Seeker of Thrones 2-12
Chapter: 2
“And there a bloody compact was made, to seek treasure in the deep and hollow places of the world. And the blood was mixed and thrown on the fire. Iron was grasped, and sweat was wiped from many a brow, for the road ahead was long, and descended far beyond the grasp and ken of happy men.”
– Enyis and the Boar King
aaaaand *thump*
Ah, she’ll be fine. Her head probably hit the padded part of the chair on the way down.
I do believe that thunm/whump is the sound of the AllisonxCio ship hitting an iceberg and sinking.
Sad.
I find your lack of faith disturbing. All I see is Allison yanking Cio out of the friendzone and into the realm of passion, noise and honesty. Troubled waters perhaps, but she’s a fine ship. She’ll manage.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SlapSlapKiss
To the true shipper, this stuff is only fuel to the fire.
Oh, not hardly, party animosity is always fodder for shippers.
To sink, perhaps, but then to rise –
For worship grows in Cio’s eyes.
All-Yis-Un rules with heavy hand;
On tiptoes does small Cio stand.
A pet, perhaps, she thought to make;
A King she’s found, and no mistake.
A ruler who will stand above –
To inspire fear, but also love.
More like hitting an iceberg and USING IT AS A RAMP TO DO A SICK SHIPSKATEBOARD TRICK.
In Desert there’s a town of trade,
Fuelled by pigs and ruled by Turner:
Break a deal; Face the wheel.
ME, MASTER BLASTER. ME – RUN – BARTERTOWN.
I emphasise the brevity
and cadence of my riddles, see.
But sometimes they’re just too easy.
power drunk freely early in one’s life then seldom later is a drug to make beggars of kings. Power seldom tasted early then quaffed later is a brew to make kings of beggars.
King of beggars, and beggar of kings!
Translation: “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
*applauses Dune’s reference*
That’s not what he said at all.
Power doesn’t corrupt, it simply allows those who have it to let out their inner corruption. It’s always been there.
What alternative is there, though? Without power, one is little more than a corpse. Only death is pure.
I’m imagining “VERDICT” said in the same tone of voice as “PERISH”.
Omg will “Verdict” become her special attack? Neato
That would be awesome and I think it would work with where her character is going. She appears to be able to understand people and their motivations quite well so Verdict being her ability would be epic.
It most clearly is not. When Mottom says “PERISH” she weaves into it her art, and to the discerning ear there is very much a difference between such commands from displeased masters.
An unlucky servant quickly learns to distinguish between the two.
Jesus I would have thought they were friends by now.
Or at least buddies.
So would Cio.
This presumption offends the Ultra Queen of the Multiverse.
The demon hoped for guarding pet;
A hero, yes, but not an equal.
Her King has not forgiven yet.
Will she ever? Find out in the sequel…
Jesus I would have thought they were friends by now.
Or at least buddies.
Yeah, Allison seems unnecessarily rude >_>
like come on you should be grateful or at least be nice
In her defense, Allison has had a stressful week. Also in her defense, blood loss is a bitch.
This is how friends interact, usually – or, at least, that kind of friends.
Also, this option in dialog is one of the best ways to drag your friend out of miserful moping, if she’s feeling blue for some reason.
Granted, you will drag her into rageful spitting – but that’s a matter for a later discussion over a cup of camomile-and-searing-hatred tea.
Depends on the friend, I think. Cio’s past and personality may make her receptive to it, but the brutalized are like to draw inward, if not shut down wholesale. And beware the romantic publicly spurned and humiliated.
The best kind of tea!
Of course, if you really wish to get a devil to stop being blue, just lop off a few names. What’s the worst that could happen?
Once in the red desert I knew of a man – a wanderer hopelessly lost – who pacted with a devil he found there to survive. A red devil in the red desert. To find strength each evening he would eat a little of the devil’s flesh, drink a little of the devil’s blood, and so when he came to the edge of the desert he was no longer a man. He had no more need for food then, but greatly did he lament his transformation. His tears fell on the empty sands at the edge of the red desert; he begged for release. So his red devil ate him back.
Be certain of a contract’s price,
When filling seed or feeding vice.
Profiteers are seldom nice.
Always love me a heist arc
Al-Yis-Un’s crown! I’m excited to see it fully alight! I’m sure it will outshine all others!
The air of king is not something grown but rather distilled. It is a charisma that beats upon great invisible wings. Surrounding and consuming the lesser beings. It is the result of a hundred choices and a hundred reactions. It is indomitable and is the only thing truly indestructible A true king is always a king, no matter their crown.
She struck some good poses considering she’s missing a few pints. Powered by the divinity in her forehead, or sheer bitchitude, I wonder?
Never underestimate the power of ignorance. You can survive anything if you forget you’re meant to be dead.
There is no need to stop on one or another. Both it is. Our heroine is quite tired with bitchin’ and she had to shake our favourite blue devil from sounding too much like an old fart who hurt Al-Yis-Un.
I like that she has a baby halo in this scene, shows she starting to get confident
YURI FAGS BTFO
>Implying
I’m confident enough in my masculinity that lesbians are just chicks that come in two packs.
I don’t see why I should feel threatened by their sexuality, unless I’m harboring some secret questions about my own. So society’s insistence that I should be panicked always seemed quite insulting.
I mean, I have unlimited mastery of Space-Time, and I’ve reproduced to replacement level. I’d like to think my obligations to evolution are paid.
I’m assuming that she had to do something to get into that sorority, even if it wasn’t enough to make her feel like she’d lost her “stupid virginity.”
I like how, in panel 4, you can see the skin under her bandages glowing white with power. It also looks like a halo is starting to form in panel 6…
In general, Allison seems a lot more assertive, with the Key’s influence. While being more assertive isn’t a bad trait, I also can’t help but wonder how much of it is truly her own personal growth, and how much of it is just the magical side effects of a great power.
I think it might be the other way around: she gets the great power by being assertive.
Mmm, people are noticing that, but doesn’t anyone notice her EYES. Look at them in panel 6. Remind you of anyone? Yep! The one true king of the realm. Her eyes are literally the exact design that his are. Coididence? I THINK NOT!
Royalty can faint whenever they desire, such is their privilege.
Unenthusiastic, unlikely, and uncouth royalty with unimaginable power and unwanted forehead decorations – just like Hellboy!
I just noticed Allison is wearing Goku’s pants.
Do you think he misses his pants?
Chi-Chi doesn’t
Probably. They’re extremely comfortable pants.
Don’t mess with bob-Allison. She is much more formidable than ponytail-Allison. And this isn’t even her final form!
One reminds me of Zoss, the eyes of a conqueror. Royalty, Ruin, and Rudeness were always close cousins and synonyms – Alice-UN seems to be fitting the role quite nicely comparatively to those decadent slugs thinking for that simple boy to be king. It is fitting that only a true sovereign would recognize another, or the Old Tongue saying – “Game knoweth game, thou without hast none to know of.”
Methinks that wise old king Zoss is having more than a little bit of influence on the Rising King. Is it possible his tutorage and advice is waking up something of a darker side to her personality?
Ally’s Bizarre Adventure pose time, right? Alright.
They call humanity Aesma’s Mistake. It seems our ‘Rising King’ is learning a lesson one might expect from Aesma before the blinding: be angry, unpleasant and selfish enough, and you can get whatever you want.
Effective, perhaps. But distasteful. It bodes ill for any who might look to her as their sovereign.
AL-YIS-UN shouldn’t feel too ashamed about forgetting her body’s haemal requirements. Most people I meet seem all too happy to spill their own blood for some foolish cause or another. Such as liberty, glory, or standing in the wrong place and time when the red mist afflicts me. They never seem to appreciate how much they need that vital humour until there’s more splashed over the floor than in their bodies.
Cio must be the strangest kind of aroused right now
See, this is what I was talking about.
I spy the beginnings of an energy crown around her head. Is she coming to grips with the true meaning of royalty?
There be nay theft. The King owneth all she touches.
The inherent problem with having the power of Royalty in a frail mortal vessel that has made no plans for immortality and has no armies to guard it.
One day you decide that you can slap a god, then you’ll never be the same! An inspiration to us all, I should think.
All that power went to her head to such her speed that her feet fell out from under her.
JoJo reference?
You know, I… Am not sure what to think of this attitude Alison has now concerning this situation.
I can understand that she needs to make sure that everybody isn’t taking advantage of her. But this idea of “I don’t have friends, nor do I want any” approach might not be the best way to go about it.
I mean, how far will comrades who only help you because you threaten to hurt them be willing to sacrifice, compared to comrades who will help you because they care for you?
She may hold the power of all universes, but something tells me the moment she starts letting it go to her head will be her downfall. How much longer until she finally grasps this power fully, then uses it to kill everyone both good and evil?
Jeeze Allison, show some gratitude to the poor devil. She helped bring you this ship in the first place.
Not to mention that this is basically like forcing a recovering alcoholic to drink booze. This is probably going to traumatize Cio internally somehow. Or reactivate kleptomaniacal tendencies. Who knows! This will be interesting.
–or strip some lesser names off of a terrible monster.
Power spontaneously manifesting like that is a beauty to watch.
Soon we may even see a halo.
1) Why does she not heal herself with her powers?
2) Why would she need to rob Mammon?
1) She knows not how
2) Mammon is keeping her boyfriend in the treasure fortress. Thus she needs to steal a boyfriend.
To get back her crappy boyfriend, of course.
1) She doesn’t know how to use her powers in that fashion.
2) Her boyfriend Zaid is being held inside Mammon’s fortress.
2) To get back Zaid
Mammon has Zaid.
Need is redundant.
Want is axiomatic.
1) They already told her how to use them to teleport away, it should work sameways?
2) You have my gratitude. My memory ails xD
So bright shines the Light, when the Wielder demonstrates Will!
In panel 6 one might even say She wears a crown.
Shes getting more and more bad ass every page. love it.
Is that the beginnings of a crown I see?
Oooh, the beginnings of her crown manifested.
Oho! A Syllable of the Divine! A simple one at that, nothing like the ‘PERISH’ of Mottom of the Glory, But her first Syllable nonetheless! Glorious progress for the successor!
I’m not sure if I like this new side of Allison so much. I realize that she’s been through a lot recently and it is good that she’s becoming more assertive, but I don’t think she’s justified in treating her allies this way. Cio just spilled her heart out, but Allison’s first reaction is to snap for no reason and threaten to toss her out on her own, where she’ll probably be recaptured? Unless Cio helps her in such a way that she is confident she’ll go back to her evil old self, the one thing that Cio absolutely purely does not want to happen? Also, what’s with the whole “we’re not friends”-thing? Granted, they haven’t known one another for long, but Cio has only saved her life about three times. A little gratitude might be in order. Aside from White Chain, I think CIO is the person Allison has most cause to call a friend around here (arguably more, seeing that White Chain has always been much more aloof).
This series is usually classified as being “New Weird.” Well, that’s right up my alley, since weird fiction is a genre I love. It also worries my, however, because a big problem with New Weird authors is that they can’t write a sympathetic character for dick. So far, this story has broken that chain in spades, and I’ve absolutely loved every one of the protagonists here. I still worry constantly that the rug is going to get pulled under me at any moment. I’m probably worrying for nothing, of course, since this series has completely defied any expectations so far – I just hope my fears come to nothing.
Allison is still a little high on, “I murdered two gods today, don’t fuck with me.”
I’m sure that once a little comeuppance restores her humility, she’ll be a little less insufferable.
The number of actual pages this series has been going on for is considerably low compared to other story telling mediums so it’s difficult to tell if Abbadon is good at writing character development, but if this is any indication, then yeah I’d be concerned.
From what we’ve seen so far, I believe that each of the Black Emperors will serve as a sort of Dark Mirror for Allison.
Mottom kicked her out of the rut of being a listless doormat, who would dye her hair blonde and lose her “stupid virginity,” because that’s the mold her social group seems to expect her to fall into.
She’s tired of doing things because it’s “polite” or “expected” but like too many college freshmen having similar revelations, she’s falling into the trap of doing things because they are abrasive and transgressive, rather than because they are things that she wants or needs to do.
I suspect that in the Grand Dragon Mammon, she will see the kind of goddess she could become, if she continues to treat the people around her like slaves that only exist to bring her additional resources. In that hour, she should see the value of a friend who offers the wisdom of hard experience, in return for a shoulder to lean on.
She bleeds light! A true excess of power, even when she recognizes so little.
In which Allison is pretty horrible to people who have helped her in the past in a way that certainly won’t come back to bite her in the future.
I’m not sure that I like this new attitude from Allison. I know that she’s been through a lot, and it’s good that she’s becoming more assertive, but there’s really no reason for her to be treating her allies this way. Cio just spilled her heart out, and Allison’s first reaction is to snap for no reason and threaten to throw her off the ship, where she’ll probably be recaptured? Unless Cio helps her do something that is certain to make her revert back to her pure evil past-self, which is the one thing that Cio doesn’t want to happen? Cio is making it clear that she was hoping Allison would help her, but now Allison is just preying on her vulnerability to get what she wants. Also, what’s with this “we’re not friends”-thing? Granted, they haven’t know one another very long, but Cio has only saved her life about three times. Why the arbitrary hostility? Cio has done literally nothing but help Allison since she showed up.
This comic is usually classified as being “New Weird.” That’s certainly right up my alley, since Weird Fiction is a favorite genre of mine. But it also has worried me since I started reading, because New Weird writers tend to have a shared problem: they can’t write a sympathetic character to save their lives. So far, this comic has totally broken with that issue, and I love every one of the protagonists here. I just worry that the rug is going to be pulled from underneath me, like it has with other books. I imagine that I’m worrying about nothing, though: this series has defied every expectation so far, and I’m sure it will continue to do so!
I imagine it’s no coincidence that Cio’s story boils down to “I was a monster who went mad with power and treated people like things, and never want to go back to that again”, while Allison is displaying the beginnings of similar tendencies. I doubt the Rising King’s journey of self discovery is anywhere near over.
You are not the only person to notice All-Yis-Un’s recently acquired bad attitude. Unless she keep her power in check, it’s going to lead her into trouble…
I think her hostility comes from what she saw of Nadia Om and what Zoss put in her head when he told her “Are you a peasant or a King?”
Alice-UN is literally doing it Old Witch’s style, but with Zoss’ twist.
She’s getting the first taste of Power.
Be indulgent with our Rising King, she’s still on the path to True Royalty and has much to learn.
Royalty without Nobility is but Tyranny.
I too find her change unsettling. I suspect she has now found the power to be a greedy avaricious user of people. She may be willing expend them to her own selfish ends. But this is also the state of Mammon and the former state of Cio, monsters all and perfect mirrors that the king assessment will be forced to confront. She will then grow or stagnate. Or she will surprise us all. One thing I have learned as I go about healing divided hearts: People are complicated and difficult to predict. Once you have one almost figured out they go and change on you.
Yeah, I am hoping it is all part of a character arc, or at the very least acknowledged.
To be fair, she did spend the first book being a helpless (and useless) pawn. Now she is growing into herself I find her more interesting.
I have an alternate interpretation of what could be happening: she’s cunningly acting facetiously so that Cio faces her fears, and grows past them – even if it’s not something she’s doing on a conscious level. Intuition, perhaps mixed with the divine… a potent mixture capable of improving one’s capacity for intrigue. Perhaps.
Time will tell, as it always does, if we have the luxury to keep up with it.
gay. when do they kiss
A contract is a devil’s kiss.
I’ll help, but it’s n-n-not because I like you or anything Kill Six Billion Demons-senpai!
What a saintly pose.
Oh my god, Boss Allison is so cool *o*!
-er, ahem. I mean…
Allison’s actin’ like a proper boss now. Uhm.
*squee*
Wait ’till she pulls that shit on a certain “missing” mendicant/beggar knight.
Oh my YISUN, she almost formed her first halo! <3
Next she’ll smite her first rival and we’ll feel so proud of her.
Ship sunk.
is there a way to filter out all the amateur poetry so that i can more easily see disccusion on the comic pages?
Either you RP as we do or you go home
Get ye gone from this place.
Now now. There’s room for all in this concordance of demiurges, demons, gods and trolls.
No.
I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
I’m not certain I understand the question, noble quadruped.
More seriously, if you can’t stand obscure literary references and people typing out snatches of song lyrics, I’m not sure what the actual discussion of the comic is going to do for you.
I have gone entire months answering any questions I see with either references to the Buddhist scriptures, or out of context lyrics from the RWBY soundtrack.
It’s a wild party in here man. I don’t know what to tell you.
I’m afraid Abaddon has encouraged roughly this kind of fan response since the beginning, dude. It might’ve even been part of the idea behind the thing’s making in the first place- I think he once named some inspiration in that regard from homestuck, of all things, so, uh. Wouldn’t hold your breath too long there.
Love the color text. I so want to use that snippet as the flavor intro for a campaign.
Note the subtle ‘crown’ forming around AL-YISUN’s head in panel 5-6.
Is that the beginnings of a halo I see above Alison’s head there? No wonder Cio’s startled.
Look at how close she is, to wear a crown of her own!
DROP THE SPOON
She’s still working out whether her totem is going to be a spoon or a scissor.
Rising King is the name of Allison’s Stand.
ORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORAORA!
Righteous assertion. It is good to see our king exercise her will, even if it is a display as smll and brief as this.
Alison’s Weird Voyage: Fighting Inclination
The Rising King, and the Falling King, all in one moment.
When you have so few minions, you would do well to listen them! Specifically about medical concerns involving YOUR BLOOD.
Gives new meaning to the concept of stealing a boyfriend.
She told you, dog.
I TOLD YOU BRO
I TOLD YOU ABOUT THE BLOOD LOSS
It keeps hapening.
And yet no one listens.
To be fair Cio, it is a common mistake. I’ve forgotten that plenty of times myself.
Not that a little sucking chest wound ever seemed to be enough to stop my masters.
Now kiss. Or did they already? I don’t know how becoming a vatra works.
Actually, I think the only Devil’s Kiss Alison has is from Vladok, and he broke the pact before becoming Princess, so it might not count anymore.
I’m sure I’m being thick here but why exactly does Allison want to rob Mammon? I swear I’ve read every issue but there’s so much going on it’s easy to lose track of the particulars. Is Mammon holding her boyfriend?
Which, is a whole separate issue entirely, at this point why does she care about saving him and am I as a reader really supposed to believe the power was mistakenly given to her? I don’t for an instant nor do I believe Allison will hand it over to him. She barely knows the dude and he didn’t exactly leave a good impression from what I saw in the opening chapter.
My hope is that she disintegrates Zaid when it comes time to hold the crown or pass it to him.
Zaid is being kept with Mammon, yes. This has been mentioned, though to be perfectly honest I forget where.
None of us here believe that the power was given to her by mistake, but within the world a number of important figures have assumed this: 2 Michael and Juggernaut Star being notable ones, those two being why White Chain believes the same.
Why exactly she cares to save Zaid in the first place, however, is know only to her.
(Though, if you would like my speculation: She wants to prevent anyone else going through the panicked screaming everything-you-know-about-the-world-is-wrong experience that was the first few chapters of this comic. Or she simply is in dire need of a purpose.)
It is also possible, though perhaps unlikely, that she is still merely trying to, as the mortals put it, “get laid.”
Yes.
Mammon has Zaid, so he is next on Allison’s hitlist.
–just as soon as she get’s this whole “standing” thing under control.
As for handing over the key to Zaid, I don’t think so. She entered the Void with he stated goal of rescuing him, and I think she’s going to do that, more out of inertia than any real desire to be with him.
Really, I think she just wants to send him home, as a way of closing the circle on the crazy day that started her journey. I doubt she really wants to go “home” anymore, herself.
Yes, Mammon is her boyfriend’s holder as he is seen as the most secure location. She cares about saving him because she does not see him as deserving to be subject to the whims of these crazed demiurges, first impressions or no.
Behold your Queen, AL-YIS-UN, wounded and radiant
Behold power never meant for someone with a weak will. Behold growth.
Blood for the blood god!
Though wont the humans need their blood
If so I’ve made a terrible mistake.
Eh, I’m not in a hurry.
I’ll get it all eventually.
Later in Cio’s novel this scene will be changed to her back against the wall and Alison preforming a ‘Kabe-Don’.
That sickening moment when you realize that this is the same filter that Trump fans say the Trump/Clinton debates through.
Have you ever desperately needed to vomit the blood of everything that ever bled?
YISUN’s 40
On the one hand, I’m glad she’s got some confidence finally. On the other hand, Alison, This is NOT how you treat your friends if you want to have them when you need them most. Repeating past-Cio’s mistakes is likely -not- a wise plan.
they’re not friends, they’re just -here-.
Some people, that’s enough. Not Allison, seems like.
I just noticed Alice-UN was strongly reacting to every sentence or implication that she’s just a tool to someone.
True Royalty can’t stand being instrumentalized
However note that she reacts by asserting that everyone needs to serve a purpose as one of her tools.
True Royalty does not need to struggle to hold dominance like this. It merely is dominance incarnate.
The light forms bright as will makes might.
That flavor text reminds me of a bit from a children’s rhyme on my world.
Shining West!
Magnificent crest!
Of jewels and emeralds and pearls!
They belong to the crown!
In the queen’s dressing gown!
Not lost in a sand dune’s curls!
Lousiest attempt at propaganda I’d ever seen before the conquering.
While Allison is being kinda bitchy to Cio here, Cio has also erred in underestimating her and writing bad self-insert fanfic about her… Allison is likely no stranger to fandom, and would probably find amateurish RPS fanfic more than a bit creepy. Additionally, Cio has consistently underestimated Allison (assuming she couldn’t outdrink Vladok, telling her to abandon her quest, “make something of you” kind of rhetoric) – not particularly friendly behaviors, because Cio hasn’t tried to know the real allison, just the fantasy version she put on a pedastal.
Gotta wonder what her halo’s going to look like when it gets going!
Poor Human’s and their “Blood”
Yeah! I swapped out my blood for liquid gold years ago, and look at me now! Mammon’s advisors say I’m so valuable to the Bank that they won’t let me leave!
She who rides the lightning must be prepared to face the thunder. And the thunder of the Rising King is thunder indeed. Be not too afeared, Cio Cioelle ashta-Yabalchoath, for after a storm is a calm. Or not. Tha be robbin’ Mammon.
Well, I mean, Allison’s pissed that everyone is trying to use her (except maybe Nyave, who just wants to pay her back for saving her), she’s tired of everyone being weird and cryptic with her when she just wants to get her damn boyfriend back, and it looks like she’s finally letting out about two decades worth of repressed emotions now that she finally realizes she doesn’t have to be a doormat anymore. But at the same time, damn girl, tone it down a little…
She’s hot as fuck on this page, though.
Well said.
Does anyone else hear Cio speak in Amethyst’s voice in their head?
Is she working VERDICT up into a spell like Mother Mo worked up PERISH?
Am loving how decisive and imposing she is, its a good change.
Don’t treat your friends like that, Allison! I wish I had friends. Maybe if I did they could have helped me with my problem. Don’t take it for granted.
Despite the rising king’s heart-felt proclamation she remained a character in Cio’s story.
Now kiss.
Ah, the rising king joins forces with two former ebon devils (robbed of power if not intellect), an polymath (a dime a dozen, honestly, but will allow her to avoid the classic mistake of all conquerors), and a renegade angel (the most dangerous kind – one no longer bound by either the concordance or the thorns)
Fools may do what they like, I am liquidating my assets immediately
Divine this mortal coil,
Or coiled is the mired divinity?
AL-YISUN manifests.
But truth unknown,
is she Becoming?
Or Returning?
I think the people thinking she’s going power-mad have forgotten that she’s surrounded by people who WANT things from her. It’s entirely logical to be wary of all of them until it’s proven they’re there for HER and not just the power she wields. Just because they didn’t IMMEDIATELY stick swords in her like the others would have doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous to her…in fact, their subtlety makes them even more dangerous because it allows them to get close.
White Chain wants her to be a good girl and give power to the “right” authority so White Chain can prove she’s up to doing the duty she thinks she has as an angel. Cio claims she wants away from her husband and seems to have a crush on Alison, but she’s a storyteller so there’s stuff she’s not talking about. She’s likely the most adept liar of them all. The other girl that Alison displaced from a certain death might want revenge or some such eventually, or another sort of bureaucratic power. The devil Alison renamed wants their former status as an ebon demon back.
Everyone WANTS from Alison. Nobody surrounding her actually cares for HER. It would be exceedingly dangerous to be too trusting at this point or continue to react instead of act…the others have to earn her trust through continued actions…and even then, they may be too dangerous to trust if they’re playing the long con, and why wouldn’t angels and devils play the long game of planning and waiting? Especially around a young 20-something human?
That’s not to say Alison doesn’t have a lot of learning in front of her. But she’s not anywhere close to evil or power-hungry here. Just practical.
Everyone wants something, all the time. As humans we appreciate certain desires more then others – someone driven to help you because of lust is seen as more desirable as someone driven to help you for greed’s sake. There are reasons for this, of course, but the point is it is entirely normal for everyone to want something. What’s important is WHAT they want, and if giving them that clashes with your own goals and ambitions, and how that might impact their long-term loyalty. That said, if loyalty is of value (and no matter who you are, it always is), one should seek to repay kindness in kind – lest that loyalty be spent and made void.
AAA NOT MY SHIP
They’re not in the Void but she’s doing the soul fire thing.
That’s kind of interesting.
Cio was foolish to romanticize this situation. Wasn’t she the one that kept calling AL-YIS-UN a buffoon for relying on her expectations?
A little wonder and indulgence is all well and good, but the world owes her nothing, and neither does the Rising King
I for one, can appreciate Allison’s hardness of character here. It’s her time to cut through the red tape, and eliminate what’s nonessential and wishy-washy.
No friend of Cio’s? Damn right, not yet anyhow. While power running raw in one’s head may lead to a certain strand of developement, on its own here it’s a worthy and calculating risk she’s pulling; comandeering the ship, brooking no reservations on cutting ties, making deals with devils.
Remember: those who submit to such an authority have no hold, can lay no expectation, on the ruler. They are prisoners in her story. Allison glimpses this.
We live in a world where such morals are shocking and outdated. Might makes right.
I believe it might be best to withhold judgment of AL-YIS-UN’s behavior until after she recovers from excruciating pain accompanied by blood loss. I find that both of those things tend to negatively affect one’s magnanimity.
Was that… a Syllable? Did Al-YISUN pronounce her first Syllable? She truly is Royalty, to Speak already…
Her eyes in the fourth panel– she’s not looking at Cio, she’s looking… at US!
Either yes, or no…. Royalty doesn’t deal with trivial responses. Why are you acting brand-new, Cio???
My Main Mang’s Sclera be tellin the good good
I guess this immense power’s… Gone to her head?
Looks like all this power has… gone to her head?
Whoops. Pardon the double post, I didn’t know how comments worked on this site.
To all who mention that Alison should be kinder, consider that she cannot afford to trust a person on the basis that they saved her, for their goals may just need her alive until it no longer suits them. Princess has admitted to revenge, White Chain to usurpation of her crown for who they consider the rightful ruler, and Cio to not needing her as Alison, but as holder of an unimaginably powerful crown that could be made her omnipotent meatshield. Only one has come to serve, if indeed she has and is not lying to gain a better position to strike from, as power is a tempting lure. Better to have trust earned through honesty and deed, through a changing of goals to fit with all in question, than to give it freely in this situation and end up playing to only the benefit of one person.
I would argue it’s easier to spot a traitor that thinks you consider him friend, rather then one that knows you don’t. Also, courtesy a not acting like… well, this, is far removed from giving away friendship and trust so freely. Of course, one needs some manner of wisdom to act not in accordance with one’s own heart in certain situations.
That said, I do think it’s an act for the group – the leader role must be claimed. She desperately wants respect to go along with her power, lest she be a tool in another’s schemes.
She’s looking more Kingly by the minute
“A friend is a lesser that one indulges. A peer is an equal that one respects. A master is a superior that one fears.
A true king has none of these. A true king has only subjects.”
-un-Jebhal, “A Treatise on Ruling,” verse XIV.
Wait, is Cio playing possom here?
She claims she has to avoid thieving, for mental health reasons. So far, so good.
But she stole the boat?
Very good characterization of Cio. Her personality seems very real and is developing nicely. The way her posing and facial expressions are drawn really does a lot to convey the character.
I do not like how Allison is acting, and I don’t mean because it’s intimidating or concerning, I mean because it seems forced. Less ‘badass’ and more ‘trying to be badass’. A bit contrived, maybe a bit rushed in terms of character development. But perhaps she’s just being very quickly corrupted.
Final note: The bottom-left panel is one of the absolute best in the entire comic so far. Not in terms of flashiness (it’s a relatively dull scene) but in terms of the way it was designed. Its angle, the way the shadows were used to make Allison’s presence over Cio intimidating, the way her bandages and power sort of float behind her, and the way her eyes and expression look. The way the outline of a crown is starting to appear really does the trick. The panel elicits a lot of feeling. Fantastic work there.
More like falling king
I cannot help to notice that all this chapter ir a homage to Jojos posing and foreshortening. Am I a little late to the discussion?