Common Thread
Posted on October 24, 2017 by Rusche

Finally finished. I have only named one of these 18 assassin girls, soI'm open to suggestions. Fire away. If I like it I'll post a confirmation. Sword Squad needs it more than the others.

195 thoughts on “Common Thread”

  3. Real names or code names? I’d expect them all to have the usual assortment of cheesy callsigns following a theme of something like poisonous snakes or birds of prey- all the female assassin teams go in for that kind of crap these days :P

    But then they’d also all have perfectly ordinary, unthreatenting normal names, like Henrietta Brakowitz or Sarah Rauschenberg and stuff like that.

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    2. “And why haven’t you settled down and married a nice doctor by your age? You’re not getting any younger, dear. What happened to that nice boy, Doctor…what was it? Apocalypse? Yeah, Doctor Apocalypse! You couldn’t stop talking about him all last November!”

      “Doctor Apocalypse is serving four consecutive life sentences for trying to steal Christmas, ma. Tarra Buckingham ended up knocking his lower jaw off.”

      “Oh dear. Such a violent one. She’s never gonna find a good husband. But you! You’re such a lovely girl with the swords and the magical powers and such!”

      Reply

  9. AKANE f Japanese
    From Japanese 茜 (akane) meaning “deep red, dye from the rubia plant”. Other kanji or combinations of kanji can form this name as well.
    ___________________________
    CHEYENNE f & m English
    Derived from the Dakota word shahiyena meaning “red speakers”. This is the name of a Native American people of the Great Plains. The name was supposedly given to the Cheyenne by the Dakota because their language was unrelated to their own. As a given name, it has been in use since the 1950s.
    _______________________________
    HJÖRDÍS
    GENDER: Feminine
    USAGE: Ancient Scandinavian, Icelandic
    Meaning & History
    Means “sword goddess”, derived from Old Norse hjörr “sword” and dís “goddess”.
    _____________________
    Given Name BRENDA
    GENDER: Feminine
    Meaning & History
    Possibly a feminine form of the Old Norse name Brandr, meaning “sword”
    ___________________________
    AINA f Japanese
    From Japanese 愛 (ai) meaning “love, affection” and 菜 (na) meaning “vegetables, greens”, as well as other character combinations.
    ________________
    AOI f & m Japanese
    From Japanese 葵 (aoi) meaning “hollyhock, althea” or an adjectival form of 碧 (ao) meaning “green, blue”. Other kanji with the same reading can form this name as well.
    ___________
    CHLOE f English, Biblical, Biblical Latin, Biblical Greek, Ancient Greek, Greek Mythology
    Means “green shoot” in Greek, referring to new plant growth in the spring. This was an epithet of the Greek goddess Demeter. The name is also mentioned by Paul in one of his epistles in the New Testament. As an English name, Chloe has been in use since the Protestant Reformation.
    _____________________
    HARUNA f Japanese
    From Japanese 晴 (haru) meaning “clear weather”, 遥 (haru) meaning “distant, remote” or 春 (haru) meaning “spring”
    combined with 菜 (na) meaning “vegetables, greens”. Other kanji combinations are possible.
    _______________________
    HINA f Japanese
    From Japanese 陽 (hi) meaning “light, sun, male” or 日 (hi) meaning “sun, day” combined with 菜 (na) meaning “vegetables, greens”. Other kanji combinations are possible.
    ______________
    MIDORI f Japanese
    From Japanese 緑 (midori) meaning “green”, as well as other kanji or kanji combinations which have the same pronunciation.

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  10. I like the idea of them having themed names, bonus if they are code names. With themed code names, Terra could also have a name per group. There could also be “that one person” who goes all Justice League and continually uses their real names.

    Superman gets hit, both Batman and Wonder Woman scream: “Clark!”.
    Wonder Woman gets hit, both Superman and Batman scream: “Dianna!”.
    Batman gets hit, both Wonder Woman and Superman scream: “Bruce!”.
    The fight goes on like this for 15 minutes as news crews film for international coverage.
    Lex Luthor, Brainiac, and all the other “genius” supervillians somehow still have no idea who they are.

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      1. Voting Link to vote for SHOTGUN SHUFFLE on TWC.
        http://topwebcomics.com/vote/14850/default.aspx
        Shotgun Shuffle
        #41 ( / ) w/ 2332: Avg/day – 75.225; Avg/hr – 3.1344; Avg/min – 0.0522; Avg/sec – 0.00087.
        Replay
        #1 ( / ) w/ 30360: Avg/day – 979.354; Avg/hr – 40.806; Avg/Min – 0.680; Avg/Sec – 0.011.
        Grrl Power
        #2 ( / ) w/ 28346: Avg/day – 914.387; Avg/hr – 38.099; Avg/Min – 0.634; Avg/Sec – 0.010
        Supercell
        #44 ( / ) w/ 2217: Avg/day – 71.516; Avg/hr – 2.979; Avg/Min – 0.0496; Avg/Sec – 0.000827.

        Reply

        1. I’m actually surprised with how quickly we recovered our position. We went from like 42 yesterday to 132 this morning and now we’re back at 45.

        3. Voting Link to vote for SHOTGUN SHUFFLE on TWC.
          http://topwebcomics.com/vote/14850/default.aspx
          Shotgun Shuffle
          #45 (—) w/94: Avg/day – 94; Avg/hr – 4.08; Avg/min – 0.068; Avg/sec – 0.001.
          Replay
          #1 (—) w/ 986: Avg/day – 986; Avg/hr – 41.08; Avg/Min – 0.684; Avg/Sec – 0.011.
          Stand Still. Stay Silent
          #3 (—) w/ 537; Avg/day – 537; Avg/hr – 23.34; Avg/Min – 0.389; Avg/sec – 0.006.
          Grrl Power
          #6 (—) w/ 501: Avg/day – 501; Avg/hr – 21.78; Avg/Min – 0.363; Avg/Sec – 0.006
          Supercell
          #23 (—) w/ 158: Avg/day – 158; Avg/hr – 6.86; Avg/Min – 0.11; Avg/Sec – 0.001.

  13. The art here is glorious. Also, one of the men should start singing “Shot through the heart, and you’re to blame.”

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    1. I’m more concerned people don’t seem to have noticed that the red-headed adventurer with the oversized luger looks like she’s trying to pull a trigger on a gun that not only lacks a trigger, but also a handle to hold said gun by.

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  15. If one of those sword assassins cut Fatty out of the tree on purpose, that was nice of her. She quite literally saved a cat from a tree!

    Is this the first time we’ve seen Fatty’s eyes open? I seem to recall he always squinted before.

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    1. Freaking me out too. It’s shoulder-mounted, I think, but so much of it is off-shoulder that she’s going to have to lean hard to the right every time she wants to aim. Who KNOWS what kind of recoil it’s got?

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        1. Actually, now that I paid more attention to it, I think it is a Shoulder Mounted ARROW Launcher.

          But not the pointy kind of arrow. Its ammo looks like that sort of round-pointed arrow that Green Arrow, Hawkeye and Lara Croft use for explosive arrows.

    3. It’s kinda funny, but I meant the same panel, far LEFT, not far right. But yeah, that monstrosity is a back-breaker.

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  19. This is amazing, but I have one question. Were all the teams the same distance away, or is one of them faster than the others?

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  20. So, I thought it would be fun to use the same naming convention once for every squad, So every squad has one member named after a gem, a month, a holiday, and so on: this could could why they’d let tarragon be a part of all three because they couldn’t find a second and third equally kickass girl how also was named after a spice, so they just decided to triple dip the one.

    I also thought it would be a fun bit where every one of them is named after a different thing since that would foil well with the Buckingham conventions, and would create some interplay between the groups shifting the implied anamosity to a rivalry.

    Given that as the convention, each girl numbered from left to right (by head) and grouped by sub-convention (in order of swords, guns, magic), I have:

    Months:
    1 May,
    1 April
    2 August

    Holidays
    2 Valory (Valentine)
    3 Chris (Christmas)
    1 Ester (Easter)

    Gemstones
    4 Amber
    6 Ruby
    3 Amy (Amethyst)

    Flowers
    3 Rose
    5 Daisy
    6 Camilla

    Angels
    6 Micheal
    4 Micah
    5 Raziel

    Disney Princesses
    5 Aurora (Sleeping Beauty)
    2 Belle
    4 Snow (Snow White)

    I’d really love the convention, it’s fun and has so much potential for characterizing, like the reaction each princess(-named) character gets being called “princess;” the angels “angel;” the girls of one group being refered to as “the other flower,” and “the other other flower,” “off-brand,” “discount,” or “knockoff”, and so on: so so much fun to be had. Plus again there’s the joke that tarragon is all three groups because she’s the only girl that compete with herself that is also named after a spice.

    Getting a character that already has a name to fit into this convention would be weird, so… maybe it can’t happen, but gosh, this would be fun.

    Reply

  21. Oh, hey, just so everyone knows:

    Lagga gimpo.

    Malta gimpo.

    Foga rakka gimpo.

    Meesa chakka dit.

    No, seriously. It’s happening. Right now!

    Reply

  22. Doing an archive crawl… and looking through these comments, nobody suggested the obvious name for one of the Mage girls, what with this comic strewn with Fleetwood Mac references?
    One of the mage girls has GOT to be named “Rhiannon”.
    Just a logical choice.
    Listen to the song and see which one seems to fit the best.
    I vote for the one on the far left, with the white floral dress with big blue sleeve ends, and the blue crystal torch staff.

    Reply

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