*pats*
brandi is just being human
she is trying to focus but the amazing news she has just been told is overwhelming her thoughts so its breaking through and making her seemingly jump from subject to subject.
I don’t see the confusion. Brandi is feeling overwhelmed and scared, so she’s blabbering and hugging the life out of Monica, and so on. Suddenly she has the chance to change something she didn’t know was possible and thought she had accepted–only now she discovers she’s not so comfortable with being immortal, or being human.
When you only have one choice, things are simple: you find a way to cope. Suddenly she has a choice to make.
However, she is beginning to cope: at least she’s not thinking only of herself now: “We” says she’s thinking of her buddies, both in their plight of immortality, and in their possible help.
Actually, the “we” is the only part that is confusing for me. She acted as if she didn’t want to help by doing anything and didn’t even ask questions before, so why is she acting as if she had something to do with it now? It’s possible that she was doing something, but there has been no sign of it so far.
My reading of that shift was in line with bmonk’s. Only I was reading it as moving from more of an accusatory stance (you did this) to one of acceptance that she is a part of the group that did this together.
Gotta love how many different ways the written word can be interpreted. 🙂
I think she might also be acknowledging the idea that her past selves might have been involved in this. even thought the Calendar Machine is no more Brandi might realize that the after effects are still showing up.
As much as I hate to say it, with Monica’s “endowments” I would expect that her bras would have to be part corset to prevent any damage to her shoulders that bra straps would cause.
I guess that means Brandi doesn’t know what Shelly went through. I wonder what she’ll think about that. Will Monica even tell her that, or will they continue keeping Brandi out of the loop?
I’m going to agree with Fairportfan here. If Brandi’s the only one who even knew what those things were called, then I’d wager chances were good that she wasn’t being kept in the dark intentionally. The rest of the crew had no reason to expect that Brandi knew as much as she does about the technology they played with. In fact, they all seemed to think that May would know the most.
IIRC, Monica knew that Maya designed the artifact and it seemed to be general knowledge that it had a power cell in it even if Shelly didn’t know the name was “vimana cell”. The fact that Bud bet Brandi over whether or not Monica would touch the artifact indicates that she wasn’t keeping it a secret from Brandi.
I don’t think the fact that Maya didn’t immediately recognize her invention is that important. Tons of Celtic cross shaped things have been built that had nothing to do with Maya’s design. I don’t even know if the outside shape is part of her design; she might have just designed the guts of it.
Ooo…I’d forgotten about the wager with Brandi. 🙂 That does put a different spin on things.
But knowing about the artifact is different than knowing about the radioactive power source that was added to the relic by Shelly after living millennia in reverse. It’s possible that the Vimana Cell was actually the radioactive bit that killed the 1st Shelly in the Time Forest…hence Brandi being unaware that they’d located one, and being out of the loop.
(I still don’t think that leaving her out was intentional though. :P)
@Julie: I don’t particularly think it was intentional either, so don’t stick you tongue out at me! 😛
However, I think it’s possible that Bud was concerned that if Brandi knew about the cell, she might worry about it like a nervous Nellie, so Bud chose to let sleeping dogs lie. Still, if Brandi had acted like she really wanted to know what was going on, I think Bud would have told her, or Brandi could have found out from someone else, even if that were the case.
@Fairportfan: I took Paula to mean the period after Shelly returned with the artifact. I think Maya may have had it for months, assuming Bud gave it to her reasonably quickly after Shelly returned with it. Monica’s hair grew a lot between Shelly’s trip and now.
Yup. It would completely redefine the whole way you relate to the physical world, and to every decision you make in your life. Every action would now have a new potential consequence… “Will I get hurt as a result?”
Doesn’t even have to be a motorcycle/i> accident – either
(A) The five-meter flight in an open sports car, landing pointed back the way we came (and, incidentally, destroying what, i only found out forty years later, may have been one of the rarest cars in the world*)
or
B: The ten-speed bicycle accident a year or two later that sent me to the Emergency Room for three hours of repairs to my right arm, leaving me with fascinating scars still visible forty years later
were fully eye-opening to convince me
================
*It was an eight-year-old (1963 in 1971) Austin-Healey Sprite “Mk 2.5” (Mark 2 bodywork and Mk 3 suspension, engine, instruments and front disk brakes) … which, until i added one line to the Wikipedia article on Spridgets, was listed only as “rumoured” to exist in very small numbers. “One” is a small number…
(My addition is the parenthetical line at the end of the section.)
The thought of one moment being nigh omnipotent with nearly phenomenal cosmic powers suddenly transformed to a fragile mortal girl, being vulnerable to the elements and even her environment is a very frightening prospect.
Brandi’s question has not been answered to Brandi’s satisfaction, she’s just too wrapped up in the implications of her mortality to follow up.
The next logical question should be, “How did we get a vimana cell over from another timeline?” Even ‘ditzy’ Brandi would make that her next question.
Monica is prioritizing by importance. Loose vimana cells are one of those Lanthian artifacts that need to be cleaned up–they’re lethally radioactive. Asking Brandi “Don’t you know what Shelly did for Jin?” can wait a beat.
By the same measure, Brandi is not asking after how things were obtained across timelines post-CM, because her mortality is the greater danger, possibly not just to herself. Does she feel vulnerability would keep worse elements out of check? Or, as her roughly grabbing her glyph reader again here demonstrates, would mortality drop her inhibitions to cut loose as they did initially for Jin?
We know that Jin wanted to die and Bud wanted the ability to change. What the hell does Brandi want.
brandi wants not to be asked what she wants
she seems to want to forget about her time as the chimeric monster and the time in the pit
both of which is very understandable but not helpful for her.
you cannot deal with things if you keep running from them.
I dunno.. She did aknowledge her abhorrence at her own feelings of revenge and bloodlust when recalling her ordeal in the pit.
I would notcall that ” running away”
It seems more that she never fathomed that there was a way back from golem-ness, despite her unlimited access to the library of all that was ever written, and thusly decided it was of no use to endlessly re-think her existence.
As i stated earlier, she has an almost Taoistic way of accepting things as they have expired, unlike Bud and Jin, who were constantly bemoaning their existence and plight, and constantly busy trying to do something about done things, while not trying to think too much about the past.
Bud and Jin were much busier running from the past than Brandi imho…. * shrugs* at least that’s how I see it..
Addendum: Brandi only started to move when there was a realistic chance of doing something about a serious problem. I mean with her diary, and all.
That was the real Brandy in action. Getting on the move in a way that scared Bud, impressed as Bud is by Brandi’s intelligence, she doesn’t understand her best buddy.
Remember that Brandi is also a very good chessplayer, used to plan many moves ahead. Stuff like Vimana-cells are too unexpected for her, smart as she is, she freezes..closes-down in a kind of autism.
Remember that Brandi is also a very good chessplayer, used to plan many moves ahead. Stuff like Vimana-cells are too unexpected for her, smart as she is, she freezes..closes-down in a kind of autism.
Bud, impressed as Bud is by Brandi’s intelligence, she doesn’t understand her best buddy.
Consider the possibility that the way Bud doesn’t understand Brandi is that Bud thinks that Brandi is unusually intelligent. Bud might think that Brandi is intelligent just because she thinks that Brandi wrote that book, but it’s questionable that Brandi did it now. We know now that the previous loop Brandi didn’t set up things as well as Bud (and we) thought that she did and maybe the previous loop Brandi didn’t do anything at all.
As i stated earlier, she has an almost Taoistic way of accepting things as they have expired, unlike Bud and Jin,
Right now is not accepting things very well, nor with Bud earlier, and before that she was just clueless. Same as here: She waited until it was too late to do anything (didn’t do her job) and then freaked out afterwards. Bud and especially Jin think about what might happen and react proactively, but Brandi doesn’t. She claims that she can’t handle curveballs, but that just seems to be a bad excuse given way she has been depicted so far. If she got involved more and used her brain (assuming she is reasonably intelligent), she wouldn’t be facing so many curveballs. If she had been more involved she would have already known about the power cell, for example. If she had worked with Maya, she might have known what Maya intended to do to Jin.
Remember that Brandi is also a very good chessplayer, used to plan many moves ahead. Stuff like Vimana-cells are too unexpected for her, smart as she is, she freezes..closes-down in a kind of autism.
I have to disagree with that. She seems to be a lousy chessplayer who doesn’t plan at all. There is no reason for the Vimana-cells to be unexpected. Judging from Monica’s hair, she had many months to find out that Shelly brought one back and to learn that Maya was going to put it inside Jin at some point. She just didn’t ask what was going on as if she didn’t care about Jin. Why didn’t she ask any questions about the relic? She knew about it because she bet Bud that Monica wouldn’t touch it.
@Jay-Em: I’m fine with agreeing to disagree. I’m not certain that I’m right, but it’s the way I’m seeing things now, which is very different than the way I saw things earlier. I didn’t see your “agree to disagree” comment before posting the previous one.
@Jay-Em – yes, Von Goom’s Gambit sounds like the “dark side” of the Monty Python killing joke. Rather than inducing lethal hysteria, it brings on a surge of such reflective loathing and despair that it destroys the observer.
Actually, I tend to suspect that watching more than about 10 minutes of debate or commentary re the upcoming U.S. Presidential election can product the same result in those not adequately case-hardened with cynicism 🙂
Re the “killing joke” – a few years ago I did manage to embed it in a commercial product (as a very functional part of the software, no less).
I don’t see why it’s suddenly questionable that Brandi wrote the book that gave instructions on how to handle the Calendar Machine…and if she wrote that book, she’s capable of being one hell of a manipulative schemer…which might make an incredible chess player. Then again, the hardcore schemer version of Brandi could have been from another time loop…
@Julie: I agree that the previous loop Brandi, if she is responsible for her plan like we used to think she was, would have been an incredible chess player. We haven’t seen any signs of that from this one, though. Things are supposed to be pretty much the same from loop to loop, so it would be strange for Brandi to that different.
The reason to suspect that Brandi might not have written the book is that Brandi failed to arrange for Nudge to lead Shelly off into the wilderness to die/almost die/whatever, even though that had to happen for “Brandi’s” plan to work as it did. Nudge led Shelly into the wilderness because Shelly went back in time and told Nudge to do it. Then, shortly after leading Shelly off, Nudge had to go and get Tina out of the morgue so she could bring Tina’s key to Minneapolis so it could be stuck in Monica’s head. It seems odd that the previous loop Brandi would have told Nudge what to do in one case, but not the other, so maybe Shelly told Nudge to do that, too. (We don’t know that the previous loop Brandi ever met Nudge, who was hiding from Phix at the time.) If you keep following that logic, maybe Nudge did everything thanks to Shelly telling her everything to do. That may make more sense than having a previous loop Shelly concoct an incredibly sophisticated plan, yet leave a major, obvious hole in it that was only fixed because Shelly went back in time.
i’m thinking of earlier strips when bud tried to talk to her about it and she didn’t want to know.
sure she told it to a fly more recently.
something that cannot argue with her and challenge her about the things she feels to be correct.
until she tells how she feels and discusses it with another person then to me she is running away.
it is understandable.
people can go through other things and be so traumatised they never speak of it their whole lives.
They’ve had what? 5 years? less?
If that’s the problem, and it might be, then she is walling herself off from everything but books and shopping, it seems. That would make it hard for anyone to help her.
I am sorry to be the contrarian here, but admitting to oneself that there are things you are not proud of, even when using a fly as a projection of oneself, isn’t ” running away”
It is the first sign in run-of-the-mill therapy, that there is progress.
maybe she is scared about what will happen when she dies.
the last time that happened she was turned into a powerful creature who destroyed a chunk of the planet.
what would happen this time?
that and there is the whole question of wether this is actually THE brandi who was in the pit – the same human girl we all are – or another brandi who was created. when she dies would she continue. does she even have the hope she would?
But whose death? Is she afraid of her own mortality should she have the procedure done, or the possible deaths of many, many humans should the cells fall into the wrong hands? Is this her protective nature coming to the fore? A protector she could not be were she to drop dead at some point in the future (or lose powers) because she had the symbol placed on her? Currently she is in the right position to watch over humanity. She is, literally, a real superhero should she choose to become one.
Very good illustration of Brandi’s habit of freezing when confronted with the unexpected, here.
She isn’t even registring what Monica says.
Brandi has an amazing amount of self-knowledge. She is, indeed, worthless when stuff goes haywire…. Like many ‘thinkers’ she doesn’t deal very well with stuff she hasn’t thought through.
I, hereby, reject the notion that she is a ditz, far from it,but she’s a bit( much!) like an asperger-sufferer: bad in dealing with sudden changes. (i know what I am talking about here
😉 ..)
There is of course the possibility that all those previous bundle-up’s ofthe calendar-machine resets did something to Brandi.
On the other hand, Brandi found a way to outwit herself through having Bud rip-out some pages of her diary (unlike eschmenk, I am convinced the diary is truly hers)
Bud also mentioned Brandi and chess. Bud is not stupid at all. She would recognize Brandi’s intelligence in tactics and such. If Bud thought Brandi an dumb airhead, she would have already stated that clearly. Bud is, what we dutch call “een flap-uit” a motormouth without inhibitions.
Brandi is still an einstein, but is severely hampered by some mental problems. Autism has as one of it’s symptoms, a serious risk of ” flipping-out” when unforeseen stuff happens. Again, I know all too damn well how that works Brandi is a prime example of a socially reasonably well adapted autist, i.e. An Asperger-sufferer.
There is of course the possibility that all those previous bundle-up’s ofthe calendar-machine resets did something to Brandi.
On the other hand, Brandi found a way to outwit herself through having Bud rip-out some pages of her diary (unlike eschmenk, I am convinced the diary is truly hers)
I still think we are still reliving another CM Loop, probably loop #55 if Phix was accurate in her description to Monica… remember how we were all shocked by Paul killing Shelly until we found out about Shellinx living backwards in time… i think something similar is going on here, right from the time Stinky showed up!
Keep in mind that Shelly went backwards in time probably knowing all of the “Einstein” stuff and talked to Phix and Nudge about at least some of it before it happened. Nudge (a trickster) or Phix could have forged Brandi’s book.
We know that Nudge needed to do a least a couple of things to make the plan work and Nudge talked to Shelly, not Brandi, about leading Shelly off into the wilderness, which was one of those things. It seems likely that Nudge also talked with Shelly, not Brand, about getting Tina out of the morgue and bringing the key to Minneapolis, too.
Last thing I am about to say on it. Either Bud is star-struck by Brandi, and is rather dumb herself, OR she gave a good resume on Brandi, or You really feel some kind of aversion towards Brandi..:
I used to really like Brandi as a character and was hoping that we would see how the previous Brandi arranged everything or see the current Brandi rising to the occasion some other way. One of the reasons I hated the Shelly goes back in time arc was that it badly undermined Brandi as a character. In the broader arc, I would have thought that she would have tried to learn everything she could about the artifact and would have looked for ways to be helpful (I can understand her not going to Ireland, though), but she didn’t seem to do that at all. Therefore, I’ve changed my mind about her.
Man, even sitting, Brandi is barely a head shorter then Monica. On the good side I think Brandi’s “Backrub” made Monica a little skinnier. Pretty sure it all got pushed north though.
Lord, I’m so confused.
But in a good way. XD
Confusion Corner is open for business as usual then. I’ll have a Latte thanks.
White chocolate mocha with a cream cheese croissant for me thanks
ShadOBabe- I’ve got pizza and pasteries on the table by the couch
*pats*
brandi is just being human
she is trying to focus but the amazing news she has just been told is overwhelming her thoughts so its breaking through and making her seemingly jump from subject to subject.
Bringing a plate full of my home-made madeleines and some fresh raspberries. Don’t forget, cushion 42 is mine.
What in particular is confusing you? 🙂 I’m reserving my confusion for tomorrow since I feel like this comic is a transition to further explanation.
I don’t see the confusion. Brandi is feeling overwhelmed and scared, so she’s blabbering and hugging the life out of Monica, and so on. Suddenly she has the chance to change something she didn’t know was possible and thought she had accepted–only now she discovers she’s not so comfortable with being immortal, or being human.
When you only have one choice, things are simple: you find a way to cope. Suddenly she has a choice to make.
However, she is beginning to cope: at least she’s not thinking only of herself now: “We” says she’s thinking of her buddies, both in their plight of immortality, and in their possible help.
Actually, the “we” is the only part that is confusing for me. She acted as if she didn’t want to help by doing anything and didn’t even ask questions before, so why is she acting as if she had something to do with it now? It’s possible that she was doing something, but there has been no sign of it so far.
I read the shift from “you” to “we” as a sign that now she’s willing to join the effort, that she’s no longer the lone
wolfgolem.My reading of that shift was in line with bmonk’s. Only I was reading it as moving from more of an accusatory stance (you did this) to one of acceptance that she is a part of the group that did this together.
Gotta love how many different ways the written word can be interpreted. 🙂
I think she might also be acknowledging the idea that her past selves might have been involved in this. even thought the Calendar Machine is no more Brandi might realize that the after effects are still showing up.
Huh? I thought vimana were powered by mercury vortex engines, not plutonium…
Well that’d explain why certain Pre-Harappan sites had 50x more background radiation with no known natural sources nearby.
Ouch – stars coming out of your back are never a good sign…
ive seen stars comming from worst places 🙂
girlswithslingshot readers will know where 😉
That is a truly funny strip.
Yeah, GWS was what I was hinting at… 😀
well if she wore a nappy
monica should have a corset 😀
it IS nearly halloween
time for monica the pirate again? 😀
As much as I hate to say it, with Monica’s “endowments” I would expect that her bras would have to be part corset to prevent any damage to her shoulders that bra straps would cause.
I guess that means Brandi doesn’t know what Shelly went through. I wonder what she’ll think about that. Will Monica even tell her that, or will they continue keeping Brandi out of the loop?
i thought at first that they were accidently keeping her out of the loop
almost seems like they are doing it deliberatly now.
If nobody – apparently including May – knew about the vimana cells, then it was still an accident.
I’m going to agree with Fairportfan here. If Brandi’s the only one who even knew what those things were called, then I’d wager chances were good that she wasn’t being kept in the dark intentionally. The rest of the crew had no reason to expect that Brandi knew as much as she does about the technology they played with. In fact, they all seemed to think that May would know the most.
monica could have just said ‘shelly found them … sort of… long story…’
but monica didn’t. just kinda avoided it and changed the subject…
then again she is still trying to deal with the whole shelly thing so prolly just doesn’t want to talk about it hence the not talking about it 🙂
But they did know about them, so I don’t understand the point.
IIRC, Monica knew that Maya designed the artifact and it seemed to be general knowledge that it had a power cell in it even if Shelly didn’t know the name was “vimana cell”. The fact that Bud bet Brandi over whether or not Monica would touch the artifact indicates that she wasn’t keeping it a secret from Brandi.
I don’t think the fact that Maya didn’t immediately recognize her invention is that important. Tons of Celtic cross shaped things have been built that had nothing to do with Maya’s design. I don’t even know if the outside shape is part of her design; she might have just designed the guts of it.
In advance
Ooo…I’d forgotten about the wager with Brandi. 🙂 That does put a different spin on things.
But knowing about the artifact is different than knowing about the radioactive power source that was added to the relic by Shelly after living millennia in reverse. It’s possible that the Vimana Cell was actually the radioactive bit that killed the 1st Shelly in the Time Forest…hence Brandi being unaware that they’d located one, and being out of the loop.
(I still don’t think that leaving her out was intentional though. :P)
@Julie: I don’t particularly think it was intentional either, so don’t stick you tongue out at me! 😛
However, I think it’s possible that Bud was concerned that if Brandi knew about the cell, she might worry about it like a nervous Nellie, so Bud chose to let sleeping dogs lie. Still, if Brandi had acted like she really wanted to know what was going on, I think Bud would have told her, or Brandi could have found out from someone else, even if that were the case.
@Fairportfan: I took Paula to mean the period after Shelly returned with the artifact. I think Maya may have had it for months, assuming Bud gave it to her reasonably quickly after Shelly returned with it. Monica’s hair grew a lot between Shelly’s trip and now.
If I had been effectively immortal for as long as Brandi, I’d probably fear being mortal again too.
Not to mention the worry of missing what little life you have left, due to a warped perception of time passage.
especially when you think of what happened the last time she was a mortal girl.
Going from ‘unbreakable’ to ‘soap bubble’ is a dangerous transition.
Yeah, for us that transition happens mostly between 18 and your first motorcycle accident… For a centuries-old golem, itmust be quite the shock.
Yup. It would completely redefine the whole way you relate to the physical world, and to every decision you make in your life. Every action would now have a new potential consequence… “Will I get hurt as a result?”
Doesn’t even have to be a motorcycle/i> accident – either
(A) The five-meter flight in an open sports car, landing pointed back the way we came (and, incidentally, destroying what, i only found out forty years later, may have been one of the rarest cars in the world*)
or
B: The ten-speed bicycle accident a year or two later that sent me to the Emergency Room for three hours of repairs to my right arm, leaving me with fascinating scars still visible forty years later
were fully eye-opening to convince me
================
*It was an eight-year-old (1963 in 1971) Austin-Healey Sprite “Mk 2.5” (Mark 2 bodywork and Mk 3 suspension, engine, instruments and front disk brakes) … which, until i added one line to the Wikipedia article on Spridgets, was listed only as “rumoured” to exist in very small numbers. “One” is a small number…
(My addition is the parenthetical line at the end of the section.)
Oops. Didn’t include the </i>…
wow. have you met clarkson yet?? 🙂
What’s a clarkson?
The thought of one moment being nigh omnipotent with nearly phenomenal cosmic powers suddenly transformed to a fragile mortal girl, being vulnerable to the elements and even her environment is a very frightening prospect.
More Vimana cells. Oh boy. Hitler’s astrologer. Rasputin. Mick Jagger. Graceland. Area 51. Papa Doc Duvalier. The Edsel. Zombies.
The places you’ll go! The people you’ll see!
“The Edsel Zombies”.
Great name for a Sixties-revival band…
Brilliant idea!
Yugo, man!
Hsssssssss
Hey, don’t go hatting Yugos … One of the last ones was made into a nice shower. ;-p
I think he was probably commenting on the pun… or on the questionable ancestry, habits, and morals of the punster 😉
Brandi’s question has not been answered to Brandi’s satisfaction, she’s just too wrapped up in the implications of her mortality to follow up.
The next logical question should be, “How did we get a vimana cell over from another timeline?” Even ‘ditzy’ Brandi would make that her next question.
Monica is prioritizing by importance. Loose vimana cells are one of those Lanthian artifacts that need to be cleaned up–they’re lethally radioactive. Asking Brandi “Don’t you know what Shelly did for Jin?” can wait a beat.
By the same measure, Brandi is not asking after how things were obtained across timelines post-CM, because her mortality is the greater danger, possibly not just to herself. Does she feel vulnerability would keep worse elements out of check? Or, as her roughly grabbing her glyph reader again here demonstrates, would mortality drop her inhibitions to cut loose as they did initially for Jin?
We know that Jin wanted to die and Bud wanted the ability to change. What the hell does Brandi want.
brandi wants not to be asked what she wants
she seems to want to forget about her time as the chimeric monster and the time in the pit
both of which is very understandable but not helpful for her.
you cannot deal with things if you keep running from them.
I dunno.. She did aknowledge her abhorrence at her own feelings of revenge and bloodlust when recalling her ordeal in the pit.
I would notcall that ” running away”
It seems more that she never fathomed that there was a way back from golem-ness, despite her unlimited access to the library of all that was ever written, and thusly decided it was of no use to endlessly re-think her existence.
As i stated earlier, she has an almost Taoistic way of accepting things as they have expired, unlike Bud and Jin, who were constantly bemoaning their existence and plight, and constantly busy trying to do something about done things, while not trying to think too much about the past.
Bud and Jin were much busier running from the past than Brandi imho…. * shrugs* at least that’s how I see it..
Addendum: Brandi only started to move when there was a realistic chance of doing something about a serious problem. I mean with her diary, and all.
That was the real Brandy in action. Getting on the move in a way that scared Bud, impressed as Bud is by Brandi’s intelligence, she doesn’t understand her best buddy.
Remember that Brandi is also a very good chessplayer, used to plan many moves ahead. Stuff like Vimana-cells are too unexpected for her, smart as she is, she freezes..closes-down in a kind of autism.
Heh.
Von Goom’s Gambit
(Scroll down for the short story)
Von Goom’s Gambit — I haven’t laughed so hard in a long time… Thank you!
… so they shot him again….
Ha!
Consider the possibility that the way Bud doesn’t understand Brandi is that Bud thinks that Brandi is unusually intelligent. Bud might think that Brandi is intelligent just because she thinks that Brandi wrote that book, but it’s questionable that Brandi did it now. We know now that the previous loop Brandi didn’t set up things as well as Bud (and we) thought that she did and maybe the previous loop Brandi didn’t do anything at all.
Right now is not accepting things very well, nor with Bud earlier, and before that she was just clueless. Same as here: She waited until it was too late to do anything (didn’t do her job) and then freaked out afterwards. Bud and especially Jin think about what might happen and react proactively, but Brandi doesn’t. She claims that she can’t handle curveballs, but that just seems to be a bad excuse given way she has been depicted so far. If she got involved more and used her brain (assuming she is reasonably intelligent), she wouldn’t be facing so many curveballs. If she had been more involved she would have already known about the power cell, for example. If she had worked with Maya, she might have known what Maya intended to do to Jin.
Von Goom’s gambit = Monty Python’s ” killing joke” yes?
@eschmenk
*shrugs* maybe. Not how I see it. Let’s agree to disagree…
I have to disagree with that. She seems to be a lousy chessplayer who doesn’t plan at all. There is no reason for the Vimana-cells to be unexpected. Judging from Monica’s hair, she had many months to find out that Shelly brought one back and to learn that Maya was going to put it inside Jin at some point. She just didn’t ask what was going on as if she didn’t care about Jin. Why didn’t she ask any questions about the relic? She knew about it because she bet Bud that Monica wouldn’t touch it.
@Jay-Em: I’m fine with agreeing to disagree. I’m not certain that I’m right, but it’s the way I’m seeing things now, which is very different than the way I saw things earlier. I didn’t see your “agree to disagree” comment before posting the previous one.
@Jay-Em – yes, Von Goom’s Gambit sounds like the “dark side” of the Monty Python killing joke. Rather than inducing lethal hysteria, it brings on a surge of such reflective loathing and despair that it destroys the observer.
Actually, I tend to suspect that watching more than about 10 minutes of debate or commentary re the upcoming U.S. Presidential election can product the same result in those not adequately case-hardened with cynicism 🙂
Re the “killing joke” – a few years ago I did manage to embed it in a commercial product (as a very functional part of the software, no less).
To me, Von Goom’s Gambit sounds like something more from the Necronomicon than Monty Python’s joke.
I don’t see why it’s suddenly questionable that Brandi wrote the book that gave instructions on how to handle the Calendar Machine…and if she wrote that book, she’s capable of being one hell of a manipulative schemer…which might make an incredible chess player. Then again, the hardcore schemer version of Brandi could have been from another time loop…
@Julie: I agree that the previous loop Brandi, if she is responsible for her plan like we used to think she was, would have been an incredible chess player. We haven’t seen any signs of that from this one, though. Things are supposed to be pretty much the same from loop to loop, so it would be strange for Brandi to that different.
The reason to suspect that Brandi might not have written the book is that Brandi failed to arrange for Nudge to lead Shelly off into the wilderness to die/almost die/whatever, even though that had to happen for “Brandi’s” plan to work as it did. Nudge led Shelly into the wilderness because Shelly went back in time and told Nudge to do it. Then, shortly after leading Shelly off, Nudge had to go and get Tina out of the morgue so she could bring Tina’s key to Minneapolis so it could be stuck in Monica’s head. It seems odd that the previous loop Brandi would have told Nudge what to do in one case, but not the other, so maybe Shelly told Nudge to do that, too. (We don’t know that the previous loop Brandi ever met Nudge, who was hiding from Phix at the time.) If you keep following that logic, maybe Nudge did everything thanks to Shelly telling her everything to do. That may make more sense than having a previous loop Shelly concoct an incredibly sophisticated plan, yet leave a major, obvious hole in it that was only fixed because Shelly went back in time.
i’m thinking of earlier strips when bud tried to talk to her about it and she didn’t want to know.
sure she told it to a fly more recently.
something that cannot argue with her and challenge her about the things she feels to be correct.
until she tells how she feels and discusses it with another person then to me she is running away.
it is understandable.
people can go through other things and be so traumatised they never speak of it their whole lives.
They’ve had what? 5 years? less?
If that’s the problem, and it might be, then she is walling herself off from everything but books and shopping, it seems. That would make it hard for anyone to help her.
“not immediately sharing” is running away?
I am sorry to be the contrarian here, but admitting to oneself that there are things you are not proud of, even when using a fly as a projection of oneself, isn’t ” running away”
It is the first sign in run-of-the-mill therapy, that there is progress.
Looks like Monica needs a chiropractor. {I kid} Seriously, Brandi looks scared. Not scared to death but scared of Death.
Hey, it worked. COOL.
maybe she is scared about what will happen when she dies.
the last time that happened she was turned into a powerful creature who destroyed a chunk of the planet.
what would happen this time?
that and there is the whole question of wether this is actually THE brandi who was in the pit – the same human girl we all are – or another brandi who was created. when she dies would she continue. does she even have the hope she would?
I am not scared of death. I am scared of coming back to life as a sparkly vampire.
There are worse fates than returning as a sparkly vampire.
Possibly the worst (or least dignified) is to return as a vegetarian zombie. You don’t even have the dubious “pleasure” of enjoying blood-lust.
All you can do is shuffle along a country road, mumbling “Grains! GRAINS!”
Don’t they stumble along country laaaanes looking for graaaains in waaaaains?
Only when it raaaaainnns, I suppose 😉
But whose death? Is she afraid of her own mortality should she have the procedure done, or the possible deaths of many, many humans should the cells fall into the wrong hands? Is this her protective nature coming to the fore? A protector she could not be were she to drop dead at some point in the future (or lose powers) because she had the symbol placed on her? Currently she is in the right position to watch over humanity. She is, literally, a real superhero should she choose to become one.
I’d like to come back as a bicycle seat. A Vampire bicycle seat.
I respect your choice, but here’s mine.
This part of the thread is reminding me of an ancient joke.
Very good illustration of Brandi’s habit of freezing when confronted with the unexpected, here.
She isn’t even registring what Monica says.
Brandi has an amazing amount of self-knowledge. She is, indeed, worthless when stuff goes haywire…. Like many ‘thinkers’ she doesn’t deal very well with stuff she hasn’t thought through.
I, hereby, reject the notion that she is a ditz, far from it,but she’s a bit( much!) like an asperger-sufferer: bad in dealing with sudden changes. (i know what I am talking about here
😉 ..)
Something happened to Brandi in one of the most recent “timelines”. She went from being the Einstein to being the “Slightly not there” type.
There is of course the possibility that all those previous bundle-up’s ofthe calendar-machine resets did something to Brandi.
On the other hand, Brandi found a way to outwit herself through having Bud rip-out some pages of her diary (unlike eschmenk, I am convinced the diary is truly hers)
Bud also mentioned Brandi and chess. Bud is not stupid at all. She would recognize Brandi’s intelligence in tactics and such. If Bud thought Brandi an dumb airhead, she would have already stated that clearly. Bud is, what we dutch call “een flap-uit” a motormouth without inhibitions.
Brandi is still an einstein, but is severely hampered by some mental problems. Autism has as one of it’s symptoms, a serious risk of ” flipping-out” when unforeseen stuff happens. Again, I know all too damn well how that works Brandi is a prime example of a socially reasonably well adapted autist, i.e. An Asperger-sufferer.
Ps Oh,and being an Einstein and a shop-a-holic aren’t mutually exclusive… Although it’s mostly men that seem to think it is … 😀 😀
Yes, i am vehemently defending Brandy from all assumptions of ditzieness/airheadedness, I know, frizzy hair seems to do that to me. 😛
I am convinced from studying his history that Einstein was an Asperger-sufferer.
I still think we are still reliving another CM Loop, probably loop #55 if Phix was accurate in her description to Monica… remember how we were all shocked by Paul killing Shelly until we found out about Shellinx living backwards in time… i think something similar is going on here, right from the time Stinky showed up!
Keep in mind that Shelly went backwards in time probably knowing all of the “Einstein” stuff and talked to Phix and Nudge about at least some of it before it happened. Nudge (a trickster) or Phix could have forged Brandi’s book.
We know that Nudge needed to do a least a couple of things to make the plan work and Nudge talked to Shelly, not Brandi, about leading Shelly off into the wilderness, which was one of those things. It seems likely that Nudge also talked with Shelly, not Brand, about getting Tina out of the morgue and bringing the key to Minneapolis, too.
Last thing I am about to say on it. Either Bud is star-struck by Brandi, and is rather dumb herself, OR she gave a good resume on Brandi, or You really feel some kind of aversion towards Brandi..:
Bud on Brandi
I think it’s clear that Bud really believes what she says about Brandi, but we’ve never seen how she got that opinion. Maybe she’s confusing knowledge of obscure things with intelligence. Even Brandi didn’t seem to think she had it in her to do what Bud thought she did.
I used to really like Brandi as a character and was hoping that we would see how the previous Brandi arranged everything or see the current Brandi rising to the occasion some other way. One of the reasons I hated the Shelly goes back in time arc was that it badly undermined Brandi as a character. In the broader arc, I would have thought that she would have tried to learn everything she could about the artifact and would have looked for ways to be helpful (I can understand her not going to Ireland, though), but she didn’t seem to do that at all. Therefore, I’ve changed my mind about her.
Man, even sitting, Brandi is barely a head shorter then Monica. On the good side I think Brandi’s “Backrub” made Monica a little skinnier. Pretty sure it all got pushed north though.
28-K?
http://youtu.be/YCKoEpUP6gQ (NSFW)
Me too, Brandi, me too.
But what if her gloem powers are all that are keeping her golem powers from snapping her back in half.