![[0155] Rebel Heart](/comics/2010-04-15-[0155]-rebel-heart.png "[0155] Rebel Heart")
100% authentic Burmese rebel wear.
Being a rebel in real life is far less romantic than being one in a video game. Ye Thuza is 16 in the photograph, and she’s not carrying that assault rifle to shoot at some tin cans… Although she’s rather upbeat and was convinced to fight for the right cause, you can see in the last strip that she’s still somewhat messed up.
According to this article at Human Rights Watch Burma had the highest number of child soldiers in the world in 2002, most of them being in the regular army (where they get beaten and abused on a regular basis), but also a significant amount in one of the various rebel groups. Since then not much has changed. Girls are rarely recruited by the opposition armies, but I guess they happily make an exception when a girl with the abilites of Cloud’s mom wants to fight for them.
It’s always bad when a strip consists of five panels since that’s too much to fit into one row and results in ugly whitespaces when put into two rows. Which is, however, still better than an unnecessary extra panel.
- Ye Thuza: Missed you so much, darling.
- Yuna: Daddy!
- David: …
- David: … Angel, are women still allowed to enjoy being housewives?
- Ye Thuza: ’Course not, dear. That was outlawed by the C.O.S.M.O. act years ago. The punishment is having to watch Sex and the City for no less than 100 hours.
- Ye Thuza: But you know…
- Ye Thuza: … I’ve always been a rebel.
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Ye Thuza looks so freaking badass in the last panel.
“Every happy family is alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in their own way”. Congratulations, Oliver, you just proved Tolstoi’s wrong with this unique and happy family.
Sandra and Woo keeps surprising us. Keep up the outstanding level.
Are we going to be seeing more of Cloud’s little sister now that she has made her first apperance?
Sigh. Nothing against the Burmese soap opera, but I miss the raccoon romance.
Also, did Sid ever get girl squirrel? Poor guy, he’s even being ignored by the comic’s artist! :'(
I can think of two stories that would be very interesting. Perhaps they are the same story, I don’t know.
1) How Ye Thuza came to immigrate into the US.
2) How Ye Thuza and David met and med.
I didn’t know Cloud had a sister. I’m guessing Rifa?
Yes, but she’ll remain a very minor character in the foreseeable future.
I saw the cartoon and thought “woah, Cloud has a little sister?”
Considering the dynamics I’ve seen in this family, I’m guessing that Cloud has very few jealousy issues (probably a few, but insignificant ones suitable for the occasional comedy moment)
and instead sees his sister as someone to be protected.
Just my guess.
This explains an awful lot.
Ye Thuza’s past is excellent character development, I like her character more and more with each strip.
There won’t be many strips with Lily in the near future. She’s just a supporting character at the moment. Plus, raccoon romance is mostly limited to the mating season.
No. He’s a European red squirrel and there are no other European red squirrels in North America. And there’ll be no interspecies romances in Sandra and Woo.
Her names Yuna! That’s absolutely wonderful!
)
Is there another family member named Wakka!? Who is good at Rugby?!
WAKKAWAKKAWAKKA!!!
(Glad I got that outta my system!
Didn’t realize that he had a sister. Odd.
@ gamerjoel135
Yuna? When was that confirmed? I seez no evidence to that effect….
And yeah, kudos to the: “What? He has a SISTER?!”
The contrast between sweet domesticity and the bloody rebel badass is great. It also gently ridicules all those feminists who get their dose of rebellion by watching “sex and the city”
Wow, I should have known that she was a rebel. I probably never thought about it. It is sad about all of the child solders there are as well :(. I’m glad I got to see he dad and the sister! I like the “housewife” comment as well ^^.
@Roflmaster
Check the script beneath the commentary.
I say, Pshaw! at ugly whitespaces in this strip. I say it fills it out quite well keeping the eyes on where they need to be, on Cloud’s wonderful family. That’s what I say.
I bet being a housewife is the frosting and sprinkles compared to Thuza’s earlier career, and much safer.
And I wouldn’t mention to Sid that he can’t have a girlfriend. Squirrels are well known for breaking the rules.
100 hours of Sex and the City? I thought there was a law forbidding cruel and unusual punishments.
I think David Eddings would disagree with you, but that’s a whole other fantasy series.
I understand that this is random, and nothing to do with this strip, but I have to say this now while I remember. Remember the mysterious treasure finder? Could she actually be Larisa’s target for Russian Revenge?
Hate. Cosmopolitan. So much.
And I’m not about to sample SatC, either.
Just an idea for how to remove the white space without a filler panel. You could have made panel 4 double wide and included a shot of David listening in, or perhaps widen the last panel and have
the shot of “Rebel Ye Thuza” sitting on a desktop or journal or something.
I think it works fine as you did it though. The space on the sight detracts from it a little, but not much at all. And some of my ideas might end up too busy and weaken the effect the panel is supposed to have.
I see where Cloud got his looks from. As guys go, David is a good-looking guy. Yuna’s quite the cutie as well. Downright precious, although if her family is any indication, probably not a pushover either.
I can sympathize completely with panel rhythm woes. That kind of thing gives me trouble all the time. That said, I kind of like the way the last two panels are set off from the rest. It emphasizes those lines of dialog, yet also keeps the very funny third panel from being over shadowed by the end.
I like how you explain her backstory bit by bit without answering certain questions directly.
Like little flashbacks plaited (I hope thst’s the right word) into normal conversation.
Oh, and Ye Thuza sure made a quick change of clothes XD reffering to the prior strip^^
I’m also caught between how badass and how cute she looks in this photograph.
And at the same time it’s actually a sad story.
Or isn’t it? She seems to be proud about that rebel part.
And now we’ll start guessing how she and David met…
Was he a soldier and they kinda met on the battlefield?
putting a gun at each others face or something like that? >_>’ ( This really would explain a lot! )
Or was she injured and he was a medic?
PS: Little Yuna looks cute, too :3
I can already see her hugging Woo who would be like: “errr… could you get off me please? I’m not a Teddybear…”
Yuna: “cooon ~ ?”
Woo: “Oh, well… this could take a while…” XD
I love the whole family scene. And Cloud’s mom looks like a complete badass in the last panel!
Although the girly-girl in me finds David cute though.
Ye Thuza got lucky~!
I’m glad to see Ye Thuza managed to survive with a great sense of humor!
Interesting about Ye Thuza being a young rebel fighter — in a related vein, three of my favorite anime series (Gundam Wing, Full Metal Panic, and Gundam 00) feature protagonists who were (or are) child soldiers (Heero Yuy, Sosuke Sagara, and Setsuna F. Seiei, respectively).
This comic made me a little misty-eyed. I wish my wife and I were that close together.
I adore little Yuna though, she reminds me of my daughter with the way she sits at the table.
i don know aboot you guys but personaly the best part is that this is somewhat the first time that Ye Thuza (Man sorry but I can’t get used to her name right… BAD Gábor! XP) acts like an averege mom. Of course the 3. and 5. panel just tops it off. X3
I don know I just love these backstorries and fillers.
PS.: It may be my fault but I can’t see the login for moderators, where did it go?
You could have probably put a filler in of her finishing dinner or similar if you wanted to to round it up to 6 panels.
It’s a very interesting story, though I do wonder with other people how she got to the US.. and now I wonder how Sid did too, I had forgotten about him!! (I kinda assumed the story was in Germany for a long time because of him until I read the cast page)
It is true then that the best warriors are those who would rather not killing a fly if possible.
Ye Thuza has become one of my fave ones, I bet she has a lot to tell.
This make me remember the stories of my uncles, how for September 11 they went to the celing of their house to se the bombing planes, and how they had to get inside because of the snipers, the elder of them was in the fireman squad so he got to see the house of goberment all burn out and swere to seen rest of the president skull an the blood all over the celing (theory is that he blow his own head with a rifle), thats from the side of my mom who was in university at the time.
My dad is the only one in my family that still likes Pinochet, My grandpa got all children in their house outside Santiago so they were ok, and he (like the socialist he was) tried to avoid contact with the military, my father was coming from the army then and I supose my Grandpa prohibed him to go back in service (he had to finish University anyways).
Third and not last my Philosophy teacher was in the Revolutionary forces….. as the “coffy girl” doing her little grain of help, or something like that (not very smart) she thought she was safe, but someone talk about her to the Military and she was kidnapped and tortured, naked for humilliation, they broke a bottle inside her but thanks to a ginecologist she was able to have kids. Long time ago she was in a march for amnisty and heard a voice of one of the soldiers, she got close to him so they could talk (“how I m alive?” she would probably asked) he recognised and feel fear(or shame), he runed away.
When you live in South America the elders have to many stories to tell, Chile is alive and well, in fact is better now than in all the XX century (full of conflicts down here that time, exept for the 90)
I got to agree with a lot of the previous comments. It would be interesting to see how David and Ye Thuza met.
XD love it!
@ Gerardo: Being brazilian, yep, I also do have some histories to tell, in our conturbed corner of the world. I was too young to find it strange sometimes the political news ended up in the middle of a page, and the rest was filled with recipies or, in a clever way to protes, medieval demon figures. When censorship was fully installed, one newspaper ran the only headline it could, under such circunstances: “Yesterday was the Day of the Blind”. We still have issues, we stil have unanswered questions.
… but, hey, we’ll meet at South Africa
Ah, and to the north americans who didn’t get the reference… Gerardo was talking about the original september 11, Allende’s one.
I think it’s beautiful the delicate word that Ye say to her husband.
Why wouldn’t a woman enjoy serving to the ones she loves? Is that submission?
It’s not! I think it is when it’s aaaaaaall up to her, but that really doesn’t seems like it. And that’s why this has been a gorgeous comic strip.
*misty teared and some*
Keep it up.
Greetings from Colombia, SouthAm,
J
@Jalule
“Why wouldn’t a woman enjoy serving to the ones she loves?”
Reminds me of a line from a fantasy story. In a subplot, a native of a certain region “attaches” himself as a slave to a young man who is truly noble (and like most truly noble people, the young man doesn’t even realise that he’s being noble). I’m not certain of the native’s name for his race, but the line I’m thinking of which is part of where the native explains his motivation goes something like this:
“No one may make a slave of an Askanti, but an Askanti may take a master if he wishes.”
I am guessing that to a young female who has had to deal with instability and dangerous situations like Ye Thuza’s, where she had to pull her weight just as if she were an adult male…
Well I imagine the chance to act as housewife in a peaceful suburb would be a very welcome change. So why shouldn’t she cook and serve happily? She’s seen far, far worse.
@Melkior – What book was that, please?
@Shippou-chan – As long as it’s her free choice, I agree. And it’s obvious Ye Thuza is happy with her choice here!
…it’s strange that I can actually believe she considers that a fond memory…
CLOUD’S PARENTS ARE NOT TO BE TRIFLED WITH. OH NO.
@Iron Ed – I don’t remember the title. I know I still have it, but it’s packed away somewhere following a move and I probably won’t find it for months if not years.
(quietly amused) that reminds of a time when a local thug was making threats on my life. a couple of state troopers asked me if i wanted them to do something about it. i told them “no worries, if he tries, and misses his first shot he won’t get a second one, and if he does get me his next problem will be an angry widow with an m-1 carbine.” shortly after that the threats stopped. (where i live people are peaceful, friendly, polite and often armed, it keeps the would be “bad guys” nervous.)
@gunner
a land so free that you have to wear a gun to defend yourself from others´s freedom.
It still amaze me that the world is still traped in nonsense wars, inquisitions, slavery, etc.. we really are stuck no matter what optimist say. Hehe, we could make a VS for who continent is more fuckd up, of course I vote for South America, go team!
SA, SA, he’s our man. If he can’t do it, GREAT!
the comic title sounds like it could be a good book, just thought i’d say that. On a different note, i love how you keep revealing things about cloud’s mom in photos and let the reader get a feel of her character through her memories.
no gerado, i do not “have to wear a gun to be free”, the choice is mine. others are free to choose for themselves, and i respect their choice, and rights, whether they are armed or not.
agreed with the first comment!
You know, I hope to see some interaction with Sandra and Cloud’s Family. I think that has many, many, possibilities.
cloud’s parents are HAWT
That woman is my heroine *_*
Are men allowed to enjoy being house-husbands?
Because I think there’s a whole heck of a lot more cultural opposition to men who choose to do that than an article in some magazine or a couple of shows on TV.
People talk all the time about how women should choose what makes them happy, and how a woman should be a housewife if she wants to… Honestly, I hear this sort of social criticism *a lot more* than I hear any actual calls for women *not* to be housewives.
I wonder what most people’s reaction to a house-husband would be… “You’re not a real man!” “Your poor wife! Why can’t she find someone properly masculine?” “What happened, got fired? Can’t find a job?” “You know a woman is naturally suited to parenting… A man is no good as a primary parent!” Etc., etc. These are the reactions that spring to mind.
Housewives have it *easy,* comared to that. I wish to God house-husbands had *one tenth* as many TV shows, magazines, and webcomics *supporting* their chose as house-wives do…