It would have been better if she pulled a Godfather III and yell, “every time I think I’m out, they pull me back in!” I am telling you it would have worked.
I think Monica and Shelly are finally settling into the addition of supernatural elements as “normal,” really living up to the title of “Supernatural Slice of Life.”
And Fairportfan? Shouldn’t that be pallbearer of glad tidings/buzzkill? 😛
sorry, but one of my roommates is legally married to three people (my other roommate), and gets away with it because there’s still only one body the law recognises. And think of the benefits wih the supernatural elements present/subject to introduction!
I think that this one means that the demons were destroyed and this one means that the girl is something other than a demon. In fact, she lists 3 ways in which she is different. Also, in a strip that would be very hard for me to find, Shelly said she got rid of her demons, then Monica said that she had put hers to work on other tasks. IIRC, the conversation was in the coffee shop probably around 2006 – early 2009 if someone wants to look for it.
No, i think that, in the first strip when CLG says the demons were “combined into me”, she means exactly what she says – the demons were combined into one entity, and she’s it.
And in the second strip, she says she’s “separate from the demon world” – but only because of Shelly.
So Sarcasm Girl (as i see i called her back then) is sort of Shelly’s equivalent of Tina’s Steering Committe – except that she’s all of Shelly’s demons integrated into a single, more-or-less sane and benevolent gestalt.
I think we are pretty much in agreement, but I’d say the “more-or-less sane and benevolent gestalt” defined herself as a conscience, rather than a demon, and I would accept that, although she was made from demons and still guides Shelly like they did. I may have been misinterpreting “separate from the demon world”, though. If that means “separated from the demon world”, then that could include the closing of Shelly’s doorway, which Paul said was related to those pages:
I took it to mean that the girl was not in the same category as everything related to the demonic realm (including the demons).
I’m still confused about the doorway, though. Paul said:
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.
But what Jin says here makes it sound as if the doorway to the vision realm was created by the vision quest. That seems very different than creating a separation from the demon world. Also this was the strip I was thinking of earlier. It makes it seem as if Shelly’s original demons were around until recently. Anyway, I’m confused by all of this.
Who is the demon in this one and in this one that is giving Shelly and Monica advice? Clearly, if she is being sucked through the doorway, she is one of the demons that honored the “deal” that Bud alludes to in this one, right?
As I understand it, the one behind Monica was Monica’s doubt. She didn’t get sucked in, because she was only appearing to Monica and thus wasn’t really outside, despite the way it looked and she still messed with Monica a little here after the doorway was locked. She was in on the deal, though, as you can see here.
After Tina shows up and ,a href=”http://wapsisquare.com/comic/naughtynaughty/”>convinces the two Doubts of the error of their ways, it’s the Committee of the Whole speaking …
But, after ward – here and here, it’s Nudge – or another solo – ‘splainin’ things…
I thought the first time we saw Jin’s doubt was when the golem girls found Monica’s doubt in the basement and stuck her into Jin’s stomach, resulting in this. So after Jin sent her to where she didn’t know where, did this now-evolved doubt demon become the rampant queen?
@txmystic. I think those were two completely different demons all along. I think Monica’s doubt just kept doing what it was good at while it was inside Jin. When Jin got rid of it, I assume it just managed to find it’s way back to Monica. I don’t think how that happened was really explained.
I think the rampant queen demon was one of Jin’s demons all along, although I’m not so sure it was specifically her doubt (I wish I hadn’t suggested that), but it seemed to be the most prevalent of Jin’s demons, just as Monica’s doubt was the most prevalent of Monica’s. I think she just became the “rampant queen” just because she saw the opportunity to seize control of Monica’s doorway and did it.
Putting Monica’s doubt in Jin allowed the two sets of demons to create a communication link with each other, which also allowed Jin and Monica to read each other’s thoughts. Somehow closing the doorway inside Monica shut that ability down. It may be that this communication link helped Jin’s demon spot the opportunity that Monica’s doorway represented or helped her seize control of it, but I don’t know.
I don’t think the demon which Jin sent to who knows where was Monica’s doubt. It was some sort of morbid self-loathing demon who Monica cast out of herself. Which, on refleaction, was pretty mean since the poor thing didn’t have anywhere else to go. There’s are few things sadder than a homeless demon living in your basement. That is, until it got in Jin when it was poited into her. Since Jin sent it away for good, it couldn’t have been Monica’s doubt, because that demon showed up later, as has been shown.
Monica calls her “self doubt” here and talks about knowledge that doubt brought back to her that only Jin would have known. (Apparently, Jin needed to be reminded of it, though.) Brandi said that the demon belonged in Monica.After the incident in the Club Cerberus Tina concluded that Monica must have shared her demons with Jin. (Actually, it was Bud who did it, but Jin and Monica partially correct Tina without blaming Bud.)
I think the way Monica’s doubt acted self-loathing is analogous to the way Monica’s panic panicked when she heard Bud coming. I’ll agree that doubt’s personality isn’t very consistent, though.
SoWhyMe has a point, IIRC the “cast out’ demon that was placed into Jin was the one whose speech was written bacwards in the balloon, and I think it had more of a self-depricating quality more akin to self-loathing than self-doubt. But yes, something did return to Monica with info about Jin.
Perhaps several re-reads are required, much like any richly crafted tale!
I think Tina’s just so jazzed about being part of the party, she’s ‘jacknifed’ up onto the counter… note the locked arms, and shoulders holding her weight.
I got that about Tina jacknifing (and she looks really good doing it, too, I might add), but look at the counter…it seems to be as tall as Shelly’s shoulders…
I think Shelly’s standing parallel to the nearest point of the bar (maybe a little farther back), as evidenced by Monica’s greater relative height, so it’s waist-to-ribcage height.
Comanches aren’t very tall, usually. About average height, kinda stocky, known to be good fighters, and these days, not really people you want to brawl against. There are height exceptions, and Shelly would count among them.
I think Shelly is fairly short. I picture her at around 5′ 4″ or a little less. I think it’s easy to forget that she is small, because of how strong she is and the fact that Monica and Jin are even shorter. She’s a little shorter than Bud, who isn’t that tall, either, and significantly shorter than Tina, Brandi and Katherine, I think.
@Fairportfan: Paul confirmed that Shelly messed up her hair to make it look like the grill did it. Her hair tends to be pretty wild normally, though.
—
Shelly probably had no chance of fooling Tina, who can read auras, but she didn’t even fool Monica, who has a cute smirk on her face. 🙂
You either mesh with someone or you don’t. Spending time getting to know each other should be a natural thing that just happens, not some planned and over analyzed process called “dating”, originally stemming from “setting a date” to get together.
Which isn’t to say I don’t agree with you on principle. Tina attracts me like mad, even with all her bizarreness. If I were in that world, I’d be curious to see if I held any interest for her as well.
But I would still go out with her. Being in someone’s company and enjoying it does not imply romantic connection, it just means you like being together.
If I lived in that world, which would be so much more interesting than my own reality, I’d love to have any one of these characters as friends and/or as etc.
Oh, well, you’re right for all that. I’m more than satisfied with my life at this point – I was speaking in very subjective terms. But fantasy exists and is popular for many good reasons…
It’s been my experience that not all of it is fantasy, at least not as most would define it. But this is a Quantum Universe, all points of view are valid. Just depends on where your head is at, Relativity speaking.
I’ve noticed that Shelly’s biceps seem to be getting rather ginormous recently! O.o Scary…sexy….sexry? I don’t know, but DAMN! I guess the woman that can lift and throw a v8 engine like nothing should be rather disturbingly tough looking, though.
Tell her , Tina .
BTW , double shot of espresso for me , please .
It would have been better if she pulled a Godfather III and yell, “every time I think I’m out, they pull me back in!” I am telling you it would have worked.
What with Shel waving her fists like that, give her an obsidian axe and a skull mask and she could probably pass for Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli.
where whould you get the axe?
Monica is an archeological scholar. She likely knows, or can find out, where an expert flint knapper lives who could make one.
To paraphrase a comment i just posted over at Pibgorn:
Shelly: 0
Tina: 1
Tina really seems to be enjoying her role as bearer of … glad … tidings/buzzkill.
I express faint disappointment that Shelly likes americanos, my least favoured coffee drink.
As an aside, Monica’s outfit and body language since arriving at the coffee shop reminds me of what she was like during the early days of the strip.
Well, it makes sense, given that she is Americano.
I would certainly say that M’s expression in Panel 1 is just full of win.
I think Monica and Shelly are finally settling into the addition of supernatural elements as “normal,” really living up to the title of “Supernatural Slice of Life.”
And Fairportfan? Shouldn’t that be pallbearer of glad tidings/buzzkill? 😛
Hisssss!
I don’t know about you all, but I can’t wait to see where this story takes us. 😀
As a side note, Monica in Glasses is Adorable!
Yeah, but which pair? Her hex pair just screamed “DORKCITY!”
these work for me. They suit her face and her profession pretty well.
As an aside: Tina can’t get married. Polygamy/polyandry laws prevent it.
=-_^=
sorry, but one of my roommates is legally married to three people (my other roommate), and gets away with it because there’s still only one body the law recognises. And think of the benefits wih the supernatural elements present/subject to introduction!
There’s a whole bunch of Utah and polygamy jokes sitting there, but I’m not touching them.
I can’t say how much I’m looking forward to Tina being a central character.
Reading that back, that sounds doubtful. Let’s try again. I am SO looking forward!
Why didn’t Tina offer too “Change Things Up” for Shelly too? Tina gave Shelly her usual.
It was Nudge that offered the mocha to Monica, not Tina…
Shelly didn’t need to have her demons weakened. Shelly already defeated them.
Shelly’s demon – Creepy Little Girl – seems to work *with* her … albeit with the maximum amount of sarcasm and snark possible.
I think that this one means that the demons were destroyed and this one means that the girl is something other than a demon. In fact, she lists 3 ways in which she is different. Also, in a strip that would be very hard for me to find, Shelly said she got rid of her demons, then Monica said that she had put hers to work on other tasks. IIRC, the conversation was in the coffee shop probably around 2006 – early 2009 if someone wants to look for it.
No, i think that, in the first strip when CLG says the demons were “combined into me”, she means exactly what she says – the demons were combined into one entity, and she’s it.
And in the second strip, she says she’s “separate from the demon world” – but only because of Shelly.
So Sarcasm Girl (as i see i called her back then) is sort of Shelly’s equivalent of Tina’s Steering Committe – except that she’s all of Shelly’s demons integrated into a single, more-or-less sane and benevolent gestalt.
I think we are pretty much in agreement, but I’d say the “more-or-less sane and benevolent gestalt” defined herself as a conscience, rather than a demon, and I would accept that, although she was made from demons and still guides Shelly like they did. I may have been misinterpreting “separate from the demon world”, though. If that means “separated from the demon world”, then that could include the closing of Shelly’s doorway, which Paul said was related to those pages:
I took it to mean that the girl was not in the same category as everything related to the demonic realm (including the demons).
I’m still confused about the doorway, though. Paul said:
But what Jin says here makes it sound as if the doorway to the vision realm was created by the vision quest. That seems very different than creating a separation from the demon world. Also this was the strip I was thinking of earlier. It makes it seem as if Shelly’s original demons were around until recently. Anyway, I’m confused by all of this.
Who is the demon in this one and in this one that is giving Shelly and Monica advice? Clearly, if she is being sucked through the doorway, she is one of the demons that honored the “deal” that Bud alludes to in this one, right?
As I understand it, the one behind Monica was Monica’s doubt. She didn’t get sucked in, because she was only appearing to Monica and thus wasn’t really outside, despite the way it looked and she still messed with Monica a little here after the doorway was locked. She was in on the deal, though, as you can see here.
The one with a face like mask and got sucked in was one of Jin’s demons, possibly Jin’s doubt. This shows the two demons (Jin’s and Monica’s) interacting. Here is Jin’s demon with Jin. I think that may have been the earliest we saw her.
Interesting.
After Tina shows up and ,a href=”http://wapsisquare.com/comic/naughtynaughty/”>convinces the two Doubts of the error of their ways, it’s the Committee of the Whole speaking …
But, after ward – here and here, it’s Nudge – or another solo – ‘splainin’ things…
I thought the first time we saw Jin’s doubt was when the golem girls found Monica’s doubt in the basement and stuck her into Jin’s stomach, resulting in this. So after Jin sent her to where she didn’t know where, did this now-evolved doubt demon become the rampant queen?
@txmystic. I think those were two completely different demons all along. I think Monica’s doubt just kept doing what it was good at while it was inside Jin. When Jin got rid of it, I assume it just managed to find it’s way back to Monica. I don’t think how that happened was really explained.
I think the rampant queen demon was one of Jin’s demons all along, although I’m not so sure it was specifically her doubt (I wish I hadn’t suggested that), but it seemed to be the most prevalent of Jin’s demons, just as Monica’s doubt was the most prevalent of Monica’s. I think she just became the “rampant queen” just because she saw the opportunity to seize control of Monica’s doorway and did it.
Putting Monica’s doubt in Jin allowed the two sets of demons to create a communication link with each other, which also allowed Jin and Monica to read each other’s thoughts. Somehow closing the doorway inside Monica shut that ability down. It may be that this communication link helped Jin’s demon spot the opportunity that Monica’s doorway represented or helped her seize control of it, but I don’t know.
@txmystic: Monica’s doubt returned to Monica with information from Jin’s mind.
@fairportfan: Another case of an individual demon saying something interesting.
I don’t think the demon which Jin sent to who knows where was Monica’s doubt. It was some sort of morbid self-loathing demon who Monica cast out of herself. Which, on refleaction, was pretty mean since the poor thing didn’t have anywhere else to go. There’s are few things sadder than a homeless demon living in your basement. That is, until it got in Jin when it was poited into her. Since Jin sent it away for good, it couldn’t have been Monica’s doubt, because that demon showed up later, as has been shown.
Monica calls her “self doubt” here and talks about knowledge that doubt brought back to her that only Jin would have known. (Apparently, Jin needed to be reminded of it, though.) Brandi said that the demon belonged in Monica.After the incident in the Club Cerberus Tina concluded that Monica must have shared her demons with Jin. (Actually, it was Bud who did it, but Jin and Monica partially correct Tina without blaming Bud.)
I think the way Monica’s doubt acted self-loathing is analogous to the way Monica’s panic panicked when she heard Bud coming. I’ll agree that doubt’s personality isn’t very consistent, though.
SoWhyMe has a point, IIRC the “cast out’ demon that was placed into Jin was the one whose speech was written bacwards in the balloon, and I think it had more of a self-depricating quality more akin to self-loathing than self-doubt. But yes, something did return to Monica with info about Jin.
Perhaps several re-reads are required, much like any richly crafted tale!
Yep, doubt did return to Monica, here making her return known to Jin while more under the thumb of Monica’s control.
Where?
Shelly, as demonstrated by last night, is already changing things up. And she’s willing to help, even if she is being dramatic about it. Not like M.
Tina said “we”. Awesomeness cubed! 😀
And . . . here . . . we . . . GO!
Did Tina just call Shelly a drama queen? 🙂
No, a bad actor.
That term has a rather different implication in Birtish English than the meaning i’m fairly sure you intended.
I guess nudge is only going to come out for monica, at least for now. And monica still has not accepted the mocha, has she?
One other thing…not only is the counter painted with icons now, but it seems to be taller?? Is Shelly that short?
I think Tina’s just so jazzed about being part of the party, she’s ‘jacknifed’ up onto the counter… note the locked arms, and shoulders holding her weight.
Yeah . That’s what I was thinking .
I got that about Tina jacknifing (and she looks really good doing it, too, I might add), but look at the counter…it seems to be as tall as Shelly’s shoulders…
I think Shelly’s standing parallel to the nearest point of the bar (maybe a little farther back), as evidenced by Monica’s greater relative height, so it’s waist-to-ribcage height.
..OR Shelley’s falling to her knees in mock-drama.
Comanches aren’t very tall, usually. About average height, kinda stocky, known to be good fighters, and these days, not really people you want to brawl against. There are height exceptions, and Shelly would count among them.
Ahhhhh…it just seemed that Shelly was taller in days of yore…I’m prolly making too big a deal of it and will stop now. 😉
What about days of mine?
Days of mine only count if you’re getting yore out of the ground.
Days of my what?
“yore”=”your”
Ummm, i think that’s what Xiu meant…
Dearie, it appears yer missing several essential cultural reference points.
I think Shelly is fairly short. I picture her at around 5′ 4″ or a little less. I think it’s easy to forget that she is small, because of how strong she is and the fact that Monica and Jin are even shorter. She’s a little shorter than Bud, who isn’t that tall, either, and significantly shorter than Tina, Brandi and Katherine, I think.
@Fairportfan: Paul confirmed that Shelly messed up her hair to make it look like the grill did it. Her hair tends to be pretty wild normally, though.
—
Shelly probably had no chance of fooling Tina, who can read auras, but she didn’t even fool Monica, who has a cute smirk on her face. 🙂
Yeah, here’s the one that gives the perspective I was after, so she is shorter than I thought…
Ooo … Fanservice! No … wait … too much drama … never mind!
😉
A true fan will find service no matter how much drama needs to be ignored.
Monica is SO CUTE with those glasses and hair!
Does this mean the Demon Conglomerate/Amalgam/Comprise/Gestalt/Whole Ball O’Wax are resigned to go along for the ride?
I’d totally date Tina.
Pssh, such a silly concept this “dating”.
You either mesh with someone or you don’t. Spending time getting to know each other should be a natural thing that just happens, not some planned and over analyzed process called “dating”, originally stemming from “setting a date” to get together.
Which isn’t to say I don’t agree with you on principle. Tina attracts me like mad, even with all her bizarreness. If I were in that world, I’d be curious to see if I held any interest for her as well.
~D.
Word .
But I would still go out with her. Being in someone’s company and enjoying it does not imply romantic connection, it just means you like being together.
Indeed.
(Susan is asexual, Justin is gay and Dan, aside from being a squirrel, is the cartoonist…)
Awesome panel, thanks for the pointer.
If I lived in that world, which would be so much more interesting than my own reality, I’d love to have any one of these characters as friends and/or as etc.
emphasis on the “etc.”, Old Wolf? 😀
♬ Walks away whistling ♬
Plus the perks – POIT!
~D.
You just haven’t found the right place/group in this reality. There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio …
Oh, well, you’re right for all that. I’m more than satisfied with my life at this point – I was speaking in very subjective terms. But fantasy exists and is popular for many good reasons…
It’s been my experience that not all of it is fantasy, at least not as most would define it. But this is a Quantum Universe, all points of view are valid. Just depends on where your head is at, Relativity speaking.
If not a statue of Tina , a big Mucho Mocha coffee mug (maybe with Tina on it) , would be pretty sweet , as well .
Oh, yeah! Coffee mugs with pictures, always a seller!
I miss Monica’s boyfriend. And Jin’s hasn’t been around for awhile either.
There goes Shel’s afterglow!
I’ve noticed that Shelly’s biceps seem to be getting rather ginormous recently! O.o Scary…sexy….sexry? I don’t know, but DAMN! I guess the woman that can lift and throw a v8 engine like nothing should be rather disturbingly tough looking, though.