Grrl Power

Heroic Build seems a in-universe Required Secondary Power to Superpowers. It's been commented upon.

edited 19th Jun '17 4:29:51 AM by 3of4

{nods} But the way it's depicted... eh, I guess that panel feels very Liedelfian in its depiction of muscles on top of muscles, to the point where they don't really look like real people anymore.

Not enough pouches for that adjective

Also, much as I do enjoy Liefeld's work, too many depicted feet.

Anybody want to bet that Sydney underwater in the last panel is practicing using the remote view orb?

Finally, regarding the rant... as someone who works in Boston daily, trust me, there was plenty of opportunity to townie-up Varia's dialogue just in what she said today alone. (hint: Bostonians tend to use "wicked," sometimes pronounced closer to "wickid," as an adverb to denote emphasis rather than the more standard "very").

Correctly proportioned feet. And, hands with the right amount of fingers, too.

The Orb's power remains elusive...

CANNONBALL!. A thousand gallons seems like a lot in this situation...

And I think we still don't have any answer on whether forming the shield underwater leads to water still filling the shield.

That's not a Boston accent. "dirty" is pronounced "durty" and "drawers" is "drors". She comes off sounding more Jamaican than New England.

I mostly agree with @1283, except that I know for a fact that a Bostonian says "draw" (pronounced the same way as one would say the verb meaning "to make art with a pencil") when they pronounce the word "drawer," with the subsequent pronunciation of "drawers" as "draws." I have an entire story about this that's not really germaine to the comic, other than the fact that I had a two-week argument with Bostonians related to this particular quirk of the Boston accent.

The part that's silly is that "underwear" does get noticably mutated - "undahweah" would be appropriate in this situation. For that matter, since "underpants" is inherently funnier than "underwear," "undahpants" also works.

For that matter, "because" does not become "becahs" - if anything, the vowel in the second syllable becomes more clipped; it sounds way more like "beciz" than "becahs" (though that's generally only when a Bostonian is rushing through a sentence... which admittedly is not uncommon).

I imagine that this is what it was like for people in Louisiana to read any comic with Gambit in it.

Yeah, this is why I generally dislike Funetik Aksent, as 9 times out of 10 it's an accent that the writer is not familiar with. And even if they are, the story usually would work just fine without it.

edited 26th Jun '17 1:46:39 PM by TotemicHero

Yeah, your right, I tried saying it and it does come out more as "draws". I'm from a bit north of Boston.

@1285 Yeah, as I've gotten older and learned a lot more about accents, I've grown vastly less enamored with Funetik Aksent myself. It's right next to (and not uncommonly accompanying) Gratuitous Foreign Language in terms of tropes that have really gotten stale for me. I think the last time that those tropes actually worked for me was East of Eden, and that's because it's discussed and ultimately Subverted (for those not familiar with the book, the Chinese man among the main characters only uses it at first to get away with Obfuscating Stupidity, and he starts to drop it when another character calls him out on it).

@1286 It's sometimes hard to hear your own accent. But as I live just north of Boston and work in the city, I hear it a lot. I mean, it's usually not a full on "Sully and Murph from Southie" level that I deal with, but I'd say I deal with it enough that I know it extremely well.

The flip side is, I have a hard time picking out particulars of both the Philadelphia and the Mid-Atlantic (the non-Tidewater) accents, because my accent is a mash of the two. I'm told that my pronunciation of "water" sounds like "worder" (almost like it rhymes with Mordor), but I don't hear the extra "r" others hear, and I don't hear nearly as severe a drop in the first vowel sound's pitch as others do.

edited 27th Jun '17 7:47:01 AM by 32_Footsteps

Sydney continues to fail adorably, the author admits that the pool is highly unrealistic, and there's speculation about a video game.

Flailing - probably not your best first response.

Sydney starts a Green Air Initiative

Now if she had a third hand for shield, flight and air she'd be spaceworthy. No one ever tell her

Solution 1 to that problem. Learn to hold two orbs in one hand at once. Maybe with some sort of glove contraption that holds them both in place so that her grip counts. Option 2: Varia. Sydney holds shield and flight, Varia (because I can't spell her given name) holds green.

Edit: Technically with the right breathing equipment she was already space worthy. This just reduces the equipment requirements.

edited 3rd Jul '17 5:10:07 PM by KnightofLsama

I thought Varria couldn't get a read on Sydney?

edited 3rd Jul '17 6:22:27 PM by FuzzyBoots

Depending on how exactly the green orb works, it might not be necessary to use it constantly. She might be able to drop the flight orb while still holding the shield orb, grab the green orb, push all the bad air out and replace it with good air, then grab the flight orb again. Her hands will be off the flight orb for a few seconds, tops, and she won't have to do it again for another fifteen minutes until her air goes bad again.

Neither of them noticed that the orbs expanded to orbit both of them. The general theory is that Varia can use Sydney's orbs when they're touching. If Varia doesn't have to use a hand to grab and just needs skin contact, then they could tie their arms together and use four orbs at once.

Regarding hot-swapping the orbs. Theoretically yes. On a practical level I'd be worried about Sydney freaking out when she dropped the flight orb. It has been established that she has a mild fear of heights and the flight orb does something to cancel that out while in use.

Yep, I'm working on 's theory that when touching Sydney, Varia can use the orbs (and working on the assumption that their abilities remain the same while under Varia's control).

Gloves won't work. The Orbs need skin contact and given that they only work on hands I assume they have a handprint sensor to activate.

No, the important part is that Varia doesn't need a hand for her ability. We've only ever seen her grabbing hands, but it's implied that's just for convenience, and any form of skin contact would work. So tie her arm to Sydney's arm, leaving all four hands free, and then pop an orb in each hand.

edited 4th Jul '17 7:40:05 AM by Discar

Put Sydney in a baby carrier modified for, dunno, ass to abs contact and Hilarity Ensues?

Sydney decides she might be a spaceship.

The tentacle orb is obviously a super-advanced manipulator arm. NASA would do anything to be able to attach one of those to a space shuttle.

Must... resist... The LEGO Movie joke...

Given the problems Sydney encounters, if her theory is correct, I'd suspect that the orbs were created originally for a race that had more appendages than we do.

Octopi are really from space and created Sydneys orbs.