The Monster Under the Bed by Brandon Shane is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
The Monster Under the Bed
“Embrace your fear.”
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
Mom for the assist <3
just noticed
Shadow kinda looks a bit like Tanya the Evil because of the brows.
On the other hand, if Ruth the Human is really the secret identity of Ruthless the Monster, wouldn’t shape changing trump physical similarities? Well, except for the features she wants to keep. (Conceivably: Tim’s dad: Honey, keep that mole beside your mouth. It’s part of your charm.)
It is most likely a glamor and not a true shape changing.
Pretty sure those are lashes, not brows.
Too much cuteness
So, next page has a confused Shadow asking “say what now?”
I like how infatuated she is when he puts his arm around her, they both are so smitten. I really love when you can see the relationship developing.
Sooooooo does anybody else know who Tim’s mom is or is it just me?
She’s Ruth Newton. I keep telling everyone that! XD
Plenty of us know, but Brandon doesn’t want us giving it away.
I’ve just been assuming she’s Adam West and been carrying on with my life
we’ll see Jacob…
wow Brandon,is that in the background a real-life picture of a street?
To Brandon.
It seems like either you created the very creative Noxian world or you just slacked and it’s a card house that won’t survive even slight digging. But even if it’s the latter, I hope that you will take your time for worldbuilding. You’re in the childhood arc, so you still have time to fix many things before the main story begins. After that, it can be too late.
“Money? That has nothing to do with Nox.”
Interesting. So how does their economy works without money? Who makes things, why and for whom?
“And they like to scare humans, therefore there is an incentive to join a guild to gain access to them. Also the guilds hold territory and are basically rule Nox.”
So guilds are basically a mixture of a club and a state. And there are no wars, no hatred between members of different guilds? For example, if Shadow is the only orphan, then it implies that all other girls, like Nightmare and Midnight, are not. Joining the guild was their free choice. But where did they come from? If guilds control the territory of Nox, then it means that they originally came from a different guild(s). And both their relatives and guild(s) of their birth were OK with them leaving for another (probably hostile to the guild of birth) guild, although they did such drastic choice at young age. It’s as if seven years olds in our world were allowed to change citizenship, emigrate and nobody would even make fuss about it.
Also, it doesn’t make sense why (some? It must be some because otherwise, it’s unclear from what place Nightmare, Midnight and other girls are) guilds are so discriminatory about sex. Just image if there were “(fe)males only” states. They would just die out because you need both males and females in order to get children. No leader in his/her right mind would ever do this, this is a slow suicide.
You DO realise this isn’t SimMonster?
All those considerations are external (and irrelevant) to the story that Brandon is telling, which is essentially boy-meets-girl. If you want to delve into deeper considerations, there’s a richer vein of interracial relationship and non-discriminatory themes, and possibly female on female bullying to be explored.
Economics? A dismal “science” which is a suitable occupation for OCD sufferers and keeps them at home while the kids are having fun outside.
This guy is pretty bored huh XD now he wil reply with an even longer text XD
Geez, having Data as your avatar is extremely suitable. Well chosen, sir.
Quite frankly, I don’t think about the logistics of Nox as a world very much, as that really holds no interest to me. It’s really just a means to an end to drive the story along, because Shadow has to go somewhere when she goes under that bed. So, she goes to a big ant colony divided up into territories, each ruled by a different guild. Some guilds get along. Others don’t.
It’s just a goofy story about a Guy and his Monster girlfriend. *shrug*
I fully understand why you don’t want to spend so much time developing your setting, but it’s still worth it to figure out some basic stuff for self-consistency’s sake. Especially if you’re going to say something with as far-reaching ramifications as “they don’t use money”. (Which is what that out-of-context quote *sounds like*. If you meant “they aren’t concerned about money”/”acquiring wealth is not their goal”, then that’s a lot easier to work with since it has more real-world parallels.)
*shrug* The situation where anybody needs to actually buy/acquire something in Nox has very little chance of actually occurring in story, and if it does I’d probably just cut to after the transaction is finished. There are always tricks to avoid over-complicating things.
1.By saying it you seem to imply that there can be trade. But there can no trade at all. Guilds can have moneyless self-sufficient planned economy, so in order to get a thing you either must ask authorities for it or authorities decide themselves what you do or do not need.
2.Besides, it’s NOT only about economic activity.
3.IMHO, by understanding Nox your readers will be able to understand your Noxian characters better. Just image if you were writing a love story about a secret love between a jewish boy and a german girl from Nazi Germany and your readers had no a clue what does Nazi Germany look like, because in their world nothing even slightly resembling Nazi Germany have ever happened.
Seems like saying money does not exist is more likely to overcomplicate things than just maintaining the presumption that it does without going into details about it.
We do not know so much details to to make any conclusions like this. It isn’t last page, we have much time to build our own theories, which can be confirm or not. There’s many things, where Brandon keeps the intrigue, he don’t disclose details, because he love his audience, he love us. He want us to stay here, to wait a new page, that probably tell us something new, isn’t he?
Just be patient, all secrets will unfold soon.
Or I just make myself fool and write loads of bullshit XD
Please do not.
So many others already do that.
It’s a sign of a failing economy where there aren’t enough jobs for everybody and there’s an underclass without a productive outlet for their energies.
It’s not ALL bad though, instead of posting their ramblings here, they COULD be out stealing cars, or groceries, or lollies – but then, you already knew that.
Awww, don’t be that way!
I do love you guys, and there’s plenty more to talk about, just not to the absurd level of detail that Empathy Seeker seems to think is warranted. It’d be nice if I could flesh out the world that much, but I’m just telling a simple story with a very specific focus. I’m not an economist or an anthropologist. I barely get how the real world works sometimes with some of the crap that goes on. The cogs of how this fictional world functions is not essential to the story at hand so much as that I *say* it works, and it does.
It would be like if in Star Trek they stop to explain in detail how every planetary society they come across runs. They just don’t bother.
Yeah, that’s the word!
You create story not so simple to make it stupid fairy tale for children, but not so complicated to create loads of conspirological theories with it. But it interesting, easy-to-read and unexpected. That’s all what we really need.
Of course, there’s many questions, but I think we’ll got our answers later, at the next pages.
>absurd level of detail that Empathy Seeker seems to think is warranted
I think you overestimate level of detail that can make your story more or less self-consistent.
>I’m not an economist or an anthropologist
Neither am I. But firstly, you’re not alone, you can use help from other people (including your readers and experienced worldbuilders). Secondly, you can make abstract general picture and then figure out more and more details as the story is progressing. And thirdly, there is my attempt to make your comic more plausible, maybe it will give you a courage to do it yourself. Maybe your list will be different and shorter/longer, but I think you got the idea.
Q:How do Noxians survive without money?
A:In two ways. Firstly, they steal things from humans. Secondly, they use humans as slaves (there are no Noxian slaves because there are no wars between guilds and each guild does its best to protect its members from being kidnapped.). Then all things are divided between members of the same guild. White-collar work and pink-collar work is usually done by members of the guild in exchange for their share in loot (or production of slaves). Each guild has planned economy, according to needs of the guild and its members. There is no trade between guilds because each guild is self-sufficient.
Q:Why do Noxians dislike humans?
A:This is a mixture of envy, supremacism and fear. They feel envy about our civilization, because our civilization is way more powerful, techologically advanced and richer, while they are in fact scavengers. They fear us for the same reason, because if one day our civilization discovers their existence they are totally f*cked up, not even their magic would save them. Considering that, their supremacism is kind of doublethinking. They think that they are superior to humans, but humans somehow managed to get better place in the world than them. Supremacism is partly self-compensation for their position of scavengers and partly because they use labour of human slaves for many generations.
Q:Are there wars between guilds? And if not, why?
A:No. The leader(s) of each guild can perform very powerful spell that will curse to death every Noxian living on particular territory. But the spell doesn’t work instantly and it can be detected, so the attacked guild can strike back, acheiving Mutually Assured Destruction. This spell works only on Noxians, so they can’t use it against our nukes.
Q:Why can even young Noxians freely leave their guild for another guild?
A:This isn’t true for all guilds, but some guilds both have very low level of “now you’re old enough to be responsible for your actions” age (this includes sex as well, making age of consent significantly lower than in other guilds. Noxians in other guilds usually don’t like idea of such low age of consent, but they can’t do anything about it because of magical M.A.D. and absense of any trade between guilds) and value freedom of choice too much to forbid emigration (although it does NOT prevent them from using humans as slaves).
Q:Why are some guilds one-sex only? And how do they escape extinction?
A:Sexual activity exhaust magical abilities of Noxians, so some of them join one-sex only guilds in order to help them sustain sexual abstinence because it makes their magic stronger. They escape extinction by either using artifical magical insemination to make one female to become pregnant from another female or articifcal magical impregnation, making one male pregnant from another male (they use cesarean section for a delivery in such case). In both cases there is NO actual (even homosexual) sex. Also they’re pretty popular among ambitious Noxians who are ready to sacrifice their sexual life, so there are plenty of immigrants from other guilds.
Q:What do Noxians in Shadow’s guild do?
A:As kids they learn magic, as adults many of them will either sharpen their magical skills or do research work in magic.
Training/research is usually combined with performing other duties as well, like administrative work.
Q:Why is learning how to provoke fear in humans so important in Shadow’s guild?
A:For two reasons. Firstly, because fear is source of magic energy. Theoretically it’s possible to use other Noxians for such goal, but it’s considered unethical. Secondly, in order to keep human slaves under control.
Q:Why do Noxians like to scare humans?
A:Because it feels good when your level of magic energy is raising (even if you don’t know how to use it). On the other hand, it feels bad when your mana is exhausted.
Q: Why do Notions dislike Humans?
I already have an answer to this, but it won’t come up for a long time. We’ll eventually hear a bit of an origin story, or history lesson that explains why things are the way they are currently. I’ve got it worked out, from a story telling point of view.
And they don’t use human slaves. There are no humans allowed in Nox. Also, they do have sex between males and females, and there are homosexual Noxians as well and whatever other flavour one might think of, just like humans. They have very little hang ups on the subject, once they are of age at least. They may be monsters, but they aren’t monsters.
Oh god. I caught up. Noooooooo
Brandon do you watch Rick and Morty?
Hell yeah I do!
I can tell in tims lips
From a girl who didn’t want her picture taken to one who not only does, but also poses for it. Thats real progress! (for this point in the story anyway *cough*)
Also … What is it about Shadow’s hairstyle here that makes her so dang cute?
Well, now she fully trusts Tim not to rat her out, where as before she didn’t even know him.
Just a hypothetical here but, suppose another noxian, say nightmare or moonlight, or moonlight by way of nightmare, were to get ahold of this pic. Would they have any way of recognizing her as a noxian in disguise?
To be fair she still looks the same (more or less). So it wouldn’t be too hard to figure it out. At least for Moonlight. Nightmare might just see “another stupid human”.
How long is pregnancy for Noxians?
Depends how large the cabbage leaves grow, before the stork brings the little bundle of joy. In other words, it varies with the season of year, local snowfall and municipal elections.
Why?
Do you think that you’ve let something slip through?
Does Nox have poverty like we do in the human world? Marvel made Heroes for Hope in 1985 and Dc made A Song of Pain and Sorrow in 1986 to aid the needy in Ethiopia.
My contact (under my own bed) says not, firstly because they voluntarily limit their population and have done since the dicovery of latex (which they stole) from South American natives as soon as they started using beds.
And cannibalism isn’t illegal (nor immoral, nor fattening) in Nox. Shadow was vey lucky to have been left on the steps of a guild rather than given a long bath with carrots, onions, garlic, potatoes and leeks.
She still looks tasty!
“She still looks tasty!”
Yeah but wanting to eat her takes on a whole new meaning when cannibalism is involved. That actually could make for a funny misunderstanding between the two of them at a later date…
Ey brandon i learn you story and man its really amazing bro it great and nice shadow tim midnight blackheart men you amazing i say noooo why i finish to learn men please continue this story please it really amazing
Amigo perdon por el mensaje anterior me equivoque te decia que tu historia es increible enserio lis personajes el romance las parts comicas amigo excelente yo dije noooooo por que se termino amigo brandon por favor te pido que lo termines por favor