Saturday, January 29, 2011

Chapter 10B Curiosities

Here Josh is not put on the look-out, or on crow's nest, he is on watch on the ship. When landing... sailors and pirates would take turns to go to shore. Some of them were left on board to keep an eye on the sails, the rudder and the ship itself to keep it safe.

One never knew... somebody could try to attack, commandeer and steal the ship or the treasure away. So apparently Josh is on the first turn of watch.

But you'll see that he'll get to go to shore on the second turn while usually he should have gone on the third turn, the night one, for a particular reason that I will explain in the next update.

The clog came from the upper deck. Cat takes the clogs off only when he climbs hand-over-fist... He then jumped down like he did that one time he gave the hairband to Feetsie.


Kes is in a very good mood. Even so her behavior gets more and more confusing. Why? Because she is a human being. When it comes to Cassandra things cannot go the usual, obvious way, it's because of her upbringing mainly.

I'll write a long P.S. at the end of this post to clear some things out a little better.




Do you know what focaccia is?
It's a type of flat bread - I could not draw it flat here otherwise it would have looked like a brick.
So I shaped him more elongated and round almost like a panino...
in some places, in the South, focaccia can be oval shaped.

Why does she have two? Is she really upset?
I'll tell you at the end of the post.



I need to clarify one thing about wedding proposal now.
Wedding proposals did not exist. Particularly a man would not go and ask to the girl he wants, he'd go and deal with the closest male relative whether she likes it or not.
Cassandra has been given an option that is unheard of: a man offered himself as a husband to her directly.
That's why she goes "what?" "what?" "what?" and when she thinks: "why did he propose" she does not use that word on the contemporary meaning of wedding proposal. She means to say "why did he propose himself as a husband?"... again she is doubting herself, hence the shallaling answers "of course, he likes us".


The first time this FFFF happened... they were fighting over marriage.
Only the first time he was telling her that nobody would ever want to marry such a spinster... now he is the one proposing.

Both times Kane passes by and does the "put a sock in it" thingy.

If this were to be an adventurous comic... this event here, this image, would mark the end of a saga. I end here a first arc for Wes and Kes which marks the conquest of familiarity. If their first FFFF fight marks my first plot point where everything is lost and the pursue begins, this second FFF marks plot point two where everything is found (but the pursue doesn't completely end). Wes has gone from black to white in less than 3 months, now he has to start a new arc which will help him develop his personality further.

We are approaching our first rite of passage and this chapter marks a second, big behavioral milestone.










It wasn't water... what was it then? What Pea was about to dump in the sea... is the content of the bucket the girls use as toilet! So... poor Josh!













Tonno is bald so he is moping.
Jacopo and Jules don't want to get a haircut from Pifo because they think about Rose and the poor doctor.
Still I do believe that if he were a real person today... Pifo could be Lady Gaga's hairdresser! XDD

The doctor's new hairdo... uncovers his neck. So okay... it wasn't even and one strand of hair was still very very long and he needed a proper look... but... Did she get distracted thinking too much... did she do it on purpose... or were her hands hijacked by the shallaling thingies?
Fact is now the neck is right there... at eye level... lots of drooling to come.

Castalia does not understand what Kane is talking about and believes he is waiting for her boobies to grow up.
The fact she does not understand the topic of his sentence.... proves the man right and that's why he thinks that his wait shall be pretty long.

Even though she has Lio for a sister (whose influence is maybe more obvious on Callista)... Castalia was raised by 3 nuns and spent most of her life focusing on making swords.
She is basically clueless and would need one of those explanatory fable about flowers and bees, I'm afraid!

There are two questions to be answered here: will you marry me and are you saying you'll never marry me.
Now Kes just said she will never say "yes". But if she answers "yes" to the second questions... she is denying what she just said: "I will never say yes". Anything else she says, even if she were to use another word or another sentence, would still be either negative or affirmative hence she has no way out.
She accepts a wedding proposal by saying "no". That will become very typical of Kes.

P.s. about Kes.

The Doctor is becoming very good at understanding what is going on with his girl. He might not get everything right but he knows what he feels and she definitely sends him good vibes. Besides... Cat and Foxy have figured that out too: Cassandra says one thing and does its opposite. Pea had told us so too.
The reason why he did not snap right away at Josh, in this chapter, is that Kes' reaction is simply nonexistent.
If she were to slap him or cling to his neck then he would be worried... but she completely snubbed the man for food. She knows her priorities: food over boys... most of the times.

Let's analyze this: Kes slapped the doctor for a pat pat on her butt. At that point she was little by little learning to trust him - he was taking good care of her and they were talking - and that pat pat on her butt almost broke her hear. So disappointed she was... would she run away in tears if she didn't care?

When they kissed she clung to his neck and fell asleep in his arms meaning to say that he managed to gain her trust again and things were getting sweet.

When he pushed her away, after the haircut, she threw stuff at him and broke his head and she was heartbroken again. Again he had to gain her trust... but their relationship and proximity level had already shifted. If you think about it he undressed her and all she gave him was a pinky-up-evil-eye... the Kes way.

Eventually she let him fall asleep in her arms. When she didn't want to be kissed she put a hand on his mouth but still pushed with her whole body against his.
Their level of intimacy is rising and building up. How do you get so close to someone you don't care for? You can't. Especially if you are not a "physical" person.

Do you ever see her hug Cat or Foxy even though they are good friends?
Do you ever see her hug Pea even though they are so close?

When it comes to Kes... she may as well say "yes", "no", "I'm a evil strawberry from outer space" and would make no difference... all you have to look at it's her gestures and behavior.

She had 2 focaccia bread with her: clearly one for her and one for the man who never has breakfast. She definitely would have found a contorted way to give him his.
If she wanted to just run away and distract him she would put both focaccia in his mouth. Or she would just run away keeping both of them.

That's how she is. She is complicated and that's what makes her funny and fun for me to draw. But Cat and Foxy are right... she is a sweet girl. She'll be adorable in a contorted way for a while... until she understands that she does deserve a shot at happiness just as much as Pea whom she deems superior. Right now she is fairly scared, approaching independent thinking, approaching a rite of passage... and all by herself!

20 comments:

Unknown said...

One more thing about Kes... I did say that I wanted her love to come out of more than just his looks and her own tender heart, so I wanted her happiness to be based on a lot of things at once, that's partly why I wasn't ready to fully accept the truth she shows outside of her outbursts...
I wonder who will give Castalia the talk... I suppose if she heard it from the Aunts, they'd tell her to just lie back, close her eyes and think of Corfu until her hubby was done... Probably even now, she won't hear of how it really can be sweet for the woman, because few will know yet of a woman's intimate ally, which is less obvious than a man's (I personally won't accept anything from one who won't take the time to get to know my little Ruby--that's what I'm naming it from now on)... I actually have a fantasy scene in mind for it, with flowered gates and animal companions holding seeds in their mouths to plant in the caves on the other sides of the gates... If the people with companions knew of the tiny person at the top of the gate, they could play with her until she helped open the gate, maybe even until she made it shake, before sending their companions in...
And about the incident being the way to make sure Westley gets his breakfast... who knows if she'll try other ways, maybe a different sort of mama-method; come on, little Westley, eat your yummy foo-ood, here's the baby shark swimming for the sea-caaaave...

Unknown said...

Incidentally, I hope Wes leaves her a way out in the next proposal, so that whether the question is phrased as positive or next, we'll know if that's really what she wants rather than that she's just caught in another trap...

dedasaur said...

Nuns don't give you talk... that is why Castalia is so clueless. She's also clueless because, unlike Callista, she does not speak about that stuff with Lio and she never did join a conversation about boys in her entire life.

Cassandra is the type of girl who has to taste food several time before she says she might like it... okay I like it... yes, it's my favorite.
You'll have to be veeeeery patient with her but that's how her personality works.
He heart is already in the right place.

Unknown said...

I meant "negative" instead of that second "next"...

dedasaur said...

he will not propose again.

Unknown said...

I guess I'd just really like to see a way out for her, so we'd know whether she wouldn't take it if there was one... If you love something, free it, if it comes back, it's yours, that sort of thing...

dedasaur said...

but there are many types of freedom and freedom is mostly about having the chance at something that you could not have in a limited pond.

She is in the Ocean now.

Unknown said...

I guess it was hard to tell, I couldn't really see every possible opportunity, it's hard to get all the fish in the sea together to count... I was still mainly focused, though, on the way she was trapped in a proposal--I heard of the three kinds of consent that can't really be called consent:
1. Consent while not fully conscious or informed
2. Consent under duress (e.g. when you or something you love is threatened or in need) and
3. Consent with no viable alternative
And trapping her in a proposal was like that in my mind, and that isn't right, whether or not she wanted it deep down, the ideal answer is clear and enthusiastic, which wasn't showing... that's why I'm hoping he won't hold her to that unless she shows some sign of truly agreeing...

Unknown said...

And yes, maybe it's slightly better than women would normally have matters of consent (at least no one's making her die for refusing), but it still gets to me...

dedasaur said...

It was not hard to tell. So far these girls have had more on a pirate ship that what they ever had in their entire life on land. I was very clear about this.
They are getting food, medical treatment, freedom to roam around, they develop relationship on the same level with men on board... it's unheard of!

You are paying too much attention to the wrong details and I cannot understand why. The proposal thingy was just a bit of comedy... there was no such a thing as a wedding proposal in the 1660 the fact that the man asked is already something exceptional.

When Cassandra say the word "propose" she does not mean a "wedding proposal"... she means "why did he propose himself as a husband" that is why the shallaling thing says "Of course, he likes us"!

maybe I'll clarify this some more in the curiosities.

The types of consent you describe is typical sociopathic behavior. It's the type of stuff you get from people who are completely detached from reality, whether their culture or society allows it or not (and that's an ethnic problem too)... it's still sociopathic.

She has not been raped, she has not been bound and kept captive.

Unknown said...

I had figured that if she had to be trapped into a marriage like this, somebody might just as well have given or traded her away, as was usually the case unless someone pulled a Deuteronomy Groom on her (the line that a girl has to marry the man who forced her)...

dedasaur said...

No, dear, what I am saying is that sometimes you have to let go of these things and enjoy the comedy in it.

I said since the very beginning I was going to make fun of love and romance too by crashing stereotypes.
I don't believe a perfect man exist, nor a woman for all that matters, and I don't believe in Prince Charming and stuff.

That's the reason why, sooner or later, all the guys in this story will make some very big mistake, some of them unforgivable.

But the point is they will be forgiven because the wrong part is humble enough to realize that there is no perfection and people deserve a second chance (but not a third or a fourth one).

I am talking about the fact that if one is stuck with ideal this and that life will not take him/her anywhere.

All of this is encased in a XVII century background. Whatever people feels or thinks today will not match and analyzing the situations with a contemporary eye will be ethnocentrism as well.

As much as I can I will always enclose the concept of emancipation and freedom in the historical settings and will not derail from that, otherwise the story will stop making sense and the comedy will die.

I am not interested in love and relationships per say, will not talk about that... I am interested in showing how some feelings can totally make us look stupid or fantastic just because we feel them and we are humans. Love is the excuse.

dedasaur said...

Okay I cannot edit for some reason.
The previous comment was in response to this message of Thalia that got lost:

"I'm truly sorry if I didn't see things your way... I guess it was just the principle of the thing... what most literature I read implied was that where a little sociopathy was allowed or excused, especially in a society that still didn't fully view one group of people as full human beings, one could just as easily get away with a lot... I guess in terms of "opportunities" I also thought you were just talking about eligible marriage opportunities, and she still hadn't seen many yet, big mistake for me... "

------------

In answer to your second message:
she is not trapped until she is taken by force to a priest and forced with weapons to say yes and become a wife. That would be equal to what you describe.

So far words are just words. Pirates are men of action and we clearly saw that if they really want to they get married in 30 seconds - like Kane and Castalia did.

It is more complex than that... you have to see the whole picture and Cassandra's evolution has only just started. It will begin with a choice and the choice will come by the end of chapter 11 not before that... everything before that is throwing rocks in the water to make ripples.

Unknown said...

One other thought... I recall (again) that Kes didn't see her engagement to Pifo as binding, so she probably can think of this one in the same light... I hope it's the same for Wes, that he doesn't see it as binding unless she wishes it to be...

dedasaur said...

I think I explained this, once already.

The engagement to Pifo came from Kane.
She did not consider it because the man is not her father nor her family and has no authority over her.

This proposal came directly to her which is unheard of and the choice is left to her. Is she taking the proposal into consideration? Yes, she is talking to the shallaling about it (why, do you think he proposed? - She asks them).

Is it binding? You it doesn't matter!

Whether she has been proposed to or not... nothing is conventional with pirates things will go their way and nothing will have to be considered as conventional as: I get proposed to, I get engaged by saying yes and I get married.


She was kidnapped and exposed to a world that will give her independent thinking.
The proposal is just a bit of comedy... and everything will happen in a weird and unconventional way, all the way until the very end.

Unknown said...

I remembered that... I was thinking Kane still has no full authority over her, as far as she's concerned, so maybe she still wouldn't accept it when he shoved them together and said it counted as a yes (before the haircut), and certainly Wes has no authority over her (I hope!), so I was thinking she'd view it in the same way as she viewed Kane foisting her on Pifo before...

dedasaur said...

She is the authority. The question was asked to her.
The pushing was to get them out of the embarrassment and end the quarrel since they were going on and on a: no, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, yes.

He did not say: you're engaged to him she cannot say no.

He said: that was a yes, kiss her and seal the deal.

Did she kiss him back?

Well he had to slap them out of the kiss.

Unknown said...

So she pretty much said she'd accept if she could believe he was serious (which he is, she just has to fully realize it), is that right?

dedasaur said...

Precisely and that would be the big issue from now on: how serious are you?

Unknown said...

I guess I discovered what exactly I was wondering all this time about Kes in regard to where she stood with Wes: did she want to want him? While she was still borrowing standards from Pea, she was taught that she shouldn't, and thus acted like she didn't... I guess I'd like to know if she really did...