quote:

tangled-zans asked: "Bikini wax but core leeching the hair off." I'm now wondering what other mundane things could be improved using the khert. Cooking?

For sure. I’ve always enjoyed the idea of a pymaric that can assign the most delicious textures and flavours to any food you put it on. Imagine sprinkling spell-filled First Salt onto your kale and it makes the whole salad taste like the most delicious potato chips.

This would probably be the most useful aspect of First Salt. It’s edible, so you could use it to alter food safely. You wouldn’t want to do the same thing with First Sand or Earth or Silk.

TheFuzzyLumpkin posted:

A giant interesting answer off the Tumblr, which I will spoil as it contains a lot of clues about Duane's condition:

Chair In A Basket posted:

Cope you coward kill those children!

Chair In A Basket posted:

Cope you coward kill those children!

Bad Seafood posted:

He's even protective of Crescian kids, from what we've seen; one of the reasons he hates Cresce so much is explicitly because they practice child cannibalism, and he was incensed at the thought the shrine might beat its charges. He also got super upset at an enemy commander in the civil war (and himself) for endangering his own plats.

Duane's fatherly instinct knows no bounds, nor race, creed, or nation.

On a related note, I was clicking around looking for a certain page when I clicked one of the crossed-out links during the cursed scene and got redirected to this page. Cope really knows how to use the medium.

DrSnakeLaser posted:

Another of Duane's good qualities is the face he's pulling in this update.

Bad Seafood posted:

I thought I'd read somewhere twin cannibalism was banned in Alderode (along with plod labor) as a courtesy to the Ssaelit, but I couldn't find mention of it in the wiki and don't have the time to dive into the formspring so maybe not. In either case, I could believe it still goes on (in secret or otherwise), and do recall reading about Ssaelit children being kidnapped and sold to (foreign?) temples.

And yeah, they're allowed to reach adulthood, but I don't think raising someone specifically to slaughter and eat them garners much of distinction from Duane. If anything, it probably makes him feel worse: raising a child from infancy just to kill it.

Another possibility that occurred to me while typing this: he's obviously not a fan of the Gefendur faith regardless of where or how its practiced, but social conditioning probably means he won't come down too harshly on his fellow Aldishmen. Cresce is an enemy, however, and fair game for condemnation since they're gonna hate each other anyway. It's not a mindset without historical precedent in the real world. It is often easier to judge others for the sins we share simply because they're not us.

TheFuzzyLumpkin posted:

Nope, Matty references the fact that the Aldish Gefendur still do it. http://www.casualvillain.com/Unsounded/comic/ch13/ch13_07.html
But it sounds like they do it on a smaller scale than the Crescians. The Ssaelit don't allow their twins to be taken for sacrifice, which is another point of disagreement between the Aldish religions, because for the Gefendur it's blasphemous not to sacrifice twins.

TheFuzzyLumpkin posted:

Nope, Matty references the fact that the Aldish Gefendur still do it. http://www.casualvillain.com/Unsounded/comic/ch13/ch13_07.html

Tollymain posted:

cresce is a hegemonic power opposed to duanes homeland. sure, duane could spend his time and energy hating their client states, but thats kind of like a soviet sparing time out of the day to hate idk belgium

Tollymain posted:

cresce is a hegemonic power opposed to duanes homeland. sure, duane could spend his time and energy hating their client states, but thats kind of like a soviet sparing time out of the day to hate idk belgium

Regallion posted:

Motherfucker posted:

real talk though I like claggart just... visually. Hes clearly into his vices and its the little touches, like the fact he smokes tobacco cut with chilli flakes to get any effect out of it (cutting drugs with chilli so they cut up the membranes and get you higher is a thing iirc). Hes fat. He's fat because he probably needs the endorphins of a good fuckin' bite and if hes going to spend a hundred years in this prison of a body hes gonna wreck that poo poo, because he is non stop sorting through poo poo for his beloved country and has been at it for a hundred years. He's I'd hazard to say a very real and very good dude in a lovely lovely world.

quote:

Anonymous asked: How long did it take for Duane to make good on his promise and get his brother a Vliegeng after being appointed at the temple? Weeks, months, years,... and considering their father died somewhere between the rebellion and chapter 7, was he still alive to see both his sons at their dreamjobs?

It took Duane four years to get Lemuel a place in the Temple aeries, where they keep the vliegeng. Then Lem spent another two years scrubbing goat-snake teeth, polishing horns, snipping the fingers off newborns, shovelling their massive poops, repairing saddles and tackle, mucking out their bedding, and basically learning all the ins and outs of vliegeng. It was hard work but Lemuel was really happy. He wasn’t in the army anymore and he found the new work fascinating. He really loves vliegeng and everything about them.

The only horrible bit was the riders treated him like human garbage. No respect. And no one had any intention of ever giving him a vliegeng. He’d spend the rest of his life their servant, just like all the old Soud men around him who’d been trudging through poop and straw for fifty years.

But nope. Lemuel is just as persistent as his brother. When one of the vliegeng’s riders suddenly died of some sickness, Lemuel fouled every plan to put its mount down. Usually they have no choice, as vliegeng are notoriously difficult to train, bonding themselves to a single rider. Lemuel broke into the guy’s quarters, stole his bedding and a bunch of his clothes, then clad himself in all this and moved into the vliegeng’s nest for weeks. He was able to acclimate the brute to his smell, befriend it, and finally get up onto its head. Once he was able to guide her up north to the feeding grounds, they were BFFs. Imagine that first flight. It must have been terrifying.

That vliegeng was named Diva, and she’s Lemuel’s mount today. Lem’s the first and only Soud vliegeng rider, and though Duane may have opened the door for him, Lemuel did the hard bit himself.

Dad died right after Simon was born, so he for sure saw both his boys installed at the Temple. He was stupidly proud of both of them. Like, insufferable. If you had to come to his shop to pick up a print order you weren’t getting out of there in less than twenty minutes because Pa Adelier needed to tell you everything his boys were up to, and show you this crayon dog Mikaila had drawn on the back of some proofs, by Ssael, she’s so talented!

Straight White Shark posted:

No more pants when I'm god!