Golden 2012-08-24

[Atomic]

Yay for happy endings!

[NOTDilbert]

Hooray!

Now, she needs to screw her courage to the sticking-place, and cautiously return to the Library (after all, Phix is immortal - it may take her longer to get over a snit than humans like Monica).

And no one can hold a grudge like an immortal, either.

[Yamara]

Yeah, all that humanity has just been burned out of Shelly forever, hunh, Bia.

[Mark N]

Yeah, all that humanity has just been burned out of Shelly forever, hunh, Bia.

Bia has underestimated the human factor. She has forgotten the fact that Connie was with Shelly and I would guess that she helped keep her humanity in her.

[Fairportfan]

And no one can hold a grudge like an immortal, either.

"[The Queen of Manticore] was reputed to hold grudges until they died of old age ... and then have them stuffed and mounted."

[Opus the Poet]

Yay! crisis averted. Peace reigns in the Wapsiverse.

Or something like peace at any rate.

[zachariah]

Careful Shelly. Squeeze to hard and the swim suit top will pop like a balloon.
(crowd in the background chanting harder, harder, harder. YEAAAA!)

That was too easy a fix. This may quiet down some of Monica's qualms about Shelly but it doesn't address them. Nor does it let her anywhere near the deeper issues. In fact if you really look at this it doesn't fix anything. All it does is give them a laugh together and remind Monica of the friendship they have. Anything beyond that will depend on how well Monica can hold on to that feeling. But all a joke and a hug does is sweep it under the carpet. Really talking is required, serious talking.

[Dave11]

And no one can hold a grudge like an immortal, either.

"[The Queen of Manticore] was reputed to hold grudges until they died of old age ... and then have them stuffed and mounted."

At least she can let go of them, given sufficient impetus...

[Dave11]

Careful Shelly. Squeeze to hard and the swim suit top will pop like a balloon.
(crowd in the background chanting harder, harder, harder. YEAAAA!)

That was too easy a fix. This may quiet down some of Monica's qualms about Shelly but it doesn't address them. Nor does it let her anywhere near the deeper issues. In fact if you really look at this it doesn't fix anything. All it does is give them a laugh together and remind Monica of the friendship they have. Anything beyond that will depend on how well Monica can hold on to that feeling. But all a joke and a hug does is sweep it under the carpet. Really talking is required, serious talking.

Yes, it does. However, before they can talk, they need to interact. This will hopefully get Monica out of the "I'm scared of you" mindspace and into "OK, we need to talk."

[Just Old Al]

Zachariah said: But all a joke and a hug does is sweep it under the carpet. Really talking is required, serious talking.

Sometimes that is the best thing, at least for the present. Sweeping things under the rug is not good, but if one can survive the moment (or the hour, or the day) that makes the hurt or the trauma easier to live with and deal with properly.

Humans are remarkable beings, if they can sort out the inputs from the hormones from logic. Time helps to do that.

Al

[bmonk]

Careful Shelly. Squeeze to hard and the swim suit top will pop like a balloon.
(crowd in the background chanting harder, harder, harder. YEAAAA!)

That was too easy a fix. This may quiet down some of Monica's qualms about Shelly but it doesn't address them. Nor does it let her anywhere near the deeper issues. In fact if you really look at this it doesn't fix anything. All it does is give them a laugh together and remind Monica of the friendship they have. Anything beyond that will depend on how well Monica can hold on to that feeling. But all a joke and a hug does is sweep it under the carpet. Really talking is required, serious talking.

Yes, it does. However, before they can talk, they need to interact. This will hopefully get Monica out of the "I'm scared of you" mindspace and into "OK, we need to talk."

And it also diffuses the peak terror of the moment, reminds Monica that she is not alone, that her friends are not total monsters--so that maybe she can hold onto her feelings to have that talk. A moment/day back, she couldn't even do that.

[chibichibi01]

Nice to see semi-normality returning, but I agree with all of you. They need to have a long -long!- talk and sort things out. Honestly, Bia should be in on this too, as well as Phix and Shel's dad.

There should be a Pow Wow.

-drops a spear into the pun vault-

[Wdot]

Careful Shelly. Squeeze to hard and the swim suit top will pop like a balloon.
(crowd in the background chanting harder, harder, harder. YEAAAA!)

That was too easy a fix. This may quiet down some of Monica's qualms about Shelly but it doesn't address them. Nor does it let her anywhere near the deeper issues. In fact if you really look at this it doesn't fix anything. All it does is give them a laugh together and remind Monica of the friendship they have. Anything beyond that will depend on how well Monica can hold on to that feeling. But all a joke and a hug does is sweep it under the carpet. Really talking is required, serious talking.

Not necessarily talking. Communicating. Some of the best of which is non-verbal. Sometimes a hug says volumes.

[Julie]

D'aawwwww! I like this page.

And while the girls do need to talk, I think that this probably did handle a large chunk of Monica's fears. This showed her that Shelly is still Shelly. They can deal with the sphinx and titan implications eventually. Really, Monica's fears about Shelly were derived from what she saw Phix doing...and that's an important distinction. She didn't see Shelly being violent and carnivorous, so her fears of her friend were more by association. Those are easier to fix (with less talking) imo.

How she handles her fear of Phix will be entirely different...

[Dave]

How she handles her fear of Phix will be entirely different...

It may require Phix being willing to take some initiative, leave the Library temporarily, and meet Monica on some sort of neutral turf. Having Euryale, Bud, and/or Brandi (or perhaps even Shelly?) present as "defenders" might help, too.

I'm not suggesting that Monica would actually be in danger during a meeting with Phix (even a solo meeting in the Library) once Phix got her anger worked out and cooled down again. I suspect that even Monica would agree she'd actually be safe enough, if she thought the matter through rationally. But, "rational" isn't the issue here... "emotional" is. Emotionally, it may be easier for Monica to face the thing she now fears so greatly, if she's on safe or neutral territory and is surrounded by a defensive team capable of destroying the "threat".

In the end, though, for Monica to deal with the danger of sphinxes, and not feel eternally like a mouse cowering in the corner, she's going to have to assert her own power. She's going to have to find some way of feeling equal to the danger.

[WilliamCA]

YAHOO! My girls are back and friends again!!

[Bathorys Daughter]

I really don't think either of the sphinxes in question can hurt Monica. If she can emergency poit (even taking someone else with her) out of a terrific explosion from a mine she was less than a foot away from, she can do the same to get away from a sphinx attack. It's totally autonomic for her now. So even if Shelly does lash out unconsciously, Monica will be safe. No guardians needed. She just has to come to rely on that to alleviate her fears for her physical well being.

Beyond that, it will be the whole feral sphinx thing she will have to yet get passed.

[Jabberwonky]

I really don't think either of the sphinxes in question can hurt Monica. If she can emergency poit (even taking someone else with her) out of a terrific explosion from a mine she was less than a foot away from, she can do the same to get away from a sphinx attack. It's totally autonomic for her now. So even if Shelly does lash out unconsciously, Monica will be safe. No guardians needed. She just has to come to rely on that to alleviate her fears for her physical well being.

Beyond that, it will be the whole feral sphinx thing she will have to yet get passed.

Knowing you can unconsciously teleport from any attack is long way from trusting you'll teleport away from any attack.
I fall back on the day I rode a 'free fall' ride at Six Flags Over Texas, Dallas. Knowing that the ride had no history of injuries, and having ridden the thing six or seven times before, every time the bottom dropped out and you went into free-fall, the lizard part of your brain overrode every conscious thought with 'THIS IS WRONG'.
It would take a lot of vetting before I'd trust it enough to walk into a crowd of APOs, whistling and ask 'What's up, Puddy-Tat?"

[Jabberwonky]

And no one can hold a grudge like an immortal, either.

"[The Queen of Manticore] was reputed to hold grudges until they died of old age ... and then have them stuffed and mounted."

I find a heavy meal before mounting to be detrimental to the proceedings...

[kingklash]

Whatever we might feel about the shenanigans and goings-on, know that Monica and Shelly sometime need to remind each other that they have each other's back, no matter the crisis, big or little. One way I was raised, is that you can have family members that aren't even your blood relation, or even your tribe. I have aunts and uncles who are Hopi, Pima, Black, White, and it was a long time before it ever occurred to us kids that they were not "family" family. Monica and Shelly are sisters, just from different (way different in one case) parents.