Grrl Power #631 – Keep away from shiny, candy like buttons
Sciona base doesn’t have a lot of ductwork and crown molding to conceal all her extras. She got the barebones base package from the Evil Super Realtor, and planned to nice it all up herself, but you know how it is when you’re obsessed with revenging yourself on those that wronged you. You just never seem to find the time for those quality of life upgrades.
It’s a pretty safe bet she’s got a room off to the side full of drywall and tile, and one of those nice tile cutters with the hose that keeps the blade from cracking the tiles. Something she’s used just once and it’s still caked in all the dust cause she never cleaned it.
I tell you, those blood mages. Everything’s gotta be blood with them. Who needs wires when you’ve got giant tanks full of blood? When all you have is a hammer, etc, etc.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like.
Oh, you know those are basically Redstone lines, Sydney. Just erase them.
They are underground, possibly under a mountain, and there are holes in the ceiling. Plus you have realised that these are crafted for mines. This can only mean one thing!
The holes are filled with Creepers?
GWAHAHAHAHAH! I LOVE YOU YORPIE! *HUGS!*
The gimmick with safe vs dangerous directions has been intelligently handled one time and one time only as far as I know.
Frog trap detector, never go adventuring without one!
*can’t hold back for even one more second*
*LOUDLY SINGS ALONG TO THE VIDEO BUT NOT THE ONE YOU LINKED BUT THE TEN HOUR ONE FOR THE THIRD TIME THIS MONTH*
Assuming that breaking the line doesnt also trigger detonation if you dont break the “right” line :)
CUT THE RED WIRE!!!
um.. er… which one do i cut if they’re ALL red?
You have earned a cookie for that. Congratulations :)
I would replace the volatile stuff with peanut butter. If that explode still will be messy, but less deadly. And the face of your enemies, whom wanted you blows up will be proceless! :)
That would be a good idea… unless you build redstone contraptions like I tend to favor.
I simply invert the signal, power the start, and put TNT at the end. Wire gets cut in the wrong place? BOOM!
I could fill a lot of space with my plans for modded Minecraft “Keep the factory running or die” challenges.
I just want to point out that it’s been longer then a minute by now so that portal should be complete.
So far all all there has been are a few blows. We, of course, ignore time to speak dialogue, as ‘talking is a free action’. Therefore it may be less than a minute, or it may be more than that. The portal opens at the speed of plot.
It was long enough for Sydney to take a rather in depth look around the room.
And no, talking is not a free action.
What you can say in 6 seconds is a free action. Everything else carries over into the next round.
It is in this comic. All official, as declared by the author. Although obviously long monologues are a different matter.
If you sit down with a stop watch and read out all the other bits of dialogue you will not match the pace that the action is going at. Simply because the author has more important things to do, so is not doing that himself. Like drawing the comic, colouring it, moderating the comments, doing the technical stuff on the site, and so on.
When did he say that Yorp? Because I dont remember him saying that talking is a free action, especially with how dedicated DaveB has been to subverting comic tropes. Just curious since I dont recall reading that for a Word of God declaration :)
I can’t remember what comic scene might have triggered it. I think it has come up more than once, for that matter. But contextually one was when Dave was talking about what tropes he chose to keep versus the ones to discard. Unrealistic poses out. Talking in combat in.
Heading to bed soon (provided a kitten in a mewing mood lets me), so won’t be able to hunt it down myself. But you might find mention if it in blogs or replies to comments, in or around the scenes where:
• Maxima is talking to Sydney about avoiding hitting stuff (the pixellated severed arm, the bunny sanctuary, flaming torch).
• Maxima goes off to her photoshoot (re. discussions about unrealistic poses).
• Any scene where there has been talking during combat (hence why sleep will win over me hunting).
You are right to query though, as I have misremembered things in the past. Although relatively rare, I have gotten the context wrong, in the past (thereby changing the interpretation, in some way) rather than my memory just making up random stuff.
I checked those pages and blogs, didnt see anything on talking being a free action. I think you miiiight be mis-remembering again. Although we’re not sure how much time Sciona needs exactly since she just said ‘buy another minute.’ It might not be EXACTLY a minute. Might be a minute and 23 seconds. Might be a minute and 33 seconds. Might be two minutes and she’s just generalizing in her monologue to no one. All we know for sure is at the point where she was fighting with ARCHON was probably a minute or so, and this most recent thing is probably under 30 seconds and her portal is ‘imminent.’
Doesn’t mean talking no longer is measured in time though – seems like it would go very counter to everything DaveB does in the comic if it did. DaveB doesnt have unrealistic poses, yes, but it seems like it’s because he’s defying comic book tropes. Which would make him consistent if he said that time is NOT a free action.
OK, you will need to do a complete re-read, of the comic, right from the very beginning. And keep going until you find the very first mention.
Psst. I am not taking the piss. Just read page one of the comic carefully.
Still missed it? The strapline reads “Witty Banter is always a free action”. You will find other, explicit examples elsewhere though, if you have the stamina to read through it all. Or maybe some other reader will recall where one of Dave’s comments was.
but yorp its only a free action if its witty ;)
See, a perfect example, that took no time to say!
*wags tail freely*
I’ve done complete re-reads myself, especially while waiting for new chapters of Strong Female Protagonist, Kill Six Billion Demons, Lazy Dungeon Master, How to be a Werewolf, Demon Lord’s Urban Development, and other stuff I read to come out.
So, was the idea to cause a cave-in, open a portal to some hell-world, or to do both? I am voting on both – trapped under a mountain of rubble with some nasty summons sounds like a good idea to me! (For the readers of course, not so much for the team.)
Well, one of the most prevailing theories is that Sciona is opening a portal to her home world. So the plan may well be both (so as you say, but with a twist). I.e. to step through to the hell-world and drop the mountain on anyone who is trying to follow her. Sending nasties through, in addition to that, would then bring it in line with your vision.
I’m starting to wonder if she’s just trying to go home…
Open a portal, step through, close portal by dropping a mountain on it.
Sciona’s version of a Stargate iris.
You don’t need to be a villain to have a self-destructing lair.
I mean, I rigged my apartment to blow up in case anyone robbed me during 1999, but it doesn’t mean it was a lair.
Sure, I didn’t come out of it ever, busy combining surplus military equipment and sporting goods into an apocalypse suit. Sure, I made my own explosive and melee weapons. Sure I… *looks around nervously*
I’ma stop talkin’.
Also, you might have been able to glean my levels of both intelligence and admitted psychosis from the comments over time, but you shouldn’t think of any of that in relation to the above post.
They’re all isolated events and in no way connected.
Heh. Just so long as you no longer do stuff like that. On both sides of the Atlantic you could find yourself doing serious prison time if someone died or was injured.
Don’t forget that there are various people who have a perfectly legitimate right to enter a private property. If a neighbour calls the police and says they think you have been burgled, or are in need of medical attention, they have a legal right (and obligation, if there is anything which leads them to believe the report may be true), to gain access.
Likewise many buildings have rules which specify that neighbours can break in, if there is a problem which may affect their property. My previous house backed on to the house behind, and had a property next to it too. All of our deeds had an agreement built in (you could not buy the properties without signing to agree) giving permission for the neighbours to gain access, for instance if there was a fire. And the fire department do not need permission to do that either.
Plus I have seen various cases, in the English-speaking countries, where people who have built traps (or left their property in such a dangerous state that it effectively became one), and people have died. One particularly sad one was a guy who had been repeatedly robbed. So booby-trapped his garage.
Only to have a six year old crawling in, looking for a lost pet, and being killed.
So far worse things can happen than being robbed, if going down that route. Even killing a burglar will find you prosecuted.
Far better to restrict such activities to non-lethal and even non-harmful traps. Alarms are good. Explosions are not. One of my friends hooked up a recording of a ferocious dog barking, to some motion sensors. So anyone approaching the access points would think there was a dog, and hopefully give up any nefarious plans.
Oh, no, I guaranteed my own death first.
Coconuts with a hair spray core, with a model rocket engine attached to speaker wire sticking out a drilled eyelet, the coconut full of black powder and covered in sheet metal scrap, screws, broken glass, and rocks. About ten of these in a circle.
Connect the wire on the removed 8D-battery pack from a thrift-store boombox, and everyone dies- me first. I was only going to activate it if someone broke in, and fought me through my apartment while I backed up to the ignition.
After the threat of apocalyptic riot was over, I dismantled and discarded every part of every item safely and legally.
Time to throw an exploding barrel at her.
Whew! It’s a good thing that Sydney didn’t see the Big Red Button labeled “Do Not Push. Ever.” before seeing the mechanism behind it, huh?
;)
The blood wasn’t even dry on the warning sign…
I’ll bet Dabbler could make a fortune in Super Lairs. Even if she sticks with existing Earth technology.
I’ll bet Dabbler could make a fortune in Super Lairs. Even if she sticks with existing Earth technology.
Mmm, a fortune in monkey money does not seem to tempt Dabbler.* Tradiing it with the locals, for their shiny glass beads, or aboriginal technology, would not be of much use to her. Plus her Archon salary (and endorsement deals, such as with the club Oontz), will likely provide all the materials she needs for her inventing.
The other big problem is that Dabbler gets bored very easily. A particular problem with construction projects, as they are massive time-sinks, and would take her away from other fun stuff.
Although figuring out a way to either supervise it with a minimal time outlay, or finding ways to do it quickly and easily, may appeal to Dabbler. But only for one or two such projects, tops. She doesn’t even make more than a few of each of her speciality ammos, for example. So I seriously doubt that Dabbler would sustain her interest much beyond the first base.
* Judging by her indifference to the reporters indicating she could make billions from selling her technology. Although I grant that it may have been more because of her rule about not giving her technology away, rather than just the money. But, unlike Arianna, we have had no hint that Dabbler desires money.
Why make lairs, anyway, when you could make tech to do it for you? Dabler’s not going to give her toys away but that doesn’t mean that she’s restricted to human construction methods.
I think she has her ammo production automated, she just has to queue it up to produce what she needs.
The challenge of having a list of parameters and specifications and making them all fit together like a puzzle. Some people do quantum entangled Sudoku, others design sweet lairs…
:-D
I can get that.
*sneaks off to secret Antarctic base, to polish all the warning systems, and give the penguin army buckets of extra fish*
I wonder what would happen if Sydney protected everyone from a cave in with her shield but was subsequently trapped.
Green orb would keep the air good but could she use the flight Orb to just move the shield through the rock? How much force can that orb or the shield inflict?
I guess if it didn’t work she’d just have to use the PPO until she cleared a path.
Yea. We may get to see.
We have seen that the force field can push stuff, when flying, as the advertising sign got a bit chomped off, when Sydney was flying whilst drowsy. However we should take that with a pinch of salt, as it was done for comedic effect. So we should not take it as definitive precedent setting, just a reasonable indicator.
However, even with that, there is a big difference between a roadside hoarding and a pile of rubble with a mountain (or whatever) above it.
The PPO can melt through tanks, so may be able to do the same with concrete and rock. The latter would become like lava, if hot enough. The former though may be problematic, as concrete is actually used as a fire-proofing material, in construction. However even it does have its upper limit, and will melt.
Whether that limit is above or below the temperature that modern tank armour melts at though, I dunno. So wait and see, if that happens. :-)
Since modern tank armor is made with a composite including depleted uranium, the melting point would have to be at least 2071 degrees at the LOWEST. Might be higher depending on what else is in the composite. But if Sydneys PPO is like the heat of a star, assuming it is from her vague description, it is probably at least 6000 degrees, which is the temperature of an average star’s surface temperature (the interior goes into the millions of degrees).
The star thing was philosophical, rather than an actual comparison. Sydney was just trying to convey the emotions she felt in communing with her power. And ‘touching a star’ was a poetic and powerful way of saying that.
If Shane is correct about ceramics melting point, and I see no reason why he isn’t, then if it’s over 4200 degrees, that comparison to a star might not be as philosophical as one might think :)
:-D
the DU is mainly used for long rod penetrators, DU self-lubricates as it broaches armour and the spalling of superheated DU spontaneously ignites when it hits oxygen, Tungsten is actually Denser than DU, but the above-mentioned properties make DU the choice for defeating armour. Modern Tank armours are pretty proprietary, but a few things like sloping to make the shot have to pass through more armour, Manganese steels that resist tearing better than straight steel and ceramic composites to break the tips off of long rod penetrators due to a sudden high hardness gradient. Ceramics have a second benefit, extremely high melting points. the exact nature of the ceramics are very closely held, but the melting point of ceramics is very high. 3800 to 4200°F
Note also that the rate of heat transfer within any material matters – cutting something rapidly enough to not melt the surrounding material requires vaporising the material, not just heating it to the melting point. The ceramics might not spread heat very far, but attacking the metals in a tank at a “mere” 4000°F would likely turn it into an oven long before you opened it enough to access the inside.
The PPO’s butter knife mode is probably fairly comparable to a plasma cutter, which can reach 45,000° F (~25,000° C). I suspect that blasting an escape shaft through rock would result not in magma, but in superheated vaporized material and vent most of it to the outside before pulling some outside air back in and partially flushing the tunnel. The tunnel would be unsafe to walk through / breathe in for several minutes, but no challenge to just fly through in Mr Bubble.
I do wonder if the firing aperture in the shield is one-way, or if it would let the combustion gases (or a sniper shot!) though.
if not wrong molestorb can go through shield from inside
Not wrong.
More accurately, it can’t be IN the shield.
Yea, an important distinction in the fight against Vehemence. Sydney was unable to manifest the tentacle inside the shield.
It almost certainly operates the same way as with the PPO (and probably the lightbee). Namely a portal opens, outside the shield, and the effect emerges (from elsewhere*) at that point (i.e. not through a hole in the shield**).
We saw that happening with the PPO, at one point, and Dave confirmed that this is the mechanism (albeit not indicating where the energy was coming from***).
* Possibly from within the orb, as the effects that we see inside them are no longer there whenever these orbs are in use. But, if so, it is still using a portal (like Opal’s) to connect from there, to a point outside of the force field, without traversing the intervening distance.
** Very important otherwise damaging effects (such ocean at fatally high pressure) would be able to leak through the gap and kill the occupants.
*** Those who take Sydney’s “touching a star” analogy to be literal,**** hypothesise that this might be from the surface of a star (for the PPO). If so though the energy is filtered down, by many orders of magnitude, as a direct connection like that would burn the atmosphere off, and singe the planet to a crisp!
However it is possible. If so then the tentacle might come from Planet Trent (the home of the guy last seen convincingly disguised in a trenchcoat, in the common room). And the lightbee from the Mining Corporation Vessel, Red Dwarf.
**** Offers Pander a juicy bamboo shoot.
First, I don’t take it literally. It seems to me that she was trying to describe something wondrous, and that was what she came up with.
Second, your filtration seems unnecessary. The surface of the sun is about 10,000f (~5,538c), only about 3 times the melting point of some metals, and far, far, far, far, FAR less than some freaks have heated things up just for fun. Plus, you know, nukes.
It was not my intent to imply that you were in the pool of folks who take that literally. I was just having a gentle dig at Pander, due to a conversation in another thread (whilst acknowledging that she is not alone). My bad for digressing so much that you inferred that though.
Plus I agree that, on reflection, I overstated the case. Firstly because Sydney would be able to turn it off, so the devastation would only be localised (even if the shield was not strong enough to resist it, and killed her, the fact that she died would … probably … mean that the effect stopped).
Secondly though, yea, that is probably as not as fierce as I was envisaging.
However, there are a few things in mitigation, to offset your counter somewhat. A big one being that the portal is not an instantaneous effect, like a nuclear explosion, rather it is an ongoing one.
So if Sydney did not shut it down, we would gradually get the Sun squeezing through the gap, until the gravity/pressure on both sides of the hole equalised. Thus eventually end up with precisely what I described (as the Earth’s atmosphere would not win in that equation).
Not going to happen though, unless Halo goes all black veined and ‘I want to destroy the Earth!’
Your link would not counter that, in my humble opinion. Given that it was smaller (about the size of a postage stamp), in a purpose-designed containment unit, and operated in controlled bursts. As opposed to being fist-sized, open continuously, and with (for these purposes) an unlimited energy source.
Of course my proposal assumes no outside intervention. Maxima, or some other super, could likely counter that, even if the Pew Pew Orb was as destructive as a blast from the sun.
Not that I am trying to wriggle out of this mind. The temperatures (vs metals) you cite do put it in a reasonable ball-park to melt tanks. I do though still think that it would need to be (like that experiment) controlled very precisely (or reduced in intensity, as I described it previously), to be safe to use anywhere near civilians.
Ok this is completely off topic but Achilles feels no pain and cannot receive damage from any source. First is he immune to emotional term oil and does this mean he has antisocial personalty disorder. second does his body feel fatigue and does this mean he doesn’t have t eat sleep. Is he relatively stronger than the strongest human. when he trains he can push his muscle without fail and they don’t have the limitations of skin dmg or one breaking/
Not as far as we know. I very much doubt it though. We have seen him anxious at being found out by Maxima, in the ambulance, for example. Although Mr Amorphous was bearing the brunt of Maxima’s attention, so that is not much to go by.
Generally speaking no. He seems to have perfectly normal friendships with Mr Amorphous and Heatwave. Plus, what emotional responses we have seen, have been fairly normal. Albeit that some of the examples are only normal for how we might feel if we too were invulnerable. For instance being thrown around a battlefield is something we could see as being fun, if we could not be hurt.
However he has not tried to abuse that. Look at the recent scene, where he found himself holding Sciona’s boob, whilst grappling her. It was not his intention, and it made him feel uncomfortable. Further he asked Sciona if they could stop. All of which indicate pretty normal moral reactions to such situations.
Specifically though he enjoys eating food off the floor and using the phrase ‘mouthfeel’. So he can be antisocial, even if it is not bad enough to be classed as a disorder.
Achilles could just be good at acting normal. He have been invulnerable for thirty years which should have affected his psyche in some odd ways. But since he seems to be of average intelligence and fifty years old he should have learned how to put on a mask of normality.
Entirely possible, yes.
Although we should hope that Archon’s screening system would be capable of picking that up.
Mind you Sydney did not have to sit any psyche evaluation tests, but I think they took her failure as a given. ;-)
Archon seem to be rather forgiving when it comes to odd personalities among their employed. Which is understandable as supers are often odd types and it’s better to give the nutcases a job than to risk them going super villain.
Yeah it shouldn’t take a shrink too long to figure out Sydneys personality. She is not exactly the subtle type.
Eat? Yes. We have seen him doing that. Although he will not starve to death if he doesn’t.
Sleep? Very likely. But clever question, as he may well not have a need. This is vague mainly because science has not fully explained sleep, or why it is necessary. One aspect though is to remove toxins that build up in our body. As he cannot be harmed by such, he probably does not suffer physical problems from lack of sleep (but see ‘fatigue’ next).
However sleep is also necessary to convert short term memories into long term ones. Achilles cannot remember his youth. So possibly these facts are not unrelated. Maybe he has skipped sleep, for extremely protracted periods, in the past (due not not feeling tired), and eventually that affected his memory? Just speculating, of course.
Lack of sleep can also cause severe psychological problems. But as we know little about why, it is hard to speculate advisedly on this.
It may be worth checking back on the scene where Sydney, Mr Amorphous and Achilles were running laps. I recall that everyone else was doing fine, whilst Halo was struggling badly. But they are natural supers, so are all Olympic athlete type fit. If the scene showed him lagging, puffing or starting to tire, then we would have an answer. If not we shall just have to wait and see.
That could go either way. Whilst fatigue toxins will not hurt him, if too many inert substances build up in him it could interfere with his ability to metabolise air, food, water etc and turn that into energy. Likewise if stuck somewhere without air, food etc. Possibly he may become increasingly inactive, until he goes into a hybernation-like state. Until there is fresh air or he otherwise has a way to flush his system clear.
Alternatively his super power might just keep him going. Forever.
Yes. Precisely this is stipulated in his cast details (which can presently be found on the Grrl Power Wiki). He is 150% as strong as a normal person, because he can push himself beyond the limits that humans normally have to keep to, in order to avoid injury. This though only equates to one star super strength. So Achilles is the weakest of the super strength members of the team.
One of the primary functions of deep sleep is to allow us to forget unimportant details. This is important as it (mostly) stops us from obsessing over things that just don’t matter, unlike most Machine Learning systems which tend to get totally caught up in the noise in the input data to the detriment of actually finding the signal.
I want Evil Super Realtor to be an actual character in this comic. Sure, he’s selling dungeons and volcanoes to supervillains, but it’s a legal transaction, so what can ya do?
lawful evil is the most insidious of the evils
Maybe he turns out to be Arianna’s brother.
Sounds like a job for Machina industries.
It is safe to say that she could have called it ‘Code Red’…
If Sydney was referring to the code name she was told to remember, but has forgotten, she could have gone with ‘Code Cloaca’. ;-)
Contextually of course the one she was supplied with is not something she should use in this situation. It is for use when speaking under duress, as opposed to something like the police number codes.
Once she has memorised the latter, she can use “213” (“Use of illegal explosives), if her memory is up to it.
Or “800D” (“Ate zero, repeat zero, doughnuts.” A.k.a. “No doughnuts at shop!!!”).
Somehow I wonder if Sciona for all her “Tried to kill the team!” is going to be the lesser of the evils or a minor good here.
Seriously: The Council gave VERY little information about what Sciona did to merit the ‘Off with the head!’ treatment.
Wondering if we are going to find out she was just trying to return back to her home planet or something similar.
Heh. By far the most overwhelming opinion. I think everyone has gotten used to Dave pulling a switcheroo and subverting tropes.
However he often finds ways to surprise.
I feel like blood det cords are unreliable at best though, one little smudge or spill and oops, you have a dud.
Or a boom.
What’s Sydney to do???
Keep her pecker up.
Keep her shield up.
Save the day!
Sydney: Um guys I has some concerns. (to self crap this is the original star trek and i am the red shirt).
Not really in Sidney’s case. The red shirts (who by the way died less than blue shirts) were never given nigh-invulnerable shields.
The problem here is that Sydney is following her intuition when she should follow het OUT-tuition. As in code “GTFO”. And why—in the middle of a Maxima involved super fight– would she take her hand off the forb to verify explodeyness?! Use your genre savvy girl!
Anybody notice what Siconia has done wrong here? First the holes are too big and second She’s placed the explosives outside the holes. To really bring down the house she should have tamped the charges into say one inch diameter holes, about 2 feet apart, and about two feet deep. A bunch of smaller holes would be easier to hide and bury any survivors in more and weightier rubble.
The way she has things set up now I don’t think will actually cause a collapse. Shrapnel and over pressure for sure. It will kill normal folks just fine. But it probably won’t seriously inconvenience the neigh invulnerable types.
Have you not noticed the blood lines going up the holes? The small boxes may be filled with explosives. But there is something MUCH bigger at the tops of those holes.
Maybe explosives? Perhaps also with a lake of lava/acid/millions of flesh-eating beetles, just above a fragile retaining plate?
Or millions of heat and acid immune flesh-eating beetles, swimming in a lake of acidic lava?
Maybe balloons, and confetti, to wish Earth a fond farewell, as Sciona steps through her portal home?
Depending on species hardiness and local customs, those last 2 aren’t incompatible as a party popper for her homecoming entrance on the other side of the portal.
I shall be writing a strongly-worded letter of complaint, to her homeworld, if any beetles become distressed by popping balloons!
Dave San; A request, more Sydney / Halo please, it’s been years since she embarrassed sailors – earn that R rating for language again! I do truly miss the more Sydney focused past, she’s yet to catch up the gaming group the comic opened with, and it’s been years.
*wags tail approvingly*
Um, hey, random question….when did the cast page break? I seem to recall some good funnies there a while back, but it’s looking….well, about as empty as it can possibly get and still be a webpage….
It was working at some point after the comic began, but stopped working at some point after the comic began.
About as specific as I can remember, which is about as helpful as having a lighter on the sun. :(
Heh, no worries.
It has been out since last year. There was a word-press update which was incompatible with the cast list’s programming (it had some fancy features). Dave has been too busy working on the comic, to spare time to fix that. However he did check out the Grrl Power Wiki and declare that it was a good substitute.
I think I have identified one minor omission but, other than that, it has all the cast information from the original page. Plus more kindly added by several readers. Your best bet is to bookmark that page, as Dave’s workload remains high, in order to keep up the comic quality and to stick to its schedule.
Hmmm…
Can Achilles taste food?
Has he had an eating contest against Sydney?
Can he be incapacitated by spice, even if it can’t actually damage him?
Since he doesn’t feel pain or experience illness, it’s likely that he could probably resist any and all effects from such, although he might still be uncomfortable with the taste itself.
Granted, since he doesn’t also experience the inflammation that makes spices more effective, it might also limit his ability to taste food the way it should past a certain spice threshold.
Yes. We saw him enjoying a burger in the canteen. Although he focused on the ‘mouthfeel’, that alone would not be a satisfying experience, if he could not enjoy the taste itself. The scene would have played very differently, if that was the case.
Not yet. He could win on quantity (he is bigger and has no risk of rupturing his stomach. But for spicy stuff …
Very likely. Although it does require interpreting Dave’s comment about Achilles not feeling pain. If that is a secondary super power, then no source of pain would affect him. Contextually though I think it was meant to say that ‘as nothing can physically harm him, he cannot feel pain’. Note though that I may very well be wrong on this point.
Spicy food (and skunk spray for that matter) operates through a different mechanism, so although the brain interprets it like pain, it is not actually caused by an injury.
Although extremely spicy food can also cause injury. It gradually degrades the taste receptors, by killing them off. So extreme spice junkies, who do not carefully moderate their intake or take other precautions, will gradually loose the ability to differentiate milder and subtler flavours. Eventually reaching the point where only spicy food is satisfying.
Sydney may already be in that camp, but hopefully not yet, at her young age.
Another satisfied customer of the Super Volatile Stuff store.
We even know of another satisfied customer\!
For anyone itching for update time to come around, here is some feel good factor, to keep you going.
Is anyone else digging Sydney’s thousand yard stare of Doom?
It triggers my protective instincts, and she is radiating ‘waif in distress’, so yea.
So, how come the shield passes through the ground, but blocks air? Sorry if this has already been discussed, I haven’t trawled the comments in years.
It actually cuts off and forms a plane under her feet.
Okay, cool! Thanks for replying; does it do similar for walls and other inanimate obstacles?
It’s like ghost rules in movies. They can fall through a door but still hit the floor for some reason. The shield gives her a flat surface to stand on automatically, but otherwise, she has to control the diameter and height of the dome herself, but little tweaks happen just shy of subconsciously. Big changes require her to fiddle with the glyphs.
thanks again! can’t wait to see them figure out what the level-up UI actually does!
I think this is the first time I’ve seen fear on Sydney’s face. Sure, we’ve seen surprise, shock, ADHD-fueled anxiety, or fear mixed with some other emotion, but not just straight fear.
Don’t worry, that’s just her redstone-powered secret entrance.