>-Ashley
Patreon comment: >Yeah, she smells about like she should.
>Jacaranda doesn't really speak, so don't hurt yourself waiting for him to say something. Lions can only produce a few specific monosyllables of human language, and don't really like to do it.
This comic has been going on since 2007 and I still don't understand what the plot is. I remember in 2013 briefly trying to make sense of the wiki, but gave up because of the wordiness. And it's still going (nowhere).
I mean, in one way that's true - arguably. there isn't really some obvious overarching plot arc (except maybe "wtf happened in the past???"), but if that filters you out, then you're just a brainlet.
That’s the sad thing about teh internet, there are actually more brainlets than not.
And then they are forced to go sour grapes on anything of quality let’s make it spicy, XKCD for example, this maybe even.
But it isn’t actually that hard to get into, you just need to be able to pay attention. I do have sympathy tho, War and Peace filtered me, I couldn’t hold all the characters in my mind on each of the 7 times I’ve assailed it.
>in the past
a dude fricked up and also apparently just fricked a world of immortal monsters with spooky powers before getting killed by his kids or something >now
The black communist slavers have been at war with the religious eugenics enthusiasts for years. The eugenics people have a way to modify and control the world's magic system, giving them a massive advantage on their home turf and any areas they occupy. Eventually one of their higher ups falls on love with the communist queen and let's her know of a day one exploit in their modified magic system that can potentially allow anyone to mind control everyone in the country without blond hair. Commie queen is currently trying to do this exploit with the help of a surviving immortal monster with spooky powers and a bunch of funny wizards who worship a femdom monster crow with breasts. Unbeknownst to everyone femdom crow is currently trying to rape reality hard enough to let her come back from the notwarp into realspace.
>t.speedreader >communist slavers
Plods aren't people, anon; if anything the other side is more into slavery with whatever "kussen" end up being >modify and control the world's magic system
Modify – sure, control – eeeeeh, their ancestors probably knew what they were doing, nowadays it's more of a "monkeys with nukes" situation >falls on love with the communist queen
Black person, he was ghey and the love thing was just a cover-up so they can work on the exploit >spooky powers
Did you mean: spooky rape powers? The rape part is important
>Modify – sure, control – eeeeeh, their ancestors probably knew what they were doing
The Queen's entire plot hinges on the fact that they most definitely did not.
>t.speedreader >communist slavers
Plods aren't people, anon; if anything the other side is more into slavery with whatever "kussen" end up being >modify and control the world's magic system
Modify – sure, control – eeeeeh, their ancestors probably knew what they were doing, nowadays it's more of a "monkeys with nukes" situation >falls on love with the communist queen
Black person, he was ghey and the love thing was just a cover-up so they can work on the exploit >spooky powers
Did you mean: spooky rape powers? The rape part is important
is an obvious crescian to have forgotten they exist.
>I can't imagine Alderode would have been much kinder to them
They don't seem to live in Alderode from what we've seen, I guess tis too cold. They do live in Sharteshane and Ulstery and presumably elsewhere though and seem better off in those places than they do in Cresce.
>Plods aren't people
NTA, but he might have been referring to the inak. Although, I can't imagine Alderode would have been much kinder to them.
Regular human slavery isn't banned or stigmatized either, IIRC. Jivi's attempts to win freedom involved yelling to Matty that he isn't a LEGAL slave, not that he's a child being kept against his will. From what I remember, it's just the case that plods and the inak squeeze out the niche human slaves would occupy in Cresce these days.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Slavery in the form of trading has been made illegal in Cresce with the advent of plods and Inak labor, however if you refuse to work you still get sent to a work camp to break rocks or whatever
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>Jivi's attempts to win freedom involved yelling to Matty that he isn't a LEGAL slave
12 Years a Jivi
>Just noting the differences to real world lions.
You said he had fricked up teeth, which is a blatantly false observation.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
No? A lion has 6 incisors. see:
looks close enough to me, it’s not like we’ve seen very many of him
This guy has 4 at most.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
NTA but I'm going to punch you over TCP/IP.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Fricked up implies messed up. Jacaranda’s teeth seem perfectly intentional, so no, they’re not fricked up at all. I’m sorry you’re upset the fantasy creature doesn’t have the exact biology of a real world lion, but that doesn’t change the reality that his teeth are not fricked up. They’re simply not what a real lion has.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Man, stop being autistic about it.
Even Kasslynian lions are supposed to have six incisors, see page: 15_56
What's wrong with me noticing differences? Jac also lacks any whiskers for example.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
I see what you're saying but I think the thing is that Jacaranda is supposed to be cartoony in the way that Sette is because they're twins. So his teeth are stylized blobs like the human characters usually are. This lion looks way more cartoony than the other lions that have been in the book
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
I see what you're saying but I think the thing is that Jacaranda is supposed to be cartoony in the way that Sette is because they're twins. So his teeth are stylized blobs like the human characters usually are. This lion looks way more cartoony than the other lions that have been in the book
Cope has indeed mentioned that Jack is not anatomically correct for a lion, he's "weird" like Sette is. No one in the khert to bully him about it, though.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Isn't their religion's gimmick that one twin is sacrificed and the other lives to old age? Or am I thinking of some other creepy twin-based religion?
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Yep. Younger twin gets cannibalized, older twin goes on to join the priesthood.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Ashley has specifically said that Jacaranda has features that are different from a Kasslynian lion. That's why the incisors are being pointed out.
>But I use that terminology… for a very specific reason. And it’s not a reason the story will ever broach. The true origins of the world will never be revealed, not in the text nor on here, but I know them. And the structure of it all is, of course, relevant to that.
Does that mean we'll never learn who the first "creator" who set the first world into motion is?
COOOOOOOPEEEEEE, my autism needs to know, or I'll just shrivel and die : X I kinda-sorta understand the rationale for not spoiling it now (well not really, I think a good story can stand own it's own regardless of that, but I accept this is not that widely shared of an opinion), but why not after the comic is done?
Is it a Xenoblade situation? I bet it's a Xenoblade situation.
TL;DR scientist fricked around and found out - they ran an unproven experiment that destroyed our universe and birthed a new one, where they became god-like entities. I didn't really play it only read synopsis, so might be wrong on points (or sequels had since retconned it), but that's what I've meant.
Scientists on a space station create a second big bang resulting in a new universe where two of them become gods and the onboard AI becomes the divine providence (whatever that means).
I’m assuming they are part of an actual video game or at least a computer program as the comment mentions that the terminology is mentioned for a reason. Grant it I’m guessing the reason she’ll never talk about it is because it’s important for the characters’ archs for the world’s origins to have ambiguity so some of their own questions are never answered and giving the answer would recontextualize their archs but god damn those were answers I’ve been waiting for for years.
>I’m assuming they are part of an actual video game or at least a computer program as the comment mentions that the terminology is mentioned for a reason.
I do recall written pymary looking like mathematical formula's, and having the idle thought that it's interesting to approach magic as a programming language for reality.
I wonder how many times Sette's gonna have to whip out the claws before they stop making her hand into a bleeding mess. I wonder if that's even possible for flesh and blood Sette like it is for Khert Sette.
So there’s 100% good/evil twin dynamic here.
Aside from “of course”, Khette has control over the snakes, as she’s riding off on one. Jacaranda is the one attracting squishes.
If the pattern was always, then I guess sette was always the one murdered, hence her phobia of twin shrines.
I dunno how Duane's doing, but it's almost certainly not 'fine,' considering he's going to forcibly be denied the ability to ignore his brother's treachery.
Not once in this comic has someone with an ambiguous death not turned out to be alive. Even Starfish has a (horrible) half-life. If Cope wanted Lemuel dead, he would've been torn apart alive and screaming on-page, she's not exactly shy about grisly deaths.
Perhaps the one crucial thing is that Miki was supposed to be there. That's something that's been brought up at least twice, Lem SPECIFICALLY asked to see her that day. It's definitely true that Lem didn't expect Duane to rot (and he might not have, had he not run away and avoided preservative methods; Murkoph seems to have reached an unhappy stasis, perhaps Duane is supposed to have regeneration that wasn't installed). I dunno who this person thinks blamed Lem for killing his mother besides Lem's own conscience, Duane certainly didn't, and comforted his fears on that topic as best he could from what we've been told.
I think most people agree Lem wants Duane to sound the unsounded, or wants to cooperate with a plan that involves that. What I want to know is why Duane's daughter had to be there.
I'd always assumed that forcing Duane into an escort mission would prevent him from outright flattening all opposition. Greatest wright in centuries, and all.
But it could be that Lem (correctly) assumed Miki would be a wildcard that would catch Bastion off-guard. I imagine Bastion wasn't shy about what his goals were. While Lem wanted Duane to defy death, there's no way he would've consented to making his brother into some Black Tongue's lab rat to be toyed with until Bastion grew bored and disposed of him. Maybe Miki was there to do exactly what she did-- foul the procedure and allow Lem to swoop in and scoop up his newly-deathless brother, allowing them to meet up and face God to account for all of the suffering Lemuel's wanted answers for since he was a boy in the army.
But it wasn't like that. Duane didn't transcend death in the manner of Ssael; he became a damned thing, crazed, cursed to rot and forever acting as evidence for how Lumuel had both betrayed his brother and his God's laws.
What a fricking jobber. Shitter goes nowhere in the army until Duane swoops in and carries the whole unit, sucks Shadwe's dick to serve his brother to a no-nut wizard and has to rely on an eight-year-old girl to stand up to him because he can't do it himself. Then, when Miki flays that fricker and Lemuel swoops in to "save" him, he can't face what he's done, gets extorted by a lowlife plodman, and just lets Duane get away. He even settled for his brother's sloppy seconds.
I don't think Lemuel is a revolutionary, he seems like he's just tried his best to keep his loved ones close and (relatively) unharmed while Alderode goes down the shitter.
I think he just wants proof either way. He seems to be devout to an extent, but clearly with some doubts. I think he just wanted to get answers one way or another.
I think Ashley mentioned a long time ago that if Bastion had more time he would've put all kinds of spells into Duane to keep him from rotting so at least the last part is true.
I had assumed this was the paradigm we were all operating under by now. Lemuel is a fricked up man and I'm pretty sure he's explicitly stated, post-Duane zombo-ing, that he thought he was being clever and outwitting God. It's clear he expected Duane to come back but also not be this insane, rotting corpse who throws every one of his crimes back in his face. The other part is more murky. Did he think this was a way for him to be able to satisfy his loathing of Duane, killing him, but also his love by bringing him back? It's clear to me Lemuel is still caught on his childish fancy of being able to find Ssael in the khert, and thus killing Duane and bringing him back was meant to try and actually find God. If you're Lemuel, there's literally no one else in your life who you'd think was closer to God than him.
And, of course, it's clear Lemuel is a revolutionary. Not necessarily in the principled sense, but in the sense that Lemuel wishes to overturn established social structures. He completely fricking hates the non-Soud castes, and the Ssaelit are currently losing political power. Everything about Duane's murder helps bolster the standing of the caste and faith.
It's really obvious by this point that Lemuel was deluded into thinking this gambit would be able to solve all his problems, spiritual, social, and practical, and it completely blew up in his face.
I'd always assumed that forcing Duane into an escort mission would prevent him from outright flattening all opposition. Greatest wright in centuries, and all.
But it could be that Lem (correctly) assumed Miki would be a wildcard that would catch Bastion off-guard. I imagine Bastion wasn't shy about what his goals were. While Lem wanted Duane to defy death, there's no way he would've consented to making his brother into some Black Tongue's lab rat to be toyed with until Bastion grew bored and disposed of him. Maybe Miki was there to do exactly what she did-- foul the procedure and allow Lem to swoop in and scoop up his newly-deathless brother, allowing them to meet up and face God to account for all of the suffering Lemuel's wanted answers for since he was a boy in the army.
But it wasn't like that. Duane didn't transcend death in the manner of Ssael; he became a damned thing, crazed, cursed to rot and forever acting as evidence for how Lumuel had both betrayed his brother and his God's laws.
What a fricking jobber. Shitter goes nowhere in the army until Duane swoops in and carries the whole unit, sucks Shadwe's dick to serve his brother to a no-nut wizard and has to rely on an eight-year-old girl to stand up to him because he can't do it himself. Then, when Miki flays that fricker and Lemuel swoops in to "save" him, he can't face what he's done, gets extorted by a lowlife plodman, and just lets Duane get away. He even settled for his brother's sloppy seconds.
Lemon really is worst boy.
Thoughts?
If Lem expected Duane to resurrect perfectly why did he have robot eyes at the ready?
Duane's eyes were poked out during the murder, presumably due to his resurrection involving the weeping plague. He would've needed pymaric eyes even in the best case scenario.
Duane's eyes were poked out during the murder, presumably due to his resurrection involving the weeping plague. He would've needed pymaric eyes even in the best case scenario.
...Yes, but why would Lem expect a perfect resurrection if it required him to be blinded?
>Ok pissmop, just letting you know ahead of time that we WILL be poking out his eyes. non-negotioable. >*Lemon, who is trying to figure out how long he can avoid fricking Leysa once they're married* and will this involve... dual blades? >We were just going to use the one >Oh... okay...
You're thinking and questioning like a rational person, which Lem is not. I don't think Lemon thought too deeply into all the details but was convinced that it would work and they would find Ssael.
Just because doesn't have eyes anymore doesn't mean Lem should have expected him to start rotting. The two factors are unrelated.
I think anon was more along the lines of a perfectly resurrected Duane should have had perfectly healed functioning eyes as well. Why should every other wound that's incompatible with life be healed in the resurrection and not the eyes too? How is a nonfatal wound too minor to heal but a fatal one is?
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
part of the resurrection process involved infecting Duane with Weeping Plague- the illness that spreads through direct human eye contact. Somehow, pymaric eyes avoid turning you into a plague vector
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
There's some reason it doesn't apply to Duane, though. His eyes had to go due to the weeping plague, and we know there was weeping plague in the Frankenstein juice because that was made explicit on-page. Maybe the fact that he has no eyes just "stuck" when he died, allowing Bastion to cheat around it in undeath. I dunno.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Maybe you can catch it if you have pyrmaric eyes, but you can't spread it
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Probably because the bit that is responsible for visual processing in an alive person (the brain) dripped out through his nose eons ago
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Seems the most likely to me. Duane technically shouldn't be able to think at all, which has been pointed out in the text. It was noted (with some discomfort and avoidance) by the man himself, and by that old inak woman.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Probably because the bit that is responsible for visual processing in an alive person (the brain) dripped out through his nose eons ago
Makes me think the eyes were a precaution because they weren't sure if a zombified Duane would be capable of spreading it.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
The problem is if that was the case, they would've gotten shittier eyes. Duane's super cool, expensive pair are exactly the kind that would spread it, were apparently other extenuating circumstances not stopping it anyway. Are we actually sure Bastion got the eyes? I always presumed Lemuel handled it himself once things went south.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
. . . why HASN'T duane given anyone the weeping plague? it's soul-transmitted and he drank six vials of the stuff. ashley did say the incubation period could be a couple months . . .
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>. . . why HASN'T duane given anyone the weeping plague?
Perhaps something has been primed to trigger once he gets back to Alderode. How ironic if Duane's going back to stop his country's destruction will itself cause the chaos. As Tittybird said, much is dependent upon Duane being as he always was.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
My guess is that Bastion's spellwork in some way overwrote or broke the Weeping Plague. He needed the Plague as a backdoor into the soul, but having him as a walking plague vector wouldn't do, so while he was in there editing the programming on Duane's soul, he could easily undo its effect (or since it was just a few minutes earlier, keep it from taking that effect at all).
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>ashley did say the incubation period could be a couple months
I think Duane's clients in Sharteshane would've been infected by now if it was possible
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Unless Shartes don't have Souls.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
That's just science.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
That's just science.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
Maybe whatever Bastion did with the plague renders it non-functional after Duane is "dead" and attached to the spine gizmo
[...]
[...]
If Lem expected Duane to resurrect perfectly why did he have robot eyes at the ready?
I doubt he expected him to resurrect perfectly. I imagine the robot eyes were arranged by Bastion. It'd make sense if Lemuel wasn't filled in entirely on what it would entail, just the parts necessary for him to act-- keep his men out of the way, keep the eyes at the ready. Like
Just because doesn't have eyes anymore doesn't mean Lem should have expected him to start rotting. The two factors are unrelated.
said, there's a huge leap between being told 'we're using your brother as a martyr to bring the Ssaelit to action, Shadwe's Black Tongue buttbuddy is going to use the body to try to create an undying man' and 'we're making your brother into a literal fricking plod.'
Lemuel is Ssaelit to the bone. Beating death is the endpoint of every good man before he joins Ssael on the throne. But Lemon is absolutely cracked from his time in the army. He's a foil to Duane in the sense that he doesn't want to walk the path and take the long road to being a good man, to embrace his suffering as necessary for when all men join together to remake the world-- he wanted Duane to look into the khert and ask 'why.' He's a man of action, and he's desperate. Why wait until the end of all things for answers? If your brother is dying anyway and heathen Black Tongues say they've bested death, why not steal the plot from under them and have your newly-undying brother wrest the answers from Ssael himself?
We know why, because we're autistic enough to delve into the technical answers and know more about the metaphysical world than any layman soldier would. But Lem is a shitter and a coward, and so instead of standing up to those who wanted him to set his men aside while they assassinated his brother, he turned the idea over in his head until he found a way to make damning Duane palatable to himself. I guess it all goes back to Best Worlds like that.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
I don't think Lemuel's a coward, but he seems to have a fatalist streak - 'no one's going anywhere,' as he said during the civil war. He and Duane are definitely brothers there, they know they're part of something that their moral character rejects, but so far as we've seen, neither could make the leap to turning their back on Alderode. Duane can't even do it as a dead man. He can't even do it when he's seen, first hand, what his hatred and willful naivety can result in. There's been a lot of rumination on this for Duane lately, for obvious reasons; I feel like the closest we've ever come to seeing Duane hate Alderode was during Quigley's meltdown.
All we know is Bastion convinced him that Duane wouldn't rot and go mad, and as far as the rotting goes, we know Bastion sincerely did not intend for it to happen. I don't think he cares about Duane suffering, though. Actually, he seems to take a certain smug satisfaction from it.
2 weeks ago
Anonymous
>I don't think he cares about Duane suffering, though.
He definitely doesn't care about Duane's suffering. > Actually, he seems to take a certain smug satisfaction from it.
The experiment deserved suffering for running away.
plenty of people irl have "one of the good ones" that they like and treat well. Lemon would still tell him that Roger Foi-Hellick is hiding in a latrine if he got annoyed.
Yeah, and he probably has good memories of the "good" done to him by the Jet and Silver from the flashback too. Though maybe not as much since he still has to deal with Argenti more often nowadays than Claggart. But he still knows, deep down, they're irreparably compromised. Lemuel also has had more experience dealing with the nature of Soud oppression in Alderode. He's not some moustache twirling racist villain, but his vision of the future doesn't include him making space for other castes. Not outright genocide or something, but if they or people in them have to take a hit for the Souds, he's not sorry.
Speaking of Lemuel, re-reading the wartime chapters has somewhat increased my sympathy for him, and made me notice some things I missed the first time. Like Lem was medically confined at some point for mental issues during his service, going by the "again" one of his comrades mentions when his sighting of Roger is assumed to be a delusion. Claggart doesn't seem to notice how close Lem is to a meltdown.
Wouldn't be surprised if Unsounded doesn't consider PTSD to be a thing. Lem's just being a child who needs to get a grip rather than being a deeply scarred human who has experienced shit by 14 that nobody should ever have to experience.
Having PTSD can explain why is the way he is, but it doesn't absolve him of the things he's done. No matter what Disney tells you, having a tragic backstory doesn't automatically make you redeemable.
Is Sette gonna be some sort of counterpoint to the Ana hosting the Silver and its pain ghosts? She better get working on internalizing happy memories, then.
>Sette >happy memories
lol
lmao even
She'd do better convincing Jackie to direct squishes out of the khert while she's holding open a hole to drive the eels away.
You know, has Bastion ever stopped to think hat his genius comes from Sessine cheat codes? I mean I'm sure he's a cunning dude besides that, but conquering death isn't so impressive when someone else is reading you the instructions...
You know, on the bright side, Duane's love for Sette is definitely not fake, because she never asked for it and has done a rather lot of things to forestall any fondness anyone might have for her. Nor is Duane being impressed at her courage at the Nevergreen a product of mind control. So when Sette's done slobbering in misery and Duane's done being extruded out of an eel butthole, maybe they can both calm down and develop some safewords or something.
The only thing we really know is that souls are vessels for memories. Whether they reincarnate like religions believe or else are no more after all the memories are stripped from them is currently unknown.
I believe Ash stated that Duane's soul is changed from a regular soul (or maybe that was an anon's hypothesis, I forget). Despite being like 95% detached from a physical body, it still retains all of its memories and holds its form in the khert when souls tend unravel in the khert since they are only meant to be there after death.
Souls are assemblages of memories that make up a person. Whether or not there's a reincarnating kernel at the center is a matter of religious belief (we don't know enough about the forest of babies in the Khert to be certain how they factor in). Normally, when someone dies their soul enters the Khert and shatters into individual memories; whatever Bastion did altered the properties of Duane's soul such that it doesn't fly apart when it enters the Khert, and instead of being bound to a body like normal, it's bound to the silver Pymaric in this neck (using the extra spinal Khert Port that causes his tacit casting).
>It’s meant to be more uncannily human. I’ll post a bunch of concept art on Patreon after this chapter’s over, but I worked on Jac’s design for years.
Reminds me of the DD2 Sphinx, which has a really uncanny face too in that the woman/bird/lion elements are all noticeable and work together well.
Remember when Sette killed Duane?
He had it coming
Duane has been dead for years.
good times
Friendship ended with Duane.
Now Jacaranda is my best friend.
Who?
>Duane
From the Wayne?
A very good not!brother. The goodest of good boys.
ISSA KITTY
Website comment:
>MURDER- oh, wait.
>-Ashley
Patreon comment:
>Yeah, she smells about like she should.
>Jacaranda doesn't really speak, so don't hurt yourself waiting for him to say something. Lions can only produce a few specific monosyllables of human language, and don't really like to do it.
>Lions can only produce a few specific monosyllables of human language
Jacaranda’s vocabulary:
>ye
>nah
>woah
>aw
I think it's more likely to be
>Ye
>los
>teh
>gam
I see you
>Lions can barely talk
Why does that matter in the khert? iirc we've seen baby ghosts and eels impose their thoughts on Sette.
>Funnies catching strays
Ayo what the frick
Jacaranda seems to be pushing the red eels away
Will he save Duane?
bro it's cat
This comic has been going on since 2007 and I still don't understand what the plot is. I remember in 2013 briefly trying to make sense of the wiki, but gave up because of the wordiness. And it's still going (nowhere).
This isn't Gunnershit Fail, you appear to be lost.
>biggest happenings
This comic is just about the e-girls though.
Ok, here's your headpat and (You), you can run along now.
Go back to your Sunday funnies and capeshit.
Sunday funnies are great, you frick right off with that.
To the rereading gulag with you
>going nowhere
We just had some of the biggest happenings in the comic these past few months
I mean, in one way that's true - arguably. there isn't really some obvious overarching plot arc (except maybe "wtf happened in the past???"), but if that filters you out, then you're just a brainlet.
That’s the sad thing about teh internet, there are actually more brainlets than not.
And then they are forced to go sour grapes on anything of quality let’s make it spicy, XKCD for example, this maybe even.
But it isn’t actually that hard to get into, you just need to be able to pay attention.
I do have sympathy tho, War and Peace filtered me, I couldn’t hold all the characters in my mind on each of the 7 times I’ve assailed it.
Try Anna Karenina. It's better.
Comic started in 2010
>in the past
a dude fricked up and also apparently just fricked a world of immortal monsters with spooky powers before getting killed by his kids or something
>now
The black communist slavers have been at war with the religious eugenics enthusiasts for years. The eugenics people have a way to modify and control the world's magic system, giving them a massive advantage on their home turf and any areas they occupy. Eventually one of their higher ups falls on love with the communist queen and let's her know of a day one exploit in their modified magic system that can potentially allow anyone to mind control everyone in the country without blond hair. Commie queen is currently trying to do this exploit with the help of a surviving immortal monster with spooky powers and a bunch of funny wizards who worship a femdom monster crow with breasts. Unbeknownst to everyone femdom crow is currently trying to rape reality hard enough to let her come back from the notwarp into realspace.
>t.speedreader
>communist slavers
Plods aren't people, anon; if anything the other side is more into slavery with whatever "kussen" end up being
>modify and control the world's magic system
Modify – sure, control – eeeeeh, their ancestors probably knew what they were doing, nowadays it's more of a "monkeys with nukes" situation
>falls on love with the communist queen
Black person, he was ghey and the love thing was just a cover-up so they can work on the exploit
>spooky powers
Did you mean: spooky rape powers? The rape part is important
>Modify – sure, control – eeeeeh, their ancestors probably knew what they were doing
The Queen's entire plot hinges on the fact that they most definitely did not.
I mean, they weren't perfect, sure, but at least they were able to make this dumb hack, while contemporaries didn't even know that's possible
>Plods aren't people
NTA, but he might have been referring to the inak. Although, I can't imagine Alderode would have been much kinder to them.
Yeah, he was obviously referring to the lizards.
is an obvious crescian to have forgotten they exist.
>I can't imagine Alderode would have been much kinder to them
They don't seem to live in Alderode from what we've seen, I guess tis too cold. They do live in Sharteshane and Ulstery and presumably elsewhere though and seem better off in those places than they do in Cresce.
Regular human slavery isn't banned or stigmatized either, IIRC. Jivi's attempts to win freedom involved yelling to Matty that he isn't a LEGAL slave, not that he's a child being kept against his will. From what I remember, it's just the case that plods and the inak squeeze out the niche human slaves would occupy in Cresce these days.
Slavery in the form of trading has been made illegal in Cresce with the advent of plods and Inak labor, however if you refuse to work you still get sent to a work camp to break rocks or whatever
>Jivi's attempts to win freedom involved yelling to Matty that he isn't a LEGAL slave
12 Years a Jivi
So he also got fricked up teeth, like Sette....and no balls.
I think we are gonna need word of god on the balls situation. It might just be that Ash didn't wanna draw them frequently.
She hasn't been shy about drawing 'em before. Generally if she draws the twig, the berries aren't far behind.
>fricked up teeth
they seem very normal for a lion
A lion should have 3 incisors on each side of their jaws (that's six in the upper and six in the lower jaw).
He’s not a 1:1 real world lion, anon. He also doesn’t have a tail, in case you haven’t noticed.
Yeah, because Sette got his.
I'm not nitpicking anything. Just noting the differences to real world lions. Aren't we allowed to discuss shit anymore?
>Just noting the differences to real world lions.
You said he had fricked up teeth, which is a blatantly false observation.
No? A lion has 6 incisors. see:
This guy has 4 at most.
NTA but I'm going to punch you over TCP/IP.
Fricked up implies messed up. Jacaranda’s teeth seem perfectly intentional, so no, they’re not fricked up at all. I’m sorry you’re upset the fantasy creature doesn’t have the exact biology of a real world lion, but that doesn’t change the reality that his teeth are not fricked up. They’re simply not what a real lion has.
Man, stop being autistic about it.
Even Kasslynian lions are supposed to have six incisors, see page: 15_56
What's wrong with me noticing differences? Jac also lacks any whiskers for example.
I see what you're saying but I think the thing is that Jacaranda is supposed to be cartoony in the way that Sette is because they're twins. So his teeth are stylized blobs like the human characters usually are. This lion looks way more cartoony than the other lions that have been in the book
Cope has indeed mentioned that Jack is not anatomically correct for a lion, he's "weird" like Sette is. No one in the khert to bully him about it, though.
Isn't their religion's gimmick that one twin is sacrificed and the other lives to old age? Or am I thinking of some other creepy twin-based religion?
Yep. Younger twin gets cannibalized, older twin goes on to join the priesthood.
Ashley has specifically said that Jacaranda has features that are different from a Kasslynian lion. That's why the incisors are being pointed out.
A lion also shouldn't have hands and giant monkey ears. I'm not sure I'd nitpick the teeth.
I don't think Ash was being super anal about lion biology. Especially since he is blatantly fantastic in other areas.
looks close enough to me, it’s not like we’ve seen very many of him
Whenever I see a picture of a cat yawning my mind automatically imagines that it is meowing very loudly instead. This is no exception.
Well, it's also their sex face.
>and no balls
And Sette has no ovaries. He has a wiener though, just like Sette has a vagoo. Checkmate, atheists.
>But I use that terminology… for a very specific reason. And it’s not a reason the story will ever broach. The true origins of the world will never be revealed, not in the text nor on here, but I know them. And the structure of it all is, of course, relevant to that.
Does that mean we'll never learn who the first "creator" who set the first world into motion is?
inb4 it’s Stephen King. And I don’t mean Ash as the creator, I mean the man himself.
I do cocaine
Mr. King, I'm a huge fan
COOOOOOOPEEEEEE, my autism needs to know, or I'll just shrivel and die : X I kinda-sorta understand the rationale for not spoiling it now (well not really, I think a good story can stand own it's own regardless of that, but I accept this is not that widely shared of an opinion), but why not after the comic is done?
Is it a Xenoblade situation? I bet it's a Xenoblade situation.
What's the Xenoblade situation? I only played 'Gears.
TL;DR scientist fricked around and found out - they ran an unproven experiment that destroyed our universe and birthed a new one, where they became god-like entities. I didn't really play it only read synopsis, so might be wrong on points (or sequels had since retconned it), but that's what I've meant.
Scientists on a space station create a second big bang resulting in a new universe where two of them become gods and the onboard AI becomes the divine providence (whatever that means).
I’m assuming they are part of an actual video game or at least a computer program as the comment mentions that the terminology is mentioned for a reason. Grant it I’m guessing the reason she’ll never talk about it is because it’s important for the characters’ archs for the world’s origins to have ambiguity so some of their own questions are never answered and giving the answer would recontextualize their archs but god damn those were answers I’ve been waiting for for years.
>I’m assuming they are part of an actual video game or at least a computer program as the comment mentions that the terminology is mentioned for a reason.
I do recall written pymary looking like mathematical formula's, and having the idle thought that it's interesting to approach magic as a programming language for reality.
Unsounded takes place in a really elaborate Morrowind mod where the characters have console commad access
It's really funny that there are even 'script kiddie' wrights.
No, that's the point. It ruins the magic of the story if you know how the world works.
This is a REALLY wise understanding of storytelling on cope's part. Few webcomic artists handle this right.
Yep that's a dog all right.
What's his endgame?
Does she have nipples yet? What's the deal with that?
It's been established no she doesn't. And we don't know the specifics other than that she's Sette and not truly human.
Post that page.
>Yeah, she smells about like she should.
Cats like stinky things.
I wonder how many times Sette's gonna have to whip out the claws before they stop making her hand into a bleeding mess. I wonder if that's even possible for flesh and blood Sette like it is for Khert Sette.
Cope said that they have a resting place between the fingerbones, and that they'll eventually be able to retract and extend without tearing shit up
I'm gonna be honest, I'm still just completely baffled by everything going on. I have nothing witty or incisive to say, I'm just along for the ride.
At what point does the protagonist get sounded?
He's double murdered and his dick rotted off about 5 years ago. So, never.
So there’s 100% good/evil twin dynamic here.
Aside from “of course”, Khette has control over the snakes, as she’s riding off on one. Jacaranda is the one attracting squishes.
If the pattern was always, then I guess sette was always the one murdered, hence her phobia of twin shrines.
came twice to that first panel
That lion does have a tight ass.
?t=73
Guard duty the night the queen was murdered?
I'm still chuffed that 5 seconds after Duane bites it, a real lion finally shows up.
Jackie seems like such a good boy.
You guys noticed the lion and his bro changed colors when they moved apart?
Yeah. People noticed that they were both changing and become less khert and more corporeal.
I hope Duane is okay in hell whilst suffering the memories forcefully implanted in him. really hope he's fine.
really hope they're back together again soon.
I dunno how Duane's doing, but it's almost certainly not 'fine,' considering he's going to forcibly be denied the ability to ignore his brother's treachery.
Dammit, Jacaranda, this is a serious scene with no space for feline shenanigans!
Thoughts?
>Thoughts?
This is what happens when lemon fangirls try to explain him, typing with one hand while shlicking one out with the other..
Anon that's Ashley saying it's spot on except for one thing
>except for one thing
Being lemon is a shit.
>except for one thing
Lemon is already dead
>Lemon is already dead
No chance in hell unfortunately. That is not how animu rolls.
Dead means the end of his story and his suffering. Lemon must live.
You know nothing about citrus.
Lemon isn’t dead until he’s squirted in your eye and made you cry in discomfort.
Not once in this comic has someone with an ambiguous death not turned out to be alive. Even Starfish has a (horrible) half-life. If Cope wanted Lemuel dead, he would've been torn apart alive and screaming on-page, she's not exactly shy about grisly deaths.
Perhaps the one crucial thing is that Miki was supposed to be there. That's something that's been brought up at least twice, Lem SPECIFICALLY asked to see her that day. It's definitely true that Lem didn't expect Duane to rot (and he might not have, had he not run away and avoided preservative methods; Murkoph seems to have reached an unhappy stasis, perhaps Duane is supposed to have regeneration that wasn't installed). I dunno who this person thinks blamed Lem for killing his mother besides Lem's own conscience, Duane certainly didn't, and comforted his fears on that topic as best he could from what we've been told.
For a moment Lemuel thought wrights could see into the khert and talk to Ssael or the souls of the deceased.
Well, there might be a way. A way to truly sound the great unsounded.
I think most people agree Lem wants Duane to sound the unsounded, or wants to cooperate with a plan that involves that. What I want to know is why Duane's daughter had to be there.
I'd always assumed that forcing Duane into an escort mission would prevent him from outright flattening all opposition. Greatest wright in centuries, and all.
But it could be that Lem (correctly) assumed Miki would be a wildcard that would catch Bastion off-guard. I imagine Bastion wasn't shy about what his goals were. While Lem wanted Duane to defy death, there's no way he would've consented to making his brother into some Black Tongue's lab rat to be toyed with until Bastion grew bored and disposed of him. Maybe Miki was there to do exactly what she did-- foul the procedure and allow Lem to swoop in and scoop up his newly-deathless brother, allowing them to meet up and face God to account for all of the suffering Lemuel's wanted answers for since he was a boy in the army.
But it wasn't like that. Duane didn't transcend death in the manner of Ssael; he became a damned thing, crazed, cursed to rot and forever acting as evidence for how Lumuel had both betrayed his brother and his God's laws.
What a fricking jobber. Shitter goes nowhere in the army until Duane swoops in and carries the whole unit, sucks Shadwe's dick to serve his brother to a no-nut wizard and has to rely on an eight-year-old girl to stand up to him because he can't do it himself. Then, when Miki flays that fricker and Lemuel swoops in to "save" him, he can't face what he's done, gets extorted by a lowlife plodman, and just lets Duane get away. He even settled for his brother's sloppy seconds.
Lemon really is worst boy.
>He even settled for his brother's sloppy seconds.
Listen, Leysa is a damn fine woman, and also Aldish society would expect Lemuel to marry her.
I don't think Lemuel is a revolutionary, he seems like he's just tried his best to keep his loved ones close and (relatively) unharmed while Alderode goes down the shitter.
Why the message on the wall then?
Guess we'll know by chapter's end.
Lem doesn't want to preserve the Ssaelit faith - he wants to decisively destroy it by making it clear Ssael isn't waiting in the Great Unsounded.
I think he just wants proof either way. He seems to be devout to an extent, but clearly with some doubts. I think he just wanted to get answers one way or another.
I think Ashley mentioned a long time ago that if Bastion had more time he would've put all kinds of spells into Duane to keep him from rotting so at least the last part is true.
Bastion would've probably been horribly killed sooner or later, I can't see how he would effectively control Duane
Duane is at least partially a pymaric device. He might not have had much say. Or Sette may have been part of the plan from the beginning.
I had assumed this was the paradigm we were all operating under by now. Lemuel is a fricked up man and I'm pretty sure he's explicitly stated, post-Duane zombo-ing, that he thought he was being clever and outwitting God. It's clear he expected Duane to come back but also not be this insane, rotting corpse who throws every one of his crimes back in his face. The other part is more murky. Did he think this was a way for him to be able to satisfy his loathing of Duane, killing him, but also his love by bringing him back? It's clear to me Lemuel is still caught on his childish fancy of being able to find Ssael in the khert, and thus killing Duane and bringing him back was meant to try and actually find God. If you're Lemuel, there's literally no one else in your life who you'd think was closer to God than him.
And, of course, it's clear Lemuel is a revolutionary. Not necessarily in the principled sense, but in the sense that Lemuel wishes to overturn established social structures. He completely fricking hates the non-Soud castes, and the Ssaelit are currently losing political power. Everything about Duane's murder helps bolster the standing of the caste and faith.
It's really obvious by this point that Lemuel was deluded into thinking this gambit would be able to solve all his problems, spiritual, social, and practical, and it completely blew up in his face.
If Lem expected Duane to resurrect perfectly why did he have robot eyes at the ready?
Duane's eyes were poked out during the murder, presumably due to his resurrection involving the weeping plague. He would've needed pymaric eyes even in the best case scenario.
Because stabbing his eyes out was part of the plan?
...Yes, but why would Lem expect a perfect resurrection if it required him to be blinded?
Just because doesn't have eyes anymore doesn't mean Lem should have expected him to start rotting. The two factors are unrelated.
>Ok pissmop, just letting you know ahead of time that we WILL be poking out his eyes. non-negotioable.
>*Lemon, who is trying to figure out how long he can avoid fricking Leysa once they're married* and will this involve... dual blades?
>We were just going to use the one
>Oh... okay...
You're thinking and questioning like a rational person, which Lem is not. I don't think Lemon thought too deeply into all the details but was convinced that it would work and they would find Ssael.
I think anon was more along the lines of a perfectly resurrected Duane should have had perfectly healed functioning eyes as well. Why should every other wound that's incompatible with life be healed in the resurrection and not the eyes too? How is a nonfatal wound too minor to heal but a fatal one is?
part of the resurrection process involved infecting Duane with Weeping Plague- the illness that spreads through direct human eye contact. Somehow, pymaric eyes avoid turning you into a plague vector
There's some reason it doesn't apply to Duane, though. His eyes had to go due to the weeping plague, and we know there was weeping plague in the Frankenstein juice because that was made explicit on-page. Maybe the fact that he has no eyes just "stuck" when he died, allowing Bastion to cheat around it in undeath. I dunno.
Maybe you can catch it if you have pyrmaric eyes, but you can't spread it
Probably because the bit that is responsible for visual processing in an alive person (the brain) dripped out through his nose eons ago
Seems the most likely to me. Duane technically shouldn't be able to think at all, which has been pointed out in the text. It was noted (with some discomfort and avoidance) by the man himself, and by that old inak woman.
Makes me think the eyes were a precaution because they weren't sure if a zombified Duane would be capable of spreading it.
The problem is if that was the case, they would've gotten shittier eyes. Duane's super cool, expensive pair are exactly the kind that would spread it, were apparently other extenuating circumstances not stopping it anyway. Are we actually sure Bastion got the eyes? I always presumed Lemuel handled it himself once things went south.
. . . why HASN'T duane given anyone the weeping plague? it's soul-transmitted and he drank six vials of the stuff. ashley did say the incubation period could be a couple months . . .
>. . . why HASN'T duane given anyone the weeping plague?
Perhaps something has been primed to trigger once he gets back to Alderode. How ironic if Duane's going back to stop his country's destruction will itself cause the chaos. As Tittybird said, much is dependent upon Duane being as he always was.
My guess is that Bastion's spellwork in some way overwrote or broke the Weeping Plague. He needed the Plague as a backdoor into the soul, but having him as a walking plague vector wouldn't do, so while he was in there editing the programming on Duane's soul, he could easily undo its effect (or since it was just a few minutes earlier, keep it from taking that effect at all).
>ashley did say the incubation period could be a couple months
I think Duane's clients in Sharteshane would've been infected by now if it was possible
Unless Shartes don't have Souls.
That's just science.
Maybe whatever Bastion did with the plague renders it non-functional after Duane is "dead" and attached to the spine gizmo
I doubt he expected him to resurrect perfectly. I imagine the robot eyes were arranged by Bastion. It'd make sense if Lemuel wasn't filled in entirely on what it would entail, just the parts necessary for him to act-- keep his men out of the way, keep the eyes at the ready. Like
said, there's a huge leap between being told 'we're using your brother as a martyr to bring the Ssaelit to action, Shadwe's Black Tongue buttbuddy is going to use the body to try to create an undying man' and 'we're making your brother into a literal fricking plod.'
Lemuel is Ssaelit to the bone. Beating death is the endpoint of every good man before he joins Ssael on the throne. But Lemon is absolutely cracked from his time in the army. He's a foil to Duane in the sense that he doesn't want to walk the path and take the long road to being a good man, to embrace his suffering as necessary for when all men join together to remake the world-- he wanted Duane to look into the khert and ask 'why.' He's a man of action, and he's desperate. Why wait until the end of all things for answers? If your brother is dying anyway and heathen Black Tongues say they've bested death, why not steal the plot from under them and have your newly-undying brother wrest the answers from Ssael himself?
We know why, because we're autistic enough to delve into the technical answers and know more about the metaphysical world than any layman soldier would. But Lem is a shitter and a coward, and so instead of standing up to those who wanted him to set his men aside while they assassinated his brother, he turned the idea over in his head until he found a way to make damning Duane palatable to himself. I guess it all goes back to Best Worlds like that.
I don't think Lemuel's a coward, but he seems to have a fatalist streak - 'no one's going anywhere,' as he said during the civil war. He and Duane are definitely brothers there, they know they're part of something that their moral character rejects, but so far as we've seen, neither could make the leap to turning their back on Alderode. Duane can't even do it as a dead man. He can't even do it when he's seen, first hand, what his hatred and willful naivety can result in. There's been a lot of rumination on this for Duane lately, for obvious reasons; I feel like the closest we've ever come to seeing Duane hate Alderode was during Quigley's meltdown.
All we know is Bastion convinced him that Duane wouldn't rot and go mad, and as far as the rotting goes, we know Bastion sincerely did not intend for it to happen. I don't think he cares about Duane suffering, though. Actually, he seems to take a certain smug satisfaction from it.
>I don't think he cares about Duane suffering, though.
He definitely doesn't care about Duane's suffering.
> Actually, he seems to take a certain smug satisfaction from it.
The experiment deserved suffering for running away.
>He completely fricking hates the non-Soud castes,
His copilot was a plat, anon.
plenty of people irl have "one of the good ones" that they like and treat well. Lemon would still tell him that Roger Foi-Hellick is hiding in a latrine if he got annoyed.
Yeah, and he probably has good memories of the "good" done to him by the Jet and Silver from the flashback too. Though maybe not as much since he still has to deal with Argenti more often nowadays than Claggart. But he still knows, deep down, they're irreparably compromised. Lemuel also has had more experience dealing with the nature of Soud oppression in Alderode. He's not some moustache twirling racist villain, but his vision of the future doesn't include him making space for other castes. Not outright genocide or something, but if they or people in them have to take a hit for the Souds, he's not sorry.
haha Lion has hairy butt lol
It's not even close to the fluffiest butt though.
>moustache balls
Pantoffel used to be a boy dog at the start, but at some point was retconned into a girl.dog.
Fluffiest living butt
Damn he totally has his face under her shirt in panel 6.
Jacaranda is into tummies.
Speaking of Lemuel, re-reading the wartime chapters has somewhat increased my sympathy for him, and made me notice some things I missed the first time. Like Lem was medically confined at some point for mental issues during his service, going by the "again" one of his comrades mentions when his sighting of Roger is assumed to be a delusion. Claggart doesn't seem to notice how close Lem is to a meltdown.
Wouldn't be surprised if Unsounded doesn't consider PTSD to be a thing. Lem's just being a child who needs to get a grip rather than being a deeply scarred human who has experienced shit by 14 that nobody should ever have to experience.
I mean, Lem is pretty clearly suffering from PTSD symptoms.
I mean so were plenty of soldiers from the world wars and Vietnam, but they didn't think of it in remotely that way back then.
Having PTSD can explain why is the way he is, but it doesn't absolve him of the things he's done. No matter what Disney tells you, having a tragic backstory doesn't automatically make you redeemable.
Never said it did, just that its understandable why he's as fricked up as he is.
Wait am I missing something or am I just stupid?
Where did the magic baby lion go?
Back into her probably. He was just memory of sorts.
yoinked back into her
like what happened with the sara+sette memory that she pulled out a chapter ago
Is Sette gonna be some sort of counterpoint to the Ana hosting the Silver and its pain ghosts? She better get working on internalizing happy memories, then.
>Sette
>happy memories
lol
lmao even
She'd do better convincing Jackie to direct squishes out of the khert while she's holding open a hole to drive the eels away.
The Lightbringer should revisit this series
A nice moment of calm in the middle of all the OH SHIT moments and revelations happening all at once.
You know, has Bastion ever stopped to think hat his genius comes from Sessine cheat codes? I mean I'm sure he's a cunning dude besides that, but conquering death isn't so impressive when someone else is reading you the instructions...
Ilganyag has influenced his path through life, but Bastion's talents are his alone. He definitely resents her plotting in mortal affairs.
You know, on the bright side, Duane's love for Sette is definitely not fake, because she never asked for it and has done a rather lot of things to forestall any fondness anyone might have for her. Nor is Duane being impressed at her courage at the Nevergreen a product of mind control. So when Sette's done slobbering in misery and Duane's done being extruded out of an eel butthole, maybe they can both calm down and develop some safewords or something.
i think they just need a good cuddle under a tree together. duane could explain how he's using pymary to make himself as soft as a pillow.
Isn't Duane just a bunch of memories shoved into a dead body? Does the dude even have a soul? Are souls memories?
The only thing we really know is that souls are vessels for memories. Whether they reincarnate like religions believe or else are no more after all the memories are stripped from them is currently unknown.
I believe Ash stated that Duane's soul is changed from a regular soul (or maybe that was an anon's hypothesis, I forget). Despite being like 95% detached from a physical body, it still retains all of its memories and holds its form in the khert when souls tend unravel in the khert since they are only meant to be there after death.
Souls are assemblages of memories that make up a person. Whether or not there's a reincarnating kernel at the center is a matter of religious belief (we don't know enough about the forest of babies in the Khert to be certain how they factor in). Normally, when someone dies their soul enters the Khert and shatters into individual memories; whatever Bastion did altered the properties of Duane's soul such that it doesn't fly apart when it enters the Khert, and instead of being bound to a body like normal, it's bound to the silver Pymaric in this neck (using the extra spinal Khert Port that causes his tacit casting).
>It’s meant to be more uncannily human. I’ll post a bunch of concept art on Patreon after this chapter’s over, but I worked on Jac’s design for years.
Reminds me of the DD2 Sphinx, which has a really uncanny face too in that the woman/bird/lion elements are all noticeable and work together well.
BP