aware of all the possible issues and have either tested for them or used that to test for some, these are experts in the supernatural after all so they wouldn’t risk accidentally unleashing Super Ebola on the world or anything.
So really just don’t think they would’ve had any notable concerns and would’ve more than covered for the ones they did.
And that is a good explanation.
I am SO ashamed of myself. As a public health expert and microbiology enthusiast, I did not even think of the possible implications of that. But wow madock345, you are right! D:
Actually that could be an elaborate super villain plan. Make a pathogen that can survive inside Achilles _somehow_; infect him and wait until they spread it along unwittingly.
The nice thing about that is that it is conveniently impossible. Most diseases survive by reproducing faster than your immune system can kill them. With Achilles, being invulnerable, diseases cannot reproduce inside of him. At least by the normal method. You could get a superbug that can reproduce without needing to hijack cells or eat, but then you don’t need Achilles as it could just float through the air. And it may not do anything to people, as it the reproduction/eating that causes the symptoms.
Spores
So Achilles will be the first Clicker?
You owe me two hours of my life.
It occurs to me that, if someone DID somehow contaminate Achilles’s innards with a superbug, then ridding him of it would be pretty easy.
Most cures centre on the idea of kill the disease but not the patient. For Achilles, just have him drink a few pints of drain cleaner, take a stroll through a nuclear reactor, a few other things like that and, well, any superbug withstanding that kind of treatment probably deserves to live.
Terrifying, indeed:
I guess I’m in a destructive mood today XD
But more srsly, this is a mo(i)st interesting point about invulnerability in general – actually, the idea appeared to me years ago: What does an invulnerable person eat?
There are several aspects.
– In normal humans, food processing involves strong acid to break it up into into energy carrying substances that are then absorbed and transported via bloodstream.
— So an invulnerable person’s indestine must not be that invulnerable that the absorbing does not work anymore.
— So then, what keeps chemical poisons from affecting the body? Bacteria and virii may be less of a problem, assuming that the stomach acid breaks them down to simpler molecules, but poisons?
— What about things like capsaicin? It’s function (in principle) is to create a specific form of “fake” pain, basically an unpleasant sensation. Now, would an invulnerable person feel pain – or “fake” pain? And how – like a normal person would?
The thing is he has invulnerability not unchangability (although he has a fair dash of that, by virtue of slow ageing, or possibly even immortality). Anything which would harm him is blocked. Normal air is not harmful, so is not blocked, likewise food or water. Without that he could not metabolise, move or even think. He would be a statue.
Achilles’s cast details indicate that he is immune to starving or harm by lack of air or water. What it does not specify is what happens to him under such circumstances. Perhaps (like many super powers) he can derive his energy from something other than food and normal biochemistry?
Although clearly he can use the regular method too, or at least enjoys pretending he can.
Alternatively when he runs out of nourishment, then he will simply become inert. The normal processes which would cause cells to dehydrate, decay or otherwise take damage cannot happen, because of his invulnerability. But without energy, they cannot do their job. So they cease to function, until they obtain it.
In due course, all of his body functions would shut down, and even an in-depth examination would determine that he is dead. But he can be revived. And, if he knows his own capabilities well enough, he may be able to induce hibernation, prior to exhausting all reserves.
That way he can periodically wake up and check to see if there is food, water or air around. Or napping again, until there is. And, unlike us, he can obtain sustenance from anything that has something digestible in it, no matter how dangerous.
He could safely drink seawater, petrol or even pot noodle and extract some nourishment from it! Provided it take less energy to extract it, than it provides. So celery is still useless, even for him!
I think the key here is just how chemical poisons and such (acids, etc.) do their harm. If you think about it, all any sort of venom or acid is on a molecular level is something that breaks bonds between other things- breaking cell walls, interrupting neuron functions, that sort of thing. So, with individually invulnerable cells, that’s not an issue, and the venom proteins or acidic compounds just float around uselessly in his bloodstream until his systems either take them apart for his own use or shunt them to his bladder/colon for disposal (which means he probably has to be careful where he takes his post-poison dumps).
It’s about the same with infections- bacteria do the thing where they eat other cells, so that’s not going to work on him. Virii go in and break genetic structures to insert themselves, which, again, doesn’t work- they both can’t penetrate his cells to inject their own DNA, and cannot burst the cell they’ve reproduced in if they manage to get inside anyways. Prions have similar issues to enzyme-based venoms.
Now, to understand how he’s not affected by things that, say, replace normal functions, like Carbon Monoxide or AIDS, we have to go smaller. His whole invulnerability could be explained by him having mathematically locked energy states, where the bonds between atoms in his body cannot be changed by forces that don’t have his ‘marker’ on them. This would explain his complete invulnerability, and also his apparent ability to ignore Entropy- Chaos itself could be imagined as an ‘outside source’, as could Time. There must be exceptions, as Light and Taste are still things for him (unless MouthFeel is all that he has when eating), as well as temperature (though he might not feel that either) and pressure. Basically the senses have to allow some sort of ‘pass’ through that barrier. But I digress.
CO wouldn’t work to kill him because it wouldn’t bond in place of O2 (or whatever CO replaces). It’s not a perfect match to what ‘should’ be there, so doesn’t bond, allowing O2 to continue doing its thing.
Well reasoned. His powers could also be explained if his cells maintain open shunts into an alternate dimension from which he can draw and to which he can shunt energy. He would be able to shunt all kinetic energy in his body out to prevent damage from falls, strikes, and punctures. He could draw energy in to sustain his cells without the need for them to imbibe energy from external sources like food, water, and air. His body could draw in extra energy to completely disintegrate anything harmful internally. There are all sorts of ways his power could work.
<QI Klaxon> WHOOP! WHOOP! </QI Klaxon>
Oh AlanYorp, the celery thing’s an urban myth. A piece of celery does not take more calories to digest than it contains, although it does have very few calories.But the rest is all very plausible, even the bit about getting nourishment from petrol. After all, edible oils are high in calories, and mineral hydrocarbons would be no different (albeit toxic). Mind you, modern fuel often has added ethanol, so getting drunk might be an issue…
It tastes true.
Just go ahead and tell Sydney that the mouth feel is a myth, and I will accept it as fact. Until then it is still only fit to carry dips into my mouth. Under protest, for lack of something better!
“The thing is he has invulnerability not unchangability (although he has a fair dash of that”
So, I’m not 100% sure that’s true. In fact, my thinking on Achilles is that he has unchangeability, rather than invulnerability. I liken his invulnerability to the player of a video game. I may enjoy a rousing round of Mario, but I’m not worried that the Koopas will hurt me, they aren’t real enough to touch me.
Achilles feels more to me like a photo of a person than a real guy. We’ve never seen his attitude change (even during the supervillain blitz, when it looked like his friends were going to be killed), his moodometer is stuck at ‘vaguely amused’, and his cast page sort of nods towards him being stuck in the eighties. He doesn’t get mad when Sydney assaults him because he doesn’t get mad, full stop.
.. Which is probably just as well, considering.
He can remember things with complete unchangeability which includes his brain that should be impossible.
Sure, but so should Jiggawatt retaining consciousness while she is a bolt of lightning.
The easiest explanation for Jiggawatt, Shadow Boxer, and other examples of thought that shouldn’t be possible is that the Grrlpower world has souls, and that’s where he’s doing his thinking/remembering. If you buy that, then his body could be unchanging while his soul would not.
His ‘vaguely amused’ mood might be a side-effect of “immortality is boring” (which, IMO, it would be. Especially if you survive all the way to “heat-death of the universe”, after which it gets really boring.)
Or just a side-effect of immortality in general. Imagine all your friends and everyone you love and care about dying of old age or disease, while you remain the same forever. You’d have to be pretty far up the “sociopath” scale for that to not have a serious effect on you eventually.
Alternately, you’d have to develop an attitude like Achilles, who seems to see everything as vaguely amusing, or you’d probably end up in a state of constant depression or constant ennui (“everything is meh, so why should I bother doing anything?”)
I don’t think he’s ancient. The “stuck in the 80’s” vibe makes me think he changed in the 80’s, rather than a Highlander scenario.
Most likely. That’s what his cast page says, too. But if it turns out that his power also makes him truly immortal (which it probably does, since DaveB strongly suggests he looks the same now as he did 40 years ago), he has a good attitude for it.
Well now that depends. Anything can be combustible or separate into chemicals under the right circumstances, even celery. Celulose still burns.
The dialogue is quite clear that he didn’t do it for fun, he did it while on a mission. His team needed this thing gone and he did what was requested of him.
Being a proper military, they sure spent their time in quarantine afterwards.
First time I’ve ever heard the term, and it’s already irritating as hell.
Ermergerd! New tab Logo!
I’m not sure what happened there. It’s the same favicon, it just has a blue background now. Not sure I like it, although I closed and reopened my browser (cause Chrome was taking up like 3GB of memory) and it’s back to red on tab-color.
a Crtl+F5 refresh in Firefox didn’t change it back for me. Looking at the page source I can’t find the shortcut_icon tag in the head section but maybe you do it differently?
If it’s any help, I can load “favicon.ico”, which has the blue background. “favicon.gif” gives (Firefox) an error message.
Chrome & IE show it in the tab on blue background, whereas Firefox has it as tab colour.
I would have been tempted to shut him up after the seventh “mouth feel.” At least apologize for your brains internal thesaurus from providing other words to describe food texture. I do if I’m off the rocker and can’t figure out more descriptions as needed. “The feeling of this particular food is feeling rough but not feeling like Harsh feeling rough…oh sh*t sorry, sorry Wait Don’t THWAP”
Wait wait wait wait wait.
Which three is Peggy telling to go outside? And why three of them? Then only ones causing a disturbance were Sydney and Achilles. Amorphous was just talking to Achilles, and Brook was just watching. Is she seriously kicking them out because Sydney is acting out a little? I’m soooooo confused!
thats how they do things in the military from what i herd you punish the whole group so that they lern that fucking around as consequences for everyone not just yourself. add to that it makes people feel guilty about getting others punished who dont deserve it and crates peer pressure from those who are sick of getting in to trouble for doing nothing wrong
It is more than that, bad behaviour reflects on the whole unit. Whether they are just in the Archon mess (and there are just non-ArcSWAT members present) or, worse, that they are in a publicly accessible area (such as the food court), their actions reflect on their unit. Mr Amorphous was contributing to the impression of that, by acting in an undignified manner.
Ok, he was trying to prevent Achilles from grossing everybody out, but it is results that count. If anybody can encourage Achilles to behave properly it should be his good buddy Mr Amorphous. But he failed, and was only
moisteningworsening the scene that was being created.As you say, if they cannot find a way to individually, or as a group, find a way of behaving civilly, then Peggy will inspire them!
This is all a build-up to DaveB’s next major story arc. We have one group of supers who take a stand on one side of the proper use of manners, and then another group of supers who takes the opposite side on the issue. Things escalate until the government demands that all supers register for etiquette lessons. Many supers refuse, leading up to the conflict known as ‘Civility War’.
Wow dude. That’s a gag I will leave to the good folks at Wonderella
Ok, ‘the civility war’ is hilarious.
But seriously, does Sydney’s actions on this entire page feel weird to anyone else? I’ve never seen Sydney act like this to anyone before. The overall violence seems out of context towards a friend, and Sydney always seems very well mannered for a total goofball. What the hell?
Is it familiarity, a sense of friendship among equals and finally being able to let her powers show or what?
The entire scene just seems to be coming out of nowhere, and it’s very abrupt.
Yes, but only because Sydney is the hero and our primary protagonist. We want her to always do the right thing. And we have gotten used to Hollywood et al feeding us heroes who have no flaws. However ALL of Dave’s characters are three dimensional, and have their good and bad points. For the most part, the heroes have more of the former, than the latter. Whereas the villains reverse the ratio.
It feels uncomfortable seeing our hero behaving badly but, unlike Super Man, she is only human. And we all have our off moments. How she handles the criticism, and whether she improves, will go to show
If you think about it, you have. And plenty of similar incidents. Swearing at Tubey may have been versus an inanimate object, but it gave us the first clue, as she was oblivious to being in public. As the nuns will testify. Math was not a friend, at the time, but her punch, with the orb, was designed to do actual harm (unlike here, where it is literally impossible to do so).
Given that Achilles is invulnerable to physical harm, the most shocking aspect is Sydney’s vehemence and resorting to an outright expletive. Rather than her normal amusing tirades.
From the point of view of transitioning from a calm conversation, yes. From her recent history, no. Think on her assault on the assembled media, on her lawn, just this morning. And her anger was showing against Maxima, earlier on.
Much of this can be put down to bottling up the stresses of the last day and a half, plus the months of concealing her secret before that. But clearly she has had issues for a long time (such as the previous time she mauled a mugger).
With the powers at her disposal, Halo must develop better self-control, and fast. Maxima has already had more than session trying to get this across to her. Both the Gwen Stacey talk and the one at the restaurant. It is not a new issue. It is on ongoing one. And one that is of serious concern to her superiors.
“I’ve never seen Sydney act like this to anyone before”
I think you did.
It’s a comic, but yes, in real life I didn’t like that behavior either.
BUY COMICS!!!!!!
Sydney has a weird balance going on. She overreacts to a LOT of situations, constantly. However, she generally seems quite good at keeping the level of damage directly inflicted to match the target’s ability to handle it. Hitting Achilles with a skyhook ball is equivalent to the classic “Gibbs smack” from NCIS. I have little doubt she would not use that on, say, Peggy, even with similar provocation, because she knows that could injure Peggy.
Where she fails is in considering the opinions of others, and specifically how others will interpret such rough-housing. I wouldn’t be surprised if other diners were starting to be terrified, if they’ve seen the news about the Vehemence incident. It’s here that Peggy’s admonition becomes pertinent.
Yorp is correct that “dipshit” is in some ways far less ‘in character’ for Sydney–though “motherfucker” gets a pass since it’s a direct movie quote.
I’m sort of surprised that you are surprised, actually. This heedlessness, this narcissism, is the core of the character. Sometimes it is wielded for good, other times for evil, but the fact that Sydney is the only real person in her world has been hammered home over and over.
It can be empowering. During the blitz Sydney’s mental state allowed her to behave with incredible bravery, nay heroism. Locking Vehemance in the orb with her was basically throwing away her life for a tiny chance of saving Maxima. She had not training, no one to coach her, just her own instincts. She could trust them, because she always has. She overcame the fear of dying, because it isn’t real to her. She can’t die, who would kill her? There is no one else.
On the other hand, today she walked through a guard like he wasn’t there. He was a fellow human, in an organization she is a member of, performing his function in uniform. She didn’t break stride, he might as well have been wallpaper. Later on she apologized to Maxima, but that guy doesn’t exist in her mind, she’d be just as likely to apologize to the carpet.
So where as for you or I striking a co-worker because they were saying annoying stuff would be a momentous instant, a loss of self control which would be a pivotal point in our lives, Sydney doesn’t even miss a beat. She made the noise stop for a moment. Peggy is going to complain, but so what, she’s an NPC, deploy some quick talk and she’ll be pleasant again.
Unfortunately, you have just given an almost frighteningly accurate description of ‘Antisocial Personality disorder’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder
It is characterized by at least 3 of the following:
1 Callous unconcern for the feelings of others;
2 Gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms, rules, and obligations;
3 Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, though having no difficulty in establishing them;
4 Very low tolerance to frustration and a low threshold for discharge of aggression, including violence;
5 Incapacity to experience guilt or to profit from experience, particularly punishment;
6 Marked readiness to blame others or to offer plausible rationalizations for the behavior that has brought the person into conflict with society.
Yorp seems to feel this is part of being “a three dimensional hero”, but to me it seems more like a borderline psychopath with serous rage issues and a lit fuse.
At first, I was annoyed at Walter’s comments. Then I realized he was absolutely right- that carelessness about others was what was bothering me. It comes across as abrupt and even unacceptably aggressive and sociopathic in this scene and it really puts me ill at ease.
Yes, Sydney has tossed a shoe in the general direction of a friend who was teasing her before, yes she is ADD and prone to outbursts. But THIS is behavior that gets you tossed in jail out in the real world, and calling it roughhousing just because the victim can take it does nothing to downgrade the level of aggression involved.
I had a good friend in the service, 6’3″ 250# and as close to a perfect marine as you can imagine, and his 4’11” wife would fly into rages and go after him with her fists at the drop of a hat. He blew it off for years because frankly, she was a lapdog attacking a Great Dane. Nevertheless, we all in the unit saw it as abusive behavior and avoided her like poison. Eventually she came after him with a pair of scissors and the judge took care of it; but it should have been stopped long before… and this is right out of that playbook. It’s criminal behavior disguised as roughhousing and people are willing to give her a pass and excuse it because the recipient is a “tough guy” and our heroine did it.
Sorry, It’s still wrong and if Sydney was a guy, the PC patrol would be all over it.
My reply was addressing your comments that this came out of the blue. It did not. We have been observing similar tell-tale signs for a long time. And, from the outset, I have expressed my qualms and reservations about Sydney’s behaviour in such situations. Condemning it when appropriate.
Sydney has attitude problems, which I do not condone. And, specifically said that she was “behaving badly.” Note that I compared her behaviour to that of villains. Indicating that her attitudes were only different from villains by ratio.
Which is hardly meant to convey that it is an ideal to aspire to! Rather it is saying that in the real world people are not perfect. Everybody has some flaws or failings. Even heroes. And sometimes they are extremely serious failings.
So, by avoiding cardboard cut out villains, who only wear black hats and good guys who only wear white, DaveB is both more accurately reflecting the real world, and allowing for the more interesting dynamics, which can come from that. We can’t tell, just by looking at someone’s hat if they are a good person or a bad one. Even if the hat is policeman\s hat.
Sadly one sentence got chopped off, in the editing process, and was left incomplete. It should have read as follows:
I do not take her actions lightly. They must be reined in. Maxima is working hard on this. And clearly Peggy is taking action now too.
The following should not be considered excuses. But rather examination of history, symptoms and mitigating factors.
One of which is that Sydney may be suffering from PTSD, following the trauma of two near-death experiences yesterday. If this is the case she is not of sound mind. In other words she is ill, not evil. If she gets suitable support and treatment, she can be restored to productive duty, with a clean slate.
As with real world situations though there are other possibilities (and they need not be either or, but could all be factors).
The most obvious of which is that Sydney has both anger control and impulse control issues. The latter clearly aggravated (or caused) by her ADHD. The former is likely being ramped up by the time of the month, but has been evident before.
The two are intrinsically linked. When Sydney manages to overcome her compulsion, to act first, she can make very good jugements, and keep a clear head, despite trying conditions. This is our best indicator that Sydney is basically a good person (which I do wholeheartedly feel).
Likewise Halo is aware of the responsibility of her powers. Plus she does show remorse at her bad behaviour. In the situation with the president, not needing prompting for it. Her morals are in the right place, if you dig deeply enough.
However Sydney needs to have a better line drawn for her to show the distinction between anti-social behaviour (like the above) and her quirky eccentric behaviour.
One other point to consider, is the super powers themselves. If any of us, overnight, found items which responded instantly to our merest mental whim, might we not find our petty impulses being acted out, before we had a chance to think about them?
Apart from the aggravation factor of PMT (which explains heightened emotions, but does not condone the actions), I really do not see the need to have brought this up. Nobody has given Sydney a ‘get out of jail free’ card for being a girl. Re-read the concluding line of my previous reply, if you doubt that.
I can’t really disagree with anything you are saying Yorp, but I do still feel that
1) the scene transition was super abrupt and it all threw me off, and
2) Syd’s violent little explosion seemed equally abrupt, perhaps enhanced by the rapid change in scene,menses, PTSD and whatever.
I LIKE Sydney’s issues, that she’s more ‘real’ than most comics.
But I do sometimes wonder how much of this is all carefully planned versus put on the page for a slapstick touch of humor that may have been a poor first choice.
And as for the necessity of mentioning female violence getting a pass, well, I read a lot of web comics, and frankly the hyper-agressive girl violence is rarely out there in the real world and all over the comics in a fanboy-pandering go-to running joke that I don’t find particularly funny. Questionable Content, Wapsi Square, the list goes on and on of crazy agressive women is all to rare in the real world and it doesn’t need to be encouraged. Neither does the all too common male version need to increase, Milking this common male issue in a female role reversal in comics for a joke bores the hell out of me.
What I’d like to see is some of these seriously broken people spending a few nights in jail for it rather than playing it off for laughs. Most real -life violence isn’t super hero brawls or even street muggings and criminals. Most cops never fire a gun in the real world.
Most violence happens between people who know each other, and the majority of serious violence and murder happens between family, friends and co-workers. When this crap gets treated like it matters in the media and among those we care for, we may make some actual progress doing something about it as human beings. This isn’t some sort of trigger for me. I just find the typical media treatment stupid, and DB suddenly seems to be pulling inspiration from the common well…and that well is full of crap.
I find myself empathising with a lot of what you say, especially when talking generally about the media and society. Where I can offer a couple of counter-points is when applying those to the comic.
Within the gene-pool and society we do not just have the digital state of male or female. There are some folks born with physical sexual characteristics which do not match their otherwise apparent gender. Similarly there are individuals who identify as the opposite gender to the body they were born in.
And then you get various shades of grey confusing the issue even more. And completely separate to that, you have the gender that the individual finds attractive (or not, for asexual folk). This comic actually recognises these issues. Sometimes it is clearly portrayed, other times it is more subtle.
For instance Peggy is bisexual. Likewise Dabbler is just as keen to get into Maxima’s pants as a guys. As regards the female violence issue, you should not be pigeon holing Sydney as ‘female’. She is not that simple. Sydney is a tomboy. Mentally she has a lot of thought processes emotions and attitudes of guys.
And this is not just a stereotype, one of my friends shares this kind of mindset. If I make the mistake of anticipating her behaving like other women, I completely misjudge her actions. But if I think ‘what would a guy do in her circumstances’, it becomes a lot easier. You still have to factor in she likes guys, and is perfectly happy with being her gender. She just does not think like a ‘typical’ girl.
Fortunately without the testosterone pumping her up, she is not inclined to being violent. Other than in video game settings, where she gives as well as she gets. So, in that regard, she is different to Sydney, who does have anger issues and impulse control problems.
As such it is not fair to lump Sydney in with the bulk of females. She is an extremely complex individual, who has not been put into the story to act as a role model for womankind.
Hopefully though Sydney will face repercussions, commensurate to her transgressions. I agree that such behaviour is inappropriate. Fortunately Dave is not putting the issues into the comic and then ignoring them. He is very clearly addressing them through Maxima (and in this case Peggy).
Sydney is our primary vehicle to see the comic, and it does get boring if the protagonist is always squeaky clean. If an interesting social issue needs to be addressed, and the hero can be the one who demonstrates it, then that is a valid angle to take on it. At the risk of earning the disapproval of us more repressed/ socially conscientious types.
One final point, is regarding the comedy. Sydney does get a bit of leeway here. The point of the comic is to have some situations which are so ridiculously over the top, that they are funny. They could not happen in the real world, so we can laugh our heads off.
But it does mean that some slack has to be cut, or else Sydney would be eternally locked up. Even the punching the ceiling tiles incident might have earnt her punishment detail (just picking an isolated incident). How much slack folks are willing to give for this kind of thing varies hugely though. Some folks are doubtless no longer readers, if it pushed them too far. Others are not bothered about it in the least.
Regardless though it is a core part of the comic. ‘Comedy trumps all’. Fortunately the social issues are important to DaveB, so they do not get ignored, and we do not have to totally depend on that mantra.
Sydney is not a good person by any stretch of imagination.
Along with multiple examples above, remember how during fight with supers she used extensive violence several times, outright crippling at least one person.
Maxima attributed this to lack of training, but it was fully conscious and quite frankly sadistic decision on Syndey’s part.
This feels like a bit of a stretch. Frankly, Sydney was responding to lethal force being used by multiple opponents. Vehemence’s dupes are lucky none of them was hurt worse, honestly–Maxima and company were within legal rights to try to kill them outright.
I am talking about last panel here:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1608
I believe you are exaggerating. They are well withing their right to kill some of them, yes, those who pose immediate lethal threat. A lot of those villains were not, either because of their power levels or overall lack of motivation.
Also, think about PR nightmare it would make. There is a reason why using live ammo to subdue riots is frown upon in democratic states.
Ahh blaming the victim of an attempted murder for defending herself. I think that reveals your bias.
Likewise choosing to ignore Halo leaving herself utterly defenceless, by raising the shield, with Vehemence on the inside! Selflessly putting yourself in mortal peril, for no purpose other than saving the lives of others is an act of heroism, virtue and goodness.
Name something you have done that makes you a better person than that!
You are misreading the situation in both examples. The guy Sydney crippled posed absolutely no threat to her. In fact, we didn’t even see him attempting to attack Sydney.
Vehemence quite clearly announced that he had no interest in killing any of the supers, except for Maxima.
Okay, I have no idea how to use quotes here.
IMHO Sydney is a good person, but she is not perfect, a role model, or arguably even admirable.
She is very flawed, and I think just about everyone we have seen in Arc SWAT is, and I think that is a very important point to this comic.
They are not morally even up to Batman or Spider-man standards, although I would put them well above Spawn and similar.
I don’t think this makes them less heroic or less interesting. They are still willing to put their lives on the line to save normal people. That may not give them a pass (as Peggy seems about to demonstrate), but it does give them a consideration.
The good you do does not cancel out the bad, nor vice versa.
That aspect of these characters makes them all the more interesting and less predictable to me.
+1 Extremely well put.
I do admire her mind. But not when she behaves like this. However I do accept a person as a package. She does fail as a role-model. Yet, in due course, she may overcome her failings, and become worthy of such.
Any hero must master themselves. Halo has some big challenges, to do that.
>>The good you do does not cancel out the bad, nor vice versa.
I disagree.
More to the point, I personally find it highly aggravating when violent sociopaths gets treated like they are flawless paladins. I have absolutely no problem with characters being an asshole as long as he know that he is an asshole and/or he is treated as such.
Screwed up once and still isn’t even aware of it = Violent sociopath. Got it.
Seriously, Sydney’s spastic and a little quick to fight, but she’s not some evil monster because she slapped a guy on the pavement. So what if he wasn’t attacking her– he WAS attacking her allies, and as far as her thought process goes, she made him stop. Honestly, she may have just assumed he could withstand it because he’s a super and that would have done little more than mildly inconvenience half the people there. She needs to get a better handle on her powers and get better at feeling out enemy defenses before attacking, but that doesn’t make her a bloodthirsty murderer. Chill out. Nobody ever said she was a perfect paladin, ever.
I never said she is. It was just a point I wanted to make.
Still ,as I see it, Sydney character development slowly moves in that general direction and I dislike it.
Also it happens way too often in media and it irritates me to no end. So you might consider it as a vent of sort.
Also, this particular super was never even shown attacking Archon.
It will be fun if he’ll be revealed to be just a bystander in cosplay suit.
The three would be Achilles, Sydney and Mr. Amorphous. As, stated, Achilles and Sydney were the big problems, but Amorphous was a potential enabler in the second last panel, so he gets included as well. Once outside, discipline for all three gets re-established.
It might not be obvious, but Amorphous is pretty much screaming in last panels. Which is why he gets called out too.
Looks like they’re going outside for either punishment detail or a quick fight to burn off stress. Problem is, how do you punish someone who can’t feel a nuke? Or, in Halo’s case, will likely forget about it an hour later.
Anyone with the most basic psychological training can tell you that punishment doesn’t work to redirect behavior (not very well at least).
It depends how it is structured. Sydney acts at an instinctive level, a lot of the time. Maxima talking to her alone has not gotten the message across yet. So, although Sydney is smart, she is drawing on primitive emotional areas of the brain, rather than thinking things through.
One way is to encourage her to think things through more. But her ADHD can distract her from that. So I think working on the more primal instincts would be of benefit. Instil some negative associations with bad behaviour, coupled with rewards to encourage the good.
I think “Mouth feel” started as one of those terms that food scientists were using when they were trying to come up with substitutes or “alternative-to” foods. In other words, does “zero fat” something have the same texture, etc. as the fat equivalent. Just as wine snobs did with wine’s terminologies, “foodies” started using it to sound like they were “connisseurs.” The general public generally thinks “does it taste good?” rather than “does it have (X) quality?”
Although, exceptions exist. My wife dislikes the crunch of onions in most things, even though she’s just indifferent to the flavor. Similarly, I cannot abide large mushroom slices due to the rubbery texture, but I actually like the flavor of things like truffle oil, or sauces where the ‘shrooms have been shredded or ground to tiny slivers.
That’s it Peggy, we can’t have our heroine being rude to heroes! Or even ex-vigilantes.
Does Peggy know that Syd is having her monthly cycle today? Does anyone?
Good point. Tubey does. But his lips are sealed.
Oh, indeed, one would never question the honorable Tubey. Very discrete.
very good point.
still bothers the hell out of me
Me too.
According to his entry in the cast page:
“Achilles can’t be poisoned, suffocated, starved, irradiated, crushed, cut, pierced, burned, frozen or injured by any method yet discovered. As such, his tactic in a fight is to simply taunt his opponents until he can get his hands on them.”
This sort of attack might work for him against a super villain, but maybe not against a perturbed Sydney who’s lost her impulse control.
Oh, wait a minute . . . She never had any impulse control, did she?
Has anyone tried attacking his heels? I mean, really, if you’re gonna name yourself after someone who was primarily famous for his eponymous weakness, you should expect that sort of thing,,,
Naa, he just faked it, that time. The guy was fed up of being in the public eye, and wanted to lay low for a few centuries. Which he did. Then he got bored.
That’d be genius actually.
It would be – which is why it can’t be true. Achilles isn’t exactly the brains of this operation, you may have noticed…
Or he is very good. If you had a few centuries to practice playing the dumb guy, I am sure you could get the hang of it!
Some people might take that as a back-handed insult.
I assure you though, I am incapable of that. It was a forward-pawed compliment.
I’m wondering if he’s actually centuries old, or significantly younger than that, given his mullet hairdo (like from the 80s and 90s when that style was popular for some reason). Not sure they had a mullet centuries ago.
The probability is that he is from the 80’s.
But mullets have been around for long over a thousand years.
Although I suggest it somewhat tongue in cheek, there is credibility underlying it. He seems to be immortal, so there is no reason at all why he had to have been born within our lifetimes. But there would be every reason to make it appear that he had. If he wanted to live a normal-seeming life, amongst mortals.
Most significantly of all, he does not remember when he gained his powers…
If I remember Achilles wasn’t the sharpest pilum back then either.
Pilum? Does he go that far back, or further? (Gasp!) Casca Longinus? Could he be?
Think Achilles, where did you last see your signature weapon?
It’s interesting, really: Achilles is clearly in constant training to be as aggravating and annoying as possible. It *has* to be constant and as close to involuntary on his part, because Achilles’ job is to be the guy that the supervillain instinctively chooses to be That Guy. That’s The Guy I Punch In The Face First in a combat situation. That is how Achilles does his duty to the United States of America and humanity.
In other words, Achilles pretty much HAS to be a heel.
….
Go stand in the corner and think about what you just did.
(Seriously, though, good job.)
Yea, I had not thought about it, but the guy is in training. Taunting skills have to be practised, just like any other. And he now knows what buttons to push on Halo, should she go rogue. No wonder he took it with good grace!
Zephan will probably sleep easier tonight, once he learns that the lead tank has optimised his powers versus Sydney.
I think you’ve hit it on the head!
So….the force of sydney jumping up and using the elasto…thingie. (i honestly forgot what its called) caused the bangs to pop out. Interesting.
Just thought i’d point that out since no one has yet.
She calls it her lighthook. Evidently, all the more . . . descriptive names got nixed.
Unofficially, the best name for the orb (and what I always remember first) is the Hentorb.
Mollestorb!
Violatorb!
Tentorb!
Pseudopod Tentacle Orb.
Or PTO if you aren’t hip.
Hah hah… whooooops. Maybe she was done eating?
Eh, I’m willing to believe that she pulled out the bangs in preparation for the attack–Achilles certainly gave her enough time to build up a proper rage for it.
What’s the point of tying a tentacle in the knot?
It does not have any mass, so it won’t make it heavier to be hit with, and it will only serve to increase the area of impact…
“Any reason for supposing that?
Actually, it probably causes less injury that way. The same reason that a bullet does more damage than the equivalent weight of loose aluminum foil, or a punch hurts more than a slap. She didn’t want to really hurt him, just slap him around a bit.
She couldn’t hurt him if she shot him with the damn laser.
Please do not fire the PPO inside the cafeteria. Nor a laser.
Actually, I tend to think of the PPO as a particle beam, not a laser.
Just FYI, you can’t actually see a laser unless you’re looking directly into the beam (which is a bad idea unless your plan is to be permanently blinded) except where the beam is interrupted by particulate matter in the air (dust, powder, smoke, etc). The beam from the PPO is plainly visible, on cameras and to the naked eye, so that’s one of the reasons why I think of it as a particle beam.
Obviously in movies and comics, the beam from a laser is visible for the viewer’s benefit, so you can tell that something is actually happening. Interestingly, scientists are now adding sound effects to lasers, because of developments like the HEL MD (High Energy Laser Mobile Demonstrator), which is designed to shoot down incoming mortar rounds and UAVs with a 10-kW laser.
Unlike the lasers of fiction which race across screens in green and red bursts, the actual lasers fired by an actual laser gun are invisible and silent. This is a problem for the military, because the people driving the truck sometimes don’t notice when it’s firing. To remedy this, HEL MD will play laser sound effects for the human operators, and the noises will have a sci-fi theme.
They’re planning to also mount a similar laser on the USS Ponce, to see if it can be used to defend against swarming boat attacks or incoming anti-ship missiles. They’re also planning field tests with a 50-kW and 100-kW version.
While I may be going way off on a tangent, I’m sure at least some of you will know about the Earthsiege computer games. Before I go too far, for those who don’t know, the game is a “mech” or “giant robot” game, where you are piloting a HERCULAN (or HERC for short). HERCULAN is an acronym for “Humaniform-Emulation Roboticized Combat Unit with Leg-Articulated Navigation” (I suppose they could’ve just called them “walking robots”, but that wouldn’t sound as cool.)
Sci-fi Writers Have No Sense Of Scale: In Earthsiege, the lasers come in three different varieties, all of them in the gigawatt range. The largest is 300 GW, and has a range of just 300m (approximately 985 ft).
Now, I am aware that the game is set in the future, but I’m still greatly amused. For starters, look at the amount of power that would require. With today’s technology, maximum efficiency is about 30-35%, so it would take almost a terawatt to generate a 300 GW laser… that’s between 560 and 700 gigawatts of waste heat that would have to be accounted for (depending on efficiency).
Then you have to think about how much damage that would do. Rheinmetall is already testing a 50-kW laser, which is powerful enough to cut through a steel girder at a range of a kilometer (more than three times the range of the game’s 300-GW lasers), and can shoot down target drones 2km away. If it only takes 50 kW to cut a steel girder, just how tough is the shields and armor of a HERC? Also, I have absolutely no idea what kind of range a 300-GW laser would have, but if a 50-kW laser has a range of 2 km, something tells me that the range of a 300-GW laser would be significantly more than 300 meters…
(Yes, yes, I know. “Gameplay and Story Segregation”. It’s still fun to nitpick.)
It’s supposed to be a fist.
Sydney wanted to punch Achilles, so the lighthook wrapped itself into a fist shape.
I don’t know whether she controls the energy consciously only, or if it responds to her unconscious thoughts as well. But in either case, the fist is appropriate.
This way it resembles a club or morningstar. Sydney isn’t thinking “add mass,” she’s thinking “club him over the head,” and the more club like shape matches her current desire better than a whip shape.
My fist impression, the same as Gamesman, was that it is a fist. You can even see a digit coming out (partly concealed by the “POW” sound effect). You know one of those things you use to turn tin openers, whatever y’all call them. The things that stick out, when they are sore.
But, it is more than that, there is a reinforcing structure, in front of the … um… fingers. As such it is a fist wearing a knuckle duster.
Perhaps it has no mass, but it’s a proven mode of kinetic energy transfer… She uses it to drive Lee’s claws back into him in #212.
I love the expression on Achilles’ face when he gets hit. It’s just like, “Oh? Oh.” Perfect.
I have to agree with you. It’s certainly not pain. I’m guessing it’s surprise – that he didn’t see Sydney’s attack coming.
But really, even that makes sense for Achilles, especially in a relatively safe area like the dining hall. Why should he be on the constant lookout for approaching dangers? The only time Achilles is looking for danger is so that he can interpose himself between it & a fellow teammate.
I bet the fool doesnt even always expect ninjas.
The normal variety, not the fashion ninjas. No one expects those.
…Not even Sydney expected those…
Dave typo in the last panel, should be dipshit not dispshit, at least i think it should be, maybe there’s such a word as dispshit
It boggles my mind how no one else seems to have noticed it.
Because that is the way the human mind works…
* stares very suspiciously at CorvusCorone68*
… and intelligent doggies too. Jumbling up letters does not prevent us from reading it the way we expect.
However it may not be a typo. If Sydney pronouncd it the way she said it, then the scene is rather less harsh, than we have been taking it. A verbal way of self-cen**ring, that takes the edge off her language. Somewhat.
Maybe she’s so angry she’s slipping into incoherency.
Dangit! I’ll get that fixed, thanks for the heads up.
Shhh! I may have been able to convince them it was deliberate.
*sigh*
Probably because…
Just in case, not an actual research it seems ;)
If you are curious: Typoglycemia
Intended to be a reply to Autist
Very very interesting.
Having been an excellent speller from an early age, mispelling bothers me immensely – but that I could read that passage so darned easily is a real worry for me.
Welcome to life amongst the muggles.
No ….. NO ….. I’m not like them! I’m not like them! …… AAAAAAAIIIIEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ve seen that before and I have no trouble reading it (english is also my second language by the way). It reminded me of one of those parent-teacher thingies from first grade, where the teacher told my mom that I was learning to read at a much faster pace than most of my classmates. It was as if I saw the whole words at once whereas many of my classmates stumbled through them one or two letters at a time.
But in this specific case it was a matter of the word having an extra “S”, not jumbled letters, and having Asperger’s I tend to notice stuff like that pretty much immediately. This is another thing: it has a tendency to make me nitpick :s
So apparently by th eblog and th ecomment section “mouth feel” is a realy thing that people do say.
I am … aback.
Are we going to say that the finger feel of the fabric is nice or that the ear feel of the music is good?
Honestly is sounds like kindergarten language mixed with Newspeak.
I’m with this guy. People actually say ‘mouth feel’? Because that sounds ridiculous.
I could easily see it cropping up in culinary arts discussions. Specialists tend to generate jargon, in order to better communicate nuanced/complicated ideas among people familiar with it. As was mentioned above, I can easily imagine that “texture” and “mouth feel” could have differences for people attempting to design the diner’s experience, while most folks don’t care. Similar to how speed and velocity are different things, and intro physics classes always need to have a bit about “yes, now you’re in a situation where it does actually matter, because if you get the language wrong, it makes understanding the concepts being taught harder.”
There’s 2 situations where jargon can be really annoying:
1) Communicating with people outside the specialist group. I’ve been chewed out for (correctly) using the word “parse” in conversation (I like learning about linguistics, and hang around with programmers, it’s a word that has meaning in both for similar things, and was what came to mind at the time).
2) People attempting to sound erudite, utilizing verbiage that would not naturally be utilized, in order to convey to others that the speaker is among the enlightened specialists.
Though, I was suspected of plagiarism as a kid because my essay sounded like an encyclopedia. My mother had to assure the teacher that was just how I wrote, and often spoke. I read a lot…including encyclopedias (information is neat). I can often come across as attempting #2 when it’s not intentional, since particularly when relaxed, I fall into my more natural speaking habits, which are more formal than is generally considered casual.
Double plus annoying…
You earn a + + for that reference.
Achilles is double plus annoying pretty much all the time…Usually though, he refers to his invulnerability with most of his annoying.
Yes it is very immaturish I think people think they are being cute or something? It’s like people who shorten words that don’t need to be shorterned
Honestly I’ve only ever heard it in a context where people were making fun of the expression. It comes up several times in the show Portlandia, hence Sydney’s reference, and then again on Brooklyn 9-9 when the foodie guy on the force rates a bunch of pizzas on numerous qualities, one of which is mouth feel.
Actually, my understanding is that mouthfeel is a more advanced concept of texture, considered when putting together a gourmet meal: it outlines both the food’s texture and the diner’s expectation of texture, so that when a texture is delightfully surprising (such as a sneaky crunch in what would normally be a pliant and giving burger), it is considered to have an interesting mouthfeel– not just because of the texture, but because of the deviation from expectations. It also refers to the interaction of flavor and texture, which is important to consider, and has occasionally been used to describe that weird expanding air feeling you get in your mouth after eating almonds and such.
And then it’s also used by hipster douchebags who want to look like they’re connoisseurs.
I don’t care how funny it was, or what movie scene was being acted out, Sydney was definitely out of line attacking another person, even if that person is invulnerable. First, she sets a bad example; second, she made a mess, which was very rude to the wait staff and other diners; third, the situation could have escalated, even by accident, and others, less invulnerable, could have been injured. Sydney should have used her words, by asking Achilles to stop using that phrase, and then walking over to the manager and complaining, or just leaving the restaurant. Achilles strikes me as a bit of a prankster, and he probably knew he was agitating other diners, which was very rude of him. The dining experience should be a pleasant one, to aid digestion. Oh, and Mr. Amorphous trying to physically take the burger from Achilles was too much. Voice your opinion, but keep your hands to yourself.
Agreed, it was way out of line. You dont get to punch people just because “it wont hurt them” That was a big over reaction. I would have laughed if she did a gibbs slap with her hentorb in the shape of a hand though. /THWAP! “Oi! There are other adjectives man! Ones that dont promote workplace violence!”
Totally agreed. Barring one point.
Absolutely not! He is a team-mate and under no circumstances should she ever call on somebody outside the team to resolve a dispute. Ideally they should settle it between themselves. But if they need help it must come from within Arc-SWAT (or at the very most Archon).
Of course, you are correct, from the point of view of saying that is what a civilian should do, and Sydney still very much has a civilian mind-set. But she has to change that thinking.
Sydney needs to start treating him like a brother. But… mmm… without the sibling rivalry and temper tantrums. One day Sydney’s life may be in Achilles’s hands. Mind you, the reverse will probably never be true.
Interesting how super-powers can change some inherent assumptions. Like “sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” Achilles is far more likely to be hurt by words than sticks. The latter will only harm him, if they are still attached to super-chills, that he is eating.
I think it would have been a (slightly) more appropriate response to yell first, and then smack him. The big problem I have is the hit coming out of no where.
I would agree with you, except that Sydney hasn’t known Achilles for more than 24 hours, so there has been no bonding. They are, mostly, complete strangers to each other. Personally, sometimes friends can be complete douche-bags, so you have to educate them; such as a friend of mine who thought it was okay to whip out his cell phone at a movie, despite my requests that he not do so, and that he put it away. He even blew off complaints from other movie goers, so I was the one to go get the manager and have his butt thrown out of the theater, which worked out even batter as I was his ride home. When the movie ended, I went out, chewed him a new backside, then treated him to dinner, as I had promised earlier. We are still good friends, and he learned a valuable lesson; don’t piss in your friends’ cheerios and don’t be that guy.
Heh. I approve of your solution. And it would be appropriate to sort out an errant team mate that way too. IF they were both out of uniform, and there was no fall-out that could harm the unit. Here though, they are both in uniform and (as Peggy’s comment indicates) they are in a restaurant. So it must be assumed that the staff are civilians, and there are likely to be other customers, out of shot too.
Of course, if no other alternative is available, then it is preferable to be the one calling the manager, rather than leaving it to another cinema goer. But only because ejecting your team-mate personally might be viewed as undignified brawling.
There is one perk I have though. Years of commuting allowed me to perfect various levels of facial expression, ranging from ‘I am not interested in whatever you are trying to fob off on me’ through to ‘come one step closer and I will rip your spine out’.
Even the lower level ones are pretty good at keeping order. The higher level ones need to be used with appropriate caution in cinemas.
Removing the phone from his hand, and crushing it underfoot is another solution I would be perfectly willing and able to do. Something I can convey with a look. And friends would know it is not a bluff.
Bless, you, TC, you were doing God’s work that day.
This is all correct–which is why Peggy is hauling all of them outside. Once the full-bore lecture is done, I’m curious what their punishment is going to be.
There’s a fun prestige class in D&D that lets you do this stuff – Flux Adept. It doesn’t make you completely invincible, but it does let you eat anything and regenerate almost anything. As long as that super ebola wasn’t on fire, it would work.
You know, i think Achillies personality makes a lot of sense. someone who has never experienced danger in their whole life is going to be pretty damn flippant.
Knowing Achilles, he probably ENJOYS getting hit.
He does! But it doesn’t make it right.
Hells, Syd, try to act like a gorram adult for more than two minutes. Physically assaulting someone, no matter how much that person cannot be hurt, for over-using a word is not simply “poor impulse control”, it’s just plain childish – and a particularly bratty child, at that. I hope Peggy gives you a good dressing down.
So far she has hit (in some manner) Mr. Amorphous, Maxima, Harem, Dabbler, Math, and now Achilles (plus Jiggawatt, but there was a good reason for that one).
Sydney: “clobber-happy”.
Is interesting to notice that each one had different context:
Mr. Amorphous was an enemy at that moment.
Harem was a reflex reaction.
Maxima was under comic so canonically debatable.
Math was a fair consensual fight.
Jigawatt was something I would like to do too… I mean… an under attack emergency action.
Correction: I thought that in comic she just feinted at Maxima but I just checked and she got to actually hit her in that page.
Should Peggy give them a lecture on ethics or assign them to kitchen duty?
Maybe give them a lecture on ethics and then assign them to kitchen duty?
BTW-Does ARCSwat have a clause to prevent inducting anyone with a prior criminal record???
Sydney would have to go to the Fusion kitchen, the only place she would not be able to hurt the customers as much with her cooking.
Though Achilles on kitchen duty… *shudder* Imagine what he could do to the food of people who ticked him off, or what he could do in general so he’d never be put on kitchen duty again.
Kitchen duty doesn’t mean cooking.
Nope. You can see three of them in panel 1. Achilles, Mr Amorphous and Heatwave are all former vigilantes. Which is illegal, and will carry a criminal record with it.
The one caveat being if a plea-bargain was done, to avoid a criminal record, in exchange for military/police duties (or an informal agreement to the same effect). We have not had any hint that such a deal was done though. Plus I doubt that Archon would seek to pervert their own basic rules.
That said though, I am certain that Archon will examine any such candidates with extreme care. The loss of credibility and reputation, by hiring a bad apple, could be far worse than any potential gain from super powers.
Yorp,are you familiar with a film called the Dirty Dozen? Imagine Sydney leading a motley bunch of losers, criminals, deserters and other military miscreants….!
Trouble is they only get formed for near-suicide missions. That is too harsh a punishment for being rude. Poor Sydney!
*cries*
Woot my city got a mention. I am always torn on that show and on the reputation. I grew up in Portland and most of us were most definitely not hipster. In fact it feels like most of the hipster bullshit is louder than the rest of the stuff but makes up less of actual Portland and often it’s non natives who brought in the hipster bullshit.
I know what you mean. Most of my friends in Portland aren’t hipsters… they’re either sex workers, burlesque dancers, circus artists… or a combination of the three ^3^
I am jealous. You have such interesting friends!
Mind you y’all are interesting too. But…
Move to Portland! I’m sure you could get a job as a stripper.
But my fur does not come off! :-O
No need for your fur to come off! We also have a community of furries up here! ^_^;
…
Would it be considered “beastialitality” if Yorp goes cross-species?
…
Somebody watched RIPD besides me. Both the “mouthfeel” comment and the smackdown are callbacks. Sydney would love that world (after she died). But she’d be getting a lot of years added to her sentence.
*head desk* Wow that call back is layered. Didn’t realize it was a call back to RIPD. The reason I say it’s layered Dark Horse Comics is the company responsible for RIPD and is 30 minutes from Downtown Portland by city bus the same city Portlandia is about.
“Relax Body”! lol
Hey, I’m in Portland enough that I resemble that remark! ;-)
And yeah, just because it’s Achilles doesn’t make it right to be violent, Sydney ^_^;
Hey, Dave, I’m curious: do you live up near Portland?
No, I just watched all of Portlandia on Netflix though. :)
I wouldn’t mind moving to the area though. I’ve lived in Texas for over 30 years and I could use a decade or two of overcast gray skies and constant drizzle.
Hey, I am sure England would welcome you with open arms!
No! Oregon called dibs first!
Really, do come up here! I know at least one other fabulous fella named Mad Marquis who is a professional MC for burlesque shows who’s also a fan!
I’d recommend New England but you might get a little chilly during the winter. The seafood is great though and if you move to Maine you might meet Steven King. As scarey as that might be.
In the Navy, I was stationed up in Washington state. While I was there, I heard a saying that goes, “Northwesterners don’t die, they just rust away.”
I spent a summer stationed in Washington. Having a head cold all summer sucks. Waking up to frost on your blanket in early August sucks. Trying to navigate an Escape & Evasion course at night, in thick woods, with heavy overcast and no moon sucks. Giant ant mounds suck. Highest murder rate per capita sucks. Swimming the rock-strewn, glacier fed Nisqually River three times sucks. 40 degree, drizzly July days sucks. Going out for a PT run in 40 degree drizzly weather is fine, but when you get a 5 minute deluge, followed by a break in the clouds which raises the temp to 85 degrees with 2,000,000% humidity sucks. Oregon, by nature of being adjacent to Washington, sucks. Only three things I liked while I was out on the NW coast. The fresh seafood was incredible. I saw “Victor/Victoria” for the first time and laughed myself silly. And those two lovely young ladies that I met one weekend while hiking in northern California.
Sounds like most of your suck was in association with being in the military :-3
Now THAT is something I can confirm…
For all of the misery it put me through, I truly enjoyed the majority of my military time. I just did not enjoy the Washington weather that summer of 1981.
Where are they? They are not in the non-military Archon tower because the only restaurants there are Cupps, Luftwaffles, and Fusion (memory, might be misspelled). It seems unlikely that they are at an outside restaurant – for one thing, if they went to an outside restaurant, chances are they are sitting together. So are they in the Archon military commissary?
I had not managed to eliminate the last possiblity, up until Peggy’s comment above. Which indicates that they are in a restaurant. Although it is possible that Peggy is keeping her dialogue civilian, until Sydney has been taught militaryspeak.
Don’t forget that restaurants can have more than one room. For instance the entire food court might actually take up two levels of the complex. Some might have the kitchens and storeage on the upper level. Others might have extra rooms. But even on a single level, they can still outfit different rooms in alternate styles.
This one does seem to be a bit bland, for the options you listed. But it might be the corporate entertainment room. Or the brawling room. With Peggy just indicating that, although the venue is ok, this is not a good time to initaate a brawl. :-D
When she heard about Fusion Sydney made up her mind at once, but it didn’t look to me as if Peggy got to list them all necessary, could be more.
I am not certain that we have eliminated the possibility of a military style cafeteria in the building. Since it is an active military instillation, I would assume such exists.
hrm…
This is about the first comic, that I dont like :(
Sydney seems to have suddenly turned from being adorkable goof, to violent sociopath.
It seems very out of character. Or at least, out of the character we have hitherto been presented.
You forget. Apparently according to this panel, she asked permission to hit him first.
She did not ask him. She just assumed, correctly according to his statement, that he wouldn’t care.
I wont argue with your feelings on the comic. It is never nice to see flaws in our heroes. But do see my comments in the thread above (in reply to Syncline), regarding it being “out of character”.
However it does go to show why a team is necessary. Everyone has flaws and misjudgements. We all need, at one time or another, someone to take us to one side, and give us a bit of perspective. Solo heroes have to learn the hard way.
Sydney does have some mitigating factors though. As LittleGuy pointed out above, the time of the month is not helping. Getting pissed off by the media before she even got onto her front lawn worsened things. And then letting Maxima down, in front of the president, is bound to still be playing on her mind. Although… this is not helping.
But getting frustration, and anger, out can actually be beneficial, in the right kind of environment. And Sydney will need to address her issues. Amongst which, Sydney does have anger management problems. Worse though, it could be masking (or being symptomatic of) post traumatic stress disorder.
Sydney has had more than enough happen to her, in the last day and a half (combined with months of fretting over the potential for being whisked away to a laboratory), for that to be a real possibility!
Let’s not forget that it has been hinted at that Sydney does have a mean streak… https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1608
I wouldn’t say she’s a sociopath, as she clearly feels the same feelings everyone else does. But she does enjoy being violent.
My take on it was that it was like a punch in the arm from a buddy or a kick in the shins under the table from a friend.
My direct comparison would be to an NCIS Gibbs-smack, actually.
Personally, I’ve had good experiences with fresh bean sprouts in burgers.
Good to know he can eat a virus and save the world lol
So can Achilles taste the heat in spicy food? does it not have any effect or is there something like a pain cap where it can never get too spicy? Its not actually causing any damage but it is convincing your tongue that its being burned
the illusion of pain and actual pain are essentially identical.
Supported by the illusion of scratching a missing limb being able to* cure phantom limb syndrome. One of the most debilitatingly painful conditions, yet one that could not, prior to that discovery, be treated by conventional means.
* In one third of cases only, sadly.
Can I have the fries? I like fries.
Golden potatoes, microwaved until done, then cut into chunks and browned in a bit of butter or oil… mmm good. : )
You know who has really good french fries these days? Baker’s Square. Weird, right? Go figure. Their seasoned fries are perfection, and I normally don’t like seasoned fries. I do like pie, though.
what is “Portlandia level hipster dipshit” ? is that part of a measuring system for dipshits of hipsters?
I’m not in of from the USA so I’ve never knowingly encountered one of hipsters, dipshits sure but not hipsters… they would not be a thing in my mother country… the second you advertise that you have enough money to go around dressed in and doing the things they do (not 100% sure what that is either but I’m going to assume it requires money) you’d get mugged and very possibly murdered. Likely for the betterment of mankind if some of the internet info on hipsters is correct.
Hi! I’m an Oregonian. There are different levels and spectrums of hipster, and Portland tends to breed a special variety of upper tier hipster.
Like, I’m sure if I asked around in Portland I could probably find someone who would say, “I was a hipster before it was on Portlandia!”
Oh, and check out the show “Portlandia.” That should answer some of your questions ^_~♡
Is……. is this a comedy show? Is here supposed to be humor in this?
*there
The humor is esoteric.
Have you ever seen “Dinner for one” or “Black Adder” or “Faulty Towers”.
Some shows from the US maybe. “Frasier” or “Who’s line is it anyway?” or “Scrubs”
Some slightly off the beaten track stuff maybe? “Archer” or “Outsourced”?
Those are funny.
Terry Pratchett is (and will always be) funny, Timmy Carr is (offensive as hell but still) funny. Bernie Mac is (dead but he’s still) funny.
Humor that is ” intended to be revealed only to the initiates of a group” is… sad, unless you are part of said group.
I know I don’t know man…. humor is supposed to make people feel better… if their jokes are specially made to include only a select few (and thus exclude others)… that’s seems … mean and unpleasant. Maybe I’m just overthinking this but honestly… it seems…like a kinda shitty thing to do.
I think you are being rather harsh there. Don’t get me wrong, I am never into cliques, per-se. But the way such humour is used here is not exclusionist. Mainly because DaveB does not draw it from a single narrow interest, but will sneak in-jokes in, drawn from many sources.
In principle this is similar to (but broader than) XKCD, which unashamedly brings in humour that only mathematicians or scientists are likely to get. Some days you will look at a cartoon there and go ‘nope, I just don’t get it’. But most of the gags are readily accessible, so you put up with the odd one you do not understand. Or pop over to XKCD explained to find out what it was about.
Fortunately, with this comic, you do not need to do that. It is part of the service we provide as fellow commentators, right here.
:-D
Note Dave has been practising Ninjainjokesu, the art of sneaking in such jokes unseen. If you go back through the dialogue (and comments) you will find practically every comic has one or more embedded within it. Usually fitting the scene smoothly enough that, if you do not know the reference, it does not matter. It makes sense without it.
In this case Dave either under-appreciated how narrow the reference was (people outside the US had little chance of knowing it, and even someone from Portland had no clue!), or he decided that Sydney was simply too outraged and would not care if only a shared clique would understand her.
You win some and you loose some. The gist of the sentence was carried, even if you and I were both lost on the reference.
It does not hurt to mention that though, as it may encourage Dave to continue honing his Ninjainjokesu.
What I would not do though is try to get him to stop. Folks enjoy it when they spot a hidden in-joke. I know it makes me chuckle, when I do. Hopefully one of your hobbies or interests, which you have a more in depth knowledge of, will be tapped next, and it will be your turn to get it.
Nononono dude, not the humor in Grrl Power, the humor in Portlandia.
Ahh, my bad
I did take it that way, initially, then noticed it could well be read the other way, and, of course, leapt in with both feet. Sorry about that.
I had not seen it, and referencing it this way was not encouraging me to do so either.
:-D
No worries Yorp, I should have been more clear.
Go Peggy! First lieutenant non-super vs. 2nd lt., corporal, and recruit super? Yep, she knows how to use her rank, just like the general, and she’s damn right, too.
I still think DaveB should make Achilles a Warrant Officer, considering his possible age and possible longevity in the military, plus his flippant attitude, being a Warrant or Chief would fit him, because I remember several Chief Warrants telling Officers to shut the hell up and get out of the Warrant’s way before they got taught just how much they didn’t know.
Yeah, I have put in a vote for Warrant Officer status for most of the supers too. It’s pretty fitting for their duties.
It is not a matter of age or longevity, but a matter of maturity and suitability.
Warrants are normally chief technicians and SF members who have been in long enough to be in a leadership role without having the college necessary to become an Officer. Traditionally, the Second-in-Command of an SF team, the “Bravo Team” leader who provides the security cordon/supporting weapons fire is a Chief Warrant.
You can’t even hurt his feelings. His immunity truly is complete.
Lol. Lol again.
I think Peggy’s first question should have been “Sydney, did you take your meds this morning?”
I had another thought! How do we know that’s what Mr. Amorphous looks like!? He’s a shapeshifter, right? Like Mr. Plastic or the Elongated Man? So what if he actually looks totally different?!
Probably it’s his default setting, what he looks like when he ISN’T using his powers.
Looks aren’t everything. Mind you, being able to say “I am hung like a horse” and not be kidding sure won’t hurt.
I heard Ralph goes to clubs with a t-shirt that says, “I’m the Elongated Man.”
As was pointed out in that great tome, ‘How To Be A Superhero’, the real problem with misusing one;s stretching powers that way is that it makes the super’s outfit get REALLY stretched and baggy around that area. Kind of a giveaway to even casual observers.
On the other hand, it would explain how Reed Richards got the nickname “Mister Fantastic”/
Definetly with Sydney on this one.
Hmm, I wonder if Achilles pain receptors are just totally turned off or what? It would explain things a bit. Also, someone mentioned hot sauce. My money goes on, he enjoys the flavor, but it doesnt hurt. And hot sauce can be freaking delicious if you make it right. (I make my own) Back to the topic. That would let him feel all the normal sensations, just never pain. Someone holding his hand, a kiss on the cheek, the feel of his clothing on his skin, the flavor (and mouth texture) of everything he eats, he feels all of it. He just never notices if it falls into the spectrum of pain because he doesnt feel that.
It makes sense from a biology standpoint too. Luke Cage feels pain when shot, even though it doesnt injure him, because he was experimented on, so his body still has normal pain recognition, even though his body is far tougher than it was. Achilles was presumably born that way, so his body wouldnt have developed any pain receptors as his biology doesnt need it. Pain receptors are natures way of telling us, “DANGER! DANGER WILL ROBINSON!” so we stop touching that hot stove, or to let us know where we are injured. There are people who lose or dont have the ability to feel pain and their lives are at times miserable and dangerous, because they can break a bone, or get a nasty cut and infection and not notice it till someone tells them. So if you literally cannot be injured, then you dont need them.
Achilles does
dangerousdeadly stunts for the kicks of it. Even being poked in the eye, with a sword, does no hurt him. No hurt, no pain.Oddly enough, barring the exception you mentioned. Flavour receptors are nothing to do with harm receptors. The former tells you what something tastes like. The latter only activate if damage has occurred (ignoring diseases or conditions which cause pain when there is no real reason).
So there is absolutely no reason why Achilles would be immune to spicy food. If he got into a hot food eating contest with Sydney, I would put serious money on Sydney. Achilles is probably so used to not feeling pain, that the real deal will probably put him at more of a disadvantage than other people!
Plus, on average, women are better at handling pain than men.
OH THIS IS PAIN!? I THINK THIS IS WHAT PAIN FEELS LIKE!!
Best tweet ever, dude.
And I just noticed Amorphous’ arm stretching all the way around Achilles to grab his burger-wrist in panel 7.
:)
Nice spotting.