Grrl Power #427 – Utility euphoria
Sydney can jangle her way through a basic padlock or a front door, but certainly not in record time. She understands the mechanics of it. She watched a few youtube videos on the subject, then practiced on her own front door and a padlock she had. Not handcuffs though, because she’s never casually had access to them, and mechanically they’re different than a deadbolt. She should look in to that before too long probably.
As the stinger suggests, Sydney does own a number of utility belts. Her first one was really just a bandoleer with pouches, probably filled with various types of candy, hair ties, a magnifying glass, and a tape measure, because she was six. This is her first opportunity to build one with literally military grade hardware. (The proper use of the word literally.)
I haven’t been giving Anvil enough to do lately in the comic. She’s a Sergeant, so this seemed like something that could fall in her wheelhouse. It was either her or the QM we saw once at the beginning on the fight, and the boob hug joke wouldn’t play right with him. ( Y ) :)
Originally I had planned on drawing a lot more stuff on the table than I did, but (besides taking forever) I started running out of ideas because a lot of stuff she could potentially carry around would realistically be a small kit of some sort contained in a pouch or a box, not scattered all over the table – or, the sort of stuff Batman (for instance) would carry on his belt is basically the stuff of science fiction. His grappling hook is just not realistic. Batman is something like 6′ 2″, is dressed in full body armor, and carrying all the crap in his utility belt. Even given than his outfit and gear is bleeding edge materials, he’s still probably hauling around 225-250 lbs minimum. Ok, if someone spent 6 million dollars developing a grappling hook, they might be able to make one the size of a… I guess a liter of soda roughly describes the size as depicted in show, but someone maybe could make one with existing materials and tech that could haul that much weight. Ignore the fact that Bats regularly drag another person along with him, and ignore the problem of the grapple being shot into the side of buildings securely enough to hold that weight – sure usually you’d hook it over the edge of something or attach it on to a pipe or fire escape, but watch Batman TAS or Justice League and tell me he’s not firing that thing into rock and armored walls all the time.
So maybe I could buy the grapple with enough money dumped into it, but then he’s got a million batarangs, and not just what basically amounts to shurikens, but also ones that electrocute people, ones with explosives, ones that spray knockout gas, etc. Then he’s got a laser torch, a microscopic rebreather, gas mask, bat-bolas, bat cuffs, a thing that jams guns somehow (according to the Arkham games) flares, x-ray specs, etc. Some of that stuff is realistic, some of it isn’t. I guess I’m mostly doubting his ability to fit it all on his belt.
A-kon is this weekend, which is my usual local con haunt. I’ll be there Friday and Saturday. I don’t have a table, but I’ll be at some of the webcomic panels and maybe we can organize getting lunch or dinner one night. Details to come.
This page colored by Keith.
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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.
Right. As I don’t believe many really bother back checking every single page for new comments / reading all comments on every page from the beginning (unless they were there when the comic launched), I’ll just drop this here. (I’ve been going through the back catalogue because it’s an amazing comic, and I want to try and work out what’s in Sydney’s power tree (at least the internal section, anyway at least. And see if I can demystify the two orbs as of yet unknown…).
Page #389 (Interview To A Kill) (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1964) shows a super working under Deus’ command (most likely mercenary work, but that’s tangential). Looks kind of like the Unknown Soldier (at least those are the vibes given off…). Again, tangential, my bad, many apologies.
Not entirely tangential as he appears to be the guy from #186 (Fingers To Maximum Steepleage!). (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1189) Middle row, first person, below Vehemence.
Anyway, do you remember #150 (Not Sure Where Maxima Stencils Her Kill Marks)? (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/989) She mentions that there was a super, currently believed to be dead (we all know that that’s a trope waiting to come to fruition – ‘Not Quite Dead’). But appeared to have doubts encapsulated in a thought bubble.
Later, Maxima goes for maximum demonstrative overkill in order to threaten any prospective threats. Arianna confronts her on this behaviour, and feels that the reaction is more likely to be that of #186 – mentioned above.
Thoughts?
[Also has Vekter on the payroll… we haven’t yet discovered links directly to Vehemence from Deus, but it’s merely a matter of time…]
Believe it was mentioned on page #389 that that super is female, so not the same one from page #186 (related, has not been determined)
OOooh… so the entire You Killed My [Insert Family Member/Friend Here], I Shall Avenge Their Memory!
[Has it worked this time? Have I made sense of it yet?/]
Soo, the mummy is a mummy?
Don’t believe if it was ever revealed if she had children (please note, not totally sure she was revealed to be a ‘she’, just vague recall of that time being mentioned that Deus’ snake-eyed ‘helper’ was female)
As far as I’m aware, that’s not at all even been questioned. However, I believe Yorp was making a reference to the headwear and the supposed gender.
I get the feeling that Deus’ mummy-wrapped helper and the one in the previously mentioned villains (Arianna’s reaction montage…) are one and the same. Maybe the #186 super is female? And let’s be honest, we know that probable enemies are being set up in #186. We’ve got Deus, Vehemence, Dabbler’s demon guy…
Enemies? Maxima’s ex? The chief supplier of high-tech gear to Archon? The benevolent dictator, who is raising the standard of living for an entire country? Seems like the exception to the rule, to me.
Point taken. The term, when applied to him, gets fuzzy. He clearly has a monopoly on the super tech, which means that his best option is to fund both ends. Feelings for Max – certainly. Therefore he will be slightly balancing everything towards her side winning (also would probably be good for marketing purposes).
As for the country, to be a benevolent dictator, you’d need to be true neutral. Think Havelock Vetinari, of DiscWorld fame. Deus is certainly mentally geared towards that. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he actively participates in some way to help his rivals…
The headwrapped person in #186 was topless (and you can see he has stubble on his jaw)
Goddammit, first time using this sort of comment setup (utilising these features, anyway…). Sorry.
[Spoiler] Does this maybe work better? [Spoiler]
You used the correct spoiler tags, except you need the ‘/’ for the closer
I just won’t say anything considered spoilerish [spoiler]hopefully./[spoiler] I try to base what I say on stuff that has occurred before…
The format is like this:
[spoiler]Text you wish to hide.[/spoiler]
But be sure to avoid using the enter key, to create a new line or paragraph, as that disrupts the format. If you want more than one paragraph hidden, you must repeat the above separately for each paragraph.
The other tags use a similar technique, but do not have a problem if you use the enter button. For instance bold text is done as follows:
<b>Text you want to emphasise</b>.
Showing as: Text you wish to hide.
Giving the result: Text you want to emphasise
Thank you for demonstrating the syntax so explicitly. I was pretty sure this was the correct way to use it, but didn’t want to waste time and lavish embarrassment on myself by using them incorrectly.
And seriously, can we get a preview or edit button?
No?
Well, darn…
My pleasure. Although editing is not possible, preview is. With limitations sadly. If you make a bookmark of the following website, you can copy and paste your comment into their sandbox, and see the result, by hitting the appropriately named button:
https://www.w3schools.com/html/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_links_w3schools
Most of the tags behave identically there to here (although the quote formatting has different aesthetics). Sadly the spoiler one does not work at all. But, on the plus side, you can even click on links to see if they work. Any which lead to comic pages, pictures or text type webpages will be displayed (if you created them correctly). YouTube and similar complexity webpages will not. But you can still see if renaming the link worked, even if clicking will not do anything.
Gosh darn it! Of course I’d use all the wrong possibilities.
I’m a real doofus at times
Yorp – you’re a star. Thank you. I just hope I haven’t screwed up this one…
Always happy to help. :-)
*places a bowl of Yorpie-snacks down
Yum yum!
Heh, betting Peggy is drooling a little in the invotive, and not just from her mouth ;)
If you all value your fingers, you will NOT let Sydney have a kukri!
I thought the deal was toes in this comic.
anyone else seeing deus treating sydney as that hyperactive niece you don’t know how to deal with.
As in every-time he sees her he winds up bribing her to go away with some shiny gizmo (that maxima keeps taking away because it’s probably untested dangerous and more likely wiretapped
I also see her as someone likely to use such devices. So it’s a win on both counts. Untested is a possibility, but more likely that it just hasn’t been field tested. Dangerous it’s somewhat likely, given the scenarios Halo may find herself in. I honestly don’t think Maxima is that worried about those two things. Wire tapped and possible reasons of power levels, or embedded recording devices or some such thing. That seems far more likely given the way Deus thinks, and as it would be a security issue, would be problematic in that way to Maxima’s eyes…
*readings of power levels…
https://youtu.be/ESFewdU0JcA
104,710 likes (including mine) vs 1,428 dislikes. Pretty awesome ratio.
“Please don’t snap, please don’t snap!”
A fubar,e-tool,flare gun,fire axe,kunai spy weapon..¿it is only a coincidence or you are steam gamer?
Always used to like Batman. Realized this may have influenced me more than I realized when putting on my belt one morning. Pouch with Vise-Grips and mini-Maglite on the left side, folding knife (Gerber Gator),and cell phone pouch on the right side.
Screw dreams, I *did* literally build my own utility belt. :) Blogged about it, too. (although I’m a few posts behind… and the last improvement has been half-finished for months now…)
I started building my own utility belt once. Over time, it grew. It’s currently a large camping backpack.
Not coincidentally, most of it is also actually useful for camping. At a moment’s notice I can hit the woods for a month without having to go within sight of civilization. I can even charge my iPad in the middle of the wilderness.
And speaking of “small pouch or a box”, you’d be surpsrized how much stuff even you carry around daily.
Just try to line it all up and shoot on camera. :)
Will take an interesting exercise, I promise.
One set of keys, and cash.
Sadly my camera has been broken for years.
*head droops depressingly*
More when out on walkies though. Add Wolf Whacker (my quarterstaff), a rucksack, a doggy water bottle (it has a fold-out drinking trough to pour the water into) and a pair of binoculars. My walking companion is too old and sickly to go far afield, so I no longer pack the first-aid kit or extra water bottles. But if it is later in the day, I do include a wind-up torch and a reflective/luminous yellow doggy jacket.
The one, most VITAL item that I see missing from that table… Duct Tape! Trust me, it can be used for almost ANYTHING!
AAAnnnddd… Some long Zip Tues would probably be a good idea as well…
Sydney keeps duct tape in hammer-space, and used it to stick her fly-ball to her hand.
Does she mean the wrong one like when you mean figuratively or the one that’s not wrong but everyone thinks is wrong where you’re using the word to exaggerate?
Cuz if you know you don’t really mean literally but want to emphasize how serious you are about something the correct thing to do is to say you have literally…
I mean cuz if you’re going to be a grammar Nazi at least be a correct one.
Nope, Sydney has actually dreamed about utility belts. We have not seen her use valleyspeak or any other tendency to use such language inappropriately. To the contrary she has picked up on points, in a similar fashion to the one you just made, which shows she would not make such an elementary mistake.
*Safari broadcaster voice* (frame 3-4)
Now we see the offspring seeking sustenance, in an attempt to reach full maturation size.
Don’t worry. I feel more awkward having written that
when I was half awake…than you do when you read it.
>.<;
Ooh, nice. Not gonna lie, I had much the same reaction as Sydney. Is there a bigger / labeled version of that first panel anywhere?
Top picks:
• Flare gun: It’s a gun that shoots fireballs. It justifies itself.
• Notebook & pencil, compass, multitool, taser: Lightweight and generally useful. Ideally, I’d have a pencil for writing in the notebook, and an all-surfaces pen/marker for other use.
• Knives: Big knife (lower left), black combat-looking knife (middle left), long knife, kukri (bottom center). Theoretically, it’s possible to have too many knives, but we’re nowhere close to that yet.
• Medkit, rope, duct tape: Too useful not to take.
• Oculars: Presumably a case of utility vs weight. Possibly the asymmetric one second from the top.
• Flashlight: Small one (fits into tight places), ideally with a red lens shade to keep my night vision.
• Prybar (mini-FUBAR): Good for dismantling things and bludgeoning people.
Maybe:
• FUBar: Cool & useful, but heavy. I’d want it as a backup, but probably wouldn’t carry it around unless I knew I was going to use it.
• Axe: No self-respecting Viking should go into pitched battle without one. Same weight issue as the FUBar, though.
• ESB scanner
• Tonfa / collapsable baton: Good for hitting people (without killing them), or as an off-hand parrying weapon. I’d probably want at least one.
• Lockpick gun: I imagine I might just go with regular lockpicks.
Meh:
• Bear/pepper spray: Consumable, not very versatile (doesn’t work on robots), and let’s not forget all those warnings about what happens if you break it open.
• Belt knife (above kunai): Too small to be generally useful, and I suspect any basic pat-down would find it.
• Big flashlight: Only good if it’s really dark, or if I’m in a group and we all have flashlights.
• Folding knife (next to flashlights): Moving parts make it weaker than a fixed-blade knife, and it takes longer to get out.
• Glow sticks
• Kunai, nunchuck-looking thing: These are gardening tools.
• Shovel / entrenching tool (?): If I have to dig something up, a proper, two-handed shovel would work better. If I have to dig fortifications while people are shooting at me, something has gone very wrong.
• Grappling hook: Cool, but if I actually have the grip strength needed to use it like Animated Batman, it would still be faster to just climb up.
???
• I assume the pouch-looking things are pouches to carry the other things in. Presumably the medkit would go in the big green box (top center).
• Orange thing below the taser (battery?)
• Orange packet below the flashlights (packed-up tarp?)
• Lower right corner, look like birthday candles with frosting stuck to the bottom (some kind of flare / fuse / firework / other burny thing?)
• Group of objects in upper right, below row of pouches and above binoculars / kukri: two things that look a bit like film reels, one star-shaped thing that might be floating (?), three yellow eyedroppers (?), and a ring-shaped box of coloured objects.
• Upper right corner: sort of looks like the head off a battle-axe?
Other things:
• Disposable gloves, face mask: For when I don’t want to get any of the glowing phlebotinum du jour on me / shed all over a (potential) crime scene / etc.
• Resealable baggies (ziplock or other, varying sizes, lots of them): Generally useful — also for picking up evidence.
• Tweezers, pliers, multi-head screwdriver, carabiners, USB sticks
Don’t forget that this is the utility belt for an emergency first responder. Archon is tasked with responding to disasters (natural or super caused,l as the case may be), in addition to the situations where there are criminals shooting at her.
So the shovel in your ‘meh’ category is actually a vital piece of kit. Although a larger shovel would indeed be more useful, Sydney is only small, so the one depicted is far more practical to carry around. We have already seen both Achilles and Maxima buried in rubble. In situations where there is no time to wait for backup to bring more equipment.
There are bound to be situations, and probably in the not too distant future, where Sydney has to rescue civilians in a disaster zone, or get herself or colleges out of rubble. Especially with her potential for creating that in the first place! So I would push the shovel up higher myself. Especially as there are versions available that can function as very effective multi tools, to help with more than just digging.
Not to mention properly sharpened they can double as a decent weapon.
Anyone capable of exerting 16 tons of force probably DOESN’T need to worry about a prybar, and in a pinch, a full tang knife can substitute for that function with the lighthook behind it.
No collapsible pole/immovable rods! Essential dude, essentials… shakes head sadly.
ROFL – I shall now introduce the lot of you to lockpicking 101. And this is the first thing they’d tell Sydney about her lockpicking “gun”, which is just a fancy rake with a tool built in.
Acquire a rake and a tool. Yes, those are the proper names. Insert the tool in the bottom of the tumbler. Insert the rake in the top of the tumbler, where the pins are. Turn the tool a bit to put some side pressure on the pins. Drag the rake back and forth across the pins, keeping the side pressure going until you feel the tumbler give a bit. Turn the tool and open the lock.
A rake will open a lot of locks. A few varied rakes and a tool for turning the tumbler will get you through a LOT. Getting searched by a cop who finds that kit will get you some time in jail if you don’t have a locksmiths license. At least some places.
Yes, I’ve had a strange and interesting life. :)
Stared at that table for several minutes, worth the time it took to draw it, imo.
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