When in doubt Burn it

Revenge is a dish best served drenched in the blood of those who tried to stop you.

[holy-leapin-splits-batman]

[shencomix]

[shencomix]

[shencomix]

[shencomix]

[shencomix]

[shencomix]

[shencomix]

[shencomix]

[shencomix]

(End)

[prokopetz]

The real reason your sapient dragon character needs a "rider":

Dragons on the wing are vulnerable to being mobbed by smaller, more agile flyers, particularly in your large rear blind spot, like a bird of prey being mobbed by crows. Having a human armed with a long spear perched on your back helps to dissuade anyone from getting any funny ideas.

Breath weapons are impressive enough on the ground, but in flight they're really only good for strafing stationary targets; trying to use your breath weapon in an aerial dogfight is a good way to get fire up your nose. A real fight calls for sterner measures – and, concomitantly, a crew to aim and reload the cannons.

In today's competitive world, it's not enough to devour a flock of sheep and call it a day if you want to keep your edge. You're accompanied at all times by a qualified personal alchemist tasked with carefully regulating your internal furnace to ensure peak performance, and sometimes you even listen to them.

No dragon of any quality would be caught dead without their valet. It's not as though you can announce your numerous long-winded titles yourself when introductions are called for, can you? You suppose next you'll be expected to pick up the spoils of your conquests yourself, like a common brigand. Perish the thought!

[mikkeneko]

[zacksfairest]

“You’re distracted, da lledeol,” Lemuel taunted, his voice a low rumble that she felt more than heard. The sharpened tips of his gauntlets kept her immobile, a single claw resting dangerously just below her lips as the rest settled to frame the shape of her jaw. A frustrated grunt leapt forth as she attempted to wrest her blade free from his grasp, but his grip remained solid. "I taught you better than this." "Muol," Addilyn bit out, suppressing a shiver as cold steel dug into her skin. He always did somehow manage to walk that delicate line between a caress and a puncture wound. "Let go of me." A dark chuckle escaped him, its like that of the distant thunder of a looming storm, as he pressed her back against him, his lips brushing at the shell of her ear. "Make me, oh mighty Lioness."

I have been having a FIT all DAY!!!!!

After all these years of being an annoying and obnoxious piece of shit, I actually have Addie/Lem art. And drawn by @unsoundedcomic herself!!!!!! It's a dream come true!!!!! I'm literally never gonna be normal again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's beautiful. It's perfect. It's fucking HOT. I can't stop gazing adoringly at it. I can't believe this is real. It feels FAKE!!!

Thank you so much for this, Ashley!!!!!!! I cannot possibly say that enough!!!!!!!!!!

I might have to actually write something to go with this now. That little blurb got me itching to do something.

Anyway, if you need me, I'm gonna be pacing the floor like a caged lion <3

[unsoundedupdates]

Epilogue p15

•LATEST UPDATE HERE•

Look at Emil's face. He loves her~

Okay! At last! ANNOUNCEMENT! :D

After over 15 years, Unsounded finally has a publisher! The comic is going to be put to print by Iron Circus Comics, a very cool company that's done webcomics as illustrious as Rice Boy, Lackadaisy Cats, and TJ and Amal. Pretty rad, right? Our tiny baby has finally grown up, and it's all thanks to you, readers. Your support all these years helped the comic reach its end, and that's really what got a publisher to consider it. So thank you.

Now, please, please head over to the Kickstarter campaign page, and give it a follow! The campaign will be launching in a bit over a month. There'll be LIMITED bonus goodies - including commissions and free shipping - but you'll have to act fast once it launches! Let's get lots of followers on there before then, it makes us look sick and cool.

There are some crucial logistical things for current readers to know though. The most important one is these two books are NEW COMPILATIONS. They do not sync up with the old self-published books, and the old shop is coming down this weekend. Those old books are beloved, but now outdated. The NEW books - in addition to having new covers and newly retouched art - are LONGER. Volume 1 contains chapters 1-4 as well as a Duane in Sharteshane bonus comic (this is the old v2 comic). Likewise Volume 2 is LONGER, containing chapters 5-8, a newly illustrated Tainish guide, and a brand new Knock and Anadyne comic.

I had no choice but to recompile the books, my darlings. In order to get the entire massive story into 6 books, I had to squish more into the early volumes. I know it's a little disappointing, please don't be too mad at me. Compromises had to be made in order to ever see the entire story in print. I wanted to also publish a third book at this time, and even did a rad new cover for it to try and sell it to the publisher, but there simply was not room in their schedule for 3 huge books this year. To get the rest of the books, we have to make sure these first two sell well! So please consider purchasing them when the campaign starts. I really busted my ass to make them worth it for you! Even as I've been drawing the final chapter and epilogue the past year, I've been working on these books :)

So! Contact me on Tumblr if you have any questions! And please follow that preview page so you'll know when the crowdfund launches! Thanks, everyone! :)

-Ashley

•••••••••••• Discuss the comic on Discord or Reddit

[ikebanaka]

I think the best part of Murderbot is its staunch belief that it’s average at its job, and it only does better because it doesn’t have a working governor module

It’s always like, I’m just a SecUnit, the only reason I’m better is because humans somehow have worse judgement than me in my very narrow field of expertise, and I have the ability to process multiple things at once, and I don’t die when I get my shit wrecked. None of these are advantages over other bots, so I’m actually just average as far as skills go.

Meanwhile, Murderbot’s track record is something like ‘regularly takes out other SecUnits, regularly hacks fairly complicated systems, takes out multiple hostiles while saving and protecting clients/hostages, beat two Combat Bots in succession, and went toe to toe with a Combat SecBot while taking out two other SecUnits, rounding it off with inhabiting spaceships and crushing the incredibly difficult and malicious killware infecting them.’

That’s not even counting the guts, skill, and determination it takes to hack your own hardware/code which is fully capable of frying your brain in the first place

[lectorel]

Something I love is that a large chunk of Murderbot’s success is just - it literally asks for help?

There’s a line in Exit Strategy, “Bots are instructed to report and repel theft attempts, but no one ever tells them not to answer polite requests from other bots.”

Murderbot makes use of this a lot. It talks to other bots, like ART and Miki. It offers equal trades of assistance, like with the Combat SecUnit in Exit Strategy, SecUnit 3 in Network Effect, and the ComfortUnit in Rogue Protocol.

In Exit Strategy, it reached out to the human supervisors to get Dr. Mensah an opening to get onto the shuttle. Even at the very beginning, in All Systems Red, it warns the team about the external combat over-ride.

Murderbot makes itself out to be a natural loner, but ‘ask for help’ has literally been one of it’s go-to strategies since book 1. And I think that’s beautiful.

[normal-downloadfailed]

#murderbot would be very upset to know that its superpower is friendship (tags via hoarder-of-stories-27)

so true

[gallusrostromegalus]

The 1969 Easter Mass Incident

Content Warnings: Religion, food, symbolic cannibalism, symbolic gore, penis mention, Blasphemy, SO MUCH BLASPHEMY, weapons, war mention.  Mind the warnings and your health always comes first. Its a HILARIOUS story, I promise.

As always, all the names have been changed to protect people’s identities.  This is a long one, so Press J now if you want to skip it.

When my dad was a young man and still a practicing catholic, he participated in a small church communion that nearly got him and six other people excommunicated.

Father Patrick ran a small church outside of California Polytechnical and tended to be… rather more liberal in his interpretations of scripture than most of the church was, which made him something of a hit with the local students and liberally-inclined populace.  Pat went to all manner of civil demonstrations, condemned the shit out of the vietnam war and the politics that lead to it and so on.  In January of 1969 a series of incidents lead him to start exploring “nontraditional” means of holding Mass as a means of reaching out to his community and exploring his own faith, which ultimately culminated in the 1969 Easter Mass Incident.

For those of you who weren’t raised catholic, Communion is this ritual where you become one with Jesus by eating a really horrible bland wafer cookie and taking a shot of wine (called hosts), which then *literally* become the flesh and blood of jesus in your mouth, allowing him to become one with you.  It’s big McFucking deal, and you have the opportunity to take communion at every mass.  All this had to be explained to me second-hand because after this and Dad’s 51 days in the army, Dad decided he wouldn’t inflict religion on any children he might have in the future.

*

“Hey dad,” Six-year old me asked the first time he told me this story after my practicing friends were talking about getting wine at church. “Isn’t that cannibalism?”

“We’re getting to that.”  He waved.

*

The First Incident in January when, due to a serious cock-up by the church, all the hosts Father Pat received were moldering and spoiled and probably would have killed someone if he’d actually fed anyone them.  But it was the first mass of the year, when a peak number of people came in after vowing to got to church more for new year’s.  He couldn’t NOT have communion.

“I’ll bake.” offered Maria, the parish secretary and probably the best baker in the county. “So we have hosts.  Jesus will understand.”

Father Patrick, not one to pass up the chance at Maria’s cooking, immediately agreed.

A Host is supposed to be composed solely of unleavened wheat flour and water, which is why they taste terrible.  It’s a theological point of some importance relating to Exodus or something but Maria had an important theological counterpoint: Jesus both divine and loves all his children, ergo, Jesus would neither be a nasty bland cracker nor want his children to suffer as such and so instead, she made Mexican wedding cookies.

They were a SPECTACULAR hit.  Many praises were heaped upon father patrick for the Much Better Wafers and that they’d be sure to show up next week as long as Maria kept making them.  Father Patrick figuring that hey, anything that gets people in the doors is good and really, if it was turning into Jesus once inside the parishioner, did it really matter what the wafers were made of?  So he continued to let Maria bake the Hosts, and encouraged her to try out new flavors, like nutmeg and cinnamon.

This went on swimmingly for a few weeks until The Bishop showed up for a surprise visit the same week Maria decided to experiment with rainbow sprinkles.

Dad remembers hearing the bishop through the windows roaring “THE HOLY BODY OF CHRIST DOES! NOT! CONTAIN! RAINBOW! SPRINKLES!”

The matter went clean up to The Archbishop, who decided that while Pat was probably right to not feed spoiled hosts to his parish, he should attend some remedial classes to remember what Communion was all about, so that if it happened again, he’s come up with a more suitable substitute.

Father Patrick returned in late March, full of spite and some fascinating new ideas.

*

“Is this where the Cannibalism happens?” Six-year-old me asked, eager to get to the good parts.

*

At his remedial classes, the teacher had stressed the importance of transubstantiation, aka “That bit where the wafer and wine, Actually, Literally, become the flesh of Jesus Christ and we expect you to swallow.”  Also on the syllabus was understanding the importance of Christ’s suffering and sacrifice.

“So, I was thinking about Easter Service.”  Said father Patrick one afternoon while dad was doing his computer science homework at the church because his dorm was a barely-standing fire hazard and the library was where you went to have sex.

“Well, we do re-enactments for christmas.  Why not on easter?  Why not re-enact the crucifixion of Christ right here? Make it real for everyone.  Trauma’s great for bonding a community together.”

“Who’s playing Jesus?” asked Maria, always one for a good laugh.

“That’s the thing- A Host, it doesn’t look much like flesh, right?  Doesn’t look like much of anything, really.  Not great for reinforcing one’s belief.

What if, instead, we- and I mean you, Maria, I can’t cook to save my life- make a man-sized loaf of bread, maybe in the shape of a T, and we have some of the boys dress up as romans and whip the bread and we pour the wine on so it’s bleeding and them- then we make a big wooden cross and actually nail the bread to it with, I don’t know, railroad spikes, more wine all over. And we raise the cross, all while telling the story of the crucifixion.”

He paused to take a drink, Maria slowly crumpling onto the floor in horrified laughter and Dad now thoroughly distracted from his homework.

“Then we lower the cross, and invite everyone who wants to take communion up to tear a hunk of Jesus off.  Just descend into his corpse like vultures.  I think that’d really be a good bonding experience for the church.”  he nodded thoughtfully.  “The hard, part, I suppose, will be finding enough romans.”

“I WANNA BE LONGINUS.” bellowed my father, barreling into the room.

And so, the plan was hatched.  Dad hit up every other guy in the Church and eventually rounded up four more romans, three of them from the Education Department of Cal Poly, and one guy from Chemistry, who just liked to watch things burn.

This, being a play, naturally meant that there was a rehearsal, and test Bread jesus.  Maria had decided that if they were going to start being extra-literal, she needed to make the most lifelike Bread jesus possible, and made a distressingly buff and human-proportioned Jesus by Advanced bread-braiding, complete with plaited hair, quail’s-egg-and-raisin eyes, bready muscle groups, and an eight-pack because why not make the lord completely shredded?*  She also made the important theological decision that since Jesus loves everyone and was happy to die in spite of all his suffering, he should be smiling, and had a toothy corn-kernel smile.  He was Wonderful and Terrifying all at once.

“Maria,” asked Father Patrick after a few minutes of delighted and horrified cooing over Jesus’ toothy grin and abdominals. “Why is he wearing a tea-towel?

“Well, he’s the Son of God. A Man.  With all that entails.”  She said, pointedly staring at Father Patrick while everyone stared at the suspiciously lumpy tea-towel.  “And he might have… burnt, slightly.”

Everyone nodded and agreed that the tea-towel was the best course of action.  The rehearsal goes splendidly and everyone agrees that this is the most delicious Jesus they’ve ever had.

*

Easter Sunday arrives and the Church is PACKED, from the more lapsed Catholics showing up for a high holiday, parents visiting for spring break and a whole horde of newcomers who had gotten wind that something was up and they ought to come.

Dad is a lanky as hell 21-year old composed mostly of technical jargon and acne but he is STOKED to be playing Longinus, the roman that speared Jesus on the cross, because he gets to do the BEST technical effect in the whole parade.  Since he came in at the end me missed a good portion of the sermon, but did hear the “oooh” from the crowd as the massive cross was dragged in by the other Romans, followed by horrified gasps and high screams and a discernible “What the FUCK” as they brought in Bread Jesus 2.0, whipping him enthusiastically, and hammering him into the cross, the sound of wine splashing onto the floor loud in the terrified silence of that Parishioners.

Finally Father Patrick gets to the part about Longinus, and Dad comes sprinting down the aisle as hard as he can, because in order for Bread Jesus to be seen by everyone, his middle had to be about 10 feet off the ground, so Dad had to run, shrieking latin curses,  down the length of the church, with a big honking spear and take a flying leap at Jesus in order to spear him in the gut.

Please take moment to imagine you are some normal god-fearing catholic who has decided to visit little bobby or maybe patricia at college and you’re all going to church together like a nice family and this Fucking madman has decided to go all Silence of the Lambs on mass and now there’s some sort of underfed translucently pale man in ill-fitting Roman armor and cape flying at a horrifying glutinous effigy of your lord and savior, with an actual fucking spear, screaming like a madman.  Don’t you feel yourself drawing closer to God already? Defensively, perhaps, like an octopus trying to ooze itself into a crevice against the horrors of the ocean.

However, two things happen that were not planned on

1. Dad misses.  In his defense, Bread Jesus is close to but not quite the size of a man- more like the size of a doughy teenager, and his middle is a small target 10 feet up in the air and dad is has a computer science minor, not an athletics scholarship.  He misses by about 8 inches and instead very solidly stabs Bread Jesus right through the groin, leaving a big hole in Maria’s tea-towel and the spear jutting out at a decidedly… attentive angle, as Bread Jesus’s Bread Dick drops to the floor with a splat.  Nobody notices this, however because

2. In rehearsal, Dad had managed to get the spear right in jesus’s navel but neither Father Patrick nor the other romans could get the wine up there to make his middle appropriately bloodied.  

Maria come up with the Genius solution that since wine is made of grapes and Jam is made of grapes, she could make a jelly-filled Jesus for Dad to stab.  There was a normal-sized test loaf and when dad stabbed it on the table, it had a nicely gooey dribbling effect.

However, this time the loaf was torso-sized, still hot from the oven and upright, so when dad speared the very end of the loaf, all the steam-pressured jam had collected at the bottom and a spray of lukewarm smuckers exploded out from bread jesus, turning the first three pews into a splash zone of symbolic entrails.

There was  a hot, sticky minute of complete silence in the church after that. 

Then, Father Patrick indicated it was time for the cross to be lowered, and continued on with the normal preparations of the Host, he himself covered in hot smuckers, as though nothing particularly ordinary was occuring, quietly kicking the bread-dick under the altar. At the end of it all, Father Patrick and invited everyone up with the Last Oration:

“Thou, O God, has kindly allowed us to have a part in this Holy Sacrifice; for this we give Thee thanks. Accept it now to Thy glory and be ever mindful of our weakness. Amen.”

…And everybody came up, shuffling like terrified zombies, pinching off tiny bits at first but then the madness took them and they began tearing apart bread jesus by the handful, weeping as they partook, scattered prayers and begging for forgiveness.  The whole congregation was kneeling about the altar, tearful and united in their guilt and their need for God.

*

“IS CHURCH ALWAYS LIKE THAT?” six-year-old me asked, absolutely stoked.  I’d convert on the spot if I got a show like that.

“No, it’s normally bland wafers and lots of chanting in latin.”

“Well that’s boring as hell.” I remember muttering and Dad snorting the coffee he was drinking out of his nose.

*

As people filed silently out of the Church to a gloriously sunny California afternoon, faces wan and smeared with wine and jam, Father patrick turned to Maria and asked “You don’t think that was too much, do you?”

“No.”  Said Maria with a sarcastic deadpan so intense it was hard to tell from sincerity.

It was the exact same tone she used when the Archbishop and Six other high clergy showed up, clutching a letter someone had written, Livid and almost foaming at the mouth, demanding to know if such blasphemy had transpired.

“No.  That’s crazy.”  She said, staring down the archbishop like he was an idiot.

“Such imaginations some people have!” Said Father Patrick, much less convincingly.

“And you-  you didn’t…  Spear an effigy of our lord and savior?”  the archbishop demanded of my father.

“Do I look like I can jump that high?”  Dad asked, having in the interim been drafted for 51 days then nearly died of pneumonia from it, and therefore no longer afraid of the Church, the Law or God.

Somewhat relieved that he’d only received the extremely detailed ramblings of a doddering parishioner, the Archbishop sat down and complemented Maria on her most excellent Mexican Wedding Cookies, may he please have another plate for his nerves? Perhaps the ones with sprinkles?

Dad went on to help build the internet, Father Patrick converted to Buddhism and Maria became a Nun.

*For those of you wondering, Jesus was made of Challah.

If you got a laugh out of this, please consider donating to my Ko-Fi or subscribe on Patreon,  Thank you very much and I hope you enjoyed it!

[ara-art91]

Unsounded A tribute to my favourite webcomic that's nearing its end. If you haven't seen it, definitely check it out - The plot, the characters and the art are all incredible.

[deadwintercomic]

On Thursday 13 March 2025, my comic, Dead Winter is 18 years old. It's been a long time, and I'm working towards bringing things to a conclusion. I've been working on a bunch of other things as well these days, if you remember me from back when, consider checking them out: https://luckyraven.cc/ Thank you.

[cam-stopped-eating-candles]

The Odyssey but Penelope has been slowly killing off suitors one by one via poisoning and staged accidents >>>

[cam-stopped-eating-candles]

“And then, upon announcing to me that he could no longer stand to live with his love unrequited, hurled himself into the sea… that was the last thing he said to me, the last person to see him before his death... I was helplessly unable to stop this tragedy…”

“You pushed him off a cliff, my lady?”

“Yes I pushed him off a cliff”

[1000cavalry]

Odysseus: so how many suitors are we dealing with?

Telemachus: well there were 108 at the start but they’ve been reduced to 74

Odysseus: oh some of them left? We are still outnumbered

Eurymeus: actually it’s now only 43. Penelope took out a lot more while you were gone Telemachus

Odysseus: Penelope has been killing them?

Eurymaus: well there has been a lot of… suspicious accidents

Telemachus: My favourite was the guy who fell down three flights of stairs and got impaled on two swords in the process

[kindred-spirit-93]

@dootznbootz come get yall juice :D

[dootznbootz]

Look, she's of naiad descent. It's not her fault some people can't swim.

[emmikay]

Odysseus, tears in his eyes: That's my girl!

[hermdoggydog]

Odysseus still disguises himself as a beggar, only because he wants to see how many more Penelope can get before the suitors finally catch on.

[zurin]

they're fucking shelling whiterun hold

[writing-prompt-s]

You’re an ancient Greek man coming home from 4 months of war to find your wife 3 months pregnant. Now you’ve embarked on a solemn quest: to punch Zeus in the face.

[hermdoggydog]

Soon after you begin your quest, you encounter another man in a similar situation. You decide to join forces, as two mortal men stand a better chance at punching Zeus than one. Two villages over, you encounter a woman who had relations with Zeus and was left with a highly aggressive half-boar half-man offspring. She too feels your anger and offers to join your quest. By the time you reach Mount Olympus, you’ve amassed a large and formidable army of cuckolded/ravished mortals, demigods with daddy issues, mythical creatures with scores to settle, and a seamstress who you’re pretty sure is Hera in disguise. Zeus never stood a chance.

[lizluvscupcakes]

What I find best about this scenario is that the original wife probably expected to be murdered for her infidelity at worst or have her relationship with her husband ruined as he grew to resent her baby, at best.

Instead this man looked at his beloved and said, “who did it?”

And she replied “Zeus,” accepting he probably wouldn’t believe her.

And then he sighed, strapped his sandals back on and said, “I’ll be back before the baby is born.”

“Where are you-?”

“The lord of the sky came into my house, molested my wife in my bed and ate my food. I am going to settle the score.”

“Darling, he’ll kill you.”

“He may try, if he would like.”

[theriu]

You’re so right, that IS the best part.

[therealbeachfox]

I’m personally caught up on the seamstress.

“The pathway up Olympus is guarded by dozens of traps and perils strong enough to thwart even the Titans. How are we going to get past all of…” the shepherd boy with golden eagle feathers gestured uselessly at the slopes above them, particularly the herd of eight-legged goats snorting fire.

“There’s a way around,” Yiorgos said, though he was not specifically asked. But he had been the first to begin the march on Olympus, and so felt obligated to take the lead whenever possible, “In the stories there’‘s always a way around whatever obstacles the Gods place in our way.”

He hadn’t meant the words to come out as a question, but they had that lilt to them none-the-less. And even though he hadn’t meant it to be a question, much less a question directed at anyone specific, it was directed at one all the same. Just as the eagle-feathered shepherd boy’s had.

“Way I heard it,” a woman’s voice said. Rough with the Mycenaean Greek equivalent of a backwoods accent, and with the depth of a farmer’s wife who straps cattle to her back to carry to market, “there’s a back path. Hidden behind an invisible door that only one key in the world can open.”  Everyone’s eyes had turned to the broad older woman in heavy shawl sitting amidst supplies in the foremost cart. “Least, that’s what my grand-mammy always told me.” she added after a moment of dozens of eyes on her.

“Oh, we were so foolish!” That was Lydia, a lithe waif of a woman, many months pregnant, sitting opposite the seamstress in the wagon. “Of course there’d be a.. a quest. They’d keep such a key in the depths of Tartarus or in the golden chariot of Apollo, or, or-”

“Or”, the older woman cut her off in a voice both firm, but much gentler than she used on anyone else, “he’s like all husbands and has been promising to move the key someplace better for the past three thousand years but hasn’t gotten around to it.”  She gestured vaguely to the hillside, “Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was under, say, that bush right over there.”

It was. Of course. And everyone in the caravan agreed that it had been a very lucky and wise guess from the nameless woman and for the upteenth time since she first sat herself down in the front wagon and announced she was coming along with no further explanation, each and every last member very purposefully gave no further thought to the matter.

[hermdoggydog]

Well...

Author of the 2nd post here. I can't believe this is still making the rounds after 8 years. And getting a reblog from @seananmcguire too...

[witchlinda]

Taisiia Onofriichuk from Ukraine performs her hoop routine to the sound of "Thriller" by Michael Jackson at the 2024 Paris Olympics Rhythmic Gymnastics Individual Qualifiers

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

This isn't. Physically possible. The hoop throws.

[roach-works]

hi! what the fuck.

[unsoundedcomic]

Whumptober 2024 - 03 - "Set Up for Failure"

"Don't touch it!" Duane snarled, and Mikaila's mittened hand flinched away from the bolt in his shoulder. It was envenomed, surely, and every jolt of his heart spread the toxin through his veins. His jaw burned as well, stiff and blazing where the first bolt had torn it open.

Where were they, an alley near Marat's? Goddamnit, there should be guards on patrol, they were not so very far from the ghers! Was there fighting elsewhere? Had some force broken into Durlyne and engaged the whole of the Lions, delaying them from their rounds? He needed to get Mikaila home, needed to return to the Temple.

His legs felt like clay. Miki cried as he lurched up from his crouch and stood, only to crumple against the alley wall and huff, nauseated, into his scarf. His fingers curled on the bricks. Galley bricks, shale, 4 by 3 by 8. This was the backside of that ghers 18 garage on Rue An; street plow inside, a carriage, hound harnesses. He couldn't push Mikaila through without knowing where it all was situated. Maybe he would simply tell her to run through the attached yard, but might there be more of these sons of bitches waiting there-?

She gestured behind him, a jerky motion, as though barely restraining herself from a spell of her own. Duane turned to see the tall fiend in the black mask scaling the alley fence, all asplatter with his comrades' blood. Rector Adelier raised a hand to take his head off but there were four men where there had been one, and they all swayed and gyred like embers from the kitchen fire. Oh, God, he was going to be sick-

The moment's hesitation was enough for the assassin to leap clear of the inelegant attack, closing the distance between himself and his mark so he could slice the flurry of spells directly from the priest's lashing palms. Duane reached for the Coefficient of Friction of the black ice, for the Solidity of the Galley bricks, for the stabbing Contour of the icicles along the eaves of the garage. The assassin sliced them all from the lines. Aspects tumbled free and hissed back into place, and the khert listened on, indifferent. Duane felt like a ball-jointed doll with its strings all gone slack.

He was being bested by some Sevencrow wright-sticker; some bloody Tannery spell slicer. Some...

His vision dimmed. His brilliant green pymary rolled over to swampy, ailing twilight. All the world danced away from him; retreated from him; surrendered him. Far away, Mikaila screamed for her papa, but nearer, his arm cracked and shattered from a blow of the black mask's club. Another swing crashed into his temple, and his clay legs broke apart.

[unsoundedcomic]

Whumptober 2024 - 02 - "Trust Issue"

"It were in a periodical," Sette said again, walking tiny circuits around her attack zombie as he rummaged through his bag, "For wives and husbands to stop 'em throwin' bottles at each other and the neighbours poundin' on their wall. It were all drawn out in detail, with black eyes on everyone, the most brill art I seen ever."

"We are not wed," said Duane, pulling out his journal, a few tins of sardines, a stack of blank envelopes. "Anteit vaosa, you are certain the compass is lost? I would wager a rib I wrapped it again in its silk and replaced it in its case!"

"Probably you ate it. Listen to me and what I'm sayin'! In this periodical it said this thing makes one person trust the other! It ain't only for wives!"

Duane looked up at her like a hair in his soup. "Why don't you go into town and purchase a new compass? I will give you the money for it." Sette kicked him, for educational purposes.

"I'll navigate us by the stars! We Sharteshanians is born celestial navigators! Now here, you stand there on the path where I marked the spot with the sticks, and then ya fall back inta me arms and I catch ya!"

"You'll be crushed."

Sette chortled. "You don't hardly weigh more'n a gob of spit. I got the angle figured, and I'll stop ya hittin' the hard and cold dirt, and you'll see the Frummagems got only the purest of intentions for ya and you can trust us easy as breathin'."

Duane opened his disgusting corpse mouth to contradict this last assumption, and Sette waited for the words to fall out. Stared at him, expecting it. Challenged him! He should breathe anyway like a normal person, and it was pure stubbornness that he didn't!

Wisely, he swallowed it back, then dutifully stood and planted himself atop the crossed sticks like a great grey mainmast, his cloak billowing sail-like in the breeze. Sette positioned herself behind him. She spread her arms.

"A swoon comes upon ya!" she prompted, "Oh, a paroxysm from that last brain ya ate, it musta been spoilt! Good and fortunate that Sette Frummagem awaits to trustfully catch you in your moment of vulnerableness!"

Sette watched the back of his hood, anticipating. It wibbled slightly. One boot twitched indecisively in the dust.

Then: "Did you steal the compass?"

Sette huffed and threw up her arms.

"There's no savin' this marriage!"

[chickensauras]

Rare Unsounded fanart from me but knock has just been so extra god damn cool these last few pages!!

Is just a panel redraw but she's amazing and fantastic and I love her😤 original panel btw:

[unabashedbookworm]

Lol the panels of the is still my favorite and now with @thepandared from tiktok its even better