Be Her Rock 2013-10-18

[jwhouk]

Oh.

Hm.

Well. You do have a point.

[Jabberwonky]

...then Paul seems to have been planning this out for a considerable time...

He's pretty good at that.

[kingklash]

...then Paul seems to have been planning this out for a considerable time...

He's pretty good at that.

he's a Chekov's Gunsmith.

[DinkyInky]

Notice that Monica's facepaint disappears in the lower panels...

Good catch... and it's really meaningful.

The aspect of Monica that's going to be the critical one in helping Georgette heal will not (I think) have anything to do with Jaguar-ness. Nor poiting, Glyph-speaking, astral fire, sub-Titan demigodness, or anything like that.

It's Monica's essential humanity. She's a human woman, one who cares, and who dares to share her vulnerability and woundedness with Jet in order to build a bridge between them.

There are no rocks here, Georgette. Just people. You need not ask anyone, including yourself, to be as unbending as a rock must be.

This storyline pushes so many buttons for me, but how Paul portrays everything(including the supernatural aspect of it--mainly because it has a realworld explainable counterpart), is a bit close for comfort, and surprisingly enough, in a good way. If one person takes the message hidden in there to heart and starts the healing process, then it's all worth it, right?

[KnightDelight]

I just wonder what brought on this story line. It seems so out of the blue compared to the other arcs.

[Dave]

This storyline pushes so many buttons for me, but how Paul portrays everything(including the supernatural aspect of it--mainly because it has a realworld explainable counterpart), is a bit close for comfort, and surprisingly enough, in a good way. If one person takes the message hidden in there to heart and starts the healing process, then it's all worth it, right?

I'd definitely say so, yes! "Teachers come in many disguises", and a deep truth is no less true for being clad in a fictional "skin".

Many peoples' lives have been shaped by the stories they have heard or read. Mine certainly has... might not be married, might have lived a very different and lonelier life if not for what was said and done by characters who exist only on paper or film (and in the minds and hearts of the readers).

[Yamara]

... and Monica speaks from experience.... question is... is she referring to the Tar, or something else in her past we haven't been privy to yet? Could the Tar have been a way for Monica to deal with something from her own past that she's kept buried deep inside? Remember Tina telling Monica something about Jet that Monica all the sudden saw in herself?

Well, the incident with the Tar would automatically be included in this reference; the question is, is she referring to something else as well as the Tar's attack?

That day when I read through the archive whenever that was, I came to one strip from several years ago that really jumped out at me more than usual (though not literally, thankfully, or I'd probably need a new computer). In it, a conversation was going on about another character (not Georgette), and Monica suddenly made this completely out-of-the-blue comment that just didn't seem to fit in at all and that appeared to imply. . .something. The implication was very vague to me, but it did give a possible impression of some sort of unwanted sexual advances (at the very least) having happened to Monica in the past and having really upset her. I waited through the next few years' worth of comics to see if that was ever cleared up, but it was never mentioned again. Just one completely isolated comment by Monica, not even acknowledged by any of the other characters who were with her.

Maybe this is that little aside coming to the forefront at last. Or it's also quite likely that I'm reading too much into things.

I'm somewhat reluctant actually to tell which comic it was, though, because if that is the case, then Paul seems to have been planning this out for a considerable time and I'd hate to spoil the whole surprise for everybody who has forgotten about it in the interval. Eh, I'll go ahead and link to it, but not actually say which one it is. That way you can decide for yourself if you want to see it.

At the time, when we had comments right under the comics, I recall posting how I felt that this was a reference to May. (Since "should" is the drunken uncle of the word family, "may" is the drunken aunt...) Of course, it later turned out that while May was indeed responsible for golems being susceptible to alcohol, she didn't know where the Relic came from... In any case, the instantaneous (to M's frame of reference) occurrence of Shelly becoming an 80,000 year old sphinx was enough to unsettle her, a stark reminder of the insane danger her life is, leading her to an outburst, all part of M's transition to transhumanity.

Drunken uncles can certainly be a source of sexual assault, but sometimes they merely imbibe and peacefully fall asleep.

A more direct reference on this page is being "a rock" for someone, echoed directly here: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/my-rock/ --Monica's background in mental institutions is an ingrained part of her character and the plot. Places like that are high risk environments. If she was raped before meeting The Tar, that would be where I would suspect it would have happened.

I guess my problem is how retcon-y that would be.

If all of the original info is still the same then a repressed memory is not a retcon, it is just a deeper look into the characters life. Remember that Paul has avoided all retcons in the past because he has left plenty of threads in place with the characters. I would think that the same will be used here.

In addition to the rubber room, Monica has been wrestling with poor sleep for years. The Tar seems to be a new enemy to her, but perhaps she's been fighting these things in various ways for some time. Or maybe she's merely witnessed years of cries for help from damaged humans on all sides of her, every night, until the alarm goes off. In any case, there's a related and wide open plot thread that would be an explanation, and not a retcon.

I just wonder what brought on this story line. It seems so out of the blue compared to the other arcs.

The GGs were raped to create the Chimera. Medusa and Poseidon and their child Pegasus have been name-checked, and while Euryale made it sound consensual, Greek myth is pretty unforgiving when a god wants their way with a lesser being. Bia's lies and breeding experiments are positively heartwarming compared to the rest of that power-abusive shit. It's not out of the blue. Or rather, that blue has been very well-established.

Human evil has been a lurking threat around the edges of the Wapsi neighborhood for some time. Middle Eastern arms smugglers and Nazi subs aren't encountered as often as lethally indifferent insurance companies and rapists are, in real life. But they're still out there.

[Timotheus]

And let us not forget kamikaze junebugs, near lethal mole' poiting, and face slamming potholes in the bike trail of life.

[jwhouk]

Yet another one: Just Fine

Okay, maybe there is something to the possibility of M being raped at some point in the past... but when? And who?

Was it her uncle? Not the one we met, but one on her mom's side? Grandpa's "younger son, the one who was always getting into trouble"? The one that M's mom had to bail out several times?

And did it happen before or after the accident?

[TheOtherOne]

Now I begin to wonder if this whole thing is going to be more about Monica's rape and how it shaped her than about G's trauma. At least that would be a firm tie-in. OTOH we still have this lingering question about whethr or not G actually caused the plane crash through some kind of "Carie" type bottled up psychokinetic power. That would be a tie-in to the paranormal at least.

And let's not let the aunts off the hook so easily as being the perp here. Studies show that up to a third of all childhood sexual molestation is done by females. This also includes their mothers, which, from what I've read can be among the hardest to overcome in the long run.

[Boxilar]

Comic for the 21st is up on Facebook.

And those of you calling Monica's mental hospital stay the source of possible abuse were dead on.

Also, I wonder if Suzi remembers M from back then?

[jwhouk]

Is it cheating if I guess at the strip title, then change it when Pablo posts it?

[Dave]

Is it cheating if I guess at the strip title, then change it when Pablo posts it?

Well, if you guess wrong, and then change it so it looks as if you guessed right, that would probably be cheating.

If you guess right at first, and change it to be wrong, it would probably be false humility rather than cheating. Or, you might be doing an after-the-fact cover-up of your illicit use of a time travel device, to get the Causality Enforcement Bureau thugs off of your trail.

If you guess the title will be "Tuesday Morning in Brighton" and then change it to "The Cat's Moustache", it will probably be an indication that you're just funning with us... or, that you had a few too many glasses of absinthe recently.

[jwhouk]

I just waited until he posted it, so there

[Boxilar]

I just waited until he posted it, so there

I was wondering about protocol, but I figured until the new comic actually went up on the site that I shouldn't start a new thread. I'll continue with that assumption till someone says other wise.