Grrl Power #535 – The best defensiveness is a good offensiveness
English has the word “twice” and even the somewhat archaic “thrice” but there’s no words beyond that. Fource? Frice? uh… Sice? It’s odd having a sequence that caps out at three.
Apparently this elite military squad’s schedule includes a 1 pm break for sunning. It’s kind of ridiculous I know, but given their public relations responsibilities it makes some amount of sense. Maybe this is just how those guys are spending their lunch hour. Though I don’t imagine you get an hour for lunch in any part of the military… except Archon. Other parts of the service probably consider Arc-SWAT to be a real cushy assignment compared to say, serving on the deck of a carrier… and they’d be right, especially considering the pay differential. But as the only part of the military that has a continual domestic presence, getting your hair did or going on a shopping spree to a fancy store with lots of cameras around is part of their M.O. So yeah, when SEAL Team 6 digs on Arc-SWAT for having spa days, they can be all “boo hoo, now I’m going to teleport on to my pile of money and have a blub.”
Varia’s bikini is nice and… I don’t know, exotic’s the wrong word, but it seems to be a good match for her. But I don’t think it’s the sort of thing you’d want to get a tan in, cause the tan lines would be weird looking. They do make UV (semi) transparent cloth, but the necklace thing it’s attached to would leave a pale ring around your neck.
Ooh, someone should make a UV transparent shirt with a non-UV transparent part that says “dork” or looks like a dong. Buy it as a gift for someone you don’t like!
You know what, I forgot to put a hat and sunglasses on Sydney. According to everything I’ve established about her, she should be as blind as a Drow seeing her first sunrise right now.
Oh, and uh, ignore the fact that the pool seems to have gotten bigger since I drew it last. Actually the only time I think I’ve drawn it was some aerial shot of the Archon building, and it was just a little blue square on one of the towers, but I decided it needed a gazebo with a sofa and a fire pit, because as previously discussed, they’re all hardened military types like that.
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SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
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Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Well, dig in!
Seriously, I don’y think someone is as straight as they think they are. Looking forward to seeing this resolved in Future Sydney, whom I presume is narrating this series….
Sydney already said to dabbler:
“Not gay, but your boobs are interesting”.
Also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdSh2OGgYQ8
That’s definitely the creepiest video I’ve ever watched all the way through.
Dabbler has literal magic hypno-boobs and a lust aura. You could be a robot with no conception of what sex or gender or breasts are, and still get caught up in looking at them. You can’t really judge someone’s sexuality by their response to Dabbler.
You assume that hypnosis affects robots.
as hypnosis affects the mind, technically, anything with a thought process could be hypnotized: robot, AI, android, etc., however, robotic type thought processes are program-only, so the hypnosis would need to be input as data . are the receptors a thinking robot or android have considered as forms of input?
somebody’s salty…..
Methinks Sydney’s about to get an unscheduled appointment at Social Actions…
Why? She’s not the one being told to ditch the wetsuit and wear something skimpy, and with a body-type like hers, a ‘postage stamp and dental floss’ would be about as much material as needed, and it would still show less than Blondini and Anvil
Oh wait, actually she is
You mean the “Queen of Salt”?
at least someone got the reference :P
Ooh, the stares from the three of them.
I’m very confused by the who’s who there.
Jiggwatt is on it, but I don’t see her on the page. And I can’t tell who Peach Butt is.
Unless that is Jiggawatt, but I don’t think so. Totally different hair right?
From (L) – (R) —-> Anvil, Varia, Jiggawatt
it’s Jiggawatt, she has stuffed her hair under a hat and her hair only turns white while it’s full of electricity
Is that the explanation going on now?
I thought it was: ‘It used to be white but that made her look to much like Storm so it was changed to blond/gold and the old pages will be edited to match this but haven’t been so far.’ At least, that is what I seem to remember when it first switched from white to blonde.
That it’s actually it. At least that is what I last read about from dave.
Well, that is the technical reason, but as for the in-comic explanation without a complete retcon…
I thought she changed her hair color for copyright reasons. Because a dye job makes a legally different character.
For the record: In my opinion thew were completely different characters even before the color change.
I think Jiggs hair was only white from a dye job and she changed it to gold right before the restaurant battle. IRL it was from all the comparisons to Storm IIRC.
Definitely not the electricity thing. The first time we saw her was on base, with white hair
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/671
It used to be white but I realized she looked too much like Storm when she was using her lightning powers, so I changed it to yellow but haven’t updated the earlier pages yet.
“yet”? been some years dude :P
well do you want new pages or the old pages updated? I vote for new.
I’m sure the ‘updates’ will happen whenever GrrlPower comes out in book form.
Well, I mean, when did he make that decision? :P Maybe it’s been a few weeks!
He made it shortly after her official debut
Jiggawatt, jigglebutt…
*tosses Yorp a Yorpie-snack to make him appear faster and make funny comments*
He he.
*grabs snack*
Sorry, was busy. Had to paws from saving the world, to offering a solution to the UK PM, for the hung parliament and Brexit crisis.
I really hope that her minions get the offer to her fast, as it can turn a crisis into a great success. IF they act on it before the week is out.
But getting a yummy snack is the next best thing, to saving a country!
*munch munch, burp burp*
As an American, my usual solution to a hung Parliament is to cut them down and bury them before they start to stink.
:-)
Mine is to offer to bring in the new age of society, in Britain. I had previously identified Spain as being the prime candidate. But this crisis takes precedence.
John Oliver’s suggestion to the hung Parliament was to send a negotiator to the Brexit proceedings, rather than trying to assert the non-majority PM represented the unified front of the nation. His further suggestion as to who to make the negotiator: Lord Buckethead.
I’m curious: your thoughts on that approach? :-)
Oh that is mired in the constraints of obsolete politics. I have developed a tool-set which gives new political options, rendering that a complete non-issue.
My only problem is having developed it outside of academia. Trying to get it into the right hands, in order to change history, without having the connections to do that is…. frustrating.
We are at a unique moment in history, where my tool-set could turn Britain’s current weakness into strength. The window of opportunity is closing fast mind. Theresa May is preparing to dive into shit creek. I just hope that my voice, from the wilderness, gets heard, before she does.
The country would go through unnecessary suffering, trying to rescue that situation, even with my tools. Trying to negotiate with a tiny minority coalition… I dunno. If she drowns, there may be another chance, I guess.
I am working on an alternate route though, that will allow the public to push for the change That at least is making some progress, and giving me hope. It just makes me sad seeing the world worsen, day by day, in the meanwhile!
*blood oozing from head, from banging it against the political wall*
I love the practical joke shirt idea :)
… at no point did I think they were doing this on their lunch breaks. Given that they have their own suites in the building, I assumed that those present were doing so on their days off or designated down time. Especially being part of Archon, one would think that they would have additional days off but still be on call. Kind of how Jiggawatt showed up even though she was penciled in for her brother’s wedding stuff.
You gotta feel for Sydney. Surrounded by PARAGONS of female fitness and sex appeal ffs.
Wish I was in her place.
Agreed. Its one thing to be ok with your own body, but to be surrounded by what amounts to the ideal body type for your gender while you most certainly do not fit has to be jarring. And before people jump in, I know, everyone has a different ideal, but there are cultural generic preferences. And everyone there but sydney, peggy,and ariannas assistant hits it or close to it.
Naa, I have to disagree. Sydney is suffering from mentally competing against an unusual ideal that has been conceived by modern western society. It does not match ideals from antiquity nor does it match ideals present world-wide in cultures that had not been tainted by western ideals. Which are all but non-existent now, but we have had sociologists and anthropologists establish that they did not match the ‘California beach-babe look’.
In the part of the geek sub-culture that I identify with, Sydney is the paragon, not the other heroines.
Agreed
Is Sydney going Lesbo on Jiggawatt, is she bi?
Nah. Ability to appreciate that someone of the same sex has an amazing body doesn’t make one gay.
I can easily imagine heteroness in any two females I catch snogging. or biness. yes. very easy to imagine.
All girls are bi. The male almost never is. Show the lass a dirty picture, and while she may give you grief for being a vulgar male, she will be “interested”, whether the picture is of 2 boys, 2 girls or a mix. Show a boy a dirty picture and he’s only interested if his preferred sex object is present. While the ladies are usually strongly in favor of males, they do not rule out the wrong sex, even when they think they do. But the lad who says he is bi is routinely a gay who doesn’t want to admit that.
Study of male neurology and sexuality goes against what you implied. Only about 20% of males are neurologically solidly single-sex-attracted (as in, only attracted to one sex). About 10% of male brains are not attracted sexually to body characteristics at all (asexual). About 10% of male brains ‘need’ both sexes to feel completed sexually (some might call this ‘hardcore bi’). The remaining 60% or so are some degree of neurologically bi with a specific learning/preference to one sex or the other. Our society teaches most of these men that they must be Hetero, and since the generally bi brains are still being at least partially fulfilled ‘enough’, they go with it and live happily pretending they are totally Hetero, or even unaware that they would be fine not living Hetero. Many asexual male brains are also ok entering into hetero relationships, they are not sexually attracted to either, so fulfilling their social responsibilities with a woman is as sexually unfulfilling as it would be with a man.
As for women, while the study has not been done as in-depth, the leading consensus in neurology is that the vast majority of women are neurologically bi, with much smaller numbers than men being in the ‘asexual’, and single-sex-attracted categories. Our society also tells women they must be hetero, and most never know that they could also love other women. This contributes to the stereotype that lesbians must have been hurt by a man/hate men because women who have been through such often discover their love for other women and then reject men (not due to a change in sexual desire, but due to the memory of pain/hate making that portion of their sexuality untenable). Then, of course, there are those women who from the start are only attracted to women.
It gets really hard to detangle much of this mess due to the rampant patriarchal control and misogyny through most of human history, as well as our penchant for making snap judgments and then spreading them as fact.
Sorry for the rant. This was just one of the major topics of my study at university a couple years ago. I don’t remember the exact numbers so I did some rounding from memory.
10% asexual seems high.
Thornbrier- So we agree that women are much more likely to be bi than men are, and that Sydney, while much preferring males, could reasonable end up in bed with a lass for reasons other than sleeping. the differences are likely to be different definitions.
Mike- Here too, this is apt to be a matter of definition. We all get too tired, sick, or old to do it all the time, and have days when we can’t get it down. Deciding which of these are serious enough to count can really vary the figures.
Robinson- The vast majority act in a hetrosexual manner a vast majority of the time. But that does not prevent some batting for both teams, which is done by the ladies far more often than by the gents. Two women hugging and kissing on the street illustrate this, as does a comparison of most any sexual behavior.
Uh, no.
Pretty sure that the vast majority of men and women are actually heterosexual.
And I’m also certain that Bi men do in fact exist.
Have a little more confidence in your body Syd, it may not be sexy, but it is very cute, and we’d all love to see more of it
I personally find Syd to be the cutest one there. Then again im partial to slender and small breasts. Basketballs don’t really do it for me, but im wierd. So yes, would love to see Syd in a string…
Plus there’s the uniqueness of her build compared to who she’s around which makes her stand out.
Plus, I’m seriously attracted to the female who is all for a pickup session of tabletop role-playing at pool-side.
+100
+101
But yeah, seriously, when’s Sydney gonna be featured in a Valentine’s Day special?
Considering Sydney’s general reaction to bright sunlight, her going swimming in a wetsuit makes perfect sense. And a swim burka is is obviously a ‘smirka’.
I don’t see why her even owning a wetsuit would be surprising though. She did go diving off of Florida and I have to suspect that she probably has used it to go diving in other places too. Would it be surprising if Anvil revealed that she knits? Not really, because everyone has their hobbies. Meh. >.>
The orbs “origin” is probably considered classified information, so only those who were in the room knows about how she found them. And none of these people were there at that time. Harem popped in a bit later so she missed the origin story.
I suspect ARCHON has quite a few resources currently combing through the area looking for anything she might have missed.
Have a close look at that scene. In particular the significant glances. Both Maxima and Zephan realise that they do not yet know all the truth.
Sydney is not good at lying.
Yes, but the point was, the story of Sydney’s ‘origins’ should be known to both Blondini and Anvil (they were both there at the time), so Sydney owning a wetsuit should not have been a surprise (the side-ways glance between Maxi and Zephan was during the team introduction)
Anvil was there, but is not the one raising the question about the wet-suit. Whilst Harem did teleport in, at one stage, I do not recall her being there at the time the question was asked. I linked the page in question, in one of the other threads, because she does not feature on it.
Thank you, Cortanis, I was going to comment basically the same thing. And to Cpt. Obvious, while the origin might be classified, that doesn’t mean that her being a diver is classified.
Ok, suddenly I’m pondering what would happen if Sydney turned on the bubble under water while swimming/diving (without also using flight orb). Would it eject the water or hold it all in? Would she still be able to swim at all with her body movements only affecting the water inside the bubble, or would she suddenly fall to the bottom without any water around her body holding her up and the shield just following her, or would the water ‘push’ her bubble up to the surface forcing her up with it? I think there may be clues to be gleaned from the collapsing rubble building scene in that last fight.
If we go by the only real evidence (cutting a tank like butter), then she will be floating in a water-bubble, depending on the size of the bubble she forms she could possibly use it to help fight fires (or fire-based baddies)
Or you know… personal pool toy. Using it as a kind of diving bell would be rather interesting as well. I do want to know at this point how far down she can go with it. Depressurized space is one thing and deep sea high pressure is another entirely.
Always check whether the ski mask you wear blocks UV. It could be just made to protect against wind, snow and branches.
I found out the hard way, my friends had a blast trying to make me laugh, which hurt horribly.
I took a Greyhound from Buffalo to LA for ConFurence 9 in 1998 (The PINNACLE of ConFurence with 1,200 attendees) and we spent a week each way on the trip.
One stop was in Vale, Colorado and I got out to go to a bank. It was at a ski resort and when I entered the bank there was a sign at the door literally 5 foot square that said REMOVE SKI MASK BEFORE ENTERING BANK. They weren’t kidding, I can’t convey the seriousness of it…
That’s my ski-mask story.
Well, to be fair, entering a bank wearing a ski mask isn’t exactly a move usually known for good outcomes.
but in a ski resort something that can happen just because you are wearing one.
Anyplace other than a ski resort, that’s absurd.
At a ski resort, it makes total sense but downgrades to surreal.
And sweet. Totally awesomely sweet.
ooh – bad news if it does block UV – you could end up with the uncomfortable, and somewhat embarrassing pink-panda look
I’m not surprised Sydney owns a wetsuit, she found her orbs while diving after all. I was more surprised she wore that instead of a bathing suit, and then I remembered this is Sydney we’re talking about and she likes her pale skin (and I don’t fault her for that).
Yeah but not like Syd has talked about her origin story that much to everyone.
Not much but she did mention she found them while diving when she was first introduced to the group. Though that is a small detail to forget about and most people probably assume she rented the suit and gear instead of owning it, it isn’t even the same suit from the flashback anyway.
Different suit, but potentially enjoyed it enough to continue? Orbs could be hidden in a dive bag.
at least that’s the story she’s sticking to… Max AND Zephan noticed the hesitation when she told the rest of the team about how/where she found them… and it didn’t quite make them happy about rethinking what she said in her interview responses either…
If Maxima were to wear Anvil’s bikini……
+1
…it would probably get shredding in normal wear-n-tear. imagine putting normal skimpy clothing on a metal-skinned robot. the fabric wouldn’t get any of the normal “give” from “squishy human” flesh, and would have to do all stretching and reshaping itself, even during normal movements. (Including compression and friction when sitting/laying down, etc) Max’s wardrobe, even if she had normal human proportions, would have a fairly high turn over rate, the skimpier the faster.
Maxi’s skin is just a pliable and flexible as any other ‘normal’ fleshy skin, it’s just shiny gold in appearance, not texture, go ahead, touch it and see
Yes, touch it and see, i will observe from a distance FOR SCIENCE!
+1!
+1
Want some popcorn?
Correct about flexible and pliable, but her skin is “textured like glass” (#334). On the plus side, getting it wet wouldn’t cause it to ride up. On the downside, she’d probably need stronger elastic to hold everything in place when swimming.
What I got from the OP was more about the shiny gold-ness of Anvil’s bikini, which would make Max look naked, if she could ever be convinced to wear it (which I think we can all agree would be highly unlikely)
Unlikely – I don’t think Max can tan. And she doesn’t seem like the type to show just for fun.
Unless, she was actually thinking of swimming… but who would wear a bathing suit to do THAT?
Really? Could have sworn she had tan lines in one of her appearances. Maybe I’m thinking of SheHulk.
But she might show later on to even the boards? *ala Hiro\Maxima after cyborg thingy blew up*
Yeah, the lack of hat and glasses was the first thing I thought of reading this strip… poolside is not exactly Sydney’s natural habitat…
And there were 2 hats and 1 pair of sunglasses on the page!
Someone REALLY needs to take Sydney swimsuit shopping. Even if she doesn’t have the most full or voluptuous build she can still find something fitting and good looking on her.
That’s true, however I suspect Sydney is too self-conscious of her non-bombshell body even for that.
She might wear one to a beach for average folks, but as long as she’s surrounded by amazon goddesses it’s not likely to happen.
Knew a lady once who looked awesome in a one piece suit but somehow never felt comfortable in a bikini. That made her look very awkward, which made her feel more uncomfortable, which made her look more..
Death Spiral.
The clothes make the man, but it’s the woman that makes the ensemble.
Your ignoring the fact that she’s also probably wearing it so she doesn’t get sunburned. Yes there is sunblock but it washes off in the pool after about an hour or two of activity and then your exposed.
I am of the theory that Sydney is at present under an awning, providing shade.
As for repetition indicators, after ‘thrice’ it switches to ‘N-fold’. Four-fold (or fourfold), five-fold, six-fold, etc. These also indicate multipliers, which makes sense if you think about it.
There should be a word for 3ness, as ‘both’ is for 2ness.
That or she is actually planning on getting in the pool
Yeah hat and sunglasses wouldn’t stay on in the water.
English used to have a dual number – special words and affixes for when there are exactly two, not one or three, of something. We still have a few remnants of it, but not a lot and they are fading. Such as the distinction that if there are exactly two of something, it is (well, was formerly) incorrect to refer to “all” or “none” of them – whereas if there are three, it’s (ditto) incorrect to refer to “either” or “neither” of them.
(Some purists try to still enforce this. I care about clarity, and don’t have an issue with this. The difference between “flaunt” and “flout”, on the other hand…)
We do still have a relative abundance of terms that refer specifically to the quantity two, but even some of them are archaic. I don’t think I’ve seen three references to “a brace of” something in my entire life. On the other hand, “duo”, “two”, “pair”, “duet”, “twin”, “twice”, “double”, “couple”, “deuce”, “dyad”, “doublet”…
triad, trinity, quartet, quintet, sextuplet, septuplet, octuplet
Thought Sydney had a shoulderless wetsuit at first.
The idea of uv transparent clothing, and that you would willingly risk sunburn is strange to me, but I live in australia, where everything is more dangerous.
I thought the same about the wetsuit too.
There are UV transparent clothes out there as some may want an all over tan without getting naked.
And many, instead of using sun block, use baby oil and essentially fry in the sun.
I stay out of the sun, I don’t tan, I just turn red.
I do that classic thing of tanning in small spots (freckles) and burning everwhere else.
I do that classic thing of just burning. The exception being my left arm, left leg, and left side of my face, which tend to get a ‘trucker’s tan’ because of my job.
Next thing you know Sydney will be wearing a flesh-tone wetsuit that’s suitably scuplted for a superheroine…
Yes please!
Same here, thought it was a tube-top wetsuit at first
same
WORD! On first pass I kept thinking, ‘ do they really MAKE wetsuits like that?
Also have we ever seen Sydney’s shoulders? And if not can we make that happen? no reason….
We saw her shoulders in the shower.
If they don’t, they totally should :D
Yes, I keep seeing it as a strapless one-piece.
Her original wetsuit looked a little different.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/554
Is Sydney going snorkelling in the pool?
Looking for more orbs.
She’s already found them all around the pool, she even points them out in the last panel!
this Mondays comic is so distracting that I can’t think of anything funny or clever to say, but I still feel the need to say something so I have the excuse of “I’m checking to see if anyone commented on my comment” when coming back to this page.
Someone did.
I just checked, and no one has commented on it yet.
Quit Ninja-ing my comments Spicefreak.
Clearly -someone- was not as prepared for ninjas as they should have been.
Always be prepared for ninjas. And badgers.
well, of course, but isn’t anyone gonna reply to Gus’s comment?
Or Ninja Badgers.
Or Badger-style Ninjas.
But what about dragons
Being prepared for a dragon rarely helps you much.
Besides, the dry rub causes a rash when you put it on…
The rash is karma, for wearing an endangered species!
It’s not a dry rub used. It’s katsup or in my case BBQ sauce.
ninja dragons, let’s make ’em stealthy, sneaky, lithe, and quite athletic-looking, perhaps of a ‘fairy’-type, and dressed as neon leprechauns so that if anyone does see them, they just gloss over them in their minds because ‘that couldn’t possibly be what I saw’
Obviously they could not be Grrl Power fans though, if saying that.
I’m the weird one whose found non of the super girls appealing.
Where as I kind of like syd in a wetsuit like thing. Though not that colour peach.
Also I do not recognize miss chocolate cake.
‘Miss chocolate cake’ is Jiggawatt apparently, going by the other comments and her presence in the Who’s who.
And I’m sorta with you. Not too much of a fan of this wetsuit, but I’d prefer Sydney’s body type (and Harem’s somewhat lower muscle tone) over that of the others shown here. Everyone has a different taste after all.
Yeah, I see the others and think either “not real” or “out of my league.” I see Sydney and…well, I don’t normally lust after her, but I think she has potential.
Four? Quadruple. Five? Quintuple. Six? Sextuple. C’mon, don’t you play Overwatch at all? xD
Quadruple follows from triple, not thrice.
It’s ‘twice-again’
Thought it was ‘thrice once more’
Officially, there is nothing after thrice.
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/explore/what-comes-after-once-twice-thrice
I recall one isolated tribe’s numbering system was “One, two and more-than-two”. They did not distinguish (in words) between three, ten or twenty.
“I will swap my more-than-two chickens for your more-than-two pigs”
“Errr, I am not sure if I am getting a bad deal there, or a really bad deal? Maybe it is a good deal?”
So after thrice it’s quadruply, quintuply, and so on…
No. Dave is correct. There is nothing after thrice.
Well, thrice is the charm.
What about mice?
with rice, and spice, they’re nice.
Add the right spice and very little isn’t nice.
Sydney seems a bit cranky this page, Harem is just trying to pay her a compliment and to get along. Maybe it is because she forgot her hat.
Dat. Ass.
When I was active duty U.S. Army we almost always had 90 minutes when we were in garrison. of course it was your only time for doing a lot of day to day errands. Haircuts, banking, so forth. There was usually a line at the dining facility, so it did take a while to get food also. If something needed serious doing though might only have an hour or go eat get back here. The units I was in at least the opinion was “our job sucks enough we don’t need to make it suck more.”
Hmm, good info, though I’d guess you get less time at boot camp?
Yes at boot camp almost every minute of the day is scheduled and planned. Once out of bootcam then it was mor elike a regular job, with benefits your not likely to find in the civillian section, like long normal lunch periods. Physical training, then breakfast period, then morning work, lunch period, afternoon work, then end of day and fee time. Ah the joy of working 9-5 with an hour and a half lunch break in the middle. As Lorance said, there are thoes days where lunhc does get short, but not if they can help it.
I am currently a privet in the army and we are required to have at least 90 min for lunch 30 to get there 30 to eat and 30 to get back. Im not sure about over seas but we are talking about at what would equate to their company for battalion level building so that doesent matter.
You are a flowering shrub? o_O
Nope, I still don’t get that comment, even after coming back to it, in a 2nd pass. Michael‘s comment gives me interesting insight into (presumably American) basic training lifestyle. But I could ni spot any plays on words, or the like, which would lead to flowering shrubs.
Aaaand…. now I spot the typo, in the 1st line. OK, fair game.
*wags tail privately*
I don’t find it strange that Sydney owns a wetsuit. Wearing it poolside, though?
She is a certified diver. Of course she has a wetsuit.
It’s even part of her origin as a super. :D
Considering that when Max first met Sydney, she was pretending to catch on fire in sunlight (including when she was all by herself going from the comic shop to her car) to the point of doing the stop, drop, and roll bit, the wet suit makes sense (except for the lack of a hat) although how they convinced her to go swimming on break, I don’t know. She learned to scuba so maybe she just likes to swim?
The ARCHON pool was previously mentioned when Anvil was helping Sydney assemble her utility belt. As to recreational use, that’s not unusual. One base I was at had an outdoor pool right off the bar at the enlisted club and at another it was a large indoor pool run by MWR. The outdoor pool was in Florida and got plenty of sunlight after working hours and of course there was the weekends. So all in all, this isn’t that unusual.
in one comic recently (forget which), a pale-skinned redhead explained why she didn’t like sunning at the beach: “I don’t tan, I ignite”.
Now that we know vampires are canon, maybe that’s a hint?
Gonna need to know how much time has elapsed at some point…
Same day as when she reported in to work at her shop
I am fairly sure, supers make even more normal super models feel very self-conscious.
Poor Sydney.
Naw, you get an hour for lunch in every unit I’ve served in. If for no other reason, there can sometimes be a long line at the DFAC. The US military is keenly, keenly aware that armies march on their stomachs.
Thought they marched on their feet? o_O
“Armies march on their stomachs” is an old saying about how your army can’t fight if you don’t have good supply lines. If your soldiers don’t eat, they can’t fight.
It was a joke, and that saying goes all the way back to the Roman Empire
Clearly you’ve never faced the terror that is the slowly advancing slug army, then!
The Queen of Salt fears no slug-army!
Their slow blades penetrate any shield.
Second panel-are the three (Anvil, Varia and Jiggawatt)giving Sydney the evil eye or something?
Not the evil-eye, more a ‘bemused-eye’
They’re giving her the “white girl made a race joke next to 3 non-white girls” eye.
In my opinion that falls a little flat as, while I can infer their identities from context, Harem is the only one who doesn’t just look tanned.
Specially Vahriah, and, probably just the cap and the hair, but getting a heavy ‘Aryan’-vibe from Jiggs (blonde and heavily tanned), again, that’s just the visual impression on this page
It may be a white woman accusing another white woman of racism when the three of them are ethnically diverse.
Technically, aren’t all five of them ‘ethnically-diverse’?
Okay, looking at it again, going by the eye-angles, it seems Anvil is looking at Blondini, Vahriah is looking at Anvil, and Chocolate Peach is wondering who woke her up (and Anvil better be careful or she will knock her drink off the table, it’s right on the edge)
i don’t know why since i’m sure she know hows sidney found her orbs.
DaveB, an amusing note on military lunch times: even trainees in boot camp get hour long meal breaks. From the instant the pre-mealtime session ends to the instant the post-meal session begins, it’s one hour. That’s from when the TI (Training instructor) yells “fall in!”, the platoon marches over to the cafeteria, standing in line, single-filing all the way thru to a seat. About 10-12 minutes hovering about 1500 calories (2000 per day is starvation rations in boot camp), falling in to ranks waiting outside the cafeteria, marching to the next training session, falling out to the next session and starting it, all told, exactly one hour.
Every meal, every day.
The worst was during inprocessing. 1500 calories per meal, three times a day… and you spend most of the rest of the day sitting around in the barracks, scaring the shit out of each other by randomly yelling “at ease!”
I didn’t get much time to sit around in barracks. they had us working minor details all over the bases (there’s a whole lotta military bases in central Texas) when we weren’t in classes.
Were the barracks identified by name, number, or alpha designation? For instance, A Barrack, B Barrack, C Barrack and D Barrack.
I have friends in the Canadian Forces, and they also get an hour for lunch. The closest of these friends works in aircraft maintenance, and her day-to-day is not very different from what someone working for a private sector airline would experience. Once you’re out of the training system, and if you’re not deployed in combat operations, a lot of the super-regimented stuff that Hollywood shows us as life in the military falls away.
Yes, there are fitness standards, and working out is part of your job, but it’s more like time allotments to go to the on-base gym than the “Drop and give me 20!!!” business you see on TV. The base I’m familiar with doesn’t have a pool, it has two, one is an Olympic size for doing laps, and one is set up for families, including slides, and swimming lessons for the little ones. I’ve also eaten at the mess, and the food is actually really good. It’s not fine dining, but it’s on par with what you’d get at a good mom-and-pop restaurant, except way cheaper.
Perhaps things are different in Canada, since we don’t have the draft, or conscription of any kind, when you depend on volunteer enlistment, you have to make it attractive to people. That said, even with the draft, training people is expensive and time consuming, you want them to stay in for as long as they are useful. If they look at live in the private sector, and it looks a lot better, most will leave as soon as they can. If you pay them well, feed them well, and treat them well, they’ll stay for life, which is why, in Canada, you are not allowed to stay in the regular forces past age 60.
US doesn’t have a draft currently, and in general, the military leadership doesn’t want it. They get their ‘volunteer’ quota by recruiting in high schools – and without a requirement to notify the parents they’ve talked to their kids as young as 16. This started after starting two wars and being unable to keep the ranks filled.
On the other hand, the U.S. does have an “upward or outward” policy. Due to limits on the numbers of officers with ranks of O-5 or higher, you can’t get promoted unless there’s an available opening. If you don’t get promoted for two 4-year tours of duty in a row, you are discharged from service.
A lot of service members think this rule is sort of stupid, and have petitioned to change it. On the one hand, it does ensure that you can get your 20 years (or more, if you started as an enlisted rank and got chosen for OCS), unless you do something stupid enough to get passed over for promotion more than once. On the other hand, it deprives the military of someone who may have 20 or more years of experience, just because all the slots were full.
Yea, your arguments make sense. Whilst I can see that there may be discontent from being passed over repeatedly, which may even pose a security threat, I am sure that most people are pragmatic enough in accepting that if there are no spaces available then they simply cannot be promoted.
Not to mention that some folks will get to a certain grade and find that to ideally suit their temperament. Which is true even in civilian life. One of my friends chose to leave a managerial job because she found other roles more interesting.
Her main interest was being an extra in movies. She loved getting dressed up in period costumes and so on. That does not pay well mind, so she also worked in social care, to pay her bills. In due course though she rose back up to the point, in that career, where they were trying to push her into a management role again.
She is entirely competent to do that, but simply does not enjoy it. So flat refuses. I am sure there will be comparable situations in the military. And loosing someone with such talent, who would never have resentment about being passed over, is simple idiocy.
If you still have the ear of anyone who could change things, you may wish to suggest that the rule be modified to only apply to people who have actively sought promotion, and have been turned down?
That retirement age is relatively recent, 2000ish I believe, before that the age was 55.
Man, I have no intentions of still working at 2,000. Unless it is as a galactic warlord, or something fun like that.
You can schedule the *input* of consumables fairly regularly, but how does the armed forces allow for the inevitable *output* resulting from the former activity. If you are on a ten mile hike in the woods, or say, on a rooftop somewhere, what is the official way of requesting a potty break, especially if there are no actual facilities handy?
That’s where the “discipline” come in to the picture.
Depends on the unit, situation and conditions. IN normal day-to-day activities, taking a bathroom break is pretty much simmilar to any other job. You let your supervisor know and off you go. Now during hikes or special operations, you hold it till your clear. As to field excersizes where there isn’t a bathroom, well thats what bushes are for. And if your in a desert environment, well then your in a gian’t sandbox. In either case, Dig a hole. The E-Tool is great for digging a quick hole and doubles as a temp seat.
Aha, if that is the US military equivalent of the Chinese all-purpose shovel (sort of a Swiss army knfe concept adapted to shovels), then that is a feature that they do not have.
Interesting cultural feature mind. From what I recall of their video, I am pretty sure they could make it double as that too. It is simply that they did not show it off as a feature. I know that Japanese are very comfortable just sitting on the floor (or at floor-height anyhow), and I assume that is likely to be true in China too.
So an important feature for chair-loving westerners but less so for oriental soldiers.
Hahaha. Keep believing you’re not lesbian, Sydney. XD
If she were lesbian rather than bi, then she wouldn’t have those thoughts about Wolverine.
Now I know why they call her jiggle watt
Who love summer? i love summer.
Who is that in the patriotic bikini? Is that the “Ringo” of the Harem, the one never seen?
Nope, that’s Blondini, you can tell by the fact she has yellow hair (she’s the one in the middle of the group Mugshot)
You mean Farmer’s Daughter? Or Vogue, or whatever Dave calls her.
Believe ‘Vogue’ was the ‘official’ name for this Daphne, but that didn’t sound like a ‘name’ to me, so came up with new names for all of them
This seems like a good time to mention that we never did get a valentine’s day art piece.
Anvil is missing from the Who’s-Who!
She didn’t speak, neither did Vahriah
Yeah, maybe I should add them. I usually try and keep the WW to only people with speaking parts so that it doesn’t take up too much space, but if this page was someone’s first visit to the comic, their absence might be confusing.
Probably just me, but don’t care, seriously getting pissed off that only non-whites can complain about racism, or only women can complain about sexism
White people can complain about racism, and be victims of racism, however it is not really appropriate to say something silly is racist while in the presence of people who most likely have had to deal with actual racism at some point in their lives.
In this case, probably, but wasn’t meaning this case, this just made me comment in general
Discrimination based on race is still racism, regardless of who is discriminating against (or towards) whom
Sydney realised she made a mistake, not because of Anvil, Vahriah and Jiggs were there, but because she used the wrong word (nerds are not a race, no more so than ‘yuppies’, ‘preppies’, ‘jocks’ or ‘geeks’)
Let me put it to you this way: you remember that edgelord “artist” a few years back who would do things like piss on a crucifix or paint the Virgin Mary using elephant dung? The risk of someone seeing his work and interpreting it as an encouragement to beat up Christians was extremely fucking low, because this is America and we don’t really have a lot of people who do that here. Now imagine if you will that artist going to Egypt, where there is a history and continuing problem of violence against Coptic Christians, and pulling that exact same shit. Suddenly, the risk of this being used to encourage violence against Christians jumps dramatically.
And that is the difference between offensiveness and bigotry.
You’re making the classic confusion between racism and discrimination.
Racism is specifically a broad, institutionalized form of discrimination. Because whites are the majority in the US and have most of the economic and political power, they can’t be the victims of racism even though they can be discriminated against on a small scale.
While this comic is set in the US, the readers are international
So when a black person attacks a white person for being white, you think it isn’t racism?
When a traditionally-black college’s administration, faculty, and a majority of the student body systematically mistreat a white student, that isn’t racism?
Or to turn it around – if a single white person who happens to live in an all-white area says “I hate blacks”, it isn’t discrimination – there are no blacks around for this person to discriminate against – and it’s just a single person so it certainly isn’t “broad, institutionalized”, meaning it isn’t racism?
If anything, I’d say you have it backward. That racism is the ATTITUDE, specifically a raced-based bigotry, and discrimination is the APPLICATION.
(The other issue is that “discrimination” is too big a word to be an inherently negative thing. Discrimination, done right in its proper place, is GOOD. We want, for example, pharmacies to discriminate against known drug addicts when screening potential employees.)
Another point: just because you don’t like someone (due to ethnicity, nationality or religion) doesn’t automatically mean you will discriminate them
Those people can complain.
I don’t see what’s stopping you.
The reaction shot in panel cheese is why
Panel cheese?
Once, twice, thrice, mice, cheese?
Because people might not like what you have to say?
That’s not a very good reason.