I can’t believe we’re 25 pages into this story already! At the same time: I can’t believe it’s taken this long to get 25 pages into this story. Almost 20 years and I still can’t wrap my head around Webcomic Time.
I can’t believe we’re 25 pages into this story already! At the same time: I can’t believe it’s taken this long to get 25 pages into this story. Almost 20 years and I still can’t wrap my head around Webcomic Time.
48 Comments
Hey. Hey? Ms Kory Bing lady ma’am? That first panel and their heartbreaking expressions?
First of all, how dare you
I hate that I was wright last week… ;A; There’s so much tragic about manticores and what they have to do to find safety, and what’s lost in the process
Agreed. It’s a real shame.
Oh. So the Avalon cut off their hands. No biggie.
Oh thats so creative damn
Ok so this is beyond “suspicious of dangerous beings” and moving into “removing the hands of people”
Oh that makes it even more tragic. They were forced to handicapped themselves just to live in that Avalon. That just messed up on so many levels.
Please forgive the mini-rant:
I’ve noticed a theme through the comic that kind of leans into the idea that if you don’t have a human shaped body that you are automatically at a disadvantage. Having or lacking thumbs, specifically, seems to be a recurring point used to answer why a non-human character cannot do an activity (such as play video games). I understand that this is a story about mythical creatures hiding among humankind using magical medallions that make them appear as humans, and that finding your place in the differing worlds is one of the comic’s primary themes. But, (to me) it doesn’t seem feasible that over thousands of years of existing (some existing even longer than humans) intelligent species like manticores have not figured out how to make tools or accommodating prosthesis to make their lives easier. Why not?
Why can’t they use their claws to scratch the lines? You don’t need thumbs to hold a pen in the hands/paws either. I mean, tons of regular birds use tools and they don’t have thumbs. Holding a calligraphy brush in the mouth is also possible, it just takes practice.
To be fair, before modern prosthetics got to where they are, there were people who lost (or were born without) both arms who were able to learn how to use their feet and toes very dexterously.
Yeah, this is kind of feeling a little… excessive.
I think it’s supposed to imply that they’re not only ostracized from ‘polite’ society but also losing their language and cultural heritage (which ties back in to what Ike is trying to do to begin with) but this is honestly making me lose some sympathy, like it’s just too much.
It might make sense if the language was entirely tied to the array of spins on the tail and it’s very difficult to replicate that movement with claws, but as established some of them have scorpion tails (not spines), so that’s not the problem. And it’s obviously not a case where the tails are so prehensile they actually have more dexterity than the paws. Maybe it would be a difficult transition — like trying to write with your off-hand if your dominant hand is damaged — but this feels less like they’ve been denied their language and more like they’re choosing helplessness, and that’s hard to get behind.
Hopefully Ike calls them out on this and doesn’t just fall into the ‘woe is thee’ attitude, but yeah, this is really pushing credulity.
Point well made. On page 18, one of them had a club of spikes, not spines along the length. If Manticorsh was only written with spines, that would preclude that subspecies from writing.
Tails move very differently from claws the script is clearly long and flowing and meant to be done on a large surface they can’t do it wuth their claws because they can’t get the flow
Aside from that you ever tried to write with ur off hand? It ain’t easy
Also cat paws have an amount of webbing that makes moving the toes independently difficult so no thumbs means no holding a pen
This whole argument is based on fallacy
shut
Just because a written language is meant to be long and flowy doesn’t prevent it from being adapted to paper. And while writing with the off hand can be annoying and difficult, you can always get better with practice.
Manticorsh can absolutely be adapted to ink and paper, it just requires a little time and effort to get the process nailed down. The multiple lines created by the spines simultaneously in a single stroke can be painted individually with a brush. The spine prints can be stylized as a drawn character. Pens and brushes can be held in the mouth if the paw dexterity is too low.
There are ways to get around it, they just have to try.
Writing with your off-hand is not easy. It’s also quite embarrassing because it ends up looking like it was written by a five-year-old. But it’s possible. And if you keep at it, you’ll eventually learn how to write better — still not as well as with your main hand, of course, but then again you presumably have had years upon years of practice with your main hand.
Actually many left-handed people were forced in school to write with their right hand to be “normal” and as a result they’re about ambidextrous, at least as far as writing is concerned.
That is w a language designed to be written w a hand, too, using one line at a time. So there is that. I’m glad ppls sleeves weren’t nailed to their desks anymore, though. Humans are cruel and petty.
I imagine they cant use other methods to write in the language because the language was designed around a specific tool, their tail spikes, which would be hard to replicate properly,
And the reason why theres no accomodating tools or prosthesis.. Well, thats probably the same reason theres a lack of accommodating tools in real life. No one but a manticore would need a tool to replicate a manticore tail for the purpose of replacing a lost tail, and there aren’t really that many manticores left, and the ones that are around are busy just trying to survive. They dont have the time or resources to tinker around with inventions.
And the people who do have the time and resources dont care if manticores can write in their native language, they dont even really care if the manticores *survive*.
Its a sad mirror of the real world. The people who need these things cant make them due to a multitude of barriers, and those who can, dont. It creates an interesting intersection of racism, ablism, and classism.
Its very clear to see all the species that have these issues, especially lacking hands, are species who are classed as monsters, and dont have medallions, and thus, dont matter to society. Who is going to spend their time and money making stuff to make the people who dont even belong in the city have an easier time?
You see those different species living in human based Avalons, or houses, hence they do need a minimum of prehensile ability. Thus the advantage of having a form with thumbs.
As for the manticores not using their paws to replace their tails, the idea might be so outside their way of thinking that they just didn’t think of it. Or their struggle to survive made them forget everything but looking for their next meal. Poverty does that to people.
“Why can’t they use their claws to scratch the lines?”
I suspect that as they are feline claws, to do so will cause them to become dull. If they rely on catching live prey, that might be a problem. It’s possible that this society / Avalon are not willing to help further, potentially due to racism. They may need a handler if they’re unable to place their own prosthetic, though why a permanent prosthetic couldn’t be placed, well…
As you say, this is a sad mirror to the real world.
No. Thank you.
To me this has also felt like “oh, woe is us, we can’t do sheit if we are not given every aid ever”.
Could they use aid? Definitely. Is it shitty from other avalonians IF they are not even offered any? Absolutely!
But to me they come off as haughty, don’t-care -like critter, who even berated Ike for coming to them and asking for stuff. A critter who’s partly one of them!
And yeah, losing tails and their larger than life calligraphic abilities of just writing sheit on yard sized area does suck. But portraying them as completely incapable of reproducing any form of writing unless it’s done specifically by tail, specifically on an are the size of a barn, just reeks of superiority complex.
And saying “well, it’s not the same”, is like telling a person who lost both hands to an accident that “well, shucks. Guess you’ll off yourself now.”
Also can you just imagine people like the jubjubs being such total a-holes towards these guys? Or other cryptids, who have literally been hunted for what they are, just throwing middle fingers at these mants, just because they WERE somewhat more dangerous than others?
I’m really interested in these mants, but the victimhood is getting hella old.
No wonder there’s been some call out of it as well in our world…
I am reminded of how hat pins gave women protection from groping men of the day. At first, they were praised. Then, men of the era continued being grabby and took over the narrative of how hat pins, just by existing, were some natural danger that randomly poked others. The descriptions of those in danger were always, well, male.
They shamed and lawed and eventually enforced a change in women’s fashion.
Mind, the comments of the male on any form of female fashion in history often end up being awful and disgusting, but hat pins were hated in particular bc they protected against the groping “freedoms” of the time.
People get stupid about others having choice or protection, or areas where pride kicks in. I wonder if manticores being seen as monsters might come down to some territory dispute or struggle-pride issue of one species vs another
A reasonable explanation is that these two specifically learned to write it with their tails (which could just be the easiest or fastest way for a manticore “in the wild” to write, so those manticores wouldn’t bother with using utensils or claws, either) and just never had the opportunity or drive to find another way. Sure, they could (very gently) hold a pencil or brush in their mouths or get ink to dip their claws in, maybe scratch into a wax tablet, but what’s the point? There aren’t any other manticores around who would read it, and they’re rather low
on funds to spend money on self-expression when they’re already struggling this much with self-preservation.
I think it’s also a matter of how exhausting that would be physically and mentally. Like Theoretically I could put on gloves and leg pads and drag myself around with my hands when I can’t use my legs but ?? would it be learned helplessness if I did not going out for anything not strictly necessary if my wheelchair broke then? (this is rhetorical general question to highlight the points we are both making, not directed at you) And they’d only have each other to even be able to read the results.
Without the natural shape of the spines we imagine the intended shape of a character is also hard to achieve. Working with claws or a brush would probably be like writing english with dotwork, or at best like with a pen that’s like out of ink so every letter you need to go back again and again to make it work. Imagine then having to do that let alone in addition to teaching someone-it’d take ages and be frustrating, upsetting, and exhausting. I’d have to say no too.
I’m going to posit that they didn’t need prosthetics before starting to live in the Avalon. If you grew up in a society of creatures that don’t have hands or bipedal posture, culturally you just aren’t going to be doing activities that require those. That manticorsh inscription is several metres long — If that’s the smallest a manticore typically goes with what is considered a fine motor task, then trying to write on a small sheet of paper or whatever with their front legs or mouth (even with tools) would be exhausting not just physically but mentally.
Prosthetic limbs and even non attached mobility aids require your brain and other muscles to work differently than they would if you could use the limb or organ that’s lost or just not working. It is vastly more difficult to have this sort of mental synergy with a limb you’ve never had in the first place, and would easily get into actually hinders your quality of life territory with prosthetics that aren’t in your species’ body plan at all.
There’s still tools that creatures like manticores could use regardless — I mean humans do stuff our body isn’t technically built for all the time. But in order to get anywhere close to the functionality of someone with a more humanoid body (or at least hands) they would essentially need disability accommodations from the Avalon and the Avalonians just don’t want to provide those to monsters. A tail covering would be the bare minimum and they wouldn’t even provide that.
So this is a ‘problem’ I’ve solved in my own Semi-Charmed. I also offer it to people I like to use.
Introducing: Talon and claw tips. Shaped like a talon with the tip of a pen (depending on what you need there are a variety of tips) they attach at the first and second knuckle with joints on the side so one can still move that digit normally.
Sphinx magic is based in riddles. Would/could one of them be the riddle of regrowth, or grafting on parts of a regenerating creature to something like this? For example, a donated tail of a regenerating lizard?
Awww.. was right about tails being used to write their language.. and sad because they cannot do it anymore :C
Manticores, a vexing thesis
A sting is feared but tongues are spared
Watch out, Elders, for prosthesis.
I think some people have forgotten that these two live on the street, feared and ostracized, busking for what little they can.
That’s going to go to whatever food someone is willing to sell them. Not ink, or tablets, or prosthetics.
They were made to amputate their tails for a tiny sliver of safety of being able to be homeless monsters in a place that people still fear them in. Who is going to teach them to hold a pen? Who is going to give them the means to practice?
What this mirrors is having your native tongue beaten out of you. Your culture cut from your head and body and burned in fire so you can ” Fit in with the civilized folks.”
“Why don’t manticores and other ‘monsters’ have prosthetics that help them?” To me the most obvious answer is “nobody’s really reaching out to help them,” because that’s something that happens a lot in real life. Even today there are people who don’t have necessary medical assistance; the help is simply not there on the scale where everyone gets their needs met. And this happens due to a lot of social and political reasons.
This comic takes place in the early 2000s, and it’s clear that mythical society still has a lot of prejudice and apathy towards monsters. Manticores obviously can’t turn to humans for help, and the minuscule avalons just aren’t interested in literally lending a hand. There could be dozens of justifications their society gives for this;
“There must be SOME reason why nobody gave them medallions,” some might say, implying that they truly are too vicious to deal with. “If they’re so gentle, why are they so adamant about keeping their deadly poison spikes? If they’re never going to use them then amputation shouldn’t be a big deal,” others might say. Depending on how othered they are, there could be dozens of old wives’ tales about how helping a manticore might curse you. Maybe greater manticore society chose to isolate themselves after some terrible incident and medallioned society collectively shrugged and said “well if they don’t WANT our help then they deserve whatever they get…” Heck, maybe the elders of this very avalon have banned the creation of prosthetic tails for these guys because being covered in spikes would mean it’s a “deadly weapon”.
In any case, developing medical aids takes time, know-how, resources, and some trial and error. If this is a culture that is happy these two lost their tails, why would it want anyone to restore them?
The tale of the scorpion and the frog might apply here.
All these comments about prosthetic tails (or tail-tips) have images of Hiccup & Toothless flashing in my mind.
We know that Ike has some tech skills; are they the /right/ tech skills to create prostheses, or might he be able to enlist someone else’s help?
He could presumably start by copying the form of his own tail. One part of the challenge would be making the spines stiff enough to write in mud or wet sand without making the prosthetic basically a mace strapped onto a tail.
Prosthetic non-toxic tail spikes?
No, no. If more than one breed don’t need them, no use making them. And the breed itself is sheit out of luck expense-wise and completely incapable of contributing in any way, shape or form to the society around them, so they have zero means of procuring such things themselves.
No-one cares, all are sheitheads and everybody just hate mants. End of the story and forever will be.
…
Unless they get medallions from our main hero. Then everyone will instantly love them, they can live happily ever after without ever having to be forced to resort to human forms and all was good in Avalon once again.
/verytinyamountofsarcarsm
Yes, those would probably be achievable and less of a hassle than people make them to be and would likely fix the issue pretty well.
Heck, even binding a strong stick would likely offer some measure of utility towards producing written manticorsh.
Like others have pointed out, there’s variety of tails on mants. So it can’t be “exactly three spines in a row” writing. And even for that you can find a stick with three branches.
Should have been the venom that scents the text, that gives added layer to the words or letters…
But even that likely could be produced in some fashion.
Heck, humans have written with all sorts of inks, coals, scratches, paints, bodily fluids and so on. With hands, full of fingers or missing, teeth, feet, bet someones even written stuff by sticking a brush in their bumhole.
Manticores? Tail or nothing. Take your pick.
… Why are you reading the comic if you don’t like it? This is the vibe I’m getting from the comment here.
Entirely understandable. It’s actually quite opposite. I do like the story a fair bit. It is why I am commenting on it, harshly and critically though I am doing it.
For the most part the story is absolutely entertaining and Ike’s journey of discovery and the general world building is fascinating.
But.
There’s always a but with these.
I really don’t like the current line of thought here.
My mother became partly disabled some rough 20 years ago. Both physically and mentally.
I have also studied to aid deaf people, also with straight deaf teachers.
And I would like to say I have never seen such defeatist attitude from anyone, but I have.
I didn’t like it then either.
Also the Ike’s alarm at the mants “having to be mutilated” to “fit in” was a take and a half…
Just simply put, people can get by with a plethora of problems. People can even thrive despite lacks, obstacles and outright disabilities. People can do such wonderous things, no matter what life throws at them!
But…
People can also break. Take away a finger, man can find joy. Take away whole hand, man can find joy. Take away whole arm, man can find joy. Take every single appendage and he still can find joy.
But break a man’s spirit and he will never be happy again.
And I have seen that too. I have felt its grasp too and I am more and more battling against a dearest friend’s growing depression and complete apathy, my father’s fading interest in life and my mother’s grief over her inability to take part in life around her the way she would want to.
And these two aren’t even that! For all I’m seeing, they are content.
They just can’t be bothered. But we are still having them portrayed as somehow having been wronged. How something very huge has been robbed from them and outright lost to them due to sacrifices they have been forced to make.
When in fact, they have lost very little. And if they wanted to, they could work towards things they seemingly lost and I dare say quite easily.
Alsoalso, this being very much an allegory to things real life people have “lost” due to actions of others and how some people should be so ashamed for what someone else did and how the wronged parties can only rise if they have their case raised upon a pedestal above all others instead of just leveling the playing field and letting them work themselves freely to the same goals as everyone else, buuuut that’s tail of full of so much venom, it too remains best nibbed from it’s base.
But I still do like to see the story, want to see where it goes.
Just dislike the attitude of these two and think Ike’s being a bit stupid.
It’s fair to assume that without hands manufacturing anything might be difficult, so they would have to rely on others to help them in this case, too. We’ll see what happens. I do know that some forms of formal writing are very specific on tools. Japanese calligraphy (shodo) would not be the same if you did it with a crayon or finger instead of a brush.
Ike is a shapeshifter, not a medallion user, so I don’t know what his limits are in his chosen forms. It goes without saying that if he had enough specific control to avoid manifesting a spiked tail in his halfform, he wouldn’t need to bandage it. In fact, if I recall from “Kill Them With Kindness,” his half-breed shapeshifting is a chaotic process involving actually shedding skin and stuff. The good news is that if Ike has an actual manticore tail, these two might teach him the basics of the language. Doing it properly might take a long time.
Most aye on the points. And terribly sorry for the rants, they were not towards you (or even Kory), but the idea in general.
And yes. Like writing with feather pens generally requires ink of some sort, the “proper manticorsh” no doubt has its needs too, but like cursive today isn’t even taught these day, less so in its olden form, AND we are even moving towards more digital writing in general (we already have children who struggle writing with actual pens due to lack of teaching and usage of the actual skill, adults too on the latter, but they can blame themselves)…
We still can write. Even the mentioned people who have difficulties with pen, due to them being taught more “digi-native” can still produce some semblance of text.
It would not fly in British court, but the skill is there and if willingness follows, it can be used.
These two haven’t needed to write “proper manticorsh” to keep up with the skill. It’s still lines in the sand, if need be.
There’s nothing special about the language itself, except that it looks bit different if not written with specific tool (which, as you mentioned too, can likely be reproduced).
And even that should be amendable to some degree.
Or are we actually saying that absolutely no-one likes these two? They have absolutely nothing they can offer in trade to anyone for anything? And even if they had something, no-one would do anything to them for it? They are just that reviled?
Ike is literally the first person to offer them any interest in any of the fields?
I’m more certain they are just content layabouts who don’t get interested themselves in things general. They don’t have things going great, but eeh, could be worse and anything better would be a bother.
Hold up. Does this mean we’ll potentially see full-form Ike attempting to write Manticorsh?
Does he have enough control to manifest a full-form tail while otherwise in a midform?
He has a tail with spikes, you can see it in a previous page.
Yes, he has a spiked tail. My speculative question was about whether it reaches its full expression when he’s in his midform.
The comment section is a great study on why these manticores have not been able to thrive in Avalon.
Everyone is forgetting something important. They make their money by busking.
PT, learning how to write, learning an entirely different writing system, those all take time. An hour practicing your handwriting is an hour that you could be on the streets so you maybe don’t go to bed with an empty stomach.
Not to mention, these two have basically had part of their spine amputated. They WILL have chronic pain issues. There’s a reason they are snarky and cranky.
Yes, their issues have work arounds, but they are isolated and have no resources except for their equally traumatized partner.
Calligraphy takes a fine form of muscle control. Depending on what remains of the tail, even if a prosthetic were available, it would be quite difficult, if not clunky, esp where the weight would sit on the tail vs say, a hand. Even tho some use full arm prosthetics, these devices can be quite heavy and imbalancing, and the person likely does not wear them for extended periods.
Aside from all of that, we have the emotional and mental dmg of being consistently told you are worthless and a monster your whole life, then having your hands cut off.
I’m a little wincing at the “get over it already” tones of some posts.
These guys’ devil may care attitude is how they are coping. Just, Ike broke beneath the surface and we’re seeing the underbelly.
I know I’m writing way too much around here right now and I do promise I will return to haunt the pages on the background once we get through this particular storyline, but…
A thought occured to me.
We have seen that Avalonians and the like do listen to music.
How in the heck are we supposed to take that not a single Avalonian would be willing to pay manticores to sing? Or offer anything of note for it?
I can again accept that singing (and as demonstrated in previous pages, simply TALKING manticorsh) could be viewed as somehow culturally valuable and “not for sale”, but that’d be a bit silly and highly detrimental to their integration…
‘Cose really. No-one would be willing to pay them, just to hear them talk?
In our world you’d have all sorts of celebrities paying their weight in gold to have them recite wedding vows to make them “extra special”.
Heck, people even like Kanye for his “talents”. But these things are simply monsters with no redeeming qualities?
You seem to have missed a detail in their background. It’s been stated that they survive by busking. Buskers are street musicians. In RL, buskers are usually instrumentalists. These two “sing” a capella. So yes, being paid for their “music” is exactly how Statler & Waldorf get by.
That I did.
But just survive? No-one in Avalon appreciates their craft more?
Infame aside, even people as jaded as humans pay for the worst sort of people to perform if they are remotely skilled. And these critters have been stated to have divine voices, which they are not actively using to hunt other Avalonians. Least anymore.
How does that not pay?
Avalonians must be most vindicated people ever or these two are terrible at selling their work…
Oh god…
Okay… WAIT. I wanna know…. Are these two gay?