Grrl Power #468 – Blues closet
Maxima probably didn’t know about Ingsol’s attic or else she would have had Pixel or someone keep Sydney company (i.e. supervise) out there. Still, it’s unlocked and poorly concealed, so one would hope there’s not a Hand of Vecna laying around up there.
The average human amasses quite a bunch of stuff over their lifetime. Some are better about purging themselves down to the essentials, while some are hoarders. I hang on to some key articles from my childhood. I have a folder of terrible drawings from when I was a kid, my 8-bit Nintendo (actually all my consoles), a VHS copy of the original non-special edition Star Wars movies, even though I don’t have a VHS player any more. You know, stuff like that.
A 700 year old vampire would have to be really selective about what mementos to hang on to. I mean, ignoring the occasional involuntary purge, whether it’s fleeing a mob of angry villagers or losing it all in the odd London fire, someone a few centuries old would probably need quite a few storage lockers or maybe just very little attachment to the past, and when was the last time you saw a story about a vampire that wasn’t chocked full of flashbacks? Any vampire would probably have several caches of, well, mostly sentimental crap, but also a few priceless works of art and maybe an Eye of Vecna.
As previously noted, creepy flute player painting by Zdzislaw Beksinski.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. (As soon as I get up. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like :)
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10 bucks on her summoning the Spaghetti Monster or similar :D
my current idea- is the pendant she has is an item that they know has power of a sort but can’t fathom how to activate it…. it is a six point star with nine circles interspersed….
No one else has faith that Sydney will do the correct thing? Like how (almost) everyone else figured she would use her CommBall to ‘project herself’ back into the room? Or blow the door off of its hinges?
“No one else has faith that Sydney will do the correct thing? “
Being that…?
That she will put that pendant thing back and leave, leaving the door how it was (in case it was left like that on purpose) and go explore elsewhere, hopefully even making a note to remind to mention it to Inggie or Maxi
She’s just about to pull a Cabin in the Woods here… and I’ll bet it won’t even be mermaids. We never get to see the mermaids.
That’s because Sydney doesn’t have her scuba gear handy, to see mermaids.
That would be great, but I will be really surprised if Dave built all this setup for only that.
I feel more likely that Dave is making Syd to do this because something significant is going to happen here, being the collateral “damage” to have Syd showing the personality traits necessary for such a transgression.
I had been thinking that having an observation point, overlooking the door to the council chamber, is of strategic benefit. If she can cover the blue flame, without burning down the building.
Or, if somebody comes along, Sydney could firmly close the door and stick her projected image face through it. If they happen to look up, all she need do is lean back, to vanish.
You know, I’m starting to think that we are not going to see a thing. Hours later Max will came out of the Council room and Syd will be just there like the cat that ate the canary :)
hopefully max will have had someone explain to her about suddenly quiet children. and will have syd questioned closely.
Since you mention her being like a cat, I’m thinking she might accidentally turn into an animal. What do you people think?
WOOF WOOF WOOF woof woof woof WOOF WOOF WOOF woof woof woof!
Grrrrowll
Please, let’s not bark at the furries.
Butt, Yorp is a furry though o_O
Furry, but not ‘a furry‘.
So, your fur is au natural?
Of course! No falsies here.
So, no merkins? o_O
One of the more bizarre concepts that humans have come up with. But they do make up for it, at other times.
Am I the only one who is starting to not like Sydney anymore?
Her actions have veered so far away from ADHD territory and are quickly entering Psychopath Township.
I’m kind of hoping all this will get her the “straighten up or get kicked out” talk from Maxima because her behavior shown this chapter is NOT what a cop, even in training, should ever do.
Same here. Lately she has been coming across as a absolute and total idiot.
As others have mentioned, there are probably several factors inhibiting her judgment: lack of sleep, possible lack of/ reaction to medicine, adrenaline, etc. Furthermore, the ease at which she took the Muppet Maxima probably indicates that all of this might not seem exactly real to her. Additionally, the Council had to know that this storage area exists and their failure to secure the room either by lock or guard (especially since they not only knew they had guests coming, but probably that one of them had true sight) shows a lack of judgment on their part as well.
You realize that your latter argument veers dangerously close to the “blaming the victim” mentality. That’s what Homer Simpson does, like when he filled his wife’s car with used grease. He said that if she didn’t want him to use her car, she should have done a better job of hiding her car keys.
In her defense, she’s kind of been dropped into the Faerie Kingdom, and I doubt this seems real to her. What she really needs is bloody nose to snap her back to reality.
maybe so…but the FIRST RULE of the Fairy Kingdom, and something ANY nerd should know, IS NEVER TAKE ANYTHING FROM THE FAIRY KINGDOM!!!
What has she taken? o_O Other than the mikey out of Inggie
Sydney has picked up an amulet (final panel). As far as the fey are concerned, that would count, as she has taken it from the hook it was hanging on (penultimate panel). Even if she does not leave with it.
Forgot about Faerie ‘rules’
A dame like Sydney is usually my type, but even I wouldn’t touch a powder keg like her with a standard edition ten-foot pole.
Sydney remains ‘my type’ regardless. Everyone comes with some baggage. Yet Sydney’s positives far outweigh her negatives, as far as I am concerned. Orbs or no orbs, I would be happy to find somebody as nice as her.
Anybody’s judgement can lapse, when severely sleep deprived.
Yorp, in addition to others differences, I think our definitions of `nice’ vary considerably…honestly, what has Sydney ever done that would be termed `nice’? Constantly shafting her co-worker/co-owner of the comic shop? A complete lack of consideration for other people?
ADHD is not the `get-out-of-jail-free’ card…even people with severe ADHD are aware of societal norms and are able to attempt integration.
Personally, I think Sydney is the child of extremely rich parents and simply never had to learn limits. Her personality is less ADHD and more Spoiled Brat. Some people like that; I prefer to go over here and interact with less constantly-annoying people.
So…Yorp, that’s one less competitor for Sydney’s affections! She’s almost yours, man!
Me, I’m all about Maxima…”Hey, Maxima, okay, yes, you’re gorgeous, you know you’re gorgeous, I know you’re gorgeous, but Holy Crapballs! You can bench press a TANK*! And you can FLY! And do lots of other awesome stuff! Would you accord me the honor of allowing me to buy you an ice cream?”
Hey…it’s a one-in-a-million shot, but…it just might work!
Max would probably tank you, grim. and not in a nice way.
How precisely is she shafting her boss/co-owner? Asside from not telling him what the tube was (she even DID once and he didn’t believe her) this has not only been happening over the course of about a week, but she found herself a replacement pretty much immediately. She hasn’t been peter parker who can’t manage a job and super-spidering so has to do freelance, she got her government friends to give her monrings for the comic shop and found a relief worker for the rest of her shift.
Also not sure where youre getting Sidney being rich spoilt brat either. Well, except for her origin story; she found her balls diving in the Caribbean… Nah, I know a couple of super-nerds (sadly with no powers) who are alot like her. ADHD is the only thing she’s outright said she has, but there could be multiple issues beyond her nerdist elite attitude.
And there are much worse personalities in wildly popular superheros.
I guess the only real issue here is that she’s not your cup of tea while the unattainable amazon is. good luck to you.
The first instance was shielding Joel and her family from involvement,
should possession of the orbs turn out to be illegal, despite this weighing on her heavily and clearly depressing her in having to cover it up. This was when I decided I liked her.
Then, despite clearly being afraid, and having to work herself up to it, Sydney did decide to intervene with the bank robbery. The defining moment that distinguishes a person with super powers from a super hero. Being willing to die to protect others.
OK Sydney also likes the trappings and the possibility of meeting her Mr X-man, but Sydney did (from her perspective) almost get killed by being shot. Which graphically brought it home to her that her heroism came with a real risk of dying.
Yet Halo still went on, that same day, to sacrifice her only defence to shield others, trapping herself in with a deadly dangerous supervillan, in the full knowledge that he could easily kill her.
Sydney is very nice. Her playful enjoyment, of every moment of her day, whilst irritating to you, is something else that I like in her.
Well typed
I wish I could find someone who would be as nonjudgemental and accepting of me!
I wish I could find someone.
Really, you think getting distracted by cool and interesting new shiny toys of possibly magical or superscience quality in a veritable house of fantasy and pulp era tropes isn’t right up Sydneys alley?
She’s a total fangirl with her own comic shop that has become a super hero, and is now on a super secret mission regarding the the rest of fandom subjects that secretly exist and you think she’s supposed to do something else?!?!
What do you suggest? Sit down and sip tea?
Sorry guys, but Halo is totally in one of her geekdom fantasies becomes reality now, and she’s going to poke around and enjoy herself until something blows up and reminds her that reality isn’t always so nice.
+1
Even for Sydney, this seems unusually irresponsible.
All you Sydney Haters have to understand: this is a flashback, and we know that she is still a valued member to Maxi and Anvil (and probably Wart), so either nothing bad happens or all four become renegades
This forum has always been praised for the overall politness and respect of the comments. I don’t think I read a comment in this page that I could call “hate”. Criticism surely, hate nuh-uh.
Your loyalty is admirable, but you need to backup it with good arguments. Even if we interpret the beginning as you said, the lack of consequences on its own do not render an action good.
The comments may have been ‘polite’, but the hate is still there
Sure, there is a huge chance that Sydney will screw up big-time, but some of the commentators are negatively salivating at the thought that Sydney will get what they feel she deserves, plus some
Personally I do not care. Whilst I think Sydney is just making a teaser, to the 4th wall (deliberately) and will otherwise ‘do the right thing’, she has been pushed well beyond her limits, as detailed on prior comments pages. Being of diminished responsibility, at the moment, I would not hold it against her if she did lapse. However I doubt very much whether that would include stealing things, despite my joking about that.
But I could well see her ‘checking the room for clues’, like you often see TV detectives doing, under similar circumstances. Of course examining it for magical auras, with her truesight orb, would help her do that.
Sydney may well be able to gain clues about the character of her hosts here. Whilst this is very rude, if it turns out that the room is full of items for turning humans into undead and/or soylent green, then there would be merit in doing so.
Me too! Old consoles are best childhood mementos!
I was never much of a console guy. I still have both an Atari 2600 and a Playstation (the original one; to paraphrase Scotty: “No bloody 2, 3, or 4!”). I’ve long since converted the 2600 into a handheld, battery-powered unit…
Maxima, you messed up by bringing Sydney to this meeting. This girl needs training, even if it only creates the tiniest smidge of discipline it would be infinitely more than she has now.
Halo was invited because of her true sight orb. She required education.
I can already imagine all the “Fun” that’s about to happen, but in Sidney’s defense, it really is everyone else’s fault for leaving her unsupervised in a secret underground lair.
I see that Marker. This can only end hilariously.
Just between the googley eyes and the stickum stars is enough room in the arts and crafts pouch for some back up meds. Just sayin’. The Arc peeps should have thought of it.
They did.
Back at the restaurant – the one where she saw Muppet Max, not the one that got leveled – and just before coming to this meeting, she took the generic version of her meds.
hand of Vecna? that’s nothing… try the Head of Vecna!
I like the cut of your jib.
I’ve heard rumors of another (NSFW) body part of his laying around, but I shudder to think of what that part of the anatomy would look like, let alone what it could do.
And before anyone asks, let’s just say the rumors involved “Vecna’s other head” and not go any further for the sake of humanity and other sentient races…
And since it needs to be said, @Dabbler: No, I do NOT know where that part of Vecna can be found, and NO, I DO NOT WANT TO!!! X_X
Let alone the risk of ending up with a purple four-armed undead baby, which is 1/4 succubus, 1/6 doppleganger, 1/12 some unidentified alien species, and 1/2 lich.
pretty sure lich can’t have kids on account of the death magic permeating their (un)dead bodies…
Vecna is a god, and his organs are relics. Artifacts of that power break any rule they want to.
Vecna was a Lich before being deified. See below.
;)
Relics gain their power by their association with a deity. Hence the deity aspect trumps his lich nature.
Of course whether it would grant unnatural fertility is another matter. But a god is not subject to the same limits as mortals. And yes, liches only have a finite life span. Eventually they either die or get promoted to another state, such as demi-lich.
Virility. Unless Vecna is suddenly female fertility isn’t his thing. ;p
Also, deities only gain abilities based on their spheres. His were magic, secrets and undeath if I remember. You could I suppose argue magic and unnatural virility going together, but generally that’s life magic of some sort which is opposed to death magic.
Let’s hope no parties ever find Vecnas Sex Organ.
Too late!
You forget, that before they became a lich, they were very much mortal with very much mortal desires (ie, to plow any willing, or unwilling, maiden they can)
The “other” Head of Vecna would probably look something like half of a Slim Jim, if it hadn’t (quite probably) dried out & crumbled off long ago…Vecna’s a Lich. A withered, nearly skeletal body of a human being, shriveled up, extremely emanciated, held together purely by magic & force of will. At the very least, it wouldn’t even be recognizable as (formerly)human body part.
… And thank you so much for sharing.
It seems to me that Sydney has found the storage closet just on time to get dressed up for All Hallows Eve. What interesting regalia might lurketh within yon trunks.
So, it’s NOT junk in the trunks?!
funky magic door to the council chamber. boards go up-down on one strip (Monday), left-right on this one.
True. This is a magical place though. The chairs kept changing between high backed and low, for instance. Just wait until Halo enters the labyrinth!
Pan’s, Jareth’s or Turg’s? o_O
I was envisaging Jareth’s (incorporating the gravity defying castle interiors), with Hogwart’s* style moving staircases and a variety of minotaurs, medusae, traps and other guardians.
* Not Hoggle style. That is more of a runny-away style.
I wonder how Sydney would fare in the Bog of Eternal Stench?…
I don’t think she would want to eat it.
She might try to light it with the Pewpew Orb.
Next time on Grrl Power:
SYD: Hey Max. No reason for me asking, but does anybody here know how to reseal cthulu an shoggith, ’cause I think they’re trying for a family reunion.
you just missed out on points, point would only have been added if you had also made a Ghostbusters reference. :}
Later: Ingsol to Sydney: You can keep that, by the way, I’ve only ever worn it on Halloween, as part of my Dr.Strange costume.
*Shoggoth. I have the plushie.
A plushie of whom, and why does your master wish to know this?
1) The purple four armed one.
2) The shiny golden one
3) The A-team member, with a pull-cord to activate her colourful dialogue
A) For you to snuggle up with, at night
B) For Shoggoth to snuggle up with, for eternity
C) For use as a voodoo doll?
4) Huggsie, the nappy-time penguin?
The grey and purple, overly tentacled one with teeth and eyes everywhere. For giving eldritch head massages.
I have not heard that euphemism before.
To leave Sydney by herself is only asking for trouble!!!!
BTW-What KIND of trouble can Sydney get into all by herself?!?!?
How many kinds of trouble are there?
Isn’t that just a sly way of saying, “What’s the worst that could happen?”
…
*cringe*
Just a quick point, you have a grammar error in first panel. Should be feel not feels. If this is deliberate please ignore.
Depends on personal viewpoint, doesn’t seem wrong to me
“Group” is the noun, so it should be “who feels”.
Aack, got that backwards. The noun is “groups” so it should be “who feel”.
That depends on how you hear it: is the ‘who feels’ part of the initial ‘Suspects’, or the secondary ‘groups’?
I’m the one that know little English :) but IIRC you can check it by some rearranging and rephrasing:
– If it refers to the “groups”
“other suspects include groups […] who feels that global chaos…”
subject: the groups included as suspects
verb: to feel
“The groups that feel/feels that global chaos….”
The option you use there is the one you should use with “who”.
– If it refers to the “suspects”
“other suspects include […] who feels that global chaos…”
subject: indeterminated
verb: to feel
“Whoever feel/feels that global chaos…”
The option you use there is the one you should use with “who”.
Please, correct me if whatever I said is wrong :)
Zack Tilly
There are so many blasted conflicting rules for writing, but very little (if any) for vocal, but just remember: while you may be reading what Inggie was saying, he was actually speaking it
Not sure what you mean, aren’t verb conjugation rules the same for write that for speak?
Also, what “Zack Tilly” means? :)
That’s just Guesticus-speak for “exactly.” ☺
Oh, silly me :) Thank you.
And “Frank Quitely”, other than a talented artist, is Guestian for “Quite Frankly”
When it comes to people actually speaking, basically, if it sounds correct, then it is
Largely (but not entirely) why people pick apart comic-speech is because they can have the time to, well, read it and pick it apart
@Guesticus
Ah, I get it, you are saying that if we were hearing Ingsol we would not have the doubt about what case he means. I concur.
Not sure if it’s a golden rule however, it depends a lot on your personal experience and it could be a poor one. You won’t believe what sounds correct to me! :)
Beside that, maybe I’m wrong, but I didn’t take it as a criticism but as a head up to David about a possible typo, something that he has thanked in the past.
Duende Sociopata</b: like said further up the chain: it depends on personal viewpoint
And agree with your point about it being a heads-up and not a criticism, was just putting another head up that maybe it’s not a typo :D
@Guesticus
Ok, ok, I see you have rather intense feelings about this, everything is ok, we are cool…
Never felt otherwise :D
Mean, just because we have differing opinions sometimes, doesn’t mean we can’t still be civil and friendly
Never felt otherwise ;)
Since the last page and this one, Sydney has been drifting into outright stupidity. Like messing with magic items that were obviously hidden for a good reason and for what she has zero basis to appraise of their danger or power.
If the Council were stupid enough to store dangerous artifacts in such an easily discovered place (not to mention one that Sydney didn’t even know existed, much less was looking for) ungaurded and unlocked, they deserve whatever fate is meted out to them. This is especially true considering the number of battles they have had to fight against rogue cryptids, since they would be practically handing potential enemies free access to such weapons.
The roof has a high-level veil on it. The council did not expect anyone to have such a high level veil-penetration. I doubt that these are the most powerful items (I think the room is probably a low-level storage) but they were still hidden for some reason. Unless you know the reason, it’s a bad idea to snoop around, especially considering that these people are MAYOR ALLIES.
Regardless, playing with magical artifacts of unknown origin, power and function is just stupid. It is actually more stupid than playing with industrial machines of unknown power and function. There you are at most likely only to hurt yourself and possibly the machine. With magical artifacts who knows what will happen. Sydney has no way to assess what she is looking at other then experimentation.
One fault in your reasoning there; Sydney wasn’t using the Comm Orb when she found that door…If it had the Veil on it, Sydney would not see it without her Comm Orb.
Well, depending on how Machevillian they are, they could have stored cursed items there on purpose, for that exact same reason, hoping that conspiring cryptids do find them…
;)
Since she found it WITHOUT the use of the Truesight Orb, whatever is in there is probably “important enough to hide”, but “not important enough to hide with the Veil”. For all we know at this point, Inggie is a closeted crossdresser and is hiding his “other” set of clothes.
Okay, maybe not. Since this building is used by the Council, it may not belong to Ingsol at all. If I were a gambling man (which I’m not), I would bet that Sydney is about to stumble upon something that implicates a member of the Council itself of damaging the veil!
What would a vending machine for the Council contain anyway? Or more specifically, what would a vending machine for the Council contain that Sydney would want to buy?
She may have her choice of:
1) Hot cup of blood.
2) Live bunny.
3) Bottle of water, with baby bio plant fertiliser added.
4) Thimble of honey.
5) Packet of batteries.
6) A twinkie.
7) Can of polish. Certified for use on harps, pitchforks, armour, swords and ray guns.
8) A packet, labeled in an unknown script, the multi-hued contents of which fade in and out of reality.
9) An A-Z guide of New York, with highlighed places of interest and who to eat.
So all but 1 and 9 then?
Yorp, I’m surprised at you for not including Harpsichord Wax.
Not enough room for that in the machine. You need the portable hole upgrade for those.
https://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-261
Oh or this one – https://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-294
Wow. Thank you :)
Darkside Cola sounds pretty good. Not sure you’d taste much of the dragonfruit in that pepsi though, it’s a rather mild flavour.
Could also be this one: https://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-198
I think that “item” might contain a wormhole that randomly grabs something from https://basement.warehouse23.com/
This is a writer’s paradise. One click and a whole story start to develop on its own :)
You open one of the 998 boxes on this floor and find…
A nuclear warhead suspended in blue raspberry gelatin.
This and the others links compensate the bitter taste that the overheated arguments are giving. Thank you :)
Ooh, if there is a way to make you a happy puppy, I am happy to oblige you with some links.
*wags tail enthusiastically*
Mmm… you don’t know what you are playing with…
Oh there are 995 boxes left, don’t worry. Plenty more fun to be had!
… 995?
*checks two empty boxes, and looks around*
Aaaaargh!
*tiptoes away carrying something different under each arm*
*bumps into a doorframe*
*a rocket-powered splitting maul (Battle Angel Alita) falls out from under left arm*
*turns to see if you noticed the noise*
*slowly attempts to pick it up when the other item drops*
*the Chiquita Banana girl’s bowl drops, spilling the Mera Mera no Mi and Baku Baku no Mi on the ground*
*gives up and runs*
Sydney, we KNOW that you’re genre savvy enough to know better! You must have seen at least one horror movie!
Y’know, I’mma enjoy watching what you have coming to you. Moron.
The comments section has been super negative lately. I used to like coming down and reading them, but you guys have been very hateful towards Sydney. She’s trying her best, but she’s on strange medication that has strange side effects in a strange place getting fed an entire secret subculture that she’s never experienced before. This is mostly on Max. You need to take someone in her situation aside FIRST and explain everything that Ingsol’s been describing, but in private where there are minimal extra stimuli, and you need to get all of these questions out of her system. Then, if she has more, you tell her to wait until the end of the meeting.
I’m sorry, but you guys calling Sydney a moron or saying she should get what she deserves are really kind of irritating. It’s yelling at the mentally handicapped person for something that’s part of their issue. You just don’t do that.
+ 1 infinity
What a caring, considerate, person.
I agree that Sydney needs support at the moment, rather than condemnation. She started off the evening so sleep deprived that she was willing to accept seeing a Muppet Maxima as being real. And she has had nothing but culture shock since. I think many other folks would be gibbering in a corner, by now!
Sydney is awesome.
There is a line between ADHD and needing someone to punch her directly in the nose. To turn this into real world examples:
As I said in previous strips, Sydney was making fun of a disability. Maybe the vampires are being drama queens about it but that doesn’t make it okay to make fun of it. At some point, ADHD ceases to be an excuse for poor behavior. If (and I’ve been trying to avoid politics but it’s the best real world example I can think of) we knew that Trump had ADHD (and there’s been plenty of discussion on that), would that make it okay for him to have made fun of the disabled reporter? Most people would say “no”.
As for the current strip, ask yourself this: If Sydney forgot to lock the storeroom for her comics shop, does that give her customers the right to just wander in and mess with her stock? Does that give them the right to play with potentially hazardous items (Example: gasoline and matches) while in her storeroom? Once again, most people would say “no”.
Yes, a lot of this is on Max for just dumping all this on her. Yes, Sydney has ADHD and, as such, a certain level of tolerance should be exhibited. However, at some point, you have to be willing to also say “She’s a grown adult. Yes, she has ADHD but she needs to have some baseline level of responsibility and social awareness.” Rummaging through people’s closets and playing with their potentially dangerous stuff just because they didn’t lock every door in their own house before they let you come in goes beyond a blanket excuse of “Sydney has ADHD.”.
Pyre, agree +Lots
Sydney is currently being, at best, mis-used in this storyline. ADHD is a real thing with real symptoms and real effects. What we are seeing Sydney display is far from ADHD and into the “I can do anything I want because I have ADHD as an excuse” territory.
ADHD or not, Sydney was *originally* portrayed as a functioning responsible adult…go back and read up through the bank robbery and introduction to ARC. Now, we have spoiled spastic 6-year-old Sydney who has absolutely no limits or filters.
It may very well be that DaveB has a reason for this regression, and a month from now we’ll all be going, “Woah! *Now* I understand! Awesome!”
But for now…
I think what we are missing ( I don’t want to go searching for the comic that proves this, but whatever) Is that Sydney is NOT just ADHD. Sydney has had less than 3 hours of sleep in the last 48/72 hours ( i forgot which) AND the medication that is normally used to help her maintain focus is worn off. Being adhd myself, I can attest that when your meds wear off everything is twice as hard, and she’s got extreme sleep deprivation on top of that.
If you really want to know she got around 5hs the night of the battle, say about 3hs last night after the club (giving around 2hs of initial insomnia), and a nap of about 1hr at the evening of this day. So about 9hs in the last 48hs. Average for a young adult would be 15-16hs.
72hs would include the night before the start of the flashback that we know nothing about.
Disclamer: this is just information, not arguing (sorry, people are a bit heated up)
Disagreement is allowed. :-)
Sydney is a colourful character, with a bunch of flaws. Including impulsiveness. So it is inevitable that she will rub people up the wrong way, at times. But some of us remain loyal, regardless.
*remains in ‘guard’ position*
Out of curiosity Pyre and Grimjac how composed were you the first time you came face to face with vampires, werewolves, ferocious-looking-aliens and assorted other monsters? Whilst coping with having almost died multiple times in the last three days. And being sleep deprived, suffering from acute ADHD and a drug overdose?
Sydney uses humour to cope with stress or when out of her depth socially or otherwise. Even with that she has already fainted once this evening.
Try walking a mile in her shoes before you judge her!
Fainting I would understand. Passing out from intense nerdgasms, right behind her there. Staring open-mouthed like a stunned bunny, got it.
Being as wildly rude and obnoxious as she has been, so much so that Maxima has had to…intervene politely more than once?
It’s *my* belief…with which absolutely no one has to agree…the ADHD Card is being played a bit too heavily. It’s a serious issue, yes…but it is *not* being accorded any form of…well, dignity. Many on the Sydney Support Squad trot it out as an excuse to cover *any* lapse on her part. And we all know what excuses are like, don’t we? Here’s a hint: everyone has one and they usually stink. I suspect those posters *with* ADHD enjoy seeing someone `living out’ their worst impulses, even while knowing it’s not really that way at all. Similar to a heterosexual male watching An Average Guy get marooned on The Island of Sexually Adventurous And Extremely Welcoming Hot Sorority Girls. Sure, it’s fun, but in the real world…it don’t work that way.
And the really difficult thing is…I *like* Sydney. She’s fun, geeky, occasionally sweet, and a very good character…except in this arc. As noted above, she’s acting like a spastic six-year-old spoiled brat, which is not how I like to regard her.
And sorry, ADHD, generic meds, and sleep deprivation don’t excuse it. I understand artistic license, sure…but to go from Muppet-Maxima-Meh to this characterization? And honestly, the sleep deprivation thing is grasping at straws…she’s had a couple short nights; I’m willing to bet everyone here has had a wild weekend and made it to work on Monday…and managed not to insult the lady in the wheelchair, do a strip-tease on the desk while singing `Safety Dance’ when you find out the boss is buying pizza for everyone’s lunch, break into the boss’ computer to steal photos because he went to get the pizza and didn’t lock his screen, *or* screw up your entire day’s workload beyond recovery. I’m willing to bet Yorp’s next bag of Scooby Snax even those who suffer heavily from ADHD have the same general stories.
Now, I understand DaveB is going for laughs a lot of the time, and Sydney is a great vehicle for conveying the funny. In this arc, though…it doesn’t work for me. Individually, yes, the outbursts are funny. Taken altogether and in context…it doesn’t present Sydney, Maxima, or the entire ARC machine in a positive light.
Hey, for all I know, that may be the entire point: to show ARC doesn’t know its arse from its elbow. Seriously, how much command time does Maxima have? Does she have *any*, or did she get the job because she’s a powerful super, and she doesn’t have any idea how to handle personnel? Was she ever a boot louie learning how to handle a platoon under the gentle ministrations of a seasoned Top? Ever make Captain and now have to deal with those green-as-grass platoon Lieutenants and figure out how to make them play nice and still get the job done?
Much more likely, she never served in an actual command position. As a super, she was probably detached to some form of Special Operations before the ink dried on her contract signature.
My God. That’s it, isn’t it? We all thought DaveB was solidly on Team Tony, but he’s been Team Cap all along! He’s bringing down the system from the *inside*! Holy Crapballs, that’s *brilliant*! Go, DaveB!
I am not disputing that Sydney’s actions have been rude, nor is the comic. Maxima has been furious at her for it. And ejected her from the meeting accordingly.
Likewise nobody has been trotting out ADHD as the primary excuse. It is one mitigating factor amongst many. Your retort to that however is severely flawed. These comments have credibly established (via first hand testimony) that ADHD is worsened by sleep deprivation. To turn around and say ‘well sleep deprivation does not affect me, so it probably does not affect even people with severe ADHD’ (paraphrasing) is highly flawed.
Finally though I will point out that you completely ignored the severe culture shock Sydney was reacting to. Confronted by vampires and werewolves, ‘doing the old loom and leer’, most people would have screamed, shat themselves and/or run away. Sydney however copes with situations by resorting to humour. I do likewise, when suffering broken bones and other traumatic injuries. It is a useful mechanism to keep going in adversity.
Yet you completely ignore that. Showing you just wish to pursue your agenda, rather than fairly examine the circumstances.
Extreme culture shock can include: hallucinations, delusions, depersonalization and disassociation. Amongst many other symptoms. And Sydney has been exhibiting aspects of those.
Yes Sydney has been rude. But, in order to prove how rude she is being, you have become rather abrasive about it yourself. She has a bunch of mitigating factors. Whilst you are free to disagree that hers are valid, what are yours?
I agree. I don’t have ADHD (or at least I don’t think I do), but if I go without sleep for at least 36 hours, I might as well not go to bed for a while longer… because my mind will be changing subjects so fast, that I can’t sleep even if I want to.
In other words, it is entirely possible for me to be so sleepy that I can’t sleep until another 12 hours or so have passed. If sleep deprivation does that to me, I can only guess what it does to someone with ADHD.
Yorp, I’m trying to be polite and objective; sorry if you see it otherwise. I do disagree with a lot of the excuses…or mitigating factors, as you call them…because they are not credible. Sydney is NOT sleep deprived. You act as if no one has ever had short nights…a week of a short nights…and had to function. Yes, ADHD does react adversely to lack of sleep, but not to the extent of removing all behavioral filters, which is what we are seeing Sydney exhibit currently.
And culture shock? Give me a break. That’s *definitely* reaching. She is a *geek*, and is on the verge of earthshattering nerdgasms when she finds out vampires and werewolves are real. Her mind is not struggling to fit them into her concept of reality; she’s squishing when she walks because reality is finally in line with her concepts. Culture shock would NOT allow her to be asking a were-dire-wolf to do Blue Steel. She didn’t gape, hide behind Maxima, or have the slightest hint of shock or reservation. Throw your culture shock out the window, Yorp, that 8-track won’t play. The *only* sort of shock we’ve seen is her realizing `everything she knows is wrong’, and that was for a one-panel funny.
My `agenda’, as you put it is simply: going from Muppet-Maxima-Meh to…this behavior is both inexcusable and unexplainable by the knowledge we *currently* have. I trust DaveB to have a rational (for a given value of the term in a fictional comic) explanation; I do *not* expect it to be, “Well, she’s ADHD, you know…and a little short on sleep for a couple days, and…um…yeah, okay, the new meds went from depressing her into a walking coma to…yeah, and then the culture shock, because, yanno…and…um…look, it was funny when I was writing it in my head, okay?”
My *personal* suspicion is we’ll find the Veil is trying to influence her. She’s not a born superhero, genetically modified as all the others we’ve met. Her powers come from an external source, so the Veil may `read’ her as human…but she’s not *entirely* human; she does have the orbs and their powers.
To me, that’s a much more viable explanation for her definitely out-of-character behavior in this arc.
If your theory is right then I never suffered broken bones, because I was joking when I had them.
You clearly do not understand comedians. Many (but not all) come into humour as a mechanism to protect themselves socially. Be it from bullies, or to cover their own inadequacies, or to cope with their insecurities. We have seen that Sydney definitely has the latter. Recall her behaviour in the shower, as an example.
Just because Sydney is making light of it does not mean that she is not being profoundly affected by the experience. The joke is that she is having a nerdgasm, yes. But she did actually faint. Which is a clear medical symptom, despite the fact that you choose to disregard it.
Likewise rocking back and forth, crouched down behind a chair is a comical image. But if you see somebody doing that in real life, please do not laugh at them. They have got a serious issue!
The comic plays the situation for the laughs. So when Sydney is doing silly things we should just accept that it is being done to entertain us.
However if you choose to disregard the humour, then you cannot do that selectively, just to suit your own argument. Sydney is both enjoying the experience, on one paw, yet is also having her world-view traumatically shifted, on the other.
This serves as a very close parallel to Paris Syndrome, which I have linked previously. Where Japanese tourists go to Paris, on vacation, to have fun. Yet end up seriously medically ill, to the extent that they have to be urgently repatriated.
If you wish to debate something seriously, you cannot wave away serious symptoms, the way you have. The culture shock symptoms, on their own, explain Sydney;s behaviour. You need not look for supernatural reasons.
BTW, Yorp, just wanted to point out the flaw in your argument…
“These comments have credibly established (via first hand testimony) that ADHD is worsened by sleep deprivation. To turn around and say ‘well sleep deprivation does not affect me, so it probably does not affect even people with severe ADHD’ (paraphrasing) is highly flawed.”
So, first hand testimony regarding ADHD is allowed and valid, but first hand accounts of sleep deprivation are highly flawed? Bit of a double standard showing there, might want to pull up your pants or arrange your tail better. :D
Well in which case allow me to provide first hand testimony as to how debilitating sleep deprivation can be. For instance when working a fourteen hour working day and having three hours commuting. Add on one hour for lunch and you only get six hours for everything else, such as socialising or watching a bit of telly and eating. Oh and cramming a bit of sleep in somewhere.
Sleep deprivation totally dominated my life. Even though that routine is nothing compared to what junior doctors have to handle. I had to schedule my workload such that I kept a bunch of simple tasks, for the days when I was incapable of handling the complex work. This is not something that a SWAT member can do!
Clearly you and I had different results from our sleep deprivation. And neither of us have ADHD to make it worse. Most importantly though you have to judge these things on how it affects the individual, not some other random person in the population.
Sydney was not even able to stay awake, when dealing with something she loved passionately. And the day has gotten longer and far harder since.
Yorp, my friend, for sleep deprivation anecdotes to be meaningful, one must provide a time frame. *My* stance is a weekend of short sleep does not constitute sleep deprivation; it constitutes a weekend short of sleep. I am assuming your personal tale was more than a single day, or even two or three. Yes, after a week or two, you’ll be fried, but one weekend? I don’t buy it. For me, I had three hours of sleep on Friday, 4 on Saturday, and two last night (idiots stating Halloween early and getting it confused with 4th of July) and *still* made it to work and had a productive day. I am far from considering myself sleep-deprived or even halfway fried. (As for why the short sleep this weekend…Civ VI is the devil’s tool, I tell you!)
Once again, I’m not arguing against the serious effects of sleep deprivation. I just don’t agree that Sydney’s short weekend constitutes sleep deprivation. Tired, yes…the nodding off is right in line, as is Maxima sending her down for a nap. Totally cool with that. To say `sleep deprivation’ is therefore affecting her personality, social skills, and basic human decency…that, I can’t see. Again, *yes*, IF it was long term, and not just a weekend. I’m pretty sure when `All Dogs Go To Heaven’ was released, you pulled a couple all-nighters and still managed to do your job when it was time for work…without any major faux pas. Faux paws.
Although this debate is probably rendered moot, as there are a couple new pages up already, it has been enjoyable.
Which is why I immediately followed my comment with one adding that “…mine could kick in after a single day, in a mild form and be totally debilitating in two.”
1. Not having enough sleep. Check
2. Fatigue. Check
3. Daytime sleepiness. Check
4. Adversely affecting the brain and cognitive function. Check
Sydney matches the symptoms 1-3 and the one you contest 4. Your diagnosis skills are flawed. The only requirement is to ‘not have enough sleep’. There is no mention of ‘for an extended period’. Quod erat demonstrandum.
Enjoyable indeed.
I missed out one symptom, although I did highlight it.
3.5 Clumsiness. Check (burning her hand on the plate of hot food)
As for double standards, you cannot make a fair comparison when dealing with different things. His testimony was pertinent. Yours was not (nor was mine, for that matter*).
If discussing how dangerous badly labeled food is, for people with allergies, it is pointless saying “well I can eat any food, so people with allergies should be able too”.
* Mine was only of use in comparison to yours. Not to Sydney’s. So, for instance, I can refute your claim that it takes two weeks, as mine could kick in after a single day, in a mild form and be totally debilitating in two. Thus it has been a lifelong problem, rather than just the period when I was working the routine above.
Dude, check your definitions…a double standard is applying different standards to similar events. In your words, first-person anecdotal testimony regarding ADHD are admissible, but my first-person anecdotal (and I never really got into anything specific, but it’d make Mr ADHD cry, I suspect) testimony about sleep deprivation is not admissible.
As for pertinent…I have, you have, I wager *everyone* here has had wild weekends where sleep was a mythical beast no one could capture. Whether it be partying like a rabid hamster, running a campaign in AD&D or Warhammer, or a weekend on the couch with the new release of Civilization. Never mind honeymoons, the first weekend away with your sexy new partner, and so on, where sleep is The Enemy.
If not all, then the vast majority of us have stories to tell of those weekends, usually with a big grin on our faces. Many, if not most, comparable to Sydney’s level of exertion during *her* weekend. Most of us…me included…managed to do what we needed without losing our ability to be a rational human.
Seriously, the average Recon Marine is going to go on a *lot* longer patrol with a *lot* less sleep, with the added benefit of people actively trying to kill him. He’s *still* going to function well enough to not put his team at risk because he didn’t get a solid eight in the rack the night before…or the last five nights before. Now, you can rightfully say Sydney isn’t a Recon Marine and hasn’t been `trained’ to perform to that level, and that would be true.
Which brings us to the crux: Sydney’s problem isn’t lack of sleep, it’s lack of discipline. This is a departure from what we’ve seen thus far; it’s become an `issue’ in this arc, though she’s always had a bit of…hm…wild-card in her persona. Seriously, contrast how she dealt with/deals with Dabbler to her behavior here…and when she first met Dabbler, it an be argued she’d have been under even *more* stress…
Anyway, probably moot now; we’ll see what DaveB has decided, since I’m pretty sure he follows a lot of the comments to see how the wind blows. No matter how good he is, what he shows us can’t ever be exactly the way it is in his head; what he thinks is blatantly obvious, we may all miss.
Which is why I think these sort of discussions are a Good Thing, even coming from opposite sides.
My standards are simple. If it is pertinent I accept it. If it is not I disregard it. Testimony that ‘if someone has ADHD they will be more affected by sleep deprivation’ is pertinent. Your counter does not stop that from being true.
All you are doing is citing the example of one person who has not been affected by sleep deprivation. Which proves nothing about Sydney’s case, nor about other people who do suffer from it.
The rest of your argument is not only speculation, it is blatantly false, as I know from my first hand experience. Some people are more susceptible to problems from lack of sleep than others. You are lucky, whereas Sydney is not.
Had I found the first statement to be flawed, I would have challenged it. However my personal experience. general knowledge and bullshit detector all corroborated the claim. Yours failed.
I have not applied double-standards.
Not typing for anyone else, but personally not excusing her actions, simply attempting to explain them, she is still answerable for her actions and will get punished accordingly (will be over in the Punishment Room with the paddle and duckfeathers when she is ready)
Yorp Rummaging through people’s closets is not a “composure” issue.
True. Do bear in mind that Sydney’s line is a gag to the 4th wall though. Which plays better with a prop in hand.
I dispute that Sydney is ‘rummaging‘.
“It’s yelling at the mentally handicapped person for something that’s part of their issue. “
Maybe it’s just me, but I feel really uncomfortable about we making arguments that in the end imply that if our fellow commentators with ADHD have one night of short sleep they will became “mentally handicapped”. I rather call a fictional character a moron than restorting to that. I’m begin serious here.
Actually it is more than one night. She is going through military basic training, which does that routinely every night. And we saw her first day in great detail and she had just as little sleep then. In addition to the trauma of almost dying three times! Combined with the potential PTSD from that, Sydney is currently suffering the effects of a drug overdose, which she took to try and counter her ADHD from overwhelming her.
Fellow readers, with ADHD, have indicated that lack of sleep seriously compounds its effects. Further Sydney clearly has an extreme version of it. Plus Panic mun did factor in the severe cultural shock, which you ignored. As detailed in a previous thread, that alone can result in hallucinations, delusions, depersonalization and disassociation.
All of which combined is more than enough to classify somebody as being mentally handicapped. Fortunately only temporarily.
Everybody is at risk of mental illness. Most of us will experience it, during the course of our lifetimes, either in person or with an immediate member of our family. Shying away from acknowledging that simply because somebody already has a preexisting mental issue, which would not deserve that term, is a deadly dangerous abuse of political correctness!
Sydney’s judgement is impaired enough, at the moment, that she is at risk of dying. As evidenced by holding a possibly cursed item, without having taken any precautions!
o_o
Lol.
There is a special name for caches of vampire stuff, stuff they don’t want damaged, or to deteriorate any more. They actually hire people to look after it too.
We call them museums.
For the record…
5th panel.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1189
Yeah, we met those two a couple pages back, behind the 1100 year old bald wampire
I know I’m going to lose nerd credits for asking this, but what’s an Eye of Vecna?
Dave’s link, in his blog above explains. But, in brief, both the hand and the eye of Vecna are relics of an undead god. An extremely evil one. Anybody using them would be corrupted by them, much like the ring from Lord of the Rings.
Yeah, but I always think its funny when someone says “extremely evil”. Sauron, Voldermort, Gannondorf, Moriarty, Kore- all evil, sure. But no where near “extremely”. More like “mildly”. I know true evil. I’ve seen its face, and lived under it. Since Grrl Power is a comedic comic, I wouldn’t get into it here, but if you want to get a hold of me elsewhere (I’m always Viirin or Viirinsoftworks), I won’t hold back.
I would never cheapen real experiences, of such sort, by comparison to fantasy ones. And you have my sincerest sympathy for having such experiences yourself.
What I actually had in mind was one of the Egyptian gods, who was technically undead but, if I remember correctly, was not even classed as evil, in D&D terms.
Evil is not an absolute term though. Whilst it does indicate a state worse than ‘bad’, there are many many acts which can fall under its heading. Some of which are worse than others. But it would not do to belittle a victim of evil by comparing one to another. Nor does the existence of greater evils lessen the impact of any evil, on the victim. And especially not for those who have experienced the world at its worst. Mind you no evil acts should be tolerated in society.
In roleplaying terms though you certainly can play somebody who does not behave evilly in every act that they do. Someone who, if push comes to shove, can and does resort to evil acts, to achieve their objectives. But who would otherwise act in pleasant and friendly ways. Some historically evil individuals have been known to be caring and loving to their families, for example.
Fantasy gods can do the same. Or they can choose to promote evil, and oppose good, at every opportunity they get. And the more powerful a god the greater the extent of the evil they can perpetrate. Being able to conduct actions in multiple places simultaneously, have various avatars act for them across multiple planes, and affect entire worlds with single actions, gives them the ability to scale up their evil further than (most) mortals can.
As fictional works, they mostly only exist to give heroes something to fight against. Hence why so many writers strive to depict villains to be as evil as possible. Under the theory that the worse the villain the better the hero is, in opposing it. But those are only stories, made for entertainment. So are purely in the abstract, and have no relevance, in comparison to real world suffering.
If you tell me which of these to use to tidy up a URL, I’ll let you choose from two rewards based on that response.
<a href=”https://www.example_website.com”>insert_replacement_text_here</a>
Which will display like this:
Useful sandbox
The web page linked is worth putting in your bookmarks, as it is incredibly handy to test your link, and see if you set it up correctly. Sadly complex websites, like YouTube, cannot be displayed there. But you can at least ensure that the URL’s text replacement is displaying the way you intended. However most (such as any to this comic, pictures, news articles, etc) you can also click the link and see the result within the sandbox.
Once satisfied that it works OK you can copy and paste the link back into the comments here. Or just type it straight here, if you feel confident enough to do that.
Gift Option 1: How much I like your responses
Gift Option 2: How many stars you deserve
He he. I am glad you approved. As an Arnie fan I must choose option 1, with thanks. :-)
Heh…Yorp, if you can find a copy, get `Villains By Necessity’…the story illustrates the Good/Evil concept in a very interesting manner. Basically, in this fantasy world, Good wins…and the world goes to crap.
:-D
I can well believe that. Overly politically correct folks think that they are saintly in forcing their world-view on others. Despite it worsening society, and drastically at times.
OMG! Yorp, we AGREE on something!!! Surely this is a Sign of the Apocalypse!
*wags tail*
*runs for zombie apocalypse shelter*
Sydney DID defeat a boss to get to that loot. She encountered a 700 year old vampire. Sydney uses “annoy”. It’s super effective. She got past the level boss.
I, too, have my VHS copies of pre-special edition Star Wars. And while I do have a VHS player, I have not watched those particular copies in years, for fear of ruining the tapes.
So I just content myself with watching the digital copies of the Despecialized Edition. 1080p quality without any of the awful changes inflicted on us by Lucas’ Neck devouring his creativity.
Thank fuck for nerds, right?
Have VHS of all three pre-special edition Star Wars movies
Those VHS qualify as reliques
https://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=1494
I think you both (and anyone else) have the sacred duty of make backups before… The Dooooom:
https://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub54/estimation_of_LEs.html
Seriously.
A similar problem occurred with film, degrading over time. My dad used to be a film director, and kept a copy of every one he made. Wildlife documentaries, interviews with heads of state, educational films (including one featuring my brother) and government information films.
Memorably a fire-safety one, where the fire brigade were demonstrating the risks of braaivleis, where their demonstration controlled brush-fire leapt the firebreak and became uncontrolled. Requiring dozens of fire-trucks to eventually put it out. But also getting spectacular footage, in the process.
Plus various other documentaries such as the railways (I still recall steam trains going past our house, although I do not remember how common they were, compared to diesel, so it may just be isolated incidents). Along with social ones, such as Zulu ceremonies, news features and other slices of life in the apartheid era.
When the films were nearing the end of their operational lives, my dad investigated transferring them to more durable media. Unfortunately the costs were prohibitive to a private budget. And we were struggling financially at the time, as South Africa blocked emigres from taking money out of the country. So the priority was putting food on the table, for the family.
All the films were all lost.
Calling it now… Kender Trap room.
You think the Hand of Vecna is OP, just try the HEAD of Vecna! https://www.blindpanic.com/humor/vecna.htm
Also, I’m calling the room to house Ingsol’s old stuff he can’t bear to part with (pictures, clothes with ridiculous capes attached, vampire baby booties, etc).
Possibly. But this is just outside of a U.N.-style conference hall. As opposed to being a private residence. So that would seem a bit odd.
However Ingsol is the current chairman, so it is possible that he opted to remain in residence, whilst he holds the post. As the lead table positions rotate, amongst the various races, he will not have been moved in for that long. Which might account for why the overhead storage compartment had not been properly sealed yet.
Entirely possible, but I was just speculating on what would be funniest. It was either the stuff I mentioned, or vampire porn mags, which would amount to neck model magazines.
:-D
There’s a game by the name of Hunted: The Demon’s Forge. One of the (thankfully) very rare creatures you get to fight is a female called a Harridan. If you read the description, they had to cut their own head off as part of a ritual to get their power… and next to the demons, they actually are the second or third most powerful enemy in the game. Oh, and their face is still mounted to their staff… just to add to the creepy factor.
The story of the Head of Vecna does not surprise me. Some people are just gullible, and/or ignorant. I’ve known at least one gamer who didn’t even know what a gazebo was. “I shoot the gazebo!”
The same guy who shot the gazebo is the one who nearly got sick when we were in a McDonalds and talked about masticating in public. “Dude… learn how to use a dictionary.” (Yes, he thought we were talking about masturbating in public.)
I’ve heard the gazebo story, too. That was an instance where the player got exactly what was coming to him.
I just had a thought! Maybe even a good one! Don’t look so surprised – it happens! Occasionally. Very occasionally . . . ☺
Everyone, including DaveB in his comments, has assumed that all of that stuff probably belongs to Ingsol, but why? Wouldn’t he keep that stuff at home? Do we know that he lives there, or is this just the meeting place? In short, is this the Vampire Castle, or the Monster UN Building?
Sydney thinks she’s found a secret room filled with relics and curiosities because the compartment is in a generally inaccessible location and, I guess, because nobody pointed it out to her when she arrived. What if that’s not what it is, though. Maybe it’s just a sort of cloak room where the various delegates to the Twilight Council can stash their stuff before going inside to attend the meeting?
It’s not going to make the haters think any better of her, but what if she were just looking through what was effectively the coats and hats and purses and things of the people inside the meeting room. Since most monsters in movies and folklore don’t need weapons because they’ve got fangs and such like, maybe there’s nothing up there that’s more dangerous and scary than a loud sports coat!
Just a thought . . .
Good idea. Whilst there is a good chance you are right, there is an alternative conclusion though. Especially given the ‘no fighting in the council chamber’ rule. This is the locker, where they check their weapons, and anything else dangerous enough to be barred from the chamber!
The quiver does support that supposition.
Then shouldn’t there be a “Coat Check Girl” from hell standing guard over these things?
Can’t you see Bluey, the fire mephit?
….
Actually, I just noticed supporting evidence. The title of this page. “Blues closet”. Punctuation obviously omitted for pun porpoises.
So, Sydney should be looking out for this guy?
Actually, Blue is a girl, and she does live in a closet, with a whole heap of weird items
Maybe that isn’t such a good idea?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36WEn-9zs1U
Indeed. Sydney may be counting on the fact that Indiana Jones was able to pick it up safely. It was only drinking from the chalice which was deadly. Likewise an amulet may need to be worn, to work.
Not a wise course of action though, either way.
Why isn’t she yellow orbing those things?
Because she is both acting impulsively and wanted to do a piece to the 4th wall, which was much more effective with a prop in hand.
Sydney has severe issues with impulse control. Just as Sherlock Holmes was a drug addict. Everyone has their flaws. And the most interesting characters have more than their fair share.
so. I said this in a previous comment but I’m going to have to put this here. I know that if i were a good person i’d go back and find the comment, but we have to keep in mind here that sydney has not had any meaningful sleep in about 72 hours at this point. Not only that but she had PT where she pushed herself to the point of collapse. Sydney is physically and mentally exhausted. As someone who lives with ADHD I can promise you that that magnifies the symptoms about tenfold. Not only that but her medication has worn off. If you are used to medication helping you focus having it quit on you -seriously- messes you up.. So right now she’s effectively at ADHD x 20 in addition to the normal problems associated with sleep deprivation. Picture being drunk and withdrawing at the same time. THAT is what this girl is dealing with right now.
Sleep deprivation. Good point. So noted. (and new job stress, recently introduced to the wonderful world of battles to the potential death post battlewhattles, paparazzi intrusion, various information overloads and world altering info at that, her period, etc… yeah, fun fun last couple days )
Not just worn off, but replaced with a medication that MIGHT have unusual side-effects, to the point that she thought “Muppet Maxima” was the real deal. Further, you know the reason why she had less than two hours effective sleep BEFORE being thrust into PT, and hyped up the wazoo on caffeine, under Max’s orders, and the medication wore off in the first place? Because Maxima had her dragged to a freaking night-club during her “down time” the night before, deliberately setting up a situation where she was way, way, way over-stimulated, AND COULD NOT LEAVE until the wee hours of the morning, and then, rather than let her go home, where she could take a shower and de-stress, all but ordered her to go sleep at ARC HQ, a completely unfamiliar environment, again with too much new and interesting stimulation, with the threat of the beginning of basic training looming the following morning. Naturally, even without ADHD, her mind would not wind down and let her sleep. So there you go. So even after one hour’s nap, she’s handling things MUCH better than most people in her situation.
HA! Tell that to any new recruit at any military organization’s basic training! How many do you think get excused from PT and a *very* full day of all kinds of new crap they never imagined before that stretches out months ahead just because they didn’t get a solid 8 hours of rack time?
She’s not sleep deprived. She’s had a couple energetic days with short sleep. Same as any college kid cramming the weekend before finals…or the weekend after finals. Hell, the average med school resident gets what, 2, 3 hours of uninterrupted sleep at a go for *how* long? And these are the people you expect to save your lives or fix your boo-boos. You go to an emergency room with a spurting stump, you okay with the resident bouncing off the walls and going, “Like, Oh My God, you’re bleeding! All over your shirt, your shirt is wetter than my prom date’s at the Prom Night Wet T-Shirt Contest, and let me tell you, your breasts are *so* much nicer than hers and I thought hers were awesome and…” No, you’d use your working hand to dial a lawyer to file malpractice.
But Sydney gets a pass because she’s had a couple days of short sleep? Not *no* sleep where she’s being hosed down with ice water every time her eyes close. Seriously, look up sleep deprivation and its symptoms…Sydney is not exhibiting them. This is Sydney the spastic six year old with no filters and no limits, and everyone invested in her is busy pulling stuff out of their butts to excuse her execrable behavior. Meanwhile, everyone else is thinking, “Yanno, God invented duct tape for a reason and we just found it.”
“Awake for 36 hours”…not Sydney’s situation at all. She just had a nap a few hours ago; Max sent her there, remember? Because her behavior was not at ALL like she’s currently exhibiting. She got a couple hours sleep after the night club; more the night before. For us it’s been months; for Sydney it’s a busy weekend. If Sydney had been running for a week or more on two and three hours sleep, it’d be a bit more believable. But two days? C’mon…
Please reread my whole comment more carefully.
Sydney falls into the situation described in the second paragraph, due to (by your assessment) having “partial, or low-level, sleep deprivation”.
Whereas the first paragraph is there to show how seriously complete sleep deprivation affects residents (such as the writer was, at the time being recounted).
Yet the study found that Sydney’s type of sleep deprivation is worse than that!
Dude, if you think two nights of short sleep qualifies as `sleep deprivation’…I’d bet everyone on the boards would qualify, especially if they have young children. *Every* military recruit would, as would every cop, doctor, fireman, EMT, and anyone working overtime to pay the rent. Not to mention the guys with a needy girlfriend, or multiple girlfriends, or needy guy friends.
Yes, sleep deprivation is serious and has horrific consequences. Even the low level in your second paragraph…however, you neglect to provide the time frame to qualify; it has to be a recurring ongoing issue of (I think) two weeks or more.
Two days, Yorp. Two. The same number of days in a single normal weekend. I can’t speak for every geek here, of course, but I bet the vast majority have pulled more than one all-nighter at the gaming table (or console, or computer), caught a couple hours before getting dragged out of bed to hit Denny’s and do it all again.
Two *not* sleepless days makes her sleep deprived? If that’s the case, I’d hate to see Sydney with a papercut…we’re talking emergency room, LifeFlight, and possible long-term physical rehab…with psychotic breaks every time she sees a comic book because she’s *traumatized*…
I’m not making light of any of the issues under discussion; only arguing against their applying to Sydney to excuse or justify her behavior in this arc.
You seriously underestimate the dangerousness of inadequate sleep. Even a single night‘s missed seep can have deadly consequences!
No one is saying Sydney gets a free pass
Well, no one except the Anti-Sydney Lobby, and that’s just in passing to condemn her further
Maxima didn’t order her to go to the night club? She got talked into it with peer pressure, the promise of easy money, the idea that it would take too long and she would didn’t know she would have sleeping issues afterwards, etc…
@DaveB on Patreon page 463 has the original version where Sydney’s choker is missing.
Ooh, ooh. Regarding the previously mentioned fascinating interview about the voice, and its properties. I just found out that although the complete programs are not still available, the key parts, with the interview are. Likewise for when the guests were invited back.
Whilst this is of most interest to those who are into music, and other vocal performances, even I, as somebody more visually oriented, was absorbed by those programs. And they are highly informative on the subject.
I have a bad feeling this will lead to trouble.
So say we all, the major differing being: does she deserve it?
For all of you saying Sydney is being a dick here, there are many points in Sydney’s defense.
1. All things considered, Sydney has handled the situation very well. Upon discovering that fairy tail sapients were VERY real, she took it in stride and even socialized well with the local clientele. She did not even bat an eye at the carapace-covered dude, and even was genuinely curious about everyone’s life, only making the occasional rude joke.
2. As everyone pointed out, she is fuckall tired. This leads to poor decisions being made, even in the best of people. Those with already bad judgement even more so. But even still, prior to this one piece, her one failing was failing to become serious once it was needed, a failing she has shown in the past before. While she was friendly, she was too friendly at the wrong moment.
3. She should not be at this meeting. At all. This is Maxima’s failing. All Sydney would have needed was a quick debriefing that needed to say, “Hey, there are monsters, fairies, and aliens who are all living here relatively peacefully, and we need you to not out them.” Bringing Sydney into a coven on a rather important diplomatic meeting when her BIGGEST problem right now is being properly diplomatic is ASKING for something to go wrong. She should have met the council at a social gathering in which the worst she could have done is made herself look like an ass, and where her over-friendliness would have been a boon rather than a major hindrance.
4. In this comic, yes Sydney is being a dick. While I get curiosity, this is a bit excessive and extremely rude (like finding someone’s porn stash and then preceding to go through it while they are busy), not to mention potentially dangerous. This one comic here is the only one I don’t get.
4. It’s only extremely rude if they get caught with their pants down and ‘matters in hand’, also if they manage to ‘glue’ the pages together :P
4. is a nod to the role-playing gaming community. Taking the wee out of players habits of looting anything that is not bolted down. Then getting out bolt cutters, and taking that too. And the bolts.
Both the last panel, and the reference to Vecna’s hand, are also a call-back to Sydney asking Dabbler to chop off her arm, and replace it with a cybernetic one, in order to gain access to ‘Hammer Space’. It is worth noting Sydney coming to her senses, in the final panel.
On this page Halo is just reestablishing her hard-core gamer cred. We think differently to other people,* hence why this would not play well except to the target audience.
* I once literally offered my resignation because the company I worked for had renaged on a verbal deal that if I worked at Christmas I could attend Gen-Con (which was during the peak holiday season). “I will have worked off my notice period before Gen-Con.” Then walked out of the managers office. It was no bluff. I immediately started to write up my formal notice.
Before I finished it, the manager called me back in. She had managed to find a way of rearranging the holiday schedule. Had she not though, attending Gen-con was genuinely a greater priority for me than keeping a well-paid job.
In the last panel she sounds like she is talking herself INTO doing the bad thing??
Doing what a hard core gamer might do for one exact type of game, lots of others where this set-up would inspire caution, and even in that one type you would probably want the rest of your group on hand in case the abilities you have aren’t up to the challenge of detecting all the potential traps/curses/whatever and you need someone to A) keep an extra set of senses and powers out to look for such B) deal with the fallout/healing of failed checks.
Unless she has the gaming habit of taking risks to “ninja” the loot whenever her group isn’t around. (in which case she also has bad gaming morals in addition to potential rl morals! LOL )
But ANYWAY, she is just “playing” with them not looting them.
So she’s just being dangerously childish not full on amoral. Safety wise, as an adult intelligent person, she should know better than to wander around a powerful beings home screwing with his potentially quite powerful trinkets. These items may have been left somewhat accessible because they aren’t the most valuable or irreplaceable of his things and he only invites allies that have enough experience to know better than to play with such things but that doesn’t mean they are not dangerous. Guess its the equivalent of not child proofing your home and locking away all the chemicals that are hazardous to drink cause you normally never have unsupervised small children wandering around.
But the new line of reasoning I’ve seen popping up in the comments. The ones that combine Sydney’s unique type of mind with all the crap she’s been through lately that might be eroding said mind (it probably doesn’t help that I am often almost as tired as Sydney by the time I make half of these comments! :-P ) and putting more of the blame on Maxima (who in this situation is her supervising “adult”) are making sense although even then I like my “heroines” to have that something extra morally that would, even in this situation, give her a tiny bit of pause… (there’s no reason for her to be that way other than some of us maybe subconsciously wanting our geeky hero to be our grounded innocent goody goody in this team of double agents, sex demons, vigilantes, hardened soldiers, and what all)
So I guess its Maxima’s fault ultimately. She’s the leader (as well as the “adult” who has some idea of what Sydney is like and what she’s been going through [yeah she’s not as weak as the other team members but as leader she should make herself knowledgeable about said squishy mortals/newbies mental and physical weaknesses]) and the buck stops there and all that. (and we do love blaming Maxima)
There that’s good. We’ll just blame Maxima and then try to hang on to that so we can enjoy the silliness with the magic gadgets that is about to unfold. (and hope that one day with training and experience Sydney gains those extra bits to her character that folk were hoping for this time around and then DaveB will enact a similar scenario and we can see how much she’s grown. Character growth. Though as long as it takes to get through a day here that could take a few years… )
1.) By military standards in any organization (and this IS a military organization), Maxima is ultimately responsible for the behavior of her subordinates. So yes, she should be blamed.
2.) Even if 1.) was somehow not in play, Sidney is the way she is right now because Maxima went through a long list of bad decisions, starting with having Sidney dragged off to a night-club and making sure she could not leave, only realizing the potential problem of Sidney’s true vision orb after it was too late.
3.) As has already been pointed out, even if Sidney was at her absolute best, she should not be there, at all, due to lacking clearance, proper briefing beforehand, or otherwise being made aware of the norms and culture of the various entities gathered for this CRITICAL meeting regarding an existential threat to all parties present.
It’s like bringing a casket storing decades-old nitroglycerin, that’s packed in an unlabeled metal barrel using gunpowder as packing material, and keeping it in a corner near a furnace to be forgotten. Maybe nothing will happen. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t like those odds.
Oh, and let’s not forget, Maxima is a freaking Colonel in the armed forces with actual combat experience, she should freaking know better.
All perfectly valid points. Barring the lacking clearance. It has already been established that Halo has been granted top-level clearance, as a necessity, due to her truesight.
Primarily Sydney has to be there though because she is the protagonist. Sitting in a lecture room, being told ‘vampires and werewolves are real’ is boring. However there are some reasonable points which can be made to support Sydney being there.
• Sydney needs to see these beings, so she can avoid giving away state secrets, by a surprise reaction, if spotting one or more, using the truesight orb, whilst in public. Doing so in person is far quicker to become familiar with them and also more reliably as photographs can be misleading.
This alone outweighs all your points. The Twilight Council will be highly supportive of such, and are evidently willing to put up with (inadvertent) rudeness, if it eliminates a major threat to uncovering the Veil. Clearly they were briefed about Sydney, in advance, as Ingsol specifically referenced knowing that she could pierce the Veil.
• Halo also needs to become familiar with the cultures, practices, weaknesses and other less tangible things, about the supernatural. In order to allow her tactical abilities to function effectively. Misconceptions, when facing supernatural threats, could be deadly for her and her teammates. Sydney already has the clearance for this (and very few people do, not even her fellow recruits are in the loop), and has proven her tactical worth on the battlefield, thus makes an ideal candidate to learn these things.
Maxima will have had feedback from Peggy about how well Sydney absorbs information. And will have learnt that she is not a natural book learner (‘at least this manual has pictures’) thus supporting that this is better learnt in person.
• Sydney has managed to learn vital information (such as vampires are killed by sunlight) through her unorthodox behaviour. Whilst some of this may be known by Archon, other aspects might be totally new information.
Ideally Sydney should have been briefed. There are a lot of other things which should ideally have been done too. Such as fully testing her powers. Likewise giving her police procedural training. However the world situation is developing too fast to allow the agenda of one recruit to set when globally important meetings take place.
• Maxima knows that Sydney is all too likely to see combat very soon. Anything which maximises her preparedness has to be given higher priority than petty conerns about rudeness.
• The Twilight Council has dozens or hundreds of member races. They will be used to extreme variation in behaviour, cultures and the like. They will have to be used to coping with that, in order to function as closely as they do. Which is evidenced by how quickly Ingsol (and others) brushed off their irritation, and calmly returned to business.
We can see that Maxima was angry with Sydney, but likewise totally relaxed when returning to council business. They are collectively used to doing this and are unconcerned.
Humans may be bothered about the rudeness but the Twilight Council are not. Ergo Maxima has made a good call.
As regards leaving Sydney unsupervised, Dave does point out that Maxima thought it was an empty corridor. Her pointy ears did not allow her to detect the secret door.
“Anything not nailed down is mine. Anything I can pry loose is not nailed down.” — Kender motto
Sydney does seem to have a few traits in common with Tas.
I mentioned Maxima’s possible lack of leadership credentials above. Ultimately, it *is* Max’s responsibility and therefore, failing, on any number of fronts.
But to address your points in order…
1) Sorry, after the night-club, Sydney already *knew* there were supernaturals out there among the `normal’ populace. She was even aware before the bank that superheroes were out there. This is not completely new ground for her, and her ability to handle everyone at ARC does not jibe with her behavior currently.
2) She’s had a couple days of short sleep. Nowhere near what would be necessary to severely impact her. If her exhaustion is so extreme as to affect her to this extent…she should be exhibiting other symptoms which trump those poor decision-making skills. The mind is willing but the flesh is weak, she *really* wants to get into that room but…wait, where did the last ten minutes go and why am I drooling? And if, as someone mentioned above, she’s currently undergoing ADHDx20…”Look, a door! That car Maxima lifted had a door and did it suffer structural damage from her lifting it and why didn’t the tank Maxima blew up have an actual door no they have hatches I think but not the rabbit kind that’s a hutch and bunnies are cute but at risk from eagles which is our national bird why do we have a national bird in the first place and doesn’t every state have…”
As all good Libras do, though, I have a counter-argument to cover it without the desperation so many seem to feel necessary to excuse Sydney…the orbs. They are obviously bonded to Sydney on more than a physical level, so it is not beyond the realm of possibility they’re working behind the scenes, so to speak, to keep her `functioning’. They do respond to her conscious mind, but if it’s not something she’s currently `ordering’ them to do, they may have a fractured idea of what constitutes `functional’. The orbs *could* also be interacting in a `negative’ way with the effects of the Veil; not consciously using her True Sight, the Veil could be attempting to assert itself; if the orbs interfere…Sydney may not be `herself’ at the moment.
3) Sydney has no need to be at that meeting, and it gets laid at Maxima’s feet. Or desk. Wherever; Maxima is where that particular buck stops. However, Maxima *may* have been ordered to include Sydney, over Max’s objections. We don’t know what went into the decision to include Sydney. My personal feeling is the Powers That Be are using her as a diplomatic weapon…so the Council is effectively forced into dropping the Veil and going public. After all, if someone *that* spastic knows about us, it’s only a matter of a very short time before she’s tells *everyone*, and with her current place in the media spotlight, the Veil may not be able to handle the sudden surge in the collective conscious…damnit, I guess we have to come out of the casket!
However, if it *was* Maxima’s decision to include Sydney…not the right call.
4) This is one of many examples of Sydney being a `dick’ in this arc. Yes, yes…poor impulse control, ADHD, blah-blah-blah…but she is obviously able to control herself in order to *not* leap to the defense of the blood donor when he is attacked right beside her. At the time of the attack, she didn’t know it was consensual. Did she not have the impulse to help a man being attacked (as far as she knew at the time), or was she aware that she was ordered to be on `good behavior’? She leaped immediately to save the doctor when she thought her bindi (is that the right term?) was a sniper’s laser…no thought, just the imperative to save and protect. Why was that not in view when a man is attacked right beside her? It just seems…to me, anyway…to be a huge contradiction of character…she can’t control *these* impulses but *can* control THAT one, never mind we’ve already seen her *not* ignore it, for a far lesser reason.
I’m sure it will all make sense when we look back from the next arc, but right now…? This is not a Sydney I, personally, can like very much, no matter what excuses are made.
Why do you conclude that? Sydney learnt a LOT in that meeting. Yet no hard feelings remained in evidence, from those in the chamber.
Yes you, and other readers, have been irritated by Sydney’s rudeness, but Maxima is not making her judgements on what will keep you happy.
Maxima is prioritising things that will keep Halo and her teammates alive and able to do their jobs effectively. Which we can see already. And it is clear that Archon are going to imminently be involved in resolving the damaged sigil crisis. For which Sydney is now well briefed.
Duly noted, and I do have sympathy with that, despite offering those excuses.
She has fairly automatically violent reactions when she is messed with directly but when dealing with others a hair removed from her immediate person and not focused on her maybe she looses the automatic initiative bonus? Perhaps seeing two seemingly normal hot girls she was having a pleasant conversation with suddenly start eating someone a few feet away has more chance to put her into shocked indecision mode than slowly coming to the realization that there is this odd red dot on someones forehead, what does that mean?, and aren’t I in a special forces type place now? SNIPER! (That must be a fairly brightly colored dot)
As far as her being there, I’ve mostly been one solid foot in the “she shouldn’t be there this early and the reasons, so far, haven’t been good enough to contradict the risks” camp.(though my reasons are focused more in other areas than yours) But if we find out that ARC had enough foreknowledge of this new threat to talk it over amongst the higher ups and decide that Sydney’s power set might be uniquely capable of helping with this issue and therefore she should be in on it from the start (and start making acquaintances with potential suspects, etc… ) it could go a ways toward making it at least feel like a legit decision.
Unique powersets make for uniquely risky decisions with raw recruits if the situation is dire enough.
+1
Which medical school did you graduate from? You seem to know how much sleep deprivation anyone can go through before it adversely affects them, did your Thesis get published? You have to be a well-known expert on the matter to be able to state that with a certainty
That goes both ways, right?
And just in case it’s an observation about debates, not about Syd.
Not claiming anything as being definitive, that’s the difference
Both sides have been doing definitive statements about she being/not being severely/not enough affected by sleep deprivation. The fair thing is to request credentials to both or to none.
BTW Syd is sleep deprivated, there’s objective prove about that, no debate. How much is affecting her? We don’t have enough information, no debate. Whatever said without a test or, second best, knowing her normal sleep habits is just speculation. Both ways.
Similar to all the other points raised, not to said plain contradictions with in-universe facts.
It has been shown in-universe just how badly Sydney is being affected. In the meeting about her super powers, something she is obsessed with, she was so tired she fell asleep, long enough to start dreaming!
The brief nap was more than offset by the lengthy flight to New York. During which Sydney had to remain constantly alert, being the ‘pilot’ and having to make frequent landings, to refresh the air.
We know that this must have taken hours, as it started in daylight and ended at night. Further flying into urban areas, in twilight and nighttime conditions, is highly challenging and stressful even for experienced pilots! That test flight, on its own, would exhaust somebody.
Other activities included being debriefed by Lucas (along with the stress that comes with reflecting on her potentially criminal activities, and the possible punishments for that), being mobbed by fans (and feeling harassed by questions about her sex life) along with the restaurant meal and injuring herself.
Culminating in the notorious Muppet hallucination prank. Where the combination of sleep deprivation and having to exceed her dosage of medication,* meant that Sydney was unable to distinguish it from reality!
Those are severe symptoms!
But it did not end there. The situation then starts to get complicated, by even more factors, beyond just the sleep deprivation and medication. A high-speed, low-altitude, chase flight occurred. Along with a head injury. Subsequently fainting, due to culture shock.
Sydney’s tiredness being both increased and countered by stimulation from lengthy conversations, with beings of all sorts. Including hostile scenes, most of them directed at her. And unexpectedly seeing somebody violently attacked by vampires! That certainly shocked me, and clearly alarmed Sydney. Not to mention succumbing again, to culture shock, by cowering behind a chair, and rocking in distress.
Just how many symptoms are required to prove that Sydney has been severely affected, both mentally and emotionally‽‽‽
* It is worth noting that the medication did not have time to kick in, leaving sleep deprivation as the only physiological factor. Whilst the psychological is hard to quantify, it still lends credence that sleep deprivation is likely to be the dominant factor, of the two.
I don’t agree with your arguments but I also don’t find this debate’s spirit attractive.
Should be a reply to Yorp :(
BTW just in case it’s not clear I’m not supporting either side.
Speaking only for me, I’m enjoying the debate and am not engaging in it from a sense of outrage or offense. I disagree with many points but freely acknowledge the only person whose opinions on the subject that matter are Dave B’s. For me, this is a way to be `involved’ with the comic while waiting for the next page or ten.
My main `argument’ is the sleep deprivation excuse; as I see it, it’s a wild weekend. Months for us, two short days for Sydney. Going from falling asleep in class to…this? Maxima Muppet Meh to…this? The change in behavior does not seem credible to me, given what we’ve seen.
As for culture shock…it is to laugh. One experiencing culture shock does not ask a were-dire-wolf to do Blue Steel. That whole page sets the tone that Sydney is *not* in culture shock, she’s in Geek Heaven. And the cowering behind the chair was a one panel throwaway funny.
There’s a lot going on we haven’t seen, but for me, too many things about Sydney’s behavior in this arc don’t fit with what we’ve already seen of her character. She’s impulsive with a good heart…sits there while vampires attack an `innocent’ man beside her, acting as if it were on a par with them giving handjobs under the table.,,if that bad. She goes from that to Ronald Horshack (or Ed Gruberman, for those that get the reference)…
And for me, discussing it, even from opposing viewpoints, is a compliment to DaveB. We’re not sitting there waiting to be spoonfed; we’re involved in the story and the character. I figure that’s a pretty good compliment for the author.
I agree that it is a credit to the writing that such a passionate and lengthy debate has occurred over the simple matter of politeness. It is a pleasure debating with y’all.
*tips hat*
Duly noted. And I am sorry about that. Perhaps this would have been an instance where I would have been better just sticking to ‘this is a comedy comic, don’t take it too seriously”.
Especially as I too do not approve of rude behaviour. So it does not sit well with me defending it. I should, to proceed in a better spirit, also indicate that I do not exonerate Sydney completely. I am simply working on the principle of not condemning her, whilst the shadow of a doubt remains.
In this case I think there are several shadows, and they are murky enough, to indicate that she is not wholly of sound mind. If somebody’s judgement is impaired, sufficient to influence their actions*, then I feel they should be given the benefit of the doubt.
* Not necessarily control.
What I didn’t like was the way the debate itself was going and how loosely arguments were used. The topic I have no problem with, it do was worthy to be analized.
“I feel they should be given the benefit of the doubt.”
Well, I never said that I did not agree with your opinion</i :)
No, she knew there were aliens and people with super abilities out there. Aside from Dabbler (who is part alien), she did not know that werewolves and vampires and fae and (insert creature here) were real.
And before Dabbler, she didn’t know aliens existed…didn’t freak (more than normal). Saw Maxima at the bank, didn’t melt down. Saw Hiro without his shirt, didn’t faint. Saw a were-dire-wolf, went fangirl photographer on him. All of that taken together does not lead me to conclude Sydney’s boundaries on `reality’ are all that rigid. She’s obviously got a very flexible and open mind.
Are you sure?
Sydney has snapped back from her breakdowns. So far. And returns to humour to cover her lapses and insecurities. But the cracks in her facade have shown several times.
If this were not a comedy comic, and if Sydney was not a super hero, I would be concerned that one day (and possibly soon) she will not snap back. With dire consequences, in a darker story.
However this is a comedy, so we can chill.
Yorp, I think we’ve arrived at the actual crux of our intellectual conflict, encapsulated in your second paragraph. This *is* a comedic superhero comic; I think my opposition stems from we readers attempting to imprint `real world’ on an imaginary construct, sometimes to a ludicrous degree.
Honestly, Sydney and Maxima could leave ARC next week for a lucrative career of modeling thong underwear, no matter *how* out of character it may appear to us. They only do what DaveB has them do for whatever reason he has them do it.
Being greedy little bastiches, though, we try to assume a form of control however flimsy, until DaveB either proves us right, wrong, or something of both. We *think* we know Sydney and what she’s like and why…but we don’t. You (as an example) see her one way and support her behavior (not support like condone, but support as in supplying `valid’ expanations for that behavior). I see her a different way, and support her behavior from that perspective.
Point is, we’re each supporting `our’ view of Sydney. You see culture shock, I see Geek Heaven. You see breakdowns, I see comedic throwaway panels. You see her as sweet and nice; I see her as a little rude and self-absorbed…and really, none of those qualities are mutually exclusive.
Personally, I agree you make valid points on many fronts; but given this *is* a comedic superhero story, those points seem to be stretching too hard to apply real-world mundanity to superhero zaniness.
As mentioned a few times, I suspect the Veil more than any medical or real-world psychological explanations. I don’t *think* DaveB would establish Sydney’s character as thoroughly as he has, only to try for an M. Night `twist’ to say, “Hey, she was cool but guess what….now she’s BROKEN! MUAHAHAHA!”
I, at least, don’t want a broken Sydney. I don’t want long-term psychological ramifications; I want Sydney being cute and funny and excitable and exciting. I’m pretty sure none of us want Sydney to follow Emo Peter in Spiderman 3. *If* all the real-world problems being bandied about *are*, in fact, affecting Sydney to this degree…well, the military would call her `unfit for duty’ and at best give her a decent stretch of recuperative leave, complete with mandatory medical and psychological counseling.
Because, as had been noted, all those problems have the capability of rendering her a danger to herself and others.
Now, being as this is a comedic superhero comic, how many of us want to see Sydney benched for possibly months if not forever? Because in the real world, she would be. I will surrender horse and foot, Yorp; every symptom and issue is absolutely affecting Sydney. In return, *you* take those horrific issues to their logical real-world conclusion. Based on her behavior in this arc, she’s medically unfit for duty. Obviously. Sleep deprivation alone is going to require a lengthy period of observation and likely medication in order to assure it isn’t going to continue to affect her.
Me, I prefer to think DaveB has something worked out that fits with a comedic superhero story, not the real world.
But just so you know, I do enjoy the discussion. Maybe it’s an exercise in futility, but it’s fun.
Very nicely put. And we do have overlaps in our opinions of Sydney.
In an ideal situation, Sydney certainly should have time off for assessment of PTSD, culture shock and more. Along with suitable recovery time.
Sadly military needs often outweigh the risks of pushing personnel beyond their limits. Halo has a shield that is impervious to supernatural abilities (eg. aggro aura, teleportation and energy attacks) and Archon is desperately in need of that capability, along with the True Sight and others which only Sydney possesses.
This is one of the reasons why Maxima does give Sydney as much lassitude as has been demonstrated. Whilst Sydney is having fun, and enjoying her working day, it is helping to offset the trauma and shock, without having to take R&R. There are prices to pay for that though, as evidenced in this arc.
If she can’t fulfill a simple mission without causing havoc, she’s not an asset, she’s a liability and should/would be pulled. Real world problems, real world consequences…even a shit-hot SEAL will be yanked from the teams if he’s not able to operate within the necessary parameters. He can be the best shot in the world but if he has Taco Bell before a drop, he gets yanked and they go with the second best shot. His gas could reveal their presence to the enemy and compromise the security of the team and mission.
And Sydney’s not the best shot in the world. She’s brand new weapon fresh out of the crate…she has infrared scopes, accuracy to 1500 yards, zero recoil, an extended magazine, *and* a heated holder for your coffee. All that and a bag of chips…except when you power it up, it emits a squeal that pinpoints your presence to anyone within a mile. You don’t carry on missions with faulty equipment or personnel; usually there’s too much riding on the outcome. Given that ARC is relatively new, they have more than enough time to make sure the operatives they allow in the field are competent. They don’t have to be or have the biggest guns…they just need to be able to do their job.
In this arc, we’re seeing Sydney failing to meet that criteria. Sydney’s usefulness balanced against (for example) Dabbler or Heatwave or Anvil being injured (or worse) because Sydney was incompetent? I’ve had dealings with a few special operators, and their one core tenet is you do *not* jeopardize the team. Their job is difficult enough and depends on *everyone* doing it reliably…
In real world terms, if that’s how DaveB decides to go, Sydney’s going to get someone killed or crippled. At which point the rest of the team refuses to work with her because they won’t guarantee a building won’t mysteriously fall on her during their next mission.
So…yeah. Severe ADHD, sleep deprivation, medication dependency, culture shock…all lead to one or more team-mates dying and missions being failed. Because none of those issues supposedly affecting her are cured by a tub of ice cream and a long nap. We’re talking weeks, at least, followed by a lot of testing to make sure they aren’t going to resurface. Those issues *would* explain her behavior in this arc…granting a lot of latitude in definition…but you can’t apply real-world issues without also applying real-world consequences.
Me, I don’t think DaveB is going to go that way. I could be wrong, but right now, I doubt it.
No argument, with regular personnel. However if you are in a situation where you are facing powerful magic using opponents, you have a problem. There is nobody on the team who is resistant to magic.
Several can use it, but their most powerful magic using team member is Dabbler. Who is not very good in any one field. Heavenly Sword outfought her in sword fighting, for instance. So she would be outclassed by even one magically powerful individual, let alone a whole faction!
Most notably it is one of Maxima’s vulnerabilities. We saw her being affected by the aggro aura. She would make the enemy a powerful pawn, if they used magic to control her. Likewise Achilles would be impervious to any physical damage, but we have no indication that he could resist sleep, mind control or any other non-physical spells.
I assure you that if there is only one way of achieving something, the military will take it, rather than suffer worse consequences.
We saw this at the end of WWII. Suffer millions of allied lives lost, for another year or more of fighting. Or drop the atom bomb, and kill two cities worth of civilians? We know how that one turned out.
Plus you are extending Sydney’s problems more than is apparent. Her problems to date have been the impaired judgement combined with her normal wacky behaviour, in social circumstances. In a life-or-death battle, we have seen that she gets serious quick. As Shadow Boxer’s blackened testicles can testify.
Yes her judgement would still be impaired, but she would still be able to function and provide two vital functions, for which there is NO SUBSTITUTE. Nobody else has truesight (or anything like it). And no one has protection against magic, psionics and teleportation (etc).
Personally I do not think this is a big issue, for the reason that Sydney steps up her game, in a crisis. Plus her constantly shifting attention can then become an asset, rather than a hindrance, as we have seen. Likewise the impulsiveness, which caused some of her problems here, when fortified by adrenaline and the seriousness imparted by a life-or-death situation, can become decisiveness.
I should add *that’s* my real major objection to Sydney suffering all these ailments. I don’t want her benched, as she `realistically’ should and would be. By using real-world ailments, logically you must also apply real-world reactions and consequences.
I mean, seriously…in the GrrlVerse, people can fly and lift 90 tons without throwing out their back and bras are entirely unnecessary. Dabbler can probably invent a pill that cures ADHD *and* gives Sydney a couple cup sizes. Instead we struggle to apply our knowledge of science on a world where our science is demonstrably inadequate.
I just don’t want Sydney broken and benched.
Yea, Dave is aware of this. All the outspoken dislike for her rudeness will have been noted. And he did point out in his blog that he should have had Maxima rein her in better earlier. Maxima is on a learning curve. By pushing Sydney to her limits, she is finding out where they are and how she copes. Or fails to.
Take heart though, they will find ways to cope, I am sure.
*wags tail confidently*
Yeah, I’m pretty sure DaveB is going to handle it…reliably. Not sure how else to put it. Ideally, I could see both Maxima *and* Sydney called to account, as Sydney’s behavior calls into question Maxima’s own ability to control her personnel. The military (I think it’s been decided ARC qualifies as a paramilitary police agency) and most other forms of bureaucracy do NOT accept a lot of excuses for screwing up. Get caught falling asleep on guard duty because you haven’t slept more than an hour a night for a week? No excuse, run his ass up the flagpole! You were watching that VTOL craft because you’ve never seen one before and it’s so awesome? No excuse, run her ass up the flagpole!
None of Sydney’s issues will realistically absolve her of anything. ADHD? Why isn’t it controlled with meds? Oh, new meds? Did you let your commanding officer know how they were affecting you? Where’s the chit from sick bay? There’s no warning here saying it can cause abnormal behavior. Culture shock? You’re in ARC-SWAT honey, not grade school, we can’t afford you freaking out every time you see something new. Two days of short sleep? You’ll sleep plenty when you’re dead, sunshine, and that might be sooner than you’d like if you can’t put on your Big Girl Panties and deal. Now, Recruit Scoville, I *suggest* you go away and think really long and hard about whether you *really* want to be a part of ARC-SWAT…because right now, your behavior indicates you don’t give a crap about it *or* the team-mates your behavior puts at risk. Yes, yes, you have an inpenetratable shield; we know. We also know it has a limited air supply and I have ten snipers in relay just waiting for your air to get stale. Test us, Ms Scoville.
And Maxima is going to leave her own meeting walking with a noticeable limp because Baby Won’t Have Nearly So Much Back coming out as she did going in. The buck stops with *her*; Sydney’s failures are Maxima’s failures. She *should* have reined Sydney in earlier, but Maxima is a bit arrogant her own self and as long as *she* finds Sydney amusing or tolerable…yeah, that attitude doesn’t fly on a diplomatic front. I like to think Maxima is better than that, and in my perfect world, she was ordered to include Sydney over her own objections. What Sydney might learn is nothing compared to the diplomatic disaster she could cause…intentional or not. We already know the Council isn’t unified on any particular front, and Sydney is more napalm on easily-combustible substances than she is oil on water.
Personally, I want Sydney to learn her lessons a bit more gently, without the more dire consequences we can clearly imagine. In my Perfect World, I can see Sydney `enjoying’ a massive butt-chewing that thoroughly disheartens her, then Peggy taking her aside to explain things in more Sydney-esque terms.
If someone threatened to shoot me, for being inadvertently rude, I would find employ elsewhere, at the earliest legal opportunity. Preferably somewhere that opposed the organisation behaving in such an oppressive manner.
That sniper thing was to counteract your argument that Sydney is so much more necessary than every other character her behavior puts at risk. She is *not* invulnerable; she has weak points and in a worst-case scenario, the villains may very well know them and exploit them…or just stumble on them for Dramatic Tension.
And being inadvertently rude and thereby starting a war? Or even heightening tensions with a hopeful ally/allies? You think ARC-SWAT or the governments funding them are going to chuckle and say, “That Sydney! What a scamp!” No, they’re going to be all, “You lock her down and you lock her down *hard*! Because if this blows up in our face and we need someone to blame, I want her where we can get our hands on her! And just start building a containment cell for her; save time later.”
Because we all know governments and bureaucracies are known for their senses of humor and kind understanding natures.
What you have demonstrated is a lack of understanding of a condition. In addition to a lack of empathy in failing to recognise that it is happening.
If somebody does not have full control of their cognitive abilities, then you cannot affect that aspect of their behaviour with threats.
You remind me of a close friend, who had a similar disagreement with me. I contested that I had a mental condition which impaired my ability to recall names (or substituted incorrect ones). He maintained that it was just a lack of mental discipline, on my part. Then listed a bunch of techniques he used.
Not one of which was unfamiliar to me. Having tried to use every one of them, for many years. The most I could end up with is emulating someone with a poor memory for names. Thus covering up the severity of my condition.
Much like you, no matter how may times or how many approaches I used, he never varied from his decision. “It can always be controlled, if you put the effort in”.
Up until he had a car crash, and ended up with bits of his skull embedded into the parts of his brain which affected memory. Then he too found that there were things he could not remember. No matter how much effort he put in.
I take no satisfaction in him learning that mind. It was too high a price to pay.
Hopefully though it might make you do a double-think. Not everyone is as lucky as you. Some people do have conditions (be it susceptibility to sleep deprivation, ADHD or any of the mitigating factors Sydney is suffering from at the moment) which inhibit, impair or otherwise alter their cognitive function and thereby their behaviour.
What such individuals need is help, not threats.
Am I the only one that is slightly worried about the fact that this reliquary had a Water Candle inside it?
Maybe that’s how they transport the bulk of the Council members there?
What’s a water candle? I thought it might ve a blue flame. Ingsol refference.
I’m not sure if I got his name right.
It is from the game Terraria.
Nope.
I was going on the idea that setting it off would help spawn monsters making it easier for the Council member races to get there but maybe if a monster uses it you have a higher hero spawn rate instead? (seems to be working tonight)
:-D
What’s that thing with two points in the attic at the bottom right, if it’s not spoilery?
A “dead space marker” apparently, as identified by Tabitha Desanto.
Nah, too small, more likely a statue of Anubis
I’m thinking it’s Egyptian?
That would correspond with Gusticus‘s initial assumption. Which without other information to go by would have been a very fair guess. But judge for yourself.
No spoilers involved, if it is correct, by the way. As with the amulet in Sydney’s hand, both are just references for folks who are keen of eye and familiar with the appropriate sources. There are at least five on this page alone, in one form or another. One of which Dave provided a link for, in his blog.
Sleep deprivation has been mentioned a lot and several times in a… err… not totally scientific manner. If anyone is curious about the topic, this is the clearer and more comprehensive article that I was able to find:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2656292/
Be aware that it’s unlikely that it can be used as argument in this page’s topic in either way:
“Conclusion
[…] In partial SD, a more thorough evaluation of higher cognitive functions is needed. Furthermore, the effects of SD have not been thoroughly compared among some essential subpopulations.”
Also have to take into consideration that Sydney is not only under the influence of Sleep Deprivation
*sigh*
Dang this comment section got out of control this page…
First off, for the love of God people CRITICISM DOES NOT EQUAL HATE!
No one reading this hates Sydney or this comic in general. In fact, jumping to those conclusions says a lot more about you than those who are criticizing.
Secondly, in response to the defense of “well she is sleep deprived”!
I once went without sleep for almost a full 50 hours and I didn’t randomly lose all sense of decorum or develop sociopathic tendencies. You know what I did by accident? I fell asleep.
Agrecian, criticism does not always equal hate, but some people are going beyond ‘mere’ annoyance or critique
Like said above: Sydney is not only Sleep Deprived, that’s just one of a few negative conditions she is currently under
And all Sydney has done is misjudge a couple of jokes. Barring the failing to keep her mouth shut, after making her sincere apology. The latter being such a severe lapse, coming so immediately after her telling off that I, personally cannot attribute that somebody, who is normally intelligent, would do that. Unless there was something impairing their judgement.
Hence listing the mitigating factors which I could identify for that. But no need to reiterate them all again. However Sydney has several things working against her, rather than just the one. So bear in mind that I am replying to this on the basis that it is one of several factors. One of which is worsened by sleep deprivation, thus making it even harder for Sydney, than an average person.
Please note that people go to jail, for doing things whilst sleep deprived. Such as crashing their car and killing somebody. They too often show patterns of such behaviour. Thinking that because they got away with it before, they will do again. Whilst ignoring all the minor slips and close calls they had. Not to mention all the ones that they failed to recognise, because of being less alert than normal.
That falling asleep? Try to avoid doing that whilst at the wheel of a moving car.
True.
Speaking on my part I have felt no animosity. Far from it. People are so passionate about the issue because they do not want to see their heroine behaving badly. So these are fans who deeply care about the comic. Therefore it is a pleasure to debate the issues with them.
Broadly speaking one camp is “Heroes should be able to fully control their own behaviour”. Whereas the other is “Sometimes even heroes will be in circumstance where their judgement is impaired”. These are fundamentally different positions, which heavily influence the arguments and approaches taken. And help to polarise the points of view.
It is sad when the former camp feel that our heroine is a bad person. Hence why I try to argue the latter corner so doggedly. But clearly shifting people’s opinions is not happening. As I feel that the body of my arguments are sound, yet people are not budging, I think I am hitting the above stated polarised wall, created by differing underlying philosophies on the matter.
Which I am cool with, now that I have recognised that. Superheroes represent our ideals. And Sydney is falling short of those. No excuses will be accepted.
I have the opinion that it’s way more basic:
– Syd does goofy things.
A) Heh, Syd’s behavior is adorable, I like her.
B) Ew, Syd’s behavior is annoying, I don’t like her.
– Syd does something questionable.
A) Oh, should be a logical reason, she can’t possibly be bad.
B) See? Of course she would end being trouble, she can’t possibly be good.
– Multiple analysis and arguments are presented.
A) No, all you say is wrong or fanatic attitude, she is like I see her.
B) No, all you say is wrong or fanatic attitude, she is like I see her.
Everything else is just rationalization. But, yeah, just my take :)
But breaking down when you look through the comments, for this comic page, and see instances of people declaring themselves to be in A) initially and B) subsequently. This is not a matter of a pro-Sydney camp versus an anti-Sydney camp.
In my opinion? Yes, it mostly is.
Got the feeling I’m involved at least tangentially, so may as well confirm it…!
I like Sydney…a lot. Not as much as Yorp does, but only because my heart belongs to Maxima. I think she has `believable faults’…in that I don’t consider her perfect, but a wonderful character nonetheless. Possibly moreso, due to those faults.
My objection to the character is in *this* arc…her behavior doesn’t jibe with what we (or a least I) have seen. I don’t agree with a lot of the excuses/justifications and do think a lot of the defense of Sydney is a case of people not wanting to `see’ their heroine in a less than flattering light. As if there’s some sort of Magic Wand that will make her behavior…that we’ve seen thus far…acceptable. Sort of the Serial Killer Perception in a much milder form. “What, he killed those coeds? I don’t believe it! He carries my groceries in every day; someone must have framed him or something…!”
I agree that all of the excuses/justifications would have an effect; I don’t agree that even all together they would have the effect we’re *currently* seeing. For me, it doesn’t fit with what we know of her…or think we know of her…even if *all* of the myriad justifications were in effect.
Just as an example, Yorp and I have had a few exchanges on this comment page. We don’t agree on many points, but so what? (And I’m using Yorp as an example because you know he loves the attention…more than ear-skritches, I suspect) I don’t hate him, think he’s stupid, blind, ignorant, naïve, whatever-negative-emotion/impression. He simply has a different point of view and presents it politely and positively. Which is why I tend to reply to his posts more than others; not to `prove him wrong’ but to exchange ideas. I’m pretty sure he understands me perspective, even if he doesn’t agree…and to me, that’s what discourse is all about. If you never hear another’s point of view, your own will never progress.
And it’s all just sound and fury, anyway…DaveB’s is the only opinion that really matters. We’re just filling time, enjoying the GrrlPower universe, waiting on DaveB to deliver us The Truth.
Worse ways to while away an evening, eh?
Anybody who is a friend of Sydney’s is a friend of mine!
*cocks ear at an ideal angle for ear-scratches, and wags tail to get attention*
Just in case, I didn’t mean it as a bad thing :)
Yes you did! You’re a sociopath! It’s right there in your NAME!
Heh. Stop being so grim.
Ignoring the joking, Duende Sociopata is actually a caring and sensitive fey.