Grrl Power #385 – Deep in the bosom of the gentle night…
Wow, only 90 pages to get through this day, as opposed to 295 from the previous one. I’m tightening that writing right up!
As superpowers go, the ability to give someone insomnia is, well, best used strategically. Still, people would learn to be very reticent about fighting that guy. Hopefully he’d have the sense not to call himself the Insominator. I’m not saying this is what happened to Sydney, it just occurred to me while I was writing the page.
Low level super powers used strategically and stealthily can wreak a lot more havoc than you’d initially think. Mur Lafferty’s book Playing for Keeps takes this to an extreme level with some semantic games, but is still a pretty good read. I may have mentioned this before, but allow me to give you my Jedi spiel. Basically Jedi’s are a collection of very low level powers employed smartly in a world with no other super powers beyond technology. Luke could barely yoink his lighsaber, Vader could rip some machinery off the walls and toss it around. Considering they didn’t flatten Luke, lets say it was… 100 lbs worth. Yeah, Yoda picked up an X-Wing, but he was a grand grand grand master, and I suspect he’d couldn’t pull that off in a fight. They have danger sense, just enough to dodge or deflect blaster fire, their lightsabers are designed to take advantage of this skill. In the prequel movies, they could run fast and jump high, but still not much more than that. (I guess those are still considered canon, but The Force Awakens seemed to go out of its way to not mention anything that happened in them. I’m certainly fine with pretending they never happened. Well, the clone trooper vs. droid fight at the end of Ep II was pretty cool, but nothing beyond that.) A Thor or Wonder Woman tier superhero would crush a Jedi without trying, but if it came down to a mid level superhero like Cyclops or Cyborg, it would be a crap shoot. Jedi training would go a long way, but initiative and creativity would be the deciding factor. I assume a lightsaber could deflect Cyclops’s beam, but he can also do a wide beam or rake it across the ceiling then gut shot the Jedi when they’re deflecting that. Of course a Jedi could force yoink Cyclops’s visor off if he realized it was important
This all ignores The Force Unleashed games, which were fun but totally not canon. Starkiller could probably take on Jean Gray Phoenix or Goku. The name Starkiller, by the way, is an homage to the original original draft of Star Wars, wherein Luke’s name was Deak Starkiller. (Actually he was Anakin’s brother but got shuffled down the continuity and became his son before thankfully being renamed.) The name also appears in the new movie but let’s give people a few more weeks before we start spoiling things about that in the comments. Anyway, in the first Force Unleashed game, Starkiller force pulls a Star Destroyer from low orbit and crashes it into the ground while fighting off Tie Fighters on foot. In Marvel Superhero RPG terms, that’s like Class 5000 telekinesis.
I finally updated the vote incentive! Sorry it took so long. I plan on getting this one inked and colored so hopefully I’ll have it done my the end of the month.
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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Well no wonder she can’t sleep – she’s got seven nightlights circling above her face.
I was thinking the same thing. Maybe if she put them away someplace she’ll sleep better. But, then again, she might be used to it by now.
Isn’t this why she has the poster tube in the first place?
So her bedtime decision every night is “Tubey, or not Tubey?”
huu I thought the line was “kyubee or not kyubee”? kidding.
That IS the question. >:D
SHUT UP, SANS!
Who is Sans? O_O?
A character from Undertale
I think the poster tube was to carry them around without arousing suspicion, since they appear to be bound to her, and can only be so far away. Now that she is a psuedo super, she can have them out and about without issue
…Other than having them act as night lights… :p
Sydney, take it from a guy who has worked the graveyard shift for 300 years and has to sleep during daylight: Closing your eyes helps.
WTF NO WAY!?!?!?!!?
Sorry, sticky key. That should have read 30 years.
Apparently, ai_vin’s ‘zero’ key had a surge of Quickening at that moment, making him (her?) seemingly immortal…
There can be only me!
“Grabs lightsabre and starts hunting ai_vin.”
You must be one of the new characters: Rey-mirez…
*throws the Dr. a bonus point for spelling “sabre” correctly*
Well, it’s the British way, but Star Wars is American and no official sources recognize ‘lightsabre’, as far as I know.
You make a good point.
Perhaps we shouldn’t bend official terms to fit our expected spellings like that.
After all, the USA seems content to call the latest Bond movie “Spectre”, no?
OTOH, that risks giving Hollywood too much influence over the rest of the English-speaking world, and I’ll be helping with the Americanization (pun intended) of English.
Difficult…
You see, SPecial Executive for Counter-intelligence, Extortion and Revenge just doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as well.
Also it takes place in England so changing it would impact realism.
Like all the signs for “lifts” in the Matrix.
No way that’s an American city.
The least you could have done is stay within the genre and grabbed for a claymore.
KA-BOOOOOM!
1 claymore used.
Happy now?
(asks claire if she liked being slammed into ai_vin) sorry DR. R the claymore isn’t.
Very funny, but for those who don’t know; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claymore
The Claymore Dr. Revenge used was “borrowed” from Peggy; she had a few leftovers after the super-mob battle the other night, as Concretia only triggered one of them.
;)
Hmm, 300 years, sleeps during daylight. Maybe you can answer a question I have always wondered about. Those of your, um, ‘kind’ always appear to be clean shaven and well groomed. How do you manage to do that when you can’t see yourself in the mirror?
Stop growing facial hair perhaps?
My question would have been are you the old school type, or the sparkly in daylight type . . .
Heh heh, THOSE are the jokes that I get all the time.
There are no sparkly daywalking vampires. Just blood drinking fae who like to fuck with mortals.
Lost Girl?
Employ a barber. QED.
I did that for about a year. I had to buy blackout blinds, and you don’t really notice how much louder it is during the day than it is at night until you’re trying to sleep then. And since I blacked out a different bedroom than the master it was definitely an impediment to marital intimacy. Being on a 3 days on 4 days off cycle helped, because I could adjust back and then back again during my off days.
Thank you so much for mentioning the Marvel RPG! I still run campaigns using that system.
Was a pretty good system. The magic books were probably the best part of it, in terms of keeping the feeling of the comics (my own feeling, mileage may vary!).
These days I like M&M 2e, which has its own issues. :) No system being perfect, after all.
I agree. M&M is awesome.
Champions.
The superhero system for mathletes.
Never before had I wondered about second wind; and then I read it in a comic while I should have been writing and suddenly must know all about it. >_>
Totally loving that vote incentive! It is my new background once you get it colored!
Here you go. The force vs super heroes.
https://youtu.be/u3tC8TPh9oQ
Wow, that’s well produced.
I agree. Just like Batman always does, he will find a way.
His mind is his superpower…Thinking like a chessmaster & staying one step ahead of his enemies is how he succeeds.
Get it right, at least 3 steps ahead…
actually, considering Batman’s the 1 who is going on the offensive & sneaking into Vader’s turf, he’d probably be about 6 steps ahead at least in multiple directions…
I said that he stays a step ahead…but like a chessmaster, he’s always thinking waaaay beyond that.
Unless Vader is dropped into Gotham Bats has no hope of beating him
If you drop Batman in to the EU he loses his advantages.
No wealth, very limited and “primitive” gadgets’.
He would also be totally unfamiliar with the basic tech.
Then of course Vader has the resources of the empire to draw on.
And if Bats is stupid enough to go head to head with Vader,
force grip meet the wall 2 or 3 times.
Lightsabre to the arm, then the leg.
Game over for bats.
Bat in the Sun / Super Power Beatdown does some great videos. Sometimes a bit skewed because the results tend to be by fan poll, but they often post the alternate ending too.
That IS the alternate ending, Vader won the vote.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd3esamc2Rs
For a more detailled fight
Before I click that link, does it contain spoilers for the most recent movie?
If you’ve waited past the 2nd weekend nobody is much concerned with spoiling it or not for you. Get your ass to the theater. Most are speculating on how Force Awakens is to effect the story of its sequel.
I either have to go alone or wait a month.
No, it doesn’t.
Bats isn’t a Super Hero, he has zero super abilities (not counting Bat Plot Armour)
He doesn’t need powers with his skills. Even before the first time donning the batsuit, he was a wide-ranging expert in all sorts of skills. He spent years training under many masters-of-their-fields (Kendo included, taking note of one particular sequence in that fight :D ) & combined them all into a cohesive whole to become…Batman.
Well then, how about an actual super hero Vs an actual Force user, Spider man Vs Darth Maul? I’ll let the video provide the spoilers on how the fight ends :P
Already saw that. Somebody linked it within the past couple of updates here…
…Somewhere…Back there…
<———–
Batman ‘doesn’t need powers’ or apparently a search warrant or due process or probable cause or Miranda rights. How do the people he hands over to the police not immediately get the case against them thrown out of court and then file their own lawsuit against Batsy?
He’s a vigilante. He’s breaking laws just by going after them. The police “conveniently” don’t see him do this, just the crooks chasing him through the streets causing their own their own damage.
And how many of those ‘crooks’ are a direct result of Bats in the Belfry?
They also don’t ask him for any help whatsoever. That’s important as any evidence he turns over to them becomes legal and viable in court. But only if the cops never ask for it.
That’s how if you killed someone, tearfully wrote a confession in a hotel, then decided to recant and crumbled it up and threw it away, a maid, finding it could give it to the cops and it could be used against you. Note that Jim Gordon talks to him, they’re on friendly terms, but in the modern comics, he never looks at Batman and says “Hey, about the Joker murders…..could you look into those for us?”
Do the modern comics never use the Bat-Signal, then? That right there is enough for a defense attorney to make a case for collusion. And, of course, the mooks could file assault charges against John Doe, aka “Batman”.
Actually Nicky, any evidence Bats gets to the police would be thrown out of court as tainted at the very least.
It would also be child’s play to discredit it.
Forged, planted, manipulated, or other ways to show reasonable doubt.
Not the least of which is the chain of custody issue.
Not that his lack of powers stops him from being one of the most terrifying beings in the DCU. If only because he will not quit.
Don’t you remember? Batman has the power to breath in space!
“doesn’t have a superpower” you say? He is Super Rich!!
Being stupid rich is basically a super power.
And an all too common one . . .
And the Kardashians are both :P
Phule’s Company does it the best.
Spoiler Alert: Find a problem, with an inter-stellar corporation, that even a company of fully-armed soldiers cannot solve? Buy it out, in a hostile takeover.
(Sigh)
Whatever happened to the days when…[spoiler]a “hostile takeover” did NOT involve hosing down the rival’s boardroom with an uzi.[spoiler]
Ooops.
I spoiled the spoiler.
Thank you for introducing me too that.
Oh no, it’s not alone! I feel an archive binge coming on.
Pfft, Original ending is best ending https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv6saLrn3UY
For comment below comic there is a good scene about it in mahouka (the irregular in magic high school) episode 10. I will leave the searching and relating it to you guys since i don’t wanna spoil much about this awesome anime more than necessary :P
Has anybody else noticed that the last three panels act like a flip book when using a scroll wheel?
I have been wondering, does Dabbler actually need sleep, or is she keeping awake using lust and sex as fuel to keep her going? I mean with the bit at the door to her room I do have to wonder about that…….
I suspect it’s like food or air where they can replace it with magical energy if needed but sleeping would be more efficient (especially for sleep since the energy cost would go up for every night missed).
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1705 for the food reference.
People might be willing to ignore the prequels, but a lot are agreed that the Clone Wars tv series is one of the best things the Lucas era made since the original movies. Jedi can do loads of things in that and so can the force. They’ve got everything from mind reading to mind wiping, future seeing, much more powerful telekinetics, strength and agility boosts that go very well with their limited force guidance (it’s their danger sense mixed with a general bonus to everything they do, albeit a small one), a multi-millenia martial tradition with many different kinds of lightsaber forms, and a few episodes in particular that explores what the force can do in other cultures. (Everything from raising and controlling the dead too actually making someone super strong and nigh invincible).
You are right in that alone each power is probably as strong as a lower ranking super hero, in the grand scheme of things, but all put together they are much stronger then some people give them credit for.
and that’s just the new canon. the old (de-canonized) EU had examples of the force allowing people to become invisible (literally), command entire fleets and co-ordinate them with onyl their mind, and Luke even pulls off the “anti-ship force pull” thing once.. or rather a force push, working with his students at yavin to hurl a super star destroyer out of the system.
Even in 2003, they showed Yoda, alone, throwing around troop transports the size of commercial air planes. Multiple troop transports. That one’s cannon is unfortunately now down, but when it was introduced it was Canon, and thus a good example of a Jedi Master.
They also had examples in the EU of force healing, energy manipulation (moving fire, electricity, etc), and the ability to rewrite minds and memories.
But just counting canon, their are cultures built around using the force like magic, or using it too create undead armies out of their hives (bug race). There is an example where Skywalker, alone, stops an explosion destroying a republic cruiser… for a few seconds. Sure, not as impressive as full on stopping it, but that is way more then a hundred pounds of force right there.
Final note to make. This is actually cannon. Mace Windu, a Jedi Master, pushes a heavy mobile artillery cannon that’s probably about three times as large as a tank, so upwards of 100 tons, off of a cliff with the force alone. It’s not exactly lifting it… buuuut… there is no try, only do? It’s not Starkiller levels of crazy but that’s also not small fry telekinetic stuff either. Yes, he is a master, but it’s not the only example I’ve found in the Clone Wars animated series (all cannon, mind you) just the biggest so far.
There’s actually a lot more than that just in the films. When Luke jumped out of the carbonite chamber on Bespin, he was pushing round 50 m/s, not to mention all the acrobatics he was doing on Dagobah. Let’s also not forget that on Bespin, when Vader no-sold Han’s blaster shots with his bare hand, he was absorbing around a third of a kilogram of TNT equivalent in heat with basically no effort. Also, to merely achieve that visual effect, the lower bound on the power of Force lightning is around 10 kilowatts (about what’s needed to lift an X-Wing at the speed Yoda did before factoring in the Star Wars universe’s propensity towards hyperdense materials, as it happens (about the power consumption of half a city block)), though I’m sure a more accurate number could be calculated by figuring out how much energy would be needed to get a human body to start smoking so quickly.
The prequels are even crazier. We see right at the beginning of Episode One Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon undergoing around 120 Gs of acceleration to achieve 60 m/s running speed while simultaneously engaging a wide spectrum cloaking field (we know it’s wide spectrum because every sourcebook that talks about droidekas mentions that they have heat vision, and in a deleted scene we explicitly are shown that the cloaking field works on them). We also see Ob-Wan leaping well over 10 meters in the fight with Darth Maul, in addition to tons more acrobatics. Oh, and then, if you pay attention to what happens to the battle droids when they get Force pushed, it’s pretty obvious that their internal mechanisms have been screwed with.
There are other fun things that happen when you start cross referencing maths across scenes. For example, when you factor in the heat resistance displayed at, say, Mustafar, the power of Force lightning jumps significantly. Or when you look at the kind of punishment taken by starfighter armour and see that General Gievous was able to dent the stuff, you realize that the whole fight on Utapau consisted of blows with kinetic energy sufficient to level a city block. If you compare the published speeds of droid Tri-fighters to the speeds of Dooku, Obi-Wan, and Anakin on the Invisible Hand (you can see them both moving in the same frames), one sees that they are moving at around Mach 12,000, which, if you scale the rest of the series against that, makes most Jedi sub-relativistic.
So yeah, Star Wars’s powers are not minor at all, even if, say, the Justice League would tend to flatten them.
I was wondering how Sydney knew where Dabbler’s room was. But I guess the sign makes it a bit easier. Although that could equally be Harem or Math’s room.
I suspect that their quarters are all in close proximity, so even just passing in the hallway would give you an idea of which room is which. And then, yes, the door-sign is a dead giveaway.
I would assume she was given a tour of the barracks.
Mmm, I doubt that, in that Maxima was keen to get Sydney into bed, without delay. Clearly Sydney had not had one earlier, or else she would have already known about her own room.
Although I do concede that Maxima may have pointed out who’s room was who’s, as they went by. But chatting, in the less-than-soundproofed corridor, might not have been the most politic thing to do, in the wee small hours.
Melatonin supplements sydney, you really need those.
I will now demand that the vote incentive be canon! I mean max as 3po alone requires it, deshanti as princess leia leading daphne as slave leia and you risk being hunted down by rabid fans calling it false.
Sydney could also go as the new Sith/Dark Jedi (forgot name :P ), then use her Lighthook to recreate an ability he has…
HA!! SEE!! Suck it Meatsack!!
Daniel the Human thought I’d give away the spoiler about how the new Sith guy is really Chewbacca & Lando Calrissian’s love child…
ooops…
Guess I owe Daniel the Human $1000…
I knew chewy was a secret jedi and lando was over sold as a play”boy”. where are all these funny impulses coming from?
Don’t forget the two CGI tv series. The Clone Wars and the one now Rebels takes place as the Rebel Alliance is just starting to form some 5 years before New Hope. We get to see Darth Vader survive a fall of two of the two-legged walkers on him with the force. Lift them off himself. So I would say for him, a prodigy as a child, deadly dangerous as an adult could lift several tons worth and toss it aside without looking tired or straining. So I would say he was one of the most powerful exponents of the Force to live during the time of the last years of the Republic and through to the end of the Sith Master Palpatine.
I would say that Saitama from “One Punch Man” would be one to watch out for. Anyone who can insta-gib Kaiju sized monsters in “one punch” is not someone to take lightly.
#1 inhibitor of melatonin release (the chemical in the body that puts you to sleep) is a bright light in your eyes … that is why staring at your phone or a TV or a computer right before bed is not recommended.
Aaaand smash cut to a bleached-white skeleton.
There is a typo on the door sign.
it has an extraneous ‘e’ on the end.
Very clever, you made me set a weasel trap :P
In the Force Unleashed, Starkiller’s training focused on raw power, no finesse. He was essentially a force wrecking ball. He couldn’t balance rocks on top of each other to save his life, but smash a blast door off it’s hinges? Absolutely. He was trained as a weapon, not as a Jedi or a Sith.
Sydney:Next time Harem cons me into doing something like tonight again,I’m just gonna put my foot down and tell her to stick it where the sun don’t shine!
Then go along anyway.
Sydney was looking up the definition of Second Wind, looks like. So is that what is going to put her to sleep?
well if she needs something boring to put her to sleep there’s always philosophy. Kant and Mill come to mind.
I have the impression that it isn’t ACTALLY Dabbler, it’s just her doorbell (presence detection is easy too do, no button required).
I admit, I would record it and use it as her ringtone…
I get the impression it’s more a guest she picked up at the club. She was successfully holding the attention of at least 2 males after all…
I am now caught up again and I have a question/observation about the flying orb and the orbs in general. Now, granted, I didn’t spend time reading all the comments for each page while trying to get caught back up, so please forgive me if I’m repeating an already asked question.
-Sydney would lose her sense of vertigo while holding it.
-She also can’t be separated from the orbs.
-Normally, the orbs are stronger than Sydney; if she tries to leave the radius she is stopped.
-If Sydney is being moved through an external force, she is stronger than the orbs; they will move to maintain distance to her.
-Sydney can “force-move” the orbs around within her sphere of influence.
With those facts in mind, this is my question:
Without the vertigo cancellation, couldn’t Sydney fly without the flying orb? By moving the orbs above her, they could server as a tether and she would be drug along by them, then she could use her shield and The Violator (Light Hook?) to attack and fly. Now I can already hear some feedback such as: “Gravity is moving her so the orbs would follow her and couldn’t support her.” I would reply with “but isn’t walking just fancy form of controlled falling?” And if you don’t like that idea, then could she use her orbs to rappel herself partway down a building? Granted she would have only one location she could rappel to and it wouldn’t be very safe, but she could put then somewhere where they can’t move easily and then have them serve as her anchor. Anyway, I would like some clarification on this matter if someone would be so kind as to do.
This is only my speculation.
I think she can only move the orbs in relation to herself and within the range of the tether. Let’s say she makes one “immobile.” It is only immobile so long as she is. If she moves, it stays in the same position relative to her. So any attempt to pull herself up with her own orb would reach the edge of the tether zone, stop moving, and start falling with her.
I’m not very good at explaining what’s in my head.
Think of the orbs as fists with invisible arms that can’t be pulled away by force. She might be able to hop with them, but not fly.
Doesn’t Yoda say that the size of the object doesn’t matter? (That’s what she said)
But I’ve always been more found of the Star Wars games like KotOR/SwtOR.
Exactly this (re: Yoda).
The key to grokking the Force is to realize that it’s got more in common with the resistance fighters in the Matrix movies, and their ability to manipulate the world around them by first realizing “there is no spoon”.
Lifting an X-Wing with your mind is impossible, but so is lifting a pebble the same way. Once you truly grasp that fact, then lifting the pebble and the X-Wing are literally just as difficult. That’s one of the reasons for starting the training so young–the older you are when you begin unlearning the laws of physics, the harder it is to get yourself to accept the truth of your own power.
This also goes into why RotJ Yoda is physically decrepit. Overcoming your innate sense of your own mortality is nearly impossible; those instincts are pretty hard-wired. In theory, he could do the pinball-bouncing thing he does in the prequels, but it’s harder for him to accept that his body is capable of performing these feats. The more external powers like telekinesis, however, don’t rely on a sense of bodily integrity in the same way.
Wow, DaveB, how did you perfect the 5th panel, the “I am so tired, please kill me” look, is captured perfectly.
It might have been late when I drew it. :)
Heh.
So you basically looked in a mirror & translated your own tired expression onto Sydney’s face?
:)
It’s a cornerstone to my art. I tend to make weird expressions when I draw to match what’s on the page.
:D well your work is most assuredly appreciated!
So I guess that means Ms. Lafferty won’t be coming back to her Geek-Fu Action Grip column in KoDT after college like we’d all hoped. I sure miss her.
After reading the Wikipedia page on this comic, I went a fixed a few things on the referenced page.
That seemed funny when I wrote it while nearly asleep for some reason, but I yeah, I did check, and grammar fix, the Wikipedia page for Second wind.
Perhaps making changes whilst so tired was not a good idea? Would you have been better off resting for a bit, and only proceeding when you felt refreshed?
I edited the Wikipedia page in the afternoon while still fully conscious. I reported it while so tired I thought I was making a humorous statement and I fell asleep shortly afterwards.
lol. I was so confused by what you meant by the “Lone Ranger theme” until I Youtubed it and found it to be basically William Tell’s Overture, since that pattern of “Go to sleep, go to sleep, got sleep, sleep, sleep” made me think of that tune.
Sleep spell? What happened to good old sleep medicine?
Probable they don’t play nice with her other medicaments
Depending on the cause of her ADHD, common sleep aid medications can aggravate her condition and have the opposite effect. Apparently, barbiturates (a common class of anesthetics) act as a stimulant to me. My mom has told me that as a child I was given a quarter grain of phenobarbital to prepare me for some surgery, but it wound me up so much that it took something like 12 hours before they could peel me off the ceiling, figuratively speaking. Then they used something else to knock me out.
Evilbob, many years ago I saw a definition of an Intellectual as “someone who can listen to the William ell Overture and not think of the Lone Ranger.”
I guess that’s you!
Or maybe, they have simply never seen the old “Lone Ranger” serials
Why doesn’t Sydney just put a towel over her head? Have been using a folded up tea-towel for about twenty years now (body is so used to it that, no matter how much the body moves while sleeping, the towel remains in place, same with a water bottle: have irregular heart rhythm and the bottle helps ‘muffle’ the beats, and similar to the towel on the head, no matter what position the body ends up in, the bottle remains centred over the heart)
Hmm, would have excepted the sleeves of Sydney’s ‘borrowed’ t-shirt to have reached at least past her elbows
I have just realized something. DaveB has ADHD. Either that, or his wife does (and DaveB is unusually sensitive). There is absolutely no other way he would know about what it feels like to lie in bed for six hours staring at the ceiling trying to will yourself asleep because you know you’re going to need the rest tomorrow night. This is something that is incredibly common among people with ADHD–every one I’ve talked to has experienced it–and something that even close family members simply do not understand.
The insomnia is caused by the ADHD (I think), and massively exacerbated by the medication Sydney takes, which is probably dexedrine or adderall. This probably explains (part of) why she is so relatively small compared to the other female supers–both dexedrine and adderall were originally developed as diet drugs, and effectively work to suppress the appetite. If Sydney has been dealing with ADHD all her life (a fairly safe bet), she has likely spent much of her life operating on a very thin line between malnutrition, and taking enough medication to keep her functional. This is highly difficult for girls, in particular, since society frowns on girls eating too much to start with. However, it is remains an ongoing problem for many people with ADHD, including myself. Many people with severe ADHD have to focus on a particular aspect of eating–such as extreme spiciness–to ensure that we remember to eat on a regular basis. Simply put, if Sydney cannot feel the burn of the hot sauce, it’s been too long since she last ate, and she needs to fix that. She will not feel hungry until she misses an entire day’s worth of meals, and may easily go two or three days without eating without that sort of built-in reminder.
The medication, combined with the ADHD, would likely make it extremely difficult for Sydney to go to sleep if she keeps any kind of irregular schedule. The military has found ways around this, but until she goes through basic, Sydney will not know what to do–it seems to be a personal methodology, as I’ve never met anybody who could explain how to do it. Myself, I make sure I go to sleep most of the time (I stay awake all night an average of one night a week, which is a LOT better than it used to be) by a combination of mild sleep deprivation, and an extremely rigid schedule of going to bed, and then waking up. That and an extremely extensive personal library.
From my personal experience, Sydney will be up until about four in the morning, if not later. She will not have a significant loss of function from this unless she keeps it up for several days to a week. I am not sure why this works out like that–it’s just the way things seem to work. If her sleep schedule is extremely irregular, she may be able to continue functioning like this almost indefinitely, with the caveat that when she does shut down, she will do so for an extremely extended period of time, ranging from thirty-six to seventy-two hours at a stretch. She will most probably try to avoid this, but being on call twenty-four seven will make it difficult.
Well diagnosed.
My Jack Russell is very helpful in reminding me to eat. She is very much a creature of habit, and gets fidgety if we do not go for our walk at about the same time each day. Likewise her main meal.
I do have ADD, not sure about the H, but when I do get insomnia, not often, but it does happen a few times a year, it’s because my ADD is in overdrive while I’m trying to drift off. It’s pretty annoying.
Twice in my life I have been woken up, from a deep sleep, in a hospital, to find a nurse saying “It is time for you to take your sleeping pill.”
As neither had a sense of irony, all I could reply was “Did you read the instruction, on my chart, that says ‘… as required’?”
If you want strategic use of powers particularly of weak powers check out Worm which in general is a really good, if kinda dark, superhero story. It’s finished now, but is very long.
Found at https://parahumans.wordpress.com/
I second that recommendation! I haven’t read any story where low-level superpowers are used more devastatingly than Worm.
Firstly, Sydney looks kind of uh crazy in panel 5, I’m guessing that’s what you were going for, so jolly good.
Secondly, and this is just a random thought I had while trying to go to sleep and recalled Sydney having the same troubles, anyways on to the point, the point that I am trying to make, the one I decided to write this comment for, uh is Sydney still wearing her makeup? Or has her bruise gone away? Because, I’m not noticing it in aforementioned panel 5.
Yeah he has the “I’m so tired, please kill me” perfected that’s for sure :)
Isn’t that panel four? o_O
Panel five is a look of desperation and awareness that she is on a team with a super tech JOATMOS (Jill Of At Trades, Mistress Of Sex :P)
I kind of forgot about her makeup at this point. :/
like forgot to remove it and will scream when she washes her face and sees the bruise. (sis aint ADD and she did this after a dance recital that followed bruising her forehead on my shoulder wrestling)
Haha, oh, that’s funny.
Well, why would you want to keep messing up a purdy little face like Sydney’s?
WE IS NUMBA 1!
Lets keep us there.
I just cast my vote and the question was “Sydney Squirrel”!
The Evil Squirrel Overlord has penetrated the Top Web Comics server! NOOOOO! The end of the world is nigh! Hide your nuts!
you and DR. R keep running back into public sight when I do.
Yorp and myself do not run we walk calmly to the for.
We say what we came to say.
Then leave with grace and dignity.
As Sydney drifts off to sleep I had another scene in mind besides the one she thought up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB-vnc7zDhU
In her dreams I see 4th-wall savvy Sydney playing this to the readers and then popping into the scene at the end with “Sike!”.
The way I see it, Jedi power is omnipotent, but limited by the user’s perspective or frame of mind. Like Yoda said, “Size matters not.” Moving a pebble, or moving a Star Destroyer, or moving a planet, it’s the same thing. They’re only different if the Jedi faced with the task thinks they’re different.
Proper use of the Force isn’t a matter of power, it’s a matter of understanding.
you can’t spell chastity without titty.
sydney needs her eyepatch back. it was the best and change scares me
A note: There was once a capital ship that housed a force-powered hyperdrive and was as fast as the millennium falcon. And another one that enabled a force-user to tear out the cores of stars.
I showed Grrl Power to a friend last month. And just recently she got caught up. Her first question to me was “Is Sydney a sex repulsed ace?” So, since I’m not sure myself, I figured I’d pose the question to everyone here (since this was the last one on the list of evidence she sent me).
On the sexuality spectrum, Sydney is slightly more asexual that some other members of the team. I had a conversation with someone about how much the characters identities are derived from their gender and how much they would change if they switched. Sydney was at the bottom of the list. Her gender defines her the least of all the characters. Really she just gets flustered about sex easily.