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!
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
I find it curious that Sydney decided to trying to use the tentacle orb with that particular body part..
Tentacle orb? I see where you’re going. But I hadn’t thought of that.
note the blushing.
I didn’t realize it was the tentacle orb, and thank goddess it’s just her butt she is trying it out on! As soon as she said “other body parts” my mind went the worst possible ways.
How the devil IS she holding it with the top of her butt anyway?!?
Leaning against the wall and letting it rest between the wall and the top of her glute?
Well that’s an improvement over grippy butt cheeks.
Because she wanted a prehensile tail!
Yeah, obviously :)
Very funny page. loved the little toon as well.
Never considered the stake and beheading as “weaknesses” not sure why so many “vampire” fiction does
(special killing conditions) I mean if the same thing will kill a human, but is what is required to kill something else then its just a special condition not really a “weakness”.
Also surprised that (mittins) work. I had a character once, a weather controller, whose powers couldn’t work indoors *there had to be nothing between her and the wind so she could tune into it*. She never became a super-hero; more a background character (after all if your kryptonite is walking into a shed)…
Why not use her power to remove the roof? Even broken windows should allow her to use her powers.
Probably easier if she just carried around a honking big gun. MAKE your own skylights or windows when necessary. ;)
Hmm, never thought of that, sounds like the beginnings of a very interesting anti-hero. Crazy chick with weather control powers and carries a big gun for when cut off from those powers. Would make an interesting game mechanic loose your lightning and wind and such attacks in doors unless you blast out a window or the cieling or something (the wall).
Quote that I have always liked – “If it’s stupid and it works, then it ain’t stupid.”
Prefer “if it looks dumb but it works, it’s damn smart!”
In GURPS having a specific way to kill you gives you a discount on you Unkillability.
I’m gonna have to try that pickle thing, first without the spicy mustard. Seriously that sounds delicious.
I’m so hungry…
I’ve personally have had sliced pickles with cheese whiz and crackers. A snack I had at work. I Would grab a handful of the pickles meant for the Angus Third pounder, and grab my stash of crackers and cheese whiz. I got many odd looks from coworkers. Also I have dipped sweetened pickles in honey mustard.
Pickles with stuff cheese and mustard, could be the next pregnancy snack hit!
Take it to it’s logical conclusion – Cored, stuffed with chese & mustard, then dipped in batter and deepfried! Deep frying makes it a superfood!
You know someone is going to sell that at the State Fair of Texas now, don’t you?
Good, and when they ask on wikipedia where this particular food item was thought up it will be refrenced to here.
You forgot drizzled with melted cheese.
Or sprinkled in powdered sugar like a funnel cake. You get all your flavor bases covered.
Elephant ears are right there next to funnel cakes in the Frickin Awesome Category. Now I got to go find me the nearest county fair. Or wait, I know how to make them! I know what I’m doing tomorrow,
Woot!
I’ve never heard of elaphant ears before. what are they?
hat is easily fixed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fried_dough
The funny thing, at my former work environment we had friers meant for chicken products and fries. Every once in awhile after we had cleaned them. We would make the ears. We were not really supposed to, but even the managers where like lend me an ear.
Thanks, I’ve havn’t gone to a fair in a long time and don’t realy remember seeing them. But the next time I go to one I’ll be sure to look for them.
Y’know I bet there is some magical pair of gauntlets somewhere that can hold all the orbs, I mean there’s a holder for infinity gems, zord orb-thingies (didn’t watch beast force), an omnitrix for millions of aliens, so why not some form of gauntlet for Sydney’s orbs? (Then again she was probably distracted by their shininess so much she failed to notice them)
also chibi Sydney is adorable :3
I’d go with a over the should sash of some sort. Something with a pocket for each orb. If you’ve ever seen the Jackie Chan Adventures. There was a Statue Brought to life from one of the talismans, and he had a similar thing to store and keep the Talismans safe.
Or she grows more arms. Perhaps another five for the orbs and two to work the game console.
Still would only be able to operate two orbs.
A celestial crest would work, its what far Eastern gods use to hold their mystical orbs. Fancy crest connected to their back
or a ring
https://raijincurse.com/raijin.jpg
something fancy like this
https://www.markdefrates.com/images/chakralg.jpg
or have them embedded in a shield, sword hilts, ect…there are lots of things magic gem sets and orbs tend to get locked into. Even statues and ornate ancient doors that turn out to be portals to some eldritch horror kind of deal even though the crystals get granted elemental powers.
Obviously the aliens that made them had at least 8 hands [leaving one free to do other things] ^_~
Tactical facepalm.
…..and go.
Tripple Facepalm.
When one Palm is not enough to contain the situation.
Triple face palm and DUAL roflcopters!!
General Faulk may be developing into a likeable minor character. He may be military first and foremost, but he’s not full of himself and hampered by tunnel vision. Unlike some of the management of this organization.
It’s the contrast…
…a sense of humor makes it all the more intimidating on those occasions when you need to drop the humor & get super-formal.
Yeah, when he lowers the boom on someone, when they realy know he’s being serious it’s more effective.
Interesting how Harem considers herself the ultimate winner in the Math/Anvil brawl. XD
Oh, and I almost missed the “vampire” dialog at the bottom.
She is the only one to get in an unanswered strike.
Thats one blatant cameo.
I F*CKING LOVE THIS F*CKING COMIC!! I laughed so hard I snorted too…
When you laugh so hard you piss yourself, then that’s when you know it’s realy funny.
Jay Moore did a stand up a few years ago that was that funny.
Janet Evanovich 7-9 are that good also.
Would have been cool to see a Sydney with a suspiciously full mouth in second-last panel :D
Speaking of full mouths, I expect Harem will be able to tell Sydney very soon whether the pickle thing is good. Hmm, Harem might actually bring her one, at that, winning her ‘Sydney’s instant friendship…
Also, I like that the General’s sense of humor :)
Shouldn’t the General be on the Who’s Who?
So would being confronted with a life sized illusion of Wolverine count as a weakness?
You know if she could copy powers would she copy Dabblers four arms?
I want chibi Sydney as a plushy on sale in the future. That is the ultimate in adorableness. Maybe Dave can even get a voice chip in the plushies hand that, when ya squeeze it, says things like “I’m so hungry!”
Also, she got some monkey toes on her if she picked up that orb.
I actualy knew someone with toes that acted lile that.
Girl could knit with them, it was so weird to watch. And that was why she did it, because she wanted to be able to freak people out and impress them at the same time.
Houdini used to tie and untie knots in rope with his toes while talking to people. They say it was very distracting.
I knew a guy who was born without arms. . . he did EVERYTHING with his feet.
Given enough practice, people can even thread a needle & sew a button, using only their feet-&-toes.
There’s a classic old BW-photo of a “bicycle-built-for-2”, where the front seat holds a legless man, who steers with the handlebars, while behind him on the 2nd seat an armless man works the pedals.
Tony Melendez is a professional musician who plays guitar with his feet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Mel%C3%A9ndez There are a few snippets on youtube and disks are available on Amazon.
The fact that the orbs seem to be “wired” to only work up to two at a time makes me wonder if one or both of the other two “unknown” orbs are actually “modifier” orbs that affect the power of the other orbs somehow. For example, maybe one orb makes the other orb you’re holding able to do double what it normally does (two beams, two tentacles, two shields, etc.). Mmmm… I love trying to puzzle out how things work, so those other two orbs make me soooo curious.
Also, hungry chibi-Sydney… Kawaii!!!! \(“⌒∇⌒”)/
I’m going to create a character someday whose power is immunity to all vampire weaknesses. You could still kill him any other way imaginable, but a stake through the heart won’t do it.
DO IT! Sounds like comedy gold if its presented right
reminds me of the Hindsight belt.
Only saves you from the thing that killed the last guy who wore it.
Superhero Tryouts:
Maxima: Let me get this straight, you want to be a superhero because you… don’t burst in to flame when exposed to direct sunlight?
Guy: Correct! Also, I like garlic, and I don’t die when a stake is rammed through my heart.
Arianna: I’d ask you to demonstrate that but our insurance doesn’t cover crazy people.
Wait! You can also cut my head off and I wont die.
Seriously, it happend to me twice this month, and I’m fine, realy.
Maxima: How could you get decapitated twice in one month?
Guy: Well it was for a bar bet…
Vampire the masquerade: I think there a power, can’t remember which discipline which allows you to store your heart in a jar, so staking wont work. I think there’s also a misplaced heart advantage, which won’t stop you getting staked just makes it harder.
The Misplaced Heart thing sounds like it’s based on real life. Most people have their hearts in the left side of their chests, but there’s a small minority for whom it’s on the right. The main reason I know this is actually from a (fictional) story of someone benefiting from that bonus: in Ian Fleming’s ‘Dr. No’, James Bonds shoots the doctor (he thinks) through the heart, but he survives through being a dextrocardiac.
Except that it lets you put your heart anywhere in your body you want to. Foot, butt, forearm, head, wherever. Not sure about being able to remove your heart though, seems like that would make it practically impossible to kill you.
It’s the top level power of Serpentis… and while it effectively does make a character immune to direct staking, it also makes it possible for others to get leverage over them by finding where they’ve hidden their hearts… because they can be staked by remote.
It’s worth noting, though, that staking is hardly the most effective way to kill a vampire in that game. In fact, fire holds that distinction.
So… if that character later becomes a vampire, does he lose all of his previous super powers, or does he become indestructible?
Lets see sir, your powers are
Not killed by sunlight (you know expand on this one and you can have someone who can’t get sunburned or even a tan)’
you can eat garlic,
you can cross running water
you can cross over salt laid on the ground
you are not effected by holy symbols
and you can survive a wooden, silver, or iron stake through the heart or a beheading; but anything else stabbed in your heart will kill you?
*go to the extremes of all vampire “weaknesses” and you might hit something cool like immunity to holy magic, but then again Vampires have an extra weakness to it, but it still effects other none-undead to a lesser degree.
I wonder if that means Captain Reverse-Vampire is immune to skin cancer. Or if he could survive closer to the sun than a normal human.
I forget the name of the comic, but I remember one that was about some teenagers raised in a VR setting. After they were released they started developing super powers from the experiments performed on their bodies while they were in VR mode. One of them was called White Diamond and her ability was invulnerability. A side effect being her skin and hair became almost Albino white. The worst thing about it, though, was she lost all sensitivity. She could see, hear, taste and smell but had no sense of touch. They compared it to being in a sensory deprivation tank all the time.
John Byrne’s “Next Men”, published by Dark Horse Comics
Hm, I really have to read up in DC Adventures if there are rules that allow an array that can have two powers active at the same time on full strength….
By the way, I’m wondering how they establish that Maxima has a higher power level than Halo. So far the shield was unimpressed by her.
Well Max was not hitting it at nearly full strength, she had to relent for everyone’s safety. And the power levels are really a quick guide, not the final say. Peggy is only considered a 3 cause her only “power” is being a great shot, but if you gave her the right equipment and a little prep time, she could take out almost everyone on the team if it came down to it, except for Achilles and probably Max.
She would have to shoot Achilles in the ankle.
heel ;D
Ankle in the tendon hence it’s name the Achilles tendon it is at the back of the ankle runners up from the heel keeps your calf muscle from snapping up into your leg. Really nasty injury if it gets clipped pretty much leaves you laying on the ground begging for someone to put you out of your suffering. Tore mine years back spent 6 weeks in a chair rather then standing at a job not fun takes a really long time to heal up wasn’t good for another 2 months after that.
Nah, heel. Origin-wise his heel was vulnerable because it was the only part of him not dipped into the Styx by his mother when he was a baby. If she’d been holding his tendon then his heel would still have been vulnerable just because of the shape of the human foot. Makes more sense that it was just his heel, as she would have been going for the lowest area of vulnerability.
I read that when I was like 10 and even then I wondered why she didn’t just hold him by his hair.
Money.
The greatest Superpower of all.
But seriously, exept for Max, Peggy could take out everyone with a normal Sniper Rifle.
After all: Try to grab an Orb when you hear the shot (aka when it´s too late).
Same goes for Teleportation.
And no: Real Sniper Rifles are never silenced. That´s just Hollywood Mysticism.
When your Bullet doesn´t break the sound barrier, the Range goes down the drain.
Why would you need to silence one when the target gets hit before they can hear the shot?
So his buddies who just watched their friend killed won’t be able to lay down a hail of lead in the direction of where they heard the shot come from.
it happens a lot in computer games, you could see a group of enemy solders standing around talking, shoot one in the head with a sniper rifle (head explodes in a shower of blood) the rest are still standing around talking.
Actually, i guess most writers think that a high powered Bullet is slower than Sound, and that the noise of the shot has nothing to do with the sound barrier.
Hey, most writers seem to think they add realism (or tension) to their movie when their protagonists run out of ammo every once in a while, even if the first “while” took 20 minutes and the second is 3 shots later.
actually, unless they have particularly good situational awareness, the victim’s buddies will likely all start firing about 90 degrees off direction, since the “shot” sound they’ll hear is from the bullet, not the rifle. Only those that take a couple seconds to look closely at their fallen comrade, then another several seconds to examine the terrain, have any chance at all of figuring out where the shot came from.
& those are the people you should aim for the next time you snipe them.
The people who know what the $#@! they are doing, because they are the more dangerous enemies.
Snipers often use supressors on their rifles to reduce muzzle flash, sound and recoil. It does help that your target’s buddies have little idea of where the shot came from, and makes it harder for opposing snipers to find you. Consealment is the name of the game here. The reduction of recoil is the big plus. It means that it should not take you so long to reset for your next shot because your gun did not bounce up so much when you fired it.
All of which is pretty much irrelevant, when your weapon has a only half the range.
When a sniper fires at 1km range, it doesn´t matter if his buddies hear him. The effective Range of any Assaultrifle is about 400-500m, not to mention 300 for MP´s and 50 for Pistols.
Only Snipers can take out Snipers. That is why a trained Sniper changes position after every shot.
The noise is not a factor, because at this distance it is all but impossible to determine the exact Vector.
No, sorry, except for special covert operations, where it is essential that no one is alerted to the pesence of the Unit, silencers for Snipers are a myth.
They certainly are a myth since I have never heard of one being used even in fiction. But then I haven’t seen every movie made nor read every novel on that subject. Sionic suppressors used valves and chambers to reduce muzzle flash and sound but it also slows down the bullet speed too.
Sorry?
Every second Hollywood Movie silences the Sniper Rifles.
They also put laser sights on them which is hilariously stupid.
I think the real snimers use infa-red lasers for short distances of 500yds or less, anything further and they have to adjust for windage and drop.
sorry, snipers.
Got to get spellcheck one of these days.
If a sniper has enemies at 500 Yards (which is a little less than half a kilometer if my conversion holds), he consideres switching to his sidearm.
The only laser most snipers use, is the red dot laser sight, which is not actually a laser but a red dot projected into the sight to enhance aiming accuracy. Any actually projected Laserbeam could betray the snipers position, even if it´s infrared.
Actually, for all Sydney knows one of the mystery orbs grants the power to survive being staked in the heart. It’s not like it’s come up.
Please get Sydney something to eat. Her “I’m So Hungry” face almost made me cry.
This definitely got a record number of laughs/snorts from me! I also enjoyed Maxima awkwardly trying to comfort Sydney.
Poor Max, she’s continually running the gamut of emotions from anger to disgust to sympathy to irritation to confusion to…
And it all happens in the space of a few minutes. Her blood pressure…
Her blood pressure is measured in PSI and by the hundreds
Did we ever find out if Sydney can summon the orbs to her hands or she has to move them manually?
I would guess when she summoned the tube to her she actually called the orbs.
1 out of every 4 people laugh at the joke made in panels 8 and 9
2 of 5. You apparently forgot Harem.
If you are including Harem, then it would be 6 out of 5 people.
Love her grabbing it with her foot. I used to be ale to do that with a baseball, and throw it. Called it the Pedicure Pitch.
Could having them all surgically implanted grant multiple simultaneous use and/or instant mode switching?
Not sure WHERE they’d fit.
Well, THERE obviously, but they would show bumps.
If it worked to hold them anyware maybe but you’d have to implant them in her hands.
My guess is that they slightly react to her will anyway, so that she just needs to think of which orb to use, and it would fly into her hand. So really the surgery would be unnecessary and possibly pointless, as they clearly only work when she is gripping them.
There is a boob joke in there somewhere.
I think they like her. :]
We knew that when they saw her rile up Maxima so much.
When you can get someone like her riled up that much, you just know she’s fun to hang around with.
Tried to follow that link to leftover soup but my system can’t find it. Not even for a ping. Not the first site that I experienced this with.
That having anything to do with me trying to connect from Europe?
I wouldn’t know, but I’m from the Netherlands and can get to the site without problems.
Hm.. There’s something else I could try yet. Maybe that helps.
It worked from the UK on Monday. It meant that I didn’t, for a good part of the rest of the day, but at least I found an interesting new webcomic.
Just thought I’d mention that I found a solution. Sort of.
Problem was lying with a badly functioning DNS-server, it would seem.
Her sense of humor might be a weapon…
Her cussing certainly is.
Harem snorts when she laughs, and has freckles? Ka-Wa-IIIIIIIiiiiii!
DaveB, why does Syd need glasses? What visual impairment does she have?
their part of her cunning disguise
It’s mostly just a design thing, you know, nerd=glasses, but she uses them for reading. She’s farsighted.
Some people are intrigued by the strangest of things…
ya see the long response about pickles
Well look at my screen name.
That’s an odd “weakness”, to be sure, but have you considered it’s might be a flaw in one of Dracula’s power, according to the game system? Like, say, he put a couple hundred points into a power that brings you back from the dead and got 40 back because it doesn’t work under this circumstance, when normally it would work no matter what killed you? Some game systems make allowances for that kind of thing.
This was a pretty funny page, but I’m not sure I’d be telling people I just met how they could stop me from using my powers, even if they probably were the good guys. On the other hand, Sydney is so terrible at lying that trying to hide it would probably be worse.
Well Halo and Harem might get along better then expected.
Remember that Monty Python skit about a Witch’s weakness’s?
I think Allergy is the wrong term regarding her problem with cucumbers, but most people do not make the distinction between an allergy, a sensitivity and an intolerance. An allergy involves the immune system over-reacting to a potentially foreign body, usually a protein or protein complex. The most widely-publicized peanut problem is a true allergy where proteins in the peanut get into the body and the immune system get confused and goes to war! In the process, it shuts down the breathing for some reason.
A sensitivity means that some other part of the body is interpreting a chemical found in the food as if it was a signalling chemical, like hormones, and acting in an unusual way, with regards to the rest of the population. Some forms of hyperactivity, like mine and maybe Sydney’s, are triggered by food sensitivities; if I avoid the foods that contain the chemicals that trigger me, I can actually concentrate.
An intolerance means that your body does not handle something in the food in the way that is expected. Lactose intolerance occurs when a person stops producing enzymes that break down the sugars found in milk.
Sydney’s “allergy” sounds more like an intolerance to some of the sugars found in cucumbers that are transformed during the pickling process. Her gut flora (various bacteria and other stuff) are having a field day with the sugars in the cucumber because her natural sugar-breaking enzymes are not doing the job. The bacteria produce gas as waste and this causes excess pressure in her digestive tract. This results in pain in the gut as the intestines are distended and flatulence later on; the gas has to go somewhere, and so often, that is out the back door.
Science teacher mode off.
… Or she really IS allergic to cucumbers. Could happen.
Yeah Sydney’s just using the term “allergic” to mean “undesirable things result from contact with this”
Yeah, I’m allergic to MSG, My equilibrium go’s sideways and I have trouble thinking strait. Nasty stuff.
Well the mittens thing could be a significant disadvantage in a hazmat or space scenario.
Wear a much larger suit and tuck the orbs in her sleeves. Hold the orb on the inside of the glove. Or if need be pull your arm inside the suit.
If I was writing this, holding it with her feet would work but she would have terrible and unreliable control.
Chibi Sydney in panel six reminded me of The Binding Of Isaac, I am not sure if that is a good or bad thing.
Has Sydney watched the movie Labyrinth? Does she have any idea of how Micheal Moschen does ball manipulation? What if Sydney could do this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OTb8tga-yg&noredirect=1
Yup, Syd needs to learn to juggle: It would confuse the enemy if she did this;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=fvwrel&NR=1&v=di07QKwZQlI
Because they wouldn’t which orb she’d stop and use.
Oh yeah, she’s waiting to break out tricks.
Oh, HA! I just understood what was going on on panel 11. It was a bit obscure. Being at 5 places at the same time can get confusing.
Other questions brought up by this particular page’s line:
We haven’t seen whether the PPO (I’m hip!) can be fired through the Hammer Time Barrier.
Likewise, we don’t know whether the tentacle can go through the barrier. In the comic where she uses them near-concurrently she still switches off for some reason, but on the other hand the tentacle appears near – not on – her hand, so maybe she can put her hand right next to the barrier and activate the tentacle through it.
I’m not sure you’d want to test the PPO from inside the Shield: if the beams don’t go through, but are reflected on the inside, things could get very messy.
goes back to how does it fire directly from the surface or is there a portal/aperture formed away from the E.A.T. heck I will just join you in calling it the P.P.O. from now on
I rather like the idea of selectivly permeable force fields wether wave form based or intensity based. The whole being able to see her inside it causes problems, after all an opaque or invisible forcefield (hides person inside and self) could still allow the person inside to see out if the field was selective to allow low intensity visible light in but not back out (we see by reflections so you’d see out because light is coming in, but the outside couldn’t see in because the light is not reflecting back out (major flaw in that design is infra red would need to be allowed out as would the transfer of low intensity gasses other wise you’d be cooked by the trapped infra red that results from visible light and your own breath exchange resulting in depleting oxygen and raising CO2 levels dangerously high very quickly in such an enclosed space.
(force fields in general have alot of problems, that to solve create weaknesses in the field), its why its really only practicle to use them long term or full coverage. Which is why I prefer force shields over force fields iit may only protect in one direction or have a smaller field but it also doesn’t suffer as much from rules lawyering.