06/30/07 Abel's Story [#93] Blood

[Aurawyn]

I thought it was quite a good idea.  Not the sort of thing I'd do to my son, but if I had to incapacitate someone who hates me it's something I'd consider and it's a lot better than him murdering May and Hennya.

Also, don't forget that Abel just tried to kill/maim him with a chair.

I have to agree.. he wants Abel alive, and I assume, whole.. It might be a little cruel, but its probably the best solution given the situation.

[rabid_fox]

Actually.

Chair shots. Hidden identities. Forehead cuts. Swaggering prepared speeches gone half-forgotten. Amber's been watching the wrestling for sure.

[thegayhare]

So give them blood, blood, gallons of the stuff!
Give them all that they can drink and it will never be enough.
So give them blood, blood, blood.
Grab a glass because there's going to be a flood!

[Alondro]

*Charles hmms* Behind the ear bleeds alot too.  Well, at least for me it does, cuz I have this little knot of capillaries very close to the surface behind my left ear that I accidently scratch open sometimes when washing my hair.  It's only the size of a pinhead, but boy does that sucker bleed!  First time I found it, I felt something trickling down my neck, and when I looked in the mirror, my whole shoulder was covered in blood!  Naturally, I didn't freak out since I'm a scientist.  I was instead very curious about what could cause such an odd capillary grouping.   

*Charline bites Charles and sucks his blood out!*  There, now you don't ave to worry about that happening again.     I think Abel will soon go berserk and kill everyone.  At least that's my happy-skippity-joy fantasy.   

[Regal]

Call it spoiling the effect, but this is starting to look like a game of "how much can the audience hate Aniz before it just gets depressing?"

Oh, it passed that mark several strips ago. There is no enjoyment with Abel's story anymore. I just keep sticking with it to see how it ends.

[Illusionist]

So give them blood, blood, gallons of the stuff!
Give them all that they can drink and it will never be enough.
So give them blood, blood, blood.
Grab a glass because there's going to be a flood!

You know what they do to guys like us in prison...

[Aleolus]

Oi, more falling from the high platform I had placed Aniz on.  Aniz!  Listen to your heart!  There's still time, you're not too far gone!  Tell May you love her, and will bring her with you, and you can all live happily ever after!  I know you do care for her, no one is that good an actor that they could convince someone they loved them for however many years that was without feeling something!

[Fuyudenki]

Naturally, I didn't freak out since I'm a scientist.  I was instead very curious about what could cause such an odd capillary grouping.   

In other news, when someone mentioned blunt head trauma, it occurred to me that, as I've mentioned before, forehead wounds are relatively mild.  It's painless, heals quickly, doesn't leave a scar if the cut is small(and it doesn't have to be large at all to produce copious amounts of blood), doesn't cause permanent physical damage, doesn't exert stress on the skull bones, doesn't cause physical brain damage, and as I've said before, will heal quickly.

Also, he's playing to a phobia which Abel already has.  Any psychological effects of seeing one's own blood, even for a hemophobe like Abel, will be far overshadowed by the night's earlier events.(Devin's death, discovering his father was a lie, learning he's an incubus, etc...)

I'd say the forehead cut was downright merciful, compared to the alternatives.  Take the kid out of the battle, but don't cause any real damage.

[GabrielsThoughts]

is this the part where Abel reveals he absorbed all of Devin's life memories, and kicks Aniz ass?

[Tapewolf]

is this the part where Abel reveals he absorbed all of Devin's life memories, and kicks Aniz ass?

No, that's The Crow

[GabrielsThoughts]

the crow? which one Stairway to heaven, city of angels, one of the newer four movies ?

[Tapewolf]

the crow? which one Stairway to heaven, city of angels, one of the newer four movies ?

The first film.

[candide]

Well, that was cruel of Aniz to do to his son.

And, very in-control.

I reiterate something I said in another thread:  Aniz is toying with them.  His behavior reminds me exactly of how one of my cats behaves when she finds a mouse: almost treating it as prey, but really just toying with it.

So, I wonder if Aniz is a more accurate representation of how most 'cubi behave...

[Eowyn]

What Eowyn types- bbbbbnnnnnnnnaaaaaaaaaaaaaadddddd
What Eowyn says- banaid? kisss?
What Eowyn means- Who is going to give him first aid? everyone else is KO! Daddy, I need a new scooby doo band aid, the old one fell off.

[nikename2]

So, I wonder if Aniz is a more accurate representation of how most 'cubi behave...

Probably, there's a reason behind why Merlitz' old party members were looking around for cubi a few strips ago in the main line and why Dan was/is still reluctant to fully accept his cubi heritage.

This is probably his best opportunity to just grab Abel and run off with him now that he's incapacitated him. I don't think Hennyas gonna try to stop him since Abel going WWE on him didn't have any effect.

[MaskedRetriever]

To those wishing gory death upon Aniz:

Aariana has all but CERTAINLY done worse than this before.  Probably WAY worse.

Kria... Kria probably is slightly less evil than this.  Aariana's probably more evil.

We shan't talk of what the Home Ec teacher from the SAIA arc is probably capable of.

[Caswin]

To those wishing gory death upon Aniz:

Aariana has all but CERTAINLY done worse than this before.  Probably WAY worse.

Kria... Kria probably is slightly less evil than this.  Aariana's probably more evil.

We shan't talk of what the Home Ec teacher from the SAIA arc is probably capable of.

...and wouldn't you know it, I don't like any of them.

To stand on an itty-bitty soapbox and put it bluntly:
Kria's a mass murderer with a body count of at least twenty and probably well over that.

Aaryanna is at least implied to have a long history of nastiness (soul in a jar, anyone?) as well as being stopped just short of raping and murdering Merlitz in their first meeting.

Fa'Lina was more than prepared to kill Merlitz (he does get the short end of the stick rather often, doesn't he?) without much thought on the grounds that she didn't like him - not to mention running a school (not, in all fairness, entirely, but still largely) devoted to teaching various techniques of hurting and killing innocent people.

I think the reason Aniz is taking more heat than most of his peers is because we're actually seeing it happen, on-panel, to characters we've grown to care about rather than a bunch of nameless victims.

[Tapewolf]

Aaryanna is at least implied to have a long history of nastiness (soul in a jar, anyone?) as well as being stopped just short of raping and murdering Merlitz in their first meeting.

And killing Dan.

not to mention running a school (not, in all fairness, entirely, but still largely) devoted to teaching various techniques of hurting and killing innocent people.

And soul-eating.  Remember how she laughed about killing Beings when she was discussing the 'Incantation Ploy' with Aary?

Remember that Dan also has a body count himself - in fact, it's likely that Abel himself is one of the most innocuous 'Cubi members of the cast.  I suspect that being brought up as a Being helps a lot.

[Caswin]

And killing Dan.

Well, yeah, that was bad, too, although in her defense, she was genuinely under the impression that Dan had killed her best friend.  I blame the Oracle.

Remember how she laughed about killing Beings when she was discussing the 'Incantation Ploy' with Aary?

Heck, when you think about it, that scene should by all rights be at least a little chilling...

Remember that Dan also has a body count himself

I guess you could say that - although the only ones I'm aware of were monsters terrorizing the townsfolk, killing people... basically, not random innocents.

All the same, good point... this comic is starting to remind me of Pulp Fiction. 

[Cogidubnus]

 Ah, but Aniz isn't really trying to kill here, is he? We find him so repulsive because death would be merciful.

As we have seen, Aniz could probably kill everyone present with ease. And, if that's all he did, we would certainly be sad.
But he isn't. He is breaking them. A sadistic torture that is, very much, worse than a mere slaughter, reveling in the twisting and snapping. May will never recover from this, ever. Abel is at least affected by it - he hates shapeshifting into others, remember?

It's not the actions themselves that are so terrible. In fact, so far, Aniz could be said to be guilty of only killing Cid, at some point, if even that. Perhaps giving Abel a cut and knocking May into a table. Nothing doing on the evil scale.
What he's done to May, is nothing short of evil, of the grandest, most repulsive sort. 20 years of deceit, a masquerade as her husband, who you more than likely killed? Bringing up her most terrible memories, implying she will relive them, and promising, that though she will die someday, he, an immortal, will put flowers on her grave - a complete and utter mockery of everything she is, and held dear. She is broken. She will not recover from that. How can she? How could she ever get close to anyone, ever again?

No, it's not that he isn't as evil, or 'less' evil. He is just as evil, in a different way.

[MaskedRetriever]

Well, there's certainly a discontinuous morality situation of beings vs creatures.

DMFA has, especially recently, shown us, in depth, a wide variety of complex interactions of the sort of violent world that Furrae really IS.

For comparison, consider "predation" furry comics like Suburban Jungle and Kevin and Kell.  THESE comics are way scarier to me, honestly, than DMFA.  In Kevin and Kell, every predator is a serial murderer with a long, long victim list and nobody seems especially concerned by it.  Likewise Suburban Jungle.  There have been moments in Kevin and Kell that, if really percieved as they are would make someone who yawned through Hannibal shudder.

In DMFA, however, the violence has real implications.  Beings really DON'T feel comfortable around Creatures (at least the ones who actually kill) and, as Amber has pointed out, Adventuring has become a big industry.

When I read DMFA, I tend to see the Creatures in a somewhat colored light; I know many of the things they've done, and I'm forced by the script to bend my perceptions around the way their own morality operates.  (Kria's little speech was VERY enlightening in this respect.)

Quick hit on SAIA:  Not "largely" for torture and murder.  It's just a prominent thing in the curriculum.  My suspicion is actually that Fa'lina is interested in (long term) a MORE peaceful relationship between Cubi and beings: what drives her is the survival and improvement of the Cubi race, and the Creature Council is increasingly aware of how powerful beings are becoming...

[Zedd]

All I have to say...Here comes! THE DRUMS! 

[Aaryanna]

I dunno, I kinda like Aniz


I'm so random its great ^^.

[bilbo-sama]

*de-lurks!*

I'm more horrified by the fact that it'll be Cliffhanger City for all until sometime in the middle of July. :

[Rafe]

I don't know. Drip may be the ass of all assholes, but Aniz has a subtler evil. Not by much, but still subtler than Drip. And that is the evil multiplication factor.

But even if that's not so, you're right, he's just barely poking his finger into Drip's territory.

All good villains, the best anyway, have the ability to make you hate them, but still feel sympathy for them in some way.  In other words, they aren't pure evil, they are human and believeable (this makes them even scarier, actually).  Sometimes you can even imagine yourself in their place if things had been different.  Amber has done an excellent job with Aniz in this respect.

She also obviously knows something about David Hopkins' Drip.   She even created a special Censorship Panda for him:

[Manawolf]

Aniz isn't showing much of a human nature, only that of an underhanded deciever.

[Illusionist]

All I have to say...Here comes! THE DRUMS! 

herecomethedrumsherecomethedrums OOH BABY BABY BABY!

The Sound of Drums was awesome, Last of the Time Lords sucked.

Right, back on topic now.

[Tapewolf]

Aniz isn't showing much of a human nature, only that of an underhanded deciever.

Then again, he isn't human...

Well, there's certainly a discontinuous morality situation of beings vs creatures.

DMFA has, especially recently, shown us, in depth, a wide variety of complex interactions of the sort of violent world that Furrae really IS.

Indeed.  This is one of the things which makes it such an interesting setting, and it's something that people with 'Cubi characters sometimes forget.  They have a very, very different moral outlook from Beings (and Beings don't have quite the same outlook as humans either).
'Cubi who were brought up as Beings will be easier to understand but even so, they are going to come out of SAIA (those who attended) with quite different ideas to when they went in.

Quick hit on SAIA:  Not "largely" for torture and murder.  It's just a prominent thing in the curriculum.  My suspicion is actually that Fa'lina is interested in (long term) a MORE peaceful relationship between Cubi and beings: what drives her is the survival and improvement of the Cubi race, and the Creature Council is increasingly aware of how powerful beings are becoming...

Yet she teaches soul-stealing and eating.  Admittedly one of the major themes in my future fanfic is using the technique to save people, but this is not what people in DMFA canon have been using it for AFAIK which is why I thought the concept was interesting to explore.  Even Abel is blase about this although his opinion on actually consuming them is unclear at this time.

herecomethedrumsherecomethedrums OOH BABY BABY BABY!

The Sound of Drums was awesome, Last of the Time Lords sucked.

You aren't talking about the Kula Shaker song with the cool organ riff, are you?

[kaskar]

    You know , Aniz better look out ...

    'Cause some cat's gonna strike back !!!

[Zedd]

herecomethedrumsherecomethedrums OOH BABY BABY BABY!
The Sound of Drums was awesome, Last of the Time Lords sucked.

You aren't talking about the Kula Shaker song with the cool organ riff, are you?

No but he's talking about Voodoo Child by Rogue Traders