Such a Screw Up 2014-12-03

[Thor]

Well, she sorta is....

I don't think she was before, even though she felt that way, but Monica is slowly coming unglued.

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On a completely different topic, I'd like to suggest that whoever starts the thread also includes a link to the comic in question. It's common in other comic forums (for the comics that actually have forums ), and it can be quite handy for paging back and forth or to open a new tab with.

[TheDOCTOR]

Welp If you can't pick one....Post to BOTH.
Looks like they picked one.
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Lets hope Monica doesn't scare Lil' Cricket any more. PLUS I betcha once Cricket relaxes around Monica, Dietzel becomes full-sized again.

[Dave]

Nothing in common at all here.

I think Monica is having some serious second thoughts about that whole "heart of a sociopath" thing. Clearly, she isn't one... but she did act like one briefly, in the heat of anger and re-awakened rage, and that's weighing on her conscience.

[lake_wrangler]

I know theyre in the library, but those look more like church pews...

Interesting comic, today: we see Cricket jumping to conclusions and putting herself down, yet again, and Monica admits to her charge that she felt just as unworthy...

They're actually moving forward!

[Thor]

Interesting comic, today: we see Cricket jumping to conclusions and putting herself down, yet again, and Monica admits to her charge that she felt just as unworthy...

They're actually moving forward!

Moving forward doesn't help if they are facing different directions.

[zachariah]

Monica is being very hard on herself. Yes she has problems and has made mistakes. But this indication of self hate does need to be recognized and come to terms with. I feel she has dealt with this before otherwise she could not have been the semis-table personality we've come to know and love. It looks like there is a deeper issue she has not come to terms with yet that the thing with Jet has triggered. She really needs to spend some solid time exploring her inner feelings and finding out the root cause. I suspect Tina could help her a lot, or nudge. This may be the only real way she has to break out of the spiral she seems to be settling into. Radical life style changes, hopping to a new career, sudden change of romantic partners, trying to avoid situations she finds uncomfortable. All signs she has a emotional crisis creeping up on her and doesn't know why. In men this is sometimes called mid-life crisis. For Monica we'll call it, a new immortal crisis.

[Atomic]

The sight and sound of a penny dropping...

My how we can be our own worst enemies!

[Catawampus]

I know theyre in the library, but those look more like church pews...

The Library has every document ever written, so perhaps they're quipu display cases? Alternately, a place that has every religious text ever compiled might be a popular place for religious services.

They're actually moving forward!

Or at least possibly in the same direction, together.

[oldmanmickey]

At lest cricket has stopped the when in trouble when in doubt run in circles scream and shout thing. Thats a major improvement.

[jwhouk]

And now, the REAL reason why I suggest this volume should be called "Holding Up A Mirror."

We've heard this before.

[Wdot]

Maybe Monica is reflecting upon the fact that she "killed" Nudge. Yes, in a fit of anger not unlike Cricket's phantom assault on the cheerleader's Monica sent Nudge into a volcano not knowing that it was like giving a bath to a dog. Cricket possessed the character to not actually do it. I like Monica. I think, she's having a hard time adjusting to her new power level and instincts. Remember everyone else was born this way and those who weren't have had thousands of years to adjust. Monica hasn't even been the Jaguar girl for what maybe a year?!

[jwhouk]

She also killed the Tar.

[Dave]

Maybe Monica is reflecting upon the fact that she "killed" Nudge. Yes, in a fit of anger not unlike Cricket's phantom assault on the cheerleader's Monica sent Nudge into a volcano not knowing that it was like giving a bath to a dog.

She also killed the Tar.

And, I suspect, it's the combination of these two which worries her so much. She lashed out at Nudge when Nudge trickster-taunted her, using her Jaguar Girl skills in a burst of reflexive anger. She was utterly horrified when she realized what she had done... she thought she was a murderer.

Then, when the Tar raped her in Georgette's quantum demon-space, her rage awoke, and she immediately used her Jaguar Girl powers to kill it (in the way it feared most) and then quietly accepted that in the paranormal domain she is (and should be) a sociopath. When she awoke in Mucho Mocha, she was horrified by what she'd done. She had been provoked into killed in an act of sudden raging anger, even after having been through the painful lesson of what happened (or almost happened) to Nudge when she let her anger take control.

At this point it's no wonder she doesn't trust herself. She's afraid she's a sociopathic time bomb waiting to go off.

She'd suffered a horrible trauma when she was repeatedly raped in the hospital. She'd chosen to conceal her pain and anger from her friends (and Kevin), keeping them at an emotional distance rather than opening up and trusting them. She now realizes that this has left her with a serious burden of buried pain, rage, and stress... and that this can break through and cause her to strike out without thought and that she can hurt and kill when this happens.

She, and Cricket, both need to learn better ways to deal with their anger, pain, and emotional isolation. They both need to learn how to avoid striking out, acting amorally, and hurting people unnecessarily with their (considerable!) power.

As jwhouk has alluded, they're mirrors for one another. They are two sides of a single coin. Their relationship may have started out looking like a master/padawan or disciplinarian/penitent sort of thing, but I don't think that's its true nature. They are actually partners.

[DilyV]

And the light bulb flicks on...

The look of total understanding (finally) and resignation to the fact in the last panel is priceless. I think Monica finally gets it. The question is, what will she do with the knowledge? What would any of us do with the understanding that now we have unlimited power to right the wrongs that have been done to us in the past? To make those who wronged us pay a horrible price. I think Monica has been too hard on herself, but you can see why. With great power comes great responsibility, or so the saying goes. I think Monica is finally beginning to realize that fact.

The question in my mind is... We know the Tar was a part of Jet until Monica exorcised it. I wonder what the Tar forced Jet to do to others before she got acquainted with Monica the Jaguar Gurl? Monica is the Demon Shepherd, but unless I'm mistaken, the Tar wasn't a demon... so how was she able to do what she did?

[Deuce]

She also killed the Tar.

Considering the Tar raped her, and was repeatedly raping Jet... it had that coming.

[Dave]

The question is, what will she do with the knowledge? What would any of us do with the understanding that now we have unlimited power to right the wrongs that have been done to us in the past? To make those who wronged us pay a horrible price. I think Monica has been too hard on herself, but you can see why. With great power comes great responsibility, or so the saying goes. I think Monica is finally beginning to realize that fact.

Her conundrum goes even a bit deeper than that, I think.. She really cannot "right the wrongs" in many cases. The man who raped her is long-dead and probably beyond any form of retribution. Much of Monica's sense of betrayal and abandonment comes from the actions of her family and friends... people who actually cared about her and who were trying their best to help her, people she does care about, and is now afraid of hurting further.

She has immense power... but that power doesn't seem to be giving her any short-cuts to healing the pain in her past. She could hurt the people she loves, though, and she knows it, and that's part of why she's so shaken up.

The question in my mind is... We know the Tar was a part of Jet until Monica exorcised it. I wonder what the Tar forced Jet to do to others before she got acquainted with Monica the Jaguar Gurl? Monica is the Demon Shepherd, but unless I'm mistaken, the Tar wasn't a demon... so how was she able to do what she did?

Those seemed to be Jaguar Girl powers that she used (presumably imbued via the dose of Phoenix blood on the key she was brainstabbed with)... the ability to perceive a being's greatest fear, and astral fire. Her role and powers as Demon Shepherd seem to be separate, and go back further in her life... she had an unusual relationship with her demons dating back at least as far as the bus "accident", if I recall correctly.

[Jabberwonky]

Her conundrum goes even a bit deeper than that, I think.. She really cannot "right the wrongs" in many cases. The man who raped her is long-dead and probably beyond any form of retribution.

With the Jaguar Girl's abilities, he may not be as safe as you assume...

[oldmanmickey]

She also has acc ess to time travel as well so she could get her hands on him. In fact she may have actually done that.

[lake_wrangler]

She also has acc ess to time travel as well so she could get her hands on him. In fact she may have actually done that.

Time travel? Where do we ever see that as a possibility?

[Dave]

With the Jaguar Girl's abilities, he may not be as safe as you assume...

True (she's said to have the power to be the intermediary to the land of the dead).

I did say "probably".

She also has acc ess to time travel as well so she could get her hands on him. In fact she may have actually done that.

Time travel? Where do we ever see that as a possibility?

It's possible, maybe, that Monica's "through the Library portals" access, might include the Time Forest, or some other similar dimension with a reversed time-flow. However, that possibility is (I think) entirely Forum speculation rather than canon... I don't recall the subject ever having been raised, or broadly hinted at, in the strip itself.