They mean “beautiful” as in how beautiful, sweet, lovely, and innocent the fact is that Brandi is venting this awful story to such a tiny creature; a fly. A creature that has no clue what she’s saying or the significance of it.
Hopefully she’ll tell a happier story to the next fly. I’m surprised this one didn’t zoom away at mach 1 and head straight into a spider web to end it all after hearing that tale of woe.
The end of the story was not the burning. Or how the Chimera burned the world back to the stone age. The ending is how through all of that, Brandi managed to become the beautiful tender person she is now…
I wonder if that would explain the Siberean Steppes ‘Supervolcano’, the event that helped precipitate the last Ice Age and coincidentally nearly ended all life on the planet.
‘Discovery’ has some cool shows – All the time I was watching that one afew months ago, I was trying to match the Wapsi timeline.
I am SUCH a geek…..
There’s a story about Miyamoto Musashi, considered by some to be the greatest samurai who ever lived.
He was traveling, and stopped at a village inn to eat. Some locals who thought they were tough, not recognising him, began talking among themselves about what a good,valuable sword he had, and how they would appreciate it more than he did.
He didn’t appear to hear them … but he began catching flies in mid-air with his chopsticks …
Yes. I was having a nice seat on my Pity-Potty this morning, (had a canine pulled..got messy..auwtchie) but the last frames lifted my spirit like the sun peeking behind clouds after a few grey and wet days.
Aww, it’s sad to lose a canine. Now when you growl at people, they’ll only giggle instead of being terrified.
“Hehe … look at old ‘monotooth! hehe”
Yeah! Hehe … sucked in any good flys through that hole? Hehe”
“Allow me to introduce you to my leetle friend … Brandi!”
A beautiful end to a powerful story. Thank you, Paul
Absolutely beautiful. A very trying week, but the horrors of golem creation aren’t the end of the story. And thank you for not ending the week in the pit.
That’s odd. In that one it says she could have gotten out of the pit any time she wanted but here we clearly see that she was put effectively out of commission in that regard. Slicing up her hamstrings and putting an arrow through a knee does certainly not equal “She could have gotten out of that pit any time she wanted…”
Fairportfan: Are you saying the Jin did not actually have her achilles’ severed, and that Brandi is assuming it happened because she was cast into the pit with them?
Up to the point they mutilated her legs she could have, she chose to stay. Read “a token sacrafice” line, her staying of her own will, fighting back, and ending her life on her terms is what made them lose controll of the chimera.
I think it’s a matter of Monica only having heard from Bud concerning the inside story of the pit. When Bud told it, she never mentioned Jin being hobbled.
I think there’s also the matter of Jin *choosing* to be there in the pit. I always thought that’s why the Chimera went out of control. Because one of the components made a choice to be there.
Worse for Jin, since Calendar Machine comes before Chimera, every time the Machine resets, she would have to make the same choice again and go through the horror and degradation of being made a Chimera again.
Brandi and Bud only went through the Chimera process once (from their personal perspectives). That Jin’s psyche *can* be fixed after what she’s been through says she’s one tough girl.
Fairportfan: Are you saying the Jin did not actually have her achilles’ severed,
No – but each character’s telling of the story is a bit different, each is remembering it differently – if you look back to the time Bud told Monica the story, both she and Brandi are staring in horror as the blood spatters.
In reply to @vorlonagent, the Calendar Machine may have been before the the Chimera. But it didn’t get broken until May (Jin’s Mom) tried to destroy it 1,500 years ago. That’s when the time looping started which happened. So that means that Jin only went through that experience one.
The difference in that illustration shows that the tale grows in the telling, and to good effect. Apparently Brandi understands Jin’s sacrifice, whereas Bud is still unclear on the concept.
I’d think the past tense would be more appropriate. Bud probably wasn’t completely aware of all the facts at the time she first relayed the story to Monica. She probably has a better clue on things now.
None of them, with the possibility of Jin, knew exactly what was going on. For 12,000 years Brandi and Bud assumed that Jin was part of the group torturing them.
I thank you for making the gruesome parts as brief as possible, but yes what a lovely way to wrap up her monologue, showing the psychological outcome of her torment.
But I wonder, maybe the reason they lost control of the chimera, was because Jin wasn’t completely dead. Sure she wasn’t broken like Bud and Brandi, but her sacrifice wasn’t complete since it would take several minutes for her to bleed out from her wrists, and by then the fire would have consumed her. She would have been much better off slicing her jugular, or the artery in the inner thigh, since it can take as little as 15 seconds to bleed out from either of those spots, as long as the cut is deep enough.
It probably did not matter if whe was completely dead. It is the act of self sacrifice itself that distorted the spell and gave the girls back their free will.
It is also not clear that it was the Chimera that nearly destroyed the world, there have been a number of hints that that was done by just Bud. And that she accomplished that while being restrained by Jin and Brandi. Which would mean the power of the Chimera is incredible.
I don’t think it was even “Just” Bud’s rage. Brandi had plenty of horror, revulsion, and fear to dump into that. Heck, two strips back we saw how cut-throat and merciless Jin is. We are also assuming the gentle Brandi here/now is the same as the Brandi back in the pit.
…To assume that someone has only one way to feel about something is ludicrous. It is perfectly possible to be repelled and attracted to an idea, act, or person at the same time. It’s fairly common, actually.
Granted, being a tad less than perfectly sane myself, i can understand her subscribing to what Lois Bujold has termed the Lone Hero Theory of Disaster, and taking all the blame for something that was a committee decision, so to speak, on herself, but…
Jin lost it when she found out there was another way into the pit and that the girls were being raped. She was utterly enraged. What she did was even more justifiable than Mossad hunting down and assassinating WWII war criminals. Jin did it in the heat of the moment in a blind fury.
I can only say that the complexities of emotions that we have seen from the three girls makes it anyone’s guess as to the dynamics inside the chimera when it was on the rampage. And I would grant genius status to anyone who could spin just that part of it into a story, comic, movie, whatever. It is mind-boggling just to imagine…
These comments are so helpful. I never made the connection to the GGG’s destruction of the world and that scene… somehow it never struck me that I was seeing that chimera in action. I shall now sit in the corner with a dunce cap on for an hour.
Nah..just stir the jam for a bit. You won’t notice. Do You have any idea how many flies You’ll accidentally ingest during a few warm days?
‘S all nutrients and proteines, and are crunchy, and taste good with ketchup (or jam). Or enjoy them “pure” like our cat did. She loved snatching flies from the air and eating them…weird critter..damn fast too.
This little week’s arc was quite special indeed. The final visualizing of horrors only talked about.
It takes some good story-telling qualities to pull this off; from funny, geeky tube ramblings to utter horror.
I cannot think of any comic, web -or the paper kind, that has done this as successfully as Paul has shown here.
This was truly something else! (and that from me, a rather snobbish Euro-comic/graphic novel afficianado for years)
This was outstanding, of course, but for my money the episodes depicting the nullification of the CM and the would-be demon usurper are still the top of the lot. It was like watching a movie. I could practically hear the sounds in the chamber at the height of the struggle.
Hmm.. *weighing* That was a pretty darn good bit too. But this was more interesting through it’s great contrasts. From grim’n gritty to introspective Brandi iframed by a window on a sunny March-day.
OK. Forget what I said about weaving the dynamics of the chimera’s creation and rampage into a story/movie…this poetic approach works MUCH better. Well done!
This is what makes a good story-teller. The ability to make us experience the horrors yet still be able to laugh at the lighter side off life.
I was surprised at who Brandi was telling this all to, and surprisingly gratified. But I do still wonder if there isn’t someone else there to hear as well. Guess we’ll find out …
Brandi, despite -or maybe because of- her motherly character, is rather closed about their past as a destructive force of rage incarnated.
She seems to suffer silently, alone. While the rest of the Wapsi-Crew has freely divulged and discussed their anxts and hang-ups, Brandi hasn’t. I feel a deep sadness emanating from her.
I guess she sees herself as “The Mother” of the GolemGirls, and as such, feels that she must be the one to lean on.
It could also explain her drive (too easy explainable as “ditzy”)to get them to do the simple things, like shopping for clothes, making their home pretty, making Bud feel at home. Stuff like that, sorta to get their thoughts off of all destruction and horror in their past.
In a way, you could argue that all three see themselves as the ‘mother’ of the group.
Jin, the hard-nosed manipulator, pulling strings behind the scenes, trying to get everything right…
Brandi, holding back and taking on herself for the good of the others…
Bud, most direct and pragmatic of the group, tackles problems in a quick, efficient way so the others can have a bit of piece…
…it’s strange. Sometimes the GGs seem to break into categories. Jin and Bud the more ‘adult’ to the more childlike Brandi. Brandi and Bud vs. the manipulative Jin… but really, they are one disjointed, bent, dysfunctional family.
Look at Brandi’s eyes, she’s got the ‘hundred yard stare’. She’s telling the story, but is she telling it to Buzzy? He just happens to be there for it. It may only be her saying it out loud for the first time.
He was polite enough to stay until the end, though.
It seems like her first time talking about it, yes. It’s a start.
The types that do not talk about ugly happenings in their past, always worrie me the most.
My BFF is like that too. She always seemed the slow, happy-go-lucky, somewhat ditzy of the two sisters. Never worried by anything , not even when her parents went into a nasty divorce. Yet, She – years later- ended-up with needing some hefty therapy to be able to function. Her sister, despite raging and crying after the divorce, did fine.
We call the Brandi-type “binnenvetter” (transl: inner-cumulators/eaters) They are silent, but slowly and surely erode inside, till they crack/break.
In my family we call them volcano people. You don’t even see the warning signs unless you know to look for them, and then BOOM, they erupt, and life as we/they knew it is changed significantly for ever.
Though.. first frame is more upsetting in it’s “matter of fact-ness’ than I thought.
To me, those priests are evil incarnated.
I strongly reject cultural relativism. Brutality is brutality, whatever the society, or era.
Arguably, there is a relativity here, that hasn’t been addressed… yet.
We’ve seen nothing that implies that the priests enjoyed their job. It’s easy to assume so, of course, but they weren’t doing it for no reason.
1) Lanthis wanted the Chimera for some reason. This hasn’t been said as why. Power, sure. But power for what? Conquer or defense?
2) The GGs are all foreign. Bud somewhere in the north Mediterranean, Brandi, the south. (Further?). Jin and Marythual are possibly mesoamerican. I suppose the actual location of Lanthis plays into this… is it in the Atlantic, or in the Mediterranian? Point is, they didn’t use native Lanthian girls.
3) There have been a couple of mentions of a ‘witness protection program’ for the Lanthians. Who? Especially if they are so eeeeevil, who would protect them? And from whom are they being protected? The Chimera? After the rampage, the girls calmed down, were gradually teased apart, and given to Tepoz. Who did this?
Wild conjecture: The Lanthians were in a war with a second group, at least as powerful, likely more. The Lanthians were losing, and things were starting to look bleak back home. Along comes Maritheul and her amazing Golem technology. She has the idea (worked out from the rats and weasels that made Tepoz) to make a kind of super-golem. Just the kind of thing to change the war/save the world. She has the plan, Lanthis has the resources. Sometime along the planning, they come up with the calendar machine. I’m guessing here, but I think that Mari didn’t like it (perhaps because it took away from her super-golem idea). She tries to shut it down only to get sucked into the Demon realm. The leaders decide to go ahead with the supergolem idea anyway.
Somewhere along the way, they realize that they will have unstopable, immortal, super-powerful creature(s) running about. How will this be controlled for the good of Lanthis? How do we stop them from running amok or taking over. The Glyph/golem ritual, once cast, is set. You can’t ‘dispel’ it. Physical means won’t work. The way they come up with is the old “Elephant chain’ method. Take someone young and impress upon them so utterly that something is impossible, they become convinced so. They find/capture two girls, and attempt to psychologically utterly destroy them. Jin finds out, and tries to sabotage things, which makes them speed up the last part of their plans (or perhaps, this ‘other nation’ that I’m speculating about finally broke through, and was close enough that the priests hand to gamble)…. which means the Chimera is out of control, bad stuff happens, and Lanthis is destroyed.
However, a third group (The Library/Sphinxes?) finds the survivors and ‘hides’ them from this mysterious other nation. They neutralize the GGs, and give them to Tepoz…
Anyrate the point is that unless they were desperate, Lanthis probably wouldn’t have tried the Chimera project. In order to control it, the priests attempted to break down psychologically, the girls (Similar, but on a vastly different scale to what happens in the military). The end got rushed. Things went badly.
This does in no way excuse the actions. But it does explain them. Far more then a ‘Hey, Bob? You know what would be fun this weekend?” type way. It’s easy to draw divisions of ‘us’ and ‘them’ of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, but rarely does that work. I doubt Paul has it in his head as being that simple, either.
Mayahuel made the calendar-machine to fix Jin’s mis-alignment with time. There was no mention of a war by Paul, so, in the end it was all about a botched try by a mother, and the power-gasm of a priest-class that had an eye on Mayahuel’s technological/magical savvy, to aid them in their power-lust.
Mayahuel, blinded by her quest to “fix” her daughter, gave them the golem-technology. I guess in exchange for funds to create the calendar-machine.
However ingenious Your theory, there is nothing (as far as I can tell after reading the whole arc for several times) -beyond extreme speculation- that tells there was a war , that tells this to be more than a power-trip by the priest-caste.
Ultimetely this “playing with forces they should not be dabbling with (as Tepoz states somewhere) led to the demise of their whole civilization. I believe itwas however an outside people that put the Golems in storage and involved Tepoz in caring for them after Lanthis was made into a glass parking-lot.
No, I cannot see this as anything but a depraved, greedy power-class, doing unspeakable things while looking for even more power.(Nothing new there. The world still functions much like that)
Oh, and one important detail of the moral problem with Cultural Relativism is that bad things are bad things . The anti-CR philosophers have always (and still do) maintained that there is an inate knowledge/instinct of good and wrong in us. We can repress that for a bit under the “for the greater good”-blanket, but some things are just that: Evil and morally unjust.
We can say that of cultural habits, choices etc.
The priests, if making their choices for the protection of their culture, are at least an extremely unsavory example of utilitarianism stretched to the max..
Sometimes long posts are appropriate, and this was as long as it needed to be.
I’m not sure that Bud and Brandi were foreign; one of the suggestions for Atlantis’ location is Crete, and both of their physical types are not wholly unknown in the Mediterranean region. We won’t know until it comes up, of course.
It wasn’t until yesterday that I asked the question of why make a golem super-weapon at all. As you say, maybe they were at war. It’s bizarrely a comfort to think the priests were just stupid. When a kaiju is the reasonable response, Lanthis must be in real trouble.
First, curse you for spinning me off on the tropes for two hours…
Second, thank you for putting “Godzilla the patron saint of collateral damage” into my trivia repository.
How do you know the girls are all foreign? Did it mention that and I missed/forgot it since that time? Unless specifically stated we don’t know that Lanthis wasn’t very multi-cultural. If it was ‘sunk’ as the tales say, via the Chimera possibly, but started in the Mid Atlantic, there’s no reason it couldn’t have been a melting pot. Recent discoveries of Chinese and Japanese pottery in the Andes and other clues of an African/South American (via Brazil) trade system show that the ancient world, even in reality, was not the group of closed box systems modern people like to think it was.
Well we know Brandi and Bud are foreign because we are shown how Bud was kidnapped from her home in the Mediterranean and shoved in a cage on a cart being carried back to Lanthis. Brandi is already in that cage and we can safely assume they captured her from somewhere in Africa.
@ Jay-Em: Are you sure? I was fairly sure that the calendar machine was the *cause* of Jin’s issues.
Also, Marithual shows up at the castle in Lanthis as a golem already. While the conversation hasen’t been revealed, I had the impression that was what sold him on her…
The ‘power-hungry’ theory doesn’t play out. It’s a fairly well established fact that cultures tend to not spend resorces on utilitarian things unless they are pressed. They will build plazas of statues, huge temples, and drape everything in gold, but the mega-weapons, the infrastructure and social programs, all come when something is pressing them. So what was pressing Lanthis? The Lanthian survivors needed a ‘witness protection program’, and were scattered across the globe. Why? If there wasen’t someone/something to hide from, why hide? This is why I suspect a war. It is possible, that it is a war with something that isn’t human…
Mayahuel designed and built the Calendar Machine to sync Totchtli with time. That was the consensus of why she was hearing voices and seeing people that weren’t there.
Later on after, or during, the change from a matriarchal society to a patriarchal one, the Lanthan Priests were studying it to learn it’s secrets. May showed up, offered them the Golem rituals and then had herself made into one. Once she had near infinite power as a Golem, she stole the Calendar Machine and took it to the New World. (and probably influenced the indigenous culture into what we know as Toltec, Mayan, and Aztecs)
The Lanthan Priests, piqued over the loss of the Golem and the Calendar Machine, made the Chimera.
Because of Jin’s perturbations to the ritual, the Chimera was uncontrollable and burned the known world back to the stone age.
As I remember it.
I’m beginning to think the Lanthians were a conquering nation, owing to their advanced technology and use of magic. Not just with the advent of the patriarchy, but also during the matriarchy. It could be the witness protection program was to save the survivors from the rest of the world which may have already been rising up against them towards the end. It may be the chimera was being created to serve two purposes. One, as the ultimate weapon to use against the rest of the world as needed to keep them in check, and two, to get the CM back from May. It could be, like the Romans, they stretched themselves too thin trying to expand the empire and needed a super weapon to maintain their holdings. And they needed it soon or everything was going to fall apart. Thus the estreme measures. The new leaders may not have been as good at convincing other nations that being a part of the empire was a great thing as were the old leaders. Or they just plain got too greedy.
It could also be the chimera didn’t destroy THE world, it destroyed THEIR world of Lanthis. In so doing the survivors were left to the wrath of the rest and needed to be protected (by whoever) from the retaliation sure to come. Without Lanthis, the rest of the world quickly degenerated back to the stone age.
Jin and May weren’t foreign. They are/were Lanthian.And curiously May has said Lanthis was a matriarchal society. It begs he question, what was the stature of the male Priests in Lanthian society. Did they create he GGs and the Chimera to overthrow the rulers of Lanthis? Hrm.
Paul has mentioned that the priests engineered the switch from Matriarchal to Patriarchal. Someone mentioned that maybe that is why the priests wanted the Chimera WMD (Weapon of Magical Destruction) was to enforce this switch.
what if the priests had been warned (by a seer) of a great beast that would burn the nation/country and in the fear of it sought a weapon to stop it (the chimera) and in doing created the very beast they sought to stop (thinking the threat from other country/nation)?
We had five days of gorgeous weather and after about the second one, the flies were back with a vengeance. I have probably swatted 20 or 25 at my desk.
And after Friday’s strip, suddenly feel guilty about it.
I have to say, from a purely illustration-technical viewpoint, this week was also a high-light. From Dark ,Gritty and busy textures ,complex textured backgrounds, to this sudden visual rest. Light, clean, simple.
It is really nice to experience the contrasts between these simple and light-flooded frames and the previous dark ,busy ,nightmarish frames.
Non, no no. Jin killed herself to upset the creation of the uber-golem.
Apparently the girls needed to be sacrificed to get a completely slavish Golem. Self-sacrifice sabotages the Golem-control-process.
(Never having tried making a Golem, I wouldn’t know for sure, though.. 😆 )
All that exposition, and to a house fly. Well, I suppose Brandi had to tell it to something, but I would think that it would have been better told to something that was more attentive.
She may not be able to. This is IMHO, but it feels like this is the first time she’s spoken it out loud. Buzzy may have been the perfect …soul?…to tell it to.
It’s running up on ten years since my mother’s death, and I still have not been able to talk about it with anyone.
Advise: Just do not do what my dad did when my Mother died: Drink himself to death rather than seeking help, or talk about his grief.
The drinking an all too easy way, because we had our own vinyard..
I honestly believe therapy could have helped here ,but he was all like “I AM NOT CRAZY!!!” *shrugs* s’live I guess..
That’s also what I meant by “The ones that don’t talk about it worry me”
I can’t help wondering if Brandi is wondering if someone out there is thinking of doing this again, to someone else. Something akin to “We don’t need no stinkin’ nukes!”
I wish I could write like Fleen, so I could heap adequate praise on this tale. As it is, I must make do with overflowing emotions and no way to express them. I am left both fulfilled and wanting more.
You guys (and gals) write very well. You get your points across; they are always interesting, even when I don’t agree with them. I like reading what you write even if I don’t comment on it. Makes for enjoyable coffee breaks.
I do not believe resurrection is one of her powers…rather, I think that it is a symbol of her limitless empathy in the face of all she has gone through…as someone said above, now she wouldn’t “hurt a fly”.
As I understand it, she keeps the fly she catches in a jar in the freezer, then releases them in the spring. She probably had time to relate her story while the fly recovered from suspended animation as she held in in the warmth of the sunshine.
I wonder, as I often do with this series, did the chimera set off on their mission of destruction as soon as they “woke up” in their new form? Sort of like the Krell in “Forbiden Planet” when they switched on their great machine, or was there a period of time when things went as planned and the combined trio behaved themselves?
Ok, dumb question…
How do you pronounce “chimera?” I’ve heard “k-eye-meer-ah”, “shim-er-ah” and various other combos. It seems like nobody really knows… but it bothers me.
Especially when the books-on-tape guy reads it differently every time he says it. 😐
A beautiful end to a powerful story.
Thank you, Paul
Yes, thank you.
No sharks in sight. Jumping not permitted.
Beautiful end? They were friggin’ burned alive! Apparently Jin barely managed to die before the horrible end by fire.
They mean “beautiful” as in how beautiful, sweet, lovely, and innocent the fact is that Brandi is venting this awful story to such a tiny creature; a fly. A creature that has no clue what she’s saying or the significance of it.
Of course, I could be wrong.
The fly DID sit still for the entire story.
I could sit and watch Brandi just breathe for extended periods of time….
Hopefully she’ll tell a happier story to the next fly. I’m surprised this one didn’t zoom away at mach 1 and head straight into a spider web to end it all after hearing that tale of woe.
@sowhyme
i am so glad i am the only one in my office with the laughter your comment just caused 😀
@JabberW.
Same here. That she looks remarkably like my first “true love” in high-school, is also a boon.. 🙂
The end of the story was not the burning. Or how the Chimera burned the world back to the stone age. The ending is how through all of that, Brandi managed to become the beautiful tender person she is now…
I wonder if that would explain the Siberean Steppes ‘Supervolcano’, the event that helped precipitate the last Ice Age and coincidentally nearly ended all life on the planet.
‘Discovery’ has some cool shows – All the time I was watching that one afew months ago, I was trying to match the Wapsi timeline.
I am SUCH a geek…..
Well said – and Bud and Jin’s stories contain the same elements, some still waiting to be written.
That was my thought–the end of the story is that she has grown enough to apparently consider the fly, which she could crush easily–and lets it go.
There’s a story about Miyamoto Musashi, considered by some to be the greatest samurai who ever lived.
He was traveling, and stopped at a village inn to eat. Some locals who thought they were tough, not recognising him, began talking among themselves about what a good,valuable sword he had, and how they would appreciate it more than he did.
He didn’t appear to hear them … but he began catching flies in mid-air with his chopsticks …
… and letting them go, unharmed.
Yes. I was having a nice seat on my Pity-Potty this morning, (had a canine pulled..got messy..auwtchie) but the last frames lifted my spirit like the sun peeking behind clouds after a few grey and wet days.
Aww, it’s sad to lose a canine. Now when you growl at people, they’ll only giggle instead of being terrified.
“Hehe … look at old ‘monotooth! hehe”
Yeah! Hehe … sucked in any good flys through that hole? Hehe”
“Allow me to introduce you to my leetle friend … Brandi!”
It if not fat bad, I only haf a flight lifp…
A beautiful end to a powerful story. Thank you, Paul
Absolutely beautiful. A very trying week, but the horrors of golem creation aren’t the end of the story. And thank you for not ending the week in the pit.
Yet even after all the horrible things that she saw and experienced, she won’t even harm a fly.
BECAUSE of the horrible things…
Yeah, well…
So serene after the ordeal of being broken, tortured, raped, and on a rampage as the chimera…I really like Brandi.
BTW, wasn’t there a comic awhile back that showed Jin dead in the pit? That must have been just before the fire was cast down.
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/shegaveupwedidnt/
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/areyoulost-2/
That’s odd. In that one it says she could have gotten out of the pit any time she wanted but here we clearly see that she was put effectively out of commission in that regard. Slicing up her hamstrings and putting an arrow through a knee does certainly not equal “She could have gotten out of that pit any time she wanted…”
It’s the Rashomon Effect – different people see the same thing different ways, and remember and recount it differently.
Fairportfan: Are you saying the Jin did not actually have her achilles’ severed, and that Brandi is assuming it happened because she was cast into the pit with them?
Up to the point they mutilated her legs she could have, she chose to stay. Read “a token sacrafice” line, her staying of her own will, fighting back, and ending her life on her terms is what made them lose controll of the chimera.
I think it’s a matter of Monica only having heard from Bud concerning the inside story of the pit. When Bud told it, she never mentioned Jin being hobbled.
I think there’s also the matter of Jin *choosing* to be there in the pit. I always thought that’s why the Chimera went out of control. Because one of the components made a choice to be there.
Worse for Jin, since Calendar Machine comes before Chimera, every time the Machine resets, she would have to make the same choice again and go through the horror and degradation of being made a Chimera again.
Brandi and Bud only went through the Chimera process once (from their personal perspectives). That Jin’s psyche *can* be fixed after what she’s been through says she’s one tough girl.
No – but each character’s telling of the story is a bit different, each is remembering it differently – if you look back to the time Bud told Monica the story, both she and Brandi are staring in horror as the blood spatters.
In reply to @vorlonagent, the Calendar Machine may have been before the the Chimera. But it didn’t get broken until May (Jin’s Mom) tried to destroy it 1,500 years ago. That’s when the time looping started which happened. So that means that Jin only went through that experience one.
Answering Nerf-Dweller:
Cool-Thanks!
I missed that.
The difference in that illustration shows that the tale grows in the telling, and to good effect. Apparently Brandi understands Jin’s sacrifice, whereas Bud is still unclear on the concept.
I’d think the past tense would be more appropriate. Bud probably wasn’t completely aware of all the facts at the time she first relayed the story to Monica. She probably has a better clue on things now.
None of them, with the possibility of Jin, knew exactly what was going on. For 12,000 years Brandi and Bud assumed that Jin was part of the group torturing them.
This sequence is where they learn the truth about that, and that their nightmares were repressed memories.
http://wapsisquare.com/comic/tepozmeettochtli/
This week could be Brandi seeing what she knew in a different light.
That ^ Good one! Didn’t think of that.
I thank you for making the gruesome parts as brief as possible, but yes what a lovely way to wrap up her monologue, showing the psychological outcome of her torment.
But I wonder, maybe the reason they lost control of the chimera, was because Jin wasn’t completely dead. Sure she wasn’t broken like Bud and Brandi, but her sacrifice wasn’t complete since it would take several minutes for her to bleed out from her wrists, and by then the fire would have consumed her. She would have been much better off slicing her jugular, or the artery in the inner thigh, since it can take as little as 15 seconds to bleed out from either of those spots, as long as the cut is deep enough.
It probably did not matter if whe was completely dead. It is the act of self sacrifice itself that distorted the spell and gave the girls back their free will.
It is also not clear that it was the Chimera that nearly destroyed the world, there have been a number of hints that that was done by just Bud. And that she accomplished that while being restrained by Jin and Brandi. Which would mean the power of the Chimera is incredible.
No – it was Bud’s rage that drove it, but in the strip with the little girl, we see the complete chimera in the flames at the end.
I don’t think it was even “Just” Bud’s rage. Brandi had plenty of horror, revulsion, and fear to dump into that. Heck, two strips back we saw how cut-throat and merciless Jin is. We are also assuming the gentle Brandi here/now is the same as the Brandi back in the pit.
…To assume that someone has only one way to feel about something is ludicrous. It is perfectly possible to be repelled and attracted to an idea, act, or person at the same time. It’s fairly common, actually.
Bud says it was her rage.
Granted, being a tad less than perfectly sane myself, i can understand her subscribing to what Lois Bujold has termed the Lone Hero Theory of Disaster, and taking all the blame for something that was a committee decision, so to speak, on herself, but…
Jin lost it when she found out there was another way into the pit and that the girls were being raped. She was utterly enraged. What she did was even more justifiable than Mossad hunting down and assassinating WWII war criminals. Jin did it in the heat of the moment in a blind fury.
I can only say that the complexities of emotions that we have seen from the three girls makes it anyone’s guess as to the dynamics inside the chimera when it was on the rampage. And I would grant genius status to anyone who could spin just that part of it into a story, comic, movie, whatever. It is mind-boggling just to imagine…
Jin described restraining Bud as “like trying to wrestle the sun”
These comments are so helpful. I never made the connection to the GGG’s destruction of the world and that scene… somehow it never struck me that I was seeing that chimera in action. I shall now sit in the corner with a dunce cap on for an hour.
I’ve readied our corner table, Old Wolf, and refreshments are on their way. I ordered your usual.
Where is that barista? Ah, here she comes now…
That’s why Bud sees her in her nightmares.
And hopefully something alcoholic in the coffee as well. It’s been a rough week. 😉
Is it weird, that I think that has to be the cutest fly I’ve ever seen?
if it had eyes they would be ‘puppy’ style
He is my friend and I will tell him stories and his name is Buzzy…
*SWATT!!* SPLRRtt! Oh oops, now it won’t hear the story..but it was trying to swipe my strawbwerry-jam sandwich..
Ihope that you swatted it somewhere other than on the sandwich … otherwise, how will you be able to tell…
Nah..just stir the jam for a bit. You won’t notice. Do You have any idea how many flies You’ll accidentally ingest during a few warm days?
‘S all nutrients and proteines, and are crunchy, and taste good with ketchup (or jam). Or enjoy them “pure” like our cat did. She loved snatching flies from the air and eating them…weird critter..damn fast too.
They burned them…
alive…
i thought they had been dead when they were burned…
theybe always mentioned their ashes being mixed so you knew they were burned eventually but…
*shivers*
*chants*notrealcomicnotrealcomicnotrealcomic
DONT disagree….please…
@ Paul Taylor
That has been one of the worst and best weeks that I have read in Wapsi square.
Worst because of the actual storyline being so horrific and best because well..you do have a knack for making things seem awfully real…
Very well done.
I don’t know about comic awards or anything but i seriously hope this storyarc gets nominated…
Hear! Hear!
I am very much in agreement.
Seconded !
This little week’s arc was quite special indeed. The final visualizing of horrors only talked about.
It takes some good story-telling qualities to pull this off; from funny, geeky tube ramblings to utter horror.
I cannot think of any comic, web -or the paper kind, that has done this as successfully as Paul has shown here.
This was truly something else! (and that from me, a rather snobbish Euro-comic/graphic novel afficianado for years)
I need to find a panel of Pibgorn’s fly admirer…
Luciano – that’s his name.
BTW – for any Pibgorn fans who see this – what did you think of Friday’s little surprise?
This was outstanding, of course, but for my money the episodes depicting the nullification of the CM and the would-be demon usurper are still the top of the lot. It was like watching a movie. I could practically hear the sounds in the chamber at the height of the struggle.
Hmm.. *weighing* That was a pretty darn good bit too. But this was more interesting through it’s great contrasts. From grim’n gritty to introspective Brandi iframed by a window on a sunny March-day.
Great telling from Brandi’s perspective. Found this whole week a kind of strange inspiration. For what it is worth.
Born from pain
So mote it be,
Bound by blood
So mote it be,
Formed in fire,
So mote it be,
Cast in clay
So mote it be,
Power three
Perfect one
Fatal flaw
They are free
So mote it be,
Youthful rage,
wounded sage,
Insane flower,
Chimera’s Power
Very cool.
Sounds almost like an incantation…. Nice!
Nice use of “mote” as well–three different meanings at once. *shivers*
Superb.
OK. Forget what I said about weaving the dynamics of the chimera’s creation and rampage into a story/movie…this poetic approach works MUCH better. Well done!
/tips virtual hat
This is what makes a good story-teller. The ability to make us experience the horrors yet still be able to laugh at the lighter side off life.
I was surprised at who Brandi was telling this all to, and surprisingly gratified. But I do still wonder if there isn’t someone else there to hear as well. Guess we’ll find out …
Brandi, despite -or maybe because of- her motherly character, is rather closed about their past as a destructive force of rage incarnated.
She seems to suffer silently, alone. While the rest of the Wapsi-Crew has freely divulged and discussed their anxts and hang-ups, Brandi hasn’t. I feel a deep sadness emanating from her.
I guess she sees herself as “The Mother” of the GolemGirls, and as such, feels that she must be the one to lean on.
It could also explain her drive (too easy explainable as “ditzy”)to get them to do the simple things, like shopping for clothes, making their home pretty, making Bud feel at home. Stuff like that, sorta to get their thoughts off of all destruction and horror in their past.
In a way, you could argue that all three see themselves as the ‘mother’ of the group.
Jin, the hard-nosed manipulator, pulling strings behind the scenes, trying to get everything right…
Brandi, holding back and taking on herself for the good of the others…
Bud, most direct and pragmatic of the group, tackles problems in a quick, efficient way so the others can have a bit of piece…
…it’s strange. Sometimes the GGs seem to break into categories. Jin and Bud the more ‘adult’ to the more childlike Brandi. Brandi and Bud vs. the manipulative Jin… but really, they are one disjointed, bent, dysfunctional family.
Can we request a boyfriend for Brandi?
I’m on the wrong side of the screen to give her a hug…and I think she could use a lot of them.
I think I would volunteer to be her boyfriend if I were made of ink and imagination instead of this all too solid flesh.
Look at Brandi’s eyes, she’s got the ‘hundred yard stare’. She’s telling the story, but is she telling it to Buzzy? He just happens to be there for it. It may only be her saying it out loud for the first time.
He was polite enough to stay until the end, though.
It seems like her first time talking about it, yes. It’s a start.
The types that do not talk about ugly happenings in their past, always worrie me the most.
My BFF is like that too. She always seemed the slow, happy-go-lucky, somewhat ditzy of the two sisters. Never worried by anything , not even when her parents went into a nasty divorce. Yet, She – years later- ended-up with needing some hefty therapy to be able to function. Her sister, despite raging and crying after the divorce, did fine.
We call the Brandi-type “binnenvetter” (transl: inner-cumulators/eaters) They are silent, but slowly and surely erode inside, till they crack/break.
In my family we call them volcano people. You don’t even see the warning signs unless you know to look for them, and then BOOM, they erupt, and life as we/they knew it is changed significantly for ever.
What a beautiful and moving ending.
So all in all, it explains why Brandi even saves flies…
Though.. first frame is more upsetting in it’s “matter of fact-ness’ than I thought.
To me, those priests are evil incarnated.
I strongly reject cultural relativism. Brutality is brutality, whatever the society, or era.
Arguably, there is a relativity here, that hasn’t been addressed… yet.
We’ve seen nothing that implies that the priests enjoyed their job. It’s easy to assume so, of course, but they weren’t doing it for no reason.
1) Lanthis wanted the Chimera for some reason. This hasn’t been said as why. Power, sure. But power for what? Conquer or defense?
2) The GGs are all foreign. Bud somewhere in the north Mediterranean, Brandi, the south. (Further?). Jin and Marythual are possibly mesoamerican. I suppose the actual location of Lanthis plays into this… is it in the Atlantic, or in the Mediterranian? Point is, they didn’t use native Lanthian girls.
3) There have been a couple of mentions of a ‘witness protection program’ for the Lanthians. Who? Especially if they are so eeeeevil, who would protect them? And from whom are they being protected? The Chimera? After the rampage, the girls calmed down, were gradually teased apart, and given to Tepoz. Who did this?
Wild conjecture: The Lanthians were in a war with a second group, at least as powerful, likely more. The Lanthians were losing, and things were starting to look bleak back home. Along comes Maritheul and her amazing Golem technology. She has the idea (worked out from the rats and weasels that made Tepoz) to make a kind of super-golem. Just the kind of thing to change the war/save the world. She has the plan, Lanthis has the resources. Sometime along the planning, they come up with the calendar machine. I’m guessing here, but I think that Mari didn’t like it (perhaps because it took away from her super-golem idea). She tries to shut it down only to get sucked into the Demon realm. The leaders decide to go ahead with the supergolem idea anyway.
Somewhere along the way, they realize that they will have unstopable, immortal, super-powerful creature(s) running about. How will this be controlled for the good of Lanthis? How do we stop them from running amok or taking over. The Glyph/golem ritual, once cast, is set. You can’t ‘dispel’ it. Physical means won’t work. The way they come up with is the old “Elephant chain’ method. Take someone young and impress upon them so utterly that something is impossible, they become convinced so. They find/capture two girls, and attempt to psychologically utterly destroy them. Jin finds out, and tries to sabotage things, which makes them speed up the last part of their plans (or perhaps, this ‘other nation’ that I’m speculating about finally broke through, and was close enough that the priests hand to gamble)…. which means the Chimera is out of control, bad stuff happens, and Lanthis is destroyed.
However, a third group (The Library/Sphinxes?) finds the survivors and ‘hides’ them from this mysterious other nation. They neutralize the GGs, and give them to Tepoz…
Anyrate the point is that unless they were desperate, Lanthis probably wouldn’t have tried the Chimera project. In order to control it, the priests attempted to break down psychologically, the girls (Similar, but on a vastly different scale to what happens in the military). The end got rushed. Things went badly.
This does in no way excuse the actions. But it does explain them. Far more then a ‘Hey, Bob? You know what would be fun this weekend?” type way. It’s easy to draw divisions of ‘us’ and ‘them’ of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, but rarely does that work. I doubt Paul has it in his head as being that simple, either.
Dear Spaghetti Monster, that’s a long post… Sorry about that, folks!
Your target audience forgives the long-windedness by virtue of the good story it revealed. 😀
Mayahuel made the calendar-machine to fix Jin’s mis-alignment with time. There was no mention of a war by Paul, so, in the end it was all about a botched try by a mother, and the power-gasm of a priest-class that had an eye on Mayahuel’s technological/magical savvy, to aid them in their power-lust.
Mayahuel, blinded by her quest to “fix” her daughter, gave them the golem-technology. I guess in exchange for funds to create the calendar-machine.
However ingenious Your theory, there is nothing (as far as I can tell after reading the whole arc for several times) -beyond extreme speculation- that tells there was a war , that tells this to be more than a power-trip by the priest-caste.
Ultimetely this “playing with forces they should not be dabbling with (as Tepoz states somewhere) led to the demise of their whole civilization. I believe itwas however an outside people that put the Golems in storage and involved Tepoz in caring for them after Lanthis was made into a glass parking-lot.
No, I cannot see this as anything but a depraved, greedy power-class, doing unspeakable things while looking for even more power.(Nothing new there. The world still functions much like that)
Oh, and one important detail of the moral problem with Cultural Relativism is that bad things are bad things . The anti-CR philosophers have always (and still do) maintained that there is an inate knowledge/instinct of good and wrong in us. We can repress that for a bit under the “for the greater good”-blanket, but some things are just that: Evil and morally unjust.
We can say that of cultural habits, choices etc.
The priests, if making their choices for the protection of their culture, are at least an extremely unsavory example of utilitarianism stretched to the max..
Sometimes long posts are appropriate, and this was as long as it needed to be.
I’m not sure that Bud and Brandi were foreign; one of the suggestions for Atlantis’ location is Crete, and both of their physical types are not wholly unknown in the Mediterranean region. We won’t know until it comes up, of course.
It wasn’t until yesterday that I asked the question of why make a golem super-weapon at all. As you say, maybe they were at war. It’s bizarrely a comfort to think the priests were just stupid. When a kaiju is the reasonable response, Lanthis must be in real trouble.
First, curse you for spinning me off on the tropes for two hours…
Second, thank you for putting “Godzilla the patron saint of collateral damage” into my trivia repository.
Oh, yeah, TV Tropes will do that to you. Xkcd warned us, too.
How do you know the girls are all foreign? Did it mention that and I missed/forgot it since that time? Unless specifically stated we don’t know that Lanthis wasn’t very multi-cultural. If it was ‘sunk’ as the tales say, via the Chimera possibly, but started in the Mid Atlantic, there’s no reason it couldn’t have been a melting pot. Recent discoveries of Chinese and Japanese pottery in the Andes and other clues of an African/South American (via Brazil) trade system show that the ancient world, even in reality, was not the group of closed box systems modern people like to think it was.
Well we know Brandi and Bud are foreign because we are shown how Bud was kidnapped from her home in the Mediterranean and shoved in a cage on a cart being carried back to Lanthis. Brandi is already in that cage and we can safely assume they captured her from somewhere in Africa.
Going by Brandi’s last name, I assume she’s Nigerian. I could be wrong but that’s what I always thought.
Also going by the wallpaper that Paul did, showing her dressed as a warrior and with a war club…
Please see my remark above about the Siberian Steppes supervolcano. If it was a war, they all lost.
@ Jay-Em: Are you sure? I was fairly sure that the calendar machine was the *cause* of Jin’s issues.
Also, Marithual shows up at the castle in Lanthis as a golem already. While the conversation hasen’t been revealed, I had the impression that was what sold him on her…
The ‘power-hungry’ theory doesn’t play out. It’s a fairly well established fact that cultures tend to not spend resorces on utilitarian things unless they are pressed. They will build plazas of statues, huge temples, and drape everything in gold, but the mega-weapons, the infrastructure and social programs, all come when something is pressing them. So what was pressing Lanthis? The Lanthian survivors needed a ‘witness protection program’, and were scattered across the globe. Why? If there wasen’t someone/something to hide from, why hide? This is why I suspect a war. It is possible, that it is a war with something that isn’t human…
Mayahuel designed and built the Calendar Machine to sync Totchtli with time. That was the consensus of why she was hearing voices and seeing people that weren’t there.
Later on after, or during, the change from a matriarchal society to a patriarchal one, the Lanthan Priests were studying it to learn it’s secrets. May showed up, offered them the Golem rituals and then had herself made into one. Once she had near infinite power as a Golem, she stole the Calendar Machine and took it to the New World. (and probably influenced the indigenous culture into what we know as Toltec, Mayan, and Aztecs)
The Lanthan Priests, piqued over the loss of the Golem and the Calendar Machine, made the Chimera.
Because of Jin’s perturbations to the ritual, the Chimera was uncontrollable and burned the known world back to the stone age.
As I remember it.
I’m beginning to think the Lanthians were a conquering nation, owing to their advanced technology and use of magic. Not just with the advent of the patriarchy, but also during the matriarchy. It could be the witness protection program was to save the survivors from the rest of the world which may have already been rising up against them towards the end. It may be the chimera was being created to serve two purposes. One, as the ultimate weapon to use against the rest of the world as needed to keep them in check, and two, to get the CM back from May. It could be, like the Romans, they stretched themselves too thin trying to expand the empire and needed a super weapon to maintain their holdings. And they needed it soon or everything was going to fall apart. Thus the estreme measures. The new leaders may not have been as good at convincing other nations that being a part of the empire was a great thing as were the old leaders. Or they just plain got too greedy.
It could also be the chimera didn’t destroy THE world, it destroyed THEIR world of Lanthis. In so doing the survivors were left to the wrath of the rest and needed to be protected (by whoever) from the retaliation sure to come. Without Lanthis, the rest of the world quickly degenerated back to the stone age.
Jin and May weren’t foreign. They are/were Lanthian.And curiously May has said Lanthis was a matriarchal society. It begs he question, what was the stature of the male Priests in Lanthian society. Did they create he GGs and the Chimera to overthrow the rulers of Lanthis? Hrm.
Paul has mentioned that the priests engineered the switch from Matriarchal to Patriarchal. Someone mentioned that maybe that is why the priests wanted the Chimera WMD (Weapon of Magical Destruction) was to enforce this switch.
what if the priests had been warned (by a seer) of a great beast that would burn the nation/country and in the fear of it sought a weapon to stop it (the chimera) and in doing created the very beast they sought to stop (thinking the threat from other country/nation)?
What we’re missing out on is the miracle that a fly is actually buzzing around a home in the Twin Cities in late March…
Okay, that was a poor attempt at levity, I’ll admit.
It could be from the “spring-release-jar”…
If you look closely, there’s a tiny little scarf around his neck…
And three pairs of tiny, tiny boots…
…And a Took.
Darn! All I see is a tiny balaclava hanging from his little snowsuit…..
*looks in glass ,sniffs ..damn..strong stuff ,makes me seein’ things*
Just last night I saw not only a fly, but a wasp also crawling around in a church. They do show up at the oddest dates.
We had five days of gorgeous weather and after about the second one, the flies were back with a vengeance. I have probably swatted 20 or 25 at my desk.
And after Friday’s strip, suddenly feel guilty about it.
I have to say, from a purely illustration-technical viewpoint, this week was also a high-light. From Dark ,Gritty and busy textures ,complex textured backgrounds, to this sudden visual rest. Light, clean, simple.
It is really nice to experience the contrasts between these simple and light-flooded frames and the previous dark ,busy ,nightmarish frames.
Me Likey very much.
This really makes me wonder if Jin didn’t suspect or know what was coming which is why she committed suicide.
Non, no no. Jin killed herself to upset the creation of the uber-golem.
Apparently the girls needed to be sacrificed to get a completely slavish Golem. Self-sacrifice sabotages the Golem-control-process.
(Never having tried making a Golem, I wouldn’t know for sure, though.. 😆 )
I tried it using Play-Doh and some overcooked ribs…got nuthin’
The ashes were mixed with the clay (used as clay?) to make the Golems…
…hey, you forgot the boots on the fly, there Jabbers… Gawdawful cute, though.
To quote a famous Sci-fi writer, ‘does a bee care what happens to a flower when the bee is done and gone its way?’
Just gives me the chills…
All that exposition, and to a house fly. Well, I suppose Brandi had to tell it to something, but I would think that it would have been better told to something that was more attentive.
She may not be able to. This is IMHO, but it feels like this is the first time she’s spoken it out loud. Buzzy may have been the perfect …soul?…to tell it to.
It’s running up on ten years since my mother’s death, and I still have not been able to talk about it with anyone.
Advise: Just do not do what my dad did when my Mother died: Drink himself to death rather than seeking help, or talk about his grief.
The drinking an all too easy way, because we had our own vinyard..
I honestly believe therapy could have helped here ,but he was all like “I AM NOT CRAZY!!!” *shrugs* s’live I guess..
That’s also what I meant by “The ones that don’t talk about it worry me”
I can’t help wondering if Brandi is wondering if someone out there is thinking of doing this again, to someone else. Something akin to “We don’t need no stinkin’ nukes!”
OK I just freaked myself out. eugh.
That’s….a particularly disconcerting thought.
Power-gasm hunters enough on this mud-ball.
There are still, of course, the Immortal Politicians….
Yeah, but if they all have Kulkukan’s fashion sense, they’ll be easy to spot….
Oh, wait, maybe that explains ‘club kids’
I wish I could write like Fleen, so I could heap adequate praise on this tale. As it is, I must make do with overflowing emotions and no way to express them. I am left both fulfilled and wanting more.
Leaves you sounding awfully human to me. All I can usually muster is a muddled mumble.
I agree. I am utterly, utterly untalented. Can’t write, draw, play music.. I can cook, I guess…
You guys (and gals) write very well. You get your points across; they are always interesting, even when I don’t agree with them. I like reading what you write even if I don’t comment on it. Makes for enjoyable coffee breaks.
Is it just me or did Brandi just resurrect a fly?
I do not believe resurrection is one of her powers…rather, I think that it is a symbol of her limitless empathy in the face of all she has gone through…as someone said above, now she wouldn’t “hurt a fly”.
As I understand it, she keeps the fly she catches in a jar in the freezer, then releases them in the spring. She probably had time to relate her story while the fly recovered from suspended animation as she held in in the warmth of the sunshine.
Oh, that makes a lot of sense. I forgot flies could do that. Thank you Mythbusters!!
“No, fly! Don’t go that way! That’s Katherine’s place!”
After which, she will not harm a fly.
A boon to the zipper industry.
And when you could poke a finger through a steel girder, “Ripping a fly” becomes awfully easy to do.
…makes you wonder when Alan says something about Jin ‘ripping his clothes off’…
As long as she doesn’t rip his fly off…
This whole week I’ve been thinking of the remix Atonement from Ocremix.org these stips always seem to cause that song to play in my head.
There’s only three cartoonists in my world: Sparky Schulz, Bill Watterson and Paul Taylor.
Don’t sell yourself short, Nikk.
I would’ve been worried if she swatted the fly afterwards.
As long as he stays away from the strawberry jam and goat cheese sammich…
Exactly! I am ruthless if it’s about my food.
I wonder, as I often do with this series, did the chimera set off on their mission of destruction as soon as they “woke up” in their new form? Sort of like the Krell in “Forbiden Planet” when they switched on their great machine, or was there a period of time when things went as planned and the combined trio behaved themselves?
We don’t know yet. That’s another good question. Godzilla or Doctor Strangelove?
Very nice conclusion to the flashback. Well done.
Well ended! 🙂
Interesting pitch for a series of kid’s illustrated books that might have been a lot of fun – Lois Lane, Girl Reporter, about Lois at age eleven…
Ok, dumb question…
How do you pronounce “chimera?” I’ve heard “k-eye-meer-ah”, “shim-er-ah” and various other combos. It seems like nobody really knows… but it bothers me.
Especially when the books-on-tape guy reads it differently every time he says it. 😐
I’ve always said it Khi-mare-ah…