Grrl Power #425 – In case she’s ever a damsel in duress
For those of you who don’t quite follow the gag here, it’s a call back to page 218. Obviously Sydney has been brought into the fold and she’s on board. Max has gone quite easy on Sydney thus far – it’s questionable how much Sydney realizes that, but she’s smart enough to know not to get on Max’s bad side. However this game seems harmless to her. I assume the further up the chain of command someone gets the more problem they might have with it. I can only image doing stuff like this in the other branches of the military could get you into a good amount of trouble. Disrespecting a senior office or what have you.
This duress code is one of two Sydney will get. Vermillion is the one the rest of her team knows, but she’ll have a second one only the top brass knows, in case someone lower in the pecking order is ever compromised or revealed as a turncoat. Of course if everyone on the team knows that everyone else has a secret second code word, and turncoat would be listening for “rare” words to pop up in that sort of call. For that reason the secret duress code word has to be less rare, and the team members have to just condition themselves not to use it in daily conversation.
This process requires that Sydney memorize the rest of the team’s duress codes as well. Lots to do as a fledgling superheroine. Hiro, Max, Arianna and Zephan have to memorize both sets of code words. It’s got to be tough considering a situation like that is probably going to be a rare occurrence.
By the way I call Harem “part Irish” in that one panel. I started thinking about it and really she’s probably mostly Irish. She’s a befreckled red head and her last name is DeShantis. There’s a few other nationalities mixed in to her heritage, cause that’s just how people do, but yeah, mostly Irish.
I’m experimenting with something in that middle panel – the captions are character coded by hair color, since in this case the two speakers have different hair color, go figure. This won’t work if Arianna is talking to Vogue Harem or Anvil with Heatwave. When I originally started the comic, I considered briefly color coding the speech bubbles the way Flaky Pastry does, but I was concerned that could lead to some difficult to read color combinations. Obviously everyone notices the pretty word bubbles, but correctly associating them with offscreen speakers is something only really astute readers pick up on.
I have a NSFW surprise for you. (Softcore, nothing too crazy.) A supporter over at Patreon commissioned a picture of Dabbler and Maxima doing, let’s say, non-canon things. He didn’t commission it from me, as I don’t have the time for stuff like that unfortunately. Instead a guy who goes by Mikiron did it, and it’s excellent. So check it out and check out his page as well.
By the way, happy Overwatch day. Supposedly the game should unlock today at 4pm PST. I still plan on drawing a Zayra + Peggy pic, but ironically the release of the game may slow that process down somewhat. I’ll try and have it ready as the next vote incentive.
Patreon supporters can view this page at twice the size! (as soon as I wake up and post it then immediately go back to sleep since Patreon doesn’t have a way to schedule posts yet.) $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like :)
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I just noticed SpidersMan is in the crowd…. Previous strip.
Not to be confused with Spiders Georg, who is an outlier and should not have been counted.
Also ‘Quiver’ is in the Make Maxima Say pool twice.
Whoops, durn it. I’ll get that fixed.
I actually liked it. Halo is entering the game in the middle of the round. So the other participants probably chose a few words to double up to give her a fighting chance.
since it was on other cards, you should replace it with boobie
heh heh… I said boobie
“Quim” would probably be easier.
All she would have to do is recreate the Loki-Black Widow scene in the Avengers movie, with Maxima as Loki.
I still can’t believe that, via clever synonym usage, Joss Whedon got a character in a Disney-funded film to say “whiny c*nt”.
My jaw quite literally dropped open. “Did he just say what I think he just said?”
Getting crap past the censors indeed.
It isn’t really getting something past the censors when the word isn’t a general use obscenity. It’s like saying “Bugger” in an American film. In the UK that means “buttsex” but in the USA it… doesn’t. So nobody cares.
Whedon also had Spike throw up the two-finger-bird in an episode of Buffy. Nobody in the states cared, ‘cuz culturally it’s irrelevant to us.
That was the episode he couldn’t talk :D
Also (and I am just being OCD here so only take it as a joke). Cloaca was 2nd row from right, 2nd from bottom on page 218 (above lubrication and between Trouser Ferret and Penetrate). I would love to know what conversation Max had that she mentions the word Trouser Ferret in! Unless some poor guy went to the same bad guy naming school as For whom the death tolls?
In bingo, everyone’s cards are different. If they were all arranged the same way, everyone would win simultaneously or nobody would win at all.
Personally believe it is the one who gets her to say the last word that is the winner, but guessing you have not played real Bingo as that is how it works as well: the first one to call out Bingo (and have their card verified) wins
That depends. If the object of the game is for the cardholder himself or herself to get Maxima to say a certain word (and, therefore, it wouldn’t count if someone else got her to say it), then that would eliminate the possibility of multiple winners.
I’m just waiting for the day when Maxima notices someone taking out one of the cards and circling/crossing out one of the words, and she asks/demands to see what the other person is doing.
In a world filled with supers. You’re bound to get horrible villain and super her names.
For instance, the following actual super villains.
– Leap Frog. Was a guy dressed in a frog costume with springs on his feet. [Daredevil villain].
– Crazy Quilt. Was a guy with a super crazy quilt as his day to day clothes.[Batman villain].
– Egg Fu was a giant egg made of every horrible Asian stereotype. [Wonder Woman].
and
– Penny Plunderer. A guy who loves stealing pennies, and also using pennies as weapons. [Again Batman].
Those are just a drop of water in an ocean of fail. So we coming up with a Trouser Ferret, Reefer Madness, or Quiver Knickers. Is quite possible. Heck there could even be one named by the laziest villain ever called Taco Tuesday, or one named Insert-Name-Here.
Most Spider-Man villains are pretty lame. Batroc the Leaper, Pate Pot Pete, wtc.
Batroc started as a Captain America villain, and Paste Pot Pete started as a Fantastic Four villain.
And yet, still lame. :D
Batroc later dropped “the Leaper” and just became Batroc (and somehow got cooler once someone who actually understood savate started writing him.
Paste Pot Pete later became Trapster (well before Napster.. which was MY idea! :D ). Again, a somewhat better name and got a bit of a power upgrade (“I am… The Entangler! What? No? Okay, let me try that again…”)
Anybody catch Batroc’s bad ass MCU debut?
Was in a Captain America movie, I think. Early in Winter soldier, yes?
Other names rejected by Paste Pot Pete:
Glue Gun Gary
Sticky Steve
Mucilage Mike
Percy the Plaster
The Jiz
Don’t forget “The Spot”. White skin with black circles. Cool power (could take the circles off himself and use them as portals). Think dimension door from D&D except they stayed until he reclaimed the spot.
Horrible name. Spidey was actually ROTF.
And his Amazing Secret Identity! Xavier Marks!
That right…
X. Marks – The Spot.
Yeah, the Spot had a cool power, but he was constantly worried about his dental bill…
Do you remember Noah Boddy? A scientist who found a way to make himself invisible.
I have never seen him.
I always thought there should have been an elderly Mexican vigilante out fighting crime under the name Señor Citizen.
So wait. If they can get her to say it and they’re present it counts on their score cards, is it that they get her to say it at all they all get it on their cards like regular bingo, or does the specific persons in question just get the credit? If she says it at all credit, then Dabbler actually only needs “moo” and tingle to win.
The person who gets her to say it gets the credit.
But everyone has to cross it off? Or can someone else get credit if they can get Maxi to repeat ‘booby’?
I fully expect Max to know about the bingo, and is quietly leaking out words so everybody has aaaaalmost a full row, but not quite. Paying it back, or forward, whichever.
Also, yay overwatch! Going to play that for a day, then on to Total War: Warhammer! We’ve seen the sketch of Halo playing Diablo, wonder if we could get a future on of which team mate likes which game character.
She does seem like the person that would do that.
However bingo cards don’t work that way. They should be all different. Words in different positions, some words not on all cards.
Depends on how the game is set up: it may simply be to get Maxi to say them, and the one who gets the last word wins the pot (and a trip to the infirmary once Maxi finds out :P), each of the words spoken may net the one who got her to speak it a small bonus
Yeah. My bet is she has a side-thing with someone for half of the winning and is just stringing everyone else along to make it sting more. :)
If that were the case, I would think she would be saying the words even faster (at least to that person) just to get the pot (and possibly start a new game) that much faster. Of course, she would have to do it in a way that wouldn’t arouse suspicion (such as mentioning the last seven words on someone’s card in a single sentence).
Well it has only been a couple of days in universe.
Alternative: She has her own list. And every time someone makes her say a word (and gets to cross it out on their list), she also crosses it out on her list. So she’ll have a full list way before anyone else, and just suddenly shows up to collect the pot
So, I mentioned on the commissioned art, that you linked. But I figure I should put it here as well.
I making that scene into a fanfiction.
SO I SAY IT, SO SHALL IT BE!
https://akazilliadenaro.deviantart.com/art/A-Grrl-Power-Photoshoot-Dabbled-611150228
Why do Sydney and Dabbler have different lists? Shouldn’t everyone have the same list?
Because that’s how bingo works.
If everyone’s card was the same, everybody would win simutaniously.
But they have to make Maxima say the word for it to count, don’t they? ‘Cloaca’ is on Dabbler’s list, but I assume she wouldn’t get to count this, if she was present.
We need a standardised set of Make Maxima Say Bingo rules. Maybe a Patreon reward?
The person who gets Maxi to say the last word wins the full pot, each time a word on the list is spoken gets that person a bonus, so while the winner only has to get her to say one word, it pays to get her to say more
Each word on the list is worth a certain number of dollars from the pot (roughly half of the pot).
Whoever has the highest total of words to their credit gets 58% of the remaining half of the pot (27 of the total), second place gets 28% (14%of total), and third place gets 14% (7% of the total).
The winner could conceivably do quite nicely.
If you look at the first reference, it seemed that each word spoken was worth $50 (Dabbles had five crossed out before ‘booby’, and you had $50 $100 $150 $200 crossed out with $250 un-crossed in the top corner)
By George, you’re right!
Science for the win!
A pool normally rises when people enter it. Fifty dollars per person and the winner gets the pot. That is why you see the other amounts crossed out.
Ahh, I see you espouse the Archimedes water displacement school of gambling.
Just try to avoid running, naked, through the streets, shouting “Eureka”, if you win!
does Sydney have her bingo card taped inside “The List”?
Yes I believe she does
Ok…. can we get a headcount of the card players now? Also, military at large are ok with fun and games as long as it doesn’t cause injuries or property damage. Prank wars are pretty common and especially so in the dorms. Here’s a fun one my dad used. Tape shallow paper plates filled full of confetti and glitter to the tops of the ceiling fans and keep them off until the next shift. Bonus points if you know someone on the next shift that can grab pics or video.
I always like the classic pyramid of beer cans behind the door gag.
Got another good one for you. IF you can find the low grade fire cracker things that you have to pull both of the strings to make them go off, then you start tacking those on every surface that opens and closes. One of the common ones was to do that on doors and drawers. Their were a lot of guys that would actually string them on the insides so you couldn’t tell they were there at all. Also, zip ties on car axles was pretty common.
If Sydney ever needs to insert Vermilion, she could always start talking about Pokemon gen1 (Vermilion city)
It might be weird if someone yelps out a random word, but it wouldn’t be weird if Sydney just randomly started talking about a random topic
Eh, it’s Sydney. If she can’t fit the word vermillion into one of her profanity outbursts, I’d be very disappointed… the only danger is that nobody will spot the code word because they’re trying to tune out the rest…
It would probably be used in some association with ‘monkey butt’.
The problem is to insert it at the time you are forced to speak with your higher ups / teammates by the bad guys :) starting to tell random things while you are forced to just say ‘all clear’ to the others is going to be suspicious :)
Maybe instead, integrate vermillion into a ‘fake’ reconnaissance code you tell the bad guys you have to transmit in order to identify yourself :)
Vermillion is both a colour and a city in South Dakota, seriously doubt someone like Sydney couldn’t figure out a way to work that into a sentence “Remember that vermillion jacket you liked? Sorry it got stolen!” or “Did I ever tell you how much I like “Vermillion” by Slipknot?”
Is it also a verb?
Vermillion vermillion vermillion vermillion vermillion vermillion vermillion vermillion.
It’s not that out of character for Sydney to go off on random rants about random topics though. And with the stress of being held captive, probably even less so
First thing I thought of:
“We’re on the road to Vermilion City!”
“It’s Viridian City.”
“Oh. Whoops, silly me.”
Second thing:
Sydney: “Oh, hey, I’ve been playing this new game lately, it’s VVVVVV. Guess my favorite character! It’s …”
Options:
Verdigris
Vermilion
Victoria
Violet
Viridian
Vitellary
Not that hard. Also color-coded! (And it helps that Vermilion is actually my favorite character. Near Victoria’s room, he’s just standing there, and when you talk to him he says, “I’m helping!”)
Also for games, “Lord of Vermillion.” Not that I have any clue what that game’s like. (I wish I did, but the Round 1s don’t have any units around here…)
Was that where “Viridian Dynamics” was located? o_O
Don’t you mean Vertiform City?
I should imagine if Sydney were to be inserting anything, she would likely fill up a whole card herself.
Personally, I would have chosen “FunkyTown” for my code word.
Maybe “Lyzanthromine” or some other made up medicine-like word.
Would be incredibly easy to slip into conversation.
“Ah, I have a headache, my Lyzanthromine must be wearing off.”
“Sorry, I missed what you said. My Lyzanthromine is wearing off.”
Original or cover? o_O
Actually I was referencing Supernatural.
So not Lipps Inc. (dang! forgot how totally NSFW the background dancers were, specially for national TV coverage back in in ’79!! but then again it was a Dutch show) or Pseudo Echo
can’t see the Pseudo Echo cover: “This video contains content from SME, who has blocked it in your country on copyright grounds”
Don’t worry, it was a crappy Australian cover (always thought the drummer was a girl, until saw another of their videos with him topless)
You can, if you search YouTube for “Pseudo Echo”. My guess is that they blocked it because they want you to go to the band’s (or the recording company’s) VEVO channel.
Despite having her hands mittened she can still move the balls as long as they are within her radius.
They’re like the irresistible force you’ve heard of.
Those henchfolk should be wearing helmets.
Unstoppable force. “The irresistible force” was Xuriel’s high-scool cheerleading team
And they are always within her radius, because they are tethered to her.
But they can still be stopped from moving by a postertube stuck behind something, so that weapon can also be dismantled
Yes, she can move them, she just can’t access their powers
Oh right, hadn’t spotted her ball sack behind her at first :(
That’s so obviously her own mind – imagination that we’re looking into there… lets face it, they wouldn’t mark it as “ball sack” but SHE would.
The poster tube era and modern era have a noticed split in ball behavior if you think about it.
It’s easily explained by the moment she opened the tube and they where “asleep”.
If they know her enough to bring mittens, then it’s possible they thought to bring a ball sack (and yes, obviously it’s just her imagination, unless she is thinking back to an event that happened long before she knew about Archon and Supers being a ‘real thing’)
Man, I still want to see how they got Maxima to say Trouser Ferret
Probably conjured a ferret into someone’s trousers, and then got Max to comment on the affair.
If I was playing that game, I’d try to slip that term into a conversation with her — [i]not[/i] in a way that she could take as an ‘inappropriate’ personal approach, of course — and hope that she was so startled she repeated it…
Like mentioning “Last of the Summer Wine” and discussing how Compo carries his ferrets?
Based on how people are trying to get Max to say the words, I don’t think it counts if she just repeats something.
Just look at Sydney describing cloaca without saying the word. If she’d just said ‘how about cloaca’ Maxima would have probably still said ‘no you can’t use cloaca’
Okay.
Me: “Math reallyhas to stop thinking with his trouser-otter.”
Maxima: *(looks perplexed)*
Me: “Trouser-badger? Drat, what IS the term? Trouser-weasel, trouser-polecat?”
Maxima: *(helpfully)* “Trouser-ferret?”
Me: “Yes, that’s it.”
^_^
It was probably some ‘D’ list super villain they fought once.
Considering the first villains (of any grade) Archon has met was during the Restaurant Rumble…
Wait, is Anvil reacting to a Harem-giggle-explosion? Or to Ari screaming loud enough to be heard through the door? o_O
If you look at Heatwave’s eyes (the direction she’s looking), they’re pointing more towards the door than towards Harem. I’d say she’s reacting to Arianna behind the door.
That is Anvil, not Heatwave :P
And it wouldn’t be the first time someone reacted that way to a Daphne-giggle-bomb (Sandy still wants her to get her a new phone)
“Vermillion” is a good Slipknot song. There’s a way of mentioning it in any casual conversation.
By the way, that “non-canon” pic of Dabbles dabbling in some Maxi answers the question about if Maxi’s lip-colour extends to ‘other’ parts of her body ;)
Hmm, would never have picked Maxi as being a G-string wearer, but maybe that’s just one of her secrets, like being a relapsed nerd
Actually, the lips & nipples are the exact same kind of skin with the same amount of sensitivity for humans…That’s medical fact.
O.o
Yes, but prior to this, it was only implied (they may be the same kind of skin, but that was no guarantee that they would be the same colour)
Guest artist and declared non-canon. Someday, Dave will do something similar and we’ll find out for certain, but today is not that day.
Bwahahahahahahah…..ballsack…..snrk…
Yes! I’m not the only person who’s participated in Buzz Word Bingo! Saw it years ago in a Dilbert strip and boy is it fun!
You’d think “synergy” would be a hard word to get, but it’s been surprisingly easy for me.
Please… with today’s corporate reliance on buzzwords versus actual coherent sentences that ANYONE can understand without needing a frickin’ “corporate to customer” dictionary, I’d be surprised if you HADN’T heard it by now.
Re: the colored word panels. For Harem, you can have it multi-coloured.
Color coded panels would be useful for someone who has Harem’s power but in reverse. One body with multiple minds. (Codenamed: Committee)
No, what you described is Multiple Personality Disorder
Or Legion, “For we are many.”
“No we’re not!”
“Who said that?”
“Wasn’t me!”
Despite this,what would happen if Sydney lapses back into her normal,yet foul,form of speaking???
“… It happened before. It will happen again. It’s just a question of when…”
If Arianna tells Sydney not be very loquacious,then she’ll quote a certain Gaul…\
Sydney:I’ll be loquacious alright! I’ll loquace like no one ever loquaced before!!!!
This’ll lead to a snicker from Harem,a odd look from Maxima and Arianna running her hand down her face in total frustration!!!
An excellent choice of word for a code word, in my opinion, since “Vermilion” is the name of my niece’s fantasy/horror novel.
It’s also a lovely colour (and a city in South Dakota)
“I’m experimenting with something in that middle panel – the captions are character coded by hair color, since in this case the two speakers have different hair color, go figure.”
I didn’t get this clearly after reading the first time, to be honest. A better alternative would be to pack the text on one side of the box and have a little SD head of each character speaking on the other side, kind of like the ones you have in the bonus comics. It would be much easier to follow this way. Just my 2 cents ;)
I didn’t catch the colors, its fairly obvious its a conversation between 2 individuals and Max would not need to worry if someone had a gun to her head.
“Drowtales” uses colour-coded speech, and not just for off-panel identification of the speaker, and yes, some combinations of colour and font can be difficult at times
Shotgun Shuffle (shotgunshuffle.com) also uses color coding to good effect, and I don’t feel it distracts at all
That’s pretty realistic: you can tell most people apart hearing just their voice, but some have similar voices.
And most of them have speech-tales pointing to them
Is there any reason why the less-secret duress word should be different for each team member? Seems to me that it would be a lot easier to remember a single word that the whole team uses.
Yes, The duress code must fit in with the persons vocabulary naturally…. So while Cloaca would fit in with Sydney as would Ass-Wevel, Monkey Dong, etc none of these would ever leave the lips of Max, Arianna, Anvil, Hiro etc naturally..
Except none of those are Sydney’s duress code – instead it’s “vermilion”, which is (deliberately) not something she’d usually say…
…but I bet the costume-maker would. And so on.
It should fit in to her vocabulary otherwise it’ll be a give away to her captors…and unlike most other supers, one of Sydney’s weaknesses is being riddled with bullets https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/589
Also on a side note…. found where Dues got most of his weapon display from…
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/554
It’s a word she’s unlikely to say by chance… but considering her tendency to say anything that comes to mind, I doubt there’s any word in the dictionary that couldn’t be slipped into a sentence without looking out of place.
it’s not – the universal duress word is vermilion, and everybody uses it; there should also be an alternate duress word (for when the primary is used/exposed), and an exercise/training duress word (so they’re not burning the real one during training or exercises)
That’s not what Dave appears to be talking about in his commentary, where he talks about Sydney having to memorise the rest of the team’s words, and the top brass having to “memorize both sets of code words”
Told to me just three days ago by an Irishman:
“How many potatoes does it take to kill and Irishman?…
…Zero.”
And in that instant that max says no to Cloaca, it is now Sydney’s second level duress code…
That imagine spot where Sydney’s orbs are being held away from her makes it pretty obvious that she would say “Let go of my ball sack!” in a serious situation.
The military is reasonably cool with pranks, I think. Especially one as harmless as “get the superior officer to say a silly word”. As military pranks go, that’s the nicest of the nice.
I’m weirdly touched that you treated a famine joke like a serious thing. You’re good peoples, man.
Ask Max about jet engines, Syd. Words like “thrust” and “lubrication” should come naturally.
That last panel, what is happening there?
Berry is subtly congratulating with a finger-twiggle, similar to a fist-bump or palm-slap but with fingers
Thanks!
Originally I had a “Low-5 on the DL” sound effect in that panel, but I thought it was unnecessary.
I loved that “little fives” bit. I’m actually really enjoying the friendship Sydney and Harem have struck up, which seems to be powered entirely by how often Syd makes Harem laugh.
Poor Sydney. Getting sucked unwittingly into this friendship. If only she knew what we are privy to, about Harem!
*strikes melodramatic pose, with paw raised in air*
Work vermillion into a conversation?
Easy. Just have her refer to the orbs as various colors using flowery language. Call the red orb the vermillion orb and bam, she worked vermillion into a conversation.
So that would make the orbs:
Hyacinth,
Lilac, (possibly periwinkle, but that one has a bad association)
Vermilion,
Chartreuse,
Fuchsia,
Avocado,
Chestnut.
Hey, you just keep your periwinkle to yourself, mister! =OD
Reminds me of the space station in “No One Lives Forever”, a first-person shooter published in 2000. (Yes, the bad guys have their own space station.) Being set in the 60s, the levels of the space station are color-coded… including Aquamarine, Raspberry, Goldenrod, Periwinkle, and… if I remember correctly… either Chartreuse or Fuchsia.
It’s one of my favorite first-person shooters. Too bad that the rights to the IP are owned partly by Warner Brothers, partly by Activision, partly by 20th Century Fox, partly by… well, you get the picture. So it will never be re-released, nor will the sequel. The only legal way to get NOLF and NOLF2 are to go on eBay, or to go to https://digitalstand.hu/gamestar_plusz/10803 and buy the January 2012 issue of Gamestar (a magazine from Hungary that used to include the full version of games bundled with the magazine). The Jan. 2012 issue had the full version of No One Lives Forever.
Well, since Sidney is a proper nerd it’ll be easy for her to mention Donny Vermillion from Star Craft II at some point. He is a TV anchor who always sides with the bad guy, censoring poor Kate Lockwell who can’t keep from telling the truth, which is really entertaining to watch.
Wings of Liberty has by far the best humor from all three campaigns (and so much of it, too). Too bad that only Terrans seem to have a sense of humor, but Kudos to Blizzard for trying real hard to get some good jokes out of the other races, too.
It’d be cool if Sydney were to be in a situation where she wouldn’t be able to use the duress word and she’d have to resort to something only Leon would recognize as a code meaning Vermillion, e.g. something super-weird like her saying “I wish I could go back in time, so I wouldn’t die here, Max”, which means Life Is Strange, because Max can rewind time, and Max’s friend who is in danger of committing suicide is Kate and there we have Kate Lockwell from above, which means Vermillion.
But I doubt that her face wouldn’t give away her being under duress.
I bet the Zerg and Protoss Herve their own forms of humor. But it’s just so different from what we would consider funny that we miss it. Like how jokes told in a different language lose something in the translation.
Looking at Dabbler’s bingo card, I really want to know how anyone managed to get Max to say “trouser ferret”.
Yeah, Dave REALLY needs to spill the beans on that story…
Everybody keeps saying that but that is the whole point. It’s a noodle incident. If Dave explained the how then it wouldn’t be as funny anymore. Like a magic trick
One point I thought I should bring up. Vermillion is, as state previously, in south Dakota. However, Max said Vermilion, which is a city in Ohio near Cleveland. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vermilion,_Ohio
Also, as a reminder of her code word Sydney should get a piece of cinnabar jewelry, a mineral that is the source of the pigment vermilion.
A roundabout method of getting her code-word into a message could be to casually mention her cousin or something Henry G. Scoville. Which is HgS, which is mercury sulfide, which is the source of vermilion.
Unless ‘Vermillion’ and ‘Vermilion’ are pronounced differently, then it won’t make a bit of difference which one she talks about
There must be a million (allowing for some exaggeration) suggestions on how she can bring up that word in conversation.
ughh can’t make out what Sydney and harem are doing in the very last panel! is it a fist bump or something?? GAH IT’S TOO TINIFIED FOR ME TO SEE (>A<) why u do this to me daveB \ToT/
Yes, it is similar to a fist bump, but they had to do it subtly so Maxi (and Ari) wouldn’t be wondering what they are up to
It looks more like Harem is giving Sydney a celebratory “low five” (like a high five, only more discrete), IMHO.
Must have been caught at the end when only their fingers are touching (still prefer the finger-twiggle idea, you know, when two people tickle each others palm at the same time?)
thanks for the explanation you guys (^o^)/
I got it now!
If you are a patreon supporter, you could see the comic in double resolution.
Just saying
This reminds me there isn’t nearly enough Anvil. There’s never too much Anvil.
For telling someone to watch their language, a bit of blasphemy is not a good example.
Ther’s swearing, and there’s swearing. Sydney is a master of the former and quite skilled in the latter, but the former isn’t suitable for television, and the later almost always has the former mixed in.
There are words she can use to express the same message that would get by censors, the trick is getting Sydney to use more of them.
Ok, I almost lost it at the potato comment. Poor arianna, she is going to have a stress aneurysm by the end of the month dealing with sydney. Also I think she will be forbidden from working with harem as I swear she makes that woman double over laughing hysterically at least once or twice in every conversation. Could be trouble on a mission.
What’s Maxima doing there,unless Arianna requested her presence?!?!?
Well she is the squad leader.
And she needs to keep an eye on Sydney
The art Sydney’s fantasy in panel 4 looks really great. It’s a shame it had to be shrunk down so much to fit in with the rest of the page. I wish you had been able to eliminate some of the other “just a talking headshot” panels so that panel 4 could be larger and show off all the detail.
Arianna should go the other way – set it up so that Sydney does several full-on rants on camera. Then, each individual comment won’t be as big a deal and the whole thing becomes a media draw.
At first I thought they were holding a balloon behind Halo there and were about to pop it. That probably wouldn’t have ended well for anybody, powers or no.
Arianna brought up ethic insults. How about ethnic swearing?
do Scandinavians say “Øh fük!” ?
Went to junior high with a fellow from.. Korea, I think? Too long ago to remember … whose name was (in English) Phuc Dong (better than the usual asian order of surname first – Dong Phuc). He went by Cho. :D
Went to college with fellow from south Korea whose first name was Dongsup. He went by Sam.
A few years ago, the school where I work had [Honestly!] a male Korean pupil named ‘He Suk’…
^_^
Yes we do… At least in Sweden we certainly do. It’s used rater casually, and is not considered particularly offensive. When talking to people from GB or the US I really have to think of how I use those phrases.
Just for fun I ran that through Google Translate. According to Google Oh Fuck! translates as:
Oh fuck – Danish
Oh vittu – Finnish
Oh faen – Norwegian
Å fan – Swedish
Now those “translations” is a bit suspect. I tried translating the Swedish phrase “Knulla också” which is quite close and got this:
Rend også – Danish
Fuck myös – Finnish, and an interesting mix of languages…
Faen også – Norwegian, still not a literal translation, but then Google refuses to budge on this. I guess the Norwegians are a bit more restricted with their swearing. Sydney would probably have to be muzzled if she’s ever to visit them.
Knulla också – Unadulterated Swedish. Sydney would be proud!
So, how do we say, “God dammit, fuck Batman” in Swedish then?
Follow up question – has this ever been said on the Muppet Show?
I’ve actually heard someone use the term ‘muppetfucker’… and honestly,…well…. *ahem* (blushes)
Possibly “Jävlar! Fan ta Batman!” (More like “Bloody Hell! The Devil take Batman!”)
From what I understand, “fuck” is a casual swearword without any shock value in Scandinavian languages, while the various blasphemies and related profanities still have the power that that they used to have in English, and that “fuck” still does.
…and Vad i helvete? It seems the Wikipedia now has articles on Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish profanity (not Danish or Icelandic, tho’…).