Wapsi Square Forum

eee wrote:This is so not going well...

AnotherFairportfan wrote: It wasn't talking to her great-grandmother - who was actually there, being Someone Else in disguise - but her apparent suicide attempt, running in front of a bus in Mexico City, because she was being driven by her demons

Nitpick: Weren't they Tina's demons, out deliberately hurting Monica - someone other than their host - as part of the plan to fix the Calendar Machine and depose Jin's Doubt as Queen of the Demons? Although since Tina, driving behind the bus, wound up being killed when she slammed into the back as it stopped suddenly for Monica, her demons hurt her, too.

Kerric wrote:Bud's interpretation of M's behavior (driving away those to whom she had been close) seems very different (and darker) than Tina's interpretation (two souls reaching out to each other who desperately want to be together). Do you think one of them is right and the other wrong? Or can the two interpretations be reconciled?

Boxilar wrote:(from yesterday, emphasis Yamara's)
As to some other stuff. Some folks have said some particularly unkind things about Monica. She really doesn't deserve them. She's not innocent. She refused to recognise that she was using him and never let him get close to her. It's a shitty situation, but as usual in Wapsi, the people truly responsible are dead and gone, and the living are left to pick up the pieces.

Dave wrote:They've been together for years (Wapsi time). They've already been through one conflict/crisis due to the fact that Monica had chosen to hide her whole involvement with the paranormal from Kevin. She told him, only when forced to by circumstances. He didn't freak, didn't judge, has accepted the weirdness (including being poited into a womn's restroom) and has been cool and supportive.

Now, he learns that Monica had yet another piece of turbulent life-shaping history... which she didn't trust him to know about, despite what they'd been through before. And, now that she's chosen to disclose it to him, she doesn't want him to be any part of the life-process she's going to be going through to resolve it. She doesn't want, or doesn't trust, or won't accept his help and active support. She'd rather walk away from their relationship, than try to fix whatever she feels is wrong about it.

That has to be throwing a cold perspective on how he sees their relationship, looking back on it through the years. It's gotta be saying things to him, about the limitations of what he actually ever meant to her. "Chew-toy" is harsh, but I can see how he got there.

AnotherFairportfan wrote:No - Tina's demons were involved, but it was Monica's own Doubt who was chasing her/that she was running from - i ran across a page in which Doubt and Monica were confronting each other where they both specifically said so. I think it was somewhere in the sequence where Lust and Vanity wind up feeling her up (Doubt's words) from the inside.

Sidhekin wrote:Now that is a reasonable description.

But it's not a novel observation.

Reani wrote:First of all yeah, agreeing with the person who said Monica's not a true sociopath-- she shows remorse ALL the time. She was horrified by what she did to the Tar, even though in her place, many people would have reacted the same way against someone/thing that'd raped them, given the power. Yes, it was horrific but what it did to her was terrible, particularly given her history with rape and she reacted out of that raw emotion without thinking. After she did it though, her reaction was one of horror at her own actions-- which a sociopath doesn't have. She's also not very happy with what happened with Kevin herself (she claims to hate him in that panel (and I read that in the same facetious way I claim to hate my super successful younger sister) because he IS a good kind person and she caused him pain, and he reminded her of what a good kind person he is while she was doing it. Also she might realize she wouldn't handle it so well in his place) , and showed a lot of hesitance to break it off. A sociopath would have bailed the moment Jet showed up, wouldn't have pointed out that she had Kevin. A sociopath might even attempt to "keep" both Jet and Kevin, enjoying using Kevin too much to give it up once she realized she was doing it or came to accept it.

Monica's not crazy at all in a schizophrenic or delusional way, but she certainly has been through a lot of traumatic events in her life. I would guess, in my armchair psychologist way, that she's got quite a strong case of PSTD. She definitely could use counseling, anyway. (I believe that she mentioned she did see a counselor after the incident in the hospital, but so much has happened since then, and it'd probably help if it was a counselor who she could trust not to think she's nuts when she brings up the supernatural aspects, which are very important.) Anyway, people who've been hurt in the way Monica has tend to keep everyone at arm's distance regardless, and have trouble trusting anyone. I say this as someone who's had issues with this personally-- it's not that we don't like people, or even love them, but that we're terrified, and we can't help it and there's very little control there. There's this comment in Evangelion (I know, I know ) about how some people are like porcupines-- they want to get close to other people but they're scared of prickling them at the same time, and being prickled.

Honestly it's also very hard to know the right time to come out and tell people about things like that, even when you're in a close relationship. You have to know the person for a while, you're not going to tell them right away even when you start seriously dating, but then it becomes this issue of "but why didn't you tell me before", so you can't tell them then. And it just gets worse and worse. And every victim of sexual abuse or other trauma is different and deals with it differently and at a different pace, and that should be respected as well.

I don't know. I guess I'm trying to give some insight into Monica's thought process, or at least my reading of it. She's a very hurt person who needs help, and she's on a self destructive spiral, which is rather common in people like that. Pushing your friends and loved ones away is really common.

I don't know that Kevin and Bud are equipped to help her in the way she needs. I don't know if they want to, and if they don't that's perfectly understandable. Jet certainly doesn't seem to be, there's a case of the blind leading the blind there. And she doesn't seem to be aware of the fact that there's a problem and I know the saying about the first step is cheesy but it's true. You can't fix something if you don't know it's broken. It's very difficult to tell someone that something about them IS broken, and to do it in a way that won't just push them away further.

It's painful to see Kevin hurt like this, he's a kind and loveable character, but I am loving this storyline because of how much it makes me think and how compelling it is. It's conflicting.

Dave wrote:I'm getting a strong vibe here, in at least three ways: "Caught between worlds".

Monica is caught between the flawed, scarred mortal woman she's been, and the no-doubt-equally-flawed sub-Titan she has been made into.

Kevin is caught, in his way, between the mortal world and life that are his, and the rules and stresses of the paranormal world he's overlapped upon.

Bud is equally caught... the heart and spirit of a rather lonely late-teen, with the body and power and guilt of an immortal who knows she can destroy worlds (because she has already done so, pretty much).

There really aren't any bad guys here... there's no evil, nor deliberate cruelty... just sentient beings, each both empowered and flawed in his or her own way, each bearing the weight of the past and the uncertainty of the future. Each and every one of them can hurt, and does.

Dave wrote:The one good thing about the situation is that the lake appears to be fully frozen. It would be difficult for him to throw himself in, and drown his despair.

AnotherFairportfan wrote:Here's an interesting page: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/08312004/

jwhouk wrote:

AnotherFairportfan wrote:Here's an interesting page: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/08312004/

Only took her ten years.

jwhouk wrote:Point of order?

Even though the boss hasn't really mentioned it, comic time roughly follows the calendar...

jwhouk wrote:

AnotherFairportfan wrote:Here's an interesting page: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/08312004/

Only took her ten years.