Grrl Power #905 – Imaginary gopher
- Sydney really is talking to someone.
- She’s thought about what she’d do in a situation like this and is being weirdly convincing about it.
- She’s cracking under the stress, despite putting on a collected front, and really thinks she’s talking to someone.
- She’s debuting the first scene of a play she’s working on.
- All of the above.
The full Skilltree is thus:
- Ambivilize an Adversary
- Baffle a Baddie
- Confuse a Criminal
- Distract a Delinquent (or a D-List Supervillain)
- Embroil an Evil-Doer
- Flummox a Foe
- Garble a Grifter
- Helter-skelter a Hooligan
- Imbroglize an Illicit
- Jumble a Jailbird
- Katzenjam a Knave
- Lead-astray a Lout
- Mystify a Malefactor
- Nonplus a Ne’er-do-well
- Obfuscate an Offender
- Perplex a Profligator
- Quagmire a Quincunx (I just wanted to use the word Quincunx)
- Rattle a Reprobate
- Stump a Scofflaw
- Tumult a Traitor
- Unsettle an Unscrupulous
- Vex a Villain
- Welter a Wicked
- Xenotransplant a Xenophobe (You come up with something better)
- Yarmulke a Yobbo (In my defense, this would confuse many people.)
- Zig-Zag a Zealot
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Even if it’s just a bluff and they don’t buy it she was still successful in stalling for a bit of time. That’s a pretty valuable skill. Especially if she’s used her glasses to send a message earlier, after all, we know that they include a communication device since she got a message from Frix.
She might be actually talking to an AI from the glasses but personally, my money is on her just stalling while reinforcement are coming.
Isn’t that a trademark violation against Confuse-a-Cat?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tsIxNci_dE
Satire is fair use. Or maybe it’s an homage, either way.
A delaying tactic is still using tactics… Max and all her trainers would be proud.
she is talking to her handler like the one they gave dabbler
But she doesn’t have her Tele-Orb to be able to see or hear them.
Still, an excellent guess. It is the most original so far. I like it.
Either Sydney is talking to the orbs AI assistant, or she is running a Dirty Harry class empty gun bluff. Full marks for tactical thinking either way.
If Sydney is just straight bluffing here I will be truly impressed.
I’m impressed that none of us know if she’s bluffing or not, when we have outside-of-universe knowledge.
Not even that knowledge can predict what sydney would do in any given situation…
Hehe… The old “throw them off as to how your abilities work”.
The baddies obviously already know too much about her powers, so better let them believe there’s more they didn’t consider. No need to tell them they just didn’t take away your other phone.
Sounds like Frix got her message and is sending help.
The call was already made shortly after getting Concretia to agree to let them help. A call to one of her teammates, and the call quickly erased from her phone. Now she’s stalling for time until they can arrive.
Also, she dare not implicate Concretia, since it was Concretia who did the actual dialing, and held the phone to her ear.
Everyone remembers Sydney’s glasses except Sydney. She will only remember their power when the incident is resolved. Humorous consequences follow.
Whether it is a ploy or a real conversation with some/thing/one that can communicate with the team, I hope the cavalry arrives quickly. These guys are a little too real and creepy for me. And I’d love to see Dabbler be the one who wrecks them.
I thought about this bluff last week. It falls apart when she gives the time limit. She wants them to leave.
If she wanted them to get caught she wouldn’t specifiy a time, and leave them to guess how much time was available.
Unless they only have two minutes.
It doesn’t fall apart, because she wants them to leave, or at least panic and not remove her wit
if you tell the bad guys to run and they only have so much time to do so; they will naturally in a real world scenario assume you are lying and want them to leave the area so you can escape. Their first instinct when you goad them to flee is to remain for that reason. Especially when as far as they can tell you have been disarmed, are no longer a threat, and are convinced you have no actual means of communication. Basically they should assume she is pulling a bugs bunny and not a Jimmy Olsen.
“Quagmire a Quisling”
So the bad guys are going to deal with her wit(drugs, tape, violently remove all her teeth and her tongue) but what next. They kidnap Sydney in their teleporting helicopter and take her to base. I don’t know what these guys think they know about the orbs but they’re probably wrong.
Have we seen any orb features that would imply rebinding the orbs to somebody else is even possible? Are we sure that Sydney getting murderized would leave the orbs behind for somebody else(epic loot dropz) and not just cause the orbs to poof in a puff of imaginary logic
All they need to do, is chop off her hands. No hands, no problems with the orbs outside of really unwieldy bludgeoning tools.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-3/
As we can see, in the 3rd comic, which takes place in the future, Sydney still has both of her hands. :)
Archon does have someone with healing powers on their staff, so reattachment and/or regrowth are not out of the question.
And we’ve already seen that Cora has access to the ability to regrow biological parts. However, no one outside of Archon (probably) knows that the orbs only work in hands. To others, that would be conjecture. Likely conjecture, but conjecture nonetheless.
In any case, no need to remove the hands when the orbs are sequestered ten feet away from her.
Both true. So I -guess- it could happen. Still think it’s unlikely. But not impossible, I suppose.
Also the baddies do not know that the orbs only work when she’s holding them in her hands. That was never on TV.
It would be pretty clear through from public footage that she always holds an orb to use it, so it’s a pretty safe bet. And the fact that she’s still in the chair against her will is a pretty good confirmation.
Yeah but even Sydney did not know for sure if she could use her orbs with other parts of her body (feet, etc, or just contact with her skin). Holding them in her hands would likely just be seen as the most convenient unless you somehow know that she experimented on other ways which did not work.
At the bottom of page 4 is the remark “Let me back up a few months” and then the comic goes back to the beginning. How long did her interstellar excursion take?
53 days. Which is still less than a few months (it’s barely 2 months) Plus Sydney is still a cadet at this point, not a corporal. :)
She certainly qualifies as a Space Cadet :P
Wait, is that still okay to say? Saw a list of ‘bad words’ posted by a US university, and, one of the words on the list was (not kidding)… ‘picnic’
Yes space is fine still.
Picnic, blackmail, brown-bagging your lunch, artisanal, curated, mouthfeel, chirp (except when referring to bird sounds), citizen, dummy, crazy, crippled, grandfathered, low hanging fruit, and ‘long time, no see’ are banned. So far ‘space’ is still allowed.
Don’t ask me why. I tend to have this foolish notion about how we have a first amendment and freedom of speech instead, especially in a publicly funded university.
The picnic word ban is especially stupid, even compared to the other stupid word bans, since they claimed, incorrectly, that it referred to lynching. Which it does not. It’s never had anything to do with lynching – it comes from the 17th century french term ‘pique-nique’ which describes a social gathering in which participants contribute a portion of the food. Not lynching. I don’t know what picnics these people have been attending. Because the people who made the bans are crazy dummies who chirp out this low hanging fruit to get attention and power (see what I did in that last sentence?).
Aren’t paper lunch bags literally “brown bags”?
Stop being all logical and rational. :)
Why not, everyone else has.
How did they make “picnic” a bad word? Oh, dear, they made up false slave connection to the 400 year old French word?
Picnic was borrowed from French piquenique, a word which seems to have originated around the end of the 17th century.
The ‘task force’ that banned the word ‘picnic’ said it was originated from racist extrajudicial killings of African Americas because the last three letters are close to the N word if you change the last of the last three letters, and for some reason they thought that was the origin of the word. Apparently it’s a definition that’s been floating around on the internet, according to them, although I have never heard of that, and I’m pretty sure the only people who floated it around on the internet were the people who wanted the word banned in the first place.
Which is monumentally stupid, since the word picnic is used in many languages, and they all originate from the 17th century French word ‘pique-nique’ like you correctly stated. Instead of saying picnic, you have to say ‘gathering’ which is not nearly as descriptive of what a picnic is.
Also brown bag now needs to be called ‘lunch and learn.’
I wish I was making this up.
Instead of saying disabled, you have to say deactivated.
Instead of saying grandfathered, you have to say ‘legacy status, or ‘legacied in.’
Instead of saying girl/gal, boy/guy, you have to say the person’s name, or just say person.
Instead of saying ‘long time, no see’ (which apparently offends blind people according to the task force), you have to say ‘I haven’t seen you in ages’ (which makes no sense since you still have the word ‘seen’ in it).
Instead of saying ‘privileged account’ (for IT stuff, I guess), you have to say ‘elevated account.’
Instead of saying ‘blacklist,’ you have to say ‘deny list.’
And instead of saying dummy (again for IT stuff I guess), you have to say ‘placeholder’ or ‘sample.’
What a bunch of placeholders. :)
Note also the time-skip shenanigans involved in the Interstellar Excursion. If Sydney’s backing up along her own subjective timeline, then the rest of the world has to back up by an extra 53 days to catch up with her.
Actually, we have seen one instance where someone else might be able to use the orbs. When Varia touched Sydney to see what their Gestalt was, the orbs started orbiting varia’s head as well as Sydney’s. That doesn’t mean that varia could keep the orbs after they stop touching, but there may be another potential user.
Have any bit of skin-to-skin contact (like a tandem paraglide harness but back to back) and she has a copilot. 4 orbs at once.
Holy crap, how did I not notice that.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-324-she-should-put-all-those-answers-on-a-shirt/
the real question is how the 6 other folks in the room, all looking at them, many of which are pretty highly trained for attention to detail, didn’t notice…
They were looking for big flashy powers and changes in Varia, and none happened. Meanwhile, Sydney was loudly praying “no whammy no whammy” or words to that effect, which nicely distracted everyone from anything the orbs might do.
“Yeah? Well it only takes 5 seconds to do this! *BANG!!!*
And what would that get them? With Sydney dead the only thing left that has value is her orbs… But if they take those they’ll have to deal with an “orb AI” that’s somehow attached to them and could lead ARCSWAT back to their hideout.
I think Sydney figured out that’s what their plan was from the start and just gave them a reason to question if they could get away with it. She’s not just playing for time, she’s given herself an imaginary ‘deadman’s switch.’
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DeadMansSwitch
If they WANTED her dead they wouldn’t bother with all this.
Whatever their end goal they seem to think it’s not immediately served by blasting Sydney’s brains out. Operation: Blackmail and Brainwashing is starting to look a little more likely.
My ‘genius’ plan would be to kill Sydney and hope she drops the orbs on death, but I got in universe and out of universe common knowledge mixed up again. Dirty, dirty, metagaming. I’ve been assuming this was some plan to steal the orbs when as far as most people are concerned Sydney’s orbs are a weird power manifestation and not separate objects.
My newest theory: This is just an elaborate kidnapping and ransoming. They want to see what the government will pay to get Sydney back. And given Sydney’s key role in national security as ‘biggest fastest most indestructible-est gun it’s going to be a lot.
Well, we don’t know if any of them has a power like “Return from dead” so offing Sydney may not work or maybe that teleport orb has some “Emergency Warp!” power?
I vote for option Sydney: Autism Power, Go!
She has ADHD she is NOT autistic in the slightest.
There’s some discussion in the psychological community on whether or not ADHD should be classified as an autistic spectrum disorder.
Consensus is currently “probably”.
Improvise at its finest thy name is Sydney.
Double bluff. Telling them they better run makes it seem like a bluff so they stick around and get caught.
Double bluff, plus two-man confidence job: In the intervening time between “who are ‘they’,” and “they’re here,” Sydney was able to improvise a plan relying on Concretia as an inside agent, supplementing her current inability to access the orbs.
I go with #13.
To those that say crippling of killing her is a option My comment is.
One, the writer is not that dark.
Two, the bad guys are trying to keep a low profile so getting on Arc Swats bad side would be very very bad.
Three, Max may just let Dabbler off the leach to deal with the problem, and those that say Max is to into Justice, remember she is Military, and they normally go with Scorch Earth as revenge.
She won’t be killed or crippled. This is still a flashback from before the beginning of the webcomic.
But it says something about DaveB’s storytelling ability that you’d be thinking of that, doesnt it? :)
And that’s a good thing. I couldn’t STAND seeing her crippled.
Ok now you’re just going out of your way to torture me with the puns, Ro :)
Hey, everyone needs a hobby.
If nothing else I respect your tenacity.
But I guess the joke is getting a bit old now.
It’s got to be at least a twentyacity by now.
Four: This is literally a flashback. Sydney is a Corporal at the start of the comic.
The start of the comic was a flashFORWARD. The shorter of the two is always the flash. It still tells us she gets there uncrippled or killed. But this is Now and what is happening. The beginning was the look ahead.
Technically, the first few pages are a “frame”, since they surround the narrative. A flash forward would occur within the narrative.
Referencing the entire main story as a “flashback” is not precisely correct, since it’s not a flash anything, but it’s not wrong either.
Hmm… if I had to guess, the first half of #2 is true, because of course she’s thought about what she’d do in a situation like this. #2 is also the safe bet.
However, in this specific scenario… If I had to makes a wild bet upon reading the page, I say 90% this is bluff/stalling, 10% is Sydney really is talking to someone. That someone being Concretia. She may be banking on Dabbler or another Arc member being able to help Concretia if she can slip away as a “ghost” and ask for help (easier said than done, since she’s not invisible). Of course, the fact that she turns to Concretia for the A.I line does kind of put a pin in that idea, but it’s still vaguely possible.
I would not be surprised if Sydney was being completely straightforward here too… It just wouldn’t be my first bet.
I hope it’s not the Orbs AI as it would remove a LOT of the narrative possibilities for the orbs.
Unless the AI takes the form of Sydney and is basically useless.
I don’t even know if this is a new aspect of an orb or the orbs, X, or Sydney bluffing and just making people nervous. I’m assuming Sydney’s put a lot of points into Bluff. I love this.
Sydney is genre savvy about superhero tropes like the captured hero talking or bluffing herself out of trouble so it makes sense she should give it a try. It will be fun to see how his ends. This story have certainly CAPTURED my interest.
Why do you so desperately want to be beaten in the street by a small mixed-race polynesian woman surrounded by an army of ninja-for-hire?
Don’t you kink-shame me.
LOL +1 internet for you.
You threw a pie.
Bless you.
Sydney’s not really completely sure what the orbs do yet. I suspect the green is a remaker. It doesn’t just make air, though it can make her bubbles air good again. It can do regeneration and healing or shape changes for herself or others. I am just guessing so don’t gate me for spoilers if I turn out to be right. This is just an example of how I don’t think she has the orbs well understood. I don’t think this scene is even related to her orbs at all. I expect that it is likely a call from her glasses to Cora. The mention of an AI assistant is sort of interesting and would explain the final orb. It has bothered me that she can only use two orbs that she is holding. A control orb that allows her to program scripts to run on the other orbs is much better. So control orb and bring up shield with it to stay up until control orb is used to change its status, that works much better. For example Concretia couldn’t have bagged up the orbs because Syd would leave the shield up while she takes the picture of where she left the stasis gagdet.
I agree, no point in not adding that functionality if you’ve letting it make air.
Remember that just because the orb can do that doesn’t mean it’s already unlocked. Maybe the green is general remaker but making air is only thing unlocked, she needs to spend more points on it for more.
I’m calling it as a bluff/confound move. Betting 500 Quatloos on it
Oh, she’s GOOD!… :3
Bluff +10 and it looks like she’s rolling high…
Archon does have someone with healing powers on payroll, so reattachment and/or regrowth are not strictly out of the question.
(I meant to post this in reply to someone, ignore it)
27. Gnarfel the Garthok.
For #17 I’d have used Quixate.
Its the invisable guy who was at her first meeting at Archon
we haven’t seen any evidence yet that X can communicate with someone without being seen by others, but that WOULD explain why Sydney is talking about Dabbler, and not Cora or Frix (like she’d be slightly more likely to do if she was using her glasses)
however, that WOULD mean that X was not following Dabbler… so, I’m slightly incredulous (unless Dabbler is already here…)
Bravo on going through the Alphabet. I had to look up Quincunx. Thanks.
i would go with all of the above… but I really don’t know… Sydney is too much unpredictable for my mind
Sydney’s glasses are a phone she can control by looking into certain directions, right? I mean she got a sext by a very furry friend on it and they work as a smartgun system… So maybe that’s what she’s doing?
Its either the control orb or a bluff, if she was really communicating with the glasses she would be trying to draw out the conversation so she could buy time for help to come. Before she left Arc had a pretty good control of the fight so she may be thinking they have already mopped up. But again I may be wrong.
Its almost certainly the glasses, her irises have been lighting up oddly sometimes since Concretia started explaining her backstory. It’s not in time with her standard glasses reflections and it happens within the same comic page often enough now to were it doesn’t seem accidental or to caused by certain light sources in the environment.
I noticed it last page but didn’t think much of it, they light up alongside or close to important bits and didn’t at all before the exposition while she’s been in the chair no matter which way she faced. The “losing your audience,” statement before was probably directed ire toward Frix or someone else at the concrete boob explanation. Earlier comics also seem to have too much lighting when they’ve been in use for me to conclude anything from them.
I would love it if the first panel on the next page was Jabberwocky and Math arriving and taking out the two side guys, with flashy martial arts moves and the words “Times Up!”
Okay, where did that assault rifle come from in panel two?
And where did it go in panel seven?
Does the Big Guy have the super poof pulling an assault rifle out of his arse?
Bet he has fun putting it back in :P
The bluff is very smart.
Since they know who her teammates are, how much do they dare wager they will not come crashing down the door in a few minutes?
This ofcourse factors in their own abilites to whoom we are currently now aware, whoever since they are forcing concretia to be their muscle, they seem lacking in that regard.
Who says Cree is their muscle and not their sneak-thief?
I look forward to seeing them start arguing amongst themselves over whether Sidney was bluffing or not. Even I’m not 100% certain she was.
My bet is she is talking to X. With Dabbler fighting along side Maxima and Cora there would be plenty of people to rein her in if she “went off the leash”. X could take the initiative and follow the one team member who has wandered off by herself and needs a “guardian angel”. She would not have to see him to talk to him, just know he was there. He might have told her he was following her or done something that tipped her off that he was near by. Besides, I think X might actually like Sydney.
This is the page where she spotted him.
Yes, she spotted him while fondling her vision ball!
X’s job, her sole job, is to tail Dabbles, if Sydney needed ‘watching over’, then someone else would have been assigned
Sydney can’t prove X isn’t there. Neither can you come to think of it. Plenty of people talk to invisible people without proof it’s called prayer.
” She would not have to see him to talk to him, just know he was there. ”
What would the best way for X to alert Syd without provoking a startle response? Tap on the shoulder, very careful whisper?