Logic? What logic! The countertransference makes me cringe. The advice is premature and self serving. The true self must be exposed cut and synthisized into a new living whole on a continual basis. Thicker layers are what Miss French existentialist stereotype here has. They keep her from her other names and any chance of royalty.
5966 Attempts to hack Reincarnation Optimistically
Why does this always happen? Why do people assume a character’s beliefs and an author’s beliefs have to line up?
That a character can’t be complex enough to possess her own psychology, and that maybe the flawed nature of her statement was INTENTIONALLY SUPPOSED TO REFLECT HER PERSONAL PROBLEMS.
Just, something to note to a few folk in this chain: nobody likes a truly self-aware, flawless character. Including you.
Even “enlightened” characters like Avatar’s Uncle Iroh carry subconscious flaws or biases. The guy projects his dead son onto his nephew, and thus overly invests in the boy’s safety, for example.
That’s what makes characters GOOD! Subconscious flaws that warp reasoning are HUMAN!
Pfff, she’s not an existentialist stereotype. Existentialism largely rejects the possibility of any true or permanent self, as per Demon-Sartre’s Existentialism As A Demonism: “We remind demon that there is no legislator but demself; that de demself, thus abandoned, must decide for demself; also because we show that it is not by turning back upon demself, but always by seeking, beyond demself, an aim which is one of liberation or of some particular realisation, that demon can realize demself as truly demon.”
No indeed, Cio’s just a generically French demon stereotype. 😛
Sounds to me like she’s merely projecting. She admitted she really wants to rob the jerk of a dragon just pages ago, for probably the exact same reasons (plus impressing Allison) that she did before.
Everything she said before Allison’s “I didn’t need you to tell me that” holds water, though.
As for the existentialist thing, she’s technically immortal (maybe not in the way Angels are, but enough so to reincarnate with some memories and her personality intact), so presumably she would know a thing or two about this stuff.
“Not worrying about it” is the first step to cutting away those layers, though. A certain degree of fatalism simply sharpens the blade of Want, because irony makes a fine fuel for the flames of desire.
For example, our friend Maya Murder-the-Gods-etc. certainly doesn’t seem worried about being doomed to be utterly herself, does she?
Perhaps that is the point. She could not hold even a glimmer of divine right for that long; she simply isn’t capable. That failure in itself is a reminder of the true depth and self-knowledge inherit in a real god, like YISUN. Or Al-YI-SUN. Our bold heroine has a history on calling people on their bullshit.
Well, Allison DID force her to steal stuff again, so she is probably right about the doomed part.
And also, I agree with her on an existential level. Some of us perhaps haven’t lived enough or understood ourselves enough to realize that, but truly, we don’t really change, just apply thinker layers to ourselves and pretend that’s our new us.
I had a Hai-kai about this, what was it again… I wrote in portuguese, in english it would become something like…
‘Ten thousand bark rings
but in the middle, coursing
sap you begin with”
Not sure on the syllable metrics in english, not my native language, but I tried to make it as close as I could.
Hypocrisy?
She’s more genuine than ever. She just changed her mask a while ago. It’s like a set of filters on camera – some things are invisible to you unless you look at them through very special set of fake eyes. And under influence of the new mask (more humble and less sociopathic – perhaps, intentionally on the side of her husband) she had come to a new understanding of her true self; and to realization, that her true self will never be able to keep her old name forever – much less, to get even a fleeting chance to royalty. All the longing, all the thirst for power – all that’s still inside her, she’s the Terrible Blade of Want after all. What she fears, is not the return of her true self – it never was lost, in first place – no, she fears that her true self may – will – decide, that Cio must cease to exist, for there is no place for that feebling in the presence of the Usurper Queen.
For she is blind to the new option: not she – not ever – but mrs Cioelle, the weak and feeble Mask she wears, has a chance to reach royalty. And if she could discard the chains of old trueness and became the Mask… Well, that’s a brand new can of daemons, is it not?
Truly, people do never change – aside from apotheotic pupae, but that’s debatable: if your trueself dies violently, and something compleatly new emerges from the blazing ashes, can that even be considered as change?
But mortals are malleable, and so, if a new Mask – with new ethic, new ability patterns, new sensual paradigms, and new chains of gage – was grafted properly…
methinks her logic only applies to devils and angels — they can never truly die as they’re immortal and cycle again through lives, but humans’ mortality means change comes to them in a completely different way as a result.
“People don’t change that much. Some are born wolves, some are sheep. You might be wearing sheep’s clothing but your fangs are showing through”
I happen to disagree with both that quote and Cio. If people dont’t change, adapt and learn, why even bother trying? Yet we try anyway. So we must be capable of some change.
You put up new walls, re-shingle the roof, change out the windows, even put up a new coat of paint, but you cannot change the houses foundation unless you tear the entire thing down. People do not change, not who they really are, because it’s a core aspect of themselves. What changes, however, is perspective and understanding. A mouse can pretend to be a lion if he realizes acting like such can help him survive, but no matter how boisterous his roar is, it will still come from a mouse.
You say change is impossible, but by the line “…unless you tear the entire thing down”, you are unknowingly admitting otherwise. That drastic measures can alter even fundamental aspects of one’s being.
We are not automatons. We are not stone edifices, carved once and never to alter again. We are as clay, molded and shaped continuously all our lives. As the clay grows drier, change becomes more difficult, but it can happen all the same. It’s just harder. Only when the light of life is extinguished and the clay is cast into the crucible of the next world can we be said to be complete. Only when we die do we cease to change.
And so long as a person draws breath, and has the fire of Will in their heart, they can change. Even if it means tearing the entire house down and starting again. Indeed, that is exactly what one must do to seek Enlightenment.
It is a comfort to imagine oneself and others beyond change; to imagine that all the world is precisely as you understand it. It is the comfort of peasants, whether they dwell in rude huts or atop jewel-encrusted thrones: “All is as ever it shall be.”
The Orders Mendicant and Belligerent exist primarily to refute this flawed understanding; to teach the lesson that the shape of the universe is the shape of Royalty, a continuous cutting motion. Know all you perceive is a lie-that-was, and even the keenest observer will never catch up to the racing truth we call “now,” for astride that beast rides the Grand Enemy, and his wrath is terrible indeed.
In every gust of wind, in every stone set upon another, there is the potential for your entire universe to come crashing down around you. Embrace the lie! For tomorrow, as the Belligerents are wont to teach, you will have no arms to embrace it!
People don’t *change*, so much as they *repurpose*. That tire iron is invaluable to you when you’ve got a flat tire. Move yourself to a war-torn hellscape, and it’s a pretty decent skull-cracker. Wash your hands of war in the aftermath, and it’s a great pry-bar with which to lever crushed walls off of trapped survivors. That’s why you try and better yourself: To find a way to contribute to solving the challenges of life in a fashion that brings you to self-acceptance and peace.
Well played, Abbadon.
This one spots at least two puns in the alt text. Now, are there any more?
1) Arc –> Ark. Reminiscent of a boat, of which they are on. Also, the original ark was a sanctuary. The boat they are one is a safe place for Cio and Al-YISUN to develop a rapport and fuel the shipping.
1a) Perhaps the first “arc” refers to the “ark,” meaning that this sky ship is called “The Shipping Arc”.
2) Shipping arc –> They’ve been on a literal ship this entire arc.
Well, shit, that’s true. From her first appearance, even.
…Hmm. From the bit with the devil bar, it looks like most devils have skin much darker than their masks. So I dunno?
Here’s something else, though. When we met Cio in Hell 71, she quite plainly had four arms, like Yabalchoath. She still had them when she descended on the angel and summoned paper soldiers, then tucked the extra pair inside her garment as she fled with Allison, and–as far as I can tell–they haven’t been seen since.
Her cloak maybe had power to multiply wearers arms and that’s the whole story behind it. Or it was made with copies of her arms from a devil or two-seeing that they fly an airship with a devil engine on board I say that devil-folk and small bits of black flame can be used for some interesting things and contraptions.
It is the curious work of the Revisionist Priests of Fn’fic, and their great libraries; for every text, every lithograph, and tale that reaches their temple becomes something other than it was.
Brothers, sisters, enemies, close friends, distant acquaintances, and random strangers are recast as lovers. The Revisionist Priests take great joy in their work, which they strangely refer to in naval terms. It is said they take their mission from a great demon of uncertain temper, but this is never been confirmed. All that can be said is that they “ships” crafted by these Priests make much joy among those that enjoy them, and bring consternation to all others.
The guild wars between the Revisionist Priests and the Historians’ Guild have been brutal indeed. The Historians, quite rightly to my mind, accuse the Priests of horning in on their territory.
I am fairly certain that tongue is as roughshod as a file. While I to say ‘try what you like’- perhaps this would be a time not to do so. But, whatever you’re fated to do, you will do. Alas…
The true ruler is the Wielder of Names, who discards the husks of old, useless selves and consigns them to the void. But the moment of vertigo as you look down and realize that’s you flapping on the faint abyssal breeze, the person you were a scant ten minutes ago, just an empty skin and a few stray hairs and a fading gasp…
Well, I imagine it’s claimed many a would-be heir before.
“[Smith’s] own people passed through five major shapes: egg, nymph, nestling, adult – and Old One which had no shape. Yet the essence of an Old One was patterned in the egg.”
— Stranger in a Strange Land
It’s quite possible Cio is just pessimistic about being able to bury her ‘true’ self.
Raises some interesting ideas though. Should you attempt to remain your true self, warts and all, unchanging? Or pile on the layers, to cover the spikes and edges, but be unable to tell self from layer?
I suspect Royalty is to smash the spikes and edges that serve no use, and craft a sheath for those that should be wielded.
Oh my
I like her logic.
Logic? What logic! The countertransference makes me cringe. The advice is premature and self serving. The true self must be exposed cut and synthisized into a new living whole on a continual basis. Thicker layers are what Miss French existentialist stereotype here has. They keep her from her other names and any chance of royalty.
This. Royalty’s edges are naked, sheathed, or broken. Never hidden, neglected or forgotten. Used, explicitly or implicitly, or discarded.
It”s almost as if it’s written by a person who is a webcomic creator and not a philosopher.
Why does this always happen? Why do people assume a character’s beliefs and an author’s beliefs have to line up?
That a character can’t be complex enough to possess her own psychology, and that maybe the flawed nature of her statement was INTENTIONALLY SUPPOSED TO REFLECT HER PERSONAL PROBLEMS.
Just, something to note to a few folk in this chain: nobody likes a truly self-aware, flawless character. Including you.
Even “enlightened” characters like Avatar’s Uncle Iroh carry subconscious flaws or biases. The guy projects his dead son onto his nephew, and thus overly invests in the boy’s safety, for example.
That’s what makes characters GOOD! Subconscious flaws that warp reasoning are HUMAN!
Pfff, she’s not an existentialist stereotype. Existentialism largely rejects the possibility of any true or permanent self, as per Demon-Sartre’s Existentialism As A Demonism: “We remind demon that there is no legislator but demself; that de demself, thus abandoned, must decide for demself; also because we show that it is not by turning back upon demself, but always by seeking, beyond demself, an aim which is one of liberation or of some particular realisation, that demon can realize demself as truly demon.”
No indeed, Cio’s just a generically French demon stereotype. 😛
Sounds to me like she’s merely projecting. She admitted she really wants to rob the jerk of a dragon just pages ago, for probably the exact same reasons (plus impressing Allison) that she did before.
Everything she said before Allison’s “I didn’t need you to tell me that” holds water, though.
As for the existentialist thing, she’s technically immortal (maybe not in the way Angels are, but enough so to reincarnate with some memories and her personality intact), so presumably she would know a thing or two about this stuff.
Depending on how much she’s died, of course…
I suspect this is just a feint.
“Not worrying about it” is the first step to cutting away those layers, though. A certain degree of fatalism simply sharpens the blade of Want, because irony makes a fine fuel for the flames of desire.
For example, our friend Maya Murder-the-Gods-etc. certainly doesn’t seem worried about being doomed to be utterly herself, does she?
Perhaps that is the point. She could not hold even a glimmer of divine right for that long; she simply isn’t capable. That failure in itself is a reminder of the true depth and self-knowledge inherit in a real god, like YISUN. Or Al-YI-SUN. Our bold heroine has a history on calling people on their bullshit.
I’ll admit, there’s a certain sublime elegance to her hypocrisy.
I’m not the only one who caught that, huh?
>I didn’t want to be that person anymore
>We’re all doomed to repeat our mistakes
Well, Allison DID force her to steal stuff again, so she is probably right about the doomed part.
And also, I agree with her on an existential level. Some of us perhaps haven’t lived enough or understood ourselves enough to realize that, but truly, we don’t really change, just apply thinker layers to ourselves and pretend that’s our new us.
I had a Hai-kai about this, what was it again… I wrote in portuguese, in english it would become something like…
‘Ten thousand bark rings
but in the middle, coursing
sap you begin with”
Not sure on the syllable metrics in english, not my native language, but I tried to make it as close as I could.
Hypocrisy?
She’s more genuine than ever. She just changed her mask a while ago. It’s like a set of filters on camera – some things are invisible to you unless you look at them through very special set of fake eyes. And under influence of the new mask (more humble and less sociopathic – perhaps, intentionally on the side of her husband) she had come to a new understanding of her true self; and to realization, that her true self will never be able to keep her old name forever – much less, to get even a fleeting chance to royalty. All the longing, all the thirst for power – all that’s still inside her, she’s the Terrible Blade of Want after all. What she fears, is not the return of her true self – it never was lost, in first place – no, she fears that her true self may – will – decide, that Cio must cease to exist, for there is no place for that feebling in the presence of the Usurper Queen.
For she is blind to the new option: not she – not ever – but mrs Cioelle, the weak and feeble Mask she wears, has a chance to reach royalty. And if she could discard the chains of old trueness and became the Mask… Well, that’s a brand new can of daemons, is it not?
Truly, people do never change – aside from apotheotic pupae, but that’s debatable: if your trueself dies violently, and something compleatly new emerges from the blazing ashes, can that even be considered as change?
But mortals are malleable, and so, if a new Mask – with new ethic, new ability patterns, new sensual paradigms, and new chains of gage – was grafted properly…
Notice to all college girls.
This is a line. It’s not even a very good one.
Do not bite on it, unless you want to find out if you are allergic to street-grade hypnotics.
methinks her logic only applies to devils and angels — they can never truly die as they’re immortal and cycle again through lives, but humans’ mortality means change comes to them in a completely different way as a result.
So, our once-dead-twice-living devil has finally brought out her powerful “POMF” technique.
=3
“What dost tha want to do on the bed, Al-YISUN?”
Trying to stop the shipping would be like making a ship go up stream without a paddle: Quite the oar deal.
So bring on the shipping jokes, the punnier the better!
Is this the shipping arc or the shipping ark?
You may be due for a stern reminder on puns being their own reword.
But I will bow out before I scupper the subject.
That caused me mild physical pain.
I was about to order my boat puns from Amazon, but the shipping and handling cost were too much for me.
I’m reminded of a quote.
“People don’t change that much. Some are born wolves, some are sheep. You might be wearing sheep’s clothing but your fangs are showing through”
I happen to disagree with both that quote and Cio. If people dont’t change, adapt and learn, why even bother trying? Yet we try anyway. So we must be capable of some change.
You put up new walls, re-shingle the roof, change out the windows, even put up a new coat of paint, but you cannot change the houses foundation unless you tear the entire thing down. People do not change, not who they really are, because it’s a core aspect of themselves. What changes, however, is perspective and understanding. A mouse can pretend to be a lion if he realizes acting like such can help him survive, but no matter how boisterous his roar is, it will still come from a mouse.
You say change is impossible, but by the line “…unless you tear the entire thing down”, you are unknowingly admitting otherwise. That drastic measures can alter even fundamental aspects of one’s being.
We are not automatons. We are not stone edifices, carved once and never to alter again. We are as clay, molded and shaped continuously all our lives. As the clay grows drier, change becomes more difficult, but it can happen all the same. It’s just harder. Only when the light of life is extinguished and the clay is cast into the crucible of the next world can we be said to be complete. Only when we die do we cease to change.
And so long as a person draws breath, and has the fire of Will in their heart, they can change. Even if it means tearing the entire house down and starting again. Indeed, that is exactly what one must do to seek Enlightenment.
Thank you
I think it depends on what you think defines a person as an individual, or even truly individuality exists at all.
It is a comfort to imagine oneself and others beyond change; to imagine that all the world is precisely as you understand it. It is the comfort of peasants, whether they dwell in rude huts or atop jewel-encrusted thrones: “All is as ever it shall be.”
The Orders Mendicant and Belligerent exist primarily to refute this flawed understanding; to teach the lesson that the shape of the universe is the shape of Royalty, a continuous cutting motion. Know all you perceive is a lie-that-was, and even the keenest observer will never catch up to the racing truth we call “now,” for astride that beast rides the Grand Enemy, and his wrath is terrible indeed.
In every gust of wind, in every stone set upon another, there is the potential for your entire universe to come crashing down around you. Embrace the lie! For tomorrow, as the Belligerents are wont to teach, you will have no arms to embrace it!
Yes, yes.
People change.
Humanity doesn’t.
Faux nihilism is but a rationalization for the indolent.
People and humanity change all the time.
Participate.
People don’t *change*, so much as they *repurpose*. That tire iron is invaluable to you when you’ve got a flat tire. Move yourself to a war-torn hellscape, and it’s a pretty decent skull-cracker. Wash your hands of war in the aftermath, and it’s a great pry-bar with which to lever crushed walls off of trapped survivors. That’s why you try and better yourself: To find a way to contribute to solving the challenges of life in a fashion that brings you to self-acceptance and peace.
She treats “our true selves” as an objective fact. These are bold words for a flesh-trapped ball of writhing darkness
Cio sure is looking a lot more spidery than her last appearance.
“I call this arc the ‘shipping’ arc.”
Well played, Abbadon.
This one spots at least two puns in the alt text. Now, are there any more?
1) Arc –> Ark. Reminiscent of a boat, of which they are on. Also, the original ark was a sanctuary. The boat they are one is a safe place for Cio and Al-YISUN to develop a rapport and fuel the shipping.
1a) Perhaps the first “arc” refers to the “ark,” meaning that this sky ship is called “The Shipping Arc”.
2) Shipping arc –> They’ve been on a literal ship this entire arc.
shipping arc because they’re on a ship
Bold move there, let’s see how it plays out!
Miss Cio looks dangerously reminiscent of her past self without her glasses.
To her point; The only part of Cio that is blue is her mask. Her feet and hands are still ebon
By YISUN, you’re right. Could it be that the mask is a lie?
Well, yes, but so is the rest of the devil.
And everything else for that matter.
Most blue devils seem to look that way, though. But maybe they were all demoted at some point.
Well, shit, that’s true. From her first appearance, even.
…Hmm. From the bit with the devil bar, it looks like most devils have skin much darker than their masks. So I dunno?
Here’s something else, though. When we met Cio in Hell 71, she quite plainly had four arms, like Yabalchoath. She still had them when she descended on the angel and summoned paper soldiers, then tucked the extra pair inside her garment as she fled with Allison, and–as far as I can tell–they haven’t been seen since.
That’s interesting.
Her cloak maybe had power to multiply wearers arms and that’s the whole story behind it. Or it was made with copies of her arms from a devil or two-seeing that they fly an airship with a devil engine on board I say that devil-folk and small bits of black flame can be used for some interesting things and contraptions.
Six, actually.
http://killsixbilliondemons.com/comic/ksbd-3-38/
at least, that’s how many I can count.
Coat of Arms:
http://killsixbilliondemons.com/comic/wielder-of-names-2-36/
That explains the difference in number
Wow, the art style has changed quite a bit since the beginning.
Yeah, I noticed that too. Maybe they were a part of the cloak somehow.
The cold horrifying truth told by a devil. Huh usually their kind prefer to tell beautiful lies filled with honied words.
Half-truths are the deadliest lies.
Intriguing.
It is the curious work of the Revisionist Priests of Fn’fic, and their great libraries; for every text, every lithograph, and tale that reaches their temple becomes something other than it was.
Brothers, sisters, enemies, close friends, distant acquaintances, and random strangers are recast as lovers. The Revisionist Priests take great joy in their work, which they strangely refer to in naval terms. It is said they take their mission from a great demon of uncertain temper, but this is never been confirmed. All that can be said is that they “ships” crafted by these Priests make much joy among those that enjoy them, and bring consternation to all others.
– A Pocket Guide to Nowhere, Anonymous
The guild wars between the Revisionist Priests and the Historians’ Guild have been brutal indeed. The Historians, quite rightly to my mind, accuse the Priests of horning in on their territory.
So Cio was always a fanfiction writer?
Even Ebon devils need hobbies.
I once met one with a habit of collecting beanie babies.
He tried to eat my face, but that was for an entirely different and unrelated reason.
Hot AS FUCK.
I’d want to touch upon the deeper issues/meanings here, but right now I’m too busy calming my desire for mature devil-women.
Can’t blame you, her tongue is hot as an open flame….i’d still try it anyways
I am fairly certain that tongue is as roughshod as a file. While I to say ‘try what you like’- perhaps this would be a time not to do so. But, whatever you’re fated to do, you will do. Alas…
Living life to the fullest, like moths to a flame.
The true ruler is the Wielder of Names, who discards the husks of old, useless selves and consigns them to the void. But the moment of vertigo as you look down and realize that’s you flapping on the faint abyssal breeze, the person you were a scant ten minutes ago, just an empty skin and a few stray hairs and a fading gasp…
Well, I imagine it’s claimed many a would-be heir before.
Soothing words from a roughened tongue
She ran so hard away from her old mistakes, and yet, here she goes again. I suppose that’s tragic, if you’re Greek.
“[Smith’s] own people passed through five major shapes: egg, nymph, nestling, adult – and Old One which had no shape. Yet the essence of an Old One was patterned in the egg.”
— Stranger in a Strange Land
Abbadon is just teasing shippers at this point. How cruel.
Cio, you are either a wise mentor or a foolish courtesan. Perhaps both.
I’ve heard of a “Fiery Tongue” before, but…
I assumed it was just rough, like a cat’s, hence suitable for striking matches.
Wow, I didn’t really expect that view from someone who was virtually remade in their entirety.
Fear of relapse that has become so ingrained in her personality that now it’s just plain cynicism?
I hope something happens to have her have a more positive outlook on personal fates.
It’s quite possible Cio is just pessimistic about being able to bury her ‘true’ self.
Raises some interesting ideas though. Should you attempt to remain your true self, warts and all, unchanging? Or pile on the layers, to cover the spikes and edges, but be unable to tell self from layer?
I suspect Royalty is to smash the spikes and edges that serve no use, and craft a sheath for those that should be wielded.