Comic for Friday, April 22, 2016

[Vintage]

boob's eye view

This needs to be a thing. In fact, redraw all of Twokinds from this new boob-vision perspective.

Though to be honest, I was thinking like Tendo in that it was the top of her head at first.

[crystal6tak]

I wonder if this other Nat could be an entity all by itself originally locked away from the sharing soul spell. Now that the spell is weakened/broken, she (I assume it's a her) broke free.

What I'm picturing, which is a long shot, is this entity now being a part of Natani's mind just like how Trace has a black smoke thing. So when she wakes up, she'll still be the good ol' Natani but now with an extra voice in her head.

An even longer shot would be this entity remains even after the spell recovers with the shackles being removed. So now Zen, Natani, and this other Natani all share a single mindscape. Chaos ensues!

Oh oh, an even longer longer shot, this other natani eventually merges with current natani once they find harmony with each other later in the future.

[trantor]

Since Nat's soul is still a little broken I think it is falling back on the last time it was whole, but maybe younger Nat can help current Nat piece herself back together!

Hmm...

> NataniOS2.0 has damaged modules
> Last good backup of NataniOS1.0 found
> Repair? Y/N

Wish I knew what — and who — we'd be likely to get out of that...

>Y
> Repair is in process ....... don t turn off the system.....


I think her nature female side healed a bit over time and is now slowly marching back to the surface, where she confront Natani with the nature she is.
Maybe there is a little fighting about the male and female character, but in the end they will deal with it, because they see that they are stronger together than alone. So new Natani will be maybe a bit more than Adalaide. A strong woman which can take any trouble she will be confronted with a smaller manly attribute as now.

[Sky Shatter]

Normally I'm casually patient about new updates, but as soon as I finished with this page, I started chomping at the bit for the next!

Been hoping for this for a long time: Natani's real self returning and confronting the adamant gender-confusion that has arisen as a byproduct of using a male's soul for a lifeline.

[Ddraig]

Edit: Six-fingered young-Nat. Cannot unsee.

I asked Tom about it, apparently it's (as we may have guessed already) just an optical illusion and what we are seeing is her palm.

I.... honestly cannot see how that can be, given the pose, curvature and positioning of the limb. Can you explain to me the orientation of the hand and wrist in away that would make that make sense?

There's no was to present the any edge of the palm in a fashion like that that doesn't also leave the thumb below the hand... so if that's not the thumb above the hand at the back, then what is it? The way the arm is positioned leaves only two possibilities for the orientation of the wrist and hand - either she has the hand planted in the natural bend of the wrist, as though hand-on-hip, in which case the thumb is above the hand and those lines must be the finger divides... Or else turned back on the hip to that the fingers would be reaching out behind and we'd be seeing either, at a light turn, her thumb in full view on the front of the hand, or if a sharper almost uncomfortable turn, a presented wrist with the thumb beneath the hand. Neither of these latter two are the case, since there is no presented thumb, nor a thumb below the hand.

In order to create the view with that visible surface being the turned side of her palm, her wrist would need to be twisted so far that it would, in all seriousness, be broken... and it would also render the visual aesthetics of the wrist and forearm as we have them, incorrect relative to that. the other explanation, that the forearm and wrist curve as depicted are correct, means that the hand we are seeing should be presenting fingers forward and thumb above... or fingers forward and curled under, with thumb back... which does appear to be exactly what we are seeing... except there's one too many finger divides....

Sooo.... what am I missing?

I know, I know, important page, and I'm focusing in the least important detail....

My mind interprets it as fingers forward and curled at the outer two knuckles (no bend at the palm-most knuckle), with the thumb loosely against her side on top. when I start thinking about it, it does look a little odd, but nothing skeletally shattering

[Napoleon]

Natani's gender has always bothered me in a way that's difficult to describe. Many treat Natani's condition like the plight of transgendered people in our modern, non-magical filled world, but in context of the plot, the origin seems incredibly malicious.

We all know that she was pretending to be male to avoid prejudice for being a female, and that her actual male feelings are originated from the soul bond. But these two facts makes it really difficult to think of male as her natural gender, which makes talking about her in general difficult because this forum seems split in the middle about her pronoun itself.

In my mind, it's like her society has forced a gender upon her, and moreover the magic has sort of chemically castrated her, forcing her to not be female. It's not like she was born with these feelings. Thus, talking about her as male, IMO, feels like being insensitive to her oppression and physical abuse. I don't know; maybe I'm just crazy.

[TinyVoices]

boob's eye view

This needs to be a thing. In fact, redraw all of Twokinds from this new boob-vision perspective.

Though to be honest, I was thinking like Tendo in that it was the top of her head at first.

I was kinda wondering what parts of old natani we were looking at there...

[Kyrit]

Truly the most important part of this page is actually that in the sketch version of panel 2, Natani is groping herself, or appears to be to me.

In all seriousness though, I don't think young Natani's complaints about being stacked are due to not wanting to be female. Big breasts are harder to hide, and young Natani probably didn't know how to conceal them with magic, since that is something Natani has been working harder at these days. As someone that does have to hide their feminine parts, she'd classify that as a pain. There's also the typical back proble, involved with havinvestors a nice rack.

[FurryTanker]

Natani's gender has always bothered me in a way that's difficult to describe. Many treat Natani's condition like the plight of transgendered people in our modern, non-magical filled world, but in context of the plot, the origin seems incredibly malicious.

We all know that she was pretending to be male to avoid prejudice for being a female, and that her actual male feelings are originated from the soul bond. But these two facts makes it really difficult to think of male as her natural gender, which makes talking about her in general difficult because this forum seems split in the middle about her pronoun itself.

In my mind, it's like her society has forced a gender upon her, and moreover the magic has sort of chemically castrated her, forcing her to not be female. It's not like she was born with these feelings. Thus, talking about her as male, IMO, feels like being insensitive to her oppression and physical abuse. I don't know; maybe I'm just crazy.

Hugs Bonaparte Thank you, this makes some much sense!

But I'd like to ask, where are people getting the idea that Natani wanted to be a guy before the indecent?

[themunck]

Natani's gender has always bothered me in a way that's difficult to describe. Many treat Natani's condition like the plight of transgendered people in our modern, non-magical filled world, but in context of the plot, the origin seems incredibly malicious.

We all know that she was pretending to be male to avoid prejudice for being a female, and that her actual male feelings are originated from the soul bond. But these two facts makes it really difficult to think of male as her natural gender, which makes talking about her in general difficult because this forum seems split in the middle about her pronoun itself.

In my mind, it's like her society has forced a gender upon her, and moreover the magic has sort of chemically castrated her, forcing her to not be female. It's not like she was born with these feelings. Thus, talking about her as male, IMO, feels like being insensitive to her oppression and physical abuse. I don't know; maybe I'm just crazy.

Hugs Bonaparte Thank you, this makes some much sense!

But I'd like to ask, where are people getting the idea that Natani wanted to be a guy before the indecent?

Mostly from the fact that the first thing young Natani does here is complain about getting bigger boobs. This could just be for a practical reason, since Nat did have to pass for male even before the soul scorching, but it also might not. We won't know for sure until the scene is over, I guess, and I for one would find it somewhat disappointing if Natani goes back to consider himself female the moment he's well enough to live without the link. His male nature seems too big a part of his character.

[Meribah]

Natani's gender has always bothered me in a way that's difficult to describe. Many treat Natani's condition like the plight of transgendered people in our modern, non-magical filled world, but in context of the plot, the origin seems incredibly malicious.

We all know that she was pretending to be male to avoid prejudice for being a female, and that her actual male feelings are originated from the soul bond. But these two facts makes it really difficult to think of male as her natural gender, which makes talking about her in general difficult because this forum seems split in the middle about her pronoun itself.

In my mind, it's like her society has forced a gender upon her, and moreover the magic has sort of chemically castrated her, forcing her to not be female. It's not like she was born with these feelings. Thus, talking about her as male, IMO, feels like being insensitive to her oppression and physical abuse. I don't know; maybe I'm just crazy.

I agree. Natani doesn't appear to be a true transgender person to me. She just has prejudices against being female because of the misogynistic tendencies of wolf culture. Hopefully, she will figure out that she can be strong without being male.

[Aurora]

Well, I'm pretty sure no one expected that, although it does explain the odd voice Natani had heard on the previous page.

For all the folks commenting on how made Natani will decide to go with a female gender identity, note what the younger version of Natani says: "Man, I end up stacked when I'm older. What a pain." Assuming "stacked" refers to heavy chested and not muscular, it seems even young Natani didn't like being a girl much.

Maybe Nat's always been something of a tom-boy anyway, eh?

It's kind of strange that Nat would ask why the breasts are still there during a dream-scape.
Maybe Nat identifies as being male, but has forgotten that the original gender is still female.
Or ... maybe it is an expression of denial at this point from identifying as a guy for so long?

[amenon]

However, I reaaaaaaaaly don't see Natani becoming any more masculine, or even any more assured of that masculinity by this arc. Recall that she was more or less willing to kill to maintain the facade of being a man. (See page 538)

See, that's just it. If Natani was more self-assured, maybe murder would become less necessary. At least among friends [2012-02-08]

Or to put it another way, how much time do you spend telling yourself you're a man? (Please disregard this question if you spend ten minutes every morning flexing your pecs in front of a mirror )

On this very page, we have Natani both figuratively and literally off-balance, while young Natani is just standing there, firm as anything, being sassy.

Or another way to state the thought: If there are two Natanis, and the only difference between them is gender, then the one whose mind matches their body probably has an advantage -- because not having to deal with gender dysphoria is easier than having to deal with it. (Of course, there should be more differences between these two, even disregarding the difference in experience. We know very little about what all changed.)

As for your 'young Natani didn't faff around', I'm not sure I follow.

She's the one who cut off her hair and joined the brotherhood, despite Zen's objections, and by all accounts did well at it -- and I see no reason to think she had any issue with being female, except for the practical concerns of needing to hide it, and the reasons she needed to hide it. Really, it might only be our Natani that tries to blame every weakness on the body.

I kinda wanna hear what young Natani thinks of Keith And Zen!

Edit: Also, the flare around Natani's head in panel 1 is interesting. I wonder what all kind of things can happen in a mindscape.

[JohnTheWysard]

Two Natanis are better than one?

Well, hotter than one anyway. Yum!

[MuonNeutrino]

It's kind of strange that Nat would ask why the breasts are still there during a dream-scape.
Maybe Nat identifies as being male, but has forgotten that the original gender is still female.
Or ... maybe it is an expression of denial at this point from identifying as a guy for so long?

I think the reason he's surprised and asking why he still looks like a woman, is that in past dreamscapes/etc he *hasn't* looked like one (also in TDM but can't link that). Whenever we've seen Natani's own mental image of himself before, he's always appeared as male. This is a sudden change, for him.