Grrl Power #418 – High level talks
Hopefully you all can follow Sydney’s pantomime. Without motion it probably loses something. In case you can’t tell, the second panel of the pantomime she’s doing the universal symbol (in her mind) for “two toes.” Dabbler “Two Toes” Tantalis.
It bugs me in movies/spy shows when people fail at spycraft 101. Your contact hands you a USB drive? Don’t plug it in to your agency computer idiot! Or the network connected to your agency mainframe in Skyfall. I’m looking at you, Q. Plug it into an air gapped machine inside a Faraday cage. You and your cohort arrive early for the meeting? Discuss top secret plans why not? It not like anyone has invented a thing called a microphone.
I get why that stuff happens in movies and shows though. If the good guys did everything right all the time, the plot would either stagnate, or the bad guys would have to actually be especially clever. By which I mean the writers. I want to write my characters acting smart (at least the smart ones) and Maxima is certainly used to keeping secrets and thinking at least a little bit like a spy. The problem is if I somehow accidentally write the good guys being smarter than me, it’s possible the bad guys will never get away with anything, so I guess everyone in the comic has to be, at most, slightly dumber than me. :/
That’s kind of weird to think about. No character can really be smarter than the person writing them. Crazy math/tech/science/magic skills don’t count, since the writer isn’t showing the work. That stuff really happens “off screen.” Inventing a time travel button isn’t smart, it’s just something the author wrote. When the character uses it to travel to 5 seconds before the life altering event he has to stop instead of an hour before or a week, that’s actually dumb, or at least, high INT, low WIS. The characters’ plans and courses of action and witty dialog are entirely limited by the person writing them. The one advantage all characters have in common is that a writer can spend a 5 hours, 6 months, 10 years or whatever, coming up with said plan or snappy dialog, and that’s what makes a smart character seem smart. So there’s probably a formula that incorporates the author’s intelligence factored against the time spent that will tell you how smart any given character of theirs can actually be.
Sydney’s rebreather fits neatly under her jacket and has a retractable loop-over-the-ear stillsuit style nose hose, because otherwise you guys and I both know I’ll forget to draw it. I pledge to at least remember to draw a bump under her jacket once in a while. The rebreather can also function without the hose, actively pulling in then venting recycled air, but that eats up the battery much faster. Eventually Sydney will have her gun and other gear on her so I’ll need to design a super easy to draw utility belt.
Speaking of gear, Maxima’s facemask is supposed to look like it’s able to fold up and tuck into her jacket, but… it doesn’t. Just pretend for now. Maxima mostly needs it to speak, cause you know, sounds doesn’t transmit in a vacuum. She does need to breath, (otherwise Vehemence’s attempt to strangle her wouldn’t have been nearly the same threat) but her internal power can subsidize her oxygen needs for a while. A human body (or any aerobic cell) uses oxygen to create ATP, which is chemical energy. Maxima’s cells generate their own “super energy” and in a pinch her body can use this energy instead of ATP, lowering her O2 requirements. The exact amount of time she can go without air will surely be determined by the needs of a future storyline. :) It’s not measured in hours, but it’s definitely longer than a human can go without air.
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Sometimes it’s like this comic is written in chinese.
I have no idea what is going on here: what is Halo doing? what’s a “pantomime”? “2 toes”??
what???
Well, technically Dabbler doesn’t have two toes, she has cleft hooves. That’s what Syd meant by two toes.
You’ve never heard the term ‘pantomime’ before? Curious. It’s not a common word to be sure, but I didn’t think it was that rare. Clearly neither did Dave.
Pantomime. Making gestures to communicate.
Pantomime = charades basically. I guess I could have said that.
Except that pantomime is not the same as charades. In some charades one will perform a pantomime. The portion where Sydney is using the orbs to represent Dabler’s breasts while she does a sexy waggle, that is pantomime. But when she does the ‘two toes’ and the ‘wide eyes’ gestures those are additional portions of the entire charades, which in this case started with a pantomime.
I find it interesting how the term charade, meaning a false semblance, a visual disguise, or acting to appear as something else, has a very different meaning today when you add an s to the end. Instead of pluralizing charade the term charades means a visual body performance to convey the image or meaning of another object, person, or idea.
Simple reason. “Charades” is the name of a party game, thus the divergent meanings.
Dabbler is a panty-mime?
Ooh. Ooh. *sexy wag*
The hoof is essentially the nail of the toe. Horses originally had five toes and five hooves with them. Ungulates all, even or odd toed.
Pantomime is acting. Brits do it all of the time. Use the internet for information searches…!!! Without talking. Wait till you look up what a “mummer” is. Heard that first on “Birdman” the H-B cartoon, not the more recent movie.
I know it’s been a while since this was posted and so a response seems unlikely, but I’m curious. What would happen were Sydney to release the flight orb but hold onto the forcefield orb at this altitude? I’m assuming the field is fully vulnerable to gravity, but does it protect against g forces? Earlier when Max was testing it (with either fists or particle beams), Sydney wasn’t launched like a pinball, which means the field either anchors itself or, more likely, absorbs and dispels kinetic energy rather than withstands it. Which would make it more of an energy sponge than a shield. So what would happen? Gentle bounce as the field absorbs the kinetic impact, with a shaken Sydney floating in the middle? Hard landing rattling her around like a hamster ball? Or perhaps since the field intersects the ground when Sydney uses it while standing, the field would provide no protection at all against a fall? If the field automatically passes through stationary ground or flooring, then she would impact the ground at full speed and we’d get to see if either of the unknown orbs happens to be a passive respawn machine. I’m just wondering. (Overthinking things is fun!)
Gravity would take over and she’d start falling. The force field orb can tell the difference between gravity and an attack. What happens when it’s hit with a gravity based attack remains to be seen.
After she falls, when she reaches the ground does she go *splat* or settle gently to earth?
Sorry to be commenting from 2020, Dave, but that thing about the Spy and the USB drive you mentioned in the text segment….
(A clip from a future movie)
Spy: “My contact gave me this. Please check it for viruses”
Q guy: “Oh, I’ll do more than that.”
(A clear cube with two inch thick plastic walls lined with copper wires has a notebook PC inside. Also inside is a mechanical arm with a gripper attachment.)
While speaking the Q guy puts the USB drive in the gripper and closes the plastic door.
Q guy: “I’ll also check for back doors, radio transmitters… (the mechanical arm bends, moves to the notebook USB socket, pushes in stops, pulls back, rotates the gripper 180 degrees)
Q guy: “GPS antenna…Cyanide of course…” (the mechanical arm pushes in stops, pulls back, rotates the gripper 180 degrees)
Q guy: “a super capacitor that would burn out the logic board…” (the mechanical arm pushes in and the USB drive instantly explodes peppering the plastic case with shrapnel and smashing the notebook that begins to burn)
Q guy: “Semtec, C4… Oh. The test has finished. Sorry, no usable data.”
Writing characters who are smarter than the writer is easy-peasy: the writer has all the time to think up SuperSmartGuy’s snappy comebacks us mere mortals only think of hours (or days!) later, for example; the writer knows what’s going to happen & can think up tiny details for SSB to notice (“notice”); the writer knows what the bad guy’s limitations are & has time to contemplate what dots SSG needs to connect in order to figure them out….