Seeker of Thrones 1-2
Chapter: 1
“[…] then there is the one [called] Ghost Maker, a man of great repute and peculiar habit. It is said he is so skilled with an edge, he killed the great iron-skinned Champion of Urash with a scissor blade. None who are present at the duel dispute this account other than to say the scissors also did not survive the conflict.”
– Histories of the Yellow City, volume 4
“Your” ship? By the gods, Allison, you truly are beginning to show the mark of Royalty.
One thing about that: WHO actually stole the ship, and WHO threw the Captain overboard, and was it at the same time? OK, three things.
The Wheel is hers and she’s about to sit in her Throne.
Royalty truly come into their power would likely style it “Our” ship, methinks.
…if the mark of royalty is avarice. I must be blind not to have noticed it before. Allison is approaching the god of the horde. Of course she will be saying “my this,” “my that,” and then rise above that trap. Joy cannot be bought with lucre.
Royalty isn’t about avarice at all. Avarice is a desire to gain ownership of things, while Royalty makes the heartfelt assumption that those things were in fact yours all along.
royalty… government…
‘it’s not my boat by I will kick your ass off of it.’
well can’t steal what what was stolen.
Yes you can.
It’s not theft if you are royalty.
Then its conquest.
One can certainly Steel steel; or I would have no master.
i love this allison
“What followed was the closest to an epic team assembling montage this comic would ever get.”
Alice-un has realized one of the lesser known perks of being True Royalty. Any ship they inhabit automatically belongs to them.
Further, because she is automatically the captain of any ship she’s on, Allison has the authority to oversee a wedding ceremony. Then again, as Royalty, she already had that ability by Queenly right.
*Everything belongs to them!
As with most other things, when royalty come into conflict over custody the item in question tends not to survive the process.
On one hand, I’m super proud of Allison.
On the other hand, come on girl, Nyave doesn’t deserve this.
I know, I thought the the pot was the sleeve of her arm trying to stop al yisun’s scissor arm. Like she was putting a hand on her arm to steady her. Nyave looks so concerned!
Right? Like, I get Allison being suspicious of the other three (even though I love them), but (at least as far as the audience knows) Nyave’s just that sweet, scared girl Allison saved from being Perv Tree King Fertilizer and is repaying her by treating her wounds. Don’t throw HER off!
A true king takes ownership in the same way that a peasant breathes or the Wheel turns: automatically, thoughtlessly, and unstoppably, barring the intervention of a superior force.
If there is superior force, then there is no true royalty
Royalty always ends as it begins, by regicide.
I… I don’t *think* this is what Zoss meant when he said that a King cuts themself into new shapes. But then again, I’m not Royalty, so who am I to argue?
The Makeover Monday of a Demiurge would scour the mind of a lesser witness.
Oh, so you do happen to know my brothersister 46 The Makeover Monday of a Demiurge would scour the mind of a lesser witness?
The day I learned that a Prime angel is scary but a primer angel can be scarier.
Not royalty? What are tha doing here then? Begone, rabble!
Oh, that is Royalty. AL-YIS-UN has taken up her crown, and she has taken everything the Wheel can throw at her today. She is done with all the secrets.
Gods, I love her as a brunette. Screw that blond hair crap. She is the King!
The king makes her first cutting motion!
Wasn’t her first cutting motion when she killed the shit out of that corpse tree?
By my count, this is at least the third. Probably more. The cutting motion must be continuous, after all.
The sanctioned act of Royalty is to cut [hair]
Cio seems genuinely distressed — afraid, even. I suppose when one’s patient is a royal or quasi-royal and thus sustained by the hot breath of violence, the fact that she is bedridden, woozy from blood loss, six or seven feet away and armed only with gauze shears genuinely doesn’t have all that much bearing on whether she could kill you, were she so inclined.
The flavor text of foreshadowing is awful, in the best way.
“Just take it off two inches above my shoulders, please.” Said the doctor’s mistress.
The wife’s lover took the mistress’ head an inch above her neck.
The first rule of ownership is, the ruler owns the ship.
I am so INTO Alisons new idgaf attitude.
This is new? She’s been out of fucks to give at least since she drank a devil under the table.
Also, I’m late saying this, but I’m losing it over some of the angel names in the comments.
Can you give names?
I am eager to see which one of my brothersisters’ names are your favorite.
I’ve got a personal fav in 1337 Facetious Comment Disrupts Gravitas and 342 Annoying Voice Returns to Proclaim the Obvious
I love everyone, but you, 1337, 342, and 90 A Dog Licks Its Backside but Won’t Eat a Pickle are my faves. Every time I see your name, I wonder if the death of at least one of your previous incarnations involved you being chased out of the royal chambers by an angry king with a crossbow.
I don’t think this person is an angel, but I also once saw someone named Bebe, the The Tired Drag Queen You Just Saw Doing a Figurative Line in the Piss-Stained Bathroom of the Cosmos, and I am very sad I haven’t seen them since then.
The legion of apocryphal shitposting angels thanks you.
No, thank YOU.
I feel the same way, i also very much enjoy the prophetic or mystic vernacular that has become a common sight among the comments.
Amusing are we? Who knows. I like my boring styles.
Tis all in good fun until someone looses an eye but that is for a future chapter.
Among the immortal, fun cannot begin UNTIL someone loses an eye.
It is… mildly comforting that my endless suffering is the source of some amusement somewhere in the cosmos.
Alison has found the Sacred Scissors of Retribution that was once wielded by that ancient warrior for truth and senpai – Yandere-chan!
She’ll straight up stab a bitch with those scissors, just like her illustrious predecessor used to do to those who dared steal her senpai. But now instead of senpai there is all the multiverse to win!
Somewhere the spirit of Yandere-chan, the deadliest girl in a sailor suit ever, is smiling. You know she approves of the direct approach.
Cio: I rather fancy you and think you might be able to protect me from other parties who would do me harm.
Princess: I want you to take the names you gave me back.
White Chain: I want to use your power to restore order in the multiverse.
Sacrifice maiden whose name I don’t recall: I owe you some sort of life debt, probably?
….And when Al-Yi-Sun reached her absolute limit with the bullshit, she cut her tresses like a reverse Samson, and laid out the possible futures that lay in their immediate path. Much to their chagrin, her companions understood that she would either carry out her promise or kill herself in the attempt. There was no choice but that their various stories would tumble out….
Oh no, is she going to CUT them out of her life? That’s SHEER madness. She needs most of their help, no matter which way you SLICE it.
Get out.
Your wit is as sharp as a truncheon.
I hate you just a little bit right now.
Threatening her subordinates with destruction should they disobey? It seems AL-YIS-UN holds more in common with the Black Emperors that thought before.
AL-YIS-UN ia not happy.
A blade of its own kind.
AL-YIS-UN is not happy.
Oh God, its my last job interview all over again….
I want to know where you applied at to get a job interview like that…
Why is this comic so good? I demand to know!
And the KING wields the name SCISSORS to cut herself into finer shapes still.
The ruler on her throne with her scepter commands her subjects.
let us all make obeisance before her.
all that stray hair is going to be an itchy bitch to clean up
this is quite sudden and rude of allison. “right to be here” – they earned that by saving her life. it’s right of her to want answers, but this feels like the power is going straight to her head … which perhaps it is
When confronted with an angel or a demon, it is the height of folly to assume anything is given out of benevolence. White Chain told Allison that she should have handed her over to the concordance, who would have killed her to take the key. Ciocie tried told White Chain to do just that when she realized what the key was in her head, and Allison knows she stole one before. Princess was a former Ebon devil that tried to cheat and kill her, and who isn’t technically bound to her. Nyave doesn’t even know about the Tree of Woe, as far as Allison is aware, she has no reason to believe that she was saved from anything or owes Allison anything. Finally, both White Chain and Cio have been very unwilling to give her straight answers about themselves.
Allison is Royalty, and like any monarch, she must careful about her courtiers. None of them owe her anything, and more than half have tried to use or kill her. They don’t even own the ship. She is right, none of them have the right to be there.
I would be surprised if it didn’t! It is, after all, already there, in the Star upon her Brow.
I think it’s more the running frustration of being out of the loop. Since she’s embarked on this whole adventure, she’s been surrounded by people who are infinitely more aware of what’s going on and who are keeping secrets which frequently are very, very germane to what’s going on.
Right now, we probably know more about Nyave than she does. Now that she’s sober, she probably has plenty to wonder about why Princess Mamoru Moonshine is along for the ride. Meanwhile, Cio and White Chain are the freaking embodiment of what I was talking about last paragraph.
At the very least, Allison has resolved to stop being a peasant or puppet, and if the others have some sort of secret designs or intended uses for her, then she’s going to know about it.
I don’t know.
She went to someone’s home, survived solely due to the evil godess deciding not to murder her, murdered the evil godess husband (fine, he was an undead evil demon tree anyway), likely ignited a multiversal war, tried to run away, failed, and now she’s threatening the comrades that pulled her ass out of the fire and saved her life from her own poor decision making. Cio specifically saved her how many times now? Three? Five?
I’d be cooler with the potential multiversal war if she at least acknowledged it might be a bad thing(‘okay there’s an incoming war, but fuck that tree needed to die. Sides Mottom possible exaggerated due to her fears. Or. I’ll need to deal with the rest of the seven anyway… somehow.’).
It seems less like any kind of sovereign and more your classic rpg murderhobo.
“Kill some stuff. Ignore any possible consequences. Treat your party like crap.”
Reach heaven through emotional violence!
Mottom still lives, so multiversal war has yet to happen, and Allison has at least stopped the bloodshed from the Tree of Woe. Also, her goal is to find Zaid, so that means she will have to but heads with the Seven. Also, though Allison has the Key of all Kings shoved in her head, she can’t use it’s full power consistently, so fighting Mottom would have been a bad idea, and though her compatriots here did get her a ship, it was ultimately her use of the key that got them out of that situation.
Also, thanks to White Chain and Cio, she now has a horde of mercenaries after her. White Chain and Princess have both expressed a desire to simply kill her, and Cio has consistently prioritized her fanfic over actually helping Allison. Really, the only one there who doesn’t deserve this is Nyave, but she had the opportunity to simply go home or wherever she wished without entering to chaos of Allison’s life. After everything that has happened to her since coming to throne, Allison has every reason to be suspicious and irritated. And for all the mistakes she made, she is still at least on equal footing morally with the rest of them.
And really, it’s entirely reasonable for a person to ask, “Please tell me everything that could potentially cause trouble for us down the line”.
Hell, it’s entirely reasonable for her to ask who they are and what they want from her. They’re the ones who have been lying and/or keeping secrets.
She might have been saved by Cio, but the point is that she still was dragged into this whole thing by force. Doesn’t matter if she’s accepted it, she’s tired of the lies and coverups and wants straight answers for once, and if not, she’ll go solo with the one person that hasn’t lied to her yet, herself.
She has lied to herself most consistently. This story, like all, is about learning which lies are worth believing in.
Well, look at the Blade of Want, the continuous cutting motion of Royalty, ignorance as enlightenment… the whole philosophy here seems geared towards making you a genuinely terrible person. It makes you powerful and gets you what you want (and makes you really cool to write a comic about, apparently), but it also probably turns you into what we’d recognise as a villain at the end.
That said, Allison just woke up after a battle with a god. I think introspection will come later. Right now, she can be excused for just wanting some god damn grasp on the situation.
You all make good points.
And it’s true trying to be leaderly and assertive when you are not used to that and don’t quite know how often actually makes you an arrogant bit of a douche.
So maybe it’s just that she has more to learn.
Though if she does go full Aesma/seven on us, there could a cool crossover here with Discworld’s Samuel Vimes.
“Royalty you say?” The grimey old man coughed, his cheap cigarr spreading a rancid smell trough the room. “Never been much for kings.”
The small letter of the last word hung in the air like an anti-syllable.
“I can make your head explode.”
The man nodded. “I can see how that is an important part of governmental administrative power.” He said, absent mindedly patting the rather oversized crossbow at his hip. “More importantly I can make coffee. Only recently perfected my recipe actually. Do you want some?”
Alison considered. A king was not slave to temptation or want.
But she was already halfway trough the seven and a cup would be really fucking great right now.
And then together they fight crime!
Well, it’s hard to say anything concrete when Zoss is the only one who’s used the Blade of Want and all we know of his rule is what White Chain, Cio, and Juggernaut have said. Was he a Napoleon, Hitler, something inbetween, something better or worse? Impossible to tell at this point, though White Chain’s account seems to imply that he was a fair ruler who kept things stable until the Demiurge War.
Yes! Can’t wait to find out why Vladok-cum-Princess is along for the ride
Can’t wait to find out why Vladok-cum-Princess is along for the ride!
it would seem to me that by naming & taming the beast our rising king aliceUN has become her master as well
Which makes me wonder who named Cio. If it was Praman Nand, how did she walk away from her job so easily? If it was someone else, how did she end up with Praman Nand? And who could have possibly (aside from AL-YISUN) named and tamed a black?
I am so attracted to this woman.
Sounds like I’ve got competition!
When One who has had power thrust upon them by Another finds the reins, One is prone to taking the power where One wills, not where Another desires or commands. YISUN help those who stand in One’s way.
For someone almost half empty, she has alot of sass. I love it.
All this blood loss and you’ve chosen to be salty
Al-Yisun is truly learning the Art of Cutting. See how she her hair in one stroke, using the dull edge of the scissors.
A good queen should always have few threats of execution up her sleeve. Impulsive threats of death if you are not obeyed works wonders on royal servants, treasurers, your top generals and loathsome would-be suitors.
In the light of YISUN, needles flash like spears, butter knives glint like axes, and scissors glitter like swords. It is perhaps a comfort then that few believe this, and thus are these deadly implements sheathed in the scabbard of lies.
A character is cutting her hair, here comes character development~
Yea that’s pretty much what I thought too. Why does it always come to cutting hair.
Why not grow a beard? People grow beards when they want to become badass. Or maybe an 80’s porn stash.
Al-YS-UN would look rather odd if she grew a beard.
Yes, but you do not deny the porn stash. Just imagine. The new conquest of heaven being lead by a Freddie Mercury.
“He looked up from where he had been carefully smoothing the embroidered cover, and seeing his face, Costis felt the shock like a physical blow. If Attolia could look like a queen, Eugenides was like a god revealed, transformed into something wholly unfamiliar, surrounded by the cloth-of-gold bedcover like a deity on an altar, passionless and calculating.”
Turner, Megan Whalen. The King of Attolia (p. 228).
Upon my youth I was given a writer, Mills
who would by habit list names and minutes.
I hated that about him.
True Royalty
Princess’ face. “You what?”
Did she cut her hair with the blunt edge of the scissors? How….
The Royal Art is to cut.
True royalty could cut Throne with a finger, should they desire. Cutting one’s hair with the dull edge of a cutting implement is child’s play in comparison
Yeah — at first I thought the lines around her hands and arms were “shake lines”… but they’re also around her forearms, when those are resting on the bed.
It looks to me like as of panel 2, she’s tapping her Key to display an aura of power, then channeling the same though the scissors to cut her hair with the visibly closed scissors.
Good reason for her shipmates to be intimidated and do as she says… if they’re smart.
It’s a scissor blade. We have them back on Earth. Well, my Earth anyhow. The insides and the outsides are sharp.
MAKE OVEEERRRR
It’s still a cutting motion, even if it is on a smaller scale.
I’m slightly disappointed that she didn’t finish in a single cut though.
The scissors are glowing. Is Allison learning to use the Art, perhaps?
Kingly Allison goes straight to adding a new addition to her demesne, nice.
Now where’s her horse?
Allison.
No, stop.
You’re going to get hair all over the bed, Allison.
It’s going to be irritating as hell at night when you try to sleep on it.
I’m here mostly for teh lulz. I’d like to spend the rest of my minute with death metal.
AL-YIS-UN is upset and asserting herself as the King of all Kings for the first time. Don’t lie to her.
Does this count as cutting herself into greater forms?
Are we witnessing some prophecy fulfillment right here?
Scissors are oft overlooked as a potential weapon.
Not in this far place. You pick up a pair and everyone snaps to attention. Maybe it’s the thing to do when surrounded by demons and angels. All masked: every one.
It wasn’t always that way. Remember when adults told children not to run with scissors? They meant that those scissors can rip into your chest and cut the valves connected to your still-beating heart or puncture your lungs and make you breathe fresh blood. Worse, they can poke your eye out.
One thing I’ve considered lately is how Alilson’s character progression. She’s changed quite a lot from our shock-stricken hyperdimensional “stowaway” in the first few pages, and that seems to me a welcome and satisfying sight. However, I’m reading this online with one page very few days. I wonder if the pacing will feel differently for people reading the print version in a few sittings.
She choose to be a king. That thing in her skull obeys.
I can tell you, by re-reading Alice-UN’s legend recently, that her chara development flows really well. Zoss, praise be upon his name, is the one who triggered her transformation.
I read it in one go (only caught up this chapter), and it flows well to me.
Truly the art of cutting is so powerful that the scissors split in two
The sanctioned action is to cut! … one’s own hair.
Wow, I get that Cio and White Chain have been fucking her about as to their motives and she has a right to be angry, but it seems a bit much to call it “her” ship and threaten them when they did all just risk a lot in a rescue mission for her.
Flawed characters are best characters though and she is understandably stressed so I don’t mind seeing Allison get like this at all! Haircut moment feels very legend of korra season 4 to me.
And then the goddess did speak and say unto her disciples,” No fucking bullshit”.
Never cut your own hair.
Never give anyone a haircut with perforated arms.
Never handle scissors with shaky hands.
Seems she is taking to the mannerisms of kings.
“I swear to god, I will keep cutting my hair until you people talk!”
AL-YIS-UN is tired of your shit and will be getting some answers if you know what’s good for you.
Yikes. Slapping that goddess knocked all the wuss right out of Allison.
…
Is she using the Key of Kings to add dramatic lighting effects to her haircutting? Or is she not even scissoring the scissors, and just used her power to turn the blunt edge into, like, a lightsaber that she’s just waving through her hair?
I have a feeling Allison is still scared as hell at what’s going on, but has decided that freaking out and crumbling like a flower won’t help anymore. As such, she’s leaning heavily into this whole “Cosmic Royalty” angle, figuring that if she just imposes her Will on everything and everyone around her, she’ll naturally have a greater measure of control over her situation.
As the story continues, this affectation will eventually come more and more naturally to her. The Mask will become real.
…
I think she snipped the scissors like you’re supposed to. We just didn’t see the opening and shutting of them between panels.
The hidden text describes the haircutting technique as “hardcore”.
Using scissors in the normal fashion, even if you operate them exceptionally quickly and make them glow with your Royal will while you do so, does not qualify as “hardcore”.
Using the spine of a pair of scissors as the channel by which you direct your Royal will to cut , however, is the very definition of hardcore.
verily, since
she kept her
neck intact
Hair styling with style. A Dangerous Art.
she should drink some orange juice and nom a sugar cookie or two
Allison is beginning to grasp swordsmanship. She has clearly identified the location where the cut will have the greatest impact and thus transformed the blade into a most fearful implement. Form’s a bit lacking still.
By “more hardcore haircutting” you just mean beheading someone through their hair, right?
It occurs to me that the goddess Mottom’s scepter was a fork. Is the new goddess’ a pair of scissors? If so, it is the instrument of the principal art of cutting, and keeping out of her/its way would be a very good idea.
In case anyone is interested I updated the list of angel names from the comments all the way through the end of the last book. The list is up to about 250 names but a growing percentage of them are very silly or intended as jokes. I may start trimming it down.
Where can we find that name list?
I was going to try to post it next update. It could be longer than the character limit here, however.
Then maybe post it in parts?
“I will kick you off my ship,” she pronounced, punctuating the comment by cutting some of her hair.
None of us really knew why she was grooming in this weakened state, half exsanguinated, and without a mirror, but there it was. She was…a confused creature.
Confused? Hardly. Rightfully angry at a past lack of agencies that her into the situation in the first place? Just so.
Catching up on a first rate comic is life. Now, having to wait for an update, is death.
I understand all the people saying that the power is going to AL-YIS-UN’s head. but I feel like she is just genuinely sick and tired of being dragged around like a puppet. I just reread chapter one (paper edition is great by the way. get it if you haven’t already) and that whole time she was just being pulled around like a rag doll, so I can see why she would be fed up with it.
She has taken her first step in mastering the art of cutting.
BWAHAHAHA
Tis the tidings of royalty my wise eyes to detect, an ironic tire for the bureaucracy!
And we see true Royalty poking out from the ruined shell of She-Who-Was! Hail, AL-YIS-UN! Hail to thee!
(N.B. she is objectively better as a brunette.)
A continuous cutting motion.
I sort of suspect Allison might have been given a bit of a false impression of her own competence by just how much of a sad sack Mottom was. And even then, she would have been destroyed were it not for Cio. Almost any one of her party could best her in her current state. Even once she’s recovered Cio and White Chain could probably stop her without much effort on their part. Threatening her only friends in the verse is not wise.
The sanctioned action is to haircut.
The first step on the path to true Royalty?
Cutting Passivity.
The second step?
Cutting Vanity.
Cutting your own hair, Allison? While sitting in BED?
You’re going to be itchy for days.
I sense an incident involving lasers as to the foreshadowed hair removal. Allison is currently riding the afterglow of spitting in Death’s face (several times), a lot of blood loss, and the heady scent of Power. I do not for a moment doubt Cio’s ability to handle such a uniquely dangerous individual. She has a knack for navigating the treacherous waters that surround Royalty, was once such a powerful personage in her own right, and possesses a strong sense of self preservation.
Who is the other character besides the fanfic/historian, White Chain, and girl-who-is-patching-up-Allison? Is s/he/it the thief from Hell 71?
She is Princess Mamoru Moonshine Jagermeister Jack Jack Daniels Timothy Tim Bill Freddy Mercury Blueberry Luna, Esquire. Formerly known as the ebon devil Vladok before Allison rebound him.
That is Princess Mamoru Moonshine Jagermeister Jack Jacck Daniels Timothy Tim Bill Freddy Mercury Blueberry Luna, Esquire
Formerly the Ebon Devil called Vladok.
Last chapter, a king taught us about cutting the self into a more appropriate shape.
The thing about cutting is, it uses up material. You can only do it so many times before the garment is ruined.
Unless you sew the dross back together. But as any tailor will tell you: sewing is much, much harder than cutting.
“Measure seven times, cut once.” – Russian proverb
Thus is the paradox of the divine suicide illuminated. Cutting and creation are one in the same. Nothing is lost. YISUN is greater for the divine division into all creation.
I, too, cringe at scissors snip-snapping close to my earlobes.
Regarding the alt-text:
Searing Scalp Technique(tm)?
A friendly reminder to all non-Royalty of Throne that the Covenant of Hair sees all unlicensed and sub-standard acts of barbering to be punishable by death, involving forced ingestion of “wasted” strands of their sacramental namesake. Trim carefully, pay a sanctioned hairdresser, or best yet, just don’t trim at all.
-Peter D’Vie-n, Liar, Tatterdemalion, Villein of Throne
Someone’s been reading KSBD:
http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/tennis/game-set-and-thatch-tennis-star-svetlana-kuznetsova-cuts-own-hair-during-wta-final/
Dramatic haircut!
Ah, the alt text of this panel is referencing today’s comic, today being March 29, 2019. Fun to see connections like this.