Dunno how it worked, but his eyelid definitely looks cleft here.
Duane’s scarification to match Ssael is almost complete?
And idk if being buried under a mass of pain eels is healthy - well it definitely isn’t - but is having a hole torn in him going to make it way way worse?
A hole half stuffed with a comfort blanket, but it may be Sette didn’t just ram a different perspective of his worst day through his heart, all the other worst days from everyone else could infest him now maybe.
His eyelids looked that way the night he was assassinated, he had his eyes stabbed out. Those notches show up a lot throughout the comic depending on his glamour.
She did the whole if I can't have you. No one can moment. By accident of passion. But still.
Sette defended herself with the face scratch, then they had their heartfelt convo which led to duane discovering that she could control him, then sette freaked out and attacked duane when he ran from her. Easy to see why she did it but still a scary decision that hurts her
Turning your back and running from a lioness. tsk tsk.
So I’ve been so focused on Duane’s arc here, haven’t spent much thought on this cogent pain bird.
Definitely in a class of its own, it has a mind… Took some waking in the bottommost parts of khert hell, surrounded by mindless pain eels, so.
Did we ever figure out what mechanism lady Ilgynang was going to use to cross back over? Was never going to work physically, right?
It feels like this is a big hint since Sette says the memory items are about them but not actually their memories. Does that suggest the eel/bird thing becomes its own separate object and if so is that memory Ana's? Or is it not the same thing growing out of Sette right now?
1 month ago
Anonymous
If the silver beast is, as it vaguely seems to be now, Ilganyag growing a new body for herself to inhabit outside the khert, it might represent a cartoonified version of that. When she touches it, she seems to caused Ana, who is now making up the silver's heart, violent pain. Since her hands seem to be interfering with the khert as it exists outside of where they are, touching the "memory" of it might cause some kind of interference as it links back to that "being."
1 month ago
Anonymous
Looking back on this page, it does look like Sette might be transferring something vaguely orange-ish into the silver monster.
Maybe it's the "soul" of her new First Silver body, and Sette's abilities are the method to transfer it from the Khert into the Silver? Its mix of lion and bird features imply Sessine worked with Ssael to create it; were Sette and her brother the prototypes? Parts sources?
Is that blood/flesh moving to cover up Sette's arms or is it getting blow off? I thought it was getting blown off, but looking at it, I'm not so sure.... it's making me a bit worried tbh
Tiddybird wants to inhabit the silver. But the silver's filled to the brim with ghosts. Which means that they must be removed first. Enter Sette.
(The real question, of course, is how Sessine's physical body joins with the silver. Does it encase her? Does it enter her current body? Or can her mind/senet essence be transferred, somehow? Could THAT be what the red bird-thing is?)
The way it's harassing Sette in that second page reminds me of how Sessine chased her in chapter 7. Appearing aggressive to get her to move how she wants, in this case distracting her to let Duane slip off again and provoking her to strike him.
Looking back on this page, it does look like Sette might be transferring something vaguely orange-ish into the silver monster.
I’ve thought this for a while, especially since the shrine, but I think Sette is actually Trina/incarnation of Tirna/whatever Senet beast frickery approximation of death and rebirth was being played around with that got adopted ultimately by the Gefendur as Tirna.
Meanwhile, new cut and notch on Duane’s face/eyes, same deal. He’s Ssael/an incarnation of Ssael/something.
And building on all that, don’t some Ssaelit believe Tirna and Ssael got hitched or live and work together or somethin’? Cope does love monstrous pairings, and these two existing in the afterlife as some fricked up semi-deities would kinda fit the mythos we know so far, in part and parcel. Maybe the myths were crafted from sounding the khert that somehow found future overt memories of these two running things? Idk. Mostly I want to hope for a good ending and that Ashley didn’t just kill off Duane
>I think Sette is actually Trina
Word of God was Sette isn't Tirna. Which makes sense, seeing as Tittybird is Tirna. The problem is Tittybird seems to be grooming a replacement...
No. Author has been super clear about this. Everything else you've said is on the table, but Duane is not Ssael or any kind of incarnation, reincarnation, displaced-time-warp-ination, etc. of Ssael. I think Cope has also said Sette isn't Tirna, but I know for certain she has said multiple times that Duane is not Ssael.
The face scars are probably a clue to us as to how Ssael REALLY got his iconic scars, 'cause it sure seems it wasn't lions that did it. And his face scars never looked like lion slashes to begin with.
>pushed the Miki cloak into Duane
She's just given him some extra memories, either Miki's herself, or more information about that night that he got killed.
Which is going to be a fricking trip and a half
Duane might end up self-actualizing through anger and becoming Ssael via that, instead of anything more reasonable
It likely would have, but in what world would you hug the person you just learned has been controlling your every thought and feeling? If Duane felt an urge to comfort Sette, it was likely tossed aside immediately for fear of it not being his own urge.
Yeah but Sette was clearly wanting some sort of comfort and Bad Dad only ran. She wasn’t controlling any part of him then. But then I guess the story wouldnt be filled with all this pain and misery if Bad Dad was so shitty.
>She wasn’t controlling any part of him then.
You’re one of the “few readers” mentioned in
Duane is very likely going to be drastically altered from this point forward. Our favorite pompous zombie is no more. Sette acted rashly, and while most of us here might get it, there is plenty of reason for Cope to be wary of backlash from the few readers who weren’t filtered that take everything at face value and don’t think about what they’re reading.
that have no ability whatsoever to think about what you’re reading. We the readers can assume (but not know for sure) that Sette wasn’t controlling Duane right then. But from Duane’s point of view (you can do it, just use a little bit of brain power), it is impossible for him to know, and there is no reason for him to assume she’s not.
You really shit yourself in the foot right there. That nose of yours can’t get any higher.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>I can’t comprehend that two characters view the same scene differently >everyone else is wrong when they tell me there’s nuance
the irony is that you are the most arrogant person here while simultaneously being one of the most illiterate
>you just learned has been controlling your every thought and feeling
You know that's not true. We know she's been controlling him somehow, but don't know the extent of this. Hell, even she didn't know it 30 seconds ago.
>She wasn’t controlling any part of him then.
You’re one of the “few readers” mentioned in [...] that have no ability whatsoever to think about what you’re reading. We the readers can assume (but not know for sure) that Sette wasn’t controlling Duane right then. But from Duane’s point of view (you can do it, just use a little bit of brain power), it is impossible for him to know, and there is no reason for him to assume she’s not.
I agree. It's a shame that Sette literally figured out what gets the eels to frick off, and the story forces them to do the exact opposite of eels-be-gone.
I don't think anyone is sure yet, the first time we saw it was in the nest collection of memories. Sette at first didn't recognize it, and then reacted with fright, and then they left, so we're pretty low on info. The patterns remind me of Sessine's beak, though
>this update shows the eel thing is literally a part of Sette >somehow ends up as a separate item like the amulet and cloak for tittybird to plunder
Feels like there are some hints there but I'm not sure what to make of it yet.
Feels like it has some control over her body, the glowing outlines as she’s murderising duane for instance.
1 month ago
Anonymous
It was foreshadowed even before that with her eyes shifting between red and green. It's unclear if it's Sette's bad thoughts that cause the bird to stir or the bird is driving Sette towards spontaneous fits of rage.
This is a deep pain. >It’s not over yet! I think I’m actually a little more nervous about the next stuff, it’s much more weird. Sette and Duane yelling at each other is old hat, really 😉
Oh cool, it gets worse!
I told all y'all homies Sette should get have got out of there quick. We've gotten so low now that the eels have turned into bottom dwelling gulper eels 'n' sheeeit.
This. Those items hold memories. Sette, by intent or no, has forcefully stiched those memories into Duane's soul. Whatever he is going to see is something he won't be able to deny. It might also come with some kind of personality change depending on what else just got shoved into him or the crude way it was done.
Then you’re a lucky one. I was going out on a date, having a fun time, when bam! Turns out she was 4 eels in a trench coat. I even paid for dinner. I’m sure others have similar stories.
The poem is for sette who's died several times. I guess she eventually hits a point where she remembers most of her past lives. I wonder what causes her to die and if she'll die again and book 2 will focus on her rebirth.
He's getting to see the memory of his brother selling him out, I wager
This. Those items hold memories. Sette, by intent or no, has forcefully stiched those memories into Duane's soul. Whatever he is going to see is something he won't be able to deny. It might also come with some kind of personality change depending on what else just got shoved into him or the crude way it was done.
I imagine there's a reason Duane is always holding that memory outside of himself, at arm's length. If he survives being dragged down into the pain pit, in the long run it'll likely be healthier for him to be forced to accept the coat memory into himself
Website comment: >Three pages today, keep clicking forward. Settetania achieved. I’m going to skip next week to make up for the dump. See you back here next Monday (the 6th)!
>-Ashley
Patreon comment: >Three pages today, I just couldn't see posting these separately. Ah, we can only go up from here!
>Someone suggested recently I'm maybe a little too explicitly talky about what's going on in the pages and I'd hate if that's the case. I'll try to only offer additional commentary if I'm directly asked for clarification 🙂 We have seen Sette's new friend before in the comic - very recently, very briefly - but we don't know who or what it is. We'll find out.
>Otherwise, this is a very bad day for Sette. Maybe even her last 🙁
Website comment: >Three pages today, keep clicking forward. Settetania achieved. I’m going to skip next week to make up for the dump. See you back here next Monday (the 6th)!
>-Ashley
Patreon comment: >Three pages today, I just couldn't see posting these separately. Ah, we can only go up from here!
>Someone suggested recently I'm maybe a little too explicitly talky about what's going on in the pages and I'd hate if that's the case. I'll try to only offer additional commentary if I'm directly asked for clarification 🙂 We have seen Sette's new friend before in the comic - very recently, very briefly - but we don't know who or what it is. We'll find out.
>Otherwise, this is a very bad day for Sette. Maybe even her last 🙁
Obviously she means this is her last bad day, and everything is going to be sunshine from here
well it's not like he needs to breathe
and murkoph didn't get devoured or atomized or whatever the frick the khert would normally do to something it recognizes, despite being buried in there for probably a very long time, so maybe duane's fine and is just gonna spend some time in time-out
maybe centuries
who knows
I read this comic when it first came out. Stopped cus I wanted to wait for it to be finished because of how good it was. Why did I do this to myself again? Why??
I caught that too. Duane's an butthole but he's not a moron. It's kind of sweet that Sette is still trying to fit her zombie dad into her megalomaniacal plans. It's like when she promised Sara cake and hotter boys than Jivi
[...] >We'll get YOUR bullies too- >YOU LEAVE MY FAMILY ALONE
Lol, on some level he knows the truth
I'm very stupid, its only with these two commments that I realised Duane and Sette were both trying to live their best lives/lives either by denying the awful things happened and running away from them or, in Sette's case, psychically ripping them out of her mind, but never quite managing it.
Yeah, he's come to the same conclusion as everyone else, even if he refuses to acknowledge the thought. Which is pretty sad. Duane has no one any more.
You know, for all the times that Ashley has talked about these characters and world being essentially fully-formed in her head, it'd be ironically exactly her writing style for the twist to be that the author can sound the khert to get stories.
Yeah I don't get the feeling it's going to go metatextual like that. Although at this point it feels like Sette is almost powerful enough to reach out through the computer screen.
Melville never broke the fourth wall like that, and he seems to be one of her biggest inspirations oddly, so I doubt that kinda twist would ever come down the line
So I'm not the only one who dreads Murkoph's inevitable reappearance, right?
I have said before that he has the feel of a writer's pet, which is always a disaster in stories but especially in tightly-plotted stories like these. Thus far Cope has been a GOOD enough writer that her love for him hasn't blinded her telling of a good story, but there's always that danger.
If there's any author I trust implicitly at this point, it's Cope. I doubted Mikaila being alive and Cope made it work (or is in the process of). I doubted Gunnerkrigg Court having the dad come back as a big butthole and it proved me wrong. A good author will take that thing you didn't think would work, would lessen the story, and make you believe again.
Cope could have Sette giving Duane a bloody blowjob while Jivi and Matty double team her from behind and I'd say "let's see where she's going with this."
>I have said before that he has the feel of a writer's pet
That's you reading knowing too much about him from the outside. If you only knew what you'd seen in the comic... it's nothing. He's barely been in it enough to know anything about him other than he was some kind of serial murderer/rapist when he was alive and Titttybird shoved him in a wall for some reason.
>So I'm not the only one who dreads Murkoph's inevitable reappearance, right?
You're not, but I'm not one of them. But I don't think he's an author's pet.
I think he was meant to foreshadow some stuff for Book 2 so that stuff in Book 2 wouldn't come totally out of left field. Cope has said before that she kind of regrets introducing him so early.
I think that when the whole thing is finished, Murkoph's early introduction will make a lot of sense. But that's the difference between getting to read an entire book series from start to finish, and getting to read it at three pages a week. When you read something at three pages a week, you linger carefully over every page, so it creates a sort of reader myopia/tunnel vision. It's impossible to really see the larger picture.
I also think enough of us have been burned by bad authors that we're wary in general. But I think that Cope has proven her chops, so I'm willing to set my worries aside and just hang on tight for the ride. She's earned my trust as a reader, and there's not a single twist in the story she's told so far that I've disliked or regretted.
I suspect it's because Ruck probably will be slinking out of the story in this book - either through death or him finding a hole to bury himself in for a snooze
But see, even while he's trying to run away from her in fear, he's still worried for her
I love how Duane's entire personality is basically just ten million internal conflicts that exist in an extremely unstable equilibrium
>Ssael's myth is that he was killed by a lion, buried in the Khert, and tore his way free >Duane receives the same scars >And is killed by a lion >Then buried in the Khert
He's mantling Ssael.
We know the geffie gods are senet beasts. Duane has already killed one, maimed another and might still murder the rape snake before the chapter is over.
We also know that a story arc that would have seen us introduced to Jivi's pirate mum is likely gone now, as Cope compressed the story from 3 books to 2. I will bet you a dollar that Duane would have gone all Ahab on a certain typhoon whale if we'd seen him on that pirate ship. Cope's inner Melville-fangirl would have demanded it.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure Jivi's mom is how they're going to get to Alderode in the first place. Hasn't been too long since Ashley last mentioned it, either, so I doubt she's changed her mind.
Pretty sure the wandering root they met isn't the one that inspired/correlates with Baelar. Cope's hinted that not all of them were of equal intelligance. If we ever meet Shaensigin and Ilganyag's collaborator, I expect it'll be more of a character.
It seems kind of dubious what "wounding" Duane's khert body would actually do. If it's just a clump of memories then it doesn't (shouldn't?) really have vital points, organs, or really a way to kill it at all besides destroying the entire thing.
As a result, being pierced by a soft fluffy cloak doesn't seem exactly fatal, presumably.
Although, where did his soul tether go? It hasn't been drawn for quite a few pages now.
Pretty sure piratemom is still happening. I thought the bulk of the cut book would’ve been the Roretide stuff?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure Jivi's mom is how they're going to get to Alderode in the first place. Hasn't been too long since Ashley last mentioned it, either, so I doubt she's changed her mind.
>piratemom is still happening
God, I hope so. That dream sequence is still one of my favourite parts of the comic, so much I ended up picking Captain Flask for my Kickstarter sticker.
Was a little surprised when it ended up as her real human self rather than a fish lady, but hey, still cool.
Incredibly cool. I'm a little salty the last time there was a volume kickstarter was when I was flat broke. Now it's been like 7 years and Vol 2 is sold out and Vol 4 is probably never coming lol. I wanted one of these squish pins so badly, I think about them often.
If you ask Cope nicely, she may give you the file she used for ordering the squish pins so you can get your own. As long as you’re not making a batch to sell to others, I think she’d consider it.
Feels like this is a allegory to a young woman getting her period for the first time? The whole bleeding hands thing. Like she's growing up. And the fact that she acts so embarrassed about showing Duane it.
Very interesting take on things, could definitely see it as a solid literary allegory, especially since Sette is actually changing after years of being an ageless child
>If Cope didn't want people commenting on her voice, she shouldn't have released clips of her pronouncing the character's name.
Anon, all she wanted was to tell people how to pronounce the weird fantasy character's name correctly
She's a big enough girl not to care but that doesn't make you less of a stalker
>release clip of voice >someone says the voice is cute >stalker
huh
I could understand if they were talking about jerking off to it or something but this is an incredible nothingburger, even moreso that you've bothered to drag it into the next thread as if it's in any way noteworthy.
>release a clip of your voice almost a decade ago to tell people how to pronounce a complicated name >several people comment on it remembering how cute her voice is haha she should be a vtuber she's so cute x3 That's a sliver, the whole thing compounds over time given what people say about cope in these threads in the archives, and they're clearly the selfsame small group of people violently lusting at cope and discussing her sexuality
I'd admire a naked Duane or Sette and Duane holding hands.
No, no it's perfectly normal to think about a woman's voice you've only heard once or twice and isn't creepy at all. You totally don't do that because you have a internet-crush on someone. That's stupid.
1 month ago
Anonymous
ngl I have an internet crush on ash because she's one of the best webcomic artists around
1 month ago
Anonymous
I have an internet crush on this youtuber called Wormgirl and some chick who did some videos for vampire Diaries but you will never hear me admit that. Pretty voices.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Wormgirl's a fricking shit, her DDA runs are absolute garbage and honestly I'm disappointed in you now that I know that.
1 month ago
Anonymous
jesus frick what did i do????
I wish I could draw. I would draw so many pictures of Duane and Sette holding hands. But no. i can't. and the world is sadder because of it.
1 month ago
Anonymous
wormgirl literally sounds like he's transitioning from wormguy, what the frick is wrong with you
1 month ago
Anonymous
This is normal for everyone, except the autistic zoomer whiteknight who wishes to be the little girl.
you sound kind of insane
that whole exchange was >Sette sounds like Cope >Sette sounds like Florida Woman? (since the fact that Cope lives in Florida is common knowledge given the hurricanes regularly disrupting the comic) >Cope doesn't sound like Florida Woman, her voice is actually pretty cute, you can hear her in some old youtube videos
And then you dug through the archives looking for things to get offended about on her behalf I guess?
Cope also has had panels at cons and people haven't leaked pictures of her large bahonkahonkas in the wild, so I'd say if there's some creeps out there they're at least smarter and more well behaved than most. Which makes sense because you need a pretty high IQ to enjoy unsounded.
I just like listening to cute girls talking in the background. It's not weird. The entire vtuber industry hinges on that and we're huge, so you're the minority here.
I don't remember it being discussed, but apparently Starfish has an entire horror factory to his name now. So while things might look grim already, remember that "Quigs and Jivi at the flesh mall" is still ahead of us.
It was neat to see Duane actually being a priest. And for an atheistic apostate to an incompatible faith, at that. One of his better moments as a man that we've seen.
OK, I bathed my nards and grundle in Palmolive anti-stress with yling yling and iris, and drank a pint of port. I think I'll be alright for the next page in 9 days.
Every pymaric with some measure of advanced "artificial" intelligence (like Uaid) are piloted by memories i.e. ghosts. It's likely that swarm is also piloted in this way instead of Vienne hand-crafting flying and targeting algorithms, or Quigley controlling every piece of it manually.
Memories eat each other in the khert to coalesce into larger forms, blending like to like. Incompatible memories tend to split each other apart.
I'd assume the eels are drawn to Duane's profound existential torture and are instinctively trying to eat him to make one big eel megazord (like the sekiro eel from a bit ago).
Duane has plenty to chew on, but would it work? He's a whole soul. Can the eels actually gnaw out the painful memories to feed their growth? The idea that Duane's at risk of dismemberment is honestly terrifying. What if something chews him hard enough that whatever's keeping his soul together pops like a water balloon and all of his memories scatter like individual drops in the khert's sea?
We've seen squishes repair Duane's memory leakage before - although that was from Murkoph's beating rather than Sette's memory frickery and there are no squishes around right now - so I can still cope
The most nasty implication is that his spellwork is going to be patchy from now on because he will forget how to cast on a particular material or something like that. Damn that's going to sting.
>if we're lucky
lol double dead Duane rolls ones every 5 minutes.
We're in DAMAGED territory now.
The most nasty implication is that his spellwork is going to be patchy from now on because he will forget how to cast on a particular material or something like that. Damn that's going to sting.
>loses family >loses life >losing body >loses dignity >loses his relationship with Sette >loses natural talent >loses bits of his identity
We can go lower.
>Bastion can't remember Rahm because he was thinking about him when he got soul knifed
Maybe a hint at what Duane could lose? Though he must have had a lot on his mind in this moment. Plus the frickery of having someone else's memory shoved into him. Is he going to undergo a fundamental change in his character?
Supposedly Sette's ability isn't really the same as the soul knife. For one thing it's not permanent, and it it also seems to be targeted rather than just hitting what's on the surface.
>For one thing it's not permanent
I was wondering about how true this really is in execution. She can't destroy the memories, just remove them, but if she removes it and it gets chucked aside, would it even come back? Especially if she removed a memory inside the khert itself. Like it'd still exist but might not ever return to its owner.
Any chance Sette body continu to evolve a bit? she has claws but her bones still seem to shine from the inside. Could she actually grow a bit in age now?
I feel terrible for them both, though I'm not sure why Cope thought we'd be angry at Sette over this. Duane's making a worse showing for himself right now.
Duane is very likely going to be drastically altered from this point forward. Our favorite pompous zombie is no more. Sette acted rashly, and while most of us here might get it, there is plenty of reason for Cope to be wary of backlash from the few readers who weren’t filtered that take everything at face value and don’t think about what they’re reading.
Yeah the morals seem to be pretty clear cut here. >Sette was busy saving people >Duane decided to butt in to indirectly get a person killed instead >Duane got his just desserts
All of the unfortunate escalation and emotional actions notwithstanding, Duane was the one to get Sette in a goddamn chokehold. That warrants self-defense at the very least, if nothing else.
Sette defended herself with the face scratch, then they had their heartfelt convo which led to duane discovering that she could control him, then sette freaked out and attacked duane when he ran from her. Easy to see why she did it but still a scary decision that hurts her
>Sette was busy saving people >Duane decided to butt in to indirectly get a person killed instead >Duane got his just desserts
Do you think Sette in this state will go forth and save Queenie and Chea and save the day?
Sette defended herself with the face scratch, then they had their heartfelt convo which led to duane discovering that she could control him, then sette freaked out and attacked duane when he ran from her. Easy to see why she did it but still a scary decision that hurts her
She wouldn't be in the state to begin with if somebody didn't make an unprovoked assault on her. Sure, things got really ugly and out of proportion. But Duane was the initiating party of the conflict no matter how you slice it. And he didn't have a good reason to start the conflict to boot.
>Duane was the initiating party of the conflict no matter how you slice it.
Well, Duane believes the queen initiated the conflict by having him killed and his daughter attacked. He blames her for his miserable life. We - the readers - know he's wrong, but it's trivial to understand that it looks different from his point of view. If you have a shred of empathy, at least.
That's contrary to his own revelations at the shrine. Empathy is empathy but I expect a grown man to be able to hold onto his own resolutions instead of flip-flopping all over the place between his old beliefs and the new ones. He gains no sympathy from me. As a bonus note, a religious person should know a thing or two about tests of faith. Duane, for all his priestly flair, seems to completely fail on this front.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>He gains no sympathy from me
Suit yourself homosexual, you sound like you never had to make a hard choice in your life. Duane is a soul trapped in a rotting body, the worst possible and impossible) outcome for a Ssaelit priest. He learned his own family had a hand in his death, and his not-so-dead daughter is getting raised by his brother, and she's a child soldier like Lem was on top of that. And you cannot show empathy for him ? He's a zombie mind-controlled by a moronic attention whoring Sharte child and he sees the truth behind, and you can't have empathy ? You're a fricking child too.
1 month ago
Anonymous
You sound like you never made a hard choice in your life. If you can only empathize with childishness, you're in no place to call anybody else a child.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Did you just "I know you are but what am I?" on fricking Cinemaphile? shut the frick up and get out, holy shit. fricking straight assburgers in here.
1 month ago
Anonymous
No, I implicitly called you a child for being unable to wrap your head around people acting mature even under duress. Your emotional outburst right now only seals the deal if I'm being honest.
1 month ago
Anonymous
No you didn't you fricking weirdo. You just copied a dudes insult like some freak. Literal elementary school "I know you are but what am I" shit. Just what the frick is wrong with you? grow up lol.
1 month ago
Anonymous
There was a subtle difference between the two insults. Unfortunately it went completely over your head much like everything else being communicated to you.
1 month ago
Anonymous
bro... no. just. just no. You're not using super smart insults that are flying over peoples head. You're just some assburgers that doesn't understand human emotions =/.
1 month ago
Anonymous
There was a difference in verb tense that would be obvious even to an actual child. At this point you're just admitting to being illiterate and presenting it as an own on the internet.
1 month ago
Anonymous
The projection. It hurts. Literally everyone knows you have assburgers, you fricking weirdo. I was just trying to help you not do that "I know you are but what am I" shit anymore. It's not as smart as you think. It just outs you.
inb4 >no i don't have assburgers and what I wrote was smart I'm smart =(
1 month ago
Anonymous
>ad hominem
Are you done with your tantrum now?
1 month ago
Anonymous
>If you can only empathize with childishness, you're in no place to call anybody else a child
But I don't, so I call you out again, child. You can't form a basic bond with a cartoon character you supposedly have been following for hundreds of pages (assuming you even read unsounded so far you two-bit wannabe troll). Grow up and try again, it'll work out eventually.
1 month ago
Anonymous
If the only way you can interact with a fictional character is forming an emotional bond with them then you are, again, expressing a child's behavior while desperately trying to shift your childishness onto me.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>a religious person should know a thing or two about tests of faith.
Dude has been on a nonstop test of faith since he woke up dead (heh), otherwise he would have offed himself as soon as he realized he was a zombie.
At least you admit that you side with Sette and expect Duane to have fewer flaws. I like Duane, flawed as he is, because his being Sette's perfect knight who does everything right and all his drama is thrown aside for Sette is boring. I don't like his decisions but I understand why he made them.
>Sure, things got really ugly and out of proportion. But Duane was the initiating party of the conflict no matter how you slice it.
Duane shouldn't have flirted with that lion. They don't know the meaning of No! Stop!
I don't understand this point of view. If you demand that characters act rationally at all times, and are bad people if they don't, then that should extend to all characters. Instead you're ping-ponging two wildly different rationalizations between Duane and Sette. If Duane is a bad person for letting his hate for the queen getting in the way of saving her life and the lives of the people with her, then Sette is also a bad person for letting her daddy issues get the better of her and literally altering Duane's soul out of spite.
Frick me, you can think both are in the wrong, you know? Nobody is forcing you to take sides. This whole thing isn't even about taking sides.
I think there’s a not-insignificant number of autistic readers who don’t understand that characters are depictions of people and people act on emotion more often than not. Duane is usually cold and calculating, but this is literally the highest his emotions have run in years, and yet some people still sit back and say “well I would act like that, that’s illogical given the meta knowledge I have.”
I think there’s a not-insignificant number of autistic readers who don’t understand that characters are depictions of people and people act on emotion more often than not. Duane is usually cold and calculating, but this is literally the highest his emotions have run in years, and yet some people still sit back and say “well I would act like that, that’s illogical given the meta knowledge I have.”
So when is a character allowed to act in a mature way instead of regressing into a child at the first sign of trouble? Is there such a situation that you would entertain?
1 month ago
Anonymous
The frick are you talking about? Duane was just on about how he'd sacrifice his love and do monstrous things for his duty. As a man does.
Even his love for Sette isn't enough to quell his thirst for revenge, as sweet a drink as that is.
1 month ago
Anonymous
So what was the scene at the shrine then? The whole thing about not turning his back anymore, or however that went? Was that just empty air then? Is that fitting of a mature character?
1 month ago
Anonymous
Anon is learning that Duane is a hypocrite. Like, a bad one. Also it's easier to be brave in heaven then it is to be brave in hell.
Honestly, have these memories shoved into him might be what this man needs to get some fricking self-reflection going on. Step the frick back, think, calm down. That's what Duane needs right now. Some -stability-.
1 month ago
Anonymous
It's funny that this is the biggest chance for stability he's had in a while, and it's him sinking into a pit of nightmare eels.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Didn't he have enough self reflection already? Being in denial about Lem killing him is one thing, being in denial about crescians being people that deserve individual consideration is a bit beyond reason at this point, considering all his personal development. Not even wanting to personally verify that the queen is as evil as he imagined her to be? Just KILL KILL KILL like he's sipping a cup of Etalarche? Come on.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Not even wanting to personally verify that the queen is as evil as he imagined her to be?
He was dreaming about killing her for six years now, blaming get for his (and, until recently, his daughter) death. She is an enemy of his beloved country. She did awful things as a ruler, like promising help and then betraying the Aldish rebels to make them kill each other.
Like what the frick are you even babbling about. This is like thinking that an allied soldier that has an unexpected chance to kill Hitler should first personally verify if Hitler is as bad as he imagines. This is how stupid you sound.
1 month ago
Anonymous
No. I'm fairly certain you're being overly dramatic here. Duane was tenuously content to peacefully rot away in Sharteshane for most of his undeath. In fact, going to Cresce OR Alderode was something he specifically did not want. "Wow, I guess I always wanted to assassinate the queen of Cresce" is something that only came to him on the spur of the moment now. It definitely wasn't his lifelong goal or he would've taken at least some steps towards accomplishing it.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Not that anon, but while I agree it hasn't been his lifelong goal, it's definitely something he's always wanted to happen, even if he didn't do it himself. The kind of hatred he has for the queen (and Cresce as an institution) is something he's been raised on, it's part of his core worldview, his logical default. It would take weeks, months, maybe even years of exposure for him to discard that line of thinking. Meeting good crescians like Toma or Jivi isn't enough to contradict it, he can rationalize them as good people trapped within an evil system under an evil ruler.
That's just how humans work. When we've "known" something our entire lives, it takes an enormous amount of time and effort to learn otherwise. Even when given proof, we rationalize it as a fluke, or an exception, or maybe something that's true in THIS specific context, but doesn't disprove our overall belief.
1 month ago
Anonymous
I mean if he had ever gotten the chance before, alive or dead, I'm sure he would have happily killed the queen.
That said, him being willing to let a child die to kill the queen is definitely out of normal character for him, even post death.
1 month ago
Anonymous
She's exactly the woman that he thinks she is and he's justified in his actions. She would have him and his entire family tortured to death on religious and ethnic grounds, to say nothing of political ones, without a second thought. She has caused Duane, and the Soud, nothing but trouble for her entire reign. WE know that she didn't orchestrate Duane's death, but HE doesn't, and even then she signs off on the exact same sort of blackops hits every day. Even then, she's personally responsible for thr Foi-Hellick affair, which directly fricked both Duane and Lemuel up.
Yeah obviously Duand letting the Snake possibly frick up Chea is awful, and stopping Sette from squishing it was grade A stupid, but that's the point of tragedy and conflict. It would mean nothing if Duane was just being a moron: it's meaningful that he's let his pain and grief get the best of him.
1 month ago
Anonymous
The foi hellic affaire was instigated by Sonorie's predecessor. She still participated, but the seeds were sown before she was involved
1 month ago
Anonymous
>She's exactly the woman that he thinks she is
She's a nuanced person. Yes she has done reprehensible things but also she isn't a monster. I certainly wouldn't want to be inheriting her position as the head of state.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Queen Sonorie is a despicable person, but she and Duane are not actually that different. Both are willing to make "necessary sacrifices," as Duane just hotly admitted to. And it wouldn't be the first time he's put kids on the block for his cause - is there that much difference between hiding a factory beneath a shrine filled with kids and using child soldiers to clear land mines? The difference is that some large part of Duane knows better and wants to be better, but he frequently ignores it when it counts.
And sure, you could argue he and Jon saved those kids from a worse fate, but he's fighting to preserve a machine that created those circumstances in the first place. And he got rather cavalier their lives, to Jon's misfortune.
1 month ago
Anonymous
NTA, but Duane lived in the system and had no power to change it. The queen is the system, and absolutely has the power to change it. Anyway, this still isn't a contest. The queen can be a terrible person irrespective of what kind of person Duane is.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>The queen is the system, and absolutely has the power to change it.
The queen is not the system, just the largest cog in it, and that cog can be replaced with enough motivation. She has great power but wielding it directly will cause problems because the other factions and foreign nations she has to juggle have differing opinions.
It's not a contest and Sonorie has vastly more power than Duane did, but it's disingenuous to imply her situation is as simple as that.
1 month ago
Anonymous
No, not really.
She’s a larger part of the system, but she isn’t absolute. Even trying to be a bit less war-mongering and she has Bells crawling out her ass and hats with twats underneath trying to crawl up her ass.
She does not have absolute power, and that’s what you need to have all the ills of a system laid at your feet. Or to be said to “be the system”.
Plus, Duane had his chip at the table, but rather than quietly growing his seat so he could quietly affect more and more of the system, he blew it on a moment of indignation. He could have had power to change things, he chose not.
The queen is as much a symptom of the system as any other crescian, yes she has more influence but she still doesn’t have complete freedom to act.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Plus, Duane had his chip at the table, but rather than quietly growing his seat so he could quietly affect more and more of the system, he blew it on a moment of indignation. He could have had power to change things, he chose not.
Duane was a dead man before he punched Bodie. He was a sacrificial lion, it's why he got the post.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>The queen is the system, and absolutely has the power to change it.
The queen is not the system, just the largest cog in it, and that cog can be replaced with enough motivation. She has great power but wielding it directly will cause problems because the other factions and foreign nations she has to juggle have differing opinions.
It's not a contest and Sonorie has vastly more power than Duane did, but it's disingenuous to imply her situation is as simple as that.
No, not really.
She’s a larger part of the system, but she isn’t absolute. Even trying to be a bit less war-mongering and she has Bells crawling out her ass and hats with twats underneath trying to crawl up her ass.
She does not have absolute power, and that’s what you need to have all the ills of a system laid at your feet. Or to be said to “be the system”.
Plus, Duane had his chip at the table, but rather than quietly growing his seat so he could quietly affect more and more of the system, he blew it on a moment of indignation. He could have had power to change things, he chose not.
The queen is as much a symptom of the system as any other crescian, yes she has more influence but she still doesn’t have complete freedom to act.
Point I'm trying to make is becoming more like the queen to kill the queen is bad for Duane's soul. And the health of nearby children, apparently.
Incidentally, with the death of Bell and the head bimbo of the temple, Sonorie IS the state right now. Assuming the makes it out of this alive, she has a unique opportunity to exercise her will with relative impunity in the power gap. How she will survive is an open question, Duane is probably going to be too busy with one more existential crisis to be involved, and Sette's busy having a well-deserved emotional meltdown while a stuffed animal from hell recites poetry at her.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Sette’s busy having a well-deserved emotional meltdown
A well-orchestrated one I’d think, you don’t place your soul anywhere near those hands of magic destruction even if they’re the tool necessary to get you back to the living world unless you’ve beaten down all chance of a random whimsical hand swipe destroying all your plans.
Sette needs to be at her absolute emotional nadir to do tittybirds’ will, and well, nothing stops the keikaku train I think.
1 month ago
Anonymous
If anything I would be slightly upset if Sette does manage to save her at this point, even if she did have the mental wherewithal to immediately go back to the waterfalls right this second. They've taken their time arguing and we know now that time is passing while this happens.
I don't really see why Ruck would take his time when he knows there are people after him.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>I don't really see why Ruck would take his time when he knows there are people after him.
Who ? A guard with a broken arm and a barely above-average wright who never saw his likes? Please.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Don't forget Ruck is also swishing around the soul of R*g*r F**-H*ll*ck with a bunch of etalarched alds coming in for that ass. I'd be escaping the city from that alone.
1 month ago
Anonymous
> Half a dozen soldiers turned moronic and who would probably ignore the giant rapesnake if he dangled ROGER FOI-HELLICK's corpse on a string in front of them
I'm still not feeling very worried for Ruck.
1 month ago
Anonymous
I can't say how it happens, but I'm about 75% sure that Ruck dies tonight. He's the remaining objective "bad guy" to be dealt with.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Well, there's also Prakhuta, Ilganyag, probably Lem. No scarcity of bad guys here.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Prakhuta is clearly not in control anymore, fair point about Lady I, though she almost certainly won't be dealt with this book, and Lem's not exactly in "big bad" position right now given last time we saw him he was surrounded by murderous zombies. Assuming he survives (which is probable), we won't see him til sometime in book 2.
So yeah, Ruck is the only real "big bad" available right now IMO.
1 month ago
Anonymous
I think Duane going to get some -disassociation- before he gets any stability
1 month ago
Anonymous
>the first sign of trouble
This being delving into the mythical afterlife, discovering the god-like being you've been banging is collecting memories for some reason, discovering that your surrogate daughter has god-like powers of her own, which she then uses to attempt to save the person you hate the most in the world, and then discovering that her god-like powers extend to you, personally.
Homie, we're very far from the first sign of trouble. The first sign of trouble was being sent on a mad quest with a girl who has some very leonine features.
1 month ago
Anonymous
The god-like being came after. All it took Duane to lose his cool was seeing the leader of an enemy nation on a metaphysical tv screen. Which makes him about as mentally resilient as a modern day soccer fan. The peeing his pants at the sight of GodSette I'm completely willing to neglect.
1 month ago
Anonymous
this is so fricking cringe that it actually hurts. just holy fricking shit. i don't know whether to laugh or cry. just holy shiiiiit.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>The god-like being came after.
Uh, no, Sette was literally reaching into the real world from the afterlife with giant fricking hands, my dude. It's quite literally the single most god-like act we've seen in the comic up to now. You're using a lot of dismissive language to support your point. Those magic-powered screens we see occasionally would be metaphysical TV screens. What is happening here is akin to going to Heaven (or Hell, I suppose) and looking down on Earth. Except then your bratty friend reaches down and starts knocking people around. As for the soccer fan, no, it's more like a israelite seeing Hitler. You're viewing this through a logical detachment that Duane doesn't have. And perhaps he can be faulted for clinging to his hatred as a security blanket, but the emotion itself shouldn't be difficult to parse.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Well, if he was scared of what Sette was doing at that moment, wouldn't it make LESS sense to try and nab her in the middle of it? The way it seems to me he completely lost his mind at the sight of Hitler.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Well, he kinda did. That's a thing people do. Point being, he was also seeing shit happen that shouldn't be possible, and he showed some apprehension at that. Duane was already operating on some very frayed nerves, and then Sette starts Sette Ex Machining stuff out of nowhere. I don't think his response was the right one, but I can't exactly blame him for not instantly dropping beef he's cherished for a very long time. And of course, it's also somewhat understandable that just standing by is more like letting nature take its course. The queen got herself and hers into that situation, and I can imagine that might also have been on Duane's mind.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>I would do x because I’m mature, this character is being childish
holy tism
I can see why Cope thought that. However she knows too that an significant number of people will approve of murder if "he/she was really asking for it".
See Gary Plauche or even this guy who got 10 years with parole which is pretty light, considering. >https://nypost.com/2024/03/08/us-news/texas-man-sentenced-to-10-years-for-shooting-wife-dead-on-camera/
Duane = wants people who killed him and did bad, horrible things dead. It doesn't matter who gets hurt because these people will always be worse then what he can manage. I mean, it obviously does, but the dude lost his wife and kids and penis. That would break every Anon around (If they weren't always alone). It's not complicated.
Duane = Loves Sette with all his heart. Except he can't for obvious reasons and STILL she is his Lion. Even after all this when he man-handles her he STILL wings up basically begging to explain to her why he needs to kill the queen and how important it is to him.
It's pretty obvious, to me, that Duane just wants all this bad shit to stop for a moment and is having a break down. Or well, was, before he has those memories shoved into his soul.
But the memories though. Is this gonna be a revelation where he's better off for it, or worse? Truth can be cathartic, that little moment when you finally stop lying to yourself.
Also, I know this will never happen. But the single worst thing that can happen to Duane is if his wife was in on his murder too. Now, I get it, we have proof that isn't the case AFAI remember. If anything could get Duane to kill himself though that'd be it.
>Is this gonna be a revelation where he's better off for it, or worse?
Better in the long run. Duane needs to stop lying to himself, and he needs to decide which truth is the truth he wants to embody: either he can be the guy who stands up to bullies and says innocent lives aren't a price worth paying. Or he can continue to go down the same road Lem is rather far down.
100%. I can't for the life of my figure out where it's going to go from here though. I really want Duane and Sette to be together though when it's all over.
Am I the only one that can still see a happy ending for Duane and Sette? This is all traumatic for sure but it feels like something that had to happen, even if I would have never guessed it would have happened. Him calling her Lion hurt so good ._.
Cope isn't some nihilist, I think she said something about the story ultimately having a positive ending. All the suffering wouldn't hit as hard if that's all there was.
I believe she did say the book will have a pretty big "frick yeah" moment in it's climax.
I remember seeing some post like "the heroes need a W this chapter because they've been losing constantly" or something like that.
It stuck in my mind because I was like, "have they?" Sure the shrine was a loss, but before that it felt like things more or less went well for them. Win against tree, Quigley and the Red Berry Boys, Nevergreen was ultimately a win even if the silver actually got away, win against that crescian wright whose name I always forget.
The shrine was the only real negative and even then there was at least the positive of freeing the water woman (although the perpetrator is a huge karma houdini.)
Has nobody pointed out that Duane choosing to let the queen get lobotomized by a rapesnake with a memoryknife is what causes Sette to alter his memories?
Everyone in this thread is pointing this out, arguing over this, and discussing his actions. Literally the whole time. Not going to spoonfeed you, lurk more.
In terms of things going from green to red, in the very first chapter the Wandering Root goes from green to red when it senses hostility, no idea how that might be connected here to Sette but it’s interesting at least that another Senet beast exhibits such a trait related to heightened emotions
Imagine you're at a kegger and you want to show Troy and Derek how hard you can punch a tree, but all they do is tenderly inspect your swollen knuckles.
Troy and Derek would be telling anon that's gross af and to put something on it. Tenderly inspecting his swollen knuckles is a spouse, parent, or nurse thing to do. Anon was making a joke, but you don't understand men like you think you do.
They belong together forever as platonic best friend undying immortal eternal sexless lover beings, loving one another forever within the Khert without weird sexual aspects to it
The two are having a real heart to heart. Even admitting to love each other without any layers of irony. What progress! Surely this is the pain right before catharsis.
>I bet dick pymarics are like the third most common kind
I'd agree, but I'm sure Sette being a 20-something asexual stuck in an prepubescent body is a much bigger problem. Who knows? There might be a series of pymarics for that too.
Nah, she'd have to make the first move on Duane in order for anything to happen. Maybe in some kind of depressed daze or ordering him to do it in some effort to prove her love. Tiddybird already banged Duane after all.
I imagine that's just how khert/pymeric sex works. The aspect of a feather tickling, a warm hand moving across your body, the moment before climax. Who knows how it all works honestly. Instead of smashing someone with a rock you can let them literally feel your love or some such.
I like how pushy and headstrong Leysa is here. Nice reversal with the glamour. Notable that he had given in and was taken by her before the reveal. Perhaps a truer measure of a man is how he treats those he has no attraction to and no intention of using for his other ambitions.
>Oh, he should never have ventured outside the print shop. Never have attended seminary! Never have gone to the Academy! Never should have joined the army! Never should have been born! Ssael, why? Why?!
On second thought, maybe Duane was always psychotic and his recent actions are perfectly in character.
He’s not psychotic, just a fan of theatre and a big overly dramatic lug. Recent actions are certainly in character, and ironically I would say are actually far less dramatic than his typical acts. His actions to let Sonorie die were the acts of a rational nationalist with lots of PTSD and war-related trauma. Only excess drama has been in his hyperbolic prose, but that’s something that shan’t be leaving him soon. Unless he’s dead-dead, but I don’t think he is.
No, no, it makes sense actually. I don't believe that him entertaining the idea to "jump off Blue Boys Bridge ere the sun rose" was for the dramatic flair since he wasn't talking to anybody at the time. It's actually very believable that his sensitive psyche combined with post-war ptsd made him prone to losing his marbles in stressful situations. This retroactive fleshing out of his character derived from a snippet written all the way back in 2016 actually fits pretty well. The writing is consistent.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Sir, any man who claims he has not in his darkest and most unsettled hours cogitated overlong upon the quiet surcease that self-slaughter would grant, is either a simpleton or a preening liar. Had we no temptations to overcome, this life would be no trial at all, and our souls at the end only brittle, onion skin thin things.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Coming from an actual war, I doubt that having to pick a bride should've registered as "darkest, most unsettled hours" in Duane's mind. Unless, of course, the war had left a lasting imprint that would never really leave. After all, it makes no sense that Lem would be the only one to come out of it damaged.
1 month ago
Anonymous
I took it as him waxing poetic, but maybe you’re right. Being deeply damaged without acknowledging it certainly fits his character at this point. He knows he’s flawed but hides it deep, as made apparent by his response to removing bullies with “leave my family be.” He know Lem is a bad egg deep down, but it takes a lot for the depths of trauma to surface for the man
1 month ago
Anonymous
He's also from a society where showing it would be social suicide. Unless you do it in the Lem way, where it just makes you a more ruthless killer. Kind of reminds me of my grandfather. He had some serious war-related PTSD, but he (and everyone like him) got the cold shoulder upon returning home. He never had a choice but to bury it, went back to war, was in fact a ruthless killer, and I remember him also having a rule about not killing kids. He was a principled man in general. Maybe that's another way men deal with war trauma, drawing a clear line between yourself and them, the ones that caused your trauma.
>psychotic
That’s a common reaction after the realization that your life’s trajectory has been changed from what you imagined it would be. Now Duane is so used to being special that he never registered how special Sette was in the khert and thought he was the more important one of them both until he saw her reaching out from the khert
Yeah, Duane is dead-dead, I reckon, because, well no reason. Drama, I suppose, some arbitrary acting out. I'll pick this comic back up here and there but I doubt I'll stay too invested. Cope operates on a different wavelength than I, which is fine, but it's tough to make sense of it all.
Imagine being this butthurt. I mean I am too, but I'm not acting all moron on it.
We will learn what's going on, and Duane will stay relevant one way or another. Have some faith you weak-willed Black person and don't let the eels put you in despair.
Idk, it’s standard fare when dealing with paladins traipsing through heaven they also have to be cast into the pit and traipse through there too.
I think when “Duane” comes back it’ll be the option of it not being quite duane, more amalgam with some demons, he isn’t the type for the other path of going to hell and having the fury to kill satan etc..
Miki's cloak isn't just any memory of that night, it's specifically Lem's memory of what happened.
I reckon Duane's not truly gone, we're due another flashback where we get Lemuel's perspective on events leading up to Duane's death, answering the questions hanging when he was on top of the vilegeng at the shrine. We need to go to Alderode in Book 2, and a reckoning with Lemuel / untangling him from the mess he's wrapped up in will be a motivation to do so.
People keep saying Duane is going to be apart for awhile and I just don't see why. I mean, maybe, but Sette and Duane being split up right now would honestly be sad. Hope it doesn't happen. People are acting like they have some clue as to what's going on and I don't see how.
It has to be Duane and Sette together forever. Duane is too much of a hopeless romantic for it to be platonic though. Sette has her business to focus on but I'm sure she knows that much.
What does an asexual do when they're hopelessly in love with a total bawd?
Sette has memory powers, I'm sure they can sort it out. Maybe she can make herself look like a super hot adult woman and Duane can do whatever he wants with her
She has two hands anon, also just more a question about how much it felt shippy those little scenes together.
I like it as a fling and with Sette completely dominating Jivi. He should officially join her gang and one of his duties is to clean her feet and tail.
I feel they are more of hatesex type but see it more as kiddy love. But feel she'd like jivi as he'd be like duane someone that won't just do everything she says so don't think she'd purely dominate. He'd make a good left hand since duane is already the right hand.
Sette x Jivi is cute in a childhood crush way. Their life trajectories differ too much for anything serious.
The only things I ship are the main cast x as close to happiness as possible.
Idk isn't it canon Jivi has no where to go anyway? He's been a slave his kingdom is now fricked. Might as well go with the main cast/sette to wherever. I think they aren't too far off, Jivi really has lost out on most of a normal childhood just like sette. I also do like the cute childhood crush way, now imagine after this arc them wondering what they are and having awkwardness of trying to be cutesy relationships. I hope and pray for that ship to sale anon.
My og ship. It probably wont last. Sette is way to much for Jivi. If he really likes her, he'll go with her. But Sette won't let him.
i can respect that it was one in the back of my head but never thought of really. Man everyone acts like they haven't been together for like 1/3 of the story. Jivi is my boy he's not b***hmade he's a lil chad, plus he's kind of part of the heart of the team as we see him taking care of Matty and running head long into battles to protect others. I actually think they work because of that difference, Sette is selfish scared girl trying to be fearless while Jivi is a selfless fearless boy put into tons of horrible situations.
He helped other even when he knew he could be killed or turned into a living bioweapon, he like most of the cast is flawed. So I think he and sette would compliment each other quite well and as we see Sette needs love and Duane until recently(seeing in her head) was still caught up in his on crucible of what he desired and his own delusions. So really Jivi was the first to acknowledge sette outside of her parentage, mostly because he doesn't know or care she's just other kid to him.
>Idk isn't it canon Jivi has no where to go anyway? He's been a slave his kingdom is now fricked.
Nothing a pirate mom can't fix. But I think you're right, he'll probably find a reason to hang out with Sette in the coming book. He has a good heart and Sette low-key respects that (even though she pretends she doesn't).
Yeah I also like the whole message of him realizing he was basically bullying a girl that had just gotten used to it. As matty said you have to be the bigger person because sette is broken and we need to help fix her. He was thinking about it like a kid meeting another butthole kid not as a kid basically meeting a emotionally stunted kid. They do have a respect for each other when they are in the temple Sette trust him to keep the others safe, and when he thinks about protecting Matty and the other girls he trust Sette to keep herself safe until this arc where he realize that Sette is quite vulnerable.
>pirate mom
Does he have one lined up or you are just being hyperbolic kek, also think they'll keep the whole cast together. At this point the kingdom is fricked and a attack on Alerode is incoming but they may go to sette's family as they seem to know something as well. Fairly sure we aren't in the final arc yet but we maybe reaching it
Ah damn I've really forgotten all of his backstory since he's been with the crew for what 10ish years now?
Wait so he has a parent to go back to weird, but her being a pirate may mean they'll use her as transport later in the story or something. How'd he get enslaved then?
The only ship I care about is Knock x Me.
Based but everyone knows you can't Knock me down? bum dum tsk
1 month ago
Anonymous
iirc Jivi got sent to live with his uncle in Ulestry but was mistreated there so we ran away to rejoin his mom. He got caught and enslaved while running away.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Ah makes sense damn Jivi got fricked literally got the Sette speedrun in probably only a few months to a year. Obviously much worse but now they have even more parallels especially since both seem to have potentially shitty families. We can't know if his mom was to much better, suck if next arc they find his mom and it revolves around sette having to convince him, he's like her and just can't see that she's abusing or mistreating poor Jivi.
Be a great character arc for sette as well, as sometimes it takes seeing it happen to someone you care about to know you are in a toxic relationship or realize you had rose tinted glasses.
1 month ago
Anonymous
>We can't know if his mom was to much better
I am once again reminding y'all we saw her in the flashbacks
1 month ago
Anonymous
Is Jivi a fishman kek, but yeah seems she was not. Imagine she's saying this while a tot jivi is standing there just sobbing. Basically calling him a b***h lol, but really man is their a single good parent in this series besides Duane. Really just need Duane to adopt all the kids at this point, actually Toma would be better and his daughter seems to be close to death soon. Also then my point stands even further great little outside perspective for Sette on toxic parentage and realizing damn my dad's a butthole.
How do I forget these things wish their was a comic dub so I can quickly rewatch the earlier parts.
1 month ago
Anonymous
Good parents in Unsounded:
Duane
Leysa
Toma
Rahm
Iori
Sonorie was good to her symbolic daughter with Roger
That one lady who got killed in Ethelmik trying to protect her toddler who sadly got killed too a moment later
1 month ago
Anonymous
The list isn't that big but yeah I def put Toma and Duane at peak tier. Toma higher as he's not so nationalist and schizo as Duane, he eventually just became a man that wanted to save his wife then a man that just wanted to protect his daughter. Also technically didn't those two black tongue parents let their kid die if I remember correctly? Not really good parenting lol. I also can't believe the queen was good to anyone she's kind of terrible outside of being a leader and even then she's shit at that too.
Also surprised you didn't bring up Matty's mom?
1 month ago
Anonymous
I actually meant to include Vienne. Sorry, Matty.
As for Rahm and Iori, their son died in an accident before they got involved with the black tongues. We see Sonorie's daughter in one panel, and she seems happy for a noble who will grow up with tutors, lifelong wealth, and occasional visits with the queen. Roger seemed be involved with her too.
1 month ago
Anonymous
The list isn't that big but yeah I def put Toma and Duane at peak tier. Toma higher as he's not so nationalist and schizo as Duane, he eventually just became a man that wanted to save his wife then a man that just wanted to protect his daughter. Also technically didn't those two black tongue parents let their kid die if I remember correctly? Not really good parenting lol. I also can't believe the queen was good to anyone she's kind of terrible outside of being a leader and even then she's shit at that too.
Also surprised you didn't bring up Matty's mom?
Let’s be real here, Nary’a’Care Frummagem is clearly the best parent in this whole comic, bar none. Man has been a perfect Da and role model, he could write the book on how to raise children
1 month ago
Anonymous
>Chapter 1: The Stables >you see a babe needs tender love an' care shant eve' get that from me so, the dogs shall do thy work.
I actually meant to include Vienne. Sorry, Matty.
As for Rahm and Iori, their son died in an accident before they got involved with the black tongues. We see Sonorie's daughter in one panel, and she seems happy for a noble who will grow up with tutors, lifelong wealth, and occasional visits with the queen. Roger seemed be involved with her too.
Huh thought Roger's brain went to mush super early on? but yeah interesting. Also idk if I'd put Matty's mom she did literally make a war machine around her tot. All while her husband and friends kept telling her to stop or at least be more subtle or wait for matty to grow up for the revolutionary shit. Literally everyone knew because she was super vocal about it was only a matter of time they got caught.
I like it as a fling and with Sette completely dominating Jivi. He should officially join her gang and one of his duties is to clean her feet and tail.
Sette x Jivi is cute in a childhood crush way. Their life trajectories differ too much for anything serious.
The only things I ship are the main cast x as close to happiness as possible.
Honestly, the ship I wanna see happen most is Elka x Toma, they’re adorable. Assuming they survive, it’s a good one. Cute brown warrior-wright tomboy and lawful good fighter, it works well.
How important/relevant do y’all think the “Elizabeth Ne’er Do’ell” rhyme is? Duane seems to be heading down towards a cell to the right of Hell right now
Well of course, we’re all waiting for the Big Bang/big denouement where we can not just piss in the wind but grind some gristle.
Most pages are intermezzos, but a 3 page drop? And some major thematic developments??
Yes we’re going to gnaw that gristle.
Yeah I also like the whole message of him realizing he was basically bullying a girl that had just gotten used to it. As matty said you have to be the bigger person because sette is broken and we need to help fix her. He was thinking about it like a kid meeting another butthole kid not as a kid basically meeting a emotionally stunted kid. They do have a respect for each other when they are in the temple Sette trust him to keep the others safe, and when he thinks about protecting Matty and the other girls he trust Sette to keep herself safe until this arc where he realize that Sette is quite vulnerable.
>pirate mom
Does he have one lined up or you are just being hyperbolic kek, also think they'll keep the whole cast together. At this point the kingdom is fricked and a attack on Alerode is incoming but they may go to sette's family as they seem to know something as well. Fairly sure we aren't in the final arc yet but we maybe reaching it
His mom is a literal pirate. See the flashback at the beginning of chapter 3 (yeah, that was a while ago).
The best ship is Sette x Duane hands down. It has everything. Forbidden love, romance, friendship, a perfect clash of personalities. not even up for debate.
They are perfect for each other. The right amount of toxic. Hell she kills him out of passion in this update lmao. I do not think she'll stay a kid by the end of book 2. Tho I am a Knock x Quigly and Sette x Jivi kinda guy. Even with Sette's weird not age gap lmao. >She's like 20.
Ashley wrote a little noncanon snippet about them boning behind a tree a year or so ago. apparently being good for soppy quickies is a plat stereotype he fits
>She needs her share of suffering
lol
Having grown up a Frummagem in Sharteshane would place Knock pretty high up in terms of general suffering, but offscreen. I like how Sette and Duane's Olympic levels of suffering skew everyone else's to look like nothing.
It is kinda amusing that, while everyone in the main cast has certainly suffered, the suffering Olympics are just so skewed by Duane and Sette existing. Who takes gold on suffering, is the question? My money would be on Duane, unless Sette can somehow recall her past existences of sacrifice and suffering therein
1 month ago
Anonymous
I agree, but I also have a inkling that Sette will soon recall her past lives and that the eel bird will be involved.
>Knock x Quigly
Explain. Is this an opposites thing or just something aesthetically you like? They're both too emotionally unavailable for anything but Knock x Anadyne Ride and/or Die for Life and Quigley x Self-Hatred and Suffering.
Trying to sell it is dumb as frick. Just say it's good, gonna be several years till it's finished, and that's it's good. Really shitty comics need a selling point - this one does not.
Right??? Plus the dynamic of a loose dickless overly romantic guy who's super giving in the sack in a relationship with an asexual lion goddess who doesn't really get the whole sex thing is just. Mwah. it's perfect. I imagine a sex scene with them would involve lots of touching and pymarics. Has anyone here ever slept with an asexual? Shit gets real confusing even if it's fun.
How exactly do I sell this story to others? Its initial premise, which is about a lion-tailed girl going on adventures with an undead priest, doesn't really do it justice.
I think you have to sell it like that though. A lot of the comic's genius is how it surprises you with where its story goes. It starts out a fantasy adventure romp with goofy shit and then turns into a war drama and then turns into a political thriller and metaphysical character dive. The tone bounces all over the place and somehow it still works
Domestically abused, forever-young, emotionally-damaged lion-tailed girl goes on an adventure with a depressed polite nationalistic undead bird-fricking zombie priest with a tragic backstory, to stop a pain-obsessed human-souled rhyming lizard from reviving an ancient scheming six-titted crow god.
Honestly though, I tried to get into Unsounded a few times, because I actively looked for comics with a lot of suffering, and it was recommended for these keywords. But I always dropped it after first chapters. Only third time I endured the first few happy chapters to get to the actual story. But I only gave it so many chances because many people recommended it. This comic really starts slow and the first two chapters don't sell it well.
Wish I knew. I think that that explanation of the journey is great until you reach the disemboweled child in chapter 2 and have to mention that there are some serious horror/gore aspects to this.
I... don't think that's a good summary (if you're trying to be honest). Tbh I don't know the last of us, but GoT is pretty far away from Unsounded.
Unsounded is not a political fiction, not about the war going on, it's very much about personal feelings of the actors involved. Not sure how to explain it, but the struggle in Unsounded is usually internal, not external.
If you're *really* trying to sell Unsounded to someone, then the pitch about lion-tailed girl and zombie priest is not that bad. Just remember to also mention that their world is cruel, and their past is dark and they will have try to sort it out
Oh sure, I'm just making a quick and dirty hook from the surface elements. In this case, "It's edgy fantasy meets surrogate father-daughter road trip". It's trite and shallow, but that's often how you hook people.
You CAN go deeper than that, like the anon above you, but it does depend on the person you're recommending it to. Though I guess you probably wouldn't be trying to recommend a fantasy webcomic to someone who isn't into fantasy to begin with.
EZ I'm 3/3 in getting people to read it >go full autism about how pymary works >emphasize how good the two main protagonists are (is like one of the few stories where I'd consider both of the main characters as the two equally best characters in the book) >mention there's a bunch of horror shit and cool designs
I think pymary autism does a lot of the heavy lifting here because it's pretty flashy and fun to think and talk about.
I tried recommending it to a friend who's into comics and Fantasy. But of course I had to admit it's rather dark, and he's not looking for dark stories. After recent developments I can hardly give him a "but it gets better". Because it very much does not get better. I mean, I think part of what makes things so grueling currently is that we're trained as an audience to get our dose of happiness and reassurance after dark events in a story. The darkness makes it a hard sell, I guess. Because everyone is used to "dark Fantasy" meaning washed out colors, grizzled characters, and grimderp worldbuilding. But Unsounded is colorful and comedic. On a first glance, it looks nothing like what it actually is.
>But of course I had to admit it's rather dark, and he's not looking for dark stories
People who don't want dark stories won't like Unsounded. No way around that, anon.
Trying to sell it is dumb as frick. Just say it's good, gonna be several years till it's finished, and that's it's good. Really shitty comics need a selling point - this one does not.
Right??? Plus the dynamic of a loose dickless overly romantic guy who's super giving in the sack in a relationship with an asexual lion goddess who doesn't really get the whole sex thing is just. Mwah. it's perfect. I imagine a sex scene with them would involve lots of touching and pymarics. Has anyone here ever slept with an asexual? Shit gets real confusing even if it's fun.
>Plus the dynamic of a loose dickless overly romantic guy who's super giving in the sack in a relationship with an asexual lion goddess who doesn't really get the whole sex thing is just. Mwah
Please don't try to convince normies to read unsounded like this.
>People who don't want dark stories won't like Unsounded. No way around that, anon.
I know. It was just kind of disappointing. I think this would be right up his alley if he didn't have that hangup. It'd be nice if more people got to appreciate this comic.
you know this reminds me of this cover where everybodys memories are in ladys nest but not Duane and Settes and Ash said it was intentional. Sette is obvious, she is not wholly human and thus isnt collected in the khert but why not Duane? Because his soul escapes the khert and thus there are no memories from him there. He is a new Ssael.
Which I think we might be able to take as proof Duane will survive this, as the Khert is temporally asynchronous and if memories don’t exist NOW for lady ilganyag to grab, those memories will NEVER exist in the Khert, making him an immortal survivor, either a new Ssael or the first of many who shall Sound the great Unsounded and make it through the Khert to Ssael’s realm in order to help with the remaking
I'm just gonna take the fact that Ash had a tumblr post about how Duane getting stabbed spilled some of his soul out, so he's gonna forget things. Would be an odd detail to talk about if he's just dead.
the trade war with China put a 25% tariff on overseas printing that hasn't gone down since, which coupled with inflation and the fact that volume 4 will be more expensive at baseline because of being made of larger chapters makes a kickstarter for it riskier, and its also a pile of annoying work for Glass
RIP
>sclera goes black
he’s 201% not dead
From now on to me Duane shall be called Double Dead Duane.
The callback to sliced eyeballs at the time of bodily death is a nice touch.
>double dead
You think Cope was a "Nightmare Before Christmas was a formative experience" kind of person?
Given what she draws, you think it wasn't? Only difference is Cope is the real deal, necro down to her bones. Not any of this pussy, mainstream shit.
Sette is in love with Duane. And in each incarnation of Sette she kills the person she loves.
He's gonna be okay right?
Right?
Right?
he'll be okay. sette just added some things to make him even better. it is fine.
This comic would lose so much of its soul without our favourite zombie dickhead
I feel like it would be an insane missed opportunity for Miki to never properly meet her undead father.
I'm currently feeling "Cloak forces Duane to see what actually happened the night he died with no way to avoid it."
Duane hasn't been okay since he died in that alley.
Nice digits.
>Lion
At last he fricking sees
Too late, but at least he got it
They're down at the bottom of the Khert.
Is this an echo of Duane's rock-bottom that he reached back at the shrine?
what the FRICK did she do
Dunno how it worked, but his eyelid definitely looks cleft here.
Duane’s scarification to match Ssael is almost complete?
And idk if being buried under a mass of pain eels is healthy - well it definitely isn’t - but is having a hole torn in him going to make it way way worse?
A hole half stuffed with a comfort blanket, but it may be Sette didn’t just ram a different perspective of his worst day through his heart, all the other worst days from everyone else could infest him now maybe.
His eyelids looked that way the night he was assassinated, he had his eyes stabbed out. Those notches show up a lot throughout the comic depending on his glamour.
>Time again again again to die
>I've killed the one I loved
>I heard the final lie
"Ledgers of this world"-tier line, Cope is cooking
She did the whole if I can't have you. No one can moment. By accident of passion. But still.
Turning your back and running from a lioness. tsk tsk.
So I’ve been so focused on Duane’s arc here, haven’t spent much thought on this cogent pain bird.
Definitely in a class of its own, it has a mind… Took some waking in the bottommost parts of khert hell, surrounded by mindless pain eels, so.
Did we ever figure out what mechanism lady Ilgynang was going to use to cross back over? Was never going to work physically, right?
Looking back on this page, it does look like Sette might be transferring something vaguely orange-ish into the silver monster.
if you look at the page after that you see how the little bird has a glowy tail where it didn't before
It feels like this is a big hint since Sette says the memory items are about them but not actually their memories. Does that suggest the eel/bird thing becomes its own separate object and if so is that memory Ana's? Or is it not the same thing growing out of Sette right now?
If the silver beast is, as it vaguely seems to be now, Ilganyag growing a new body for herself to inhabit outside the khert, it might represent a cartoonified version of that. When she touches it, she seems to caused Ana, who is now making up the silver's heart, violent pain. Since her hands seem to be interfering with the khert as it exists outside of where they are, touching the "memory" of it might cause some kind of interference as it links back to that "being."
Maybe it's the "soul" of her new First Silver body, and Sette's abilities are the method to transfer it from the Khert into the Silver? Its mix of lion and bird features imply Sessine worked with Ssael to create it; were Sette and her brother the prototypes? Parts sources?
Wait hold on
Is that blood/flesh moving to cover up Sette's arms or is it getting blow off? I thought it was getting blown off, but looking at it, I'm not so sure.... it's making me a bit worried tbh
Wait, I'm moronic, those are her sleeves lol
Tiddybird wants to inhabit the silver. But the silver's filled to the brim with ghosts. Which means that they must be removed first. Enter Sette.
(The real question, of course, is how Sessine's physical body joins with the silver. Does it encase her? Does it enter her current body? Or can her mind/senet essence be transferred, somehow? Could THAT be what the red bird-thing is?)
The way it's harassing Sette in that second page reminds me of how Sessine chased her in chapter 7. Appearing aggressive to get her to move how she wants, in this case distracting her to let Duane slip off again and provoking her to strike him.
Good catch.
And this might be the page where Sette got infected with the mysterious stowaway.
That's assuming it's a hitchhiker and not part of her she's been unaware of or actively suppressing
Sette is going to be 50% more clingy after this. What a mess.
I’ve thought this for a while, especially since the shrine, but I think Sette is actually Trina/incarnation of Tirna/whatever Senet beast frickery approximation of death and rebirth was being played around with that got adopted ultimately by the Gefendur as Tirna.
Meanwhile, new cut and notch on Duane’s face/eyes, same deal. He’s Ssael/an incarnation of Ssael/something.
And building on all that, don’t some Ssaelit believe Tirna and Ssael got hitched or live and work together or somethin’? Cope does love monstrous pairings, and these two existing in the afterlife as some fricked up semi-deities would kinda fit the mythos we know so far, in part and parcel. Maybe the myths were crafted from sounding the khert that somehow found future overt memories of these two running things? Idk. Mostly I want to hope for a good ending and that Ashley didn’t just kill off Duane
>I think Sette is actually Trina
Word of God was Sette isn't Tirna. Which makes sense, seeing as Tittybird is Tirna. The problem is Tittybird seems to be grooming a replacement...
>He’s Ssael/an incarnation of Ssael/something.
No. Author has been super clear about this. Everything else you've said is on the table, but Duane is not Ssael or any kind of incarnation, reincarnation, displaced-time-warp-ination, etc. of Ssael. I think Cope has also said Sette isn't Tirna, but I know for certain she has said multiple times that Duane is not Ssael.
The face scars are probably a clue to us as to how Ssael REALLY got his iconic scars, 'cause it sure seems it wasn't lions that did it. And his face scars never looked like lion slashes to begin with.
>bird eel forming out of Sette's hair
>bird eel speaking to Sette
They were pushed to this point. I wonder whether Sette has passed or failed the test.
dubs
trips
dubs
Sette has grown too powerful
GOOD LORD THE CHECKING
>7s
>8s
>9s
inshallah, Sette is ascending
>Sette has grown too powerful
Lion with bird talons:
>"I am going schizo."
So Setteis Tokoyami now?
Good lord the pain train has no brakes. DUANE COME BACK AND LEARN YOUR LESSON. Are we finally at rock bottom? FIND YOUR GOD AND RISE AGAIN.
>pushed the Miki cloak into Duane
She's just given him some extra memories, either Miki's herself, or more information about that night that he got killed.
They're Lemon's memories, see
.
Which is going to be a fricking trip and a half
Duane might end up self-actualizing through anger and becoming Ssael via that, instead of anything more reasonable
I feel like a simple hug would have stopped all this from happening.
Or strangling that sus bird
Nah you hug it out and it cucks the bird.
It likely would have, but in what world would you hug the person you just learned has been controlling your every thought and feeling? If Duane felt an urge to comfort Sette, it was likely tossed aside immediately for fear of it not being his own urge.
Yeah but Sette was clearly wanting some sort of comfort and Bad Dad only ran. She wasn’t controlling any part of him then. But then I guess the story wouldnt be filled with all this pain and misery if Bad Dad was so shitty.
>She wasn’t controlling any part of him then.
You’re one of the “few readers” mentioned in
that have no ability whatsoever to think about what you’re reading. We the readers can assume (but not know for sure) that Sette wasn’t controlling Duane right then. But from Duane’s point of view (you can do it, just use a little bit of brain power), it is impossible for him to know, and there is no reason for him to assume she’s not.
You really shit yourself in the foot right there. That nose of yours can’t get any higher.
>I can’t comprehend that two characters view the same scene differently
>everyone else is wrong when they tell me there’s nuance
the irony is that you are the most arrogant person here while simultaneously being one of the most illiterate
>you just learned has been controlling your every thought and feeling
You know that's not true. We know she's been controlling him somehow, but don't know the extent of this. Hell, even she didn't know it 30 seconds ago.
I will point you to
It is from Duane’s point of view.
I agree. It's a shame that Sette literally figured out what gets the eels to frick off, and the story forces them to do the exact opposite of eels-be-gone.
so... forgive me if I don't follow, but what is the fancy eel exactly?
It's one of the memories Tittybird laid out for them to find.
I don't think anyone is sure yet, the first time we saw it was in the nest collection of memories. Sette at first didn't recognize it, and then reacted with fright, and then they left, so we're pretty low on info. The patterns remind me of Sessine's beak, though
>this update shows the eel thing is literally a part of Sette
>somehow ends up as a separate item like the amulet and cloak for tittybird to plunder
Feels like there are some hints there but I'm not sure what to make of it yet.
It could've been literally incubating inside Sette all along, somehow. It separating and eventually becoming its own item could be intended too.
Feels like it has some control over her body, the glowing outlines as she’s murderising duane for instance.
It was foreshadowed even before that with her eyes shifting between red and green. It's unclear if it's Sette's bad thoughts that cause the bird to stir or the bird is driving Sette towards spontaneous fits of rage.
This is a deep pain.
>It’s not over yet! I think I’m actually a little more nervous about the next stuff, it’s much more weird. Sette and Duane yelling at each other is old hat, really 😉
Oh cool, it gets worse!
What in the goddamn?
They realized the "pymary" Sette had to control Duane wasn't one, things escalated as it came out the worst way.
ruh roh
Eh, he'll be back.
I told all y'all homies Sette should get have got out of there quick. We've gotten so low now that the eels have turned into bottom dwelling gulper eels 'n' sheeeit.
>given a second opportunity, once again he ran
Damn
Oh, and uh
I wonder what effects that...insertion will have on him
he will acquire a taste for freeform jazz
He's getting to see the memory of his brother selling him out, I wager
This. Those items hold memories. Sette, by intent or no, has forcefully stiched those memories into Duane's soul. Whatever he is going to see is something he won't be able to deny. It might also come with some kind of personality change depending on what else just got shoved into him or the crude way it was done.
Anons... Duane just disolved into the miasma of destroyed, disassociated memories at the bottom the the khert. He isn't seeing anything now.
More gullible than a Crescian on pilgrimage
>Implying he's dead
He's just swimming in the eel pool
Well, Duane is dead and just lied, so in strange eons he will be back.
Maybe Duane will finally meet Ssael at the bottom of the khert.
>Hey Duane, its me, Ssael
>Listen, do you know where Sette is?
>assuming he’ll just walk it off
Duane is kill, there’s even a poem and everything.
>these upstanding eels would NEVER lie to an emotionally vulnerable womanchild
I have literally never in my lie been lied to by an eel.
Then you’re a lucky one. I was going out on a date, having a fun time, when bam! Turns out she was 4 eels in a trench coat. I even paid for dinner. I’m sure others have similar stories.
Did she ask for tree fiddy?
The poem is for sette who's died several times. I guess she eventually hits a point where she remembers most of her past lives. I wonder what causes her to die and if she'll die again and book 2 will focus on her rebirth.
Miki's cloak isn't just any memory of that night, it's specifically Lem's memory of what happened.
I imagine there's a reason Duane is always holding that memory outside of himself, at arm's length. If he survives being dragged down into the pain pit, in the long run it'll likely be healthier for him to be forced to accept the coat memory into himself
Clever anon. Duane will get to see that Lem was in cahoots with the assassination.
Dubs of truth. We're going to find out What Really Happened on the night Duane died.
these aren't my glasses
>I see your point
NOOOOOO don't make sette cry
Website comment:
>Three pages today, keep clicking forward. Settetania achieved. I’m going to skip next week to make up for the dump. See you back here next Monday (the 6th)!
>-Ashley
Patreon comment:
>Three pages today, I just couldn't see posting these separately. Ah, we can only go up from here!
>Someone suggested recently I'm maybe a little too explicitly talky about what's going on in the pages and I'd hate if that's the case. I'll try to only offer additional commentary if I'm directly asked for clarification 🙂 We have seen Sette's new friend before in the comic - very recently, very briefly - but we don't know who or what it is. We'll find out.
>Otherwise, this is a very bad day for Sette. Maybe even her last 🙁
, this is a very bad day for Sette. Maybe even her last 🙁
Holy shit, sucide?
More like identity death it seems like, could be Sette is turning into something else. Maybe she was always something else.
Obviously she means this is her last bad day, and everything is going to be sunshine from here
Dubs confirm. She did say it's all uphill from here
>She did say it's all uphill from here
She said that at the shrine.
Man who thought he hit rock bottom finds fourth false bottom
Aw frick.
Is it gonna have to be the next Sette who gets a happy ending?
Naw I think Sette's brother will make the two genuinely love each other. And then we'll get a big fat army of squishes.
>Ah, we can only go up from here!
I dunno, there seems to be a sub-basement beneath this rock-bottom.
She's his lion but it hurts to bad. I wonder what shoving that cloak inside him is going to do. Duane can't be dead, right? He can't be.
well it's not like he needs to breathe
and murkoph didn't get devoured or atomized or whatever the frick the khert would normally do to something it recognizes, despite being buried in there for probably a very long time, so maybe duane's fine and is just gonna spend some time in time-out
maybe centuries
who knows
The khert isn’t what hurt him, Sette’s spul reaper claws went strait out the other side.
well he did get some green goop everywhere but that's probably fine too he doesn't have organs either
maybe just some memories of simon or something
>Duane only forgets Quigley
that would be terrible because it's something quigley would want to have happen
Quigley’s ego wouldn’t allow that.
Ashley wouldn’t write happiness for two of her characters like that
>knife-eyed eel
cutie
Poor little lion.
I think the worst day of Duane's life is about to get worse by having those memories from that cloak literally shoved into his soul.
100% he was going to say "I love you" before he caught himself and said "What are you?!"
100% this is a new kind of a pain for him.
100% Sette is his lion.
I'm not coping you're coping. MONDAY. THE WAIT. IT HURTS.
Oh, you wish it was coming Monday
She's taking a week off cause of all the extra updates
why is it so good anon. why is it so good.
I read this comic when it first came out. Stopped cus I wanted to wait for it to be finished because of how good it was. Why did I do this to myself again? Why??
>his immediate thought to sette finding his bullies is to protect lem
heh
Duane really is a good big brother, which only exacerbates what an absolute shithead Lemon is.
I caught that too. Duane's an butthole but he's not a moron. It's kind of sweet that Sette is still trying to fit her zombie dad into her megalomaniacal plans. It's like when she promised Sara cake and hotter boys than Jivi
I'm very stupid, its only with these two commments that I realised Duane and Sette were both trying to live their best lives/lives either by denying the awful things happened and running away from them or, in Sette's case, psychically ripping them out of her mind, but never quite managing it.
>We'll get YOUR bullies too-
>YOU LEAVE MY FAMILY ALONE
Lol, on some level he knows the truth
Yeah, he's come to the same conclusion as everyone else, even if he refuses to acknowledge the thought. Which is pretty sad. Duane has no one any more.
It's funny how we were all afraid that Sette would cut something OUT of Duane: a memory, a thought, someone he knew, something important about him.
Instead, she cut something INTO him.
She cut something into him alright.
Death!
that’s not funny.
it’s a little funny
Sette is going through puberty way to fast for her own good. Also it's cute she doesn't want him to look at her hands. (it's ugly to look at.)
>puberty
I remember my mid-20’s, when my nails started falling out.
>I’m ready
>I’m ready
Settebob Squaregem
Sette is going to rip through the 4th wall and get Cope for this.
Ash is safe until Sette learns how to sound the unsounded. Wee lass has only just graduated out of her nappies.
>Ash is safe
She created her own doom
You know, for all the times that Ashley has talked about these characters and world being essentially fully-formed in her head, it'd be ironically exactly her writing style for the twist to be that the author can sound the khert to get stories.
Nah, that's some Stephen King hackery. Ash ain't that arrogant.
Yeah I don't get the feeling it's going to go metatextual like that. Although at this point it feels like Sette is almost powerful enough to reach out through the computer screen.
Not gonna lie, this whole sequence was nerve wracking. Perfect use of the webcomic medium
We've already got a "The Monster at the End of This Book" meta-reference.
Why do you continue to click the arrow, anon? Sette begs for you to stop.
Melville never broke the fourth wall like that, and he seems to be one of her biggest inspirations oddly, so I doubt that kinda twist would ever come down the line
Greg Stafford?
Damn now there is a 50% chance that murkoph will steal Duane's body now that he is a little busy
So I'm not the only one who dreads Murkoph's inevitable reappearance, right?
I have said before that he has the feel of a writer's pet, which is always a disaster in stories but especially in tightly-plotted stories like these. Thus far Cope has been a GOOD enough writer that her love for him hasn't blinded her telling of a good story, but there's always that danger.
If there's any author I trust implicitly at this point, it's Cope. I doubted Mikaila being alive and Cope made it work (or is in the process of). I doubted Gunnerkrigg Court having the dad come back as a big butthole and it proved me wrong. A good author will take that thing you didn't think would work, would lessen the story, and make you believe again.
Cope could have Sette giving Duane a bloody blowjob while Jivi and Matty double team her from behind and I'd say "let's see where she's going with this."
Murkoph is probably some kind of time fricked Duane husk, and it would be the least stupid of all the options available
>I have said before that he has the feel of a writer's pet
That's you reading knowing too much about him from the outside. If you only knew what you'd seen in the comic... it's nothing. He's barely been in it enough to know anything about him other than he was some kind of serial murderer/rapist when he was alive and Titttybird shoved him in a wall for some reason.
>So I'm not the only one who dreads Murkoph's inevitable reappearance, right?
You're not, but I'm not one of them. But I don't think he's an author's pet.
I think he was meant to foreshadow some stuff for Book 2 so that stuff in Book 2 wouldn't come totally out of left field. Cope has said before that she kind of regrets introducing him so early.
I think that when the whole thing is finished, Murkoph's early introduction will make a lot of sense. But that's the difference between getting to read an entire book series from start to finish, and getting to read it at three pages a week. When you read something at three pages a week, you linger carefully over every page, so it creates a sort of reader myopia/tunnel vision. It's impossible to really see the larger picture.
I also think enough of us have been burned by bad authors that we're wary in general. But I think that Cope has proven her chops, so I'm willing to set my worries aside and just hang on tight for the ride. She's earned my trust as a reader, and there's not a single twist in the story she's told so far that I've disliked or regretted.
I dread him because he's supremely boring in every scene he's been in
There's zero things entertaining or engaging about him
what i don't get is that rukh and murkoph are basically the same character narratively but rukh is waaaaay better so why have murkoph at all.
I suspect it's because Ruck probably will be slinking out of the story in this book - either through death or him finding a hole to bury himself in for a snooze
Ashley has said he somewhat regrets introducing Murkoph so early, his big role to play is really in Book 2.
Sette and Duane belong to each other. I hope this doesn't keep them apart for too long =(
I honestly don't see how their relationship ever recovers from this
What is up with her hands and why's the resolution so poor?
You're in desperate need of an optometrist
But see, even while he's trying to run away from her in fear, he's still worried for her
I love how Duane's entire personality is basically just ten million internal conflicts that exist in an extremely unstable equilibrium
He's certainly one of the most well realized characters I've ever come across in a comic. He feels like he could step straight off the page.
Cope always manages to find a new way to stab me right in the heart with these two, doesn't she?
>Ssael's myth is that he was killed by a lion, buried in the Khert, and tore his way free
>Duane receives the same scars
>And is killed by a lion
>Then buried in the Khert
He's mantling Ssael.
The hell is that image from
Hellraiser.
Hellraiser 2, actually
No, it's from Hellraiser 2
It's an edit from the first Hellraiser movie. You should watch or read some Clive Barker. Unchecked hedonism is a helluva drug.
I figured we were in for something like this when Duane got his face fricked up. Duane explicitly calling Sette a lion kinda draws a line under it.
Ssael also killed all the gods, anon. That's a pretty important part of being a Ssael.
We know the geffie gods are senet beasts. Duane has already killed one, maimed another and might still murder the rape snake before the chapter is over.
We also know that a story arc that would have seen us introduced to Jivi's pirate mum is likely gone now, as Cope compressed the story from 3 books to 2. I will bet you a dollar that Duane would have gone all Ahab on a certain typhoon whale if we'd seen him on that pirate ship. Cope's inner Melville-fangirl would have demanded it.
>Duane would have gone all Ahab on a certain typhoon whale if we'd seen him on that pirate ship
O. M. F. G.
What have we lost.
Goddamn, this meme is guaranteed to be older than some people posting in this thread.
I wish I knew who drew it. I've always assumed it was KC Green, because it was just too perfect.
Looks similar to Plastic Brick Automaton's style
Almost certainly was him.
I agree.
I have never found it on his site though
Predates even LRC, I think. I don't believe all his Cinemaphile stuff ended up on his site.
Remember him posting it as Legorobot ages ago on the Something Awful forums, maybe that was the original place?
Pretty sure piratemom is still happening. I thought the bulk of the cut book would’ve been the Roretide stuff?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure Jivi's mom is how they're going to get to Alderode in the first place. Hasn't been too long since Ashley last mentioned it, either, so I doubt she's changed her mind.
Nah, typhoon whales are unkillable. But I still hope we will meet lord cage
>unkillable
That just makes it sound like a challenge
Pretty sure the wandering root they met isn't the one that inspired/correlates with Baelar. Cope's hinted that not all of them were of equal intelligance. If we ever meet Shaensigin and Ilganyag's collaborator, I expect it'll be more of a character.
It seems kind of dubious what "wounding" Duane's khert body would actually do. If it's just a clump of memories then it doesn't (shouldn't?) really have vital points, organs, or really a way to kill it at all besides destroying the entire thing.
As a result, being pierced by a soft fluffy cloak doesn't seem exactly fatal, presumably.
Although, where did his soul tether go? It hasn't been drawn for quite a few pages now.
Didn't mean to reply
No, it's not. But Duane still killed it is my point. Duane is well on his way to being a multiple "god" killer.
>piratemom is still happening
God, I hope so. That dream sequence is still one of my favourite parts of the comic, so much I ended up picking Captain Flask for my Kickstarter sticker.
Was a little surprised when it ended up as her real human self rather than a fish lady, but hey, still cool.
Incredibly cool. I'm a little salty the last time there was a volume kickstarter was when I was flat broke. Now it's been like 7 years and Vol 2 is sold out and Vol 4 is probably never coming lol. I wanted one of these squish pins so badly, I think about them often.
If you ask Cope nicely, she may give you the file she used for ordering the squish pins so you can get your own. As long as you’re not making a batch to sell to others, I think she’d consider it.
Feels like this is a allegory to a young woman getting her period for the first time? The whole bleeding hands thing. Like she's growing up. And the fact that she acts so embarrassed about showing Duane it.
No.
No. This is worse than that. This isn't the shame of a body she cannot control, this is anguish over a soul whose damnation she cannot control.
Get outta here starfish
Very interesting take on things, could definitely see it as a solid literary allegory, especially since Sette is actually changing after years of being an ageless child
It's more of a Tirna-flavored stigmata, I think.
There's definitely some element of puberty that could be read into this, sure.
Why must Cope find new ways to hurt me?
pretty hot Sette not gonna lie
there's a time for lust and this ain't it chief
thank god her feet are still intact
I was reading through the last thread and some of you guys are creeps
If Cope didn't want people commenting on her voice, she shouldn't have released clips of her pronouncing the character's name.
She knows what we're about.
>If Cope didn't want people commenting on her voice, she shouldn't have released clips of her pronouncing the character's name.
Anon, all she wanted was to tell people how to pronounce the weird fantasy character's name correctly
She's a big enough girl not to care but that doesn't make you less of a stalker
>release clip of voice
>someone says the voice is cute
>stalker
huh
I could understand if they were talking about jerking off to it or something but this is an incredible nothingburger, even moreso that you've bothered to drag it into the next thread as if it's in any way noteworthy.
>release a clip of your voice almost a decade ago to tell people how to pronounce a complicated name
>several people comment on it remembering how cute her voice is haha she should be a vtuber she's so cute x3 That's a sliver, the whole thing compounds over time given what people say about cope in these threads in the archives, and they're clearly the selfsame small group of people violently lusting at cope and discussing her sexuality
I'd admire a naked Duane or Sette and Duane holding hands.
No, no it's perfectly normal to think about a woman's voice you've only heard once or twice and isn't creepy at all. You totally don't do that because you have a internet-crush on someone. That's stupid.
ngl I have an internet crush on ash because she's one of the best webcomic artists around
I have an internet crush on this youtuber called Wormgirl and some chick who did some videos for vampire Diaries but you will never hear me admit that. Pretty voices.
Wormgirl's a fricking shit, her DDA runs are absolute garbage and honestly I'm disappointed in you now that I know that.
jesus frick what did i do????
I wish I could draw. I would draw so many pictures of Duane and Sette holding hands. But no. i can't. and the world is sadder because of it.
wormgirl literally sounds like he's transitioning from wormguy, what the frick is wrong with you
This is normal for everyone, except the autistic zoomer whiteknight who wishes to be the little girl.
I feel the same way about Frank Cho, no homo.
you sound kind of insane
that whole exchange was
>Sette sounds like Cope
>Sette sounds like Florida Woman? (since the fact that Cope lives in Florida is common knowledge given the hurricanes regularly disrupting the comic)
>Cope doesn't sound like Florida Woman, her voice is actually pretty cute, you can hear her in some old youtube videos
And then you dug through the archives looking for things to get offended about on her behalf I guess?
She made several youtube vids for Patreon you spaz. Its not just remembering some offhand clip.
can't tell if stupid woman or stupid man or some lgbtqmnop mental illness.
Really though, you're just fricking stupid.
I thought white knights had finally died out after all the mockery, but here you are, defending milady’s honor from a threat you invented.
This is pretty tame for how fricking weird people get about her here
>Cope doesn't sound like Florida Woman though. She has a very cute voice that could be a VA without any alteration.
How is that creepy you autist.
Cope has an objectively cute voice. If you ever heard it, you'd know. And you'd also realise that it's Sette's voice and never hear her any other way.
Cope has publicly posted her voice before, dumbass.
Cope also has had panels at cons and people haven't leaked pictures of her large bahonkahonkas in the wild, so I'd say if there's some creeps out there they're at least smarter and more well behaved than most. Which makes sense because you need a pretty high IQ to enjoy unsounded.
I thought you were linking to the people lusting after Sette.
No, lusting over children bodies and commissioning footjob drawings with e-girls is perfectly normal and natural, why would he link it?
I fear for your generation.
There is nothing wrong with admiring cope's body of work.
>yes I paid money to listen to clips of this woman's voice
>I am not obsessed, you are
Ok, so now we know you're the phone posting res-gay.
Just frick off and die.
She posted another clip like a month ago on tumblr to pronounce Sette, moron.
I just like listening to cute girls talking in the background. It's not weird. The entire vtuber industry hinges on that and we're huge, so you're the minority here.
cope asmr when
>cope asmr
Best I can do is seething about voices.
Duane's conscience is about to show up and go "bro, how many times can you show your ass in one day? I already used my two best lines last time."
Linus is one with the blanket now.
This is getting so desperate, switching back to Starfish monster raping children would factually soften the mood
I don't remember it being discussed, but apparently Starfish has an entire horror factory to his name now. So while things might look grim already, remember that "Quigs and Jivi at the flesh mall" is still ahead of us.
>would factually soften the mood
while simultaneously making me hard.
>meanwhile Ruck is picking bits of Chea out of his teeth using the soul knife as a toothpick
It might be a good thing we're not seeing what's going on with silverfish or the snake.
So based on all of this is unsounded's ultimate message that you should be nice to kids or you'll get sent to uber hell
Duane is nice to kids. Quiqley is horrible to kids and yet lives.
Quigley is already in hell.
My favourite page
It was neat to see Duane actually being a priest. And for an atheistic apostate to an incompatible faith, at that. One of his better moments as a man that we've seen.
OK, I bathed my nards and grundle in Palmolive anti-stress with yling yling and iris, and drank a pint of port. I think I'll be alright for the next page in 9 days.
Every pymaric with some measure of advanced "artificial" intelligence (like Uaid) are piloted by memories i.e. ghosts. It's likely that swarm is also piloted in this way instead of Vienne hand-crafting flying and targeting algorithms, or Quigley controlling every piece of it manually.
What do the eels even do with a khert body? Not like there's anything to chew on.
Chew a bad memory until you grow numb to it, then find one with more flavor. Repeat until you’re a husk.
Memories eat each other in the khert to coalesce into larger forms, blending like to like. Incompatible memories tend to split each other apart.
I'd assume the eels are drawn to Duane's profound existential torture and are instinctively trying to eat him to make one big eel megazord (like the sekiro eel from a bit ago).
Duane has plenty to chew on, but would it work? He's a whole soul. Can the eels actually gnaw out the painful memories to feed their growth? The idea that Duane's at risk of dismemberment is honestly terrifying. What if something chews him hard enough that whatever's keeping his soul together pops like a water balloon and all of his memories scatter like individual drops in the khert's sea?
No wonder Ssael said the ocean was hell.
oh god the resolution on these pages is too high. i don't want to see sette cry in this detail, cope please
Duanesisters... I'm not feeling too good.
We've seen squishes repair Duane's memory leakage before - although that was from Murkoph's beating rather than Sette's memory frickery and there are no squishes around right now - so I can still cope
The most nasty implication is that his spellwork is going to be patchy from now on because he will forget how to cast on a particular material or something like that. Damn that's going to sting.
>if we're lucky
lol double dead Duane rolls ones every 5 minutes.
We're in DAMAGED territory now.
>loses family
>loses life
>losing body
>loses dignity
>loses his relationship with Sette
>loses natural talent
>loses bits of his identity
We can go lower.
On the brightside, it means he ain't dead.
Maybe he'll finally sound the unsounded.
Quigley…
>Bastion can't remember Rahm because he was thinking about him when he got soul knifed
Maybe a hint at what Duane could lose? Though he must have had a lot on his mind in this moment. Plus the frickery of having someone else's memory shoved into him. Is he going to undergo a fundamental change in his character?
Supposedly Sette's ability isn't really the same as the soul knife. For one thing it's not permanent, and it it also seems to be targeted rather than just hitting what's on the surface.
>For one thing it's not permanent
I was wondering about how true this really is in execution. She can't destroy the memories, just remove them, but if she removes it and it gets chucked aside, would it even come back? Especially if she removed a memory inside the khert itself. Like it'd still exist but might not ever return to its owner.
Any chance Sette body continu to evolve a bit? she has claws but her bones still seem to shine from the inside. Could she actually grow a bit in age now?
I think Ash has hinted at that. Might happen at the end though.
>Unsounded
So when does the protag get sounded?
There's a story on the Patreon that might interest you
is it the one where I have no idea what you’re talking about happens?
It involves Bastion and Sessine, and it is very uncomfortable to read if you have a penis.
It's the one where Sessine uses the silver tendrils inside Bastion to sound him and he cums all over his walls and curtains.
>frick your family
lmao
The girl is being a bit greedy with Duane.
COPE.
WHERE'S THE FRICKING KICKSTARTER COPE.
THE INTERNET IS A FLEETING THING COPE.
ONLY PAPER ENDURES.
Unprinted
After.
>"After what?"
AFTER AFTER!
Ever after?
Ever after
Story over, all is mended and it’s not just for today
Gonna be after the book is complete. Probably a couple of months after so she has time to do all her prep for it.
>Do you even like me? or did I make you like me? It's such a cute and existential question at the time. and Duane is like wtf is happening right now.
>and find all YOUR bullies, too
>Stay way from my family.
Oh, Duane. Duane, Duane, Duane.
I feel terrible for them both, though I'm not sure why Cope thought we'd be angry at Sette over this. Duane's making a worse showing for himself right now.
And his bad day isn't over yet.
Duane is very likely going to be drastically altered from this point forward. Our favorite pompous zombie is no more. Sette acted rashly, and while most of us here might get it, there is plenty of reason for Cope to be wary of backlash from the few readers who weren’t filtered that take everything at face value and don’t think about what they’re reading.
Because Sette freaking murderized him.
Yeah the morals seem to be pretty clear cut here.
>Sette was busy saving people
>Duane decided to butt in to indirectly get a person killed instead
>Duane got his just desserts
All of the unfortunate escalation and emotional actions notwithstanding, Duane was the one to get Sette in a goddamn chokehold. That warrants self-defense at the very least, if nothing else.
Sette defended herself with the face scratch, then they had their heartfelt convo which led to duane discovering that she could control him, then sette freaked out and attacked duane when he ran from her. Easy to see why she did it but still a scary decision that hurts her
>Sette was busy saving people
>Duane decided to butt in to indirectly get a person killed instead
>Duane got his just desserts
Do you think Sette in this state will go forth and save Queenie and Chea and save the day?
I think they've both taken their time having their spat, it's probably too late.
She wouldn't be in the state to begin with if somebody didn't make an unprovoked assault on her. Sure, things got really ugly and out of proportion. But Duane was the initiating party of the conflict no matter how you slice it. And he didn't have a good reason to start the conflict to boot.
>Duane was the initiating party of the conflict no matter how you slice it.
Well, Duane believes the queen initiated the conflict by having him killed and his daughter attacked. He blames her for his miserable life. We - the readers - know he's wrong, but it's trivial to understand that it looks different from his point of view. If you have a shred of empathy, at least.
That's contrary to his own revelations at the shrine. Empathy is empathy but I expect a grown man to be able to hold onto his own resolutions instead of flip-flopping all over the place between his old beliefs and the new ones. He gains no sympathy from me. As a bonus note, a religious person should know a thing or two about tests of faith. Duane, for all his priestly flair, seems to completely fail on this front.
>He gains no sympathy from me
Suit yourself homosexual, you sound like you never had to make a hard choice in your life. Duane is a soul trapped in a rotting body, the worst possible and impossible) outcome for a Ssaelit priest. He learned his own family had a hand in his death, and his not-so-dead daughter is getting raised by his brother, and she's a child soldier like Lem was on top of that. And you cannot show empathy for him ? He's a zombie mind-controlled by a moronic attention whoring Sharte child and he sees the truth behind, and you can't have empathy ? You're a fricking child too.
You sound like you never made a hard choice in your life. If you can only empathize with childishness, you're in no place to call anybody else a child.
Did you just "I know you are but what am I?" on fricking Cinemaphile? shut the frick up and get out, holy shit. fricking straight assburgers in here.
No, I implicitly called you a child for being unable to wrap your head around people acting mature even under duress. Your emotional outburst right now only seals the deal if I'm being honest.
No you didn't you fricking weirdo. You just copied a dudes insult like some freak. Literal elementary school "I know you are but what am I" shit. Just what the frick is wrong with you? grow up lol.
There was a subtle difference between the two insults. Unfortunately it went completely over your head much like everything else being communicated to you.
bro... no. just. just no. You're not using super smart insults that are flying over peoples head. You're just some assburgers that doesn't understand human emotions =/.
There was a difference in verb tense that would be obvious even to an actual child. At this point you're just admitting to being illiterate and presenting it as an own on the internet.
The projection. It hurts. Literally everyone knows you have assburgers, you fricking weirdo. I was just trying to help you not do that "I know you are but what am I" shit anymore. It's not as smart as you think. It just outs you.
inb4
>no i don't have assburgers and what I wrote was smart I'm smart =(
>ad hominem
Are you done with your tantrum now?
>If you can only empathize with childishness, you're in no place to call anybody else a child
But I don't, so I call you out again, child. You can't form a basic bond with a cartoon character you supposedly have been following for hundreds of pages (assuming you even read unsounded so far you two-bit wannabe troll). Grow up and try again, it'll work out eventually.
If the only way you can interact with a fictional character is forming an emotional bond with them then you are, again, expressing a child's behavior while desperately trying to shift your childishness onto me.
>a religious person should know a thing or two about tests of faith.
Dude has been on a nonstop test of faith since he woke up dead (heh), otherwise he would have offed himself as soon as he realized he was a zombie.
At least you admit that you side with Sette and expect Duane to have fewer flaws. I like Duane, flawed as he is, because his being Sette's perfect knight who does everything right and all his drama is thrown aside for Sette is boring. I don't like his decisions but I understand why he made them.
>Sure, things got really ugly and out of proportion. But Duane was the initiating party of the conflict no matter how you slice it.
Duane shouldn't have flirted with that lion. They don't know the meaning of No! Stop!
I don't understand this point of view. If you demand that characters act rationally at all times, and are bad people if they don't, then that should extend to all characters. Instead you're ping-ponging two wildly different rationalizations between Duane and Sette. If Duane is a bad person for letting his hate for the queen getting in the way of saving her life and the lives of the people with her, then Sette is also a bad person for letting her daddy issues get the better of her and literally altering Duane's soul out of spite.
Frick me, you can think both are in the wrong, you know? Nobody is forcing you to take sides. This whole thing isn't even about taking sides.
I think there’s a not-insignificant number of autistic readers who don’t understand that characters are depictions of people and people act on emotion more often than not. Duane is usually cold and calculating, but this is literally the highest his emotions have run in years, and yet some people still sit back and say “well I would act like that, that’s illogical given the meta knowledge I have.”
>I would act like that
wouldn’t*
So when is a character allowed to act in a mature way instead of regressing into a child at the first sign of trouble? Is there such a situation that you would entertain?
The frick are you talking about? Duane was just on about how he'd sacrifice his love and do monstrous things for his duty. As a man does.
Even his love for Sette isn't enough to quell his thirst for revenge, as sweet a drink as that is.
So what was the scene at the shrine then? The whole thing about not turning his back anymore, or however that went? Was that just empty air then? Is that fitting of a mature character?
Anon is learning that Duane is a hypocrite. Like, a bad one. Also it's easier to be brave in heaven then it is to be brave in hell.
Honestly, have these memories shoved into him might be what this man needs to get some fricking self-reflection going on. Step the frick back, think, calm down. That's what Duane needs right now. Some -stability-.
It's funny that this is the biggest chance for stability he's had in a while, and it's him sinking into a pit of nightmare eels.
Didn't he have enough self reflection already? Being in denial about Lem killing him is one thing, being in denial about crescians being people that deserve individual consideration is a bit beyond reason at this point, considering all his personal development. Not even wanting to personally verify that the queen is as evil as he imagined her to be? Just KILL KILL KILL like he's sipping a cup of Etalarche? Come on.
>Not even wanting to personally verify that the queen is as evil as he imagined her to be?
He was dreaming about killing her for six years now, blaming get for his (and, until recently, his daughter) death. She is an enemy of his beloved country. She did awful things as a ruler, like promising help and then betraying the Aldish rebels to make them kill each other.
Like what the frick are you even babbling about. This is like thinking that an allied soldier that has an unexpected chance to kill Hitler should first personally verify if Hitler is as bad as he imagines. This is how stupid you sound.
No. I'm fairly certain you're being overly dramatic here. Duane was tenuously content to peacefully rot away in Sharteshane for most of his undeath. In fact, going to Cresce OR Alderode was something he specifically did not want. "Wow, I guess I always wanted to assassinate the queen of Cresce" is something that only came to him on the spur of the moment now. It definitely wasn't his lifelong goal or he would've taken at least some steps towards accomplishing it.
Not that anon, but while I agree it hasn't been his lifelong goal, it's definitely something he's always wanted to happen, even if he didn't do it himself. The kind of hatred he has for the queen (and Cresce as an institution) is something he's been raised on, it's part of his core worldview, his logical default. It would take weeks, months, maybe even years of exposure for him to discard that line of thinking. Meeting good crescians like Toma or Jivi isn't enough to contradict it, he can rationalize them as good people trapped within an evil system under an evil ruler.
That's just how humans work. When we've "known" something our entire lives, it takes an enormous amount of time and effort to learn otherwise. Even when given proof, we rationalize it as a fluke, or an exception, or maybe something that's true in THIS specific context, but doesn't disprove our overall belief.
I mean if he had ever gotten the chance before, alive or dead, I'm sure he would have happily killed the queen.
That said, him being willing to let a child die to kill the queen is definitely out of normal character for him, even post death.
She's exactly the woman that he thinks she is and he's justified in his actions. She would have him and his entire family tortured to death on religious and ethnic grounds, to say nothing of political ones, without a second thought. She has caused Duane, and the Soud, nothing but trouble for her entire reign. WE know that she didn't orchestrate Duane's death, but HE doesn't, and even then she signs off on the exact same sort of blackops hits every day. Even then, she's personally responsible for thr Foi-Hellick affair, which directly fricked both Duane and Lemuel up.
Yeah obviously Duand letting the Snake possibly frick up Chea is awful, and stopping Sette from squishing it was grade A stupid, but that's the point of tragedy and conflict. It would mean nothing if Duane was just being a moron: it's meaningful that he's let his pain and grief get the best of him.
The foi hellic affaire was instigated by Sonorie's predecessor. She still participated, but the seeds were sown before she was involved
>She's exactly the woman that he thinks she is
She's a nuanced person. Yes she has done reprehensible things but also she isn't a monster. I certainly wouldn't want to be inheriting her position as the head of state.
Queen Sonorie is a despicable person, but she and Duane are not actually that different. Both are willing to make "necessary sacrifices," as Duane just hotly admitted to. And it wouldn't be the first time he's put kids on the block for his cause - is there that much difference between hiding a factory beneath a shrine filled with kids and using child soldiers to clear land mines? The difference is that some large part of Duane knows better and wants to be better, but he frequently ignores it when it counts.
And sure, you could argue he and Jon saved those kids from a worse fate, but he's fighting to preserve a machine that created those circumstances in the first place. And he got rather cavalier their lives, to Jon's misfortune.
NTA, but Duane lived in the system and had no power to change it. The queen is the system, and absolutely has the power to change it. Anyway, this still isn't a contest. The queen can be a terrible person irrespective of what kind of person Duane is.
>The queen is the system, and absolutely has the power to change it.
The queen is not the system, just the largest cog in it, and that cog can be replaced with enough motivation. She has great power but wielding it directly will cause problems because the other factions and foreign nations she has to juggle have differing opinions.
It's not a contest and Sonorie has vastly more power than Duane did, but it's disingenuous to imply her situation is as simple as that.
No, not really.
She’s a larger part of the system, but she isn’t absolute. Even trying to be a bit less war-mongering and she has Bells crawling out her ass and hats with twats underneath trying to crawl up her ass.
She does not have absolute power, and that’s what you need to have all the ills of a system laid at your feet. Or to be said to “be the system”.
Plus, Duane had his chip at the table, but rather than quietly growing his seat so he could quietly affect more and more of the system, he blew it on a moment of indignation. He could have had power to change things, he chose not.
The queen is as much a symptom of the system as any other crescian, yes she has more influence but she still doesn’t have complete freedom to act.
>Plus, Duane had his chip at the table, but rather than quietly growing his seat so he could quietly affect more and more of the system, he blew it on a moment of indignation. He could have had power to change things, he chose not.
Duane was a dead man before he punched Bodie. He was a sacrificial lion, it's why he got the post.
Point I'm trying to make is becoming more like the queen to kill the queen is bad for Duane's soul. And the health of nearby children, apparently.
Incidentally, with the death of Bell and the head bimbo of the temple, Sonorie IS the state right now. Assuming the makes it out of this alive, she has a unique opportunity to exercise her will with relative impunity in the power gap. How she will survive is an open question, Duane is probably going to be too busy with one more existential crisis to be involved, and Sette's busy having a well-deserved emotional meltdown while a stuffed animal from hell recites poetry at her.
>Sette’s busy having a well-deserved emotional meltdown
A well-orchestrated one I’d think, you don’t place your soul anywhere near those hands of magic destruction even if they’re the tool necessary to get you back to the living world unless you’ve beaten down all chance of a random whimsical hand swipe destroying all your plans.
Sette needs to be at her absolute emotional nadir to do tittybirds’ will, and well, nothing stops the keikaku train I think.
If anything I would be slightly upset if Sette does manage to save her at this point, even if she did have the mental wherewithal to immediately go back to the waterfalls right this second. They've taken their time arguing and we know now that time is passing while this happens.
I don't really see why Ruck would take his time when he knows there are people after him.
>I don't really see why Ruck would take his time when he knows there are people after him.
Who ? A guard with a broken arm and a barely above-average wright who never saw his likes? Please.
Don't forget Ruck is also swishing around the soul of R*g*r F**-H*ll*ck with a bunch of etalarched alds coming in for that ass. I'd be escaping the city from that alone.
> Half a dozen soldiers turned moronic and who would probably ignore the giant rapesnake if he dangled ROGER FOI-HELLICK's corpse on a string in front of them
I'm still not feeling very worried for Ruck.
I can't say how it happens, but I'm about 75% sure that Ruck dies tonight. He's the remaining objective "bad guy" to be dealt with.
Well, there's also Prakhuta, Ilganyag, probably Lem. No scarcity of bad guys here.
Prakhuta is clearly not in control anymore, fair point about Lady I, though she almost certainly won't be dealt with this book, and Lem's not exactly in "big bad" position right now given last time we saw him he was surrounded by murderous zombies. Assuming he survives (which is probable), we won't see him til sometime in book 2.
So yeah, Ruck is the only real "big bad" available right now IMO.
I think Duane going to get some -disassociation- before he gets any stability
>the first sign of trouble
This being delving into the mythical afterlife, discovering the god-like being you've been banging is collecting memories for some reason, discovering that your surrogate daughter has god-like powers of her own, which she then uses to attempt to save the person you hate the most in the world, and then discovering that her god-like powers extend to you, personally.
Homie, we're very far from the first sign of trouble. The first sign of trouble was being sent on a mad quest with a girl who has some very leonine features.
The god-like being came after. All it took Duane to lose his cool was seeing the leader of an enemy nation on a metaphysical tv screen. Which makes him about as mentally resilient as a modern day soccer fan. The peeing his pants at the sight of GodSette I'm completely willing to neglect.
this is so fricking cringe that it actually hurts. just holy fricking shit. i don't know whether to laugh or cry. just holy shiiiiit.
>The god-like being came after.
Uh, no, Sette was literally reaching into the real world from the afterlife with giant fricking hands, my dude. It's quite literally the single most god-like act we've seen in the comic up to now. You're using a lot of dismissive language to support your point. Those magic-powered screens we see occasionally would be metaphysical TV screens. What is happening here is akin to going to Heaven (or Hell, I suppose) and looking down on Earth. Except then your bratty friend reaches down and starts knocking people around. As for the soccer fan, no, it's more like a israelite seeing Hitler. You're viewing this through a logical detachment that Duane doesn't have. And perhaps he can be faulted for clinging to his hatred as a security blanket, but the emotion itself shouldn't be difficult to parse.
Well, if he was scared of what Sette was doing at that moment, wouldn't it make LESS sense to try and nab her in the middle of it? The way it seems to me he completely lost his mind at the sight of Hitler.
Well, he kinda did. That's a thing people do. Point being, he was also seeing shit happen that shouldn't be possible, and he showed some apprehension at that. Duane was already operating on some very frayed nerves, and then Sette starts Sette Ex Machining stuff out of nowhere. I don't think his response was the right one, but I can't exactly blame him for not instantly dropping beef he's cherished for a very long time. And of course, it's also somewhat understandable that just standing by is more like letting nature take its course. The queen got herself and hers into that situation, and I can imagine that might also have been on Duane's mind.
>I would do x because I’m mature, this character is being childish
holy tism
I can see why Cope thought that. However she knows too that an significant number of people will approve of murder if "he/she was really asking for it".
See Gary Plauche or even this guy who got 10 years with parole which is pretty light, considering.
>https://nypost.com/2024/03/08/us-news/texas-man-sentenced-to-10-years-for-shooting-wife-dead-on-camera/
This isn't even that complicated.
Duane = wants people who killed him and did bad, horrible things dead. It doesn't matter who gets hurt because these people will always be worse then what he can manage. I mean, it obviously does, but the dude lost his wife and kids and penis. That would break every Anon around (If they weren't always alone). It's not complicated.
Duane = Loves Sette with all his heart. Except he can't for obvious reasons and STILL she is his Lion. Even after all this when he man-handles her he STILL wings up basically begging to explain to her why he needs to kill the queen and how important it is to him.
It's pretty obvious, to me, that Duane just wants all this bad shit to stop for a moment and is having a break down. Or well, was, before he has those memories shoved into his soul.
But the memories though. Is this gonna be a revelation where he's better off for it, or worse? Truth can be cathartic, that little moment when you finally stop lying to yourself.
Also, I know this will never happen. But the single worst thing that can happen to Duane is if his wife was in on his murder too. Now, I get it, we have proof that isn't the case AFAI remember. If anything could get Duane to kill himself though that'd be it.
>Is this gonna be a revelation where he's better off for it, or worse?
Better in the long run. Duane needs to stop lying to himself, and he needs to decide which truth is the truth he wants to embody: either he can be the guy who stands up to bullies and says innocent lives aren't a price worth paying. Or he can continue to go down the same road Lem is rather far down.
100%. I can't for the life of my figure out where it's going to go from here though. I really want Duane and Sette to be together though when it's all over.
>I really want Duane and Sette to be together though when it's all over.
Why? They started off with a power unbalance and are terrible for each other.
Love conquers all and she's his Lion. They are PERFECT for each other. If they weren't all in their own asses. lol.
Am I the only one that can still see a happy ending for Duane and Sette? This is all traumatic for sure but it feels like something that had to happen, even if I would have never guessed it would have happened. Him calling her Lion hurt so good ._.
That's cause Sette needs to grow up. And Duane needs to grow past his hatred and become a better undead man.
Cope isn't some nihilist, I think she said something about the story ultimately having a positive ending. All the suffering wouldn't hit as hard if that's all there was.
I believe she did say the book will have a pretty big "frick yeah" moment in it's climax.
I remember seeing some post like "the heroes need a W this chapter because they've been losing constantly" or something like that.
It stuck in my mind because I was like, "have they?" Sure the shrine was a loss, but before that it felt like things more or less went well for them. Win against tree, Quigley and the Red Berry Boys, Nevergreen was ultimately a win even if the silver actually got away, win against that crescian wright whose name I always forget.
The shrine was the only real negative and even then there was at least the positive of freeing the water woman (although the perpetrator is a huge karma houdini.)
Is this an allegory to Sette's first periords?
honestly it's even simpler if you think about it. Someone you love is helping someone you hate. of course you'd want them to stop.
unsound
unhappy
much unhappiness
No duh Duane's dead. He's being dead for six years. Or 15 years for comic runtime.
Has nobody pointed out that Duane choosing to let the queen get lobotomized by a rapesnake with a memoryknife is what causes Sette to alter his memories?
Everyone in this thread is pointing this out, arguing over this, and discussing his actions. Literally the whole time. Not going to spoonfeed you, lurk more.
In terms of things going from green to red, in the very first chapter the Wandering Root goes from green to red when it senses hostility, no idea how that might be connected here to Sette but it’s interesting at least that another Senet beast exhibits such a trait related to heightened emotions
>Look at what I can do. *shows hands*
>Sette your hands.
>Don't look at em!
Woman moment.
Imagine you're at a kegger and you want to show Troy and Derek how hard you can punch a tree, but all they do is tenderly inspect your swollen knuckles.
Troy and Derek would be telling anon that's gross af and to put something on it. Tenderly inspecting his swollen knuckles is a spouse, parent, or nurse thing to do. Anon was making a joke, but you don't understand men like you think you do.
reminder don't reject your e-girl's crush or she will fricking kill you.
Words to live by
You know shit is getting real when the thread lasts multiple days
Shame we gotta wait a whole week for more.
And my favorite manga is on break this week for golden week, so I got very little to look forward to next week. This sucks.
Frick it's golden week.
Does her taking off make her an honorary Japanese citizen?
sette 🙁
just a reminder that Sette and Duane belong together. also each day is killing me. Really impressive.
They belong together forever as platonic best friend undying immortal eternal sexless lover beings, loving one another forever within the Khert without weird sexual aspects to it
They're not leaving the Khert until they kiss on the lips.
I just want something NICE to happen for once!
You clearly haven't been paying attention
things have to get better at some point...right?
Chin up, anon. It's always darkest before dawn.
The two are having a real heart to heart. Even admitting to love each other without any layers of irony. What progress! Surely this is the pain right before catharsis.
The Khert will explode with golden fishes, kinda like how it exploded with Red Eels. We're getting a Ghibli movie Moment.
I just want Duane and his Lion to be happy together for awhile. It has been pretty dark so far =(. It's still not too late.
any of the sex being done would need to be pymaric, cus Duane has no penis. I imagine it being a very intense cuddle-sesh.
I bet dick pymarics are like the third most common kind
>I bet dick pymarics are like the third most common kind
I'd agree, but I'm sure Sette being a 20-something asexual stuck in an prepubescent body is a much bigger problem. Who knows? There might be a series of pymarics for that too.
Nah, she'd have to make the first move on Duane in order for anything to happen. Maybe in some kind of depressed daze or ordering him to do it in some effort to prove her love. Tiddybird already banged Duane after all.
The idea that Duane had sex with tittybird is dubious at best. More likely she just fed him pleasurable memories outta the khert
Virgin tittybird denier vs chad birdussy enjoyer.
I imagine that's just how khert/pymeric sex works. The aspect of a feather tickling, a warm hand moving across your body, the moment before climax. Who knows how it all works honestly. Instead of smashing someone with a rock you can let them literally feel your love or some such.
what a bawd.
oh noooooo.
I'm sure Quigley will find a way to make it work.
Brutal. Next Monday can't come soon enough. Worst thing is we probably switch context now, or get some flashback at best.
No updates until the 6th anon
Yeah I was unclear. Anyway put me in a coma and wake me up in a week.
Frick.
I can't believe Duane's ghost is fricking DAED
If a ghost dies then do they become alive? Perhaps double dying is all part of Ssael's will. Checkmate atheists.
I like ash's writing.
Same. I wish she had time to write whole supplemental books set in Unsounded's world, they'd be fricking baller
https://unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/153286737770/how-did-duane-and-leysa-meet-or-was-their
Agreed
shame she hates her writing style
Does she? When has she said that?
Duane could use his wife to put him in his place these days.
Cute and sad.
Really puts into context what Duane, Leysa, and their family lost and will never get back.
I like how pushy and headstrong Leysa is here. Nice reversal with the glamour. Notable that he had given in and was taken by her before the reveal. Perhaps a truer measure of a man is how he treats those he has no attraction to and no intention of using for his other ambitions.
>Oh, he should never have ventured outside the print shop. Never have attended seminary! Never have gone to the Academy! Never should have joined the army! Never should have been born! Ssael, why? Why?!
On second thought, maybe Duane was always psychotic and his recent actions are perfectly in character.
He’s not psychotic, just a fan of theatre and a big overly dramatic lug. Recent actions are certainly in character, and ironically I would say are actually far less dramatic than his typical acts. His actions to let Sonorie die were the acts of a rational nationalist with lots of PTSD and war-related trauma. Only excess drama has been in his hyperbolic prose, but that’s something that shan’t be leaving him soon. Unless he’s dead-dead, but I don’t think he is.
No, no, it makes sense actually. I don't believe that him entertaining the idea to "jump off Blue Boys Bridge ere the sun rose" was for the dramatic flair since he wasn't talking to anybody at the time. It's actually very believable that his sensitive psyche combined with post-war ptsd made him prone to losing his marbles in stressful situations. This retroactive fleshing out of his character derived from a snippet written all the way back in 2016 actually fits pretty well. The writing is consistent.
Sir, any man who claims he has not in his darkest and most unsettled hours cogitated overlong upon the quiet surcease that self-slaughter would grant, is either a simpleton or a preening liar. Had we no temptations to overcome, this life would be no trial at all, and our souls at the end only brittle, onion skin thin things.
Coming from an actual war, I doubt that having to pick a bride should've registered as "darkest, most unsettled hours" in Duane's mind. Unless, of course, the war had left a lasting imprint that would never really leave. After all, it makes no sense that Lem would be the only one to come out of it damaged.
I took it as him waxing poetic, but maybe you’re right. Being deeply damaged without acknowledging it certainly fits his character at this point. He knows he’s flawed but hides it deep, as made apparent by his response to removing bullies with “leave my family be.” He know Lem is a bad egg deep down, but it takes a lot for the depths of trauma to surface for the man
He's also from a society where showing it would be social suicide. Unless you do it in the Lem way, where it just makes you a more ruthless killer. Kind of reminds me of my grandfather. He had some serious war-related PTSD, but he (and everyone like him) got the cold shoulder upon returning home. He never had a choice but to bury it, went back to war, was in fact a ruthless killer, and I remember him also having a rule about not killing kids. He was a principled man in general. Maybe that's another way men deal with war trauma, drawing a clear line between yourself and them, the ones that caused your trauma.
Nice thesaurus.
yaeh ash is great
>psychotic
That’s a common reaction after the realization that your life’s trajectory has been changed from what you imagined it would be. Now Duane is so used to being special that he never registered how special Sette was in the khert and thought he was the more important one of them both until he saw her reaching out from the khert
One of the first thing we learn about Duane is he's a big dramatic b***h.
>when you meet my brother you will realise you chose the wrong Adelier
Oof
Of course the ending to this book will be heartwarming.
Duane literally just had a coat shoved into his heart. How could his heart not be warm?
The ending will only warm the cold, imprisoned Lady Ilganyag heart.
My bet is that we get to see the other Lion now.
Yeah, Duane is dead-dead, I reckon, because, well no reason. Drama, I suppose, some arbitrary acting out. I'll pick this comic back up here and there but I doubt I'll stay too invested. Cope operates on a different wavelength than I, which is fine, but it's tough to make sense of it all.
Imagine being this butthurt. I mean I am too, but I'm not acting all moron on it.
We will learn what's going on, and Duane will stay relevant one way or another. Have some faith you weak-willed Black person and don't let the eels put you in despair.
Idk, it’s standard fare when dealing with paladins traipsing through heaven they also have to be cast into the pit and traipse through there too.
I think when “Duane” comes back it’ll be the option of it not being quite duane, more amalgam with some demons, he isn’t the type for the other path of going to hell and having the fury to kill satan etc..
Going by
I reckon Duane's not truly gone, we're due another flashback where we get Lemuel's perspective on events leading up to Duane's death, answering the questions hanging when he was on top of the vilegeng at the shrine. We need to go to Alderode in Book 2, and a reckoning with Lemuel / untangling him from the mess he's wrapped up in will be a motivation to do so.
Is he getting back up this chapter, the epilogue, or in Book 2? I’m leaning toward epilogue.
shoves one of Lemuel's memories into Duane
is getting some alone time
It's literally setup for an I'll Bail No More 2.0 scene where he watches Lemuel's PoV of his death, relax
It's extremely silly to think Duane is completely dead here.
bump
Don't let the thread die anons.
Related: reminder how salty Duane was at the queen (because of the bird agitating him, but still)
The only thing that would scare me is seeing Duane's soul tether snap. Anything else happens to him? Just fish him out, it's fine
People keep saying Duane is going to be apart for awhile and I just don't see why. I mean, maybe, but Sette and Duane being split up right now would honestly be sad. Hope it doesn't happen. People are acting like they have some clue as to what's going on and I don't see how.
damn longest thread in a long while.
what's the opinion on the ship of sette x jive?
No, simple as. Settle is for eternal platonic love and friendship with immortal zombieman Duane.
It has to be Duane and Sette together forever. Duane is too much of a hopeless romantic for it to be platonic though. Sette has her business to focus on but I'm sure she knows that much.
What does an asexual do when they're hopelessly in love with a total bawd?
Sette has memory powers, I'm sure they can sort it out. Maybe she can make herself look like a super hot adult woman and Duane can do whatever he wants with her
>sette, trying to find a form more pleasing to Duane in the Khert, becomes a huge ass bird with lots of tiddies.
She has two hands anon, also just more a question about how much it felt shippy those little scenes together.
I feel they are more of hatesex type but see it more as kiddy love. But feel she'd like jivi as he'd be like duane someone that won't just do everything she says so don't think she'd purely dominate. He'd make a good left hand since duane is already the right hand.
Idk isn't it canon Jivi has no where to go anyway? He's been a slave his kingdom is now fricked. Might as well go with the main cast/sette to wherever. I think they aren't too far off, Jivi really has lost out on most of a normal childhood just like sette. I also do like the cute childhood crush way, now imagine after this arc them wondering what they are and having awkwardness of trying to be cutesy relationships. I hope and pray for that ship to sale anon.
i can respect that it was one in the back of my head but never thought of really. Man everyone acts like they haven't been together for like 1/3 of the story. Jivi is my boy he's not b***hmade he's a lil chad, plus he's kind of part of the heart of the team as we see him taking care of Matty and running head long into battles to protect others. I actually think they work because of that difference, Sette is selfish scared girl trying to be fearless while Jivi is a selfless fearless boy put into tons of horrible situations.
He helped other even when he knew he could be killed or turned into a living bioweapon, he like most of the cast is flawed. So I think he and sette would compliment each other quite well and as we see Sette needs love and Duane until recently(seeing in her head) was still caught up in his on crucible of what he desired and his own delusions. So really Jivi was the first to acknowledge sette outside of her parentage, mostly because he doesn't know or care she's just other kid to him.
>Idk isn't it canon Jivi has no where to go anyway? He's been a slave his kingdom is now fricked.
Nothing a pirate mom can't fix. But I think you're right, he'll probably find a reason to hang out with Sette in the coming book. He has a good heart and Sette low-key respects that (even though she pretends she doesn't).
Yeah I also like the whole message of him realizing he was basically bullying a girl that had just gotten used to it. As matty said you have to be the bigger person because sette is broken and we need to help fix her. He was thinking about it like a kid meeting another butthole kid not as a kid basically meeting a emotionally stunted kid. They do have a respect for each other when they are in the temple Sette trust him to keep the others safe, and when he thinks about protecting Matty and the other girls he trust Sette to keep herself safe until this arc where he realize that Sette is quite vulnerable.
>pirate mom
Does he have one lined up or you are just being hyperbolic kek, also think they'll keep the whole cast together. At this point the kingdom is fricked and a attack on Alerode is incoming but they may go to sette's family as they seem to know something as well. Fairly sure we aren't in the final arc yet but we maybe reaching it
His mom is a pirate. Jivi grew up on a ship.
Ah damn I've really forgotten all of his backstory since he's been with the crew for what 10ish years now?
Wait so he has a parent to go back to weird, but her being a pirate may mean they'll use her as transport later in the story or something. How'd he get enslaved then?
Based but everyone knows you can't Knock me down? bum dum tsk
iirc Jivi got sent to live with his uncle in Ulestry but was mistreated there so we ran away to rejoin his mom. He got caught and enslaved while running away.
Ah makes sense damn Jivi got fricked literally got the Sette speedrun in probably only a few months to a year. Obviously much worse but now they have even more parallels especially since both seem to have potentially shitty families. We can't know if his mom was to much better, suck if next arc they find his mom and it revolves around sette having to convince him, he's like her and just can't see that she's abusing or mistreating poor Jivi.
Be a great character arc for sette as well, as sometimes it takes seeing it happen to someone you care about to know you are in a toxic relationship or realize you had rose tinted glasses.
>We can't know if his mom was to much better
I am once again reminding y'all we saw her in the flashbacks
Is Jivi a fishman kek, but yeah seems she was not. Imagine she's saying this while a tot jivi is standing there just sobbing. Basically calling him a b***h lol, but really man is their a single good parent in this series besides Duane. Really just need Duane to adopt all the kids at this point, actually Toma would be better and his daughter seems to be close to death soon. Also then my point stands even further great little outside perspective for Sette on toxic parentage and realizing damn my dad's a butthole.
How do I forget these things wish their was a comic dub so I can quickly rewatch the earlier parts.
Good parents in Unsounded:
Duane
Leysa
Toma
Rahm
Iori
Sonorie was good to her symbolic daughter with Roger
That one lady who got killed in Ethelmik trying to protect her toddler who sadly got killed too a moment later
The list isn't that big but yeah I def put Toma and Duane at peak tier. Toma higher as he's not so nationalist and schizo as Duane, he eventually just became a man that wanted to save his wife then a man that just wanted to protect his daughter. Also technically didn't those two black tongue parents let their kid die if I remember correctly? Not really good parenting lol. I also can't believe the queen was good to anyone she's kind of terrible outside of being a leader and even then she's shit at that too.
Also surprised you didn't bring up Matty's mom?
I actually meant to include Vienne. Sorry, Matty.
As for Rahm and Iori, their son died in an accident before they got involved with the black tongues. We see Sonorie's daughter in one panel, and she seems happy for a noble who will grow up with tutors, lifelong wealth, and occasional visits with the queen. Roger seemed be involved with her too.
Let’s be real here, Nary’a’Care Frummagem is clearly the best parent in this whole comic, bar none. Man has been a perfect Da and role model, he could write the book on how to raise children
>Chapter 1: The Stables
>you see a babe needs tender love an' care shant eve' get that from me so, the dogs shall do thy work.
Huh thought Roger's brain went to mush super early on? but yeah interesting. Also idk if I'd put Matty's mom she did literally make a war machine around her tot. All while her husband and friends kept telling her to stop or at least be more subtle or wait for matty to grow up for the revolutionary shit. Literally everyone knew because she was super vocal about it was only a matter of time they got caught.
I like it as a fling and with Sette completely dominating Jivi. He should officially join her gang and one of his duties is to clean her feet and tail.
Sette x Jivi is cute in a childhood crush way. Their life trajectories differ too much for anything serious.
The only things I ship are the main cast x as close to happiness as possible.
Main Cast x Happiness is a total crackship, never gonna happen. Now Main Cast x Suffering, that’s the OTP of this series
My og ship. It probably wont last. Sette is way to much for Jivi. If he really likes her, he'll go with her. But Sette won't let him.
Duane x Pain is the true OG ship. It even rhymes, as so many good things in this comic do
>Duane x Pain
>It even rhymes
>he doesn't know
Life is puon
What am I supposed to say, "DOON A-DEE-LAY?"
technically speaking, dwayne and pain do ryhme.
Honestly, the ship I wanna see happen most is Elka x Toma, they’re adorable. Assuming they survive, it’s a good one. Cute brown warrior-wright tomboy and lawful good fighter, it works well.
I fricking HATE shippers.
but this one time, at least, you are not wrong
The only ship I care about is Knock x Me.
i ship Sette x Duane, but you're right. Duane x Pain does seem like the true canon pairing.
How important/relevant do y’all think the “Elizabeth Ne’er Do’ell” rhyme is? Duane seems to be heading down towards a cell to the right of Hell right now
Holy shit. An Unsounded thread that didn't die within hours of creation?
Well of course, we’re all waiting for the Big Bang/big denouement where we can not just piss in the wind but grind some gristle.
Most pages are intermezzos, but a 3 page drop? And some major thematic developments??
Yes we’re going to gnaw that gristle.
Are we trying to survive the whole week? xD
Be strong anons, be strong for Duane.
His mom is a literal pirate. See the flashback at the beginning of chapter 3 (yeah, that was a while ago).
love the detail on the skeleton with duane's face, that's some good shopping
The best ship is Sette x Duane hands down. It has everything. Forbidden love, romance, friendship, a perfect clash of personalities. not even up for debate.
They are perfect for each other. The right amount of toxic. Hell she kills him out of passion in this update lmao. I do not think she'll stay a kid by the end of book 2. Tho I am a Knock x Quigly and Sette x Jivi kinda guy. Even with Sette's weird not age gap lmao. >She's like 20.
>Knock x Quigley
Why does this kinda work? If he weren’t gonna be dead from old age in five years it’d be cute
Ashley wrote a little noncanon snippet about them boning behind a tree a year or so ago. apparently being good for soppy quickies is a plat stereotype he fits
That's just more character development for Knock. She needs her share of suffering so she can play her role in book 3 in 30 years.
>She needs her share of suffering
lol
Having grown up a Frummagem in Sharteshane would place Knock pretty high up in terms of general suffering, but offscreen. I like how Sette and Duane's Olympic levels of suffering skew everyone else's to look like nothing.
It is kinda amusing that, while everyone in the main cast has certainly suffered, the suffering Olympics are just so skewed by Duane and Sette existing. Who takes gold on suffering, is the question? My money would be on Duane, unless Sette can somehow recall her past existences of sacrifice and suffering therein
I agree, but I also have a inkling that Sette will soon recall her past lives and that the eel bird will be involved.
>Knock x Quigly
Explain. Is this an opposites thing or just something aesthetically you like? They're both too emotionally unavailable for anything but Knock x Anadyne Ride and/or Die for Life and Quigley x Self-Hatred and Suffering.
Trying to sell it is dumb as frick. Just say it's good, gonna be several years till it's finished, and that's it's good. Really shitty comics need a selling point - this one does not.
Right??? Plus the dynamic of a loose dickless overly romantic guy who's super giving in the sack in a relationship with an asexual lion goddess who doesn't really get the whole sex thing is just. Mwah. it's perfect. I imagine a sex scene with them would involve lots of touching and pymarics. Has anyone here ever slept with an asexual? Shit gets real confusing even if it's fun.
How exactly do I sell this story to others? Its initial premise, which is about a lion-tailed girl going on adventures with an undead priest, doesn't really do it justice.
I think you have to sell it like that though. A lot of the comic's genius is how it surprises you with where its story goes. It starts out a fantasy adventure romp with goofy shit and then turns into a war drama and then turns into a political thriller and metaphysical character dive. The tone bounces all over the place and somehow it still works
Domestically abused, forever-young, emotionally-damaged lion-tailed girl goes on an adventure with a depressed polite nationalistic undead bird-fricking zombie priest with a tragic backstory, to stop a pain-obsessed human-souled rhyming lizard from reviving an ancient scheming six-titted crow god.
Honestly though, I tried to get into Unsounded a few times, because I actively looked for comics with a lot of suffering, and it was recommended for these keywords. But I always dropped it after first chapters. Only third time I endured the first few happy chapters to get to the actual story. But I only gave it so many chances because many people recommended it. This comic really starts slow and the first two chapters don't sell it well.
Good luck, unsounded just doesn't have mass appeal baked in, despite it being a true work of art
Wish I knew. I think that that explanation of the journey is great until you reach the disemboweled child in chapter 2 and have to mention that there are some serious horror/gore aspects to this.
"It's like Game of Thrones meets The Last of Us."
God, that hurt to type. But, from what I've seen of marketing, that's how you hook people.
I... don't think that's a good summary (if you're trying to be honest). Tbh I don't know the last of us, but GoT is pretty far away from Unsounded.
Unsounded is not a political fiction, not about the war going on, it's very much about personal feelings of the actors involved. Not sure how to explain it, but the struggle in Unsounded is usually internal, not external.
If you're *really* trying to sell Unsounded to someone, then the pitch about lion-tailed girl and zombie priest is not that bad. Just remember to also mention that their world is cruel, and their past is dark and they will have try to sort it out
Oh sure, I'm just making a quick and dirty hook from the surface elements. In this case, "It's edgy fantasy meets surrogate father-daughter road trip". It's trite and shallow, but that's often how you hook people.
You CAN go deeper than that, like the anon above you, but it does depend on the person you're recommending it to. Though I guess you probably wouldn't be trying to recommend a fantasy webcomic to someone who isn't into fantasy to begin with.
Pic unrelated, I just wanted to attach something.
EZ I'm 3/3 in getting people to read it
>go full autism about how pymary works
>emphasize how good the two main protagonists are (is like one of the few stories where I'd consider both of the main characters as the two equally best characters in the book)
>mention there's a bunch of horror shit and cool designs
I think pymary autism does a lot of the heavy lifting here because it's pretty flashy and fun to think and talk about.
I forgot how good the pre-chapter previews were. Also, has Bett been photoshopped in in Lemuel's place there
I tried recommending it to a friend who's into comics and Fantasy. But of course I had to admit it's rather dark, and he's not looking for dark stories. After recent developments I can hardly give him a "but it gets better". Because it very much does not get better. I mean, I think part of what makes things so grueling currently is that we're trained as an audience to get our dose of happiness and reassurance after dark events in a story. The darkness makes it a hard sell, I guess. Because everyone is used to "dark Fantasy" meaning washed out colors, grizzled characters, and grimderp worldbuilding. But Unsounded is colorful and comedic. On a first glance, it looks nothing like what it actually is.
>But of course I had to admit it's rather dark, and he's not looking for dark stories
People who don't want dark stories won't like Unsounded. No way around that, anon.
>Plus the dynamic of a loose dickless overly romantic guy who's super giving in the sack in a relationship with an asexual lion goddess who doesn't really get the whole sex thing is just. Mwah
Please don't try to convince normies to read unsounded like this.
i don't try to convince people to read things. that's stupid. People who do that are stupid =/. Better to suggest things when asked.
>People who don't want dark stories won't like Unsounded. No way around that, anon.
I know. It was just kind of disappointing. I think this would be right up his alley if he didn't have that hangup. It'd be nice if more people got to appreciate this comic.
I don't like dark stories. I like Unsounded. eh.
you know this reminds me of this cover where everybodys memories are in ladys nest but not Duane and Settes and Ash said it was intentional. Sette is obvious, she is not wholly human and thus isnt collected in the khert but why not Duane? Because his soul escapes the khert and thus there are no memories from him there. He is a new Ssael.
Which I think we might be able to take as proof Duane will survive this, as the Khert is temporally asynchronous and if memories don’t exist NOW for lady ilganyag to grab, those memories will NEVER exist in the Khert, making him an immortal survivor, either a new Ssael or the first of many who shall Sound the great Unsounded and make it through the Khert to Ssael’s realm in order to help with the remaking
I'm just gonna take the fact that Ash had a tumblr post about how Duane getting stabbed spilled some of his soul out, so he's gonna forget things. Would be an odd detail to talk about if he's just dead.
That’s mildly reassuring at least, looks like our favorite zombie is just in for more suffering and not death
Duane isn't allowed to look her like everyone else. Duane is special. It's cute.
it's super cute
Five days for an Unsounded thread, and we hit bump limit? Well done, anons
I haven't read something so good in sooooo long. And the shipping potential is just through the roof.
why no volume 4 book?
the trade war with China put a 25% tariff on overseas printing that hasn't gone down since, which coupled with inflation and the fact that volume 4 will be more expensive at baseline because of being made of larger chapters makes a kickstarter for it riskier, and its also a pile of annoying work for Glass
hopefully once this chapter ends and we get the epilogue a v4 kickstarter might be more feasible
A Volume 4 Kickstarter is planned after the book ends.