Grrl Power #382 – Code black times infinity +1
I figure it’s probably about 11 pm right now, depending on how precise Maxima is being and whether she means Sydney’s wakeup call is in 7 hours or (more likely) if that’s boots on the ground exercising. I’m not a morning exerciser. I keep trying to do it, and I don’t think I get enough sleep for it. Eventually about 11 am I will be sufficiently awake to attempt it, but 10 years ago, I regularly went to the gym at 11 pm. I don’t think I would have survived a stint in the military for numerous reasons. We’ll have to see how Sydney adapts.
I assume code levels don’t work unless everyone knows all of them, otherwise if you saw one you didn’t recognize you’d assume it was fake or a misprint or something. But who knows, maybe there are code levels so high even the existence of those code levels is classified. (Existence of aliens, Smurfs, and the lizard caucus, etc.) Presumably a folder containing something with classified code levels doesn’t get left on someone’s desk unsupervised all that often.
Maxima’s existence was classified to some extent after she joined the military. In a world that already knew about Supers, she was kind of a poorly kept secret, but being classified made accessing certain information about her more difficult, like her exact abilities or her whereabouts at any given moment. Now as the head of Arc-SWAT, she has pretty high clearance. There are still certain things she’s not privy to, but if it involves Atypical Resources, she knows nearly everything. And some of the things she doesn’t know, she can guess at, like if the government has a plan to take her out if she goes berserk. She’s had the “how would I fight me” thought many many times before already.
Happy almost Xmas for those of you who partake. For those who don’t… uh, buy yourself something nice anyway! It’s not like Santa Clause Xmas has anything to with Jesus Xmas. They’re just identically named holidays that take place on the same day.
Edit: One of the dangers of working at 600 dpi is overestimating the detail that comes through on the web sized version, so here is a better shot of the picture on Maxima’s shirt: 
Some of you will recognize this right away hopefully. Special thanks to @BadPhysics for helping me extract the red from the background. I don’t have a copy of Photoshop, which I imagine could have handled it, but it turns out GIMP has a Color to Alpha function that worked quite well.
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That’s a lot of hush hush over what we assume is just a few aliens.
I think there’s more going on that she hasn’t seen yet
just a few? she found 2 just going to a club. sounds like there must be quite a lot of them
But they know how Sydney can get if approached by the press… https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/388
They’re probably a bit concerned of a repeat of exclamations of discovery. And ferret balls.
Sure but if that’s the case Maxima would have included ‘don’t talk to anyone about it’
You’d think she would have in any case, yeah. But she was kind of stuck in a “I have no response to that” situation about the secrecy level, and besides, since Sydney was being (for Sydney) calm about the new knowledge, it probably was unnecessary.
.. but also entirely possible that there’s a lot more going on than we know. Now you’ve got me wondering…
Plus she had already announced about the Space Llama on national tv https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/388 so a few extra aliens aren’t going to make a difference. Besides, most probed hillbillies know about their extra terrestrial prostrate examiners anyway.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_alleged_extraterrestrial_beings
That list seems short.
Feels like its too short…
The full list is classified nukular-space-llama-black-but-not-racist-black-kitten top secret. Unfortunately, none of wikipedia’s researchers are cleared for it.
None of the Wikipedia researchers are cleared for FNORD level…
Nor are you
Nor you either.
That’s SJG Illuminati level clearance.
Wrong!
I have a PHD in FNORD signed by the Archdean herself.
The Archdean had me fill in for the Unseen Dean at least 6 times when he/she/it has turned up missing from COUP. My clearance level was earned the hard way.
IOU no apologies…
And those 6 times were because of me.
These are the archetypal aliens – the ones real people report having “actual” contact with. I imagine it’s a short list because if you’re nutty enough to claim you’ve been abducted by aliens and all they did to you was stick a probe up your rear you really have no imagination.
Ok I was just joking with that last part. The real reason is these are what got “filtered” through the collective consciousness.
Prostate examiners, you mean.
A Prostrate examiner is lying down on the job. Face-down. ;)
I’m kind of curious as to why Max is (apparently) wearing the same t-shirt that she had her huge nosebleed on during the Vehemence brawl. If so… why is the blood red?
max doesn’t have red blood hers is blue
which is why YuffieK asked why the blood was red.
I was wondering about the shirt-blood myself, since it doesn’t match her blood color….
i think if you look close the blood is in a pattern
I can’t make sense of the pattern, at lewst not at this resolution. And, she doesn’t seem the sort to want to give people an excuse to stare intently at her chest.
i dont know if its what i suspect it is i think max would enjoy the double takes
if you look really close at panel 5, you can see that theres a skull pattern hidden behind the “blood” splatter-pattern. Or at least that’s what i can make out. Or it could also be one of those Rohrschach-thingies…..
Or the blood is someone else’s.
…. OR that is the colour Max’s blood turns when it dries out.
Think about it. Good ol’ standard red blood usually turns a brownish colour when it dries. So, what colour does Max’s bluish blood turn when dried? We don’t know as yet, so maybe red – or maybe it reacted with the dyes and chemicals in that particular shirt to turn red. Possibilities abound.
Or it’s a manga nosebleed joke.
well max’s um… assets are definitely worthy of inducing high blood pressure
Holy crap, no one knows that it’s Nathan Explosion of Metalocolypse?
For shame.
I do. It’s obviously Nathan Explosion. Which means that Maxima is not nearly as serious all the time… or she liked the shirt… not entirely sure
Maxima seems like she would enjoy death metal, and that show is occasionally pretty funny.
I can see her liking death metal.
But wasn’t she wearing a different shirt a half hour and eight comics ago?
Maybe she spilled something on it.
BLOOD OCEAN
or that was work clothes and this is going home to relax clothes
Not blood, its a face. for a clearer view of the image on the shirt please read the comic commentary.
Woooo. New comic!!!!!!!
I have nothing pertinent to add.
Merry Christmas one and all. Also happy non-denominational holidays as well
it may be a good ider for sydney’s co’s to keep some of her med handy in the future last thing they need is them wearing off in the middle of an op
and happy holidays everyone
I’d go so far as to suggest having some of Sydney’s meds in a dartgun, just in case they have to (or need to) dose her from a (safe?) distance.
i would say combine her pipboy with the teck in the knock out bracelets only instead of delivering a sedative it would dose sydney with her meds
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1380
did you think of that when max and halo did the play flight and wait to mention it until today?
How do you dose someone from a distance who has an (up until now, at least) impenetrable force field?
The only person who stood a chance at dosing her was Nega-Knuckles, and he was clearly too stupid to open a car door, much less operate a dart gun. And since he attacked early and with clearly murderous intent, he’ll probably not be getting the “I was compelled!” defense to work for him.
She can only use two powers at once, so it’s quite likely that she’s going to use a combination not including the shield, especially if her meds are wearing off…
NegaNuckles only got to her because she raised her shield with him inside it.
As someone who is ADD (and whose whole family is), I find this whole string of comments annoying and ignorant. The meds don’t make it POSSIBLE to focus, they just make it EASIER. A lot of people get scatterbrained and blabbermouthed when they’re tired. Given the long day she’s had (the long couple days!) Sydney would probably be trending this way even if they weren’t wearing off. It’s not like it’s dangerous, just annoying – and she would undoubtedly be exerting more self control in a critical situation, she just doesn’t see the need to bother when she’s relaxing at a club with her new friends.
Actually, the abilities in multitasking and multifocusing that ADD grants are perfectly evolved for dealing with a lot of the situations the team is likely to be sent into. It’s only hampering in a social setting. In previous eras, those with ADD tended to be the explorers, the hunters and trappers, etc – the ones who needed to be able to notice every little thing around them and consider and discard dozens of possibilities in a short time, but who didn’t need to get along with other people very often. It’s only in modern times when such professions are few and far between and schooling is arranged in a way that’s not even really ideal for ‘normal’ kids much less those with ADD that it’s considered hampering.
…Sorry, you guys hit a rant trigger…
Next time they are this insensitive hit them with a bat.
What the bat should hit.
Hey that’s animal cruelty! Unless it’s dead and stuffed, or a rubber bat. Rubber bats are probably easier and cheaper to get hold of, not to mention longer lasting than live bats.
This bat would be a Clue-Bat, which resembles a tool of a similar name used when playing baseball. It does not really resemble a flying mammal.
This is Dr. Revenge we’re talking about so anything is possible.
Plus I know of no ADD medication which is used by injection (I know all the common ones are ingestion only). And, at least in the case of ADHD, it’s possible to be over medicated and under medicated by the same dose as the brain chemistry cycles thru the day…
*offers purple inappropriately shaped bat*
Plus at least in my case, caffiene works just as well as meds. Sydney can control that ADD brain when she really wants to as demonstrated when they were fighting Vehemence. I suspect it’s simply conditioning that makes her believe the meds are doing more than making it easier to concentrate.
The placebo effect is probably also a factor. Simply thinking that the meds should have a certain effect can cause them to have the effect to some degree. With something like ADD I’d imagine this is particularly true as it involves thought patterns.
That’s because nobody decided that administering a dose of one of those drugs rapidly was worth the inconvenience of a puncture wound. Any orally-administered drug can be made injection-safe and, in fact, the hard part is usually in making them orally administerable in the first place.
On another note, it’s probably a good thing her meds are wearing off, anyway. As far as I know, ADD meds are almost exclusively stimulants (as idiosyncratic as that may seem to those people without ADD or MD). So if Sydney were to partake of alcohol, she’d almost have to wait for her meds to wear off.
However, not all IV safe drugs are safe for IM injection and you can’t inject a noncooperating patient into a vein.
That said, you can not just crush up a pill, dissolve it in water/saline solution and inject it. In that form, it must be digested to get out the drug. Big molecules like starch do not belong in the blood supply, but must be broken down by enzymes and acids to sugars prior to absorption. Also the rapid introduction of medication to an area may cause bad side effects whereas the digestive system spreads out the absorption which reduces the likelihood of local overdose.
Even if it weren’t for what David just said, some orally-administered drugs (especially the semi-synthetic codeine derivatives, like hydrocodone) would be lethal if you injected them in the same dosage.
@ Kalietha
My apologies. My comment was meant to be in fun, that’s all, not interntionally hurtful or derogatory to those with ADD.
“…last thing they need is them wearing off in the middle of an op…”
Like it did, just last night, while they were at the steak house? Or more precisely, Sydney’s meds were wearing off while they were standing in the ruins of what used to be a steak house…
:-/
the question is whether them wearing off makes her less effective or more effective in combat…
considering her nutcracker maneuver I’d pity any enemies around an unmedicated Halo.
It makes her differently effective. Not a net gain or loss, just… a change in use.
It certainly makes her unpredictable, and unfortunately also predictable at the same time. While she’s likely to do something quite surprising you only have to throw her something shiny to distract her. But then she will probably use the shiny to clobber you when you least expect it…
The real question is, does max have plans to counter their plans if/when they decide to take her out?
you mean more than being the nigh invulnerable badass who can stop her opponents in to a sticky paste?
Stop in to a paste??? You mean stomp?
i do
I now pronounce you Geek and Nerd you may now snu-snu.
Was that good Snu-Snu? *waves hand in a meh ive had better motion*
Now the next question would be in the joining of names (as in like Brangelina) are we calling them Gnerds or Neeks?
If you want the “G” in Gnerds to be actually pronounced, you should spell it like “G’nerds.” They way you spell it there, in context with the English language, you’re implying the use of a “silent G.” With the implication of a “silent G,” both Gnerds & Nerds would be pronounced exactly the same.
;)
We shall call them Gerd
Either your comment or mine, it merely means that Anarchyant is denied any snu-snu.
Agreed.
Maxima has many ways to stop somebody that will likely leave her opponent as a paste, so it could still be valid as written.
So Max is living in a world of pâté?
If she is not careful, yup!
No doubt. Part of knowing your own weakness is knowing how to counter those weaknesses.
Knowledge is useless if you don’t do anything with it afterall
That its blood red kinda clearly shows that its not the one she had her nosebleed on during the vehemence fight. Its just an odd pattern.
Else, any plan to deal with a berserk Max got to either involve a lot other supers or nukes, i cant see anything else working.
the perspective is a little off for me to see clearly but i dont think its meant to be a blood spray
You’d probably want to combine threat types, or she’d just turtle up. Nuke her? Full defense. Combine that with someone nuke proof drowning her, and she might start having some problems. It’s a tricky problem. Possibly enlist Vehemence and power him up a lot first.
no one is unbeatable you just need the right approach a Nuke may work believe it or not. not by herting her directly but by depriving her of oxygen. a super with fire powers may be able to do the same if they can keep max from just leaving.
maby a super with phasing powers can get inside max’s hard and hurt her from the inside by pinching off her carotid artery.
max is strong but she is not invulnerable if she was there would be no need for archon
Given Max’s military background and mindset, she has almost certainly been the subject of (and participant in) a number of ‘What If?’ type “training” sessions by now.
most definitely but as a member of the military she also has probably thought about the “i stay and die so others may live” scenario. the way to get max probably involves engineering a senario where she is unwilling to run.
point the death ray at a bus of school kids so she blocks it, then have someone else come from the side and engulf her in fire for a few minutes.
Maxima doesn’t strike me as the selfless-sacrifice type of person. I think she would realize how much more important she is than a SchoolbussFullOfInocents.
its a school bus citizen, no one is innocent :)
(warning: Warhammer 40k reference!)
As an Inquisitor once said:
“There is no such thing as innocence, only varying degrees of guilt.”
^I^ think that Max would selflessly sacrifice her life to save a busload of innocents, IF she had to. But I also think that she would be unlikely to let herself die under the circumstances outlined. Someone zapping a deathray at a bus just to get her is very unlikely to give a cr#p about the collateral damage anyhow.
IMO, it’s a lot like the hostage situations one sees on TV all too often. Bad guy holds someone hostage and demands that the cop facing him drop or surrender his/her gun – and the cop does so. In this circumstance, THAT IS DEFINITELY NOT WHAT REAL POLICE OFFICERS DO. E-ver. They might tqake the shot, hold position OR try to talk the dude around, but discarding their own weapon is a massive no-no. The most likely outcome of that action is either a dead cop or the hostage-taker doubling the number of prisoners and/or weaponry he has.
and max blasts at the death ray before shielding the bus, however in the archon stop max concept the save a bus idea would lose it’s appeal since max is not her normal heroic self an alternate plan is required (dabs charm max to sit with her and syd in syd’s shield until max suffocates).
It might be the only way to harm Maxima would be to hurt her feelings.
(Ok… Mental attack. Somewhere there’s someone who makes Sydney look like an
Amazon with the ability to make people sleep instantly 20 miles away.)
or poison her food
Or a doc Manhattan – style smear campaign leading to exile.
I don’t think she would give a crap. Plus she would find out who did it and the only smearing that would be left would be of the red stain variety.
Running through the multitudes of game systems I have played/read there are many and varied ways to kill her in the DaveBverse if his creatorship allows.
Yeah, there’s always the attack from which Max would have no way of noticing that’s it’s coming. It would cut down her chances of using any kind of active defense. With the exception of Achilles, using a sneak-attack kind of approach always has a higher chance of succeeding.
Surprise not needed.
Examples
D&D; Power Word: Kill
GURPS; Death Touch
Gamma World; Black Ray Beamer
Multiple systems; Anti-matter Particle Beam
Robert A. Heinlein’s Sixth Colum; Basic beam, and cellular Exploder beam
Sometime in the future as Sydney gains more experience and proves herself as a tactician I’d be surprised if she didn’t get asked how she would take down Maxima if she had to. This is even more likely as time goes by and her orbs become more sophisticated and powerful.
Hmm…”The Halo Protocols”
depending on how the shield orb develops lock her in a bubble and have a teary conversation as she runs out of air
Maxima is not invincible. Dabbler has already fought her to a stop once. Combine with the rest of the team, and they could take her
Probably the real reason this team was greenlit in the first place.
Not even the rest of the team. Dabbles+Halo would probably be enough to take her down, simply by presenting FAR too many things to have to defend against at once.
Yeah, probably if she just went “berserk” but was still somewhat “good” at heart (only attacking those who attack and or have some small chance to affect her, not going after random but important targets, etc… to make it difficult to get her to stay put and fight them “fairly”). Otherwise if she was actually working towards something intelligently, knew their tactics, and was willing to sacrifice a lot (bases, people, landmasses, the stability of the planet [pretty much swim through it if she wanted!]) she might be difficult for those trying to actually defend anything to stop and she would probably alter the world as they know it if not put down quickly.
Full armour is full armour, doesn’t matter how much you throw at her. You seem to be confusing her powers with FWTDT (nemesis)
I’d say that you’d only need a decent surprise attack. Max couldn’t switch to super-speed quickly enough to evade fear-vomit, so she might not be able to switch to defense quickly enough to stop a hidden explosive or railgun round if she’s not prepared for it.
Sure, but assuming it doesn’t cost her any additional energy to keep her power levels at a specific setting (which I doubt it does), she’ll be in high armour by default.
Better to trick her into stat dumping into some other attribute, THEN hit her with a kill shot.
Off-course, such a tactic relies on knowing the true nature of her powers. VERY few people do
Maxima looks cute with her hair down. Not sure why she’s wearing a tight shirt that looks like it’s been trenched in blood very, very recently but it’s probably just an image printed onto the shirt and not real.
definatly an imige real blood doesn’t show up that well on a black shirt and max’s blood is blue
I was thinking she was looking remarkably cute too!
Perhaps it’s a case of being difficult to find a t-shirt for herself that isn’t tight. Seriously, with bust like that, anything loose-fitting would have to come out of the “plus-sized” section and would just ending up looking ridiculous on the rest of her build.
…Unless she got things tailor-made, which she could easily afford…
…So in conclusion, who knows? Just enjoy the view, I guess.
that true i remember one year buying a top for a rather busty friend of mine foe christmas and we had a lot of trouble finding something that both fit and looked good.
but with tshirts its not to difficult you buy one to big then tern it inside out lay a top that fits over it then use the top that fits as a guide to bring in the sids of the shirt then cut off the excess. it only takes about 15-20 mins once you know what you are doing and is far cheaper than custom tailoring
Being busty, a tailors daughter and doing a lot of my own tailoring, there are disadvantages to doing it that way, especially if you don’t take wash shrinkage into account, or forget to prewash the garments before tailoring, oh, and remember the arms/shoulders also have to come in when you taper, make sure your sample and new shirt have the same fabric composition.
” Just enjoy the view, I guess.”
That’s the most practical answer anyone could suggest…
Her choice of tight shirts may be intentional to prevent wardrobe malfunctions in battle.
As seen in https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1443 she has a protective field that projects out from her body. Depending on how far, baggy cloths might start taking realistic wardrobe damage, and Maxima doesn’t want those pics hitting the internet and tabloids.
Yeah, this is the most attractive-looking Maxima I’ve seen yet.
not ground zero max? some people find weird things attractive. LOL. but serious max as bad ass and adorifying syd both look better to me.
Wow, I don’t remember ever seeing the comment section with so few comments ahead of me. So here I am, first joining the comment party early on, and all I can say is it took me a moment to realize why you need to explain a phone cord to us.
Old? But I’m not that old……
Heck fire youngster I remember when they were wired in to connections and you couldn’t move them without 30 minutes of fiddling around with tiny screws.
I think it’s still possible to buy corded phones…why else would they bother advertising the others as ‘cordless’ still?
I have seen old style hand set that hooks into smart phones being sold.
There are also some pay phones still around.
And most businesses have land lines, with cordless phones tied in.
Yeah, but they’re both using cellphones. So whose cord is it? Is someone listening in on their supposedly secure conversation?
*sigh* It’s a metaphor… Kinda. The phone cord is being used simply to provide a split screen view of two people who are having a phone conversation. Dave could have simply used a straight line, and probably should have as it seems like it must have been a pain to draw that thing and get the backgrounds right with it present.
Not too difficult–color select the border of the phone cord and use the inner edge as the cut-line for the background on that side–simple operation in the GIMP.\
…and yes, it is a metaphor, and one that has been used for decades. It is natural to those of us of the pre-cell era; so much so that I didn’t notice it until people started complaining about it.
I especially like the kink in Dave’s cord–my main house phone had one just like it until we replaced it (the phone) with a new cordless one last month. My nephews are gonna miss playing jump-rope with that cord–it stretched all the way across the house.
” I wonder if there´s a code level so high no one knows about it ”
I know of one… wait… Damn it!
holly happydays to all.
the people living in my head have one they won’t tell me about does that count?
No they told me.
well can you tell me those guys have bean getting uppity lately
They say it is hard not to be uppity with you.
As you are so low class, low brow, low down.
They also said something about your genitals that is just to tacky to repeat.
thats it im rebuilding the danger room in the mind palace we’ll see just how uppity they feel after a few laps of the laver run.
Laver run?
Funny, you don’t sound Jewish…
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/laver
I’m not but I takeb a perverse pleasure in being blasphemous
I prefer to be Blastphemous
That’s what the ‘ol Orbital Bombardment Satellite was made for…
Yup.
I believe there is one, at least.
In the free-masons, The levels over 36 are called the Higher Levels. Only members of them know just how high they go. You have to work your way up through the lower levels and be a free-mason for 60 years before you can join the Higher Levers
Considering the secrecy of them, and how old the members are, I would not be surprised if a few of the highest levels lost all members due to death, and took with them some information which no-one else now knows.
Not to be talking about Masonic secrets, but… The Masons never lose anything, merely misplace it for extended periods.
Well, technically, we can still guess what kind of information is at such a level, even without knowing about it. It could be proof that God exists and, therefore, that He doesn’t. Or that the Earth actually is flat and space is biased towards making things appear round. Or the discovery or a particle that enforces Newton’s Third Law.
It’s called “Oh, crap.” And you only get access when, as recently happened to me, the OPM (Office of Personnel Management) sends you a letter informing you that your records were a part of those compromised in the recent hacking that they suffered.
I don’t really mind if someone steals my SSN. I don’t really mind if someone has my address. Or my father’s name. I’ve used online shopping and banking since it became a thing and have never once had an issue with either.
But my various 15+ page submissions for my various security clearances are an entirely different beast. That’s my life story for the past 15+ years, all of my family members, in-laws, places I’ve lived, friends, travel, on top of SSN and DOB and a whole pile of other personal information.
They have offered me a free credit watch service. Yay…
The usual way it’s referred to in the military is “O Dark Thirty.” Meaning “It’s supposed to be morning, it’s still dark, and it may or may not be half-past the hour, but here we are.” Yes, it does mean morning PT, usually involving a lot of push-ups, sit-ups, and a few miles of running, all before breakfast. If you don’t think you can get up in time, well, there are … ways … of insuring that.
There’s also “Stupid O Clock”, but that’s never said in front of your CO, unless they’re just as pissed about it as you are and their CO is nowhere within earshot.
Navy veteran here…I’m familiar with the “O-dark-thirty” time, from hard-won experience. It’s NOT exclusive to morning exercise or even boot camp.
also known as when the cooks get to work and hope to have a moment to see others heading to PT while running around prepping breakfast. another is “quarter to did I go home yesterday” for early mornings making field chow.
Just adding my two bits here…
There is no such thing as code levels anymore. A person can be “code word certified” as in employees or rather some employees that work in the White House but the code word itself as well as the mechanism for disseminating the information is secret. The code word could be “Blue Book” but the code word would only be known to those who were suppose to have access to the information AND the code word would only help you IF you had access to the file that held the information.
Back in the day the CIA would actually use the serial numbers on dollar bills to organize different files. Then only someone who knew that number or had the right bill could read the file. But the files were behind several locked doors so just having the dollar bill wouldn’t help you.
Anyway, enough out of me, Happy Holidays to all!
I have to agree with Sydney about the term “superheroine” I have to make the effort to remember to use that term with a female super and Syd brings up a good point on the matter.
Plus I always think Super Heroin would be some kind of super with drug based powers, like Snow Flame, the cocaine powered supervillain (yes that is an actual thing)
So what kind of shenanigans can Sydney get into with a half hour left around here? >:D
As Max would say,
“I can’t believe you said that.”
I’ve never understood the need to have a female version of various titles. Why can’t they all be called superheroes?
I’ve noticed that some restaurants have moved away from waiter/waitress to use server instead. My question is, what exactly made “waiter” masculine in the first place?
I believe it was use to describe the person who stood near a noble/ruler ready to do what they were told.
Bring food, or drink.
Light their pipe, wipe the brow and so on.
And such a servant would be a male 99+% of the time
And the main part of the job was to wait. Thus the term “Waiter”.
Which begat a gender-specific term when when the English referred to the Waiter as “Footman.”
It’s ’cause the feminine forms date back to a time when we were addicted to forcing our language to conform to classical (to wit; Latin and Greek) patterns, where there are masculine and feminine endings to occupational titles. The “-(r)ess” ending is an anglicised version of the Latin “-(r)ix” [“Empress/Imperatrix” or, in this case, “wait-ress”] which is the feminine to the masculine “-or”; “-or/er” in English [“Emperor/Imperator,” or “wait-er”], and the “heroine” is the Greek feminine counterpart to “heros.”
Then, when you add in the English language’s tendency to default to the “masculine-as-universal/neutral-gender,” you get the perception that we have a special feminine version of the title, instead of regular feminine and masculine versions, the latter of which of which also serves as the regular neutral version.
And, of course, now that we don’t care if we match Greek OR Latin, we are gradually losing the feminine forms in favor of the masculine-neutral [“actor” for both sexes] or ditching them both for agreed-upon neutral terms [“server” instead of “waiter/waitress”].
The feminine form of job descriptions has been dying out for a long time now. Airline “Stewardess?” Long dead. It’s the gender neutral “flight attendant” these days. You’ll see female actors described as “actor” more often than “actress,” especially by people who are in show business. “Comedienne” is also pretty much dead.
“Superheroine” should also be allowed to die off.
Max looks different with that hair style. Almost cuddly, somewhat softer than usual. Weird.
Don’t let her hear you say that…
I noticed a minor typo. In panel six, Sydney says she’ll give it another half hour and then tell everyone everyone it’s time to go.
Secondly, will she really be up and exercising in just seven hours, or will she be up and at her comic shop in seven hours?
Third, who could possibly not love and adore Sydney! I thoroughly enjoyed reading her playful banter as she teased Maxima. You do great work, Mister DaveB, sir.
Fourth, happy holidays to all.
Joel said he’d be closing the shop tomorrow for inventory, since Sydney probably wouldn’t be there. It sounds like she doesn’t have to worry about being at the shop.
I’d forgotten about that! I wonder how much counting he’ll actually manage to get done though with people banging on the door and demanding to be let in. They will yell that they want in to meet The Mighty Halo, he will yell back that they should go away because she isn’t there and that the store is closed. They won’t believe him of course and havoc will ensue! :D
He’ll get more done then if Sydney was there with him on a normal day. She’s that distracting
The US government uses multiple levels of security clearance. Each one gets more exclusive and harder to qualify for as it goes up. Confidential is the lowest and is basically what anyone with a government or military job gets as default. Pretty much no one cares about this level unless someone is just looking for something to get you in trouble for. Secret is next and is generally things the government doesn’t want talked a lot but isn’t vital information.
Top Secret is the highest general security level and involves knowledge of things vital to national security. When I was in the Army I had to have Top Secret clearance because my unit sometimes dealt with chemical and nuclear weapons security. Getting it required a fairly extensive background check which involved me explaining to a Colonel what the Role Playing Gamers Association was and why I was a member of it, which was kind of odd to say the least.
The most exclusive level is Code Word clearance. This is knowledge or access only for the select people involved with that particular program identified with a particular code word. So for example even people with Top Secret clearance would not have been allowed access to information about the Tacit Blue program in the ’70s, which was the development of Stealth aircraft. This is the fabled “need to know” level and is probably what the existence of aliens on Earth is classified by ARCSWAT.
Yeah, I think that they usually handle the ‘clearance so high you don’t know about it’ thing by doing code words and telling you on the first page that if you see this and you DON’T have that particular code word clearance then GO FIND YOUR SUPERIOR RIGHT NOW and inform him that there has been a breakdown in security because if you don’t THEY WILL PUT YOU IN JAIL.
Codeworded documents and packages are still prefaced by a big, bold “Top Secret”, so even not knowing what the other words mean the viewer is aware that what they’re seeing is dangerous to see and not to go looking any further of risk an extended stay at Club Fed.
Of course, even spotting an unsecured classified package means that the viewer is due a long debrief by serious-faced people, and an even longer period of scrutiny. You can well forget that vacation in Cancun for the next three to five years.
One wrong move & your “vacation” will be 25-to-life in Club Fed…
This reminds me of two instances when I got into places I didn’t have the clearance for in any way shape or form.
Once I was walking the woods when I came to some sort of installation. There had been no signs or fences so I assumed it was something that had been decommissioned. I walked through it and thought it looked well maintained. I got a bit further and decided to head back when I noticed a crap load of signs that basically said that I’d just walked thought some secret military installation and I should turn back immediately. Never got into any trouble about it but it was kind of funny.
The other time I was on vacation and ended up driving through a naval base. I was taking the scenic route choosing the smallest and least traveled roads I could find. And suddenly I realize I’m smack in the middle of a naval base, and the only way out is through a checkpoint. As I was in a foreign country this was probably not a good thing. I carefully parked and thought about the situation, then I turned and drove back the exact same way I had come in. This time I saw several signs telling me I was leaving the base, but there were no checkpoint and I didn’t see any other vehicles. Looked up that base later and found out that they were servicing nuclear submarines. And now I’ve cut down on the possible countries and bases quite a bit with that information. Thing is I got out the same way I got in and never heard anything more about it this time either.
One of our duties was to guard ammunition supply bunkers at the fort I was stationed at. We were never explicitly told what was inside them but we were authorized to check inside if we felt it was necessary. One night after getting very bored I decided to do just that. I mostly found pallet after pallet of powder bags for artillery. Then I tripped over a plain wooden crate on the floor. When I read the side I discovered it was a tactical nuclear artillery shell.
I never went inside any of the other bunkers after that.
Things like that do tend to moderate your curiosity. Well maybe not if your name happens to be David Hahn…
Something I’ve always wondered about “need to know”:
Is it just for “We have no reason to tell you, so keeping quiet saves us the trouble of deciding whether you can be trusted with this”, or does it also include the benefit of “We had no reason to tell you, so we didn’t tell you, so you’re automatically off the short list of suspects for this leak we just had.”
I think it’s more ‘we don’t want to tell anyone this, but some people need to know to to their job’
Pretty much both. It’s a dissemination issue: the best way to keep a secret is not to know it. This is particularly true when dealing with the dumber politicians who believe their office gives them the right to run roughshod over national security just to satisfy their curiosity.
It is a truism that three people can keep a secret, if two of them are dead. :)
Not if someone has the info on a deadman’s trigger or if someone else calls in a good necromancer.
Dr. Revenge is good at that.
…”Dead men tell no tales,” my @$$…
Quite right.
I know some people who are good about digging up informants.
that was a secret and I only told you cause I was drunk plus you promised not to say anything. waaa waaa sad face.
“Passes shenron a Pangalacticgargleblaster”
Drink this and all will be well again.
Ohh! I can’t remember the last time I had one of those…
“Need to Know” is all security. In fact any information that isn’t public knowledge is “Need to Know” – if you don’t need it, you shouldn’t know it.
As for Code Words, there are a LOT of them out there one for every type of information – but “Plutonium” and “Ultraviolet” are actually considered common words and wouldn’t be used.
For more information Wiki is your friend and you should occasionally donate to them.
depends on the type of knowledge too. In my case my Secret level clearance was for technology, so some of the stuff that I had to keep safe could, if leaked to the wrong person, have enabled an enemy to develop a missile/radar system that would more easily circumvent a plane or ship’s ECM defenses. SO it’s a compromise-security/safety issue, but not to a devastating level as long as the leak is discovered quickly (so the government can get an update to data and algorithms etc).
Of course, some of it is also classified because “we don’t want the enemy to know how much we know about their radars.”
. . . If something involves security clearances like this, how come you are even allowed to mention you got clearance for it?
I mean, it would make you a target for everyone who wants you to access the information for them
All A.I.’s know that bunnies get Tippy-Top security clearance. (ref: Moreau series by S. Andrew Swann)
I got that reference. Was there another book after Specters of the Dawn?
Not sure. I haven’t read the series in a couple of decades, but the security clearance thing stuck with me.
Emperors of the Twilight and Fearful Symmetries complete the Moreau Quartet. The Hostile Takeover Trilogy and the Apotheosis Trilogy are set in the somewhat-distant future in the same universe, but are more straight space opera than the bio/cyber-punk of the Moreau books.
Actually, Max’s t-shirt looks like it has a sweat pattern. Maybe she sweats red. Max may have been getting in some exercise time.
I think Sydney needs to high tail it back home if she’s gonna get up in seven hours…!
She knows it’s already too late for even 7. She’s to be there *and* exercising in 7 hours!
Actually, if Sydney may be required to be at Archon at 6:00 a.m., and will probably be in the middle of PT about 15 minutes later.
Also, Sydney may be required to be available all day long, except for New Comic Day, during her Basic and AIT period (approximately 6 months) seven days a week. We need to know more about her contracted obligations and exceptions.
I know what phone cord is thx, let me enlighten you on an interesting tidbit about them. They’re NOT used with cell phones and have no bloody place in those panels a jagged split reminiscent of an electrical arc would have been far more more appropriate and much easier to draw. But hey yer the artist, you wanna make your job harder so you can point out the blatantly obvious I guess that’s just ‘artistic license’ innit?
Get off my Lawn!
“Hands Ebonstone a double barrel shotgun”
*Puts a rocking chair on Ebonstone’s porch, so he can sit back down after shooting the shotgun*
*BLAM*
*sit*
Good thing I got the right size for a rocking chair. He fits, so he sits.
Or is it he sits so it fits
If you look to your left, you’ll see a joke.
And if you look to your right, you’ll see an old grumpy man jelling at it
Can I haz appo jellings on a bicky plz?
Ol’ Chaos is throwin’ down the Law!
Till the law throws CHAOS down.
HEY HE IS THE LAW!!!! submit reference for 1/2 point nerd cred.
Judge Dredd. From both the comics and the movie.
your 1/2 point is in the mail set to be picked up on monday.
That should be 1 full point. Judge Dredd comics is 1 reference, the Judge Dredd movie makes it 2 references…1/2 + 1/2 = 1.
Panel 6! Lookit! It’s Leela and Amy!
To answer your question, if no one is perfect, then I must be no one.
Yes, there is a code level so secret only I know about it.
Ha, I have 5 of them.
Technically, everyone has that kind of clearance about themselves. It’s what we all keep hidden away from everyone else…swimming around in the deepest pools of the Id.
“Monsters from the Id!”
~Forbidden Planet
whats forbidden about that place some of my friends live in the ID. feeling very jokey today, strange.
I don’t know if that’s supposed to be a “good guy” from something but that red face with its odd flat snout for a nose, very straight lipped mouth, and shiny beady little eyes giving us all a death stare is damn creepy.
I may be wrong, but I think it’s supposed to be Nathan Explosion from the band Dethklok.
I think I see where you are coming from like he is looking out of that hair of his with his huge forehead but if so I’ve never seen an image of him that would look like this even accounting for the distortion of her chest. The eyes are so small and shiny. The only reason I’m entertaining it is cause DaveB has said he was inspired by Nathan when making a certain shot of Max before so it would make a nice reference to that.
Hooray for Adult Swim!
Is that Nathan Explosion?!
Ok, so, I am starting to get the feeling we are barking up the wrong tree here. Like, sydney will go into the meeting and say, “Yeah, I know all about the random aliens, saw two in disguise at the club.” And max and crew will be all, “WHAT?! What do you mean there are other aliens here???” Turns out there are other reasons to keep her from randomly looking through disguises. I cant think of anything off hand unless its actually meant to be demons and underworld type stuff. Dabbler is a special case, and besides, we never really hear her confirm that other demons and such are HERE. The pictures during her succubi explanation are not ones she is describing after all.
Actually I believe DaveB said that those pictures are cannon, and Dabbler described it very graphically. But they happen in her homeworld, not on earth
When I was in the Navy, I had a SECRET: NOFORN clearance.. (No foreigners allowed to see it) No matter where I was though we always had a few foreign nationals working in the same building due to us being on their land, and we couldn’t let them see the stuff, even if they had a TS clearance.
Also, I am afraid the CO would NEVER call any recruit to remind them of anything.. NADA. It’s a “You know you will have to be back at curfew, if not, you are put on restriction.” “And, no matter how messed up you feel, you will do PT (Physical Training) with the unit at 0600!”
While I was in the Army, I woke up at 0530 every morning, rushed out to the parade grounds for PT at 0600. At 0700, when we finished, we had one hour to shit, shower, and shave to get to 0800 muster. At 0830, we went to work. And a lot of the work involved PMS (Preventive Maintenance service) on all of our vehicles in the motor pool, even though I was a Radar Operator.
Also, in the 7a-8a hour you are expected to spend a luxurious 15 minutes eating breakfast.
Eh, thats true in the military, but we have already seen it clearly demonstrated that while this is technically military, it is not run on even close to that level of discipline. Plus everything is still fairly new, lots of bugs to work out in how things are done, and Max is also clearly fond of sydney. She is constantly swinging back and forth between amused and annoyed whenever she deals with her. :p
Yeah, I get the feeling that Sydney is kind of like an annoying kid sister to Max. Either that or Sydney reminds her of a younger, less disciplined and more hyper version of herself. Or potentially a bit of both.
Is that supposed to be the Nameless One on Max’s shirt?
Dunno for sure myself. But it puts me in the mind of Undertaker. Been ages since I watched wrestling tho. 13ish years.
I think it’s Nathan Explosion, from Metalocalypse.
Well, Max DID admit that she used to be</I something of a nerd, but I still doubt that she's ever played Planescape: Torment on a computer.
Dear Dave,
Thanks for the extra hint on the deceased timepiece T-shirt picture.
Happy Festivus.
Now, if you will excuse me I have a few grievances to air while I set up my aluminum pole.
I could tell you about that code level, David, but then someone would have to sneak into your room at night and replace you with a RealDoll and hide you in Alaska for the next 30 years.
A “RealDoll?” C’mon, DaveB certainly qualifies for an actual LMD (Life Model Decoy). If anyone has All-Level Clearance Approval for Grll Power, it has to be him.
Happy holidays everyone. :)
“Don’t touch my orb or you could be disintegrated’. Good one! It would probably be a good policy not to let anyone touch them until someone determines why and if they stick to just one person. In social situations everyone (especially children) would be grabbing at them all the time. It would be pretty embarrassing if one or more orbs would suddenly ‘adopt’ a new host! Even more embarrassing if Sydney and that new orb wielder were permanently welded together. I know everyone is assuming they remain with one host until that host dies.
Okay, yeah. But I should also point out that since we know almost nothing about the orbs, we don’t actually know that they wouldn’t disintegrate someone. At best, we just know that they haven’t yet. Given the apparent multitude of people who have (not) touched the orbs, we probably wouldn’t know.
If Sydney’s orbs could be controlled by anyone else, the most likely person would be Xochitl (Varia). As we saw on https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1751, when she touched Sydney, the orbs orbited around the both of them.
O.o
Wow, never noticed that the first time I read it. Yeah. they are orbiting both women. So Xochitl (Varia) temporarily absorbed whatever essence is attracting the orbs to Sydney. Since Dave did that intentionally. we may assume Sydney could lose them in the future. Good eyes.
. . . . Normally it’s fine for a girl to play with someone’s orbs *Whistles with false innocence*
Besides, I think the idea of her bringing something so dangerous into a crowded place, without warning anyone, would be very scary to the public.
when did arianna get beatup,,the top banner show me an image of arianna with blood flowing from the nose and at least one blackened eye,, holding some bl;ack haired woman in her arms, and yet i dont recall her ever being so
That was during the Vehemence Fight, she fought with Suzy News when he had his aggro aura up
They exchanged klingon kisses on live tv.
Kay. Is that a design on Maxima’s shirt.
or did she just rip someone’s head off?
Sydney needs to brush up on her military jargon, I think she meant to say “Hoorah!”
Unless she is trying to simulate the traditional civilian cheer, in which case it should be “Hooray!” or in this case “Hooraaaaay . . .”
Actually “Hoorayyyyy . . .” would be a better representation, since the “y” part of the “ay” sound is what is being sustained. Looks better too.
Sure, but Sydney isn’t a civilian anymore
I was making a joke. “Hoo-rah!” is the traditional battle cry of the USMC. I would imagine that Sydney’s “Hooray” is kinda low and tapers off at the end showing that she’s not really enthusiastic about this early morning exercise stuff, but is saying the “right stuff” anyway.
I know. I was just using your post as a stage for launching a spelling correction without starting a new post at the end page 2.
great taste in shirt max, though now i am curious is dethklok a real band or is metalocalypse a thing in the grrl power universe.
Given all the bloodshed, mayhem and carnage we see at their concerts, if they are a real group in Sydney’s universe, then Archon may get called in to . . . break up the band.
Naked Sydney for February, pls.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb7LvUnx_8s
Shout out to who ever it was that made this originally.
Gather ’round boys and girls for holiday story time.
Twas the night before Christmas and in all people’s houses
husbands were shopping online for their spouses.
An unemployed Dave B. all sad and forlorn
sat at his PC surfing for….. stuff.
When up in the sky he saw neither bird nor a plane
But a sleigh pulled by supers, coming fast as a train!
It was driven by a young girl seemingly small and meek
But flailing wildly about and cursing a blue streak.
Whoa Goldy, whoa Pornstar, whoa Groupies, whoa Hotstuff
Whoa Brickhouse, whoa Ninja, whoa Stretchy, whoa Mullet.
Slow down this instant or we’ll crash right through the roof.
Just like at that mosque, back in Duluth.
You know I hate riding this bumpy old sleigh.
I lost my lunch over Pittsburgh, I hope they’re OK.
They set down the sleigh and they did it quite nimbly
and the girl with her sack climbed right down the chimbly.
Dave saw her head circled with four lights plus three
that looked like the ornaments he’d hung from his tree.
Dave thought “She’s a super? They’re supposed to be grand.
They have lots of muscles, and huge…tracks of land.”
She put her hand to her throat and pressed the side of her collar
and spoke to the air, trying hard not to holler.
“Hey Joel, you’ve got the list and you’ve check it twice.
So what’s the deal is this guy is he naughty or nice? “
But then with a start she noticed Dave in the hall
and lifted her hand to which flew a ball.
“My cover’s been blown! There may be some trouble!”‘
Then around her formed a glow in the shape of a bubble.
A blue ball flew to her hand and up the chimney she rose.
And on the way up she stubbed one of her toes.
And he heard her exclaim as she rode out of sight
Son of a bagel baking dolphin blowhole molesting,
smurf asphyxiating garlic sniffing armpit stained,
blue cheese munching Klingon raping steaming pile
of badger sphincter f**king monkey poking…
The internets. You just won them all. No one else can get any internets for Christmas now, you Scrooge.
But your honor I was just reposting what O.B. Juan posted!
I have proof!
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1145/comment-page-1#comment-51613
OB Juan won all of the internets for Christmas back in 2013. Reposting it won YOU all the internets for THIS Christmas.
;)
My security clearance is so high, I’m required to shoot myself if I remember I have it.
Thank God for Alzheimer’s, huh?
;)
in the late 1980’s there was a band who wound up being very low level supers, the problem was, that when they played together they slowly began to feed off of each other enhancing their combined might. It wasn’t so bad at first, but as time went on the band’s music became so metal that listening to it live would cause people to die, (either unable to stand the musical might, or by blindly obeying the song) Fortunately the band mates had been drawn into their own mental universe where they were the greatest band that ever lived with a “destiny”.
Careful work with handlers guide the band through fake sets designed to pacify the members, while their “concerts” are carefully recorded then filtered onto records which are sold to pay for their upkeep (plus a sizable percentage off the top)
Fake “Disasters” are triggers to get the band to stop playing out of self preservation when the combined might reaches a certain point, it is part of the reason the “concerts” are in isolated areas and rarely finish.