1.15.3
on November 22, 2021
at 3:00 am
I looked it up and cows DO have tapetum lucidum but honestly I’d probably have given him eye-glow even if they didn’t
Aurora
A fantasy webcomic. Updates M-W-F.
I looked it up and cows DO have tapetum lucidum but honestly I’d probably have given him eye-glow even if they didn’t
Yes Shrine, being forced to take part in gladiatorial games is generally good for everyone involved.
Wait…huh?
I’m sorry, some new information just came in, turns out that is very rarely good for anyone and is mostly just a bad time for all involved.
Me to myself: “Her name is Shrike not Shrine silly”
Wait what, it’s a cow? Huh, is this Red’s way of rickrolling us? Anyways, I have a new question to ask.
Who is your all time favorite antagonist? Not just from aurora, they can be from ANY franchise. Also explain why they’re your favorite.
Mine is Angor Rot from Trollhunters.
-best character design in the whole show
-best honkin voice! His voice is so cool!
-best backstory out of all of the villains (Morgan is up there to I guess, but I say Angor’s backstory is better)
-he was forced to do things that he wouldn’t have done if he had the choice, always under someone else’s control, tho he’d still be my favorite even if he was pure bad.
-favorite character from the whole series
Also, I’d recommend watching Trollhunters. If only to see how cool Angor Rot is.
I WAS NOT EXPECTING HIM TO BE THIS HOT
Oh no, the bad guys are more competent than we thought
I WAS NOT EXPECTING HIM TO BE SO HOT OH MY GOODNESS
Twisted Worldview Gang make some Noise!!!!
I’d say we were robbed
Release the bright red Trusk cut!
The world needs to see
Starting to get an impression of where Shrike got her self-centred ‘I do what I gotta do to help myself, nothing personal’ worldview from
Was this part of a spoiler? It looks INSANELY familiar, to the point where I KNOW I’ve seen this page before.
Oh, so Shrike is a former-gladiator-turned-bounty-hunter. Thats… an interesting life choice. We know it pays well and Shrike is a competant fighter (to have lived through to the end of her Arena stay), but dANG she must have gotten all of her morality beat out of her with a stick. I would hope for a “cheese the system for gold before smuggling out the prisoners again” storyline, but I think any hope for Shrike to be leading one of those just went straight out the window after this page. She straight up doesnt care.
Also, Shrike knows an awful lot of ferin for being racist. I wonder if she’s just not as racist as the guard implied (she does have a friend ferin from her arena days), or if ferin just do stuff for the black market, and Shrike needs stuff from the black market. It’s probably hard for them to get any kind of legal job.
I love the cow ferin’s character design, he looks like a chill, wise Older Mentor, or a librarian or something. Was he, like, her surrogate Arena dad or something? Wonder if his horn got cracked in an Arena fight? How old is Shrike? I pegged her at mid-20s; does she still have family around? I suddenly have questions.
wow axin be here talking about how hot he is when honestly? He looks like the kind of guy who would adopt you after finding you in a rough situation and become an awesome stable father figure…. or I’m way too much of a sucker for found family and Treasure Planet
Shrike is honestly illegally pretty
amen man
shrike was in the arena, and she still works to put people into it? she’s got the karen attitude along with the haircut.
i like this other guy though. he’s gender.
Trusk: … Shrike, I don’t need to be a cow Ferin to know bulls**t when I see it.
So Shrike and newcomer Trusk were former prisoners and gladiators, Interesting. Starting from the lowest of the low in Zuurith and at least one rising to the high ranks of society. Veritable poster children of the Zuurith system.
Well from Trusk and the alchemist Ferin I’d say it’s safe to say Shrike is not personally prejudiced against Ferin. However her dialogue about sympathising and flippant attitude makes me question just how much she values any life as long as it nets her money or kudos.
I’m cautiously hopeful about Trusk’s inclusion; while he could doom the trio to capture he might also save them. He sees very level headed so if he encounters the trio without Shrike around and listens to their story he might be merciful and not tell on them. Even more likely if he meets them with Erin. I may be being too hopeful but it seems Shrike is asking for his help as a favour, not because it’s his duty.
He looks like someone who has seen way too much shit in his life; Trusk has clearly some kind of (blood?) debt towards Shrike and he wants to honor it, even if he doesn’t share her worldview.
Honestly we should have seen it coming between “bold of you to assume [Shike] has parents” and “ex gladiators become aristocracy and are well regarded in this city”… I have a lot of things to say about her but not enough words to laid them down, but she’s obviously still a villain.
Wow, it’s Docm77
Also rip the reply button+the comment threads in the old pages when it still worked (sorry for my rant the other day ?)
At least it looks like the new comments are added to the page instantly now 😀
@axin. I don’t really see it but then again I can’t be one to judge
Shrike’s reasoning seems to be if I put a bunch of people through the same traumatic, hellish experiences that made me become the person I am, maybe they’ll become like me and I won’t feel lonely. That’s what I think anyway
Survivership Bias is really shining trough here
Shrike’s reasoning seems to be if I puts a bunch of people through the same traumatic hellish experiences that made me who she is, maybe they’ll become like me and I won’t feel so lonely anymore.
If you’re hurting someone else the same way you were once hurt because you “turned out fine”, you did not, in fact, turn out fine.
Somehow this makes me MORE angry at her. Like, ” you fricken TRAITOR!”.
oh no! she’s hot AND an asshole, what do!
ImuyanMangoCat
Trollhunters is great. Though I’m pretending the last five minutes of the movie never happened.
The Arena is evil and its continued existence further proves that the god of this city is an asshole.
I love cows so much. Good choice.
@MangoCat – My favorite antagonist from any media ever will always be Greed from any version of Fullmetal Alchemist. 🙂
Nevermind the comment section refreshing is still very inconsistent 🙁
@axin it’s comic aurora what do you expect?
@imuyanmangocat my favorite villain of all time is hard to choose, but I’d say grand admiral thrawn from Star Wars rebels (I also read his own books) I love him because he gives of this air of being an unstoppable genius that can’t be fought and I just love his character so much!
Why is my comment not appearing?
Was Shrike previously a prisoner in the arena? For what crimes was she arrested? Is Trusk a pseudo-father figure that helped her survive the ordeal? How quickly did she rise through the ranks once her sentence was over? Is Trusk’s nose good enough to track the Floof Squad? Was Shrike caught stealing flavoured frozen dairy from the Twins’ Iced Cream Parlour, where you can mix a new flavour every day of the Sidlahan plus a bonus flavour on Feast Days?
Tune in This Week to Find Out!
TL;DR: Old arena friends reunion, in order to subject more people to the torture they lived through. Some sort of tough love business, reminds me of my dad… Gulp.
Hey look, the guy is a ferin after all, you guys were right!
alt text: I almost made this guy bright red. You’re all welcome.
As for whether or not Shrike is racist against Ferin… it’s entirely possible she’s either racist and only willing to work with “the good ones”, or she’s not-racist in that while she doesn’t actively discriminate against Ferin in everyday life, she has a load of unconscious biases that lead her to profile/discriminate against them on the job. Or the gray area in between those two…
@ImuyanMangoCat Yes, I loved Trollhunters as well, although I haven’t seen the movie yet, so RagingTabbyCat’s comment is semi-worrisome, but I have hope for the movie nonetheless. Oh, and my favorite villain would probably have to be the Nightmare Knight from Cucumber Quest! Dark and foreboding, all powerful, but trapped by his own world-conquering reputation, he’s a very compelling character :-).
And for all of you participating in Futurivia, could’ya tell I didn’t expect this guy? Cows didn’t come up on my radar, so apologies for not putting them on there? I guess? Futurivia will be moved to Wednesday, considering there’s not much short-term stuff to work with here.
The fate of authors: researching material the would gladly ignore, just because … well, they‘re curious now.
Oh, so he wasn’t a bear ferin, but a cow ferin… I’m suddenly reminded of Roa from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, but as a kindly, soft-spoken father figure.
Evil Tree:
I like your diplomacy suggestion; here’s hoping that Trusk will work alone, so he can listen to the crime trio’s side of the story, but unfortunately I don’t think that’ll be likely, considering that Shrike is showing him where to go and will likely follow him when he takes the lead. He might end up betraying her, but that’s also unlikely, since they’re old friends (unless their camaraderie has faded on account of Shrike blatantly ignoring Trusk’s apparent PTSD), and even if he did betray her by letting the crime trio escape, I worry she’d retaliate by arresting him and throwing him right back into the arena.
ImuyanMangoCat:
At the moment: Isaac from the Castlevania adaptation. He already distinguishes himself in season 2 by being the first human we see kill a vampire, but what really interests me is his oddessy in seasons 3 and 4. We see him start off being driven solely by revenge (which is frankly understandable, considering he grew up as a slave), convinced that there is no saving humanity from itself; but after his conversations with the shopkeeper in Tunis, The Captain in his boat (this one’s the big one), and the talkative night creature that the Netflix subtitles call “Flyeyes,” Isaac begins to reevaluate his worldview; by this point, people actually have shown him kindness, and he realizes that not everyone in the world is a horrible piece of sh*t; if he follows through with his crusade of killing everyone in the world, at least a few innocent people would die. So he instead directs his revenge solely to people who wrong him and to generally evil people who are better off dead, and uses his knowledge and strength to improve the world instead of tearing it down.
Some honorable mentions:
– Hades from… Hades (His true motivation to keep Zagreus first in ignorance, then in the underworld, is interesting, as he is willing to go to such lengths to protect the person he loves most; plus, I just kind of feel bad for him a little with how overworked he is (maybe if he was a better parent, his son wouldn’t be inclined to rebel and create even more work for him).)
– The Pathfinder/Godslayer from The Pathless (Not so much for who he is, but rather what he represents: the tendency for monotheistic religions to step on everyone else to proclaim themselves as The One True Path.)
– Scar from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (For many of the same reasons as Isaac, only his vengeance is more limited in scope, and he’s less charismatic.)
– Double Trouble from Noelle Stevenson’s She-Ra remake (Confident, snarky, intelligent, theatrical… and they’re a shapeshifter! What’s not to love?)
– Sylens from Horizon: Zero Dawn (Admittedly, he does work with Aloy for most of the game, but his true motivation is opposed to hers, so I say he counts as an antagonist, at least in Forbidden West when it comes out. He is a goal-driven magnificent bastard through and through; charismatic, intelligent, undeterrable, unflappable, and is willing to do anything and work with anyone to further his own goal of learning as much about the old world as possible.)
Is that Doctor Dillamond from Wicked
Oh look, it’s my new favorite character.
Man, this is what you guys have been living on? one comic every other day? dang…
@otakumom ah, I see you’re a person (mom, I guess) of culture as well.
the more Shrike reaches her contacts, the more I feel she is a shifter ferin herself.
don’t bother correcting me, I just realised as I posted my comment above that ferin are not mages and Shrike, notoriously, is a stone mage
Ooooh, is that a glimpse of backstory that I see? Well isn’t that INTRESTING
@Geebi – Why yes, as are a few others here I see. Lol
I ALMOST went with Dio, but MangoCat asked about antagonists, not villains.
Also, yes. Mother of 2 grown kiddos. 🙂
To imuyanmangocat: Bill Cipher from gravity falls, because Bill storming Cipher.
Later than usual because I overslept this morning but I made it in time for some *Shrike Backstory*
So she was a gladiator once? I can see what that one guard meant when she said that ex-gladiators had it good in Zuurith once they got out. It seems like Shrike had a good experience in the arena, something that made her think that it was the pinnacle of prison reform. Weird. I didn’t expect this from her.
Also, I like this new guy, if only because he has a cool design. Missing one horn is cool and the fact that he has a (presumably wedding) ring on his horn is adorable. I know he’s going to be hunting our heroes but I got a good feeling about this Trusk fellow. That comment might bite me later, but whatever.
@Humanoid Clay. Well… I really wouldn’t recommend watching the movie to the end. The ending kinda botches it all.
@otakumom I on purposely changed villain to antagonist, since Angor isn’t really a villain.
@Enderpig576
Most comics only update weekly, we’re pretty lucky red didnt subject us to that
Red feels like talking a lot about Trusk’s character design.
Which I guess is fair, it’s a cool design.
I don’t like Shrike >:( Which is excellent character work! Also I don’t WANT to like Shrike >:( Which will mean it’s even BETTER character work when I inevitably START to like Shrike 😀 Well done Red!
How dare she have backstory. I want her to stay uncomplicated and evil so that I can keep hating her.
Everyone calling Trusk a cow but he’s referred to as male…? He’s a bull at best.
@Tylow Star, can’t tell if that feels more like something Red or Blue might have said, is it a quote?
@ImuyanMangoCat favorite all time is hard, but a few favorites are:
Gandalf – The classic old wise wizard, and a bit of a troll.
Earendil – He’s got an epic song written for him, and he had a cool ship.
Finrod Felagund – Best wingman, fought Sauron in what was essentially a rap battle so his best friend could get his girl.
Optimus Prime from the original G1 movie – You gotta include the goat. Every time he appeared, I’d get a thrill from how incredible he was. RIP, you will be missed.
@Loggat: Alas, but this isn’t the case. Shrike can do earth magic (it’s how she handles the chain and cuff), and ferin cannot do magic at all. Would have been interesting, though.
Anyway, I like this guy. Pity about the attitude on display by the company he keeps. It’s easy to be flippant about the real risks of death and maiming once they’ve passed.
This page’s image address is ‘condemn’
@point thanks for saying what I had already said, I knew it would happen, so this is actually funny
You can tell that Red’s been watching Gargoyles and I’m okay with that. 😀
For those wondering, the tapetum lucidum is a layer of tissue in the eye of many vertebrates and some other animals. Lying immediately behind the retina, it is a retroreflector. It reflects visible light back through the retina, increasing the light available to the photoreceptors (although slightly blurring the image) (Thank you wikipedia!)
So, guys, Vienne was a hundred percent a gladiator to, right?