Epilogue pages 32-36
Added 2025-08-04 03:52:37 +0000 UTCFive pages today! I wrote this scene a VERY long time ago, and it was supremely satisfying to finally draw it and have it more or less look how it had in my head for so many years. I do love a tormented leader of men. I love the raw and demanding hunger of the aroused crowd.
Okay! So! Kickstarter was pushed back one day to TUESDAY. If you are following the campaign page you should get an email as soon as it goes live but I will ALSO update here as soon as I know it's ready to go. I'm excited! It's so soon!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ironspike/summer-2025-mystery-project?ref=9u42c1
I wound up not making that sequestered Chapter 1 I had mentioned. With all the payment processor drama, we decided it was safest not to link to the comic at all on the campaign page. Sucks, no? I imagine a lot of people thought this drama had nothing to do with them, they don't read smut, but you see it even chills regular old adult fiction that dares to address sensitive subject matter. So feel free to be mad that payment processors are controlling what media you're allowed to make, sell, and buy. It ain't right, guys.
I'll update here on Tuesday! Eyes peeled!
Comments
That page Sonorie's imagining about the gods' intentions, it reminded me of something. Now that I think of it, one of the ideas of the Second World, that the gods wanted to see creatures struggling to surpass their limitations instead of the unchanging harmony of the First World, reminds me of a pair of comic books by Ezra Claytan Daniels, *The Changers*, that I read 20+ years ago. Two brothers from a human civilization has reached an apex, a peaceful post-scarcity society where everyone lives 300 years and has no diseases, are sent back in time to secrete a chemical to change human evolution, for pretty much the same reason as the Twin Gods', to reset humanity enough to be able to keep evolving, hopefully towards something even better. But then someone travels back from the future they created - humanity is now a warlike, short-lived amphibious race. One brother is horrified, the other is like, "Well... isn't this what we wanted? These people clearly have a lot to overcome." Never thought of that similarity before, huh.
Josh
2025-08-07 21:19:06 +0000 UTCA very good ramble. I'll just add that Sonorie was able to execute Roger like this because he wasn't a Crescian citizen. Otherwise, she would have had to prove him guilty for some crime. At least gone through the motions. All the soldiers she hanged today did have their moment in court. Cresce is a civilized land, you know! ;)
Ashley
2025-08-04 20:30:31 +0000 UTCThis was really well done and still somehow surprising, even though she explained what she would do as and before it happened. Like- I had thought, and this is clearly done as a contrast of Sonorie's values and modern time norms, that symbolic, political, or spiritual executions were a thing of the past (with the sole exception of the twins). I knew she was going to execute whoever it was that she had brought out, but I still figured there'd be some legal justification or thin veneer of an excuse somewhere along the lines. Under the assumption that this is a in-canon deviation from modern norms (as a way of acting according to her ancestor, who watched her first husband wither from famine), it would add to the surprise of it all. Public executions of traitors is one thing, the at-will murder of a lover is very different. [Pauses to go review earlier pages of Roger and the Queen] I never really had the impression that she particularly, genuinely liked him, and I still don’t really think so, rather I think it's the act of barbarity and the idea of being even more alone that hurt Sonorie. She set Roger up to die slowly, her grandma has done much the same, they're the ones who roused the salt lizard and then the snake to put forth this endeavor; he was a sacrifice chosen for his youthful malleability and socioeconomic influence. But he's still a person, and Sonorie has made it really clear that she doesn’t like having a direct hand in pain or suffering. If in some way she is, she colours it as being reactive or that it has been made as gentle as humanly possible. The soldiers of Bell were killed openly for the public's enjoyment, but the conspirators have been allowed in the background. The act of burning Roger's living corpse is against her nature and showcases the blood thirst of those around her as they cheer and jeer so eagerly for more, more, more. Maha's breakdown adds to the spectacle in that it wouldn’t have been seen as a personal sacrifice if she were dispassioned. We see some people in the background cry along with her and it is those who seem to be properly processing what she's actually doing. (As in, ‘This is the first to die, the rest soon follow, I'm a secret badass’ versus ‘I will burn and blooden my hands and sacrifice everything if it means I can better serve you, my people’.) Okay, ramble over, for now.
Alight
2025-08-04 20:19:27 +0000 UTC
