Dame Sonatina the Aromantic Siren
I’m a ukulele player and it’s my comic so I’ll shamelessly promote ukuleles to all. :D
I did my Siren research as they’re normally represented by mermaids/humanoid woman, and discovered that Sirens are sometime drawn with birdlike features- thus Dame Sonatina was born! She’s based off a type of bird known as a Bee Eater, which is a fucking badass that looks like this:
Bee Eater? That sounds like such a badass name!
I’m assuming our heroic adventurer has a boat on the other side of the island he’s jamming on? This guy gets around!
Gonna vote up Vlad. I have a thing for misunderstood vampires ^_^
I like her design! The ending of this one struck me as really neat, too. Yay companionable ukulele/vocal jam session!
I keep reading “aromantic” as “aromatic”…
I like how it seems like our heroic adventurer is becoming more openminded and understanding as he goes along. I also love this design for a siren!
I was thinking the same thing! Might Fred actually be learning? :)
I feel a little lost… I never heard of aromantic, and I know she comes out and says it… but can someone expand more on what it means to be aromantic? Pretty please?
Just… uninterested in romantic relations. They may or may not be interested in sex without romance. They may or may not be into platonic physical affection with their friends. But no interest in romantic relationships.
I can’t comment on how likely an aromantic person is to be the above (everyone is different!) but hopefully it helps.
Fair enough. Thank you, Jason ^_^
What he said, basically. Being aromantic is defined by not experiencing romantic attraction (e.g. crushes, desire for a romantic relationship with someone, etc.) Pretty much in the same way that asexuality is characterised by lack of sexual attraction to people (although the two are different and don’t necessarily go hand in hand.)
I heavily encourage you to do some research on the aromantic and asexual spectrums! There’s a whole lot of variation within the groups- far too much for one person to explain. I myself am demiromantic and asexual, but even I can’t explain what those mean to everyone. Thank you for your curiosity!
I really dig on the Bee-Eater design, it reminds me of some great alternate griffon designs I’ve seen floating around like hummingbird/mouse, Harpy-eagle/jaguar, or penguin/ringed-seal. Also awesome that you play ukelele, do you like Amanda Palmer? I recommend “Map of Tasmania” if you hadn’t heard of her yet. ;-D
Now I’m wanting a back-story on why our intrepid adventurer is in this land having wacky adventures… maybe he can be in the next poll?
I have been *really* squicked out by Amanda Palmer as an artist ever since the whole Evelyn Evelyn thing, and the squick has only increased over time. Trans*phobic and racist remarks and lyrics, the simulated assault of Katy Perry, asking professional artists to work in exchange for beer and hugs and exposure (then getting offended when people were like, um, no, you need to pay people), just one thing after another.
If you ever want to see a really great ukulele player, google Jake Shimabukuro. I also recommend the band Na Leo Pilimehana, (the late, great) Israel Kamakawiwoʻole, and this one quiet little youtuber named Jomel Sumira.
Your description of your love of the Ukelele and its history further down the comments add a whole new level of skeeve to the “ukelele anthem”, too, and the way she characterizes it. Fuh. Thanks for sharing that story and history, though, I’ve mostly only encountered the Ukelele through ‘ironic’ English people with no know hawaii’an connection and seeing something other than that is deeply refreshing. I plan to chase up videos of those musicians once I’ve found my headphones again.
OMG, I didn’t even know about that song. I just watched it and it’s gross as hell. Yikes.
oh damn, I hadn’t heard that about her! I kinda liked the Evelyn Evelyn song (yeah the video was super creepy but I’m in art school- that kinda shit is standard) the piano and melding of voices was really nice. Also I liked Coin-operated Boy that she did with Dresden Dolls, and The Killing Type had a sick video (again- Art school eats that shit up with a spoon). Which song was racist? I like to know something about artists I like and if she’s secretly an ass I’d like to be informed.
Just off the top of my head, she used the N-word in “Guitar Hero” and more recently joked on twitter about “ironically” donating money to the KKK.
dang I was going to use her in a comic about bad-ass women musicians. Can anyone recommend a female ukelele player I could reference instead? So far I’ve got Tori Amos on piano, Joan Jett on guitar, Kim Deal on bass, and Samantha Maloney on drums. I wanted to throw in a ukelele player for the last one and I was going to use Palmer but if anyone can suggest an alternative (also if there is anything I should know about the other artists I picked please let me know) I’m all ears.
Kate Micucci would fit pretty well on that there list of white female musicians. Taylor Swift has also been known to play ukulele.
Alternatively, Taimane Gardner and Brittni Paiva are both pretty badass. I’m not certain anyone outside of Hawaii know who they are though.
the only qualifications are female and fierce, I was thinking to change Maloney for Bobbye Hall after doing some looking around
I watched the video for Evelyn Evelyn, and I feel like I am missing something?
I think she does cracking things with her voice but sings a little bit too ugly for my tastes! I like doing inappropriate uke covers of modern songs, though being a bass/baritone and converting songs written for guitar is a mission and a half.
I like her voice, and I like deeper voices. It’s the shrieking sopranos that make my ears bleed. I’d love to hear some of your covers Tab if you have any posted anywhere?
Gryphons are indeed awesome. With their traditional bird-of-prey/large-wild-cat design, I’ve become rather fond of the idea of baby gryphons looking like owl-faced kittens with wing.
Sirens were sometimes drawn with bird- features due to the Greek story about what Demeter, mother of Persephone, did when her daughter was first kidnapped down to Hades: she gave Persephone’s handmaidens wings (and possibly other bird things, idk, I’m paraphrasing). so they could search faster and then wandered the earth herself doing a whole host of things that the other gods up in Olympus thought was cheating. Once Demeter found out where her daughter was, Persephone’s handmaidens stayed in that form and decided to nest out at sea for some inexplicable reason. #ancienthistorygeek
Love the idea of a siren who is Aromantic! I bet they have the best jammin’ sessions since Orpheus sang himself into a frenzied mob.
An interesting thing is that the Greek Siren (and the roman one, but not as much as it’s more closely related to the sea) bears a close resemblance to the Harpy. Both are winged, bird-like women (though the siren sometimes appears as just a normal woman), but the Sirens are called daughters of the Earth while Harpies are wind spirits. In addition, the Harpy is crueler and more vicious than the Siren.
So much love for ukulele. SO MUCH. Growing up in Hawaii, I guess I sort of took it for granted when I was young. But when I started working for a school that focuses it’s entire curriculum around Hawaiian language and culture, I was advised to learn to play. And the more I worked on it and learned, the more I loved it.
Queen Liliʻuokalani once commented that while the word ukulele originally was coined because the Cavaquinho (the ukulele’s Portugese predecessor) brought to mind jumping fleas, she liked to read it as “the gift that came here” instead.
They’ve really hit the UK in a big way- little groups popping up everywhere! I like it because it’s a fun, approachable instrument, and easy to carry around with you :D
Hmmm – how about a trans woman/trans girl minority monster? We’ve had the magnificently codpeiced King Monarch, aye, and Captain Sashay also, but apparently no trans women, and the list of monsters-with labels is now wending its way through hetorosexual hippogriffs and vanilla vampires with an impression that trans people have been ticked off the list now a non-binary person and a trans dude have been covered. I would quite like to see a trans woman aside from my headcanons about my look-alike Reverend Tumbles.
That being said I’m not sure about good matrial ass suggestions for things to make a Monority Monsters PSA thing about and it be both funny and (most importantly) appropriate, the trials of being a trans woman being often being very not a laughing matter. Don’t want trans fems to just fade off and not be included ,though.
material -as-, not ass. This is what I get for not appropriately proofreading uneditable posts.
Ms President the Pacifist Troll deals with some of the issues trans women face, but one of the criticisms of King Monarch was the inclusion of ‘trans’ in his title so I decided to omit it for her.
Ohh, okay, cheers for the heads-up – I’d actually voted for her next anyway!
Is it just me, or is Fred getting better at this? He barely embarrassed himself this time. Just rolled with it and asked if she wanted to jam.
I like the fact that the aromantic character likes romantic songs. I think a lot of people miss the fact that aromantic people can still enjoy romance in fiction or music etc., even if we don’t want those things for ourselves (in the same way that someone might love Jurassic Park, but not actually want to be chased by dinosaurs) so it’s nice to see that represented.
(Of course, there are also aro people who have no interest in or dislike fictional romance. Everyone’s different! )
Have you considered a genderfluid Phoenix that bursts into flames and is reborn whenever its identity shifts (or its identity shifts whenever it is reborn)?
I really like this idea- Mx. Alex the genderfluid pheonix is born!
There’s also the conventional succubus/incubus if you want to go the genderfluid route. Originally you got cambions/half incubi because they’d…Pick up deposits in succubi form and transfer it in an incubi form.
Mayhap a lithromantic lamia? Maybe with a thing for QR or Frank, then when Fred points out that Ravi is poly and Frank might be as well and there’s no harm in asking, she could say thanks but no thanks, she’s happier being in love than she would be in a relationship?
(Or maybe I should just make it myself and submit it as a fan comic, since I apparently just wrote the whole damn thing anyway. *sighs, rolls eyes at self*)
I know I’d read it.
What’s a lamina?
A lamia is a snake-woman, generally depicted with the torso and upper body of a human and lower body of a snake – or at least that’s how I’ve generally seen them depicted (and/or the name I’ve seen for that type of monster, though I’ve also seen them called Naga). Honestly, the lithromantic monster could be anything; I just landed on lamia because it fit the recent alliteration pattern.
Oh, just had an idea – what about an intersex suggestion for the next line-up? Like they’re really invisible as a group a lot of the time + they face oppression that a submissive yeti or a crossdressing centaur isn’t really gonna run into. I’m not any kind of expert there, so the ‘common misconceptions’ addressed in the comic would probably be up to your research. (I think “are you fertile both ways” and “does this automatically mean you’re genderqueer” are a few examples of “no stahp fred” questions)
Already down on the list- this is one that I won’t have up for voting as it’s a definite extra for the (hopeful!) book.