Thank you! Most of my plot twists turn out to be fairly predictable, so it’s nice when I pull one off once in a while.
Given Sharona’s colorful sexual history, I figured that most readers would assume that Sanibal was a former lover.
However, I tried to be careful when plotting/scripting Sharona and Sanibal’s interactions to make sure that everything worked in a mother/daughter context even if it wasn’t obvious to the readers, because I didn’t want the final revelation to come off as a cheap twist.
Although this story is technically over, I’m following it up with a 5 page epilogue that will answer a few questions(like why Sharona doesn’t call Sanibal “mother” to her face) and will ask a few more… 😉
Sharona won’t have the Edifice complex and awkward Christmas or any other family get to gathers. Sanibal some mother great for pleasure and hedonism poor role model scared to know Sharona’s father. Sanibal seems to have the unempathic murderous Rosaline has as step daughter maybe karma still she seems to care about her biological daughter.
Now that is a shock, wow. Now that really explains why they know each other so well and I’m sure their history goes deeper than just a gang of bandits they started together.
That’s true! In the upcoming epilogue we will take a closer look at some of that history and answer a few questions like why Sharona doesn’t call Sanibal “mom” to her face and where Sharona gets her pink hair.
Thank you! I had tried to give Sanibal that mature vibe, but I wasn’t sure if I had pulled it off. In the epilogue we will be seeing a younger Sanibal and the age difference will be more apparent.
Yes, things between Sharona and Sanibal had pretty much come to a head at that point.
As you have probably guessed, Sharona developed a conscience as she got older and began to notice the people she was hurting and questioned her actions. Sanibal(who never developed a conscience) has a volatile personality(even more so when she was younger) and didn’t respond well to having her authority questioned. This led to increasing friction between them that culminated in the violent altercation shown in the flashback. Sanibal attacked Sharona, Sharona responded in kind and things got out of hand very quickly, leading to their estrangement with each one feeling betrayed by the other.
I would imagine Sanibal’s dander really rising when she was challenged by her own daughter and (presumably) heir, the one she was counting on most to be her connection to the future.
Parents always start out with expectations of their children, and tend to be at least a little upset if/when their little darlings rebel against them and challenge their worldview.
As for each feeling betrayed, well…
Mother and daughter coming to bloody blows.
Hard to think of something that would make either feel more betrayed than that.
That’s a pretty spot-on description of the situation.
In spite of everything, Sanibal still loves Sharona. In Sanibals’s mind, the criminal empire she is building isn’t just for her, but for Sharona as well. She hopes to one day leave it all to Sharona, thereby guaranteeing that Sharona will have a life that is safe and secure(Sharona would always have plenty of money, would have a small army of bandits to do her bidding and protect her and because of her position of power, be able to have any man she wants.) Sanibal has no conscience and doesn’t understand why Sharona does. To her way of thinking, Sharona is naive and doesn’t understand what a crappy and dangerous place the world is(Sanibal doesn’t a very healthy view of life). While Sanibal certainly intended to benefit by manipulating Sharona into rescuing Rosaline and getting her the Eye of Mezmera in the process, in her twisted way, she also felt she was doing what was best for Sharona, by bringing her back to the safety of the gang and a secure future.
Sharona still loves Sanibal and realizes that in her twisted way, Sanibal wants what is best for her. Sharona however, doesn’t want to make her living by victimizing innocent people. She also realizes that she has changed but Sanibal hasn’t and that even if she did return to the gang, that difference would inevitably lead to more conflict between them.
I’m curious about Sanibal’s background now. What were the fires that baked the milk of human kindness out of her?
In some ways, I suspect the differences between Sanibal and Sharona may be due to Sanibal doing everything she could to give her daughter a better life than she had.
Sharona had the safety, space and resources she needed (all provided by her formidable mother) to grow into a full human being, whereas I assume Sanibal spent a lot of time struggling to survive from day to day, and her emotional development was first stunted and then finally died a quiet death.
The contrast in their way of living – Sanibal ruthlessly planning for every contingency to make sure her will was done and she profited, and Sharona just going for whatever makes her happy – might also be symptomatic of their background. If my theory holds, Sanibal grew up with hardship, and the twists of fate and chance never brought her anything but pain and loss of what she needed, so she makes elaborate plans and sets up backup plans. Sharona grew up within the web of Sanibal’s will and learned to see it grinds innocent people up into chum, so she may have developed a dislike for highly structured life. She can still plan, of course, but she prefers to stay adaptable.
Actually, your theories about Sanibal are pretty spot on.
Sanibal was conceived when her mother was raped. Sanibal’s mother always resented her because of it, and although she never abused Sanibal physically, she was cruel and verbally abusive towards her. Sanibal grew up hating her mother and left home at an early age. Life on the road was rough and Sanibal survived by stealing and picking pockets. When she became a woman, she fell in with a group of bandits and became the Bandit Leader’s lover. The gang provided Sanibal with safety, companionship and money, but she eventually became dissatisfied. Sanibal was smart and ambitious, and had plans for bigger and better heists and more clever and safer ways to steal money. The Bandit Leader valued Sanibal for her viciousness in combat and her skills in bed, but wasn’t interested in hearing her ideas, so Sanibal began a secret affair with one of the other bandits and conspiring with him, murdered the Bandit Leader. Her lover became the new Bandit leader but he wasn’t very smart and was easy to manipulate, so Sanibal was actually running the gang. Her clever schemes and lucrative heists quickly gained the gangs admiration and loyalty, and when the new bandit leader became jealous of her multiple affairs, she dispatched with him as well and took over the leadership of the gang herself. And the rest as they say, is history.
Sanibal never went home again. Her mother eventually died having never seen or spoken to Sanibal ever again. Her mother’s name was… Sharona.
Which brings us to our next part of the story. Sanibal was surprised when she became pregnant and wasn’t exactly thrilled about the prospect of becoming a mother. She had no idea who the father was(there were a lot of candidates, although Sanibal eventually figured it out. More on that in the epilogue). Sharona’s birth was difficult(Local physicians and midwives were afraid to come to the camp, so the bandits paid a traveling Plague Doctor to deliver her) and Sanibal consumed a lot of alcohol to get through it. Despite hating her mother, the inebriated Sanibal couldn’t think of any other girl names and named her newborn Sharona.
There is a saying in my country: “Children and drunks speak the truth.” Which basically means the truth comes most easily and fully out when we lose (or have not yet developed) our inhibitions.
Sanibal may have grown up hating her mother, but is it possible there was a tiny, deeply repressed part of her that wished things could have been different? That she could have started over on a better footing? If so, maybe that part was what dragged up the name of Sanibal’s mother from her pain- and alcohol-muddled memory at the crucial moment. And if so, it would have been yet another reason why Sanibal got so furious when her daughter rejected her; even if subconsciously, it would have meshed with her mother’s rejection.
In any case, I see the difficulty to conceive and give birth is something that runs in the family. (Shameless reference to your notes on Sharona’s future daughter and the difficulty she had bringing her into the world.)
Maybe this – let’s call it difficulty – came from the side of the man who conceived Sanibal with grandmother Sharona, given that you didn’t mention her having trouble?
Like the rest of her pregnancy, naming Sharona after the mother she hated was more of an afterthought for Sanibal than anything else.
Sanibal got pregnant by accident, with no clear idea of who the father was(initially anyway) and despite being a very calculating woman in all the other aspects of her life, didn’t really plan for her child’s eventual birth at all, but rather treated it like a medical condition that she worked around. She wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of becoming a mother(she had never had a desire to be one) and didn’t bother to think about whether she would have a boy or a girl, let alone what to call them. Her lack of preparation may have had more to do with her birth difficulties than anything else(although as we can see, Sanibal has continued to be very sexually active since Sharona’s birth and has never had another child, so fertility issues may run in the family).
Although Sanibal’s reasons for naming Sharona after her mother aren’t clear, the fact that her mother was the only woman in her life that made any impact on her(throughout her life, Sanibal had never formed any close attachments with other women, has never been sexually attracted to women and certainly wouldn’t name her child after any of the female bandits) may have been a factor.
As far as Sharona herself goes, her name has never been an issue with Sanibal. Sharona doesn’t resemble Sanibal’s mother physically or in personality, so inspite of the name, Sanibal doesn’t really associate her with her mother.
Although Sanibal blames Sharona for their falling out and minimizes her own role in it, in the back of her mind she knows that she has pushed Sharona away just like her mother pushed her away. Sanibal will always leave the door open for Sharona and will never cut her off, because in spite of pretending she doesn’t care, she doesn’t want to be estranged from Sharona the way she was from her own mother.
What Sanibal doesn’t realize is that Sharona isn’t done with her either. Sharona and Sanibal haven’t seen the last of each other. 😉
I’d like to add to the praise by saying that Sharona’s face in the last panel definitely adds power to her line. Beautifully done.
(Also, one of the questions we never knew we had but might be answered in the next five pages is, is Rosaline another daughter of Sanibal? That may explain why Rosaline can’t get to first base with her. It would mean Sanibal would have left her with an adoptive mother, though.)
Thank you! I had hoped the final panel would have impact, but I wasn’t sure if I had pulled it off. I’m glad you like it!
Rosaline won’t be factoring into the flashback, but I can answer your question:
Rosaline is not related to Sanibal. Sharona is Sanibal’s only child.
The reason Rosaline can’t get to first base with Sanibal is actually simple(and slightly humorous): Unlike Sharona, Sanibal has no sexual interest in women. She only sleeps with men. So Rosaline will never make any progress with her on that front. Sharona knows this of course, but didn’t tell Rosaline for a variety of reasons, but mostly because she doesn’t like Rosaline. 🙂
I doubt anyone likes Rosaline, with that personality of hers.
Even Sanibal only thinks she’s useful, and if she ever finds out why Sharona knocked her unconscious — that Rosaline lost sight of the job at hand to get her jollies — even that might end sharpish. (As in, Sanibal will use something sharp to end Rosaline’s employment with the One-Eyed Skull Bandits.)
Sanibal suspects that something went wrong at the Wizards Guild(and that there is a good chance that it was Rosaline’s fault), but doesn’t know exactly what. Sharona didn’t tell Sanibal what happened(she wasn’t particularly interested in getting Rosaline in trouble) and Rosaline made up a story that she had briefly passed out from exhaustion after escaping and that Sharona must have taken the Eye from her then. Sanibal doesn’t believe her, but has decided to let the matter drop(although she has warned Rosaline that there had better not be any more screw ups in the future).
Yeah, I think that’s the most likely possibility.
I think Rosaline’s best bet is to pull off as many successful missions as she can and hopefully put as much time as possible between this screw up and her next one.
MOM???!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yep, the hideous Sanibal is really Sharona’s mother!
WAIT WHAT?! 0_0
Okay. I’ll admit it. I never saw that coming. Complete surprise.
Well played. 🙂
Thank you! Most of my plot twists turn out to be fairly predictable, so it’s nice when I pull one off once in a while.
Given Sharona’s colorful sexual history, I figured that most readers would assume that Sanibal was a former lover.
However, I tried to be careful when plotting/scripting Sharona and Sanibal’s interactions to make sure that everything worked in a mother/daughter context even if it wasn’t obvious to the readers, because I didn’t want the final revelation to come off as a cheap twist.
Although this story is technically over, I’m following it up with a 5 page epilogue that will answer a few questions(like why Sharona doesn’t call Sanibal “mother” to her face) and will ask a few more… 😉
I feel kind of bad for assuming now… ^^;
Don’t feel bad! I glad everybody assumed, because if they didn’t the whole ending was pretty much screwed.
tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WhamLine
I hadn’t heard of a wham line before, but I looked it up and you’re right, this was definitely a wham line!
And that is the sound of the other shoe dropping.
Pretty much! 😀
WHAAAAAAAAAAT?! O_O
One line alone and it’s a huge surprise. Mad props.
Thank you!
Most of my surprises don’t end up being very surprising, so I’m glad when one works out! 😀
Totaly Great! Cant wait for the next story!
Thank you! I’m glad you liked it.
I’m following this story with a 5 page epilogue, but the next story should by pretty fun(and a lot let serious).
Literally mom? That’s a twist I definitely didn’t see coming.
Yes, Sanibal is Sharona’s biological mother.
It makes the story read a little differently doesn’t it?
Sharona won’t have the Edifice complex and awkward Christmas or any other family get to gathers. Sanibal some mother great for pleasure and hedonism poor role model scared to know Sharona’s father. Sanibal seems to have the unempathic murderous Rosaline has as step daughter maybe karma still she seems to care about her biological daughter.
We will be learning a little more about Sharona’s father shortly. 😉
Now that is a shock, wow. Now that really explains why they know each other so well and I’m sure their history goes deeper than just a gang of bandits they started together.
That’s true! In the upcoming epilogue we will take a closer look at some of that history and answer a few questions like why Sharona doesn’t call Sanibal “mom” to her face and where Sharona gets her pink hair.
What a twist! 😀 I thought Sanibal had a mature vibe to her, but I gotta say I also thought she was just Sharona’s ex-lover.
Thank you! I had tried to give Sanibal that mature vibe, but I wasn’t sure if I had pulled it off. In the epilogue we will be seeing a younger Sanibal and the age difference will be more apparent.
Knowing what we know now makes page 8 rather … sad. 🙁
Yes, things between Sharona and Sanibal had pretty much come to a head at that point.
As you have probably guessed, Sharona developed a conscience as she got older and began to notice the people she was hurting and questioned her actions. Sanibal(who never developed a conscience) has a volatile personality(even more so when she was younger) and didn’t respond well to having her authority questioned. This led to increasing friction between them that culminated in the violent altercation shown in the flashback. Sanibal attacked Sharona, Sharona responded in kind and things got out of hand very quickly, leading to their estrangement with each one feeling betrayed by the other.
I would imagine Sanibal’s dander really rising when she was challenged by her own daughter and (presumably) heir, the one she was counting on most to be her connection to the future.
Parents always start out with expectations of their children, and tend to be at least a little upset if/when their little darlings rebel against them and challenge their worldview.
As for each feeling betrayed, well…
Mother and daughter coming to bloody blows.
Hard to think of something that would make either feel more betrayed than that.
That’s a pretty spot-on description of the situation.
In spite of everything, Sanibal still loves Sharona. In Sanibals’s mind, the criminal empire she is building isn’t just for her, but for Sharona as well. She hopes to one day leave it all to Sharona, thereby guaranteeing that Sharona will have a life that is safe and secure(Sharona would always have plenty of money, would have a small army of bandits to do her bidding and protect her and because of her position of power, be able to have any man she wants.) Sanibal has no conscience and doesn’t understand why Sharona does. To her way of thinking, Sharona is naive and doesn’t understand what a crappy and dangerous place the world is(Sanibal doesn’t a very healthy view of life). While Sanibal certainly intended to benefit by manipulating Sharona into rescuing Rosaline and getting her the Eye of Mezmera in the process, in her twisted way, she also felt she was doing what was best for Sharona, by bringing her back to the safety of the gang and a secure future.
Sharona still loves Sanibal and realizes that in her twisted way, Sanibal wants what is best for her. Sharona however, doesn’t want to make her living by victimizing innocent people. She also realizes that she has changed but Sanibal hasn’t and that even if she did return to the gang, that difference would inevitably lead to more conflict between them.
I’m curious about Sanibal’s background now. What were the fires that baked the milk of human kindness out of her?
In some ways, I suspect the differences between Sanibal and Sharona may be due to Sanibal doing everything she could to give her daughter a better life than she had.
Sharona had the safety, space and resources she needed (all provided by her formidable mother) to grow into a full human being, whereas I assume Sanibal spent a lot of time struggling to survive from day to day, and her emotional development was first stunted and then finally died a quiet death.
The contrast in their way of living – Sanibal ruthlessly planning for every contingency to make sure her will was done and she profited, and Sharona just going for whatever makes her happy – might also be symptomatic of their background. If my theory holds, Sanibal grew up with hardship, and the twists of fate and chance never brought her anything but pain and loss of what she needed, so she makes elaborate plans and sets up backup plans. Sharona grew up within the web of Sanibal’s will and learned to see it grinds innocent people up into chum, so she may have developed a dislike for highly structured life. She can still plan, of course, but she prefers to stay adaptable.
Okay, rambling over.
For now. ^^;
Actually, your theories about Sanibal are pretty spot on.
Sanibal was conceived when her mother was raped. Sanibal’s mother always resented her because of it, and although she never abused Sanibal physically, she was cruel and verbally abusive towards her. Sanibal grew up hating her mother and left home at an early age. Life on the road was rough and Sanibal survived by stealing and picking pockets. When she became a woman, she fell in with a group of bandits and became the Bandit Leader’s lover. The gang provided Sanibal with safety, companionship and money, but she eventually became dissatisfied. Sanibal was smart and ambitious, and had plans for bigger and better heists and more clever and safer ways to steal money. The Bandit Leader valued Sanibal for her viciousness in combat and her skills in bed, but wasn’t interested in hearing her ideas, so Sanibal began a secret affair with one of the other bandits and conspiring with him, murdered the Bandit Leader. Her lover became the new Bandit leader but he wasn’t very smart and was easy to manipulate, so Sanibal was actually running the gang. Her clever schemes and lucrative heists quickly gained the gangs admiration and loyalty, and when the new bandit leader became jealous of her multiple affairs, she dispatched with him as well and took over the leadership of the gang herself. And the rest as they say, is history.
Sanibal never went home again. Her mother eventually died having never seen or spoken to Sanibal ever again. Her mother’s name was… Sharona.
Which brings us to our next part of the story. Sanibal was surprised when she became pregnant and wasn’t exactly thrilled about the prospect of becoming a mother. She had no idea who the father was(there were a lot of candidates, although Sanibal eventually figured it out. More on that in the epilogue). Sharona’s birth was difficult(Local physicians and midwives were afraid to come to the camp, so the bandits paid a traveling Plague Doctor to deliver her) and Sanibal consumed a lot of alcohol to get through it. Despite hating her mother, the inebriated Sanibal couldn’t think of any other girl names and named her newborn Sharona.
Whoa… o.o Epic. And dark.
There is a saying in my country: “Children and drunks speak the truth.” Which basically means the truth comes most easily and fully out when we lose (or have not yet developed) our inhibitions.
Sanibal may have grown up hating her mother, but is it possible there was a tiny, deeply repressed part of her that wished things could have been different? That she could have started over on a better footing? If so, maybe that part was what dragged up the name of Sanibal’s mother from her pain- and alcohol-muddled memory at the crucial moment. And if so, it would have been yet another reason why Sanibal got so furious when her daughter rejected her; even if subconsciously, it would have meshed with her mother’s rejection.
In any case, I see the difficulty to conceive and give birth is something that runs in the family. (Shameless reference to your notes on Sharona’s future daughter and the difficulty she had bringing her into the world.)
Maybe this – let’s call it difficulty – came from the side of the man who conceived Sanibal with grandmother Sharona, given that you didn’t mention her having trouble?
Like the rest of her pregnancy, naming Sharona after the mother she hated was more of an afterthought for Sanibal than anything else.
Sanibal got pregnant by accident, with no clear idea of who the father was(initially anyway) and despite being a very calculating woman in all the other aspects of her life, didn’t really plan for her child’s eventual birth at all, but rather treated it like a medical condition that she worked around. She wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of becoming a mother(she had never had a desire to be one) and didn’t bother to think about whether she would have a boy or a girl, let alone what to call them. Her lack of preparation may have had more to do with her birth difficulties than anything else(although as we can see, Sanibal has continued to be very sexually active since Sharona’s birth and has never had another child, so fertility issues may run in the family).
Although Sanibal’s reasons for naming Sharona after her mother aren’t clear, the fact that her mother was the only woman in her life that made any impact on her(throughout her life, Sanibal had never formed any close attachments with other women, has never been sexually attracted to women and certainly wouldn’t name her child after any of the female bandits) may have been a factor.
As far as Sharona herself goes, her name has never been an issue with Sanibal. Sharona doesn’t resemble Sanibal’s mother physically or in personality, so inspite of the name, Sanibal doesn’t really associate her with her mother.
Although Sanibal blames Sharona for their falling out and minimizes her own role in it, in the back of her mind she knows that she has pushed Sharona away just like her mother pushed her away. Sanibal will always leave the door open for Sharona and will never cut her off, because in spite of pretending she doesn’t care, she doesn’t want to be estranged from Sharona the way she was from her own mother.
What Sanibal doesn’t realize is that Sharona isn’t done with her either. Sharona and Sanibal haven’t seen the last of each other. 😉
I’d like to add to the praise by saying that Sharona’s face in the last panel definitely adds power to her line. Beautifully done.
(Also, one of the questions we never knew we had but might be answered in the next five pages is, is Rosaline another daughter of Sanibal? That may explain why Rosaline can’t get to first base with her. It would mean Sanibal would have left her with an adoptive mother, though.)
Thank you! I had hoped the final panel would have impact, but I wasn’t sure if I had pulled it off. I’m glad you like it!
Rosaline won’t be factoring into the flashback, but I can answer your question:
Rosaline is not related to Sanibal. Sharona is Sanibal’s only child.
The reason Rosaline can’t get to first base with Sanibal is actually simple(and slightly humorous): Unlike Sharona, Sanibal has no sexual interest in women. She only sleeps with men. So Rosaline will never make any progress with her on that front. Sharona knows this of course, but didn’t tell Rosaline for a variety of reasons, but mostly because she doesn’t like Rosaline. 🙂
I doubt anyone likes Rosaline, with that personality of hers.
Even Sanibal only thinks she’s useful, and if she ever finds out why Sharona knocked her unconscious — that Rosaline lost sight of the job at hand to get her jollies — even that might end sharpish. (As in, Sanibal will use something sharp to end Rosaline’s employment with the One-Eyed Skull Bandits.)
Sanibal suspects that something went wrong at the Wizards Guild(and that there is a good chance that it was Rosaline’s fault), but doesn’t know exactly what. Sharona didn’t tell Sanibal what happened(she wasn’t particularly interested in getting Rosaline in trouble) and Rosaline made up a story that she had briefly passed out from exhaustion after escaping and that Sharona must have taken the Eye from her then. Sanibal doesn’t believe her, but has decided to let the matter drop(although she has warned Rosaline that there had better not be any more screw ups in the future).
Given Rosaline’s personality and ambitions, though, I think another screw-up is inevitable… sooner or later.
Yeah, I think that’s the most likely possibility.
I think Rosaline’s best bet is to pull off as many successful missions as she can and hopefully put as much time as possible between this screw up and her next one.
And if she fails to do so… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJxCdh1Ps48
Yep, Pretty much. 🙂
Now THAT is some good writing. 🙂 Awesomely done!
Thank you for the kind words! I really appreciate that!
This…explains a lot. Now I’m wondering what her Dad was like…
We will be getting some clues about him in the epilogue. He is an… interesting character to say the least.
That’s her mom?! Well… at least she has her mother’s figure. Sexy and deadly.
Her figure was about the only good thing she did get from Sanibal!