“If you wanted the rat to live,” [Meti] said, “You should have been prepared to strike down your classmate on the spot with every last ounce of your might.”
‘Kill’ is a word with a lot of meanings, but you can’t argue complicity
It is more than that. Consider what the heir said to the Sword King. The Heir could have chosen her words more carefully and not triggered the homicidal nihilism of the sword king. In many ways, her broken resolve is what led Ciocie Cioelle Estrella Von Maximus the Third to her ridiculous attempt to stab the demiurge in the back, in a feeble attempt to kill her lover.
The sword king is not really a person. Perhaps it is his childhood, perhaps it is the teaching of his master, perhaps it is a deep inner nature, but he is not a creature that can make choices. Like a machine, a storm or a beast, he knows only dispassionate brutality. He does not kill, he is incapable of killing because he cannot make the choice of killing or not killing.
He did not kill the devil, the devil’s action killed her. The sword of Incubus was like the stone one throws into the skies, bound to land on one’s nose.
And the devil took that action in response to the heir’s weakness, in order to protect her.
The heir’s understandable, momentary weakness is indeed what killed Ciocie Cioelle.
More than that, the heir spent a year meeting the laughing god in her dreams, she even took a part of him inside her soul. Her choice to accept his deal, to accept his training and the false ruinous strength that came with it resulted in the devil’s death.
Yet, the Heir should abandon her guilt. She is not the first one to play the lord of the pit’s game and lose, and she lost far less than most.
In the same way one can argue that the sword King does not make the decision of killing, one can argue as well that in the stage that the Heir was in she couldn’t have chosen anything alse but refusall to keep fighting, wich in the end is the thing that escalated the situation, regardless of the words, as long as her intention was to stop fighting, the sword King would have reacted the same, prometing Cio to attack and get killed.
One can argue that free will is an illusion – or, more on point, that the sword king wasn’t actually deciding to kill – but I choose to believe that it is real, therefore the sword king did decide to kill Cio. To decide to blame Allison for her lover’s death is to decide to forgive the guilty and condemn the innocent.
And here I thought it was the complete dismemberment that killed her, silly me, actually she should have just consented and it wouldn’t have been murder.
i know y’all are mentally ill and all but for fuck’s sake can’t we just call them Allison and Incubus and shit like come ON dude nobody needs more ambiguous terms out of a comic that’s already pretty esoteric
Kill the word “Cringe”. Only the judgmental and close minded use such terms. Cut it with one stroke and continue down the road of Royalty. Pay it heed no longer.
Per Jadis, none of them are choosing anything, so it’s no one one’s fault but possibly Zoss, or maybe Metatron acting through Zoss, or possibly Abbadon acting through Metatron acting through Zoss (if you want to get meta about it).
The truth of the world, as set by Yis-Un and known by the Royalty, is violence. When violence is truth the world, the victor is always the innocent and the victim is the guilty. Vae Victis.
In the same way one can argue that the sword King does not make the decision of killing, one can argue as well that in the stage that the Heir was in she couldn’t have chosen anything alse but refusall to keep fighting, wich in the end is the thing that escalated the situation, regardless of the words, as long as her intention was to stop fighting, the sword King would have reacted the same, prometing Cio to attack and get killed.
One can argue a great many things; the usual marker of the cessation of such arguments is the closure of the bar for the night. That is why the eternally-open drinking establishment of Throne are so dangerous: they encourage the arguments to go on for far too long, frequently resulting in the loss of limbs, tentacles, or other pseudopods.
Don’t we all hate those messy breakups where we end up needing to kill the lingering revenant of our ex who wants to become part of a universe-swallowing, time-travelling hivemind. Too relatable.
White!Cio is going all out, literally popping her restraints. I wonder what she’ll look like underneath all of this demon mask looking stuff, will she have become something new like White Chain?
Also,
Abbadon creating new versions of characters that are easy to draw challenge: IMPOSSILBE
“Got” her killed, yes indeed. That singular word’s addition matters.
Imp-lying she killed her (personally)? That’d be the guilt talking. Such a very self-sabotaging yet very tempting way to think of yourself. Not that consciously avoiding it is easy…
I wish I could see Cio again, yes, but sure as hells not like this. If she wnts to have SOMETHING better than this, something resembling that life from before, she would have to figure out her own way to so it. Losing yourself in anachronic hivemind isn’t a solution where anyone can be happy.
And if Alison has to kick some of those white teeth out to put it in her head, then Cio better start looking for a dentist ready to work with devil clientelle.
Yet each woman kills the thing she loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave woman with a sword.
Wait i was assuming this was Cio pulled back by sheer force of her own will, but im starting to wonder if that makes as much sense as this being a remnant of Aspected Chaos? the design is slightly similar, it still works narratively, even the difference in speech motifs here would make sense….. a raging dead self that wants to rewrite its own doomed story is a scary thought.
I can’t believe I never noticed the similarities to Aspected Chaos’s design before, wow. Nice catch there.
I think both things can be true- this is dead Cio, after having clawed herself back from the formless chaos through her will and desperation, AND this is a withered sliver of Aspected Chaos, unhappy at how her time was cut so short.
I want to say more, but I don’t know that we’ve spent enough time yet with New Cio to come to any conclusions. All I know for sure is, she wants. She Wants.
“I killed you”
I mean, it can be set right and fixed, but she won’t be the same, just as her as Cio wasn’t the same as Yabs.
If the two of them have any shared future together, Allison really needs to try and convince her, she needs to stop holding onto who she was and what they had, and just focus on moving forward.
It’s worth noting that Cio almost becoming Yabs again, during the heist, and it was only her determination not to that prevented it. It’s possible that death need not be a permanent state of affairs for the children of the hot black flame, but the process normally changes their perspective enough that they don’t go back to who they were.
Cio’s death was not quite a normal one and this creature does not seem quite like a normal devil, so something new may be afoot.
Bringing your loved one back but they are forever changed from what it was you sought to bring back.
Instead we have bringing yourself back to your loved one but they are forever changed by your death and you can never get there so you must either accept rebirth of your own identity or….I guess like Cio is currently, desperately seek out the self you loved at any cost.
I believe our best black flame can withstand violence/change to reach the heaven of a new self it needs but it’s gonna hurt.
Oh Fuck!
Half-Cronemberg, Half-Giger.
Notes of Hellraiser.
So, all Phyrexian.
The alt text confirmed what I knew the whole time!
But also, Al-YISUN… You’re not the one who killed her. That was definitely that other guy.
“If you wanted the rat to live,” [Meti] said, “You should have been prepared to strike down your classmate on the spot with every last ounce of your might.”
‘Kill’ is a word with a lot of meanings, but you can’t argue complicity
You can absolutely argue complicity. This is seconds after she lost multiple limbs, she wasn’t in a state to be fighting a demiurge
It is more than that. Consider what the heir said to the Sword King. The Heir could have chosen her words more carefully and not triggered the homicidal nihilism of the sword king. In many ways, her broken resolve is what led Ciocie Cioelle Estrella Von Maximus the Third to her ridiculous attempt to stab the demiurge in the back, in a feeble attempt to kill her lover.
The sword king is not really a person. Perhaps it is his childhood, perhaps it is the teaching of his master, perhaps it is a deep inner nature, but he is not a creature that can make choices. Like a machine, a storm or a beast, he knows only dispassionate brutality. He does not kill, he is incapable of killing because he cannot make the choice of killing or not killing.
He did not kill the devil, the devil’s action killed her. The sword of Incubus was like the stone one throws into the skies, bound to land on one’s nose.
And the devil took that action in response to the heir’s weakness, in order to protect her.
The heir’s understandable, momentary weakness is indeed what killed Ciocie Cioelle.
More than that, the heir spent a year meeting the laughing god in her dreams, she even took a part of him inside her soul. Her choice to accept his deal, to accept his training and the false ruinous strength that came with it resulted in the devil’s death.
Yet, the Heir should abandon her guilt. She is not the first one to play the lord of the pit’s game and lose, and she lost far less than most.
to “SAVE” her lover*
Even discussing the laughing god results in corruption of words.
In the same way one can argue that the sword King does not make the decision of killing, one can argue as well that in the stage that the Heir was in she couldn’t have chosen anything alse but refusall to keep fighting, wich in the end is the thing that escalated the situation, regardless of the words, as long as her intention was to stop fighting, the sword King would have reacted the same, prometing Cio to attack and get killed.
One can argue that free will is an illusion – or, more on point, that the sword king wasn’t actually deciding to kill – but I choose to believe that it is real, therefore the sword king did decide to kill Cio. To decide to blame Allison for her lover’s death is to decide to forgive the guilty and condemn the innocent.
Cio died of natural causes, then.
And here I thought it was the complete dismemberment that killed her, silly me, actually she should have just consented and it wouldn’t have been murder.
i know y’all are mentally ill and all but for fuck’s sake can’t we just call them Allison and Incubus and shit like come ON dude nobody needs more ambiguous terms out of a comic that’s already pretty esoteric
Look dude just let us larp as scholars in peace Man
You have come to the wrong place, friend.
if you wanna talk about this like a normal nerd just get your discord friends into it instead of trying to get a community to stop having fun
Ti-Red Ten Y’all is wise.
Kill the word “Cringe”. Only the judgmental and close minded use such terms. Cut it with one stroke and continue down the road of Royalty. Pay it heed no longer.
Incubus killed the multiverse the day he chose to stop choosing.
Per Jadis, none of them are choosing anything, so it’s no one one’s fault but possibly Zoss, or maybe Metatron acting through Zoss, or possibly Abbadon acting through Metatron acting through Zoss (if you want to get meta about it).
I suppose so, if you want to get all Metatron about it.
The truth of the world, as set by Yis-Un and known by the Royalty, is violence. When violence is truth the world, the victor is always the innocent and the victim is the guilty. Vae Victis.
YISUN, the most pathetic almighty being ever.
Survivor’s guilt is a thing.
A messy breakup, huh
In the same way one can argue that the sword King does not make the decision of killing, one can argue as well that in the stage that the Heir was in she couldn’t have chosen anything alse but refusall to keep fighting, wich in the end is the thing that escalated the situation, regardless of the words, as long as her intention was to stop fighting, the sword King would have reacted the same, prometing Cio to attack and get killed.
One can argue a great many things; the usual marker of the cessation of such arguments is the closure of the bar for the night. That is why the eternally-open drinking establishment of Throne are so dangerous: they encourage the arguments to go on for far too long, frequently resulting in the loss of limbs, tentacles, or other pseudopods.
I’m really feeling not-Cio rn. I also want the story that we didn’t get. I don’t think it’s author error though, it seems very deliberate!
Cio’s new design is rad as hell. I hope she gets more toothy mandible things
She’s always had an arthropodoid motif compared to other devils.
Something’s definitely wrong about this “Cio.” She’d NEVER use “I” to refer to herself!
“I” is quite imaginary, isn’t it? Like a head with no face.
Somehow it feels less like Cio and more like an echo of her regrets still lingering on an otherwise wild Devil. But who can say.
No, she’d use “I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-[…]”
Perhaps Cio has met the enemy. The great enemy is “I”.
thanks boss! enjoying it as always!
Don’t we all hate those messy breakups where we end up needing to kill the lingering revenant of our ex who wants to become part of a universe-swallowing, time-travelling hivemind. Too relatable.
If I had a nickel, etc, etc.
One of my friends had to get therapy for that shit fr
White!Cio is going all out, literally popping her restraints. I wonder what she’ll look like underneath all of this demon mask looking stuff, will she have become something new like White Chain?
Also,
Abbadon creating new versions of characters that are easy to draw challenge: IMPOSSILBE
it’s very late at night rn and i can’t fully process this page but i can tell that this one is goona hurt. can’t wait.
oh-oh wow, yeah, that’s…hmmm. can’t wait for next gog page to continue kicking my emotional ass.
Okay, this got intense VERY quickly.
The Heir, even one who doesn’t know what she’s doing, really ought to know better than to tell a lie like that to a devil.
Mother chose to accompany you in the great march unto doom, and there is nothing I respect more than that.
Do you want to know what it’s like to actually kill her?
Are you so sure that it is a lie, though? From Al’Yisun’s point of view her weakness is indeed what lead directly to Cio’s death.
“Got” her killed, yes indeed. That singular word’s addition matters.
Imp-lying she killed her (personally)? That’d be the guilt talking. Such a very self-sabotaging yet very tempting way to think of yourself. Not that consciously avoiding it is easy…
I wish I could see Cio again, yes, but sure as hells not like this. If she wnts to have SOMETHING better than this, something resembling that life from before, she would have to figure out her own way to so it. Losing yourself in anachronic hivemind isn’t a solution where anyone can be happy.
And if Alison has to kick some of those white teeth out to put it in her head, then Cio better start looking for a dentist ready to work with devil clientelle.
Yet each woman kills the thing she loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave woman with a sword.
(With appy-olly-logies to Oscar Wilde)
Now hug!
Fellas, are we witnessing the birth of Himself
I really like that Idea to be honest.
Spare a thought for the poor Devil, Allison!
Now heres the question of the hour: Can you kill a maskless devil?
Wait i was assuming this was Cio pulled back by sheer force of her own will, but im starting to wonder if that makes as much sense as this being a remnant of Aspected Chaos? the design is slightly similar, it still works narratively, even the difference in speech motifs here would make sense….. a raging dead self that wants to rewrite its own doomed story is a scary thought.
I can’t believe I never noticed the similarities to Aspected Chaos’s design before, wow. Nice catch there.
I think both things can be true- this is dead Cio, after having clawed herself back from the formless chaos through her will and desperation, AND this is a withered sliver of Aspected Chaos, unhappy at how her time was cut so short.
I want to say more, but I don’t know that we’ve spent enough time yet with New Cio to come to any conclusions. All I know for sure is, she wants. She Wants.
She Wants.
“I killed you”
I mean, it can be set right and fixed, but she won’t be the same, just as her as Cio wasn’t the same as Yabs.
If the two of them have any shared future together, Allison really needs to try and convince her, she needs to stop holding onto who she was and what they had, and just focus on moving forward.
It’s worth noting that Cio almost becoming Yabs again, during the heist, and it was only her determination not to that prevented it. It’s possible that death need not be a permanent state of affairs for the children of the hot black flame, but the process normally changes their perspective enough that they don’t go back to who they were.
Cio’s death was not quite a normal one and this creature does not seem quite like a normal devil, so something new may be afoot.
It does seem, however, that this new C is herself holding onto who she was and what they had. It’s not just Alison talking about the past.
It was the shard that was in Allison’s arm that did it. The shard was the Cio-Seed.
Cio-Seed… sounds like the opposite of suicide. Hmm… 😄
kakyoin gog
There is a lot of blue starting to be visible on paleCio.
I made a promise.
I would do anything.
Wake Up
It’s gonna hurt
I haven’t seen anyone else mention it — the color of this new C’s “blood”, or whatever it is, does seem to match the aura color of Incubus.
… coincidence?
Bringing your loved one back but they are forever changed from what it was you sought to bring back.
Instead we have bringing yourself back to your loved one but they are forever changed by your death and you can never get there so you must either accept rebirth of your own identity or….I guess like Cio is currently, desperately seek out the self you loved at any cost.
I believe our best black flame can withstand violence/change to reach the heaven of a new self it needs but it’s gonna hurt.