#318 “More Than Friends”
Welcome to the big house shadow!
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.”
I’m sorry…I can understand the whole ‘We must not be seen’ shtick, but being thrown in jail for being intimate…
It’s not so much the “being intimate”, after all Midnight was intimate eith Eclipse and other Noxian pairings are certain to exist, but “being intimate” WITH A HUMAN!!!.
That’s like fucking your sister (or brother).
It’s a real taboo in Nox.
Interracial sexual relations between humans were illegal across the entire world until the 1950s to 1970s, and still are illegal in a large chunk of the world. To the noxians, though, who see humans as lesser beings that are their food, this might be more like bestiality.
But there’s more than that. Considering that they need to terrorize humans to survive as a species, befriending them actually SHOULD be illegal. Doing so is jeopardizing their survival. It seems like Shadow’s situation is gathering enough energy for now, but she didn’t know that would be the case when she started doing it, and she doesn’t know if that’ll continue, and other noxians haven’t consented to this kind of relationship with humans, and she doesn’t know if the effect she has on larger human society will doom all other noxians into having no other choice. She might have helped condemn her entire species to a life of sex slaves in the future, if they’re unable to be frightening any more because humans start to think of them as exotic lovers instead of monsters. She might not have caused that effect, we aren’t being shown what happens fifty years into the future to know yet, but she’s willing to risk that possibility just to get some dick. She absolutely should be executed.
I see it as more of a beastiality taboo than an incest taboo. There fear is their “Food” after all.
Seems more concerned about herself then Shadow.
That’s a characteristic common to many other politicians. “it’s all about me”
Was that a thinly-veiled shot at the “Tangelo Tyrant”-elect, sir?
Yeah, but she’s her mom too so it looks even worse.
i don’t think she is literally their mother. pretty sure its a religious thing, like the mother superior of a catholic coven, or in denominations of Christianity that ordain women as priests the priest is “mother” it seems to me that noxians don’t know who their parents really are and are given to the girls school and boys school of their religion from birth.
I know she’s not literally her mom, but she essentially is right? She takes care of her and is responsible for her.
i wouldn’t really know how much noxian society would require the mother and father to actually care for their respective charges, she at least seemed to care for a while, now it seems she cares more for the optics.
Exactly…if you look back to where Shadow and Midnight were getting ready, Shadow said, “Sure thing, Mid…or should I call you Mo–” to which Midnight said, “Stop!”. The term ‘mother’ is an honorific, denoting the head of their order. It doesn’t mean biological motherhood at all.
The “mother” title that Shadow uses us only a formality.
Shadow is a foundling.
Her maternal parentage is NOT known (nor indeed her paternal).
I think we do know who her father is. That little incident with Mortis and Terminus almost spelled it out.
Mortis: (claws raised to strike) Shut your damned, fool mouth- Right. Now. That one is off-limits! Do you understand?
You “suspect” but only Brandon actually “knows”.
I agree that conversation is indicative, but it’s not definitive confirmation.
I’m firmly in the Lord Mortis camp as far as Shadow’s father is concerned. A bigger question, however, remains regarding her mother. Noxian society seems quite tolerant about intimate relations (among fellow Noxians, of course), so why the secrecy? If Mortis is her father then you would have thought that would confer a degree of status… unless there was something to hide. We have been told that hybrids take after the father, so did Mortis also have a ‘little friend’?
My hypothesis is where male hybrids look Human female hybrids look Noxian. Lord Noctis had a human lover and Shadow is the result. After her birth her mother, asuming she survived, either rejected her or understood shadow couldn’t grow up in the human world. So Noctis took the baby and left her at the female Noxian guild’s doorstep.
“Lord Noctis” is a NEW character.
We had seen Lord Pax (whereabouts currently unknown)and Lord Mortis (deceased at the hand of Terminus).
i think its the other way around, so far Mortis is the one alive
I agree.
Who is Lord Noctis? Is he another player in the game?
We learn about her mom in a future story, assuming no retcon. REALLY can’t say much more. Her birth mom is dead. Don’t know if this establishment is an orphanage or not.
Ah politicians, the perfect candidates for becoming Orange Lanterns
….but it’s so HARD to keep them still while skinning them
“He’s my FK Buddy-Fear Battery.”
“Also, his mom is your sister.”
Wait! That means Shadow is Tim’s cousin!
No, Shadow was taken in by the Sisterhood as a baby. Moonlight treats her like her daughter, but they aren’t related by blood, meaning she and Tim aren’t cousins.
That makes sense, now. I must must have missed that. I was thinking, “why is miss demon girl sleeping with this guy? they’re cousins, aren’t they?” According to what you said, they’re not. thank you for clearing that up.
There’s a Fresh Prince of Bel Air joke in this I just know it.
I didn,t know Nox also had the hole and I bet others like Shadow were also put there stark naked.
I can’t tell if it’s more political or personal for her.
I think it’s more annoying for her.
To a politician: everything has political implications and the personal gets pushed to the back.
It’s probably both. If it got out that Shadow took a human mate, then it would reflect badly on Moonlight. Also, it’s personal because her sister, Ruthless, ‘corrupted’ Shadow into that way of thinking, which would be a personal affront to Moonlight. True, the political aspect would come first, but the personal aspect would still be festering in the background.
Coming soon: Midnight, Ruthless, Marcy, and Tim stage a daring daytime jailbreak. Moonlight, Terminus, and Nightmare show up just in time to see Tim’s foot and Ruthless’s tail disappear up a staircase to the surface. Terminus goes ballistic and hits Moonlight with that backhand of his; Ruthless hears this, turns around, and rescues her sister – only she’s out of practice and underestimates Nightmare, who has plans of her own….
Can I say once again that I love Shadow’s hair when it’s down? The pseudo-horns were cute when she was younger, but nowadays the long natural hair look suits her better. IMNSHO. (Then again, I’m biased toward long hair…)
Pfft, I hate to say it, but Ruthless also has the full knowledge of the book of magic (and has apparently mastered the ‘Batman presence’). I think that, if she went against Nightmare, she’d just ‘appear’ behind Nightmare, sink her claws into a shoulder, and throw her through a wall.
Sounds like a plan
Honestly, I have more of an issue with the fact she threw her in jail without a stitch of clothing to wear… like she’s some kind of Animal in a cage on display! You don’t do that to someone you actually care about you at least give them the respect of their dignity ~ even if they have made a bad choice {in your opinion}… and need to face the “consequences”.
Reference: US Army Field Manual (FM 34-52) Intelligence Interrogations. (Whisper) There are also separate CIA manuals.
In summary you need to make the subject as far removed for their comfort zone as possible.
Deprivation of clothing is a mild starting point, extreme cold or heat, deprivation of personal dignity (shit in a bucket, take away the bucket, shit in a corner of the cell, piss into your clothing and then abuse the subject for dirtiness)
These are all known techniques as practised for centuries and that’s ONLY if you want information.
If your goal is punishment then thre are few restrictions.
Seems the French read that book. When they kept Frank Abagnale in prison, he was kept in a pitch black cell with a dirt floor and a bucket.
said “bad choice” being falling in love with a human…who the hell wrote these laws?
Those are the “racial purity” laws written by an extreme faction of “Nox First and Only” radicals.
They were passed quite some time earlier (before Ruth left Nox to find Tom) but there hasn’t yet been enough political will to have them repealed.
Of course there will also need to be politcians who will agree to implement the will of the people.
Nox isn’t really a democracy, either
That may be why these laws are still in place.
Someone with working sense of self-preservation, and no capability to do anything more complex?
Great comic as always! I will say that I’d bet that Moonlight is going FLIP OUT next page.
Why? Do you think she did not figure it out yet?
Not only is she hot nude (esp the throw scene) like that, she also seems more intimidating for some reason.
“no good sister”? all she did was fall in love!
That was enough to get you imprisoned or executed in both Germany or parts of the USA in the 1920s or ’30s.
And elswhere also until the late 1950s.
That was not all she did, no.
It’s about to get real, Baby!
Noone yet? Okay, I will be the guy. *Ahem*
Thrown into horny jail.
Could just be me, but anyone getting slight narcissistic vibes from Moonlight’s behavior?
Slightly Unrelated Note: Would you consider Terminus a narcissist?
Bleh. Done binging, and now I have to wait along with everyone else.
It was MOST excellent, and I hope it continues to be so.
Time to go ‘eep, staying up till 2am probably wasn’t a good idea….