Smuggler (page 101)
Added 2022-11-12 12:23:10 +0000 UTCSh-… she’ll be fine 😐
Comments
Thank you ☺️
Little0cean
2022-11-15 17:24:35 +0000 UTCThis is incredible and succinctly put into words the random thoughts I've had while reading this series. Excellent dissertation 👍
Horizon
2022-11-15 14:39:18 +0000 UTCOh! Poor Georgie. Her sad little ears make me want to give her a hug.
Jessie Marie (SuperGeek21)
2022-11-12 18:36:59 +0000 UTCYou’re welcome! This was super fun to do. As soon as I thought of it I couldn’t sleep 😂
Little0cean
2022-11-12 18:16:52 +0000 UTCYeah I’ll show it in the next panel but they are out of earshot!
Whiteley Foster
2022-11-12 17:22:37 +0000 UTCThis was wonderful to read, thank you for such an in-depth analysis of my boys 💕
Whiteley Foster
2022-11-12 17:22:07 +0000 UTCAre Mansa and Charles nearby hearing this whole conversation? I’m assuming Elon waited until the enforcers were out of earshot before attempting to blackmail Georgie, but he’s also not very stable right now.
MelTim
2022-11-12 17:07:19 +0000 UTCGeorgie, one day you will grow into the kind of judge who will put Elon’s ass in prison. Things will be more than ok in the long run but for now, I’m really hoping Mansa picks her up and she doesn’t spend time on the streets (Elon’s behavior is so unhinged right now, like what would it even change if Song wasn’t the exact infernal who smacked him across the room? His “downfall”? Wtf is he on about?? Clearly, his lashing out didn’t end at Mansa but this seems like a decision he will regret in the morning)
Glissando365
2022-11-12 15:25:37 +0000 UTCPoor Georgie!!!
Luca Valentine
2022-11-12 15:07:33 +0000 UTCBut what favor would that be? Georgia is homeless now and unemployed. He could have just threatened to fire her if she tells someone. Why does does he go from 0 to 100 so quick? She didn’t even do anything wrong. What made him do angry? She had the audacity to tell him he might be wrong. She wounded his massive but very fragile ego. And he 100% knows what he’s doing. Narcissists do tend to think they can no nothing wrong. They are perfect and everyone else around them isn’t.
Little0cean
2022-11-12 14:18:39 +0000 UTCI dunno.. I think Elon only partly recognizes what he does. Nobody believes they're the bad guy of their own story, after all. He has Reasons. And he might, at least partly, believe he's doing Georgie a favor here. While protecting himself at the same time. And he's an addict. His brain chemistry is skewed, even further warping his unhealthy behaviors and decisions.
Kaiannanthi
2022-11-12 13:59:22 +0000 UTCPoor sweetheart 😭
Ash S.
2022-11-12 13:08:06 +0000 UTCAll she did was ask a question. Elons ego is so fragile holy shit.
Little0cean
2022-11-12 13:00:20 +0000 UTCShe didn’t even threaten him. Is his ego really that fragile? Yeeez. Also here it is! It took longer than expected because I kept thinking of stuff I wanted to add, but now I think I mentioned everything. One thing that always manages to fascinate me when reading these comics and thinking about them is that despite the fact that Elon, Mansa and Thomas grew up under similar circumstances, they turned out to be very different people. Warning: LONG ASS COMMENT While Elon is a complete asshole, he surprisingly wasn’t born that way. He actually used to have an older brother who passed away before he was born. His brother was perfect in their parents' eyes and became the gold standard for a perfect son. From the day Elon was born, they expected him to be just like his brother. Which is something Elon was never able to achieve. And one huge factor is his attraction to infernals. His parents forced him to suppress these feelings and actually sent him to conversion therapy a few times after they (for example) saw him simply holding hands with an infernal. They probably don't think highly of infernals either, so any negative comments made about them most likely also affected his view on infernals. For his entire childhood, Elon was faced with constant and excessive criticism and the expectation to be just like his brother. It seems like Elon was never allowed to be himself. He never felt loved for who he was. And all of this eventually turned him into a narcissist. He is self-centered, arrogant, lacks empathy, and is extremely manipulative. And what only elevates these personality traits even more is his social status. He is celestial scholar (ok was because he was excommunicated, lol) but this isn’t something he worked for. These positions are usually passed down, and seeing how his mother is a celestial scholar and his dad was a high council member, it’s safe to assume he was just handed the position. From a social hierarchy standpoint, Elon does rank higher than most people he encounters. As a result, he thinks he has the right to order everyone around and thinks he can do whatever he wants without facing any real consequences. And we’ve seen what happens if someone doesn’t care about Elon’s social status or defies him in the smallest of ways. Only a few pages ago, Mansa outright told him that he doesn’t care about Elon's social status, and what did Elon resort to in that case? He immediately gets defensive and hurls insults around. Poor Georgie, asking him a simple question? Not even accusing him of lying or threatening to tell the cops? He immediately fires her and threatens to ruin her life. And he has known Georgie for a very long time. One would think that he at least cares somewhat for her after knowing her for 10 years, but nope. Elon doesn’t care about anyone but himself because everyone else is beneath him, especially infernals. He doesn’t even see infernals as equal to humans. He sees them as possessions. As something for him to manipulate and control so they do whatever he wants. And as soon as they are no longer of use to him, he just throws them away like a broken toy. But at the very same time, he actively depends on them because of his involuntary addiction to magic. Without infernals to hex items and smuggle said items, he no longer has the money to buy pure magic. And he can’t get a celestial infernal to give him pure magic because they face hard punishments when they are caught. And the knowledge that he has to depend on a group that sees as him beaneath him only intensifies his hatred towards them. So far, we've met two of his victims, Georgie and Song. But the infernal that we got the most insight of is Song. With Song, we actually find out what long-term effects Elon's abuse has and how exactly he draws them in only to trap them. First he isolated Song from his family and then processed to shower him with gifts and affection. A phenomenon also known as love bombing. (Also from what I can tell, Elons' strategy is very similar to what abusive narcissists do.) Then Elon started to demand things in return for all the nice things he had done for Song. He never gave Song something nice just because. It was always like, "I did this for you. Why can’t you do this one thing for me?" In this case, running hexes. Song constantly felt like he needed to prove himself, and if he can’t do that he’s worthless. Eventually, Song mustered up the courage to leave Elon for good. He reconnected with his big sis and threw himself back on the market. Meanwhile, Elon waited to Song to come crawling back. But he didn’t. And I fully believe that Song being the one to end their relationship offended Elon very much. He alone wanted to have the power in the relationship. He alone wanted to have the power to end the relationship, and Song walking out on him actively took that power away from him. Which eventually leads to the events of Calf Love. It’s implied in the comic that Elon actually followed Harmony and Song that night, watched them go inside that bar and then proceeded to wait outside in order to "win Song back". (I mean Harmony might have killed him on sight but can’t blame that ass for trying). But when he witnesses Song being thrown out of the bar, he smirks. Almost if Song being hurt and being mistreated brings him some kind of twisted joy. Then Mansa enters the scene, and his smile immediately vanishes. He sees that Song and Mansa get along, and that Mansa is a mixer. The fact alone that Song talks to and gets along with anyone but him makes him cry. But he doesn’t cry because he’s sad that their Song did broke up with him. While he did love Song in his own sick way, he never saw him as an equal. He’s sad that he just lost his possessions, his pet. And if Song gets to experience what an actual healthy relationship is like he will never come back. At least not on his own. Shortly before the events of Patch Job he actually attacks Song and stabs him while he’s on his way to court Mansa. So far, we don’t know what led to Elon stabbing Song, but I assume it had something to do with Elon wanting Song back and Song not having any of it. And even after all this time, he still wants Song back, and during the course of the prequel comics, we can see how he is trying to manipulate and blackmail Song into coming back. But eventually Elon is going to get what’s coming to him. And there is no one to help him pick it up. He has no friends. He throws those away that care about him, as we see with Georgie. And at some point, his mom and the people around him are going to get tired of constantly backing him up. There’s no hope for this one. Might as well throw him in the garbage now. 💩➡️🗑️ Meanwhile, Thomas' source of dislike for infernals isn’t his attraction towards them but rather intense self-loathing as well as the feeling of being abandoned by his very own mother, an infernal, at a very young age. We know that, due to unknown reasons, Ghost left Thomas with his abusive father when he was still very young. Despite the fact that Thomas probably can’t remember his mother well since she only stayed with him until he was 1 year old, it most definitely had a huge effect on him. It must have completely shattered the basic sense of trust and natural bond he had with his mother. He once felt secure in her arms and knew that if he was ever hurt, scared, hungry, or lonely, she would be there for him. And then his mother just disappeared one day, never came back and Thomas never found out why. While growing up, he probably asked himself a ton of questions. Is it my fault? Didn’t she love me? If she did, why did she leave me behind? And I fully believe that if he ever asked his father, he probably didn’t get an answer that shed a positive light on his mother. He came to see infernals as inherently un-loyal and cowardly. He thinks infernals are going to run and leave you behind at the first sign of trouble. Which is very much apparent when in The Proposal he tells Mansa "I know firsthand how fast they can disappear without a glance back when things get difficult." "And if they run they don’t come back." Overall, he makes it pretty clear that he doesn’t have a high opinion on infernals. Thomas was also forced to hide his infernal side from a very young age. To the point where his own father actively mutilated his body to hide his infernal traits. Such as having his horns broken off repeatedly in order to keep them small. And we now know because of Song's horn injury how painful this must have been. Especially for a young child that probably doesn’t quite understand what’s happening and why. And if breaking off his horns wasn’t enough, he also cut off Thomas’s tail, which, while being a one-time thing, also meant dealing with phantom pain/ feelings at a very young age. Now Thomas still has his horns; they might be very small, but they’re still there. So he hides them under his hair. One trait that his father couldn’t hide were his teeth. (But I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if his father pulled out his baby teeth prematurely.) So when we saw Thomas smile with his teeth out in The Proposal, he put his hand in front of his mouth to hide his teeth. And not only does he hide his physical traits, he also desperately tries to hide his infernal abilities because, just like any infernal, Thomas also possesses magical abilities that are triggered by strong emotions (as we can see in the short comic Blood.) So far, Thomas has always been able to keep his powers suppressed, but in the same comic, we also find out that they’re getting harder and harder to suppress. Thomas was never able to learn how to deal with his powers like infernals or other half-infernals because that would have meant that people might figure out he’s half-infernal. This is why Elon approached Etty in the first place. He’s scared that one day he might blow up during an emotional moment. And then the ruse is up. And I can’t even imagine how terrifying that thought must be. Everything he worked so hard for might be gone in one singular heart beat. Even if his father wanted to protect him from the bullying and challenges he would have faced, the only thing it taught Thomas was to be ashamed of being half infernal and that being an infernal equals bad. So he has to for fit in with humans. At all costs. We don’t quite know what the future holds for Thomas, but I believe he’s eventually going to better himself. We did get one little glimpse of the future tho (10 years on) in which Thomas is having a conversation with Lord Grant about his assistant. (At this point I’m 100% sure his assistant is Mansa.) We actively see Thomas standing up for Mansa by basically telling Lord Grant that he will not betray Mansa. Which is most definitely character development considering Whitley confirmed that right now Thomas would throw Mansa under the bus when it comes to saving his own ass. That’s also why he reacted in such a calm manner to Mansa telling him he’s a mixer. He saw that confession as something he could use against Mansa if he ever found out about him being a half infernal and decides to tell someone (Which Mansa would never do. He’s a good friend. And then Song came around, so now that fact is useless anyways). Now that I think about it, the fact that Thomas would actually betray such an old friend (if he even considers Mansa as a friend) just really proves his own prejudice against infernals. For someone who thinks that infernals are un-loyal and cowardly, he sure sounds like an un-loyal and cowardly bitch. I would really love to say this to his face to see his reaction. Maybe it would make his brain explode. But unlike Elon, Thomas still has the chance to improve himself. He has friends like Etty and Mansa that care about him and are going to help him. And I also believe that, deep deep deeeeeeep down Thomas doesn’t want to be such a grumpy and bitter bitch. Much like Elon and Thomas, Mansa did not have the perfect childhood. Just like Elon, Mansa isn’t an only child. He is the youngest out of 3 kids, having an older brother as well as an older sister. Despite the fact that they are only a few years older than him, Mansa was never quite able to connect with them. Simply because they don’t share the same interests. While he was an indoor kid and preferred more calm games they were outdoor kids and preferred playing rougher games. And this would have been fine if his parents and siblings had just accepted that Mansa is different. Just like Elon’s parents, they simply cannot accept that Mansa is his own person, with his own preferences and interests. He, just like Elon, is expected to be like his older siblings. Mansa is also canonically autistic. So he’s not only different from his siblings but also different from the other kids that also like to play inside and are more shy and gentle. While don’t know in detail what symptoms Mansa has, but we know that he sometimes gets overstimulated and shuts down because of it. He also seems to be comforted by the taste and smell of oranges but can’t stand the texture of the peal. There’s is the possibility that Autism-Spectrums-Disorder isn’t even a diagnosis around the time the story takes place. So people around Mansa, like his parents and siblings, only see a child that is "weird" or they think that something is "wrong" with Mansa. And Mansa himself probably also sometimes thinks that something is "wrong" with him. Especially while growing up. Because he struggles with certain things while others around him don’t. Now his parents could just accept that Mansa is different from his siblings and other children, but instead of doing that, they constantly forced him to go out of his comfort zone and to play with his siblings. Since his siblings are older, stronger and outnumber Mansa, it was never a fair fight. Even when Mansa asked his parents to tell his siblings to stop playing so rough, even if he was hurt, he was always shut down. They were able to tease him all they wanted. His parents seemingly never did anything about it. And like most children, Mansa wants to please his parents and make them proud. Which is why he picked up fencing as a hobby. While he does seem to enjoy it (seems to be quite good at it) and actually kept going with it as an adult, at the end of the day, it’s not something he did of his own volition. He started fencing in order to satisfy his family’s demands. (Slightly off topic, but I like to think that after Mansa picked up fencing, he actually managed to beat his siblings one time. And then they complained to their parents, and Mansa got in trouble. Because that’s apparently how things are in sibling land. And that was the day where Mansa learned what a hypocrite is.) While we don’t know where Thomas or Elon grew up, we know for a fact that Mansa actually isn’t from Alma. He’s from the South Isle Territory. We don’t know a lot about it, but one thing we do know is that mixer couples and mixers overall aren’t as accepted as they are in Alma. In Calf-Love Mansa tells Song that he had a crush on the daughter of an infernal maid his family had. As soon as his siblings found out about it, they tormented both Mansa and the girl until her mother resigned. This is something Mansa still feels a lot of guilt for. Because he was still very young, he didn’t have the power or courage to stand up for the maid and her daughter. So he swore to himself that if he ever sees an infernal being mistreated, he’s going to stand up for them and to help them. Like helping a certain infernal after he was thrown out of the bar for simply flirting. To this day, Mansa isn’t out to his family out of fear of what they might think of him. He, like Elon, found himself suppressing his sexuality. In his case for self preservation. But unlike Elons parents, Mansa’s never stooped so low as to send Mansa to conversion therapy. They would „just" expect him to stay single for his entire life. At the end the only way Mansa saw to hide from his family’s expectations was to join the army at 18. But since Mansa is more of a gentle soul he wasn’t that good of a fit in the military. But since Alma pays for your education in a law field of your choice of you serve in the military, it was a good chance for Mansa to finally leave his family for ever. Even if it meant leaving behind people he very much cared about. Freedom always has a price🥲. But sadly, unhealthy habits are hard to unlearn since Mansa first chose to become an enforcer instead of becoming a judge. Because even after all the mistreatment, injustice and despite the fact that he knows his parents don’t think highly of him, he still wants his parents to be proud of him. It isn’t until he meets Song that he finally finds the courage to actually stand up for himself and do the stuff he wants to do. Without thinking about what his parents would want him to do. Shortly after meeting Song, he quits his job as an enforcer and instead becomes a judge. He finally embraces his sexuality and gets an absolutely amazing partner. But one thing that Mansa had, which Thomas and Elon completely seemed to lack while growing up is… drumroll please 🥁… ✨A support system✨. A support system, which came in form of his two grandmothers. His grandma Effie and her wife Haniah. They were his role models growing up. They accepted him just the way he is and actually reprimanded his siblings for teasing him. Unlike Elon and Thomas, he had a constant source of comfort and kindness. Someone who was proud of him, supported him, accepted him for who he is, and cared for him. They also introduced him to sewing, which turned out to be something they loved doing together. Sadly, he isn’t out to his grandmothers either because he’s scared that being a mixer might change their perception of him. And of course their perception won’t change, but those are just the thoughts you have when you’ve been forced to suppress who you are. At the end of the day, Mansa turned out to be a kind individual who now stands up for what he thinks is right. And all because of two people who love him just the way he is. A good example of the difference a support system makes.
Little0cean
2022-11-12 12:52:52 +0000 UTCSomeone give her a hug
Pears
2022-11-12 12:49:41 +0000 UTCoh darling... her whole life crumbling to the ground, I can't even imagine 🥺💔
sick_pineapple
2022-11-12 12:49:05 +0000 UTCThat escalated so quickly. Jesus
Neil K.
2022-11-12 12:31:00 +0000 UTC-sad panda face-
Vala
2022-11-12 12:30:30 +0000 UTCHer ears, poor baby! And you engineered your destruction, Elon!
Arctic Rose
2022-11-12 12:28:42 +0000 UTC
