Mmmm. Nah. I see this more platonic. If anything this could be more on the floppy caliginous side. Educate yourselves on Troll Romance. Its so much EA sier
Ah, of course. No ‘tough girl’ image would be complete without some degree of self-abuse to round it out.
Written in sarcasm, but read in truth. The mature soul is never without self-recrimination. How it handles it is the mark of the truly mature. There habits both better and worse than tobacco.
Do tell how you know it is tobacco that this imp is smoking. For i would expect something unimaginably more clandestine. I would not be surprised if Al-Yis-Un will temporarily grow claws or gets feline eyes or something. Maybe antlers.
The Fool might be a servant, but truly he is the most free of all men. The King and his generals will consider him a simple idiot, and pay no attention to his words and simply laugh at him; and thus, the Fool can freely speak his mind, knowing for sure there will be no consequences.
The Fool is nothing and everything, while the King is stuck in a single, eternal form.
Pass the dutchie on the left hand side
It a gonna burn, give me music make me jump and prance
It a go done, give me the music make me rock in the dance
One does not acquire a Total Mastery of Space-Time without some grounding in the fundamentals of Chaos Theory.
Put simply: The sprouting of individual saplings is difficult to predict. However, if one can lose sight of the saplings to look at the forest, it’s growth is quite predictable and it’s location is unlikely to change unexpectedly.
I knooooow right? i was thinking the exact same thing! I mean, this totaly counts right? I know it’s not a soft drink, and they aren’t japanese schoolgirls etc. Etc. But hey. Exchanged mucus is exchanged mucus right?
Ahh, the finest red demon cigarettes, said to be the only substance capable of inducing lung cancer faster than the human-made variety. I had a friend die from smoking them for only a month — towards the end he started to grow horns. But the nicotine content is absolutely unmatched.
They can get off the boat, but I’m never getting off this ship.
I relate to White Chain so much, it’s great to see a character that struggles with gender and identity who is still a hero, who is a hero for those things. She really is the kind of character I would love to see more of and I can’t wait to see where her story goes, tragedy or victory. She is trying to be a moral person in an immoral time and I think we’re going to see exactly what her strength is before the end. Or I hope so, at least.
To break my Hungry Ghost character for a moment, I second this. Her struggle both with herself and with the world is one I am undergoing, and angrily shouting White Chain quotes is one of my strongest comforts in moments of turmoil internal and external.
(I agree, also, about never getting off this ship.)
Uther "Chaos Angel", Least of Jagganoth's Foreservants
Well, if we’re breaking character… What I really appreciate is that when we see White Chain interacting with other angels, there’s an element of anti-human bigotry, which very very easily could have been the end of it. A lot of writers wouldn’t have been willing to go further than evoking allegorical systems of oppression, and would have patted themselves on the back for getting that far.
But in White Chain’s scenes, we ARE deliberately shown that misogyny and transphobia contribute in a huge way to how other people treat her! And these mindsets are painted with exactly the same brush, often in the same moments, as the completely made-up and absurd anti anthro sentiment, which is a wonderful screw you to all the people who would try to pretend the author wasn’t taking a stance on the subject.
Hahaha, you are reading the wrong fucking comic, bucko. This here is Kill Six Billion Demons and it’s about angels with gender identity issues. You might prefer, say, Control Alt Delete.
In the realm of blasphemies beyond reckoning, White Chain thus far is a much better iteration of a concept Terry Pratchett tried in Good Omens: the angel corrupted by humanity. Aziraphale was just a comedically well-intentioned gay british stereotype, Stephen Fry If Stephen Fry Wasn’t Fat Or Manic Depressive. You can tell neither Pratchett or Gaiman could really get into the character, Crowley was the fun one.
White Chain is instead an Emissary of Unthinkable Powers, No Small Power Herself, Wait, Did I Say Herself, Shit, Fuck, You Heard Nothing, Do We Understand Each Other, Anyway, About Your Crimes. There’s a lot of thematic room to play with what happens when a supernatural expression of certainty becomes uncertain.
When you learn to kill with the invisible blade there is no adrenaline, only purpose, the whole sympathetic nervous system is negated when one doesnt do, they just are.
An interesting detail, though it’s probably been pointed out already: 82 White Chain ripped her stone face off, but what you see underneath is a black hole, instead of angelic fire as you’d expect. That ‘hole’ is obviously the new mask she’s wearing in place of the old one.
so, in other words, maybe “who you are” doesn’t change. but “how well you understand who you are” does, so from a subjective point of view it ends up being a wash?
I’ll tell you one thing, most of these hot dogs go their whole life without realizing they’re made of quorn
Everyone has at least two faces: the outer face that we show to our enemies, and the inner one we show to our friends. Be wary of letting false friends see your inner face, otherwise you’re likely to end up as the poor bastard being stabbed to death on the floor of the senate hall.
An interesting shot in the second panel. Cio sitting over the border of the panel is definitely a good way is showing both speaker and subject at once. I don’t know many comics that would draw it that way, though that could just as easily be a comment on my lack of reference material.
Jhorne the Murderous Vagrant Slays Monsters And Steals Their Loot
y’know, considering Cio kinda directly contradicted the previous King, I don’t think you should listen to her. Cut greater forms, AL-YISUN, wield a king’s name.
A demon trying to get away from the fact she used to be, like, Super Caligula. An angel trying to square being female with being a member of a genderless (if often rather male-coded) species. It’s always a bit of a relief to contemplate people with even worse identity problems than your own.
If they stay on the ol’ ship any longer, they are gonna need a lot of guts to get off. More and more fools will be coming after them, armed with delusions of grandeur. A cascade of danger, if you will. Genuine grit. Focused frenzy. These are the strengths that are needed now, and I think AL-YISUN is surrounded by comrades that will lend these strengths to her. In a word: ~ B E R S E R K ~
My temporary concern over the quality of character development from seeing Alice lash out as a ‘bad girl’ has been resolved, *very* quickly. And it felt very organic. Glad to see the story isn’t trying to force an identity that feels fake, and is self-aware of how unnaturally quick her change seemed. (It was clearly forced.)
It’s obvious to me (again) that Abaddon knows what he/she is doing.
Ship or no ship, the biggest thing to come from these last few panels is Cio’s seeming wisdom coming in a well wrapped, sexy, finalistic, but utterly hypocritical bundle. I would expect that reality is more nuanced than her views, her stamps, reflecting upon others. White Chain’s issues and resolution are probably beyond even this devil’s wisdom.
Hopefully this theme isn’t simply left crystallized in these few pages.
Is it just me or is there a parallelism between White Chain and Alyson?
White Chain is looking for an actual physical mask that will fit while our heroine has been wearing a figurative mask. The hair colour being just one part of that mask she wore trying to “fit in” and be “normal” where that means average and mundane. In some cultures that is called being “honorable” as in behaving as one is expected to behave despite what damage it may do to ones self.
Here we see one slowly stripping away aspects of her mask. Will the other realize something similar about themselves and go on a similar journey of self discovery?
I quite like the boat
The ship. The word you’re looking for is ship. And which one, cause i count two ships i’d like on this page
That’s the joke my friend. He’s implying he likes their mode of transport but he really means he likes the pairing.
there are good ships,
and there are wood ships
(the kind that sail the sea)
but the best ships
are slash fics
(and may they always be)
It’s a nice boat.
Mmmm. Nah. I see this more platonic. If anything this could be more on the floppy caliginous side. Educate yourselves on Troll Romance. Its so much EA sier
No!
Lies!
They will be on the boat forever. There is no end.
You can leave the boat, but the boat can never leave you.
The boat can go on in your heart, but the rest of us really will get tired of this teasing, eventually.
First Berserk! and now KSBD.
Truly, boats are the nemesis to all illustrated stories.
Unless it’s a failboat.
Die for our ship..?
I want the boat to stay. Really great section.
I’m glad to see the quality sister bonding time.
I am really loving the growth of each character at times almost simultaneously or at least in tandem with each other.
Ah, of course. No ‘tough girl’ image would be complete without some degree of self-abuse to round it out.
Written in sarcasm, but read in truth. The mature soul is never without self-recrimination. How it handles it is the mark of the truly mature. There habits both better and worse than tobacco.
Do tell how you know it is tobacco that this imp is smoking. For i would expect something unimaginably more clandestine. I would not be surprised if Al-Yis-Un will temporarily grow claws or gets feline eyes or something. Maybe antlers.
Whether tobacco is or is not what Ciocie is smoking, every word of my statement holds just as true.
Considering that it seems to work on both devils and humans, it’s probably black glass.
It is the “devil’s herb,” mari-juana
A face out of place.
oh my what a rebel
And this is why fools such as I are invincible and happy. We have no need to understand, and our masks are many.
But what is the words of a Fool to Kings?
Everything. Such is the Fool’s place.
“Red-eyed devils change their names;
Angels change their faces.
Both are equal liars, though they
Come from dif’rent places.
“But humans hold the higher prowess
When it comes to lies;
Change your face or change your name–
Humans change their minds.”
-Blue devil (name unknown)
The Fool might be a servant, but truly he is the most free of all men. The King and his generals will consider him a simple idiot, and pay no attention to his words and simply laugh at him; and thus, the Fool can freely speak his mind, knowing for sure there will be no consequences.
The Fool is nothing and everything, while the King is stuck in a single, eternal form.
Is the jester truely free to speak his mind if it is always thought to be in jest? There is little freedom in impotent ramblings.
I am no mere jackanape in costume, I am a Fool, and we Fools are freer than any.
Cio: Dude, pass it on.
Pass the dutchie on the left hand side
It a gonna burn, give me music make me jump and prance
It a go done, give me the music make me rock in the dance
“They’re getting off the boat soon guys don’t worry”
Is that a Berserk reference or am I just imagining things?
Probably.
I recall a chef, from new orleans.
who was looking for mangos, in a riverboat scene.
“Never get outta tha boat!” He screams.
It has to be, no? It has to be.
It is 100% a Berserk reference.
…It’s 100% an Apocalypse Now reference. If you know it from Berserk, then that’s what Berserk is referencing.
The Berserk one isn’t a reference to anything. The manga went on hiatus for a long while after the protags got on a boat IIRC.
Real life events can also be references to other real or fictional events. Obviously.
In Berserk they got off the boat a while ago. Now they’re on an island, preparing to go on a road trip through Caska’s memories, I think.
Order is ascertained from great perspective.
A flock of starlings or a surging river.
At ground level, matter is flux.
The harbor looks at the ocean, and sees an ever-shifting mass of waves.
The ocean looks at the harbor, and sees the ever-shifting mass of people.
Naval commerce is a game where all is ever in flux. Look ye to those who proclaim themselves its master, and know them by their true name: suckers.
Transient is the natural state of man,
all people move from whence they began.
Like my friend, who lives in a van.
One does not acquire a Total Mastery of Space-Time without some grounding in the fundamentals of Chaos Theory.
Put simply: The sprouting of individual saplings is difficult to predict. However, if one can lose sight of the saplings to look at the forest, it’s growth is quite predictable and it’s location is unlikely to change unexpectedly.
Cio is giving Allison mad bedroom eyes in that last panel and I couldn’t be happier.
Cio: Hair’s lookin’ messy. Want me to finish it?
Allison: Finish…*cough* …messing it?
Cio: If tha likes.
Allison: …sure.
Way anchor. The good ship colison may finally make port.
AL-YISUN perfecting the way of the indirect kiss?
I knooooow right? i was thinking the exact same thing! I mean, this totaly counts right? I know it’s not a soft drink, and they aren’t japanese schoolgirls etc. Etc. But hey. Exchanged mucus is exchanged mucus right?
Ahh, the finest red demon cigarettes, said to be the only substance capable of inducing lung cancer faster than the human-made variety. I had a friend die from smoking them for only a month — towards the end he started to grow horns. But the nicotine content is absolutely unmatched.
No, never get off the boat! We need more shipping!
Of course we need more shipping! The girl and Princess are the only ones without enough baggage each to sink a super freighter!
They can get off the boat, but I’m never getting off this ship.
I relate to White Chain so much, it’s great to see a character that struggles with gender and identity who is still a hero, who is a hero for those things. She really is the kind of character I would love to see more of and I can’t wait to see where her story goes, tragedy or victory. She is trying to be a moral person in an immoral time and I think we’re going to see exactly what her strength is before the end. Or I hope so, at least.
To break my Hungry Ghost character for a moment, I second this. Her struggle both with herself and with the world is one I am undergoing, and angrily shouting White Chain quotes is one of my strongest comforts in moments of turmoil internal and external.
(I agree, also, about never getting off this ship.)
Well, if we’re breaking character… What I really appreciate is that when we see White Chain interacting with other angels, there’s an element of anti-human bigotry, which very very easily could have been the end of it. A lot of writers wouldn’t have been willing to go further than evoking allegorical systems of oppression, and would have patted themselves on the back for getting that far.
But in White Chain’s scenes, we ARE deliberately shown that misogyny and transphobia contribute in a huge way to how other people treat her! And these mindsets are painted with exactly the same brush, often in the same moments, as the completely made-up and absurd anti anthro sentiment, which is a wonderful screw you to all the people who would try to pretend the author wasn’t taking a stance on the subject.
get yo Tumblr bs outta here, boi
get ye gone
Dude, seriously? Gender/identity conundrums aren’t an automatic “lol tumblr” thing. Don’t be a doofus.
Hush.
How ironic that one of such uncouth a dialect is in fact an Aeon bearing the word “Enlighten” in their name.
Truly your sermon has cast enlightenment into even the stoniest outlander’s heart.
Angelic flame resisting the concept of gender, the concept of flux, and the concept that others may have viable ideologies all in one.
You know, they genuinely wonder why all that is left of them are the broken and the mad.
Hahaha, you are reading the wrong fucking comic, bucko. This here is Kill Six Billion Demons and it’s about angels with gender identity issues. You might prefer, say, Control Alt Delete.
In the realm of blasphemies beyond reckoning, White Chain thus far is a much better iteration of a concept Terry Pratchett tried in Good Omens: the angel corrupted by humanity. Aziraphale was just a comedically well-intentioned gay british stereotype, Stephen Fry If Stephen Fry Wasn’t Fat Or Manic Depressive. You can tell neither Pratchett or Gaiman could really get into the character, Crowley was the fun one.
White Chain is instead an Emissary of Unthinkable Powers, No Small Power Herself, Wait, Did I Say Herself, Shit, Fuck, You Heard Nothing, Do We Understand Each Other, Anyway, About Your Crimes. There’s a lot of thematic room to play with what happens when a supernatural expression of certainty becomes uncertain.
Dont be peer pressured by devils (and have no peers), stay in school kids, reach heaven by violence not drugs
Adrenaline is a drug, that the bodies of humans and other perceivers produces during combat and other violent actions.
Therefore, Violence=Drugs.
When you learn to kill with the invisible blade there is no adrenaline, only purpose, the whole sympathetic nervous system is negated when one doesnt do, they just are.
Cio is my newest favorite character.
The first thing that came to mind when I saw panel 2 (panel 3?):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_BtlAw4trg
(Hint: it’s a Mulan song)
Abbadon is always one step ahead.
http://killsixbilliondemons.com/comic/ksbd-5-82/
Read the hover text.
I think we might need to start coming up with awful portmanteau names for potential couples, as the tradition is in these lands.
we could also not.
YISUN
port·man·teau
/ˌpôrtˈman(t)ō/
noun: a large trunk or suitcase, typically made of stiff leather and opening into two equal parts.
Origin: Porter (carry) + Manteu (mantle)
–Ten to the Hundredth Dictionary of Intentional Obfuscation
Let’s see. That would be AliCioWhiVe…, Esquire?
The shipping, it intensifies.
The shipping intensifies
I hope Nyave can be helpful for my poor sibling. White Chain needs the support.
If anyone of us needs the words of care, it would be sibling Chain.
… Is that a Berserk reference?
An interesting detail, though it’s probably been pointed out already: 82 White Chain ripped her stone face off, but what you see underneath is a black hole, instead of angelic fire as you’d expect. That ‘hole’ is obviously the new mask she’s wearing in place of the old one.
Close, but not quite, inheritor. We see here (http://killsixbilliondemons.com/comic/wielder-of-names-1-6/) that an Aeon in armour can remove their helm, at the very least. And we see here (http://killsixbilliondemons.com/comic/wielder-of-names-3-59/) that White Chain tore off their true face in rage and disgust.
I would imagine sibling White Chain is feeling introspective about their identity, at the moment, given that they now have time to breathe.
That is because she ripped her real face off too.
so, in other words, maybe “who you are” doesn’t change. but “how well you understand who you are” does, so from a subjective point of view it ends up being a wash?
I’ll tell you one thing, most of these hot dogs go their whole life without realizing they’re made of quorn
Sausage party!
Everyone has at least two faces: the outer face that we show to our enemies, and the inner one we show to our friends. Be wary of letting false friends see your inner face, otherwise you’re likely to end up as the poor bastard being stabbed to death on the floor of the senate hall.
An interesting shot in the second panel. Cio sitting over the border of the panel is definitely a good way is showing both speaker and subject at once. I don’t know many comics that would draw it that way, though that could just as easily be a comment on my lack of reference material.
It’s the static equivalent of a fancy screen wipe.
Ciocie, Allison, White Chain and Princess Jack Daniels, together they form the ladies book club. That’s the name of their group, it’s official.
Now she has a snout in her hand, her ascension to badass-hood is complete.
they have to leave the boat soon or Cio will become so cool she’ll become a dwarf star
Remember that behind the mask she’s already made of frozen hellfire.
MAKEOVERRRR
I wouldn’t be so brave to try that smokes on her place. Who knows what devils can smoke.
Oh, White Chain, you’re falling apart.
I’m glad Nyave is there to offer support. I can’t imagine White Chain has much experience with people being nice to her.
Tbh, the thing I’m most curious about right now is how 28WC is going to react to Nyave.
wow i can’t believe i just spent all of my waking hours today binge reading this comic
what a fantastic beast
The boat!
IT FLOATS.
White Chain has better hair than you, Cio, knock it off.
indirect kiss
The new girl looks familiar. Where did I last see a face like that?
http://killsixbilliondemons.com/comic/wielder-of-names-3-58/
Lets stay on this boat for 8 years!
when they get off the boat will they be on Namek?
I don’t trust the face that Cio’s making in the last panel…
y’know, considering Cio kinda directly contradicted the previous King, I don’t think you should listen to her. Cut greater forms, AL-YISUN, wield a king’s name.
Oh, the face plate is just detachable like the top piece… huh.
I should know that.
Never underestimate the power of masks. Seeming is being if you are a good enough liar.
Oh yesss.
This one is amused.
Of course none of the masks are going to fit, THEY DON’T HAVE A FACE!
[/oblivious]
Can we be on the boat for 10 years? Just to see what it’s like.
oh please no not another one
ALYISUN has yet to ask herself why she’s there.
You have noticed well. How many of us dare to peer behind our own mask! None who have tried have survived unchanged.
A demon trying to get away from the fact she used to be, like, Super Caligula. An angel trying to square being female with being a member of a genderless (if often rather male-coded) species. It’s always a bit of a relief to contemplate people with even worse identity problems than your own.
I find something delightful in a demon lecturing on why one shouldn’t wear masks.
It’s not like she can remove it; it seems the whole personality is in the mask.
Here’s a concerted (but subtle) effort to nail down the gender bias of the posse.
Also I’ve never seen smoke drawn like that. Not bad, Mister A. Not bad at all.
It’s a wonder the ship still moves, given the personal baggage levels of 3 of the people onboard.
If they stay on the ol’ ship any longer, they are gonna need a lot of guts to get off. More and more fools will be coming after them, armed with delusions of grandeur. A cascade of danger, if you will. Genuine grit. Focused frenzy. These are the strengths that are needed now, and I think AL-YISUN is surrounded by comrades that will lend these strengths to her. In a word: ~ B E R S E R K ~
My temporary concern over the quality of character development from seeing Alice lash out as a ‘bad girl’ has been resolved, *very* quickly. And it felt very organic. Glad to see the story isn’t trying to force an identity that feels fake, and is self-aware of how unnaturally quick her change seemed. (It was clearly forced.)
It’s obvious to me (again) that Abaddon knows what he/she is doing.
Ship or no ship, the biggest thing to come from these last few panels is Cio’s seeming wisdom coming in a well wrapped, sexy, finalistic, but utterly hypocritical bundle. I would expect that reality is more nuanced than her views, her stamps, reflecting upon others. White Chain’s issues and resolution are probably beyond even this devil’s wisdom.
Hopefully this theme isn’t simply left crystallized in these few pages.
Is it just me or is there a parallelism between White Chain and Alyson?
White Chain is looking for an actual physical mask that will fit while our heroine has been wearing a figurative mask. The hair colour being just one part of that mask she wore trying to “fit in” and be “normal” where that means average and mundane. In some cultures that is called being “honorable” as in behaving as one is expected to behave despite what damage it may do to ones self.
Here we see one slowly stripping away aspects of her mask. Will the other realize something similar about themselves and go on a similar journey of self discovery?
I don’t mind them being on the boat… just as long as it doesn’t turn into something to celebrate when they finally get off the boat… A’La Beserk..
Huh.
White Chain’s facemask has quite similar breaks on the eye sections as the mask that Cio was looking at after she went back to being blue.
Coincidence?