Monday's comic!

[murgatroyd_666]

https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20220321

It's good to see such loyalty and trust!

Comments

[01d55]

I had thought that Monahan might have the opportunity to defect and good fortune to meet Mr. Crothers, friend of rats & eligible bachelor. Alas, barring a next-page rescue, it now appears that romance, and also continuation of the giant rat theater, is not to be.

[kelkyag]

I wouldn't entirely rule out rescue yet. Lucrezia may have to build transfer equipment before she can attempt to take over Monahan's body.

(Is there any chance Monahan has been in contact with Loremistress Milvistle's faction? She's clearly spent plenty of time working here without Lucrezia's supervision.)

[01d55]

"I shall begin immediately!" appears to imply that Lucrezia has transfer equipment built into this clank body. The electrical effects we see on the last panel of this page are, I think, not merely a stunning mechanism but the beginning of the imposition of Lucrezia's mind on Monahan's brain.

[turbobeholder]

Her weird mask/headpiece may win some time.
More if it’s not really removable.

[madfilkentist]

She's changed masks once since the sequence began. It must be removable.

[marycatelli]

Hope is not yet quenched. Though it's very close.

[madfilkentist]

Monahan slammed Lucrezia's head into the side of the panel! Got to watch out for those panel edges when you're a comics character.

[pikkugen]

Nuuuuu! I was beginning to like Monahan. And I definitely sympathize with her rats. (Also yes, cheerleading IS a legitimate sport, and far harder than it seems.)

[marycatelli]

She does have her appeal.

[elsane]

...it just occurred to me that Monahan may well have a rat face under that mask.

[jbwoodford]

That would be the clever thing for her to have done...sent a masked rat in her place with a transceiver, so she can hear and speak through it.

I don't think that's going to happen, though, if only so the authors can demonstrate further just how far gone Lucrezia is. Killing Wooster in cold blood was fortunes of war; killing an old school friend with whom one has just spend some time bonding is something more.

Besides, we're only a few pages away from the end of the book, and it has to end on a cliffhanger with something really awful about to happen. The appearance of Queen Lucrezia would certainly qualify.

[elsane]

Ah, I meant, Monahan might have really given herself a rat face, I agree this has to be Monahan herself. We’ve been told that the sparks of high English society go in for body mods a lot, after all, and it would make that snouty mask of hers make sense.

(I wonder if Lucrezia will have a moment of “oh UGH” at the thought of summoning/having summoned herself into a rat-faced body.)

All speculation, anyway, we’ll find out very soon :)

[kelkyag]

The snout was a recent add-on when they went to an area with questionable air -- Steelgarter is also wearing a filtering device, and wasn't when they were still near the gate.

I wouldn't be surprised if Monahan has buck teeth or some other feature that got her teased & given rat-related nicknames at some point during school -- and if that delayed or discouraged Lucrezia from downloading herself into Monahan. When she ascended in Agatha's body she still looked mostly like Agatha.

[elsane]

Ah, you’re right! I’d forgotten that bit about the filtering. Guess the rat-vibe for the snout is just ~aesthetic~ then.