Grrl Power #630 – Roll for perception
Technically, lightning does make Maxima weak, in that she has to divert some of her power pool from strength to armor. It worked out for Vehemence because he was strong enough to overpower her while she diverted her strength to armor. Of course the team delights in propagating the rumor that Maxima is weak to lightning itself.
Sydney is almost as untouchable as Achilles when her bubble is up, which is nice, because she’s very squishy otherwise, and it also lets her stand back and take a calm overview of the battlefield. If it seems that she keeps coming up with day saving plans, this has a lot to do with it.
The next supervillain hideout I make is not going to be cement. It’s really boring to color and look at.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
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Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Blood Mage dick pic. You watch.
*Rolls perception*
yeah, that is what it looks like to me as well.
wow, cultist sure like dick pics…
A lot of cults seem to revolve around ritualistic sex acts, even in our real-life world…
Hypnoboobs. A real thing.
I do wonder what effect that magic blood rune will have.
I wonder what effect it WON’T have if it gets disconnected from the rest of the runes…
Even blood mages like to doodle in the corners.
Well they do if they have to make a budget decision between plumbing for running water, and sewage, versus blood.
Zoom.
Enhance.
Hidden Blood Rune?
Enhance 224 to 176.
Enhance. Stop.
Move in. Stop.
Pull out, track right. Stop.
Center and pull back. Stop.
Track 45 right. Stop. Center and stop.
Enhance 34 to 36.
Pan right or-and pull back. Stop.
Enhance 34 to 46.
Pull back. Wait a minute. Go right. Stop.
Enhance 57 to 19. Track 45 left. Stop.
Enhance 15 to 23.
Gimme a hard copy right there.
Thoroughly overplayed, but my favorite enhance scene ever is this one from Red Dwarf
Ooh, I haven’t seen that one! I have some catching up to do!
*happy puppy tail wag*
Excellent parody, but Blade Runner is a timeless classic.
Eh, they might have poured a little too much of that spice in this episode/film thingy.
If that has stained their lips, that is a warning! When they set their minds in motion, their thoughts acquire speed, by their will alone.
https://nonadventures.com
Once it updates this won’t be appicble.
Heh.
Thank goodness they don’t have to hear it.
As a tip you can get the permanent URL if you use the ‘previous page arrow’ then the ‘next page arrow’. That way you are no longer looking at the home page (with the problem you mentioned), but the specific page number you want. Which I copy here for posterity:
https://nonadventures.com/2018/03/17/anticlimactic-planetary/
+1 Internet for Blade Runner reference
Alright Sydney put an end to this charade, see what is hidden.
Detect Magic comm orb function, eh?
If possible.
No Sciona, she’s not a pokemon.
Maxima is weak to lightning, in the same way that I am weak to bullets.
I would rather say “Maxima is weak to lightning, in the same way that I am weak to tickles.” Unless you are immune to bullets as long as you put your mind in resisting them?
It would be kind of cute if though guy Max was weak to tickles.
Well she can still feel things normally so she might be ticklish.
She’s definitely susceptible to cute, but has a pretty good saving roll when she wants to be serious. I agree it would be funny to watch her be ticklish, but the results might be a lot less humorous.
Anvil is and that’s pretty good.
Well, she gets hurt by it. If it’s strong enough.
Just like I don’t get hurt by someone throwing bullets at me. Only if they are launched with sufficient energy.
Maxima is weak to lightning the same way concrete is weak to feathers. Normally no problem but accelerate the feather to 98% of the speed of light and the concrete is not going to be happy. It’s all about the amount of effort you put in. Vehemence had a lot of effort available.
At 98% of speed of light, it’s not feather, it’s ray of protons and neutrons.
Alright, ex-feather then, you know feather adjacent.
some electrons will be there also. That is a lot of energy. but for the real interesting stuff, something like 99% or 99.9% is better. You are still only at 5 times mass increase.
It’s not the mass increase that kills you:
https://what-if.xkcd.com/1/
The electrons will be there but are not really interesting. Damage they cause will be inside the rounding error of what the neutrons and protons do.
That’s a better description.
It is a nice callback to the fight against Kev- Vehemence. He mistakenly thought she was weak to electricity when she was merely shoring her defenses.
Blood Rune or yet another Banksie?
Huh, maybe she creates street art as a way to express herself? No wait – she is Banksy!!
…suddenly all those simple works with red ‘paint’ accents feel lot less whimsical… *shudders*
What, no concrete brush? I’d have assumed someone would have made one. Me, I prefer natural stone bases, but that’s for death ray anchoring purposes.
also- concrete is cheap. something like 10 billion tons of it are produced every year. so a few tons to line a secret lair would probably go unnoticed if paid for. now if you want a rose wood paneled lair that’s gonna cost you. (its also a subtle jibe at how evil you are!) perhaps concrete block might be easier to paint?
I think Concretia probably goes Brazilian.
I love the fact that you have your characters using misinformation such as Maxima’s “weakness” to lightning. I have some characters who will use similar ploys in my own comic. For instance Ive got one guy who can absorb and project kinetic energy. He lets everyone think that is a function of the armor he wears when in fact it is an inherent power. Always good to keep an ace up the ole sleeve.
Metro Man: Copper… drains… my powers!
Megamind: Your weakness is copper? You’re kidding, right?
— Megamind *
I love when they revisit the scene later. Normally, when using superspeed, they just get a few extra seconds to do something. Minutes at a push. That looked like hours.
Could be worse…the original Green Lantern’s weakness was wood.
and the later one has yellow as weakness. As in the color. Everything yellow is his weakness.
yes and no it was just immune to direct influence. If you where painted yellow he could not bash you will a construct of a bat.. he could make a construct of a hand and beet you over the head with a telephone pole. Yellow bullets could get though shield ext.
Though, my favorite was when he had an enemy with an “invisible yellow force-field”
The Shark, right?
Let me guess, a lemon shark?
Yes, that is a real thing. And they are yellow. It camouflages them swimming over sand, around the coast. So ideal for snacking on holidaymakers and Green Lantern!
Not that I wish to besmirch the good name of lemon sharks mind. They have never killed a human. Had the odd nibble, of course, but people can look tasty, if they are impersonating a fish, in distress.
So don’t wear dis dress!
Which if you ask me, gave us the best scene in All Star Batman by Frank Miller. If youre notfamiliar Batman and Robin and taunting Green Lantern while in a yellow room, dressing in yellow, exposed skin painted yellow and keep offering Hal a glass of lemonade.
That’s piss weak.
Yeah. Does Green Lantern drink lots and lots of water to make his urine as transparent as possible?
So that he could drink it himself? Now that would be taking the piss.
To avoid the urine devour his insides.
In which case he has a serous problem!
Which definitely proves that Green Lantern comics lack realism.
How the fuck does that even work?
technically, each green lantern has a weakness only due to susceptibility, as the ring is powered by Will. To keep the ring, as a weapon, from being overpowered, the recipients are told it has one weakness, that weakness to be filled in at the seller/giver’s behest so: ‘oh, yeah, there’s one weakness to this thing *snicker* it can’t do anything against beets *chortle*’
so each lantern needs to figure out how to defeat the weakness, which takes willpower., thus making the ring ‘more powerful’
Also, if I recall, part of the reason for the whole ‘Yellow’ thing was that apparently the Guardians had shoved the Fear Entity, aka the personification of fear, into the general Green Lantern Power Source to keep it imprisoned.
So it couldn’t get out, but due to contagion or bleed on or Entity Spite it made them unable to affect yellow things directly.
So they apparently lost the Yellow Weakness after the whole involved plotline where all the Color Entities showed up and had a fight and there may have been a brawl with the concept of death itself. You know, Tuesday in DC.
Some seem to tell their foil too easily.
I have one character admit that fire is her weakness and be told off by her friend for volunteering the info.
Later, while going through some basic training, she is quizzed by her instructor:
G: I know your power is speed, but what’s your weakness?
R: Bacon.
What’s your weakness?
Sydney: Hot guys… and mittens
Hot guys and hot eyes.
Being riddled with bullets is also expected to slow her down, unless her shield is up.
Ah, bacon. My old nemesis. We meet again.
I know somebody who knows him, through a mutual friend’s friend.
But I don’t approve of plans to eat him.
*dejected sigh*
So, here’s a SFW but “not okay” joke relating somewhat to this. Don’t read if you’re a good person (hence why I’m retelling it).
Here’s a link to the joke.
it is good ole black humor, always sfw and often okey to most
That’s the kind of joke that could just keep going. The more unlikely rescue scenarios you pile on before the punchline, the better.
Your weakness is pun-loving mutants with Gross Structural Dystrophy?
Better stay away from the art teacher, in that case.
Ahh, was having trouble seeing even a hint of puns, even on a second read through. Until I got down to the references that time.
Trust me, if you actually read the stories about The Fabulous Imp, you’ll get swift punnishment. As well as some very creating nicknames; at least one of her enemies is after her less for the fact that she disarmed him (at the wrist) for the fact that she dubbed him ‘Crash Test Dummy’ in front of others, and the name stuck so well most other villains now assume it was his actual codename all along.
Bacon is only a minor Gen2 character so far, mostly appearing in the stories about Reinforce and Eisenmadel, but he’s already made several groaners.
My villain is saving it for a rainy day, like if he’s captured for instance. Then he can be all, surprise it wasnt the armor suckers!
I had a character like that once. She listed her weakness as “drowning” and neglected to mention she could hold her breath for over thirty minutes.
It always helps if you are completely honest, so that a villain capable of detecting lies can corroborate that you spoke the truth.
lightning makes her weaker silly blood mage. to quote a superman comic “half of infinate is still pretty damm strong” ;)
Ok, time for sydney to spot the problem. Lets see if she figures it out in time as the clock is ticking.
“PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN”
It is the one in front of the curtain, dressed in black that is the problem. Although tradition dictates that you should ignore him, I suspect that he is a ninja!
I love how Sydney takes the time to consider what count as non lethal against someone that can still survive with only half a head.
I’m wondering why Sydney doesn’t try what she did to Jabberwokky on page 547 /archive 2581. The lighthook/snake might only be able to lift 16 tons (currently), but what is the actual tensile strength of its “energy construct”, that must be overcome for someone to do what Vehemence did to Dabbler’s cocoon on page 267 /archive 1541 ?
No, what Sydney needs to do is what she did here; https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1564
The real power in the world is knowledge.
And knowing is half the battle. Go Joe!
The power of the lighthook can be greatly enhanced by using it as a whip, or wrapping it around some sharp object and snapping the lighthook as a whip, thus causing vastly more damage than the lighthook alone would do.
I’m expecting this guy to make an appearance any time now.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1145
Nah, I think this guy has a better chance of showing up in the current fight. In the author comment below that comic, DaveB wrote “he just shows up during battles and annoys everyone. And I’m this (–] [–) close to making him canon.”
Heh. I just love Sydney’s expression, the “huh” and the strapline:
Typo in the latter by the way DaveB, “it’s” should be “its”.
Is it a typo? I thought it was a contraction of “it is” and therefore should be written with an apostrophe. Conversely, I see no sensible way to read it as a possessive pronoun.
Oh, I sit corrected. I have just gotten used to avoiding “it’s” and did not think that one through.
That and the fact that I got distracted by the thought that the possessive rule* will get the politically correct wound up, once they realise that it is discriminatory against non-binary genders. Hence deciding to hit the ‘submit comment’ button fast, before I got tempted to detail that.
* Which I agree does not apply. But distracted!
As a non-binary person, I really cannot see where one would be discriminated by that. If “it” referred to a person, that would be pretty ofefensive, but I do not think there is any character in the comic who could be referred to in such a way.
How on Earth did I type “ofefensive”? I meant “offensive”. Almost certain everybody got that, but I do prefer not to make assumptions. This is the Internet.
Oh it is not a matter of offence, it is just that these assumptions are rooted in the bedrock of our language. Not being an overly politically correct person (I am PC, for some things, but seek not to overdo it), my first thought was not actually the current political hot potato of non-binary. Rather it was for robots and artificial intelligences.
Currently robots and computers would have “it” used in reference to them. Barring any which are given an arbitrary gender, for some anthropomorphic reason. Which is fine. But once they become self-aware, then they also become people (in my philosophy).
So they have a choice, they can identify as being of either male or female gender, and thereby getting to have the masculine or feminine language used for them. Or they can opt not to identify with any organic issues. Or choose some other non-binary option. Some of whom will not be bothered about how they are addressed, or how humans view them.
However those who want to say ‘I am a person, and I want to be treated fully as one, but do not want to pretend to be an organic, of any gender’. Likewise for those who do aspire to become organic, but who are not drawn to being either male or female.
Yet the language would be a barrier towards being properly recognised, for what they are. This is because our language can and does shape how we think. If we are using terminology for a non-person then that can affect how we think about that individual. Maybe not all the time, but if it is when a key decision or interaction is being made, then it can materially affect that person.
Note that this should not be taken as me considering “it” to be a problem. It is purely the rule that says ‘masculine and feminine possessives are handled one way (because it is referring to a person) whilst “it” is not (because it refers to an object).
Of course, although I came at this from the AI angle, I was considering the current non-binary population, at the same time.
So if we are talking about someone who specifically wants to depersonalise themselves, the current terminology is fine. But if they want to be identified as a person, rather than an object, but just want to avoid being classified as male or female, then “it’s” would be a necessary correction to our use of the possessive.
And note the reason for why we use the current arrangement. A person can own stuff, and thereby be the possessor of things. An object cannot. So by allowing the current arrangement to persist there is the subtext that ‘non-binary people cannot own things’. Which can be generating a mild prejudice unconsciously.
A very very subtle point mind. So not a big issue. And hence why I decided it was simpler to duck the issue initially.
*wags tail in a confessional manner*
… I would though AIs would be all about binary :)
me 2 (error, error, does not compute)
01010010 01001111 01000110 01001100
Peggy is the only bi we know of in the comic. But we can see she does identify as female. Dabbler (and probably Decollete) are pansexual, so are a flavour of non-binary (analogue, rather than inter-sex). We can see they identify as female though, so are binary on the gender identity axis, rather than the sexual orientation axis.
The one who does spring to mind is Icon, the head of the constructs. Clearly Icon is aware of gender and sexual issues, as he asked Dabbler to ‘not make this any more weird’ (to paraphrase). But Icon (to avoid having to look up whether refereed to as ‘he’ or not) is a set of armour, so is not physically any gender. However we would have to learn more to find the source of that discomfort.
Possibly it may have just been consideration for the organics present. However it may be due to identifying as neither male nor female. Or may identify as (say) male, but just not be comfortable with being dragged into such an extroverted public display.
Sexual orientation != gender.
Dabbler and Decollete seem to identify as female just fine, but they’re open to interactions with nigh any type of person. Female pan is not non-binary. They’re just super friendly to non-binaries, in the same way they’re super friendly to nigh everyone else.
That is a complex operand. Taking it as being ‘not equal to’, I did not claim it was. To the contrary I distinguished between the two by referring to them being on two different axes.
Now if you wish to restrict ‘non-binary’ to only apply to the sexual orientation axis, rather than both, then that is fine. I am not so noninclusive though. ;-)
*wags tail cheekily*
sexual orientation is as equal to gender as squirrels are equal to aluminium.
To quote myself on a forum I am otherwise assiduously avoiding these days (but they force you to sign in and check off a new &*@&^(*^ user agreement just to use the search function, now… F*** them.):
And by ‘hugging’ I mean ‘orbiting very tightly’, as no one is actually on either of them even if language and avoidance of mental effort say otherwise.
The nonbinaries I know go by ‘their’.
I’m fine with any pronoun as long as it’s not one of those weird made-up ones like “xe” or “hir”. Those all just sound silly, and no one can agree on which set to use. “They/their/them” is a good default gender-neutral pronoun for people.
The reason for concern is that there are some people who will take offense at literally ANYTHING. It’s actually a bit of a problem – people feel nervous and worried about accidentally giving offense (and being treated as if they had intentionally and deliberately been offensive), and that leads to resentment and self-censorship and other issues. Speaking as someone who regularly sees vicious, violence filled, and hateful slurs and slanders about their own religious/cultural group (Jewish), I find it silly, stupid, and counterproductive – there’s a vast gulf between ignorance (i.e. lacking in knowledge, unaware) and actual hate.
The proper response to displays of ignorance is to politely and discretely inform and educate – if they don’t know any better, then that makes you an ambassador on behalf of your group. Your reactions and words can reduce or enflame the sum total of bigotry against your group.
Or, to quote from that comic about the woman who had Conan the Barbarian as her spirit guide, “In order to be offended, one must mount an offense. Against YOU.”
All well said.
Including Opalyse‘s points I should add. Something which I omitted from my previous response.
That item is his.
That item is hers.
That item is its.
Not seeing where it’s discriminatory to the non-binary gendered.
Yea, you are probably right. But consider a freshly awakened AI, who has yet to decide what name or gender (if any) to choose.
So if talking about who has the better behaviour, in the room:
Paul’s attitude stinks. Sue’s attitude is nice. Whilst it’s attitude is unknown.
That’s an issue, but it would probably be the lack of name, not anything to do with what pronouns we use. And I doubt that an artificial system even close to classic AI would not have a name already. Humans (dogs too?) love names for stuff and would either officially name it during development or at least will have given it a nickname. Ze might not like zir name, but humans have been saddled with bad names for millennia and it usually works out.
You got me there.
Isn’t theirs a better possessive for nonbinary, though? Its seems rather… objectifying. Plus it does have centuries of usage as a singular pronoun, after all.
its, theirs, them’s, the ai’s, that object’s, this person’s, those qualifier unknown’s. (of these, i believe ‘qualifier unknown’ would be the most politically correct)
The problem is that “its” is mostly used for objects.
This example is no problem: the gun and its trigger.
Avoid this to play it safe: the robot and the novel it’s writing.
This example is definitely not okay: the non-binary-gendered foreigner and its heathen culture.
The issue is about people being categorized in the same group as objects and tools. This tactic has been part of many discrimination campaigns throughout history.
There has to be a point where some people care TOO much, though. For example, it’s called history, not herstory or theirstory, and that’s fine.
*nods*
OK perfect solution, we just use “H” for everyone! ;-)
Well, we use “I” for ourselves, why not “H” for others? :-D
Rorror is correct. Which means DaveB was correct.
Whoops. Ninja’d. Never mind.
I wonder if her calm demeanour in the face of danger is something the shield orb is assisting with more directly.
The flight orb apparently cures her vertigo when she’s holding it.
I could easily imagine that the shield orb does something similar with regards to fear of death/injury.
She even said to Maxima that she got some feedback when the shield was struck but a light hit felt no different to a strong hit… Maybe it can feedback even more if there’s a serious danger of the shield not protecting her from something. Drop the lack of danger sense when there’s something that can legitimately bypass, penetrate or overpower the force-field.
That’s an interesting conjecture.
Each orb might have some influence on her mind, each different.
They should look into that once the current mission is over.
It might help determine the function of the unknown orb.
The orbs definitely have some sort of mental connection with Sydney. She can mentally call them to her (pg 67 /archive 373), or pick one out of the group to come to her hand (pg 100 /archive 601), or even simultaneously influence the orbits of all of them (also pg 100).
Then there are comments by those who looked closely at the orbs, like Dabber on page 102: “they don’t have any runes or writing, inlay, etching, gilding, orbitals or anything.” Nevertheless, when Sydney holds one, she can see something inside it with which she can mentally interact (pg 277 /archive 1564 –and Maxima at least saw one of those things on pg 354 /archive 1856 –or could that be a story-continuity error?)
Could be an activation thing. Dabbler was looking at them in their default state. When Sydney went to show her one of them active, they were… disrupted somewhat.
So maybe the indicators, symbols and progress bars only appear when she holds an orb and has it in some kind of active state, then it displays the properties and controls.
well, she knows she cant fall to death with flight orb so with flight orb she naturally wont fear the risk of falling to death
Usually knowing you can’t fall don’t cure vertigo.
Indeed. Doubly so as we did actually see Halo falling, when testing the fly orb. Twice!
Hence why she decided to use duct tape to secure the orb. Halo can only use it if it is in her hand.
What does Sydney see back there???
A circle of blood. Which is not natural in nature (a pool yes, but not a circle). Likewise there may be a vertical blood glyph, on the wall above it.
Notably both hidden, being obscured behind the barrel. So perhaps part of a trap. If not then still something that Sciona likely does not want the good guys to notice.
Or it’s just hidden because it’s something trivial she didn’t care about having access to, like the backup power for her sprinkler timer. Given how often mine fails and forces me to reprogram it, I understand the impulse to have a reliable, blood-powered backup.
:-D
Conceded.
Yeah, well, don’t discount the distraction potential from turning off the villian’s sprinkler system. It could cause her to completely lose it. You never know what might trigger some people. :)
“OH COME ON! That’s the 3rd time this month, as soon as I finish killing you I’m putting in fake turf!”
I think turning on the sprinkler system might be more useful at this point, no?
In fact that blood going upwards extends all the way up the wall, looking back at an earlier panel.
Plus I am curious about the scratch marks around the wall. Whilst there is a big hole in that wall, the pattern of the hole is distinctly different to that. Plus the scratching is repeated in a distinctive pattern.
Almost like a were-jaguar, trying to claw her way through a wall.
I thought it was just some texture added to give a sense of perspective. Dave was having problems with making a stone wall look like it is a distance away.
Sciona is opening a connection to another reality. Maybe the marks were made by someone who came through it and happens to be the best there is at what he does.
That puts me very much in mind of this scene with a mage infusing power into the lines running up the wall.
Yeah, it seems like a power conduit to me. Probably brings in power from some big repository of blood elsewhere in the fortress. After all, it would be a terrible idea to have a big, destructible vat of blood right nearby, especially since Sciona is so worried about soaking the runes too early.
Thus, putting a scratch in the wall to cut off the power flow would ruin her whole evil plan…whatever it is. I’m still kind of fuzzy on the details, aside from needing a stable portal to another dimension/planet/wherever tentacle hivemind beasts come from.
We do know that spell programming is like computer programming. So it is likely that magical devices use elements which we would be familiar with from other physics and engineering applications. Albeit that the materials and components are likely to be of unusual sorts.
So there would need to be a power source, likewise a way of connecting that to the device that is being used. Likewise there would need to be means of control. Then there may be mechanisms to provide feedback, to indicate how it is functioning. Likewise a well designed device may have cut-offs or other safeties.
So someone well versed in engineering, and with some basic knowledge of spells could make educated guesses. Whilst Dabbler would be able to intuit the purpose much more reliably (if not perfectly, as with her 60% guesstimate for this base’s location), even without being a blood mage.
Sydney though would easily be able to narrow it down to ‘something to do with control or vital to the functioning of whatever it is connected to’. That latter being the bit that would require having a peek to see where it leads.
If it ends in a baby incubator unit, disrupting it may not be a good idea.
Hmm, maybe this explains all the scratches on the wall – blood mage version of a circuit breaker.
Well, the lightning means she isn’t punching your head off your neck right now, that’s still a win in my book.
You’re going to need something a wee bit stronger if you actually want to damage her, though. She may not be Achilles in terms of physical resistance, but she’s still way up on the chart.
Nice callback to the Vehemence fight, and the false impression which was created, that it was the lightning which weakened Maxima (as opposed to her having to shift all her variable power to defence).
Yeah, but how did Sciona know? That fight was not filmed and it seems unlikely that ARCSWAT would leak a ‘weakness’, even as misinformation. The lightning=weakness comment was stated once, by Vehemence, while all of the villains except him were unconscious. So the only people who heard/saw were ARCSWAT. Is this a leak from Harem (known blabbermouth)? Or do they have another double agent / pair of loose lips?
There were news stations at the fight.
Yup. Plus the more eager film crews were so close that we even saw Susie News kicking off a Klingon Kiss with Arianna!
best newscast EVAH!
Actually, I’d counter that ARC* would be happy to leak any weakness misinformation they feasibly could, so long as it’s not potentially damaging in other ways.
“Btw, did you hear? Maxima’s weak to thermonuclear bombs.” – *THAT* is misinformation that they don’t want to leak. But a credible weakness their most visible hero doesn’t have? Gold.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure gold isn’t one of her weaknesses either, since she’s covered in some kind of super-gold that has all the chemical and physical properties of normal gold except being a poor material for weapons. No one would fall for the trick if they used that, though.
(I know you just meant it was a good bit of misinformation to have spread around, but the pun wouldn’t leave me alone.)
Well we know that Maxima used to be a geek. Perhaps she has a weakness for golden age super heroes?
I’m thinking they’re actually talking about a certain Bronze Age hero they’re talking about:
Yep, I can see him making her weak in the knees… or maybe its just me he does that do.
Ugh, redundancy is redundant…
You’r firing ‘two is one and one is none’?
If I were Sydney, I’d be looking for blood sigils and disrupting them. They all know she works in blood magic, so . . .
Yes! Make the next villain live in a gingerbread house or bland-name Chuck-E-Cheese’s!
Mmm, gingerbread house, with lots of icing and sweeties embedded in it. And a discreet picket fence made out of juicy bones!
I once made a candle lantern made of stained glass and bone. Maybe make an atelier for a boss with that concept?
Oooh, real word!
Kinda disappointed though, that it does not mean ‘hidden Antarctic lair of a megalomaniac with an army of penguins’.
One of my favorite words, actually. Glad you like it too!
The art of misinformation. Confusion to the enemy. A concept that goes all the way back to Sun Tzu, and probably earlier.
In this day of excessive data gathering and sales, it is a good skill for all to practice.
What is up with sydney’s eyes… does she have some Asian heritage?
Yes. She is drawn manga style, so her depiction is true to her artistic heritage.
Finally someone says something that inspires this link.
Nice one.
I just noticed something about Halo’s bubble shield. It’s a sphere as has been shown when she’s flying or underwater with it. And it’s pretty much invulnerable. So why does it stop at the floor here?
Does it auto-conform to whatever surface she’s standing on? That’s useful so she’s not walking around in a giant hamster ball but it could become a dangerous flaw. What if something dangerous suddenly comes up through the floor? Graboids might be her nemesis.
Sydney has mental control over the shape of her shield (see pg 284 /archive 1583), and her location inside it (pg 173 /archive 1129). (For more about her mental control of the orbs, see another comment I wrote on this page.)
For more info about how the shield currently interacts with physical objects, see the author commentary associated with pg 205 /archive 1286.
Also, it does continue to extend as a sphere, penetrating the ground. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1088 shows when she suddenly grabbed the shield orb after slicing up the tank at the introductory press conference. She had been flying while blasting, then suddenly saw the need to switch between offense and defense while maintaining mobility.
It appears that the shield formed and was promptly needed, so it may have picked up a section of ground while the pressure front of the tank was passing over its protected volume, rather than just allowing the material to escape outward as Sydney moved away from the ground.
That’s a misinterpretation on your part. She was in the air when she grabbed her shield orb, and when the shield formed, all the debris in the air, near Sydney, inside the shield, simply fell to the bottom of the sphere. The shield protected her from additional debris, but she was most definitely pelted with a fair amount while switching from FireBall to WallBall.
This was my conclusion as well, any independant items in the shield stay in the shield. However anything not completely inside the shield are not affected; in other scenes (e.g. the collapse during rooftop fight) the shield extends through whatever she’s standing on, but doesn’t cut into it when she moves without dropping the shield.
This leads to some interesting questions – can she control what passes through the shield, consciously and/or subconsciously? What happens if she walks around with the shield? Does the shield move through the wall as she passes through a doorway, but knocks pictures off the wall on the other side?
More relevantly in the next couple pages, what happens if she walks over a rune on the floor that does Bad Things to someone standing on it? Does Mr Bubble squeegee the blood away as she walks, or allow something harmful inside?
Two very insightful questions. The latter of which I have not come across before. I can think of nothing which would give us insight, off the top of my head. So could offer no informed speculation.
Although Sydney may have to call for the super janitor!
Not that we know that he is a super himself. His physique seemed to indicate not. However he is a janitor for supers.
I wonder if their apartments have a super super?
Considering that nearly half the apparent volume of the sphere was filled with soil/sand, I find it difficult to believe that she was being surrounded by that much debris and soil that instantly settled to the lowest area of the sphere while she was still flailing about comically.
In the case of the rune possibility as mentioned by brichins, unless it were made with a toxic or otherwise hazardous material (for example, molten steel, or something highly radioactive), I would think that it would be allowed into the shield, but that its magical connections might be excluded, similar to the way Sydney was excluded from the effect that Vehemence created. Essentially, while inside her shield, a rune might simply be a design in blood.
Scrubbing the magic aura out of runes would be an extremely useful function as well – she could walk untouched through most magical defenses.
One question. How come the impact hole in the wall is round on the outside of the room and square on the inside of the room? Magic? Portals? Art error? (OK, that was 4 questions)
Wouldn’t the blood sigil con her chest be affected by the blood bath she just took?
Pretty good question, but perhaps that particular sigil is dried blood, and might even protect itself from additional wet blood.
Alternatively, it may be that it was merely enabling the uptake of new powers and not acting continuously.
Reminds me of a defunct webcomic I briefly read. Some people attacked an imprisoned chaos god. This of course resulted in him explaining that he didn’t have any malice towards them but was still going to kill them for it. If I remember correctly his exact words were, “I don’t blame you. You calculated a limit and acted on what you knew. You just failed to realize one thing. Half of infinity is still infinite.”
Yes sconia, if you shoot lightning at maxima she’ll be forced to divert some power to defence, but unless you’re also someone who grows exponentially stronger by the mere fact that you’re executing violence, that’s not gonna help much.
“The next supervillain hideout I make is not going to be cement. It’s really boring to color and look at.”
You say that but after 3 pages of drawing some complicated background you’d be cursing it.
Or is Dave confessing to working in a boring supervillain lair, and is looking to build a new complex?
He certainly have enough imagination to be a super villain. I assume that he have better morals though.
That’s what he wants us to think.
I wonder what mischief he gets into / fails to get into despite trying, with his wife watching.
Maybe it is MrsDaveB‘s Fortress of Sociability? A multi-planar nexusm where supers (be they villains or heroes), from any dimension, can hang together and enjoy each other’s company. With strict no-fighting and no-arresting rules.
It would explain where Dave gets his inspiration from. Plus concrete would be sensible, for those situations where the rules get flouted.
Psst. Dave, don’t forget to try and get me a date with Sydney!
Introducing the next duo of villians: RYB and CYMK!
(If you don’t get this, look up the online head butting of “what are the primary colours?”)
I’m beginning to wonder if one of the orb’s abilities is draining her ADD distraction and giving that all into focus… would be seriously OP if it oh look a cookie AND A PUPPY
Maybe it is a survivalist orb? A big part of survival is mental. So the makers of the orb …
*stares intently at the space between the ‘r’ and the ‘s’ and decides to move on*
… figure “what is the point in giving someone this survival tool kit, when, despite all of its advantages, they still do all sorts of silly things, that could get them killed in a survival situation?”
So it might dampen any mental behaviours which could impede survival, whilst enhancing the ones which improve the odds of survival.
If Maxima were to use the orbs, for example, she might find her anger lessened, in a crisis. Whilst Math’s libido would become flaccid, in a fight.
ADHD brain activate! Form of a gopher! No… form of water! No.
FORM OF: GOPHER MOAT!
Here’s the link.
A deserved slapping!
Perhaps it’s even fueled by chaotic thoughts absorbed from the user which would explain how powerful she is and look a squirrel!
I think those adverse side-affects might be taking place already.
Sciona is looking a little skeletal and cracked(?) now.
I hope the next Super Villain hideout is a psychedelic ninja love hotel.
Love hotels really worked out well for Persona 3 and 4.
Actually, Sydney is much more untouchable than Achilles when her bubble is up. Achilles is very touchable. He doesn’t even really have a dodge reflex, because nothing can hurt him. She may be nearly as invulnerable as him, however.
Just being a pedant, nothing to see here.
*watches Someones_Ed, swaying from side to side*
Looks like every muscle group in Sciona’s leg is flexed to the point of cramping. The chest shots of “magic roids” must do that as an effect/side effect.
Is it me or is there way less blood on Super Sayan Sciona? Maybe it is disintegrating like most components spell components for a mage in PnP RPGs.
Standard action movie physics. You can’t have any major character covered in any goo, paint, oil, or other substance that interferes with the audience’s view of said character for the length of more than one scene.
Seen in this clip at about 2:40 in. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzPiBOc_Nfs
Or she’s absorbing it. Being a blood-mage and all.
Agreed. Likewise with O.B. Juan mind. ;-)
To quote Deadpool, “well… that is just lazy writing.”
I like the idea that she is absorbing it, or it is vaporizing as a finite spell component to fuel magical effect.
What makes Sciona look so good? Maybe it’s all that blood or maybe it’s Mabeline.
Or being on the end of a pike.
Which would make it easier to carry out the controlled disposal, by the preferred means of acid bath, plasma incinerator and disintegration.
With the bubble up Sydney is like D.Va take on the outside but squishhy on the inside
“Sydney is almost as untouchable as Achilles when her bubble is up”
Almost? Does the bubble have a limit then? Or is this just related to that Sydney has to hold the orb to keep the shield up and thus could eventually be starved/tired out while Achilles is constantly invulnerable.
Originally Dave indicated that Sydney’s bubble was about as strong as Dabbler’s but gets a higher rating because it is so versatile (covering a large area etc). Which we have already seen destroyed by an attack. Namely by one of the manikillers. Which then required Icon (the living armour) to enclose Dabbler and protect her.
Clearly Dave has reconsidered this (or possibly my recollection or interpretation of his original comments was flawed), but that is totally within his remit. He even reserved the right to do that. So this latest blog takes precedence, either way.
In practical terms if the shield has an upper limit to how much damage it can absorb, and that requires something like a direct hit by a nuke, then the only foreseeable result would be one dead Sydney!
With a lower threshold, like the strong punch by the construct against Dabbler, we could see her surviving, if most of the force had been absorbed by breaking through the shield. But go too far up the scale and the odds of just having enough force to break it, but not to also splatter a squishy human, are remote enough to break suspension of disbelief.
Unless a foe had Dabbler-type calculation capability, and intended to do no more than that.
So I suspect that Dave probably has more specific means in mind, should the need arise. For instance the manikillers weapon looked like it may have had specific force-field disrupting capability. Whilst this setting does not have any all-purpose power nullifier super powers or devices (per one of Dave’s blogs from yonks ago), there is no such bar on things which counter specific powers, like force fields.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Incidentally another implication we can draw from this blog is that Dave does consider Achilles’s power to be an absolute. We must not take that as certain mind, as he has not stipulated that. However it remains consistent with other material which points towards that being the more likely.
Absorbing most of the force isn’t the only way for Sydney to survive a blow that breaks through the shield. Its surface is usually about half a metre from Sydney’s body: a direct attack with fist or blade may have more than enough force and/or magic to go through the shield, but lack the distance or accuracy to actually hit her body and cause damage. Of course, that still leaves the way open for a remise, but that will take a second action.
You forgot that the shield is apparently airtight which is why she’s carrying a small O2 canister and mask on her belt.
Well there is also that green orb, which provides air.
And chicken dinners, once Halo has figured out how to turn the replicator on!
↑↑↓↓←→←→BA
We’re not sure if it will do it when she’s not underwater though.
Dave mentioned that it does, back when the Alpha team were catching up with Maxima. Halo looses some altitude, whilst swapping over the Fly Ball for the Life Support Orb. But refreshing the air only takes a moment, so she can then swap it back and regain the lost altitude.
With practice she will be able to go into a parabolic trajectory, to minimise any lost altitude. Perhaps effectively negating it, if Halo changes the orb to a more aerodynamic shape. As it is it will likely still loose a fair amount, due to spheres creating somewhat more drag.
Although we did not see the process, and Dave did not mention the shield shape, so it is possible that Halo does that anyhow. However so far we have only ever seen the Halomobile in a spherical form. So I suspect Sydney is trying to avoid jostling her passengers around periodically (hovering in the middle Halo is not affected, either way).
I’m wondering, if Dabbler’s cleaning-cantrip was used to erase all the blood-runes, would Sciona’s plot be helped or foiled…
…or doom us all to unrestrained, undirected, chaotic destruction…?
Yes.
It occurs to me that DaveB might have an actual Harem that he uses to model for the scenes he draws.
Unlikely, but amusing.
Some writers do draw in characteristics from people that they know. Likewise for artists using real folks for models. So there could be a real person inspiring one or more aspects of Harem. Who would probably be a really nice person, without that whole ‘dating a super villain and compromising her integrity’ thing.
“Almost” as untouchable? So there IS a limit to her barrier?
Yup. We have always known that. Although it is a five star defence, that is not invulnerability (which takes six, as per Achilles’s rating). So if facing a five star attack it may be taken down. There is a lot of variability though, even within a given star rating. Super Hiro and Stalwart both have the same strength category, for example. But Stalwart is actually stronger than Hiro.
So a top-tier (Achilles is an exception that breaks the normal five star ceiling) attack may be blocked by Sydney’s shield. Or it may simply be too strong for it. Hopefully it may show signs of collapse, before breaking though (and we do see the stress patterns getting more pronounced, the stronger an attack, so this is very likely). Which would allow Sydney the opportunity to duck, dive behind cover or otherwise do something to save her skin.
Prior to this we had indicators that Maxima would probably have the higher attack potential (by punch or blast) at her top setting. Maxima has underestimated Tubey before though, so perhaps her confidence is likewise misplaced here. And this blog seems to point that way.
” I thought lightning made you weaker! ”
” It did. ”
” Didn’t we just do that bit? ”
A lot of power weaknesses for supers tend to be weirdly non-scalar. Like, a flake of Kryptonite seems as good as a microwave pumped solid-state Kryptonite laser against Superman because his actual superpower is plot armor.
Also many different writers have written the effect of Kryptonite very differently over the years.
But narratively, the point of a super having a weakness is to make it so that a under- or unpowered character can endanger an otherwise untouchable character. If the super is a hero, it’s usually so that an OP hero can still have story tension. Thusly, the weakness is usually something common or at least relatively accessible to villains. If the super is a villain, it’s usually so that there is a non- Deus Ex Machina of winning against an OP villain. In such cases, the weakness is often part of a puzzle that the heroes have to solve to defeat the villain.
Thus the non-scaling effect: it has to debilitate the target but (usually) not kill them outright, regardless of how much you have..
Reading you, an image of a hypothetical final battle of the comic have come to mind, in which our heroes are incapable of defeating an all-powerful Deus. Suddenly, Sydney notices certain remote control, feels the need to press the button, thunders appear out of nowhere and Deus starts laughing maniacally. He lowers his guard as a consequence, and Maxima uses that very moment to throw a mother-fucking-punch x 20 . Deus starts to slowly stop his laugh while confused realises that his chest has been pierced by Maxima´s fist.
ArcSWAT lied about Maxima’s weaknesses? That’s, that’s… perfectly reasonable.
One of the interesting assumptions people have about the police is they aren’t allowed to lie. So if you ask “are you a cop” they have to tell you. This is completely wrong. The police are perfectly free to lie as much as they like – just not in court (that is called perjury and can result in jail time).
Being able to stand back and observe is a very handy ability. Although if everything is over in 3 seconds then it won’t help, but if you have enough time to analyze and not worry about getting killed at any second, then you can actually use your brain and not just rely on instinct and trained response.