Yeah… but accepting it is often hard, and frequently involves eating at least a bit of crow.
I wonder whether Shelly’s had difficulty accepting this sort of “motherly” advice from others (or from herself!) precisely because she lost her mother at an early age. Mothers are in a privileged position… they have the “privilege” of saying things to you (and being listened to) that you wouldn’t take from anyone else. Losing her mother may, unfortunately, have made Shelly react negatively to hearing this sort of message from anyone else, because it reminds her too much of the hurt of losing her mother unexpectedly (and in a way that she feels guilty about).
Then it is really lucky that Bia is her great(enter exponent) grandmother then. Everyone should listen to their grandmother (maybe not do what she says but at least listen to it).
I have always listened to my grand-mother and my great-great grandmother.
They were the “sages” in my, and my parents’ life.
Look at it this way: grand-parents have at least a generation of extra life-experience to offer. I tend to listen to people with experience.
. . . and grandmothers are not usually as threatening as mothers since they tend to be less active in raising the children; they can afford to be more wise women and less disciplinarians.
Nike was the goddess of victory. This doesn’t look like victory to me. As to her appearance, Basic Black has always gone with everything so kudos for Shelly’s fashion sense.
I recall at some point the gods overthrew the titans, so Zeus/Jupiter and Co. held sway. Bia is daughter of Titans, but dwells with Z, etc, so I’m not sure that her line should be called gods or titans. In the story so far, Bia claims the title of Titan, so let’s go with that.
Still a titan. Promethius and Epimethus remained titans, never gods. Aphrodite is the only weird one (that I recall) who gets lumped into the gods and may or may not belong depending on which source material referenced. Hesiod has her a titan born via the castration of Uranos. Homer calls her a goddess born of zeus. But pretty much all her cults considered her a goddess even those quite obviously tied to Hesiod’s version of her birth. All the other titans who took Zeus up on his offer of amnesty were still called titans.
Stygians. When the Titans rebelled, Zeus promised that any Titan to join him would hold their authority, and any that didn’t have an office would get one.
Styx came forward first, bringing her family. By this example she earned a place for children in Zeus’ household forever (hence Princess Bia), and binding oaths are made in name of Styx. (It’s all at Atomic’s link.)
That’s quite a pedigree to live up to.
Most religions have an example of loyalty in their myth cycles, including unfallen Christian angels and faithful djinn in Islam. For the Hellenes, it was the Titanic House of Styx.
Hmmm… if Bia is saying what I think she’s saying, it rather confirms a point that there was some debate about… that Bud was the focus or prime mover of the Chimera when it ran amok and slagged Lanthis down into ash.
Bud did blame herself for this, saying that it was her rage which was the trigger, and we know that Bud is heavily “weaponized” (Jin also, apparently). Now, Bia seems to be saying that Bud was the one who was responsible for the burning-wall-of-plasma destruction that gave Charon such a backache.
Hmmm.. Was there even a discussion about that? I cannot remember.
I thought Paul made it pretty clear from the beginning that Bud was the fuel behind the rage, and that she was painfully aware of that.
Have to look in the archive, but Bud even says so literally….
Aaand.. I called it! Bia gives Shelly a spanking for being self-absorbed and bullying again… Gramma’ does what everybody else tried, but failed to ingrain in shelly.
Make Shelly truly understand that her anger can hurt those she loves. Using Bud as an extreme warning.
I was wondering that, myself. As a sphinx, Shelly is apparently in the apex-predator range and is already very dangerous by human standards (as she pointed out to Monica in a jaw-dropping demonstration of concern)… but if she has substantial Titanic heritage in her genome, she may have all sorts of “wild card” powers or capabilities as well.
How much is said, in recorded mythology, of the powers of various Titans?
Atomic linked to theoi.com up above. I’ve been poking around it since a poster gave the lowdown on Bia after she was first named. (Google ranking seems very fond of the Amazon-affiliated site, but it has good refs.)
Depending on the when the authorship can be placed, Titans tend to be even more elemental personifications than the Olympians. There tends to be an impression that the Titans are primeval and the Olympians are office-holders.
Styx’s four children have very little in terms of mythology that survive. Even Nike, popular with humans and frequently depicted, doesn’t seem to have a round of stories about her from antiquity.
One source also makes Scylla a daughter of Styx, whose form was one of the wildest amalgams in ancient art: kind of a giant mermaid with dogs attached to the front. If Tsillah is her, or related to her, Baxter and Boo may be those ball-on-a-string-attached-to-a-cup doggies. And may provide some insight for Shelly and Conscience going forward.
I somehow doubt that you could call her Titan heritage’s effect on her genome “substantial” given how long ago it was introduced into her family tree…unless a Titan (or two) popped back and to the tree at later dates to keep the genetic thumbprint strong.
@Julie – that may be true, but the very same thing could be said of her sphinx heritage, and we know that she did inherit enough sphinx genes (presumably recessive) to reach some critical threshold and allow her to manifest her sphinx form once she reached maturity.
The same might be true of her Titan ancestry… she may or may not have enough of it to actually affect her. Her role as “heir of a Titan” might end up being a nominal, almost honorary one, or she might start spitting lightning bolts or doing other non-human, non-sphinx sorts of things one of these days. She’s already a low-probability event, in the flesh… no telling how low-probability!
It’s even conceivable that sphinx genes and Titan genes are somehow intertwined or cross-linked, and might tend to “travel together” through generations of inheritance.
(Vlad once asked Aliera how the Dragaerans’ genetic inheritance, which includes some odd genes implanted from various species of animal, interacts with the reincarnation of Dragaerans’ souls into younger generations. Her one-word answer was “Oddly”. Wapsi mystical genetics might be just as odd).
I do remember reading some discussions about this point, as to whether Bud was really correct in holding herself primarily responsible (e.g. how much Brandi’s state of mind might have contributed). Jin’s comments at one point suggested that it was the pain and rage of both of the sacrifices that broke the control over the Chimera (both the priests’ control, and Jin’s own attempts to restrain).
I thought it was somewhat confirmed that the Chimera’s rampage was Jin’s doing.
Bud and Brandi went through the ritual as arranged by the temple priests, from the abuse to the eventual burning alive. Jin went against it every step of the way, from lashing against the temple priests to killing herself before the fires could claim her life.
Brandi even confirms having similar feelings to Bud’s at the time of their torture and death. If anything, Brandi is just as likely to cause any ‘rage’ the chimera would have as Bud was.
So, maybe I’m forgetting a conversation or flashback, but everything I remember indicates Jin, not Bud.
No…Jin was the “control” on the Chimera. She didn’t play by the priests’ rules in order to reduce the control they had over the chimera (or something like that). She was the one who tried to reign in the destruction of the beast (but if I recal correctly she was overwhelmed by the other two)…so she wasn’t the cause of the rampage.
Shelly’s mind has gone bye-bye for now. Plese check in next week for an appointment.
I don’t think this is really going to sink in too well in her state of mind. The advice is good but the timing stinks if Bia expects it to make any real impact. It will probably leave Shelly more confused and adrift than she already is.
That’s because in this instant Shelly is feeling much the same way that the hellhounds at the library did after Shelly finished with them … and Bia didn’t even have to touch her.
Now *that* is true force (force of will, anyway), and gives truth to Bia’s legend. 😀
Shelly’s habit of lashing-out at the whole world in toddler-like tantrums hás to go, if she wants her true spot in the pantheon.
It’ll take some time. She’s pretty dense in that aspect, but not a numb-skull. She just lashed-out when personal stuff overwhelms her, thát’s a habit that hás to go.
She was allowed to go feral and develop some bad habits for a time. Bad habits that *did* keep her alive.
There is some understanding and a lot more tolerance of her behaviors I think because of that but yeah…the foot has come down, the chain is being yanked.
No one gets handed the perks of the job without the work to maintain said perks.
Yes, you’re right… it will take time. It always does, for almost all of us.
Maturity doesn’t come easily, even for plain ordinary mortals like most of us reading this forum… we act childishly or irresponsibly, make mistakes, have to deal with the consequences, learn a bit each time, and do better.
The same is true for Shelly… she is learning to do better, albeit a bit slowly at times. She’s also got a lot of issues that most of us don’t have to deal with… learning that she has multiple mystical and (semi)divine heritages is complicating things no end.
She’s just going to have to put her Pantheon, one leg at a time.
(*tosses a gold brick into the Pun Jar, in celebration of the end of a long vacation… back to work today*)
Hm.. 1st frame is magnificent, but, as an ex -art student, I find it a bit of a shame that Pablo shy’d away from showing the full-frontal.
Nót in an explicit manner, mind You. But the ancient Greek and Romans that gave us the great legends of gods, titans and monsters, nèver shy’d away from showing a lot.
Hèck, Hermes is often portrayed buck-nekkid!
There is a certain elegance in that. There are few things more beautiful than a well-defined body. I knów this, I’ve drawn and sculpted mány when in art-school. Thís however, feels “forcedly prudish” c’m on, Shell’ is nude here.
Well, maybe it’s just the (to me) unpleasant contrast between the exquisitely drawn wall’o skuls, the intricate detail of the feathers…and thèn there are those ‘scribbles… I dunno..
The “Artist” in me doesn’t like the jarring contrast.
Yes, yes, I dó understand that, as a European, “nudity” is different to me, compared to the puritan under-current that defines America’s views on nudity.
In case of the spread of the first frame, it would seem more appropriate to, indeed, show more. Nót because I am some kind of lecherous “rule34” horn-dog, but because it would enhance and exemplify the fact that we are dealing with a Titan in the classical, Greek tradition, where most Gods at one time, or another, were painted/sculpted “Au naturale” Exáctly because the Greek celebrated the beauty and intricacies of the human body.
Nudity for the sake of nudity is idiotic, agreed, but in this case, the inconsistency makes me gnash my teeth for a bit.
I guess culture and local mores goes befóre artistic considerations, even if it’s on a sub-conscious level.
Pondering this for a bit more, I have to conclude that the artist, on a sub-conscious level, doesn’t want to entice the horny adolescent-minded.
Still.. The picture would feel more “correct”?? if, at least the shading was more subtle. Why can a Sphinx have nipples, and a Shellinx nót…
And again. If I wanted to see some boobs for the sake of boobs, I only have to walk 20-minutes to the nearest beach, and see gazzillions of those, young, old, pre pubescent, whatever…
*sigh* It’s hárd to communicate what I exáctly mean, without being labeled “dirty old man”
The first pic is glorious, yet… It feels “incomplete”
It is nót a critique parsé on Paul’s technique, but more on the -in my view- unnecessary care to prevent “naughty bits” to show. (consider this: “naughty bits” is an English term. There is nó “stoute delen” in Dutch, or “Freche Teile” as a terminology in f.i. German.. Makes you wonder)
*skulks back into the shadows, waiting for the fall-out*
Indeed, but the PayPal tripwire is one dearth to cross. They have no “transient” category for nudity issues, so the first whiner tends to kill that service for the webcomic author.
Consider Loxie and Zoot, praised by one critic as “The nicest comic on the Internet,” for drama/comedy without gore and pandering, is about the hi-jinx and goings-on of an Australian nudist camp. Nipples, yes; sex, no. PayPal? No.
At the other end of the “Slice of (mythic) Life” would be Spun Off, a Fairy tale (literally) focusing on events of the fairy folk who inhabited the Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan series. Nekkid? Yep! PayPal? Not a chance.
Then again, there’s Olgaf, who – well, forget PayPal. Passes the Bechtel test nicely, though!
So.. It’s a specific American problem then? Shame that one overly powerful US company can dictate the mores of the world as far as art goes.
*shakes head* despite all superficial Similarity of our European, and American “culture”, there’s still a sea of divide between us. Things like my ponderings and Yours, illustrate that again.
“Art” should néver be dictated by money, but I guess it’s just a fact of life.
Art is always dictated by money…and to an extent you could say it always has been (wealthy benefactors made executive decisions about commissions from the great artists of our past, after all). Heck, even music is controlled by money to an extent…which is why “radio edits” of some songs exist at all.
On the one hand, I understand the concept of restricting access to adult material, but I tend to agree with you that art can have a different classification than pornography. Unfortunately, it would take a major cultural shift in the US for artistic nudity to be treated with the widespread respectful interest it deserves (instead of inducing childish giggling in at least some segments of th population and potentially worse reactions in others).
i think what you have to remember is that america has a strong cultural foundation in calvinism. which translates to a “salvation by works” mentality, and a strong distrust in anything done *solely* for the sake of fun.
nose to the grindstone, work your ass off all your life, no vacations to speak of unless its a weekend hunting or fishing because at least THOSE things bring food to the table, that sort of thinking. and people who DO appreciate things like tasteful/artistic nudity or vacations spent enjoying oneself are frowned upon and viewed with much suspicion.
its a sucky mentality, but how it is for most americans, whether they actively think of it or not. and i think it also speaks to our view of sexuality to begin with, that it is something shameful that should be hidden at all costs…and ONLY between one man and one woman, all other constructs are positively EEEEEvil.
Droemos, the original author of Exiern, wrote about his PayPal troubles here.
He included the following excerpt from the communication he received from PayPal about the matter:
Your website, while a portion of it is not in violation, there are places where nudity is present and the member’s area of your website is marketed as containing more nudity. Nudity in any form or degree is considered obscene and our Acceptable Use Policy prohibits these products. Nudity in any form or degree is considered obscene and our Acceptable Use Policy prohibits these products.
Note that this equates bare boobies to obscenity.
His comment:
Looking around I suspect the TG is the reason paypal came down so hard. They do seem to be excessively stringent on anything that is considered “alternative lifestyle”. In Paypals world it seems nudity is ok, LGBT as an academic subject is ok, but LGBT and nudity that is obscene. But I can prove nothing and once you’re locked out of paypal there is no appeals process or way to get reinstated. So the upshot is we can no longer use paypal on this site.
I just thought that Paypal were a bunch of thieving bastards that wait for you to make a nice amount of money and then kill your account and keep your hard earned money without any fear of reprisals because the TOS Agreement that warns you of this. (Sorry, I know a few people that have been mistreated by them)
Seems like an opportunity for someone to offer Pablo a commission to do a full-up artistic-grade Shelly-as-Nike drawing. “The Winged Victory of Wapsi Square” perhaps? Would certainly be a stunning image!
I don’t know if there’d be any feasible way for Paul to run the image here or sell prints (a non-PayPal method might be required and that could be a huge hassle) but as a purely artistic venture it feels like a winner to me!
Shelly is Stygian, so being covered in shadow is part if her true nature.
PayPal, for all it’s faults, should be respected for not wanting to fund porn. The sad thing is that the ratio of porn-to-art is negligible, and therefore the cost effectiveness of hiring someone to make that decision is negative.
They would have to hire someone to constanly read tons of porn, in order to allow a little art funding.
So Shelly rises into the family of noble shadows, and we can applaud the art of that for what it is.
Nudity is NOT porn!! And don’t even dáre to imply as much! If You see nudity sec. as “porn” then that’s YOUR problem, and a problem of American culture as a whole, sorry to say.
Look, i’ve drawn hundreds if not thousands of nudes, and there wasn’t a sliver of “lust” involved! Not ónce, nót even when the class’ beauty posed to earn a bit of extra cash. Pretty normal on Minerva (Northern Netherlands main art-academy)
Last thing I am going to say about it, because I already feel my anger bubbling up at the Nudity = Porn comment…..
Jay-Em, I know that as well as anyone. Especially the absence of lust part. Clothes are no barrier or gauge of lust or other curiosities. Not even metal clothes over a frame:
Dr. Peter Venkman: Kinda makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Winston Zeddemore: Wonder what? Dr. Peter Venkman: Whether she’s naked under that toga. She is French. You know that.
But my point stands regarding PayPal. They would have to hire that guy and decide whether an auction of Rubens was porn and sale of Oglaf books was not. In the midst of the sea of requests from every amateur pronista to make bank from just being naked.
How that affects Paul’s decisions is for him alone to say.
Nudity is NOT porn!! And don’t even dáre to imply as much! If You see nudity sec. as “porn” then that’s YOUR problem, and a problem of American culture as a whole, sorry to say.
Oh, boy, do i agree with that.
That is one of three more-or-less-interlinked tropes that run through USAian culture:
{1} Nudity is Obscene
{2} Animated films are for kids, not adults.
{3} Comic books are for little kids and no truly mture person bothers with them.
Another fascinating result of USAian culture and attitudes toward sex and nudity is the blurring of genitalia in hentai and ecchi anime and manga, and the existence of tentacle porn.
During the Occupation, good ol’ jerkass Dugout Doug MacArthur issued a ukase forbidding pornography.
“But,” queried Japanese authorities, “How shall we know what is pornography by your standards?”
“Simple,” said a secondary jerkass, “If it shows genitalia or pubic hair, it is pornography.”
And so, for almost seventy years now, Japanese popular culture has been twisted by the prejudices of a self-aggrandising xenophobic clown from Arkansas.
Bit more complex than that, some of the laws regarding representations of nudity actually date back to the Meiji Restoration.
Course that was heavily influenced by the West as well. To be seen as full and equal to the West, the Japanese made a significant amount of changes to their Culture, and when that led to nothing post WW1, and they didn’t get an equal treating at the League of Nations.
Well, that led to the rise of the right wing militarists, that eventually helped bring about WW2.
In Yamara’s defense, I think you were reading something that wasn’t meant to be there. When she said she appreciated that Pay Pal did not want to fund porn, I think that she wasn’t equating nudity with porn – she was giving Pay Pal a backhanded comment about how they are throwing the “baby out with the bathwater” as the old saying goes.
And I agree.
I fully respect that they do not wish to fund porn, but I am also fully disgusted with them, and any others like them, who take a moral stance then exhibit zero effort whatsoever in differentiating between those that violate the stance and those that merely have some vague resemblence to it.
From the sounds of it, you feel the same way.
So – agreed, nudity is not porn, and not even all porn is about nudity. Pay Pal has a right to set a standard and stay with it – but they should also show the responsibility of correctly (and consistently) applying that standard rather than just haphazardly applying it where they feel most convenient or advantageous.
The only part I truly hate here is how dependent a lot of internet business is on them, we couldn’t really afford to do much to send them a message, unless we are also willing to put more effort into supporting those online businesses directly, regardless of how inconvenient it might be.
Yeah. she’s either going to have to stick to high-stretch fabrics, or learn how to poit her garments safely out of the way, or end up working a lot of overtime at Punk Yoga to pay for new duds on a regular basis.
Saves the trouble and expense of washing them, though, I guess.
Was reading Dave’s comment about Shelly poiting her clothing, thought to myself “yeah right … even M still has issues with that …” and what do I see next, but your reply complete with the icon of M poiting her bra onto her head.
Are you *trying* to kill me by choking to death on my drink? Came darned close, tonight! 😛
Just have to point out that Bia’s comment about Shelly being a bully here are not exactly Gospel.
It’s like someone pulling a prank on someone and then chiding them for getting angry about it. Depending on the level of prank a person may very well be justified in getting angry.
Same here. Yet again, someone is frelling around with Shelly’s life, yet again, she’s being kept in the dark about things. Yet again, someone she knows and trusted is part of that manipulation.
Just following orders isn’t considered a valid excuse/justification for behaviour unbecoming.
People want to get on Shelly’s case for being immature.
Well, if you treat her like a child, then you cannot by any form of reasonableness expect her to act like an adult.
An adult gets to make informed decisions, kinda hard to do that, if people keep hiding pertinent information from you, or manipulating you into situations, because THEY think it would be good for you.
It’s like getting upset at a teen, who has had no sex ed, for getting knocked up or having knocked up someone, as opposed to the teen who has had The Talk, and the Facts.
The latter could make an informed decision, and if they screw up, you have the right to call them out on it, because they knew better.
Same does not apply to the former, who had information purposefully withheld from them… For their own good.
Reacting to the prank is one thing – tearing the head off of the one who told you about it and likely had nothing to do with setting it up is being a bully at best, an immature idiot at worst.
Especially since you have no idea what the intent of those who set it up were, and Shelly is obviously taking the route of “they’re screwing with my life!” rather than waiting to see if maybe someone was being benevolent.
The tender little scene we saw between her and Justin not that long ago, you would think part of Shelly at least would be grateful for the result, regardless of the cause. That’s a lot better than the petulant “it’s MY life, *I* choose everything!!!!” response one would expect from a child, rather than a (supposedly) mature and cognizant adult.
Mom always has the best advice.
Yeah… but accepting it is often hard, and frequently involves eating at least a bit of crow.
I wonder whether Shelly’s had difficulty accepting this sort of “motherly” advice from others (or from herself!) precisely because she lost her mother at an early age. Mothers are in a privileged position… they have the “privilege” of saying things to you (and being listened to) that you wouldn’t take from anyone else. Losing her mother may, unfortunately, have made Shelly react negatively to hearing this sort of message from anyone else, because it reminds her too much of the hurt of losing her mother unexpectedly (and in a way that she feels guilty about).
Then it is really lucky that Bia is her great(enter exponent) grandmother then. Everyone should listen to their grandmother (maybe not do what she says but at least listen to it).
I have always listened to my grand-mother and my great-great grandmother.
They were the “sages” in my, and my parents’ life.
Look at it this way: grand-parents have at least a generation of extra life-experience to offer. I tend to listen to people with experience.
. . . and grandmothers are not usually as threatening as mothers since they tend to be less active in raising the children; they can afford to be more wise women and less disciplinarians.
Okay, whoever called her the hier to Nike had it right, I think.
Or maybe she just shrank back down and is holding the winged humanoid form she used at first with the Cerberi. I like this angelic look on her though.
Bia is actually sister of Nike. She is the Goddess of power, force, compusion. one of the 4 who guard Zeus’ throne (Bia, Nike, Kretos and Zelos)
Nike was the goddess of victory. This doesn’t look like victory to me. As to her appearance, Basic Black has always gone with everything so kudos for Shelly’s fashion sense.
Nice ancestral summary Here.
I recall at some point the gods overthrew the titans, so Zeus/Jupiter and Co. held sway. Bia is daughter of Titans, but dwells with Z, etc, so I’m not sure that her line should be called gods or titans. In the story so far, Bia claims the title of Titan, so let’s go with that.
That would indicate that Athena is her stepsister… hm, Phix might be a distant cousin or something?
Apreciate it Atomic. I wonder what responsibilities Shelly is going to inherit as an hier?
Still a titan. Promethius and Epimethus remained titans, never gods. Aphrodite is the only weird one (that I recall) who gets lumped into the gods and may or may not belong depending on which source material referenced. Hesiod has her a titan born via the castration of Uranos. Homer calls her a goddess born of zeus. But pretty much all her cults considered her a goddess even those quite obviously tied to Hesiod’s version of her birth. All the other titans who took Zeus up on his offer of amnesty were still called titans.
Stygians. When the Titans rebelled, Zeus promised that any Titan to join him would hold their authority, and any that didn’t have an office would get one.
Styx came forward first, bringing her family. By this example she earned a place for children in Zeus’ household forever (hence Princess Bia), and binding oaths are made in name of Styx. (It’s all at Atomic’s link.)
That’s quite a pedigree to live up to.
Most religions have an example of loyalty in their myth cycles, including unfallen Christian angels and faithful djinn in Islam. For the Hellenes, it was the Titanic House of Styx.
Thank you. She’s only been told this…..constantly. Maybe she’ll listen this time round.
:p
Sometimes it matters who’s saying it (and how it is said). I suspect Bia’s words have some force behind them.
{pun jar rattles like rattlesnake}
I’m not sure that was really a pun, but fine. -tosses a roll of duct tape into the pun jar-
(snicker)
Intended or not – was worth it, wasn’t it? Claim it! 😀
That is true. It takes more than one hammer fall for a sword to be properly forged after all.
Hmmm… if Bia is saying what I think she’s saying, it rather confirms a point that there was some debate about… that Bud was the focus or prime mover of the Chimera when it ran amok and slagged Lanthis down into ash.
Bud did blame herself for this, saying that it was her rage which was the trigger, and we know that Bud is heavily “weaponized” (Jin also, apparently). Now, Bia seems to be saying that Bud was the one who was responsible for the burning-wall-of-plasma destruction that gave Charon such a backache.
Hmmm.. Was there even a discussion about that? I cannot remember.
I thought Paul made it pretty clear from the beginning that Bud was the fuel behind the rage, and that she was painfully aware of that.
Have to look in the archive, but Bud even says so literally….
Aaand.. I called it! Bia gives Shelly a spanking for being self-absorbed and bullying again… Gramma’ does what everybody else tried, but failed to ingrain in shelly.
Make Shelly truly understand that her anger can hurt those she loves. Using Bud as an extreme warning.
Bia is comparing her to Bud. Does that imply a similar potental for destruction, I wonder?
I was wondering that, myself. As a sphinx, Shelly is apparently in the apex-predator range and is already very dangerous by human standards (as she pointed out to Monica in a jaw-dropping demonstration of concern)… but if she has substantial Titanic heritage in her genome, she may have all sorts of “wild card” powers or capabilities as well.
How much is said, in recorded mythology, of the powers of various Titans?
Atomic linked to theoi.com up above. I’ve been poking around it since a poster gave the lowdown on Bia after she was first named. (Google ranking seems very fond of the Amazon-affiliated site, but it has good refs.)
Depending on the when the authorship can be placed, Titans tend to be even more elemental personifications than the Olympians. There tends to be an impression that the Titans are primeval and the Olympians are office-holders.
Styx’s four children have very little in terms of mythology that survive. Even Nike, popular with humans and frequently depicted, doesn’t seem to have a round of stories about her from antiquity.
One source also makes Scylla a daughter of Styx, whose form was one of the wildest amalgams in ancient art: kind of a giant mermaid with dogs attached to the front. If Tsillah is her, or related to her, Baxter and Boo may be those ball-on-a-string-attached-to-a-cup doggies. And may provide some insight for Shelly and Conscience going forward.
I somehow doubt that you could call her Titan heritage’s effect on her genome “substantial” given how long ago it was introduced into her family tree…unless a Titan (or two) popped back and to the tree at later dates to keep the genetic thumbprint strong.
@Julie – that may be true, but the very same thing could be said of her sphinx heritage, and we know that she did inherit enough sphinx genes (presumably recessive) to reach some critical threshold and allow her to manifest her sphinx form once she reached maturity.
The same might be true of her Titan ancestry… she may or may not have enough of it to actually affect her. Her role as “heir of a Titan” might end up being a nominal, almost honorary one, or she might start spitting lightning bolts or doing other non-human, non-sphinx sorts of things one of these days. She’s already a low-probability event, in the flesh… no telling how low-probability!
It’s even conceivable that sphinx genes and Titan genes are somehow intertwined or cross-linked, and might tend to “travel together” through generations of inheritance.
(Vlad once asked Aliera how the Dragaerans’ genetic inheritance, which includes some odd genes implanted from various species of animal, interacts with the reincarnation of Dragaerans’ souls into younger generations. Her one-word answer was “Oddly”. Wapsi mystical genetics might be just as odd).
I do remember reading some discussions about this point, as to whether Bud was really correct in holding herself primarily responsible (e.g. how much Brandi’s state of mind might have contributed). Jin’s comments at one point suggested that it was the pain and rage of both of the sacrifices that broke the control over the Chimera (both the priests’ control, and Jin’s own attempts to restrain).
I thought it was somewhat confirmed that the Chimera’s rampage was Jin’s doing.
Bud and Brandi went through the ritual as arranged by the temple priests, from the abuse to the eventual burning alive. Jin went against it every step of the way, from lashing against the temple priests to killing herself before the fires could claim her life.
Brandi even confirms having similar feelings to Bud’s at the time of their torture and death. If anything, Brandi is just as likely to cause any ‘rage’ the chimera would have as Bud was.
So, maybe I’m forgetting a conversation or flashback, but everything I remember indicates Jin, not Bud.
No…Jin was the “control” on the Chimera. She didn’t play by the priests’ rules in order to reduce the control they had over the chimera (or something like that). She was the one who tried to reign in the destruction of the beast (but if I recal correctly she was overwhelmed by the other two)…so she wasn’t the cause of the rampage.
…but Jin blamed herself for not being able to stop it. Maybe that’s the source of the confusion?
Shelly’s mind has gone bye-bye for now. Plese check in next week for an appointment.
I don’t think this is really going to sink in too well in her state of mind. The advice is good but the timing stinks if Bia expects it to make any real impact. It will probably leave Shelly more confused and adrift than she already is.
Oh, I think it’ll have an impact. Once she gets past the realization that this Titan happens to be her great-grandma several thousand times removed.
Oh, and do you think Shel’s gonna get Charon to help out with Jin’s other little issue?
Hmmm — lets allow 8,000 years, and about 20 years for a generation, so 400 generations later…
Bia is Shelly’s Quadrohectograndmother.
There. I fixed it. More duct tape, please!
That’s because in this instant Shelly is feeling much the same way that the hellhounds at the library did after Shelly finished with them … and Bia didn’t even have to touch her.
Now *that* is true force (force of will, anyway), and gives truth to Bia’s legend. 😀
yup, waaaaay to ‘grow up’…. time to realize there are much ‘bigger things’ and ‘setting you up’ actually did you a great favor….. :/
unless you *wanted* to be just another ‘meathead’ without a clue???? 🙂
Spot-on!
Shelly’s habit of lashing-out at the whole world in toddler-like tantrums hás to go, if she wants her true spot in the pantheon.
It’ll take some time. She’s pretty dense in that aspect, but not a numb-skull. She just lashed-out when personal stuff overwhelms her, thát’s a habit that hás to go.
She was allowed to go feral and develop some bad habits for a time. Bad habits that *did* keep her alive.
There is some understanding and a lot more tolerance of her behaviors I think because of that but yeah…the foot has come down, the chain is being yanked.
No one gets handed the perks of the job without the work to maintain said perks.
Yes, you’re right… it will take time. It always does, for almost all of us.
Maturity doesn’t come easily, even for plain ordinary mortals like most of us reading this forum… we act childishly or irresponsibly, make mistakes, have to deal with the consequences, learn a bit each time, and do better.
The same is true for Shelly… she is learning to do better, albeit a bit slowly at times. She’s also got a lot of issues that most of us don’t have to deal with… learning that she has multiple mystical and (semi)divine heritages is complicating things no end.
She’s just going to have to put her Pantheon, one leg at a time.
(*tosses a gold brick into the Pun Jar, in celebration of the end of a long vacation… back to work today*)
Salutes the Pantheon pun and tosses in additional donation the pun jar!
One thing is sure about Wapsi Square — we get our share of humor, angst, and drachma!
Come say hi to the bad guy chica!
Hm.. 1st frame is magnificent, but, as an ex -art student, I find it a bit of a shame that Pablo shy’d away from showing the full-frontal.
Nót in an explicit manner, mind You. But the ancient Greek and Romans that gave us the great legends of gods, titans and monsters, nèver shy’d away from showing a lot.
Hèck, Hermes is often portrayed buck-nekkid!
There is a certain elegance in that. There are few things more beautiful than a well-defined body. I knów this, I’ve drawn and sculpted mány when in art-school. Thís however, feels “forcedly prudish” c’m on, Shell’ is nude here.
Well, maybe it’s just the (to me) unpleasant contrast between the exquisitely drawn wall’o skuls, the intricate detail of the feathers…and thèn there are those ‘scribbles… I dunno..
The “Artist” in me doesn’t like the jarring contrast.
Yes, yes, I dó understand that, as a European, “nudity” is different to me, compared to the puritan under-current that defines America’s views on nudity.
In case of the spread of the first frame, it would seem more appropriate to, indeed, show more. Nót because I am some kind of lecherous “rule34” horn-dog, but because it would enhance and exemplify the fact that we are dealing with a Titan in the classical, Greek tradition, where most Gods at one time, or another, were painted/sculpted “Au naturale” Exáctly because the Greek celebrated the beauty and intricacies of the human body.
Nudity for the sake of nudity is idiotic, agreed, but in this case, the inconsistency makes me gnash my teeth for a bit.
I guess culture and local mores goes befóre artistic considerations, even if it’s on a sub-conscious level.
Pondering this for a bit more, I have to conclude that the artist, on a sub-conscious level, doesn’t want to entice the horny adolescent-minded.
Still.. The picture would feel more “correct”?? if, at least the shading was more subtle. Why can a Sphinx have nipples, and a Shellinx nót…
And again. If I wanted to see some boobs for the sake of boobs, I only have to walk 20-minutes to the nearest beach, and see gazzillions of those, young, old, pre pubescent, whatever…
*sigh* It’s hárd to communicate what I exáctly mean, without being labeled “dirty old man”
The first pic is glorious, yet… It feels “incomplete”
It is nót a critique parsé on Paul’s technique, but more on the -in my view- unnecessary care to prevent “naughty bits” to show. (consider this: “naughty bits” is an English term. There is nó “stoute delen” in Dutch, or “Freche Teile” as a terminology in f.i. German.. Makes you wonder)
*skulks back into the shadows, waiting for the fall-out*
Or maybe it’s just PayPal worries.
Indeed, but the PayPal tripwire is one dearth to cross. They have no “transient” category for nudity issues, so the first whiner tends to kill that service for the webcomic author.
Consider Loxie and Zoot, praised by one critic as “The nicest comic on the Internet,” for drama/comedy without gore and pandering, is about the hi-jinx and goings-on of an Australian nudist camp. Nipples, yes; sex, no. PayPal? No.
At the other end of the “Slice of (mythic) Life” would be Spun Off, a Fairy tale (literally) focusing on events of the fairy folk who inhabited the Rogues of Clwyd-Rhan series. Nekkid? Yep! PayPal? Not a chance.
Then again, there’s Olgaf, who – well, forget PayPal. Passes the Bechtel test nicely, though!
So.. It’s a specific American problem then? Shame that one overly powerful US company can dictate the mores of the world as far as art goes.
*shakes head* despite all superficial Similarity of our European, and American “culture”, there’s still a sea of divide between us. Things like my ponderings and Yours, illustrate that again.
“Art” should néver be dictated by money, but I guess it’s just a fact of life.
Art is always dictated by money…and to an extent you could say it always has been (wealthy benefactors made executive decisions about commissions from the great artists of our past, after all). Heck, even music is controlled by money to an extent…which is why “radio edits” of some songs exist at all.
On the one hand, I understand the concept of restricting access to adult material, but I tend to agree with you that art can have a different classification than pornography. Unfortunately, it would take a major cultural shift in the US for artistic nudity to be treated with the widespread respectful interest it deserves (instead of inducing childish giggling in at least some segments of th population and potentially worse reactions in others).
i think what you have to remember is that america has a strong cultural foundation in calvinism. which translates to a “salvation by works” mentality, and a strong distrust in anything done *solely* for the sake of fun.
nose to the grindstone, work your ass off all your life, no vacations to speak of unless its a weekend hunting or fishing because at least THOSE things bring food to the table, that sort of thinking. and people who DO appreciate things like tasteful/artistic nudity or vacations spent enjoying oneself are frowned upon and viewed with much suspicion.
its a sucky mentality, but how it is for most americans, whether they actively think of it or not. and i think it also speaks to our view of sexuality to begin with, that it is something shameful that should be hidden at all costs…and ONLY between one man and one woman, all other constructs are positively EEEEEvil.
Hear Hear !
Droemos, the original author of Exiern, wrote about his PayPal troubles here.
He included the following excerpt from the communication he received from PayPal about the matter:
Note that this equates bare boobies to obscenity.
His comment:
I just thought that Paypal were a bunch of thieving bastards that wait for you to make a nice amount of money and then kill your account and keep your hard earned money without any fear of reprisals because the TOS Agreement that warns you of this. (Sorry, I know a few people that have been mistreated by them)
Seems like an opportunity for someone to offer Pablo a commission to do a full-up artistic-grade Shelly-as-Nike drawing. “The Winged Victory of Wapsi Square” perhaps? Would certainly be a stunning image!
I don’t know if there’d be any feasible way for Paul to run the image here or sell prints (a non-PayPal method might be required and that could be a huge hassle) but as a purely artistic venture it feels like a winner to me!
Dave – Challenge accepted. Finished some art classes — time to put it to work!
Shelly is Stygian, so being covered in shadow is part if her true nature.
PayPal, for all it’s faults, should be respected for not wanting to fund porn. The sad thing is that the ratio of porn-to-art is negligible, and therefore the cost effectiveness of hiring someone to make that decision is negative.
They would have to hire someone to constanly read tons of porn, in order to allow a little art funding.
So Shelly rises into the family of noble shadows, and we can applaud the art of that for what it is.
*stern voice*
Nudity is NOT porn!! And don’t even dáre to imply as much! If You see nudity sec. as “porn” then that’s YOUR problem, and a problem of American culture as a whole, sorry to say.
Look, i’ve drawn hundreds if not thousands of nudes, and there wasn’t a sliver of “lust” involved! Not ónce, nót even when the class’ beauty posed to earn a bit of extra cash. Pretty normal on Minerva (Northern Netherlands main art-academy)
Last thing I am going to say about it, because I already feel my anger bubbling up at the Nudity = Porn comment…..
Jay-Em, I know that as well as anyone. Especially the absence of lust part. Clothes are no barrier or gauge of lust or other curiosities. Not even metal clothes over a frame:
Dr. Peter Venkman: Kinda makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
Winston Zeddemore: Wonder what?
Dr. Peter Venkman: Whether she’s naked under that toga. She is French. You know that.
But my point stands regarding PayPal. They would have to hire that guy and decide whether an auction of Rubens was porn and sale of Oglaf books was not. In the midst of the sea of requests from every amateur pronista to make bank from just being naked.
How that affects Paul’s decisions is for him alone to say.
Oh, boy, do i agree with that.
That is one of three more-or-less-interlinked tropes that run through USAian culture:
{1} Nudity is Obscene
{2} Animated films are for kids, not adults.
{3} Comic books are for little kids and no truly mture person bothers with them.
This leads to fascinating but sad results.
Another fascinating result of USAian culture and attitudes toward sex and nudity is the blurring of genitalia in hentai and ecchi anime and manga, and the existence of tentacle porn.
During the Occupation, good ol’ jerkass Dugout Doug MacArthur issued a ukase forbidding pornography.
“But,” queried Japanese authorities, “How shall we know what is pornography by your standards?”
“Simple,” said a secondary jerkass, “If it shows genitalia or pubic hair, it is pornography.”
And so, for almost seventy years now, Japanese popular culture has been twisted by the prejudices of a self-aggrandising xenophobic clown from Arkansas.
Bit more complex than that, some of the laws regarding representations of nudity actually date back to the Meiji Restoration.
Course that was heavily influenced by the West as well. To be seen as full and equal to the West, the Japanese made a significant amount of changes to their Culture, and when that led to nothing post WW1, and they didn’t get an equal treating at the League of Nations.
Well, that led to the rise of the right wing militarists, that eventually helped bring about WW2.
Well, here’s how we see things in my USAian home town. “Possibly NSFW”:
http://breakthruradio.com/#/post/?blog=85&post=5872
Note they mention that the New York State law only prohibits women being topfree while “engaged in commerce”. Because porn smash.
@Jay-Em
In Yamara’s defense, I think you were reading something that wasn’t meant to be there. When she said she appreciated that Pay Pal did not want to fund porn, I think that she wasn’t equating nudity with porn – she was giving Pay Pal a backhanded comment about how they are throwing the “baby out with the bathwater” as the old saying goes.
And I agree.
I fully respect that they do not wish to fund porn, but I am also fully disgusted with them, and any others like them, who take a moral stance then exhibit zero effort whatsoever in differentiating between those that violate the stance and those that merely have some vague resemblence to it.
From the sounds of it, you feel the same way.
So – agreed, nudity is not porn, and not even all porn is about nudity. Pay Pal has a right to set a standard and stay with it – but they should also show the responsibility of correctly (and consistently) applying that standard rather than just haphazardly applying it where they feel most convenient or advantageous.
The only part I truly hate here is how dependent a lot of internet business is on them, we couldn’t really afford to do much to send them a message, unless we are also willing to put more effort into supporting those online businesses directly, regardless of how inconvenient it might be.
PayPal seems to have a changing view of nudity for art or Porn. In most cases they hate all forms of nudity no mater the subject.
Story uber alles, nips not that important to getting the point across.
um, too right…
whats more important??
a dramatically shaded figure, or showin the tits????? I think you are letting your ‘lower brain’ take over…. 🙂
get back to art class and experiment with light and shade on a model, and I think you will find that it CAN be done without showing them…
Its a bit like an OCD friend of mine, that cannot watch a good film, he only obsesses on the production and lighting…
Your friend reminds me a bit of a recent XKCD: “Really hate someone? Teach him to recognize bad kerning.”
Somebody give that girl a hug and let her sit down: She’s reeling… 🙁
Hmm, Bia is using distracting statements to calm Shelly down, which is useful, but somebody still needs to do some explaining.
Isn’t that how every conversation in Wapsi goes though?
“I’m upset!”
-“Hey, relax fella, you need a rest, guy.”
“But…”
-“Hey, don’t worry about that. Take a load off. Don’t think about it. Look over here.”
Yeah, and enjoy your bacon sandwich.
And just how long are you going to keep Phix waiting for that apology, young titan?
…Shellly just put that shirt on too.
Yeah. she’s either going to have to stick to high-stretch fabrics, or learn how to poit her garments safely out of the way, or end up working a lot of overtime at Punk Yoga to pay for new duds on a regular basis.
Saves the trouble and expense of washing them, though, I guess.
I don’t think Shelly’s a poiter…so she just needs some extensive wardrobe expansions. 🙂
She needs a Reed Richards analog to invent clothing that can morph with the wearer.
Julie, your timing is AWESOME … +1 to you!
Was reading Dave’s comment about Shelly poiting her clothing, thought to myself “yeah right … even M still has issues with that …” and what do I see next, but your reply complete with the icon of M poiting her bra onto her head.
Are you *trying* to kill me by choking to death on my drink? Came darned close, tonight! 😛
So has anyone discussed whether Bia is the little girl in the villiage who survived the Chimera attack? She saw Acacia at work all right.
Just have to point out that Bia’s comment about Shelly being a bully here are not exactly Gospel.
It’s like someone pulling a prank on someone and then chiding them for getting angry about it. Depending on the level of prank a person may very well be justified in getting angry.
Same here. Yet again, someone is frelling around with Shelly’s life, yet again, she’s being kept in the dark about things. Yet again, someone she knows and trusted is part of that manipulation.
Just following orders isn’t considered a valid excuse/justification for behaviour unbecoming.
People want to get on Shelly’s case for being immature.
Well, if you treat her like a child, then you cannot by any form of reasonableness expect her to act like an adult.
An adult gets to make informed decisions, kinda hard to do that, if people keep hiding pertinent information from you, or manipulating you into situations, because THEY think it would be good for you.
It’s like getting upset at a teen, who has had no sex ed, for getting knocked up or having knocked up someone, as opposed to the teen who has had The Talk, and the Facts.
The latter could make an informed decision, and if they screw up, you have the right to call them out on it, because they knew better.
Same does not apply to the former, who had information purposefully withheld from them… For their own good.
Reacting to the prank is one thing – tearing the head off of the one who told you about it and likely had nothing to do with setting it up is being a bully at best, an immature idiot at worst.
Especially since you have no idea what the intent of those who set it up were, and Shelly is obviously taking the route of “they’re screwing with my life!” rather than waiting to see if maybe someone was being benevolent.
The tender little scene we saw between her and Justin not that long ago, you would think part of Shelly at least would be grateful for the result, regardless of the cause. That’s a lot better than the petulant “it’s MY life, *I* choose everything!!!!” response one would expect from a child, rather than a (supposedly) mature and cognizant adult.
Sometimes it’s hard to tell good from bad… too hard