Grrl Power #98 – Triple facepalm and a sidebutt
I wonder what Sydney would have done if she had discovered that she could use a third orb by pressing it against her butt? I guess her super hero costume would involve chaps, maybe a skirt. That’s assuming she told anyone, which I don’t see happening. She’s blushing even trying it in private. At least we know she’s thorough.
I played some superhero RPG system, Champions maybe, that included some example characters, and one of the villains was Dracula. Under his disadvantages, it listed “Dies when staked in the heart.” or something. At first I didn’t think anything of it. Vampire. Stake in the heart, makes sense. Then I thought, “Hang on… MY character dies when a stake is rammed through her heart too.” Fortunately the GM had the common sense not to grant me the 40 extra points that Drac got from having that disadvantage as well. The takeaway is that I’m an egregious min/maxer and a rules ‘sploitzer.
If you didn’t see it Friday, one of my favorite webcomics, Leftover Soup, featured a Grrl Power cameo. See if you can spot it. The page in question is mildly NSFW as it’s a shower scene. It has sidebutt as well!
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Semi-related to your Champions comment…
In 4th Edition we designed a power called the Infinite Aid. We generally used it for immortals.
1d6 Aid to Body, 0 End, Persistent, Always On, (+2 Advantage; Aid goes to Aid dice and Aid Maximum), Limitation: Not versus sunlight, fire, stakes through the heart, ‘Holy’ attacks.
Within 24 hours of the power’s activation you have virtually infinite Body.
Steve Long himself called me a “rules lawyering abomination.”
Pretty high praise since Steve Long is an actual lawyer himself, before he started running Hero Games.
… which is the main reason Aid was seriously overhauled for 5th edition so you couldn’t do that anymore :)
I always had fun with things like the Autofire Extra Arm with Useable Against Others At Range…one zap turns your target into an octopus!
ROFLMAO
A thought occurred to me while I was out grocery shopping this afternoon. If Sydney is eating pickles, cheese and mustard now, what is she going to want to eat if she becomes pregnant? I realize a guy needs to be involved and Dave has not introduced one as far as Sydney’s significant other, so this event is probably quite some (very large) time away.
I can just imagine an episode of Chopped:
Ted Allan (host): Open your baskets. In your appetizer, you must use: Dill pickles, whole grain mustard, cheddar cheese and naga scorpion peppers. You have 20 minutes, which starts … now!
Naga Scorpion peppers are the record holders as the hottest peppers in the world at over 1.5 million scoville units. They ought to satisfy Halo’s (if nobody else’s) appetite.
considering it would take them 20 minutes just to prepare to USE those peppers (gas masks and hazmat suits) and the fact that the judges are wimps when it comes to spices (“I normally like my food really hot, but these Jalepeneos are way too much”…what?) I feel like no one would win that day.
To be honest though, would a guy even be able to measure up for her? She is an anime fan (I think) and she has that tentacaly thing…
… makes you wonder if she has ever thouht of that; I mean she tried using one orb with her butt, natural progression would escalate to other forms of experimentation. :P
First official ship for this comic, Sydney and the tentacle thingy orb.
Shippy ship ship. :P
Actually those are not the hottest peppers in the world. The hottest would be the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion peppers coming in at 2,000,000 scoville units.
Yep, they replaced the Naga’s about 3 peppers ago.
Actually, as of the year of your comment (not sure about month/day, since all I can find is “2012”), that itself was replaced by the Carolina Reaper. The Trinidad Moruga Scorpion ACTUALLY averaged at 1.2 million, SOME plants got a bit over 2 million. The “Carolina Reaper” averaged 1,569,300 units, and often peaked at 2.2 million units.
And I’m sure that will also no longer be the hottest pepper soon. It’s pathetic; all people care about is how dangerously hot they can get stuff. They don’t give a damn about important things like FLAVOR.
If Naga Scorpion peppers are 1.5 million then, for a frame of reference, where on the scale are atomic wings from Wing Stop?
Wonder if that means that if she positioned her fingers right she could, discomfortably, wield up to four potential powers simultaneously? After all, she can actually hold them (comfortably) between thumb and forefinger, so in theory middle finger and pinky finger could push them against her palm. Unless, of course, they need to be touching her palm, and not just handing in her hand, to use them.
I actually suggested that as a possibility back when they were first revealed. Which naturally was before I read about the 2 orb limit. I don’t see Dave breaking the rule on that so, short of growing extra hands……
I’ll guess that the orbs are simply using a series of nerve endings to establish the link to sydney’s mind, and thus each “hand” can only establish a link to one orb at a time, regardless of how many she’s actually touching.
hum…
say DaveB a question: is Sydney truly allergic to sunlight? She could have a slight skin photosensibility? Although she’s not a redhead.
Regarding spicy food, we can now say that Maxima doesn’t like spicy food. Not because it could affect her (with her physical power what could? Say i wonder if she can be tickled like Anvil) but simply a question of taste.
Harem seems intrigued by the recipe of pickles. She might like spicy food (future food fight between her and Sydney?)
I like Sydney attitude regarding her weakness: She doesn’t forget she’s human. Empowered human but human nonetheless.
A true weakness: mittens. Good: it’s a simple and sligthly logical reason.
Slightly? Yes, we should ask why only skin contact from her hands work.
Hum… Sydney seems also to require to physically reach for an orb: Restraining her arms should prevent power activation even if her orbs float around her.
A possible explanation for hand skin contact required is that it was the first point of contact between the orbs and sydney when she found them: perhaps it created an activation pathway through this location. (it could have been worse: She could have sat on the orbs the first time… LOL!)
No she’s not allergic to it at all, she’s just melodramatic. Why the orbs work the way they do will be revealed… eventually.
You can see in some scenes that the orbs float down on her mental? command. So even if her arms are bound she only need her hands to be free.
oops you’re right
What does being photosensitive have to do with being a redhead?
I’m blond and my eyes are so photosensitive that some days I can’t go outside without shutting my eyes.
good question…
well, i don’t know.
However i know that redheads have skin photosensitivity
I had blondish hair, now white, and blue eyes. I wear sun shades most of the time because of it. No need to aid in cataract formation.
As to redheads and sunlight, its something about the pigment in their skin(I think). No science major so I don’t know the exact details. But I do know their skin doesnt handle sunlight very well, and this comes from dealing with a mother who’s a redhead. As to their eyes, they are about as photosensitive as the next persons, so its more a matter of the skin than the eyes.
The fact is that there is little or spotty amounts of pigment so there is usually not tanning, which is a defense warning, just burning or blood rushing to the skin to cool it. So weird to see people “sun bathing” and irradiating themselves. Tanning salons are strangest of all. A tan isn’t healthy and until people understand that they will get dry, wrinkled skin faster and more pronounced along with skin lesions and melanomas. Only albinos and those with a disease that stops healing have it worse.
Exoderma pigmentosum (not sure if I spelled that right) is a disease in which the body does not produce an enzyme that allows for healing from sun damage, thus the skin sustains cumulative damage over time. Not sure if that’s what you where talking about but it is an interesting one, it’s from a Dean Koontz book called “Fear Nothing” and it’s one I’d recommend. On another note, a tan is often consideered a healthy attribute because it suggests physical activity and also people become quite pale when the get sick. Further more, sunlight is used by the body to synthesize vitamin D which is needed to absorb calcium which is used through out the body and not just the bones. Regular exposure to sunlight is also good for a person’s mental health by maintaining circadium rhythem (sleep cycle) as well as staving off depression. That being said, I still have to agree that Tanning beds are kinda a dumb idea and there’s nothing sexy or healthy about looking like a wrinkley leather hand bag stretched over a lab skeleton. I get a healthy enough exposure doing yard work and what not, and in my opinion a farmer’s tan is the only kind of tan worth having ’cause it means you’ve done something to earn it. I’ll never get why people pay money to hold still that long for a tan and not get anything done in the mean time!
Yes exoderma pigmentosa is it. Also you can eat fruits that will give you that vitamin D. What many people of darker complexions do to gain what they need. I read the two novels. Very good but I have not seen any more from Koontz.
Most foods that do have Vitamin D only have a very small amount. UV light is still by far the best way to get a VitD intake.
The darker the skin the longer it takes sun light to penetrate so they get most of the Vitamin D from such fruits and if you eat enough of those that have the most vitamin D the sunlight is less important.
think about Eskimos, they have dark skin, but live in a place that gets very little light. They also dont get a whole lot of fruits and veggies, so they get a great deal of vitamin D from fish. at least thats what my science teacher told, along with the fact that tanning is more about light hitting your eyes an the brains response to it than it hitting the skin. of course this is a person who thought catalyst only sped up chemicle reactions, so not sure
also, nothing more disgusting than a spray tan
wow
i’m actually impressed
thanks man
and I shall be the first to note a mistake in the whos who,
“Orbited by seven mysteries OBS”
Son of a… every program needs to have inline spelling and grammar check now that our minds have been reduced to mush due to over reliance on them.
DaveB get Opera is has an in-line spell check doesn’t do grammar yet but they are working on it.
I create the who’s who badges in Fireworks. No graphics programs have inline check.
They usually support Cut and Paste though. If you wanted to you could always type the wording in a program that does have spellcheck.
Do it in word and then copy it over sucks but sort of works even if you have to do it twice the second time you are just coping I know it sucks.
I know the CS5 version of photoshop has a spellchecker built into it. I don’t know which version you’re working with.
Well, now you’ve corrected part of that mistake. “mysteries OBS” now says “mysterious OBS” but it still needs to say “mysterious ORBS“
Finally got a chance to fix it last night.
is not the seventh panel the most saddest thing you’ve ever seen?
… That’s a Really REALLY bad thought you gave me there.
I mean the tube’s only so big.. and She is Female. . So given enough effort and pain medicine, she could be touching all the balls at the same time without anyone noticing XD
ouch, those things could rip her apart, especially if they naturally spin while orbiting
Why the emphasis and limiter on her being female? Given enough effort and pain medicine, any male could also be touching all the balls at the same time without anyone noticing… OUCH!
The bathroom lady almost reminded me of the shakeweight commercial. Seriously, given the right editing, she could be a meme.
Characters who suddenly transform into ‘chibi versions’ of themselves STILL gives me the willies!
Happens in Anime all the time…In some Anime like Dragon Half, the whole world shifts into “Chibi” mode for a few seconds.
Strikes me that this is not altogether true. The spheres seem to have a limited distance from her beyond which they will not go, and which has been shown to not act on her if someone tries to move them past that point. Seems that this is something that could be taken advantage of, giving her an ability that does not rely on her touching them.
Just an example, throwing the tube into the window of getaway car, resulting in the whole back end getting ripped out when it reaches the end of the teather.
OR… Halo being dragged down the road as the orbs ‘pull’ her to keep her in range. *ouch*
Maxima tried that approach back at the bank. It does not seem to work the way you suggest.
I still like my earlier idea of Harem grabbing a separate orb with each of her five bodies and teleporting in five different directions. The attraction of the orbs to Sydney pops her out of the teleport a metre and a half away and landing firmly of balance, stumbling and falling.
interesting idea
however i think we should see if the inner power level of the orbs can cancel the teleportation
or maybe the hand holding the orb stops and the rest of her doesn’t.
Kinda hard to do that when the hand is connected to the rest of her. Would Harem tear her own arm off?
I’m guessing that the orbs would simply not teleport beyond their “standard” distance from Sydney. Harem might or might not T-port under the circumstances described, but the orbs would not go with her.
It’s more than likely that in the scenario you are all describing, that Harem would be teleported, as she can normally, but the orb wouldn’t.
occam razor agree with you
Hey, Dave: Are the orbs in any sort of regular or consistent order when they go around her head? PPO, then tentacle, then shield, then etc.? And which way do they orbit, and about how fast?
At some point there probably will be. Right now I have a page of them at a bunch of different sizes, and I’m slowly making a few sets of them in orbit, but it’s time consuming since they appear at slightly different sizes as they orbit her, and then when she’s got one or two in her hand, the ones above her head will be spaced differently.
Wait.
Are you saying that the orbs are different sizes from each other, or that the orbs change size when she grabs them, or both?
He’s saying that the orbs appear to change in size as they get closer and further away from the viewer. The effect is small, but would be noticeable when a closer ball overlaps an orb that is further away.
The question is. Did she try inserting them?
Rude! Besides I do not think she is that type of girl.
Also, Sidney is a small, skinny girl. The orbs appear to be a bit bigger than baseballs. She would have to train for about six months in a Thai girlie bar to even make the attenpt
since she is a girl there is a more logical place to insert it, one “tailor made” to have things “inserted in it”
It would still take practice to put 5-inch balls into a 1-inch wide tube.
Indeed. Although I doubt it would take months. You could ruin a girl that size sufficiently in a month or two.
Less time if you didn’t mind making a mess.
Strangely, it appears that the orbs tend to “decide” whether pull Sydney, or to ground on Sydney. I still think there is actually some sort of intelligence directing the balls actions (other than Sydney), and that that intelligence has a bit of whimsy.
actually, from what I’ve seen, it’s whichever of them that is “TRYING” to move that gets stopped/yoinked.
No. Remember when the “bank robber” dragged her, and the tube followed her? The orbs are willing to be pulled by Sydney, but not to pull her. (Though how they tell the difference is a mystery to me, since there is no “real” difference, only a relative one to an outside observer.)
couldn’t she have consciously moved the orbs towards herself? or maybe the orbs only stop her if they are caught on something that is sturdy enough to not be easily moved. maybe this has been addressed by now.
Out of curiostiy, how would Syd’s powers hold up against fingerless gloves?
I wonder if the orbs can pop into a pocket dimension, so as to be available to Sydney without giving away her secret identity…
She’s already got her poster tube, isn’t that enough?
BTW I had this idea once – Syd could get her poster tube redesigned so it opens lengthwise like a clamshell with each orb held in its own foam pocket. In this way the orbs would have a larger opening to come out of faster when she needed them to do so OR she could take only one out at a time if she wanted to and hide it in her hand while the others remained hidden in the tube. The first way works well if she’s going into a fight assault style, and the second way works if she’s going in covertly but needs to have something ready for a surprize.
personally if the orbs are indestructible, having them float around is the most tactile way of having access as you’d be able to instantly switch between powers rather than opening and closing a container all the time, and if needed she is able to command them to remain hidden at same time, container is just for everyday camo
I would also expect that others may not touch them either. They have coded for Sydney alone. But we shall see if they are dangerous to anyone else in future stories.
Nope. The tube would not be enough for every day disguise, as some of the earliest pages showed. The tube stands out, and people wonder why she has it. Villians could easily narrow a search for her by eliminating people who have nothing about their person to carry the six balls.
Of course, if Sydney simply foregoes having any secret identity…
I’m not getting a secret identities vibe from Arc Swat, no masks, Maxima was out in the open; sure they could give her one of those illusion disguises but so far doesn’t seem like she’d use one. in the flash forward at the start Sydney was pretty open with her friends. Although who ever “Marble Woman” is might be a secret identity type. I am thinking Arc Swat is more like Avengers or Fantastic Four where they don’t bother too much with secret identities *I know some in the Avengers do who are also street level heroes*
Yeah, me too. I guess I addressed Town Crier with the wrong answer because I never even pictured her with a “secret identity.”
hum not a bad idea
need some work though
i think we should launch a brainstorming:
what is the best container for Sydney orbs?
since we up to 340 comments (341 including this one) does anyone know the record?
The previous record is 17 posts, set back on August 14, 2006.
So I think this record will hold for some time.
I think he is asking for the record of the most comments on a page, as opposed to the least.
i meant whats the record for the most posts
FYI issue 1 august 23rd 2010 had 7 replies
DOH! should of counted not looked at the number 6 replies
559 on page 87.
The “You Say That With PRIDE!!!” page.
ok, just asking
Two more updates and you’ll hit the magic #100! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
and it only took two years.
Really love this comic. Hope you never get tired of it.
DaveB, I may of come up with a way for you to get more help with your webcomic without having to pay anybody.
Put up a post at the local collage for artist interns where they can have realworld experience helping with a webcomic doing inking and backgrounds.
You might be able to talk some of the art teachers into giving the interns collage credit for doing this.
It’s a idea that might have some merit, expecialy if you talk to them before the semester starts.
I think they would prefer college credit to collage credit, unless they needed a collage before the end of the semester… Ain’t typos that sneak by your spell checker a B*tch?
Considering that they are artists from a collage, they might like the credits, so that they can purchase collage goods when they return to the motherland.
You know, given her personality, I’m surprised one of the attempts of “using other body parts” wasn’t gnawing on an orb to try and get it working.
I’m pretty siure she would have tried that one.
Guessing the second-last panel covers just a few highlights of that entire line of enquiry / experimentation. Trying to stuff all of the orbs into a bra or under her shirt is probably something else she tried as well.
A question I am not sure anybody asked. in the second panel through the window. Is that a shadow of a balcony or another building such as a warehouse/hanger bay/Gym with a line of windows.
Check out panel 2 here;
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/396
I think the ballroom overlooks one of the building’s terraces and we are seeing a railing through the window. We can see a railing around the lowest level terrace on the left side of the building but the others should have one too – not including for the upper most terrace which seems to have a hedge around it.
It’s probably the the second balcony from the top. The interview room is probably where they are planning to host receptions and press confrences, so they would have a balcony for the view and as a way for the flying heros to be able to land and impress the visiting politicians and reporters.
From a security standpoint that may not be the best option. It’s never a good idea to let outsiders see too deeply into your operation, and when your base of opertion is a highrise “going deeper” means going up.
If people see a highrise headquarters where they have receptions and such, they rarely think about what might be under the underground parking garage.
Had I not seen that a second time, I would not have seen what looks like a swimming pool. I miss a lot of stuff.
What about paralasis, or something like it.
Is she able to make the orbs float to her hand or does she need to physically reach out and grab them?
She can probably call them to her hand. She yanked the tube to her hand eariler, so I don’t see any problem with her being able to mentaly controle them in that way.
Is Monday. I can has new luls now?
…and the comic was renamed “(w)hile (h)arem (o)ver (r)eacts (e)lsewhere” comic due to the epicness of this running gag. Acronym created by Dabbler, and high-fived-fived by harem herselfs!
The “I’m so hungry” panel would make a great T-shirt n stuff.
Yes, yes it would.
Just make the panel much larger, and do two design products of it:
1 for a t-shirt, and 1 for a baby’s bib.
(C’mon, you KNOW you want to.)
Let me ask you this, though.
Would it be for better or for worse if she got the pseudopod tentacle orb to activate while clenching it in her buttcheeks?
Because either way she goes with that it ain’t gonna be pretty. One side, she has a tentacle tail. Other side…
yes i have cored out a pickle and filled it with cheese and hot mustard its delicious:)
Pffft….aahahahahaha! Oh, I love this strip. Soooo many punchlines. The “I’m so hungry” panel has some of the best Sydney-punchline art.
so biggest weakness– crippling mental sideeffects(we hope they’re sideeffects)
the ass was the most logical bodypart to try
I’m liking that brony colonel more and MORE with each shot.
What if she learned hand juggling like David Howie in labyrinth?
I got the same thing as Sydney my digestive track can’t take cucumella. Capsaicin? That’s my favorite vegetal oil. A bit pricy tho.
why can’t Sydney hold two orbs in one hand?
size
i do find it interesting the coronal or general was is general i forget what ever the highest ranking guy in the room is the one laughing
Did you know there’s been experiments where people born without a limb seem to be able to easily form the brain pathways they need to control a prosthetic? As far as we’ve been able to figure out with the still not very functional technology for controlling prosthetic limbs directly with your brain as with regular meat ones. But with the super-science and magic available here it’s probably not unthinkable Sydney could grow a few more arms, and if she did it wouldn’t be hard to adjust to them (physiologically, I mean, presumably she’d have no mental or moral objections whatsoever), and then she’d be able to hold more balls!
A terribly clever plan if I say so myself.
WRT the point you raise in the comments: I think that’s why most systems don’t allow you to get more points back for a disadvantage than you spent on getting whatever the disadvantage applies to in the first place.
I love that the General is one of the ones to laugh! I hope we see more of him as the comic progresses.
So a Sweet pickle or a dill pickle?
Can we please have a clean image of the “I’m so hungry” panel
^.^
I want it for my phone background