She can’t find out what sort of deal Brandi made, Brandi may still be having an angst fit, she’s been turned to ice and repeatedly hugged by a Gorgon today, and she’s also found about about a new level of destructive technology out there and that the Earth has some sort of dimensional shield that keeps out a lot of things. All that would rattle and infuriate Monica, and lead her to either go on an eating binge such that no container of ice cream in the city would be safe, or want to break things. She’s apparently chosen the latter…
From the looks of it. Monica is in the mood for a little plinking to help relieve her stress, with a little assistance from bud plasma charging the bullets she fires for a little extra kick.
What Monica is doing is called “Range Therapy.”
You get your gun and head to a target range or just some place you can shoot safely. You bring lots of ammo, and then you shoot until you aren’t frustrated anymore.
It can be quite relaxing.
I wholeheartedly agree with that. ‘Range Therapy’ is very good if you are used to having people get within a hairs breath of making you want to kill them around you on a regular basis (works well if you work H.R. and I.T. jobs”
They weren’t tin cans, they were stuffed animals. And it wasn’t semtex it was tannerite. And a .50 caliber is hardly a howitzer. But it was all caught on video!
If you’ve seen the video, yeah; I know the narrator and most of the others involved. It was a damn cool day out.
No, although it’s nice to know others are amused by this. A quick google doesn’t turn up the video I had in mind, and it’s not mine to post – although it’s interesting to know that at least three Pikachus have been stuffed with explosives and shot. I don’t know where it is on the net, although I’m sure it’s out there someplace.
If you find the video with the full-auto .50 MG and the MicroSoft paperclip, it’s that one.
No, there was no Kermit. (Targets were selected for their annoyingness, which is probably why at least three people have blown up Pikachu with large caliber weapons.) Various anime mascots, a Mickey Mouse, and a MS paperclip, but no Kermit. I think it’s not on YouTube, but suspect it’s almost certainly on some AMV site. I’ll ask.
Agreed, for normal folk. But Monica can deflect bullets subconsciously to protect herself. If she can deflect or poit rifle bullets before they can reach her, stray powder of fragments from a ricochet aren’t going to be a problem.”Eyes” aren’t an issue because nothing will make it into hers.
“Ears” are a bit more problematic, but it’s not to much of a stretch that M’s internal defense mechanism could damp down sound waves to the point that they’re no longer damaging. Think of her poiting a thin layer of air around her head leaving a split second vacumm that the sound can’t cross.
Also, that’s not her Gandad’s Smith&Wesson. It looks like a Single Action Army, aka, Peacemaker. Monica has a new toy.
That looks like the base pin of a Colt SSA with the ejector rod housing running nearly the length of the barrel. The recoil shield (The curve behind the cylinder) is also hemispherical instead of being nearly flat. The little bit of the gip you see and the trigger gaurd look like a peacemaker, especialy the single screw centered under the front of the frame. It could be a twentieth century copy of the design like the Ruger Blackhawk, or one of the hundreds of replicas out there, but I see Monica having an original Colt.
One assumes it’s her G’pa’s old hogleg – there was some guessing and Paul finally identified for us; i think it’s an S&W of some type, but i could be remembering something else.
Still, I’d think that automatic defenses are better yet: just wear the sound protection earplugs/ear muffs. That way, you don’t need to rely on your supernatural protection every time–and if you do, it’s even better!
nah, it looks like they just poited in, and Monica is spun because of Shelly’s refusal to press the issue with Brandi, again, leaving HER not in control, and on the outside of any secret planning stuff that seems to be going on. She’s shooting the rock because it’s a convenient target of opportunity that isn’t going to be missed, and it seems that Bud is blasting it somehow… possibly a weapon related to the coffee cup melting incident, or maybe Bud n’ Brandi with the popcorn bowl…
now, why M wants her to do it in sync with her shooting the rock? not sure, maybe she just wants a bigger *bang* than a gun alone would give? that, or she’s trying to get the message across that she’s not gonna stand for any shenanigan’s involving her like the end of the CM Loops did, and she’s got the gun to defend herself with, or maybe it’s in case the MIB (or whoever…) decide to show up and “disappear her”… again it seems she has trust issues with Brandi.
I’m gonna guess giving the big-ass handgun bullet (moving rather fast already) an even bigger kinetic boost via a POIT between the barrel and the impact point. To where the boulder evaporates…
Bud doesn’t need a hand cannon; the Golem Girls have plenty of built-in weaponry. But it makes a damn big boom and lets Monica blow off steam by breaking things.
It’s good bud is wary of monica commiting violence.
even against a rock 😀
interesting way to let off steam though.
I wouldn’t have thought shooting tin cans would do that – does anyone here do that? 🙂
Oh yes. Not only do you get the satisfaction of making things go BOOM, tin cans jump, and milk cartons full of water explode (or at least bleed out), but target practice done right also requires a calming and focus of the psyche. Sure, you can just fire a bunch of bullets without aiming if you want; but proper stance, targeting, controlling your breathing, and squeezing the trigger with steady pressure will soothe the savage breast almost like music.
Puts me in mind of the article I read about some “gansta” who thought he would shoot his way out of a police confrontation. Not only that, but he would do it gansta style with the idiotic fad of holding the gun sideways to look really cool while doing it. Thing is, he didn’t know about the theory of gravity assisted shell ejection. A little something which required the gun to be upright for the shell to eject the chamber. The first time he fired the gun it jammed and that was that. Unintended suicide by cop.
as for the gun jamming, all that meant was that he held the wrong side of the pistol towards the ground. if he held it the other way it would have worked just fine, the expended shell case would have fallen right out under the influence of gravity, let alone the ejection mechanism.
They divided the five stances (plus control) as in my post–but some were worse than others. Basically, it came down to being stable, and able to use the sights, so that you had the ability to reproduce (and correct, if needed) a shot.
Yeah! I saw that episode over the holiday! 🙂 It was pretty cool…and not terribly surprising in its outcome, but I agree with them. The other stances (especially crossed guns) just look and feel cool. 😛
Well, remember, Monica still has the ability to override any/all of the GGG at will (assuming May didn’t do any extra tinkering when she was inside Bud’s and Jin’s respective access panels). Considering what they’re capable of, Monica using one for destructive purposes (regardless how harmless/innocent it may be) is the start of a potential ‘very’ slippery slope.
That, or Bud just sees the exercise itself as stupid, pointless, and/or potentially risky (after all, when Bud’s not the one venting, she’s very wary of drawing attention to her group).
Vanity and Lust might see a more oblique opening, since M was disconcerted with her body earlier.
Kevin loves her. Terrific. She has the trust of all her friends. Good so far. But now she knows she has devotion from all sorts of weird strangers, not least because she is a keystone in guarding her universe from intercession. And it took a stranger’s revelations and Brandi’s breakdown to bring these secrets out.
That’s quite a big eddy of power and betrayal simmering there. M will have to consider her course very carefully, since the world of 2012 and beyond is completely uncharted.
Good point. She does have that self preservation “instinct” about poiting fast moving projectiles around her body (if not her clothes). http://wapsisquare.com/comic/a-case-of-beer/
and that leads into a few days later with this strip: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/herculean-task/ especially the last panel… the person that she specifically told f2f to not keep her in the dark, is still keeping her in the dark… oh, yeah… Monica’s Sooo Pissed right now it ain’t funny.
wouldn’t it be messed up to have them get arrested for trespassing onto a wildlife refuge for some desert lizards or whatnot and they just blew up one of the protected species habitats/homes?
Not likely. They just poit away and theMIB covers up for them. Of course, the MIB probably doesn’t like this sort of stuff. After all, now they have to cleanup and bring in new boulders to make it look as if nothing happened.
It’s impossible to get just how little there is in a wide open space like that without going there and feeling small and ineffective. I think it’s a great place for M, since a)it’s not likely that anyone will notice her, and b) destroying the nearly indestructable will make her feel that the problems she’s having are easier to conquer than the rock.
And I think Bud is changing the structure of the rock to glass so it will shatter like that. Or making it hollow and full of pressurized CO2. Or something.
Plenty of desert land out there that is NOT part of a protected wildlife refuge, and full of rocks that likely don’t get seen more than once a year, and that nobody (except a few lizards and birds and suchlike) will miss. And there’s another rock just 10 feet away.
Oh, and even the shards will be useful to someone. One big (10′ diameter) rock probably will not give as much shelter as several dozen smaller (2′ diam average) rocks.
not sure if it’s just me, or not, but does it seem like
Monica is turning a little bit towards the Dark Side? way in the beginning, she was entirely a bookworm academic. not only has she dug out her Grandpa’s old gun and jsut “practiced” with it during the final stages of the CM Loops, but NOW she’s gone all the way and is USING IT, granted it’s still just against a ROCK… for now… but as SonicThunder pointed out, that becomes a very slippery slope really fast. i wonder if her personal demons have anything to do with this trend? either that or one of the “bad” demons that got punished, and are out for revenge?
That suggestion of M’s in panel one is not too far removed from a command. Scantron is right to be concerned, but the handgun is a bauble. She’s using her Leviathan to relieve the stress… that her Leviathan is causing through keeping its secrets from her.
@Maark, yeah, and the trust issues she’s expressed to Phix are not being eased by these secrets. Monica has the power to cut to the chase, but only at the expense of the friendships of the people who are acting like she cannot be fully trusted with information.
Is it better for a Princess to be loved or feared?
Another consideration: when all this started, she had the usual attitude of not being of that much interest. Since then, she has been attacked, gained an appreciation of her cosmic importance, become aware that people (and demons) are watching her, and so on.
All that can be frustrating, and can well lead to taking more of a hand in self-defense, not to mention taking out frustrations. As such things go, taking them out on a innocuous rock is lots better than, say, on several innocent passers-by.
right, but how long will it take for the Rock to become an “inadequate target” that she needs more omph to get her frustrations out of, and starts upgrading her targets to animals, then further to people, then finally to the status of the Priests (who are still the bad guys in the comic as far as we know)? I’m thinking along the Yoda quotes here: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” and just think of all the suffering that the survivors of another one of the Chimera’s attacks would be having… no, i’m not sure that the ONLY thing is that she’s spun up and is “just” taking her frustrations out. i’m sure something else (a 3rd party known or unknown as yet) is also affecting her. either that, or we are seeing the early stages of “Power corrupts, Absolute Power corrupts Absolutely” with her over-ride ability on the Chimera…
I see her doing this as a temporary and partial fix–to get rid of the immediate frustration. The thing about Monica and the rest of the girls is that they do change what needs changing–whether it’s fixing the calendar machine, or going off to an isolated beach in the Bermuda Triangle for a little relaxation and sun. So I’m not too worried that she won’t address the sources of this frustration in appropriate ways.
@scantrontb: Obviously you’re not a shooter. You’re exhibiting what is called “projection” – suggesting that someone will do something that you’re afraid you might do yourself in the same circumstance. Trust me, busting rocks with a revolver is not a gateway drug to drive-by shootings.
It’s a gateway drug to busting rocks with a rifle! 😉
Really, try shooting some time. It’s not as scary as you think, and I’ve never taken anyone shooting for their first time ever and not had them leave the experience A) wanting more, and B) with a huge grin on their face.
Shooting a gun for real teaches you a lot of things, not the least of which is how much you see in the media (news, TV, movies, newspapers, magazines and books) is complete B.S. It’s an eye-opening experience in many ways.
As an aside, others have noted that Monica seems to be shooting a single-action type revolver with a separate grip frame, but her grandfather’s revolver looked to be an old Smith & Wesson 1917 like Indiana Jones carried. I wonder where this one came from.
True enough, but. Escalation is not really the issue when you have a planetkiller in your holster.
Monica has been told that she’s loved; but all the secrets have to suggest the possibility that she’s also been feared. While I don’t see her turning Sith, I’m pretty sure she’s going to be putting that to some kind of test soon.
Ok, so after reanalyzing what I think she did was, charge the gun, or rather the bullet, the way the skin of a photon torpedo is charged, turning an ordinary slug, into an explosive projectile of immense proportions.
Ah, firearms therapy. Nothing else like it.
And if I could, I would want a handgun that could vaporize rocks too.
Only, after each time I shot, there would be a maniacal giggle.
All Bud has to do is “change the poles from plus to minus, and then minus to plus” (as the good Dr. Frankenstein raved in a dream) and the ordinary bullets become antimatter just before striking the target.
It is good to see that Bud is uncomfortable about being asked to made an Earth-shattering KABOOM. It’s not a good habit to be reacquiring.
When has Bud, or any of the other GG’s shown an ability to change poles or cause explosions? I get they’re fast, tough, and have sharp fingernails, plus Bud has shown the ability to breathe fire. But to just suddenly surmise that she can can change the physical properties is pulling one out of, well somewhere south…there’s probably a simpler explanation on Monday….
I’m thinking that Bud just accelerated the bullet to sort of have the same effect as she had on the golf balls. I think I would call it instant rail-gun.
Hmm, Bud has shown that she is ‘Faster than a Speeding Bullet’ (Reg TM) here.;
So I think she could slap a bullet in the ass to accelerate it to fantastic velocities…
The GG can poit objects to different places, food into M, stinky demon-girls into Jin etc, so, poiting a bullet so it slams with a momentum a kazillion times harder into a rock, isn’t really a stretch.
She’s got her lines wrong, then. It should be, “Oh, very well,” in a pouty voice. And post-rock-splosion M should be wearing a big sombrero, poncho, and holding a smoking cigar. 😀 😀
Oh. My. God. I SO want one of those! (Um… a Ballistic Golem Girl, that is, not the pistol. I already got several of those, but none of them make boulders go bye-bye like that…)
Heh.. Forgot about that.
I kinda miss odd-ball whimsical stuff like that, it also illustrates that the girls can do/ be anything they like, as long as it serves comic relief, no endless semi-scientific deconstructing to explain it all, needed.
Okay, does no one but me see a cartoon fat cat facing right standing on the other stone (which also looks kinda dwarfish). Mr. Fat Cat seems to have a disaprooving glower.
Now that you’ve mentioned it, yes… sort of a caricature of the bloated elderly banker/corporate-bigwig sort of Fat Cat character. Possibly glowering at the Occupy the Sonora Desert protesters a couple of arroyos off to the right of the panel?
Ummmm… What the heck are they doing? 0_o
BTW, for all you “septic tanks”, hope you had a fat Thanksgiving.
And why are they doing it? What’s Monica upset about this time?
All the hot young ladies are teleporting pistols to their hands these days.
She can’t find out what sort of deal Brandi made, Brandi may still be having an angst fit, she’s been turned to ice and repeatedly hugged by a Gorgon today, and she’s also found about about a new level of destructive technology out there and that the Earth has some sort of dimensional shield that keeps out a lot of things. All that would rattle and infuriate Monica, and lead her to either go on an eating binge such that no container of ice cream in the city would be safe, or want to break things. She’s apparently chosen the latter…
From the looks of it. Monica is in the mood for a little plinking to help relieve her stress, with a little assistance from bud plasma charging the bullets she fires for a little extra kick.
And Bud does NOT look overly happy about it.
No she doesn’t. Not that you can blame her either.
Monica’s method of venting is a wee bit more destructive than in the past.
This may be Bud’s pennance for the whole “golf ball” incident.
What Monica is doing is called “Range Therapy.”
You get your gun and head to a target range or just some place you can shoot safely. You bring lots of ammo, and then you shoot until you aren’t frustrated anymore.
It can be quite relaxing.
I wholeheartedly agree with that. ‘Range Therapy’ is very good if you are used to having people get within a hairs breath of making you want to kill them around you on a regular basis (works well if you work H.R. and I.T. jobs”
Just like shooting tin cans. Except you’re shooting them with a howitzer, and they’re loaded with semtex.
They weren’t tin cans, they were stuffed animals. And it wasn’t semtex it was tannerite. And a .50 caliber is hardly a howitzer. But it was all caught on video!
If you’ve seen the video, yeah; I know the narrator and most of the others involved. It was a damn cool day out.
could you post a link to the video in question? or are you pleading the 5th?
You are not talking about Heather LaCroix & her Husband Jeff, are you ?
Because if you are, i’ve seen all their Vids on Youtube 😀
No, although it’s nice to know others are amused by this. A quick google doesn’t turn up the video I had in mind, and it’s not mine to post – although it’s interesting to know that at least three Pikachus have been stuffed with explosives and shot. I don’t know where it is on the net, although I’m sure it’s out there someplace.
If you find the video with the full-auto .50 MG and the MicroSoft paperclip, it’s that one.
Maybe this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_VpvRnGzEQ
No, there was no Kermit. (Targets were selected for their annoyingness, which is probably why at least three people have blown up Pikachu with large caliber weapons.) Various anime mascots, a Mickey Mouse, and a MS paperclip, but no Kermit. I think it’s not on YouTube, but suspect it’s almost certainly on some AMV site. I’ll ask.
All depends on what happens to the rock after she shoots it.
Ears! Eyes! At least for Monica. Bud’s bullet proof.
She doesn’t want the permanent buzz in the ears that I’ve got!
Agreed, for normal folk. But Monica can deflect bullets subconsciously to protect herself. If she can deflect or poit rifle bullets before they can reach her, stray powder of fragments from a ricochet aren’t going to be a problem.”Eyes” aren’t an issue because nothing will make it into hers.
“Ears” are a bit more problematic, but it’s not to much of a stretch that M’s internal defense mechanism could damp down sound waves to the point that they’re no longer damaging. Think of her poiting a thin layer of air around her head leaving a split second vacumm that the sound can’t cross.
Also, that’s not her Gandad’s Smith&Wesson. It looks like a Single Action Army, aka, Peacemaker. Monica has a new toy.
It’s got an axle for a swing out cylinder under the barrel. That’s a 20th Century revolver.
That looks like the base pin of a Colt SSA with the ejector rod housing running nearly the length of the barrel. The recoil shield (The curve behind the cylinder) is also hemispherical instead of being nearly flat. The little bit of the gip you see and the trigger gaurd look like a peacemaker, especialy the single screw centered under the front of the frame. It could be a twentieth century copy of the design like the Ruger Blackhawk, or one of the hundreds of replicas out there, but I see Monica having an original Colt.
One assumes it’s her G’pa’s old hogleg – there was some guessing and Paul finally identified for us; i think it’s an S&W of some type, but i could be remembering something else.
Reminds me of Richard Seaton’s X-plosive bullets
Still, I’d think that automatic defenses are better yet: just wear the sound protection earplugs/ear muffs. That way, you don’t need to rely on your supernatural protection every time–and if you do, it’s even better!
Did I miss a panel???
Poiting Rocks? must be missing it. going to bed, G’nite.
nah, it looks like they just poited in, and Monica is spun because of Shelly’s refusal to press the issue with Brandi, again, leaving HER not in control, and on the outside of any secret planning stuff that seems to be going on. She’s shooting the rock because it’s a convenient target of opportunity that isn’t going to be missed, and it seems that Bud is blasting it somehow… possibly a weapon related to the coffee cup melting incident, or maybe Bud n’ Brandi with the popcorn bowl…
now, why M wants her to do it in sync with her shooting the rock? not sure, maybe she just wants a bigger *bang* than a gun alone would give? that, or she’s trying to get the message across that she’s not gonna stand for any shenanigan’s involving her like the end of the CM Loops did, and she’s got the gun to defend herself with, or maybe it’s in case the MIB (or whoever…) decide to show up and “disappear her”… again it seems she has trust issues with Brandi.
OK Monica is shooting a bigass hand cannon, what was Bud doing?
I’m gonna guess giving the big-ass handgun bullet (moving rather fast already) an even bigger kinetic boost via a POIT between the barrel and the impact point. To where the boulder evaporates…
Bud doesn’t need a hand cannon; the Golem Girls have plenty of built-in weaponry. But it makes a damn big boom and lets Monica blow off steam by breaking things.
Yay for Monica having the sense /not/ to have her finger on the trigger except when she’s shooting. 🙂
-JRS
That’s not so much sense as the proper training in the use of said handgun, so Id say good thing her Gpa taught her so well.
Target practice can be very satisfying and relaxing. It’s a great way to work out stress.
Plus it’s noisy and you get to shoot things!
It’s good bud is wary of monica commiting violence.
even against a rock 😀
interesting way to let off steam though.
I wouldn’t have thought shooting tin cans would do that – does anyone here do that? 🙂
She could have, at least, gotten Bud to toss the boulder. Give it a sporting chance.
Oh yes. Not only do you get the satisfaction of making things go BOOM, tin cans jump, and milk cartons full of water explode (or at least bleed out), but target practice done right also requires a calming and focus of the psyche. Sure, you can just fire a bunch of bullets without aiming if you want; but proper stance, targeting, controlling your breathing, and squeezing the trigger with steady pressure will soothe the savage breast almost like music.
Did you see the Mythbuster episode on the effectiveness of various stances?
Low: shooting from the hip (belly height)
“Gangsta” shooting–holding the gun sideways
Using two guns, especially at two targets
High: Weaver
One-handed, using the sights.
Puts me in mind of the article I read about some “gansta” who thought he would shoot his way out of a police confrontation. Not only that, but he would do it gansta style with the idiotic fad of holding the gun sideways to look really cool while doing it. Thing is, he didn’t know about the theory of gravity assisted shell ejection. A little something which required the gun to be upright for the shell to eject the chamber. The first time he fired the gun it jammed and that was that. Unintended suicide by cop.
Wow, he proved a fundamental Law of Gravity and Darwin’s Laws of Natural Selection at the same time.
was he in the running for a Darwin Award?…
as for the gun jamming, all that meant was that he held the wrong side of the pistol towards the ground. if he held it the other way it would have worked just fine, the expended shell case would have fallen right out under the influence of gravity, let alone the ejection mechanism.
Probably didn’t think he was in the running–but he is now!
SO, what was the result? I know that the Army once taught combat shooting that was essentially form the hip/instinctive pointing.
They divided the five stances (plus control) as in my post–but some were worse than others. Basically, it came down to being stable, and able to use the sights, so that you had the ability to reproduce (and correct, if needed) a shot.
Yeah! I saw that episode over the holiday! 🙂 It was pretty cool…and not terribly surprising in its outcome, but I agree with them. The other stances (especially crossed guns) just look and feel cool. 😛
Whatever it is, Bud doesn’t look very happy about it.
Well, remember, Monica still has the ability to override any/all of the GGG at will (assuming May didn’t do any extra tinkering when she was inside Bud’s and Jin’s respective access panels). Considering what they’re capable of, Monica using one for destructive purposes (regardless how harmless/innocent it may be) is the start of a potential ‘very’ slippery slope.
That, or Bud just sees the exercise itself as stupid, pointless, and/or potentially risky (after all, when Bud’s not the one venting, she’s very wary of drawing attention to her group).
Exactely. Besides, what was wrong with her usual stress reliever?
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/me-time/
Vanity and Lust might see a more oblique opening, since M was disconcerted with her body earlier.
Kevin loves her. Terrific. She has the trust of all her friends. Good so far. But now she knows she has devotion from all sorts of weird strangers, not least because she is a keystone in guarding her universe from intercession. And it took a stranger’s revelations and Brandi’s breakdown to bring these secrets out.
That’s quite a big eddy of power and betrayal simmering there. M will have to consider her course very carefully, since the world of 2012 and beyond is completely uncharted.
AKA “Welcome back, Doubt.”
no, bud looks more like she is concentrating…
Yeah, i’ll buy that. if she’s doing something to the bullet in the time it takes from muzzle to rock…
Monica should have ear protectors.
Eye protectors.
Full body protectors.
(But where would she get one that fits?)
She’s got Bud. Several men firing automatic weapons directly at her didn’t leave a scratch. I doubt rock shrapnel has a chance.
Good point. She does have that self preservation “instinct” about poiting fast moving projectiles around her body (if not her clothes).
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/a-case-of-beer/
and that leads into a few days later with this strip: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/herculean-task/ especially the last panel… the person that she specifically told f2f to not keep her in the dark, is still keeping her in the dark… oh, yeah… Monica’s Sooo Pissed right now it ain’t funny.
wouldn’t it be messed up to have them get arrested for trespassing onto a wildlife refuge for some desert lizards or whatnot and they just blew up one of the protected species habitats/homes?
Not likely. They just poit away and theMIB covers up for them. Of course, the MIB probably doesn’t like this sort of stuff. After all, now they have to cleanup and bring in new boulders to make it look as if nothing happened.
It’s impossible to get just how little there is in a wide open space like that without going there and feeling small and ineffective. I think it’s a great place for M, since a)it’s not likely that anyone will notice her, and b) destroying the nearly indestructable will make her feel that the problems she’s having are easier to conquer than the rock.
And I think Bud is changing the structure of the rock to glass so it will shatter like that. Or making it hollow and full of pressurized CO2. Or something.
And C. (How’d I miss C?)
C: Destroying a boulder is a huge effect that will greatly affect your feeling of ineffectivity.
Plenty of desert land out there that is NOT part of a protected wildlife refuge, and full of rocks that likely don’t get seen more than once a year, and that nobody (except a few lizards and birds and suchlike) will miss. And there’s another rock just 10 feet away.
Oh, and even the shards will be useful to someone. One big (10′ diameter) rock probably will not give as much shelter as several dozen smaller (2′ diam average) rocks.
not sure if it’s just me, or not, but does it seem like
Monica is turning a little bit towards the Dark Side? way in the beginning, she was entirely a bookworm academic. not only has she dug out her Grandpa’s old gun and jsut “practiced” with it during the final stages of the CM Loops, but NOW she’s gone all the way and is USING IT, granted it’s still just against a ROCK… for now… but as SonicThunder pointed out, that becomes a very slippery slope really fast. i wonder if her personal demons have anything to do with this trend? either that or one of the “bad” demons that got punished, and are out for revenge?
I think it is more that she is pissed off about there still being secrets she doesn’t know like sne mentioned here: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/herculean-task/
Result and motivation. Motivation and result.
Pissed-off bookworms with puzzle that won’t solve already.
They have ways of making it talk.
A sobering reminder indeed, in Signal Processing class, of just what the term “decimation” really means.
@Danzier – Um, yeah. She has <a href="http://wapsisquare.com/comic/pleasenotyou/" ways of making it talk.
That suggestion of M’s in panel one is not too far removed from a command. Scantron is right to be concerned, but the handgun is a bauble. She’s using her Leviathan to relieve the stress… that her Leviathan is causing through keeping its secrets from her.
@Maark, yeah, and the trust issues she’s expressed to Phix are not being eased by these secrets. Monica has the power to cut to the chase, but only at the expense of the friendships of the people who are acting like she cannot be fully trusted with information.
Is it better for a Princess to be loved or feared?
Stupid iPad.
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/pleasenotyou/
Another consideration: when all this started, she had the usual attitude of not being of that much interest. Since then, she has been attacked, gained an appreciation of her cosmic importance, become aware that people (and demons) are watching her, and so on.
All that can be frustrating, and can well lead to taking more of a hand in self-defense, not to mention taking out frustrations. As such things go, taking them out on a innocuous rock is lots better than, say, on several innocent passers-by.
right, but how long will it take for the Rock to become an “inadequate target” that she needs more omph to get her frustrations out of, and starts upgrading her targets to animals, then further to people, then finally to the status of the Priests (who are still the bad guys in the comic as far as we know)? I’m thinking along the Yoda quotes here: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” and just think of all the suffering that the survivors of another one of the Chimera’s attacks would be having… no, i’m not sure that the ONLY thing is that she’s spun up and is “just” taking her frustrations out. i’m sure something else (a 3rd party known or unknown as yet) is also affecting her. either that, or we are seeing the early stages of “Power corrupts, Absolute Power corrupts Absolutely” with her over-ride ability on the Chimera…
I see her doing this as a temporary and partial fix–to get rid of the immediate frustration. The thing about Monica and the rest of the girls is that they do change what needs changing–whether it’s fixing the calendar machine, or going off to an isolated beach in the Bermuda Triangle for a little relaxation and sun. So I’m not too worried that she won’t address the sources of this frustration in appropriate ways.
@scantrontb: Obviously you’re not a shooter. You’re exhibiting what is called “projection” – suggesting that someone will do something that you’re afraid you might do yourself in the same circumstance. Trust me, busting rocks with a revolver is not a gateway drug to drive-by shootings.
It’s a gateway drug to busting rocks with a rifle! 😉
Really, try shooting some time. It’s not as scary as you think, and I’ve never taken anyone shooting for their first time ever and not had them leave the experience A) wanting more, and B) with a huge grin on their face.
Shooting a gun for real teaches you a lot of things, not the least of which is how much you see in the media (news, TV, movies, newspapers, magazines and books) is complete B.S. It’s an eye-opening experience in many ways.
As an aside, others have noted that Monica seems to be shooting a single-action type revolver with a separate grip frame, but her grandfather’s revolver looked to be an old Smith & Wesson 1917 like Indiana Jones carried. I wonder where this one came from.
True enough, but. Escalation is not really the issue when you have a planetkiller in your holster.
Monica has been told that she’s loved; but all the secrets have to suggest the possibility that she’s also been feared. While I don’t see her turning Sith, I’m pretty sure she’s going to be putting that to some kind of test soon.
She works in a museum. Possibly one of the displays is temporarily short a piece …
Considering Jin kept a black powder pistol ready to fire, could have been borrowed from her.
It’s a gateway drug to busting rocks with a rifle! 😉
And that’s a gateway to using an automatic rifle? 😀
Ok, so after reanalyzing what I think she did was, charge the gun, or rather the bullet, the way the skin of a photon torpedo is charged, turning an ordinary slug, into an explosive projectile of immense proportions.
Ah, firearms therapy. Nothing else like it.
And if I could, I would want a handgun that could vaporize rocks too.
Only, after each time I shot, there would be a maniacal giggle.
From you, the gun, or the exploding rock bits?
Perhaps from the rock beside the one that just exploded?
Holy cow… what kind of Bullets does that gun fire ? Miniaturized Antimatter Warheads ?
Nah. Just Bud watching where the bullet goes and blowing up what bit of planet it intersects with. Monica better not shoot straight down.
Kidding! I kid the woman with the hand cannon and her WMD companion!
All Bud has to do is “change the poles from plus to minus, and then minus to plus” (as the good Dr. Frankenstein raved in a dream) and the ordinary bullets become antimatter just before striking the target.
It is good to see that Bud is uncomfortable about being asked to made an Earth-shattering KABOOM. It’s not a good habit to be reacquiring.
Wasn’t it Marvin that was interested in Earth-shattering Kabooms?
Ah, you speak of the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator!
I don’t think the rock quite reached a million billion micro-atoms. That’s a lot of micro-atoms…
…for Paul to draw. 😀
Hare-Way to the Stars”
Bugs v Marvin
Enjoy!
My favourite comment after Chuck Jones’s death was “What happened to the ‘KA-Boom’…?”
Thanks, Atomic! It’s been years since I’ve seen that one.
When has Bud, or any of the other GG’s shown an ability to change poles or cause explosions? I get they’re fast, tough, and have sharp fingernails, plus Bud has shown the ability to breathe fire. But to just suddenly surmise that she can can change the physical properties is pulling one out of, well somewhere south…there’s probably a simpler explanation on Monday….
I’m thinking that Bud just accelerated the bullet to sort of have the same effect as she had on the golf balls. I think I would call it instant rail-gun.
Hmm, Bud has shown that she is ‘Faster than a Speeding Bullet’ (Reg TM) here.;
So I think she could slap a bullet in the ass to accelerate it to fantastic velocities…
The GG can poit objects to different places, food into M, stinky demon-girls into Jin etc, so, poiting a bullet so it slams with a momentum a kazillion times harder into a rock, isn’t really a stretch.
Monica seems pleased, Bud in the first panel looks like she’s about to do her Q impression. *SNAP!*
She’s got her lines wrong, then. It should be, “Oh, very well,” in a pouty voice. And post-rock-splosion M should be wearing a big sombrero, poncho, and holding a smoking cigar. 😀 😀
The Good, the Bad, and the Poity?
OK, who poited the Pun Jar to the neighborhood of Proxima Centauri?
The Good, The Bad, and the Busty…
Oh. My. God. I SO want one of those! (Um… a Ballistic Golem Girl, that is, not the pistol. I already got several of those, but none of them make boulders go bye-bye like that…)
Kinda like…
http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/100329.html
…and http://www.sheldoncomics.com/archive/100330.html
yay!! 😀 *definitely* like that… 🙂 with bud super charging… 😛
She likes it! She likes it!
Ah yes, recoil therapy.
Silly wallpaper of the day..
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/847/bunnygirls1024.png/
Heh.. Forgot about that.
I kinda miss odd-ball whimsical stuff like that, it also illustrates that the girls can do/ be anything they like, as long as it serves comic relief, no endless semi-scientific deconstructing to explain it all, needed.
Another good one. I love the color choices for the bunny uniforms. The colors work well with their skin tones.
Okay, does no one but me see a cartoon fat cat facing right standing on the other stone (which also looks kinda dwarfish). Mr. Fat Cat seems to have a disaprooving glower.
(I minored in Rorschach 🙂 )
Now that you’ve mentioned it, yes… sort of a caricature of the bloated elderly banker/corporate-bigwig sort of Fat Cat character. Possibly glowering at the Occupy the Sonora Desert protesters a couple of arroyos off to the right of the panel?
Paul being the artist he is, d’you think he intended the cartoonish resemblence? Or to misquote Freud, ‘This time a drawing is just a rock”?
Uh, rather horribly misquoted….
Oh, now we know where M is–The Devil’s Catbox!
(Because half of verything in the southwest seems to be “the Devil’s Fill-in-the-blank.)