Hey, maybe she *meant* exercise! Maybe all she wants to do is run Jin around the block a few times, do some freeweights, and then unwind in the steamroom.
Hmmm, an ice cream bar for dinner, and a sandwich for dessert. Strange, but what ever works, I suppose. And why not call this Kris Williams? What is the worst that could possible happen? She is suppose to be an expert on ghosts/hauntings, she might be able to tell you something.
Monica obviously belongs to the ‘eat dessert first’ school, which is a wise policy indeed when one graduated Summa Cum Laude from
the Bumstead school of sandwich making.
It mighta been that she just wanted an ice cream bar (sweets are good for picking up a mood) but was still hungry afterward so she fixed herself a sandwich as well. And awwww…. no TAPS guest starring roles.
Calling Jin an object is as probelmatic as calling any other person an object. She may be composed of different materials, but she’s still psychologically a human. What is Monica’s basis for such thinking?
There may be some different mechanism by which Jin’s “soul” or “essence” or “personality” or whatever other inefffable you want to call it is anchored to her physical form as a construct, but isn’t that sort of a moot point? We don’t understand how ordinary people exist as more than their physical bodies, how can we say that Jin is anything but an ordinary person with an extraordinary body? Would a cyborg a la Major Motoko Kusanagi (from Ghost In The Shell) be considered an object by Monica?
Really, I fear I’ll go crazy if I don’t get a compendium of Wapsi Physics and Magics put together. The sheer frustration of not being able to piece together how the world works, while at the same time being shown that all the major characters seem to be able to figure it out, is utterly maddening. Many times Monica has made some sort of logical leap concerning magic or golems that the reader simply cannot follow because Monica seems to possess knowledge the reader lacks.
I think I must agree. There have been a few times – usually times when things are suddenly made “clear” – when I’m left scratching my head and going, “Wha…? Where did you get that information, Princess?”
This was also one of those strips, although a minor example in my opinion, since I can see why she’s saying Jin is technically an object… all three of the golem girls have been described as sentient canopic jars. It reminds me of Fullmetal Alchemist, actually. Al exists in a “body” that he never considers “his body”. It is an object, and he lives in it. He could also technically become “haunted” I guess… hell, except for the fact that he’s not really *dead* I’d say HE’S pretty much haunting an “object”.
So yeah, in conclusion, I guess I can see why Monica could think Jin’s physical body could be haunted, separately from her psyche and personality, since the two sort of coexist but aren’t really a proper combination to begin with…?
it’s because the author has a plan for the story, but isn’t a terrific writer. He knows where he wants the story to go, so when he wants to push it in that direction, he’ll give these characters these epiphanies that make sense to him (because they’re his) but not so much to us. I’ve noticed it too – a lot.
I’ve said it before – and no I’m not a SUPER EVIL SPY or whatever – i think paul’s an idea man. Like Hitchcock. And he should consider hiring a writer to fulfill those ideas. Like Hitchcock did.
Monica may very well be speaking out of her ass, no epiphany there. She tends to ascribe logical things to help her make sense of the world. What she says is not necessarily so.
M is only regurgitating what Jin has already said about herself several times already in the comic, this shouldn’t be too hard of a stretch for anyone, and thinking about it clinically to try and form a starting point as to how she should help her.
Part of the problem, L, is when you start shoving too much exposition in a comic (especially a comic done in a series of one-shots) you start to bog the comic down with text, and fall even further from natural dialogue to the “Speed Racer” style monologuing (aka citing your entire life story in one long run-on sentence in the middle of a conversation, usually at an inopportune time).
While I’ve seen what you mentioned here, I did not see this instance as one of those holes. Namely, I think when Monica first forced Bud to flashback to her creation with an Olmec command, and Jin’s constant snapping at Monica and Shelly about her not being human, could lead to this style of thought. Especially when batting around ideas like this.
However, if Monica were to ever refer to Jin like that to anyone else would seem a HUGE out-of-character moment. Ever since Bud and Brandi had their “epiphany” and remembered their pasts, Monica has been shoving it down everyone’s throats that they’re human, not lifeless golems. While their relationship may be strained, I’d find it odd if she referred to Jin as an inanimate object to Tina, Shelly, Tepoz, Kevin, and so on.
To me, the unsaid implication is how to deal with the haunter, without getting rid of the hauntee… who has died and been tied to her remains. which sounds an awful lot like a haunting, and so maybe normal exorcisms would get rid of *both*
maybe object inst the right word, but what do you use for person magically attached to their ashes, when you want to draw attention to the fact that their not like a normal human that way?
Monica is referring to Monica as object like one would refer to a person as an animal. (As opposed to a plant or a fungus.) Jin is an animated inorganic entity. As such, she is simply trying to work out the puzzle starting with the physical an metaphysical elements involved.
Yep, you are most correct. Having Monica explaining any more than what has already been stated in previous comics, I feel would be dumbing the whole thing down too much.
Monica doesn’t want to talk with May? Interesting. I wonder if it’s Operational Security – ie, not letting someone so close to Jin (and whom she doesn’t know very well) know about the haunting for fear she might blab to Jin – or if it’s holdover resentment for May making Monica doubt her sanity and her childhood a nightmare.
Maybe she’s afraid of what she will learn from May. May was very much an expert about the supernatural things that make Monica uncomfortable. She may be afraid of where what she learns will lead. On the other hand, I’ve been surprised that none of the characters seemed to be checking up on May and Jin just to make sure everything was OK.
I’m glad to see Monica is specifically mentioning Jin today. Actually, she is acting very much like I would have expected her to act. I was just surprised she didn’t do it earlier and more aggressively. I would have thought that she would have immediately tried talking with Tepoz or Brandi or Phix since she was comfortable with them. I don’t know how much time passed since she talked with Tina and Bud, though.
It’s disappointing that Monica doesn’t want to meet with Jin’s mom. I would have expected that since she was also Monica’s bisabuela (great grandmother) who taught her the glyph language (and helped get her thrown in the rubber room as a kid), they would have some stuff to hash out.
This whole thing since the end of the Calendar Machine seems like a step-by-step setup for something big, whether Monica wants to acknowledge it or not.
I’m not sure which impresses me more – the size of the sammich or the fact that, despite it’s size, it can maintain structural integrity when held one-handed.
What Moose Breath said! Jin is already a clay statue “haunted” by Jin’s spirit. Exorcism might work – unfortunately, casting out Jin’s essence from it’s repository. And the ghost lore I’ve seen implies that ghosts have a ‘half life’ and tend to weaken – at least, the earthly link. Since she’s been dead over 56,000 years, she might go poof………..
eehyh. so, like, have you (reader) ever said something out loud and then also wondered “where did that come from?” Later in your thoughts you figure out where/when it came from. — yes, no, maybe so or not willing to admit it? — I have had this happen to me, usually as a non-sequitor. What actually happens is that your subconscious pops up for a word in edgewise or your sub-subconscious does it. This usually happens infrequently and unexpectedly unless you are very in tune with your subconscious mind. These occurrences can be frightening mostly because they exhibit a lack of control. And a lack of self-control by the very powerful is very scary. — ergo Jin is extremely scary.
Okay . Monica’s making me hungry , now .
exorcise
Hey, maybe she *meant* exercise! Maybe all she wants to do is run Jin around the block a few times, do some freeweights, and then unwind in the steamroom.
In *Pibgorn*, Dru, a succubus, asked a priest if he’d ever “…exercised a demon…”
He said “Don’t you mean ‘exorcise’?”
And she said…
(Incidentally, this Pibgorn strip</a. may be one of the funniest applications of cartoon physics i have ever seen…)
(He’s an Episcopalian priest, so it’s not like he necessarily took vows Not To Do That, so it’s not as bad as it might be…)
Agreed — in this context, it’s “exorcise.”
Which is why the Linda Blair movie wasn’t The Exercist, or The Exerciser, or, um, like that.
What you said. It’s exorcise not exercise.
How does one exercise an object? You use it a lot! Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk. I’m here all week. Thank you very much.
you beat me to it
Mm, Sammich.
Purify Jin as one might a cursed weapon or other item? Not that it’s ever as simple as it sounds…
don’t you normally do that “In the fires of Mount Doom” or whatevar?
I suspect that in an encounter between Mount Doom and Jin, the mountain would come out a poor second.
I eat when I need to think about the world too.
Hmmm, an ice cream bar for dinner, and a sandwich for dessert. Strange, but what ever works, I suppose. And why not call this Kris Williams? What is the worst that could possible happen? She is suppose to be an expert on ghosts/hauntings, she might be able to tell you something.
Maybe they’d be better off getting Kari Byron?
Now this is getting me hungry.
Monica obviously belongs to the ‘eat dessert first’ school, which is a wise policy indeed when one graduated Summa Cum Laude from
the Bumstead school of sandwich making.
Reminds me of Calvin’s “I’m a dessertarian”.
Hate to nitpick, but it’s spelled exorcise.
It mighta been that she just wanted an ice cream bar (sweets are good for picking up a mood) but was still hungry afterward so she fixed herself a sandwich as well. And awwww…. no TAPS guest starring roles.
Calling Jin an object is as probelmatic as calling any other person an object. She may be composed of different materials, but she’s still psychologically a human. What is Monica’s basis for such thinking?
There may be some different mechanism by which Jin’s “soul” or “essence” or “personality” or whatever other inefffable you want to call it is anchored to her physical form as a construct, but isn’t that sort of a moot point? We don’t understand how ordinary people exist as more than their physical bodies, how can we say that Jin is anything but an ordinary person with an extraordinary body? Would a cyborg a la Major Motoko Kusanagi (from Ghost In The Shell) be considered an object by Monica?
Really, I fear I’ll go crazy if I don’t get a compendium of Wapsi Physics and Magics put together. The sheer frustration of not being able to piece together how the world works, while at the same time being shown that all the major characters seem to be able to figure it out, is utterly maddening. Many times Monica has made some sort of logical leap concerning magic or golems that the reader simply cannot follow because Monica seems to possess knowledge the reader lacks.
~D.
I think I must agree. There have been a few times – usually times when things are suddenly made “clear” – when I’m left scratching my head and going, “Wha…? Where did you get that information, Princess?”
This was also one of those strips, although a minor example in my opinion, since I can see why she’s saying Jin is technically an object… all three of the golem girls have been described as sentient canopic jars. It reminds me of Fullmetal Alchemist, actually. Al exists in a “body” that he never considers “his body”. It is an object, and he lives in it. He could also technically become “haunted” I guess… hell, except for the fact that he’s not really *dead* I’d say HE’S pretty much haunting an “object”.
So yeah, in conclusion, I guess I can see why Monica could think Jin’s physical body could be haunted, separately from her psyche and personality, since the two sort of coexist but aren’t really a proper combination to begin with…?
Do replies with links autodelete?
Google for ‘They’re made of Meat’.
The entire award winning short story is there.
Replies with incorrect links tend to auto-delete. I’ve posted a couple that went away in short order.
it’s because the author has a plan for the story, but isn’t a terrific writer. He knows where he wants the story to go, so when he wants to push it in that direction, he’ll give these characters these epiphanies that make sense to him (because they’re his) but not so much to us. I’ve noticed it too – a lot.
I’ve said it before – and no I’m not a SUPER EVIL SPY or whatever – i think paul’s an idea man. Like Hitchcock. And he should consider hiring a writer to fulfill those ideas. Like Hitchcock did.
Monica may very well be speaking out of her ass, no epiphany there. She tends to ascribe logical things to help her make sense of the world. What she says is not necessarily so.
M is only regurgitating what Jin has already said about herself several times already in the comic, this shouldn’t be too hard of a stretch for anyone, and thinking about it clinically to try and form a starting point as to how she should help her.
See, it’s super cool that you come here and explain this stuff, but it’d be even cooler if the comic did it for you.
Part of the problem, L, is when you start shoving too much exposition in a comic (especially a comic done in a series of one-shots) you start to bog the comic down with text, and fall even further from natural dialogue to the “Speed Racer” style monologuing (aka citing your entire life story in one long run-on sentence in the middle of a conversation, usually at an inopportune time).
While I’ve seen what you mentioned here, I did not see this instance as one of those holes. Namely, I think when Monica first forced Bud to flashback to her creation with an Olmec command, and Jin’s constant snapping at Monica and Shelly about her not being human, could lead to this style of thought. Especially when batting around ideas like this.
However, if Monica were to ever refer to Jin like that to anyone else would seem a HUGE out-of-character moment. Ever since Bud and Brandi had their “epiphany” and remembered their pasts, Monica has been shoving it down everyone’s throats that they’re human, not lifeless golems. While their relationship may be strained, I’d find it odd if she referred to Jin as an inanimate object to Tina, Shelly, Tepoz, Kevin, and so on.
To me, the unsaid implication is how to deal with the haunter, without getting rid of the hauntee… who has died and been tied to her remains. which sounds an awful lot like a haunting, and so maybe normal exorcisms would get rid of *both*
maybe object inst the right word, but what do you use for person magically attached to their ashes, when you want to draw attention to the fact that their not like a normal human that way?
Monica is referring to Monica as object like one would refer to a person as an animal. (As opposed to a plant or a fungus.) Jin is an animated inorganic entity. As such, she is simply trying to work out the puzzle starting with the physical an metaphysical elements involved.
Yep, you are most correct. Having Monica explaining any more than what has already been stated in previous comics, I feel would be dumbing the whole thing down too much.
Monica doesn’t want to talk with May? Interesting. I wonder if it’s Operational Security – ie, not letting someone so close to Jin (and whom she doesn’t know very well) know about the haunting for fear she might blab to Jin – or if it’s holdover resentment for May making Monica doubt her sanity and her childhood a nightmare.
Maybe she’s afraid of what she will learn from May. May was very much an expert about the supernatural things that make Monica uncomfortable. She may be afraid of where what she learns will lead. On the other hand, I’ve been surprised that none of the characters seemed to be checking up on May and Jin just to make sure everything was OK.
I’m glad to see Monica is specifically mentioning Jin today. Actually, she is acting very much like I would have expected her to act. I was just surprised she didn’t do it earlier and more aggressively. I would have thought that she would have immediately tried talking with Tepoz or Brandi or Phix since she was comfortable with them. I don’t know how much time passed since she talked with Tina and Bud, though.
It’s disappointing that Monica doesn’t want to meet with Jin’s mom. I would have expected that since she was also Monica’s bisabuela (great grandmother) who taught her the glyph language (and helped get her thrown in the rubber room as a kid), they would have some stuff to hash out.
She might not want to talk with May, but May may (?) need to talk to her. Somebody has to explain Lady Gaga to May.
Or she may not want to talk to Mayahuel about this.
May is short for Mayahuel! I’m going to go lie down now.
I’d just refer to her as Maya. I mean, she was the reason they named themselves that, right?
That’s what she shortened her name to, the current others, outside of Jin, are calling her May.
epiphany or not, I think today is all about the sandwich…mmmmmmm…
Oh yes, and Monica’s pose with the sandwich…mmmmmmmm…
Since Jin is inhabiting a golem, wouldn’t trying to do an exorcism on Jin be a little extra dangerous for Jin herself?
Dietzel!
I still think the whole thing will hinge on him. Regardless of what it is.
Forget the people – focus on the dog and the sandwich.
still miss the 3-4 panel layout but this is nice too.
Eat first, exorcise later.
*Groan*, Ladywolf. :^P
Dang, Monica’s lookin’ good.
This whole thing since the end of the Calendar Machine seems like a step-by-step setup for something big, whether Monica wants to acknowledge it or not.
One of the best webcomics ever.
I’m not sure which impresses me more – the size of the sammich or the fact that, despite it’s size, it can maintain structural integrity when held one-handed.
It helps that it appears to have been made from real bread as opposed to that wimpy supermarket variety. Yes, I’m a bit of a bread nerd and snob.
What Moose Breath said! Jin is already a clay statue “haunted” by Jin’s spirit. Exorcism might work – unfortunately, casting out Jin’s essence from it’s repository. And the ghost lore I’ve seen implies that ghosts have a ‘half life’ and tend to weaken – at least, the earthly link. Since she’s been dead over 56,000 years, she might go poof………..
eehyh. so, like, have you (reader) ever said something out loud and then also wondered “where did that come from?” Later in your thoughts you figure out where/when it came from. — yes, no, maybe so or not willing to admit it? — I have had this happen to me, usually as a non-sequitor. What actually happens is that your subconscious pops up for a word in edgewise or your sub-subconscious does it. This usually happens infrequently and unexpectedly unless you are very in tune with your subconscious mind. These occurrences can be frightening mostly because they exhibit a lack of control. And a lack of self-control by the very powerful is very scary. — ergo Jin is extremely scary.