Grrl Power #1391 – Flourish with unsuccess
Yes, Max is Neo-ing him. At the end of Matrix 1, when he IDDQD’d after getting shot? You know the scene.
It’s the no-look more than the one-hand that’s really got to sting. The only way this would hurt more is if Max manages to add a few pumps of apple pie filling from the nearby condiment dispenser to the top of her funnel/warp cake without missing a parry.
Man, imagine if apple pie filling was a regular condiment alongside ketchup and mustard and mayo and “magic sauce” which is really just horseradish and BBQ sauce mixed together. Would I try a few pumps of apple pie filling on a hamburger? Especially one that had cheddar cheese and bacon on it? Hell yeah I would. A waffle or pancakes? I mean, I have eaten that. It’s great. A hot dog? No, probably not. Unless the hot dog had sauerkraut on it. Sauerkraut and applesauce work well together, so yeah, I would probably try that. Though sauerkraut dogs usually also come with spicy mustard. I don’t think that would work well with apple pie filling. Hmm…
Anyway, if life were a game, this guy would be surprised by how much XP this duel earns him, since he doesn’t realize how many ranks higher his opponent is. That is, assuming the game doesn’t give you any hints about relative level disparity, and also grants XP for non-mortal combat. Which games really should. Grant XP for sparring, I mean. I understand why most don’t, because you could level in total safety, but if it doesn’t then what would be the point in practicing? Like, schools for learning weapons wouldn’t really exist if you couldn’t advance your skills in them. This assumes, of course, that XP in a given game is simply a numerical representation for skills learned, and not some external system that functions as a sort of currency for purchasing level ups and new abilities.
Ooh, look! A new vote incentive! And it’s updated with color!
Well, in progress, obviously. I have another one that’s actually a bit further along, but everyone was all, “Sydney Kobold vote incentive!” So I switched to this one. Plus the other one was a multi-character picture so it will actually take me longer to finish. I hope to have an update for this one each week, so stay tuned. There is a slightly higher res version on Patreon.
By the way, this gunmetal blue-ish background and teal pencils are how I draw the comic. I set it up this way so I don’t have to spend all day staring into a bright white blank page.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
Can we pause for a moment and recognize that the arrogant young clown did a genuinely honorable thing by adding bluntness to his weapon when he thought his opponent would be relying solely on armored shoulder-length gloves?
This will to have a somewhat fair fight, is the fundamental distinction between sparring and genuinely lethal combat. He acknowledged that he had no intention of killing his opponent, and that does in fact earn him at least one point of honor, even while losing several dozen points for sheer arrogance and disrespect.
Points for skill, not so much. At least not that we’ve seen.
Although given Max’s thoroughly unnatural speed and strength, it would probably be hard to tell whether he does have any actual skill.
I suspect that is a standard dueling thing.
it is, in fact, clearly labled in the sound effects
I would think that he is, indeed, a quite accomplished swordsperson, in his dojo, possibly the best of his peers in sparring. And possibly the best in mock fights against his trainers.
However, he seems to never have fought against a veteran of any combat style, thinking quick mall-ninja maneuvers would win him a day when his foe gets to vote, too.
A real+mortal veteran would not get himself distracted with funnel cake in this situation, because a crazy competent rookie can pull all kinds of stunts that could lead to either side getting grievously harmed.
But Maxima is invulnerable and could increase both speed and force here… This is really a joke to her.
“However, he seems to never have fought against a veteran of any combat style, thinking quick mall-ninja maneuvers would win him a day when his foe gets to vote, too.”
I mean, it’s apparently a duel for honor, the point of it is to show off, so starting off with some flourishes to look good kinda makes sense, even if it doesn’t help you win.
He seems to have stopped flourishing when actually attacking, as one should. Max’ stats are just too OP for him to have a chance to begin with regardless of his skill.
The stories come to mind where Bruce Lee as Green Hornet’s Kato got hurt in stage combat by extras because the goons were sloppy.
Which is funnier because he was the one improvising with adding amateur grade parkour and randomly breaking furniture to try to look good.
You talking Bruce Lee? Or Jackie Chan?
If the fight/duel is fair then your tactics and strategy SUCK harder than a black hole.
Only if you’re fighting to win at all costs, not if you’re dueling for honor.
Your tactics and strategy can only be judged if you were willing to fight unfairly but failed to make it happen. (And even then it doesn’t mean you suck – maybe your opponent was just equally competent and both your attempts to gain an advantage cancelled out.)
If he values fairness or wishes to avoid injuring your opponent, he did the right thing.
Dueling and Fighting are two different things. One is about honor and the other is about winning.
Except when the duel has stakes. If you have something that isn’t trivial on the line you will be intending to win.
The agreement to duel can also be manipulated to turn an attempt at honour into a farcical situation such historic noteworthy accounts include shotguns and airborne hot air balloons for one.
The weapon design of the sword is interesting. That hooked tip is a feature of some versions of the Khopesh, but it comes on the end of a much more traditionally balanced sword.
Like the hooked-tip Khopesh, this would make a truly horrifying wound on a backhanded slash by cutting muscles and tendons. But also like the hooked-tip Khopesh, it would be prone to getting ‘stuck’ in the enemy’s body if it catches on a bone. If you’re fighting more than one opponent, you really don’t want your blade to get stuck.
Keep in mind that this is a duel, in a culture that fetishizes dueling.
Though depending on their biology, this may not be a choice.
It’s likely specifically a dueling weapon, so it’s only ever intended to be used against a single opponent.
He may have other weapons for using in an actual fight. Or maybe that’s what the other uniformed people are for.
The Daffy Duck impersonation is intentional, isn’t it?
Good thing there’s no river nearby, or Friar Max would give him an impromptu bath.
Was Halo raised in a barn? You don’t just bite into someone else’s food. You tear a piece off and eat that.
She was going to devour the whole thing before Max finished the fight. It was almost gone there.
She had her own funnel cake she was munching on before Maxima tossed hers to her. I’m not sure where Maxima’s treat is in that frame, but I assume the one she’s eating is hers, not Maxima’s.
No doubt already devoured. Best to double down on funnel cake, just like with points :D
Okay, I now know why the young lord had such a huge bulgy bulge in 1389… Max’ leggings are surprisingly transparent in today’s episode….me likey
No they are not, they are just a dark purple colour
then i guess I have a very detailed imagination
*Threepio voice* Maxima, I suggest a new strategy – let the dumbass win.
Winning this duel will attract all sorts of attention she doesn’t want. Let him cut your shirt somewhere, and yield. The pompous idiot walks away happy, everything is forgotten, and you proceed with your mission. Best outcome.
You don’t know their ways, do you?
If Maxi loses, then she has to follow him, like how Detla ended up in ARCHON after she lost, and if Maxi doesn’t, then that would screw up their plans even worser than having Pompous-dog tailing them
I don’t think that’s an “always” kind of thing, especially where a noble is dueling an unclanned for “honor”. YOu think mommy and daddy would let him go off and work for an unclanned?
I swear that I hear Thunder.
Do schools of dueling actually work? Read Casanova’s autobiography, where he does such things as invent the proper lottery. Late in life, he gets into at least one duel. He executes — muscle memory — the steps and moves he learned a long time back in dueling school, and disarms his opponent.
Maxima’s larger danger is that he turns off the blunting dueling field. I suspect his guards would promptly whack him cross-side the head.
The use of Liefeld lines is very well done.
It would probably be a school of fencing or swordsmanship rather than dueling as such. A lot depends on the time and place. There have been times in history where a duel was explicitly a life and death matter. Later on there were fencing clubs and having a dueling scar was a status symbol. Duels were a practice of the aristocracy. We poor peasants would have just beat the crap out of each other. In later years the duel itself could be a somewhat complicated affair with the combatants seconds negotiating the terms of the dues (first touch, first blood, to the death, weapons and so on). To the point about Casinova, you have to allow for the fact that Casinova is the hero of his own story but muscle memory is a thing in this case. If you ever watch a kendo or European fencing match the actual event happens fast. Training and muscle memory count for a lot.
Casinova’s book is well worth the read. Popular culture hasn’t done him many favors. A good book on the history of sword fighting is “By the Sword: A History of Gladiators, Musketeer, Samurai, Swashbucklers and Olympic Champions” By Richard Cohen.
So, if the cheesecake/beefcake contributes to the PG-13 rating, where does the warp cake land it?
…he is… he is doing the “my laser sword has been folded 10 billion times and is made of spacepon stealanium!”.
Nobody knows what level Max is, but she has THREE red skulls, and her health bar is grayed out…
not just grayed out, it’s full-on glitching; she is the hidden boss, that you weren’t sposta find cuz it wasn’t properly finished and is unbalanced and broken
Kimchi is good in burgers, especially chicken burgers. Mango pickle is good too.
I’m a big fan of lime pickle. it can bite back.
Heh, just noticed the Space Kodold Sydney invotives have been sent back from the future :P
Syd was about to throw down on that funnel cake before being interrupted. Quite the opportunistic bakeryvore, that one.
“bakeryvore”
Yeah, that’s me.
Halo was totally gonna eat her funnel cake too.
“Give me back my funnel cake.”
I saw you taking a bite. I don’t want you stress-eating it while I’m wasting funnel-cake eating time.
In Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, M’aiq the Liar, who mostly tells the truth but in a meta-narrative and snarky way, said “Why do soldiers bother with target practice? One learns best by hitting real people.” Because in the games you DO only get better by hitting real people.
Target practice is to learn the basics of using your weapon, that’s why they always start with stationary targets, and, only once they learn how to hit that more times than miss, only then do they move on to moving targets (ie non-lethal {preferably} sparring with others in their class)
Neo is …. the ONE
“However, I’ve always thought of you as a Number Two…”
Not sure (I haven’t had it in a while), but I think BBQ sauce and horseradish IS that special sauce that Arby’s has on tap.
Arby’s Horsey Sauce is basically mayo + prepared horseradish.
I would like to point out that I think Sydney apparently inserted a thing about apple pie filling in the middle of Dave’s monolog.
Ok, peach jam or cherry jam are actually fantastic on burgers, I would 100% try apple pie filling and stilton on a burger.
Try Apple Butter. It very close to pie filling without the apple chunks.
This guy never saw Daffy trying to play Robin Hood…
This is going to be very embarrassing.
To quote the NBC sitcom Wings:
“What’s with the hoo-hah?”
A Monte Christo is a multilayer ham and cheese sandwich covered in batter, fried, sliced in half diagonally, and served dusted with powdered sugar and raspberry jam to dip it in. It’s quite rich. I haven’t had one in 40 years because just looking at it would fill my arteries with cholesterol and peg my A1C. It’s an excellent introduction to contrasting flavors that go well together. Too well.
Interesting. I’ve never had a Monte Christo with the dipping stuff.
That may depend on the cheese used.
That would actually make for a really interesting mechanic, a “capacity” XP and a “value” XP. Life or death fights give you twice as much Value as Capacity, training gives you Capacity, but almost no Value. So if you train a lot, you’re able to more quickly level once you get to the life or death stuff, but no amount of training will equal real world experience.
This reminded me of Daffy Duck as Robin Hood. The whole ‘Guard! Spin! Dodge! Parry! Thrust! bit is straight out of that Cartoon…
This guy reminds me of the loony tunes Robin Hood spoof, where Daffy Duck is robin and goes through the motions only to fall on his face.
This is the second time this setup has been done in this comic. Sidney did it once, either at the mars bar factory vs scovia, or in New York with the tourists invasion. I don’t remember which. Either way it’s hilarious.
“The Court Jester”
The only thing I can think is https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheSnackIsMoreInteresting (TVTropes will ruin your life)
Regarding the Experience thing, some games fix that by having different experience for different things. For example, FFXIV lets you switch between various different classes, so you can technically play as any class, but you need to level them individually. You might be a level 99 Gunslinger, but if you want to become a level 99 Punchguy you need to start at level 1 Punchguy like everyone else (yes, I know these aren’t actual class names in the game). Other games have experience meters for different tools and weapons as well as your general combat level and such. like how in Skyrim you have your character level, but you also have your skill level in various weapons and magics as you practice them (or pay an NPC to teach you). So you can be a badass combat specialist, but if you just got a cool new warhammer but never bothered to train with warhammers before, you need to do some training to get decent with it.
The thing that annoys me about that system is that they never bother to acknowledge that some skills would carry over. Like, if you’re a master axe fighter, you’re going to be a master hammer-user, and a pretty decent swordsman even if you’ve never touched a hammer or sword in your life. And if you’re a good blacksmith, you’re going to know your way around a hammer, so if you have any combat experience at all, you could combine that and your hammer experience to be a good fighter with one-handed hammers, axes, and maces. The only system I know of that acknowledges this is GURPS.
I remember years ago, I was playing WoW as a hammer/mace paladin and did a long quest line that required me to use a special sword that would make an invincible boss vincible, so I had to go wail on low-level enemies for like an hour to level up my sword skill before doing the final boss battle. Really annoying.
Totally worth it, though, because after beating him, I could summon him whenever, and I kited him to Orgrimmar, where, because he was invincible and no one in the Horde had apparently done that quest, he proceeded to run amok for almost four hours before people stopped showing up and aggroing him and he went home. Good times.
“Ho! Ha-Ha! Guard! Turn! Perry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!” ~Robin Hood Daffy
OMG I just figured out what is going to happen. Max will win, of course. Which means tumbledumb here is going to have to follow her to learn her techniques. That means he’s got to go on board Cora’s spaceship and accompany them to the contest. Everyone is going to have to pretend nothing weird is going on whenever he is around. How hilariously awkward.
theyll just change disguises to get away
You know what goes amazing with apple pie? Lemon sweetner. It’s like a coffee creamer sized cup of lemon flavor. Crazy how things that don’t look like they would go together well rock the Cashba.
“give me back my funnelcake” might be the most badassed thing ever said during a fight