Chalk This Up 2016-01-26

[DilyV]

http://wapsisquare.com/comic/chalk-this-up/

But all the other stuff......

[AnotherFairportfan]

Arson, Murder and Jaywalking {TVT}

[FreeFlier]

http://wapsisquare.com/comic/chalk-this-up/

But all the other stuff......

Really can't argue that one . . .

. . .

I seem to remember a comic with Monica being chased by butterflies . . .

--FreeFlier

[oldmanmickey]

Shes not a lier, that much is truth

[Cortanis]

... ouch, but true. I still have to go with the third party manipulation or accidental personal manipulation. I want to point out how little we actually know about Monica and her past/family here. We know she has family in Mexico, we've seen about 6 characters, and we've seen her old pics of her grandfather. How is she related to the family in Mexico, mother or father's side?, and what happened to/where are her parents? Given how the Wapsiverse has opened up so vastly to include characters and creatures from many mythologies and folklore's, what's the potential of her family having a number of para blood lines intersecting in it? Somewhere out there we know that their are some pantheons that have at least one deity devoted to nature or spring. Maybe "family" is just giving her a good dig from time to time.

[AnotherFairportfan]

Well, since her surname is Villareal and not Sullivan, the Mexican part of the family would appear to be on her father's side...

She's visited family in Mexico at least once in the comic

[Opus the Poet]

How much of her being the JG is because of the key in her head, and how much because of who she was before "fixing" the Calendar Machine? She was already the Demon Shepherd before that incident, and there are hints that she was of Titan descent after the incident, which means that there is a very high probability she had the same lineage before the incident at the Calendar Machine.

[GlytchMeister]

How much of her being the JG is because of the key in her head, and how much because of who she was before "fixing" the Calendar Machine? She was already the Demon Shepherd before that incident, and there are hints that she was of Titan descent after the incident, which means that there is a very high probability she had the same lineage before the incident at the Calendar Machine.

What do keys do?

They unlock things... Or lock them.

Where the key locked Monica's demon doorway, it simultaneously unlocked Monica's full potential. At least, that's how I see it.

[Cortanis]

Well, since her surname is Villareal and not Sullivan, the Mexican part of the family would appear to be on her father's side...

She's visited family in Mexico at least once in the comic

That's actually very misleading if you take into account the tradition of women taking the men's family name. Case in point, family photos can distinctly tell you that I personally take very much after my mother's side of the family. Genetically, we're mostly Irish on my mother's side and German on my father's side. But in my mother's side you'll find that the family name jumps from Kelsey, then to Guilliam, and then to Haynes with my mother. If my fiancee takes my name, her's is Campose, she'll be jumping from Mexican to German surname heritage with only me to blame. I have 6, known, sisters and the surname jumps get rather crazy from there.

[AnotherFairportfan]

Well, since her surname is Villareal and not Sullivan, the Mexican part of the family would appear to be on her father's side...

She's visited family in Mexico at least once in the comic

That's actually very misleading if you take into account the tradition of women taking the men's family name. Case in point, family photos can distinctly tell you that I personally take very much after my mother's side of the family. Genetically, we're mostly Irish on my mother's side and German on my father's side. But in my mother's side you'll find that the family name jumps from Kelsey, then to Guilliam, and then to Haynes with my mother. If my fiancee takes my name, her's is Campose, she'll be jumping from Mexican to German surname heritage with only me to blame. I have 6, known, sisters and the surname jumps get rather crazy from there.

Right. Her Irish Grandpa's name was Sullivan.

His daughter would be a Sullivan, until she married, at which point she became "Villareal" - which means Monica's father must be Mexican, which is what i said..

Now, her maternal grandmother quite possibly/probably was also Mexican, but...

[Cortanis]

Well, since her surname is Villareal and not Sullivan, the Mexican part of the family would appear to be on her father's side...

She's visited family in Mexico at least once in the comic

That's actually very misleading if you take into account the tradition of women taking the men's family name. Case in point, family photos can distinctly tell you that I personally take very much after my mother's side of the family. Genetically, we're mostly Irish on my mother's side and German on my father's side. But in my mother's side you'll find that the family name jumps from Kelsey, then to Guilliam, and then to Haynes with my mother. If my fiancee takes my name, her's is Campose, she'll be jumping from Mexican to German surname heritage with only me to blame. I have 6, known, sisters and the surname jumps get rather crazy from there.

Right. Her Irish Grandpa's name was Sullivan.

His daughter would be a Sullivan, until she married, at which point she became "Villareal" - which means Monica's father must be Mexican, which is what i said..

Now, her maternal grandmother quite possibly/probably was also Mexican, but...

Not necessarily.... following the family tree down to my fiancee and me, we have Campose and Haynes.... our son's is Rodregues. Fun fact when you put down the name on a birth certificate is that you can decide on the first and last name. No boys run in my fiancee's family so we decided that he could take her family's name to continue that one on. In my mother's side of the family, their isn't a tradition per say of naming the sons Robert. It is kind of generational thing though.

Very easily you could be talking about the women running in the family of keeping the family name if no boys are born. So you could get Villareal & Sullivan to Villareal & ?????? and then finally to Monica.

[Gyrrakavian]

Diplomacy roll
*rolls di*
2


To be fair, Jin has known several versions of Monica.

[eee]

Yes, step VERY CAREFULLY through that minefield, Jin...

I am glad to see Monica isn't letting go of this, though. There's clearly something wrong, and it would be good if they figured out what it is before it gets serious.

[lake_wrangler]

Yes, step VERY CAREFULLY through that minefield, Jin...

I am glad to see Monica isn't letting go of this, though. There's clearly something wrong, and it would be good if they figured out what it is before it gets serious.

Well, it passed from running gag to canon when Monica showed she was aware of the pattern when she told Kevin about it. Now, it looks like she will try to do something about it (even if it's only to try to figure out the why and how, for now...)

[jwhouk]

As one of the golems, she cannot knowingly lie to her. She said as much.

So... She chose to answer the question she could speak the truth about.

EDIT to add: V I L L A R R E A L. That funny lan-gu-age of ours stuck an extra R in her last name. Also, we have only seen five of her relatives in-strip - Granpa in flashbacks, her Tia and Tio, and her two cousins. The cousins are all presumed to be Villarreals.

[Dave]

(even if it's only to try to figure out the why and how, for now...)

I'm beginning to suspect that is related to Monica's nature and powers.

We've never known where the power/energy required for Monica's poiting actually comes from. Teleportation moves people and objects around, often upwards against the pull of gravity and often far across the planet to locations having a significantly different intrinsic velocity vector. Something has to be supplying the power to change Monica's kinetic and potential energies!

Poiting herself and Tina and Shelly 10,000 feet upwards was no mean feat: try walking up Mount Shasta with a friend on each shoulder and you'll see what I mean!

The Golden Girls and Tepoz and Mayahuel are Lanthian technological constructs and would have a built-in power source of one sort or another. Bud's is clearly a heavy duty model which would find a simple momentum shift to be of no real significance.

Monica, though, was poiting in a human body long before she got any sort of technological or mystical "upgrade" (i.e. the Phoenix-blood key).

So, where did that energy come from?

My guess is that she has a genuine "Maxwell's Demon" hanging around her. It's harvesting the thermal energy in the atmosphere and channeling it to Monica to power her poiting (and perhaps, now, her regenerative power). In doing so, the Demon inevitably cools the atmosphere, sometimes causing it to supersaturate... all of the moisture instantly condenses out as snow, and FOOMP!

So, Monica might want to have a chat with her demons, and see if she could persuade Chills (formally "Shivers Down Your Spine At Night") to be a bit more careful about where the energy-harvest waste products are ending up. Obvious violations of the second law of thermodynamics are likely to attract unwanted attention.

The butterflies and birds and hornets? Maybe Monica's harvested-energy field is perturbing gravity, and they're all just "falling downhill" towards her? Maybe the Phoenix blood has changed her biochemistry in a way that triggers attractive or defensive reactions in some animals?

[jwhouk]

Yanno, as much as that sounds like the "A Wizard Did It" trope, a demon being responsible works...

[AnotherFairportfan]

Hmmm. "Intrinsic velocity vector". Monica has a built-in Bergenholm?

[FreeFlier]

Hmmm. "Intrinsic velocity vector". Monica has a built-in Bergenholm?

The planet is rotating . . . the energy for the velocity change has to come from somewhere.

One of the scifi authors - maybe Niven - did a nice analysis of it, but basically as you go north, you have to dump energy somewhere . . . go south and you have to add energy. Uphill, add, downhill dump . . . east and west have the same issues, but I don't remember which way causes energy dump.

--FreeFlier

[Dave]

Hmmm. "Intrinsic velocity vector". Monica has a built-in Bergenholm?

I hoped somebody would catch the reference

I don't think it's like a Bergenholm, in that Monica and her carry-alongs don't start puking their guts out from lack of inertia when they arrive.

Actually, it's a bit more like the momentum compensation system in Larry Niven's Known Space stories. If you use a transfer booth (or transfer discs), the system has to have a way of providing/absorbing/shifting your momentum so that you're "at rest" with respect to the location you arrive, rather than being in your new location but "at rest" with respect to your starting location.

One of the scifi authors - maybe Niven - did a nice analysis of it, but basically as you go north, you have to dump energy somewhere . . . go south and you have to add energy. Uphill, add, downhill dump . . . east and west have the same issues, but I don't remember which way causes energy dump.

That's exactly what I was thinking of.

If you teleport from west to east, your original momentum vector would tend to fling you up into the air. If you 'port from east to west, your original momentum vector would tend to slam you down into the ground.

"Doc" Smith dealt with a somewhat similar issue, in "Skylark Three", when Richard Seaton developed a "zone of force" which had the effect of isolating the user from all outside forces, including gravity. Turn it off, and you'd continue to move in a straight line, while the Earth rotated away from under you (and also moved away from you in its circular orbit around the sun). From the point of view of an observer on the ground, you'd fly off into the air at an ever-increasing velocity.