Grrl Power #437 – I hope Dabbler gave odds
I decided early on that illusions isn’t a school of magic that Dabbler put much study into, because with all her other abilities it would make her just a little too powerful. Also it would let me pull all kind of gags like… well, like this one that are kind of red herrings, and I didn’t want to rely on that too much. Even Gwen is barely above cantrip level. She needed a vaguely color coordinated fetish built out of napkins, (luckily that restaurant happens to have yellow and black napkins) a hard boiled egg, and a radish to pull it off. And that’s for the same reason. Maybe one day the team will fight against an illusionist, but it’s doubtful one will ever join the team.
Happy 4th to everyone, or I guess I should say happy Independence Day to Americans, and happy regular 4th for everyone else. I’m sorry I haven’t updated the vote incentive yet, only one of the pages I’m working on this week turned into a double page and I’m still not finished with it, so that’s how I’ll be spending my holiday. I mean I’d be drawing anyway, I’m just slightly behind. I’ll probably play some Overwatch too, to be honest.
Actually I got both Undertale and The Witcher III during the Steam sale, both immensely well reviewed games that have been languishing on my wish list for a long time – mostly due to a lack of time to play them. I figured I could grab ’em cheap and keep them in my library until I found a spare hour here or there. Haven’t tried Undertale yet, but I’ve put maybe an hour into the Witcher. I’m not sold on it yet, which is weird cause it’s basically 3rd person Skyrim. (Yes, you can play Skyrim in 3rd person if you’re a weirdo.) I know I need to give it a little time, I haven’t even leveled up yet, but little things like how Geralt moves bugs me. He walks by default indoors and runs by default outdoors. I guess it’s a decent way to handle it, given the size of the game area vs. the fidelity of the indoor areas, but IMO he walks too slow and runs too fast, at least when I’m trying to move into position to interact with stuff. Maybe there’s a option in the menu that will smooth that out for me. I’m also not thrilled there are plants I can harvest every 15 feet in every direction because I have a compulsion to collect them all even though I detest alchemy and crafting in games. If a shopkeep doesn’t sell it or it doesn’t fall out of a monster when I kill them, I don’t have time for it. Beyond that I haven’t really played enough of the game to render an opinion, so I’ll give it a few more hours before I make up my mind.
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Wow some of the speculation was right!
Haha! I managed to call it before the finish. :D
Some. But I must admit that we failed to predict that the Muppet would be conjured up from a folded napkin, bread stick and a pair of quail eggs for googly eyes!
Nice to see that Gwen was being more than just a passive observer, but was actively assisting in the illusion. Clearly she is making the most of hanging with Dabbler.
Interesting that Dabbler’s prohibition on sharing technology does not extend to spells.* Although, I guess that Dabbler may be aware of the typical types of spells that are used on Earth, and is happy to teach Gwen, within those limits.
* Taking this scene in conjunction with the fact that we know Gwen is only an amateur, so does not know much real magic herself. Along with the scene in the flying bubble where Dabbler said she could not teach a ‘feather fall’ spell before they hit the ground.
Spells aren’t exactly technology, they are knowledge (and Dabbles didn’t say she couldn’t teach the spell before the hit the ground, just that she wouldn’t teach it until they reached the ground safely)
And ‘amateur’ could simply mean ‘no formal training’, not that she doesn’t have the potential
Damnit!!! Tried to find a clip from “Hairy Potter”, but every damn clip has been John Cena’ed >:{
Also, if I could do some magic, but generally needed prep and props, mostly being useful for knowledge and minor cantrips, I’d describe myself as an amateur as well. Remember, she’s affiliated with a military unit. You do NOT want the team thinking you can do stuff you can’t. The magic users probably have all sorts of detailed lingo to describe skill and knowledge levels, but you don’t need to flood the muggles with details they don’t need.
A professional chef knows how to make really good food, run a large complex kitchen with multiple staff, and keep the cost of doing all that down.
An amateur chef knows how to make really good food.
The amateur can be better than the professional, within the more-limited area of expertise.
And a lot of the time, the ‘professional’ chef spends so much time supervising everyone else and making sure the business doesn’t fail (and that’s even if they are not a pretentious country cook who believes they can dictate politics and owns the business as well) that they forget how to actually be a chef
That argument is out on a very long, very thin limb. Technology is also just knowledge, after all. And teaching the knowledge of technology is much easier than teaching the knowledge of spells, if the number of engineers vs. the number of wizards is any fair indication.
Remember the scene in Star Trek: Whales where Scotty teaches the engineer to make transparent aluminum? Previously a complete unknown, and the engineer he showed it to was able to discern what it would be simply from the formula. Yeah, yeah, movie magic and all, there’s really little chance that staring at a compound formula allows you to understand the exact properties it will have once created, in less than a minute no less… He was young, he needed the money! But Dabbler (or anyone else who both had and understood an advanced technology) could certainly drop enough hints to give a huge leg up to any competent engineer.
There is a vast difference between teaching someone how to do something, and just handing it to them pre-built and fully functional (and yes, well aware about that quote about technology being advanced enough is indiscernible from magic, and vice versa)
However the wizard-to-engineer ratio might also be affected by the former needing not just intelligence, like the latter, but a special talent for handling occult energy as well. Note, for example, that we’ve been told Zephan has managed to acquire significant theoretical knowledge but can’t actually cast spells.
Maybe the sharing of spells only extends to a certain grade with her? Another possibility could be that to get anywhere significant with spellcasting would require a large amount of work and study. As such, she would have more than earned her ability to learn the spell(s) possibly in question.
… I still want to see the different Harems as muppets though.
I had not read Dave’s blog when I made my comment above. Where he indicates that Dabbler’s illusion spells* are very under-developed. This corroborates your initial speculation, as regards this incident anyhow.
If Dabbler had given Gwen any tuition on casting the illusion it would, of necessity, have been very limited in nature, due to her own shortcomings in the school. So would not pose a risk of giving humans access to capabilities not already present in society. Per Dave, Gwen already had starter illusion spell-casting ability, which corroborates that much.
I think Gwen is going to get a lot of party requests.
* Which we should not confuse with her racial illusion abilities, that allow her to alter her own appearance. Dabbler reports those to be extremely powerful.
Yups, Dabbles has a very powerful innate illusion ability, and as a succubus she doesn’t really need the ability to cast illusions on other things (she would probably still have picked up enough to teach someone else though)
The succubus ‘illusion’ is technically a ‘glamour.’ In many magic systems ‘glamours’ are considered ‘natural’ magic and not spells. Some would classify this type of glamour as an illusion, others would not. In the Grrl-verse we don’t know if it counts, only that the True Sight orb can pierce it despite her glamour being extremely powerful. Don’t know if it cares about the classification or not.
Glamours are kinda here and there category wise. For a race like a Succubus it would be a natural ability, but for Gwen a similar ability would be a spell (unless she gets her magic ability from a distant non-human ancestor, then it could be either.)
Most glamours are considered spell-like abilities, inherent abilities that are so close to magic that at is hard to tell the difference.
Ha ha. I LOVE that Sydney rationalises how Maxima beat her back to the seat.
Was really hoping that Sydney would at least have mentioned the puppet, makes me sad that she would keep that from her team :(
I can see it from both a tactical and personal perspective. On the one hand “team, i’m hallucinating, we need to check my meds before getting into a fight.” And on the other, she might be tempted to avoid saying “team, I may be more of a hazard than we thought, better boot me off the team for medical reasons.”
Too smart, or too crazy to fool?
Also, I wonder if Dabbler is teaching Gwen any magic? She is good enough to hide part of a battlefield, so her regular teacher is doing well, but alternative views (and a steady hand at combat magic) never hurt. Although she might need a few more arms first…
she did NOT hide part of the battlefield. 1) it wasn’t the battlefield, it was an area near the battlefield. 2) It was a “don’t notice me” spell, not an illusion.to hide them. Like a magician that puts a card in his pocket while waving his other hand wildly, it is easy to make something small unnoticeable while there is something flashier going on nearby. Much easier to change how something is perceived, than how it’s seen.
I agree with your points. To give Deltarno fair credit too though, Gwen was “good enough” to pull off that trick, even if the means was by a Jedi-mind-trick kind of spell, rather than a visual illusion.
The one caveat I have is that Gwen was not doing it alone. How much of it was down to her, and how much to Zephan, we can only speculate upon. Plus, given that, per the cast list, he uses artefacts for his ‘powers’, we should allow the possibility that such might have had a big part to play in that too.
So this is our first chance to assess Gwen’s power. Dabbler seemed to be more of a puppeteer here, than a caster, looking at the effects. Which is corroborated by Dave’s blog above.
Maybe. Gwen did ask if Dabbler could “teach me that feather fall spell?” Most obviously Dabbler’s reply is a joke “Not before we land”. I.e. if she tried teaching Gwen, whilst falling, they would hit the ground before the lesson was over!
However it does not preclude the possibility. And Dabbler was, at the very least, collaborating with Gwen here. This may be the kind of tuition that Gwen needs. She has gained access to genuine spells (again going by the cast list), but is stumbling on learning the material properly.
As Gwen already has this material, Dabbler’s conscience is clear. She is not contaminating Earth culture, with something that is not already here. So I see no reason, in this case, why she should not help her team mate use her abilities better.
I suspect Dabbler would be puppeteer and voice since her innate succubus disguise ability probably can do voice changes.
In technical terms of the professional illusionist, that technique is known as “misdirection.” Nowadays, they use that a lot in the media too…
;)
… and in politics, as well…
:(
Media simply follows politics, so…
…they’re as much victims of misdirection as they are perpetrators.
::singing very poorly in an off pitch key::
The circle of liiiiies!
::flickers a long silky ear::
“they’re as much victims of misdirection as they are perpetrators.”
Highly WILLING victims, at least for one party (there’s only one party whose talking points they will literally report as news, and yes, I have plenty of examples from any recent Presidential election year, including this one).
“Highly WILLING victims…”
Yes. Consider that the primary center of most popular media centers around Hollywood. This is actually an existing minority sub-culture that bases their careers & lives on the production & sale of fiction & fantasy for entertainment purposes. socially, they self-isolate from the rest of the majority culture & consistently form their own little “world view” that is not consistent with actual reality.
It’s all fine & dandy when I want to watch a TV show or movie for being entertained & they’re very good at that…However, the activists among them can’t help themselves but to project their fantasies & fictions outward, trying to ascribe that the “real world” outside of their subculture is inherently inferior (ie: the self-styled “elite society”). In effect, these are the same kind of people who also run the TV News broadcasts…
In short, be entertained by them when you want entertainment, but when they start talking to everybody else about politics or society, it’s time to turn around & walk the f**k away from them.
I hope to see more of Muppet Maxima.
i so hope this comes back around were sydney dusent react to something real and it blows up a monument or somthing and then gwen and dabs have to come clean
Yep, this could be a prank they’re going to regret, all right. In fact, considering how many clues and hints and moments of foreshadowing DaveB slipped in before the big fight with Vehemence, I wouldn’t doubt for a moment that you’re right.
as long as its something like the washington monument and not people that get hurt.
(note washington monument used as example because its important enough that people will feel bad but can be rebuilt. although the irony of a brit lobbying for the destruction of the washington monument on the 4th of july is not lost on me.)
Magic the Gathering has rules for co-incidental magic. Where real magic is used, but must be concealed from the muggles, by making it look like a chance occurrence. This makes it really fun for players, to come up with some excuse for how an otherwise flashy spell (like a fireball) could happen in a regular modern-day town. Exploding gas mains being a common fall-back.
However mages who abuse co-incidence and do things which cannot be explained away, by the muggles, face dire consequences. Paradox spirits will manifest, to punish such abuses of the natural order. The more obvious the paradox created, the greater it pisses them off.
If I remember correctly the Washington monument was actually an example cited. Something like a coven who were blind drunk and tried to dispose of it, magically, without any attempt to rationalise the disappearance. It remained. However nothing of them was ever found again!
Isn’t that Mage; the Ascension’, rather than M:tG?
Probably, M:tG is about mages/sorcerers/wizards from myriad different Planes. They could give a frag less, it’s not their reality anyway.
Possibly. I am rusty from not having done any tabletop gaming in aeons. And I get names mixed up badly. Didn’t think I had any rule books for Mage the Ascension mind. But see the aforementioned problem with names for a convenient explanation for that.
Either that or some mage banged me on the head with a forget-hammer spell!
*rubs head, with paw, to check for any suspicious lumps*
Yeah, that’s Mage The Ascension, from White Wolf Games. Mages have to use Coincidental Magick because it’s the popular-view of reality most common among the population at large that determines what “reality” is. If they use flashy, dramatic magic that can’t be rationalized, they create a “blotch” on reality as most people see it. This draws the forces of Paradox, usually with negative (frequently fatal) consequences to the offending Mage.
Such Mages are quite capable of throwing a lightning bolt from their hand & frying their victim, but the presence of witnesses is likely to make that use of magic fail. Instead, using Coincidental Magick, any witnesses might see the Mage’s victim running away, jump down from the subway platform & fry himself on the third rail…
It’s not the magic itself that’s different, it’s what it looks like that’s the important factor.
How would it be a paradox? o_O
It would be impossible, in reality, for a monument of that size to disappear, overnight, without trace. Not from the middle of a city with the wealth of potential witnesses, CCTV cameras and the like around.
I know that bridges have been stolen (one was just last year, in the States), but only from remote, little travelled locations, where a team had time to take it apart over a weekend, bit by bit. And left a lot of evidence as to their activity.
It just poofing out of existence, with no rubble, witnesses, drag marks, scaffolding remains, or the like, would be implausible beyond belief. That causes a paradox (in general linguistics,* but more specifically under the rules of the game).
* Don’t be distracted by the fact that paradox, in fiction, is most often associated with time travel. That is just one application of the term.
That depends on one very important fact: what is reality?
Was actually going by the dictionary definition of paradox: 1.a seemingly absurd or contradictory statement or proposition which when investigated may prove to be well founded or true.
A paradox is a statement that, despite apparently sound reasoning from true premises, leads to a self-contradictory or a logically unacceptable conclusion.
See? Even the definitions of a paradox is a paradox :P
Wait, are we talking about in our Universe? Or in the GrrlVerse?
Neither, it is about the game universe for magic the gathering/ascension. However it appears to be our universe, except there is hidden magic going on. So for the purpose of deciding if something is apparently possible the magic aspect must be ignored, and it should be analysed under the criteria of “could this happen in our world?”
Note that the Washington monument weighs 81,000 tons. If that were to disappear without trace overnight, without trace, that would be impossible. Yet it would be gone. This is a paradox because something which is demonstrably impossible (for the reasons listed in my prior comment) will have happened.
This does match the dictionary definition. Something that is impossible cannot be possible. That is a paradox.
The way that game system universe handles it is to remove the culprits who attempted to create a paradox. They ceased to exist. Fortunately people disappear all the time, and sometimes without trace. Whilst this is perplexing it would not be considered an impossibility. Ergo the paradox has been averted.
Yeah… still not sure how that would be a Paradox: just because people don’t know how it was done, does not itself mean that it could not be done
People know how you can kill your own grandfather, before you are born, yet that is also considered a paradox.
Yorp, M:tG is the card-game about dimension-hopping wizards in high fantasy settings. It’s never done anything even approaching the kind of ‘urban fantasy/real world but with a twist’ setting that White Wolf’s Mage games do.
“…this could be a prank they’re going to regret…”
Well, yeah…Impersonating a Superior Officer can cause some serious backlash…
:P
Only if they’re caught.
The impersonation involved a radish and some eggs. They could always eat the evidence.
Dabbler’s a consultant, and Gwen is a civilian employee. Ergo, neither one is impersonating a superior officer.
Not to mention that anyone shown the ‘impersonation,’ including and perhaps especially Maxima, is going to be hard pressed to define that as an actual impersonation. Now, showing disrespect for a superior officer is also a violation of the UCMJ if I am not mistaken (and I am not, it is Article 89), but then your “not in the chain of command. Not even in any chain of command” argument takes hold once again. If Maxima was really offended she could probably get Gwen fired pretty easily, and Dabbler kicked off the team. But showing that kind of thin skin wouldn’t be a wise thing to do, especially since the team has shown a fairly lax discipline for private times, and even some public (“I have no gag reflex” being a great example of that), and this seems to be after hours even if it is still technically “on base.” Plus, I think Maxima would be more amused than offended.
How is it “on base”, technically or otherwise? They are at a restaurant in New York
Plus, this is imitation, NOT impersonation. If taken before a Court, they’d brig all three of them. Dabble and Gwen for insubordination, Max for some other charge which would amount to “being an idiot before a Court Martial and unable to keep discipline without going way overboard”. And everybody goes to the bottom of the promotion list (probably to stay) and possibly gets told they are not welcome to re-up.
Meh, I assumed since the orbs were out that Halo was in an Arc facility. Since the last time she went out, even in the same freaking building, she was advised to park them to retain some anonymity.
I guess we’re dealing with some inconsistency here.
Hardly, that time Peggy and Sydney wanted to have a quiet meal. It was not particularly a rule Halo is required to follow. This time Halo was issued with her new logo-bearing top, and the team have been out, in the New York street, pressing flesh and showing off that outfit and themselves.
That done, they have now come into the restaurant, to a privately-booked room, to have their meeting and meal. Neither outside nor inside has there been a need for anonymity.
Not inconsistent, that first time was before Halo was officially ‘outed’ as being a Super with floating balls around her head
Yay amphetamines!
I have found them quite effective. Vyvanse is especially good because it lasts 12 hours. Of course, if a family member accidentally takes it in the evening, the get a full night and following morning of total alertness.
Ugh, I’ve tried Straterra and Vyvanse. They give me the most horrible side effects. I take Adderall, and it helps a whole lot more.
I don’t like Adderall. It made me feel almost robotic when I took it, and I quickly reached the upper limits of what I could take of it because of something with my body caused it to metabolise too quickly.
Part of this might have been becaused they have never diagnosed me properly. What we thought has been ADD or ADHD, might actually be something else altogether.
I prefer Adderall to the other options.
Low on sleep and just taking medications. Nothing surprises the Sydney Inquisition.
I’m sure she’s seen worse, and much much crazier, under those circumstances.
Strangely, I’ve never had hallucinations from my ADD medication (at least, not to my knowledge). Hallucinations are probably something that should make you stop the meds. Then again, hallucinations can be a result of prolonged sleep deprivation, so her last experience could have been a time when she really needed sleep.
Keeping you up all night is a definite possibility, however. A family member of mine in her late 50s once accidentally took a 50mg vyvanse pill in the evening. She was awake and alert all night, went to the health club the next morning (partially trying to tire herself out enough to sleep), was still fine afterwards, and only felt any fatigue early afternoon the day after taking it.
Of course, I would probably suggest something that doesn’t last as long in the utility belt. Most “short-acting” stimulants for ADD will give you a few hours rather than 12~14.
He bought the Witcher3. We lost him
But it appears to be mildly irritating to him, so don’t give up hope!
I’ve actually had W3 on my drive since the holiday sale, and I’ve barely touched it. At first I wanted to finish W2 first, but as what happened with W2, I got busy with other games. Now that I’m taking a break from MMOs, I’ve now got a backlog of story-driven open-world games to slog through. But someday…
Yea don’t start with the Witcher3. You’ll never be able to enjoy other games again
Why? Does the game suck that much? o_O
The opposite.
I think I’m more worried about Gwent than the rest of the game.
There’s a LOT in that game, I spent 40 hours on the first chapter, just wandering around, doing bounties, finding stuff.
Oh and Dave, all the alchemy isn’t as daunting as it looks, once you make like an oil or grenade, Sparrow(healing potion) or whatever the first time, you never have to again until you find the upgraded recipies. Just meditate (like sleeping in the newer Fallouts) with alcoholic beverages in your inventory and they’ll be refilled.
He he. So is the rationale that the character gets so drunk he forgets having to do any boring alchemy?
And wakes up with new mystery liquids in his potion bottles. Seems legit
well, most of them are more tinctures than what most games use as potions, and most tinctures are made with alcohol. I figure he mixes the stuff, and meditates while it’s steeping is all
I got my copy of W3 a while back and it came with W1 and W2 and I just couldn’t get into 1. The controls are awkward, the characters seem to not care about the big things (your lover has no memory of you, could you maybe react to that?), and for some reason you need different sword skills to fight with a silver sword than with a steel one.
Yeah, I don’t know why they did that either. I can make an educated guess, though… they do explicitly state that the silver sword is for fighting monsters. Monsters are not going to fight like humans do, therefore different fighting skills are needed. (At least, that’s one way the developers could try to justify it.)
Or it could be that since silver is so soft and fragile compared to steel you have to use them carefully or you’ll end up breaking them in the first attack.
You would look rather silly parrying an attack by some monster with your spiffy new silver sword only to have it break before you got a chance to even try stabbing the critter…
This is setting a bad precedent for dealing with illusions and hallucinations.
It’s sure to bite SOMEONE in the ass.
If it’s Dabbler, she just might like it…. Or were you talking figuratively?
Don’t worry about the invotive, they are supposed to be a bonus for liking the webic enough to vote, not a bribe (there are still a couple old webics that haven’t updated at all, but still check almost every day and vote, hoping the author will see that there are some loyal readers and return)
Oh god damn, that was a good one :P
Haha, called it :D
By the way, I’m surprise that Dabbler hasn’t put any effort into illusions, considering that she is a “succubus”. I guess we can rationalize it that since she already has a very powerful innate illusion spell, she didn’t feel the need or didn’t find it exciting enough to study.
You did call it! Nice one!
Please note that here it’s not Dabbler who’s casting the spell. In panel 7 we see Gwen doing the casting and Dabbler is only holding the fetish.
To me, it looks like they are both taking part in the casting. I suspect that Dabbler is doing the visual and Gwen it doing Max’s voice.
I would’ve said the other way around, you see three very different looking women but they all have the same voice? VERY suspicious….SHE’S A SUCCUBUS!!!!
Have another look, to see what ai_vin is describing. In panel 7 you can still see the remnants of the spell (unmistakably as it is a Maxima Muppet) twinkling in between Gwen’s hands. As such I too am confident that Gwen was the one casting the spell. Albeit possibly under Dabbler’s guidance.
I concur with Adamas‘s opinion that it is probably Dabbler providing the voice (and likely just in the conventional manner, rather than needing a spell). Unlike the visual aspects of the spell, there is nothing to point to there being any vocal spell. And we know that Dave is not shy of giving sound effects, when present. I would fully expect to see the mini-mini-Max having a whispered speech bubble if that was the intent.
However, the only ‘evidence’ I could offer to support our conjecture, other than that lack, is that Dabbler was holding the puppet, so would have been the best positioned to do the ventriloquism.* Being accomplished at impersonating other females, with eighteen decades of experience, it is fair to assume she can pull such a feat off easily.
* The lips moving, as part of the visual spell, had to be associated with something. Gwen’s skill clearly is not up to providing that simply from her mind. Although that could have equally been Gwen’s or Dabbler’s lips. But it seems very unlikely that an unpracticed pair of non-professional ventriloquists would have been able to co-ordinate the impersonation smoothly, without Dabbler doing the voice.
I’m also thinking it goes beyond Gwen casting the spell, I think it was her idea for the gag. In panel 8 Gwen talks of her expectations and Dabbler says “pay up” so Gwen must have gone to Dabs.
I bet she hears that all the time.
Nah, Dabbler would hear something like “Dabbler is the only fetish”.
“Succu-fetish?”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
Another thing to note is that Dabbler’s only HALF succubus (the rest is listed as one-third doppleganger, one-sixth unknown). Plus, something Dabbler mentioned is that succubus glamours are ‘designed’ to be impenetrable… meaning that particular ability is NOT natural… which flies in the face of calling it a glamour, since glamours are more appropriately described as inborn magic instead of learned as a skill, the way spells are.
And around and around we go…
Now that I think about it… That’s really unusual genetics. Normally ancestry is divisible by 2, BUT NOT by 3. That would require 3 parents in each generation…
Err alien…
Just because it does not work that way on Earth (for any kingdom that we know of, still alive today) does not mean that three gender races do not exist anywhere. But you are correct, that certainly is unusual, but only by our standards.
MONO, ANTHROPOLOGIST: So have you managed to find out why these Earth-creatures keep coupling with one another?
MONO, GENETICIST: I am not sure. It seems almost all of them belong to separate species! Even the ones living together only sometimes have 50% of their DNA in common!
MONO, ANTHROPOLOGIST: That is bizarre! What would drive them to co-operate with each other if they do not share the same DNA? What about their rate of mutation? Actually, what am I talking about, they are all mutants!
At least DaveB got the math right. One-sixth plus one-third plus one-half equals one.
I remember a D&D character that was described as half half-elf, half-dragon, half-celestial. My reply to this was, “Did a fraction kill your mother or something?” (the player was already well known for using “half this, half that, half this other thing”, so we always accused him of waging a war on fractions.)
One the one hand, three halves is more than a whole.
One the other hand, it does describe a mixed ancestry.
On the gripping hand…
Interestingly we know that all offspring of Succubi are Succubi. So from that point of view Dabbler is 100% Succubi, if the other percentages cannot express themselves.
She is obviously the result of an orgy. Three succubi, two dopplegangers and a mysterious stranger…
There is probably already some inappropriate fan fiction of that scene out there. Or is it an actual account?
Was wondering where the radish came into it, but then spotted the radish rose in panel eight
Is she still seeing her as a puppet back at the table?
He he. Let us hope not!
Otherwise the overdose has kicked in and the implanted suggestions have pushed Sydney into experiencing non-standard side-effects.
Totally would love to see the reaction when Sydney tells the Archon Doc about this side-effect. Maybe a comment to Max (or with her hearing about it).
Given some of the ways Sydney might have reacted to this, I think Dabbler and Gwen were taking their lives into their own hands here. I mean, even if nobody ended up being hurt, did they really want a second leveled restaurant on their consciences?
Kudos to everyone who guessed what Muppet Maxima really was by the way. I’m mildly disappointed to find out this actually wasn’t some kind of hallucination though. :-D
So, are we to expect a lot more illusion pranks in the future? The possibilities are almost infinte…
From Dave’s blog, probably not too many, nor too often.
That is why it is Gwen casting it here, barring this arc, she is a lesser member of the cast,* so the opportunity will be less for such to happen. Likewise Dave has made it clear that her abilities are so limited that they need a rough-looking simulacrum to base it around. She cannot conjure up an illusion out of thin air. Which again keeps the frequency down.
Which is good. It does not stop us enjoying speculating about such uses, as often as we like. But Dave intends to avoid overplaying the illusionary prank card, in his writing. It would be all too tempting to make use of that too much, and end up diverting his capabilities from other more deserving** options.
This is one of the reasons why we do not see Sydney chain-swearing all the time. Too frequently and it looses its impact.
* Ie. she is not one of the central protagonists. Sydney is the main one by far, but we do sometimes see the world from Dabbler, Harem or Maxima’s points of view. And, possibly Anvil’s too, if Dave has kept any of his initial ideas for her in mind. To cap it off, Gwen is likely Arc-Sparq, as opposed to Arc-SWAT (she was with Zephan and Leon, on the roof, in the Battle at the Steak House Car Park).
** Which is just to say that variety is the spice of life. This use was hugely rewarding, because of its unexpected nature. But even the very best comedians, and comedy writers, have to be wary of slipping into a rut and being repetitive. I have seen that happening with a number of previously entertaining talents, down through the years.
Don’t you mean Arc-Light? Sparq is Dabbles and Gadget, the tech-builders
Ok, then when everybody least expects it. But Dave has at least use it to blindside a villain. It’s like a Chekov’s magic trick.
Yup. :-D
Likewise to Guesticus.
I guess it was thinking of Leon which made me make that slip-up. He is clearly a tech person, even if his role is on the intelligence side of things.
Thinking on it, he may not actually fall in any of the Arc subdivisions, in actuality. We did see him reporting to Arianna, at one point, so he could just be regular Archon tech-support? Part of Arch-stone.
Psst. I partly said that for the pun. Whatever his actual position on the Archon organisation tree, he works closely enough with Arc-SWAT that he got invited to their dinner bash.
I figure Leon is more connected with the HQ building (security & intelligence) than with Arc-Swat proper. He deals more with the actual facility than he does with the team specifically.
The rest of Arc Light was invited too.
Just a side note the re scoville diet (pun intended): someone else is giving her a run for her money (and some colorful metaphors). As some of you know, Doc (of TheWhiteboard renown), likes his food hot to the extreme as well. Namely, some “Death by Nuclear Inferno” chicken wings that were dropped on the floor and are now burning their way to the mantle! or
(after update)
Dang, haven’t read that in years :(
Troll fail. Hehe.
Please tell me we’re going to see the maxima muppet in the cast banner in the future.
That would amuse me greatly.
That would be awesome. I am thinking about making my Gravatar the Puppet Maxima.
Best to pick one from this page then, if you want to avoid being a look-alike, as you will see someone has already adopted the one from yesterday’s appearance, in the comments for that page (unless it was only a temporary change, of course).
Im not sure if its ok to use illusion pranks to prank a person who is always taking medication.
Her medicines don’t have anything to do with hallucinations
True but..
If one starts having “severe side effects” such as black outs or hallucinations (or sudden depression, panic attacks, a great deal of weight change etc., anything that is a drastic change from the norm really) while taking medications it’s always advisable to “see your doctor” about it in case it’s as a result of the medication or an interaction with something else.
Which means if they are FAKING a hallucination for her, she could easily think something has to be adjusted in her meds when it doesn’t, and that could throw her medication schedule/balance off if she gets it altered. So actually it COULD be pretty cruel and have bad results if they weren’t careful with that kind of prank around someone on medications, PARTICULARLY ones meant to affect brain chemistry.
*nods*
All very good points. I imagine they will let her in on the prank, assuming they think that through themselves. And it is rather the point of playing a prank (especially if doing it for revenge, like Dabbler appears to have done). Most of the satisfaction will come from seeing her face when she realises that she was hoodwinked.
They might be wise to avoid doing the reveal in front of Maxima though…
Sydney didn’t even think to grab her Truesight orb.
The Truesight Orb would see the napkins for what they are, but if it was a hallucination coming from her own mind, would the Truesight Orb clear it up for her?
In the final panel we see that Sydney has taken the Muppet to actually be Maxima. She knew that side effects were a possibility so, in her sleep-deprived state,* Sydney did not even consider the alternatives. Occam’s razor is not always right, but Sydney was going with it.
Further, Sydney knows Maxima is clever. If Sydney grabbed that orb, to check any suspicions, Maxima would have known that something was up. Note that Maxima just (on the previous page) called her by “Scoville”, which Sydney knows Max only does when she is mad with her! Having just knowingly taken an overdose of her meds, she would not want to further disappoint Maxima. The risk of that far outweighed any possible benefit!
* A one hour nap will have helped ease this, but only for a while. And they have had a long flight, with various stops, since. Which would have required Halo to remain alert all the time, to avoid “dropping the ball”. Such concentration will have continued to drain her.
Not really an overdose though. Ritalin lasts for about 4 hours, after that you need a new one.
The reason she didn’t want to take another one this late is because most of those 4 hours are going to be spent in bed. Where she won’t be able to sleep because of the side effects
Adderall is a similar stimulant-based ADD treatment with similar duration (much longer duration, time release stimulants exist, but those tend to be taken daily or bi-daily rather than thrown in when needed). Neither causes hallucinations in my experience (except maybe for rare you-should-change-your-meds-now side effects). Sleep deprivation could do that since stimulants keep you awake and alert, but the brain still gets buggy if you keep it on too long.
Yeah, if Sydney were examining it logically (which, in her sleep-deprived state ironically she might not) she may chalk it up to the effects of a sleep-deprived brain rather than her medication itself.
Again though, sleep deprivation, so who knows what’s going through her head. The more rest one needs without getting it, the harder it is to think things through logically. As you said, the brain gets “buggy if you keep it on too long” and needs a reboot every so often ;)
Sleep deprivation can, to all intents and purposes, cause hallucinations.
Look back a few comics and you will see a comment I made about having an ‘hallucination’ myself, when looking at the comic. Ok, I had simply fallen asleep, so it was actually a dream. But if it is indistinguishable from reality* (at the time of having it) then the difference between the two terms becomes much more blurred.
Plus Sydney did the same as me, earlier in the day, in that she too was sitting comfortably during the day, when she had a dream. But people can have micro-naps, yet remain standing upright, when suffering from sleep deprivation.
One guy who claimed never to sleep (or to have gone a long time without sleeping), was found, when his brain was monitored with electrodes, to be doing it routinely, in fact. Even though he may not have been aware of it.
And, just to head anyone off, yes it would take time to get into REM mode sleep. But Sydney would not have noticed any passage of time, if she had nodded off.
* I literally had to double-check the scene, to be sure that Lucas did not have a gun holster clipped to the back of his custom Segway. The dream was that vivid.
Usually takes a few days of sleep deprivation for hallucinations to set in though
A lot of members from the Military learn how to do this so that they are not bored out of their minds during speeches by politicians.
Essentially we learn to sleep when we are able to. The most impressive part of this is that if done right, you can retain the information that is put out. I did this several time during my AIT (advanced individual training). I would nap through the class, and when the teacher would call on me, I would be able to answer correctly reply.
How long does it typically take to enter Rapid Eye Movement?
For rare people, who are able to sleep standing up, or whilst going about their normal lives, or taking cat-naps, this is unknown. However it has been studied for normal night-time sleeping. The first REM episode occurs about 70 minutes after falling asleep.
Must be one of the rare types: sometimes it takes me awhile to fall asleep (normal response would be to slow the heart beat, but for me, that can be deadly as have been known to pass out going to sleep) and wake up about an hour later having had a full dream experience
This morning for instance: woke up and looked at the clock, 4:15am, went back to sleep, had a full five to ten minute dream, woke up and looked at the clock again, 4:35am
Interesting.
Even that guy who thought he never slept must have been able to dream, as part of the micro-naps he was taking, otherwise he would have been unable to transfer his short-term memories into long-term ones. The process for that involves sleeping, and the side-effect seems to be dreaming.
So it would follow, given that he reportedly lived a normal life, and did not exhibit the classical symptoms of sleep-deprivation, that, like you, he could rapidly enter REM state, as part of his standing-up napping.
Sleeping while standing or marching is something I learned in the military. Unfortunately it seems to have made me susceptible to fall asleep while driving.
The first time I realized just how bad it is was when I woke up while sliding down an icy off ramp. The thing is that this was the off ramp from the highway and I was on my way to work. While that was scary I fond it worse that I had no recollection of having driven any part of the trip from the moment I pulled out from the curb until I woke up in a car sliding down an ice chute.
That drive from my home to work usually took anything between 30 and 60 minutes if nothing bad happened. In that time I had to navigate rush hour inner city traffic, some 10 or so stop lights, a few roundabouts, and about 20 minutes on the highway going out of the city.
At the time the job had me driving a lot every day. Some times servicing several clients in the city, other time I drove long distances to get to a customer. Not long after this I got transferred to another department where I no longer had to drive anywhere as I simply didn’t trust myself to stay awake behind the wheel anymore. It had gotten so bad that just entering the car had me yawning no matter what time of day it was.
When it comes to overpowered illusionists, I always think of Aizen from Bleach. Now he was a mindfuck-and-a-half. It didn’t really pan out, mainly because he was already hideously powerful without them, and became even more so, enough that it took super protagonist powers to beat him, but a pure, skilled illusionist would be a very frustrating hero/villain.
The only problem there is, it only works until they realize there is an illusionist fighting them. Then sydney welds the yellow orb to her hand and starts directing traffic. Or, if he is good enough to keep screwing with them despite it, she has to handle it herself. Which could be interesting as then she only gets one orb to spare.
we know the shield blocks at least some magical affects, Raise it and fly through them until she hits someone.
Though I admit knowing they fought an illusionist would greatly help Sydney and anyone else that has their own way of cancelling illusions the benefit would at least initially only be for those members that have those specialised defenses. Maybe there are spells that would help the entire team but so far it looks to me that at very least in that situation some squishier groupmembers you know those who might be capable of those spells need to go nearer to the fight and therefor be in more danger.
If Sydney goes for the illusion Orb and the enemy knows what it does he could simply let the rest of the team see or hear something more beneficial to him. Dabbler recognizes there must be illusions around and decides to report that (her magic so far does seem to mostly focus on her or benefits to her; maybe not but until I see otherwise I’ll not assume it) well you better hope the illusion really only goes as far as the enemy can see or who knows what the team would think she said.
I’m with Colin there a powerful and skilled Illusionist would be a true pain to fight.
Deus is convinced that Earth is lacking in illusionists. And he seems to be privy to much hidden lore.
What I find interesting is not that he is aware of illusionists, but the he has a standard of their availability against which Earth is lacking. This implys a lot of knowledge about things unknown to the general public, and serious contact with places beyong our little blue marble.
Maybe they have David Cop-a-feel in their world as well, he used to make monuments and stuff ‘disappear’ in our world (shame he couldn’t make his model girlfriend disappear :( )
Super powered prank wars. There’s no way that can end badly. Especially because this, “Spiders everywhere” and the bank robbery means Sydney’s been the target three times…
Also… Dabbler bet “Nonreaction” is kinda scary.
Some of them are putting a massive amount of faith in Sydney. Remember how someone bet that she’d be out of bed in time?
The bank robbery does not count, as she was not expected to be there (and it wasn’t a prank anyway, but a Ari-publicity Stunt)
Strictly speaking the bank was not targeting Sydney, she was just caught up by it. Regardless of that though she who pranks must expect to be pranked in return. Not to mention Sydney’s other incidents, such as bashing Dabbler on the head with an orb.
Don’t forget that Dabbler just had hot food dumped on her breasts. We can see how that would tip her over into wanting revenge! It will be interesting though, to see how Sydney takes it, if she finds out later. Hopefully she will take it on the chin, and have a good laugh.
Sydney herself provided the explanation for this. Dabbler’s intelligence is off the human scale. But, even without that, the chain of reasoning, for these circumstances, is actually highly supportive of such a bet being a fair one to make.
Dabbler was particularly cunning* in weighting the outcome by getting Maxima-Muppet to address Sydney as “Scoville”. Which Max only does if irritated with her. Probably, reading between the lines, with a disapproving tone of voice, to match the dialogue. This maximises the odds of Sydney feigning that there was nothing out of the ordinary.
* I am just guessing that Dabbler was providing the voice, looking at the layout of the speech bubbles.
I would suppose that, despite Dabbler’s intelligence, she’s more into “Human Sexuality” than “Human Psychology.”
…And both of those fields seems to be a long distance from “Sydney’s Psychology”…
From what I hear, for some people there isn’t much difference…
…Daniel the Human is giving me that “you fit that category too” look. I don’t always… :(
I sorta get the impression that Daniel the Human is trying to smack:
https://movie-sounds.org/disney-movie-sound-clips/pinocchio-1940/yeah-yeah-yeah-sure-screwball-in-the-corner-pocket
Any human who tries to smack a velociraptor will need to count their hands afterwards. And consider themselves lucky, if that is all they loose!
Daniel here. Screwball may seem nice at times, but he’s not the brightest to come out of Cybertron (yes, he’s an alien robot), & sometimes I need to remind him of how to behave on Earth. He’s actually noticeably nicer online but in person he’s a bit more self centered, as well as annoying. And while I would NEVER advise other to do it to our fellow Humans, I have discovered sometimes the only way to get through to him is with the business end of a metal baseball bat…
Herem is the one that said this back before chapter One began.
I can be in 5 places at once, Dabbler’s IQ can’t be measured on a human scale, plus magic, You need to up your game. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/340
((Hoping I did the link right))
Damn, totally miss the original look to Gothamer :(
Hmm, speaking of: does Bodie change the shape of her eyes with makeup and Abbey with her glasses? The others have narrower and ‘sharper’ ends to their eyes, but those two are slightly more ’rounded’ (if you look at their “Who’s Who” listing you may understand what talking about)
Bland, I don’t think Dabbler bet on a non-reaction. I think it’s much more likely that Gwen bet on a specific outcome, or perhaps even a spectrum of reactions, and Dabbler merely accepted the wager as proffered.
A really good illusionist, not only can make you believe something is there that isn’t or shouldn’t, but can make you believe something that is there, isn’t (and the really really evil ones can layer illusions, make it lightly ‘out-of-sync’ tricking you into believing you have seen through the illusion and missing the true illusion)
Could Dabbler disguise herself as a full-body Muppet, or would that require someone present to have the appropriate fetish?
Guess it depends on her mood – and the inclinations of whichever sexual partner she is having at the time.
I aint gonna judge. Really.
ROFL.
(But good initial question. We now know that Dabbler only has good racial illusions, and they might have such limitations).
Yeah but those “racial illusions” include hiding extra arms and horns. I’m pretty sure making yourself look like felt wouldn’t be that far out of her wheelhouse. And if it is, knowing her, she’s smart enough to figure it out ;)
She does like felt after all, the past-tense tho…
And no, I didn’t steal that from Daniel the Human…..Honestly…
True. Dabbler is inhumanly smart. And has experience with a broad range of powers. But that is also her limitation.
Dabbler toys and experiments with things that interest her, but only when they do not require her to spend too much time specialising in one field. This is as per her bio, but we saw it in action with her swordplay. She looks impressive, but only until she goes up against a specialist. Then her shortcomings stand out. Until she draws upon her wider arsenal, of course.
Some Succubi might be able to adapt their racial abilities well beyond what is considered normal (just look at some circus acts, in the real world, for examples), but Dabbler is not likely to be amongst their ranks. Especially when you consider Dave’s comments in his blog above.
Doh. Sorry, I meant to clarify altering her own appearance, to felt, yea, I think that is plausible.
However, making herself doll-sized seems much harder (it is making most of her body invisible,* not just two extra arms). And, in this particular circumstance, projecting it to appear adjacent to her own body as well. These being things which, to my mind, push beyond what seems likely to be the racial capabilities.
* Whilst still being able to fool touch (or the mind) into accepting the incongruity, see Dabbler dancing in the club, without her partners freaking out at handling unseen limbs.
I was thinking more a full-suit Muppet actor, like Big Bird.
It isn’t clear how specific her glamours can get. They might have trouble perfectly mimicking individuals. She did an attractive human and a green girl, but, to my knowledge, we haven’t seen her disguise herself as a specific person. I believe she would have already abused THAT power if she had it. Imagine how pissed off she could get Maxima by cloning her.
Well, like the “Cards Against Humanity” white-card says…
“Warm, velvety, Muppet sex.”
Okay I actually started laughing out loud at this page. and not a chortle or a small giggle, but a full on GUFFAW of mirth! Bravo!
Waldorf and Statler, sitting at their usual table, witnessed the entire thing, and are chuckling with approval.
I almost did a S&W mini comic, but I couldn’t come up with good insults for them.
“I’m surprised she didn’t react to that illusion.”
“Well I find it understandable personally.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She’s so wired up normally, she’s finally burnt herself out!”
*Cue laughter…*
Doesn’t really sound like them… It’s not low blow enough for them.
“Figured she would be outwitted by a puppet.”
“Even worse, it was just a radish!”
“Man… the most interesting character just left the scene.”
“But at least she turned into a radish!”
“This story could really benefit from more illusions.”
“Yeah, if they made you see a completely different story!”
That sounds like them.
There we go, that second one about a completely different story… THAT is W&S to a T.
Man I know just what you mean Dave. I still haven’t finished Dragon age because I keep picking up random loot and triggering more and more side quests. The side quests sometimes feel like chores I gotta clean out before going to the main quests rather than fun extenders.
It doesn’t help that tons of sidequests get triggered after each main quest mission is finished and that I’m too overleveled from the sidequests so I rekk everything in my path challenge-free.
I never finished oblivion and I don’t dare try skyrim. The Witcher is in my list though.
You think that’s bad.? ‘Fallout 4’, via one Preston Garvey, can very literally BURY you in radial ‘Settlement-In-Distress’ quests. Bad enough that there are several advisory Youtube videos on how to deal with it, and various mods to negate the problem.
FO4 is an absolutely awesome game otherwise but, until you get a handle on the problem, you soon come to dread whenever Preston heads your way because you just know it means at least one more quest, sometimes even two – and probably time-sensitive at that.
They just. Won’t. Stop! I avoid the guy like the plague, because he won’t stop giving me this endless stream of randomly generated quests! I can’t make progress! I STILL haven’t finished FO4, and at least part of the reason was because it buried me in so much samey radiant quest stuff that I got tired of it and lacked the will to keep going.
Just be sure to massacre all of the dudes in Roman armour, before you abandon it.
Psst! This is how you can detect the difference between an Evil Squirrel Overlord and a Good Squirrel Overlord.
Funny you should mention that…
(This, and the next two pages)
Can’t get rid of Preston completely – especially if you want to get The Castle (one of the best Settlements in the game) or use the Minutemen against The Institute. But there are ways to lessen the madness.
The main trick is to assign Preston someplace where you don’t visit (often). Also, when you complete one of “his” quests, don’t bother going back to him, as simply re-visiting the settlement person should be enough.
Can get a similar radial quest problem with the Castle’s radio station, Best bet there is to switch it on when you have to (complete the quest for that), then switch it off and leave it.
I still think the MuppetMaxima robot would have been a fun addition. And it would have driven Maxima NUTS!
DaveB, some words of advice: The Witcher 3 cannot be played casually. You cannot apply a few minutes here and a few minutes there, or even an hour here and an hour there, and expect to make progress. Particularly at the start. Block yourself out a weekend, sit down, and do nothing expect play the game. Immerse yourself in the world.
Spend a whole weekened on it, and that might be enough to get you a quarter, maybe a third of the way through the game. But after several hours of continuously playing it you should be enjoying it and wanting to play more, whereas if you just hit it in little bits and bursts you’re going to be turned off by the little inefficiencies that yes, it does have, and never get to experience the amazingly immersive world that they’ve built for you.
A warning, however. Once you get into playing The Witcher 3, do NOT, absolutely DO NOT take any sort of extended break from playing it before you finish it. It has been discovered by numerous people that it is incredibly hard to get back into this game after spending an extended time away. In my case I had to actively force myself to play it for several hours without enjoying it before finally the story and the world started to resonate with me again and I found myself having fun. Seriously, just play this game through to the end.
Yeah unfortunately I can’t play games like that. I get maybe half an hour to an hour each night after I’m wiped out from drawing all day, so maybe I won’t get far in W3.
An hour each night might work, but you’ll have to be patient at first. After the tutorial there is an introductory area with about 10 hours of gameplay….
The game picks up a LOT after you leave the area.It’s good it’s there, since it gives you needed practice with the combat system, potions, etc, but is probably one of the more boring areas.
If you do start getting bored (some might say this is sacrilege) focus on the main quest, and turn down the combat difficulty to compensate for being under-leveled and under-equipped.
Finally, if using a mouse and keyboard, change control style to “Alternate” in the settings, and your character will handle a little less like a boat.
The plot and characters are excellent, the combat is fun, and almost without exception, the quests (even the side quests) feel important to the people that give them to you. I highly recommend you play a bit past the intro area before you decide one-way or another on playing it.
I wish someone would have told me that before I bought the 3 pack.
That was *so mean*. (AFK – laughing forever)
I hope this becomes a running gag — because if Dabbler and Gwen keep doing it, Maxima is eventually going to catch them, and I really, really want to see that explanation. And then see what retribution Sydney comes up with for them, which Maxima will be inclined to look the other way on. (Within reason, obviously.)
PPO target practice? }:D
“Hey, Dabbler — you put up a pretty impressive arcane shield when Maxima took a swing at you in the ballroom that one time. How big a blast can you stop? Hey! I know! Let’s find out!”
Dave said a LONG time ago, in actual stopping power Dab’s shield is quite close, but since it’s so much SMALLER, it gets a lower rating.
I see I wasn’t the only one caught by the sale XD I’ve been caught by ‘Long Live the Queen’, to the point where I haven’t even STARTED the other three I got….
I could not stop laughing for a good minute when I finished reading this one. You got us good, DaveB!
Sydney, if you are suffering from adverse drug effects from medication you are supposed to be taking, you probably shouldn’t hide it from your commanding officer. You should also talk to a doctor about an option for no hallucinations in your pills. I’m not familiar with a short acting ADD medication that you’d continue to use if it caused loopiness. Sleep deprivation could do that, even when the ADD medication keeps you alert and awake (stimulants can almost replace sleep in the short term, but eventually it catches up to you).
But you see, she wasn’t hallucinating, she just thought she might be. Of course I guess she didn’t know she wasn’t hallucinating.
She seemed pretty sure she was hallucinating. She was confused when she saw Maxima was already in the room and assumed super-speed, not other trickery. Hallucinations were on the top of her list of explanations. Even if she had never actually hallucinated before (just got “loopy”) she probably should have admitted to the possible hallucination when puppet Maxima asked if anything else was going on (especially since they were in private already). Not saying this wasn’t necessarily in character, just that it wasn’t a good idea. A hallucinating superheroine with a PPO seems like a bad thing.
Even if she does think she’s hallucinating she already knows what the cause is. From the previous page: She didn’t say it was the pill that made her loopy, she said it was the lack of sleep. Simple solution – get more sleep.
Depends on how vivid her previous hallucinations might have been. By now, Sydney must have some idea of what is normal and what isn’t. Not to mention the people she hangs around with now aren’t normal, so that has to count in her estimation of the situation.
Sydney might get a bit hire-wire, but she’s never been shown to be Dumb. Plus, if she was really worried about it, she could have touched her Comm Orb. If she says anything to Maxima, I think Dabbler and Gwen are going to see scary Max eventually.
You don’t want to wait until a problem is obviously bad when that could occur when fighting a supervillain with a freaking laser orb.
Given the panopoly (a word I don’t often get to use – yay!) of new experiences Sydney’s had the last few days, I don’t find this reaction too surprising, given she’s running on fumes just now. I have a feeling if this happens again while she’s well rested, a quick trip to the doc will be forthcoming.
“stimulants can almost replace sleep in the short term, but eventually it catches up to you” Speaking of, I’m really loving the show “Day 5”.
Who is really being pranked here? Sidney? Or is it really Gwen? Of course, given that it is Dabbler it could be both.
The Muppet. THAT’S who’s truly getting pranked here…
Dabbler and Gwen playing a joke on Sydney,will she get even?
They might say it is getting even for the flying Fajita Fiasco. Even if that was an accident.
Flying Fajita Fiasco has gained you +1 internets.
I just realized. Some of the items inside a fajita are fried (rice, chicken, steak, sometimes vegetables). Now, we know that Sydney is vegetarian, so we know there would be no fried chicken or steak in there… but we don’t know if she has any fried vegetables in there.
So does this mean the flying fajita is potentially a UFO?*
* In this case, a UFO is an Unidentified Frying Object
+ 1
You get an ‘A’ for alliteration…
An ‘A’ alteration accolade? Awesome. All aliterators aspire admiration.
Aliterations are absolutely awfull. Always avoid aliterations.
I love how they make the Maximuppet scratch her head in puzzlement, that’s a nice touch!
Agreed. Dabbler may have won the bet, but even her expression, in that same frame, seems to have the pushed over face that you humans have when puzzled. I don’t think it played out quite like Dabbler was visualising either. And she was the puppeteer.
The ironic thing about the prank is that instead of being angry with Dabbler Sydney will probably wind up asking her for a favor later. She will be too wired to sleep and will ask Dabbler for a minor sleep spell to insure that she does not go two days without proper sleep.
I would love knowing a sleep spell so much right now. So very freaking much.
A month, or two, ago I would have leapt at the thought too. But I am caring for a poorly doggy at the moment, and dare not risk anything keeping me artificially asleep too deeply. Not if it would risk me being unaware that my patient needed my help.
Really hope your friend gets better soon :(
Thank you kindly.
I have been in a similar situation in the past… When you are out of it on meds just enough that when you see something weird and are at least 80% sure it isn’t real but…
It is actually very much not fun.
One morning, ages ago when I was trying out a new medication, I woke up when my cat jumped on me asking for food. I got up to find its bowl and feed it and it took me a good thirty seconds to remember that… I don’t have a cat.
Not a fun moment.
Wow. Downright freaky.
Don’t click on the following if the memory still bothers you. Seriously. You would likely find it too disturbing, as it does encompass a valid (if uncomfortable to contemplate) theory of what really happens when we sleep.
It is also sad. Going to sleep in a world where you have a pet, and slipping into an alternate one, where you do not, Yet it taking a while for your memories to adjust, to your new history.
Try going the other way, but substitute ‘pet’ with ‘very close friends’, and then waking up again to a world without
Perhaps it may explain why you and I have such difficulty with names. If we are less able to adapt to such changes.* I am very grateful that I have never experienced that degree of loss though!
On unusual occasions, you wake up and feel sure that something has changed, but you simply may not be able to put your paw on what it is!
* Assuming that such happens to everyone, from time to time,.
With me, the problem remembering names is more due to Al Symers than forgetting which world this is
A lot of the time, entering the dreams is like an episode of “Quantum Leap”, but without the holographic Al, but it still makes me sad waking up and not having any real friends or a significant other :(
You always have us. Not really a substitute for someone to throw an arm over your shoulder. But the next best thing. You would be hard pressed to find a better crowd on the open internet, I think.
*sigh*
Just try to ignore my blathering on about weird sleep deprivation effects, when in a sleep deprived state. It does make me empathise with Sydney’s current situation though.
:)
Daniel here. The people on here ARE pretty laid back & easy going I’ve noticed. Even Screwball is nicer online than in real life. As the good dog Yorp said, not as good as someone right next to you, but many friendships are started & maintained online these days…
That would be Dark City, I believe, starring Kiefer Sutherland, William Hurt, Jennifer Connelly, and Rufus Sewell.
Have a similar reaction when having a stroke: mind starts reading things wrong, but know that it is wrong even though don’t know what it should be