TheSquishedElf

25 | m | grayace | why tf would someone read this

[unsoundedcomic]

Weird question, but does music/sound mean more to the squeople? Like we might describe particular emotive music as like hearing it in our soul, but the Kasslynians literally do.

I do think they feel music in a way we can barely imagine. In the Unsounded animated series that lives in my head, music would be hugely important. I tried to vaguely kinda sorta communicate this with all the rhyming that goes on and all the songs, but you can only do so much with a comic. Or at least I only can!

But there's something going on with all the best wrights being musically inclined. Even Tree hauls that guitar around. It's all connected!

[thesquishedelf-blog]

okay but like this is a fun little fanon thought experiment for what everybody's pymary must Sound like : D

like, Duane probably has some unearthly creepy near-ultrasonic synth noise when tacit casting that's ramped up 1000% once undead, just blends into his opera-singing-pymary when alive but goes almost vocaloid once undead. but he's easy since we know so much about him.

Aseptick Keon must have some sick guitar solos. doesn't play nice with other wrights' music but boy is it flashy when he does something

Elka... I want to say she's got meaty bass riffs. When she casts it has impact especially if she can chain together a whole riff-combo

Quigley raps. accidentally on purpose. he knows it and he's self-conscious about it and he's actually trying to sing sometimes but then he still drops bars. commanding Swarm is an unending (amateur) tainish diss-flow and in big-bug-form he just keeps dropping the same your mom jabs. literally everyone is confused that it keeps working. especially Duane

will is trying to sing tenor and his voice always cracks into a soprano. with his drummer boy history there's always a sudden cymbal crash when he cracks

Anadyne's got gorgeous jazz singer vibes but she can never quite keep herself on-key, always second-guessing herself

Bastion is just David Bowie

Darkest Paul sounds like 80s Hair Metal. Twisted Sister, Motley Crue, etc

Rahm teeters between Death Metal growls and Judas Priest screeches. no in-between. he has a really soothing normal talking voice tho

Prakhuta does his poetry in Mongolian throat-singing on top of kalimba rhythms that he clicks with his maw

and of course Bett has a crystal-clear soprano that can break wine glasses except he has no idea what he's doing

[thesquishedelf-blog]

I fully expect this to be a part of the Silver Woods @unsoundedcomic

[unsoundedcomic]

Do Typhoon Whales leave behind/generate any FM? I'm imagining First Ambergris or something.

Typhoon Whales are a looming mystery! Literally looming!

[thesquishedelf-blog]

wait so you mean they carry around armies of silk moths and spin it all up in their typhoons, possibly preserving first water and air from stormies, to make first rugs? because that's literally LOOM-ing

[unsoundedcomic]

"especially when invaders tried to Core Leech entire rivers so locals would have to clear out to find water." honestly its kinda impressive that ancient Kassylnians didn't wipe themselves out by accident

A lot of them did. Leaders had to learn very quickly not to let any old idiot pick up pymary. They were losing warriors! A lot of peoples forbade it entirely, like the seafarers of the east. It was seen as a chaotic curse that had as much chance of killing the user as anyone they targeted. Sharteshane to this day is suspicious of pymary.

[thesquishedelf-blog]

I expect this was even worse for sailors given The Khert weakens off the coast. Between there simply being less impressive feats even possible offshore and almost certainly an increased chance of Khert blowback from trying to do something not supported by available Khert CPU power it makes a lot of sense that you don’t get many sea-wrights.

[unsoundedcomic]

Even tho the squishes and eels are opposites-- it seems like they also got a bit of a hierarchy. I think the only time we've ever seen the eels overpower the squishes was during that Hate blast First Sette did, when they all turned grey and died. Every other time tho, the squishes chase away bad days. It's not exactly a predator and prey relationship-- sorta reminds me of bees and wasps. With the squishes ironically, being the meaner and fearsome wasp.

Squishes seem overall nerfed by their complacency, but when they are motivated to act, they are enormously strong, eager, and voracious. They go right for the throat without subtlety or cunning.

We've seen eels act differently. They torment, torture, delight in the kill. They're sinuous and slow, ephemeral and easily dispersed and destroyed. They're often undone by their own cruelty.

I wouldn't say one is definitively stronger than the other. Rather it's all about the situation and the motivation. The Eels have lost their master and this city's been pretty hollowed out of victims. There's not much to power it against the sudden squish blast. And the Squishes are riding that Sette high, with a singular order and a singular aim, and all the hope and relief of poor Port Morstorben's beleaguered crowds cheering them on.

Now you could give them pause but you'd want to do it just like First Sette did: a terrible jolt of despair, hate, suffering. Let's hope there's none of that left~

[thesquishedelf-blog]

boss… what are you implying here… BOSS-

Mathis, you’d best grab your son NOW please

[unsoundedcomic]

I've been reading the recent asks and stumbled upon a long answer where you talk about your relationship with Nihilism. Question: Would you consider yourself an Absurdist?

Not particularly? I don't find reality all that absurd. The laws of physics are pretty regular. The natural world is pretty much always working towards the same purposes. Human nature is predictable. You always know what gravity's gonna do. Entropy's a given.

The absurdity only comes in when you try to impose your own expectations and assumptions onto any of this. When you do this, it's not the world that's absurd - it's you. And that's the problem I think I have with the philosophical idea of Absurdism, at least what I know of it. It's completely anthropocentric, contrasting the whole of existence against human desires and human storytelling, and then making a fuss that the former doesn't even know the latter exists. I suppose it's anthropomorphizing reality too much for my tastes. Reality isn't absurd; reality just is.

[thesquishedelf-blog]

My understanding of it is that it’s exactly that. Making peace with the fact we often don’t think compatibly with reality. The Absurd (TM) is not that the universe is uncaring and unfeeling; it’s that we expect it to be any different.

though your criticism that it’s entirely anthropocentric is fair; it slips quite close to simple solipsism in that regard. It effectively argues for inherent meaning in human life, that our endeavours and urge to leave history and our mark on it is a worthwhile goal in itself, because that’s what we live to do. That’s the predictable human nature and how we can comfort ourselves that we’re irrational. Imagine Sisyphus happy and all that. It’s… kind of like Ssaelism in that regard, all existence is meaningful partially for it’s struggle; except it would likely argue that the expansion of the Khert is a goal in and of itself, rather than a data repository for the creation of something more in line with our absurd desires.

[unsoundedcomic]

Realistically, if Duane was there earlier, could he have meaningfully helped to overturn this fight? Khette is extra good against Ghosts.

Duane would have stopped this happening. You need the First Soul to command ghosts; without it, First Sette is only a pointy little twelve year old. But the window between Sessine going off the cliff and First Sette strangling Sette Frummagem was tight, so hard to imagine him intruding there.

I will point out that the eels who accompany First Sette do so because it often benefits them, like remoras that hang around sharks.

[thesquishedelf-blog]

having just reread Deadly Nevergreen, this is such a fitting quote. “Your Da used to say bleed a little… then kill the remoras that come out.”

[unsoundedcomic]

We've seen indications that Alderode regulates women's and girls' bodies as strictly as in our own world. Before we move entirely away from them, I wanted to ask: is this significantly more relaxed in Cresce? Furthermore, would Illganyag or other Senets be likely to concern themselves with such matters in their efforts to control humanity?

It's a good question. If you're talking strictly about reproductive rights, there isn't actually any country in the world that regulates them. Unwanted children are seen as a blight on the species and a drain to society, and responsible people keep them from coming into existence. It's interestingly not about bodily autonomy at all, but instead a bedrock idea from Gefendur scripture that everyone has a right to a mother that loves them. Letting an unwanted person be born is a gross idea to even pious Duane. Such senseless misery.

If you're talking broader gender rights, Cresce socially engineers society along gender-convenient trajectories the same as anyone else, but females are specifically not property in Cresce in the way they are in Alderode. They belong to the same (ideally) merit-based system as the males. Both genders are perceived as being better suited for certain roles - physically stronger (and frankly, more reproductively disposable) males make better frontline soldiers and workers in hazardous jobs. Males are also seen as more emotional and violent, so no one really wants them around anything sensitive, like matters of state, of finances, of chid-rearing. Women are seen as more invested in the good of society and the future, since they have so much physical investment in their children, so they are simply the ideal people to run the country and the church.

There is more will in Cresce for breaking these norms though, whether it's a woman working her way up in the military or a man becoming a trusted advisor to the governess of a city, or a well-respected school teacher.

You'll see this is all quite different in Alderode. Women outside the home are only there due to money, necessities of extreme poverty or the sponsorship of a generous male.

Ilganyag did try to curb the natural sexism of her children long ago by... designing Sette to look the way she does :) Eh, it had some limited, regional success, but I think we've seen that senets don't entirely understand the psychology of humans, haha.

[thesquishedelf-blog]

interesting to hear that even Sharteshane has a religious aversion to unwanted children. Puts the country in another light - they know it’s a capitalist hellscape *and they like it that way*. Certainly the most balanced Geffies like that compared to matriarchal, controlling Cresce and crazy-patriarchy-fascist Alderode.

I also like how Ssaelit sidestep the unwanted children debate entirely. You have a god-mandated expectation to multiply, so if you aren’t directing your resources to having as many Ssaelit kids as you can reasonably (and legally) support… you’re not on the path out of samsara

[unsoundedcomic]

So in a earlier post you had said that Duane would be pretty anti Christianity and certain parts of the religion. I had always thought Ssaelism was supposed to be the Unsounded equivalent of Christianity. What parts of Christianity would Duane have major problems with that separates it from Ssaelism

Ssaelism follows the teachings of a human man named Ssael who broke into the realm of the creator gods of the world, killed them, and took over. The argument is that those creator gods created a ghastly world, and did not deserve to be worshipped. Humans will study the matter, and remake the world to better suit them once enough humans have become like Ssael to stand at his side and contribute.

So you can see what Duane would dislike about Christianity - namely the creator god. Only a very inept or sadistic god would create the world of earth; such a creature is unworthy of worship or obedience. Drag that mofo out of his burrow and stomp it to death.

Duane would despise the idea that mankind has a sinful nature, whatever that means - Ssaelism teaches that mankind is the greatest creature in all of creation, and the best hope and light for the future.

Jesus' martyrdom is a human sacrifice, and the Ssaelit pointedly despise the human sacrifices of the Gefendur, so that's an immediate deal breaker for Duane too. He also just wouldn't get the point of any of it. When you break the story down - especially when you add the Eden stuff in that's supposed to justify it - none of it is terribly rational to an outside observer.

I could go on, but Duane simply would not care for the religion. Even aside from the fact that it's blatantly untrue because it is Ssaelism that is true :)

[thesquishedelf-blog]

I think the only religion he'd have any appreciation for would be Buddhism, in how it "rightly" acknowledges the cycle of reincarnation, humanity's exceptionality in being able to escape it, and the necessity of living rightly.

Except, to him, Buddhism would be "selfish" and misguided. Nirvana is achieved by detachment (as opposed to Ssaelism's need for ever more fully-lived experiences), and there is no intention to dismantle the Samsara Cycle, only to revel in Nirvana and occasionally reach out to others, like the Gefendur Victori.

[unsoundedcomic]

For all her dissaproval of 'The Man' writing the importance of cruelty into 'The Story', the Lady (and btw you too Ashley 😁) took some serious notes from his textbook. I mean, I really feel for Prakhuta here: all that pain, all that suffering, all that enduring, all for nothing..? He's truly one of your most tragic characters. Born into an abused, enslaved people. Tortured by Delicieu for years, abandoned by his only friend, maimed and banished by his own kin, haunted by the pure pain and horrorside of the Khert, and now failing in the one task that could've made all that suffering atleast have a purpose. A good cause. A true ending. I know he's also a homicidal maniac, but his journey mirrors that of Duane's in so many ways that it is extra sad to me that there seems to be no sympathy or understanding for him in your readership. I mean, with the way Delicieu 'bound' a human soul unto him, can Prakhuta even make or recall happy memories? Is cackling in the proximity of promised relief and being privey to some of the Lady's plans, the only respite he gets/deserves?

Oh, there are readers who have sympathy for Prakhuta. They've been in my inbox all day! :)

I don't think anything redeems suffering and I don't think anyone fundamentally deserves anything. In the words of Ssael, good men keep no accounts. It's better to live day by day, for the sake of others, and not obsess over all the wrongs done to you and by you. Because nothing can undo them. They and everything else remain suspended forever in time. The only way is forward, and we are all going to the same place.

It's not all that different in Kasslyne. There is no redemption. There is only Today and, if you're very lucky, Tomorrow.

Prakhuta lived a life full of suffering and torment, and there is nothing that can undo that fact. Yerta could appear and open her motherly arms and embrace him and he still would have lived a life full of suffering and torment. If Knock had not been there for Ana in the end, what would have changed? Nothing, really, except the reader would have missed out on that brief burst of catharsis as our pattern-seeking brains recognised the bookend of a narrative arc. But Ana still suffered horribly, and she still was dead, and not one jot of that was undone by a hug from Knock.

Anyway, I know I probably sound very grim, but I do like to keep it real. If you see a Prakhuta or an Ana, and you feel you can do something for them, do it. Redemption's for stories, and sometimes not even then~

[thesquishedelf-blog]

Thank you for saying this :) Had a rough day and really feeling the idea of spreading some schadenfreude with knowledge I possess. But, Ssael Fhikemun Rish. Keep no accounts.

[unsoundedcomic]

You said the two pages on friday are your favorite pages, the chaper isn't ending already is it?

Not yet. I just really like the pages :)

[thesquishedelf-blog]

and now that they're posted, I personally agree they're REALLY GOOD PAGES

Khette's 5 expressions leading to the chomp and badass Knock are particularly good

[unsoundedcomic]

These pages have made Lemuel click for me and I feel like I finally get him. Beautiful work ❤️ I am curious, have you seen anyone guess the circumstances of Lem's involvement? Specifically that it was meant to be him?

I hadn't! I didn't see anyone guess it correctly for years, and I used to torment readers by telling them all the clues they needed were in chapter 7. Still, nada :3

When 18 started, I was really worried that I hadn't dropped enough foreshadowing, haha. Let me tell you that in my experience, readers don't like to be surprised all that much. They much prefer to have just enough clues that they're able to figure it out for themselves first. So I worry about being too twisty, it's not good.

With that in mind, I tried to throw a bone earlier in the chapter when Lemuel said something like: "Ssael wouldn't even let me have this." That felt really on the nose to me but I don't think it worked! It wasn't until a few pages ago when Lemuel talked of being denied glory, and theeeen lots of readers saw the writing on the wall, thankfully.

Now @zacksfairest did clue in a little earlier than that, but she is a Lemuel scholar and her intellect is very far above mere mortals'.

[thesquishedelf-blog]

Y’know, I love the fact we had to wait for this.

Ashley’s right, all the clues we needed were in Ch.7. This was actually my gut response to Lem’s reading of the paper in the Temple. But the community, and the years, wore on and I never entertained the idea. It was preposterous. Too obvious. It didn’t fully line up. When we finally got more information, it was so well conducted that I was led - through this flawed viewpoint of Duane - to think that he knew Duane was to be assassinated, and that was why he was so stony after reading that missive.

And so the reveal that it is what my gut told me all along, had been telling me for so long that I had forgotten what exactly it was even trying to tell me, is that much more crushing. What I hadn’t counted on was Lem recovering so quickly, and taking care of Duane. That’s what never made sense to me for Lem to be scheduled to die that night - where did he get the pymarics from? Why did he preserve Duane instead of burning him? That Lemuel always knew about the zombification and was planning to endure it just to try to kill Ssael… that was my missing link.

[unsoundedcomic]

Is the khert in any way dimensionally bound to the real world? For example, if I had two Duane portals open in different places, could i walk the khert to save time? Both times Sette fell in the Khert, Lady I's tree seems to have been close, even though Port Morstorben and Ethelmilk are far apart.

Areas of bilocation are rare, but they do exist. They're most often formed and made sticky by khert-fires or other glitchy errors.

Otherwise the khert shifts and melts and oozes around in its own soft dimension, and parts of it are susceptible to perception and external expectation. That is to say, if Sette goes looking for something, it's going to start looking for her too.

This unconventional navigation system is both helping Lady Ilganyag's schemes and holding her back. She needs to find a very specific place in the khert but it's bound to a location in reality, meaning she can only access it through the instantiated world. So she's gotta go north when she gets out not just to retrieve Jac, but to get where she needs to be to correct the Mistake.

[thesquishedelf-blog]

Clearly the Dammakhert is actually anchored to the travelling library in the DMZ. I see where you’re going with this, Glass

Roll Safe.jpg

Roll Safe blank template

but on a real note, could Sette theoretically locate the library in the Khert and step out of it back into reality in the DMZ? Why has Murkoph not done this yet?

[unsoundedcomic]

Apologies if this is MEANT to be unclear... but is what Ilganyag says about the cruelty/pain being "important" to the Man meant in a negative or positive sense? When she first said as much, I assumed a traumatic death for the Settes was a deliberate choice- or at least a beneficial consequence of some kind. But when Lady I said that the Man was "haunted" by what was happening to (at least) Sette, I admit to being a bit confused as to his opinion regarding her pain.

It's one thing to come up with cruel plans, plans you think have a deep and significant spiritual benefit for your people. It's another to execute that cruelty, and have the victims come paw at your ankles in protest of what you did. Maybe some people found profound meaning and inspiration in Sette's sacrifice. Meanwhile, the girl's guts are hanging out of her stomach, and she still exists to complain about it.

The man was disappointed to find the khert empty of souls but never stopped to think that it was also empty of suffering and horror, and to maybe appreciate that. Instead he worked and sweated to make sure it all was kept forever.

[thesquishedelf-blog]

Worded this way, I’m seeing The Man as almost a bizarro Lord Asriel. Asriel committed heinous crimes in the hopes of upending permanent existence; to free tortured souls. The Man created permanent existence to create souls, no matter how tortured, thinking the heinous crimes might justify them.

[unsoundedcomic]

When exactly did "The Man" go into the khert and do all this stuff?

It's not relevant. While the creation of Sette and Jac (as a concept, with a set number of iterations) has some temporal relevance, the alteration to the khert was in execution an alteration to all of the world and humanity. The date of the alteration isn't important because the alteration altered the entire instantiation. It did not create a branching timeline. It replaced the timeline.

I feel it's important to be very loose with this stuff because I don't want a readership that's been following for 2000 pages to have to suddenly try to keep track of dates or alternate histories. I let Lady Ilganyag tell her story to Sette in very simple language with all the corners rounded off. That was for the reader, too. The mechanics are there - as far as I can tell they work just fine within this system - and we can talk about them here, if you want, but they're not really what I'd have a reader take away from this. What really gets my juices flowing is the idea of a human being getting into the gears of the world and thinking he can manifest his religion. It's a mega blown up version of Sette papering over her crappy trauma with make-believe.

And meanwhile this ancient harpie is over in the corner shuffling her talons and saying, uh, maybe don't, but no one's going to listen to her. She stands around watching the grass grow and thinks that's magical. Humans don't got time for natural selection!

I also really was charmed by the idea of someone making that giant change, carrying out this great humanitarian enterprise that he believed would evolve his peoples towards immortality, and then completely forgetting he did it because he boneheadedly also changed himself. And none of it even worked! It's a tragedy but also ridiculous but also kind of terrifying. He wrote over his original self. In trying to save everyone he loved and whose souls he wanted to see again, he obliterated all of them with new versions. Maybe some of them are identical, but it doesn't even matter. And he doesn't even know he did it. No one in existence even knows it ever happened but Lady Ilganyag.

It's spooky. But only if you think about it too hard.

[thesquishedelf-blog]

Fffffuck that’s terrifying, on the level of Lyra Belacqua mercy-killing God

[unsoundedcomic]

I feel this could win an award for the Less Relevant to the Current Storyline Question ever... but are there any Inak pirates?

Not currently, but maybe there will be very soon >_>

[thesquishedelf-blog]

Ruffles on Jivi’s Mom’s Crew~ Ruffles on Jivi’s Mom’s Crew~ Misandrist Ruffles on Jivi’s Mom’s Crew~ even if that’s completely out of character :)

[unsoundedcomic]

Beer can Duane: What brand?

I don't drink D: What brand, guys?

[thesquishedelf-blog]

Duane Adelier is a Bud Light man. He doesn’t think he is, he thinks he prefers hard Durlynian Whiskey, but he’s a Bud Light man. The trans commercial actually made him buy more, not less, even though he tacit-exploded several cases of it.