Grrl Power #624 – Vitamin-S
I’m sorry guys, I just got tired of drawing that armor. Anyone paying attention probably noticed it changed from panel to panel anyway. Anyway, if she could peel it off that easily after she took her shot of Vitamin-S, then it probably woudn’t have helped against Maxima or Hiro either. She never even used whatever was in those pouches on her belt either. Well, it’s my excuse to draw an actual skintight outfit in the comic for once that exists outside of Sydney’s daydreaming.
It looks like Sciona is going to try and meet the team on their own terms. If only she didn’t constantly betray everyone around her, she might have some backup. Well, charisma was her dump stat I guess. She also bought the disadvantage “Capriciously kills incompetent henchmen and allies and basically anyone” which earned her an extra 50 points, which she probably put into “Hard to Kill” because, I mean, she got most of her head cut off once, though we don’t know exactly how that went down. There’s a fair chance there were extenuating circumstances.
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This is gonna be good.
It’s over 9000!
Oops – ro jaws beat me to it below
It looks like the blood magic power is over nine thousand.
I was searching for this. Now we need to wait another 20 filler episodes of powering up and constant screaming.
This is the part where Maxima dies and trains in the afterlife for a year while Archon buys her time to come back to life from Snake Way.
A I get it so Sydneys last orb completes the dragonballs and summons Shenron so they can anyone wish back to life who had to be sacrificed until Max would make her great entry.
Acctually i expected more origiality. Now I depressed myself.
The only reason I know ANY of these references is because of Dragonball Z Abridged, since I actively avoided Dragonball Z because of how it took 20 episodes to do one move (miiinor exaggeration – I know it only takes 18 episodes).
Thank you, DBZA.
“The planet will explode is FIVE MINUTES!”
*20 episodes later, still fighting on unexploded planet Namek*
Yeah, ten seconds per episode was a bit insane.
To be fair that was an estimate, it’s not like there was a bomb with a literal timer counting down to zero. Frieza gave an estimate based on how long he thought it would take for the planet to explode based on the damage he did, and suggestions were made that he held back a bit doing less damage than he thought because he subconsciously was afraid he wouldn’t survive the explosion.
Now the Tournament of Power in Dragon Ball Super, THAT definitely had ‘cartoon’ time active, as it was a timed event and only a few minutes seemed to pass each episode.
“How many Dragonball Charcters does it take to change a Lightbulb?”
“Only one. But he needs 5 Episodes.”
…if he’s using super speed, anyway. Otherwise it’s 25.”
Funny enough, that appars to not even be misscounting/guessing by Freezer or anything.
At the end of Super, they did the exact same thing. It went up to “1 minute per Episode” slow.
Huh? I actually was certain I was asnwering this one to PD.
Having watched the show and had similar thoughts made the moment between Freeza and Goku that much better.
Goku: Do you have a watch?
F: No
G: Do you know what a minute is?
F: Of course
G: I don’t think you do.
That’s from DBZA right? :) I remember that :)
TeamFourStar is just…. awesome.
This particular clip :)
https://youtu.be/2YkEDGD_sDs?list=PLBDCCC5D6239F1512&t=470
OVER NINE THOUSAND BLOOD CELLS!
Did not mean to post this twice.
OVER NINE THOUSAND BLOOD CELLS!
She is the world’s best, after all.
Only in her narrow field. The true greatest does not need to qualify the claim.
Holy Muck-Buckets! The ad at the start of that clip was 4:35!!! That’s 9 times as long as the clip itself!!!!
Ad? Clearly thou must not use the wonderful AdBlock.
You can white-list lovely sites like grrlpowercomic.com and any YouTube channels which you wish to support with ad revenue
Not sure if IE11 even has something like AdBlock, and usually just put up with this site causing every other tab to go slow while it loads
Also tend to do most browsing InPrivate, which means having to signin to places like UBoob (and only when looking for the ‘Age Restricted’ stuff)
Excuse me Yorp, but she has a mug that SAYS it. You don’t just buy those in a store. Clearly she is the greatest bloodmage in the world. Mugs never lie.
*presents mug to Pander*
huh. Matt Murdock has that same mug in his office…
*scratches head*
But he is a real lawyer, so not sure what you are getting at? Obviously he is not Daredevil, because that guy is a vigilante, and an honest lawyer would not condone such behaviour.
Useful crash test assistants.
Not sure on that. IN the last panel background, Buster seems to be having trouble reaching high enough with the Skybreaker to finish cutting the hole. (hard to see through Sciona’s laser wings.)
(grumble grumble no edit post ability) Also, what’s the point of putting the Brane Ripper on half of a Buster Sword just so you can make Bigger Holes in Reality? If you can FLY, you can carve as big a hole as you want. Or just walk around on the ground and make one parallel to it. The rift Cooter carved allowing Trent to visit seemed plenty large…
Might make it a nasty weapon to opponents. I wouldn’t like a rift opening in my body and some nasty critter coming out of my own body to combat me.
Also, maeby the buster sword acts like a battery or something that amplifies the power of the thing. Making it able to do large cuts and/or go to more distant “universes/planets/something”.
The sword added the area code to the brane number to let her make long distance calls. The rates are probably a lot higher to keep it open. (“Please deposit one soul for the next 10 minutes”) She may only want to use it on nights or weekends to get the lower rate.
These are the times when I wish we had Disqus on here, because I was fumbling around looking for the upvote button.
Also if you put the alchemical symbol of the broken Oroborus at the start of the star address, it causes some karmatic issues and allows you to temporarily bypass offering up souls for aproximately one star shine, but you better make sure to have those souls because it’s gonna be gruesome when karma figures out you don’t have them.
We have discovered where the final chevron hidden under the platform leads to!
Where? Another dimension? Parallel universes? Completely alternate realities?
No! Even better, it leads to a crappy knock-off of Battle Star Gallactica where our franchise can go to die a miserable generic death; hope you like officers screwing each other, episodes lifted from Lost in Space and Star Trek Voyager, and a guy who is so similar to Baltar that the guy writing this sentence literally kept calling him that while watching the show so has no Idea what his name actually is.
You need to remember that some of us here do not watch TV. So is your rant aimed at some show ripping off the Battle Star Galactica franchise? Or at the reboot itself?
The various sex scenes in the latter, along with Starbuck gender swapping, could point to the latter. But your turn of phrase seems to imply the former.
If it is that, then the rest of your comment is quite ironic. Given that BSG was originally accused of being a direct rip off of Star Wars. Although when you look at examples of such complaints, it seems that once a story element has been used apparently any vaguely similar use is a rip-off.
In which case Star Wars was a rip off of various Greek classics, if taking that loose an interpretation. The only new element being putting ships in space (which, itself was not a creation of Star Wars).
Sounds like “Star Gate: Universe”, the sequel to “Star Gate: Atlantis” (which is now kinda ironic seeing how one of the actors on “SG:U” is now playing AquaDork, the King of Atlantis)
Star Wars was more closer to being a direct rip off of “Hidden Fortress“
Actually, Jason Momoa (the actor who played Ronon Dex) was on Stargate Alantis, not Stargate Universe. He was never in Stargate Universe.
Well of course Aquaman would be from Atlantis.
*rolls eyes and doggy paddles away*
Umm, fairly sure saw him in a clip on a ship
Well Atlantis was in an ocean, so being on a ship would make sense. Which would remain consistent with what Pander said.
I believe this was a rant of the spinoff show Stargate Universe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stargate_Universe
The premise of the pilot episode was to use an extra chevron on the stargate to dial up an address on the other side of the universe (if a universe has sides)
AARGGH! Ninja’d by one minute while I was typing my reply.
Actually, even longer: had to find and view that Hidden Fortress clip :P
As others have pointed out, it was a rant at (StarGate Universe), which happened because the creators didn’t WANT to continue Star Gate Atlantis or movies to continue the stories of SG-1. So instead made this soap opera where every officer should be court martialed for so many reasons *oh you possessed the body of someone and had sex with their wife in their body? But it was you in there in control?*
The show ended up having a ton of loose ends that just scream (making it up as we go), with a crew trapped on a primitive *by their standards* Ancient’s ship on the far end of the universe supposedly following a signal believed to come from the creator of the universe; which the final chevron connected to *rather than before where the second to last chevron would act as a long distance call to other galaxies*.
Basically, the show was a mess, and a lot of its characters and even plots *heck it ended with robots chasing them across space and exterminating human inhabited planets (which time travel and alternate timelines resulted in, but who really cares as they were all killed anyway), to the reboot of Battle Star Gallactica.
Ahh thanks. I shall endeavour to avoid that one then. Shame that they would rather descend to such depths, rather than continue the previous series’ plots. A good way to cripple the whole franchise.
Maybe adding it to that sword allows her to control WHAT dimensions she cuts into, whereas without it, it’s random?
That’s what I was thinking, since the bottom of the “blade” looks like a crazy star chart and she mentioned that she’d finally found the one she’d been looking for, which was when she attached it to the blade.
It’s a pocket Stargate!
“Is that a StarGate in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”
I think that’s what’s allowing it to not be on a surface?
It is possible that the Brane Ripper, in combination with that sword, would have a different magic effect. It’s kind of like how dabbler change the effects of her swords by moving a few crystals around.
I guess if you park it on a long stick then you can hand it off to your non-flying death-mannikin to use while you’re powering up for a showdown with a pile of superheroes.
Maybe she needs a big hole to bring something out, like an Ancient One! Pretty sure Sciona isn’t about to destroy realitu.
It’s okay. Getting stronger after dropping the armor is a common syndrome that touches heroes and bad guys alike. My friends call it the “Saint Seiya Syndrome”.
…+1…
Female epic gear = chainmail bikini
I’m kinda hoping DaveB’s setting up Sciona for using “Bulletproof Nudity”…
Are we going to have a golem moment when someone messes up the scribbles on her body?
My Precious! Oh, you said golem, not Gollum. Never mind.
(enter large clay golem carrying a small vase)
well isn’t that precious
Not sure if you meant it, but:
Louie the Rune Soldier, messing up a command to a Clay Golem to protect a “precious jar” pictured here
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTcJTHx2QHywiq_leCjw_UDW1TFn4P5pMuz-PHZMVgkD0Bdfke7
resulted in it tossing the jar into a deep boiling pool of water.
“mumble mumble magic magic”: Best spell ever.
ka-BLOODMAGIC!
en-strong-en!
en-abs-en!
en-toughness-en!
en-speed-en!
And probably other stuff! :)
possibly Ka-get beaten up by ARC-SWAT-en in the next few pages!
Sydney: “You can fly pretty well with those wings Sciona. But now this fly is about to be ARC-SWATted! Hehe, get it? Swat-ed.”
Everyone else: “Shut uuuuup!”
Sydney then forms the Lighthook into a flyswatter and tries to splat Sciona with it. Sciona is fast enough to dodge it.
Halo: Hold still, so I can Arc-Swat you!
Hiro grabs Sciona in a bear-hug while she is distracted by Sydney.
Hiro: You are under arrest for, OW! She bith mah nothe.
Sciona spins around in his loosened grip to punch him. Max grabs the raised fist.
Sydney: Hey, you didn’t let him finish talking. How rude!
Max: As he said, you are under arrest.
Sydney: Umm, what is that guy back there doing?
Dabbler takes a few second figuring out what is happening in the background.
Dabbler: God in Heaven! Ow! Daphne, get in there and stop that thing! NOW Sydney, can you get your Lighthook thing over there to grab that sword?
Sydney: Yeah, I think so. What is it doing anyway?
*VORP*VORP*VORP*
Dabbler: It’s cutting a hole in space. That is bad, very bad!
Lighthook makes a run for the manikin cutting the DIY Stargate. Sciona does not notice because she is trying to fight Max, Hiro and Stalwart. The Lighthook wraps around the waist of the manikin and pull it away from its task.
Sydney: [ Course alto voice ] Get over here! [ Manikin joins the fight out front. ]
Harem (blue/black hair) grabs the space-cutting sword and carefully disengages it.
Harem (platinum blonde): [ To Dabbler ] Now what?
Sydney: Hey, Dabbler, you okay?
Dabbler: Yeah, I just have to be careful about what I say sometimes.
“Dabbler: It’s cutting a hole in space. That is bad, very bad!”
That happened in Portal 2.
Yes. It was bad, very bad :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBCE539v2JM
But we got a good song out of it, so it’s all good in the end.
And a companion cube!
…
It … um … helps combat loneliness.
…
You know when you no longer have a homicidal maniac, trying to kill you, as company.
I’m betting she’s buffing her physical stats so she can shrug off most physical attacks while she does her magic. Which means Dabbler’s going to need to go on Countermagic duty while Max tries to force Concentration checks. Don’t let Anvil anywhere near her, same goes for Hiro. That’s the last thing you need her getting sup’d up on. As long as Sydney can stay in her shield, she can run interference.
She would be MOST unwise to try to Gish in this fight, even hopped up on whatever is in those syringes, she’s not going to be able to match Max + Hiro + Anvil if she tries physical confrontation. But honestly, ARCON’s weakness at the moment is magic. Dabbler is the only arcane field agent, Sciona needs to take advantage of that if she wants to be more than a two-page wonder.
Gish? Only term that comes to mind is “gish gallop” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop) but that doesn’t seem to fit.
A gish is where you mix melee and magic, basically. Comes from the tabletop RPG community.
It’s a terrible term, I know, but it’s been established and so is hard to re-nomine.
This is literally the first I’ve ever heard it.
Gish is an old-school D&D term that comes from a bastardization of Gith, which was a race (technically two races? Or maybe it could be defined as an extreme cultural difference and divergence for several thousand years? It’s complicated…) which had both physical and magical (or at least psionic) abilities, both very strong.
It denotes someone who could perform equally well as both a caster and a front-line fighter. However, the typical problem with a Gish build is Action Economy. And in D&D (at least up to 3.5, 5th ed changed this), casting magic was ALWAYS the superior option. Always. Yes, even then. Which meant that a Gish who was swinging a sword was taking the sub-optimal strategy.
Which was my point for this comment, as ARCHON is supremely built for taking on physical powerhouses, but weak on countering arcane threats by itself (typically requiring support from ARC-LIGHT, who aren’t present).
A powerful caster who has extreme durability though is one of the toughest opponents going.
Which is why personally always work on mage’s defense skills, doesn’t stop them from being squishy, butt it does make them less squishy, there are some players who like Sword Mages who combine melee with magic
Ahh, but mages are deliberately made weak, so there are, as you say, inherent limits on how unsquishy they can be made.
So bringing in some other capability, to offset that, is wise. But, as you point out by mentioning ‘melee’, players tend to get distracted by that aspect. Ending up with the flawed builds that ShneekeyTheLost warns against.
I should, at this point, stipulate that they are only flawed if looking for an optimised power build. It is far more important for people to have fun. Having characters who have counter-intuitive elements, or ones not purely focused on (say) maximising the DPS, can still be very enjoyable.
But, if going for an optimum all-round character (rather than one who is a small cog specialised to a narrowly defined role in a party, or in online games a raid), then the picks should emphasise the durability, rather than the melee capability. Even though the two terms can be used synonymous, it is important not to blur the thinking on them.
As soon as you pick a melee attack you are foregoing improving the much more powerful magical offence that could be improved instead. If you get some as freebies, as a side-effect, from increasing damage soaking, for example, then no problems.
But when picking any upgrades, only go for things which a mage (or blaster) is unable to do better. Which typically is the tanking side of things. Whilst if the multi-classing does require a certain number of picks which cannot be used to enhance the core concepts, then it is better to have ancillary things which provide a continuous minor improvement. Rather than something you need to remember to use, but which can distract you from the better options a mage has.
A few extra hit points or a small bonus to deflecting attacks is better than a showy melee attack, which would only be useful in a narrow range of circumstances (such as if low on magical power).
Although you should always have some capability, for if your magic is unavailable, just make best use of the freebies that such a build usually offers, rather than taking the steps towards a weakened hybrid build. Make sure that your build and playstyle reduce the risks of getting into such a state instead.
Like said, have the mage’s work on the defense skills as well, that makes them slightly more durable than those who only focus on being offensive (and some can be highly offensive :P), they also work on melee skills so while they wait for their spells to recharge, they can smack the mobs with a large stick
Tend to solo (except when need help because suck with a lot of at-level things) butt the mages tend to be pet classes (necro and illusionist) so they are not exactly on their own and can use their ‘pet’ as a buffer
I have always had a fondness for pet summoning classes. No point risking your own hide (especially if it happens to be a squishy one) when you can have minions fight for you instead. But they work best when powerful enough to rip through your enemies, with you supporting them from behind. So that they effectively tank for you.
Best if you have a mindset where you can control the pets as easily as your own body, and at the same time (when talking online games anyhow). A skill set I picked up in City of Heroes.
Other players would tend to forget that my mastermind even existed, as I conducted all my roleplaying through my minions. :-D
Just want to point something out as it has become a staple of the fantasy genre.
Mages are made weak.
Glass cannons and the like.
Thing is this is an invention of TSR and not folklore. It was done for balancing issues, which further games, tabletop and videogames and such have kept with when multiple classes are present.
However one will find in folklore and myth that wizards, sorcerers, witches, and the like were very rarely…weak. In fact they tended to use their magic to augment their strength, so you’d see an old woman ripping a tree stump from the ground with one hand, splitting wood with their bare hands or feet, laying brick work by hand and spit, tossing boulders around, ect… they were basically mortal gods in folklore and myth. In other words, superheroes and supervillains.
Yet a simple lumberjack could lop one’s head off. And they all proved to be rather vulnerable to fire.
We have yet to find out if they had a weakness to bullets or mittens though.
If you find a creature that isn’t vulnerable to fire, you have big problems.
Naa, Achilles is quite a nice fellow, even if he is a hipster dips**t at times.
All that said, one of my most enjoyable characters (in a computer game) was a City of Heroes blaster who, purely for style purposes, had both the elements you described and melee. Simply because I envisaged him as a wizard who fought beside traditional knights (which he actually did later do, very extensively).
So he had meat shields around him to help spread the risk. But he did provide the area of effect attacks to speed up fighting large mobs. Nicely the game did provide significant perks to the melee attacks for blasters, as the designers knew that squishies needed something to offset the risks for them. You just had to very carefully pick the ones that fitted your build (although most of the time a blaster would wisely stick to just the ranged damage that was their forte).
Importantly though the core of my build made sure that he was ruthlessly efficient in his core role as a blaster. And I deliberately omitted the apex attack, as that was designed to be debilitating, when used. So I saved a butt-load of build capability, whilst avoiding leaving myself vulnerable after draining my power on an overly-showy attack.
Meaning that, even after maximising all the other attacks, to offset that loss, I still had loads of flexibility to make character-enhancing choices, for fun and roleplay.
As it turned out though even the modest focus on emulating a knight’s armour (what he appeared to be visually, until he cast fireballs) made quite an edge for his survivability, if played cunningly. Combined with powerful melee finishers, it actually made him capable of tanking minor bosses and easily wiping out tough lesser foes, on his own.
I would often see other blasters bite off more than they could chew, as various foes may survive a blast (either from lucky resistance, simply being tougher or being separated from the main group), then all aggro onto the caster and wipe him out.
My guy though could survive their initial retaliation and mop them up in short order. Without having to waste valuable resources on trash mobs.
Throw in a minor self-heal (picked up fairly late in his build, as it was not vital) and he could sustain his blasting role indefinitely, even in pick up groups, which lacked proper tanks or healers. And it was a hoot, as he really felt like a mage knight, in play!
He epitomised the ‘kill them before they can kill you’ style of play.
Yup, Battle Mages are fun, and makes everyone, friends and foe, go “What the FLUCK!!!” :D
Right, and that’s exactly what Sciona should do… her physical augmentations being primarily defensive in nature while she uses her magic to great effect.
The trap would be trying to get into a fist-fight with, say, half of the team going up against her, instead of using her arcane prowess that only one of the team members has any relevant skill in.
Two clerics teaming up makes for pretty good defense as well, although it may take a lot longer to make any progress.
Heh. There is a reason why clerics tend to hang around fighters normally. They do compliment each other nicely. But two clerics is indeed optimal, to ensure that, if one goes down, the other can heal them.
Yeah, the only thing worse than fighting one healers, is fighting two of the little bastards!!
“Gish” isn’t a mutation of “gith” – it’s actually a Githzerai social class populated by multiclass Fighter/Mages and Thief/Mages.
That was alluded to by:
Where Githzerai was one and the other was Githyanki . They were memorable for being astral dwelling evil foes. Some of whom had powerful silver swords, which could sever the astral chord of those travelling on their plane.
Of relevance, in the Dark Suns setting, they were just called “Gith”.
The two races had a hatred for one another, despite being distantly related.
There are also council members heading in for the confrontation…
Speaking of getting hopped up…Anvil gets stronger when she absorbs kinetic energy, right? Can she charge up before a fight by getting a few superstrength High-5s from Max ?
Max: “Okay everyone, we’re implementing a new pre-mission team building exercise – everyone punch Anvil at full strength on the way out the door.”
Anvil: “What?”
Well, Dabble’s wetsuit qualifies as “skin tight,” and it wasn’t a daydream. Though Sydney probably wishes it was.
Don’t apologise for pouches that are never used for anything. This is a superhero comic after all.
Only Batman used his pouches.
Dave isn’t Rob Liefeld.
And I am gratefull for it.
… you just know one of those tubes in that injector has troll blood…
So, her plan is to defeat her enemies by making hateful comments on their social media sites?
Oh, you meant the other kind.
Sciona may be evil but at least she is not a pathetic forum troll.
“There’s a fair chance there were extenuating circumstances.”
More like “exsanguinating circumstances” when it comes to Sciona.
+1
Love the Goku hair…
Look at her hair, its like she went Super Sayian.
Really curious what all the different blood vials were labeled and really looking forward to the show-down.
Sciona now looks kind of like the lady in the vote incentive.
Just as well this is her final form: she keeps getting hotter and don’t know how you could top this :swoon:
Well the side effects might include Demonic Mutations. Watch Shin Cutey Honey (1995) for details on what happens with those breast-injected super serums…
Have “New Cutey Honey”, butt haven’t really watched much of it
If your own skin is more tough than the armor. Then the armor is just in the way anyway. It’s not that losing the armor makes you more powerful. It’s that if you are more powerful you no longer need the armor.
Sometimes that’s the point of the armor, to be in the way. You’re so powerful that for most battles you require the armor to limit your ability so you aren’t wreaking destruction you didn’t intend to, one of the main antagonists in Yu Yu Hakusho during the Dark Tournament was like that, wore heavy armor not for protection but to hold down his power. Other times you’re tougher than the armor but wear it for decorative purposes, or just to have something that’ll survive your upcoming battle so you aren’t running around naked.
No, see, here’s the thing. Even if your skin is tougher than the armour, there’s a chance that the enemy has something that can penetrate your skin, which the armour would protect against. Look at Supes and his lead suit, for instance. Or, you know, in BVS, if Supes had had on full plate, the Kryptonite Spear would have had a hard time being a threat to him (aside from, you know, the radiation).
And if you’re that strong, then the armour isn’t getting in the way, either. Plus, you LOOK more protected.
You are all missing the really simple possibility – the armor was useful BEFORE she got super-saiyaned by the various injections, and now it’s just in the way.
Several comments so far to the effect that the armor is no longer useful because Sciona has been Willfully Weak up to this point, or has just leveled up.
It’s also possible that it’s not armor at all, but a mobile-spa suit. Massage chair and rejuvenating bl..mud mask all in one!
In the BLEACH manga/anime there is a captain named Kenpachi Zeraki who wears an eyepatch that drains a significant amount of his power. His sole purpose for doing this is to make fights last longer. He just enjoys kicking ass so much, but he’s so powerful he just overalls his enemies to fast to enjoy it.
Saitama needs one of those.
It seems that Scifright is shedding magic armor for plot armor. Yeah this is gonna be interesting. I don’t know where she got her specific powers from by I’m guessing that she believes herself to be at least on par with maxima if not beyond things to her little blood infused spell. Reminds me of the time this secret agent got injected with hulk blood and got his own Hulk form temporarily
I’m waiting for a bit of “Dammit, I JUST got that body back!” probably followed by Sydney saying something about ankles and the biting off thereof.
Well, she is walking into the battle knowing she’s only trying to buy time… so I’m thinking she still doesn’t expect herself to be the baddest and toughest. Or if she is, only for as long as those injections last. For the long term… well, that’s where the World-Cutter Scythe comes in.
I don’t know how it’s happened, but Sciona’s gone from killing SIdney to becoming genuinely likable. “World’s greatest blood mage” indeed.
One more for the Guesticus‘s Sciona Fan Club™. ;-)
I will just be over there, offering Sydney post traumatic stress disorder counselling. :-(
Considering how short an amount of time it takes her to betray and/or kill her allies, she must have gotten the cup for herself. Which is sort of egotistical.
That sort of thing appears to be a pattern with her. We saw that the first thing she did when got her body back with the epimorph was to increase her ‘cup’ size.
Hey, one of my favorite TV characters had to buy his own cup too, underlings are just too shy about praising the boss sometimes.
I dunno, to me she’s still coming across as a self-centered asshole.
She fits in well with the rest of the cast then…
I think the good guys definitely need to go for ‘vaporise’. If they can.
Lord have mercy on those who want a shot at Sciona…!
I’m sure Peggy would.
Maybe Guesticus too?
Sciona’s sense of humor is coming through. I love the “crash-test dummy” blood minion in the first panel. The coffee cup in the second is a giggle, as well.
One should truly fear the villain with a “sense of humor”. It points to creative ways to suffer/die horribly.
Annnd…she’s now a super saiyan blood-mage
Well judging by her hair in the last panel Sciona just went all super saiyan.
… so she just dosed herself with about a good pint or two of blood right? That would set her with a pretty high blood pressure right now right? …. waiting for the fatal hear arrhythmia/heart attack from her suddenly and forcibly giving herself a sudden case of high blood pressure. I could see her getting away with one of those segments of blood on the syringe, but all of them at once in one go is overkill on the heart.
The super strenght serum and super toughness dito should work on her heart too so she should be safe.
Its fuckin magic, I ain’t gotta explain shit.
She DID say that the side effects were going to suck. Probably not kill her, of course, but my guess is she’ll have to deal with stuff relating to high blood pressure. Maybe. This IS magic and a comic after all.
maybe the side effects are that she becomes a scrawny nerd-girl afterwards
Dave does say above that this is Sciona’s final form.
Which is a real shame, as your idea sounds like she would look much cuter.
Aw, but she could have lost a bunch of her blood, maybe heart and limbs, and forced to take on a child like form to conserve her strength till she could recover her body parts to retake a teenage and adult forms.
I would continue the comparison, but there are better analogies than Kizumonogatari given Sciona was a brain and scalp stitched to body parts and not a regressed form, so even an alternate version of that would just be a retread.
“Go ahead Sciona, take the other vial, we’ll wait. In fact, why don’t you try all of them?”
Nothing wrong with letting the monster push its powers too far and waiting for it to pass out.
Damnit…. now I wanna play GURPS instead of the Wearing the Cape add-on…. so, are the main characters here built on 2000 or 3500 points? (Need to be Cinematic Supers rules… Just plain old heroes can’t flatten a tank like Maxima can.)
So was one of those needles labeled “Blood: Super Ridiculous Hair”?
Super sayan hair.
Ever since Akira whenever someone powers up they get the hair on ends look.
Although western animation and such did something similar, the uplifted hair, it was only temporary and only on women like a sudden wind blew it straight up, but it settled back down.
Anime/Manga started this *finger in the electric socket* look, and it just kept going from there, DBZ really popularized it though as a standard.
I’m sure her player just roleplays her as “misunderstood.”
GM: “MISUNDERSTOOD!?”
Sciona Player: “I’m emotional right now.”
Wyrmil Player: “YOU SMASHED MY HEAD THROUGH A DEATH FIELD AND USED MY CHEST AS A GLOVE!”
Sciona Player: “See? I just lost a teammate!”
Heh, missed this due to typing, but I like that interpretation :)
Good one. Reminds me of Leo Rosten’s definition of chutzpah: that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.
Sigh… Ignoring the whole killing allies thing (and what’s a little betrayal between friends, eh?), I continue to feel sorry for Sciona (and like her). Every move she takes feels like a desperation move. Like everything she’s done (well, with the exception of attacking Pixel and Sydney, but maybe including attacking the council), is because she’s… Afraid? At risk? Because she needs to?
Makes me wonder if we have the whole story. If the council has a larger hand in things than the pretend. If it’s a classic case of hearing one side.
If I had time, I could make soooo many legal arguments to support your post :)
And she has so much fear and risk that she murder-hobos her way through sentient beings like a D&D player with a Chaotic Neutral character?
Not buying it. I’m almost positive the Council has more involvement than we know, I agree with you on that, but that hardly changes her alignment even to neutral. She’s definitely evil in the classical sense, and exhibiting pretty standard sociopathic tendencies.
Pretty sure Sciona puts that on her business cards:
________________________________
|
| Sciona
|
| Independant Magic Consultant
| Artificer, Blood Mage, Murder Hobo-er
|
| Please call during normal business hours
(btw, she gets them in white instead of the blood red you’d expect, so she can write on them)
We have to take possible species bias into account.
Granted it wouldn’t carry as much weight if she had a form less human like in appearance. “Like form bias” where a species is more inclined to feel empathy towards life forms that more resemble themselves. Such as people not batting an eye feeding insects to frogs, but an insectoid alien might cringe seeing larva being fed to them if it resembles their own young; even known its a completely unrelated life form.
Basically, while not likely to be universal across her whole species, she regards humans as lesser life forms, as well as other species, as they aren’t her species, so has less hesitation in mowing them down if they actively get in her way.
Like “I want to get home, but those monkeys are blocking my door…I don’t want to hurt the poor things…damn it one of them bit me! Okay get me the gun!”
In which case she should not be having sex with monkeys. Not if she does not consider them people.
Unless her species has no bestiality taboo, of course.
One problem with trying to explain species bias using real world comparisons.
there are none.
On Earth, while we identity other creatures as intelligent, we’d never go so far as to have sex with them (most people anyway) such as chimps, dolphins, crows, and so on; no matter how much we acknowledged they had intelligence; we’d still regard them as animals.
Problem is, as said before we have no real world examples. Other than racism, which is ethnobias not species bias, but comparable I suppose in people who view their own ethnicity as superior but would still screw over in some cases each other. But this is a cultural thing not a natural thing, Species bias is meant to be more natural. However this could be questionable in species that look 99% the same as humans anyway, and regard more as a ethnobias than a species bias.
Hey we are not too far off getting AI’s who may qualify as being people.
In which case we will have AI sex bots, to fill that all important lack you detail.
Hopefully working consensually mind.
Considering there are plenty of hyu-mons who consider other hyu-mons to be lesser life forms…
Technically, she hasn’t murdered anyone: Wyrmil and The Coot are both still alive
As for that claim about attacking Pixel and Sydney, they both trespassed and attacked her first (Sci may have woman-handled Sydney when she picked up the little intruder, butt Sydney attacked Sci and shattered her forearm)
Breaking and entering laws aren’t as owner can do anything as people might think (hence robbers suing home owners)
Pretty sure if someone broke into my house, so I knocked them out, and hung them upside down in my basement to drain their blood; I wouldn’t be able to explain to the cops it was home defense only.
Indeed.
And Cooter was dead. Completely and utterly. What is walking around now is just bits of him cobbled together with another body. Frankenstein (the creation, not his master) is a separate entity to the various bits of people that were used to create him.
The fact that some of Wyrmcoot’s memories came from one body and some from another show that he is no longer the same person.
Just like you cannot today, get away with claiming that you did not murder someone, simply because some of their organs got transplanted into other people. Even when it can be shown that some aspects of their ‘personality’ can go with them.
For instance there have been examples of individuals who developed cravings for things that (upon research) it turns out that the donor liked. Now what the mechanism is for that is highly debatable. But does go up to and including the possibility that some aspects of memory (or memory-like functions) are decentralised and found in organs other than just the brain.
But, even if that does turn out to be the case (or even that even wholesale memories can go to a new body), the old one did die, and the murderer is still culpable for having done that!
Again, never not once have ever said that what Sci has done or is doing or even will do has not or is not or will not be wrong
Fortunately for our plucky young heroine, none of those were Genre Savvy.
Sydney’s tactical advantage in a super altercation.
What is it called when you give your opponent a peanut allergy then slather on The Jif?
Dave, what happened in her past was not “got most of her head cut off at some point.” That’s what happened to the poor sod whose body she “borrowed.” What happened to her was “lost most of her body except for the top of her head and she survived!” That’s a really big difference. Let’s hope the team vaporizes her before she completes whatever the hell she’s doing.
“I’m sorry guys, I just got tired of drawing that armor.”
I’m sure that not many people will complain about Sciona being in a fitness model femininely muscled body with defined abs and biceps and whatnot. :)
*feels such body-inadequacy right now*
You can join the A-team with Sydney, Peggy, and Sandy ;)
Who are far more desirable than Sciona, to those of us with discerning tastes. Sydney really is at the top of the list for me, physique wise.
I don’t recall Sandy as being eligible for the A-team mind. I would have gone with Krona or, if needing someone from Archon, rather than their allies, then (natural form) Pixel.
I’m still expecting Sydney’s super-athletic sibling friends from the comic shop to turn out to be supers in hiding. Even though the very first ‘flashback’ pages of the comic show Sydney leaving them behind to head to Archon HQ – but not every super is going to join up, so I still think it’s possible.
…& what gorgeous HUGE “whatnots” they are, too!
(…sorry, but the “Tracts Of Land”-schtick has been done already…)
I’m sorry, but in the Author’s depiction of her abs in the last panel it looks as though she has a HUGE lolling tongue, reaching down to just between her legs.
This was pointed-out to me by someone-in-passing, peeking over my shoulder…
…& now I can’t UN-see it!
Maybe the whole reason she’s doing this is to save a bunch of money on her car insurance…
*blinks*
Who would drive, when they could fly?
Agreed…
…but driving is more ‘incognito’, & allows for flying as a ‘backup’-option.
(…your mileage may vary…)
Yep, she just went Super Saiyan on us. On an unrelated note, I really like her mug.
Her expression is a bit too severe for my tastes. But fairly pretty.
at least provide a frontal and side image of her on another single-serving coffee decanter.
you know, a mug shot.
:-D
*claps slowly*
May I add how well you expresso yourself.
I’ll put $20.00 on Sydney saying something that utterly deflates Sicona’s plan and crushes her soul. $10 on whatever Sicona thinks is behind the gate not being there anymore.
$20 on the gate – when Sciona summons the wrong thing, you owe me $10.
Who will give me 20:1 on Sciona being Varia’s dad?
I’ll go 20:1 on her previous body being Varia’s dad, hopped up on troll blood.
I dunno…The wings seem like they’d be inconvenient.
She can dismiss them, if necessary. Check out the scene with Deus and V.V..
Calling it now. Sciona doesn’t know any power stunts.
Well she should not have any with the Brane Ripper or the newly made Sky Ripper, as she has not had a chance to practice with either. And she cannot have any super power stunts, as she is not a super.
But she is a blood mage, so does know quite a few tricks. Especially as we have seen that she very happily combines magic and technology, to devastating effect.
“Sky Ripper” sounds like one of Sydney’s more potent dinner recipes.
Or one of Achilles’ dinner recipes.
…… okay, now I want to see Sydney and Achilles face off in a spicy food endurance challenge.
Achilles ‘loses’ and sidles up to Sydney later… “psst, hey, can i get the recipe for that from you? it had a really great mouth-feel”
Or a rather disgusting supermove by a filthy old god.
Doping is cheating.
And cheaters never win >: ]
Wait… was the entire comic just the setup for a drug PSA?
The antidrug PSA must somehow be fought.
Long life strawberries and cream.
In due course there will have to be an augmented Olympics. Well, obviously in Grrlpower, as we saw with Maxima. But in real life too. As whole segments of humanity get augmented and thereby ineligible for the ‘classic’ Olympics.
“Oh, I see on the form that you indicated that your parents selected ‘East Africa runner genes’ and ‘generic cardio vascular’ upgrades too.’ So that bars you from most of the classic games. We do still have openings in flow arranging though, if you want? They are reviving that this year, to try and make up for the loss of interest in the old games.
Where you want to be is in the augmented games anyhow! You want to be known as ‘the fastest woman on Earth’, not to sink into obscurity as ‘the fasted unaugmented woman on Earth’!
I’m pretty sure that Max in the Olympics was just Sydney’s imagination.
…. also, DaveB said Max quit track and field after turning gold because it wasn’t fair any more.
…. also, I don’t think they make lens shutters fast enough to adjudicate that sort of photo finish.
:-D
That reminds me of a funny old comic I read where a guy lost his olympic gold medal in flower arranging due to illegal substance abuse.
“flow arranging” = “flower arranging”
For info:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_competitions_at_the_1912_Summer_Olympics
I had no idea that Olympic art competition was a thing, much less that it was part of the Games for over 30 years! I think it’s cool that a couple participants won both art and athletic medals.
Yea. I think it could do with reviving, now that we no longer bar professionals from the Olympics. DaveB deserves Olympic medal recognition!
There should be Cooking Competitions in the Olympics as well, with different specialties.
And maths competitions too, much more interesting than marathons.
And Zui Quan should be a must.
“All competitors must drain the stein of spirit, of their choice. All having identical alcohol content, and a minimum volume. Once their opponent has also finished drinking, they must bow, before fighting commences.
The winner will be the last person standing, who has not had to either leave the fighting area or relieve themselves.”
*reads note passed from judges*
“Correction. The winner will be the last person capable of standing, etc.
We should not forget that much drunken fighting occurs on the ground.”
¿Any of their choice? Absolutely not. Sake. And not any either. Only the one made acording to the original and millenary recipe, consisting of makers chewing rice and spiting it in the recipient in witch is going to be fermented.
Of course, I meant “in which”. Witches have nothing to do with this. Sadly.
Naa, the Olympics is a world sport, not a national one. If a national sport gets accepted into the Olympics any aspect which would give an unfair advantage to one nation’s competitors should be disallowed.
So, whilst sake would hold to traditions, it would unfairly favour Japanese who were used to judging how well they could hold it. So members of other nations should be allowed to choose their national beverage (if that matches their preferences), or their own preferred tipple, if it does not.
Provided the competitors remained within the rules set up to ensure that they all have comparable quantities of alcohol (/fluid intake) it should minimise any unfair advantage.
Plus if someone does find a beverage which does give an edge (say a nice sugar boost, for extra energy), then there would be nothing to stop their rivals from opting to choose the same drink too.
Ultimately it may even provide benefit to society, if new brews get made, which reduce the degree that drinkers become impaired. Especially it becomes popularised, by that happening through an Olympic sport. As that may help to reduce deaths due to drink driving!
and Knowing is half the Battle…
You know, with all the energy it looks like is coming off of Sciona, or at least coming off of her energy wings, it is possible her hair is standing up like that due to the charge in the air… What I am getting at is she probably just beefed up her energy output significantly abd in some ways she seems like a more focused, evil version of Dabbler. I would not be surprised if she has a copy of the evil overlord list somewhere, even if she ignores it sometimes because you don’t go in to supervillany to follow rules. If she can throw around more power, I am betting on her knowing how to use it.
Without checking it, I imagine Sciona has already broken various Evil Overlord rules. So I doubt that she is following it, even if she has read a copy.
The extra minute she’s buying is to top off her static charge by doing the Scooby Doo run on her wool rug. The static shock will knock Max unconscious when she grabs the doorknob to the lab.
She kinda looks like the woman from the current Vote Incentive.
Don’t be daft, Dave. Wisdom is the stat that tells you it’s a bad idea to murder your backup; charisma is the stat that lets you acquire more minions after you murdered the last batch or two.
“Well, it’s my excuse to draw an actual skintight outfit in the comic for once that exists outside of Sydney’s daydreaming.”
Uhh, someone obviously doesn’t remember drawing beauty.
Heh. To be fair though Dabbler is an exception to most rules or statements to do with the comic, in one way or another.