Wapsi Square Forum

In the 4th panel, is Kathryn just off screen or is she at the other end of the hallway the balloon points to.

If it the other end of the hallway, we are hearing the end of Kathryns lectured to a Tsillah on her walk all the way down it. Given Tsillah’s wince Kathryn has fantastic projection.

Question: Has Kathryn met Nudge (other than as part of Tina)? Now would be a good time for her to show up.

And why hasn't Phix shown up to tell Kathryn 'No yelling in the Library'? Maybe that is tomorrow’s strip.

Timotheus wrote:In Tsallah's case right now, SOP is to call in the manager. "Oh Nudge! Oh Phix! We have a Customer Service problem."

"Oh floorwalker!"

displaced wrote:Well then, let's talk about leverage. Katherine is one of the only surviving members of a race older than the library. The only reason I can make this assumption is that the happenings from the time the golems were created are not in the libraries "history" or the library would have known what it was looking for and been able to stop the booby trap.
Katherine is one of the only known surviving members of a race that was before the library. The other 2(?) are Brandy and the vampire Lily.

The library predates all of them. The lantans did have a written language so the library does have copies of their books. That means it predates the golems and probably has the information about how to make one provided it was ever written down. So that is not a lever at all.

The library does not care what happens to others as long as it has the information it wants. This attitude has been shown before when it confined Phix for something that was not her fault but Nudge's. So why would it care about who Kathy really is? The only leverage she might have is with Phix or Nudge because they do have compassion.

Katherine is on the warpath! Anybody, or anything, that gets in the way is going wind up in a world of hurt.

Can't deny, I really feel bad for Tsillah. Sure, she's been rather glib regarding the major players of this operation, so she's earned a chastising reminder to be more compassionate. But still - getting verbally mauled by Mama Bear Kath like this....ouch.

jwhouk wrote:She has also survived being shot at. We all know that famous saying about being shot at - and missed.

If Tsillah doesn't have Atsali back at the library by week's end, she is truly fearless.

Not with THAT flinch, she's not fearless... AND that she's flinching her SHADOW!! not her "real" body...! so, I'm also thinking that that is a rehearsed, scripted response to how Kat was predicted to react... yet, i can't help thinking it's a real response either, considering how she reacted when she met Shelly and Justin for the first time... i wonder what it would have been if Kat had ignored Atsali, and just accepted the MIB offer?

I assume that when you say: "by the end of the week" you mean RL time? and not WS time?... I totally agree with you there... either that or Katherine will have been Poited to wherever that orphanage is, as well.

Ps. what i find amusing is that for a being that is at least 80000 years old, Tsillah's surprisingly, um.. "naive", i guess you could call it? I'm not sure of the exact word I'm looking for here. i mean, think about it, she seems like the equivalent of a 13 year old girl in how she squeal's with joy over being allowed to be around Monica (when she got introduced to M via Doubt), and here she's flinching away like a human teenager (or younger) would when getting yelled at by her parents and thinking she's going to get spanked by them... yet we know that she's older than probably the entire length of recorded human history... I'd LOVE to see what the time-span is on her race's lifespan is if 80K+ years is still considered "a teenager"!!

Dang! Paul has got the touch when it comes to making us readers think about stuff...

Talk about going bug-eyed. Kath's eyes look like they are about to pop out.

Locuran wrote:You kind of have to wonder just how loud the volume was in the last panel for a wince like that.

Given the size of Tsilla's ears, I would say they are a bit sensitive to loud noises. Although ... That's actually her shadow, so I don't know just how that works. Kath must be really pouring it on to actually make someone's shadow wince. That usually only happens in animated cartoons.

scantrontb wrote:

jwhouk wrote:She has also survived being shot at. We all know that famous saying about being shot at - and missed.

If Tsillah doesn't have Atsali back at the library by week's end, she is truly fearless.

Not with THAT flinch, she's not fearless... AND that she's flinching her SHADOW!! not her "real" body...! so, I'm also thinking that that is a rehearsed, scripted response to how Kat was predicted to react... yet, i can't help thinking it's a real response either, considering how she reacted when she met Shelly and Justin for the first time...

Yeah, when someone yells at my shadow, I don't flinch. "Realistically", since Tsillah interacts with others through her shadow, it could well be a rehearsed response to yelling in general. Or as you suggest, scripted for this specific purpose.

More likely, it's just how the medium works. I mean, how else was Paul to show Tsillah taken back?

It may not be the volume that Tsillah's flinching at, but the amount of pure unbridled rage being directed at her.

The new assertive Katherine is scary. I like.

My2Cents wrote:In the 4th panel, is Kathryn just off screen or is she at the other end of the hallway the balloon points to.

The background to Tsillah's left (our right) appears to be the same in the second and fourth panels.

So, I vote for "Tsillah has not moved, just turned away from the verbal blast from Katherine who probably hasn't walked away either and is just out of view to our left side of the panel."

scantrontb wrote:Dang! Paul has got the touch when it comes to making us readers think about stuff...

Not only does he have the touch but he has a feeding frenzy of speculators on the forum. Nothing makes us happier than getting new information to chew over and mixing it into what we already know, or think we know. Then once all the new flavor is gone we park the ideas and wait to drag them out again when another tidbit of information hits the floor.

No I am not putting anyone down as I include myself in this. I'm not the top, but I'm definitely up in the ranking ones somewhere. lol. The best idea is to consider this forum as a type of free form argumentative dance.

Dave wrote:Based on Tsillah's wince, I would say that Dr. Katherine Gilchrist has definitely mastered the technique of Momma's Voice.

Well, if movies and TV shows are to be believed, I suspect Katherine is doing a excellent impression of an 'upset' Drill Sergeant/Sergeant Major.

Never having seen either one in their natural habitat, let alone seeing one ... express ... themselves to their fullest, this is only a guess on my part

I suspect though, that their might be some on this board that have had the pleasure of seeing (and perhaps meeting) an 'upset' Drill Sergeant/Sergeant Major first hand. If so:

• Do do Katherine's words and actions on this page compare?
• If you read Katherine's dialogue in the voice/style of a Drill Sergeant/Sergeant Major, do they, for want of better words, sound natural for one?
• Does "the look" from panel 3 have any part in a Drill Sergeant/Sergeant Major repertoire

Hmmmm ..... we know Katherine was found during a military experiment (test misfire of a rocket?).

What are chances that Katherine was adopted(placed with) by someone military? Perhaps senior NCO ranked?

Maybe what they say are true: "some things were inherited through more than genetics...some things were inherited through the soul...some things were in the bones."
(apologies to those that don't get their reference)

Aleister Crow wrote:It may not be the volume that Tsillah's flinching at, but the amount of pure unbridled rage being directed at her.

or she is even more sensitive to swearing than Atsali is?

scantrontb wrote:Ps. what i find amusing is that for a being that is at least 80000 years old, Tsillah's surprisingly, um.. "naive", i guess you could call it? I'm not sure of the exact word I'm looking for here. i mean, think about it, she seems like the equivalent of a 13 year old girl in how she squeal's with joy over being allowed to be around Monica (when she got introduced to M via Doubt), and here she's flinching away like a human teenager (or younger) would when getting yelled at by her parents and thinking she's going to get spanked by them... yet we know that she's older than probably the entire length of recorded human history... I'd LOVE to see what the time-span is on her race's lifespan is if 80K+ years is still considered "a teenager"!!

Is she really that old? When we first met her she was carrying a backpack and talked about how she learned about Shelly at school...I mean, she could still be the equivalent of a 13 year old and be much much older...but it makes me wonder at what point paranormals start school...and how long they have to attend.

Also, is it her status as a member of MiB or the fact that she's an underaged immortal paranormal that allows Tsillah less restricted access to the Library than Atsali? Because it's not nice to discriminate.

(At least we now know that Atsali was vorped away due to pre-set time constraints running out and not because the Library or someone else was being intentionally cruel.)

AmriloJim wrote:"Reading the Riot Act" cliche comes to mind.

Barbara and I had a habit of saying the whole thing aloud to people, or each other, when appropriate. It tended to defuse those situations through confusion or amusement, since, naturally, we weren't backed up by the Horse Guards.


In Kath's case, though, I think the Bibliothiki has met human rage at its bureaucracy before. Say, Theophilus in AD 391.

She's not backed up by a mob of angry Coptic monks, but even so, Kath needs to be careful with her newfound anger, or she risks losing contact with Atsali forever.

I wonder if Tsillah is still having fun with her new assignment. I have a feeling that the answer is no.

With all that rage, if Kath touches one book the whole library is liable to turn to dust... at least temporarily.

scantrontb wrote:Not with THAT flinch, she's not fearless... AND that she's flinching her SHADOW!! not her "real" body...! so, I'm also thinking that that is a rehearsed, scripted response to how Kat was predicted to react... yet, i can't help thinking it's a real response either, considering how she reacted when she met Shelly and Justin for the first time...

Sidhekin wrote:Yeah, when someone yells at my shadow, I don't flinch. "Realistically", since Tsillah interacts with others through her shadow, it could well be a rehearsed response to yelling in general. Or as you suggest, scripted for this specific purpose.

More likely, it's just how the medium works. I mean, how else was Paul to show Tsillah taken back?

One might flinch, or freeze, at a heckler yelling at one's effort at shadow-puppetry. That moment that Kath interprets as "staring at a fucking sales rack" feels wrenchingly genuine to me.

The fourth wall is Tsillah's cross to bear. No one can speak to her true form, as there is no body language in common to comprehend. It's why video scifi aliens are always humanoid, even into the CGI era--if the audience can't visually relate to a character, they're prejudiced to accept it as an inhuman villain. Assuming she isn't lying like Bia, she's a Titanic descendant with a primordial form, and she has to do this marionette-level-complexity handsign just to be understood.

I imagine darkness, folding back on itself in shock and self-doubt. A vast handkerchief unable to find tears.

Julie wrote:

scantrontb wrote:Ps. what i find amusing is that for a being that is at least 80000 years old, Tsillah's surprisingly, um.. "naive", i guess you could call it? I'm not sure of the exact word I'm looking for here. i mean, think about it, she seems like the equivalent of a 13 year old girl in how she squeal's with joy over being allowed to be around Monica (when she got introduced to M via Doubt), and here she's flinching away like a human teenager (or younger) would when getting yelled at by her parents and thinking she's going to get spanked by them... yet we know that she's older than probably the entire length of recorded human history... I'd LOVE to see what the time-span is on her race's lifespan is if 80K+ years is still considered "a teenager"!!

Is she really that old? When we first met her she was carrying a backpack and talked about how she learned about Shelly at school...I mean, she could still be the equivalent of a 13 year old and be much much older...but it makes me wonder at what point paranormals start school...and how long they have to attend.

The Time Forest was on the opposite "arrow of time", and coursed over all 56 loops, so its history ran "backwards". Thus, the entire story of the Sage of the Forest would materialize in the Library shortly before Shelly 1 departed for her fateful encounter with Shellinx. (IF it was written down--but how else would Shelly earn the title "Sage", or paranormals learn of her, if there was no corpus to be fans of?) Since most paranormals were bound outside of Earth, they did not experience the loops, but may well have experienced a parallel amount of time, as Phix suggested to Brandi when they discussed Brandi's book.

So that's where Scantrob got the 80k years. It could be less, because the corpus would exist in its entirety on our "arrow of time", even as the isolated Shellinx was experiencing it.

Julie wrote:Also, is it her status as a member of MiB or the fact that she's an underaged immortal paranormal that allows Tsillah less restricted access to the Library than Atsali? Because it's not nice to discriminate.

It's not, but Tsillah isn't an orphan. In fact she's from a family of privileged servant gods. But as I point out, she's differently abled. So I don't think there's a lack of sympathy, just a lack of communication.

Though unexamined privilege can be a killer.

Grantwhy wrote:

Dave wrote:Based on Tsillah's wince, I would say that Dr. Katherine Gilchrist has definitely mastered the technique of Momma's Voice.

Well, if movies and TV shows are to be believed, I suspect Katherine is doing a excellent impression of an 'upset' Drill Sergeant/Sergeant Major.

Never having seen either one in their natural habitat, let alone seeing one ... express ... themselves to their fullest, this is only a guess on my part

I suspect though, that their might be some on this board that have had the pleasure of seeing (and perhaps meeting) an 'upset' Drill Sergeant/Sergeant Major first hand. If so:

• Do do Katherine's words and actions on this page compare?
• If you read Katherine's dialogue in the voice/style of a Drill Sergeant/Sergeant Major, do they, for want of better words, sound natural for one?
• Does "the look" from panel 3 have any part in a Drill Sergeant/Sergeant Major repertoire

Hmmmm ..... we know Katherine was found during a military experiment (test misfire of a rocket?).

What are chances that Katherine was adopted(placed with) by someone military? Perhaps senior NCO ranked?

Maybe what they say are true: "some things were inherited through more than genetics...some things were inherited through the soul...some things were in the bones."
(apologies to those that don't get their reference)

You underestimate the Power of the Command Voice.
I have met a man, perhaps not of this Earth, in Army Basic Training, who could make you quail without raising his voice.
There is no way to describe it, you just have to experience it.
R. Lee Ermy was a pale incompetent by comparison.
If Father had Momma's talent for intimidation and his own projection of authority on steroids you might get an inkling of what it's like.
Kathrine is just a beginner. With practice she could make God Almighty proud.