Critical Missives #23
Chapter: Comic, Level 5 — Illithit Activities
Congratulations to Timber for coming up with Y.T.’s name!
Timber
(Update: This comic was updated on 12/2/2012 to remove references to trademarked properties.)
Rusty & Co.
Monstrous Misadventures! Updated every Wednesday at noon, EST.
I can’t tell which part of the yuan-ti drawing is a leg and which part is a snake tail.
There’s one leg, one tail, and…
Much as my dirty mind would delight in the alternative, the leftmost “leg” is pretty definitely a tail behind him dragging on the ground, as he stands on one foot with the other raised high for a bold step forward (in the direction him face is pointed).
Granted it comes across looking a bit like he’s in the Ministry of Silly Walks…..
Partner, I’d sign up for that Rattlesnake Rodeo…
Just remember this old rhyme: A snake with a face, it’s the Naga race. Limbs a plenty, it’s a yuan-ti!
OH GOD! It doesn’t even rhyme!
It’s still catchy. (Wait, yes it does.)
Eh, it rhymes, but its rhythm is horrid at the end there. How are you supposed to remember what’s currently killing you horribly without proper rhythm?!
Being English I must pronounce it differently from the American version. We pronounce it Yuan-Tie.
“We” don’t. You do.
Just you.
Nobody else would pronounce it that way, as that would just be stupid.
Not that it matters any more, as it says Lamia now… so I win.
No it doesn’t.
As both are polysyllabic words they must at the very least be feminine rhymes, but there is only a masculine rhyme in there (ie the last syllable). Yew-awn-tea vs a-plen-tea. If “plenty” was pronounced “plawnty” then it would work, but as it is not, it does not.
Killing me softly with this song, killing me softly…
“Yuan-ti” is not really Chinese [1], but “yuan” and “ti” are perfectly valid syllables in Mandarin Chinese Pinyin, and, if pronounced as such, “yuan-ti” would sound like “twenty” with a ‘y’ instead of the ‘t’ [2], and thus indeed would rhyme with “plenty” (or at least could rhyme, depending on tone and accent).
[1] https://chinese.stackexchange.com/questions/31301/how-to-translate-the-fictional-name-yuan-ti-into-meaningful-chinese-words
[2] More precisely, with a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_labio-palatal_approximant instead of the ‘tw’
Hey! That’s me!
Give me a minute here, I’m basking in my Gnome-Prize.
That is freakish yet adorable at the same time.
she’s gotta hood… a Ghetto Yuan Tiffany?
I was kind partial to “Yuan-Tex” as a name…but I am glad to see she escaped the Don’s dinner table with her brains (such as they are) still in her skull. As murderous abominations go, she’s an oddly likable one…
The more you know~
I love the “foop” sound effect. Its like a dash of darling before the general cringe.
Anyone else think it looks like she’s about to flash us in that 2nd to last panel?
Okay. But uh… my friend you see is curious so on the behalf of my friend and totally not me… is she single?
She’ll want you to sacrifice everything you care about to her. If you’ve already lost your religion, go for it. (just not IRL).
This must be unique to the Rusty and Co. universe. Nelli Naga’s description of a “naga” is actually a man-snake (or man-serpent) literally a man’s head on a serpent’s body. A proper naga (from Hindu mythology) is a like a mermaid with snake replacing fish. Of course they have arms, in fact they sometimes have multiple arms – as many as six! (Or three pairs if you will.) A lamia (despite DnD’s horrible mangling) is a variant of a naga, sometimes said to be a crossbred between nagas and mermaids (its half girl half sea-serpent) and other times said to be vampiric, often is the mother of monsters, being able to mate with any male monster apparently.
Note that previously, she was alking about Naga and Yuan-ti, but WotC sued for copyright on Yuan-Ti, so Lamia she became.
As first glance I read that as “Check these out!” Minor letdown. :þ