1.13.27
on August 13, 2021
at 3:00 am
love 2 characterize the voice of my conscience as the corruptive primordial that hijacked my brain
Aurora
A fantasy webcomic. Updates M-W-F.
love 2 characterize the voice of my conscience as the corruptive primordial that hijacked my brain
As a person who has strange fascination with glowing important books and magical tomes (Book of Peace from Sinbad, Stolas’s Grimoire from Helluva Boss, Book of Ultimate Power from Felix The Cat ), I appreciate this and the previous page.
So, thank you very much, Red.
Ooh, the first seeds of Erin’s juicy backstory – no doubt it will be hard-earned learning given his proclivity for withholding inconvenient information. Interested to see why he has so much purpose in this dream – probably something to do with the book, I suppose, which is also an interesting thing.
The dream continues!
Conflict with the shadow self.
You love to see it!
(Bonus)
Staring at that book
will probably burn your eyes.
Is the pain worth it?
oh boy void’s getting a little too personal there
Void Dragon: ahaaaaa you’re like… obsessed with me ?rent free baybeeeeee
Your voice seems much kinder. Pretty sure the voices in my head are sadists
Don’t you just hate it when people talk to you as you’re trying to read?
Looks like that book is a metaphor and not White Dragon manifesting; my theory is rejected. Glad to see Erin isn’t going to play ball with Voidy and I doubt the current ‘Kendal captured’ status quo will last long enough for him to change his mind.
It seems V.D. has been looking through Erin’s memories, makes practical sense to see what McHubris’s plans are to deal with him and if he knows of any other cave entrances. Though it also means he can use those memories to pull stuff like this.
Erin mentioned having multiple identity crises in his life in 1-11-15, sounds like this event in his childhood may be one of them, possibly the first. Powerless as a child. Powerless as in before he realised his status as a mage or powerless in the sense that a child has little control over people’s and society’s decisions and rules?
Next week predictions: Looks like the dream sequence is coming to an end, Alinua and Falst are about to re-enter the embassy (probably to a rather confused receptionist who didn’t see them leave) and Kendal is bonding with his new BFF. That leaves the three/four gods in and around the city and Tess to shake things up on Monday. Or we continue with character interactions and building, that would be good too.
My god I hope he will finally pull his head out of his ass.
Picture 1: Plato and Aristotle debating in grand forum.
Caption 1: Falst and Alinua — How do we dismantle an authoritarian apartheid state without imperialist military intervention.
Picture 2: Little girl crying over homework.
Caption 2: Erin — Is making my friend suffer for my own enrichment bad actually??
I wonder if Void is right and he’s not actually there and Erin is just imagining him(? Them?) or voidy is actually there, which would be interesting bc it means voidy had access to erins memories
ERIN BACKSTORY??? ERIN BACKSTORY!?!?! ERIN BACKSTORY!!!!
Don’t you hate it when you somehow lose an argument of morality with the destroyer of all things
You know it’s messed up when the manifestation of the guy who wants to eat the sun thinks you’re being a dick.
And his parents died of some horrible disease in front of him while he couldn’t do anything. Possibly the Chimeric Disease!
Honetly, judging by reds comment and what walter I believe hes been called by people in the comments, isn’t actually there, or at least hasn’t been there fully/the entire time. I get the feeling erin is kinda projecting his negative thoughts on the dragon, and since he’s in his head, mr.dragon might have noticed/felt it, and either actively spoken to erin, or their connection caused some of the dragon to be in his projection, causing makinv it a bit more aware, or it’s just all projection, he is fully aware that that’s not actually the dragon and he’s just completely in denial because his ego is to big to want to accept there are some fundamental flaws with him. Who knows? We might find out next time.
Will Erin make the right choice? What even is the right choice? Is his friend’s life more important than the world-ending primordial Erin is facing? Is that actually just a crokinole strategy guide?
Tune in Next Week to Find Out!
Evil Tree:
Perhaps powerless in the sense of “he was born with malformed/incomplete elemental links”? It would explain why he would’ve been to the soulshaper monastery before, and why he specified that they’re discrete. It may also explain why he touches his tattoos literally every time he casts magic; those tattoos could be where the monks focused his links, and he can’t cast magic without them.
Is it backstory time?
A lot of today’s comic seemed like Erin avoiding facing the issue of Kendal being imprisoned. I also feel like Erin senses an crisis coming, because he’s shutting down VD’s arguments almost as he makes them, like he’s heard them before and/or doesnt want to respond. He barely contemplates the situation, but goes straight to the book, which I cant help but feel worried about. And the questions imparted by that last line, “I’m not even really here”…
I find it interesting how VD is in the shape of Erin instead of what he usually looks like. I’m assuming that this isn’t actually VD and just Erin projecting, like Privpi said.
Ohhh, are we going to learn more about Erins backstory? I‘m really looking forward to this
This is making me doubt my first assessment that Eirn’s hubrissness is based on him being treated as a special child all of his life. Now I’m wondering how much of it has to do with coping with his own powerlessness in certain situations.
TL;DR: Looks like Mr. Hubris is in for a hard night. Perhaps he should have taken a sleeping pill? Do they even have those?
Oh looks like I was a bit late again. Sorry.
To the commenters on the previous page- sorry I did not check the comments before this page went up. We just moved and I’m busy trying to… Catch ’em all.
Don’t expect to hear much of me for the next couple pages. I will still be around but things are a bit wilder than usual.
Ok so it might not be not the VD talking. But instead a “I am the shadow, the true self” situation.
Is there something you’d like to share with the class, Erin?
Today’s Alt Text:
Always wear eye protection when reading magic metaphorical dream books
Red Carnation:
Considering in the last panel, The Void Dragon’s voice says “I’m not even really here,” I think that’s pretty solid confirmation that this entity is a manifestation of Erin’s subconscious.
To, comicalbanana.
You live up to your name lmao
Backstoryyyy? I’ve long awaited this!
I admit, I’m actually kind of amused by how everyone thinks Kendal is, like, being tortured or restrained to the point of immobility or, I dunno, being forced to break rocks all day, and, really, the main difference between the jail and the hotel room for Kendal is that the hotel room had a cushion on the chair.
(Yes, the jail door also has the locks on the outside, but it’s not like he could really leave the hotel room either, so…)
Erin is feeling conflicted, and understandably so. On the emotional hand, having your friends always having to be the ones taking the fallout is enough to make one guilty. On the pragmatic hand, Kendal straight up agreed that a week of prison for him was a reasonable exchange for some info that might help stop the thing that would end the world. Always a fun time when your heart and your brain tug in different directions.
Short version: your friends having to spend time in jail to save the world sucks, but at the same time, the world is where all your friends *are*!
Does anyone have the feeling that Falst would have a Scottish accent? I know it isn’t implied or shown in his speech bubbles he just gives me those kind of vibe.
Anyone? Just me? Ok.
@WuseMajor
Yeah it is kinda funny
I’ve been googling short poems so I can contribute and I finally found one that I think I can do.
It’s called an Acrostic
Vacant space in the dark
Obscure and hungry like a shark
I don’t sleep well for I fear
Darkness in me to reappear
How is it?
@Indigo Toxin Fantastic. I love the feel of mystery and fear of the unknown that it leaves after the last line. I think “obscure” could be substituted with another adjective that describes a shark better while also conveying the emptiness and sterility of a void. Perhaps “silent” or “unseen”? I’d love to see more of your poems, you have great ideas.
@Indigo Toxin Actually, “unseen” is a little weird as well. “Hidden” is a little better.
@ Elias Lin: The point of an acrostic is that the first letter of each line spells out a letter.
Also, quick experiment: I remember seeing that somebody had managed to italicize something in their comment using html tags. Let’s see what works. Italics bold link
im gonna lean with voidy not being present like what red’s caption says, and i think it makes more sense to erin’s development/character. erin is trying to project that everything bad he does/says is because of the dragon or because of one thing and so to get rid of it would get rid of everything bad, but i feel like a lot of the things erin says/does/thinks are HIS and HIS alone. i feel like his arc will be realizing he is not as good as he think he is and trying to be a better person and getting rid of voidy will be the end of that. his conscience knows this, but erin isnt fully ready to accept that he is willing to do terrible things if it benefits him. and that’s why i love him as a character, because i think a lot of people could do to learn from someone like erin that we can say we are good people but we are willing to do terrible things or let things slide if its to our benefit
Is that a tragic childhood backstory I hear coming? I get the feeling something happened in Erin’s childhood that left emotional scars.
@ Stark9865 Oh, right! “Open maw, hungry, like a shark”, then.
@HelloHaikus Nice work! Keep them coming!
@Elias Lin thanks for the tip! I was having trouble with the letter O verse. Now that 8m reading it again it makes less sense. I was contemplating wether to do acrostics or analyze the art of the page and I landed on Acrostics since there’s already Limmericks and Haikus
To Indigo Toxin:
Awesome acrostic!
I like the word that you chose.
It’s really well done!
To Elias Lin:
Thanks for the comment!
I definitely hope to
write some more haikus!
Rent free
(Spoiler warning for future chapters)
Considering what we can now infer about Erin’s relationship with Tess, i am REALLY curious about what VD is alluding to here, and if she is connected to it somehow. He dropped everything just because she came up, and when she found out about Big Storm he was the one person she actively sought to help. Was she one of the people inconvenienced by him in his childhood? Or maybe helped him through it?
Food for thought.
@Purpleswans
(also sort of spoiler for future chapters)
Yeah, what we now know REALLY puts this conversation into perspective. I didn’t realize the first time around exactly how well VD is needling Erin and using past experiences and thoughts to throw him off. Really incredible work.
As I’m re-reading this now…
Is panel 6 possibly related to what we know now about tess? I’m loving all the new connections I’m making just from looking at this again 😛
Poor Kendal ?
It’s sad that he doesn’t really believe that he’s alive. Erin needs to chat with him about this later. 🙁
I love the way you did Erin’s colour palette, he looks pale and muted in tone, almost like a corpse…great job!
So…we know that Erin and Tess were close for a long time, maybe from childhood? And so, i’m not sure, but for some weird reason, the “I was powerless I was a kid” i think might be related to something that happened with Tess? I’m not sure how or why I also don’t think she holds any grudge about it at all. Anyway, I don’t really have any proof to back it up cause this is more on storytelling vibes than anything we know so, probably wrong..