Oh my gooooddddd
The homoerotic tension is fuckin PALPABLE i LOVE IT! Oh to be a little blue star boy holding your friend, who is possessed by a star eating dragon, by the shirt as he grabs your chin and talks about how he wants to taste you.
wait so is Kendal like one of those homunculi in the extra lore pages? although made of six elements, they cannot reproduce, grow, or sustain themselves beyond a few years without the seventh element. that’s a really interesting revelation and not one i expected to get this chapter, and VD’s little chin-grab-and-turn is delicious
on the other hand, is VD about to eat kendal or something? or is Tynan standing behind Dainix standing behind Kendal?
Voidy and Kendal are swiftly approaching crackship territory to me – obviously not a thing, probably not intended, also should not happen, but the concept of Voidy having a weird gay thing for Kendal is SO FUNNY and he keeps saying these things and making these faces xD it’s fun!
And I love the “Void Dragon makes ominous and vaguely admiring comments while Kendal is just Fed Up and Ignoring It” dynamic that’s happening just in general
Dusty, I agree — Dainix has way more restraint than VD’s description of the Fire Primordial.
Now, VD could’ve just been insulting Fire. Obviously Fire wasn’t pure mindless fury or he couldn’t have worked with the other Primordials to try to seal the Void Dragon. But Dainix’ self control does seem to be another checkbox that he is something other, that Red’s world isn’t so simple as everyone becoming a vessel for a Primordial.
“I need this one alive as much
As you,” the Void Dragon states.
“Then let him go,” Kendal sternly replies.
The Void Dragon grabs his chin, “… Wait.”
It pauses. “I see! There’s no ME in you.”
“I’m not one of your creations.”
It senses, “Something I haven’t tasted in a very long time.”
Kendal expresses his frustrations.
“Stop wasting time,” he snaps. “If you want
Erin alive, let him go.”
The Void Dragon’s sly train returns-
“I think I’m going to miss you.”
I slept through both alarm (wake up and comic alarm) on Wednesday, I’ll get that done today and put it on AO3 ( click my name).
I refrained from saying it last page just in case, but I cannot stop myself now:
VOID’S GOT IT BAD FOR KENDAL OH BOI. I mean look at how he notices the grab, how he proceeds to gently take Kendal’s face… AND COME ON, “There’s no ME in you!”? You can’t be serious! I refuse to believe Red didn’t know what she was doing.
The lore hints are great and all, but Dainix about to go nuclear on V.D. with Kendal holding him back is amazing.
So Kendal has no Void in him? That has some interesting, and potentially bad, implications. Void, despite its nastiness, is essential for humans to incorporate new matter to grow, heal, etc (see extra lore). While Kendal could be a homunculus, he’s been shown eating and drinking without instruction. If he couldn’t absorb new material for healing (which he’s been doing a lot of), I think he or Alinua would have noticed something amiss by now. Maybe whatever V.D. sees in him is performing a similar role instead? Maybe a combination of it and Alinua’s temperamental life magic?
What is that thing in Kendal? The starmetal? Did V.D. kill some starmetal primordial before imprisonment and a piece of that primordial escaped and found it’s way to Aurora? Could it have even been sent to Aurora by another power? Was Vash also affected/enhanced in some way by it?
Look at the final panel. A shaky hand that doesn’t seem to be under Voidy’s control? Methinks Erin is awake now and want his body back. Or wants a pencil to write everything he’s hearing down; this stuff must be fascinating for him.
Ah, yes. Voidy is a gloater and a talker. Good for our heroes! Gives them time to do stuff. But this whole exchange makes me even happier about the misbehaving-kitten-yank earlier. Insufferable being of void and destruction, ugh, just stop being so self-absorbed because you think you’re omniscient!
…You just want the authorial amusement of watching everyone frantically shipping them. (It’s an amusement that is purely author-based, not sexuality-based.)
Seeing Kendal interact with Walter with literally no fear is great, but I’m just as happy to see him accept the fact that Dainix is currently a giant Fire-thing that clearly wants to protect him. How casually Kendal blocks him in panel 4 is neat, I mean.
Okay, so, there is a small chance that Walter means that he’s goin’ to purposefully missfire. But from how he phrased it I’d rather doubt that.
Okay guys, Walter’s up to something really stupid. Thankfully, we know Kendal’s gonna survive (in sme way, at least) since we see him in the chapter cover.
To GoodbyeBallad:
Great! I’ll be goin’ off to read the whole ballad in a while. Great work!
To Evil Tree:
Huh, I didn’t notice The shaking hand. Seems like Erin’s indeed starting to wake up, and is likely goin’ to sabotage whatever Walter’s up to.
To GoodbyeBallad again:
Great ballad!
I think in 10th verse of the Chapter 2 part “But his body is a war machine,” “is” could be replaced with a comma (would sound a bit more dramatic, I think), but that’s just a thought I had, the verse works well as it is.
I think the weirdness with Kendall’s soul gives him a close tie to the Light dragon. I think this, because Vash’s soul pattern and color scheme share a lot with what we’ve seen of the light dragon. Further, if gods are a frick ton of soul energy, and Kendall has the soul weirdness we know he has, and now we are fully aware, he has no connection to V.D., it’d be easy for him to serve as a connection to the Light Dragon
Here’s hoping that trembling hand is Erin fighting back, because it looks like Walter’s going to try something, and I don’t think Kendall’s noticed–though given how Dainix is hovering, he might have. (My immediate reaction to that last panel was, “Kendall, look out!”)
It’s good to see that Dainix still recognizes Kendall and wants to protect him, and that he’s not taking Kendal’s casual blocking him with the sword the wrong way.
(Of course it could just be he sees Walter as a threat/prey and Kendall just happens to be between them, and he’s settling in to wait for the obstacle to move, but the end result is kind of the same at this point)…
Also, lore! Can’t wait to see where this bit leads…
You are interviewing candidates to fill an empty position at your company. A cast member of Aurora walks in, and to your delight, they are perfect for the job. Who did you interview and what were you hiring them to do?
(For example: I run a botanical garden, and I just hired Alinua to help care for the more delicate plants)
The Void Dragon: “I want to study you like you’re an interesting cricket… then eat you like you’re a roasted cricket.”
I’ve had this idea sitting in my head for a long time, but couldn’t find a good spot to bring it up until now. The Void Dragon is a nearly all-black, moon-sized being that can destroy or consume (almost) anything, and once traveled around space eating stars. I feel like he’s the primordial personification of a black hole.
now that! makes! sense! If Void is the element of hunger and fatigue and stuff, and Kendal has none, that’s why he doesn’t eat and sleep. unexpectedly spooky star man what are your secrets
um, a suddenly relevant question.. Do we have any proof that Kendal breathes? When he isn’t speaking? Tangentially, does it occur to him that people need to breathe for a function other than speaking?
Look at that blue glow in panel 7. Red’s Tumblr post referred to Kendal as “symbolically and physically a star”, and Walter as “a star-eating dragon”. Does Void… eat starmetal? Stars in general? Like, habitually? As a hobby?
Also, “swordsman”. Kendal is that, in a word – a man who fights with a sword, and also a sword-man. Man-sword. The word sword stopped having meaning three words into this sentence.
Dainix trying to go turbo torch on Walter and being stopped almost absentmindedly by Kendal is incredibly funny. Yes, get his ass, just not right now hang on we’re trying to talk.
The last panel hand shake is certainly something – and leave it to Walter to say something that cryptic. Yeah so either he plans to nerf or nothin’ Kendal right here, and “miss Kendal” as a result, or skedaddle from Erin for the time being and thus also “miss Kendal”.
This is that “never be at the mercy of a good man” thing isn’t it. Yeah Walter will kill you horribly but he’ll talk. A LOT. in the meantime. Kendal not so much.
Last thought: Kendal really does have that “(usually female) character needs to artfully be shown injured but still be sexy” graze across his cheekbone. Protagonist chic. Good for him
At first I interpreted the last panel as Voidy giving up control to Erin (thus the shaking hand being Erin starting to move on his own again), however after reading these comments I’m 50/50 on Voidy trying to eat Kendal (the shaking hand being Erin trying to stop him).
On that note, we still haven’t gotten any idea if Erin is even conscious during all of this, meaning that if Voidy does give back control and Erin hasn’t woken up yet, he’ll be completely defenseless against Tynan (cause face it, he’s waking up). It also means that he won’t remember any of this and everyone else is going to have to fill him in, which would be awkward to say the least.
Well there’s certainly a LOT to unpack here, so here’s my take on things
The whole “There’s no ME in you” is the big one. As pointed out by a couple people previously (namely veggiesnake and river rock), this would usually only occur with homunculi, resulting in the “lack the ability to repair or sustain themselves.”
It makes sense that Kendal wouldn’t have any void in him, since he was previously an incarnation made by Vash, who wouldn’t necessarily have access to void OR a need to do stuff like eat since incarnations seem to be more like a set of clothes than a normal body. Plus, as Voidy pointed out it aligns with him just kind of being burned a bunch as opposed to dissolved during previous exposures to void.
BUT we do see him drinking tea in 1.2.4, and he presumably ate what Alinua brought from the restaurant(?) in Chapter 8(although homunculi can “eat” stuff, and just don’t do anything with it). Flimsier evidence of his ability to consume and integrate matter like a normal person would be that we can see a ribcage when Alinua healed him in 1.3.32, although it’s possible that Vash just kind of added it for structural support as opposed to helping to create the conditions for lungs to do their thing. Also I think that Alinua and Erin would have noticed if flesh was just being displaced as opposed to contructed while being healed, and I’m not sure how the heal factor mentioned in 1.3.33 would work if matter couldn’t be constructed either.
This means that Kendal evidently does do normal need-to-live things, and functions more or less like a normal living thing, so something has to be replacing to void in order to let him self-sustain. Voidy’s lines here seem to imply that it’s the Starmetal: the “but there’s something else in in you, isn’t there?” implies that there’s SOMETHING doing the job that Void usually does, and the next part, “something I haven’t tasted in a very long time” would a) indicate that it’s not one of the classical 6 elements, and b) ties into his whole thing of eating the sun (a star. Although that DOES imply that he ate other stars before the sun, but I digress).
Interestingly this page ALSO shows how VD’s attacks actually work, namely, it seems as though the goop usually just makes the natural void in people’s body go haywire and consume the person instead of like, food and stuff, since Kendal’s lack of void prevented the normal attacks from working. his is also supported by how Tynan presumably ALSO wouldn’t have void in his incarnations explaining why VD’s attack looked different on him and seemingly took longer than his normal goop-explosion-corrosion, and even moreso by Falst saying in 1.17.30 that it “turns your body against itself”.
@Skye okay THAT is a real question. i’m working for a prestigious newspaper, and Erin has come to interview as a book/theater critic. or i manage a hospital, and Alinua has applied to be a paramedic or a nurse (doctors are often very paperwork-oriented, whereas these roles are far more hands-on and fit Alinua’s chaotic good ‘get-your-hands-dirty-and-help’ personality).
Dainix is hoping to be a chef at my restaurant specialising in soul-fired pizzas
Tess is a bouncer. or a firefighter. or a personal trainer. or all of them, part-time (she gives off so many vibes)
Falst is a private investigator. he used to want to be a detective, but doesn’t get on with law enforcement systems
Kendal is an athlete, possibly an olympic sprinter
and June is a librarian. obviously.
and VD is Jeff Bezos (for they are both the epitome of evil and consumerism)
@lilacspiral I think you’ve got this down really well. I have so many theories but I can’t seem to organize or communicate properly before I get distracted
Ok so there are lots of interesting things about this page I was GOING to comment upon, but then I scrolled down, and now I just CAN’T STOP LAUGHING at how there are apparently all these people who, based entirely on this page, are now SHIPPING KENDALL AND THE VOID DRAGON. I don’t…I just can’t even…AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
(honestly, no disrespect to the wonderful shippers out there, I just wasn’t expecting this at all and can’t help finding it hilarious)
@Ladyofthemasque As a fan/writer, I’m not saying my primal urge to troll shippers is because I’m acespec, but I’m not NOT saying it’s because I’m acespec
i feel like it is important to note that star metal is literally fragments of stars (or “metal from the stars”, however you want to phrase it), so it makes sense that voidy would remember its taste.
it is also interesting to note that these are not the only primordials to exist. what starmetal actually is, and what properties it has are complete mysteries. exceptionally so considering that it is definitively NOT made of elemental energies, and cannot be manipulated by mages.
however, gods do not manipulate materials with magic; they use their own souls to shape it directly. perhaps in making a form, Vash did not notice the void energy, or it was bundled up in so many other creatures that there simply wasn’t enough to notice or use. it makes sense then that Kendal would not have any of that inside of him, though i am curious as to whether or not the starmetal is actually a valid replacement or merely a coincidence.
there is the matter of the life magic healing he received before, and what effects that had on him.
there is also the fact that he was “conscious” before then.
“Your soul is unique!”1-11-29
indeed it is Vash. indeed it is.
@TheUnknownGame, that’s really interesting and actually fits really well! I hadn’t thought about that before, but it would make sense for him to be the personification of a black hole, the first thing I think of when I think of that is his line in chapter 7 “I do not wither, I am the withering.” I’ve always liked that line, but it really hits differently looking at it from that perspective
wait, does VD see what Erin does? I always kind of assumed that he was able to see through Erin’s eyes, but I may be wrong, and if that is the case it may be more likely that the last panel is leading up to an attack, uh oh
oh of course. “Tasted” not seen. Walter’s referring to the part where he ate stars. Kendal (probably) has some starmetal in him. Which I assume came from stars. Which Walter ate. Oh dear.
1. Love how Kendal is not even intimidated by the chin-grab, just taken aback and slightly confused.
2. Fascinating how much VD and Erin have in common… like, this kind of analytical monologue feels like a very Erin thing to do, and yet it’s visibly and uncannily not Erin speaking.
(Is this just the kind of similarity that arises between an ancient primordial and their perfect vessel, or is VD somehow… feeding off of Erin’s thirst for knowledge? Or am I just reading way too much into this??)
I have an idea, so we now know that void is also present in all living things that the twins make, and we know void is the 7th element apart from the other primordials, but we also know about the presences of the light dragon, which I think is the secret 8th element of creation/soul/light/stars, witch is also why voidy lost control of the elder races at the beginning, because light dragon gave them the soul. I also believe that star mettle is some sort of part of the light dragon, meaning that when the collector stole Vash the star mettle created Kendal’s soul. We also know from the extra lore that voide is what gives things hunger, so that explains why Kendal doesn’t eat. I also believe that because all the races have soul that is how the light dragon can possess people, and I also think this is how Danax can resist voidy, because he is made of SOUL FIRE it atomicly repelled void, in conclusion I think that souls and the light dragon are the answer to every mystery.
Thanks for reading my incoherent rambling
Oh man, VD as an enemies-to-lovers unrequited love (because besides being asexual and probably romantic that is the LAST thing that kendal would allow to happen) is pretty great.
@charismaquirk Exactly! It’s a very good similarity between the two that highlights how unsettling this is!
I just reread like 5 chapters on a computer to see the alt text moblie denies to me. jesus I hope these guys get to rest a minute before zurrith has to talk to them or a paladin comes for them or something. hope the city hails them as heros and they leave no fuss
@just stopping by. Idk if it’ll work on the device you own, but I believe you can find alt text on mobile by pressing and holding on the image until a little pop-up appears that’ll have the alt text (among other things) on it
…
…You know, when I see at least a quarter of the people in the comments section and on Red’s Tumblr being unquenchably thirsty over seemingly every little character interaction, while I don’t see anything romantic or horny in those same interactions at all… it’s times like these that I am most certain that I am aroase.
Okay, Void Dragon saying some -very- interesting things… We’ve already heard him talk about how he made humans, though I think this detail about there being Void in humans has been mentioned before. Regardless, it makes some sense with Void being their effective creator and wanting to use them to escape. What he says next though is really, really, really getting my attention, though.
“But there’s something else in you, isn’t there? Something I haven’t tasted in a very long time.”
This is an insane statement that implies several things, all of which I have no idea what they mean and I’m gonna go apeshit because what the HELL do they mean in context of what information we’ve been given as of yet, the things we’ve been told.
We’ve been told how the sword was made, how Vash was given the materials to make his own in some sense, though he apparently did not do it in the way that- Hey wait a sec. -goes to the extra lore page to read about the sword- Holy shit I forgot about the whole ‘literally making it part of his body’ thing. Anyway that’s not the important thing, the important bit in this page is the comment about the alien metal being used to make Vash’s sword.
Initially I was thinking there was something special about Kendal’s presence in relation to Vash, but couldn’t place why because Vash is just a minor god, one of plenty and not particularly special in and of itself. This metal, however, I think /that/ is what the Void Dragon has suddenly noticed about Kendal. Kendal likely manifested from some result of the strange interaction of Vash literally fusing himself with the sword’s materials, and that metal is something VD has encountered before, something he’s ‘tasted’ (whatever the hell that means). Considering his sudden shift in composure, I think that either he thinks Dainix is about to attack Kendal (my initial concept of what he might be thinkking due to the FWOOM in panel 4), or /he’s/ about to attack Kendal because some property of what he’s found in Kendal has renewed his confidence in being able to not only survive, but perhaps beat both Dainix and the healing Alinua.
Now excuse me, I need to go buy a corkboard and some red string.
Could it possibly be that Kendal was brought to life by the Light Dragon Herself?
And is the light dragon literally the sun?
Those are my theories…
P.S. Great job Red! This story is amazing and you are an inspiration!
@TheUnknownGame You’d think that after 18+ chapters of story with absolutely nothing even remotely resembling a romantic subplot, the allos would take a hint. Instead, it has only FUELED their desperate need to project their sexuality onto as many character interactions as possible. From their point of view, as long as there isn’t an explicit romance, then literally every kind of interaction holds an equal amount of potential for secret romantic/sexual subtext! Or, to put it another way, when the characters are all aro/ace, every ship is a crack ship.
Before I realized I was aro/ace, I might have felt compelled to take part in this. Now, I can just just comfortably sit back and be fascinated and delighted by it all.
I get how ti can be read that way, but this has “older family not having a sense of personal space near children” thing. Like a grandparent tugging you by the ear.
So its called star metal and walter mentioned eating stars back in the day, perhaps this is part of the light dragon? Its also nice to see he made a friend!
Uuuuuuh, that last bit sounded a lot like a pre-kaboom one-liner. I worry VD had a realization they can off Kendal and get away with it.
VD casually inspecting Kendal, meanwhile, Dainix is literally fuming right behind them. That is some admirable restraint from the fire boi
Oh my gooooddddd
The homoerotic tension is fuckin PALPABLE i LOVE IT! Oh to be a little blue star boy holding your friend, who is possessed by a star eating dragon, by the shirt as he grabs your chin and talks about how he wants to taste you.
@o@
Kendal has no void
But he does have starmetal
Time to end this chat
(Bonus)
Stars just taste so good!
Even just the starmetal.
A meal to die for!
wait so is Kendal like one of those homunculi in the extra lore pages? although made of six elements, they cannot reproduce, grow, or sustain themselves beyond a few years without the seventh element. that’s a really interesting revelation and not one i expected to get this chapter, and VD’s little chin-grab-and-turn is delicious
on the other hand, is VD about to eat kendal or something? or is Tynan standing behind Dainix standing behind Kendal?
*smacking VD w rolled up newspaper* WE. DO. NOT. EAT. OUR. FRIENDS.
Voidy and Kendal are swiftly approaching crackship territory to me – obviously not a thing, probably not intended, also should not happen, but the concept of Voidy having a weird gay thing for Kendal is SO FUNNY and he keeps saying these things and making these faces xD it’s fun!
And I love the “Void Dragon makes ominous and vaguely admiring comments while Kendal is just Fed Up and Ignoring It” dynamic that’s happening just in general
“Something I haven’t tasted in a very long time.”
OK Void Dragon, I may not kink shame, but I WILL kink judge!
Dusty, I agree — Dainix has way more restraint than VD’s description of the Fire Primordial.
Now, VD could’ve just been insulting Fire. Obviously Fire wasn’t pure mindless fury or he couldn’t have worked with the other Primordials to try to seal the Void Dragon. But Dainix’ self control does seem to be another checkbox that he is something other, that Red’s world isn’t so simple as everyone becoming a vessel for a Primordial.
“I need this one alive as much
As you,” the Void Dragon states.
“Then let him go,” Kendal sternly replies.
The Void Dragon grabs his chin, “… Wait.”
It pauses. “I see! There’s no ME in you.”
“I’m not one of your creations.”
It senses, “Something I haven’t tasted in a very long time.”
Kendal expresses his frustrations.
“Stop wasting time,” he snaps. “If you want
Erin alive, let him go.”
The Void Dragon’s sly train returns-
“I think I’m going to miss you.”
I slept through both alarm (wake up and comic alarm) on Wednesday, I’ll get that done today and put it on AO3 ( click my name).
I refrained from saying it last page just in case, but I cannot stop myself now:
VOID’S GOT IT BAD FOR KENDAL OH BOI. I mean look at how he notices the grab, how he proceeds to gently take Kendal’s face… AND COME ON, “There’s no ME in you!”? You can’t be serious! I refuse to believe Red didn’t know what she was doing.
Do you forsee the ship art this page will induce, Red?
The lore hints are great and all, but Dainix about to go nuclear on V.D. with Kendal holding him back is amazing.
So Kendal has no Void in him? That has some interesting, and potentially bad, implications. Void, despite its nastiness, is essential for humans to incorporate new matter to grow, heal, etc (see extra lore). While Kendal could be a homunculus, he’s been shown eating and drinking without instruction. If he couldn’t absorb new material for healing (which he’s been doing a lot of), I think he or Alinua would have noticed something amiss by now. Maybe whatever V.D. sees in him is performing a similar role instead? Maybe a combination of it and Alinua’s temperamental life magic?
What is that thing in Kendal? The starmetal? Did V.D. kill some starmetal primordial before imprisonment and a piece of that primordial escaped and found it’s way to Aurora? Could it have even been sent to Aurora by another power? Was Vash also affected/enhanced in some way by it?
Look at the final panel. A shaky hand that doesn’t seem to be under Voidy’s control? Methinks Erin is awake now and want his body back. Or wants a pencil to write everything he’s hearing down; this stuff must be fascinating for him.
Ah, yes. Voidy is a gloater and a talker. Good for our heroes! Gives them time to do stuff. But this whole exchange makes me even happier about the misbehaving-kitten-yank earlier. Insufferable being of void and destruction, ugh, just stop being so self-absorbed because you think you’re omniscient!
Anybody noticed the rain started back up over the last three pages?
Floof Squad better hurry. Methinks Tynan’s getting back up soon.
I love how Voidy went from a world ending threat to an annoying kid in a span of a few pages.
Uh, guys, the rain is starting again
…You just want the authorial amusement of watching everyone frantically shipping them. (It’s an amusement that is purely author-based, not sexuality-based.)
So his ability to consume is more like putting his soul into material and making it a part of him like Vash did with the metal?
Kendal explains without sign of stress
”Die or leave Erin, your choice no less!”
I’m getting ”if you love someone let them go!” vibes
meanwhile Life: “there’s part of me… inside ALL of you”
Seeing Kendal interact with Walter with literally no fear is great, but I’m just as happy to see him accept the fact that Dainix is currently a giant Fire-thing that clearly wants to protect him. How casually Kendal blocks him in panel 4 is neat, I mean.
Gotta love how Kendal isn’t reacting to a third degree burn on his wrist with anything more than mild intrigue.
The rain started again a few pages ago
Plot twist: the Light Dragon’s power replaced Void in Kendal’s body
Okay, so, there is a small chance that Walter means that he’s goin’ to purposefully missfire. But from how he phrased it I’d rather doubt that.
Okay guys, Walter’s up to something really stupid. Thankfully, we know Kendal’s gonna survive (in sme way, at least) since we see him in the chapter cover.
To GoodbyeBallad:
Great! I’ll be goin’ off to read the whole ballad in a while. Great work!
To Evil Tree:
Huh, I didn’t notice The shaking hand. Seems like Erin’s indeed starting to wake up, and is likely goin’ to sabotage whatever Walter’s up to.
To OngoingConversationCouplet:
Nice!
i cannot formulate a coherent response to this page yet! see y’all in a bit after i get over myself! cause WOAH! /pos
To GoodbyeBallad again:
Great ballad!
I think in 10th verse of the Chapter 2 part “But his body is a war machine,” “is” could be replaced with a comma (would sound a bit more dramatic, I think), but that’s just a thought I had, the verse works well as it is.
@a wild birb appears–you have captured my exact thought process upon reading this page.
(also, i’m alive! haven’t talked in a while)
I think the weirdness with Kendall’s soul gives him a close tie to the Light dragon. I think this, because Vash’s soul pattern and color scheme share a lot with what we’ve seen of the light dragon. Further, if gods are a frick ton of soul energy, and Kendall has the soul weirdness we know he has, and now we are fully aware, he has no connection to V.D., it’d be easy for him to serve as a connection to the Light Dragon
“I think I’m going to miss you”? That’s a mighty ominous way of putting things.
Were the gods a creation of the White Dragon?
“Something I haven’t tasted in a very long time”.
Well, that’s not ominous~.
TL;DR: if it’s any consolation, I’m gonna miss you once I have that delicious victory over you.
Here’s hoping that trembling hand is Erin fighting back, because it looks like Walter’s going to try something, and I don’t think Kendall’s noticed–though given how Dainix is hovering, he might have. (My immediate reaction to that last panel was, “Kendall, look out!”)
It’s good to see that Dainix still recognizes Kendall and wants to protect him, and that he’s not taking Kendal’s casual blocking him with the sword the wrong way.
(Of course it could just be he sees Walter as a threat/prey and Kendall just happens to be between them, and he’s settling in to wait for the obstacle to move, but the end result is kind of the same at this point)…
Also, lore! Can’t wait to see where this bit leads…
OMG! How can I -not- ship Kendal & the Void Dragon seeing THIS page?! Voidy & Kendal are both so darned CUTE!
Kendal has like the other dragon thing like the paladins and the paladins are going to have a relatively large role in the story overall
Question of the Day:
You are interviewing candidates to fill an empty position at your company. A cast member of Aurora walks in, and to your delight, they are perfect for the job. Who did you interview and what were you hiring them to do?
(For example: I run a botanical garden, and I just hired Alinua to help care for the more delicate plants)
The Void Dragon: “I want to study you like you’re an interesting cricket… then eat you like you’re a roasted cricket.”
I’ve had this idea sitting in my head for a long time, but couldn’t find a good spot to bring it up until now. The Void Dragon is a nearly all-black, moon-sized being that can destroy or consume (almost) anything, and once traveled around space eating stars. I feel like he’s the primordial personification of a black hole.
now that! makes! sense! If Void is the element of hunger and fatigue and stuff, and Kendal has none, that’s why he doesn’t eat and sleep. unexpectedly spooky star man what are your secrets
um, a suddenly relevant question.. Do we have any proof that Kendal breathes? When he isn’t speaking? Tangentially, does it occur to him that people need to breathe for a function other than speaking?
Look at that blue glow in panel 7. Red’s Tumblr post referred to Kendal as “symbolically and physically a star”, and Walter as “a star-eating dragon”. Does Void… eat starmetal? Stars in general? Like, habitually? As a hobby?
Also, “swordsman”. Kendal is that, in a word – a man who fights with a sword, and also a sword-man. Man-sword. The word sword stopped having meaning three words into this sentence.
Dainix trying to go turbo torch on Walter and being stopped almost absentmindedly by Kendal is incredibly funny. Yes, get his ass, just not right now hang on we’re trying to talk.
The last panel hand shake is certainly something – and leave it to Walter to say something that cryptic. Yeah so either he plans to nerf or nothin’ Kendal right here, and “miss Kendal” as a result, or skedaddle from Erin for the time being and thus also “miss Kendal”.
This is that “never be at the mercy of a good man” thing isn’t it. Yeah Walter will kill you horribly but he’ll talk. A LOT. in the meantime. Kendal not so much.
Last thought: Kendal really does have that “(usually female) character needs to artfully be shown injured but still be sexy” graze across his cheekbone. Protagonist chic. Good for him
At first I interpreted the last panel as Voidy giving up control to Erin (thus the shaking hand being Erin starting to move on his own again), however after reading these comments I’m 50/50 on Voidy trying to eat Kendal (the shaking hand being Erin trying to stop him).
On that note, we still haven’t gotten any idea if Erin is even conscious during all of this, meaning that if Voidy does give back control and Erin hasn’t woken up yet, he’ll be completely defenseless against Tynan (cause face it, he’s waking up). It also means that he won’t remember any of this and everyone else is going to have to fill him in, which would be awkward to say the least.
Well there’s certainly a LOT to unpack here, so here’s my take on things
The whole “There’s no ME in you” is the big one. As pointed out by a couple people previously (namely veggiesnake and river rock), this would usually only occur with homunculi, resulting in the “lack the ability to repair or sustain themselves.”
It makes sense that Kendal wouldn’t have any void in him, since he was previously an incarnation made by Vash, who wouldn’t necessarily have access to void OR a need to do stuff like eat since incarnations seem to be more like a set of clothes than a normal body. Plus, as Voidy pointed out it aligns with him just kind of being burned a bunch as opposed to dissolved during previous exposures to void.
BUT we do see him drinking tea in 1.2.4, and he presumably ate what Alinua brought from the restaurant(?) in Chapter 8(although homunculi can “eat” stuff, and just don’t do anything with it). Flimsier evidence of his ability to consume and integrate matter like a normal person would be that we can see a ribcage when Alinua healed him in 1.3.32, although it’s possible that Vash just kind of added it for structural support as opposed to helping to create the conditions for lungs to do their thing. Also I think that Alinua and Erin would have noticed if flesh was just being displaced as opposed to contructed while being healed, and I’m not sure how the heal factor mentioned in 1.3.33 would work if matter couldn’t be constructed either.
This means that Kendal evidently does do normal need-to-live things, and functions more or less like a normal living thing, so something has to be replacing to void in order to let him self-sustain. Voidy’s lines here seem to imply that it’s the Starmetal: the “but there’s something else in in you, isn’t there?” implies that there’s SOMETHING doing the job that Void usually does, and the next part, “something I haven’t tasted in a very long time” would a) indicate that it’s not one of the classical 6 elements, and b) ties into his whole thing of eating the sun (a star. Although that DOES imply that he ate other stars before the sun, but I digress).
Interestingly this page ALSO shows how VD’s attacks actually work, namely, it seems as though the goop usually just makes the natural void in people’s body go haywire and consume the person instead of like, food and stuff, since Kendal’s lack of void prevented the normal attacks from working. his is also supported by how Tynan presumably ALSO wouldn’t have void in his incarnations explaining why VD’s attack looked different on him and seemingly took longer than his normal goop-explosion-corrosion, and even moreso by Falst saying in 1.17.30 that it “turns your body against itself”.
Throwing my two cents into the ring VD Walter is tasting The Light Dragon’s power/influence in Kendal.
@Skye okay THAT is a real question. i’m working for a prestigious newspaper, and Erin has come to interview as a book/theater critic. or i manage a hospital, and Alinua has applied to be a paramedic or a nurse (doctors are often very paperwork-oriented, whereas these roles are far more hands-on and fit Alinua’s chaotic good ‘get-your-hands-dirty-and-help’ personality).
Dainix is hoping to be a chef at my restaurant specialising in soul-fired pizzas
Tess is a bouncer. or a firefighter. or a personal trainer. or all of them, part-time (she gives off so many vibes)
Falst is a private investigator. he used to want to be a detective, but doesn’t get on with law enforcement systems
Kendal is an athlete, possibly an olympic sprinter
and June is a librarian. obviously.
and VD is Jeff Bezos (for they are both the epitome of evil and consumerism)
*Play Chrissy Wake Up* I don’t like this!
*Pointing at the chin touch*
You keep ya stolen hands to yourself you!
The fourth and sixth panels had a lot of potential for a certain effect..
@lilacspiral I think you’ve got this down really well. I have so many theories but I can’t seem to organize or communicate properly before I get distracted
Ok so there are lots of interesting things about this page I was GOING to comment upon, but then I scrolled down, and now I just CAN’T STOP LAUGHING at how there are apparently all these people who, based entirely on this page, are now SHIPPING KENDALL AND THE VOID DRAGON. I don’t…I just can’t even…AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
(honestly, no disrespect to the wonderful shippers out there, I just wasn’t expecting this at all and can’t help finding it hilarious)
To Mturtle7:
I don’t think it’s just this page; there’s also a Tumblr post from a few days back…
Dainix in the background like “Please Kendal can I kill him? Pleaseeeee?”
alt text: Vash’s creations guaranteed 100% void-free or your money back
@Ladyofthemasque As a fan/writer, I’m not saying my primal urge to troll shippers is because I’m acespec, but I’m not NOT saying it’s because I’m acespec
i feel like it is important to note that star metal is literally fragments of stars (or “metal from the stars”, however you want to phrase it), so it makes sense that voidy would remember its taste.
it is also interesting to note that these are not the only primordials to exist. what starmetal actually is, and what properties it has are complete mysteries. exceptionally so considering that it is definitively NOT made of elemental energies, and cannot be manipulated by mages.
however, gods do not manipulate materials with magic; they use their own souls to shape it directly. perhaps in making a form, Vash did not notice the void energy, or it was bundled up in so many other creatures that there simply wasn’t enough to notice or use. it makes sense then that Kendal would not have any of that inside of him, though i am curious as to whether or not the starmetal is actually a valid replacement or merely a coincidence.
there is the matter of the life magic healing he received before, and what effects that had on him.
there is also the fact that he was “conscious” before then.
“Your soul is unique!”1-11-29
indeed it is Vash. indeed it is.
@TheUnknownGame, that’s really interesting and actually fits really well! I hadn’t thought about that before, but it would make sense for him to be the personification of a black hole, the first thing I think of when I think of that is his line in chapter 7 “I do not wither, I am the withering.” I’ve always liked that line, but it really hits differently looking at it from that perspective
wait, does VD see what Erin does? I always kind of assumed that he was able to see through Erin’s eyes, but I may be wrong, and if that is the case it may be more likely that the last panel is leading up to an attack, uh oh
Ooooo I’m betting gods are made from the Light Dragon, while Mortals are made from the Void Dragon.
oh of course. “Tasted” not seen. Walter’s referring to the part where he ate stars. Kendal (probably) has some starmetal in him. Which I assume came from stars. Which Walter ate. Oh dear.
1. Love how Kendal is not even intimidated by the chin-grab, just taken aback and slightly confused.
2. Fascinating how much VD and Erin have in common… like, this kind of analytical monologue feels like a very Erin thing to do, and yet it’s visibly and uncannily not Erin speaking.
(Is this just the kind of similarity that arises between an ancient primordial and their perfect vessel, or is VD somehow… feeding off of Erin’s thirst for knowledge? Or am I just reading way too much into this??)
I have an idea, so we now know that void is also present in all living things that the twins make, and we know void is the 7th element apart from the other primordials, but we also know about the presences of the light dragon, which I think is the secret 8th element of creation/soul/light/stars, witch is also why voidy lost control of the elder races at the beginning, because light dragon gave them the soul. I also believe that star mettle is some sort of part of the light dragon, meaning that when the collector stole Vash the star mettle created Kendal’s soul. We also know from the extra lore that voide is what gives things hunger, so that explains why Kendal doesn’t eat. I also believe that because all the races have soul that is how the light dragon can possess people, and I also think this is how Danax can resist voidy, because he is made of SOUL FIRE it atomicly repelled void, in conclusion I think that souls and the light dragon are the answer to every mystery.
Thanks for reading my incoherent rambling
I hate that the first thought I had when looking at this gorgeous page filled with lore was, “Oh no, a new crack ship.”
Panel 3 is a romance novel cover and I shall not be convinced otherwise.
It’s very interesting to have an eldritch, world ending dragon that’s still highly intelligent. He’s able to analyze and reason things out.
Oh man, VD as an enemies-to-lovers unrequited love (because besides being asexual and probably romantic that is the LAST thing that kendal would allow to happen) is pretty great.
@charismaquirk Exactly! It’s a very good similarity between the two that highlights how unsettling this is!
Not gonna lie, this seems kinda gay.
I just reread like 5 chapters on a computer to see the alt text moblie denies to me. jesus I hope these guys get to rest a minute before zurrith has to talk to them or a paladin comes for them or something. hope the city hails them as heros and they leave no fuss
*Kendal is a mini/baby primordial theory intensifies*
There once was a bit of lore
Which had not been revealed before.
There’s no void in you?!
How can this be true?
Red, we’re all dying to know more!
@just stopping by. Idk if it’ll work on the device you own, but I believe you can find alt text on mobile by pressing and holding on the image until a little pop-up appears that’ll have the alt text (among other things) on it
@Skye I was hiring Tahraim as a therapist
“There’s no me in you,”
Not yet there isn’t 😉
@Mathew: ew. just ew
Since I don’t think anyone’s mentioned it: can we praise Dainix/Fire for trying to stop VD from grabbing Kendal? in panel 4?
VD: *Fires a bolt of pure unmaking*
Kendal: *Dodges*
VD: See? I TOLD you I’d miss you!
I love how Walter is looking at Kendal all like: ‘I Can’t Decide Whether You Will Live Or Die’
*singing* and caaaaaaan you feeeeel the shiping tonight – toniiiight
…
…You know, when I see at least a quarter of the people in the comments section and on Red’s Tumblr being unquenchably thirsty over seemingly every little character interaction, while I don’t see anything romantic or horny in those same interactions at all… it’s times like these that I am most certain that I am aroase.
Okay, Void Dragon saying some -very- interesting things… We’ve already heard him talk about how he made humans, though I think this detail about there being Void in humans has been mentioned before. Regardless, it makes some sense with Void being their effective creator and wanting to use them to escape. What he says next though is really, really, really getting my attention, though.
“But there’s something else in you, isn’t there? Something I haven’t tasted in a very long time.”
This is an insane statement that implies several things, all of which I have no idea what they mean and I’m gonna go apeshit because what the HELL do they mean in context of what information we’ve been given as of yet, the things we’ve been told.
We’ve been told how the sword was made, how Vash was given the materials to make his own in some sense, though he apparently did not do it in the way that- Hey wait a sec. -goes to the extra lore page to read about the sword- Holy shit I forgot about the whole ‘literally making it part of his body’ thing. Anyway that’s not the important thing, the important bit in this page is the comment about the alien metal being used to make Vash’s sword.
Initially I was thinking there was something special about Kendal’s presence in relation to Vash, but couldn’t place why because Vash is just a minor god, one of plenty and not particularly special in and of itself. This metal, however, I think /that/ is what the Void Dragon has suddenly noticed about Kendal. Kendal likely manifested from some result of the strange interaction of Vash literally fusing himself with the sword’s materials, and that metal is something VD has encountered before, something he’s ‘tasted’ (whatever the hell that means). Considering his sudden shift in composure, I think that either he thinks Dainix is about to attack Kendal (my initial concept of what he might be thinkking due to the FWOOM in panel 4), or /he’s/ about to attack Kendal because some property of what he’s found in Kendal has renewed his confidence in being able to not only survive, but perhaps beat both Dainix and the healing Alinua.
Now excuse me, I need to go buy a corkboard and some red string.
@Rukatin: “I Can’t Decide”, by the Scissor Sisters.
On an iPhone, click on the pic and then scroll down to “show text.” I like the look better on my laptop, though.
@Leonidas1754 -“Now excuse me, I need to go buy a corkboard and some red string.”
*laughs like a drain* Exactly.
Could it possibly be that Kendal was brought to life by the Light Dragon Herself?
And is the light dragon literally the sun?
Those are my theories…
P.S. Great job Red! This story is amazing and you are an inspiration!
@TheUnknownGame You’d think that after 18+ chapters of story with absolutely nothing even remotely resembling a romantic subplot, the allos would take a hint. Instead, it has only FUELED their desperate need to project their sexuality onto as many character interactions as possible. From their point of view, as long as there isn’t an explicit romance, then literally every kind of interaction holds an equal amount of potential for secret romantic/sexual subtext! Or, to put it another way, when the characters are all aro/ace, every ship is a crack ship.
Before I realized I was aro/ace, I might have felt compelled to take part in this. Now, I can just just comfortably sit back and be fascinated and delighted by it all.
I recognize Kendal as ace. But this scene, it’s kinda gay. I’m not even shipping them. I don’t think that’d work in any conceivable way. But its gay.
I get how ti can be read that way, but this has “older family not having a sense of personal space near children” thing. Like a grandparent tugging you by the ear.
Is it possible that Kendal has a piece of the light dragon inside of him???
I find it absolutely hilarious how Erin grabs Kendal’s chin, yet is shorter than him! It just looks hilarious.
So its called star metal and walter mentioned eating stars back in the day, perhaps this is part of the light dragon? Its also nice to see he made a friend!
Panel seven. Something he hasn’t tasted in a very long time. I suspect that the Void Dragon is referring to the starmetal within Kendal’s body.