Grrl Power #973 – Ulna you di-in’t
Yeah, he just got punched through a cliff two pages ago, but I think this would hurt more. He’s used to getting punched and slamming into things. This is almost certainly a new pain for him, if not an entirely novel experience for a human being in general. Well, in all of the history of humanity, someone has definitely had their radius and ulna wedged apart in a… I’m going to say fencing accident? Not fencing with swords. I’m imagining someone installing a fence and some other guy fell off a roof and got a fence slat wedged into his forearm. That or some peasant has gotten a gladius or a bastard sword slammed through their forearm and then the sword got twisted and then the edges stuck into the bone and the knight is trying to yank it out and the peasant is thinking “This land dispute between noble houses has really gotten out of hand, which is a slightly ironic way to put it because part of my arm and hand just flew off oh god the pain.”
Tamer: Enhancer 2 – Progress Update:
Finished what I thought was going to be the final chapter, and yeah, the book needs at least one more so I can end on an action scene. Started in on that one, but I’m only like 200 words in. I spent most of the weekend working on the next nudie pic for the monthly Patreon pinup.
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She HAS been thinking about it. Still, it’s just different violence . He’ll learn to like it.
Daniel here. I WAS writing a comment about how this nowhere near the mindless violence Kevin uses to power up, calmly pointing out the difference…
…However then my mobile did some random thing and went to the previous page! Pushing the Back Button to go back to my comment just sent me to the page before that. I’ll write it again if I can tomorrow, but don’t have time now… ☹
I am thinking the parallel would be eating durian or raw radicchio. They have really unpleasant aroma/taste, but you can get lots of nutrients from them if you can actually eat them.
I find the taste of durian quite pleasant, actually. Smells like rotting garlic, though. Just the thing to eat if you’ve got a head cold, and can’t smell anything anyway.
I think the purpose of what we are about to see is ultimately, minimal violence, maximum pain. Make as much a deterrent as possible to potentially not be worth the gained vehemence.
I’d disagree. Violence is a frame of mind. Max can do a move like that completely defensively… just like you can touch private parts in a nonsexy way. (Doctors do that all the time).
Nah, violence is an action, and violence can absolutely be defensive.
A super punches someone hits much harder and correspondingly gives Vehemence more Vitamin V than a normal puncher, even if both are in the same frame of mind.
During the restaurant brawl half the combatant were police fighting defensively and attempting to subdue with as little force as possible. Didn’t deter Vehemence.
no, you got it wrong. violence is a question. the answer is “yes”.
VOTE
Ow.
Holy balls that looks like it would hurt. Not only the bones separating, but just the initial fingers going in would give a wtf experience. (Been struck there a few times while karate sparring g and it always makes me think twice).
OH SHI…. Yeah, I’ll give you that. Lancing through a pressure point like that would be pretty crippling at least in the short term not to mention what kind of permanent damage that might cause. Granted, he has regen but someone else… well that wouldn’t be pretty at all.
Hah, love it when max shows that she has decent points in int as well as STR.
… I FELT that… :o
You’ll have to cast Dispel Area Effect.
That’s like, the opposite of sticking a pencil between two fingers and pushing them together.
Or, in MA training, grabbing and squeezing the fingers of another student who forgot they were wearing their wedding ring…
(The pain nerves of the fingers are along the inside edges to keep them safer from run-of-the-mill mishaps.)
I do not know if this is a real thing, but it seems reasonable. It reminds me of a single knuckle punch to the lower ribs. Instead of compressing the ribs from the outside like a boxer’s hook, they spread the ribs in a manner they weren’t meant to move.
Okay, I think it’s safe to that every fight will just be; Maxima wins
It’s not even done in an interesting fashion
I mean… Their first fight was pretty handedly in Vehemence’s favor. He probably would have won if Max didn’t have help. And Dabbler has fought her to a draw before. Sydney… Probably can’t “win”, but she could at least make Max accept a draw too with her shield.
Sydney’s shield does have an upper limit, and I’m thinking Max’s “Fel killer” could overload it. So in terms of power, Max could not defeat Sydney, she could only kill her. And I doubt that holds her interest.
I agree with you. My best estimate for the blast that put Syndey’s shield in Warning Mode was around 100 kiloton. Max’s Fel Killer was “several hundred petajoules” which puts it in the 100+ megaton range. So 3+ orders of magnitude stronger. If Max cuts loose a little, it’s all but certain that she can lance through Mr. Bubble.
Why do you think it’s 100 kilotons? It literally has been used by a race that was able to destroy an entire highly advanced warlike civilization in a very short period of time, and was also able to destabilize the sky ripper portal.
Cora’s ship couldnt even figure out what they were so the squidward are clearly not a galaxy standard threat, unlike the Fel, who people like Cora are at least acquainted with, strategy-wise.
Well, the fact that after the blast was over they weren’t in a pool of molten lava is somewhat indicative of it being in the kilotons, not megatons.
They were in a glowing crater we couldn’t see the floor of, so how sure are you there was no lava?
I mean, y the looks of it, it not just melted, but vaporized a huge chunk of ground.
Exactly my point. :)
I’d argue that it was not just lava… but it was so powerful a blast that it went from solid to liquid to gas to just vaporized out of existence.
That’s more than megatons. That’s more than what Maxima’s done, too.
@Pander – I was recalling the previous conversation where crater sizes were estimated to known nuclear tests. I made a mistake in my recall. I should have said 20kt (comparable to Operation Plowshare shots). https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-647-no-healthpack-needed/comment-page-2/#comments
I’d like to see your reasoning for the kilotons, and I’m also unsure how authoritative the 100 Petajoules are. Frankly, this is probably just technobabble. It doesn’t even make sense to talk about energy in that situation*, and DaveB has previously admitted he isn’t really firm with physics.
*Energy is a total, and Maxima was firing a continuous beam. Power is the quantity you want to use for that. It doesn’t make sense to say “no shielding could withstand that for long” when talking about a total.
100kt was me mis-remembering the discussion from the crater page. Estimating the size across the crater (we can see Sydney’s shield and the portal for comparison) and comparing to nuclear tests. I should have said 20kt per the prior discussion. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-647-no-healthpack-needed/comment-page-2/#comments
I’m not sure that it’s a good comparison vs nuclear explosions from the explosion results of the blast, just like it wouldnt be a good comparison for Maxima’s plasma blast on the Fel ship. ie, one can argue that Maxima’s blast on the Fel ship was MUCH MORE than a nuclear blast… but there was no damage to the surrounding area, and the ship itself was not vaporized. They’re just completely different types of science involved. :)
If Sydney’s orbs are indeed ‘Nth tech’/Beyond Tier 4 or 5 Kardishev scale (for a Dr. Who reference, based on how Krona freaked out about her orbs being the secrets of the universe itself laid bare), then it probably is capable of withstanding a LOT more than something that a Tier 0.75 planet on the Kardishev scale can put out.
I have no idea where the 20kt comes from – Sedan crater looks similar size and was 100kt.
Also, Sedan was an underground detonation, which would make a bigger crater, and also loose alluvium, as opposed to the seemingly fairly hard material of the ground under the Alari city.
It’s somewhat moot, but 20kt is my estimating based on the drawn crater – if you figure that the portal is about 10 ft tall there, the crater is around 220 feet in diameter. Sedan was a 100kt shot with a crater 1,280 feet in diameter. The information I can find about crater sizes in various soils (sedimentary rock vs crystalline rock, for example) is showing about a 15% increase in crater size for a given explosion in rock vs sand. I suppose because chunkier stuff sticks together and disperses less energy. So linear scaling (which is not correct, but the ultimate numbers are so huge it doesn’t much matter) brings me to estimate that the Squidward blast was about 1/5th the size of Sedan.
Regardless of the exact measurements here – a “hundreds of petajoules” explosion (on the order of the hypothetical 100mt Full-version Tsar Bomba) at surface level produces a crater about a mile in diameter. About 24 times as wide as the Squidward crater. https://nuclearsecrecy.com/nukemap/?&kt=15&lat=40.7480373&lng=14.4992065&airburst=0&hob_ft=0&fireball=0&crater=1&psi=20,5,1&rem=&therm=&zm=13
I don’t think Maxima’s Fel killer is as powerful as the squidward mega-beam attack. I don’t think most aliens know what the squidward are even, but it took out the entire Alari civilization. Even the Fel managed to withstand Maxima’s maximum beam output briefly and Sydney’s force field is likely more powerful than the Fel shields. Not to mention Sydney also can… yknow… teleport to other locations and resume being behind a shield, and might also be fater than Maxima with the upgrade. She also might be able to open a portal to a black hole or energy well of a star or something now, by shutting off the causeway safety feature, which has already been foreshadowed in the comic.
Not to mention that Sydney is not a ‘direct fighter’ strategy. She thinks multi-dimensionally when it comes to a fight,unlike Vehemence most of the time.
You are forgetting one very important piece of information: Sydney does NOT have Instant Transmission like Goku has, it takes her time to move LightBee into place, and it can be seen while doing so
Oooo, that’s something they should practice: can LightBee be held? If so, and Maxi spots it, Sydney is in big trouble (in Little Sydney)
“You are forgetting one very important piece of information: Sydney does NOT have Instant Transmission like Goku has, it takes her time to move LightBee into place, and it can be seen while doing so.”
True. Well… not YET anyway. There might be some future upgrade which lets her set pre-programmed teleport points for instant teleportation for all we know. :)
“Oooo, that’s something they should practice: can LightBee be held? ”
I’m pretty sure it can’t be held. It holographic, just like Sydney is when using the lightbee (unless teleporting). That’s why it can go beyond her tether – it’s not really there in the first place.
Not to mention it’s already been established, for trying to move the orb itself, that the tether to Sydney is so powerful that even Maxima was not able to budge it.
That… was kinda the point: if Maxi could grab hold of it, it doesn’t matter if she got dragged along with it or it got stopped, Sydney wouldn’t be getting away because Maxi would be right there when she popped back out again (and the fun part is, she wouldn’t even know Maxi was along for the ride :D)
Probably is a moot point though since the lightbee is holographic. :)
Remember, the only reason Sydney didnt use it to just go through the window at the Mars factory is DaveB literally said he forgot that was a thing it could do. :)
“[Sydney] might also be fater than Maxima…” – Pander
“YOU COME BACK HERE AND SAY THAT!!! – The Mighty Halo
Sometimes, a typo becomes an autograph opportunity.
Oops!
I mean, Maxima actually was about to lose to Kevin, and Sciona slipped away from her, and so did Henchwhench.
It’s pretty clear that Maxima is the kind of Super that antagonists need to think around and not just mindlessly assault with more power.
Which actually forces some smart plays from villains, I find, like with Sciona and Henchwhench.
We haven’t yet seen how Kevin will view this particular assault – it may cause more pain per impact, but does that make it less violent? I’m not sure…
And Kevin has the decency to roll over and at least play along with a good amount of self control (only mildly swearing) and not going all out vehemence “me hurt, now you crater”.
He… he ain’t ‘playing along’
And some people do have that much control over their swearing
well, that was fast. anyone up for making comments about Max’s huge tracts of land? anyone? kind of guessed that.
She takes out the biggest guy around with two fingers and you’re making comments like that? I wouldn’t do that, and I’m on the safe side of the fourth wall.
but I’m not making comments. I’m making comments about comments. plus I’m referencing Monty Python. high culture.
OK, sure, Max has a certain amount of real estate. But the thing about it is, it’s all over the place, a modest home here, a cottage over there, like she just wanted to always have some place to relax not too far away. In total, sure, it’s a lot of land, but each of the individual tracts is pretty small, you know?
And on the next page… Dabbler: No, no, Maxima, that is not how you do a fingerbang. Quick, lie down and let me show you.
Err “finger blast”
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-461-clandestilen/
I was thinking more along the lines of this…
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-327-ask-a-self-evident-question/
Did… did Max just went all Xena on Vehemence?
Even Xena would not be able to pull that stunt off. Jamming your fingers deep enough into the arm to push the bones apart takes too much strength and durability for a regular human to do, even a highly trained fighter like Xena.
oh, I thought she went for a pressure point. Never mind then…
No, Max just STABBED Kevin through the wrist and then twisted the knife (hand). Still, Kevin is durable enough at this point that Max had to pop her fingers back in place. (His regen is why he’s not spurting blood)
Vehemence is making sillier faces now, just still be a bit stoned!
High on vitamin V.
Certainly the weirdest face contortions I’ve seen in a long time.
Faces? Look at his feet!
That hurt to even read.. so yeah, what the hell Lady? :D
Eeeeeeeee. Yeah, that’s the creativity I read for.
Oooooo but that’s nasty, that’s not training that’s just being malicious to get some payback because he’s one of the few people that’s defeated her and she hates the idea of a man tougher than her.
Hmm, more like Max showing him that she can adapt and unless he powers up to the level of the big fight again, she can take him down without ashing his brain (which is kind of hard to spin positively to the press). In many ways this is the start of offering a heel-face turn to Kevin, while making it damn clear that if he needs to be taken down, he will and can be.
Hey, when you try to electrocute someone to death, they’re entitled to causing you an injury that you’ll heal from in a few seconds at most.
Besides, this is a learning experience for him too.
Technically it is live practice of a formerly theoretical technique. Like many brutal martial art techniques. On less durable humans, that move would have ripped their arm apart and caused major bleeding. Not many Max could “practice” that on. It’s possible the team gadgeters could build Max a simulacrum from various materials, but at some point it has to be field tested.
Its a good way to deal with Vehemance since his power stops him from bleeding to death from all the damage done from smashing the veins in the way but definately not something Maxima should bust out on anyone else unless Archons prepared for some extremely awkward press in future ^^.
Pressure Points would have been kind. In real life, no one would be as big as Vehamance for Maxima to do quite like that. Pressure points may been possible though.
Pressure points are tricky to pull off, especially on big muscles, but done right and nope, that arm isn’t doing anything for a while.
That would have nailed the median nerve. Forget pressure points, in a normal human it would have destroyed the nerve. Never mind the tweaks to the ulnar and radial nerves.
Kenshiro is duly impressed.
Kenshiro would kill Kevin in seconds XD.
How many seconds? Well, that’s up to the author.
Also upto Kenshiro lol.Reminds me of when team4star did Cell vs Kenshiro which ended with cell exploding-fully regenerating and having just enough time to call Kenshiro an a-hole before exploding again XD.
Only if Kenshiro is a real person, otherwise, it is up to the author
Interesting. He is now a test dummy on how to beat foes on a similar strength level. Not just his, but being prepared means that team members weaker than Maxima may be able to take on foes that are stronger than they are. Not too much stronger, but someone like Wolverine or Captain America could take out someone of Spider-Man’s strength level. Scale that up and someone like the Thing might stall the Hulk for longer than in a straight brawl.
Mind, I’m only comparing strength, not speed or fighting ability.
Pain like that will distract anyone and in his case? He needs to burn some energy to heal and I’m guessing, but this may actually cost him more energy to heal than he gets from the violence.
I’m imagining Achilles doing something like this. He can handle the damage to his fingers without any issue.
His vingers can, but it would require quote an impressive move tot also nog have huis muscles overpowered.
Onder the right angle it van be done and absolutely wild, but it would require extra training.
Nothing can overpower Les’ muscles, the big problem is, he while he may have a greater durability than Maxi, he doesn’t have a comparable strength: he could poke a pressure point, but never be able to pull off a move like that (except on a ‘normal’ opponent)
If he did it properly as part of a flip, he *might* be able to use the opponent’s own weight and momentum to cause them to impale themselves on his fingers. Like suplexing them, and coming down elbow first with his finger planted in a pressure point.
His muscles can be overpowered. Not destroyed, but forced to allow movement against them. Supercharged Sciona was able to pull his arms away from a grapple.
Yes, meant that :(
I’m surprised no one seem to notice that this move cracked the upper bone in that move (no idea what those bones are called in English, so bear with me on this one) That alone would make most normal people black out from the pain because that shit HURTS.
I think neither bone cracked, but the elbow may have dislocated and the ulna and radius bent away from each other, a move they don’t normally do. That, along with muscle tissue being violated, are going to get most of the pain nerves in the area sending signals to the brain.
If you zoom in on the upper bone (Patreon supporters get access to giant-sized versions of the pages that probably wouldn’t need zooming for this), there’s actually a hairline fracture on the bone.
Bugger me just thinking about what she did hurts.
I physically wretched seeing that x-ray, because I can imagine a bit too well what things feel like. It’s like a rot rod being stabbed through your arm, but your not bleeding. I feel like you’d kill someone from doing that to their funny bone.
Yikes! I guess Kevin isn’t the only one who likes a little Vitamin-V once in a while.
So, funny thing about that pair of bones. While your hands are at rest(palm down, or palm inward) they actually cross over eachother. Advanced form of this would probably be thumb+finger making the two bones grind against eachother.
Okay, that was a unexpected and creative way to attack, I give Dave that, but I hope this doesn’t mean Vehemence is that easily defeated. I want him to be as skilled as he is strong. Someone able to fight the best and win.
We saw from the first fight that injuring him only delays him long enough to complain about it. I’d guess that he’s never in a rush to end a fight, so this almost slapstick thing where he rolls around in pain or stops to complement them on their hits is just part of the game. Of course, let him play long enough and all the skill in the world becomes meaningless.
I doubt Maxima would be able to pull the same sort of takedown quite so easily in future.
The majority of this session’s sparring, and of the Restaurant Rumble after the point that Vehemence got directly involved*, was fairly straight forward ‘how hard can you hit’ stuff – maybe a few tricks in where the force was applied, but relatively little on how it was applied. And Vehemence got tunnel vision for it, and went straight for the brute-force approach again, and found out why it’s a limited tool. Now that he’s been reminded with painful experience that he can’t just power through everything, I expect he’ll be a bit more circumspect in future fights.
* Rather more excuse/reason at the Restaurant Rumble, since Vehemence’s aura effect was turning up the aggression and turning down the inhibitions/considerations for the participants.
Well I ship it.
If that were Sydney,she would’ve found some pressure/pain points on Vehemence there….!
V is a brawler. Even with his adaptability and scaling power level, he’s very much a brute force fighter. He’s no good against dirty tricks, and Max has the speed and knowledge to implement them at will.
That happens to be where Roman’s would drive the spikes when crucifying certain criminals. The hands just tear apart under the weight, so it has to be the wrists. Very painful and well considered, Maxima.
You are correct that was a style of nailing victims.
—
A possibility that does not require tying is that the nails were inserted just above the wrist, through the soft tissue, between the two bones of the forearm (the radius and the ulna)
—
If MAx can do that with her fingers I suspect it’s no problem from behind to go straight in to the heart and pop a valve.
Okey. Exalted is a TRPG. With demigods as protagonist.
There is a kind of demigod that has acces to a stile of martial arts known as the Infernal Monster. It goes as such: You punch. You get stronger. You get punch. You get stronger. You punch that motherfucker with that other motherfucker. You get stronger.
Prety vehemence. Right? Yeah. Inferal color is bright radioactive green and black gold.
So now Max has used an atack from another stile of Martial Arts known as the Dark Mesiah. [Pardon my english]. To be specific:
GRIEVOUS AGONY ATTACK
Cost: 4m; Mins: Martial Arts 4, Essence 3;
Type: Supplemental
Keywords: Combo-OK, Crippling
Duration: Instant
Prerequisite Charms: Dark Messiah Form
The Abyssal strikes hard with a knee to the groin, or some equally “dirty” tactic, and inflicts debilitating pain. (The attack can be as specific as a called shot, but it incurs no called-shot penalty.) If the target suffers any damage from this attack, he immediately drops prone and shifts to Inactive status (see Exalted, p. 143), though he remains onscious (and usually writhes or screams). This state lasts only five ticks, but the lingering pain from the Charm imposes a -1 internal penalty (a wound penalty).
So… Yeah. Max is a Solar with a pack with the neverborn/who have stolen the MA out of one of the Deathkngiths.
A better question is: Is this something Sydney suggested for Max to try based on Sydney’s extensive gamer experience, or is Max’s inner nerd peeking out and showing off just a tad?
I play a lot of Exalted and *immediately* recognized this technique. There is this charm in the Dark Messiah style of supernatural martial arts:
GRIEVOUS AGONY ATTACK
The Abyssal strikes hard with a knee to the groin, or some equally “dirty” tactic, and inflicts debilitating pain. If the target suffers any damage from this attack, he immediately drops prone and shifts to Inactive status, though he remains conscious (and usually writhes or screams). This state lasts only five ticks, but the lingering pain from the Charm imposes a -1 internal penalty (a wound penalty) to all non-reflexive actions for the rest of the scene.
Definitely an interesting way to fight such a clear Infernal Monster stylist as Vehemence would be in the system!
Pressure points. Maximum pain from minimum force and damage.
Fascinating
Exactly – it’s amazingly painful, without being terribly violent. An elegant solution for fighting a vehemic brawler.
That’s…something beyond Atemi, an Art that emphasizes the attack on nerve clusters & specific weak spots in the structure of a human body. It’s an Art that doesn’t precisely reduce one’s opponent into a quivering mass of broken bones & torn, quivering flesh, it’s more like the Art of folding one’s clothes while one is still wearing them.
I would have inserted some joke about Max hitting Kevin’s funny bone, but what she did wasn’t quite as humorous…
Obviously it was for her (and us too)
This was -exceptionally- stupid.
The move that is. If Max is strong and fast enough to do this towards an opponent, then she would be strong and fast enough to do actual significant damage, like dislocating a shoulder. Something that wins a fight.
It should be impossible to pull this off on anyone even close to her own speed or power level.
Since.. i mean.. this is EVEN more showoff than catching someone’s fist in the air.
And requite a massive difference in power. Dont believe me?
Try replicating this on your own arm. See what ends hurting the most. The arm or the fingers.
Except in this specific case, where “significant damage” is exactly what the opponent wants. V can fix that hairline fracture better than it started, but it’s not going to strengthen the rest of the bone. Pain, without (much) injury, is exactly what this move was intended to achieve.
No, this move is brilliant and used against the right opponent
Kevin feeds on violence, punch him and he will only smile. There was a minimal amount of violence applied but a Maxima amount of pain received, Kev will be using up more of his reserves healing that than he could possibly have gained
And only a fucking dumbshit moron would attempt to do this move on themselves: it doesn’t matter whether it’s the arm or the fingers that hurt the most, both of them will fucking hurt, and both of them belong to you!
Debilitating pain resulting from the involuntary separation of the ulna and radius? Been there. Forearm splints, shin splints. Very ouch.
Mayeven be worse than getting it in the ‘nads.
The Romans used that spot for their crucifixions. There are some major nerves that run through there too.
Ah, poor Kevin. That Lunch date Just didn’t turn out like he wanted.
I find the skele-pun in the title is very humerus.
Are you just pointed out the title, I’m conflicted. :)
Also conflicted about YOR pun. Because… that was a pretty good one.