Oh, that IS the Alds. It's funny as hell that they seem to be the ONE part of Bell's plan that has actually made it to its objective. Everybody else, including Bell himself, fricked up. But the Alds made it through.
There's some racial commentary you could make about that, but I'll refrain from it.
To be fair, it's also the FILTHY ALDISH TRAITOR'S plan too. Did we actually get any confirmation of that one way or the other, or are we all still assuming it's worst brother alive?
I was specifically recalling Bell saying his counterpart was one of the few "sane" ones, something that also reminds me of what Lemon and Duane came to think about their country men in light of seeing the effects of the Etelarche curse. Especially now that we know Bell knew about it's effects and utilized them himself. That puts me in the mind of a Soud and Lemuel has been shown to be a man of big plans and somewhat dubious in how actually well thought out those plans were. Much like Bell, in fact.
The Ssaelit have literally no choice. This isn't some gay political gambit for them, it's a matter of either surviving or being pogrommed out of existence.
I mean there's not a lot to recommend Alderode to an artistic 21st century woman. It's a police state. It's heavily class and caste-stratified. There's sectarian tension that we all know is about to explode into brutal sectarian violence. Women are second-class citizens who literally need a man to have stable lives unless they wanna be a gutter bawd. Your army practices industrialized rape as a formal operational policy when conducting war. You don't really have any of the freedoms Americans take for granted. Oh, and it's cold, which I'm sure fills a Foloridian with dread.
This isn't to say Cresce is great, I don't think any of the nation-states we've seen could be called anything except 'less bad,' but Alderode isn't a fun place to live unless you're pretty lucky by birth.
It probably depends on the time frame, as well. Cresce right now is pretty chill because it's advanced, relatively peaceful, and under compassionate leadership. But we've seen a piece of shit like Bell very nearly take control of the nation, and he was very busy perpetrating his own, little genocide. Clearly the Crescian army is full of scum as well, and their compassionate leader is still unleashing a lot of hellish weapons on the world. Though, general Crescian society seems pretty OK compared to the Aldish castes and Sharteshanian universal crime.
The more immediate concern would be that any normal white person would probably be seen as a Sharteshanian or similar by everyone in that world. And I wouldn't want to be a Shart in either nation. If you're blond, you might get away with presenting as Soud, but that's barely better. At least in Alderode you could get with that community.
Ash kinda hinted on the tumblr a while back Ufal might not be in for a good time either (it was a "oh dear" response to an ask of people saying they liked him)
Sucks for Ufal, but people bite the dust all the time in this comic. I'm sure there were a lot of people who identified with Anadyne as well. I recall seeing speculation that she'd end up under the tutelage of Duane.
That probably would've been a better fate than becoming the host for man-made horror beyond comprehension, but I don't think Ana would've enjoyed being Duane's student. He's a pretty uncompromising guy when he gets academic and doesn't seem to have much patience for students who are (or who he sees as being) lazy.
I agree with anon. Anadyne being an adult won't have the same protective effect as Sette being a child near Mikayla's age (at Duane's death) did. Plus there's Sette's unique Sette-ness.
I am curious for how long Anadyne would put up with Duane just to learn pymary though.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Plus there's the fact that Anadyne is a woman trying to learn pymary, and Duane isn't gonna give her an exception like he did for Mikaela. Plus he's learned you HAVE to be strict when working with an art that can blow up your hands.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>I am curious for how long Anadyne would put up with Duane just to learn pymary though.
If she's smart, she'd just knuckle down and put up with him when he's being more insufferable than called-for. Duane apparently is a really excellent, knowledgeable, and responsible teacher. Worth his weight in sem at least.
>send the gay poet spirit to give a very important warning message >he makes it in the nick of time, barely seconds ahead of the assassins armed with magical buzzsaw guns >he decides to rhyme for a paragraph first
Fricking ghosts, no respect for mortal peril
Remember: in this universe, ghosts like Timofey are constructed. Bastion built him to be this way, it's Bastion's fault he's a prancing homosexual with no sense of urgency.
Nah, Bastion wanted a cute imouto that would take missions like that adorably seriously, he just accidentally got some unusually gay first light or something
Memories of Sugar, Spice, and some First Light: These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girl.
But Professor Bastion accidentally added an extra ingredient to the construction, Flamboyant Poetry.
Thus, Timofey was born!
It was. Other anon was wrong, or maybe just thinking what he salvaged Timofey into.
I still think the general consensus among the wrights of Kasslyne about what things like Timofey and Boo are is harsh, andd points to a general lack of understanding of the khert and their own nature... posibly that they don't want to think about too much.
This reminds me of something I've thought about for a while
Do you guys think if Duane found out Bastion was responsible for his condition would Duane just try to murder him with all methods available at hand
I know Bastion is afraid of this I'm just wondering if his fears are legit
>Do you guys think if Duane found out Bastion was responsible for his condition would Duane just try to murder him with all methods available at hand
Oh yes.
And I would be disappointed in Duane if he didn't.
>I'm just wondering if his fears are legit
Very, I would say. One of Duane's previous jobs was dealing with Blacktongue's work after all. And if Duane wanted to murder Bastion, Bastion would be murdered, unless someone could convince him otherwise halfway through the murdering.
Realistically, in the whole story so far (outside of flashbacks to young Duane) we haven't really seen Duane fighting fully unleashed, except the two fights with the Silver.
One on one vs another wright, when Duane isn't playing and doesn't hold back at all, I think it would be very quick.
Duane is a man of passions. Depending on the mood he may or may not immediately jump to throttling. Right now he seems in a pensive, reflective, and conciliatory mood so he probably wouldn't. But yeah one has to imagine if Duane found out his mind rending, soul tormenting condition was caused by a filthy bird fricker who was using him as a lab experiment, he'd probably be caught somewhere between frozen in shock as his world view once again shifted seismically around this information and blind fury.
I'm sure Duane has also avoided thinking to closely about his condition. He views it as some kind of weirdo test from god, but a wright of his intelligence and penetrating insight should've begun wondering by now what's going on practically. That said, I think Cope has also largely confirmed he's afraid any kind of scientific exploration might just do something weird to him by accident since he has absolutely no starting point to understand what's happened to him. All of that together has conspired towards keeping himself in the dark. Having a concrete, possibly even intelligible answer about what was done would floor him in a number of ways. I'm reminded of when he reverted to a pymary school teacher with Mikaila's frickery over actually be mad at her for disobeying him. I could seem him bouncing between maniac interest in thinking through this new information and what it means for everything about pymary and profound horror at what's been done to him and why and the responsible individual appearing before him.
duane needs three spiritual revelations, several more years as a surrogate father, and a training montage before he'd be high enough level for the forgiveness not killing him on sight would take
It's hard to say what he'd do now - Duane is a man quite literally pulling himself back together after falling to what he fairly perceives as his absolute moral low - but Duane of the past would've killed Bastion, and probably very painfully.
I hate how Ashley throws around words like "objectively" and "based" in this post. I for one can't stand creases 'grandma's catch all drawer' aesthetic. i hate it! I HATE IT!
>objectively based
I assume she meant based in objectivity
It’s sad that based has become such a nonword now that it ruins grammatically correct sentences.
she's not talking about Cresce's aesthetic, she's talking about the whole "relatively functioning state that doesn't have huge torture pits and institutionalized sexism" part
You say this now, but imagine getting isekaid into Unsounded and you're some waifish Plat femboy, and you can't speak Tainish all that well, so your best job option is to be a fancy prostitute, and you spend your short life getting railed by men like Claggart until your organs melt and leak out of her translucent gaped butthole at the ripe old age of 21.
Dying at the age of 21 is unappealing. Plats have it rough. I'm too scared of death not to want to be a copper even if they suck at pymary.
7 months ago
Anonymous
>copper >not fricking and dying like a common bronze boy
You are afraid to truly live life.
7 months ago
Anonymous
What the frick is there to be scared of? Are you just assuming it'll be bad instead of just being nothing? Are you scared of all the things you might miss, ignoring that everyone everywhere will always miss most of everything? Who cares if you don't get to see it all? You get to see the part you're there for, and that's already more than you'll ever be able to fully process as it is! Don't freak yourself out thinking about what you don't have and start thinking about what you do
7 months ago
Anonymous
Being nothing is worse then it being bad.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Why? What's so scary about nothing? Do you get scared of the concept of a dreamless sleep as well?
7 months ago
Anonymous
Not him but permanent ego death isn’t something every one wants to get on board with. I’d rather do endless sleep than something eternally bad too.
7 months ago
Anonymous
Total unconsciousness is a distinct state from dreamless sleep, to be fair. I'd even go so far as to say dreamless sleep is closer to being awake than it is to unconsciousness.
Wasn’t your post supposed to lay out a scenario that is UNAPPEALING to the average 4chode?
Dying at the age of 21 is unappealing. Plats have it rough. I'm too scared of death not to want to be a copper even if they suck at pymary.
>copper >not fricking and dying like a common bronze boy
You are afraid to truly live life.
You're all dumb. It'd be far better to be a delicious Silver femboy. Normal lifespan, your death could be mundane rather than almost certainly 'through violence' or 'via all of your DNA dying and you melt into your shoes,' and you're hotter, too.
I mean there's not a lot to recommend Alderode to an artistic 21st century woman. It's a police state. It's heavily class and caste-stratified. There's sectarian tension that we all know is about to explode into brutal sectarian violence. Women are second-class citizens who literally need a man to have stable lives unless they wanna be a gutter bawd. Your army practices industrialized rape as a formal operational policy when conducting war. You don't really have any of the freedoms Americans take for granted. Oh, and it's cold, which I'm sure fills a Foloridian with dread.
This isn't to say Cresce is great, I don't think any of the nation-states we've seen could be called anything except 'less bad,' but Alderode isn't a fun place to live unless you're pretty lucky by birth.
I love Timofey.
I’m curious if Bastion (and all of the Black Tongues) will be out from under Lady I’s eyes once she emerges from the khert. Does her ability to watch and influence them work on the other side too?
I don't actually blame Darkest for his hard-wiring. Having a way to signal a fire is way more valuable than planning against a swarm of ghosts that is somehow being directed by a malevolent intellect, a thing that has never happened before.
Timofey you can't even hold the quill, silly goose
well there goes that guy
damn guy didnt live long enough to see how foolish Bell was
Welp that must be where the invisible guards went...
What do you mean? Died off-screen fighting the Alds? What did you figure out?
Yes that is what I meant. Sorry I now see that was very vague
It's canon. Alds have better aim than stormtroopers.
it's about fricking time somebody killed that guy
too bad it had to be *lds
Oh, that IS the Alds. It's funny as hell that they seem to be the ONE part of Bell's plan that has actually made it to its objective. Everybody else, including Bell himself, fricked up. But the Alds made it through.
There's some racial commentary you could make about that, but I'll refrain from it.
But this isn't Bell's plan. It's the snake's plan. Bell just thinks he will get what he wants out of it.
*thought
To be fair, it's also the FILTHY ALDISH TRAITOR'S plan too. Did we actually get any confirmation of that one way or the other, or are we all still assuming it's worst brother alive?
well, more likely his boss Argenti Sr.
I was specifically recalling Bell saying his counterpart was one of the few "sane" ones, something that also reminds me of what Lemon and Duane came to think about their country men in light of seeing the effects of the Etelarche curse. Especially now that we know Bell knew about it's effects and utilized them himself. That puts me in the mind of a Soud and Lemuel has been shown to be a man of big plans and somewhat dubious in how actually well thought out those plans were. Much like Bell, in fact.
The Ssaelit have literally no choice. This isn't some gay political gambit for them, it's a matter of either surviving or being pogrommed out of existence.
Those aren't Ssaelit, as far as I know.
It probably depends on the time frame, as well. Cresce right now is pretty chill because it's advanced, relatively peaceful, and under compassionate leadership. But we've seen a piece of shit like Bell very nearly take control of the nation, and he was very busy perpetrating his own, little genocide. Clearly the Crescian army is full of scum as well, and their compassionate leader is still unleashing a lot of hellish weapons on the world. Though, general Crescian society seems pretty OK compared to the Aldish castes and Sharteshanian universal crime.
The more immediate concern would be that any normal white person would probably be seen as a Sharteshanian or similar by everyone in that world. And I wouldn't want to be a Shart in either nation. If you're blond, you might get away with presenting as Soud, but that's barely better. At least in Alderode you could get with that community.
>Those aren't Ssaelit, as far as I know.
If they're from the outfit that just got zombie'd, then they're Ssaelit.
In general, green=Ssaelit and im seeing lots os green here
I thought that was Ufal who ate it for a second and was halfway through buying a plane ticket to Florida
>I am healed
>I am unwell
>I am Ofal's replacement
Ash kinda hinted on the tumblr a while back Ufal might not be in for a good time either (it was a "oh dear" response to an ask of people saying they liked him)
Sucks for Ufal, but people bite the dust all the time in this comic. I'm sure there were a lot of people who identified with Anadyne as well. I recall seeing speculation that she'd end up under the tutelage of Duane.
That probably would've been a better fate than becoming the host for man-made horror beyond comprehension, but I don't think Ana would've enjoyed being Duane's student. He's a pretty uncompromising guy when he gets academic and doesn't seem to have much patience for students who are (or who he sees as being) lazy.
He has patience for Sette, and Anadyne kinda looked like an adult Sette.
I agree with anon. Anadyne being an adult won't have the same protective effect as Sette being a child near Mikayla's age (at Duane's death) did. Plus there's Sette's unique Sette-ness.
I am curious for how long Anadyne would put up with Duane just to learn pymary though.
Plus there's the fact that Anadyne is a woman trying to learn pymary, and Duane isn't gonna give her an exception like he did for Mikaela. Plus he's learned you HAVE to be strict when working with an art that can blow up your hands.
>I am curious for how long Anadyne would put up with Duane just to learn pymary though.
If she's smart, she'd just knuckle down and put up with him when he's being more insufferable than called-for. Duane apparently is a really excellent, knowledgeable, and responsible teacher. Worth his weight in sem at least.
>send the gay poet spirit to give a very important warning message
>he makes it in the nick of time, barely seconds ahead of the assassins armed with magical buzzsaw guns
>he decides to rhyme for a paragraph first
Fricking ghosts, no respect for mortal peril
"couldn't replicate mortal terror on my system, ticket closed"
Remember: in this universe, ghosts like Timofey are constructed. Bastion built him to be this way, it's Bastion's fault he's a prancing homosexual with no sense of urgency.
Nah, Bastion wanted a cute imouto that would take missions like that adorably seriously, he just accidentally got some unusually gay first light or something
Memories of Sugar, Spice, and some First Light: These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girl.
But Professor Bastion accidentally added an extra ingredient to the construction, Flamboyant Poetry.
Thus, Timofey was born!
I thought it was his onee he wanted?
It was. Other anon was wrong, or maybe just thinking what he salvaged Timofey into.
I still think the general consensus among the wrights of Kasslyne about what things like Timofey and Boo are is harsh, andd points to a general lack of understanding of the khert and their own nature... posibly that they don't want to think about too much.
>Timofey and Boo
And Uaid. Fricking dammit, how did I forget Uaid.
>it's Bastion's fault
Lots of things are Bastion's fault.
LOTS
This reminds me of something I've thought about for a while
Do you guys think if Duane found out Bastion was responsible for his condition would Duane just try to murder him with all methods available at hand
I know Bastion is afraid of this I'm just wondering if his fears are legit
>Do you guys think if Duane found out Bastion was responsible for his condition would Duane just try to murder him with all methods available at hand
Oh yes.
And I would be disappointed in Duane if he didn't.
>I'm just wondering if his fears are legit
Very, I would say. One of Duane's previous jobs was dealing with Blacktongue's work after all. And if Duane wanted to murder Bastion, Bastion would be murdered, unless someone could convince him otherwise halfway through the murdering.
Realistically, in the whole story so far (outside of flashbacks to young Duane) we haven't really seen Duane fighting fully unleashed, except the two fights with the Silver.
One on one vs another wright, when Duane isn't playing and doesn't hold back at all, I think it would be very quick.
Duane is a man of passions. Depending on the mood he may or may not immediately jump to throttling. Right now he seems in a pensive, reflective, and conciliatory mood so he probably wouldn't. But yeah one has to imagine if Duane found out his mind rending, soul tormenting condition was caused by a filthy bird fricker who was using him as a lab experiment, he'd probably be caught somewhere between frozen in shock as his world view once again shifted seismically around this information and blind fury.
I'm sure Duane has also avoided thinking to closely about his condition. He views it as some kind of weirdo test from god, but a wright of his intelligence and penetrating insight should've begun wondering by now what's going on practically. That said, I think Cope has also largely confirmed he's afraid any kind of scientific exploration might just do something weird to him by accident since he has absolutely no starting point to understand what's happened to him. All of that together has conspired towards keeping himself in the dark. Having a concrete, possibly even intelligible answer about what was done would floor him in a number of ways. I'm reminded of when he reverted to a pymary school teacher with Mikaila's frickery over actually be mad at her for disobeying him. I could seem him bouncing between maniac interest in thinking through this new information and what it means for everything about pymary and profound horror at what's been done to him and why and the responsible individual appearing before him.
this is a great breakdown/analysis anon, really well written and thought out
duane needs three spiritual revelations, several more years as a surrogate father, and a training montage before he'd be high enough level for the forgiveness not killing him on sight would take
It's hard to say what he'd do now - Duane is a man quite literally pulling himself back together after falling to what he fairly perceives as his absolute moral low - but Duane of the past would've killed Bastion, and probably very painfully.
>I'm not some wieneramamie poet!
Same energy. "Finally it is my time".
I hate how Ashley throws around words like "objectively" and "based" in this post. I for one can't stand creases 'grandma's catch all drawer' aesthetic. i hate it! I HATE IT!
>objectively based
I assume she meant based in objectivity
It’s sad that based has become such a nonword now that it ruins grammatically correct sentences.
It works in both ways, this was a deliberate shit post to vent my frustration
she's not talking about Cresce's aesthetic, she's talking about the whole "relatively functioning state that doesn't have huge torture pits and institutionalized sexism" part
I like the torture pits and caste system
I crave the certainty and strength of its Society
You say this now, but imagine getting isekaid into Unsounded and you're some waifish Plat femboy, and you can't speak Tainish all that well, so your best job option is to be a fancy prostitute, and you spend your short life getting railed by men like Claggart until your organs melt and leak out of her translucent gaped butthole at the ripe old age of 21.
Wasn’t your post supposed to lay out a scenario that is UNAPPEALING to the average 4chode?
Dying at the age of 21 is unappealing. Plats have it rough. I'm too scared of death not to want to be a copper even if they suck at pymary.
>copper
>not fricking and dying like a common bronze boy
You are afraid to truly live life.
What the frick is there to be scared of? Are you just assuming it'll be bad instead of just being nothing? Are you scared of all the things you might miss, ignoring that everyone everywhere will always miss most of everything? Who cares if you don't get to see it all? You get to see the part you're there for, and that's already more than you'll ever be able to fully process as it is! Don't freak yourself out thinking about what you don't have and start thinking about what you do
Being nothing is worse then it being bad.
Why? What's so scary about nothing? Do you get scared of the concept of a dreamless sleep as well?
Not him but permanent ego death isn’t something every one wants to get on board with. I’d rather do endless sleep than something eternally bad too.
Total unconsciousness is a distinct state from dreamless sleep, to be fair.
I'd even go so far as to say dreamless sleep is closer to being awake than it is to unconsciousness.
They live to 30, I think.
You're all dumb. It'd be far better to be a delicious Silver femboy. Normal lifespan, your death could be mundane rather than almost certainly 'through violence' or 'via all of your DNA dying and you melt into your shoes,' and you're hotter, too.
>Silver femboy
made for Big Copper wiener
>Dead at 50
>Normal lifespan
You really should take better care of yourself, anon
Time is the enemy of all femboys, anon. In theory I can see why he doesn't care about dying young.
Frick off, Nazi.
I mean there's not a lot to recommend Alderode to an artistic 21st century woman. It's a police state. It's heavily class and caste-stratified. There's sectarian tension that we all know is about to explode into brutal sectarian violence. Women are second-class citizens who literally need a man to have stable lives unless they wanna be a gutter bawd. Your army practices industrialized rape as a formal operational policy when conducting war. You don't really have any of the freedoms Americans take for granted. Oh, and it's cold, which I'm sure fills a Foloridian with dread.
This isn't to say Cresce is great, I don't think any of the nation-states we've seen could be called anything except 'less bad,' but Alderode isn't a fun place to live unless you're pretty lucky by birth.
I cannot believe the plot has room for Timofey to be useful. bless.
>second to last panel
Oh boy that doesn't sound good.
Quick, doctor chea can fix that!
ENTER the useless ghost poet. Can't wait for Bastion to emerge, job and suffer some more.
I love Timofey.
I’m curious if Bastion (and all of the Black Tongues) will be out from under Lady I’s eyes once she emerges from the khert. Does her ability to watch and influence them work on the other side too?
I don't actually blame Darkest for his hard-wiring. Having a way to signal a fire is way more valuable than planning against a swarm of ghosts that is somehow being directed by a malevolent intellect, a thing that has never happened before.