Grrl Power #544 – Bikini AWOL
Dave, going back to the wardrobe malfunction gag so soon? Yeah, but this one’s a little different? Sort of? Just go with it. This page and the next were one page in my head, but I started drawing it and I didn’t want the art to be the size of a postage stamp, so I had to break it up.
Hopefully Harem’s phone is water resistant. Come to think of it, would she have 5 separate phones? There’s probably one of her at the base nearly all the time, and presumably there’s good reception there. Anything any one of her sees can be relayed through the one with the phone if needed. Hmm. But I guess she probably would have 5 phones, cause a phone is a lot more than just a phone these days. One of her might need to use the camera or a recording app. Or just play a game while she’s on the phone. Hopefully she gets a good rate on the family plan.
Of course by now, everyone at the base has heard of the previous incident involving Max and Hiro. Harem was there after all. It spread faster than any single human could have relaid the info. Gender biases being what they are, Hiro has calluses from all the high fiving, and no one has said a word about it it Max, at least until now. But Anvil is the sort of friend who will razz her friends about stuff like that. Also everyone who is still poolside was there when it happened, so it’s not like Anvil is being a gossip.
BTW are bikini tops buoyant at all? I didn’t think to research that, but it seems like if any part of a bathing suit is going to come off in the water, that’d be the one. I would thing there would be some small attempt to make them float at least long enough for its owner to make a one armed grab for them. I assume if they have the padding in the front to keep the water temperature reporting to a minimum, that stuff is probably semi buoyant, right? I guess Harem’s was just a few layers of fabric.
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Pretty sure bikini tops are buoyant yes.
Bikini contents are buoyant, tops sink.
In general, bikini tops are not buoyant.
Yeah, fabric will still sink, eventually
Having seven sisters and having to go in after said top before, I can assure you that they do both. They’ll kind of float for at least a little bit, more so with padding, but they also sink after a while but nowhere near that fast.
Clearly Harem has extra-flimsy bikinis that get waterlogged a lot quicker.
Actually there would even be a sound reason for that. She has a very tight weight limit, on her teleportation. For critical items (like Peggy’s anti-material rifle, perhaps with extra attachments or ammo) stripping down to underwear (or swimwear) might make the difference in being able to teleport or not. And even halving the weight of those garments might allow her to teleport if hampered by the butterfly effect.
The effect of having a butterfly land on the gun-barrel and tip it over her weight limit, of course.
Or, like said below: under normal conditions they would probably float long enough for Harem to retrieve it, but with the water being disturbed by Sydney quickly turning around, they sank quicker
My initial thought, when reading it, was that the water is highly air-saturated there, at the moment, which might affect the buoyancy and/or the water-absorption rate of the material).
Peggy’s rifle is “anti-materiel”, the term for military equipment like vehicles, utility machinery, etc, that requires something hefty to punch holes.
“anti-material” guns would be those that destroyed swimsuits. I haven’t seen that Archon has developed that technology yet. We haven’t had a tour of Dabbler’s lab (the comic not being behind an age wall and all that), so there may very well be such a “weapon”.
Hey DaveB, some pics of Dabbler’s laboratory would be a vote incentive that keeps on giving.
The Shrinker kinda qualifies as an anti-material weapon, but I haven’t seen Archon deploy any weapons on par with the Shrinker or the Blame Thrower. (Win a No-Prize! Name the movie that those two weapons came from.)
The highly underrated Mystery Men.
I missed it by that much
I just know Dabbler have a cloth disintegrator gun and a disrobification bomb.
And probably something to change genders on ppl, for the lolz. You know they’d sell that for much money, much, much money….
And now I want a crossover with EGS
You mean some sort of Nude Bomb?
…too bad Maxwell Smart already stopped that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nude_Bomb
Darn. I was going to post that link but you just beat me to it.
Missed it by {that} much.
A critically important distinction when dealing with bombs.
They have Ashley (I think that was his name) in their uniform department, and he’s pretty much a living anti-material weapon. Or pro-material–one could imagine him putting clothes ON Dabbler during an argument, much to her annoyance.
And of course Dabbler herself almost certainly has a nudifier of some type or other. Probably several.
“Stop looking at me like that, Ashley.”
“Like what, Dabbler?”
“Like… like that. It’s weird. I can practically feel you dressing me with your eyes.”
Lol.
And you have won the days internets
That is the funniest, and oddly very likely thing, to have happened at some point in this world…. I can completely picture that, with the accompanying fashion ninjas preparing their measuring tapes in the background…..
I was focusing too much on avoiding the brand name of the weapon, as I tend to spell that wrong. To be honest though I have never really thought of there being the two separate spellings. So long as I do not get a wiggly red line under a word, I don’t tend to notice such subtle differences, when initially exposed to a new word. So thanks for pointing it out. Hopefully I will be able to remember the distinction. :-D
Lieutenant Glory in the Dark Wick webcomic operates similarly
A Dozen Butterflies land on her
Harem: *Cries* Why does this keep happening?
Awww
Additionally her choice of cloths is multiplicative. The more of her that are out in the field the more cloth she has to account for.
Although really, when it comes to heft, her final option is to drop down to 1 Harem.
Thinking of “cheating” , does what Varia is wearing and carrying count against Harem’s limit? She breaks the “I can’t take people” aspect and Varia’s personal mass doesn’t count against Harem. That could be one of those very important team combos.
Varia is useful as she is totally separate to Harem’s limit. Harem could carry the big gun and still have Varia piggy back along (because Varia essentially is duplicating Harem’s power). Plus Varia could likely carry extra stuff under her own weight limit.
The one weakness being that it is a gestalt and Harem is in the driving seat. Varia has to remain in contact with her, and goes wherever Harem wants (although could choose not to go with her, if she wanted to, I imagine).
Note my caveats in various sentences. Not all of this has been explained definitively, but the principles were, so I am happy with these interpretations.
If Harem has lightweight bikinis, then logically they’d float easier since they’d have a less dense weave/fabric, no?
IDK, I’m drunk right now.
Ok Sydney, that was a creative joke. Well done.
I wonder, can the new mechanic make that a real stinker?
Generally speaking, bikini tops/parts (most bathing suits) do not float. Many/most are near neutral buoyancy, so they sort of drift and slowly settle, unless metal parts & such are part of the design and drag them down faster. In this case, with such a massive release of gas, I think we can retcon that enough air was trapped by the fabric that it floated briefly before drifting downward.
Do we get a panel of Harem’s backside as she dives down for it now …?
Yeah, they will float (even without a pocket of air) until they are disturbed, such as by Sydney turning around and talking to Maxi
Bikini tops also float when filled in accordance with normal operating guidelines.
Remember that viewing portal from last page? I bet 10 Yorpie Snax that Math is down there getting a good peek.
i think that is a light
No, that does not seem likely. It is underwater, if it was alight, the water would put it out. ;-)
there are such things as pool lights that are designed to be under the water, for night swimming or to make the pool look nice. so could still be a light.
Yorp was making a play on words between “a light” the thing you thought it was and “alight” which is another way of saying burning
Remember from a few pages ago when I wondered if they had video cameras set up in the pool? This is the kind of situation I was worried about. This is still officially a ‘training session’ so they are probably filming the whole thing. Afterwards they will probably sit Sydney down for a debriefing about the de-‘bra’ing.
They would need to examine the footage for vital hydro-dynamic clues, which might explain how the air bubble retains its cohesion under one circumstance, but not another.
They will have to examine those two points very carefully.
I’m sure Math would happily be on hand to…. audit the debriefing….
He is specifically under orders from Maxima to view until they bore him.
Wasn’t the order “Watch until they are no longer a distraction”? And he has shown it is already working, when he was able to listen to what Vahriah was saying, despite what she wasn’t wearing and the rivulets of sweat
Sydney, you just pranked a prankster, this will have consequences. This could escalate fast into a wardrobe malfunction prank war once Math and Dabbler get involved.
Idk, i would think Harem would lose the prank wars eventually, she tends to lack imagination compared to Sydney.
(They each have skills / abilities that would roughly equal each other out, but creativity would eventually put Sydney ahead)
Dabbler would easily win anyway.
I think that this is something which should be explored in Grrl Power, After Dark.
Cue the saxophone…
And one of these days, probably roughly 45 minutes prior to the complete heat-death of the universe judging by how long it’s taken so far, Dave will actually make GP-AD for his adoring fandom…
All she needs is for some well-endowed (breast-wise) cohorts to wear all of Sydney’s t-shirts for an hour or so, then they will be stretched out, with perky nipple additions. I know this, because my well-endowed sisters used to borrow my t-shirts all of the time, then fold them and put them back into the drawers, thinking that I wouldn’t notice. Well, I noticed!
As they’re all females there it’s merely an inconvience.
It’s not as if a wardrobe malfunction can propagate
to the other Harems.
And how many kids did you tell there wasn’t a Santa Claus today?
It is not like they would fall for that, anyhow. Not when they have sat on his knee and gotten presents from him.
Presents? Is that what you’re calling it now?
I tell them that there was one, but unfortunately he died and his reindeer ate his corpse. So grizzly. So sad.
And Death is subbing for Santa until he gets all better.
Bloody Auditors, at least he gives good presents.
No, Death was subbing for the Hogfather, but he’s very easy to confuse for Santa, so I won’t hold it against you.
As long as innocent little children are doomed to lifetime therapy because of my stories, it’s all good.
*cries*
Yorp, his final words were ‘please let my wife live… she doesn’t deserve this fate too’ before the elves cut out his heart and fed it to Rudolph. That’s why his nose is actually red. It’s red with evilness.
Hah, as if anyone would believe you. Santa will be having cookies and milk, as ever, this Christmas.
Let’s try that first link again:
Pander has turned evil!
https://www.fakingmartha.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/dead-santa.jpg
https://www.anorak.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/santa-is-dead.jpg
Muhahahaha
Well there goes your credibility, we can see from the link itself that establishes it as a fake.
*shakes head sadly*
How the great and good have fallen into disrepute! Well, fortunately for all our young and young-at-heart readers, I have evidence from the Post Office and UPS, that Santa is still alive and well, and corresponding. He does not just work the one day a year.
Now I shall stop listening to that evil Pander!
*puts paws over ears and hums loudly*
Oh please, everyone knows it was Lobo who killed Santa on behalf of the Easter Bunny…
It was in the Lobo Paramilitary Special published in 1991. Working from memory Lobo meets a desperate man at a bar. It’s the day before Christmas and the man can’t afford to buy his kids the latest shiny OhGodYou’veGotToHaveThis gadget. Lobo, feeling the Christmas spirit, gives the man a book to stuff in the kids stockings and everything will work out. The man rushes home and shows his wife the book that will save them and together they page through it to find out what kind of magic it contains. Turns out that it’s about how Lobo is hired by the Easter Bunny to snuff Santa, who he claims is using child slave laborers to build all the toys. In the book Lobo kills off not only Kris Crusher Cringle but also Ms. Cringle, all the slave elves and Rudolph the Mutant Reindeer and all of his herd, all in the most awesomely gruesome way. And it all ends with the Lobo telling the reader that Christmas is now canceled, forever… The parents are ecstatic. Once their little bastards has read this there is no way they will be expecting any presents. They are saved! Suddenly flames erupts from the book and a recording of Lobo can be heard telling them that this book can only be read once, and as they have now used it up they are SOL. It ends with the parents looking at the pile of ashes from their last hope, and quickly deciding that their only choice is to break out the guns and murder the kids in their sleep before they find out they won’t get their shiny and tortures their parents to death… Good times! Oh and the looong runon wall of text is because the spoiler tags are wonky… At least I hope it will work this time…
Shh, you’re ruining my disinformation campaign if you tell the truth about how Santa was taken out.
And both versions miss his Logan style healing/ regeneration power boosted by holiday magic so he can’t burn out or overwhelm it and can come back from a few beard hairs. (Not to mention the many resurrections he has stored in the workshop and sleigh for emergency’s)
Dave mentioned using thicker material to prevent ‘water temperature reporting’. All copies are still physiologically linked, so even if the one in the cold water is covered, anyone around the other copies may need to put on their sunglasses to shield from the glare of her ‘headlights’.
There are 4 dudes standing in front of Varia right now.
No, they got washed away a couple pages back
You can just make out Mr Amorphous’s fingers, holding onto the edge of the roof. Doubtless the others are four or five stories below clinging onto his legs.
Where/when? looked over the last few days, can’t find it.
What, oh, sorry about wasting your time.
I was just running with the thread theme that Pander had established, of making up unbelievable stuff, with flimsy or non-existent evidence! I felt a four-story tall Mr Amorphous to fit the bill, for a tall-tale.
Anyhow, his fingers are way too small to see in these shots. So he may be there, and it is as good an explanation as any.
Oh, I see him now…he’s behind the pink elephant.
That’s good Yorp. Don’t give them any more clues about where Amorphous’s finger is. It’ll be our little secret.
Not sure that’s exactly true.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/607
About it being only inconvenient cuz it’s only girls present, that is.
Well Math is nowhere in sight, so I imagine he is down next to the observation portal, in the pool, around about now.
[Math-like blur sprinting to location]
Nono, he is under orders to observe breast until they stop distracting him, and has magically disappeared from the pool area. The only logical assumption we can make is its a photo opportunity with a telephoto lense.
Maybe he left with Dabbler, since she hasn’t been seen since her intro to the pool.
Might just be taking a fap break, since he probably isn’t allowed to do so in public, anymore, that is.
She could just poof to her room and put on another bikini,i am sure she has at least 5.
Yeah, was wondering about that last page: would she just *VORP* herself, or would some of the water *VORP* with her?
Not much. Remember Harem has a mass limit which includes her clothes. She’d likely just only take the water in immediate contact with her, like she just stepped out of the pool.
This has more to do with volume than mass.
Then she could jut Vorp into the air above the pool, drop for a second, then Vorp to her bedroom.
Heh, shake it off first, good idea :D
Much like her phones, which are probably ruggedized given her profession. (in an Otterbox at the very least) Assuming her plan isn’t covered by Archon, having 5 phones shouldn’t cost any more than one phone with unlimited data.
Depending on carrier, about US$20-US$40 per phone for “line access charges”.
Was a little confused about what Anvil was saying and then Sydney, thinking they were both talking about explosive farts (with Sydney denying ownership of one after hers), but then after reading the AuBlurb realised they were both talking about Wars Incident
Yup. The ‘I heard that’ led me in the same direction. Then seeing no matching sound effect, figured Max was referring to Anvil’s dialogue. But was lost as to what it actually meant. Blog saves the day.
True, there seems to be at least a line missing to explain the step between sydney laughing at her own joke, and anvil apprently responding psychically to the comment of missing clothes
Err, no… Sydney stops when she realises what happened, Anvil, whose attention has just been drawn to the scene, observes the loss of Harem’s bra and decides to make a humourous comment about clothes losses seeming to become a feature around Arc-SWAT. She does not need a comment about missing clothes, she can both see the bikini top floating (and sinking) and Harem holding her arms in front of her bosom.
True, I did not realise she made a reference to the Maxima/Hiro accident and supposed I had forgotten something else (I don’t have a good memory), but the narration seems to me to be complete. There is no missing sentence, nor any psychic exchange… :-)
Except that is not what she says. It is abbreviated enough that we had no pointers she was talking about clothes.
Bear in mind issues like this are fine if you happen to be someone who connects the dots correctly. But it is ambiguous in that the most apparent thing Anvil seems to be referring to is the massive fart. So we are just providing constructive feedback that the message is not consistently being followed by all the readers.
Yes, we both figured it out from the blog. If DaveB gets enough feedback from others that they had the problem, then he may decide to modify the dialogue. Whereas if it is a relatively isolated number of readers, then it is not that important.
Even then it is not wasted, as it will help Dave keep an eye out for similar ambiguity, in future.
I was just answering the remark by Sel that it seems like a sentence is missing.
If you understand the joke as a fart joke all along, the sentence is not missing, since the first panels after the bubble blows out are about Harem and Sydney’s reaction, then, and only then, does Anvil have some time to speak.
And if you get the wardrobe malfunction joke, it is not missing either, the panels making the break in pace ensuring that she would not be making a fart joke (which is probably what helped me get half the joke right).
I understand that the joke in itself might be difficult to understand due to the reference, There is nothing obvious about the clothes connection. Maybe positioning the panels differently so the floating bikini top is just prior to Anvil’s panel may have helped. Or her saying “Seems to be a lot of clothes being lost lately”. But the pace was right and there is, in my opinion (for what it’s worth), no need to add a sentence to make the joke clearer.
NO!!!! BAD PUPPY!!!!! There will be NO suggestion about changing text!! Typos sure, but ambiguous speech? NO!!
Well, one could accept the idea that the discussion may help in the future prevent something similar. Not asking to change the text (which I definitely don’t), but discussing how it could have been improved here could lead to improved awareness of risks and options for future scenes.
This is the essence of constructive criticism. :-)
Yes, but there has already been precedent for changing the text in the past
Yorp specifically states that if DaveB gets enough feedback he may change it
Indeed. Just as a stand-up comic might change his next performance of a sketch if it did not get as many laughs as he was hoping, Dave may choose to modify this. There have been very few of us who felt that it was not clear, so this is unlikely.
Mine was not a request to change the comic, but I try to be as helpful as possible in identifying precisely where the problem lies, in order to assist Dave, should he decide to take that course.
Other times I might suggest a particular way that a scene could be changed, but for the same reasons. One of those suggestions might actually prove useful, in a future planning session. Likewise, once in a while, Dave has retroactively acted upon suggestions by myself or others.
It is always the creator’s choice though. He has to make dozens (or maybe even hundreds) of such choices, on every page. So is the best placed to make good calls on the matter. But to make the best choices, he does need feedback. Whichever route he decides to follow.
Have no problem with making adjustments in speech for future pages, or making changes in current or old due to typos or art errors (creator of “Merceneiress” changed two panels in the latest page because the position of two blades appeared wrong), but ambiguous text? NEVER!!
Same as with ‘messed up grammar’
i’m not too sure of the amount of time that has passed since the shower scene where Harem farts and this scene, but if it wasn’t TOO long, then Anvil COULD still be talking about Harem and about this “fart” as “lately”… specifically meaning that Harem has recently been farting more than she has been known to do so in the past.
But it would not explain why Maxima and Sydney are reacting to Anvil’s comment. It had to involve both of them, and Maxima was not in the shower room at the time. And Sydney would not feel the need to defend herself.
Well, Sydney was involved in the shower fart, and she did make the farty noise with the empty shampoo bottle (after squirting it all over… this… same… Daphne)
That’s the problem with being the omniscient creator of a thing. I actually had her saying something more verbose, but then edited it down to what it is now, assuming it’d be “smarter” writing to let you guys put the pieces together, but it didn’t occur to me that it might read like Anvil was talking about farts.
Bah, it happens. The goal was noble: most comics benefit from shorter dialogues. For things like what Anvil says, we would rarely hear someone launching into a full-blown diatribe.
He he he.
Better watch out for Cecil the Sea Sick Sea Serpent :D
For those who weren’t around: “The Beany and Cecil Show”
Bikini AWOL? It’s that little island where they tested all the nukes.
There is no bikini atall. Not after Sydney nuked it.
I think that’s exactly the reason the swimsuit was named that.
If memory serves, the creator of the bikini used the Bikini Atoll bomb test as the name for his new swimwear because he thought (or knew) that it was going to be an explosive new idea in the realm of swimwear.
And he was very right. Despite his first ‘bikini’ being utterly modest by today’s standards, he could not find a traditional model to model his design, and had to use instead a burlesque performer.
These bikini puns may be taking a-toll on our sanity.
I will not atollerate another pun about bikinis
these puns realy bomb.
So does this mean that Harem is a plutonium blonde?
Going to have a meltdown if this pun thread goes on any longer.
I half a life beyond puns, you know!
no, she’s a “suicide blonde” – dyed by her own hands.
And the radioactive redhead, plus the bombshell brunette. Dang forgot the rest of the series titles…… Maybe someone else can remember since no man is an island.
While little miss cherenkov blue is currently headed on home.
No, you are thinking of Monica’s Island, in Wapsi Square
Somebody needs to get to the bottom of this bikini antics so we can stay on top of it. ;P
Harem doesn’t seem very invested in retrieving her top in that last panel.
The logistics of swimming to it would require removing an arm from a critical location. Dave has thought it through sensibly.
Not to mention its the natural automatic reaction to clothes getting ripped off, you cover that area 1st, before you even think about doing anything else about it.
I think it’s got more to do with it being right by Sydney, actually. Sydney could ahve grabbed it quicker than Harem could.
Harem wears an American flag bikini. Bikini sinks. Symbolism? Probably not, but let’s start that conspiracy train.
If Heatwave burns hers off, in the next scene, we can come to a firm conclusion.
There will be a mass debate about what conspiratorial erection to come to.
“we can come to a firm conclusion”
(slides pun jar over)
“After staying abreast of the situation”
(slides pun jar over)
all the while, wondering water we doing here
(slides pun jar over)
The puns are sinking to new debts. Can we take the pressure?
I’m not feeling the squeeze.
(slides pun jar over)
With all these developments, it’s probably good they aren’t out in pub(l)ic.
(jar shatters)
I get the sinking feeling that starting this thread aqua-est to my pun-differous personality.
(jar reforms, gains Time-Lord technology, and even with that begins to fill and overflow)
When it comes to dealing with pressure, the oak breaks but the blade of grass merely bends…
And the Dude abides.
Hah, panda philosophy!
We know all about your weird vegetarian bamboo shoot appetites.
*eats, shoots, and leaves*
Burger, I ates cheezeburger, before shooting with a party popper!
(…starts drunkenly singing…):
“Ev’ry party hazza popper thas why we invited yoo – Party Popper! – Party Popper!”
(…slides PunJar over…)
Honestly that was meant to be a ‘water’ pun (the bends). It failed horribly.
Isn’t that one oxford comma too many?
I’m sure that the situation will be hard – erm, difficult for everyone, but equally sure we can handle – erm, comport ourselves as professionals.
(dunks change in pun jar & reference jar).
I’ll see myself out…
Movie quoting doesn’t count. :P
We must not be afraid to expose the naked truth hiding behind patriotism and it’s symbols.
(We are going to need a bigger pun jar)
Bust those conspirators, (slides pun jar over)
I cant fathom how deep into the puns this thread will go.
(Runs off with pun jar and buys more comics and video games)
Just my opinion but from my read of Harem and her personality, I don’t see her covering up like that. She doesn’t seem body shy and she’s low enough in the water that really she’d be pretty covered even if the guys were still around. At most, I think she’d cross her arms over them due to being upset at the prank.
Harem is actually aware of 4th wall observation, which is why she’s covered up. (not really, but she knows Math is somewhere around.)
I think you have missed a few clues that Harem is a bit less confident than she projects herself to be. She was really taken aback at Dabbler’s skin-tight outfit, for example. Likewise I have a feeling there was something similar before, probably when Dabbler was up to some of her antics, with her snax.
Looking back at #339 (the shower scene) I notice that Harem doesn’t have the hearts and stars tattoos…
Depends on which Daphne was in the shower: all five have different tattoos
Not sure where it was mentioned, or even if I am right, but I thought it was said somewhere she keeps one body, her original one, unmodified. So only four out of five of her would have dyed hair, tattoos, and piercings.
Yup.
Pretty sure blonde harem is the unmodified one… the rest have hair that are not even remotely natural colors.
Pink, purple/pink, black/purple, white, and blonde
Blonde is the only color normal/undyed for someone her age, so bets are thats her natural body
Not unmodified, less modified, but even she isn’t sure who is the original, just Berry is the one that was chosen to remain as unchanged as possible (at least regarding her hair)
Um… Berry Harem has pink hair. Pretty sure that’s not ‘unchanged.’ :)
Going by https://davebarrack.deviantart.com/art/Harem-Playboy-Shoot-Topless-354162310
Blondinie has a “tramp stamp” and is supposed to have some star tattoos at the bikini line.
But they are absent in https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2540
I’m assuming the first picture was not canon to the story.
Or it was and somewhere there is a rival publication with the headline:
“Glossy mag in super photoshop scandal!”
If it was, the stars tattoo would he visible both here and in the shower scene.
Not if it was added by photo shop, as I implied. Glossy mags have done that, in the past.
If you google it you can find pages of tutorials on how to do it. This is a highly prevalent, if unethical,* aspect of modern society.
* Where done without the subjects concent and/or if presented in such a fashion (e.g. without explaining it in the article) that the public are mislead.
Or daphne was trying out a temp tattoo to see how it would play before deciding on the permanent version.
+1
I had considered the temporary tattoo, but discarded the idea as unlikely. Your reason though is highly plausible.
Yes, strawberry pink, which is an actual hair colour (albeit not quite so vivid), and that’s why she is called ‘Berry’ (also why DaveB had her wearing that “Thing #1” t-shirt when she was first introduced)
Okay, if you read the comments here, this is where DaveB specifically states that Berry (or Vanilla, or Farmer’s Daughter, or Girl Next Door, as she was known at that time) is the unmodified look
Therecare no people on Earth for whom strawberry PINK is a natural color.
Methinks you are confusing pink with the term ‘Strawberry blonde’ which is not pink.
And using pink to simulate berry blonde is never done by other artists since a deep red past the color of roses and blood carry the concept so well.
Oh, yes, did mean ‘strawberry blonde’, which is not blonde by the way
The point remains: Berry is the unmodified Daphne, as per the Word of Dave
Also, i mentioned this in another comment earlier, It is the natural automatic reaction for any person, no matter their age, to cover up if your clothes get ripped off somehow. Yes, its quite possibly that Harem would just say screw it and go dive for her top now, but as an initial reaction to a surprise “attack” it makes perfect sense.
This sounds right; reflex reaction, even though she’s not terribly body-shy (especially when Dabbler isn’t around escalating the situation; just being topless she’s clearly fine with — witness the flirting she did with Varia while nekkid). Also, you mentioning her diving for the top made me think that she could just teleport to it, and then wonder if she could — she displaces *air* when she teleports and has mentioned that she has a sense that prevents her from teleporting into a solid object (which it seems she *can’t* just displace), so I wonder what her, I guess you’d say, “teleport target displacement density limit” is. And if she could push that limit in extreme circumstances.
Harem seems like the kind of girl who likes reporting on the water temperature.
Nerd alert: cotton, polyester, and spandex all are denser than water, but not by much. Guess what swimsuits are usually made from? So, yeah, stray swimwear does tend to sink. Slowly. Neoprene is another matter, particularly if it’s closed cell…
Of course, none of this detracts from the amusement value. Wonder if this ‘air’ror will lead to a prank war? :-)
Counter-nerd notice: Surface tension exists and allows water to suspend things denser than itself. Swimsuits will float for quite a while if left undisturbed but too much movement nearby and they definitely go under, though slowly as you say.
Consider, however, that this is now quite thoroughly aerated water and thus probably a little below its usual density.
there’s a flag salute/standing at attention joke in this ….. someone make that be a thing!
did you know a sideways flag means ‘sinking ship’?
My dad filmed a naval firing exercise, with an American warship firing at a towed target (on, as you might expect, a very very long tether). The salvo fired was so off target, that it straddled the towing boat! Leading to a famous signal:
“We are towing, not pushing”
My favourite report from a naval event:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WpiTa7azQs
^_^
Damnit, browser is the wrong size to view it properly, looks ucky and fuzzy :(
The little ‘preview’ window when you run the mouse over the track looks good though, just only an inch high
It is from ye olden times. I think they only did ucky and fuzzy then.
No, like said, if you place your curser over the tracking bar thingie (that sometimes lets you see a preview of the video at the time you are pointing to) it shows it much clearer, as it is, it looks like the pixel’s (no, not Pixelicious) are much bigger than they should be, making it nearly impossible to make out detail
A have an Uncle who was a naval fire control technician. He has a story about how his ship was conducting a firing exercise, which involved them firing their canon at a target being towed at the end of a long tether by an aircraft passing by the ship.
He said his entire gun crew (4 guys, all non-coms) was on deck watching the target being hit. And then the fire started walking up the tether towards the plane. What followed was a situation where you had 4 guys all trying to squeeze through a door at the same time to get back down into their turret.
I thought a sideways flag meant ‘how the heck is that flat still waiving when the pole is horizontal on the ground – must be witchcraft!’
It does not make sense though, because, if the ship is going down, nose first, the sideways flag will be on the right orientation.
“Captain, message reads:
‘this ship is not sinking'”
“Wow, I felt sure they must be in distress. Must be some kind of submarine. Very well , resume original course.”
(the flag would be long against the pole, rather than long parallel to the ship)
So what does that mean? The ship is flying?
:-)
It would mean that flying the USA flag the stripes are parallel to the flagpole instead of perpendicular however if the ship was tipped as far as pander suggested few would be looking at the flag as the ships distress would be obvious to most people. (Yes you can cry that some people are that clueless)
this is a world in which people have to be told their coffee is hot.
It is actually a useful piece of information, that I will add to my ‘fun trivia’ compartment, in my brain. I just like to play with the silly side of things too.
Add the trivia that the us cavalry use flags on the radio antenna of armor vehicles as a form of comms and will also off orientation flag to report disabled unit. (This uses a version of navy’s flag language to form words/ sentence)
Heh. Now that is cool, thanks.
Military is funny. All done for very serious reasons. But that does not stop the irony of using flag signals in a modern battlefield.
Of course whatever caused the vehicle to become disabled might have also rendered the radio inoperative, or any one of a dozen other reasons why they are out of touch. So falling back on tried and tested technology thousands of years old is sensible.
*wags tail in amusement, at humanity*
This is also for if radio is believed unsecured or units have different radio security fills rendering secure calls undecriptable.
I would like to voice a complaint regarding the following topic – physics in the webcomic about superheroes, fantasy monsters and aliens are not 100% realistic 100% of the time. To elaborate:
Instead of “giant fart emulation”, shouldn’t this have made Harem sink? I mean, all that water providing the pressure keeping her up was suddenly replaced with a giant bubble of air. Unless she managed to keep herself semi-stationary by holding onto the edge of the pool, she should have started falling. And then get covered up, once water came rushing back in.
I am pretty seriously pissed off at myself that I didn’t realize this before anyone else did. Harem should have fallen about four or five feet before getting encased in water. Even if she managed to retain her senses enough to automatically grab the side of the pool, she still should have ended up with her head underwater and her arms stretched above her head grabbing the lip of the pool. Good catch.
The episode of Code Geass where they sank a fleet of ships by letting loose a giant methane bubble comes to mind.
“letting loose a giant methane bubble” Hehe. My mind is so juvenile.
It’s thought that in RL methane bubbles — naturally occurring, from the seabed — might have sunk some boats in the North Sea (east of Britain).
With all that beans-on-toast and lentils and stuff Britain eats, I’m not surprised that even their geography is flatulent.
same thing can be said for some of the lost ships in the Bermuda Triangle too… the methane infused water has a lower density than “normal” water and so cannot support as much weight/volume, and if the combined difference makes it such that the new water level comes to be above the free-board on the vessel, then it rapidly sinks due to all the water flooding into the ship from the top decks, etc…
You will note that Harem does have her elbows on the edge of the pool, supporting her weight.* I anticipated the fall, in the last comic, but was countered by the possibility that Harem could prevent that happening.
Granted it is only a marginal purchase, but it need only be for a moment. Plus there is quite a lot of water being forced up (mixed in with the air, as it disperses) as we can see from the explosive force in panel 2. So that would provide some lift. Only momentary, and not much, but it does not need much, given her partial support.
Had Halo continued to create air, in that kind of volume, then she would inevitably have fallen.
* I should acknowledge that Guesticus called that right, when saying that the water-level will have been restored (from Halo’s earlier shield demonstration). Likewise for the commentator who anticipated Harem’s pose here.
Without her elbows being on the side, I too called it the way you did.
I can’t say for sure if she’d stay as comfortable as she did but there are a few things I’d like to point out.
First of all, she already has both her elbows on the edge, she would not have to hang by her hands with her arms outstretched if she could brace herself by her elbows fast enough.
Second, it does not look like Sydney released a large 5 – 6 feet sphere of ‘solid’ air upwards at Harem but instead produced a big group of separate bubbles so as those passed her (which would take only a moment) there wouldn’t be much time or difference in buoyancy to make her fall or sink too much.
I’ll give you guys a couple points for those answers … but, I’ll also offer my opinion that they are only partially correct, under best case scenario.
Resting her elbows on the edge of the pool might briefly provide a hesitation in the fall, but without warning she would suddenly be supporting her entire body weight in air. No dice. She’s gonna fall. A better theory would have been (if her reflexes were quick enough to try & hold the edge of the pool) that she would have reflexively vorped to safety upon realizing that she was falling. That habit should be muscle-memory instinctual in her by now.
Caveat: I’m somewhat of an expert on falling, with some grievously painful experience on how fast and how hard gravity sucks when support suddenly vanishes out from under you. You do not hang there like Wile E. Coyote holding up a sign that says “halp” before you begin falling. It is a VERY instantaneous event. My broken legs and missing teeth and other injuries can tell that story in some detail. Try to imagine suddenly catching your own entire body weight on your elbows, without any warning that that is about to happen.
The air-water mix providing buoyancy isn’t really going to do much to mitigate that effect. At the depth that Sidney set off her depth charge, the gas in the bubbles would be expanding, probably doubling or almost tripling their volume by the time the reached the surface. There would be virtually no water present, and what little that remained would be mixed with air, providing effectively zero buoyancy in one Earth gravity.
Shiny distraction: the Mighty Halo can set of a gas discharge at 100 meters depth, which will expand by a couple orders of magnitude by the time it reaches the surface. Given that she is a comic/anime nerd … she could pull a Code Geass Maneuver and sink a fairly large boat all by herself. Just needs some field testing to see how much gas she can generate and how instantaneously and at what depths. She might have the capacity to break the back of an aircraft carrier or displace a battleship by 20 or 30 meters.
Frankly, an experienced SCUBA diver would not have pulled the prank Sidney did in these pages. The awareness of gas expansion/compression in water should be so ingrained in her that even her ADHD shouldn’t have let her forget it and how wrong it could go. And, yes, I spent a few years SCUBA diving. Your worldview changes forever once you’ve been below 30 meters, or even 20.
Sidney is not an EXPERIENCED scuba diver. She is – at best – an amateur diver with like… one scuba trip.
Probably.
But the flashback to her scuba training was separate to the one of her recent holiday (a few months ago). As such it may have been years ago.
The only reason why it popped into Sydney’s mind was because of Zephan impugning her ability to pass such a course. So it need not be related to her memories of finding the orbs (beyond both being scuba related).
Not so. If you look at the panel (previously) where the bubble was released, it was considerably smaller than the one which enclosed Sydney (and Maxima). We can clearly see that it is not bigger than Harem’s whole body. At most only one third of her will be in air, at any time.
The complexities of the interactions of bubble and water, and the effects on water pressures get too complex to state definitively state what effects might occur, as regards pressure differentials, without modelling. As all we could do is venture opinions, and the different factors would contradict one another (e.g. weight of water above versus pressure from water entering an air-void), it is probably wiser to discount them and assume they counter one another.
Doing that we only need consider Harem’s weight, when 1/3 of her is in air. I think that the elbow supports would probably be sufficient, to counter that.
I am only playing devil’s advocate here mind, bearing in mind I proposed the fall on the previous page. But the situation is not clear-cut, so it is fair to robustly examine the arguments which support the way it turned out in the comic.
This is not going to get explained in an Internet comments thread. Let me make this suggestion. Next time you visit a pool that has a 3 or 5 meter deep end, take a couple of rugged balloons or trashbags, inflate them, then take them down to the bottom. Best to use a net of some sort, and you’ll want weights. Observer the compression. There is a very dramatic volume change even at three meters, which would be fairly close to about how far down Sydney is, if not slightly more.
Pop the balloons and observe. Also, observe from a distance away while someone else does it. The “bubble” is a column of froth. Inside that rising column of froth … which is expanding rapidly … there is effectively near-zero water density. Statements like “the weight of the water above” simply don’t apply. It’s air/gas inside the bubble. Water present is more like a heavy mist of no substance.
As far as the 1/3 estimate you propose, I’ll disagree and say 1/2 at least. But, even at 1/3, once it passes around her body, it only needs to envelope her upper abdomen & chest to negate nearly 100% of her buoyancy. If the air column envelopes her from her beltline to the surface, she is effectively, almost instantaneously, in air and will drop at the speed of gravity.
This really needs to be submitted to Mythbusters.
It was, sort of. They didn’t test using a massive air bubble, but they did test using many small bubbles. They found that the air flowing to the surface brought such a strong current along with it that the person in the water would be pushed up and away from the source of the bubbles.
She is certified for Open Water (which you would have to be to dive the Keys, or the ocean anywhere).
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/554
Can’t recall for sure if there is canon discussion elsewhere, but I seem to recall mention that SCUBA is one of her regular hobbies. That scene also seems to imply she was diving solo, which is foolish even for the best of the best (if she’s actually doing that), but also something you don’t even contemplate unless you’ve got dozens if not hundreds of dives in your log. I’ve never gone down without a dive partner, and never met anyone who has. That’s nearly 150 dives for me, and I’ve known people who have decades of diving that wouldn’t. Doesn’t mean you can’t & people don’t, just foolish and to be avoided if at all possible.
tl;dr — Sydney is experienced.
Your conclusion does not all all appear to match your premise.
I find it highly more likely that Sydney is foolish. (Which does not mean that she is not also experienced)
Sydney is impulsive, as we can see with her practical joke here, and her first attempt at running an advertising campaign. Which provoked consternation, by passing members of the public.
But setting off on a SCUBA expedition is something that takes time and planning and I do not feel that she would deliberately choose to compromise her safety. To the contrary we see that Sydney does take precautions, like packing medication and duct tape (which we saw her taping the flyball on to her hand with). Taking it so far that utility belts have become a major obsession with her.
So whilst I do agree with you that Sydney has her failings, and can indeed often be classed as foolish, I do not feel that your version is likely in this event.
Sydney did appear to be solo diving, when she found the orbs (but that could easily be deceptive, as it was just a single frame), but if so I think there would be a good reason. Being highly experienced would be one.
Or perhaps she had credible evidence that there was some kind of treasure to be found, and chose to weigh the safety risk against the risks that come from informing other people about such? Whether such deserves to be classed as ‘foolish’ or ‘wise’ then depends on the particular circumstances.
Alternatively there is common ground, in our beliefs, if she had arranged for a diving partner, but they dropped out or fell ill and left, after they had already set out. In which case it is reasonable that Sydney’s impulsiveness may have influenced her into carrying on solo.
But even then I don’t think she would have given in to that as a novice diver. The very fact that she has ADHD and is intelligent means that she needs to take extra precautions against dangerous impulsive behaviour. The process of diving involves enough stages, that Sydney would have a chance to reconsider, and I feel she likely would.
Or both where diving separate points with a manned rescue boat ready to respond to beacon from either near by and scheduled meet time and points.
do not hang there like Wile E. Coyote
I’m starting to feel comics lack realism.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1224
Take a balloon under 1 ATM (14.7 psi) of pressure (surface level). If we push the balloon underwater, and take it to a depth of 33 feet, it is now under 2 ATM of pressure (29.4 lbs) – 1 ATM of pressure from the air, 1 ATM of pressure from the water. Boyle’s Law then tells us that since we have twice the absolute pressure, the volume of the balloon will be decreased to one half. It follows then, that taking the balloon to 66 feet, the pressure would compress the balloon to one third its original size, 99 feet would make it 1/4 etc. Sydney is barley even 5-6 feet below Harem (who is only about 2/3 in the water) so at best she is releasing the bubbles at 10-12 feet below surface level. they will not even double in size. 1 1/2 times the amount shown maybe… This would disturb the water, wouldn’t drop Harem a significant amount though.
Harem would probably scrape the undersides of her arms on the surface of the pool edge something fierce though.
That would only work, if Sydney replaced the water with an equal volume of air, she didn’t: she released a gas bubble that displaced the water upwards, with the rest of the pool filling in the displaced water from below and the sides
She may well have sunk for a moment. Aside from the huge BLORSH the scene immediately cut to Sydney. And she may have supported her weight temporarily on her elbows during the huge BLORSH and didn’t sink. But all of this arguments about real world physics is killing catgirls at a prodigious rate! Just enjoy the silliness.
While Harem indeed would fall straight down if she were out in the middle of the pool, in this instance she has both arms out of the water and propping some portion of her weight out of the pool, on the pool edge.
What this means then, is when the sudden air bubble happens, her elbows become a pivot point; she will fall down and INTO the side of the pool. Additionally, the bubbles rising weren’t instantaneous- Harem should have felt them on her feet a fraction of a second before the final eruption, thus allowing her to brace herself as an unconscious reaction.
All in all, Dave’s renderings are indeed realistic to Newtonian physics.
And they tend to be quite perky too.
Sparkly Amaceballz ;-P
Interesting question now… Can Harem teleport underwater?
I can;t think of any particular reason why not. Unless the water both counted against Harem’s normal (sea-level) weight limit* and that she was deep enough that it exceeded her capacity. But we do not see a vortex of air being disturbed, above Harem, each time she teleports, so that is very unlikely.
Somewhere early on, maybe when we first see her teleporting, or under her science corner, Dave does chat about things like whether air swaps place with her, and so on. I cannot recall anything definitive he may have stated, at the time, though.
But if she does normally swap air from the destination (to make room for her body) which replaces the void when she leaves, then teleporting out of water would leave a Harem-shaped air bubble, in the water, for a moment, until it dispersed. Whereas a water-to-water teleport would not likely have any noticeable difference unless one location was particularly murky or otherwise distinctive.
We do know that this does not apply to solids. Harem cannot teleport into a wall, for example, and swap out the material to her start point. She actually has a momentary warning, if there is a solid object blocking her way, and has to abort her teleport, if that is the case.
* Implying that she would have impressive teleportation capacity in space.
Adding to what Yorp already said I’d also mention things like pressure. Since she keeps her vector when falling (though she can flip it) that probably also goes for pressure. So just as Opal can’t portal out of her pressurized cell I would think it not a good idea for a scuba diving Harem to teleport too far up or down.
The above answers, also. But, I’ll add for consideration that there should be an interesting effect of her body volume suddenly making a void in the water, which then will fill up. The physics of that would be different than air … although, I don’t think I’ve seen a canon explanation as to why there isn’t a sonic boom each time Harem vorps or anyone else teleports. Should be a pretty significant shockwave in air .. but, water would be a very different hydraulic model. In air, one could imagine shifts in pressure, her vorping ability somehow compensating by pulling in displaced local air or from her destination. In water, something very different would take place.
Vorping out of water and leaving a void (most especially if fully submerged) is an interesting hydraulic collapse problem. But, if she vorps into a body of water, also especially if fully submerged, the sudden displacement could have several interesting effects. Very very especially if it is completely instantaneous. The shockwaves from that could crush concrete and shatter steel. Of course the water level will go up to compensate … when possible … but there will still be hydrostatic shockwaves in all directions. In an unexplodable vessel that is perfectly full (no air to compress), Harems body itself would be crushed as if she vorped to the bottom of five miles of water in a deep trench.
How far down are you expecting her to teleport into or out of water? For shock waves to crush concrete or steel you need a massive amount of pressure that removing or adding the mass of a person is unlikely to do. The pressure on the body would happen, but again the degree to which it happens is based on the general depth she goes to. The only way it would crush her like being 5 miles down, is if she ACTUALLY went 5 miles down.
Tangentially related: What happens to the air that is displaced wherever she teleports to? Or the Harem-shaped vacuum that should be left behind where she teleports from which ought to cause an implosion?
I seem to recall Dave speculating on the options himself, with the most likely being that Harem just swaps places with the destination air. However this has not been stated in canon.
None-the-less the lack of any implosion, or other odd effects, does support this as being the credible option. The creation of a vacuum (at her departure point), or air being pushed aside to make room (for her arrival), both would have distinctive results, like papers, hair and clothing being blown around. None of which happen.
Maybe you heard it from me. I’ve been thinking along those lines myself, but I don’t remember if I posted it before. A question it raises is whether it works with solid matter, too. If she should accidentally teleports into solid rock, it might teleport a Harem-shaped chunk of rock back to the origin, creating the illusion that she had turned to stone.
I may have posted this before. I just realized that the word “Harem-shaped” has been entered into my dictionary. :-)
How rude of me!
*changes telepathy setting to ‘with permission only’*
Sorry, I have no idea how that changed.
You may well have commented on it mind, but I did miss a bunch recently. That memory though dates from way back.
*points paw towards the misty distance of double digit issue numbers*
The statue thing is a cunning plan. Although circumstantial unless fighting a villain with random powers, who might think they did that. Or if there are multiple bad guys who may assume that one of the others had done the stoning.
The fact that Harem has a built in warning, to help her avoid teleporting into a solid hints that such would actually be fatal to her. But that is by no means certain, as she could have both the warning and matter swapping powers. Avoiding bisecting people would stop it being a wasted power mind.
hmmmm…. I wonder how fast Sydney can move the orbs with her mind… picturing her making a vortex with them or something….
Now I want them to test this out. If it works in water, there is a chance it could work in air too and create a mini dust-devil vortex.
She already used the Henticle to make a water vortex.
True. And it did not work very well.
The orbs might be faster mind, but I doubt they would do a useful job. I can see it creating a small vortex, like in one of those drinking fountains, what do you humans call them? Oh a toilet.
But I do not see that being particularly useful, for most purposes. Whilst we could contrive a situation where that might be pawey, I do not think it would serve much general use.
Even a small vortex could be useful in a water-based situation
I can’t think of any practical examples. I am sure there must be some mind. But how likely is Sydney to come across one? And there would have to be some explanation for why she could not use her hands to solve the situation.
Of course she could just do it for the heck of it, like she always does. But unless an orb-created vortex is better at a job than just picking things up with her hands, or pushing them to one side, or whatnot, then it is a trivial waste of her powers.
Yes an archmage can use a cantrip to light a campfire. And in an age of flint and steel firelighters, it is a useful time saver. But not if you have a modern or super-science era mage. Then it is just showing off, that can cause resentment or irritation if used ill-advisedly. Halo gets enough criticism as it is. The more useful things she can demonstrate, rather than marginal or time wasting ones.
And improvising a vortex strikes me as something just as likely to create more problems than solve them.
Funnel cloudy water away from point so clear water can fill and she can then hentai the criminal kicking up the cloud. May need practice but generating the flush effect to drain a flooding ship back out the point the water came in. Vortex shield for other people in underwater battle while syd stays bubbled elsewhere (possibly with immobile wounded)
Good comic examples (from an era where they did that kind of thing). Practical though? I would dispute their effectiveness. A vortex is just swirling water. This is how you stir tea. I.e. it mixes up disparate components, rather than separating them.
Likewise creating a vortex in a partly flooded hold, will just make the water go round and round, some of it may try to head back down the plug hole, but most of it is just being pushed away from it, through centrifugal force.
This is distinct from water draining down a plug hole, which is acting through gravity and having a void below to encourage it down. You still have the weight of the ocean (or whatever body of water the vessel is in) causing external pressure on the vessel. So the differential is making the water flood in.
With the orbs going round and round, the water in it is too, but there is no void below, to encourage it down the hole, rather the water is squirting in. So all Halo would be doing is making it act like a water sprinkler above water and a washing machine below! Creating very hazardous conditions for anyone in the hull either trying to escape or patch the hole!
Likewise for the final example. If you are underwater the last thing you want to happen is to be spun around and around, in a tornado-like effect! That sounds like a sure way to rip off breathing apparatus (just look at how easy it was for the bikini to come off above, then imagine the same thing happening to a face mask)!
And even if the victims manage to hold tight to their survival gear, they will rapidly become disoriented and feel sick. Underwater is an alien enough environment, so loosing your sense of direction and having any visual cues obscured by a water vortex, around you, would make it almost impossible for them to find their bearings!
Depends on where in the flooded boat the vortex starts
As for the last example: that’s kinda the point, use it against someone, a bad person or enemy fish
Not everything is going to be an aid or positive action
Used offensively it would provide an alternative to the PPO, which probably does not function underwater. Likewise the orbs seem to punch with human-like strength,‡ so they are not likely to be very effective, used in that manner underwater. Water resistance renders punches relatively harmless.
So not a bad option.
*swirls tail like a vortex*
‡ Given that Math, Dabbler and Harem did not end up with broken bones.
I was not imagining the people being that badly spun instead they be in the “eye of the storm” concept so the moving water act as a wall or deflecting force, you have caused me to reexamine the idea
It was a good enough water jet to propel her around like an outboard…
I don’t have super powers, but I don’t need 7 techno-magical obs to create a vortex in a toilet. I just flush.
A not very effective outboard. But yea, along with the thrashing around she was getting some movement.
Now contrast that to using the flyball.
“Bikini AWOL” is a really, really solid pun.
Yet flimsy too.
“water temperature reporting” is a good way to describe it.
“Madame, your turkeys appear to be done.”
But I thought they were usually referred to as “lady hams”, not turkeys…
Turkey-timers: little devices inserted into turkey’s that ‘pop’ when they are cooked properly
How would that joke gone over if Dabbler was around?!?!? In fact where is she?
Preparing to dive in while quipping about ‘If we are skinny dipping anyway…’
Her outfit was already pretty much skinny dipping.
Yup, called the fart joke last comic
I can has Yorpie snax?
*presents a tray-full*
Yay!
*has noms*
Fart jokes? Come now, Sydney, you have better material than that.
The only thing I’m questioning here is Harem’s apparent modesty at being seen topless by the pool.
There is always a difference between choosing to take a top off, and having it ripped off. Harem has been taken by surprise here, so is reacting in a more instinctive, modest, way. Once she is over that, she may decide to take advantage of the situation, and revel in it.
Based on all her other behaviour, I can’t figure out why Harem is upset… one would think she would LIKE to have a legitimate excuse for public nudity.
Guess she sees a difference between nudity by choice and nudity by prank.
She may well do, in due course. At the moment there is only Sydney and Anvil watching though, and we have seen that Harem is extroverted enough that she would want an appreciative audience. But she has not had the opportunity to think this through, at the moment we see above. So all we see is her initial response.
Bikini retrieval strategy: *
– identify location of submerged object
– vorp to location about 10 feet above target (body in vertical orientation with legs together)
– fall into pool with enough speed to reach required depth
– use one arm to grab ‘old glory’ and raise the flag.
* taking into account the prior arguments about the feasibility of water-porting.
The displacement of her dropping into the pool will probably push it further away. I think.
But her momentum should carry her the rest: doing the *VORP* drop would be less effort (and more potential to return splash Sydney) than diving down, even if she did use both arms
I just thought of something. Not sure if this question’s been answered yet or not:
What happens if one of Harem’s copies dies? Can she just re-make it, or does she have to start from scratch with a new copy? Does she feel the death, and so is traumatized terribly? I don’t recall if this has come up before, but now I worry about her drowning…
To give Harem’s response to the press reporter asking the same question. The only way Harem can find out the answer to that is for one of her bodies to die. She is not keen on testing that.
You need not worry about her drowning with Maxima here. Having been through the process twice, I can assure you that it is not instantaneous, so Max would easily be able to rescue anyone. As demonstrated with responding to Sydney’s crisis earlier (albeit that it turned out not to be necessary).
It’s been asked. many times.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1680
It sort of been answered. To paraphrase: “The only way I’d know that is if it happened, and I’m not going to experiment.”
Am I the only one that felt thee comment she made about farting felt unlike her? I’ve re-read it multiple times, and it just doesn’t feel like the way she would make a joke like that.
Sydney is working with what she has
Sydney thinks about a lot of diverse things, all the time. So will gradually build up witty layers of idle thoughts, which will come flowing out when a related subject is under discussion.
This is a new power though. The first thing that came into her head, Sydney ran with. So, yes, it is logical that it would lack the polish and potential variety that she normally has, in her dialogue.
I wonder if one of her comm-ball’s powers will let her not need glasses or contacts to see clearly. (Occurred to me because I know how blind I would be in a pool if I didn’t have contacts in…which means I wear goggles when swimming. Otherwise OW.)
She’s very slightly far-sighted (like me). Her glasses have almost no prescription. She only needs her glasses to read, basically, so she doesn’t need glasses or contacts in the pool.
EDIT: And I only need glasses to read small print, like the instructions on medicine bottles. I don’t use glasses for normal reading, or when sitting at my computer.
This page feels like unnecessary filler.
“Oh, this fight is going on too long.”
“Oh, this training sequence is going on too long.”
“Oh, this feels like unnecessary filler.”
DaveB can’t win for losing, apparently.
Welcome to the exciting world of webcomics! Or any serialized story, really.
Yups, matters not what is happening, there will be at least a few complaining about it in some way
Filler it may be, but not unnecessary: Sydney is the middle of training her balls, and just discovered a new power, so of course she is going to ‘test’ it in a fun fashion against her ‘enemy’ :P
Reminds me of Heroes of Might & Magic VIII (the RPG, not the turn-based strategy game… that one’s only up to VI.)
Now, I will say up front that it has not aged well. It’s butt-ugly compared to today’s 3D games. But that’s not the point.
By the time VIII rolled around, the previous three games… V, VI, and VII… had all used the same graphics engine, with minor tweaks, but it was still only pseudo-3D with sprite-based graphics (like Doom). And everyone was complaining about how dated the graphics looked.
So, for VIII, 3DO pulled out the stops and adapted a fully 3D engine (in this case, the graphics engine from No One Lives Forever… the LithTech engine). And guess what? All the same people who were complaining about how the previous games looked, started complaining about how VIII didn’t look the same!
You are talking about “Might & Magic VIII” (“Heroes of M&M” is the title of the turn-based strategy series)
But yeah, with M&MVIII, the faces looked really bad, it was like they slapped a photo onto a cylinder (flat and curved)
I thought it was funny.
Other media focus on the battles and the profound moments. This one explores the quiet moments in between those. It is in the comic’s mission statement. It is not filler it is what the comic is about.
Unless it adds something to the story, it’s filler.
I’m not asking for battles and profound moments. I’m asking for the economy of story telling. This page is just “let’s let Sydney be Sydney for the sake of being Sydney”… Unless it’s setting something up, like say Harem’s wardrobe malfunction prevents her from showing up for something on time (there’s 4 more of her, why would that be an issue?), there’s no point in showing us this.
If there is some kind of problem that Harem losing her bikini top causes, then I applaud DaveB for showing and not telling, but at the moment I can’t help but feel this is more dragging it out for no reason…
I’ve been following this comic since before we found out Sydney likes hot food, for crying out loud. You don’t need to tell me stuff I already know.
Heaven forbid. Because then the complaints about “Remember the steak house battle and how it went on forever? I hope this one isn’t nearly as long as that one!” would begin.
Here’s a novel idea: How about we stop complaining, and let DaveB tell the story he wants to tell? Which he’s going to do anyway, no matter how much you whine about “unnecessary filler”.
TL;DR: Don’t get your knickers in a knot. It won’t solve anything, and it makes you walk funny. (And in this case, it makes you look like a jerk to all those people who actually enjoy the occasional page of filler.)
P.S., having said that, if the filler were excessive, I’d be complaining too. Take Naruto as an example… nearly 25% of the anime was pure filler. Or Bleach, whenever the anime got caught up to the manga. In order to keep milking the cash cow, instead of putting the anime on hold for a while, they wrote entire seasons that were nothing but filler.
But the occasional page or two of filler? Not a problem for me.
Sydney is our protagonist, so she bears the brunt of most of the complaints, simply because she is always present. However she is not the only one present here. What we are getting to see is the group dynamics at play (literally), in something other than a mission context. This is very important to the story as it is about the day-to-day life of super heroes.
So it is actually progressing the story. The one that this comic is telling. It does cover the other things, like the fiendish plots of the villains. But here we are finding out more about the characters, rather than the law enforcement developments.
Of particular note is that Anvil and Maxima are clearly friends enough that Anvil can poke fun at her, despite Maxima being the unit commander. Whilst in front of extremely subordinate team members. This is showing that the unit is extremely relaxed and is relying on the bonds of friendship rather than harsh military discipline.
This does have an important affect on the ongoing story, including the battles that they may next have. If they choose to risk their lives for one another it is to save a friend, rather than because it has been drilled into them until they respond that way instinctively.
Plus we are getting to see that Harem is not one-dimensional. We have had several comments that imply that Harem normally behaves in a much more ‘tarty’ fashion. Here we get to see that she has a shy side too.
As regards Sydney it is nice to see that she has the strength of character to accept her wrongdoing here, by virtue of her dialogue in the final panel. No trying to wriggle out of the wardrobe malfunction being an accident. It was her prank that went wrong, ergo it was her fault, which she accepts.
But she does have a cute frown, at the thought that she may be blamed for other such incidences. So it is nice to see her standing her ground… err… treading her water… against that.
Your dislike of the filler comes with an implication that the story should move on, well this is it, the daily life of super heroes. Most of which does not involve blowing stuff up, it just involves hanging with each other and preparing for the life-or-death stuff that might kick off at any moment.
This is Sydney’s day, at the moment. And we are getting to share her experiencing it, as it happens.
Buffy musical episode willows comment in big number where everyone was required to do a line. Please enjoy the multiple good songs looking for right one (evil wiki link grin).
No hunting required on that one. Willow is my favourite character in the series, and that is one of my favourite episodes. As Alyson Hannigan was song-shy it is easy to remember her parts.
But nice to be reminded of it, thanks.
*wags tail in fond reminiscence*
I was meaning when she went with “I think this lines mostly filler” as that was the first line she sang for the episode having refused on grounds she thought she had a bad voice. She hearing that part was willing to add for the earlier in episode but not yet recorded song you quoted as per behind the scenes commentary by the actress herself.
I like Pie!
Going back to the idea of Sydney creating different mixtures of gas: If she could do this AND create the gas outside of her shield she could have multiple news weapons on hand. Think about it, if she filled the area around her bubble with something as basic as CO2 she could render a lot of people unconscious. Instant crowd control. Or howabout filling the same area with something combustible like hydrogen? She could be used as an air/fuel bomb.
or thick cold fog, to put out fires or act as a smoke screen.
Gah. NOT CO2. Overabundant CO2 causes you to feel like you can’t breathe, which is a horrible feeling (I’ve been there), before it actually becomes dangerous.
Nitrogen in and of itself is not dangrous at ordinary pressures, and your body has no reaction to it at all (it’s most of the air you breathe). However, a pure nitrogen environment has no oxygen, and you will quickly suffocate and go unconscious without having any warning symptoms at all. This killed two space-shuttle technicans in 1981, with three others injured, at least one severely and permanently – it’s officially the cause of his death 14 years later (in the ensuing inquiry, NASA got royally bitched out for not regarding abnormal atmospheric conditions in general as dangerous – which they had been officially informed was a mistake after the Apollo 1 fire killed three astronauts in 1967).
As I understood it at the time (and may be misremembering), the workers were cleaning one of the huge tanks after it was purged with nitrogen, and hadn’t had normal air restored to it. They were contractors, not directly NASA employees, and it may not have been a purely NASA facility. But my recall on the event is kinda vague, since it didn’t happen at JSC where I was working at the time.
Harem teleporting from under water to air options:
1) Water counts like air, or as a non-contiguous solid: She appears wet at her destination, and a bubble of air appears at her origin. Possibly, she can carry 20kg or so of ‘extra’ water with her (up to whatever her cargo weight limit is) and drop that water bomb, on say, a gloating comrade at the scene…
2) Water counts as an interconnected solid. She can teleport ‘through’ water, but she can’t teleport, say, to the bottom of the pool. It also wouldn’t impair her ability in rain, for instance. It would be an interesting ‘blind spot’ for her power, and potentially a way someone could hide from her.
3) Water, being a liquid, doesn’t follow either the ‘contiguous solid’ rules or the ‘loose molecules’ rules. This is unlikely, since part of her is made of water, but possible. Or it doesn’t matter since all of her parts are inside of her ‘teleport field’.
It seems that Harem’s teleport ability works similarly to that in the Star Trek novel ‘Spock Must Die’, in which Scotty briefly experimented with using what we would later call replicator technology (using tachyons) to materialize a copy of Spock on a distant planet without dematerializing the original.
Things did not go well.
#1 is a definite must have for a proper ending to this scene (or brick joke for later… as she does brick jokes very well https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2498).
IIRC Max’s intent was for Sydney to experiment with possibly generating ‘other gasses’ with that orb… That being said, was that air or was that sulfur dioxide that was generating?
“You think that’s air you’re breathing?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSRvDTvbFeo
Fart-fu, the hidden power of the Matrix, they tried to hide with dubbing.
And WHERE is the multi-harem reaction to this sudden action? We deserve multi-body reaction!
That would be cool! But just having all of the other Harems show up wearing the effects it had on them to gang up on Sydney would be sweet.
Not enjoying the pool when you have five other you that can be on the phone seems like it should be some kinda sin.
They are probably all playing Farmville, or some other cooperative game, where they can help their ‘friends’.
Maybe a soda empire simulator? They have just unlocked the special soda ‘Splash’.
Not looking forward to them unlocking Calpis soda. Yes, it’s pronounced the way it looks, with a japanese accent – the very soft L sound.
japancentre-images.freetls.fastly.net/images/pics/6274/original/original.jpg?1469561912
Gender bias is certainly a thing, but anyone high-fiving Max about the wardrobe incident obviously does NOT know her well enough for its own good…. :D
Any one who did would be in for a lot of pain. And then their battered corpse would be charged with sexual harassment.
So, I guess Max is being treated differently because of gender bias. People know who you’re allowed to razz over sexual misadventures.
“To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize.” — Voltaire
Except that:
1) Maxima would never do that, even though we joke about such.
2) If she did Maxima would be charged and prosecuted under one of the various flavours of homicide.
3) A dead person would not be charged in a modern court. The most that would happen is that the merits of provocation would be weighed. Which might affect the charges under 2) and/or the sentence.
Maxima does not get an exception either as a cop or as a super. As described the attack would not have had any justification, so a lengthy jail sentence (or the death penalty as may be applicable) would be in order.
Maxima’s character is such that she would probably co-operate, over guilt at letting her anger get the better of her. Maybe less likely if the death penalty was on the line, or if she has simply flipped* and turned rogue, then it would be up to the rest of the team to find some way of taking her in (or down).
At the moment the only sign that we have, of anyone in the team being corrupt, is Harem. And even then there has been a hint (from Deus) that she may be acting under orders, to infiltrate Machina Industries. A non-corrupt team of super police would do their duty.
Maxima would not get away with murder.
* The super genre provides a range of reasons that this might happen, over and above the mundane ones, such as having a breakdown or becoming corrupt. But these are the only kinds of circumstances I could see Maxima behaving in such a way.
Do note that our protagonist has already started contingency planning should this ever happen. We do not know if Halo has informed Maxima or anyone else about the details of her teleport ability. And if she is facing a rogue murdering Maxima, any edge that she has she will need. Maxima outclasses her, at the moment.
Harem must be drinking a Splash Cola today.
Heh.
You gotta wonder why she keeps opening those things. They always seem to end badly. Maybe she can find a way to tweak fate. She could go to a convenience store and open a ‘Lottery Lime’ soda before buying a ticket.
Evil thought: I wonder if one of the truesight options in Sydney’s comm orb lets her see the details under lottery scratch-off tickets. The orb has lots of nodes lit up in the tree. maybe one of them is x-ray.
Wasn’t she the one drinking “SpitTake” cola downstairs a few days ago?
We’ve had a Spit Take Cola, a Burst Cola (just snatched from her hand by Heatwave), and a Supervillain Blitzkrieg lingonberry soda so far in canon. It’s officially a thing. Possibly also canon: Status Quola, a predictable beverage.™
Yup. Peggy is attuned to the pulse of the universe. Harem should strictly follow her advice!
I’m just waiting to see ‘random superpower punch’
Harem has already been punched by random super-powered orbs, so your request has been complied with.
*sniffs punch bowl cautiously, and backs away warily*
Don’t you know not to share origin stories unprompted especially if it’s not yours. Double trouble soda and vorp cola was a very limited run and is the perfect cover for her real power carbonated reality manipulation.
Noo, my secret identity has been unveiled!
Yes, I must confess, I am One Punch Dog!
What sort? I recommend falcon flavour.
Spicy punch.
I float like a cherry, but punch like a ghost pepper.
Personally, I prefer Carolina Reaper Pepsi but I could still go for a little punch with punch. In fact, it’s already on my to do list between making chocolate vindaloo and stuffing an entire cheese burger into a giant Jalapeño.
Going to have to talk to the growers about that last one.
You are expressly forbidden to ever offer the former to Harem! The track record Tim listed indicates that would bode badly for all of California. It might even trigger ‘the big one‘!
I would be up for a tasting of the latter though. The opposite way of stuffing has been tried, but yours sounds unique.
I originally envisaged a big-arsed Jalapeño, with burger and bun inside. But I am guessing that a patty inside the Jalepeño, is more practical, with relish and bun surrounding the whole?
Less messy too.
Darn it, just pretend like you have a brain, like mine, that swaps names around. Then the ‘Carolina’/’California’ thing makes sense, despite being on opposite sides of the United States!
Relish, you say? I like where this is going.
No worries on the California slip up, you wouldn’t be the first, or even twenty first, to make that mistake. And that’s just in my presence.
If anyone fails to get a chuckle out of the comic itself the comments will get nsfw levels of attention with its humor