Grrl Power #154 – Predictably unpredictable
Hey Sydney, do something embarrassing then act like a lunatic. Oh yeah. There it is. That’s what we’re all here for.
Hmm. Not too much else to say about this page. Not really sure where Sydney had The List stowed. Presumably inside the flight suit… ooh, I know, down in one of the pockets on the legs. Mystery solved.
So anyone looking forward to Saint’s Row IV? I don’t have nearly as much time for video games lately, but open world mayhem games are high on my list. I’ve enjoyed the Saint’s Row and Prototype series quite a bit. (Just Cause 2 was pretty good too) GTA not so much after GTA 3, mostly because of the incongruous storylines. The stories are all about characters who are trying to make good, then the missions are “kill 20 people in a drive by” where as in Saint’s Row, you’re a gangster trying to violently take down all the other gangs, and the missions are “Steal a septic truck and spew sewage all over downtown” or “have a car chase only instead of cars it’s in rickshaws drawn by guys in gimp suits.” Prototype was just “Hulk: Ultimate Destruction” with a protagonist they didn’t have to pay a license to use.
Who knows, maybe GTA 5 will be better about that. The trailers make it look like you’re up to no good, but it’s definitely the most tame of the big open world games. I may pick it up when it comes to PC. Anyway, Saint’s Row 4 has a character maker you can download for free. I made Maxima in it. Weirdly with all the options they have that was the closest I could get. Their lack of belly shirts disturbs me. It’s either tube tops or giant shirts and jackets.
Oh, and Grrl Power has moved on to Round 2 of the TGT Tournament. Thanks for your votes!
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Oh Arianna, what did you do to yourself?
It would be so funny if Max was actually watching from a distance before speeding to the demonstration, just so she can point and laugh.
I wanna see Joels reaction when he sees this press conference :)
My guess is that Joel will just sigh and wearily shake his head.
Seconded.
I just figured he would be more concerned about where the money she took to the bank went.
You know…. I completely forgot about that…
If you really want to screw with people’s heads, have a tumbleweed roll past a little later… Sydney will be dwelling on it for hours. :-D
Hah hah.
Ha ha ha! Will she add the tumbleweed to the list, or take the lack of power off it?
They really should have left Sydney out of the conference.
Of course, where would be the fun in that?
Little known fact, she does have that power, its just currently destroying Tokyo.
It’s not going to be little-known for long…
Is it intentional that Sydneys neck band thing looks a lot like one of her t-shirts?
That has come up before and it is just a co-incidence. Although it may have subliminally affected DaveB and/or whoever designed her collar in the setting.
No, it is a deliberate tie-in to her t-shirt’s colours (although, didn’t she have a plain default collar when the conference started? O_o)
Okay, pages #149 & 150 have no choker for Sydney, but #146 has her official choker
Hmmm, coulda be sure that she started out with a plain black choker like Peggy has, but going back it seems she had her ‘offical’ choker from the start
#149 could of been her head at a weird angle and hiding the collar. But I agree that in #150 she has no collar
Whoops. Add that to the fix list.
What was/is it supposed to be? A default choker like Peggy? Or her ‘official’ choker from the start?
Believe there were comments at the time how she sholdn’t have the ‘official’ one yet, seeing how she’s only been in the building a couple hours at the most (plus she only got her call-sign moments before the conference)
Speaking of subliminal images, has anyone else noticed the mysterious ghost figure in Arianna’s neckwear in the last panel?
Just you. ‘Course now that you have mentioned it, we can’t help but see it every time we look at that panel now.
You mean Kenny? Kenny Cravat? He has a famous singing cousin, Lenny Kravats >.>
Grrl Power Comic has moved onto Round 2 of the TGT Tournament as well. Round 2 Ends Friday… https://tgtmedia.com/news/tgt-tournament-5-round-2/
Also, I’ll have to try and make your characters in the Saints Row 4 Game coming out :) What do you think about a Maxima with a British accent? ;)
Personally I intentionally stopped my subconsciousness giving accents to inaudible characters when Garfield the movie came out and he had an American accent. Surely the creators should know that cats all have British accents! Apart from a few French ones. And those you need to be really careful of to make sure they are not skunks.
Tsk! You forget the ones with oriental accents!
https://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Si_and_Am
I heard a few years back that the artist who draws garfield is british, so it makes sense
“Sydney joined the team just this morning”
It was actually just this afternoon. After lunch. After the bank robbery. Of course, there is cover for her involvement in said bank robbery by saying she was a member of the team before that. With Sydney involved, I suspect Arianna will be retconing often.
I suspect that the speech bubble will receive an amendment. Arianna will have prepared that line well in advance and is professional enough that she is unlikely to have made a mistake. It is not in her best interest to imply that Halo was on the payroll at the time of the robbery. Besides which, shortening the time Sydney has been signed up increases the impact of her statement, in terms of the audience making allowances.
Agreed. I don’t understand why she would imply that Sydney employed by Archon before the robbery. That would foil her attempts at making it look natural. I suspect it is a typo.
no, “this morning” would be correct usage, because the bank robbery WAS in the morning, and for all intents-and-purposes immediately after the failed heist, Sydney was whisked away to Archon HQ to join… all BEFORE lunch… just because the paperwork wasn’t filled out until AFTER lunch is irrelevant to the general public, all they know is what the news showed… the goons got taken away, Max grabs Sydney and goes to HQ BEFORE lunch, and somewhat AFTER lunch the press-conference happens… with Syd as a member of the team, ergo… she joined up in the morning…
“because the bank robbery WAS in the morning, and for all intents-and-purposes immediately after the failed heist, Sydney was whisked away to Archon HQ to join… all BEFORE lunch”
Nope. Lunch was before the bank.
#24. “If you’re going out to lunch then take the deposit to the bank.”
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/170
#28. Sydney orders lunch.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/185
#35. Standing in line at the bank.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/203
And so on. She vomits after the robbery. Is really hungry later and has something to eat with Peggy before the press conference (#117 https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/696), but that wasn’t lunch. I don’t buy that she went to lunch, was involved in the bank robbery, was brought into ARCHON and signed up all before noon. Unless Sydney takes her lunch at 9:30 in the morning.
I agree with Geis here. Her meal at Fusion, swollen eye and all, was the replacement of her earlier lunch, which left in the bank (and a little bit on Max’s boot). The Hazmat team should have cleared her first lunch from the bank by now.
Grr, which was left…
Give them a couple more days, minimum
It might be worth considering that not everyone has their lunch at noon
True, but no one has it before 12pm
If you start early enough in the day lunch can happen at 10:00 AM, and quite a few people take it at 11:00 AM at my work.
That would make it either brunch or morning tea
I know where the List came from.
She stores it in Hammerspace.
Yeah.
AHA! We’ve discovered the power of one of the two mystery orbs! List hiding.
Orb of Holding, it creates a ‘pocket dimension’.
Dave, I feel compelled to comment on the video game aspect of today’s comments.
I HATED GTA after GTA3. I loved GTA3. Poured years into the game, there was so much replay potential. I basically had put it to the side by the time Liberty City showed up. I waited because I didn’t want to spend the money on a PS3 and a widescreen. Then, one day I decided I was just going to do it and dropped more than $1,500 on a PS3 and a widescreen. At this point in time both expansions were available and I bought them all on the same disc.
I played GTA5 through. Kept waiting for it to get better. What happened to dual wield? What happened to the commercials? What happened to the music which was now the same worthless crap you would hear on any radio if you turned it on? What happened to upgraded skills as you play – better accuracy, better driving ability. What happened to the HUMOR? Oh, yes, I get it. Life is difficult and it sucks. I’m glad a video game decided to reflect reality close enough that it was unnecessarily difficult and it sucked. I beat it and didn’t bother trying out the second ending.
I moved on to the Lost and Damned. It was … more of the same crap. You ‘win’ and you get to burn your clubhouse down? What the hell is this crap? Ooookkkkkaaaayyy, let’s try the Ballad of Gay Tony. You get to fly combat missions again, right? I gave TBOGT up after one mission that I couldn’t beat after hours of trying. I went back to the original game and tried to find the fun in it that all the reviewers were swooning over. The most fun I found was stealing a fast car and evading the police. The missions were crap, and as I said, there was practically no humor.
So I had this new PS3 and this new widescreen, so I searched for ‘most fun video game’ and found Saints Row 3. I loved it. It was a game that didn’t suck even though the graphics weren’t the best. You actually WON when you beat it. The game play mechanics didn’t torture you. Hell, there was a button that allowed you to slide around corners and it even rewarded you for sliding. The weapons were upgradable. You could stuff a grenade in someone’s mouth and blow their heads off.
Currently, I’m sinking hours into Borderlands 2. I have seen the newest GTA. I’m going to see if Rockstar got their sh*t straight before I put any money into it. I don’t care if reviewers think it’s a wonderful beautiful game. If it’s not fun, I’m not friggen buying it. I think their addition of the ‘loser’ character is a desperate attempt to resurrect the humor.
If this one isn’t fun, then I’ll probably never buy another GTA title.
Wait, there was no humour in GTA IV? Did you somehow miss the satirical take on just about every bloody thing? The whole Weekend at Florian’s mission? The radio? Niko’s ranting, TBOGT in its entirety… I don’t even remember there being a difficult mission in TBOGT, but eh. The rather amusing, if a little dark, deconstruction of the very concept of the American Dream? Although Lost and Damned is something that I’d like to pretend never really happened. Didn’t even get three missions in to the thing. That said, it was pretty dull compared to, say, San Andreas, and a few other GTA games from the previous generation.
This is all subjective anyway… I mean, I’m the kind of person who enjoys how insanely meta/plain insane the Metal Gear series continues to get, as Hideo Kojima has been actively trying to kill off the franchise since MGS2, so I might see comedy in things when other people do not, everything is subjective, etcetera etcetera.
That said, I think that anyone who didn’t have fun with GTAIV must have missed the multiplayer, which pretty much defecates comedy gold of its own volition. Then again, I suppose there are people who actively avoid multiplayer due to whatever reason.
Anyways, I found Saints Row the Third to be lacklustre when it came to the plot, and the map. And progression… but I was one of the people who was holding it up to Saints Row 2, one of my favourite games of all time, and picking out all the bits where it didn’t live up to the previous game. Which was most of it. Although a lot of that was apparently due to THQ deciding to get executive meddling fingers everywhere, plus engine limitations. And SR3 was kind of ridiculously easy after the first few missions, even on the highest difficulty, since you pretty much get given an attack chopper and a UAV after the first few missions. Which you couldn’t even replay.
And the comedic sociopathy of the Boss was a whole lot less sociopathic. And less comedic.
I’ve got high hopes for both GTA V and SR IV though, just from what I’ve seen so far. GTA V looks like it’ll be similar in a lot of ways to San Andreas, while SR IV has a lot of throwbacks to SR 2, tone-wise and otherwise…
Crap, I think I opened the comments with the intention on saying something about today’s comic, but I’ve completely forgotten what that was. And forgot where I was going with my semi-rambling comment, but oh well.
I never played SRII and I live in the sticks so I don’t even have the option of a fast internet connection. It took me more than 14 hours to download Captain Scarlet’s expansion pack for BL2.
I heard the radio. Lazlo was good, but he couldn’t carry the whole thing. Yeah, the left wing/ right wing stations were amusing, but either I’ve grown old (and I admit freely that I was 34 when I was playing GTA4) or the humor changed from funny to being dark. Dark’s fine, but we all already know NYC is a steaming cesspool of floaters and sinkers, I don’t need to be reminded of what happened in 2008. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t really play games for social commentary – I play them to ESCAPE from reality.
I think Rockstar decided it was necessary to include a cover system, which makes sense. But doesn’t it also make sense to say Mr. Bellic got a little rusty while working as a deck hand and his skills might improve again as he uses various weapons? Come on… I can’t pick what wheels and paint color goes on my car? Come on…
I considered the most fun ‘mission’ of GTA3 to be Doberman and the following missions where you basically killed off waves of enemy gang members and took over their turf. I guess that’s one of the reasons I found SR3 to be so much fun.
Saint’s Row II was the absolute high mark in open world games IMO. Tying character progression to the optional side quests was brilliant.
Yeah, nothing like having a news reporter come up to you and basicly say “I’ll pay you to blow as much s#!t up as possible so I get better ratings!”
Yes. That’s the kind of over-the-top violence/humor I’m looking for. I am not interested in a game which, upon my investing many, many hours, gives me the option of killing either my girlfriend or my cousin’s new wife.
I am interested in actually winning the bloody game and enjoying myself in the process.
I got as far as GTA 4…….which was really quite boring, everyone seemed to be bulletproof and immortal. Shoot your cousin square in the face……he falls over……then gets up. Well that was sure satisfying. And then there’s the gun selection…..or lack thereof rather…….honestly…..why even have guns if there’s only one type of gun for each slot?……..and how do you get them anyhow? Oh I have to spend hours playing through a boring storyline involving a long series of dates with my cousin……….yeah that’s going to happen. But oh hey, ragdoll!! But no gibbing……why would ragdoll matter if I can’t enjoy blowing someone up? Thats alot of negatives isn’t it? I suppose the graphics were pretty? But really? The only enjoyable thing in that game was driving reall really fast straight into a guard rail at that top of a hill so I could watch crybaby Nico go flying out the window and plummet to a unsatisying death. No splat? wtf?
It’s amazing that she somehow has refrained from swearing so far.
The press conference is still young.
I wonder what Sydney’s reaction will be when Max flies in carrying an APC and then proceeds to annihilate it. Might swearing be involved?
I think Sydney’s reaction to that would be more along the lines of a “WOW! That’s so kewl!” commentary, and possibly some advice on how Max can accomplish said demolition faster.
No one likes a backseat APC annihilator!
Especially if you are sitting in the back seat of the APC in question.
My guess would be she shows off her PPE orb.
so one of the unknown one been IDed as an energy battery PPE = potential psychic energy from rifts games did you mean PPO?
give her another thirty seconds……
I really hope Joel is watching the news right now… assuming its broadcast live… which considering previous interviews, would not be a very bright idea.
How can he possibly react to: 1 – Sydney is a superhero; 2 – She didn’t tell him; 3 – She’s telling everyone else.
Not knowing Sydney had powers before everyone else did is seriously going to screw up his comic book guy street cred.
I have no idea how this post ended up where it did.
Looks like someone beat me to the punch anyways.
I really hope Joel is watching the news right now… assuming its broadcast live… which considering previous interviews, would not be a very bright idea.
How can he possibly react to: 1 – Sydney is a superhero; 2 – She didn’t tell him; 3 – She’s telling everyone else.
Not knowing Sydney had powers before everyone else did is seriously going to screw up his comic book guy street cred.
She did tell him, right here: Grrl Power #21 – I can tell you what’s not in there. The truth.
He just didn’t believe her when she let the cat out of the bag.
O-kay. My attempt at quoting failed. drat!
The format you want is as follows. Just strip out the quote marks, which I inserted to ensure that it was treated as text rather than a tag. My html-fu is not good enough to show it without the quotes.
“”quoted_text””
This is a handy sandbox to allow you to test it out before using it, if you want:
https://www.w3schools.com/tags/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_link_test
I keep a copy of that link in my bookmarks so that I can experiment if trying something complex. The bottom of the page lists various tags you can use. But the spoiler one is not supported in the sandbox.
lol. I had a feeling that would happen. Sometimes the sandbox does not give the same result as here. Ok in words:
open_bracket blockquote close_bracket quoted_text open_bracket slash blockquote close_bracket
See the sample tags at the bottom of the page for the relevant brackets. The slash is of this type: /
This is a handy sandbox to allow you to test it out before using it, if you want:
https://www.w3schools.com/tags/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_link_test
I keep a copy of that link in my bookmarks so that I can experiment if trying something complex. The bottom of the page lists various tags you can use. But the spoiler one is not supported in the sandbox.
Like this: <blockquote>Quote goes here</blockquote>
Alright! Thanks for the tip. :)
I have been expecting her to point at a camera when she explains the orbs were in her poster tube and say, “That’s right Joel, I DID tell you what was in it…once.”
I made a Maxima character for Saints row 3. I imported her for Saints row 4, but I’m kind of disappointed that the Russian accent voice is gone.
*gasp!* No Russian voice? *Bawls*
There’s a “Southern Belle” voice now, and they replaced “Zombie” with “Nolan North” (with the same lines as the default voice)
One of my favorite lines from the Russian voice during the last mission” I WANNA MAKE LOVE TO PIERCE IN FRONT OF A LIVE STUDIO AUDIENCE!!!!”
Actually I’ve heard the Nolan North voice has some original dialogue that makes it clear that your character is actually Nolan North the voice actor who became leader of the saints and is now Nolan North the president.
Whoah, really? That sounds… incredibly awesome.
Hmm.
I guess I’ll just have to use Female Voice 1, and pretend that the Boss lost her Russian accent after so many years in the States. Won’t be the same, though. :(
Poor Sydney. Double fumble. Clever recovery though, to avoid a hat-trick.
Mind you, the little detail that I particularly like is Arianna looking the other way, whilst the stillness is in the air. Leaving it up to the audience to decide if she is distancing herself from Sydney’s craziness, or whether she is looking around for a tumble weed. Or even the outside chance that she is anticipating a double-bluff and is looking behind her in case of another “badger” incident.
In the next thrilling episode, Sydney’s encylopedic knowledge of comic books
and role playing games allows her to describe her artifact based powers.
Latest entries on the List:
“Tough audiences”
“The press”
“Tumble weeds”
All in all, a slow day for The List, actually.
This is the same day that she went into the bank. There have been like 20 entries onto The List so far.
That’s slow!?
Yes it is. Other entries:
Gravity
Joe Quesada
People that use the term Swag when not talking about free stuff.
Basketballs
The List itself
Joel
The guy at Papa Johns
Remotes
Dust Bunnies
Revolving Doors
Ocelots
and Revolver Ocelot.
Now, cut to Joel watching the TV so we can see his reaction…
Joel is standing at the counter with the hunky guy from page 4/5, his jaw hanging open, his can of “Spit-Take” cola pouring onto the counter. The hunky guy has a large brown spray pattern on the chest of his light-coloured shirt as the two of them stare at the live news feed on the TV. Either that or they are watching the latest Justice League animated movie and are totally oblivious to the news.
Nope. Both of them are drinking Jaw-Drop Soda and staring at the screen with it pouring from their open mouths because their jaws are somewhere around their crotches.
Reporter: So, I was right! That is the crazy chick from the bank robbery video. She is just as nuts in real life too. Man, she makes that teleporter look disciplined by comparison. Well, discipline is likely in her future.
At least Sydney hasn’t punched anybody in a while.
The press conference is still young.
Of course, it will all make sense to the TV audience at home. The shot corresponding to panel 8 having the caption “Tumble weed rolls by”.
Plus the sound of a Red Tailed Hawk.
It’s the new “sound of silence”.
Or opening bars of “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”.
Than an old one-eyed man saying “What in tarnation was that?!”
Completely sideways…
This comment reminded me of another old man, a prospector who spoke “Real Western Gibberish”. He was on top of a building espying the new town sheriff for the townfolk. The church bell was being rung in celebration.
“No! Dagnabbit! I said!… The new sheriff is a (*BONG*)r.”
But I digress and mean no offence.
Please continue your discussion.
awesome movie…
Hello Darkness, my old friend.
I’ve come to talk with you again,
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains, within the sounds of silence.
Oh, wait. That is the “Sounds of Silence.” Slightly different.
Ah Sydney, what would we do without your brand of wackiness.
The Pinky Moment to Arianna’s Brain was pretty funny, silly rookie reporter causing it in the first place.
WHAT ARE THE NECK BANDS MADE OF?
Or is it Sydney isn’t use to wearing it just yet.
It’s very clear to me, Sydney is just still trying to figure out the last two balls. After all, how did she get the first ones to activate –through action statements made while watching sci-fi. Star Trek “Shields up!” (Cool!), the loss of a poor lamented Xbox to find out the “PewPew” ball… ;)
Really it is much like a power use there: She. shut. the. press. up. for. five. seconds…
Without throwing money.
Too bad she isn’t holding one of the unknown balls because it’s summon tumbleweed! Mwahahaha!
Or it would be if I was running a campaign based around this. I’m a cruel GM.
No, as shown in a previous comic explaining the fire-ball, she went to the woods and pointed them in front of her (and rhan tried to put out the fire with her jacket)
Also I think she can just tell anyone that she got the eyepatch in a fight against THE UNMAKER!!!
Maybe she blew a hole in the wall where the xbox _was_ and stumbled outside to put out the fire. There were trees but I don’t remember seeing “forest” involved.
I think I have deduced the powers of one of the unknown orbs. It has the ability to make the current day seem like it has taken literally years to pass. She can call it the ‘drag-on ball’.
Disclaimer: The above comment is merely intended for amusement purposes. It is meant in no way to be a slight on the author, his works, or the Gregorian calendar.
I’d love Serendipitous Tumbleweed powers.
Oh, come on. It’s obvious her super powers include absolute randomness.
Actually that is just part of her personality, which means she suffers no initiative penalty due to surprise, but has a low charisma (social interaction) in the process. Most people want some form of predictable behaviour. Not gonna happen with our Sydney.
I’d disagree. Her charisma is at least average, since people do like her despite the strangeness. No, she has abysmal Wisdom. High dex, int and cha, but her dump stats are obviously strength, con and wis.
D&D stats only go so far. If trying to characterise extreme personalities like Sydney’s I prefer GURPs. With that you can list her disadvantages as including ADHD and extreme playfulness/pranking to cover her child-like behaviours. And swearing that goes above the quirk level to earn points from being able to make sailors blush.
D&D can only describe her as low Wis and high Int. But that does not cover the possibility (indeed likeliehood) that she will make very good judgement calls for things that will require wisdom rather than just raw intelligence. As with the alignment system, the attributes for D&D are actually a very crude system. One that can shoehorn a character to fit, but which will not do justice for some. Whereas GURPs attempts to get closer to real life whilst retaining flexibility. So does a better job in instances like this.
Not that I am knocking D&D. I love it. But it has its limitations if going outside the genre.
The way she eats, she definitely has a high Con.
I’d prefer if one of them was a “nemesis” power based on what she was facing. To give it some balance she would have to touch the orb to another source of power… Of course then she could tap one of her other orbs and have a variant of that power. Gravity flight become gravity increase. Molestorb could become slippery field (anti-grab). Its a way to unlock a whole set of power combinations without making her massively overwhelming, because it also locks in her other power slot or requires her to touch an enemy with the Nega-Orb. The effect could fade out if she swaps orbs .
One of our theroies is that one of the Unknown Orbs unlocks secondary abilities to the others and the other “Unknown is either Healing or the Powersource for the rest.
One of them summons ponies. But Sydney just has not tried that yet.
Who would? O_o
Ummm….. I would or any other dragon that had missed lunch. why is it that odd to want a meal?
Sneaky Suzie is being Sneaky Newsie! Trying to sneak in a query about Sydney’s eyepatch without actually asking about the eyepatch (hope she becomes a regular and gets to hang out with Sydney after-hours, maybe join the gaming sessions)
Also liking how Suzie is checking out the other reporters’ reactions in panel 6 while they are all staring at the crazy lady
And, Pinkey is the only one who seems to be looking for the tumbleweed in panel 8 (the rest seem to be looking at poor Ari, who is probably wondering, at that moment, if it would be better for her to make an escape :D)
Sometimes I feel like an idiot, I really didn’t get the joke in the first 5 panels the first time I read this. I didn’t have my reading glasses on because I was on my way out and I misread Syd’s line “I am not a pirate!” as “I am not a private!” It’s been bugging me all day!
Actually, that would work just as well :D
I would not worry about it. Part of the fun, after all, is going back and looking for the details you missed on first pass. Even if you missed the speech bubble text again, you may have spotted Sydney’s quiet chuckle and whispered “Arr”.
Whereas what I have only just worked out is why she has her finger bent like that in panel 4. Trouble being that I have no excuse, because I spotted that initially and wondered what the significance was. Only now do I realise that she is forming a tiny hook, to signal back to Suzie, in response to her signed question about the eye-patch in the previous panel. After which there is the nice small detail of it loosing cohesion when Arianna startles her with the “Sydney!” in panel 5.
But that only makes me chuckle. A lot of people might miss, on their first read-through, the fact that the top row of panels have two completely separate conversations going on. Which would just give that fun feeling of having discovered extra meaning.
With Suzie’s impeccable timing skills I am sure she spent some time as a waitress. It takes lots of practice to walk by the table asking ‘do you need anything?’ at the EXACT moment you place a large forkful of food in your mouth.
Sydney could turn the eyepatch into a humble brag. When asked, she needs to say “Oh, the eyepatch? I tried out the training range this morning and got a little piece of exploding tank in my eye. No big deal.”
I really figured she’d respond to the eyepatch query with “Oh. Noodle incident”, and let it drop.
I see it more as –
Sydney: “There was a noodle incident.”
Suzie: “A Noodle Incident?”
Sydney: “A noodle incident.”
(neither realises each is looking at the wording from different understandings)
Hearsay and gossip-mongering ensues in the next days as the press tries to uncover The Noodle Incident.
Hope not, or they might uncover something that will get Maxi in trouble
The Mosque Incident?
Wasn’t it mentioned at the time to be a Noodle Incident? Possibly in the comment section?
There was a general consensus that DaveB should leave Max’s Mosque destruction as a a noodle incident, but a few of us, myself included, made some suggestions as to how it could have happened.
Extensive training in this scenario refers to a spray bottle and rolled up newspaper. Possibly electroshock. Meanwhile, Miss News learns that interaction with Sydney leads to bizarre and wondrous situations.
Now, wait ten minutes and see how she fares at the live fire demonstration. There goes Archon’s shot at propriety by displaying how heavily armed their lunatic is.
I would assume that the PPO would not be included in the live fire demo, since nobody except Sydney has ever seen it in action. Letting an unstable raw recruit use a totally untested power in a scenario with civilians and press close at hand sounds like the worst idea ever.
They may have her break out the shield though.
The spray bottle and newspaper… I can see that as part of Sydney’s training montage.
*nods*
Didn’t anyone tell you Sydney? Just like a god, if someone asks you if you’re a pirate, you say YES!
Likewise, no matter how innocuous, do not think of summoning something in the middle of a city. Not when it might go on a rampage of death and destruction.
Well, there goes my birthday plans.
But Sydney wanted to show how much control she has with the PPO, by firing it in a built-up area. Set up some paper targets at the other end of a parking lot in between to large buildings. How could anything go wrong?
She should totaly rename the pew-pew orb to Fire-ball
Wow, Sydney, really? Your first impression, and that’s what you do?
ლ(ಠ益ಠლ)
Anyone else wanna join me in a collective facepalm? (Runs both hands down the front of mine face.)
It was to be expected, honestly. Sydney’s head is a whirling cacophony of absurdity, amidst of torrential maelstrom of pop references – this meeting could not have proceeded differently without seriously breaching the fundamental cosmic laws of the universe itself.
Just as night follows day, this is Sydney. Mind you, even after the obligatory facepalm, I still feel the urge to hug her. She raises eccentricity to an art-form.
Or join Jean Luc in an epic Double facepalm!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNsrK6P9QvI
I think Sydney was caught off guard in this strip. She noticed Suzie pointing to the eye, and when suddenly called upon, she spurts out the first thing in her head. Which of course related to the eye patch.
We’ve all seen it, you’re thinking about one topic, and someone blindsides you with another topic. You of course respond to the topic you’re thinking about, and usually in a mortifying way.
Well, some of us do that anyway. I know I have!
Yup. DaveB has a keen eye for details like that. Even as we cringe, we see she just epitomises such behaviour in ourselves.
Kudos to Suzie News for distracting Sidney by making the “what’s with the eye patch?” signal.
Suzie News is going to be Sydney’s Lois Lane.
I think the bloke with the glasses, behind Suzie, in panel 6 might be interested in that theory.
Yep, I was just thinking that having Clark Kent working his day job was pretty cool in this situation. We already have one alien (Dabbler) referenced in-universe, so we might be able to make a game of spotting others.
Those nuns, for example…
Oh yeah, DaveB totally captured Christopher Reeves’ look in that panel :D
So, you reckon that, off-screen, one might be able to fly and another will break into a rendition of “the hills are alive with the sound of music?”
Good one, almost missed what you were referring to (at first thought you meant one was Superman, but why would Dabbles be singing about sentient vocal mountains?)
Heh. I have, on occasion, wondered if some planets or suns might have sentience. They are complex enough systems that such a possibility is not inconceivable. And once life, in any form, has started it strives to survive and propagate. But hills, nope, never wondered about those rolling around in anything other than a figurative way.
Just in case there was a genuine query hidden in the witticism though, I was referring to probably the most famous nun. One cinema manager I knew very well once said “If the company would let me, I would have the Sound of Music playing in one of my cinemas every showing every day. And people would still come to see it”. Not that I ever got the appeal myself. Fairly enjoyable as any good production. But it is still one of the most re-watched movies in history.
Saw a documentary about the real Von Traps (one or two of the children are still around), very interesting family (pretty much the original Reality Family, but real, not like that other, fake, Reality Family)
Also got the Sally Fields reference :D
On the TV series Andromeda there was a character named Trance Gemini who was revealed as the humanoid Avatar of a sentient star, so the concept is certainly out there.
Yep, the subject has been addressed in various ways and stories. Including in webcomics. Trouble is they do requires something like an avatar in many instances, simply because in all likelihood if they did exist they probably would not either notice or care about humans. Up to and including global nuclear war, for the planet variety. Unless it itches. Maybe even including terraforming, if they do not care about the composition of the gas that surrounds them or the minutiae such as soil composition and the like.
As for social interaction, it would be similar to a human wanting to strike up a friendship with some of the bacteria on his or her skin. Rather eccentric and unlikely to be fulfilling in either direction.
In one of the old Marvel What If?’s (can’t remember off hand the #, but it was the one dealing with What If The Avengers Won The Revolutionary War {or maybe lost, can’t remember}) human’s started evolving until they became part of Earth and Earth itself became sentient (by that stage Wolvie and the other Mutants had killed literally everything else in the Universe, including Death and the Beyonder and Earth {and the High Evolutionary} was the only thing left when the Universe’s lights were turned off and a new Universe’s lights turned on)
I remember when DC introduced Mogo, a green lantern the size of a planet. In fact he has his own ecosystem growing on him. Often he has been mistaken for a planet or described as a “living planet”. Mogo is not summoned to Oa that often because his personal gravity could throw Oa out of orbit. I think he got killed off during Blackest Night, which would be too bad.
I just read the Wikipedia entry. Mogo lives!
I like how Suzie probably got in trouble, and had to weather Sydney’s patented Sailor Blush In Shame shout attack and still acts friendly to her. A smile and a wave. I would say Suzie might have even taken a liking to our young heroine.
Why would Suzie get into trouble? And by whom?
I think that the sentence was intended to be as follows, with my alteration in italics:
I agree that it looks like they might become firm friends. Especially as they have shared experiences. Both having gone through the bank robbery together and then having had their lives change forever, as a result of it. With their respective careers veering off in completely unexpected directions. They have every reason to empathise with each other.
Oh yeah, that makes sense, but don’t feel Sydney would hold a grudge or verbally tear poor Suzie a new butt (well, not verbally and certainly not in public ;p), specially seeing how it was her inattention that caused the outburst, most likely have a great laugh about it over a few rounds at the local pub (hoping Suzie gets snapped up by Ari to be the ‘official’ media liaison)
How about it Mr Dave? Suzie gets recruited by Archon to be there media liaison person? Taking full orders from Mistress Ari of course
I was thinking FCC violations and half of the video footage being unusable due to having to be censored. Still, spaz she may be, you can tell Sydney is a good person at heart. I wouldn’t date her, Sandy or Ariana would be the ones I would go for, but I wouldn’t mind sitting and talking with her or playing D&D with her.
However they can both probably retire now. The royalties they will earn from the footage appearing on every blooper and out-take program may keep them comfortably for the rest of their lives. Especially any shows that are of the formats like ‘top 100’, ‘top 10’ or ‘as voted for by the public’. The more bleeping and “censored” stickers they have to put on, the more popular the clip being, of course.
I wonder what would have happened if a serendipitous tumbleweed had activated at that moment? As far as anyone knows, that might be the unknown orb’s power.
But which orb? There are two with unknown abilities. Besides, as Sydney was holding neither, your theory (valid though it may be) holds no water.
More than watching how Sydney (mis)handles herself during her Show ‘n’ Tell, waiting to see why Peggy is on the ‘front desk’ (not putting Peggy down or anything, but, as super as she is, she is 100% not Super-powered)
Maybe to show that even non-Supers could find a place amongst the Archon ranks?
She’s there to show it’s not a strictly Supers only club, but we won’t get to see her interview as Max is pulling Sydney off to the firing range prematurely.
Shame we won’t be able to see Maxi pulling Sydney up (up and away) by her earlobe :(
Well, she already used panties to pull up Harem. Something similar could work here with Sydney.
Sydney has done nothing wrong. Not intentionally anyhow. She is just behaving according to her nature and has not been trained to do anything different. People often use humour to try and overcome a social blunder. And in this case it fell flat. Very flat. Funny though that is to us the readers. Obviously she will be talked through how to avoid such a situation in future (fruitless though that may turn out). But there is no need for disciplinary action. Yet.
Why would you put someone in a press line-up who just joined your organization this morning???
Really, at least give Sydney a bit more training, on how to behave with the press, before feeding her too the wolfs. I like how we worked in the Army (at the lower ranks anyway) where we are not suppose to talk to the press without a PAO (Public Affairs Officer) present helping ‘guide’ the questions for the junior enlisted. I know of a few careers ended by the media ‘misinterpreting’ (or just lie, more often then not).
Ya, I hold the 4th estate in low regards, at the present time. We need them, but we need them to tell the truth.
Because it was essential. If not the press would bleat about “government cover-ups” and “conspiracies”. There are questions that the public will be asking which need answering. Now. The deadline to the evening news is upon them, so there is no option to delay. Even for much needed training.* Being open increases the likelihood of positive headlines about the formation of Arc. Rather than ones which either distract from the issue or are outright negative. Such as:
“Mystery girl foils bank robbery”
“Soldier foils bank robbery, disguised as civilian. Government conspiracy?”
“Government hides unknown super-hero from public view”
Your point about PAOs is well made. But that is essentially the role that Arianna is in at the moment. Making sure that the press know Sydney has just been recruited and is naive. Which will hopefully allow her ineptitude to be forgiven. Whilst having the very useful effect of increasing public interest. “There is no such thing as bad publicity.” Provided your spin-doctors are good.
* For information there was some but DaveB cut the scene in the interest of moving the story along.
“Provided your spin-doctors are good.” And Ari is very very good
The headline would be more like “Golden Amazon Soldier Stops Bank Robbery. Wacky Civilian Gets in the Middle.” or maybe the second line would be “Crazy Chick clears the Bank.”
Agreed, the way things have been handled. I was just suggesting what would happen if the media got fixated on the government covering up their dealings with Sydney. As it stands, that should not be an issue and they can report on other matters.
A line in this news article made me wonder if Syney’s bonding with the orbs might have been assisted by an altered mental state.
Perhaps her base behaviour combined with the ADHD drugs made her mind similar enough to the orb creators’ that she could be recognised as being like them. Frightening thought though that may be!
Totally agree on the frightening thought
Underwater orb: (in the 2.8 GHz microwave band) Hey, this one that just grabbed me feels right. Hey everybody, wake up! We got a new Mommy!
Just watched the first episode of “Red vs. Blue”, or vice versa, on Hulu. Laughed my backside augh. Go and enjoy.
Oh, man, that was a great laugh. Just wish I wasn’t in a library, so I could do it out loud!
How could Archon be typical, or atypical, if it is the only one? Unique is the word…
Mental note…Saint’s Row IV…Superpowers. Aliens. Mass chaos. .>
….naked president…
my Boss has been naked throughout SRII and SRIII why would that change now?
Gotta say, Suzie News is quickly becoming my favorite secondary character. She seems to know how to roll with the punches, as it were, when it comes to the supers (and particularly Sydney).
You know, I bet ARCSWAT will need someone to help out with the news agencies. A personal journalist, as it were. Suzie “News” Wen definitely fits the bill, IMHO!
Someday, there will be some event that everyone on the team will really want to attend — a movie premiere or a photo shoot with a really hot celebrity or even something serious. And Ariana will decide, without any malice at all, that the only members she can bring are the ones who aren’t likely to embarrass the team.
Of course, it would be nearly impossible to keep Dabbler or Harem away from anything. Which isn’t fair to Sydney since, of the all the ones forbidden to go, she’s probably the only one who’d be prevented.
My personal assessment of the team is that the majority of them will toe the line and behave properly for soldiers. When they are knowingly under public scrutiny, anyhow. The civilian specialists having a greater liberty in their behaviour. The three obvious exceptions to the rule being Harem, Dabbler and Sydney.
Harem is the real loose cannon. Her hidden association with Machina Industries, and whatever is motivating that, makes her personality an unknown and therefore harder to predict. She may genuinely not care about normal social consequences, and thereby require more abnormal discipline to keep in line. Possibly she may even go openly rogue at some point. Or she may decide that a facade of normality is important, for whatever duplicitous reasons she is operating under, and rein in her behaviour. Or something completely different. Interesting times for the story and Arc.
Dabbler, with her mixed heritage would theoretically be even more unpredictable. And may ultimately be just that. But at the moment she is behaving consistently and therefore predictably. She has a problem with authority figures and likes pushing the boundaries. But importantly seems to know where they lie. Although she chooses to step over them, she is doing so strategically and carefully. It may frustrate Arc but it does mean they can work with her.
Dabbler has enough personal and political power arising from her unique heritage and situation that she can get away with a lot of things. There is not a lot Arc can do about that, which does not likely have more severe consequences for them, humanity and Earth. But whilst her behaviour merely pushes the social and political constraints, but does not break them, that is not creating an intolerable position for the organisation.
Sydney is, of course, in a fun situation. She is powerful enough that the authorities want her and her capabilities on their side. Which means that they must tolerate her eccentricities. They can try to train her, but eventually will realise that only so much of it will stick. Under normal circumstances the rule is to beat such individuals down (literally, in some military contexts, but mostly figuratively) until they comply. Or kick them out. Such crude tactics, though they work for society in general, will not work here.
I suspect that Arianna will just cleverly use this to her advantage. Sydney is the ultimate example of the founding principles that the organisation will be operating under. They need to be discipled enough in order to function as a police or military unit as required. Whilst balancing the fact that society needs to work with and tolerate the odder behaviour in some of them. The very rarity of super powers meaning that they cannot just discard the ones that have inconvenient personalities and recruit someone else.
So officialdom and society are the ones that need to become more flexible than in our world. Trying to force normality on intrinsically abnormal individuals may be perilous.
The closest real world analogy for Sydney, that springs to mind, is Elvis. The USA, the army and the president all had to make compromises to accommodate his desires, rather than the other way around. Society was a lot more inhibited and socially repressed before Elvis, the Beatles and others changed those dynamics in the world. The country and the world had to accept the new norms that the changing power of individuals brought.
Celebrities in the army always cause a problem. In times of war, or other national need, it is important to show that even the famous have to do their bit. In Elvis’s case he was extremely co-operative and wanted to be treated like a normal soldier. Even though the army could clearly not risk loosing him, or anyone with a fraction of his appeal. That applies to more than just loss by enemy fire. Loss due to dissatisfaction would cause just as much of a political catastrophe, if not more so.
The single situation that most epitomises my argument * being that Elvis wanted to carry his gun around with him as he travelled. As this included going to every state, often by air, the most practical solution being to have a Federal licence to do so. Which meant, rather than alienate him and all of his fans, it was easier for the president to instruct the FBI to make him an honorary agent and give him a badge. Regardless of the fact that his influence on the country’s youth was perceived as being dangerous. Likewise as regards the rock and roll lifestyle he lived and the drink and drugs associations that came with that.
The fact that Elvis’s power derived from social popularity, rather than orbs of mysterious origin, does not stop the parallels of the situation. And I foresee that the youth of the world may well take to Sydney. As well as those who value personal freedom and expression more than conformity. Whatever public following she gathers will magnify her social and thereby political power. Whilst she limits exploiting it to nothing more than enjoying life, in her own strange way, she should be able to get away with a lot more than any normal person could.
* Possibly apocryphal, as I see nothing on Wikipedia which would corroborate it. And can’t be bothered to sift through the numerous results brought up by brief searches relating him to the FBI or Hoover. But, even as an urban legend, it has social power and therefore is worthy of mentioning.