From the look in CG’s eyes and the raised fist she was going to more than just tell her. CG was ready to punch Jug’s lights out. Shelly grabbed her just in time because Monica was wide open.
Speaking of her eyes. Notice how everyone else has large continuous eyes. No indication of eye sockets. In the third panel, CG’s look like bare eyeballs in a skull’s eye sockets. Creepy indeed.
I believe they are complete eyes, but remember they are HUGE and red. So it’s not surprising that Paul would draw them a bit differently. Much like he does with Tina.
If you check Google, juggs always seems to mean boobs, but jugs is usually just the plural of jug. If you look in dictionaries, they don’t say that jug should have an unusual spelling for the plural. Maybe the double-g makes juggs looks more like what people are thinking about when they use it. 😕
I think Monica would be wise to back off a little. The sphinx knew enough not to piss CG off
Yes, she has Bud to protect her. But who’s to say she can be touched by Chimera power. It could be the only way to hurt her is to hurt Shelly and Monica wouldn’t want that.
That wasn’t a real smile. It’s the smile you make when your kid or friend is embarrassing you. Please forgive her as she is not that bad.
CG is protective and Monica should be careful with her. the I otta.. is a fair waring. The pixie and jugs shows an aggressive side to CG as well. I said it yesterday CG is the scary one of the two. Shelly will show restraint, CG won’t unless she has a reason to.
Yep. That’s the look of “OMG my kid is screaming her head off for candy and we have a whole cartload of groceries and the store is packed and the cashier is changing the register tape–I think I will die of embarassment!”
And, unlike most of her tribe, who are fairly pacifistic and tend to avoid humans, she joined the Field Medics of the biggest most bad ass human army around. Even their medics have to badasses. (She says “Some of my favorite nightmares are about basic training.”)
She is one of the two voices of (more-or-less) reason in a gang of adventurers.
And a lot of the readership are fairly sure that she’s got a case on a human berserker who’s currently undergoing an emotional crisis…
So I’m guessing Monica was looking at CG yesterday…so Monica is cool with her, will Tina remember her trip to the boiler room? And bud needs to chime in as well…
I think she just has a mouth on her. She didn’t need Monica to do anything to call her the Pixie with the Rack. She also called Shelly “Dip-shit”. That’s probably the natural mentality for Shelly.
I’m with Bud on this, and was there any reason Monica was so hostile without any seemingly good cause? Just because her demons give her grief doesn’t mean it’s the same for everyone. And if it was the pixie reference, I’d hardly consider that insulting. Jugs was worse, though at that point Monica deserved it.
Monica is just being Monica. She does not like curve-balls and sudden weirdness. Her best friend just took a 80,000 vacation to weird-world (split-second to her), came back with no clothes and the revelation that she’s a Sphinx, and now BAM, a miniscule freak show that looks like a tiny Shelly appears out of nowhere that Shelly is calling her companion…
Yeah, Monica is just a tad frazzled. But I agree she was a bit too snippy. XD
T think Monica is used to normal demons, She can say whatever she wants to them and they have to take it. Also, I believe she’s looking at CG is a snotty little brat speaking out of turn while the grownups are talking. She may find, the hard way, CG is not bound by any normal demon restrictions.
Maybe it’s just my tendency to assume the best of people talking, but I take Monica’s reaction as being more a case of thinking that Creepy Girl intends to harm Shelly, like what she has seen from every non-Tina demon she has met.
Yea–used to “normal” demons. A person can get used to just about anything. Which is why to kids, their families are normal–until they start meeting other kids and can compare notes, and they realize how weird their families are…
The way I see it, Monica was surprised and turned to Shelly for an explanation. CG tried to explain and but did it in a way that poured oil on the situation.
CG is blunt and Monica takes time to process new concepts.
Being defensive and aggressive is how Monica deals with the unexpected. It’s her ‘defense mechanism’.
When she’s unsure of something she becomes a major extrovery and type A+ personality. Lashes out as anyone she thinks is a threat, etc. If she were a guy she’s try to lean over someone, move close, ball up her fists, etc, all signs of trying to intimidate someone.
I see that Conscience and Monica will get along just fine…eventually. It reminds me of the strip that flashed back to when Shelly and Monica met for the first time.
And now we know the nature of Conscience. Now the question is: What type of Elemental? And I’m also wondering what other type of critter that the GGs have met over the centuries. First Stinky and now Elementals. What’s next? Dragons?
Or maybe a Clurichan (sp?) – see any of the ‘Calahan’s Place’ books by Spider Robinson, after Mickey goes back uptime and Jake Stonebender opens his place.
Hey I just noticed something odd…
I went back to read that comic where Monica poited Shelly, Tina, and Nudge several thousand feet in the air… And CG’s hair was way longer during that time. Like down to her butt.
So while Shelly’s hair grew out during her trip, it looks like CG’s shortened. Or got cut. But the idea that an entity of compressed demons would get a hair cut (or that their hair would change at all) seems a bit weird.
But it’s probably nothing more than the fact that Paul hadn’t drawn her in a while and went with something new.
Anyway, it’s not at all important, but I found it interesting. XD
Now that I think about it, and read some of the other comments, it seems to me that it is actually a visual representation of Shelly becoming closer to, and more in-touch-with Creepy Girl. If you look at them in panel three, their hairstyles are completely identical. There has to be some significance to that.
@Casey: I don’t know if the hair length means anything or not. After all, CLG had very dark skin yesterday and light skin today.
Even if it does, I doubt that Shelly became more like CLG. If it happened, what would that mean? Shelly threw away the parts of herself other than CLG? She reverted back to being a little girl mentally? I suppose that would be possible. I would feel sorry for Shelly if that’s the case. The main problem is this: If Shelly is the one who changed, why would CLG be the one who looks different than expected?
If the hair length means anything, I think it means that CLG was updated by the trauma that Shelly went through during the process of metamorphosing into a sphinx. It could be that Shelly was in the Sacred Forest realm for a year or so before that happened and both her hair and CLG’s reflect the length her hair was then.
It might not be a salon for supernatural beings, but at least there’s a laundromat for superheroes… (plus it’s got a teleporting duck and a washing machine transformer…)
Righty-o! Shellu has her own nu-nu-pi! Another mythic commonality the world ’round, is Little People, and Comanche ones are a handful. Ma had seen one when we lived in Oakland, CA back in the 70’s, and of course, back here in the Homestate, I believe I’ve glimpsed a few. Probably even talked to a couple and not known it. They can appear as regular humans, but never quite get the size right. Either a bit too tall, or too short. You never figure out until way after the fact.
I positively love this little elemental. Though Monica needs to get a grip. (<_<) I mean, as much as I understand Monica's history, by how she treats her demons doesn't mean everyone treats theirs the same way…and well after Tina you'd expect she'd have mellowed out some.
I don’t want to spend the time looking for it, but IIRC, Monica didn’t handle finding out about Tina’s nature very well either. This was easier to find, though, and it also shows Monica overreacting: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/is-irrelevant/
I don’t think there is any way to know. A lot of the time in Wapsi, the characters don’t say what they mean. Often there really isn’t a very good reason for them to say or do what they did. That actually helps keep Wapsi’s fans curious about the comic. At the same time, it can be frustrating.
I agree, though. At first I thought Shelly was talking about CLG, but when I thought about it, CLG wasn’t being protective. You could somewhat rationalize it this way: by being defensive, CLG was protecting a part of Shelly, since that’s what CLG really is, but that’s stretching.
PERFECT! Conscience, Connie for short. If anyone asks, Her Parents were Freinds of Shellys, hippies into Frank Zappa and Greatful Dead. That should be More than enough info for ANYONE.
As I said yesterday (the links are there), Tina called her the creepy little girl, then started using Creepy Girl as a name. I suggest we just keep using CLG, or if not, CG. Those name are descriptive and I don’t see any good reason to change what we’ve been doing for years.
I don’t think of her as mental. She’s just the embodiment of eight year old Shelly’s anger, hurt, and abandonment. She’s determined to protect Shelly from herself and anyone else.
She was created when Shelly died on her vision quest, which happened at the same time Monica ran in front of the bus, and i thought that Monica and Shelly are the same age…
actually CG is based physically on shell from the night shells mom died even though her creation was years later (shell was emotionally unchanged for the most part over those years due to trauma so shell would be near the same mentally at both ages)
I think she meant it as meaning the basic element of Shelly. In a way, she is what you would get if you distilled Shelly down to her basic core. That’s somewhat analogous to elementals in D&D and stuff like that, but less about physical things, of course.
Eventually, everyone will get a beverage, sit down and let poor Shelly START FROM THE BEGINNING. I think it’s a story that will have even more suprises than what we already know.
BTW, just got back from some time travelling. Storm knocked out the ‘lectricity here 20 minutes BEFORE THE FRIKKIN’ UPDATE last night.
If you have a gas stove/oven, you only go back to the nineteenth century. All electric – welcome to 1850, and your hi-tech miracle insulin is going to turn to broth once the refrigerator – doesn’t – for long enough. But, only spent about 16 hours in the past; not so bad as some folks had it….Okay, done with my ‘internet withdrawal’ rant, thanks.
Yes, thanks. I keep lots of extra water bottles in both my freezer and cold box to add extra thermal mass; it will stay at the appropriate temp, with minimal access, for days.
Heh..The Elemental sounds exactly like Shelly on her brattiest. So..Yeah..CG is definitely a compressed Shelly.
This bratty attitude just happens to push Monica’s buttons. Like Shelly did on their first “meeting” When Brat-Shelly just couldn’t help herself, and asked M. if her boobs were real.. 😆
Huh. I’m disappointed. I know M can be bratty, that’s part of her charm, but I was hoping we’d see the Monica from this storyline: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/04082005/
Monica was able to see her friend needed support. Here, I’m like… ok fine, you’re confused and afraid, but newsflash, not everything’s about you.
(Such a good webcomic! So many emotional responses!)
Also, despite Companion’s appearance, she has 80,000 years more life experience than any of the ‘adults’ in the room – which they’d find out if they would let her start at the beginning……
Because in spite of that shes still a child and the gov says all children need to go to school for 180 days a year until they’re 18 or they’re parent signs them out at 17.
That’s it, Monica, antagonize the little girl who scares Sphinxes and demons. That’s a GOOD move…
Speaking of which, no sign of Tina continuing to freak out, but I imagine Conscience – who she’s already said gives her the willies – will do little to calm her down.
I wonder if Bud was speaking loosely, there, or if she’s right and Conscience IS an Elemental. That could explain why so many beings of power are scared of her…
Thanks Computer Matthew for that trip down Memory Lane. Everytime someone Mentioned Conscience as CG I thought of Servo in that clip. Cute name – ‘Conscience’ – HERE THAT,PAUL?
I knew a sweet Navaho gal once who proudly showed me her new T-shirt with the caption: “I have a beautiful pair of jugs!” on the back and a pair of Zuni-style clays jugs strategically place on the front. She was unaware of the double entendré and loved the shirt so much that I didn’t have the heart to tell her.
But re: today… I am loving the new twists & turns. CG may become my second fave, tho’ I do adore Tina (and finding out more about her)… the amazing Catherine will always be #1. ^_^
I’ve heard of people who tell jokes like that–the strawberry in the preserves jar who tells the next one over, “If we hadn’t been in the same bed, we wouldn’t be in this jam together.”–who never caught the double entendre.
Which reminds me of the quote that goes something like, “The odd thing about a double entendre is that it can have only one meaning.”
I used to have a t-shirt that my first wife gave me for our fifth anniversary.
It said “Let go of my ears – I know what I’m doing.”
We were at our favourite Mongolian Barbecue place, and i was collecting the ingredients for a plateful, and a teenage couple who’d apparently been to a semi-formal occasion of some sort were also at the bar. I wound up between them as we got in line; she was in front of me.
She turned to say something to her date, and noticed my shirt for the first time. It was obvious that she found it more amusing than not.
I carefully did not notice her noticing.
She attempted to (without my noticing) get him to come around me.
I continued being oblivious.
He didn’t understand.
I finally decided that she was going to stroke out if he kept on being dense, so i looked at my plate, said “Huh!” and went back to add some more water chestnut and ginger. She was going (i assumed, from body alnguage) “Look at that shirt!”
I come back to the tail of the line. He glances at my shirt. I can see him read it.
He has a blank expression on his face.
Her expression, as he turned back to her is one i treasure to this day (twenty-some years later), as she realised that (a) he didn’t know what it meant, (b) he was going to ask her to explain the joke and (c) being a teen-age boy, he was likely to react badly to his girlfriend knowing things like that that he didn’t know…
Does CLG come with an owners manual becuase it looked like she was about to go out of control like a Toyota.
CLG was speaking out of turn. Monica was none too polite about it. Both sides were wrong in some way but thankfully Shelly intervened much like when 2 children are bickering.
Now…how to explain CLG in a way Monica will understand…in addition to the transdimentional side road trip…and what happened there…
This could take a while.
OK, maybe I am missing something … my interpretation of the whole event is that Shelly has been replaced by the version of Shelly that first entered the space where the power source was stored, and that first-entering version became the guardian Sphinx. It doesn’t appear that Monica has really twigged to the fact that her friend has been version-changed even though the golems have stated things like “this person is X thousand years old and is a sphinx”. It also appears that the majority of comments do not distinguish between Shelly the original and Shelly the (sphinx) replacement. Comments?
The explanation was put forth a few times, but was possibly a bit convoluted. I’ll try to distill it:
This is the same Shelly that touched the relic and the same shelly we have always known. In real world time she was only gone a few minutes/seconds. In her alternate reality that she went into, she was trapped there for the full 56 calendar time loops as they happened -backwards- relative to our time line. What we saw in that realm was the first ever shelly from time loop one meeting our shelly (who discovered and grew into her sphinx self by this point) thereby closing the time paradox loop made by the calendar machine allowing her to return to normal time realm without clothes and knowing she is a sphinx. She aged those thousands of years in that alternate realm even though she was only “gone” from this one for a very short time.
No, this is our Shelly + 80,000 years experience in a pocket demension that took only a split second to the rest of the characters. (Not to mention the whole sphinxification thing.)
@Fairportfan and @Eee: I responded to both of you in yesterday’s comments.
Actually, I’m not so sure of what I just said to Eee anymore. 🙄 I’m not sure that Monica and Bud can actually see CLG even in today’s strip. I don’t know if Monica expect to hear CLG without seeing her, or if CLG has suddenly appeared for the first time, or what.
If CLG was made by combining demons, one would think that she wouldn’t have any abilities that a demon wouldn’t have. To get outside Monica, demons had to use Monica’s doorway. With Monica’s doorway locked (and Shelly’s closed by Shelly) they couldn’t do that anymore. That doesn’t mean that they had no effect, though. Paul said that Shelly could sense Monica’s Doubt, but not directly see her and that was even before the doorway was locked. (He didn’t really address the issue of hearing her, but the real issue at the time was what Doubt said about Monica and airport security, not what Doubt looked like.) With Shelly’s doorway closed by Shelly, CLG couldn’t even get into the demon realm to get back out through Monica even if Monica’s doorway wasn’t locked.
Another possibility is that CLG is visible now for the first time. Did something happen in the 80,000 years that allowed that to happen? There was certainly enough time for many things to happen. Perhaps it was Shelly fully turning into a sphinx. Perhaps that reopened Shelly’s doorway.
One piece of evidence for that is the fact that CLG’s hair changed length and matches Shelly’s. It’s as if Shelly’s hair continued to grow about one more year after she arrived in the forest and then stopped growing. Perhaps Shelly switched into her sphinx form at that point and her hair only grows while she is in human form. Perhaps Shelly needed to have some sort of a connection with the demon realm or to some other realm to be an adequate demon hunter and CLG is using that connection now to get outside Shelly. If closing the doorway locked in CLG’s appearance originally, perhaps reopening it or creating a new one modified CLG’s appearance. Her size didn’t change, though.
my thought is this. CG was just referred to as an Elemental by Bud. Which suggests that while she may have come from demons, she is now something else entirely. Like diamond from graphite or coal or whatever. It’s essentially built from the same stuff, but it has much different properties. Just because she’s made from a bunch of demons, doesn’t mean she has the same limitations as demons.
While looking for info to respond to your post, I found a response by Paul in an old post in this comic http://wapsisquare.com/comic/look-at-the-time/
“As for Shelly, what happened to her during her vision quest was the creation of her “conscience” that is autonomous in her own realm (the boiler room) that she can change to her liking, free of the demon realm. However she still can’t enter into our universe, other than to council Shelly as Monica’s demons do.”
Soooo something must’ve changed during that time. Interesting.
Okay this is now what the third or fourth time now Monica has clearly displayed her complete personality change? I can’t believe I’m the ONLY person who’s completely taken aback at how jarring this is. Maybe her locked/banished/internalized demons used to keep her character human, but now she’s just a bitch. ALL THE TIME.
This sudden and unexplained shift in personality from someone who went out of their way to help her friends to someone that threatens, yells at, and abuses her friends at every opportunity like she was some sort of middle manager. this just smacks of something clearly wrong.
The author keeps trying to explain that its her friends at fault every time, but that’s not addressing the core issue: Monica is radically different and no one is noticing. This is immersion killing and keeps throwing me out of the story every time it happens.
One last thing, here’s to CG for growing the spine that Shelly still wouldn’t grow after 80000 years as a sphinx. Monica would not be a “friend” after this episode if I were at the receiving end of her third tirade. This isn’t just coincidence anymore this is a clearly patterned behavior. Monica has reacted exactly the same way every time there’s been a problem.
Monica wasn’t angry at her friends, she was lashing out at a creepy creature, that for all Monica knows, could’ve been the one that took Shelly away for 80,000 years. Monica is also projecting, in a very immature way as most projections are, all her anger/guilt/remorse for being one of the individuals that allowed/let/made Shelly hold the artifact. Monica is not in the right for her behavior.
You call it projecting, I call it being a bitch. I’m not sorry for calling you out on this. Monica has been acting completely irrationally since 2009. After the time machine, she became Monica “Queen of the World” and no one is standing up to her. “Wah, my friends are doing things I don’t like. Wah, bad stuff is happening. Wah, my friends are acting in ways that I don’t like. Wah, the world isn’t obeying my every whim. Etc.”
She’s just been informed by her Barrista friend that she’s in the presence of an 80k year old predator with memory loss. The 80k year old predator just informed Monica that she’s now in the presence of the one entity that the top predators in the universe are scared of. Monica’s response? “Wah, shut up little girl, you’re not important.” WTF?
Paul, I don’t know or care if you let people walk all over you on a daily basis, but here’s a clue. This is NOT normal or acceptable behavior.
what happend to shelly is important for monica
and i think monica wanted to hear it from shelly not from a amlagam of shellys demons which she never met before.
And to boot, it is an amalgam of Shelly’s..ehm..shall we say “somewhat unrestrained charactertraits” CG is bratty, like Shelly was.
I am not too surprised Monica isn’t trusting her. She has never seen this bratty 8-year old before, doesn’t trust her one bit, and little Shelly starts immediately by giving M a potty-mouth..I’d be a bit miffed. Combine that with M’s worries about Shelly ,well.. that’s a fairly normal reaction for M I’d say. 🙂
And that personal attack on Paul, is WAAAY out of line.
You don’t like it? find another webcomic. I am SICK and TIRED of all the passive (and sometimes not so passive) agressiveness projected by snot-nosed know-it-alls at the comic, it’s artist etc. etc.
Most of us commenters come here to yap about the comic in a positive manner, like a couple of friends chatting over a latte.
Your rude, and frankly, unwarranted attack is not appreciated here.
If a character is not to Your liking..well ,either get used to it ,or search for another webcomic, there are literally 100’s of them. I bet you can find one to your tastes.
Don’t bother answering. I won’t read it anyways.
(@ Paul: If You think I am out-of-line, You are free to remove my comment ,I won’t mind.)
Speaking of projecting (Paul did), I suspect that a lot of the outraged comments result from the readers projecting or transferring their issues and emotions onto the characters. It’s probably to Paul’s credit that this happens. 😕
And you’re still missing the point. He’s re-written Monica’s entire personality with no explanation given. She still reverts to “Bitch” mode at every opportunity. And still treats her friends like toys/tools/etc.
At this point, Jin’s psychosis makes more sense because at least with her odd behavior its in character and wasn’t a freaking surprise that’s she’s STILL bat shit insane after the machine was destroyed.
yknow
every time monica wigs out there seems to be a good explination..other than the snow. she just hates snow.
yes her personality has changed somewhat – she is no longer the naive little girl she was at the begining of the strip. shelly isnt the same bratty child she is either. bud brandi and jin are no longer drunk.
every time she get angry there about a million and one comments to say she has gotten angry for no good reason but .. what i learned the LAST time she did (nudge/shelly/tina smackdown) she DOES have a good reason. its not always controlled but its a part of growing up. by learning how to handle things. dont forget. she spent alot of time being told she was insane to know things and she has spent the last year or so realising she never WAS insane. that the people who she trusted to tell her the truth were in fact wrong. so when they told her to act in a certain way, why should she believe them?
she is finding her own path in this and screwing up alot of the time. its human nature.
One thing to keep in mind is CG’s still basically demonic in nature. As was pointed out in the punching out of Nudge at Tina’s place, a demon’s words have a great impact on humans. What Tina was saying was influencing Shelly to go further in her punishment of Nudge than she might have otherwise. By the same token, CG’s words may be affecting Monica in a very negative way. A way that is not apparent to her, yet adding to her negativity to such an extent that she is being exceptionally rude to her. So, overall, Monica’s reaction may not be that unusual. At least that’s how I’m rationalizing it.
Actually, I’d be surprised if the fact that Shelly was trapped for 80000 years has really sunk in for Monica yet. The confusion and disbelief of that and her possible transformation into a Sphinx has to require some serious processing. For Bud, or even Tina, maybe not so much…
Right. I’ve been expecting a much bigger reaction, by Monica, to having instrumental in subjecting Shelly to an 80,000 year hell. A greater sorrow about it than she has shown thus far.
Gotta be careful about using smileys in place of words. When I first read your last sentence, I got quite a different meaning from it than you intended. Only when I processed the icon did I get it.
But, yes, I think a lot of browsers don’t display anything if a graphic doesn’t load and there isn’t any alt text. Jay-Em’s last line would read very differently in that case. But at least in Jay-Em’s case, there is some alt text, “: lol :” (without the spaces), that should display in case the graphic doesn’t. Just in case txmystic is serious, in Jay-Em’s last line there should be a LOL smiley right before “hard”.
I saw it done on a cooking show once. I don’t recommend it except as a meditative activity. It seems one has to be in a truly zen state to do it properly without losing an arm to fatigue…
Phix had relatively small ones. I think hers would have been visible both in today’s and yesterday’s pages if she had replaced Shelly.
So, does that mean that Phix is a full-blood sphinx and hybrids, like Shelly don’t get the teeth? Shelly did say that she’s not a demon hunter. Maybe her teeth reflect that?
BTW, Phix’s teeth might have been more visible on October 25, 2010 in the page called “Tag”.
She told you…jugs…
From the look in CG’s eyes and the raised fist she was going to more than just tell her. CG was ready to punch Jug’s lights out. Shelly grabbed her just in time because Monica was wide open.
Speaking of her eyes. Notice how everyone else has large continuous eyes. No indication of eye sockets. In the third panel, CG’s look like bare eyeballs in a skull’s eye sockets. Creepy indeed.
Actually I thought that was just really big irised.
Tina sometimes looks like that but i had assumed in the past its because she is a corpse.
Possibly a deamon trait 🙂
I believe they are complete eyes, but remember they are HUGE and red. So it’s not surprising that Paul would draw them a bit differently. Much like he does with Tina.
I just love the intensity in her eyes in that 3rd panel.
Tina’s can look like Christmas ornaments hanging in the same type of empty sockets. Eyes can be so expressive…
just like an over protective young sister… problem being this one has a lot more strength than the average RL 5-10 yr old!
thinking the exact same thing
I can’t remember CG interacting with any physical object before so we do not have any idea how strong she is.
I believe that, when used as a synecdochal perjorative, it’s spelled “juggs.”
I thought it was pgeauggas. The “p” of course, being silent.
A what? Obviously you’ve been hanging out with Nudge way too much. Say it straight, say it plain, say it insane. lol.
you are right though. Juggs should always be plural.
maybe an American vs UK thing… you have color, we have colour..
Of course derived from ‘milk container’ 😀
If you check Google, juggs always seems to mean boobs, but jugs is usually just the plural of jug. If you look in dictionaries, they don’t say that jug should have an unusual spelling for the plural. Maybe the double-g makes juggs looks more like what people are thinking about when they use it. 😕
I think the other may be related to a magazine.. or the old english spelling..
http://www.google.com/dictionary?aq=f&langpair=en%7Cen&q=Juggs&hl=en
that the problem with slang..
http://www.google.com/dictionary?aq=f&langpair=en%7Cen&q=Jug&hl=en
I think Monica would be wise to back off a little. The sphinx knew enough not to piss CG off
Yes, she has Bud to protect her. But who’s to say she can be touched by Chimera power. It could be the only way to hurt her is to hurt Shelly and Monica wouldn’t want that.
Ahh. Monica could her yesterday.
Of course Bud likes her. She reminds her of her.
Oops. “…could see her…”
HAHAHA man i didnt think i could love CG any more but now thats just awsome
and hey look shelly smiled
I’m not sure that that’s what i’d call a smile – more of a nervous “she’s really not all that bad once you get to know her” grin.
I do like the way that their hairlines mirror each other in that panel…
That wasn’t a real smile. It’s the smile you make when your kid or friend is embarrassing you. Please forgive her as she is not that bad.
CG is protective and Monica should be careful with her. the I otta.. is a fair waring. The pixie and jugs shows an aggressive side to CG as well. I said it yesterday CG is the scary one of the two. Shelly will show restraint, CG won’t unless she has a reason to.
Yep. That’s the look of “OMG my kid is screaming her head off for candy and we have a whole cartload of groceries and the store is packed and the cashier is changing the register tape–I think I will die of embarassment!”
Been there, done that.
oh aren’t they lovely!! (deep sarcasm)
seriously I think their mums are *amazing* – I just could not handle it… 😮
LOL! Love it!
But it works both ways (at some ages)–my sister can control her kids by threatening to sing. In public. With them around.
And love CG’s angry eyes!
Monica, of course, is reacting to CG by expecting her to be something like her own collection of demons. Suprise!
Okay. Introductions went well.
Right.
Now hostilities may commence.
Well, first we have to build this giant badger…
And Fairport…your new gravatar, the science elf guy, is the creepiest thing on this entire page.
Science Elf “Girl”. Not to be rude of course, I just enjoy the comic she comes from as much as the one I’m reading now~
Oh. Sorry about that–I couldn’t tell. I do still think she’s creepy, though.
All readers of Order of the Stick knows that elf gender can be…ambiguous.
Her name is Sy’rinj. She’s a wood elf.
And, unlike most of her tribe, who are fairly pacifistic and tend to avoid humans, she joined the Field Medics of the biggest most bad ass human army around. Even their medics have to badasses. (She says “Some of my favorite nightmares are about basic training.”)
She is one of the two voices of (more-or-less) reason in a gang of adventurers.
And a lot of the readership are fairly sure that she’s got a case on a human berserker who’s currently undergoing an emotional crisis…
You really need to start from the first page.
But it’s only been running since September ’09 and it’s only three times a week…
Oops. Sorry. “…unlike most of her tribe, who are at one with nature and mostly avoid humans except to kill them if they get too close…”
And the cute little blonde is Bandit Keans – she’s a gnome thief…
Thanks for the link – much appreciated.
Yes–thanks for the link. If I waste too much time, I can always kill you later.
So I’m guessing Monica was looking at CG yesterday…so Monica is cool with her, will Tina remember her trip to the boiler room? And bud needs to chime in as well…
Nah. Bud’s just gonna sit back and watch the fun. It’s right in line with her sense of humour.
oooooooookaaaayyyyy, I reversed Monica and Bud in the …y’know, comment. thingy. up there.^^
Wow! Seeing CG surprised Monica so much the logo fell off her shirt!
Is that like when Evil Ex #3 punched the highlights out of Knives’ hair?
[*]
No vegan diet, NO VEGAN POWERS!!!
You were a ve-gone…and now you will BE gone…
ve-gone?
At least it’s not VO-gon, you hoopy frood
AAAAAAARGHGHGHGH!!!! *covers ears and starts running, in the idle hope to be out of range when the reciting starts*
You noticed that too, hey?
By the way – I think we can refer to her as “Companion” now. I love Bud’s reaction to her, though.
It’s back. And explains why I couldn’t reload for a minute or two.
Paul sneaked in and fixed it while i wasn’t looking.
I’m with Bud on this one. 😛
Another thought – i love the way that Monica asks “What are you?”, not “Who?”
Go through enough weirdness and you start to get kind of jaded.
You know your in trouble when you’re arguing with SOMEBODY else’s visions and not your own! LOL
just thought that was a little interesting! 😀
Heh… “Do the voices in my head bother you?” (The Gods Must Be Crazy 2
..only when they keep interrupting oneanother.. 😛
I wonder if Jeff Dunham ever has days like this?
if i was a ventriloquist i think i would have conversations with inanimate objects in front of people on a regular basis..yknow just to mess with em 😀
Haha!! I like her too Bud.
Pfft, “Jugs”… Hilarious coming from that little munchkin. XD
Although Mon kinda had it coming, suggesting CG was an imp. XD
I think she just has a mouth on her. She didn’t need Monica to do anything to call her the Pixie with the Rack. She also called Shelly “Dip-shit”. That’s probably the natural mentality for Shelly.
I’m with Bud on this, and was there any reason Monica was so hostile without any seemingly good cause? Just because her demons give her grief doesn’t mean it’s the same for everyone. And if it was the pixie reference, I’d hardly consider that insulting. Jugs was worse, though at that point Monica deserved it.
Monica is just being Monica. She does not like curve-balls and sudden weirdness. Her best friend just took a 80,000 vacation to weird-world (split-second to her), came back with no clothes and the revelation that she’s a Sphinx, and now BAM, a miniscule freak show that looks like a tiny Shelly appears out of nowhere that Shelly is calling her companion…
Yeah, Monica is just a tad frazzled. But I agree she was a bit too snippy. XD
T think Monica is used to normal demons, She can say whatever she wants to them and they have to take it. Also, I believe she’s looking at CG is a snotty little brat speaking out of turn while the grownups are talking. She may find, the hard way, CG is not bound by any normal demon restrictions.
That could be it too. And yeah, she should try to look past CG’s outward appearance. She’s cognitively equal to anyone there if not more so.
Maybe it’s just my tendency to assume the best of people talking, but I take Monica’s reaction as being more a case of thinking that Creepy Girl intends to harm Shelly, like what she has seen from every non-Tina demon she has met.
Yea–used to “normal” demons. A person can get used to just about anything. Which is why to kids, their families are normal–until they start meeting other kids and can compare notes, and they realize how weird their families are…
The way I see it, Monica was surprised and turned to Shelly for an explanation. CG tried to explain and but did it in a way that poured oil on the situation.
CG is blunt and Monica takes time to process new concepts.
Monica sometimes seems to need a whack round the head.
She mostly seems to have good cause for why she acts the way she does however, even if I don’t fully understand why yet.
Possible she is assuming Creepy is the bainshee from the relic?
Being defensive and aggressive is how Monica deals with the unexpected. It’s her ‘defense mechanism’.
When she’s unsure of something she becomes a major extrovery and type A+ personality. Lashes out as anyone she thinks is a threat, etc. If she were a guy she’s try to lean over someone, move close, ball up her fists, etc, all signs of trying to intimidate someone.
I sense an iminent *poit* to the land of the skydivers. Or, you know, the airspace of the skydivers.
hmm i dont think CG could be poited away
I see that Conscience and Monica will get along just fine…eventually. It reminds me of the strip that flashed back to when Shelly and Monica met for the first time.
And now we know the nature of Conscience. Now the question is: What type of Elemental? And I’m also wondering what other type of critter that the GGs have met over the centuries. First Stinky and now Elementals. What’s next? Dragons?
Dragons: Hell. YES.
Game of thrones TV series is tormenting us with the idea of having dragons in it…
That said – i wouldn’t mind if we had them 😀
Need more dragons in stuff ^^
I’m worried that Tepoz will be reincarnated/reintroduced as a leprochaun. 😯
Haha!! Nah, but I’m sure he has a few leprechauns as drinking buddies. XD
Or maybe a Clurichan (sp?) – see any of the ‘Calahan’s Place’ books by Spider Robinson, after Mickey goes back uptime and Jake Stonebender opens his place.
7 things you may not know about leprechauns
1. Leprechauns are always male
2. They are actually a type of Irish fairy
3. The pot of gold they carry contains 1 gold coin for every year they are alive
4. If you see a leprechaun he can’t escape until you look away
5. Leprechauns originally wore red waistcoats
6. They are cobblers by trade
7. Leprechauns are often mistaken for Clurichan, drunkard trickster fairies
(From a paranormal site.
Hey, dad, did I ever tell you I’ve always wanted a little sister?
Hey I just noticed something odd…
I went back to read that comic where Monica poited Shelly, Tina, and Nudge several thousand feet in the air… And CG’s hair was way longer during that time. Like down to her butt.
So while Shelly’s hair grew out during her trip, it looks like CG’s shortened. Or got cut. But the idea that an entity of compressed demons would get a hair cut (or that their hair would change at all) seems a bit weird.
But it’s probably nothing more than the fact that Paul hadn’t drawn her in a while and went with something new.
Anyway, it’s not at all important, but I found it interesting. XD
She probably just decided to change it. The same hairstyle can get a little old after 80,000 years, even if you are an entity of compressed demons.
Heh, but that’s the thing… It don’t really think there’s a salon of supernatural beings. And it’s not like they could really go anywhere.
Now that I think about it, and read some of the other comments, it seems to me that it is actually a visual representation of Shelly becoming closer to, and more in-touch-with Creepy Girl. If you look at them in panel three, their hairstyles are completely identical. There has to be some significance to that.
That could be it. It crossed my mind but it would be a bit of a new concept, because they always looked different before.
Perhaps in some sense, Shelly and CG are merging. After all, she is Shelly’s Conscience and they’ve been together for over 80,000 years.
If they did merge into one being/fusion, they would be awesome. Remember even the sphinx are scared of CG.
@Hanineal: One is already a large part of the other, so how much difference would it make?
@Casey: I don’t know if the hair length means anything or not. After all, CLG had very dark skin yesterday and light skin today.
Even if it does, I doubt that Shelly became more like CLG. If it happened, what would that mean? Shelly threw away the parts of herself other than CLG? She reverted back to being a little girl mentally? I suppose that would be possible. I would feel sorry for Shelly if that’s the case. The main problem is this: If Shelly is the one who changed, why would CLG be the one who looks different than expected?
If the hair length means anything, I think it means that CLG was updated by the trauma that Shelly went through during the process of metamorphosing into a sphinx. It could be that Shelly was in the Sacred Forest realm for a year or so before that happened and both her hair and CLG’s reflect the length her hair was then.
Who knows?
It might not be a salon for supernatural beings, but at least there’s a laundromat for superheroes… (plus it’s got a teleporting duck and a washing machine transformer…)
Another fan of Atomic Laundromat!
Maybe Shellinx did it while they were hanging out…
Righty-o! Shellu has her own nu-nu-pi! Another mythic commonality the world ’round, is Little People, and Comanche ones are a handful. Ma had seen one when we lived in Oakland, CA back in the 70’s, and of course, back here in the Homestate, I believe I’ve glimpsed a few. Probably even talked to a couple and not known it. They can appear as regular humans, but never quite get the size right. Either a bit too tall, or too short. You never figure out until way after the fact.
That actually explains a lot….
I positively love this little elemental. Though Monica needs to get a grip. (<_<) I mean, as much as I understand Monica's history, by how she treats her demons doesn't mean everyone treats theirs the same way…and well after Tina you'd expect she'd have mellowed out some.
Yeah, bt Monica knew and trusted Tina for a long while before learning what she was. CG just showed up outta nowhere and called her a Pixie.
I do agree that Monica’s being a bit TOO harsh, but to be honest, I think I’d be a bit irritable too.
I don’t want to spend the time looking for it, but IIRC, Monica didn’t handle finding out about Tina’s nature very well either. This was easier to find, though, and it also shows Monica overreacting: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/is-irrelevant/
And asking Tina if her head fell off was a bit rude. 🙄
Oh, what the hell, I went and found it: Monica reacting to finding out about Tina’s nature.
Later she warned Kevin to not hurt Tina’s feelings, but Monica isn’t so good at doing the right thing herself.
Don’t forget “listening” ‘S a serious weak-spot for Monica… As Tepoz made very clear.
*sigh*
I’m gonna stop guessing. everything I’ve said this week has been wrong.
Anyway
Who was Shellinx talking about?
Monica or Creepy?
First glance I assumed Creepy but Monica reaction is more protective of Shelly than Creepy is. Creepy is more defensive.
But again..see first sentence.
I don’t see why she can’t be referring to both of them. Heh. Although, I assumed she was just making excuses for little Creepy.
I don’t think there is any way to know. A lot of the time in Wapsi, the characters don’t say what they mean. Often there really isn’t a very good reason for them to say or do what they did. That actually helps keep Wapsi’s fans curious about the comic. At the same time, it can be frustrating.
I agree, though. At first I thought Shelly was talking about CLG, but when I thought about it, CLG wasn’t being protective. You could somewhat rationalize it this way: by being defensive, CLG was protecting a part of Shelly, since that’s what CLG really is, but that’s stretching.
I propose we give Creepy Little Girl a name.
Perhaps something that reflects her own qualities and what she inspires in others.
Something like:
Tact
I think Shelly has named her, Companion.
I would say we go with “Elle.” it’s both short for “elemental” and is a part of Shelly, just like our little friend.
People have already been calling her Connie for “conscience.”
PERFECT! Conscience, Connie for short. If anyone asks, Her Parents were Freinds of Shellys, hippies into Frank Zappa and Greatful Dead. That should be More than enough info for ANYONE.
As I said yesterday (the links are there), Tina called her the creepy little girl, then started using Creepy Girl as a name. I suggest we just keep using CLG, or if not, CG. Those name are descriptive and I don’t see any good reason to change what we’ve been doing for years.
“I like the little Elemental”…
Emphasis on “Mental”?
I don’t think of her as mental. She’s just the embodiment of eight year old Shelly’s anger, hurt, and abandonment. She’s determined to protect Shelly from herself and anyone else.
Yeah, and little Shelly and sphinx Shelly have been cooped up for a little while. A little explosion is only to be expected.
Fourteen-year-old Shelly, neh?
She was created when Shelly died on her vision quest, which happened at the same time Monica ran in front of the bus, and i thought that Monica and Shelly are the same age…
actually CG is based physically on shell from the night shells mom died even though her creation was years later (shell was emotionally unchanged for the most part over those years due to trauma so shell would be near the same mentally at both ages)
I think she meant it as meaning the basic element of Shelly. In a way, she is what you would get if you distilled Shelly down to her basic core. That’s somewhat analogous to elementals in D&D and stuff like that, but less about physical things, of course.
Indeed. Maybe we could call her Ele (Elly, Ely).
Should have gone with the post above.
Weee, CG is so cute <3
Eventually, everyone will get a beverage, sit down and let poor Shelly START FROM THE BEGINNING. I think it’s a story that will have even more suprises than what we already know.
BTW, just got back from some time travelling. Storm knocked out the ‘lectricity here 20 minutes BEFORE THE FRIKKIN’ UPDATE last night.
If you have a gas stove/oven, you only go back to the nineteenth century. All electric – welcome to 1850, and your hi-tech miracle insulin is going to turn to broth once the refrigerator – doesn’t – for long enough. But, only spent about 16 hours in the past; not so bad as some folks had it….Okay, done with my ‘internet withdrawal’ rant, thanks.
Hmm..I can imagine the insulin-bit somewhat nervewrecking.
Hope all turned-out well.
Yes, thanks. I keep lots of extra water bottles in both my freezer and cold box to add extra thermal mass; it will stay at the appropriate temp, with minimal access, for days.
At which point you start thinking “just how much ice do I have in the freezer?” and “Just how large is my portable cooler?”
You can’t freeze it either, also ruins it. Gotta keep it above 32deg F. Makes lousy popsicles.
Heh..The Elemental sounds exactly like Shelly on her brattiest. So..Yeah..CG is definitely a compressed Shelly.
This bratty attitude just happens to push Monica’s buttons. Like Shelly did on their first “meeting” When Brat-Shelly just couldn’t help herself, and asked M. if her boobs were real.. 😆
Huh. I’m disappointed. I know M can be bratty, that’s part of her charm, but I was hoping we’d see the Monica from this storyline: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/04082005/
Monica was able to see her friend needed support. Here, I’m like… ok fine, you’re confused and afraid, but newsflash, not everything’s about you.
(Such a good webcomic! So many emotional responses!)
I agree. As I see it, CG was being, if not polite, at least civil until Monica got in her face. It just seemed like no cause for it.
Also, despite Companion’s appearance, she has 80,000 years more life experience than any of the ‘adults’ in the room – which they’d find out if they would let her start at the beginning……
Did anyone else think the title for this one should have been “Listen here, jugs”? >.>
Did Shelly just get a roommate?
Does CG have to be enrolled in school?
Things we need to know.
Why should CG have to go to school? She’s 80-some thousand years old. She’s just small for her age.
Because in spite of that shes still a child and the gov says all children need to go to school for 180 days a year until they’re 18 or they’re parent signs them out at 17.
I am with Bid on this; the more I see her, the more I like her.
Is it just me, or is CG fixated on Monica’s boobs? 😛
Well, if she is, that means Shelly is…
It’s just an obvious, smartass way to insult Monica.
That’s it, Monica, antagonize the little girl who scares Sphinxes and demons. That’s a GOOD move…
Speaking of which, no sign of Tina continuing to freak out, but I imagine Conscience – who she’s already said gives her the willies – will do little to calm her down.
I wonder if Bud was speaking loosely, there, or if she’s right and Conscience IS an Elemental. That could explain why so many beings of power are scared of her…
*that* alone could be why monica did go barmy
seeing the thing which sphinx are scared of would make you wonder ‘why’
It’s the creepy girl joel. I just met a girl named creepy girl.
Tom Servo sings of his love for creepy girl.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv0S2gzcEeU
Thanks Computer Matthew for that trip down Memory Lane. Everytime someone Mentioned Conscience as CG I thought of Servo in that clip. Cute name – ‘Conscience’ – HERE THAT,PAUL?
That fits so well. Now if one of us just had the software to superimpose an image of our CG on the monitor to which he’s singing, it would be perfect.
“Listen here, jugs…” Paul owes me another keyboard, and mine are expensive, dammit.
I knew a sweet Navaho gal once who proudly showed me her new T-shirt with the caption: “I have a beautiful pair of jugs!” on the back and a pair of Zuni-style clays jugs strategically place on the front. She was unaware of the double entendré and loved the shirt so much that I didn’t have the heart to tell her.
But re: today… I am loving the new twists & turns. CG may become my second fave, tho’ I do adore Tina (and finding out more about her)… the amazing Catherine will always be #1. ^_^
I’ve heard of people who tell jokes like that–the strawberry in the preserves jar who tells the next one over, “If we hadn’t been in the same bed, we wouldn’t be in this jam together.”–who never caught the double entendre.
Which reminds me of the quote that goes something like, “The odd thing about a double entendre is that it can have only one meaning.”
I’m not sure who was the more naive. She for not seeing the double meaning, or you for believing she actually didn’t know.
I used to have a t-shirt that my first wife gave me for our fifth anniversary.
It said “Let go of my ears – I know what I’m doing.”
We were at our favourite Mongolian Barbecue place, and i was collecting the ingredients for a plateful, and a teenage couple who’d apparently been to a semi-formal occasion of some sort were also at the bar. I wound up between them as we got in line; she was in front of me.
She turned to say something to her date, and noticed my shirt for the first time. It was obvious that she found it more amusing than not.
I carefully did not notice her noticing.
She attempted to (without my noticing) get him to come around me.
I continued being oblivious.
He didn’t understand.
I finally decided that she was going to stroke out if he kept on being dense, so i looked at my plate, said “Huh!” and went back to add some more water chestnut and ginger. She was going (i assumed, from body alnguage) “Look at that shirt!”
I come back to the tail of the line. He glances at my shirt. I can see him read it.
He has a blank expression on his face.
Her expression, as he turned back to her is one i treasure to this day (twenty-some years later), as she realised that (a) he didn’t know what it meant, (b) he was going to ask her to explain the joke and (c) being a teen-age boy, he was likely to react badly to his girlfriend knowing things like that that he didn’t know…
i had to google that expression
never heard it before 😛
Shelly needed to let CG get in a really good punch – right in Monica’s big mouth. Monica needs more consequences for her BS.
Monica’s inner bully is coming out because 1.) She’s dealing with a demon and 2.) She’s finally dealing with someone shorter than she.
besides tepoz
oh wait she bullied him too
She’s the Guardian of a Guardian. That’s who watches the Watchmen!
I’m right there with Bud in my opinion on CG 😀
Does CLG come with an owners manual becuase it looked like she was about to go out of control like a Toyota.
CLG was speaking out of turn. Monica was none too polite about it. Both sides were wrong in some way but thankfully Shelly intervened much like when 2 children are bickering.
Now…how to explain CLG in a way Monica will understand…in addition to the transdimentional side road trip…and what happened there…
This could take a while.
This seems to be leading up to CG blurting out some sort of bombshell tomorrow, giving us the friday clifhanger.
OK, maybe I am missing something … my interpretation of the whole event is that Shelly has been replaced by the version of Shelly that first entered the space where the power source was stored, and that first-entering version became the guardian Sphinx. It doesn’t appear that Monica has really twigged to the fact that her friend has been version-changed even though the golems have stated things like “this person is X thousand years old and is a sphinx”. It also appears that the majority of comments do not distinguish between Shelly the original and Shelly the (sphinx) replacement. Comments?
Red:
The explanation was put forth a few times, but was possibly a bit convoluted. I’ll try to distill it:
This is the same Shelly that touched the relic and the same shelly we have always known. In real world time she was only gone a few minutes/seconds. In her alternate reality that she went into, she was trapped there for the full 56 calendar time loops as they happened -backwards- relative to our time line. What we saw in that realm was the first ever shelly from time loop one meeting our shelly (who discovered and grew into her sphinx self by this point) thereby closing the time paradox loop made by the calendar machine allowing her to return to normal time realm without clothes and knowing she is a sphinx. She aged those thousands of years in that alternate realm even though she was only “gone” from this one for a very short time.
No, this is our Shelly + 80,000 years experience in a pocket demension that took only a split second to the rest of the characters. (Not to mention the whole sphinxification thing.)
Oops sorry aunticrist didn’t refresh before commenting. Sorry you covered that good enough without my comment.
@Fairportfan and @Eee: I responded to both of you in yesterday’s comments.
Actually, I’m not so sure of what I just said to Eee anymore. 🙄 I’m not sure that Monica and Bud can actually see CLG even in today’s strip. I don’t know if Monica expect to hear CLG without seeing her, or if CLG has suddenly appeared for the first time, or what.
If CLG was made by combining demons, one would think that she wouldn’t have any abilities that a demon wouldn’t have. To get outside Monica, demons had to use Monica’s doorway. With Monica’s doorway locked (and Shelly’s closed by Shelly) they couldn’t do that anymore. That doesn’t mean that they had no effect, though. Paul said that Shelly could sense Monica’s Doubt, but not directly see her and that was even before the doorway was locked. (He didn’t really address the issue of hearing her, but the real issue at the time was what Doubt said about Monica and airport security, not what Doubt looked like.) With Shelly’s doorway closed by Shelly, CLG couldn’t even get into the demon realm to get back out through Monica even if Monica’s doorway wasn’t locked.
Another possibility is that CLG is visible now for the first time. Did something happen in the 80,000 years that allowed that to happen? There was certainly enough time for many things to happen. Perhaps it was Shelly fully turning into a sphinx. Perhaps that reopened Shelly’s doorway.
One piece of evidence for that is the fact that CLG’s hair changed length and matches Shelly’s. It’s as if Shelly’s hair continued to grow about one more year after she arrived in the forest and then stopped growing. Perhaps Shelly switched into her sphinx form at that point and her hair only grows while she is in human form. Perhaps Shelly needed to have some sort of a connection with the demon realm or to some other realm to be an adequate demon hunter and CLG is using that connection now to get outside Shelly. If closing the doorway locked in CLG’s appearance originally, perhaps reopening it or creating a new one modified CLG’s appearance. Her size didn’t change, though.
my thought is this. CG was just referred to as an Elemental by Bud. Which suggests that while she may have come from demons, she is now something else entirely. Like diamond from graphite or coal or whatever. It’s essentially built from the same stuff, but it has much different properties. Just because she’s made from a bunch of demons, doesn’t mean she has the same limitations as demons.
While looking for info to respond to your post, I found a response by Paul in an old post in this comic http://wapsisquare.com/comic/look-at-the-time/
“As for Shelly, what happened to her during her vision quest was the creation of her “conscience” that is autonomous in her own realm (the boiler room) that she can change to her liking, free of the demon realm. However she still can’t enter into our universe, other than to council Shelly as Monica’s demons do.”
Soooo something must’ve changed during that time. Interesting.
Ahh, thanks! I thought there was a point where Paul had said that more definitely, but I didn’t want to spend too much time looking for it.
I hope we will have some more interesting exposition about CLG. It will be even better if it comes from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. 😀
I hereby take back my takeback! 😆
Okay this is now what the third or fourth time now Monica has clearly displayed her complete personality change? I can’t believe I’m the ONLY person who’s completely taken aback at how jarring this is. Maybe her locked/banished/internalized demons used to keep her character human, but now she’s just a bitch. ALL THE TIME.
This sudden and unexplained shift in personality from someone who went out of their way to help her friends to someone that threatens, yells at, and abuses her friends at every opportunity like she was some sort of middle manager. this just smacks of something clearly wrong.
The author keeps trying to explain that its her friends at fault every time, but that’s not addressing the core issue: Monica is radically different and no one is noticing. This is immersion killing and keeps throwing me out of the story every time it happens.
One last thing, here’s to CG for growing the spine that Shelly still wouldn’t grow after 80000 years as a sphinx. Monica would not be a “friend” after this episode if I were at the receiving end of her third tirade. This isn’t just coincidence anymore this is a clearly patterned behavior. Monica has reacted exactly the same way every time there’s been a problem.
Monica wasn’t angry at her friends, she was lashing out at a creepy creature, that for all Monica knows, could’ve been the one that took Shelly away for 80,000 years. Monica is also projecting, in a very immature way as most projections are, all her anger/guilt/remorse for being one of the individuals that allowed/let/made Shelly hold the artifact. Monica is not in the right for her behavior.
You call it projecting, I call it being a bitch. I’m not sorry for calling you out on this. Monica has been acting completely irrationally since 2009. After the time machine, she became Monica “Queen of the World” and no one is standing up to her. “Wah, my friends are doing things I don’t like. Wah, bad stuff is happening. Wah, my friends are acting in ways that I don’t like. Wah, the world isn’t obeying my every whim. Etc.”
She’s just been informed by her Barrista friend that she’s in the presence of an 80k year old predator with memory loss. The 80k year old predator just informed Monica that she’s now in the presence of the one entity that the top predators in the universe are scared of. Monica’s response? “Wah, shut up little girl, you’re not important.” WTF?
Paul, I don’t know or care if you let people walk all over you on a daily basis, but here’s a clue. This is NOT normal or acceptable behavior.
what happend to shelly is important for monica
and i think monica wanted to hear it from shelly not from a amlagam of shellys demons which she never met before.
That is the exact point.
And to boot, it is an amalgam of Shelly’s..ehm..shall we say “somewhat unrestrained charactertraits” CG is bratty, like Shelly was.
I am not too surprised Monica isn’t trusting her. She has never seen this bratty 8-year old before, doesn’t trust her one bit, and little Shelly starts immediately by giving M a potty-mouth..I’d be a bit miffed. Combine that with M’s worries about Shelly ,well.. that’s a fairly normal reaction for M I’d say. 🙂
Scoff scoff..And take a chill-pill dude….
Now who’s bitching here? Hmm?
And that personal attack on Paul, is WAAAY out of line.
You don’t like it? find another webcomic. I am SICK and TIRED of all the passive (and sometimes not so passive) agressiveness projected by snot-nosed know-it-alls at the comic, it’s artist etc. etc.
Most of us commenters come here to yap about the comic in a positive manner, like a couple of friends chatting over a latte.
Your rude, and frankly, unwarranted attack is not appreciated here.
If a character is not to Your liking..well ,either get used to it ,or search for another webcomic, there are literally 100’s of them. I bet you can find one to your tastes.
Don’t bother answering. I won’t read it anyways.
(@ Paul: If You think I am out-of-line, You are free to remove my comment ,I won’t mind.)
Thanks for saving me some typing time.
Speaking of projecting (Paul did), I suspect that a lot of the outraged comments result from the readers projecting or transferring their issues and emotions onto the characters. It’s probably to Paul’s credit that this happens. 😕
^^True dat. my wife was quite pleased with me when I lashed out at the irresponsible behavior of the main character in a story she’d written…
And you’re still missing the point. He’s re-written Monica’s entire personality with no explanation given. She still reverts to “Bitch” mode at every opportunity. And still treats her friends like toys/tools/etc.
At this point, Jin’s psychosis makes more sense because at least with her odd behavior its in character and wasn’t a freaking surprise that’s she’s STILL bat shit insane after the machine was destroyed.
yknow
every time monica wigs out there seems to be a good explination..other than the snow. she just hates snow.
yes her personality has changed somewhat – she is no longer the naive little girl she was at the begining of the strip. shelly isnt the same bratty child she is either. bud brandi and jin are no longer drunk.
every time she get angry there about a million and one comments to say she has gotten angry for no good reason but .. what i learned the LAST time she did (nudge/shelly/tina smackdown) she DOES have a good reason. its not always controlled but its a part of growing up. by learning how to handle things. dont forget. she spent alot of time being told she was insane to know things and she has spent the last year or so realising she never WAS insane. that the people who she trusted to tell her the truth were in fact wrong. so when they told her to act in a certain way, why should she believe them?
she is finding her own path in this and screwing up alot of the time. its human nature.
One thing to keep in mind is CG’s still basically demonic in nature. As was pointed out in the punching out of Nudge at Tina’s place, a demon’s words have a great impact on humans. What Tina was saying was influencing Shelly to go further in her punishment of Nudge than she might have otherwise. By the same token, CG’s words may be affecting Monica in a very negative way. A way that is not apparent to her, yet adding to her negativity to such an extent that she is being exceptionally rude to her. So, overall, Monica’s reaction may not be that unusual. At least that’s how I’m rationalizing it.
^^Seems very plausible to me. Indeed, as a demon-thingy, CG’s words could hurt quite a bit more than those of a normal person.
I think I’ll be having another pint of Magic Hat #9 now…
scoff scoff
Actually, I’d be surprised if the fact that Shelly was trapped for 80000 years has really sunk in for Monica yet. The confusion and disbelief of that and her possible transformation into a Sphinx has to require some serious processing. For Bud, or even Tina, maybe not so much…
Right. I’ve been expecting a much bigger reaction, by Monica, to having instrumental in subjecting Shelly to an 80,000 year hell. A greater sorrow about it than she has shown thus far.
Win!
What? M giving CG a piece of her mind ,or Bud, with her dry “I think I like the little elemental.” Bud made me 😆 hard….
Gotta be careful about using smileys in place of words. When I first read your last sentence, I got quite a different meaning from it than you intended. Only when I processed the icon did I get it.
Glad to know i wasn’t the only one.
What smiley face?
Is txmystic just trying to worry Jay-Em? 😕
But, yes, I think a lot of browsers don’t display anything if a graphic doesn’t load and there isn’t any alt text. Jay-Em’s last line would read very differently in that case. But at least in Jay-Em’s case, there is some alt text, “: lol :” (without the spaces), that should display in case the graphic doesn’t. Just in case txmystic is serious, in Jay-Em’s last line there should be a LOL smiley right before “hard”.
I have so loved this week.
Eeee, little Shelly demon! I want to scoop you up into a hug even if you’d probably sock me one good!
Someone sort of did once. It seemed to go alright:
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/04282005/
OTOH, this demon didn’t seem too thrilled about being hugged:
Opps:
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/stinky/
From the totally out of left field dept. I thought some might find this interesting: http://www.instructables.com/id/Mayan-Chocolate-Drink/
I saw it done on a cooking show once. I don’t recommend it except as a meditative activity. It seems one has to be in a truly zen state to do it properly without losing an arm to fatigue…
Looks like it might go over well with fans of both black coffee and chili.
Cool. I think I’ll try it but substitute the mortar and pistil with a more anachronistic coffee grinder and try using a turkish coffee pot.
mm
that sort of hot chocolate looks similar to how she made it in the film ‘chocolat’
would love the recipie she used in THAT 🙂
I notice that Shelly does not display fangs in that smile.
OTOH, it looks as if Connie may be, in Panel Two.
Phix had relatively small ones. I think hers would have been visible both in today’s and yesterday’s pages if she had replaced Shelly.
So, does that mean that Phix is a full-blood sphinx and hybrids, like Shelly don’t get the teeth? Shelly did say that she’s not a demon hunter. Maybe her teeth reflect that?
BTW, Phix’s teeth might have been more visible on October 25, 2010 in the page called “Tag”.
Shelly certainly had them when she was a sphinx.
Phix’s didn’t seem to change much between forms. This is the first we saw her.