Called On The Carpet 2013-08-12

[zachariah]

I blame the delicious aroma of the fish place...

Monica grabs Phix and Shelly and poits them to the same roof where this misadventure began. Phix, trying to adjust to suddenly being poited starts to get angry but suddenly relaxes as the aroma reaches her senses and she starts to drool.

Monica: Um, yeah... Smell that?

Phix: Derp erm gurgle... slurp. Say, that smells really good... (insert loud tummy rumble from Phix)

Monica and Shelly at the same time: Race ya! Last one there buys the drinks!!!

Cute but I think it sounds a little bit fishy to me. Phix's last line should have been "What the heck. Carp Diem"

[scantrontb]

I'm waiting for Monica to tell Phix to reel it in or she'll be forced to bitch slap her again... Sure, Phix took a swipe at Monica once resulting in a face off situation (literally), but Monica regenerates... Phix? I'm thinking not so much...

That's my concern too: Between Phix's rage, Mons defiance and Shellys attitude, this is almost guaranteed to turn violent, and quickly.

to me it looks like Shelly has that "oops, yeah, we screwed up, sorry, won't happen again you can stop yelling at me." look... but Monica, hmm... Nope... Monica's got that snotty brat "i didn't do NUTHIN' wrong, why you yellin' at ME!?" look... this is exactly what Bia meant about letting her Titan side be her own conscience when she was talking to Shelly!... it seems that Shelly's going down the "right" path, however it seems that M is starting to be heading down the path that Shelly was afraid that SHE was going to go... towards the path that ends up with people having to say that old saying "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." about her... i meant think about it... if she doesn't "like" anybody... she poits them away, nobody can do squat... if she wants something... she poits it to her, again nobody can do squat... and if somebody DOES get under her skin in a way that she can't poit them away, for that she's got the GG's to make them all "go away" and M will be fine because SHE CAN'T DIE... yeah, unless Phix says "just" the right things right now, this could go from bad to worse real quick, and since the slide has already started just by the simple fact that M threw the first punch up there on the roof for no bloody reason other than "because i could, and i knew it wouldn't hurt her, so why NOT?" (at least the time she hit Phix was justifiable because she was trying to get her to focus, and talking about it wasn't working. her hitting Shelly... nope, just a spoiled brat...) Phix will have to work extra hard to reverse the slide, all without making M think she's being ordered around, and you how badly THAT'LL end up if she starts thinking like that...

[analyst]

Cute but I think it sounds a little bit fishy to me. Phix's last line should have been "What the heck. Carp Diem"

Carpe carp! And actions have consequences!?! <sarcasm> When did that happen? </sarcasm>

[zachariah]

Cute but I think it sounds a little bit fishy to me. Phix's last line should have been "What the heck. Carp Diem"

Carpe carp! And actions have consequences!?! <sarcasm> When did that happen? </sarcasm>

It didn't. But bad puns, and feeble efforts in that direction, respect no boundaries. But could have said:

Phix: The two of you are grounded. So I'll treat you to surf and turf.

With the correct timing it could result in grave results.

Deposits a shovel into the jar.

[Yamara]

The great takeaway from this is that humanity is being protected from knowledge.

Authors of real-world fantasy always have this decision to make: Does mankind generally know about the more powerful beings around them?
--To allow this knowledge enters genres like supers and speculative SF, because ordinary people would simply behave differently than we know them to. tl;dr: Humanity is not alone, and not on top. And therefore, such a human society would be as alien to us as any from antiquity.
--To disallow ordinary people knowledge means the story must have an answer as to why. Because as Phix points out, it's a huge job to keep billions of people in the dark about their inferior position in the universe. tl;dr: Humanity is herded like children. Paul has given us two examples in-story of what happens when Wapsi Earth simians get a hold of big titanic ideas (Lanthis, the Etheitians), and has dropped a reference to the mythological touchstone for this concept, Prometheus, as frontrunner for becoming Shelly's b-i-l.*

Shelly's doubting her self-control is part of the core of her character, from her earliest awareness of her bullying, to her dented reunion with her mother. Monica, on the other hand, has doubted her sanity, and has slowly progressed through veils of denial to finally accept the merry monster she is. Shelly knows she shouldn't scare the straights-- and doesn't want to. Monica knows that she THINKS she doesn't want to scare the "civilians"-- but her adult life has been a string of feints and warnings and signs of abject terror of her wrath.


Monica is in a similar position with the rest of mankind: Being kept in the dark makes her less dangerous . . . until she finds out how dangerous she is.


And all that leaves is finding out why.


* Hm.


---

Another possibility that just occurred to me is that M (and possibly Shelly) could get enrolled in a mandatory "immigrating to Earth 101" class as a warning, and wind up meeting Atsali as a classmate. Hmm...

I would like to see that.

I don't think "punishment" is in order. They're good kids/adolescents/etc that caused a stir. Chalk it up to a movie demo/promo reel and call it a day.

Shelly and Monica's actions have forced production on an Elektra sequel to be shot in Minneapolis. No, not a reboot: They have to learn the consequences of acting on folly in the midst of humanity.

May the gods have mercy on their tethered little souls.

[kingklash]

I think Shelly will be contrite. We Comanches are taught to respect our elders, and we know you don't get your grandmas angry.

My curiosity is about what kind of chaos did our kitties actually stir up? It had to be more than just rattle some windows and set off car alarms for Big Mama Cat to lecture them thusly.

[Wyvern]

Shelly may also have been picked up and carried back to the Bibliothiki by the scruff of her neck, dangling from Phix's mouth. That kind of deflates the wild teen ego. "Aw, Grandma...!"

[Fairportfan]

Shelly may also have been picked up and carried back to the Bibliothiki by the scruff of her neck, dangling from Phix's mouth. That kind of deflates the wild teen ego. "Aw, Grandma...!"

Oh, i wish Paul would draw that...

[Dave]

I think Shelly will be contrite. We Comanches are taught to respect our elders, and we know you don't get your grandmas angry.

My curiosity is about what kind of chaos did our kitties actually stir up? It had to be more than just rattle some windows and set off car alarms for Big Mama Cat to lecture them thusly.

Just being seen, doing things impossible to normal humans, could have been enough to raise Phix's ire. One woman with wings, another woman doing a parkour jump that would have broken a mundane's body into bloody chunks... and instead of vanishing into the haze, they walked into a restaurant and ordered the blackened swordfish.

As best as I can recall, this is only the third time Shelly has "sphinxed out" in view of the public, and it may be the first time when her altered state was really easy to notice. She fistslapped three drunk twits in the bar (but she moved so fast that nobody other than Bud realized what happened). She swooshed down on Justin and started to carry him to the hospital... up in a driving snowstorm, where people weren't likely to notice and (if they did) they might write it off as a "mass hallucination".

This time, she came down onto what was probably a fairly busy city street, right in front of a popular restaurant, had her wings on until shortly before she landed, and could easily have been in plain view of numerous people. "Plausible deniability" and "Dear God, what the hell was in that last cocktail I was served?" might not cover it... meaning that the MIB may have had to intervene before the story could spread (and rumor is the only force in the universe which can transmit information faster than the speed of light)...

... and the presence of the World Grid may mean that MIB has a hell of a time importing refills for their little flashy things.

Yeah, it does seem that the paranormal culture (or at least some of it) has a policy of keeping the presence of the paranormal out of view of the mundane majority culture. This might be a sort of Prime Directive, or it might be "Don't panic and stampede the cattle", or somewhere in between (or off at 90 degrees in some weird direction). In any case, M and S seem to have stepped outside the consensus boundaries here.

Shelly may also have been picked up and carried back to the Bibliothiki by the scruff of her neck, dangling from Phix's mouth. That kind of deflates the wild teen ego. "Aw, Grandma...!"

Oh, i wish Paul would draw that...

Oh, the look we would see on Shelly's face!

[ActionKermit]

I'd be interested to see whether Paul's MIB has any memory-modification technologies they can use to hush up security breaches. Having to rely on misdirection, blackmail and media silencing is a lot harder than pulling out a neuralizer or crop-dusting a city block with amnestic chemicals like the SCP Foundation would do.

[Fairportfan]

Shelly may also have been picked up and carried back to the Bibliothiki by the scruff of her neck, dangling from Phix's mouth. That kind of deflates the wild teen ego. "Aw, Grandma...!"

Oh, i wish Paul would draw that...

Oh, the look we would see on Shelly's face!

You know - a ShellyVision™ version might be even funnier...

[kingklash]

I realized we have seen a similar dressing-down before, with our Vamp-cops. I wonder if both team will be assigned to each other, as a means to reign in their recent tendencies to outburst paranormal reflexes.

[meisdadoo]

I can't help but hear Tommy Lee Jones chewing out Will Smith. . .

There is always an alien invasion or galactic plague about to destroy the Earth, but the only way people can get along with their happy little lives is THEY, DON'T, KNOW, ABOUT, IT!!!

[TheDOCTOR]

I get the Impression that Monica and Shelly have been called into "Sister Caligula's Office at Saint Godzilla" High School. *snerk*

[Yamara]

I think Shelly will be contrite. We Comanches are taught to respect our elders, and we know you don't get your grandmas angry.

My curiosity is about what kind of chaos did our kitties actually stir up? It had to be more than just rattle some windows and set off car alarms for Big Mama Cat to lecture them thusly.

Just being seen, doing things impossible to normal humans, could have been enough to raise Phix's ire. One woman with wings, another woman doing a parkour jump that would have broken a mundane's body into bloody chunks... and instead of vanishing into the haze, they walked into a restaurant and ordered the blackened swordfish.

<snipz>

Yeah, it does seem that the paranormal culture (or at least some of it) has a policy of keeping the presence of the paranormal out of view of the mundane majority culture. This might be a sort of Prime Directive, or it might be "Don't panic and stampede the cattle", or somewhere in between (or off at 90 degrees in some weird direction). In any case, M and S seem to have stepped outside the consensus boundaries here.

Puts Bia's comment about Bud into perspective.

A perspective Bud sometimes loses sight of, but always comes back to. And one she can even play to effect.

Perhaps the Powers only started tiptoeing around humans after they were faced with one who had the capacity to respond to injustices on their lofty level.

[bmonk]

called IT!!!!! lol

viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1143#p21649

I just knew Phix would find out about this... question is, did they at least get dinner before getting their asses chewed?

I do hope so. A good tasty meal of fish (with chips?) may help tide them over until their next meal... which they won't enjoy anywhere near as much.

You just know they're going to be eating crow.

Wouldn't vampires have to drink crow?
(Just musing a bit.)

It's not so much being a kid as Monica and Shelly adopting to a shift in their personal anxieties/emotional pressure/self awareness that could be compared to being similar to that of adolescence. . . .

Phix, of course is trying to deal with this as the most rational adult figure available but is currently dealing with a bit of a initial handicap (do as I say, not as I did).

If Phix were more mature, she might try the "I did this back in the day, and here were the consequences. For you, today, here are the consequences."