Grrl Power #509 – Pink streak
Action pages don’t usually give me a whole lot to comment on. It’s mostly a lot of Swoosh, Wham… and whoops I forgot the sound effects on the first two panels. It’s just… Swoosh and Wham. I’d love to draw crazy action scenes like Onepunch Man, or Black God (even if it relies a little too heavily on speedlines) or anything by Masahiko Nakahira. An extended fight between Pixel and the SuperHusk wasn’t the point of this scene, but I would eventually like to do a few really good action pages just to flex that muscle. Really just to see if I can. It’s a skill like anything else.
I think if I was trying to really punch up the action on this page, I’d make the panels bigger, moving the last one to the next page and add more speed lines. Not Black God levels, just to emphasize the motion, then on the second page I’d do a reverse shot with Pixel smashing into the room she hit, rubble and shattered stuff everywhere. Well, ideally my theoretical assistant would do all the rubble and stuff.
Sydney’s usually actually pretty focused during fights. The constant motion and flashes and bangs don’t give her ADHD time to pull her focus. In this instance she is indeed rubbernecking the battle, but watching a bright pink were jaguar battle a tentacle robot would be pretty distracting.
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Uh oh.
Retroactive PTSD is kicking in.
Not how PTSD works since it requires a memory to be triggered. PTSD is caused when a trauma creates a short in a memory. This memory will surface and causes you to relive those events. Think Groundhogs day only with one memory or a set of them that all trigger different responses most of them are bad at best you learn to manage it and can put up a front. Now what Sydney is experiencing may create PTSD but that doesn’t always happen. having some personal experience with this it is annoying at best when mine triggers at worse I simply walk away from what I’m doing.
This is a panic freeze, and a great way to die. I’ve seen it happen before…
When mine gets triggered, my blood pressure shoots sky high (200/110, I have to take a lot of meds to keep myself from having a stroke and heart attack at random) and I get really super quiet and try to find a way to run. I’ve moved over a thousand miles more than four times when it got bad.
Picked up the skill to go from having nothing but the clothes on my back and my walking stick to having an apartment within a year, though. So, there’s that.
Wow, super speed!
Joking aside, that is really rough. I wish that our societies provided more help for folks continuing to be so badly affected by past traumas. I hope you manage to get some effective treatment, before you have to go through another upheaval.
Probably neither easy, nor affordable, nor with any guarantee of success. But you have my hopes, regardless. Please do take any opportunity which might present itself though, however that may come about. You strike me as a decent person, and you deserve a chance at a stable life. Which will take help to achieve.
Thanks, there, my favorite… Bulimian?
Right now I’m trying to move again. This time from Pennsylvania to Kansas (which makes me sad that I won’t be on the state border, crossing state lines to go get groceries. I’d like to look over at someone and ominously say ‘we aren’t in Kansas anymore’. Ah, well.)
The last time it was Florida to Pennsylvania. Before that was California to Florida, California to (and from) Washington, and California/Oregon. California/Colorado was fun!
I visited a… wait for it… WOLF PRESERVE and planted a forest (along with 15 other people) by hand.
I was making a dumb joke, what with PTSD requiring a past event to happen, so it’d be impossible for it to be retroactive
I just assumed you meant she was having a PTSD flashback of being knifed in the chest, which hadn’t happened yet, therefore was “retroactive.”
Again, as far as Sydney is concerned, it did happen, just because she got a ‘mulligan’ doesn’t mean it didn’t happen (remember what she did once she found her self back on the roof?)
*nods in a British manner*
That’s just CTSD. “Current Traumatic Stress Disorder”
Also known as ‘stress’.
Come on shirt why do you have to constrain them, they yearn to be free!
So close and yet so fur….
Stickks and stones might break her bones, but that shirt might as well be kevlar
That would be clawsome but she will not let the cats out of the bag at the mewment.
If only the husk had used a “rip” instead of the whip.
A beyblade?
Or maybe, North Wind from Exiern?
https://www.exiern.com/2010/07/29/exiern-2010-07-07-web/
The shirt can barely contain them, it shall only stay intact due to lack of an Age Gate. I would curse societies inability to expose boobs without sexualising them, except then we might not find them all that sexy.
Bruh. She stripped earlier.
It is for this reason, as well, that the Hulk’s shorts stretch. Whenever you feel disappointed or frustrated by physics defying clothing, remember it is also thanks to them that you don’t have to see the Hulk’s package.
But I WANT to see Hulk’s package.
Notice Hulk never as a visible bulge, let alone one of proportions you’d expect for his build.
That’s why he’s always angry, and why he keeps calling his alter-ego “puny Banner”…
That’s the only part that doesn’t turn huge and green…
You should read the “Ghost of the Past” arc in The Incredible Hulk (397-400). Something happens to Hulk which reinforces why he is, ahem, incredible.
it’s considered a pretty drastic medical condition if it turns green.
Although not getting bigger is the more common worry. Bruce Banner is strange.
They yearn to bust out.
It is interesting to see how we all key on different things. Those visuals did not catch my eye at all, on my initial read throughs.
Mind you if Sydney were to suffer a wardrobe malfunction, then things would be different.
Easily done if you have a limited edition Wolverine action figure.
*gives multiple standing ovations*
Holy were-jaguar underboob, Batman!
Ladies and gentlemen, the werecat has exited the battlefield.
A homerun exit
But the battle-bot is playing crack the whip, a different game altogether; That’s playing foul ball.
Crack the whip? With a Cat-O’-One-Tail?
Well, the battlebot didn’t even “grab a tiger by the tail,” let alone a cat-of-nine-talis…But it did manage to grab a leopard by the ankle. So the number of tails Pixel has is irrelevant.
:)
It does, however, have room to swing a cat….
True.
Too bad Dave didn’t put in a ‘meow’ type yell when she hit the wall, or it could be a Holy Grail reference.
That impact looks like it is going to be hard on her pinkness. From my understanding of physics, Pixel was travelling quite fast to have that low a trajectory. The energy transfer from kinetic to plastic deformations on impact are going to leave Pixel with multiple serious injuries.
At first I thought the Whoosh was Max coming in to save the day, but that would have been a gold/green sweep, not grey, then I realized it was the tentacle after whipping Pixel into the next building.
Let’s see. Pixel has glided into a building at high speed; Krona has stumbled over the edge of the building and Harem is teleporting to rescue her. That leaves the Manikiller V2 and Sydney. Now Sydney has to act. I still think she is going to grab PPO (red), spend her point and then start blasting at Mini-nuke level. The building they are standing on is going to be left a rubble pile.
Max sees the fireworks/mushroom cloud as she flies in (no way is she going to miss that), and then we see her pulling a scraped-up Sydney from the rubble, and starts yelling, “Clearly we have to go over the idea of covert surveillance again!”
Sydney: But we were attacked. [ Looks around, sees Krona and Harem looking on in shocked, stunned silence a few metres from the former building/battleground ] Oh no! Pixel got thrown into that building there. Medivac! [ Pointing at Max ] See the big hole? She is in there somewhere.
It’s hard to tell her exact trajectory, but she was definitely moving way too fast. I just hope her were-healing works well. The PPO collateral damage would depend on the quality of her aim, but considering the quality of her aim at the press event, lots of rubble and a major forest fire is not out of the question…
Problem is her PPO has a built-in time delay to activation, it would be a poor choice to go for because she really hasn’t the time to spare.
It doesn’t have a time-delay, it has a safety slash confirmation-check, Deus had the time-delay on his Thunder-clicker
Well Pixel is whipped.
But not in the kind of way she might enjoy.
*hangdog expression*
She actually prefers getting spanked…
Every gamer knows how hard it is to spend that upgrade point…
Especially if you don’t have a guide handy, or if you don’t know if you’ll ever be able to respec. The agony is real.
When in doubt, buff Health.
This is rarely a bad option in any game, and even more so when you’re playing “life”. If you’re rushed, defaulting to more health/defenses has two benefits.
1) It’s a safe choice as having an extra buffer against injury or death will very likely end up getting used.
2) If you are in that much of a rush, chances are you’ll be needing that extra health/defense in the immediate future (see #1).
I don’t see any labels on what health might be in her case, but maybe there’s a passive on the shield orb
Well, there is still an empty spot at the end of her forcefield line that could be filled. Given the number of points already spent there… makes me wonder how many previous owners also had to panic pick ;P
That raises a good query….Have the orb’s previous owners point allocations been carried over? Or does the orb come with a noob build automatically or something?
I would say default noob build unless you enter the correct pass code or reach a specific level of competence before you get a chance at a reset which allows customization from the ground up.
Yeah, I’m thinking she got the standard array, but no preferred option list….
I think we’re looking at the orbs wrong. Don’t consider them normal items.
Consider them items like in Ratchet & Clank. They level, and just use a host as the means of experience accumulation, though they also don’t get to choose their own leveling path.
I know I’d be distracted, especially at panel 4.
So… no Krona (falling off building), Harem (catching Krona), or Pixel (embedded in other building).
I’m placing my bet here: Sydney chooses a point and can’t remember what she chose, and it will be a big unknown until the next level up point. ^_^
Thereby Dave will be hiding the next power from us until “necessary”.
And Pixel isn’t embedded in just any other building. Oh no, she’s back in the “Mars” factory where she got captured and hung up by a blood mage with a troll’s body. Sydney not only has to survive this fight, she’s going to have to rescue Pixel.
Imagine if the time loop spell conspires to make the end result similar to the loop to not break the unverse?
Its more of a Wide-area reset, than a time loop.
Its more of a Wide-area reset, than a time loop.
You can say that again :P
Its more of a Wide-area reset, than a time loop.
Its more of a Wide-area reset, than a time loop.
Its more of a Wide-area reset, than a time loop.
I wanna play!
::blinks::
Rats!
I, for one, certainly am not!
*sticks nose up into the air defiantly*
Although these thumb-nails are pretty small. How good is donkey eye-sight?
Donkey sight is not as good as the horse, and like the horse they have a blind spot immediately in front of the nose and behind the head. They have good peripheral vision with head down when grazing, but poor ability to see high objects. They have good binocular vision. Donkeys like the horse view any threats with their binocular vision. It is thought they have the same color vision as the horse. They can clearly differentiate between the major colors.
The more you know.
https://media.giphy.com/media/tANpI4H9zlv1u/giphy.gif
I don’t know about Pánder, but I have a blind spot behind my head too.
Pandas have only very recently taken up vegetarianism, so they still have the forward-facing eyes normally characteristic of a predator. Rather than the side-positioned eyes, which grant better peripheral vision, for those looking out for predators or hunters.
Bamboo shoots are not known for their dodging and swift evasion, so this is not assisting pandas to avoid extinction!
Likewise for the fact that they have to spend practically every waking moment eating, to compensate for their digestive system being optimised for yummy meat, rather than veggies!
Damn Doctor Doolittle for spreading his vegan ideals, so foolishly!
Its more of a Wide-area reset, than a time loop.
What, have I done!?
Somethign that is more of a Wide-area reset, rather than a time loop
so, wondering if Pixel hit the wall butt first, thereby ‘getting her ass to Mars’
Heh. Well remembered. Dave missed that opportunity!
I commend the director, of Grrl Power the Movie, to have her hit the “Mars” sign, butt-first.
Not troll body. Dave said the troll blood was being used more like a medkit, she had to go get it after her fight with Pixel so she could regrow her missing arm ad eye.
And Pixels is in an excellent position to be collected by said blood mage and hung up to dry.. to bleed out.. to exsanguinate!
Details may change, but the result is… similar?
::shudders::
Depends on how soon Max shows up, and how many others are bent up…
“she’s back in the “Mars” factory”
It is supposed to be a warehouse. But with Pixel inside it is more of a ‘were-house’.
Were did that come from?
People have shifted this conversation to a pun-filled one.
I am lycan it though.
Was that the beast you could do?
Oh no use howling about it, in furry.
I moon in your general direction.
Mass quantities of underboob is *really* distracting….
+1
Not as distracting as camel toe would have been. Thankfully Dave spared us that —- WHAT THE F___ AM I SAYING! Dave, how could you have passed up on that opportunity?
Jaguar toe
Huh? Did someone say something?
What?
Oh yeah, I…agree.
There’s no need to fear, Underboob is here!
when criminals in this world appear
and break the laws that they should fear
and frighten all who see or hear
the cry goes up both far and near
for Underboob! Underboob! Underboob! Underboob!
speed of lightning, roar of thunder
fighting all who rob or plunder
Underboob. Underboob!
when in this world the headlines read
of those whose hearts are filled with greed
who rob and steal from those who need
to right this wrong with blinding speed
goes Underboob! Underboob! Underboob! Underboob!
speed of lightning, roar of thunder
fighting all who rob or plunder
Underboob. Underboob!
*Horndog inna cape flies past*
When did Math learn how to fly? o_O
It depends on how much he annoys Anvil or Max.
You deserve a special treat.
I was expecting this one… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4NCkl0pA38
You should show that to the Werehare.
Underboob, underboob,
Does whatever a mamary can
Fills a shirt, any size,
Catches Math just like flies
Look Out!
Here comes the underboob.
Is she strong?
Listen bud,
She’s got a busty feline bod.
Can she fit in a top?
Take a look overhead
Hey, there
There goes the underboob.
In the chill of night
At the scene of a fight
Like a streak of pink
She arrives in a blink.
Underboob, underboob.
Huge shirt escaping underboob.
Bra and support.
She’s ignored
Undeboob is our reward.
To them, shirt is a great big prison
Wherever there’s a fanservice reason.
You’ll find the underboob.
You get your choice of shark or robot music, as your treat. Or both, as you prefer.
Huh? Sorry, I was distracted. What did you say?
Reverse cleavage, even!
Rowr!
There’s not much free space inside the upper torso for that.
If I was Sydney, I’d drop it in the pew-pew orb. Maybe getting a better amount of control over it. At the rate she seems to be leveling at (unless my math is wrong, 2 levels in the space of a week?), she wouldn’t have to wait too terribly long to get to the next level.
That could just as well amp up the damage and/or AOE. Which is why they probably explicitly told her not to touch that one yet, as long as they don’t understand how it works.
Lighthook might be a better choice. She has good control over it, and having an optional cuting mode won’t damage too much (as long as she doesn’t notice the button while holding anybody up with it).
I’d go with the light hook myself just to see how well big ugly handles being pounded into the ground a dozen or so times…
Explains why she’s a corporal after the flashback… she learns quickly!
*singing* Pink streak…speeds by. Pixel the leopard.
Hopefully she doesn’t die. Pixel the leopard.
Pixel. She’s got righteous tits.
Pixel. She’s got claws for fists.
Pixel. Oh shit she’s coming to kill me! *runs away*
you win the interwebs
all of them
time to switch to CB Radio
;P
With those lyrics, no wonder she’s coming for you
shut up :P it’s a riff on Sonic SATAM’s theme :P
Dump the point in Undefined #1 and grab Shield and Pew Pew Pew.
Figure it out later.
This. Sidney already knows that she’s formidable with the Shield/PP power configuration.
The PPO seems overkill here, especially with how little control she seems to have with it. I would suggest seeing if the husk weighs more than sixteen tons.
Plus, we still don’t know if the ppo would fire through her shield or if the shield would completely countain the explosion.
Yea, that is the most serious risk, by far. In extremis Sydney could try it, as the orbs clearly do have a variety of safeties. So it seems very unlikely that it would allow the tentacle on the outside of the shield but not the PPO.
So one of those things she really should test under carefully controlled circumstances (involving blocks of steel and her bomb suit, inside the shield). But in a life-or-death situation you sometimes have to accept a possible health and safety risk as being less dangerous than certainly being killed or captured.
I assume that whoever made knows that the average infantryman can screw up anything, and designs around it…
Haven’t we seen Halo shoot while shielded at the test range with Maxima?
No, she shielded after cutting the tank like buttah
She was flying at the time, thus had to switch orbs to shield after firing.
Zack Tilly, she did not shoot while shielded
OK, I’ll admit I’m a dirt old man. All I’ve got in my mind right now is the underboob shot in the 4th panel.
I have to say it took me longer than I’d like to admit to realize there was another panel after that one.
Ditto
Above “Rubber-necking” you could put the sound effect ‘YOINK!’
Did this page come out an hour earlier than usual or have I been an hour late for a long while?
About the page, not much to comment on aside that Pixel is showing a lot of flexibility during her fight. Though since she is a feline that is not too surprising.
Probably daylight savings time messing with you.
No page relevant comments today.
That explains it. DST doesn’t kick in here until near the end of the month.
I thought it would come tomorrow. I read somewhere that he uploads at Tuesdays and Fridays.
Nope, Mondays and Thursdays here.
Yea. Ignore the mistaken ‘Tuesday’ I typed last week. I was not paying attention and mixed it up with other scheduling that I have. I was focusing too much on trying for a witty comment, and failing to check that I had actually put the correct date down. It is just not something that I would consider I could get wrong!
*opens up bag of marbles and starts counting them*
Hang on, I don’t own any marbles!
That I remember…
No, that’s Tuesdays and Fridays for me, and anyone else living in the future
No, that’s a day in the *past*. If you don’t get access to it until a day later, you’re a day *behind* everyone else. Quit living in the past.
The future is merely the past that hasn’t happened yet. The ‘now’ is merely a vicious rumor spread by philosophy majors…
No, when it becomes available here, it is already Tuesday for me (right now, it is 2:51 pm Tuesday)
How could Pixel have survived that? And what’s wrong with Sydney?
She’s distracted by the fight and the choice of skill point
She’s stunned. Regardless of her good marks from the battle in the car park, and her supposed “initiative bonus,” she’s *not* ready for battle.
If you’ve seen “Das Boot,” remember the machinist who totally freezes up?
I suspect Max is going to realize it was a mistake to send her out. Sydney has been getting preferential treatment in some ways. That is probably going to stop real soon. At least, that’s my guess.
I think she’s been getting special treatment because she’s a super. She does get more leniency than most others, but she’s ADHD.
Not only is she super, she’s one of the most powerful supers known, with room to grow even more powerful.
Yea, as a military commander Maxima needs to do whatever she can to keep that asset. It is just a matter of finding a way to manage her effectively. Clearly she cannot use normal military or business techniques, given Sydney’s unique capabilities and personality.
Keep her focussed on treating battle like a real-life situation, rather than a game, is going to be vital. KP duty, or the like, may help her feel more ‘military’ and improve her discipline. However working the ‘superhero’ angle seems to have the best results so far. There just seems to be a gap between the abstract and realising that it applies to her every action in a crisis.
Let us just hope that it does not take Pixel dying to make that stick…
I don’t think Sydney’s stunned, I think she’s realized or seen something in the skill tree and figured out something about how to use it, and picking an upgrade especially suited to taking out the husk.
that’s my prediction.
Let us not forget Sydney’s current mental state from her lack of sleep, her Adderall wearing off, leading her the need to redose. She also went through several Twilight Council nerdgasms here, here, and here. The recent melee probably didn’t help either, so she might be a little slower to react than normal. Max is probably also aware that she may not be at 100%.
OK. Imma gonna try this again.
Let us not forget Sydney’s current mental state from her lack of sleep, her Adderall wearing off, leading her the need to redose. She also went through several Twilight Council nerdgasms here, here, and
here. The recent melee probably didn’t help either, so she might be a little slower to react than normal. Max is probably also aware of her lack of training and that she may not be at 100%.
I agree that she is intensely focused on finding a solution. And she is the only one left standing who can, so let us hope that she finds a way of either defeating it, one way or another.
True. I’m guessing that (I don’t know how Ariana and Faulk messed up just as much as Max…) Maxima will, just as she did with the knifed-out minigun, ‘forget’ about basic things. Like: stuff has weight, normal people don’t have infinite stamina and able to function properly with no sleep and little food for days in a row, and that Max may have a really good grasp of most things, but others have to be eased into it, at their own pace, until they catch up.
She’s not stunned, she’s following orders. She was told to make her upgrade choice, so she’s making it. She’s pretty much useless until she does, so she’s devoting all her concentration to making her choice. Exactly the way I’d expect an ADHD person to go about this.
*nods*/
And the rest of the world probably gets pushed out of her tunnel vision. Clear and present danger (as far as everyone else is concerned) notwithstanding.
In point of fact, Sydney has previously been ordered to upgrade the flight orb next, in order to give the ARCSWAT team a second rapid response super.
I don’t want to go digging through the past hundred or so panels to find the number, but it’s when she and Max and the old Chinese scientist/mage/adventurer are sitting around a table having lunch. Dabbler’s in the background, perfecting her diagram of the skill tree, etc.
that being said, would the flgiht orb REALLY be the best choice in this situation? you don’t blindly follow orders in the Military.
Flight orb doesn’t seem like a bad choice really.
1. Grab flight orb, spend point, gain distance. Like, a lot of distance.
2. PPO it from orbit. Just to be sure.
PPO from orbit?!?
The day the Earth Split, and became Earth 1 and Earth 2…
I believe that should be Earth 1 and Earth 3.
The last time the PPO was used, that way, it created Earth 2. Which we call the Moon.
Correction: The brass were discussing spending options while Sydney was asl— deep in thought. She may have trouble recalling what was said at the time.
Also, here: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2142
Yes, but later Maxi told Sydney while she was awake which slot they wanted her to pick, and Zephan suggested that the ring in the middle be the one after that
She’s being indecisive about her upgrade options.
Also, she realized that she could just about see up Pixel’s shirt.
That is a very strong diversion.
Sydney is being a moron again,This is why she needs a ton of training and a meth prescription(Not necessarily in that order).It doesnt matter how good someones powers are if the rest of the team has to risk death to stop the person being made into a red smear.
Hopefully this will be a much needed punch to her ego so she will stop acting like shes a badass and start learning to be one instead.
It’s just happening really fast.
Fair comments. But check out Deanatay‘s comment, and my reply, above.
When trying to figure out someone’s mindset, and how to get them to do or not do something, it is vital to consider that they do not think the same way as a ‘typical’ person. Note that this is not trying to ‘offer an excuse’. It is just to say that if you want to realise why she is behaving like this you really need to see the world from her point of view.
RIght now the entirety of that is her upgrade screen. She will be fiercely concentrating on that (and the innumerable ramifications of the choice), to the exclusion of all else. Sydney’s brain does not respond in a typical way in such a situation. This is what she has to do to stop distractions from wasting her time.
Sadly Pixel being attacked is one of those distractions. Far from Pixel’s underboob catching her eye, as various folks are suggesting, Sydney is probably unaware of her at all… beyond that last command…
“Spend your damned point”
The thing is that Halo doesnt even need to use her brain on this one,Shes already been told where to put the point and even if shes somehow failed to remember that this is still the absolute hieght of stupidity.
Heck I know people with ADHD and trust me if I came rocking into the room with an uzi spraying bullets everywhere and baying for their blood even when theyre off their meds(Yes some of my friends are daft enough to forget their medication and its usually my job to point it out to them) they wouldnt have their survival instincts shut off by the level up screen on skyrim,Theyd be too busy focusing on not dying.
Maybe me being close friends with people with really bad ADHD makes me hypersensitive when i see Halo breaking all the planets stupidity records with it as an excuse i dunno…
Out of curiosity have you asked your friends if they have ever experienced tunnel vision, when focusing on something, and found that they were oblivious to other things going on around them? And did you ask if it gets worse when sleep deprive?
Because I am basing my argument on comments from people with ADHD who have said just that.
Your argument is like saying that a blind person is stupid because they cannot see the situation right in front of them. Well Sydney cannot, and she is not. In my opinion.
Halo needs to come up with a plan for how to defeat this construct. Based on our initial view of it , it is probably too big for the tentacle to be able to affect it. Further Maxima has banned Sydney from using the PPO, and this fight is far too fluid to risk using it.*
Putting a point in the flyball will be unlikely to help in this fight. Further Sydney was told this was in order to learn more about the orbs. Given that Krona appears to be able to see their inner workings, in detail, this may be totally redundant. So there is no point in spending it until Sydney has come up with a plan. Thus keeping open the option of using the skill to supplement her plan.
In order to come up with a plan, fast,** Sydney needs to focus on doing that. Which, in her current state of extreme sleep deprivation, and combined with her severe ADHD means that she is suffering acute tunnel vision, to the extent that she is oblivious to everything around her.
* Especially true with the delay inherent in trying to activate the PPO. So far Sydney’s best use of the PPO was extremely problematic (Maxima was afraid she had killed or injured herself) and the worst was catastrophic (burning down a forest). There is a huge risk of ‘friendly fire’ with Pixel bouncing around, Harem teleporting, plus both the Osprey and Maxima incoming (from an unknown angle).
Any plan involving the PPO is badly hampered by her lack of practice with it. Faced with the prospect of burning her friends alive Sydney will want a plan with a good chance of avoiding that.
** In the Battle at the Steak House Car Park™ the heroes were able to keep the flow of the battle mostly under their control. So Halo had the leisure to ‘put her thinking cap on’ thus allowing her mind to go wherever it wanted to, to come up with a solution. Which took time. A luxury she does not possess on this occasion.
Actually Ive experienced them being hyperfocused several times,Heck in one case one of my friends was so bad that he reloaded the same Xcom game more than a dozen times even though he hadnt even aggrod the aliens and guess what?If someone burst in the room loudly trying to murder him with an Uzi and with me screaming for him to run hedve noticed and likely thrown the pcs Monitor at the attacker before running screaming!
Theres a huge difference between being so deeply focused on something in a calm environment that you dont notice people around you and being so allegedly deeply focused on something that youve still not noticed when something is literally noisily trying to kill you and youd just been saved from being made into paste by that thing twice( Oh and have had noticed the super murderzord long enough to run away before becoming oblivious again).
Also please dont compare ADHD to blindness,Thats just so offensive on so many levels I dont know how to respond without being offensive right back.Syd doesnt NEED to come up with anything,She could literally close her eyes boop a random point and then she suddenly has an entire array of hard counters for mister murderbot that shes already had all along-she could lob a shield on herself and keep aggro(Lets be honest,that thing is more likely to break itself on her shields and the other golems werent smart enough to stop flailing at her shields so chances are this one isnt either) and while its spazzflailing at hershields she can armchair strategise at her leisure,Heck once she has its attention again she could sit down and start playing games on her phone until Maxima arrives to one shot the dang thing if she felt that way inclined.
Syd picking a perfect point for this fight is literally pointless cause she has no clue what any of the points do just what orbs theyre on so making a strategy involving an unknown power is pointless- possibly even outright stupid.I mean honestly would she have ever worked out that bopping teleprescence and truesight would grant her literal teleportation?
You make extremely good points.
Do note though that your reply does rely on your subjective opinion, of what would happen to them, in such a circumstance. Without actually offering anything to substantiate that. And, as you made no mention of such, also failing to factor in in the extreme sleep deprivation making ADHD hyperfocus even worse than normal.
Possibly I am calling it wrong on the hyper-focus though, and your counter does have merit, despite the lack of evidence. I would though be happy to be corrected, by anyone with expertise on the matter, if I am in error.
Your ‘raising shields and hunkering down’ solution is certainly viable, as a means to protect herself. But it would still leave her allies being beaten-up. So I do not believe it is as clear cut as you portray.
Thanks =)
Im not interested enough in winning that debate to hang around my friends room with a gun so its best to drop that bit for now until someone else can bring evidence to bear(Also being thrown in jail would put a damper on my life in general lol).
Thats the beauty of Syd tanking.If the murderzord is smart enough to wander off and fight others she has a whole set of orbs to grab aggro with,In fact even without any thinking required she can just trip it or thwack away at it with her lighthook and if that fails to hold its attention theres nothing stopping her from moving to teammates positions and shielding them too.The pewpew orb is theoratically doable but thered have to be a serious godzilla threshold type of despirate event before id think it worth syd using her most easy to accidentally kill people miles away attack.
In fact come to think of it Pixels out of the fight now with a possible broken neck(Thank gods for weres traditionally being resilient and able to heal anything that wouldnt overkill them) the only thing for murderzord to attack right now IS Halo!Anything else would involve it hulkjumping about and last time i checked the flightorb is WAY faster than a larger than average golem.
Halo is indeed likely to be the next target. However Krona is only a step away..
*points paw downwards*
the thing managed to get up to the rooftop height with no problem, so going down will pose even less difficulty. Krona and Harem remain at risk at the moment.
However your various points do provide options for Halo. The construct might be dumb and just keep attacking her, as proposed earlier. And the harassing it is good (albeit possibly putting Sydney at risk of being whipped round, by her own tentacle, just as Pixel was above).
Which Sydney can do as soon as she has overcome her disability* and extreme sleep deprivation.
* Which is what her ADHD is acting as, at the moment. If I am correct, on that score. If I am not, then I shall clam ‘extreme game addiction’ as her disability. :-P
In counterpoint I’m going to share a story from my uni days.
the short version is that a had a exam coming up in very soon.
About half way through day 2 of my study binge ~30 hours studying the fire alarm went off (I was living at a residential collage)
I only found out about this the day after.
I had one of the sirens right outside my door but I was so focused on the math I didn’t even hear it and those things are LOUD!
Much like Sydney I was: Tired, Hungry, Stressed out and mentally exhausted. Although i did have plenty of medication in me at the time (also for ADHD)
Hyperfocus, like a great many other things related to ADHD is not the same for everyone. Some people get it worse than other
Thanks. I went out on a limb there, talking with authority, but without the personal experience. Nice to get the confirmation that I was not too far off the mark.
Although sobering to realise just how dangerous things can be, for those with ADHD , under the wrong circumstances, when concentrating on something other than survival.
On the plus side I would be happy to have someone with ADHD beside me, in a traditional survival situation, such as being stranded in the wilderness. Their constantly shifting attention will make them much more aware of potential dangers, than I tend to be. In turn I would be sure to watch their back, when they were concentrating on starting a fire.
What is useful in some circumstances can be deadly in others. Be that hyper-focus or fire.
It’s all right, Pixel was thrown feet first. So being a cat and landing feet first she wont get hurt.
Tt’s a new situation for Sydney. Last time it was a messy fight where she could always hide behind among a dozen highly trained powerful heroes inside her shield. Now she is the last one standing, with the enemy’s focus only on her. And Sydney knows she already died shortly before. Perhaps she still has sor legs and arms from all those push-ups and legs. Her panic is understandable.
Cats only land on their feet if they’re falling, Stefan. she was hurled horizontally INTO something. she’s going to be hurt. Thankfully, her being a Were will mean she’ll probably make it, but it’ll hurt like hell.
As confirmed by the onomatopoeia “BAM” and, as pointed out by our resident physics teacher, the very flat trajectory Pixel was launched on.
Whilst we hope that Grrlverse werewolves have some kind of invulnerability to damage or regeneration, we do not have any clues to that yet. In fact we did see that Kat (the were bunny) was vulnerable to poison, enough that she was incapacitated by it.*
It only hurts if you are alive. Let us hope she is hurting!
* Albeit that it may have been a special anti-were poison, such as wolvesbane.
Technically, she’s falling horizontally >_>
it’s almost like you shouldn’t send kids with no training into a warzone
Yes.
Although Sydney looks younger than she is. She is actually several years older than the average age of soldiers sent to Vietnam, for example.
No contest on the untrained mind.
However she is actually an experienced combatant, despite that. Having defeated Shadow Boxer attempting to sneak attack her, then figuring out how to beat For-Whom-the-Bell-Tolls and finally confronting Vehemence one on one, and ultimately leading the whole of arc-SWAT, in finishing him off, when Maxima proved unable to do that herself.
Raw recruit yes, but she was able to defeat the villain who would otherwise have killed the most powerful known super on Earth!
yeah informed attributes are pretty useful i guess
Is it not standard operational procedure that when one opponent takes on a team, they can only attack one person at a time? Sydney is waiting for her turn.
“NO! Wait! Don’t get involved! I’m sure {fill in the name of the next PC to get smotched} has a plan!”
It is nice form to see the heroes obeying this battlefield etiquette, instead of just the villains!
*claps the good guys*
That’s only on shows where the dialog consists entirely of people yelling each other’s names.
Sydney “Rubberneck” Scoville,she better snap out of whatever trance she’s in…!
I hate to see how the debriefing turns out!!!
Actually, I’d love to see the debriefing. Especially after seeing some of the visual angles used so far on this page…
Sorry, but Maxima & Hiro already *DID* that joke – after the battle with Vehemence at the restaurant.
“Show don’t tell”
Remember that Pixel favours spanking, and Sydney has been a very naughty girl!
*swishes tail, like a whip*
I have a cat that whips tail like that when he sees another cat on the porch outside the window next to my bed. I often wake up to the sound of some idiot knocking on my window.
I really hope we get to see the point spent next comic. I realize this is only the third since the level grid popped up, but too much more would feel (to me anyway) more like padding than suspense.
You realise it’s probably been at the most a couple minutes comic-time, don’t you?
Seconds.
Slightly more than that, but less than five minutes from the time X-Ray were allowed to report and Sydney’s balls started to glow
I know it’s been hardly any “real” time. I’m just impatient, I guess. More interested in the results of the level up than any of the fight.
ROLF. True gamer.
There are others who are concerned that Pixel might have been killed or critically injured.
But, as I mentioned above, it is one of the joys of participating in this community, to find out how different people view and react to the same stimulus.
Exactly!
As for me, I don’t care about the fight, and not even that much about the point being spent (and thanks for your compliment on my point use suggestion there, Yorp).
What I care about most is Sydney just surviving and going home so she can sleep as much as she wants for the next 2 days, with no one bothering her. Preferably with THE GRID STILL UP.
With Krona and Xuriel there. Halo has thought of having Dabbler cast a sleep spell on her, which is a very good idea, as well as possibly giving her another point. Would the spell count as a heal-type buff that bypasses Saving Throws, or would it count as a negative spell that induces status abnormalities? Sounds like a point to me either way.
Anyway, Krona is needed to see the code. So that’s why those two would be there, working while she slept.
Just realized what I said and what if one of the orbs is effectively ‘Malboro bad breath’ but she has to acquire the status abnormalities first?
The former may have already happened, with her food breath attack, at the bank. Given that folks reacted to that as if it were tear-gas, I dread to think what an upgraded version would be like!
*swoon*
A good point. I’m not especially concerned about Pixel, not because I don’t like her (I do), but because I kind of default to an 80’s Saturday morning cartoon mentality towards fiction, where everyone making it home okay is a given. I’ve rarely thought “will character x survive,” but rather “how will character x survive?”
That plus years of Power Rangers have taught me to expect a sudden power up to be put to quick use zapping the bad guy.
Damnit DaveB, you are just handing out the Anti-Sydney fuel now!
Am now expecting something seriously righteous to counter that
Have to say, Pixeldoofus should know better, she is the one being distracted and not focusing on the fight, the fight she just lost, which now leaves Sydney vulnerable
So, if anything happens to Sydney, you will be getting the water spray Pixel! Bad Kitty!!
Actually, when you consider Krona’s time-reset app, this is the *-2nd-* time that Pixel has lost this fight…
…except that we weren’t there for the 1st time, so we’re not sure if Pixel’s 1st loss was against Sciona alone, or against Sciona-plus-UberHusk. Sciona’s healing scars only indicated that she was involved.
‘Fess-up, now, you’re not REALLY mad at Pixel – you’re just lookin’ for a chance to spritz th’kitteh, n’gitter T-shirt all wet!
(…yew naughty boy…)
Well, I mean, I’m gonna guess that Krona massively outclasses Pixel. Like, Max knows her name. Pixel could fight Max a thousand times, wouldn’t win once. This may be the same deal. Like, she may be out of her league here.
Yea, Sydney has been put on this team because she is a heavy hitter. Pixel was trying to push her into getting her game together, whilst trying to avoid behaving in a way that would panic Sydney. A serious problem when you have an untrained rookie.
We must not forget that Pixel is a spy/intelligence annalist, whereas Sydney is the trainee SWAT member. Whilst Pixel does have laser claws she probably does not have the all-round combat capability that would justify her being on the SWAT team.
Ingsol made the point that Halo was needed, to counter these enemies. Clearly he knows that most of their respective assets are not up to the job. Yes Sydney is there for Pixel to keep an eye on, but she is also there because of a critical need. Otherwise Halo would have been quietly shipped back to HQ, to carry on her training, as any normal rookie would have been.
It really is Max’s fault, putting Sydney into the field without proper training, no matter what anybody else wants. In her defense, she’s spent her military life in special ops, where everybody is trained to a razors edge…
The buck always stops at the boss. And there is nobody higher than Maxima.*
But Maxima did not necessarily make a bad decision. Krona is actually a trained Semper Vigilantis (sp?), and thereby also a trained federal agent of one flavour or another. So she really should have been able to compensate for having shiny lights distracting her. Even regular humans can drive a car at night, despite having oncoming car headlights to contend with.
Not that I am trying to shift the blame to Krona. I am just pointing out that she is what team X-ray would have had to counter the construct, if Halo had not been assigned to the team. Sydney was just assigned as a back-up if Pixel’s stealth and Krona’s reality alteration proved to not be up to the job.
Yes having a rookie on the team is a very bad idea, all other things being equal. But things are not equal. Those manekillers have been specifically designed to kill supernaturals (of which Krona is one) and Sydney is one of the few heavy-hitters who can effectively counter them.
Basically the cock-ups that a rookie can inflict on a mission are being balanced by the host of super-powers that she also brings to the table.
Now she just has to prove Maxima’s faith that the latter advantages outweigh the former disadvantages.
* This is a play on words, cause she can fly. The chain of command does go above Maxima, but she is honorable enough that she would not try to pass the buck. Not when it was indeed her call.
Well, Maxi did send her to the location they believed to be the least active, plus, they were going off of faulty intel (three guesses who will be getting a visit from Maxi as soon as this is sorted, and the first two don’t count)
Actually, do we /know/ they were from recovering, or we just assume that? Maybe she ripped/hacked off her own arms as casting reagents.
In Pixels defence all thats keeping Syd from a messy death is her being a distraction,The fact that Syd seems to be actively trying to die at the moment is bound to distract her cause she has to focus on idi-er Halos location while also dodging the Midboss.
Problem is, Pixeldoofus is distracting Sydney
What Pixel should be doing is paying attention to the damn fight, not whether Sydney is or isn’t doing what she has been told
“Pixeldoofus is distracting Sydney”
How is that her fault?
And she was paying attention to her fight.
Actually, no, Pixel was focusing more on Sydney than MegaMecha, if she was paying better attention, she would not have gotten her perk pink arse to Mars!
When someone is focusing on something, anything, important, specially if they are the distractible type, the last thing they need is someone SCREAMING AT THEM!!
Id agree but the important thing is not what shes focusing on which is getting to safety.Id say if Pixel had the time to throw a rock at Syds face itd still not count as a distraction right now.
Okay, should have said that Pixel is distracting herself by Sydney’s apparent inaction, but, as others have pointed out, Pixel isn’t used to Sydney… yet
Im not sure getting the catatonic teammate to get to safety or at least far enough away the constructs flailing limb doesnt accidentally one shot her on a backswing counts as actively distracting.
The only way Pixel could be actively distracting syd is if shes accidentally helped Sydney discover shes bi and has a deep seated love for catboobs.And lets be honest thats just a fun side effect of Pixel risking her life to give Syd the chance to run away and spend her goddang point x,x.If Pixel was jumping up and down in front of Syd while topless then Id accept the accusation that Pixels doing anything wrong……..though I wouldnt entirely complain about that kind of distraction ^^;
Heh.
She’s distracted because Sydney is just standing there waiting to get hit.
Sydney is studying her Grid
Not the time or the place to be doing so.
It’s not her fault MegaMecha crashed the party
Then just spend It on any node. She can check the next time they level.
I’m wondering if a shield/passive defense goes up automatically in choose point mode. Intangible?
Are you a Muppet that punches, or do you punch Muppets? I understand that there is a difference.
She needs a combo attack. Hopefully, at some point, Syd can project her force bubble to enclose someone/thing in it without her being trapped with them. THEN project the…..attention…off the PPorb into it for enclosed incineration. That’d be handy about now.
Really hope Pixel is durable enough take that alright. Would hate to see her get Capri Suned again.
I am torn about Sydney’s lack of reaction. On the one hand, most normal people take time and training before they react well to sudden combat and Sydney is facing a nasty gamer’s dilemma at the same time. On the other hand, she is standing around while a literally killer opponent is trashing her team, so the backseat driver in me really agrees with Pixel. Sigh.
A lot of people freeze up when running into the unexpected. The trick is how soon she snaps out of it. A ful;l panic freeze will get her killed unless Max shows up in the nick of time…
Something’s bugging me about Pixel. I’m not going to beat around the bush here; why does tall fuzzy form have huge boobs? Base Pixel is like 5′ and a bit, with a fairly petite chest size and form 3 is literally her as a pink jaguar. Katrina (Lady Lagomorph) doesn’t up-a-cup when she transforms and neither does Clover (Miss Mustelidae) for that matter.
I feel like if anything she’d just gain 4-6 more nipples and worry about breaking her choker/collar thingy.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2384
I actually asked that question when she first morphed and while the explanation delivered still has its holes…well, here it is:
Pixel is a werebeast. So as a human, she’s just that: A werebeast in human form.
However, in (presumably any) beast form, she is ALSO a Super, harking back at that bit from very early on in the comic that all Supers are blessed with this bodybuilders-version of an ideal humanoid body.
The other two shapeshifters you mention are “only” shapeshifters, so whatever turns a Super into a Super, they’re missing it.
Like I said, still leaves plenty of questions open but since we effectively know next to nothing about the source of Supers or how they function, we just got to put a pin in that.
Well done on bringing up a key point. Everyone else in this thread seems to be missing the fact that werebeasts (in the Grrlverse) have three forms. Namely: 1) human 2) beast 3) hybrid (a combination of both).
The hybrid form has some beast features and some human ones. Importantly we know that the hybrid form is not immutable, because Katrina (the werebunny) has got human hair, as opposed to other weres, who just have fur in that form. Those who read the author’s comments will know that they are able to control which their hybrid form manifests.*
Clearly with a human consciousness being involved in setting the appearance, the hybrid form will favour those sexual characteristics which humans key on. Should we meet a more beastial type of were** then we might see them favouring the animal side instead.
The above is especially true if Pixel, like Sydney, is sensitive that she is not more generously endowed. Given that her hybrid form is physically much more imposing than her human one, we could see that she would favour breasts over animal nipples. Then the fact that other folks have picked up on come into play, in that Grrlverse supers gain a boost to their sexual appearance.
We should consider that neither Katrina nor Clover showed such a marked difference between their human and hyybrid forms, in this respect (beyond what may be necessary for having different body sizes). So clearly the super boost is indeed responsible for this, if not for why she has breasts.
Importantly though, in answer to the original question, we have seen Pixel’s animal form. And in that (in panel 6) she clearly has jaguar secondary sexual characteristics, as boobs would have stood out in that pose, even behind her leg.
* I recall it being as a conscious decision, but would have to check, as maybe it was implied as a subconscious one. Importantly though it is not totally a random matter, such as we would expect from DNA setting appearance (from the options available).
** There are various types of vampires, each with their own special powers, in the Grrlverse. Thus we might expect some similar variance in werewolves. Not that one necessarily leads to the other, but I am just pointing out the possibilities.
“Clearly with a human consciousness being involved in setting the appearance”
When was that stated?
In the paragraph immediately preceding that quote. Based on the author’s original comments, which you can find in his blog here.
For your convenience though, this is the pertinent part:
As you can see it does cover a lot more than just hair. I had forgotten the level of detail Dave went into there. So it is even more clear that lycans can control such things, if they put the effort into it. What the default look is, of a newly created were, would be up to speculation. Perhaps it is drawn from their subconscious desires, or preconceptions. Or maybe, lacking conscious direction, the genes decide that.
It just states they can control what human and beast features are present and to what degree. Not that they can use it like a character creater.
Well that is what we are talking about in this thread. Whether or not it is appropriate for the were-jaguar to have human breasts or animal nipples. That is very much a choice between human or beast.
Which, incidentally, does actually also give you quite some degree of choice as to the style. Michael J Fox werewolf: really goofy. Too many human features. Underworld werewolves: really scary. Very few human features.
The former film is a comedy, the latter an action movie. The visual effects designers chose their styles accordingly. Not as flexible as a fully featured character creator, granted. You cannot choose gender, or race, for instance. But if advanced fleshwalkers can choose what proportion of each feature to express* then they can create very different aesthetic results to unskilled lycanthropes.
* For instance not just ‘human jaw’ versus ‘animal jaw’ but say ‘30% human 70% beast’.
Like the difference between Victor Creed in “Wolverine: Origins” and Sabertooth in “X-Men”
What has me curious is the fact that, while not sexualised in the same way as her hybrid form, it is quite clearly established that her beast form is the source of Pixel’s powers.
We can, from there, extrapolate that the way in which supers are enhanced varies by species, which begs the slightly concerning question of whether full jaguar Pixel is extra attractive to other jaguars or to humans who are into them.
If the former, how much research has gone into establishing the nature of big cat beauty standards?
Makes me wonder what Sydney is. She is obviously not super, so I guess she’s just a normie wielding gamey artifacts in a team of supers because she’s just so powerful.
Yes, Sydney is simply a ‘normal’ with artefacts: she herself is not Super, like how Pixel is a Super only in her were-forms
Correct. In this universe there is a distinct category of ‘supers’ who gain powers which physically alter them, even if it is only to make them fitter, and giving them a classical super type of appearance, in addition to granting them extraordinary powers.
However some game systems and writers have supers of many different types. Including aliens (Super Man), magic users (Dr Strange) and those altered by mad science (Doc Oc). In this setting the former would be covered by the veil. Wheres the latter would not fall in the category of being a classical super. However all clearly do have super-powers. Which is where Sydney falls.
Both Sydney and Pixel do not consider themselves as supers, for this reason, as we learnt in their recent conversation together.
Of course as Sydney does have super powers, even if she is not genetically a super, it is now time for her to step up to the plate and show that she can be super heroic!
Again.
It just states they can control what human and beast features are present and to what degree. Not that they can use it like a character creater.
Hmm, does that mean Soups would never have been found as a baby then? Or would they think he was a lost puppy, that fell from the sky?
More likely, The Veil would only cover those who look alien (unless Soups actually has three legs, and scales)
Soups is not an individual, with super powers, but a member of a race who all have the same capabilities. Clearly in the Grrlverse there is contact amongst the spacefaring races (extensive in the case of the succubi). As such the Veil could be programmed for all races that are known to or it is suspected are likely to visit Earth.
Given that at least one of the movies portrayed Kryptonians as having explored through the galaxy that would have (running with the crossover scenario) have allowed the Veil team to, sometime over the last 3,000 years to add Kryptonians to the list. No need to mention super man specifically.
By contrast a super baby, with identical powers may not be covered by the Veil. Assuming that it had been set up to look for key differences between humans and Kryptonians. Let us say they have a different number of base-pairs, in their DNA (or have something not even remotely like our DNA) that would be a very easy magical programming task.
Rather than having to add each power separately, then put in exclusions to stop birds or planes from also becoming invisible!
That, while well typed, doesn’t answer the question :P
Guess shouldn’t have used Soups so specifically
Ahh, I guess I did skip over that. Well superman passes for human, when he is not up in the sky. So I do not think that his childhood years would have been much different. He would still be a kid growing up on a farm.
The difference would be that he could perform superhuman acts with less fear of drawing attention to himself. Provided he did not over-tax the Veil’s ability to find something similar to explain things, in a mundane fashion, in the minds of the observers.
“Is that a bird is that a plane….?”
“Yes, quite high altitude, but very fast, it must be a plane.”
Versus:
“Was that a kangeroo leaping over that building, in a single bound?”
“Are you kidding me? It was carrying two women and a baby!”
Okay, so The Veil would only cover his actions, thank you
Yeah shes just a normal with an infinity gauntlet XD
It’s because she is a superhuman in this form. By the rule of this universe superhumans have ‘idealized’ or ‘stereotyped’ bodies. That gives Pixel giant strike points during a fight and does nothing to improve her balance.
That tailor guy must make a killing out of super-resilient sport-bras.
No, that’s contracted out to Lydia in Wapsi Square.
We were told that in her ‘were’ form she’s also a superhuman (hence the laser claws, which presumably aren’t a normal part of the ‘were’ power-set…), and in this setting female superheroes generally get large boobs…
What does it matter…?
It affects how many babies/kittens Pixel can suckle in hybrid form.
Wait, do weres sprout six more nipples when they change?
Yes. Pixel does (and probably all of the other female weres we have seen too*). When in their animal forms.
So far we have only seen the others in human and hybrid forms. Pixel is the only one we have seen in her animal form as well. As per my link above she clearly did not have human breasts in that form. With the obvious implication being that she had the usual jaguar arrangement instead.
* Humans are unusually limited, amongst mammals, in this respect. The exact number of nipples that they have will vary from species to species. I am guessing six to eight though, on average, for those we have seen.
I’m working above the average then. I have three.
You are Rowan Atkinson? o_O
Nope. I’m a completely different mutated freak.
Very much so, according to my favorite werewolf movie series that takes place in the town of Flow.
Surprised how few are worried that Pixel might have suffered some quite severe damage right now. ’cause if Pixel has any superhuman resilience/hardiness we have yet to see it.
Because THAT…being tossed over such a distant within a second or two straight into a solid brick wall…is pretty much a death sentence or (if lucky) a paraplegic future for anything without some form of superhuman protection.
On another note I have to be the odd one out again but in a positive way: I actually like Sydney’s indecisiveness and quite frankly even hope for her to be utterly useless in this conflict.
Nice job avoiding protagonist’s armor and acknowledging the difference between the “Bar-fight” (where no one but one dumbass made a concerted effort to kill her and even the “Boss” was basically just playing around) and an actual no-nonsense killer.
She’s a wereperson. Unless the building’s made out of silver, she can probably walk it off.
Werebeast. Wereperson would mean Manperson, just doesn’t make any sense.
And unless I missed something we actually have no idea whether silver affects even just werewolves, let alone any other werecreatures in this setting.
Also I don’t remember many werebeasts that walk off high-velocity impacts into solid masonry.
Then again, there aren’t too many depictions of werebeasts begin slammed into solid ground in the first place.
Since the killer mannequins were packing silver buckshot in their grenades, and Kat reacted with terror at the sight of it, it’s a fair bet that it’s just as effective an anti-were weapon as it’s reputed to be.
Also you just haven’t watched the right movies. The 2004 Van Helsing movie, for example, has some super-impressive werewolf action, in which the things walk off basically everything: from bullets, to falling off cliffs, to being thrown through castle walls. They’re basically indestructible unless you get them with silver.
Now, we can’t guarantee that that actually applies to this universe, but it seems fair to assume that a hit like this isn’t going to kill Pixel, although she may be feeling it for a while.
Right, forgot the buckshots.
On a more comedic note, I must highly object to the notion that not seeing 2004s Van Helsing constitutes as “not having watched the right movies”. I think anyone lucky enough to not have seen that…thing is on a very good path.
Only if the good path is ignoring the worst movies.
If that’s the case, I want to stay right where I am, with Mike, Joel, and the rest of the crew.
Personally I enjoyed it. I would recommend folks who have skipped it to give it a go. It does borrow heavily on a bunch of classical monster stories, but tells its own in an entertaining way. If you think you would enjoy ‘Hollywood action hero, Van Helsing, versus Vampires and more’, and do not mind it taking liberties with other sources, then give it a go.
Some of its action scenes are suitably spectacular, the monsters are well created for their various roles and the story flows in an entertaining way.
Plus it does tie its various elements together, with its own lore, which actually adds makes the whole more interesting. And it has some decent comedic bits too. Along with some poignant and other emotional parts.
Oh yeah, no. I loved it. Hugh Jackman, Kate Beckinsale, Richard Roxburgh, and David Wenham were a fantastic cast together, and personally, I loved the story behind it all.
Plus, as you said, the ways it tied all the different stories together was fantastic.
That being said, Van Helsing being the angel Gabriel in human form was a bit much, but not altogether unpleasant. And it of course explained both his mission and his propensity towards killing monsters.
“Borrows heavily”? “Tells [it] in an ‘entertaining way’ “? ” ‘Suitably’ spectacular?” Fucking “flows in an entertaining way”? Who are you, Vaguey McSpindoctor? Do you call a leg amputation a “lifechanging experience with longlasting impact on future bipedal activities”?
It’s lazily cobbled together, inconsistent shlock with horrible CGI.
If you enjoy that, fine, take a cheer and down a glass of whisky. Some people think Dead Space is scary, some people consider 50 Shades of Grey erotic and some people call Scarlett Johanssen an actress. Different delusions for different kinds of crazy. All good.
But please, don’t try to sell me what is just another “Ode to Paycheck” from the guy who peaked with “The Mummy” as anything else than that.
That is simply your opinion, don’t you tell me it is ‘s(c)hlock with horrible CGI’ just because you don’t like it, so far, out of three people to comment on that movie, two have stated they enjoyed it leaving you sir (and slash or madam) in the minority, but let’s add one more to the list of those who enjoyed it shall we?
And once more you saunter along with vapid, fatuitous statements. Yes, what I said is indeed my opinion, congratulations on piecing together the obvious. Who’s opinion do you suppose I’d utter, yours?
Even in regards to your usual excercise of intellectual limbo dancing, this one takes the cake, since I outright stated “If you enjoy that, fine”. I can only assume that reading comprehension goes out the window when your posts are motivated by indignation.
Leaving aside of course that your enjoyment or that of any majority, however paltry or overwhelming it might be, does exactly nothing to counter any of the claims of inconsistent writing, bad CGI, lazy research and amateur-level writing present in the movie.
If, of course, you emphasised the ‘me’ to indicate that you don’t want me to talkt to you in particular….I don’t know what would give you the idea I’d even attempt to do so.
Guesticus was simply attempting diplomacy to avoiding responding in kind. He is more inclined to straight-talking though. I daresay that he would have liked to say ‘the opinions of people who are unnecessarily rude, aggressive or hostile are not worthy of consideration’.
However we try to moderate our own comments to keep the tone worthy of being in this comic’s community.
Clearly we have differing opinions on aspects like the CGI. Mine was not estate-agent talk, I actually like the way their effects turned out. Ones which spring to mind are the werewolf transformation, the entire battle with Mr Hyde and pretty much the entire end, from stepping through the mirror to the various climactic fights.
Plus some of the vampire brides’ scenes hold up well even under extreme slow motion and pause.
*wags tail suggestively*
However folks tastes and opinions vary, so there is no harm in us having conflicting views on the matter. Such is a normal part of life.
But to give an example of a movie that I do feel deserves to be called “… lazily cobbled together, inconsistent shlock…” would be The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
About the only good thing I recall is that it has Sean Connery in it. Sadly he was fighting an extremely lazy script which was uncompelling to watch. For some reason the writer decided to have each character opposed by a villain with very similar powers. And contrived it so that only they could defeat their opposite number.
It got boring before the third such repetition of that formula. Had I not been watching it at the cinema, with others, I would have happily walked out of it part way through. I was not alone in struggling to keep going until the end!
I must admit that a few things about Van Helsing did jar with me. Such as it having an action hero feel, in marked contrast to all earlier portrayals of him (as one example of the ‘liberties’ I cited). Had I not decided to put aside my comparisons to previous versions (of each such element) and just ‘go with the flow’ to see what the story did with it, then I too might have found myself getting more and more wound up by that.
So I can see how easily it would be for two folks, with fairly similar baseline opinions, to come to very different conclusions by the end.
I am just grateful that I was in a relaxed mood going into it, rather than one which may have encouraged me to give in to critical urges, as it allowed me to really enjoy the time spent watching it. Both then and since. There are few movies that I like watching more than once or twice, but that is amongst the exceptions.
Regarding the CGI, I think I’ll just reference the rubbermuppet boss-fight, the hillariously artificial hair-shedding scene and, of course, those: https://tinyurl.com/hc3okjg https://tinyurl.com/z9jvcmw
If you consider Van Helsing’s CGI as well made or even “amazing” than I have to wonder what vocabulary you’d reserve for genuinely well-done CGI like for instance in the LotR-movies, where a concerted effort was made to blend the CGI with the environment.
And don’t tell me they’re equal or even close in terms of quality, since that would just be insulting to the guys who worked at the latter.
On the matter of your previous style of speech, I hope you can forgive me, to be a bit dramatic, that it’s kind of difficult to see your statements as non-evasive (the hallmark trade of PR-speech) if you use overly colourful or vague expressions such as the aforementioned “flows in an interesting way.” That does strike me as rather close to statements from gaming magazines describing a title as “interesting” or “exciting”.
Not to debate whether or whether not you tried to be evasive, I just write this as an explanation why I had my very amused reaction to your post.
On us having differing opinions…you said something similar in the past and I honestly don’t understand why you feel the need to repeatedly point that out. Yes, we have differing opinions and unless members of a certain ideological group declare this a “safe space” we can indeed dabete them. In fact, debates require differing views otherwise you won’t have much of a debate.
So I don’t get why you keep saying that we can have a conversation with conflicting views when that is what we’re having. It’s as if you try to ward of some evil spirits by means of some magic chant.
As to TLoeG, you won’t hear any objection to me, only adding to my point that they did use the same CG (or CG of the same styke level of quality) for Hyde in both movies, so…point taken, I guess? So your elaboration on that movie was, as far as I’m concerned wasted effort.
Other than that I can just restate what I said before and repeated to Guesticus (although adapted in tone according to his regular idiocies): I never debated whether you or anyone can enjoy the movie. In fact I’d like to think I made that point rather extensively. I fully expect people to enjoy bad movies for their own “charm”, I do so myself. Heavy Metal F.A.K.K. 2 is an utterly shit movie but I enjoy it nontheless. Dark referenced MST3K, well, what kind of movies do you find reviewed on MST3K? No points for guessing.
My point was and is that in terms of craftmanship, Van Helsing isn’t a well crafted movie, see above for reference. And I find it rather pitiful that so many people have such issues to differentiate between personal enjoyment and quality of craftmanship.
Because I look to find something positive to say. When a comment is unnecessarily abrasive or confrontational that lessens the scope for a relevant light-hearted comment. Plus I have a condition where names are a real problem for me. So it makes it hard for me to know if I have made a prior comment to a specific individual before.
As we very often have different people making similar comments, I am used to giving versions of the same reply. I feel they deserve a response, even if I have already answered the same point several times, elsewhere. So, sadly, if you keep making comments of such an overwhelmingly negative nature you are likely to get me keep making similar replies.
Other than that though it is a way for me to say something true, and of a positive nature, whilst trying to encourage you to respond in a more congenial manner yourself.
Ahh, I see you have deduced my motives, albeit not involving the superstition.
*discreetly pushes protective amulet out of sight, with hind paw*
Still, you do squeeze some good points in between the negative stuff. So I remain hopeful that you may be redeemable.
Come on, give me a hug!
*stretches paws wide*
Understand now: you are allowed to say something disparaging and negative, and no one is able to comment on the negativity because you dismissively say “but it’s okay if some people like it”
Not necessarily. Tony Tony Chopper is specifically a were-human. He was born a reindeer.
Okay…let’s just…
First, some required reading:
“Were”….or in its older, more Germanic form ‘wer’ means “man”. Not as in “male” but as in “human”.
“Were-beast” therefore is nothing more than a word meaning “(Hu)Man-Beast.”
A “were-human” consequently would be a “human-human”. A bit redundant a term but you will notice the distinct lack of anything other than “human” in it.
Chopper (and no worries, I know who you’re talking about) was indeed born a reindeer. And he maintains reindeer-features in all his shapes.
Now, due to him being born a reindeer you could certainly make a case for him being called a reindeer-human rather than human/were-reindeer. I don’t see how that makes things better/easier but it certainly would be a somewhat valid argument.
However, all but one of Chopper’s forms have both something reindeer-y and something human(oid). Therefore – I’d argue – Chopper is a bit too much reindeer to be called a “human-human”.
Was that in any way, shape or form convincing?
Etymology
Middle English: wer (1. a man, a husband)
Old English: wer (1. man, 2. husband or 3. [poetically] hero)
Reconstruction, Proto-Germanic: weraz (1. man, 2. husband)
Reconstruction, Proto-Indo-European: wiHrós (1. man, 2. husband, 3. warrior, hero) Or interestingly “hunter”;
Or, from Old High German: wer (1. man)
This however derives from the Proto-Germanic ‘weraz’ and Proto-Indo-European ‘wiHrós’ defined above.
Or, from Old Saxon (1. man 2. hero)
Likewise from the same origins as the Old High German above.
However the above are all the archaic uses. Here is the one you want for modern usage, when used as a prefix:
were- (most commonly used with animal names to indicate a person who changes shape into that animal.)
Humans are a type of animal, so a were-human is a perfectly acceptable usage. Although making use of potions, rather than the more traditional vectors associated with lycanthropes, Dr Jeckle and Mr Hyde could be described as a were-human. As an early example.
Interestingly it is entirely possible that the Grrlverse has were-humans. Anyone born from, or infected by, a were-bonobo, were-chimp or other were-great ape would have a chance to change into a human.
If nothing else this provides a convenient change of identity, for such individuals. Or allow bankers to walk amongst us undetected!
were-
So, that makes Chopper an ‘anthro-rangifer’, or ‘man-deer’.
Alternatively, you could use ‘wereibu’.
Yeah, most lycanthrope packages include some kind of “they get better” quick. Like, they and Vampires both come from the ‘movie monster’ template.
Were’s typically have some form of advanced healing compared to people in their Wereform. Dunno if DaveB is going for that here, but it’s there.
Not to mention, enhanced strength always comes with enhanced durability. Otherwise, someone with super strength might break their own arm when they go to throw a punch.
Weres are traditionally really dang resistant and can generally heal anything that doesnt instantly kill them,Its why the heavily poisoned bunnygirl who got hit with a poison specifically tailored to bring down things tough as weres needed the hare minimum help to recover(Forgive the pun!).
For example in Fred Perrys Goldigger comic Brittany the werecheetah at one point points out that if she was run over by a speeding 18 wheeler shed only WISH she was dead afterwards and shes not even one of the most damage resistant weres in that universe.
Interesting that you bring up the Golddigger weres. Given that Dave has indicated that he has designed these ones to be compatible with those, in the hope of a possible crossover, someday.
So you offer a kind ray of hope that Pixel can survive this!
Heheh Im happy to be of service ^^.I knew he was a fan so I thought it worth bringing up =).Funnily enough Fred perry has gone on record that there are other weres that arent werecats/rats/wolves but theyre less common cause they were made much later by folk who reverse engineered things from scraps of Icerons work so a crossover is veeerrrrrry possible ^^
When this scene gets into the GP movie the producer needs to have this playing in the background.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_QLzthSkfM
I knew it. Sydney isnt going to be able to fight. God dammit. I wanted to see some action from her. Not her just standing there looking like an idiot
Oh, you have it slightly wrong. The next panel will be Max arriving, to discover Sydney slamming the construct around with her lighthook, faster than Hulk slamming Loki in the Avengers movie. Sydney’s ongoiing monologue will be something like “[censored litany] rush ME spend a skill up, will you? You [censored litany] and your [censored litany] creator are going to PAY!”
One can hope, though I expect many more undeleted expletives in that case…
I am just angry at the fact that Sydney is literally doing nothing here. After everything we have seen, she is quick to respond to danger and was always very reliable in a fight, but for some reason she is not. The page before made me think she would be picking a power and yelling at Pixel saying, “I know! Im already spending my point!” Instead, Sydney is just “rubbernecking” as Pixel put it, and it seems out of character for her
There is a big difference between appearing to do nothing and actually doing nothing. Which we have had enough indicators as to Sydney’s thought process that I can confidently say what is happening.
Remember that montage of Halo’s thought process, when she was having to decide what tactics to use in the Battle at the Steak House Car Park™? That is what is going on right now. Sydney is following Pixel’s own orders, to choose the skill point, plus she is figuring out her tactics to overcome the construct.
Bear in mind that she is also under orders NOT to use the PPO. Plus she can probably tell that the tentacle will not be strong enough to lift this construct. Yet she does have allies who are depending on her as their ‘heavy hitter’. That is specifically the reason why she has been assigned to the team.
Finally remember that she was so exausted, much much earlier on in the day, that she could not even stay awake when folks were discussing her beloved orbs. Yet has only had a short nap, then has flown (personally, not as a passenger) all the way to New York, at night, with numerous stops. Then faced the public wanting opportunity pictures, had a meal, then (and this is key) was so totally drained that she did not even bat an eyelid at ‘hallucinating’ that Maxima was a puppet.
Then went on to have a long meet and greet, then a boring meeting, then a long battle. Then a debriefing/briefing (which we skipped by) and straight onto this mission. All (judging from the fact that it is still dark) happening over the course of the same night.
Yet this sequence has only taken seconds.
We should forgive Sydney for not being able to formulate her plan i those scant seconds (of which picking the right point is just one aspect).
+1
Before I disowned and escaped my family, I was constantly told I was doing nothing and being lazy, when I was actually busy working rather hard on fixing their own technical issues they had requested aid with.
Actually, you make an interesting point here, why is Sydney even here? She has to be exhausted by now, and running on fumes here. Her demeanor usually makes it look like that she is fine but shouldn’t she be away resting? I know the Council wants people like Sydney with non-magical powers (assuming the orbs are not actually magic etc etc), but someone who barley got any sleep, survived the morning because of her coffee high, and had to go through basic training for the first time, should probably not be here. Sydney could get seriously hurt just from extreme exhausten. They already have multiple agents and they have Archon on the way, so they really shouldn’t have her there. Or, am I looking too much into this?
You are not over-analysing it. Those are all good points.
Sometimes, in a crisis, you have to use whatever is to hand. In the Battle of the Bulge paratroops had to be rushed into defensive positions, without having adequate ammunition or any winter gear. Inexcusable if there were other options available. But just as there was not the time to equip them nor was there the time to bring in other troops. Prepared or not they had to hold their ground against pretty much everything that the Germans could throw at them.
They were expected to do this because they were the best. Which is what Halo is. Even untrained she survived a sneak assassination attempt, figured out how to defeat an enemy who could counter any attack, and saved both Maxima’s life and helped to win the engagement.
But, no arguments, if this crisis did not risk plunging the world into a war between humanity and the supernatural (which is what could happen if the Veil dropped without any groundwork to ensure humans did not attack ‘monsters’), then Sydney would be back at base, getting a good night’s sleep, ready for tomorrow’s basic training.
Pixel is simply not familiar enough with Sydney to realise what she is doing. Because she has ADHD, and has all the choices I outlined above (and a few more I listed here) and severe sleep depravation making it even worse than normal (sadly a common problem for those with ADHD) she has gone into severe tunnel vision.
Sydney has literally completely phased every distraction out. She can neither see nor hear Pixel as a result. Whilst Sydney may or may not be able to recall those things afterwards,* at this precise moment all she is aware of is that level-up screen, all the various factors she needs to consider, and the fact that she needs to finish that plan.
We saw this in less stressful circumstances, in the press conference. Sydney completely forgot about the assembled press of the world, despite the fact that they were right there, in front of her!
There it was funny. Here it may have cost Pixel her life. But Dave is being 100% faithful to the character and her mind-set. There is absolutely no way that she could issue the dialogue that you propose. She is unaware of the events we are seeing, so cannot respond to them.
But I 100% understand your frustration at the lack of her reaction. Dave is just letting us see the scene from Pixel’s point of view this time, rather than from inside Sydney’s head. Which is important, as folks want to see the action.
This is a very deep scene. Despite appearing to just be an action page.
* I do not have ADHD so only those who experience that or a similar phenomenon can offer an opinion on that.
I do not have ADHD either but have been known to express similar symptoms on occasion in the past and certainly know what that tunnel vision feels like to me.
The world still goes on around me and, in most cases, it’s clear that it’s doing so. It’s just so inconsequential and seemingly distant that only vague details sink in and even less is immediately processed.
Things like the position of the robot at any given time would be completely overlooked, while Pixel getting grabbed and flung would technically go in but might be one of the things that you suggest only becomes apparent in recollection.
The one thing that would definitely be recognised in the moment is Pixel’s last shout but the sense of importance may or may not be there.
What I have described might not be the same for actual ADHD though and, for me at least, it is a very extreme case of hyperfocus so I can’t guarantee it applies here.
So Pixel is definitely in trouble here (here’s hoping for some of that good old zooanthropic super-healing)… but in a weird way, Sydney’s situation has improved considerably. She’s alone on the roof with an enemy and has no access to her powers- but that enemy is alone on the roof with her and has no access to its arms.
If I were a really suspicious bastard (and one of the things I suspected was that Sydney is a lot more intelligent than I currently think she is, or at least that there’s a good reason this page doesn’t give us any insight into her perspective), I’d say she was waiting for that so she’d have a relatively quiet moment to spend her point.
She definitely saw how easily the golem lost its right arm. We can see the scratch marks on its left, and we know that the left one was the one that got slammed into the pavement when it came after her and Krona. Since landing on the roof, it’s been mostly standing still and swinging its arms around at high speeds. Someone paying attention probably could’ve guessed that those swings would eventually put too much stress on the damaged parts for the remaining arm to hold together. Without its arms, it’s still capable of attacking her- but it’s been mostly standing still, and it couldn’t keep up with Sydney and Krona when it was following them, so she could expect its melee range to go down by a lot, allowing her to maintain a safe distance for at least a few moments in relative calm.
By contrast, as long as it does have an arm, she’s definitely under threat and needs to pay attention to it if she wants to survive. She has no flight and no shield, and it can hit her from an enormous range. Pixel may be trying to protect her and/or occupy its attention, but Sydney has few indicators of how much that’s worth- she’s never seen Pixel fight before, and her best indicator of how this might turn out is the Capri-Sun moment in the other timeline, which indicates “not good.” Compared to “(Sydney + Pixel) v (enemy -1 arm)”, “Sydney v (enemy -2 arms)” looks pretty relaxing… and as a min-maxer who survived one probably-lethal scenario in the last five minutes, “if you survive the next thirty seconds, you can relax and pick the best upgrade” sounds like a major upgrade from “if you pick your upgrade at random now, you will almost definitely survive the next thirty seconds.”
Actually, the whole point of this page was to show that she did nothing. She did not spend the point and now she is alone with the enemy. So a few things could happen. 1: she is killed and then it is revealed that Krona did not properly reset the time loop. 2: Maxima shows up, throws the enemy away so she can slap Sydney across the face and tell her to get a hold on her self. 3: Sydney is captured and used as a human shield when the others show up. Or 4: She is (somehow) able to get away from the enemy through some miracle or just dumb luck, and gets enough time to spend a point.
Also, Pixel is most likely captured by Sciona or is just temporarily out of the fight due to being knocked far away. After this fight, I assume Pixel is going to be pissed and will yell at Sydney for not helping her.
One more possibility, the orbs have an automatic combat routine when they are in upgrade mode, just in case…
So far the orbs have not demonstrated any sophisticated autonomous capability. I.e. at most they can be characterised as having either instinctive or relatively simple programmed actions.* Whilst this does not preclude them from having such capabilities it would be a significant step up from anything previously observed.
It would take them into the category of having, at a minimum, animal-like responses to danger Be that as some form of intelligence or through much more complex combat programming.
* Such as “orbit the user’s head, but avoid obstacles”. Whilst humans use thousands of lines of code for such, nature does it a lot more simply. A flock of birds only have a few basic instinctive orders for each individual bird. But the flock exhibits very complex-seeming behaviors as a result. Likewise for schools of fish or bees.
There’s a difference between automatic ans autonomous. Land mines are automatic since they only detonate when certain conditions are met. Autonomous cars may act independently within their programming. The orbs can act as land mines much easier than a self-driving car can act outside of its programming…
A good safety feature would be not allowing the user to come in harms way like the shield would automatically come up when danger is sensed or the user is in a high stress situation.
“I must reach that toddler before it goes into the road!”
“Oh noes my shield just raised and pushed it in front of a lorry! NOOOOO!”
Safety features need to be very carefully limited, in order to prevent them creating danger themselves. Either requiring lots and lots of coding, something with common sense or only activating in very specifically described circumstances.
The most sophisticated behaviour of the orbs is their collision avoidance. That is closer to autonomous than automatic, in my mind, hence my choice of words. But there is a blurring and crossover between the two terms, depending on which bit of technology you may wish to use as an analogy.
Get too much autonomy though and you are approaching animal intelligence. Setting aside microbial things, even something as basic as a fruit fly has significantly more autonomous behavior than the orbs have demonstrated to date. But the orbs are more advanced than an automatic gear box (of the pre-drive-by-wire era), to give an analogy in the other direction.
So… she ISN’T trying desperately to remember that skill she is supposed to spend her point on so Dabbler and Gwen can figure out what they all are?
I should imagine that is part of the process. A lot has happened today, after all. Mind you it is more like the mental noise of all the other possibilities drowning that one out. Sydney’s ADHD will be playing hell at the moment, so those of us without it must factor that in as a critical factor right now, over and above any other ones.
Likewise her hardcore gaming desire to get it right. But that is one that really should be put to one side when on the loosing side of a life-or-death fight!
However Sydney will certainly be looking at her tactical options right now. Here are a few points to consider:
• The team is too spread out to protect them all with the bubble.
• Anybody inside the bubble (with the possible exception of Pixel, but not Harem) will be unable to contribute to fighting the construct.
• Sydney’s tentacle may be too weak to lift this construct*
• If Sydney uses the tentacle on the construct it will be able to swing her around by it (as we saw Vehemence apparently** doing, when he dragged her even in the shield). This could kill her if it does the same technique as with Pixel, just by bouncing around inside the shield.
• Sydney is barred from using the PPO at the moment, by Maxima, but this is a relatively deserted area. However her teammates are moving around rapidly over the fight area.
• And more, including a lot of distractions that her brain will be throwing at her.
In other words Halo is figuring a LOT of stuff, all at once. Including deciding if that earlier instruction is still applicable (their knowledge, and potential knowledge, of the orbs is now significantly different to earlier).
* This is hard for us to estimate, as its size is not consistent. As Dave apologised for.
** The panel in question could be interpreted differently, but even though Sydney will have had a different viewpoint on it, she too will have to be making similar assessments.
In a life or death situation, making the right point choice is more important than ever. The problem is that the decision is really rather time limited but two conflicting pressures don’t necessarily force a compromise. Sometimes all we get is a stalemate.
Of course, we have no idea whether Sydney is actually struggling with these pressures or simply zoned out planning as you have theorised, or some combination of the two.
Actually I was referring to the all the comments of Pixels boobs and how Sydney seems to be staring directly at them in every panel that she is in. Looks like Dabbler isn’t the ONLY person with hypnotic breasts.
The robots shoulder in the last panel looks like a penis
He also threw her from a weird point in his swing if he was moving from left to right.
His head too.
He is facing away from the reader. His left arm(tentacle) picked up Pixel across his body to his right. He then swung her from right to left across his body. He let go just after she was directly in front of him. She was flung left and the arm swung around back to his side.
Didnt see the bit of tentacle on the left side of the panrl. Retracted.
Question for the hardcore fans : how much time has passed since the bank robbery?
Bonus question (I’m too lazy to search the archive), was the guy who give ARC money and has his own country the same that Harem is leaking info to?
Only a few days. About three (although it may be into another day now, if past midnight).
The guy in question is Deus. The one who has an “x” on his face.
I’m pretty sure its 4 days since it has to be in the wee hours of the night by now….
Non the less in those 4 days Sydneys recieved more upgrades to her powers than she has in the rest of the time shes had the orbs,Just like in D&D its a lot easier to rack up exp and new skills with teamates farming exp an bossfights for you ^^
I hope that Pixel has all the fabled lycanthrope invulnerability and/or regenerative capabilities. We have no indication that her super side gives her any means of surviving an impact like that!
Cats are meant to make a ” … ” sound, when they land, on their feet, not “BAM”, into a wall!
Scoville get your act together, you have allowed a teammate to come to harm, by delaying too long! It is OK to risk dying, for a perfect advancement, but not to endanger your friends!
For all we know, Sydney doesn’t like Pixel at all. A rival for the title of cutest character. Her absent-mindedness is just a ploy to get rid of her.
Sydney outright stated that she did not.
However since she has fallen deeply in love with her.* Just look at the vote incentive!
* This may be influenced by shipping forecasts.
She should be ok,Pixel getting herself killed for Sydney would be a bit too dark at this point in the story.Now if this was the worm universe…… x,x
Oh she has to be OK, otherwise we could not have her tail-stroking session, with Sydney. I guess that is Sydney trying to make it up to her, during her recuperation.
*looks in Pixel’s direction*
*tail swishing anxiously*
Battle aftermath :
Pixel is suffering from very heavy injuries. She struggle but ultimately expire her last breath. Everyone cry as her fur become dark. Sydney then start laughing “Its a dead pixel !”
Nooooooooooooooo!
*cries*
*tries clapping, dejectedly, to see if that works to bring a Pixel back to life*
You forgot that you also have to say “I do believe in furries!”
I do, I do. I believe in furries!
CLAP. CLAP. CLAP.
Sydney still laughing “don’t you get it? She lost her color! Its a dead pixel ! “
*still crying*
Yep, I got it. Witty pun.
*puts flowers on Pixel’s grave*
Still dead.
Given how she reacted to her own probable death this might not be out of character XD
Oh it is a funny line, well worth saying in this thread. And your reply is similarly light-hearted.
But, looking at it with my serious head on, no, I could not see Sydney saying that. Look at how mortified she was at the thought of offending Peggy about her ‘hop to it’ remark. That was an innocuous turn of phase that she used inadvertently. Sydney was trying to be good and desperately did not want to give offense.
So whilst she may say something in poor taste accidentally, I do not think that she would attempt to make a poor-taste joke deliberately, under such circumstances.
I really, really like these panels – maybe not the very best action panels done is this comic but definitely in the top three, no doubt.
Seriously DaveB, this is just damned gorgeous.
And some underboob as an added bonus.
Well, ain’t this a setup?
Sydney is alone on the roof with the Golem. She’s kind of frozen, but that could quickly change.
Suppose she remembers this.
She grabs the shield orb, and spends her point. Upgrade mode deactivates, and the shield orb, already in her palm from the upgrade, activates just as the Golem makes an attack.
Unhurt, but panicking, on the inside of the shield, she grabs the PPO. The Golem towers above her, and so she fires it at a slight upwards angle. We are treated to a large-size panel as it tears through and vaporizes the Golem’s torso, shooting past it into the sky.
Other combatants (Team X-ray beneath the building, and Peggy/Max from afar) at the scene see only the beam in the sky, followed by stillness. Fearing the worst, they rush to the roof, finding a shivering, but unharmed, Scoville beneath her shield.
Now of course, there are alternatives. Maybe she doesn’t manage to activate the shield, and fires the beam with nothing between her and the Golem, for extra suspense points. Maybe she doesn’t get off unscathed, in order to demonstrate the healing powers of an unknown orb. If the large-panel shot is her vaporizing the Golem just as it tears a hole in the side of her stomach, that’d be awesome too.
Either way, I’m looking forward to this.
Next page, Sydney snap out of it. Maxima has already solved the situation, learned portuguese and baked a cake.
Logically the most mobile teams will be the ones assigned to the furthest targets. Maxima is the most mobile of them all, so will be the furthest away.
To help estimate how far away, do consider that the Twilight Council is a global organisation. Anyone seeking to, for example, destabilise sigils could be doing that anywhere on the planet, where there is a significant enough population to make that newsworthy.
So it is entirely possible that Maxima is on the other side of the planet right now!
Or she might be on the West coast of the USA, if Sciona has limited her operations to just the one country.
Either of which would take some time for Maxima to get here. Although their various ‘suspect sites’ may all be clustered in the local region, so you could have it. But Maxima did end the manikin battle abruptly already, so that would be rather a dull repetition. However giving Sydney a cake and showing off her Portuguese would add an amusing twist indeed.
*wags tail appreciatively*
It is my personal suspicion though that Sydney will have to resolve this without Maxima’s help.
Assuming the cake is to be edible, Maxima can’t bake it any faster than anyone else.
She can mix the batter, grease the pan, put the batter in the pan, and put the pan in the oven faster.
She may be able to preheat the oven faster, although doing so without blowing up the oven might be beyond her.
But the actual baking is a chemical process that Maxima’s powers can’t accelerate.
(Hm… that would be an interesting test of control. “Maxima, here’s a chamber surrounded by rock. There’s a probe from an electronic kitchen thermometer in there. Please keep the interior of the chamber at 350 degrees for 40 minutes.”)
(I’m frequently annoyed by how often “control” of fire-related powers is interpreted as “make bigger booms”. How about smaller booms? Light a campfire – don’t blow up the woodpile. Light a candle – don’t instantly vaporize it. Cook this piece of meat medium rare. Cook that piece of meat medium rare, two inches in diameter, centered three inches behind that guy’s nose – don’t singe his nose-hairs. At the other extreme, how about reducing or preventing booms? That house is on fire, put it out. Make sure the gunpowder in that guy’s gun doesn’t go off.)
Such serious answers for such a deliberate nonsense, Lots of love to you guys. It was a reference to an obscure webcomic more than 15 years ago, back when sprite comics were cool.
https://bobandgeorge.com/comics/ramnesis/32
@ Don Edwards : If you want to see a character train the finesse of her pyrochinesy, I suggest the anime “Witch Hunter Robin”.
If….if that happened Id be at risk of dying from laughter!Poor Sydney,So busy doing everything else but fight the bossmonster shes later to the fight than someone who flew in from a different statelol
I apologize if I’m repeating someone else’s post. I apologize *twice* if I’m repeating a theory that’s already been shot down; I hain’t read all the posts. But:
Is there any chance that this is a Lightbee projection? That Syd *is* behind cover, somewhere off the rooftop, and is maintaining the “terrified rictus” thing as a cover while she looks over the pattern and figures out where to slot the point? Oh, wait, she’d need to be able to *use* the comm ball to do any of that. Well, it’s a great theory *except* that it’s impossible. (Feh.)
You were the first.
Well debunked too. And by posting it you save others who might have gone down that path fruitlessly. So the effort was worthwhile.
And, yea, Dave has confirmed that Sydney’s image would always have the comm ball in hand, if it was being projected by the lightbee.
Posting something does not prevent a dozen similar posts to pop up due to people not bothering to read what others have posted
An interesting theory though, would have been cool if it was correct
Some people like to read the comments (if they have the time) others do not. The service if for the former. The fact that there are also the latter does not lessen the usefulness to those who do follow the comments.
Yo! Sydney! TENTACLE MONSTER!!
…maybe that’ll wake her up. ;-)
:-D
Sydney: “Sir yes sir madam sarge! I will spend my point on the hentorb! This icon looks naughty, I will do as I were ordered and choose that one.”
Not the worst choice she could make,In fact given how straight forward the lighthook is to use its new skill might even be the easiest to identify(Maybe something like a true hentorb mode where she can spam multiple tentacles at once……..Somewhere Dabbler is suddenly happier than usual and shes not sure why!X3).
I certainly would be distracted by those wonderful fuzzy boobs~
And referencing a post earlier: coughing up pink hairballs would be how I would brag.
=3
I like throwing stupid theories in case one become true… :
-The mannequin is a fierce hunter, attracted by motion. Sydney’s strategy to freeze is very effective. He never notice her.
-Sydney use her own tentacle to armwrestle it.
-Another Harem pop up to push Sydney down the roof.
-Without his arm, the machine is off balance and can’t walk well. Staying out of his reach is comically easy.
-She get saved by a member of the concil that the readers didn’t know could teleport.
-After a hidden countdown, the upgrade point is auto-assigned
-Sydney is invulnerable while the upgrade screen is up.
-Sydney use the whole upgrade screen as a shield/flail
-Sydney get impaled. Next thursday is the last page
-Sydney become focussed, get a good grasp of the situation, her foe and her assets. She execute a well tought plan perfectly and get lots of praise.
-She get a grasp of her shield and tank the mannequin until Max is there.
You are forgetting that Dave has sneakily inserted the solution into the page. There, next to the warehouse, is displayed in plain view “Chekhov’s light-post”. This shows that there is an active powerline going to the building. This will be seen in the next comic to be used by Jiggawatt to transmit herself to the battle location and take on the mechanical monstrosity. Her zap attack is not magical, so it should get past any anti-magic traps. (just try not to zap it while it is in the act of holding someone)
As no one has commented about it: DaveB, I really like the borderless design – it makes the comic feel far bigger than what is the actual size increase.