Memory is a model of the past upon which we frame our interaction with the present and future. It becomes illusion when we assume it to be perfect, and accept it unquestioningly.
Or returning to herself in a new cycle. … I wonder how that works with her having the Key of Kings? Would that mean she gets the key in every cycle, from now on? That she has a duplicate? That the one Zoss gives out is false? That the one she has is false? Or maybe the cycle has changed so much that Zoss no longer gives someone a key each time?
Actually, I just realized a horrifying alternative possibility: Instead of Allison always getting the key, whoever gets the key now becomes Alison, in much the same way as anyone infected by the Worm becomes Gog.
Look that is important is you don’t look the other Allison in the face or the space time continuum will collapse destroying if not the universe, then at least our galaxy.
And when the wheel reaches the speed of 88 miles per hour we gonna see some serious shit.
It’s a good point goo. However, “Alive” can mean a lot of things. If the physical husk that has been infected by the worm still has a beating heart, has she died? If her memories are now part of Gog, could a version of her live on, post death?
If Gog’s powers work the way I’m thinking they do then there IS NO next cycle for anyone but the worm itself… technically. Our resident worm lord is a pretty good seller but also is known to twist the truth just a tiiiiny bit to meet their needs. So while it’s true one may travel to the next Cycle in Gog, one is in fact IN Gog. I believe what we are seeing is an illusion to keep the fuel satisfied as it gets burned by the worm. And our dear Allison just so happens to be a nigh infinite renewable energy source
Headcanon: Al’Yisun projects another astral cock for every key she gains. God is a cock ring, a key party, and a liar. A continuous thrusting motion. Maybe an arthropod too.
My dealer: Got soem straight gas, this strain is called “The Worm Unending”, you’ll be zonked outta your gourd
Me: yeah whatever, i dont feel shit
Me, five minutes later: Dude I think I’ve been assimilated into the Beast.
My buddy Nukoku, pacing: The greatest sin imaginable is stepping in your own footprint, but we walk in circles again and again with every turn of the wheel
Shit man, I harmonized my whole existence so hard every devil in a 30 fist radius suffered a new Agony. I’ve seen the Shape of Universe and it looked kind of wack. Fuck it.
There are ices that sublime into the most excellent vapors for the health. And some whose sublimations hide the most excellent drugs.
Unfortunately, most humans cannot stand long exposure to stale breath, frozen in a form suitable for Servants and Devils to consume. Something about our respiration process, alas.
It is a far more expensive thing to make sublimations humans can enjoy. Experiments with crushed worms seemed to produce good results, according to one intern, but the idea of my business being cannibalized by the subconscious messaging of a Demiurge saw her quietly disposed of.
When her corpse rose from the glacier-world I dumped her on, it proved to be a far more difficult business opposition than I anticipated.
42 Spongegirl, Fryer of Patties, Lettuce Chopper of Night, Forever Ready
Yeah, Allison had a very brief time with her natural hair color: she was de-aged by the tiniest piece of one of Mottom’s peaches, was badly wounded and was only able to walk around because of Incubus’ power with all that entails; by the time she was back to herself, her hair had gone white, which it has been consistently since then. And notably, at no point did she have this haircut.
Hmm, this is obviously not a flashback, because there was no point in time where she could have had this hair style and color and no scars. So… dream sequence? What-could-have-been? Glimpse into a different turning of the Wheel entirely?
Illusion most likely. This is insight into how Gog assimilates people into her hivemind- promising them the ideal world they want and they just go along with it until their a spectator to their own lives. Nostalgia and regret are the biggest and worst traps that exist. A man might be immune to pride and to rage, but no man goes through existence without regret.
That’s an interesting possibility and, to add to it, while no man can avoid all regrets, becoming royalty might mean leaving them behind. To quote Maya “Meti was never wrong. She was royalty and lived in a perfect state of liberation.”
Meti obviously had things she regretted, in so much as she might have hoped they turned out better (See: what became of her “idiot apprentice”), but she wasn’t bound by those regrets. They were things and they happened, in much the same way that gravity is a thing that happens, you acknowledge their consequences and move on with your life accordingly, because alternative outcomes aren’t things that happened. They don’t matter and there’s no point in dwelling on them or letting them define you and your future actions.
Thinking about it more, this being a lotus eater dream probably makes more sense than it being a new cycle.
On a basic level, this being a dream/illusion simplifies a lot of things surrounding how Alison got the key again and also means we didn’t just waste our time reading how many pages of other characters developing, training, and showing off new forms. But that’s also a very boring analysis.
I think the more important thing to notice is that this being a lotus eater dream fits the themes K6BD has been exploring a lot better. To start with, facing and overcoming temptations from demiurges is a large part of Alison’s journey. The last such temptation she faced was Jadis offering her the chance to ignore her pain and the pain of the world; to live in peace with a hale and hole body. She overcame that temptation by declaring that even if things are inevitable and your path will inevitably include pain, you can still choose to be happy. Essentially saying she’ll accept the inevitable, but not let it control her.
Here, she’s being offered a chance to, not merely ignore but undo her suffering and to reject the idea that there are parts of her life that are inevitable, even if she wishes they weren’t. Before she was being asked if she would allow herself to be ruled by the inevitable, now she’s being asked if she can accept the inevitable.
By the same token, a major theme in this comic is that you can’t undo the past; you have to move forward. Allison jumping to a new cycle, and essentially starting over, runs counter to that theme. It’s effectively saying “You can undo the past! You don’t need to move on!” That doesn’t feel right.
On the other hand, she’s not starting over. A wheel against the road turns and turns, but moves ever-forward.
From the inside, it may look like you’re in an endless cycle, over and over again… But if you’re about to peer outside, then you can see the the path being taken.
There is no such thing as “starting over.”
42 Fragments the Universe Beyond All Reintegration
Seems that this is a dream trailer for an onward story that Allison will reject. I want to know if it’s a shared dream. Does Nukoko know what was offered? If she does, how’s she going to feel when it’s taken away? Not happy about that, I feel.
42 Fragments the Universe Beyond All Reintegration
Actually, cancel that. Once Allison rejects that timeline, it doesn’t matter plotwise if Nukoko experiences the scene or if Allison tells her afterwards. Nukoko, who is already in mid-freak, will simply explode at the choice made for her. And she will attack Allison. And, I think, Allison may kill her.
If it’s just a dream, then it’s not a choice made for her and, even if it’s an actual timeline, if she’s still around to react to it, then she’s not the Cio in the vision. Either way, part of the choice Alison faces is abandoning Nukoku or returning to her and, judging by the way she was reaching out, she wants Alison to come back.
I feel like Alison is currently trying to find the middle path. she will not be able to get rid of everything that hurts, as in Jadis’ promise, nor recover everything that was good, as in Gog’s illusion. What I can’t understand is whether nukoku is just a distraction or a representation of this so-called “middle way”. nukoku is not Cio, but she is also not an evil creature who wants to divert Alison from her journey. I like where this train of thought is heading
Mottom – The Illusion of easy Youth and Beauty
Mammon – The Illusion of Wealth
Incubus – The Illusion of easy Power
Solomon David – The Illusion of Law and Justice
Jadis – The Illusions of Peace and Safety
Gog – The Illusion of Happiness?
Jagganoth – The Illusion of Helplessness?
Gog is described as Leviathan and therefore ought to be the representation of envy among the 7 demiurges, with Incubus being lust, Jagganoth wrath, Solomon pride, Mammon greed, Jadis sloth, and Mottom gluttony. But unlike the other demiurges, Gog Agog’s actual motivations and feelings are pretty mysterious and it’s hard to see any reflection of its cardinal sin in her behavior or powers. Gog’s poisonous success is that she remembers *everything* from *every* reset. Why would she want such a thing? Knowing this would help us understand the purpose of the current illusion. We also know that Gog’s big trick is that eating the worm assimilates you into the leviathan, and you literally become Gog Agog. People eat the worm for various reasons, but other than needing their physical bodies for memory space, what is Gog’s game for assimilating mass?
Gog seems to require a willing host to consent to taking on the worm in order to assimilate their mass (as seen by her trying to convince people to take the worm rather than sneaking it into their food or forcing it down their throat). So I suspect wheat and bugs aren’t valid options for the worm
Survival is guaranteed when you exist across timelines. What’s so necessary about remembering what happened before the reset when you know you exist after it?
This makes me think that the illusion to be conquered is a Buddhistic illusion of the self. The ego that believes itself to be persistent, immutable, immortal. She doesn’t just want to survive the reset, she wants a specific her to survive every reset. Gog will Agog no matter what, but Gog wants to A the same gog. Why?
Each demiurge has the same flaw – clinging to something impermanent. The question is, why and how is Gog Agog?
Illusion? Memory? What’s the difference, anyway?
Memory is a model of the past upon which we frame our interaction with the present and future. It becomes illusion when we assume it to be perfect, and accept it unquestioningly.
Do you have a quote for that? I would love to read about it. No joke
oh my sweet summer kittens
With worm comes bonus nose stud and/or exposed maggot butt.
Elizabeth Loftus is a good researcher on memory for a scientific perspective.
Or returning to herself in a new cycle. … I wonder how that works with her having the Key of Kings? Would that mean she gets the key in every cycle, from now on? That she has a duplicate? That the one Zoss gives out is false? That the one she has is false? Or maybe the cycle has changed so much that Zoss no longer gives someone a key each time?
If Zoss’s actions are also but a part of the wheel, the wheel might simply have turned until it was allisons turn again.
Actually, I just realized a horrifying alternative possibility: Instead of Allison always getting the key, whoever gets the key now becomes Alison, in much the same way as anyone infected by the Worm becomes Gog.
Unfortunately, that would suck quite a bit.
But also- infinite tries?
Yeah … In retrospect, infinite tries is probably something Alison isn’t going to get.
True! Jadis says 30 years and Jadis has seen it all.
Look that is important is you don’t look the other Allison in the face or the space time continuum will collapse destroying if not the universe, then at least our galaxy.
And when the wheel reaches the speed of 88 miles per hour we gonna see some serious shit.
“That wipes out time. Entirely. Forwards and back. So if you see that handsome devil, just let her go about her business.”
30 years “as you understand it.”
Which, now that we have the worm in play, could mean anything.
It’s a good point goo. However, “Alive” can mean a lot of things. If the physical husk that has been infected by the worm still has a beating heart, has she died? If her memories are now part of Gog, could a version of her live on, post death?
Which is good. If Allison gets infinite tries, it will take Abaddon a really long time to finish the comic.
Even just resetting the universe one time will mean billions of years. That’s a lot of updates.
I don’t want the comic to end!!!
Don’t wear it out.
If Gog’s powers work the way I’m thinking they do then there IS NO next cycle for anyone but the worm itself… technically. Our resident worm lord is a pretty good seller but also is known to twist the truth just a tiiiiny bit to meet their needs. So while it’s true one may travel to the next Cycle in Gog, one is in fact IN Gog. I believe what we are seeing is an illusion to keep the fuel satisfied as it gets burned by the worm. And our dear Allison just so happens to be a nigh infinite renewable energy source
O, Constant Pleasure! Infinite Relief! Naught but another circuit, an illusion for those who know not when it ends!
Missed you guys
not that much though dont let it get to your head
Which head
Ha ha, it’s funny dick joke
Or maybe this person really has more then one head, Cerberus style.
??
I’m movin’ different
This shit ain’t nothin’ to me, man
This weed will have you in purgatory, screaming for eternity. You will relive every mistake you have ever made.
We smoking that fentanyl laced cereal milk, I see god
This shit ain’t nothin to me man
58% THC pre-rolled joints rolled in keef had me reading the book of Revelations
We are indeed close
I hope the devils are real, so I have more things to FUCK.
gog agog got me movin’ like an x parasite. i’m everywhere and all the time, watch me do crime.
Wuuuuuuuuuut.
Headcanon: Al’Yisun projects another astral cock for every key she gains. God is a cock ring, a key party, and a liar. A continuous thrusting motion. Maybe an arthropod too.
uh oh
Yeah, those… boils… appearing on her skin look… fun??
My dealer: Got soem straight gas, this strain is called “The Worm Unending”, you’ll be zonked outta your gourd
Me: yeah whatever, i dont feel shit
Me, five minutes later: Dude I think I’ve been assimilated into the Beast.
My buddy Nukoku, pacing: The greatest sin imaginable is stepping in your own footprint, but we walk in circles again and again with every turn of the wheel
Where’s the ivermectin when you need it?
Coughing through a kalpa
I’m on that Ki Rata pack, that 99-Pierces-The-Heavens Giga Drill Pack. I’m smoking the leaf that put Solomon David in the throne.
Shit man, I harmonized my whole existence so hard every devil in a 30 fist radius suffered a new Agony. I’ve seen the Shape of Universe and it looked kind of wack. Fuck it.
Cliffhanger to cliffhanger, just the way I like it
Oh so we’re getting stoned, got it
ONE OF US ONE OF US ONE OF US
we accept her!
Friends don’t let friends do worms.
Allison may have chosen a… questionable way of going about it though.
Glad that Alice and Cio could achieve their happy ending, good webcomic I really enjoyed it <3
There are ices that sublime into the most excellent vapors for the health. And some whose sublimations hide the most excellent drugs.
Unfortunately, most humans cannot stand long exposure to stale breath, frozen in a form suitable for Servants and Devils to consume. Something about our respiration process, alas.
It is a far more expensive thing to make sublimations humans can enjoy. Experiments with crushed worms seemed to produce good results, according to one intern, but the idea of my business being cannibalized by the subconscious messaging of a Demiurge saw her quietly disposed of.
When her corpse rose from the glacier-world I dumped her on, it proved to be a far more difficult business opposition than I anticipated.
You forgot your TPS cover sheet, man. Imma need you come in Saturday…
*sips coffee brewed from the rare Gog worm*
Chubby Allison save me…
Chubby? Dawg this is barely pudgy. Abbadon has drawn plus size women before, and while Allison is cute here, this aint it.
She has more tummy than probably 70% the of strong lady art, and for that we are grateful. 🙏
Reject the lotus, embrace uncertainty
This never happened, right? She only had time to spend with Cio after she got the scars…
It seems like the character design of the Cio we meet early on.
Yeah, Allison had a very brief time with her natural hair color: she was de-aged by the tiniest piece of one of Mottom’s peaches, was badly wounded and was only able to walk around because of Incubus’ power with all that entails; by the time she was back to herself, her hair had gone white, which it has been consistently since then. And notably, at no point did she have this haircut.
Nukoku: Oh my gog Allison, did you just eat my forever worm???
Just when I thought I’d forgotten about that video…
Oh yes, they float. They float! And when you’re down here with me, you’ll… float… too!
Just got my wisdom teeth out, couldn’t have woken up from sedation to anything better than this! I’m back! She’s back! We’re back!!
Are we doing that one “Invincible” arc that everyone hates but I kind of like?
Hmm, this is obviously not a flashback, because there was no point in time where she could have had this hair style and color and no scars. So… dream sequence? What-could-have-been? Glimpse into a different turning of the Wheel entirely?
Illusion most likely. This is insight into how Gog assimilates people into her hivemind- promising them the ideal world they want and they just go along with it until their a spectator to their own lives. Nostalgia and regret are the biggest and worst traps that exist. A man might be immune to pride and to rage, but no man goes through existence without regret.
That’s an interesting possibility and, to add to it, while no man can avoid all regrets, becoming royalty might mean leaving them behind. To quote Maya “Meti was never wrong. She was royalty and lived in a perfect state of liberation.”
Meti obviously had things she regretted, in so much as she might have hoped they turned out better (See: what became of her “idiot apprentice”), but she wasn’t bound by those regrets. They were things and they happened, in much the same way that gravity is a thing that happens, you acknowledge their consequences and move on with your life accordingly, because alternative outcomes aren’t things that happened. They don’t matter and there’s no point in dwelling on them or letting them define you and your future actions.
All of this reminds me of Nietzsche’s philosophy.
Thinking about it more, this being a lotus eater dream probably makes more sense than it being a new cycle.
On a basic level, this being a dream/illusion simplifies a lot of things surrounding how Alison got the key again and also means we didn’t just waste our time reading how many pages of other characters developing, training, and showing off new forms. But that’s also a very boring analysis.
I think the more important thing to notice is that this being a lotus eater dream fits the themes K6BD has been exploring a lot better. To start with, facing and overcoming temptations from demiurges is a large part of Alison’s journey. The last such temptation she faced was Jadis offering her the chance to ignore her pain and the pain of the world; to live in peace with a hale and hole body. She overcame that temptation by declaring that even if things are inevitable and your path will inevitably include pain, you can still choose to be happy. Essentially saying she’ll accept the inevitable, but not let it control her.
Here, she’s being offered a chance to, not merely ignore but undo her suffering and to reject the idea that there are parts of her life that are inevitable, even if she wishes they weren’t. Before she was being asked if she would allow herself to be ruled by the inevitable, now she’s being asked if she can accept the inevitable.
By the same token, a major theme in this comic is that you can’t undo the past; you have to move forward. Allison jumping to a new cycle, and essentially starting over, runs counter to that theme. It’s effectively saying “You can undo the past! You don’t need to move on!” That doesn’t feel right.
On the other hand, she’s not starting over. A wheel against the road turns and turns, but moves ever-forward.
From the inside, it may look like you’re in an endless cycle, over and over again… But if you’re about to peer outside, then you can see the the path being taken.
There is no such thing as “starting over.”
Seems that this is a dream trailer for an onward story that Allison will reject. I want to know if it’s a shared dream. Does Nukoko know what was offered? If she does, how’s she going to feel when it’s taken away? Not happy about that, I feel.
Actually, cancel that. Once Allison rejects that timeline, it doesn’t matter plotwise if Nukoko experiences the scene or if Allison tells her afterwards. Nukoko, who is already in mid-freak, will simply explode at the choice made for her. And she will attack Allison. And, I think, Allison may kill her.
If it’s just a dream, then it’s not a choice made for her and, even if it’s an actual timeline, if she’s still around to react to it, then she’s not the Cio in the vision. Either way, part of the choice Alison faces is abandoning Nukoku or returning to her and, judging by the way she was reaching out, she wants Alison to come back.
I feel like Alison is currently trying to find the middle path. she will not be able to get rid of everything that hurts, as in Jadis’ promise, nor recover everything that was good, as in Gog’s illusion. What I can’t understand is whether nukoku is just a distraction or a representation of this so-called “middle way”. nukoku is not Cio, but she is also not an evil creature who wants to divert Alison from her journey. I like where this train of thought is heading
Didn’t we already do this arc already, when she had to break free from Jadis’s illusions?
Jadis’s illusion was more about Alison being safe and not injured, rather than offering her a chance to undo her mistakes and failures.
Mottom – The Illusion of easy Youth and Beauty
Mammon – The Illusion of Wealth
Incubus – The Illusion of easy Power
Solomon David – The Illusion of Law and Justice
Jadis – The Illusions of Peace and Safety
Gog – The Illusion of Happiness?
Jagganoth – The Illusion of Helplessness?
I like this thinking!
Gog is described as Leviathan and therefore ought to be the representation of envy among the 7 demiurges, with Incubus being lust, Jagganoth wrath, Solomon pride, Mammon greed, Jadis sloth, and Mottom gluttony. But unlike the other demiurges, Gog Agog’s actual motivations and feelings are pretty mysterious and it’s hard to see any reflection of its cardinal sin in her behavior or powers. Gog’s poisonous success is that she remembers *everything* from *every* reset. Why would she want such a thing? Knowing this would help us understand the purpose of the current illusion. We also know that Gog’s big trick is that eating the worm assimilates you into the leviathan, and you literally become Gog Agog. People eat the worm for various reasons, but other than needing their physical bodies for memory space, what is Gog’s game for assimilating mass?
I mean, she already explained this to us. More mass allows her to survive the “great reset.” Her goal is survival.
No, crude protein would give her that. Using humans as a food source is incredibly inefficient. Use Wheat or bugs or something fast growing.
We don’t know why she wants people. Maybe she’s a hive mind?
Gog seems to require a willing host to consent to taking on the worm in order to assimilate their mass (as seen by her trying to convince people to take the worm rather than sneaking it into their food or forcing it down their throat). So I suspect wheat and bugs aren’t valid options for the worm
Survival is guaranteed when you exist across timelines. What’s so necessary about remembering what happened before the reset when you know you exist after it?
This makes me think that the illusion to be conquered is a Buddhistic illusion of the self. The ego that believes itself to be persistent, immutable, immortal. She doesn’t just want to survive the reset, she wants a specific her to survive every reset. Gog will Agog no matter what, but Gog wants to A the same gog. Why?
Each demiurge has the same flaw – clinging to something impermanent. The question is, why and how is Gog Agog?