Grrl Power #776 – Dr. Aptronym?
There are probably a lot of psychologists who would like to take a crack at Sydney… Well, maybe not. She’s not that complicated really. A ton of ADHD, lots of humor deflection-itis, whatever that’s called, a little Peter Pan Syndrome. Probably some other stuff, but fairly straightforward. Still, even if her diagnosis is fairly pedestrian, she’s going to be one of those patients that requires a little overtime.
This page does give us some new important information about Dr. Frost though. Nothing to do with imagined powers though. Apparently she sleeps above the sheets. And doesn’t wear a bra to sleep. I’m actually pretty sure almost no women do, but I just wanted to point out I drew her breasts right where they should be when a braless woman is laying on her back. In her armpits.
And I mean… if she had ice powers, wouldn’t the tips of her hair be blue and not red? Unless they’re… RED HAIRING TIPS!
Bam. Planned it.
.
.
Okay, I didn’t.
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It didn’t work that way with the Mr. Shrapnel guy who had no superpowers (besides financial advisory), either. Sometimes people have cool names not because the name describes their superpowers, but just because cool names are cool. (Duh.)
Yes, but Sydney punched the universe, in that she punched the chair, which is part of the universe, and therefore she punched the universe. Surely the universe would not be foolhardy enough to mess with Sydney TWICE in the same way, right?
I think the answer is obvious.
Obvious answer is this: she’s a psychic based off Marvel’s psychic psychologist EMMA frost.
I like to think that Frost is her husband’s last name and HE has ice powers.
Headcanon achieved. Or her wife. You know whatever.
Man, please don’t have it be her great grandfather had ice powers and the name just went down the generations boringly.
Or it could be her kid who’s going to have the ice powers. Surnames generally predate superpowers.
husband/wife has ice powers, and Dr. Frost has FIRE powers.
My theory is that somewhere out there in the Grrlverse there is a man named Ira Bond, with the power to cause objects to explode with his mind. Someday, they’ll discover that they were switched in the hospital and went home with the wrong parents.
(Note: We would also accept William “Bill” Dollar, or Max Stonks)
That’s COLONEL Shrapnel to you, buddy
When did the money-management guy join the military? o_O
No, I mean the real Shrapnel.
Oh, okay, thought you meant the one in this webic
And his son, Mirv Shrapnel…why can’t we all have some kind of accidentally badass name?
Actually DaveB I /do/ sleep on top of the covers a lot, I’m always too warm in bed. And while not as endowed as my sister, she does have to sleep in tops that have support or she ends up with what you drew. I tend to sprawl in my sleep and think it’s hilarious how many things of ‘me’ you get in this that we never spoke about before.
And no I won’t tell anyone what (if any) Doctor Frost’s powers are. Women in my profession have to be good at keeping secrets.
0.0 ….is that your super power?
I’m busty, and due to an auto accident, I will never be able to sleep without an unwired support/sports bra.
She rather looks like she’s wearing such a one, as they look more held in than if she were sleeping unholstered.
Almost all women I’ve dated who were at about a C cup or larger wore some kind of support top to bed. A bra, a sports bra, etc. Some were so discomforted by not having the support that they would get up after a period of nude activity to put a top on before settling in for sleep.
Why doesn’t she just put them in the tube when she sleeps.
‘Cause boobs don’t fit in tubes, except the TV.
…Oh, you were referencing Sydney…? Never mind, then.
Dont be ridiculous. Sydney cant fit in the tube either.
Probably because she has bad nightmares after the encounter on the Alari world, and since she can control the orbs almost without thinking now, the orbs may get into her hands while sleeping and…
PEW PEW PEW
“My bad!”
Not gonna lie, this kinda crosses the threshold from “Adorably scatterbrained” to “Reprehensible asshole.”
Adorably scatterbrained people do that, though.
Keep in mind this is the ADHD variant of sleep-talking. I’ve had my brother wake me from a sound sleep because of a TOTALLY IMPORTANT question he dreamed about. He was awake enough to come to my room and talk in full sentences but… not awake enough to realize the utter nonsense coming out of his mouth.
Truth.
I once got out of bed, walked into the next room, and asked my then-fiance (now ex-wife) where the “cable balls” were. You know, the “little balls the cable company gave us that tell the time”. And was getting quite upset that she didn’t know what I was talking about. That is till the other part of my brain started firing and went “Wait, what did you just say? Go back to bed idiot.” and I just stopped talking mid-sentence and went back to bed. She was still laughing when I woke up for real 10 minutes later.
I still dont know what cable balls are. Tell me.
Cable balls are those big bright balls you see occasionally on power lines. They’re put there to make the lines obvious in areas where there may be low flying planes.
https://www.nrgsystems.com/products/accessories/tower-visibility/detail/cable-ball-set
But the cable company doesnt give consumers those, right? And they don’t tell time.
Unless it’s some sort of fancy promotional ball-clock thingie
The two are not mutually exclusive, you know.
Do psychologists hand out their home/cell numbers to their patients? I’d think that they would want to maintain some amount of separation, especially since I’d guess that the number of emotionally needy patients is higher for them than it is for a dentist or a GP.
Cell number, sure, and a good shrink would have a separate phone just for work and ‘special’ clients
Are you speaking from experience and/or knowledge, or are you just making shit up because that’s how you roll?
Everything about what you just said strongly suggests the latter, because “a separate phone just for work and ‘special’ clients” really triggers the bullshit meter.
My shrink has two cell phones. The office pays for one of them. I assume she just puts in a time based Do-Not-Disturb filter on the office phone along with a very short list of numbers allowed through during those times.
Want to try that again, Obewrong? o_O
The exception does not make the rule, Buttheadicus.
Most consulting professionals I’ve worked with (non-medical/psychological) have a single cell phone (because carrying multiple devices is dumb) and an office number that forwards to it only during office hours.
They almost never have to make outgoing calls outside the office though, but even if they do nearly all of their clientele also only want to talk to them business hours. Can’t imagine why even a shrink/doctor would be regularly be calling patients directly while on the road though.
During Sydney’s next session with Dr. Frost:
Dr. Frost: I noticed you looking at my red tips Miss Scoville… did you ever wonder how I got them?
Sydney: “Well, now that you mention it… I was wondering…
Dr. Frost: “I dip them in the blood of irritating patients… every three days or so…”
Sydney: “…”
Sydney: So you’re basically a Redcap?
http://www.annotatedmage.net/minor.shtml
now that’s one way of setting boundaries. now can i please have that referral?
That’s exciting! How do you keep the blood red instead of brown after a couple hours?
She cuts the patient, and squeezes lemon juice into the cut before extracting the blood. Lemon juice is very effective at preventing enzymatic browning…
I is back from long holiday with no internet (nasty cable chewing meeces!).
Boy there has been some interesting stuff I missed out on!
Yorpretty far behind on the forums, but with some dogged determination you can catch up.
Good to have you back, have a yorpy snack.
Fanks!
*munch munch munch*
Welcome back, have Yorpie Bar
Oh, and for your peace of mind, don’t go back and read the comments, some seriously toxic posts have happened in your absence
Thats sad to hear.
*gobble gobble munch munch*
BUUURP
A website that I visit a lot, NationStates, has its server is in Canada: On one occasion it was offline for a couple of days and we were told that this was because the cable had been chewed by a Moose !
NationStates is still around? Man, that brings back memories. I was head of my region at one point on there. Like 15 years ago.
I’ll take down the Lost Dog signs I put up all around the internet. Have a Yorpie Snax :)
Aww, how sweet.
Oddly similar to my situation. One of my kitties went missing whilst I was away and much searching was done on my behalf. But she came back safely, on her own. She had been hunting for me for six days!
Foodies!
*gobble gobble crunch munch*
*wagging tail*
nice subtle indication that she’s prepped for nightmare autograb of orbs followed by explosion… and I wonder when that happened to cause it lol
Sometimes, people come up with the cure before the symptoms
In this case, Sydney had the fear the first night back, when she strapped her balls to her hands and slept inside Mr Buble (which prompted her first session with Dr. Bloodtips)
New word learned!
Does Sydney need to have a limb amputated to get a cybernetic appendage? I mean when she’s holding two orbs, she can’t do anything else with her hands. Couldn’t she integrate a couple of extra hands to help herself? Even if they can’t operate an orb, one might always want to eat a snack, push up glasses, wipe drool, etc…
I thought that that couldn’t work because the human brain only has so many channels.
In fact….
Humans: 2 legs 2 arms.
Horse: 4 legs.
Brids: 2 legs 2 wings.
There’s a term for that probably.
Filthy, disgusting brids!
It’s a standard British bird; the Gannet is in all the books.
Well I don’t like them, they wet their nests!
HA! I got that reference…it just so happens I keep a copy of “Ethel The Aardvark Goes Quantity Surveying” for emergencies.
Humans learn to use tools, which become extensions of our bodies, and new pathways grow to fill gaps. I’m thinking of Doc Oc here. Without the world conquest megalomania stuff.
Spider: 8 legs, centipede, millipede… less brain, more mobile appendages? maybe the reason we’re limited in our usable appendages is a result of having higher brain function.
The human brain can adapt to a pretty great extent, as long as there are nerves to be re-purposed – blind people dedicate more of their visual cortex to processing sounds and tactile sensations to compensate for lack of visual input. I think there’s room in many people’s consciousness for an additional limb or maybe even two (perhaps somewhere in the depths, there’s the nerves that some simians have turned into a prehensile tail).
As far as training your brain/a system that controls this “limb”, you have to have something read your nerve impulses (either in your brain or not) and so can tell when your brain is thinking “raise the [non-existent] arm” and differentiate when it’s not thinking that. Then when your brain gets used to raising it and letting the limb fall, you start working on the slight differences between “raising it” and “raising it, but pushing to the left at the same time”
In comic, Cora has the nerves to control a large abdomen/thorax/whatever instead of simulated legs. It’s probably just a matter of training and sensory responsiveness. Basically I contend that in the real world, there are the infant forms of this tech already in the lab and in semi-portable forms. In comic, the tech has to exist in order for Cora’s suit to work, so it’s simply a matter of getting that tech installed in / placed on Halo (if she wanted it) and then training her brain and the algorithm in the hard-light generator to respond correctly.
With Cora, I’m sure she’s just swaying her hips and clenching her butt cheeks.
Also forget lab :) Check out the Emotiv controller (mind-reading headband that’s been around 10 years now) or the Mindflex board game, also thought-controlled.
Semi-related, I’m wondering if one of the upgrades available for the lighthook might turn out to be altering its shape (for instance, adding opposable digits on the end or giving it an edge to cut or saw things with).
Also fun (if slightly creepy) might be giving it contact-based sensory abilities (combining spaceship functions of a tractor beam with those of a probe). Touch and temperature sensing would be useful, but chemical composition sensors perceived by Sydney as taste would be useful and funny.
Hence Doctor Octavio’s tentacles thinking on their own.
Or Spinnerette’s ‘bottom lefty’ :D
Nah, the brain can adapt. There are a pair of identical twins who convinced a doctor somewhere to transplant one of their arms as a third arm to the other. Years later the one with three arms can wiggle the fingers on that hand. He cannot, and probably never will be able to due to lack of skeletal connections, do anything useful with it, but he has full sensation and partial movement.
she’d have to go the terminator route and grow skin from her own cell structure on the limbs. maybe. the whole comic indicates it’s just her hands.
She’d pretty much have to give up some other nerve controlled functionality, short of grafting in additional nerve tissue, which would take a lot of practice to integrate even if they could do it.
Mind you, there are a lot of nerve pathways you’ve got, but scarcely ever use. People can learn to change the blood flow in specific regions of their skin, for instance, which means there actually are nerve pathways available to do that. And you’re not using them, why not repurpose them?
I even once learned to stop my heart for a couple of beats at a time, to prank my doctor. (Had access to an ecg machine, to practice with.) Takes a lot of practice to get control over your vagus nerve, but you can do it.
Kind of anticlimatic, though. He just said, “Stop that!” and went on with taking my BP.
I did that too, but I didn’t need an ekg machine; sitting in a quiet room I can actually hear and feel my own heartbeat. I managed to actually fluster my doctor for a couple of seconds.
I used to enjoy pranking doctors. I’ve kind of given it up for the last decade though.
I also learned to dilate and contract my pupils without any change in light level, which got “huh? that’s weird” from my eye doctor. But contracting just the left one and not the right – which is harder, sort of like crossing just one of your eyes – got some actual shock, and then when I explained that I was doing it on purpose, an irritated/borderline angry “don’t EVER do that again!” – which was the reaction I’d sort of expected with interrupting the heartbeat.
And I can pop my blood pressure up or down well outside the normal ranges too, which got me a “you probably shouldn’t do that. Might be bad for ya.”
Yeah, it’s just easier to learn if you happen to have an ekg machine lying around.
Most people have no idea at all how many things that are running on automatic in their body are actually capable of being voluntarily controlled with a little practice, and maybe some equipment to make your first successful efforts dead obvious.
The key to it is always having some kind of (bio!) feedback telling you if you’re succeeding.
But, seriously, why DO you have nerve channels capable of altering blood flow or sweat gland activity in specific areas of skin? What evolutionary purpose did it once serve? Did some distant ancestor of our’s have thermal camouflage? Or is it just that the autonomic nervous system uses the same design plans as the voluntary nervous system for reasons of genetic parsimony? Kinda suspect it’s that latter.
I can do that with my pulse as well, can get it to go up and down somewhat, and change my blood pressure. Read about it and taught myself how to do it. Used to do it to my (now) wife, when she was using me to practice taking blood pressure and pulse, etc., when she was in nursing school.
Panel 2: She woke up the sleeping orbs!!!
Plot twist: She has fire powers.
Oh please, we all know her super power is psychic bleaching
Bleaching in a chemical/telekinetic sense, as in changing the color of something or killing germs, or bleaching in a “mind bleach”/telepathic sense, as in the ability to make people unsee something nasty or disturbing?
The second option seems like it would be potentially really useful for a psychiatrist.
I’m guessing the 2nd, as in the mental equivalent of eye bleach for the things you wish you could un-see.
I’m guessing she must be able to use this power on herself if she’s still working at Archon.
I had a character once who was red themed but had ice powers, her sister was blue themed and had psychic powers. Going for a twofer on the unexpected expectations. it was double edged when writing about them though because I kept forgetting I did that *weren’t regular characters but side story related*.
I had/have an created in my head in junior high 1987 half human/half vampire who could walk in daylight. years later I discovered Blade. And no no chance of “discovering” comics from friends. the mind frame in junior high was that was something to make fun of/bully “nerds” over. so any of them who did read comics, weren’t likely to tell anyone including me.
Thanks for drawing the boobs realistically. Really hyped about this. Somebody on Reddit wrote “Real breasts are supposed to slide to the side like butter on a fried egg.” That image stuck.
Mine do!!!
Breaker, Breaker 1-9! I just wanted to wish everyone a happy CB radio day.
(Those of you across the pond may have to remember our date formatting to get why it is today)
P.S. For you people below a certain age, those were kind of like a cellphone that plugged into your car, was the size of a laptop, only one person could speak at a time, and the person had to be less than 10 miles away.
Plenty of ’em still around.
Just about every log truck, or vehicle at a lumber mill, has ’em.
And you can get a lot farther than 10 miles – even running legal power – if you have the right antenna and height. The signal will “skip” for hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of miles.
Was any version of “which is stronger, Achilles’s invulnerable to everything -even that- or momonga from overlord’s kills everything -even that-” ever answered?
That’s a paradox, an irresistible Force, cannot exist in the same universe, as an Immovable Object!
Tell that to Blob and Strong Guy (well, after you restart Strong Guy’s heart, again)
From Dabbler’s 135% resistance to debuffs we know that there are things that can overpower a 100% immunity
Yet we’ve seen Achilles unharmed from standing on the edge of Maxima’s “Not my maxiumum power level” bomb thing. I’m pretty sure they’ve tested some of that.
What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?
They surrender.
(I think this was in a Batman animated series, once)
Btw I am surprised that Sydney, co-owning a comic book shop, did not ask if Dr Frost had telepathic powers instead. Since she is a psychiatrist and her last name is the same as a certain powerful telepath in Marvel comics :).
Wait, Emma is now a telepath? o_O
Um…yes.
Emma Frost, formerly White Queen, is a telepath.
She’s always BEEN a telepath. Not sure why you’re asking ‘NOW’ a telepath? That implies she has ever not been a telepath (the only time her telepathic powers are suppressed are when she’s in diamond body form).
Thought it was Jean who was the telepath
Thank you for explaining
No, Jean is also a telepath. Scott seems to have a thing for them, I guess…
Or, maybe it’s just telepaths have a ‘thing’ for him because he’s such and easy target :P
In comics it’s possible for multiple people to have similar or even identical powers.
Jean Grey, Emma Frost, Emma’s teen clones the Stepford Cuckoos, Professor Xavier, all “mutant” clones, while Dr. Strange has used a magical equivalent in the past.
Yes, know there are many telepaths, just wasn’t aware that Emma was one of them
No, she’s just MARRIED to someone with ice powers.
Also, why doesn’t she just sleep with them in the tube?
Do love Sidney’s eyes in the 9th panel.
Wouldn’t it be easier to just shove the PPO into a mitten? That’s the only really dangerous one, unless the last orb inverts reality or something.
Or cover the PPO with one of those protective hood things for golf clubs.
A nice colored leather one.
Well the flight orb could cause difficulties if she either breaks the sound barrier in the hallway or does a plentary jump ….. I think that would be bad.
Nah. The two navigators on Cora’s ships were talking about the safeties on the Aetherium Causeway.
Sydney probably doesn’t have the expertise to deactivate the safeties, so earth is safe (for now) from Sydney creating stargates.
Well, it does have safeties against jumping directly into a black hole. Does it have safeties against opening a causeway on a planetary surface? Maybe, maybe not.
The center of the array seems to be a user manual of sorts; After she put some points into it, she started getting vague intuitions about how to use the orbs. One of them was, “Don’t open a causeway on a planet surface.”
It’s probably something you might do in an emergency, but otherwise a bad idea, what with everything around you getting sucked in.
So one of my best friends died yesterday, and I was hating life, the world, and myself. Then I read this comic and laughed until I hurt myself. Thank you.
Sorry to here about your loss.
“And I mean… if she had ice powers, wouldn’t the tips of her hair be blue and not red? Unless they’re… RED HAIRING TIPS!
Bam. Planned it.
.
.
Okay, I didn’t.”
You okay there, DaveB? Need some rest or something? You kinda sound like you’re floundering a bit.
Emma Frost doesn’t have ice powers. Come on Sydney :p
She will realise the blunder when she wakes up and looks at her phone log and realises it wasn’t a dream
Why doesn’t she just put the orbs back in the tube instead of sleeping with duct taped oven mitts? I mean…other than the humor?
Can she be sure that the orbs will stay in the cardboard tube if she wants them hard enough? If two or more orbs travel in different directions the tube will be pulled apart and can reach her.
To get to her hand with the oven mitts the orbs would somehow have to tear the mitts from her hand, with is harder than tearing up that tube.
On-page, the recommendation was made by Dr. Frost who hadn’t (as far as we know) seen Tubey. An average home is more likely to have hand coverings than it is robust containment that can accommodate all the Orbs.
Off-page, it allows the call-back to one of Sydney’s greatest weaknesses.
Considering what amazing shape the good doctor is in, I would be surprised if she weren’t a super.
Yes, because only supers are ripped, there are no gyms or personal fitness equipment or training in the GrrlVerse
For some reason, I think Sydney looks really cute in the second panel.
She downgraded our plucky protagonist from “Sydney” to “Miss Scoville”.
Take the hint, Sidney. :P
It’s odd. I never noticed how cute Sydney looks without her glasses, before, without getting into the whole Hollywood Ugly, just remove glasses and redo hair to become sexy trope. I mean aside from Peggy Cass in Auntie Mame, most actresses who under go such a transformation in a movie are beautiful to begin with. They’re just given glasses and a bad ‘do to hide their “inner beauty.”
Sydney’s worth multiple books, easily.