Grrl Power #347 – You could buy that, of course, of course
If Sydney considers this well handled, it’s possible she’s had some sort of significant episode in the past. Really the only thing I could imagine giving her a worse fit would be something like getting stuck in an elevator with some significant sci-fi/fantasy/superhero icon like Shatner, Nimoy, really any of the main cast of some of the Star Treks or Wars, Stan Lee, Gary Gygax, Pratchett, you know the type. I’m not sure if it would cause some sort of fangasm, or catatonia followed by delayed onset fangasm. It’s safe to assume there’s at least one nerd luminary with a restraining order out against her. Maybe she just considers it a success simply because no one was harmed and she didn’t accidentally light the check on fire.
Lots of funny and amazing names shared on the prior page. It seems the easiest way to avoid some terrible name for your kid is to give Richard a rest for a few decades. Really, just sound out whatever name you’re planning a few times, consider all the nicknames, and if you have a cool last name, give the kid a cool first name, but then maybe something normal for a middle name so they have that to fall back on and they don’t resent you.
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
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SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
I actually honestly believe that if Sydney met any geek icon in real life, she’d actually be very calm and collected. I mean, think about it. She’s crazy in almost every situation she’s in. There has to be a point where that’s reversed. A point where she SHOULD be crazy, but is instead eerily calm and cool. I can actually see it. Someone (Math for example) pulls some strings to bring oh, let’s say, Stan Lee to Archon tower, expecting Sydney to freak something awful. Especially considering her previous stated plans to marry Wolverine and make him take her last name. Instead she’d shake his hand, and calmly have a talk with him about the creative process of the original X-Men or something. And then everyone’s convinced that Sydney was replaced by a doppelganger or something.
She took meeting an alien with almost casual ease.
Well… she tried to brain her with a chair. But that was before knowing that Dabbler was an alien, and calmed down immediately afterwards and didn’t freak out again when it was discovered that she was an alien succubus.
Uhm, you just probably spoiled that story arc…
OR caused it to exist.
Halo exclusive comics signed by Halo and Stan Lee.
Already happened: the first super fight she was not only rational enough to out-think trained soldiers and experienced civilian fighters in the middle of action, but managed to make jokes at the same time.
And not just out-think! Even while being under orders to remain within her force field she managed to use her other powers, mainly Lighthook but also the Telepresence orb, to both protect and support the team, and also a bit of information gathering.
This is actually kind of accurate with people with ADHD most of the time we are hyperactive and unfocused however when it is something that truly interests us or when our adrenaline starts racing it is not uncommon to become calm and hyperfocused…. It’s actually the basis to the Percy Jackson series combat
And cut off the violence field to everyone else…. while having enough self control to not engage in violence herself until it was most useful.
To be fair she really didn’t have the self control. Halo kept herself together for only a few seconds, at most, even though she knew what the effects would be. She was half a second from blasting him with the Pew Pew Orb (I’m not hip), when Vehemence dropped the violence aura because it was no longer energy efficient.
Ran across a funny story the other day relating to loads of money.
When Paypal got bought, Elon Musk was suddenly one of the 100 richest people in the world. (well, tied for 100. close enough) With enough money to do anything in the world, he decided to do something out of this world, sending a small greenhouse to mars as a PR stunt.
NASA showed him the astronomical bill, Elon looked at his wallet, and changed his mind. Founded SpaceX to bring prices down. But his long range plans have gotten way bigger than just a greenhouse.
The thing with the Elon Musk story is, that it’s basic psychology as in the pyramid of desire:
As soon as you make enough money to buy all you want (= satisfying your basic desire for luxury), the next higher goal is individual fulfillment.
You could buy a live horse made of diamonds and name it Butt Stallion.
Wait what?
Reference game on point.
Be quiet, Handsome Jack
Handsome Jack shall never be silenced!
And she would be the queen of the magical kingdom.
Clearly some people don’t realise that stallions are male. Though I don’t know why a sapient equine that poops weapons couldn’t be a drag queen.
No, Sydney would be the queen, not the horse
I’m so confused by this particular thread.
Nah, they meant the horse.
Reference: Borderlands, Handsome Jack says in the original game about buying a live horse made of diamonds and naming it Butt Stallion (though it is still a mare, its name just includes the word Stallion). In the DLC, Tina is running a D+D style campaign and Butt Stallion shows up as the Queen of the Kingdom.
Oh okay, never played that game
Thank god someone explained this, because I havent played Borderlands (I have it, just havent played it). And I was trying to figure why everyone was just acting like… this was a thing. Is this a thing? This was a thing.
T’was, indeed, a thing. And fo sho, it was, that Tina had the grandest of campaigns in all the land.
*original borderlands 2. There’s still Borderlands itself as well, though not nearly as interesting or complex as 2.
Um…I’m really questioning the organization she belongs to now. The fact they went and got her a finacial adviser BEFORE a psychiatrist is…questionable.
“We must make sure this very powerful person is financially sound before we make sure she’s mentally sound”.
Financially sound enable mentally sound, not necessarily so much the other way around.
Rich people aren’t insane. They’re eccentric. So…. make sure she stays rich so they don’t have any insane people on the team.
the only reason I’m insane is I’m not rich enough to be eccentric.
I’m not at all insane or eccentric. The rest of the world, however . . .
I used to be, though. A girl I knew in high school used to call me the weirdest boy she knew . . . and meant it as a compliment!
I take being called strange/weird/nuts as a compliment…..(even if just as a joke)….
That’s not a good thing? :'(
Studies have found that people can not effectively communicate with those that are more than 30 IQ points away from them. Things that seem insane when done by rich/smart people are called helicopter moments, where people complain how hard it was to climb a mountain of achievement when others wonder why they just didn’t take the free helicopter rides to the top.
well, that explains a lot about my inability to communicate with a very large percentage of people in my environment.
She’s on ADD meds, so she already has a psychiatrist.
That poor horse. D:
I soooooooo nneded the belly laugh this comic gave me! Kudos Dave!
My policy for naming kids comes in two parts:
1. Don’t name them after anyone still alive. Seriously, it was extremely taxing and aggravating to be named after both of my grandmothers, and confusing at family get-togethers.
2. Give them at least one polysyllabic name that can have at least 3 different nicknames. Your kid (and your nerves) will thank you when they hit their teens and are trying to find their self-identity. (Both of my names turn into each other when trying to make a “nickname”…*shudder*)
Give your child options so that they can pick who THEY want to be called. It is THEIR name, not yours. THEY have to live with whatever they have to work with…or they will have to go through the very expensive and very tedious process of trying to get their name legally changed…and then if they ever want to go traveling, thee is a whole new level of bullshittery about “previous names” when it comes to passports and customs entry points.
For example: If in being named after my grandmothers, I could have been named Elizabeth instead of Jean. Jean…doesn’t have any real options, just one other, and that’s it. Elizabeth, on the other hand, has Liz, Eliza, Lizzy, Elly, LIza, Beth, Betty, Abby, Elzie, Betsy, even Lizard-Breath (cribbed from the comic For Better Or For Worse), so on and so forth. Bonus, that grandmother called herself Jean; if I’d been called Elizabeth, there wouldn’t have been so much confusion and resulting aggravation (and expectations to be just like her!) at family reunions, holiday gatherings, etc. (Mind you, I loved my grandmother, but still, aggravating.) She could have been Jean, I could have been Elizabeth while young, or a family nickname, and then I could’ve chosen a name in my teen years that suited who I was becoming.
You can give your kids a family name, don’t get me wrong, but give them CHOICES.
…Also, my best friend from high school, when she was born, her mother shared a room with a Mrs. Bean in the maternity ward. Mrs. Bean named her newborn child Ima Lima. Don’t do that. Do not do that to a child. Do not do that to anyone.
And never name them “Upton Charles” for they shall be almost certainly nicknamed “Up Chuck”.
The only reason I wasn’t named James is that bot my grandfather and uncle were named James. I got stuck with Jimmy.
Thought ‘Lizard-Breath’ was the nickname assigned to (one of) the former Drow Queen(s) in “Yet Another Fantasy Game Comic”
In violation of the first part of your policy, when my mom and dad started to have children, he made up his mind that his child would be named after him. Unfortunately for him, the baby turned out to be a girl – but that didn’t stop him and so she was given the feminine version of his name. One of my mother’s sisters has that name so we don’t call my sister by her given name. All her life she’s gone by a nickname instead. When I came along a couple of years later, dad went to work again. This time though, his first name became my middle name.
Uh oh, the one topic that gets my dander up. It was a long tradition in my dad’s family to give all the kids proper French-Catholic names; names that anyone might be proud to use. However, for each kid one or more nicknames were created out of thin air, or from laziness, or a comment on appearance, or what the kids in the hood called you. And darn confusing if you didn’t grow up with them and just know that “Pickles” is the same person as “Ears,” and “Lefty.”
But in my case I was dubbed with just one nickname. One that was 90% rhymey with our last name. The sadistic f***ers would never explain why they would lay that kind of hell on a child. This, among some other issues, is why I haven’t spoken to them since 1983.
It wasn’t until my Sophomore year of high school that I figured out I didn’t have to use their awful name. My real name was actually my dad’s too, he was Jr, and I was III; so I started going by my middle name. In California then you could legally change you name by usage, and that’s what I did. New name = Old middle + Old last.
So, yeah, I have pretty strong opinions on what is and is not OK to name a kid. And if you’re not sure, go to a first grade class and ask them what they’d call a kid with the name you have in mind. Youngsters will not hold back.
In general, as was said, pick a name that gives you some options and some standard nicknames. If you have to keep the family happy, throw in a couple of extra middle names that wouldn’t ever be used except on maybe the baptismal certificate or wedding invitations, otherwise they could be ignored; or if the kid hates their usual name, they have a couple of options built in.
Like little Richie Petrie?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEYq6oANyrY
Can anyone see Sydney as a gambling tout? Unless any predilection for gambling would disqualify ANY applicant for ARCSwat?
I like this guy, and I hope we see more of him. Not only is he clearly intelligent, but he’s very able to pull off a purple suit. That’s a tough sell, and he looks quite good in it. It’s very rare to get that combination.
Yeah, a black man in a purple suit typically invokes ‘pimp.’ But he does not. The gold chain is a bit much, and the limitations of the medium might be at fault for making it look as though his glasses are also intended to scream “solid gold.” If the chain was a more understated gold tie chain that would be a better look.
He doesnt have a pimp stick or a feather boa or a pimp hat. Also he has no gold teeth, no shades, and no medallion that looks like a clock or money symbol. Ergo, based on many movies from the 70s and the cartoon series “The Boondocks”…. he is not a pimp.
Besides….
You know it’s hard out there for a pimp
When you’re tryin ta get money for the rent
With the Cadillac and gas money spent
Would have a whole lotta b**ches jumpin’ shift.
And they don’t want none of them jumpin’ shift. So they ain’t gonna hire no pimp.
I feel so wrong having quoted the lyrics to that rap song.
I had some dialog in a future page planned about his sense of style, but it got dropped for just general editing reasons, basically Sydney tries to describe him without leading with “he’s black” and describes his sense of style as snappy, but just shy of pimpin’, then goes on to state “If it’s fur lined, then it’s over the line”
Can still add it, eventually, even if it’s in ten years’ time: Momma Scoville telling Junior about the nice financial advisor who helped make her a multi-billionaire :)
She has stood here before in an empty vault
With dollar signs turning circles without halt
Finally with a salary she cannot fault
It must be her destiny to be the queen of salt
I think that’s almost every possible rhyme for salt except for exalt and malt.
Oy, Gevalt!
but I Exalt, the virtue of the blessed salt,
it seasons all four seasons, whether mined from land or sea
and helps the water boil, and mild-ens my coffee.
At least no one suggested that the Police should set up a Sting to find out who’s parodying their song.
Let’s not forget the still quite relevant “Gestalt” here (yes ik its a name). Though I have no idea how to fit that into poetry.
Gestalt is a name? I thought it was a noun related to holism.
A comment was made earlier in this thread about flashback Sydney not yet reaching her rank of corporal. (And no thank you Mr. auto-correct, I don’t want the word ‘carpool’)
The word got me thinking about how that could be worked into a superhero theme. If the previously mentioned Mr. ‘can’t-hit-me’ joined ARC and made that rank, his power of intangibility could make him the ‘Incorporeal Corporal’. Although this sounds more like a sidekick for an WWII vintage Captain America.
Corporal Incorporal. I like that!
Meeting the actors of sci-fi icons? I can beat that suggestion. How about the TARDIS materializing around her and meeting the Doctor?
Which one? Why, all of them, including the 15th and 16th :D
Technically wouldn’t Maxima be Queen of the Salt, since her paycheck is probably the highest. Most powerful on the and being one of the highest ranking officers in the organization (she’s head of swat, so the general is probably the only one directly above her rank-wise, or was she just head of fieldable personal, which means 2 or 3 people above her?) and while dabbler is equal in power, I don’t think she really cares about money, and likely is a couple ranks below Max.
It occurs to me that the reason they were able to immediately introduce Sydney to a financial consultant is that they probably have one on staff, specifically to deal with new recruits. I imagine he routinely advises Heatwave, since Brooke’s not the sharpest spoon in the drawer.
Brooke isn’t stupid, her brain just processes things differently, similar to how Sydney isn’t stupid either
“Queen of Salt” sounds like a D&D campaign villain.
I can see Sydney going all Honest Jack and creating a Butt Stallion of sorts.
I don’t mean to be ‘that guy’, but you spelled ‘adviser’ wrong. The comic’s wonderful, though. I’m just one of those people who cringe whenever somebody spells ‘literally’ as ‘littely’. Also, Sydney. The queen of salt. Absolutely GOLDEN. I laughed SO hard!
Waitwaitwaitwait. Pratchett? As in Terry Pratchett? As in DISKWORLD TERRY PRATCHETT?! HOLY WOW! SYDNEY LIKES TERRY PRATCHETT?! My entire life is changed forever. I am not commenting on the comic, but the text below it. Wow. Two of my favorite reading material combined. You have to make Sydney quote Terry Pratchett at some point or else my entire life’s meaning will be worthless. Please send me a drawing of Sydney meeting death if you have time. This web comic is now my all time favorite.
My grandfather’s name was Perry, so he decided his first son would be Lawrence (Larry) and second son would be Gary. Both have gone by their middle names most of their lives- I didn’t even know my uncle’s first name until I was well into my 20s X3 So yes, giving kids a middle name that’s mundane without any quirks might be boring, but could keep them from hating you for life.
My husband and I are planning on the first names being mundane, and the middle names being for fun. That way it works better if they get into a professional environment, but they can still have that fun nickname for friends or a more fun job.
that seems a pretty safe thing to do, I may find normal enough names for the first names of my kids when I start having them, normal enough but still can be found in the series that i’m a fan of and then have fun middle names.
It’s especially funny because Sydney is making a strange sort of sense with her reaction. Salt was once considered a valuable form of currency in ancient times
lol , rereading to ward off boredom , I forgot how crazy she acts at this part.
I wonder how many times she’ll react to something like this in the future.
https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2096
This is for you.
Shaun really likes salt, hunh?
To be honest, if I came into a lot of money…
Buy Titan PC, get Oculus, upgrade the shit out of everything I have, fill out Steam wishlist, invest anything left over.
All the yes.
um, i know syndey is weird, but how does her being in the money translate to her yelling “i’m the queen of salt”?
Back in Antiquity, salt was quite expensive but also highly desired because of the many culinary applications, both for flavor enhancement and food preservation. Romans paid their soldiers a dedicated allowance to buy salt, which is what our current word “salary” is derived from.
If Sydney has ever met Terry Pratchett, I guarantee his next book would have featured a parody of her. The only question is how subtle or blatant it would have been.